ÆOLIC GREEKS IN ASIA.
On the coast of Asia Minor to the north of the twelve Ionic
confederated cities, were situated the twelve Æolic cities,
apparently united in a similar manner. Besides Smyrna, the fate of
which has already been described, the eleven others were,—Têmnos,
Larissa, Neon-Teichos, Kymê, Ægæ, Myrina, Gryneium, Killa, Notium,
Ægiroëssa, Pitanê. These twelve are especially noted by Herodotus as
the twelve ancient continental Æolic cities, and distinguished on
the one hand from the insular Æolic Greeks, in Lesbos, Tenedos, and
Hekatonnesoi,—and on the other hand from the Æolic establishments in
and about Mount Ida, which seem to have been subsequently formed and
derived from Lesbos and Kymê.[334]
[334] Herodot. i, 149. Herodotus does not name Elæa, at the
month of the Kaïkus: on the other hand, no other author mentions
Ægiroëssa (see Mannert, Geogr. der Gr. und Römer, b. viii, p.
396).
Of these twelve Æolic towns, eleven were situated very near together,
clustered round the Elæitic gulf: their territories, all of moderate
extent, seem also to have been conterminous with each other. Smyrna,
the twelfth, was situated to the south of Mount Sipylus, and at a
greater distance from the remainder,—one reason why it was so soon
lost to its primitive inhabitants. These towns occupied chiefly a
narrow but fertile strip of territory lying between the base of the
woody mountain-range called Sardênê and the sea.[335] Gryneium,
like Kolophôn and Milêtus, possessed a venerated sanctuary of
Apollo, of older date than the Æolic emigration. Larissa, Têmnos,
and Ægæ were at some little distance from the sea: the first at
a short distance north of the Hermus, by which its territory was
watered and occasionally inundated, so as to render embankments
necessary;[336] the last two upon rocky mountain-sites, so
inaccessible to attack that the inhabitants were enabled, even during
the height of the Persian power, to maintain constantly a substantial
independence.[337] Elæa, situated at the mouth of the river Kaïkus,
became in later times the port of the strong and flourishing city of
Pergamus; while Pitana, the northernmost of the twelve, was placed
between the mouth of the Kaïkus and the lofty promontory of Kanê,
which closes in the Elæitic gulf to the northward. A small town Kanæ,
close to that promontory is said to have once existed.[338]
[335] Herod. _ut sup._; Pseudo-Herodot. Vit. Homeri, c. 9.
Σαρδήνης πόδα νείατον ὑψικόμοιο.
[336] Strabo, xiii, p. 621.
[337] Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 8, 5. The rhetor Aristeidês (Orat.
Sacr. xxvii, p. 347, p. 535 D.) describes in detail his journey
from Smyrna to Pergamus, crossing the Hermus, and passing through
Larissa, Kymê, Myrina, Gryneium, Elæa. He seems not to have
passed through Têmnos, at least he does not name it: moreover, we
know from Pausanias (v, 13, 3) that Têmnos was on the north bank
of the Hermus. In the best maps of this district it is placed,
erroneously, both on the south bank, and as if it were on the
high road from Smyrna to Kymê. We may infer from another passage
of Aristeidês (Or. xlviii, p. 351, p. 468 D.) that Larissa was
nearer to the mouth of the Hermus than the maps appear to place
it. According to Strabo (xiii, p. 622), it would seem that
Larissa was on the south bank of the Hermus; but the better
testimony of Aristeidês proves the contrary; Skylax (c. 94) does
not name Têmnos, which seems to indicate that its territory was
at some distance from the sea.
The investigations of modern travellers have, as yet, thrown
little light upon the situation of Têmnos or of the other Æolic
towns: see Arundel, Discoveries in Asia Minor, vol. ii, pp.
292-298.
[338] Pliny, H. N. v, 30.
