CHAPTER II.

THE HELLENIC PEOPLE GENERALLY, IN THE EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES.

The territory indicated in the last chapter—south of Mount Olympus,

and south of the line which connects the city of Ambrakia with Mount

Pindus,—was occupied during the historical period by the central

stock of the Hellens, or Greeks, from which their numerous outlying

colonies were planted out.

Both metropolitans and colonists styled themselves Hellens, and were

recognized as such by each other; all glorying in the name as the

prominent symbol of fraternity;—all describing non-Hellenic men, or

cities, by a word which involved associations of repugnance. Our

term _barbarian_, borrowed from this latter word, does not express

the same idea; for the Greeks spoke thus indiscriminately of the

extra-Hellenic world, with all its inhabitants;[364] whatever might

be the gentleness of their character, and whatever might be their

degree of civilization. The rulers and people of Egyptian Thebes,

with their ancient and gigantic monuments, the wealthy Tyrians and

Carthaginians, the phil-Hellene Arganthonius of Tartêssus, and

the well-disciplined patricians of Rome (to the indignation of

old Cato,[365]) were all comprised in it. At first, it seemed to

have expressed more of repugnance than of contempt, and repugnance

especially towards the sound of a foreign language.[366] Afterwards,

a feeling of their own superior intelligence (in part well justified)

arose among the Greeks, and their term _barbarian_ was used so as to

imply a low state of the temper and intelligence; in which sense it

was retained by the semi-Hellenized Romans, as the proper antithesis

to their state of civilization. The want of a suitable word,

corresponding to _barbarian_, as the Greeks originally used it, is so

inconvenient in the description of Grecian phenomena and sentiments,

that I may be obliged occasionally to use the word in its primitive

sense.

[364] See the protest of Eratosthenês against the continuance of

the classification into Greek and Barbarian, after the latter

word had come to imply rudeness (ap. Strabo. ii. p. 66; Eratosth.

Fragm. Seidel. p. 85).

[365] Cato, Fragment. ed. Lion. p. 46; ap. Plin. H. N. xxii. 1.

A remarkable extract from Cato’s letter to his son, intimating

his strong antipathy to the Greeks; he proscribes their medicine

altogether, and admits only a slight taste of their literature:

“Quod bonum sit eorum literas inspicere, non per discere....

Jurarunt inter se, Barbaros necare omnes medicinâ, sed hoc ipsum

mercede faciunt, ut fides iis sit et facile disperdant. Nos

quoque dictitant Barbaros et spurios, nosque magis quam alios,

Opicos appellatione fœdant.”

[366] Καρῶν ἠγήσατο βαρβαροφώνων, Homer, Iliad, ii. 867. Homer

does not use the word βάρβαροι, or any words signifying either

a Hellen generally or a non-Hellen generally (Thucyd. i. 3).

Compare Strabo, viii. p. 370; and xiv. p. 662.

Ovid reproduces the primitive sense of the word βάρβαρος, when he

speaks of himself as an exile at Tomi (Trist. v. 10-37):—

“Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli.”

The Egyptians had a word in their language, the exact equivalent

of βάρβαρος in this sense (Herod. ii. 158).

The Hellens were all of common blood and parentage,—were all

descendants of the common patriarch Hellen. In treating of the

historical Greeks, we have to accept this as a datum: it represents

the sentiment under the influence of which they moved and acted. It

is placed by Herodotus in the front rank, as the chief of those four

ties which bound together the Hellenic aggregate: 1. Fellowship of

blood; 2. Fellowship of language; 3. Fixed domiciles of gods, and

sacrifices, common to all; 4. Like manners and dispositions.

_These_ (say the Athenians, in their reply to the Spartan envoys, in

the very crisis of the Persian invasion) “Athens will never disgrace

herself by betraying.” And Zeus Hellenius was recognized as the god

watching over and enforcing the fraternity thus constituted.[367]

[367] Herod. viii. 144. ...τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ

ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι, ἤθεα τε

ὁμότροπα· τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι. (_Ib._

x. 7.) Ἡμεῖς δὲ, Δία τε Ἑλλήνιον αἰδεσθέντες, καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα

δεινὸν ποιεύμενοι προδοῦναι, etc.

Compare Dikæarch. Fragm. p. 147, ed. Fuhr; and Thucyd. iii.

59,—τὰ κοινὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων νόμιμα... θεοὺς τοὺς ὁμοβωμίους καὶ

κοινοὺς τῶν Ἑλλήνων: also, the provision about the κοινὰ ἱερὰ in

the treaty between Sparta and Athens (Thuc. v. 18; Strabo, ix. p.

419).

It was a part of the proclamation solemnly made by the Eumolpidæ,

prior to the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, “All

non-Hellens to keep away,”—εἴργεσθαι τῶν ἱερῶν (Isocrates, Orat.

iv. Panegyr. p. 74).

Hekatæus, Herodotus, and Thucydidês,[368] all believed that there

had been an ante-Hellenic period, when different languages, mutually

unintelligible, were spoken between Mount Olympus and Cape Malea.

However this may be, during the historical times the Greek language

was universal throughout these limits,—branching out, however,

into a great variety of dialects, which were roughly classified by

later literary men into Ionic, Doric, Æolic, and Attic. But the

classification presents a semblance of regularity, which in point of

fact does not seem to have been realized; each town, each smaller

subdivision of the Hellenic name, having peculiarities of dialect

belonging to itself. Now the lettered men who framed the quadruple

division took notice chiefly, if not exclusively, of the written

dialects,—those which had been ennobled by poets or other authors;

the mere spoken idioms were for the most part neglected.[369] That

there was no such thing as one Ionic dialect in the speech of the

people called Ionic Greek, we know from the indisputable testimony of

Herodotus,[370] who tells us that there were four capital varieties

of speech among the twelve Asiatic towns especially known as Ionic.

Of course, the varieties would have been much more numerous if he

had given us the impressions of his ear in Eubœa, the Cyclades,

Massalia, Rhegium, and Olbia,—all numbered as Greeks and as Ionians.

The Ionic dialect of the grammarians was an extract from Homer,

Hekatæus, Herodotus, Hippocrates, etc.; to what living speech it made

the nearest approach, amidst those divergences which the historian

has made known to us, we cannot tell. Sapphô and Alkæus in Lesbos,

Myrtis and Korinna in Bœotia, were the great sources of reference

for the Lesbian and Bœotian varieties of the Æolic dialect,—of which

there was a third variety, untouched by the poets, in Thessaly.[371]

The analogy between the different manifestations of Doric and

Æolic, as well as that between the Doric generally and the Æolic

generally, contrasted with the Attic, is only to be taken as rough

and approximative.

[368] Hekatæ. Fragm. 356, ed. Klausen: compare Strabo, vii. p.

321; Herod. i. 57; Thucyd. i. 3,—κατὰ πόλεις τε, ~ὅσοι ἀλλήλων

συνίεσαν~, etc.

[369] “Antiqui grammatici eas tantum dialectos spectabant, quibus

scriptores usi essent: ceteras, quæ non vigebant nisi in ore

populi, non notabant.” (Ahrens, De Dialecto Æolicâ, p. 2.) The

same has been the case, to a great degree, even in the linguistic

researches of modern times, though printing now affords such

increased facility for the registration of popular dialects.

[370] Herod. i. 142.

[371] Respecting the three varieties of the Æolic dialect,

differing considerably from each other, see the valuable work of

Ahrens, De Dial. Æol. sect. 2, 32, 50.

But all these different dialects are nothing more than dialects,

distinguished as modifications of one and the same language, and

exhibiting evidence of certain laws and principles pervading them

all. They seem capable of being traced back to a certain ideal

mother-language, peculiar in itself and distinguishable from, though

cognate with, the Latin; a substantive member of what has been called

the Indo-European family of languages. This truth has been brought

out, in recent times, by the comparative examination applied to the

Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin, German, and Lithuanian languages, as

well as by the more accurate analysis of the Greek language itself

to which such studies have given rise, in a manner much more clear

than could have been imagined by the ancients themselves.[372] It is

needless to dwell upon the importance of this uniformity of language

in holding together the race, and in rendering the genius of its

most favored members available to the civilization of all. Except

in the rarest cases, the divergences of dialect were not such as

to prevent every Greek from understanding, and being understood

by, every other Greek,—a fact remarkable, when we consider how many

of their outlying colonists, not having taken out women in their

emigration, intermarried with non-Hellenic wives. And the perfection

and popularity of their early epic poems, was here of inestimable

value for the diffusion of a common type of language, and for thus

keeping together the sympathies of the Hellenic world.[373] The

Homeric dialect became the standard followed by all Greek poets

for the hexameter, as may be seen particularly from the example of

Hesiod,—who adheres to it in the main, though his father was a native

of the Æolic Kymê, and he himself resident at Askra, in the Æolic

Bœotia,—and the early iambic and elegiac compositions are framed on

the same model. Intellectual Greeks in all cities, even the most

distant outcasts from the central hearth, became early accustomed

to one type of literary speech, and possessors of a common stock of

legends, maxims, and metaphors.

[372] The work of Albert Giese, Ueber den Æolischen Dialekt

(unhappily not finished, on account of the early death of the

author,) presents an ingenious specimen of such analysis.

[373] See the interesting remarks of Dio Chrysostom on the

attachment of the inhabitants of Olbia (or Borysthenes) to the

Homeric poems: most of them, he says, could repeat the Iliad by

heart, though their dialect was partially barbarized, and the

city in a sad state of ruin (Dio Chrysost. Orat. xxxvi. p. 78,

Reisk).

