Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.
--MILTON.
The complete change in the map of Greece at the close of the Achæan
period and the origin of the ethnographic system with which the history
of Hellenic times begins, were always referred by Greek tradition to
a last wandering of north Grecian tribes. The customary chronology
places the beginning of this shifting at 1133 or 1124 B.C., _i.e._, less
than three generations after the so-called conquest of Troy. Recent
chronological investigations, however, have made it seem probable that a
period at least a hundred years later should be chosen.
The first impulse was probably given by new movements of tribes in the
north. The advance of the Illyrians caused the Thessalians, a part of
the Epirot tribe of the Thesproti, to withdraw across Pindus into the
valley of the Peneus, which was afterwards called Thessaly. While the
preservation of the Greek character in Epirus was henceforth left to
the brave Molossi, the Thessalians east of Pindus fell upon the settled
Greeks of the lowlands and destroyed their states. The proudest and most
vigorous elements of the old population that survived the war, determined
to emigrate and found a new home. Thus, the Arnæ migrated to middle
Greece, destroyed the old states of Thebes and Orchomenus in the basin of
the Copaïs and united this whole district, which henceforth appears in
history as Bœotia, under their rule.
While the Thessalians were making preparations to subjugate the warlike
tribes of the highlands about the valley of the Peneus, one of these
mountain races, the Dorians, carried the mighty movement on to the
extreme south of the Peloponnesus. Within twenty years, according to
tradition, they had crossed the narrow strait of Rhium and begun the
conquest of the Peloponnesus. They ascended the valley of the Alpheus
into southern Arcadia. From here one body of them descended into the
Messenian valley of the Pamisus and overwhelmed the old kingdom of the
Melidæ of Pylos. The other branch invaded the principal districts of the
Achæans in the east and southeast of the Peloponnesus. In open battle the
rude Dorian foot-soldiers easily defeated the Achæan knights. But they
could not destroy the colossal walls of the Achæan fortresses or cities,
and were themselves finally forced to build fortifications from which
they could watch or invest the Achæan strongholds until the opportunity
was presented of storming them or forcing their capitulation. It was in
such a fortified camp that the Dorian capital Sparta had its origin.
It was probably the tenacious resistance of the Achæans in Laconia that
determined a large body of the Dorians to leave that district and turn
to the east, where they completely subjugated Argolis and made Argos the
centre of Dorian power in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus.
At the close of the Achæan period Attica was the canton which appeared to
have the most settled and uniform structure. It now became a favourite
refuge of migrant Greeks of many different tribes. This movement seems to
have strengthened little Attica in a considerable degree, for tradition
ascribes to these immigrants the successful resistance that Attica was
able to make when the hordes of the conquerors finally approached her
borders. But Attica was far too small and unproductive to retain the mass
of fugitives as permanent settlers. So the movement was finally turned
towards the islands of the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor. According
to tradition there had already been an Archæan (or Æolian) migration to
Lesbos and Tenedos, from whence the Mysian coast and Troas were later
colonised.
The most important Ionian colonies in the east were in the Cyclades, at
Miletus, and at Ephesus. As their power continued to grow, the Ionians
gradually Hellenised a broad strip of coast and in the river valleys
pushed out a considerable distance to the eastward.
The Dorians also followed the movement of the other Greeks to the islands
and to Asia. Their most important occupations were Crete, Rhodes, and a
small portion of the southern coast of Caria, including the cities of
Cnidus and Halicarnassus.
By the first half of the eighth century B.C., the Greek world had
acquired the aspect which it retained for several centuries. The nation
had greatly increased its territory by colonisation. But the district
now called Thessaly was in possession of a race that showed little
capacity to develop beyond a vigorous and pleasure-loving feudalism;
and the Greeks of Epirus and the valley of the Achelous had been for
several centuries shut out from the evolution into Hellenism. So apart
from the newly risen power of the Bœotians, the future of Greece rested
upon the two races that had been but little named in the Achæan period.
The Dorians had become a great people. Argos had at first been the
leading power of the Peloponnesus, both in religion and in politics. The
Doric canton in the valley of the Upper Eurotas had made but slow and
difficult progress, until, at the close of the ninth and beginning of
the eighth century, that remarkable military and political consolidation
was completed which is connected with the name of Lycurgus. This was
the starting-point of a growth of Spartan power in consequence of which
before the end of the eighth century the balance of Doric power was to
pass from Argos to the south of the Peloponnesus.
Among the Ionians the Asiatic branch long remained the more important.
The Ionian Greeks of the Ægean and of the Lydio-Carian coast, through
their direct contact with the Orient, introduced to the Greek world new
elements of culture of a varied character. Of a friendly and adaptable
nature, they were specially fitted to be the traders and mariners of
Greek nationality. Politically they became pre-eminently the democratic
element of the nation, although there were powerful aristocratic
groups among them. But with them the tendency appears stronger than
among the other Greeks to allow full scope to personality, individual
right, individual liberty, and individual activity beside, and even in
opposition to the common interest.
The Asiatic Achæans appear in the historical period only under the name
of Æolians. This name also came to be applied to those members of the
Greek nation in Europe that could not be counted among either Dorians or
Ionians.
The common name borne by the Greeks after the completion of the
migrations is that of Hellenes. All the members of the various branches
exhibit the Hellenic character, though only a few communities developed
it in so ideal a form as the Athenians at the height of their historical
greatness. A beautiful heritage of all Hellenes was their appreciation
and enjoyment of art--of poetry and music as well as the plastic arts.