It has already been stated that the legend ascribes the origin
of these colonies to a certain special event called the Æolic
emigration, of which chronologers profess to know the precise
date, telling us how many years it happened after the Trojan war,
considerably before the Ionic emigration.[339] That the Æolic as
well as Ionic inhabitants of Asia were emigrants from Greece, we
may reasonably believe, but as to the time or circumstances of
their emigration we can pretend to no certain knowledge. The name
of the town Larissa, and perhaps that of Magnêsia on Mount Sipylus
(according to what has been observed in the preceding passage),
has given rise to the supposition that the anterior inhabitants
were Pelasgians, who, having once occupied the fertile banks of the
Hermus, as well as those of the Kaïster near Ephesus, employed their
industry in the work of embankment.[340] Kymê was the earliest as
well as the most powerful of the twelve Æolic towns, Neon-Teichos
having been originally established by the Kymæans as a fortress for
the purpose of capturing the Pelasgic Larissa. Both Kymê and Larissa
were designated by the epithet of Phrikônis: by some this was traced
to the mountain Phrikium in Lokris, from whence it was alleged that
the Æolic emigrants had started to cross the Ægean; by others it
seems to have been connected with an eponymous hero Phrikôn.[341]
[339] Strabo, xiii, pp. 582-621, compared with Pseudo-Herodotus,
Vit. Homer, c. 1-38, who says that Lesbos was occupied by the
Æolians one hundred and thirty years after the Trojan war: Kymê,
twenty years after Lesbos; Smyrna, eighteen years after Kymê.
The chronological statements of different writers are collected
in Mr. Clinton’s Fast. Hellen. c. 5, pp. 104, 105.
[340] Strabo, xiii, p. 621.
[341] Strabo, xiii, 621; Pseudo-Herodot. c. 14. Λαοὶ Φρίκωονος,
compared with c. 38.
Φρίκων appears, in later times, as an Ætolian proper name; Φρίκος
as a Lokrian. See Anecdota Delphica, by E. Curtius, Inscript. 40,
p. 75 (Berlin, 1843).
It was probably from Kymê and its sister cities on the Elæitic
gulf that Hellenic inhabitants penetrated into the smaller towns
in the inland plain of the Kaïkus,—Pergamus, Halisarna, Gambreion,
etc.[342] In the more southerly plain of the Hermus, on the northern
declivity of Mount Sipylus, was situated the city of Magnêsia, called
Magnêsia ad Sipylum, in order to distinguish it from Magnêsia on the
river Mæander. Both these towns called Magnêsia were inland,—the
one bordering upon the Ionic Greeks, the other upon the Æolic, but
seemingly not included in any amphiktyony either with the one or the
other. Each is referred to a separate and early emigration either
from the Magnêtes in Thessaly or from Krête. Like many other of the
early towns, Magnêsia ad Sipylum appears to have been originally
established higher up on the mountain,—in a situation nearer to
Smyrna, from which it was separated by the Sipylene range,—and to
have been subsequently brought down nearer to the plain on the
north side as well as to the river Hermus. The original site,
Palæ-Magnêsia,[343] was still occupied as a dependent township,
even during the times of the Attalid and Seleukid kings. A like
transfer of situation, from a height difficult of access to some
lower and more convenient position, took place with other towns in
and near this region; such as Gambreion and Skêpsis, which had their
Palæ-Gambreion and Palæ-Skêpsis not far distant.
[342] Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 6; Anabas. vii, 8, 24.
[343] There is a valuable inscription in Boeckh’s collection,
No. 3137, containing the convention between the inhabitants of
Smyrna and Magnêsia. Palæ-Magnêsia seems to have been a strong
and important post.
“Magnêtes a Sipylo,” Tacit. Annal. ii, 47; Pliny, H. N. v, 29;
Pausan. iii, 24, 2. πρὸς βόῤῥαν τοῦ Σιπύλου.
Stephan. Byzantinus notices only Magnêsia ad Mæandrum, not
Magnêsia ad Sipylum.
