CONQUESTS OF SPARTA TOWARDS ARCADIA AND ARGOLIS.
I have described in the last two chapters, as far as our imperfect
evidence permits, how Sparta came into possession both of the
southern portion of Laconia along the coast of the Eurotas down to
its mouth, and of the Messenian territory westward. Her progress
towards Arcadia and Argolis is now to be sketched, so as to conduct
her to that position which she occupied during the reign of
Peisistratus at Athens, or about 560-540 B. C.,—a time when she had
reached the maximum of her territorial possessions, and when she was
confessedly the commanding state in Hellas.
The central region of Peloponnesus, called Arcadia, had never
received any emigrants from without. Its indigenous inhabitants,—a
strong and hardy race of mountaineers, the most numerous Hellenic
tribe in the peninsula, and the constant hive for mercenary
troops,[763]—were among the rudest and poorest of Greeks, retaining
for the longest period their original subdivision into a number of
petty hill-villages, each independent of the other; while the union
of all who bore the Arcadian name,—though they had some common
sacrifices, such as the festival of the Lykæan Zeus, of Despoina,
daughter of Poseidôn and Dêmêtêr, and of Artemis Hymnia,[764]—was
more loose and ineffective than that of Greeks generally, either
in or out of Peloponnesus. The Arcadian villagers were usually
denominated by the names of regions, coincident with certain
ethnical subdivisions,—the Azānes, the Parrhasii, the Mænalii
(adjoining Mount Mænalus), the Eutrêsii, the Ægytæ, the Skiritæ,
etc.[765] Some considerable towns, however, there were,—aggregations
of villages or demes which had been once autonomous. Of these,
the principal were Tegea and Mantineia, bordering on Laconia and
Argolis,—Orchomenus, Pheneus, and Stymphalus, towards the north-east,
bordering on Achaia and Phlius,—Kleitôr and Heræa, westward, where
the country is divided from Elis and Triphylia by the woody mountains
of Pholoê and Erymanthus,—and Phigaleia, on the south-western
border near to Messenia. The most powerful of all were Tegea and
Mantineia,[766]—conterminous towns, nearly equal in force, dividing
between them the cold and high plain of Tripolitza, and separated
by one of those capricious torrents which only escapes through
katabothra. To regulate the efflux of this water was a difficult
task, requiring friendly coöperation of both the towns: and when
their frequent jealousies brought on a quarrel, the more aggressive
of the two inundated the territory of its neighbor as one means
of annoyance. The power of Tegea, which had grown up out of nine
constituent townships, originally separate,[767] appears to have
been more ancient than that of its rival; as we may judge from its
splendid heroic pretensions connected with the name of Echemus,
and from the post conceded to its hoplites in joint Peloponnesian
armaments, which was second in distinction only to that of the
Lacedæmonians.[768] If it be correct, as Strabo asserts,[769] that
the incorporation of the town of Mantineia, out of its five separate
demes, was brought about by the Argeians, we may conjecture that
the latter adopted this proceeding as a means of providing some
check upon their powerful neighbors of Tegea. The plain common to
Tegea and Mantineia was bounded to the west by the wintry heights
of Mænalus,[770] beyond which, as far as the boundaries of Laconia,
Messenia, and Triphylia, there was nothing in Arcadia but small
and unimportant townships, or villages,—without any considerable
town, before the important step taken by Epameinondas in founding
Megalopolis, a short time after the battle of Leuktra. The
mountaineers of these regions, who joined Epameinondas before the
battle of Mantineia, at a time when Mantineia and most of the towns
of Arcadia were opposed to him, were so inferior to the other Greeks
in equipment, that they still carried as their chief weapon, in place
of the spear, nothing better than the ancient club.[771]
[763] Hermippus ap. Athenæ. i. p. 27. Ἀνδράποδ᾽ ἐκ Φρυγίας,
απὸ δ᾽ Ἀρκαδίας ἐπικούρους. Also, Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 1, 23.
πλεῖστον δὲ φῦλον τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν τὸ Ἀρκαδικὸν εἴη, etc.
[764] Pausan. viii. 6, 7; viii. 37, 6; viii. 38, 2. Xenias, one
of the generals of Greek mercenaries in the service of Cyrus
the younger, a native of the Parrhasian district in Arcadia,
celebrates with great solemnity, during the march upward, the
festival and games of the Lykæa (Xenoph. Anabas. i. 2 10; compare
Pindar, Olymp. ix. 142).
Many of the forests in Arcadia contained not only wild boars, but
bears, in the days of Pausanias (viii. 23, 4).
[765] Pausan. viii. 26, 5; Strabo, viii. p. 388.
Some geographers distributed the Arcadians into three
subdivisions, Azanes, Parrhasii, and Trapezuntii. Azan passed for
the son of Arcas, and his lot in the division of the paternal
inheritance was said to have contained seventeen towns (ἃς ἔλαχεν
Ἀζήν). Stephan. Byz. v. Ἀζανία—Παῤῥασία. Kleitôr seems the chief
place in Azania, as far as we can infer from genealogy (Pausan.
viii. 4, 2, 3). Pæus, or Päos, from whence the Azanian suitor
of the daughter of Kleisthenês presented himself, was between
Kleitôr and Psôphis (Herod. vi. 127; Paus. viii. 23, 6). A
Delphian oracle, however, reckons the inhabitants of Phigaleia,
in the south-western corner of Arcadia, among the Azanes (Paus.
viii. 42, 3).
The burial-place of Areas was supposed to be on Mount Mænalus
(Paus. viii. 9, 2).
[766] Thucyd. v. 65. Compare the description of the ground in
Professor Ross (Reisen im Peloponnes. iv. 7).
[767] Strabo. viii. p. 337.
[768] Herodot. ix. 27.
[769] Strabo, 1. c. Mantineia is reckoned among the oldest cities
of Arcadia (Polyb. ii. 54). Both Mantineia and Orchomenus had
originally occupied very lofty hill-sites, and had been rebuilt
on a larger scale, lower down, nearer to the plain (Pausan. viii.
8, 3; 12, 4; 13, 2).
In regard to the relations, during the early historical period,
between Sparta, Argos, and Arcadia, there is a new fragment of
Diodorus (among those recently published by Didot out of the
Excerpta in the Escurial library, Fragment. Historic. Græcor.
vol. ii. p. viii.). The Argeians had espoused the cause of the
Arcadians against Sparta; and at the expense of considerable loss
and suffering, had regained such portions of Arcadia as she had
conquered. The king of Argos restored this recovered territory to
the Arcadians: but the Argeians generally were angry that he did
not retain it and distribute it among them as a reward for their
losses in the contest. They rose in insurrection against the
king, who was forced to flee, and take refuge at Tegea.
We have nothing to illustrate this fragment, nor do we know to
what king, date, or events, it relates.
[770] Μαιναλίη δυσχείμερος (Delphian Oracle, ap. Paus. viii. 9,
2).
[771] Xenophon, in describing the ardor with which Epameinondas
inspired his soldiers before this final battle, says (vii. 5,
20), προθύμως μὲν ἐλευκοῦντο οἱ ἱππεῖς τὰ κράνη, κελεύοντος
ἐκείνου· ~ἐπεγράφοντο~ δὲ καὶ τῶν Ἀρκάδων ὁπλῖται, ~ῥόπαλα
ἔχοντες~, ὡς ~Θηβαῖοι ὄντες~· πάντες δὲ ἠκονῶντο καὶ λόγχας καὶ
μαχαίρας, καὶ ἐλαμπρύνοντο τὰς ἀσπίδας.