A warm feeling not only for the beautiful, but for the ideal and the
noble,--among the best elements also for right and harmoniously developed
life,--and a fine taste in art and in ethical perception have never been
denied the Greeks.
They were, moreover, at all periods characterised by a quick intellectual
receptivity and an incomparable union of glowing fancy, brilliant
intelligence, and sharp understanding. But mighty passion was coupled
with all this. Party spirit and furious party hatred ran through all
Greek history. The proud Greek self-assertion often degenerates into
boundless presumption. Cruelty in war, even towards Greeks themselves,
cunning and treachery, harsh self-interest and reckless greed are traits
that mar the brilliant figure of Hellenism long before the Roman and
Byzantine times.[b]
ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS
In that part of earth termed by the Greeks Hellas, and by the Romans
Græcia, a small tract of land known by the name of Attica extends into
the Ægean Sea--the southeast peninsula of Greece. In its greatest
length it is about sixty, in its greatest breadth about twenty-four,
geographical miles. In shape it is a rude triangle,--on two sides flows
the sea--on the third, the mountain range of Parnes and Cithæron,
divides the Attic from the Bœotian territory. It is intersected by
frequent but not lofty hills, and compared with the rest of Greece, its
soil, though propitious to the growth of the olive, is not fertile or
abundant. In spite of painful and elaborate culture, the traces of which
are yet visible, it never produced a sufficiency of corn to supply its
population; and this, the comparative sterility of the land, may be
ranked among the causes which conduced to the greatness of the people.
The principal mountains of Attica are, the Cape of Sunium, Hymettus
renowned for its honey, and Pentelicus for its marble; the principal
streams which water the valleys are the capricious and uncertain rivulets
of Cephisus and Ilissus--streams breaking into lesser brooks, deliciously
pure and clear. The air is serene, the climate healthful, the seasons
temperate. Along the hills yet breathe the wild thyme and the odorous
plants which, everywhere prodigal in Greece, are more especially fragrant
in that lucid sky--and still the atmosphere colours with peculiar and
various tints the marble of the existent temples and the face of the
mountain landscapes.
Even so early as the traditional appearance of Cecrops amongst the
savages of Attica, the Pelasgians in Arcadia had probably advanced from
the pastoral to the civil life; and this, indeed, is the date assigned
by Pausanias to the foundation of that ancestral Lycosura, in whose
rude remains (by the living fountain and the waving oaks of the modern
Diaphorte) the antiquary yet traces the fortifications of “the first city
which the sun beheld.” It is in their buildings that the Pelasgi have
left the most indisputable record of their name. Their handwriting is yet
upon their walls! A restless and various people--overrunning the whole of
Greece, found northward in Dacia, Illyria, and the country of the Getæ,
colonising the coasts of Ionia, and long the master-race of the fairest
lands of Italy--they have passed away amidst the revolutions of the
elder earth, their ancestry and their descendants alike unknown.
The proofs upon which rest the reputed arrival of Egyptian colonisers,
under Cecrops, in Attica, have been shown to be slender, the authorities
for the assertion to be comparatively modern, the arguments against
the probability of such an immigration in such an age, to be at least
plausible and important. The traditions speak of them with gratitude as
civilisers, not with hatred as conquerors. Assisting to civilise the
Greeks, they then became Greeks; their posterity merged and lost amidst
the native population.
Perhaps in all countries, the first step to social improvement is in the
institution of marriage, and the second is the formation of cities. As
Menes in Egypt, as Fohi in China, so Cecrops at Athens is said first to
have reduced into sacred limits the irregular intercourse of the sexes,
and reclaimed his barbarous subjects from a wandering and unprovidential
life, subsisting on the spontaneous produce of no abundant soil. High
above the plain, and fronting the sea, which, about three miles distant
on that side, sweeps into a bay peculiarly adapted for the maritime
enterprises of an earlier age, we still behold a cragged and nearly
perpendicular rock. In length its superficies is about eight hundred,
in breadth about four hundred, feet. Below, on either side, flow the
immortal streams of the Ilissus and Cephisus. From its summit you may
survey here the mountains of Hymettus, Pentelicus, and, far away, “the
silver bearing Laurium”; below, the wide plain of Attica, broken by
rocky hills--there, the islands of Salamis and Ægina, with the opposite
shores of Argolis, rising above the waters of the Saronic Bay. On this
rock the supposed Egyptian is said to have built a fortress, and founded
a city; the fortress was in later times styled the Acropolis, and the
place itself, when the buildings of Athens spread far and wide beneath
its base, was still designated πόλις, or the City. By degrees we are
told that he extended, from this impregnable castle and its adjacent
plain, the limit of his realm, until it included the whole of Attica, and
perhaps Bœotia. It is also related that he established eleven other towns
or hamlets, and divided his people into twelve tribes, to each of which
one of the towns was apportioned--a fortress against foreign invasion,
and a court of justice in civil disputes.
