a. _Ancient; to 146_ B.C.
1. _Introductory._--It is necessary to indicate at the outset the scope
and object of the present article. The reader must not expect to find in
it a compendious summary of the chief events in the history of ancient
Greece. It is not intended to supply an "Outlines of Greek History." It
may be questioned whether such a sketch of the history, within the
limits of space which are necessarily imposed in a work of reference,
would be of utility to any class of readers. At any rate, the plan of
the present work, in which the subject of Greek history is treated of in
a large number of separate articles, allows of the narrative of events
being given in a more satisfactory form under the more general of the
headings (e.g. ATHENS, SPARTA, PELOPONNESIAN WAR). The character of the
history itself suggests a further reason why a general article upon
Greek history should not be confined to, or even attempt, a narrative of
events. A sketch of Greek history is not possible in the sense in which
a sketch of Roman history, or even of English history, is possible.
Greek history is not the history of a single state. When Aristotle
composed his work upon the constitutions of the Greek states, he found
it necessary to extend his survey to no less that 158 states. Greek
history is thus concerned with more than 150 separate and independent
political communities. Nor is it even the history of a single country.
The area occupied by the Greek race extended from the Pyrenees to the
Caucasus, and from southern Russia to northern Africa. It is inevitable,
therefore, that the impression conveyed by a sketch of Greek history
should be a misleading one. A mere narrative can hardly fail to give a
false perspective. Experience shows that such a sketch is apt to resolve
itself into the history of a few great movements and of a few leading
states. What is still worse, it is apt to confine itself, at any rate
for the greater part of the period dealt with, to the history of Greece
in the narrower sense, i.e. of the Greek peninsula. For the
identification of Greece with Greece proper there may be some degree of
excuse when we come to the 5th and 4th centuries. In the period that
lies behind the year 500 B.C. Greece proper forms but a small part of
the Greek world. In the 7th and 6th centuries it is outside Greece
itself that we must look for the most active life of the Greek people
and the most brilliant manifestations of the Greek spirit. The present
article, therefore, will be concerned with the causes and conditions of
events, rather than with the events themselves; it will attempt analysis
rather than narrative. Its object will be to indicate problems and to
criticize views; to suggest lessons and parallels, and to estimate the
importance of the Hellenic factor in the development of civilization.
2. _The Minoan and Mycenaean Ages._--When does Greek history begin?
Whatever may be the answer that is given to this question, it will be
widely different from any that could have been proposed a generation
ago. Then the question was, How late does Greek history begin? To-day
the question is, How early does it begin? The suggestion made by Grote
that the first Olympiad (776 B.C.) should be taken as the starting-point
of the history of Greece, in the proper sense of the term "history,"
seemed likely, not so many years ago, to win general acceptance. At the
present moment the tendency would seem to be to go back as far as the
3rd or 4th millennium B.C. in order to reach a starting-point. It is to
the results of archaeological research during the last thirty years that
we must attribute so startling a change in the attitude of historical
science towards this problem. In the days when Grote published the first
volumes of his _History of Greece_ archaeology was in its infancy. Its
results, so far as they affected the earlier periods of Greek history,
were scanty; its methods were unscientific. The methods have been
gradually perfected by numerous workers in the field; but the results,
which have so profoundly modified our conceptions of the early history
of the Aegean area, are principally due to the discoveries of two men,
Heinrich Schliemann and A. J. Evans. A full account of these discoveries
will be found elsewhere (see AEGEAN CIVILIZATION and CRETE). It will be
sufficient to mention here that Schliemann's labours began with the
excavations on the site of Troy in the years 1870-1873; that he passed
on to the excavations at Mycenae in 1876 and to those at Tiryns in 1884.
It was the discoveries of these years that revealed to us the Mycenaean
age, and carried back the history to the middle of the 2nd millennium.
The discoveries of Dr A. J. Evans in the island of Crete belong to a
later period. The work of excavation was begun in 1900, and was carried
on in subsequent years. It has revealed to us the Minoan age, and
enabled us to trace back the development and origins of the civilization
for a further period of 1000 or 1500 years. The dates assigned by
archaeologists to the different periods of Mycenaean and Minoan art must
be regarded as merely approximate. Even the relation of the two
civilizations is still, to some extent, a matter of conjecture. The
general chronological scheme, however, in the sense of the relative
order of the various periods and the approximate intervals between them,
is too firmly established, both by internal evidence, such as the
development of the styles of pottery, and of the art in general, and by
external evidence, such as the points of contact with Egyptian art and
history, to admit of its being any longer seriously called in question.
[Illustration: Map of Greece (ancient).]
If, then, by "Greek history" is to be understood the history of the
lands occupied in later times by the Greek race (i.e. the Greek
peninsula and the Aegean basin), the beginnings of the history must be
carried back some 2000 years before Grote's proposed starting-point. If,
however, "Greek history" is taken to mean the history of the Greek
people, the determination of the starting-point is far from easy. For
the question to which archaeology does not as yet supply any certain
answer is the question of race. Were the creators of the Minoan and
Mycenaean civilization Greeks or were they not? In some degree the
Minoan evidence has modified the answer suggested by the Mycenaean.
Although wide differences of opinion as to the origin of the Mycenaean
civilization existed among scholars when the results of Schliemann's
labours were first given to the world, a general agreement had gradually
been arrived at in favour of the view which would identify Mycenaean
with Achaean or Homeric. In presence of the Cretan evidence it is no
longer possible to maintain this view with the same confidence. The two
chief difficulties in the way of attributing either the Minoan or the
Mycenaean civilization to an Hellenic people are connected respectively
with the script and the religion. The excavations at Cnossus have
yielded thousands of tablets written in the linear script. There is
evidence that this script was in use among the Mycenaeans as well. If
Greek was the language spoken at Cnossus and Mycenae, how is it that all
attempts to decipher the script have hitherto failed? The Cretan
excavations, again, have taught us a great deal as to the religion of
the Minoan age; they have, at the same time, thrown a new light upon the
evidence supplied by Mycenaean sites. It is no longer possible to ignore
the contrast between the cults of the Minoan and Mycenaean ages, and the
religious conceptions which they imply, and the cults and religious
conceptions prevalent in the historical period. On the other hand, it
may safely be asserted that the argument derived from the Mycenaean art,
in which we seem to trace a freedom of treatment which is akin to the
spirit of the later Greek art, and is in complete contrast to the spirit
of Oriental art, has received striking confirmation from the remains of
Minoan art. The decipherment of the script would at once solve the
problem. We should at least know whether the dominant race in Crete in
the Minoan age spoke an Hellenic or a non-Hellenic dialect. And what
could be inferred with regard to Crete in the Minoan age could almost
certainly be inferred with regard to the mainland in the Mycenaean age.