That community of religious sentiments, localities, and sacrifices,

which Herodotus names as the third bond of union among the Greeks,

was a phenomenon, not (like the race and the language) interwoven

with their primitive constitution, but of gradual growth. In the

time of Herodotus, and even a century earlier, it was at its full

maturity: but there had been a period when no religious meetings

common to the whole Hellenic body existed. What are called the

Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, (the four most

conspicuous amidst many others analogous,) were, in reality, great

religious festivals,—for the gods then gave their special sanction,

name, and presence, to recreative meetings,—the closest association

then prevailed between the feelings of common worship and the

sympathy in common amusement.[374] Though this association is now

no longer recognized, it is, nevertheless, essential that we should

keep it fully before us, if we desire to understand the life and

proceedings of the Greeks. To Herodotus and his contemporaries, these

great festivals, then frequented by crowds from every part of Greece,

were of overwhelming importance and interest; yet they had once

been purely local, attracting no visitors except from a very narrow

neighborhood. In the Homeric poems, much is said about the common

gods, and about special places consecrated to and occupied by several

of them: the chiefs celebrate funeral games in honor of a deceased

father, which are visited by competitors from different parts of

Greece, but nothing appears to manifest public or town festivals open

to Grecian visitors generally.[375] And, though the rocky Pytho,

with its temple, stands out in the Iliad as a place both venerated

and rich,—the Pythian games, under the superintendence of the

Amphiktyons, with continuous enrolment of victors, and a Pan-Hellenic

reputation, do not begin until after the Sacred War, in the 48th

Olympiad, or 586 B. C.[376]

[374] Plato, Legg. ii. 1, p. 653; Kratylus, p. 406; and Dionys.

Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 1-2, p. 226,—Θεὸς μὲν γέ που πάντως πάσης

ἡστινοσοῦν πανηγύρεως ἡγεμὼν καὶ ἐπώνυμος· οἷον ὀλυμπίων μὲν,

Ὀλύμπιος Ζεὺς· τοῦ δ᾽ ἐν Πυθοῖ, Ἀπολλών.

Apollo, the Muses, and Dionysus are ξυνεορτασταὶ καὶ ξυγχορευταί

(Homer, Hymn to Apoll. 146). The same view of the sacred games

is given by Livy, in reference to the Romans and the Volsci (ii.

36-37): “Se, ut consceleratos contaminatosque, ab _ludis, festis

diebus, cœtu quodammodo hominum Deorumque_, abactos esse ...

ideo nos ab sede piorum, cœtu, concilioque abigi.” It is curious

to contrast this with the dislike and repugnance of Tertullian:

“Idololatria omnium ludorum mater est,—quod enim spectaculum sine

idolo, quis ludus sine sacrificio?” (De Spectaculis, p. 369.)

[375] Iliad, xxiii. 630-679. The games celebrated by Akastus, in

honor of Pelias, were famed in the old epic (Pausan. v. 17, 4;

Apollodôr. i. 9, 28).

[376] Strabo, ix. p. 421; Pausan. x. 7, 3. The first Pythian

games celebrated by the Amphiktyons, after the Sacred War,

carried with them a substantial reward to the victor (an ἀγὼν

χρηματίτης); but in the next, or second Pythian games, nothing

was given but an honorary reward, or wreath of laurel leaves

(ἀγὼν στεφανίτης): the first coincide with Olympiad 48, 3; the

second with Olympiad 49, 3.

Compare Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. Argument.: Pausan. x. 37, 4-5;

Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen, und Isthmien, sect. 3, 4, 5.

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo is composed at a time earlier than the

Sacred War, when Krissa is flourishing; earlier than the Pythian

games, as celebrated by the Amphiktyons.

The Olympic games, more conspicuous than the Pythian, as well as

considerably older, are also remarkable on another ground, inasmuch

as they supplied historical computers with the oldest backward

record of continuous time. It was in the year 776 B. C., that the

Eleians inscribed the name of their countryman, Korœbus, as victor

in the competition of runners, and that they began the practice

of inscribing in like manner, in each Olympic, or fifth recurring

year, the name of the runner who won the prize. Even for a long

time after this, however, the Olympic games seem to have remained a

local festival; the prize being uniformly carried off, at the first

twelve Olympiads, by some competitor either of Elis or its immediate

neighborhood. The Nemean and Isthmian games did not become notorious

or frequented until later even than the Pythian. Solôn,[377] in his

legislation, proclaimed the large reward of five hundred drachms for

every Athenian who gained an Olympic prize, and the lower sum of

one hundred drachms for an Isthmiac prize. He counts the former, as

Pan-Hellenic rank and renown, an ornament even to the city of which

the victor was a member,—the latter, as partial, and confined to the

neighborhood.

[377] Plutarch, Solôn, 23. The Isthmian Agon was to a certain

extent a festival of old Athenian origin; for among the many

legends respecting its first institution, one of the most

notorious represented it as having been founded by Theseus after

his victory over Sinis at the Isthmus (see Schol. ad Pindar.

Isth. Argument.; Pausan. ii. 1, 4), or over Skeirôn (Plutarch,

Theseus, c. 25). Plutarch says that they were first established

by Theseus as funeral games for Skeirôn, and Pliny gives the same

story (H. N. vii. 57). According to Hellanikus, the Athenian

Theôrs at the Isthmian games had a privileged place, (Plutarch,

_l. c._).

There is, therefore, good reason why Solôn should single out the

Isthmionikæ as persons to be specially rewarded, not mentioning

the Pythionikæ and Nemeonikæ,—the Nemean and Pythian games not

having then acquired Hellenic importance. Diogenes Laërt. (i.

55) says that Solôn provided rewards, not only for victories at

the Olympic and Isthmian, but also ἀνάλογον ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων, which

Krause (Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, sect. 3, p. 13) supposes

to be the truth: I think, very improbably. The sharp invective

of Timokreon against Themistocles, charging him among other

things with providing nothing but cold meat at the Isthmian games

(Ἰσθμοῖ δ᾽ ἐπανδόκευε γελοίως ψυχρὰ κρέα παρέχων, Plutarch.

Themistoc. c. 21), seems to imply that the Athenian visitors,

whom the Theôrs were called upon to take care of at those games,

were numerous.

Of the beginnings of these great solemnities, we cannot presume to

speak, except in mythical language: we know them only in their

comparative maturity. But the habit of common sacrifice, on a

small scale, and between near neighbors, is a part of the earliest

habits of Greece. The sentiment of fraternity, between two tribes

or villages, first manifested itself by sending a sacred legation,

or Theôria,[378] to offer sacrifice at each other’s festivals, and

to partake in the recreations which followed; thus establishing a

truce with solemn guarantee, and bringing themselves into direct

connection each with the god of the other under his appropriate

local surname. The pacific communion so fostered, and the increased

assurance of intercourse, as Greece gradually emerged from the

turbulence and pugnacity of the heroic age, operated especially in

extending the range of this ancient habit: the village festivals

became town festivals, largely frequented by the citizens of other

towns, and sometimes with special invitations sent round to attract

Theôrs from every Hellenic community,—and thus these once humble

assemblages gradually swelled into the pomp and immense confluence

of the Olympic and Pythian games. The city administering such holy

ceremonies enjoyed inviolability of territory during the month of

their occurrence, being itself under obligation at that time to

refrain from all aggression, as well as to notify by heralds[379]

the commencement of the truce to all other cities not in avowed

hostility with it. Elis imposed heavy fines upon other towns—even on

the powerful Lacedæmon—for violation of the Olympic truce, on pain of

exclusion from the festival in case of non-payment.

[378] In many Grecian states (as at Ægina, Mantineia, Trœzen,

Thasos, etc.) these Theôrs formed a permanent college, and seem

to have been invested with extensive functions in reference to

religious ceremonies: at Athens, they were chosen for the special

occasion (see Thucyd. v. 47; Aristotel. Polit. v. 8, 3; O.

Müller, Æginetica, p. 135; Demosthen. de Fals. Leg. p. 380).

[379] About the sacred truce, Olympian, Isthmian, etc., formally

announced by two heralds crowned with garlands sent from the

administering city, and with respect to which many tricks

were played, see Thucyd. v. 49; Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 7, 1-7;

Plutarch, Lycurg. 23; Pindar, Isthm. ii. 35,—σπονδοφόροι—κάρυκες

ὡρᾶν—Thucyd. viii. 9-10, is also peculiarly instructive in regard

to the practice and the feeling.

Sometimes this tendency to religious fraternity took a form called

an Amphiktyony, different from the common festival. A certain

number of towns entered into an exclusive religious partnership,

for the celebration of sacrifices periodically to the god of a

particular temple, which was supposed to be the common property,

and under the common protection of all, though one of the number

was often named as permanent administrator; while all other Greeks

were excluded. That there were many religious partnerships of this

sort, which have never acquired a place in history, among the early

Grecian villages, we may, perhaps, gather from the etymology of the

word, (Amphiktyons[380] designates residents around, or neighbors,

considered in the point of view of fellow-religionists,) as well as

from the indications preserved to us in reference to various parts of

the country. Thus there was an Amphiktyony[381] of seven cities at

the holy island of Kalauria, close to the harbor of Trœzên. Hermionê,

Epidaurus, Ægina, Athens, Prasiæ, Nauplia, and Orchomenus, jointly

maintained the temple and sanctuary of Poseidôn in that island, (with

which it would seem that the city of Trœzên, though close at hand,

had no connection,) meeting there at stated periods, to offer formal

sacrifices. These seven cities, indeed, were not immediate neighbors,

but the speciality and exclusiveness of their interest in the temple

is seen from the fact, that when the Argeians took Nauplia, they

adopted and fulfilled these religious obligations on behalf of the

prior inhabitants: so, also, did the Lacedæmonians, when they had

captured Prasiæ. Again, in Triphylia,[382] situated between the

Pisatid and Messenia, in the western part of Peloponnesus, there

was a similar religious meeting and partnership of the Triphylians

on Cape Samikon, at the temple of the Samian Poseidôn. Here,

the inhabitants of Makiston were intrusted with the details of

superintendence, as well as with the duty of notifying beforehand the

exact time of meeting, (a precaution essential amidst the diversities

and irregularities of the Greek calendar,) and also of proclaiming

what was called the Samian truce,—a temporary abstinence from

hostilities, which bound all Triphylians during the holy period. This

latter custom discloses the salutary influence of such institutions

in presenting to men’s minds a common object of reverence, common

duties, and common enjoyments; thus generating sympathies and

feelings of mutual obligation amidst petty communities not less

fierce than suspicious.[383] So, too, the twelve chief Ionic cities

in and near Asia Minor, had their Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony peculiar to

themselves: the six Doric cities, in and near the southern corner

of that peninsula, combined for the like purpose at the temple of

the Triopian Apollo; and the feeling of special partnership is here

particularly illustrated by the fact, that Halikarnassus, one of the

six, was formally extruded by the remaining five, in consequence

of a violation of the rules.[384] There was also an Amphiktyonic

union at Onchêstus in Bœotia, in the venerated grove and temple of

Poseidôn:[385] of whom it consisted, we are not informed. These are

some specimens of the sort of special religious conventions and

assemblies which seem to have been frequent throughout Greece. Nor

ought we to omit those religious meetings and sacrifices which were

common to all the members of one Hellenic subdivision, such as the

Pam-Bœotia to all the Bœotians, celebrated at the temple of the

Itonian Athênê near Korôneia,[386]—the common observances, rendered

to the temple of Apollo Pythaëus at Argos, by all those neighboring

towns which had once been attached by this religious thread to the

Argeians,—the similar periodical ceremonies, frequented by all who

bore the Achæan or Ætolian name,—and the splendid and exhilarating

festivals, so favorable to the diffusion of the early Grecian

poetry, which brought all Ionians at stated intervals to the sacred

island of Delos.[387] This latter class of festivals agreed with the

Amphiktyony, in being of a special and exclusive character, not open

to all Greeks.