If we may trust to the glimmering light which, resting for a moment,
uncertain and confused, upon the reign of Cecrops, is swallowed up in
all the darkness of fable during those of his reputed successors, it
is to this apocryphal personage that we must refer the elements both
of agriculture and law. He is said to have instructed the Athenians to
till the land, and to watch the produce of the seasons; to have imported
from Egypt the olive tree, for which the Attic soil was afterwards so
celebrated, and even to have navigated to Sicily and to Africa for
supplies of corn. That such advances, from a primitive and savage state,
were not made in a single generation, is sufficiently clear. With more
probability, Cecrops is reputed to have imposed upon the ignorance of his
subjects and the license of his followers, the curb of impartial law,
and to have founded a tribunal of justice (doubtless the sole one for
all disputes), in which after-times imagined to trace the origin of the
solemn Areopagus.[c]
KING ÆGEUS
The fortress, which Cecrops made his residence, was from his own name
called Cecropia, and was peculiarly recommended to the patronage of the
Egyptian goddess whom the Greeks worshipped by the name of Athene, and
the Latins of Minerva. Many, induced by the neighbourhood of the port,
and expecting security both from the fortress and from its tutelary
deity, erected their habitations around the foot of the rock; and thus
arose early a considerable town, which, from the name of the goddess, was
called Athenai, or, as we after the French have corrupted it, Athens.
This account of the rise of Athens, and of the origin of its government,
though possibly a village and even a fortress may have existed there
before Cecrops, is supported by a more general concurrence of traditional
testimony, and more complete consonancy to the rest of history, than is
often found for that remote age. The subsequent Attic annals are far
less satisfactory. Strabo declines the endeavour to reconcile their
inconsistencies; and Plutarch gives a strong picture of the uncertainties
and voids which occurred to him in attempting to form a history from
them. “As geographers,” he says, “in the outer parts of their maps
distinguish those countries which lie beyond their knowledge with such
remarks as these, _All here is dry and desert sand_, or _marsh darkened
with perpetual fog_, or _Scythian cold_, or _frozen sea_; so of the
earliest history we may say, _All here is monstrous and tragical land,
occupied only by poets and fabulists_.” If such apology was reckoned
necessary by Plutarch for such an account as could in his time be
collected of the life of Theseus, none can now be wanting for omitting
all disquisition concerning the four or seven kings, for even their
number is not ascertained, who are said to have governed Attica from
Cecrops to Ægeus, father of that hero. The name of Amphictyon, indeed,
whose name is in the list, excites a reasonable curiosity: but as it
is not in his government of Athens that he is particularly an object
of history, farther mention of him may best be reserved for future
opportunity.
Various, uncertain, and imperfect, then, as the accounts were which
passed to posterity concerning the early Attic princes, yet the assurance
of Thucydides may deserve respect, that Attica was the province of Greece
in which population first became settled, and where the earliest progress
was made toward civilisation. Being nearly peninsular, it lay out of the
road of emigrants and wandering freebooters by land; and its rocky soil,
supporting few cattle, afforded small temptation to either. The produce
of tillage was of less easy removal; and the gains of commerce were
secured within fortifications. Attica therefore grew populous, not only
through the safety which the natives thus enjoyed, but by a confluence of
strangers from other parts of Greece; for when either foreign invasion
or intestine broil occasioned anywhere the necessity of emigration,
Athens was the resort in highest estimation not only as a place of the
most permanent security, but also as strangers of character, able by
their wealth or their ingenuity to support themselves and benefit the
community, were easily admitted to the privilege of citizens.
But, as population increased, the simple forms of government and
jurisprudence established by Cecrops were no longer equal to their
purpose. Civil wars arose; the country was invaded by sea: Erechtheus,
called by later authors Erichthonius, and by the poets Son of the Earth,
acquired the sovereignty, bringing, according to some not improbable
reports, a second colony from Egypt.[9] Eumolpus, with a body of
Thracians, about the same time established himself in Eleusis. When,
a generation or two later, Ægeus, contemporary with Minos, succeeded
his father Pandion in the throne, the country seems to have been well
peopled, but the government ill constituted and weak. Concerning
this prince, however, and his immediate successor, tradition is more
ample; and though abundantly mixed with fable, yet in many instances
apparently more authentic than concerning any other persons of their
remote age. Plutarch has thought a history of Theseus, son of Ægeus,
not unfit to hold a place among his parallel lives of the great men of
Greece and Rome; and his account appears warranted in many points by
strong corresponding testimony from other ancient authors of various
ages. The period also is so important in the annals of Attica, and the
reports remaining altogether go so far to illustrate the manners and
circumstances of the times, that it may be proper to allow them some
scope in narration.
Ægeus, king of Athens, though an able and spirited prince, yet, in the
divided and disorderly state of his country, with difficulty maintained
his situation. When past the prime of life he had the misfortune to
remain childless, though twice married; and a faction headed by his
presumptive heirs, the numerous sons of Pallas his younger brother, gave
him unceasing disturbance. Thus urged, he went to Delphi to implore
information from the oracle how the blessing of children might be
obtained. Receiving an answer which, like most of the oracular responses,
was unintelligible, his next concern was to find some person capable
of explaining to him the will of the deity thus mysteriously declared.
Among the many establishments which Pelops had procured for his family
throughout Peloponnesus was the small town and territory of Trœzen on
the coast opposite to Athens, which he placed under the government of
his son Pittheus. Ægeus applied to that prince; who was not only in his
own age eminent for wisdom, but of reputation remaining even in the
most flourishing period of Grecian philosophy; yet so little was he
superior to the ridiculous, and often detestable superstition of his
time that, in consequence of some fancied meaning in the oracle, which
even the superstitious Plutarch confesses himself unable to comprehend,
he introduced his own daughter Æthra to an illicit commerce with Ægeus.
Perhaps it may be allowed to conjecture that the commerce was unknown to
the Trœzenian prince till the consequence became evident, and that the
interpretation of the oracle was an ensuing resource to obviate disgrace.