Of these twelve Æolic towns, it appears that all except Kymê were
small and unimportant. Thucydidês, in recapitulating the dependent
allies of Athens at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war,
does not account them worthy of being enumerated.[344] Nor are
we authorized to conclude, because they bear the general name of
Æolians, that the inhabitants were all of kindred race, though a
large proportion of them are said to have been Bœotians, and the
feeling of fraternity between Bœotians and Lesbians was maintained
throughout the historical times; one etymology of the name is,
indeed, founded upon the supposition that they were of miscellaneous
origin.[345] We do not hear, moreover, of any considerable poets
produced by the Æolic continental towns; in this respect Lesbos
stood alone,—an island said to have been the earliest of all the
Æolic settlements, anterior even to Kymê. Six towns were originally
established in Lesbos,—Mitylêne, Mêthymna, Eresus, Pyrrha, Antissa,
and Arisbê: the last-mentioned town was subsequently enslaved
and destroyed by the Methymnæans, so that there remained only
five towns in all.[346] According to the political subdivision
usual in Greece, the island had thus, first six, afterwards five,
independent governments, of which, however, Mitylênê, situated in the
south-eastern quarter and facing the promontory of Kanê, was by far
the first, while Mêthymna, on the north of the island over against
Cape Lekton, was the second. Like so many other Grecian colonies,
the original city of Mitylênê was founded upon an islet divided from
Lesbos by a narrow strait; it was subsequently extended on to Lesbos
itself, so that the harbor presented two distinct entrances.[347]
[344] Thucyd. ii, 9.
[345] Strabo, ix, p. 402; Thucyd. viii, 100; Pseudo-Herodot. Vit.
Homer, i. Ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἡ πάλαι Αἰολιῶτις Κύμη ἐκτίζετο, συνῆλθοι ἐν
ταύτῳ παντοδαπὰ ἔθνεα Ἑλληνικὰ, καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐκ Μαγνησίας, etc.
Etymolog. Magn. v, Αἰολεῖς.
[346] Herodot. i, 151; Strabo, xiii, p. 590.
[347] Diodor. xiii, 79; Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Thucyd. iii, 6.
It appears that the native poets and fabulists who professed to
deliver the archæology of Lesbos, dwelt less upon the Æolic settlers
than upon the various heroes and tribes who were alleged to have
had possession of the island anterior to that settlement, from the
deluge of Deukalion downwards,—just as the Chian and Samian poets
seem to have dwelt principally upon the ante-Ionic antiquities of
their respective islands. After the Pelasgian Xanthus son of Triopas,
comes Makar son of Krinakus, the great native hero of the island,
supposed by Plehn to be the eponym of an occupying race called the
Makares: the Homeric Hymn to Apollo brings Makar into connection with
the Æolic inhabitants by calling him son of Æolus, and the native
historian Myrsilus also seems to have treated him as an Æolian.[348]
To dwell upon such narratives suited the disposition of the Greeks;
but when we come to inquire for the history of Lesbos, we find
ourselves destitute of any genuine materials, not only for the period
prior to the Æolic occupation, but also for a long time after it:
nor can we pretend to determine at what date that occupation took
place. We may reasonably believe it to have occurred before 776 B.
C., and it therefore becomes a part of the earliest manifestations of
real Grecian history: both Kymê, with its eleven sister towns on the
continent, and the islands Lesbos and Tenedos, were then Æolic; and
I have already remarked that the migration of the father of Hesiod
the poet, from the Æolic Kymê to Askra in Bœotia, is the earliest
authentic fact known to us on contemporary testimony,—seemingly
between 776 and 700 B. C.
[348] Hymn. ad Apollin. v, 37. Λέσβος τ᾽ ἠγαθέη, Μάκαρος ἕδος
Αἰολίωνος. Myrsilus ap. Clemen. Alexandr. Protreptic. p. 19;
Diodor. v, 57-82; Dionys. Halik. A. R. i, 18; Stephan. Byz. v.
Μυτιλήνη.
Plehn (Lesbiaca, c. 2, pp. 25-37) has collected all the principal
fables respecting this Lesbian archæology: compare also Raoul
Rochette (Histoire des Colonies Grecques, t. i, c. 5, p. 182
etc.)