[380] Pindar, Isthm. iii. 26 (iv. 14); Nem. vi. 40.

[381] Strabo, viii. p. 374.

[382] Strabo, viii. p. 343; Pausan v. 6, 1.

[383] At Iolkos, on the north coast of the Gulf of Pagasæ, and

at the borders of the Magnêtes, Thessalians, and Achæans of

Phthiôtis, was celebrated a periodical religious festival, or

panegyris, the title of which we are prevented from making out by

the imperfection of Strabo’s text (Strabo, ix. 436). It stands in

the text as printed in Tzschucke’s edition, Ἐνταῦθα δὲ καὶ τὴν

Πυλαϊκὴν πανήγυριν, συνετέλουν. The mention of Πυλαϊκὴ πανήγυρις,

which conducts us only to the Amphiktyonic convocations of

Thermopylæ and Delphi is here unsuitable; and the best or

Parisian MS. of Strabo presents a gap (one among the many which

embarrass the ninth book) in the place of the word Πυλαϊκὴν.

Dutneil conjectures τὴν Πελϊακὴν πανήγυριν, deriving the name

from the celebrated funeral games of the old epic celebrated by

Akastus in honor of his father Pelias. Grosskurd (in his note

on the passage) approves the conjecture, but it seems to me not

probable that a Grecian panegyris would be named after Pelias.

Πηλϊακήν, in reference to the neighboring mountain and town of

Pelion, might perhaps be less objectionable (see Dikæarch. Fragm.

pp. 407-409, ed. Fuhr.), but we cannot determine with certainty.

[384] Herod, i.; Dionys. Hal. iv. 25.

[385] Strabo, ix. p. 412; Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 232.

[386] Strabo, ix. p. 411.

[387] Thucyd. iii. 104; v. 55. Pausan. vii. 7, 1; 24, 3. Polyb.

v. 8; ii. 54. Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 146.

According to what seems to have been the ancient and sacred

tradition, the whole of the month Karneius was a time of peace

among the Dorians; though this was often neglected in practice

at the time of the Peloponnesian war (Thuc. v. 54). But it may

be doubted whether there was any festival of Karneia common to

all the Dorians: the Karneia at Sparta seems to have been a

Lacedæmonian festival.

But there was one amongst these many Amphiktyonies, which, though

starting from the smallest beginnings, gradually expanded into so

comprehensive a character, and acquired so marked a predominance

over the rest, as to be called The Amphiktyonic Assembly, and

even to have been mistaken by some authors for a sort of federal

Hellenic Diet. Twelve sub-races, out of the number which made up

entire Hellas, belonged to this ancient Amphiktyony, the meetings

of which were held twice in every year: in spring, at the temple of

Apollo at Delphi; in autumn, at Thermopylæ, in the sacred precinct

of Dêmêtêr Amphiktyonis. Sacred deputies, including a chief called

the Hieromnêmôn, and subordinates called the Pylagoræ, attended at

these meetings from each of the twelve races: a crowd of volunteers

seem to have accompanied them, for purposes of sacrifice, trade, or

enjoyment. Their special, and most important function, consisted in

watching over the Delphian temple, in which all the twelve sub-races

had a joint interest; and it was the immense wealth and national

ascendency of this temple, which enhanced to so great a pitch the

dignity of its acknowledged administrators.

The twelve constituent members were as follows: Thessalians,

Bœotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Lokrians, Œtæans,

Achæans, Phokians, Dolopes, and Malians.[388] All are counted as

_races_, (if we treat the Hellenes as a race, we must call these

_sub-races_,) no mention being made of cities:[389] all count equally

in respect to voting, two votes being given by the deputies from

each of the twelve: moreover, we are told that, in determining the

deputies to be sent, or the manner in which the votes of each race

should be given, the powerful Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, had no more

influence than the humblest Ionian, Dorian, or Bœotian city. This

latter fact is distinctly stated by Æschines, himself a pylagore sent

to Delphi by Athens. And so, doubtless, the theory of the case stood:

the votes of the Ionic races counted for neither more nor less than

two, whether given by deputies from Athens, or from the small towns

of Erythræ and Priênê; and, in like manner, the Dorian votes were as

good in the division, when given by deputies from Bœon and Kytinion

in the little territory of Doris, as if the men delivering them had

been Spartans. But there can be as little question that, in practice,

the little Ionic cities, and the little Doric cities, pretended to no

share in the Amphyktionic deliberations. As the Ionic vote came to be

substantially the vote of Athens, so, if Sparta was ever obstructed

in the management of the Doric vote, it must have been by powerful

Doric cities like Argos or Corinth, not by the insignificant towns

of Doris. But the theory of Amphiktyonic suffrage, as laid down by

Æschines, however little realized in practice during his day, is

important, inasmuch as it shows in full evidence the primitive and

original constitution. The first establishment of the Amphyktionic

convocation dates from a time when all twelve members were on a

footing of equal independence, and when there were no overwhelming

cities (such as Sparta and Athens) to cast in the shade the humbler

members,—when Sparta was only one Doric city, and Athens only one

Ionic city, among various others of consideration, not much inferior.

[388] The list of the Amphiktyonic constituency is differently

given by Æschines, by Harpokration, and by Pausanias. Tittmann

(Ueber den Amphiktyonischen Bund, sect. 3, 4, 5) analyzes and

compares their various statements, and elicits the catalogue

given in the text.

[389] Æschines, De Fals. Legat. p. 280, c. 36.—Κατηριθμησάμην δὲ

ἔθνη δώδεκα, τὰ μετέχοντα τοῦ ἱεροῦ ... καὶ τούτων ἔδειξα ἕκαστον

ἔθνος, ἰσόψηφον γενόμενον, τὸ μέγιστον τῷ ἐλάττονι, etc.

There are also other proofs which show the high antiquity of this

Amphiktyonic convocation. Æschines gives us an extract from the oath

which had been taken by the sacred deputies, who attended on behalf

of their respective races, ever since its first establishment, and

which still apparently continued to be taken in his day. The antique

simplicity of this oath, and of the conditions to which the members

bind themselves, betrays the early age in which it originated,

as well as the humble resources of those towns to which it was

applied.[390] “We will not destroy any Amphiktyonic town,—we will

not cut off any Amphiktyonic town from running water,”—such are the

two prominent obligations which Æschines specifies out of the old

oath. The second of the two carries us back to the simplest state

of society, and to towns of the smallest size, when the maidens

went out with their basins to fetch water from the spring, like the

daughters of Keleos at Eleusis, or those of Athens from the fountain

of Kallirrhoê.[391] We may even conceive that the special mention of

this detail, in the covenant between the twelve races, is borrowed

literally from agreements still earlier, among the villages or little

towns in which the members of each race were distributed. At any

rate, it proves satisfactorily the very ancient date to which the

commencement of the Amphiktyonic convocation must be referred. The

belief of Æschines (perhaps, also, the belief general in his time)

was, that it commenced simultaneously with the first foundation

of the Delphian temple,—an event of which we have no historical

knowledge; but there seems reason to suppose that its original

establishment is connected with Thermopylæ and Dêmêtêr Amphiktyonis,

rather than with Delphi and Apollo. The special surname by which

Dêmêtêr and her temple at Thermopylæ was known,[392]—the temple of

the hero Amphiktyon which stood at its side,—the word Pylæ, which

obtained footing in the language to designate the half-yearly meeting

of the deputies both at Thermopylæ and at Delphi,—these indications

point to Thermopylæ (the real central point for all the twelve)

as the primary place of meeting, and to the Delphian half-year as

something secondary and superadded. On such a matter, however, we

cannot go beyond a conjecture.

[390] Æschin. Fals. Legat. p. 279, c. 35: Ἅμα δ᾽ ἐξ ἀρχῆς

διεξῆλθον τὴν κτίσιν τοῦ ἱεροῦ, καὶ τὴν πρώτην σύνοδον γενομένην

τῶν Ἀμφικτυόνων, καὶ τοὺς ὅρκους αὐτῶν ἀνέγνων, ἐν οἷς ἔνορκον ἦν

τοῖς ἀρχαίοις μηδεμίαν πόλιν τῶν Ἀμφικτυονίδων ἀνάστατον ποιήσειν

μηδ᾽ ὑδάτων ναματιαίων εἴρξειν, etc.

[391] Homer, Iliad, vi. 457. Homer, Hymn to Dêmêtêr, 100, 107,

170. Herodot. vi. 137. Thucyd. ii. 15.

[392] Herodot. vii. 200; Livy, xxxi. 32.

