A General Survey of Greece and the East previous to the time of
Solon.--The Grecian Colonies.--The Isles.--Brief account of the States
on the Continent.--Elis and the Olympic Games.
I. On the north, Greece is separated from Macedonia by the Cambunian
mountains; on the west spreads the Ionian, on the south and east the
Aegean Sea. Its greatest length is two hundred and twenty
geographical miles; its greatest width one hundred and forty. No
contrast can be more startling than the speck of earth which Greece
occupies in the map of the world, compared to the space claimed by the
Grecian influences in the history of the human mind. In that contrast
itself is the moral which Greece has left us--nor can volumes more
emphatically describe the triumph of the Intellectual over the
Material. But as nations, resembling individuals, do not become
illustrious from their mere physical proportions; as in both, renown
has its moral sources; so, in examining the causes which conduced to
the eminence of Greece, we cease to wonder at the insignificance of
its territories or the splendour of its fame. Even in geographical
circumstance Nature had endowed the country of the Hellenes with gifts
which amply atoned the narrow girth of its confines. The most
southern part of the continent of Europe, it contained within itself
all the advantages of sea and land; its soil, though unequal in its
product, is for the most part fertile and abundant; it is intersected
by numerous streams, and protected by chains of mountains; its plains
and valleys are adapted to every product most necessary to the support
of the human species; and the sun that mellows the fruits of nature is
sufficiently tempered not to relax the energies of man. Bordered on
three sides by the sea, its broad and winding extent of coast early
conduced to the spirit of enterprise; and, by innumerable bays and
harbours, proffered every allurement to that desire of gain which is
the parent of commerce and the basis of civilization. At the period
in which Greece rose to eminence it was in the very centre of the most
advanced and flourishing states of Europe and of Asia. The attention
of its earlier adventurers was directed not only to the shores of
Italy, but to the gorgeous cities of the East, and the wise and hoary
institutions of Egypt. If from other nations they borrowed less than
has been popularly supposed, the very intercourse with those nations
alone sufficed to impel and develop the faculties of an imitative and
youthful people;--while, as the spirit of liberty broke out in all the
Grecian states, producing a restless competition both among the
citizens in each city and the cities one with another, no energy was
allowed to sleep until the operations of an intellect, perpetually
roused and never crippled, carried the universal civilization to its
height. Nature herself set the boundaries of the river and the
mountain to the confines of the several states--the smallness of each
concentrated power into a focus--the number of all heightened
emulation to a fever. The Greek cities had therefore, above all other
nations, the advantage of a perpetual collision of mind--a perpetual
intercourse with numerous neighbours, with whom intellect was ever at
work--with whom experiment knew no rest. Greece, taken collectively,
was the only free country (with the exception of Phoenician states and
colonies perhaps equally civilized) in the midst of enlightened
despotisms; and in the ancient world, despotism invented and sheltered
the arts which liberty refined and perfected [99]: Thus considered,
her greatness ceases to be a marvel--the very narrowness of her
dominions was a principal cause of it--and to the most favourable
circumstances of nature were added circumstances the most favourable
of time.
If, previous to the age of Solon, we survey the histories of Asia, we
find that quarter of the globe subjected to great and terrible
revolutions, which confined and curbed the power of its various
despotisms. Its empires for the most part built up by the successful
invasions of Nomad tribes, contained in their very vastness the
elements of dissolution. The Assyrian Nineveh had been conquered by
the Babylonians and the Medes (B. C. 606); and Babylon, under the new
Chaldaean dynasty, was attaining the dominant power of western Asia.
The Median monarchy was scarce recovering from the pressure of
barbarian foes, and Cyrus had not as yet arisen to establish the
throne of Persia. In Asia Minor, it is true, the Lydian empire had
attained to great wealth and luxury, and was the most formidable enemy
of the Asiatic Greeks, yet it served to civilize them even while it
awed. The commercial and enterprising Phoenicians, now foreboding the
march of the Babylonian king, who had “taken counsel against Tyre, the
crowning city, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the
honourable of the earth,” at all times were precluded from the desire
of conquest by their divided states [100], formidable neighbours, and
trading habits.
