MEMBERS OF THE HELLENIC AGGREGATE, SEPARATELY TAKEN.—GREEKS NORTH OF
PELOPONNESUS.
Having in the preceding chapter touched upon the Greeks in their
aggregate capacity, I now come to describe separately the portions
of which this aggregate consisted, as they present themselves at the
first discernible period of history.
It has already been mentioned that the twelve races or subdivisions,
members of what is called the Amphiktyonic convocation, were as
follows:—
North of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Thessalians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes,
Achæans, Melians, Ænianes, Dolopes.
South of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Dorians, Ionians, Bœotians,
Lokrians, Phokians.
Other Hellenic races, not comprised among the Amphiktyons, were—
The Ætolians and Akarnanians, north of the gulf of Corinth.
The Arcadians, Eleians, Pisatans, and Triphylians, in the central and
western portion of Peloponnêsus: I do not here name the Achæans, who
occupied the southern or Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian gulf,
because they may be presumed to have been originally of the same race
as the Phthiot Achæans, and therefore participant in the Amphiktyonic
constituency, though their actual connection with it may have been
disused.
The Dryopes, an inconsiderable, but seemingly peculiar subdivision,
who occupied some scattered points on the sea-coast,—Hermionê on
the Argolic peninsula; Styrus and Karystus in Eubœa; the island of
Kythnus, etc.
Though it may be said, in a general way, that our historical
discernment of the Hellenic aggregate, apart from the illusions of
legend, commences with 776 B. C., yet, with regard to the larger
number of its subdivisions just enumerated, we can hardly be said to
possess any specific facts anterior to the invasion of Xerxes in 480
B. C. Until the year 560 B. C., (the epoch of Crœsus in Asia Minor,
and of Peisistratus at Athens,) the history of the Greeks presents
hardly anything of a collective character: the movements of each
portion of the Hellenic world begin and end apart from the rest. The
destruction of Kirrha by the Amphiktyons is the first historical
incident which brings into play, in defence of the Delphian temple, a
common Hellenic feeling of active obligation.
But about 560 B. C., two important changes are seen to come into
operation, which alter the character of Grecian history,—extricating
it out of its former chaos of detail, and centralizing its isolated
phenomena: 1. The subjugation of the Asiatic Greeks by Lydia and
by Persia, followed by their struggles for emancipation,—wherein
the European Greeks became implicated, first as accessories, and
afterwards as principals. 2. The combined action of the large mass of
Greeks under Sparta, as their most powerful state and acknowledged
chief, succeeded by the rapid and extraordinary growth of Athens,
the complete development of Grecian maritime power, and the struggle
between Athens and Sparta for the headship. These two causes, though
distinct in themselves, must, nevertheless, be regarded as working
together to a certain degree,—or rather, the second grew out of the
first. For it was the Persian invasions of Greece which first gave
birth to a wide-spread alarm and antipathy among the leading Greeks
(we must not call it Pan-Hellenic, since more than half of the
Amphiktyonic constituency gave earth and water to Xerxes) against
the barbarians of the East, and impressed them with the necessity
of joint active operations under a leader. The idea of a leadership
or hegemony of collective Hellas, as a privilege necessarily vested
in some one state for common security against the barbarians, thus
became current,—an idea foreign to the mind of Solôn, or any one
of the same age. Next, came the miraculous development of Athens,
and the violent contest between her and Sparta, which should be
the leader; the larger portion of Hellas taking side with one or
the other, and the common quarrel against the Persian being for
the time put out of sight. Athens is put down, Sparta acquires the
undisputed hegemony, and again the anti-barbaric feeling manifests
itself, though faintly, in the Asiatic expeditions of Agesilaus.
But the Spartans, too incompetent either to deserve or maintain
this exalted position, are overthrown by the Thebans,—themselves
not less incompetent, with the single exception of Epameinondas.
The death of that single man extinguishes the pretensions of Thebes
to the hegemony, and Hellas is left, like the deserted Penelopê in
the Odyssey, worried by the competition of several suitors, none
of whom is strong enough to stretch the bow on which the prize
depends.[430] Such a manifestation of force, as well as the trampling
down of the competing suitors, is reserved, not for any legitimate
Hellenic arm, but for a semi-Hellenized[431] Macedonian, “brought
up at Pella,” and making good his encroachments gradually from the
north of Olympus. The hegemony of Greece thus passes forever out of
Grecian hands; but the conqueror finds his interest in rekindling
the old sentiment under the influence of which it had first sprung
up. He binds to him the discordant Greeks, by the force of their
ancient and common antipathy against the Great King, until the
desolation and sacrilege once committed by Xerxes at Athens is
avenged by annihilation of the Persian empire. And this victorious
consummation of Pan-Hellenic antipathy,—the dream of Xenophon[432]
and the Ten Thousand Greeks after the battle of Kunaxa,—the hope of
Jason of Pheræ,—the exhortation of Isokratês,[433]—the project of
Philip, and the achievement of Alexander,—while it manifests the
irresistible might of Hellenic ideas and organization in the then
existing state of the world, is at the same time the closing scene
of substantive Grecian life. The citizen-feelings of Greece become
afterwards merely secondary forces, subordinate to the preponderance
of Greek mercenaries under Macedonian order, and to the rudest of all
native Hellens,—the Ætolian mountaineers. Some few individuals are
indeed found, even in the third century B. C., worthy of the best
times of Hellas, and the Achæan confederation of that century is an
honorable attempt to contend against irresistible difficulties: but
on the whole, that free, social, and political march, which gives so
much interest to the earlier centuries, is irrevocably banished from
Greece after the generation of Alexander the Great.
[430] Xenophon, Hellen. vii. 5, 27; Demosthenes, De Coron. c. 7,
p. 231—ἀλλά τις ἦν ἄκριτος καὶ παρὰ τούτοις καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις
Ἕλλησιν ἔρις καὶ ταπαχή.
[431] Demosthen. de Coron. c. 21, p. 247.
[432] Xenophon, Anabas. iii. 2, 25-26.
[433] Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1, 12; Isocrates, Orat. ad Philipp.,
Orat. v. p. 107. This discourse of Isokratês is composed
expressly for the purpose of calling on Philip to put himself at
the head of united Greece against the Persians: the Oratio iv,
called Panegyrica, recommends a combination of all Greeks for the
same purpose, but under the hegemony of Athens, putting aside all
intestine differences: see Orat. iv. pp. 45-68.
The foregoing brief sketch will show that, taking the period from
Crœsus and Peisistratus down to the generation of Alexander (560-300
B. C.), the phenomena of Hellas generally, and her relations
both foreign and interpolitical, admit of being grouped together
in masses, with continued dependence on one or a few predominant
circumstances. They may be said to constitute a sort of historical
epopee, analogous to that which Herodotus has constructed out of
the wars between Greeks and barbarians, from the legends of Iô and
Eurôpa down to the repulse of Xerxes. But when we are called back to
the period between 776 and 560 B. C., the phenomena brought to our
knowledge are scanty in number,—exhibiting few common feelings or
interests, and no tendency towards any one assignable purpose. To
impart attraction to this first period, so obscure and unpromising,
we shall be compelled to consider it in its relation with the second;
partly as a preparation, partly as a contrast.
Of the extra-Peloponnesian Greeks north of Attica, during these two
centuries, we know absolutely nothing; but it will be possible to
furnish some information respecting the early condition and struggles
of the great Dorian states in Peloponnesus, and respecting the rise
of Sparta from the second to the first place in the comparative
scale of Grecian powers. Athens becomes first known to us at the
legislation of Drako and the attempt of Kylôn (620 B. C.) to make
himself despot; and we gather some facts concerning the Ionic
cities in Eubœa and Asia Minor, during the century of their chief
prosperity, prior to the reign and conquests of Crœsus. In this
way, we shall form to ourselves some idea of the growth of Sparta
and Athens,—of the short-lived and energetic development of the
Ionic Greeks,—and of the slow working of those causes which tended
to bring about increased Hellenic intercommunication,—as contrasted
with the enlarged range of ambition, the grand Pan-Hellenic ideas,
the systematized party-antipathies, and the intensified action, both
abroad and at home, which grew out of the contest with Persia.
There are also two or three remarkable manifestations which will
require special notice during this first period of Grecian history:
1. The great multiplicity of colonies sent forth by individual
cities, and the rise and progress of these several colonies; 2. The
number of despots who arose in the various Grecian cities; 3. The
lyric poetry; 4. The rudiments of that which afterwards ripened into
moral philosophy, as manifested in gnomes, or aphorisms,—or the age
of the Seven Wise Men.