The hero Amphiktyon, whose temple stood at Thermopylæ, passed in

mythical genealogy for the brother of Hellên. And it may be affirmed,

with truth, that the habit of forming Amphiktyonic unions, and of

frequenting each other’s religious festivals was the great means of

creating and fostering the primitive feeling of brotherhood among the

children of Hellên, in those early times when rudeness, insecurity,

and pugnacity did so much to isolate them. A certain number of

salutary habits and sentiments, such as that which the Amphiktyonic

oath embodies, in regard to abstinence from injury, as well as to

mutual protection,[393] gradually found their way into men’s minds:

the obligations thus brought into play, acquired a substantive

efficacy of their own, and the religious feeling which always

remained connected with them, came afterwards to be only one out of

many complex agencies by which the later historical Greek was moved.

Athens and Sparta in the days of their might, and the inferior cities

in relation to them, played each their own political game, in which

religious considerations will be found to bear only a subordinate

part.

[393] The festival of the Amarynthia in Eubœa, held at the temple

of Artemis of Amarynthus, was frequented by the Ionic Chalcis

and Eretria as well as by the Dryopic Karystus. In a combat

proclaimed between Chalcis and Eretria, to settle the question

about the possession of the plain of Lelantum, it was stipulated

that no missile weapons should be used by either party; this

agreement was inscribed and recorded in the temple of Artemis

(Strabo x. p. 448; Livy, xxxv. 38).

The special function of the Amphiktyonic council, so far as we

know it, consisted in watching over the safety, the interests, and

the treasures of the Delphian temple. “If any one shall plunder

the property of the god, or shall be cognizant thereof, or shall

take treacherous counsel against the things in the temple, we will

punish him with foot, and hand, and voice, and by every means in

our power.” So ran the old Amphiktyonic oath, with an energetic

imprecation attached to it.[394] And there are some examples in

which the council[395] construes its functions so largely as to

receive and adjudicate upon complaints against entire cities, for

offences against the religious and patriotic sentiment of the Greeks

generally. But for the most part its interference relates directly

to the Delphian temple. The earliest case in which it is brought to

our view, is the Sacred War against Kirrha, in the 46th Olympiad, or

595 B. C., conducted by Eurylochus, the Thessalian, and Kleisthenes

of Sikyôn, and proposed by Solôn of Athens:[396] we find the

Amphiktyons also, about half a century afterwards, undertaking the

duty of collecting subscriptions throughout the Hellenic world, and

making the contract with the Alkmæonids for rebuilding the temple

after a conflagration.[397] But the influence of this council is

essentially of a fluctuating and intermittent character. Sometimes

it appears forward to decide, and its decisions command respect;

but such occasions are rare, taking the general course of known

Grecian history; while there are other occasions, and those too

especially affecting the Delphian temple, on which we are surprised

to find nothing said about it. In the long and perturbed period

which Thucydidês describes, he never once mentioned the Amphiktyons,

though the temple and the safety of its treasures form the repeated

subject[398] as well of dispute as of express stipulation between

Athens and Sparta: moreover, among the twelve constituent members

of the council, we find three—the Perrhæbians, the Magnêtes, and

the Achæans of Phthia—who were not even independent, but subject to

the Thessalians, so that its meetings, when they were not matters

of mere form, probably expressed only the feelings of the three or

four leading members. When one or more of these great powers had a

party purpose to accomplish against others,—when Philip of Macedon

wished to extrude one of the members in order to procure admission

for himself,—it became convenient to turn this ancient form into a

serious reality, and we shall see the Athenian Æschines providing a

pretext for Philip to meddle in favor of the minor Bœotian cities

against Thebes, by alleging that these cities were under the

protection of the old Amphiktyonic oath.[399]

[394] Æschin. De Fals. Legat. c. 35, p. 279: compare adv.

Ktesiphont. c. 36, p. 406.

[395] See the charge which Æschines alleges to have been brought

by the Lokrians of Amphissa against Athens in the Amphiktyonic

Council (adv. Ktesiphont. c. 38, p. 409). Demosthenes contradicts

his rival as to the fact of the charge having been brought,

saying that the Amphisseans had not given the notice, customary

and required, of their intention to bring it: a reply which

admits that the charge _might_ be brought (Demosth. de Coronâ, c.

43, p. 277).

The Amphiktyons offer a reward for the life of Ephialtes, the

betrayer of the Greeks at Thermopylæ; they also erect columns to

the memory of the fallen Greeks in that memorable strait, the

place of their half-yearly meeting (Herod. vii. 213-228).

[396] Æschin. adv. Ktesiph. 1, c. Plutarch, Solôn, c. xi, who

refers to Aristotle ἐν τῇ τῶν Πυθιονικῶν ἀναγραφῇ—Pausan. x. 37,

4; Schol. ad Pindar, Nem. ix. 2. Τὰς Ἀμφικτυονικὰς δίκας, ὅσαι

πόλεσι πρὸς πόλεις εἰσίν (Strabo, ix. p. 420). These Amphiktyonic

arbitrations, however are of rare occurrence in history, and very

commonly abused.

[397] Herodot. ii. 180, v. 62.

[398] Thucyd. i. 112, iv. 118, v. 18. The Phokians in the

Sacred War (B. C. 354) pretended that they had an ancient and

prescriptive right to the administration of the Delphian temple,

under accountability to the general body of Greeks for the proper

employment of its possessions,—thus setting aside the Amphiktyons

altogether (Diodor. xvi. 27).

[399] Æschin. de Fals. Legat. p. 280, c. 36. The party intrigues

which moved the council in regard to the Sacred War against the

Phokians (B. C. 355) may be seen in Diodorus, xvi. 23-28, _seq._

It is thus that we have to consider the council as an element in

Grecian affairs,—an ancient institution, one amongst many instances

of the primitive habit of religious fraternization, but wider and

more comprehensive than the rest,—at first, purely religious, then

religious and political at once; lastly, more the latter than the

former,—highly valuable in the infancy, but unsuited to the maturity

of Greece, and called into real working only on rare occasions, when

its efficiency happened to fall in with the views of Athens, Thebes,

or the king of Macedon. In such special moments it shines with a

transient light which affords a partial pretence for the imposing

title bestowed on it by Cicero,—“commune Græciæ concilium:”[400] but

we should completely misinterpret Grecian history if we regarded it

as a federal council, habitually directing or habitually obeyed. Had

there existed any such “commune concilium” of tolerable wisdom and

patriotism, and had the tendencies of the Hellenic mind been capable

of adapting themselves to it, the whole course of later Grecian

history would probably have been altered; the Macedonian kings would

have remained only as respectable neighbors, borrowing civilization

from Greece, and expending their military energies upon Thracians and

Illyrians; while united Hellas might even have maintained her own

territory against the conquering legions of Rome.

[400] Cicero, De Invention. ii. 23. The representation of

Dionysius of Halikarnassus (Ant. Rom. iv. 25) overshoots the

reality still more.

About the common festivals and Amphiktyones of the Hellenic world

generally, see Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, vol. i.

sect. 22, 24, 25; also, C. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griech.

Staatsalterthümer, sect. 11-13.

The twelve constituent Amphiktyonic races remained unchanged until

the Sacred War against the Phokians (B. C. 355), after which, though

the number twelve was continued, the Phokians were disfranchised, and

their votes transferred to Philip of Macedon. It has been already

mentioned that these twelve did not exhaust the whole of Hellas.

Arcadians, Eleans, Pisans, Minyæ, Dryopes, Ætolians, all genuine

Hellens, are not comprehended in it; but all of them had a right

to make use of the temple of Delphi, and to contend in the Pythian

and Olympic games. The Pythian games, celebrated near Delphi, were

under the superintendence of the Amphiktyons,[401] or of some

acting magistrate chosen by and presumed to represent them: like

the Olympic games, they came round every four years (the interval

between one celebration and another being four complete years, which

the Greeks called a Pentaetêris): the Isthmian and Nemean games

recurred every two years. In its first humble form, of a competition

among bards to sing a hymn in praise of Apollo, this festival was

doubtless of immemorial antiquity;[402] but the first extension of

it into Pan-Hellenic notoriety (as I have already remarked), the

first multiplication of the subjects of competition, and the first

introduction of a continuous record of the conquerors, date only from

the time when it came under the presidency of the Amphiktyons, at

the close of the Sacred War against Kirrha. What is called the first

Pythian contest coincides with the third year of the 48th Olympiad,

or 585 B. C. From that period forward, the games become crowded and

celebrated: but the date just named, nearly two centuries after the

first Olympiad, is a proof that the habit of periodical frequentation

of festivals, by numbers and from distant parts, grew up but slowly

in the Grecian world.

[401] Plutarch, Sympos. vii. 5, 1.

[402] In this early phase of the Pythian festival, it is said

to have been celebrated every eight years, marking what we

should call an Octaetêris, and what the early Greeks called an

Ennaetêris (Censorinus, De Die Natali, c. 18). This period is

one of considerable importance in reference to the principle of

the Grecian calendar, for ninety-nine lunar months coincide very

nearly with eight solar years. The discovery of this coincidence

is ascribed by Censorinus to Kleostratus of Tenedos, whose

age is not directly known: he must be anterior to Meton, who

discovered the cycle of nineteen solar years, but (I imagine)

not much anterior. In spite of the authority of Ideler, it seems

to me not proved, nor can I believe, that this octennial period

with its solar and lunar coincidence was known to the Greeks in

the earliest times of their mythical antiquity, or before the

year 600 B. C. See Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i. p.

366; vol. ii. p. 607. The practice of the Eleians to celebrate

the Olympic games alternately after forty-nine and fifty lunar

months, though attested for a later time by the Scholiast on

Pindar, is not proved to be old. The fact that there were ancient

octennial recurring festivals, does not establish a knowledge

of the properties of the octaeteric or ennaeteric period: nor

does it seem to me that the details of the Bœotian δαφνηφορíα,

described in Proclus ap. Photium, sect. 239, are very ancient.

See, on the old mythical Octaetêris, O. Müller, Orchomenos 218,

_seqq._, and Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen, und Isthmien, sect. 4,

p. 22.