It is hardly conceivable that these Arcadian clubmen should
have possessed a shield and a full panoply. The language of
Xenophon in calling them hoplites, and the term ἐπεγράφοντο,
properly referring to the inscription on the shield, appear to
be conceived in a spirit of contemptuous sneering, proceeding
from Xenophon’s miso-Theban tendencies: “The Arcadian hoplites,
with their clubs, put themselves forward to be as good as the
Thebans.” That these tendencies of Xenophon show themselves in
expressions very unbecoming to the dignity of history (though
curious as evidences of the time), may be seen by vii. 5, 12,
where he says of the Thebans,—ἐνταῦθα δὴ ~οἱ πῦρ πνέοντες~, οἱ
νενικηκότες τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους, οἱ τῷ παντὶ πλέονες, etc.
Both Tegea and Mantineia held several of these smaller Arcadian
townships near them in a sort of dependence, and were anxious to
extend this empire over others: during the Peloponnesian war, we
find the Mantineians establishing and garrisoning a fortress at
Kypsela among the Parrhasii, near the site in which Megalopolis
was afterwards built.[772] But at this period, Sparta, as the
political chief of Hellas,—having a strong interest in keeping all
the Grecian towns, small and great, as much isolated from each other
as possible, and in checking all schemes for the formation of local
confederacies,—stood forward as the protectress of the autonomy of
these smaller Arcadians, and drove back the Mantineians within their
own limits.[773] At a somewhat later period, during the acmé of her
power, a few years before the battle of Leuktra, she even proceeded
to the extreme length of breaking up the unity of Mantineia itself,
causing the walls to be razed, and the inhabitants to be again
parcelled into their five original demes,—a violent arrangement,
which the turn of political events very soon reversed.[774] It was
not until after the battle of Leuktra and the depression of Sparta
that any measures were taken for the formation of an Arcadian
political confederacy;[775] and even then, the jealousies of the
separate cites rendered it incomplete and short-lived. The great
permanent change, the establishment of Megalopolis, was accomplished
by the ascendency of Epameinondas. Forty petty Arcadian townships,
among those situated to the west of Mount Mænalus, were aggregated
into the new city: the jealousies of Tegea, Mantineia, and Kleitôr,
were for a while suspended; and œkists came from all of them,
as well as from the districts of the Mænalii and Parrhasii, in
order to impart to the new establishment a genuine Pan-Arcadian
character.[776] It was thus there arose for the first time a powerful
city on the borders of Laconia and Messenia, rescuing the Arcadian
townships from their dependence on Sparta, and imparting to them
political interests of their own, which rendered them, both a check
upon their former chief and a support to the reëstablished Messenians.
[772] Thucyd. v. 33, 47, 81.
[773] Thucyd. 1. c. Compare the instructive speech of Kleigenês,
the envoy from Akanthus, addressed to the Lacedæmonians, B. C.
382 (Xen. Hellen. v. 2, 15-16).
[774] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 1-6; Diodor. xv. 19.
[775] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 10-11; vii. 1, 23-25.
[776] Pausan. viii. 27, 5. No œkist is mentioned from Orchomenus,
though three of the petty townships _contributing_ (συντελοῦντα)
to Orchomenus were embodied in the new city. The feud between the
neighboring cities of Orchomenus and Mantineia was bitter (Xen.
Hellen. vi. 5, 11-22). Orchomenus and Hêræa both opposed the
political confederation of Arcadia.
The oration of Demosthenês, ὑπὲρ Μεγαλοπολιτῶν, strongly attests
the importance of this city, especially c. 10,—ἐὰν μὲν ἀναιρεθῶσι
καὶ διοικισθῶσιν, ἰσχυροῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ~εὐθύς~ ἐστιν εἶναι,
etc.
It has been necessary thus to bring the attention of the reader for
one moment to events long posterior in the order of time (Megalopolis
was founded in 370 B. C.), in order that he may understand, by
contrast, the general course of those incidents of the earlier
time, where direct accounts are wanting. The northern boundary of
the Spartan territory was formed by some of the many small Arcadian
townships or districts, several of which were successively conquered
by the Spartans and incorporated with their dominion, though at
what precise time we are unable to say. We are told that Charilaus,
the reputed nephew and ward of Lykurgus, took Ægys, and that he
also invaded the territory of Tegea, but with singular ill-success,
for he was defeated and taken prisoner:[777] we also hear that the
Spartans took Phigaleia by surprise in the 30th Olympiad, but were
driven out again by the neighboring Arcadian Oresthasians.[778]
During the second Messenian war, the Arcadians are represented as
cordially seconding the Messenians: and it may seem perhaps singular
that, while neither Mantineia nor Tegea are mentioned in this war,
the more distant town of Orchomenus, with its king Aristokratês,
takes the lead. But the facts of the contest come before us with so
poetical a coloring, that we cannot venture to draw any positive
inference as to the times to which they are referred.
[777] Pausan. iii. 2, 6; iii. 7, 3; viii. 48, 3.
[778] Pausan. viii. 39, 2.
Œnus[779] and Karystus seem to have belonged to the Spartans in the
days of Alkman: moreover, the district called Skirītis bordering
on the territory of Tegea,—as well as Belemina and Maleatis to
the westward, and Karyæ to the eastward and south-eastward, of
Skirītis,—forming altogether the entire northern frontier of Sparta,
and all occupied by Arcadian inhabitants,—had been conquered and
made part of the Spartan territory[780] before 600 B. C. And
Herodotus tells us, that at this period the Spartan kings Leon and
Hegesiklês contemplated nothing less than the conquest of entire
Arcadia, and sent to ask from the Delphian oracle a blessing on
their enterprise.[781] The priestess dismissed their wishes as
extravagant, in reference to the whole of Arcadia, but encouraged
them, though with the usual equivocations of language, to try their
fortune against Tegea. Flushed with their course of previous success,
not less than by the favorable construction which they put upon the
words of the oracle, the Lacedæmonians marched against Tegea with
such entire confidence of success, as to carry with them chains for
the purpose of binding their expected prisoners. But the result was
disappointment and defeat. They were repulsed with loss, and the
prisoners whom they left behind, bound in the very chains which their
own army had brought, were constrained to servile labor on the plain
of Tegea,—the words of the oracle being thus literally fulfilled,
though in a sense different from that in which the Lacedæmonians had
first understood them.[782]
[779] Alkman, Fr. 15, Welcker; Strabo, x. p. 446.
[780] That the Skiritæ were Arcadians is well known (Thuc. v. 47;
Steph. Byz. v. Σκίρος); the possession of Belemina was disputed
with Sparta, in the days of her comparative humiliation, by the
Arcadians: see Plutarch, Kleomenês, 4; Pausan. viii. 35, 4.
Respecting Karyæ (the border town of Sparta, where the διαβατήρια
were sacrificed, Thuc. v. 55), see _Photius_ ~Καρυάτεια~—ἑορτὴ
Ἀρτέμιδος· τὰς δὲ Καρύας Ἀρκάδων οὔσας ἀπετέμοντο Λακεδαιμόνιοι.
The readiness with which Karyæ and the Maleates revolted
against Sparta after the battle of Leuktra, even before the
invasion of Laconia by the Thebans, exhibits them apparently as
conquered foreign dependencies of Sparta, without any kindred
of race (Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 5, 24-26; vii. 1, 28). Leuktron,
in the Maleatis, seems to have formed a part of the territory
of Megalopolis in the days of Kleomenês the Third (Plutarch,
Kleomenês, 6); in the Peloponnesian war it was the frontier town
of Sparta towards Mount Lykæum (Thuc. v. 53).
[781] Herod. i. 66. καταφρονήσαντες Ἀρκάδων κρέσσονες εἶναι,
ἐχρηστηριάζοντο ἐν Δέλφοισι ~ἐπὶ πάσῃ τῇ Ἀρκάδων χωρῇ~.
[782] Herod. i. 67; Pausan. iii. 3, 5; vii. 45, 2.
Herodotus saw the identical chains suspended in the temple of
Athênê Alea at Tegea.