But before I proceed to relate those earliest proceedings
(unfortunately too few) of the Dorians and Ionians during the
historical period, together with the other matters just alluded to,
it will be convenient to go over the names and positions of those
other Grecian states respecting which we have no information during
these first two centuries. Some idea will thus be formed of the less
important members of the Hellenic aggregate, previous to the time
when they will be called into action. We begin by the territory north
of the pass of Thermopylæ.
Of the different races who dwelt between this celebrated pass and the
mouth of the river Peneius, by far the most powerful and important
were the Thessalians. Sometimes, indeed, the whole of this area
passes under the name of Thessaly,—since nominally, though not always
really, the power of the Thessalians extended over the whole. We
know that the Trachinian Herakleia, founded by the Lacedæmonians
in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, close at the pass of
Thermopylæ, was planted upon the territory of the Thessalians.[434]
But there were also within these limits other races, inferior and
dependent on the Thessalians, yet said to be of more ancient date,
and certainly not less genuine subdivisions of the Hellenic name.
The Perrhæbi[435] occupied the northern portion of the territory
between the lower course of the river Peneius and Mount Olympus.
The Magnêtes[436] dwelt along the eastern coast, between Mount Ossa
and Pelion on one side and the Ægean on the other, comprising the
south-eastern cape and the eastern coast of the gulf of Pagasæ as
far as Iôlkos. The Achæans occupied the territory called Phthiôtis,
extending from near Mount Pindus on the west to the gulf of Pagasæ on
the east,[437]—along the mountain chain of Othrys with its lateral
projections northerly into the Thessalian plain, and southerly even
to its junction with Œta. The three tribes of the Malians dwelt
between Achæa Phthiôtis and Thermopylæ, including both Trachin and
Herakleia. Westward of Achæa Phthiôtis, the lofty region of Pindus
or Tymphrêstus, with its declivities both westward and eastward, was
occupied by the Dolopes.
[434] Thucyd. iii. 93. Οἱ Θεσσαλοὶ ἐν δυνάμει ὄντες τῶν ταύτῃ
χωρίων, καὶ ὧν ἐπὶ τῇ γῇ ἐκτίζετο (Herakleia), etc.
[435] Herodot. vii. 173; Strabo, ix. pp. 440-441. Herodotus
notices the pass over the chain of Olympus or the Cambunian
mountains by which Xerxes and his army passed out of Macedonia
into Perrhæbia; see the description of the pass and the
neighboring country in Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch.
xxviii. vol. iii. pp. 338-348; compare Livy, xlii. 53.
[436] Skylax, Periplus, c. 66; Herodot. vii. 183-188.
[437] Skylax, Peripl. c. 64; Strabo, ix. pp. 433-434. Sophoklês
included the territory of Trachin in the limits of Phthiôtis
(Strabo, _l. c._). Herodotus considers Phthiôtis as terminating a
little north of the river Spercheius (vii. 198).
All these five tribes, or subdivisions,—Perrhæbians, Magnetes,
Achæans of Phthiôtis, Malians, and Dolopes, together with certain
Epirotic and Macedonian tribes besides, beyond the boundaries of
Pindus and Olympus,—were in a state of irregular dependence upon
the Thessalians, who occupied the central plain or basin drained
by the Peneius. That river receives the streams from Olympus, from
Pindus, and from Othrys,—flowing through a region which was supposed
by its inhabitants to have been once a lake, until Poseidôn cut
open the defile of Tempê, through which the waters found an efflux.
In travelling northward from Thermopylæ, the commencement of this
fertile region—the amplest space of land continuously productive
which Hellas presents—is strikingly marked by the steep rock and
ancient fortress of Thaumaki;[438] from whence the traveller, passing
over the mountains of Achæa Phthiôtis and Othrys, sees before him
the plains and low declivities which reach northward across Thessaly
to Olympus. A narrow strip of coast—in the interior of the gulf of
Pagasæ, between the Magnêtes and the Achæans, and containing the
towns of Amphanæum and Pagasæ[439]—belonged to this proper territory
of Thessaly, but its great expansion was inland: within it were
situated the cities of Pheræ, Pharsalus, Skotussa, Larissa, Krannôn,
Atrax, Pharkadôn, Trikka, Metropolis, Pelinna, etc.
[438] See the description of Thaumaki in Livy, xxxii. 4, and in
Dr. Holland’s Travels, ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 112,—now Thomoko.
[439] Skylax, Peripl. c. 65. Hesychius (v. Παγασίτης Ἀπόλλων)
seems to reckon Pagasæ as Achæan.
About the towns in Thessaly, and their various positions, see
Mannert, Geograph. der Gr. und Römer, part vii. book iii. ch. 8
and 9.
There was an ancient religious ceremony, celebrated by the
Delphians every ninth year (Ennaëtêris): a procession was sent
from Delphi to the pass of Tempê, consisting of well-born youths
under an archi-theôr, who represented the proceeding ascribed
by an old legend to Apollo; that god was believed to have gone
thither to receive expiation after the slaughter of the serpent
Pytho: at least, this was one among several discrepant legends.
The chief youth plucked and brought back a branch from the sacred
laurel at Tempê, as a token that he had fulfilled his mission:
he returned by “the sacred road,” and broke his fast at a place
called Δειπνιὰς, near Larissa. A solemn festival, frequented
by a large concourse of people from the surrounding regions,
was celebrated on this occasion at Tempê, in honor of Apollo
Tempeitês (Ἀπλοῦνι Τεμπείτᾳ, in the Æolic dialect of Thessaly:
see Inscript. in Boeckh, Corp. Ins. No. 1767). The procession was
accompanied by a flute-player.
See Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. ch. xi. p. 292; De Musicâ, ch. xiv. p.
1136, Ælian, V. II. iii. 1: Stephan. Byz. v. Δειπνιάς.
It is important to notice these religious processions as
establishing intercourse and sympathies between the distant
members of Hellas: but the inferences which O. Müller (Dorians,
b. ii. 1, p. 222) would build upon them, as to the original seat
of the Dorians and the worship of Apollo, are not to be trusted.
The abundance of corn and cattle from the neighboring plains
sustained in these cities a numerous population, and above all a
proud and disorderly noblesse, whose manners bore much resemblance
to those of the heroic times. They were violent in their behavior,
eager in armed feud, but unaccustomed to political discussion or
compromise; faithless as to obligations, yet at the same time
generous in their hospitalities, and much given to the enjoyments
of the table.[440] Breeding the finest horses in Greece, they were
distinguished for their excellence as cavalry; but their infantry
is little noticed, nor do the Thessalian cities seem to have
possessed that congregation of free and tolerably equal citizens,
each master of his own arms, out of whom the ranks of hoplites were
constituted,—the warlike nobles, such as the Aleuadæ at Larissa, or
the Skopadæ at Krannon, despising everything but equestrian service
for themselves, furnished, from their extensive herds on the plain,
horses for the poorer soldiers. These Thessalian cities exhibit
the extreme of turbulent oligarchy, occasionally trampled down by
some one man of great vigor, but little tempered by that sense of
political communion and reverence for established law, which was
found among the better cities of Hellas. Both in Athens and Sparta,
so different in many respects from each other, this feeling will be
found, if not indeed constantly predominant, yet constantly present
and operative. Both of them exhibit a contrast with Larissa or Pheræ
not unlike that between Rome and Capua,—the former, with her endless
civil disputes constitutionally conducted, admitting the joint action
of parties against a common foe; the latter, with her abundant soil
enriching a luxurious oligarchy, and impelled according to the feuds
of her great proprietors, the Magii, Blossii, and Jubellii.[441]
[440] Plato, Krito, c. 15, p. 53. ἐκεῖ γὰρ δὴ πλείστη ἀταξία καὶ
ἀκολασία (compare the beginning of the Menôn)—a remark the more
striking, since he had just before described the Bœotian Thebes
as a well-regulated city, though both Dikæarchus and Polybius
represent it in their times as so much the contrary.
See also Demosthen. Olynth. i. c. 9, p. 16, cont. Aristokrat.
c. 29, p. 657; Schol. Eurip. Phœniss. 1466; Theopomp. Fragment.
34-178, ed. Didot; Aristophanês, Plut. 521.
The march of political affairs in Thessaly is understood from
Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1: compare Anabas. i. 1, 10, and Thucyd. iv.
78.