The foundation of the temple of Delphi itself reaches far beyond all

historical knowledge, forming one of the aboriginal institutions of

Hellas. It is a sanctified and wealthy place, even in the Iliad: the

legislation of Lykurgus at Sparta is introduced under its auspices,

and the earliest Grecian colonies, those of Sicily and Italy in

the eighth century B. C., are established in consonance with its

mandate. Delphi and Dodona appear, in the most ancient circumstances

of Greece, as universally venerated oracles and sanctuaries: and

Delphi not only receives honors and donations, but also answers

questions, from Lydians, Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, etc.: it is

not exclusively Hellenic. One of the valuable services which a Greek

looked for from this and other great religious establishments was,

that it should resolve his doubts in cases of perplexity,—that it

should advise him whether to begin a new, or to persist in an old

project,—that it should foretell what would be his fate under given

circumstances, and inform him, if suffering under distress, on what

conditions the gods would grant him relief. The three priestesses of

Dodona with their venerable oak, and the priestess of Delphi sitting

on her tripod under the influence of a certain gas or vapor exhaling

from the rock, were alike competent to determine these difficult

points: and we shall have constant occasion to notice in this

history, with what complete faith both the question was put and the

answer treasured up,—what serious influence it often exercised both

upon public and private proceeding.[403] The hexameter verses, in

which the Pythian priestess delivered herself, were, indeed, often so

equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all

anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the

result; yet the general faith in the oracle was noway shaken by such

painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of

being explained upon two hypotheses,—either that the god had spoken

falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood,—no

man of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were

many other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and Dodona:

Apollo was open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptôon in Bœotia,

at Abæ in Phokis, at Branchidæ near Miletus, at Patara in Lykia, and

other places: in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidôn

at Tænarus, Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallas, etc. And

this habit of consulting the oracle formed part of the still more

general tendency of the Greek mind to undertake no enterprise without

having first ascertained how the gods viewed it, and what measures

they were likely to take. Sacrifices were offered, and the interior

of the victim carefully examined, with the same intent: omens,

prodigies, unlooked-for coincidences, casual expressions, etc.,

were all construed as significant of the divine will. To sacrifice

with a view to this or that undertaking, or to consult the oracle

with the same view, are familiar expressions[404] embodied in the

language. Nor could any man set about a scheme with comfort, until

he had satisfied himself in some manner or other that the gods were

favorable to it.

[403] See the argument of Cicero in favor of divination, in the

first book of his valuable treatise De Divinatione. Chrysippus,

and the ablest of the stoic philosophers, both set forth a

plausible theory demonstrating, _a priori_, the probability of

prophetic warnings deduced from the existence and attributes of

the gods: if you deny altogether the occurrence of such warnings,

so essential to the welfare of man, you must deny either the

existence, or the foreknowledge, or the beneficence, of the

gods (c. 38). Then the veracity of the Delphian oracle had been

demonstrated in innumerable instances, of which Chrysippus had

made a large collection: and upon what other supposition could

the immense credit of the oracle be explained (c. 19)? “Collegit

innumerabilia oracula Chrysippus, et nullum sine locuplete teste

et auctore: quæ quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo. Defendo unum hoc:

nunquam illud oraculum Delphis tam celebre clarumque fuisset,

neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum et regum, nisi

omnis ætas oraculorum illorum veritatem esset experta.... Maneat

id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus,

multis sæculis verax fuisse id oraculum.” Cicero admits that it

had become less trustworthy in his time, and tries to explain

this decline of prophetic power: compare Plutarch, De Defect.

Oracul.

[404] Xenophon, Anabas. vii. 8, 20: Ὁ δὲ Ἀσιδάτης ἀκούσας, ὅτι

πάλιν ~ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν~ τεθυμένος εἴη ὁ Ξενοφὼν, ἐξαυλίζεται, etc.

Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2, 22: μὴ χρηστηριάζεσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐφ᾽

Ἑλλήνων πολέμῳ,—compare Iliad, vii. 450.

The disposition here adverted to is one of those mental analogies

pervading the whole Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates.

And the common habit among all Greeks, of respectfully listening

to the oracle of Delphi, will be found on many occasions useful in

maintaining unanimity among men not accustomed to obey the same

political superior. In the numerous colonies especially, founded

by mixed multitudes from distant parts of Greece, the minds of the

emigrants were greatly determined towards cordial coöperation by

their knowledge that the expedition had been directed, the œkist

indicated, and the spot either chosen or approved, by Apollo of

Delphi. Such in most cases was the fact: that god, according to the

conception of the Greeks, “takes delight always in the foundation of

new cities, and himself in person lays the first stone.”[405]

[405] Callimach. Hymn. Apoll. 55, with Spanheim’s note; Cicero,

De Divinat. i. 1.

These are the elements of union—over and above the common territory,

described in the last chapter—with which the historical Hellens

take their start: community of blood, language, religious point of

view, legends, sacrifices, festivals,[406] and also (with certain

allowances) of manners and character. The analogy of manners and

character between the rude inhabitants of the Arcadian Kynætha[407]

and the polite Athens, was indeed accompanied with wide differences:

yet if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries, we shall

find certain negative characteristics, of much importance, common

to both. In no city of historical Greece did there prevail either

human sacrifices,[408]—or deliberate mutilation, such as cutting

off the nose, ears, hands, feet, etc.,—or castration,—or selling

of children into slavery,—or polygamy,—or the feeling of unlimited

obedience towards one man: all customs which might be pointed out as

existing among the contemporary Carthaginians, Egyptians, Persians,

Thracians,[409] etc. The habit of running, wrestling, boxing, etc.,

in gymnastic contests, with the body perfectly naked,—was common to

all Greeks, having been first adopted as a Lacedæmonian fashion in

the fourteenth Olympiad: Thucydidês and Herodotus remark, that it

was not only not practised, but even regarded as unseemly, among

non-Hellens.[410] Of such customs, indeed, at once common to all the

Greeks, and peculiar to them as distinguished from others, we cannot

specify a great number; but we may see enough to convince ourselves

that there did really exist, in spite of local differences, a general

Hellenic sentiment and character, which counted among the cementing

causes of an union apparently so little assured.

[406] See this point strikingly illustrated by Plato, Repub. v.

pp. 470-471 (c. 16), and Isocrates, Panegyr. p. 102.

[407] Respecting the Arcadian Kynætha, see the remarkable

observations of Polybius iv. 17-23.

[408] See above, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 126 of this History.

[409] For examples and evidences of these practices, see Herodot.

ii. 162; the amputation of the nose and cars of Patarbêmis, by

Apries, king of Egypt (Xenophon, Anab. i. 9-13). There were a

large number of men deprived of hands, feet, or eyesight, in

the satrapy of Cyrus the younger, who had inflicted all these

severe punishments for the prevention of crime,—he did not (says

Xenophon) suffer criminals to scoff at him (εἴα καταγελᾷν).

The ἐκτομὴ was carried on at Sardis (Herodot. iii. 49),—500

παῖδες ἐκτόμιαι formed a portion of the yearly tribute paid by

the Babylonians to the court of Susa (Herod. iii. 92). Selling

of children for exportation by the Thracians (Herod. v. 6);

there is some trace of this at Athens, prior to the Solonian

legislation (Plutarch, Solôn, 23), arising probably out of the

cruel state of the law between debtor and creditor. For the

sacrifice of children to Kronus by the Carthaginians, in troubled

times, (according to the language of Ennius, “Pœni soliti suos

sacrificare puellos,”) Diodor. xx. 14; xiii. 86. Porphyr. de

Abstinent. ii. 56: the practice is abundantly illustrated in

Möver’s Die Religion der Phönizier, pp. 298-304.

Arrian blames Alexander for cutting off the nose and ears of the

Satrap Bêssus, saying that it was an act altogether barbaric,

(_i. e._ non-Hellenic,) (Exp. Al. iv. 7, 6.) About the σεβασμὸς

θεοπρεπὴς περὶ τὸν βασιλέα in Asia, see Strabo, xi. p. 526.

[410] Thucyd. i. 6: Herodot. i. 10.

For we must recollect that, in respect to political sovereignty,

complete disunion was among their most cherished principles. The

only source of supreme authority to which a Greek felt respect and

attachment, was to be sought within the walls of his own city.

Authority seated in another city might operate upon his fears,—might

procure for him increased security and advantages, as we shall have

occasion hereafter to show with regard to Athens and her subject

allies,—might even be mildly exercised, and inspire no special

aversion: but, still, the principle of it was repugnant to the

rooted sentiment of his mind, and he is always found gravitating

towards the distinct sovereignty of his own boulê, or ekklêsia.

This is a disposition common both to democracies and oligarchies,

and operative even among the different towns belonging to the same

subdivision of the Hellenic name,—Achæans, Phokians, Bœotians, etc.

The twelve Achæan cities are harmonious allies, with a periodical

festival which partakes of the character of a congress,—but equal

and independent political communities: the Bœotian towns, under the

presidency of Thebes, their reputed metropolis, recognize certain

common obligations, and obey, on various particular matters, chosen

officers named bœotarchs,—but we shall see, in this, as in other

cases, the centrifugal tendencies constantly manifesting themselves,

and resisted chiefly by the interests and power of Thebes. That

great, successful, and fortunate revolution, which merged the several

independent political communities of Attica into the single unity

of Athens, took place before the time of authentic history: it is

connected with the name of the hero Theseus, but we know not how it

was effected, while its comparatively large size and extent, render

it a signal exception to Hellenic tendencies generally.

