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+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #60426 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60426)
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-Project Gutenberg's History of Greece, Volume 04 (of 12), by George Grote
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: History of Greece, Volume 04 (of 12)
-
-Author: George Grote
-
-Release Date: October 5, 2019 [EBook #60426]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF GREECE, VOLUME 04 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Henry Flower, Adrian Mastronardi, Ramon Pajares
-Box and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
-http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
-Libraries.)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
-
- * Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_.
- * Small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS.
- * Letter spaced Greek text is enclosed in tildes as in ~καὶ τὰ
- λοιπά~.
- * Footnotes have been renumbered. Each footnote is placed at the
- end of the paragraph that includes its anchor.
- * Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected, after
- comparison with a later edition of this work. Greek text has
- also been corrected after checking with this later edition and
- with Perseus, when the reference was found.
- * Original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been kept,
- but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant
- usage was found.
- * Nevetherless, no attempt has been made at normalizing proper
- names. The author established at the beginning of the first
- volume of this work some rules of transcription for proper names,
- but neither he nor his publisher follow them consistently.
-
-
-
-
- HISTORY OF GREECE.
-
- BY
-
- GEORGE GROTE, ESQ.
-
- VOL. IV.
-
- REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.
-
- NEW YORK:
- HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
- 329 AND 331 PEARL STREET.
- 1880.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-VOL. IV.
-
-
-PART II.
-
-CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-ILLYRIANS, MACEDONIANS, PÆONIANS.
-
- Different tribes of Illyrians. — Conflicts and contrast of
- Illyrians with Greeks. — Epidamnus and Apollonia in relation to
- the Illyrians. — Early Macedonians. — Their original seats. —
- General view of the country which they occupied — eastward of
- Pindus and Skardus. — Distribution and tribes of the Macedonians.
- — Macedonians round Edessa — the leading portion of the nation. —
- Pierians and Bottiæans — originally placed on the Thermaic gulf,
- between the Macedonians and the sea. — Pæonians. — Argeian Greeks
- who established the dynasty of Edessa — Perdikkas. — Talents for
- command manifested by Greek chieftains over barbaric tribes. —
- Aggrandizement of the dynasty of Edessa — conquests as far as
- the Thermaic gulf, as well as over the interior Macedonians. —
- Friendship between king Amyntas and the Peisistratids.
- _pages_ 1-19
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-THRACIANS AND GREEK COLONIES IN THRACE.
-
- Thracians — their numbers and abode. — Many distinct tribes, yet
- little diversity of character. — Their cruelty, rapacity, and
- military efficiency. — Thracian worship and character Asiatic.
- — Early date of the Chalkidic colonies in Thrace. — Methônê the
- earliest — about 720 B. C. — Several other small settlements
- on the Chalkidic peninsula and its three projecting headlands.
- — Chalkidic peninsula — Mount Athos. — Colonies in Pallênê, or
- the westernmost of the three headlands. — In Sithonia, or the
- middle headland. — In the headland of Athos — Akanthus, Stageira,
- etc. — Greek settlements east of the Strymôn in Thrace. — Island
- of Thasus. — Thracian Chersonesus. — Perinthus, Selymoria, and
- Byzantium. — Grecian settlements on the Euxine, south of the
- Danube. — Lemnos and Imbros. 20-28
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.
-
- First voyages of the Greeks to Libya. — Foundation of Kyrênê.
- — Founded by Battus from the island of Thêra. — Colony first
- settled in the island of Platea — afterwards removed to Kyrênê.
- — Situation of Kyrênê. — Fertility, produce, and prosperity. —
- Libyan tribes near Kyrênê. — Extensive dominion of Kyrênê and
- Barka over the Libyans. — Connection of the Greek colonies with
- the Nomads of Libya. — Manners of the Libyan Nomads. — Mixture
- of Greeks and Libyan inhabitants at Kyrênê. — Dynasty of Battus,
- Arkesilaus, Battus the Second, at Kyrênê — fresh colonists from
- Greece. — Disputes with the native Libyans. — Arkesilaus the
- Second, prince of Kyrênê — misfortunes of the city — foundation
- of Barka. — Battus the Third, a lame man — reform by Demônax,
- who takes away the supreme power from the Battiads. — New
- emigration — restoration of the Battiad Arkesilaus the Third. —
- Oracle limiting the duration of the Battiad dynasty. — Violences
- at Kyrênê under Arkesilaus the Third. — Arkesilaus sends his
- submission to Kambysês, king of Persia. — Persian expedition from
- Egypt against Barka — Pheretimê, mother of Arkesilaus. — Capture
- of Barka by perfidy — cruelty of Pheretimê. — Battus the Fourth
- and Arkesilaus the Fourth — final extinction of the dynasty about
- 460-450 B. C. — Constitution of Demônax not durable. 29-49
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN, AND ISTHMIAN.
-
- Want of grouping and unity in the early period of Grecian
- history. — New causes, tending to favor union, begin after
- 560 B. C. — no general war between 776 and 560 B. C. known to
- Thucydidês. — Increasing disposition to religious, intellectual,
- and social union. — Reciprocal admission of cities to the
- religious festivals of each other. — Early splendor of the
- Ionic festival at Delos — its decline. — Olympic games — their
- celebrity and long continuance. — Their gradual increase —
- new matches introduced. — Olympic festival — the first which
- passes from a local to a Pan-Hellenic character. — Pythian
- games, or festival. — Early state and site of Delphi. — Phocian
- town of Krissa. — Kirrha, the seaport of Krissa. — Growth of
- Delphi and Kirrha — decline of Krissa. — Insolence of the
- Kirrhæans punished by the Amphiktyons. — First Sacred War, in
- 595 B. C. — Destruction of Kirrha. — Pythian games founded by
- the Amphiktyons. — Nemean and Isthmian games. — Pan-Hellenic
- character acquired by all the four festivals — Olympic, Pythian,
- Nemean, and Isthmian. — Increased frequentation of the other
- festivals in most Greek cities. — All other Greek cities, except
- Sparta, encouraged such visits. — Effect of these festivals upon
- the Greek mind. 50-73
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.
-
- Age and duration of the Greek lyric poetry. — Epical age
- preceding the lyrical. — Wider range of subjects for poetry — new
- metres — enlarged musical scale. — Improvement of the harp by
- Terpander — of the flute by Olympus and others. — Archilochus,
- Kallinus, Tyrtæus, and Alkman — 670-600 B. C. — New metres
- superadded to the Hexameter — Elegiac, Iambic, Trochaic. —
- Archilochus. — Simonidês of Amorgos, Kallinus, Tyrtæus. — Musical
- and poetical tendencies at Sparta. — Choric training — Alkman,
- Thalêtas. — Doric dialect employed in the choric compositions.
- — Arion and Stêsichorus — substitution of the professional in
- place of the popular chorus. — Distribution of the chorus by
- Stêsichorus — Strophê — Antistrophê — Epôdus. — Alkæus and
- Sappho. — Gnomic or moralizing poets. — Solon and Theognis. —
- Subordination of musical and orchestrical accompaniment to the
- words and meaning. — Seven Wise Men. — They were the first men
- who acquired an Hellenic reputation, without poetical genius.
- — Early manifestation of philosophy — in the form of maxims. —
- Subsequent growth of dialectics and discussion. — Increase of the
- habit of writing — commencement of prose compositions. — First
- beginnings of Grecian art. — Restricted character of early art,
- from religious associations. — Monumental ornaments in the cities
- — begin in the sixth century B. C. — Importance of Grecian art as
- a means of Hellenic union. 73-101
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-GRECIAN AFFAIRS DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS AT
-ATHENS.
-
- Peisistratus and his sons at Athens — B. C. 500-510 — uncertain
- chronology as to Peisistratus. — State of feeling in Attica at
- the accession of Peisistratus. — Retirement of Peisistratus, and
- stratagem whereby he is reinstated. — Quarrel of Peisistratus
- with the Alkmæônids — his second retirement. — His second and
- final restoration. — His strong government — mercenaries —
- purification of Delos. — Mild despotism of Peisistratus. — His
- sons Hippias and Hipparchus. — Harmodius and Aristogeitôn. — They
- conspire and kill Hipparchus. B. C. 514. — Strong and lasting
- sentiment, coupled with great historical mistake, in the Athenian
- public. — Hippias despot alone — 514-510 B. C. — his cruelty and
- conscious insecurity. — Connection of Athens with the Thracian
- Chersonesus and the Asiatic coast of the Hellespont. — First
- Miltiadês — œkist of the Chersonese. — Second Miltiadês — sent
- out thither by the Peisistratids. — Proceedings of the exiled
- Alkmæônids against Hippias. — Conflagration and rebuilding of
- the Delphian temple. — The Alkmæônids rebuild the temple with
- magnificence. — Gratitude of the Delphians towards them — they
- procure from the oracle directions to Sparta, enjoining the
- expulsion of Hippias. — Spartan expeditions into Attica. —
- Expulsion of Hippias, and liberation of Athens. 102-126
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE PEISISTRATIDS. —
-REVOLUTION OF KLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS.
-
- State of Athens after the expulsion of Hippias. — Opposing
- party-leaders — Kleisthenês — Isagoras. — Democratical revolution
- headed by Kleisthenês. — Rearrangement and extension of the
- political franchise. — Suppression of the four old tribes, and
- formation of ten new tribes, including an increased number
- of the population. — Imperfect description of this event in
- Herodotus — its real bearing. — Grounds of opposition to it in
- ancient Athenian feeling. — Names of the new tribes — their
- relation to the demes. — Demes belonging to each tribe usually
- not adjacent to each other. — Arrangements and functions of the
- deme. — Solonian constitution preserved, with modifications. —
- Change of military arrangement in the state. — The ten stratêgi,
- or generals. — The judicial assembly of citizens, or Heliæa,
- subsequently divided into fractions, each judging separately. —
- The political assembly, or ekklesia. — Financial arrangements.
- — Senate of Five Hundred. — Ekklesia, or political assembly. —
- Kleisthenês the real author of the Athenian democracy. — Judicial
- attributes of the people — their gradual enlargement. — Three
- points in Athenian constitutional law, hanging together: —
- Universal admissibility of citizens to magistracy — choice by lot
- — reduced functions of the magistrates chosen by lot. — Universal
- admissibility of citizens to the archonship — not introduced
- until after the battle of Platæa. — Constitution of Kleisthenês
- retained the Solonian law of exclusion as to individual office. —
- Difference between that constitution and the political state of
- Athens after Periklês. — Senate of Areopagus. — The ostracism.
- — Weakness of the public force in the Grecian governments. —
- Past violences of the Athenian nobles. — Necessity of creating a
- constitutional morality. — Purpose and working of the ostracism.
- — Securities against its abuse. — Ostracism necessary as a
- protection to the early democracy — afterwards dispensed with.
- — Ostracism analogous to the exclusion of a known pretender to
- the throne in a monarchy. — Effect of the long ascendency of
- Periklês, in strengthening constitutional morality. — Ostracism
- in other Grecian cities. — Striking effect of the revolution
- of Kleisthenês on the minds of the citizens. — Isagoras calls
- in Kleomenês and the Lacedæmonians against it. — Kleomenês and
- Isagoras are expelled from Athens. — Recall of Kleisthenês —
- Athens solicits the alliance of the Persians. — First connection
- between Athens and Platæa. — Disputes between Platæa and Thebes
- — decision of Corinth as arbitrator. — Second march of Kleomenês
- against Athens — desertion of his allies. — First appearance of
- Sparta as acting head of Peloponnesian allies. — Signal successes
- of Athens against Bœotians and Chalkidians. — Plantation of
- Athenian settlers, or klêruchs, in the territory of Chalkis. —
- Distress of the Thebans — they ask assistance from Ægina. — The
- Æginetans make war on Athens. — Preparations at Sparta to attack
- Athens anew — the Spartan allies are summoned, together with
- Hippias. — First formal convocation at Sparta — advance of Greece
- towards a political system. — Proceedings of the convocation
- — animated protest of Corinth against any interference in
- favor of Hippias — the Spartan allies refuse to interfere. —
- Aversion to single-headed rule — now predominant in Greece. —
- Striking development of Athenian energy after the revolution of
- Kleisthenês — language of Herodotus. — Effect of the idea or
- theory of democracy in exciting Athenian sentiment. — Patriotism
- of an Athenian between 500-400 B. C. — combined with an eager
- spirit of personal military exertion and sacrifice. — Diminution
- of this active sentiment in the restored democracy after the
- Thirty Tyrants. 126-181
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-RISE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. — CYRUS.
-
- State of Asia before the rise of the Persian monarchy. — Great
- power and alliances of Crœsus. — Rise of Cyrus — uncertainty of
- his early history. — Story of Astyagês. — Herodotus and Ktêsias.
- — Condition of the native Persians at the first rise of Cyrus.
- — Territory of Iran — between Tigris and Indus. — War between
- Cyrus and Crœsus. — Crœsus tests the oracles — triumphant reply
- from Delphi — munificence of Crœsus to the oracle. — Advice given
- to him by the oracle. — He solicits the alliance of Sparta. —
- He crosses the Halys and attacks the Persians. — Rapid march of
- Cyrus to Sardis. — Siege and capture of Sardis. — Crœsus becomes
- prisoner of Cyrus — how treated. — Remonstrance addressed by
- Crœsus to the Delphian god. — Successful justification of the
- oracle. — Fate of Crœsus impressive to the Greek mind. — The
- Mœræ, or Fates. — State of the Asiatic Greeks after the conquest
- of Lydia by Cyrus. — They apply in vain to Sparta for aid. —
- Cyrus quits Sardis — revolt of the Lydians suppressed. — The
- Persian general Mazarês attacks Ionia — the Lydian Paktyas. —
- Harpagus succeeds Mazarês — conquest of Ionia by the Persians.
- — Fate of Phôkæa. — Emigration of the Phôkæans vowed by all,
- executed only by one half. — Phôkæan colony first at Alalia, then
- at Elea. — Proposition of Bias for a Pan-Ionic emigration not
- adopted. — Entire conquest of Asia Minor by the Persians. 182-208
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.
-
- Conquests of Cyrus in Asia. — His attack of Babylon. — Difficult
- approach to Babylon — no resistance made to the invaders. — Cyrus
- distributes the river Gyndês into many channels. — He takes
- Babylon, by drawing off for a time the waters of the Euphrates.
- — Babylon left in undiminished strength and population. — Cyrus
- attacks the Massagetæ — is defeated and slain. — Extraordinary
- stimulus to the Persians, from the conquests of Cyrus. —
- Character of the Persians. — Thirst for foreign conquest among
- the Persians, for three reigns after Cyrus. — Kambysês succeeds
- his father Cyrus — his invasion of Egypt. — Death of Amasis, king
- of Egypt, at the time when the Persian expedition was preparing
- — his son Psammenitus succeeds. — Conquest of Egypt by Kambysês.
- — Submission of Kyrênê and Barka to Kambysês — his projects for
- conquering Libya and Ethiopia disappointed. — Insults of Kambysês
- to the Egyptian religion. — Madness of Kambysês — he puts to
- death his younger brother, Smerdis. — Conspiracy of the Magian
- Patizeithês who sets up his brother as king under the name of
- Smerdis. — Death of Kambysês. — Reign of the false Smerdis —
- conspiracy of the seven Persian noblemen against him — he is
- slain. — Darius succeeds to the throne. — Political bearing
- of this conspiracy — Smerdis represents Median preponderance,
- which is again put down by Darius. — Revolt of the Medes —
- suppressed. — Discontents of the satraps. — Revolt of Babylon.
- — Reconquered and dismantled by Darius. — Organization of the
- Persian empire by Darius. — Twenty satrapies with a fixed tribute
- apportioned to each. — Imposts upon the different satrapies.
- — Organizing tendency of Darius — first imperial coinage —
- imperial roads and posts. — Island of Samos — its condition at
- the accession of Darius. — Polykratês. — Polykratês breaks with
- Amasis, king of Egypt, and allies himself with Kambysês. — The
- Samian exiles, expelled by Polykratês, apply to Sparta for aid.
- — The Lacedæmonians attack Samos, but are repulsed. — Attack on
- Siphnos by the Samian exiles. — Prosperity of Polykratês. — He is
- slain by the Persian satrap Orœtês. — Mæandrius, lieutenant of
- Polykratês in Samos — he desires to establish a free government
- after the death of Polykratês — conduct of the Samians. —
- Mæandrius becomes despot. — Contrast between the Athenians
- and the Samians. — Sylosôn, brother of Polykratês, lands with
- a Persian army in Samos — his history. — Mæandrius agrees to
- evacuate the island. — Many Persian officers slain — slaughter
- of the Samians. — Sylosôn despot at Samos. — Application of
- Mæandrius to Sparta for aid — refused. 209-252
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-DEMOKEDES. — DARIUS INVADES SCYTHIA.
-
- Conquering dispositions of Darius. — Influence of his wife,
- Atossa. — Dêmokêdês, the Krotoniate surgeon — his adventures — he
- is carried a slave to Susa. — He cures Darius, who rewards him
- munificently. — He procures permission by artifice, and through
- the influence of Atossa, to return to Greece. — Atossa suggests
- to Darius an expedition against Greece. — Dêmokêdês, with some
- Persians, is sent to procure information for him. — Voyage of
- Dêmokêdês along the coast of Greece — he stays at Kroton — fate
- of his Persian companions. — Consequences which might have been
- expected to happen if Darius had then undertaken his expedition
- against Greece. — Darius marches against Scythia. — His naval
- force formed of Asiatic and insular Greeks. — He directs the
- Greeks to throw a bridge over the Danube and crosses the river.
- — He marches into Scythia — narrative of his march impossible
- and unintelligible, considered as history. — The description
- of his march is rather to be looked upon as a fancy-picture,
- illustrative of Scythian warfare. — Poetical grouping of the
- Scythians and their neighbors by Herodotus. — Strong impression
- produced upon the imagination of Herodotus by the Scythians. —
- Orders given by Darius to the Ionians at the bridge over the
- Danube. — The Ionians are left in guard of the bridge; their
- conduct when Darius’s return is delayed. — The Ionian despots
- preserve the bridge and enable Darius to recross the river, as
- a means of support to their own dominion at home. — Opportunity
- lost of emancipation from the Persians — Conquest of Thrace by
- the Persians as far as the river Strymon — Myrkinus near that
- river given to Histiæus. — Macedonians and Pæonians are conquered
- by Megabazus. — Insolence of the Persian envoys in Macedonia
- — they are murdered. — Histiæus founds a prosperous colony at
- Myrkinus — Darius sends for him into Asia. — Otanês Persian
- general on the Hellespont — he conquers the Pelasgian population
- of Lemnos, Imbros, etc. — Lemnos and Imbros captured by the
- Athenians and Miltiadês. 252-280
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV.
-
-IONIC REVOLT.
-
- Darius carries Histiæus to Susa. — Application of the banished
- Hippias to Artaphernês, satrap of Sardis. — State of the island
- of Naxos — Naxian exiles solicit aid from Aristagoras of Milêtus.
- — Expedition against Naxos, undertaken by Aristagoras with the
- assistance of Artaphernês the satrap. — Its failure, through
- dispute between Aristagoras and the Persian general, Megabatês.
- — Alarm of Aristagoras — he determines to revolt against Persia
- — instigation to the same effect from Histiæus. — Revolt of
- Aristagoras and the Milesians — the despots in the various cities
- deposed and seized. — Extension of the revolt throughout Asiatic
- Greece — Aristagoras goes to solicit aid from Sparta. — Refusal
- of the Spartans to assist him. — Aristagoras applies to Athens —
- obtains aid both from Athens and Eretria. — March of Aristagoras
- up to Sardis with the Athenian and Eretrian allies — burning of
- the town — retreat and defeat of these Greeks by the Persians.
- — The Athenians abandon the alliance. — Extension of the revolt
- to Cyprus and Byzantium. — Phenician fleet called forth by the
- Persians — Persian and Phenician armament sent against Cyprus
- — the Ionians send aid thither — victory of the Persians —
- they reconquer the island. — Successes of the Persians against
- the revolted coast of Asia Minor. — Aristagoras loses courage
- and abandons the country. — Appearance of Histiæus, who had
- obtained leave of departure from Susa. — Histiæus is suspected by
- Artaphernês — flees to Chios. — He attempts in vain to procure
- admission into Milêtus — puts himself at the head of a small
- piratical squadron. — Large Persian force assembled, aided by the
- Phenician fleet, for the siege of Milêtus. — The allied Grecian
- fleet mustered at Ladê. — Attempts of the Persians to disunite
- the allies, by means of the exiled despots. — Want of command
- and discipline in the Grecian fleet. — Energy of the Phôkæan
- Dionysius — he is allowed to assume the command. — Discontent
- of the Grecian crews — they refuse to act under Dionysius.
- — Contrast of this incapacity of the Ionic crews with the
- subsequent severe discipline of the Athenian seamen. — Disorder
- and mistrust grow up in the fleet — treachery of the Samian
- captains. — Complete victory of the Persian fleet at Ladê — ruin
- of the Ionic fleet — severe loss of the Chians. — Voluntary
- exile and adventures of Dionysius. — Siege, capture, and ruin of
- Milêtus by the Persians. — The Phenician fleet reconquers all
- the coast-towns and islands. — Narrow escape of Miltiadês from
- their pursuit. — Cruelties of the Persians after the reconquest.
- — Movements and death of Histiæus. — Sympathy and terror of
- the Athenians at the capture of Milêtus — the tragic writer
- Phrynichus is fined. 280-310
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI.
-
-FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
-
- Proceedings of the satrap Artaphernês after the reconquest of
- Ionia — Mardonius comes with an army into Ionia — he puts down
- the despots in the Greek cities. — He marches into Thrace and
- Macedonia — his fleet destroyed by a terrible storm near Mount
- Athos — he returns into Asia. — Island of Thasos — prepares to
- revolt from the Persians — forced to submit. — Preparations of
- Darius for invading Greece — he sends heralds round the Grecian
- towns to demand earth and water — many of them submit. — Ægina
- among those towns which submitted — state and relations of this
- island. — Heralds from Darius are put to death, both at Athens
- and Sparta. — Effects of this act in throwing Sparta into a state
- of hostility against Persia. — The Athenians appeal to Sparta,
- in consequence of the _medism_ (or submission to the Persians)
- of Ægina. — Interference of Sparta — her distinct acquisition
- and acceptance of the leadership of Greece. — One condition of
- recognized Spartan leadership was the extreme weakness of Argos
- at this moment. — Victorious war of Sparta against Argos. —
- Destruction of the Argeians by Kleomenês, in the grove of the
- hero Argus. — Kleomenês returns without having attacked the
- city of Argos. — He is tried — his peculiar mode of defence
- — acquitted. — Argos unable to interfere with Sparta in the
- affair of Ægina and in her presidential power. — Kleomenês goes
- to Ægina to seize the _medizing_ leaders — resistance made to
- him, at the instigation of his colleague Demaratus. — Demaratus
- is deposed, and Leotychidês chosen king, by the intrigues of
- Kleomenês. — Demaratus leaves Sparta and goes to Darius. —
- Kleomenês and Leotychidês go to Ægina, seize ten hostages,
- and convey them as prisoners to Athens. — Important effect of
- this proceeding upon the result of the first Persian invasion
- of Greece. — Assemblage of the vast Persian armament under
- Datis at Samos. — He crosses the Ægean — carries the island of
- Naxos without resistance — respects Delos. — He reaches Eubœa
- — siege and capture of Eretria. — Datis lands at Marathon. —
- Existing condition and character of the Athenians. — Miltiadês
- — his adventures — chosen one of the ten generals in the year
- in which the Persians landed at Marathon. — Themistoklês and
- Aristeidês. — Miltiadês, Aristeidês, and perhaps Themistoklês,
- were now among the ten stratêgi, or generals, in 490 B. C. —
- The Athenians ask aid from Sparta — delay of the Spartans. —
- Difference of opinion among the ten Athenian generals — five of
- them recommend an immediate battle, the other five are adverse
- to it. — Urgent instances of Miltiadês in favor of an immediate
- battle — casting-vote of the polemarch determines it. — March of
- the Athenians to Marathon — the Platæans spontaneously join them
- there. — Numbers of the armies. — Locality of Marathon. — Battle
- of Marathon — rapid charge of Miltiadês — defeat of the Persians.
- — Loss on both sides. — Ulterior plans of the Persians against
- Athens — party in Attica favorable to them. — Rapid march of
- Miltiadês back to Athens on the day of the battle. — The Persians
- abandon the enterprise, and return home. — Athens rescued through
- the speedy battle brought on by Miltiadês. — Change of Grecian
- feeling as to the Persians — terror which the latter inspired
- at the time of the battle of Marathon. — Immense effect of the
- Marathonian victory on the feelings of the Greeks — especially
- of the Athenians. — Who were the traitors that invited the
- Persians to Athens after the battle — false imputation on the
- Alkmæônids. — Supernatural belief connected with the battle —
- commemorations of it. — Return of Datis to Asia — fate of the
- Eretrian captives. — Glory of Miltiadês — his subsequent conduct
- — unsuccessful expedition against Paros — bad hurt of Miltiadês.
- — Disgrace of Miltiadês on his return. — He is fined — dies of
- his wound — the fine is paid by his son Kimon. — Reflections on
- the closing adventures of the life of Miltiadês. — Fickleness
- and ingratitude imputed to the Athenians — how far they deserve
- the charge. — Usual temper of the Athenian dikasts in estimating
- previous services. — Tendency of eminent Greeks to be corrupted
- by success. — In what sense it is apparently true that fickleness
- was an attribute of the Athenian democracy. 311-378
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII.
-
-IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.
-
- Phalaris despot of Agrigentum. — Thalês. — Ionic philosophers
- — not a school or succession. — Step in philosophy commenced
- by Thalês. — Vast problems with scanty means of solution. —
- One cause of the vein of skepticism which runs through Grecian
- philosophy. — Thalês — primeval element of water, or the fluid.
- — Anaximander. — Problem of the One and the Many — the Permanent
- and the Variable. — Xenophanês — his doctrine the opposite of
- that of Anaximander. — The Eleatic school, Parmenidês and Zeno,
- springing from Xenophanês — their dialectics — their great
- influence on Grecian speculation. — Pherekydês. — History of
- Pythagoras. — His character and doctrines. — Pythagoras more a
- missionary and schoolmaster than a politician — his political
- efficiency exaggerated by later witnesses. — His ethical training
- — probably not applied to all the members of his order. — Decline
- and subsequent renovation of the Pythagorean order. — Pythagoras
- not merely a borrower, but an original and ascendent mind. — He
- passes from Samos to Kroton. — State of Kroton — oligarchical
- government — excellent gymnastic training and medical skill.
- — Rapid and wonderful effects said to have been produced by
- the exhortations of Pythagoras. — He forms a powerful club, or
- society, consisting of three hundred men taken from the wealthy
- classes at Kroton. — Political influence of Pythagoras — was an
- indirect result of the constitution of the order. — Causes which
- led to the subversion of the Pythagorean order. — Violences which
- accompanied its subversion. — The Pythagorean order is reduced
- to a religious and philosophical sect, in which character it
- continues. — War between Sybaris and Kroton. — Defeat of the
- Sybarites, and destruction of their city, partly through the
- aid of the Spartan prince Dorieus. — Sensation excited in the
- Hellenic world by the destruction of Sybaris. — Gradual decline
- of the Greek power in Italy. — Contradictory statements and
- arguments respecting the presence of Dorieus. — Herodotus does
- not mention the Pythagoreans, when he alludes to the war between
- Sybaris and Kroton. — Charondas, lawgiver of Katana, Naxos,
- Zanklê, Rhegium, etc. 378-419
-
-
-
-
-HISTORY OF GREECE.
-
-
-
-
-PART II.
-
-CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV.
-
-ILLYRIANS, MACEDONIANS, PÆONIANS.
-
-
-Northward of the tribes called Epirotic lay those more numerous
-and widely extended tribes who bore the general name of Illyrians;
-bounded on the west by the Adriatic, on the east by the
-mountain-range of Skardus, the northern continuation of Pindus,—and
-thus covering what is now called Middle and Upper Albania, together
-with the more northerly mountains of Montenegro, Herzegovina, and
-Bosnia. Their limits to the north and north-east cannot be assigned,
-but the Dardani and Autariatæ must have reached to the north-east of
-Skardus and even east of the Servian plain of Kossovo; while along
-the Adriatic coast, Skylax extends the race so far northward as to
-include Dalmatia, treating the Liburnians and Istrians beyond them
-as not Illyrian: yet Appian and others consider the Liburnians and
-Istrians as Illyrian, and Herodotus even includes under that name
-the Eneti, or Veneti, at the extremity of the Adriatic gulf.[1] The
-Bulini, according to Skylax, were the northernmost Illyrian tribe:
-the Amantini, immediately northward of the Epirotic Chaonians,
-were the southernmost. Among the southern Illyrian tribes are to
-be numbered the Taulantii,—originally the possessors, afterwards
-the immediate neighbors, of the territory on which Epidamnus was
-founded. The ancient geographer Hekatæus[2] (about 500 B. C.),
-is sufficiently well acquainted with them to specify their town
-Sesarêthus: he also named the Chelidonii as their northern, the
-Encheleis as their southern neighbors; and the Abri also as a tribe
-nearly adjoining. We hear of the Illyrian Parthini, nearly in the
-same regions,—of the Dassaretii,[3] near Lake Lychnidus,—of the
-Penestæ, with a fortified town Uscana, north of the Dassaretii,—of
-the Ardiæans, the Autariatæ, and the Dardanians, throughout Upper
-Albania eastward as far as Upper Mœsia, including the range of
-Skardus itself; so that there were some Illyrian tribes conterminous
-on the east with Macedonians, and on the south with Macedonians as
-well as with Pæonians. Strabo even extends some of the Illyrian
-tribes much farther northward, nearly to the Julian Alps.[4]
-
- [1] Herodot. i, 196; Skylax, c. 19-27; Appian. Illyric. c. 2, 4,
- 8.
-
- The geography of the countries occupied in ancient times by
- the Illyrians, Macedonians, Pæonians, Thracians, etc., and now
- possessed by a great diversity of races, among whom the Turks
- and Albanians retain the primitive barbarism without mitigation,
- is still very imperfectly understood; though the researches of
- Colonel Leake, of Boué, of Grisebach, and others (especially
- the valuable travels of the latter), have of late thrown much
- light upon it. How much our knowledge is extended in this
- direction, may be seen by comparing the map prefixed to Mannert’s
- Geographie, or to O. Müller’s Dissertation on the Macedonians,
- with that in Boué’s Travels, but the extreme deficiency of the
- maps, even as they now stand, is emphatically noticed by Boué
- himself (see his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie in the fourth
- volume of his Voyage),—by Paul Joseph Schaffarik, the learned
- historian of the Sclavonic race, in the preface attached by him
- to Dr. Joseph Müller’s Topographical Account of Albania,—and
- by Grisebach, who in his surveys, taken from the summits of
- the mountains Peristeri and Ljubatrin, found the map differing
- at every step from the bearings which presented themselves to
- his eye. It is only since Boué and Grisebach that the idea has
- been completely dismissed, derived originally from Strabo,
- of a straight line of mountains (εὐθεῖα γραμμὴ, Strabo, lib.
- vii, Fragm. 3) running across from the Adriatic to the Euxine,
- and sending forth other lateral chains in a direction nearly
- southerly. The mountains of Turkey in Europe, when examined with
- the stock of geological science which M. Viquesnel (the companion
- of Boué) and Dr. Grisebach bring to the task, are found to belong
- to systems very different, and to present evidences of conditions
- of formation often quite independent of each other.
-
- The thirteenth chapter of Grisebach’s Travels presents the
- best account which has yet been given of the chain of Skardus
- and Pindus: he has been the first to prove clearly, that the
- Ljubatrin, which immediately overhangs the plain of Kossovo at
- the southern border of Servia and Bosnia, is the north-eastern
- extremity of a chain of mountains reaching southward to the
- frontiers of Ætolia, in a direction not very wide of N-S.,—with
- the single interruption (first brought to view by Colonel
- Leake) of the Klissoura of Devol,—a complete gap, where the
- river Devol, rising on the eastern side, crosses the chain and
- joins the Apsus, or Beratino, on the western,—(it is remarkable
- that both in the map of Boué and in that annexed to Dr. Joseph
- Müller’s Topographical Description of Albania, the river Devol
- is made to join the Genussus, or Skoumi, considerably north of
- the Apsus, though Colonel Leake’s map gives the correct course.)
- In Grisebach’s nomenclature Skardus is made to reach from the
- Ljubatrin as its north-eastern extremity, south-westward and
- southward as far as the Klissoura of Devol: south of that point
- Pindus commences, in a continuation, however, of the same axis.
-
- In reference to the seats of the ancient Illyrians and
- Macedonians Grisebach has made another observation of great
- importance (vol. ii, p. 121). Between the north-eastern
- extremity, Mount Ljubatrin, and the Klissoura of Devol, there
- are in the mighty and continuous chain of Skardus (above seven
- thousand feet high) only two passes fit for an army to cross: one
- near the northern extremity of the chain, over which Grisebach
- himself crossed, from Kalkandele to Prisdren, a very high _col_,
- not less than five thousand feet above the level of the sea;
- the other, considerably to the southward, and lower as well as
- easier, nearly in the latitude of Lychnidus, or Ochrida. It was
- over this last pass that the Roman Via Egnatia travelled, and
- that the modern road from Scutari and Durazzo to Bitolia now
- travels. With the exception of these two partial depressions,
- the long mountain-ridge maintains itself undiminished in height,
- admitting, indeed, paths by which a small company either of
- travellers or of Albanian robbers from the Dibren, may cross
- (there is a path of this kind which connects Struga with
- Ueskioub, mentioned by Dr. Joseph Müller, p. 70, and some others
- by Boué, vol. iv, p. 546), but nowhere admitting the passage of
- an army.
-
- To attack the Macedonians, therefore, an Illyrian army would have
- to go through one or other of these passes, or else to go round
- the north-eastern pass of Katschanik, beyond the extremity of
- Ljubatrin. And we shall find that, in point of fact, the military
- operations recorded between the two nations carry us usually in
- one or other of these directions. The military proceedings of
- Brasidas (Thucyd. iv, 124),—of Philip the son of Amyntas king of
- Macedon (Diodor. xvi, 8),—of Alexander the Great in the first
- year of his reign (Arrian, i, 5), all bring us to the pass near
- Lychnidus (compare Livy, xxxii, 9; Plutarch, Flaminin. c. 4);
- while the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatæ border upon Pæonia,
- to the north of Pelagonia, and threaten Macedonia from the
- north-east of the mountain-chain of Skardus. The Autariatæ are
- not far removed from the Pæonian Agrianes, who dwelt near the
- sources of the Strymon, and both Autariatæ and Dardani threatened
- the return march of Alexander from the Danube into Macedonia,
- after his successful campaign against the Getæ, low down in the
- course of that great river (Arrian, i, 5). Without being able to
- determine the precise line of Alexander’s march on this occasion,
- we may see that these two Illyrian tribes must have come down
- to attack him from Upper Mœsia, and on the eastern side of the
- Axius. This, and the fact that the Dardani were the immediate
- neighbors of the Pæonians, shows us that their seats could not
- have been far removed from Upper Mœsia (Livy, xlv, 29): the
- fauces Pelagoniæ (Livy, xxxi, 34) are the pass by which they
- entered Macedonia from the north. Ptolemy even places the Dardani
- at Skopiæ (Ueskioub) (iii, 9); his information about these
- countries seems better than that of Strabo.
-
- [2] Hekatæi Fragm. ed. Klausen, Fr. 66-70; Thucyd. i, 26.
-
- Skylax places the Encheleis north of Epidamnus and of the
- Taulantii. It may be remarked that Hekatæus seems to have
- communicated much information respecting the Adriatic: he noticed
- the city of Adria at the extremity of the Gulf, and the fertility
- and abundance of the territory around it (Fr. 58: compare Skymnus
- Chius, 384).
-
- [3] Livy, xliii, 9-18. Mannert (Geograph. der Griech. und Römer,
- part vii, ch. 9, p. 386, _seq._) collects the points and shows
- how little can be ascertained respecting the localities of these
- Illyrian tribes.
-
- [4] Strabo, iv, p. 206.
-
-With the exception of some portions of what is now called Middle
-Albania, the territory of these tribes consisted principally of
-mountain pastures with a certain proportion of fertile valley, but
-rarely expanding into a plain. The Autariatæ had the reputation of
-being unwarlike, but the Illyrians generally were poor, rapacious,
-fierce, and formidable in battle. They shared with the remote
-Thracian tribes the custom of tattooing[5] their bodies and of
-offering human sacrifices: moreover, they were always ready to
-sell their military service for hire, like the modern Albanian
-Schkipetars, in whom probably their blood yet flows, though with
-considerable admixture from subsequent emigrations. Of the Illyrian
-kingdom on the Adriatic coast, with Skodra (Scutari) for its capital
-city, which became formidable by its reckless piracies in the third
-century B. C., we hear nothing in the flourishing period of Grecian
-history. The description of Skylax notices in his day, all along the
-northern Adriatic, a considerable and standing traffic between the
-coast and the interior, carried on by Liburnians, Istrians, and the
-small Grecian insular settlements of Pharus and Issa. But he does not
-name Skodra, and probably this strong post—together with the Greek
-town Lissus, founded by Dionysius of Syracuse—was occupied after
-his time by conquerors from the interior,[6] the predecessors of
-Agrôn and Gentius,—just as the coast-land of the Thermaic gulf was
-conquered by inland Macedonians.
-
- [5] Strabo, vii, p. 315; Arrian, i, 5, 4-11. So impracticable
- is the territory, and so narrow the means of the inhabitants,
- in the region called Upper Albania, that most of its resident
- tribes even now are considered as free, and pay no tribute to
- the Turkish government: the Pachas cannot extort it without
- greater expense and difficulty than the sum gained would repay.
- The same was the case in Epirus, or Lower Albania, previous to
- the time of Ali Pacha: in Middle Albania, the country does not
- present the like difficulties, and no such exemptions are allowed
- (Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. iii, p. 192). These free Albanian
- tribes are in the same condition with regard to the Sultan as the
- Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor with regard to the king of
- Persia in ancient times (Xenophon, Anab. iii, 2, 23).
-
- [6] Diodor. xv, 13: Polyb. ii, 4.
-
-Once during the Peloponnesian war, a detachment of hired Illyrians,
-marching into Macedonia Lynkêstis (seemingly over the pass of Skardus
-a little east of Lychnidus, or Ochrida), tried the valor of the
-Spartan Brasidas; and on that occasion—as in the expedition above
-alluded to of the Epirots against Akarnania—we shall notice the
-marked superiority of the Grecian character, even in the case of an
-armament chiefly composed of helots newly enfranchised, over both
-Macedonians and Illyrians,—we shall see the contrast between brave
-men acting in concert and obedience to a common authority, and an
-assailing host of warriors, not less brave individually, but in which
-every man is his own master,[7] and fights as he pleases. The rapid
-and impetuous rush of the Illyrians, if the first shock failed of
-its effect, was succeeded by an equally rapid retreat or flight. We
-hear nothing afterwards respecting these barbarians until the time of
-Philip of Macedon, whose vigor and military energy first repressed
-their incursions, and afterwards partially conquered them. It seems
-to have been about this period (400-350 B. C.) that the great
-movement of the Gauls from west to east took place, which brought
-the Gallic Skordiski and other tribes into the regions between the
-Danube and the Adriatic sea, and which probably dislodged some of the
-northern Illyrians so as to drive them upon new enterprises and fresh
-abodes.
-
- [7] See the description in Thucydidês (iv, 124-128);
- especially the exhortation which he puts into the mouth of
- Brasidas,—αὐτοκράτωρ μάχῃ, contrasted with the orderly array of
- Greeks.
-
- “Illyriorum velocitas ad excursiones et impetus subitos.”
-
- (Livy, xxxi, 35.)
-
-What is now called Middle Albania, the Illyrian territory immediately
-north of Epirus, is much superior to the latter in productiveness.[8]
-Though mountainous, it possesses more both of low hill and valley,
-and ampler as well as more fertile cultivable spaces. Epidamnus and
-Apollonia formed the seaports of this territory, and the commerce
-with the southern Illyrians, less barbarous than the northern, was
-one of the sources[9] of their great prosperity during the first
-century of their existence,—a prosperity interrupted in the case
-of the Epidamnians by internal dissensions, which impaired their
-ascendency over their Illyrian neighbors, and ultimately placed
-them at variance with their mother-city Korkyra. The commerce
-between these Greek seaports and the interior tribes, when once
-the former became strong enough to render violent attack from the
-latter hopeless, was reciprocally beneficial to both of them.
-Grecian oil and wine were introduced among these barbarians, whose
-chiefs at the same time learned to appreciate the woven fabrics,[10]
-the polished and carved metallic work, the tempered weapons,
-and the pottery, which issued from Grecian artisans. Moreover,
-the importation sometimes of salt-fish, and always that of salt
-itself, was of the greatest importance to these inland residents,
-especially for such localities as possessed lakes abounding in
-fish, like that of Lychnidus. We hear of wars between the Autariatæ
-and the Ardiæi, respecting salt-springs near their boundaries, and
-also of other tribes whom the privation of salt reduced to the
-necessity of submitting to the Romans.[11] On the other hand,
-these tribes possessed two articles of exchange so precious in
-the eyes of the Greeks, that Polybius reckons them as absolutely
-indispensable,[12]—cattle and slaves; which latter were doubtless
-procured from Illyria, often in exchange for salt, as they were from
-Thrace and from the Euxine and from Aquileia in the Adriatic, through
-the internal wars of one tribe with another. Silver-mines were worked
-at Damastium in Illyria. Wax and honey were probably also articles of
-export, and it is a proof that the natural products of Illyria were
-carefully sought out, when we find a species of iris peculiar to the
-country collected and sent to Corinth, where its root was employed to
-give the special flavor to a celebrated kind of aromatic unguent.[13]
-
- [8] See Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce, vol. i, chs. 23 and 24;
- Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und nach Brussa, vol. ii, pp.
- 138-139; Boué, La Turquie en Europe, Géographie Générale, vol. i,
- pp. 60-65.
-
- [9] Skymnus Chius, v, 418-425.
-
- [10] Thucydidês mentions the ὑφαντὰ τε καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη
- κατασκευὴ, which the Greek settlements on the Thracian coast
- sent up to king Seuthês (ii, 98): similar to the ὑφασμαθ᾽ ἱερὰ,
- and to the χεριαρᾶν τεκτόνων δαίδαλα, offered as presents to the
- Delphian god (Eurip. Ion. 1141; Pindar, Pyth. v, 46).
-
- [11] Strabo, vii, p. 317; Appian, Illyric. 17; Aristot. Mirab.
- Ausc. c. 138. For the extreme importance of the trade in salt,
- as a bond of connection, see the regulations of the Romans when
- they divided Macedonia into four provinces, with the distinct
- view of cutting off all connection between one and the other. All
- _commercium_ and _connubium_ were forbidden between them: the
- fourth region, whose capital was Pelagonia (and which included
- all the primitive or Upper Macedonia, east of the range of
- Pindus and Skardus), was altogether inland, and it was expressly
- forbidden to draw its salt from the third region, or the country
- between the Axius and the Peneius; while on the other hand the
- Illyrian Dardani, situated northward of Upper Macedonia, received
- express permission to draw _their_ salt from this third or
- maritime region of Macedonia: the salt was to be conveyed from
- the Thermaic gulf along the road of the Axius to Stobi in Pæonia,
- and was there to be sold at a fixed price.
-
- The inner or fourth region of Macedonia, which included the
- modern Bitoglia and Lake Castoria, could easily obtain its salt
- from the Adriatic, by the communication afterwards so well
- known as the Roman Egnatian way; but the communication of the
- Dardani with the Adriatic led through a country of the greatest
- possible difficulty, and it was probably a great convenience to
- them to receive their supply from the gulf of Therma by the road
- along the Vardar (Axius) (Livy, xlv, 29). Compare the route of
- Grisebach from Salonichi to Scutari, in his Reise durch Rumelien,
- vol. ii.
-
- [12] About the cattle in Illyria, Aristotle, De Mirab. Ausc. c.
- 128. There is a remarkable passage in Polybius, wherein he treats
- the importation of slaves as a matter of necessity to Greece (iv,
- 37). The purchasing of the Thracian slaves in exchange for salt
- is noticed by Menander.—Θρᾶξ εὐγενὴς εῖ, πρὸς ἄλας ἠγορασμένος:
- see Proverb. Zenob. ii, 12, and Diogenian, i, 100.
-
- The same trade was carried on in antiquity with the nations on
- and near Caucasus, from the seaport of Dioskurias at the eastern
- extremity of the Euxine (Strabo, xi, p. 506). So little have
- those tribes changed, that the Circassians now carry on much
- the same trade. Dr. Clarke’s statement carries us back to the
- ancient world: “The Circassians frequently sell their children
- to strangers, particularly to the Persians and Turks, and their
- princes supply the Turkish seraglios with the most beautiful
- of the prisoners of both sexes whom they take in war. In their
- commerce with the Tchernomorski Cossacks (north of the river
- Kuban), the Circassians bring considerable quantities of wood,
- and the delicious honey of the mountains, sewed up in goats’
- hides, with the hair on the outside. These articles they exchange
- for salt, a commodity found in the neighboring lakes, of a
- very excellent quality. Salt is more precious than any other
- kind of wealth to the Circassians, and it constitutes the most
- acceptable present which can be offered to them. They weave mats
- of very great beauty, which find a ready market both in Turkey
- and Russia. They are also ingenious in the art of working silver
- and other metals, and in the fabrication of guns, pistols, and
- sabres. Some, which they offered us for sale, we suspected had
- been procured in Turkey in exchange for slaves. Their bows
- and arrows are made with inimitable skill, and the arrows
- being tipped with iron, and otherwise exquisitely wrought, are
- considered by the Cossacks and Russians as inflicting incurable
- wounds.” (Clarke’s Travels, vol. i, ch. xvi, p. 378.)
-
- [13] Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iv, 5, 2; ix, 7, 4: Pliny. H. N.
- xiii, 2; xxi, 19: Strabo, vii, p. 326. Coins of Epidamnus and
- Apollonia are found not only in Macedonia, but in Thrace and in
- Italy: the trade of these two cities probably extended across
- from sea to sea, even before the construction of the Egnatian
- way; and the Inscription 2056 in the Corpus of Boeckh proclaims
- the gratitude of Odêssus (Varna) in the Euxine sea towards a
- citizen of Epidamnus (Barth, Corinthiorum Mercatur. Hist. p. 49;
- Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 104).
-
-Nor was the intercourse between the Hellenic ports and Illyrians
-inland exclusively commercial. Grecian exiles also found their way
-into Illyria, and Grecian mythes became localized there, as may be
-seen by the tale of Kadmus and Harmonia, from whom the chiefs of the
-Illyrian Encheleis professed to trace their descent.[14]
-
- [14] Herodot. v, 61; viii, 137: Strabo, vii, p. 326. Skylax
- places the λίθοι of Kadmus and Harmonia among the Illyrian Manii,
- north of the Encheleis (Diodor. xix, 53; Pausan. ix, 5, 3).
-
-The Macedonians of the fourth century B. C. acquired, from
-the ability and enterprise of two successive kings, a great
-perfection in Greek military organization without any of the
-loftier Hellenic qualities. Their career in Greece is purely
-destructive, extinguishing the free movement of the separate
-cities, and disarming the citizen-soldier to make room for the
-foreign mercenary, whose sword was unhallowed by any feelings of
-patriotism,—yet totally incompetent to substitute any good system
-of central or pacific administration. But the Macedonians of the
-seventh and sixth centuries B. C. are an aggregate only of rude
-inland tribes, subdivided into distinct petty principalities, and
-separated from the Greeks by a wider ethnical difference even than
-the Epirots; since Herodotus, who considers the Epirotic Molossians
-and Thesprotians as children of Hellen, decidedly thinks the contrary
-respecting the Macedonians.[15] In the main, however, they seem
-at this early period analogous to the Epirots in character and
-civilization. They had some few towns, but were chiefly village
-residents, extremely brave and pugnacious. The customs of some of
-their tribes enjoined that the man who had not yet slain an enemy
-should be distinguished on some occasions by a badge of discredit.[16]
-
- [15] Herodot. v, 22.
-
- [16] Aristot. Polit. vii, 2, 6. That the Macedonians were chiefly
- village residents, appears from Thucyd. ii, 100, iv, 124, though
- this does not exclude _some_ towns.
-
-The original seats of the Macedonians were in the regions east of the
-chain of Skardus (the northerly continuation of Pindus)—north of the
-chain called the Cambunian mountains, which connects Olympus with
-Pindus, and which forms the north-western boundary of Thessaly. But
-they did not reach so far eastward as the Thermaic gulf; apparently
-not farther eastward than Mount Bermius, or about the longitude of
-Edessa and Berrhoia. They thus covered the upper portions of the
-course of the rivers Haliakmôn and Erigôn, before the junction of
-the latter with the Axius; while the upper course of the Axius,
-higher than this point of junction, appears to have belonged to
-Pæonia,—though the boundaries of Macedonia and Pæonia cannot be
-distinctly marked out at any time.
-
-The large space of country included between the above-mentioned
-boundaries is in great part mountainous, occupied by lateral ridges,
-or elevations, which connect themselves with the main line of
-Skardus. But it also comprises three wide alluvial basins, or plains,
-which are of great extent and well-adapted to cultivation,—the
-plain of Tettovo, or Kalkandele (northernmost of the three), which
-contains the sources and early course of the Axius, or Vardar,—that
-of Bitolia, coinciding to a great degree with the ancient Pelagonia,
-wherein the Erigon flows towards the Axius,—and the larger and more
-undulating basin of Greveno and Anaselitzas, containing the upper
-Haliakmôn with its confluent streams. This latter region is separated
-from the basin of Thessaly by a mountainous line of considerable
-length, but presenting numerous easy passes.[17] Reckoning the basin
-of Thessaly as a fourth, here are four distinct inclosed plains
-on the east side of this long range of Skardus and Pindus,—each
-generally bounded by mountains which rise precipitously to an
-alpine height, and each leaving only one cleft for drainage by a
-single river,—the Axius, the Erigôn, the Haliakmôn, and the Peneius
-respectively. All four, moreover, though of high level above the sea,
-are yet for the most part of distinguished fertility, especially
-the plains of Tettovo, of Bitolia, and Thessaly. The fat, rich land
-to the east of Pindus and Skardus is described as forming a marked
-contrast with the light calcareous soil of the Albanian plains
-and valleys on the western side. The basins of Bitolia and of the
-Haliakmôn, with the mountains around and adjoining, were possessed by
-the original Macedonians; that of Tettovo, on the north, by a portion
-of the Pæonians. Among the four, Thessaly is the most spacious; yet
-the two comprised in the primitive seats of the Macedonians, both
-of them very considerable in magnitude, formed a territory better
-calculated to nourish and to generate a considerable population,
-than the less favored home, and smaller breadth of valley and plain,
-occupied by Epirots or Illyrians. Abundance of corn easily raised,
-of pasture for cattle, and of new fertile land open to cultivation,
-would suffice to increase the numbers of hardy villagers, indifferent
-to luxury as well as to accumulation, and exempt from that oppressive
-extortion of rulers which now harasses the same fine regions.[18]
-
- [17] Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, p. 199: “Un bon nombre de
- cols dirigés du nord au sud, comme pour inviter les habitans de
- passer d’une de ces provinces dans l’autre.”
-
- [18] For the general physical character of the region, both
- east and west of Skardus, continued by Pindus, see the valuable
- charter of Grisebach’s Travels above referred to (Reisen, vol.
- ii. ch. xiii, pp. 125-130; c. xiv, p. 175; c. xvi, pp. 214-216;
- c. xvii, pp. 244-245).
-
- Respecting the plains comprised in the ancient Pelagonia, see
- also the Journal of the younger Pouqueville, in his progress from
- Travnik in Bosnia to Janina. He remarks, in the two days’ march
- from Prelepe (Prilip) through Bitolia to Florina, “Dans cette
- route on parcourt des plaines luxuriantes couvertes de moissons,
- de vastes prairies remplies de trèfle, des plateaux abondans en
- pâturages inépuisables, où paissent d’innombrables troupeaux de
- bœufs, de chèvres, et de menu bétail.... Le blé, le maïs, et
- les autres grains sont toujours à très bas prix, à cause de la
- difficulté des débouchés, d’où l’on exporte une grande quantité
- de laines, de cotons, de peaux d’agneaux, de buffles, et de
- chevaux, qui passent par le moyen des caravanes en Hongrie.”
- (Pouqueville, Voyage dans la Grèce, tom. ii, ch. 62, p. 495.)
-
- Again, M. Boué remarks upon this same plain, in his Critique des
- Cartes de la Turquie, Voyage, vol. iv, p. 483, “La plaine immense
- de Prilip, de Bitolia, et de Florina, n’est pas représentée (sur
- les cartes) de manière à ce qu’on ait une idée de son étendue,
- et surtout de sa largeur.... La plaine de Sarigoul est changée
- en vallée,” etc. The basin of the Haliakmôn he remarks to be
- represented equally imperfectly on the maps: compare also his
- Voyage, i, pp. 211, 299, 300.
-
- I notice the more particularly the large proportion of fertile
- plain and valley in the ancient Macedonia, because it is often
- represented (and even by O. Müller, in his Dissertation on the
- ancient Macedonians, attached to his History of the Dorians) as
- a cold and rugged land, pursuant to the statement of Livy (xlv,
- 29), who says, respecting the fourth region of Macedonia as
- distributed by the Romans, “Frigida hæc omnis, duraque cultu, et
- aspera plaga est: cultorum quoque ingenia terræ similia habet:
- ferociores eos et accolæ barbari faciunt, nunc bello exercentes,
- nunc in pace miscentes ritus suos.”
-
- This is probably true of the mountaineers included in the region,
- but it is too much generalized.
-
-The inhabitants of this primitive Macedonia doubtless differed
-much in ancient times, as they do now, according as they dwelt on
-mountain or plain, and in soil and climate more or less kind; but all
-acknowledged a common ethnical name and nationality, and the tribes
-were in many cases distinguished from each other, not by having
-substantive names of their own, but merely by local epithets of
-Grecian origin. Thus we find Elymiotæ Macedonians, or Macedonians of
-Elymeia,—Lynkestæ Macedonians, or Macedonians of Lynkus, etc. Orestæ
-is doubtless an adjunct name of the same character. The inhabitants
-of the more northerly tracts, called Pelagonia and Deuriopis, were
-also portions of the Macedonian aggregate, though neighbors of the
-Pæonians, to whom they bore much affinity: whether the Eordi and
-Almopians were of Macedonian race, it is more difficult to say. The
-Macedonian language was different from Illyrian,[19] from Thracian,
-and seemingly also from Pæonian. It was also different from Greek,
-yet apparently not more widely distinct than that of the Epirots,—so
-that the acquisition of Greek was comparatively easy to the chiefs
-and people, though there were always some Greek letters which they
-were incapable of pronouncing. And when we follow their history,
-we shall find in them more of the regular warrior, conquering in
-order to maintain dominion and tribute, and less of the armed
-plunderer,—than in the Illyrians, Thracians, or Epirots, by whom it
-was their misfortune to be surrounded. They approach nearer to the
-Thessalians,[20] and to the other ungifted members of the Hellenic
-family.
-
- [19] Polyb. xxviii, 8, 9. This is the most distinct testimony
- which we possess, and it appears to me to contradict the opinion
- both of Mannert (Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. vol. vii, p. 492) and
- of O. Müller (On the Macedonians, sects. 28-36), that the native
- Macedonians were of Illyrian descent.
-
- [20] The Macedonian military array seems to have been very like
- that of the Thessalians,—horsemen well-mounted and armed, and
- maintaining good order (Thucyd. ii, 101): of their infantry,
- before the time of Philip son of Amyntas, we do not hear much.
-
- “Macedoniam, quæ tantis barbarorum gentibus attingitur, ut
- semper Macedonicis imperatoribus iidem fines imperii fuerint qui
- gladiorum atque pilorum.” (Cicero, in Pison. c. xvi.)
-
-The large and comparatively productive region covered by the various
-sections of Macedonians, helps to explain that increase of ascendency
-which they successively acquired over all their neighbors. It was
-not, however, until a late period that they became united under one
-government. At first each section, how many we do not know, had its
-own prince, or chief. The Elymiots, or inhabitants of Elymeia, the
-southernmost portion of Macedonia, were thus originally distinct and
-independent; also the Orestæ, in mountain-seats somewhat north-west
-of the Elymiots,—the Lynkêstæ and Eordi, who occupied portions
-of territory on the track of the subsequent Egnatian way, between
-Lychnidus (Ochrida) and Edessa,—the Pelagonians,[21] with a town
-of the same name, in the fertile plain of Bitolia,—and the more
-northerly Deuriopians. And the early political union was usually
-so loose, that each of these denominations probably includes many
-petty independencies, small towns, and villages. That section of the
-Macedonian name who afterwards swallowed up all the rest and became
-known as _The Macedonians_, had their original centre at Ægæ, or
-Edessa,—the lofty, commanding, and picturesque site of the modern
-Vodhena. And though the residence of the kings was in later times
-transferred to the marshy Pella, in the maritime plain beneath,
-yet Edessa was always retained as the regal burial-place, and as
-the hearth to which the religious continuity of the nation, so
-much reverenced in ancient times, was attached. This ancient town,
-which lay on the Roman Egnatian way from Lychnidus to Pella and
-Thessalonika, formed the pass over the mountain-ridge called Bermius,
-or that prolongation to the northward of Mount Olympus, through which
-the Haliakmôn makes its way out into the maritime plain at Verria, by
-a cleft more precipitous and impracticable than that of the Peneius
-in the defile of Tempê.
-
- [21] Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed. Tafel.
-
-This mountain-chain called Bermius, extending from Olympus
-considerably to the north of Edessa, formed the original eastern
-boundary of the Macedonian tribes; who seem at first not to have
-reached the valley of the Axius in any part of its course, and who
-certainly did not reach at first to the Thermaic gulf. Between the
-last-mentioned gulf and the eastern counterforts of Olympus and
-Bermius there exists a narrow strip of plain land or low hill,
-which reaches from the mouth of the Peneius to the head of the
-Thermaic gulf. It there widens into the spacious and fertile plain
-of Salonichi, comprising the mouths of the Haliakmôn, the Axius,
-and the Echeidôrus: the river Ludias, which flows from Edessa into
-the marshes surrounding Pella, and which in antiquity joined the
-Haliakmôn near its mouth, has now altered its course so as to join
-the Axius. This narrow strip, between the mouths of the Peneius
-and the Haliakmôn, was the original abode of the Pierian Thracians,
-who dwelt close to the foot of Olympus, and among whom the worship
-of the Muses seems to have been a primitive characteristic; Grecian
-poetry teems with local allusions and epithets which appear traceable
-to this early fact, though we are unable to follow it in detail.
-North of the Pierians, from the mouth of the Haliakmôn to that of
-the Axius, dwelt the Bottiæans.[22] Beyond the river Axius, at the
-lower part of its course, began the tribes of the great Thracian
-race,—Mygdonians, Krestônians, Edônians, Bisaltæ, Sithonians: the
-Mygdonians seem to have been originally the most powerful, since the
-country still continued to be called by their name, Mygdonia, even
-after the Macedonian conquest. These, and various other Thracian
-tribes, originally occupied most part of the country between the
-mouth of the Axius and that of the Strymon; together with that
-memorable three-pronged peninsula which derived from the Grecian
-colonies its name of Chalkidikê. It will thus appear, if we consider
-the Bottiæans as well as the Pierians to be Thracians, that the
-Thracian race extended originally southward as far as the mouth of
-the Peneius: the Bottiæans professed, indeed, a Kretan origin, but
-this pretension is not noticed by either Herodotus or Thucydidês. In
-the time of Skylax,[23] seemingly during the early reign of Philip
-the son of Amyntas, Macedonia and Thrace were separated by the
-Strymon.
-
- [22] I have followed Herodotus in stating the original series
- of occupants on the Thermaic gulf, anterior to the Macedonian
- conquests. Thucydidês introduces the Pæonians between Bottiæans
- and Mygdonians: he says that the Pæonians possessed “a narrow
- strip of land on the side of the Axius, down to Pella and the
- sea,” (ii, 96.) If this were true, it would leave hardly any room
- for the Bottiæans, whom, nevertheless, Thucydidês recognizes on
- the coast; for the whole space between the mouths of the two
- rivers, Axius and Haliakmôn, is inconsiderable; moreover, I
- cannot but suspect that Thucydidês has been led to believe, by
- finding in the Iliad that the Pæonian allies of Troy came from
- the Axius, that there _must have been_ old Pæonian settlements at
- the mouth of that river, and that he has advanced the inference
- as if it were a certified fact. The case is analogous to what he
- says about the Bœotians in his preface (upon which O. Müller has
- already commented); he stated the emigration of the Bœotians into
- Bœotia as having taken place after the Trojan war, but saves the
- historical credit of the Homeric catalogue by adding that there
- had been a _fraction_ of them in Bœotia _before_, from whom the
- contingent which went to Troy was furnished (ἀποδασμός, Thucyd.
- i, 12).
-
- On this occasion, therefore, having to choose between Herodotus
- and Thucydidês, I prefer the former. O. Müller (On the
- Macedonians, sect. 11) would strike out just so much of the
- assertion of Thucydidês as positively contradicts Herodotus, and
- retain the rest; he thinks that the Pæonians came down _very
- near_ to the mouth of the river, but _not quite_. I confess that
- this does not satisfy me; the more so as the passage from Livy by
- which he would support his view will appear, on examination, to
- refer to Pæonia high up the Axius,—not to a supposed portion of
- Pæonia near the mouth (Livy, xlv, 29).
-
- Again, I would remark that the original residence of the Pierians
- between the Peneius and the Haliakmôn rests chiefly upon the
- authority of Thucydidês: Herodotus knows the Pierians in their
- seats between Mount Pangæus and the sea, but he gives no
- intimation that they had before dwelt south of the Haliakmôn; the
- tract between the Haliakmôn and the Peneius is by him conceived
- as Lower Macedonia, or Macedonis, reaching to the borders of
- Thessaly (vii, 127-173). I make this remark in reference to
- sects. 7-17 of O. Müller’s Dissertation, wherein the conception
- of Herodotus appears incorrectly apprehended, and some erroneous
- inferences founded upon it. That this tract was the original
- Pieria, there is sufficient reason for believing (compare Strabo,
- vii, Frag. 22, with Tafel’s note, and ix, p. 410; Livy, xliv, 9);
- but Herodotus notices it only as Macedonia.
-
- [23] Skylax, c. 67. The conquests of Philip extended the boundary
- beyond the Strymon to the Nestus (Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 33,
- ed. Tafel).
-
-We have yet to notice the Pæonians, a numerous and much-divided
-race,—seemingly neither Thracian nor Macedonian nor Illyrian, but
-professing to be descended from the Teukri of Troy,—who occupied
-both banks of the Strymon, from the neighborhood of Mount Skomius,
-in which that river rises, down to the lake near its mouth. Some of
-their tribes possessed the fertile plain of Siris (now Seres),—the
-land immediately north of Mount Pangæus,—and even a portion of the
-space through which Xerxês marched on his route from Akanthus to
-Therma. Besides this, it appears that the upper parts of the valley
-of the Axius were also occupied by Pæonian tribes; how far down the
-river they extended, we are unable to say. We are not to suppose
-that the whole territory between Axius and Strymon was continuously
-peopled by them. Continuous population is not the character of
-the ancient world, and it seems, moreover, that while the land
-immediately bordering on both rivers is in very many places of the
-richest quality, the spaces between the two are either mountain or
-barren low hill,—forming a marked contrast with the rich alluvial
-basin of the Macedonian river Erigon.[24] The Pæonians, in their
-north-western tribes, thus bordered upon the Macedonian Pelagonia,—in
-their northern tribes, upon the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatæ,—in
-their eastern, southern, and south-eastern tribes, upon the Thracians
-and Pierians;[25] that is, upon the second seats occupied by the
-expelled Pierians under Mount Pangæus.
-
- [24] See this contrast noticed in Grisebach, especially in
- reference to the wide but barren region called the plain of
- Mustapha, no great distance from the left bank of the Axius
- (Grisebach, Reisen, v, ii, p. 225; Boué, Voyage, vol. i, p. 168).
-
- For the description of the banks of the Axius (Vardar) and the
- Strymon, see Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, pp. 196-199. “La
- plaine ovale de Seres est un des diamans de la couronne de
- Byzance,” etc. He remarks how incorrectly the course of the
- Strymon is depicted on the maps (vol. iv, p. 482).
-
- [25] The expression of Strabo or his Epitomator—τὴν Παιονίαν
- μέχρι Πελαγονίας καὶ Πιερίας ἐκτετάσθαι,—seems quite exact,
- though Tafel finds a difficulty in it. See his Note on the
- Vatican Fragments of the seventh book of Strabo, Fr. 37. The
- Fragment 40 is expressed much more loosely. Compare Herodot. v,
- 13-16, vii, 124; Thucyd. ii, 96; Diodor. xx, 19.
-
-Such was, as far as we can make it out, the position of the
-Macedonians and their immediate neighbors, in the seventh century B.
-C. It was first altered by the enterprise and ability of a family of
-exiled Greeks, who conducted a section of the Macedonian people to
-those conquests which their descendants, Philip and Alexander the
-Great, afterwards so marvellously multiplied.
-
-Respecting the primitive ancestry of these two princes, there were
-different stories, but all concurred in tracing the origin of the
-family to the Herakleid or Temenid race of Argos. According to one
-story (which apparently cannot be traced higher than Theopompus),
-Karanus, brother of the despot Pheidon, had migrated from Argos to
-Macedonia, and established himself as conqueror at Edessa; according
-to another tale, which we find in Herodotus, there were three exiles
-of the Temenid race, Gauanês, Aëropus, and Perdikkas, who fled from
-Argos to Illyria, from whence they passed into Upper Macedonia, in
-such poverty as to be compelled to serve the petty king of the town
-Lebæa in the capacity of shepherds. A remarkable prodigy happening to
-Perdikkas foreshadows the future eminence of his family, and leads
-to his dismissal by the king of Lebæa,—from whom he makes his escape
-with difficulty, by the sudden rise of a river immediately after
-he had crossed it, so as to become impassable by the horsemen who
-pursued him. To this river, as to the saviour of the family, solemn
-sacrifices were still offered by the kings of Macedonia in the time
-of Herodotus. Perdikkas with his two brothers having thus escaped,
-established himself near the spot called the Garden of Midas on Mount
-Bermius, and from the loins of this hardy young shepherd sprang the
-dynasty of Edessa.[26] This tale bears much more the marks of a
-genuine local tradition than that of Theopompus. And the origin of
-the Macedonian family, or Argeadæ, from Argos, appears to have been
-universally recognized by Grecian inquirers,[27]—so that Alexander
-the son of Amyntas, the contemporary of the Persian invasion, was
-admitted by the Hellanodikæ to contend at the Olympic games as a
-genuine Greek, though his competitors sought to exclude him as a
-Macedonian.
-
- [26] Herodot. viii, 137-138.
-
- [27] Herodot. v, 22. Argeadæ, Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed.
- Tafel, which may probably have been erroneously changed into
- Ægeadæ (Justin, vii, 1).
-
-The talent for command was so much more the attribute of the Greek
-mind than of any of the neighboring barbarians, that we easily
-conceive a courageous Argeian adventurer acquiring to himself
-great ascendency in the local disputes of the Macedonian tribes,
-and transmitting the chieftainship of one of those tribes to his
-offspring. The influence acquired by Miltiadês among the Thracians of
-the Chersonese, and by Phormion among the Akarnanians (who specially
-requested that, after his death, his son, or some one of his kindred,
-might be sent from Athens to command them),[28] was very much of
-this character: we may add the case of Sertorius among the native
-Iberians. In like manner, the kings of the Macedonian Lynkêstæ
-professed to be descended from the Bacchiadæ[29] of Corinth; and the
-neighborhood of Epidamnus and Apollonia, in both of which doubtless
-members of that great gens were domiciliated, renders this tale even
-more plausible than that of an emigration from Argos. The kings of
-the Epirotic Molossi pretended also to a descent from the heroic
-Æakid race of Greece. In fact, our means of knowledge do not enable
-us to discriminate the cases in which these reigning families were
-originally Greeks, from those in which they were Hellenized natives
-pretending to Grecian blood.
-
- [28] Thucyd. iii, 7; Herodot. vi, 34-37: compare the story of
- Zalmoxis among the Thracians (iv, 94).
-
- [29] Strabo, vii, p. 326.
-
-After the foundation-legend of the Macedonian kingdom, we have
-nothing but a long blank until the reign of king Amyntas (about
-520-500 B. C.), and his son Alexander, (about 480 B. C.) Herodotus
-gives us five successive kings between the founder Perdikkas and
-Amyntas,—Perdikkas, Argæus, Philippus, Aëropus, Alketas, Amyntas,
-and Alexander,—the contemporary and to a certain extent the ally
-of Xerxês.[30] Though we have no means of establishing any dates
-in this early series, either of names or of facts, yet we see
-that the Temenid kings, beginning from a humble origin, extended
-their dominions successively on all sides. They conquered the
-Briges,[31]—originally their neighbors on Mount Bermius,—the Eordi,
-bordering on Edessa to the westward, who were either destroyed or
-expelled from the country, leaving a small remnant still existing
-in the time of Thucydidês at Physka between Strymon and Axius,—the
-Almopians, an inland tribe of unknown site,—and many of the interior
-Macedonian tribes who had been at first autonomous. Besides these
-inland conquests, they had made the still more important acquisition
-of Pieria, the territory which lay between Mount Bermius and the sea,
-from whence they expelled the original Pierians, who found new seats
-on the eastern bank of the Strymon between Mount Pangæus and the
-sea. Amyntas king of Macedon was thus master of a very considerable
-territory, comprising the coast of the Thermaic gulf as far north as
-the mouth of the Haliakmôn, and also some other territory on the same
-gulf from which the Bottiæans had been expelled; but not comprising
-the coast between the mouths of the Axius and the Haliakmôn, nor even
-Pella, the subsequent capital, which were still in the hands of the
-Bottiæans at the period when Xerxês passed through.[32] He possessed
-also Anthemus, a town and territory in the peninsula of Chalkidikê,
-and some parts of Mygdonia, the territory east of the mouth of the
-Axius; but how much, we do not know. We shall find the Macedonians
-hereafter extending their dominion still farther, during the period
-between the Persian and Peloponnesian war.
-
- [30] Herodot. viii, 139. Thucydidês agrees in the number of
- kings, but does not give the names (ii, 100).
-
- For the divergent lists of the early Macedonian kings, see Mr.
- Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii, p. 221.
-
- [31] This may be gathered, I think, from Herodot. vii, 73 and
- viii, 138. The alleged migration of the Briges into Asia, and the
- change of their name to Phryges, is a statement which I do not
- venture to repeat as credible.
-
- [32] Herodot. vii, 123. Herodotus recognizes both Bottiæans
- between the Axius and the Haliakmôn,—and Bottiæans at Olynthus,
- whom the Macedonians had expelled from the Thermaic gulf,—at
- the time when Xerxês passed (viii, 127). These two statements
- seem to me compatible, and both admissible: the former Bottiæans
- were expelled by the Macedonians subsequently, anterior to the
- Peloponnesian war.
-
- My view of these facts, therefore, differs somewhat from that of
- O. Müller (Macedonians, sect. 16).
-
-We hear of king Amyntas in friendly connection with the Peisistratid
-princes at Athens, whose dominion was in part sustained by
-mercenaries from the Strymon, and this amicable sentiment
-was continued between his son Alexander and the emancipated
-Athenians.[33] It is only in the reigns of these two princes that
-Macedonia begins to be implicated in Grecian affairs: the regal
-dynasty had become so completely Macedonized, and had so far
-renounced its Hellenic brotherhood, that the claim of Alexander to
-run at the Olympic games was contested by his competitors, and he was
-called upon to prove his lineage before the Hellanodikæ.
-
- [33] Herodot. i, 59, v, 94; viii, 136.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVI.
-
-THRACIANS AND GREEK COLONIES IN THRACE.
-
-
-That vast space comprised between the rivers Strymon and Danube, and
-bounded to the west by the easternmost Illyrian tribes, northward of
-the Strymon, was occupied by the innumerable subdivisions of the race
-called Thracians, or Threïcians. They were the most numerous and most
-terrible race known to Herodotus: could they by possibility act in
-unison or under one dominion (he says), they would be irresistible. A
-conjunction thus formidable once seemed impending, during the first
-years of the Peloponnesian war, under the reign of Sitalkês king of
-the Odrysæ, who reigned from Abdêra at the mouth of the Nestus to
-the Euxine, and compressed under his sceptre a large proportion of
-these ferocious but warlike plunderers; so that the Greeks even down
-to Thermopylæ trembled at his expected approach. But the abilities
-of that prince were not found adequate to bring the whole force of
-Thrace into effective coöperation and aggression against others.
-
-Numerous as the tribes of Thracians were, their customs and character
-(according to Herodotus) were marked by great uniformity: of the
-Getæ, the Trausi, and others, he tells us a few particularities.
-And the large tract over which the race were spread, comprising as
-it did the whole chain of Mount Hæmus and the still loftier chain
-of Rhodopê, together with a portion of the mountains Orbêlus and
-Skomius, was yet partly occupied by level and fertile surface,—such
-as the great plain of Adrianople, and the land towards the lower
-course of the rivers Nestus and Hebrus. The Thracians of the plain,
-though not less warlike, were at least more home-keeping, and less
-greedy of foreign plunder, than those of the mountains. But the
-general character of the race presents an aggregate of repulsive
-features unredeemed by the presence of even the commonest domestic
-affections.[34] The Thracian chief deduced his pedigree from a god
-called by the Greeks Hermês, to whom he offered up worship apart
-from the rest of his tribe, sometimes with the acceptable present
-of a human victim. He tattooed his body,[35] and that of the women
-belonging to him, as a privilege of honorable descent: he bought
-his wives from their parents, and sold his children for exportation
-to the foreign merchant: he held it disgraceful to cultivate the
-earth, and felt honored only by the acquisitions of war and robbery.
-The Thracian tribes worshipped deities whom the Greeks assimilate
-to Arês, Dionysus, and Artemis: the great sanctuary and oracle of
-their god Dionysus was in one of the loftiest summits of Rhodopê,
-amidst dense and foggy thickets,—the residence of the fierce and
-unassailable Satræ. To illustrate the Thracian character, we may
-turn to a deed perpetrated by the king of the Bisaltæ,—perhaps
-one out of several chiefs of that extensive Thracian tribe,—whose
-territory, between Strymon and Axius, lay in the direct march of
-Xerxês into Greece, and who fled to the desolate heights of Rhodopê,
-to escape the ignominy of being dragged along amidst the compulsory
-auxiliaries of the Persian invasion, forbidding his six sons to take
-any part in it. From recklessness, or curiosity, the sons disobeyed
-his commands, and accompanied Xerxês into Greece; they returned
-unhurt by the Greek spear; but the incensed father, when they again
-came into his presence, caused the eyes of all of them to be put
-out. Exultation of success manifested itself in the Thracians by
-increased alacrity in shedding blood; but as warriors, the only
-occupation which they esteemed, they were not less brave than patient
-of hardship, and maintained a good front, under their own peculiar
-array, against forces much superior in all military efficacy.[36] It
-appears that the Thynians and Bithynians,[37] on the Asiatic side of
-the Bosphorus, perhaps also the Mysians, were members of this great
-Thracian race, which was more remotely connected, also, with the
-Phrygians. And the whole race may be said to present a character more
-Asiatic than European, especially in those ecstatic and maddening
-religious rites, which prevailed not less among the Edonian Thracians
-than in the mountains of Ida and Dindymon of Asia, though with some
-important differences. The Thracians served to furnish the Greeks
-with mercenary troops and slaves, and the number of Grecian colonies
-planted on the coast had the effect of partially softening the tribes
-in the immediate vicinity, between whose chiefs and the Greek leaders
-intermarriages were not unfrequent. But the tribes in the interior
-seem to have retained their savage habits with little mitigation,
-so that the language in which Tacitus[38] describes them is an apt
-continuation to that of Herodotus, though coming more than five
-centuries after.
-
- [34] Mannert assimilates the civilization of the Thracians
- to that of the Gauls when Julius Cæsar invaded them,—a great
- injustice to the latter, in my judgment (Geograph. Gr. und Röm.
- vol. vii, p. 23).
-
- [35] Cicero, De Officiis, ii, 7. “Barbarum compunctum notis
- Threiciis.” Plutarch (De Serâ Numin. Vindict. c. 13, p. 558)
- speaks as if the women only were tattooed, in Thrace: he puts a
- singular interpretation upon it, as a continuous punishment on
- the sex for having slain Orpheus.
-
- [36] For the Thracians generally, see Herodot. v, 3-9, vii,
- 110, viii, 116, ix, 119; Thucyd. ii, 100, vii, 29-30; Xenophon,
- Anabas. vii, 2, 38, and the seventh book of the Anabasis
- generally, which describes the relations of Xenophon and the Ten
- Thousand Greeks with Seuthês the Thracian prince.
-
- [37] Xenoph. Anab. vi, 2, 17; Herodot. vii, 75.
-
- [38] Tacit. Annal. ii, 66; iv, 46.
-
-To note the situation of each one among these many different tribes,
-in the huge territory of Thrace, which is even now so imperfectly
-known and badly mapped, would be unnecessary, and, indeed,
-impracticable. I shall proceed to mention the principal Grecian
-colonies which were formed in the country, noticing occasionally the
-particular Thracian tribes with which they came in contact.
-
-The Grecian colonies established on the Thermaic gulf, as well as
-in the peninsula of Chalkidikê, emanating principally from Chalkis
-and Eretria, though we do not know their precise epoch, appear to
-have been of early date, and probably preceded the time when the
-Macedonians of Edessa extended their conquests to the sea. At that
-early period, they would find the Pierians still between the Peneius
-and Haliakmôn,—also a number of petty Thracian tribes throughout
-the broad part of the Chalkidic peninsula; they would find Pydna a
-Pierian town, and Therma, Anthemus, Chalastra, etc. Mygdonian.
-
-The most ancient Grecian colony in these regions seems to have been
-Methônê, founded by the Eretrians in Pieria; nearly at the same time
-(if we may trust a statement of rather suspicious character, though
-the date itself is noway improbable) as Korkyra was settled by the
-Corinthians (about 730-720 B. C.).[39] It was a little to the north
-of the Pierian town of Pydna, and separated by about ten miles from
-the Bottiæan town of Alôrus, which lay north of the Haliakmôn.[40] We
-know very little about Methônê, except that it preserved its autonomy
-and its Hellenism until the time of Philip of Macedon, who took
-and destroyed it. But though, when once established, it was strong
-enough to maintain itself in spite of conquests made all around by
-the Macedonians of Edessa, we may fairly presume that it could not
-have been originally planted on Macedonian territory. Nor in point of
-fact was the situation peculiarly advantageous for Grecian colonists,
-inasmuch as there were other maritime towns, not Grecian, in its
-neighborhood,—Pydna, Alôrus, Therma, Chalastra; whereas the point of
-advantage for a Grecian colony was, to become the exclusive seaport
-for inland indigenous people.
-
- [39] Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 293.
-
- [40] Skylax, c. 67.
-
-The colonies, founded by Chalkis and Eretria on all the three
-projections of the Chalkidic peninsula, were numerous, though for a
-long time inconsiderable. We do not know how far these projecting
-headlands were occupied before the arrival of the settlers from
-Eubœa,—an event which we may probably place at some period earlier
-than 600 B. C.; for after that period Chalkis and Eretria seem rather
-on the decline,—and it appears too, that the Chalkidian colonists
-in Thrace aided their mother-city Chalkis in her war against
-Eretria, which cannot be much later than 600 B. C., though it may be
-considerably earlier.
-
-The range of mountains which crosses from the Thermaic to the
-Strymonic gulf, and forms the northern limit of the Chalkidic
-peninsula, slopes down towards the southern extremity, so as to leave
-a considerable tract of fertile land between the Torônaic and the
-Thermaic gulfs, including the fertile headland called Pallênê,—the
-westernmost of those three prongs of Chalkidikê which run out into
-the Ægean. Of the other two prongs, or projections, the easternmost
-is terminated by the sublime Mount Athos, which rises out of the sea
-as a precipitous rock six thousand four hundred feet in height,
-connected with the mainland by a ridge not more than half the height
-of the mountain itself, yet still high, rugged, and woody from sea
-to sea, leaving only little occasional spaces fit to be occupied or
-cultivated. The intermediate or Sithonian headland is also hilly
-and woody, though in a less degree,—both less inviting and less
-productive than Pallênê.[41]
-
- [41] For the description of Chalkidikê, see Grisebach’s Reisen,
- vol. ii, ch. 10, pp. 6-16, and Leake, Travels in Northern Greece,
- vol. iii, ch. 24, p. 152.
-
- If we read attentively the description of Chalkidikê as given
- by Skylax (c. 67), we shall see that he did not conceive it
- as three-pronged, but as terminating only in the peninsula of
- Pallênê, with Potidæa at its isthmus.
-
-Æneia, near that cape which marks the entrance of the inner Thermaic
-gulf,—and Potidæa, at the narrow isthmus of Pallênê,—were both
-founded by Corinth. Between these two towns lay the fertile territory
-called Krusis, or Krossæa, forming in after-times a part of the
-domain of Olynthus, but in the sixth century B. C. occupied by petty
-Thracian townships.[42] Within Pallênê were the towns of Mendê, a
-colony from Eretria,—Skiônê, which, having no legitimate mother-city
-traced its origin to Pellenian warriors returning from Troy,—Aphytis,
-Neapolis, Ægê, Therambôs, and Sanê,[43] either wholly or partly
-colonies from Eretria. In the Sithonian peninsula were Assa, Pilôrus,
-Singus, Sartê, Torônê, Galêpsus, Sermylê, and Mekyberna; all or
-most of these seem to have been of Chalkidic origin. But at the
-head of the Torônaic gulf (which lies between Sithonia and Pallênê)
-was placed Olynthus, surrounded by an extensive and fertile plain.
-Originally a Bottiæan town, Olynthus will be seen at the time of
-the Persian invasion to pass into the hands of the Chalkidian
-Greeks,[44] and gradually to incorporate with itself several of the
-petty neighboring establishments belonging to that race; whereby the
-Chalkidians acquired that marked preponderance in the peninsula which
-they retained, even against the efforts of Athens, until the days of
-Philip of Macedon.
-
- [42] Herodot. vii, 123; Skymnus Chius, v, 627.
-
- [43] Strabo, x, p. 447; Thucyd. iv, 120-123; Pompon. Mela, ii, 2;
- Herodot. vii, 123.
-
- [44] Herodot. vii, 122; viii, 127. Stephanus Byz. (v. Παλλήνη)
- gives us some idea of the mythes of the lost Greek writers,
- Hegesippus and Theagenês about Pallênê.
-
-On the scanty spaces, admitted by the mountainous promontory, or
-ridge, ending in Athos, were planted some Thracian and some Pelasgic
-settlements of the same inhabitants as those who occupied Lemnos
-and Imbros; a few Chalkidic citizens being domiciliated with them,
-and the people speaking both Pelasgic and Hellenic. But near the
-narrow isthmus which joins this promontory to Thrace, and along
-the north-western coast of the Strymonic gulf, were Grecian towns
-of considerable importance,—Sanê, Akanthus, Stageira, and Argilus,
-all colonies from Andros, which had itself been colonized from
-Eretria.[45] Akanthus and Stageira are said to have been founded in
-654 B. C.
-
- [45] Thucyd. iv, 84, 103, 109. See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici,
- ad ann. 654 B. C.
-
-Following the southern coast of Thrace, from the mouth of the river
-Strymôn towards the east, we may doubt whether, in the year 560
-B. C., any considerable independent colonies of Greeks had yet
-been formed upon it. The Ionic colony of Abdêra, eastward of the
-mouth of the river Nestus, formed from Teôs in Ionia, is of more
-recent date, though the Klazomenians[46] had begun an unsuccessful
-settlement there as early as the year 651 B. C.; while Dikæa—the
-Chian settlement of Marôneia—and the Lesbian settlement of Ænus at
-the mouth of the Hebrus, are of unknown date.[47] The important and
-valuable territory near the mouth of the Strymôn, where, after many
-ruinous failures,[48] the Athenian colony of Amphipolis afterwards
-maintained itself, was at the date here mentioned possessed by
-Edonian Thracians and Pierians: the various Thracian tribes,—Satræ,
-Edonians, Dersæans, Sapæans, Bistones, Kikones, Pætians, etc.—were
-in force on the principal part of the tract between Strymôn and
-Hebrus, even to the sea-coast. It is to be remarked, however, that
-the island of Thasus, and that of Samothrace, each possessed what
-in Greek was called a Peræa,[49]—a strip of the adjoining mainland
-cultivated and defended by means of fortified posts, or small towns:
-probably, these occupations are of very ancient date, since they seem
-almost indispensable as a means of support to the islands. For the
-barren Thasus, especially, merits even at this day the uninviting
-description applied to it by the poet Archilochus, in the seventh
-century B. C.,—“an ass’s backbone, overspread with wild wood:”[50]
-so wholly is it composed of mountain, naked or wooded, and so scanty
-are the patches of cultivable soil left in it, nearly all close to
-the sea-shore. This island was originally occupied by the Phenicians,
-who worked the gold mines in its mountains with a degree of industry
-which, even in its remains, excited the admiration of Herodotus.
-How and when it was evacuated by them, we do not know; but the poet
-Archilochus[51] formed one of a body of Parian colonists who planted
-themselves on it in the seventh century B. C., and carried on war,
-not always successful, against the Thracian tribe called Saians: on
-one occasion, Archilochus found himself compelled to throw away his
-shield. By their mines and their possessions on the mainland (which
-contained even richer mines, at Skaptê Hylê, and elsewhere, than
-those in the island), the Thasian Greeks rose to considerable power
-and population. And as they seem to have been the only Greeks, until
-the settlement of the Milesian Histiæus on the Strymôn about 510 B.
-C., who actively concerned themselves in the mining districts of
-Thrace opposite to their island, we cannot be surprised to hear that
-their clear surplus revenue before the Persian conquest, about 493
-B. C., after defraying the charges of their government without any
-taxation, amounted to the large sum of two hundred talents, sometimes
-even to three hundred talents, in each year (from forty-six thousand
-to sixty-six thousand pounds).
-
- [46] Solinus, x, 10.
-
- [47] Herodot. i, 168; vii, 58-59, 109; Skymnus Chius, v, 675.
-
- [48] Thucyd. i, 100, iv, 102; Herodot. v, 11. Large quantities
- of corn are now exported from this territory to Constantinople
- (Leake, North. Gr. vol. iii, ch. 25, p. 172).
-
- [49] Herodot. vii, 108-109; Thucyd. i, 101.
-
- [50]
-
- ... ἥδε δ᾽ ὥστ᾽ ὄνου ῥαχις
- Ἕστηκεν, ὕλης ἀγρίας ἐπιστεφής.
-
- Archiloch. Fragm. 17-18, ed. Schneidewin.
-
- The striking propriety of this description, even after the lapse
- of two thousand five hundred years, may be seen in the Travels
- of Grisebach, vol. i. ch. 7, pp. 210-218, and in Prokesch,
- Denkwürdigkeiten des Orients, Th. 3, p. 612. The view of Thasus
- from the sea justifies the title Ἠερίη (Œnomaus ap. Euseb.
- Præpar. Evang. vii, p. 256; Steph. Byz. Θάσσος).
-
- Thasus (now Tasso) contains at present a population of about
- six thousand Greeks, dispersed in twelve small villages; it
- exports some good ship-timber, principally fir, of which there is
- abundance on the island, together with some olive oil and wax;
- but it cannot grow corn enough even for this small population. No
- mines either are now, or have been for a long time, in work.
-
- [51] Archiloch. Fragm. 5, ed. Schneidewin; Aristophan. Pac. 1298,
- with the Scholia; Strabo, x, p. 487, xii, p. 549; Thucyd. iv, 104.
-
-On the long peninsula called the Thracian Chersonese there may
-probably have been small Grecian settlements at an early date, though
-we do not know at what time either the Milesian settlement of Kardia,
-on the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula, near the Ægean
-sea,—or the Æolic colony of Sestus on the Hellespont,—were founded;
-while the Athenian ascendency in the peninsula begins only with the
-migration of the first Miltiadês, during the reign of Peisistratus
-at Athens. The Samian colony of Perinthus, on the northern coast of
-the Propontis,[52] is spoken of as ancient in date, and the Megarian
-colonies, Selymbria and Byzantium, belong to the seventh century B.
-C.: the latter of these two is assigned to the 30th Olympiad (657 B.
-C.), and its neighbor Chalkêdôn, on the opposite coast, was a few
-years earlier. The site of Byzantium in the narrow strait of the
-Bosphorus, with its abundant thunny-fishery,[53] which both employed
-and nourished a large proportion of the poorer freemen, was alike
-convenient either for maritime traffic, or for levying contributions
-on the numerous corn ships which passed from the Euxine into the
-Ægean; and we are even told that it held a considerable number of the
-neighboring Bithynian Thracians as tributary Periœki. Such dominion,
-though probably maintained during the more vigorous period of Grecian
-city life, became in later times impracticable, and we even find the
-Byzantines not always competent to the defence of their own small
-surrounding territory. The place, however, will be found to possess
-considerable importance during all the period of this history.[54]
-
- [52] Skymnus Chius, 699-715; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 57. See M.
- Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies Grecques chs. xi-xiv, vol.
- iii, pp. 273-298.
-
- [53] Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, l.
-
- [54] Polyb. iv, 39, Phylarch. Fragm. 10, ed. Didot.
-
-The Grecian settlements on the inhospitable south-western coast of
-the Euxine, south of the Danube, appear never to have attained any
-consideration: the principal traffic of Greek ships in that sea
-tended to more northerly ports, on the banks of the Borysthenês and
-in the Tauric Chersonese. Istria was founded by the Milesians near
-the southern embouchure of the Danube,—Apollonia and Odêssus on the
-same coast, more to the south,—all probably between 600-560 B. C. The
-Megarian or Byzantine colony of Mesambria, seems to have been later
-than the Ionic revolt; of Kallatis the age is not known. Tomi, north
-of Kallatis and south of Istria, is renowned as the place of Ovid’s
-banishment.[55] The picture which he gives of that uninviting spot,
-which enjoyed but little truce from the neighborhood of the murderous
-Getæ, explains to us sufficiently why these towns acquired little or
-no importance.
-
- [55] Skymnus Chius, 720-740; Herodot. ii, 33, vi, 33; Strabo,
- vii, p. 319; Skylax, c. 68; Mannert, Geograph. Gr. Röm. vol. vii,
- ch. 8, pp. 126-140.
-
- An inscription in Boeckh’s Collection proves the existence of a
- pentapolis, or union, of five Grecian cities on this coast. Tomi,
- Kallatis, Mesambria, and Apollônia, are presumed by Blaramberg to
- have belonged to this union. See Inscript. No. 2056 c.
-
- Syncellus, however (p. 213), places the foundation of Istria
- considerably earlier, in 651 B. C.
-
-The islands of Lemnos and Imbros, in the Ægean, were at this early
-period occupied by Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, were conquered by the Persians
-about 508 B. C., and seem to have passed into the power of the
-Athenians at the time when Ionia revolted from the Persians. If the
-mythical or poetical stories respecting these Tyrrhenian Pelasgi
-contain any basis of truth, they must have been a race of buccaneers
-not less rapacious than cruel. At one time, these Pelasgi seem also
-to have possessed Samothrace, but how or when they were supplanted by
-Greeks, we find no trustworthy account; the population of Samothrace
-at the time of the Persian war was Ionic.[56]
-
- [56] Herodot. viii, 90.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVII.
-
-KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.
-
-
-It has been already mentioned, in a former chapter, that Psammetichus
-king of Egypt, about the middle of the seventh century B. C., first
-removed those prohibitions which had excluded Grecian commerce from
-his country. In his reign, Grecian mercenaries were first established
-in Egypt, and Grecian traders admitted, under certain regulations,
-into the Nile. The opening of this new market emboldened them to
-traverse the direct sea which separates Krête from Egypt,—a dangerous
-voyage with vessels which rarely ventured to lose sight of land,—and
-seems to have first made them acquainted with the neighboring coast
-of Libya, between the Nile and the gulf called the Great Syrtis.
-Hence arose the foundation of the important colony called Kyrênê.
-
-As in the case of most other Grecian colonies, so in that of Kyrênê,
-both the foundation and the early history are very imperfectly
-known. The date of the event, as far as can be made out amidst much
-contradiction of statement, was about 630 B. C.:[57] Thêra was the
-mother-city, herself a colony from Lacedæmon; and the settlements
-formed in Libya became no inconsiderable ornaments to the Dorian name
-in Hellas.
-
- [57] See the discussion of the era of Kyrênê in Thrige, Historia
- Cyrênês, chs. 22, 23, 24, where the different statements are
- noticed and compared.
-
-According to the account of a lost historian, Meneklês,[58]—political
-dissension among the inhabitants of Thêra led to that emigration
-which founded Kyrênê; and the more ample legendary details which
-Herodotus collected, partly from Theræan, partly from Kyrenæan
-informants, are not positively inconsistent with this statement,
-though they indicate more particularly bad seasons, distress, and
-over-population. Both of them dwell emphatically on the Delphian
-oracle as the instigator as well as the director of the first
-emigrants, whose apprehensions of a dangerous voyage and an unknown
-country were very difficult to overcome. Both of them affirmed that
-the original œkist Battus was selected and consecrated to the work
-by the divine command: both called Battus the son of Polymnêstus,
-of the mythical breed called Minyæ. But on other points there was
-complete divergence between the two stories, and the Kyrenæans
-themselves, whose town was partly peopled by emigrants from Krête,
-described the mother of Battus as daughter of Etearchus, prince of
-the Kretan town of Axus.[59] Battus had an impediment in his speech,
-and it was on his intreating from the Delphian oracle a cure for this
-infirmity that he received directions to go as “a cattle-breeding
-œkist to Libya.” The suffering Theræans were directed to assist him,
-but neither he nor they knew where Libya was, nor could they find
-any resident in Krête who had ever visited it. Such was the limited
-reach of Grecian navigation to the south of the Ægean sea, even a
-century after the foundation of Syracuse. At length, by prolonged
-inquiry, they discovered a man employed in catching the purple
-shellfish, named Korôbius,—who said that he had been once forced by
-stress of weather to the island of Platea, close to the shores of
-Libya, and on the side not far removed from the western limit of
-Egypt. Some Theræans being sent along with Korôbius to inspect this
-island, left him there with a stock of provisions, and returned to
-Thêra to conduct the emigrants. From the seven districts into which
-Thêra was divided, emigrants were drafted for the colony, one brother
-being singled out by lot from the different numerous families. But
-so long was their return to Platea deferred, that the provisions
-of Korôbius were exhausted, and he was only saved from starvation
-by the accidental arrival of a Samian ship, driven by contrary
-winds out of her course on the voyage to Egypt. Kôlæus, the master
-of this ship (whose immense profits made by the first voyage to
-Tartêssus have been noticed in a former chapter), supplied him with
-provisions for a year,—an act of kindness, which is said to have laid
-the first foundation of the alliance and good feeling afterwards
-prevalent between Thêra, Kyrênê, and Samos. At length the expected
-emigrants reached the island, having found the voyage so perilous
-and difficult, that they once returned in despair to Thêra, where
-they were only prevented by force from relanding. The band which
-accompanied Battus was all conveyed in two pentekonters,—armed ships,
-with fifty rowers each. Thus humble was the start of the mighty
-Kyrênê, which, in the days of Herodotus, covered a city-area equal to
-the entire island of Platea.[60]
-
- [58] Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. iv.
-
- [59] Herodot. iv, 150-154.
-
- [60] Herodot. iv, 155.
-
-That island, however, though near to Libya, and supposed by the
-colonists to be Libya, was not so in reality: the commands of the
-oracle had not been literally fulfilled. Accordingly, the settlement
-carried with it nothing but hardship for the space of two years, and
-Battus returned with his companions to Delphi, to complain that the
-promised land had proved a bitter disappointment. The god, through
-his priestess, returned for answer, “If you, who have never visited
-the cattle-breeding Libya, know it better than I, who _have_, I
-greatly admire your cleverness.” Again the inexorable mandate forced
-them to return; and this time they planted themselves on the actual
-continent of Libya, nearly over against the island of Platea, in
-a district called Aziris, surrounded on both sides by fine woods,
-and with a running stream adjoining. After six years of residence
-in this spot, they were persuaded by some of the indigenous Libyans
-to abandon it, under the promise that they should be conducted to a
-better situation: and their guides now brought them to the actual
-site of Kyrênê, saying, “Here, men of Hellas, is the place for you to
-dwell, for here the sky is perforated.”[61] The road through which
-they passed had led through the tempting region of Irasa with its
-fountain Thestê, and their guides took the precaution to carry them
-through it by night, in order that they might remain ignorant of its
-beauties.
-
- [61] Herodot. iv, 158. ἐνθαῦτα γὰρ ὁ οὐρανὸς τέτρηται. Compare
- the jest ascribed to the Byzantian envoys, on occasion of the
- vaunts of Lysimachus (Plutarch, De Fortunâ Alexandr. Magn. c. 3,
- p. 338).
-
-Such were the preliminary steps, divine and human, which brought
-Battus and his colonists to Kyrênê. In the time of Herodotus, Irasa
-was an outlying portion of the eastern territory of this powerful
-city. But we trace in the story just related an opinion prevalent
-among his Kyrenæan informants, that Irasa with its fountain Thestê
-was a more inviting position than Kyrênê with its fountain of
-Apollo, and ought in prudence to have been originally chosen; out of
-which opinion, according to the general habit of the Greek mind, an
-anecdote is engendered and accredited, explaining how the supposed
-mistake was committed. What may have been the recommendations of
-Irasa, we are not permitted to know: but descriptions of modern
-travellers, no less than the subsequent history of Kyrênê, go
-far to justify the choice actually made. The city was placed at
-the distance of about ten miles from the sea, having a sheltered
-port called Apollonia, itself afterwards a considerable town,—it
-was about twenty miles from the promontory Phykus, which forms
-the northernmost projection of the African coast, nearly in the
-longitude of the Peloponnesian Cape Tænarus (Matapan). Kyrênê
-was situated about eighteen hundred feet above the level of the
-Mediterranean, of which it commanded a fine view, and from which it
-was conspicuously visible, on the edge of a range of hills which
-slope by successive terraces down to the port. The soil immediately
-around, partly calcareous, partly sandy, is described by Captain
-Beechey to present a vigorous vegetation and remarkable fertility,
-though the ancients considered it inferior in this respect both
-to Barka[62] and Hesperides, and still more inferior to the more
-westerly region near Kinyps. But the abundant periodical rains,
-attracted by the lofty heights around, and justifying the expression
-of the “perforated sky,” were even of greater importance, under an
-African sun, than extraordinary richness of soil.[63] The maritime
-regions near Kyrênê and Barka, and Hesperides, produced oil and
-wine as well as corn, while the extensive district between these
-towns, composed of alternate mountain, wood, and plain, was eminently
-suited for pasture and cattle-breeding; and the ports were secure,
-presenting conveniences for the intercourse of the Greek trader
-with Northern Africa, such as were not to be found along all the
-coasts of the Great Syrtis westward of Hesperides. Abundance of
-applicable land,—great diversity both of climate and of productive
-season, between the sea-side, the low hill, and the upper mountain,
-within a small space, so that harvest was continually going on,
-and fresh produce coming in from the earth, during eight months of
-the year,—together with the monopoly of the valuable plant called
-the Silphium, which grew nowhere except in the Kyrenaic region,
-and the juice of which was extensively demanded throughout Greece
-and Italy,—led to the rapid growth of Kyrênê, in spite of serious
-and renewed political troubles. And even now, the immense remains
-which still mark its desolate site, the evidences of past labor and
-solicitude at the Fountain of Apollo, and elsewhere, together with
-the profusion of excavated and ornamented tombs,—attest sufficiently
-what the grandeur of the place must have been in the days of
-Herodotus and Pindar. So much did the Kyrenæans pride themselves
-on the Silphium, found wild in their back country, from the island
-of Platea on the east to the inner recess of the Great Syrtis
-westward,—the leaves of which were highly salubrious for cattle, and
-the stalk for man, while the root furnished the peculiar juice for
-export,—that they maintained it to have first appeared seven years
-prior to the arrival of the first Grecian colonists in their city.[64]
-
- [62] Herodot. iv, 198.
-
- [63] See, about the productive powers of Kyrênê and its
- surrounding region, Herodot. iv, 199; Kallimachus (himself a
- Kyrenæan), Hymn. ad Apoll. 65, with the note of Spanheim; Pindar,
- Pyth. iv, with the Scholia _passim_; Diodor. iii, 49; Arrian,
- Indica, xliii, 13. Strabo (xvii, p. 837) saw Kyrênê from the sea
- in sailing by, and was struck with the view: he does not appear
- to have landed.
-
- The results of modern observation in that country are given in
- the Viaggio of Della Cella and in the exploring expedition of
- Captain Beechey; see an interesting summary in the History of
- the Barbary States, by Dr. Russell (Edinburgh, 1835), ch. v, pp.
- 160-171. The chapter on this subject (c. 6) in Thrige’s Historia
- Cyrênês is defective, as the author seems never to have seen
- the careful and valuable observations of Captain Beechey, and
- proceeds chiefly on the statements of Della Cella.
-
- I refer briefly to a few among the many interesting notices
- of Captain Beechey. For the site of the ancient Hesperides
- (Bengazi), and the “beautiful fertile plain near it, extending
- to the foot of a long chain of mountains about fourteen miles
- distant to the south-eastward,”—see Beechey, Expedition, ch. xi,
- pp. 287-315; “a great many datepalm-trees in the neighborhood,”
- (ch. xii, pp. 340-345.)
-
- The distance between Bengazi (Hesperides) and Ptolemeta
- (Ptolemais, the port of Barka) is fifty-seven geographical
- miles, along a fertile and beautiful plain, stretching from the
- mountains to the sea. Between these two was situated the ancient
- Teucheira (_ib._ ch. xii, p. 347), about thirty-eight miles from
- Hesperides (p. 349), in a country highly productive wherever it
- is cultivated (pp. 350-355). Exuberant vegetation exists near
- the deserted Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais, after the winter rains (p.
- 364). The circuit of Ptolemais, as measured by the ruins of its
- walls, was about three and a half English miles (p. 380).
-
- The road from Barka to Kyrênê presents continued marks of ancient
- chariot-wheels (ch. xiv, p. 406); after passing the plain of
- Mergê, it becomes hilly and woody, “but on approaching Grenna
- (Kyrênê) it becomes more clear of wood; the valleys produce fine
- crops of barley, and the hills excellent pasturage for cattle,”
- (p. 409.) Luxuriant vegetation after the winter rains in the
- vicinity of Kyrênê (ch. xv, p. 465).
-
- [64] Theophrast. Hist. Pl. vi, 3, 3; ix, 1, 7; Skylax, c. 107.
-
-But it was not only the properties of the soil which promoted the
-prosperity of Kyrênê. Isokratês[65] praises the well-chosen site
-of that colony because it was planted in the midst of indigenous
-natives apt for subjection, and far distant from any formidable
-enemies. That the native Libyan tribes were made conducive in an
-eminent degree to the growth of the Greco-Libyan cities, admits of
-no doubt; and in reviewing the history of these cities, we must bear
-in mind that their population was not pure Greek, but more or less
-mixed, like that of the colonies in Italy, Sicily, or Ionia. Though
-our information is very imperfect, we see enough to prove that the
-small force brought over by Battus the Stammerer was enabled first
-to fraternize with the indigenous Libyans,—next, reinforced by
-additional colonists and availing themselves of the power of native
-chiefs, to overawe and subjugate them. Kyrênê—combined with Barka
-and Hesperides, both of them sprung from her root[66]—exercised over
-the Libyan tribes between the borders of Egypt and the inner recess
-of the Great Syrtis, for a space of three degrees of longitude,
-an ascendency similar to that which Carthage possessed over the
-more westerly Libyans near the Lesser Syrtis. Within these Kyrenæan
-limits, and further westward along the shores of the Great Syrtis,
-the Libyan tribes were of pastoral habits; westward, beyond the Lake
-Tritônis and the Lesser Syrtis,[67] they began to be agricultural.
-Immediately westward of Egypt were the Adyrmachidæ, bordering upon
-Apis and Marea, the Egyptian frontier towns;[68] they were subject
-to the Egyptians, and had adopted some of the minute ritual and
-religious observances which characterized the region of the Nile.
-Proceeding westward from the Adyrmachidæ were found the Giligammæ,
-the Asbystæ, the Auschisæ, the Kabales, and the Nasamônes,—the latter
-of whom occupied the south-eastern corner of the Great Syrtis;—next,
-the Makæ, Gindânes, Lotophagi, Machlyes, as far as a certain river
-and lake called Tritôn and Tritônis, which seems to have been near
-the Lesser Syrtis. These last-mentioned tribes were not dependent
-either on Kyrênê or on Carthage, at the time of Herodotus, nor
-probably during the proper period of free Grecian history, (600-300
-B. C.) In the third century B. C., the Ptolemaic governors of Kyrênê
-extended their dominion westward, while Carthage pushed her colonies
-and castles eastward, so that the two powers embraced between them
-the whole line of coast between the Greater and Lesser Syrtis,
-meeting at the spot called the Altars of the Brothers Philæni,—so
-celebrated for its commemorative legend.[69] But even in the sixth
-century B. C., Carthage was jealous of the extension of Grecian
-colonies along this coast, and aided the Libyan Makæ (about 510 B.
-C.) to expel the Spartan prince Dorieus from his settlement near the
-river Kinyps. Near that spot was afterwards planted, by Phenician or
-Carthaginian exiles, the town of Leptis Magna[70] (now Lebida), which
-does not seem to have existed in the time of Herodotus. Nor does the
-latter historian notice the Marmaridæ, who appear as the principal
-Libyan tribe near the west of Egypt, between the age of Skylax and
-the third century of the Christian era. Some migration or revolution
-subsequent to the time of Herodotus must have brought this name into
-predominance.[71]
-
- [65] Isokratês, Or. v, ad Philipp. p. 84, (p. 107, ed. Bek.)
- Thêra being a colony of Lacedæmon, and Kyrênê of Thêra, Isokratês
- speaks of Kyrênê as a colony of Lacedæmon.
-
- [66] Pindar, Pyth. iv, 26. Κυρήνην—ἀστέων ῥίζαν. In the time of
- Herodotus these three cities may possibly have been spoken of
- as a Tripolis; but no one before Alexander the Great would have
- understood the expression Pentapolis, used under the Romans to
- denote Kyrênê, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Teucheira, and Berenikê, or
- Hesperides.
-
- Ptolemais, originally the port of Barka, had become autonomous,
- and of greater importance than the latter.
-
- [67] The accounts respecting the lake called in ancient times
- Tritônis are, however, very uncertain: see Dr. Shaw’s Travels in
- Barbary, p. 127. Strabo mentions a lake so called near Hesperides
- (xvii, p. 836); Pherekydês talks of it as near Irasa (Pherekyd.
- Fragm. 33 _d._ ed. Didot).
-
- [68] Eratosthenês, born at Kyrênê and resident at Alexandria,
- estimated the land-journey between the two at five hundred and
- twenty-five Roman miles (Pliny, H. N. v, 6).
-
- [69] Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. 75; Valerius Maximus, v, 6.
- Thrige (Histor. Cyr. c. 49) places this division of the Syrtis
- between Kyrênê and Carthage at some period between 400-330 B. C.,
- anterior to the loss of the independence of Kyrênê; but I cannot
- think that it was earlier than the Ptolemies: compare Strabo,
- xvii, p. 836.
-
- [70] The Carthaginian establishment Neapolis is mentioned by
- Skylax (c. 109), and Strabo states that Leptis was another name
- for the same place (xvii, p. 835).
-
- [71] Skylax, c. 107; Vopiscus, Vit. Prob. c. 9; Strabo, xvii,
- p. 838; Pliny, H. N. v, 5. From the Libyan tribe Marmaridæ was
- derived the name Marmarika, applied to that region.
-
-The interior country, stretching westward from Egypt along the
-thirtieth and thirty-first parallel of latitude, to the Great
-Syrtis, and then along the southern shore of that gulf, is to a
-great degree low and sandy, and quite destitute of trees; yet
-affording in many parts water, herbage, and a fertile soil.[72] But
-the maritime region north of this, constituting the projecting
-bosom of the African coast from the island of Platea (Gulf of
-Bomba) on the east to Hesperides (Bengazi) on the west, is of a
-totally different character; covered with mountains of considerable
-elevation, which reach their highest point near Kyrênê, interspersed
-with productive plain and valley, broken by frequent ravines which
-carry off the winter torrents into the sea, and never at any time
-of the year destitute of water. It is this latter advantage that
-causes them to be now visited every summer by the Bedouin Arabs,
-who flock to the inexhaustible Fountain of Apollo and to other
-parts of the mountainous region from Kyrênê to Hesperides, when
-their supply of water and herbage fails in the interior:[73] and
-the same circumstance must have operated in ancient times to hold
-the nomadic Libyans in a sort of dependence on Kyrênê and Barka.
-Kyrênê appropriated the maritime portion of the territory of the
-Libyan Asbystæ;[74] the Auschisæ occupied the region south of Barka,
-touching the sea near Hesperides,—the Kabales near Teucheira in the
-territory of Barka. Over the interior spaces these Libyan Nomads,
-with their cattle and twisted tents, wandered unrestrained, amply fed
-upon meat and milk,[75] clothed in goatskins, and enjoying better
-health than any people known to Herodotus. Their breed of horses
-was excellent, and their chariots or wagons with four horses could
-perform feats admired even by Greeks: it was to these horses that the
-princes[76] and magnates of Kyrênê and Barka often owed the success
-of their chariots in the games of Greece. The Libyan Nasamônes,
-leaving their cattle near the sea, were in the habit of making an
-annual journey up the country to the Oasis of Augila, for the purpose
-of gathering the date-harvest,[77] or of purchasing dates,—a journey
-which the Bedouin Arabs from Bengazi still make annually, carrying
-up their wheat and barley, for the same purpose. Each of the Libyan
-tribes was distinguished by a distinct mode of cutting the hair, and
-by some peculiarities of religious worship, though generally all
-worshipped the Sun and the Moon.[78] But in the neighborhood of the
-Lake Tritônis (seemingly the western extremity of Grecian coasting
-trade in the time of Herodotus, who knows little beyond, and begins
-to appeal to Carthaginian authorities), the Grecian deities Poseidôn
-and Athênê, together with the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, had
-been localized. There were, moreover, current prophecies announcing
-that one hundred Hellenic cities were destined one day to be founded
-round the lake,—and that one city in the island Phla, surrounded
-by the lake, was to be planted by the Lacedæmonians.[79] These,
-indeed, were among the many unfulfilled prophecies which from every
-side cheated the Grecian ear,—proceeding in this case probably from
-Kyrenæan or Theræan traders, who thought the spot advantageous for
-settlement, and circulated their own hopes under the form of divine
-assurances. It was about the year 510 B. C.[80] that some of these
-Theræans conducted the Spartan prince Dorieus to found a colony in
-the fertile region of Kinyps, belonging to the Libyan Makæ. But
-Carthage, interested in preventing the extension of Greek settlements
-westward, aided the Libyans in driving him out.
-
- [72] ταπεινή τε καὶ ψαμμώδης (Herodot. iv, 191); Sallust, Bell.
- Jugurthin. c. 17.
-
- Captain Beechey points out the mistaken conceptions which have
- been entertained of this region:—
-
- “It is not only in the works of early writers that we find the
- nature of the Syrtis misunderstood; for the whole of the space
- between Mesurata (_i. e._ the cape which forms the western
- extremity of the Great Syrtis) and Alexandria is described
- by Leo Africanus, under the title of Barka, as a wild and
- desert country, where there is neither water nor land capable
- of cultivation. He tells us that the most powerful among the
- Mohammedan invaders possessed themselves of the fertile parts of
- the coast, leaving the others only the desert for their abode,
- exposed to all the miseries and privations attendant upon it; for
- this desert (he continues) is far removed from any habitations,
- and nothing is produced there whatever. So that if these poor
- people would have a supply of grain, or of any other articles
- necessary to their existence, they are obliged to pledge their
- children to the Sicilians who visit the coast; who, on providing
- them with these things, carry off the children they have
- received....
-
- “It appears to be chiefly from Leo Africanus that modern
- historians have derived their idea of what they term the
- district and desert of Barka. Yet the whole of the Cyrenaica is
- comprehended within the limits which they assign to it; and the
- authority of Herodotus, without citing any other, would be amply
- sufficient to prove that this tract of country not only was no
- desert, but was at all times remarkable for its fertility....
- The impression left upon our minds, after reading the account of
- Herodotus, would be much more consistent with the appearance and
- peculiarities of both, in their actual state, than that which
- would result from the description of any succeeding writer....
- The district of Barka, including all the country between Mesurata
- and Alexandria, neither is, nor ever was, so destitute and barren
- as has been represented: the part of it which constitutes the
- Cyrenaica is capable of the highest degree of cultivation, and
- many parts of the Syrtis afford excellent pasturage, while some
- of it is not only adapted to cultivation, but does actually
- produce good crops of barley and dhurra.” (Captain Beechey,
- Expedition to Northern Coast of Africa, ch. x, pp. 263, 265, 267,
- 269: comp. ch. xi, p. 321.)
-
- [73] Justin, xiii, 7. “Amœnitatem loci et fontium ubertatem.”
- Captain Beechey notices this annual migration of the Bedouin
- Arabs:—
-
- “Teucheira (on the coast between Hesperides and Barka) abounds
- in wells of excellent water, which are reserved by the Arabs for
- their summer consumption, and only resorted to when the more
- inland supplies are exhausted: at other times it is uninhabited.
- Many of the excavated tombs are occupied as dwelling-houses by
- the Arabs during their summer visits to that part of the coast.”
- (Beechey, Exp. to North. Afric. ch. xii, p. 354.)
-
- And about the wide mountain plain, or table-land of Mergê,
- the site of the ancient Barka, “The water from the mountains
- inclosing the plain settles in pools and lakes in different parts
- of this spacious valley; and affords a constant supply during the
- summer months, to the Arabs who frequent it.” (ch. xiii, p. 390.)
- The red earth which Captain Beechey observed in this plain is
- noticed by Herodotus in regard to Libya (ii, 12). Stephan. Byz.
- notices also the bricks used in building (v. Βάρκη). Derna, too,
- to the eastward of Cyrene on the sea-coast, is amply provided
- with water (ch. xvi, p. 471).
-
- About Kyrênê itself, Captain Beechey states: “During the time,
- about a fortnight, of our absence from Kyrene, the changes
- which had taken place in the appearance of the country about it
- were remarkable. We found the hills on our return covered with
- Arabs, their camels, flocks, and herds; the scarcity of water
- in the interior at this time having driven the Bedouins to the
- mountains, and particularly to Kyrene, where the springs afford
- at all times an abundant supply. The corn was all cut, and the
- high grass and luxuriant vegetation, which we had found it so
- difficult to wade through on former occasions, had been eaten
- down to the roots by the cattle.” (ch. xviii, pp. 517-520.)
-
- The winter rains are also abundant, between January and March, at
- Bengazi (the ancient Hesperides): sweet springs of water near the
- town (ch. xi, pp. 282, 315, 327). About Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais,
- the port of the ancient Barka, _ib._ ch. xii, p. 363.
-
- [74] Herodot. iv, 170-171. παραλία σφόδρα εὐδαίμων. Strabo, ii,
- p. 131. πολυμήλου καὶ πολυκαρποτάτας χθονὸς, Pindar. Pyth. ix, 7.
-
- [75] Herodot. iv, 186, 187, 189, 190. Νομάδες κρεοφάγοι καὶ
- γαλακτοπόται. Pindar, Pyth. ix, 127, ἱππευταὶ Νομάδες. Pompon.
- Mela, i, 8.
-
- [76] See the fourth, fifth, and ninth Pythian Odes of Pindar. In
- the description given by Sophoklês (Electra, 695) of the Pythian
- contests, in which pretence is made that Orestês has perished,
- ten contending chariots are supposed, of which two are Libyan,
- from Barka: of the remaining eight, one only comes from each
- place named.
-
- [77] Herodot. iv, 172-182. Compare Hornemann’s Travels in Africa,
- p. 48, and Heeren, Verkehr und Handel der Alten Welt, Th. ii,
- Abth. 1, Abschnitt vi, p. 226.
-
- [78] Herodot. iv, 175-188.
-
- [79] Herodot. iv, 178, 179, 195, 196.
-
- [80] Herodot. iv, 42.
-
-The Libyans in the immediate neighborhood of Kyrênê were materially
-changed by the establishment of that town, and constituted a large
-part—at first, probably, far the largest part—of its constituent
-population. Not possessing that fierce tenacity of habits which the
-Mohammedan religion has impressed upon the Arabs of the present
-day, they were open to the mingled influence of constraint and
-seduction applied by Grecian settlers; so that in the time of
-Herodotus, the Kabales and the Asbystæ of the interior had come
-to copy Kyrenæan tastes and customs.[81] The Theræan colonists,
-having obtained not merely the consent but even the guidance of the
-natives to their occupation of Kyrênê, constituted themselves like
-privileged Spartan citizens in the midst of Libyan Periœki.[82] They
-seem to have married Libyan wives, whence Herodotus describes the
-women of Kyrênê and Barka as following, even in his time, religious
-observances indigenous and not Hellenic.[83] Even the descendants
-of the primitive œkist Battus were semi-Libyan. For Herodotus gives
-us the curious information that Battus was the Libyan word for a
-king, deducing from it the just inference, that the name Battus was
-not originally personal to the œkist, but acquired in Libya first
-as a title,[84]—and that it afterwards passed to his descendants
-as a proper name. For eight generations the reigning princes were
-called Battus and Arkesilaus, the Libyan denomination alternating
-with the Greek, until the family was finally deprived of its power.
-Moreover, we find the chief of Barka, kinsman of Arkesilaus of Kyrênê
-bearing the name of Alazir; a name certainly not Hellenic, and
-probably Libyan.[85] We are, therefore, to conceive the first Theræan
-colonists as established in their lofty fortified post Kyrênê, in the
-centre of Libyan Periœki, till then strangers to walls, to arts, and
-perhaps even to cultivated land. Probably these Periœki were always
-subject and tributary, in a greater or less degree, though they
-continued for half a century to retain their own king.
-
- [81] Herodot. iv, 170. νόμους δὲ τοὺς πλείστους μιμέεσθαι
- ἐπιτηδεύουσι τοὺς Κυρηναίων.
-
- [82] Herodot. iv, 161. Θηραίων καὶ τῶν περιοίκων, etc.
-
- [83] Herodot. iv, 186-189. Compare, also, the story in Pindar.
- Pyth. ix, 109-126, about Alexidamus, the ancestor of Telesikratês
- the Kyrenæan; how the former won, by his swiftness in running,
- a Libyan maiden, daughter of Antæus of Irasa,—and Kallimachus,
- Hymn. Apoll. 86.
-
- [84] Herodot. iv, 155.
-
- [85] Herodot. iv, 164.
-
-To these rude men the Theræans communicated the elements of Hellenism
-and civilization, not without receiving themselves much that was
-non-Hellenic in return; and perhaps the reactionary influence of
-the Libyan element against the Hellenic might have proved the
-stronger of the two, had they not been reinforced by new-comers
-from Greece. After forty years of Battus the œkist (about 630-590
-B. C.), and sixteen years of his son Arkesilaus (about 590-574 B.
-C.), a second Battus[86] succeeded, called Battus the Prosperous,
-to mark the extraordinary increase of Kyrênê during his presidency.
-The Kyrenæans under him took pains to invite new settlers from all
-parts of Greece without distinction,—a circumstance deserving notice
-in Grecian colonization, which usually manifested a preference for
-certain races, if it did not positively exclude the rest. To every
-new-comer was promised a lot of land, and the Delphian priestess
-strenuously seconded the wishes of the Kyrenæans, proclaiming that
-“whosoever should reach the place too late for the land-division,
-would have reason to repent it.” Such promise of new land, as well
-as the sanction of the oracle, were doubtless made public at all the
-games and meetings of Greeks, and a large number of new colonists
-embarked for Kyrênê. The exact number is not mentioned, but we must
-conceive it to have been very great, when we are told that during the
-succeeding generation, not less than seven thousand Grecian hoplites
-of Kyrênê perished by the hands of the revolted Libyans,—yet leaving
-both the city itself and its neighbor Barka still powerful. The loss
-of so great a number as seven thousand Grecian hoplites has very
-few parallels throughout the whole history of Greece. In fact, this
-second migration, during the government of Battus the Prosperous,
-which must have taken place between 574-554 B. C., ought to be looked
-upon as the moment of real and effective colonization for Kyrênê. It
-was on this occasion, probably, that the port of Apollonia, which
-afterwards came to equal the city itself in importance, was first
-occupied and fortified,—for this second swarm of emigrants came by
-sea direct, while the original colonists had reached Kyrênê by land
-from the island of Platea through Irasa. The fresh emigrants came
-from Peloponnesus, Krete, and some other islands of the Ægean.
-
- [86] Respecting the chronology of the Battiad princes, see
- Boeckh, ad Pindar. Pyth. iv, p. 265, and Thirge, Histor. Cyrenes,
- p. 127, _seq._
-
-To furnish so many new lots of land, it was either necessary, or it
-was deemed expedient, to dispossess many of the Libyan Periœki, who
-found their situation in other respects also greatly changed for the
-worse. The Libyan king Adikran, himself among the sufferers, implored
-aid from Apriês king of Egypt, then in the height of his power;
-sending to declare himself and his people Egyptian subjects, like
-their neighbors the Adyrmachidæ. The Egyptian prince, accepting the
-offer, despatched a large military force of the native soldier-caste,
-who were constantly in station at the western frontier-town Marea,
-by the route along shore to attack Kyrênê. They were met at Irasa by
-the Greeks of Kyrênê, and, being totally ignorant of Grecian arms and
-tactics, experienced a defeat so complete that few of them reached
-home.[87] The consequences of this disaster in Egypt, where it caused
-the transfer of the throne from Apriês to Amasis, have been noticed
-in a former chapter.
-
- [87] Herodot. iv, 159.
-
-Of course the Libyan Periœki were put down, and the redivision of
-lands near Kyrênê among the Greek settlers accomplished, to the
-great increase of the power of the city. And the reign of Battus
-the Prosperous marks a flourishing era in the town, and a large
-acquisition of land-dominion, antecedent to years of dissension and
-distress. The Kyrenæans came into intimate alliance with Amasis king
-of Egypt, who encouraged Grecian connection in every way, and who
-even took to wife Ladikê, a woman of the Battiad family at Kyrênê, so
-that the Libyan Periœki lost all chance of Egyptian aid against the
-Greeks.[88]
-
- [88] Herodot. ii, 180-181.
-
-New prospects, however, were opened to them during the reign of
-Arkesilaus the Second, son of Battus the Prosperous, (about 554-544
-B. C.). The behavior of this prince incensed and alienated his own
-brothers, who raised a revolt against him, seceded with a portion
-of the citizens, and induced a number of the Libyan Periœki to take
-part with them. They founded the Greco-Libyan city of Barka, in the
-territory of the Libyan Auschisæ, about twelve miles from the coast,
-distant from Kyrênê by sea about seventy miles to the westward. The
-space between the two, and even beyond Barka, as far as the more
-westerly Grecian colony called Hesperides, was in the days of Skylax
-provided with commodious ports for refuge or landing:[89] at what
-time Hesperides was founded we do not know, but it existed about
-510 B. C.[90] Whether Arkesilaus obstructed the foundation of Barka
-is not certain; but he marched the Kyrenæan forces against those
-revolted Libyans who had joined it. Unable to resist, the latter
-fled for refuge to their more easterly brethren near the borders of
-Egypt, and Arkesilaus pursued them. At length, in a district called
-Leukôn, the fugitives found an opportunity of attacking him at such
-prodigious advantage, that they almost destroyed the Kyrenæan army,
-seven thousand hoplites (as has been before intimated) being left
-dead on the field. Arkesilaus did not long survive this disaster. He
-was strangled during sickness by his brother Learchus, who aspired to
-the throne; but Eryxô, widow of the deceased prince,[91] avenged the
-crime, by causing Learchus to be assassinated.
-
- [89] Herodot. iv, 160; Skylax, c. 107; Hekatæus, Fragm. 300, ed.
- Klausen.
-
- [90] Herodot. iv, 204.
-
- [91] Herodot. iv, 160. Plutarch (De Virtutibus Mulier. p. 261)
- and Polyænus (viii, 41) give various details of this stratagem
- on the part of Eryxô; Learchus being in love with her. Plutarch
- also states that Learchus maintained himself as despot for some
- time by the aid of Egyptian troops from Amasis, and committed
- great cruelties. His story has too much the air of a romance to
- be transcribed into the text, nor do I know from what authority
- it is taken.
-
-That the credit of the Battiad princes was impaired by such a series
-of disasters and enormities, we can readily believe. But it received
-a still greater shock from the circumstance, that Battus the Third,
-son and successor of Arkesilaus, was lame and deformed in his feet.
-To be governed by a man thus personally disabled, was in the minds
-of the Kyrenæans an indignity not to be borne, as well as an excuse
-for preëxisting discontents; and the resolution was taken to send to
-the Delphian oracle for advice. They were directed by the priestess
-to invite from Mantineia, a moderator, empowered to close discussions
-and provide a scheme of government,—the Mantineans selecting Demônax,
-one of the wisest of their citizens, to solve the same problem which
-had been committed to Solon at Athens. By his arrangement, the regal
-prerogative of the Battiad line was terminated, and a republican
-government established seemingly about 543 B. C.; the dispossessed
-prince retaining both the landed domains[92] and the various
-sacerdotal functions which had belonged to his predecessors.
-
- [92] Herodot. iv, 161. Τῷ βασιλέϊ Βάττῳ τεμένεα ἐξελὼν καὶ
- ἱρωσύνας, τὰ ἄλλα πάντα τὰ πρότερον εἶχον οἱ βασιλεῖς ἐς μέσον τῷ
- δήμῳ ἔθηκε.
-
- I construe the word τεμένεα as meaning all the domains, doubtless
- large, which had belonged to the Battiad princes; contrary
- to Thrige (Historia Cyrênês, ch. 38, p. 150), who restricts
- the expression to revenues derived from sacred property. The
- reference of Wesseling to Hesych.—Βάττου σίλφιον—is of no avail
- for illustrating this passage.
-
- The supposition of O. Müller, that the preceding king had made
- himself despotic by means of Egyptian soldiers, appears to me
- neither probable in itself, nor admissible upon the simple
- authority of Plutarch’s romantic story, when we take into
- consideration the silence of Herodotus. Nor is Müller correct in
- affirming that Demônax “restored the supremacy of the community:”
- that legislator superseded the old kingly political privileges,
- and framed a new constitution (see O. Müller, History of Dorians,
- b. iii, ch. 9. s. 13.)
-
-Respecting the government, as newly framed, however, Herodotus
-unfortunately gives us hardly any particulars. Demônax classified
-the inhabitants of Kyrênê into three tribes; composed of: 1.
-Theræans with their Libyan Periœki; 2. Greeks who had come from
-Peloponnesus and Krete; 3. Such Greeks as had come from all other
-islands in the Ægean. It appears, too, that a senate was constituted,
-taken doubtless from these three tribes, and we may presume, in
-equal proportion. It seems probable that there had been before no
-constitutional classification, nor political privilege, except what
-was vested in the Theræans,—that these latter, the descendants of
-the original colonists were the only persons hitherto _known to the
-constitution_,—and that the remaining Greeks, though free landed
-proprietors and hoplites, were not permitted to act as an integral
-part of the body politic, nor distributed in tribes at all.[93] The
-whole powers of government,—up to this time vested in the Battiad
-princes, subject only to such check, how effective we know not, which
-the citizens of Theræan origin might be able to interpose,—were
-now transferred from the prince to the people; that is, to certain
-individuals or assemblies chosen somehow from among all the citizens.
-There existed at Kyrênê, as at Thêra and Sparta, a board of Ephors,
-and a band of three hundred armed police,[94] analogous to those
-who were called the Hippeis, or Horsemen, at Sparta: whether these
-were instituted by Demônax, we do not know, nor does the identity of
-titular office, in different states, afford safe ground for inferring
-identity of power. This is particularly to be remarked with regard
-to the Periœki at Kyrênê, who were perhaps more analogous to the
-Helots than to the Periœki of Sparta. The fact that the Periœki were
-considered in the new constitution as belonging specially to the
-Theræan branch of citizens, shows that these latter still continued a
-privileged order, like the Patricians with their Clients at Rome in
-relation to the Plebs.
-
- [93] Both O. Müller (Dor. b. iii, 4, 5), and Thrige (Hist. Cyren.