[441] See Cicero, Orat. in Pison. c. 11; De Leg. Agrar. cont.
Rullum, c. 34-35.
The Thessalians are, indeed, in their character and capacity as much
Epirotic or Macedonian as Hellenic, forming a sort of link between
the two. For the Macedonians, though trained in aftertimes upon
Grecian principles by the genius of Philip and Alexander, so as to
constitute the celebrated heavy-armed phalanx, were originally (even
in the Peloponnesian war) distinguished chiefly for the excellence
of their cavalry, like the Thessalians;[442] while the broad-brimmed
hat, or kausia, and the short spreading-mantle, or chlamys, were
common to both.
[442] Compare the Thessalian cavalry as described by Polybius.
iv. 8, with the Macedonian as described by Thucydidês, ii. 100.
We are told that the Thessalians were originally emigrants from
Thesprotia in Epirus, and conquerors of the plain of the Peneius,
which (according to Herodotus) was then called Æolis, and which
they found occupied by the Pelasgi.[443] It may be doubted whether
the great Thessalian families,—such as the Aleuadæ of Larissa,
descendants from Hêraklês, and placed by Pindar on the same level
as the Lacedæmonian kings[444]—would have admitted this Thesprotian
origin; nor does it coincide with the tenor of those legends which
make the eponym, Thessalus, son of Hêraklês. Moreover, it is to
be remarked that the language of the Thessalians was Hellenic, a
variety of the Æolic dialect;[445] the same (so far as we can make
out) as that of the people whom they must have found settled in the
country at their first conquest. If then it be true that, at some
period anterior to the commencement of authentic history, a body of
Thesprotian warriors crossed the passes of Pindus, and established
themselves as conquerors in Thessaly, we must suppose them to have
been more warlike than numerous, and to have gradually dropped their
primitive language.
[443] Herodot. vii. 176; Thucyd. i. 12.
[444] Pindar, Pyth. x. init. with the Scholia, and the valuable
comment of Boeckh, in reference to the Aleuadæ; Schneider ad
Aristot. Polit. v. 5, 9; and the Essay of Buttmann, Von dem
Geschlecht der Aleuaden, art. xxii. vol. ii. p. 254, of the
collection called “Mythologus.”
[445] Ahrens, De Dialect. Æolicâ, c. 1, 2.
In other respects, the condition of the population of Thessaly, such
as we find it during the historical period, favors the supposition
of an original mixture of conquerors and conquered: for it seems
that there was among the Thessalians and their dependents a triple
gradation, somewhat analogous to that of Laconia. First, a class
of rich proprietors distributed throughout the principal cities,
possessing most of the soil, and constituting separate oligarchies,
loosely hanging together.[446] Next, the subject Achæans, Magnêtes,
Perrhæbi, differing from the Laconian Periœki in this point, that
they retained their ancient tribe-name and separate Amphiktyonic
franchise. Thirdly, a class of serfs, or dependent cultivators,
corresponding to the Laconian Helots, who, tilling the lands of the
wealthy oligarchs, paid over a proportion of its produce, furnished
the retainers by which these great families were surrounded, served
as their followers in the cavalry, and were in a condition of
villanage,—yet with the important reserve, that they could not be
sold out of the country,[447] that they had a permanent tenure in
the soil, and that they maintained among one another the relations
of family and village. This last mentioned order of men, in
Thessaly called the Penestæ, is assimilated by all ancient authors
to the Helots of Laconia, and in both cases the danger attending
such a social arrangement is noticed by Plato and Aristotle. For
the Helots as well as the Penestæ had their own common language
and mutual sympathies, a separate residence, arms, and courage;
to a certain extent, also, they possessed the means of acquiring
property, since we are told that some of the Penestæ were richer
than their masters.[448] So many means of action, combined with a
degraded social position, gave rise to frequent revolt and incessant
apprehensions. As a general rule, indeed, the cultivation of the
soil by slaves, or dependents, for the benefit of proprietors in
the cities, prevailed throughout most parts of Greece. The rich
men of Thebes, Argos, Athens, or Elis, must have derived their
incomes in the same manner; but it seems that there was often, in
other places, a larger intermixture of bought foreign slaves, and
also that the number, fellow-feeling, and courage of the degraded
village population was nowhere so great as in Thessaly and Laconia.
Now the origin of the Penestæ, in Thessaly, is ascribed to the
conquest of the territory by the Thesprotians, as that of the
Helots in Laconia is traced to the Dorian conquest. The victors in
both countries are said to have entered into a convention with the
vanquished population, whereby the latter became serfs and tillers
of the land for the benefit of the former, but were at the same time
protected in their holdings, constituted subjects of the state, and
secured against being sold away as slaves. Even in the Thessalian
cities, though inhabited in common by Thessalian proprietors and
their Penestæ, the quarters assigned to each were to a great degree
separated: what was called the Free Agora could not be trodden by any
Penest, except when specially summoned.[449]
[446] See Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 3; Thucyd. ii. 99-100.
[447] The words ascribed by Xenophon (Hellen. vi. 1, 11) to Jason
of Pheræ, as well as to Theocritus (xvi. 34), attest the numbers
and vigor of the Thessalian Penestæ, and the great wealth of the
Aleuadæ and Skopadæ. Both these families acquired celebrity from
the verses of Simonides: he was patronized and his muse invoked
by both of them; see Ælian, V. H. xii. 1; Ovid, Ibis, 512;
Quintilian, xi. 2, 15. Pindar also boasts of his friendship with
Thorax the Aleuad (Pyth. x. 99).
The Thessalian ἀνδραποδισταὶ, alluded to in Aristophanes (Plutus,
521), must have sold men out of the country for slaves,—either
refractory Penestæ, or Perrhæbian, Magnetic, and Achæan freemen,
seized by violence: the Athenian comic poet Mnêsimachus, in
jesting on the voracity of the Pharsalians, exclaims, ap. Athenæ.
x. p. 418—
ἆρά που
ὀπτὴν κατεσθίουσι πόλιν Ἀχαϊκήν.
Pagasæ was celebrated as a place of export for slaves (Hermippus
ap. Athenæ, i. 49).
Menôn of Pharsalus assisted the Athenians against Amphipolis
with 200, or 300 “Penestæ, on horseback, of his own”—(Πενέσταις
ἰδίοις) Demosthen. περὶ Συνταξ. c. 9, p. 173, cont. Aristokrat. c.
51, p. 687.
[448] Archemachus ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 264; Plato, Legg. vi. p.
777; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 3; vii. 9, 9; Dionys. Halic. A. R.
ii. 84.
Both Plato and Aristotle insist on the extreme danger of having
numerous slaves, fellow-countrymen and of one language—(ὁμόφυλοι,
ὁμόφωνοι, πατρίωται ἀλλήλων).
[449] Aristot. Polit. vii. 11, 2.
Who the people were, whom the conquest of Thessaly by the
Thesprotians reduced to this predial villanage, we find differently
stated. According to Theopompus, they were Perrhæbians and Magnêtes;
according to others, Pelasgians; while Archemachus alleged them to
have been Bœotians of the territory of Arnê,[450]—some emigrating, to
escape the conquerors, others remaining and accepting the condition
of serfs. But the conquest, assuming it as a fact, occurred at far
too early a day to allow of our making out either the manner in
which it came to pass, or the state of things which preceded it. The
Pelasgians whom Herodotus saw at Krêstôn are affirmed by him to have
been the descendants of those who quitted Thessaly to escape[451] the
invading Thesprotians; though others held that the Bœotians, driven
on this occasion from their habitations on the gulf of Pagasæ near
the Achæans of Phthiôtis, precipitated themselves on Orchomenus and
Bœotia, and settled in it, expelling the Minyæ and the Pelasgians.
[450] Theopompus and Archemachus ap. Athenæ. vi. pp. 264-266:
compare Thucyd. ii. 12; Steph. Byz. v. Ἄρνη—the converse of this
story in Strabo, ix. pp. 401-411, of the Thessalian Arnê being
settled from Bœotia. That the villains or Penestæ were completely
distinct from the circumjacent dependents,—Achæans, Magnêtes,
Perrhæbians, we see by Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 3. They had their
eponymous hero Penestês, whose descent was traced to Thessalus
son of Hêraklês; they were thus connected with the mythical
father of the nation (Schol. Aristoph. Vesp. 1271).
[451] Herodot. i. 57: compare vii. 176.