In Egypt a great change had operated upon the ancient character; the
splendid dynasty of the Pharaohs was no more. The empire, rent into
an oligarchy of twelve princes, had been again united under the
sceptre of one by the swords of Grecian mercenaries (B. C. 616); and
Neco, the son of the usurper--a man of mighty intellect and vast
designs--while he had already adulterated the old Egyptian customs
with the spirit of Phoenician and Greek adventure, found his field of
action only in the East (defeats Josiah B. C. 609). As yet, then, no
foreign enemy had disturbed the early rise of the several states of
Greece; they were suffered to form their individual demarcations
tranquilly and indelibly; and to progress to that point between social
amenities and chivalric hardihood, when, while war is the most sternly
encountered, it the most rapidly enlightens. The peace that follows
the first war of a half-civilized nation is usually the great era of
its intellectual eminence.
II. At this time the colonies in Asia Minor were far advanced in
civilization beyond the Grecian continent. Along the western coast of
that delicious district--on a shore more fertile, under a heaven more
bright, than those of the parent states--the Aeolians, Ionians, and
Dorians, in a remoter age, had planted settlements and founded cities
(probably commenced under Penthilus, son of Orestes, about B. C.
1068). The Aeolian colonies (the result of the Dorian immigrations)
[101] occupied the coasts of commenced Mysia and Caria--on the
mainland twelve cities--the most renowned of which were Cyme and
Smyrna; and the islands of the Heccatonnesi, Tenedos, and Lesbos, the
last illustrious above the rest, and consecrated by the muses of
Sappho and Alcaeus. They had also settlements about Mount Ida. Their
various towns were independent of each other; but Mitylene, in the
Isle of Lesbos, was regarded as their common capital. The trade of
Mitylene was extensive--its navy formidable.
The Ionian colonies (probably commenced about 988 B. C.), founded
subsequently to the Aeolian, but also (though less immediately) a
consequence of the Dorian revolution, were peopled not only by
Ionians, but by various nations, led by the sons of Codrus. In the
islands of Samos and Chios, on the southern coast of Lydia, where
Caria stretches to the north, they established their voluptuous
settlements known by the name “Ionia.” Theirs were the cities of
Myus, and Priene, Colophon, Ephesus, Lebedus, Teos, Clazomene,
Erythrae, Phocae, and Miletus:--in the islands of Samos and Chios were
two cities of the same name as the isles themselves. The chief of the
Ionian cities at the time on which we enter, and second perhaps in
trade and in civilization to none but the great Phoenician states, was
the celebrated Miletus--founded first by the Carians--exalted to her
renown by the Ionians (Naval dominion of Miletus commenced B. C. 750).
Her streets were the mart of the world; along the Euxine and the Palus
Maeotis, her ships rode in the harbours of a hundred of her colonies.
Here broke the first light of the Greek philosophy. But if inferior
to this, their imperial city, each of the Ionian towns had its title
to renown. Here flourished already music, and art, and song. The
trade of Phocae extended to the coasts of Italy and Gaul. Ephesus had
not yet risen to its meridian--it was the successor of Miletus and
Phocaea. These Ionian states, each independent of the other, were
united by a common sanctuary--the Panionium (Temple of Neptune), which
might be seen far off on the headland of that Mycale afterward the
witness of one of the proudest feats of Grecian valour. Long free,
Ionia became tributary to the Lydian kings, and afterward to the great
Persian monarchy.
In the islands of Cos and Rhodes, and on the southern shores of Caria,
spread the Dorian colonies--planted subsequently to the Ionian by
gradual immigrations. If in importance and wealth the Aeolian were
inferior to the Ionian colonies, so were the Dorian colonies to the
Aeolian. Six cities (Ialyssus, Camirus, and Lindus, in Rhodes; in
Cos, a city called from the island; Cnidus and Halicarnassus, on the
mainland) were united, like the Ionians, by a common sanctuary--the
Temple of Apollo Triopius.
Besides these colonies--the Black Sea, the Palus Maeotis, the
Propontis, the coasts of Lower Italy, the eastern and southern shores
of Sicily [102], Syracuse, the mightiest of Grecian offspring, and the
daughter of Corinth,--the African Cyrene,--not enumerating settlements
more probably referable to a later date, attested the active spirit
and extended navigation of early Greece.