- c. 38, p. 148), speak of Demônax as having abolished the old
- tribes and created new ones. I do not conceive the change in this
- manner. Demônax did not _abolish_ any tribes, but distributed
- for the first time the inhabitants into tribes. It is possible
- indeed that, before his time, the Theræans of Kyrênê may have
- been divided among themselves into distinct tribes; but the other
- inhabitants, having emigrated from a great number of different
- places, had never before been thrown into tribes at all. Some
- formal enactment or regulation was necessary for this purpose,
- to define and sanction that religious, social, and political
- communion, which went to make up the idea of the Tribe. It is not
- to be assumed, as a matter of course, that there must necessarily
- have been tribes anterior to Demônax, among a population so
- miscellaneous in its origin.
-
- [94] Hesychius, Τριακάτιοι; Eustath. ad Hom. Odyss. p. 303;
- Herakleidês Pontic. De Polit. c. 4.
-
-That the rearrangement introduced by Demônax was wise, consonant to
-the general current of Greek feeling, and calculated to work well,
-there is good reason to believe: and no discontent within would have
-subverted it without the aid of extraneous force. Battus the Lame
-acquiesced in it peaceably during his life; but his widow and his
-son, Pheretimê and Arkesilaus, raised a revolt after his death, and
-tried to regain by force the kingly privileges of the family. They
-were worsted and obliged to flee,—the mother to Cyprus, the son to
-Samos,—where both employed themselves in procuring foreign arms to
-invade and conquer Kyrênê. Though Pheretimê could obtain no effective
-aid from Euelthôn prince of Salamis in Cyprus, her son was more
-successful in Samos, by inviting new Greek settlers to Kyrênê, under
-promise of a redistribution of the land. A large body of emigrants
-joined him on this promise; the period seemingly being favorable to
-it, since the Ionian cities had not long before become subject to
-Persia, and were discontented with the yoke. But before he conducted
-this numerous band against his native city, he thought proper to
-ask the advice of the Delphian oracle. Success in the undertaking
-was promised to him, but moderation and mercy after success was
-emphatically enjoined, on pain of losing his life; and the Battiad
-race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Kyrênê for
-eight generations, but no longer,—as far as four princes named Battus
-and four named Arkesilaus.[95] “More than such eight generations
-(said the Pythia), Apollo forbids the Battiads even to aim at.” This
-oracle was doubtless told to Herodotus by Kyrenæan informants when he
-visited their city after the final deposition of the Battiad princes,
-which took place in the person of the fourth Arkesilaus, between
-460-450 B. C.; the invasion of Kyrênê by Arkesilaus the Third, sixth
-prince of the Battiad race, to which the oracle professed to refer,
-having occurred about 530 B. C. The words placed in the mouth of
-the priestess doubtless date from the later of these two periods,
-and afford a specimen of the way in which pretended prophecies are
-not only made up by antedating after-knowledge, but are also so
-contrived as to serve a present purpose. For the distinct prohibition
-of the god, “not even to aim at a longer lineage than eight Battiad
-princes,” seems plainly intended to deter the partisans of the
-dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them.
-
- [95] Herodot. iv, 163. Ἐπὶ μὲν τέσσερας Βάττους, καὶ Ἀρκεσιλέως
- τέσσερας, διδοῖ ὑμῖν Λοξίης βασιλεύειν Κυρήνης· πλέον μέντοι
- τούτου οὐδὲ πειρᾶσθαι παραινέει.
-
-Arkesilaus the Third, to whom this prophecy purports to have been
-addressed, returned with his mother Pheretimê and his army of new
-colonists to Kyrênê. He was strong enough to carry all before him,—to
-expel some of his chief opponents and seize upon others, whom he
-sent to Cyprus to be destroyed; though the vessels were driven out
-of their course by storms to the peninsula of Knidus, where the
-inhabitants rescued the prisoners and sent them to Thêra. Other
-Kyrenæans, opposed to the Battiads, took refuge in a lofty private
-tower, the property of Aglômachus, wherein Arkesilaus caused them
-all to be burned, heaping wood around and setting it on fire. But
-after this career of triumph and revenge, he became conscious that
-he had departed from the mildness enjoined to him by the oracle, and
-sought to avoid the punishment which it had threatened by retiring
-from Kyrênê. At any rate, he departed from Kyrênê to Barka, to the
-residence of the Barkæan prince, his kinsman Alazir, whose daughter
-he had married. But he found in Barka some of the unfortunate men
-who had fled from Kyrênê to escape him: these exiles, aided by a
-few Barkæans, watched for a suitable moment to assail him in the
-market-place, and slew him, together with his kinsman the prince
-Alazir.[96]
-
- [96] Herodot. iv, 163-164.
-
-The victory of Arkesilaus at Kyrênê, and his assassination at Barka,
-are doubtless real facts; but they seem to have been compressed
-together and incorrectly colored, in order to give to the death of
-the Kyrenæan prince the appearance of a divine judgment. For the
-reign of Arkesilaus cannot have been very short, since events of the
-utmost importance occurred within it. The Persians under Kambysês
-conquered Egypt, and both the Kyrenæan and the Barkæan prince sent to
-Memphis to make their submission to the conqueror,—offering presents
-and imposing upon themselves an annual tribute. The presents of the
-Kyrenæans, five hundred minæ of silver, were considered by Kambysês
-so contemptibly small, that he took hold of them at once and threw
-them among his soldiers. And at the moment when Arkesilaus died,
-Aryandes, the Persian satrap after the death of Kambysês, is found
-established in Egypt.[97]
-
- [97] Herodot. iii, 13; iv, 165-166.
-
-During the absence of Arkesilaus at Barka, his mother Pheretimê had
-acted as regent, taking her place at the discussions in the senate;
-but when his death took place, and the feeling against the Battiads
-manifested itself strongly at Barka, she did not feel powerful enough
-to put it down, and went to Egypt to solicit aid from Aryandes. The
-satrap, being made to believe that Arkesilaus had met his death in
-consequence of steady devotion to the Persians, sent a herald to
-Barka to demand the men who had slain him. The Barkæans assumed the
-collective responsibility of the act, saying that he had done them
-injuries both numerous and severe,—a farther proof that his reign
-cannot have been very short. On receiving this reply, the satrap
-immediately despatched a powerful Persian armament, land-force as
-well as sea-force, in fulfilment of the designs of Pheretimê against
-Barka. They besieged the town for nine months, trying to storm, to
-batter, and to undermine the walls;[98] but their efforts were vain,
-and it was taken at last only by an act of the grossest perfidy.
-Pretending to relinquish the attempt in despair, the Persian general
-concluded a treaty with the Barkæans, wherein it was stipulated that
-the latter should continue to pay tribute to the Great King, but that
-the army should retire without farther hostilities: “I swear it (said
-the Persian general), and my oath shall hold good, as long as this
-earth shall keep its place.” But the spot on which the oaths were
-exchanged had been fraudulently prepared: a ditch had been excavated
-and covered with hurdles, upon which again a surface of earth had
-been laid. The Barkæans, confiding in the oath, and overjoyed at
-their liberation, immediately opened their gates and relaxed their
-guard; while the Persians, breaking down the hurdles and letting fall
-the superimposed earth, so that they might comply with the letter of
-their oath, assaulted the city and took it without difficulty.
-
- [98] Polyænus (Strateg. vii, 28) gives a narrative in many
- respects different from this of Herodotus.
-
-Miserable was the fate which Pheretimê had in reserve for these
-entrapped prisoners. She crucified the chief opponents of herself and
-her late son around the walls, on which were also affixed the breasts
-of their wives: then, with the exception of such of the inhabitants
-as were Battiads, and noway concerned in the death of Arkesilaus,
-she consigned the rest to slavery in Persia. They were carried away
-captive into the Persian empire, where Darius assigned to them a
-village in Baktria as their place of abode, which still bore the name
-of Barka, even in the days of Herodotus.
-
-During the course of this expedition, it appears, the Persian army
-advanced as far as Hesperides, and reduced many of the Libyan tribes
-to subjection: these, together with Kyrênê and Barka, figure among
-the tributaries and auxiliaries of Xerxês in his expedition against
-Greece. And when the army returned to Egypt, by order of Aryandês,
-they were half inclined to seize Kyrênê itself in their way, though
-the opportunity was missed and the purpose left unaccomplished.[99]
-
- [99] Herodot. iv, 203-204.
-
-Pheretimê accompanied the retreating army to Egypt, where she died
-shortly of a loathsome disease, consumed by worms; thus showing, says
-Herodotus,[100] that “excessive cruelty in revenge brings down upon
-men the displeasure of the gods.” It will be recollected that in the
-veins of this savage woman the Libyan blood was intermixed with the
-Grecian. Political enmity in Greece proper kills, but seldom if ever
-mutilates or sheds the blood, of women.
-
- [100] Herodot. iv, 205.
-
-We thus leave Kyrênê and Barka again subject to Battiad princes, at
-the same time that they are tributaries of Persia. Another Battus
-and another Arkesilaus have to intervene before the glass of this
-worthless dynasty is run out, between 460-450 B. C. I shall not at
-present carry the reader’s attention to this last Arkesilaus, who
-stands honored by two chariot victories in Greece, and two fine odes
-of Pindar.
-
-The victory of the third Arkesilaus, and the restoration of the
-Battiads, broke up the equitable constitution established by
-Demônax. His triple classification into tribes must have been
-completely remodelled, though we do not know how. For the number
-of new colonists whom Arkesilaus introduced must have necessitated
-a fresh distribution of land, and it is extremely doubtful whether
-the relation of the Theræan class of citizens with their Periœki, as
-established by Demônax, still continued to subsist. It is necessary
-to notice this fact, because the arrangements of Demônax are spoken
-of by some authors as if they formed the permanent constitution of
-Kyrênê; whereas they cannot have outlived the restoration of the
-Battiads, nor can they even have been revived after that dynasty was
-finally expelled, since the number of new citizens and the large
-change of property, introduced by Arkesilaus the Third, would render
-them inapplicable to the subsequent city.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXVIII.
-
-PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN, AND ISTHMIAN.
-
-
-In the preceding chapters I have been under the necessity of
-presenting to the reader a picture altogether incoherent and
-destitute of central effect,—to specify briefly each of the two or
-three hundred towns which agreed in bearing the Hellenic name, and to
-recount its birth and early life, as far as our evidence goes,—but
-without being able to point out any action and reaction, exploits
-or sufferings, prosperity or misfortune, glory or disgrace, common
-to all. To a great degree, this is a characteristic inseparable
-from the history of Greece from its beginning to its end, for the
-only political unity which it ever receives is the melancholy unity
-of subjection under all-conquering Rome. Nothing short of force
-will efface in the mind of a free Greek the idea of his city as an
-autonomous and separate organization; the village is a fraction,
-but the city is an unit,—and the highest of all political units,
-not admitting of being consolidated with others into a ten or a
-hundred, to the sacrifice of its own separate and individual mark.
-Such is the character of the race, both in their primitive country
-and in their colonial settlements,—in their early as well as in
-their late history,—splitting by natural fracture into a multitude
-of self-administering, indivisible cities. But that which marks the
-early historical period before Peisistratus, and which impresses upon
-it an incoherence at once so fatiguing and so irremediable, is, that
-as yet no causes have arisen to counteract this political isolation.
-Each city, whether progressive or stationary, prudent or adventurous,
-turbulent or tranquil, follows out its own thread of existence,
-having no partnership or common purposes with the rest, and not yet
-constrained into any active partnership with them by extraneous
-forces. In like manner, the races which on every side surround the
-Hellenic world appear distinct and unconnected, not yet taken up into
-any coöperating mass or system.
-
-Contemporaneously with the accession of Peisistratus, this state of
-things becomes altered both in and out of Hellas,—the former as a
-consequence of the latter: for at that time begins the formation of
-the great Persian empire, which absorbs into itself not only Upper
-Asia and Asia Minor, but also Phenicia, Egypt, Thrace, Macedonia,
-and a considerable number of the Grecian cities themselves; and
-the common danger, threatening the greater states of Greece proper
-from this vast aggregate, drives them, in spite of great reluctance
-and jealousy, into active union. Hence arises a new impulse,
-counterworking the natural tendency to political isolation in the
-Hellenic cities, and centralizing their proceedings to a certain
-extent for the two centuries succeeding 560 B. C.; Athens and Sparta
-both availing themselves of the centralizing tendencies which had
-grown out of the Persian war. But during the interval between 776-560
-B. C., no such tendency can be traced even in commencement, nor any
-constraining force calculated to bring it about. Even Thucydidês,
-as we may see by his excellent preface, knew of nothing during
-these two centuries except separate city-politics and occasional
-wars between neighbors: the only event, according to him, in which
-any considerable number of Grecian cities were jointly concerned,
-was the war between Chalkis and Eretria, the date of which we do
-not know. In this war, several cities took part as allies; Samos,
-among others, with Eretria,—Milêtus with Chalkis:[101] how far the
-alliances of either may have extended, we have no evidence to inform
-us, but the presumption is that no great number of Grecian cities
-was comprehended in them. Such as it was, however, this war between
-Chalkis and Eretria was the nearest approach, and the only approach,
-to a Pan-Hellenic proceeding which Thucydidês indicates between the
-Trojan and the Persian wars. Both he and Herodotus present this
-early period only by way of preface and contrast to that which
-follows,—when the Pan-Hellenic spirit and tendencies, though never at
-any time predominant, yet counted for a powerful element in history,
-and sensibly modified the universal instinct of city-isolation.
-They tell us little about it, either because they could find no
-trustworthy informants, or because there was nothing in it to
-captivate the imagination in the same manner as the Persian or the
-Peloponnesian wars. From whatever cause their silence arises, it is
-deeply to be regretted, since the phenomena of the two centuries
-from 776-560 B. C., though not susceptible of any central grouping,
-must have presented the most instructive matter for study, had they
-been preserved. In no period of history have there ever been formed
-a greater number of new political communities, under such variety
-of circumstances, personal as well as local. And a few chronicles,
-however destitute of philosophy, reporting the exact march of some of
-these colonies from their commencement,—amidst all the difficulties
-attendant on amalgamation with strange natives, as well as on a fresh
-distribution of land,—would have added greatly to our knowledge both
-of Greek character and Greek social existence.
-
- [101] Thucyd. i, 15.
-
-Taking the two centuries now under review, then, it will appear
-that there is not only no growing political unity among the Grecian
-states, but a tendency even to the contrary,—to dissemination and
-mutual estrangement. Not so, however, in regard to the other feelings
-of unity capable of subsisting between men who acknowledge no
-common political authority,—sympathies founded on common religion,
-language, belief of race, legends, tastes and customs, intellectual
-appetencies, sense of proportion and artistic excellence, recreative
-enjoyments, etc. On all these points the manifestations of Hellenic
-unity become more and more pronounced and comprehensive, in spite of
-increased political dissemination, throughout the same period. The
-breadth of common sentiment and sympathy between Greek and Greek,
-together with the conception of multitudinous periodical meetings as
-an indispensable portion of existence, appears decidedly greater in
-560 B. C. than it had been a century before. It was fostered by the
-increased conviction of the superiority of Greeks as compared with
-foreigners,—a conviction gradually more and more justified as Grecian
-art and intellect improved, and as the survey of foreign countries
-became extended,—as well as by the many new efforts of men of genius
-in the field of music, poetry, statuary, and architecture, each of
-whom touched chords of feeling belonging to other Greeks hardly
-less than to his own peculiar city. At the same time, the life of
-each peculiar city continues distinct, and even gathers to itself a
-greater abundance of facts and internal interests. So that during the
-two centuries now under review there was in the mind of every Greek
-an increase both of the city-feeling and of the Pan-Hellenic feeling,
-but on the other hand a decline of the old sentiment of separate
-race,—Doric, Ionic, Æolic.
-
-I have already, in my former volume, touched upon the many-sided
-character of the Grecian religion, entering as it did into all the
-enjoyments and sufferings, the hopes and fears, the affections and
-antipathies, of the people,—not simply imposing restraints and
-obligations, but protecting, multiplying, and diversifying all the
-social pleasures and all the decorations of existence. Each city and
-even each village had its peculiar religious festivals, wherein the
-sacrifices to the gods were usually followed by public recreations of
-one kind or other,—by feasting on the victims, processional marches,
-singing and dancing, or competition in strong and active exercises.
-The festival was originally local, but friendship or communion of
-race was shown by inviting others, non-residents, to partake in its
-attractions. In the case of a colony and its metropolis, it was a
-frequent practice that citizens of the metropolis were honored with
-a privileged seat at the festivals of the colony, or that one of
-their number was presented with the first taste of the sacrificial
-victim.[102] Reciprocal frequentation of religious festivals was thus
-the standing evidence of friendship and fraternity among cities not
-politically united. That it must have existed to a certain degree
-from the earliest days, there can be no reasonable doubt; though in
-Homer and Hesiod we find only the celebration of funeral games, by a
-chief at his own private expense, in honor of his deceased father or
-friend,—with all the accompanying recreations, however, of a public
-festival, and with strangers not only present, but also contending
-for valuable prizes.[103] Passing to historical Greece during the
-seventh century B. C., we find evidence of two festivals, even then
-very considerable, and frequented by Greeks from many different
-cities and districts,—the festival at Delos, in honor of Apollo, the
-great place of meeting for Ionians throughout the Ægean,—and the
-Olympic games. The Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo, which must be
-placed earlier than 600 B. C., dwells with emphasis on the splendor
-of the Delian festival,—unrivalled throughout Greece, as it would
-appear, during all the first period of this history, for wealth,
-finery of attire, and variety of exhibitions as well in poetical
-genius as in bodily activity,[104]—equalling probably at that time,
-if not surpassing, the Olympic games. The complete and undiminished
-grandeur of this Delian Pan-Ionic festival is one of our chief marks
-of the first period of Grecian history, before the comparative
-prostration of the Ionic Greeks through the rise of Persia: it was
-celebrated periodically in every fourth year, to the honor of Apollo
-and Artemis. It was distinguished from the Olympic games by two
-circumstances both deserving of notice,—first, by including solemn
-matches not only of gymnastic, but also of musical and poetical
-excellence, whereas the latter had no place at Olympia; secondly,
-by the admission of men, women, and children indiscriminately as
-spectators, whereas women were formally excluded from the Olympic
-ceremony.[105] Such exclusion may have depended in part on the inland
-situation of Olympia, less easily approachable by females than the
-island of Delos; but even making allowance for this circumstance,
-both the one distinction and the other mark the rougher character
-of the Ætolo-Dorians in Peloponnesus. The Delian festival, which
-greatly dwindled away during the subjection of the Asiatic and
-insular Greeks to Persia, was revived afterwards by Athens during the
-period of her empire, when she was seeking in every way to strengthen
-her central ascendency in the Ægean. But though it continued to be
-ostentatiously celebrated under her management, it never regained
-that commanding sanctity and crowded frequentation which we find
-attested in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo for its earlier period.
-
- [102] Thucyd. i, 26. See the tale in Pausanias (v, 25, 1)
- of the ancient chorus sent annually from Messênê in Sicily
- across the strait to Rhegium, to a local festival of the
- Rhegians,—thirty-five boys with a chorus-master and a
- flute-player: on one unfortunate occasion, all of them perished
- in crossing. For the Theôry (or solemn religious deputation)
- periodically sent by the Athenians to Delos, see Plutarch,
- Nicias, c. 3; Plato, Phædon, c. 1, p. 58. Compare also Strabo,
- ix, p. 419, on the general subject.
-
- [103] Homer, Iliad, xi, 879, xxiii, 679; Hesiod, Opp. Di. 651.
-
- [104] Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 150; Thucyd. iii, 104.
-
- [105] Pausan. v, 6, 5; Ælian, N. H. x, 1; Thucyd. iii, 104. When
- Ephesus, and the festival called Ephesia, had become the great
- place of Ionic meeting, the presence of women was still continued
- (Dionys. Hal. A. R. iv, 25).
-
-Very different was the fate of the Olympic festival,—on the banks
-of the Alpheius[106] in Peloponnesus, near the old oracular temple
-of the Olympian Zeus,—which not only grew up uninterruptedly from
-small beginnings to the maximum of Pan-Hellenic importance, but
-even preserved its crowds of visitors and its celebrity for many
-centuries after the extinction of Greek freedom, and only received
-its final abolition, after more than eleven hundred years of
-continuance, from the decree of the Christian emperor Theodosius in
-394 A. D. I have already recounted, in the preceding volume of this
-history, the attempt made by Pheidon, despot of Argos, to restore
-to the Pisatans, or to acquire for himself, the administration of
-this festival,—an event which proves the importance of the festival
-in Peloponnesus, even so early as 740 B. C. At that time, and for
-some years afterwards, it seems to have been frequented chiefly,
-if not exclusively, by the neighboring inhabitants of central and
-western Peloponnesus,—Spartans, Messenians, Arkadians, Triphylians,
-Pisatans, Eleians, and Achæans,[107]—and it forms an important link
-connecting the Etolo-Eleians, and their privileges as Agonothets
-to solemnize and preside over it, with Sparta. From the year 720
-B. C., we trace positive evidences of the gradual presence of more
-distant Greeks,—Corinthians, Megarians, Bœotians, Athenians, and even
-Smyrnæans from Asia.
-
- [106] Strabo, viii, p. 353; Pindar, Olymp. viii, 2; Xenophon,
- Hellen. iv, 7, 2; iii, 2, 22.
-
- [107] See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griechischen
- Staats-Alterthümer, sect. 10.
-
-We observe also another proof of growing importance, in the increased
-number and variety of matches exhibited to the spectators, and in the
-substitution of the simple crown of olive, an honorary reward, in
-place of the more substantial present which the Olympic festival and
-all other Grecian festivals began by conferring upon the victor. The
-humble constitution of the Olympic games presented originally nothing
-more than a match of runners in the measured course called the
-Stadium: a continuous series of the victorious runners was formally
-inscribed and preserved by the Eleians, beginning with Korœbus in
-776 B. C., and was made to serve by chronological inquirers from
-the third century B. C. downwards, as a means of measuring the
-chronological sequence of Grecian events. It was on the occasion of
-the 7th Olympiad after Korœbus, that Daiklês the Messenian first
-received for his victory in the stadium no farther recompense than
-a wreath from the sacred olive-tree near Olympia:[108] the honor of
-being proclaimed victor was found sufficient, without any pecuniary
-addition. But until the 14th Olympiad, there was no other match
-for the spectators to witness beside that of simple runners in the
-stadium. On that occasion a second race was first introduced, of
-runners in the double stadium, or up and down the course; in the
-next, or 15th Olympiad (720 B. C.), a third match, the long course
-for runners, or several times up and down the stadium. There were
-thus three races,—the simple stadium, the double stadium, or diaulos,
-and the long course, or dolichos, all for runners,—which continued
-without addition until the 18th Olympiad, when the wrestling-match
-and the complicated pentathlon—including jumping, running, the quoit,
-the javelin, and wrestling—were both added. A farther novelty appears
-in the 23rd Olympiad (688 B. C.), the boxing-match; and another,
-still more important, in the 25th (680 B. C.), the chariot with
-four full-grown horses. This last-mentioned addition is deserving
-of special notice, not merely as it diversified the scene by the
-introduction of horses, but also as it brought in a totally new
-class of competitors,—rich men and women, who possessed the finest
-horses and could hire the most skilful drivers, without any personal
-superiority, or power of bodily display, in themselves.[109] The
-prodigious exhibition of wealth in which the chariot proprietors
-indulged, is not only an evidence of growing importance in the
-Olympic games, but also served materially to increase that
-importance, and to heighten the interest of spectators. Two farther
-matches were added in the 33rd Olympiad (648 B. C.),—the pankration,
-or boxing and wrestling conjoined,[110] with the hand unarmed or
-divested of that hard leather cestus[111] worn by the pugilist, which
-rendered the blow of the latter more terrible, but at the same time
-prevented him from grasping or keeping hold of his adversary,—and the
-single race-horse. Many other novelties were introduced one after
-the other, which it is unnecessary fully to enumerate,—the race
-between men clothed in full panoply, and bearing each his shield,—the
-different matches between boys, analogous to those between full-grown
-men, and between colts, of the same nature as between full-grown
-horses. At the maximum of its attraction the Olympic solemnity
-occupied five days, but until the 77th Olympiad, all the various
-matches had been compressed into one,—beginning at daybreak and
-not always closing before dark.[112] The 77th Olympiad follows
-immediately after the successful expulsion of the Persian invaders
-from Greece, when the Pan-Hellenic feeling had been keenly stimulated
-by resistance to a common enemy; and we may easily conceive that this
-was a suitable moment for imparting additional dignity to the chief
-national festival.
-
- [108] Dionys. Halikarn. Ant. Rom. i, 71; Phlegon. De Olympiad. p.
- 140. For an illustration of the stress laid by the Greeks on the
- purely honorary rewards of Olympia, and on the credit which they
- took to themselves as competitors, not for money, but for glory,
- see Herodot. viii, 26. Compare the Scholia on Pindar, Nem. and
- Isthm. Argument, pp. 425-514, ed. Boeckh.
-
- [109] See the sentiment of Agesilaus, somewhat contemptuous,
- respecting the chariot-race, as described by Xenophon (Agesilaus,
- ix, 6); the general feeling of Greece, however, is more in
- conformity with what Thucydidês (vi, 16) puts into the mouth of
- Alkibiadês, and Xenophon into that of Simonidês (Xenophon, Hiero,
- xi, 5). The great respect attached to a family which had gained
- chariot victories is amply attested: see Herodot. vi, 35, 36,
- 103, 126,—οἰκίη τεθριπποτρόφος,—and vi, 70, about Demaratus king
- of Sparta.
-
- [110] Antholog. Palatin. ix, 588; vol. ii. p. 299, Jacobs.
-
- [111] The original Greek word for this covering (which surrounded
- the middle hand and upper portion of the fingers, leaving both
- the ends of the fingers and the thumb exposed) was ἱμὰς, the word
- for a thong, strap, or whip, of leather: the special word μύρμηξ
- seems to have been afterwards introduced (Hesychius, v. Ἱμάς):
- see Homer, Iliad, xxiii, 686. Cestus, or Cæstus, is the Latin
- word (Virg. Æn. v, 404), the Greek word κεστός is an adjective
- annexed to ἱμὰς—κεστὸν ἱμάντα—πολύκεστος ἱμὰς (Iliad, xiv, 214;
- iii, 371). See Pausan. viii, 40, 3, for the description of the
- incident which caused an alteration in this hand-covering at the
- Nemean games: ultimately, it was still farther hardened by the
- addition of iron.
-
- [112] Ἀέθλων πεμπαμέρους ἁμίλλαις,—Pindar, Olymp. v, 6: compare
- Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. iii, 33.
-
- See the facts respecting the Olympic Agôn collected by Corsini
- (Dissertationes Agonisticæ, Dissert. i, sects. 8, 9, 10), and
- still more amply set forth with a valuable commentary, by Krause
- (Olympia, oder Darstellung der grossen Olympischen Spiele, Wien,
- 1838, sects. 8-11 especially).
-
-We are thus enabled partially to trace the steps by which, during the
-two centuries succeeding 776 B. C., the festival of the Olympic Zeus
-in the Pisatid gradually passed from a local to a national character,
-and acquired an attractive force capable of bringing together into
-temporary union the dispersed fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles to
-Trebizond. In this important function it did not long stand alone.
-During the sixth century B. C., three other festivals, at first
-local, became successively nationalized,—the Pythia near Delphi, the
-Isthmia, near Corinth, the Nemea near Kleônæ, between Sikyôn and
-Argos.
-
-In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
-particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution
-and enlargement were brought about,—a notice the more interesting,
-inasmuch as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation
-of something like Pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost alone
-in an age which presents little else in operation except distinct
-city-interests. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to the Delphinian
-Apollo was composed (probably in the seventh century B. C.), the
-Pythian festival had as yet acquired little eminence. The rich and
-holy temple of Apollo was then purely oracular, established for the
-purpose of communicating to pious inquirers “the counsels of the
-immortals.” Multitudes of visitors came to consult it, as well as
-to sacrifice victims and to deposit costly offerings; but while the
-god delighted in the sound of the harp as an accompaniment to the
-singing of pæans, he was by no means anxious to encourage horse-races
-and chariot-races in the neighborhood,—nay, this psalmist considers
-that the noise of horses would be “a nuisance,” the drinking of
-mules a desecration to the sacred fountains, and the ostentation of
-fine-built chariots objectionable,[113] as tending to divert the
-attention of spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.
-
- [113] Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 262.
-
- Πημανέει σ᾽ αἰεὶ κτυπὸς ἵππων ὠκειάων,
- Ἀρδόμενοί τ᾽ οὐρῆες ἐμῶν ἱερῶν ἀπὸ πηγέων·
- Ἔνθα τις ἀνθρώπων βουλήσεται εἰσοράασθαι
- Ἅρματά τ᾽ εὐποίητα καὶ ὠκυπόδων κτυπὸν ἵππων,
- Ἢ νηόν τε μέγαν καὶ κτήματα πόλλ᾽ ἐνεόντα.
-
- Also v. 288-394. γυάλων ὑπὸ Παρνήσοιο—484. ὑπὸ πτυχὶ
- Παρνήσοιο—Pindar, Pyth. viii, 90. Πυθῶνος ἐν γυάλοις—Strabo, ix,
- p. 418. πετρωδὲς χώριον καὶ θεατροειδὲς—Heliodorus, Æthiop. ii,
- 26: compare Will. Götte, Das Delphische Orakel (Leipzig, 1839),
- pp. 39-42.
-
-From such inconveniences the god was protected by placing his
-sanctuary “in the rocky Pytho,”—a rugged and uneven recess, of
-no great dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of
-Parnassus, and about two thousand feet above the level of the sea,
-while the topmost Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight
-thousand feet. The situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited
-by nature for the congregation of any considerable number of
-spectators,—altogether impracticable for chariot-races,—and only
-rendered practicable by later art and outlay for the theatre as well
-as for the stadium; the original stadium, when first established,
-was placed in the plain beneath. It furnished little means of
-subsistence, but the sacrifices and presents of visitors enabled
-the ministers of the temple to live in abundance,[114] and gathered
-together by degrees a village around it. Near the sanctuary of Pytho,
-and about the same altitude, was situated the ancient Phocian town
-of Krissa, on a projecting spur of Parnassus,—overhung above by the
-line of rocky precipice called the Phædriades, and itself overhanging
-below the deep ravine through which flows the river Pleistus. On the
-other side of this river rises the steep mountain Kirphis, which
-projects southward into the Corinthian gulf,—the river reaching that
-gulf through the broad Krissæan or Kirrhæan plain, which stretches
-westward nearly to the Lokrian town of Amphissa; a plain for the
-most part fertile and productive, though least so in its eastern
-part immediately under the Kirphis, where the seaport Kirrha was
-placed.[115] The temple, the oracle, and the wealth of Pytho, belong
-to the very earliest periods of Grecian antiquity; but the octennial
-solemnity in honor of the god included at first no other competition
-except that of bards, who sang each a pæan with the harp. It has been
-already mentioned, in my preceding volume, that the Amphiktyonic
-assembly held one of its half-yearly meetings near the temple of
-Pytho, the other at Thermopylæ.
-
- [114] Βωμοί μ᾽ ἔφερβον, οὕπιών τ᾽ ἀεὶ ξένος, says Ion (in
- Euripidês, Ion. 334) the slave of Apollo, and the verger of
- his Delphian temple, who waters it from the Kastalian spring,
- sweeps it with laurel boughs, and keeps off with his bow and
- arrows the obtrusive birds (Ion, 105, 143, 154). Whoever reads
- the description of Professor Ulrichs (Reisen und Forschungen in
- Griechenland, ch. 7, p. 110) will see that the birds—eagles,
- vultures, and crows—are quite numerous enough to have been
- exceedingly troublesome. The whole play of Ion conveys a lively
- idea of the Delphian temple and its scenery, with which Euripidês
- was doubtless familiar.
-
- [115] There is considerable perplexity respecting Krissa and
- Kirrha, and it still remains a question among scholars whether
- the two names denote the same place or different places; the
- former is the opinion of O. Müller (Orchomenos, p. 495). Strabo
- distinguishes the two. Pausanias identifies them, conceiving
- no other town to have ever existed except the seaport (x, 37,
- 4). Mannert (Geogr. Gr. Röm. viii, p. 148) follows Strabo, and
- represents them as different.
-
- I consider the latter to be the correct opinion, upon the
- grounds, and partly, also, on the careful topographical
- examination of Professor Ulrichs, which affords an excellent
- account of the whole scenery of Delphi (Reisen und Forschungen
- in Griechenland, Bremen, 1840, chapters 1, 2, 3). The ruins
- described by him on the high ground near Kastri, called the
- Forty Saints, may fairly be considered as the ruins of Krissa;
- the ruins of Kirrha are on the sea-shore near the mouth of the
- Pleistus. The plain beneath might without impropriety be called
- either the Krissæan or the Kirrhæan plain (Herodot. viii, 32;
- Strabo, ix, p. 419). Though Strabo was right in distinguishing
- Krissa from Kirrha, and right also in the position of the latter
- under Kirphis, he conceived incorrectly the situation of Krissa;
- and his representation that there were two wars,—in the first
- of which, Kirrha was destroyed by the Krissæans, while in the
- second, Krissa itself was conquered by the Amphiktyons,—is not
- confirmed by any other authority.
-
- The mere circumstance that Pindar gives us in three separate
- passages, Κρίσᾳ, Κρισαῖον, Κρισαίοις (Isth. ii, 26; Pyth. v, 49,
- vi, 18), and in five other passages, Κίῤῥᾳ, Κίῤῥας, Κίῤῥαθεν
- (Pyth. iii, 33, vii, 14, viii, 26, x, 24, xi, 20), renders it
- almost certain that the two names belong to different places, and
- are not merely two different names for the same place; the poet
- could not in this case have any metrical reason for varying the
- denomination, as the metre of the two words is similar.
-
-In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed,
-the town of Krissa appears to have been great and powerful,
-possessing all the broad plain between Parnassus, Kirphis, and
-the gulf, to which latter it gave its name,—and possessing also,
-what was a property not less valuable, the adjoining sanctuary of
-Pytho itself, which the Hymn identifies with Krissa, not indicating
-Delphi as a separate place. The Krissæans, doubtless, derived great
-profits from the number of visitors who came to visit Delphi, both
-by land and by sea, and Kirrha was originally only the name for
-their seaport. Gradually, however, the port appears to have grown
-in importance at the expense of the town, just as Apollonia and
-Ptolemais came to equal Kyrênê and Barka, and as Plymouth Dock has
-swelled into Devonport; while at the same time, the sanctuary of
-Pytho with its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and
-came to claim an independent existence of its own. The original
-relations between Krissa, Kirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner
-at length subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising.
-The Krissæans found themselves dispossessed of the management of the
-temple, which passed to the Delphians, as well as of the profits
-arising from the visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich the
-inhabitants of Kirrha. Krissa was a primitive city of the Phocian
-name, and could boast of a place as such in the Homeric Catalogue,
-so that her loss of importance was not likely to be quietly endured.
-Moreover, in addition to the above facts, already sufficient in
-themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told that the Kirrhæans abused
-their position as masters of the avenue to the temple by sea, and
-levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who landed there,—a number
-constantly increasing from the multiplication of the transmarine
-colonies, and from the prosperity of those in Italy and Sicily.
-Besides such offence against the general Grecian public, they had
-also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors by outrages
-upon women, Phocian as well as Argeian, who were returning from the
-temple.[116]
-
- [116] Athenæus, xiii, p. 560; Æschinês cont. Ktesiphont. c. 36,
- p. 406; Strabo, ix, p. 418. Of the Akragallidæ, or Kraugallidæ,
- whom Æschinês mentions along with the Kirrhæans as another
- impious race who dwelt in the neighborhood of the god,—and who
- were overthrown along with the Kirrhæans,—we have no farther
- information. O. Müller’s conjecture would identify them with
- the Dryopes (Dorians, i, 2, 5, and his Orchomenos, p. 496);
- Harpokration, v. Κραυγαλλίδαι.
-
-Thus stood the case, apparently, about 595 B. C., when the
-Amphiktyonic meeting interfered—either prompted by the Phocians,
-or perhaps on their own spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the
-temple—to punish the Kirrhæans. After a war of ten years, the first
-Sacred War in Greece, this object was completely accomplished, by
-a joint force of Thessalians under Eurylochus, Sikyonians under
-Kleisthenês, and Athenians under Alkmæon; the Athenian Solon being
-the person who originated and enforced, in the Amphiktyonic council,
-the proposition of interference. Kirrha appears to have made a
-strenuous resistance until its supplies from the sea were intercepted
-by the naval force of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês; and even after the
-town was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for some time on
-the heights of Kirphis.[117] At length, however, they were thoroughly
-subdued. Their town was destroyed, or left to subsist merely as
-a landing-place; and the whole adjoining plain was consecrated
-to the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under
-this sentence, pronounced by the religious feeling of Greece, and
-sanctified by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi,
-the land was condemned to remain untilled and unplanted, without any
-species of human care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle.
-The latter circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch as it
-furnished abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed and came
-to sacrifice,—for without preliminary sacrifice no man could consult
-the oracle;[118] while the entire prohibition of tillage was the only
-means of obviating the growth of another troublesome neighbor on the
-sea-board. The fate of Kirrha in this war is ascertained: that of
-Krissa is not so clear, nor do we know whether it was destroyed, or
-left subsisting in a position of inferiority with regard to Delphi.
-From this time forward, however, the Delphian community appears
-as substantive and autonomous, exercising in their own right the
-management of the temple; though we shall find, on more than one
-occasion, that the Phocians contest this right, and lay claim to
-the management of it for themselves,[119]—a remnant of that early
-period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian Krissa.
-There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy between the
-Delphians and the Phocians.
-
- [117] Schol. ad Pindar, Pyth. Introduct.: Schol. ad Pindar,
- Nem. ix, 2; Plutarch, Solon, c. 11; Pausan. ii, 9, 6. Pausanias
- (x, 37, 4) and Polyænus (Strateg. iii, 6) relate a stratagem of
- Solon, or of Eurylochus, to poison the water of the Kirrhæans
- with hellebore.
-
- [118] Eurip. Ion, 230.
-
- [119] Thucyd. i, 112.
-
-The Sacred War just mentioned, emanating from a solemn Amphiktyonic
-decree, carried on jointly by troops of different states whom we do
-not know to have ever before coöperated, and directed exclusively
-towards an object of common interest, is in itself a fact of high
-importance as manifesting a decided growth of Pan-Hellenic feeling.
-Sparta is not named as interfering,—a circumstance which seems
-remarkable when we consider both her power, even as it then stood,
-and her intimate connection with the Delphian oracle,—while the
-Athenians appear as the prime movers, through the greatest and best
-of their citizens: the credit of a large-minded patriotism rests
-prominently upon them.
-
-But if this Sacred War itself is a proof that the Pan-Hellenic
-spirit was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended
-reinforced that spirit still farther. The spoils of Kirrha were
-employed by the victorious allies in founding the Pythian games.
-The octennial festival hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of
-the god, including no other competition except in the harp and the
-pæan, was expanded into comprehensive games on the model of the
-Olympic, with matches not only of music, but also of gymnastics and
-chariots,—celebrated, not at Delphi itself, but on the maritime
-plain near the ruined Kirrha,—and under the direct superintendence
-of the Amphiktyons themselves. I have already mentioned that Solon
-provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained victories in
-the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his sense of the
-great value of the national games as a means of promoting Hellenic
-intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the
-foundation of the new games on the Kirrhæan plain, in commemoration
-of the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made
-over to him. They were celebrated in the latter half of summer, or
-first half of every third Olympic year,—the Amphiktyons being the
-ostensible agonothets, or administrators, and appointing persons
-to discharge the duty in their names.[120] At the first Pythian
-ceremony (in 586 B. C.), valuable rewards were given to the different
-victors; at the second (582 B. C.), nothing was conferred but wreaths
-of laurel,—the rapidly attained celebrity of the games being such
-as to render any farther reward superfluous. The Sikyonian despot
-Kleisthenês himself, one of the leaders in the conquest of Kirrha,
-gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second Pythia. We find
-other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as competitors,
-and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the Olympic,
-over which, indeed, they had some advantages; first, that they
-were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
-antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
-perverted by the Eleians, on more than one occasion; next, that
-they comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From
-the circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games
-deserved, even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
-Demosthenês,—“The common Agôn of the Greeks.”[121]
-
- [120] Mr. Clinton thinks that the Pythian games were celebrated
- in the autumn: M. Boeckh refers the celebration to the spring:
- Krause agrees with Boeckh. (Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii, p. 200,
- Appendix; Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscr. No. 1688, p. 813; Krause, Die
- Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii, pp. 29-35.)
-
- Mr. Clinton’s opinion appears to me nearly the truth; the real
- time, as I conceive it, being about the beginning of August, or
- end of July. Boeckh admits that, with the exception of Thucydidês
- (v, 1-19), the other authorities go to sustain it; but he relies
- on Thucydidês to outweigh them. Now the passage of Thucydidês,
- properly understood, seems to me as much against Boeckh’s view as
- the rest.
-
- I may remark, as a certain additional reason in the case, that
- the Isthmia appear to have been celebrated in the third year
- of each Olympiad, and in the spring (Krause, p. 187). It seems
- improbable that these two great festivals should have come
- one immediately after the other, which, nevertheless, must be
- supposed, if we adopt the opinion of Boeckh and Krause.
-
- The Pythian games would be sometimes a little earlier, sometimes
- a little later, in consequence of the time of full moon: notice
- being always sent round by the administrators beforehand of the
- commencement of the sacred month. See the references in K. F.
- Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, ch.
- 49, not. 12.—This note has been somewhat modified since my first
- edition,—see the note vol. vi, ch. liv.
-
- [121] Demosthen. Philipp. iii, p. 119.
-
-The Olympic and Pythian games continued always to be the most
-venerated solemnities in Greece: yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired
-a celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for
-the highest of all.[122] Both the Nemea and the Isthmia were
-distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once
-in four years, but once in two years; the former in the second and
-fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter in the first and third
-years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an origin
-connected with the interesting persons and circumstances of Grecian
-antiquity: but our historical knowledge of both begins with the sixth
-century B. C. The first historical Nemead is presented as belonging
-to Olympiad 52 or 53 (572-568 B. C.), a few years subsequent to the
-Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of the Pythia. The
-festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean Zeus, in the valley
-of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleônæ,—and originally by the Kleônæans
-themselves, until, at some period after 460 B. C., the Argeians
-deprived them of that honor and assumed the honors of administration
-to themselves.[123] The Nemean games had their Hellanodikæ[124] to
-superintend, to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as
-the Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical
-information is a little earlier, for it has already been stated that
-Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained a
-prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian,—in or after 594
-B. C. It was celebrated by the Corinthians at their isthmus, in
-honor of Poseidôn; and if we may draw any inference from the legends
-respecting its foundation, which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus,
-the Athenians appear to have identified it with the antiquities of
-their own state.[125]
-
- [122] Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33.
-
- [123] Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch, Arat. c. 28; Mannert.
- Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the second chapter in
- Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii. p. 108, _seq._
-
- That the Kleônæans continued without interruption to administer
- the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (460 B. C.), or
- thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42:
- compare Nem. iv, 17. Eusebius, indeed, states that the Argeians
- seized the administration for themselves in Olympiad 53, and
- in order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in
- Pindar, critics have concluded that the Argeians lost it again,
- and that the Kleônæans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I
- take a different view, and am disposed to reject the statement of
- Eusebius altogether; the more so as Pindar’s tenth Nemean ode is
- addressed to an Argeian citizen named Theiæus. If there had been
- at that time a standing dispute between Argos and Kleônæ on the
- subject of the administration of the Nemea, the poet would hardly
- have introduced the mention of the Nemean prizes gained by the
- ancestors of Theiæus, under the untoward designation of “prizes
- received from Kleônæan men.”
-
- [124] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 1126.
-
- [125] K. F. Hermann, in his Lehrbuch der Griechischen
- Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and ch. 65, not. 3), and
- again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen
- Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also not. 6), both
- highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That the exaltation
- of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic importance
- arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots of
- Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount
- influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the
- Spartans put down the despots of both these two cities.
-
- The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in
- respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons
- for thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this
- be so, the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the
- Isthmian and Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no
- other proof of it, nor does Sparta appear to have interested
- herself in any of the four national festivals except the Olympic,
- with which she was from an early period peculiarly connected.
-
- Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions
- is at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between
- Sikyon and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in
- this case that the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch
- as they had under Kleisthenês a little before contributed to
- nationalize the Pythian games: a second interference for a
- similar purpose ought not to be presumed without some evidence.
- To prove his point about the Isthmia, Hermann cites only a
- passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum, per Cypselum
- tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati pristinæ
- reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we must
- read _Cypselidas_ instead of _Cypselum_, which deducts from
- the value of a witness whose testimony can never under any
- circumstances be rated high. But granting the alteration, there
- are two reasons against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive
- reason, that Solon offered a large reward to Athenian victors at
- the Isthmian games: his legislation falls in 594 B. C., ten years
- before the time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been
- renewed after a long intermission. The other reason (negative,
- though to my mind also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in
- that long invective which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês
- against the Kypselids (v, 92). If Kypselus had really been
- guilty of so great an insult to the feelings of the people as to
- suppress their most solemn festival, the fact would hardly have
- been omitted in the indictment which Sosiklês is made to urge
- against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing Kypselus as a mild
- and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of his character,
- which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to negative the
- supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.
-
-We thus perceive that the interval between 600-560 B. C. exhibits the
-first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia, and Nemea,—the
-first expansion of all the three from local into Pan-Hellenic
-festivals. To the Olympic games, for some time the only great centre
-of union among all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now added three
-other sacred agônes of the like public, open, national character;
-constituting visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds, of collective
-Hellenism, and insuring to every Greek who went to compete in the
-matches, a safe and inviolate transit even through hostile Hellenic
-states.[126] These four, all in or near Peloponnesus, and one of
-which occurred in each year, formed the period, or cycle, of sacred
-games, and those who had gained prizes at all the four received the
-enviable designation of periodonikes:[127] the honors paid to Olympic
-victors on their return to their native city were prodigious, even in
-the sixth century B. C., and became even more extravagant afterwards.
-We may remark that in the Olympic games alone, the oldest as well
-as the most illustrious of the four, the musical and intellectual
-element was wanting: all the three more recent agônes included crowns
-for exercises of music and poetry, along with gymnastics, chariots,
-and horses.
-
- [126] Plutarch, Arat. c. 28. καὶ συνεχύθη τότε πρῶτον (by order
- of Aratus) ἡ δεδομένη τοῖς ἀγωνισταῖς ἀσυλία καὶ ἀσφάλεια, a
- deadly stain on the character of Aratus.
-
- [127] Festus, v, Perihodos, p. 217, ed. Müller. See the animated
- protest of the philosopher Xenophanês against the great rewards
- given to Olympic victors (540-520 B. C.), Xenophan. Fragment. 2,
- p 357, ed. Bergk.
-
-Nor was it only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon
-these four great festivals that the gradual increase of Hellenic
-family-feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest
-period of our history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious
-festivals in all the considerable towns gradually became more
-and more open and accessible, and attracted guests as well as
-competitors from beyond the border; the dignity of the state, as
-well as the honor rendered to the presiding god, being measured by
-numbers, admiration, and envy, in the frequenting visitors.[128]
-There is no positive evidence, indeed, of such expansion in the Attic
-festivals earlier than the reign of Peisistratus, who first added the
-quadrennial or greater Panathenæa to the ancient annual or lesser
-Panathenæa; nor can we trace the steps of progress in regard to
-Thebes, Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Megara, Sikyôn, Pellênê, Ægina, Argos,
-etc., but we find full reason for believing that such was the general
-reality. Of the Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and Simonidês
-celebrated, many derived a portion of their renown from previous
-victories acquired at several of these local contests,[129]—victories
-sometimes so numerous, as to prove how wide-spread the habit of
-mutual frequentation had become;[130] though we find, even in the
-third century B. C., treaties of alliance between different cities,
-in which it is thought necessary to confer this mutual right by
-express stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the distinguished
-gymnastic or musical competitors, by prizes of great value; and
-Timæus even asserted, as a proof of the overweening pride of Kroton
-and Sybaris, that these cities tried to supplant the preëminence
-of the Olympic games, by instituting games of their own with the
-richest prizes, to be celebrated at the same time,[131]—a statement
-in itself not worthy of credit, but nevertheless illustrating the
-animated rivalry known to prevail among the Grecian cities in
-procuring for themselves splendid and crowded games. At the time
-when the Homeric Hymn to Dêmêtêr was composed, the worship of that
-goddess seems to have been purely local at Eleusis; but before the
-Persian war, the festival celebrated by the Athenians every year, in
-honor of the Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, admitted Greeks of all cities to be
-initiated, and was attended by vast crowds of them.[132]
-
- [128] Thucyd. vi, 16. Alkibiadês says, καὶ ὅσα αὖ ἐν τῇ πόλει
- χορηγίαις ἢ ἄλλῳ τῳ λαμπρύνομαι, τοῖς μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται φύσει,
- πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ξένους καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσχὺς φαίνεται.
-
- The greater Panathenæa are ascribed to Peisistratus by the
- Scholiast on Aristeidês, vol. iii, p. 323, ed. Dindorf: judging
- by what immediately precedes, the statement seems to come from
- Aristotle.
-
- [129] Simonidês, Fragm. 154-158, ed. Bergk; Pindar, Nem. x, 45;
- Olymp. xiii, 107.
-
- The distinguished athlete Theagenês is affirmed to have gained
- twelve hundred prizes in these various agônes: according to some,
- fourteen hundred prizes (Pausan. vi, 11, 2; Plutarch, Præcept.
- Reip. Ger. c. 15, p. 811).
-
- An athlete named Apollonius arrived too late for the Olympic
- games, having stayed away too long, from his anxiety to get money
- at various agônes in Ionia (Pausan. v, 21, 5).
-
- [130] See, particularly, the treaty between the inhabitants of
- Latus and those of Olûs in Krête, in Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. No.
- 2554, wherein this reciprocity is expressly stipulated. Boeckh
- places this Inscription in the third century B. C.
-
- [131] Timæus, Fragm. 82, ed. Didot. The Krotoniates furnished a
- great number of victors both to the Olympic and to the Pythian
- games (Herodot. viii, 47; Pausan. x, 5, 5–x, 7, 3; Krause,
- Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, vol. ii, sect. 29, p. 752).
-
- [132] Herodot. viii, 65. καὶ αὐτῶν ὁ βουλόμενος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων
- Ἑλλήνων μυεῖται.
-
- The exclusion of all competitors, natives of Lampsakus, from
- the games celebrated in the Chersonesus to the honor of the
- œkist Miltiadês, is mentioned by Herodotus as something special
- (Herodot. vi, 38).
-
-It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application of
-the primitive religious festival, among the greater states in
-Greece, gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically
-recurring, into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions,—not
-merely admitting, but soliciting the fraternal presence of all
-Hellenic spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed
-an exception to the remaining states: her festivals were for
-herself alone, and her general rudeness towards other Greeks was
-not materially softened even at the Karneia,[133] or Hyakinthia, or
-Gymnopædiæ. On the other hand, the Attic Dionysia were gradually
-exalted, from their original rude spontaneous outburst of village
-feeling in thankfulness to the god, followed by song, dance, and
-revelry of various kinds,—into costly and diversified performances,
-first, by a trained chorus, next, by actors superadded to it;[134]
-and the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied the
-perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated to
-invite a Pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment of
-Hellenic unity. The dramatic literature of Athens, however, belongs
-properly to a later period; previous to the year 560 B. C., we see
-only those commencements of innovation which drew upon Thespis[135]
-the rebuke of Solon, who himself contributed to impart to the
-Panathenaic festival a more solemn and attractive character, by
-checking the license of the rhapsodes, and insuring to those present
-a full, orderly recital of the Iliad.
-
- [133] See the remarks, upon the Lacedæmonian discouragement of
- stranger-visitors at their public festivals, put by Thucydidês
- into the mouth of Periklês (Thucyd. ii, 39).
-
- Lichas the Spartan gained great renown by treating hospitably
- the strangers who came to the Gymnopædiæ at Sparta (Xenophon,
- Memorab. i, 2, 61; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 10),—a story which proves
- that _some_ strangers came to the Spartan festivals, but which
- also proves that they were not many in number, and that to show
- them hospitality was a striking distinction from the general
- character of Spartans.
-
- [134] Aristot. Poetic, c. 3 and 4; Maximus Tyrius. Diss. xxi. p.
- 215; Plutarch. De Cupidine Divitiarum. c. 8. p. 527: compare the
- treatise, “Quod non potest suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum.” c.
- 16. p. 1098. The old oracles quoted by Demosthenês, cont. Meidiam
- (c. 15. p. 531. and cont. Makartat. p. 1072: see also Buttmann’s
- note on the former passage), convey the idea of the ancient
- simple Athenian festival.
-
- [135] Plutarch. Solon, c. 29: see above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p.
- 195.
-
-The sacred games and festivals, here alluded to as a class, took
-hold of the Greek mind by so great a variety of feelings,[136] as
-to counterbalance in a high degree the political disseverance,
-and to keep alive among their wide-spread cities, in the midst of
-constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of brotherhood
-and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died away. The
-Theôrs, or sacred envoys, who came to Olympia or Delphi from so many
-different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at the same
-altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by their donatives
-to enrich or adorn one respected scene. Nor must we forget that the
-festival afforded opportunity for a sort of fair, including much
-traffic amid so large a mass of spectators,[137] and besides the
-exhibitions of the games themselves, there were recitations and
-lectures in a spacious council-room for those who chose to listen
-to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers, and historians,—among
-which last, the history of Herodotus is said to have been publicly
-read by its author.[138] Of the wealthy and great men in the various
-cities, many contended simply for the chariot victories and horse
-victories. But there were others whose ambition was of a character
-more strictly personal, and who stripped naked as runners, wrestlers,
-boxers, or pankratiasts, having gone through the extreme fatigue of
-a complete previous training. Kylon, whose unfortunate attempt to
-usurp the sceptre at Athens has been recounted, had gained the prize
-in the Olympic stadium: Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of
-Macedon, had run for it.[139] The great family of the Diagoridæ at
-Rhodes, who furnished magistrates and generals to their native city,
-supplied a still greater number of successful boxers and pankratiasts
-at Olympia, while other instances also occur of generals named by
-various cities from the lists of successful Olympic gymnasts; and the
-odes of Pindar, always dearly purchased, attest how many of the great
-and wealthy were found in that list.[140] The perfect popularity
-and equality of persons at these great games, is a feature not less
-remarkable than the exact adherence to predetermined rule, and the
-self-imposed submission of the immense crowd to a handful of servants
-armed with sticks,[141] who executed the orders of the Eleian
-Hellanodikæ. The ground upon which the ceremony took place, and even
-the territory of the administering state, was protected by a “Truce
-of God,” during the month of the festival, the commencement of which
-was formally announced by heralds sent round to the different states.
-Treaties of peace between different cities were often formally
-commemorated by pillars there erected, and the general impression
-of the scene suggested nothing but ideas of peace and brotherhood
-among Greeks.[142] And I may remark that the impression of the games
-as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but Greeks, was stronger
-and clearer during the interval between 600-300 B. C., than it came
-to be afterwards. For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of
-diluting and corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish
-of Hellenic tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous
-foreigners, who were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic
-character; so that although in later times the games continued
-undiminished, both in attraction and in number of visitors, the
-spirit of Pan-Hellenic communion, which had once animated the scene,
-was gone forever.
-
- [136] The orator Lysias, in a fragment of his lost Panegyrical
- Oration preserved by Dionysius of Halikarnassus (vol. v. p. 520
- R.), describes the influence of the games with great force and
- simplicity. Hêraklês, the founder of them, ἀγῶνα μὲν σωμάτων
- ἐποίησε, φιλοτιμίαν δὲ πλούτῳ, γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ
- τῆς Ἑλλάδος· ἵνα τούτων ἁπάντων ἕνεκα ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ ἔλθωμεν, τὰ μὲν
- ὀψόμενοι, τὰ δὲ ἀκουσόμενοι. Ἡγήσατο γὰρ τὸν ἐνθάδε σύλλογον
- ~ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησι τῆς πρὸς ἀλλήλους φιλίας~.
-
- [137] Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. v, 3. “_Mercatum_ eum, qui haberetur
- maximo ludorum apparatu totius Græciæ celebritate: nam ut illic
- alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et nobilitatem coronæ
- peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quæstu et lucro ducerentur,”
- etc.
-
- Both Velleius Paterculus also (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call
- the Olympic festival by the name _mercatus_.
-
- There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus
- (Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games.
-
- Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous
- festivals generally—Ἡ πανήγυρις, ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα (x, p. 486),
- especially in reference to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Maniliâ, c.
- 18: compare Pausanias, x, 32, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at
- Tithorea in Phokis, and Becker, Chariklês, vol. i, p. 283.
-
- At the Attic festival of the Herakleia, celebrated by the
- communion called Mesogei, or a certain number of the demes
- constituting Mesogæa, a regular market-due, or ἀγοραστικὸν, was
- levied upon those who brought goods to sell (Inscriptiones Atticæ
- nuper repertæ 12, by E. Curtius, pp. 3-7).
-
- [138] Pausan. vi, 23, 5; Diodor. xiv, 109, xv, 7; Lucian, Quomodo
- Historia sit conscribenda, c. 42. See Krause, Olympia, sect. 29.
- pp. 183-186.
-
- [139] Thucyd. i, 120; Herodot. v, 22-71. Eurybatês of Argos
- (Herodot. vi, 92); Philippus and Phayllus of Kroton (v, 47; viii,
- 47); Eualkidês of Eretria (v, 102); Hermolykus of Athens (ix,
- 105).
-
- Pindar (Nem. iv and vi) gives the numerous victories of the
- Bassidæ and Theandridræ at Ægina: also Melissus the pankratiast
- and his ancestors the Kleonymidæ of Thebes—τιμάεντες ἀρχᾶθεν
- πρόξενοί τ᾽ ἐπιχωρίων (Isthm. iii, 25).
-
- Respecting the extreme celebrity of Diagoras and his sons, of
- the Rhodian gens Eratidæ, Damagêtus, Akusilaus, and Dorieus, see
- Pindar, Olymp. vii, 16-145, with the Scholia; Thucyd. iii, 11;
- Pausan. vi, 7, 1-2; Xenophon, Hellenic. i, 5, 19: compare Strabo.
- xiv, p. 655.
-
- [140] The Latin writers remark it as a peculiarity of Grecian
- feeling, as distinguished from Roman, that men of great station
- accounted it an honor to contend in the games: see, as a
- specimen, Tacitus, Dialogus de Orator. c. 9. “Ac si in Græciâ
- natus esses, ubi ludicras quoque artes exercere honestum est, ac
- tibi Nicostrati robur Dii dedissent, non paterer immanes illos
- et ad pugnam natos lacertos levitate jaculi vanescere.” Again,
- Cicero, pro Flacco, c. 13, in his sarcastic style: “Quid si etiam
- occisus est a piratis Adramyttenus, homo nobilis, cujus est fere
- nobis omnibus nomen auditum, Atinas pugil, Olympionices? hoc est
- apud Græcos (quoniam de corum _gravitate_ dicimus) prope majus et
- gloriosius, quam Romæ triumphasse.”
-
- [141] Lichas, one of the chief men of Sparta, and moreover a
- chariot-victor, received actual chastisement on the ground, from
- these staff-bearers, for an infringement of the regulations
- (Thucyd. v, 50).
-
- [142] Thucyd. v, 18-47. and the curious ancient Inscription in
- Boeckh’s Corpus Inscr. No. 11. p. 28. recording the convention
- between the Eleians and the inhabitants of the Arcadian town of
- Heræa.
-
- The comparison of various passages referring to the Olympia,
- Isthmia, and Nemea (Thucydidês iii, 11; viii, 9-10; v, 49-51;
- and Xenophon, Hellenic. iv, 7, 2; v, 1, 29) shows that various
- political business was often discussed at these Games,—that
- diplomatists made use of the intercourse for the purpose of
- detecting the secret designs of states whom they suspected, and
- that the administering state often practised manœuvres in respect
- to the obligations of truce for the Hieromenia, or Holy Month.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIX.
-
-LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.
-
-
-The interval between 776-560 B. C. presents to us a remarkable
-expansion of Grecian genius in the creation of their elegiac, iambic,
-lyric, choric, and gnomic poetry, which was diversified in a great
-many ways and improved by many separate masters. The creators of
-all these different styles—from Kallinus and Archilochus down to
-Stesichorus—fall within the two centuries here included; though
-Pindar and Simonidês, “the proud and high-crested bards,”[143]
-who carried lyric and choric poetry to the maximum of elaboration
-consistent with full poetical effect, lived in the succeeding
-century, and were contemporary with the tragedian Æschylus. The
-Grecian drama, comic as well as tragic, of the fifth century B.
-C., combined the lyric and choric song with the living action of
-iambic dialogue,—thus constituting the last ascending movement in the
-poetical genius of the race. Reserving this for a future time, and
-for the history of Athens, to which it more particularly belongs, I
-now propose to speak only of the poetical movement of the two earlier
-centuries, wherein Athens had little or no part. So scanty are the
-remnants, unfortunately, of these earlier poets, that we can offer
-little except criticisms borrowed at second-hand, and a few general
-considerations on their workings and tendency.[144]
-
- [143] Himerius, Orat. iii, p. 426, Wernsdorf—ἀγέρωχοι καὶ
- ὑψαυχένες.
-
- [144] For the whole subject of this chapter, the eleventh,
- twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters of O. Müller’s
- History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, wherein the lyric
- poets are handled with greater length than consists with the
- limits of this work, will be found highly valuable,—chapters
- abounding in erudition and ingenuity, but not always within the
- limits of the evidence.
-
- The learned work of Ulrici (Geschichte der Griechischen
- Poesie—_Lyrik_) is still more open to the same remark.
-
-Archilochus and Kallinus both appear to fall about the middle of
-the seventh century B. C., and it is with them that the innovations
-in Grecian poetry commence. Before them, we are told, there existed
-nothing but the epos, or daktylic hexameter poetry, of which much
-has been said in my former volume,—being legendary stories or
-adventures narrated, together with addresses or hymns to the gods.
-We must recollect, too, that this was not only the whole poetry, but
-the whole literature of the age: prose composition was altogether
-unknown, and writing, if beginning to be employed as an aid to a few
-superior men, was at any rate generally unused, and found no reading
-public. The voice was the only communicant, and the ear the only
-recipient, of all those ideas and feelings which productive minds in
-the community found themselves impelled to pour out; both voice and
-ear being accustomed to a musical recitation, or chant, apparently
-something between song and speech, with simple rhythm and a still
-simpler occasional accompaniment from the primitive four-stringed
-harp. Such habits and requirements of the voice and ear were, at
-that time, inseparably associated with the success and popularity
-of the poet, and contributed doubtless to restrict the range of
-subjects with which he could deal. The type was to a certain extent
-consecrated, like the primitive statues of the gods, from which
-men only ventured to deviate by gradual and almost unconscious
-innovations. Moreover, in the first half of the seventh century B.
-C., that genius which had once created an Iliad and an Odyssey was no
-longer to be found, and the work of hexameter narrative had come to
-be prosecuted by less gifted persons,—by those Cyclic poets of whom I
-have spoken in the preceding volumes.
-
-Such, as far as we can make it out amidst very uncertain evidence,
-was the state of the Greek mind immediately before elegiac and lyric
-poets appeared; while at the same time its experience was enlarging
-by the formation of new colonies, and the communion among its various
-states tended to increase by the freer reciprocity of religious games
-and festivals. There arose a demand for turning the literature of the
-age—I use this word as synonymous with the poetry—to new feelings and
-purposes, and for applying the rich, plastic, and musical language of
-the old epic, to present passion and circumstance, social as well as
-individual. Such a tendency had become obvious in Hesiod, even within
-the range of hexameter verse; but the same causes which led to an
-enlargement of the subjects of poetry inclined men also to vary the
-metre.
-
-In regard to this latter point, there is reason to believe that the
-expansion of Greek music was the immediate determining cause; for
-it has been already stated that the musical scale and instruments
-of the Greeks, originally very narrow, were materially enlarged
-by borrowing from Phrygia and Lydia, and these acquisitions seem
-to have been first realized about the beginning of the seventh
-century B. C., through the Lesbian harper Terpander,—the Phrygian
-(or Greco-Phrygian) flute-player Olympus,—and the Arkadian or
-Bœotian flute-player Klonas. Terpander made the important advance of
-exchanging the original four-stringed harp for one of seven strings,
-embracing the compass of one octave or two Greek tetrachords, and
-Olympus as well as Klonas taught many new nomes, or tunes, on the
-flute, to which the Greeks had before been strangers,—probably also
-the use of a flute of more varied musical compass. Terpander is
-said to have gained the prize at the first recorded celebration of
-the Lacedæmonian festival of the Karneia, in 676 B. C.: this is
-one of the best-ascertained points among the obscure chronology of
-the seventh century; and there seem grounds for assigning Olympus
-and Klonas to nearly the same period, a little before Archilochus
-and Kallinus.[145] To Terpander, Olympus, and Klonas, are ascribed
-the formation of the earliest musical nomes known to the inquiring
-Greeks of later times: to the first, nomes on the harp; to the two
-latter, on the flute,—every nome being the general scheme, or basis,
-of which the airs actually performed constituted so many variations,
-within certain defined limits.[146] Terpander employed his enlarged
-instrumental power as a new accompaniment to the Homeric poems, as
-well as to certain epic proœmia or hymns to the gods of his own
-composition. But he does not seem to have departed from the hexameter
-verse and the daktylic rhythm, to which the new accompaniment
-was probably not quite suitable; and the idea may thus have been
-suggested of combining the words also according to new rhythmical and
-metrical laws.
-
- [145] These early innovators in Grecian music, rhythm, metre,
- and poetry, belonging to the seventh century B. C., were very
- imperfectly known, even to those contemporaries of Plato and
- Aristotle who tried to get together facts for a consecutive
- history of music. The treatise of Plutarch, De Musicâ, shows
- what very contradictory statements he found. He quotes from
- four different authors,—Herakleidês, Glaukus, Alexander, and
- Aristoxenus, who by no means agreed in their series of names
- and facts. The first three of them blend together mythe and
- history; while even the Anagraphê or inscription at Sikyon, which
- professed to give a continuous list of such poets and musicians
- as had contended at the Sikyonian games, began with a large stock
- of mythical names,—Amphion, Linus, Pierius, etc. (Plutarch,
- Music. p. 1132.) Some authors, according to Plutarch (p. 1133),
- made the great chronological mistake of placing Terpander as
- contemporary with Hippônax; a proof how little of chronological
- evidence was then accessible.
-
- That Terpander was victor at the Spartan festival of the Karneia,
- in 676 B. C., may well have been derived by Hellanikus from the
- Spartan registers: the name of the Lesbian harper Perikleitas, as
- having gained the same prize at some subsequent period (Plutarch,
- De Mus. p. 1133), probably rests on the same authority. That
- Archilochus was rather later than Terpander, and Thalêtas rather
- later than Archilochus, was the statement of Glaukus (Plutarch,
- De Mus. p. 1134). Klonas and Polymnêstus are placed later than
- Terpander; Archilochus later than Klonas: Alkman is said to have
- mentioned Polymnêstus in one of his songs (pp. 1133-1135). It
- can hardly be true that Terpander gained _four_ Pythian prizes,
- if the festival was octennial prior to its reconstitution by
- the Amphiktyons (p. 1132). Sakadas gained three Pythian prizes
- _after_ that period, when the festival was quadrennial (p. 1134).
-
- Compare the confused indications in Pollux, iv, 65-66, 78-79. The
- abstract given by Photius of certain parts of the Chrestomathia
- of Proclus (published in Gaisford’s edition of Hephæstion, pp.
- 375-389), is also extremely valuable, in spite of its brevity and
- obscurity, about the lyric and choric poetry of Greece.
-
- [146] The difference between Νόμος and Μέλος appears in Plutarch,
- De Musicâ, p. 1132—Καὶ τὸν Τέρπανδρον, κιθαρῳδικῶν ποιητὴν ὄντα
- νόμων, κατὰ νόμον ἕκαστον τοῖς ἔπεσι τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου
- μέλη περιτιθέντα, ᾅδειν ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι· ἀποφῆναι δὲ τοῦτον λέγει
- ὀνόματα πρῶτον τοῖς κιθαρῳδικοῖς νόμοις.
-
- The nomes were not many in number; they went by special names;
- and there was a disagreement of opinion as to the persons who had
- composed them (Plutarch, Music. p. 1133). They were monodic, not
- choric,—intended to be sung by one person (Aristot. Problem. xix,
- 15). Herodot. i, 23, about Arion and the Nomus Orthius.
-
-It is certain, at least, that the age (670-600) immediately
-succeeding Terpander,—comprising Archilochus, Kallinus, Tyrtæus, and
-Alkman, whose relations of time one to another we have no certain
-means of determining,[147] though Alkman seems to have been the
-latest,—presents a remarkable variety both of new metres and of new
-rhythms, superinduced upon the previous daktylic hexameter. The
-first departure from this latter is found in the elegiac verse,
-employed seemingly more or less by all the four above-mentioned
-poets, but chiefly by the first two, and even ascribed by some to
-the invention of Kallinus. Tyrtæus in his military march-songs
-employed the anapæstic metre, but in Archilochus as well as in Alkman
-we find traces of a much larger range of metrical variety,—iambic,
-trochaic, anapæstic, ionic, etc.,—sometimes even asynartetic or
-compound metres, anapæstic or daktylic, blended with trochaic or
-iambic. What we have remaining from Mimnermus, who comes about the
-close of the preceding four, is elegiac; his contemporaries Alkæus
-and Sappho, besides employing most of those metres which they found
-existing, invented each a peculiar stanza of their own, which is
-familiarly known under a name derived from each. In Solon, the
-younger contemporary of Mimnermus, we have the elegiac, iambic, and
-trochaic: in Theognis, yet later, the elegiac only. But both Arion
-and Stesichorus appear to have been innovators in this department,
-the former by his improvement in the dithyrambic chorus or circular
-song and dance in honor of Dionysus,—the latter by his more elaborate
-choric compositions, containing not only a strophê and antistrophê,
-but also a third division or epode succeeding them, pronounced by the
-chorus standing still. Both Anakreon and Ibykus likewise added to the
-stock of existing metrical varieties. And we thus see that, within
-the century and a half succeeding Terpander, Greek poetry (or Greek
-literature, which was then the same thing) became greatly enriched in
-matter as well as diversified in form.
-
- [147] Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellen. ad ann. 671, 665, 644) appears
- to me noway satisfactory in his chronological arrangements of
- the poets of this century. I agree with O. Müller (Hist. of
- Literat. of Ancient Greece, ch. xii, 9) in thinking that he makes
- Terpander too recent, and Thalêtas too ancient; I also believe
- both Kallinus and Alkman to have been more recent than the place
- which Mr. Clinton assigns to them; the epoch of Tyrtæus will
- depend upon the date which we assign to the second Messenian war.
-
- How very imperfectly the chronology of the poetical names even
- of the sixth century B. C.—Sappho, Anakreon, Hippônax—was known
- even to writers of the beginning of the Ptolemaic age (or
- shortly after 300 B. C.), we may see by the mistakes noted in
- Athenæus, xiii, p. 599. Hermesianax of Kolophon, the elegiac
- poet, represented Anakreon as the lover of Sappho; this might
- perhaps be not absolutely impossible, if we supposed in Sappho an
- old age like that of Ninon de l’Enclos; but others (even earlier
- than Hermesianax, since they are quoted by Chamæleon) represented
- Anakreon, when in old age, as addressing verses to Sappho,
- still young. Again, the comic writer Diphilus introduced both
- Archilochus and Hippônax as the lovers of Sappho.
-
-To a certain extent there seems to have been a real connection
-between the two: new forms were essential for the expression of
-new wants and feelings,—though the assertion that elegiac metre is
-especially adapted for one set of feelings,[148] trochaic for a
-second, and iambic for a third, if true at all, can only be admitted
-with great latitude of exception, when we find so many of them
-employed by the poets for very different subjects,—gay or melancholy,
-bitter or complaining, earnest or sprightly,—seemingly with little
-discrimination.
-
- [148] The Latin poets and the Alexandrine critics seem to have
- both insisted on the natural mournfulness of the elegiac metre
- (Ovid, Heroid. xv, 7; Horat. Art. Poet. 75): see also the
- fanciful explanation given by Didymus in the Etymologicon Magnum,
- v. Ἔλεγος.
-
- We learn from Hephæstion (c. viii, p. 45, Gaisf.) that the
- anapæstic march-metre of Tyrtæus was employed by the comic
- writers also, for a totally different vein of feeling. See the
- Dissertation of Franck, Callinus, pp. 37-48 (Leips. 1816).
-
- Of the remarks made by O. Müller respecting the metres of these
- early poets (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch.
- xi, s. 8-12, etc.; ch. xii, s. 1-2, etc.), many appear to be
- uncertified and disputable.
-
- For some good remarks on the fallibility of men’s impressions
- respecting the natural and inherent ἦθος of particular metres,
- see Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiment, part v, ch. i, p.
- 329), in the edition of his works by Dugald Stewart.
-
-But the adoption of some new metre, different from the perpetual
-series of hexameters, was required when the poet desired to do
-something more than recount a long story or fragment of heroic
-legend,—when he sought to bring himself, his friends, his enemies,
-his city, his hopes and fears with regard to matters recent or
-impending, all before the notice of the hearer, and that, too, at
-once with brevity and animation. The Greek hexameter, like our blank
-verse, has all its limiting conditions bearing upon each separate
-line, and presents to the hearer no predetermined resting-place or
-natural pause beyond.[149] In reference to any long composition,
-either epic or dramatic, such unrestrained license is found
-convenient, and the case was similar for Greek epos and drama,—the
-single-lined iambic trimeter being generally used for the dialogue
-of tragedy and comedy, just as the daktylic hexameter had been
-used for the epic. The metrical changes introduced by Archilochus
-and his contemporaries may be compared to a change from our blank
-verse to the rhymed couplet and quatrain: the verse was thrown into
-little systems of two, three, or four lines, with a pause at the
-end of each; and the halt thus assured to, as well as expected and
-relished by, the ear, was generally coincident with a close, entire
-or partial, in the sense, which thus came to be distributed with
-greater point and effect. The elegiac verse, or common hexameter and
-pentameter (this second line being an hexameter with the third and
-sixth thesis,[150] or the last half of the third and sixth foot,
-suppressed, and a pause left in place of it), as well as the epode
-(or iambic trimeter followed by an iambic dimeter) and some other
-binary combinations of verse which we trace among the fragments of
-Archilochus, are conceived with a view to such increase of effect
-both on the ear and the mind, not less than to the direct pleasures
-of novelty and variety.
-
- [149] See the observations in Aristotle (Rhetor. iii, 9) on
- the λέξις εἰρομένη as compared with λέξις κατεστραμμένη·—λέξις
- εἰρομένη, ἣ οὐδὲν ἔχει τέλος αὐτὴ καθ᾽ αὑτὴν, ἂν μὴ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ
- λεγόμενον τελειώθη·—κατεστραμμένη δὲ, ἡ ἐν περιόδοις· λέγω δὲ
- περίοδον, λέξιν ἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν αὐτὴν καθ᾽ αὑτὴν καὶ
- μέγεθος εὐσύνοπτον.
-
- [150] I employ, however unwillingly, the word _thesis_ here
- (arsis and thesis) in the sense in which it is used by G. Hermann
- (“Illud tempus, in quo ictus est, _arsin_; ea tempora, quæ carent
- ictu, _thesin_ vocamus,” Element. Doctr. Metr. sect. 15), and
- followed by Boeckh, in his Dissertation on the Metres of Pindar
- (i, 4), though I agree with Dr. Barham (in the valuable Preface
- to his edition of Hephæstion, Cambridge, 1843, pp. 5-8) that the
- opposite sense of the words would be the preferable one, just as
- it was the original sense in which they were used by the best
- Greek musical writers: Dr. Barham’s Preface is very instructive
- on the difficult subject of ancient rhythm generally.
-
-The iambic metre, built upon the primitive iambus, or coarse and
-licentious jesting,[151] which formed a part of some Grecian
-festivals (especially of the festivals of Dêmêtêr as well in
-Attica as in Paros, the native country of the poet), is only one
-amongst many new paths struck out by his inventive genius; whose
-exuberance astonishes us, when we consider that he takes his start
-from little more than the simple hexameter,[152] in which, too, he
-was a distinguished composer,—for even of the elegiac verse he is
-as likely to have been the inventor as Kallinus, just as he was
-the earliest popular and successful composer of table-songs, or
-Skolia, though Terpander may have originated some such before him.
-The entire loss of his poems, excepting some few fragments, enables
-us to recognize little more than one characteristic,—the intense
-personality which pervaded them, as well as that coarse, direct,
-and out-spoken license, which afterwards lent such terrible effect
-to the old comedy at Athens. His lampoons are said to have driven
-Lykambês, the father of Neobulê, to hang himself: the latter had been
-promised to Archilochus in marriage, but that promise was broken,
-and the poet assailed both father and daughter with every species of
-calumny.[153] In addition to this disappointment, he was poor, the
-son of a slave-mother, and an exile from his country, Paros, to the
-unpromising colony of Thasos. The desultory notices respecting him
-betray a state of suffering combined with loose conduct which vented
-itself sometimes in complaint, sometimes in libellous assault; and
-he was at last slain by some whom his muse had thus exasperated.
-His extraordinary poetical genius finds but one voice of encomium
-throughout antiquity. His triumphal song to Hêraklês was still
-popularly sung by the victors at Olympia, near two centuries after
-his death, in the days of Pindar; but that majestic and complimentary
-poet at once denounces the malignity, and attests the retributive
-suffering, of the great Parian iambist.[154]
-
- [151] Homer, Hymn. ad Cererem. 202; Hesychius, v. Γεφυρὶς;
- Herodot. v, 83; Diodor. v, 4. There were various gods at whose
- festivals scurrility (τωθασμὸς) was a consecrated practice,
- seemingly different festivals in different places (Aristot.
- Politic. vii, 15, 8).
-
- The reader will understand better what this consecrated
- scurrility means by comparing the description of a modern
- traveller in the kingdom of Naples (Tour through the Southern
- Provinces of the Kingdom of Naples, by Mr. Keppel Craven, London,
- 1821, ch. xv, p. 287):—
-
- “I returned to Gerace (the site of the ancient Epizephyrian
- Lokri) by one of those moonlights which are known only in these
- latitudes, and which no pen or pencil can portray. My path lay
- along some cornfields, in which the natives were employed in the
- last labors of the harvest, and I was not a little surprised to
- find myself saluted with a volley of opprobrious epithets and
- abusive language, uttered in the most threatening voice, and
- accompanied with the most insulting gestures. This extraordinary
- custom is of the most remote antiquity, and is observed towards
- all strangers during the harvest and vintage seasons; those
- who are apprized of it will keep their temper as well as their
- presence of mind, as the loss of either would only serve as a
- signal for still louder invectives, and prolong a contest in
- which success would be as hopeless as undesirable.”
-
- [152] The chief evidence for the rhythmical and metrical changes
- introduced by Archilochus is to be found in the 28th chapter of
- Plutarch, De Musicâ, pp. 1140-1141, in words very difficult to
- understand completely. See Ulrici, Geschichte der Hellenisch.
- Poesie, vol. ii, p. 381.
-
- The epigram ascribed to Theokritus (No. 18 in Gaisford’s
- Poetæ Minores) shows that the poet had before him hexameter
- compositions of Archilochus, as well as lyric:—
-
- ὡς ἐμμελὴς τ᾽ ἔγεντο κἀπιδέξιος
- ἐπεά τε ποιεῖν, πρὸς λύραν τ᾽ ἀείδειν
-
- See the article on Archilochus in Welcker’s Kleine Schriften,
- pp. 71-82, which has the merit of showing that iambic bitterness
- is far from being the only marked feature in his character and
- genius.
-
- [153] See Meleager, Epigram. cxix, 3; Horat. Epist. 19, 23, and
- Epod. vi, 13 with the Scholiast; Ælian. V. H. x, 13.
-
- [154] Pindar, Pyth. ii, 55; Olymp. ix, 1, with the Scholia;
- Euripid. Hercul. Furens, 583-683. The eighteenth epigram of
- Theokritus (above alluded to) conveys a striking tribute of
- admiration to Archilochus: compare Quintilian, x, 1, and Liebel.
- ad Archilochi Fragmenta, sects. 5, 6, 7.
-
-Amidst the multifarious veins in which Archilochus displayed his
-genius, moralizing or gnomic poetry is not wanting, while his
-contemporary Simonides, of Amorgos, devotes the iambic metre
-especially to this destination, afterwards followed out by Solon and
-Theognis. But Kallinus, the earliest celebrated elegiac poet, so far
-as we can judge from his few fragments, employed the elegiac metre
-for exhortations of warlike patriotism; and the more ample remains
-which we possess of Tyrtæus are sermons in the same strain, preaching
-to the Spartans bravery against the foe, and unanimity as well as
-obedience to the law at home. They are patriotic effusions, called
-forth by the circumstances of the time, and sung by single voice,
-with accompaniment of the flute,[155] to those in whose bosoms the
-flame of courage was to be kindled. For though what we peruse is in
-verse, we are still in the tide of real and present life, and we
-must suppose ourselves rather listening to an orator addressing the
-citizens when danger or dissension is actually impending. It is only
-in the hands of Mimnermus that elegiac verse comes to be devoted
-to soft and amatory subjects. His few fragments present a vein of
-passive and tender sentiment, illustrated by appropriate matter of
-legend, such as would be cast into poetry in all ages, and quite
-different from the rhetoric of Kallinus and Tyrtæus.
-
- [155] Athenæus, xiv, p. 630.
-
-The poetical career of Alkman is again distinct from that of any
-of his above-mentioned contemporaries. Their compositions, besides
-hymns to the gods, were principally expressions of feeling intended
-to be sung by individuals, though sometimes also suited for the
-kômus, or band of festive volunteers, assembled on some occasion of
-common interest: those of Alkman were principally choric, intended
-for the song and accompanying dance of the chorus. He was a native
-of Sardis in Lydia, or at least his family were so; and he appears
-to have come in early life to Sparta, though his genius and mastery
-of the Greek language discountenance the story that he was brought
-over to Sparta as a slave. The most ancient arrangement of music at
-Sparta, generally ascribed to Terpander,[156] underwent considerable
-alteration, not only through the elegiac and anapæstic measures of
-Tyrtæus, but also through the Kretan Thalêtas and the Lydian Alkman.
-The harp, the instrument of Terpander, was rivalled and in part
-superseded by the flute or pipe, which had been recently rendered
-more effective in the hands of Olympus, Klonas, and Polymnêstus, and
-which gradually became, for compositions intended to raise strong
-emotion, the favorite instrument of the two,—being employed as
-accompaniment both to the elegies of Tyrtæus, and to the hyporchemata
-(songs, or hymns, combined with dancing) of Thalêtas; also, as the
-stimulus and regulator to the Spartan military march.[157]
-
- [156] Plutarch, De Musicâ, pp. 1134, 1135; Aristotle, De
- Lacedæmon. Republicâ, Fragm. xi, p. 132, ed. Neumann; Plutarch,
- De Serâ Numin. Vindict. c. 13, p. 558.
-
- [157] Thucyd. v, 69-70, with the Scholia,—μετὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν
- νόμων ... Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ βραδέως καὶ ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν νόμῳ
- ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ
- βαίνοιεν, καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτοῖς ἡ τάξις.
-
- Cicero, Tuscul. Qu. ii, 16. “Spartiatarum quorum procedit Mora ad
- tibiam, neque adhibetur ulla sine anapæstis pedibus hortatio.”
-
- The flute was also the instrument appropriated to Kômus, or the
- excited movement of half-intoxicated revellers (Hesiod. Scut.
- Hercul. 280; Athenæ. xiv, pp. 617-618).
-
-These elegies (as has been just remarked) were sung by one person,
-in the midst of an assembly of listeners, and there were doubtless
-other compositions intended for the individual voice. But in general
-such was not the character of music and poetry at Sparta; everything
-done there, both serious and recreative, was public and collective,
-so that the chorus and its performances received extraordinary
-development. It has been already stated, that the chorus usually,
-with song and dance combined, constituted an important part of
-divine service throughout all Greece, and was originally a public
-manifestation of the citizens generally,—a large proportion of
-them being actively engaged in it,[158] and receiving some training
-for the purpose as an ordinary branch of education. Neither the
-song nor the dance, under such conditions, could be otherwise than
-extremely simple. But in process of time, the performance at the
-chief festivals tended to become more elaborate, and to fall into
-the hands of persons expressly and professionally trained,—the mass
-of the citizens gradually ceasing to take active part, and being
-present merely as spectators. Such was the practice which grew up in
-most parts of Greece, and especially at Athens, where the dramatic
-chorus acquired its highest perfection. But the drama never found
-admission at Sparta, and the peculiarity of Spartan life tended much
-to keep up the popular chorus on its ancient footing. It formed, in
-fact, one element in that never-ceasing drill to which the Spartans
-were subject from their boyhood, and it served a purpose analogous
-to their military training, in accustoming them to simultaneous and
-regulated movement,—insomuch that the comparison between the chorus,
-especially in its Pyrrhic, or war-dances, and the military enomoty,
-seems to have been often dwelt upon.[159] In the singing of the
-solemn pæan in honor of Apollo, at the festival of the Hyakinthia,
-king Agesilaus was under the orders of the chorus-master, and sang
-in the place allotted to him;[160] while the whole body of Spartans
-without exception,—the old, the middle-aged, and the youth, the
-matrons, and the virgins,—were distributed in various choric
-companies,[161] and trained to harmony both of voice and motion,
-which was publicly exhibited at the solemnities of the Gymnopædiæ.
-The word _dancing_ must be understood in a larger sense than that
-in which it is now employed, and as comprising every variety of
-rhythmical, accentuated, conspiring movements, or gesticulations,
-or postures of the body, from the slowest to the quickest;[162]
-cheironomy, or the decorous and expressive movement of the hands,
-being especially practised.
-
- [158] Plato, Legg. vii, p. 803. θύοντα καὶ ᾅδοντα καὶ ὀρχούμενον,
- ὥστε τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἱλέως αὑτῷ παρασκευάζειν δυνατὸν εἶναι,
- etc.: compare p. 799; Maximus Tyr. Diss. xxxvii, 4: Aristophan.
- Ran. 950-975; Athenæus, xiv, p. 626; Polyb. iv, 30; Lucian, De
- Saltatione, c. 10, 11, 16, 31.
-
- Compare Aristotle (Problem xix, 15) about the primitive character
- and subsequent change of the chorus; and the last chapter of the
- eighth book of his Politica: also, a striking passage in Plutarch
- (De Cupidine Divitiarum, c. 8, p. 527) about the transformation
- of the Dionysiac festival at Chæroneia from simplicity to
- costliness.
-
- [159] Athenæus, xiv, p. 628; Suidas, vol. iii, p. 715, ed.
- Kuster; Plutarch, Instituta Laconica, c. 32,—κωμῳδίας καὶ
- τραγῳδίας οὐκ ἠκρόωντο, ὅπως μήτε ἐν σπουδῇ, μήτε ἐν παιδίᾳ,
- ἀκούωσι τῶν ἀντιλεγόντων τοῖς νόμοις,—which exactly corresponds
- with the ethical view implied in the alleged conversation between
- Solon and Thespis (Plutarch, Solon, c. 29: see above, ch. xi,
- vol. ii, p. 195), and with Plato, Legg. vii, p. 817.
-
- [160] Xenophon, Agesilaus ii, 17. οἴκαδε ἀπελθὼν εἰς τὰ Ὑακίνθια,
- ὅπου ἐτάχθη ὑπὸ τοῦ χοροποιοῦ, τὸν παιᾶνα τῷ θεῷ συνεπετέλει.
-
- [161] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 14, 16, 21: Athenæus, xiv, pp.
- 631-632, xv, p. 678; Xenophon, Hellen. vi, 4, 15; De Republic.
- Lacedæm. ix, 5; Pindar, Hyporchemata, Fragm. 78, ed. Bergk.
-
- Λάκαινα μὲν παρθένων ἀγέλα.
-
- Also, Alkman, Fragm. 13, ed. Bergk; Antigon. Caryst. Hist. Mirab.
- c. 27.
-
- [162] How extensively pantomimic the ancient orchêsis was, may be
- seen by the example in Xenophon, Symposion, vii, 5, ix, 3-6, and
- Plutarch, Symposion, ix, 15, 2: see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der
- gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, ch. 29.
-
- “Sane ut in religionibus saltaretur, hæc ratio est: quod nullam
- majores nostri partem corporis esse voluerunt, quæ non sentiret
- religionem: nam cantus ad animum, saltatio ad mobilitatem
- corporis pertinet.” (Servius ad Virgil. Eclog. v, 73.)
-
-We see thus that both at Sparta and in Krête (which approached in
-respect to publicity of individual life most nearly to Sparta),
-the choric aptitudes and manifestations occupied a larger space
-than in any other Grecian city. And as a certain degree of musical
-and rhythmical variety was essential to meet this want,[163] while
-music was never taught to Spartan citizens individually,—we farther
-understand how strangers like Terpander, Polymnêstus, Thalêtas,
-Tyrtæus, Alkman, etc., were not only received, but acquired great
-influence at Sparta, in spite of the preponderant spirit of jealous
-seclusion in the Spartan character. All these masters appear to
-have been effective in their own special vocation,—the training of
-the chorus,—to which they imparted new rhythmical action, and for
-which they composed new music. But Alkman did this, and something
-more; he possessed the genius of a poet, and his compositions were
-read afterwards with pleasure by those who could not hear them
-sung or see them danced. In the little of his poems which remains,
-we recognize that variety of rhythm and metre for which he was
-celebrated. In this respect he (together with the Kretan Thalêtas,
-who is said to have introduced a more vehement style both of music
-and dance, with the Kretic and Pæonic rhythm, into Sparta[164])
-surpassed Archilochus, and prepared the way for the complicated
-choric movements of Stesichorus and Pindar: some of the fragments,
-too, manifest that fresh outpouring of individual sentiment and
-emotion which constitutes so much of the charm of popular poetry.
-Besides his touching address in old age to the Spartan virgins, over
-whose song and dance he had been accustomed to preside.—he is not
-afraid to speak of his hearty appetite, satisfied with simple food
-and relishing a bowl of warm broth at the winter tropic.[165] And
-he has attached to the spring an epithet, which comes home to the
-real feelings of a poor country more than those captivating pictures
-which abound in verse, ancient as well as modern: he calls it “the
-season of short fare,”—the crop of the previous year being then
-nearly consumed, the husbandman is compelled to pinch himself until
-his new harvest comes in.[166] Those who recollect that in earlier
-periods of our history, and in all countries where there is little
-accumulated stock, an exorbitant difference is often experienced in
-the price of corn before and after the harvest, will feel the justice
-of Alkman’s description.
-
- [163] Aristot. Politic. viii, 4, 6. Οἱ Λάκωνες—~οὐ μανθάνοντες
- ὅμως~ δύνανται κρίνειν ὀρθῶς, ὥς φασι, τὰ χρηστὰ καὶ τὰ μὴ τῶν
- μέλων.
-
- [164] Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 340. Οἷοί τε Κρητῶν παιήονες, etc.: see
- Boeckh. De Metris Pindari, ii, 7, p. 143; Ephorus ap. Strabo, x,
- p. 480: Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1142.
-
- Respecting Thalêtas, and the gradual alterations in the character
- of music at Sparta. Hoeckh has given much instructive matter
- (Kreta. vol. iii, pp. 340-377). Respecting Nymphæus of Kydonia,
- whom Ælian (V. II. xii, 50) puts in juxtaposition with Thalêtas
- and Terpander, nothing is known.
-
- After what is called the second fashion of music (κατάστασις)
- had thus been introduced by Thalêtas and his contemporaries.—the
- first fashion being that of Terpander,—no farther innovations
- were allowed. The ephors employed violent means to prohibit the
- intended innovations of Phrynis and Timotheus, after the Persian
- war: see Plutarch Agis, c. 10.
-
- [165] Alkman. Fragm. 13-17. ed. Bergk, ὁ πάμφαγος Ἀλκμάν:
- compare Fr. 63. Aristides calls him ὁ τῶν παρθένων ἐπαινέτης καὶ
- σύμβουλος (Or. xlv, vol. ii, p. 40. Dindorf).
-
- Of the Partneneia of Alkman (songs, hymns, and dances, composed
- for a chorus of maidens) there were at least two books (Stephanus
- Byzant. v. Ἐρυσίχη). He was the earliest poet who acquired renown
- in this species of composition, afterwards much pursued by
- Pindar, Bacchylidês, and Simonidês of Keôs: see Welcker, Alkman.
- Fragment. p. 10.
-
- [166] Alkman, Frag. 64, ed. Bergk.
-
- Ὥρας δ᾽ ἐσῆκε τρεῖς, θέρος
- Καὶ χεῖμα κ᾽ ὠπώραν τρίταν·
- Καὶ τέτρατον τὸ ἦρ, ὅκα
- Σάλλει μὲν, ἐσθίειν δ᾽ ἄδαν
- Οὐκ ἐστί.
-
-Judging from these and from a few other fragments of this poet,
-Alkman appears to have combined the life and exciting vigor of
-Archilochus in the song properly so called, sung by himself
-individually,—with a larger knowledge of musical and rhythmical
-effect in regard to the choric performance. He composed in the
-Laconian dialect,—a variety of the Doric with some intermixture of
-Æolisms. And it was from him, jointly with those other composers who
-figured at Sparta during the century after Terpander, as well as
-from the simultaneous development of the choric muse[167] in Argos,
-Sikyôn, Arcadia, and other parts of Peloponnesus, that the Doric
-dialect acquired permanent footing in Greece, as the only proper
-dialect for choric compositions. Continued by Stesichorus and Pindar,
-this habit passed even to the Attic dramatists, whose choric songs
-are thus in a great measure Doric, while their dialogue is Attic. At
-Sparta, as well as in other parts of Peloponnesus,[168] the musical
-and rhythmical style appears to have been fixed by Alkman and his
-contemporaries, and to have been tenaciously maintained, for two or
-three centuries, with little or no innovation; the more so, as the
-flute-players at Sparta formed an hereditary profession, who followed
-the routine of their fathers.[169]
-
- [167] Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 9, p. 1134. About the dialect of
- Alkman, see Ahrens, De Dialecto Æolicâ, sects. 2, 4; about his
- different metres, Welcker, Alkman. Fragm. pp. 10-12.
-
- [168] Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 32, p. 1142, c. 37, p. 1144;
- Athenæus, xiv, p. 632. In Krête, also, the popularity of the
- primitive musical composers was maintained, though along with the
- innovator Timotheus: see Inscription No. 3053, ap. Boeckh, Corp.
- Ins.
-
- [169] Herodot. vi, 60. They were probably a γένος with an heroic
- progenitor, like the heralds, to whom the historian compares
- them.
-
-Alkman was the last poet who addressed himself to the popular chorus.
-Both Arion and Stesichorus composed for a body of trained men, with
-a degree of variety and involution such as could not be attained
-by a mere fraction of the people. The primitive dithyrambus was a
-round choric dance and song in honor of Dionysus,[170] common to
-Naxos, Thebes, and seemingly to many other places, at the Dionysiac
-festival,—a spontaneous effusion of drunken men in the hour of
-revelry, wherein the poet Archilochus, “with the thunder of wine full
-upon his mind,” had often taken the chief part.[171] Its exciting
-character approached to the worship of the Great Mother in Asia,
-and stood in contrast with the solemn and stately pæan addressed to
-Apollo. Arion introduced into it an alteration such as Archilochus
-had himself brought about in the scurrilous iambus. He converted it
-into an elaborate composition in honor of the god, sung and danced
-by a chorus of fifty persons, not only sober, but trained with great
-strictness; though its rhythm and movements, and its equipment in
-the character of satyrs, presented more or less an imitation of
-the primitive license. Born at Methymna in Lesbos, Arion appears
-as a harper, singer, and composer, much favored by Periander at
-Corinth, in which city he first “composed, denominated, and taught
-the dithyramb,” earlier than any one known to Herodotus.[172] He did
-not, however, remain permanently there, but travelled from city to
-city, exhibiting at the festivals for money,—especially to Sicilian
-and Italian Greece, where he acquired large gains. We may here again
-remark how the poets as well as the festivals served to promote a
-sentiment of unity among the dispersed Greeks. Such transfer of the
-dithyramb, from the field of spontaneous nature into the garden of
-art,[173] constitutes the first stage in the refinement of Dionysiac
-worship; which will hereafter be found still farther exalted in the
-form of the Attic drama.
-
- [170] Pindar, Fragm. 44, ed. Bergk: Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp.
- xiii, 25; Proclus, Chrestomathia, c. 12-14. ad calc. Hephæst.
- Gaisf. p. 382: compare W. M. Schmidt, In Dithyrambum Poetarumque
- Dithyrambicorum Reliquias, pp. 171-183 (Berlin, 1845).
-
- [171] Archiloch. Fragm. 72, ed. Bergk.
-
- Ὡς Διωνύσου ἄνακτος καλὸν ἐξάρξαι μέλος
- Οἶδα διθύραμβον, οἴνῳ ξυγκεραυνωθεὶς φρένας.
-
- The old oracle quoted in Demosthen. cont. Meidiam, about the
- Dionysia at Athens, enjoins—Διονύσῳ δημοτελῆ ἱερὰ τελεῖν, ~καὶ
- κρατῆρα κεράσαι~, καὶ χοροὺς ἱστάναι.
-
- [172] Herodot. i, 23; Suidas, v. Ἀρίων; Pindar, Olymp. xiii, 25.
-
- [173] Aristot. Poetic. c. 6, ἐγέννησαν τὴν ποίησιν ἐκ τῶν
- αὐτοσχεδιασμάτων; again, to the same effect, _ibid._ c. 9.
-
-The date of Arion seems about 600 B. C., shortly after Alkman:
-that of Stesichorus is a few years later. To the latter the Greek
-chorus owed a high degree of improvement, and in particular the
-last finished distribution of its performance into the strophê, the
-antistrophê, and the epôdus: the turn, the return, and the rest,—the
-rhythm and metre of the song during each strophê corresponded with
-that during the antistrophê, but was varied during the epôdus,
-and again varied during the following strophês. Until this time
-the song had been monostrophic, consisting of nothing more than
-one uniform stanza, repeated from the beginning to the end of the
-composition;[174] so that we may easily see how vast was the new
-complication and difficulty introduced by Stesichorus,—not less
-for the performers than for the composer, himself at that time
-the teacher and trainer of performers. Both this poet and his
-contemporary the flute-player Sakadas of Argos,—who gained the prize
-at the first three Pythian games founded after the Sacred War,—seem
-to have surpassed their predecessors in the breadth of subject which
-they embraced, borrowing from the inexhaustible province of ancient
-legend, and expanding the choric song into a well-sustained epical
-narrative.[175] Indeed, these Pythian games opened a new career to
-musical composers just at the time when Sparta began to be closed
-against musical novelties.
-
- [174] Alkman slightly departed from this rule: in one of his
- compositions of fourteen strophês, the last seven were in a
- different metre from the first seven (Hephæstion, c. xv, p. 134,
- Gaisf.; Hermann, Elementa Doctrin. Metricæ, c. xvii, sect. 595).
- Ἀλκμανικὴ καινοτομία καὶ Στησιχόρειος (Plutarch, De Musicâ, p.
- 1135).
-
- [175] Pausanias, vi, 14, 4; x, 7, 3. Sakadas, as well as
- Stesichorus, composed an Ἰλίου πέρσις (Athenæus, xiii, p. 609).
-
- “Stesichorum (observes Quintilian, x, 1) quam sit ingenio
- validus, materiæ quoque ostendunt, maxima bella et clarissimos
- canentem duces, et epici carminis onera lyrâ sustinentem. Reddit
- enim personis in agendo simul loquendoque debitam dignitatem: ac
- si tenuisset modum, videtur æmulari proximus Homerum potuisse:
- sed redundat, atque effunditur: quod, ut est reprehendendum, ita
- copiæ vitium est.”
-
- Simonidês of Keôs (Frag. 19. ed. Bergk) puts Homer and
- Stesichorus together: see the epigram of Antipater in the
- Anthologia, t. i, p. 328, ed. Jacobs, and Dio Chrysostom. Or. 55,
- vol. ii, p. 284, Reisk. Compare Kleine, Stesichori Fragment. pp.
- 30-34 (Berlin 1828), and O. Müller, History of the Literature of
- Ancient Greece, ch. xiv, sect. 5.
-
- The musical composers of Argos are affirmed by Herodotus to have
- been the most renowned in Greece, half a century after Sakadas
- (Her. iii, 131).
-
-Alkæus and Sappho, both natives of Lesbos, appear about
-contemporaries with Arion, B. C. 610-580. Of their once celebrated
-lyric compositions, scarcely anything remains. But the criticisms
-which are preserved on both of them place them in strong contrast
-with Alkman, who lived and composed under the more restrictive
-atmosphere of Sparta,—and in considerable analogy with the turbulent
-vehemence of Archilochus,[176] though without his intense private
-malignity. Both composed for their own local audience, and in their
-own Lesbian Æolic dialect; not because there was any peculiar fitness
-in that dialect to express their vein of sentiment, but because
-it was more familiar to their hearers. Sappho herself boasts of
-the preëminence of the Lesbian bards;[177] and the celebrity of
-Terpander, Perikleitas, and Arion, permits us to suppose that there
-may have been before her many popular bards in the island who did
-not attain to Hellenic celebrity. Alkæus included in his songs the
-fiercest bursts of political feeling, the stirring alternations of
-war and exile, and all the ardent relish of a susceptible man for
-wine and love.[178] The love-song seems to have formed the principal
-theme of Sappho, who, however, also composed odes or songs[179] on
-a great variety of other subjects, serious as well as satirical,
-and is said farther to have first employed the Mixolydian mode
-in music. It displays the tendency of the age to metrical and
-rhythmical novelty, that Alkæus and Sappho are said to have each
-invented the peculiar stanza, well-known under their respective
-names,—combinations of the dactyl, trochee, and iambus, analogous
-to the asynartetic verses of Archilochus; they by no means confined
-themselves, however, to Alkaic and Sapphic metre. Both the one
-and the other composed hymns to the gods; indeed, this is a theme
-common to all the lyric and choric poets, whatever may be their
-peculiarities in other ways. Most of their compositions were songs
-for the single voice, not for the chorus. The poetry of Alkæus is the
-more worthy of note, as it is the earliest instance of the employment
-of the Muse in actual political warfare, and shows the increased hold
-which that motive was acquiring on the Grecian mind.
-
- [176] Horat. Epistol. i, 19, 23.
-
- [177] Sappho, Fragm. 93, ed. Bergk. See also Plehn, Lesbiaca,
- pp. 145-165. Respecting the poetesses, two or three of whom were
- noted, contemporary with Sappho, see Ulrici, Gesch. der Hellen.
- Poesie, vol. ii, p. 370.
-
- [178] Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. v, 82; Horat. Od. i, 32, ii, 13;
- Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 28; the striking passage in Plutarch,
- Symposion iii, 1, 3, ap. Bergk. Fragm. 42. In the view of
- Dionysius, the Æolic dialect of Alkæus and Sappho diminished the
- value of their compositions: the Æolic accent, analogous to the
- Latin, and acknowledging scarcely any oxyton words, must have
- rendered them much less agreeable in recitation or song.
-
- [179] See Plutarch, De Music. p. 1136; Dionys. Hal. de Comp.
- Verb. c. 23, p. 173, Reisk, and some striking passages of
- Himerius, in respect to Sappho (i, 4, 16, 19; Maximus Tyrius,
- Dissert. xxiv, 7-9), and the encomium of the critical Dionysius
- (De Compos. Verborum, c. 23, p. 173).
-
- The author of the Parian marble adopts, as one of his
- chronological epochs (Epoch 37), the flight of Sappho, or exile,
- from Mitylênê to Sicily somewhere between 604-596 B. C. There
- probably was something remarkable which induced him to single out
- this event; but we do not know what, nor can we trust the hints
- suggested by Ovid (Heroid. xv, 51).
-
- Nine books of Sappho’s songs were collected by the later literary
- Greeks, arranged chiefly according to the metres (C. F. Neue,
- Sapphonis Fragm. p. 11, Berlin 1827). There were ten books of the
- songs of Alkæus (Athenæus, xi, p. 481), and both Aristophanês
- (Grammaticus) and Aristarchus published editions of them.
- (Hephæstion, c. xv, p. 134, Gaisf.) Dikæarchus wrote a commentary
- upon his songs (Athenæus, xi, p. 461).
-
-The gnomic poets, or moralists in verse, approach by the tone of
-their sentiments more to the nature of prose. They begin with
-Simonidês of Amorgos or of Samos, the contemporary of Archilochus:
-indeed, the latter himself devoted some compositions to the
-illustrative fable, which had not been unknown even to Hesiod. In
-the remains of Simonidês of Amorgos we trace nothing relative to the
-man personally, though he too, like Archilochus, is said to have had
-an individual enemy, Orodœkidês, whose character was aspersed by his
-muse.[180] His only considerable poem extant is devoted to a survey
-of the characters of women, in iambic verse, and by way of comparison
-with various animals,—the mare, the ass, the bee, etc. It follows
-out the Hesiodic vein respecting the social and economical mischief
-usually caused by women, with some few honorable exceptions; but the
-poet shows a much larger range of observation and illustration, if we
-compare him with his predecessor Hesiod; moreover, his illustrations
-come fresh from life and reality. We find in this early iambist the
-same sympathy with industry and its due rewards which are observable
-in Hesiod, together with a still more melancholy sense of the
-uncertainty of human events.
-
- [180] Welcker, Simonidis Amorgini Iambi qui supersunt, p. 9.
-
-Of Solon and Theognis I have spoken in former chapters. They
-reproduce in part the moralizing vein of Simonidês, though with
-a strong admixture of personal feeling and a direct application
-to passing events. The mixture of political with social morality,
-which we find in both, marks their more advanced age: Solon bears
-in this respect the same relation to Simonidês, as his contemporary
-Alkæus bears to Archilochus. His poems, as far as we can judge
-by the fragments remaining, appear to have been short occasional
-effusions,—with the exception of the epic poem respecting the
-submerged island of Atlantis; which he began towards the close of
-his life, but never finished. They are elegiac, trimeter iambic, and
-trochaic tetrameter: in his hands certainly neither of these metres
-can be said to have any special or separate character. If the poems
-of Solon are short, those of Theognis are much shorter, and are
-indeed so much broken (as they stand in our present collection), as
-to read like separate epigrams or bursts of feeling, which the poet
-had not taken the trouble to incorporate in any definite scheme or
-series. They form a singular mixture of maxim and passion,—of general
-precept with personal affection towards the youth Kyrnus,—which
-surprises us if tried by the standard of literary composition, but
-which seems a very genuine manifestation of an impoverished exile’s
-complaints and restlessness. What remains to us of Phokylidês,
-another of the gnomic poets nearly contemporary with Solon, is
-nothing more than a few maxims in verse,—couplets, with the name of
-the author in several cases embodied in them.
-
-Amidst all the variety of rhythmical and metrical innovations which
-have been enumerated, the ancient epic continued to be recited by the
-rhapsodes as before, and some new epical compositions were added to
-the existing stock: Eugammon of Kyrênê, about the 50th Olympiad, (580
-B. C.) appears to be the last of the series. At Athens, especially,
-both Solon and Peisistratus manifested great solicitude as well
-for the recitation as for the correct preservation of the Iliad.
-Perhaps its popularity may have been diminished by the competition
-of so much lyric and choric poetry, more showy and striking in
-its accompaniments, as well as more changeful in its rhythmical
-character. Whatever secondary effect, however, this newer species
-of poetry may have derived from such helps, its primary effect
-was produced by real intellectual or poetical excellence,—by the
-thoughts, sentiment, and expression, not by the accompaniment. For
-a long time the musical composer and the poet continued generally
-to be one and the same person; and besides those who have acquired
-sufficient distinction to reach posterity, we cannot doubt that there
-were many known only to their own contemporaries. But with all of
-them the instrument and the melody constituted only the inferior part
-of that which was known by the name of music,—altogether subordinate
-to the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn.”[181] Exactness
-and variety of rhythmical pronunciation gave to the latter their
-full effect upon a delicate ear; but such pleasure of the ear was
-ancillary to the emotion of mind arising out of the sense conveyed.
-Complaints are made by the poets, even so early as 500 B. C., that
-the accompaniment was becoming too prominent. But it was not until
-the age of the comic poet Aristophanês, towards the end of the fifth
-century B. C., that the primitive relation between the instrumental
-accompaniment and the words was really reversed,—and loud were the
-complaints to which it gave rise;[182] the performance of the flute
-or harp then became more elaborate, showy, and overpowering, while
-the words were so put together as to show off the player’s execution.
-I notice briefly this subsequent revolution for the purpose of
-setting forth, by contrast, the truly intellectual character of the
-original lyric and choric poetry of Greece; and of showing how much
-the vague sentiment arising from mere musical sound was lost in the
-more definite emotion, and in the more lasting and reproductive
-combinations, generated by poetical meaning.
-
- [181] Aristophan. Nubes, 536.
-
- Ἀλλ᾽ αὑτῇ καὶ τοῖς ἔπεσιν πιστεύουσ᾽ ἐλήλυθεν.
-
- [182] See Pratinas ap. Athenæum, xiv, p. 617, also p. 636, and
- the striking fragment of the lost comic poet Pherekratês, in
- Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1141, containing the bitter remonstrance
- of _Music_ (Μουσικὴ) against the wrong which she had suffered
- from the dithyrambist Melanippidês: compare also Aristophanês,
- Nubes, 951-972; Athenæus, xiv, p. 617; Horat. Art. Poetic. 205;
- and W. M. Schmidt, Diatribê in Dithyrambum, ch. viii, pp. 250-265.
-
- Τὸ σοβαρὸν καὶ περιττὸν—the character of the newer music
- (Plutarch, Agis, c. 10)—as contrasted with τὸ σεμνὸν καὶ
- ἀπερίεργον of the old music (Plutarch, De Musicâ, _ut sup._):
- ostentation and affected display, against seriousness and
- simplicity. It is by no means certain that these reproaches
- against the more recent music of the Greeks were well founded;
- we may well be rendered mistrustful of their accuracy when we
- hear similar remarks and contrasts advanced with regard to the
- music of our last three centuries. The character of Greek poetry
- certainly tended to degenerate after Euripidês.
-
-The name and poetry of Solon, and the short maxims, or sayings,
-of Phokylidês, conduct us to the mention of the Seven Wise Men of
-Greece. Solon was himself one of the seven, and most if not all
-of them were poets, or composers in verse.[183] To most of them
-is ascribed also an abundance of pithy repartees, together with
-one short saying, or maxim, peculiar to each, serving as a sort of
-distinctive motto;[184] indeed, the test of an accomplished man
-about this time was his talent for singing or reciting poetry, and
-for making smart and ready answers. Respecting this constellation
-of wise men,—who in the next century of Grecian history, when
-philosophy came to be a matter of discussion and argumentation,
-were spoken of with great eulogy,—all the statements are confused,
-in part even contradictory. Neither the number, nor the names, are
-given by all authors alike. Dikæarchus numbered ten, Hermippus
-seventeen: the names of Solon the Athenian, Thalês the Milesian,
-Pittakus the Mitylenean, and Bias the Prienean, were comprised in
-all the lists,—and the remaining names as given by Plato[185] were,
-Kleobulus of Lindus in Rhodes, Myson of Chênæ, and Cheilon of Sparta.
-By others, however, the names are differently stated: nor can we
-certainly distribute among them the sayings, or mottoes, upon which
-in later days the Amphiktyons conferred the honor of inscription
-in the Delphian temple: Know thyself,—Nothing too much,—Know thy
-opportunity,—Suretyship is the precursor of ruin. Bias is praised
-as an excellent judge, and Myson was declared by the Delphian
-oracle to be the most discreet man among the Greeks, according to
-the testimony of the satirical poet Hippônax. This is the oldest
-testimony (540 B. C.) which can be produced in favor of any of the
-seven; but Kleobulus of Lindus, far from being universally extolled,
-is pronounced by the poet Simonidês to be a fool.[186] Dikæarchus,
-however, justly observed, that these seven or ten persons were not
-wise men, or philosophers, in the sense which those words bore in his
-day, but persons of practical discernment in reference to man and
-society,[187]—of the same turn of mind as their contemporary the
-fabulist Æsop, though not employing the same mode of illustration.
-Their appearance forms an epoch in Grecian history, inasmuch as
-they are the first persons who ever acquired an Hellenic reputation
-grounded on mental competency apart from poetical genius or effect,—a
-proof that political and social prudence was beginning to be
-appreciated and admired on its own account. Solon, Pittakus, Bias,
-and Thalês, were all men of influence—the first two even men of
-ascendency,[188]—in their respective cities. Kleobulus was despot
-of Lindus, and Periander (by some numbered among the seven) of
-Corinth. Thalês stands distinguished as the earliest name in physical
-philosophy, with which the other contemporary wise men are not said
-to have meddled; their celebrity rests upon moral, social, and
-political wisdom exclusively, which came into greater honor as the
-ethical feeling of the Greeks improved and as their experience became
-enlarged.
-
- [183] Bias of Priênê composed a poem of two thousand verses,
- on the condition of Ionia (Diogen. Laërt. i, 85), from which,
- perhaps, Herodotus may have derived, either directly or
- indirectly, the judicious advice which he ascribes to that
- philosopher on the occasion of the first Persian conquest of
- Ionia (Herod. i, 170).
-
- Not merely Xenophanês the philosopher (Diogen. Laërt. viii, 36,
- ix, 20), but long after him Parmenidês and Empedoklês, composed
- in verse.
-
- [184] See the account given by Herodotus (vi, 128-129) of the
- way in which Kleisthenês of Sikyon tested the comparative
- education (παίδευσις) of the various suitors who came to woo
- his daughter,—οἱ δὲ μνήστηρες ἔριν εἶχον ἀμφί τε μουσικῇ καὶ τῷ
- λεγομένῳ ἐς τὸ μέσον.
-
- [185] Plato, Protagoras, c. 28, p. 343.
-
- [186] Hippônax, Fragm. 77, 34, ed. Bergk—καὶ δικάσσασθαι Βίαντος
- τοῦ Πριηνέος κρείττων.
-
- ... Καὶ Μύσων, ὃν ὡς πολλὼν
- Ἀνεῖπεν ἀνδρῶν σωφρονέστατον πάντων.
-
- Simonidês. Fr. 6, ed. Bergk—μωροῦ φωτὸς ἅδε βουλά. Diogen. Laërt.
- i, 6, 2.
-
- Simonidês treats Pittakus with more respect, though questioning
- an opinion delivered by him (Fragm. 8, ed. Bergk; Plato,
- Protagoras, c. 26, p. 339).
-
- [187] Dikæarchus ap. Diogen. Laërt. i. 40. συνετοὺς καὶ
- νομοθετικοὺς δεινότητα πολιτικὴν καὶ δραστήριον σύνεσιν.
- Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 2.
-
- About the story of the tripod, which is said to have gone the
- round of these Seven Wise Men, see Menage ad Diogen. Laërt. i,
- 28, p. 17.
-
- [188] Cicero, De Republ. i, 7; Plutarch, in Delph. p. 385;
- Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griechischen Litteratur, vol. i, sect.
- 66, not. 3.
-
-In these celebrated names we have social philosophy in its early
-and infantine state,—in the shape of homely sayings or admonitions,
-either supposed to be self-evident, or to rest upon some great
-authority divine or human, but neither accompanied by reasons nor
-recognizing any appeal to inquiry and discussion as the proper
-test of their rectitude. From such unsuspecting acquiescence,
-the sentiment to which these admonitions owe their force, we are
-partially liberated even in the poet Simonidês of Keôs, who (as
-before alluded to) severely criticizes the song of Kleobulus as well
-as its author. The half-century which followed the age of Simonidês
-(the interval between about 480-430 B. C.) broke down that sentiment
-more and more, by familiarizing the public with argumentative
-controversy in the public assembly, the popular judicature, and even
-on the dramatic stage. And the increased self-working of the Grecian
-mind, thus created, manifested itself in Sokratês, who laid open all
-ethical and social doctrines to the scrutiny of reason, and who first
-awakened among his countrymen that love of dialectics which never
-left them,—an analytical interest in the mental process of inquiring
-out, verifying, proving, and expounding truth. To this capital item
-of human progress, secured through the Greeks—and through them
-only—to mankind generally, our attention will be called at a later
-period of the history; at present, it is only mentioned in contrast
-with the naked, dogmatical laconism of the Seven Wise Men, and with
-the simple enforcement of the early poets: a state in which morality
-has a certain place in the feelings,—but no root, even among the
-superior minds, in the conscious exercise of reason.
-
-The interval between Archilochus and Solon (660-580 B. C.) seems,
-as has been remarked in my former volume, to be the period in which
-writing first came to be applied to Greek poems,—to the Homeric poems
-among the number; and shortly after the end of that period, commences
-the era of compositions without metre or prose. The philosopher
-Pherekydês of Syros, about 550 B. C., is called by some the earliest
-prose-writer; but no prose-writer for a considerable time afterwards
-acquired any celebrity,—seemingly none earlier than Hekatæus of
-Milêtus,[189] about 510-490 B. C.,—prose being a subordinate and
-ineffective species of composition, not always even perspicuous,
-but requiring no small practice before the power was acquired of
-rendering it interesting.[190] Down to the generation preceding
-Sokratês, the poets continued to be the grand leaders of the Greek
-mind: until then, nothing was taught to youth except to read, to
-remember, to recite musically and rhythmically, and to comprehend
-poetical composition. The comments of preceptors, addressed to their
-pupils, may probably have become fuller and more instructive, but the
-text still continued to be epic or lyric poetry. We must recollect
-also that these poets, so enunciated, were the best masters for
-acquiring a full command of the complicated accent and rhythm of
-the Greek language,—essential to an educated man in ancient times,
-and sure to be detected if not properly acquired. Not to mention
-the Choliambist Hippônax, who seems to have been possessed with the
-devil of Archilochus, and in part also with his genius,—Anakreon,
-Ibykus, Pindar, Bacchylidês, Simonidês, and the dramatists of Athens,
-continue the line of eminent poets without intermission. After the
-Persian war, the requirements of public speaking created a class of
-rhetorical teachers, while the gradual spread of physical philosophy
-widened the range of instruction: so that prose composition, for
-speech or for writing, occupied a larger and larger share of the
-attention of men, and was gradually wrought up to high perfection,
-such as we see for the first time in Herodotus. But before it became
-thus improved, and acquired that style which was the condition of
-wide-spread popularity, we may be sure that it had been silently
-used as a means of recording information; and that neither the large
-mass of geographical matter contained in the Periegêsis of Hekatæus,
-nor the map first prepared by his contemporary, Anaximander, could
-have been presented to the world, without the previous labors of
-unpretending prose writers, who set down the mere results of their
-own experience. The acquisition of prose-writing, commencing as it
-does about the age of Peisistratus, is not less remarkable as an
-evidence of past, than as a means of future, progress.
-
- [189] Pliny, H. N. vii, 57. Suidas v. Ἑκαταῖος.
-
- [190] H. Ritter (Geschichte der Philosophie, ch. vi, p. 243) has
- some good remarks on the difficulty and obscurity of the early
- Greek prose-writers, in reference to the darkness of expression
- and meaning universally charged upon the philosopher Herakleitus.
-
-Of that splendid genius in sculpture and architecture, which shone
-forth in Greece after the Persian invasion, the first lineaments
-only are discoverable between 600-560 B. C., in Corinth, Ægina,
-Samos, Chios, Ephesus, etc.,—enough, however, to give evidence
-of improvement and progress. Glaukus of Chios is said to have
-discovered the art of welding iron, and Rhœkus, or his son Theodôrus
-of Samos, the art of casting copper or brass in a mould: both these
-discoveries, as far as can be made out, appear to date a little
-before 600 B. C.[191] The primitive memorial, erected in honor of
-a god, did not even pretend to be an image, but was often nothing
-more than a pillar, a board, a shapeless stone, a post, etc., fixed
-so as to mark and consecrate the locality, and receiving from the
-neighborhood respectful care and decoration, as well as worship.
-Sometimes there was a real statue, though of the rudest character,
-carved in wood; and the families of carvers,—who, from father to
-son, exercised this profession, represented in Attica by the name of
-Dædalus, and in the Ægina by the name of Smilis,—adhered long, with
-strict exactness, to the consecrated type of each particular god.
-Gradually, the wish grew up to change the material, as well as to
-correct the rudeness, of such primitive idols; sometimes the original
-wood was retained as the material, but covered in part with ivory
-or gold,—in other cases, marble or metal was substituted. Dipœnos
-and Skyllis of Krête acquired renown as workers in marble, about
-the 50th Olympiad (580 B. C.), and from them downwards a series of
-names may be traced, more or less distinguished; moreover, it seems
-about the same period that the earliest temple-offerings, in works
-of art, properly so called, commence,—the golden statue of Zeus, and
-the large carved chest, dedicated by the Kypselids of Corinth at
-Olympia.[192] The pious associations, however, connected with the
-old type were so strong, that the hand of the artist was greatly
-restrained in dealing with statues of the gods. It was in statues of
-men, especially in those of the victors at Olympia and other sacred
-games, that genuine ideas of beauty were first aimed at and in part
-attained, from whence they passed afterwards to the statues of the
-gods. Such statues of the athletes seem to commence somewhere between
-Olympiad 53-58, (568-548 B. C.).
-
- [191] See O. Müller, Archäologie der Kunst, sect. 61; Sillig.
- Catalogus Artificium,—under Theodôrus and Teleklês.
-
- Thiersch (Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, pp. 182-190, 2nd edit.)
- places Rhœkus near the beginning of the recorded Olympiads;
- and supposes two artists named Theodôrus, one the grandson of
- the other; but this seems to me not sustained by any adequate
- authority (for the loose chronology of Pliny about the Samian
- school of artists is not more trustworthy than about the
- Chian school,—compare xxxv, 12, and xxxvi, 3), and, moreover,
- intrinsically improbable. Herodotus (i, 51) speaks of “_the_
- Samian Theodôrus,” and seems to have known only one person so
- called: Diodôrus (i, 98) and Pausanias (x, 38, 3) give different
- accounts of Theodôrus, but the positive evidence does not enable
- us to verify the genealogies either of Thiersch or O. Müller.
- Herodotus (iv, 152) mentions the Ἡραῖον at Samos in connection
- with events near Olymp. 37; but this does not prove that the
- great temple which he himself saw, a century and a half later,
- had been begun before Olymp. 37, as Thiersch would infer. The
- statement of O. Müller, that this temple was begun in Olymp. 35,
- is not authenticated (Arch. der Kunst. sect. 53).
-
- [192] Pausanias tells us distinctly that this chest was dedicated
- at Olympia by the Kypselids, descendants of Kypselus; and this
- seems credible enough. But he also tells us that this was the
- identical chest in which the infant Kypselus had been concealed,
- believing the story as told in Herodotus (v, 92). In this latter
- belief I cannot go along with him, nor do I think that there is
- any evidence for believing the chest to have been of more ancient
- date than the persons who dedicated it,—in spite of the opinions
- of O. Müller and Thiersch to the contrary (O. Müller, Archäol.
- der Kunst, sect. 57; Thiersch, Epochen der Griechischen Kunst, p.
- 169, 2nd edit.: Pausan. v, 17, 2).
-
-Nor is it until the same interval of time (between 600-550 B.
-C.) that we find any traces of these architectural monuments, by
-which the more important cities in Greece afterwards attracted
-to themselves so much renown. The two greatest temples in Greece
-known to Herodotus were, the Artemision at Ephesus, and the Heræon
-at Samos: the former of these seems to have been commenced, by
-the Samian Theodorus, about 600 B. C.,—the latter, begun by the
-Samian Rhœkus, can hardly be traced to any higher antiquity. The
-first attempts to decorate Athens by such additions proceeded from
-Peisistratus and his sons, near the same time. As far as we can
-judge, too, in the absence of all direct evidence, the temples of
-Pæstum in Italy and Selinus in Sicily seem to fall in this same
-century. Of painting, during these early centuries, nothing can
-be affirmed; it never at any time reached the same perfection as
-sculpture, and we may presume that its years of infancy were at least
-equally rude.
-
-The immense development of Grecian art subsequently, and the great
-perfection of Grecian artists, are facts of great importance in the
-history of the human race. And in regard to the Greeks themselves,
-they not only acted powerfully on the taste of the people, but were
-also valuable indirectly as the common boast of Hellenism, and
-as supplying one bond of fraternal sympathy as well as of mutual
-pride, among its widely-dispersed sections. It is the paucity and
-weakness of these bonds which renders the history of Greece, prior
-to 560 B. C., little better than a series of parallel, but isolated
-threads, each attached to a separate city; and that increased range
-of joint Hellenic feeling and action, upon which we shall presently
-enter, though arising doubtless in great measure from new and common
-dangers threatening many cities at once,—also springs in part from
-those other causes which have been enumerated in this chapter as
-acting on the Grecian mind. It proceeds from the stimulus applied to
-all the common feelings in religion, art, and recreation,—from the
-gradual formation of national festivals, appealing in various ways
-to tastes and sentiments which animated every Hellenic bosom,—from
-the inspirations of men of genius, poets, musicians, sculptors,
-architects, who supplied more or less in every Grecian city,
-education for the youth, training for the chorus, and ornament for
-the locality,—from the gradual expansion of science, philosophy, and
-rhetoric, during the coming period of this history, which rendered
-one city the intellectual capital of Greece, and brought to Isokratês
-and Plato pupils from the most distant parts of the Grecian world.
-It was this fund of common tastes, tendencies, and aptitudes, which
-caused the social atoms of Hellas to gravitate towards each other,
-and which enabled the Greeks to become something better and greater
-than an aggregate of petty disunited communities like the Thracians
-or Phrygians. And the creation of such common, extra-political
-Hellenism, is the most interesting phenomenon which the historian has
-to point out in the early period now under our notice. He is called
-upon to dwell upon it the more forcibly, because the modern reader
-has generally no idea of national union without political union,—an
-association foreign to the Greek mind. Strange as it may seem to find
-a song-writer put forward as an active instrument of union among
-his fellow-Hellens, it is not the less true, that those poets, whom
-we have briefly passed in review, by enriching the common language,
-and by circulating from town to town either in person or in their
-compositions, contributed to fan the flame of Pan-Hellenic patriotism
-at a time when there were few circumstances to coöperate with them,
-and when the causes tending to perpetuate isolation seemed in the
-ascendant.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXX.
-
-GRECIAN AFFAIRS DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS AT
-ATHENS.
-
-
-We now arrive at what may be called the second period of Grecian
-history, beginning with the rule of Peisistratus at Athens and of
-Crœsus in Lydia.
-
-It has been already stated that Peisistratus made himself despot
-of Athens in 560 B. C.: he died in 527 B. C., and was succeeded by
-his son Hippias, who was deposed and expelled in 510 B. C., thus
-making an entire space of fifty years between the first exaltation of
-the father and the final expulsion of the son. These chronological
-points are settled on good evidence: but the thirty-three years
-covered by the reign of Peisistratus are interrupted by two periods
-of exile,—one of them lasting not less than ten years,—the other,
-five years. And the exact place of the years of exile, being nowhere
-laid down upon authority, has been differently determined by the
-conjectures of chronologers.[193] Partly from this half-known
-chronology, partly from a very scanty collection of facts, the
-history of the half-century now before us can only be given very
-imperfectly: nor can we wonder at our ignorance, when we find that
-even among the Athenians themselves, only a century afterwards,
-statements the most incorrect and contradictory respecting the
-Peisistratids were in circulation, as Thucydidês distinctly, and
-somewhat reproachfully, acquaints us.
-
- [193] Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast. Hellen. vol. ii, Appendix, c. 2,
- p. 201) has stated and discussed the different opinions on the
- chronology of Peisistratus and his sons.
-
-More than thirty years had now elapsed since the promulgation of the
-Solonian constitution, whereby the annual senate of Four Hundred had
-been created, and the public assembly (preceded in its action as
-well as aided and regulated by this senate) invested with a power of
-exacting responsibility from the magistrates after their year of
-office. The seeds of the subsequent democracy had thus been sown,
-and no doubt the administration of the archons had been practically
-softened by it; but nothing in the nature of a democratical sentiment
-had yet been created. A hundred years hence, we shall find that
-sentiment unanimous and potent among the enterprising masses of
-Athens and Peiræeus, and shall be called upon to listen to loud
-complaints of the difficulty of dealing with “that angry, waspish,
-intractable little old man, Dêmus of Pnyx,”—so Aristophanes[194]
-calls the Athenian people to their faces, with a freedom which shows
-that _he_ at least counted on their good temper. But between 560-510
-B. C. the people are as passive in respect to political rights and
-securities as the most strenuous enemy of democracy could desire,
-and the government is transferred from hand to hand by bargains
-and cross-changes between two or three powerful men,[195] at the
-head of partisans who echo their voices, espouse their personal
-quarrels, and draw the sword at their command. It was this ancient
-constitution—Athens as it stood before the Athenian democracy—which
-the Macedonian Antipater professed to restore in 322 B. C., when he
-caused the majority of the poorer citizens to be excluded altogether
-from the political franchise.[196]
-
- [194]
-
- Ἀγροῖκος ὀργὴν, κυαμοτρὼξ, ἀκράχολος
- Δῆμος Πνυκίτης, δύσκολον γερόντιον.