Political disunion—sovereign authority within the city walls—thus

formed a settled maxim in the Greek mind. The relation between one

city and another was an international relation, not a relation

subsisting between members of a common political aggregate. Within

a few miles from his own city-walls, an Athenian found himself in

the territory of another city, wherein he was nothing more than an

alien,—where he could not acquire property in house or land, nor

contract a legal marriage with any native woman, nor sue for legal

protection against injury, except through the mediation of some

friendly citizen. The right of intermarriage, and of acquiring landed

property, was occasionally granted by a city to some individual

non-freeman, as matter of special favor, and sometimes (though very

rarely) reciprocated generally between two separate cities.[411]

But the obligations between one city and another, or between the

citizen of the one and the citizen of the other, are all matters of

special covenant, agreed to by the sovereign authority in each. Such

coexistence of entire political severance with so much fellowship

in other ways, is perplexing in modern ideas, and modern language

is not well furnished with expressions to describe Greek political

phenomena. We may say that an Athenian citizen was an _alien_ when he

arrived as a visitor in Corinth, but we can hardly say that he was

a _foreigner_; and though the relations between Corinth and Athens

were in principle _international_, yet that word would be obviously

unsuitable to the numerous petty autonomies of Hellas, besides that

we require it for describing the relations of Hellenes generally with

Persians or Carthaginians. We are compelled to use a word such as

_interpolitical_, to describe the transactions between separate Greek

cities, so numerous in the course of this history.

[411] Aristot. Polit. iii. 6, 12. It is unnecessary to refer

to the many inscriptions which confer upon some individual

non-freeman the right of ἐπιγαμία and ἔγκτησις.

As, on the one hand, a Greek will not consent to look for sovereign

authority beyond the limits of his own city, so, on the other hand,

he must have a city to look to: scattered villages will not satisfy

in his mind the exigencies of social order, security, and dignity.

Though the coalescence of smaller towns into a larger is repugnant

to his feelings, that of villages into a town appears to him a

manifest advance in the scale of civilization. Such, at least, is the

governing sentiment of Greece throughout the historical period; for

there was always a certain portion of the Hellenic aggregate—the

rudest and least advanced among them—who dwelt in unfortified

villages, and upon whom the citizen of Athens, Corinth, or Thebes,

looked down as inferiors. Such village residence was the character

of the Epirots[412] universally, and prevailed throughout Hellas

itself, in those very early and even ante-Homeric times upon which

Thucydidês looked back as deplorably barbarous;—times of universal

poverty and insecurity,—absence of pacific intercourse,—petty warfare

and plunder, compelling every man to pass his life armed,—endless

migration without any local attachments. Many of the considerable

cities of Greece are mentioned as aggregations of preëxisting

villages, some of them in times comparatively recent. Tegea and

Mantineia in Arcadia, represent, in this way, the confluence of eight

villages, and five villages respectively; Dymê in Achaia was brought

together out of eight villages, and Elis in the same manner, at a

period even later than the Persian invasion;[413] the like seems to

have happened with Megara and Tanagra. A large proportion of the

Arcadians continued their village life down to the time of the battle

of Leuktra, and it suited the purposes of Sparta to keep them thus

disunited; a policy which we shall see hereafter illustrated by the

dismemberment of Mantineia (into its primitive component villages),

which Agesilaus carried into effect, but which was reversed as soon

as the power of Sparta was no longer paramount,—as well as by the

foundation of Megalopolis out of a large number of petty Arcadian

towns and villages, one of the capital measures of Epameinondas.[414]

As this measure was an elevation of Arcadian importance, so the

reverse proceeding—the breaking up of a city into its elementary

villages—was not only a sentence of privation and suffering, but also

a complete extinction of Grecian rank and dignity.

[412] Skylax, Peripl. c. 28-33; Thucyd. ii. 80. See Dio

Chrysostom, Or. xlvii. p. 225, vol. ii. ed. Reisk,—μᾶλλον ἠροῦντο

διοικεσῖσθαι κατὰ κώμας, τοῖς βαρβάροις ὁμοίους, ἢ σχῆμα πόλεως

καὶ ὄνομα ἔχειν.

[413] Strabo, viii. pp. 337, 342, 386; Pausan. viii. 45, 1;

Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 17-37.

[414] Pausan. viii. 27, 2-5; Diod. xv. 72: compare Arist. Polit.

ii. 1, 5.

The description of the διοίκισις of Mantineia is in Xenophon,

Hellen. v. 2, 6-8: it is a flagrant example of his philo-Laconian

bias. We see by the case of the Phokians after the Sacred War,

(Diodor. xvi. 60; Pausan. x. 3, 2,) how heavy a punishment

this διοίκισις was. Compare, also, the instructive speech of

the Akanthian envoy Kleigenês, at Sparta, when he invoked

the Lacedæmonian interference for the purpose of crushing

the incipient federation, or junction of towns into a common

political aggregate, which was growing up round Olynthus (Xen.

Hellen. v. 2, 11-2). The wise and admirable conduct of Olynthus,

and the reluctance of the neighboring cities to merge themselves

in this union, are forcibly set forth; also, the interest of

Sparta in keeping all the Greek towns disunited. Compare the

description of the treatment of Capua by the Romans (Livy, xxvi.

16).

The Ozolian Lokrians, the Ætolians, and the Akarnanians maintained

their separate village residence down to a still later period,

preserving along with it their primitive rudeness and disorderly

pugnacity.[415] Their villages were unfortified, and defended only

by comparative inaccessibility; in case of need, they fled for

safety with their cattle into the woods and mountains. Amidst such

inauspicious circumstances, there was no room for that expansion

of the social and political feelings to which protected intramural

residence and increased numbers gave birth; there was no consecrated

acropolis or agora,—no ornamented temples and porticos, exhibiting

the continued offerings of successive generations,[416]—no theatre

for music or recitation, no gymnasium for athletic exercises,—none

of those fixed arrangements, for transacting public business with

regularity and decorum, which the Greek citizen, with his powerful

sentiment of locality, deemed essential to a dignified existence.

The village was nothing more than a fraction and a subordinate,

appertaining as a limb to the organized body called the city. But

the city and the state are in his mind, and in his language, one

and the same. While no organization less than the city can satisfy

the exigencies[417] of an intelligent freeman, the city is itself a

perfect and self-sufficient whole, admitting no incorporation into

any higher political unity. It deserves notice that Sparta, even

in the days of her greatest power, was not (properly speaking) a

city, but a mere agglutination of five adjacent villages, retaining

unchanged its old-fashioned trim: for the extreme defensibility of

its frontier and the military prowess of its inhabitants, supplied

the absence of walls, while the discipline imposed upon the Spartan,

exceeded in rigor and minuteness anything known in Greece. And thus

Sparta, though less than a city in respect to external appearance,

was more than a city in respect to perfection of drilling and fixity

of political routine. The contrast between the humble appearance

and the mighty reality, is pointed out by Thucydides.[418] The

inhabitants of the small territory of Pisa, wherein Olympia is

situated, had once enjoyed the honorable privilege of administering

the Olympic festival. Having been robbed of it, and subjected by the

more powerful Eleians, they took advantage of various movements and

tendencies among the larger Grecian powers to try and regain it; and

on one of these occasions, we find their claim repudiated because

they were villagers, and unworthy of so great a distinction.[419]

There was nothing to be called a city in the Pisatid territory.

[415] Thucyd. i. 5; iii. 94. Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 6, 5.

[416] Pausanias, x. 4, 1: his remarks on the Phokian πόλις

Panopeus indicate what he included in the idea of a πόλις: εἴγε

ὀνομάσαι τις πόλιν καὶ τούτους, οἷς γε οὐκ ἀρχεῖα, οὐ γυμνάσιόν

ἐστιν· οὐ θέατρον, οὐκ ἀγορὰν ἔχουσιν, οὐχ ὕδωρ κατερχόμενον ἐς

κρήνην· ἀλλὰ ἐν στέγαις κοίλαις κατὰ τὰς καλύβας μάλιστα τὰς ἐν

τοῖς ὄρεσιν, ἐνταῦθα οἰκοῦσιν ἐπὶ χαράδρᾳ. ὅμως δὲ ὅροι γε τῆς

χώρας εἰσὶν αὐτοῖς ἐς τοὺς ὁμόρους, καὶ ἐς τὸν σύλλογον συνέδρους

καὶ οὗτοι πέμπουσι τὸν Φωκικόν.

The μικρὰ πολίσματα of the Pelasgians on the peninsula of Mount

Athôs (Thucyd. iv. 109) seem to have been something between

villages and cities. When the Phokians, after the Sacred War,

were deprived of their cities and forced into villages by the

Amphiktyons, the order was that no village should contain more

than fifty houses, and that no village should be within the

distance of a furlong of any other (Diodor. xvi. 60).

[417] Aristot. Polit. i. 1, 8. ἡ δ᾽ ἐκ πλείονων κωμῶν κοινωνία

τέλειος πόλις ἡ δὴ πάσης ἔχουσα πέρας τῆς αὐταρκείας. Compare

also iii. 6, 14; and Plato, Legg. viii. p. 848.

[418] Thucyd. i. 10. οὔτε ξυνοικισθείσης πόλεως, οὔτε ἱεροῖς καὶ

κατασκευαῖς πολυτελέσι χρησαμένης, κατὰ κώμας δὲ τῷ παλαιῷ τῆς

Ἑλλάδος τρόπῳ οἰκισθείσης, φαίνοιτ᾽ ἂν ὑποδεεστέρα.

[419] Xenophon, Hellen. iii. 2, 31.

In going through historical Greece, we are compelled to accept

the Hellenic aggregate with its constituent elements as a primary

fact to start from, because the state of our information does not

enable us to ascend any higher. By what circumstances, or out of

what preëxisting elements, this aggregate was brought together

and modified, we find no evidence entitled to credit. There are,

indeed, various names which are affirmed to designate ante-Hellenic

inhabitants of many parts of Greece,—the Pelasgi, the Leleges,

the Kurêtes, the Kaukônes, the Aones, the Temmikes, the Hyantes,

the Telchines, the Bœotian Thracians, the Teleboæ, the Ephyri,

the Phlegyæ, etc. These are names belonging to legendary, not

to historical Greece,—extracted out of a variety of conflicting

legends, by the logographers and subsequent historians, who strung

together out of them a supposed history of the past, at a time when

the conditions of historical evidence were very little understood.