In the meanwhile, possibly until the tablets are read, at any rate until
further evidence is forthcoming, any answer that can be given to the
question must necessarily be tentative and provisional. (See AEGEAN
CIVILIZATION.)
It has already been implied that this period of the history of Greece
may be subdivided into a Minoan and a Mycenaean age. Whether these terms
are appropriate is a question of comparatively little importance. They
at least serve to remind us of the part played by the discoveries at
Mycenae and Cnossus in the reconstruction of the history. The term
"Mycenaean," it is true, has other associations than those of locality.
It may seem to imply that the civilization disclosed in the excavations
at Mycenae is Achaean in character, and that it is to be connected with
the Pelopid dynasty to which Agamemnon belonged. In its scientific use,
the term must be cleared of all such associations. Further, as opposed
to "Minoan" it must be understood in a more definite sense than that in
which it has often been employed. It has come to be generally recognized
that two different periods are to be distinguished in Schliemann's
discoveries at Mycenae itself. There is an earlier period, to which
belong the objects found in the shaft-graves, and there is a later
period, to which belong the beehive tombs and the remains of the
palaces. It is the latter period which is "Mycenaean" in the strict
sense; i.e. it is "Mycenaean" as opposed to "Minoan." To this period
belong also the palace at Tiryns, the beehive-tombs discovered elsewhere
on the mainland of Greece and one of the cities on the site of Troy
(Schliemann's sixth). The pottery of this period is as characteristic of
it, both in its forms (e.g. the "stirrup" or "false-necked" form of
vase) and in its peculiar glaze, as is the architecture of the palaces
and the beehive-tombs. Although the chief remains have been found on the
mainland of Greece itself, the art of this period is found to have
extended as far north as Troy and as far east as Cyprus. On the other
hand, hardly any traces of it have been discovered on the west coast of
Asia Minor, south of the Troad. The Mycenaean age, in this sense, may be
regarded as extending from 1600 to 1200 B.C. The Minoan age is of far
wider extent. Its latest period includes both the earlier and the later
periods of the remains found at Mycenae. This is the period called by Dr
Evans "Late Minoan." To this period belong the Great Palace at Cnossus
and the linear system of writing. The "Middle Minoan" period, to which
the earlier palace belongs, is characterized by the pictographic system
of writing and by polychrome pottery of a peculiarly beautiful kind. Dr
Evans proposes to carry back this period as far as 2500 B.C. Even behind
it there are traces of a still earlier civilization. Thus the Minoan
age, even if limited to the middle and later periods, will cover at
least a thousand years. Perhaps the most surprising result of the
excavations in Crete is the discovery that Minoan art is on a higher
level than Mycenaean art. To the scholars of a generation ago it seemed
a thing incredible that the art of the shaft-graves, and the
architecture of the beehive-tombs and the palaces, could belong to the
age before the Dorian invasion. The most recent discoveries seem to
indicate that the art of Mycenae is a decadent art; they certainly prove
that an art, hardly inferior in its way to the art of the classical
period, and a civilization which implies the command of great material
resources, were flourishing in the Aegean perhaps a thousand years
before the siege of Troy.
Oriental influence.
To the question, "What is the origin of this civilization? Is it of
foreign derivation or of native growth?" it is not possible to give a
direct answer. It is clear, on the one hand that it was developed, by a
gradual process of differentiation, from a culture which was common to
the whole Aegean basin and extended as far to the west as Sicily. It is
equally clear, on the other hand, that foreign influences contributed
largely to the process of development. Egyptian influences, in
particular, can be traced throughout the "Minoan" and "Mycenaean"
periods. The developed art, however, both in Crete and on the mainland,
displays characteristics which are the very opposite of those which are
commonly associated with the term "oriental." Egyptian work, even of the
best period, is stiff and conventional; in the best Cretan work, and, in
a less degree, in Mycenaean work, we find an originality and a freedom
of treatment which remind one of the spirit of the Greek artists. The
civilization is, in many respects, of an advanced type. The Cretan
architects could design on a grand scale, and could carry out their
designs with no small degree of mechanical skill. At Cnossus we find a
system of drainage in use, which is far in advance of anything known in
the modern world before the 19th century. If the art of the Minoan age
falls short of the art of the Periclean age, it is hardly inferior to
that of the age of Peisistratus. It is a civilization, too, which has
long been familiar with the art of writing. But it is one that belongs
entirely to the Bronze Age. Iron is not found until the very end of the
Mycenaean period, and then only in small quantities. Nor is this the
only point of contrast between the culture of the earliest age and that
of the historical period in Greece. The chief seats of the early culture
are to be found either in the island of Crete, or, on the mainland, at
Tiryns and Mycenae. In the later history Crete plays no part, and Tiryns
and Mycenae are obscure. With the great names of a later age, Argos,
Sparta and Athens, no great discoveries are connected. In northern
Greece, Orchomenos rather than Thebes is the centre of influence.
Further points of contrast readily suggest themselves. The so-called
Phoenician alphabet, in use amongst the later Greeks, is unknown in the
earliest age. Its systems of writing, both the earlier and the later
one, are syllabic in character, and analogous to those in vogue in Asia
Minor and Cyprus. In the art of war, the chariot is of more importance
than the foot-soldier, and the latter, unlike the Greek hoplite, is
lightly clad, and trusts to a shield large enough to cover the whole
body, rather than to the metal helmet, breastplate and greaves of later
times (see Arms and Armour: Greek). The political system appears to have
been a despotic monarchy, and the realm of the monarch to have extended
to far wider limits than those of the "city-states" of historical
Greece. It is, perhaps, in the religious practices of the age, and in
the ideas implied in them, that the contrast is most apparent. Neither
in Crete nor on the mainland is there any trace of the worship of the
"Olympian" deities. The cults in vogue remind us rather of Asia than of
Greece. The worship of pillars and of trees carries us back to Canaan,
while the double-headed axe, so prominent in the ritual of Cnossus,
survives in later times as the symbol of the national deity of the
Carians. The beehive-tombs, found on many sites on the mainland besides
Mycenae, are evidence both of a method of sepulture and of ideas of the
future state, which are alien to the practice and the thought of the
Greeks of history. It is only in one region--in the island of
Cyprus--that the culture of the Mycenaean age is found surviving into
the historical period. As late as the beginning of the 5th century B.C.