-
- Aristoph. Equit. 41.
-
- I need hardly mention that the Pnyx was the place in which the
- Athenian public assemblies were held.
-
- [195] Plutarch (De Herodot. Malign. c. 15, p. 858) is angry
- with Herodotus for imparting so petty and personal a character
- to the dissensions between the Alkmæônids and Peisistratus; his
- severe remarks in that treatise, however, tend almost always to
- strengthen rather than to weaken the credibility of the historian.
-
- [196] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 27, ἀπεκρίνατο φιλίαν ἔσεσθαι τοῖς
- Ἀθηναίοις καὶ ξυμμαχίαν, ἐκδοῦσι μὲν τοὺς περὶ Δημοσθένην
- καὶ Ὑπερείδην, πολιτευομένοις δὲ τὴν ~πάτριον~ ἀπὸ τιμήματος
- πολιτείαν, δεξαμένοις δὲ φρουρὰν εἰς τὴν Μουνυχίαν, ἔτι δὲ
- χρήματα τοῦ πολέμου καὶ ζημίαν προσεκτίσασιν. Compare Diodor.
- xviii, 18.
-
- Twelve thousand of the poorer citizens were disfranchised by this
- change (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 28).
-
-By the stratagem recounted in a former chapter,[197] Peisistratus
-had obtained from the public assembly a guard which he had employed
-to acquire forcible possession of the acropolis. He thus became
-master of the administration; but he employed his power honorably and
-well, not disturbing the existing forms farther than was necessary
-to insure to himself full mastery. Nevertheless, we may see by
-the verses of Solon[198] (the only contemporary evidence which we
-possess), that the prevalent sentiment was by no means favorable to
-his recent proceeding, and that there was in many minds a strong
-feeling both of terror and aversion, which presently manifested
-itself in the armed coalition of his two rivals,—Megaklês at the head
-of the Parali, or inhabitants of the sea-board, and Lykurgus at the
-head of those in the neighboring plain. As the conjunction of the two
-formed a force too powerful for Peisistratus to withstand, he was
-driven into exile, after no long possession of his despotism.
-
- [197] See the preceding volume, ch. xi, p. 155.
-
- [198] Solon. Fragm. 10, ed. Bergk.—
-
- Εἰ δὲ πεπόνθατε λυγρὰ δι᾽ ὑμετέρην κακότητα,
- Μήτι θεοῖς τούτων μοῖραν ἐπαμφέρετε, etc.
-
-But the time came, how soon we cannot tell, when the two rivals
-who had expelled him quarrelled, and Megaklês made propositions to
-Peisistratus, inviting him to resume the sovereignty, promising his
-own aid, and stipulating that Peisistratus should marry his daughter.
-The conditions being accepted, a plan was laid between the two new
-allies for carrying them into effect, by a novel stratagem,—since
-the simulated wounds and pretence of personal danger were not likely
-to be played off a second time with success. The two conspirators
-clothed a stately woman, six feet high, named Phyê, in the panoply
-and costume of Athênê,—surrounded her with the processional
-accompaniments belonging to the goddess,—and placed her in a chariot
-with Peisistratus by her side. In this guise the exiled despot and
-his adherents approached the city and drove up to the acropolis,
-preceded by heralds, who cried aloud to the people: “Athenians,
-receive ye cordially Peisistratus, whom Athênê has honored above
-all other men, and is now bringing back into her own acropolis.”
-The people in the city received the reputed goddess with implicit
-belief and demonstrations of worship, while among the country cantons
-the report quickly spread that Athênê had appeared in person to
-restore Peisistratus, who thus found himself, without even a show of
-resistance, in possession of the acropolis and of the government.
-His own party, united with that of Megaklês, were powerful enough
-to maintain him, when he had once acquired possession; and probably
-all, except the leaders, sincerely believed in the epiphany of the
-goddess, which came to be divulged as having been a deception, only
-after Peisistratus and Megaklês had quarrelled.[199]
-
- [199] Herodot. i, 60, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἄστεϊ πειθόμενοι τὴν γυναῖκα
- εἶναι ~αὐτὴν τὴν θεὸν~, προσεύχοντό τε τὴν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐδέκοντο
- τὸν Πεισίστρατον. A later statement (Athenæus, xiii, p. 609)
- represents Phyê to have become afterwards the wife of Hipparchus.
-
- Of this remarkable story, not the least remarkable part is the
- criticism with which Herodotus himself accompanies it. He treats
- it as a proceeding infinitely silly (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, ὡς ἐγὼ
- εὐρίσκω, μακρῷ); he cannot conceive, how Greeks, so much superior
- to barbarians,—and even Athenians, the cleverest of all the
- Greeks,—could have fallen into such a trap. To him the story was
- told as a deception from the beginning, and he did not perhaps
- take pains to put himself into the state of feeling of those
- original spectators who saw the chariot approach, without any
- warning or preconceived suspicion. But even allowing for this,
- his criticism brings to our view the alteration and enlargement
- which had taken place in the Greek mind during the century
- between Peisistratus and Periklês. Doubtless, neither the latter
- nor any of his contemporaries could have succeeded in a similar
- trick.
-
- The fact, and the criticism upon it, now before us are remarkably
- illustrated by an analogous case recounted in a previous chapter,
- (vol. ii, p. 421, chap. viii.) Nearly at the same period as this
- stratagem of Peisistratus, the Lacedæmonians and the Argeians
- agreed to decide, by a combat of three hundred select champions,
- the dispute between them as to the territory of Kynuria. The
- combat actually took place, and the heroism of Othryades, sole
- Spartan survivor, has been already recounted. In the eleventh
- year of the Peloponnesian war, shortly after or near upon the
- period when we may conceive the history of Herodotus to have
- been finished, the Argeians concluded a treaty with Lacedæmon,
- and introduced as a clause into it the liberty of reviving their
- pretensions to Kynuria, and of again deciding the dispute by a
- combat of select champions. To the Lacedæmonians of that time
- this appeared extreme folly,—the very proceeding which had been
- actually resorted to a century before. Here is another case, in
- which the change in the point of view, and the increased positive
- tendencies in the Greek mind, are brought to our notice not less
- forcibly than by the criticism of Herodotus upon Phyê-Athênê.
-
- Istrus (one of the Atthido-graphers of the third century B.
- C.) and Antiklês published books respecting the personal
- manifestations or epiphanies of the gods,—Ἀπόλλωνος ἐπιφανεῖαι:
- see Istri Fragment. 33-37, ed. Didot. If Peisistratus and
- Megaklês had never quarrelled, their joint stratagem might have
- continued to pass for a genuine epiphany, and might have been
- included as such in the work of Istrus. I will add, that the real
- presence of the gods, at the festivals celebrated in their honor,
- was an idea continually brought before the minds of the Greeks.
-
- The Athenians fully believed the epiphany of the god Pan to
- Pheidippidês the courier, on his march to Sparta, a little before
- the battle of Marathôn (Herodot. vi, 105, καὶ ταῦτα Ἀθηναῖοι
- πιστεύσαντες εἶναι ἀληθέα), and even Herodotus himself does
- not controvert it, though he relaxes the positive character
- of history so far as to add—“as Pheidippidês himself said and
- recounted publicly to the Athenians.” His informants in this case
- were doubtless sincere believers; whereas, in the case of Phyê,
- the story was told to him at first as a fabrication.
-
- At Gela in Sicily, seemingly not long before this restoration
- of Peisistratus, Têlinês (ancestor of the despot Gelon) had
- brought back some exiles to Gela, “without any armed force, but
- merely through the sacred ceremonies and appurtenances of the
- subterranean goddesses,”—ἔχων οὐδεμίην ἀνδρῶν δύναμιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἱρὰ
- τουτέων τῶν θεῶν—τούτοισι δ᾽ ὦν πίσυνος ἐὼν, κατήγαγε (Herodot.
- vii, 153). Herodotus does not tell us the details which he
- had heard of the manner in which this restoration at Gela was
- brought about; but his general language intimates, that they were
- remarkable details, and they might have illustrated the story of
- Phyê Athênê.
-
-The daughter of Megaklês, according to agreement, quickly became
-the wife of Peisistratus, but she bore him no children; and it
-became known that her husband, having already adult sons by a former
-marriage, and considering that the Kylonian curse rested upon all
-the Alkmæônid family, did not intend that she should become a
-mother.[200] Megaklês was so incensed at this behavior, that he not
-only renounced his alliance with Peisistratus, but even made his
-peace with the third party, the adherents of Lykurgus,—and assumed so
-menacing an attitude, that the despot was obliged to evacuate Attica.
-He retired to Eretria in Eubœa, where he remained no less than ten
-years; but a considerable portion of that time was employed in making
-preparations for a forcible return, and he seems to have exercised,
-even while in exile, a degree of influence much exceeding that of
-a private man. He lent valuable aid to Lygdamis of Naxos,[201] in
-constituting himself despot of that island, and he possessed, we
-know not how, the means of rendering valuable service to different
-cities, Thebes in particular. They repaid him by large contributions
-of money to aid in his reëstablishment: mercenaries were hired from
-Argos, and the Naxian Lygdamis came himself, both with money and with
-troops. Thus equipped and aided, Peisistratus landed at Marathon in
-Attica. How the Athenian government had been conducted during his
-ten years’ absence, we do not know; but the leaders of it permitted
-him to remain undisturbed at Marathon, and to assemble his partisans
-both from the city and from the country: nor was it until he broke
-up from Marathon and had reached Pallênê on his way to Athens, that
-they took the field against him. Moreover, their conduct, even when
-the two armies were near together, must have been either extremely
-negligent or corrupt; for Peisistratus found means to attack them
-unprepared, routing their forces almost without resistance. In fact,
-the proceedings have altogether the air of a concerted betrayal: for
-the defeated troops, though unpursued, are said to have dispersed and
-returned to their homes forthwith, in obedience to the proclamation
-of Peisistratus, who marched on to Athens, and found himself a third
-time ruler.[202]
-
- [200] Herodot. i, 61. Peisistratus—ἐμίχθη οἱ οὐ κατὰ νόμον.
-
- [201] About Lygdamis, see Athenæus, viii, p. 348, and his
- citation from the lost work of Aristotle on the Grecian
- Πολιτεῖαι; also, Aristot. Politic. v, 5, 1.
-
- [202] Herodot. i, 63.
-
-On this third successful entry, he took vigorous precautions for
-rendering his seat permanent. The Alkmæônidæ and their immediate
-partisans retired into exile; but he seized the children of those
-who remained, and whose sentiments he suspected, as hostages for
-the behavior of their parents, and placed them in Naxos, under the
-care of Lygdamis. Moreover, he provided himself with a powerful
-body of Thracian mercenaries, paid by taxes levied upon the
-people:[203] nor did he omit to conciliate the favor of the gods
-by a purification of the sacred island of Delos: all the dead
-bodies which had been buried within sight of the temple of Apollo
-were exhumed and reinterred farther off. At this time the Delian
-festival,—attended by the Asiatic Ionians and the islanders, and
-with which Athens was of course peculiarly connected,—must have
-been beginning to decline from its pristine magnificence; for the
-subjugation of the continental Ionic cities by Cyrus had been already
-achieved, and the power of Samos, though increased under the despot
-Polykratês, seems to have increased at the expense and to the ruin
-of the smaller Ionic islands. From the same feelings, in part,
-which led to the purification of Delos,—partly as an act of party
-revenue,—Peisistratus caused the houses of the Alkmæônids to be
-levelled with the ground, and the bodies of the deceased members of
-that family to be disinterred and cast out of the country.[204]
-
- [203] Herodot. i, 64. ἐπικούροισί τε πολλοῖσι, καὶ χρημάτων
- συνόδοισι, τῶν μὲν αὐτόθεν, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ Στρύμονος ποτάμου
- προσιόντων.
-
- [204] Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis, c. 351.
-
-This third and last period of the rule of Peisistratus lasted several
-years, until his death in 527 B. C.: it is said to have been so
-mild in its character, that he once even suffered himself to be
-cited for trial before the Senate of Areopagus; yet as we know that
-he had to maintain a large body of Thracian mercenaries out of the
-funds of the people, we shall be inclined to construe this eulogium
-comparatively rather than positively. Thucydidês affirms that both
-he and his sons governed in a wise and virtuous spirit, levying
-from the people only an income-tax of five per cent.[205] This is
-high praise coming from such an authority, though it seems that
-we ought to make some allowance for the circumstance of Thucydidês
-being connected by descent with the Peisistratid family.[206] The
-judgment of Herodotus is also very favorable respecting Peisistratus;
-that of Aristotle favorable, yet qualified,—since he includes these
-despots among the list of those who undertook public and sacred works
-with the deliberate view of impoverishing as well as of occupying
-their subjects. This supposition is countenanced by the prodigious
-scale upon which the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens was begun
-by Peisistratus,—a scale much exceeding either the Parthenôn or
-the temple of Athênê Polias, both of which were erected in later
-times, when the means of Athens were decidedly larger,[207] and her
-disposition to demonstrative piety certainly no way diminished. It
-was left by him unfinished, nor was it ever completed until the Roman
-emperor Hadrian undertook the task. Moreover, Peisistratus introduced
-the greater Panathenaic festival, solemnized every four years, in the
-third Olympic year: the annual Panathenaic festival, henceforward
-called the Lesser, was still continued.
-
- [205] For the statement of Boeckh, Dr. Arnold, and Dr. Thirlwall,
- that Peisistratus had levied a tythe or tax of ten per cent.,
- and that his sons reduced it to the half, I find no sufficient
- warrant: certainly, the spurious letter of Peisistratus to Solon
- in Diogenes Laërtius (i, 53) ought not to be considered as
- proving anything. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, B. iii, c.
- 6 (i, 351 German); Dr. Arnold ad Thucyd. vi, 34; Dr. Thirlwall
- Hist. of Gr. ch. xi, pp. 72-74. Idomeneus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p.
- 533) considers the sons of Peisistratus to have indulged in
- pleasures to an extent more costly and oppressive to the people
- than their father. Nor do I think that there is sufficient
- authority to sustain the statement of Dr. Thirlwall (p. 68),
- “He (Peisistratus) possessed lands on the Strymon in Thrace,
- which yielded a large revenue.” Herodotus (i, 64) tells us that
- Peisistratus brought mercenary soldiers from the Strymon, but
- that he levied the money to pay them in Attica—ἐῤῥίζωσε τὴν
- τυραννίδα ἐπικούροισί τε πολλοῖσι, καὶ χρημάτων συνόδοισι, τῶν
- μὲν αὐτόθεν, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ Στρύμονος ποταμοῦ συνιόντων. It is,
- indeed, possible to construe this passage so as to refer both τῶν
- μὲν and τῶν δὲ to χρημάτων, which would signify that Peisistratus
- obtained his funds partly from the river Strymon, and thus serve
- as basis to the statement of Dr. Thirlwall. But it seems to me
- that the better way of construing the words is to refer τῶν μὲν
- to χρημάτων συνόδοισι, and τῶν δὲ to ἐπικούροισι,—treating both
- of them as genitives absolute. It is highly improbable that he
- should derive money from the Strymon: it is highly probable that
- his mercenaries came from thence.
-
- [206] Hermippus (ap. Marcellin. Vit. Thucyd. p. ix,) and the
- Scholiast on Thucyd. i, 20, affirm that Thucydidês was connected
- by relationship with the Peisistratidæ. His manner of speaking
- of them certainly lends countenance to the assertion; not merely
- as he twice notices their history, once briefly (i, 20) and
- again at considerable length (vi, 54-59), though it does not
- lie within the direct compass of his period,—but also as he so
- emphatically announces his own personal knowledge of their family
- relations,—Ὅτι δὲ πρεσβύτατος ὢν Ἱππίας ἦρξεν, ~εἰδὼς~ μὲν καὶ
- ἀκοῇ ἀκριβέστερον ἄλλων ἰσχυρίζομαι (vi, 55).
-
- Aristotle (Politic. v, 9, 21) mentions it as a report (φασι) that
- Peisistratus obeyed the summons to appear before the Areopagus;
- Plutarch adds that the person who had summoned him did not appear
- to bring the cause to trial (Vit. Solon, 31), which is not at all
- surprising: compare Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.
-
- [207] Aristot. Politic, v, 9, 4; Dikæarchus, Vita Græciæ, pp.
- 140-166, ed. Fuhr; Pausan. i, 18, 8.
-
-I have already noticed, at considerable length, the care which he
-bestowed in procuring full and correct copies of the Homeric poems,
-as well as in improving the recitation of them at the Panathenaic
-festival,—a proceeding for which we owe him much gratitude, but which
-has been shown to be erroneously interpreted by various critics. He
-probably also collected the works of other poets,—called by Aulus
-Gellius,[208] in language not well suited to the sixth century B.
-C., a library thrown open to the public; and the service which he
-thus rendered must have been highly valuable at a time when writing
-and reading were not widely extended. His son Hipparchus followed up
-the same taste, taking pleasure in the society of the most eminent
-poets of the day,[209]—Simonidês, Anakreon, and Lasus; not to mention
-the Athenian mystic Onomakritus, who, though not pretending to the
-gift of prophecy himself, passed for the proprietor and editor of
-the various prophecies ascribed to the ancient name of Musæus. The
-Peisistratids were well versed in these prophecies, and set great
-value upon them; but Onomakritus, being detected on one occasion
-in the act of interpolating the prophecies of Musæus, was banished
-by Hipparchus in consequence.[210] The statues of Hermês, erected
-by this prince or by his personal friends in various parts of
-Attica,[211] and inscribed with short moral sentences, are extolled
-by the author of the Platonic dialogue called Hipparchus, with an
-exaggeration which approaches to irony; but it is certain that
-both the sons of Peisistratus, as well as himself, were exact in
-fulfilling the religious obligations of the state, and ornamented the
-city in several ways, especially the public fountain Kallirrhoê. They
-are said to have maintained the preëxisting forms of law and justice,
-merely taking care always to keep themselves and their adherents in
-the effective offices of state, and in the full reality of power.
-They were, moreover, modest and popular in their personal demeanor,
-and charitable to the poor; yet one striking example occurs of
-unscrupulous enmity, in their murder of Kimôn, by night, through the
-agency of hired assassins.[212] There is good reason, however, for
-believing that the government both of Peisistratus and of his sons
-was in practice generally mild until after the death of Hipparchus
-by the hands of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn, after which event the
-surviving Hippias became alarmed, cruel, and oppressive during his
-last four years. And the harshness of this concluding period left
-upon the Athenian mind[213] that profound and imperishable hatred,
-against the dynasty generally, which Thucydidês attests,—though he
-labors to show that it was not deserved by Peisistratus, nor at first
-by Hippias.
-
- [208] Aul. Gell. N. A. vi, 17.
-
- [209] Herodot. vii, 6; Pseudo-Plato, Hipparchus, p. 229.
-
- [210] Herodot. v, 93, VI, 6. Ὀνομάκριτον, χρησμολόγον καὶ
- διαθέτην τῶν χρησμῶν τῶν Μουσαίου. See Pausan. i, 22, 7. Compare,
- about the literary tendencies of the Peisistratids, Nitzsch, De
- Historiâ Homeri, ch. 30, p. 168.
-
- [211] Philochor. Frag. 69, ed. Didot; Plato, Hipparch. p. 230.
-
- [212] Herodot. vi, 38-103; Theopomp. ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 533.
-
- [213] Thucyd. vi, 53; Pseudo-Plato, Hipparch. p. 230; Pausan. i,
- 23, 1.
-
-Peisistratus left three legitimate sons,—Hippias, Hipparchus, and
-Thessalus: the general belief at Athens among the contemporaries
-of Thucydidês was, that Hipparchus was the eldest of the three and
-had succeeded him; but the historian emphatically pronounces this
-to be a mistake, and certifies, upon his own responsibility, that
-Hippias was both eldest son and successor. Such an assurance from
-him, fortified by certain reasons in themselves not very conclusive,
-is sufficient ground for our belief,—the more so as Herodotus
-countenances the same version. But we are surprised at such a degree
-of historical carelessness in the Athenian public, and seemingly even
-in Plato,[214] about a matter both interesting and comparatively
-recent. In order to abate this surprise, and to explain how the name
-of Hipparchus came to supplant that of Hippias in the popular talk,
-Thucydidês recounts the memorable story of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn.
-
- [214] Thucyd. i, 20, about the general belief of the Athenian
- public in his time—Ἀθηναίων γοῦν τὸ πλῆθος οἴονται ὑφ᾽ Ἁρμοδίου
- καὶ Ἀριστογείτονος Ἵππαρχον τύραννον ὄντα ἀποθανεῖν, καὶ οὐκ
- ἴσασιν ὅτι Ἱππίας μὲν πρεσβύτατος ὢν ἦρχε τῶν Πεισιστράτου
- παιδῶν, etc.
-
- The Pseudo-Plato in the dialogue called Hipparchus adopts this
- belief, and the real Plato in his Symposion (c. 9, p. 182) seems
- to countenance it.
-
-Of these two Athenian citizens,[215] both belonging to the ancient
-gens called Gephyræi, the former was a beautiful youth, attached to
-the latter by a mutual friendship and devoted intimacy, which Grecian
-manners did not condemn. Hipparchus made repeated propositions to
-Harmodius, which were repelled, but which, on becoming known to
-Aristogeitôn, excited both his jealousy and his fears lest the
-disappointed suitor should employ force,—fears justified by the
-proceedings not unusual with Grecian despots,[216] and by the
-absence of all legal protection against outrage from such a quarter.
-Under these feelings, he began to look about, in the best way that
-he could, for some means of putting down the despotism. Meanwhile
-Hipparchus, though not entertaining any designs of violence, was so
-incensed at the refusal of Harmodius, that he could not be satisfied
-without doing something to insult or humiliate him. In order to
-conceal the motive from which the insult really proceeded, he
-offered it, not directly to Harmodius, but to his sister. He caused
-this young maiden to be one day summoned to take her station in a
-religious procession as one of the kanêphoræ, or basket carriers,
-according to the practice usual at Athens; but when she arrived at
-the place where her fellow-maidens were assembled, she was dismissed
-with scorn as unworthy of so respectable a function, and the summons
-addressed to her was disavowed.[217] An insult thus publicly offered
-filled Harmodius with indignation, and still farther exasperated the
-feelings of Aristogeitôn: both of them, resolving at all hazards to
-put an end to the despotism, concerted means for aggression with
-a few select associates. They awaited the festival of the Great
-Panathenæa, wherein the body of the citizens were accustomed to march
-up in armed procession, with spear and shield, to the acropolis;
-this being the only day on which an armed body could come together
-without suspicion. The conspirators appeared armed like the rest
-of the citizens, but carrying concealed daggers besides. Harmodius
-and Aristogeitôn undertook with their own hands to kill the two
-Peisistratids, while the rest promised to stand forward immediately
-for their protection against the foreign mercenaries; and though
-the whole number of persons engaged was small, they counted upon
-the spontaneous sympathies of the armed bystanders in an effort to
-regain their liberties, so soon as the blow should once be struck.
-The day of the festival having arrived, Hippias, with his foreign
-body-guard around him, was marshalling the armed citizens for
-procession, in the Kerameikus without the gates, when Harmodius and
-Aristogeitôn approached with concealed daggers to execute their
-purpose. On coming near, they were thunderstruck to behold one of
-their own fellow-conspirators talking familiarly with Hippias, who
-was of easy access to every man, and they immediately concluded that
-the plot was betrayed. Expecting to be seized, and wrought up to
-a state of desperation, they resolved at least not to die without
-having revenged themselves on Hipparchus, whom they found within the
-city gates near the chapel called the Leôkorion, and immediately
-slew him. His attendant guards killed Harmodius on the spot; while
-Aristogeitôn, rescued for the moment by the surrounding crowd, was
-afterwards taken, and perished in the tortures applied to make him
-disclose his accomplices.[218]
-
- [215] Herodot. v, 55-58. Harmodius is affirmed by Plutarch to
- have been of the deme Aphidnæ (Plutarch, Symposiacon, i, 10, p.
- 628).
-
- It is to be recollected that he died before the introduction
- of the Ten Tribes, and before the recognition of the demes as
- political elements in the commonwealth.
-
- [216] For the terrible effects produced by this fear of ὕβρις εἰς
- τὴν ἡλικίαν, see Plutarch, Kimon, 1; Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 17.
-
- [217] Thucyd. vi, 56. Τὸν δ᾽ οὖν Ἁρμόδιον ἀπαρνηθέντα τὴν
- πείρασιν, ὥσπερ διενοεῖτο, προυπηλάκισεν· ἀδελφὴν γὰρ αὐτοῦ,
- κόρην, ἐπαγγείλαντες ἥκειν κανοῦν οἴσουσαν ἐν πομπῇ τινι,
- ἀπήλασαν, λέγοντες οὐδὲ ἐπαγγεῖλαι ἀρχὴν, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀξίαν εἶναι.
-
- Dr. Arnold, in his note, supposes that this exclusion of the
- sister of Harmodius by the Peisistratids may have been founded on
- the circumstance that she belonged to the gens Gephyræi (Herodot.
- v, 57); her foreign blood, and her being in certain respects
- ἄτιμος, disqualified her (he thinks) from ministering to the
- worship of the gods of Athens.
-
- There is no positive reason to support the conjecture of Dr.
- Arnold, which seems, moreover, virtually discountenanced by the
- narrative of Thucydidês, who plainly describes the treatment
- of this young woman as a deliberate, preconcerted insult. Had
- there existed any assignable ground of exclusion, such as that
- which Dr. Arnold supposes, leading to the inference that the
- Peisistratids could not admit her without violating religious
- custom, Thucydidês would hardly have neglected to allude to
- it, for it would have lightened the insult; and indeed, on
- that supposition, the sending of the original summons might
- have been made to appear as an accidental mistake. I will add,
- that Thucydidês, though no way forfeiting his obligations to
- historical truth, is evidently not disposed to omit anything
- which can be truly said in favor of the Peisistratids.
-
- [218] Thucyd. vi, 58, οὐ ῥᾳδίως διετέθη: compare Polyæn. i, 22;
- Diodorus, Fragm. lib. x, p. 62, vol. iv, ed. Wess.; Justin, ii,
- 9. See, also, a good note of Dr. Thirlwall on the passage, Hist.
- of Gr. vol. ii, ch. xi, p. 77, 2nd ed. I agree with him, that we
- may fairly construe the indistinct phrase of Thucydidês by the
- more precise statements of later authors, who mention the torture.
-
-The news flew quickly to Hippias in the Kerameikus, who heard it
-earlier than the armed citizens near him, awaiting his order for the
-commencement of the procession. With extraordinary self-command,
-he took advantage of this precious instant of foreknowledge, and
-advanced towards them,—commanding them to drop their arms for a
-short time, and assemble on an adjoining ground. They unsuspectingly
-obeyed, and he immediately directed his guards to take possession of
-the vacant arms. He was now undisputed master, and enabled to seize
-the persons of all those citizens whom he mistrusted,—especially all
-those who had daggers about them, which it was not the practice to
-carry in the Panathenaic procession.
-
-Such is the memorable narrative of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn,
-peculiarly valuable inasmuch as it all comes from Thucydidês.[219]
-To possess great power,—to be above legal restraint,—to inspire
-extraordinary fear,—is a privilege so much coveted by the giants
-among mankind, that we may well take notice of those cases in which
-it brings misfortune even upon themselves. The fear inspired by
-Hipparchus,—of designs which he did not really entertain, but was
-likely to entertain, and competent to execute without hindrance,—was
-here the grand cause of his destruction.
-
- [219] Thucyd. i, 20, vi, 54-59; Herodot. v, 55, 56, vi, 123;
- Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 9.
-
-The conspiracy here detailed happened in 514 B. C., during the
-thirteenth year of the reign of Hippias,—which lasted four years
-longer, until 510 B. C. And these last four years, in the belief
-of the Athenian public, counted for his whole reign; nay, many of
-them made the still greater historical mistake of eliding these
-last four years altogether, and of supposing that the conspiracy of
-Harmodius and Aristogeitôn had deposed the Peisistratid government
-and liberated Athens. Both poets and philosophers shared this faith,
-which is distinctly put forth in the beautiful and popular Skolion
-or song on the subject: the two friends are there celebrated as
-the authors of liberty at Athens,—“they slew the despot and gave
-to Athens equal laws.”[220] So inestimable a present was alone
-sufficient to enshrine in the minds of the subsequent democracy
-those who had sold their lives to purchase it: and we must farther
-recollect that the intimate connection between the two, so repugnant
-to the modern reader, was regarded at Athens with sympathy,—so that
-the story took hold of the Athenian mind by the vein of romance
-conjointly with that of patriotism. Harmodius and Aristogeitôn were
-afterwards commemorated both as the winners and as the protomartyrs
-of Athenian liberty. Statues were erected in their honor shortly
-after the final expulsion of the Peisistratids; immunity from taxes
-and public burdens was granted to the descendants of their families;
-and the speaker who proposed the abolition of such immunities, at a
-time when the number had been abusively multiplied, made his only
-special exception in favor of this respected lineage.[221] And since
-the name of Hipparchus was universally notorious as the person slain,
-we discover how it was that he came to be considered by an uncritical
-public as the predominant member of the Peisistratid family,—the
-eldest son and successor of Peisistratus,—the reigning despot,—to the
-comparative neglect of Hippias. The same public probably cherished
-many other anecdotes,[222] not the less eagerly believed because
-they could not be authenticated, respecting this eventful period.
-
- [220] See the words of the song:—
-
- Ὅτι τὸν τύραννον κτανέτην
- Ἰσονόμους τ᾽ Αθήνας ἐποιησάτην—
-
- ap. Athenæum, xv, p. 691.
-
- The epigram of the Keian Simonidês, (Fragm. 132, ed. Bergk—ap.
- Hephæstion. c. 14, p. 26, ed. Gaisf.) implies a similar belief:
- also, the passages in Plato, Symposion, p. 182, in Aristot.
- Polit. v, 8, 21, and Arrian, Exped. Alex. iv, 10, 3.
-
- [221] Herodot. vi, 109; Demosthen. adv. Leptin. c. 27, p. 495;
- cont. Meidiam, c. 47, p. 569; and the oath prescribed in the
- Psephism of Demophantus, Andokidês, De Mysteriis, p. 13; Pliny,
- H. N. xxxiv, 4-8; Pausan. i, 8, 5; Plutarch, Aristeidês, 27.
-
- The statues were carried away from Athens by Xerxês, and restored
- to the Athenians by Alexander after his conquest of Persia
- (Arrian, Ex. Al. iii, 14, 16; Pliny, H. N. xxxiv, 4-8).
-
- [222] One of these stories may be seen in Justin, ii, 9,—who
- gives the name of Dioklês to Hipparchus,—“Diocles, alter ex
- filiis, per vim stupratâ virgine, a fratre puellæ interficitur.”
-
-Whatever may have been the moderation of Hippias before, indignation
-at the death of his brother, and fear for his own safety,[223] now
-induced him to drop it altogether. It is attested both by Thucydidês
-and Herodotus, and admits of no doubt, that his power was now
-employed harshly and cruelly,—that he put to death a considerable
-number of citizens. We find also a statement, noway improbable in
-itself, and affirmed both in Pausanias and in Plutarch,—inferior
-authorities, yet still in this case sufficiently credible,—that
-he caused Leæna, the mistress of Aristogeitôn, to be tortured to
-death, in order to extort from her a knowledge of the secrets and
-accomplices of the latter.[224] But as he could not but be sensible
-that this system of terrorism was full of peril to himself, so he
-looked out for shelter and support in case of being expelled from
-Athens; and with this view he sought to connect himself with Darius
-king of Persia,—a connection full of consequences to be hereafter
-developed. Æantidês, son of Hippoklus the despot of Lampsakus on
-the Hellespont, stood high at this time in the favor of the Persian
-monarch, which induced Hippias to give him his daughter Archedikê
-in marriage; no small honor to the Lampsakene, in the estimation of
-Thucydidês.[225] To explain how Hippias came to fix upon this town,
-however, it is necessary to say a few words on the foreign policy of
-the Peisistratids.
-
- [223] Ἡ γὰρ δειλία φονικώτατόν ἐστιν ἐν ταῖς τυραννίσιν—observes
- Plutarch, (Artaxerxês, c. 25).
-
- [224] Pausan. i, 23, 2: Plutarch, De Garrulitate, p. 897; Polyæn.
- viii, 45; Athenæus, xiii. p. 596.
-
- [225] We can hardly be mistaken in putting this interpretation on
- the words of Thucydidês—Ἀθηναῖος ὢν, Λαμψακηνῷ ἔδωκε (vi, 59).
-
- Some financial tricks and frauds are ascribed to Hippias by the
- author of the Pseudo-Aristotelian second book of the Œconomica
- (ii, 4). I place little reliance on the statements in this
- treatise respecting persons of early date, such as Kypselus or
- Hippias; in respect to facts of the subsequent period of Greece,
- between 450-300 B. C., the author’s means of information will
- doubtless render him a better witness.
-
-It has already been mentioned that the Athenians, even so far
-back as the days of the poet Alkæus, had occupied Sigeium in the
-Troad, and had there carried on war with the Mityleneans; so that
-their acquisitions in these regions date much before the time of
-Peisistratus. Owing probably to this circumstance, an application
-was made to them in the early part of his reign from the Dolonkian
-Thracians, inhabitants of the Chersonese on the opposite side of the
-Hellespont, for aid against their powerful neighbors the Absinthian
-tribe of Thracians; and opportunity was thus offered for sending out
-a colony to acquire this valuable peninsula for Athens. Peisistratus
-willingly entered into the scheme, and Miltiadês son of Kypselus, a
-noble Athenian, living impatiently under his despotism, was no less
-pleased to take the lead in executing it: his departure and that
-of other malcontents as founders of a colony suited the purpose of
-all parties. According to the narrative of Herodotus,—alike pious
-and picturesque,—and doubtless circulating as authentic at the
-annual games which the Chersonesites, even in his time, celebrated
-to the honor of their œkist,—it is the Delphian god who directs the
-scheme and singles out the individual. The chiefs of the distressed
-Dolonkians went to Delphi to crave assistance towards procuring
-Grecian colonists, and were directed to choose for their œkist the
-individual who should first show them hospitality on their quitting
-the temple. They departed and marched all along what was called the
-Sacred Road, through Phocis and Bœotia to Athens, without receiving
-a single hospitable invitation; at length they entered Athens, and
-passed by the house of Miltiadês, while he himself was sitting in
-front of it. Seeing men whose costume and arms marked them out as
-strangers, he invited them into his house and treated them kindly:
-they then apprized him that he was the man fixed upon by the oracle,
-and abjured him not to refuse his concurrence. After asking for
-himself personally the opinion of the oracle, and receiving an
-affirmative answer, he consented; sailing as œkist, at the head of a
-body of Athenian emigrants, to the Chersonese.[226]
-
- [226] Herodot. vi, 36-37.
-
-Having reached this peninsula, and having been constituted despot
-of the mixed Thracian and Athenian population, he lost no time in
-fortifying the narrow isthmus by a wall reaching all across from
-Kardia to Paktya, a distance of about four miles and a half; so that
-the Absinthian invaders were for the time effectually shut out,[227]
-though the protection was not permanently kept up. He also entered
-into a war with Lampsakus, on the Asiatic side of the strait, but was
-unfortunate enough to fall into an ambuscade and become a prisoner.
-Nothing preserved his life except the immediate interference of
-Crœsus king of Lydia, coupled with strenuous menaces addressed to
-the Lampsakenes, who found themselves compelled to release their
-prisoner; Miltiadês having acquired much favor with this prince, in
-what manner we are not told. He died childless some time afterwards,
-while his nephew Stesagoras, who succeeded him, perished by
-assassination, some time subsequent to the death of Peisistratus at
-Athens.[228]
-
- [227] Thus the Scythians broke into the Chersonese even
- during the government of Miltiadês son of Kimôn, nephew of
- Miltiadês the œkist, about forty years after the wall had been
- erected (Herodot. vi, 40). Again, Periklês reëstablished the
- cross-wall, on sending to the Chersonese a fresh band of one
- thousand Athenian settlers (Plutarch, Periklês, c. 19): lastly,
- Derkyllidas the Lacedæmonian built it anew, in consequence of
- loud complaints raised by the inhabitants of their defenceless
- condition,—about 397 B. C. (Xenophon. Hellen. iii, 2, 8-10). So
- imperfect, however, did the protection prove, that about half a
- century afterwards, during the first years of the conquests of
- Philip of Macedon, an idea was entertained of digging through
- the isthmus, and converting the peninsula into an island
- (Demosthenês, Philippic ii, 6, p. 92, and De Haloneso, c. 10, p.
- 86); an idea, however, never carried into effect.
-
- [228] Herodot. vi, 38, 39.
-
-The expedition of Miltiadês to the Chersonese must have occurred
-early after the first usurpation of Peisistratus, since even his
-imprisonment by the Lampsakenes happened before the ruin of Crœsus,
-(546 B. C.). But it was not till much later,—probably during the
-third and most powerful period of Peisistratus,—that the latter
-undertook his expedition against Sigeium in the Troad. This
-place appears to have fallen into the hands of the Mityleneans:
-Peisistratus retook it,[229] and placed there his illegitimate son
-Hegesistratus as despot. The Mityleneans may have been enfeebled
-at this time (somewhere between 537-527 B. C.) not only by the
-strides of Persian conquest on the mainland, but also by the ruinous
-defeat which they suffered from Polykratês and the Samians.[230]
-Hegesistratus maintained the place against various hostile attempts,
-throughout all the reign of Hippias, so that the Athenian possessions
-in those regions comprehended at this period both the Chersonese
-and Sigeium.[231] To the former of the two, Hippias sent out
-Miltiadês, nephew of the first œkist, as governor, after the death
-of his brother Stesagoras. The new governor found much discontent
-in the peninsula, but succeeded in subduing it by entrapping and
-imprisoning the principal men in each town. He farther took into his
-pay a regiment of five hundred mercenaries, and married Hegesipylê,
-daughter of the Thracian king Olorus.[232] It appears to have
-been about 515 B. C. that this second Miltiadês went out to the
-Chersonese.[233] He seems to have been obliged to quit it for a time,
-after the Scythian expedition of Darius, in consequence of having
-incurred the hostility of the Persians; but he was there from the
-beginning of the Ionic revolt until about 493 B. C., or two or three
-years before the battle of Marathon, on which occasion we shall find
-him acting commander of the Athenian army.
-
- [229] Herodot. v, 94. I have already said that I conceive this as
- a different war from that in which the poet Alkæus was engaged.
-
- [230] Herodot. iii, 39.
-
- [231] Herodot. vi, 104, 139, 140.
-
- [232] Herodot. vi, 39-103. Cornelius Nepos, in his Life of
- Miltiadês, confounds in one biography the adventures of two
- persons,—Miltiadês son of Kypselus, the œkist,—and Miltiadês son
- of Kimôn, the victor of Marathon,—the uncle and the nephew.
-
- [233] There is nothing that I know to mark the date except that
- it was earlier than the death of Hipparchus in 514 B. C., and
- also earlier than the expedition of Darius against the Scythians,
- about 516 B. C., in which expedition Miltiadês was engaged: see
- Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, and J. M. Schultz, Beitrag zu
- genaueren Zeitbestimmungen der Hellen. Geschichten von der 63sten
- bis zur 72sten Olympiade, p. 165, in the Kieler Philologische
- Studien 1841.
-
-Both the Chersonese and Sigeium, though Athenian possessions, were
-however now tributary and dependent on Persia. And it was to this
-quarter that Hippias, during his last years of alarm, looked for
-support in the event of being expelled from Athens: he calculated
-upon Sigeium as a shelter, and upon Æantidês, as well as Darius, as
-an ally. Neither the one nor the other failed him.
-
-The same circumstances which alarmed Hippias, and rendered his
-dominion in Attica at once more oppressive and more odious, tended
-of course to raise the hopes of his enemies, the Athenian exiles,
-with the powerful Alkmæônids at their head. Believing the favorable
-moment to be come, they even ventured upon an invasion of Attica, and
-occupied a post called Leipsydrion in the mountain range of Parnês,
-which separates Attica from Bœotia.[234] But their schemes altogether
-failed: Hippias defeated and drove them out of the country. His
-dominion now seemed confirmed, for the Lacedæmonians were on terms of
-intimate friendship with him; and Amyntas king of Macedon, as well as
-the Thessalians, were his allies. Yet the exiles whom he had beaten
-in the open field succeeded in an unexpected manœuvre, which, favored
-by circumstances, proved his ruin.
-
- [234] Herodot. v, 62. The unfortunate struggle at Leipsydrion
- became afterwards the theme of a popular song (Athenæus, xv,
- p. 695): see Hesychius, v. Λειψύδριον, and Aristotle, Fragm.
- Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, 37, ed. Neumann.
-
- If it be true that Alkibiadês, grandfather of the celebrated
- Alkibiadês, took part with Kleisthenês and the Alkmæonid exiles
- in this struggle (see Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 351), he
- must have been a mere youth.
-
-By an accident which had occurred in the year 548 B. C.,[235] the
-Delphian temple was set on fire and burnt. To repair this grave loss
-was an object of solicitude to all Greece; but the outlay required
-was exceedingly heavy, and it appears to have been long before the
-money could be collected. The Amphiktyons decreed that one-fourth
-of the cost should be borne by the Delphians themselves, who found
-themselves so heavily taxed by this assessment, that they sent envoys
-throughout all Greece to collect subscriptions in aid, and received,
-among other donations, from the Greek settlers in Egypt twenty minæ,
-besides a large present of alum from the Egyptian king Amasis: their
-munificent benefactor Crœsus fell a victim to the Persians in 546
-B. C., so that his treasure was no longer open to them. The total
-sum required was three hundred talents (equal probably to about one
-hundred and fifteen thousand pounds sterling),[236]—a prodigious
-amount to be collected from the dispersed Grecian cities, who
-acknowledged no common sovereign authority, and among whom the
-proportion reasonable to ask from each was so difficult to determine
-with satisfaction to all parties. At length, however, the money
-was collected, and the Amphiktyons were in a situation to make a
-contract for the building of the temple. The Alkmæônids, who had
-been in exile ever since the third and final acquisition of power by
-Peisistratus, took the contract; and in executing it, they not only
-performed the work in the best manner, but even went much beyond the
-terms stipulated; employing Parian marble for the frontage, where
-the material prescribed to them was coarse stone.[237] As was before
-remarked in the case of Peisistratus when he was in banishment, we
-are surprised to find exiles whose property had been confiscated so
-amply furnished with money,—unless we are to suppose that Kleisthenês
-the Alkmæônid, grandson of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês,[238] inherited
-through his mother wealth independent of Attica, and deposited it in
-the temple of the Samian Hêrê. But the fact is unquestionable, and
-they gained signal reputation throughout the Hellenic world for their
-liberal performance of so important an enterprise. That the erection
-took considerable time, we cannot doubt. It seems to have been
-finished, as far as we can conjecture, about a year or two after
-the death of Hipparchus,—512 B. C.,—more than thirty years after the
-conflagration.
-
- [235] Pausan. x, 5, 5.
-
- [236] Herodot. i, 50, ii, 180. I have taken the three hundred
- talents of Herodotus as being Æginæan talents, which are to
- Attic talents in the ratio of 5 : 3. The Inscriptions prove that
- the accounts of the temple were kept by the Amphiktyons on the
- Æginæan scale of money: see Corpus Inscrip. Boeckh, No. 1688, and
- Boeckh, Metrologie, vii, 4.
-
- [237] Herodot. vi, 62. The words of the historian would seem
- to imply that they only began to think of this scheme of
- building the temple after the defeat of Leipsydrion, and a year
- or two before the expulsion of Hippias; a supposition quite
- inadmissible, since the temple must have taken some years in
- building.
-
- The loose and prejudiced statement in Philochorus, affirming that
- the Peisistratids caused the Delphian temple to be burnt, and
- also that they were at last deposed by the victorious arm of the
- Alkmæônids (Philochori Fragment. 70, ed. Didot) makes us feel the
- value of Herodotus and Thucydidês as authorities.
-
- [238] Herodot. vi, 128; Cicero, De Legg. ii, 16. The deposit here
- mentioned by Cicero, which may very probably have been recorded
- in an inscription in the temple, must have been made before the
- time of the Persian conquest of Samos,—indeed, before the death
- of Polykratês in 522 B. C., after which period the island fell at
- once into a precarious situation, and very soon afterwards into
- the greatest calamities.
-
-To the Delphians, especially, the rebuilding of their temple on
-so superior a scale was the most essential of all services, and
-their gratitude towards the Alkmæônids was proportionally great.
-Partly through such a feeling, partly through pecuniary presents,
-Kleisthenês was thus enabled to work the oracle for political
-purposes, and to call forth the powerful arm of Sparta against
-Hippias. Whenever any Spartan presented himself to consult the
-oracle, either on private or public business, the answer of the
-priestess was always in one strain, “Athens must be liberated.”
-The constant repetition of this mandate at length extorted from
-the piety of the Lacedæmonians a reluctant compliance. Reverence
-for the god overcame their strong feeling of friendship towards
-the Peisistratids, and Anchimolius son of Aster was despatched by
-sea to Athens, at the head of a Spartan force to expel them. On
-landing at Phalêrum, however, he found them already forewarned and
-prepared, as well as farther strengthened by one thousand horse
-specially demanded from their allies in Thessaly. Upon the plain of
-Phalêrum, this latter force was found peculiarly effective, so that
-the division of Anchimolius was driven back to their ships with great
-loss and he himself slain.[239] The defeated armament had probably
-been small, and its repulse only provoked the Lacedæmonians to send a
-larger, under the command of their king Kleomenês in person, who on
-this occasion marched into Attica by land. On reaching the plain of
-Athens, he was assailed by the Thessalian horse, but repelled them
-in so gallant a style, that they at once rode off and returned to
-their native country; abandoning their allies with a faithlessness
-not unfrequent in the Thessalian character. Kleomenês marched on to
-Athens without farther resistance, and found himself, together with
-the Alkmæônids and the malcontent Athenians generally, in possession
-of the town. At that time there was no fortification except around
-the acropolis, into which Hippias retired with his mercenaries and
-the citizens most faithful to him; having taken care to provision it
-well beforehand, so that it was not less secure against famine than
-against assault. He might have defied the besieging force, which was
-noway prepared for a long blockade; but, not altogether confiding in
-his position, he tried to send his children by stealth out of the
-country; and in this proceeding the children were taken prisoners. To
-procure their restoration, Hippias consented to all that was demanded
-of him, and withdrew from Attica to Sigeium in the Troad within the
-space of five days.
-
- [239] Herodot. v, 62, 63.
-
-Thus fell the Peisistratid dynasty in 510 B. C., fifty years after
-the first usurpation of its founder.[240] It was put down through the
-aid of foreigners,[241] and those foreigners, too, wishing well to
-it in their hearts, though hostile from a mistaken feeling of divine
-injunction. Yet both the circumstances of its fall, and the course
-of events which followed, conspire to show that it possessed few
-attached friends in the country, and that the expulsion of Hippias
-was welcomed unanimously by the vast majority of Athenians. His
-family and chief partisans would accompany him into exile,—probably
-as a matter of course, without requiring any formal sentence of
-condemnation; and an altar was erected in the acropolis, with a
-column hard by, commemorating both the past iniquity of the dethroned
-dynasty, and the names of all its members.[242]
-
- [240] Herodot. v, 64, 65.
-
- [241] Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.
-
- [242] Thucyd. vi, 55. ὡς ὅ τε βωμὸς σημαίνει, καὶ ἡ στήλη περὶ
- τῆς τῶν τυράννων ἀδικίας, ἡ ἐν τῇ Ἀθηναίων ἀκροπόλει σταθεῖσα.
-
- Dr. Thirlwall, after mentioning the departure of Hippias,
- proceeds as follows: “After his departure many severe measures
- were taken against his adherents, who appear to have been for a
- long time afterwards a formidable party. They were punished or
- repressed, some by death, others by exile or by the loss of their
- political privileges. The family of the tyrants was condemned to
- perpetual banishment, and appears to have been excepted from the
- most comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in later times.”
- (Hist. of Gr. ch. xi, vol. ii, p. 81.)
-
- I cannot but think that Dr. Thirlwall has here been misled by
- insufficient authority. He refers to the oration of Andokidês
- de Mysteriis, sects. 106 and 78 (sect. 106 coincides in part
- with ch. 18, in the ed. of Dobree). An attentive reading of
- it will show that it is utterly unworthy of credit in regard
- to matters anterior to the speaker by one generation or more.
- The orators often permit themselves great license in speaking
- of past facts, but Andokidês in this chapter passes the bounds
- even of rhetorical license. First, he states something not
- bearing the least analogy to the narrative of Herodotus as to
- the circumstances preceding the expulsion of the Peisistratids,
- and indeed tacitly setting aside that narrative; next, he
- actually jumbles together the two capital and distinct exploits
- of Athens,—the battle of Marathon and the repulse of Xerxês
- ten years after it. I state this latter charge in the words of
- Sluiter and Valckenaer, before I consider the former charge:
- “Verissime ad hæc verba notat Valckenaerius—Confundere videtur
- Andocidês diversissima; Persica sub Miltiade et Dario et
- victoriam Marathoniam (v, 14)—quæque evenere sub Themistocle,
- Xerxis gesta. Hic urbem incendio delevit, non ille (v, 20).
- Nihil magis manifestum est, quam diversa ab oratore confundi.”
- (Sluiter, Lection. Andocideæ, p. 147.)
-
- The criticism of these commentators is perfectly borne out by the
- words of the orator, which are too long to find a place here.
- But immediately prior to those words he expresses himself as
- follows, and this is the passage which serves as Dr. Thirlwall’s
- authority: Οἱ γὰρ πατέρες οἱ ὑμέτεροι, γενομένων τῇ πόλει κακῶν
- μεγάλων, ὅτε οἱ τύραννοι εἶχον τὴν πόλιν, ὁ δὲ δῆμος ἔφυγε,
- νικήσαντες μαχόμενοι τοὺς τυράννους ἐπὶ Παλληνίῳ, στρατηγοῦντος
- Λεωγόρου τοῦ προπάππου τοῦ ἐμοῦ, καὶ Χαρίου οὗ ἐκεῖνος τὴν
- θυγατέρα εἶχεν ἐξ ἧς ὁ ἡμέτερος ἦν πάππος, κατελθόντες εἰς τὴν
- πατρίδα τοὺς μὲν ἀπέκτειναν, τῶν δὲ φυγὴν κατέγνωσαν, τοὺς δὲ
- μένειν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐάσαντες ἠτίμωσαν.
-
- Both Sluiter (Lect. And. p. 8) and Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. p. 80)
- refer this alleged victory of Leogoras and the Athenian demus to
- the action described by Herodotus (v, 64) as having been fought
- by Kleomenês of Sparta against the Thessalian cavalry. But the
- two events have not a single circumstance in common, except
- that each is a victory over the Peisistratidæ or their allies:
- nor could they well be the same event, described in different
- terms, seeing that Kleomenês, marching from Sparta to Athens,
- could not have fought the Thessalians at Pallênê, which lay on
- the road from _Marathon_ to Athens. Pallênê was the place where
- Peisistratus, advancing from Marathon to Athens, on occasion of
- his second restoration, gained his complete victory over the
- opposing party, and marched on afterwards to Athens without
- farther resistance (Herodot. i, 63).
-
- If, then, we compare the statement given by Andokidês of the
- preceding circumstances, whereby the dynasty of the Peisistratids
- was put down, with that given by Herodotus, we shall see that
- the two are radically different; we cannot blend them together,
- but must make our election between them. Not less different are
- the representations of the two as to the circumstances which
- immediately ensued on the fall of Hippias: they would scarcely
- appear to relate to the same event. That “the adherents of the
- Peisistratidæ were punished or repressed, some by death, others
- by exile, or by the loss of their political privileges,” which
- is the assertion of Andokidês and Dr. Thirlwall, is not only
- not stated by Herodotus, but is highly improbable, if we accept
- the facts which he does state; for he tells us that Hippias
- capitulated and agreed to retire while possessing ample means of
- resistance,—simply from regard to the safety of his children. It
- is not to be supposed that he would leave his intimate partisans
- exposed to danger; such of them as felt themselves obnoxious
- would naturally retire along with him; and if this be what is
- meant by “many persons condemned to exile,” here is no reason to
- call it in question. But there is little probability that any
- one was put to death, and still less probability that any were
- punished by the loss of their political privileges. Within a year
- afterwards came the comprehensive constitution of Kleisthenês,
- to be described in the following chapter, and I consider it
- eminently unlikely that there were a considerable class of
- residents in Attica left out of this constitution, under the
- category of partisans of Peisistratus: indeed, the fact cannot be
- so, if it be true that the very first person banished under the
- Kleisthenean ostracism was a person named Hipparchus, a kinsman
- of Peisistratus (Androtion, Fr. 5, ed. Didot; Harpokration, v.
- Ἵππαρχος); and this latter circumstance depends upon evidence
- better than that of Andokidês. That there were a party in Attica
- attached to the Peisistratids, I do not doubt; but that they were
- “a powerful party,” (as Dr. Thirlwall imagines,) I see nothing to
- show; and the extraordinary vigor and unanimity of the Athenian
- people under the Kleisthenean constitution will go far to prove
- that such could not have been the case.
-
- I will add another reason to evince how completely Andokidês
- misconceives the history of Athens between 510-480 B. C. He
- says that when the Peisistratids were put down, many of their
- partisans were banished, many others allowed to stay at home with
- the loss of their political privileges; but that afterwards, when
- the overwhelming dangers of the Persian invasion supervened,
- the people passed a vote to restore the exiles and to remove
- the existing disfranchisements at home. He would thus have us
- believe that the exiled partisans of the Peisistratids were all
- restored, and the disfranchised partisans of the Peisistratids
- all enfranchised, just at the moment of the Persian invasion,
- and with the view of enabling Athens better to repel that grave
- danger. This is nothing less than a glaring mistake; for the
- first Persian invasion was undertaken with the express view of
- restoring Hippias, and with the presence of Hippias himself at
- Marathon; while the second Persian invasion was also brought
- on in part by the instigation of his family. Persons who had
- remained in exile or in a state of disfranchisement down to that
- time, in consequence of their attachment to the Peisistratids,
- could not in common prudence be called into action at the moment
- of peril, to help in repelling Hippias himself. It is very
- true that the exiles and the disfranchised were readmitted,
- shortly before the invasion of Xerxês, and under the then
- pressing calamities of the state. But these persons were not
- philo-Peisistratids; they were a number gradually accumulated
- from the sentences of exile and (atimy or) disfranchisement every
- year passed at Athens,—for these were punishments applied by the
- Athenian law to various crimes and public omissions,—the persons
- so sentenced were not politically disaffected, and their aid
- would then be of use in defending the state against a foreign
- enemy.
-
- In regard to “the exception of the family of Peisistratus from
- the most comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in later
- times,” I will also remark that, in the decree of amnesty,
- there is no mention of them by name, nor any special exception
- made against them: among a list of various categories excepted,
- those are named “who have been condemned to death or exile
- either as murderers or as despots,” (ἢ σφαγεῦσιν ἢ τυράννοις,
- Andokid. c. 13.) It is by no means certain that the _descendants_
- of Peisistratus would be comprised in this exception, which
- mentions only the person himself condemned; but even if this were
- otherwise, the exception is a mere continuance of similar words
- of exception in the old Solonian law, anterior to Peisistratus;
- and, therefore, affords no indication of particular feeling
- against the Peisistratids.
-
- Andokidês is a useful authority for the politics of Athens in his
- own time (between 420-390 B. C.), but in regard to the previous
- history of Athens between 510-480 B. C., his assertions are so
- loose, confused, and unscrupulous, that he is a witness of no
- value. The mere circumstance noted by Valckenaer, that he has
- confounded together Marathon and Salamis, would be sufficient
- to show this; but when we add to such genuine ignorance his
- mention of his two great-grandfathers in prominent and victorious
- leadership, which it is hardly credible that they could ever have
- occupied,—when we recollect that the facts which he alleges to
- have preceded and accompanied the expulsion of the Peisistratids
- are not only at variance with those stated by Herodotus, but so
- contrived as to found a factitious analogy for the cause which
- he is himself pleading,—we shall hardly be able to acquit him of
- something worse than ignorance in his deposition.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXI.
-
-GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE PEISISTRATIDS. —
-REVOLUTION OF KLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS.
-
-
-With Hippias disappeared the mercenary Thracian garrison, upon which
-he and his father before him had leaned for defence as well as for
-enforcement of authority; and Kleomenês with his Lacedæmonian forces
-retired also, after staying only long enough to establish a personal
-friendship, productive subsequently of important consequences,
-between the Spartan king and the Athenian Isagoras. The Athenians
-were thus left to themselves, without any foreign interference to
-constrain them in their political arrangements.
-
-It has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, that the
-Peisistratids had for the most part respected the forms of the
-Solonian constitution: the nine archons, and the probouleutic or
-preconsidering Senate of Four Hundred (both annually changed),
-still continued to subsist, together with occasional meetings
-of the people,—or rather of such portion of the people as was
-comprised in the gentes, phratries, and four Ionic tribes. The
-timocratic classification of Solon (or quadruple scale of income and
-admeasurement of political franchises according to it) also continued
-to subsist,—but all within the tether and subservient to the
-purposes of the ruling family, who always kept one of their number
-as real master, among the chief administrators, and always retained
-possession of the acropolis as well as of the mercenary force.
-
-That overawing pressure being now removed by the expulsion of
-Hippias, the enslaved forms became at once endued with freedom and
-reality. There appeared again, what Attica had not known for thirty
-years, declared political parties, and pronounced opposition between
-two men as leaders,—on one side, Isagoras son of Tisander, a person
-of illustrious descent,—on the other, Kleisthenês the Alkmæônid,
-not less illustrious, and possessing at this moment a claim on the
-gratitude of his countrymen as the most persevering as well as the
-most effective foe of the dethroned despots. In what manner such
-opposition was carried on we are not told. It would seem to have been
-not altogether pacific; but at any rate, Kleisthenês had the worst
-of it, and in consequence of this defeat, says the historian, “he
-took into partnership the people, who had been before excluded from
-everything.”[243] His partnership with the people gave birth to the
-Athenian democracy: it was a real and important revolution.
-
- [243] Herodot. v, 66-69 ἑσσούμενος δὲ ὁ Κλεισθένης τὸν δῆμον
- προσεταιρίζεται—ὡς γὰρ δὴ τὸν Ἀθηναίων δῆμον, πρότερον ἀπωσμένον
- πάντων, τότε πρὸς τὴν ἑωϋτοῦ μοίρην προσεθήκατο, etc.
-
-The political franchise, or the character of an Athenian citizen,
-both before and since Solon, had been confined to the primitive
-four Ionic tribes, each of which was an aggregate of so many close
-corporations or quasi-families,—the gentes and the phratries. None
-of the residents in Attica, therefore, except those included in
-some gens or phratry, had any part in the political franchise. Such
-non-privileged residents were probably at all times numerous, and
-became more and more so by means of fresh settlers: moreover, they
-tended most to multiply in Athens and Peiræus, where emigrants would
-commonly establish themselves. Kleisthenês broke down the existing
-wall of privilege, and imparted the political franchise to the
-excluded mass. But this could not be done by enrolling them in new
-gentes or phratries, created in addition to the old; for the gentile
-tie was founded upon old faith and feeling, which, in the existing
-state of the Greek mind, could not be suddenly conjured up as a
-bond of union for comparative strangers: it could only be done by
-disconnecting the franchise altogether from the Ionic tribes as well
-as from the gentes which constituted them, and by redistributing the
-population into new tribes with a character and purpose exclusively
-political. Accordingly, Kleisthenês abolished the four Ionic tribes,
-and created in their place ten new tribes founded upon a different
-principle, independent of the gentes and phratries. Each of his
-new tribes comprised a certain number of demes or cantons, with
-the enrolled proprietors and residents in each of them. The demes
-taken altogether included the entire surface of Attica, so that
-the Kleisthenean constitution admitted to the political franchise
-all the free native Athenians; and not merely these, but also many
-Metics, and even some of the superior order of slaves.[244] Putting
-out of sight the general body of slaves, and regarding only the
-free inhabitants, it was in point of fact a scheme approaching to
-universal suffrage, both political and judicial.
-
- [244] Aristot. Polit. iii, 1, 10; vi, 2, 11. Κλεισθένης,—πολλοῖς
- ἐφυλέτευσε ξένους καὶ δούλους μετοίκους.
-
- Several able critics, and Dr. Thirlwall among the number,
- consider this passage as affording no sense, and assume some
- conjectural emendation to be indispensable; though there is no
- particular emendation which suggests itself as preëminently
- plausible. Under these circumstances, I rather prefer to make
- the best of the words as they stand; which, though unusual,
- seem to me not absolutely inadmissible. The expression ξένος
- μέτοικος (which is a perfectly good one, as we find in Aristoph.
- Equit. 347,—εἴπου δικιδίον εἶπας εὖ κατὰ ξένου μετοίκου) may
- be considered as the correlative to δούλους μετοίκους,—the
- last word being construed both with δούλους and with ξένους. I
- apprehend that there always must have been in Attica a certain
- number of intelligent slaves living apart from their masters
- (χωρὶς οἰκοῦντες), in a state between slavery and freedom,
- working partly on condition of a fixed payment to him, partly for
- themselves, and perhaps continuing to pass nominally as slaves
- after they had bought their liberty by instalments. Such men
- would be δοῦλοι μέτοικοι: indeed, there are cases in which δοῦλοι
- signifies _freedmen_ (Meier, De Gentilitate Atticâ, p. 6): they
- must have been industrious and pushing men, valuable partisans to
- a political revolution. See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griech.
- Staats Alterth. ch. 111, not. 15.
-
-The slight and cursory manner in which Herodotus announces this
-memorable revolution tends to make us overlook its real importance.
-He dwells chiefly on the alteration in the number and names of the
-tribes: Kleisthenês, he says, despised the Ionians so much, that he
-would not tolerate the continuance in Attica of the four tribes which
-prevailed in the Ionic cities,[245] deriving their names from the
-four sons of Ion,—just as his grandfather, the Sikyonian Kleisthenês,
-hating the Dorians, had degraded and nicknamed the three Dorian
-tribes at Sikyôn. Such is the representation of Herodotus, who seems
-himself to have entertained some contempt for the Ionians,[246]
-and therefore to have suspected a similar feeling where it had no
-real existence. But the scope of Kleisthenês was something far more
-extensive: he abolished the four ancient tribes, not because they
-were Ionic, but because they had become incommensurate with the
-existing condition of the Attic people, and because such abolition
-procured both for himself and for his political scheme new as well
-as hearty allies. And indeed, if we study the circumstances of the
-case, we shall see very obvious reasons to suggest the proceeding.
-For more than thirty years—an entire generation—the old constitution
-had been a mere empty formality, working only in subservience to the
-reigning dynasty, and stripped of all real controlling power. We may
-be very sure, therefore, that both the Senate of Four Hundred and
-the popular assembly, divested of that free speech which imparted
-to them not only all their value but all their charm, had come to
-be of little public estimation, and were probably attended only
-by a few partisans; and thus the difference between qualified
-citizens and men not so qualified,—between members of the four old
-tribes, and men not members,—became during this period practically
-effaced. This, in fact, was the only species of good which a Grecian
-despotism ever seems to have done: it confounded the privileged and
-the non-privileged under one coercive authority common to both, so
-that the distinction between the two was not easy to revive when the
-despotism passed away. As soon as Hippias was expelled, the senate
-and the public assembly regained their efficiency. But had they been
-continued on the old footing, including none except members of the
-four tribes, these tribes would have been reinvested with a privilege
-which in reality they had so long lost, that its revival would have
-seemed an odious novelty, and the remaining population would probably
-not have submitted to it. If, in addition, we consider the political
-excitement of the moment,—the restoration of one body of men from
-exile, and the departure of another body into exile,—the outpouring
-of long-suppressed hatred, partly against these very forms, by
-the corruption of which the despot had reigned,—we shall see that
-prudence as well as patriotism dictated the adoption of an enlarged
-scheme of government. Kleisthenês had learned some wisdom during
-his long exile; and as he probably continued, for some time after
-the introduction of his new constitution, to be the chief adviser
-of his countrymen, we may consider their extraordinary success as a
-testimony to his prudence and skill not less than to their courage
-and unanimity.
-
- [245] Herodot. v, 69. Κλεισθένης,—ὑπεριδὼν Ἴωνας, ἵνα μὴ σφισι αἱ
- αὐταὶ ἔωσι φυλαὶ καὶ Ἴωσι.
-
- [246] Such a disposition seems evident in Herodot. i, 143.
-
-Nor does it seem unreasonable to give him credit for a more generous
-forward movement than what is implied in the literal account of
-Herodotus. Instead of being forced against his will to purchase
-popular support by proposing this new constitution, Kleisthenês may
-have proposed it before, during the discussions which immediately
-followed the retirement of Hippias; so that the rejection of it
-formed the ground of quarrel—and no other ground is mentioned—between
-him and Isagoras. The latter doubtless found sufficient support, in
-the existing senate and public assembly, to prevent it from being
-carried without an actual appeal to the people, and his opposition
-to it is not difficult to understand. For, necessary as the change
-had become, it was not the less a shock to ancient Attic ideas.
-It radically altered the very idea of a tribe, which now became
-an aggregation of demes, not of gentes,—of fellow-demots, not of
-fellow-gentiles; and it thus broke up those associations, religious,
-social, and political, between the whole and the parts of the old
-system, which operated powerfully on the mind of every old-fashioned
-Athenian. The patricians at Rome, who composed the gentes and
-curiæ,—and the plebs, who had no part in these corporations,—formed
-for a long time two separate and opposing fractions in the same
-city, each with its own separate organization. It was only by slow
-degrees that the plebs gained ground, and the political value of the
-patrician gens was long maintained alongside of and apart from the
-plebeian tribe. So too in the Italian and German cities of the Middle
-Ages, the patrician families refused to part with their own separate
-political identity, when the guilds grew up by the side of them; even
-though forced to renounce a portion of their power, they continued
-to be a separate fraternity, and would not submit to be regimented
-anew, under an altered category and denomination, along with the
-traders who had grown into wealth and importance.[247] But the reform
-of Kleisthenês effected this change all at once, both as to the name
-and as to the reality. In some cases, indeed, that which had been the
-name of a gens was retained as the name of a deme, but even then the
-old gentiles were ranked indiscriminately among the remaining demots;
-and the Athenian people, politically considered, thus became one
-homogeneous whole, distributed for convenience into parts, numerical,
-local, and politically equal. It is, however, to be remembered, that
-while the four Ionic tribes were abolished, the gentes and phratries
-which composed them were left untouched, and continued to subsist
-as family and religious associations, though carrying with them no
-political privilege.
-
- [247] In illustration of what is here stated, see the account of
- the modifications of the constitution of Zurich, in Blüntschli,
- Staats und Rechts Geschichte der Stadt Zurich, book iii. ch. 2,
- p. 322; also, Kortüm, Entstehungs Geschichte der Freistädtischen
- Bünde im Mittelalter, ch. 5, pp. 74-75.
-
-The ten newly-created tribes, arranged in an established order of
-precedence, were called,—Erechthêis, Ægêis, Pandiŏnis, Leontis,
-Akamantis, Œnêis, Kekrŏpis, Hippothoöntis, Æantis, Antiochis; names
-borrowed chiefly from the respected heroes of Attic legend.[248]
-This number remained unaltered until the year 305 B. C., when it was
-increased to twelve by the addition of two new tribes, Antigonias
-and Demetrias, afterwards designated anew by the names of Ptolemais
-and Attalis. The mere names of these last two, borrowed from living
-kings, and not from legendary heroes, betray the change from
-freedom to subservience at Athens. Each tribe comprised a certain
-number of demes,—cantons, parishes, or townships,—in Attica. But
-the total number of these demes is not distinctly ascertained; for
-though we know that, in the time of Polemô (the third century B.
-C.), it was one hundred and seventy-four, we cannot be sure that
-it had always remained the same; and several critics construe the
-words of Herodotus to imply that Kleisthenês at first recognized
-exactly one hundred demes, distributed in equal proportion among his
-ten tribes.[249] But such construction of the words is more than
-doubtful, while the fact itself is improbable; partly because if the
-change of number had been so considerable as the difference between
-one hundred and one hundred and seventy-four, some positive evidence
-of it would probably be found,—partly because Kleisthenês would,
-indeed, have a motive to render the amount of citizen population
-nearly equal, but no motive to render the number of demes equal,
-in each of the ten tribes. It is well known how great is the force
-of local habits, and how unalterable are parochial or cantonal
-boundaries. In the absence of proof to the contrary, therefore, we
-may reasonably suppose the number and circumscription of the demes,
-as found or modified by Kleisthenês, to have subsisted afterwards
-with little alteration, at least until the increase in the number of
-the tribes.
-
- [248] Respecting these Eponymous Heroes of the Ten Tribes,
- and the legends connected with them, see chapter viii of the
- Ἐπιτάφιος Λόγος, erroneously ascribed to Demosthenês.
-
- [249] Herodot. v, 69. δέκα δὲ καὶ τοὺς δήμους κατένεμε ἐς τὰς
- φυλάς.
-
- Schömann contends that Kleisthenês established exactly one
- hundred demes to the ten tribes (De Comitiis Atheniensium, Præf.
- p. xv and p. 363, and Antiquitat. Jur. Pub. Græc. ch. xxii, p.
- 260), and K. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der Griech. Staats Alt. ch.
- 111) thinks that this is what Herodotus meant to affirm, though
- he does not believe the fact to have really stood so.
-
- I incline, as the least difficulty in the case, to construe δέκα
- with φυλὰς and not with δήμους, as Wachsmuth (i, 1, p. 271) and
- Dieterich (De Clisthene, a treatise cited by K. F. Hermann, but
- which I have not seen) construe it.
-
-There is another point, however, which is at once more certain, and
-more important to notice. The demes which Kleisthenês assigned to
-each tribe were in no case all adjacent to each other; and therefore
-the tribe, as a whole, did not correspond with any continuous portion
-of the territory, nor could it have any peculiar local interest,
-separate from the entire community. Such systematic avoidance of
-the factions arising out of neighborhood will appear to have been
-more especially necessary, when we recollect that the quarrels of
-the Parali, the Diakrii, the Pediaki, during the preceding century,
-had all been generated from local feud, though doubtless artfully
-fomented by individual ambition. Moreover, it was only by this same
-precaution that the local predominance of the city, and the formation
-of a city-interest distinct from that of the country, was obviated;
-which could hardly have failed to arise had the city by itself
-constituted either one deme or one tribe. Kleisthenês distributed
-the city (or found it already distributed) into several demes, and
-those demes among several tribes; while Peiræus and Phalêrum, each
-constituting a separate deme, were also assigned to different tribes;
-so that there were no local advantages either to bestow predominance,
-or to create a struggle for predominance, of one tribe over the
-rest.[250] Each deme had its own local interests to watch over; but
-the tribe was a mere aggregate of demes for political, military, and
-religious purposes, with no separate hopes or fears, apart from the
-whole state. Each tribe had a chapel, sacred rites and festivals,
-and a common fund for such meetings, in honor of its eponymous hero,
-administered by members of its own choice;[251] and the statues of
-all the ten eponymous heroes, fraternal patrons of the democracy,
-were planted in the most conspicuous part of the agora of Athens.
-In the future working of the Athenian government, we shall trace no
-symptom of disquieting local factions,—a capital amendment, compared
-with the disputes of the preceding century, and traceable, in part,
-to the absence of border-relations between demes of the same tribe.
-
- [250] The deme _Melitê_ belonged to the tribe Kekropis;
- _Kollytus_, to the tribe Ægêis; _Kydathenæon_, to the tribe
- Pandionis; _Kerameis_ or _Kerameikus_, to the Akamantis;
- _Skambônidæ_, to the Leontis.
-
- All these five were demes within the city of Athens, and all
- belonged to different tribes.
-
- _Peiræus_ belonged to the Hippothoöntis; _Phalêrum_, to
- the Æantis; _Xypetê_, to the Kekropis; _Thymætadæ_, to the
- Hippothoöntis. These four demes, adjoining to each other,
- formed a sort of quadruple local union, for festivals and other
- purposes, among themselves; though three of them belonged to
- different tribes.
-
- See the list of the Attic demes, with a careful statement of
- their localities in so far as ascertained, in Professor Ross,
- Die Demen von Attika. Halle, 1846. The distribution of the
- city-demes, and of Peiræus and Phalêrum, among different tribes,
- appears to me a clear proof of the intention of the original
- distributors. It shows that they wished from the beginning
- to make the demes constituting each tribe discontinuous, and
- that they desired to prevent both the growth of separate
- tribe-interests and ascendency of one tribe over the rest. It
- contradicts the belief of those who suppose that the tribe was
- at first composed of continuous demes, and that the breach of
- continuity arose from subsequent changes.
-
- Of course there were many cases in which adjoining demes belonged
- to the same tribe; but not one of the ten tribes was made up
- altogether of adjoining demes.
-
- [251] See Boeckh, Corp. Inscriptt. Nos. 85, 128, 213, etc.:
- compare Demosthen. cont. Theokrin. c. 4. p. 1326 R.
-
-The deme now became the primitive constituent element of the
-commonwealth, both as to persons and as to property. It had its own
-demarch, its register of enrolled citizens, its collective property,
-its public meetings and religious ceremonies, its taxes levied and
-administered by itself. The register of qualified citizens[252] was
-kept by the demarch, and the inscription of new citizens took place
-at the assembly of the demots, whose legitimate sons were enrolled
-on attaining the age of eighteen, and their adopted sons at any time
-when presented and sworn to by the adopting citizen. The citizenship
-could only be granted by a public vote of the people, but wealthy
-non-freemen were enabled sometimes to evade this law and purchase
-admission upon the register of some poor deme, probably by means of
-a fictitious adoption. At the meetings of the demots, the register
-was called over, and it sometimes happened that some names were
-expunged,—in which case the party thus disfranchised had an appeal to
-the popular judicature.[253] So great was the local administrative
-power, however, of these demes, that they are described as the
-substitute,[254] under the Kleisthenean system, for the naukraries
-under the Solonian and ante-Solonian. The trittyes and naukraries,
-though nominally preserved, and the latter (as some affirm) augmented
-in number from forty-eight to fifty, appear henceforward as of little
-public importance.
-
- [252] We may remark that this register was called by a special
- name, the Lexiarchic register; while the primitive register of
- phrators and gentiles always retained, even in the time of the
- orators, its original name of the common register—Harpokration,
- v. Κοινὸν γραμματεῖον καὶ ληξιαρχικόν.
-
- [253] See Schömann, Antiq. Jur. P. Græc. ch. xxiv. The oration
- of Demosthenês against Eubulidês is instructive about these
- proceedings of the assembled demots: compare Harpokration, v.
- Διαψήφισις, and Meier, De Bonis Damnatorum, ch. xii, p. 78, etc.
-
- [254] Aristot. Fragment. de Republ., ed. Neumann.—Ἀθην. πολιτ.
- Fr. 40, p. 88; Schol. ad Aristophan. Ran. 37; Harpokration, v.
- Δήμαρχος—Ναυκραρικά; Photius, v. Ναυκραρία.
-
-Kleisthenês preserved, but at the same time modified and expanded,
-all the main features of Solon’s political constitution; the public
-assembly, or ekklesia,—the preconsidering senate, composed of members
-from all the tribes,—and the habit of annual election, as well as
-annual responsibility of magistrates, by and to the ekklesia. The
-full value must now have been felt of possessing such preëxisting
-institutions to build upon, at a moment of perplexity and dissension.
-But the Kleisthenean ekklesia acquired new strength, and almost a
-new character, from the great increase of the number of citizens
-qualified to attend it; while the annually-changed senate, instead
-of being composed of four hundred members taken in equal proportion
-from each of the old four tribes, was enlarged to five hundred,
-taken equally from each of the new ten tribes. It now comes before
-us, under the name of Senate of Five Hundred, as an active and
-indispensable body throughout the whole Athenian democracy: and the
-practice now seems to have begun (though the period of commencement
-cannot be decisively proved), of determining the names of the
-senators by lot. Both the senate thus constituted, and the public
-assembly, were far more popular and vigorous than they had been under
-the original arrangement of Solon.
-
-The new constitution of the tribes, as it led to a change in the
-annual senate, so it transformed, no less directly, the military
-arrangements of the state, both as to soldiers and as to officers.
-The citizens called upon to serve in arms were now marshalled
-according to tribes,—each tribe having its own taxiarchs as officers
-for the hoplites, and its own phylarch at the head of the horsemen.
-Moreover, there were now created for the first time ten strategi, or
-generals, one from each tribe; and two hipparchs, for the supreme
-command of the horsemen. Under the prior Athenian constitution it
-appears that the command of the military force had been vested in the
-third archon, or polemarch, no strategi then existing; and even after
-the latter had been created, under the Kleisthenean constitution,
-the polemarch still retained a joint right of command along with
-them,—as we are told at the battle of Marathon, where Kallimachus
-the polemarch not only enjoyed an equal vote in the council of war
-along with the ten strategi, but even occupied the post of honor on
-the right wing.[255] The ten generals, annually changed, are thus
-(like the ten tribes) a fruit of the Kleisthenean constitution, which
-was at the same time powerfully strengthened and protected by such
-remodelling of the military force. The functions of the generals
-becoming more extensive as the democracy advanced, they seem to
-have acquired gradually not merely the direction of military and
-naval affairs, but also that of the foreign relations of the city
-generally,—while the nine archons, including the polemarch, were by
-degrees lowered down from that full executive and judicial competence
-which they had once enjoyed, to the simple ministry of police and
-preparatory justice. Encroached upon by the strategi on one side,
-they were also restricted in efficiency by the rise of the popular
-dikasteries or numerous jury-courts, on the other. We may be very
-sure that these popular dikasteries had not been permitted to meet
-or to act under the despotism of the Peisistratids, and that the
-judicial business of the city must then have been conducted partly
-by the Senate of Areopagus, partly by the archons; perhaps with a
-nominal responsibility of the latter at the end of their year of
-office to an acquiescent ekklesia. And if we even assume it to be
-true, as some writers contend, that the habit of direct popular
-judicature, over and above this annual trial of responsibility, had
-been partially introduced by Solon, it must have been discontinued
-during the long coercion exercised by the supervening dynasty. But
-the outburst of popular spirit, which lent force to Kleisthenês,
-doubtless carried the people into direct action as jurors in the
-aggregate Heliæa, not less than as voters in the ekklesia,—and the
-change was thus begun which contributed to degrade the archons from
-their primitive character as judges, into the lower function of
-preliminary examiners and presidents of a jury. Such convocation of
-numerous juries, beginning first with the aggregate body of sworn
-citizens above thirty years of age, and subsequently dividing them
-into separate bodies or pannels, for trying particular causes, became
-gradually more frequent and more systematized: until at length, in
-the time of Periklês, it was made to carry a small pay, and stood out
-as one of the most prominent features of Athenian life. We cannot
-particularize the different steps whereby such final development was
-attained, and the judicial competence of the archon cut down to the
-mere power of inflicting a small fine; but the first steps of it are
-found in the revolution of Kleisthenês, and it seems to have been
-consummated by the reforms of Periklês. Of the function exercised by
-the nine archons as well as by many other magistrates and official
-persons at Athens, in convoking a dikastery, or jury-court, bringing
-on causes for trial,—and presiding over the trial,—a function
-constituting one of the marks of superior magistracy, and called the
-Hegemony, or presidency of a dikastery,—I shall speak more at length
-hereafter. At present, I wish merely to bring to view the increased
-and increasing sphere of action on which the people entered at the
-memorable turn of affairs now before us.
-
- [255] Herodot. vi, 109-111.
-
-The financial affairs of the city underwent at this epoch as complete
-a change as the military: in fact, the appointment of magistrates
-and officers by tens, one from each tribe, seems to have become the
-ordinary practice. A board of ten, called Apodektæ, were invested
-with the supreme management of the exchequer, dealing with the
-contractors as to those portions of the revenue which were farmed,
-receiving all the taxes from the collectors, and disbursing them
-under competent authority. The first nomination of this board is
-expressly ascribed to Kleisthenês,[256] as a substitute for certain
-persons called Kôlakretæ, who had performed the same function
-before, and who were now retained only for subordinate services.
-The duties of the apodektæ were afterwards limited to receiving
-the public income, and paying it over to the ten treasurers of
-the goddess Athênê, by whom it was kept in the inner chamber of
-the Parthenon, and disbursed as needed; but this more complicated
-arrangement cannot be referred to Kleisthenês. From his time forward
-too, the Senate of Five Hundred steps far beyond its original
-duty of preparing matters for the discussion of the ekklesia: it
-embraces, besides, a large circle of administrative and general
-superintendence, which hardly admits of any definition. Its sittings
-become constant, with the exception of special holidays, and the year
-is distributed into ten portions called Prytanies,—the fifty senators
-of each tribe taking by turns the duty of constant attendance
-during one prytany, and receiving during that time the title of
-The Prytanes: the order of precedence among the tribes in these
-duties was annually determined by lot. In the ordinary Attic year
-of twelve lunar months, or three hundred and fifty-four days, six
-of the prytanies contained thirty-five days, four of them contained
-thirty-six: in the intercalated years of thirteen months, the number
-of days was thirty-eight and thirty-nine respectively. Moreover, a
-farther subdivision of the prytany into five periods of seven days
-each, and of the fifty tribe-senators into five bodies of ten each,
-was recognized: each body of ten presided in the senate for one
-period of seven days, drawing lots every day among their number for
-a new chairman, called Epistatês, to whom during his day of office
-were confided the keys of the acropolis and the treasury, together
-with the city seal. The remaining senators, not belonging to the
-prytanizing tribe, might of course attend if they chose; but the
-attendance of nine among them, one from each of the remaining nine
-tribes, was imperatively necessary to constitute a valid meeting, and
-to insure a constant representation of the collective people.
-
- [256] Harpokration, v. Ἀποδέκται.
-
-During those later times known to us through the great orators,
-the ekklesia, or formal assembly of the citizens, was convoked
-four times regularly during each prytany, or oftener if necessity
-required,—usually by the senate, though the stratêgi had also the
-power of convoking it by their own authority. It was presided over by
-the prytanes, and questions were put to the vote by their epistatês,
-or chairman; but the nine representatives of the non-prytanizing
-tribes were always present as a matter of course, and seem, indeed,
-in the days of the orators, to have acquired to themselves the
-direction of it, together with the right of putting questions for
-the vote,[257]—setting aside wholly or partially the fifty prytanes.
-When we carry our attention back, however, to the state of the
-ekklesia, as first organized by Kleisthenês (I have already remarked
-that expositors of the Athenian constitution are too apt to neglect
-the distinction of times, and to suppose that what was the practice
-between 400-330 B. C. had been always the practice), it will appear
-probable that he provided one regular meeting in each prytany, and
-no more; giving to the senate and the stratêgi power of convening
-special meetings if needful, but establishing one ekklesia during
-each prytany, or ten in the year, as a regular necessity of state.
-How often the ancient ekklesia had been convoked during the interval
-between Solon and Peisistratus, we cannot exactly say,—probably
-but seldom during the year. But under the Peisistratids, its
-convocation had dwindled down into an inoperative formality; and
-the reëstablishment of it by Kleisthenês, not merely with plenary
-determining powers, but also under full notice and preparation of
-matters beforehand, together with the best securities for orderly
-procedure, was in itself a revolution impressive to the mind of
-every Athenian citizen. To render the ekklesia efficient, it was
-indispensable that its meetings should be both frequent and free.
-Men thus became trained to the duty both of speakers and hearers,
-and each man, while he felt that he exercised his share of influence
-on the decision, identified his own safety and happiness with the
-vote of the majority, and became familiarized with the notion of
-a sovereign authority which he neither could nor ought to resist.
-This is an idea new to the Athenian bosom; and with it came the
-feelings sanctifying free speech and equal law,—words which no
-Athenian citizen ever afterwards heard unmoved: together with that
-sentiment of the entire commonwealth as one and indivisible, which
-always overruled, though it did not supplant, the local and cantonal
-special ties. It is not too much to say that these patriotic and
-ennobling impulses were a new product in the Athenian mind, to which
-nothing analogous occurs even in the time of Solon. They were kindled
-in part doubtless by the strong reaction against the Peisistratids,
-but still more by the fact that the opposing leader, Kleisthenês,
-turned that transitory feeling to the best possible account, and
-gave to it a vigorous perpetuity, as well as a well-defined positive
-object, by the popular elements conspicuous in his constitution. His
-name makes less figure in history than we should expect, because
-he passed for the mere renovator of Solon’s scheme of government
-after it had been overthrown by Peisistratus. Probably he himself
-professed this object, since it would facilitate the success of his
-propositions: and if we confine ourselves to the letter of the case,
-the fact is in a great measure true, since the annual senate and
-the ekklesia are both Solonian,—but both of them under his reform
-were clothed in totally new circumstances, and swelled into gigantic
-proportions. How vigorous was the burst of Athenian enthusiasm,
-altering instantaneously the position of Athens among the powers of
-Greece, we shall hear presently from the lips of Herodotus, and shall
-find still more unequivocally marked in the facts of his history.
-
- [257] See the valuable treatise of Schömann, De Comitiis,
- _passim_; also his Antiq. Jur. Publ. Gr. ch. xxxi; Harpokration,
- v. Κυρία Ἐκκλησία; Pollux, viii, 95.
-
-But it was not only the people formally installed in their ekklesia,
-who received from Kleisthenês the real attributes of sovereignty,—it
-was by him also that the people were first called into direct action
-as dikasts, or jurors. I have already remarked, that this custom may
-be said, in a certain limited sense, to have begun in the time of
-Solon, since that lawgiver invested the popular assembly with the
-power of pronouncing the judgment of accountability upon the archons
-after their year of office. Here, again, the building, afterwards
-so spacious and stately, was erected on a Solonian foundation,
-though it was not itself Solonian. That the popular dikasteries, in
-the elaborate form in which they existed from Periklês downward,
-were introduced all at once by Kleisthenês, it is impossible to
-believe; yet the steps by which they were gradually wrought out
-are not distinctly discoverable. It would rather seem, that at
-first only the aggregate body of citizens above thirty years of
-age exercised judicial functions, being specially convoked and
-sworn to try persons accused of public crimes, and when so employed
-bearing the name of the heliæa, or heliasts; private offences and
-disputes between man and man being still determined by individual
-magistrates in the city, and a considerable judicial power still
-residing in the Senate of Areopagus. There is reason to believe that
-this was the state of things established by Kleisthenês, and which
-afterwards came to be altered by the greater extent of judicial
-duty gradually accruing to the heliasts, so that it was necessary
-to subdivide the collective heliæa. According to the subdivision,
-as practised in the times best known, six thousand citizens above
-thirty years of age were annually selected by lot out of the whole
-number, six hundred from each of the ten tribes: five thousand of
-these citizens were arranged in ten pannels or decuries of five
-hundred each, the remaining one thousand being reserved to fill up
-vacancies in case of death or absence among the former. The whole
-six thousand took a prescribed oath, couched in very striking words,
-and every man received a ticket inscribed with his own name as well
-as with a letter designating his decury. When there were causes or
-crimes ripe for trial, the thesmothets, or six inferior archons,
-determined by lot, first, which decuries should sit, according to
-the number wanted,—next, in which court, or under the presidency
-of what magistrate, the decury B or E should sit, so that it could
-not be known beforehand in what cause each would be judge. In the
-number of persons who actually attended and sat, however, there
-seems to have been much variety, and sometimes two decuries sat
-together.[258] The arrangement here described, we must recollect, is
-given to us as belonging to those times when the dikasts received a
-regular pay, after every day’s sitting; and it can hardly have long
-continued without that condition, which was not realized before
-the time of Periklês. Each of these decuries sitting in judicature
-was called _The Heliæa_,—a name which belongs properly to the
-collective assembly of the people; this collective assembly having
-been itself the original judicature. I conceive that the practice of
-distributing this collective assembly, or heliæa, into sections of
-jurors for judicial duty, may have begun under one form or another
-soon after the reform of Kleisthenês, since the direct interference
-of the people in public affairs tended more and more to increase. But
-it could only have been matured by degrees into that constant and
-systematic service which the pay of Periklês called forth at last in
-completeness. Under the last-mentioned system the judicial competence
-of the archons was annulled, and the third archon, or polemarch,
-withdrawn from all military functions. Still, this had not been yet
-done at the time of the battle of Marathon, in which Kallimachus the
-polemarch not only commanded along with the stratêgi, but enjoyed a
-sort of preëminence over them: nor had it been done during the year
-after the battle of Marathon, in which Aristeidês was archon,—for
-the magisterial decisions of Aristeidês formed one of the principal
-foundations of his honorable surname, the Just.[259]
-
- [258] See in particular on this subject the treatise of Schömann,
- De Sortitione Judicum (Gripswald, 1820), and the work of the
- same author, Antiq. Jur. Publ. Græc. ch. 49-55, p. 264, _seqq._;
- also Heffter, Die Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung, part ii, ch.
- 2, p. 51, _seqq._; Meier and Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp.
- 127-135.
-
- The views of Schömann respecting the sortition of the Athenian
- jurors have been bitterly attacked, but in no way refuted, by F.
- V. Fritzsche (De Sortitione Judicum apud Athenienses Conmentatio,
- Leipsic, 1835).
-
- Two or three of these dikastic tickets, marking the name and the
- deme of the citizen, and the letter of the decury to which during
- that particular year he belonged, have been recently dug up near
- Athens:—
-
- Δ. Διόδωρος Ε. Δεινίας
- Φρεάῤῥιος. Ἀλαιεύς.
-
- (Boeckh, Corp. Inscrip. Nos. 207-208.)
-
- Fritzsche (p. 73) considers these to be tickets of senators, not
- of dikasts, contrary to all probability.
-
- For the Heliastic oath, and its remarkable particulars, see
- Demosthen. cont. Timokrat. p. 746. See also Aristophanês, Plutus,
- 277 (with the valuable Scholia, though from different hands and
- not all of equal correctness) and 972; Ekklesiazusæ, 678, _seqq._
-
- [259] Plutarch, Arist. 7; Herodot. vi, 109-111.
-
-With this question, as to the comparative extent of judicial power
-vested by Kleisthenês in the popular dikastery and the archons, are
-in reality connected two others in Athenian constitutional law;
-relating, first, to the admissibility of all citizens for the post
-of archon,—next, to the choosing of archons by lot. It is well known
-that, in the time of Periklês, the archons, and various other
-individual functionaries, had come to be chosen by lot,—moreover, all
-citizens were legally admissible, and might give in their names to be
-drawn for by lot, subject to what was called the dokimasy, or legal
-examination into their status of citizen, and into various moral
-and religious qualifications, before they took office; while at the
-same time the function of the archon had become nothing higher than
-preliminary examination of parties and witnesses for the dikastery,
-and presidence over it when afterwards assembled, together with the
-power of imposing by authority a fine of small amount upon inferior
-offenders.
-
-Now all these three political arrangements hang essentially together.
-The great value of the lot, according to Grecian democratical ideas,
-was that it equalized the chance of office between rich and poor. But
-so long as the poor citizens were legally inadmissible, choice by lot
-could have no recommendation either to the rich or to the poor; in
-fact, it would be less democratical than election by the general mass
-of citizens, because the poor citizen would under the latter system
-enjoy an important right of interference by means of his suffrage,
-though he could not be elected himself.[260] Again, choice by lot
-could never under any circumstances be applied to those posts where
-special competence, and a certain measure of attributes possessed
-only by a few, could not be dispensed with without obvious peril,—nor
-was it ever applied, throughout the whole history of democratical
-Athens, to the stratêgi, or generals, who were always elected by
-show of hands of the assembled citizens. Accordingly, we may regard
-it as certain that, at the time when the archons first came to be
-chosen by lot, the superior and responsible duties once attached
-to that office had been, or were in course of being, detached from
-it, and transferred either to the popular dikasts or to the ten
-elected stratêgi: so that there remained to these archons only a
-routine of police and administration, important indeed to the state,
-yet such as could be executed by any citizen of average probity,
-diligence, and capacity. At least there was no obvious absurdity
-in thinking so; and the dokimasy excluded from the office men of
-notoriously discreditable life, even after they might have drawn the
-successful lot. Periklês,[261] though chosen stratêgus, year after
-year successively, was never archon; and it may even be doubted
-whether men of first-rate talents and ambition often gave in their
-names for the office. To those of smaller aspirations[262] it was
-doubtless a source of importance, but it imposed troublesome labor,
-gave no pay, and entailed a certain degree of peril upon any archon
-who might have given offence to powerful men, when he came to pass
-through the trial of accountability which followed immediately upon
-his year of office. There was little to make the office acceptable
-either to very poor men, or to very rich and ambitious men; and
-between the middling persons who gave in their names, any one might
-be taken without great practical mischief, always assuming the two
-guarantees of the dokimasy before, and accountability after, office.
-This was the conclusion—in my opinion a mistaken conclusion, and such
-as would find no favor at present—to which the democrats of Athens
-were conducted by their strenuous desire to equalize the chances of
-office for rich and poor. But their sentiment seems to have been
-satisfied by a partial enforcement of the lot to the choice of some
-offices,—especially the archons, as the primitive chief magistrates
-of the state,—without applying it to all, or to the most responsible
-and difficult. Nor would they have applied it to the archons, if it
-had been indispensably necessary that these magistrates should retain
-their original very serious duty of judging disputes and condemning
-offenders.
-
- [260] Aristotle puts these two together; election of magistrates
- by the mass of the citizens, but only out of persons possessing
- a high pecuniary qualification; this he ranks as the least
- democratical democracy, if one may use the phrase (Politic.
- iii, 6-11), or a mean between democracy and oligarchy,—an
- ἀριστοκρατία, or πολιτεῖα, in his sense of the word (iv, 7, 3).
- He puts the employment of the lot as a symptom of decisive and
- extreme democracy, such as would never tolerate a pecuniary
- qualification of eligibility.
-
- So again Plato (Legg. iii, p. 692), after remarking that the
- legislator of Sparta first provided the senate, next the ephors,
- as a bridle upon the kings, says of the ephors that they were
- “something nearly approaching to an authority emanating from the
- lot,”—οἷον ψάλιον ἐνέβαλεν αὐτῇ τὴν τῶν ἐφόρων δύναμιν, ἐγγὺς τῆς
- κληρωτῆς ἀγαγὼν δυνάμεως.
-
- Upon which passage there are some good remarks in Schömann’s
- edition of Plutarch’s Lives of Agis and Kleomenês (Comment. ad
- Ag. c. 8, p. 119). It is to be recollected that the actual mode
- in which the Spartan ephors were chosen, as I have already stated
- in my first volume, cannot be clearly made out, and has been much
- debated by critics:—
-
- “Mihi hæc verba, quum illud quidem manifestum faciant, quod etiam
- aliunde constat, sorte captos ephoros non esse, tum hoc alterum,
- quod Hermannus statuit, creationem sortitioni non absimilem
- fuisse, nequaquam demonstrare videntur. Nimirum nihil aliud nisi
- prope accedere ephororum magistratus ad cos dicitur, qui sortito
- capiantur. _Sortitis autem magistratibus hoc maxime proprium est,
- ut promiscue—non ex genere, censu, dignitate—a quolibet capi
- possint_: quamobrem quum ephori quoque fere promiscue fierent ex
- omni multitudine civium, poterat haud dubie magistratus eorum
- ἐγγὺς τῆς κληρωτῆς δυνάμεως esse dici, etiamsi αἱρετοὶ essent—h.
- e. suffragiis creati. Et video Lachmannum quoque, p. 165, not. 1,
- de Platonis loco similiter judicare.”
-
- The employment of the lot, as Schömann remarks, implies universal
- admissibility of all citizens to office: though the converse does
- not hold good,—the latter does not of necessity imply the former.
- Now, as we know that universal admissibility did not become
- the law of Athens until after the battle of Platæa, so we may
- conclude that the employment of the lot had no place before that
- epoch,—_i. e._ had no place under the constitution of Kleisthenês.
-
- [261] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 9-16.
-
- [262] See a passage about such characters in Plato, Republic, v,
- p. 475 B.
-
-I think, therefore, that these three points: 1. The opening of the
-post of archon to all citizens indiscriminately; 2. The choice of
-archons by lot; 3. The diminished range of the archon’s duties and
-responsibilities, through the extension of those belonging to the
-popular courts of justice on the one hand and to the stratêgi on the
-other—are all connected together, and must have been simultaneous,
-or nearly simultaneous, in the time of introduction: the enactment
-of universal admissibility to office certainly not coming after the
-other two, and probably coming a little before them.
-
-Now in regard to the eligibility of all Athenians indiscriminately to
-the office of archon, we find a clear and positive testimony as to
-the time when it was first introduced. Plutarch tells us[263] that
-the oligarchical,[264] but high-principled Aristeidês, was himself
-the proposer of this constitutional change,—shortly after the battle
-of Platæa, with the consequent expulsion of the Persians from Greece,
-and the return of the refugee Athenians to their ruined city. Seldom
-has it happened in the history of mankind, that rich and poor have
-been so completely equalized as among the population of Athens in
-that memorable expatriation and heroic struggle. Nor are we at all
-surprised to hear that the mass of the citizens, coming back with
-freshly-kindled patriotism as well as with the consciousness that
-their country had only been recovered by the equal efforts of all,
-would no longer submit to be legally disqualified from any office
-of state. It was on this occasion that the constitution was first
-made really “common” to all, and that the archons, stratêgi, and all
-functionaries, first began to be chosen from all Athenians without
-any difference of legal eligibility.[265] No mention is made of the
-lot, in this important statement of Plutarch, which appears to me
-every way worthy of credit, and which teaches us that, down to the
-invasion of Xerxês, not only had the exclusive principle of the
-Solonian law of qualification continued in force (whereby the first
-three classes on the census were alone admitted to all individual
-offices, and the fourth or Thêtic class excluded), but also the
-archons had hitherto been elected by the citizens,—not taken by lot.
-
- [263] Plutarch, Arist. 22.
-
- [264] So at least the supporters of the constitution of
- Kleisthenês were called by the contemporaries of Periklês.
-
- [265] Plutarch, Arist. _ut sup._ γράφει ψήφισμα, κοινὴν εἶναι τὴν
- πολιτείαν, καὶ τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἐξ Ἀθηναίων πάντων αἱρεῖσθαι.
-
-Now for financial purposes, the quadruple census of Solon was
-retained long after this period, even beyond the Peloponnesian war
-and the oligarchy of Thirty. But we thus learn that Kleisthenês in
-his constitution retained it for political purposes also, in part at
-least: he recognized the exclusion of the great mass of the citizens
-from all individual offices,—such as the archon, the stratêgus, etc.
-In his time, probably, no complaints were raised on the subject. His
-constitution gave to the collective bodies—senate, ekklesia, and
-heliæa, or dikastery—a degree of power and importance such as they
-had never before known or imagined: and we may well suppose that the
-Athenian people of that day had no objection even to the proclaimed
-system and theory of being exclusively governed by men of wealth
-and station as individual magistrates,—especially since many of the
-newly-enfranchised citizens had been previously metics and slaves.
-Indeed, it is to be added that, even under the full democracy of
-later Athens, though the people had then become passionately attached
-to the theory of equal admissibility of all citizens to office, yet,
-in practice, poor men seldom obtained offices which were elected by
-the general vote, as will appear more fully in the course of this
-history.[266]
-
- [266] So in the Italian republics of the twelfth and thirteenth
- century, the nobles long continued to possess the exclusive right
- of being elected to the consulate and the great offices of state,
- even after those offices had come to be elected by the people:
- the habitual misrule and oppression of the nobles gradually put
- an end to this right, and even created in many towns a resolution
- positively to exclude them. At Milan, towards the end of the
- twelfth century, the twelve consuls, with the Podestat, possessed
- all the powers of government: these consuls were nominated by
- one hundred electors chosen by and among the people. Sismondi
- observes: “Cependant le peuple imposa lui-même a ces électeurs,
- la règle fondamentale de choisir tous les magistrats dans le
- corps de la noblesse. Ce n’étoit point encore la possession des
- magistratures que l’on contestoit aux gentilshommes: on demandoit
- seulement qu’ils fussent les mandataires immédiats de la nation.
- Mais plus d’une fois, en dépit du droit incontestable des
- citoyens, les consuls regnant s’attribuèrent l’élection de leurs
- successeurs.” (Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes,
- chap. xii, vol. ii, p. 240.)
-
-The choice of the stratêgi remained ever afterwards upon the footing
-on which Aristeidês thus placed it. But the lot for the choice of
-archon must have been introduced shortly after his proposition of
-universal eligibility, and in consequence too of the same tide of
-democratical feeling,—introduced as a farther corrective, because the
-poor citizen, though he had become eligible, was nevertheless not
-elected. And at the same time, I imagine, that elaborate distribution
-of the Heliæa, or aggregate body of dikasts, or jurors, into separate
-pannels, or dikasteries, for the decision of judicial matters, was
-first regularized. It was this change that stole away from the
-archons so important a part of their previous jurisdiction: it was
-this change that Periklês more fully consummated by insuring pay
-to the dikasts. But the present is not the time to enter into the
-modifications which Athens underwent during the generation after the
-battle of Platæa. They have been here briefly noticed for the purpose
-of reasoning back, in the absence of direct evidence, to Athens as
-it stood in the generation before that memorable battle, after the
-reform of Kleisthenês. His reform, though highly democratical,
-stopped short of the mature democracy which prevailed from Periklês
-to Demosthenês, in three ways especially, among various others;
-and it is therefore sometimes considered by the later writers as
-an aristocratical constitution:[267] 1. It still recognized the
-archons as judges to a considerable extent, and the third archon, or
-polemarch, as joint military commander along with the stratêgi. 2.
-It retained them as elected annually by the body of citizens, not as
-chosen by lot.[268] 3. It still excluded the fourth class of the
-Solonian census from all individual office, the archonship among the
-rest. The Solonian law of exclusion, however, though retained in
-principle, was mitigated in practice thus far,—that whereas Solon
-had rendered none but members of the highest class on the census
-(the Pentakosiomedimni) eligible to the archonship, Kleisthenês
-opened that dignity to all the first three classes, shutting out
-only the fourth. That he did this may be inferred from the fact that
-Aristeidês, assuredly not a rich man, became archon.
-
- [267] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 15. τὴν ἐπὶ Κλεισθένους ἐγείρειν
- ἀριστοκρατίαν πειρωμένου: compare Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 2, and
- Isokratês, Areopagiticus, Or. vii, p. 143, p. 192, ed. Bek.
-
- [268] Herodotus speaks of Kallimachus the Polemarch, at Marathon,
- as ὁ τῷ κυάμῳ λαχὼν Πολέμαρχος (vi, 110).
-
- I cannot but think that in this case he transfers to the year
- 490 B. C. the practice of his own time. The polemarch, at the
- time of the battle of Marathon, was in a certain sense the first
- stratêgus; and the stratêgi were never taken by lot, but always
- chosen by show of hands, even to the end of the democracy. It
- seems impossible to believe that the stratêgi were elected, and
- that the polemarch, at the time when his functions were the same
- as theirs, was chosen by lot.
-
- Herodotus seems to have conceived the choice of magistrates by
- lot as being of the essence of a democracy (Herodot. iii, 80).
-
- Plutarch also (Periklês, c. 9) seems to have conceived the
- choice of archons by lot as a very ancient institution of
- Athens: nevertheless, it results from the first chapter of his
- life of Aristeidês,—an obscure chapter, in which conflicting
- authorities are mentioned without being well discriminated,—that
- Aristeidês was _chosen archon by the people_,—not drawn by lot:
- an additional reason for believing this is, that he was archon in
- the year following the battle of Marathon, at which, he had been
- one of the ten generals. Idomeneus distinctly affirmed this to be
- the fact.—οὐ κυαμευτὸν, ἀλλ᾽ ἑλομένων Ἀθηναίων (Plutarch, Arist.
- c. 1).
-
- Isokratês also (Areopagit. Or. vii, p. 144, p. 195, ed. Bekker)
- conceived the constitution of Kleisthenês as including all
- the three points noticed in the text: 1. A high pecuniary
- qualification of eligibility for individual offices. 2. Election
- to these offices by all the citizens, and accountability to the
- same after office. 3. No employment of the lot.—He even contends
- that this election is more truly democratical than sortition;
- since the latter process might admit men attached to oligarchy,
- which would not happen under the former,—ἔπειτα καὶ δημοτικωτέραν
- ἐνόμιζον ταύτην τὴν κατάστασιν ἢ τὴν διὰ τοῦ λαγχάνειν
- γιγνομένην· ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῇ κληρώσει τὴν τύχην βραβεύσειν, καὶ
- πολλάκις λήψεσθαι τὰς ἀρχὰς τοὺς τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας ἐπιθυμοῦντας,
- etc. This would be a good argument if there were no pecuniary
- qualification for eligibility,—such pecuniary qualification is
- a provision which he lays down, but which he does not find it
- convenient to insist upon emphatically.
-
- I do not here advert to the γραφὴ παρανόμων, the νομοφύλακες, and
- the sworn νομόθεται,—all of them institutions belonging to the
- time of Periklês at the earliest; not to that of Kleisthenês.
-
-I am also inclined to believe that the Senate of Five Hundred, as
-constituted by Kleisthenês, was taken, not by election, but by lot,
-from the ten tribes,—and that every citizen became eligible to it.
-Election for this purpose—that is, the privilege of annually electing
-a batch of fifty senators, all at once, by each tribe—would probably
-be thought more troublesome than valuable; nor do we hear of separate
-meetings of each tribe for purposes of election. Moreover, the office
-of senator was a collective, not an individual office; the shock,
-therefore, to the feelings of semi-democratized Athens, from the
-unpleasant idea of a poor man sitting among the fifty prytanes, would
-be less than if they conceived him as polemarch at the head of the
-right wing of the army, or as an archon administering justice.
-
-A farther difference between the constitution of Solon and that
-of Kleisthenês is to be found in the position of the Senate of
-Areopagus. Under the former, that senate had been the principal
-body in the state, and he had even enlarged its powers; under the
-latter, it must have been treated at first as an enemy, and kept
-down. For as it was composed only of all the past archons, and as,
-during the preceding thirty years, every archon had been a creature
-of the Peisistratids, the Areopagites collectively must have been
-both hostile and odious to Kleisthenês and his partisans,—perhaps a
-fraction of its members might even retire into exile with Hippias.
-Its influence must have been sensibly lessened by the change
-of party, until it came to be gradually filled by fresh archons
-springing from the bosom of the Kleisthenean constitution. But during
-this important interval, the new-modelled Senate of Five Hundred,
-and the popular assembly, stepped into that ascendency which they
-never afterwards lost. From the time of Kleisthenês forward, the
-Areopagites cease to be the chief and prominent power in the state:
-yet they are still considerable; and when the second fill of the
-democratical tide took place, after the battle of Platæa, they
-became the focus of that which was then considered as the party of
-oligarchical resistance. I have already remarked that the archons,
-during the intermediate time (about 509-477 B. C.), were all elected
-by the ekklesia, not chosen by lot,—and that the fourth (or poorest
-and most numerous) class on the census were by law then ineligible;
-while election at Athens, even when every citizen without exception
-was an elector and eligible, had a natural tendency to fall upon
-men of wealth and station. We thus see how it happened that the
-past archons, when united in the Senate of Areopagus, infused into
-that body the sympathies, prejudices, and interests of the richer
-classes. It was this which brought them into conflict with the more
-democratical party headed by Periklês and Ephialtês, in times when
-portions of the Kleisthenean constitution had come to be discredited
-as too much imbued with oligarchy.
-
-One other remarkable institution, distinctly ascribed to Kleisthenês,
-yet remains to be noticed,—the Ostracism; upon which I have already
-made some remarks,[269] in touching upon the memorable Solonian
-proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. It is hardly too much
-to say that, without this protective process, none of the other
-institutions would have reached maturity.
-
- [269] See above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p. 145.
-
-By the ostracism, a citizen was banished without special accusation,
-trial, or defence, for a term of ten years,—subsequently diminished
-to five. His property was not taken away, nor his reputation
-tainted; so that the penalty consisted solely in the banishment from
-his native city to some other Greek city. As to reputation, the
-ostracism was a compliment rather than otherwise;[270] and so it was
-vividly felt to be, when, about ninety years after Kleisthenês, the
-conspiracy between Nikias and Alkibiadês fixed it upon Hyperbolus.
-The two former had both recommended the taking of an ostracizing
-vote, each hoping to cause the banishment of the other; but before
-the day arrived, they accommodated the difference. To fire off the
-safety-gun of the republic against a person so little dangerous as
-Hyperbolus, was denounced as the prostitution of a great political
-ceremony: “it was not against such men as him (said the comic writer,
-Plato),[271] that the oyster-shell (or potsherd) was intended to be
-used.” The process of ostracism was carried into effect by writing
-upon a shell, or potsherd, the name of the person whom a citizen
-thought it prudent for a time to banish; which shell, when deposited
-in the proper vessel, counted for a vote towards the sentence.
-
- [270] Aristeidês Rhetor. Orat. xlvi. vol ii. p. 317, ed. Dindorf.
-
- [271] Plutarch (Nikias, c. 11; Alkibiad. c. 13; Aristeid. c. 7):
- Thucyd. viii, 73. Plato Comicus said, respecting Hyperbolus—
-
- Οὐ γὰρ τοιούτων οὕνεκ᾽ ὄστραχ᾽ ηὑρέθη.
-
- Theophrastus had stated that Phæax, and not Nikias, was the rival
- of Alkibiadês on this occasion, when Hyperbolus was ostracized;
- but most authors, says Plutarch, represent Nikias as the person.
- It is curious that there should be any difference of statement
- about a fact so notorious, and in the best-known time of Athenian
- history.
-
- Taylor thinks that the oration which now passes as that of
- Andokidês against Alkibiadês, is really by Phæax, and was read
- by Plutarch as the oration of Phæax in an actual contest of
- ostracism between Phæax, Nikias, and Alkibiadês. He is opposed by
- Ruhnken and Valckenaer (see Sluiter’s preface to that oration, c.
- 1, and Ruhnken, Hist. Critic. Oratt. Græcor. p. 135). I cannot
- agree with either: I cannot think with him, that it is a real
- oration of Phæax; nor with them, that it is a real oration in any
- genuine cause of ostracism whatever. It appears to me to have
- been composed after the ostracism had fallen into desuetude,
- and when the Athenians had not only become somewhat ashamed
- of it, but had lost the familiar conception of what it really
- was. For how otherwise can we explain the fact, that the author
- of that oration complains that he is about to be ostracized
- without any secret voting, in which the very essence of the
- ostracism consisted, and from which its name was borrowed (οὔτε
- διαψηφισαμένων κρυβδὴν, c. 2)? His oration is framed as if the
- audience whom he was addressing were about to ostracize one out
- of the three, by show of hands. But the process of ostracizing
- included no meeting and haranguing,—nothing but simple deposit of
- the shells in a cask; as may be seen by the description of the
- special railing-in of the agora, and by the story (true or false)
- of the unlettered country-citizen coming into the city to give
- his vote, and asking Aristeidês, without even knowing his person,
- to write the name for him on the shell (Plutarch, Aristeid. c.
- 7). There was, indeed, previous discussion in the senate as
- well as in the ekklesia, whether a vote of ostracism should be
- entered upon at all; but the author of the oration to which I
- allude does not address himself to _that_ question; he assumes
- that the vote is actually about to be taken, and that one of the
- three—himself, Nikias, or Alkibiadês—must be ostracized (c. 1).
- Now, doubtless, in practice, the decision commonly lay between
- two formidable rivals; but it was not publicly or formally put so
- before the people: every citizen might write upon the shell such
- name as he chose. Farther, the open denunciation of the injustice
- of ostracism as a system (c. 2), proves an age later than the
- banishment of Hyperbolus. Moreover, the author having begun by
- remarking that he stands in contest with Nikias as well as with
- Alkibiadês, says nothing more about Nikias to the end of the
- speech.
-
-I have already observed that all the governments of the Grecian
-cities, when we compare them with that idea which a modern reader is
-apt to conceive of the measure of force belonging to a government,
-were essentially weak, the good as well as the bad,—the democratical,
-the oligarchical, and the despotic. The force in the hands of any
-government, to cope with conspirators or mutineers, was extremely
-small, with the single exception of a despot surrounded by his
-mercenary troop; so that no tolerably sustained conspiracy or usurper
-could be put down except by the direct aid of the people in support
-of the government; which amounted to a dissolution, for the time,
-of constitutional authority, and was pregnant with reactionary
-consequences such as no man could foresee. To prevent powerful men
-from attempting usurpation was, therefore, of the greatest possible
-moment; and a despot or an oligarchy might exercise preventive means
-at pleasure,[272] much sharper than the ostracism, such as the
-assassination of Kimon, mentioned in my last chapter, as directed
-by the Peisistratids. At the very least, they might send away any
-one, from whom they apprehended attack or danger, without incurring
-even so much as the imputation of severity. But in a democracy,
-where arbitrary action of the magistrate was the thing of all
-others most dreaded, and where fixed laws, with trial and defence
-as preliminaries to punishment, were conceived by the ordinary
-citizen as the guarantees of his personal security and as the pride
-of his social condition,—the creation of such an exceptional power
-presented serious difficulty. If we transport ourselves to the times
-of Kleisthenês, immediately after the expulsion of the Peisistratids,
-when the working of the democratical machinery was as yet untried,
-we shall find this difficulty at its maximum; but we shall also
-find the necessity of vesting such a power somewhere absolutely
-imperative. For the great Athenian nobles had yet to learn the lesson
-of respect for any constitution; their past history had exhibited
-continual struggles between the armed factions of Megaklês, Lykurgus,
-and Peisistratus, put down after a time by the superior force and
-alliances of the latter. And though Kleisthenês, the son of Megaklês,
-might be firmly disposed to renounce the example of his father, and
-to act as the faithful citizen of a fixed constitution,—he would know
-but too well that the sons of his father’s companions and rivals
-would follow out ambitious purposes without any regard to the limits
-imposed by law, if ever they acquired sufficient partisans to present
-a fair prospect of success. Moreover, when any two candidates for
-power, with such reckless dispositions, came into a bitter personal
-rivalry, the motives to each of them, arising as well out of fear
-as out of ambition, to put down his opponent at any cost to the
-constitution, might well become irresistible, unless some impartial
-and discerning interference could arrest the strife in time. “If the
-Athenians were wise (Aristeidês is reported to have said,[273] in the
-height and peril of his parliamentary struggle with Themistoklês),
-they would cast both Themistoklês and me into the barathrum.”[274]
-And whoever reads the sad narrative of the Korkyræan sedition, in
-the third book of Thucydidês, together with the reflections of the
-historian upon it,[275] will trace the gradual exasperation of these
-party feuds, beginning even under democratical forms, until at length
-they break down the barriers of public as well as of private morality.
-
- [272] See the discussion of the ostracism in Aristot. Politic.
- iii, 8, where he recognizes the problem as one common to all
- governments.
-
- Compare, also, a good Dissertation—J. A. Paradys, De Ostracismo
- Atheniensium, Lugduni Batavor. 1793; K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der
- Griechischen Staatsalterthümer, ch. 130; and Schömann, Antiq.
- Jur. Pub. Græc. ch. xxxv, p. 233.
-
- [273] Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 3.
-
- [274] The barathrum was a deep pit, said to have had iron spikes
- at the bottom, into which criminals condemned to death were
- sometimes cast. Though probably an ancient Athenian punishment,
- it seems to have become at the very least extremely rare, if not
- entirely disused, during the times of Athens historically known
- to us; but the phrase continued in speech after the practice had
- become obsolete. The iron spikes depend on the evidence of the
- Schol. Aristophan. Plutus, 431,—a very doubtful authority, when
- we read the legend which he blends with his statement.
-
- [275] Thucyd. iii, 70, 81, 82.
-
-Against this chance of internal assailants Kleisthenês had to protect
-the democratical constitution,—first, by throwing impediments
-in their way and rendering it difficult for them to procure the
-requisite support; next, by eliminating them before any violent
-projects were ripe for execution. To do either the one or the other,
-it was necessary to provide such a constitution as would not only
-conciliate the good-will, but kindle the passionate attachment,
-of the mass of citizens, insomuch that not even any considerable
-minority should be deliberately inclined to alter it by force. It was
-necessary to create in the multitude, and through them to force upon
-the leading ambitious men, that rare and difficult sentiment which
-we may term a constitutional morality; a paramount reverence for the
-forms of the constitution, enforcing obedience to the authorities
-acting under and within those forms, yet combined with the habit of
-open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and
-unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public
-acts,—combined too with a perfect confidence in the bosom of every
-citizen, amidst the bitterness of party contest, that the forms of
-the constitution will be not less sacred in the eyes of his opponents
-than in his own. This coexistence of freedom and self-imposed
-restraint,—of obedience to authority with unmeasured censure of the
-persons exercising it,—may be found in the aristocracy of England
-(since about 1688) as well as in the democracy of the American United
-States: and because we are familiar with it, we are apt to suppose
-it a natural sentiment; though there seem to be few sentiments more
-difficult to establish and diffuse among a community, judging by the
-experience of history. We may see how imperfectly it exists at this
-day in the Swiss cantons; and the many violences of the first French
-revolution illustrate, among various other lessons, the fatal effects
-arising from its absence, even among a people high in the scale of
-intelligence. Yet the diffusion of such constitutional morality,
-not merely among the majority of any community, but throughout the
-whole, is the indispensable condition of a government at once free
-and peaceable; since even any powerful and obstinate minority may
-render the working of free institutions impracticable, without being
-strong enough to conquer ascendency for themselves. Nothing less
-than unanimity, or so overwhelming a majority as to be tantamount
-to unanimity, on the cardinal point of respecting constitutional
-forms, even by those who do not wholly approve of them, can render
-the excitement of political passion bloodless, and yet expose all the
-authorities in the state to the full license of pacific criticism.
-
-At the epoch of Kleisthenês, which by a remarkable coincidence is the
-same as that of the regifuge at Rome, such constitutional morality,
-if it existed anywhere else, had certainly no place at Athens; and
-the first creation of it in any particular society must be esteemed
-an interesting historical fact. By the spirit of his reforms,—equal,
-popular, and comprehensive, far beyond the previous experience of
-Athenians,—he secured the hearty attachment of the body of citizens;
-but from the first generation of leading men, under the nascent
-democracy, and with such precedents as they had to look back upon, no
-self-imposed limits to ambition could be expected: and the problem
-required was to eliminate beforehand any one about to transgress
-these limits, so as to escape the necessity of putting him down
-afterwards, with all that bloodshed and reaction, in the midst of
-which the free working of the constitution would be suspended at
-least, if not irrevocably extinguished. To acquire such influence
-as would render him dangerous under democratical forms, a man must
-stand in evidence before the public, so as to afford some reasonable
-means of judging of his character and purposes; and the security
-which Kleisthenês provided, was, to call in the positive judgment
-of the citizens respecting his future promise purely and simply, so
-that they might not remain too long neutral between two formidable
-political rivals,—pursuant in a certain way to the Solonian
-proclamation against neutrality in a sedition, as I have already
-remarked in a former chapter. He incorporated in the constitution
-itself the principle of _privilegium_ (to employ the Roman phrase,
-which signifies, not a peculiar favor granted to any one, but a
-peculiar inconvenience imposed), yet only under circumstances solemn
-and well defined, with full notice and discussion beforehand, and
-by the positive secret vote of a large proportion of the citizens.
-“No law shall be made against any single citizen, without the same
-being made against _all_ Athenian citizens; unless it shall so seem
-good to six thousand citizens voting secretly.”[276] Such was that
-general principle of the constitution, under which the ostracism
-was a particular case. Before the vote of ostracism could be taken,
-a case was to be made out in the senate and the public assembly
-to justify it. In the sixth prytany of the year, these two bodies
-debated and determined whether the state of the republic was menacing
-enough to call for such an exceptional measure.[277] If they decided
-in the affirmative, a day was named, the agora was railed round, with
-ten entrances left for the citizens of each tribe, and ten separate
-casks or vessels for depositing the suffrages, which consisted of a
-shell, or a potsherd, with the name of the person written on it whom
-each citizen designed to banish. At the end of the day, the number
-of votes was summed up, and if six thousand votes were found to have
-been given against any one person, that person was ostracized; if
-not, the ceremony ended in nothing.[278] Ten days were allowed to
-him for settling his affairs, after which he was required to depart
-from Attica for ten years, but retained his property, and suffered no
-other penalty.
-
- [276] Andokidês, De Mysteriis, p. 12, c. 13. Μηδὲ νόμον ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ
- ἐξεῖναι θεῖναι, ἐὰν μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ πᾶσιν Ἀθηναίοις· ἐὰν μὴ
- ἑξακισχιλίοις δόξῃ, κρυβδὴν ψηφιζομένοις. According to the usual
- looseness in dealing with the name of Solon, this has been called
- a law of Solon (see Petit. Leg. Att. p. 188), though it certainly
- cannot be older than Kleisthenês.
-
- “Privilegia ne irroganto,” said the law of the Twelve Tables at
- Rome (Cicero, Legg. iii, 4-19).
-
- [277] Aristotle and Philochorus, ap. Photium, App. p. 672 and
- 675, ed. Porson.
-
- It would rather appear by that passage that the ostracism was
- never formally abrogated; and that even in the later times, to
- which the description of Aristotle refers, the form was still
- preserved of putting the question whether the public safety
- called for an ostracizing vote, long after it had passed both out
- of use and out of mind.
-
- [278] Philochorus, _ut supra_; Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 7; Schol.
- ad Aristophan. Equit. 851; Pollux, viii, 19.
-
- There is a difference of opinion among the authorities, as well
- as among the expositors, whether the minimum of six thousand
- applies to the votes given in all, or to the votes given against
- any one name. I embrace the latter opinion, which is supported
- by Philochorus, Pollux, and the Schol. on Aristophanês, though
- Plutarch countenances the former. Boeckh, in his Public Economy
- of Athens, and Wachsmuth, (i, 1, p. 272) are in favor of Plutarch
- and the former opinion; Paradys (Dissertat. De Ostr. p. 25),
- Platner, and Hermann (see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Gr.
- Staatsalt. ch. 130, not. 6) support the other, which appears to
- me the right one.
-
- For the purpose, so unequivocally pronounced, of the general law
- determining the absolute minimum necessary for a _privilegium_,
- would by no means be obtained, if the simple majority of votes,
- among six thousand voters in all, had been allowed to take
- effect. A person might then be ostracized with a very small
- number of votes against him, and without creating any reasonable
- presumption that he was dangerous to the constitution; which
- was by no means either the purpose of Kleisthenês, or the
- well-understood operation of the ostracism, so long as it
- continued to be a reality.
-
-It was not the maxim at Athens to escape the errors of the people,
-by calling in the different errors, and the sinister interest
-besides, of an extra-popular or privileged few; nor was any third
-course open, since the principles of representative government were
-not understood, nor indeed conveniently applicable to very small
-communities. Beyond the judgment of the people—so the Athenians
-felt—there was no appeal; and their grand study was to surround the
-delivery of that judgment with the best securities for rectitude and
-the best preservatives against haste, passion, or private corruption.
-Whatever measure of good government could not be obtained in that
-way, could not, in their opinion, be obtained at all. I shall
-illustrate the Athenian proceedings on this head more fully when I
-come to speak of the working of their mature democracy: meanwhile,
-in respect to this grand protection of the nascent democracy,—the
-vote of ostracism,—it will be found that the securities devised by
-Kleisthenês, for making the sentence effectual against the really
-dangerous man, and against no one else, display not less foresight
-than patriotism. The main object was, to render the voting an
-expression of deliberate public feeling, as distinguished from mere
-factious antipathy: the large minimum of votes required, one-fourth
-of the entire citizen population, went far to insure this effect,—the
-more so, since each vote, taken as it was in a secret manner,
-counted unequivocally for the expression of a genuine and independent
-sentiment, and could neither be coerced nor bought. Then again,
-Kleisthenês did not permit the process of ostracizing to be opened
-against any one citizen exclusively. If opened at all, every one
-without exception was exposed to the sentence; so that the friends of
-Themistoklês could not invoke it against Aristeidês,[279] nor those
-of the latter against the former, without exposing their own leader
-to the same chance of exile. It was not likely to be invoked at all,
-therefore, until exasperation had proceeded so far as to render
-both parties insensible to this chance,—the precise index of that
-growing internecive hostility, which the ostracism prevented from
-coming to a head. Nor could it even then be ratified, unless a case
-was shown to convince the more neutral portion of the senate and the
-ekklesia: moreover, after all, the ekklesia did not itself ostracize,
-but a future day was named, and the whole body of the citizens were
-solemnly invited to vote. It was in this way that security was
-taken not only for making the ostracism effectual in protecting
-the constitution, but to hinder it from being employed for any
-other purpose. And we must recollect that it exercised its tutelary
-influence, not merely on those occasions when it was actually
-employed, but by the mere knowledge that it might be employed, and by
-the restraining effect which that knowledge produced on the conduct
-of the great men. Again, the ostracism, though essentially of an
-exceptional nature, was yet an exception sanctified and limited
-by the constitution itself; so that the citizen, in giving his
-ostracizing vote, did not in any way depart from the constitution
-or lose his reverence for it. The issue placed before him—“Is there
-any man whom you think vitally dangerous to the state? if so,
-whom?”—though vague, was yet raised directly and legally. Had there
-been no ostracism, it might probably have been raised both indirectly
-and illegally, on the occasion of some special imputed crime of a
-suspected political leader, when accused before a court of justice,
-—a perversion, involving all the mischief of the ostracism, without
-its protective benefits.
-
- [279] The practical working of the ostracism presents it as a
- struggle between two contending leaders, accompanied with chance
- of banishment to both—Periklês πρὸς τὸν Θουκυδίδην εἰς ἀγῶνα περὶ
- τοῦ ὀστράκου καταστὰς, καὶ διακινδυνεύσας, ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἐξέβαλε,
- κατέλυσε δὲ τὴν ἀντιτεταγμένην ἑταιρείαν (Plutarch, Periklês, c.
- 14; compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11).
-
-Care was taken to divest the ostracism of all painful consequence
-except what was inseparable from exile; and this is not one of the
-least proofs of the wisdom with which it was devised. Most certainly,
-it never deprived the public of candidates for political influence:
-and when we consider the small amount of individual evil which it
-inflicted,—evil too diminished, in the cases of Kimon and Aristeidês,
-by a reactionary sentiment which augmented their subsequent
-popularity after return,—two remarks will be quite sufficient to
-offer in the way of justification. First, it completely produced its
-intended effect; for the democracy grew up from infancy to manhood
-without a single attempt to overthrow it by force,[280]—a result,
-upon which no reflecting contemporary of Kleisthenês could have
-ventured to calculate. Next, through such tranquil working of the
-democratical forms, a constitutional morality quite sufficiently
-complete was produced among the leading Athenians, to enable the
-people after a certain time to dispense with that exceptional
-security which the ostracism offered.[281] To the nascent democracy,
-it was absolutely indispensable; to the growing yet militant
-democracy, it was salutary; but the full-grown democracy both could
-and did stand without it. The ostracism passed upon Hyperbolus,
-about ninety years after Kleisthenês, was the last occasion of its
-employment. And even this can hardly be considered as a serious
-instance: it was a trick concerted between two distinguished
-Athenians (Nikias and Alkibiadês), to turn to their own political
-account a process already coming to be antiquated. Nor would
-such a manœuvre have been possible, if the contemporary Athenian
-citizens had been penetrated with the same, serious feeling of the
-value of ostracism as a safeguard of democracy, as had been once
-entertained by their fathers and grandfathers. Between Kleisthenês
-and Hyperbolus, we hear of about ten different persons as having
-been banished by ostracism. First of all, Hipparchus of the deme
-Cholargus, the son of Charmus, a relative of the recently-expelled
-Peisistratid despots;[282] then Aristeidês, Themistoklês, Kimon, and
-Thucydidês son of Melêsias, all of them renowned political leaders;
-also Alkibiadês and Megaklês (the paternal and maternal grandfathers
-of the distinguished Alkibiadês), and Kallias, belonging to another
-eminent family at Athens;[283] lastly, Damôn, the preceptor of
-Periklês in poetry and music, and eminent for his acquisitions in
-philosophy.[284] In this last case comes out the vulgar side of
-humanity, aristocratical as well as democratical; for with both, the
-process of philosophy and the persons of philosophers are wont to
-be alike unpopular. Even Kleisthenês himself is said to have been
-ostracized under his own law, and Xanthippus; but both upon authority
-too weak to trust.[285] Miltiadês was not ostracized at all, but
-tried and punished for misconduct in his command.