But besides these islands, and the strip of the continent between
Kymê and Pitanê (which constituted the territory properly called
Æolis), there were many other Æolic establishments in the region
near Mount Ida, the Troad, and the Hellespont, and even in European
Thrace. All these establishments seem to have emanated from Lesbos,
Kymê, and Tenedos, but at what time they were formed we have no
information. Thirty different towns are said to have been established
by these cities,[349] and nearly all the region of Mount Ida
(meaning by that term the territory west of a line drawn from the
town of Adramyttion northward to Priapos on the Propontis) came to
be Æolized. A new Æolis[350] was thus formed, quite distinct from
the Æolis near the Elæitic gulf, and severed from it partly by the
territory of Atarneus, partly by the portion of Mysia and Lydia,
between Atarneus and Adramyttium, including the fertile plain of
Thêbê: a portion of the lands on this coast seem indeed to have been
occupied by Lesbos, but the far larger part of it was never Æolic.
Nor was Ephorus accurate when he talked of the whole territory
between Kymê and Abydos as known under the name of Æolis.[351]
[349] Strabo, xiii, pp. 621, 622. Μέγιστον δέ ἐστι τῶν Αἰολικῶν
καὶ ἀρίστη Κύμη, καὶ σχεδὸν μητρόπολις αὐτή τε καὶ ἡ Λέσβος τῶν
ἄλλων πόλεων τριάκοντά που τὸν ἀριθμὸν, etc.
[350] Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 1, 10. μέχρι τῆς Φαρναβάζου
Αἰολίδος—ἡ Αἰολὶς ~αὕτη~ ἦν μὲν Φαρναβάζου.
Xenophon includes the whole of the Troad under the denomination
of Æolis. Skylax distinguishes the Troad from Æolis: he
designates as the Troad the coast towns from Dardanus seemingly
down to Lekton: under Æolis he includes Kebrên, Skêpsis,
Neandreia, and Pityeia, though how these four towns are to be
called ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ it is not easy to see (Skylax, 94-95). Nor
does Skylax notice either the Peræa of Tenedos, or Assos and
Gargara.
[351] Strabo, xiii, p. 583.
The inhabitants of Tenedos possessed themselves of the strip of the
Troad opposite to their island, northward of Cape Lekton,—those
of Lesbos founded Assus, Gargara, Lampônia, Antandrus,[352] etc.,
between Lekton and the north-eastern corner of the Adramyttian
gulf,—while the Kymæans seem to have established themselves at
Kebrên and other places in the inland Idæan district.[353] As far
as we can make out, this north-western corner (west of a line drawn
from Smyrna to the eastern corner of the Propontis) seems to have
been occupied, anterior to the Hellenic settlements, by Mysians and
Teukrians,—who are mentioned together, in such manner as to show that
there was no great ethnical difference between them.[354] The elegiac
poet Kallinus, in the middle of the seventh century B. C., was the
first who mentioned the Teukrians: he treated them as emigrants
from Krête, though other authors represented them as indigenous, or
as having come from Attica: however the fact may stand as to their
origin, we may gather that, in the time of Kallinus, they were still
the great occupants of the Troad.[355] Gradually, the south and west
coasts, as well as the interior of this region, became penetrated
by successive colonies of Æolic Greeks, to whom the iron and ship
timber of Mount Ida were valuable acquisitions; and thus the small
Teukrian townships (for there were no considerable cities) became
Æolized; while on the coast northward of Ida, along the Hellespont
and Propontis, Ionic establishments were formed from Milêtus and