That these names designated real nations, may be true, but here our

knowledge ends. We have no well-informed witness to tell us their

times, their limits of residence, their acts, or their character;

nor do we know how far they are identical with or diverse from

the historical Hellens,—whom we are warranted in calling, not,

indeed, the first inhabitants of the country, but the first known

to us upon any tolerable evidence. If any man is inclined to

call the unknown ante-Hellenic period of Greece by the name of

Pelasgic, it is open to him to do so; but this is a name carrying

with it no assured predicates, noway enlarging our insight into

real history, nor enabling us to explain—what would be the real

historical problem—how or from whom the Hellens acquired that stock

of dispositions, aptitudes, arts, etc., with which they begin their

career. Whoever has examined the many conflicting systems respecting

the Pelasgi,—from the literal belief of Clavier, Larcher, and Raoul

Rochette, (which appears to me, at least, the most consistent

way of proceeding,) to the interpretative and half-incredulous

processes applied by abler men, such as Niebuhr, or O. Müller, or Dr.

Thirlwall,[420]—will not be displeased with my resolution to decline

so insoluble a problem. No attested facts are now present to us—none

were present to Herodotus and Thucydidês, even in their age—on which

to build trustworthy affirmations respecting the ante-Hellenic

Pelasgians. And where such is the case, we may without impropriety

apply the remark of Herodotus, respecting one of the theories which

he had heard for explaining the inundation of the Nile by a supposed

connection with the circumfluous Ocean,—that “the man who carries

up his story into the invisible world, passes out of the range of

criticism.”[421]

[420] Larcher, Chronologie d’Hérodote, ch. viii. pp. 215, 274;

Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques, book i. ch.

5; Niebuhr, Römische Geschichte, vol. i. pp. 26-64, 2d ed.

(the section entitled Die Oenotrer und Pelasger); O. Müller,

Die Etrusker, vol. i. (Einleitung, ch. ii. pp. 75-100); Dr.

Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. i. ch. ii. pp. 36-64. The

dissentient opinions of Kruse and Mannert may be found in Kruse,

Hellas, vol. i. pp. 398-425; Mannert, Geographie der Griechen und

Römer, part viii. Introduct. p. 4, _seqq._

Niebuhr puts together all the mythical and genealogical traces,

many of them in the highest degree vague and equivocal, of the

existence of Pelasgi in various localities; and then, summing

up their cumulative effect, asserts (“not as an hypothesis, but

with full historical conviction,” p. 54) “that there was a time

when the Pelasgians, perhaps the most extended people in all

Europe, were spread from the Po and the Arno to the Rhyndakus,”

(near Kyzikus,) with only an interruption in Thrace. What is

perhaps the most remarkable of all, is the contrast between his

feeling of disgust, despair, and aversion to the subject, when he

begins the inquiry (“_the name Pelasgi_,” he says, “_is odious

to the historian, who hates the spurious philology out of which

the pretences to knowledge on the subject of such extinct people

arise_,” p. 28), and the full confidence and satisfaction with

which he concludes it.

[421] Herodot. ii. 23: Ὁ δὲ περὶ τοῦ Ὠκεάνου εἴπας, ἐς ἀφανὲς τὸν

μῦθον ἀνενείκας, οὐκ ἔχει ἔλεγχον.

As far as our knowledge extends, there were no towns or villages

called Pelasgian, in Greece proper, since 776 B. C. But there still

existed in two different places, even in the age of Herodotus, people

whom he believed to be Pelasgians. One portion of these occupied the

towns of Plakia and Skylakê near Kyzikus, on the Propontis; another

dwelt in a town called Krêstôn, near the Thermaic gulf.[422] There

were, moreover, certain other Pelasgian townships which he does not

specify,—it seems, indeed, from Thucydides, that there were some

little Pelasgian townships on the peninsula of Athos.[423] Now,

Herodotus acquaints us with the remarkable fact, that the people

of Krêstôn, those of Plakia and Skylakê, and those of the other

unnamed Pelasgian townships, all spoke the same language, and each of

them respectively a different language from their neighbors around

them. He informs us, moreover, that their language was a barbarous

(_i. e._ a non-Hellenic) language; and this fact he quotes as an

evidence to prove that the ancient Pelasgian language was a barbarous

language, or distinct from the Hellenic. He at the same time states

expressly that he has no positive knowledge what language the ancient

Pelasgians spoke,—one proof, among others, that no memorials nor

means of distinct information concerning that people, could have been

open to him.

[422] That Krêstôn is the proper reading in Herodotus, there

seems every reason to believe—not Krotôn, as Dionys. Hal.

represents it (Ant. Rom. i. 26)—in spite of the authority of

Niebuhr in favor of the latter.

[423] Thucyd. iv. 109. Compare the new Fragmenta of Strabo, lib.

vii. edited from the Vatican MS. by Kramer, and since by Tafel

(Tübingen, 1844), sect. 34, p. 26,—ᾤκησαν δὲ τὴν Χεῤῥόνησον

ταύτην τῶν ἐκ Λήμνου Πελασγῶν τινες, εἰς πέντε διῃρήμενοι

πολίσματα· Κλεωνὰς, Ὀλόφυχον, Ἀκροθώους, Δῖον, Θύσσον.

This is the one single fact, amidst so many conjectures concerning

the Pelasgians, which we can be said to know upon the testimony of

a competent and contemporary witness: the few townships—scattered

and inconsiderable, but all that Herodotus in his day knew as

Pelasgian—spoke a barbarous language. And upon such a point, he must

be regarded as an excellent judge. If, then, (infers the historian,)

all the early Pelasgians spoke the same language as those of Krêstôn

and Plakia, they must have changed their language at the time when

they passed into the Hellenic aggregate, or became Hellens. Now,

Herodotus conceives that aggregate to have been gradually enlarged

to its great actual size by incorporating with itself not only the

Pelasgians, but several other nations once barbarians;[424] the

Hellens having been originally an inconsiderable people. Among those

other nations once barbarian, whom Herodotus supposes to have become

Hellenized, we may probably number the Leleges; and with respect to

them, as well as to the Pelasgians, we have contemporary testimony

proving the existence of barbarian Leleges in later times. Philippus,

the Karian historian, attested the present existence, and believed in

the past existence, of Leleges in his country, as serfs or dependent

cultivators under the Karians, analogous to the Helots in Laconia,

or the Penestæ in Thessaly.[425] We may be very sure that there were

no Hellens—no men speaking the Hellenic tongue—standing in such a

relation to the Karians. Among those many barbaric-speaking nations

whom Herodotus believed to have changed their language and passed

into Hellens, we may, therefore, fairly consider the Leleges to have

been included. For next to the Pelasgians and Pelasgus, the Leleges

and Lelex figure most conspicuously in the legendary genealogies; and

both together cover the larger portion of the Hellenic soil.

[424] Herod. i. 57. προσκεχωρηκότων αὐτῷ καὶ ἄλλων ἐθνέων

βαρβάρων συχνῶν.

[425] Athenæ. vi. p. 271. Φίλιππος ἐν τῷ περὶ Καρῶν καὶ Λελέγων

συγγράμματι, καταλέξας τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίων Εἵλωτας καὶ τοὺς

Θετταλικοὺς πενέστας, καὶ Κᾶράς φησι τοῖς Λέλεξιν ὡς οἰκέταις

χρήσασθαι ~πάλαι τε καὶ νῦν~.

Confining myself to historical evidence, and believing that no

assured results can be derived from the attempt to transform legend

into history, I accept the statement of Herodotus with confidence, as

to the barbaric language spoken by the Pelasgians of his day; and I

believe the same with regard to the historical Leleges,—but without

presuming to determine anything in regard to the legendary Pelasgians

and Leleges, the supposed ante-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece. And I

think this course more consonant to the laws of historical inquiry

than that which comes recommended by the high authority of Dr.

Thirlwall, who softens and explains away the statement of Herodotus,

until it is made to mean only that the Pelasgians of Plakia and

Krêstôn spoke a very bad Greek. The affirmation of Herodotus is

distinct, and twice repeated, that the Pelasgians of these towns,

and of his own time, spoke a barbaric language; and that word

appears to me to admit of but one interpretation.[426] To suppose

that a man, who, like Herodotus, had heard almost every variety of

Greek, in the course of his long travels, as well as Egyptian,

Phœnician, Assyrian, Lydian, and other languages, did not know how

to distinguish bad Hellenic from non-Hellenic, is, in my judgment,

inadmissible; at any rate, the supposition is not to be adopted

without more cogent evidence than any which is here found.

[426] Herod, i. 57. Ἥντινα δὲ γλῶσσαν ἴεσαν οἱ Πελασγοὶ, οὐκ ἔχω

ἀτρεκέως εἶπαι. εἰ δὲ χρεών ἐστι τεκμαιρόμενοις λέγειν τοῖσι νῦν

ἔτι ἐοῦσι Πελασγῶν, τῶν ὑπὲρ Τυρσηνῶν Κρηστῶνα πόλιν οἰκεόντων

... καὶ τὴν Πλακιήν τε καὶ Σκυλάκην Πελασγῶν οἰκισάντων ἐν

Ἑλλησπόντῳ ... καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα Πελασγικὰ ἐόντα πολίσματα τὸ οὔνομα

μετέβαλε· εἰ τουτοῖσι δεῖ λέγειν, ἦσαν οἱ Πελασγοὶ βάρβαρον

γλῶσσαν ἱέντες. Εἰ τοίνυν ἦν καὶ πᾶν τοιοῦτο τὸ Πελασγικὸν, τὸ

Ἀττικὸν ἔθνος, ἐὸν Πελασγικὸν ἅμα τῇ μεταβολῇ τῇ ἐς Ἕλληνας καὶ

τὴν γλῶσσαν μετέμαθε· καὶ γὰρ δὴ οὔτε οἱ Κρηστωνιῆται οὐδάμοισι

τῶν νῦν σφέας περιοικεόντων εἰσὶ ὁμόγλωσσοι, οὔτε οἱ Πλακιηνοί·

σφίσι δὲ, ὁμόγλωσσοι. δηλοῦσι δὲ, ὅτι τὸν ἠνείκαντο ~γλώσσης

χαρακτῆρα~ μεταβαίνοντες ἐς ταῦτα τὰ χωρία, τοῦτον ἔχουσι ἐν

φυλακῇ.