-
- [280] It is not necessary in this remark to take notice, either
- of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, or that of Thirty, called the
- Thirty Tyrants, established during the closing years of the
- Peloponnesian war, and after the ostracism had been discontinued.
- Neither of these changes were brought about by the excessive
- ascendency of any one or few men: both of them grew out of the
- embarrassments and dangers of Athens in the latter period of her
- great foreign war.
-
- [281] Aristotle (Polit. iii, 8, 6) seems to recognize the
- political necessity of the ostracism, as applied even to obvious
- superiority of wealth, connection, etc. (which he distinguishes
- pointedly from superiority of merit and character), and upon
- principles of symmetry only, even apart from dangerous designs
- on the part of the superior mind. No painter, he observes, will
- permit a foot, in his picture of a man, to be of disproportionate
- size with the entire body, though separately taken it may be
- finely painted; nor will the chorus-master allow any one voice,
- however beautiful, to predominate beyond a certain proportion
- over the rest.
-
- His final conclusion is, however, that the legislator ought, if
- possible, so to construct his constitution, as to have no need of
- such exceptional remedy; but, if this cannot be done, then the
- second-best step is to apply the ostracism. Compare also v, 2, 5.
-
- The last century of the free Athenian democracy realized the
- first of these alternatives.
-
- [282] Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11: Harpokration. v. Ἵππαρχος.
-
- [283] Lysias cont. Alkibiad. A. c. 11, p. 143: Harpokration. v.
- Ἀλκιβιάδης; Andokidês cont. Alkibiad. c. 11-12, pp. 129, 130:
- this last oration may afford evidence as to the facts mentioned
- in it, though I cannot imagine it to be either genuine, or
- belonging to the time to which it professes to refer, as has been
- observed in a previous note.
-
- [284] Plutarch, Periklês. c. 4; Plutarch. Aristeid. c. 1.
-
- [285] Ælian, V. H. xiii, 24; Herakleidês, περὶ Πολιτειῶν, c. 1,
- ed. Köhler.
-
-I should hardly have said so much about this memorable and peculiar
-institution of Kleisthenês, if the erroneous accusations against the
-Athenian democracy,—of envy, injustice, and ill-treatment of their
-superior men, had not been greatly founded upon it, and if such
-criticisms had not passed from ancient times to modern with little
-examination. In monarchical governments, a pretender to the throne,
-numbering a certain amount of supporters, is, as a matter of course,
-excluded from the country. The duke of Bordeaux cannot now reside in
-France,—nor could Napoleon after 1815,—nor Charles Edward in England
-during the last century. No man treats this as any extravagant
-injustice, yet it is the parallel of the ostracism,—with a stronger
-case in favor of the latter, inasmuch as the change from one regal
-dynasty to another does not of necessity overthrow all the collateral
-institutions and securities of the country. Plutarch has affirmed
-that the ostracism arose from the envy and jealousy inherent in a
-democracy,[286] and not from justifiable fears,—an observation often
-repeated, yet not the less demonstrably untrue. Not merely because
-ostracism so worked as often to increase the influence of that
-political leader whose rival it removed,—but still more, because,
-if the fact had been as Plutarch says, this institution would have
-continued as long as the democracy; whereas it finished with the
-banishment of Hyperbolus, at a period when the government was more
-decisively democratical than it had been in the time of Kleisthenês.
-It was, in truth, a product altogether of fear and insecurity,[287]
-on the part both of the democracy and its best friends,—fear
-perfectly well-grounded, and only appearing needless because the
-precautions taken prevented attack. So soon as the diffusion of a
-constitutional morality had placed the mass of the citizens above all
-serious fear of an aggressive usurper the ostracism was discontinued.
-And doubtless the feeling, that it might safely be dispensed with,
-must have been strengthened by the long ascendency of Periklês,—by
-the spectacle of the greatest statesman whom Athens ever produced,
-acting steadily within the limits of the constitution; as well as by
-the ill-success of his two opponents, Kimon and Thucydidês,—aided by
-numerous partisans and by the great comic writers, at a period when
-comedy was a power in the state such as it has never been before
-or since,—in their attempts to get him ostracized. They succeeded
-in fanning up the ordinary antipathy of the citizens towards
-philosophers, so far as to procure the ostracism of his friend and
-teacher Damôn: but Periklês himself, to repeat the complaint of his
-bitter enemy, the comic poet Kratinus,[288] “was out of the reach of
-the oyster-shell.” If Periklês was not conceived to be dangerous to
-the constitution, none of his successors were at all likely to be so
-regarded. Damôn and Hyperbolus were the two last persons ostracized:
-both of them were cases, and the only cases, of an unequivocal abuse
-of the institution, because, whatever the grounds of displeasure
-against them may have been, it is impossible to conceive either
-of them as menacing to the state,—whereas all the other known
-sufferers were men of such position and power, that the six or
-eight thousand citizens who inscribed each name on the shell, or at
-least a large proportion of them, may well have done so under the
-most conscientious belief that they were guarding the constitution
-against real danger. Such a change, in the character of the persons
-ostracized, plainly evinces that the ostracism had become dissevered
-from that genuine patriotic prudence which originally rendered it
-both legitimate and popular. It had served for two generations an
-inestimable tutelary purpose,—it lived to be twice dishonored,—and
-then passed, by universal acquiescence, into matter of history.
-
- [286] Plutarch, Themistoklês, 22; Plutarch, Aristeidês, 7,
- παραμυθία φθόνου καὶ κουφισμός. See the same opinions repeated by
- Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, ch. 48, vol. i, p. 272,
- and by Platner, Prozess and Klagen bey den Attikern, vol. i, p.
- 386.
-
- [287] Thucyd. viii, 73, διὰ δυνάμεως καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον.
-
- [288] Kratinus ap. Plutarch, Periklês, 13.
-
- Ὁ σχινοκέφαλος Ζεὺς ὁδὶ προσέρχεται
- Περικλέης, τᾠδεῖον ἐπὶ τοῦ κρανíου
- Ἔχων, ἐπειδὴ τοὔστρακον παροίχεται.
-
- For the attacks of the comic writers upon Damôn, see Plutarch,
- Periklês, c. 4.
-
-A process analogous to the ostracism subsisted at Argos,[289] at
-Syracuse, and in some other Grecian democracies. Aristotle states
-that it was abused for factious purposes: and at Syracuse, where it
-was introduced after the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty, Diodorus
-affirms that it was so unjustly and profusely applied, as to deter
-persons of wealth and station from taking any part in public affairs;
-for which reason it was speedily discontinued. We have no particulars
-to enable us to appreciate this general statement. But we cannot
-safely infer that because the ostracism worked on the whole well at
-Athens, it must necessarily have worked well in other states,—the
-more so, as we do not know whether it was surrounded with the same
-precautionary formalities, nor whether it even required the same
-large minimum of votes to make it effective. This latter guarantee,
-so valuable in regard to an institution essentially easy to abuse, is
-not noticed by Diodorus in his brief account of the Petalism,—so the
-process was denominated at Syracuse.[290]
-
- [289] Aristot. Polit. iii, 8, 4; v, 2, 5.
-
- [290] Diodor. xi, 55-87. This author describes very imperfectly
- the Athenian ostracism, transferring to it apparently the
- circumstances of the Syracusan Petalism.
-
-Such was the first Athenian democracy, engendered as well by the
-reaction against Hippias and his dynasty as by the memorable
-partnership, whether spontaneous or compulsory, between Kleisthenês
-and the unfranchised multitude. It is to be distinguished, both
-from the mitigated oligarchy established by Solon before, and from
-the full-grown and symmetrical democracy which prevailed afterwards
-from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war towards the close of the
-career of Periklês. It was, indeed, a striking revolution, impressed
-upon the citizen not less by the sentiments to which it appealed
-than by the visible change which it made in political and social
-life. He saw himself marshalled in the ranks of hoplites, alongside
-of new companions in arms,—he was enrolled in a new register, and
-his property in a new schedule, in his deme and by his demarch, an
-officer before unknown,—he found the year distributed afresh, for
-all legal purposes, into ten parts bearing the name of prytanies,
-each marked by a solemn and free-spoken ekklesia, at which he had
-a right to be present,—that ekklesia was convoked and presided by
-senators called prytanes, members of a senate novel both as to
-number and distribution,—his political duties were now performed as
-member of a tribe, designated by a name not before pronounced in
-common Attic life, connected with one of ten heroes whose statues
-he now for the first time saw in the agora, and associating him
-with fellow-tribemen from all parts of Attica. All these and many
-others were sensible novelties, felt in the daily proceedings of the
-citizen. But the great novelty of all was, the authentic recognition
-of the ten new tribes as a sovereign dêmos, or people, apart from
-all specialties of phratric or gentile origin, with free speech and
-equal law; retaining no distinction except the four classes of the
-Solonian property-schedule with their gradations of eligibility. To
-a considerable proportion of citizens this great novelty was still
-farther endeared by the fact that it had raised them out of the
-degraded position of metics and slaves; and to the large majority of
-all the citizens, it furnished a splendid political idea, profoundly
-impressive to the Greek mind,—capable of calling forth the most
-ardent attachment as well as the most devoted sense of active
-obligation and obedience. We have now to see how their newly-created
-patriotism manifested itself.
-
-Kleisthenês and his new constitution carried with them so completely
-the popular favor, that Isagoras had no other way of opposing
-it except by calling in the interference of Kleomenês and the
-Lacedæmonians. Kleomenês listened the more readily to this call, as
-he was reported to have been on an intimate footing with the wife
-of Isagoras. He prepared to come to Athens; but his first aim was
-to deprive the democracy of its great leader Kleisthenês, who, as
-belonging to the Alkmæônid family, was supposed to be tainted with
-the inherited sin of his great-grandfather Megaklês, the destroyer
-of the usurper Kylôn. Kleomenês sent a herald to Athens, demanding
-the expulsion “of the accursed,”—so this family were called by their
-enemies, and so they continued to be called eighty years afterwards,
-when the same manœuvre was practised by the Lacedæmonians of that
-day against Periklês. This requisition had been recommended by
-Isagoras, and was so well-timed that Kleisthenês, not venturing to
-disobey it, retired voluntarily, so that Kleomenês, though arriving
-at Athens only with a small force, found himself master of the city.
-At the instigation of Isagoras, he sent into exile seven hundred
-families, selected from the chief partisans of Kleisthenês: his next
-attempt was to dissolve the new Senate of Five Hundred and place
-the whole government in the hands of three hundred adherents of the
-chief whose cause he espoused. But now was seen the spirit infused
-into the people by their new constitution. At the time of the first
-usurpation of Peisistratus, the Senate of that day had not only not
-resisted, but even lent themselves to the scheme. But the new Senate
-of Kleisthenês resolutely refused to submit to dissolution, and the
-citizens manifested themselves in a way at once so hostile and so
-determined, that Kleomenês and Isagoras were altogether baffled.
-They were compelled to retire into the acropolis and stand upon the
-defensive; and this symptom of weakness was the signal for a general
-rising of the Athenians, who besieged the Spartan king on the holy
-rock. He had evidently come without any expectation of finding, or
-any means of overpowering, resistance; for at the end of two days his
-provisions were exhausted, and he was forced to capitulate. He and
-his Lacedæmonians, as well as Isagoras, were allowed to retire to
-Sparta; but the Athenians of the party captured along with him were
-imprisoned, condemned,[291] and executed by the people.
-
- [291] Herodot. v, 70-72; compare Schol. ad Aristophan. Lysistr.
- 274.
-
-Kleisthenês, with the seven hundred exiled families, was immediately
-recalled, and his new constitution materially strengthened by this
-first success. Yet the prospect of renewed Spartan attack was
-sufficiently serious to induce him to send envoys to Artaphernês, the
-Persian satrap at Sardis, soliciting the admission of Athens into the
-Persian alliance: he probably feared the intrigues of the expelled
-Hippias in the same quarter. Artaphernês, having first informed
-himself who the Athenians were, and where they dwelt,—replied that,
-if they chose to send earth and water to the king of Persia, they
-might be received as allies, but upon no other condition. Such were
-the feelings of alarm under which the envoys had quitted Athens,
-that they went the length of promising this unqualified token of
-submission. But their countrymen, on their return, disavowed them
-with scorn and indignation.[292]
-
- [292] Herodot. v, 73.
-
-It was at this time that the first connection began between Athens
-and the little Bœotian town of Platæa, situated on the northern
-slope of the range of Kithæron, between that mountain and the river
-Asôpus,—on the road from Athens to Thebes; and it is upon this
-first occasion that we become acquainted with the Bœotians and
-their polities. In one of my preceding volumes,[293] the Bœotian
-federation has already been briefly described, as composed of some
-twelve or thirteen autonomous towns under the headship of Thebes,
-which was, or professed to have been, their mother-city. Platæa had
-been, so the Thebans affirmed, their latest foundation;[294] it was
-ill-used by them, and discontented with the alliance. Accordingly,
-as Kleomenês was on his way back from Athens, the Platæans took the
-opportunity of addressing themselves to him, craved the protection
-of Sparta against Thebes, and surrendered their town and territory
-without reserve. The Spartan king, having no motive to undertake a
-trust which promised nothing but trouble, advised them to solicit
-the protection of Athens, as nearer and more accessible for them in
-case of need. He foresaw that this would embroil the Athenians with
-Bœotia; and such anticipation was in fact his chief motive for giving
-the advice, which the Platæans followed. Selecting an occasion of
-public sacrifice at Athens, they dispatched thither envoys, who sat
-down as suppliants at the altar, surrendered their town to Athens,
-and implored protection against Thebes. Such an appeal was not to be
-resisted, and protection was promised; it was soon needed, for the
-Thebans invaded the Platæan territory, and an Athenian force marched
-to defend it. Battle was about to be joined, when the Corinthians
-interposed with their mediation, which was accepted by both parties.
-They decided altogether in favor of Platæa, pronouncing that the
-Thebans had no right to employ force against any seceding member of
-the Bœotian federation.[295] But the Thebans, finding the decision
-against them, refused to abide by it, and, attacking the Athenians on
-their return, sustained a complete defeat: the latter avenged this
-breach of faith by joining to Platæa the portion of Theban territory
-south of the Asôpus, and making that river the limit between the
-two. By such success, however, the Athenians gained nothing, except
-the enmity of Bœotia,—as Kleomenês had foreseen. Their alliance with
-Platæa, long continued, and presenting in the course of this history
-several incidents touching to our sympathies, will be found, if we
-except one splendid occasion,[296] productive only of burden to the
-one party, yet insufficient as a protection to the other.
-
- [293] See vol. ii, p. 295, part ii, ch. 3.
-
- [294] Thucyd. iii, 61.
-
- [295] Herodot. vi, 108. ἐᾷν Θηβαίους Βοιωτῶν τοὺς μὴ βουλομένους
- ἐς Βοιωτοὺς τελέειν. This is an important circumstance in regard
- to Grecian political feeling: I shall advert to it hereafter.
-
- [296] Herodot. vi, 108. Thucydidês (iii, 58), when recounting
- the capture of Platæa by the Lacedæmonians in the third year of
- the Peloponnesian war, states that the alliance between Platæa
- and Athens was then in its 93rd year of date; according to which
- reckoning it would begin in the year 519 B. C., where Mr. Clinton
- and other chronologers place it.
-
- I venture to think that the immediate circumstances, as recounted
- in the text from Herodotus (whether Thucydidês conceived them
- in the same way, cannot be determined), which brought about the
- junction of Platæa with Athens, cannot have taken place in 519 B.
- C., but must have happened _after_ the expulsion of Hippias from
- Athens in 510 B. C.,—for the following reasons:—
-
- 1. No mention is made of Hippias, who yet, if the event had
- happened in 519 B. C., must have been the person to determine
- whether the Athenians should assist Platæa or not. The Platæan
- envoys present themselves at a public sacrifice in the attitude
- of suppliants, so as to touch the feelings of the Athenian
- citizens generally: had Hippias been then despot, _he_ would have
- been the person to be propitiated and to determine for or against
- assistance.
-
- 2. We know no cause which should have brought Kleomenês with a
- Lacedæmonian force near to Platæa in the year 519 B. C.: we know
- from the statement of Herodotus (v, 76) that no Lacedæmonian
- expedition against Attica took place at that time. But in the
- year to which I have referred the event, Kleomenês is on his
- march near the spot upon a known and assignable object. From the
- very tenor of the narrative, it is plain that Kleomenês and his
- army were not designedly in Bœotia, nor meddling with Bœotian
- affairs, at the time when the Platæans solicited his aid; he
- declines to interpose in the matter, pleading the great distance
- between Sparta and Platæa as a reason.
-
- 3. Again, Kleomenês, in advising the Platæans to solicit
- Athens, does not give the advice through good-will towards
- them, but through a desire to harass and perplex the Athenians,
- by entangling them in a quarrel with the Bœotians. At the
- point of time to which I have referred the incident, this was
- a very natural desire: he was angry, and perhaps alarmed, at
- the recent events which had brought about his expulsion from
- Athens. But what was there to make him conceive such a feeling
- against Athens during the reign of Hippias? That despot was on
- terms of the closest intimacy with Sparta: the Peisistratids
- were (ξείνους—ξεινίους ταμάλιστα—Herod. v, 63, 90, 91) “the
- particular guests” of the Spartans, who were only induced to
- take part against Hippias from a reluctant obedience to the
- oracles procured, one after another, by Kleisthenês. The motive,
- therefore, assigned by Herodotus, for the advice given by
- Kleomenês to the Platæans, can have no application to the time
- when Hippias was still despot.
-
- 4. That Herodotus did not conceive the victory gained by the
- Athenians over Thebes as having taken place _before_ the
- expulsion of Hippias, is evident from his emphatic contrast
- between their warlike spirit and success when liberated from the
- despots, and their timidity or backwardness while under Hippias
- (Ἀθηναῖοι τυραννευόμενοι μὲν, οὐδαμῶν τῶν σφέας περιοικεόντων
- ἔσαν τὰ πολέμια ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ τυράννων, μακρῷ πρῶτοι
- ἐγένοντο· δηλοῖ ὦν ταῦτα, ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν, ἐθελοκάκεον,
- etc. v, 78). The man who wrote thus cannot have believed that,
- in the year 519 B. C., while Hippias was in full sway, the
- Athenians gained an important victory over the Thebans, cut off
- a considerable portion of the Theban territory for the purpose
- of joining it to that of the Platæans, and showed from that time
- forward their constant superiority over Thebes by protecting her
- inferior neighbor against her.
-
- These different reasons, taking them altogether, appear to me
- to show that the first alliance between Athens and Platæa, as
- Herodotus conceives and describes it, cannot have taken place
- before the expulsion of Hippias, in 510 B. C.; and induce me to
- believe, either that Thucydidês was mistaken in the date of that
- event, or that Herodotus has not correctly described the facts.
- Not seeing any reason to suspect the description given by the
- latter, I have departed, though unwillingly, from the date of
- Thucydidês.
-
- The application of the Platæans to Kleomenês, and his advice
- grounded thereupon, may be connected more suitably with his first
- expedition to Athens, after the expulsion of Hippias, than with
- his second.
-
-Meanwhile Kleomenês had returned to Sparta full of resentment
-against the Athenians, and resolved on punishing them, as well as on
-establishing his friend Isagoras as despot over them. Having been
-taught, however, by humiliating experience, that this was no easy
-achievement, he would not make the attempt, without having assembled
-a considerable force; he summoned allies from all the various states
-of Peloponnesus, yet without venturing to inform them what he was
-about to undertake. He at the same time concerted measures with the
-Bœotians, and with the Chalkidians of Eubœa, for a simultaneous
-invasion of Attica on all sides. It appears that he had greater
-confidence in their hostile dispositions towards Athens than in those
-of the Peloponnesians, for he was not afraid to acquaint them with
-his design,—and probably the Bœotians were incensed with the recent
-interference of Athens in the affair of Platæa. As soon as these
-preparations were completed, the two kings of Sparta, Kleomenês and
-Demaratus, put themselves at the head of the united Peloponnesian
-force, marched into Attica, and advanced as far as Eleusis on the way
-to Athens. But when the allies came to know the purpose for which
-they were to be employed, a spirit of dissatisfaction manifested
-itself among them. They had no unfriendly sentiment towards Athens;
-and the Corinthians especially, favorably disposed rather than
-otherwise towards that city, resolved to proceed no farther, withdrew
-their contingent from the camp, and returned home. At the same time,
-king Demaratus, either sharing in the general dissatisfaction, or
-moved by some grudge against his colleague which had not before
-manifested itself, renounced the undertaking also. And these two
-examples, operating upon the preëxisting sentiment of the allies
-generally, caused the whole camp to break up and return home without
-striking a blow.[297]
-
- [297] Herodot. v, 75.
-
-We may here remark that this is the first instance known in
-which Sparta appears in act as recognized head of an obligatory
-Peloponnesian alliance,[298] summoning contingents from the cities
-to be placed under the command of her king. Her headship, previously
-recognized in theory, passes now into act, but in an unsatisfactory
-manner, so as to prove the necessity of precaution and concert
-beforehand,—which will be found not long wanting.
-
- [298] Compare Kortüm, Zur Geschichte Hellenischer
- Staats-Verfassungen, p. 35 (Heidelberg, 1821).
-
- I doubt, however, his interpretation of the words in Herodotus
- (v, 63)—εἴτε ἰδίῳ στόλῳ, εἴτε δημοσίῳ χρησόμενοι.
-
-Pursuant to the scheme concerted, the Bœotians and Chalkidians
-attacked Attica at the same time that Kleomenês entered it. The
-former seized Œnoê and Hysiæ, the frontier demes of Attica on the
-side towards Platæa, while the latter assailed the north-eastern
-frontier, which faces Eubœa. Invaded on three sides, the Athenians
-were in serious danger, and were compelled to concentrate all their
-forces at Eleusis against Kleomenês, leaving the Bœotians and
-Chalkidians unopposed. But the unexpected breaking up of the invading
-army from Peloponnesus proved their rescue, and enabled them to turn
-the whole of their attention to the other frontier. They marched into
-Bœotia to the strait called Euripus, which separates it from Eubœa,
-intending to prevent the junction of the Bœotians and Chalkidians,
-and to attack the latter first apart. But the arrival of the Bœotians
-caused an alteration in their scheme; they attacked the Bœotians
-first, and gained a victory of the most complete character,—killing
-a large number, and capturing seven hundred prisoners. On the very
-same day they crossed over to Eubœa, attacked the Chalkidians, and
-gained another victory so decisive that it at once terminated the
-war. Many Chalkidians were taken, as well as Bœotians, and conveyed
-in chains to Athens, where after a certain detention they were at
-last ransomed for two minæ per man; and the tenth of the sum thus
-raised was employed in the fabrication of a chariot and four horses
-in bronze, which was placed in the acropolis to commemorate the
-victory. Herodotus saw this trophy when he was at Athens. He saw
-too, what was a still more speaking trophy, the actual chains in
-which the prisoners had been fettered, exhibiting in their appearance
-the damage undergone when the acropolis was burnt by Xerxês: an
-inscription of four lines described the offerings and recorded the
-victory out of which they had sprung.[299]
-
- [299] Herodot. v, 77; Ælian, V. H. vi, 1; Pausan. i, 28, 2.
-
-Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory. The
-Athenians planted a body of four thousand of their citizens as
-klêruchs (lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy
-Chalkidian oligarchy called the Hippobotæ,—proprietors probably in
-the fertile plain of Lêlantum, between Chalkis and Eretria. This is
-a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed out by
-the Athenians in the days of their power; partly with the view of
-providing for their poorer citizens,—partly to serve as garrison
-among a population either hostile or of doubtful fidelity. These
-Attic klêruchs (I can find no other name by which to speak of them)
-did not lose their birthright as Athenian citizens: they were not
-colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are known by a totally
-different name,—but they corresponded very nearly to the colonies
-formally planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The increase
-of the poorer population was always more or less painfully felt in
-every Grecian city. For though the aggregate population never seems
-to have increased very fast, yet the multiplication of children in
-poor families caused the subdivision of the smaller lots of land,
-until at last they became insufficient for a maintenance; and the
-persons thus impoverished found it difficult to obtain subsistence
-in other ways, more especially as the labor for the richer classes
-was so much performed by imported slaves. Doubtless some families
-possessed of landed property became extinct; but this did not at
-all benefit the smaller and poorer proprietors; for the lands thus
-rendered vacant passed, not to them, but by inheritance, or bequest,
-or intermarriage, to other proprietors, for the most part in easy
-circumstances,—since one opulent family usually intermarried with
-another. I shall enter more fully at a future opportunity into this
-question,—the great and serious problem of population, as it affected
-the Greek communities generally, and as it was dealt with in theory
-by the powerful minds of Plato and Aristotle. At present it is
-sufficient to notice that the numerous klêruchies sent out by Athens,
-of which this to Eubœa was the first, arose in a great measure out of
-the multiplication of the poorer population, which her extended power
-was employed in providing for. Her subsequent proceedings with a view
-to the same object will not be always found so justifiable as this
-now before us, which grew naturally, according to the ideas of the
-time, out of her success against the Chalkidians.
-
-The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Bœotian allies,
-still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage of the
-latter, until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask advice of
-the Delphian oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from those
-nearest to them.”[300] “How (they replied) are we to obey? Our
-nearest neighbors, of Tanagra, Korôneia, and Thespiæ, are now, and
-have been from the beginning, lending us all the aid in their power.”
-An ingenious Theban, however, coming to the relief of his perplexed
-fellow-citizens, dived into the depths of legend and brought up a
-happy meaning. “Those nearest to us (he said) are the inhabitants of
-Ægina: for Thêbê (the eponym of Thebes) and Ægina (the eponym of that
-island) were both sisters, daughters of Asôpus: let us send to crave
-assistance from the Æginetans.” If his subtle interpretation (founded
-upon their descent from the same legendary progenitors) did not at
-once convince all who heard it, at least no one had any better to
-suggest; and envoys were at once sent to the Æginetans,—who, in reply
-to a petition founded on legendary claims, sent to the help of the
-Thebans a reinforcement of legendary, but venerated, auxiliaries,—the
-Æakid heroes. We are left to suppose that their effigies are here
-meant. It was in vain, however, that the glory and the supposed
-presence of the Æakids Telamôn and Pêleus were introduced into the
-Theban camp. Victory still continued on the side of Athens; and the
-discouraged Thebans again sent to Ægina, restoring the heroes,[301]
-and praying for aid of a character more human and positive. Their
-request was granted, and the Æginetans commenced war against Athens
-without even the decent preliminary of a herald and declaration.[302]
-
- [300] Herodot. v, 80.
-
- [301] In the expression of Herodotus, the Æakid heroes are
- _really_ sent from Ægina, and _really_ sent back by the Thebans
- (v, 80-81)—Οἱ δέ σφι αἰτέουσι ἐπικουρίην τοὺς Αἰακίδας συμπέμπειν
- ἔφασαν, αὖτις οἱ Θηβαῖοι πέμψαντες, ~τοὺς μὲν Αἰακίδας σφι
- ἀπεδίδοσαν, τῶν δὲ ἀνδρῶν ἐδέοντο~. Compare again v, 75; viii,
- 64; and Polyb. vii, 9, 2. θεῶν τῶν συστρατευομένων.
-
- Justin gives a narrative of an analogous application from the
- Epizephyrian Lokrians to Sparta (xx, 3): “Territi Locrenses
- ad Spartanos decurrunt: auxilium supplices deprecantur: illi
- longinquâ militiâ gravati, auxilium a Castore et Polluce petere
- eos jubent. Neque legati responsum sociæ urbis spreverunt;
- profectique in proximum templum, facto sacrificio, auxilium
- deorum implorant. Litatis hostiis, _obtentoque, ut rebantur,
- quod petebant—haud secus læti quam si deos ipsos secum avecturi
- essent_—pulvinaria iis in navi componunt, faustisque profecti
- ominibus, _solatia suis pro auxiliis_ deportant.” In comparing
- the expressions of Herodotus with those of Justin, we see that
- the former believes the direct literal presence and action of the
- Æakid heroes (“the Thebans sent back the heroes, and asked for
- men”), while the latter explains away the divine intervention
- into a mere fancy and feeling on the part of those to whom it is
- supposed to be accorded. This was the tone of those later authors
- whom Justin followed: compare also Pausan. iii, 19, 2.
-
- [302] Herodot. v, 81-82.
-
-This remarkable embassy first brings us into acquaintance with the
-Dorians of Ægina,—oligarchical, wealthy, commercial, and powerful
-at sea, even in the earliest days; more analogous to Corinth than
-to any of the other cities called Dorian. The hostility which they
-now began without provocation against Athens,—repressed by Sparta at
-the critical moment of the battle of Marathon,—then again breaking
-out,—and hushed for a while by the common dangers of the Persian
-invasion under Xerxês, was appeased only with the conquest of the
-island about twenty years after that event, and with the expulsion
-and destruction of its inhabitants some years later. There had been
-indeed, according to Herodotus,[303] a feud of great antiquity
-between Athens and Ægina,—of which he gives the account in a singular
-narrative, blending together religion, politics, exposition of
-ancient customs, etc.; but at the time when the Thebans solicited
-aid from Ægina, the latter was at peace with Athens. The Æginetans
-employed their fleet, powerful for that day, in ravaging Phalêrum
-and the maritime demes of Attica; nor had the Athenians as yet any
-fleet to resist them.[304] It is probable that the desired effect was
-produced, of diverting a portion of the Athenian force from the war
-against Bœotia, and thus partially relieving Thebes. But the war of
-Athens against both of them continued for a considerable time, though
-we have no information respecting its details.
-
- [303] Herodot. v, 83-88.
-
- [304] Herodot. v, 81-89. μεγάλως Ἀθηναίους ἐσινέοντο.
-
-Meanwhile the attention of Athens was called off from these combined
-enemies by a more menacing cloud, which threatened to burst upon
-her from the side of Sparta. Kleomenês and his countrymen, full of
-resentment at the late inglorious desertion of Eleusis, were yet
-more incensed by the discovery, which appears to have been then
-recently made, that the injunctions of the Delphian priestess for the
-expulsion of Hippias from Athens had been fraudulently procured.[305]
-Moreover, Kleomenês, when shut up in the acropolis of Athens with
-Isagoras, had found there various prophecies previously treasured
-up by the Peisistratids, many of which foreshadowed events highly
-disastrous to Sparta. And while the recent brilliant manifestations
-of courage, and repeated victories, on the part of Athens, seemed to
-indicate that such prophecies might perhaps be realized,—Sparta had
-to reproach herself, that, from the foolish and mischievous conduct
-of Kleomenês, she had undone the effect of her previous aid against
-the Peisistratids, and thus lost that return of gratitude which the
-Athenians would otherwise have testified. Under such impressions, the
-Spartan authorities took the remarkable step of sending for Hippias
-from his residence at Sigeium to Peloponnesus, and of summoning
-deputies from all their allies to meet him at Sparta.
-
- [305] Herodot. v, 90.
-
-The convocation thus summoned deserves notice as the commencement
-of a new era in Grecian politics. The previous expedition of
-Kleomenês against Attica presents to us the first known example
-of Spartan headship passing from theory into act: that expedition
-miscarried because the allies, though willing to follow, would
-not follow blindly, nor be made the instruments of executing
-purposes repugnant to their feelings. Sparta had now learned the
-necessity, in order to insure their hearty concurrence, of letting
-them know what she contemplated, so as to ascertain at least
-that she had no decided opposition to apprehend. Here, then, is
-the third stage in the spontaneous movement of Greece towards a
-systematic conjunction, however imperfect, of its many autonomous
-units. First we have Spartan headship suggested in theory, from a
-concourse of circumstances which attract to her the admiration of
-all Greece,—power, unrivalled training, undisturbed antiquity, etc.:
-next, the theory passes into act, yet rude and shapeless: lastly, the
-act becomes clothed with formalities, and preceded by discussion and
-determination. The first convocation of the allies at Sparta, for the
-purpose of having a common object submitted to their consideration,
-may well be regarded as an important event in Grecian political
-history. The proceedings at the convocation are no less important,
-as an indication of the way in which the Greeks of that day felt and
-acted, and must be borne in mind as a contrast with times hereafter
-to be described.
-
-Hippias having been presented to the assembled allies, the Spartans
-expressed their sorrow for having dethroned him,—their resentment
-and alarm at the new-born insolence of Athens,[306] already tasted
-by her immediate neighbors, and menacing to every state represented
-in the convocation,—and their anxiety to restore Hippias, not less
-as a reparation for past wrong, than as a means, through his rule,
-of keeping Athens low and dependent. But the proposition, though
-emanating from Sparta, was listened to by the allies with one common
-sentiment of repugnance. They had no sympathy for Hippias,—no
-dislike, still less any fear, of Athens,—and a profound detestation
-of the character of a despot. The spirit which had animated the armed
-contingents at Eleusis now reappeared among the deputies at Sparta,
-and the Corinthians again took the initiative. Their deputy Sosiklês
-protested against the project in the fiercest and most indignant
-strain: no language can be stronger than that of the long harangue
-which Herodotus puts into his mouth, wherein the bitter recollections
-prevalent at Corinth respecting Kypselus and Periander are poured
-forth. “Surely, heaven and earth are about to change places,—the fish
-are coming to dwell on dry land, and mankind going to inhabit the
-sea,—when you, Spartans, propose to subvert the popular governments,
-and to set up in the cities that wicked and bloody thing called
-a Despot.[307] First try what it is, for yourselves at Sparta,
-and then force it upon others if you can: you have not tasted its
-calamities as we have, and you take very good care to keep it away
-from yourselves. We adjure you, by the common gods of Hellas,—plant
-not despots in her cities: if you persist in a scheme so wicked, know
-that the Corinthians will not second you.”
-
- [306] Herodot. v, 90, 91.
-
- [307] Herodot. v, 92. ... τυραννίδας ἐς τὰς πόλις κατάγειν
- παρασκευάζεσθε, τοῦ οὔτε ἀδικώτερον ἐστὶ οὐδὲν κατ᾽ ἀνθρώπους
- οὔτε μιαιφονώτερον.
-
-This animated appeal was received with a shout of approbation and
-sympathy on the part of the allies. All with one accord united with
-Sosiklês in adjuring the Lacedæmonians[308] “not to revolutionize any
-Hellenic city.” No one listened to Hippias when he replied, warning
-the Corinthians that the time would come, when they, more than any
-one else, would dread and abhor the Athenian democracy, and wish the
-Peisistratidæ back again. He knew well, says Herodotus, that this
-would be, for he was better acquainted with the prophecies than any
-man. But no one then believed him, and he was forced to take his
-departure back to Sigeium: the Spartans not venturing to espouse his
-cause against the determined sentiment of the allies.[309]
-
- [308] Herodot. v, 93. μὴ ποιέειν μηδὲν νεώτερον περὶ πόλιν Ἑλλάδα.
-
- [309] Herodot. v, 93-94.
-
-That determined sentiment deserves notice, because it marks the
-present period of the Hellenic mind: fifty years later it will
-be found materially altered. Aversion to single-headed rule, and
-bitter recollection of men like Kypselus and Periander, are now
-the chords which thrill in an assembly of Grecian deputies: the
-idea of a revolution, implying thereby a great and comprehensive
-change, of which the party using the word disapproves, consists in
-substituting a permanent One in place of those periodical magistrates
-and assemblies which were the common attribute of oligarchy and
-democracy: the antithesis between these last two is as yet in the
-background, nor does there prevail either fear of Athens or hatred of
-the Athenian democracy. But when we turn to the period immediately
-before the Peloponnesian war, we find the order of precedence
-between these two sentiments reversed. The anti-monarchical feeling
-has not perished, but has been overlaid by other and more recent
-political antipathies,—the antithesis between democracy and oligarchy
-having become, not indeed the only sentiment, but the uppermost
-sentiment, in the minds of Grecian politicians generally, and the
-soul of active party-movement. Moreover, a hatred of the most deadly
-character has grown up against Athens and her democracy, especially
-in the grandsons of those very Corinthians who now stand forward
-as her sympathizing friends. The remarkable change of feeling here
-mentioned is nowhere so strikingly exhibited as when we contrast
-the address of the Corinthian Sosiklês, just narrated, with the
-speech of the Corinthian envoys at Sparta, immediately antecedent
-to the Peloponnesian war, as given to us in Thucydidês.[310] It
-will hereafter be fully explained by the intermediate events, by
-the growth of Athenian power, and by the still more miraculous
-development of Athenian energy.
-
- [310] Thucydid. i, 68-71, 120-124.
-
-Such development, the fruit of the fresh-planted democracy as well
-as the seed for its sustentation and aggrandizement, continued
-progressive during the whole period just adverted to. But the first
-unexpected burst of it, under the Kleisthenean constitution, and
-after the expulsion of Hippias, is described by Herodotus in terms
-too emphatic to be omitted. After narrating the successive victories
-of the Athenians over both Bœotians and Chalkidians, that historian
-proceeds: “Thus did the Athenians grow in strength. And we may find
-proof, not merely in this instance but everywhere else, how valuable
-a thing freedom is: since even the Athenians, while under a despot,
-were not superior in war to any of their surrounding neighbors, but,
-so soon as they got rid of their despots, became by far the first of
-all. These things show that while kept down by one man, they were
-slack and timid, like men working for a master; but when they were
-liberated, every single man became eager in exertions for his own
-benefit.” The same comparison reappears a short time afterwards,
-where he tells us, that “the Athenians when free, felt themselves a
-match for Sparta; but while kept down by any man under a despotism,
-were feeble and apt for submission.”[311]
-
- [311] Herodot. v, 78-91. Ἀθηναῖοι μέν νυν ηὔξηντο· δηλοῖ
- δὲ οὐ κατ᾽ ἓν μόνον ἀλλὰ πανταχῇ, ἡ ἰσηγορίη ὡς ἔστι χρῆμα
- σπουδαῖον, εἰ καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι τυραννευόμενοι μὲν, οὐδαμῶν τῶν
- σφέας περιοικεόντων ἔσαν τὰ πολέμια ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ
- τυράννων, μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο· δηλοῖ ὦν ταῦτα, ὅτι κατεχόμενοι
- μὲν, ἐθελοκάκεον, ὡς δεσπότῃ ἐργαζόμενοι, ἐλευθερωθέντων δὲ,
- αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἑωϋτῷ προθυμέετο κατεργάζεσθαι.
-
- (c. 91.) Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι—νόῳ λαβόντες, ὡς ἐλεύθερον μὲν ἐὸν τὸ
- γένος τὸ Ἀττικὸν, ἰσόῤῥοπον τῷ ἑωϋτῶν ἂν γένοιτο, κατεχόμενον δὲ
- ὑπό του τυραννίδι, ἀσθενὲς καὶ πειθαρχέεσθαι ἐτοῖμον.
-
-Stronger expressions cannot be found to depict the rapid improvement
-wrought in the Athenian people by their new democracy. Of course
-this did not arise merely from suspension of previous cruelties, or
-better laws, or better administration. These, indeed, were essential
-conditions, but the active transforming cause here was, the principle
-and system of which such amendments formed the detail: the grand
-and new idea of the sovereign People, composed of free and equal
-citizens,—or liberty and equality, to use words which so profoundly
-moved the French nation half a century ago. It was this comprehensive
-political idea which acted with electric effect upon the Athenians,
-creating within them a host of sentiments, motives, sympathies, and
-capacities, to which they had before been strangers. Democracy in
-Grecian antiquity possessed the privilege, not only of kindling an
-earnest and unanimous attachment to the constitution in the bosoms of
-the citizens, but also of creating an energy of public and private
-action, such as could never be obtained under an oligarchy, where
-the utmost that could be hoped for was a passive acquiescence and
-obedience. Mr. Burke has remarked that the mass of the people are
-generally very indifferent about theories of government; but such
-indifference—although improvements in the practical working of all
-governments tend to foster it—is hardly to be expected among any
-people who exhibit decided mental activity and spirit on other
-matters; and the reverse was unquestionably true, in the year 500 B.
-C., among the communities of ancient Greece. Theories of government
-were there anything but a dead letter: they were connected with
-emotions of the strongest as well as of the most opposite character.
-The theory of a permanent ruling One, for example, was universally
-odious: that of a ruling Few, though acquiesced in, was never
-positively attractive, unless either where it was associated with the
-maintenance of peculiar education and habits, as at Sparta, or where
-it presented itself as the only antithesis to democracy, the latter
-having by peculiar circumstances become an object of terror. But the
-theory of democracy was preëminently seductive; creating in the mass
-of the citizens an intense positive attachment, and disposing them
-to voluntary action and suffering on its behalf, such as no coercion
-on the part of other governments could extort. Herodotus,[312] in
-his comparison of the three sorts of government, puts in the front
-rank of the advantages of democracy, “its most splendid name and
-promise,”—its power of enlisting the hearts of the citizens in
-support of their constitution, and of providing for all a common
-bond of union and fraternity. This is what even democracy did not
-always do: but it was what no other government in Greece _could_ do:
-a reason alone sufficient to stamp it as the best government, and
-presenting the greatest chance of beneficent results, for a Grecian
-community. Among the Athenian citizens, certainly, it produced a
-strength and unanimity of positive political sentiment, such as
-has rarely been seen in the history of mankind, which excites our
-surprise and admiration the more when we compare it with the apathy
-which had preceded,—and which is even implied as the natural state of
-the public mind in Solon’s famous proclamation against neutrality in
-a sedition.[313] Because democracy happens to be unpalatable to most
-modern readers, they have been accustomed to look upon the sentiment
-here described only in its least honorable manifestations,—in the
-caricatures of Aristophanês, or in the empty common-places of
-rhetorical declaimers. But it is not in this way that the force,
-the earnestness, or the binding value, of democratical sentiment at
-Athens is to be measured. We must listen to it as it comes from the
-lips of Periklês,[314] while he is strenuously enforcing upon the
-people those active duties for which it both implanted the stimulus
-and supplied the courage; or from the oligarchical Nikias in the
-harbor of Syracuse, when he is endeavoring to revive the courage
-of his despairing troops for one last death-struggle, and when he
-appeals to their democratical patriotism as to the only flame yet
-alive and burning even in that moment of agony.[315] From the time
-of Kleisthenês downward, the creation of this new mighty impulse
-makes an entire revolution in the Athenian character. And if the
-change still stood out in so prominent a manner before the eyes of
-Herodotus, much more must it have been felt by the contemporaries
-among whom it occurred.
-
- [312] Herodot. iii, 80. Πλῆθος δὲ ἄρχον, ~πρῶτα μὲν, οὔνομα
- πάντων κάλλιστον ἔχει, ἰσονομίην~· δεύτερα δὲ, τούτων τῶν ὁ
- μόναρχος, ποιέει οὐδέν· πάλῳ μὲν ἀρχὰς ἄρχει, ὑπεύθυνον δὲ ἀρχὴν
- ἔχει, βουλεύματα δὲ πάντα ἐς τὸ κοινὸν ἀναφέρει.
-
- The democratical speaker at Syracuse, Athenagoras, also puts this
- name and promise in the first rank of advantages—(Thucyd. vi,
- 39)—ἐγὼ δέ φημι, ~πρῶτα μὲν~, δῆμον ξύμπαν ὠνόμασθαι, ὀλιγαρχίαν
- δὲ, μέρος, etc.
-
- [313] See the preceding chapter xi, of this History, vol. iii, p.
- 145, respecting the Solonian declaration here adverted to.
-
- [314] See the two speeches of Periklês in Thucyd. ii, 35-46, and
- ii, 60-64. Compare the reflections of Thucydidês upon the two
- democracies of Athens and Syracuse, vi, 69 and vii, 21-55.
-
- [315] Thucyd. vii, 69. Πατρίδος τε τῆς ἐλευθερωτάτης ὑπομιμνήσκων
- καὶ τῆς ἐν αὐτῇ ἀνεπιτακτοῦ πᾶσιν ἐς τὴν δίαιταν ἐξουσίας, etc.
-
-The attachment of an Athenian citizen to his democratical
-constitution comprised two distinct veins of sentiment: first,
-his rights, protection, and advantages derived from it,—next,
-his obligations of exertion and sacrifice towards it and with
-reference to it. Neither of these two veins of sentiment was ever
-wholly absent; but according as the one or the other was present
-at different times in varying proportions, the patriotism of the
-citizen was a very different feeling. That which Herodotus remarks
-is, the extraordinary efforts of heart and hand which the Athenians
-suddenly displayed,—the efficacy of the active sentiment throughout
-the bulk of the citizens; and we shall observe even more memorable
-evidences of the same phenomenon in tracing down the history from
-Kleisthenês to the end of the Peloponnesian war: we shall trace
-a series of events and motives eminently calculated to stimulate
-that self-imposed labor and discipline which the early democracy
-had first called forth. But when we advance farther down, from the
-restoration of the democracy after the Thirty Tyrants to the time
-of Demosthenês,—I venture upon this brief anticipation, in the
-conviction that one period of Grecian history can only be thoroughly
-understood by contrasting it with another,—we shall find a sensible
-change in Athenian patriotism. The active sentiment of obligation is
-comparatively inoperative,—the citizen, it is true, has a keen sense
-of the value of the democracy as protecting him and insuring to him
-valuable rights, and he is, moreover, willing to perform his ordinary
-sphere of legal duties towards it; but he looks upon it as a thing
-established, and capable of maintaining itself in a due measure of
-foreign ascendency, without any such personal efforts as those which
-his forefathers cheerfully imposed upon themselves. The orations
-of Demosthenês contain melancholy proofs of such altered tone of
-patriotism,—of that languor, paralysis, and waiting for others to
-act, which preceded the catastrophe of Chæroneia, notwithstanding
-an unabated attachment to the democracy as a source of protection
-and good government.[316] That same preternatural activity which the
-allies of Sparta, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, both
-denounced and admired in the Athenians, is noted by the orator as now
-belonging to their enemy Philip.
-
- [316] Compare the remarkable speech of the Corinthian envoys
- at Sparta (Thucyd. i, 68-71), with the φιλοπραγμοσύνη which
- Demosthenês so emphatically notices in Philip (Olynthiac. i, 6,
- p. 13): also Philippic. i, 2, and the Philippics and Olynthiacs
- generally.
-
-Such variations in the scale of national energy pervade history,
-modern as well as ancient, but in regard to Grecian history,
-especially, they can never be overlooked. For a certain measure,
-not only of positive political attachment, but also of active
-self-devotion, military readiness, and personal effort, was
-the indispensable condition of maintaining Hellenic autonomy,
-either in Athens or elsewhere; and became so more than ever when
-the Macedonians were once organized under an enterprising and
-semi-Hellenized prince. The democracy was the first creative cause
-of that astonishing personal and many-sided energy which marked the
-Athenian character, for a century downward from Kleisthenês. That the
-same ultra-Hellenic activity did not longer continue, is referable to
-other causes, which will be hereafter in part explained. No system
-of government, even supposing it to be very much better and more
-faultless than the Athenian democracy, can ever pretend to accomplish
-its legitimate end apart from the personal character of the people,
-or to supersede the necessity of individual virtue and vigor. During
-the half-century immediately preceding the battle of Chæroneia, the
-Athenians had lost that remarkable energy which distinguished them
-during the first century of their democracy, and had fallen much more
-nearly to a level with the other Greeks, in common with whom they
-were obliged to yield to the pressure of a foreign enemy. I here
-briefly notice their last period of languor, in contrast with the
-first burst of democratical fervor under Kleisthenês, now opening,—a
-feeling which will be found, as we proceed, to continue for a longer
-period than could have been reasonably anticipated, but which was
-too high-strung to become a perpetual and inherent attribute of any
-community.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXII.
-
-RISE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. — CYRUS.
-
-
-In the preceding chapter, I have followed the history of Central
-Greece very nearly down to the point at which the history of the
-Asiatic Greeks becomes blended with it, and after which the two
-streams begin to flow to a great degree in the same channel. I now
-revert to the affairs of the Asiatic Greeks, and of the Asiatic kings
-as connected with them, at the point in which they were left in my
-seventeenth chapter.
-
-The concluding facts recounted in that chapter were of sad and
-serious moment to the Hellenic world. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks
-on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and made tributary by the
-Lydian king Crœsus: “down to that time (says Herodotus) all Greeks
-had been free.” Their conqueror Crœsus, who ascended the throne in
-560 B. C., appeared to be at the summit of human prosperity and
-power in his unassailable capital, and with his countless treasures
-at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the whole of Asia Minor,
-as far as the river Halys to the east; on the other side of that
-river began the Median monarchy under his brother-in-law Astyagês,
-extending eastward to some boundary which we cannot define, but
-comprising in a south-eastern direction Persis proper, or Farsistan,
-and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians on the west by the line
-of Mount Zagros—the present boundary-line between Persia and Turkey.
-Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between the Euphrates and the
-Tigris, was occupied by the Assyrians, or Chaldæans, under their king
-Labynêtus: a territory populous and fertile, partly by nature, partly
-by prodigies of labor, to a degree which makes us mistrust even an
-honest eye-witness who describes it afterwards in its decline,—but
-which was then in its most flourishing condition. The Chaldæan
-dominion under Labynêtus reached to the borders of Egypt, including,
-as dependent territories, both Judæa and Phenicia. In Egypt reigned
-the native king Amasis, powerful and affluent, sustained in his
-throne by a large body of Grecian mercenaries, and himself favorably
-disposed to Grecian commerce and settlement. Both with Labynêtus and
-with Amasis, Crœsus was on terms of alliance; and as Astyagês was
-his brother-in-law, the four kings might well be deemed out of the
-reach of calamity. Yet within the space of thirty years or a little
-more, the whole of their territories had become embodied in one vast
-empire, under the son of an adventurer as yet not known even by name.
-
-The rise and fall of Oriental dynasties has been in all times
-distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
-prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and
-greedy, acquires dominion,—while his successors, abandoning
-themselves to sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive
-and irascible dispositions, become in process of time victims
-to those same qualities in a stranger which had enabled their
-own father to seize the throne. Cyrus, the great founder of the
-Persian empire, first the subject and afterwards the dethroner of
-the Median Astyagês, corresponds to this general description, as
-far at least as we can pretend to know his history. For in truth,
-even the conquests of Cyrus, after he became ruler of Media, are
-very imperfectly known, whilst the facts which preceded his rise
-up to that sovereignty cannot be said to be known at all: we have
-to choose between different accounts at variance with each other,
-and of which the most complete and detailed is stamped with all the
-character of romance. The Cyropædia of Xenophon is memorable and
-interesting, considered with reference to the Greek mind, and as a
-philosophical novel:[317] that it should have been quoted so largely
-as authority on matters of history, is only one proof among many how
-easily authors have been satisfied as to the essentials of historical
-evidence. The narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between
-Cyrus and Astyagês, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the
-fact that it makes Cyrus son of Kambysês and Mandanê, and grandson
-of Astyagês, goes even beyond the story of Romulus and Remus in
-respect to tragical incident and contrast. Astyagês, alarmed by a
-dream, condemns the new-born infant of his daughter Mandanê to be
-exposed: Harpagus, to whom the order is given, delivers the child to
-one of the royal herdsmen, who exposes it in the mountains, where
-it is miraculously suckled by a bitch.[318] Thus preserved, and
-afterwards brought up as the herdsman’s child, Cyrus manifests great
-superiority both physical and mental, is chosen king in play by the
-boys of the village, and in this capacity severely chastises the
-son of one of the courtiers; for which offence he is carried before
-Astyagês, who recognizes him for his grandson, but is assured by
-the Magi that his dream is out, and that he has no farther danger
-to apprehend from the boy,—and therefore permits him to live. With
-Harpagus, however, Astyagês is extremely incensed, for not having
-executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be slain, and
-served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal banquet.
-The father, apprized afterwards of the fact, dissembles his feelings,
-but conceives a deadly vengeance against Astyagês for this Thyestean
-meal. He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his father and
-mother in Persia, to head a revolt of the Persians against the
-Medes; whilst Astyagês—to fill up the Grecian conception of madness
-as a precursor to ruin—sends an army against the revolters, commanded
-by Harpagus himself. Of course the army is defeated,—Astyagês, after
-a vain resistance, is dethroned,—Cyrus becomes king in his place,—and
-Harpagus repays the outrage which he has undergone by the bitterest
-insults.
-
- [317] Among the lost productions of Antisthenês the contemporary
- of Xenophon and Plato, and emanating like them from the tuition
- of Sokratês, was one Κῦρος, ἢ περὶ Βασιλείας (Diogenes Laërt. vi,
- 15).
-
- [318] That this was the real story—a close parallel of Romulus
- and Remus—we may see by Herodotus, i, 122. Some rationalizing
- Greeks or Persians transformed it into a more plausible
- tale,—that the herdsman’s wife who suckled the boy Cyrus was
- named Κυνώ (Κυών is a dog, male or female); contending that this
- latter was the real basis of fact, and that the intervention of
- the bitch was an exaggeration built upon the name of the woman,
- in order that the divine protection shown to Cyrus might be still
- more manifest,—οἱ δὲ τοκέες παραλαβόντες τὸ οὔνομα τοῦτ (~ἵνα
- θειοτέρως δοκέῃ τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι περιεῖναί σφι ὁ παῖς~), κατέβαλον
- φάτιν ὡς ἐκκείμενον Κῦρον κύων ἐξέθρεψε· ἐνθεῦτεν μὲν ἡ φάτις
- αὐτὴ κεχωρήκεε.
-
- In the first volume of this History, I have noticed various
- transformations operated by Palæphatus and others upon the Greek
- mythes,—the ram which carried Phryxus and Hellê across the
- Hellespont is represented to us as having been in _reality_ a man
- _named Krius_, who aided their flight,—the winged horse which
- carried Bellerophon was a ship _named_ Pegasus, etc.
-
- This same operation has here been performed upon the story of the
- suckling of Cyrus; for we shall run little risk in affirming that
- the miraculous story is the older of the two. The feelings which
- welcome a miraculous story are early and primitive; those which
- break down the miracle into a common-place fact are of subsequent
- growth.
-
-Such are the heads of a beautiful narrative which is given at
-some length in Herodotus. It will probably appear to the reader
-sufficiently romantic, though the historian intimates that he had
-heard three other narratives different from it, and that all were
-more full of marvels, as well as in wider circulation, than his
-own, which he had borrowed from some unusually sober-minded Persian
-informants.[319] In what points the other three stories departed from
-it, we do not hear.
-
- [319] Herodot. i, 95. Ὡς ὦν Περσέων ~μετεξέτεροι~ λέγουσιν, οἱ
- ~μὴ βουλόμενοι σεμνοῦν~ τὰ περὶ Κῦρον, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἐόντα λέγειν
- λόγον, κατὰ ταῦτα γράψω· ἐπιστάμενος περὶ Κύρου καὶ ~τριφασίας
- ἄλλας~ λόγων ὁδοὺς φῆναι. His informants were thus select
- persons, who differed from the Persians generally.
-
- The long narrative respecting the infancy and growth of Cyrus is
- contained in Herodot. i, 107-129.
-
-To the historian of Halikarnassus, we have to oppose the physician
-of the neighboring town Knidus,—Ktêsias, who contradicted Herodotus,
-not without strong terms of censure, on many points, and especially
-upon that which is the very foundation of the early narrative
-respecting Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was noway related to
-Astyagês.[320] However indignant we may be with Ktêsias, for the
-disparaging epithets which he presumed to apply to an historian
-whose work is to us inestimable,—we must nevertheless admit that as
-surgeon, in actual attendance on king Artaxerxês Mnêmon, and healer
-of the wound inflicted on that prince at Kunaxa by his brother Cyrus
-the younger,[321] he had better opportunities even than Herodotus of
-conversing with sober-minded Persians; and that the discrepancies
-between the two statements are to be taken as a proof of the
-prevalence of discordant, yet equally accredited, stories. Herodotus
-himself was in fact compelled to choose one out of four. So rare and
-late a plant is historical authenticity.
-
- [320] See the Extracts from the lost Persian History of Ktêsias,
- in Photius Cod. lxxii, also appended to Schweighaüser’s edition
- of Herodotus, vol. iv, p. 345. Φησὶ δὲ (Ktêsias) αὐτὸν τῶν
- πλειόνων ἃ ἱστορεῖ αὐτόπτην γενόμενον, ἢ παρ᾽ αὐτῶν Περσῶν (ἔνθα
- τὸ ὁρᾷν μὴ ἐνεχώρει) αὐτήκοον καταστάντα, οὕτως τὴν ἱστορίαν
- συγγράψαι.
-
- To the discrepancies between Xenophon, Herodotus, and Ktêsias, on
- the subject of Cyrus, is to be added the statement of Æschylus
- (Persæ, 747), the oldest authority of them all, and that of the
- Armenian historians: see Bähr ad Ktesiam, p. 85: comp. Bähr’s
- comments on the discrepancies, p. 87.
-
- [321] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8, 26.
-
-That Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror, and that the space which
-he overran covered no less than fifty degrees of longitude, from
-the coast of Asia Minor to the Oxus and the Indus, are facts quite
-indisputable; but of the steps by which this was achieved, we know
-very little. The native Persians, whom he conducted to an empire so
-immense, were an aggregate of seven agricultural and four nomadic
-tribes,—all of them rude, hardy, and brave,[322]—dwelling in a
-mountainous region, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, or
-any of the commonest luxuries of life, and despising the very idea
-of purchase or sale. Their tribes were very unequal in point of
-dignity, probably also in respect to numbers and powers, among one
-another: first in estimation among them stood the Pasargadæ; and the
-first phratry, or clan, among the Pasargadæ were the Achæmenidæ, to
-whom Cyrus himself belonged. Whether his relationship to the Median
-king whom he dethroned was a matter of fact, or a politic fiction,
-we cannot well determine. But Xenophon, in noticing the spacious
-deserted cities, Larissa and Mespila,[323] which he saw in his march
-with the Ten Thousand Greeks on the eastern side of the Tigris,
-gives us to understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was
-reported to him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle.
-However this may be, the preponderance of the Persians was at last
-complete: though the Medes always continued to be the second nation
-in the empire, after the Persians, properly so called; and by early
-Greek writers the great enemy in the East is often called “the
-Mede,[324]” as well as “the Persian.” Ekbatana always continued to
-be one of the capital cities, and the usual summer residence, of the
-kings of Persia; Susa on the Choaspês, on the Kissian plain farther
-southward, and east of the Tigris, being their winter abode.
-
- [322] Herodot. i, 71-153; Arrian, v, 4; Strabo, xv, p. 727;
- Plato, Legg. iii, p. 695.
-
- [323] Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 3, 6; iii, 4, 7-12. Strabo had read
- accounts which represented the last battle between Astyagês and
- Cyrus to have been fought near Pasargadæ (xv, p. 730).
-
- It has been rendered probable by Ritter, however, that the
- ruined city which Xenophon called Mespila was the ancient
- Assyrian Nineveh, and the other deserted city which Xenophon
- calls Larissa, situated as it was on the Tigris, must have
- been originally Assyrian, and not Median. See about Nineveh,
- above,—the Chapter on the Babylonians, vol. iii, ch. xix, p. 305,
- note.
-
- The land east of the Tigris, in which Nineveh and Arbêla were
- situated, seems to have been called Aturia,—a dialectic variation
- of Assyria (Strabo, xvi, p. 737; Dio Cass. lxviii, 28).
-
- [324] Xenophanês, Fragm. p. 39, ap. Schneidewin, Delectus Poett.
- Elegiac. Græc.—
-
- Πήλικος ἦσθ᾽ ὅθ᾽ ὁ Μῆδος ἀφίκετο;
-
- compare Theognis, v, 775, and Herodot. i, 163.
-
-The vast space of country comprised between the Indus on the east,
-the Oxus and Caspian sea to the north, the Persian gulf and Indian
-ocean to the south, and the line of Mount Zagros to the west,
-appears to have been occupied in these times by a great variety
-of different tribes and people, but all or most of them belonging
-to the religion of Zoroaster, and speaking dialects of the Zend
-language.[325] It was known amongst its inhabitants by the common
-name of Iran, or Aria: it is, in its central parts at least, a high,
-cold plateau, totally destitute of wood and scantily supplied with
-water; much of it, indeed, is a salt and sandy desert, unsusceptible
-of culture. Parts of it are eminently fertile, where water can be
-procured and irrigation applied; and scattered masses of tolerably
-dense population thus grew up. But continuity of cultivation is not
-practicable, and in ancient times, as at present, a large proportion
-of the population of Iran seems to have consisted of wandering or
-nomadic tribes, with their tents and cattle. The rich pastures,
-and the freshness of the summer climate, in the region of mountain
-and valley near Ekbatana, are extolled by modern travellers, just
-as they attracted the Great King in ancient times, during the hot
-months. The more southerly province called Persis proper (Farsistan)
-consists also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and
-plain, abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually
-down to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry. The
-care bestowed, both by Medes and Persians, on the breeding of
-their horses, was remarkable.[326] There were doubtless material
-differences between different parts of the population of this
-vast plateau of Iran. Yet it seems that, along with their common
-language and religion, they had also something of a common character,
-which contrasted with the Indian population east of the Indus,
-the Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massagetæ and other
-Nomads of the Caspian and the sea of Aral,—less brutish, restless,
-and bloodthirsty, than the latter,—more fierce, contemptuous, and
-extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two
-former. There can be little doubt, at the time of which we are now
-speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their
-maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been
-since European observers have been able to survey it; especially the
-north-eastern portion, Baktria and Sogdiana: so that the invasions of
-the nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive
-at various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that
-period successfully kept back.
-
- [325] Strabo, xv, p. 724. ὁμόγλωττοι παρὰ μικρόν. See Heeren,
- Ueber den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part i, book i, pp. 320-340,
- and Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien, b. iii, Abtheil. ii, sects. 1
- and 2, pp. 17-84.
-
- [326] About the province of Persis, see Strabo, xv, p. 727;
- Diodor. xix, 21; Quintus Curtius, v, 13, 14, pp. 432-434, with
- the valuable explanatory notes of Mützell (Berlin, 1841).
- Compare, also, Morier’s Second Journey in Persia, pp. 49-120, and
- Ritter, Erdkunde, West Asien, pp. 712-738.
-
-The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled the
-Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire to the
-east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the full heir of
-the Median kings. And if we may believe Ktêsias, even the distant
-province of Baktria had been before subject to those kings: it at
-first resisted Cyrus, but finding that he had become son-in-law of
-Astyagês as well as master of his person, it speedily acknowledged
-his authority.[327]
-
- [327] Ktêsias, Persica, c. 2.
-
-According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between Cyrus
-and Crœsus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of Astyagês,
-and before the conquest of Baktria.[328] Crœsus was the assailant,
-wishing to avenge his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the
-Persian conqueror, and to increase his own dominions: his more
-prudent councillors in vain represented to him that he had little
-to gain, and much to lose, by war with a nation alike hardy and
-poor. He is represented, as just at that time recovering from the
-affliction arising out of the death of his son. To ask advice of
-the oracle, before he took any final decision, was a step which no
-pious king would omit; but in the present perilous question, Crœsus
-did more,—he took a precaution so extreme, that, if his piety had
-not been placed beyond all doubt by his extraordinary munificence
-to the temples, he might have drawn upon himself the suspicion of a
-guilty skepticism.[329] Before he would send to ask advice respecting
-the project itself, he resolved to test the credit of some of the
-chief surrounding oracles,—Delphi, Dôdôna, Branchidæ near Milêtus,
-Amphiaraus at Thebes, Trophônius at Lebadeia, and Ammôn in Libya. His
-envoys started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on
-the hundredth day afterwards to ask at the respective oracles how
-Crœsus was at that precise moment employed. This was a severe trial:
-of the manner in which it was met by four out of the six oracles
-consulted, we have no information, and it rather appears that their
-answers were unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit
-undiminished, and Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at
-Branchidæ, solved the question with such unerring precision, as
-to afford a strong additional argument against persons who might
-be disposed to scoff at divination. No sooner had the envoys put
-the question to the Delphian priestess, on the day named, “What is
-Crœsus now doing?” than she exclaimed, in the accustomed hexameter
-verse,[330] “I know the number of grains of sand, and the measures
-of the sea; I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who speaks
-not. The smell reaches me of a hard-skinned tortoise boiled in a
-copper with lamb’s flesh,—copper above and copper below.” Crœsus
-was awestruck on receiving this reply. It described with the
-utmost detail that which he had been really doing, insomuch that
-he accounted the Delphian oracle and that of Amphiaraus the only
-trustworthy oracles on earth,—following up these feelings with a
-holocaust of the most munificent character, in order to win the favor
-of the Delphian god. Three thousand cattle were offered up, and upon
-a vast sacrificial pile were placed the most splendid purple robes
-and tunics, together with couches and censers of gold and silver:
-besides which he sent to Delphi itself the richest presents in
-gold and silver,—ingots, statues, bowls, jugs, etc., the size and
-weight of which we read with astonishment; the more so as Herodotus
-himself saw them a century afterwards at Delphi.[331] Nor was Crœsus
-altogether unmindful of Amphiaraus, whose answer had been creditable,
-though less triumphant than that of the Pythian priestess. He sent
-to Amphiaraus a spear and shield of pure gold, which were afterwards
-seen at Thebes by Herodotus: this large donative may help the reader
-to conceive the immensity of those which he sent to Delphi.
-
- [328] Herodot. i, 153.
-
- [329] That this point of view should not be noticed in Herodotus,
- may appear singular, when we read his story (vi, 86) about
- the Milesian Glaukus, and the judgment that overtook him for
- having tested the oracle; but it is put forward by Xenophon as
- constituting part of the guilt of Crœsus (Cyropæd. vii, 2, 17).
-
- [330] Herodot. i, 47-50.
-
- [331] Herodot. i, 52-54.
-
-The envoys who conveyed these gifts were instructed to ask, at the
-same time, whether Crœsus should undertake an expedition against
-the Persians,—and, if so, whether he should prevail on any allies
-to assist him. In regard to the second question, the answer both of
-Apollo and Amphiaraus was decisive, recommending him to invite the
-alliance of the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most
-momentous question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection
-as it had been before for detective sagacity: they told Crœsus that,
-if he invaded the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The
-blindness of Crœsus interpreted this declaration into an unqualified
-promise of success. He sent farther presents to the oracle, and again
-inquired whether his kingdom would be durable. “When a mule shall
-become king of the Medes (replied the priestess), then must thou run
-away,—be not ashamed.”[332]
-
- [332] Herodot. i, 55.
-
-More assured than ever by such an answer, Crœsus sent to Sparta,
-under the kings Anaxandridês and Aristo, to tender presents and
-solicit their alliance.[333] His propositions were favorably
-entertained,—the more so, as he had before gratuitously furnished
-some gold to the Lacedæmonians, for a statue to Apollo. The alliance
-now formed was altogether general,—no express effort being as yet
-demanded from them, though it soon came to be. But the incident is to
-be noted, as marking the first plunge of the leading Grecian state
-into Asiatic politics; and that too without any of the generous
-Hellenic sympathy which afterwards induced Athens to send her
-citizens across the Ægean. Crœsus was the master and tribute-exactor
-of the Asiatic Greeks, and their contingents seem to have formed part
-of his army for the expedition now contemplated; which army consisted
-principally, not of native Lydians, but of foreigners.
-
- [333] Herodot. i, 67-70.
-
-The river Halys formed the boundary at this time between the Median
-and Lydian empires: and Crœsus, marching across that river into the
-territory of the Syrians or Assyrians of Kappadokia, took the city of
-Pteria and many of its surrounding dependencies, inflicting damage
-and destruction upon these distant subjects of Ekbatana. Cyrus lost
-no time in bringing an army to their defence considerably larger than
-that of Crœsus, and at the same time tried, though unsuccessfully,
-to prevail on the Ionians to revolt from him. A bloody battle took
-place between the two armies, but with indecisive result: and Crœsus,
-seeing that he could not hope to accomplish more with his forces as
-they stood, thought it wise to return to his capital, in order to
-collect a larger army for the next campaign. Immediately on reaching
-Sardis, he despatched envoys to Labynêtus king of Babylon; to Amasis
-king of Egypt; to the Lacedæmonians, and to other allies; calling
-upon all of them to send auxiliaries to Sardis during the course
-of the fifth coming month. In the mean time, he dismissed all the
-foreign troops who had followed him into Kappadokia.[334]
-
- [334] Herodot. i, 77.
-
-Had these allies appeared, the war might perhaps have been prosecuted
-with success; and on the part of the Lacedæmonians at least, there
-was no tardiness; for their ships were ready and their troops almost
-on board, when the unexpected news reached them that Crœsus was
-already ruined.[335] Cyrus had foreseen and forestalled the defensive
-plan of his enemy. He pushed on with his army to Sardis without
-delay, compelling the Lydian prince to give battle with his own
-unassisted subjects. The open and spacious plain before that town was
-highly favorable to the Lydian cavalry, which at that time, Herodotus
-tells us, was superior to the Persian. But Cyrus devised a stratagem
-whereby this cavalry was rendered unavailable,—placing in front of
-his line the baggage camels, which the Lydian horses could not endure
-either to smell or to behold.[336] The horsemen of Crœsus were thus
-obliged to dismount; nevertheless, they fought bravely on foot, and
-were not driven into the town till after a sanguinary combat.
-
- [335] Herodot. i, 83.
-
- [336] The story about the successful employment of the camels
- appears also in Xenophon, Cyropæd. vii, 1, 47.
-
-Though confined within the walls of his capital, Crœsus had still
-good reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his allies,
-to whom he sent pressing envoys of acceleration: for Sardis was
-considered impregnable,—one assault had already been repulsed,
-and the Persians would have been reduced to the slow process of
-blockade. But on the fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for
-the besiegers that which they could not have accomplished either
-by skill or force. Sardis was situated on an outlying peak of the
-northern side of Tmôlus; it was well-fortified everywhere except
-towards the mountain; and on that side, the rock, was so precipitous
-and inaccessible, that fortifications were thought unnecessary, nor
-did the inhabitants believe assault to be possible. But Hyrœades,
-a Persian soldier, having accidentally seen one of the garrison
-descending this precipitous rock to pick up his helmet, which had
-rolled down, watched his opportunity, tried to climb up, and found
-it not impracticable. Others followed his example, the strong-hold
-was thus seized first, and the whole city was speedily taken by
-storm.[337]
-
- [337] Herodot. i, 84.
-
-Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Crœsus, who was
-accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for a solemn
-and terrible spectacle. The captive king was destined to be burnt in
-chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a vast pile of wood:
-and we are even told that the pile was already kindled and the victim
-beyond the reach of human aid, when Apollo sent a miraculous rain to
-preserve him. As to the general fact of supernatural interposition,
-in one way or another, Herodotus and Ktêsias both agree, though they
-describe differently the particular miracles wrought.[338] It is
-certain that Crœsus, after some time, was released and well treated
-by his conqueror, and lived to become the confidential adviser of the
-latter as well as of his son Kambysês:[339] Ktêsias also acquaints us
-that a considerable town and territory near Ekbatana, called Barênê,
-was assigned to him, according to a practice which we shall find not
-unfrequent with the Persian kings.
-
- [338] Compare Herodot. i, 84-87, and Ktêsias, Persica, c. 4;
- which latter seems to have been copied by Polyænus, vii, 6, 10.
-
- It is remarkable that among the miracles enumerated by Ktêsias,
- no mention is made of fire or of the pile of wood kindled:
- we have the chains of Crœsus miraculously struck off, in the
- midst of thunder and lightning, but no _fire_ mentioned. This
- is deserving of notice, as illustrating the fact that Ktêsias
- derived his information from _Persian_ narrators, who would not
- be likely to impute to Cyrus the use of fire for such a purpose.
- The Persians worshipped fire as a god, and considered it impious
- to burn a dead body (Herodot. iii, 16). Now Herodotus seems to
- have heard the story, about the burning, from Lydian informants
- (λέγεται ὑπὸ Λυδῶν, Herodot. i, 87): whether the Lydians regarded
- fire in the same point of view as the Persians, we do not know;
- but even if they did, they would not be indisposed to impute to
- Cyrus an act of gross impiety, just as the Egyptians imputed
- another act equally gross to Kambysês, which Herodotus himself
- treats as a falsehood (iii, 16).
-
- The long narrative given by Nikolaus Damaskênus of the treatment
- of Crœsus by Cyrus, has been supposed by some to have been
- borrowed from the Lydian historian Xanthus, elder contemporary
- of Herodotus. But it seems to me a mere compilation, not well
- put together, from Xenophon’s Cyropædia, and from the narrative
- of Herodotus, perhaps including some particular incidents out of
- Xanthus (see Nikol. Damas. Fragm. ed. Orell. pp. 57-70, and the
- Fragments of Xanthus in Didot’s Historic. Græcor. Fragm. p. 40).
-
- [339] Justin (i, 7) seems to copy Ktêsias, about the treatment of
- Crœsus.
-
-The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between Persians
-and Lydians, whereby Crœsus is said by Herodotus to have first
-earned this favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating; but the
-indignant remonstrance sent by Crœsus to the Delphian god is too
-characteristic to be passed over. He obtained permission from Cyrus
-to lay upon the holy pavement of the Delphian temple the chains with
-which he had at first been bound. The Lydian envoys were instructed,
-after exhibiting to the god these humiliating memorials, to ask
-whether it was his custom to deceive his benefactors, and whether he
-was not ashamed to have encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise
-so disastrous? The god, condescending to justify himself by the lips
-of the priestess, replied: “Not even a god can escape his destiny.
-Crœsus has suffered for the sin of his fifth ancestor (Gygês), who,
-conspiring with a woman, slew his master and wrongfully seized the
-sceptre. Apollo employed all his influence with the Mœræ (Fates) to
-obtain that this sin might be expiated by the children of Crœsus, and
-not by Crœsus himself; but the Mœræ would grant nothing more than a
-postponement of the judgment for three years. Let Crœsus know that
-Apollo has thus procured for him a reign three years longer than
-his original destiny,[340] after having tried in vain to rescue him
-altogether. Moreover, he sent that rain which at the critical moment
-extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Crœsus any right to complain
-of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on the war; for
-when the god told him, that he would subvert _a great empire_, it was
-his duty to have again inquired which empire the god meant; and if he
-neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for information, he
-has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Crœsus neglected the
-warning given to him, about the acquisition of the Median kingdom by
-a mule: Cyrus was that mule,—son of a Median mother of royal breed,
-by a Persian father, at once of different race and of lower position.”
-
- [340] Herodot. i, 91. Προθυμεομένου δὲ Λοξίεω ὅκως ἂν κατὰ τοὺς
- παῖδας τοὺς Κροίσου γένοιτο τὸ Σαρδίων πάθος, καὶ μὴ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν
- Κροῖσον, οὐκ οἷόν τε ἐγένετο παραγαγεῖν Μοίρας· ὅσον δὲ ἐνέδωκαν
- αὗται, ἠνύσατο, καὶ ἐχαρίσατό οἱ· τρία γὰρ ἔτεα ἐπανεβάλετο τὴν
- Σαρδίων ἅλωσιν. Καὶ τοῦτο ἐπιστάσθω Κροῖσος, ὡς ὕστερον τοῖσι
- ἔτεσι τούτοισι ἁλοὺς τῆς πεπρωμένης.
-
-This triumphant justification extorted even from Crœsus himself
-a full confession, that the sin lay with him, and not with the
-god.[341] It certainly illustrates, in a remarkable manner, the
-theological ideas of the time; and it shows us how much, in the
-mind of Herodotus, the facts of the centuries preceding his own,
-unrecorded as they were by any contemporary authority, tended to
-cast themselves into a sort of religious drama; the threads of the
-historical web being in part put together, in part originally spun,
-for the purpose of setting forth the religious sentiment and doctrine
-woven in as a pattern. The Pythian priestess predicts to Gygês
-that the crime which he had committed in assassinating his master
-would be expiated by his fifth descendant, though, as Herodotus
-tells us, no one took any notice of this prophecy until it was at
-last fulfilled:[342] we see thus that the history of the first
-Mermnad king is made up after the catastrophe of the last. There
-was something in the main facts of the history of Crœsus profoundly
-striking to the Greek mind: a king at the summit of wealth and
-power,—pious in the extreme, and munificent towards the gods,—the
-first destroyer of Hellenic liberty in Asia,—then precipitated, at
-once and on a sudden, into the abyss of ruin. The sin of the first
-parent helped much towards the solution of this perplexing problem,
-as well as to exalt the credit of the oracle, when made to assume the
-shape of an unnoticed prophecy. In the affecting story (discussed
-in a former chapter[343]) of Solon and Crœsus, the Lydian king is
-punished with an acute domestic affliction, because he thought
-himself the happiest of mankind,—the gods not suffering anyone to be
-arrogant except themselves;[344] and the warning of Solon is made
-to recur to Crœsus after he has become the prisoner of Cyrus, in
-the narrative of Herodotus. To the same vein of thought belongs the
-story, just recounted, of the relations of Crœsus with the Delphian
-oracle. An account is provided, satisfactory to the religious
-feelings of the Greeks, how and why he was ruined,—but nothing less
-than the overruling and omnipotent Mœræ could be invoked to explain
-so stupendous a result.
-
- [341] Herodot. i, 91. Ὁ δὲ ἀκούσας συνέγνω ἑωϋτοῦ εἶναι τὴν
- ἁμαρτάδα, καὶ οὐ τοῦ θεοῦ.
-
- Xenophon also, in the Cyropædia (vii, 2, 16-25), brings Crœsus to
- the same result of confession and humiliation, though by steps
- somewhat different.
-
- [342] Herodot. i, 13.
-
- [343] See above, chap, xi, vol. iii, pp. 149-153.
-
- [344] Herodot. vii, 10. οὐ γὰρ ἐᾷ φρονέειν ἄλλον μέγα ὁ θεὸς ἢ
- ἑωϋτόν.
-
-It is rarely that these supreme goddesses, or hyper-goddesses—since
-the gods themselves must submit to them—are brought into such
-distinct light and action. Usually, they are kept in the dark, or
-are left to be understood as the unseen stumbling-block in cases of
-extreme incomprehensibility; and it is difficult clearly to determine
-(as in the case of some complicated political constitutions) where
-the Greeks conceived sovereign power to reside, in respect to the
-government of the world. But here the sovereignty of the Mœræ, and
-the subordinate agency of the gods, are unequivocally set forth.[345]
-Yet the gods are still extremely powerful, because the Mœræ comply
-with their requests up to a certain point, not thinking it proper
-to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is carried no farther
-than they themselves choose. Nor would they, even in deference to
-Apollo,[346] alter the original sentence of punishment for the
-sin of Gygês in the person of his fifth descendant,—a sentence,
-moreover, which Apollo himself had formally prophesied shortly after
-the sin was committed; so that, if the Mœræ had listened to his
-intercession on behalf of Crœsus, his own prophetic credit would have
-been endangered. Their unalterable resolution has predetermined the
-ruin of Crœsus, and the grandeur of the event is manifested by the
-circumstance, that even Apollo himself cannot prevail upon them to
-alter it, or to grant more than a three years’ respite. The religious
-element must here be viewed as giving the form—the historical element
-as giving the matter only, and not the whole matter—of the story; and
-these two elements will be found conjoined more or less throughout
-most of the history of Herodotus, though, as we descend to later
-times, we shall find the historical element in constantly increasing
-proportion. His conception of history is extremely different from
-that of Thucydidês, who lays down to himself the true scheme and
-purpose of the historian, common to him with the philosopher,—to
-recount and interpret the past, as a rational aid towards the
-prevision of the future.[347]
-
- [345] In the oracle reported in Herodot. vii, 141, as delivered
- by the Pythian priestess to Athens on occasion of the approach
- of Xerxês, Zeus is represented in the same supreme position as
- the present oracle assigns to the Mœræ, or Fates: Pallas in vain
- attempts to propitiate him in favor of Athens, just as, in this
- case, Apollo tries to mitigate the Mœræ in respect to Crœsus—
-
- Οὐ δύναται Παλλὰς Δί᾽ Ὀλύμπιον ἐξιλάσασθαι,
- Λισσομένη πολλοῖσι λόγοις καὶ μήτιδι πυκνῇ, etc.
-
- Compare also viii, 109, and ix, 16.
-
- O. Müller (Dissertation on the Eumenides of Æschylus, p. 222,
- Eng. Transl.) says: “On no occasion does Zeus Soter exert his
- influence directly, like Apollo, Minerva, and the Erinnyes;
- but whereas Apollo is prophet and exegetes by virtue of wisdom
- derived from him, and Minerva is indebted to him for her sway
- over states and assemblies,—nay, the very Erinnyes exercise their
- functions in his name,—this Zeus stands always in the background,
- and has in reality only to settle a conflict existing within
- himself. For with Æschylus, as with all men of profound feeling
- among the Greeks from the earliest times, Jupiter is the only
- real god, in the higher sense of the word. Although he is, in
- the spirit of ancient theology, a generated god, arisen out of
- an imperfect state of things, and not produced till the third
- stage of a development of nature,—still he is, at the time we are
- speaking of, the spirit that pervades and governs the universe.”
-
- To the same purpose Klausen expresses himself (Theologumena
- Æschyli, pp. 6-69).
-
- It is perfectly true that many passages may be produced from
- Greek authors which ascribe to Zeus the supreme power here
- noted. But it is equally true that this conception is not
- uniformly adhered to, and that sometimes the Fates, or Mœræ are
- represented as supreme; occasionally represented as the stronger
- and Zeus as the weaker (Promêtheus, 515). The whole tenor of
- that tragedy, in fact, brings out the conception of a Zeus
- τύραννος,—whose power is not supreme, even for the time; and
- is not destined to continue permanently, even at its existing
- height. The explanations given by Klausen of this drama appear to
- me incorrect; nor do I understand how it is to be reconciled with
- the above passage quoted from O. Müller.
-
- The two oracles here cited from Herodotus exhibit plainly the
- fluctuation of Greek opinion on this subject: in the one, the
- supreme determination, and the inexorability which accompanies
- it, are ascribed to Zeus,—in the other, to the Mœræ. This double
- point of view adapted itself to different occasions, and served
- as a help for the interpretation of different events. Zeus was
- supposed to have certain sympathies for human beings; misfortunes
- happened to various men which he not only did not wish to bring
- on, but would have been disposed to avert; here the Mœræ, who had
- no sympathies, were introduced as an explanatory cause, tacitly
- implied as overruling Zeus. “Cum Furiis Æschylus Parcas tantum
- non ubique conjungit,” says Klausen (Theol. Æsch. p. 39); and
- this entire absence of human sympathies constitutes the common
- point of both,—that in which the Mœræ and the Erinnyes differ
- from all the other gods,—πέφρικα τὰν ὠλεσίοικον θεὰν, οὐ θεοῖς
- ὁμοίαν (Æschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 720): compare Eumenid. 169, 172,
- and, indeed, the general strain of that fearful tragedy.
-
- In Æschylus, as in Herodotus, Apollo is represented as exercising
- persuasive powers over the Mœræ (Eumenid. 724),—Μοίρας ἔπεισας
- ἀφθίτους θεῖναι βροτούς.
-
- [346] The language of Herodotus deserves attention. Apollo tells
- Crœsus: “I applied to the Mœræ to get the execution of the
- judgment postponed from your time to that of your children,—but
- I could not prevail upon them; but as much as they would yield
- _of their own accord_, I procured for you.” (ὅσον δὲ ~ἐνέδωκαν
- αὗται~, ἐχαρίσατό οἱ—i, 91.)
-
- [347] Thucyd. i, 22.
-
-The destruction of the Lydian monarchy, and the establishment of the
-Persians at Sardis—an event pregnant with consequences to Hellas
-generally—took place in 546 B. C.[348] Sorely did the Ionic Greeks
-now repent that they had rejected the propositions made to them
-by Cyrus for revolting from Crœsus,—though at the time when these
-propositions were made, it would have been highly imprudent to listen
-to them, since the Lydian power might reasonably be looked upon as
-the stronger. As soon as Sardis had fallen, they sent envoys to the
-conqueror, entreating that they might be enrolled as his tributaries,
-on the footing which they had occupied under Crœsus. The reply was
-a stern and angry refusal, with the exception of the Milesians, to
-whom the terms which they asked were granted:[349] why this favorable
-exception was extended to them, we do not know. The other continental
-Ionians and Æolians (exclusive of Milêtus, and exclusive also of the
-insular cities which the Persians had no means of attacking), seized
-with alarm, began to put themselves in a condition of defence: it
-seems that the Lydian king had caused their fortifications to be
-wholly or partially dismantled, for we are told that they now began
-to erect walls; and the Phôkæans especially devoted to that purpose
-a present which they had received from the Iberian Arganthônius,
-king of Tartêssus. Besides thus strengthening their own cities, they
-thought it advisable to send a joint embassy entreating aid from
-Sparta; they doubtless were not unapprized that the Spartans had
-actually equipped an army for the support of Crœsus. Their deputies
-went to Sparta, where the Phôkæan Pythermus, appointed by the rest
-to be spokesman, clothing himself in a purple robe,[350] in order
-to attract the largest audience possible, set forth their pressing
-need of succor against the impending danger. The Lacedæmonians
-refused the prayer; nevertheless, they despatched to Phôkæa some
-commissioners to investigate the state of affairs,—who perhaps,
-persuaded by the Phôkæans, sent Lakrinês, one of their number, to
-the conqueror at Sardis, to warn him that he should not lay hands on
-any city of Hellas,—for the Lacedæmonians would not permit it. “Who
-are these Lacedæmonians? (inquired Cyrus from some Greeks who stood
-near him)—how many are there of them, that they venture to send me
-such a notice?” Having received the answer, wherein it was stated
-that the Lacedæmonians had a city and a regular market at Sparta, he
-exclaimed: “I have never yet been afraid of men like these, who have
-a set place in the middle of their city, where they meet to cheat one
-another and forswear themselves. If I live, they shall have troubles
-of their own to talk about, apart from the Ionians.” To buy or sell,
-appeared to the Persians a contemptible practice; for they carried
-out consistently, one step farther, the principle upon which even
-many able Greeks condemned the lending of money on interest; and the
-speech of Cyrus was intended as a covert reproach of Grecian habits
-generally.[351]
-
- [348] This important date depends upon the evidence of Solinus
- (Polyhistor, i, 112) and Sosikratês (ap. Diog. Laërt. i, 95): see
- Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellen. ad ann. 546, and his Appendix, ch.
- 17, upon the Lydian kings.
-
- Mr. Clinton and most of the chronologists accept the date without
- hesitation, but Volney (Recherches sur l’Histoire Ancienne,
- vol. i, pp. 306-308; Chronologie des Rois Lydiens) rejects it
- altogether; considering the capture of Sardis to have occurred
- in 557 B. C., and the reign of Crœsus to have begun in 571 B.
- C. He treats very contemptuously the authority of Solinus and
- Sosikratês, and has an elaborate argumentation to prove that the
- date which he adopts is borne out by Herodotus. This latter does
- not appear to me at all satisfactory: I adopt the date of Solinus
- and Sosikratês, though agreeing with Volney that such positive
- authority is not very considerable, because there is nothing to
- contradict them, and because the date which they give seems in
- consonance with the stream of the history.
-
- Volney’s arguments suppose in the mind of Herodotus a degree of
- chronological precision altogether unreasonable, in reference
- to events anterior to contemporary records. He, like other
- chronologists, exhausts his ingenuity to find a proper point of
- historical time for the supposed conversation between Solon and
- Crœsus (p. 320).
-
- [349] Herodot. i, 141.
-
- [350] Herodot. i, 152. The purple garment, so attractive a
- spectacle amid the plain clothing universal at Sparta, marks the
- contrast between Asiatic and European Greece.
-
- [351] Herodot. i, 153. ταῦτα ἐς τοὺς πάντας Ἕλληνας ἀπέῤῥιψε ὁ
- Κῦρος τὰ ἔπεα, etc.
-
-This blank menace of Lakrinês, an insulting provocation to the
-enemy rather than a real support to the distressed, was the only
-benefit which the Ionic Greeks derived from Sparta. They were left
-to defend themselves as best they could against the conqueror;
-who presently, however, quitted Sardis to prosecute in person his
-conquests in the East, leaving the Persian Tabalus with a garrison
-in the citadel, but consigning both the large treasure captured, and
-the authority over the Lydian population, to the Lydian Paktyas.
-As he carried away Crœsus along with him, he probably considered
-himself sure of the fidelity of those Lydians whom the deposed
-monarch recommended. But he had not yet arrived at his own capital,
-when he received the intelligence that Paktyas had revolted, arming
-the Lydian population, and employing the treasure in his charge to
-hire fresh troops. On hearing this news, Cyrus addressed himself
-to Crœsus, according to Herodotus, in terms of much wrath against
-the Lydians, and even intimated that he should be compelled to sell
-them all as slaves. Upon which Crœsus, full of alarm for his people,
-contended strenuously that Paktyas alone was in fault, and deserving
-of punishment; but he at the same time advised Cyrus to disarm the
-Lydian population, and to enforce upon them effeminate attire,
-together with habits of playing on the harp and shopkeeping. “By this
-process (he said) you will soon see them become women instead of
-men.”[352] This suggestion is said to have been accepted by Cyrus,
-and executed by his general Mazarês. The conversation here reported,
-and the deliberate plan for enervating the Lydian character supposed
-to be pursued by Cyrus, is evidently an hypothesis imagined by some
-of the contemporaries or predecessors of Herodotus,—to explain the
-contrast between the Lydians whom they saw before them, after two or
-three generations of slavery, and the old irresistible horsemen of
-whom they heard in fame, at the time when Crœsus was lord from the
-Halys to the Ægean sea.
-
- [352] Herodot. i, 155.
-
-To return to Paktyas,—he had commenced his revolt, come down to the
-sea-coast, and employed the treasures of Sardis in levying a Grecian
-mercenary force, with which he invested the place and blocked up
-the governor Tabalus. But he manifested no courage worthy of so
-dangerous an enterprise; for no sooner had he heard that the Median
-general Mazarês was approaching at the head of an army dispatched
-by Cyrus against him, than he disbanded his force and fled to Kymê
-for protection as a suppliant. Presently, arrived a menacing summons
-from Mazarês, demanding that he should be given up forthwith, which
-plunged the Kymæans into profound dismay; for the idea of giving
-up a suppliant to destruction was shocking to Grecian sentiment.
-They sent to solicit advice from the holy temple of Apollo, at
-Branchidæ near Milêtus; and the reply directed, that Paktyas should
-be surrendered. Nevertheless, so ignominious did such a surrender
-appear, that Aristodikus and some other Kymæan citizens denounced the
-messengers as liars, and required that a more trustworthy deputation
-should be sent to consult the god. Aristodikus himself, forming one
-of the second body, stated the perplexity to the oracle, and received
-a repetition of the same answer; whereupon he proceeded to rob the
-birds’-nests which existed in abundance in and about the temple.
-A voice from the inner oracular chamber speedily arrested him,
-exclaiming: “Most impious of men, how darest thou to do such things?
-Wilt thou snatch my suppliants from the temple itself?” Unabashed
-by the rebuke, Aristodikus replied: “Master, thus dost _thou_ help
-suppliants thyself: and dost thou command the Kymæans to give up a
-suppliant?” “Yes, I do command it[353] (rejoined the god forthwith),
-in order that the crime may bring destruction upon you the sooner,
-and that you may not in future come to consult the oracle upon the
-surrender of suppliants.”
-
- [353] Herodot. i, 159.
-
-The ingenuity of Aristodikus completely nullified the oracular
-response, and left the Kymæans in their original perplexity. Not
-choosing to surrender Paktyas, nor daring to protect him against a
-besieging army, they sent him away to Mitylênê, whither the envoys of
-Mazarês followed and demanded him; offering a reward so considerable,
-that the Kymæans became fearful of trusting them, and again conveyed
-away the suppliant to Chios, where he took refuge in the temple of
-Athênê Poliuchus. But here again the pursuers followed, and the
-Chians were persuaded to drag him from the temple and surrender
-him, on consideration of receiving the territory of Atarneus (a
-district on the continent over against the island of Lesbos) as
-purchase-money. Paktyas was thus seized and sent prisoner to Cyrus,
-who had given the most express orders for this capture: hence the
-unusual intensity of the pursuit. But it appears that the territory
-of Atarneus was considered as having been ignominiously acquired by
-the Chians; none even of their own citizens would employ any article
-of its produce for holy or sacrificial purposes.[354]
-
- [354] Herodot. i, 160. The short fragment from Charôn of
- Lampsakus, which Plutarch (De Malignitat. Herod. p. 859) cites
- here, in support of one among his many unjust censures on
- Herodotus, is noway inconsistent with the statement of the
- latter, but rather tends to confirm it.
-
- In writing this treatise on the alleged ill-temper of Herodotus,
- we see that Plutarch had before him the history of Charôn of
- Lampsakus, more ancient by one generation than the historian
- whom he was assailing, and also belonging to Asiatic Greece. Of
- course, it suited the purpose of his work to produce all the
- contradictions to Herodotus which he could find in Charôn: the
- fact that he has produced none of any moment, tends to strengthen
- our faith in the historian of Halikarnassus, and to show that in
- the main his narrative was in accordance with that of Charôn.
-
-Mazarês next proceeded to the attack and conquest of the Greeks on
-the coast; an enterprise which, since he soon died of illness, was
-completed by his successor Harpagus. The towns assailed successively
-made a gallant but ineffectual resistance: the Persian general by
-his numbers drove the defenders within their walls, against which
-he piled up mounds of earth, so as either to carry the place by
-storm or to compel surrender. All of them were reduced, one after
-the other: with all, the terms of subjection were doubtless harder
-than those which had been imposed upon them by Crœsus, because Cyrus
-had already refused to grant these terms to them, with the single
-exception of Milêtus, and because they had since given additional
-offence by aiding the revolt of Paktyas. The inhabitants of Priênê
-were sold into slavery: they were the first assailed by Mazarês, and
-had perhaps been especially forward in the attack made by Paktyas on
-Sardis.[355]
-
- [355] Herodot. i, 161-169.
-
-Among these unfortunate towns, thus changing their master and passing
-out into a harsher subjection, two deserve especial notice,—Teôs and
-Phôkæa. The citizens of the former, so soon as the mound around
-their walls had rendered farther resistance impossible, embarked and
-emigrated, some to Thrace, where they founded Abdêra,—others to the
-Cimmerian Bosphorus, where they planted Phanagoria; a portion of
-them, however, must have remained to take the chances of subjection,
-since the town appears in after-times still peopled and still
-Hellenic.[356]
-
- [356] Herodot. i, 168; Skymnus Chius, Fragm. v, 153; Dionys.
- Perieg. v, 553.
-
-The fate of Phôkæa, similar in the main, is given to us with more
-striking circumstances of detail, and becomes the more interesting,
-since the enterprising mariners who inhabited it had been the
-torch-bearers of Grecian geographical discovery in the west. I have
-already described their adventurous exploring voyages of former days
-into the interior of the Adriatic, and along the whole northern
-and western coasts of the Mediterranean as far as Tartêssus (the
-region around and adjoining to Cadiz),—together with the favorable
-reception given to them by old Arganthônius, king of the country,
-who invited them to emigrate in a body to his kingdom, offering
-them the choice of any site which they might desire. His invitation
-was declined, though probably the Phôkæans may have subsequently
-regretted the refusal; and he then manifested his good-will towards
-them by a large present to defray the expense of constructing
-fortifications round their town.[357] The walls, erected in part, by
-this aid, were both extensive and well built; yet they could not
-hinder Harpagus from raising his mounds of earth up against them,
-while he was politic enough at the same time to tempt them with
-offers of a moderate capitulation; requiring only that they should
-breach their walls in one place by pulling down one of the towers,
-and consecrate one building in the interior of the town as a token
-of subjection. To accept these terms, was to submit themselves to
-the discretion of the besieger, for there could be no security that
-they would be observed; and the Phôkæans, while they asked for one
-day to deliberate upon their reply, entreated that, during that
-day, Harpagus should withdraw his troops altogether from the walls.
-With this demand the latter complied, intimating, at the same time,
-that he saw clearly through the meaning of it. The Phôkæans had
-determined that the inevitable servitude impending over their town
-should not be shared by its inhabitants, and they employed their day
-of grace in preparation for collective exile, putting on ship-board
-their wives and children as well as their furniture and the movable
-decorations of their temples. They then set sail for Chios, leaving
-to the conqueror a deserted town for the occupation of a Persian
-garrison.[358]
-
- [357] Herodot. i, 163. Ὁ δὲ πυθόμενος παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τὸν Μῆδον ὡς
- αὔξοιτο, ἐδίδου σφι χρήματα τεῖχος περιβαλέσθαι τὴν πόλιν.
-
- I do not understand why the commentators debate what or who is
- meant by τὸν Μῆδον: it plainly means the Median or Persian power
- generally: but the chronological difficulty is a real one, if
- we are to suppose that there was time between the first alarm
- conceived of the Median power of the Ionians, and the siege of
- Phôkæa by Harpagus, to inform Arganthônius of the circumstances,
- and to procure from him this large aid as well as to build the
- fortifications. The Ionic Greeks neither actually did conceive,
- nor had reason to conceive, any alarm respecting Persian power,
- until the arrival of Cyrus before Sardis; and within a month from
- that time Sardis was in his possession. If we are to suppose
- communication with Arganthônius, grounded upon this circumstance,
- at the distance of Tartêssus, and under the circumstances of
- ancient navigation, we must necessarily imagine, also, that the
- attack made by Harpagus upon Phôkæa—which city he assailed before
- any of the rest—was postponed for at least two or three years.
- Such postponement is not wholly impossible, yet it is not in the
- spirit of the Herodotean narrative, nor do I think it likely. It
- is much more probable that the informants of Herodotus made a
- slip in chronology, and ascribed the donations of Arganthônius to
- a motive which did not really dictate them.
-
- As to the fortifications (which Phôkæa and the other Ionic cities
- are reported to have erected after the conquest of Sardis by the
- Persians), the case may stand thus. While these cities were all
- independent, before they were first conquered by Crœsus, they
- must undoubtedly have had fortifications. When Crœsus conquered
- them, he directed the demolition of the fortifications; but
- demolition does not necessarily mean pulling down the entire
- walls: when one or a few breaches are made, the city is laid
- open, and the purpose of Crœsus would thus be answered. Such may
- well have been the state of the Ionian cities at the time when
- they first thought it necessary to provide defences against the
- Persians at Sardis: they repaired and perfected the breached
- fortifications.
-
- The conjecture of Larcher (see the Notes both of Larcher
- and Wesseling),—τὸν Λυδὸν instead of τὸν Μῆδον,—is not an
- unreasonable one, if it had any authority: the donation of
- Arganthônius would then be transferred to the period anterior
- to the Lydian conquest: it would get rid of the chronological
- difficulty above adverted to, but it would introduce some new
- awkwardness into the narrative.
-
- [358] Herodot. i, 164.
-
-It appears that the fugitives were not very kindly received at Chios;
-at least, when they made a proposition for purchasing from the Chians
-the neighboring islands of Œnussæ as a permanent abode, the latter
-were induced to refuse by apprehensions of commercial rivalry. It
-was necessary to look farther for a settlement: and Arganthônius
-their protector, being now dead, Tartêssus was no longer inviting.
-Twenty years before, however, the colony of Alalia in the island of
-Corsica had been founded from Phôkæa by the direction of the oracle,
-and thither the general body of Phôkæans now resolved to repair.
-Having prepared their ships for this distant voyage, they first
-sailed back to Phôkæa, surprised the Persian garrison whom Harpagus
-had left in the town, and slew them: they then sunk in the harbor a
-great lump of iron, and bound themselves by a solemn and unanimous
-oath never again to see Phôkæa until that iron should come up to the
-surface. Nevertheless, in spite of the oath, the voyage of exile had
-been scarcely begun when more than half of them repented of having
-so bound themselves,—and became homesick.[359] They broke their vow
-and returned to Phôkæa. But as Herodotus does not mention any divine
-judgment as having been consequent on the perjury, we may, perhaps,
-suspect that some gray-headed citizen, to whom transportation to
-Corsica might be little less than a sentence of death, both persuaded
-himself, and certified to his companions, that he had seen the
-sunken lump of iron raised up and floating for a while buoyant upon
-the waves. Harpagus must have been induced to pardon the previous
-slaughter of his Persian garrison, or at least to believe that it
-had been done by those Phôkæans who still persisted in exile. He
-wanted tribute-paying subjects, not an empty military post, and the
-repentant home-seekers were allowed to number themselves among the
-slaves of the Great King.
-
- [359] Herodot. i, 165. ὑπερημίσεας τῶν ἀστῶν ἔλαβε πόθος τε
- καὶ οἶκτος τῆς πόλιος καὶ τῶν ἠθέων τῆς χώρης· ψευδόρκιοί τε
- γενόμενοι, etc. The colloquial term which I have ventured to
- place in the text expresses exactly, as well as briefly, the
- meaning of the historian. A public oath, taken by most of the
- Greek cities with similar ceremony of lumps of iron thrown into
- the sea, is mentioned in Plutarch, Aristid. c. 25.
-
-Meanwhile the smaller but more resolute half of the Phôkæans executed
-their voyage to Alalia in Corsica, with their wives and children,
-in sixty pentekontêrs, or armed ships, and established themselves
-along with the previous settlers. They remained there for five
-years,[360] during which time their indiscriminate piracies had
-become so intolerable (even at that time, piracy committed against
-a foreign vessel seems to have been both frequent and practised
-without much disrepute), that both the Tyrrhenian seaports along
-the Mediterranean coast of Italy, and the Carthaginians, united to
-put them down. There subsisted particular treaties between these
-two, for the regulation of the commercial intercourse between
-Africa and Italy, of which the ancient treaty preserved by Polybius
-between Rome and Carthage (made in 509 B. C.) may be considered as a
-specimen.[361] Sixty Carthaginian and as many Tuscan ships attacked
-the sixty Phôkæan ships near Alalia, and destroyed forty of them,
-yet not without such severe loss to themselves that the victory was
-said to be on the side of the latter; who, however, in spite of this
-Kadmeian victory (so a battle was denominated in which the victors
-lost more than the vanquished), were compelled to carry back their
-remaining twenty vessels to Alalia, and to retire with their wives
-and families, in so far as room could be found for them, to Rhegium.
-At last, these unhappy exiles found a permanent home by establishing
-the new settlement of Elea, or Velia, in the gulf of Policastro, on
-the Italian coast (then called Œnôtrian) southward from Poseidônia,
-or Pæstum. It is probable that they were here joined by other exiles
-from Ionia, in particular by the Kolophonian philosopher and poet
-Xenophanês, from whom what was afterwards called the Eleatic school
-of philosophy, distinguished both for bold consistency and dialectic
-acuteness, took its rise. The Phôkæan captives, taken prisoners in
-the naval combat by Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, were stoned to
-death; but a divine judgment overtook the Tyrrhenian town of Agylla,
-in consequence of this cruelty; and even in the time of Herodotus,
-a century afterwards, the Agyllæans were still expiating the sin by
-a periodical solemnity and agon, pursuant to the penalty which the
-Delphian oracle had imposed upon them.[362]
-
- [360] Herodot. i, 166.
-
- [361] Aristot. Polit. iii, 5, 11; Polyb. iii, 22.
-
- [362] Herodot. i, 167.
-
-Such was the fate of the Phôkæan exiles, while their brethren
-at home remained as subjects of Harpagus, in common with all the
-other Ionic and Æolic Greeks except Milêtus. For even the insular
-inhabitants of Lesbos and Chios, though not assailable by sea,
-since the Persians had no fleet, thought it better to renounce
-their independence and enrol themselves as Persian subjects,—both
-of them possessing strips of the mainland which they were unable
-to protect otherwise. Samos, on the other hand, maintained its
-independence, and even reached, shortly after this period, under
-the despotism of Polykratês, a higher degree of power than ever.
-Perhaps the humiliation of the other maritime Greeks around may have
-rather favored the ambition of this unscrupulous prince, to whom I
-shall revert presently. But we may readily conceive that the public
-solemnities in which the Ionic Greeks intermingled, in place of
-those gay and richly-decked crowds which the Homeric hymn describes
-in the preceding century as assembled at Delos, presented scenes of
-marked despondency: one of their wisest men, indeed, Bias of Priênê,
-went so far as to propose, at the Pan-Ionic festival, a collective
-emigration of the entire population of the Ionic towns to the island
-of Sardinia. Nothing like freedom, he urged, was now open to them
-in Asia; but in Sardinia, one great Pan-Ionic city might be formed,
-which would not only be free herself, but mistress of her neighbors.
-The proposition found no favor; the reason of which is sufficiently
-evident from the narrative just given respecting the unconquerable
-local attachment on the part of the Phôkæan majority. But Herodotus
-bestows upon it the most unqualified commendation, and regrets that
-it was not acted upon.[363] Had such been the case, the subsequent
-history of Carthage, Sicily, and even Rome, might have been sensibly
-altered.
-
- [363] Herodot. i, 170. Πυνθάνομαι γνώμην Βίαντα ἄνδρα Πριηνέα
- ἀποδέξασθαι Ἴωσι χρησιμωτάτην, τῇ εἰ ἐπείθοντο, παρεῖχε ἂν σφι
- εὐδαιμονέειν Ἑλλήνων μάλιστα.
-
-Thus subdued by Harpagus, the Ionic and Æolic Greeks were employed as
-auxiliaries to him in the conquest of the south-western inhabitants
-of Asia Minor,—Karians, Kaunians, Lykians, and Doric Greeks of Knidus
-and Halikarnassus. Of the fate of the latter town, Herodotus tells
-us nothing, though it was his native place. The inhabitants of
-Knidus, a place situated on a long outlying tongue of land, at first
-tried to cut through the narrow isthmus which joined them to the
-continent, but abandoned the attempt with a facility which Herodotus
-explains by referring it to a prohibition of the oracle:[364] nor did
-either the Karians or the Kaunians offer any serious resistance. The
-Lykians only, in their chief town Xanthus, made a desperate defence.
-Having in vain tried to repel the assailants in the open field, and
-finding themselves blocked up in their city, they set fire to it
-with their own hands; consuming in the flames their women, children,
-and servants, while the armed citizens marched out and perished to
-a man in combat with the enemy.[365] Such an act of brave and even
-ferocious despair is not in the Grecian character. In recounting,
-however, the languid defence and easy submission of the Greeks of
-Knidus, it may surprise us to call to mind that they were Dorians
-and colonists from Sparta. So that the want of steadfast courage,
-often imputed to Ionic Greeks as compared to Dorian, ought properly
-to be charged on Asiatic Greeks as compared with European; or rather
-upon that mixture of indigenous with Hellenic population, which all
-the Asiatic colonies, in common with most of the other colonies,
-presented, and which in Halikarnassus was particularly remarkable;
-for it seems to have been half Karian, half Dorian, and was even
-governed by a line of Karian despots.
-
- [364] Herodot. i, 174.
-
- [365] Herodot. i, 176. The whole population of Xanthus perished,
- except eighty families accidentally absent: the subsequent
- occupants of the town were recruited from strangers. Nearly five
- centuries afterwards, their descendants in the same city slew
- themselves in the like desperate and tragical manner, to avoid
- surrendering to the Roman army under Marcus Brutus (Plutarch,
- Brutus, c. 31).
-
-Harpagus and the Persians thus mastered, without any considerable
-resistance, the western and southern portions of Asia Minor;
-probably, also, though we have no direct account of it, the entire
-territory within the Halys which had before been ruled by Crœsus. The
-tributes of the conquered Greeks were transmitted to Ekbatana instead
-of to Sardis. While Harpagus was thus employed, Cyrus himself had
-been making still more extensive conquests in Upper Asia and Assyria,
-of which I shall speak in the coming chapter.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIII.
-
-GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.
-
-
-In the preceding chapter an account has been given, the best which we
-can pick out from Herodotus, of the steps by which the Asiatic Greeks
-became subject to Persia. And if his narrative is meagre, on a matter
-which vitally concerned not only so many of his brother Greeks, but
-even his own native city, we can hardly expect that he should tell us
-much respecting the other conquests of Cyrus. He seems to withhold
-intentionally various details which had come to his knowledge, and
-merely intimates in general terms that while Harpagus was engaged
-on the coast of the Ægean, Cyrus himself assailed and subdued all
-the nations of Upper Asia, “not omitting any one of them.”[366]
-He alludes to the Baktrians and the Sakæ,[367] who are also named
-by Ktêsias as having become subject partly by force, partly by
-capitulation; but he deems only two of the exploits of Cyrus worthy
-of special notice,—the conquest of Babylon, and the final expedition
-against the Massagetæ. In the short abstract which we now possess
-of the lost work of Ktêsias, no mention appears of the important
-conquest of Babylon; but his narrative, as far as the abstract
-enables us to follow it, diverges materially from that of Herodotus,
-and must have been founded on data altogether different.
-
- [366] Herodot. i, 177.
-
- [367] Herodot. i, 153.
-
-“I shall mention (says Herodotus)[368] those conquests which gave
-Cyrus most trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued all
-the rest of the continent, he attacked the Assyrians.” Those who
-recollect the description of Babylon and its surrounding territory,
-as given in a former chapter, will not be surprised to learn that
-the capture of it gave the Persian aggressor much trouble: their
-only surprise will be, how it could ever have been taken at
-all,—or, indeed, how a hostile army could have even reached it.
-Herodotus informs us that the Babylonian queen Nitôkris—mother of
-that very Labynêtus who was king when Cyrus attacked the place—had
-been apprehensive of invasion from the Medes after their capture of
-Nineveh, and had executed many laborious works near the Euphratês
-for the purpose of obstructing their approach. Moreover, there
-existed what was called the wall of Media (probably built by her,
-but certainly built prior to the Persian conquest), one hundred
-feet high and twenty feet thick,[369] across the entire space of
-seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of the canals of
-the Euphratês. And the canals themselves, as we may see by the march
-of the Ten Thousand Greeks after the battle of Kunaxa, presented
-means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as that
-of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was defended
-by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient Nineveh
-or the modern Mosul.[370] In addition to these ramparts, natural as
-well as artificial, to protect the territory,—populous, cultivated,
-productive, and offering every motive to its inhabitants to resist
-even the entrance of an enemy,—we are told that the Babylonians
-were so thoroughly prepared for the inroad of Cyrus that they had
-accumulated a store of provisions within the city walls for many
-years.
-
- [368] Herodot. i, 177. τὰ δὲ οἱ πάρεσχε πόνον τε πλεῖστον, καὶ
- ἀξιαπηγητότατά ἐστι, τούτων ἐπιμνήσομαι.
-
- [369] See Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 15; ii, 4, 12. For the
- inextricable difficulties in which the Ten Thousand Greeks were
- involved, after the battle of Kunaxa, and the insurmountable
- obstacles which impeded their march, assuming any resisting force
- whatever, see Xenoph. Anab. ii, 1, 11; ii, 2, 3; ii, 3, 10; ii,
- 4, 12-13. These obstacles, doubtless, served as a protection to
- them against attack, not less than as an impediment to their
- advance; and the well-supplied villages enabled them to obtain
- plenty of provisions: hence the anxiety of the Great King to
- help them across the Tigris out of Babylonia. But it is not easy
- to see how, in the face of such difficulties, any invading army
- could reach Babylon.
-
- Ritter represents the wall of Media as having reached across from
- the Euphratês to the Tigris at the point where they come nearest
- together, about two hundred stadia or twenty-five miles across.
- But it is nowhere stated, so far as I can find, that this wall
- reached to the Euphratês,—still less that its length was two
- hundred stadia, for the passages of Strabo cited by Ritter do not
- prove either point (ii, 80; xi, 529). And Xenophon (ii, 4, 12)
- gives the length of the wall as I have stated it in the text, =
- 20 parasangs = 600 stadia = 75 miles.
-
- The passage of the Anabasis (i, 7, 15) seems to connect the
- Median wall with the canals, and not with the river Euphratês.
- The narrative of Herodotus, as I have remarked in a former
- chapter, leads us to suppose that he descended that river to
- Babylon; and if we suppose that the wall did not reach the
- Euphratês, this would afford some reason why he makes no mention
- of it. See Ritter, West Asien, b. iii, Abtheilung iii, Abschn. i,
- sect. 29, pp. 19-22.
-
- [370] Ὁ Τίγρης μέγας τε καὶ οὐδαμοῦ διαβατὸς ἔς τε ἐπὶ τὴν
- ἐκβολὴν (Arrian, vii, 7, 7). By which he means, that it is not
- fordable below the ancient Nineveh, or Mosul; for a little above
- that spot, Alexander himself forded it with his army, a few days
- before the battle of Arbêla—not without very great difficulty
- (Arrian, iii, 7, 8; Diodor. xvii, 55).
-
-Strange as it may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon,
-after all the cost and labor spent in providing defences for the
-territory, voluntarily neglected to avail himself of them, suffered
-the invader to tread down the fertile Babylonia without resistance,
-and merely drew out the citizens to oppose him when he arrived under
-the walls of the city,—if the statement of Herodotus is correct.[371]
-And we may illustrate this unaccountable omission by that which we
-know to have happened in the march of the younger Cyrus to Kunaxa
-against his brother Artaxerxês Mnêmon. The latter had caused to be
-dug, expressly in preparation for this invasion, a broad and deep
-ditch, thirty feet wide and eight feet deep, from the wall of Media
-to the river Euphratês, a distance of twelve parasangs, or forty-live
-English miles, leaving only a passage of twenty feet broad close
-alongside of the river. Yet when the invading army arrived at this
-important pass, they found not a man there to defend it, and all of
-them marched without resistance through the narrow inlet. Cyrus the
-younger, who had up to that moment felt assured that his brother
-would fight, now supposed that he had given up the idea of defending
-Babylon:[372] instead of which, two days afterwards, Artaxerxês
-attacked him on an open plain of ground, where there was no advantage
-of position on either side; though the invaders were taken rather
-unawares in consequence of their extreme confidence, arising from
-recent unopposed entrance within the artificial ditch.
-
- [371] Herodot. i, 190. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐγένετο ἐλαύνων ἀγχοῦ τῆς πόλιος,
- συνέβαλόν τε οἱ Βαβυλώνιοι, καὶ ἑσσωθέντες τῇ μάχῃ, κατειλήθησαν
- ἐς τὸ ἄστυ.
-
- Just as if Babylon was as easy to be approached as Sardis,—οἷά τε
- ἐπιστάμενοι ἔτι πρότερον τὸν Κῦρον οὐκ ἀτρεμίζοντα, ἀλλ᾽ ὁρέοντες
- αὐτὸν παντὶ ὁμοίως ἔθνεϊ ἐπιχειρέοντα, προεσάξαντο σίτια ἐτέων
- κάρτα πολλῶν.
-
- [372] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 14-20; Diodor. xiv, 22; Plutarch,
- Artaxerxês, c. 7. I follow Xenophon without hesitation, where he
- differs from these two latter.
-
-This anecdote is the more valuable as an illustration, because all
-its circumstances are transmitted to us by a discerning eye-witness.
-And both the two incidents here brought into comparison demonstrate
-the recklessness, changefulness, and incapacity of calculation,
-belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day,—as well as the great
-command of hands possessed by these kings, and their prodigal waste
-of human labor.[373] We shall see, as we advance in this history,
-farther evidences of the same attributes, which it is essential to
-bear in mind, for the purpose of appreciating both Grecian dealing
-with Asiatics, and the comparative absence of such defects in the
-Grecian character. Vast walls and deep ditches are an inestimable
-aid to a brave and well commanded garrison; but they cannot be made
-entirely to supply the want of bravery and intelligence.
-
- [373] Xenophon, Cyropæd. iii, 3, 26, about the πολυχειρία of the
- barbaric kings.
-
-In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may have
-been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is certain.
-On first setting out for this conquest, he was about to cross the
-river Gyndês (one of the affluents from the East which joins the
-Tigris near the modern Bagdad, and along which lay the high road
-crossing the pass of Mount Zagros from Babylon to Ekbatana), when
-one of the sacred white horses, which accompanied him, insulted the
-river[374] so far as to march in and try to cross it by himself.
-The Gyndês resented this insult, and the horse was drowned: upon
-which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so break the strength
-of the river as that women in future should pass it without wetting
-their knees. Accordingly, he employed his entire army, during the
-whole summer season, in digging three hundred and sixty artificial
-channels to disseminate the unity of the stream. Such, according to
-Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year the fall of
-the great Babylon; but in the next spring Cyrus and his army were
-before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the population
-who came out to fight. But the walls were artificial mountains (three
-hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
-of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied
-attack, and even blockade, having previously stored up several years’
-provision. Through the midst of these walls, however, flowed the
-Euphratês; and this river, which had been so laboriously trained
-to serve for protection, trade, and sustenance to the Babylonians,
-was now made the avenue of their ruin. Having left a detachment of
-his army at the two points where the Euphratês enters and quits
-the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to the higher part of
-its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had prepared one of
-the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of need the
-superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
-reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
-which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a decree that
-it became not above the height of a man’s thigh. The period chosen
-was that of a great Babylonian festival, when the whole population
-were engaged in amusement and revelry; and the Persian troops left
-near the town, watching their opportunity, entered from both sides
-along the bed of the river, and took it by surprise with scarcely
-any resistance. At no other time, except during a festival, could
-they have done this, says Herodotus, had the river been ever so low;
-for both banks throughout the whole length of the town were provided
-with quays, with continuous walls, and with gates at the end of every
-street which led down to the river at right angles: so that if the
-population had not been disqualified by the influences of the moment,
-they would have caught the assailants in the bed of the river “as a
-trap,” and overwhelmed them from the walls alongside. Within a square
-of fifteen miles to each side, we are not surprised to hear that both
-the extremities were already in the power of the besiegers before the
-central population heard of it, and while they were yet absorbed in
-unconscious festivity.[375]
-
- [374] Herodot. i, 189-202. ἐνθαῦτά οἱ τῶν τις ἱρῶν ἵππων τῶν
- λευκῶν ὑπὸ ὕβριος ἐσβὰς ἐς τὸν ποταμὸν, διαβαίνειν ἐπειρᾶτο....
- Κάρτα τε δὴ ἐχαλέπαινε τῷ ποταμῷ ὁ Κῦρος τοῦτο ὑβρίσαντι, etc.
-
- [375] Herodot. i, 191. This latter portion of the story, if we
- may judge from the expression of Herodotus, seems to excite
- more doubt in his mind than all the rest, for he thinks it
- necessary to add, “as the residents at Babylon say,” ὡς λέγεται
- ὑπὸ τῶν ταύτῃ οἰκημένων. Yet if we assume the size of the place
- to be what he has affirmed, there seems nothing remarkable in
- the fact that the people in the centre did not at once hear of
- the capture; for the first business of the assailants would be
- to possess themselves of the walls and gates. It is a lively
- illustration of prodigious magnitude, and as such it is given by
- Aristotle (Polit. iii, 1, 12); who, however, exaggerates it by
- giving as a report that the inhabitants in the centre did not
- hear of the capture until the third day. No such exaggeration as
- this appears in Herodotus.
-
- Xenophon, in the Cyropædia (vii, 5, 7-18), following the story
- that Cyrus drained off the Euphratês, represents it as effected
- in a manner differing from Herodotus. According to him, Cyrus
- dug two vast and deep ditches, one on each side round the town,
- from the river above the town to the river below it: watching the
- opportunity of a festival day in Babylon, he let the water into
- both of these side ditches, which fell into the main stream again
- below the town: hence the main stream in its passage through
- the town became nearly dry. The narrative of Xenophon, however,
- betrays itself, as not having been written from information
- received on the spot, like that of Herodotus; for he talks of
- αἱ ἄκραι of Babylon, just as he speaks of the ἄκραι of the
- hill-towns of Karia (compare Cyropædia, vii, 4, 1, 7, with vii,
- 5, 34). There were no ἄκραι on the dead flat of Babylon.
-
-Such is the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which
-placed Babylon—the greatest city of western Asia—in the power of the
-Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
-incorrect, or exaggerated, we cannot now decide; but the way in which
-the city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition
-cannot have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus
-comes into the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with
-their whole territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the
-richest satrapy in the empire; but we do not hear that the people
-were otherwise ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and
-gates were left untouched. This was very different from the way in
-which the Medes had treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined
-and for a long time absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a
-reduced scale under the Parthian empire; and very different also from
-the way in which Babylon itself was treated twenty years afterwards
-by Darius, when reconquered after a revolt.
-
-The importance of Babylon, marking as it does one of the
-peculiar forms of civilization belonging to the ancient world
-in a state of full development, gives an interest even to the
-half-authenticated stories respecting its capture; but the other
-exploits ascribed to Cyrus,—his invasion of India, across the desert
-of Arachosia,[376]—and his attack upon the Massagetæ, nomads ruled
-by queen Tomyris, and greatly resembling the Scythians, across the
-mysterious river which Herodotus calls Araxês,—are too little known
-to be at all dwelt upon. In the latter he is said to have perished,
-his army being defeated in a bloody battle.[377] He was buried at
-Pasargadæ, in his native province of Persis proper, where his tomb
-was honored and watched until the breaking up of the empire,[378]
-while his memory was held in profound veneration among the Persians.
-
- [376] Arrian, vi, 24, 4.
-
- [377] Herodot. i, 205-214; Arrian, v, 4, 14; Justin, i, 8;
- Strabo, xi, p. 512.
-
- According to Ktêsias, Cyrus was slain in an expedition against
- the Derbikes, a people in the Caucasian regions,—though his army
- afterwards prove victorious and conquer the country (Ktesiæ
- Persica, c. 8-9),—see the comment of Bähr on the passage, in his
- edition of Ktêsias.
-
- [378] Strabo, xv, pp. 730, 731; Arrian, vi, 29.
-
-Of his real exploits, we know little except their results; but in
-what we read respecting him there seems, though amidst constant
-fighting, very little cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as
-the subject of a moral romance, which for a long time was cited
-as authentic history, and which even now serves as an authority,
-expressed or implied, for disputable and even incorrect conclusions.
-His extraordinary activity and conquests admit of no doubt. He left
-the Persian empire[379] extending from Sogdiana and the rivers
-Jaxartês and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the Syrian coast
-westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to it except
-that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judæa were dependencies of Babylon, at
-the time when he conquered it, with their princes and grandees in
-Babylonian captivity. They seem to have yielded to him, and become
-his tributaries,[380] without difficulty; and the restoration of
-their captives was conceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the
-habits of the Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in
-the winter, and Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory
-of Persis, with its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargadæ, being
-reserved for the burial-place of the kings and the religious
-sanctuary of the empire. How or when the conquest of Susiana was
-made, we are not informed; it lay eastward of the Tigris, between
-Babylonia and Persis proper, and its people, the Kissians, as far as
-we can discern, were of Assyrian and not of Arian race. The river
-Choaspês, near Susa, was supposed to furnish the only water fit for
-the palate of the Great King, and is said to have been carried about
-with him wherever he went.[381]
-
- [379] The town Kyra, or Kyropolis, on the river Sihon, or
- Jaxartês, was said to have been founded by Cyrus,—it was
- destroyed by Alexander (Strabo, xi, pp. 517, 518; Arrian, iv, 2,
- 2; Curtius, vii, 6, 16).
-
- [380] Herodot. iii, 19.
-
- [381] Herodot. i, 188; Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 3; Diodor. xvii,
- 71.
-
-While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the distinct
-types of civilization in western Asia,—not by elevating the worse,
-but by degrading the better,—upon the native Persians themselves
-they operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking alike their
-pride, ambition, cupidity, and warlike propensities. Not only did the
-territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to Susa or Ekbatana,—being
-the only district so exempted between the Jaxartês and the
-Mediterranean,—but the vast tributes received from the remaining
-empire were distributed to a great degree among its inhabitants.
-Empire to them meant,—for the great men, lucrative satrapies, or
-pachalics, with powers altogether unlimited, pomp inferior only to
-that of the Great King, and standing armies which they employed
-at their own discretion, sometimes against each other,[382]—for
-the common soldiers, drawn from their fields or flocks, constant
-plunder, abundant maintenance, and an unrestrained license, either
-in the suite of one of the satraps, or in the large permanent troop
-which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with the Great King. And if the
-entire population of Persis proper did not migrate from their abodes
-to occupy some of those more inviting spots which the immensity of
-the imperial dominion furnished,—a dominion extending (to use the
-language of Cyrus the younger, before the battle of Kunaxa)[383] from
-the region of insupportable heat to that of insupportable cold,—this
-was only because the early kings discouraged such a movement, in
-order that the nation might maintain its military hardihood,[384] and
-be in a situation to furnish undiminished supplies of soldiers.
-
- [382] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 1, 8.
-
- [383] Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 6; Cyropæd. viii, 6, 19.
-
- [384] Herodot. ix, 122.
-
-The self-esteem and arrogance of the Persians was no less remarkable
-than their avidity for sensual enjoyment. They were fond of wine to
-excess; their wives and their concubines were both numerous; and
-they adopted eagerly from foreign nations new fashions of luxury as
-well as of ornament. Even to novelties in religion, they were not
-strongly averse; for though they were disciples of Zoroaster, with
-magi as their priests, and as indispensable companions of their
-sacrifices, worshipping Sun, Moon, Earth, Fire, etc., and recognizing
-neither image, temple, nor altar,—yet they had adopted the voluptuous
-worship of the goddess Mylitta from the Assyrians and Arabians. A
-numerous male offspring was the Persian’s boast, and his warlike
-character and consciousness of force were displayed in the education
-of these youths, who were taught, from five years old to twenty,
-only three things,—to ride, to shoot with the bow, and to speak the
-truth.[385] To owe money, or even to buy and sell, was accounted
-among the Persians disgraceful,—a sentiment which they defended by
-saying, that both the one and the other imposed the necessity of
-telling falsehood. To exact tribute from subjects, to receive pay or
-presents from the king, and to give away without forethought whatever
-was not immediately wanted, was their mode of dealing with money.
-Industrious pursuits were left to the conquered, who were fortunate
-if by paying a fixed contribution, and sending a military contingent
-when required, they could purchase undisturbed immunity for their
-remaining concerns.[386] They could not thus purchase safety for the
-family hearth, since we find instances of noble Grecian maidens torn
-from their parents for the harem of the satrap.[387]
-
- [385] The modern Persians at this day exhibit almost matchless
- skill in shooting with the firelock, as well as with the bow, on
- horseback. See Sir John Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, ch. xvii, p.
- 201; see also Kinneir, Geographical Memoir of the Persian Empire,
- p. 32.
-
- [386] About the attributes of the Persian character, see Herodot.
- i, 131-140: compare i, 153.
-
- He expresses himself very strongly as to the facility with which
- the Persians imbibed foreign customs, and especially foreign
- luxuries (i, 135),—ξεινικὰ δὲ νόμαια Πέρσαι προσίενται ἀνδρῶν
- μάλιστα,—καὶ εὐπαθείας τε παντοδαπὰς πυνθανόμενοι ἐπιτηδεύουσι.
-
- That rigid tenacity of customs and exclusiveness of tastes,
- which mark the modern Orientals, appear to be of the growth of
- Mohammedanism, and to distinguish them greatly from the old
- Zoroastrian Persians.
-
- [387] Herodot. ix, 76; Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 26.
-
-To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political society
-went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a conqueror like
-Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement and enthusiasm of
-which they were capable. He had found them slaves, and made them
-masters; he was the first and greatest of national benefactors,[388]
-as well as the most forward of leaders in the field; they followed
-him from one conquest to another, during the thirty years of his
-reign, their love of empire growing with the empire itself. And this
-impulse of aggrandizement continued unabated during the reigns of
-his three next successors,—Kambysês, Darius, and Xerxês,—until it
-was at length violently stifled by the humiliating defeats of Platæa
-and Salamis; after which the Persians became content with defending
-themselves at home, and playing a secondary game. But at the time
-when Kambysês son of Cyrus succeeded to his father’s sceptre, Persian
-spirit was at its highest point, and he was not long in fixing upon
-a prey both richer and less hazardous than the Massagetæ, at the
-opposite extremity of the empire. Phenicia and Judæa being already
-subject to him, he resolved to invade Egypt, then highly flourishing
-under the long and prosperous reign of Amasis. Not much pretence
-was needed to color the aggression, and the various stories which
-Herodotus mentions as causes of the war, are only interesting
-inasmuch as they imply a vein of Egyptian party feeling,—affirming
-that the invasion was brought upon Amasis by a daughter of Apriês,
-and was thus a judgment upon him for having deposed the latter. As to
-the manner in which she had produced this effect, indeed, the most
-contradictory stories were circulated.[389]
-
- [388] Herodot. i, 210; iii, 159.
-
- [389] Herodot. iii, 1-4.
-
-Kambysês summoned the forces of his empire for this new enterprise,
-and among them both the Phenicians and the Asiatic Greeks, Æolic
-as well as Ionic,[390] insular as well as continental,—nearly all
-the maritime force and skill of the Ægean sea. He was apprized by a
-Greek deserter from the mercenaries in Egypt, named Phanês, of the
-difficulties of the march, and the best method of surmounting them;
-especially the three days of sandy desert, altogether without water,
-which lay between Egypt and Judæa. By the aid of the neighboring
-Arabians,—with whom he concluded a treaty, and who were requited
-for this service with the title of equal allies, free from all
-tribute,—he was enabled to surmount this serious difficulty, and to
-reach Pelusium at the eastern mouth of the Nile, where the Ionian
-and Karian troops in the Egyptian service, as well as the Egyptian
-military, were assembled to oppose him.[391]
-
- [390] Herodot. iii, 1, 19, 44.