Phôkæa, and Milesian colonists were received into the inland town
of Skêpsis.[356] In the time of Kallinus, the Teukrians seem to
have been in possession of Hamaxitus and Kolônæ, with the worship
of the Sminthian Apollo, in the south-western region of the Troad:
a century and a half afterwards, at the time of the Ionic revolt,
Herodotus notices the inhabitants of Gergis, occupying a portion
of the northern region of Ida in the line eastward from Dardanus
and Ophrynion, as “the remnant of the ancient Teukrians.”[357] We
also find the Mityleneans and Athenians contending by arms about
600-580 B. C., for the possession of Sigeium at the entrance of the
Hellespont:[358] probably the Lesbian settlements on the southern
coast of the Troad, lying as they do so much nearer to the island,
as well as the Tenedian settlements on the western coast opposite
Tenedos, had been formed at some time prior to this epoch. We farther
read of Æolic inhabitants as possessing Sestos on the European side
of the Hellespont.[359] The name Teukrians gradually vanished out
of present use, and came to belong only to the legends of the past;
preserved either in connection with the worship of the Sminthian
Apollo, or by writers such as Hellanikus and Kephalôn of Gergis,
from whence it passed to the later poets and to the Latin epic. It
appears that the native place of Kephalôn was a town called Gergis
or Gergithes near Kymê: there was also another place called Gergêtha
on the river Kaïkus, near its sources, and therefore higher up in
Mysia. It was from Gergithes near Kymê (according to Strabo), that
the place called Gergis in Mount Ida was settled:[360] probably the
non-Hellenic inhabitants, both near Kymê and in the region of Ida,
were of kindred race, but the settlers who went from Kymê to Gergis
in Ida were doubtless Greeks, and contributed in this manner to the
conversion of that place from a Teukrian to an Hellenic settlement.
In one of those violent dislocations of inhabitants, which were so
frequent afterwards among the successors of Alexander in Asia Minor,
the Teukro-Hellenic population of the Idæan Gergis is said to have
been carried away by Attalus of Pergamus, in order to people the
village of Gergêtha near the river Kaïkus.
[352] Thucyd. iv, 52; viii, 108; Strabo, xiii, p. 610; Stephan.
Byz. Ἄσσος; Pausan. vi, 4, 5.
[353] Pseudo-Herod. Vit. Hom. c. 20:—
Ἴδης ἐν κορυφῇσι πολυπτύχου ἠνεμόεσσης,
Ἔνθα σίδηρος Ἄρηος ἐπιχθονίοισι βρότοισι
Ἔσσεται, εὖτ᾽ ἄν μιν Κεβρήνιοι ἄνδρες ἔχωσι.
Τὰ δὲ Κεβρήνια τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον κτίζειν παρεσκευάζοντο οἱ
Κυμαῖοι πρὸς τῇ Ἴδῃ, καὶ γίνεται αὐτόθι σίδηρος.
[354] Herodot. vii, 20.
[355] Kallinus ap. Strabo, xiii, p. 604: compare p. 613, οὓς
~πρῶτος~ παρέδωκε Καλλῖνος, etc.
[356] Strabo, xiii, pp. 607-635.
[357] Herodot. v, 122, εἷλε μὲν Αἰολέας πάντας, ὅσοι τὴν Ἰλιάδα
νέμονται, εἷλε δὲ Γέργιθας, τοὺς ὑπολειφθέντας τῶν ἀρχαίων
Τευκρῶν, etc.
The Teukrians, in the conception of Herodotus, were the Trojans
described in the Iliad,—the Τευκρὶς γῆ seems the same as Ἰλιὰς γῆ
(ii, 118).
[358] Herodot. v, 94.
[359] Herodot. ix, 115.
[360] Strabo, xiii, 589-616.
We are to regard the Æolic Greeks as occupying not only their twelve
cities on the continent round the Elæitic gulf, and the neighboring
islands, of which the chief were Lesbos and Tenedos,—but also as
gradually penetrating and Hellenizing the Idæan region and the Troad.
This last process belongs probably to a period subsequent to 776 B.
C., but Kymê and Lesbos doubtless count as Æolic from an earlier
period.