The affairs of Attica being in great confusion required the return
of Ægeus. His departure from Trœzen is marked by an action which, to
persons accustomed to consider modern manners only, may appear unfit to
be related but in a fable, yet is so consonant to the manners of the
times, and so characteristical of them, as to demand the notice of the
historian. He led Æthra to a sequestered spot where was a small cavity
in a rock. Depositing there a hunting-knife and a pair of sandals,
he covered them with a marble fragment of enormous weight; and then
addressing Æthra, “If,” said he, “the child you now bear should prove a
boy, let the removal of this stone be one day the proof of his strength;
when he can effect it, send him with the tokens underneath to Athens.”
Pittheus, well knowing the genius and the degree of information of his
subjects and fellow-countrymen, thought it not too gross an imposition
to report that his daughter was pregnant by the god Poseidon, or, as we
usually call him with the Latins, Neptune, esteemed the tutelary deity
of the Trœzenians. A similar expedient seems indeed to have been often
successfully used to cover the disgrace which, even in those days,
would otherwise attend such irregular amours in a lady of high rank,
though women of lower degree appear to have derived no dishonour from
concubinage with their superiors. Theseus was the produce of the singular
connection of Æthra with Ægeus. He is said to have been carefully
educated under the inspection of his grandfather, and to have given
early proofs of uncommon vigour both of body and mind. On his attaining
manhood, his mother, in pursuance of the injunction of Ægeus, unfolded to
him the reality of his parentage, and conducted him to the rock where his
father’s tokens were deposited. He removed the stone which covered them,
with a facility indicating that superior bodily strength so necessary in
those days to support the pretensions of high birth; and thus encouraged
she recommended to him to carry them to Ægeus at Athens. This proposal
perfectly suited the temper and inclination of Theseus; but when he was
farther advised to go by sea on account of the shortness and safety of
the passage, piracy being about this time suppressed by the naval power
of Minos, king of Crete, he positively refused.
THESEUS
The age of Theseus was the great era of those heroes, to whom the knights
errant of the Gothic kingdoms afterwards bore a close resemblance.
Hercules was his near kinsman. The actions of that extraordinary
personage are reported to have been for some years the subject of
universal conversation, and both an incentive and a direction to young
Theseus in the road to fame. After having destroyed the most powerful and
atrocious freebooters throughout Greece, Hercules, according to Plutarch,
was gone into Asia; and those disturbers of civil order, whom his
irresistible might and severe justice had driven to conceal themselves,
took advantage of his absence to renew their violences. Being not obscure
and vagabond thieves, but powerful chieftains, who openly defied law
and government, the dangers to be expected from them were well known
at Trœzen. Theseus however persevered in his resolution to go by land;
alleging that it would be shameful, if, while Hercules was traversing
earth and sea to repress the common disturbers of mankind, he should
avoid those at his door, disgracing his reputed father by an ignominious
flight over his own element, and carrying to his real father, for tokens,
a bloodless weapon and sandals untrodden, instead of giving proofs of his
high birth by actions worthy of it.
Proceeding in his journey he found every fastness occupied by men who,
like many of the old barons of the Western European kingdoms, gave
protection to their dependants, and disturbance to all beside within
their reach, making booty of whatever they could master. His valour,
however, and his good fortune procuring him the advantage in every
contest carried him safe through all dangers; though he found nothing
friendly till he arrived on the bank of the river Cephisus in the middle
of Attica. Some people of the country meeting him there saluted him in
the usual terms of friendship to strangers. Judging himself then past
the perils of his journey, he requested to have the accustomed ceremony
of purification from blood performed, that he might properly join in
sacrifices and other religious rites. The courteous Atticans readily
complied, and then entertained him at their houses. An ancient altar,
said to have been erected in commemoration of this meeting, dedicated to
Jupiter with the epithet of Meilichius, the friendly or kind, remained to
the time of Pausanias.
When Theseus arrived at Athens, Ægeus, already approaching dotage,
was governed by the Colchian princess Medea, so famous in poetry, who
flying from Corinth had prevailed on him to afford her protection.
Theseus, as an illustrious stranger invited to a feast, on drawing his
hunting-knife, as it seems was usual, to carve the meat before him,
was recognised by Ægeus. The old king immediately rising embraced him,
acknowledged him before the company for his son, and afterward summoning
an assembly of the people presented Theseus as their prince. The fame
of exploits suited, as those of Theseus, to acquire popularity in that
age had already prepossessed the people in his favour; strong marks of
general satisfaction followed. But the party of the sons of Pallas was
powerful: their disappointment was equally great and unexpected; and no
hope remaining to accomplish their wishes by other means, they withdrew
from the city, collected their adherents, and returned in arms. The tide
of popular inclination, however, now ran so strongly in favour of Theseus
that some even of their confidants gave way to it. A design to surprise
the city was discovered; part of their troops were in consequence cut
off, the rest dispersed; and the faction was completely quelled.
Quiet being thus restored to Athens, Theseus was diligent to increase
the popularity he had acquired. Military fame was the means to which his
active spirit chiefly inclined him; but, as the state had now no enemies,
he exercised his valour in the destruction of wild beasts, and, it is
said, added not a little to his reputation by delivering the country from
a savage bull, which had done great mischief in the neighbourhood of
Marathon.