The effect of so vast and flourishing a colonization was necessarily
prodigious upon the moral and intellectual spirit of the mother land.
The seeds scattered over the earth bore their harvests to her garner.
III. Among the Grecian isles, the glory of Minos had long passed from
Crete (about 800 B. C.). The monarchical form of government had
yielded to the republican, but in its worst shape--the oligarchic.
But the old Cretan institutions still lingered in the habits of
private life;--while the jealousies and commotions of its several
cities, each independent, exhausted within itself those powers which,
properly concentrated and wisely directed, might have placed Crete at
the head of Greece.
Cyprus, equally favoured by situation with Crete, and civilized by the
constant influence of the Phoenicians, once its masters, was attached
to its independence, but not addicted to warlike enterprise. It was,
like Crete, an instance of a state which seemed unconscious of the
facilities for command and power which it had received from nature.
The Island of Corcyra (a Corinthian colony) had not yet arrived at its
day of power. This was reserved for that period when, after the
Persian war, it exchanged an oligarchic for a democratic action, which
wore away, indeed, the greatness of the country in its struggles for
supremacy, obstinately and fatally resisted by the antagonist
principle.
Of the Cyclades--those beautiful daughters of Crete--Delos, sacred to
Apollo, and possessed principally by the Ionians, was the most
eminent. But Paros boasted not only its marble quarries, but the
valour of its inhabitants, and the vehement song of Archilochus.
Euboea, neighbouring Attica, possessed two chief cities, Eretria and
Chalcis, governed apparently by timocracies, and frequently at war
with each other. Though of importance as connected with the
subsequent history of Athens, and though the colonization of Chalcis
was considerable, the fame of Euboea was scarcely proportioned to its
extent as one of the largest islands of the Aegean; and was far
outshone by the small and rocky Aegina--the rival of Athens, and at
this time her superior in maritime power and commercial enterprise.
Colonized by Epidaurus, Aegina soon became independent; but the
violence of party, and the power of the oligarchy, while feeding its
energies, prepared its downfall.
IV. As I profess only to delineate in this work the rise and fall of
the Athenians, so I shall not deem it at present necessary to do more
than glance at the condition of the continent of Greece previous to
the time of Solon. Sparta alone will demand a more attentive survey.
Taking our station on the citadel of Athens, we behold, far projecting
into the sea, the neighbouring country of Megaris, with Megara for its
city. It was originally governed by twelve kings; the last, Hyperion,
being assassinated, its affairs were administered by magistrates, and
it was one of the earliest of the countries of Greece which adopted
republican institutions. Nevertheless, during the reigns of the
earlier kings of Attica, it was tributary to them [103]. We have seen
how the Dorians subsequently wrested it from the Athenians [104]; and
it underwent long and frequent warfare for the preservation of its
independence from the Dorians of Corinth. About the year 640, a
powerful citizen named Theagenes wrested the supreme power from the
stern aristocracy which the Dorian conquest had bequeathed, though the
yoke of Corinth was shaken off. The tyrant--for such was the
appellation given to a successful usurper--was subsequently deposed,
and the democratic government restored; and although that democracy
was one of the most turbulent in Greece, it did not prevent this
little state from ranking among the most brilliant actors in the
Persian war.
V. Between Attica and Megaris we survey the Isle of Salamis--the
right to which we shall find contested both by Athens and the
Megarians.