Cyprus is still ruled by kings, the alphabet has not yet displaced a
syllabary, the characteristic forms of Mycenaean vases still linger on,
and the chief deity of the island is the goddess with attendant doves
whose images are among the common objects of Mycenaean finds.
3. _The Homeric Age._--Alike in Crete and on the mainland the
civilization disclosed by excavation comes abruptly to an end. In Crete
we can trace it back from c. 1200 B.C. to the Neolithic period. From the
Stone Age to the end of the Minoan Age the development is continuous and
uninterrupted.[4] But between the culture of the Early Age and the
culture of the Dorians, who occupied the island in historical times, no
connexion whatever can be established. Between the two there is a great
gulf fixed. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than
that presented by the rude life of the Dorian communities in Crete when
it is compared with the political power, the material resources and the
extensive commerce of the earlier period. The same gap between the
archaeological age and the historical exists on the mainland also. It is
true that the solution of continuity is here less complete. Mycenaean
art continues, here and there, in a debased form down to the 9th
century, a date to which we can trace back the beginnings of the later
Greek art. On one or two lines (e.g. architecture) it is even possible
to establish some sort of connexion between them. But Greek art as a
whole cannot be evolved from Mycenaean art. We cannot bridge over the
interval that separates the latter art, even in its decline, from the
former. It is sufficient to compare the "dipylon" ware (with which the
process of development begins, which culminates in the pottery of the
Great Age) with the Mycenaean vases, to satisfy oneself that the gulf
exists. What then is the relation of the Heroic or Homeric Age (i.e. the
age whose life is portrayed for us in the poems of Homer) to the
Earliest Age? It too presents many contrasts to the later periods. On
the other hand, it presents contrasts to the Minoan Age, which, in their
way, are not less striking. Is it then to be identified with the
Mycenaean Age? Schliemann, the discoverer of the Mycenaean culture,
unhesitatingly identified Mycenaean with Homeric. He even identified the
shaft-graves of Mycenae with the tombs of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.
Later inquirers, while refusing to discover so literal a correspondence
between things Homeric and things Mycenaean, have not hesitated to
accept a general correspondence between the Homeric Age and the
Mycenaean. Where it is a case of comparing literary evidence with
archaeological, an exact coincidence is not of course to be demanded.
The most that can be asked is that a general correspondence should be
established. It may be conceded that the case for such a correspondence
appears prima facie a strong one. There is much in Homer that seems to
find confirmation or explanation in Schliemann's finds. Mycenae is
Agamemnon's city; the plan of the Homeric house agrees fairly well with
the palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae; the forms and the technique of
Mycenaean art serve to illustrate passages in the poems; such are only a
few of the arguments that have been urged. It is the great merit of
Professor Ridgeway's work (_The Early Age of Greece_) that it has
demonstrated, once and for all, that Mycenaean is not Homeric pure and
simple. He insists upon differences as great as the resemblances. Iron
is in common use in Homer; it is practically unknown to the Mycenaeans.
In place of the round shield and the metal armour of the Homeric
soldier, we find at Mycenae that the warrior is lightly clad in linen,
and that he fights behind an oblong shield, which covers the whole body;
nor are the chariots the same in form. The Homeric dead are cremated;
the Mycenaean are buried. The gods of Homer are the deities of Olympus,
of whose cult no traces are to be found in the Mycenaean Age. The
novelty of Professor Ridgeway's theory is that for the accepted
equation, Homeric = Achaean = Mycenaean, he proposes to substitute the
equations, Homeric = Achaean = post-Mycenaean, and Mycenaean =
pre-Achaean = Pelasgian. The Mycenaean civilization he attributes to the
Pelasgians, whom he regards as the indigenous population of Greece, the
ancestors of the later Greeks, and themselves Greek both in speech and
blood. The Homeric heroes are Achaeans, a fair-haired Celtic race, whose
home was in the Danube valley, where they had learned the use of iron.
In Greece they are newcomers, a conquering class comparable to the
Norman invaders of England or Ireland, and like them they have acquired
the language of their subjects in the course of a few generations. The
Homeric civilization is thus Achaean, i.e. it is Pelasgian (Mycenaean)
civilization, appropriated by a ruder race; but the Homeric culture is
far inferior to the Mycenaean. Here, at any rate, the Norman analogy
breaks down. Norman art in England is far in advance of Saxon. Even in
Normandy (as in Sicily), where the Norman appropriated rather than
introduced, he not only assimilated but developed. In Greece the process
must have been reversed.
The theory thus outlined is probably stronger on its destructive side
than on its constructive. To treat the Achaeans as an immigrant race is
to run counter to the tradition of the Greeks themselves, by whom the
Achaeans were regarded as indigenous (cf. Herod. viii. 73). Nor is the
Pelasgian part of the theory easy to reconcile with the Homeric
evidence. If the Achaeans were a conquering class ruling over a
Pelasgian population, we should expect to find this difference of race a
prominent feature in Homeric society. We should, at least, expect to
find a Pelasgian background to the Homeric picture. As a matter of fact,
we find nothing of the sort. There is no consciousness in the Homeric
poems of a distinction of race between the governing and the subject
classes. There are, indeed, Pelasgians in Homer, but the references
either to the people or the name are extraordinarily few. They appear as
a people, presumably in Asia Minor, in alliance with the Trojans; they
appear also, in a single passage, as one of the tribes inhabiting Crete.
The name survives in "Pelasgicon Argos," which is probably to be
identified with the valley of the Spercheius,[5] and as an epithet of
Zeus of Dodona. The population, however, of Pelasgicon Argos and of
Dodona is no longer Pelasgian. Thus, in the age of Homer, the Pelasgians
belong, so far as Greece proper is concerned, to a past that is already
remote. It is inadmissible to appeal to Herodotus against Homer. For the
conditions of the Homeric age Homer is the sole authoritative witness.
If, however, Professor Ridgeway has failed to prove that "Mycenaean"
equals "Pelasgian," he has certainly proved that much that is Homeric is
post-Mycenaean. It is possible that different strata are to be
distinguished in the Homeric poems. There are passages which seem to
assume the conditions of the Mycenaean age; there are others which
presuppose the conditions of a later age. It may be that the latter
passages reflect the circumstances of the poet's own times, while the
former ones reproduce those of an earlier period. If so, the
substitution of iron for bronze must have been effected in the interval
between the earlier and the later periods.