For one whole generation, we are told, they were constantly
unsuccessful in their campaigns against the Tegeans, and this
strenuous resistance probably prevented them from extending their
conquests farther among the petty states of Arcadia.
At length, in the reign of Anaxandridês and Aristô, the successors of
Leon and Hegesiklês (about 560 B. C.), the Delphian oracle, in reply
to a question from the Spartans,—which of the gods they ought to
propitiate in order to become victorious,—enjoined them to find and
carry to Sparta the bones of Orestês, son of Agamemnôn. After a vain
search, since they did not know where the body of Orestês was to be
found, they applied to the oracle for more specific directions, and
were told that the son of Agamemnôn was buried at Tegea itself, in a
place “where two blasts were blowing under powerful constraint,—where
there was stroke and counter-stroke, and destruction upon
destruction.” These mysterious words were elucidated by a lucky
accident. During a truce with Tegea, Lichas, one of the chiefs of the
three hundred Spartan chosen youth, who acted as the movable police
of the country under the ephors, visited the place, and entered
the forge of a blacksmith,—who mentioned to him, in the course of
conversation, that, in sinking a well in his outer court, he had
recently discovered a coffin containing a body seven cubits long;
astounded at the sight, he had left it there undisturbed. It struck
Lichas that the gigantic relic of aforetime could be nothing else but
the corpse of Orestês, and he felt assured of this, when he reflected
how accurately the indications of the oracle were verified; for there
were the “two blasts blowing by constraint,” in the two bellows of
the blacksmith: there was the “stroke and counter-stroke,” in his
hammer and anvil, as well as the “destruction upon destruction,” in
the murderous weapons which he was forging. Lichas said nothing,
but returned to Sparta with his discovery, which he communicated to
the authorities, who, by a concerted scheme, banished him under a
pretended criminal accusation. He then returned again to Tegea, under
the guise of an exile, prevailed upon the blacksmith to let to him
the premises, and when he found himself in possession, dug up and
carried off to Sparta the bones of the venerated hero.[783]
[783] Herod. i. 69-70.
From and after this fortunate acquisition, the character of the
contest was changed; the Spartans found themselves constantly
victorious over the Tegeans. But it does not seem that these
victories led to any positive result, though they might perhaps
serve to enforce the practical conviction of Spartan superiority;
for the territory of Tegea remained unimpaired, and its autonomy
noway restrained. During the Persian invasion, Tegea appears as the
willing ally of Lacedæmon, and as the second military power in the
Peloponnesus;[784] and we may fairly presume that it was chiefly the
strenuous resistance of the Tegeans which prevented the Lacedæmonians
from extending their empire over the larger portion of the Arcadian
communities. These latter always maintained their independence,
though acknowledging Sparta as the presiding power in Peloponnesus,
and obeying her orders implicitly as to the disposal of their
military force. And the influence which Sparta thus possessed over
all Arcadia was one main item in her power, never seriously shaken
until the battle of Leuktra; which took away her previous means of
insuring success and plunder to her minor followers.[785]
[784] Herod. ix. 26.
[785] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 2, 19. Ὥσπερ Ἀρκάδες, ὅταν μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν
ἴωσι, τά τε αὑτῶν σώζουσι καὶ τὰ ἀλλότρια ἁρπάζουσι, etc.
This was said to the Lacedæmonians about ten years before the
battle of Leuktra.
Having thus related the extension of the power of Sparta on her
northern or Arcadian frontier, it remains to mention her acquisitions
on the eastern and north-eastern side, towards Argos. Originally, as
has been before stated, not merely the province of Kynuria and the
Thyreātis but also the whole coast down to the promontory of Malea,
had either been part of the territory of Argos or belonged to the
Argeian confederacy. We learn from Herodotus,[786] that before the
time when the embassy from Crœsus, king of Lydia, came to solicit aid
in Greece (about 547 B. C.), the whole of this territory had fallen
into the power of Sparta; but how long before, or at what precise
epoch, we have no information. A considerable victory is said to have
been gained by the Argeians over the Spartans in the 27th Olympiad
or 669 B. C., at Hysiæ, on the road between Argos and Tegea.[787] At
that time it does not seem probable that Kynuria could have been in
the possession of the Spartans,—so that we must refer the acquisition
to some period in the following century; though Pausanias places
it much earlier, during the reign of Theopompus,[788]—and Eusebius
connects it with the first establishment of the festival called
Gymnopædia at Sparta, in 678 B. C.
[786] Herod. i. 82.
[787] Pausan. ii. 25, 1.
[788] Pausan. iii. 7, 5.
About the year 547 B. C., the Argeians made an effort to reconquer
Thyrea from Sparta, which led to a combat long memorable in the
annals of Grecian heroism. It was agreed between the two powers
that the possession of this territory should be determined by a
combat of three hundred select champions on each side; the armies
of both retiring, in order to leave the field clear. So undaunted
and so equal was the valor of these two chosen companies, that the
battle terminated by leaving only three of them alive,—Alkênôr and
Chromius among the Argeians, Othryadês among the Spartans. The two
Argeian warriors hastened home to report their victory, but Othryadês
remained on the field, carried off the arms of the enemy’s dead
into the Spartan camp, and kept his position until he was joined by
his countrymen the next morning. Both Argos and Sparta claimed the
victory for their respective champions, and the dispute after all
was decided by a general conflict, in which the Spartans were the
conquerors, though not without much slaughter on both sides. The
brave Othryadês, ashamed to return home as the single survivor of the
three hundred, fell upon his own sword on the field of battle.[789]
[789] Herod. i. 82; Strabo, viii. p. 376.
This defeat decided the possession of Thyrea, which did not again
pass, until a very late period of Grecian history, under the
power of Argos. The preliminary duel of three hundred, with its
uncertain issue, though well established as to the general fact,
was represented by the Argeians in a manner totally different
from the above story, which seems to have been current among the
Lacedæmonians.[790] But the most remarkable circumstance is,
that more than a century afterwards,—when the two powers were
negotiating for a renewal of the then expiring truce, the Argeians,
still hankering after this their ancient territory, desired the
Lacedæmonians to submit the question to arbitration; which being
refused, they next stipulated for the privilege of trying the point
in dispute by a duel similar to the former, at any time except during
the prevalence of war or of epidemic disease. The historian tells
us that the Lacedæmonians acquiesced in this proposition, though
they thought it absurd,[791] in consequence of their anxiety to keep
their relations with Argos at that time smooth and pacific. But
there is no reason to imagine that the real duel, in which Othryadês
contended, was considered as absurd at the time when it took place,
or during the age immediately succeeding. It fell in with a sort of
chivalrous pugnacity which is noticed among the attributes of the
early Greeks,[792] and also with various legendary exploits, such as
the single combat of Echemus and Hyllus, of Melanthus and Xanthus,
of Menelaus and Paris, etc. Moreover, the heroism of Othryadês
and his countrymen was a popular theme for poets, not only at the
Spartan gymnopædia,[793] but also elsewhere, and appears to have been
frequently celebrated. The absurdity attached to this proposition,
then, during the Peloponnesian war,—in the minds even of the
Spartans, the most old-fashioned and unchanging people in Greece,—is
to be ascribed to a change in the Grecian political mind, at and
after the Persian war. The habit of political calculation had made
such decided progress among them, that the leading states especially
had become familiarized with something like a statesmanlike view of
their resources, their dangers, and their obligations. How lamentably
deficient this sort of sagacity was during the Persian invasion,
will appear when we come to describe that imminent crisis of Grecian
independence: but the events of those days were well calculated
to sharpen it for the future, and the Greeks of the Peloponnesian
war had become far more refined political schemers than their
forefathers. And thus it happened that the proposition to settle a
territorial dispute by a duel of chosen champions, admissible and
even becoming a century before, came afterwards to be derided as
childish.