Passing over the legends on this subject, and confining ourselves
to historical time, we find an established quadruple division of
Thessaly, said to have been introduced in the time of Aleuas, the
ancestor (real or mythical) of the powerful Aleuadæ,—Thessaliôtis,
Pelasgiôtis, Histiæôtis, Phthiôtis.[452] In Phthiôtis were
comprehended the Achæans, whose chief towns were Melitæa, Itônus,
Thebæ, Phthiôtides, Alos, Larissa, Kremastê, and Pteleon, on or near
the western coast of the gulf of Pagasæ. Histiæôtis, to the north of
the Peneius, comprised the Perrhæbians, with numerous towns strong
in situation, but of no great size or importance; they occupied the
passes of Olympus[453] and are sometimes considered as extending
westward across Pindus. Pelasgiôtis included the Magnêtes, together
with that which was called the Pelasgic plain, bordering on the
western side of Pelion and Ossa.[454] Thessaliôtis comprised the
central plain of Thessaly and the upper course of the river Peneius.
This was the political classification of the Thessalian power,
framed to suit a time when the separate cities were maintained in
harmonious action by favorable circumstances, or by some energetic
individual ascendency; for their union was in general interrupted
and disorderly, and we find certain cities standing aloof while the
rest went to war.[455] Though a certain political junction, and
obligations of some kind towards a common authority, were recognized
in theory by all, and a chief, or Tagus,[456] was nominated to
enforce obedience,—yet it frequently happened that the disputes
of the cities among themselves prevented the choice of a Tagus, or
drove him out of the country; and left the alliance little more
than nominal. Larissa, Pharsalus,[457] and Pheræ,—each with its
cluster of dependent towns as adjuncts,—seem to have been nearly
on a par in strength, and each torn by intestine faction, so that
not only was the supremacy over common dependents relaxed, but even
the means of repelling invaders greatly enfeebled. The dependence
of the Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Achæans, and Malians, might, under
these circumstances, be often loose and easy. But the condition
of the Penestæ—who occupied the villages belonging to these great
cities, in the central plain of Pelasgiôtis and Thessaliôtis, and
from whom the Aleuadæ and Skopadæ derived their exuberance of landed
produce—was noway mitigated, if it was not even aggravated, by
such constant factions. Nor were there wanting cases in which the
discontent of this subject-class was employed by members of the
native oligarchy,[458] or even by foreign states, for the purpose of
bringing about political revolutions.
[452] Hellanikus, Fragm. 28, ed. Didot; Harpocration, v.
Τετραρχία: the quadruple division was older than Hekatæus (Steph.
Byz. v. Κράννων).
Hekatæus connected the Perrhæbians with the genealogy of Æolus
through Tyrô, the daughter of Salmôneus: they passed as Αἰολεῖς
(Hekatæus, Frag. 334, ed. Didot; Stephan. Byz. v. Φάλαννα and
Γόννοι).
The territory of the city of Histiæa (in the north part of
the island of Eubœa) was also called Histiæôtis. The double
occurrence of this name (no uncommon thing in ancient Greece)
seems to have given rise to the statement, that the Perrhæbi
had subdued the northern parts of Eubœa, and carried over the
inhabitants of the Eubœan Histiæa captive into the north-west of
Thessaly (Strabo, ix. p. 437, x. p. 446).
[453] Pliny, H. N. iv. 1; Strabo, ix. p. 440.
[454] Strabo, ix. p. 443.
[455] Diodor. xviii. 11; Thucyd. ii. 22.
[456] The Inscription No. 1770 in Boeckh’s Corpus Inscript.
contains a letter of the Roman consul, Titus Quinctius
Flamininus, addressed to the city of Kyretiæ (north of Atrax in
Perrhæbia). The letter is addressed, Κυρετιέων τοῖς ταγοῖς καὶ
τῇ πόλει,—the title of Tagi seems thus to have been given to the
magistrates of separate Thessalian cities. The Inscriptions of
Thaumaki (No. 1773-1774) have the title ἄρχοντες, not ταγοί. The
title ταγὸς was peculiar to Thessaly (Pollux, i. 128).
[457] Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1, 9; Diodor. xiv. 82; Thucyd. i. 3.
Herod. vii. 6, calls the Aleuadæ Θεσσαλίης βασιλῆες.
[458] Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2, 24; Hellenic. ii. 3, 37. The loss
of the comedy called Πόλεις of Eupolis (see Meineke, Fragm.
Comicor. Græc. p. 513) probably prevents us from understanding
the sarcasm of Aristophanes (Vesp. 1263) about the παραπρέσβεια
of Amynias among the Penestæ of Pharsalus; but the incident
there alluded to can have nothing to do with the proceedings of
Kritias, touched upon by Xenophon.
“When Thessaly is under her Tagus, all the neighboring people pay
tribute to her; she can send into the field six thousand cavalry
and ten thousand hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry,”[459] observed
Jason, despot of Pheræ, to Polydamas of Pharsalus, in endeavoring to
prevail on the latter to second his pretensions to that dignity. The
impost due from the tributaries, seemingly considerable, was then
realized with arrears, and the duties upon imports at the harbors
of the Pagasæan gulf, imposed for the benefit of the confederacy,
were then enforced with strictness; but the observation shows
that, while unanimous Thessaly was very powerful, her periods of
unanimity were only occasional.[460] Among the nations which thus
paid tribute to the fulness of Thessalian power, we may number not
merely the Perrhæbi, Magnêtes, and Achæans of Phthiôtis, but also
the Malians and Dolopes, and various tribes of Epirots extending
to the westward of Pindus.[461] We may remark that they were all
(except the Malians) javelin-men, or light-armed troops, not serving
in rank with the full panoply; a fact which, in Greece, counts as
presumptive evidence of a lower civilization: the Magnêtes, too,
had a peculiar close-fitting mode of dress, probably suited to
movements in a mountainous country.[462] There was even a time when
the Thessalian power threatened to extend southward of Thermopylæ,
subjugating the Phokians, Dorians, and Lokrians. So much were the
Phokians alarmed at this danger, that they had built a wall across
the pass of Thermopylæ, for the purpose of more easily defending it
against Thessalian invaders, who are reported to have penetrated
more than once into the Phokian valleys, and to have sustained some
severe defeats.[463] At what precise time these events happened,
we find no information; but it must have been considerably earlier
than the invasion of Xerxes, since the defensive wall which had
been built at Thermopylæ, by the Phokians, was found by Leonidas in
a state of ruin. But the Phokians, though they no longer felt the
necessity of keeping up this wall, had not ceased to fear and hate
the Thessalians,—an antipathy which will be found to manifest itself
palpably in connection with the Persian invasion. On the whole,
the resistance of the Phokians was successful, for the power of the
Thessalians never reached southward of the pass.[464]
[459] Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1, 9-12.
[460] Demosthen. Olynth. i. c. 3, p. 15; ii. c. 5. p. 21. The
orator had occasion to denounce Philip, as having got possession
of the public authority of the Thessalian confederation, partly
by intrigue, partly by force; and we thus hear of the λιμένες and
the ἀγοραὶ, which formed the revenue of the confederacy.
[461] Xenophon (Hellen. vi. 1, 7) numbers the Μαρακοὶ among these
tributaries along with the Dolopes: the Maraces are named by
Pliny (H. N. iv. 3), also, along with the Dolopes, but we do not
know where they dwelt.
[462] Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 1, 9; Pindar, Pyth. iv. 80.
[463] Herodot. vii. 176; viii. 27-28.
[464] The story of invading Thessalians at Kerêssus, near Leuktra
in Bœotia, (Pausan. ix. 13, 1,) is not at all probable.
It will be recollected that these different ancient races, Perrhæbi,
Magnêtes, Achæans, Malians, Dolopes,—though tributaries of the
Thessalians, still retained their Amphiktyonic franchise, and were
considered as legitimate Hellenes: all except the Malians are,
indeed, mentioned in the Iliad. We shall rarely have occasion to
speak much of them in the course of this history: they are found
siding with Xerxes (chiefly by constraint) in his attack of Greece,
and almost indifferent in the struggle between Sparta and Athens.