The Homeric state.
It has already been pointed out that the question whether the makers of
the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were Greeks must still be
regarded as an open one. No such question can be raised as to the
Homeric Age. The Achaeans may or may not have been Greek in blood. What
is certain is that the Achaean Age forms an integral part of Greek
history. Alike on the linguistic, the religious and the political sides,
Homer is the starting-point of subsequent developments. In the Greek
dialects the great distinction is that between the Doric and the rest.
Of the non-Doric dialects the two main groups are the Aeolic and Ionic,
both of which have been developed, by a gradual process of
differentiation, from the language of the Homeric poems. With regard to
religion it is sufficient to refer to the judgment of Herodotus, that it
was Homer and Hesiod who were the authors of the Greek theogony (ii. 53
[Greek: houtoi eisi hoi poiesantes theogonien Hellesi]). It is a
commonplace that Homer was the Bible of the Greeks. On the political
side, Greek constitutional development would be unintelligible without
Homer. When Greek history, in the proper sense, begins, oligarchy is
almost universal. Everywhere, however, an antecedent stage of monarchy
has to be presupposed. In the Homeric system monarchy is the sole form
of government; but it is monarchy already well on the way to being
transformed into oligarchy. In the person of the king are united the
functions of priest, of judge and of leader in war. He belongs to a
family which claims divine descent and his office is hereditary. He is,
however, no despotic monarch. He is compelled by custom to consult the
council (_boule_) of the elders, or chiefs. He must ask their opinion,
and, if he fails to obtain their consent, he has no power to enforce his
will. Even when he has obtained the consent of the council, the proposal
still awaits the approval of the assembly (_agora_), of the people.
Homeric society.
Thus in the Homeric state we find the germs not only of the oligarchy
and democracy of later Greece, but also of all the various forms of
constitution known to the Western world. And a monarchy such as is
depicted in the Homeric poems is clearly ripe for transmutation into
oligarchy. The chiefs are addressed as kings ([Greek: basilees]), and
claim, equally with the monarch, descent from the gods. In Homer, again,
we can trace the later organization into tribe ([Greek: phyle]), clan
([Greek: genos]), and phratry, which is characteristic of Greek society
in the historical period, and meets us in analogous forms in other Aryan
societies. The [Greek: genos] corresponds to the Roman _gens_, the
[Greek: phyle] to the Roman tribe, and the phratry to the _curia_. The
importance of the _phratry_ in Homeric society is illustrated by the
well-known passage (_Iliad_ ix. 63) in which the outcast is described as
"one who belongs to no phratry" ([Greek: aphretor]). It is a society
that is, of course, based upon slavery, but it is slavery in its least
repulsive aspect. The treatment which Eumaeus and Eurycleia receive at
the hands of the poet of the _Odyssey_ is highly creditable to the
humanity of the age. A society which regarded the slave as a mere
chattel would have been impatient of the interest shown in a swineherd
and a nurse. It is a society, too, that exhibits many of the
distinguishing traits of later Greek life. Feasting and quarrels, it is
true, are of more moment to the heroes than to the contemporaries of
Pericles or Plato; but "music" and "gymnastic" (though the terms must be
understood in a more restricted sense) are as distinctive of the age of
Homer as of that of Pindar. In one respect there is retrogression in the
historical period. Woman in Homeric society enjoys a greater freedom,
and receives greater respect, than in the Athens of Sophocles and
Pericles.
4. _The Growth of the Greek States._--The Greek world at the beginning
of the 6th century B.C. presents a picture in many respects different
from that of the Homeric Age. The Greek race is no longer confined to
the Greek peninsula. It occupies the islands of the Aegean, the western
seaboard of Asia Minor, the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, of southern
Italy and Sicily. Scattered settlements are found as far apart as the
mouth of the Rhone, the north of Africa, the Crimea and the eastern end
of the Black Sea. The Greeks are called by a national name, _Hellenes_,
the symbol of a fully-developed national self-consciousness. They are
divided into three great branches, the Dorian, the Ionian and the
Aeolian, names almost, or entirely, unknown to Homer. The heroic
monarchy has nearly everywhere disappeared. In Greece proper, south of
Thermopylae, it survives, but in a peculiar form, in the Spartan state
alone. What is the significance and the explanation of contrasts so
profound?
Dorian invasion.
It is probable that the explanation is to be found, directly or
indirectly, in a single cause, the Dorian invasion. In Homer the Dorians
are mentioned in one passage only (_Odyssey_ xix. 177). They there
appear as one of the races which inhabit Crete. In the historical period
the whole Peloponnese, with the exception of Arcadia, Elis and Achaea,
is Dorian. In northern Greece the Dorians occupy the little state of
Doris, and in the Aegean they form the population of Crete, Rhodes and
some smaller islands. Thus the chief centres of Minoan and Mycenaean
culture have passed into Dorian hands, and the chief seats of Achaean
power are included in Dorian states. Greek tradition explained the
overthrow of the Achaean system by an invasion of the Peloponnese by the
Dorians, a northern tribe, which had found a temporary home in Doris.
The story ran that, after an unsuccessful attempt to force an entrance
by the Isthmus of Corinth, they had crossed from Naupactus, at the mouth
of the Corinthian Gulf, landed on the opposite shore, and made their way
into the heart of the Peloponnese, where a single victory gave them
possession of the Achaean states. Their conquests were divided among the
invaders into three shares, for which lots were cast, and thus the three
states of Argos, Sparta and Messenia were created. There is much in this
tradition that is impossible or improbable. It is impossible, e.g. for
the tiny state of Doris, with its three or four "small, sad villages"
([Greek: poleis mikrai kai lyprochoroi], Strabo, p. 427), to have
furnished a force of invaders sufficient to conquer and re-people the
greater part of the Peloponnese. It is improbable that the conquest
should have been either as sudden, or as complete, as the legend
represents. On the contrary, there are indications that the conquest was
gradual, and that the displacement of the older population was
incomplete. The improbability of the details affords, however, no ground
for questioning the reality of the invasion.[6] The tradition can be
traced back at Sparta to the 7th century B.C. (Tyrtaeus, quoted by
Strabo, p. 362), and there is abundant evidence, other than that of
legend, to corroborate it. There is the Dorian name, to begin with. If,
as Beloch supposes, it originated on the coast of Asia Minor, where it
served to distinguish the settlers in Rhodes and the neighbouring
islands from the Ionians and Aeolians to the north of them, how came the
great and famous states of the Peloponnese to adopt a name in use among
the petty colonies planted by their kinsmen across the sea? Or, if
Dorian is simply Old Peloponnesian, how are we to account for the Doric
dialect or the Dorian pride of race?