[790] The Argeians showed at Argos a statue of Perilaus, son of
Alkênôr, killing Othryadês (Pausan. ii. 20, 6; ii. 38, 5: compare
x. 9, 6, and the references in Larcher ad Herodot. i. 82). The
narrative of Chrysermus, ἐν τρίτῳ Πελοποννησιακῶν (as given in
Plutarch, Parallel. Hellenic. p. 306), is different in many
respects.
Pausanias found the Thyreatis in possession of the Argeians (ii.
38, 5). They told him that they had recovered it by adjudication;
when or by whom we do not know: it seems to have passed back to
Argos before the close of the reign of Kleomenês the Third, at
Sparta (220 B. C.), Polyb. iv. 36.
Strabo even reckons Prasiæ as Argeian, to the south of Kynuria
(viii. p. 368), though in his other passage (p. 374) seemingly
cited from Ephorus, it is treated as Lacedæmonian. Compare Manso,
Sparta, vol. ii. Beilage i. p. 48.
Eusebius, placing this duel at a much earlier period (Ol. 27, 3,
678 B. C.), ascribes the first foundation of the Gymnopædia at
Sparta to the desire of commemorating the event. Pausanias (iii.
7, 3) places it still farther back in the reign of Theopompus.
[791] Thucyd. v. 41. Τοῖς δὲ Λακεδαιμονίοις τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἐδόκει
μωρία εἶναι ταῦτα, ἔπειτα (ἐπεθύμουν γὰρ πάντως τὸ Ἄργος φίλιον
ἔχειν) ξυνεχώρησαν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἠξίουν, καὶ ξυνεγράψαντο.
[792] Herodot. vii. 9. Compare the challenge which Herodotus
alleges to have been proclaimed to the Spartans by Mardonius,
through a herald, just before the battle of Platæa (ix. 48).
[793] Athenæ. xv. p. 678.
The inhabitants of Kynuria are stated by Herodotus to have been
Ionians, but completely Dorized through their long subjection to
Argos, by whom they were governed as Periœki. Pausanias gives a
different account of their race, which he traces to the eponymous
hero Kynūrus, son of Perseus: but he does not connect them with the
Kynurians whom he mentions in another place as a portion of the
inhabitants of Arcadia.[794] It is evident that, even in the time of
Herodotus, the traces of their primitive descent were nearly effaced.
He says they were “Orneates and Periœki” to Argos; and it appears
that the inhabitants of Orneæ also, whom Argos had reduced to the
same dependent condition, traced their eponymous hero to an Ionic
stock,—Orneus was the son of the Attic Erechtheus.[795] Strabo seems
to have conceived the Kynurians as occupying originally, not only the
frontier district of Argolis and Laconia, wherein Thyrea is situated,
but also the north-western portion of Argolis, under the ridge called
Lyrkeium, which separates the latter from the Arcadian territory of
Stimphalus.[796] This ridge was near the town of Orneæ, which lay on
the border of Argolis near the confines of Phlius; so that Strabo
thus helps to confirm the statement of Herodotus, that the Orneates
were a portion of Kynurians, held by Argos along with the other
Kynurians in the condition of dependent allies and Periœki, and very
probably also of Ionian origin.
[794] Herod. viii. 73; Pausan. iii. 2, 2; viii. 27, 3.
[795] Pausan. ii. 25, 5. Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und
Römer Griechenland, book ii. ch. xix. p. 618) connects the
Kynurians of Arcadia and Argolis, though Herodotus tells us that
the latter were Ionians: he gives to this name much greater
importance and extension than the evidence bears out.
[796] Strabo, viii. p. 370—ὁ Ἴναχος ἔχων τὰς πηγὰς ἐκ Λυρκείου
τοῦ κατὰ Κυνουρίαν ὄρους τῆς Ἀρκαδίας. Coray and Grosskurd gain
nothing here by the conjectural reading of Ἀργείας in place of
Ἀρκαδίας, for the ridge of Lyrkeium ran between the two, and
might, therefore be connected with either without impropriety.
The conquest of Thyrea (a district valuable to the Lacedæmonians,
as we may presume from the large booty which the Argeians got from
it during the Peloponnesian war)[797] was the last territorial
acquisition made by Sparta. She was now possessed of a continuous
dominion, comprising the whole southern portion of the Peloponnesus,
from the southern bank of the river Nedon on the western coast, to
the northern boundary of Thyreatis on the eastern coast. The area
of her territory, including as it did both Laconia and Messenia,
was equal to two-fifths of the entire peninsula, all governed from
the single city, and for the exclusive purpose and benefit of the
citizens of Sparta. Within all this wide area there was not a single
community pretending to independent agency. The townships of the
Periœki, and the villages of the Helots, were each individually
unimportant; nor do we hear of any one of them presuming to treat
with a foreign state: both consider themselves as nothing else but
subjects of the Spartan ephors and their subordinate officers. They
are indeed discontented subjects, hating as well as fearing their
masters, and not to be trusted if a favorable opportunity for secure
revolt presents itself. But no individual township or district is
strong enough to stand up for itself, while combinations among
them are prevented by the habitual watchfulness and unscrupulous
precautions of the ephors, especially by that jealous secret police
called the Krypteia, to which allusion has already been made.
[797] Thucyd. vi. 95.
Not only, therefore, was the Spartan territory larger and its
population more numerous than that of any other state in Hellas, but
its government was also more completely centralized and more strictly
obeyed. Its source of weakness was the discontent of its Periœki
and Helots, the latter of whom were not—like the slaves of other
states—imported barbarians from different countries, and speaking
a broken Greek, but genuine Hellens,—of one dialect and lineage,
sympathizing with each other, and as much entitled to the protection
of Zeus Hellanius as their masters,—from whom, indeed, they stood
distinguished by no other line except the perfect training,
individual and collective, which was peculiar to the Spartans. During
the period on which we are at present dwelling, it does not seem that
this discontent comes sensibly into operation; but we shall observe
its manifestations very unequivocally after the Persian and during
the Peloponnesian war.
To such auxiliary causes of Spartan predominance we must add
another,—the excellent military position of Sparta, and the
unassailable character of Laconia generally. On three sides that
territory is washed by the sea,[798] with a coast remarkably
dangerous and destitute of harbors; hence Sparta had nothing
to apprehend from this quarter until the Persian invasion and
its consequences,—one of the most remarkable of which was, the
astonishing development of the Athenian naval force. The city of
Sparta, far removed from the sea, was admirably defended by an almost
impassable northern frontier, composed of those districts which we
have observed above to have been conquered from Arcadia,—Karyātis,
Skirītis, Maleātis, and Beleminātis. The difficulty as well as
danger of marching into Laconia by these mountain passes, noticed by
Euripides, was keenly felt by every enemy of the Lacedæmonians, and
has been powerfully stated by a first-rate modern observer, Colonel
Leake.[799] No site could be better chosen for holding the key of
all the penetrable passes than that of Sparta. This well-protected
frontier was a substitute more than sufficient for fortifications
to Sparta itself, which always maintained, down to the times of
the despot Nabis, its primitive aspect of a group of adjacent
hill-villages rather than a regular city.
[798] Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 8, 7: φοβούμενος τὴν ἀλιμενότητα τῆς
χώρας.
[799] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 5. 10; Eurip. ap. Strabo, viii. p. 366;
Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. iii. c. xxii. p. 25.
“It is to the strength of the frontiers, and the comparatively
large extent of country inclosed within them, that we must trace
the primary cause of the Lacedæmonian power. These enabled the
people, when strengthened by a rigid military discipline, and put
in motion by an ambitious spirit, first to triumph over their
weaker neighbors of Messenia, by this additional strength to
overawe the disunited republics of Arcadia, and at length for
centuries to hold an acknowledged military superiority over every
other state in Greece.
“It is remarkable that all the principal passes into Laconia
lead to one point: this point is Sparta; a fact which shows
at once how well the position of that city was chosen for the
defence of the province, and how well it was adapted, especially
as long as it continued to be unwalled, to maintain a perpetual
vigilance and readiness for defence, which are the surest means
of offensive success.