An opportunity however soon offered for Theseus to do his country more
essential service, and to acquire more illustrious fame. The Athenians,
in a war with Minos, king of Crete, had been reduced to purchase peace
of that powerful monarch by a yearly tribute of seven youths and as many
virgins. Coined money was not common till some centuries after his age;
and slaves and cattle were not only the principal riches, but the most
commodious and usual standards by which the value of other things was
determined. A tribute of slaves therefore was perhaps the most convenient
that Minos could impose; Attica maintaining few cattle, and those being
less easily transported. The burden however could not but cause much
uneasiness among the Athenians; so that the return of the Cretan ship
at the usual time to demand the tribute excited fresh and loud murmurs
against the government of Ægeus. Theseus took an extraordinary step,
but perfectly suited to the heroic character which he affected, for
appeasing the popular discontent. The tributary youths and virgins had
been hitherto drawn by lot from the body of the people; who might however
apparently send slaves, if they had or could procure them, instead of
persons of their own family. But Theseus offered himself. Report went
that those unfortunate victims were thrown into the famous labyrinth
built by Dædalus, and there devoured by the Minotaur, a monster, half-man
and half-bull. This fable was probably no invention of the poets who
embellished it in more polished ages: it may have been devised at the
time, and even have found credit among a people of an imagination so
lively, and a judgment so uninformed, as were then the Athenians. The
offer of Theseus therefore, really magnanimous, appeared an unparalleled
effort of patriotic heroism.
Ancient writers, who have endeavoured to investigate truth among the
intricacies of fabulous tradition, tell us that the labyrinth was a
fortress where prisoners were usually kept, and that a Cretan general,
its governor, named Taurus, which in Greek signifies a bull, gave rise
to the fiction of the Minotaur. The better testimony from antiquity
however asserts that Theseus was received by Minos more agreeably to the
character of a great and generous prince than of a tyrant who gave his
captives to be devoured by monsters. But during this, the flourishing
age of Crete, letters were, if at all known, little used in Greece.
In after-times, when the Athenians bore the sway in literature, their
tragedians, flattering vulgar prejudices, exhibited Minos in odious
colours; and through the popularity of their ingenious works their
calumnious misrepresentations, as Plutarch has observed, overbore
the eulogies of the elder poets, even of Hesiod and Homer. Thus the
particulars of the adventures of Theseus in Crete, and of his return
to Athens, have been so disguised that even to guess at the truth is
difficult. For these early ages Homer is our best guide; but he has mixed
mythology with his short notice of the adventure of Theseus in Crete.
A rational interpretation nevertheless is obvious. Minos, surprised
probably at the arrival of the Athenian prince among the tributary
slaves, received him honourably, became partial to his merit, and after
some experience of it gave him his daughter Ariadne in marriage. In the
voyage toward Athens the princess being taken with sudden sickness was
landed in the island of Naxos, where Bacchus was esteemed the tutelary
deity; and she died there. If we add the supposition that Theseus, eager
to communicate the news of his extraordinary success, or urged by public
duty, proceeded on his voyage while the princess was yet living, no
further foundation would be wanting for the fables which have made these
names so familiar. Theseus however, according to what with most certainty
may be gathered from Athenian tradition, freed his country from further
payment of the ignominious and cruel tribute.
This achievement, by whatsoever means effected, was so bold in the
undertaking, so complete in the success, so important and so interesting
in the consequences, that it deservedly raised Theseus to the highest
popularity among the Athenians. Sacrifices and processions were
instituted in honour of it, and were continued while the Pagan religion
had existence in Athens. The vessel in which he made his voyage was
yearly sent in solemn pomp to the sacred island of Delos, where rites of
thanksgiving were performed to Apollo. Through the extreme veneration in
which it was held, it was so anxiously preserved that in Plato’s time
it was said to be still the same vessel; though at length its frequent
repairs gave occasion to the dispute, which became famous among the
sophists, whether it was or was not still the same. On his father’s death
the common voice supported his claim to the succession, and he showed
himself not less capable of improving the state by his wisdom than of
defending it by his valour.
The twelve districts into which Cecrops had divided Attica were become so
many nearly independent commonwealths, with scarcely any bond of union
but their acknowledgment of one chief, whose authority was not always
sufficient to keep them from mutual hostilities. The inconveniences
of such a constitution were great and obvious, but the remedy full of
difficulty. Theseus, however, undertook it; and effected that change
which laid the foundation of the following glory of Athens, while it
ranks him among the most illustrious patriots that adorn the annals of
mankind. Going through every district, with that judicial authority which
in the early state of all monarchical governments has been attached to
the kingly office, and with those powers of persuasion which he is said
largely to have possessed, he put an end to civil contest. He proposed
then the abolition of all the independent magistracies, councils,
and courts of justice, and the substitution of one common council of
legislation, and one common system of judicature. The lower people
readily acceded to his measures. The rich and powerful, who shared among
them the independent magistracies, were more inclined to opposition.