VI. Turning our eyes now to the land, we may behold, bordering
Attica--from which a mountainous tract divides it--the mythological
Boeotia, the domain of the Phoenician Cadmus, and the birthplace of
Polynices and Oedipus. Here rise the immemorial mountains of Helicon
and Cithaeron--the haunt of the muses; here Pentheus fell beneath the
raging bands of the Bacchanals, and Actaeon endured the wrath of the
Goddess of the Woods; here rose the walls of Thebes to the harmony of
Amphion’s lyre--and still, in the time of Pausanias, the Thebans
showed, to the admiration of the traveller, the place where Cadmus
sowed the dragon-seed--the images of the witches sent by Juno to
lengthen the pains of Alcmena--the wooden statue wrought by Daedalus--
and the chambers of Harmonia and of Semele. No land was more
sanctified by all the golden legends of poetry--and of all Greece no
people was less alive to the poetical inspiration. Devoted, for the
most part, to pastoral pursuits, the Boeotians were ridiculed by their
lively neighbours for an inert and sluggish disposition--a reproach
which neither the song of Hesiod and Pindar, nor the glories of Thebes
and Plataea, were sufficient to repel. As early as the twelfth
century (B. C.) royalty was abolished in Boeotia--its territory was
divided into several independent states, of which Thebes was the
principal, and Plataea and Cheronaea among the next in importance.
Each had its own peculiar government; and, before the Persian war,
oligarchies had obtained the ascendency in these several states. They
were united in a league, of which Thebes was the head; but the
ambition and power of that city kept the rest in perpetual jealousy,
and weakened, by a common fear and ill-smothered dissensions, a
country otherwise, from the size of its territories [105] and the
number of its inhabitants, calculated to be the principal power of
Greece. Its affairs were administered by eleven magistrates, or
boeotarchs, elected by four assemblies held in the four districts into
which Boeotia was divided.
VII. Beyond Boeotia lies Phocis, originally colonized, according to
the popular tradition, by Phocus from Corinth. Shortly after the
Dorian irruption, monarchy was abolished and republican institutions
substituted. In Phocis were more than twenty states independent of
the general Phocian government, but united in a congress held at
stated times on the road between Daulis and Delphi. Phocis contained
also the city of Crissa, with its harbour and the surrounding
territory inhabited by a fierce and piratical population, and the
sacred city of Delphi, on the southwest of Parnassus.
VIII. Of the oracle of Delphi I have before spoken--it remains only
now to point out to the reader the great political cause of its rise
into importance. It had been long established, but without any
brilliant celebrity, when happened that Dorian revolution which is
called the “Return of the Heraclidae.” The Dorian conquerors had
early steered their course by the advice of the Delphian oracle, which
appeared artfully to favour their pretensions, and which, adjoining
the province of Doris, had imposed upon them the awe, and perhaps felt
for them the benevolence, of a sacred neighbour. Their ultimate
triumph not only gave a striking and supreme repute to the oracle, but
secured the protection and respect of a race now become the most
powerful of Greece. From that time no Dorian city ever undertook an
enterprise without consulting the Pythian voice; the example became
general, and the shrine of the deity was enriched by offerings not
only from the piety of Greece, but the credulous awe of barbarian
kings. Perhaps, though its wealth was afterward greater, its
authority was never so unquestioned as for a period dating from about
a century preceding the laws of Solon to the end of the Persian war.
Delphi was wholly an independent state, administered by a rigid
aristocracy [106]; and though protected by the Amphictyonic council,
received from its power none of those haughty admonitions with which
the defenders of a modern church have often insulted their charge.
The temple was so enriched by jewels, statues, and vessels of gold,
that at the time of the invasion of Xerxes its wealth was said to
equal in value the whole of the Persian armament and so wonderful was
its magnificence, that it appeared more like the Olympus of the gods
than a human temple in their honour. On the ancient Delphi stands now
the monastery of Kastri. But still you discover the terraces once
crowded by fans--still, amid gloomy chasms, bubbles the Castalian
spring--and yet permitted to the pilgrim’s gaze is the rocky bath of
the Pythia, and the lofty halls of the Corycian Cave.
IX. Beyond Phocis lies the country of the Locrians, divided into
three tribes independent of each other--the Locri Ozolae, the Locri
Opuntii, the Locri Epicnemidii. The Locrians (undistinguished in
history) changed in early times royal for aristocratic institutions.
The nurse of the Dorian race--the small province of Doris--borders the
Locrian territory to the south of Mount Oeta; while to the west of
Locris spreads the mountainous Aetolia, ranging northward from Pindus
to the Ambracian Bay. Aetolia gave to the heroic age the names of
Meleager and Diomed, but subsequently fell into complete obscurity.