It is true that there are great differences between the literary Doric,
the dialect of Corinth and Argos, and the dialects of Laconia and Crete,
and that there are affinities between the dialect of Laconia and the
non-Dorian dialects of Arcadia and Elis. It is equally true, however,
and of far more consequence, that all the Doric dialects are
distinguished from all other Greek dialects by certain common
characteristics. Perhaps the strongest sentiment in the Dorian nature is
the pride of race. Indeed, it looks as if the Dorians claimed to be the
sole genuine Hellenes. How can we account for an indigenous population,
first imagining itself to be immigrant, and then developing a contempt
for the rest of the race, equally indigenous with itself, on account of
a fictitious difference in origin? Finally, there is the archaeological
evidence. The older civilization comes to an abrupt end, and it does so,
on the mainland at least, at the very period to which tradition assigns
the Dorian migration. Its development is greatest, and its overthrow
most complete, precisely in the regions occupied by the Dorians and the
other tribes, whose migrations were traditionally connected with theirs.
It is hardly too much to say that the archaeologist would have been
compelled to postulate an inroad into central and southern Greece of
tribes from the north, at a lower level of culture, in the course of the
12th and 11th centuries B.C., if the historian had not been able to
direct him to the traditions of the great migrations ([Greek:
metanastaseis]), of which the Dorian invasion was the chief. With the
Dorian migration Greek tradition connected the expansion of the Greek
race eastwards across the Aegean. In the historical period the Greek
settlements on the western coast of Asia Minor fall into three clearly
defined groups. To the north is the Aeolic group, consisting of the
island of Lesbos and twelve towns, mostly insignificant, on the opposite
mainland. To the south is the Dorian _hexapolis_, consisting of Cnidus
and Halicarnassus on the mainland, and the islands of Rhodes and Cos. In
the centre comes the Ionian _dodecapolis_, a group consisting of ten
towns on the mainland, together with the islands of Samos and Chios. Of
these three groups, the Ionian is incomparably the most important. The
Ionians also occupy Euboea and the Cyclades. Although it would appear
that Cyprus (and possibly Pamphylia) had been occupied by settlers from
Greece in the Mycenaean age, Greek tradition is probably correct in
putting the colonization of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean
after the Dorian migration. Both the Homeric and the archaeological
evidence seem to point to the same conclusion. Between Rhodes on the
south and the Troad on the north scarcely any Mycenaean remains have
been found. Homer is ignorant of any Greeks east of Euboea. If the poems
are earlier than the Dorian Invasion, his silence is conclusive. If the
poems are some centuries later than the Invasion, they at least prove
that, within a few generations of that event, it was the belief of the
Greeks of Asia Minor that their ancestors had crossed the seas after the
close of the Heroic Age. It is probable, too, that the names Ionian and
Aeolian, the former of which is found once in Homer, and the latter not
at all, originated among the colonists in Asia Minor, and served to
designate, in the first instance, the members of the Ionic and Aeolic
_dodecapoleis_. As Curtius[7] pointed out, the only Ionia known to
history is in Asia Minor. It does not follow that Ionia is the original
home of the Ionian race, as Curtius argued. It almost certainly follows,
however, that it is the original home of the Ionian name.
Government.
It is less easy to account for the name _Hellenes_. The Greeks were
profoundly conscious of their common nationality, and of the gulf that
separated them from the rest of mankind. They themselves recognized a
common race and language, and a common type of religion and culture, as
the chief factors in this sentiment of nationality (see Herod. viii. 144
[Greek: to Hellenikon eon homaimon te kai homoglosson kai theon
hidrymata te koina kai thusiai ethea te homotropa]). "Hellenes" was the
name of their common race, and "Hellas" of their common country. In
Homer there is no distinct consciousness of a common nationality, and
consequently no antithesis of Greek and Barbarian (see Thuc. i. 3). Nor
is there a true collective name. There are indeed Hellenes (though the
name occurs in one passage only, _Iliad_ ii. 684), and there is a
Hellas; but his Hellas, whatever its precise signification may be, is,
at any rate, not equivalent either to Greece proper or to the land of
the Greeks, and his Hellenes are the inhabitants of a small district to
the south of Thessaly. It is possible that the diffusion of the Hellenic
name was due to the Dorian invaders. Its use can be traced back to the
first half of the 7th century. Not less obscure are the causes of the
fall of monarchy. It cannot have been the immediate effect of the
Dorian conquest, for the states founded by the Dorians were at first
monarchically governed. It may, however, have been an indirect effect of
it. We have already seen that the power of the Homeric king is more
limited than that of the rulers of Cnossus, Tiryns or Mycenae. In other
words, monarchy is already in decay at the epoch of the Invasion. The
Invasion, in its effects on wealth, commerce and civilization, is almost
comparable to the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman empire. The
monarch of the Minoan and Mycenaean age has extensive revenues at his
command; the monarch of the early Dorian states is little better than a
petty chief. Thus the interval, once a wide one, that separates him from
the nobles tends to disappear. The decay of monarchy was gradual; much
more gradual than is generally recognized. There were parts of the Greek
world in which it still survived in the 6th century, e.g. Sparta,
Cyrene, Cyprus, and possibly Argos and Tarentum. Both Herodotus and
Thucydides apply the title "king" ([Greek: basileus]) to the rulers of
Thessaly in the 5th century. The date at which monarchy gave place to a
republican form of government must have differed, and differed widely,
in different cases. The traditions relating to the foundation of Cyrene
assume the existence of monarchy in Thera and in Crete in the middle of
the 7th century (Herodotus iv. 150 and 154), and the reign of
Amphicrates at Samos (Herod, iii. 59) can hardly be placed more than a
generation earlier. In view of our general ignorance of the history of
the 7th and 8th centuries, it is hazardous to pronounce these instances
exceptional. On the other hand, the change from monarchy to oligarchy
was completed at Athens before the end of the 8th century, and at a
still earlier date in some of the other states. The process, again, by
which the change was effected was, in all probability, less uniform than
is generally assumed. There are extremely few cases in which we have any
trustworthy evidence, and the instances about which we are informed
refuse to be reduced to any common type. In Greece proper our
information is fullest in the case of Athens and Argos. In the former
case, the king is gradually stripped of his powers by a process of
devolution. An hereditary king, ruling for life, is replaced by three
annual and elective magistrates, between whom are divided the executive,
military and religious functions of the monarch (see ARCHON). At Argos
the fall of the monarchy is preceded by an aggrandisement of the royal
prerogatives. There is nothing in common between these two cases, and
there is no reason to suppose that the process elsewhere was analogous
to that at Athens. Everywhere, however, oligarchy is the form of
government which succeeds to monarchy. Political power is monopolized by
a class of nobles, whose claim to govern is based upon birth and the
possession of land, the most valuable form of property in an early
society. Sometimes power is confined to a single clan (e.g. the
Bacchiadae at Corinth); more commonly, as at Athens, all houses that are
noble are equally privileged. In every case there is found, as the
adviser of the executive, a Boule, or council, representative of the
privileged class. Without such a council a Greek oligarchy is
inconceivable. The relations of the executive to the council doubtless
varied. At Athens it is clear that the real authority was exercised by
the archons;[8] in many states the magistrates were probably subordinate
to the council (cf. the relation of the consuls to the senate at Rome).