That the Achæans of Phthiôtis are a portion of the same race as the
Achæans of Peloponnesus it seems reasonable to believe, though we
trace no historical evidence to authenticate it. Achæa Phthiôtis
is the seat of Hellên, the patriarch of the entire race,—of the
primitive Hellas, by some treated as a town, by others as a district
of some breadth,—and of the great national hero, Achilles. Its
connection with the Peloponnesian Achæans is not unlike that of
Doris with the Peloponnesian Dorians.[465] We have, also, to notice
another ethnical kindred, the date and circumstances of which are
given to us only in a mythical form, but which seems, nevertheless,
to be in itself a reality,—that of the Magnêtes on Pelion and Ossa,
with the two divisions of Asiatic Magnêtes, or Magnesia, on Mount
Sipylus and Magnesia on the river Mæander. It is said that these two
Asiatic homonymous towns were founded by migrations of the Thessalian
Magnêtes, a body of whom became consecrated to the Delphian god, and
chose a new abode under his directions. According to one story, these
emigrants were warriors, returning from the Siege of Troy; according
to another, they sought fresh seats, to escape from the Thesprotian
conquerors of Thessaly. There was a third story, according to which
the Thessalian Magnêtes themselves were represented as colonists[466]
from Delphi. Though we can elicit no distinct matter of fact
from these legends, we may, nevertheless, admit the connection of
race between the Thessalian and the Asiatic Magnêtes, as well as
the reverential dependence of both, manifested in this supposed
filiation, on the temple of Delphi. Of the Magnêtes in Krete, noticed
by Plato as long extinct in his time, we cannot absolutely verify
even the existence.
[465] One story was, that these Achæans of Phthia went into
Peloponnesus with Pelops, and settled in Laconia (Strabo, viii.
p. 365).
[466] Aristoteles ap. Athenæ iv. p. 173 Conon, Narrat. 29;
Strabo. xiv. p. 647.
Hoeck (Kreta, b. iii. vol. ii. p. 409) attempts (unsuccessfully,
in my judgment) to reduce these stories into the form of
substantial history.
Of the Malians, Thucydidês notices three tribes (γένη) as existing in
his time,—the Paralii, the Hierês (priests), and the Trachinii, or
men of Trachin:[467] it is possible that the second of the two may
have been possessors of the sacred spot on which the Amphiktyonic
meetings were held. The prevalence of the hoplites or heavy-armed
infantry among the Malians, indicates that we are stepping from
Thessalian to more southerly Hellenic habits: the Malians recognized
every man as a qualified citizen, who either had served, or was
serving, in the ranks with his full panoply.[468] Yet the panoply was
probably not perfectly suitable to the mountainous regions by which
they were surrounded; for, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war,
the aggressive mountaineers of the neighboring region of Œta, had
so harassed and overwhelmed them in war, that they were forced to
throw themselves on the protection of Sparta; and the establishment
of the Spartan colony of Herakleia, near Trachin, was the result of
their urgent application. Of these mountaineers, described under
the general name of Œtæans, the principal were the Ænianes, (or
Eniênes, as they are termed in the Homeric Catalogue, as well as by
Herodotus),—an ancient Hellenic[469] Amphiktyonic race, who are said
to have passed through several successive migrations in Thessaly and
Epirus, but who, in the historical times, had their settlement and
their chief town, Hypata, in the upper valley of the Spercheius,
on the northern declivity of Mount Œta. But other tribes were
probably also included in the name, such as those Ætolian tribes,
the Bomians and Kallians, whose high and cold abodes approached near
to the Maliac gulf. It is in this sense that we are to understand
the name, as comprehending all the predatory tribes along this
extensive mountain range, when we are told of the damage done by the
Œtæans, both to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the
south: but there are some cases in which the name Œtæans seems to
designate expressly the Ænianes, especially when they are mentioned
as exercising the Amphiktyonic franchise.[470]
[467] Thucyd. iii. 92. The distinction made by Skylax (c. 61)
and Diodorus (xviii. 11) between Μηλιεῖς and Μαλιεῖς—the latter
adjoining the former on the north—appears inadmissible, though
Letronne still defends it (Périple de Marcien d’Héraclée, etc.,
Paris, 1839, p. 212).
Instead of Μαλιεῖς, we ought to read Λαμιεῖς, as O. Müller
observes (Dorians, i. 6, p. 48).
It is remarkable that the important town of Lamia (the modern
Zeitun) is not noticed either by Herodotus, Thucydidês, or
Xenophon; Skylax is the first who mentions it. The route of
Xerxes towards Thermopylæ lay along the coast from Alos.
The Lamieis (assuming that to be the correct reading) occupied
the northern coast of the Maliac gulf, from the north bank of the
Spercheius to the town of Echinus: in which position Dr. Cramer
places the Μηλιεῖς Παράλιοι—an error, I think (Geography of
Greece, vol. i. p. 436).
It is not improbable that Lamia first acquired importance during
the course of those events towards the close of the Peloponnesian
war, when the Lacedæmonians, in defence of Herakleia, attacked
the Achæans of Phthiôtis, and even expelled the Œtæans for a time
from their seats (see Thucyd. viii. 3; Diodor. xiv. 38).
[468] Aristot. Polit. iv. 10, 10.
[469] Plutarch, Quæstion. Græc. p. 294.
[470] Thucyd. iii. 92-97; viii. 3. Xenoph. Hellen. i. 2, 18; in
another passage Xenophon expressly distinguishes the Œtæi and the
Ænianes (Hellen. iii. 5. 6). Diodor. xiv. 38. Æschines, De Fals.
Leg. c. 44, p. 290.
The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure of the southern
declivities of Othrys,[471]—especially the valley of the Spercheius,
through which river all these waters pass away, and which annually
gives forth a fertilizing inundation,—present a marked contrast with
the barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount Œta, which forms one
side of the pass of Thermopylæ. Southward of the pass, the Lokrians,
Phokians, and Dorians, occupied the mountains and passes between
Thessaly and Bœotia. The coast opposite to the western side of
Eubœa, from the neighborhood of Thermopylæ, as far as the Bœotian
frontier at Anthêdôn, was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern
frontier town, Alpêni, was conterminous with the Malians. There was,
however, one narrow strip of Phokis—the town of Daphnus, where the
Phokians also touched the Eubœan sea—which broke this continuity,
and divided the Lokrians into two sections,—Lokrians of Mount
Knêmis, or Epiknemidian Lokrians, and Lokrians of Opus, or Opuntian
Lokrians. The mountain called Knêmis, running southward parallel
to the coast from the end of Œta, divided the former section from
the inland Phokians and the upper valley of the Kephisus: farther
southward, joining continuously with Mount Ptôon by means of an
intervening mountain which is now called Chlomo, it separated the
Lokrians of Opus from the territories of Orchomenus, Thebes, and
Anthêdôn, the north-eastern portions of Bœotia. Besides these two
sections of the Lokrian name, there was also a third, completely
separate, and said to have been colonized out from Opus,—the Lokrians
surnamed Ozolæ,—who dwelt apart on the western side of Phokis,
along the northern coast of the Corinthian gulf. They reached from
Amphissa—which overhung the plain of Krissa, and stood within seven
miles of Delphi—to Naupaktus. near the narrow entrance of the gulf;
which latter town was taken from these Lokrians by the Athenians, a
little before the Peloponnesian war. Opus prided itself on being the
mother-city of the Lokrian name, and the legends of Deukaliôn and
Pyrrha found a home there as well as in Phthiôtis. Alpeni, Nikæa,
Thronium, and Skarpheia, were towns, ancient but unimportant, of the
Epiknemidian Lokrians; but the whole length of this Lokrian coast is
celebrated for its beauty and fertility, both by Ancient and modern
observers.[472]
[471] About the fertility as well as the beauty of this valley,
see Dr. Holland’s Travels, ch. xvii. vol. ii. p. 108, and
Forchhammer (Hellenika, Griechenland, im Neuen das Alte, Berlin,
1837). I do not concur with the latter in his attempts to resolve
the mythes of Hêraklês, Achilles, and others, into physical
phenomena: but his descriptions of local scenery and attributes
are most vivid and masterly.
[472] Strabo, ix. p. 425; Forchhammer, Hellenika, pp. 11-12.
Kynus is sometimes spoken of as the harbor of Opus, but it was
a city of itself as old as the Homeric Catalogue, and of some
moment in the later wars of Greece, when military position came
to be more valued than legendary celebrity (Livy, xxviii. 6;
Pausan. x. 1, 1; Skylax. c. 61-62); the latter counts Thronium
and Knêmis or Knêmides as being Phokian, not Lokrian; which they
were for a short time, during the prosperity of the Phokians, at
the beginning of the Sacred War, though not permanently (Æschin.