The inhabitants were rude and savage, divided into tribes, nor emerged
into importance until the latest era of the Grecian history. The
political constitution of Aetolia, in the time referred to, is
unknown.
X. Acarnania, the most western country of central Greece, appears
little less obscure at this period than Aetolia, on which it borders;
with Aetolia it arose into eminence in the Macedonian epoch of Greek
history.
XI. Northern Greece contains two countries--Thessaly and Epirus.
In Thessaly was situated the long and lofty mountain of the divine
Olympus, and to the more southern extreme rose Pindus and Oeta. Its
inhabitants were wild and hardy, and it produced the most celebrated
breed of horses in Greece. It was from Thessaly that the Hellenes
commenced their progress over Greece--it was in the kingdoms of
Thessaly that the race of Achilles held their sway; but its later
history was not calculated to revive the fame of the Homeric hero; it
appears to have shared but little of the republican spirit of the more
famous states of Greece. Divided into four districts (Thessaliotis,
Pelasgiotis, Phthiotis, and Hestiaeotis), the various states of
Thessaly were governed either by hereditary princes or nobles of vast
possessions. An immense population of serfs, or penestae, contributed
to render the chiefs of Thessaly powerful in war and magnificent in
peace. Their common country fell into insignificance from the want of
a people--but their several courts were splendid from the wealth of a
nobility.
XII. Epirus was of somewhat less extent than Thessaly, and far less
fertile; it was inhabited by various tribes, some Greek, some
barbarian, the chief of which was the Molossi, governed by kings who
boasted their descent from Achilles. Epirus has little importance or
interest in history until the sun of Athens had set, during the
ascendency of the Macedonian kings. It contained the independent
state of Ambracia, peopled from Corinth, and governed by republican
institutions. Here also were the sacred oaks of the oracular Dodona.
XIII. We now come to the states of the Peloponnesus, which contained
eight countries.
Beyond Megaris lay the territory of Corinth: its broad bay adapted it
for commerce, of which it availed itself early; even in the time of
Homer it was noted for its wealth. It was subdued by the Dorians, and
for five generations the royal power rested with the descendants of
Aletes [107], of the family of the Heraclidae. By a revolution, the
causes of which are unknown to us, the kingdom then passed to Bacchis,
the founder of an illustrious race (the Bacchiadae), who reigned first
as kings, and subsequently as yearly magistrates, under the name of
Prytanes. In the latter period the Bacchiadae were certainly not a
single family, but a privileged class--they intermarried only with
each other,--the administrative powers were strictly confined to them
--and their policy, if exclusive, seems to have been vigorous and
brilliant. This government was destroyed, as under its sway the
people increased in wealth and importance; a popular movement, headed
by Cypselus, a man of birth and fortune, replaced an able oligarchy by
an abler demagogue (B. C. 655). Cypselus was succeeded by the
celebrated Heriander (B. C. 625), a man, whose vices were perhaps
exaggerated, whose genius was indisputable. Under his nephew
Psammetichus, Corinth afterward regained its freedom. The
Corinthians, in spite of every change in the population, retained
their luxury to the last, and the epistles of Alciphron, in the second
century after Christ, note the ostentation of the few and the poverty
of the many. At the time now referred to, Corinth--the Genoa of
Greece--was high in civilization, possessed of a considerable naval
power, and in art and commerce was the sole rival on the Grecian
continent to the graceful genius and extensive trade of the Ionian
colonies.
XIV. Stretching from Corinth along the coast opposite Attica, we
behold the ancient Argolis. Its three principal cities were Argos,
Mycenae, and Epidaurus. Mycenae, at the time of the Trojan war, was
the most powerful of the states of Greece; and Argos, next to Sicyori,
was reputed the most ancient. Argolis suffered from the Dorian
revolution, and shortly afterward the regal power, gradually
diminishing, lapsed into republicanism [108]. Argolis contained
various independent states--one to every principal city.