“The natural openings into the plain of Sparta are only two;
one by the upper Eurotas, as the course of that river above
Sparta may be termed; the other by its only large branch Œnus,
now the Kelefina, which, as I have already stated, joins the
Eurotas opposite to the north-eastern extremity of Sparta. All
the natural approaches to Sparta from the northward lead to one
or the other of these two valleys. On the side of Messenia, the
northerly prolongation of Mount Taygetum, which joins Mount
Lyceum at the pass of Andania, now the pass of Makryplái,
furnishes a continued barrier of the loftiest kind, admitting
only of routes easily defensible; and which,—whether from the
Cromitis of Arcadia to the south-westward of the modern Londári,
from the Stenykleric plain, from the plain of the Pamisus, or
from Pheræ, now Kalamáta,—all descend into the valley of the
upper Eurotas, and conduct to Sparta by Pellana. There was,
indeed, a branch of the last-mentioned route, which descended
into the Spartan plain at the modern Mistra, and which must
have been a very frequent communication between Sparta and the
lower part of Messenia; but, like the other direct passes over
Taygetum, it was much more difficult and defensible than those
which I have called the natural entrances of the province.”
When, along with such territorial advantages, we contemplate
the personal training peculiar to the Spartan citizens, as yet
undiminished in their numbers,—combined with the effect of that
training upon Grecian sentiment, in inspiring awe and admiration,—we
shall not be surprised to find that, during the half-century which
elapsed between the year 600 B. C. and the final conquest of
Thyreātis from Argos, Sparta had acquired and begun to exercise a
recognized ascendency over all the Grecian states. Her military force
was at that time superior to that of any of the rest, in a degree
much greater than it afterwards came to be; for other states had not
yet attained their maximum, and Athens in particular was far short
of the height which she afterwards reached. In respect to discipline
as well as number, the Spartan military force had even at this
early period reached a point which it did not subsequently surpass;
while in Athens, Thebes, Argos, Arcadia, and even Elis (as will
be hereafter shown), the military training in later days received
greater attention, and improved considerably. The Spartans (observes
Aristotle)[800] brought to perfection their gymnastic training and
their military discipline, at a time when other Greeks neglected
both the one and the other: their early superiority was that of the
trained men over the untrained, and ceased in after-days, when other
states came to subject their citizens to systematic exercises of
analogous character or tendency. This fact,—the early period at which
Sparta attained her maximum of discipline, power, and territory,—is
important to bear in mind, when we are explaining the general
acquiescence which her ascendency met with in Greece, and which her
subsequent acts would certainly not have enabled her to earn. That
acquiescence first began, and became a habit of the Grecian mind,
at a time when Sparta had no rival to come near her,—when she had
completely shot ahead of Argos,—and when the vigor of the Lykurgean
discipline had been manifested in a long series of conquests, made
during the stationary period of other states, and ending only, to use
the somewhat exaggerated phrase of Herodotus, when she had subdued
the greater part of Peloponnesus.[801]
[800] Aristot. Polit. viii. 3, 4. Ἔτι δ᾽ αὐτοὺς τοὺς Λάκωνας
ἴσμεν, ἕως μὲν αὐτοὶ προσήδρευον ταῖς φιλοπονίαις, ὑπερέχοντας
τῶν ἄλλων· νῦν δὲ, καὶ τοῖς γυμνασίοις καὶ τοῖς πολεμικοῖς ἀγῶσι,
λειπομένους ἑτέρων: οὐ γὰρ τῷ τοὺς νέους γυμνάζειν τὸν τρόπον
τοῦτον διέφερον, ἀλλὰ τῷ μόνον μὴ πρὸς ἀσκοῦντας ἀσκεῖν....
Ἀνταγωνιστὰς γὰρ τῆς παιδείας νῦν ἔχουσι· πρότερον δὲ οὐκ εἶχον.
[801] Herodot. i. 68. ἤδη δέ σφι καὶ ἡ πολλὴ τῆς Πελοποννήσου ἦν
κατεστραμμένη.
Our accounts of the memorable military organization of Sparta are
scanty, and insufficient to place the details of it clearly before
us. The arms of the Spartans, as to all material points, were
not different from those of other Greek hoplites. But one grand
peculiarity is observable from the beginning, as an item in the
Lykurgean institutions. That lawgiver established military divisions
quite distinct from the civil divisions, whereas in the other states
of Greece, until a period much later than that which we have now
reached, the two were confounded,—the hoplites or horsemen of the
same tribe or ward being marshalled together on the field of battle.
Every Lacedæmonian was bound to military service from the age of
twenty to sixty, and the ephors, when they sent forth an expedition,
called to arms all the men within some given limit of age. Herodotus
tells us that Lykurgus established both the syssitia, or public
mess, and the enômoties and triākads, or the military subdivisions
peculiar to Sparta.[802] The triākads are not mentioned elsewhere,
nor can we distinctly make out what they were; but the enômoty was
the special characteristic of the system, and the pivot upon which
all its arrangements turned. It was a small company of men, the
number of whom was variable, being given differently at twenty-five,
thirty-two, or thirty-six men,—drilled and practised together in
military evolutions, and bound to each other by a common oath.[803]
Each enômoty had a separate captain, or enomotarch, the strongest and
ablest soldier of the company, who always occupied the front rank,
and led the enômoty when it marched in single file, giving the order
of march, as well as setting the example. If the enômoty was drawn up
in three, or four, or six files, the enomotarch usually occupied the
front post on the left, and care was taken that both the front-rank
men and the rear-rank men, of each file, should be soldiers of
particular merit.[804]
[802] Herodot. i. 67; compare Larcher’s note.
Concerning the obscure and difficult subject of the military
arrangements of Sparta, see Cragius, Repub. Laced. iv. 4; Manso,
Sparta, ii. Beilage 18, p. 224; O. Müller, Hist. Dorians, iii.
12; Dr. Arnold’s note on Thucydidês, v. 68; and Dr. Thirlwall,
History of Greece, vol. i. Appendix 3, p. 520.
[803] Pollux, i. 10, 129. Ἰδίως μέντοι τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων,
ἐνωμοτία, καὶ μόρα: compare Suidas and Hesych. v. Ἐνωμοτία;
Xenoph. Rep. Lacon. c. 11; Thucyd. v. 67-68; Xenoph. Hellen. vi.
4, 12.
Suidas states the enômoty at twenty-five men: in the Lacedæmonian
army which fought at the first battle of Mantineia (418 B. C.),
it seems to have consisted of about thirty-two men (Thuc. _l.
c._): at the battle of Leuktra of thirty-six men (Xen. Hellen.
_l. c._). But the language of Xenophon and Thucydidês does not
imply that the number of each enômoty was equal.
[804] O. Müller states that the enomotarch, after a παραγωγὴ,
or deployment into phalanx, stood on the _right_ hand, which is
contrary to Xenoph. Rep. Lac. 11, 9.—Ὅτε δὲ ὁ ἄρχων ~εὐώνυμος~
γίγνεται, οὐδ᾽ ἐν τούτῳ μειονεκτεῖν ἡγοῦνται, ἀλλ᾽ ἔστιν ὅτε καὶ
πλεονεκτεῖν,—the ἄρχων was the first enomotarch of the lochus,
the πρωτοστάτης (as appears from 11, 5), when the enômoty
marched in single file. To put the ἡγεμὼν on the right flank,
was done _occasionally_ for special reason,—ἢν δὲ ~ποτε ἕνεκά
τινος~ δοκῇ ξυμφέρειν, τον ἡγεμόνα ~δέξιον~ κέρας ἔχειν, etc. I
understand Xenophon’s description of the παραγωγὴ, or deployment,
differently from Müller,—it rather seems that the enômoties
which stood first made a side-movement to the left, so that the
first enomotarch still maintained his place on the left, at the
same time that the opportunity was created for the enômoties
in the rear to come up and form equal front, τῷ ἐνωμοτάρχῃ
παρεγγυᾶται εἰς μέτωπον παρ᾽ ἀσπίδα καθίστασθαι,—the words ~παρ᾽
ἀσπίδα~ have reference, as I imagine, to the proceeding of the
first enomotarch, who set the example of side-movement to the
left-hand, as it is shown by the words which follow,—καὶ ~διὰ
παντὸς οὖτος~ ἔστ᾽ ἂν ἡ φάλαγξ ἐναντία καταστῇ. The phalanx was
constituted when all the _lochi_ formed an equal and continuous
front, whether the sixteen enômoties, of which each lochus was
composed, might be each in one file, in three files, or in six
files.