-
- [391] The narrative of Ktêsias is, in respect both to the
- Egyptian expedition and to the other incidents of Persian
- history, quite different in its details from that of Herodotus,
- agreeing only in the main events (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 7). To
- blend the two together is impossible.
-
- Tacitus (Histor. i, 11) notes the difficulty of approach for an
- invading army to Egypt: “Egyptum, provinciam aditu difficilem,
- annonæ fecundam, superstitione ac lasciviâ discordem et mobilem,”
- etc.
-
-Fortunately for himself, the Egyptian king Amasis had died during
-the interval of the Persian preparations, a few months before the
-expedition took place,—after forty-four years of unabated prosperity.
-His death, at this critical moment, was probably the main cause of
-the easy conquest which followed; his son Psammenitus succeeding
-to his crown, but neither to his abilities nor his influence. The
-result of the invasion was foreshadowed, as usual, by a menacing
-prodigy,—rain falling at Thebes in Upper Egypt; and was brought about
-by a single victory, though bravely disputed, at Pelusium,—followed
-by the capture of Memphis, with the person of king Psammenitus, after
-a siege of some duration. Kambysês had sent forward a Mitylenæan ship
-to Memphis, with heralds to summon the city; but the Egyptians, in a
-paroxysm of fury, rushed out of the walls, destroyed the vessel, and
-tore the crew into pieces,—a savage proceeding, which drew upon them
-severe retribution after the capture. Psammenitus, after being at
-first treated with harshness and insult, was at length released, and
-even allowed to retain his regal dignity as a dependent of Persia.
-But being soon detected, or at least believed to be concerned, in
-raising revolt against the conquerors, he was put to death, and Egypt
-was placed under a satrap.[392]
-
- [392] Herodot. iii, 10-16. About the Arabians, between Judæa and
- Egypt, see iii, c. 5, 88-91.
-
-There yet lay beyond Egypt territories for Kambysês to
-conquer,—though Kyrênê and Barka, the Greek colonies near the coast
-of Libya, placed themselves at once out of the reach of danger by
-sending to him tribute and submission at Memphis. He projected three
-new enterprises: one against Carthage, by sea; the other two, by
-land, against the Ethiopians, far to the southward up the course of
-the Nile, and against the oracle and oasis of Zeus Ammon, amidst the
-deserts of Libya. Towards Ethiopia he himself conducted his troops,
-but was compelled to bring them back without reaching it, since they
-were on the point of perishing with famine; while the division which
-he sent against the temple of Ammon is said to have been overwhelmed
-by a sand-storm in the desert. The expedition against Carthage was
-given up, for a reason which well deserves to be commemorated.
-The Phenicians, who formed the most efficient part of his navy,
-refused to serve against their kinsmen and colonists, pleading the
-sanctity of mutual oaths as well as the ties both of relationship and
-traffic.[393] Even the frantic Kambysês was compelled to accept, and
-perhaps to respect, this honorable refusal, which was not imitated
-by the Ionic Greeks when Darius and Xerxês demanded the aid of their
-ships against Athens,—we must add, however, that they were then in
-a situation much more exposed and helpless than that in which the
-Phenicians stood before Kambysês.
-
- [393] Herodot. iii, 19.
-
-Among the sacred animals so numerous and so different throughout the
-various nomes of Egypt, the most venerated of all was the bull Apis.
-Yet such peculiar conditions were required by the Egyptian religion
-as to the birth, the age, and the marks of this animal, that, when
-he died, it was difficult to find a new calf properly qualified to
-succeed him. Much time was sometimes spent in the search, and when
-an unexceptionable successor was at last found, the demonstrations
-of joy in Memphis were extravagant and universal. At the moment
-when Kambysês returned to Memphis from his Ethiopian expedition,
-full of humiliation for the result, it so happened that a new Apis
-was just discovered; and as the population of the city gave vent
-to their usual festival pomp and delight, he construed it into an
-intentional insult towards his own recent misfortunes. In vain did
-the priests and magistrates explain to him the real cause of these
-popular manifestations; he persisted in his belief, punished some
-of them with death and others with stripes, and commanded every man
-seen in holiday attire to be slain. Furthermore,—to carry his outrage
-against Egyptian feeling to the uttermost pitch,—he sent for the
-newly-discovered Apis, and plunged his dagger into the side of the
-animal, who shortly afterwards died of the wound.[394]
-
- [394] Herodot. iii, 29.
-
-After this brutal deed,—calculated to efface in the minds of the
-Egyptian priests the enormities of Cheops and Chephrên, and doubtless
-unparalleled in all the twenty-four thousand years of their anterior
-history,—Kambysês lost every spark of reason which yet remained to
-him, and the Egyptians found in this visitation a new proof of the
-avenging interference of their gods. Not only did he commit every
-variety of studied outrage against the conquered people among whom
-he was tarrying, as well as their temples and their sepulchres,—but
-he also dealt his blows against his Persian friends and even his
-nearest blood-relations. Among these revolting atrocities, one of the
-greatest deserves peculiar notice, because the fate of the empire was
-afterwards materially affected by it. His younger brother Smerdis had
-accompanied him into Egypt, but had been sent back to Susa, because
-the king became jealous of the admiration which his personal strength
-and qualities called forth.[395] That jealousy was aggravated into
-alarm and hatred by a dream, portending dominion and conquest to
-Smerdis; so that the frantic Kambysês sent to Susa secretly a
-confidential Persian, Prexaspês, with express orders to get rid of
-his brother. Prexaspês fulfilled his commission effectively, burying
-the slain prince with his own hands,[396] and keeping the deed
-concealed from all except a few of the chiefs at the regal residence.
-
- [395] Ktêsias calls the brother Tanyoxarkês, and says that
- Cyrus had left him satrap, without tribute, of Baktria and the
- neighboring regions (Persica, c. 8). Xenophon, in the Cyropædia,
- also calls him Tanyoxarkês, but gives him a different satrapy
- (Cyropæd. viii, 7, 11).
-
- [396] Herodot. iii, 30-62.
-
-Among these few chiefs, however, there was one, the Median
-Patizeithês, belonging to the order of the Magi, who saw in it a
-convenient stepping-stone for his own personal ambition, and made use
-of it as a means of covertly supplanting the dynasty of the great
-Cyrus. Enjoying the full confidence of Kambysês, he had been left
-by that prince, on departing for Egypt, in the entire management of
-the palace and treasures, with extensive authority.[397] Moreover,
-he happened to have a brother extremely resembling in person the
-deceased Smerdis; and as the open and dangerous madness of Kambysês
-contributed to alienate from him the minds of the Persians, he
-resolved to proclaim this brother king in his room, as if it were
-the younger son of Cyrus succeeding to the disqualified elder. On
-one important point, the false Smerdis differed from the true. He
-had lost his ears, which Cyrus himself had caused to be cut off for
-an offence; but the personal resemblance, after all, was of little
-importance, since he was seldom or never allowed to show himself
-to the people.[398] Kambysês, having heard of this revolt in Syria
-on his return from Egypt, was mounting his horse in haste for the
-purpose of going to suppress it, when an accident from his sword
-put an end to his life. Herodotus tells us that, before his death,
-he summoned the Persians around him, confessed that he had been
-guilty of putting his brother to death, and apprized them that the
-reigning Smerdis was only a Median pretender,—conjuring them at
-the same time not to submit to the disgrace of being ruled by any
-other than a Persian and an Achæmenid. But if it be true that he
-ever made known the facts, no one believed him. For Prexaspês, on
-his part, was compelled by regard to his own safety, to deny that
-he had imbrued his hands in the blood of a son of Cyrus;[399] and
-thus the opportune death of Kambysês placed the false Smerdis without
-opposition at the head of the Persians, who all, or for the most
-part, believed themselves to be ruled by a genuine son of Cyrus.
-Kambysês had reigned for seven years and five months.
-
- [397] Herodot. iii, 61-63.
-
- [398] Herodot. iii, 68-69.—“Auribus decisis vivere jubet,” says
- Tacitus, about a case under the Parthian government (Annal. xii,
- 14),—nor have the Turkish authorities given up the infliction
- of it at the present moment, or at least down to a very recent
- period.
-
- [399] Herodot. iii, 64-66.
-
-For seven months did Smerdis reign without opposition, seconded
-by his brother Patizeithês; and if he manifested his distrust of
-the haughty Persians around him, by neither inviting them into his
-palace nor showing himself out of it, he at the same time studiously
-conciliated the favor of the subject provinces, by remission of
-tribute and of military service for three years.[400] Such a
-departure from the Persian principle of government was in itself
-sufficient to disgust the warlike and rapacious Achæmenids at Susa.
-But it seems that their suspicions as to his genuine character had
-never been entirely set at rest, and in the eighth month those
-suspicions were converted into certainty. According to what seems
-to have been the Persian usage, he had taken to himself the entire
-harem of his predecessor, among whose wives was numbered Phædymê,
-daughter of a distinguished Persian, named Otanês. At the instance
-of her father, Phædymê undertook the dangerous task of feeling the
-head of Smerdis while he slept, and thus detected the absence of
-ears.[401] Otanês, possessed of the decisive information, lost no
-time in concerting, with five other noble Achæmenids, means for
-ridding themselves of a king who was at once a Mede, a Magian, and a
-man without ears;[402] Darius, son of Hystaspês, the satrap of Persis
-proper, arriving just in time to join the conspiracy as the seventh.
-How these seven noblemen slew Smerdis in his palace at Susa,—how they
-subsequently debated among themselves whether they should establish
-in Persia a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy,—how, after the
-first of the three had been resolved upon, it was determined that the
-future king, whichever he might be, should be bound to take his wives
-only from the families of the seven conspirators,—how Darius became
-king, from the circumstance of his horse being the first to neigh
-among those of the conspirators at a given spot, by the stratagem of
-the groom Œbarês,—how Otanês, standing aside beforehand from this
-lottery for the throne, reserved for himself as well as for his
-descendants perfect freedom and exemption from the rule of the future
-king, whichsoever might draw the prize,—all these incidents may be
-found recounted by Herodotus with his usual vivacity, but with no
-small addition of Hellenic ideas as well as of dramatic ornament.
-
- [400] Herodot. iii, 67.
-
- [401] Herodot. iii, 68-69.
-
- [402] Herodot. iii, 69-73. ἀρχόμεθα μὲν ἐόντες Πέρσαι, ὑπὸ Μήδου
- ἀνδρὸς μάγου, καὶ τούτου ὦτα οὐκ ἔχοντος.
-
- Compare the description of the insupportable repugnance of the
- Greeks of Kyrênê to be governed by the _lame_ Battus (Herodot.
- iv, 161).
-
-It was thus that the upright tiara, the privileged head-dress of
-the Persian kings,[403] passed away from the lineage of Cyrus, yet
-without departing from the great phratry of the Achæmenidæ,—to
-which Darius and his father Hystaspês, as well as Cyrus, belonged.
-That important fact is unquestionable, and probably the acts
-ascribed to the seven conspirators are in the main true, apart from
-their discussions and intentions. But on this as well as on other
-occasions, we must guard ourselves against an illusion which the
-historical manner of Herodotus is apt to create. He presents to us
-with so much descriptive force the personal narrative,—individual
-action and speech, with all its accompanying hopes, fears, doubts,
-and passions,—that our attention is distracted from the political
-bearing of what is going on; which we are compelled often to gather
-up from hints in the speeches of performers, or from consequences
-afterwards indirectly noticed. When we put together all the
-incidental notices which he lets drop, it will be found that the
-change of sceptre from Smerdis to Darius was a far larger political
-event than his direct narrative would seem to announce. Smerdis
-represents preponderance to the Medes over the Persians, and
-comparative degradation to the latter; who, by the installation of
-Darius, are again placed in the ascendent. The Medes and the Magians
-are in this case identical; for the Magians, though indispensable
-in the capacity of priests to the Persians, were essentially one of
-the seven Median tribes.[404] It thus appears that though Smerdis
-ruled as a son of the great Cyrus, yet he ruled by means of Medes
-and Magians, depriving the Persians of that supreme privilege and
-predominance to which they had become accustomed.[405] We see this by
-what followed immediately after the assassination of Smerdis and his
-brother in the palace. The seven conspirators, exhibiting the bloody
-heads of both these victims as an evidence of their deed, instigated
-the Persians in Susa to a general massacre of the Magians, many
-of whom were actually slain, and the rest only escaped by flight,
-concealment, or the hour of night. And the anniversary of this day
-was celebrated afterwards among the Persians by a solemnity and
-festival, called the Magophonia; no Magian being ever allowed on that
-day to appear in public.[406] The descendants of the Seven maintained
-a privileged name and rank,[407] even down to the extinction of the
-monarchy by Alexander the Great.
-
- [403] Compare Aristophan. Aves, 487, with the Scholia, and
- Herodot. vii, 61; Arrian, iv, 6, 29. The cap of the Persians
- generally was loose, low, clinging about the head in folds; that
- of the king was high and erect above the head. See the notes of
- Wesseling and Schweighaüser, upon πῖλοι ἀπαγέες in Herodot. _l.
- c._
-
- [404] Herodot. i, 101-120.
-
- [405] In the speech which Herodotus puts into the mouth of
- Kambysês on his deathbed, addressed to the Persians around him
- in a strain of prophetic adjuration (iii, 65), he says: Καὶ δὴ
- ὑμῖν τάδε ἐπισκήπτω, θεοὺς τοὺς βασιληΐους ἐπικαλέων, καὶ πᾶσιν
- ὑμῖν καὶ μάλιστα Ἀχαιμενιδέων τοῖσι παρεοῦσι, μὴ περιϊδεῖν
- τὴν ἡγεμονίην αὖτις ἐς Μήδους περιελθοῦσαν· ἀλλ᾽ εἴτε δόλῳ
- ἔχουσι αὐτὴν κτησάμενοι (the personification of the deceased
- son of Cyrus), δόλῳ ἀπαιρεθῆναι ὑπὸ ὑμέων· εἴτε καὶ σθένεϊ τεῷ
- κατεργασάμενοι, σθένεϊ κατὰ τὸ κάρτερον ἀνασώσασθαι (the forcible
- opposition of the Medes to Darius, which he put down by superior
- force on the Persian side): compare the speech of Gobryas, one of
- the seven Persian conspirators (iii, 73), and that of Prexaspês
- (iii, 75); also Plato, Legg. iii, 12, p. 695.
-
- Heeren has taken a correct view of the reign of Smerdis the
- Magian, and its political character (Ideen über den Verkehr,
- etc., der Alten Welt, part i, abth. i, p. 431).
-
- [406] Herodot. iii, 79. Σπασάμενοι δὲ τὰ ἐγχειρίδια, ἔκτεινον
- ὅκου τινὰ μάγον εὕρισκον· εἰ δὲ μὴ νὺξ ἐπελθοῦσα ἔσχε, ἔλιπον ἂν
- οὐδένα μάγον. Ταύτην τὴν ἡμέρην θεραπεύουσι Πέρσαι κοινῇ μάλιστα
- τῶν ἡμερέων· καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ ὁρτὴν μεγάλην ἀνάγουσι, ἣ κέκληται ὑπὸ
- Περσέων Μαγοφόνια.
-
- The periodical celebration of the Magophonia is attested by
- Ktêsias,—one of the few points of complete agreement with
- Herodotus. He farther agrees in saying that a Magian usurped the
- throne, through likeness of person to the deceased son of Cyrus,
- whom Kambysês had slain,—but all his other statements differ from
- Herodotus (Ktêsias, 10-14).
-
- [407] Even at the battle of Arbela,—“Summæ Orsines præerat, a
- septem Persis oriundus, ad Cyrum quoque, nobilissimum regem,
- originem sui referens.” (Quintus Curtius, iv, 12, 7, or iv, 45,
- 7, Zumpt.): compare Strabo, xi, p. 531; Florus, iii, 5, 1.
-
-Furthermore, it appears that the authority of Darius was not readily
-acknowledged throughout the empire, and that an interval of confusion
-ensued before it became so.[408] The Medes actually revolted, and
-tried to maintain themselves by force against Darius, who however
-found means to subdue them: though, when he convoked his troops from
-the various provinces, he did not receive from the satraps universal
-obedience. The powerful Orœtês, especially, who had been appointed
-by Cyrus satrap of Lydia and Ionia, not only sent no troops to the
-aid of Darius against the Medes,[409] but even took advantage of
-the disturbed state of the government to put to death his private
-enemy Mitrobatês satrap of Phrygia, and appropriate that satrapy
-in addition to his own. Aryandês also, the satrap nominated by
-Kambysês in Egypt, comported himself as the equal of Darius rather
-than as his subject.[410] The subject provinces generally, to whom
-Smerdis had granted remission of tribute and military service for
-the space of three years, were grateful and attached to his memory,
-and noway pleased with the new dynasty; moreover, the revolt of the
-Babylonians, conceived a year or two before it was executed, took its
-rise from the feelings of this time.[411] But the renewal of the old
-conflict between the two principal sections of the empire, Medes and
-Persians, is doubtless the most important feature in this political
-revolution. The false Smerdis with his brother, both of them Medes
-and Magians, had revived the Median nationality to a state of
-supremacy over the Persian, recalling the memory of what it had been
-under Astyagês; while Darius,—a pure Persian, and not (like the mule
-Cyrus) half Mede and half Persian,—replaced the Persian nationality
-in its ascendent condition, though not without the necessity of
-suppressing by force a rebellion of the Medes.[412]
-
- [408] Herodot. iii, 127. Δαρεῖος—ἅτε οἰδεόντων οἱ ἔτι τῶν
- πρηγμάτων, etc.,—mention of the ταραχή (iii, 126, 150).
-
- [409] Herodot. iii, 126. Μετὰ γὰρ τὸν Καμβύσεω θάνατον, καὶ τῶν
- Μάγων τὴν βασιληΐην, μένων ἐν τῇσι Σάρδισι Ὀροίτης, ὠφέλει μὲν
- οὐδὲν Πέρσας, ~ὑπὸ Μήδων ἀπαραιρημένους τὴν ἀρχήν~· ὁ δὲ ἐν
- ταύτῃ τῇ ταραχῇ κατὰ μὲν ἔκτεινε Μιτροβάτεα ... ἄλλα τε ἐξύβρισε
- παντοῖα, etc.
-
- [410] Herodot. iv, 166. Ὁ δὲ Ἀρυάνδης ἦν οὗτος τῆς Αἰγύπτου
- ὕπαρχος ὑπὸ Καμβύσεω κατεστεώς· ὃς ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ παρισεύμενος
- Δαρείῳ διεφθάρη.
-
- [411] Herodot. iii, 67-150.
-
- [412] Herodot. i, 130. Ἀστυάγης μέν νυν βασιλεύσας ἐπ᾽ ἔτεα πέντε
- καὶ τριήκοντα, οὕτω τῆς ἀρχῆς κατεπαύσθη. Μῆδοι δὲ ὑπέκυψαν
- Πέρσῃσι διὰ τὴν τούτου πικρότητα.... Ὑστέρῳ μέντοι χρόνῳ
- μετεμέλησέ τέ σφι ταῦτα ποιήσασι, καὶ ἀπέστησαν ἀπὸ Δαρείου·
- ἀποστάντες δὲ, ὀπίσω κατεστράφθησαν, μάχῃ νικηθέντες· τότε δὲ,
- ἐπὶ Ἀστυάγεος, οἱ Πέρσαι τε καὶ ὁ Κῦρος ἐπαναστάντες τοῖσι
- Μήδοισι, ἦρχον τὸ ἀπὸ τούτου τῆς Ἀσίης.
-
- This passage—asserting that the Medes, some time after the
- deposition of Astyagês and the acquisition of Persian supremacy
- by Cyrus, repented of having suffered their discontent
- against Astyagês to place this supremacy in the hands of
- the Persians, revolted from Darius, and were reconquered
- after a contest—appears to me to have been misunderstood by
- chronologists. Dodwell, Larcher, and Mr. Fynes Clinton (indeed,
- most, if not all, of the chronologists) explain it as alluding
- to a revolt of the Medes against the Persian king Darius Nothus,
- mentioned in the Hellenica of Xenophon (i, 2, 12), and belonging
- to the year 408 B. C. See Larcher ad Herodot. i, 130, and his Vie
- d’Hérodote, prefixed to his translation (p. lxxxix); also Mr.
- Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 408 and 455, and his Appendix,
- c, 18, p. 316.
-
- The revolt of the Medes alluded to by Herodotus is, in my
- judgment, completely distinct from the revolt mentioned by
- Xenophon: to identify the two, as these eminent chronologists do,
- is an hypothesis not only having nothing to recommend it, but
- open to grave objection. The revolt mentioned by Herodotus was
- against Darius son of Hystaspês, not against Darius Nothus; and
- I have set forth with peculiar care the circumstances connected
- with the conspiracy and accession of the former, for the purpose
- of showing that they all decidedly imply that conflict between
- Median and Persian supremacy, which Herodotus directly announces
- in the passage now before us.
-
- 1. When Herodotus speaks of Darius, without any adjective
- designation, why should we imagine that he means any other than
- Darius the son of Hystaspês, on whom he dwells so copiously in
- his narrative? Once only in the course of his history (ix, 108)
- another Darius (the young prince, son of Xerxês the First) is
- mentioned; but with this exception, Darius son of Hystaspês is
- uniformly, throughout the work, spoken of under his simple name:
- Darius Nothus is never alluded to at all.
-
- 2. The deposition of Astyagês took place in 559 B. C.; the
- beginning of the reign of Darius occurred in 520 B. C.; now
- repentance on the part of the Medes, for what they had done at
- the former of those two epochs, might naturally prompt them to
- try to repair it in the latter. But between the deposition of
- Astyagês in 559 B. C., and the revolt mentioned by Xenophon
- against Darius Nothus in 408 B. C., the interval is more than one
- hundred and fifty years. To ascribe a revolt which took place in
- 408 B. C., to repentance for something which had occurred one
- hundred and fifty years before, is unnatural and far-fetched, if
- not positively inadmissible.
-
- The preceding arguments go to show that the natural construction
- of the passage in Herodotus points to Darius son of Hystaspês,
- and not to Darius Nothus; but this is not all. There are yet
- stronger reasons why the reference to Darius Nothus should be
- discarded.
-
- The supposed mention, in Herodotus, of a fact so late as 408 B.
- C., perplexes the whole chronology of his life and authorship.
- According to the usual statement of his biography, which every
- one admits, and which there is no reason to call in question,
- he was born in 484 B. C. Here, then, is an event alluded to in
- his history, which occurred when the historian was seventy-six
- years old, and the allusion to which he must be presumed to
- have written when about eighty years old, if not more; for his
- mention of the fact by no means implies that it was particularly
- recent. Those who adopt this view, do not imagine that he wrote
- his whole history at that age; but they maintain that he made
- later additions, of which they contend that this is one. I do
- not say that this is impossible: we know that Isokratês composed
- his Panathenaic oration at the age of ninety-four; but it must
- be admitted to be highly improbable,—a supposition which ought
- not to be advanced without some cogent proof to support it. But
- here no proof whatever is produced. Herodotus mentions a revolt
- of the Medes against Darius,—Xenophon also mentions a revolt of
- the Medes against Darius; hence, chronologists have taken it as
- a matter of course, that both authors must allude to the same
- event; though the supposition is unnatural as regards the text,
- and still more unnatural as regards the biography, of Herodotus.
-
- In respect to that biography, Mr. Clinton appears to me to have
- adopted another erroneous opinion; in which, however, both
- Larcher and Wesseling are against him, though Dahlmann and Heyse
- agree with him. He maintains that the passage in Herodotus
- (iii, 15), wherein it is stated that Pausiris succeeded his
- father Amyrtæus by consent of the Persians in the government of
- Egypt, is to be referred to a fact which happened subsequent to
- the year 414 B. C., or the tenth year of Darius Nothus; since
- it was in that year that Amyrtæus acquired the government of
- Egypt. But this opinion rests altogether upon the assumption
- that a certain Amyrtæus, whose name and date occur in Manetho
- (see Eusebius, Chronicon), is the same person as the Amyrtæus
- mentioned in Herodotus; which identity is not only not proved,
- but is extremely improbable, since Mr. Clinton himself admits
- (F. H. Appendix, p. 317), while maintaining the identity: “He
- (Amyrtæus) had conducted a war against the Persian government
- _more than fifty years before_.” This, though not impossible, is
- surely very improbable; it is at least equally probable that the
- Amyrtæus of Manetho was a different person from (perhaps even the
- _grandson_ of) that Amyrtæus in Herodotus, who had carried on war
- against the Persians more than fifty wars before; it appears to
- me, indeed, that this is the more reasonable hypothesis of the
- two.
-
- I have permitted myself to prolong this note to an unusual
- length, because the supposed mention of such recent events in the
- history of Herodotus, as those in the reign of Darius Nothus, has
- introduced very gratuitous assumptions as to the time and manner
- in which that history was composed. It cannot be shown that there
- is a single event of precise and ascertained date, alluded to in
- his history, later than the capture of the Lacedæmonian heralds
- in the year 430 B. C. (Herodot. vii, 137: see Larcher, Vie
- d’Hérodote, p. lxxxix); and this renders the composition of his
- history as an entire work much more smooth and intelligible.
-
- It may be worth while to add, that whoever reads attentively
- Herodotus, vi, 98,—and reflects at the same time that the
- destruction of the Athenian armament at Syracuse (the greatest
- of all Hellenic disasters, hardly inferior, for its time, to the
- Russian campaign of Napoleon, and especially impressive to one
- living at Thurii, as may be seen by the life of Lysias, Plutarch,
- Vit. x, Oratt. p. 835) happened during the reign of Darius Nothus
- in 413 B. C.,—will not readily admit the hypothesis of additions
- made to the history during the reign of the latter, or so late
- as 408 B. C. Herodotus would hardly have dwelt so expressly and
- emphatically upon mischief done by Greeks to each other in the
- reigns of Darius son of Hystaspês, Xerxês, and Artaxerxês, if he
- had lived to witness the greater mischiefs so inflicted during
- the reign of Darius Nothus, and had kept his history before him
- for the purpose of inserting new events. The destruction of the
- Athenians before Syracuse would have been a thousand times more
- striking to his imagination than the revolt of the Medes against
- Darius Nothus, and would have impelled him with much greater
- force to alter or enlarge the chapter vi, 98.
-
- The sentiment too which Herodotus places in the mouth of
- Demaratus respecting the Spartans (vii, 104) appears to have been
- written _before_ the capture of the Spartans in Sphakteria, in
- 425 B. C., rather than _after_ it: compare Thucyd. iv, 40.
-
- Dahlmann (Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte, vol. ii,
- pp. 41-47) and Heyse (Quæstiones Herodoteæ, pp. 74-77, Berlin,
- 1827) both profess to point out six passages in Herodotus
- which mark events of later date than 430 B. C. But none of
- the chronological indications which they adduce appear to me
- trustworthy.
-
-It has already been observed that the subjugation of the recusant
-Medes was not the only embarrassment of the first years of Darius.
-Orœtês, satrap of Phrygia, Lydia, and Ionia, ruling seemingly the
-entire western coast of Asia Minor,—possessing a large military
-force and revenue, and surrounded by a body-guard of one thousand
-native Persians,—maintained a haughty independence. He secretly made
-away with couriers sent to summon him to Susa, and even wreaked his
-vengeance upon some of the principal Persians who had privately
-offended him. Darius, not thinking it prudent to attack him by open
-force, proposed to the chief Persians at Susa, the dangerous problem
-of destroying him by stratagem. Thirty among them volunteered to
-undertake it, and Bagæus, son of Artontês, to whom on drawing lots
-the task devolved, accomplished it by a manœuvre which might serve
-as a lesson to the Ottoman government, in its embarrassments with
-contumacious Pashas. Having proceeded to Sardis, furnished with
-many different royal ordinances, formally set forth and bearing
-the seal of Darius,—he was presented to Orœtês in audience, with
-the public secretary of the satrapy close at hand, and the Persian
-guards standing around. He presented his ordinances to be read aloud
-by the secretary, choosing first those which related to matters of
-no great importance; but when he saw that the guards listened with
-profound reverence, and that the king’s name and seal imposed upon
-them irresistibly, he ventured upon the real purport of his perilous
-mission. An ordinance was handed to the secretary, and read by him
-aloud, as follows: “Persians, king Darius forbids you to serve any
-longer as guards to Orœtês.” The obedient guards at once delivered
-up their spears, when Bagæus caused the final warrant to be read to
-them: “King Darius commands the Persians in Sardis to kill Orœtês.”
-The guards drew their swords and killed him on the spot: his large
-treasure was conveyed to Susa: Darius became undisputed master, and
-probably Bagæus satrap.[413]
-
- [413] Herodot. iii, 127, 128.
-
-Another devoted adherent, and another yet more memorable piece
-of cunning, laid prostrate before Darius the mighty walls and
-gates of the revolted Babylon. The inhabitants of that city had
-employed themselves assiduously,—both during the lax provincial
-superintendence of the false Smerdis, and during the period of
-confusion and conflict which elapsed before Darius became firmly
-established and obeyed,—in making every preparation both for
-declaring and sustaining their independence. Having accumulated a
-large store of provisions and other requisites for a long siege,
-without previous detection, they at length proclaimed their
-independence openly. And such was the intensity of their resolution
-to maintain it, that they had recourse to a proceeding, which, if
-correctly reported by Herodotus, forms one of the most frightful
-enormities recorded in his history. To make their provisions last
-out longer, they strangled all the women in the city, reserving
-only their mothers, and one woman to each family for the purpose of
-baking.[414] We cannot but suppose that this has been magnified from
-a partial into an universal destruction. Yet taking it even with
-such allowance, it illustrates that ferocious force of will,—and
-that predominance of strong nationality, combined with antipathy to
-foreigners, over all the gentler sympathies,—which seems to mark
-the Semitic nations, and which may be traced so much in the Jewish
-history of Josephus.
-
- [414] Herodot. iii, 150.
-
-Darius, assembling all the forces in his power, laid siege to the
-revolted city, but could make no impression upon it, either by force
-or by stratagem. He tried to repeat the proceeding by which Cyrus
-had taken it at first; but the besieged were found this time on
-their guard. The siege had lasted twenty months without the smallest
-progress, and the Babylonians derided the besiegers from the height
-of their impregnable walls, when a distinguished Persian nobleman
-Zopyrus,—son of Megabyzus, who had been one of the seven conspirators
-against Smerdis,—presented himself one day before Darius in a state
-of frightful mutilation: his nose and ears were cut off, and his body
-misused in every way. He had designedly so maimed himself, “thinking
-it intolerable that Assyrians should thus laugh the Persians to
-scorn,”[415] in the intention which he presently intimated to Darius,
-of passing into the town as a deserter, with a view of betraying
-it,—for which purpose measures were concerted. The Babylonians,
-seeing a Persian of the highest rank in so calamitous a condition,
-readily believed his assurance, that he had been thus punished by
-the king’s order, and that he came over to them as the only means of
-procuring for himself single vengeance. They intrusted him with the
-command of a detachment, with which he gained several advantages in
-different sallies, according to previous concert with Darius, until
-at length, the confidence of the Babylonians becoming unbounded,
-they placed in his hands the care of the principal gates. At the
-critical moment these gates were thrown open, and the Persians became
-masters of the city.[416]
-
- [415] Herodot. iii, 155. δεινόν τι ποιεύμενος, Ἀσσυρίους Πέρσῃσι
- καταγελᾷν. Compare the speech of Mardonius, vii, 9.
-
- The horror of Darius, at the first sight of Zopyrus in this
- condition, is strongly dramatized by Herodotus.
-
- [416] Herodot. iii, 154-158.
-
-Thus was the impregnable Babylon a second time reduced,[417] and
-Darius took precautions on this occasion to put it out of condition
-for resisting a third time. He caused the walls and gates to be
-demolished, and three thousand of the principal citizens to be
-crucified: the remaining inhabitants were left in the dismantled
-city, fifty thousand women being levied by assessment upon the
-neighboring provinces, to supply the place of the women strangled
-when it first revolted.[418] Zopyrus was appointed satrap of the
-territory for life, with enjoyment of its entire revenues, receiving
-besides every additional reward which it was in the power of Darius
-to bestow, and generous assurances from the latter that he would
-rather have Zopyrus without wounds than the possession of Babylon.
-I have already intimated in a former chapter that the demolition
-of the walls here mentioned is not to be regarded as complete and
-continuous, nor was there any necessity that it should be so. Partial
-demolition would be quite sufficient to leave the city without
-defence; and the description given by Herodotus of the state of
-things as they stood at the time of his visit, proves that portions
-of the walls yet subsisted. One circumstance is yet to be added in
-reference to the subsequent condition of Babylon under the Persian
-empire. The city with the territory belonging to it constituted a
-satrapy, which not only paid a larger tribute (one thousand Euboic
-talents of silver) and contributed a much larger amount of provisions
-in kind for the maintenance of the Persian court, than any other
-among the twenty satrapies of the empire, but furnished besides an
-annual supply of five hundred eunuch youths.[419] We may presume that
-this was intended in part as a punishment for the past revolt, since
-the like obligation was not imposed upon any other satrapy.
-
- [417] Ktêsias represents the revolt and recapture of Babylon
- to have taken place, not under Darius, but under his son and
- successor Xerxês. He says that the Babylonians, revolting,
- slew their satrap Zopyrus; that they were besieged by Xerxês,
- and that Megabyzus son of Zopyrus caused the city to be taken
- by practising that very stratagem which Herodotus ascribes to
- Zopyrus himself (Persica, c. 20-22).
-
- This seems inconsistent with the fact, that Megabyzus was general
- of the Persian army in Egypt in the war with the Athenians,
- about 460 B. C. (Diodor. Sic. xi, 75-77): he would hardly have
- been sent on active service had he been so fearfully mutilated;
- moreover, the whole story of Ktêsias appears to me far less
- probable than that of Herodotus; for on this, as on other
- occasions, to blend the two together is impossible.
-
- [418] Herodot. iii, 159, 160. “From the women thus introduced
- (says Herodotus) the present Babylonians are sprung.”
-
- To crucify subdued revolters by thousands is, fortunately, so
- little in harmony with modern European manners, that it may
- not be amiss to strengthen the confidence of the reader in the
- accuracy of Herodotus, by producing an analogous narrative of
- incidents far more recent. Voltaire gives, from the MS. of
- General Lefort, one of the principal and confidential officers of
- Peter the Great, the following account of the suppression of the
- revolted Strelitzes at Moscow, in 1698: these Strelitzes were the
- old native militia, or Janissaries, of the Russian Czars, opposed
- to all the reforms of Peter.
-
- “Pour étouffer ces troubles, le czar part secrètement de
- Vienne, arrive enfin à Moscou, et surprend tout le monde par sa
- présence: il récompense les troupes qui ont vaincu les Strélitz:
- les prisons étaient pleines de ces malheureux. Si leur crime
- était grand, le châtiment le fut aussi. Leurs chefs, plusieurs
- officiers, et quelques prêtres, furent condamnés à la mort:
- quelques-uns furent roués, deux femmes enterrées vives. On pendit
- autour des murailles de la ville et on fit périr dans d’autres
- supplices deux mille Strélitz; leurs corps restèrent deux jours
- exposés sur les grands chemins, et surtout autour du monastère
- où résidaient les princesses Sophie et Eudoxe. On érigea des
- colonnes de pierre où le crime et le châtiment furent gravés.
- Un très-grand nombre qui avaient leurs femmes et leurs enfans
- furent dispersés avec leurs familles dans la Sibérie, dans le
- royaume d’Astrakhan, dans le pays d’Azof: par là du moins leur
- punition fut utile à l’état: ils servirent à défricher des terres
- qui manquaient d’habitans et de culture.” (Voltaire, Histoire
- de Russie, part i, ch. x, tom. 31, of the Œuvres Complètes de
- Voltaire, p. 148, ed. Paris, 1825.)
-
- [419] Herodot. iii, 92.
-
-Thus firmly established on the throne, Darius occupied it for
-thirty-six years, and his reign was one of organization, different
-from that of his two predecessors; a difference which the Persians
-well understood and noted, calling Cyrus the father, Kambysês the
-master, and Darius the retail-trader, or huckster.[420] In the
-mouth of the Persians this latter epithet must be construed as no
-insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to
-introduce some methodical order into the imperial administration and
-finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of
-tribute levied upon the subject provinces: which furnished what were
-called presents, subject to no fixed limit except such as might be
-satisfactory to the satrap in each district. But Darius—succeeding
-as he did to Smerdis, who had rendered himself popular with the
-provinces by large financial exemptions, and having farther to
-encounter jealousy and dissatisfaction from Persians, his former
-equals in rank—probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces
-from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole
-empire into twenty departments, imposing upon each a fixed annual
-tax, and a fixed contribution for the maintenance of the court. This
-must doubtless have been a great improvement, though the limitation
-of the sum which the Great King at Susa would require, did not at all
-prevent the satrap in his own province from indefinite requisitions
-beyond it. The latter was a little king, who acted nearly as he
-pleased in the internal administration of his province,—subject only
-to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute, of keeping off
-foreign enemies, and of furnishing an adequate military contingent
-for the foreign enterprises of the Great King. To every satrap was
-attached a royal secretary, or comptroller, of the revenue,[421]
-who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to
-whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap
-himself. It is not to be supposed that the Persian authorities in
-any province meddled with the details of taxation, or contribution,
-as they bore upon individuals. The court having fixed the entire
-sum payable by the satrapy in the aggregate, the satrap or the
-secretary apportioned it among the various component districts,
-towns, or provinces, leaving to the local authorities in each of
-these latter the task of assessing it upon individual inhabitants.
-From necessity, therefore, as well as from indolence of temper and
-political incompetence, the Persians were compelled to respect
-authorities which they found standing both in town and country,
-and to leave in their hands a large measure of genuine influence;
-frequently overruled, indeed, by oppressive interference on the part
-of the satrap, whenever any of his passions prompted,—but never
-entirely superseded. In the important towns and stations, Persian
-garrisons were usually kept, and against the excesses of the military
-there was probably little or no protection to the subject people.
-Yet still, the provincial governments were allowed to continue, and
-often even the petty kings who had governed separate districts during
-their state of independence prior to the Persian conquest, retained
-their title and dignity as tributaries to the court of Susa.[422]
-The empire of the Great King was thus an aggregate of heterogeneous
-elements, connected together by no tie except that of common fear and
-subjection,—noway coherent nor self-supporting, nor pervaded by any
-common system or spirit of nationality. It resembled, in its main
-political features, the Turkish and Persian empires of the present
-day,[423] though distinguished materially by the many differences
-arising out of Mohammedanism and Christianity, and apparently not
-reaching the same extreme of rapacity, corruption, and cruelty in
-detail.
-
- [420] Herodot. iii, 89. What the Persian denomination was,
- which Herodotus or his informants translated κάπηλος, we do not
- know; but this latter word was used often by Greeks to signify
- a cheat, or deceiver generally: see Etymologic. Magn. p. 490,
- 11, and Suidas, v. Κάπελος. Ὁ δ᾽ Αἴσχυλος τὰ δόλια πáντα καλεῖ
- κάπηλα—“Κάπηλα προσφέρων τεχνήματα.” (Æschylus, Fragment. 328,
- ed. Dindorf: compare Euripid. Hippolyt. 953.)
-
- [421] Herodot. iii, 128. This division of power, and double
- appointment by the Great King, appears to have been retained
- until the close of the Persian empire: see Quintus Curtius, v,
- l, 17-20 (v, 3, 19-21, Zumpt). The present Turkish government
- nominates a Defterdar as finance administrator in each province,
- with authority derived directly from itself, and professedly
- independent of the Pacha.
-
- [422] Herodot. iii, 15.
-
- [423] Respecting the administration of the modern Persian empire,
- see Kinneir, Geograph. Memoir of Persia, pp. 29, 43, 47.
-
-Darius distributed the Persian empire into twenty satrapies, each
-including a certain continuous territory, and one or more nations
-inhabiting it, the names of which Herodotus sets forth. The amount
-of tribute payable by each satrapy was determined: payable in gold,
-according to the Euboic talent, by the Indians in the easternmost
-satrapy,—in silver, according to the Babylonian, or larger talent,
-by the remaining nineteen. Herodotus computes the ratio of gold to
-silver as 13 : 1. From the nineteen satrapies which paid in silver,
-there was levied annually the sum of seven thousand seven hundred
-and forty Babylonian talents, equal to something about two million
-nine hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds sterling: from the
-Indians, who alone paid in gold, there was received a sum equal (at
-the rate of 1 : 13) to four thousand six hundred and eighty Euboic
-talents of silver, or to about one million two hundred and ninety
-thousand pounds sterling.[424]
-
- [424] Herodot. iii, 95. The text of Herodotus contains an
- erroneous summing up of items, which critics have no means of
- correcting with certainty. Nor is it possible to trust the huge
- sum which he alleges to have been levied from the Indians, though
- all the other items, included in the nineteen silver-paying
- divisions, seem within the probable truth; and indeed both
- Rennell and Robertson think the total too small: the charges on
- some of the satrapies are decidedly smaller than the reality.
-
- The vast sum of fifty thousand talents is said to have been
- found by Alexander the Great, laid up by successive kings at
- Susa alone, besides the treasures at Persepolis, Pasargadæ,
- and elsewhere (Arrian, iii, 16, 12; Plutarch, Alexand. 37).
- Presuming these talents to be Babylonian or Æginæan talents (in
- the proportion 5 : 3 to Attic talents), fifty thousand talents
- would be equal to nineteen million pounds sterling; if they were
- Attic talents, it would be equal to eleven million six hundred
- thousand pounds sterling. The statements of Diodorus give even
- much larger sums (xvii, 66-71: compare Curtius, v, 2, 8; v, 6, 9;
- Strabo, xv, p. 730). It is plain that the numerical affirmations
- were different in different authors, and one cannot pretend to
- pronounce on the trustworthiness of such large figures without
- knowing more of the original returns on which they were founded.
- That there were prodigious sums of gold and silver, is quite
- unquestionable. Respecting the statement of the Persian revenue
- given by Herodotus, see Boeckh, Metrologie, ch. v, 1-2.
-
- Amedée Jaubert, in 1806, estimated the population of the modern
- Persian empire at about seven million souls; of which about
- six million were settled population, the rest nomadic: he also
- estimated the Schah’s revenue at about two million nine hundred
- thousand tomans, or one million five hundred thousand pounds
- sterling. Others calculated the population higher, at nearer
- twelve million souls. Kinneir gives the revenue at something more
- than three million pounds sterling: he thinks that the whole
- territory between the Euphratês and the Indus does not contain
- above eighteen millions of souls (Geogr. Memoir of Persia, pp.
- 44-47: compare Ritter, West Asien, Abtheil. ii, Abschn. iv, pp.
- 879-889).
-
- The modern Persian empire contains not so much as the eastern
- half of the ancient, which covered all Asiatic Turkey and Egypt
- besides.
-
-To explain how it happened that this one satrapy was charged with
-a sum equal to two-fifths of the aggregate charge on the other
-nineteen, Herodotus dwells upon the vast population, the extensive
-territory, and the abundant produce in gold, among those whom he
-calls Indians,—the easternmost inhabitants of the earth, since
-beyond them there was nothing but uninhabitable sand,—reaching, as
-far as we can make it out, from Baktria southward along the Indus
-to its mouth, but how far eastward we cannot determine. Darius is
-said to have undertaken an expedition against them and subdued them:
-moreover, he is affirmed to have constructed and despatched vessels
-down the Indus, from the city of Kaspatyri and the territory of
-the Paktyes, in its upper regions, all the way down to its mouth:
-then into the Indian ocean, round the peninsula of Arabia, and up
-the Red Sea to Egypt. The ships were commanded by Skylax,—a Greek
-of Karyanda on the south-western coast of Asia Minor;[425] who, if
-this statement be correct, executed a scheme of nautical enterprise
-not only one hundred and seventy years earlier, but also far more
-extensive, than the famous voyage of Nearchus, admiral of Alexander
-the Great,—since the latter only went from the Indus to the Persian
-gulf. The eastern portions of the Persian empire remained so unknown
-and unvisited until the Macedonian invasion, that we are unable to
-criticize these isolated statements of Herodotus. None of the Persian
-kings subsequent to Darius appear to have visited them, and whether
-the prodigious sum demandable from them according to the Persian
-rent-roll was ever regularly levied, may reasonably be doubted. At
-the same time, we may reasonably believe that the mountains in the
-northern parts of Persian India—Cabul and Little Thibet—were at that
-time extremely productive in gold, and that quantities of that metal,
-such as now appear almost fabulous, may have been often obtained. It
-appears that the produce of gold in all parts of the earth, as far
-as hitherto known, is obtained exclusively near the surface; so that
-a country once rich in that metal may well have been exhausted of its
-whole supply, and left at a later period without any gold at all.
-
- [425] Herodot. iii, 102; iv, 44. See the two Excursus of Bähr
- on these two chapters, vol. ii, pp. 648-671 of his edit. of
- Herodotus.
-
- It certainly is singular that neither Nearchus, nor Ptolemy,
- nor Aristobulus, nor Arrian, take any notice of this remarkable
- voyage distinctly asserted by Herodotus to have been
- accomplished. Such silence, however, affords no sufficient reason
- for calling the narrative in question. The attention of the
- Persian kings, successors to Darius, came to be far more occupied
- with the western than with the eastern portions of their empire.
-
-Of the nineteen silver-paying satrapies, the most heavily imposed was
-Babylonia, which paid one thousand talents: the next in amount of
-charge was Egypt, paying seven hundred talents, besides the produce
-of the fish from the lake of Mœris. The remaining satrapies varied
-in amount, down as low as one hundred and seventy talents, which
-was the sum charged on the seventh satrapy (in the enumeration of
-Herodotus), comprising the Sattagydæ, the Gandarii, the Dodikæ, and
-the Aparytæ. The Ionians, Æolians, Magnesians on the Mæander, and on
-Mount Sipylus, Karians, Lykians, Milyans, and Pamphylians,—including
-the coast of Asia Minor, southward of Kanê, and from thence round
-the southern promontory to Phasêlis,—were rated as one division,
-paying four hundred talents. But we may be sure that much more than
-this was really taken from the people, when we read that Magnesia
-alone afterwards paid to Themistoklês a revenue of fifty talents
-annually.[426] The Mysians and Lydians were included, with some
-others, in another division, and the Hellespontine Greeks in a
-third, with Phrygians, Bithynians, Paphlagonians, Mariandynians, and
-Syrians, paying three hundred and sixty talents,—nearly the same as
-was paid by Syria proper, Phenicia, and Judæa, with the island of
-Cyprus. Independent of this regular tribute, and the undefined sums
-extorted over and above it,[427] there were some dependent nations,
-which, though exempt from tribute, furnished occasional sums called
-presents; and farther contributions were exacted for the maintenance
-of the vast suite who always personally attended the king. One entire
-third of this last burden was borne by Babylonia alone in consequence
-of its exuberant fertility.[428] It was paid in produce, as indeed
-the peculiar productions of every part of the empire seem to have
-been sent up for the regal consumption.
-
- [426] Thucyd. i, 138.
-
- [427] Herodot. iii, 117.
-
- [428] Herodot. i, 192. Compare the description of the dinner and
- supper of the Great King, in Polyænus, iv, 3, 32; also Ktêsias
- and Deinôn ap Athenæum, ii, p. 67.
-
-However imperfectly we are now able to follow the geographical
-distribution of the subject nations as given by Herodotus, it is
-extremely valuable as the only professed statistics remaining, of
-the entire Persian empire. The arrangement of satrapies, which he
-describes, underwent modification in subsequent times; at least
-it does not harmonize with various statements in the Anabasis of
-Xenophon, and in other authors who recount Persian affairs belonging
-to the fourth century B. C. But we find in no other author except
-Herodotus any entire survey and distribution of the empire. It is,
-indeed, a new tendency which now manifests itself in the Persian
-Darius, compared with his predecessors: not simply to conquer, to
-extort, and to give away,—but to do all this with something like
-method and system,[429] and to define the obligations of the satraps
-towards Susa. Another remarkable example of the same tendency is to
-be found in the fact, that Darius was the first Persian king who
-coined money: his coin, both in gold and silver, the Daric, was the
-earliest produce of a Persian mint.[430] The revenue, as brought
-to Susa in metallic money of various descriptions, was melted down
-separately, and poured in a fluid state into jars or earthenware
-vessels; when the metal had cooled and hardened, the jar was broken,
-leaving a standing solid mass, from which portions were cut off as
-the occasion required.[431] And in addition to these administrative,
-financial, and monetary arrangements, of which Darius was the first
-originator, we may probably ascribe to him the first introduction
-of that system of roads, resting-places, and permanent relays of
-couriers, which connected both Susa and Ekbatana with the distant
-portions of the empire. Herodotus describes in considerable detail
-the imperial road from Sardis to Susa, a journey of ninety days,
-crossing the Halys, the Euphratês, the Tigris, the Greater and Lesser
-Zab, the Gyndês, and the Choaspês. And we may see by this account
-that in his time it was kept in excellent order, with convenience for
-travellers.[432]
-
- [429] Plato, Legg. iii, 12, p. 695.
-
- [430] Herodot. iv, 166; Plutarch, Kimon, 10.
-
- The gold Daric, of the weight of two Attic drachmæ; (Stater
- Daricus), equivalent to twenty Attic silver drachmæ (Xenoph.
- Anab. i, 7, 18), would be about 16_s._ 3_d._ English. But it
- seems doubtful whether that ratio between gold and silver (10 :
- 1) can be reckoned upon as the ordinary ratio in the fifth and
- fourth centuries B. C. Mr. Hussey calculates the golden Daric as
- equal to £1, 1_s._ 3_d._ English (Hussey, Essay on the Ancient
- Weights and Money, Oxford, 1836, ch. iv, s. 8, p. 68; ch. vii, s.
- 3, p. 103).
-
- I cannot think, with Mr. Hussey, that there is any reason for
- believing either the name or the coin _Daric_ to be older than
- Darius son of Hystaspês. Compare Boeckh, Metrologie, ix, 5, p.
- 129.
-
- Particular statements respecting the value of gold and silver,
- as exchanged one against the other, are to be received with some
- reserve as the basis of any general estimate, since we have not
- the means of comparing a great many such statements together.
- For the process of coinage was imperfectly performed, and the
- different pieces, both of gold and silver, in circulation,
- differed materially in weight one with the other. Herodotus gives
- the ratio of gold to silver as 13 : 1.
-
- [431] Herodot. iii, 96.
-
- [432] Herodot. v, 52-53; viii, 98. “It appears to be a favorite
- idea with all barbarous princes, that the badness of the roads
- adds considerably to the natural strength of their dominions. The
- Turks and Persians are undoubtedly of this opinion: the public
- highways are, therefore, neglected, and particularly so towards
- the frontiers.” (Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of Pers. p. 43.)
-
- The description of Herodotus contrasts favorably with the picture
- here given by Mr. Kinneir.
-
-It was Darius also who first completed the conquest of the Ionic
-Greeks by the acquisition of the important island of Samos. That
-island had maintained its independence, at the time when the Persian
-general Harpagus effected the conquest of Ionia. It did not yield
-voluntarily when Chios and Lesbos submitted, and the Persians had
-no fleet to attack it; nor had the Phenicians yet been taught to
-round the Triopian cape. Indeed, the depression which overtook the
-other cities of Ionia, tended rather to the aggrandizement of Samos,
-under the energetic and unscrupulous despotism of Polykratês. That
-ambitious Samian, about ten years after the conquest of Sardis
-by Cyrus (seemingly between 536-532 B. C.), contrived to seize
-by force or fraud the government of his native island, with the
-aid of his brothers Pantagnôtus and Sylosôn, and a small band of
-conspirators.[433] At first, the three brothers shared the supreme
-power; but presently Polykratês put to death Pantagnôtus, banished
-Sylosôn, and made himself despot alone. In this station, his
-ambition, his perfidy, and his good fortune, were alike remarkable.
-He conquered several of the neighboring islands, and even some towns
-on the mainland; he carried on successful war against Milêtus; and
-signally defeated the Lesbian ships which came to assist Milêtus; he
-got together a force of one hundred armed ships called pentekonters,
-and one thousand mercenary bowmen,—aspiring to nothing less than the
-dominion of Ionia, with the islands in the Ægean. Alike terrible
-to friend and foe by his indiscriminate spirit of aggression, he
-acquired a naval power which seems at that time to have been the
-greatest in the Grecian world.[434] He had been in intimate alliance
-with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, however, ultimately broke with
-him. Considering his behavior towards allies, such rupture is not
-at all surprising; but Herodotus ascribes it to the alarm which
-Amasis conceived at the uninterrupted and superhuman good fortune of
-Polykratês,—a degree of good fortune sure to draw down ultimately
-corresponding intensity of suffering from the hands of the envious
-gods. Indeed, Herodotus,—deeply penetrated with this belief in an
-ever-present nemesis, which allows no man to be very happy, or long
-happy, with impunity,—throws it into the form of an epistolary
-warning from Amasis to Polykratês, advising him to inflict upon
-himself some seasonable mischief or suffering; in order, if possible,
-to avert the ultimate judgment,—to let blood in time, so that the
-plethora of happiness might not end in apoplexy.[435] Pursuant to
-such counsel, Polykratês threw into the sea a favorite ring, of
-matchless price and beauty; but unfortunately, in a few days, the
-ring reappeared in the belly of a fine fish, which a fisherman had
-sent to him as a present. Amasis now foresaw that the final apoplexy
-was inevitable, and broke off the alliance with Polykratês without
-delay,—a well-known story, interesting as evidence of ancient belief,
-and not less to be noted as showing the power of that belief to beget
-fictitious details out of real characters, such as I have already
-touched upon in the history of Solon and Crœsus, and elsewhere.
-
- [433] Herodot. iii, 120.
-
- [434] Herodot. iii, 39; Thucyd. i, 13.
-
- [435] Herodot. iii, 40-42. ... ἤν δὲ μὴ ἐναλλὰξ ἤδη τὠπὸ τούτου
- αἱ εὐτυχίαι τοι τοιαύταισι πάθαισι προσπίπτωσι, τρόπῳ τῷ ἐξ ἐμεῦ
- ὑποκειμένῳ ~ἀκέο~: compare vii, 203, and i, 32.
-
-The facts mentioned by Herodotus rather lead us to believe that it
-was Polykratês, who, with characteristic faithlessness, broke off his
-friendship with Amasis;[436] finding it suitable to his policy to
-cultivate the alliance of Kambysês, when that prince was preparing
-for his invasion of Egypt. In that invasion, the Ionic subjects of
-Persia were called upon to serve, and Polykratês, deeming it a good
-opportunity to rid himself of some Samian malcontents, sent to the
-Persian king to tender auxiliaries from himself. Kambysês, having
-eagerly caught at the prospect of aid from the first naval potentate
-in the Ægean, forty Samian triremes were sent to the Nile, having on
-board the suspected persons, as well as conveying a secret request to
-the Persian king that they might never be suffered to return. Either
-they never went to Egypt, however, or they found means to escape;
-very contradictory stories had reached Herodotus. But they certainly
-returned to Samos, attacked Polykratês at home, and were driven off
-by his superior force without making any impression. Whereupon they
-repaired to Sparta to entreat assistance.[437]
-
- [436] Herodot. iii, 44.
-
- [437] Herodot. iii, 44.
-
-We may here notice the gradually increasing tendency in the Grecian
-world to recognize Sparta as something like a head, protector, or
-referee, in cases either of foreign danger or internal dispute. The
-earliest authentic instance known to us, of application to Sparta
-in this character, is that of Crœsus against Cyrus: next, that of
-the Ionic Greeks against the latter: the instance of the Samians now
-before us, is the third. The important events connected with, and
-consequent upon, the expulsion of the Peisistratidæ from Athens,
-manifesting yet more formally the headship of Sparta, occur fifteen
-years after the present event; they have been already recounted in
-a previous chapter, and serve as a farther proof of progress in the
-same direction. To watch the growth of these new political habits, is
-essential to a right understanding of Grecian history.
-
-On reaching Sparta, the Samian exiles, borne down with despondency
-and suffering, entered at large into the particulars of their case.
-Their long speaking annoyed instead of moving the Spartans, who
-said, or are made to say: “We have forgotten the first part of the
-speech, and the last part is unintelligible to us.” Upon which the
-Samians appeared the next day, simply with an empty wallet, saving:
-“Our wallet has no meal in it.” “Your wallet is superfluous,” (said
-the Spartans;) _i. e._ the words would have been sufficient without
-it.[438] The aid which they implored was granted.
-
- [438] Herodot. iii, 46. τῷ θυλάκῳ περιείργασθαι.
-
-We are told that both the Lacedæmonians and the Corinthians,—who
-joined them in the expedition now contemplated,—had separate
-grounds of quarrel with the Samians,[439] which operated as a
-more powerful motive than the simple desire to aid the suffering
-exiles. But it rather seems that the subsequent Greeks generally
-construed the Lacedæmonian interference against Polykratês as an
-example of standing Spartan hatred against despots. Indeed, the only
-facts which we know, to sustain this anti-despotic sentiment for
-which the Lacedæmonians had credit, are, their proceedings against
-Polykratês and Hippias; there may have been other analogous cases,
-but we cannot specify them with certainty. However this may be,
-a joint Lacedæmonian and Corinthian force accompanied the exiles
-back to Samos, and assailed Polykratês in the city. They did their
-best to capture it, for forty days, and were at one time on the
-point of succeeding, but were finally obliged to retire without any
-success. “The city would have been taken,” says Herodotus, “if all
-the Lacedæmonians had acted like Archias and Lykôpas,”—who, pressing
-closely upon the retreating Samians, were shut within the town-gates,
-and perished. The historian had heard this exploit in personal
-conversation with Archias, grandson of the person above mentioned, in
-the deme Pitana at Sparta,—whose father had been named Samius, and
-who respected the Samians above any other Greeks, because they had
-bestowed upon the two brave warriors, slain within their town, an
-honorable and public funeral.[440] It is rarely that Herodotus thus
-specifies his informants: had he done so more frequently the value
-as well as the interest of his history would have been materially
-increased.
-
- [439] Herodot. iii, 47, 48, 52.
-
- [440] Herodot. iii, 54-56.
-
-On the retirement of the Lacedæmonian force, the Samian exiles were
-left destitute; and looking out for some community to plunder,
-weak as well as rich, they pitched upon the island of Siphnos. The
-Siphnians of that day were the wealthiest islanders in the Ægean,
-from the productiveness of their gold and silver mines,—the produce
-of which was annually distributed among the citizens, reserving a
-tithe for the Delphian temple.[441] Their treasure-chamber was among
-the most richly furnished of which that holy place could boast, and
-they themselves, probably, in these times of early prosperity, were
-numbered among the most brilliant of the Ionic visitors at the Delian
-festival. The Samians landing at Siphnos, demanded a contribution,
-under the name of a loan, of ten talents: which being refused, they
-proceeded to ravage the island, inflicting upon the inhabitants
-a severe defeat, and ultimately extorting from them one hundred
-talents. They next purchased from the inhabitants of Hermionê, in
-the Argolic peninsula, the neighboring island of Hydrea, famous in
-modern Greek warfare. But it appears that their plans must have been
-subsequently changed, for, instead of occupying it, they placed it
-under the care of the Trœzenians, and repaired themselves to Krete,
-for the purpose of expelling the Zakynthian settlers at Kydônia. In
-this they succeeded, and were induced to establish themselves in that
-place. But after they had remained there five years, the Kretans
-obtained naval aid from Ægina, whereby the place was recovered, and
-the Samian intruders finally sold into slavery.[442]
-
- [441] Herodot. iii, 57. νησιωτέων μάλιστα ἐπλούτεον.
-
- [442] Herodot. iii, 58, 59.
-
-Such was the melancholy end of the enemies of Polykratês: meanwhile,
-that despot himself was more powerful and prosperous than ever.
-Samos, under him, was “the first of all cities, Hellenic or
-barbaric:[443]” and the great works admired by Herodotus in the
-island,[444]—an aqueduct for the city, tunnelled through a mountain
-for the length of seven furlongs,—a mole to protect the harbor, two
-furlongs long and twenty fathoms deep, and the vast temple of Hêrê,
-may probably have been enlarged and completed, if not begun, by
-him. Aristotle quotes the public works of Polykratês as instances of
-the profound policy of despots, to occupy as well as to impoverish
-their subjects.[445] The earliest of all Grecian thalassokrats,
-or sea-kings,—master of the greatest naval force in the Ægean, as
-well as of many among its islands,—he displayed his love of letters
-by friendship to Anakreon, and his piety by consecrating to the
-Delian Apollo[446] the neighboring island of Rhêneia. But while
-thus outshining all his contemporaries, victorious over Sparta and
-Corinth, and projecting farther aggrandizement, he was precipitated
-on a sudden into the abyss of ruin;[447] and that too, as if to
-demonstrate unequivocally the agency of the envious gods, not from
-the revenge of any of his numerous victims, but from the gratuitous
-malice of a stranger whom he had never wronged and never even seen.
-The Persian satrap Orœtês, on the neighboring mainland, conceived
-an implacable hatred against him: no one could tell why,—for he
-had no design of attacking the island; and the trifling reasons
-conjecturally assigned, only prove that the real reason, whatever it
-might be, was unknown. Availing himself of the notorious ambition
-and cupidity of Polykratês, Orœtês sent to Samos a messenger,
-pretending that his life was menaced by Kambysês, and that he was
-anxious to make his escape with his abundant treasures. He proposed
-to Polykratês a share in this treasure, sufficient to make him master
-of all Greece, as far as that object could be achieved by money,
-provided the Samian prince would come over to convey him away.
-Mæandrius, secretary of Polykratês, was sent over to Magnêsia on
-the Mæander, to make inquiries; he there saw the satrap with eight
-large coffers full of gold,—or rather apparently so, being in reality
-full of stones, with a layer of gold at the top,[448]—tied up ready
-for departure. The cupidity of Polykratês was not proof against so
-rich a bait: he crossed over to Magnêsia with a considerable suite,
-and thus came into the power of Orœtês, in spite of the warnings of
-his prophets and the agony of his terrified daughter, to whom his
-approaching fate had been revealed in a dream. The satrap slew him
-and crucified his body; releasing all the Samians who accompanied
-him, with an intimation that they ought to thank him for procuring
-them a free government,—but retaining both the foreigners and the
-slaves as prisoners.[449] The death of Orœtês himself, which ensued
-shortly afterwards, has already been described. It is considered
-by Herodotus as a judgment for his flagitious deed in the case of
-Polykratês.[450]
-
- [443] Herodot. iii, 139. πολίων πασέων πρώτην Ἑλληνίδων καὶ
- βαρβάρων.
-
- [444] Herodot. iii, 60.
-
- [445] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 4. τῶν περὶ Σάμον ἔργα Πολυκράτεια·
- πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα δύναται ταὐτὸν, ἀσχολίαν καὶ πενίαν τῶν ἀρχομένων.
-
- [446] Thucyd. i, 14; iii, 104.
-
- [447] Herodot. iii, 120.
-
- [448] Compare the trick of Hannibal at Gortyn in Krete,—Cornelius
- Nepos (Hannibal, c. 9).
-
- [449] Herodot. iii, 124, 125.
-
- [450] Herodot. iii, 126. Ὀροίτεα Πολυκράτεος τίσιες μετῆλθον.
-
-At the departure of the latter from Samos, in anticipation of a
-speedy return, Mæandrius had been left as his lieutenant at Samos;
-and the unexpected catastrophe of Polykratês filled him with surprise
-and consternation. Though possessed of the fortresses, the soldiers,
-and the treasures, which had constituted the machinery of his
-powerful master, he knew the risk of trying to employ them on his
-own account. Partly from this apprehension, partly from the genuine
-political morality which prevailed with more or less force in every
-Grecian bosom, he resolved to lay down his authority and enfranchise
-the island. “He wished (says the historian, in a remarkable
-phrase)[451] to act like the justest of men; but he was not allowed
-to do so.” His first proceeding was to erect in the suburbs an altar
-in honor of Zeus Eleutherius, and to inclose a piece of ground as
-a precinct, which still existed in the time of Herodotus: he next
-convened an assembly of the Samians. “You know (says he) that the
-whole power of Polykratês is now in my hands, nor is there anything
-to hinder me from continuing to rule over you. Nevertheless, what
-I condemn in another I will not do myself,—and I have always
-disapproved of Polykratês, and others like him, for seeking to rule
-over men as good as themselves. Now that Polykratês has come to the
-end of his destiny, I at once lay down the command, and proclaim
-among you equal law; reserving to myself as privileges, first, six
-talents out of the treasures of Polykratês,—next, the hereditary
-priesthood of Zeus Eleutherius for myself and my descendants forever.
-To him I have just set apart a sacred precinct, as the God of that
-freedom which I now hand over to you.”
-
- [451] Herodot. iii, 142. τῷ δικαιοτάτῳ ἀνδρῶν βουλομένῳ γενέσθαι,
- οὐκ ἐξεγένετο. Compare his remark on Kadmus, who voluntarily
- resigned the despotism at Kôs (vii, 164).
-
-This reasonable and generous proposition fully justifies the epithet
-of Herodotus. But very differently was it received by the Samian
-hearers. One of the chief men among them, Telesarchus, exclaimed,
-with the applause of the rest, “_You_ rule us, low-born and scoundrel
-as you are! you are not worthy to rule: don’t think of that, but give
-us some account of the money which you have been handling.”[452]
-
- [452] Herodot. iii, 142. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἄξιος εἶ σύ γε ἡμέων ἄρχειν,
- γεγονώς τε κακὸς, καὶ ἐὼν ὄλεθρος· ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ὅκως λόγον δώσεις
- τῶν ἐνεχείρισας χρημάτων.
-
-Such an unexpected reply caused a total revolution in the mind
-of Mæandrius. It left him no choice but to maintain dominion at
-all hazards,—which he accordingly resolved to do. Retiring into
-the acropolis, under pretence of preparing his money-accounts for
-examination, he sent for Telesarchus and his chief political enemies,
-one by one,—intimating that they were open to inspection. As fast as
-they arrived they were put in chains, while Mæandrius remained in
-the acropolis, with his soldiers and his treasures, as the avowed
-successor of Polykratês. And thus the Samians, after a short hour
-of insane boastfulness, found themselves again enslaved. “It seemed
-(says Herodotus) that they were not willing to be free.”[453]
-
- [453] Herodot. iii, 143. οὐ γὰρ δὴ, ὡς οἴκασι, ἐβουλέατο εἶναι
- ἐλεύθεροι.
-
-We cannot but contrast their conduct on this occasion with that
-of the Athenians about twelve years afterwards, on the expulsion
-of Hippias, which has been recounted in a previous chapter. The
-position of the Samians was far the more favorable of the two, for
-the quiet and successful working of a free government; for they had
-the advantage of a voluntary as well as a sincere resignation from
-the actual despot. Yet the thirst for reactionary investigation
-prevented them even from taking a reasonable estimate of their own
-power of enforcing it: they passed at once from extreme subjection
-to overbearing and ruinous rashness. Whereas the Athenians, under
-circumstances far less promising, avoided the fatal mistake of
-sacrificing the prospects of the future to recollections of the
-past; showed themselves both anxious to acquire the rights, and
-willing to perform the obligations, of a free community; listened
-to wise counsels, maintained unanimous action, and overcame, by
-heroic efforts, forces very greatly superior. If we compare the
-reflections of Herodotus on the one case and on the other,[454] we
-shall be struck with the difference which those reflections imply
-between the Athenians and the Samians,—a difference partly referable,
-doubtless, to the pure Hellenism of the former, contrasted with the
-half-Asiatized Hellenism of the latter,—but also traceable in a great
-degree to the preliminary lessons of the Solonian constitution,
-overlaid, but not extinguished, during the despotism of the
-Peisistratids which followed.
-
- [454] Herodot. v, 78, and iii, 142, 143.
-
-The events which succeeded in Samos are little better than a series
-of crimes and calamities. The prisoners, whom Mæandrius had detained
-in the acropolis, were slain during his dangerous illness, by his
-brother Lykarêtus, under the idea that this would enable him more
-easily to seize the sceptre. But Mæandrius recovered, and must have
-continued as despot for a year or two: it was, however, a weak
-despotism, contested more or less in the island, and very different
-from the iron hand of Polykratês. In this untoward condition, the
-Samians were surprised by the arrival of a new claimant for their
-sceptre and acropolis,—and, what was much more formidable, a Persian
-army to back him.
-
-Sylosôn, the brother of Polykratês, having taken part originally in
-his brother’s conspiracy and usurpation, had been at first allowed
-to share the fruits of it, but quickly found himself banished. In
-this exile he remained during the whole life of Polykratês, and
-until the accession of Darius to the Persian throne, which followed
-about a year after the death of Polykratês. He happened to be at
-Memphis, in Egypt, during the time when Kambysês was there with his
-conquering army, and when Darius, then a Persian of little note,
-was serving among his guards. Sylosôn was walking in the agora of
-Memphis, wearing a scarlet cloak, to which Darius took a great
-fancy, and proposed to buy it. A divine inspiration prompted Sylosôn
-to reply,[455] “I cannot for any price sell it; but I give it you
-for nothing, if it must be yours.” Darius thanked him, and accepted
-the cloak; and for some years the donor accused himself of a silly
-piece of good-nature.[456] But as events came round, Sylosôn at
-length heard with surprise that the unknown Persian, whom he had
-presented with the cloak at Memphis, was installed as king in the
-palace at Susa. He went thither, proclaimed himself as a Greek, as
-well as benefactor of the new king, and was admitted to the regal
-presence. Darius had forgotten his person, but perfectly remembered
-the adventure of the cloak, when it was brought to his mind,—and
-showed himself forward to requite, on the scale becoming the Great
-King, former favors, though small, rendered to the simple soldier
-at Memphis. Gold and silver were tendered to Sylosôn in profusion,
-but he rejected them,—requesting that the island of Samos might be
-conquered and handed over to him, without slaughter or enslavement of
-inhabitants. His request was complied with. Otanês, the originator
-of the conspiracy against Smerdis, was sent down to the coast of
-Ionia with an army, carried Sylosôn over to Samos, and landed him
-unexpectedly on the island.[457]
-
- [455] Herodot. iii, 139. Ὁ δὲ Συλοσῶν, ὁρέων τὸν Δαρεῖον μεγάλως
- ἐπιθυμέοντα τῆς χλάνιδος, θείῃ τύχῃ χρεώμενος, λέγει, etc.
-
- [456] Herodot. iii, 140. ἠπίστατό οἱ τοῦτο ἀπολωλέναι δι᾽ εὐηθίην.
-
- [457] Herodot. iii, 141-144.
-
-Mæandrius was in no condition to resist the invasion, nor were the
-Samians generally disposed to sustain him. He accordingly concluded a
-convention with Otanês, whereby he agreed to make way for Sylosôn, to
-evacuate the island, and to admit the Persians at once into the city;
-retaining possession, however—for such time as might be necessary
-to embark his property and treasures—of the acropolis, which had a
-separate landing-place, and even a subterranean passage and secret
-portal for embarkation,—probably one of the precautionary provisions
-of Polykratês. Otanês willingly granted these conditions, and
-himself with his principal officers entered the town, the army being
-quartered around; while Sylosôn seemed on the point of ascending the
-seat of his deceased brother without violence or bloodshed. But the
-Samians were destined to a fate more calamitous. Mæandrius had a
-brother named Charilaus, violent in his temper, and half a madman,
-whom he was obliged to keep in confinement. This man looking out
-of his chamber-window, saw the Persian officers seated peaceably
-throughout the town and even under the gates of the acropolis,
-unguarded, and relying upon the convention: it seems that these were
-the chief officers, whose rank gave them the privilege of being
-carried about on their seats.[458] The sight inflamed both his wrath
-and his insane ambition; he clamored for liberty and admission to his
-brother, whom he reviled as a coward no less than a tyrant. “Here
-are you, worthless man, keeping me, your own brother, in a dungeon,
-though I have done no wrong worthy of bonds; while you do not dare
-to take your revenge on the Persians, who are casting you out as a
-houseless exile, and whom it would be so easy to put down. If you are
-afraid of them, give me your guards; I will make the Persians repent
-of their coming here, and I will send you safely out of the island
-forthwith.”[459]
-
- [458] Herodot. iii, 146. τῶν Περσέων τοὺς διφροφορευμένους καὶ
- λόγου πλείστου ἀξίους.
-
- [459] Herodot. iii, 145. Ἐμὲ μὲν, ὦ κάκιστε ἀνδρῶν, ἐόντα σεωϋτοῦ
- ἀδελφεὸν, καὶ ἀδικήσαντα οὐδὲν ἄξιον δεσμοῦ, δήσας γοργύρης
- ἠξίωσας· ὁρέων δὲ τοὺς Πέρσας ἐκβάλλοντάς τέ σε καὶ ἄνοικον
- ποιεῦντας, οὐ τολμᾷς τίσασθαι, οὕτω δή τι ἐόντας εὐπετέας
- χειρωθῆναι.
-
- The highly dramatic manner of Herodotus cannot be melted down
- into smooth historical recital.
-
-Mæandrius, on the point of quitting Samos forever, had little
-personal motive to care what became of the population. He had
-probably never forgiven them for disappointing his honorable
-intentions after the death of Polykratês, nor was he displeased to
-hand over to Sylosôn an odious and blood-stained sceptre, which he
-foresaw would be the only consequence of his brother’s mad project.
-He therefore sailed away with his treasures, leaving the acropolis
-to his brother Charilaus; who immediately armed the guards, sallied
-forth from his fortress, and attacked the unsuspecting Persians.
-Many of the great officers were slain without resistance before
-the army could be got together; but at length Otanês collected his
-troops and drove the assailants back into the acropolis. While he
-immediately began the siege of that fortress, he also resolved, as
-Mæandrius had foreseen, to take a signal revenge for the treacherous
-slaughter of so many of his friends and companions. His army, no
-less incensed than himself, were directed to fall upon the Samian
-people and massacre them without discrimination,—man and boy, on
-ground sacred as well as profane. The bloody order was too faithfully
-executed, and Samos was handed over to Sylosôn, stripped of its male
-inhabitants.[460] Of Charilaus and the acropolis we hear no farther,
-perhaps he and his guards may have escaped by sea. Lykarêtus,[461]
-the other brother of Mæandrius, must have remained either in the
-service of Sylosôn or in that of the Persians; for we find him some
-years afterwards intrusted by the latter with an important command.
-
- [460] Herodot. iii, 149. ἔρημον ἐοῦσαν ἀνδρῶν.
-
- [461] Herodot. v, 27.
-
-Sylosôn was thus finally installed as despot of an island peopled
-chiefly, if not wholly, with women and children: we may, however,
-presume, that the deed of blood has been described by the historian
-as more sweeping than it really was. It seems, nevertheless, to have
-sat heavily on the conscience of Otanês, who was induced sometime
-afterwards, by a dream and by a painful disease, to take measures
-for repeopling the island.[462] From whence the new population came,
-we are not told: but wholesale translations of inhabitants from one
-place to another were familiar to the mind of a Persian king or
-satrap.
-
- [462] Herodot. iii, 148.
-
-Mæandrius, following the example of the previous Samian exiles
-under Polykratês, went to Sparta and sought aid for the purpose
-of reëstablishing himself at Samos. But the Lacedæmonians had no
-disposition to repeat an attempt which had before turned out so
-unsuccessfully, nor could he seduce king Kleomenês by the display of
-his treasures and finely-wrought gold plate. The king, however, not
-without fear that such seductions might win over some of the Spartan
-leading men, prevailed with the ephors to send Mæandrius away.[463]
-
- [463] Herodot. iii, 149.
-
-Sylosôn seems to have remained undisturbed at Samos, as a tributary
-of Persia, like the Ionic cities on the continent: some years
-afterwards we find his son Æakês reigning in the island.[464]
-Strabo states that it was the harsh rule of Sylosôn which caused
-the depopulation of the island. But the cause just recounted out
-of Herodotus is both very different and sufficiently plausible in
-itself; and as Strabo seems in the main to have derived his account
-from Herodotus, we may suppose that on this point he has incorrectly
-remembered his authority.[465]
-
- [464] Herodot. vi, 13.
-
- [465] Strabo, xiv, p. 638. He gives a proverbial phrase about the
- depopulation of the island—
-
- Ἕκητι Συλοσῶντος εὐρυχορίη,
-
- which is perfectly consistent with the narrative of Herodotus.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXIV.
-
-DEMOKEDES. — DARIUS INVADES SCYTHIA.
-
-
-Darius had now acquired full authority throughout the Persian empire,
-having put down the refractory satrap Orœtês, as well as the revolted
-Medes and Babylonians. He had, moreover, completed the conquest of
-Ionia, by the important addition of Samos; and his dominion thus
-comprised all Asia Minor, with its neighboring islands. But this
-was not sufficient for the ambition of a Persian king, next but one
-in succession to the great Cyrus. The conquering impulse was yet
-unabated among the Persians, who thought it incumbent upon their
-king, and whose king thought it incumbent upon himself, to extend the
-limits of the empire. Though not of the lineage of Cyrus, Darius had
-taken pains to connect himself with it by marriage; he had married
-Atossa and Artystonê, daughters of Cyrus,—and Parmys, daughter of
-Smerdis, the younger son of Cyrus. Atossa had been first the wife of
-her brother Kambysês; next, of the Magian Smerdis, his successor;
-and thirdly of Darius, to whom she bore four children.[466] Of those
-children the eldest was Xerxês, respecting whom more will be said
-hereafter.
-
- [466] Herodot. iii, 88; vii, 2.
-
-Atossa, mother of the only Persian king who ever set foot in Greece,
-the Sultana Validi of Persia during the reign of Xerxês, was a person
-of commanding influence in the reign of her last husband,[467] as
-well as in that of her son, and filled no inconsiderable space even
-in Grecian imagination, as we may see both by Æschylus and Herodotus.
-Had her influence prevailed, the first conquering appetites of Darius
-would have been directed, not against the steppes of Scythia, but
-against Attica and Peloponnesus; at least, so Herodotus assures us.
-The grand object of the latter in his history is to set forth the
-contentions of Hellas with the barbarians or non-Hellenic world;
-and with an art truly epical, which manifests itself everywhere
-to the careful reader of his nine books, he preludes to the real
-dangers which were averted at Marathon and Platæa, by recounting the
-first conception of an invasion of Greece by the Persians,—how it
-originated, and how it was abandoned. For this purpose,—according
-to his historical style, wherein general facts are set forth as
-subordinate and explanatory accompaniments to the adventures of
-particular persons,—he give us the interesting, but romantic, history
-of the Krotoniate surgeon Dêmokêdês.
-
- [467] Herodot. vii, 3. ἡ γὰρ Ἄτοσσα εἶχε τὸ πᾶν κράτος. Compare
- the description given of the ascendency of the savage Sultana
- Parysatis over her son Artaxerxês Mnêmon (Plutarch, Artaxerxês,
- c. 16, 19, 23).
-
-Dêmokêdês, son of a citizen of Krotôn named Kalliphôn, had turned
-his attention in early youth to the study and practice of medicine
-and surgery (for that age, we can make no difference between the
-two), and had made considerable progress in it. His youth coincides
-nearly with the arrival of Pythagoras at Krotôn, (550-520,) where the
-science of the surgeon, as well as the art of the gymnastic trainer,
-seem to have been then prosecuted more actively than in any part
-of Greece. His father Kalliphôn, however, was a man of such severe
-temper, that the son ran away from him, and resolved to maintain
-himself by his talents elsewhere. He went to Ægina, and began to
-practice in his profession; and so rapid was his success, even in his
-first year,—though very imperfectly equipped with instruments and
-apparatus,[468]—that the citizens of the island made a contract with
-him to remain there for one year, at a salary of one talent (about
-three hundred and eighty-three pounds sterling, an Æginæan talent).
-The year afterwards he was invited to come to Athens, then under the
-Peisistratids, at a salary of one hundred minæ, or one and two-thirds
-of a talent; and in the following year, Polykratês of Samos tempted
-him by the offer of two talents. With that despot he remained, and
-accompanied him in his last calamitous visit to the satrap Orœtês: on
-the murder of Polykratês, being seized among the slaves and foreign
-attendants, he was left to languish with the rest in imprisonment and
-neglect. When again, soon after, Orœtês himself was slain, Dêmokêdês
-was numbered among his slaves and chattels and sent up to Susa.
-
- [468] Herodot. iii, 131. ἀσκευής περ ἐὼν, καὶ ἔχων οὐδὲν τῶν
- ὅσα περὶ τὴν τέχνην ἔστιν ἐργαλήϊα,—the description refers to
- surgical rather than to medical practice.
-
- That curious assemblage of the cases of particular patients
- with remarks, known in the works of Hippokratês, under the
- title Ἐπιδήμιαι (Notes of visits to different cities), is very
- illustrative of what Herodotus here mentions about Dêmokêdês.
- Consult, also, the valuable Prolegomena of M. Littré, in his
- edition of Hippokratês now in course of publication, as to
- the character, means of action, and itinerant habits of the
- Grecian ἰατροί: see particularly the preface to vol. v, p. 12,
- where he enumerates the various places visited and noted by
- Hippokratês. The greater number of the Hippokratic observations
- refer to various parts of Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly; but
- there are some, also, which refer to patients in the islands of
- Syros and Delos, at Athens, Salamis, Elis, Corinth, and Œniadæ
- in Akarnania. “On voit par là combien étoit juste le nom de
- Periodeutes ou voyageurs donnés à ces anciens médecins.”
-
- Again, M. Littré, in the same preface, p. 25, illustrates
- the proceedings and residence of the ancient ἰατρός: “On se
- tromperoit si on se représentoit la demeure d’un médecin d’alors
- comme celle d’un médecin d’aujourd’hui. La maison du médecin
- de l’antiquité, du moins au temps d’Hippocrate et aux époques
- voisines, renfermoit un local destiné à la pratique d’un grand
- nombre d’opérations, contenant les machines et les instrumens
- nécessaires, et de plus étant aussi une boutique de pharmacie.
- Ce local se nommait ἰατρεῖον.” See Plato, Legg. i, p. 646, iv,
- p. 720. Timæus accused Aristotle of having begun as a surgeon,
- practising to great profit in surgery, or ἰατρεῖον, and having
- quitted this occupation late in life, to devote himself to the
- study of science,—σοφιστὴν ὀψιμαθῆ καὶ μισητὸν ὑπάρχοντα, καὶ τὸ
- πολυτίμητον ἰατρεῖον ἀρτίως ἀποκεκλεικότα (Polyb. xii, 9).
-
- See, also, the Remarques Retrospectives attached by M. Littré
- to volume iv, of the same work (pp. 654-658), where he dwells
- upon the intimate union of surgical and medical practice in
- antiquity. At the same time, it must be remarked that a passage
- in the remarkable medical oath, published in the collection of
- Hippokratic treatises, recognizes in the plainest manner the
- distinction between the physician and the operator,—the former
- binds himself by this oath not to perform the operation “even
- of lithotomy, but to leave it to the operators, or workmen:”
- Οὐ τεμέω δὲ οὐδὲ μὴν λιθιῶντας, ἐκχωρήσω δὲ ἐργάστῃσιν ἀνδράσι
- πρήξιος τῆσδε (Œuvres d’Hippocrate, vol. iv, p. 630, ed. Littré).
- M. Littré (p. 617) contests this explanation, remarking that the
- various Hippokratic treatises represent the ἰατρός as performing
- all sorts of operations, even such as require violent and
- mechanical dealing. But the words of the oath are so explicit,
- that it seems more reasonable to assign to the oath itself a
- later date than the treatises, when the habits of practitioners
- may have changed.
-
-He had not been long at that capital, when Darius, leaping from his
-horse in the chase, sprained his foot badly, and was carried home
-in violent pain. The Egyptian surgeons, supposed to be the first
-men in their profession,[469] whom he habitually employed, did
-him no good, but only aggravated his torture; for seven days and
-nights he had no sleep, and he as well as those around him began to
-despair. At length, some one who had been at Sardis, accidentally
-recollected that he had heard of a Greek surgeon among the slaves
-of Orœtês: search was immediately made, and the miserable slave
-was brought, in chains as well as in rags,[470] into the presence
-of the royal sufferer. Being asked whether he understood surgery,
-he affected ignorance; but Darius, suspecting this to be a mere
-artifice, ordered out the scourge and the pricking instrument, to
-overcome it. Dêmokêdês now saw that there was no resource, admitted
-that he had acquired some little skill, and was called upon to do his
-utmost in the case before him. He was fortunate enough to succeed
-perfectly, in alleviating the pain, in procuring sleep for the
-exhausted patient, and ultimately in restoring the foot to a sound
-state. Darius, who had abandoned all hopes of such a cure, knew no
-bounds to his gratitude. As a first reward, he presented him with
-two sets of chains in solid gold,—a commemoration of the state in
-which Dêmokêdês had first come before him,—he next sent him into the
-harem to visit his wives. The conducting eunuchs introduced him as
-the man who had restored the king to life, and the grateful sultanas
-each gave to him a saucer full of golden coins called staters;[471]
-in all so numerous, that the slave Skitôn, who followed him, was
-enriched by merely picking up the pieces which dropped on the floor.
-Nor was this all. Darius gave him a splendid house and furniture,
-made him the companion of his table, and showed him every description
-of favor. He was about to crucify the Egyptian surgeons who had been
-so unsuccessful in their attempts to cure him; but Dêmokêdês had
-the happiness of preserving their lives, as well as of rescuing an
-unfortunate companion of his imprisonment,—an Eleian prophet, who had
-followed the fortunes of Polykratês.
-
- [469] About the Persian habit of sending to Egypt for surgeons,
- compare Herodot. iii, 1.
-
- [470] Herodot iii, 129. τὸν δὲ ὡς ἐξεῦρον ἐν τοῖσι Ὀροίτεω
- ἀνδραπόδοισι ὅκου δὴ ἀπημελημένον, παρῆγον ἐς μέσον, πέδας τε
- ἕλκοντα καὶ ῥάκεσιν ἐσθημένον.
-
- [471] Herodot. iii, 130. The golden stater was equal to about
- 1_l._ 1_s._ 3_d._ English money (Hussey, Ancient Weights, vii, 3,
- p. 103).
-
- The ladies in a Persian harem appear to have been less
- unapproachable and invisible than those in modern Turkey; in
- spite of the observation of Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 27.
-
-But there was one favor which Darius would on no account grant; yet
-upon this one Dêmokêdês had set his heart,—the liberty of returning
-to Greece. At length accident, combined with his own surgical skill,
-enabled him to escape from the splendor of his second detention, as
-it had before extricated him from the misery of the first. A tumor
-formed upon the breast of Atossa; at first, she said nothing to any
-one, but as it became too bad for concealment, she was forced to
-consult Dêmokêdês. He promised to cure her, but required from her
-a solemn oath that she would afterwards do for him anything which
-he should ask,—pledging himself at the same time to ask nothing
-indecent.[472] The cure was successful, and Atossa was required to
-repay it by procuring his liberty. He knew that the favor would
-be refused, even to her, if directly solicited, but he taught her
-a stratagem for obtaining under false pretences the consent of
-Darius. She took an early opportunity, Herodotus tells us,[473] in
-bed, of reminding Darius that the Persians expected from him some
-positive addition to the power and splendor of the empire; and when
-Darius, in answer, acquainted her that he contemplated a speedy
-expedition against the Scythians, she entreated him to postpone it,
-and to turn his forces first against Greece: “I have heard (she
-said) about the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and Corinth, and
-I want to have some of them as slaves to serve me—(we may conceive
-the smile of triumph with which the sons of those who had conquered
-at Platæa and Salamis would hear this part of the history read by
-Herodotus);—you have near you the best person possible to give
-information about Greece,—that Greek who cured your foot.” Darius
-was induced by this request to send some confidential Persians into
-Greece to procure information, along with Dêmokêdês. Selecting
-fifteen of them, he ordered them to survey the coasts and cities
-of Greece, under guidance of Dêmokêdês, but with peremptory orders
-upon no account to let him escape or to return without him. He next
-sent for Dêmokêdês himself, explained to him what he wanted, and
-enjoined him imperatively to return as soon as the business had been
-completed; he farther desired him to carry away with him all the
-ample donations which he had already received, as presents to his
-father and brothers, promising that on his return fresh donations
-of equal value should make up the loss: lastly, he directed that a
-storeship, “filled with all manner of good things,” should accompany
-the voyage. Dêmokêdês undertook the mission with every appearance of
-sincerity. The better to play his part, he declined to take away what
-he already possessed at Susa,—saying, that he should like to find his
-property and furniture again on coming back, and that the storeship
-alone, with its contents, would be sufficient both for the voyage and
-for all necessary presents.
-
- [472] Herodot. iii, 133. δεήσεσθαι δὲ οὐδενὸς τῶν ὅσα αἰσχύνην
- ἐστὶ φέροντα. Another Greek physician at the court of Susa, about
- seventy years afterwards,—Apollonidês of Kôs,—in attendance on a
- Persian princess, did not impose upon himself the same restraint:
- his intrigue was divulged, and he was put to death miserably
- (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 42).
-
- [473] Herodot. iii, 134.
-
-Accordingly, he and the fifteen Persian envoys went down to Sidon
-in Phenicia, where two armed triremes were equipped, with a large
-storeship in company; and the voyage of survey into Greece was
-commenced. They visited and examined all the principal places in
-Greece,—probably beginning with the Asiatic and insular Greeks,
-crossing to Eubœa, circumnavigating Attica and Peloponnesus, then
-passing to Korkyra and Italy. They surveyed the coasts and cities,
-taking memoranda[474] of everything worthy of note which they saw:
-this Periplûs, if it had been preserved, would have been inestimable,
-as an account of the actual state of the Grecian world about 518
-B. C. As soon as they arrived at Tarentum, Dêmokêdês—now within
-a short distance of his own home, Krotôn—found an opportunity of
-executing what he had meditated from the beginning. At his request
-Aristophilidês, the king of Tarentum, seized the fifteen Persians,
-and detained them as spies, at the same time taking the rudders
-from off their ships,—while Dêmokêdês himself made his escape to
-Krotôn. As soon as he had arrived there, Aristophilidês released the
-Persians, and suffered them to pursue their voyage: they went on to
-Krotôn, found Dêmokêdês in the market-place, and laid hands upon him.
-But his fellow-citizens released him, not without opposition from
-some who were afraid of provoking the Great King, and in spite of
-remonstrances, energetic and menacing, from the Persians themselves:
-indeed, the Krotôniates not only protected the restored exile, but
-even robbed the Persians of their storeship. The latter, disabled
-from proceeding farther, as well by this loss as by the secession
-of Dêmokêdês, commenced their voyage homeward, but unfortunately
-suffered shipwreck near the Iapygian cape, and became slaves in
-that neighborhood. A Tarentine exile, named Gillus, ransomed them
-and carried them up to Susa,—a service for which Darius promised
-him any recompense that he chose. Restoration to his native city
-was all that Gillus asked; and that too, not by force, but by the
-mediation of the Asiatic Greeks of Knidus, who were on terms of
-intimate alliance with the Tarentines. This generous citizen,—an
-honorable contrast to Dêmokêdês, who had not scrupled to impel the
-stream of Persian conquest against his country, in order to procure
-his own release,—was unfortunately disappointed of his anticipated
-recompense. For though the Knidians, at the injunction of Darius,
-employed all their influence at Tarentum to procure a revocation
-of the sentence of exile, they were unable to succeed, and force
-was out of the question.[475] The last words addressed by Dêmokêdês
-at parting to his Persian companions, exhorted them to acquaint
-Darius that he (Dêmokêdês) was about to marry the daughter of the
-Krotoniate Milo,—one of the first men in Krotôn, as well as the
-greatest wrestler of his time. The reputation of Milo was very great
-with Darius,—probably from the talk of Dêmokêdês himself: moreover,
-gigantic muscular force could be appreciated by men who had no relish
-either for Homer or Solon. And thus did this clever and vainglorious
-Greek, sending back his fifteen Persian companions to disgrace, and
-perhaps to death, deposit in their parting ears a braggart message,
-calculated to create for himself a factitious name at Susa. He paid
-a large sum to Milo as the price of his daughter, for this very
-purpose.[476]
-
- [474] Herodot. iii, 136. προσίσχοντες δὲ αὐτῆς τὰ παραθαλάσσια
- ἐθήσαντο καὶ ἀπεγράφοντο.
-
- [475] Herodot. iii, 137, 138.
-
- [476] Herodot. iii, 137. κατὰ δὴ τοῦτό μοι σπεῦσαι δοκέει τὸν
- γάμον τοῦτον τελέσας χρήματα μεγάλα Δημοκήδης, ἵνα φανῇ πρὸς
- Δαρείου ἐὼν καὶ ἐν τῇ ἑωϋτοῦ δόκιμος.
-
-Thus finishes the history of Dêmokêdês, and of the “first Persians
-(to use the phrase of Herodotus) who ever came over from Asia into
-Greece.”[477] It is a history well deserving of attention, even
-looking only to the liveliness of the incidents, introducing us as
-they do into the full movement of the ancient world,—incidents which
-I see no reason for doubting, with a reasonable allowance for the
-dramatic amplification of the historian. Even at that early date,
-Greek medical intelligence stands out in a surpassing manner, and
-Dêmokêdês is the first of those many able Greek surgeons who were
-seized, carried up to Susa,[478] and there detained for the Great
-King, his court, and harem.
-
- [477] Herodot. iii, 138.
-
- [478] Xenophon, Memorab. iv, 2, 33. Ἄλλους δὲ πόσους οἴει (says
- Sokratês) διὰ σοφίαν ἀναρπάστους πρὸς βασιλέα γεγονέναι, καὶ ἐκεῖ
- δουλεύειν;
-
- We shall run little risk in conjecturing that, among the
- intelligent and able men thus carried off, surgeons and
- physicians would be selected as the first and most essential.
-
- Apollônidês of Kôs—whose calamitous end has been alluded to in
- a previous note—was resident as surgeon, or physician, with
- Artaxerxês Longimanus (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 30), and Polykritus
- of Mendê, as well as Ktêsias himself, with Artaxerxês Mnêmon
- (Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 31).
-
-But his history suggests, in another point of view, far more serious
-reflections. Like the Milesian Histiæus (of whom I shall speak
-hereafter,) he cared not what amount of risk he brought upon his
-country in order to procure his own escape from a splendid detention
-at Susa. And the influence which he originated and brought to bear
-was on the point of precipitating upon Greece the whole force of
-the Persian empire, at a time when Greece was in no condition to
-resist it. Had the first aggressive expedition of Darius, with his
-own personal command and fresh appetite for conquest, been directed
-against Greece instead of against Scythia (between 516-514 B. C.),
-Grecian independence would have perished almost infallibly. For
-Athens was then still governed by the Peisistratids; what she was,
-under them, we have had occasion to notice in a former chapter.
-She had then no courage for energetic self-defence, and probably
-Hippias himself, far from offering resistance, would have found it
-advantageous to accept Persian dominion as a means of strengthening
-his own rule, like the Ionian despots: moreover, Grecian habit of
-coöperation was then only just commencing. But fortunately, the
-Persian invader did not touch the shore of Greece until more than
-twenty years afterwards, in 490 B. C.; and during that precious
-interval, the Athenian character had undergone the memorable
-revolution which has been before described. Their energy and their
-organization had been alike improved, and their force of resistance
-had become decupled; moreover, their conduct had so provoked the
-Persian that resistance was then a matter of necessity with them,
-and submission on tolerable terms an impossibility. When we come
-to the grand Persian invasion of Greece, we shall see that Athens
-was the life and soul of all the opposition offered. We shall see
-farther, that with all the efforts of Athens, the success of the
-defence was more than once doubtful; and would have been converted
-into a very different result, if Xerxês had listened to the best of
-his own counsellors. But had Darius, at the head of the very same
-force which he conducted into Scythia, or even an inferior force,
-landed at Marathon in 514 B. C., instead of sending Datis in 490 B.
-C.,—he would have found no men like the victors of Marathon to meet
-him. As far as we can appreciate the probabilities, he would have met
-with little resistance except from the Spartans singly, who would
-have maintained their own very defensible territory against all his
-efforts,—like the Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor, or like the
-Mainots of Laconia in later days; but Hellas generally would have
-become a Persian satrapy. Fortunately, Darius, while bent on invading
-some country, had set his mind on the attack of Scythia, alike
-perilous and unprofitable. His personal ardor was wasted on those
-unconquerable regions, where he narrowly escaped the disastrous fate
-of Cyrus,—nor did he ever pay a second visit to the coasts of the
-Ægean. Yet the amorous influences of Atossa, set at work by Dêmokêdês
-might well have been sufficiently powerful to induce Darius to assail
-Greece instead of Scythia,—a choice in favor of which all other
-recommendations concurred; and the history of free Greece would then
-probably have stopped at this point, without unrolling any of the
-glories which followed. So incalculably great has been the influence
-of Grecian development, during the two centuries between 500-300 B.
-C., on the destinies of mankind, that we cannot pass without notice a
-contingency which threatened to arrest that development in the bud.
-Indeed, it may be remarked that the history of any nation, considered
-as a sequence of causes and effects, affording applicable knowledge,
-requires us to study not merely real events, but also imminent
-contingencies,—events which were on the point of occurring, but yet
-did not occur. When we read the wailings of Atossa in the Persæ of
-Æschylus, for the humiliation which her son Xerxês had just undergone
-in his flight from Greece,[479] we do not easily persuade ourselves
-to reverse the picture, and to conceive the same Atossa twenty years
-earlier, numbering as her slaves at Susa the noblest Hêrakleid and
-Alkmæônid maidens from Greece. Yet the picture would really have
-been thus reversed,—the wish of Atossa would have been fulfilled,
-and the wailings would have been heard from enslaved Greek maidens
-in Persia,—if the mind of Darius had not happened to be preoccupied
-with a project not less insane even than those of Kambysês against
-Ethiopia and the Libyan desert. Such at least is the moral of the
-story of Dêmokêdês.
-
- [479] Æschyl. Pers. 435-845, etc.
-
-That insane expedition across the Danube into Scythia comes now
-to be recounted. It was undertaken by Darius for the purpose of
-avenging the inroad and devastation of the Scythians in Media and
-Upper Asia, about a century before. The lust of conquest imparted
-unusual force to this sentiment of wounded dignity, which in the
-case of the Scythians could hardly be connected with any expectation
-of plunder or profit. In spite of the dissuading admonition of his
-brother Artabanus,[480] Darius summoned the whole force of his
-empire, army and navy, to the Thracian Bosphorus,—a force not less
-than seven hundred thousand horse and foot, and six hundred ships,
-according to Herodotus. On these prodigious numbers we can lay no
-stress. But it appears that the names of all the various nations
-composing the host were inscribed on two pillars, erected by order
-of Darius on the European side of the Bosphorus, and afterwards seen
-by Herodotus himself in the city of Byzantium,—the inscriptions
-were bilingual, in Assyrian characters as well as Greek. The Samian
-architect Mandroklês had been directed to throw a bridge of boats
-across the Bosphorus, about half-way between Byzantium and the mouth
-of the Euxine. So peremptory were the Persian kings that their orders
-for military service should be punctually obeyed, and so impatient
-were they of the idea of exemptions, that when a Persian father named
-Œobazus entreated that one of his three sons, all included in the
-conscription, might be left at home, Darius replied that all three of
-them should be left at home,—an answer which the unsuspecting father
-heard with delight. They were indeed all left at home,—for they were
-all put to death.[481] A proceeding similar to this is ascribed
-afterwards to Xerxês;[482] whether true or not as matters of fact,
-both tales illustrate the wrathful displeasure with which the Persian
-kings were known to receive such petitions for exemption.
-
- [480] Herodot. iv, 1, 83. There is nothing to mark the precise
- year of the Scythian expedition; but as the accession of Darius
- is fixed to 521 B. C., and as the expedition is connected with
- the early part of his reign, we may conceive him to have entered
- upon it as soon as his hands were free; that is, as soon as he
- had put down the revolted satraps and provinces, Orœtês, the
- Medes, Babylonians, etc. Five years seems a reasonable time to
- allow for these necessities of the empire, which would bring
- the Scythian expedition to 516-515 B. C. There is reason for
- supposing it to have been before 514 B. C., for in that year
- Hipparchus was slain at Athens, and Hippias the surviving
- brother, looking out for securities and alliances abroad, gave
- his daughter in marriage to Æantidês son of Hippoklus, despot
- of Lampsakus, “perceiving that Hippoklus and his son had great
- influence with Darius,” (Thucyd. vi, 59.) Now Hippoklus could
- not well have acquired this influence _before_ the Scythian
- expedition; for Darius came down then for the first time to the
- western sea; Hippoklus served upon that expedition (Herodot. iv,
- 138), and it was probably then that his favor was acquired, and
- farther confirmed during the time that Darius stayed at Sardis
- after his return from Scythia.
-
- Professor Schultz (Beiträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen der
- Hellen. Geschicht. von der 63n bis zur 72n Olympiade, p. 168, in
- the Kieler Philolog. Studien) places the expedition in 513 B.
- C.; but I think a year or two earlier is more probable. Larcher,
- Wesseling, and Bähr (ad Herodot. iv, 145) place it in 508 B. C.,
- which is later than the truth; indeed, Larcher himself places the
- reduction of Lemnos and Imbros by Otanês in 511 B. C., though
- that event decidedly came after the Scythian expedition (Herodot.
- v, 27; Larcher, Table Chronologique, Trad. d’Hérodot. t. vii, pp.
- 633-635).
-
- [481] Herodot. iv, 84.
-
- [482] Herodot. vii, 39.
-
-The naval force of Darius seems to have consisted entirely of subject
-Greeks, Asiatic and insular; for the Phenician fleet was not brought
-into the Ægean until the subsequent Ionic revolt. At this time all
-or most of the Asiatic Greek cities were under despots, who leaned
-on the Persian government for support, and who appeared with their
-respective contingents to take part in the Scythian expedition.[483]
-Of Ionic Greeks were seen,—Strattis, despot of Chios; Æakês son
-of Sylosôn, despot of Samos; Laodamas, of Phôkæa; and Histiæus,
-of Milêtus. From the Æolic towns, Aristagoras of Kymê; from the
-Hellespontine Greeks, Daphnis of Abydus, Hippoklus of Lampsakus,
-Hêrophantus of Parium, Metrodôrus of Prokonnêsus, Aristagoras of
-Kyzikus, and Miltiadês of the Thracian Chersonese. All these are
-mentioned, and there were probably more. This large fleet, assembled
-at the Bosphorus, was sent forward into the Euxine to the mouth of
-the Danube,—with orders to sail up the river two days’ journey,
-above the point where its channel begins to divide, and to throw a
-bridge of boats over it; while Darius, having liberally recompensed
-the architect Mandroklês, crossed the bridge over the Bosphorus,
-and began his march through Thrace, receiving the submission of
-various Thracian tribes in his way, and subduing others,—especially
-the Getæ north of Mount Hæmus, who were compelled to increase still
-farther the numbers of his vast army.[484] On arriving at the Danube,
-he found the bridge finished and prepared for his passage by the
-Ionians: we may remark here, as on so many other occasions, that all
-operations requiring intelligence are performed for the Persians
-either by Greeks or by Phenicians,—more usually by the former. He
-crossed this greatest of all earthly rivers,[485]—for so the Danube
-was imagined to be in the fifth century B. C.,—and directed his march
-into Scythia.
-
- [483] Herodot. iv, 97, 137, 138.
-
- [484] Herodot. iv, 89-93.
-
- [485] Herod. iv, 48-50. Ἴστρος—μέγιστος ποταμῶν πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς
- ἴδμεν, etc.
-
-As far as the point now attained, our narrative runs smoothly and
-intelligibly: we know that Darius marched his army into Scythia,
-and that he came back with ignominy and severe loss. But as to all
-which happened between his crossing and recrossing the Danube,
-we find nothing approaching to authentic statement,—nothing even
-which we can set forth as the probable basis of truth on which
-exaggerating fancy has been at work. All is inexplicable mystery.
-Ktêsias indeed says that Darius marched for fifteen days into the
-Scythian territory,—that he then exchanged bows with the king of
-Scythia, and discovered the Scythian bow to be the largest,—and that,
-being intimidated by such discovery, he fled back to the bridge by
-which he had crossed the Danube, and recrossed the river with the
-loss of one-tenth part of his army,[486] being compelled to break
-down the bridge before all had passed. The length of march is here
-the only thing distinctly stated; about the direction nothing is
-said. But the narrative of Ktêsias, defective as it is, is much
-less perplexing than that of Herodotus, who conducts the immense
-host of Darius as it were through fairy-land,—heedless of distance,
-large intervening rivers, want of all cultivation or supplies,
-destruction of the country—in so far as it could be destroyed—by
-the retreating Scythians, etc. He tells us that the Persian army
-consisted chiefly of foot,—that there were no roads nor agriculture;
-yet his narrative carries it over about twelve degrees of longitude
-from the Danube to the country east of the Tanais, across the rivers
-Tyras (Dniester), Hypanis (Bog), Borysthenês (Dnieper), Hypakyris.
-Gerrhos, and Tanais.[487] How these rivers could have been passed in
-the face of enemies by so vast a host, we are left to conjecture,
-since it was not winter time, to convert them into ice: nor does
-the historian even allude to them as having been crossed either in
-the advance or in the retreat. What is not less remarkable is, that
-in respect to the Greek settlement of Olbia, or Borysthenês, and
-the agricultural Scythians and Mix-hellenes between the Hypanis and
-the Borysthenês, across whose country it would seem that this march
-of Darius must have carried him,—Herodotus does not say anything;
-though we should have expected that he would have had better means of
-informing himself about this part of the march than about any other,
-and though the Persians could hardly have failed to plunder or put in
-requisition this, the only productive portion of Scythia.
-
- [486] Ktêsias, Persica. c. 17. Justin (ii, 5—compare also
- xxxviii, 7) seems to follow the narrative of Ktêsias.
-
- Æschylus (Persæ. 864), who presents the deceased Darius as a
- glorious contrast with the living Xerxês, talks of the splendid
- conquests which he made by means of others,—“without crossing the
- Halys himself, nor leaving his home.” We are led to suppose, by
- the language which Æschylus puts into the mouth of the Eidôlon of
- Darius (v, 720-745), that he had forgotten, or had never heard
- of, the bridge thrown across the Bosphorus by order of Darius;
- for the latter is made to condemn severely the impious insolence
- of Xerxês in bridging over the Hellespont.
-
- [487] Herodot. iv, 136. ἅτε δὲ τοῦ Περσικοῦ πολλοῦ ἐόντος πεζοῦ
- στρατοῦ, καὶ τὰς ὁδοὺς οὐκ ἐπισταμένου, ὥστε οὐ τετμημένων
- τῶν ὁδῶν, τοῦ δὲ Σκυθικοῦ, ἱππότεω, καὶ τὰ σύντομα τῆς ὁδοῦ
- ἐπισταμένου, etc. Compare c. 128.
-
- The number and size of the rivers are mentioned by Herodotus as
- the principal wonder of Scythia, c. 82—Θωϋμάσια δὲ ἡ χώρη αὐτὴ
- οὐκ ἔχει, χωρὶς ἢ ὅτι ποτάμους τε πολλῷ μεγίστους καὶ ἀριθμὸν
- πλείστους, etc. He ranks the Borysthenês as the largest of all
- rivers except the Nile and the Danube (c. 53). The Hypanis also
- (Bog) is ποταμὸς ἐν ὀλίγοισι μέγας (c. 52).
-
- But he appears to forget the existence of these rivers when he is
- describing the Persian march.
-
-The narrative of Herodotus in regard to the Persian march north of
-the Ister seems indeed destitute of all the conditions of reality.
-It is rather an imaginative description, illustrating the desperate
-and impracticable character of Scythian warfare, and grouping in
-the same picture, according to that large sweep of the imagination
-which is admissible in epical treatment, the Scythians, with all
-their barbarous neighbors from the Carpathian mountains to the river
-Wolga. The Agathyrsi, the Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchlæni,
-the Budini, the Gelôni, the Sarmatians, and the Tauri,—all of them
-bordering on that vast quadrangular area of four thousand stadia
-for each side, called Scythia, as Herodotus conceives it,[488]—are
-brought into deliberation and action in consequence of the Persian
-approach. And Herodotus takes that opportunity of communicating
-valuable particulars respecting the habits and manners of each. The
-kings of these nations discuss whether Darius is justified in his
-invasion, and whether it be prudent in them to aid the Scythians.
-The latter question is decided in the affirmative by the Sarmatians,
-the Budini, and the Gelôni, all eastward of the Tanais,[489]—in the
-negative by the rest. The Scythians, removing their wagons with
-their wives and children out of the way northward, retreat and draw
-Darius after them from the Danube all across Scythia and Sarmatia
-to the north-eastern extremity of the territory of the Budini,[490]
-several days’ journey eastward of the Tanais. Moreover, they destroy
-the wells and ruin the herbage as much as they can, so that during
-all this long march, says Herodotus, the Persians “found nothing to
-damage, inasmuch as the country was barren;” it is therefore not easy
-to see what they could find to live upon. It is in the territory
-of the Budini, at this easternmost terminus on the borders of the
-desert, that the Persians perform the only positive acts which are
-ascribed to them throughout the whole expedition. They burn the
-wooden wall before occupied, but now deserted, by the Gelôni, and
-they build, or begin to build, eight large fortresses near the river
-Oarus. For what purpose these fortresses could have been intended,
-Herodotus gives no intimation; but he says that the unfinished work
-was yet to be seen even in his day.[491]
-
- [488] Herodot. iv, 101.
-
- [489] Herodot. iv, 118, 119.
-
- [490] Herodot. iv, 120-122.
-
- [491] Herodot. iv, 123. Ὅσον μὲν δὴ χρόνον οἱ Πέρσαι ἤϊσαν διὰ
- τῆς Σκυθικῆς καὶ τῆς Σαυρομάτιδος χώρης, οἳ δὲ εἶχον οὐδὲν
- σίνεσθαι, ἅτε τῆς χώρης ἐούσης χέρσου· ἐπεὶ δὲ τε ἐς τὴν τῶν
- Βουδίνων χώρην ἐσέβαλον, etc. See Rennell, Geograph. System of
- Herodotus, p. 114, about the Oarus.
-
- The erections, whatever they were, which were supposed to mark
- the extreme point of the march of Darius, may be compared to
- those evidences of the extreme advance of Dionysus, which the
- Macedonian army saw on the north of the Jaxartês—“Liberi patris
- terminos.” Quintus Curtius, vii, 9, 15, (vii, 37, 16, Zumpt.)
-
-Having thus been carried all across Scythia and the other territories
-above mentioned in a north-easterly direction, Darius and his army
-are next marched back a prodigious distance in a north-westerly
-direction, through the territories of the Melanchlæni, the
-Androphagi, and the Neuri, all of whom flee affrighted into the
-northern desert, having been thus compelled against their will to
-share in the consequences of the war. The Agathyrsi peremptorily
-require the Scythians to abstain from drawing the Persians
-into _their_ territory, on pain of being themselves treated as
-enemies:[492] the Scythians in consequence respect the boundaries of
-the Agathyrsi, and direct their retreat in such a manner as to draw
-the Persians again southward into Scythia. During all this long march
-backwards and forwards, there are partial skirmishes and combats of
-horse, but the Scythians steadily refuse any general engagement.
-And though Darius challenges them formally, by means of a herald,
-with taunts of cowardice, the Scythian king Idanthyrsus not only
-refuses battle, but explains and defends his policy, and defies the
-Persian to come and destroy the tombs of their fathers,—it will then,
-he adds, be seen whether the Scythians are cowards or not.[493]
-The difficulties of Darius have by this time become serious, when
-Idanthyrsus sends to him the menacing presents of a bird, a mouse, a
-frog, and five arrows: the Persians are obliged to commence a rapid
-retreat towards the Danube, leaving, in order to check and slacken
-the Scythian pursuit, the least effective and the sick part of their
-army encamped, together with the asses which had been brought with
-them,—animals unknown to the Scythians, and causing great alarm by
-their braying.[494] However, notwithstanding some delay thus caused,
-as well as the anxious haste of Darius to reach the Danube, the
-Scythians, far more rapid in their movements, arrive at the river
-before him, and open a negotiation with the Ionians left in guard of
-the bridge, urging them to break it down and leave the Persian king
-to his fate,—inevitable destruction with his whole army.[495]
-
- [492] Herodot. iv, 125. Hekatæus ranks the Melanchlæni as a
- Scythian ἔθνος (Hekat. Fragment. 154, ed. Klausen): he also
- mentions several other subdivisions of Scythians, who cannot be
- farther authenticated (Fragm. 155-160).
-
- [493] Herodot. iv, 126, 127.
-
- [494] Herodot. iv, 128-132. The bird, the mouse, the frog, and
- the arrows, are explained to mean: Unless you take to the air
- like a bird, to the earth like a mouse, or to the water like a
- frog, you will become the victim of the Scythian arrows.
-
- [495] Herodot. iv, 133.
-
-Here we reënter the world of reality, at the north bank of the
-Danube, the place where we before quitted it. All that is reported
-to have passed in the interval, if tried by the tests of historical
-matter of fact, can be received as nothing better than a perplexing
-dream. It only acquires value when we consider it as an illustrative
-fiction, including, doubtless, some unknown matter of fact, but
-framed chiefly to exhibit in action those unattackable Nomads, who
-formed the north-eastern barbarous world of a Greek, and with whose
-manners Herodotus was profoundly struck. “The Scythians[496] (says
-he) in regard to one of the greatest of human matters, have struck
-out a plan cleverer than any that I know. In other respects I do
-not admire them; but they have contrived this great object, that no
-invader of their country shall ever escape out of it, or shall ever
-be able to find out and overtake them, unless they themselves choose.
-For when men have neither walls nor established cities, but are all
-house-carriers and horse-bowmen,—living, not from the plough, but
-from cattle, and having their dwellings on wagons,—how can they be
-otherwise than unattackable and impracticable to meddle with?” The
-protracted and unavailing chase ascribed to Darius,—who can neither
-overtake his game nor use his arms, and who hardly even escapes in
-safety,—embodies in detail this formidable attribute of the Scythian
-Nomads. That Darius actually marched into the country, there can be
-no doubt. Nothing else is certain, except his ignominious retreat out
-of it to the Danube; for of the many different guesses,[497] by which
-critics have attempted to cut down the gigantic sketch of Herodotus
-into a march with definite limits and direction, not one rests upon
-any positive grounds, or carries the least conviction. We can trace
-the pervading idea in the mind of the historian, but cannot find out
-what were his substantive data.
-
- [496] Herodot. iv. 46. Τῷ δὲ Σκυθικῷ γένεϊ ἓν μὲν τὸ μέγιστον τῶν
- ἀνθρωπηΐων πρηγμάτων σοφώτατα πάντων ἐξεύρηται, τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν·
- τὰ μέντοι ἄλλα οὐκ ἄγαμαι. Τὸ δὲ μέγιστον οὕτω σφι ἀνεύρηται,
- ὥστε ἀποφυγέειν τε μηδένα ἐπελθόντα ἐπὶ σφέας, μὴ βουλομένους τε
- ἐξευρεθῆναι, καταλαβεῖν μὴ οἷον τε εἶναι. Τοῖσι γὰρ μήτε ἄστεα
- μήτε τείχεα ᾖ ἐκτισμένα, ἀλλὰ φερέοικοι ἐόντες πάντες, ἔωσι
- ἱπποτοξόται, ζῶντες μὴ ἀπ᾽ ἀρότου, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ κτηνέων, οἰκήματα δέ
- σφι ᾖ ἐπὶ ζευγέων, κῶς οὐκ ἂν εἴησαν οὗτοι ἄμαχοί τε καὶ ἄποροι
- προσμίσγειν;
-
- Ἐξεύρηται δέ σφι ταῦτα, τῆς τε γῆς ἐούσης ἐπιτηδέης, καὶ τῶν
- ποταμῶν ἐόντων σφι συμμάχων, etc.
-
- Compare this with the oration of the Scythian envoys to Alexander
- the Great, as it stands in Quintus Curtius, vii, 8, 22 (vii, 35,
- 22, Zumpt).
-
- [497] The statement of Strabo (vii, p. 305), which restricts the
- march of Darius to the country between the Danube and the Tyras
- (Dniester) is justly pronounced by Niebuhr (Kleine Schriften,
- p. 372) to be a mere supposition suggested by the probabilities
- of the case, because it could not be understood how his large
- army should cross even the Dniester: it is not to be treated as
- an affirmation resting upon any authority. “As Herodotus tells
- us what is impossible (adds Niebuhr), we know nothing at all
- historically respecting the expedition.”
-
- So again the conjecture of Palmerius (Exercitationes ad Auctores
- Græcos, p. 21) carries on the march somewhat farther than the
- Dniester,—to the Hypanis, or _perhaps_ to the Borysthenês.
- Rennell, Klaproth, and Reichard, are not afraid to extend the
- march on to the Wolga. Dr. Thirlwall stops within the Tanais,
- admitting, however, that no correct historical account can be
- given of it. Eichwald supposes a long march up the Dniester into
- Volhynia and Lithuania.
-
- Compare Ukert, Skythien, p. 26; Dahlmann, Historische
- Forschungen, ii, pp. 159-164; Schaffarik, Slavische Alterthümer,
- i, 10, 3, i, 13, 4-5; and Mr. Kenrick, Remarks on the Life and
- Writings of Herodotus, prefixed to his Notes on the Second Book
- of Herodotus, p. xxi. The latter is among those who cannot swim
- the Dniester: he says: “Probably the Dniester (Tyras) was the
- real limit of the expedition, and Bessarabia, Moldavia, and the
- Bukovina, the scene of it.”
-
-The adventures which took place at the passage of that river, both on
-the out-march and the home-march, wherein the Ionians are concerned,
-are far more within the limits of history. Here Herodotus possessed
-better means of information, and had less of a dominant idea to
-illustrate. That which passed between Darius and the Ionians on his
-first crossing is very curious: I have reserved it until the present
-moment, because it is particularly connected with the incidents which
-happened on his return.
-
-On reaching the Danube from Thrace, he found the bridge of boats
-ready, and when the whole army had passed over, he ordered the
-Ionians to break it down, as well as to follow him in his land-march
-into Scythia;[498] the ships being left with nothing but the rowers
-and seamen essential to navigate them homeward. His order was on the
-point of being executed, when, fortunately for him, the Mitylenæan
-general Kôês ventured to call in question the prudence of it, having
-first asked whether it was the pleasure of the Persian king to listen
-to advice. He urged that the march on which they were proceeding
-might prove perilous, and retreat possibly unavoidable; because the
-Scythians, though certain to be defeated if brought to action, might
-perhaps not suffer themselves to be approached or even discovered.
-As a precaution against all contingencies, it was prudent to leave
-the bridge standing and watched by those who had constructed it.
-Far from being offended at the advice, Darius felt grateful for it,
-and desired that Kôês would ask him after his return for a suitable
-reward,—which we shall hereafter find granted. He then altered his
-resolution, took a cord, and tied sixty knots in it. “Take this cord
-(said he to the Ionians), untie one of the knots in it each day after
-my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here and guard the
-bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if by that time
-I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home.”[499] After
-such orders he began his march into the interior.
-
- [498] Herodot. iv, 97. Δαρεῖος ἐκέλευσε τοὺς Ἴωνας τὴν σχεδίην
- λύσαντας ἕπεσθαι κατ᾽ ἤπειρον ἑωϋτῷ, καὶ τὸν ἐκ τῶν νέων στρατόν.
-
- [499] Herodot. iv, 98. ἢν δὲ ἐν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ μὴ παρέω, ἀλλὰ
- διέλθωσι ὑμῖν αἱ ἡμέραι τῶν ἁμμάτων, ἀποπλέετε ἐς τὴν ὑμετέρην
- αὐτέων· μέχρι δὲ τούτου, ἐπεί τε οὕτω μετέδοξε, φυλάσσετε τὴν
- σχεδίην.
-
-This anecdote is interesting, not only as it discloses the simple
-expedients for numeration and counting of time then practised, but
-also as it illustrates the geographical ideas prevalent. Darius did
-not intend to come back over the Danube, but to march round the
-Mæotis, and to return into Persia on the eastern side of the Euxine.
-No other explanation can be given of his orders. At first, confident
-of success, he orders the bridge to be destroyed forthwith: he
-will beat the Scythians, march through their country, and reënter
-Media from the eastern side of the Euxine. When he is reminded that
-possibly he may not be able to find the Scythians, and may be obliged
-to retreat, he still continues persuaded that this must happen within
-sixty days, if it happens at all; and that, should he remain absent
-more than sixty days, such delay will be a convincing proof that he
-will take the other road of return instead of repassing the Danube.
-The reader who looks at a map of the Euxine and its surrounding
-territories may be startled at so extravagant a conception. But he
-should recollect that there was no map of the same or nearly the
-same accuracy before Herodotus, much less before the contemporaries
-of Darius. The idea of entering Media by the north from Scythia and
-Sarmatia over the Caucasus, is familiar to Herodotus in his sketch
-of the early marches of the Scythians and Cimmerians: moreover,
-he tells us that after the expedition of Darius, there came some
-Scythian envoys to Sparta, proposing an offensive alliance against
-Persia, and offering on their part to march across the Phasis into
-Media from the north,[500] while the Spartans were invited to land
-on the shores of Asia Minor, and advance across the country to meet
-them from the west. When we recollect that the Macedonians and their
-leader, Alexander the Great, having arrived at the river Jaxartês, on
-the north of Sogdiana, and on the east of the sea of Aral, supposed
-that they had reached the Tanais, and called the river by that
-name,[501]—we shall not be astonished at the erroneous estimation of
-distance implied in the plan conceived by Darius.
-
- [500] Herodot. vi, 84. Compare his account of the marches of
- the Cimmerians and of the Scythians into Asia Minor and Media
- respectively (Herodot. i, 103, 104, iv, 12).
-
- [501] Arrian, Exp. Al. iii, 6, 15; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 45;
- Quint. Curt. vii, 7, 4, vii, 8, 30 (vii, 29, 5, vii, 36, 7,
- Zumpt).
-
-The Ionians had already remained in guard of the bridge beyond the
-sixty days commanded, without hearing anything of the Persian army,
-when they were surprised by the appearance, not of that army, but
-of a body of Scythians, who acquainted them that Darius was in full
-retreat and in the greatest distress, and that his safety with the
-whole army depended upon that bridge. They endeavored to prevail
-upon the Ionians, since the sixty days included in their order to
-remain had now elapsed, to break the bridge and retire; assuring
-them that, if this were done, the destruction of the Persians was
-inevitable,—of course, the Ionians themselves would then be free. At
-first, the latter were favorably disposed towards the proposition,
-which was warmly espoused by the Athenian Miltiadês, despot, or
-governor, of the Thracian Chersonese.[502] Had he prevailed, the
-victor of Marathon—for such we shall hereafter find him—would have
-thus inflicted a much more vital blow on Persia than even that
-celebrated action, and would have brought upon Darius the disastrous
-fate of his predecessor Cyrus. But the Ionian princes, though
-leaning at first towards his suggestion, were speedily converted
-by the representations of Histiæus of Milêtus, who reminded them
-that the maintenance of his own ascendency over the Milesians, and
-that of each despot in his respective city, was assured by means of
-Persian support alone,—the feeling of the population being everywhere
-against them: consequently, the ruin of Darius would be their ruin
-also. This argument proved conclusive. It was resolved to stay and
-maintain the bridge, but to pretend compliance with the Scythians,
-and prevail upon them to depart, by affecting to destroy it. The
-northern portion of the bridge was accordingly destroyed, for the
-length of a bow-shot, and the Scythians departed under the persuasion
-that they had succeeded in depriving their enemies of the means of
-crossing the river.[503] It appears that they missed the track of the
-retreating host, which was thus enabled, after the severest privation
-and suffering, to reach the Danube in safety. Arriving during the
-darkness of the night, Darius was at first terrified to find the
-bridge no longer joining the northern bank: an Egyptian herald, of
-stentorian powers of voice, was ordered to call as loudly as possible
-the name of Histiæus the Milesian. Answer being speedily made, the
-bridge was reëstablished, and the Persian army passed over before the
-Scythians returned to the spot.[504]
-
- [502] Herodot. iv, 133, 136, 137.
-
- [503] Herodot. iv, 137-139.
-
- [504] Herodot. iv, 140, 141.
-
-There can be no doubt that the Ionians here lost an opportunity
-eminently favorable, such as never again returned, for emancipating
-themselves from the Persian dominion. Their despots, by whom the
-determination was made, especially the Milesian Histiæus, were
-not induced to preserve the bridge by any honorable reluctance to
-betray the trust reposed in them, but simply by selfish regard to
-the maintenance of their own unpopular dominion. And we may remark
-that the real character of this impelling motive, as well as the
-deliberation accompanying it, may be assumed as resting upon very
-good evidence, since we are now arrived within the personal knowledge
-of the Milesian historian Hekatæus, who took an active part in the
-Ionic revolt a few years afterwards, and who may, perhaps, have been
-personally engaged in this expedition. He will be found reviewing
-with prudence and sobriety the chances of that unfortunate revolt,
-and distrusting its success from the beginning; while Histiæus of
-Milêtus will appear on the same occasion as the fomenter of it,
-in order to procure his release from an honorable detention at
-Susa, near the person of Darius. The selfishness of this despot
-having deprived his countrymen of that real and favorable chance of
-emancipation which the destruction of the bridge would have opened to
-them, threw them into perilous revolt a few years afterwards against
-the entire and unembarrassed force of the Persian king and empire.
-
-Extricated from the perils of Scythian warfare, Darius marched
-southward from the Danube through Thrace to the Hellespont, where he
-crossed from Sestus into Asia. He left, however, a considerable army
-in Europe, under the command of Megabazus, to accomplish the conquest
-of Thrace. Perinthus on the Propontis made a brave resistance,[505]
-but was at length subdued, and it appears that all the Thracian
-tribes, and all the Grecian colonies between the Hellespont and
-the Strymon, were forced to submit, giving earth and water, and
-becoming subject to tribute.[506] Near the lower Strymon, was the
-Edonian town of Myrkinus, which Darius ordered to be made over to
-Histiæus of Milêtus; for both this Milesian, and Kôês of Mitylênê,
-had been desired by the Persian king to name their own reward for
-their fidelity to him on the passage over the Danube.[507] Kôês
-requested that he might be constituted despot of Mitylênê, which was
-accomplished by Persian authority; but Histiæus solicited that the
-territory near Myrkinus might be given to him for the foundation of
-a colony. As soon as the Persian conquests extended thus far, the
-site in question was presented to Histiæus, who entered actively upon
-his new scheme. We shall find the territory near Myrkinus eminent
-hereafter as the site of Amphipolis. It offered great temptation to
-settlers, as fertile, well wooded, convenient for maritime commerce,
-and near to auriferous and argentiferous mountains.[508] It seems,
-however, that the Persian dominion in Thrace was disturbed by an
-invasion of the Scythians, who, in revenge for the aggression of
-Darius, overran the country as far as the Thracian Chersonese, and
-are even said to have sent envoys to Sparta proposing a simultaneous
-invasion of Persia from different sides, by Spartans and Scythians.
-The Athenian Miltiadês, who was despot, or governor, of the
-Chersonese, was forced to quit it for some time, and Herodotus
-ascribes his retirement to the incursion of these Nomads. But we
-may be permitted to suspect that the historian has misconceived the
-real cause of such retirement. Miltiadês could not remain in the
-Chersonese after he had incurred the deadly enmity of Darius by
-exhorting the Ionians to destroy the bridge over the Danube.[509]
-
- [505] Herodot. iv, 143, 144, v, 1, 2.
-
- [506] Herodot. v, 2.
-
- [507] Herodot. v, 11.
-
- [508] Herodot. v, 23.
-
- [509] Herodot. vi, 40-84. That Miltiadês could have remained
- in the Chersonese undisturbed, during the interval between the
- Scythian expedition of Darius and the Ionic revolt,—when the
- Persians were complete masters of those regions, and when Otanês
- was punishing other towns in the neighborhood for evasion of
- service under Darius, after he had declared so pointedly against
- the Persians on a matter of life and death to the king and
- army,—appears to me, as it does to Dr. Thirlwall (History of
- Gr. vol. ii, App. ii, p. 486, ch. xiv, pp. 226-249), eminently
- improbable. So forcibly does Dr. Thirlwall feel the difficulty,
- that he suspects the reported conduct and exhortations of
- Miltiadês at the bridge over the Danube to have been a falsehood,
- fabricated by Miltiadês himself, twenty years afterwards, for
- the purpose of acquiring popularity at Athens during the time
- immediately preceding the battle of Marathon.
-
- I cannot think this hypothesis admissible. It directly
- contradicts Herodotus on a matter of fact very conspicuous, and
- upon which good means of information seem to have been within his
- reach. I have already observed that the historian Hekatæus must
- have possessed personal knowledge of all the relations between
- the Ionians and Darius, and that he very probably may have been
- even present at the bridge: all the information given by Hekatæus
- upon these points would be open to the inquiries of Herodotus.
- The unbounded gratitude of Darius towards Histiæus shows that
- some one or more of the Ionic despots present at the bridge must
- have powerfully enforced the expediency of breaking it down.