Fals. Legat. c. 42, p. 46). This serves as one presumption about
the age of the Periplus of Skylax (see the notes of Klausen ad
Skyl. p. 269). These Lokrian towns lay along the important road
from Thermopylæ to Elateia and Bœotia (Pausan. vii. 15, 2; Livy,
xxxiii. 3).
The Phokians were bounded on the north by the little territories
called Doris and Dryopis, which separated them from the Malians,—on
the north-east, east, and south-west, by the different branches of
Lokrians,—and on the south-east, by the Bœotians. They touched the
Eubœan sea, (as has been mentioned) at Daphnus, the point where it
approaches nearest to their chief town, Elateia; their territory
also comprised most part of the lofty and bleak range of Parnassus,
as far as its southerly termination, where a lower portion of it,
called Kirphis, projects into the Corinthian gulf, between the two
bays of Antikyra and Krissa; the latter, with its once fertile plain,
lay immediately under the sacred rock of the Delphian Apollo. Both
Delphi and Krissa originally belonged to the Phokian race, but the
sanctity of the temple, together with Lacedæmonian aid, enabled the
Delphians to set up for themselves, disavowing their connection with
the Phokian brotherhood. Territorially speaking, the most valuable
part of Phokis[473] consisted in the valley of the river Kephisus,
which takes its rise from Parnassus, not far from the Phokian town
of Lilæa, passes between Œta and Knêmis on one side, and Parnassus
on the other, and enters Bœotia near Chæroneia, discharging itself
into the lake Kôpaïs. It was on the projecting mountain ledges and
rocks on each side of this river, that the numerous little Phokian
towns were situated. Twenty-two of them were destroyed and broken
up into villages by the Amphiktyonic order, after the second Sacred
War; Abæ (one of the few, if not the only one, that was spared) being
protected by the sanctity of its temple and oracle. Of these cities,
the most important was Elateia, situated on the left bank of the
Kephisus, and on the road from Lokris into Phokis, in the natural
march of an army from Thermopylæ into Bœotia. The Phokian towns[474]
were embodied in an ancient confederacy, which held its periodical
meetings at a temple between Daulis and Delphi.
[473] Pausan. x. 33, 4.
[474] Pausan. x. 5, 1; Demosth. Fals. Leg. c. 22-28; Diodor. xvi.
60, with the note of Wesseling.
The tenth book of Pausanias, though the larger half of it is
devoted to Delphi, tells us all that we know respecting the less
important towns of Phokis. Compare also Dr. Cramer’s Geography
of Greece, vol. ii. sect. 10; and Leake’s Travels in Northern
Greece, vol. ii. ch. 13.
Two funeral monuments of the Phokian hero Schedius (who commands
the Phokian troops before Troy, and is slain in the Iliad) marked
the two extremities of Phokis,—one at Daphnus on the Eubœan sea,
the other at Antikyra on the Corinthian gulf (Strabo, ix. p. 425;
Pausan. x. 36, 4).
The little territory called Doris and Dryopis, occupied the southern
declivity of Mount Œta, dividing Phokis on the north and north-west,
from the Ætolians, Ænianes, and Malians. That which was called Doris
in the historical times, and which reached, in the time of Herodotus,
nearly as far eastward as the Maliac gulf, is said to have formed
a part of what had been once called Dryopis; a territory which had
comprised the summit of Œta as far as the Spercheius, northward, and
which had been inhabited by an old Hellenic tribe called Dryopes. The
Dorians acquired their settlement in Dryopis by gift from Hêraklês,
who, along with the Malians (so ran the legend), had expelled the
Dryopes, and compelled them to find for themselves new seats at
Hermionê, and Asinê, in the Argolic peninsula of Peloponnesus,—at
Styra and Karystus in Eubœa,—and in the island of Kythnus;[475] it
is only in these five last-mentioned places, that history recognizes
them. The territory of Doris was distributed into four little
townships,—Pindus, or Akyphas, Bœon, Kytinion, and Erineon,—each
of which seems to have occupied a separate valley belonging to one
of the feeders of the river Kephisus,—the only narrow spaces of
cultivated ground which this “small and sad” region presented.[476]
In itself, this tetrapolis is so insignificant, that we shall rarely
find occasion to mention it; but it acquired a factitious consequence
by being regarded as the metropolis of the great Dorian cities in
Peloponnesus, and receiving on that ground special protection from
Sparta. I do not here touch upon that string of ante-historical
migrations—stated by Herodotus, and illustrated by the ingenuity as
well as decorated by the fancy of O. Müller—through which the Dorians
are affiliated with the patriarch of the Hellenic race,—moving
originally out of Phthiôtis to Histiæôtis, then to Pindus, and lastly
to Doris. The residence of Dorians in Doris, is a fact which meets
us at the commencement of history, like that of the Phokians and
Lokrians in their respective territories.
[475] Herodot. viii. 31, 43, 46; Diodor. iv. 57; Aristot. ap.
Strabo, viii. p. 373.
O. Müller (History of the Dorians, book i. ch. ii.) has given all
that can be known about Doris and Dryopis, together with some
matters which appear to me very inadequately authenticated.
[476] Πόλεις μικραὶ καὶ λυπρόχωροι, Strabo, ix. p. 427.
We next pass to the Ætolians, whose extreme tribes covered the
bleak heights of Œta and Korax, reaching almost within sight of the
Maliac gulf, where they bordered on the Dorians and Malians,—while
their central and western tribes stretched along the frontier of
the Ozolian Lokrians to the flat plain, abundant in marsh and
lake, near the mouth of the Euênus. In the time of Herodotus and
Thucydidês, they do not seem to have extended so far westward as
the Achelôus; but in later times, this latter river, throughout
the greater part of its lower course, divided them from the
Akarnanians:[477] on the north, they touched upon the Dolopians,
and upon a parallel of latitude nearly as far north as Ambrakia.
There were three great divisions of the Ætolian name,—the Apodôti,
Ophioneis, and Eurytanes,—each of which was subdivided into several
different village tribes. The northern and eastern portion of the
territory[478] consisted of very high mountain ranges, and even in
the southern portion, the mountains Arakynthus, Kurion, Chalkis,
Taphiassus, are found at no great distance from the sea; while the
chief towns in Ætolia, Kalydôn, Pleurôn, Chalkis,—seem to have
been situated eastward of the Euênus, between the last-mentioned
mountains and the sea.[479] The first two towns have been greatly
ennobled in legend, but are little named in history; while, on the
contrary, Thermus, the chief town of the historical Ætolians, and
the place where the aggregate meeting and festival of the Ætolian
name, for the choice of a Pan-Ætolic general, was convoked, is
not noticed by any one earlier than Ephorus.[480] It was partly
legendary renown, partly ethnical kindred (publicly acknowledged on
both sides) with the Eleians in Peloponnesus, which authenticated
the title of the Ætolians to rank as Hellens. But the great mass
of the Apodôti, Eurytanes, and Ophioneis in the inland mountains,
were so rude in their manners, and so unintelligible[481] in their
speech, (which, however, was not barbaric, but very bad Hellenic,)
that this title might well seem disputable,—in point of fact it was
disputed, in later times, when the Ætolian power and depredations
had become obnoxious nearly to all Greece. And it is, probably, to
this difference of manners between the Ætolians on the sea-coast and
those in the interior, that we are to trace a geographical division
mentioned by Strabo, into ancient Ætolia, and Ætolia Epiktêtus, or
acquired. When or by whom this division was introduced, we do not
know. It cannot be founded upon any conquest, for the inland Ætolians
were the most unconquerable of mankind: and the affirmation which
Ephorus applied to the whole Ætolian race,—that it had never been
reduced to subjection by any one,—is, most of all, beyond dispute
concerning the inland portion of it.[482]
[477] Herod, vii. 126; Thucyd. ii. 102.
[478] See the difficult journey of Fiedler from Wrachori
northward by Karpenitz, and then across the north-western
portion of the mountains of the ancient Eurytanes (the southern
continuation of Mount Tymphrêstus and Œta), into the upper valley
of the Spercheius (Fiedler’s Reise in Griechenland, vol. i. pp.
177-191), a part of the longer journey from Missolonghi to Zeitun.
Skylax (c. 35) reckons Ætolia as extending inland as far as
the boundaries of the Ænianes on the Spercheius—which is quite
correct—Ætolia Epiktêtus—μέχρι τῆς Οἰταίας, Strabo, x. p. 450.
[479] Strabo, x. pp. 459-460. There is, however, great
uncertainty about the position of these ancient towns: compare
Kruse, Hellas, vol. iii. ch. xi. pp. 233-255, and Brandstäter,
Geschichte des Ætolischen Landes, pp. 121-134.