In the next chapter, Herodotus again calls the Pelasgian nation

βάρβαρον.

Respecting this language, heard by Herodotus at Krêstôn and

Plakia, Dr. Thirlwall observes (chap. ii. p. 60), “This language

Herodotus describes as barbarous, and it is on this fact he

grounds his general conclusion as to the ancient Pelasgian

tongue. But he has not entered into any details that might

have served to ascertain the manner or degree in which it

differed from the Greek. Still, the expressions he uses would

have appeared to imply that it was essentially foreign, had he

not spoken quite as strongly in another passage, where it is

impossible to ascribe a similar meaning to his words. When he

is enumerating the dialects that prevailed among the Ionian

Greeks, he observes that the Ionian cities in Lydia agree not

at all in their tongue with those of Karia; and he applies the

very same term to these dialects, which he had before used in

speaking of the remains of the Pelasgian language. This passage

affords a measure by which we may estimate the force of the word

_barbarian_ in the former. Nothing more can be safely inferred

from it, than that the Pelasgian language which Herodotus heard

on the Hellespont, and elsewhere, sounded to him a strange

jargon: as did the dialect of Ephesus to a Milesian, and as

the Bolognese does to a Florentine. This fact leaves its real

nature and relation to the Greek quite uncertain; and we are the

less justified in building on it, as the history of Pelasgian

settlements is extremely obscure, and the traditions which

Herodotus reports on that subject have by no means equal weight

with statements made from his personal observation.” (Thirlwall,

History of Greece, ch. ii. p. 60, 2d edit.)

In the statement delivered by Herodotus (to which Dr. Thirlwall

here refers) about the language spoken in the Ionic Greek cities,

the historian had said (i. 142),—Γλῶσσαν δὲ οὐ τὴν αὐτὴν οὗτοι

νενομίκασι, ἀλλὰ τρόπους τέσσερας παραγωγέων. Miletus, Myus, and

Priêne,—ἐν τῇ Καρίῃ κατοίκηνται κατὰ ταὐτὰ διαλεγόμεναί σφι.

Ephesus, Kolophon, etc.,—αὐται αἱ πόλιες τῇσι πρότερον λεχθείσῃσι

ὁμολογέουσι κατὰ γλῶσσαν οὐδὲν, σφὶ δὲ ὁμοφωνέουσι. The Chians

and Erythræans,—κατὰ τὠϋτὸ διαλέγονται, Σάμιοι δὲ ἐπ᾽ ἑωϋτῶν

μοῦνοι. Οὗτοι χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης τέσσερες γίγνονται.

The words γλώσσης χαρακτὴρ (“distinctive mode of speech”) are

common to both these passages, but their meaning in the one and

in the other is to be measured by reference to the subject-matter

of which the author is speaking, as well as to the words which

accompany them,—especially the word βάρβαρος in the first

passage. Nor can I think (with Dr. Thirlwall) that the meaning of

βάρβαρος is to be determined by reference to the other two words:

the reverse is, in my judgment, correct. Βάρβαρος is a term

definite and unequivocal, but γλώσσης χαρακτὴρ varies according

to the comparison which you happen at the moment to be making,

and its meaning is here determined by its conjunction with

βάρβαρος.

When Herodotus was speaking of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia,

he might properly point out the differences of speech among them

as so many different χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης: the limits of difference

were fixed by the knowledge which his hearers possessed of

the persons about whom he was speaking; the Ionians being all

notoriously Hellens. So an author, describing Italy, might say

that Bolognese, Romans, Neapolitans, Genoese, etc. had different

χαρακτῆρες γλώσσης; it being understood that the difference was

such as might subsist among persons all Italians.

But there is also a χαρακτῆρ γλώσσης of Greek generally

(abstraction made of its various dialects and diversities), as

contrasted with Persian, Phœnician, or Latin,—and of Italian

generally, as contrasted with German or English. It is this

comparison which Herodotus is taking, when he describes the

language spoken by the people of Krêstôn and Plakia, and which

he notes by the word βάρβαρον as opposed to Ἑλληνικόν: it is

with reference to this comparison that χαρακτῆρ γλώσσης, in the

fifty-seventh chapter, is to be construed. The word βάρβαρος is

the usual and recognized antithesis of Ἕλλην, or Ἑλληνικός.

It is not the least remarkable part of the statement of

Herodotus, that the language spoken at Krêstôn and at Plakia

was the same, though the places were so far apart from each

other. This identity of itself shows that he meant to speak of a

substantive language, not of a “strange jargon.”

I think it, therefore, certain that Herodotus pronounces the

Pelasgians of his day to speak a substantive language different

from Greek; but whether differing from it in a greater or less

degree (_e. g._ in the degree of Latin or of Phœnician), we have

no means of deciding.

As I do not presume to determine what were the antecedent internal

elements out of which the Hellenic aggregate was formed, so I

confess myself equally uninformed with regard to its external

constituents. Kadmus, Danaus, Kekrops,—the eponyms of the Kadmeians,

of the Danaans, and of the Attic Kekropia,—present themselves to my

vision as creatures of legend, and in that character I have already

adverted to them. That there may have been very early settlements in

continental Greece, from Phœnicia and Egypt, is nowise impossible;

but I see neither positive proof, nor ground for probable inference,

that there were any such, though traces of Phœnician settlements

in some of the islands may doubtless be pointed out. And if we

examine the character and aptitudes of Greeks, as compared either

with Egyptians or Phœnicians, it will appear that there is not only

no analogy, but an obvious and fundamental contrast: the Greek

may occasionally be found as a borrower from these ultramarine

contemporaries, but he cannot be looked upon as their offspring or

derivative. Nor can I bring myself to accept an hypothesis which

implies (unless we are to regard the supposed foreign emigrants

as very few in number, in which case the question loses most of

its importance) that the Hellenic language—the noblest among the

many varieties of human speech, and possessing within itself a

pervading symmetry and organization—is a mere confluence of two

foreign barbaric languages (Phœnician and Egyptian) with two or more

internal barbaric languages,—Pelasgian, Lelegian, etc. In the mode

of investigation pursued by different historians into this question

of early foreign colonies, there is great difference (as in the case

of the Pelasgi) between the different authors,—from the acquiescent

Euemerism of Raoul Rochette to the refined distillation of Dr.

Thirlwall, in the third chapter of his History. It will be found that

the amount of positive knowledge which Dr. Thirlwall guarantees to

his readers in that chapter is extremely inconsiderable; for though

he proceeds upon the general theory (different from that which I

hold) that historical matter may be distinguished and elicited from

the legends, yet when the question arises respecting any definite

historical result, his canon of credibility is too just to permit him

to overlook the absence of positive evidence, even when all intrinsic

incredibility is removed. That which I note as Terra Incognita, is in

his view a land which may be known up to a certain point; but the map

which he draws of it contains so few ascertained places as to differ

very little from absolute vacuity.

The most ancient district called Hellas is affirmed by Aristotle to

have been near Dôdôna and the river Achelôus,—a description which

would have been unintelligible (since the river does not flow near

Dôdôna), if it had not been qualified by the remark, that the river

had often in former times changed its course. He states, moreover,

that the deluge of Deukaliôn took place chiefly in this district,

which was in those early days inhabited by the Selli, and by the

people then called Græci, but now Hellenes.[427] The Selli (called

by Pindar, Helli) are mentioned in the Iliad as the ministers of the

Dodonæan Zeus,—“men who slept on the ground, and never washed their

feet;” and Hesiod, in one of the lost poems (the Eoiai), speaks of

the fat land and rich pastures of the land called Hellopia, wherein

Dôdôna was situated.[428] On what authority Aristotle made his

statement, we do not know; but the general feeling of the Greeks was

different,—connecting Deukaliôn, Hellen, and the Hellenes, primarily

and specially with the territory called Achaia Phthiôtis, between

Mount Othrys and Œta. Nor can we either affirm or deny his assertion

that the people in the neighborhood of Dôdôna were called Græci

before they were called Hellenes. There is no ascertained instance

of the mention of a people called Græci, in any author earlier than

this Aristotelian treatise; for the allusions to Alkman and Sophoklês

prove nothing to the point.[429] Nor can we explain how it came

to pass that the Hellenes were known to the Romans only under the

name of Græci, or Graii. But the name by which a people is known to

foreigners is often completely different from its own domestic name,

and we are not less at a loss to assign the reason, how the Rasena

of Etruria came to be known to the Romans by the name of Tuscans, or

Etruscans.

[427] Aristotel. Meteorol. i. 14.

[428] Homer, Iliad, xvi. 234; Hesiod, Fragm. 149, ed.

Marktscheffel; Sophokl. Trachin. 1174; Strabo, vii. p. 328.

[429] Stephan. Byz. v. Γραικὸς.—Γραῖκες δὲ παρὰ τῷ Ἀλκμᾶνι αἱ

τῶν Ἑλλήνων μητέρες, καὶ παρὰ Σοφοκλεῖ ἐν Ποίμεσιν. ἐστὶ δὲ

μεταπλασμὸς, ἢ τῆς Γραὶξ εὐθείας κλίσις ἐστίν.

The word Γραῖκες, in Alkman, meaning “the mothers of the

Hellenes,” may well be only a dialectic variety of γρᾶες,

analogous to κλᾲξ and ὄρνιξ, for κλεὶς, ὄρνις, etc. (Ahrens, De

Dialecto Doricâ, sect. 11, p. 91; and sect. 31, p. 242), perhaps

declined like γυναῖκες.

The term used by Sophoklês, if we may believe Photius, was not

Γραικὸς, but Ῥαικός (Photius, p. 480, 15; Dindorf, Fragment.

Soph. 933: compare 455). Eustathius (p. 890) seems undecided

between the two.