- That the name of the despot who stood forward as prime mover of
- this resolution should have been forgotten and not mentioned
- at the time, is highly improbable; yet such must have been the
- case if a fabrication by Miltiadês twenty years afterwards
- could successfully fill up the blank with his own name. The two
- most prominent matters talked of, after the retreat of Darius,
- in reference to the bridge, would probably be the name of the
- leader who urged its destruction, and the name of Histiæus, who
- preserved it. Indeed, the mere fact of the mischievous influence
- exercised by the latter afterwards would be pretty sure to keep
- these points of the case in full view.
-
- There are means of escaping from the difficulty of the case,
- I think, without contradicting Herodotus on any matter of
- fact important and conspicuous, or indeed on any matter of
- fact whatever. We see by vi, 40, that Miltiadês _did quit the
- Chersonese_ between the close of the Scythian expedition of
- Darius and the Ionic revolt; Herodotus, indeed, tells us that he
- quitted it in consequence of an incursion of the Scythians: but
- without denying the fact of such an incursion, we may reasonably
- suppose the historian to have been mistaken in assigning it as
- the cause of the flight of Miltiadês. The latter was prevented
- from living in the Chersonese continuously, during the interval
- between the Persian invasion of Scythia and the Ionic revolt, by
- fear of Persian enmity. It is not necessary for us to believe
- that he was never there at all, but his residence there must have
- been interrupted and insecure. The chronological data in Herodot.
- vi, 40, are exceedingly obscure and perplexing; but it seems to
- me that the supposition which I suggest introduces a plausible
- coherence into the series of historical facts, with the slightest
- possible contradiction to our capital witness.
-
- The only achievement of Miltiadês, between the affair on the
- Danube and his return to Athens shortly before the battle of
- Marathon, is the conquest of Lemnos; and _that_ must have taken
- place evidently while the Persians were occupied by the Ionic
- revolt, (between 502-494 B. C.) There is nothing in his recorded
- deeds inconsistent with the belief, therefore, that between
- 515-502 B. C. he may not have resided in the Chersonese at all,
- or at least not for very long together: and the statement of
- Cornelius Nepos, that he quitted it immediately after the return
- from Scythia, from fear of the Persians, may be substantially
- true. Dr. Thirlwall observes (p. 487)—“As little would it appear
- that when the Scythians invaded the Chersonese, Miltiadês was
- conscious of having endeavored to render them an important
- service. He flies before them, though he had been so secure while
- the Persian arms were in his neighborhood.” He has here put
- his finger on what I believe to be the error of Herodotus,—the
- supposition that Miltiadês fled from the Chersonese to avoid the
- Scythians, whereas he really left it to avoid the Persians.
-
- The story of Strabo (xiii, p. 591), that Darius caused the Greek
- cities on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont to be burnt down,
- in order to hinder them from affording means of transport to the
- Scythians into Asia, seems to me highly improbable. These towns
- appear in their ordinary condition, Abydus among them, at the
- time of the Ionic revolt a few years afterwards (Herodot. v,
- 117).
-
-Nor did the conquests of Megabazus stop at the western bank of the
-Strymon. He carried his arms across that river, conquering the
-Pæonians, and reducing the Macedonians under Amyntas to tribute. A
-considerable number of the Pæonians were transported across into
-Asia, by express order of Darius; whose fancy had been struck by
-seeing at Sardis a beautiful Pæonian woman carrying a vessel on her
-head, leading a horse to water, and spinning flax, all at the same
-time. This woman had been brought over, we are told, by her two
-brothers, Pigrês and Mantyês, for the express purpose of arresting
-the attention of the Great King. They hoped by this means to be
-constituted despots of their countrymen, and we may presume that
-their scheme succeeded, for such part of the Pæonians as Megabazus
-could subdue were conveyed across to Asia and planted in some
-villages in Phrygia. Such violent transportations of inhabitants were
-in the genius of the Persian government.[510]
-
- [510] Herodot. v, 13-16. Nikolaus Damaskênus (Fragm. p. 36, ed.
- Orell.) tells a similar story about the means by which a Mysian
- woman attracted the notice of the Lydian king Alyattês. Such
- repetition of a striking story, in reference to different people
- and times, has many parallels in ancient history.
-
-From the Pæonian lake Prasias, seven eminent Persians were sent as
-envoys into Macedonia, to whom Amyntas readily gave the required
-token of submission, inviting them to a splendid banquet. When
-exhilarated with wine, they demanded to see the women of the regal
-family, who, being accordingly introduced, were rudely dealt with by
-the strangers. At length, the son of Amyntas, Alexander, resented the
-insult, and exacted for it a signal vengeance. Dismissing the women,
-under pretence that they should return after a bath, he brought back
-in their place youths in female attire, armed with daggers: the
-Persians, proceeding to repeat their caresses, were all put to death.
-Their retinue and splendid carriages and equipment which they had
-brought with them disappeared at the same time, without any tidings
-reaching the Persian army. And when Bubarês, another eminent Persian,
-was sent into Macedonia to institute researches, Alexander contrived
-to hush up the proceeding by large bribes, and by giving him his
-sister Gygæa in marriage.[511]
-
- [511] Herodot. v, 20, 21.
-
-Meanwhile Megabazus crossed over into Asia, carrying with him the
-Pæonians from the river Strymon. Having been in those regions, he
-had become alarmed at the progress of Histiæus with his new city
-of Myrkinus, and communicated his apprehensions to Darius; who was
-prevailed upon to send for Histiæus, retaining him about his person,
-and carrying him to Susa as counsellor and friend, with every mark
-of honor, but with the secret intention of never letting him revisit
-Asia Minor. The fears of the Persian general were probably not
-unreasonable; but this detention of Histiæus at Susa, became in the
-sequel an important event.[512]
-
- [512] Herodot. v, 23, 24.
-
-On departing for his capital, Darius nominated his brother
-Artaphernês satrap of Sardis, and Otanês, general of the forces on
-the coast, in place of Megabazus. The new general dealt very severely
-with various towns near the Propontis, on the ground that they had
-evaded their duty in the late Scythian expedition, and had even
-harassed the army of Darius in its retreat. He took Byzantium and
-Chalkêdon, as well as Antandrus in the Troad, and Lampônium; and
-with the aid of a fleet from Lesbos, he achieved a new conquest,—the
-islands of Lemnos and Imbros, at that time occupied by a Pelasgic
-population, seemingly without any Greek inhabitants at all.
-
-These Pelasgi were of cruel and piratical character, if we may judge
-by the tenor of the legends respecting them; Lemnian misdeeds being
-cited as a proverbial expression for atrocities.[513] They were
-distinguished also for ancient worship of Hêphæstus, together with
-mystic rites in honor of the Kabeiri, and even human sacrifices to
-their Great Goddess. In their two cities,—Hephæstias on the east of
-the island, and Myrina on the west,—they held out bravely against
-Otanês, nor did they submit until they had undergone long and severe
-hardship. Lykarêtus, brother of that Mæandrius whom we have already
-noticed as despot of Samos, was named governor of Lemnos; but he
-soon after died.[514] It is probable that the Pelasgic population
-of the islands was greatly enfeebled during this struggle, and we
-even hear that their king Hermon voluntarily emigrated, from fear of
-Darius.[515]
-
- [513] Herodot. vi, 138. Æschyl. Choêphor. 632; Stephan. Byz. v.
- Λῆμνος.
-
- The mystic rites in honor of the Kabeiri at Lemnos and Imbros
- are particularly noticed by Pherekydês (ap. Strabo, x, p. 472):
- compare Photius, v. Κάβειροι, and the remarkable description of
- the periodical Lemnian solemnity in Philostratus (Heroi. p. 740).
-
- The volcanic mountain Mosychlus, in the north-eastern portion
- of the island, was still burning in the fourth century B. C.
- (Antimach. Fragment. xviii, p. 103, Düntzer Epicc. Græc. Fragm.)
-
- Welcker’s Dissertation (Die Æschylische Trilogie, p. 248,
- _seqq._) enlarges much upon the Lemnian and Samothracian worship.
-
- [514] Herodot. v, 26, 27. The twenty-seventh chapter is extremely
- perplexing. As the text reads at present, we ought to make
- Lykarêtus the subject of certain predications which yet seem
- properly referable to Otanês. We must consider the words from
- Οἱ μὲν δὴ Λήμνιοι—down to τελευτᾷ—as parenthetical, which is
- awkward; but it seems the least difficulty in the case, and the
- commentators are driven to adopt it.
-
- [515] Zenob. Proverb. iii, 85.
-
-Lemnos and Imbros thus became Persian possessions, held by a
-subordinate prince as tributary. A few years afterwards their lot was
-again changed,—they passed into the hands of Athens, the Pelasgic
-inhabitants were expelled, and fresh Athenian settlers introduced.
-They were conquered by Miltiadês from the Thracian Chersonese; from
-Elæus at the south of that peninsula to Lemnos being within less
-than one day’s sail with a north wind. The Hephæstieans abandoned
-their city and evacuated the island with little resistance; but the
-inhabitants of Myrina stood a siege,[516] and were not expelled
-without difficulty: both of them found abodes in Thrace, on and near
-the peninsula of Mount Athos. Both these islands, together with that
-of Skyros (which was not taken until after the invasion of Xerxês),
-remained connected with Athens in a manner peculiarly intimate. At
-the peace of Antalkidas (387 B. C.),—which guaranteed universal
-autonomy to every Grecian city, great and small,—they were specially
-reserved, and considered as united with Athens.[517] The property
-in their soil was held by men who, without losing their Athenian
-citizenship, became Lemnian kleruchs, and as such were classified
-apart among the military force of the state; while absence in Lemnos
-or Imbros seems to have been accepted as an excuse for delay before
-the courts of justice, so as to escape the penalties of contumacy, or
-departure from the country.[518] It is probable that a considerable
-number of poor Athenian citizens were provided with lots of land in
-these islands, though we have no direct information of the fact, and
-are even obliged to guess the precise time at which Miltiadês made
-the conquest. Herodotus, according to his usual manner, connects the
-conquest with an ancient oracle, and represents it as the retribution
-for ancient legendary crime committed by certain Pelasgi, who, many
-centuries before, had been expelled by the Athenians from Attica,
-and had retired to Lemnos. Full of this legend, he tells us nothing
-about the proximate causes or circumstances of the conquest, which
-must probably have been accomplished by the efforts of Athens,
-jointly with Miltiadês from the Chersonese, daring the period that
-the Persians were occupied in quelling the Ionic revolt, between
-502-494 B. C.,—since it is hardly to be supposed that Miltiadês would
-have ventured thus to attack a Persian possession during the time
-that the satraps had their hands free. The acquisition was probably
-facilitated by the fact, that the Pelasgic population of the islands
-had been weakened, as well by their former resistance to the Persian
-Otanês, as by some years passed under the deputy of a Persian satrap.
-
- [516] Herodot. vi, 140. Charax ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Ἡφαιστíα.
-
- [517] Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 31. Compare Plato, Menexenus, c.
- 17, p. 245, where the words ἡμετέραι ἀποίκιαι doubtless mean
- Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros.
-
- [518] Thucyd. iv, 23, v, 8, vii, 57; Phylarchus ap. Athenæum,
- vi, p. 255; Dêmosthen. Philippic. 1, c. 12, p. 17, R.: compare
- the Inscription, No. 1686, in the collection of Boeckh, with his
- remarks, p. 297.
-
- About the stratagems resorted to before the Athenian dikastery,
- to procure delay by pretended absence in Lemnos or Skyros, see
- Isæus, Or. vi, p. 58 (p. 80, Bek.); Pollux, viii, 7, 81; Hesych.
- v. Ἴμβριος; Suidas, v. Λημνία δίκη: compare also Carl Rhode, Res
- Lemnicæ, p. 50 (Wratislaw 1829).
-
- It seems as if εἰς Λῆμνον πλεῖν had come to be a proverbial
- expression at Athens for getting out of the way,—evading the
- performance of duty: this seems to be the sense of Dêmosthenês,
- Philipp. i, c. 9, p. 14. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς μὲν Λῆμνον τὸν παρ᾽ ὑμῶν
- ἵππαρχον δεῖ πλεῖν, τῶν δ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῶν τῆς πόλεως κτημάτων
- ἀγωνιζομένων Μενέλαον ἱππαρχεῖν.
-
- From the passage of Isæus above alluded to, which Rhode seems to
- me to construe incorrectly, it appears that there was a legal
- _connubium_ between Athenian citizens and Lemnian women.
-
-In mentioning the conquest of Lemnos by the Athenians and Miltiadês,
-I have anticipated a little on the course of events, because that
-conquest,—though coinciding in point of time with the Ionic revolt
-(which will be recounted in the following chapter), and indirectly
-caused by it, in so far as it occupied the attention of the
-Persians,—lies entirely apart from the operations of the revolted
-Ionians. When Miltiadês was driven out of the Chersonese by the
-Persians, on the suppression of the Ionic revolt, his fame, derived
-from having subdued Lemnos,[519] contributed both to neutralize the
-enmity which he had incurred as governor of the Chersonese, and to
-procure his election as one of the ten generals for the year of the
-Marathonian combat.
-
- [519] Herodot. vi, 136.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXV.
-
-IONIC REVOLT.
-
-
-Hitherto, the history of the Asiatic Greeks has flowed in a stream
-distinct from that of the European Greeks. The present chapter will
-mark the period of confluence between the two.
-
-At the time when Darius quitted Sardis on his return to Susa,
-carrying with him the Milesian Histiæus, he left Artaphernês, his
-brother, as satrap of Sardis, invested with the supreme command of
-Western Asia Minor. The Grecian cities on the coast, comprehended
-under his satrapy, appear to have been chiefly governed by native
-despots in each; and Milêtus especially, in the absence of Histiæus,
-was ruled by his son-in-law Aristagoras. That city was now in the
-height of power and prosperity,—in every respect the leading city of
-Ionia. The return of Darius to Susa may be placed seemingly about 512
-B. C., from which time forward the state of things above described
-continued, without disturbance, for eight or ten years,—“a respite
-from suffering,” to use the significant phrase of the historian.[520]
-
- [520] Herodot. v, 28. Μετὰ δὲ οὐ πολλὸν χρόνον, ἄνεως κακῶν ἦν—or
- ἄνεσις κακῶν—if the conjecture of some critics be adopted. Mr.
- Clinton, with Larcher and others (see Fasti Hellen. App. 18, p.
- 314), construe this passage as if the comma were to be placed
- after μετὰ δὲ, so that the historian would be made to affirm that
- the period of repose lasted only a short time. It appears to me
- that the comma ought rather to be placed after χρόνον, and that
- the “short time” refers to those evils which the historian had
- been describing before. There must have been an interval of eight
- years at least, if not of ten years, between the events which the
- historian had been describing—the evils inflicted by the attacks
- of Otanês—and the breaking out of the Ionic revolt; which latter
- event no one places earlier than 504 B. C., though some prefer
- 502 B. C., others even 500 B. C.
-
- If, indeed, we admitted with Wesseling (ad Herodot. vi, 40; and
- Mr. Clinton seems inclined towards the same opinion, see p.
- 314, _ut sup._) that the Scythian expedition is to be placed in
- 508-507 B. C., then indeed the interval between the campaign of
- Otanês and the Ionic revolt would be contracted into one or two
- years. But I have already observed that I cannot think 508 B. C.
- a correct date for the Scythian expedition: it seems to me to
- belong to about 515 B. C. Nor do I know what reason there is for
- determining the date as Wesseling does, except this very phrase
- οὐ πολλὸν χρόνον, which is on every supposition exceedingly
- vague, and which he appears to me not to have construed in the
- best way.
-
-It was about the year 506 B. C., that the exiled Athenian despot
-Hippias, after having been repelled from Sparta by the unanimous
-refusal of the Lacedæmonian allies to take part in his cause,
-presented himself from Sigeium as a petitioner to Artaphernês at
-Sardis. He now, doubtless, found the benefit of the alliance which he
-had formed for his daughter with the despot Æantidês of Lampsakus,
-whose favor with Darius would stand him in good stead. He made
-pressing representations to the satrap, with a view of procuring
-restoration to Athens, on condition of holding it under Persian
-dominion; and Artaphernês was prepared, if an opportunity offered,
-to aid him in his design. So thoroughly had he resolved on espousing
-actively the cause of Hippias, that when the Athenians despatched
-envoys to Sardis, to set forth the case of the city against its
-exiled pretender, he returned to them an answer not merely of denial,
-but of menace,—bidding them receive Hippias back again, if they
-looked for safety.[521] Such a reply was equivalent to a declaration
-of war, and so it was construed at Athens. It leads us to infer that
-he was even then revolving in his mind an expedition against Attica,
-in conjunction with Hippias; but, fortunately for the Athenians,
-other projects and necessities intervened to postpone for several
-years the execution of the scheme.
-
- [521] Herodot. v, 96. Ὁ δὲ Ἀρταφέρνης ἐκέλευέ σφεας εἰ βουλοίατο
- σόοι εἶναι, καταδέκεσθαι ὀπίσω τὸν Ἱππίην.
-
-Of these new projects, the first was that of conquering the island of
-Naxos. Here, too, as in the case of Hippias, the instigation arose
-from Naxian exiles,—a rich oligarchy which had been expelled by a
-rising of the people. This island, like all the rest of the Cyclades,
-was as yet independent of the Persians.[522] It was wealthy,
-prosperous, possessing a large population both of freemen and slaves,
-and defended as well by armed ships as by a force of eight thousand
-heavy-armed infantry. The exiles applied for aid to Aristagoras,
-who saw that he could turn them into instruments of dominion for
-himself in the island, provided he could induce Artaphernês to embark
-in the project along with him,—his own force not being adequate by
-itself. Accordingly, he went to Sardis, and laid his project before
-the satrap, intimating that as soon as the exiles should land with
-a powerful support, Naxos would be reduced with little trouble:
-that the neighboring islands of Paros, Andros, Tênos, and the other
-Cyclades, could not long hold out after the conquest of Naxos, nor
-even the large and valuable island of Eubœa. He himself engaged,
-if a fleet of one hundred ships were granted to him, to accomplish
-all these conquests for the Great King, and to bear the expenses of
-the armament besides. Artaphernês warmly entered into the scheme,
-loaded him with praise, and promised him in the ensuing spring two
-hundred ships instead of one hundred. A messenger despatched to Susa,
-having brought back the ready consent of Darius, a large armament was
-forthwith equipped, under the command of the Persian Megabatês, to be
-placed at the disposal of Aristagoras,—composed both of Persians and
-of all the tributaries near the coast.[523]
-
- [522] Herodot. v, 31. Plutarch says that Lygdamis, established as
- despot at Naxos by Peisistratus (Herodot. i, 64), was expelled
- from this post by the Lacedæmonians (De Herodot. Malignitat. c.
- 21, p. 859). I confess that I do not place much confidence in the
- statements of that treatise, as to the many despots expelled by
- Sparta: we neither know the source from whence Plutarch borrowed
- them, nor any of the circumstances connected with them.
-
- [523] Herodot. v, 30, 31.
-
-With this force Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles set sail from
-Milêtus, giving out that they were going to the Hellespont. On
-reaching Chios, they waited in its western harbor of Kaukasa for
-a fair wind to carry them straight across to Naxos. No suspicion
-was entertained in that island of its real purpose, nor was any
-preparation made for resistance, and the success of Aristagoras
-would have been complete, had it not been defeated by an untoward
-incident ending in dispute. Megabatês, with a solicitude which we
-are surprised to discern in a Persian general, personally made the
-tour of his fleet, to see that every ship was under proper watch,
-and discovered a ship from Myndus (an Asiatic Dorian city near
-Halikarnassus), left without a single man on board. Incensed at this
-neglect, he called before him Skylax, the commander of the ship, and
-ordered him to be put in chains, with his head projecting outwards
-through one of the apertures for oars in the ship’s side. Skylax
-was a guest and friend of Aristagoras, who, on hearing of this
-punishment, interceded with Megabatês for his release; but finding
-the request refused, took upon him to release the prisoner himself.
-He even went so far as to treat the remonstrance of Megabatês with
-disdain, reminding him that, according to the instructions of
-Artaphernês, he was only second and himself (Aristagoras) first. The
-pride of Megabatês could not endure such treatment: as soon as night
-arrived, he sent a private intimation to Naxos of the coming of the
-fleet, warning the islanders to be on their guard. The warning thus
-fortunately received was turned by the Naxians to the best account.
-They carried in their property, laid up stores, and made every
-preparation for a siege, so that when the fleet, probably delayed by
-the dispute between its leaders, at length arrived, it was met by a
-stout resistance, remained on the shore of the island for four months
-in prosecution of an unavailing siege, and was obliged to retire
-without accomplishing anything beyond the erection of a fort, as
-lodgment for the Naxian exiles. After a large cost incurred, not only
-by the Persians, but also by Aristagoras himself, the unsuccessful
-armament was brought back to the coast of Ionia.[524]
-
- [524] Herodot. v, 34, 35.
-
-The failure of this expedition threatened Aristagoras with entire
-ruin. He had incensed Megabatês, deceived Artaphernês, and incurred
-an obligation, which he knew not how to discharge, of indemnifying
-the latter for the costs of the fleet. He began to revolve in his
-mind the scheme of revolting from Persia, when it so happened
-that there arrived nearly at the same moment a messenger from his
-father-in-law, Histiæus, who was detained at the court of Susa,
-secretly instigating him to this very resolution. Not knowing whom
-to trust with this dangerous message, Histiæus had caused the
-head of a faithful slave to be shaved,—branded upon it the words
-necessary,—and then despatched him, so soon as his hair had grown,
-to Milêtus, with a verbal intimation to Aristagoras that his head
-was to be again shaved and examined.[525] Histiæus sought to provoke
-this perilous rising, simply as a means of procuring his own release
-from Susa, and in the calculation that Darius would send him down to
-the coast to reëstablish order. His message, arriving at so critical
-a moment, determined the faltering resolution of Aristagoras, who
-convened his principal partisans at Milêtus, and laid before them
-the formidable project of revolt. All of them approved it, with one
-remarkable exception,—the historian Hekatæus of Milêtus; who opposed
-it as altogether ruinous, and contended that the power of Darius
-was too vast to leave them any prospect of success. When he found
-direct opposition fruitless, he next insisted upon the necessity of
-at once seizing the large treasures in the neighboring temple of
-Apollo, at Branchidæ, for the purpose of carrying on the revolt. By
-this means alone, he said, could the Milesians, too feeble to carry
-on the contest with their own force alone, hope to become masters at
-sea,—while, if _they_ did not take these treasures, the victorious
-enemy surely would. Neither of these recommendations, both of them
-indicating sagacity and foresight in the proposer, were listened to.
-Probably the seizure of the treasures,—though highly useful for the
-impending struggle, and though in the end they fell into the hands
-of the enemy, as Hekatæus anticipated,—would have been insupportable
-to the pious feelings of the people, and would thus have proved more
-injurious than beneficial:[526] perhaps, indeed, Hekatæus himself may
-have urged it with the indirect view of stifling the whole project.
-We may remark that he seems to have urged the question as if Milêtus
-were to stand alone in the revolt; not anticipating, as indeed no
-prudent man could then anticipate, that the Ionic cities generally
-would follow the example.
-
- [525] Herodot. v, 35: compare Polyæn. i, 24, and Aulus Gellius,
- N. A. xvii, 9.
-
- [526] Herodot. v, 36.
-
-Aristagoras and his friends resolved forthwith to revolt, and their
-first step was to conciliate popular favor throughout Asiatic
-Greece by putting down the despots in all the various cities,—the
-instruments not less than the supports of Persian ascendency, as
-Histiæus had well urged at the bridge of the Danube. The opportunity
-was favorable for striking this blow at once on a considerable scale.
-The fleet, recently employed at Naxos, had not yet dispersed, but
-was still assembled at Myus, with many of the despots present at
-the head of their ships. Iatragoras was despatched from Milêtus,
-at once to seize as many of them as he could, and to stir up the
-soldiers to revolt. This decisive proceeding was the first manifesto
-against Darius. Iatragoras was successful: the fleet went along
-with him, and many of the despots fell into his hands,—among them
-Histiæus (a second person so named) of Termera, Oliatus of Mylasa
-(both Karians),[527] Kôês of Mitylênê, and Aristagoras (also a
-second person so named) of Kymê. At the same time the Milesian
-Aristagoras himself, while he formally proclaimed revolt against
-Darius, and invited the Milesians to follow him, laid down his own
-authority, and affected to place the government in the hands of the
-people. Throughout most of the towns of Asiatic Greece, insular and
-continental, a similar revolution was brought about; the despots
-were expelled, and the feelings of the citizens were thus warmly
-interested in the revolt. Such of these despots as fell into the
-hands of Aristagoras were surrendered into the hands of their former
-subjects, by whom they were for the most part quietly dismissed, and
-we shall find them hereafter active auxiliaries to the Persians. To
-this treatment the only exception mentioned is Kôês, who was stoned
-to death by the Mitylenæans.[528]
-
- [527] Compare Herodotus, v, 121, and vii, 98. Oliatus was son of
- Ibanôlis, as was also the Mylasian Herakleidês mentioned in v,
- 121.
-
- [528] Herodot. v, 36, 37; vi, 9.
-
-By these first successful steps the Ionic revolt was made to assume
-an extensive and formidable character; much more so, probably, than
-the prudent Hekatæus had anticipated as practicable. The naval force
-of the Persians in the Ægean was at once taken away from them, and
-passed to their opponents, who were thus completely masters of the
-sea; and would in fact have remained so, if a second naval force had
-not been brought up against them from Phenicia,—a proceeding never
-before resorted to, and perhaps at that time not looked for.
-
-Having exhorted all the revolted towns to name their generals, and
-to put themselves in a state of defence, Aristagoras crossed the
-Ægean to obtain assistance from Sparta, then under the government of
-king Kleomenês; to whom he addressed himself, “holding in his hand a
-brazen tablet, wherein was engraved the circuit of the entire earth,
-with the whole sea and all the rivers.” Probably this was the first
-map or plan which had ever been seen at Sparta, and so profound was
-the impression which it made, that it was remembered there even
-in the time of Herodotus.[529] Having emphatically entreated the
-Spartans to step forth in aid of their Ionic brethren, now engaged
-in a desperate struggle for freedom,—he proceeded to describe the
-wealth and abundance (gold, silver, brass, vestments, cattle,
-and slaves), together with the ineffective weapons and warfare of
-the Asiatics. The latter, he said, could be at once put down, and
-the former appropriated, by military training such as that of the
-Spartans,—whose long spear, brazen helmet and breastplate, and ample
-shield, enabled them to despise the bow, the short javelin, the
-light wicker target, the turban and trowsers, of a Persian.[530] He
-then traced out on his brazen plan the road from Ephesus to Susa,
-indicating the intervening nations, all of them affording a booty
-more or less rich; but he magnified especially the vast treasures at
-Susa: “Instead of fighting your neighbors, he concluded, Argeians,
-Arcadians, and Messenians, from whom you get hard blows and small
-reward, why do you not make yourself ruler of all Asia,[531] a prize
-not less easy than lucrative?” Kleomenês replied to these seductive
-instigations by desiring him to come for an answer on the third day.
-When that day arrived, he put to him the simple question, how far it
-was from Susa to the sea? To which Aristagoras answered, with more
-frankness than dexterity, that it was a three months’ journey; and
-he was proceeding to enlarge upon the facilities of the road when
-Kleomenês interrupted him: “Quit Sparta before sunset, Milesian
-stranger; you are no friend to the Lacedæmonians, if you want to
-carry them a three months’ journey from the sea.” In spite of this
-peremptory mandate, Aristagoras tried a last resource: he took in
-his hand the bough of supplication, and again went to the house of
-Kleomenês, who was sitting with his daughter Gorgô, a girl of eight
-years old. He requested Kleomenês to send away the child, but this
-was refused, and he was desired to proceed; upon which he began to
-offer to the Spartan king a bribe for compliance, bidding continually
-higher and higher from ten talents up to fifty. At length, the little
-girl suddenly exclaimed, “Father, the stranger will corrupt you, if
-you do not at once go away.” The exclamation so struck Kleomenês,
-that he broke up the interview, and Aristagoras forthwith quitted
-Sparta.[532]
-
- [529] Herodot. v, 49. Τῷ δὴ (Κλεομένεϊ) ἐς λόγους ἤϊε, ~ὡς
- Λακεδαιμόνιοι λέγουσι~, ἔχων χάλκεον πίνακα, ἐν τῷ γῆς ἁπάσης
- περίοδος ἐνετέτμητο, καὶ θάλασσά τε πᾶσα καὶ ποταμοὶ πάντες.
-
- The earliest map of which mention is made was prepared by
- Anaximander in Ionia, apparently not long before this period: see
- Strabo, i, p. 7; Agathemerus, 1, c. 1; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 1.
-
- Grosskurd, in his note on the above passage of Strabo, as well
- as Larcher and other critics, appear to think, that though this
- tablet or chart of Anaximander was the earliest which embraced
- the whole known earth, there were among the Greeks others still
- earlier, which described particular countries. There is no proof
- of this, nor can I think it probable: the passage of Apollonius
- Rhodius (iv, 279) with the Scholia to it, which is cited as
- evidence, appears to me unworthy of attention.
-
- Among the Roman Agrimensores, it was the ancient practice to
- engrave their plans, of land surveyed, upon tablets of brass,
- which were deposited in the public archives, and of which copies
- were made for private use, though the original was referred
- to in case of legal dispute (Siculus Flaccus ap. Rei Agrariæ
- Scriptores, p. 16, ed. Goes: compare Giraud, Recherches sur le
- Droit de Propriété, p. 116, Aix, 1838).
-
- [530] Herodot. v, 49. δεικνὺς δὲ ταῦτα ἔλεγε ἐς τὴν τῆς γῆς
- περίοδον, τὴν ἐφέρετο ἐν τῷ πίνακι ἐντετμημένην.
-
- [531] Herodot. v, 49. πάρεχον δὲ τῆς Ἀσίης πάσης ἄρχειν εὐπετέως,
- ἄλλο τι αἱρήσεσθε;
-
- [532] Herodot. v, 49, 50, 51. Compare Plutarch, Apophthegm.
- Laconic. p. 240.
-
- We may remark, both in this instance and throughout all the life
- and time of Kleomenês, that the Spartan king has the active
- management and direction of foreign affairs,—subject, however,
- to trial and punishment by the ephors in case of misbehavior
- (Herodot. vi, 82). We shall hereafter find the ephors gradually
- taking into their own hands, more and more, the actual management.
-
-Doubtless Herodotus heard the account of this interview from
-Lacedæmonian informants. But we may be permitted to doubt, whether
-any such suggestions were really made, or any such hopes held out,
-as those which he places in the mouth of Aristagoras,—suggestions
-and hopes which might well be conceived in 450-440 B. C., after
-a generation of victories over the Persians, but which have no
-pertinence in the year 502 B. C. Down even to the battle of Marathon,
-the name of the Medes was a terror to the Greeks, and the Athenians
-are highly and justly extolled as the first who dared to look them
-in the face.[533] To talk about an easy march up to the treasures of
-Susa and the empire of all Asia, at the time of the Ionic revolt,
-would have been considered as a proof of insanity. Aristagoras may
-very probably have represented, that the Spartans were more than a
-match for Persians in the field; but even thus much would have been
-considered, in 502 B. C., rather as the sanguine hope of a petitioner
-than as the estimate of a sober looker-on.
-
- [533] Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοί τε ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν
- ὁρέοντες, καὶ ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι
- καὶ τὸ οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.
-
-The Milesian chief had made application to Sparta, as the presiding
-power of Hellas,—a character which we thus find more and more
-recognized and passing into the habitual feeling of the Greeks.
-Fifty years previously to this, the Spartans had been flattered by
-the circumstance, that Crœsus singled them out from all other Greeks
-to invite as allies: now they accepted such priority as a matter of
-course.[534]
-
- [534] Aristagoras says to the Spartans (v, 49)—τὰ κατήκοντα γάρ
- ἐστι ταῦτα· Ἰώνων παῖδας δούλους εἶναι ἀντ᾽ ἐλευθέρων, ὄνειδος
- καὶ ἄλγος μέγιστον μὲν αὐτοῖσι ἡμῖν, ἔτι δὲ τῶν λοιπῶν ὑμῖν,
- ὅσῳ προεστέατε τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Herodotus, v, 49). In reference to
- the earlier incident (Herodot. i, 70)—Τουτέων τε ὦν εἵνεκεν οἱ
- Λακεδαιμόνιοι τὴν συμμαχίην ἐδέξαντο, καὶ ὅτι ἐκ πάντων σφέας
- προκρίνας Ἑλλήνων, αἱρέετο φίλους (Crœsus).
-
- An interval of rather more than forty years separates the two
- events, during which both the feelings of the Spartans, and the
- feelings of others towards them, had undergone a material change.
-
-Rejected at Sparta, Aristagoras proceeded to Athens, now decidedly
-the second power in Greece. And here he found an easier task, not
-only as it was the metropolis, or mother-city, of Asiatic Ionia,
-but also as it had already incurred the pronounced hostility of the
-Persian satrap, and might look to be attacked as soon as the project
-came to suit his convenience, under the instigation of Hippias:
-whereas the Spartans had not only no kindred with Ionia, beyond
-that of common Hellenism, but were in no hostile relations with
-Persia, and would have been provoking a new enemy by meddling in the
-Asiatic war. The promises and representations of Aristagoras were
-accordingly received with great favor by the Athenians: who, over and
-above the claims of sympathy, had a powerful interest in sustaining
-the Ionic revolt as an indirect protection to themselves,—and to
-whom the abstraction of the Ionic fleet from the Persians afforded
-a conspicuous and important relief. The Athenians at once resolved
-to send a fleet of twenty ships, under Melanthius, as an aid to the
-revolted Ionians,—ships which are styled by Herodotus, “the beginning
-of the mischiefs between Greeks and barbarians,”—as the ships in
-which Paris crossed the Ægean had before been called in the Iliad
-of Homer. Herodotus farther remarks that it seems easier to deceive
-many men together than one,—since Aristagoras, after having failed
-with Kleomenês, thus imposed upon the thirty thousand citizens of
-Athens.[535] But on this remark two comments suggest themselves.
-First, the circumstances of Athens and Sparta were not the same in
-regard to the Ionic quarrel,—an observation which Herodotus himself
-had made a little while before: the Athenians had a material interest
-in the quarrel, political as well as sympathetic, while the Spartans
-had none. Secondly, the ultimate result of their interference,
-as it stood in the time of Herodotus, though purchased by severe
-intermediate hardship, was one eminently gainful and glorifying, not
-less to Athens than to Greece.[536]
-
- [535] Herodot. v, 97. πολλοὺς γὰρ οἶκε εἶναι εὐπετέστερον
- διαβάλλειν ἢ ἕνα, εἰ Κλεομένεα μὲν τὸν Λακεδαιμόνιον μοῦνον οὐκ
- οἷός τε ἐγένετο διαβαλέειν, τρεῖς δὲ μυριάδας Ἀθηναίων ἐποίησε
- τοῦτο.
-
- [536] Herodot. v, 98; Homer, Iliad, v, 62. The criticism of
- Plutarch (De Malignitat. Herodot. p. 861) on this passage, is
- rather more pertinent than the criticisms in that ill-tempered
- composition generally are.
-
-When Aristagoras returned, he seems to have found the Persians
-engaged in the siege of Milêtus. The twenty Athenian ships soon
-crossed the Ægean, and found there five Eretrian ships which had also
-come to the succor of the Ionians; the Eretrians generously taking
-this opportunity to repay assistance formerly rendered to them by
-the Milesians in their ancient war with Chalkis. On the arrival of
-these allies, Aristagoras organized an expedition from Ephesus up to
-Sardis, under the command of his brother Charopinus, with others. The
-ships were left at Korêssus,[537] a mountain and seaport five miles
-from Ephesus, while the troops marched up under Ephesian guides,
-first, along the river Kayster, next, across the mountain range of
-Tmôlus to Sardis. Artaphernês had not troops enough to do more than
-hold the strong citadel, so that the assailants possessed themselves
-of the town without opposition. But he immediately recalled his
-force near Miletus,[538] and summoned Persians and Lydians from
-all the neighboring districts, thus becoming more than a match
-for Charopinus; who found himself, moreover, obliged to evacuate
-Sardis, owing to an accidental conflagration. Most of the houses in
-that city were built in great part with reeds or straw, and all of
-them had thatched roofs; hence it happened that a spark touching
-one of them set the whole city in flame. Obliged to abandon their
-dwellings by this accident, the population of the town congregated
-in the market-place,—and as reinforcements were hourly crowding
-in, the position of the Ionians and Athenians became precarious:
-they evacuated the town, took up a position on Mount Tmôlus, and,
-when night came, made the best of their way to the sea-coast. The
-troops of Artaphernês pursued, overtook them near Ephesus, and
-defeated them completely. Eualkidês, the Eretrian general, a man of
-eminence and a celebrated victor at the solemn games, perished in the
-action, together with a considerable number of troops. After this
-unsuccessful commencement, the Athenians betook themselves to their
-vessels and sailed home, in spite of pressing instances on the part
-of Aristagoras to induce them to stay. They took no farther part in
-the struggle;[539] a retirement at once so sudden and so complete,
-that they must probably have experienced some glaring desertion on
-the part of their Asiatic allies, similar to that which brought so
-much danger upon the Spartan general Derkyllidas, in 396 B. C. Unless
-such was the case, they seem open to censure rather for having too
-soon withdrawn their aid, than for having originally lent it.[540]
-
- [537] About Korêssus, see Diodor. xiv, 99, and Xenophon, Hellen.
- i, 2, 7.
-
- [538] Charôn of Lampsakus, and Lysanias in his history of
- Eretria, seem to have mentioned this first siege of Milêtus, and
- the fact of its being raised in consequence of the expedition to
- Sardis; see Plutarch, de Herodot. Malignit. p. 861,—though the
- citation is given there confusedly, so that we cannot make much
- out of it.
-
- [539] Herodot. v, 102, 103. It is a curious fact that Charôn of
- Lampsakus made no mention of this defeat of the united Athenian
- and Ionian force: see Plutarch, de Herodot. Malign. _ut sup._
-
- [540] About Derkyllidas, see Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 2, 17-19.
-
-The burning of a place so important as Sardis, however, including
-the temples of the local goddess Kybêbê, which perished with
-the remaining buildings, produced a powerful effect on both
-sides,—encouraging the revolters, as well as incensing the Persians.
-Aristagoras despatched ships along the coast, northward as far as
-Byzantium, and southward as far as Cyprus. The Greek cities near
-the Hellespont and the Propontis were induced, either by force or
-by inclination, to take part with him: the Karians embraced his
-cause warmly; even the Kaunians, who had not declared themselves
-before, joined him as soon as they heard of the capture of Sardis;
-while the Greeks in Cyprus, with the single exception of the town of
-Amathûs, at once renounced the authority of Darius, and prepared for
-a strenuous contest. Onesilus of Salamis, the most considerable city
-in the island,—finding the population willing, but his brother, the
-despot Gorgus, reluctant,—shut the latter out of the gates, took the
-command of the united forces of Salamis and other revolting cities,
-and laid siege to Amathûs. These towns of Cyprus were then, and seem
-always afterwards to have continued, under the government of despots;
-who, however, unlike the despots in Ionia generally, took part along
-with their subjects in the revolt against Persia.[541]
-
- [541] Herodot. v, 103, 104, 108. Compare the proceedings in
- Cyprus against Artaxerxês Mnêmon, under the energetic Evagoras of
- Salamis (Diodor. xiv, 98, xv, 2), about 386 B. C.: most of the
- petty princes of the island became for the time his subjects,
- but in 351 B. C. there were nine of them independent (Diodor.
- xvi, 42), and seemingly quite as many at the time when Alexander
- besieged Tyre (Arrian, ii, 20, 8).
-
-The rebellion had now assumed a character more serious than ever, and
-the Persians were compelled to put forth their strongest efforts to
-subdue it. From the number of different nations comprised in their
-empire, they were enabled to make use of the antipathies of one
-against the other; and the old adverse feeling of Phenicians against
-Greeks was now found extremely serviceable. After a year spent in
-getting together forces,[542] the Phenician fleet was employed to
-transport into Cyprus the Persian general Artybius with a Kilikian
-and Egyptian army,[543]—while the force under Artaphernês at Sardis
-was so strengthened as to enable him to act at once against all the
-coast of Asia Minor, from the Propontis to the Triopian promontory.
-On the other side, the common danger had for the moment brought the
-Ionians into a state of union foreign to their usual habit, and we
-hear now, for the first and the last time, of a tolerably efficient
-Pan-Ionic authority.[544]
-
- [542] Herodot. v, 116. Κύπριοι μὲν δὴ, ἐνιαυτὸν ἐλεύθεροι
- γενόμενοι, αὖτις ἐκ νέης κατεδεδούλωντο.
-
- [543] Herodot. vi, 6. Κίλικες καὶ Αἰγύπτιοι.
-
- [544] Herodot. v, 109. Ἡμέας δὲ ἀπέπεμψε ~τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἰώνων~
- φυλάξοντας τὴν θάλασσαν, etc.: compare vi, 7.
-
-Apprized of the coming of Artybius with the Phenician fleet, Onesilus
-and his Cyprian supporters solicited the aid of the Ionic fleet,
-which arrived shortly after the disembarkation of the Persian force
-in the island. Onesilus offered to the Ionians their choice, whether
-they would fight the Phenicians at sea or the Persians on land. Their
-natural determination was in favor of the seafight, and they engaged
-with a degree of courage and unanimity which procured for them a
-brilliant victory; the Samians being especially distinguished.[545]
-But the combat on land, carried on at the same time, took a different
-turn. Onesilus and the Salaminians brought into the field, after
-the fashion of Orientals rather than of Greeks, a number of scythed
-chariots, destined to break the enemy’s ranks; while on the other
-hand the Persian general Artybius was mounted on a horse, trained to
-rise on his hind legs and strike out with his fore legs against an
-opponent on foot. In the thick of the fight, Onesilus and his Karian
-shield-bearer came into personal conflict with this general and his
-horse; and by previous concert, when the horse so reared as to get
-his fore legs over the shield of Onesilus, the Karian with a scythe
-severed the legs from his body, while Onesilus with his own hand
-slew Artybius. But the personal bravery of the Cypriots was rendered
-useless by treachery in their own ranks. Stêsênor, despot of Kurium,
-deserted in the midst of the battle, and even the scythed chariots
-of Salamis followed his example. The brave Onesilus, thus weakened,
-perished in the total rout of his army, along with Aristokyprus
-despot of Soli, on the north coast of the island: this latter being
-son of that Philokyprus who had been immortalized more than sixty
-years before, in the poems of Solon. No farther hopes now remained
-for the revolters, and the victorious Ionian fleet returned home.
-Salamis relapsed under the sway of its former despot Gorgus, while
-the remaining cities in Cyprus were successively besieged and taken:
-not without a resolute defence, however, since Soli alone held out
-five months.[546]
-
- [545] Herodot. v, 112.
-
- [546] Herodot. v, 112-115. It is not uninteresting to compare,
- with this reconquest of Cyprus by the Persians, the conquest of
- the same island by the Turks in 1570, when they expelled from it
- the Venetians. See the narrative of that conquest (effected in
- the reign of Selim the Second by the Seraskier Mustapha-Pasha),
- in Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reichs, book xxxvi,
- vol. iii, pp. 578-589. Of the two principal towns, Nikosia in
- the centre of the island, and Famagusta on the north-eastern
- coast, the first, after a long siege, was taken by storm, and the
- inhabitants of every sex and age either put to death or carried
- into slavery; while the second, after a most gallant defence, was
- allowed to capitulate. But the terms of the capitulation were
- violated in the most flagitious manner by the Seraskier, who
- treated the brave Venetian governor, Bragadino, with frightful
- cruelty, cutting off his nose and ears, exposing him to all sorts
- of insults, and ultimately causing him to be flayed alive. The
- skin of this unfortunate general was conveyed to Constantinople
- as a trophy, but in after-times found its way to Venice.
-
- We read of nothing like this treatment of Bragadino in the
- Persian reconquest of Cyprus, though it was a subjugation after
- revolt; indeed, nothing like it in all Persian warfare.
-
- Von Hammer gives a short sketch (not always very accurate as to
- ancient times) of the condition of Cyprus under its successive
- masters,—Persians, Græco-Egyptians, Romans, Arabians, the dynasty
- of Lusignan, Venetians, and Turks,—the last seems decidedly the
- worst of all.
-
- In reference to the above-mentioned piece of cruelty, I may
- mention that the Persian king Kambysês caused one of the royal
- judges (according to Herodotus v, 25), who had taken a bribe
- to render an iniquitous judgment, to be flayed alive, and his
- skin to be stretched upon the seat on which his son was placed
- to succeed him; as a lesson of justice to the latter. A similar
- story is told respecting the Persian king Artaxerxês Mnêmon; and
- what is still more remarkable, the same story is also recounted
- in the Turkish history, as an act of Mohammed the Second (Von
- Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannisch. Reichs, book xvii, vol. ii, p.
- 209; Diodorus, xv, 10). Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii, 6) had good
- reason to treat the reality of the fact as problematical.
-
-Meanwhile the principal force of Darius having been assembled
-at Sardis,—Daurisês, Hymeas, and other generals who had married
-daughters of the Great King, distributed their efforts against
-different parts of the western coast. Daurisês attacked the
-towns near the Hellespont,[547]—Abydus, Perkôtê, Lampsakus, and
-Pæsus,—which made little resistance. He was then ordered southward
-into Karia, while Hymeas, who, with another division, had taken Kios
-on the Propontis, marched down to the Hellespont and completed the
-conquest of the Troad as well as of the Æolic Greeks in the region
-of Ida. Artaphernês and Otanês attacked the Ionic and Æolic towns on
-the coast,—the former taking Klazomenæ,[548] the latter Kymê. There
-remained Karia, which, with Milêtus in its neighborhood, offered
-a determined resistance to Daurisês. Forewarned of his approach,
-the Karians assembled at a spot called the White Pillars, near the
-confluence of the rivers Mæander and Marsyas. Pixodarus, one of their
-chiefs, recommended the desperate expedient of fighting with the
-river at their back, so that all chance of flight might be cut off;
-but most of the chiefs decided in favor of a contrary policy,[549]—to
-let the Persians pass the river, in hopes of driving them back into
-it and thus rendering their defeat total. Victory, however, after a
-sharp contest, declared in favor of Daurisês, chiefly in consequence
-of his superior numbers: two thousand Persians, and not less than
-ten thousand Karians, are said to have perished in the battle. The
-Karian fugitives, reunited after the flight, in the grove of noble
-plane-trees consecrated to Zeus Stratius, near Labranda,[550] were
-deliberating whether they should now submit to the Persians or
-emigrate forever, when the appearance of a Milesian reinforcement
-restored their courage. A second battle was fought, and a second
-time they were defeated, the loss on this occasion falling chiefly
-on the Milesians.[551] The victorious Persians now proceeded to
-assault Karian cities, but Herakleidês of Mylasa laid an ambuscade
-for them with so much skill and good fortune, that their army was
-nearly destroyed, and Daurisês with other Persian generals perished.
-This successful effort, following upon two severe defeats, does honor
-to the constancy of the Karians, upon whom Greek proverbs generally
-fasten a mean reputation. It saved for the time the Karian towns,
-which the Persians did not succeed in reducing until after the
-capture of Milêtus.[552]
-
- [547] Herodot. v, 117.
-
- [548] Herodot. v, 122-124.
-
- [549] Herodot. v, 118. On the topography of this spot, as
- described in Herodotus, see a good note in Weissenborn, Beyträge
- zur genaueren Erforschung der alt. Griechischen Geschichte, p.
- 116, Jena, 1844.
-
- He thinks, with much reason, that the river Marsyas here
- mentioned cannot be that which flows through Kelænæ, but another
- of the same name which flows into the Mæander from the southwest.
-
- [550] About the village of Labranda and the temple of Zeus
- Stratius, see Strabo, xiv, p. 659. Labranda was a village in
- the territory of, and seven miles distant from, the inland town
- of Mylasa; it was Karian at the time of the Ionic revolt, but
- partially Hellenized before the year 350 B. C. About this latter
- epoch, three rural tribes of Mylasa—constituting along with the
- citizens of the town, the Mylasene community—were, Ταρκόνδαρα,
- Ὀτώρκονδα, Λάβρανδα,—see the Inscription in Boeckh’s Collection,
- No. 2695, and in Franz, Epigraphicê Græca, No. 73, p. 191. In
- the Lydian language, λάβρυς is said to have signified a hatchet
- (Plutarch, Quæst. Gr. c. 45, p. 314).
-
- [551] Herodot. v, 118, 119.
-
- [552] Herodot. v, 120, 121; vi, 25.
-
-On land, the revolters were thus everywhere worsted, though at sea
-the Ionians still remained masters. But the unwarlike Aristagoras
-began to despair of success, and to meditate a mean desertion of
-the companions and countrymen whom he had himself betrayed into
-danger. Assembling his chief advisers, he represented to them the
-unpromising state of affairs, and the necessity of securing some
-place of refuge, in case they were expelled from Milêtus. He then put
-the question to them, whether the island of Sardinia, or Myrkinus in
-Thrace, near the Strymon (which Histiæus had begun some time before
-to fortify, as I have mentioned in the preceding chapter), appeared
-to them best adapted to the purpose. Among the persons consulted
-was Hekatæus the historian, who approved neither the one nor the
-other scheme, but suggested the erection of a fortified post in the
-neighboring island of Leros; a Milesian colony, wherein a temporary
-retirement might be sought, should it prove impossible to hold
-Milêtus, but which permitted an easy return to that city, so soon
-as opportunity offered.[553] Such an opinion must doubtless have
-been founded on the assumption, that they would be able to maintain
-superiority at sea. And it is important to note such confident
-reliance upon this superiority in the mind of a sagacious man, not
-given to sanguine hopes, like Hekatæus,—even under circumstances
-very unprosperous on land. Emigration to Myrkinus, as proposed by
-Aristagoras, presented no hope of refuge at all; since the Persians,
-if they regained their authority in Asia Minor, would not fail again
-to extend it to the Strymon. Nevertheless, the consultation ended
-by adopting this scheme, since, probably, no Ionians could endure
-the immeasurable distance of Sardinia as a new home. Aristagoras
-set sail for Myrkinus, taking with him all who chose to bear him
-company; but he perished not long after landing, together with nearly
-all his company, in the siege of a neighboring Thracian town.[554]
-Though making profession to lay down his supreme authority at the
-commencement of the revolt, he had still contrived to retain it in
-great measure; and on departing for Myrkinus, he devolved it on
-Pythagoras, a citizen in high esteem. It appears however that the
-Milesians, glad to get rid of a leader who had brought them nothing
-but mischief,[555] paid little obedience to his successor, and made
-their government from this period popular in reality as well as in
-profession. The desertion of Aristagoras, with the citizens whom
-he carried away, must have seriously damped the spirits of those
-who remained: nevertheless, it seems that the cause of the Ionic
-revolters was quite as well conducted without him.
-
- [553] Herodot. v, 125; Strabo, xiv, p. 635.
-
- [554] Herodot. v, 126.
-
- [555] Herodot. vi, 5. Οἱ δὲ Μιλήσιοι, ἄσμενοι ἀπαλλαχθέντες καὶ
- Ἀρισταγόρεῳ, οὐδαμῶς ἕτοιμοι ἔσαν ἄλλον τύραννον δέκεσθαι ἐς τὴν
- χώρην, οἷά τε ἐλευθερίης γευσάμενοι.
-
-Not long after his departure, another despot—Histiæus of Milêtus,
-his father-in-law, and jointly with him the fomenter of the
-revolt—presented himself at the gates of Milêtus for admission. The
-outbreak of the revolt had enabled him, as he had calculated, to
-procure leave of departure from Darius. That prince had been thrown
-into violent indignation by the attack and burning of Sardis, and
-by the general revolt of Ionia, headed (so the news reached him)
-by the Milesian Aristagoras, but carried into effect by the active
-coöperation of the Athenians. “The Athenians (exclaimed Darius),
-who are _they_?” On receiving the answer, he asked for his bow,
-placed an arrow on the string, and shot as high as he could towards
-the heavens, saying: “Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on the
-Athenians.” He at the same time desired an attendant to remind him
-thrice every day at dinner: “Master, remember the Athenians;” for as
-to the Ionians, he felt assured that their hour of retribution would
-come speedily and easily enough.[556]
-
- [556] Herodot. v, 105. Ὦ Ζεῦ, ἐκγενέσθαί μοι Ἀθηναίους τίσασθαι.
- Compare the Thracian practice of communicating with the gods by
- shooting arrows high up into the air (Herodot. iv, 94).
-
-This Homeric incident deserves notice as illustrating the epical
-handling of Herodotus. His theme is, the invasions of Greece by
-Persia: he has now arrived at the first eruption, in the bosom of
-Darius, of that passion which impelled the Persian forces towards
-Marathon and Salamis,—and he marks the beginning of the new phase
-by act and word both alike significant. It may be compared to the
-libation and prayer addressed by Achilles in the Iliad to Zeus, at
-the moment when he is sending forth Patroklus and the Myrmidons to
-the rescue of the despairing Greeks.
-
-At first, Darius had been inclined to ascribe the movement in Ionia
-to the secret instigation of Histiæus, whom he called into his
-presence and questioned. But the latter found means to satisfy him,
-and even to make out that no such mischief would have occurred, if
-he, Histiæus, had been at Milêtus instead of being detained at Susa.
-“Send me down to the spot, he asseverated, and I engage not merely
-to quell the revolt, and put into your hands the traitor who heads
-it, but also, not to take off this tunic from my body, before I
-shall have added to your empire the great island of Sardinia.” An
-expedition to Sardinia, though never realized, appears to have been
-among the favorite fancies of the Ionic Greeks of that day.[557] By
-such boasts and assurances he obtained his liberty, and went down to
-Sardis, promising to return as soon as he should have accomplished
-them.[558]
-
- [557] Herodot. v, 107, vi, 2. Compare the advice of Bias of
- Priênê to the Ionians, when the Persian conqueror Cyrus was
- approaching, to found a Pan-Ionic colony in Sardinia (Herodot. i,
- 170): the idea started by Aristagoras has been alluded to just
- above (Herodot. v, 124).
-
- Pausanias (iv, 23, 2) puts into the mouth of Mantiklus, son of
- Aristomenês, a recommendation to the Messenians, when conquered a
- second time by the Spartans, to migrate to Sardinia.
-
- [558] Herodot. v, 106, 107.
-
-But on reaching Sardis he found the satrap Artaphernês better
-informed than the Great King at Susa. Though Histiæus, when
-questioned as to the causes which had brought on the outbreak,
-affected nothing but ignorance and astonishment, Artaphernês detected
-his evasions, and said: “I will tell you how the facts stand,
-Histiæus: it is you that have stitched this shoe, and Aristagoras
-has put it on.”[559] Such a declaration promised little security
-to the suspected Milesian who heard it; and accordingly, as soon
-as night arrived, he took to flight, went down to the coast, and
-from thence passed over to Chios. Here he found himself seized on
-the opposite count, as the confidant of Darius and the enemy of
-Ionia: he was released, however, on proclaiming himself not merely a
-fugitive escaping from Persian custody, but also as the prime author
-of the Ionic revolt. And he farther added, in order to increase
-his popularity, that Darius had contemplated the translation of the
-Ionian population to Phenicia, as well as that of the Phenician
-population to Ionia,—to prevent which translation he, Histiæus, had
-instigated the revolt. This allegation, though nothing better than
-a pure fabrication, obtained for him the good-will of the Chians,
-who carried him back to Milêtus. But before he departed, he avenged
-himself on Artaphernês by despatching to Sardis some false letters,
-implicating many distinguished Persians in a conspiracy jointly with
-himself: these letters were so managed as to fall into the hands
-of the satrap himself, who became full of suspicion, and put to
-death several of the parties, to the great uneasiness of all around
-him.[560]
-
- [559] Herodot. vi, 1. Οὕτω τοι, Ἱστίαιε, ἔχει κατὰ ταῦτα
- τὰ πρήγματα· τοῦτο τὸ ὑπόδημα ἔῤῥαψας μὲν σὺ, ὑπεδήσατο δὲ
- Ἀρισταγόρης.
-
- [560] Herodot. vi, 2-5.
-
-On arriving at Milêtus, Histiæus found Aristagoras no longer present,
-and the citizens altogether adverse to the return of their old
-despot. Nevertheless, he tried to force his way by night into the
-town, but was repulsed and even wounded in the thigh. He returned
-to Chios, but the Chians refused him the aid of any of their ships:
-he next passed to Lesbos, from the inhabitants of which island he
-obtained eight triremes, and employed them to occupy Byzantium,
-pillaging and detaining the Ionian merchant-ships as they passed
-into or out of the Euxine.[561] The few remaining piracies of this
-worthless traitor, mischievous to his countrymen down to the day of
-his death, hardly deserve our notice, amidst the last struggles and
-sufferings of the subjugated Ionians, to which we are now hastening.
-
- [561] Herodot. vi, 5-26.
-
-A vast Persian force, both military and naval, was gradually
-concentrating itself near Milêtus, against which city Artaphernês had
-determined to direct his principal efforts. Not only the whole army
-of Asia Minor, but also the Kilikian and Egyptian troops fresh from
-the conquest of Cyprus, and even the conquered Cypriots themselves,
-were brought up as reinforcements; while the entire Phenician fleet,
-no less than six hundred ships strong, coöperated on the coast.[562]
-To meet such a land-force in the field, being far beyond the strength
-of the Ionians, the joint Pan-Ionic council resolved that the
-Milesians should be left to defend their own fortifications, while
-the entire force of the confederate cities should be mustered on
-board the ships. At sea they had as yet no reason to despair, having
-been victorious over the Phenicians near Cyprus, and having sustained
-no defeat. The combined Ionic fleet, including the Æolic Lesbians,
-amounting in all to the number of three hundred and fifty-three
-ships, was accordingly mustered at Ladê,—then a little island near
-Milêtus, but now joined on to the coast, by the gradual accumulation
-of land in the bay at the mouth of the Mæander. Eighty Milesian ships
-formed the right wing, one hundred Chian ships the centre, and sixty
-Samian ships the left wing; while the space between the Milesians and
-the Chians was occupied by twelve ships from Priênê, three from Myus,
-and seventeen from Teôs,—the space between the Chians and Samians was
-filled by eight ships from Erythræ, three from Phôkæa, and seventy
-from Lesbos.[563]
-
- [562] Herodot. vi, 6-9.
-
- [563] Herodot. vi, 8.
-
-The total armament thus made up was hardly inferior in number to that
-which, fifteen years afterwards, gained the battle of Salamis against
-a far larger Persian fleet than the present. Moreover, the courage of
-the Ionians, on ship-board, was equal to that of their contemporaries
-on the other side of the Ægean; while in respect of disagreement
-among the allies, we shall hereafter find the circumstances preceding
-the battle of Salamis still more menacing than those before the
-coming battle of Ladê. The chances of success, therefore, were at
-least equal between the two; and indeed the anticipations of the
-Persians and Phenicians on the present occasion were full of doubt,
-so that they thought it necessary to set on foot express means for
-disuniting the Ionians,—it was fortunate for the Greeks that Xerxês
-at Salamis could not be made to conceive the prudence of aiming at
-the same object. There were now in the Persian camp all those various
-despots whom Aristagoras, at the beginning of the revolt, had driven
-out of their respective cities. At the instigation of Artaphernês,
-each of these men despatched secret communications to their citizens
-in the allied fleet, endeavoring to detach them severally from
-the general body, by promises of gentle treatment in the event of
-compliance, and by threats of extreme infliction from the Persians
-if they persisted in armed efforts. Though these communications were
-sent to each without the knowledge of the rest, yet the answer from
-all was one unanimous negative.[564] And the confederates at Ladê
-seemed more one, in heart and spirit, than the Athenians, Spartans,
-and Corinthians will hereafter prove to be at Salamis.
-
- [564] Herodot. vi, 9-10.
-
-But there was one grand difference which turned the scale,—the
-superior energy and ability of the Athenian leaders at Salamis,
-coupled with the fact that they _were_ Athenians,—that is, in command
-of the largest and most important contingent throughout the fleet.
-
-At Ladê, unfortunately, this was quite otherwise: each separate
-contingent had its own commander, but we hear of no joint commander
-at all. Nor were the chiefs who came from the larger cities—Milesian,
-Chian, Samian, or Lesbian—men like Themistoklês, competent and
-willing to stand forward as self-created leaders, and to usurp for
-the moment, with the general consent and for the general benefit, a
-privilege not intended for them. The only man of sufficient energy
-and forwardness to do this, was the Phôkæan Dionysius,—unfortunately,
-the captain of the smallest contingent of the fleet, and therefore
-enjoying the least respect. For Phôkæa, once the daring explorer of
-the western waters, had so dwindled down since the Persian conquest
-of Ionia, that she could now furnish no more than three ships;
-and her ancient maritime spirit survived only in the bosom of her
-captain. When Dionysius saw the Ionians assembled at Ladê, willing,
-eager, full of talk and mutual encouragement, but untrained and
-taking no thought of discipline, or nautical practice, or coöperation
-in the hour of battle,—he saw the risk which they ran for want of
-these precautions, and strenuously remonstrated with them: “Our fate
-hangs on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia: either to be freemen or
-slaves,—and slaves too, caught after running away. Set yourself at
-once to work and duty,—you will then have trouble indeed at first,
-with certain victory and freedom afterwards. But if you persist
-in this carelessness and disorder, there is no hope for you to
-escape the king’s revenge for your revolt. Be persuaded and commit
-yourself to me; and I pledge myself, if the gods only hold an equal
-balance, that your enemies either will not fight, or will be severely
-beaten.”[565]
-
- [565] Herodot. vi, 11. Ἐπὶ ξυροῦ γὰρ ἀκμῆς ἔχεται ἡμῖν τὰ
- πρήγματα, ἄνδρες Ἴωνες, ἢ εἶναι ἐλευθέροισι ἢ δούλοισι, καὶ
- τούτοισι ὡς δρηπέτῃσι· νῦν ὦν ὑμέες, ἢν μὲν βούλησθε ταλαιπωρίας
- ἐνδέκεσθαι, τὸ παραχρῆμα μὲν πόνος ὑμῖν ἔσται, οἷοί τε δὲ ἔσεσθε,
- ὑπερβαλλόμενοι τοὺς ἐναντίους, εἶναι ἐλεύθεροι, etc.
-
-The wisdom of this advice was so apparent, that the Ionians, quitting
-their comfortable tents on the shore of Ladê and going on board
-their ships, submitted themselves to the continuous nautical labors
-and manœuvres imposed upon them by Dionysius. The rowers, and the
-hoplites on the deck, were exercised in their separate functions, and
-even when they were not so employed, the ships were kept at anchor,
-and the crews on board, instead of on shore; so that the work lasted
-all day long, under a hot summer’s sun. Such labor, new to the Ionian
-crews, was endured for seven successive days, after which they broke
-out with one accord into resolute mutiny and refusal: “Which of the
-gods have we offended, to bring upon ourselves such a retribution
-as this? madmen as we are, to put ourselves into the hands of this
-Phôkæan braggart, who has furnished only three ships![566] He has
-now got us, and is ruining us without remedy: many of us are already
-sick, many others are sickening; we had better make up our minds to
-Persian slavery, or any other mischiefs, rather than go on with these
-present sufferings. Come, we will not obey this man any longer.” And
-they forthwith refused to execute his orders, resuming their tents
-on shore, with the enjoyments of shade, rest, and inactive talk, as
-before.
-
- [566] Herodot. vi, 12. Οἱ Ἴωνες, οἷα ἀπαθέες ἐόντες πόνων
- τοιούτων, τετρυμένοι τε ταλαιπωρίῃσί τε καὶ ἡελίῳ, ἔλεξαν πρὸς
- ἑωϋτοὺς τάδε—Τίνα δαιμόνων παραβάντες, τάδε ἀναπίμπλαμεν, οἵτινες
- παραφρονήσαντες, καὶ ἐκπλώσαντες ἐκ τοῦ νόου, ἀνδρὶ Φωκαέει
- ἀλαζόνι, παρεχομένῳ νέας τρεῖς, ἐπιτρέψαντες ἡμέας αὐτοὺς ἔχομεν,
- etc.
-
-I have not chosen to divest this instructive scene of the dramatic
-liveliness with which it is given in Herodotus,—the more so as it
-has all the air of reality, and as Hekatæus, the historian, was
-probably present in the island of Ladê, and may have described
-what he actually saw and heard. When we see the intolerable
-hardship which these nautical manœuvres and labors imposed upon the
-Ionians, though men not unaccustomed to ordinary ship-work,—and
-when we witness their perfect incapacity to submit themselves to
-such a discipline, even with extreme danger staring them in the
-face,—we shall be able to appreciate the severe and unremitting toil
-whereby the Athenian seaman afterwards purchased that perfection
-of nautical discipline which characterized him at the beginning
-of the Peloponnesian war. It will appear, as we proceed with this
-history, that the full development of the Athenian democracy worked
-a revolution in Grecian military marine, chiefly by enforcing upon
-the citizen seaman a strict continuous training, such as was only
-surpassed by the Lacedæmonian drill on land,—and by thus rendering
-practicable a species of nautical manœuvring which was unknown even
-at the time of the battle of Salamis. I shall show this more fully
-hereafter: at present, I contrast it briefly with the incapacity of
-the Ionians at Ladê, in order that it may be understood how painful
-such training really was. The reader of Grecian history is usually
-taught to associate only ideas of turbulence and anarchy with the
-Athenian democracy; but the Athenian navy, the child and champion
-of that democracy, will be found to display an indefatigable labor
-and obedience nowhere else witnessed in Greece, and of which even
-the first lessons, as in the case now before us, prove to others so
-irksome as to outweigh the prospect of extreme and imminent peril.
-The same impatience of steady toil and discipline, which the Ionians
-displayed to their own ruin before the battle of Ladê, will be found
-to characterize them fifty years afterwards as allies of Athens, as
-I shall have occasion to show when I come to describe the Athenian
-empire.
-
-Ending in this abrupt and mutinous manner, the judicious suggestions
-of the Phôkæan leader did more harm than good. Perhaps his manner of
-dealing may have been unadvisedly rude, but we are surprised to see
-that no one among the leaders of the larger contingents had the good
-sense to avail himself of the first readiness of the Ionians, and to
-employ his superior influence in securing the continuance of a good
-practice once begun. Not one such superior man did this Ionic revolt
-throw up. From the day on which the Ionians discarded Dionysius,
-their camp became a scene of disunion and mistrust. Some of them
-grew so reckless and unmanageable, that the better portion despaired
-of maintaining any orderly battle; and the Samians in particular
-now repented that they had declined the secret offers made to them
-by their expelled despot,[567]—Æakês, son of Sylosôn. They sent
-privately to renew the negotiation, received a fresh promise of the
-same indulgence, and agreed to desert when the occasion arrived. On
-the day of battle, when the two fleets were on the point of coming
-to action, the sixty Samian ships all sailed off, except eleven,
-whose captains disdained such treachery. Other Ionians followed their
-example; yet amidst the reciprocal crimination which Herodotus had
-heard, he finds it difficult to determine who was most to blame,
-though he names the Lesbians as among the earliest deserters.[568]
-The hundred ships from Chios, constituting the centre of the
-fleet—each ship carrying forty chosen soldiers fully armed—formed
-a brilliant exception to the rest; they fought with the greatest
-fidelity and resolution, inflicting upon the enemy, and themselves
-sustaining, heavy loss. Dionysius, the Phôkæan, also behaved in a
-manner worthy of his previous language,—capturing with his three
-ships the like number of Phenicians. But these examples of bravery
-did not compensate the treachery or cowardice of the rest, and the
-defeat of the Ionians at Ladê was complete as well as irrecoverable.
-To the faithful Chians, the loss was terrible, both in the battle and
-after it. For though some of their vessels escaped from the defeat
-safely to Chios, others were so damaged as to be obliged to run
-ashore close at hand on the promontory of Mykalê, where the crews
-quitted them, with the intention of marching northward, through the
-Ephesian territory, to the continent opposite their own island. We
-hear with astonishment that, at that critical moment, the Ephesian
-women were engaged in solemnizing the Thesmophoria,—a festival
-celebrated at night, in the open air, in some uninhabited portion of
-the territory, and without the presence of any male person. As the
-Chian fugitives entered the Ephesian territory by night, their coming
-being neither known nor anticipated,—it was believed that they were
-thieves or pirates coming to seize the women, and under this error
-they were attacked by the Ephesians and slain.[569] It would seem
-from this incident that the Ephesians had taken no part in the Ionic
-revolt, nor are they mentioned amidst the various contingents. Nor is
-anything said either of Kolophon, or Lebedus, or Eræ.[570]
-
- [567] Herodot. vi, 13.
-
- [568] Herodot. vi, 14, 15.
-
- [569] Herodot. vi, 16.
-
- [570] Thucyd. viii, 14.
-
-The Phôkæan Dionysius, perceiving that the defeat of Ladê was the
-ruin of the Ionic cause, and that his native city was again doomed
-to Persian subjection, did not think it prudent even to return home.
-Immediately after the battle he set sail, not for Phôkæa, but for the
-Phenician coast, at this moment stripped of its protecting cruisers.
-He seized several Phenician merchantmen, out of which considerable
-profit was obtained: then setting sail for Sicily, he undertook the
-occupation of a privateer against the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians,
-abstaining from injury towards Greeks.[571] Such an employment seems
-then to have been perfectly admissible. A considerable body of
-Samians also migrated to Sicily, indignant at the treachery of their
-admirals in the battle, and yet more indignant at the approaching
-restoration of their despot Æakês. How these Samian emigrants became
-established in the Sicilian town of Zanklê,[572] I shall mention as a
-part of the course of Sicilian events, which will come hereafter.
-
- [571] Herodot. vi, 17. ληϊστὴς κατεστήκεε Ἑλλήνων μὲν οὐδενὸς,
- Καρχηδονίων δὲ καὶ Τυρσηνῶν.
-
- [572] Herodot. vi, 22-25.
-
-The victory of Ladê enabled the Persians to attack Milêtus by sea as
-well as by land; they prosecuted the siege with the utmost vigor, by
-undermining the walls, and by various engines of attack: in which
-department their resources seem to have been enlarged since the
-days of Harpagus. In no long time the city was taken by storm, and
-miserable was the fate reserved to it. The adult male population was
-chiefly slain; while such of them as were preserved, together with
-the women and children, were sent in a body to Susa, to await the
-orders of Darius,—who assigned to them a residence at Ampê, not far
-from the mouth of the Tigris. The temple at Branchidæ was burned and
-pillaged, as Hekatæus had predicted at the beginning of the revolt:
-the large treasures therein contained must have gone far to defray
-the costs of the Persian army. The Milesian territory is said to
-have been altogether denuded of its former inhabitants,—the Persians
-retaining for themselves the city with the plain adjoining to it,
-and making over the mountainous portions to the Karians of Pedasa.
-Some few of the Milesians found a place among the Samian emigrants
-to Sicily.[573] It is certain, however, that new Grecian inhabitants
-must have been subsequently admitted into Milêtus; for it appears
-ever afterwards as a Grecian town, though with diminished power and
-importance.
-
- [573] Herodot. vi, 18, 19, 20, 22.
-
- Μίλητος μέν νυν Μιλησίων ἠρήμωτο.
-
-The capture of Milêtus, in the sixth year from the commencement
-of the revolt,[574] carried with it the rapid submission of the
-neighboring towns in Karia.[575] During the next summer,—the
-Phenician fleet having wintered at Milêtus,—the Persian forces
-by sea and land reconquered all the Asiatic Greeks, insular as
-well as continental. Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos,—the towns in the
-Chersonese,—Selymbria and Perinthus in Thrace,—Prokonnêsus and Artakê
-in the Propontis,—all these towns were taken or sacked by the Persian
-and Phenician fleet.[576] The inhabitants of Byzantium and Chalkêdôn
-fled for the most part, without even awaiting its arrival, to
-Mesembria, and the Athenian Miltiadês only escaped Persian captivity
-by a rapid flight from his abode in the Chersonese to Athens. His
-pursuers were indeed so close upon him, that one of his ships, with
-his son Metiochus on board, fell into their hands. As Miltiadês had
-been strenuous in urging the destruction of the bridge over the
-Danube, on the occasion of the Scythian expedition, the Phenicians
-were particularly anxious to get possession of his person, as the
-most acceptable of all Greek prisoners to the Persian king; who,
-however, when Metiochus the son of Miltiadês was brought to Susa, not
-only did him no harm, but treated him with great kindness, and gave
-him a Persian wife with a comfortable maintenance.[577]
-
- [574] Herodot. vi, 18, αἱρέουσι κατ᾽ ἄκρης, ἐν τῷ ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ ἀπὸ
- τῆς ἀποστάσιος τῆς Ἀρισταγόρεω. This is almost the only distinct
- chronological statement which we find in Herodotus respecting the
- Ionic revolt. The other evidences of time in his chapters are
- more or less equivocal: nor is there sufficient testimony before
- us to enable us to arrange the events, between the commencement
- of the Ionic revolt, and the battle of Marathon, into the precise
- years to which they belong. The battle of Marathon stands fixed
- for August or September, 490 B. C.: the siege of Milêtus may
- probably have been finished in 496-495 B. C., and the Ionic
- revolt may have begun in 502-501 B. C. Such are the dates which,
- on the whole, appear to me most probable, though I am far from
- considering them as certain.
-
- Chronological critics differ considerably in their arrangement of
- the events here alluded to among particular years. See Appendix,
- No. 5, p. 244, in Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici; Professor
- Schultz, Beyträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen von der 63n zur
- 72n Olympiade, pp. 177-183, in the Kieler Philologische Studien;
- and Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alten
- Griechischen Geschichte, Jena, 1844, p. 87, _seqq._: not to
- mention Reiz and Larcher. Mr. Clinton reckons only ten years from
- the beginning of the Ionic revolt to the battle of Marathon;
- which appears to me too short; though, on the other hand,
- the fourteen years reckoned by Larcher—much more the sixteen
- years reckoned by Reiz—are too long. Mr. Clinton compresses
- inconveniently the latter portion of the interval,—that portion
- which elapsed between the siege of Milêtus and the battle of
- Marathon. And the very improbable supposition to which he is
- obliged to resort,—of a confusion in the language of Herodotus
- between Attic and Olympic years,—indicates that he is pressing
- the text of the historian too closely, when he states, “that
- Herodotus specifies a term of three years between the capture of
- Milêtus, and the expedition of Datis:” see F. H. ad ann. 499. He
- places the capture of Milêtus in 494 B. C.; which I am inclined
- to believe a year later—if not two years later—than the reality.
- Indeed, as Mr. Clinton places the expedition of Aristagoras
- against Naxos (which was _immediately before_ the breaking out of
- the revolt, since Aristagoras seized the Ionic despots while that
- fleet yet remained congregated immediately at the close of the
- expedition) in 501 B. C., and as Herodotus expressly says that
- Milêtus was taken in the sixth year after the revolt, it would
- follow that this capture ought to belong to 495, and not to 494
- B. C. I incline to place it either in 496, or in 495; and the
- Naxian expedition in 502 or 501, leaning towards the earlier of
- the two dates: Schultz agrees with Larcher in placing the Naxian
- expedition in 504 B. C., yet he assigns the capture of Milêtus
- to 496 B. C.,—whereas, Herodotus states that the last of these
- two events was in the sixth year after the revolt, which revolt
- immediately succeeded on the first of the two, within the same
- summer. Weissenborn places the capture of Milêtus in 496 B. C.,
- and the expedition to Naxos in 499,—suspecting that the text in
- Herodotus—ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ—is incorrect, and that it ought to be τετάρτῳ
- ἔτεϊ, the fourth year (p. 125: compare the chronological table
- in his work, p. 222). He attempts to show that the particular
- incidents composing the Ionic revolt, as Herodotus recounts
- it, cannot be made to occupy more than four years; but his
- reasoning is, in my judgment, unsatisfactory, and the conjecture
- inadmissible. The distinct affirmation of the historian, as to
- the entire interval between the two events, is of much more
- evidentiary value than our conjectural summing up of the details.
-
- It is vain, I think, to try to arrange these details according to
- precise years: this can only be done very loosely.
-
- [575] Herodot. vi, 25.
-
- [576] Herodot. vi, 31-33. It may perhaps be to this burning and
- sacking of the cities in the Propontis, and on the Asiatic side
- of the Hellespont, that Strabo (xiii, p. 591) makes allusion;
- though he ascribes the proceeding to a different cause,—to the
- fear of Darius that the Scythians would cross into Asia to avenge
- themselves upon him for attacking them, and that the towns on the
- coast would furnish them with vessels for the passage.
-
- [577] Herodot. vi, 41.
-
-Far otherwise did the Persian generals deal with the reconquered
-cities on and near the coast. The threats which had been held out
-before the battle of Ladê were realized to the full. The most
-beautiful Greek youths and virgins were picked out, to be distributed
-among the Persian grandees as eunuchs, or inmates of the harems; the
-cities with their edifices, sacred as well as profane, were made
-a prey to the flames; and in the case of the islands, Herodotus
-even tells us, that a line of Persians was formed from shore to
-shore, which swept each territory from north to south, and drove
-the inhabitants out of it.[578] That much of this hard treatment is
-well founded, there can be no doubt. But it must be exaggerated as
-to extent of depopulation and destruction, for these islands and
-cities appear ever afterwards as occupied by a Grecian population,
-and even as in a tolerable, though reduced, condition. Samos was made
-an exception to the rest, and completely spared by the Persians, as
-a reward to its captains for setting the example of desertion at the
-battle of Ladê; at the same time, Æakês the despot of that island
-was reinstated in his government.[579] It appears that several other
-despots were also replaced in their respective cities, though we are
-not told which.
-
- [578] Herodot. vi, 31, 32, 33.
-
- [579] Herodot. vi, 25.
-
-Amidst the sufferings endured by so many innocent persons, of
-every age and of both sexes, the fate of Histiæus excites but
-little sympathy. Having learned, while carrying on his piracies at
-Byzantium, the surrender of Milêtus, he thought it expedient to sail
-with his Lesbian vessels to Chios, where admittance was refused to
-him. But the Chians, weakened as they had been by the late battle,
-were in little condition to resist, so that he defeated their troops
-and despoiled the island. During the present break-up of the Asiatic
-Greeks, there were doubtless many who, like the Phôkæan Dionysius,
-did not choose to return home to an enslaved city, yet had no fixed
-plan for a new abode: of these exiles, a considerable number put
-themselves under the temporary command of Histiæus, and accompanied
-him to the plunder of Thasos.[580] While besieging that town, he
-learned the news that the Phenician fleet had quitted Milêtus to
-attack the remaining Ionic towns; and he left his designs on Thasos
-unfinished, in order to go and defend Lesbos. But in this latter
-island the dearth of provisions was such, that he was forced to cross
-over to the continent to reap the standing corn around Atarneus and
-in the fertile plain of Mysia near the river Kaïkus. Here he fell
-in with a considerable Persian force under Harpagus,—was beaten,
-compelled to flee, and taken prisoner. On his being carried to
-Sardis, Artaphernês the satrap caused him to be at once crucified:
-partly, no doubt, from genuine hatred, but partly also under the
-persuasion that, if he were sent up as a prisoner to Susa, he might
-again become dangerous,—since Darius would even now spare his life,
-under an indelible sentiment of gratitude for the maintenance of
-the bridge over the Danube. The head of Histiæus was embalmed and
-sent up to Susa, where Darius caused it to be honorably buried,
-condemning this precipitate execution of a man who had once been his
-preserver.[581]
-
- [580] Herodot. vi, 26-28. ἄγων Ἰώνων καὶ Αἰολέων συχνούς.
-
- [581] Herodot. vi, 28, 29, 30.
-
-We need not wonder that the capture of Milêtus excited the strongest
-feeling, of mixed sympathy and consternation, among the Athenians.
-In the succeeding year (so at least we are led to think, though
-the date cannot be positively determined), it was selected as the
-subject of a tragedy,—The Capture of Milêtus,—by the dramatic poet
-Phrynichus; which, when performed, so painfully wrung the feelings
-of the Athenian audience, that they burst into tears in the theatre,
-and the poet was condemned to pay a fine of one thousand drachmæ, as
-“having recalled to them their own misfortunes.”[582] The piece was
-forbidden to be afterwards acted, and has not come down to us. Some
-critics have supposed that Herodotus has not correctly assigned the
-real motive which determined the Athenians to impose this fine.[583]
-For it is certain that the subjects usually selected for tragedy were
-portions of heroic legend, and not matters of recent history; so that
-the Athenians might complain of Phrynichus on the double ground,—for
-having violated an established canon of propriety, as well as for
-touching their sensibilities too deeply. Still, I see no reason
-for doubting that the cause assigned by Herodotus is substantially
-the true one; but it is very possible that Phrynichus, at an age
-when tragic poetry had not yet reached its full development, might
-touch this very tender subject with a rough and offensive hand,
-before a people who had fair reason to dread the like cruel fate for
-themselves. Æschylus, in his Persæ, would naturally carry with him
-the full tide of Athenian sympathy, while dwelling on the victories
-of Salamis and Platæa. But to interest the audience in Persian
-success and Grecian suffering, was a task in which much greater poets
-than Phrynichus would have failed,—and which no judicious poet would
-have undertaken. The sack of Magdeburg, by Count Tilly, in the Thirty
-Years’ war, was not likely to be endured as the subject of dramatic
-representation in any Protestant town of Germany.
-
- [582] Herodot. vi, 21, ὡς ἀναμνήσαντα οἰκηΐα κακὰ: compare vii,
- 152; also, Kallisthenês ap. Strabo, xiv, p. 635, and Plutarch,
- Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. p. 814.
-
- [583] See Welcker Griechische Tragödien, vol. i, p. 25.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVI.
-
-FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
-
-
-In the preceding chapter, I indicated the point of confluence between
-the European and Asiatic streams of Grecian history,—the commencement
-of a decided Persian intention to conquer Attica; manifested first
-in the form of a threat by Artaphernês the satrap, when he enjoined
-the Athenians to take back Hippias as the only condition of safety,
-and afterwards converted into a passion in the bosom of Darius
-in consequence of the burning of Sardis. From this time forward,
-therefore, the affairs of Greece and Persia came to be in direct
-relation one with the other, and capable of being embodied, much more
-than before, into one continuous narrative.
-
-The reconquest of Ionia being thoroughly completed, Artaphernês
-proceeded to organize the future government of it, with a degree of
-prudence and forethought not often visible in Persian proceedings.
-Convoking deputies from all the different cities, he compelled them
-to enter into a permanent convention, for the amicable settlement
-of disputes, so as to prevent all employment of force by any one
-against the others. Moreover, he caused the territory of each city to
-be measured by parasangs (each parasang was equal to thirty stadia,
-or about three miles and a half), and arranged the assessments
-of tribute according to this measurement, without any material
-departure, however, from the sums which had been paid before the
-revolt.[584]
-
- [584] Herodot. vi, 42.
-
-Unfortunately, Herodotus is unusually brief in his allusion to this
-proceeding, which it would have been highly interesting to be able
-to comprehend perfectly. We may, however, assume it as certain,
-that both the population and the territory of many among the Ionic
-cities, if not of all, were materially altered in consequence of the
-preceding revolt, and still more in consequence of the cruelties
-with which the suppression of the revolt had been accompanied. In
-regard to Milêtus, Herodotus tells us that the Persians retained
-for themselves the city with its circumjacent plain, but gave
-the mountain portion of the Milesian territory to the Karians of
-Pêdasa.[585] Such a proceeding would naturally call for a fresh
-measurement and assessment of tribute; and there may have been
-similar transfers of land elsewhere. I have already observed that
-the statements which we find in Herodotus, of utter depopulation and
-destruction falling upon the cities, cannot be credited in their
-full extent; for these cities are all peopled, and all Hellenic,
-afterwards. But there can be no doubt that they are partially true,
-and that the miseries of those days, as stated in the work of
-Hekatæus, as well as by contemporary informants with whom Herodotus
-had probably conversed, must have been extreme. New inhabitants would
-probably be admitted in many of them, to supply the loss sustained;
-and such infusion of fresh blood would strengthen the necessity for
-the organization introduced by Artaphernês, in order to determine
-clearly the obligations due from the cities both to the Persian
-government and towards each other. Herodotus considers that the
-arrangement was extremely beneficial to the Ionians, and so it must
-unquestionably have appeared, coming as it did immediately after
-so much previous suffering. He farther adds, that the tribute then
-fixed remained unaltered until his own day,—a statement requiring
-some comment, which I reserve until the time arrives for describing
-the condition of the Asiatic Greeks after the repulse of Xerxês from
-Greece proper.
-
- [585] Herodot. vi, 20.
-
-Meanwhile, the intentions of Darius for the conquest of Greece were
-now effectively manifested: Mardonius, invested with the supreme
-command, and at the head of a large force, was sent down in the
-ensuing spring for the purpose. Having reached Kilikia in the course
-of the march, he himself got on ship-board and went by sea to
-Ionia, while his army marched across Asia Minor to the Hellespont.
-His proceeding in Ionia surprises us, and seems to have appeared
-surprising as well to Herodotus himself as to his readers. Mardonius
-deposed the despots throughout the various Greek cities,[586] and
-left the people of each to govern themselves, subject to the Persian
-dominion and tribute. This was a complete reversal of the former
-policy of Persia, and must be ascribed to a new conviction, doubtless
-wise and well founded, which had recently grown up among the Persian
-leaders, that on the whole their unpopularity was aggravated, more
-than their strength was increased, by employing these despots as
-instruments. The phenomena of the late Ionic revolt were well
-calculated to teach such a lesson; but we shall not often find the
-Persians profiting by experience, throughout the course of this
-history.
-
- [586] Herodot. vi, 43. In recounting this deposition of the
- despots by Mardonius, Herodotus reasons from it as an analogy
- for the purpose of vindicating the correctness of another of
- his statements, which, he acquaints us, many persons disputed;
- namely, the discussion which he reports to have taken place among
- the seven conspirators, after the death of the Magian Smerdis,
- whether they should establish a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a
- democracy,—ἐνθαῦτα μέγιστον θώϋμα ἐρέω τοῖσι μὴ ἀποδεκομένοισι
- τῶν Ἑλλήνων, Περσέων τοῖσι ἕπτα Ὀτάνεα γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ὡς
- χρέων εἴη δημοκρατέεσθαι Πέρσας· τοὺς γὰρ τυράννους τῶν Ἰώνων
- καταπαύσας πάντας ὁ Μαρδόνιος, δημοκρατίας κατίστα ἐς τὰς πόλιας.
- Such passages as this let us into the controversies of the time,
- and prove that Herodotus found many objectors to his story about
- the discussion on theories of government among the seven Persian
- conspirators (iii, 80-82).
-
-Mardonius did not remain long in Ionia, but passed on with his
-fleet to the Hellespont, where the land-force had already arrived.
-He transported it across into Europe, and began his march through
-Thrace; all of which had already been reduced by Megabazus, and
-does not seem to have participated in the Ionic revolt. The island
-of Thasus surrendered to the fleet without any resistance, and the
-land-force was conveyed across the Strymon to the Greek city of
-Akanthus, on the western coast of the Strymonic gulf. From hence
-his land-force marched into Macedonia, and subdued a considerable
-portion of its inhabitants, perhaps some of those not comprised in
-the dominion of Amyntas, since that prince had before submitted to
-Megabazus. Meanwhile, he sent his fleet to double the promontory of
-Mount Athos, and to join the land-force again at the gulf of Therma,
-with a view of conquering as much of Greece as he could, and even
-of prosecuting the march as far as Athens and Eretria;[587] so that
-the expedition afterwards accomplished by Xerxês would have been
-tried at least by Mardonius, twelve or thirteen years earlier, had
-not a terrible storm completely disabled the fleet. The sea near
-Athos was then, and is now, full of peril to navigators. One of the
-hurricanes, so frequent in its neighborhood, overtook the Persian
-fleet, destroyed three hundred ships, and drowned or cast ashore
-not less than twenty thousand men: of those who reached the shore,
-many died of cold, or were devoured by the wild beasts on that
-inhospitable tongue of land. This disaster checked altogether the
-farther progress of Mardonius, who also sustained considerable loss
-with his land-army, and was himself wounded, in a night attack made
-upon him by the tribe of Thracians called Brygi. Though strong enough
-to repel and avenge this attack, and to subdue the Brygi, he was yet
-in no condition to advance farther. Both the land-force and the fleet
-were conveyed back to the Hellespont, and from thence across to Asia,
-with all the shame of failure. Nor was Mardonius again employed by
-Darius, though we cannot make out that the fault was imputable to
-him.[588] We shall hear of him again under Xerxês.
-
- [587] Herodot. vi, 43, 44, ἐπορεύοντο δὲ ἐπί τε Ἐρετρίαν καὶ
- Ἀθήνας.
-
- [588] Herodot. vi, 44-94. Charon of Lampsakus had noticed the
- storm near Mount Athos, and the destruction of the fleet of
- Mardonius (Charonis Fragment. 3, ed. Didot; Athenæ. ix, p. 394).
-
-The ill-success of Mardonius seems to have inspired the Thasians,
-so recently subdued, with the idea of revolting. At least, they
-provoked the suspicion of Darius by making active preparations for
-defence, building war-ships, and strengthening their fortifications.
-The Thasians were at this time in great opulence, chiefly from their
-gold and silver mines, both in their island and in their mainland
-territory opposite. Their mines at Skaptê Hylê, in Thrace, yielded
-to them an annual income of eighty talents; and altogether their
-surplus revenue—after defraying all the expenses of government, so
-that the inhabitants were entirely untaxed—was two hundred talents
-(forty-six thousand pounds, if Attic talents; more, if either Euboic
-or Æginæan). With these large means, they were enabled soon to make
-preparations which excited notice among their neighbors, many of whom
-were doubtless jealous of their prosperity, and perhaps inclined
-to dispute with them possession of the profitable mines of Skaptê
-Hylê. As in other cases, so in this: the jealousies among subject
-neighbors often procured revelations to the superior power: the
-proceedings of the Thasians were made known, and they were forced to
-raze their fortifications as well as to surrender all their ships to
-the Persians at Abdêra.[589]
-
- [589] Herodot. vi, 46-48. See a similar case of disclosure
- arising from jealousy between Tenedos and Lesbos (Thucyd. iii, 2).
-
-Though dissatisfied with Mardonius, Darius was only the more eagerly
-bent on his project of conquering Greece, and Hippias was at his
-side to keep alive his wrath against the Athenians.[590] Orders were
-despatched to the maritime cities of his empire to equip both ships
-of war and horse-transports for a renewed attempt. His intentions
-were probably known in Greece itself by this time, from the recent
-march of his army to Macedonia; but he thought it advisable to send
-heralds round to most of the Grecian cities, in order to require
-from each the formal token of submission,—earth and water; and thus
-to ascertain what extent of resistance his intended expedition was
-likely to experience. The answers received were to a high degree
-favorable. Many of the continental Greeks sent their submission,
-as well as all those islanders to whom application was made. Among
-the former, we are probably to reckon the Thebans and Thessalians,
-though Herodotus does not particularize them. Among the latter,
-Naxos, Eubœa, and some of the smaller islands, are not included; but
-Ægina, at that time the first maritime power of Greece, is expressly
-included.[591]
-
- [590] Herodot. vi, 94.
-
- [591] Herodot. vi, 48-49; viii, 46.
-
-Nothing marks so clearly the imminent peril in which the liberties
-of Greece were now placed, and the terror inspired by the Persians
-after their reconquest of Ionia, as this abasement on the part of
-the Æginetans, whose commerce with the Asiatic islands and continent
-doubtless impressed them strongly with the melancholy consequences
-of unsuccessful resistance to the Great King. But on the present
-occasion, their conduct was dictated as much by antipathy to Athens
-as by fear, so that Greece was thus threatened with the intrusion
-of the Persian arm as ally and arbiter in her internal contests: a
-contingency which, if it had occurred now in the dispute between
-Ægina and Athens, would have led to the certain enslavement of
-Greece,—though when it did occur nearly a century afterwards,
-towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, and in consequence of
-the prolonged struggle between Lacedæmon and Athens, Greece had
-become strong enough in her own force to endure it without the loss
-of substantial independence. The war between Thebes and Ægina on
-one side, and Athens on the other,—begun several years before, and
-growing out of the connection between Athens and Platæa,—had never
-yet been terminated. The Æginetans had taken part in that war from
-gratuitous feeling, either of friendship for Thebes, or of enmity
-to Athens, without any direct ground of quarrel,[592] and they had
-begun the war even without the formality of notice. Though a period
-apparently not less than fourteen years (from about 506-492 B. C.)
-had elapsed since it began, the state of hostility still continued;
-and we may well conceive that Hippias, the great instigator of
-Persian attack upon Greece, would not fail to enforce upon all the
-enemies of Athens the prudence of seconding, or at least of not
-opposing, the efforts of the Persian to reinstate him in that city.
-It was partly under this feeling, combined with genuine alarm, that
-both Thebes and Ægina manifested submissive dispositions towards the
-heralds of Darius.
-
- [592] Herodot. v, 81-89. See above, chapter xxxi. The legendary
- story there given as the provocation of Ægina to the war is
- evidently not to be treated as a real and historical cause of
- war: a state of quarrel causes all such stories to be raked up,
- and some probably to be invented. It is like the old alleged
- quarrel between the Athenians and the Pelasgi of Lemnos (vi,
- 137-140).
-
-Among these heralds, some had gone both to Athens and to Sparta,
-for the same purpose of demanding earth and water. The reception
-given to them at both places was angry in the extreme. The Athenians
-cast the herald into the pit called the barathrum,[593] into which
-they sometimes precipitated public criminals: the Spartans threw
-the herald who came to them into a well, desiring the unfortunate
-messenger to take earth and water from thence to the king. The
-inviolability of heralds was so ancient and undisputed in Greece,
-from the Homeric times downward, that nothing short of the fiercest
-excitement could have instigated any Grecian community to such
-an outrage. But to the Lacedæmonians, now accustomed to regard
-themselves as the first of all Grecian states, and to be addressed
-always in the character of superiors, the demand appeared so gross an
-insult as to banish from their minds for the time all recollection of
-established obligations. They came subsequently, however, to repent
-of the act as highly criminal, and to look upon it as the cause of
-misfortunes which overtook them thirty or forty years afterwards: how
-they tried at that time to expiate it, I shall hereafter recount.[594]
-
- [593] It is to this treatment of the herald that the story in
- Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must allude, if that story
- indeed be true; for the Persian king was not likely to send a
- second herald, after such treatment of the first. An interpreter
- accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his own native
- language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that he should
- be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as medium
- for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be
- glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.
-
- Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting
- to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the
- divine judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From
- whom Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not
- from Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and
- expressly says that he does not know in what manner the divine
- judgment overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he)
- that their city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês;
- but I do not think that this happened on account of the outrage
- on the heralds.” (Herodot. vii, 133.)
-
- The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of
- some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or
- twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus
- has sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to
- confess his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with
- others, to strengthen our confidence in his general authority.
- His silence weakens the credibility, but does not refute the
- allegation of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is
- certainly not intrinsically improbable.
-
- [594] Herodot. vii, 133.
-
-But if, on the one hand, the wounded dignity of the Spartans hurried
-them into the commission of this wrong, it was on the other hand
-of signal use to the general liberties of Greece, by rousing them
-out of their apathy as to the coming invader, and placing them with
-regard to him in the same state of inexpiable hostility as Athens
-and Eretria. We see at once the bonds drawn closer between Athens
-and Sparta. The Athenians, for the first time, prefer a complaint
-at Sparta against the Æginetans for having given earth and water to
-Darius,—accusing them of having done this with views of enmity to
-Athens, and in order to invade Attica conjointly with the Persian.
-This they represented “as treason to Hellas,” calling upon Sparta
-as head of Greece to interfere. And in consequence of their appeal,
-Kleomenês king of Sparta went over to Ægina, to take measures against
-the authors of the late proceeding, “for the general benefit of
-Hellas.”[595]
-
- [595] Herodot. vi, 49. Ποιήσασι δέ σφι (Αἰγιμήταις) ταῦτα, ἰθέως
- Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπεκέατο, δοκέοντες ἐπὶ σφίσι ἔχοντας τοὺς Αἰγινήτας
- δεδωκέναι (γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ), ὡς ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ ἐπὶ σφέας στρατεύωνται.
- Καὶ ἄσμενοι προφάσιος ἐπελάβοντο· ~φοιτέοντές τε ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην,
- κατηγόρεον τῶν Αἰγινητέων τὰ πεποιήκοιεν, προδόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα~.
- Compare viii, 144, ix, 7. ~τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιούμενοι
- προδοῦναι~—a new and very important phrase.
-
- vi, 61. Τότε δὲ τὸν Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, ~καὶ κοινὰ τῇ
- Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον~, etc.
-
-The proceeding now before us is of very great importance in the
-progress of Grecian history. It is the first direct and positive
-historical manifestation of Hellas as an aggregate body, with Sparta
-as its chief, and obligations of a certain sort on the part of its
-members, the neglect or violation of which constitutes a species
-of treason. I have already pointed out several earlier incidents,
-showing how the Greek political mind, beginning from entire severance
-of states, became gradually prepared for this idea of a permanent
-league with mutual obligations and power of enforcement vested in
-a permanent chief,—an idea never fully carried into practice, but
-now distinctly manifest and partially operative. First, the great
-acquired power and territory of Sparta, her military training, her
-undisturbed political traditions, create an unconscious deference
-towards her, such as was not felt towards any other state: next, she
-is seen in the proceedings against Athens, after the expulsion of
-Hippias, as summoning and conducting to war a cluster of self-obliged
-Peloponnesian allies, with certain formalities which gave to the
-alliance an imposing permanence and solemnity: thirdly, her position
-becomes recognized as first power or president of Greece, both
-by foreigners who invite alliance (Crœsus), or by Greeks who seek
-help, such as the Platæans against Thebes, or the Ionians against
-Persia. But Sparta has not been hitherto found willing to take
-on herself the performance of this duty of protector-general.
-She refused the Ionians and the Samian Mæandrius, as well as the
-Platæans, in spite of their entreaties founded on common Hellenic
-lineage: the expedition which she undertook against Polykratês of
-Samos, was founded upon private motives of displeasure, even in the
-estimation of the Lacedæmonians themselves: moreover, even if all
-these requests had been granted, she might have seemed to be rather
-obeying a generous sympathy than performing a duty incumbent upon
-her as superior. But in the case now before us, of Athens against
-Ægina, the latter consideration stands distinctly prominent. Athens
-is not a member of the cluster of Spartan allies, nor does she claim
-the compassion of Sparta, as defenceless against an overpowering
-Grecian neighbor. She complains of a Pan-Hellenic obligation as
-having been contravened by the Æginetans to her detriment and danger,
-and calls upon Sparta to enforce upon the delinquents respect to
-these obligations. For the first time in Grecian history, such a call
-is made; for the first time in Grecian history, it is effectively
-answered. We may reasonably doubt, whether it would have been thus
-answered,—considering the tardy, unimpressible, and home-keeping
-character of the Spartans, with their general insensibility to
-distant dangers,[596]—if the adventure of the Persian herald had not
-occurred to gall their pride beyond endurance; to drive them into
-unpardonable hostility with the Great King; and to cast them into the
-same boat with Athens for keeping off an enemy who threatened the
-common liberties of Hellas.
-
- [596] Thucyd. i, 70-118. ἄοκνοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς (_i. e._ the Spartans)
- μελλητὰς καὶ ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς ἐνδημοτάτους.
-
-From this time, then, we may consider that there exists a
-recognized political union of Greece against the Persians,[597]—or
-at least something as near to a political union as Grecian temper
-will permit,—with Sparta as its head for the present. To such a
-preëminence of Sparta, Grecian history had been gradually tending;
-but the final event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled
-for the time her ancient and only rival—Argos—is now to be noticed.
-
- [597] Herodot. vii, 145-148. Οἱ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ.
-
-It was about three or four years before the arrival of these Persian
-heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Milêtus was besieged
-by the Persian generals, that a war broke out between Sparta and
-Argos,[598]—on what grounds Herodotus does not inform us. Kleomenês,
-encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led
-the Lacedæmonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus, the border
-river of the Argeian territory. But the sacrifices, without which
-no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he altered
-his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon,[599] and
-carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos,
-and to the territory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their
-forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia,
-near Tiryns: Kleomenês, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his
-enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Herodotus, was
-enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive victory.
-For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached
-by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against
-the enemy, that they listened for the commands proclaimed aloud by
-the Lacedæmonian herald, and performed with their own army the same
-order which they thus heard given. This came to the knowledge of
-Kleomenês, who communicated private notice to his soldiers, that
-when the herald proclaimed orders to go to dinner, they should not
-obey, but immediately stand to their arms. We are to presume that the
-Argeian camp was sufficiently near to that of the Lacedæmonians to
-enable them to hear the voice of the herald, yet not within sight,
-from the nature of the ground. Accordingly, so soon as the Argeians
-heard the herald in the enemy’s camp proclaim the word to go to
-dinner,[600] they went to dinner themselves; and in this disorderly
-condition they were easily overthrown by the Spartans. Many of them
-perished in the field, while the fugitives took refuge in a thick
-grove consecrated to their eponymous hero Argus. Kleomenês pursued
-and inclosed them therein; but thinking it safer to employ deceit
-rather than force, he ascertained from deserters the names of the
-chief Argeians thus shut up, and then invited them out successively
-by means of a herald,—pretending that he had received their ransom,
-and that they were released. As fast as each man came out, he was
-put to death; the fate of these unhappy sufferers being concealed
-from their comrades within the grove by the thickness of the foliage,
-until some one climbing to the top of a tree detected and proclaimed
-the destruction going on,—after about fifty of the victims had
-perished. Unable to entice any more of the Argeians from their
-consecrated refuge, which they still vainly hoped would protect them,
-Kleomenês set fire to the grove, and burnt it to the ground, insomuch
-that the persons within it appear to have been destroyed, either by
-fire or by sword.[601] After the conflagration had begun, he inquired
-for the first time to whom the grove belonged, and learnt that it
-belonged to the hero Argus.
-
- [598] That which marks the siege of Milêtus, and the defeat of
- the Argeians by Kleomenês, as contemporaneous, or nearly so, is,
- the common oracular dictum delivered in reference to both: in the
- same prophecy of the Pythia, one half alludes to the sufferings
- of Milêtus, the other half to those of Argos (Herodot. vi, 19-77).
-
- Χρεωμένοισι γὰρ Ἀργείοισι ἐν Δελφοῖσι περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος
- τῆς σφετέρης, τὸ μὲν ἐς αὐτοὺς τοὺς Ἀργείους φέρον, τὴν δὲ
- παρενθήκην ἔχρησε ἐς Μιλησίους.
-
- I consider this evidence of date to be better than the statement
- of Pausanias. That author places the enterprise against Argos
- immediately (αὔτικα—Paus. iii, 4, 1) after the accession of
- Kleomenês, who, as he was king when Mæandrius came from Samos
- (Herodot. iii, 148), must have come to the throne not later than
- 518 or 517 B. C. This would be thirty-seven years prior to 480 B.
- C.; a date much too early for the war between Kleomenês and the
- Argeians, as we may see by Herodotus (vii, 149).
-
- [599] Herodot. vi, 92.
-
- [600] Herodot. vi, 78; compare Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xii, 6.
- Orders for evolutions in the field, in the Lacedæmonian military
- service, were not proclaimed by the herald, but transmitted
- through the various gradations of officers (Thucyd. v, 66).
-
- [601] Herodot. vi, 79, 80.
-
-Not less than six thousand citizens, the flower and strength of
-Argos, perished in this disastrous battle and retreat. And so
-completely was the city prostrated, that Kleomenês might easily have
-taken it, had he chosen to march thither forthwith and attack it
-with vigor. If we are to believe later historians whom Pausanias,
-Polyænus, and Plutarch have copied, he did march thither and attack
-it, but was repulsed by the valor of the Argeian women; who, in the
-dearth of warriors occasioned by the recent defeat, took arms along
-with the slaves, headed by the poetess Telesilla, and gallantly
-defended the walls.[602] This is probably a mythe, generated by a
-desire to embody in detail the dictum of the oracle a little before,
-about “the female conquering the male.”[603] Without meaning to
-deny that the Argeian women might have been capable of achieving so
-patriotic a deed, if Kleomenês had actually marched to the attack of
-their city, we are compelled, by the distinct statement of Herodotus,
-to affirm that he never did attack it. Immediately after the burning
-of the sacred grove of Argos, he dismissed the bulk of his army to
-Sparta, retaining only one thousand choice troops,—with whom he
-marched up to the Hêræum, or great temple of Hêrê, between Argos and
-Mykênæ, to offer sacrifice. The priest in attendance forbade him
-to enter, saying that no stranger was allowed to offer sacrifice
-in the temple. But Kleomenês had once already forced his way into
-the sanctuary of Athênê, on the Athenian acropolis, in spite of the
-priestess and her interdict,—and he now acted still more brutally
-towards the Argeian priest, for he directed his helots to drag him
-from the altar and scourge him. Having offered sacrifice, Kleomenês
-returned with his remaining force to Sparta.[604]
-
- [602] Pausan. ii, 20, 7; Polyæn. viii, 33; Plutarch, De Virtut.
- Mulier, p. 245; Suidas, v. Τελέσιλλα.
-
- Plutarch cites the historian Sokratês of Argos for this story
- about Telesilla; an historian, or perhaps composer of a
- περιήγησις Ἄργους, of unknown date: compare Diogen. Laërt. ii,
- 5, 47, and Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. pp. 270-277. According to
- his representation, Kleomenês and Demaratus jointly assaulted
- the town of Argos, and Demaratus, after having penetrated into
- the town and become master of the Pamphyliakon, was driven out
- again by the women. Now Herodotus informs us that Kleomenês and
- Demaratus were never employed upon the same expedition, after the
- disagreement in their march to Attica (v, 75; vi, 64).
-
- [603] Herodot. vi, 77.
-
- Ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡ θηλεῖα τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα
- Ἐξελάσῃ, καὶ κῦδος ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἄρηται, etc.
-
- If this prophecy can be said to have any distinct meaning, it
- probably refers to Hêrê, as protectress of Argos, repulsing the
- Spartans.
-
- Pausanias (ii, 20, 7) might well doubt whether Herodotus
- understood this oracle in the same sense as he did: it is plain
- that Herodotus could not have so understood it.
-
- [604] Herodot. vi, 80, 81: compare v, 72.
-
-But the army whom he had sent home returned with a full persuasion
-that Argos might easily have been taken,—that the king alone was
-to blame for having missed the opportunity. As soon as he himself
-returned, his enemies—perhaps his colleague Demaratus—brought him
-to trial before the ephors, on a charge of having been bribed,
-against which he defended himself as follows: He had invaded the
-hostile territory on the faith of an assurance from the oracle that
-he should take Argos; but so soon as he had burnt down the sacred
-grove of the hero Argus,—without knowing to whom it belonged,—he
-became at once sensible that this was all that the god meant by
-_taking Argos_, and therefore that the divine promise had been
-fully realized. Accordingly, he did not think himself at liberty
-to commence any fresh attack, until he had ascertained whether the
-gods would approve it and would grant him success. It was with this
-view that he sacrificed in the Hêræum. But though his sacrifice was
-favorable, he observed that the flame kindled on the altar flashed
-back from the bosom of the statue of Hêrê, and not from her head. If
-the flame had flashed from her head, he would have known at once that
-the gods intended him to take the city by storm;[605] but the flash
-from her bosom plainly indicated that the topmost success was out
-of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories which
-they intended for him. We may see that Herodotus, though he refrains
-from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a fabrication. Not
-so the Spartan ephors: to them it appeared not less true as a story
-than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenês an honorable
-acquittal.[606]
-
- [605] Herodot. vi, 82. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ~ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς~ τοῦ ἀγάλματος
- ἐξέλαμψε, αἱρέειν ἂν ~κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς~ τὴν πόλιν· ἐκ τῶν στηθέων δὲ
- λάμψαντος, πᾶν οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ὅσον ὁ θεὸς ἤθελε.
-
- For the expression αἱρέειν κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς, compare Herodot. vi, 21,
- and Damm. Lex. Homer. v. ἀκρός. In this expression, as generally
- used, the last words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς have lost their primitive and
- special sense, and do little more than intensify the simple
- αἱρέειν,—equivalent to something like “de fond en comble:” for
- Kleomenês is accused by his enemies,—φάμενοί μιν δωροδοκήσαντα,
- οὐκ ἑλέειν τὸ Ἄργος, παρέον εὐπετέως μιν ἑλεῖν. But in the story
- recounted by Kleomenês, the words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς come back to their
- primitive meaning, and serve as the foundation for his religious
- inference, from type to thing typified: if the light had shone
- from the head or _top_ of the statue, this would have intimated
- that the gods meant him to take the city “_from top to bottom_.”
-
- In regard to this very illustrative story,—which there seems no
- reason for mistrusting,—the contrast between the point of view
- of Herodotus and that of the Spartan ephors deserves notice. The
- former, while he affirms distinctly that it was the real story
- told by Kleomenês, suspects its truth, and utters as much of
- skepticism as his pious fear will permit him; the latter find
- it in complete harmony, both with their canon of belief and
- with their religious feeling,—Κλεομένης δέ σφι ἔλεξε, οὔτε εἰ
- ψευδόμενος οὔτε εἰ ἀληθέα λέγων, ἔχω σαφηνέως εἶπαι· ἔλεξε δ᾽
- ὦν.... Ταῦτα δὲ λέγων, πιστά τε καὶ οἴκοτα ἐδόκεε Σπαρτιήτῃσι
- λέγειν, καὶ ἀπέφυγε πολλὸν τοὺς διώκοντας.
-
- [606] Compare Pausanias, ii, 20, 8.
-
-Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos, his
-victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as she
-did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of all
-condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedæmon. I have
-already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history, Argos
-stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary claims to
-headship, and decidedly above Lacedæmon; who gradually usurps from
-her, first the reality of superior power, next the recognition of
-preëminence,—and is now, at the period which we have reached, taking
-upon herself both the rights and the duties of a presiding state
-over a body of allies who are bound both to her and to each other.
-Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted at Argos, and
-it is very probable that the war just described grew in some way or
-other out of the increasing presidential power which circumstances
-were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete temporary
-prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the quiet
-acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or three
-years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it removed
-the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete with
-Sparta,—a rival who might well have prevented any effective union
-under another chief, though she could no longer have secured any
-Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself,—a rival who would have seconded
-Ægina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have lamed
-incurably the defensive force of Greece. The ships which Kleomenês
-had obtained from the Æginetans as well as from the Sikyonians,
-against their own will, for landing his troops at Nauplia, brought
-upon both these cities the enmity of Argos, which the Sikyonians
-compromised by paying a sum of money, while the Æginetans refused
-to do so.[607] And thus the circumstances of the Kleomenic war had
-the effect not only of enfeebling Argos, but of alienating her from
-natural allies and supporters, and clearing the ground for undisputed
-Spartan primacy.
-
- [607] Herodot. vi, 92.
-
-Returning now to the complaint preferred by Athens to the Spartans
-against the traitorous submission of Ægina to Darius, we find that
-king Kleomenês passed immediately over to that island for the purpose
-of inquiry and punishment. He was proceeding to seize and carry away
-as prisoners several of the leading Æginetans, when Krius and some
-others among them opposed to him a menacing resistance, telling him
-that he came without any regular warrant from Sparta and under the
-influence of Athenian bribes,—that, in order to carry authority, both
-the Spartan kings ought to come together. It was not of their own
-accord that the Æginetans ventured to adopt so dangerous a course.
-Demaratus, the colleague of Kleomenês in the junior or Prokleid line
-of kings, had suggested to them the step and promised to carry them
-through it safely.[608] Dissension between the two coördinate kings
-was no new phenomenon at Sparta; but in the case of Demaratus and
-Kleomenês, it had broken out some years previously on the occasion of
-the march against Attica; and Demaratus, hating his colleague more
-than ever, entered into the present intrigue with the Æginetans with
-the deliberate purpose of frustrating his intervention. He succeeded,
-and Kleomenês was compelled to return to Sparta; not without
-unequivocal menace against Krius and the other Æginetans who had
-repelled him,[609] and not without a thorough determination to depose
-Demaratus.
-
- [608] Herodot. vi, 50. Κρῖος—ἔλεγε δὲ ταῦτα ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς τῆς
- Δημαρήτου. Compare Pausan. iii, 4, 3.
-
- [609] Herodot. vi, 50-61, 64. Δημάρητος—φθόνῳ καὶ ἄγῃ χρεώμενος.
-
-It appears that suspicions had always attached to the legitimacy of
-Demaratus’s birth. His reputed father Aristo had had no offspring
-by two successive wives: at last, he became enamored of the wife of
-his friend Agêtus,—a woman of surpassing beauty,—and entrapped him
-into an agreement, whereby each solemnly bound himself to surrender
-anything belonging to him which the other might ask for. That which
-Agêtus asked from Aristo was at once given: in return, the latter
-demanded to have the wife of Agêtus, who was thunderstruck at the
-request, and indignantly complained of having been cheated into a
-sacrifice of all others the most painful: nevertheless, the oath was
-peremptory, and he was forced to comply. The birth of Demaratus took
-place so soon after this change of husbands, that when it was first
-made known to Aristo, as he sat upon a bench along with the ephors,
-he counted on his fingers the number of months since his marriage,
-and exclaimed with an oath, “The child cannot be mine.” He soon,
-however, retracted his opinion, and acknowledged the child, who grew
-up without any question being publicly raised as to his birth, and
-succeeded his father on the throne. But the original words of Aristo
-had never been forgotten, and private suspicions were still cherished
-that Demaratus was really the son of his mother’s first husband.[610]
-
- [610] Herodot. vi, 61, 62, 63.
-
-Of these suspicions, Kleomenês now resolved to avail himself,
-exciting Leotychidês, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings,
-to impugn publicly the legitimacy of Demaratus; engaging to second
-him with all his influence as next in order for the crown, and
-exacting in return a promise that he would support the intervention
-against Ægina. Leotychidês was animated not merely by ambition, but
-also by private enmity against Demaratus, who had disappointed him
-of his intended bride: he warmly entered into the scheme, arraigned
-Demaratus as no true Herakleid, and produced evidence to prove
-the original doubts expressed by Aristo. A serious dispute was
-thus raised at Sparta, and Kleomenês, espousing the pretensions of
-Leotychidês, recommended that the question as to the legitimacy of
-Demaratus should be decided by reference to the Delphian oracle.
-Through the influence of Kobôn, a powerful native of Delphi, he
-procured from the Pythian priestess an answer pronouncing that
-Demaratus was not the son of Aristo.[611] Leotychidês thus became
-king of the Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private
-station, and was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopædia
-to an official function. The new king, unable to repress a burst
-of triumphant spite, sent an attendant to ask him, in the public
-theatre, how he felt as an officer after having once been a king.
-Stung with this insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried
-them both, and that Leotychidês might in time come to try them both
-also: the question, he added, shall bear its fruit,—great evil, or
-great good, to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired
-home from the theatre,—offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the
-altar of Zeus Herkeios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to
-him who his real father was,—then at once quitted Sparta for Elis,
-under pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle.[612]
-
- [611] Herodot. vi, 65, 66. In an analogous case afterwards,
- where the succession was disputed between Agesilaus the brother,
- and Leotychidês the reputed son of the deceased king Agis, the
- Lacedæmonians appear to have taken upon themselves to pronounce
- Leotychidês illegitimate; or rather to assume tacitly such
- illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in preference, without the
- aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 3, 1-4; Plutarch,
- Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however,
- φυλάξασθαι τὴν χωλὴν βασιλείαν, was cited on the occasion, and
- the question was, in what manner it should be interpreted.
-
- [612] Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer made by the mother to this
- appeal—informing Demaratus that he is the son either of king
- Aristo, or of the hero Astrabakus—is extremely interesting as an
- evidence of Grecian manners and feeling.
-
-Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious
-man,—noted, among other things, as the only Lacedæmonian king down
-to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory at
-Olympia; and Kleomenês and Leotychidês became alarmed at the mischief
-which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no Herakleid
-was allowed to establish his residence out of the country, on pain of
-death: this marks the sentiment of the Lacedæmonians, and Demaratus
-was not the less likely to give trouble because they had pronounced
-him illegitimate.[613] Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him, and
-seized him in the island of Zakynthus. But the Zakynthians would not
-consent to surrender him, so that he passed unobstructed into Asia,
-where he presented himself to Darius, and was received with abundant
-favors and presents.[614] We shall hereafter find him the companion
-of Xerxês, giving to that monarch advice such as, if it had been
-acted upon, would have proved the ruin of Grecian independence; to
-which, however, he would have been even more dangerous, if he had
-remained at home as king of Sparta.
-
- [613] Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. κατὰ δή τινα νόμον παλαιὸν, ὃς
- οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλοδαπῆς τεκνοῦσθαι, τὸν δ᾽
- ἀπελθόντα τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπὶ μετοικισμῷ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἀποθνήσκειν
- κελεύει.
-
- [614] Herodot. vi, 70.
-
-Meanwhile Kleomenês, having obtained a consentient colleague in
-Leotychidês, went with him over to Ægina, eager to revenge himself
-for the affront which had been put upon him. To the requisition and
-presence of the two kings jointly, the Æginetans did not dare to
-oppose any resistance. Kleomenês made choice of ten citizens, eminent
-for wealth, station, and influence, among whom were Krius and another
-person named Kasambus, the two most powerful men in the island.
-Conveying them away to Athens, he deposited them as hostages in the
-hands of the Athenians.[615]
-
- [615] Herodot. vi, 78.
-
-It was in this state that the affairs of Athens and of Greece
-generally were found by the Persian armament which landed at
-Marathon, the progress of which we are now about to follow. And the
-events just recounted were of material importance, considered in
-their indirect bearing upon the success of that armament. Sparta had
-now, on the invitation of Athens, assumed to herself for the first
-time a formal Pan-Hellenic primacy, her ancient rival Argos being too
-much broken to contest it,—her two kings, at this juncture unanimous,
-employ their presiding interference in coercing Ægina, and placing
-Æginetan hostages in the hands of Athens. The Æginetans would not
-have been unwilling to purchase victory over a neighbor and rival at
-the cost of submission to Persia, and it was the Spartan interference
-only which restrained them from assailing Athens conjointly with the
-Persian invaders; thus leaving the hands of the latter free, and her
-courage undiminished, for the coming trial.
-
-Meanwhile, a vast Persian force, brought together in consequence of
-the preparation made during the last two years in every part of the
-empire, had assembled in the Aleïan plain of Kilikia, near the sea. A
-fleet of six hundred armed triremes, together with many transports,
-both of men and horses, was brought hither for their embarkation:
-the troops were put on board, and sailed along the coast to Samos in
-Ionia. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks constituted an important part of
-this armament, and the Athenian exile Hippias was on board as guide
-and auxiliary in the attack of Attica. The generals were Datis, a
-Median,[616]—and Artaphernês, son of the satrap of Sardis, so named,
-and nephew of Darius. We may remark that Datis is the first person
-of Median lineage who is mentioned as appointed to high command
-after the accession of Darius, which had been preceded and marked,
-as I have noticed in a former chapter, by an outbreak of hostile
-nationality between the Medes and Persians. Their instructions were,
-generally, to reduce to subjection and tribute all such Greeks as
-had not already given earth and water. But Darius directed them
-most particularly to conquer Eretria and Athens, and to bring the
-inhabitants as slaves into his presence.[617] These orders were
-literally meant, and probably neither the generals nor the soldiers
-of this vast armament doubted that they would be literally executed;
-and that before the end of the year, the wives, or rather the
-widows, of men like Themistoklês and Aristeidês would be seen among
-a mournful train of Athenian prisoners, on the road from Sardis to
-Susa, thus accomplishing the wish expressed by queen Atossa at the
-instance of Dêmokêdês.
-
- [616] Herodot. vi, 94. Δᾶτίν τε, ἐόντα Μῆδον γένος, etc.
-
- Cornelius Nepos (Life of Pausanias, c. 1) calls Mardonius a Mede;
- which cannot be true, since he was the son of Gobryas, one of the
- seven Persian conspirators (Herodot. vi, 43).
-
- [617] Herodot. vi, 94. ἐντειλάμενος δὲ ἀπέπεμπε,
- ἐξανδραποδίσαντας Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας, ἄγειν ἑωϋτῷ ἐς ὄψιν τὰ
- ἀνδράποδα.
-
- According to the Menexenus of Plato (c. 17, p. 245), Darius
- ordered Datis to fulfil this order on peril of his own head; no
- such harshness appears in Herodotus.
-
-The recent terrific storm near Mount Athos deterred the Persians
-from following the example of Mardonius, and taking their course by
-the Hellespont and Thrace. It was resolved to strike straight across
-the Ægean[618] (the mode of attack which intelligent Greeks like
-Themistoklês most feared, even after the repulse of Xerxês), from
-Samos to Eubœa, attacking the intermediate islands in the way. Among
-those islands was Naxos, which ten years before had stood a long
-siege, and gallantly repelled the Persian Megabatês with the Milesian
-Aristagoras. It was one of the main objects of Datis to efface this
-stain on the Persian arms, and to take a signal revenge on the
-Naxians.[619] Crossing from Samos to Naxos, he landed his army on the
-island, which was found an easier prize than he had expected. The
-terrified citizens, abandoning their town, fled with their families
-to the highest summits of their mountains; while the Persians,
-seizing as slaves a few who had been dilatory in flight, burnt the
-undefended town with its edifices sacred and profane.
-
- [618] Thucyd. i, 93.
-
- [619] Herodot. vi, 95, 96. ἐπὶ ταύτην (Naxos) γὰρ δὴ πρώτην
- ἐπεῖχον στρατεύεσθαι οἱ Πέρσαι, μεμνημένοι τῶν πρότερον.
-
-Immense, indeed, was the difference in Grecian sentiment towards
-the Persians, created by the terror-striking reconquest of Ionia,
-and by the exhibition of a large Phenician fleet in the Ægean. The
-strength of Naxos was the same now as it had been before the Ionic
-revolt, and the successful resistance then made might have been
-supposed likely to nerve the courage of its inhabitants. Yet such is
-the fear now inspired by a Persian armament, that the eight thousand
-Naxian hoplites abandon their town and their gods without striking a
-blow,[620] and think of nothing but personal safety for themselves
-and their families. A sad augury for Athens and Eretria!
-
- [620] The historians of Naxos affirmed that Datis had been
- repulsed from the island. We find this statement in Plutarch, De
- Malign. Herodot. c. 36, p. 869, among his violent and unfounded
- contradictions of Herodotus.
-
-From Naxos, Datis despatched his fleet round the other Cyclades
-islands, requiring from each, hostages for fidelity and a contingent
-to increase his army. With the sacred island of Delos, however,
-he dealt tenderly and respectfully. The Delians had fled before
-his approach to Tênos, but Datis sent a herald to invite them back
-again, promised to preserve their persons and property inviolate,
-and proclaimed that he had received express orders from the Great
-King to reverence the island in which Apollo and Artemis were born.
-His acts corresponded with this language; for the fleet was not
-allowed to touch the island, and he himself, landing with only a
-few attendants, offered a magnificent sacrifice at the altar. A
-large portion of his armament consisted of Ionic Greeks, and this
-pronounced respect to the island of Delos may probably be ascribed
-to the desire of satisfying their religious feelings; for in their
-days of early freedom, this island had been the scene of their solemn
-periodical festivals, as I have already more than once remarked.
-
-Pursuing his course without resistance along the islands, and
-demanding reinforcements as well as hostages from each, Datis at
-length touched the southernmost portion of Eubœa,—the town of
-Karystus and its territory.[621] The Karystians, though at first
-refusing either to give hostages or to furnish any reinforcements
-against their friends and neighbors, were speedily compelled to
-submission by the aggressive devastation of the invaders. This was
-the first taste of resistance which Datis had yet experienced; and
-the facility with which it was overcome gave him a promising omen as
-to his success against Eretria, whither he soon arrived.
-
- [621] Herodot. vi, 99.
-
-The destination of the armament was no secret to the inhabitants of
-this fated city, among whom consternation, aggravated by intestine
-differences, was the reigning sentiment. They made application to
-Athens for aid, which was readily and conveniently afforded to them
-by means of those four thousand kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom
-the Athenians had planted sixteen years before in the neighboring
-territory of Chalkis. Notwithstanding this reinforcement, however,
-many of them despaired of defending the city, and thought only of
-seeking shelter on the unassailable summits of the island, as the
-more numerous and powerful Naxians had already done before them;
-while another party, treacherously seeking their own profit out of
-the public calamity, lay in wait for an opportunity of betraying the
-city to the Persians.[622] Though a public resolution was taken to
-defend the city, yet so manifest was the absence of that stoutness
-of heart which could alone avail to save it, that a leading Eretrian
-named Æschinês was not ashamed to forewarn the four thousand Athenian
-allies of the coming treason, and urge them to save themselves before
-it was too late. They followed his advice and passed over to Attica
-by way of Orôpus; while the Persians disembarked their troops, and
-even their horses, in expectation that the Eretrians would come
-out and fight, at Tamynæ and other places in the territory. As the
-Eretrians did not come out, they proceeded to lay siege to the city,
-and for some days met with a brave resistance, so that the loss on
-both sides was considerable. At length two of the leading citizens,
-Euphorbus and Philagrus, with others, betrayed Eretria to the
-besiegers; its temples were burnt, and its inhabitants dragged into
-slavery.[623] It is impossible to credit the exaggerated statement
-of Plato, which is applied by him to the Persians at Eretria, as it
-had been before applied by Herodotus to the Persians at Chios and
-Samos,—that they swept the territory clean of inhabitants by joining
-hands and forming a line across its whole breadth.[624] Evidently,
-this is an idea illustrating the possible effects of numbers and
-ruinous conquest, which has been woven into the tissue of historical
-statements, like so many other illustrative ideas in the writings
-of Greek authors. That a large proportion of the inhabitants were
-carried away as prisoners, there can be no doubt. But the traitors
-who betrayed the town were spared and rewarded by the Persians,[625]
-and we see plainly that either some of the inhabitants must have been
-left or new settlers introduced, when we find the Eretrians reckoned
-ten years afterwards among the opponents of Xerxês.
-
- [622] Herodot. vi, 100. Τῶν δὲ Ἐρετριέων ἦν ἄρα οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς
- βούλευμα, οἳ μετεπέμποντο μὲν Ἀθηναίους, ἐφρόνεον δὲ διφασίας
- ἰδέας· οἳ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐβουλεύοντο ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν ἐς τὰ ἄκρα
- τῆς Εὐβοίης, ἄλλοι δὲ αὐτῶν ἴδια κέρδεα προσδεκόμενοι παρὰ τοῦ
- Πέρσεω οἴσεσθαι προδοσίην ἐσκευάζοντο.
-
- Allusion to this treason among the Eretrians is to be found in a
- saying of Themistoklês (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11).
-
- The story told by Hêrakleidês Ponticus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 536),
- of an earlier Persian armament which had assailed Eretria and
- failed, cannot be at all understood; it rather looks like a mythe
- to explain the origin of the great wealth possessed by the family
- of Kallias at Athens,—the Λακκόπλουτος. There is another story,
- having the same explanatory object, in Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.
-
- [623] Herodot. vi, 101, 102.
-
- [624] Plato, Legg. iii, p. 698, and Menexen. c. 10, p. 240;
- Diogen. Laërt. iii, 33; Herodot. vi, 31: compare Strabo, x, p.
- 446, who ascribes to Herodotus the statement of Plato about the
- σαγήνευσις of Eretria. Plato says nothing about the betrayal of
- the city.
-
- It is to be remarked that, in the passage of the Treatise de
- Legibus, Plato mentions this story (about the Persians having
- swept the territory of Eretria clean of its inhabitants)
- with some doubt as to its truth, and as if it were a rumor
- intentionally circulated by Datis with a view to frighten the
- Athenians. But in the Menexenus, the story is given as if it were
- an authentic historical fact.
-
- [625] Plutarch, De Garrulitate, c. 15, p. 510. The descendants of
- Gongylus the Eretrian, who passed over to the Persians on this
- occasion, are found nearly a century afterwards in possession of
- a town and district in Mysia, which the Persian king had bestowed
- upon their ancestor. Herodotus does not mention Gongylus (Xenoph.
- Hellen. iii, 1, 6).
-
- This surrender to the Persians drew upon the Eretrians bitter
- remarks at the time of the battle of Salamis (Plutarch,
- Themistoklês, c. 11).
-
-Datis had thus accomplished with little or no resistance one of the
-two express objects commanded by Darius, and his army was elated
-with the confident hope of soon completing the other. Alter halting
-a few days at Eretria, and depositing in the neighboring islet of
-Ægilia the prisoners recently captured, he reëmbarked his army to
-cross over to Attica, and landed in the memorable bay of Marathon
-on the eastern coast,—the spot indicated by the despot Hippias, who
-now landed along with the Persians, twenty years after his expulsion
-from the government. Forty-seven years had elapsed since he had
-made as a young man this same passage, from Eretria to Marathon, in
-conjunction with his father Peisistratus, on the occasion of the
-second restoration of the latter. On that previous occasion, the
-force accompanying the father had been immeasurably inferior to that
-which now seconded the son; yet it had been found amply sufficient
-to carry him in triumph to Athens, with feeble opposition from
-citizens alike irresolute and disunited. And the march of Hippias
-from Marathon to Athens would now have been equally easy, as it was
-doubtless conceived to be by himself, both in his waking hopes and
-in the dream which Herodotus mentions,—had not the Athenians whom he
-found been men radically different from those whom he had left.