Of Mitylênê, the chief city of Lesbos, we hear some facts between the
40th and 50th Olympiad (620-580 B. C.), which unfortunately reach
us only in a faint echo. That city then numbered as its own the
distinguished names of Pittakus, Sappho, and Alkæus: like many other
Grecian communities of that time, it suffered much from intestine
commotion, and experienced more than one violent revolution. The
old oligarchy called the Penthilids (seemingly a gens with heroic
origin), rendered themselves intolerably obnoxious by misrule of the
most reckless character; their brutal use of the bludgeon in the
public streets was avenged by Megaklês and his friends, who slew
them and put down their government.[361] About the 42d Olympiad
(612 B. C.) we hear of Melanchrus, as despot of Mitylênê, who was
slain by the conspiracy of Pittakus, Kikis, and Antimenidês,—the
last two being brothers of Alkæus the poet. Other despots, Myrsilus,
Megalagyrus, and the Kleanaktidæ, whom we know only by name, and who
appear to have been immortalized chiefly by the bitter stanzas of
Alkæus, acquired afterwards the sovereignty of Mitylênê. Among all
the citizens of the town, however, the most fortunate, and the most
deserving, was Pittakus the son of Hyrrhadus,—a champion trusted by
his countrymen alike in foreign war and in intestine broils.[362]
[361] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 13.
[362] Diogen. Laërt. i, 74; Suidas, v. Κίκις, Πίττακος; Strabo,
xiii, p. 617. Two lines of Alkæus are preserved, exulting in
the death of Myrsilus (Alkæus, Fragm. 12, ed. Schneidewin).
Melanchrus also is named (Fragm. 13), and Pittakus, in a third
fragment (73, ed. Schneid.), is brought into connection with
Myrsilus.
The foreign war in which the Mityleneans were engaged, and in
which Pittakus commanded them, was against the Athenians on the
continental coast opposite to Lesbos, in the Troad, near Sigeium.
The Mityleneans had already established various settlements along
the Troad, the northernmost of which was Achilleium: they laid claim
to the possession of this line of coast, and when Athens (about the
43d Olympiad, as it is said[363]) attempted to plant a settlement
at Sigeium, they resisted the establishment by force. At the head of
the Mitylenean troops, Pittakus engaged in single combat with the
Athenian commander Phrynôn, and had the good fortune to kill him.
The general struggle was, however, carried on with no very decisive
result. On one memorable occasion the Mityleneans fled, and Alkæus
the poet, serving as an hoplite in their ranks, commemorated in one
of his odes both his flight and the humiliating loss of his shield,
which the victorious Athenians suspended as a trophy in the temple
of Athênê at Sigeium. His predecessor Archilochus, and his imitator
Horace, have both been frank enough to confess a similar misfortune,
which Tyrtæus perhaps would not have endured to survive.[364] It
was at length agreed by Mitylênê and Athens to refer the dispute to
Periander of Corinth. While the Mityleneans laid claim to the whole
line of coast, the Athenians alleged that inasmuch as a contingent
from Athens had served in the host of Agamemnôn against Troy, their
descendants had as good a right as any other Greeks to share in the
conquered ground. It appears that Periander felt unwilling to decide
this delicate question of legendary law. He directed that each party
should retain what they possessed, and his verdict[365] was still
remembered and appealed to even in the time of Aristotle, by the
inhabitants of Tenedos against those of Sigeium.
[363] In regard to the chronology of this war, see a note near
the end of my previous chapter on the Solonian legislation.
I have there noticed what I believe to be a chronological
mistake of Herodotus in regard to the period between 600-560
B. C. Herodotus considers this war between the Mityleneans and
Athenians, in which Pittakus and Alkæus were concerned, to have
been directed by Peisistratus, whose government did not commence
until 560 B. C. (Herod. v, 94, 95).
My suspicion is, that there were two Athenian expeditions to
these regions—one in the time of Alkæus and Pittakus; a second,
much afterwards, undertaken by order of Peisistratus, whose
illegitimate son Hegesistratus became, in consequence, despot of
Sigeium. Herodotus appears to me to have merged the two into one.
[364] See the difficult fragment of Alkæus (Fr. 24, ed.
Schneidewin), preserved in Strabo, xiii, p. 600; Herodot. v, 94,
95; Archilochus, Eleg. Fr. i, 5, ed. Schneidewin; Horat. Carm.
ii, 7, 9; perhaps also Anakreon, but not certainly (see Fr. 81,
ed. Schneidewin), is to be regarded as having thrown away his
shield.