[480] Ephorus, Fragm. 29, Marx. ap. Strabo, p. 463. The situation
of Thermus, “the acropolis as it were of all Ætolia,” and placed
on a spot almost unapproachable by an army, is to a certain
extent, though not wholly, capable of being determined by the
description which Polybius gives of the rapid march of Philip and
the Macedonian army to surprise it. The maps, both of Kruse and
Kiepert, place it too much on the north of the lake Trichônis:
the map of Fiedler notes it, more correctly, to the east of that
lake (Polyb. v. 7-8; compare Brandstäter, Geschichte des Ætol.
Landes, p. 133).
[481] Thucyd. iii. 102.—ἀγνωστότατοι δὲ γλῶσσάν εἰσι, καὶ
ὠμόφαγοι ~ὡς λέγονται~. It seems that Thucydidês had not himself
seen or conversed with them, but he does not call them βάρβαροι.
[482] Ephorus, Fragment. 29, ed. Marx.; Skymn. Chius, v. 471;
Strabo, x. p. 450.
Adjoining the Ætolians were the Akarnanians, the westernmost of
extra-Peloponnesian Greeks. They extended to the Ionian sea, and
seem, in the time of Thucydidês, to have occupied both banks of the
river Achelôus, in the lower part of its course,—though the left bank
appears afterwards as belonging to the Ætolians, so that the river
came to constitute the boundary, often disputed and decided by arms,
between them. The principal Akarnanian towns, Stratus and Œniadæ,
were both on the right bank; the latter on the marshy and overflowed
land near its mouth. Near the Akarnanians, towards the gulf of
Ambrakia, were found barbarian, or non-Hellenic nations,—the Agræans
and the Amphilochians: in the midst of the latter, on the shores of
the Ambrakian gulf, the Greek colony, called Argos Amphilochicum, was
established.
Of the five Hellenic subdivisions now enumerated,—Lokrians, Phokians,
Dorians (of Doris), Ætolians, and Akarnanians (of whom Lokrians,
Phokians, and Ætolians are comprised in the Homeric catalogue),—we
have to say the same as of those north of Thermopylæ: there is no
information respecting them from the commencement of the historical
period down to the Persian war. Even that important event brings
into action only the Lokrians of the Eubœan sea, the Phokians, and
the Dorians: we have to wait until near the Peloponnesian war,
before we require information respecting the Ozolian Lokrians, the
Ætolians, and the Akarnanians. These last three were unquestionably
the most backward members of the Hellenic aggregate. Though not
absolutely without a central town, they lived dispersed in villages,
retiring, when attacked, to inaccessible heights, perpetually armed
and in readiness for aggression and plunder wherever they found an
opportunity.[483] Very different was the condition of the Lokrians
opposite Eubœa, the Phokians, and the Dorians. These were all
orderly town communities, small, indeed, and poor, but not less well
administered than the average of Grecian townships, and perhaps
exempt from those individual violences which so frequently troubled
the Bœotian Thebes or the great cities of Thessaly. Timæus affirmed
(contrary, as it seems, to the supposition of Aristotle) that, in
early times, there were no slaves either among the Lokrians or
Phokians, and that the work required to be done for proprietors was
performed by poor freemen;[484] a habit which is alleged to have
been continued until the temporary prosperity of the second Sacred
War, when the plunder of the Delphian temple so greatly enriched the
Phokian leaders. But this statement is too briefly given, and too
imperfectly authenticated, to justify any inferences.
[483] Thucyd. i. 6; iii. 94. Aristotle, however, included, in his
large collection of Πολιτείαι, an Ἀκαρνάνων Πολιτεία as well as
an Αἰτωλῶν Πολιτεία (Aristotelis Rerum Publicarum Reliquiæ, ed.
Neumann, p. 102; Strabo, vii. p. 321).
[484] Timæus, Fragm. xvii. ed. Göller; Polyb. xii. 6-7; Athenæus,
vi. p. 264.
We find in the poet Alkman (about 610 B. C.), the Erysichæan,
or Kalydonian shepherd, named as a type of rude rusticity,—the
antithesis of Sardis, where the poet was born.[485] And among the
suitors who are represented as coming forward to claim the daughter
of the Sikyonian Kleisthenes in marriage, there appears both
the Thessalian Diaktoridês from Krannôn, a member of the Skopad
family,—and the Ætolian Malês, brother of that Titormus who in
muscular strength surpassed all his contemporary Greeks, and who
had seceded from mankind into the inmost recesses of Ætolia: this
Ætolian seems to be set forth as a sort of antithesis to the delicate
Smindyridês of Sybaris, the most luxurious of mankind. Herodotus
introduces these characters into his dramatic picture of this
memorable wedding.[486]
[485] This brief fragment of the Παρθενεῖα of Alkman is preserved
by Stephan. Byz. (Ἐρυσίχη), and alluded to by Strabo, x. p. 460:
see Welcker Alkm. Fragm. xi. and Bergk, Alk. Fr. xii.
[486] Herodot. vi. 127.
Between Phokis and Lokris on one side, and Attica (from which it
is divided by the mountains Kithærôn and Parnês) on the other, we
find the important territory called Bœotia, with its ten or twelve
autonomous cities, forming a sort of confederacy under the presidency
of Thebes, the most powerful among them. Even of this territory,
destined during the second period of this history, to play a part
so conspicuous and effective, we know nothing during the first two
centuries after 776 B. C. We first acquire some insight into it, on
occasion of the disputes between Thebes and Platæa, about the year
520 B. C. Orchomenus, on the north-west of the lake Kôpaïs, forms
throughout the historical times one of the cities of the Bœotian
league, seemingly the second after Thebes. But I have already stated
that the Orchomenian legends, the Catalogue, and other allusions in
Homer, and the traces of past power and importance yet visible in the
historical age, attest the early political existence of Orchomenus
and its neighborhood apart from Bœotia.[487] The Amphiktyony in which
Orchomenus participated, at the holy island of Kalauria near the
Argolic peninsula, seems to show that it must once have possessed a
naval force and commerce, and that its territory must have touched
the sea at Halæ and the lower town of Larymna, near the southern
frontier of Lokris; this sea is separated by a very narrow space
from the range of mountains which join Knêmis and Ptôon, and which
inclose on the east both the basin of Orchomenus, Asplêdôn, and Kôpæ,
and the lake Kôpaïs. The migration of the Bœotians out of Thessaly
into Bœotia (which is represented as a consequence of the conquest
of the former country by the Thesprotians) is commonly assigned
as the compulsory force which Bœotized Orchomenus. By whatever
cause, or at whatever time (whether before or after 776 B. C.) the
transition may have been effected, we find Orchomenus completely
Bœotian throughout the known historical age,—yet still retaining its
local Minyeian legends, and subject to the jealous rivalry[488] of
Thebes, as being the second city in the Bœotian league. The direct
road from the passes of Phokis southward into Bœotia went through
Chæroneia, leaving Lebadeia on the right, and Orchomenus on the left
hand, and passed the south-western edge of the lake Kôpaïs near the
towns of Koroneia, Alalkomenæ, and Haliartus,—all situated on the
mountain Tilphôssion, an outlying ridge connected with Helicon by the
intervention of Mount Leïbethrius. The Tilphossæon was an important
military post, commanding that narrow pass between the mountain and
the lake which lay in the great road from Phokis to Thebes.[489]
The territory of this latter city occupied the greater part of
central Bœotia, south of the lake Kôpaïs; it comprehended Akræphia
and Mount Ptôon, and probably touched the Eubœan sea at the village
of Salganeus south of Anthêdôn. South-west of Thebes, occupying the
southern descent of lofty Helicon towards the inmost corner of the
Corinthian gulf, and bordering on the south-eastern extremity of
Phokis with the Phokian town of Bulis, stood the city of Thespiæ.
Southward of the Asôpus, between that river and Mount Kithæron, were
Platæa and Tanagra; in the south-eastern corner of Bœotia stood
Orôpus, the frequent subject of contention between Thebes and Athens;
and in the road between the Eubœan Chalkis and Thebes, the town of
Mykalêssus.
[487] See an admirable topographical description of the
north part of Bœotia,—the lake Kôpaïs and its environs, in
Forchhammer’s Hellenika, pp. 159-186, with an explanatory map.