-
-To that great renewal of the Athenian character, under the
-democratical institutions which had subsisted since the dispossession
-of Hippias, I have already pointed attention in a former chapter.
-The modifications introduced by Kleisthenês in the constitution
-had now existed eighteen or nineteen years, without any attempt
-to overthrow them by violence. The Ten Tribes, each with its
-constituent demes, had become a part of the established habits of
-the country, and the citizens had become accustomed to exercise a
-genuine and self-determined decision in their assemblies, political
-as well as judicial; while even the senate of Areopagus, renovated
-by the nine annual archons successively chosen who passed into it
-after their year of office, had also become identified in feeling
-with the constitution of Kleisthenês. Individual citizens, doubtless,
-remained partisans in secret, and perhaps correspondents of Hippias;
-but the mass of citizens, in every scale of life, could look upon
-his return with nothing but terror and aversion. With what degree
-of newly-acquired energy the democratical Athenians could act in
-defence of their country and institutions, has already been related
-in a former chapter; though unfortunately we possess few particulars
-of Athenian history during the decade preceding 490 B. C., nor can
-we follow in detail the working of the government. The new form,
-however, which Athenian politics had assumed becomes partially
-manifest, when we observe the three leaders who stand prominent at
-this important epoch,—Miltiadês, Themistoklês, and Aristeidês.
-
-The first of the three had returned to Athens, three or four years
-before the approach of Datis, after six or seven years’ absence in
-the Chersonesus of Thrace, whither he had been originally sent by
-Hippias about the year 517-516 B. C., to inherit the property as
-well as the supremacy of his uncle the œkist Miltiadês. As despot
-of the Chersonese, and as one of the subjects of Persia, he had
-been among the Ionians who accompanied Darius to the Danube in his
-Scythian expedition, and he had been the author of that memorable
-recommendation which Histiæus and the other despots did not think it
-their interest to follow,—of destroying the bridge and leaving the
-Persian king to perish. Subsequently, he had been unable to remain
-permanently in the Chersonese, for reasons which have before been
-noticed; yet he seems to have occupied it during the period of the
-Ionic revolt.[626] What part he took in that revolt we do not know.
-But he availed himself of the period while the Persian satraps were
-employed in suppressing it, and deprived of the mastery of the sea,
-to expel, in conjunction with forces from Athens, both the Persian
-garrison and Pelasgic inhabitants from the islands of Lemnos and
-Imbros. The extinction of the Ionic revolt threatened him with ruin;
-so that when the Phenician fleet, in the summer following the capture
-of Milêtus, made its conquering appearance in the Hellespont, he
-was forced to escape rapidly to Athens with his immediate friends
-and property, and with a small squadron of five ships. One of these
-ships, commanded by his son Metiochus, was actually captured between
-the Chersonese and Imbros; and the Phenicians were most eager to
-capture himself,[627]—inasmuch as he was personally odious to Darius
-from his strenuous recommendation to destroy the bridge over the
-Danube. On arriving at Athens, after his escape from the Phenician
-fleet, he was brought to trial before the judicial popular assembly
-for alleged misgovernment in the Chersonese, or for what Herodotus
-calls “his despotism” there exercised.[628] Nor is it improbable,
-that the Athenian citizens settled in that peninsula may have had
-good reason to complain of him,—the more so as he had carried out
-with him the maxims of government prevalent at Athens under the
-Peisistratids, and had in his pay a body of Thracian mercenaries.
-However, the people at Athens honorably acquitted him, probably
-in part from the reputation which he had obtained as conqueror of
-Lemnos;[629] and he was one of the ten annually-elected generals of
-the republic, during the year of this Persian expedition,—chosen at
-the beginning of the Attic year, shortly after the summer solstice,
-at a time when Datis and Hippias had actually sailed, and were known
-to be approaching.
-
- [626] The chapter of Herodotus (vi, 40) relating to the
- adventures of Miltiadês is extremely perplexing, as I have
- already remarked in a former note: and Wesseling considers that
- it involves chronological difficulties which our present MSS.
- do not enable us to clear up. Neither Schweighäuser, nor the
- explanation cited in Bähr’s note, is satisfactory.
-
- [627] Herodot. vi, 43-104.
-
- [628] Herodot. vi, 39-104.
-
- [629] Herodot. vi, 132. Μιλτιάδης, καὶ πρότερον εὐδοκιμέων—_i.
- e._ before the battle of Marathon. How much his reputation had
- been heightened by the conquest of Lemnos, see Herodot. vi, 136.
-
-The character of Miltiadês is one of great bravery and
-decision,—qualities preëminently useful to his country on the present
-crisis, and the more useful as he was under the strongest motive to
-put them forth, from the personal hostility of Darius towards him;
-but he does not peculiarly belong to the democracy of Kleisthenês,
-like his younger contemporaries Themistoklês and Aristeidês. The
-two latter are specimens of a class of men new at Athens since the
-expulsion of Hippias, and contrasting forcibly with Peisistratus,
-Lykurgus, and Megaklês, the political leaders of the preceding
-generation. Themistoklês and Aristeidês, different as they were in
-disposition, agree in being politicians of the democratical stamp,
-exercising ascendency by and through the people,—devoting their time
-to the discharge of public duties, and to the frequent discussions
-in the political and judicial meetings of the people,—manifesting
-those combined powers of action, comprehension, and persuasive
-speech, which gradually accustomed the citizens to look to them
-as advisers as well as leaders,—but always subject to criticism
-and accusation from unfriendly rivals, and exercising such rivalry
-towards each other with an asperity constantly increasing. Instead of
-Attica, disunited and torn into armed factions, as it had been forty
-years before,—the Diakrii under one man, and the Parali and Pedieis
-under others,—we have now Attica one and indivisible; regimented
-into a body of orderly hearers in the Pnyx, appointing and holding
-to accountability the magistrates, and open to be addressed by
-Themistoklês, Aristeidês, or any other citizen who can engage their
-attention.
-
-Neither Themistoklês nor Aristeidês could boast of a lineage of gods
-and heroes, like the Æakid Miltiadês:[630] both were of middling
-station and circumstances. Aristeidês, son of Lysimachus, was on
-both sides of pure Athenian blood. But the wife of Neoklês, father
-of Themistoklês, was a foreign woman of Thrace or of Karia: and such
-an alliance is the less surprising, since Themistoklês must have
-been born during the dynasty of the Peisistratids, when the status
-of an Athenian citizen had not yet acquired its political value.
-There was a marked contrast between these two eminent men,—those
-points which stood most conspicuous in the one, being comparatively
-deficient in the other. In the description of Themistoklês, which we
-have the advantage of finding briefly sketched by Thucydidês, the
-circumstance most emphatically brought out is, his immense force
-of spontaneous invention and apprehension, without any previous aid
-either from teaching or gradual practice. The might of unassisted
-nature[631] was never so strikingly exhibited as in him: he conceived
-the complications of a present embarrassment, and divined the chances
-of a mysterious future, with equal sagacity and equal quickness:
-the right expedient seemed to flash upon his mind extempore, even
-in the most perplexing contingencies, without the least necessity
-for premeditation. Nor was he less distinguished for daring and
-resource in action. When engaged on any joint affairs, his superior
-competence marked him out as the leader for others to follow, and
-no business, however foreign to his experience, ever took him by
-surprise, or came wholly amiss to him. Such is the remarkable picture
-which Thucydidês draws of a countryman whose death nearly coincided
-in time with his own birth: the untutored readiness and universality
-of Themistoklês probably formed in his mind a contrast to the more
-elaborate discipline, and careful preliminary study, with which the
-statesmen of his own day—and Periklês especially, the greatest of
-them—approached the consideration and discussion of public affairs.
-Themistoklês had received no teaching from philosophers, sophists,
-and rhetors, who were the instructors of well-born youth in the
-days of Thucydidês, and whom Aristophanês, the contemporary of the
-latter, so unmercifully derides,—treating such instruction as worse
-than nothing, and extolling, in comparison with it, the unlettered
-courage, with mere gymnastic accomplishments, of the victors at
-Marathon.[632] There is no evidence in the mind of Thucydidês of any
-such undue contempt towards his own age. Though the same terms of
-contrast are tacitly present to his mind, he seems to treat the great
-capacity of Themistoklês as the more a matter of wonder, since it
-sprung up without that preliminary cultivation which had gone to the
-making of Periklês.
-
- [630] Herodot. vi, 35.
-
- [631] Thucyd. i, 138. ἦν γὰρ ὁ Θεμιστοκλῆς βεβαιότατα δὴ ~φύσεως
- ἰσχὺν~ δηλώσας καὶ διαφερόντως τι ἐς αὐτὸ μᾶλλον ἑτέρων ἄξιος
- θαυμάσαι· ~οἰκείᾳ γὰρ συνέσει καὶ οὔτε προμαθὼν ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν
- οὔτ᾽ ἐπιμαθὼν~, τῶν τε παραχρῆμα δι᾽ ἐλαχίστης βουλῆς κράτιστος
- γνώμων, καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τοῦ γενησομένου ἄριστος
- εἰκαστής. Καὶ ἃ μὲν μετὰ χεῖρας ἔχοι, καὶ ἐξηγήσασθαι οἷός τε·
- ὧν δὲ ἄπειρος εἴη, κρῖναι ἱκανῶς οὐκ ἀπήλλακτο. Τό τε ἄμεινον ἢ
- χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι προεώρα μάλιστα· καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν,
- ~φύσεως μὲν δυνάμει, μελέτης δὲ βραχύτητι, κράτιστος δὴ οὗτος
- αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα ἐγένετο~.
-
- [632] See the contrast of the old and new education, as set forth
- in Aristophanês, Nubes, 957-1003; also Ranæ, 1067.
-
- About the training of Themistoklês, compared with that of the
- contemporaries of Periklês, see also Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 2.
-
-The general character given of Plutarch,[633] though many of his
-anecdotes are both trifling and apocryphal, is quite consistent with
-the brief sketch just cited from Thucydidês. Themistoklês had an
-unbounded passion,—not merely for glory, insomuch that the laurels
-of Miltiadês acquired at Marathon deprived him of rest,—but also
-for display of every kind. He was eager to vie with men richer
-than himself in showy exhibition,—one great source, though not the
-only source, of popularity at Athens,—nor was he at all scrupulous
-in procuring the means of doing so. Besides being assiduous in
-attendance at the ekklesia and the dikastery, he knew most of
-the citizens by name, and was always ready with advice to them
-in their private affairs. Moreover, he possessed all the tactics
-of an expert party-man in conciliating political friends and in
-defeating political enemies; and though he was in the early part of
-his life sincerely bent upon the upholding and aggrandizement of
-his country, and was on some most critical occasions of unspeakable
-value to it,—yet on the whole his morality was as reckless as his
-intelligence was eminent. He will be found grossly corrupt in the
-exercise of power, and employing tortuous means, sometimes indeed
-for ends in themselves honorable and patriotic, but sometimes also
-merely for enriching himself. He ended a glorious life by years
-of deep disgrace, with the forfeiture of all Hellenic esteem and
-brotherhood,—a rich man, an exile, a traitor, and a pensioner of
-the Great King, pledged to undo his own previous work of liberation
-accomplished at the victory of Salamis.
-
- [633] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3, 4, 5; Cornelius Nepos,
- Themist. c. 1.
-
-Of Aristeidês we possess unfortunately no description from the hand
-of Thucydidês; yet his character is so simple and consistent, that we
-may safely accept the brief but unqualified encomium of Herodotus and
-Plato, expanded as it is in the biography of Plutarch and Cornelius
-Nepos,[634] however little the details of the latter can be trusted.
-Aristeidês was inferior to Themistoklês in resource, quickness,
-flexibility, and power of coping with difficulties; but incomparably
-superior to him, as well as to other rivals and contemporaries, in
-integrity, public as well as private; inaccessible to pecuniary
-temptations, as well as to other seductive influences, and deserving
-as well as enjoying the highest measure of personal confidence. He is
-described as the peculiar friend of Kleisthenês, the first founder
-of the democracy,[635]—as pursuing a straight and single-handed
-course in political life, with no solicitude for party ties, and with
-little care either to conciliate friends or to offend enemies,—as
-unflinching in the exposure of corrupt practices, by whomsoever
-committed or upheld,—as earning for himself the lofty surname of the
-Just, not less by his judicial decisions in the capacity of archon,
-than by his equity in private arbitrations, and even his candor in
-political dispute,—and as manifesting throughout a long public life,
-full of tempting opportunities, an uprightness without flaw and
-beyond all suspicion, recognized equally by his bitter contemporary
-the poet Timokreon,[636] and by the allies of Athens, upon whom
-he first assessed the tribute. Few of the leading men in any part
-of Greece were without some taint on their reputation, deserved
-or undeserved, in regard to pecuniary probity; but whoever became
-notoriously recognized as possessing this vital quality, acquired
-by means of it a firmer hold on the public esteem than even eminent
-talents could confer. Thucydidês ranks conspicuous probity among the
-first of the many ascendent qualities possessed by Periklês;[637] and
-Nikias, equal to him in this respect, though immeasurably inferior in
-every other, owed to it a still larger proportion of that exaggerated
-confidence which the Athenian people continued so long to repose in
-him. The abilities of Aristeidês, though apparently adequate to every
-occasion on which he was engaged, and only inferior when we compare
-him with so remarkable a man as Themistoklês, were put in the shade
-by this incorruptible probity, which procured for him, however, along
-with the general esteem, no inconsiderable amount of private enmity
-from jobbers whom he exposed, and even some jealousy from persons who
-heard it proclaimed with offensive ostentation.
-
- [634] Herodot. viii, 79; Plato, Gorgias, c. 172. ἄριστον ἄνδρα ἐν
- Ἀθήνῃσι καὶ δικαιότατον.
-
- [635] Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 1-4; Themistoklês, c. 3; An Seni
- sit gerenda respublica, c. 12, p. 790; Præcepta Reip. Gerend. c.
- ii, p. 805).
-
- [636] Timokreon ap. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 21.
-
- [637] Thucyd. ii, 65.
-
-We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his ostracizing
-vote, and expressed his dislike against Aristeidês,[638] on the
-simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the
-Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to be
-so boastfully talked of as if he were the only honorable man in the
-country: the less it is obtruded, the more deeply and cordially
-will it be felt: and the story just alluded to, whether true or
-false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling, produced by
-absurd encomiasts, or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask
-of encomiasts, who trumpeted forth Aristeidês as _The_ Just man at
-Attica, so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else.
-Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob
-him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen; which he enjoyed, with
-intervals of their displeasure, to the end of his life. Though he
-was ostracized during a part of the period between the battle of
-Marathon and Salamis,—at a time when the rivalry between him and
-Themistoklês was so violent that both could not remain at Athens
-without peril,—yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of
-Xerxês brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired.
-His fortune, originally very moderate, was still farther diminished
-during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the
-state was obliged to lend aid to his children.
-
- [638] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 7.
-
-Such were the characters of Themistoklês and Aristeidês, the two
-earliest leaders thrown up by the Athenian democracy. Half a
-century before, Themistoklês would have been an active partisan in
-the faction of the Parali or the Pedieis, while Aristeidês would
-probably have remained an unnoticed citizen. At the present period
-of Athenian history, the characters of the soldier, the magistrate,
-and the orator, were intimately blended together in a citizen who
-stood forward for eminence, though they tended more and more to
-divide themselves during the ensuing century and a half. Aristeidês
-and Miltiadês were both elected among the ten generals, each for
-his respective tribe, in the year of the expedition of Datis across
-the Ægean, and probably even after that expedition was known to be
-on its voyage. Moreover, we are led to suspect from a passage in
-Plutarch, that Themistoklês also was general of his tribe on the
-same occasion,[639] though this is doubtful; but it is certain that
-he fought at Marathon. The ten generals had jointly the command of
-the army, each of them taking his turn to exercise it for a day: in
-addition to the ten, moreover, the third archon, or polemarch, was
-considered as eleventh in the military council. The polemarch of this
-year was Kallimachus of Aphidnæ.[640] Such were the chiefs of the
-military force, and to a great degree the administrators of foreign
-affairs, at the time when the four thousand Athenian kleruchs, or
-settlers planted in Eubœa,—escaping from Eretria, now invested by
-the Persians,—brought word to their countrymen at home that the fall
-of that city was impending. It was obvious that the Persian host
-would proceed from Eretria forthwith against Athens, and a few days
-afterwards Hippias disembarked them at Marathon, whither the Athenian
-army marched to meet them.
-
- [639] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.
-
- [640] Herodot. vi, 109, 110.
-
-Of the feeling which now prevailed at Athens we have no details, but
-doubtless the alarm was hardly inferior to that which had been felt
-at Eretria: dissenting opinions were heard as to the proper steps
-to be taken, nor were suspicions of treason wanting. Pheidippidês
-the courier was sent to Sparta immediately to solicit assistance;
-and such was his prodigious activity, that he performed this journey
-of one hundred and fifty miles, on foot, in forty-eight hours.[641]
-He revealed to the ephors that Eretria was already enslaved, and
-entreated their assistance to avert the same fate from Athens,
-the most ancient city in Greece. The Spartan authorities readily
-promised their aid, but unfortunately it was now the ninth day of the
-moon: ancient law or custom forbade them to march, in this month at
-least, during the last quarter before the full moon; but after the
-full they engaged to march without delay. Five days’ delay at this
-critical moment might prove the utter ruin of the endangered city;
-yet the reason assigned seems to have been no pretence on the part
-of the Spartans. It was mere blind tenacity of ancient habit, which
-we shall find to abate, though never to disappear, as we advance in
-their history.[642] Indeed, their delay in marching to rescue Attica
-from Mardonius, eleven years afterwards, at the imminent hazard of
-alienating Athens and ruining the Hellenic cause, marks the same
-selfish dulness. But the reason now given certainly looked very like
-a pretence, so that the Athenians could indulge no certain assurance
-that the Spartan troops would start even when the full moon arrived.
-
- [641] Mr. Kinneir remarks that the Persian Cassids, or
- foot-messengers, will travel for several days successively at
- the rate of sixty or seventy miles a day (Geographical Memoir of
- Persia, p. 44).
-
- [642] Herodot. ix, 7-10.
-
-In this respect the answer brought by Pheidippidês was mischievous,
-as it tended to increase that uncertainty and indecision which
-already prevailed among the ten generals, as to the proper steps for
-meeting the invaders. Partly, perhaps, in reliance on this expected
-Spartan help, five out of the ten generals were decidedly averse to
-an immediate engagement with the Persians; while Miltiadês with the
-remaining four strenuously urged that not a moment should be lost in
-bringing the enemy to action, without leaving time to the timid and
-the treacherous to establish correspondence with Hippias, and to take
-some active step for paralyzing all united action on the part of the
-citizens. This most momentous debate, upon which the fate of Athens
-hung, is represented by Herodotus to have occurred at Marathon, after
-the army had marched out and taken post there within sight of the
-Persians; while Cornelius Nepos describes it as having been raised
-before the army quitted the city,—upon the question, whether it was
-prudent to meet the enemy at all in the field, or to confine the
-defence to the city and the sacred rock. Inaccurate as this latter
-author generally is, his statement seems more probable here than that
-of Herodotus. For the ten generals would scarcely march out of Athens
-to Marathon without having previously resolved to fight: moreover,
-the question between fighting in the field or resisting behind the
-walls, which had already been raised at Eretria, seems the natural
-point on which the five mistrustful generals would take their stand.
-And probably indeed Miltiadês himself, if debarred from immediate
-action, would have preferred to hold possession of Athens, and
-prevent any treacherous movement from breaking out there,—rather than
-to remain inactive on the hills, watching the Persians at Marathon,
-with the chance of a detachment from their numerous fleet sailing
-round to Phalêrum, and thus distracting, by a double attack, both the
-city and the camp.
-
-However this may be, the equal division of opinion among the
-ten generals, whether manifested at Marathon or at Athens, is
-certain,—so that Miltiadês had to await the casting-vote of the
-polemarch Kallimachus. To him he represented emphatically the danger
-of delay, and the chance of some traitorous intrigue occurring to
-excite disunion and aggravate the alarms of the citizens. Nothing
-could prevent such treason from breaking out, with all its terrific
-consequences of enslavement to the Persians and to Hippias, except
-a bold, decisive, and immediate attack,—the success of which he
-(Miltiadês) was prepared to guarantee. Fortunately for Athens, the
-polemarch embraced the opinion of Miltiadês, and the seditious
-movements which were preparing did not show themselves until after
-the battle had been gained. Aristeidês and Themistoklês are both
-recorded to have seconded Miltiadês warmly in this proposal,—while
-all the other generals agreed in surrendering to Miltiadês their days
-of command, so as to make him, as much as they could, the sole leader
-of the army. It is said that the latter awaited the day of his own
-regular turn before he fought the battle.[643] Yet considering the
-eagerness which he displayed to bring on an immediate and decisive
-action, we cannot suppose that he would have admitted any serious
-postponement upon such a punctilio.
-
- [643] Herodot. vi, 110.
-
-While the army were mustered on the ground sacred to Heraklês near
-Marathon, with the Persians and their fleet occupying the plain and
-shore beneath, and in preparation for immediate action, they were
-joined by the whole force of the little town of Platæa, consisting
-of about one thousand hoplites, who had marched directly from
-their own city to the spot, along the southern range of Kithærôn
-and passing through Dekeleia. We are not told that they had been
-invited, and very probably the Athenians had never thought of
-summoning aid from this unimportant neighbor, in whose behalf they
-had taken upon themselves a lasting feud with Thebes and the Bœotian
-league.[644] Their coming on this important occasion seems to have
-been a spontaneous effort of gratitude which ought not to be the
-less commended because their interests were really wrapped up in
-those of Athens,—since if the latter had been conquered, nothing
-could have saved Platæa from being subdued by the Thebans,—yet many
-a Grecian town would have disregarded both generous impulse and
-rational calculation, in the fear of provoking a new and terrific
-enemy. If we summon up to our imaginations all the circumstances
-of the case,—which it requires some effort to do, because our
-authorities come from the subsequent generations, after Greece had
-ceased to fear the Persians,—we shall be sensible that this volunteer
-march of the whole Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most
-affecting incidents of all Grecian history. Upon Athens generally
-it produced an indelible impression, commemorated ever afterwards
-in the public prayers of the Athenian herald,[645] and repaid by a
-grant to the Platæans of the full civil rights—seemingly without
-the political rights—of Athenian citizens. Upon the Athenians then
-marshalled at Marathon its effect must have been unspeakably powerful
-and encouraging, as a proof that they were not altogether isolated
-from Greece, and as an unexpected countervailing stimulus under
-circumstances so full of hazard.
-
- [644] Herodot. vi, 108-112.
-
- [645] Thucyd. iii, 55.
-
-Of the two opposing armies at Marathon, we are told that the
-Athenians were ten thousand hoplites, either including or besides
-the one thousand who came from Platæa.[646] Nor is this statement
-in itself improbable, though it does not come from Herodotus, who
-is our only really valuable authority on the case, and who mentions
-no numerical total. Indeed, the number named seems smaller than we
-should have expected, considering that no less than four thousand
-kleruchs, or out-settled citizens, had just come over from Eubœa. A
-sufficient force of citizens must of course have been left behind
-to defend the city. The numbers of the Persians we cannot be said
-to know at all, nor is there anything certain except that they were
-greatly superior to the Greeks. We hear from Herodotus that their
-armament originally consisted of six hundred ships of war, but we
-are not told how many separate transports there were; and, moreover,
-reinforcements had been procured as they came across the Ægean from
-the islands successively conquered. The aggregate crews on board of
-all their ships must have been between one hundred and fifty thousand
-and two hundred thousand men; but what proportion of these were
-fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have
-no means of determining.[647] There were a certain proportion of
-cavalry, and some transports expressly prepared for the conveyance of
-horses: moreover, Herodotus tells us that Hippias selected the plain
-of Marathon for a landing place, because it was the most convenient
-spot in Attica for cavalry movements,—though it is singular, that in
-the battle the cavalry are not mentioned.
-
- [646] Justin states ten thousand Athenians, besides one thousand
- Platæans. Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias, and Plutarch give ten
- thousand as the sum total of both. Justin, ii, 9; Corn. Nep.
- Miltiad. c. 4; Pausan. iv, 25, 5; x, 20, 2: compare also Suidas,
- v. Ἱππίας.
-
- Heeren (De Fontibus Trogi Pompeii, Dissertat. ii, 7) affirms that
- Trogus, or Justin, follows Herodotus in matters concerning the
- Persian invasions of Greece. He cannot have compared the two very
- attentively; for Justin not only states several matters which are
- not to be found in Herodotus, but is at variance with the latter
- on some particulars not unimportant.
-
- [647] Justin (ii, 9) says that the total of the Persian army was
- six hundred thousand, and that two hundred thousand perished.
- Plato (Menexen. p. 240) and Lysias (Orat. Funebr. c. 7) speak
- of the Persian total as five hundred thousand men. Valerius
- Maximus (v, 3), Pausanias (iv, 25), and Plutarch (Parallel. Græc.
- ad init.), give three hundred thousand men. Cornelius Nepos
- (Miltiadês, c. 5) gives the more moderate total of one hundred
- and ten thousand men.
-
- See the observations on the battle of Marathon, made both by
- Colonel Leake and by Mr. Finlay, who have examined and described
- the locality; Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in Transactions of
- the Royal Society of Literature, vol. ii, p. 160, _seq._; and
- Finlay, on the Battle of Marathon, in the same Transactions, vol.
- iii, pp. 360-380, etc.
-
- Both have given remarks on the probable numbers of the armies
- assembled; but there are really no materials, even for a probable
- guess, in respect to the Persians. The silence of Herodotus
- (whom we shall find hereafter very circumstantial as to the
- numbers of the army under Xerxês) seems to show that he had no
- information which he could trust. His account of the battle of
- Marathon presents him in honorable contrast with the loose and
- boastful assertors who followed him; for though he does not tell
- us much, and falls lamentably short of what we should like to
- know, yet all that he does say is reasonable and probable as to
- the proceedings of both armies and the little which he states
- becomes more trustworthy on that very account,—because it _is_ so
- little,—showing that he keeps strictly within his authorities.
-
- There is nothing in the account of Herodotus to make us believe
- that he had ever visited the ground of Marathon.
-
-Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and
-in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of
-Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two
-roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of
-these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most
-difficult, is twenty-two miles in length: the southern—longer but
-more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots—is twenty-six
-miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march.
-It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the
-ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which
-Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven
-years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered
-by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and
-a shore convenient for landing; while “its plain (says a careful
-modern observer[648]) extends in a perfect level along this fine
-bay, and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than
-about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the
-plain: the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the
-conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally
-covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts
-which are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad,
-firm, sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted
-flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an
-amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from
-the rest of Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and
-difficult paths communicate with the districts of the interior.”
-
- [648] See Mr. Finlay on the Battle of Marathon, Transactions,
- etc., vol. iii, pp. 364, 368, 383, _ut suprà_: compare Hobhouse,
- Journey in Albania, i, p. 432.
-
- Colonel Leake thinks that the ancient town of Marathon was not
- on the exact site of the modern Marathon, but at a place called
- Vraná, a little to the south of Marathon (Leake, on the Demi of
- Attica, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,
- 1829, vol. ii, p. 166).
-
- “Below these two points,” he observes, “(the tumuli of Vraná and
- the hill of Kotróni,) the plain of Marathon expands to the shore
- of the bay, which is near two miles distant from the opening of
- the valley of Vraná. It is moderately well cultivated with corn,
- and is one of the most fertile spots in Attica, though rather
- inconveniently subject to inundations from the two torrents
- which cross it, particularly that of Marathóna. From Lucian (in
- Icaro-Menippo) it appears that the parts about Œnoê were noted
- for their fertility, and an Egyptian poet of the fifth century
- has celebrated the vines and olives of Marathon. It is natural
- to suppose that the vineyards occupied the rising grounds: and
- it is probable that the olive-trees were chiefly situated in the
- two valleys, where some are still growing: for as to the plain
- itself, the circumstances of the battle incline one to believe
- that it was anciently as destitute of trees as it is at the
- present day.” (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, Trans. of Roy. Soc.
- of Literature, vol. ii, p. 162.)
-
- Colonel Leake farther says, respecting the fitness of the
- Marathonian ground for cavalry movements: “As I rode across the
- plain of Marathon with a peasant of Vraná, he remarked to me that
- it was a fine place for cavalry to fight in. None of the modern
- Marathonii were above the rank of laborers: they have heard that
- a great battle was once fought there, but that is all they know.”
- (Leake, _ut sup._ ii, p. 175.)
-
-The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified as
-it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Hêraklês
-near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above
-this plain, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that he protected it from
-the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the
-approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their
-fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled them
-for the battle.[649] The native Persians and Sakæ, the best troops in
-the whole army, were placed in the centre, which they considered as
-the post of honor,[650] and which was occupied by the Persian king
-himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so regarded by
-the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command of it; the
-hoplites being arranged in the order of their respective tribes from
-right to left, and at the extreme left stood the Platæans. It was
-necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal, or nearly equal,
-to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order to guard himself
-from being taken in flank: and with this view he drew up the central
-tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis, in shallow files, and
-occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of the wings was in
-stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack efficient on
-both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with some slaves
-as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either bowmen or
-cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in this latter
-force, seeing that their horses had to be transported across the
-Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled them to take
-some measure of the numbers under his command, and the entire absence
-of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm the confidence
-with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had impressed their
-generals.
-
- [649] Herodot. vi, 107.
-
- [650] Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 3, p. 619; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8,
- 21; Arrian, ii, 8, 18; iii, 11, 16.
-
- We may compare, with this established battle-array of the Persian
- armies, that of the Turkish armies, adopted and constantly
- followed ever since the victorious battle of Ikonium, in 1386,
- gained by Amurath the First over the Karamanians. The European
- troops, or those of Rum, occupy the left wing: the Asiatic
- troops, or those of Anatoli, the right wing: the Janissaries are
- in the centre. The Sultan, or the Grand Vizir, surrounded by the
- national cavalry, or Spahis, is in the central point of all (Von
- Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reichs, book v, vol. i, p.
- 199).
-
- About the honor of occupying the right wing in a Grecian army,
- see in particular the animated dispute between the Athenians and
- the Tegeates before the battle of Platæa (Herodot. ix, 27): it
- is the post assigned to the heroic kings of legendary warfare
- (Eurip. Supplices, 657).
-
-At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favorable for battle,
-and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming immediately to
-close quarters, ordered his army to advance at a running step over
-the interval of one mile which separated the two armies. This rapid
-forward movement, accompanied by the war-cry, or pæan, which always
-animated the charge of the Greek soldier, astounded the Persian
-army; who construed it as an act of desperate courage, little short
-of insanity, in a body not only small but destitute of cavalry or
-archers,—but who, at the same time, felt their conscious superiority
-sink within them. It seems to have been long remembered also among
-the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of the battle of Marathon,
-and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were the first Greeks who
-ever charged at a run.[651] It doubtless operated beneficially in
-rendering the Persian cavalry and archers comparatively innocuous,
-but we may reasonably suppose that it also disordered the Athenian
-ranks, and that when they reached the Persian front, they were both
-out of breath and unsteady in that line of presented spears and
-shields which constituted their force. On the two wings, where the
-files were deep, this disorder produced no mischievous effect: the
-Persians, after a certain resistance, were overborne and driven back.
-But in the centre, where the files were shallow, and where, moreover,
-the native Persians and other choice troops of the army were posted,
-the breathless and disordered Athenian hoplites found themselves in
-far greater difficulties. The tribes Leontis and Antiochis, with
-Themistoklês and Aristeidês among them, were actually defeated,
-broken, driven back, and pursued by the Persians and Sakæ.[652]
-Miltiadês seems to have foreseen the possibility of such a check,
-when he found himself compelled to diminish so materially the depth
-of his centre: for his wings, having routed the enemies opposed to
-them, were stayed from pursuit until the centre was extricated, and
-the Persians and Sakæ put to flight along with the rest. The pursuit
-then became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships
-ranged in line along the shore: some of them became involved in the
-impassable marsh and there perished.[653] The Athenians tried to
-set the ships on fire, but the defence here was both vigorous and
-successful,—several of the forward warriors of Athens were slain,—and
-only seven ships out of the numerous fleet destroyed.[654] This
-part of the battle terminated to the advantage of the Persians.
-They repulsed the Athenians from the sea-shore, and secured a safe
-reëmbarkation; leaving few or no prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents
-and equipments which had been disembarked and could not be carried
-away.
-
- [651] Herodot. vi, 112. Πρῶτοι μὲν γὰρ Ἑλλήνων πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς
- ἴδμεν, δρόμῳ ἐς πολεμίους ἐχρήσαντο.
-
- The running pace of the charge was obviously one of the most
- remarkable events connected with the battle. Colonel Leake and
- Mr. Finlay seem disposed to reduce the run to a quick march;
- partly on the ground that the troops must have been disordered
- and out of breath by running a mile. The probability is, that
- they really were so, and that such was the great reason of the
- defeat of the centre. It is very probable that a part of the
- mile run over consisted of declivity. I accept the account of
- Herodotus literally, though whether the distance be exactly
- stated, we cannot certainly say: indeed the fact is, that it
- required some steadiness of discipline to prevent the step of
- hoplites, when charging, from becoming accelerated into a run.
- See the narrative of the battle of Kunaxa in Xenoph. Anabas. i,
- 8, 18; Diodor. xiv, 23: compare Polyæn. ii, 2, 3. The passage
- of Diodorus here referred to contrasts the advantages with the
- disadvantages of the running charge.
-
- Both Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay try to point out the exact
- ground occupied by the two armies: they differ in the spot
- chosen, and I cannot think that there is sufficient evidence
- to be had in favor of any spot. Leake thinks that the Persian
- commanders were encamped in the plain of Tricorythos, separated
- from that of Marathon by the great marsh, and communicating with
- it only by means of a causeway (Leake, Transact. ii, p. 170).
-
- [652] Herodot. vi, 113. Κατὰ τοῦτο μὲν δὴ, ἐνίκων οἱ βάρβαροι,
- καὶ ῥήξαντες ἐδίωκον ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν.
-
- Herodotus here tells us the whole truth without disguise:
- Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 3) only says that the Persian centre
- made a longer resistance, and gave the tribes in the Grecian
- centre more trouble to overthrow.
-
- [653] Pausan. i, 32, 6.
-
- [654] Herodot. vi, 113-115.
-
-Herodotus estimates the number of those who fell on the Persian side
-in this memorable action at six thousand four hundred men: the number
-of Athenian dead is accurately known, since all were collected for
-the last solemn obsequies,—they were one hundred and ninety-two.
-How many were wounded, we do not hear. The brave Kallimachus the
-polemarch, and Stesilaus, one of the ten generals, were among the
-slain; together with Kynegeirus son of Euphorion, who, in laying hold
-on the poop-staff of one of the vessels, had his hand cut off by an
-axe,[655] and died of the wound. He was brother of the poet Æschylus,
-himself present at the fight; to whose imagination this battle at
-the ships must have emphatically recalled the fifteenth book of the
-Iliad. Both these Athenian generals are said to have perished in the
-assault of the ships, apparently the hottest part of the combat. The
-statement of the Persian loss as given by Herodotus appears moderate
-and reasonable,[656] but he does not specify any distinguished
-individuals as having fallen.
-
- [655] Herodot. vi, 114. This is the statement of Herodotus
- respecting Kynegeirus. How creditably does his character as an
- historian contrast with that of the subsequent romancers! Justin
- tells us that Kynegeirus first seized the vessel with his right
- hand: that was cut off, and he held the vessel with his left:
- when he had lost that also, he seized the ship with his teeth,
- “like a wild beast,” (Justin, ii, 9)—Justin seems to have found
- this statement in many different authors: “Cynegiri militis
- virtus, multis scriptorum laudibus celebrata.”
-
- [656] For the exaggerated stories of the numbers of Persians
- slain, see Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 2, 12; Plutarch, De Malign.
- Herodot. c. 26, p. 862; Justin, ii, 9; and Suidas, v. Ποικίλη.
-
- In the account of Ktêsias, Datis was represented as having been
- killed in the battle, and it was farther said that the Athenians
- refused to give up his body for interment; which was one of the
- grounds whereupon Xerxês afterwards invaded Greece. It is evident
- that in the authorities which Ktêsias followed, the alleged
- death of Datis at Marathon was rather emphatically dwelt upon.
- See Ktêsias, Persica, c. 18-21, with the note of Bähr, who is
- inclined to defend the statement, against Herodotus.
-
-But the Persians, though thus defeated and compelled to abandon
-the position of Marathon, were not yet disposed to relinquish
-altogether their chances against Attica. Their fleet was observed
-to take the direction of Cape Sunium,—a portion being sent to take
-up the Eretrian prisoners and the stores which had been left in the
-island of Ægilia. At the same time a shield, discernible from its
-polished surface afar off, was seen held aloft upon some high point
-of Attica,[657]—perhaps on the summit of Mount Pentelikus, as Colonel
-Leake supposes with much plausibility. The Athenians doubtless saw
-it as well as the Persians; and Miltiadês did not fail to put the
-right interpretation upon it, taken in conjunction with the course
-of the departing fleet. The shield was a signal put up by partisans
-in the country, to invite the Persians round to Athens by sea, while
-the Marathonian army was absent. Miltiadês saw through the plot, and
-lost not a moment in returning to Athens. On the very day of the
-battle, the Athenian army marched back with the utmost speed from the
-precinct of Hêraklês at Marathon to the precinct of the same god at
-Kynosarges, close to Athens, which they reached before the arrival of
-the Persian fleet.[658] Datis soon came off the port of Phalêrum,
-but the partisans of Hippias had been dismayed by the rapid return of
-the Marathonian army, and he did not therefore find those aids and
-facilities which he had anticipated for a fresh disembarkation in the
-immediate neighborhood of Athens. Though too late, however, it seems
-that he was not much too late: the Marathonian army had only just
-completed their forced return-march. A little less quickness on the
-part of Miltiadês in deciphering the treasonable signal and giving
-the instant order of march,—a little less energy on the part of the
-Athenian citizens in superadding a fatiguing march to a no less
-fatiguing combat,—and the Persians, with the partisans of Hippias,
-might have been found in possession of Athens. As the facts turned
-out, Datis, finding at Phalêrum no friendly movement to encourage
-him, but, on the contrary, the unexpected presence of the soldiers
-who had already vanquished him at Marathon,—made no attempt again to
-disembark in Attica, and sailed away, after a short delay, to the
-Cyclades.
-
- [657] Herodot. vi, 124. Ἀνεδέχθη μὲν γὰρ ἄσπις, καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ
- ἔστι ἄλλως εἰπεῖν· ἐγένετο γάρ· ὃς μέντοι ἦν ὁ ἀναδέξας οὐκ ἔχω
- προσωτέρω εἰπεῖν τουτέων.
-
- [658] Herodot. vi, 116. Οὗτοι μὲν δὴ περιέπλωον Σούνιον. Ἀθηναῖοι
- δὲ, ~ὡς ποδῶν εἶχον, τάχιστα~ ἐβοήθεον ἐς τὸ ἄστυ· καὶ ἔφθησάν τε
- ἀπικόμενοι, πρὶν ἢ τοὺς βαρβάρους ἥκειν, καὶ ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο
- ἀπιγμένοι ἐξ Ἡρακληΐου τοῦ ἐν Μαραθῶνι ἐς ἄλλο Ἡρακληΐον το ἐν
- Κυνοσάργει.
-
- Plutarch (Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athenienses, c. 8,
- p. 350) represents Miltiadês as returning to Athens on the _day
- after_ the battle: it must have been on the same afternoon,
- according to the account of Herodotus.
-
-Thus was Athens rescued, for this time at least, from a danger
-not less terrible than imminent. Nothing could have rescued her
-except that decisive and instantaneous attack which Miltiadês so
-emphatically urged. The running step on the field of Marathon might
-cause some disorder in the ranks of the hoplites; but extreme haste
-in bringing on the combat was the only means of preventing disunion
-and distraction in the minds of the citizens. Imperfect as the
-account is which Herodotus gives of this most interesting crisis, we
-see plainly that the partisans of Hippias had actually organized a
-conspiracy, and that it only failed by coming a little too late. The
-bright shield uplifted on Mount Pentelikus, apprizing the Persians
-that matters were prepared for them at Athens, was intended to have
-come to their view before any action had taken place at Marathon,
-and while the Athenian army were yet detained there; so that Datis
-might have sent a portion of his fleet round to Phalêrum, retaining
-the rest for combat with the enemy before him. If it had once become
-known to the Marathonian army that a Persian detachment had landed at
-Phalêrum,[659]—where there was a good plain for cavalry to act in,
-prior to the building of the Phalêric wall, as had been seen in the
-defeat of the Spartan Anchimolius by the Thessalian cavalry, in 510
-B. C.,—that it had been joined by timid or treacherous Athenians,
-and had perhaps even got possession of the city,—their minds would
-have been so distracted by the double danger, and by fears for their
-absent wives and children, that they would have been disqualified
-for any unanimous execution of military orders, and generals as well
-as soldiers would have become incurably divided in opinion,—perhaps
-even mistrustful of each other. The citizen-soldier of Greece
-generally, and especially of Athens, possessed in a high degree both
-personal bravery and attachment to order and discipline; but his
-bravery was not of that equal, imperturbable, uninquiring character,
-which belonged to the battalions of Wellington or Napoleon,—it was
-fitful, exalted or depressed by casual occurrences, and often more
-sensitive to dangers absent and unseen, than to enemies immediately
-in his front. Hence the advantage, so unspeakable in the case before
-us, and so well appreciated by Miltiadês, of having one undivided
-Athenian army,—with one hostile army, and only one, to meet in the
-field. When we come to the battle of Salamis, ten years later, it
-will be seen that the Greeks of that day enjoyed the same advantage:
-though the wisest advisers of Xerxês impressed upon him the prudence
-of dividing his large force, and of sending detachments to assail
-separate Greek states—which would infallibly produce the effect of
-breaking up the combined Grecian host, and leaving no central or
-coöperating force for the defence of Greece generally. Fortunately
-for the Greeks, the childish insolence of Xerxês led him to despise
-all such advice, as implying conscious weakness. Not so Datis and
-Hippias. Sensible of the prudence of distracting the attention of
-the Athenians by a double attack, they laid a scheme, while the main
-army was at Marathon, for rallying the partisans of Hippias, with a
-force to assist them, in the neighborhood of Athens,—and the signal
-was upheld by these partisans as soon as their measures were taken.
-But the rapidity of Miltiadês so precipitated the battle, that this
-signal came too late, and was only given, “when the Persians were
-already in their ships,”[660] after the Marathonian defeat. Even then
-it might have proved dangerous, had not the movements of Miltiadês
-been as rapid after the victory as before it: but if time had been
-allowed for the Persian movement on Athens before the battle of
-Marathon had been fought, the triumph of the Athenians might well
-have been exchanged for a calamitous servitude. To Miltiadês belongs
-the credit of having comprehended the emergency from the beginning,
-and overruled the irresolution of his colleagues by his own
-single-hearted energy. The chances all turned out in his favor,—for
-the unexpected junction of the Platæans in the very encampment
-of Marathon must have wrought up the courage of his army to the
-highest pitch: and not only did he thus escape all the depressing
-and distracting accidents, but he was fortunate enough to find this
-extraneous encouragement immediately preceding the battle, from a
-source on which he could not have calculated.
-
- [659] Herodot. v, 62, 63.
-
- [660] Herodot. vi, 115. Τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι ἀναδέξαι ἀσπίδα, ~ἐοῦσι ἤδη
- ἐν τῇσι νηυσί~.
-
-I have already observed that the phase of Grecian history best
-known to us, amidst which the great authors from whom we draw our
-information lived, was one of contempt for the Persians in the
-field. And it requires some effort of imagination to call back
-previous feelings after the circumstances have been altogether
-reversed: perhaps even Æschylus the poet, at the time when he
-composed his tragedy of the Persæ, to celebrate the disgraceful
-flight of the invader Xerxês, may have forgotten the emotions with
-which he and his brother Kynegeirus must have marched out from
-Athens fifteen years before, on the eve of the battle of Marathon.
-It must therefore be again mentioned that, down to the time when
-Datis landed in the bay of Marathon, the tide of Persian success had
-never yet been interrupted,—and that especially during the ten years
-immediately preceding, the high-handed and cruel extinction of the
-Ionic revolt had aggravated to the highest pitch the alarm of the
-Greeks. To this must be added the successes of Datis himself, and
-the calamities of Eretria, coming with all the freshness of novelty
-as an apparent sentence of death to Athens. The extreme effort of
-courage required in the Athenians, to encounter such invaders, is
-attested by the division of opinion among the ten generals. Putting
-all the circumstances together, it is without a parallel in Grecian
-history, surpassing even the combat of Thermopylæ, as will appear
-when I come to describe that memorable event. And the admirable
-conduct of the five dissentient generals, when outvoted by the
-decision of the polemarch against them, in coöperating heartily for
-the success of a policy which they deprecated,—proves how much the
-feelings of a constitutional democracy, and that entire acceptance
-of the pronounced decision of the majority on which it rests, had
-worked themselves into the Athenian mind. The combat of Marathon was
-by no means a very decisive defeat, but it was a defeat,—and the
-first which the Persians had ever received from Greeks in the field.
-If the battle of Salamis, ten years afterwards, could be treated
-by Themistoklês as a hair-breadth escape for Greece, much more is
-this true of the battle of Marathon;[661] which first afforded
-reasonable proof, even to discerning and resolute Greeks, that the
-Persians might be effectually repelled, and the independence of
-European Greece maintained against them,—a conviction of incalculable
-value in reference to the formidable trials destined to follow.
-Upon the Athenians themselves, the first to face in the field
-successfully the terrific look of a Persian army, the effect of
-the victory was yet more stirring and profound.[662] It supplied
-them with resolution for the far greater actual sacrifices which
-they cheerfully underwent ten years afterwards, at the invasion of
-Xerxês, without faltering in their Pan-Hellenic fidelity; and it
-strengthened them at home by swelling the tide of common sentiment
-and patriotic fraternity in the bosom of every individual citizen.
-It was the exploit of Athenians alone, but of all Athenians without
-dissent or exception,—the boast of orators, repeated until it almost
-degenerated into common-place, though the people seem never to have
-become weary of allusions to their single-handed victory over a host
-of forty-six nations.[663] It had been purchased without a drop of
-intestine bloodshed,—for even the unknown traitors who raised the
-signal-shield on Mount Pentelikus, took care not to betray themselves
-by want of apparent sympathy with the triumph: lastly, it was the
-final guarantee of their democracy, barring all chance of restoration
-of Hippias for the future. Themistoklês[664] is said to have been
-robbed of his sleep by the trophies of Miltiadês, and this is cited
-in proof of his ambitious temperament; but without supposing either
-jealousy or personal love of glory, the rapid transit from extreme
-danger to unparalleled triumph might well deprive of rest even the
-most sober-minded Athenian.
-
- [661] Herodot. viii, 109. ἡμεῖς δὲ, εὕρημα γὰρ εὑρήκαμεν ἡμέας τε
- καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, νέφος τοσοῦτον ἀνθρώπων ἀνωσάμενοι.
-
- [662] Pausanias, i, 14, 4; Thucyd. i, 73. φαμὲν γὰρ Μαραθῶνί τε
- ~μόνοι προκινδυνεῦσαι~ τῷ βαρβάρῳ, etc.
-
- Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοι τε ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέοντες,
- καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ
- οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.
-
- It is not unworthy of remark, that the memorable oath in the
- oration of Demosthenês, de Coronâ, wherein he adjures the
- warriors of Marathon, copies the phrase of Thucydidês,—οὐ μὰ τοὺς
- ἐν Μαραθῶνι ~προκινδυνεύσαντας~ τῶν προγόνων, etc. (Demosthen. de
- Coronâ, c. 60.)
-
- [663] So the computation stands in the language of Athenian
- orators (Herodot. ix, 27.) It would be unfair to examine it
- critically.
-
- [664] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3. According to Cicero (Epist.
- ad Attic. ix, 10) and Justin (ii, 9) Hippias was killed at
- Marathon. Suidas (v. Ἱππίας) says that he died afterwards at
- Lemnos. Neither of these statements seems probable. Hippias would
- hardly go to Lemnos, which was an Athenian possession; and had
- he been slain in the battle, Herodotus would have been likely to
- mention it.
-
-Who it was that raised the treacherous signal-shield to attract
-the Persians to Athens was never ascertained: very probably, in
-the full exultation of success, no investigation was made. Of
-course, however, the public belief would not be satisfied without
-singling out some persons as the authors of such a treason; and the
-information received by Herodotus (probably about 450-440 B. C.,
-forty or fifty years after the Marathonian victory) ascribed the deed
-to the Alkmæônids; nor does he notice any other reported authors,
-though he rejects the allegation against them upon very sufficient
-grounds. They were a race religiously tainted, ever since the
-Kylonian sacrilege, and were therefore convenient persons to brand
-with the odium of an anonymous crime; while party feud, if it did
-not originally invent, would at least be active in spreading and
-certifying such rumors. At the time when Herodotus knew Athens, the
-political enmity between Periklês son of Xanthippus, and Kimon son
-of Miltiadês, was at its height: Periklês belonged by his mother’s
-side to the Alkmæônid race, and we know that such lineage was made
-subservient to political manœuvres against him by his enemies.[665]
-Moreover, the enmity between Kimon and Periklês had been inherited by
-both from their fathers; for we shall find Xanthippus, not long after
-the battle of Marathon, the prominent accuser of Miltiadês. Though
-Xanthippus was not an Alkmæônid, his marriage with Agaristê connected
-himself indirectly, and his son Periklês directly, with that race.
-And we may trace in this standing political feud a probable origin
-for the false reports as to the treason of the Alkmæônids, on that
-great occasion which founded the glory of Miltiadês; for that
-the reports were false, the intrinsic probabilities of the case,
-supported by the judgment of Herodotus, afford ample ground for
-believing.
-
- [665] Thucyd. i, 126.
-
-When the Athenian army made its sudden return-march from Marathon to
-Athens, Aristeidês with his tribe was left to guard the field and
-the spoil; but the speedy retirement of Datis from Attica left the
-Athenians at full liberty to revisit the scene and discharge the
-last duties to the dead. A tumulus was erected on the spot[666]—such
-distinction was never conferred by Athens except in this case
-only—to the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian citizens who had
-been slain. Their names were inscribed on ten pillars erected at
-the spot, one for each tribe: there was also a second tumulus for
-the slain Platæans, a third for the slaves, and a separate funeral
-monument to Miltiadês himself. Six hundred years after the battle,
-Pausanias saw the tumulus, and could still read on the pillars the
-names of the immortalized warriors;[667] and even now a conspicuous
-tumulus exists about half a mile from the sea-shore, which Colonel
-Leake believes to be the same.[668] The inhabitants of the deme of
-Marathon worshipped these slain warriors as heroes, along with their
-own eponymus, and with Hêraklês.
-
- [666] Thucyd. ii, 34.
-
- [667] Pausan. i, 32, 3. Compare the elegy of Kritias ap. Athenæ.
- i, p. 28.
-
- [668] The tumulus now existing is about thirty feet high, and two
- hundred yards in circumference. (Leake, on the Demi of Attica;
- Transactions of Royal Soc. of Literat. ii, p. 171.)
-
-So splendid a victory had not been achieved, in the belief of the
-Athenians, without marked supernatural aid. The god Pan had met
-the courier Pheidippidês on his hasty route from Athens to Sparta,
-and had told him that he was much hurt that the Athenians had as
-yet neglected to worship him;[669] in spite of which neglect,
-however, he promised them effective aid at Marathon. The promise
-was faithfully executed, and the Athenians repaid it by a temple
-with annual worship and sacrifice. Moreover, the hero Theseus was
-seen strenuously assisting in the battle; and an unknown warrior,
-in rustic garb and armed only with a ploughshare, dealt destruction
-among the Persian ranks: after the battle he could not be found;
-and the Athenians, on asking at Delphi who he was, were directed to
-worship the hero Echetlus.[670] Even in the time of Pausanias, this
-memorable battle-field was heard to resound every night with the
-noise of combatants and the snorting of horses. “It is dangerous
-(observes that pious author) to go to the spot with the express
-purpose of seeing what is passing; but if a man finds himself there
-by accident, without having heard anything about the matter, the gods
-will not be angry with him.” The gods, it seems, could not pardon
-the inquisitive mortal who deliberately pried into their secrets.
-Amidst the ornaments with which Athens was decorated during the
-free working of her democracy, the glories of Marathon of course
-occupied a conspicuous place. The battle was painted on one of the
-compartments of the portico called Pœkilê, wherein, amidst several
-figures of gods and heroes,—Athênê, Hêraklês, Theseus, Echetlus, and
-the local patron of Marathon,—were seen honored and prominent the
-polemarch Kallimachus and the general Miltiadês, while the Platæans
-were distinguished by their Bœotian leather casques.[671] And the
-sixth of the month Boëdromion, the anniversary of the battle,
-was commemorated by an annual ceremony, even down to the time of
-Plutarch.[672]
-
- [669] Herodot. vi, 105; Pausan. i, 28, 4.
-
- [670] Plutarch, Theseus, c. 24; Pausan. i, 32, 4.
-
- [671] Pausan. i, 15, 4; Dêmosthen. cont. Neær. c. 25.
-
- [672] Herodot. vi, 120; Plutarch, Camill. c. 19; De Malignit.
- Herodoti, c. 26, p. 862; and De Gloriâ Atheniensium, c. 7.
-
- Boëdromion was the third month of the Attic year, which year
- began near about the summer solstice. The first three Attic
- months, Hekatombæon, Metageitnion, Boëdromion, approach (speaking
- in a loose manner) nearly to our July, August, September;
- probably the month Hekatombæon began usually at some day in the
- latter half of June.
-
- From the fact that the courier Pheidippidês reached Sparta on
- the ninth day of the moon, and that the two thousand Spartans
- arrived in Attica on the third day after the full moon, during
- which interval the battle took place, we see that the sixth day
- of Boëdromion could not be the sixth day of the moon. The Attic
- months, though professedly lunar months, did not at this time
- therefore accurately correspond with the course of the moon. See
- Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ad an. 490 B. C. Plutarch (in the
- Treatise De Malign. Herodoti, above referred to) appears to have
- no conception of this discrepancy between the Attic month and
- the course of the moon. A portion of the censure which he casts
- on Herodotus is grounded on the assumption that the two must
- coincide.
-
- M. Boeckh, following Fréret and Larcher, contests the statement
- of Plutarch, that the battle was fought on the sixth of the month
- Boëdromion, but upon reasons which appear to me insufficient.
- His chief argument rests upon another statement of Plutarch
- (derived from some lost verses of Æschylus), that the tribe
- Æantis had the right wing or post of honor at the battle; and
- that the public vote, pursuant to which the army was led out
- of Athens, was passed during the prytany of the tribe Æantis.
- He assumes, that the reason why this tribe was posted on the
- right wing, must have been, that it had drawn by lot the first
- prytany in that particular year: if this be granted, then the
- vote for drawing out the army must have been passed in the first
- prytany, or within the first thirty-five or thirty-six days of
- the Attic year, during the space between the first of Hekatombæon
- and the fifth or sixth of Metageitnion. But it is certain that
- the interval, which took place between the army leaving the
- city and the battle, was much less than one month,—we may even
- say less than one week. The battle, therefore, must have been
- fought between the sixth and tenth of Metageitnion. (Plutarch,
- Symposiac. i, 10, 3, and Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie,
- vol. i, p. 291.) Herodotus (vi, 111) says that the tribes were
- arranged in line ὡς ἠριθμέοντο,—“as they were numbered,”—which
- is contended to mean necessarily the arrangement between them,
- determined by lot for the prytanies of that particular year. “In
- acie instruendâ (says Boeckh, Comment. ad Corp. Inscript. p. 299)
- Athenienses non constantem, sed variabilem secundum prytanias,
- ordinem secatos esse, ita ut tribus ex hoc ordine inde a dextro
- cornu disponerentur, docui in Commentatione de pugnâ Marathoniâ.”
- Proœmia Lect. Univ. Berolin. æstiv. a. 1816.
-
- The Proœmia here referred to I have not been able to consult,
- and they may therefore contain additional reasons to prove the
- point advanced, viz., that the order of the ten tribes in line
- of battle, beginning from the right wing, was conformable to
- their order in prytanizing, as drawn by lot for the year; but
- I think the passages of Herodotus and Plutarch now before us
- insufficient to establish this point. From the fact that the
- tribe Æantis had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, we
- are by no means warranted in inferring that that tribe had drawn
- by lot the earliest prytany in the year. Other reasons, in my
- judgment equally probable, may be assigned in explanation of the
- circumstance: one reason, I think, decidedly _more_ probable.
- This reason is, that the battle was fought during the prytany of
- the tribe Æantis, which may be concluded from the statement of
- Plutarch, that the vote for marching out the army from Athens
- was passed during the prytany of that tribe; for the interval,
- between the march of the army out of the city and the battle,
- must have been only a very few days. Moreover, the deme Marathon
- belonged to the tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, ad Inscript. No. 172,
- p. 309): the battle being fought in their deme, the Marathonians
- may perhaps have claimed on this express ground the post of
- honor for their tribe; just as we see that at the first battle
- of Mantineia against the Lacedæmonians, the Mantineians were
- allowed to occupy the right wing or post of honor, “because
- the battle was fought in their territory,” (Thucyd. v, 67.)
- Lastly, the deme Aphidnæ also belonged to the tribe Æantis (see
- Boeckh, _l. c._): now the polemarch Kallimachus was an Aphidnæan
- (Herodot. vi, 109), and Herodotus expressly tells us, “the law
- or custom _then_ stood among the Athenians, that the polemarch
- should have the right wing,”—ὁ γὰρ νόμος τότε εἶχε οὕτω τοῖσι
- Ἀθηναίοισι, τὸν πολέμαρχον ἔχειν κέρας τὸ δέξιον (vi, 111). Where
- the polemarch stood, there his tribe would be likely to stand:
- and the language of Herodotus indeed seems directly to imply
- that he identifies the tribe of the polemarch with the polemarch
- himself,—ἡγεομένου δὲ τούτου, ἐξεδέκοντο ὡς ἀριθμέοντο αἱ φυλαὶ,
- ἐχόμεναι ἀλλήλων,—meaning that the order of tribes began by that
- of the polemarch being in the leading position, and was then
- “taken up” by the rest “in numerical sequence,”—_i. e._ in the
- order of their prytanizing sequence for the year.
-
- Here are a concurrence of reasons to explain why the tribe Æantis
- had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, even though it may
- not have been first in the order of prytanizing tribes for the
- year. Boeckh, therefore, is not warranted in inferring the second
- of these two facts from the first.
-
- The concurrence of these three reasons, all in favor of the same
- conclusion, and all independent of the reason supposed by Boeckh,
- appears to me to have great weight; but I regard the first of the
- three, even singly taken, as more probable than his reason. If my
- view of the case be correct, the sixth day of Boëdromion, the day
- of battle as given by Plutarch, is not to be called in question.
- That day comes in the second prytany of the year, which begins
- about the sixth of Metageitnion, and ends about the twelfth of
- Boëdromion, and which must in this year have fallen to the lot of
- the tribe Æantis. On the first or second day of Boëdromion, the
- vote for marching out the army may have passed; on the sixth the
- battle was fought; both during the prytany of this tribe.
-
- I am not prepared to carry these reasons farther than the
- particular case of the battle of Marathon, and the vindication
- of the day of that battle as stated by Plutarch; nor would I
- apply them to later periods, such as the Peloponnesian war. It
- is certain that the army regulations of Athens were considerably
- modified between the battle of Marathon and the Peloponnesian
- war, as well in other matters as in what regards the polemarch;
- and we have not sufficient information to enable us to determine
- whether in that later period the Athenians followed any known
- or perpetual rule in the battle-order of the tribes. Military
- considerations, connected with the state of the particular army
- serving, must have prevented the constant observance of any rule:
- thus we can hardly imagine that Nikias, commanding the army
- before Syracuse, could have been tied down to any invariable
- order of battle among the tribes to which his hoplites belonged.
- Moreover, the expedition against Syracuse lasted more than
- one Attic year: can it be believed that Nikias, on receiving
- information from Athens of the sequence in which the prytanies
- of the tribes had been drawn by lot during the second year of
- his expedition, would be compelled to marshal his army in a new
- battle-order conformably to it? As the military operations of the
- Athenians became more extensive, they would find it necessary to
- leave such dispositions more and more to the general serving in
- every particular campaign. It may well be doubted whether during
- the Peloponnesian war _any_ established rule was observed in
- marshalling the tribes for battle.
-
- One great motive which induces critics to maintain that the
- battle was fought in the Athenian month Metageitnion, is, that
- that month coincides with the Spartan month Karneius, so that
- the refusal of the Spartans to march before the full moon,
- is construed to apply only to the peculiar sanctity of this
- last-mentioned month, instead of being a constant rule for the
- whole year. I perfectly agree with these critics, that the
- answer, given by the Spartans to the courier Pheidippidês, cannot
- be held to prove a regular, invariable Spartan maxim, applicable
- throughout the whole year, not to begin a march in the second
- quarter of the moon: very possibly, as Boeckh remarks, there may
- have been some festival impending during the particular month in
- question, upon which the Spartan refusal to march was founded.
- But no inference can be deduced from hence to disprove the sixth
- of Boëdromion as the day of the battle of Marathon: for though
- the months of every Grecian city were professedly lunar, yet they
- never coincided with each other exactly or long together, because
- the systems of intercalation adopted in different cities were
- different: there was great irregularity and confusion (Plutarch,
- Aristeidês, c. 19; Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii, p. 30: compare also
- K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, p. 26, 27.
- Göttingen, 1844; and Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscript. t. i, p. 734).
-
- Granting, therefore, that the answer given by the Spartans to
- Pheidippidês is to be construed, not as a general rule applicable
- to the whole year, but as referring to the particular month in
- which it was given,—no inference can be drawn from hence as to
- the day of the battle of Marathon, because either one of the two
- following suppositions is possible: 1. The Spartans may have had
- solemnities on the day of the full moon, or on the day before it,
- in _other months_ besides Karneius; 2. Or the full moon of the
- Spartan Karneius may actually have fallen, in the year 490 B. C.,
- on the fifth or sixth of the Attic month Boëdromion.
-
- Dr. Thirlwall appears to adopt the view of Boeckh, but does not
- add anything material to the reasons in its favor (Hist. of Gr.
- vol. ii, Append. iii, p. 488).
-
-Two thousand Spartans, starting from their city, immediately after
-the full moon, reached the frontier of Attica, on the third day of
-their march,—a surprising effort, when we consider that the total
-distance from Sparta to Athens was about one hundred and fifty
-miles. They did not arrive, however, until the battle had been
-fought, and the Persians departed; but curiosity led them to the
-field of Marathon to behold the dead bodies of the Persians, after
-which they returned home, bestowing well-merited praise on the
-victors.
-
-Datis and Artaphernês returned across the Ægean with their Eretrian
-prisoners to Asia; stopping for a short time at the island of
-Mykonos, where discovery was made of a gilt image of Apollo carried
-off as booty in a Phenician ship. Datis went himself to restore it
-to Dêlos, requesting the Delians to carry it back to the Delium,
-or temple of Apollo, on the eastern coast of Bœotia: the Delians,
-however, chose to keep the statue until it was reclaimed from them
-twenty years afterwards by the Thebans. On reaching Asia, the Persian
-generals conducted their prisoners up to the court of Susa, and
-into the presence of Darius. Though he had been vehemently incensed
-against them, yet when he saw them in his power, his wrath abated,
-and he manifested no desire to kill or harm them. They were planted
-at a spot called Arderikka, in the Kissian territory, one of the
-resting-places on the road from Sardis to Susa, and about twenty-six
-miles distant from the latter place: Herodotus seems himself to
-have seen their descendants there on his journey between the two
-capitals, and to have had the satisfaction of talking to them in
-Greek,—which we may well conceive to have made some impression upon
-him, at a spot distant by nearly three months’ journey from the coast
-of Ionia.[673]
-
- [673] Herodot. vi, 119. Darius—σφέας τῆς Κισσίης χώρης κατοίκισε
- ἐν σταθμῷ ἑωϋτοῦ τῷ οὔνομα ἐστὶ Ἀρδέρικκα—ἐνθαῦτα τοὺς Ἐρετριέας
- κατοίκισε Δαρεῖος, οἳ καὶ μέχρι ἐμέο εἶχον τὴν χώρην ταύτην,
- φυλάσοντες τὴν ἀρχαίην γλῶσσαν. The meaning of the word σταθμὸς
- is explained by Herodot. v, 52. σταθμὸς ἑωϋτοῦ is the same as
- σταθμὸς βασιλήϊος: the particulars which Herodotus recounts about
- Arderikka, and its remarkable well, or pit of bitumen, salt, and
- oil, give every reason to believe that he had himself stopped
- there.
-
- Strabo places the captive Eretrians in Gordyênê, which would be
- considerably higher up the Tigris; upon whose authority, we do
- not know (Strabo, xv, p. 747).
-
- The many particulars which are given respecting the descendants
- of these Eretrians in Kissia, by Philostratus, in his Life of
- Apollonius of Tyana, as they are alleged to have stood even in
- the first century of the Christian era, cannot be safely quoted.
- With all the fiction there contained, some truth may perhaps
- be mingled; but we cannot discriminate it (Philostratus, Vit.
- Apollon. i, c. 24-30).
-
-Happy would it have been for Miltiadês if he had shared the honorable
-death of the polemarch Kallimachus,—“animam exhalasset opimam,”—in
-seeking to fire the ships of the defeated Persians at Marathon. The
-short sequel of his history will be found in melancholy contrast with
-the Marathonian heroism.
-
-His reputation had been great before the battle, and after it
-the admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds:
-it appears, indeed, to have reached such a pitch that his head
-was turned, and he lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He
-proposed to his countrymen to incur the cost of equipping an armament
-of seventy ships, with an adequate armed force, and to place it
-altogether at his discretion; giving them no intimation whither
-he intended to go, but merely assuring them that, if they would
-follow him, he would conduct them to a land where gold was abundant,
-and thus enrich them. Such a promise, from the lips of the recent
-victor of Marathon, was sufficient, and the armament was granted,
-no man except Miltiadês knowing what was its destination. He sailed
-immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and sent
-in a herald to require from the inhabitants a contribution of one
-hundred talents, on pain of entire destruction. His pretence for
-this attack was, that the Parians had furnished a trireme to Datis
-for the Persian fleet at Marathon; but his real motive, so Herodotus
-assures us,[674] was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen
-named Lysagoras, who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnês
-against him. The Parians amused him at first with evasions, until
-they had procured a little delay to repair the defective portions of
-their wall, after which they set him at defiance; and Miltiadês in
-vain prosecuted hostilities against them for the space of twenty-six
-days: he ravaged the island, but his attacks made no impression
-upon the town.[675] Beginning to despair of success in his military
-operations, he entered into some negotiation—such at least was the
-tale of the Parians themselves—with a Parian woman named Timô,
-priestess or attendant in the temple of Dêmêtêr, near the town-gates.
-This woman, promising to reveal to him a secret which would place
-Paros in his power, induced him to visit by night a temple to which
-no male person was admissible. He leaped the exterior fence, and
-approached the sanctuary; but on coming near, was seized with a
-panic terror and ran away, almost out of his senses: on leaping the
-same fence to get back, he strained or bruised his thigh badly, and
-became utterly disabled. In this melancholy state he was placed on
-ship-board; the siege being raised, and the whole armament returning
-to Athens.
-
- [674] Herodot. vi, 133. ἔπλεε ἐπὶ Πάρον, πρόφασιν ἔχων ὡς οἱ
- Πάριοι ὕπηρξαν πρότεροι στρατευόμενοι τριήρεϊ ἐς Μαραθῶνα ἅμα τῷ
- Πέρσῃ. Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ πρόσχημα τοῦ λόγου ἦν· ἀτάρ τινα καὶ ἔγκοτον
- εἶχε τοῖσι Παρίοισι διὰ Λυσαγόρεα τὸν Τισίεω, ἐόντα γένος Πάριον,
- διαβαλόντα μιν πρὸς Ὑδάρνεα τὸν Πέρσην.
-
- [675] Ephorus (Fragm. 107, ed. Didot; ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Πάρος)
- gave an account of this expedition in several points different
- from Herodotus, which latter I here follow. The authority of
- Herodotus is preferable in every respect; the more so, since
- Ephorus gives his narrative as a sort of explanation of the
- peculiar phrase ἀναπαριάζειν. Explanatory narratives of that sort
- are usually little worthy of attention.
-
-Vehement was the indignation both of the armament and of the
-remaining Athenians against Miltiadês on his return;[676] and
-Xanthippus, father of the great Periklês, became the spokesman of
-this feeling. He impeached Miltiadês before the popular judicature as
-having been guilty of deceiving the people, and as having deserved
-the penalty of death. The accused himself, disabled by his injured
-thigh, which even began to show symptoms of gangrene, was unable
-to stand, or to say a word in his own defence: he lay on his couch
-before the assembled judges, while his friends made the best case
-they could in his behalf. Defence, it appears, there was none; all
-they could do, was to appeal to his previous services: they reminded
-the people largely and emphatically of the inestimable exploit of
-Marathon, coming in addition to his previous conquest of Lemnos. The
-assembled dikasts, or jurors, showed their sense of these powerful
-appeals by rejecting the proposition of his accuser to condemn him to
-death; but they imposed on him the penalty of fifty talents “for his
-iniquity.”
-
- [676] Herodot. vi, 136. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ἐκ Πάρου Μιλτιάδεα
- ἀπονοστήσαντα ἔσχον ἐν στόμασι, οἵ τε ἄλλοι, καὶ μάλιστα
- Ξάνθιππος ὁ Ἀρίφρονος· ὃς θανάτου ὑπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὸν δῆμον
- Μιλτιάδεα, ἐδίωκε τῆς Ἀθηναίων ἀπάτης εἵνεκεν. Μιλτιάδης δὲ,
- αὐτὸς μὲν παρεὼν, οὐκ ἀπελογέετο· ἦν γὰρ ἀδύνατος, ὥστε σηπομένου
- τοῦ μηροῦ. Προκειμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐν κλίνῃ, ὑπεραπελογέοντο
- οἱ φίλοι, τῆς μάχης τε τῆς ἐν Μαραθῶνι γενομένης πολλὰ
- ἐπιμεμνημένοι, καὶ τὴν Λήμνου αἵρεσιν· ὡς ἑλὼν Λῆμνόν τε καὶ
- τισάμενος τοὺς Πελασγοὺς, παρέδωκε Ἀθηναίοισι. Προσγενομένου
- δὲ τοῦ δήμου αὐτῷ κατὰ τὴν ἀπόλυσιν τοῦ θανάτου, ζημιώσαντος
- δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀδικίην πεντήκοντα ταλάντοισι, Μιλτιάδης μὲν μετὰ
- ταῦτα, σφακελίσαντός τε τοῦ μηροῦ καὶ σαπέντος, τελευτᾷ· τὰ δὲ
- πεντήκοντα τάλαντα ἐξέτισεν ὁ πάϊς αὐτοῦ Κίμων.
-
- Plato (Gorgias, c. 153, p. 516) says that the Athenians passed a
- vote to cast Miltiadês into the barathrum (ἐμβαλεῖν ἐψηφίσαντο),
- and that he would have been actually thrown in, if it had not
- been for the prytanis, _i. e._ the president, by turn for that
- day, of the prytanizing senators and of the ekklesia. The
- prytanis may perhaps have been among those who spoke to the
- dikastery on behalf of Miltiadês, deprecating the proposition
- made by Xanthippus; but that he should have caused a vote once
- passed to be actually rescinded, is incredible. The Scholiast
- on Aristeidês (cited by Valckenaer ad Herodot. vi, 136) reduces
- the exaggeration of Plato to something more reasonable—Ὅτε γὰρ
- ἐκρίνετο Μιλτιάδης ἐπὶ τῇ Πάρῳ, ~ἠθέλσαν~ αὐτὸν κατακρημνίσαι· ὁ
- δὲ πρύτανις εἰσελθὼν ~ἐξῃτήσατο~ αὐτὸν.
-
-Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the
-expenses incurred by the state in fitting out the armament; but we
-may more probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian
-dikastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the minor
-penalty actually proposed by the defenders of Miltiadês themselves,
-as a substitute for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at
-Athens, where the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of
-the law, if the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to
-submit to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to
-amount of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he
-thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name
-an amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to
-take their choice between these two,—no third gradation of penalty
-being admissible for consideration.[677] Of course, under such
-circumstances, it was the interest of the accused party to name,
-even in his own case, some real and serious penalty,—something which
-the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly inadequate to his crime
-just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only trifling, he drove
-them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his opponent.
-Accordingly, in the case of Miltiadês, his friends, desirous of
-inducing the jurors to refuse their assent to the punishment of
-death, proposed a fine of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty
-of the defendant; and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in
-the case, that such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the
-expedition. The fine was imposed, but Miltiadês did not live to pay
-it; his injured limb mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be
-paid by his son Kimon.
-
- [677] That this was the habitual course of Attic procedure in
- respect to public indictments, wherever a positive amount of
- penalty was not previously determined, appears certain. See
- Platner, Prozess und Klagen bei den Attikern, Abschn. vi, vol.
- i, p. 201; Heffter, Die Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung, p.
- 334. Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iv, p. 725)
- maintain that any one of the dikasts might propose a third
- measure of penalty, distinct from that proposed by the accuser
- as well as the accused. In respect to public indictments, this
- opinion appears decidedly incorrect; but where the sentence to
- be pronounced involved a compensation for private wrong and an
- estimate of damages, we cannot so clearly determine whether there
- was not sometimes a greater latitude in originating propositions
- for the dikasts to vote upon. It is to be recollected that
- these dikasts were several hundred, sometimes even more, in
- number,—that there was no discussion or deliberation among
- them,—and that it was absolutely necessary for some distinct
- proposition to be laid before them to take a vote upon. In regard
- to some offences, the law expressly permitted what was called a
- προστíμημα; that is, after the dikasts had pronounced the full
- penalty demanded by the accuser, any other citizen who thought
- the penalty so imposed insufficient, might call for a certain
- limited amount of additional penalty, and require the dikasts to
- vote upon it,—ay or no. The votes of the dikasts were given, by
- depositing pebbles in two casks, under certain arrangements of
- detail.
-
- The ἀγὼν τιμητὸς, δίκη τιμητὸς, or trial including this separate
- admeasurement of penalty,—as distinguished from the δίκη
- ἀτίμητος, or trial where the penalty was predetermined, and
- where was no τίμησις, or vote of admeasurement of penalty,—is
- an important line of distinction in the subject-matter of Attic
- procedure; and the practice of calling on the accused party,
- after having been pronounced guilty, to impose upon himself a
- _counter-penalty_ or _under-penalty_ (ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι or ὑποτιμᾶθαι)
- in contrast with that named by the accuser, was a convenient
- expedient for bringing the question to a substantive vote of the
- dikasts. Sometimes accused persons found it convenient to name
- very large penalties on themselves, in order to escape a capital
- sentence invoked by the accuser (see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat.
- c. 34, p. 743, R). Nor was there any fear, as Platner imagines,
- that in the generality of cases the dikasts would be left under
- the necessity of choosing between an extravagant penalty and
- something merely nominal; for the interest of the accused party
- himself would prevent this from happening. Sometimes we see him
- endeavoring by entreaties to prevail upon the accuser voluntarily
- to abate something of the penalty which he had at first named;
- and the accuser might probably do this, if he saw that the
- dikasts were not likely to go along with that first proposition.
-
- In one particular case, of immortal memory, that which Platner
- contemplates actually did happen; and the death of Sokratês was
- the effect of it. Sokratês, having been found guilty, only by a
- small majority of votes among the dikasts, was called upon to
- name a penalty upon himself, in opposition to that of death,
- urged by Melêtus. He was in vain entreated by his friends to name
- a fine of some tolerable amount, which they would at once have
- paid in his behalf; but he would hardly be prevailed upon to name
- any penalty at all, affirming that he had deserved honor rather
- than punishment: at last, he named a fine so small in amount, as
- to be really tantamount to an acquittal. Indeed, Xenophon states
- that he would not name any counter-penalty at all; and in the
- speech ascribed to him, he contended that he had even merited the
- signal honor of a public maintenance in the prytaneium (Plato,
- Apol. Sok. c. 27; Xenoph. Apol. Sok. 23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 41).
- Plato and Xenophon do not agree; but taking the two together, it
- would seem that he must have named a very small fine. There can
- be little doubt that this circumstance, together with the tenor
- of his defence, caused the dikasts to vote for the proposition of
- Melêtus.
-
-According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he was put
-in prison, after having been fined, and there died.[678] But
-Herodotus does not mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears
-to me improbable: he would hardly have omitted to notice it, had
-it come to his knowledge. Immediate imprisonment of a person fined
-by the dikastery, until his fine was paid, was not the natural and
-ordinary course of Athenian procedure, though there were particular
-cases in which such aggravation was added. Usually, a certain
-time was allowed for payment,[679] before absolute execution was
-resorted to, but the person under sentence became disfranchised and
-excluded from all political rights, from the very instant of his
-condemnation as a public debtor, until the fine was paid. Now in
-the instance of Miltiadês, the lamentable condition of his wounded
-thigh rendered escape impossible,—so that there would be no special
-motive for departing from the usual practice, and imprisoning him
-forthwith: moreover, if he was not imprisoned forthwith, he would
-not be imprisoned at all, since he cannot have lived many days
-after his trial.[680] To carry away the suffering general in his
-couch, incapable of raising himself even to plead for his own life,
-from the presence of the dikasts to a prison, would not only have
-been a needless severity, but could hardly have failed to imprint
-itself on the sympathies and the memory of all the beholders; so
-that Herodotus would have been likely to hear and mention it, if it
-had really occurred. I incline to believe therefore that Miltiadês
-died at home: all accounts concur in stating that he died of the
-mortal bodily hurt which already disabled him even at the moment
-of his trial, and that his son Kimon paid the fifty talents after
-his death. If _he_ could pay them, probably his father could have
-paid them also. And this is an additional reason for believing that
-there was no imprisonment,—for nothing but non-payment could have
-sent him to prison; and to rescue the suffering Miltiadês from being
-sent thither, would have been the first and strongest desire of all
-sympathizing friends.
-
- [678] Cornelius Nepos, Miltiadês, c. 7; and Kimon, c. 1;
- Plutarch, Kimon, c. 4; Diodorus, Fragment. lib. x. All these
- authors probably drew from the same original fountain; perhaps
- Ephorus (see Marx, ad Ephori Fragmenta, p. 212); but we have no
- means of determining. Respecting the alleged imprisonment of
- Kimon, however, they must have copied from different authorities,
- for their statements are all different. Diodorus states, that
- Kimon put himself voluntarily into prison after his father had
- died there, because he was not permitted on any other condition
- to obtain the body of his deceased father for burial. Cornelius
- Nepos affirms that he was imprisoned, as being legally liable to
- the state for the unpaid fine of his father. Lastly, Plutarch
- does not represent him as having been put into prison at all.
- Many of the Latin writers follow the statement of Diodorus: see
- the citations in Bos’s note on the above passage of Cornelius
- Nepos.
-
- There can be no hesitation in adopting the account of Plutarch
- as the true one. Kimon neither was, nor could be, in prison,
- by the Attic law, for an unpaid fine of his father; but after
- his father’s death, he became liable for the fine, in this
- sense,—that he remained disfranchised (ἄτιμος) and excluded from
- his rights as a citizen, until the fine was paid: see Dêmosthen.
- cont. Timokrat. c. 46, p. 762, R.
-
- [679] See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. 13, p.
- 390, Engl. Transl. (vol. i, p. 420, Germ.); Meier und Schömann,
- Attisch. Prozess, p. 744. Dr. Thirlwall takes a different view
- of this point, with which I cannot concur (Hist. Gr. vol. iii,
- Append. ii, p. 488); though his general remarks on the trial of
- Miltiadês are just and appropriate (ch. xiv, p. 273).
-
- Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 8; Kimon, c. 3) says that the
- misconduct connected with Paros was only a pretence with the
- Athenians for punishing Miltiadês; their real motive, he affirms,
- was envy and fear, the same feelings which dictated the ostracism
- of Kimon. How little there is to justify this fancy, may be seen
- even from the nature of the punishment inflicted. Fear would have
- prompted them to send away or put to death Miltiadês, not to fine
- him. The ostracism, which was dictated by fear, was a temporary
- banishment.
-
- [680] The interval between his trial and his decease is expressed
- in Herodotus (vi, 136) by the difference between the present
- participle σηπομένου and the past participle σαπέντος τοῦ μηροῦ.
-
-Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act
-of it produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking,—his
-descent from the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a
-temple-servant, mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death
-under a sentence of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared,—that
-readers, ancient and modern, have not been satisfied without finding
-some one to blame for it: we must except Herodotus, our original
-authority, who recounts the transaction without dropping a single
-hint of blame against any one. To speak ill of the people, as
-Machiavel has long ago observed,[681] is a strain in which every one
-at all times, even under a democratical government, indulges with
-impunity and without provoking any opponent to reply; and in this
-instance, the hard fate of Miltiadês has been imputed to the vices of
-the Athenians and their democracy,—it has been cited in proof, partly
-of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But however such
-blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from a series
-of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to those
-facts a reasonable criticism.
-
- [681] Machiavel, Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, cap. 58. “L’ opinione
- contro ai popoli nasce, perchè dei popoli ciascun dice male senza
- paura, e liberamente ancora mentre che regnano: dei principi si
- parla sempre con mille timori e mille rispetti.”
-
-What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is
-nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of
-Miltiadês; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath.
-To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a
-change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct.
-His behavior in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at
-Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately
-after the other: what else could ensue except an entire revolution in
-the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over
-their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither,
-in the confidence of an unknown booty: he had exposed their lives
-and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge: in addition
-to the shame of an unprincipled project, comes the constructive
-shame of not having succeeded in it. Without doubt, such behavior,
-coming from a man whom they admired to excess, must have produced
-a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of his countrymen.
-The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon a person who
-forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the greatest
-torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that the
-intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this
-reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness.
-If an officer, whose conduct has been such as to merit the highest
-encomiums, comes on a sudden to betray his trust, and manifests
-cowardice or treachery in a new and important undertaking confided
-to him, are we to treat the general in command as fickle, because
-his opinion as well as his conduct undergoes an instantaneous
-revolution,—which will be all the more vehement in proportion to his
-previous esteem? The question to be determined is, whether there be
-sufficient ground for such a change; and in the case of Miltiadês,
-that question must be answered in the affirmative.
-
-In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this
-last-mentioned point—sufficiency of reason—stands tacitly admitted.
-It is conceded that Miltiadês deserved punishment for his conduct in
-reference to the Parian expedition, but it is nevertheless maintained
-that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have
-exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after
-all, this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated
-in the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really
-contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public,
-is to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the
-future? Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill
-and important victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the
-liberty of betraying his trust afterwards, and exposing his country
-to peril, without censure or penalty? This is what no one intends
-to vindicate deliberately; yet a man must be prepared to vindicate
-it, when he blames the Athenians for ingratitude towards Miltiadês.
-For if all that be meant is, that gratitude for previous services
-ought to pass, not as a receipt in full for subsequent crime, but
-as an extenuating circumstance in the measurement of the penalty,
-the answer is, that it was so reckoned in the Athenian treatment of
-Miltiadês.[682] His friends had nothing whatever to urge, against
-the extreme penalty proposed by his accuser, except these previous
-services,—which influenced the dikasts sufficiently to induce them to
-inflict the lighter punishment instead of the heavier. Now the whole
-amount of punishment inflicted consisted in a fine which certainly
-was not beyond his reasonable means of paying, or of prevailing
-upon friends to pay for him, since his son Kimon actually did pay
-it. And those who blame the Athenians for ingratitude,—unless they
-are prepared to maintain the doctrine that previous services are to
-pass as full acquittal for future crime,—have no other ground left
-except to say that the fine was too high; that instead of being fifty
-talents, it ought to have been no more than forty, thirty, twenty,
-or ten talents. Whether they are right in this, I will not take upon
-me to pronounce. If the amount was named on behalf of the accused
-party, the dikastery had no legal power of diminishing it; but it
-is within such narrow limits that the question actually lies, when
-transferred from the province of sentiment to that of reason. It will
-be recollected that the death of Miltiadês arose neither from his
-trial nor his fine, but from the hurt in his thigh.
-
- [682] Machiavel will not even admit so much as _this_, in the
- clear and forcible statement which he gives of the question here
- alluded to: he contends that the man who has rendered services
- ought to be recompensed for them, but that he ought to be
- punished for subsequent crime just as if the previous services
- had not been rendered. He lays down this position in discussing
- the conduct of the Romans towards the victorious survivor of
- the three Horatii, after the battle with the Curiatii: “Erano
- stati i meriti di Orazio grandissimi, avendo con la sua virtù
- vinti i Curiazi. Era stato il fallo suo atroce, avendo morto la
- sorella. Nondimeno dispiacque tanto tale omicidio ai Romani,
- che lo condussero a disputare della vita, non ostante che gli
- meriti suoi fussero tanto grandi e si freschi. La qual cosa, a
- chi superficialmente la considerasse, parrebbe uno esempio d’
- ingratitudine popolare. Nondimeno chi lo esaminerà meglio, e con
- migliore considerazione ricercherà quali debbono essere gli’
- ordini delle republiche, biasimearà quel popolo piuttosto per
- averlo assoluto, che per averlo voluto condannare: e la ragione
- è questa, che nessuna republica bene ordinata, non mai cancellò
- i demeriti con gli meriti dei suoi cittadini: ma avendo ordinati
- i premi ad una buona opera, e le pene ad una cattiva, ed avendo
- premiato uno per aver bene operato, se quel medesimo opera dipoi
- male, lo gastiga senza avere riguardo alcuno alle sue buone
- opere. E quando questi ordini sono bene osservati, una città vive
- libera molto tempo: altrimenti sempre rovinera presto. _Perchè
- se, ad un cittadino che abbia fatto qualche egregia opere per
- la città, si aggiunge oltre alla riputazione, che quella cosa
- gli arreca, una audacia e confidenza di potere senza temer pena,
- far qualche opera non buona, diventerà in breve tempo tanto
- insolente, che si risolverà ogni civiltà._”—Machiavel, Discorsi
- sop. Tit. Livio, ch. 24.
-
-The charge of ingratitude against the Athenian popular juries really
-amounts to this,—that, in trying a person accused of present crime
-or fault, they were apt to confine themselves too strictly and
-exclusively to the particular matter of charge, either forgetting,
-or making too little account of, past services which he might have
-rendered. Whoever imagines that such was the habit of Athenian
-dikasts, must have studied the orators to very little purpose. Their
-real defect was the very opposite: they were too much disposed to
-wander from the special issue before them, and to be affected by
-appeals to previous services and conduct.[683] That which an accused
-person at Athens usually strives to produce is, an impression in the
-minds of the dikasts favorable to his general character and behavior.
-Of course, he meets the particular allegation of his accuser as well
-as he can, but he never fails also to remind them emphatically, how
-well he has performed his general duties of a citizen,—how many times
-he has served in military expeditions,—how many trierarchies and
-liturgies he has performed, and performed with splendid efficiency.
-In fact, the claim of an accused person to acquittal is made to
-rest too much on his prior services, and too little upon innocence
-or justifying matter as to the particular indictment. When we come
-down to the time of the orators, I shall be prepared to show that
-such indisposition to confine themselves to a special issue was one
-of the most serious defects of the assembled dikasts at Athens. It
-is one which we should naturally expect from a body of private,
-non-professional citizens assembled for the occasion, and which
-belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere; but it
-is the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility
-to prior services, for which they have been so often denounced.
-
- [683] Machiavel, in the twenty-ninth chapter of his Discorsi
- sopra T. Livio, examines the question, “Which of the two is more
- open to the charge of being ungrateful,—a popular government, or
- a king?” He thinks that the latter is more open to it. Compare
- chapter fifty-nine of the same work, where he again supports a
- similar opinion.
-
- M. Sismondi also observes, in speaking of the long attachment of
- the city of Pisa to the cause of the emperors and to the Ghibelin
- party: “Pise montra dans plus d’une occasion, par sa constance à
- supporter la cause des empereurs au milieu des revers, combien la
- reconnoissance lie un peuple libre d’une manière plus puissante
- et plus durable qu’elle ne sauroit lier le peuple gouverné par un
- seul homme.” (Histoire des Républ. Italiennes, ch. xiii, tom. ii,
- p. 302.)
-
-The fate of Miltiadês, then, so far from illustrating either the
-fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just
-appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral, of no
-small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it
-teaches us the painful lesson, how perfectly maddening were the
-effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of an
-enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt, that the
-rapid transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian
-terror before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have
-produced demonstrations towards Miltiadês such as were never paid
-towards any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. Such
-unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that his
-mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence, and
-antipathy, and rapacity;—that distempered state, for which (according
-to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever on the watch,
-and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment startling in
-its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount. Had Miltiadês
-been the same man before the battle of Marathon as he became after
-it, the battle might probably have turned out a defeat instead of
-a victory. Dêmosthenês, indeed,[684] in speaking of the wealth
-and luxury of political leaders in his own time, and the profuse
-rewards bestowed upon them by the people, pointed in contrast to
-the house of Miltiadês as being noway more splendid than that of a
-private man. But though Miltiadês might continue to live in a modest
-establishment, he received from his countrymen marks of admiration
-and deference such as were never paid to any citizen before or after
-him; and, after all, admiration and deference constitute the precious
-essence of popular reward. No man except Miltiadês ever dared to
-raise his voice in the Athenian assembly, and say: “Give me a fleet
-of ships: do not ask what I am going to do with them, but only
-follow me, and I will enrich you.” Herein we may read the unmeasured
-confidence which the Athenians placed in their victorious general,
-and the utter incapacity of a leading Greek to bear it without mental
-depravation; while we learn from it to draw the melancholy inference,
-that one result of success was to make the successful leader one
-of the most dangerous men in the community. We shall presently be
-called upon to observe the same tendency in the case of the Spartan
-Pausanias, and even in that of the Athenian Themistoklês. It is,
-indeed, fortunate that the reckless aspirations of Miltiadês did not
-take a turn more noxious to Athens than the comparatively unimportant
-enterprise against Paros. For had he sought to acquire dominion and
-gratify antipathies against enemies at home, instead of directing
-his blow against a Parian enemy, the peace and security of his
-country might have been seriously endangered.
-
- [684] Dêmosthenês, Olynth. iii, c. 9, p. 35, R.
-
-Of the despots who gained power in Greece, a considerable proportion
-began by popular conduct, and by rendering good service to their
-fellow-citizens: having first earned public gratitude, they abused
-it for purposes of their own ambition. There was far greater danger,
-in a Grecian community, of dangerous excess of gratitude towards
-a victorious soldier, than of deficiency in that sentiment: hence
-the person thus exalted acquired a position such that the community
-found it difficult afterwards to shake him off. Now there is a
-disposition almost universal among writers and readers to side
-with an individual, especially an eminent individual, against the
-multitude; and accordingly those who under such circumstances suspect
-the probable abuse of an exalted position, are denounced as if they
-harbored an unworthy jealousy of superior abilities. But the truth
-is, that the largest analogies of the Grecian character justified
-that suspicion, and required the community to take precautions
-against the corrupting effects of their own enthusiasm. There is
-no feature which more largely pervades the impressible Grecian
-character, than a liability to be intoxicated and demoralized by
-success: there was no fault from which so few eminent Greeks were
-free: there was hardly any danger, against which it was at once
-so necessary and so difficult for the Grecian governments to take
-security,—especially the democracies, where the manifestations of
-enthusiasm were always the loudest. Such is the real explanation of
-those charges which have been urged against the Grecian democracies,
-that they came to hate and ill-treat previous benefactors; and the
-history of Miltiadês illustrates it in a manner no less pointed than
-painful.
-
-I have already remarked that the fickleness, which has been so
-largely imputed to the Athenian democracy in their dealings with
-him, is nothing more than a reasonable change of opinion on the
-best grounds. Nor can it be said that fickleness was in any case
-an attribute of the Athenian democracy. It is a well-known fact,
-that feelings, or opinions, or modes of judging, which have once
-obtained footing among a large number of people, are more lasting and
-unchangeable than those which belong only to one or a few; insomuch
-that the judgments and actions of the many admit of being more
-clearly understood as to the past, and more certainly predicted as to
-the future. If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude,
-it will rather be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness; and
-there will occur nothing in the course of this history to prove that
-the Athenian people changed their opinions on insufficient grounds
-more frequently than an unresponsible one or few would have changed.
-
-But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian
-democracy which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness,
-without the reality: First, that the manifestations and changes
-of opinion were all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave
-utterance to their present impression, whatever it was, with perfect
-frankness; if their opinions were really changed, they had no shame
-or scruple in avowing it. Secondly,—and this is a point of capital
-importance in the working of democracy generally,—the _present_
-impression, whatever it might be, was not merely undisguised in its
-manifestations, but also had a tendency to be exaggerated in its
-intensity. This arose from their habit of treating public affairs
-in multitudinous assemblages, the well-known effect of which is,
-to inflame sentiment in every man’s bosom by mere contact with a
-sympathizing circle of neighbors. Whatever the sentiment might
-be,—fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety, patriotic
-devotion, etc,[685]—and whether well-founded or ill-founded, it was
-constantly influenced more or less by such intensifying cause.
-This is a defect which of course belongs in a certain degree to
-all exercise of power by numerous bodies, even though they be
-representative bodies,—especially when the character of the people,
-instead of being comparatively sedate and slow to move, like the
-English, is quick, impressible, and fiery, like Greeks or Italians;
-but it operated far more powerfully on the self-acting Dêmos
-assembled in the Pnyx. It was in fact the constitutional malady
-of the democracy, of which the people were themselves perfectly
-sensible,—as I shall show hereafter from the securities which
-they tried to provide against it,—but which no securities could
-ever wholly eradicate. Frequency of public assemblies, far from
-aggravating the evil, had a tendency to lighten it. The people
-thus became accustomed to hear and balance many different views
-as a preliminary to ultimate judgment; they contracted personal
-interest and esteem for a numerous class of dissentient speakers;
-and they even acquired a certain practical consciousness of their
-own liability to error. Moreover, the diffusion of habits of public
-speaking, by means of the sophists and the rhetors, whom it has been
-so much the custom to disparage, tended in the same direction,—to
-break the unity of sentiment among the listening crowd, to multiply
-separate judgments, and to neutralize the contagion of mere
-sympathizing impulse. These were important deductions, still farther
-assisted by the superior taste and intelligence of the Athenian
-people: but still, the inherent malady remained,—excessive and
-misleading intensity of present sentiment. It was this which gave
-such inestimable value to the ascendency of Periklês, as depicted by
-Thucydidês: his hold on the people was so firm, that he could always
-speak with effect against excess of the reigning tone of feeling.
-“When Periklês (says the historian) saw the people in a state of
-unseasonable and insolent confidence, he spoke so as to cow them into
-alarm; when again they were in groundless terror, he combated it, and
-brought them back to confidence.”[686] We shall find Dêmosthenês,
-with far inferior ascendency, employed in the same honorable task:
-the Athenian people often stood in need of such correction, but
-unfortunately did not always find statesmen, at once friendly and
-commanding, to administer it.
-
- [685] This is the general truth, which ancient authors often
- state, both partially, and in exaggerated terms as to degree:
- “Hæc est natura multitudinis (says Livy); aut humiliter servit
- aut superbe dominatur.” Again, Tacitus: “Nihil in vulgo modicum;
- terrere, ni paveant; ubi pertimuerint, impune contemni.” (Annal.
- i, 29.) Herodotus, iii, 81. ὠθέει δὲ (ὁ δῆμος) ἐμπεσὼν τὰ
- πρήγματα ἄνευ νοῦ, χειμάῤῥῳ ποταμῷ ἴκελος.
-
- It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Politica, takes little or
- no notice of this attribute belonging to every numerous assembly.
- He seems rather to reason as if the aggregate intelligence of
- the multitude was represented by the sum total of each man’s
- separate intelligence in all the individuals composing it (Polit.
- iii, 6, 4, 10, 12); just as the property of the multitude, taken
- collectively, would be greater than that of the few rich. He
- takes no notice of the difference between a number of individuals
- judging jointly and judging separately: I do not, indeed, observe
- that such omission leads him into any positive mistake, but it
- occurs in some cases calculated to surprise us, and where the
- difference here adverted to is important to notice: see Politic.
- iii, 10, 5, 6.
-
- [686] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὅποτε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν
- ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ
- δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν.
-
-These two attributes, then, belonged to the Athenian democracy;
-first, their sentiments of every kind were manifested loudly and
-openly; next, their sentiments tended to a pitch of great present
-intensity. Of course, therefore, when they changed, the change
-of sentiment stood prominent, and forced itself upon every one’s
-notice,—being a transition from one strong sentiment past to another
-strong sentiment present.[687] And it was because such alterations,
-when they did take place, stood out so palpably to remark, that
-the Athenian people have drawn upon themselves the imputation of
-fickleness: for it is not at all true, I repeat, that changes of
-sentiment were more frequently produced in them by frivolous or
-insufficient causes, than changes of sentiment in other governments.
-
- [687] Such swing of the mind, from one intense feeling to
- another, is always deprecated by the Greek moralists, from the
- earliest to the latest: even Demokritus, in the fifth century B.
- C., admonishes against it,—Αἱ ἐκ μεγάλων διαστημάτων κινεόμεναι
- τῶν ψυχῶν οὔτε εὐσταθέες εἰσὶν, οὔτε εὔθυμοι. (Democriti
- Fragmenta, lib. iii, p. 168, ed. Mullach ap. Stobæum, Florileg.
- i, 40.)
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXXVII.
-
-IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.
-
-
-The history of the powerful Grecian cities in Italy and Sicily,
-between the accession of Peisistratus and the battle of Marathon,
-is for the most part unknown to us. Phalaris, despot of Agrigentum
-in Sicily, made for himself an unenviable name during this obscure
-interval. His reign seems to coincide in time with the earlier part
-of the rule of Peisistratus (about 560-540 B. C.), and the few
-and vague statements which we find respecting it,[688] merely show
-us that it was a period of extortion and cruelty, even beyond the
-ordinary licence of Grecian despots. The reality of the hollow bull
-of brass, which Phalaris was accustomed to heat in order to shut up
-his victims in it and burn them, appears to be better authenticated
-than the nature of the story would lead us to presume: for it is
-not only noticed by Pindar, but even the actual instrument of this
-torture, the brazen bull itself,[689]—which had been taken away from
-Agrigentum as a trophy by the Carthaginians when they captured the
-town, was restored by the Romans, on the subjugation of Carthage, to
-its original domicile. Phalaris is said to have acquired the supreme
-command, by undertaking the task of building a great temple[690] to
-Zeus Polieus on the citadel rock; a pretence whereby he was enabled
-to assemble and arm a number of workmen and devoted partisans, whom
-he employed, at the festival of the Thesmophoria, to put down the
-authorities. He afterwards disarmed the citizens by a stratagem,
-and committed cruelties which rendered him so abhorred, that a
-sudden rising of the people, headed by Têlemachus (ancestor of the
-subsequent despot, Thêro), overthrew and slew him. A severe revenge
-was taken on his partisans after his fall.[691]
-
- [688] The letters of Bentley against Boyle, discussing the
- pretended Epistles of Phalaris,—full of acuteness and learning,
- though beyond measure excursive,—are quite sufficient to teach us
- that little can be safely asserted about Phalaris. His date is
- very imperfectly ascertained. Compare Bentley, pp. 82, 83, and
- Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, p. 60: the latter assigns the
- reign of Phalaris to the years 570-554 B. C. It is surprising
- to see Seyfert citing the letters of the pseudo-Phalaris as an
- authority, after the exposure of Bentley.
-
- [689] Pindar. Pyth. 1 _ad fin_, with the Scholia, p. 310, ed.
- Boeckh; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii, 99; Cicero cont. Verr.
- iv, 33. The contradiction of Timæus is noway sufficient to make
- us doubt the authenticity of the story. Ebert (Σικελίων, part
- ii, pp. 41-84, Königsberg, 1829) collects all the authorities
- about the bull of Phalaris. He believes the matter of fact
- substantially. Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 20) tells a story of the
- fable, whereby Stêsichorus the poet dissuaded the inhabitants
- of Himera from granting a guard to Phalaris: Conon (Narrat.
- 42 ap. Photium) recounts the same story with the name of
- Hiero substituted for that of Phalaris. But it is not likely
- that either the one or the other could ever have been in such
- relations with the citizens of _Himera_. Compare Polybius, vii,
- 7, 2.
-
- [690] Polyæn. v, 1, 1; Cicero de Officiis, ii, 7.
-
- [691] Plutarch, Philosophand. cum Principibus, c. 3, p. 778.
-
-During the interval between 540-500 B. C., events of much importance
-occurred among the Italian Greeks,—especially at Kroton and
-Sybaris,—events, unhappily, very imperfectly handed down. Between
-these two periods fall both the war between Sybaris and Kroton, and
-the career and ascendency of Pythagoras. In connection with this
-latter name, it will be requisite to say a few words respecting the
-other Grecian philosophers of the sixth century B. C.
-
-I have, in a former chapter, noticed and characterized those
-distinguished persons called the Seven Wise Men of Greece, whose
-celebrity falls in the first half of this century,—men not so much
-marked by scientific genius as by practical sagacity and foresight in
-the appreciation of worldly affairs, and enjoying a high degree of
-political respect from their fellow-citizens. One of them, however,
-the Milesian Thalês, claims our notice, not only on this ground, but
-also as the earliest known name in the long line of Greek scientific
-investigators. His life, nearly contemporary with that of Solon,
-belongs seemingly to the interval about 640-550 B. C.: the stories
-mentioned in Herodotus—perhaps borrowed in part from the Milesian
-Hekatæus—are sufficient to show that his reputation for wisdom, as
-well as for science, continued to be very great, even a century after
-his death, among his fellow-citizens. And he marks an important
-epoch in the progress of the Greek mind, as having been the first
-man to depart both in letter and spirit from the Hesiodic Theogony,
-introducing the conception of substances with their transformations
-and sequences, in place of that string of persons and quasi-human
-attributes which had animated the old legendary world. He is the
-father of what is called the Ionic philosophy, which is considered
-as lasting from his time down to that of Sokratês; and writers,
-ancient as well as modern, have professed to trace a succession of
-philosophers, each one the pupil of the preceding, between these two
-extreme epochs. But the appellation is, in truth, undefined, and
-even incorrect, since nothing entitled to the name of a school, or
-sect, or succession,—like that of the Pythagoreans, to be noticed
-presently,—can be made out. There is, indeed, a certain general
-analogy in the philosophical vein of Thalês, Hippo, Anaximenês, and
-Diogenês of Apollonia, whereby they all stand distinguished from
-Xenophanês of Elea, and his successors, the Eleatic dialecticians,
-Parmenidês and Zeno; but there are also material differences between
-their respective doctrines,—no two of them holding the same. And if
-we look to Anaximander, the person next in order of time to Thalês,
-as well as to Herakleitus, we find them departing, in a great degree,
-even from that character which all the rest have in common, though
-both the one and the other are usually enrolled in the list of Ionic
-philosophers.
-
-Of the old legendary and polytheistic conception of nature, which
-Thalês partially discarded, we may remark that it is a state of the
-human mind in which the problems suggesting themselves to be solved,
-and the machinery for solving them, bear a fair proportion one to
-the other. If the problems be vast, indeterminate, confused, and
-derived rather from the hopes, fears, love, hatred, astonishment,
-etc., of men, than from any genuine desire of knowledge,—so also
-does the received belief supply invisible agents in unlimited
-number, and with every variety of power and inclination. The means
-of explanation are thus multiplied and diversified as readily as the
-phenomena to be explained. And though no future events or states can
-be predicted on trustworthy grounds, in such manner as to stand the
-scrutiny of subsequent verification,—yet there is little difficulty
-in rendering a specious and plausible account of matters past, of any
-and all things alike; especially as, at such a period, matters of
-fact requiring explanation are neither collated nor preserved with
-care. And though no event or state, which has not yet occurred, can
-be predicted, there is little difficulty in rendering a plausible
-account of everything which has occurred in the past. Cosmogony, and
-the prior ages of the world, were conceived as a sort of personal
-history, with intermarriages, filiation, quarrels, and other
-adventures, of these invisible agents; among whom some one or more
-were assumed as unbegotten and self-existent,—the latter assumption
-being a difficulty common to all systems of cosmogony, and from which
-even this flexible and expansive hypothesis is not exempt.
-
-Now when Thalês disengaged Grecian philosophy from the old mode of
-explanation, he did not at the same time disengage it from the old
-problems and matters propounded for inquiry. These he retained,
-and transmitted to his successors, as vague and vast as they
-were at first conceived; and so they remained, though with some
-transformations and modifications, together with many new questions
-equally insoluble, substantially present to the Greeks throughout
-their whole history, as the legitimate problems for philosophical
-investigation. But these problems, adapted only to the old elastic
-system of polytheistic explanation and omnipresent personal agency,
-became utterly disproportioned to any impersonal hypotheses such
-as those of Thalês and the philosophers after him,—whether assumed
-physical laws, or plausible moral and metaphysical dogmas, open to
-argumentative attack, and of course requiring the like defence. To
-treat the visible world as a whole, and inquire when and how it
-began, as well as into all its past changes,—to discuss the first
-origin of men, animals, plants, the sun, the stars, etc.,—to assign
-some comprehensive reason why motion or change in general took place
-in the universe,—to investigate the destinies of the human race, and
-to lay down some systematic relation between them and the gods,—all
-these were topics admitting of being conceived in many different
-ways, and set forth with eloquent plausibility, but not reducible to
-any solution either resting on scientific evidence, or commanding
-steady adherence under a free scrutiny.[692]
-
- [692] The less these problems are adapted for rational solution,
- the more nobly do they present themselves in the language of a
- great poem; see as a specimen, Euripidês, Fragment. 101, ed.
- Dindorf.
-
- Ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας
- Ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν
- Ἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ, μήτ᾽ εἰς ἀδίκους
- Πράξεις ὁρμῶν·
- Ἀλλ᾽ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως
- Κόσμον ἀγήρω, πῆ τε συνέστη
- Καὶ ὅπη καὶ ὅπως.
- Τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ᾽ αἰσχρῶν
- Ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.
-
-At the time when the power of scientific investigation was scanty
-and helpless, the problems proposed were thus such as to lie out
-of the reach of science in its largest compass. Gradually, indeed,
-subjects more special and limited, and upon which experience, or
-deductions from experience, could be brought to bear, were added
-to the list of _quæsita_, and examined with great profit and
-instruction: but the old problems, with new ones, alike unfathomable,
-were never eliminated, and always occupied a prominent place in
-the philosophical world. Now it was this disproportion, between
-questions to be solved and means of solution, which gave rise
-to that conspicuous characteristic of Grecian philosophy,—the
-antagonist force of suspensive skepticism, passing in some minds
-into a broad negation of the attainability of general truth,—which
-it nourished from its beginning to its end; commencing as early
-as Xenophanês, continuing to manifest itself seven centuries
-afterwards in Ænesidêmus and Sextus Empiricus, and including in
-the interval between these two extremes some of the most powerful
-intellects in Greece. The present is not the time for considering
-these Skeptics, who bear an unpopular name, and have not often been
-fairly appreciated; the more so, as it often suited the purpose of
-men, themselves essentially skeptical, like Sokratês and Plato, to
-denounce professed skepticism with indignation. But it is essential
-to bring them into notice at the first spring of Grecian philosophy
-under Thalês, because the circumstances were then laid which so soon
-afterwards developed them.
-
-Though the celebrity of Thalês in antiquity was great and universal,
-scarcely any distinct facts were known respecting him: it is certain
-that he left nothing in writing. Extensive travels in Egypt and
-Asia are ascribed to him, and as a general fact these travels are
-doubtless true, since no other means of acquiring knowledge were
-then open. At a time when the brother of the Lesbian Alkæus was
-serving in the Babylonian army, we may easily conceive that an
-inquisitive Milesian would make his way to that wonderful city
-wherein stood the temple-observatory of the Chaldæan priesthood;
-nor is it impossible that he may have seen the still greater city
-of Ninus, or Nineveh, before its capture and destruction by the
-Medes. How great his reputation was in his lifetime, the admiration
-expressed by his younger contemporary, Xenophanês, assures us; and
-Herakleitus, in the next generation, a severe judge of all other
-philosophers, spoke of him with similar esteem. To him were traced,
-by the Grecian inquirers of the fourth century B. C., the first
-beginnings of geometry, astronomy, and physiology in its large and
-really appropriate sense, the scientific study of nature: for the
-Greek word denoting nature (φύσις), first comes into comprehensive
-use about this time (as I have remarked in an earlier chapter),[693]
-with its derivatives _physics_ and _physiology_, as distinguished
-from the _theology_ of the old poets. Little stress can be laid on
-those elementary propositions in geometry which are specified as
-discovered, or as first demonstrated, by Thalês,—still less upon the
-solar eclipse respecting which, according to Herodotus, he determined
-beforehand the year of occurrence.[694] But the main doctrine of his
-physiology,—using that word in its larger Greek sense,—is distinctly
-attested. He stripped Oceanus and Tethys, primeval parents of the
-gods in the Homeric theogony, of their personality,—and laid down
-water, or fluid substance, as the single original element from
-which everything came, and into which everything returned.[695] The
-doctrine of one eternal element, remaining always the same in its
-essence, but indefinitely variable in its manifestations to sense,
-was thus first introduced to the discussion of the Grecian public.
-We have no means of knowing the reasons by which Thalês supported
-this opinion, nor could even Aristotle do more than conjecture
-what they might have been; but one of the statements urged on
-behalf of it,—that the earth itself rested on water,[696]—we may
-safely refer to the Milesian himself, for it would hardly have been
-advanced at a later age. Moreover, Thalês is reported to have held,
-that everything was living and full of gods; and that the magnet,
-especially, was a living thing. Thus the gods, as far as we can
-pretend to follow opinions so very faintly transmitted, are conceived
-as active powers, and causes of changeful manifestation, attached
-to the primeval substance:[697] the universe being assimilated to an
-organized body or system.
-
- [693] Vol. i, ch. xvi.
-
- [694] Diogen. Laërt. i, 23; Herodot. i, 75; Apuleius, Florid. iv,
- p. 144, Bip.
-
- Proclus, in his Commentary on Euclid, specifies several
- propositions said to have been discovered by Thalês (Brandis,
- Handbuch der Gr. Philos. ch. xxviii, p. 110).
-
- [695] Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 3; Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i,
- 3, p. 875. ὃς ἐξ ὔδατος φησὶ πάντα εἶναι, καὶ εἰς ὕδωρ πάντα
- ἀναλύεσθαι.
-
- [696] Aristotel. _ut supra_, and De Cœlo, ii, 13.
-
- [697] Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2-5; Cicero, De Legg. ii, 11;
- Diogen. Laërt. i, 24.
-
-Respecting Hippo,—who reproduced the theory of Thalês under a more
-generalized form of expression, substituting, in place of water,
-moisture, or something common to air and water,[698]—we do not know
-whether he belonged to the sixth or the fifth century B. C. But
-Anaximander, Xenophanês, and Pherekydês belong to the latter half of
-the sixth century. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadês, was a native
-of Milêtus,—Xenophanês, a native of Kolophon; the former, among the
-earliest expositors of doctrine in prose,[699] while the latter
-committed his opinions to the old medium of verse. Anaximander seems
-to have taken up the philosophical problem, while he materially
-altered the hypothesis of his predecessor Thalês. Instead of the
-primeval fluid of the latter, he supposed a primeval principle,
-without any actual determining qualities whatever, but including all
-qualities potentially, and manifesting them in an infinite variety
-from its continually self-changing nature,—a principle, which was
-nothing in itself, yet had the capacity of producing any and all
-manifestations, however contrary to each other,[700]—a primeval
-something, whose essence it was to be eternally productive of
-different phenomena,—a sort of mathematical point, which counts for
-nothing in itself, but is vigorous in generating lines to any extent
-that may be desired. In this manner, Anaximander professed to give
-a comprehensive explanation of change in general, or generation,
-or destruction,—how it happened that one sensible thing began and
-another ceased to exist,—according to the vague problems which these
-early inquirers were in the habit of setting to themselves.[701] He
-avoided that which the first philosophers especially dreaded, the
-affirmation that generation could take place out of Nothing; yet the
-primeval Something, which he supposed was only distinguished from
-nothing by possessing this very power of generation.
-
- [698] Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2; Alexander Aphrodis. in
- Aristotel. Metaphys. 1, 3.
-
- [699] Apollodorus, in the second century B. C., had before him
- some brief expository treatises of Anaximander (Diogen. Laërt.
- ii, 2): Περὶ Φύσεως, Γῆς Περίοδον, Περὶ τῶν Ἀπλανῶν καὶ Σφαῖραν
- καὶ ἄλλα τινά. Suidas, v. Ἀναξίμανδρος. Themistius. Orat. xxv,
- p. 317: ἐθάῤῥησε πρῶτος ὦν ἴσμεν Ἐλλήνων λόγον ἐξενεγκεῖν περὶ
- Φύσεως συγγεγραμμένον.
-
- [700] Irenæus, ii, 19, (14) ap. Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte
- der Griech. Röm. Philos. ch. xxxv, p. 133: “Anaximander hoc
- quod immensum est, omnium initium subjecit, seminaliter habens
- in semetipso omnium genesin, ex quo immensos mundos constare
- ait.” Aristotel. Physic. Auscult. iii, 4, p. 203, Bek. οὔτε γὰρ
- μάτην αὐτὸ οἶόν τε εἶναι (τὸ ἄπειρον), οὔτε ἄλλην ὑπάρχειν αὐτῷ
- δύναμιν, πλὴν ὡς ἀρχήν. Aristotle subjects this ἄπειρον to an
- elaborate discussion, in which he says very little more about
- Anaximander, who appears to have assumed it without anticipating
- discussion or objections. Whether Anaximander called his
- ἄπειρον divine, or god, as Tennemann (Gesch. Philos. i, 2, p.
- 67) and Panzerbieter affirm (ad Diogenis Apolloniat. Fragment.
- c. 13, p. 16,) I think doubtful: this is rather an inference
- which Aristotle elicits from his language. Yet in another
- passage, which is difficult to reconcile, Aristotle ascribes
- to Anaximander the water-doctrine of Thalês, (Aristotel. de
- Xenophane, p. 975. Bek.)
-
- Anaximander seems to have followed speculations analogous to
- those of Thalês, in explaining the first production of the human
- race (Plutarch Placit. Philos. v, 19, p. 908), and in other
- matters (ibid. iii, 16, p. 896).
-
- [701] Aristotel. De Generat. et Destruct. c. 3, p. 317, Bek. ὃ
- μάλιστα φοβούμενοι διετέλεσαν οἱ πρῶτοι φιλοσοφήσαντες, τὸ ἐκ
- μηδενὸς γίνεσθαι προϋπάρχοντος· compare Physic. Auscultat. i, 4,
- p. 187, Bek.
-
-In his theory, he passed from the province of physics into that
-of metaphysics. He first introduced into Grecian philosophy that
-important word which signifies a beginning or a principle,[702] and
-first opened that metaphysical discussion, which was carried on in
-various ways throughout the whole period of Grecian philosophy, as
-to the one and the many—the continuous and the variable—that which
-exists eternally, as distinguished from that which comes and passes
-away in ever-changing manifestations. His physiology, or explanation
-of nature, thus conducted the mind into a different route from that
-suggested by the hypothesis of Thalês, which was built upon physical
-considerations, and was therefore calculated to suggest and stimulate
-observations of physical phenomena for the purpose of verifying or
-confuting it,—while the hypothesis of Anaximander admitted only of
-being discussed dialectically, or by reasonings expressed in general
-language; reasonings sometimes, indeed, referring to experience for
-the purpose of illustration, but seldom resting on it, and never
-looking out for it as a necessary support. The physical explanation
-of nature, however, once introduced by Thalês, although deserted by
-Anaximander, was taken up by Anaximenês and others afterwards, and
-reproduced with many divergences of doctrine,—yet always more or
-less entangled and perplexed with metaphysical additions, since the
-two departments were never clearly parted throughout all Grecian
-philosophy. Of these subsequent physical philosophers I shall speak
-hereafter: at present, I confine myself to the thinkers of the sixth
-century B. C., among whom Anaximander stands prominent, not as the
-follower of Thalês, but as the author of an hypothesis both new and
-tending in a different direction.
-
- [702] Simplicius in Aristotel. Physic. fol. 6, 32. πρῶτος αὐτὸς
- Ἀρχὴν ὀνομάσας τὸ ὑποκείμενον.
-
-It was not merely as the author of this hypothesis, however, that
-Anaximander enlarged the Greek mind and roused the powers of thought:
-we find him also mentioned as distinguished in astronomy and
-geometry. He is said to have been the first to establish a sun-dial
-in Greece, to construct a sphere, and to explain the obliquity of
-the ecliptic;[703] how far such alleged authorship really belongs
-to him, we cannot be certain,—but there is one step of immense
-importance which he is clearly affirmed to have made. He was the
-first to compose a treatise on the geography of the land and sea
-within his cognizance, and to construct a chart or map founded
-thereupon,—seemingly a tablet of brass. Such a novelty, wondrous even
-to the rude and ignorant, was calculated to stimulate powerfully
-inquisitive minds, and from it may be dated the commencement of
-Grecian rational geography,—not the least valuable among the
-contributions of this people to the stock of human knowledge.
-
- [703] Diogen. Laërt. ii, 81, 2. He agreed with Thalês in
- maintaining that the earth was stationary, (Aristotel. de Cœlo,
- ii, 13, p. 295, ed. Bekk.)
-
-Xenophanês of Kolophon, somewhat younger than Anaximander, and
-nearly contemporary with Pythagoras (seemingly from about 570-480
-B. C.), migrated from Kolophon[704] to Zanklê and Katana in Sicily
-and Elea in Italy, soon after the time when Ionia became subject
-to the Persians, (540-530 B. C.) He was the founder of what is
-called the Eleatic school of philosophers,—a real school, since it
-appears that Parmenidês, Zeno, and Melissus, pursued and developed,
-in a great degree, the train of speculation which had been begun by
-Xenophanês,—doubtless with additions and variations of their own,
-but especially with a dialectic power which belongs to the age of
-Periklês, and is unknown in the sixth century B. C. He was the author
-of more than one poem of considerable length, one on the foundation
-of Kolophon and another on that of Elea; besides his poem on Nature,
-wherein his philosophical doctrines were set forth.[705] His manner
-appears to have been controversial and full of asperity towards
-antagonists; but what is most remarkable is the plain-spoken manner
-in which he declared himself against the popular religion, and in
-which he denounced as abominable the descriptions of the gods given
-by Homer and Hesiod.[706]
-
- [704] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.
-
- [705] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 22; Stobæus, Eclog. Phys. i, p. 294.
-
- [706] Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathem. ix, 193.
-
-He is said to have controverted the doctrines both of Thalês and
-Pythagoras: this is probable enough; but he seems to have taken his
-start from the philosophy of Anaximander,—not, however, to adopt it,
-but to reverse it,—and to set forth an opinion which we may call its
-contrary. Nature, in the conception of Anaximander, consisted of a
-Something having no other attribute except the unlimited power of
-generating and cancelling phenomenal changes: in this doctrine, the
-something or substratum existed only in and for those changes, and
-could not be said to exist at all in any other sense: the permanent
-was thus merged and lost in the variable,—the one in the many.
-Xenophanês laid down the exact opposite: he conceived Nature as one
-unchangeable and indivisible whole, spherical, animated, endued with
-reason, and penetrated by or indeed identical with God: he denied
-the objective reality of all change, or generation, or destruction,
-which he seems to have considered as only changes or modifications in
-the percipient, and perhaps different in one percipient and another.
-That which exists, he maintained, could not have been generated, nor
-could it ever be destroyed: there was neither real generation nor
-real destruction of anything; but that which men took for such,
-was the change in their own feelings and ideas. He thus recognized
-the permanent without the variable,[707]—the one without the many.
-And his treatment of the received religious creed was in harmony
-with such physical or metaphysical hypothesis; for while he held
-the whole of Nature to be God, without parts or change, he at the
-same time pronounced the popular gods to be entities of subjective
-fancy, imagined by men after their own model: if oxen or lions were
-to become religious, he added, they would in like manner provide for
-themselves gods after their respective shapes and characters.[708]
-This hypothesis, which seemed to set aside altogether the study of
-the sensible world as a source of knowledge, was expounded briefly,
-and as it should seem, obscurely and rudely, by Xenophanês; at
-least we may infer thus much from the slighting epithet applied to
-him by Aristotle.[709] But his successors, Parmenidês and Zeno,
-in the succeeding century, expanded it considerably, supported it
-with extraordinary acuteness of dialectics, and even superadded a
-second part, in which the phenomena of sense—though considered only
-as appearances, not partaking in the reality of the one Ens—were
-yet explained by a new physical hypothesis; so that they will be
-found to exercise great influence over the speculations both of
-Plato and Aristotle. We discover in Xenophanês, moreover, a vein
-of skepticism, and a mournful despair as to the attainability of
-certain knowledge,[710] which the nature of his philosophy was well
-calculated to suggest, and in which the sillograph Timon of the third
-century B. C., who seems to have spoken of Xenophanês better than of
-most of the other philosophers, powerfully sympathized.
-
- [707] Aristot. Metaphys. i, 5, p. 986, Bek. Ξενοφάνης δὲ πρῶτος
- τούτων ~ἑνίσας~, οὐθὲν διεσαφήνισεν, οὐδὲ τῆς φύσεως τούτων
- (τοῦ κατὰ τὸν λόγον ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ὕλην) οὐδετέρας ἔοικε
- θιγεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἀποβλέψας τὸ ἓν εἶναί φησι τὸν
- θεόν.
-
- Plutarch. ap. Eusebium Præparat. Evangel. i, 8. Ξενοφάνης δὲ ὁ
- Κολοφώνιος ἰδίαν μέν τινα ὁδὸν πεπορευμένος καὶ παρηλλαχυῖαν
- πάντας τοὺς προειρημένους, οὔτε γένεσιν οὔτε φθορὰν ἀπολείπει,
- ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι λέγει τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ ὅμοιον. Compare Timon ap. Sext.
- Empiric. Pyrrh. Hypotyp. i, 224, 225. ἐδογμάτιζε δὲ ὁ Ξενοφάνης
- παρὰ τὰς τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων προλήψεις, ἓν εἶναι τὸ πᾶν, καὶ
- τὸν θεὸν συμφυῆ τοῖς πᾶσιν· εἶναι δὲ σφαιροειδὴ καὶ ἀπαθῆ καὶ
- ἀμετάβλητον καὶ λογικόν, (Airstot. de Xenoph. c. 3, p. 977,
- Bek.). Ἀδύνατόν φησιν (ὁ Ξενοφάνης) εἶναι, εἴ τι ἐστὶν, γενέσθαι,
- etc.
-
- One may reasonably doubt whether all the arguments ascribed to
- Xenophanês, in the short but obscure treatise last quoted, really
- belong to him.
-
- [708] Clemens Alexand. Stromat. v, p. 601, vii, p. 711.
-
- [709] Aristot. Metaphysic. i, 5, p. 986, Bek. μικρὸν ἀγροικότερος.
-
- [710] Xenophanês, Fr. xiv, ed. Mullach; Sextus Empiric. adv.
- Mathematicos, vii, 49-110; and Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i, 224; Plutarch
- adv. Colôtên, p. 1114; compare Karsten ad Parmenidis Fragmenta,
- p. 146.
-
-The cosmogony of Pherekydês of Syrus, contemporary of Anaximander
-and among the teachers of Pythagoras, seems, according to the
-fragments preserved, a combination of the old legendary fancies
-with Orphic mysticism,[711] and probably exercised little influence
-over the subsequent course of Grecian philosophy. By what has been
-said of Thalês, Anaximander, and Xenophanês, it will be seen that
-the sixth century B. C. witnessed the opening of several of those
-roads of intellectual speculation which the later philosophers
-pursued farther, or at least from which they branched off. Before
-the year 500 B. C. many interesting questions were thus brought
-into discussion, which Solon, who died about 558 B. C., had never
-heard of,—just as he may probably never have seen the map of
-Anaximander. But neither of these two distinguished men—Anaximander
-or Xenophanês—was anything more than a speculative inquirer. The
-third eminent name of this century, of whom I am now about to
-speak,—Pythagoras, combined in his character disparate elements which
-require rather a longer development.
-
- [711] See Brandis, Handbuch der Griech. Röm. Philosophie, ch.
- xxii.
-
-Pythagoras was founder of a brotherhood, originally brought together
-by a religious influence, and with observances approaching to
-monastic peculiarity,—working in a direction at once religious,
-political, and scientific, and exercising for some time a real
-political ascendency,—but afterwards banished from government and
-state affairs into a sectarian privacy with scientific pursuits,
-not without, however, still producing some statesmen individually
-distinguished. Amidst the multitude of false and apocryphal
-statements which circulated in antiquity respecting this celebrated
-man, we find a few important facts reasonably attested and deserving
-credence. He was a native of Samos,[712] son of an opulent merchant
-named Mnêsarchus,—or, according to some of his later and more fervent
-admirers, of Apollo; born, as far as we can make out, about the 50th
-Olympiad, or 580 B. C. On the many marvels recounted respecting
-his youth, it is unnecessary to dwell. Among them may be numbered
-his wide-reaching travels, said to have been prolonged for nearly
-thirty years, to visit the Arabians, the Syrians, the Phenicians,
-the Chaldæans, the Indians, and the Gallic Druids. But there is
-reason to believe that he really visited Egypt[713]—perhaps also
-Phenicia—and Babylon, then Chaldæan and independent. At the time
-when he saw Egypt, between 560-540 B. C., about one century earlier
-than Herodotus, it was under Amasis, the last of its own kings, with
-its peculiar native character yet unimpaired by foreign conquest,
-and only slightly modified by the admission during the preceding
-century of Grecian mercenary troops and traders. The spectacle of
-Egyptian habits, the conversation of the priests, and the initiation
-into various mysteries or secret rites and stories not accessible
-to the general public, may very naturally have impressed the mind
-of Pythagoras, and given him that turn for mystic observance,
-asceticism, and peculiarity of diet and clothing,—which manifested
-itself from the same cause among several of his contemporaries, but
-which was not a common phenomenon in the primitive Greek religion.
-Besides visiting Egypt, Pythagoras is also said to have profited
-by the teaching of Thalês, of Anaximander, and of Pherekydês of
-Syros.[714] Amidst the towns of Ionia, he would, moreover, have an
-opportunity of conversing with many Greek navigators who had visited
-foreign countries, especially Italy and Sicily. His mind seems to
-have been acted upon and impelled by this combined stimulus,—partly
-towards an imaginative and religious vein of speculation, with a life
-of mystic observance,—partly towards that active exercise, both of
-mind and body, which the genius of an Hellenic community so naturally
-tended to suggest.
-
- [712] Herodot. iv, 95. The place of his nativity is certain
- from Herodotus, but even this fact was differently stated by
- other authors, who called him a Tyrrhenian of Lemnos or Imbros
- (Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. c. 1-10), a Syrian, a Phliasian, etc.
-
- Cicero (De Repub. ii, 15: compare Livy, i, 18) censures the
- chronological blunder of those who made Pythagoras the preceptor
- of Numa; which certainly is a remarkable illustration how much
- confusion prevailed among literary men of antiquity about the
- dates of events even of the sixth century B. C. Ovid follows this
- story without hesitation: see Metamorph. xv, 60, with Burmann’s
- note.
-
- [713] Cicero de Fin. v, 29; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 3; Strabo, xiv,
- p. 638; Alexander Polyhistor ap. Cyrill. cont. Julian. iv, p.
- 128, ed. Spanh. For the vast reach of his supposed travels, see
- Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 11; Jamblic 14, _seqq._
-
- The same extensive journeys are ascribed to Demokritus, Diogen.
- Laërt. ix, 35.
-
- [714] The connection of Pythagoras with Pherekydês is noticed
- by Aristoxenus ap. Diogen. Laërt. i, 118, viii, 2; Cicero de
- Divinat. i, 13.
-
-Of the personal doctrines or opinions of Pythagoras, whom we must
-distinguish from Philolaus and the subsequent Pythagoreans, we have
-little certain knowledge, though doubtless the first germ of their
-geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, etc. must have proceeded from him.