It was upon these small companies that the constant and severe
Lacedæmonian drilling was brought to act. They were taught to
march in concert, to change rapidly from line to file, to wheel
right or left in such manner as that the enomotarch and the other
protostates, or front-rank men, should always be the persons
immediately opposed to the enemy.[805] Their step was regulated by
the fife, which played in martial measures peculiar to Sparta, and
was employed in actual battle as well as in military practice; and
so perfectly were they habituated to the movements of the enômoty,
that, if their order was deranged by any adverse accident, scattered
soldiers could spontaneously form themselves into the same order,
each man knowing perfectly the duties belonging to the place into
which chance had thrown him.[806] Above the enômoty were several
larger divisions,—the pentekostys, the lochus, and the mora,[807]
of which latter there seem to have been _six_ in all. Respecting
the number of each division, and the proportion of the larger to
the smaller, we find statements altogether different, yet each
resting upon good authority,—so that we are driven to suppose that
there was no peremptory standard, and that the enômoty comprised
twenty-five, thirty-two, or thirty-six men; the pentekostys, two or
four enômoties; the lochus, two or four pentekosties, and the mora,
four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, or nine hundred men,—at
different times, or according to the limits of age which the ephors
might prescribe for the men whom they called into the field.[808]
[805] See Xenoph. Anab. iv. 8, 10, upon the advantage of
attacking the enemy with ὄρθιοι λόχοι, in which case the
strongest and best soldiers all came first into conflict. It is
to be recollected, however, that the practice of the Cyreian
troops cannot be safely quoted as authority for the practice
at Sparta. Xenophon and his colleagues established lochi,
pentekosties, and enômoties in the Cyreian army: the lochus
consisted of one hundred men, but the numbers of the other two
divisions are not stated (Anab. iii. 4, 21; iv. 3, 26: compare
Arrian, Tactic. cap. 6).
[806] The words of Thucydides indicate the peculiar marshalling
of the Lacedæmonians, as distinguished both from their enemies
and from their allies at the battle of Mantineia,—καὶ εὐθὺς ὑπὸ
σπουδῆς καθίσταντο ἐς ~κόσμον τὸν ἑαυτῶν~, Ἄγιδος τοῦ βασιλέως
ἕκαστα ἐξηγουμένου κατὰ νόμον: again, c. 68.
About the music of the flute or fife, Thucyd. v. 69; Xen. Rep.
Lac. 13, 9; Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 22.
[807] Meursius, Dr. Arnold, and Rachetti (Della Milizia dei
Grechi Antichi, Milan, 1807, p. 166) all think that lochus and
mora were different names for the same division; but if this is
to be reconciled with the statement of Xenophon in Repub. Lac. c.
11, we must suppose an actual change of nomenclature after the
Peloponnesian war, which appears to be Dr. Arnold’s opinion,—yet
it is not easy to account for.
There is one point in Dr. Thirlwall’s Appendix which is of some
importance, and in which I cannot but dissent from his opinion.
He says, after stating the nomenclature and classification of the
Spartan military force as given by Xenophon, “Xenophon speaks
only of Spartans, as appears by the epithet πολιτικῶν,” p. 521:
the words of Xenophon are, Ἑκάστη δὲ τῶν πολιτικῶν μορῶν ἔχει
πολέμαρχον ἕνα, etc. (Rep. Lac. 11.)
It appears to me that Xenophon is here speaking of the aggregate
Lacedæmonian heavy-armed force, including both Spartans and
Periœki,—not of Spartans alone. The word πολιτικῶν does not mean
Spartans as distinguished from Periœki, but Lacedæmonians as
distinguished from allies. Thus, when Agesilaus returns home from
the blockade of Phlius, Xenophon tells us that ταῦτα ποιήσας τοὺς
μὲν συμμάχους ἀφῆκε, τὸ δὲ πολιτικὸν οἴκαδε ἀπήγαγε (Hellen. v.
3, 25).
O. Müller, also, thinks that the whole number of five thousand
seven hundred and forty men, who fought at the first battle of
Mantineia, in the thirteenth year of the Peloponnesian war,
were furnished by the city of Sparta itself (Hist. of Dorians,
iii. 12, 2): and to prove this, he refers to the very passage
just cited from the Hellenica of Xenophon, which, as far as it
proves anything, proves the contrary of his position. He gives
no other evidence to support it, and I think it in the highest
degree improbable. I have already remarked that he understands
the expression πολιτικὴ χώρα (in Polybius, vi. 45) to mean the
district of Sparta itself as contradistinguished from Laconia,—a
construction which seems to me not warranted by the passage in
Polybius.
[808] Aristotle, Λακώνων Πολιτεία, Fragm. 5-6, ed. Neumann:
Photius v. Λόχος. Harpokration, Μόρα. Etymologic. Mag. Μόρα.
The statement of Aristotle is transmitted so imperfectly that
we cannot make out clearly what it was. Xenophon says that
there were six moræ in all, comprehending all the citizens of
military age (Rep. Lac. 11, 3). But Ephorus stated the mora at
five hundred men, Kallisthenes at seven hundred, and Polybius at
nine hundred (Plutarch, Pelopid. 17; Diodor. xv. 32). If all the
citizens competent to bear arms were comprised in six moræ, the
numbers of each mora must of course have varied. At the battle
of Mantineia, there were seven Lacedæmonian lochi, each lochus
containing four pentekosties, and each pentekosty containing four
enômoties: Thucydidês seems, as I before remarked, to make each
enômoty thirty-two men. But Xenophon tells us that each mora had
four lochi, each lochus two pentekosties, and each pentekosty
two enômoties (Rep. Lac. 11, 4). The names of these divisions
remained the same, but the numbers varied.
What remains fixed in the system is, first, the small number, though
varying within certain limits, of the elementary company called
enômoty, trained to act together, and composed of men nearly of
the same age,[809] in which every man knew his place; secondly,
the scale of divisions and the hierarchy of officers, each rising
above the other,—the enômotarch, the pentekontêr, the lochage, and
the polemarch, or commander of the mora,—each having the charge of
their respective divisions. Orders were transmitted from the king,
as commander-in-chief, through the polemarchs to the lochages,—from
the lochages to the pentekonters, and then from the latter to the
enômotarchs, each of whom caused them to be executed by his enômoty.