[365] Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 16, 2, where ~ἔναγχος~ marks the date.
Though Pittakus and Alkæus were both found in the same line of
hoplites against the Athenians at Sigeium, yet in the domestic
politics of their native city, their bearing was that of bitter
enemies. Alkæus and Antimenidas his brother were worsted in this
party-feud, and banished: but even as exiles they were strong enough
seriously to alarm and afflict their fellow-citizens, while their
party at home, and the general dissension within the walls, reduced
Mitylênê to despair. In this calamitous condition, the Mityleneans
had recourse to Pittakus, who with his great rank in the state (his
wife belonged to the old gens of the Penthilids), courage in the
field, and reputation for wisdom, inspired greater confidence than
any other citizen of his time. He was by universal consent named
Æsymnete or dictator for ten years, with unlimited powers:[366] and
the appointment proved eminently successful. How effectually he
repelled the exiles, and maintained domestic tranquillity, is best
shown by the angry effusions of Alkæus, whose songs (unfortunately
lost) gave vent to the political hostility of the time, in the
same manner as the speeches of the Athenian orators two centuries
afterwards, and who in his vigorous invectives against Pittakus did
not spare even the coarsest nicknames, founded on alleged personal
deformities.[367] Respecting the proceedings of this eminent
dictator, the contemporary and reported friend of Solon, we know only
in a general way, that he succeeded in reëstablishing security and
peace, and that at the end of his term he voluntarily laid down his
authority,[368]—an evidence not only of probity superior to the lures
of ambition, but also of that conscious moderation during the period
of his dictatorship which left him without fear as a private citizen
afterwards. He enacted various laws for Mitylênê, one of which was
sufficiently curious to cause it to be preserved and commented
on,—for it prescribed double penalties against offences committed by
men in a state of intoxication.[369] But he did not (like Solon at
Athens) introduce any constitutional changes, nor provide any new
formal securities for public liberty and good government:[370] which
illustrates the remark previously made, that Solon in doing this was
beyond his age, and struck out new lights for his successors,—since
on the score of personal disinterestedness Pittakus and he are
equally unimpeachable. What was the condition of Mitylênê afterwards,
we have no authorities to tell us. Pittakus is said, if the
chronological computers of a later age can be trusted, to have died
in the 52d Olympiad (B. C. 572-568). Both he and Solon are numbered
among the Seven Wise Men of Greece, respecting whom something will be
said in a future chapter. The various anecdotes current about him are
little better than uncertified exemplifications of a spirit of equal
and generous civism: but his songs and his elegiac compositions were
familiar to literary Greeks in the age of Plato.
[366] Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 5, 6; Dionys. Halik. Ant. Rom. v,
73: Plehn, Lesbiaca, pp. 46-50.
[367] Diogen. Laërt. i, 81.
[368] Strabo, xiii, p. 617; Diogen. Laërt. i, 75; Valer. Maxim.
vi, 5, 1.
[369] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9; Rhetoric ii, 27, 2.
A ditty is said to have been sung by the female grinding-slaves
in Lesbos, when the mill went heavily: Ἄλει, μύλα, ἄλει· καὶ γὰρ
Πιττακὸς ἀλεῖ, Τᾶς μεγάλας Μιτυλάνας βασιλεύων,—“Grind, mill,
grind; for Pittakus also _grinds_, the master of great Mitylênê.”
This has the air of a genuine composition of the time, set forth
by the enemies of Pittakus, and imputing to him (through a very
intelligible metaphor) tyrannical conduct; though both Plutarch
(Sept. Sap. Conv. c. 14, p. 157) and Diogenes Laërt. (i, 81)
construe it literally, as if Pittakus had been accustomed to take
bodily exercise at the hand-mill.
[370] Aristot. Polit. ii, 9, 9. ἐγένετο δὲ καὶ Πιττακὸς νόμων
δημιουργὸς, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πολιτείας.