And it is clear that the way in which the oligarchies used their power
varied also. The cases in which the power was abused are naturally the
ones of which we hear; for an abuse of power gave rise to discontent and
was the ultimate cause of revolution. We hear little or nothing of the
cases in which power was exercised wisely. Happy is the constitution
which has no annals! We know, however, that oligarchy held its ground
for generations, or even for centuries, in a large proportion of the
Greek states; and a government which, like the oligarchies of Elis,
Thebes or Aegina, could maintain itself for three or four centuries
cannot have been merely oppressive.
Trade.
The period of the transition from monarchy to oligarchy is the period in
which commerce begins to develop, and trade-routes to be organized.
Greece had been the centre of an active trade in the Minoan and
Mycenaean epochs. The products of Crete and of the Peloponnese had found
their way to Egypt and Asia Minor. The overthrow of the older
civilization put an end to commerce. The seas became insecure and
intercourse with the East was interrupted. Our earliest glimpses of the
Aegean after the period of the migrations disclose the raids of the
pirate and the activity of the Phoenician trader. It is not till the 8th
century has dawned that trade begins to revive, and the Phoenician has
to retire before his Greek competitor. For some time to come, however,
no clear distinction is drawn between the trader and the pirate. The
pioneers of Greek trade in the West are the pirates of Cumae (Thucyd.
vi. 4). The expansion of Greek commerce, unlike that of the commerce of
the modern world, was not connected with any great scientific
discoveries. There is nothing in the history of ancient navigation that
is analogous to the invention of the mariner's compass or of the
steam-engine. In spite of this, the development of Greek commerce in the
7th and 6th centuries was rapid. It must have been assisted by the great
discovery of the early part of the former century, the invention of
coined money. To the Lydians, rather than the Greeks, belongs the credit
of the discovery; but it was the genius of the latter race that divined
the importance of the invention and spread its use. The coinage of the
Ionian towns goes back to the reign of Gyges (c. 675 B.C.). And it is in
Ionia that commercial development is earliest and greatest. In the most
distant regions the Ionian is first in the field. Egypt and the Black
Sea are both opened up to Greek trade by Miletus, the Adriatic and the
Western Mediterranean by Phocaea and Samos. It is significant that of
the twelve states engaged in the Egyptian trade in the 6th century all,
with the exception of Aegina, are from the eastern side of the Aegean
(Herod. ii. 178). On the western side the chief centres of trade during
these centuries were the islands of Euboea and Aegina and the town of
Corinth. The Aeginetan are the earliest coins of Greece proper (c. 650
B.C.); and the two rival scales of weights and measures, in use amongst
the Greeks of every age, are the Aeginetan and the Euboic. Commerce
naturally gave rise to commercial leagues, and commercial relations
tended to bring about political alliances. Foreign policy even at this
early epoch seems to have been largely determined by considerations of
commerce. Two leagues, the members of which were connected by political
as well as commercial ties, can be recognized. At the head of each stood
one of the two rival powers in the island of Euboea, Chalcis and
Eretria. Their primary object was doubtless protection from the pirate
and the foreigner. Competing routes were organized at an early date
under their influence, and their trading connexions can be traced from
the heart of Asia Minor to the north of Italy. Miletus, Sybaris and
Etruria were members of the Eretrian league; Samos, Corinth, Rhegium and
Zancle (commanding the Straits of Messina), and Cumae, on the Bay of
Naples, of the Chalcidian. The wool of the Phrygian uplands, woven in
the looms of Miletus, reached the Etruscan markets by way of Sybaris;
through Cumae, Rome and the rest of Latium obtained the elements of
Greek culture. Greek trade, however, was confined to the Mediterranean
area. The Phoenician and the Carthaginian navigators penetrated to
Britain; they discovered the passage round the Cape two thousand years
before Vasco da Gama's time. The Greek sailor dared not adventure
himself outside the Black Sea, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Greek
trade, too, was essentially maritime. Ports visited by Greek vessels
were often the starting points of trade-routes into the interior; the
traffic along those routes was left in the hands of the natives (see
e.g. Herod. iv. 24). One service, the importance of which can hardly be
overestimated, was rendered to civilization by the Greek traders--the
invention of geography. The science of geography is the invention of the
Greeks. The first maps were made by them (in the 6th century); and it
was the discoveries and surveys of their sailors that made map-making
possible.
Colonization.
Closely connected with the history of Greek trade is the history of
Greek colonization. The period of colonization, in its narrower sense,
extends from the middle of the 8th to the middle of the 6th century.
Greek colonization is, however, merely a continuation of the process
which at an earlier epoch had led to the settlement, first of Cyprus,
and then of the islands and coasts of the Aegean. From the earlier
settlements the colonization of the historical period is distinguished
by three characteristics. The later colony acknowledges a definite
_metropolis_ ("mother-city"); it is planted by a definite _oecist_
([Greek: oikistes]); it has a definite date assigned to its
foundation.[9] It would be a mistake to regard Greek colonization as
commercial in origin, in the sense that the colonies were in all cases
established as trading-posts. This was the case with the Phoenician and
Carthaginian settlements, most of which remained mere factories; and
some of the Greek colonies (e.g. many of those planted by Miletus on the
shores of the Black Sea) bore this character. The typical Greek colony,
however, was neither in origin nor in development a mere trading-post.