As all these men had been previously trained to the duties of their
respective stations, the Spartan infantry possessed the arrangements
and aptitudes of a standing army. Originally, they seem to have had
no cavalry at all,[810] and when cavalry was at length introduced
into their system, it was of a very inferior character, no provision
having been made for it in the Lykurgean training. But the military
force of the other cities of Greece, even down to the close of the
Peloponnesian war, enjoyed little or no special training, having
neither any small company like the enômoty, consisting of particular
men drilled to act together,—no fixed and disciplined officers,—nor
triple scale of subordination and subdivision. Gymnastics, and
the use of arms, made a part of education everywhere, and it is
to be presumed that no Grecian hoplite was entirely without some
practice of marching in line and military evolutions, inasmuch as
the obligation to serve was universal and often enforced. But such
practice was casual and unequal, nor had any individual of Argos or
Athens a fixed military place and duty. The citizen took arms among
his tribe, under a taxiarch, chosen from it for the occasion, and was
placed in a rank or line wherein neither his place nor his immediate
neighbors were predetermined. The tribe appears to have been the only
military classification known to Athens,[811] and the taxiarch the
only tribe officer for infantry, as the phylarch was for cavalry,
under the general-in-chief. Moreover, orders from the general were
proclaimed to the line collectively by a herald of loud voice, not
communicated to the taxiarch so as to make him responsible for the
proper execution of them by his division. With an arrangement thus
perfunctory and unsystematized, we shall be surprised to find how
well the military duties were often performed: but every Greek who
contrasted it with the symmetrical structure of the Lacedæmonian
armed force, and with the laborious preparation of every Spartan for
his appropriate duty, felt an internal sentiment of inferiority,
which made him willingly accept the headship of “these professional
artists in the business of war,”[812] as they are often denominated.
[809] This is implied in the fact, that the men under thirty or
under thirty-five years of age, were often detached in a battle
to pursue the light troops of the enemy (Xen. Hellen. iv. 5,
15-16).
[810] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 12.
[811] Herodot. vi. 111; Thucyd. vi. 98; Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 2, 19.
The same marshalling of hoplites, according to the civil tribes
to which they belonged, is seen in the inhabitants of Messênê in
Sicily as well as of Syrakuse (Thucyd. iii. 90; vi. 100).
At Argos, there was a body of one thousand hoplites, who, during
the Peloponnesian war, received training in military manœuvres
at the cost of the city (Thucyd. v. 67), but there is reason to
believe that this arrangement was not introduced until about the
period of the peace of Nikias in the tenth or eleventh year of
the Peloponnesian war, when the truce between Argos and Sparta
was just expiring, and when the former began to entertain schemes
of ambition. The Epariti in Arcadia began at a much later time,
after the battle of Leuktra (Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 4, 33).
About the Athenian taxiarchs, one to each tribe, see Æschines de
Fals. Leg. c. 53, p. 300 R.; Lysias, pro Mantitheo, Or. xvi. p.
147; Demosth. adv. Bœotum pro nomine, p. 999 R. Philippic, i. p.
47.
See the advice given by Xenophon (in his Treatise De Officio
Magistri Equitum) for the remodelling of the Athenian cavalry,
and for the introduction of small divisions, each with its
special commander. The division into tribes is all that he finds
recognized (Off. M. E. C. ii. 2-iv. 9); he strongly recommends
giving orders,—διὰ παραγγέλσεως, and not ἀπὸ κήρυκος.
[812] Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 23. Πάντων ἄκροι τεχνῖται καὶ
σοφισταὶ τῶν πολεμικῶν ὄντες οἱ Σπαρτιᾶται, etc. (Xenoph. Rep.
Lac. c. 14) ἡγησαῖο ἂν, τοὺς μὲν ἄλλους αὐτοσχεδιαστὰς εἶναι
τῶν στρατιωτικῶν, Λακεδαιμονίους δὲ μόνους τῷ ὄντι τεχνίτας τῶν
πολεμικῶν.... Ὥστε τῶν δεομένων γίγνεσθαι οὐδὲν ἀπορεῖται· οὐδὲν
γὰρ ἀπρόσκεπτόν ἐστιν.
It was through the concurrence of these various circumstances
that the willing acknowledgment of Sparta as the leading state of
Hellas became a part of Grecian habitual sentiment, during the
interval between about 600 B. C. and 547 B. C. During this period
too, chiefly, Greece and her colonies were ripening into a sort of
recognized and active partnership. The common religious assemblies,
which bound the parts together, not only acquired greater formality
and more extended development, but also became more numerous and
frequent,—while the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games were exalted
into a national importance, approaching to that of the Olympic. The
recognized superiority of Sparta thus formed part and parcel of the
first historical aggregation of the Grecian states. It was about
the year 547 B. C., that Crœsus of Lydia, when pressed by Cyrus and
the Persians, solicited aid from Greece, addressing himself to the
Spartans as confessed presidents of the whole Hellenic body.[813] And
the tendencies then at work, towards a certain degree of increased
intercourse and coöperation among the dispersed members of the
Hellenic name, were doubtless assisted by the existence of a state
recognized by all as the first,—a state whose superiority was the
more readily acquiesced in, because it was earned by a painful and
laborious discipline, which all admired, but none chose to copy.[814]
[813] Ὑμέας γὰρ πυνθάνομαι προεστάναι τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Herodot. i.
69): compare i. 152; v. 49; vi, 84, about Spartan hegemony.
[814] Xenoph. Repub. Lac. 10, 8. ἐπαινοῦσι μὲν πάντες τὰ τοιαῦτα
ἐπιτηδεύματα, μιμεῖσθαι δὲ αὐτὰ οὐδεμία πόλις ἐθέλει.
The magnificent funeral discourse, pronounced by Periklês in the
early part of the Peloponnesian war over the deceased Athenian
warriors, includes a remarkable contrast of the unconstrained
patriotism and bravery of the Athenians, with the austere,
repulsive, and ostentatious drilling to which the Spartans were
subject from their earliest youth; at the same time, it attests
the powerful effect which that drilling produced upon the mind of
Greece (Thucyd. ii. 37-39). πιστεύοντες οὐ ταῖς παρασκευαῖς τὸ
πλέον καὶ ἀπάταις, ἢ τῷ ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν ἐς τὰ ἔργα εὐψύχῳ· καὶ ἐν
ταῖς παιδείαις οἱ μὲν (the Spartans) ἐπιπόνῳ ἀσκήσει εὐθὺς νέοι
ὄντες τὸ ἀνδρεῖον μετέρχονται, etc.
The impression of the light troops, when they first began to
attack the Lacedæmonian hoplites in the island of Sphakteria,
is strongly expressed by Thucydidês (iv. 34),—τῇ γνώμῃ
~δεδουλωμένοι~ ὡς ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, etc.
Whether it be true, as O. Müller and other learned men conceive, that
the Homeric mode of fighting was the general practice in Peloponnesus
and the rest of Greece anterior to the invasion of the Dorians, and
that the latter first introduced the habit of fighting with close
ranks and protended spears, is a point which cannot be determined.
Throughout all our historical knowledge of Greece, a close rank among
the hoplites, charging with spears always in hand, is the prevailing
practice; though there are cases of exception, in which the spear is
hurled, when troops seem afraid of coming to close quarters.[815]
Nor is it by any means certain, that the Homeric manner of fighting
ever really prevailed in Peloponnesus, which is a country eminently
inconvenient for the use of war-chariots. The descriptions of the
bard may perhaps have been founded chiefly upon what he and his
auditors witnessed on the coast of Asia Minor, where chariots were
more employed, and where the country was much more favorable to
them.[816] We have no historical knowledge of any military practice
in Peloponnesus anterior to the hoplites with close ranks and
protended spears.
[815] Xenoph. Hellen. v. 4, 52: compare iii. 5, 20.
[816] Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 4, 19.