XV. On the other side of Corinth, almost opposite Argolis, we find
the petty state of Sicyon. This was the most ancient of the Grecian
states, and was conjoined to the kingdom of Agamemnon at the Trojan
war. At first it was possessed by Ionians, expelled subsequently by
the Dorians, and not long after seems to have lapsed into a democratic
republic. A man of low birth, Orthagoras, obtained the tyranny, and
it continued in his family for a century, the longest tyranny in
Greece, because the gentlest. Sicyon was of no marked influence at
the period we are about to enter, though governed by an able tyrant,
Clisthenes, whose policy it was to break the Dorian nobility, while
uniting, as in a common interest, popular laws and regal authority.
XVI. Beyond Sicyon we arrive at Achaia. We have already seen that
this district was formerly possessed by the Ionians, who were expelled
by some of the Achaeans who escaped the Dorian yoke. Governed first
by a king, it was afterward divided into twelve republics, leagued
together. It was long before Achaia appeared on that heated stage of
action, which allured the more restless spirits of Athens and
Lacedaemon.
XVII. We now pause at Elis, which had also felt the revolution of the
Heraclidae, and was possessed by their comrades the Aetolians.
The state of Elis underwent the general change from monarchy to
republicanism; but republicanism in its most aristocratic form;--
growing more popular at the period of the Persian wars, but, without
the convulsions which usually mark the progress of democracy. The
magistrates of the commonwealth were the superintendents of the Sacred
Games. And here, diversifying this rapid, but perhaps to the general
reader somewhat tedious survey of the political and geographical
aspect of the states of Greece, we will take this occasion to examine
the nature and the influence of those celebrated contests, which gave
to Elis its true title to immortality.
XVIII. The origin of the Olympic Games is lost in darkness. The
legends which attribute their first foundation to the times of
demigods and heroes, are so far consonant with truth, that exhibitions
of physical strength made the favourite diversion of that wild and
barbarous age which is consecrated to the heroic. It is easy to
perceive that the origin of athletic games preceded the date of
civilization; that, associated with occasions of festival, they, like
festivals, assumed a sacred character, and that, whether first
instituted in honour of a funeral, or in celebration of a victory, or
in reverence to a god,--religion combined with policy to transmit an
inspiring custom to a more polished posterity. And though we cannot
literally give credit to the tradition which assigns the restoration
of these games to Lycurgus, in concert with Iphitus, king of Elis, and
Cleosthenes of Pisa, we may suppose at least that to Elis, to Pisa,
and to Sparta, the institution was indebted for its revival.
The Dorian Oracle of Delphi gave its sanction to a ceremony, the
restoration of which was intended to impose a check upon the wars and
disorders of the Peloponnesus. Thus authorized, the festival was
solemnized at the temple of Jupiter, at Olympia, near Pisa, a town in
Elis. It was held every fifth year; it lasted four days. It
consisted in the celebration of games in honour of Jupiter and
Hercules. The interval between each festival was called, an Olympiad.
After the fiftieth Olympiad (B. C. 580), the whole management of the
games, and the choice of the judges, were monopolized by the Eleans.
Previous to each festival, officers, deputed by the Eleans, proclaimed
a sacred truce. Whatever hostilities were existent in Greece,
terminated for the time; sufficient interval was allowed to attend and
to return from the games. [109]
During this period the sacred territory of Elis was regarded as under
the protection of the gods--none might traverse it armed. The Eleans
arrogated indeed the right of a constant sanctity to perpetual peace;
and the right, though sometimes invaded, seems generally to have been
conceded. The people of this territory became, as it were, the
guardians of a sanctuary; they interfered little in the turbulent
commotions of the rest of Greece; they did not fortify their capital;
and, the wealthiest people of the Peloponnesus, they enjoyed their
opulence in tranquillity;--their holy character contenting their
ambition. And a wonderful thing it was in the midst of those warlike,
stirring, restless tribes--that solitary land, with its plane grove
bordering the Alpheus, adorned with innumerable and hallowed monuments
and statues--unvisited by foreign wars and civil commotion--a whole
state one temple!