To satisfy these, therefore, he offered, with a disinterestedness of
which history affords few examples, to give up much of his own power;
and, appropriating to himself only the cares and dangers of royalty, to
share with his people authority, honour, wealth, all that is commonly
most valued in it. Few were inclined to resist so equitable and generous
a proposal: the most selfish and most obstinate dared not. Theseus
therefore proceeded quietly to new-model the commonwealth.[10]
The dissolution of all the independent councils and jurisdictions in the
several towns and districts, and the removal of all the more important
civil business to Athens, was his first measure. He wisely judged that
the civil union, so happily effected, would be incomplete, or at least
unstable, if he did not cement it by union in religion. He avoided
however to shock rooted prejudices by any abolition of established
religious ceremonies. Leaving those peculiar to each district as they
stood, he instituted, or improved and laid open for all in common, one
feast and sacrifice, in honour of the goddess Athene, or Minerva, for
all inhabitants of Attica. This feast he called _Panathenæa_, the feast
of all the Athenians or people of Minerva; and thenceforward apparently
all the inhabitants of Attica, esteeming themselves unitedly under the
particular protection of that goddess, uniformly distinguished themselves
by a name formed from hers; for they were before variously called from
their race, Ionians; from their country, Atticans; or from their princes,
Cranaans, Cecropians, or Erechtidæ. To this scheme of union, conceived
with a depth of judgment, and executed with a moderation of temper,
rarely found in that age, the Athenians may well be said to owe all their
after greatness. Otherwise Attica, like Bœotia and other provinces,
whose circumstances will come hereafter under notice, would probably
have contained several little republics, united only in name; each too
weak to preserve dignity, or even to secure independency to its separate
government; and possessing nothing so much in common as occasions for
perpetual disagreement.
A share in the legislature, extended to all, insured civil freedom to
all; and no distinction prevailed, as in other Grecian provinces, between
the people of the capital and those of the inferior towns; but all were
united under the Athenian name in the enjoyment of every privilege
of Athenian citizens. When his improvements were completed, Theseus,
according to the policy which became usual for giving authority to great
innovations and all uncommon undertakings, is said to have procured a
declaration of divine approbation from the prophetical shrine of Delphi.
Thus the province of Attica, containing a triangular tract of land with
two sides about fifty miles long, and the third forty, was moulded into
a well-united and well-regulated commonwealth, whose chief magistrate
was yet hereditary, and retained the title of king. In consequence of
so improved a state of things, the Athenians began the first of all the
Greeks to acquire more civilised manners. Thucydides remarks that they
were the first who dropped the practice, formerly general among the
Greeks, of going constantly armed; and who introduced a civil dress in
contradistinction to the military. This particularity, if not introduced
by Theseus, appears to have been not less early, since it struck Homer,
who marks the Athenians by the appellation of long-robed Ionians. If we
may credit Plutarch, Theseus coined money; which was certainly rare in
Greece two centuries after.
The rest of the history of Theseus affords little worthy of notice.
It is composed of a number of the wildest adventures, many of them
consistent enough with the character of the times, but very little so
with what is related of the former part of his life. It seems indeed
as if historians had inverted the order of things; giving to his riper
years the extravagance of youth, after having attributed to his earliest
manhood what the maturest age seldom has equalled. Whether this should
be attributed altogether, or in any part, to the fancy which afterward
prevailed among philosophical writers to mix mythology with history, will
be rather for the dissertator than the historian to inquire. Theseus
however, it may be proper to observe, is said to have lost in the end all
favour and all authority among the Athenians; and though his institutions
remained in vigour, to have died in exile. After him, Menestheus, a
person of the royal family, acquired the sovereignty, and commanded the
Athenian troops in the Trojan War.[d]
According to some historians, Theseus, however explained, deserves no
credit for the Athenian union, since at the time this union took place,
Theseus was not even a national hero but only a local and minor god
worshipped about Marathon.
RISE OF POPULAR LIBERTY
We may perhaps safely conclude from analogy, that, even while the power
of the nobles was most absolute, a popular assembly was not unknown at
Athens; and the example of Sparta may suggest a notion of the limitations
which might prevent it from endangering the privileges of the ruling
body. So long as the latter reserved to itself the office of making, or
declaring, of interpreting, and administering the laws, as well as the
ordinary functions of government, it might securely entrust many subjects
to the decision of the popular voice. Its first contests were waged, not
with the people, but with the kings.
Even in the reign of Theseus himself the legend exhibits the royal power
as on the decline. Menestheus, a descendant of the ancient kings, is
said to have engaged his brother nobles in a conspiracy against Theseus,
which finally compelled him and his family to go into exile, and placed
Menestheus on the throne. After the death of this usurper indeed the
crown is restored to the line of Theseus for some generations. But his
descendant Thymœtes is compelled to abdicate in favour of Melanthus, a
stranger, who has no claim but his superior merit. After the death of
Codrus, the nobles, taking advantage perhaps of the opportunity afforded
by the dispute between his sons, are said to have abolished the title of
king, and to have substituted for it that of archon. This change however
seems to have been important, rather as it indicated the new, precarious
tenure by which the royal power was held, than as it immediately affected
the nature of the office. It was indeed still held for life; and Medon,
the son of Codrus, transmitted it to his posterity, though it would
appear that, within the house of the Medontids, the succession was
determined by the choice of the nobles. It is added however, that the
archon was deemed a responsible magistrate, which implies that those who
elected had the power of deposing him; and consequently, though the range
of his functions may not have been narrower than that of the king’s, he
was more subject to control in the exercise of them. This indirect kind
of sway, however, did not satisfy the more ambitious spirits; and we find
them steadily, though gradually, advancing towards the accomplishment
of their final object--a complete and equal participation of the
sovereignty.
After twelve reigns, ending with that of Alcmæon,[11] the duration of
the office was limited to ten years; and through the guilt or calamity
of Hippomenes, the fourth decennial archon,[12] the house of Medon was
deprived of its privilege, and the supreme magistracy was thrown open
to the whole body of the nobles. This change was speedily followed
by one much more important. When Tlesias, the successor of Eryxias,
had completed the term which his predecessor had left unfinished, the
duration of the archonship was again reduced to a single year; and at
the same time its branches were severed, and distributed among nine new
magistrates.