It was, or it became, a _polis_, a city-state, in which was reproduced
the life of the parent state. Nor was Greek colonization, like the
emigration from Europe to America and Australia in the 19th century,
simply the result of over-population. The causes were as various as
those which can be traced in the history of modern colonization. Those
which were established for the purposes of trade may be compared to the
factories of the Portuguese and Dutch in Africa and the Far East. Others
were the result of political discontent, in some form or shape; these
may be compared to the Puritan settlements in New England. Others again
were due to ambition or the mere love of adventure (see Herod. v. 42
ff., the career of Dorieus). But however various the causes, two
conditions must always be presupposed--an expansion of commerce and a
growth of population. Within the narrow limits of the city-state there
was a constant tendency for population to become redundant, until, as in
the later centuries of Greek life, its growth was artificially
restricted. Alike from the Roman colonies, and from those founded by the
European nations in the course of the last few centuries, the Greek
colonies are distinguished by a fundamental contrast. It is significant
that the contrast is a political one. The Roman colony was in a position
of entire subordination to the Roman state, of which it formed a part.
The modern colony was, in varying degrees, in political subjection to
the home government. The Greek colony was completely independent; and it
was independent from the first. The ties that united a colony to its
metropolis were those of sentiment and interest; the political tie did
not exist. There were, it is true, exceptions. The colonies established
by imperial Athens closely resembled the colonies of imperial Rome. The
cleruchy (q.v.) formed part of the Athenian state; the cleruchs kept
their status as citizens of Athens and acted as a military garrison. And
if the political tie, in the proper sense, was wanting, it was
inevitable that political relations should spring out of commercial or
sentimental ones. Thus we find Corinth interfering twice to save her
colony Syracuse from destruction, and Megara bringing about the revolt
of Byzantium, her colony, from Athens. Sometimes it is not easy to
distinguish political relations from a political tie (e.g. the relations
of Corinth, both in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, to Ambracia and
the neighbouring group of colonies). When we compare the development of
the Greek and the modern colonies we shall find that the development of
the former was even more rapid than that of the latter. In at least
three respects the Greek settler was at an advantage as compared with
the colonist of modern times. The differences of race, of colour and of
climate, with which the chief problems of modern colonization are
connected, played no part in the history of the Greek settlements. The
races amongst whom the Greeks planted themselves were in some cases on
a similar level of culture. Where the natives were still backward or
barbarous, they came of a stock either closely related to the Greek, or
at least separated from it by no great physical differences. We need
only contrast the Carian, the Sicel, the Thracian or even the Scythian,
with the native Australian, the Hottentot, the Red Indian or the Maori,
to apprehend the advantage of the Greek. Amalgamation with the native
races was easy, and it involved neither physical nor intellectual
degeneracy as its consequence. Of the races with which the Greeks came
in contact the Thracian was far from the highest in the scale of
culture; yet three of the greatest names in the Great Age of Athens are
those of men who had Thracian blood in their veins, viz. Themistocles,
Cimon and the historian Thucydides. In the absence of any distinction of
colour, no insuperable barrier existed between the Greek and the
hellenized native. The _demos_ of the colonial cities was largely
recruited from the native population,[10] nor was there anything in the
Greek world analogous to the "mean whites" or the "black belt." Of
hardly less importance were the climatic conditions. In this respect the
Mediterranean area is unique. There is no other region of the world of
equal extent in which these conditions are at once so uniform and so
favourable. Nowhere had the Greek settler to encounter a climate which
was either unsuited to his labour or subversive of his vigour. That in
spite of these advantages so little, comparatively speaking, was
effected in the work of Hellenization before the epoch of Alexander and
the Diadochi, was the effect of a single counteracting cause. The Greek
colonist, like the Greek trader, clung to the shore. He penetrated no
farther inland than the sea-breeze. Hence it was only in islands, such
as Sicily or Cyprus, that the process of Hellenization was complete.
Elsewhere the Greek settlements formed a mere fringe along the coast.
The tyrants.
To the 7th century there belongs another movement of high importance in
its bearing upon the economic, religious and literary development of
Greece, as well as upon its constitutional history. This movement is the
rise of the _tyrannis_. In the political writers of a later age the word
possesses a clear-cut connotation. From other forms of monarchy it is
distinguished by a twofold differentiation. The _tyrannus_ is an
unconstitutional ruler, and his authority is exercised over unwilling
subjects. In the 7th and 6th centuries the line was not drawn so
distinctly between the tyrant and the legitimate monarch. Even Herodotus
uses the words "tyrant" and "king" interchangeably (e.g. the princes of
Cyprus are called "kings" in v. 110 and "tyrants" in v. 109), so that it
is sometimes difficult to decide whether a legitimate monarch or a
tyrant is meant (e.g. Aristophilides of Tarentum, iii. 136, or Telys of
Sybaris, v. 44). But the distinction between the tyrant and the king of
the Heroic Age is a valid one. It is not true that his rule was always
exercised over unwilling subjects; it is true that his position was
always unconstitutional. The Homeric king is a legitimate monarch; his
authority is invested with the sanctions of religion and immemorial
custom. The tyrant is an illegitimate ruler; his authority is not
recognized, either by customary usage or by express enactment. But the
word "tyrant" was originally a neutral team; it did not necessarily
imply a misuse of power. The origin of the _tyrannis_ is obscure. The
word _tyrannus_ has been thought, with some reason, to be a Lydian one.
Probably both the name and the thing originated in the Greek colonies of
Asia Minor, though the earliest tyrants of whom we hear in Asia Minor
(at Ephesus and Miletus) are a generation later than the earliest in
Greece itself, where, both at Sicyon and at Corinth, tyranny appears to
date back to the second quarter of the 7th century. It is not unusual to
regard tyranny as a universal stage in the constitutional development of
the Greek states, and as a stage that occurs everywhere at one and the
same period. In reality, tyranny is confined to certain regions, and it
is a phenomenon that is peculiar to no one age or century. In Greece
proper, before the 4th century B.C., it is confined to a small group of
states round the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The greater part of the
Peloponnese was exempt from it, and there is no good evidence for its
existence north of the Isthmus, except at Megara and Athens. It plays no
part in the history of the Greek cities in Chalcidice and Thrace. It
appears to have been rare in the Cyclades. The regions in which it finds
a congenial soil are two, Asia Minor and Sicily. Thus it is incorrect to
say that most Greek states passed through this stage. It is still wider
of the mark to assume that they passed through it at the same time.