The two long and laborious tunnels constructed by the old
Orchomenians for the drainage of the lake, as an aid to the
insufficiency of the natural Katabothra, are there very clearly
laid down: one goes to the sea, the other into the neighboring
lake Hylika, which is surrounded by high rocky banks and can take
more water without overflowing. The lake Kôpaïs is an inclosed
basin, receiving all the water from Doris and Phokis through the
Kêphisus. A copy of Forchhammer’s map will be found at the end of
the present volume.
Forchhammer thinks that it was nothing but the similarity of the
name Itônea (derived from ἰτέα, _a willow-tree_) which gave rise
to the tale of an emigration of people from the Thessalian to the
Bœotian Itônê (p. 148).
The Homeric Catalogue presents Kôpæ, on the north of the lake, as
Bœotian, but not Orchomenus nor Asplêdôn (Iliad, ii. 502).
[488] See O. Müller, Orchomenos, cap. xx. p. 418, _seq._
[489] See Demosthen. De Fals. Legat. c. 43-45. Another portion
of this narrow road is probably meant by the pass of Korôneia—τὰ
περὶ Κορώνειαν στενὰ (Diodor. xv. 52; Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 3,
15)—which Epameinondas occupied to prevent the invasion of
Kleombrotus from Phokis.
From our first view of historical Bœotia downward, there appears a
confederation which embraces the whole territory: and during the
Peloponnesian war, the Thebans invoke “the ancient constitutional
maxims of the Bœotians” as a justification of extreme rigor, as
well as of treacherous breach of the peace, against the recusant
Platæans.[490] Of this confederation, the greater cities were primary
members, while the lesser were attached to one or other of them
in a kind of dependent union. Neither the names nor the number of
these primary members can be certainly known: there seem grounds for
including Thebes, Orchomenus, Lebadeia, Korôneia, Haliartus, Kôpæ,
Anthêdôn, Tanagra, Thespiæ, and Platæa before its secession.[491]
Akræphia, with the neighboring Mount Ptôon and its oracle, Skôlus,
Glisas, and other places, were dependencies of Thebes: Chæroneia,
Asplêdôn, Holmônes, and Hyêttus, of Orchomenus: Siphæ, Leuktra,
Kerêssus, and Thisbê, of Thespiæ.[492] Certain generals or
magistrates, called Bœotarchs, were chosen annually to manage the
common affairs of the confederation. At the time of the battle of
Delium in the Peloponnesian war, they were eleven in number, two of
them from Thebes; but whether this number was always maintained, or
in what proportions the choice was made by the different cities,
we find no distinct information. There were likewise, during the
Peloponnesian war, four different senates, with whom the Bœotarchs
consulted on matters of importance; a curious arrangement, of which
we have no explanation. Lastly, there was the general concilium and
religious festival,—the Pambœotia,—held periodically at Korôneia.
Such were the forms, as far as we can make them out, of the Bœotian
confederacy; each of the separate cities possessing its own senate
and constitution, and having its political consciousness as an
autonomous unit, yet with a certain habitual deference to the federal
obligations. Substantially, the affairs of the confederation will
be found in the hands of Thebes, managed in the interests of Theban
ascendency, which appears to have been sustained by no other feeling
except respect for superior force and bravery. The discontents of
the minor Bœotian towns, harshly repressed and punished, form an
uninviting chapter in Grecian history.
[490] Thucyd. ii. 2—κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τῶν πάντων Βοιωτῶν: compare
the speech of the Thebans to the Lacedæmonians after the capture
of Platæa, iii. 61, 65, 66.
[491] Thucyd. iv. 91; C. F. Hermann, Griechische Staats
Alterthümer, sect. 179; Herodot. v. 79; Boeckh, Commentat. ad.
Inscript. Bœotic. ap. Corp. Ins. Gr. part v. p. 726.
[492] Herodot. viii. 135; ix. 15-43. Pausan ix. 13, 1; ix. 23, 3;
ix. 24, 3; ix. 32, 1-4. Xenophon, Hellen. vi. 4, 3-4: compare O.
Müller, Orchomenos, cap. xx. p. 403.
One piece of information we find, respecting Thebes singly and apart
from the other Bœotian towns anterior to the year 700 B. C. Though
brief, and incompletely recorded, it is yet highly valuable, as
one of the first incidents of solid and positive Grecian history.
Dioklês, the Corinthian, stands enrolled as Olympic victor in the
13th Olympiad, or 728 B. C., at a time when the oligarchy called
Bacchiadæ possessed the government of Corinth. The beauty of his
person attracted towards him the attachment of Philolaus, one of
the members of this oligarchical body,—a sentiment which Grecian
manners did not proscribe; but it also provoked an incestuous passion
on the part of his own mother, Halcyonê, from which Dioklês shrunk
with hatred and horror. He abandoned forever his native city and
retired to Thebes, whither he was followed by Philolaus, and where
both of them lived and died. Their tombs were yet shown in the time
of Aristotle, close adjoining to each other, yet with an opposite
frontage; that of Philolaus being so placed that the inmate could
command a view of the lofty peak of his native city, while that of
Dioklês was so disposed as to block out all prospect of the hateful
spot. That which preserves to us the memory of so remarkable an
incident, is, the esteem entertained for Philolaus by the Thebans,—a
feeling so profound, that they invited him to make laws for them. We
shall have occasion to point out one or two similar cases, in which
Grecian cities invoked the aid of an intelligent stranger; and the
practice became common, among the Italian republics in the Middle
Ages, to nominate a person not belonging to their city either as
podesta or as arbitrator in civil dissensions. It would have been
highly interesting to know, at length, what laws Philolaus made
for the Thebans; but Aristotle, with his usual conciseness, merely
alludes to his regulations respecting the adoption of children and
respecting the multiplication of offspring in each separate family.
His laws were framed with the view to maintain the original number
of lots of land, without either subdivision or consolidation; but by
what means the purpose was to be fulfilled we are not informed.[493]
There existed a law at Thebes, which perhaps may have been part
of the scheme of Philolaus, prohibiting exposure of children, and
empowering a father, under the pressure of extreme poverty, to bring
his new-born infant to the magistrates, who sold it for a price to
any citizen-purchaser,—taking from him the obligation to bring it up,
but allowing him in return, to consider the adult as his slave.[494]
From these brief allusions, coming to us without accompanying
illustration, we can draw no other inference, except that the great
problem of population—the relation between the well-being of the
citizens and their more or less rapid increase in numbers—had engaged
the serious attention even of the earliest Grecian legislators. We
may, however, observe that the old Corinthian legislator, Pheidôn,
(whose precise date cannot be fixed) is stated by Aristotle,[495] to
have contemplated much the same object as that which is ascribed to
Philolaus at Thebes; an unchangeable number both of citizens and of
lots of land, without any attempt to alter the unequal ratio of the
lots, one to the other.
[493] Aristot. Polit. ii. 9, 6-7. Νομοθέτης δ᾽ αὐτοῖς (to the
Thebans) ἐγένετο Φιλόλαος περί τ᾽ ἄλλων τινῶν καὶ περὶ τῆς
παιδοποιΐας, οὓς καλοῦσιν ἐκεῖνοι νόμους θετικούς· καὶ τοῦτ᾽
ἐστὶν ἰδίως ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου νενομοθετημένον, ὅπως ὁ ἀριθμὸς σῴζηται
τῶν κλήρων. A perplexing passage follows within three lines of
this,—Φιλολάου δὲ ἴδιον ἐστιν ἡ τῶν οὐσιῶν ἀνομάλωσις,—which
raises two questions: first, whether Philolaus can really be
meant in the second passage, which talks of what is ἴδιον
to Philolaus, while the first passage had already spoken of
something ἰδίως νενομοθετημένον by the same person. Accordingly,
Göttling and M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire follow one of the MSS. by
writing Φαλέου in place of Φιλολάου. Next, what is the meaning of
ἀνομάλωσις? O. Müller (Dorians, ch. x. 5, p. 209) considers it
to mean a “fresh equalization, just as ἀναδασμὸς means a fresh
division,” adopting the translation of Victorius and Schlösser.
The point can hardly be decisively settled; but if this
translation of ἀνομάλωσις be correct, there is good ground for
preferring the word Φαλέου to Φιλολάου; since the proceeding
described would harmonize better with the ideas of Phaleas
(Aristot. Pol. ii. 4, 3).
[494] Ælian, V. H. ii. 7.
[495] Aristot. Polit. ii. 3, 7. This Pheidôn seems different from
Pheidôn of Argos, as far as we are enabled to judge.