Among these, the first in rank retained the distinguishing title of The
Archon, and the year was marked by his name. He represented the majesty
of the state, and exercised a peculiar jurisdiction--that which had
belonged to the king as the common parent of his people, the protector
of families, the guardian of orphans and heiresses, and of the general
rights of inheritance. For the second archon the title of king, if it
had been laid aside, was revived, as the functions assigned to him were
those most associated with ancient recollections. He represented the
king as the high priest of his people; he regulated the celebration
of the mysteries and the most solemn festivals; decided all causes
which affected the interests of religion, and was charged with the
care of protecting the state from the pollution it might incur through
the heedlessness or impiety of individuals. The third archon bore the
title of polemarch, and filled the place of the king, as the leader
of his people in war, and the guardian who watched over its security
in time of peace. Connected with this character of his office was the
jurisdiction he possessed over strangers who had settled in Attica
under the protection of the state, and over freedmen. The remaining six
archons received the common title of _thesmothetes_, which literally
signifies legislators, and was probably applied to them, as the judges
who determined the great variety of causes which did not fall under the
cognisance of their colleagues; because, in the absence of a written
code, those who declare and interpret the laws may be properly said to
make them.
These successive encroachments on the royal prerogatives, and the final
triumph of the nobles, are almost the only events that fill the meagre
annals of Attica for several centuries. Here, as elsewhere, a wonderful
stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and adventure,
and the throng of interesting characters, that present themselves to
our view in the heroic age. Life seems no longer to offer anything for
poetry to celebrate, or for history to record. Are we to consider this
long period of apparent tranquillity, as one of public happiness, of
pure and simple manners, of general harmony and content, which has only
been rendered obscure by the absence of the crimes and the calamities
which usually leave the deepest traces in the page of history? We should
willingly believe this, if it were not that, so far as the veil is
withdrawn which conceals the occurrences of this period from our sight,
it affords us glimpses of a very different state of things. In the list
of the magistrates who held the undivided sovereignty of the state, the
only name with which any events are connected is that of Hippomenes, the
last archon of the line of Codrus. It was made memorable by the shame of
his daughter, and by the extraordinary punishment which he inflicted on
her and her paramour. Tradition long continued to point out as accursed
ground the place where she was shut up to perish from hunger, or from the
fury of a wild horse, the companion of her confinement. The nobles, glad
perhaps to seize an opportunity so favourable to their views, deposed
Hippomenes, and razed his house to the ground.
This story would seem indeed to indicate the austerity, as well as the
hardness, of the ancient manners: but on the other hand we are informed,
that the father had been urged to this excess of rigour by the reproach
that had fallen upon his family from the effeminacy and dissoluteness of
its members. Without however drawing any inference from this isolated
story, we may proceed to observe, that the accounts transmitted to us of
the legislation of Draco, the next epoch when a gleam of light breaks
through the obscurity of the Attic history, do not lead us to suppose
that the people had enjoyed any extraordinary measure of happiness under
the aristocratical government, or that their manners were peculiarly
innocent and mild.
DRACO, THE LAWGIVER
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 650-600 B.C.]]
The immediate occasion which led to Draco’s legislation is not recorded,
and even the motives which induced him to impress it with that character
of severity to which it owes its chief celebrity, are not clearly
ascertained. We know however that he was the author of the first written
laws of Athens: and as this measure tended to limit the authority of
the nobles, to which a customary law, of which they were the sole
expounders, opposed a much feebler check, we may reasonably conclude
that the innovation did not proceed from their wish, but was extorted
from them by the growing discontent of the people. On the other hand,
Draco undoubtedly framed his code as much as possible in conformity to
the spirit and the interests of the ruling class, to which he himself
belonged; and hence we may fairly infer that the extreme rigour of its
penal enactments was designed to overawe and repress the popular movement
which had produced it.
Aristotle observes that Draco made no change in the constitution; and
that there was nothing remarkable in his laws, except the severity of the
penalties by which they were enforced. It must however be remembered that
the substitution of law for custom, of a written code for a fluctuating
and flexible tradition, was itself a step of great importance; and we
also learn that he introduced some changes in the administration of
criminal justice, by transferring causes of murder, or of accidental
homicide, from the cognisance of the archons to the magistrates called
_ephetes_; though it was not clear whether he instituted, or only
modified or enlarged, their jurisdiction. Demades was thought to have
described the character of his laws very happily, when he said that they
were written not in ink, but in blood. He himself is reported to have
justified their severity, by observing that the least offences deserved
death, and that he could devise no greater punishment for the worst. This
sounds like the language of a man who proceeded on higher grounds than
those of expediency, and who felt himself bound by his own convictions
to disregard the opinions of his contemporaries. Yet it is difficult
to believe, that Draco can have been led by any principles of abstract
justice, to confound all gradations of guilt, or, as has been conjectured
with somewhat greater probability, that, viewing them under a religious
rather than a political aspect, he conceived that in every case alike
they drew down the anger of the gods, which could only be appeased by the
blood of the criminal.
It seems much easier to understand how the ruling class, which adopted
his enactments, might imagine that such a code was likely to be a
convenient instrument in their hands, for striking terror into their
subjects, and stifling the rising spirit of discontent, which their
cupidity and oppression had provoked. We are however unable to form
a well-grounded judgment on the degree in which equity may have been
violated by his indiscriminate vigour; for though we read that he enacted
the same capital punishment for petty thefts as for sacrilege and
murder, still as there were some offences for which he provided a milder
sentence, he must have framed a kind of scale, the wisdom and justice of
which we have no means of estimating.