There is no "Age of the Tyrants." Tyranny began in the Peloponnese a
hundred years before it appears in Sicily, and it has disappeared in the
Peloponnese almost before it begins in Sicily. In the latter the great
age of tyranny comes at the beginning of the 5th century; in the former
it is at the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th. At Athens the
history of tyranny begins after it has ended both at Sicyon and Corinth.
There is, indeed, a period in which tyranny is non-existent in the Greek
states; roughly speaking, the last sixty years of the 5th century. But
with this exception, there is no period in which the tyrant is not to be
found. The greatest of all the tyrannies, that of Dionysius at Syracuse,
belongs to the 4th century. Nor must it be assumed that tyranny always
comes at the same stage in the history of a constitution; that it is
always a stage between oligarchy and democracy. At Corinth it is
followed, not by democracy but by oligarchy, and it is an oligarchy that
lasts, with a brief interruption, for two hundred and fifty years. At
Athens it is not immediately preceded by oligarchy. Between the Eupatrid
oligarchy and the rule of Peisistratus there comes the timocracy of
Solon. These exceptions do not stand alone. The cause of tyranny is, in
one sense, uniform. In the earlier centuries, at any rate, tyranny is
always the expression of discontent; the tyrant is always the champion
of a cause. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the discontent is
necessarily political, or that the cause which he champions is always a
constitutional one. At Sicyon it is a racial one; Cleisthenes is the
champion of the older population against their Dorian oppressors (see
Herod. v. 67, 68). At Athens the discontent is economic rather than
political; Peisistratus is the champion of the Diacrii, the inhabitants
of the poorest region of Attica. The party-strifes of which we hear in
the early history of Miletus, which doubtless gave the tyrant his
opportunity, are concerned with the claims of rival industrial classes.
In Sicily the tyrant is the ally of the rich and the foe of the _demos_,
and the cause which he champions, both in the 5th century and the 4th,
is a national one, that of the Greek against the Carthaginian. We may
suspect that in Greece itself the tyrannies of the 7th century are the
expression of an anti-Dorian reaction. It can hardly be an accident that
the states in which the tyrannis is found at this epoch, Corinth,
Megara, Sicyon, Epidaurus, are all of them states in which a Dorian
upper class ruled over a subject population. In Asia Minor the
_tyrannis_ assumes a peculiar character after the Persian conquest. The
tyrant rules as the deputy of the Persian satrap. Thus in the East the
tyrant is the enemy of the national cause; in the West, in Sicily, he is
its champion.
Tyranny is not a phenomenon peculiar to Greek history. It is possible to
find analogies to it in Roman history, in the power of Caesar, or of the
Caesars; in the despotisms of medieval Italy; or even in the Napoleonic
empire. Between the tyrant and the Italian despot there is indeed a real
analogy; but between the Roman principate and the Greek _tyrannis_ there
are two essential differences. In the first place, the principate was
expressed in constitutional forms, or veiled under constitutional
fictions; the tyrant stood altogether outside the constitution. And,
secondly, at Rome both Julius and Augustus owed their position to the
power of the sword. The power of the sword, it is true, plays a large
part in the history of the later tyrants (e.g. Dionysius of Syracuse);
the earlier ones, however, had no mercenary armies at their command. We
can hardly compare the bodyguard of Peisistratus to the legions of the
first or the second Caesar.
The view taken of the _tyrannis_ in Greek literature is almost uniformly
unfavourable. In this respect there is no difference between Plato and
Aristotle, or between Herodotus and the later historians.[11] His policy
is represented as purely selfish, and his rule as oppressive. Herodotus
is influenced partly by the traditions current among the oligarchs, who
had been the chief sufferers, and partly by the odious associations
which had gathered round tyranny in Asia Minor. The philosophers write
under their impressions of the later _tyrannis_, and their account is
largely an a priori one. It is seldom that we find any attempt, either
in the philosophers or the historians, to do justice to the real
services rendered by the tyrants.[12] Their first service was a
constitutional one. They helped to break down the power of the old
aristocratic houses, and thus to create the social and political
conditions indispensable to democracy. The _tyrannis_ involved the
sacrifice of liberty in the cause of equality. When tyranny falls, it is
never succeeded by the aristocracies which it had overthrown. It is
frequently succeeded by an oligarchy, but it is an oligarchy in which
the claim to exclusive power is based, not upon mere birth, but upon
wealth, or the possession of land. It would be unfair to treat this
service as one that was rendered unconsciously and unwillingly. Where
the tyrant asserted the claims of an oppressed class, he consciously
aimed at the destruction of privilege and the effacement of class
distinctions. Hence it is unjust to treat his power as resting upon mere
force. A government which can last eighty or a hundred years, as was the
case with the tyrannies at Corinth and Sicyon, must have a moral force
behind it. It must rest upon the consent of its subjects. The second
service which the tyrants rendered to Greece was a political one. Their
policy tended to break down the barriers which isolated each petty state
from its neighbours. In their history we can trace a system of
widespread alliances, which are often cemented by matrimonial
connexions. The Cypselid tyrants of Corinth appear to have been allied
with the royal families of Egypt, Lydia and Phrygia, as well as with the
tyrants of Miletus and Epidaurus, and with some of the great Athenian
families. In Sicily we find a league of the northern tyrants opposed to
a league of the southern; and in each ease there is a corresponding
matrimonial alliance. Anaxilaus of Rhegium is the son-in-law and ally of
Terillus of Himera; Gelo of Syracuse stands in the same relation to
Theron of Agrigentum. Royal marriages have played a great part in the
politics of Europe. In the comparison of Greek and modern history it has
been too often forgotten how great a difference it makes, and how great
a disadvantage it involves, to a republic that it has neither sons nor
daughters to give in marriage. In commerce and colonization the tyrants
were only continuing the work of the oligarchies to which they
succeeded. Greek trade owed its expansion to the intelligent efforts of
the oligarchs who ruled at Miletus and Corinth, in Samos, Aegina and
Euboea; but in particular cases, such as Miletus, Corinth, Sicyon and
Athens, there was a further development, and a still more rapid growth,
under the tyrants. In the same way, the foundation of the colonies was
in most cases due to the policy of the oligarchical governments. They
can claim credit for the colonies of Chalcis and Eretria, of Megara,
Phocaea and Samos, as well as for the great Achaean settlements in
southern Italy. The Cypselids at Corinth, and Thrasybulus at Miletus,
are instances of tyrants who colonized on a great scale.