At first only the foot-race was exhibited; afterward were added
wrestling, leaping, quoiting, darting, boxing, a more complicated
species of foot-race (the Diaulus and Dolichus), and the chariot and
horse-races. The Pentathlon was a contest of five gymnastic exercises
combined. The chariot-races [110] preceded those of the riding
horses, as in Grecian war the use of chariots preceded the more
scientific employment of cavalry, and were the most attractive and
splendid part of the exhibition. Sometimes there were no less than
forty chariots on the ground. The rarity of horses, and the expense
of their training, confined, without any law to that effect, the
chariot-race to the highborn and the wealthy. It was consistent with
the vain Alcibiades to decline the gymnastic contests in which his
physical endowments might have ensured him success, because his
competitors were not the equals to the long-descended heir of the
Alcmaeonidae. In the equestrian contests his success was
unprecedented. He brought seven chariots into the field, and bore off
at the same time the first, second, and fourth prize [111]. Although
women [112], with the exception of the priestesses of the neighbouring
fane of Ceres, were not permitted to witness the engagements, they
were yet allowed to contend by proxy in the chariot-races; and the
ladies of Macedon especially availed themselves of the privilege. No
sanguinary contest with weapons, no gratuitous ferocities, no struggle
between man and beast (the graceless butcheries of Rome), polluted the
festival dedicated to the Olympian god. Even boxing with the cestus
was less esteemed than the other athletic exercises, and was excluded
from the games exhibited by Alexander in his Asiatic invasions [113].
Neither did any of those haughty assumptions of lineage or knightly
blood, which characterize the feudal tournament, distinguish between
Greek and Greek. The equestrian contests were indeed, from their
expense, limited to the opulent, but the others were impartially free
to the poor as to the rich, the peasant as the noble,--the Greeks
forbade monopoly in glory. But although thus open to all Greeks, the
stadium was impenetrably closed to barbarians. Taken from his plough,
the boor obtained the garland for which the monarchs of the East were
held unworthy to contend, and to which the kings of the neighbouring
Macedon were forbidden to aspire till their Hellenic descent had been
clearly proved [114]. Thus periodically were the several states
reminded of their common race, and thus the national name and
character were solemnly preserved: yet, like the Amphictyonic league,
while the Olympic festival served to maintain the great distinction
between foreigners and Greeks, it had but little influence in
preventing the hostile contests of Greeks themselves. The very
emulation between the several states stimulated their jealousy of each
other: and still, if the Greeks found their countrymen in Greeks they
found also in Greeks their rivals.
We can scarcely conceive the vast importance attached to victory in
these games [115]; it not only immortalized the winner, it shed glory
upon his tribe. It is curious to see the different honours
characteristically assigned to the conqueror in different states. If
Athenian, he was entitled to a place by the magistrates in the
Prytaneum; if a Spartan, to a prominent station in the field. To
conquer at Elis was renown for life, “no less illustrious to a Greek
than consulship to a Roman!” [116] The haughtiest nobles, the
wealthiest princes, the most successful generals, contended for the
prize [117]. And the prize (after the seventh Olympiad) was a wreath
of the wild olive!
Numerous other and similar games were established throughout Greece.
Of these, next to the Olympic, the most celebrated, and the only
national ones, were the Pythian at Delphi, the Nemean in Argolis, the
Isthmian in Corinth; yet elsewhere the prize was of value; at all the
national ones it was but a garland--a type of the eternal truth, that
praise is the only guerdon of renown. The olive-crown was nothing!--
the shouts of assembled Greece--the showers of herbs and flowers--the
banquet set apart for the victor--the odes of imperishable poets--the
public register which transmitted to posterity his name--the privilege
of a statue in the Altis--the return home through a breach in the
walls (denoting by a noble metaphor, “that a city which boasts such
men has slight need of walls” [118]), the first seat in all public
spectacles; the fame, in short, extended to his native city--
bequeathed to his children--confirmed by the universal voice wherever
the Greek civilization spread; this was the true olive-crown to the
Olympic conqueror!
No other clime can furnish a likeness to these festivals: born of a
savage time, they retained the vigorous character of an age of heroes,
but they took every adjunct from the arts and the graces of
civilization. To the sacred ground flocked all the power, and the
rank, and the wealth, and the intellect, of Greece. To that gorgeous
spectacle came men inspired by a nobler ambition than that of the
arena. Here the poet and the musician could summon an audience to
their art. If to them it was not a field for emulation [119], it was
at least a theatre of display.