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 630 B.C.]]
The danger which threatened the nobles at length showed itself from a
side on which they probably deemed themselves most secure. Twelve years
after Draco’s legislation, a conspiracy was formed by one of their own
number for overthrowing the government. Cylon, the author of this plot,
was eminent both in birth and riches. His reputation, and still more his
confidence in his own fortune, had been greatly raised by a victory at
the Olympic games; and he had further increased the lustre and influence
of his family by an alliance with Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara,
whose daughter he married. This extraordinary prosperity elated his
presumption, and inflamed his ambition with hopes of a greatness, which
could only be attained by a dangerous enterprise. He conceived the design
of becoming master of Athens. He could reckon on the cordial assistance
of his father-in-law, who, independently of their affinity, was deeply
interested in establishing at Athens a form of government similar to that
which he himself had founded at Megara; and he had also, by his personal
influence, insured the support of numerous friends and adherents. Yet it
is probable that he would not have relied on these resources, and that
his scheme would never have suggested itself to his mind, if the general
disaffection of the people toward their rulers, the impatience produced
by the evils for which Draco had provided so inadequate a remedy, and by
the irritating nature of the remedy itself, and the ordinary signs of an
approaching change, the need of which began to be universally felt, had
not appeared to favour his aims.
At this period scarcely any great enterprise was undertaken in Greece
without the sanction of an oracle; yet we cannot but feel some surprise,
when we are informed by Thucydides, that Cylon consulted the Delphic god
on the means by which he might overthrow the government of his country,
and still more at the answer he is said to have received: that he must
seize the citadel of Athens during the principal festival of Zeus. Cylon
naturally interpreted the oracle to mean the Olympic games, the scene
of his glory; and Thucydides thinks it worth observing, that the great
Attic festival in honour of the same god occurred at a different season.
At the time however which appeared to be prescribed by his infallible
counsellor, Cylon proceeded to carry his plan into effect. With the aid
of a body of troops furnished by Theagenes, and of his partisans, he
made himself master of the citadel. Cylon and his friends soon found
themselves besieged by the forces which the government called in from all
parts of the country. When the provisions were all spent, and some had
died of hunger, the remainder abandoned the defence of the walls, and
took refuge in the temple of Athene.
The archon Megacles and his colleagues, seeing them reduced to the last
extremity of weakness, began to be alarmed lest the sanctuary should
be profaned by their death. To avoid this danger, they induced them to
surrender on condition that their lives should be spared. Thucydides
simply relates that the archons broke their promise, and put their
prisoners to death when they had quitted their asylum, and that some were
even killed at the altars of the “dread goddesses,” as the Eumenides,
or Furies, were called, to which they had fled in the tumult. Plutarch
adds a feature to the story, which seems too characteristic of the age
to be considered as a later invention. More effectually to insure their
safety, the suppliants, before they descended from the citadel, fastened
a line to the statue of Minerva, and held it in their hands, as they
passed through the midst of their enemies. But the line chancing to break
as they were passing by the sanctuary of the Eumenides, Megacles, with
the approbation of his colleagues, declared that they were no longer
under the safeguard of the goddess, who had thus visibly rejected their
supplication, and immediately proceeded to arrest them. His words were
the signal of a general massacre, from which even the awful sanctity of
the neighbouring altars did not screen the fugitives: none escaped but
those who found means of imploring female compassion.
If the conduct of the principal actors in this bloody scene had been
marked only by treachery and cruelty, it would never have exposed them
to punishment, perhaps not even to reproach. But they had been guilty
of a flagrant violation of religion; and Megacles and his whole house
were viewed with horror, as men polluted with the stain of sacrilege.
All public disasters and calamities were henceforth construed into signs
of the divine displeasure: and the surviving partisans of Cylon did not
fail to urge that the gods would never be appeased until vengeance should
have been taken on the offenders. Yet if this had been the only question
which agitated the public mind, it might have been hushed without
producing any important consequences. But it was only one ingredient in
the ferment which the conflict of parties, the grievances of the many,
and the ambition of the few, now carried to a height that called for some
extraordinary remedy. Hence Cylon’s conspiracy and its issue exercised
an influence on the history of Athens, which has rendered it forever
memorable, as the event which led the way to the legislation of Solon.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[9] [According to some, the name Erechtheus was imported into “history”
from the legend of the contest between Minerva (Athena) and Neptune
(Poseidon Erechtheus) for the Acropolis. Erechtheus, though defeated, was
permitted to remain; later he was thought of as a hero, and finally given
a place along with Cecrops (the imaginary ancestor of the Cecropes) in
the list of kings.]
[10] Payne Knight has supposed Theseus a merely fabulous personage,
because he is not mentioned in any passage of Homer’s poems, excepting
one which he has reckoned not genuine. It seems bold to oppose such
negative testimony to the positive of Thucydides and Cicero.
[11] The successors of Medon were Acastus, Archippus, Thersippus,
Phorbas, Megacles, Diognetus, Pherecles, Ariphron, Thespieus, Agamestor,
Æschylus, Alcmæon (_Ol._ VII, 1. B.C. 752).
[12] His predecessors were Charops, Æsimedes, Clidicus; he was succeeded
by Leocrates, Apsander, and Eryxias. Creon, the first annual archon,
enters upon his office B.C. 684.
[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]
[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]