One Peloponnesian state there was, and one alone, which disdained to
acknowledge the superiority or headship of Lacedæmon. Argos never
forgot that she had once been the chief power in the peninsula, and
her feeling towards Sparta was that of a jealous, but impotent,
competitor. By what steps the decline of her power had taken place,
we are unable to make out, nor can we trace the succession of her
kings subsequent to Pheidôn. It has been already stated that, about
669 B. C., the Argeians gained a victory over the Spartans at Hysiæ,
and that they expelled from the port of Nauplia its preëxisting
inhabitants, who found shelter, by favor of the Lacedæmonians,
at the port of Mothônê, in Messenia:[817] Damokratidas was then
king of Argos. Pausanias tells us that Meltas, the son of Lakidês,
was the last descendant of Temenus who succeeded to this dignity;
he being condemned and deposed by the people. Plutarch, however,
states that the family of the Herakleids died out, and that another
king, named Ægôn, was chosen by the people at the indication of
the Delphian oracle.[818] Of this story, Pausanias appears to have
known nothing. His language implies that the kingly dignity ceased
with Meltas,—wherein he is undoubtedly mistaken, since the title
existed, though probably with very limited functions, at the time
of the Persian war. Moreover, there is some ground for presuming
that the king of Argos was even at that time a Herakleid,—since the
Spartans offered to him a third part of the command of the Hellenic
force, conjointly with their own two kings.[819] The conquest
of Thyreātis by the Spartans deprived the Argeians of a valuable
portion of their Periœkis, or dependent territory; but Orneæ, and the
remaining portion of Kynuria,[820] still continued to belong to them;
the plain round their city was very productive; and except Sparta,
there was no other power in Peloponnesus superior to them. Mykenæ
and Tiryns, nevertheless, seem both to have been independent states
at the time of the Persian war, since both sent contingents to the
battle of Platæa, at a time when Argos held aloof and rather favored
the Persians. At what time Kleônæ became the ally, or dependent, of
Argos, we cannot distinctly make out. During the Peloponnesian war,
it is numbered in that character along with Orneæ;[821] but it seems
not to have lost its autonomy about the year 470 B. C., at which
period Pindar represents the Kleonæans as presiding and distributing
prizes at the Nemean games.[822] The grove of Nemea was less than two
miles from their town, and they were the original presidents of this
great festival,—a function of which they were subsequently robbed by
the Argeians, in the same manner as the Pisatans had been treated
by the Eleians with reference to the Olympic Agôn. The extinction
of the autonomy of Kleônæ and the acquisition of the presidency of
the Nemean festival by Argos, were doubtless simultaneous, but we
are unable to mark the exact time; for the statement of Eusebius,
that the Argeians celebrated the Nemean festival as early as the 53d
Olympiad, or 568 B. C., is contradicted by the more valuable evidence
of Pindar.[823]
[817] Pausan. iv. 24, 2; iv. 35, 2.
[818] Pausan. ii. 19, 2; Plutarch (Cur Pythia nunc non reddat
oracula, etc. c. 5, p. 396; De Fortunâ Alexandri, c. 8, p. 340).
Lakidês, king of Argos, is also named by Plutarch as luxurious
and effeminate (De capiendâ ab hostibus utilitate, c. 6, p. 89).
O. Müller (Hist. of Dorians, iii. 6, 10) identifies Lakidês, son
of Meltas, named by Pausanias, with Leôkêdês son of Pheidôn,
named by Herodotus as one of the suitors for the daughter of
Kleisthenês the Sikyonian (vi. 127); and he thus infers that
Meltas must have been deposed and succeeded by Ægon, about 560 B.
C. This conjecture seems to me not much to be trusted.
[819] Herodot. vii. 149.
[820] Herodot. viii. 73.
Strabo distinguishes two places called Orneæ; one a village in
the Argeian territory, the other a town between Corinth and
Sikyôn: but I doubt whether there ever were two places so called:
the town or village dependent on Argos seems the only place
(Strabo. viii. p. 376).
[821] Thucyd. v. 67-vi. 95.
The Kleônæans are also said to have aided the Argeians in the
destruction of Mykenæ, conjointly with the Tegeatans: from hence,
however, we cannot infer anything as to their dependence at that
time (Strabo, viii. p. 377).
[822] Pindar, Nem. x. 42. Κλεωναίων πρὸς ἀνδρῶν τετράκις (compare
Nem. iv. 17). Κλεωναίου τ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἀγῶνος, etc.
[823] See Corsini Dissertation. Agonisticæ, iii. 2.
The tenth Nemean Ode of Pindar is on this point peculiarly good
evidence, inasmuch as it is composed for, and supposed to be
sung by Theiæus, a native of Argos. Had there been any jealousy
then subsisting between Argos and Kleônæ on the subject of the
presidency of this festival, Pindar would never, on such an
occasion, have mentioned expressly the Kleônæans as presidents.
The statements of the Scholia on Pindar, that the Corinthians at
one time celebrated the Nemean games, or that they were of old
celebrated at Sikyôn, seem unfounded (Schol. Pind. Arg. Nem., and
Nem. x. 49).
Of Corinth and Sikyôn it will be more convenient to speak when we
survey what is called the Age of the Tyrants, or Despots; and of
the inhabitants of Achaia (who occupied the southern coast of the
Corinthian gulf, westward of Sikyôn, as far as Cape Araxus, the
north-western point of Peloponnesus), a few words exhaust our whole
knowledge, down to the time at which we are arrived. These Achæans
are given to us as representing the ante-Dorian inhabitants of
Laconia, whom the legend affirms to have retired under Tisamenus
to the northern parts of Peloponnesus, from whence they expelled
the preëxisting Ionians and occupied the country. The race of their
kings is said to have lasted from Tisamenus down to Ogygus,[824]—how
long, we do not know. After the death of the latter, the Achæan
towns formed each a separate republic, but with periodical festivals
and sacrifice at the temple of Zeus Homarius, affording opportunity
of settling differences and arranging their common concerns. Of
these towns, twelve are known from Herodotus and Strabo,—Pellênê,
Ægira, Ægæ, Bura, Helikê, Ægium, Rhypes, Patræ, Pharæ, Olenus,
Dymê, Tritæa.[825] But there must originally have been some other
autonomous towns besides these twelve; for in the 23d Olympiad,
Ikarus of Hyperêsia was proclaimed as victor, and there seems
good reason to believe that Hyperêsia, an old town of the Homeric
Catalogue, was in Achaia.[826] It is affirmed that, before the Achæan
occupation of the country, the Ionians had dwelt in independent
villages, several of which were subsequently aggregated into towns:
thus Patræ was formed by a coalescence of seven villages, Dymê from
eight (one of which was named Teuthea), and Ægium also from seven or
eight. But all these towns were small, and some of them underwent a
farther junction one with the other; thus Ægæ was joined with Ægeira,
and Olenus with Dymê.[827] All the authors seem disposed to recognize
twelve cities, and no more, in Achaia; for Polybius, still adhering
to that number, substitutes Leontium and Keryneia in place of Ægæ and
Rhypes; Pausanias gives Keryneia in place of Patræ.[828] We hear of
no facts respecting these Achæan towns until a short time before the
Peloponnesian war, and even then their part was inconsiderable.
[824] Polyb. ii. 41.
[825] Herodot. i. 145; Strabo, viii. p. 385.
[826] Pausan. iv. 15, 1; Strabo, viii. p. 383; Homer, Iliad, ii.
573. Pausanias seems to have forgotten this statement, when he
tells us that the name of Hyperêsia was exchanged for that of
Ægeira, during the time of the Ionian occupation of the country
(vii. 26, 1; Steph. Byz. copies him, v. Αἴγειρα). It is doubtful
whether the two names designate the same place, nor does Strabo
conceive that they did.
[827] Strabo, viii. pp. 337, 342, 386.
[828] Polyb. ii. 41.
The greater portion of the territory comprised under the name of
Achaia was mountain, forming the northern descent of those high
ranges, passable only through very difficult gorges, which separate
the country from Arcadia to the south, and which throw out various
spurs approaching closely to the gulf of Corinth. A strip of flat
land, with white clayey soil, often very fertile, between these
mountains and the sea, formed _the plain_ of each of the Achæan
towns, which were situated for the most part upon steep outlying
eminences overhanging it. From the mountains between Achaia and
Arcadia, numerous streams flow into the Corinthian gulf, but few of
them are perennial, and the whole length of coast is represented as
harborless.[829]
[829] See Leake’s Travels in Morea, c. xxvii. and xxxi.