XIX. The uses of these games were threefold;--1st, The uniting all
Greeks by one sentiment of national pride, and the memory of a common
race; 2dly, The inculcation of hardy discipline--of physical education
throughout every state, by teaching that the body had its honours as
well as the intellect--a theory conducive to health in peace--and in
those ages when men fought hand to hand, and individual strength and
skill were the nerves of the army, to success in war; but, 3dly, and
principally, its uses were in sustaining and feeding as a passion, as
a motive, as an irresistible incentive--the desire of glory! That
desire spread through all classes--it animated all tribes--it taught
that true rewards are not in gold and gems, but in men’s opinions.
The ambition of the Altis established fame as a common principle of
action. What chivalry did for the few, the Olympic contests effected
for the many--they made a knighthood of a people.
If, warmed for a moment from the gravity of the historic muse, we
might conjure up the picture of this festival, we would invoke the
imagination of the reader to that sacred ground decorated with the
profusest triumphs of Grecian art--all Greece assembled from her
continent, her colonies, her isles--war suspended--a Sabbath of
solemnity and rejoicing--the Spartan no longer grave, the Athenian
forgetful of the forum--the highborn Thessalian, the gay Corinthian--
the lively gestures of the Asiatic Ionian;--suffering the various
events of various times to confound themselves in one recollection of
the past, he may see every eye turned from the combatants to one
majestic figure--hear every lip murmuring a single name [120]--
glorious in greater fields: Olympia itself is forgotten. Who is the
spectacle of the day? Themistocles, the conqueror of Salamis, and the
saviour of Greece! Again--the huzzas of countless thousands following
the chariot-wheels of the competitors--whose name is shouted forth,
the victor without a rival!--it is Alcibiades, the destroyer of
Athens! Turn to the temple of the Olympian god, pass the brazen
gates, proceed through the columned aisles [121], what arrests the awe
and wonder of the crowd! Seated on a throne of ebon and of ivory, of
gold and gems--the olive-crown on his head, in his right hand the
statue of Victory, in his left; wrought of all metals, the
cloud-compelling sceptre, behold the colossal masterpiece of Phidias, the
Homeric dream imbodied [122]--the majesty of the Olympian Jove! Enter
the banquet-room of the conquerors--to whose verse, hymned in a solemn
and mighty chorus, bends the listening Spartan--it is the verse of the
Dorian Pindar! In that motley and glittering space (the fair of
Olympia, the mart of every commerce, the focus of all intellect), join
the throng, earnest and breathless, gathered round that sunburnt
traveller;--now drinking in the wild account of Babylonian gardens, or
of temples whose awful deity no lip may name--now, with clinched hands
and glowing cheeks, tracking the march of Xerxes along exhausted
rivers, and over bridges that spanned the sea--what moves, what hushes
that mighty audience? It is Herodotus reading his history! [123]
Let us resume our survey.
XX. Midland, in the Peloponnesus, lies the pastoral Arcady. Besides
the rivers of Alpheus and Erymanthus, it is watered by the gloomy
stream of Styx; and its western part, intersected by innumerable
brooks, is the land of Pan. Its inhabitants were long devoted to the
pursuits of the herdsman and the shepherd, and its ancient government
was apparently monarchical. The Dorian irruption spared this land of
poetical tradition, which the oracle of Delphi took under no
unsuitable protection, and it remained the eldest and most unviolated
sanctuary of the old Pelasgic name. But not very long after the
return of the Heraclidae, we find the last king stoned by his
subjects, and democratic institutions established. It was then
parcelled out into small states, of which Tegea and Mantinea were the
chief.
XXI. Messenia, a fertile and level district, which lies to the west
of Sparta, underwent many struggles with the latter power; and this
part of its history, which is full of interest, the reader will find
briefly narrated in that of the Spartans, by whom it was finally
subdued. Being then incorporated with that country, we cannot, at the
period of history we are about to enter, consider Messenia as a
separate and independent state. [124]
And now, completing the survey of the Peloponnesus, we rest at
Laconia, the country of the Spartans.