-But that he believed in the metempsychosis or transmigration of the
-souls of deceased men into other men, as well as into animals, we
-know, not only by other evidence, but also by the testimony of his
-contemporary, the philosopher Xenophanês of Elea. Pythagoras, seeing
-a dog beaten, and hearing him howl, desired the striker to desist,
-saying: “It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognized by his
-voice.” This—together with the general testimony of Hêrakleitus, that
-Pythagoras was a man of extensive research and acquired instruction,
-but artful for mischief and destitute of sound judgment—is all that
-we know about him from contemporaries. Herodotus, two generations
-afterwards, while he conceives the Pythagoreans as a peculiar
-religious order, intimates that both Orpheus and Pythagoras had
-derived the doctrine of the metempsychosis from Egypt, but had
-pretended to it as their own without acknowledgment.[715]
-
- [715] Xenophanês, Fragm. 7, ed. Schneidewin; Diogen. Laërt. viii,
- 36: compare Aulus Gellius, iv, 11 (we must remark that this or a
- like doctrine is not peculiar to Pythagoreans, but believed by
- the poet Pindar, Olymp. ii, 68, and Fragment, Thren. x, as well
- as by the philosopher Pherekydês, Porphyrius de Antro Nympharum,
- c. 31).
-
- Καί ποτέ μιν στυφελιζομένου σκύλακος παριόντα
- Φασὶν ἐποικτεῖραι, καὶ τόδε φάσθαι ἔπος—
- Παῦσαι, μηδὲ ῥάπιζ᾽· ἐπείη φίλου ἄνερός ἐστι
- Ψυχὴ, τὴν ἔγνων φθεγξαμένης ἀΐων.
-
- Consult also Sextus Empiricus, viii, 286, as to the κοινωνία
- between gods, men and animals, believed both by Pythagoras and
- Empedoklês. That Herodotus (ii, 123) alludes to Orpheus and
- Pythagoras, though refraining designedly from mentioning names,
- there can hardly be any doubt: compare ii, 81; also Aristotle, De
- Animâ, i, 3, 23.
-
- The testimony of Hêrakleitus is contained in Diogenes Laërtius,
- viii, 6; ix, 1. Ἡρακλεῖτος γοῦν ὁ φυσικὸς μονονουχὶ κέκραγε καί
- φησι· Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα
- πάντων, καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς, ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ
- ~σοφίην, πολυμαθείην, κακοτεχνίην~. Again, Πολυμαθίη νόον
- οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὖθις δὲ
- Ξενοφάνεά τε καὶ Ἑκαταῖον.
-
- Dr. Thirlwall conceives Xenophanês as having intended in the
- passage above cited to treat the doctrine of the metempsychosis
- “with deserved ridicule.” (Hist. of Greece, ch. xii, vol. ii, p.
- 162.) Religious opinions are so apt to appear ridiculous to those
- who do not believe them, that such a suspicion is not unnatural;
- yet I think, if Xenophanês had been so disposed, he would have
- found more ridiculous examples among the many which this doctrine
- might suggest. Indeed, it seems hardly possible to present the
- metempsychosis in a more touching or respectable point of view
- than that which the lines of his poem set forth. The particular
- animal selected is that one between whom and man the sympathy is
- most marked and reciprocal, while the doctrine is made to enforce
- a practical lesson against cruelty.
-
-Pythagoras combines the character of a sophist (a man of large
-observation, and clever, ascendent, inventive mind,—the original
-sense of the word Sophist, prior to the polemics of the Platonic
-school, and the only sense known to Herodotus[716]) with that of
-an inspired teacher, prophet, and worker of miracles,—approaching
-to and sometimes even confounded with the gods,—and employing all
-these gifts to found a new special order of brethren, bound together
-by religious rites and observances peculiar to themselves. In his
-prominent vocation, analogous to that of Epimenidês, Orpheus, or
-Melampus, he appears as the revealer of a mode of life calculated
-to raise his disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend
-them to the favor of the gods; the Pythagorean life, like the
-Orphic life,[717] being intended as the exclusive prerogative
-of the brotherhood,—approached only by probation and initiatory
-ceremonies which were adapted to select enthusiasts rather than to
-an indiscriminate crowd,—and exacting entire mental devotion to the
-master.[718] In these lofty pretensions the Agrigentine Empedoklês
-seems to have greatly copied him, though with some varieties, about
-half a century afterwards.[719] While Aristotle tells us that the
-Krotoniates identified Pythagoras with the Hyperborean Apollo, the
-satirical Timon pronounced him to have been “a juggler of solemn
-speech, engaged in fishing for men.”[720] This is the same character,
-looked at from the different points of view of the believer and the
-unbeliever. There is, however, no reason for regarding Pythagoras as
-an impostor, because experience seems to show, that while in certain
-ages it is not difficult for a man to persuade others that he is
-inspired, it is still less difficult for him to contract the same
-belief himself.
-
- [716] Herodot. i, 29; ii, 49; iv, 95. Ἑλλήνων οὐ τῷ ἀσθενεστάτῳ
- σοφιστῇ Πυθαγόρῃ. Hippokratês distinguishes the σοφιστὴς from
- the ἰητρὸς, though both of them had handled the subject of
- medicine,—the general from the special habits of investigation.
- (Hippokratês, Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς, c. 20, vol. i, p. 620,
- Littré.)
-
- [717] See Lobeck’s learned and valuable treatise, Aglaophamus,
- Orphica, lib. ii, pp. 247, 698, 900; also Plato, Legg. vi, 782,
- and Euripid. Hippol. 946.
-
- [718] Plato’s conception of Pythagoras (Republ. x, p. 600)
- depicts him as something not unlike St. Benedict, or St. Francis,
- (or St. Elias, as some Carmelites have tried to make out: see
- Kuster ad Jamblich. c. 3)—Ἀλλὰ δὴ, εἰ μὴ δημοσίᾳ, ἰδίᾳ τισὶν
- ἡγεμὼν παιδείας αὐτὸς ζῶν λέγεται Ὅμηρος γενέσθαι, οἱ ἐκεῖνον
- ἠγάπων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις ὁδόν τινα βίου παρέδοσαν
- Ὁμηρικήν· ὥσπερ Πυθαγόρας αὐτός τε διαφερόντως ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἠγαπήθη,
- καὶ οἱ ὕστερον ἔτι καὶ νῦν Πυθαγορεῖον τροπὸν ἐπονομάζοντες τοῦ
- βίου διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις.
-
- The description of Melampus, given in Herodot. ii, 49, very much
- fills up the idea of Pythagoras, as derived from ii, 81-123,
- and iv, 95. Pythagoras, as well as Melampus, was said to have
- pretended to divination and prophecy (Cicero, Divinat. i, 3,
- 46; Porphyr. Vit. Pyth. c. 29: compare Krische, De Societate a
- Pythagorâ in urbe Crotoniatarum conditâ Commentatio, ch. v, p.
- 72, Göttingen, 1831).
-
- [719] Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte der Griechisch. Rom.
- Philosophie, part i, sect. xlvii, p. 191.
-
- [720] Ælian. V. H. ii, 26; Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 31, 140;
- Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. c. 20; Diodorus, Fragm. lib. x, vol. iv, p.
- 56, Wess.: Timon ap. Diogen. Laërt. viii, 36; and Plutarch, Numa,
- c. 8.
-
- Πυθαγόρην τε γόητος ἀποκλίναντ᾽ ἐπὶ δόξαν
- Θήρῃ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων, σεμνηγορίης ὀαριστὴν.
-
-Looking at the general type of Pythagoras, as conceived by witnesses
-in and nearest to his own age,—Xenophanês, Hêrakleitus, Herodotus,
-Plato, Aristotle, Isokratês,[721]—we find in him chiefly the
-religious missionary and schoolmaster, with little of the politician.
-His efficiency in the latter character, originally subordinate,
-first becomes prominent in those glowing fancies which the later
-Pythagoreans communicated to Aristoxenus and Dikæarchus. The
-primitive Pythagoras inspired by the gods to reveal a new mode of
-life,[722]—the Pythagorean life,—and to promise divine favor to a
-select and docile few, as the recompense of strict ritual obedience,
-of austere self-control, and of laborious training, bodily as well
-as mental. To speak with confidence of the details of his training,
-ethical or scientific, and of the doctrines which he promulgated,
-is impossible; for neither he himself nor any of his disciples
-anterior to Philolaus—who was separated from him by about one
-intervening generation—left any memorials in writing.[723] Numbers
-and lines, studied partly in their own mutual relations, partly
-under various symbolizing fancies, presented themselves to him as
-the primary constituent elements of the universe, and as a sort
-of magical key to phenomena, physical as well as moral. And these
-mathematical tendencies in his teaching, expanded by Pythagoreans,
-his successors, and coinciding partly also, as has been before
-stated, with the studies of Anaximander and Thalês, acquired more
-and more development, so as to become one of the most glorious and
-profitable manifestations of Grecian intellect. Living as Pythagoras
-did at a time when the stock of experience was scanty, the license
-of hypothesis unbounded, and the process of deduction without rule
-or verifying test,—he was thus fortunate enough to strike into
-that track of geometry and arithmetic, in which, from data of
-experience few, simple, and obvious, an immense field of deductive
-and verifiable investigation may be travelled over. We must at the
-same time remark, however, that in his mind this track, which now
-seems so straightforward and well defined, was clouded by strange
-fancies which it is not easy to understand, and from which it was but
-partially cleared by his successors. Of his spiritual training much
-is said, though not upon very good authority. We hear of his memorial
-discipline, his monastic self-scrutiny, his employment of music to
-soothe disorderly passions,[724] his long novitiate of silence,
-his knowledge of physiognomy, which enabled him to detect even
-without trial unworthy subjects, his peculiar diet, and his rigid
-care for sobriety as well as for bodily vigor. He is also said to
-have inculcated abstinence from animal food, and this feeling is so
-naturally connected with the doctrine of the metempsychosis, that we
-may well believe him to have entertained it, as Empedoklês also did
-after him.[725] It is certain that there were peculiar observances,
-and probably a certain measure of self-denial embodied in the
-Pythagorean life; but on the other hand, it seems equally certain
-that the members of the order cannot have been all subjected to the
-same diet, or training, or studies. For Milo the Krotoniate was among
-them,[726] the strongest man and the unparalleled wrestler of his
-age,—who cannot possibly have dispensed with animal food and ample
-diet (even setting aside the tales about his voracious appetite),
-and is not likely to have bent his attention on speculative study.
-Probably Pythagoras did not enforce the same bodily or mental
-discipline on all, or at least knew when to grant dispensations. The
-order, as it first stood under him, consisted of men different both
-in temperament and aptitude, but bound together by common religious
-observances and hopes, common reverence for the master, and mutual
-attachment as well as pride in each other’s success; and it must
-thus be distinguished from the Pythagoreans of the fourth century B.
-C., who had no communion with wrestlers, and comprised only ascetic,
-studious men, generally recluse, though in some cases rising to
-political distinction.
-
- [721] Isokratês, Busiris, p. 402, ed. Auger. Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος,
- ἀφικόμενος εἰς Αἴγυπτον, καὶ μαθητὴς τῶν ἱερέων γενόμενος, τήν τε
- ἄλλην φιλοσοφίαν πρῶτος εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐκόμισε, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς
- θυσίας καὶ τὰς ἁγιστείας ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς ἐπιφανέστερον τῶν ἄλλων
- ἐσπούδασε.
-
- Compare Aristotel. Magn. Moralia, i, 1, about Pythagoras as
- an ethical teacher. Dêmokritus, born about 460 B. C., wrote
- a treatise (now lost) respecting Pythagoras, whom he greatly
- admired: as far as we can judge, it would seem that he too must
- have considered Pythagoras as an ethical teacher (Diogen. Laërt.
- xi, 38; Mullach, Democriti Fragmenta, lib. ii, p. 113; Cicero de
- Orator. iii, 15).
-
- [722] Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 64, 115, 151, 199: see also the
- idea ascribed to Pythagoras, of divine inspirations coming on men
- (ἐπίπνοια παρὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου). Aristoxenus apud Stobæum, Eclog.
- Physic. p. 206; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 32.
-
- Meiners establishes it as probable that the stories respecting
- the miraculous powers and properties of Pythagoras got into
- circulation either during his lifetime, or at least not long
- after his death (Geschichte der Wissenschaften, b. iii, vol. i,
- pp. 504, 505).
-
- [723] Respecting Philolaus, see the valuable collection of
- his fragments, and commentary on them, by Boeckh (Philolaus
- des Pythagoreers Leben, Berlin, 1819). That Philolaus was the
- first who composed a work on Pythagorean science, and thus made
- it known beyond the limits of the brotherhood—among others to
- Plato—appears well established (Boeckh, Philolaus, p. 22; Diogen.
- Laërt. viii, 15-55; Jamblichus, c. 119). Simmias and Kebês,
- fellow-disciples of Plato under Sokratês, had held intercourse
- with Philolaus at Thebes (Plato, Phædon, p. 61), perhaps about
- 420 B. C. The Pythagorean brotherhood had then been dispersed in
- various parts of Greece, though the attachment of its members to
- each other seems to have continued long afterwards.
-
- [724] Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 384, ad fin. Quintilian,
- Instit. Oratt. ix, 4.
-
- [725] Empedoklês, ap. Aristot. Rhetoric. i, 14, 2; Sextus
- Empiric. ix, 127; Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, pp. 993, 996, 997;
- where he puts Pythagoras and Empedoklês together, as having both
- held the doctrine of the metempsychosis, and both prohibited the
- eating of animal food. Empedoklês supposed that plants had souls,
- and that the souls of human beings passed after death into plants
- as well as into animals. “I have been myself heretofore (said he)
- a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish of the sea.”
-
- ἤδη γάρ ποτ᾽ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε,
- θάμνος τ᾽, οἴωνός τε καὶ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἔμπυρος ἰχθύς.
-
- (Diogen. L. viii, 77; Sturz. ad Empedokl. Frag. p. 466.)
- Pythagoras is said to have affirmed that he had been not only
- Euphorbus in the Grecian army before Troy, but also a tradesman,
- a courtezan, etc., and various other human characters, before
- his actual existence; he did not, however, extend the same
- intercommunion to plants, in any case.
-
- The abstinence from animal food was an Orphic precept as well as
- a Pythagorean (Aristophan. Ran. 1032).
-
- [726] Strabo, vi, p. 263; Diogen. L. viii, 40.
-
-The succession of these Pythagoreans, never very numerous, seems
-to have continued until about 300 B. C., and then nearly died out;
-being superseded by other schemes of philosophy more suited to
-cultivated Greeks of the age after Sokratês. But during the time of
-Cicero, two centuries afterwards, the orientalizing tendency—then
-beginning to spread over the Grecian and Roman world, and becoming
-gradually stronger and stronger—caused the Pythagorean philosophy
-to be again revived. It was revived too, with little or none of its
-scientific tendencies, but with more than its primitive religious and
-imaginative fanaticism,—Apollonius of Tyana constituting himself a
-living copy of Pythagoras. And thus, while the scientific elements
-developed by the disciples of Pythagoras had become disjoined from
-all peculiarity of sect, and passed into the general studious
-world,—the original vein of mystic and ascetic fancy belonging to
-the master, without any of that practical efficiency of body and
-mind which had marked his first followers, was taken up anew into
-the pagan world, along with the disfigured doctrines of Plato.
-Neo-Pythagorism, passing gradually into Neo-Platonism, outlasted
-the other more positive and masculine systems of pagan philosophy,
-as the contemporary and rival of Christianity. A large proportion
-of the false statements concerning Pythagoras come from these
-Neo-Pythagoreans, who were not deterred by the want of memorials from
-illustrating, with ample latitude of fancy, the ideal character of
-the master.
-
-That an inquisitive man like Pythagoras, at a time when there were
-hardly any books to study, would visit foreign countries, and
-converse with all the Grecian philosophical inquirers within his
-reach, is a matter which we should presume, even if no one attested
-it; and our witnesses carry us very little beyond this general
-presumption. What doctrines he borrowed, or from whom, we are unable
-to discover. But, in fact, his whole life and proceedings bear the
-stamp of an original mind, and not of a borrower,—a mind impressed
-both with Hellenic and with non-Hellenic habits and religion, yet
-capable of combining the two in a manner peculiar to himself; and
-above all, endued with those talents for religion and personal
-ascendency over others, which told for much more than the intrinsic
-merit of his ideas. We are informed that after extensive travels and
-inquiries he returned to Samos, at the age of about forty: he then
-found his native island under the despotism of Polykratês, which
-rendered it an unsuitable place either for free sentiments or for
-marked individuals. Unable to attract hearers, or found any school
-or brotherhood, in his native island, he determined to expatriate.
-And we may presume that at this period (about 535-530 B. C.) the
-recent subjugation of Ionia by the Persians was not without influence
-on his determination. The trade between the Asiatic and the Italian
-Greeks,—and even the intimacy between Milêtus and Knidus on the one
-side, and Sybaris and Tarentum on the other,—had been great and of
-long standing, so that there was more than one motive to determine
-him to the coast of Italy; in which direction also his contemporary
-Xenophanês, the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy,
-emigrated, seemingly, about the same time,—from Kolophon to Zanklê,
-Katana, and Elea.[727]
-
- [727] Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.
-
-Kroton and Sybaris were at this time in their fullest
-prosperity,—among the first and most prosperous cities of the
-Hellenic name. To the former of the two Pythagoras directed his
-course. A council of one thousand persons, taken from among the
-heirs and representatives of the principal proprietors at its first
-foundation, was here invested with the supreme authority: in what
-manner the executive offices were filled, we have no information.
-Besides a great extent of power, and a numerous population, the large
-mass of whom had no share in the political franchise, Kroton stood
-at this time distinguished for two things,—the general excellence of
-the bodily habit of the citizens, attested, in part, by the number of
-conquerors furnished to the Olympic games,—and the superiority of its
-physicians, or surgeons.[728] These two points were, in fact, greatly
-connected with each other. For the therapeutics of the day consisted
-not so much of active remedies as of careful diet and regimen; while
-the trainer, who dictated the life of an athlete during his long and
-fatiguing preparation for an Olympic contest, and the professional
-superintendent of the youths who frequented the public gymnasia,
-followed out the same general views, and acted upon the same basis of
-knowledge, as the physician who prescribed for a state of positive
-bad health.[729] Of medical education properly so called, especially
-of anatomy, there was then little or nothing. The physician acquired
-his knowledge from observation of men sick as well as healthy, and
-from a careful notice of the way in which the human body was acted
-upon by surrounding agents and circumstances: and this same knowledge
-was not less necessary for the trainer; so that the same place
-which contained the best men in the latter class was also likely
-to be distinguished in the former. It is not improbable that this
-celebrity of Kroton may have been one of the reasons which determined
-Pythagoras to go thither; for among the precepts ascribed to him,
-precise rules as to diet and bodily regulation occupy a prominent
-place. The medical or surgical celebrity of Dêmokêdês (son-in-law of
-the Pythagorean Milo), to whom allusion has been made in a former
-chapter, is contemporaneous with the presence of Pythagoras at
-Kroton; and the medical men of Magna Græcia maintained themselves in
-credit, as rivals of the schools of the Asklepiads at Kôs and Knidus,
-throughout all the fifth and fourth centuries B. C.
-
- [728] Herodot. iii, 131; Strabo, vi, p. 261: Menander de
- Encomiis, p. 96, ed. Heeren. Ἀθηναίους ἐπὶ ἀγαλματοποιΐα τε καὶ
- ζωγραφικῇ, καὶ Κροτωνιάτας ἐπὶ ἰατρικῇ, μέγα φρονῆσαι, etc.
-
- The Krotoniate Alkmæon, a younger contemporary of Pythagoras
- (Aristotel. Metaph. i, 5), is among the earliest names mentioned
- as philosophizing upon physical and medical subjects. See
- Brandis, Handbuch der Geschicht. der Philos. sect. lxxxiii, p.
- 508, and Aristotel. De Generat. Animal. iii, 2, p. 752, Bekker.
-
- The medical art in Egypt, at the time when Pythagoras visited
- that country, was sufficiently far advanced to excite the
- attention of an inquisitive traveller,—the branches of it
- minutely subdivided and strict rules laid down for practice
- (Herodot. ii, 84; Aristotel. Politic, iii, 10, 4).
-
- [729] See the analogy of the two strikingly brought out in the
- treatise of Hippokratês Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς, c. 3, 4, 7, vol.
- i, p. 580-584, ed. Littré.
-
- Ἔτι γοῦν καὶ νῦν οἱ τῶν γυμνασίων τε καὶ ἀσκησίων ἐπιμελόμενοι
- αἰεί τι προσεξευρίσκουσι, καὶ τὴν αὐτέην ὁδὸν ζητέοντες ὅ,τι ἔδων
- καὶ πίνων ἐπικρατήσει τε αὐτέων μάλιστα, καὶ ἰσχυρότερος αὐτὸς
- ἑωϋτοῦ ἔσται (p. 580); again, p. 584: Τί οὖν φαίνεται ἑτεροῖον
- διανοηθεὶς ὁ καλεύμενος ἰητρὸς καὶ ὁμολογεομένως χειροτέχνης, ὃς
- ἐξεῦρε τὴν ἀμφὶ τοὺς κάμνοντας δίαιτάν καὶ τροφὴν, ἢ κεῖνος ὁ ἀπ᾽
- ἀρχῆς τοῖσι πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισι τροφὴν, ᾗ νῦν χρεόμεθα, ἐξ ἐκείνης
- τῆς ἀγρίης τε καὶ θηριώδεος εὑρών τε καὶ παρασκευάσας διαίτης:
- compare another passage, not less illustrative, in the treatise
- of Hippokratês Περὶ διαίτης ὀξέων, c. 3, vol. ii, p. 245, ed.
- Littré.
-
- Following the same general idea, that the theory and practice of
- the physician is a farther development and variety of that of
- the gymnastic trainer, I transcribe some observations from the
- excellent Remarques Rétrospectives of M. Littré, at the end of
- the fourth volume of his edition of Hippokratês (p. 662).
-
- After having observed (p. 659) that physiology may be considered
- as divided into two parts,—one relating to the mechanism of the
- functions; the other, to the effects produced upon the human
- body by the different influences which act upon it and the media
- by which it is surrounded; and after having observed that on
- the first of these two branches the ancients could never make
- progress from their ignorance of anatomy,—he goes on to state,
- that respecting the second branch they acquired a large amount of
- knowledge:—
-
- “Sur la physiologie des influences extérieures, la Grèce du
- temps d’Hippocrate et après lui fut le théâtre d’expériences en
- grand, les plus importantes et les plus instructives. Toute la
- population (la population libre, s’entend) étoit soumise à un
- système régulier d’éducation physique (N. B. this is a little too
- strongly stated): dans quelques cités, à Lacédémone par exemple,
- les femmes n’en étoient pas exemptées. Ce système se composoit
- d’exercices et d’une alimentation, que combinèrent l’empirisme
- d’abord, puis une théorie plus savante: il concernoit (comme
- dit Hippocrate lui-même, en ne parlant, il est vrai, que de la
- partie alimentaire), il concernoit et les malades pour leur
- rétablissement, et les gens bien portans pour la conservation de
- leur santé, et les personnes livrées aux exercices gymnastiques
- pour l’accroissement de leurs forces. On savoit au juste ce
- qu’il falloit pour conserver seulement le corps en bon état ou
- pour traiter un malade—pour former un militaire ou pour faire un
- athlète—et en particulier, un lutteur, un coureur, un sauteur,
- un pugiliste. Une classe d’hommes, les maîtres des gymnases,
- étoient exclusivement adonnés à la culture de cet art, auquel
- les médecins participoient dans les limites de leur profession,
- et Hippocrate, qui dans les Aphorismes, invoque l’exemple des
- athlètes, nous parle dans le Traité des Articulations des
- personnes maigres, qui n’ayant pas été amaigris par un procédé
- régulier de l’art, ont les chairs muqueuses. Les anciens
- médecins savoient, comme on le voit, procurer l’amaigrissement
- conformément à l’art, et reconnoitre à ses effets un
- amaigrissement irrégulier: toutes choses auxquelles nos médecins
- sont étrangers, et dont on ne retrouve l’analogue que parmi les
- _entraineurs_ Anglois. Au reste cet ensemble de connoissances
- empiriques et théoriques doit être mis au rang des pertes
- fâcheuses qui ont accompagné la longue et turbulente transition
- du monde ancien an monde moderne. Les admirables institutions
- destinées dans l’antiquité à développer et affermir le corps,
- ont disparu: l’hygiène publique est déstituée à cet égard de
- toute direction scientifique et générale, et demeure abandonnée
- complètement au hasard.”
-
- See also the remarks of Plato respecting Herodikus, De Republicâ,
- iii, p. 406; Aristotel. Politic. iii, 11, 6; iv, 1, 1; viii, 4, 1.
-
-The biographers of Pythagoras tell us that his arrival there, his
-preaching, and his conduct, produced an effect almost electric
-upon the minds of the people, with an extensive reform, public as
-well as private. Political discontent was repressed, incontinence
-disappeared, luxury became discredited, and the women, hastened to
-exchange their golden ornaments for the simplest attire. No less
-than two thousand persons were converted at his first preaching;
-and so effective were his discourses to the youth, that the Supreme
-Council of One Thousand invited him into their assembly, solicited
-his advice, and even offered to constitute him their prytanis, or
-president, while his wife and daughter were placed at the head of
-the religious processions of females.[730] Nor was his influence
-confined to Kroton. Other towns in Italy and Sicily,—Sybaris,
-Metapontum, Rhêgium, Katana, Himera, etc., all felt the benefit of
-his exhortations, which extricated some of them even from slavery.
-Such are the tales of which the biographers of Pythagoras are
-full.[731] And we see that even the disciples of Aristotle, about
-the year 300 B. C.,—Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, Herakleidês of Pontus,
-etc., are hardly less charged with them than the Neo-Pythagoreans of
-three or four centuries later: they doubtless heard them from their
-contemporary Pythagoreans,[732] the last members of a declining
-sect, among whom the attributes of the primitive founder passed for
-godlike, but who had no memorials, no historical judgment, and no
-means of forming a true conception of Kroton as it stood in 530 B.
-C.[733]
-
- [730] Valerius Maxim. viii, 15, xv, 1; Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c.
- 45; Timæus, Fragm. 78, ed. Didot.
-
- [731] Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. c. 21-54; Jamblich. 33-35, 166.
-
- [732] The compilations of Porphyry and Jamblichus on the life
- of Pythagoras, copied from a great variety of authors, will
- doubtless contain some truth amidst their confused heap of
- statements, many incredible, and nearly all unauthenticated. But
- it is very difficult to single out what these portions of truth
- really are. Even Aristoxenus and Dikæarchus, the best authors
- from whom these biographers quote, lived near two centuries
- after the death of Pythagoras, and do not appear to have had
- any early memorials to consult, nor any better informants than
- the contemporary Pythagoreans,—the last of an expiring sect,
- and probably among the least eminent for intellect, since the
- philosophers of the Sokratic school in its various branches
- carried off the acute and aspiring young men of that time.
-
- Meiners, in his Geschichte der Wissenschaften (vol. i, b. iii, p.
- 191, _seq._), has given a careful analysis of the various authors
- from whom the two biographers have borrowed, and a comparative
- estimate of their trustworthiness. It is an excellent piece of
- historical criticism, though the author exaggerates both the
- merits and the influence of the first Pythagoreans: Kiessling, in
- the notes to his edition of Jamblichus, has given some extracts
- from it, but by no means enough to dispense with the perusal
- of the original. I think Meiners allows too much credit, on
- the whole, to Aristoxenus (see p. 214), and makes too little
- deduction for the various stories, difficult to be believed, of
- which Aristoxenus is given as the source: of course the latter
- could not furnish better matter than he heard from his own
- witnesses. Where Meiners’s judgment is more severe, it is also
- better borne out, especially respecting Porphyry himself, and his
- scholar Jamblichus. These later Pythagorean philosophers seem to
- have set up as a formal canon of credibility, that which many
- religious men of antiquity acted upon from a mere unconscious
- sentiment and fear of giving offence to the gods,—That it was
- _not right to disbelieve any story_ recounted respecting the
- gods, and wherein the divine agency was introduced: no one could
- tell but what it _might be true_: to deny its truth, was to
- set bounds to the divine omnipotence. Accordingly, they made
- no difficulty in believing what was recounted about Aristæus,
- Abaris, and other eminent subjects of mythes (Jamblichus, Vit.
- Pyth. c. 138-148)—καὶ τοῦτό γε πάντες οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι ὅμως ἔχουσι
- πιστευτικῶς, οἶον περὶ Ἀρισταίου καὶ Ἀβάριδος τὰ μυθολογούμενα
- καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα λέγεται ... τῶν τοιούτων δὲ τῶν δοκούντων
- μυθικῶν ἀπομνημονεύουσιν, ~ὡς οὐδὲν ἀπιστοῦντες ὅτι ἂν εἰς τὸ
- θεῖον ἀναγηται~. Also, not less formally laid down in Jamblichus,
- Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, as the fourth Symbolum, p. 324, ed.
- Kiessling. Περὶ θεῶν μηδὲν θαυμαστὸν ἀπιστεῖ, μηδὲ περὶ θείων
- δογμάτων. Reasoning from their principles, this was a consistent
- corollary to lay down; but it helps us to estimate their value as
- selectors and discriminators of accounts respecting Pythagoras.
- The extravagant compliments paid by the emperor Julian in his
- letters to Jamblichus will not suffice to establish the authority
- of the latter as a critic and witness: see the Epistolæ 34, 40,
- 41, in Heyler’s edit. of Julian’s letters.
-
- [733] Aulus Gell. N. A. iv, 11. Apollonius (ap. Jamblich. c. 262)
- alludes to τὰ ὑπομνήματα τῶν Κροτωνιατῶν: what the date of these
- may be, we do not know, but there is no reason to believe them
- anterior to Aristoxenus.
-
-To trace these tales to a true foundation is impossible: but we
-may entertain reasonable belief that the success of Pythagoras,
-as a person favored by the gods and patentee of divine secrets,
-was very great,—that he procured to himself both the reverence of
-the multitude and the peculiar attachment and obedience of many
-devoted adherents, chiefly belonging to the wealthy and powerful
-classes,—that a select body of these adherents, three hundred in
-number, bound themselves by a sort of vow both to Pythagoras and to
-each other, and adopted a peculiar diet, ritual, and observances,
-as a token of union,—though without anything like community of
-property, which some have ascribed to them. Such a band of men,
-standing high in the city for wealth and station, and bound together
-by this intimate tie, came by almost unconscious tendency to mingle
-political ambition with religious and scientific pursuits. Political
-clubs with sworn members, under one form or another, were a constant
-phenomenon in the Grecian cities,[734] and the Pythagorean order at
-its first formation was the most efficient of all clubs; since it
-presented an intimacy of attachment among its members, as well as a
-feeling of haughty exclusiveness against the public without, such
-as no other fraternity could parallel.[735] The devoted attachment
-of Pythagoreans towards each other is not less emphatically set
-forth than their contempt for every one else. In fact, these two
-attributes of the order seem the best ascertained, as well as the
-most permanent of all: moreover, we may be sure that the peculiar
-observances of the order passed for exemplary virtues in the eyes
-of its members, and exalted ambition into a duty, by making them
-sincerely believe that they were the only persons fit to govern.
-It is no matter of surprise, then, to learn that the Pythagoreans
-gradually drew to themselves great ascendency in the government of
-Kroton. And as similar clubs, not less influential, were formed at
-Metapontum and other places, so the Pythagorean order spread its net
-and dictated the course of affairs over a large portion of Magna
-Græcia. Such ascendency of the Pythagoreans must have procured for
-the master himself some real, and still more supposed, influence over
-the march of government at Kroton and elsewhere, of a nature not
-then possessed by any of his contemporaries throughout Greece.[736]
-But his influence was probably exercised in the background, through
-the medium of the brotherhood who reverenced him: for it is hardly
-conformable to Greek manners that a stranger of his character should
-guide personally and avowedly the political affairs of any Grecian
-city.
-
- [734] Thucyd. viii, 54. τὰς ξυνωμοσίας, αἵπερ ἐτύγχανον πρότερον
- οὖσαι ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐπὶ δίκαις καὶ ἀρχαῖς, ἁπάσας ἐπελθὼν, etc.
-
- On this important passage, in which Thucydidês notes the
- political clubs of Athens as sworn societies,—numerous,
- notorious, and efficient,—I shall speak farther in a future stage
- of the history. Dr. Arnold has a good note on the passage.
-
- [735] Justin, xx, 4. “Sed trecenti ex juvenibus cum sodalitii
- juris sacramento quodam nexi, separatam a ceteris civibus vitam
- exercerent, quasi cœtum clandestinæ conjurationis haberent,
- civitatem in se converterunt.”
-
- Compare Diogen. Laërt. viii, 3; Apollonius ap. Jamblich. c. 254;
- Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. c. 33.
-
- The story of the devoted attachments of the two Pythagoreans
- Damon and Phintias appears to be very well attested: Aristoxenus
- heard it from the lips of the younger Dionysius the despot, whose
- sentence had elicited such manifestation of friendship (Porphyry,
- Vit. Pyth. c. 59-62, Cicero, De Officiis, iii, 10; and Davis ad
- Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 22).
-
- [736] Plutarch, Philosoph. cum Principib. c. i, p. 777. ἂν
- δ᾽ ἄρχοντος ἀνδρὸς καὶ πολιτικοῦ καὶ πρακτικοῦ καθάψηται (ὁ
- φιλόσοφος) καὶ τοῦτον ἀναπλήσῃ καλοκᾳγαθίας, πολλοὺς δι᾽
- ἑνὸς ὠφέλησεν, ὡς Πυθαγόρας τοῖς πρωτεύουσι τῶν Ἰταλιωτῶν
- συγγενόμενος.
-
-Nor are we to believe that Pythagoras came originally to Kroton with
-the express design of creating for himself an ascendent political
-position,—still less that he came for the purpose of realizing a
-great preconceived political idea, and transforming Kroton into a
-model-city of pure Dorism, as has been supposed by some eminent
-modern authors. Such schemes might indeed be ascribed to him by
-Pythagoreans of the Platonic age, when large ideas of political
-amelioration were rife in the minds of speculative men,—by men
-disposed to forego the authorship of their own opinions, and
-preferring to accredit them as traditions handed down from a founder
-who had left no memorials; but it requires better evidence than
-theirs to make us believe that any real Greek born in 580 B. C.
-actually conceived such plans. We cannot construe the scheme of
-Pythagoras as going farther than the formation of a private, select
-order of brethren, embracing his religious fancies, ethical tone,
-and germs of scientific idea,—and manifesting adhesion by those
-observances which Herodotus and Plato call the Pythagorean orgies
-and mode of life. And his private order became politically powerful,
-because he was skilful or fortunate enough to enlist a sufficient
-number of wealthy Krotoniates, possessing individual influence
-which they strengthened immensely by thus regimenting themselves in
-intimate union. The Pythagorean orgies or religious ceremonies were
-not inconsistent with public activity, bodily as well as mental:
-probably the rich men of the order may have been rendered even more
-active, by being fortified against the temptations of a life of
-indulgence. The character of the order as it first stood, different
-from that to which it was afterwards reduced, was indeed religious
-and exclusive, but also active and domineering; not despising any
-of those bodily accomplishments which increased the efficiency of
-the Grecian citizen, and which so particularly harmonized with the
-preëxisting tendencies of Kroton.[737] Niebuhr and O. Müller have
-even supposed that the select Three Hundred Pythagoreans constituted
-a sort of smaller senate at that city,[738]—an hypothesis no way
-probable; we may rather conceive them as a powerful private club,
-exercising ascendency in the interior of the senate, and governing
-through the medium of the constituted authorities. Nor can we
-receive without great allowance the assertion of Varro,[739] who,
-assimilating Pythagoras to Plato, tells us that he confined his
-instructions on matters of government to chosen disciples, who had
-gone through a complete training, and had reached the perfection
-of wisdom and virtue. It seems more probable that the political
-Pythagoreans were those who were most qualified for action, and
-least for speculation. And we may reasonably suppose in the general
-of the order that skill in turning to account the aptitudes of
-individuals, which two centuries ago was so conspicuous in the
-Jesuits; to whom, in various ways, the Pythagoreans bear considerable
-resemblance. All that we can be said to know about their political
-principles is, that they were exclusive and aristocratical, adverse
-to the control and interference of the people; a circumstance no
-way disadvantageous to them, since they coincided in this respect
-with the existing government of the city,—had not their own conduct
-brought additional odium on the old aristocracy, and raised up an
-aggravated democratical opposition, carried to the most deplorable
-lengths of violence.
-
- [737] I transcribe here the summary given by Krische, at the
- close of his Dissertation on the Pythagorean order, p. 101:
- “Societatis scopus fuit mere politicus, ut lapsam optimatium
- potestatem non modo in pristinum restitueret, sed firmaret
- amplificaretque: cum summo hoc scopo duo conjuncti fuerunt;
- moralis alter, alter ad literas spectans. Discipulos suos bonos
- probosque homines reddere voluit Pythagoras, et ut civitatem
- moderantes potestate suâ non abuterentur ad plebem opprimendam;
- et ut plebs, intelligens suis commodis consuli, conditione suâ
- contenta esset. Quoniam vero bonum sapiensque moderamen nisi
- a prudente literisque exculto viro exspectari (non) licet,
- philosophiæ studium necessarium duxit Samius iis, qui ad
- civitatis clavum tenendum se accingerent.”
-
- This is the general view (coinciding substantially with that
- of O. Müller,—Dorians, iii, 9, 16) given by an author who has
- gone through the evidences with care and learning. It differs
- on some important points from the idea which I conceive of the
- primitive master and his contemporary brethren. It leaves out
- the religious ascendency, which I imagine to have stood first
- among the means as well as among the premeditated purposes
- of Pythagoras, and sets forth a reformatory political scheme
- as directly contemplated by him, of which there is no proof.
- Though the political ascendency of the early Pythagoreans is
- the most prominent feature in their early history, it is not to
- be considered as the manifestation of any peculiar or settled
- political idea,—it is rather a result of their position and means
- of union. Ritter observes, in my opinion more justly: “We must
- not believe that the mysteries of the Pythagorean order were of
- a simply political character: the most probable accounts warrant
- us in considering that its central point was a mystic religious
- teaching,” (Geschicht. der Philosophie, b. iv, ch. i, vol. i, pp.
- 365-368:) compare Hoeck. Kreta, vol. iii, p. 223.
-
- Krische (p. 32) as well as Boeckh (Philolaus, pp. 39-42) and O.
- Müller assimilate the Pythagorean life to the Dorian or Spartan
- habits, and call the Pythagorean philosophy the expression
- of Grecian Dorism, as opposed to the Ionians and the Ionic
- philosophy. I confess that I perceive no analogy between the two,
- either in action or speculation. The Spartans stand completely
- distinct from other Dorians; and even the Spartan habits of
- life, though they present some points of resemblance with the
- bodily training of the Pythagoreans, exhibit still more important
- points of difference, in respect to religious peculiarity and
- mysticism, as well as to scientific element embodied with it. The
- Pythagorean philosophy, and the Eleatic philosophy, were both
- equally opposed to the Ionic; yet neither of them is in any way
- connected with Dorian tendencies. Neither Elea nor Kroton were
- Doric cities; moreover, Xenophanês as well as Pythagoras were
- both Ionians.
-
- The general assertions respecting Ionic mobility and inconstancy,
- contrasted with Doric constancy and steadiness, will not be found
- borne out by a study of facts. The Dorism of Pythagoras appears
- to me a complete fancy. O. Müller even turns Kroton into a Dorian
- city, contrary to all evidence.
-
- [738] Niebuhr, Römisch. Gesch. i, p. 165, 2nd edit.; O. Müller,
- Hist of Dorians, iii, 9, 16: Krische is opposed to this idea,
- sect. v, p. 84.
-
- [739] Varro ap. Augustin. de Ordine, ii, 30; Krische, p. 77.
-
-All the information which we possess, apocryphal as it is, respecting
-this memorable club, is derived from its warm admirers; yet even
-their statements are enough to explain how it came to provoke deadly
-and extensive enmity. A stranger coming to teach new religious
-dogmas and observances, with a tincture of science and some new
-ethical ideas and phrases, though he would obtain some zealous
-votaries, would also bring upon himself a certain measure of
-antipathy. Extreme strictness of observances, combined with the art
-of touching skilfully the springs of religious terror in others,
-would indeed do much both to fortify and to exalt him. But when
-it was discovered that science, philosophy, and even the mystic
-revelations of religion, whatever they were, remained confined to the
-private talk and practice of the disciples, and were thus thrown
-into the background, while all that was seen and felt without, was
-the political predominance of an ambitious fraternity,—we need not
-wonder that Pythagorism in all its parts became odious to a large
-portion of the community. Moreover, we find the order represented not
-merely as constituting a devoted and exclusive political party, but
-also as manifesting an ostentatious self-conceit throughout their
-personal demeanor,[740]—refusing the hand of fellowship to all except
-the brethren, and disgusting especially their own familiar friends
-and kinsmen. So far as we know Grecian philosophy, this is the only
-instance in which it was distinctly abused for political and party
-objects: the early days of the Pythagorean order stand distinguished
-for such perversion, which, fortunately for the progress of
-philosophy, never presented itself afterwards in Greece.[741] Even
-at Athens, however, we shall hereafter see that Sokratês, though
-standing really aloof from all party intrigue, incurred much of his
-unpopularity from supposed political conjunction with Kritias and
-Alkibiadês,[742] to which, indeed, the orator Æschinês distinctly
-ascribes his condemnation, speaking about sixty years after the
-event. Had Sokratês been known as the founder of a band holding
-together intimately for ambitious purposes, the result would have
-been eminently pernicious to philosophy, and probably much sooner
-pernicious to himself.
-
- [740] Apollonius ap. Jamblichum, V. P. c. 254, 255, 256, 257.
- ἡγεμόνες δὲ ἐγένοντο τῆς διαφορᾶς οἱ ταῖς συγγενείαις καὶ ταῖς
- ~οἰκειότησιν~ ἐγγύτατα καθεστηκότες τῶν Πυθαγορείων. Αἴτιον δ᾽
- ἦν, ὅτι τὰ μὲν πολλὰ αὐτοὺς ἐλύπει τῶν πραττομένων, etc.: compare
- also the lines descriptive of Pythagoras, c. 259. Τοὺς μὲν
- ἑταίρους ἧγεν ἴσους μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι. Τοὺς δ᾽ ἄλλους ἡγεῖτ᾽ οὔτ᾽
- ἐν λόγῳ, ἐν ἀριθμῷ.
-
- That this Apollonius, cited both by Jamblichus and by Porphyry,
- is Apollonius of Tyana, has been rendered probable by Meiners
- (Gesch. der Wissensch. v. i, pp. 239-245): compare Welcker,
- Prolegomena ad Theognid. pp. xlv, xlvi.
-
- When we read the life of Apollonius by Philostratus, we see that
- the former was himself extremely communicative: he might be the
- rather disposed therefore to think that the seclusion and reserve
- of Pythagoras was a defect, and to ascribe to it much of the
- mischief which afterwards overtook the order.
-
- [741] Schleiermacher observes, that “Philosophy among the
- Pythagoreans was connected with political objects, and their
- school with a practical brotherly partnership, such as was never
- on any other occasion seen in Greece.” (Introduction to his
- Translation of Plato, p. 12.) See also Theopompus, Fr. 68, ed.
- Didot, apud Athenæum, v, p. 213, and Euripidês, Mêdêa, 294.
-
- [742] Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 12; Æschines, cont. Timarch. c.
- 34. ὑμεῖς, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, Σωκράτην μὲν τὸν σοφιστὴν ἀπεκτείνατε, ὅτι
- Κριτίαν ἐφάνη πεπαιδευκὼς, ἕνα τῶν τριάκοντα.
-
-It was this cause which brought about the complete and violent
-destruction of the Pythagorean order. Their ascendency had provoked
-such wide-spread discontent, that their enemies became emboldened
-to employ extreme force against them. Kylon and Ninon—the former
-of whom is said to have sought admittance into the order, but to
-have been rejected on account of his bad character—took the lead
-in pronounced opposition to the Pythagoreans; and the odium which
-the latter had incurred extended itself farther to the Senate of
-One Thousand, through the medium of which their ascendency had been
-exercised. Propositions were made for rendering the government more
-democratical, and for constituting a new senate, taken by lot from
-all the people, before which the magistrates should go through their
-trial of accountability after office; an opportunity being chosen
-in which the Senate of One Thousand had given signal offence by
-refusing to divide among the people the recently conquered territory
-of Sybaris.[743] In spite of the opposition of the Pythagoreans,
-this change of government was carried through. Ninon and Kylon,
-their principal enemies, made use of it to exasperate the people
-still farther against the order, until they provoked actual popular
-violence against it. The Pythagoreans were attacked when assembled
-in their meeting-house near the temple of Apollo, or, as some said,
-in the house of Milo: the building was set on fire, and many of
-the members perished;[744] none but the younger and more vigorous
-escaping. Similar disturbances, and the like violent suppression
-of the order, with destruction of several among the leading
-citizens, are said to have taken place in other cities of Magna
-Græcia,—Tarentum, Metapontum, Kaulonia. And we are told that these
-cities remained for some time in a state of great disquietude and
-commotion from which they were only rescued by the friendly mediation
-of the Peloponnesian Achæans, the original founders of Sybaris and
-Kroton,—assisted, indeed, by mediators from other parts of Greece.
-The cities were at length pacified, and induced to adopt an amicable
-congress, with common religious festivals at a temple founded
-expressly for the purpose, and dedicated to Zeus Homarius.[745]
-
- [743] This is stated in Jamblichus, c. 255; yet it is difficult
- to believe; for if the fact had been so, the destruction of the
- Pythagoreans would naturally have produced an allotment and
- permanent occupation of the Sybaritan territory,—which certainly
- did not take place, for Sybaris remained without resident
- possessors until the foundation of Thurii.
-
- [744] Jamblichus, c, 255-259; Porphyry, c. 54-57; Diogen. Laërt.
- viii, 39; Diodor. x, Fragm. vol. iv, p. 56, Wess.
-
- [745] Polyb. ii, 39; Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, c. 13, p. 583;
- Aristoxenus, ap. Jamblich. c. 250. That the enemies of the order
- attacked it by setting fire to the house in which the members
- were assembled, is the circumstance in which all accounts agree.
- On all other points there is great discrepancy, especially
- respecting the names and dates of the Pythagoreans who escaped:
- Boeckh (Philolaus, p. 9, _seq._) and Brandis (Handbuch der Gesch.
- Philos. ch. lxxiii, p. 432) try to reconcile these discrepancies.
-
- Aristophanês introduces Strepsiadês, at the close of the Nubes,
- as setting fire to the meeting-house (φροντιστήριον) of Sokratês
- and his disciples possibly the Pythagorean conflagration may have
- suggested this.
-
-Thus perished the original Pythagorean order. Respecting Pythagoras
-himself, there were conflicting accounts; some representing that he
-was burnt in the temple with his disciples;[746] others, that he
-had died a short time previously; others again affirmed that he was
-alive at the time, but absent, and that he died not long afterwards
-in exile, after forty days of voluntary abstinence from food. His
-tomb was still shown at Metapontum in the days of Cicero.[747] As
-an active brotherhood, the Pythagoreans never revived; but the
-dispersed members came together as a sect, for common religious
-observances and common pursuit of science. They were readmitted,
-after some interval, into the cities of Magna Græcia,[748] from which
-they had been originally expelled, but to which the sect is always
-considered as particularly belonging,—though individual members of it
-are found besides at Thebes and other cities of Greece. Indeed, some
-of these later Pythagoreans sometimes even acquired great political
-influence, as we see in the case of the Tarentine Archytas, the
-contemporary of Plato.
-
- [746] “Pythagoras Samius suspicione dominatûs injustâ vivus in
- fano concrematus est.” (Arnobius adv. Gentes, lib. i, p. 23, ed.
- Elmenhorst.)
-
- [747] Cicero, De Finib. v, 2 (who seems to have copied from
- Dikæarchus: see Fuhr. ad Dikæarchi Fragment. p. 55); Justin, xx,
- 4; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 40; Jamblichus, V. P. c. 249.
-
- O. Müller says (Dorians, iii, 9, 16), that “the influence of
- the Pythagorean league upon the administration of the Italian
- states was of the most beneficial kind, which continued for many
- generations after the dissolution of the league itself.”
-
- The first of these two assertions cannot be made out, and depends
- only on the statements of later encomiasts, who even supply
- materials to contradict their own general view. The judgment
- of Welcker respecting the influence of the Pythagoreans, much
- less favorable, is at the same time more probable. (Præfat. ad
- Theognid. p. xlv.)
-
- The second of the two assertions appears to me quite incorrect;
- the influence of the Pythagorean order on the government of
- Magna Græcia ceased altogether, as far as we are able to judge.
- An individual Pythagorean like Archytas might obtain influence,
- but this is not the influence of the order. Nor ought O. Müller
- to talk about the Italian Greeks giving up the Doric customs and
- adopting an Achæan government. There is nothing to prove that
- Kroton ever had Doric customs.
-
- [748] Aristotel. de Cœlo, ii, 13. οἱ περὶ τὴν Ἰταλίαν, καλούμενοι
- δὲ Πυθαγορεῖοι. “Italici philosophi quondam nominati.” (Cicero,
- De Senect. c. 21.)
-
-It has already been stated that the period when Pythagoras arrived
-at Kroton may be fixed somewhere between B. C. 540-530; and his
-arrival is said to have occurred at a time of great depression in
-the minds of the Krotoniates. They had recently been defeated by
-the united Lokrians and Rhegians, vastly inferior to themselves in
-number, at the river Sagra; and the humiliation thus brought upon
-them is said to have rendered them docile to the training of the
-Samian missionary.[749] As the birth of the Pythagorean order is thus
-connected with the defeat of the Krotoniates at the Sagra, so its
-extinction is also connected with their victory over the Sybarites at
-the river Traeis, or Trionto, about twenty years afterwards.
-
- [749] Heyne places the date of the battle of Sagra about 560
- B. C.; but this is very uncertain. See his Opuscula, vol. ii,
- Prolus. ii, pp. 53, and Prolus. x, p. 184. See also Justin, xx,
- 3, and Strabo, vi, pp. 261-263. It will be seen that the latter
- conceives the battle of the Sagra as having happened after the
- destruction of Sybaris by the Krotoniates; for he states twice
- that the Krotoniates lost so many citizens at the Sagra, that
- the city did not long survive so terrible a blow: he cannot,
- therefore, have supposed that the complete triumph of the
- Krotoniates over the great Sybaris was gained afterwards.
-
-Of the history of these two great Achæan cities we unfortunately
-know very little. Though both were powerful, yet down to the period
-of 510 B. C., Sybaris seems to have been decidedly the greatest: of
-its dominion as well as of its much-denounced luxury I have spoken
-in a former chapter.[750] It was at that time that the war broke
-out between them which ended in the destruction of Sybaris. It is
-certain that the Sybaritans were aggressors in the war; but by what
-causes it had been preceded in their own town, or what provocation
-they had received, we make out very indistinctly. There had been
-a political revolution at Sybaris, we are told, not long before,
-in which a popular leader named Têlys had headed a rising against
-the oligarchical government, and induced the people to banish five
-hundred of the leading rich men, as well as to confiscate their
-properties. He had acquired the sovereignty and become despot of
-Sybaris;[751] and it appears that he, or his rule at Sybaris, was
-much abhorred at Kroton,—since the Krotoniate Philippus, a man of
-splendid muscular form and an Olympic victor, was exiled for having
-engaged himself to marry the daughter of Têlys.[752] According to
-the narrative given by the later Pythagoreans, those exiles, whom
-Têlys had driven from Sybaris, took refuge at Kroton, and cast
-themselves as suppliants on the altars for protection. It may well
-be, indeed, that they were in part Pythagoreans of Sybaris. A body
-of powerful exiles, harbored in a town so close at hand, naturally
-inspired alarm, and Têlys demanded that they should be delivered up,
-threatening war in case of refusal. This demand excited consternation
-at Kroton, since the military strength of Sybaris was decidedly
-superior. The surrender of the exiles was much debated, and almost
-decreed, by the Krotoniates, until at length the persuasion of
-Pythagoras himself is said to have determined them to risk any hazard
-sooner than incur the dishonor of betraying suppliants.
-
- [750] See above, vol. iii, chap. xxii.
-
- [751] Diodor. xii, 9. Herodotus calls Têlys in one place βασιλῆα,
- in another τύραννον of Sybaris (v, 44): this is not at variance
- with the story of Diodorus.
-
- The story given by Athenæus, out of Herakleidês Ponticus,
- respecting the subversion of the dominion of Têlys, cannot be
- reconciled either with Herodotus or Diodorus (Athenæus, xii,
- p. 522). Dr. Thirlwall supposes the deposition of Têlys to
- have occurred between the defeat at the Traeis and the capture
- of Sybaris; but this is inconsistent with the statement of
- Herakleidês, and not countenanced by any other evidence.
-
- [752] Herodot. v, 47.
-
-On the demand of the Sybarites being refused, Têlys marched against
-Kroton, at the head of a force which is reckoned at three hundred
-thousand men.[753] He marched, too, in defiance of the strongest
-religious warnings against the enterprise,—for the sacrifices,
-offered on his behalf by the Iamid prophet Kallias of Elis, were
-decisively unfavorable, and the prophet himself fled in terror
-to Kroton.[754] Near the river Traeis, or Trionto, he was met by
-the forces of Kroton, consisting, we are informed, of one hundred
-thousand men, and commanded by the great athlete and Pythagorean
-Milo; who was clothed, we are told, in the costume and armed with
-the club of Hêraklês. They were farther reinforced, however, by
-a valuable ally, the Spartan Dorieus, younger brother of king
-Kleomenês, then coasting along the gulf of Tarentum with a body
-of colonists, intending to found a settlement in Sicily. A bloody
-battle was fought, in which the Sybarites were totally worsted, with
-prodigious slaughter; while the victors, fiercely provoked and giving
-no quarter, followed up the pursuit so warmly that they took the
-city, dispersed its inhabitants, and crushed its whole power[755] in
-the short space of seventy days. The Sybarites fled in great part to
-Laos and Skidros,[756] their settlements planted on the Mediterranean
-coast, across the Calabrian peninsula. And so eager were the
-Krotoniates to render the site of Sybaris untenable, that they turned
-the course of the river Krathis so as to overwhelm and destroy it:
-the dry bed in which the river had originally flowed was still
-visible in the time of Herodotus,[757] who was among the settlers in
-the town of Thurii, afterwards founded, nearly adjoining.
-
- [753] Diodor. xii, 9; Strabo, vi, p. 263; Jamblichus, Vit.
- Pythag. c. 260; Skymn. Chi. v, 340.
-
- [754] Herodot. v, 44.
-
- [755] Diodor. xii, 9, 10; Strabo, vi, p. 263.
-
- [756] Herodot. vi, 21; Strabo, vi, p. 253.
-
- [757] Herodot. v, 45; Diodor. xii, 9, 10; Strabo, vi, p. 263.
- Strabo mentions expressly the turning of the river for the
- purpose of overwhelming the city,—ἐλόντες γὰρ τὴν πόλιν ἐπήγαγον
- τὸν ποταμὸν καὶ κατέκλυσαν. It is to this change in the channel
- of the river that I refer the expression in Herodotus,—τέμενός
- τε καὶ νηὸν ἐόντα ~παρὰ τὸν ξηρὸν~ Κρᾶθιν. It was natural
- that the old deserted bed of the river should be called “_the
- dry Krathis_:” whereas, if we suppose that there was only one
- channel, the expression has no appropriate meaning. For I do not
- think that any one can be well satisfied with the explanation
- of Bähr “Vocatur Crathis hoc loco ξηρὸς _siccus_, ut qui hieme
- fluit, æstatis vero tempore exsiccatus est: quod adhuc in multis
- Italiæ inferioris fluviis observant.” I doubt whether this be
- true, as a matter of fact, respecting the river Krathis (see my
- preceding volume, ch. xxii), but even if the fact were true, the
- epithet in Bähr’s sense has no especial significance for the
- purpose contemplated by Herodotus, who merely wishes to describe
- the site of the temple erected by Dorieus. “Near the Krathis,” or
- “near the dry Krathis,” would be equivalent expressions, if we
- adopted Bähr’s construction; whereas to say, “near the deserted
- channel of the Krathis,” would be a good local designation.
-
-It appears, however, that the Krotoniates for a long time kept the
-site of Sybaris deserted, refusing even to allot the territory among
-the body of their own citizens: from which circumstances, as has
-been before noticed, the commotion against the Pythagorean order
-is said to have arisen. They may perhaps have been afraid of the
-name and recollections of the city; wherein no large or permanent
-establishment was ever formed, until Thurii was established by
-Athens about sixty-five years afterwards. Nevertheless, the name
-of the Sybarites did not perish. Having maintained themselves at
-Laos, Skidros, and elsewhere, they afterwards formed the privileged
-Old-citizens among the colonists of Thurii; but misbehaved themselves
-in that capacity, and were mostly either slain or expelled. Even
-after that, however, the name of Sybaris still remained on a reduced
-scale in some portion of the territory. Herodotus recounts what he
-was told by the Sybarites, and we find subsequent indications of them
-even as late as Theokritus.
-
-The conquest and destruction of the original Sybaris—perhaps in 510
-B. C. the greatest of all Grecian cities—appears to have excited a
-strong sympathy in the Hellenic world. In Milêtus, especially, with
-which it had maintained intimate union, the grief was so vehement,
-that all the Milesians shaved their heads in token of mourning.[758]
-The event happened just at the time of the expulsion of Hippias from
-Athens, and must have made a sensible revolution in the relations of
-the Greek cities on the Italian coast with the rustic population of
-the interior. The Krotoniates might destroy Sybaris, and disperse
-its inhabitants, but they could not succeed to its wide dominion
-over dependent territory; and the extinction of this great aggregate
-power, stretching across the peninsula from sea to sea, lessened the
-means of resistance against the Oscan movements from the inland.
-From this time forward, the cities of Magna Græcia, as well as those
-of Ionia, tend to decline in consequence, while Athens, on the
-other hand, becomes both more conspicuous and more powerful. At the
-invasion of Greece by Xerxês, thirty years after this conquest of
-Sybaris, Sparta and Athens send to ask for aid both from Sicily and
-Korkyra,—but not from Magna Græcia.
-
- [758] Herodot. vi, 21.
-
-It is much to be regretted that we do not possess fuller information
-respecting these important changes among the Greco-Italian cities,
-but we may remark that even Herodotus,—himself a citizen of Thurii,
-and dwelling on the spot not more than eighty years after the
-capture of Sybaris,—evidently found no written memorials to consult;
-and could obtain from verbal conversation nothing better than
-statements both meagre and contradictory. The material circumstance,
-for example, of the aid rendered by the Spartan Dorieus and his
-colonists, though positively asserted by the Sybarites, was as
-positively denied by the Krotoniates, who alleged that they had
-accomplished the conquest by themselves, and with their own unaided
-forces. There can be little hesitation in crediting the affirmative
-assertion of the Sybarites, who showed to Herodotus a temple and
-precinct erected by the Spartan prince in testimony of his share
-in the victory, on the banks of the dry, deserted channel, out of
-which the Krathis had been turned, and in honor of the Krathian
-Athênê.[759] This of itself forms a proof, coupled with the positive
-assertion of the Sybarites, sufficient for the case. But they
-produced another indirect argument to confirm it, which deserves
-notice. Dorieus had attacked Sybaris while he was passing along the
-coast of Italy to go and found a colony in Sicily, under the express
-mandate and encouragement of the oracle; and after tarrying awhile
-at Sybaris, he pursued his journey to the south-western portion of
-Sicily, where he and nearly all his companions perished in a battle
-with the Carthaginians and Egestæans,—though the oracle had promised
-him that he should acquire and occupy permanently the neighboring
-territory near Mount Eryx. Now the Sybarites deduced from this
-fatal disaster of Dorieus and his expedition, combined with the
-favorable promise of the oracle beforehand, a confident proof of the
-correctness of their own statement that he had fought at Sybaris. For
-if he had gone straight to the territory marked out by the oracle,
-they argued, without turning aside for any other object, the prophecy
-on which his hopes were founded would have been unquestionably
-realized, and he would have succeeded; but the ruinous disappointment
-which actually overtook him was at once explained, and the truth of
-prophecy vindicated, when it was recollected that he had turned aside
-to help the Krotoniates against Sybaris, and thus set at nought the
-conditions prescribed to him. Upon this argument, Herodotus tells us,
-the Sybarites of his day especially insisted.[760] And while we note
-their pious and literal faith in the communications of an inspired
-prophet, we must at the same time observe how perfectly that faith
-supplied the place of historical premises,—how scanty their stock was
-of such legitimate evidence,—and how little they had yet learned to
-appreciate its value.
-
- [759] Herodot. v, 45.
-
- [760] Herodot. v, 45. Τοῦτο δὲ, αὐτοῦ Δωριέος τὸν θάνατον
- μαρτύριον μέγιστον ποιεῦνται (Συβαρῖται), ὅτι παρὰ τὰ
- μεμαντευμένα ποιέων διεφθάρῃ. Εἰ γὰρ δὴ μὴ παρέπρηξε μηδὲν, ἐπ᾽
- ᾧ δὲ ἐστάλη ἐποίεε, εἷλε ἂν τὴν Ἐρυκίνην χώρην καὶ ἑλὼν κάτεσχε,
- οὐδ᾽ ἂν αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ στρατιὴ διεφθάρῃ.
-
-It is to be remarked, that Herodotus, in his brief mention of the
-fatal war between Sybaris and Kroton, does not make the least
-allusion to Pythagoras or his brotherhood. The least which we can
-infer from such silence is, that the part which they played in
-reference to the war, and their general ascendency in Magna Græcia,
-was in reality less conspicuous and overruling than the Pythagorean
-historians set forth. Even making such allowance, however, the
-absence of all allusion in Herodotus, to the commotions which
-accompanied the subversion of the Pythagoreans, is a surprising
-circumstance. Nor can I pass over a perplexing statement in
-Polybius, which seems to show that he too must have conceived
-the history of Sybaris in a way different from that in which it
-is commonly represented. He tells us that after much suffering in
-Magna Græcia, from the troubles which followed the expulsion of the
-Pythagoreans, the cities were induced by Achæan mediation to come to
-an accommodation, and even to establish something like a permanent
-league, with a common temple and sacrifices. Now the three cities
-which he specifies as having been the first to do this, are Kroton,
-Sybaris, and Kaulonia.[761] But according to the sequence of events
-and the fatal war, just described, between Kroton and Sybaris, the
-latter city must have been at that time in ruins; little, if at all,
-inhabited. I cannot but infer from this statement of Polybius, that
-he followed different authorities respecting the early history of
-Magna Græcia in the beginning of the fifth century B. C.
-
- [761] Polyb. ii, 39. Heyne thinks that the agreement here
- mentioned by Polybius took place Olymp. 80, 3; or, indeed, after
- the repopulation of the Sybaritan territory by the foundation
- of Thurii (Opuscula, vol. ii; Prolus. x, p. 189). But there
- seems great difficulty in imagining that the state of violent
- commotion—which, according to Polybius, was only appeased by this
- agreement—can possibly have lasted so long as half a century; the
- received date of the overthrow of the Pythagoreans being about
- 504 B. C.
-
-Indeed, the early history of these cities gives us little more
-than a few isolated facts and names. With regard to their
-legislators, Zaleukus and Charondas, nothing is made out except
-their existence,—and even that fact some ancient critics contested.
-Of Zaleukus, whom chronologists place in 664 B. C., I have already
-spoken; the date of Charondas cannot be assigned, but we may perhaps
-presume that it was at some time between 600-500 B. C. He was a
-citizen of middling station, born in the Chalkidic colony of Katana
-in Sicily,[762] and he framed laws not only for his own city, but for
-the other Chalkidic cities in Sicily and Italy,—Leontini, Naxos,
-Zanklê, and Rhêgium. The laws and the solemn preamble ascribed to
-him by Diodorus and Stobæus, belong to a later day,[763] and we are
-obliged to content ourselves with collecting the brief hints of
-Aristotle, who tells us that the laws of Charondas descended to great
-minuteness of distinction and specification, especially in graduating
-the fine for offences according to the property of the guilty person
-fined,[764]—but that there was nothing in his laws strictly original
-and peculiar, except that he was the first to introduce the solemn
-indictment against perjured witnesses before justice. The perjured
-witness, in Grecian ideas, was looked upon as having committed
-a crime half religious, half civil; and the indictment raised
-against him, known by a peculiar name, partook of both characters,
-approaching in some respects to the procedure against a murderer.
-Such distinct form of indictment against perjured testimony—with its
-appropriate name,[765] which we shall find maintained at Athens
-throughout the best-known days of Attic law—was first enacted by
-Charondas.
-
- [762] Aristot. Politic. ii, 9, 6; iv, 9, 10. Heyne puts Charondas
- much earlier than the foundation of Thurii, in which, I think,
- he is undoubtedly right: but without determining the date more
- exactly (Opuscul. vol. ii; Prolus. ix, p. 160), Charondas must
- certainly have been earlier than Anaxilas of Rhêgium and the
- great Sicilian despots; which will place him higher than 500 B.
- C.: but I do not know that any more precise mark of time can be
- found.
-
- [763] Diodorus, xii, 35; Stobæus, Serm. xliv, 20-40; Cicero
- de Legg. ii, 6. See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griech.
- Staatsalterthümer, ch. 89; Heyne, Opuscul. vol. ii, pp. 72-164.
- Brandis (Geschichte der Röm. Philosophie, ch. xxvi, p. 102) seems
- to conceive these prologues as genuine.
-
- The mistakes and confusion made by ancient writers respecting
- these lawgivers—even by writers earlier than Aristotle (Politic.
- ii, 9, 5)—are such as we have no means of clearing up.
-
- Seneca (Epist. 90) calls both Zaleukus and Charondas disciples
- of Pythagoras. That the former was so, is not to be believed;
- but it is not wholly impossible that the latter may have been
- so,—or at least that he may have been a companion of the earliest
- Pythagoreans.
-
- [764] Aristotel. Politic. ii, 9, 8. Χαρώνδου δ᾽ ἴδιον μὲν οὐδέν
- ἐστι πλὴν αἱ δίκαι τῶν ψευδομαρτύρων· πρῶτος γὰρ ἐποίησε τὴν
- ἐπίσκηψιν· τῇ δ᾽ ἀκριβείᾳ τῶν νόμων ἐστὶ γλαφυρώτερος καὶ τῶν νῦν
- νομοθετῶν. To the fulness and precision predicated respecting
- Charondas in the latter part of this passage, I refer the other
- passage in Politic. iv, 10, 6, which is not to be construed as
- if it meant that Charondas had graduated fines on the rich and
- poor with a distinct view to that political trick (of indirectly
- eliminating the poor from public duties) which Aristotle had been
- just adverting to,—but merely means that Charondas had been nice
- and minute in graduating pecuniary penalties generally, having
- reference to the wealth or poverty of the person sentenced.
-
- [765] Πρῶτος γὰρ ἐποίησε τὴν ~ἐπίσκηψιν~ (Aristot. Politic. ii,
- 9, 8). See Harpokration, v. Ἐπεσκήψατο, and Pollux, viii, 33;
- Demosthenês cont. Stephanum, ii, c. 5; cont. Euerg. et Mnêsibul.
- c. 1. The word ἐπίσκηψις carries with it the solemnity of meaning
- adverted to it in the text, and seems to have been used specially
- with reference to an action or indictment against perjured
- witnesses: which indictment was permitted to be brought with a
- less degree of risk or cost to the accuser than most others in
- the Attic dikasteries, (Dêmosth. cont. Euerg. et Mn. _l. c._)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of Greece, Volume 04 (of 12), by
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-Title: History of Greece, Volume 04 (of 12)
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF GREECE, VOLUME 04 ***
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-
-
-<div class="front">
- <hr class="full" />
- <p><a href="#tnote">Transcriber's note</a></p>
- <p><a href="#ToC">Table of Contents</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="screenonly">
- <hr class="chap" />
- <div class="figcenter">
- <img src="images/cover.jpg"
- alt="Book cover" />
- </div>
- <hr class="chap" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="tit pt3">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[p. i]</span></p>
- <h1 class="g1">HISTORY OF GREECE.</h1>
-
- <p class="large mt2"><small>BY</small><br />
- <span class="g1">GEORGE GROTE, <span class="smcap">Esq.</span></span></p>
-
- <p class="large g1 mt2">VOL. IV.</p>
-
- <p class="xs mt4">REPRINTED FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.</p>
-
- <p class="medium mt2">NEW YORK:<br />
- <span class="g1">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.</span><br />
- <span class="small g1">329 <small>AND</small> 331 <small>PEARL STREET.</small></span><br />
- <span class="large g1">1880.</span></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter" id="ToC">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[p. iii]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.<br />
- <span class="large">VOL. IV.</span></h2>
- <hr class="sep" />
- <p class="xl center">PART II.</p>
- <p class="large g1 center">CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.</p>
- <hr class="sep" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="contents">
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXV.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">ILLYRIANS, MACEDONIANS, PÆONIANS.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Different tribes of Illyrians. — Conflicts and
-contrast of Illyrians with Greeks. — Epidamnus and Apollonia in
-relation to the Illyrians. — Early Macedonians. — Their original
-seats. — General view of the country which they occupied — eastward
-of Pindus and Skardus. — Distribution and tribes of the Macedonians.
-— Macedonians round Edessa — the leading portion of the nation. —
-Pierians and Bottiæans — originally placed on the Thermaic gulf,
-between the Macedonians and the sea. — Pæonians. — Argeian Greeks who
-established the dynasty of Edessa — Perdikkas. — Talents for command
-manifested by Greek chieftains over barbaric tribes. — Aggrandizement
-of the dynasty of Edessa — conquests as far as the Thermaic gulf,
-as well as over the interior Macedonians. — Friendship between king
-Amyntas and the Peisistratids.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><i>pages</i> <a href="#Chap_25">1-19</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXVI.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">THRACIANS AND GREEK COLONIES IN THRACE.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Thracians — their numbers and abode. — Many distinct
-tribes, yet little diversity of character. — Their cruelty, rapacity,
-and military efficiency. — Thracian worship and character Asiatic.
-— Early date of the Chalkidic colonies in Thrace. — Methônê the
-earliest — about 720 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — Several
-other small settlements on the Chalkidic peninsula and its three
-projecting headlands. — Chalkidic peninsula — Mount Athos. — Colonies
-in Pallênê, or the westernmost of the three headlands. — In Sithonia,
-or the middle headland. — In the headland of Athos — Akanthus,
-Stageira, etc. — Greek settlements east of the Strymôn in Thrace. —
-Island of Thasus. — Thracian Chersonesus. — Perinthus, Selymoria, and
-Byzantium. — Grecian settlements on the Euxine, south of the Danube.
-— Lemnos and Imbros.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_26">20-28</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[p.
-iv]</span>CHAPTER XXVII.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">First voyages of the Greeks to Libya. — Foundation of
-Kyrênê. — Founded by Battus from the island of Thêra. — Colony first
-settled in the island of Platea — afterwards removed to Kyrênê. —
-Situation of Kyrênê. — Fertility, produce, and prosperity. — Libyan
-tribes near Kyrênê. — Extensive dominion of Kyrênê and Barka over
-the Libyans. — Connection of the Greek colonies with the Nomads
-of Libya. — Manners of the Libyan Nomads. — Mixture of Greeks and
-Libyan inhabitants at Kyrênê. — Dynasty of Battus, Arkesilaus, Battus
-the Second, at Kyrênê — fresh colonists from Greece. — Disputes
-with the native Libyans. — Arkesilaus the Second, prince of Kyrênê
-— misfortunes of the city — foundation of Barka. — Battus the
-Third, a lame man — reform by Demônax, who takes away the supreme
-power from the Battiads. — New emigration — restoration of the
-Battiad Arkesilaus the Third. — Oracle limiting the duration of the
-Battiad dynasty. — Violences at Kyrênê under Arkesilaus the Third.
-— Arkesilaus sends his submission to Kambysês, king of Persia. —
-Persian expedition from Egypt against Barka — Pheretimê, mother of
-Arkesilaus. — Capture of Barka by perfidy — cruelty of Pheretimê. —
-Battus the Fourth and Arkesilaus the Fourth — final extinction of the
-dynasty about 460-450 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — Constitution
-of Demônax not durable.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_27">29-49</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXVIII.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN,
-AND ISTHMIAN.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Want of grouping and unity in the early period of
-Grecian history. — New causes, tending to favor union, begin after
-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — no general war between 776
-and 560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> known to Thucydidês. —
-Increasing disposition to religious, intellectual, and social union.
-— Reciprocal admission of cities to the religious festivals of
-each other. — Early splendor of the Ionic festival at Delos — its
-decline. — Olympic games — their celebrity and long continuance. —
-Their gradual increase — new matches introduced. — Olympic festival
-— the first which passes from a local to a Pan-Hellenic character.
-— Pythian games, or festival. — Early state and site of Delphi. —
-Phocian town of Krissa. — Kirrha, the seaport of Krissa. — Growth
-of Delphi and Kirrha — decline of Krissa. — Insolence of the
-Kirrhæans punished by the Amphiktyons. — First Sacred War, in 595
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — Destruction of Kirrha. — Pythian
-games founded by the Amphiktyons. — Nemean and Isthmian games. —
-Pan-Hellenic character acquired by all the four festivals — Olympic,
-Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. — Increased frequentation of the other
-festivals in most Greek cities. — All other Greek cities, except
-Sparta, encouraged such visits. — Effect of these festivals upon the
-Greek mind.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_28">50-73</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[p.
-v]</span>CHAPTER XXIX.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Age and duration of the Greek lyric poetry. — Epical
-age preceding the lyrical. — Wider range of subjects for poetry
-— new metres — enlarged musical scale. — Improvement of the harp
-by Terpander — of the flute by Olympus and others. — Archilochus,
-Kallinus, Tyrtæus, and Alkman — 670-600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> —
-New metres superadded to the Hexameter — Elegiac, Iambic, Trochaic.
-— Archilochus. — Simonidês of Amorgos, Kallinus, Tyrtæus. — Musical
-and poetical tendencies at Sparta. — Choric training — Alkman,
-Thalêtas. — Doric dialect employed in the choric compositions. —
-Arion and Stêsichorus — substitution of the professional in place
-of the popular chorus. — Distribution of the chorus by Stêsichorus
-— Strophê — Antistrophê — Epôdus. — Alkæus and Sappho. — Gnomic
-or moralizing poets. — Solon and Theognis. — Subordination of
-musical and orchestrical accompaniment to the words and meaning. —
-Seven Wise Men. — They were the first men who acquired an Hellenic
-reputation, without poetical genius. — Early manifestation of
-philosophy — in the form of maxims. — Subsequent growth of dialectics
-and discussion. — Increase of the habit of writing — commencement
-of prose compositions. — First beginnings of Grecian art. —
-Restricted character of early art, from religious associations. —
-Monumental ornaments in the cities — begin in the sixth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — Importance of Grecian art as a means of
-Hellenic union.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_29">73-101</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXX.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">GRECIAN AFFAIRS DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF
-PEISISTRATUS AND HIS SONS AT ATHENS.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Peisistratus and his sons at Athens —
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> 500-510 — uncertain chronology as to
-Peisistratus. — State of feeling in Attica at the accession of
-Peisistratus. — Retirement of Peisistratus, and stratagem whereby
-he is reinstated. — Quarrel of Peisistratus with the Alkmæônids —
-his second retirement. — His second and final restoration. — His
-strong government — mercenaries — purification of Delos. — Mild
-despotism of Peisistratus. — His sons Hippias and Hipparchus. —
-Harmodius and Aristogeitôn. — They conspire and kill Hipparchus.
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> 514. — Strong and lasting sentiment,
-coupled with great historical mistake, in the Athenian public. —
-Hippias despot alone — 514-510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — his
-cruelty and conscious insecurity. — Connection of Athens with the
-Thracian Chersonesus and the Asiatic coast of the Hellespont. — First
-Miltiadês — œkist of the Chersonese. — Second Miltiadês — sent out
-thither by the Peisistratids. — Proceedings of the exiled Alkmæônids
-against Hippias. — Conflagration and rebuilding of the Delphian
-temple. — The Alkmæônids rebuild the temple with magnificence. —
-Gratitude of the Delphians towards them — they procure from the
-oracle directions to Sparta, enjoining the expulsion of Hippias.
-— Spartan expeditions into Attica. — Expulsion of Hippias, and
-liberation of Athens.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_30">102-126</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[p.
-vi]</span>CHAPTER XXXI.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE
-PEISISTRATIDS. — REVOLUTION OF KLEISTHENES AND ESTABLISHMENT OF
-DEMOCRACY AT ATHENS.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">State of Athens after the expulsion of Hippias. —
-Opposing party-leaders — Kleisthenês — Isagoras. — Democratical
-revolution headed by Kleisthenês. — Rearrangement and extension of
-the political franchise. — Suppression of the four old tribes, and
-formation of ten new tribes, including an increased number of the
-population. — Imperfect description of this event in Herodotus —
-its real bearing. — Grounds of opposition to it in ancient Athenian
-feeling. — Names of the new tribes — their relation to the demes. —
-Demes belonging to each tribe usually not adjacent to each other.
-— Arrangements and functions of the deme. — Solonian constitution
-preserved, with modifications. — Change of military arrangement in
-the state. — The ten stratêgi, or generals. — The judicial assembly
-of citizens, or Heliæa, subsequently divided into fractions, each
-judging separately. — The political assembly, or ekklesia. —
-Financial arrangements. — Senate of Five Hundred. — Ekklesia, or
-political assembly. — Kleisthenês the real author of the Athenian
-democracy. — Judicial attributes of the people — their gradual
-enlargement. — Three points in Athenian constitutional law, hanging
-together: — Universal admissibility of citizens to magistracy —
-choice by lot — reduced functions of the magistrates chosen by
-lot. — Universal admissibility of citizens to the archonship —
-not introduced until after the battle of Platæa. — Constitution
-of Kleisthenês retained the Solonian law of exclusion as to
-individual office. — Difference between that constitution and the
-political state of Athens after Periklês. — Senate of Areopagus.
-— The ostracism. — Weakness of the public force in the Grecian
-governments. — Past violences of the Athenian nobles. — Necessity
-of creating a constitutional morality. — Purpose and working of the
-ostracism. — Securities against its abuse. — Ostracism necessary as
-a protection to the early democracy — afterwards dispensed with. —
-Ostracism analogous to the exclusion of a known pretender to the
-throne in a monarchy. — Effect of the long ascendency of Periklês,
-in strengthening constitutional morality. — Ostracism in other
-Grecian cities. — Striking effect of the revolution of Kleisthenês
-on the minds of the citizens. — Isagoras calls in Kleomenês and the
-Lacedæmonians against it. — Kleomenês and Isagoras are expelled from
-Athens. — Recall of Kleisthenês — Athens solicits the alliance of the
-Persians. — First connection between Athens and Platæa. — Disputes
-between Platæa and Thebes — decision of Corinth as arbitrator. —
-Second march of Kleomenês against Athens — desertion of his allies.
-— First appearance of Sparta as acting head of Peloponnesian allies.
-— Signal successes of Athens against Bœotians and Chalkidians. —
-Plantation of Athenian settlers, or klêruchs, in the territory
-of Chalkis. — Distress of the Thebans — they ask assistance from
-Ægina. — The Æginetans make war on Athens. — Preparations at Sparta
-to attack Athens anew — the Spartan allies are summoned, together
-with Hippias. — First formal convocation at Sparta — advance of
-Greece towards a political system. — Proceedings of the convocation
-— animated protest of Corinth against any interference in favor
-of Hippias — the Spartan allies refuse to interfere. — Aversion
-to single-headed rule — now predominant<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_vii">[p. vii]</span> in Greece. — Striking development of
-Athenian energy after the revolution of Kleisthenês — language of
-Herodotus. — Effect of the idea or theory of democracy in exciting
-Athenian sentiment. — Patriotism of an Athenian between 500-400
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — combined with an eager spirit of
-personal military exertion and sacrifice. — Diminution of this active
-sentiment in the restored democracy after the Thirty Tyrants.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_31">126-181</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXXII.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">RISE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. — CYRUS.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">State of Asia before the rise of the Persian monarchy.
-— Great power and alliances of Crœsus. — Rise of Cyrus — uncertainty
-of his early history. — Story of Astyagês. — Herodotus and Ktêsias.
-— Condition of the native Persians at the first rise of Cyrus. —
-Territory of Iran — between Tigris and Indus. — War between Cyrus and
-Crœsus. — Crœsus tests the oracles — triumphant reply from Delphi
-— munificence of Crœsus to the oracle. — Advice given to him by
-the oracle. — He solicits the alliance of Sparta. — He crosses the
-Halys and attacks the Persians. — Rapid march of Cyrus to Sardis.
-— Siege and capture of Sardis. — Crœsus becomes prisoner of Cyrus
-— how treated. — Remonstrance addressed by Crœsus to the Delphian
-god. — Successful justification of the oracle. — Fate of Crœsus
-impressive to the Greek mind. — The Mœræ, or Fates. — State of the
-Asiatic Greeks after the conquest of Lydia by Cyrus. — They apply in
-vain to Sparta for aid. — Cyrus quits Sardis — revolt of the Lydians
-suppressed. — The Persian general Mazarês attacks Ionia — the Lydian
-Paktyas. — Harpagus succeeds Mazarês — conquest of Ionia by the
-Persians. — Fate of Phôkæa. — Emigration of the Phôkæans vowed by
-all, executed only by one half. — Phôkæan colony first at Alalia,
-then at Elea. — Proposition of Bias for a Pan-Ionic emigration not
-adopted. — Entire conquest of Asia Minor by the Persians.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_32">182-208</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXXIII.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Conquests of Cyrus in Asia. — His attack of Babylon. —
-Difficult approach to Babylon — no resistance made to the invaders.
-— Cyrus distributes the river Gyndês into many channels. — He takes
-Babylon, by drawing off for a time the waters of the Euphrates.
-— Babylon left in undiminished strength and population. — Cyrus
-attacks the Massagetæ — is defeated and slain. — Extraordinary
-stimulus to the Persians, from the conquests of Cyrus. — Character
-of the Persians. — Thirst for foreign conquest among the Persians,
-for three reigns after Cyrus. — Kambysês succeeds his father Cyrus
-— his invasion of Egypt. — Death of Amasis, king of Egypt, at the
-time when the Persian expedition was preparing — his son Psammenitus
-succeeds. — Conquest of Egypt by Kambysês. — Submission of Kyrênê and
-Barka to Kambysês — his projects for conquering Libya and Ethiopia
-disappointed. — Insults of Kambysês to the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_viii">[p. viii]</span> Egyptian religion. — Madness
-of Kambysês — he puts to death his younger brother, Smerdis. —
-Conspiracy of the Magian Patizeithês who sets up his brother as king
-under the name of Smerdis. — Death of Kambysês. — Reign of the false
-Smerdis — conspiracy of the seven Persian noblemen against him — he
-is slain. — Darius succeeds to the throne. — Political bearing of
-this conspiracy — Smerdis represents Median preponderance, which
-is again put down by Darius. — Revolt of the Medes — suppressed.
-— Discontents of the satraps. — Revolt of Babylon. — Reconquered
-and dismantled by Darius. — Organization of the Persian empire by
-Darius. — Twenty satrapies with a fixed tribute apportioned to each.
-— Imposts upon the different satrapies. — Organizing tendency of
-Darius — first imperial coinage — imperial roads and posts. — Island
-of Samos — its condition at the accession of Darius. — Polykratês.
-— Polykratês breaks with Amasis, king of Egypt, and allies himself
-with Kambysês. — The Samian exiles, expelled by Polykratês, apply to
-Sparta for aid. — The Lacedæmonians attack Samos, but are repulsed. —
-Attack on Siphnos by the Samian exiles. — Prosperity of Polykratês. —
-He is slain by the Persian satrap Orœtês. — Mæandrius, lieutenant of
-Polykratês in Samos — he desires to establish a free government after
-the death of Polykratês — conduct of the Samians. — Mæandrius becomes
-despot. — Contrast between the Athenians and the Samians. — Sylosôn,
-brother of Polykratês, lands with a Persian army in Samos — his
-history. — Mæandrius agrees to evacuate the island. — Many Persian
-officers slain — slaughter of the Samians. — Sylosôn despot at Samos.
-— Application of Mæandrius to Sparta for aid — refused.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_33">209-252</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXXIV.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">DEMOKEDES. — DARIUS INVADES SCYTHIA.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Conquering dispositions of Darius. — Influence
-of his wife, Atossa. — Dêmokêdês, the Krotoniate surgeon — his
-adventures — he is carried a slave to Susa. — He cures Darius, who
-rewards him munificently. — He procures permission by artifice,
-and through the influence of Atossa, to return to Greece. — Atossa
-suggests to Darius an expedition against Greece. — Dêmokêdês, with
-some Persians, is sent to procure information for him. — Voyage of
-Dêmokêdês along the coast of Greece — he stays at Kroton — fate
-of his Persian companions. — Consequences which might have been
-expected to happen if Darius had then undertaken his expedition
-against Greece. — Darius marches against Scythia. — His naval force
-formed of Asiatic and insular Greeks. — He directs the Greeks to
-throw a bridge over the Danube and crosses the river. — He marches
-into Scythia — narrative of his march impossible and unintelligible,
-considered as history. — The description of his march is rather to be
-looked upon as a fancy-picture, illustrative of Scythian warfare. —
-Poetical grouping of the Scythians and their neighbors by Herodotus.
-— Strong impression produced upon the imagination of Herodotus by
-the Scythians. — Orders given by Darius to the Ionians at the bridge
-over the Danube. — The Ionians are left in guard of the bridge;
-their conduct when Darius’s return is delayed. — The Ionian despots
-preserve the bridge and enable Darius to recross the river, as a
-means of support to their own dominion at home. — Opportunity lost of
-emancipation from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[p. ix]</span>
-the Persians — Conquest of Thrace by the Persians as far as the river
-Strymon — Myrkinus near that river given to Histiæus. — Macedonians
-and Pæonians are conquered by Megabazus. — Insolence of the Persian
-envoys in Macedonia — they are murdered. — Histiæus founds a
-prosperous colony at Myrkinus — Darius sends for him into Asia. —
-Otanês Persian general on the Hellespont — he conquers the Pelasgian
-population of Lemnos, Imbros, etc. — Lemnos and Imbros captured by
-the Athenians and Miltiadês.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_34">252-280</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXXV.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">IONIC REVOLT.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Darius carries Histiæus to Susa. — Application of
-the banished Hippias to Artaphernês, satrap of Sardis. — State of
-the island of Naxos — Naxian exiles solicit aid from Aristagoras
-of Milêtus. — Expedition against Naxos, undertaken by Aristagoras
-with the assistance of Artaphernês the satrap. — Its failure,
-through dispute between Aristagoras and the Persian general,
-Megabatês. — Alarm of Aristagoras — he determines to revolt against
-Persia — instigation to the same effect from Histiæus. — Revolt of
-Aristagoras and the Milesians — the despots in the various cities
-deposed and seized. — Extension of the revolt throughout Asiatic
-Greece — Aristagoras goes to solicit aid from Sparta. — Refusal
-of the Spartans to assist him. — Aristagoras applies to Athens —
-obtains aid both from Athens and Eretria. — March of Aristagoras up
-to Sardis with the Athenian and Eretrian allies — burning of the
-town — retreat and defeat of these Greeks by the Persians. — The
-Athenians abandon the alliance. — Extension of the revolt to Cyprus
-and Byzantium. — Phenician fleet called forth by the Persians —
-Persian and Phenician armament sent against Cyprus — the Ionians send
-aid thither — victory of the Persians — they reconquer the island. —
-Successes of the Persians against the revolted coast of Asia Minor. —
-Aristagoras loses courage and abandons the country. — Appearance of
-Histiæus, who had obtained leave of departure from Susa. — Histiæus
-is suspected by Artaphernês — flees to Chios. — He attempts in vain
-to procure admission into Milêtus — puts himself at the head of a
-small piratical squadron. — Large Persian force assembled, aided by
-the Phenician fleet, for the siege of Milêtus. — The allied Grecian
-fleet mustered at Ladê. — Attempts of the Persians to disunite
-the allies, by means of the exiled despots. — Want of command and
-discipline in the Grecian fleet. — Energy of the Phôkæan Dionysius
-— he is allowed to assume the command. — Discontent of the Grecian
-crews — they refuse to act under Dionysius. — Contrast of this
-incapacity of the Ionic crews with the subsequent severe discipline
-of the Athenian seamen. — Disorder and mistrust grow up in the fleet
-— treachery of the Samian captains. — Complete victory of the Persian
-fleet at Ladê — ruin of the Ionic fleet — severe loss of the Chians.
-— Voluntary exile and adventures of Dionysius. — Siege, capture, and
-ruin of Milêtus by the Persians. — The Phenician fleet reconquers
-all the coast-towns and islands. — Narrow escape of Miltiadês from
-their pursuit. — Cruelties of the Persians after the reconquest.
-— Movements and death of Histiæus. — Sympathy and terror of the
-Athenians at the capture of Milêtus — the tragic writer Phrynichus is
-fined.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_35">280-310</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[p.
-x]</span>CHAPTER XXXVI.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF
-MARATHON.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Proceedings of the satrap Artaphernês after the
-reconquest of Ionia — Mardonius comes with an army into Ionia — he
-puts down the despots in the Greek cities. — He marches into Thrace
-and Macedonia — his fleet destroyed by a terrible storm near Mount
-Athos — he returns into Asia. — Island of Thasos — prepares to revolt
-from the Persians — forced to submit. — Preparations of Darius for
-invading Greece — he sends heralds round the Grecian towns to demand
-earth and water — many of them submit. — Ægina among those towns
-which submitted — state and relations of this island. — Heralds from
-Darius are put to death, both at Athens and Sparta. — Effects of this
-act in throwing Sparta into a state of hostility against Persia. —
-The Athenians appeal to Sparta, in consequence of the <i>medism</i> (or
-submission to the Persians) of Ægina. — Interference of Sparta — her
-distinct acquisition and acceptance of the leadership of Greece.
-— One condition of recognized Spartan leadership was the extreme
-weakness of Argos at this moment. — Victorious war of Sparta against
-Argos. — Destruction of the Argeians by Kleomenês, in the grove of
-the hero Argus. — Kleomenês returns without having attacked the city
-of Argos. — He is tried — his peculiar mode of defence — acquitted.
-— Argos unable to interfere with Sparta in the affair of Ægina and
-in her presidential power. — Kleomenês goes to Ægina to seize the
-<i>medizing</i> leaders — resistance made to him, at the instigation of
-his colleague Demaratus. — Demaratus is deposed, and Leotychidês
-chosen king, by the intrigues of Kleomenês. — Demaratus leaves Sparta
-and goes to Darius. — Kleomenês and Leotychidês go to Ægina, seize
-ten hostages, and convey them as prisoners to Athens. — Important
-effect of this proceeding upon the result of the first Persian
-invasion of Greece. — Assemblage of the vast Persian armament under
-Datis at Samos. — He crosses the Ægean — carries the island of Naxos
-without resistance — respects Delos. — He reaches Eubœa — siege and
-capture of Eretria. — Datis lands at Marathon. — Existing condition
-and character of the Athenians. — Miltiadês — his adventures — chosen
-one of the ten generals in the year in which the Persians landed at
-Marathon. — Themistoklês and Aristeidês. — Miltiadês, Aristeidês, and
-perhaps Themistoklês, were now among the ten stratêgi, or generals,
-in 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> — The Athenians ask aid from
-Sparta — delay of the Spartans. — Difference of opinion among the
-ten Athenian generals — five of them recommend an immediate battle,
-the other five are adverse to it. — Urgent instances of Miltiadês
-in favor of an immediate battle — casting-vote of the polemarch
-determines it. — March of the Athenians to Marathon — the Platæans
-spontaneously join them there. — Numbers of the armies. — Locality
-of Marathon. — Battle of Marathon — rapid charge of Miltiadês —
-defeat of the Persians. — Loss on both sides. — Ulterior plans of the
-Persians against Athens — party in Attica favorable to them. — Rapid
-march of Miltiadês back to Athens on the day of the battle. — The
-Persians abandon the enterprise, and return home. — Athens rescued
-through the speedy battle brought on by Miltiadês. — Change of
-Grecian feeling as to the Persians — terror which the latter inspired
-at the time of the battle of Marathon. — Immense effect of the
-Marathonian victory on the feelings of the Greeks — especially of the
-Athenians. — Who were the trai<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[p.
-xi]</span>tors that invited the Persians to Athens after the battle —
-false imputation on the Alkmæônids. — Supernatural belief connected
-with the battle — commemorations of it. — Return of Datis to Asia —
-fate of the Eretrian captives. — Glory of Miltiadês — his subsequent
-conduct — unsuccessful expedition against Paros — bad hurt of
-Miltiadês. — Disgrace of Miltiadês on his return. — He is fined —
-dies of his wound — the fine is paid by his son Kimon. — Reflections
-on the closing adventures of the life of Miltiadês. — Fickleness
-and ingratitude imputed to the Athenians — how far they deserve the
-charge. — Usual temper of the Athenian dikasts in estimating previous
-services. — Tendency of eminent Greeks to be corrupted by success. —
-In what sense it is apparently true that fickleness was an attribute
-of the Athenian democracy.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_36">311-378</a></p>
-
-
-<p class="chap">CHAPTER XXXVII.</p>
-
-<p class="subchap">IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND
-SYBARIS.</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Phalaris despot of Agrigentum. — Thalês. — Ionic
-philosophers — not a school or succession. — Step in philosophy
-commenced by Thalês. — Vast problems with scanty means of solution.
-— One cause of the vein of skepticism which runs through Grecian
-philosophy. — Thalês — primeval element of water, or the fluid. —
-Anaximander. — Problem of the One and the Many — the Permanent and
-the Variable. — Xenophanês — his doctrine the opposite of that of
-Anaximander. — The Eleatic school, Parmenidês and Zeno, springing
-from Xenophanês — their dialectics — their great influence on Grecian
-speculation. — Pherekydês. — History of Pythagoras. — His character
-and doctrines. — Pythagoras more a missionary and schoolmaster than a
-politician — his political efficiency exaggerated by later witnesses.
-— His ethical training — probably not applied to all the members of
-his order. — Decline and subsequent renovation of the Pythagorean
-order. — Pythagoras not merely a borrower, but an original and
-ascendent mind. — He passes from Samos to Kroton. — State of Kroton
-— oligarchical government — excellent gymnastic training and medical
-skill. — Rapid and wonderful effects said to have been produced
-by the exhortations of Pythagoras. — He forms a powerful club, or
-society, consisting of three hundred men taken from the wealthy
-classes at Kroton. — Political influence of Pythagoras — was an
-indirect result of the constitution of the order. — Causes which
-led to the subversion of the Pythagorean order. — Violences which
-accompanied its subversion. — The Pythagorean order is reduced to a
-religious and philosophical sect, in which character it continues.
-— War between Sybaris and Kroton. — Defeat of the Sybarites, and
-destruction of their city, partly through the aid of the Spartan
-prince Dorieus. — Sensation excited in the Hellenic world by the
-destruction of Sybaris. — Gradual decline of the Greek power in
-Italy. — Contradictory statements and arguments respecting the
-presence of Dorieus. — Herodotus does not mention the Pythagoreans,
-when he alludes to the war between Sybaris and Kroton. — Charondas,
-lawgiver of Katana, Naxos, Zanklê, Rhegium, etc.</p>
-
-<p class="toright"><a href="#Chap_37">378-419</a></p>
-
-</div> <!-- .contents -->
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter" id="Chap_25">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[p. 1]</span></p>
- <p class="falseh1 g1">HISTORY OF GREECE.</p>
- <hr class="sep" />
- <p class="xl lh200 center"><small>PART II.</small><br />
- CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE.</p>
- <hr class="sep" />
- <h2 class="nobreak"><span class="g1">CHAPTER XXV.</span><br />
- ILLYRIANS, MACEDONIANS, PÆONIANS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">Northward</span> of the tribes
-called Epirotic lay those more numerous and widely extended tribes
-who bore the general name of Illyrians; bounded on the west by the
-Adriatic, on the east by the mountain-range of Skardus, the northern
-continuation of Pindus,—and thus covering what is now called Middle
-and Upper Albania, together with the more northerly mountains of
-Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Bosnia. Their limits to the north and
-north-east cannot be assigned, but the Dardani and Autariatæ must
-have reached to the north-east of Skardus and even east of the
-Servian plain of Kossovo; while along the Adriatic coast, Skylax
-extends the race so far northward as to include Dalmatia, treating
-the Liburnians and Istrians beyond them as not Illyrian: yet Appian
-and others consider the Liburnians and Istrians as Illyrian, and
-Herodotus even includes under that name the Eneti, or Veneti, at the
-extremity of the Adriatic gulf.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"
-class="fnanchor">[1]</a> The Bulini, accord<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_2">[p. 2]</span>ing to Skylax, were the northernmost
-Illyrian tribe: the Amantini, immediately northward of the Epirotic
-Chaonians, were the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[p. 3]</span>
-southernmost. Among the southern Illyrian tribes are to be numbered
-the Taulantii,—originally the possessors, afterwards the immediate
-neighbors, of the territory on which Epidamnus was founded. The
-ancient geographer Hekatæus<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"
-class="fnanchor">[2]</a> (about 500<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_4">[p. 4]</span> <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), is
-sufficiently well acquainted with them to specify their town
-Sesarêthus: he also named the Chelidonii as their northern, the
-Encheleis as their southern neighbors; and the Abri also as a tribe
-nearly adjoining. We hear of the Illyrian Parthini, nearly in the
-same regions,—of the Dassaretii,<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"
-class="fnanchor">[3]</a> near Lake Lychnidus,—of the Penestæ, with
-a fortified town Uscana, north of the Dassaretii,—of the Ardiæans,
-the Autariatæ, and the Dardanians, throughout Upper Albania eastward
-as far as Upper Mœsia, including the range of Skardus itself; so
-that there were some Illyrian tribes conterminous on the east with
-Macedonians, and on the south with Macedonians as well as with
-Pæonians. Strabo even extends some of the Illyrian tribes much
-farther northward, nearly to the Julian Alps.<a id="FNanchor_4"
-href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
-
-<p>With the exception of some portions of what is now called Middle
-Albania, the territory of these tribes consisted principally of
-mountain pastures with a certain proportion of fertile valley, but
-rarely expanding into a plain. The Autariatæ had the reputation
-of being unwarlike, but the Illyrians generally were poor,
-rapacious, fierce, and formidable in battle. They shared with the
-remote Thracian tribes the custom of tattooing<a id="FNanchor_5"
-href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> their bodies and of
-offering human sacrifices: moreover, they were always ready to
-sell their military service for hire, like the modern Al<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[p. 5]</span>banian Schkipetars, in
-whom probably their blood yet flows, though with considerable
-admixture from subsequent emigrations. Of the Illyrian kingdom
-on the Adriatic coast, with Skodra (Scutari) for its capital
-city, which became formidable by its reckless piracies in the
-third century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, we hear nothing
-in the flourishing period of Grecian history. The description of
-Skylax notices in his day, all along the northern Adriatic, a
-considerable and standing traffic between the coast and the interior,
-carried on by Liburnians, Istrians, and the small Grecian insular
-settlements of Pharus and Issa. But he does not name Skodra, and
-probably this strong post—together with the Greek town Lissus,
-founded by Dionysius of Syracuse—was occupied after his time by
-conquerors from the interior,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"
-class="fnanchor">[6]</a> the predecessors of Agrôn and Gentius,—just
-as the coast-land of the Thermaic gulf was conquered by inland
-Macedonians.</p>
-
-<p>Once during the Peloponnesian war, a detachment of hired
-Illyrians, marching into Macedonia Lynkêstis (seemingly over the pass
-of Skardus a little east of Lychnidus, or Ochrida), tried the valor
-of the Spartan Brasidas; and on that occasion—as in the expedition
-above alluded to of the Epirots against Akarnania—we shall notice
-the marked superiority of the Grecian character, even in the case of
-an armament chiefly composed of helots newly enfranchised, over both
-Macedonians and Illyrians,—we shall see the contrast between brave
-men acting in concert and obedience to a common authority, and an
-assailing host of warriors, not less brave individually, but in which
-every man is his own master,<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"
-class="fnanchor">[7]</a> and fights as he pleases. The rapid and
-impetuous rush of the Illyrians, if the first shock failed of its
-effect, was succeeded by an equally rapid retreat or flight. We hear
-nothing afterwards respecting these barbarians until the time of
-Philip of Macedon, whose vigor and military energy first repressed
-their incursions, and afterwards partially conquered them. It seems
-to have been about this period (400-350 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>)
-that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[p. 6]</span> great
-movement of the Gauls from west to east took place, which brought
-the Gallic Skordiski and other tribes into the regions between the
-Danube and the Adriatic sea, and which probably dislodged some of the
-northern Illyrians so as to drive them upon new enterprises and fresh
-abodes.</p>
-
-<p>What is now called Middle Albania, the Illyrian territory
-immediately north of Epirus, is much superior to the latter
-in productiveness.<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"
-class="fnanchor">[8]</a> Though mountainous, it possesses more
-both of low hill and valley, and ampler as well as more fertile
-cultivable spaces. Epidamnus and Apollonia formed the seaports
-of this territory, and the commerce with the southern Illyrians,
-less barbarous than the northern, was one of the sources<a
-id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>
-of their great prosperity during the first century of their
-existence,—a prosperity interrupted in the case of the Epidamnians
-by internal dissensions, which impaired their ascendency over
-their Illyrian neighbors, and ultimately placed them at variance
-with their mother-city Korkyra. The commerce between these Greek
-seaports and the interior tribes, when once the former became
-strong enough to render violent attack from the latter hopeless,
-was reciprocally beneficial to both of them. Grecian oil and wine
-were introduced among these barbarians, whose chiefs at the same
-time learned to appreciate the woven fabrics,<a id="FNanchor_10"
-href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> the polished and
-carved metallic work, the tempered weapons, and the pottery, which
-issued from Grecian artisans. Moreover, the importation sometimes
-of salt-fish, and always that of salt itself, was of the greatest
-importance to these inland residents, especially for such localities
-as possessed lakes abounding in fish, like that of Lychnidus. We
-hear of wars between the Autariatæ and the Ardiæi, respecting
-salt-springs near their boundaries, and also of other tribes whom
-the privation of salt reduced to the necessity of submitting
-to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[p. 7]</span> the Romans.<a
-id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> On
-the other hand, these tribes possessed two articles of exchange so
-precious in the eyes of the Greeks, that Polybius reckons them as
-absolutely indispensable,<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"
-class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—cattle and slaves;<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_8">[p. 8]</span> which latter were doubtless procured
-from Illyria, often in exchange for salt, as they were from Thrace
-and from the Euxine and from Aquileia in the Adriatic, through the
-internal wars of one tribe with another. Silver-mines were worked at
-Damastium in Illyria. Wax and honey were probably also articles of
-export, and it is a proof that the natural products of Illyria were
-carefully sought out, when we find a species of iris peculiar to the
-country collected and sent to Corinth, where its root was employed to
-give the special flavor to a celebrated kind of aromatic unguent.<a
-id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p>
-
-<p>Nor was the intercourse between the Hellenic ports and Illyrians
-inland exclusively commercial. Grecian exiles also found their way
-into Illyria, and Grecian mythes became localized there, as may
-be seen by the tale of Kadmus and Harmonia, from whom the chiefs
-of the Illyrian Encheleis professed to trace their descent.<a
-id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>
-
-<p>The Macedonians of the fourth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-acquired, from the ability and enterprise of two successive kings,
-a great perfection in Greek military organization without any of
-the loftier Hellenic qualities. Their career in Greece is purely
-destructive, extinguishing the free movement of the separate cities,
-and dis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[p. 9]</span>arming the
-citizen-soldier to make room for the foreign mercenary, whose
-sword was unhallowed by any feelings of patriotism,—yet totally
-incompetent to substitute any good system of central or pacific
-administration. But the Macedonians of the seventh and sixth
-centuries <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> are an aggregate only of rude
-inland tribes, subdivided into distinct petty principalities, and
-separated from the Greeks by a wider ethnical difference even
-than the Epirots; since Herodotus, who considers the Epirotic
-Molossians and Thesprotians as children of Hellen, decidedly
-thinks the contrary respecting the Macedonians.<a id="FNanchor_15"
-href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> In the main, however,
-they seem at this early period analogous to the Epirots in character
-and civilization. They had some few towns, but were chiefly village
-residents, extremely brave and pugnacious. The customs of some of
-their tribes enjoined that the man who had not yet slain an enemy
-should be distinguished on some occasions by a badge of discredit.<a
-id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a></p>
-
-<p>The original seats of the Macedonians were in the regions east of
-the chain of Skardus (the northerly continuation of Pindus)—north of
-the chain called the Cambunian mountains, which connects Olympus with
-Pindus, and which forms the north-western boundary of Thessaly. But
-they did not reach so far eastward as the Thermaic gulf; apparently
-not farther eastward than Mount Bermius, or about the longitude of
-Edessa and Berrhoia. They thus covered the upper portions of the
-course of the rivers Haliakmôn and Erigôn, before the junction of
-the latter with the Axius; while the upper course of the Axius,
-higher than this point of junction, appears to have belonged to
-Pæonia,—though the boundaries of Macedonia and Pæonia cannot be
-distinctly marked out at any time.</p>
-
-<p>The large space of country included between the above-mentioned
-boundaries is in great part mountainous, occupied by lateral ridges,
-or elevations, which connect themselves with the main line of
-Skardus. But it also comprises three wide alluvial basins, or plains,
-which are of great extent and well-adapted to<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_10">[p. 10]</span> cultivation,—the plain of Tettovo, or
-Kalkandele (northernmost of the three), which contains the sources
-and early course of the Axius, or Vardar,—that of Bitolia, coinciding
-to a great degree with the ancient Pelagonia, wherein the Erigon
-flows towards the Axius,—and the larger and more undulating basin
-of Greveno and Anaselitzas, containing the upper Haliakmôn with its
-confluent streams. This latter region is separated from the basin of
-Thessaly by a mountainous line of considerable length, but presenting
-numerous easy passes.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"
-class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Reckoning the basin of Thessaly as a
-fourth, here are four distinct inclosed plains on the east side of
-this long range of Skardus and Pindus,—each generally bounded by
-mountains which rise precipitously to an alpine height, and each
-leaving only one cleft for drainage by a single river,—the Axius,
-the Erigôn, the Haliakmôn, and the Peneius respectively. All four,
-moreover, though of high level above the sea, are yet for the most
-part of distinguished fertility, especially the plains of Tettovo,
-of Bitolia, and Thessaly. The fat, rich land to the east of Pindus
-and Skardus is described as forming a marked contrast with the light
-calcareous soil of the Albanian plains and valleys on the western
-side. The basins of Bitolia and of the Haliakmôn, with the mountains
-around and adjoining, were possessed by the original Macedonians;
-that of Tettovo, on the north, by a portion of the Pæonians. Among
-the four, Thessaly is the most spacious; yet the two comprised in the
-primitive seats of the Macedonians, both of them very considerable
-in magnitude, formed a territory better calculated to nourish and
-to generate a considerable population, than the less favored home,
-and smaller breadth of valley and plain, occupied by Epirots or
-Illyrians. Abundance of corn easily raised, of pasture for cattle,
-and of new fertile land open to cultivation, would suffice to
-increase the numbers of hardy villagers, indifferent to luxury as
-well as to accumulation, and exempt from that oppressive extortion of
-rulers which now harasses the same fine regions.<a id="FNanchor_18"
-href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[p. 11]</span>The inhabitants
-of this primitive Macedonia doubtless differed much in ancient
-times, as they do now, according as they dwelt on mountain or plain,
-and in soil and climate more or less kind; but all acknowledged a
-common ethnical name and nationality, and the tribes were in many
-cases distinguished from each other, not by having substantive names
-of their own, but merely by local epithets of Grecian origin. Thus
-we find Elymiotæ Macedonians, or Macedonians of Elymeia,—Lynkestæ
-Macedonians, or Macedonians of Lynkus, etc. Orestæ is doubtless an
-adjunct<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[p. 12]</span> name of
-the same character. The inhabitants of the more northerly tracts,
-called Pelagonia and Deuriopis, were also portions of the Macedonian
-aggregate, though neighbors of the Pæonians, to whom they bore
-much affinity: whether the Eordi and Almopians were of Macedonian
-race, it is more difficult to say. The Macedonian language was
-different from Illyrian,<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"
-class="fnanchor">[19]</a> from Thracian, and seemingly also from
-Pæonian. It was also different from Greek, yet apparently not more
-widely distinct than that of the Epirots,—so that the acquisition
-of Greek was comparatively easy to the chiefs and people, though
-there were always some Greek letters which they were incapable of
-pronouncing. And when we follow their history, we shall find in
-them more of the regular warrior, conquering in order to maintain
-dominion and tribute, and less of the armed plunderer,—than in the
-Illyrians, Thracians, or Epirots, by whom it was their misfortune
-to be surrounded. They approach nearer to the Thessalians,<a
-id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> and to
-the other ungifted members of the Hellenic family.</p>
-
-<p>The large and comparatively productive region covered by the
-various sections of Macedonians, helps to explain that increase of
-ascendency which they successively acquired over all their neighbors.
-It was not, however, until a late period that they became united
-under one government. At first each section, how many we do not
-know, had its own prince, or chief. The Elymiots, or inhabitants of
-Elymeia, the southernmost portion of Macedonia, were thus originally
-distinct and independent; also the Orestæ, in mountain-seats somewhat
-north-west of the Ely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[p.
-13]</span>miots,—the Lynkêstæ and Eordi, who occupied portions of
-territory on the track of the subsequent Egnatian way, between
-Lychnidus (Ochrida) and Edessa,—the Pelagonians,<a id="FNanchor_21"
-href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> with a town of the
-same name, in the fertile plain of Bitolia,—and the more northerly
-Deuriopians. And the early political union was usually so loose,
-that each of these denominations probably includes many petty
-independencies, small towns, and villages. That section of the
-Macedonian name who afterwards swallowed up all the rest and became
-known as <i>The Macedonians</i>, had their original centre at Ægæ, or
-Edessa,—the lofty, commanding, and picturesque site of the modern
-Vodhena. And though the residence of the kings was in later times
-transferred to the marshy Pella, in the maritime plain beneath,
-yet Edessa was always retained as the regal burial-place, and as
-the hearth to which the religious continuity of the nation, so
-much reverenced in ancient times, was attached. This ancient town,
-which lay on the Roman Egnatian way from Lychnidus to Pella and
-Thessalonika, formed the pass over the mountain-ridge called Bermius,
-or that prolongation to the northward of Mount Olympus, through which
-the Haliakmôn makes its way out into the maritime plain at Verria, by
-a cleft more precipitous and impracticable than that of the Peneius
-in the defile of Tempê.</p>
-
-<p>This mountain-chain called Bermius, extending from Olympus
-considerably to the north of Edessa, formed the original eastern
-boundary of the Macedonian tribes; who seem at first not to have
-reached the valley of the Axius in any part of its course, and who
-certainly did not reach at first to the Thermaic gulf. Between the
-last-mentioned gulf and the eastern counterforts of Olympus and
-Bermius there exists a narrow strip of plain land or low hill,
-which reaches from the mouth of the Peneius to the head of the
-Thermaic gulf. It there widens into the spacious and fertile plain
-of Salonichi, comprising the mouths of the Haliakmôn, the Axius,
-and the Echeidôrus: the river Ludias, which flows from Edessa
-into the marshes surrounding Pella, and which in antiquity joined
-the Haliakmôn near its mouth, has now altered its course so as to
-join the Axius. This narrow strip, between<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_14">[p. 14]</span> the mouths of the Peneius and the
-Haliakmôn, was the original abode of the Pierian Thracians, who dwelt
-close to the foot of Olympus, and among whom the worship of the
-Muses seems to have been a primitive characteristic; Grecian poetry
-teems with local allusions and epithets which appear traceable to
-this early fact, though we are unable to follow it in detail. North
-of the Pierians, from the mouth of the Haliakmôn to that of the
-Axius, dwelt the Bottiæans.<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"
-class="fnanchor">[22]</a> Beyond the river Axius, at the lower<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[p. 15]</span> part of its course, began
-the tribes of the great Thracian race,—Mygdonians, Krestônians,
-Edônians, Bisaltæ, Sithonians: the Mygdonians seem to have been
-originally the most powerful, since the country still continued to be
-called by their name, Mygdonia, even after the Macedonian conquest.
-These, and various other Thracian tribes, originally occupied most
-part of the country between the mouth of the Axius and that of the
-Strymon; together with that memorable three-pronged peninsula which
-derived from the Grecian colonies its name of Chalkidikê. It will
-thus appear, if we consider the Bottiæans as well as the Pierians to
-be Thracians, that the Thracian race extended originally southward
-as far as the mouth of the Peneius: the Bottiæans professed, indeed,
-a Kretan origin, but this pretension is not noticed by either
-Herodotus or Thucydidês. In the time of Skylax,<a id="FNanchor_23"
-href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> seemingly during the
-early reign of Philip the son of Amyntas, Macedonia and Thrace were
-separated by the Strymon.</p>
-
-<p>We have yet to notice the Pæonians, a numerous and much-divided
-race,—seemingly neither Thracian nor Macedonian nor Illyrian, but
-professing to be descended from the Teukri of Troy,—who occupied
-both banks of the Strymon, from the neighborhood of Mount Skomius,
-in which that river rises, down to the lake near its mouth. Some of
-their tribes possessed the fertile plain of Siris (now Seres),—the
-land immediately north of Mount Pangæus,—and even a portion of
-the space through which Xerxês marched on his route from Akanthus
-to Therma. Besides this, it appears that the upper parts of the
-valley of the Axius were also occupied by Pæonian tribes; how far
-down the river they extended, we are unable to say. We are not to
-suppose that the whole territory between Axius and Strymon was
-continuously peopled by them. Continuous population is not the
-character of the ancient world, and it seems, moreover, that while
-the land immediately bordering on both rivers is in very<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[p. 16]</span> many places of the
-richest quality, the spaces between the two are either mountain
-or barren low hill,—forming a marked contrast with the rich
-alluvial basin of the Macedonian river Erigon.<a id="FNanchor_24"
-href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> The Pæonians, in
-their north-western tribes, thus bordered upon the Macedonian
-Pelagonia,—in their northern tribes, upon the Illyrian Dardani and
-Autariatæ,—in their eastern, southern, and south-eastern tribes, upon
-the Thracians and Pierians;<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"
-class="fnanchor">[25]</a> that is, upon the second seats occupied by
-the expelled Pierians under Mount Pangæus.</p>
-
-<p>Such was, as far as we can make it out, the position of the
-Macedonians and their immediate neighbors, in the seventh century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> It was first altered by the
-enterprise and ability of a family of exiled Greeks, who conducted
-a section of the Macedonian people to those conquests which
-their descendants, Philip and Alexander the Great, afterwards so
-marvellously multiplied.</p>
-
-<p>Respecting the primitive ancestry of these two princes, there were
-different stories, but all concurred in tracing the origin of the
-family to the Herakleid or Temenid race of Argos. According to one
-story (which apparently cannot be traced higher than Theopompus),
-Karanus, brother of the despot Pheidon, had migrated from Argos to
-Macedonia, and established himself as conqueror at Edessa; according
-to another tale, which we find in Herodotus, there were three exiles
-of the Temenid race, Gauanês, Aëropus, and Perdikkas, who fled from
-Argos to Illyria, from whence they passed into Upper Macedonia, in
-such<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[p. 17]</span> poverty as
-to be compelled to serve the petty king of the town Lebæa in the
-capacity of shepherds. A remarkable prodigy happening to Perdikkas
-foreshadows the future eminence of his family, and leads to his
-dismissal by the king of Lebæa,—from whom he makes his escape
-with difficulty, by the sudden rise of a river immediately after
-he had crossed it, so as to become impassable by the horsemen who
-pursued him. To this river, as to the saviour of the family, solemn
-sacrifices were still offered by the kings of Macedonia in the time
-of Herodotus. Perdikkas with his two brothers having thus escaped,
-established himself near the spot called the Garden of Midas on
-Mount Bermius, and from the loins of this hardy young shepherd
-sprang the dynasty of Edessa.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"
-class="fnanchor">[26]</a> This tale bears much more the marks of a
-genuine local tradition than that of Theopompus. And the origin of
-the Macedonian family, or Argeadæ, from Argos, appears to have been
-universally recognized by Grecian inquirers,<a id="FNanchor_27"
-href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a>—so that Alexander
-the son of Amyntas, the contemporary of the Persian invasion, was
-admitted by the Hellanodikæ to contend at the Olympic games as a
-genuine Greek, though his competitors sought to exclude him as a
-Macedonian.</p>
-
-<p>The talent for command was so much more the attribute of the
-Greek mind than of any of the neighboring barbarians, that we easily
-conceive a courageous Argeian adventurer acquiring to himself
-great ascendency in the local disputes of the Macedonian tribes,
-and transmitting the chieftainship of one of those tribes to his
-offspring. The influence acquired by Miltiadês among the Thracians of
-the Chersonese, and by Phormion among the Akarnanians (who specially
-requested that, after his death, his son, or some one of his kindred,
-might be sent from Athens to command them),<a id="FNanchor_28"
-href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> was very much of
-this character: we may add the case of Sertorius among the native
-Iberians. In like manner, the kings of the Macedonian Lynkêstæ
-professed to be descended from the Bacchiadæ<a id="FNanchor_29"
-href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> of Corinth; and the
-neighbor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[p. 18]</span>hood of
-Epidamnus and Apollonia, in both of which doubtless members of
-that great gens were domiciliated, renders this tale even more
-plausible than that of an emigration from Argos. The kings of the
-Epirotic Molossi pretended also to a descent from the heroic Æakid
-race of Greece. In fact, our means of knowledge do not enable us
-to discriminate the cases in which these reigning families were
-originally Greeks, from those in which they were Hellenized natives
-pretending to Grecian blood.</p>
-
-<p>After the foundation-legend of the Macedonian kingdom, we
-have nothing but a long blank until the reign of king Amyntas
-(about 520-500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), and his son
-Alexander, (about 480 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) Herodotus
-gives us five successive kings between the founder Perdikkas
-and Amyntas,—Perdikkas, Argæus, Philippus, Aëropus, Alketas,
-Amyntas, and Alexander,—the contemporary and to a certain extent
-the ally of Xerxês.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30"
-class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Though we have no means of establishing
-any dates in this early series, either of names or of facts,
-yet we see that the Temenid kings, beginning from a humble
-origin, extended their dominions successively on all sides. They
-conquered the Briges,<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31"
-class="fnanchor">[31]</a>—originally their neighbors on Mount
-Bermius,—the Eordi, bordering on Edessa to the westward, who were
-either destroyed or expelled from the country, leaving a small
-remnant still existing in the time of Thucydidês at Physka between
-Strymon and Axius,—the Almopians, an inland tribe of unknown
-site,—and many of the interior Macedonian tribes who had been at
-first autonomous. Besides these inland conquests, they had made the
-still more important acquisition of Pieria, the territory which
-lay between Mount Bermius and the sea, from whence they expelled
-the original Pierians, who found new seats on the eastern bank of
-the Strymon between Mount Pangæus and the sea. Amyntas king of
-Macedon was thus master of a very considerable territory,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[p. 19]</span> comprising the coast of
-the Thermaic gulf as far north as the mouth of the Haliakmôn, and
-also some other territory on the same gulf from which the Bottiæans
-had been expelled; but not comprising the coast between the mouths
-of the Axius and the Haliakmôn, nor even Pella, the subsequent
-capital, which were still in the hands of the Bottiæans at the period
-when Xerxês passed through.<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32"
-class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He possessed also Anthemus, a town and
-territory in the peninsula of Chalkidikê, and some parts of Mygdonia,
-the territory east of the mouth of the Axius; but how much, we do
-not know. We shall find the Macedonians hereafter extending their
-dominion still farther, during the period between the Persian and
-Peloponnesian war.</p>
-
-<p>We hear of king Amyntas in friendly connection with the
-Peisistratid princes at Athens, whose dominion was in part sustained
-by mercenaries from the Strymon, and this amicable sentiment was
-continued between his son Alexander and the emancipated Athenians.<a
-id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> It
-is only in the reigns of these two princes that Macedonia begins
-to be implicated in Grecian affairs: the regal dynasty had become
-so completely Macedonized, and had so far renounced its Hellenic
-brotherhood, that the claim of Alexander to run at the Olympic games
-was contested by his competitors, and he was called upon to prove his
-lineage before the Hellanodikæ.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_26">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[p. 20]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVI.<br />
- THRACIANS AND GREEK COLONIES IN THRACE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">That</span> vast space comprised
-between the rivers Strymon and Danube, and bounded to the west by the
-easternmost Illyrian tribes, northward of the Strymon, was occupied
-by the innumerable subdivisions of the race called Thracians, or
-Threïcians. They were the most numerous and most terrible race known
-to Herodotus: could they by possibility act in unison or under one
-dominion (he says), they would be irresistible. A conjunction thus
-formidable once seemed impending, during the first years of the
-Peloponnesian war, under the reign of Sitalkês king of the Odrysæ,
-who reigned from Abdêra at the mouth of the Nestus to the Euxine, and
-compressed under his sceptre a large proportion of these ferocious
-but warlike plunderers; so that the Greeks even down to Thermopylæ
-trembled at his expected approach. But the abilities of that prince
-were not found adequate to bring the whole force of Thrace into
-effective coöperation and aggression against others.</p>
-
-<p>Numerous as the tribes of Thracians were, their customs
-and character (according to Herodotus) were marked by great
-uniformity: of the Getæ, the Trausi, and others, he tells us a few
-particularities. And the large tract over which the race were spread,
-comprising as it did the whole chain of Mount Hæmus and the still
-loftier chain of Rhodopê, together with a portion of the mountains
-Orbêlus and Skomius, was yet partly occupied by level and fertile
-surface,—such as the great plain of Adrianople, and the land towards
-the lower course of the rivers Nestus and Hebrus. The Thracians of
-the plain, though not less warlike, were at least more home-keeping,
-and less greedy of foreign plunder, than those of the mountains. But
-the general character of the race presents an aggregate of repulsive
-features unredeemed by the presence of even the commonest domestic
-affec<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[p. 21]</span>tions.<a
-id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>
-The Thracian chief deduced his pedigree from a god called by the
-Greeks Hermês, to whom he offered up worship apart from the rest
-of his tribe, sometimes with the acceptable present of a human
-victim. He tattooed his body,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35"
-class="fnanchor">[35]</a> and that of the women belonging to him,
-as a privilege of honorable descent: he bought his wives from their
-parents, and sold his children for exportation to the foreign
-merchant: he held it disgraceful to cultivate the earth, and felt
-honored only by the acquisitions of war and robbery. The Thracian
-tribes worshipped deities whom the Greeks assimilate to Arês,
-Dionysus, and Artemis: the great sanctuary and oracle of their god
-Dionysus was in one of the loftiest summits of Rhodopê, amidst dense
-and foggy thickets,—the residence of the fierce and unassailable
-Satræ. To illustrate the Thracian character, we may turn to a deed
-perpetrated by the king of the Bisaltæ,—perhaps one out of several
-chiefs of that extensive Thracian tribe,—whose territory, between
-Strymon and Axius, lay in the direct march of Xerxês into Greece, and
-who fled to the desolate heights of Rhodopê, to escape the ignominy
-of being dragged along amidst the compulsory auxiliaries of the
-Persian invasion, forbidding his six sons to take any part in it.
-From recklessness, or curiosity, the sons disobeyed his commands,
-and accompanied Xerxês into Greece; they returned unhurt by the
-Greek spear; but the incensed father, when they again came into his
-presence, caused the eyes of all of them to be put out. Exultation
-of success manifested itself in the Thracians by increased alacrity
-in shedding blood; but as warriors, the only occupation which they
-esteemed, they were not less brave than patient of hardship, and
-maintained a good front, under their own peculiar array, against
-forces much superior in all military efficacy.<a id="FNanchor_36"
-href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> It appears that
-the Thynians and Bithy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[p.
-22]</span>nians,<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37"
-class="fnanchor">[37]</a> on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus,
-perhaps also the Mysians, were members of this great Thracian race,
-which was more remotely connected, also, with the Phrygians. And
-the whole race may be said to present a character more Asiatic than
-European, especially in those ecstatic and maddening religious
-rites, which prevailed not less among the Edonian Thracians than
-in the mountains of Ida and Dindymon of Asia, though with some
-important differences. The Thracians served to furnish the Greeks
-with mercenary troops and slaves, and the number of Grecian colonies
-planted on the coast had the effect of partially softening the
-tribes in the immediate vicinity, between whose chiefs and the
-Greek leaders intermarriages were not unfrequent. But the tribes in
-the interior seem to have retained their savage habits with little
-mitigation, so that the language in which Tacitus<a id="FNanchor_38"
-href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> describes them is an
-apt continuation to that of Herodotus, though coming more than five
-centuries after.</p>
-
-<p>To note the situation of each one among these many different
-tribes, in the huge territory of Thrace, which is even now so
-imperfectly known and badly mapped, would be unnecessary, and,
-indeed, impracticable. I shall proceed to mention the principal
-Grecian colonies which were formed in the country, noticing
-occasionally the particular Thracian tribes with which they came in
-contact.</p>
-
-<p>The Grecian colonies established on the Thermaic gulf, as well as
-in the peninsula of Chalkidikê, emanating principally from Chalkis
-and Eretria, though we do not know their precise epoch, appear to
-have been of early date, and probably preceded the time when the
-Macedonians of Edessa extended their conquests to the sea. At that
-early period, they would find the Pierians still between the Peneius
-and Haliakmôn,—also a number of petty Thracian tribes throughout
-the broad part of the Chalkidic peninsula; they would find Pydna a
-Pierian town, and Therma, Anthemus, Chalastra, etc. Mygdonian.</p>
-
-<p>The most ancient Grecian colony in these regions seems to<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[p. 23]</span> have been Methônê,
-founded by the Eretrians in Pieria; nearly at the same time (if we
-may trust a statement of rather suspicious character, though the date
-itself is noway improbable) as Korkyra was settled by the Corinthians
-(about 730-720 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>).<a id="FNanchor_39"
-href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> It was a little to the
-north of the Pierian town of Pydna, and separated by about ten miles
-from the Bottiæan town of Alôrus, which lay north of the Haliakmôn.<a
-id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> We
-know very little about Methônê, except that it preserved its autonomy
-and its Hellenism until the time of Philip of Macedon, who took
-and destroyed it. But though, when once established, it was strong
-enough to maintain itself in spite of conquests made all around by
-the Macedonians of Edessa, we may fairly presume that it could not
-have been originally planted on Macedonian territory. Nor in point of
-fact was the situation peculiarly advantageous for Grecian colonists,
-inasmuch as there were other maritime towns, not Grecian, in its
-neighborhood,—Pydna, Alôrus, Therma, Chalastra; whereas the point of
-advantage for a Grecian colony was, to become the exclusive seaport
-for inland indigenous people.</p>
-
-<p>The colonies, founded by Chalkis and Eretria on all the three
-projections of the Chalkidic peninsula, were numerous, though for a
-long time inconsiderable. We do not know how far these projecting
-headlands were occupied before the arrival of the settlers from
-Eubœa,—an event which we may probably place at some period earlier
-than 600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; for after that period
-Chalkis and Eretria seem rather on the decline,—and it appears too,
-that the Chalkidian colonists in Thrace aided their mother-city
-Chalkis in her war against Eretria, which cannot be much later than
-600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, though it may be considerably
-earlier.</p>
-
-<p>The range of mountains which crosses from the Thermaic to the
-Strymonic gulf, and forms the northern limit of the Chalkidic
-peninsula, slopes down towards the southern extremity, so as to leave
-a considerable tract of fertile land between the Torônaic and the
-Thermaic gulfs, including the fertile headland called Pallênê,—the
-westernmost of those three prongs of Chalkidikê which run out into
-the Ægean. Of the other two prongs, or projections, the easternmost
-is terminated by the sublime Mount Athos, which rises out of the sea
-as a precipitous rock six thou<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[p.
-24]</span>sand four hundred feet in height, connected with the
-mainland by a ridge not more than half the height of the mountain
-itself, yet still high, rugged, and woody from sea to sea, leaving
-only little occasional spaces fit to be occupied or cultivated. The
-intermediate or Sithonian headland is also hilly and woody, though in
-a less degree,—both less inviting and less productive than Pallênê.<a
-id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></p>
-
-<p>Æneia, near that cape which marks the entrance of the inner
-Thermaic gulf,—and Potidæa, at the narrow isthmus of Pallênê,—were
-both founded by Corinth. Between these two towns lay the fertile
-territory called Krusis, or Krossæa, forming in after-times
-a part of the domain of Olynthus, but in the sixth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> occupied by petty Thracian townships.<a
-id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> Within
-Pallênê were the towns of Mendê, a colony from Eretria,—Skiônê,
-which, having no legitimate mother-city traced its origin to
-Pellenian warriors returning from Troy,—Aphytis, Neapolis, Ægê,
-Therambôs, and Sanê,<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43"
-class="fnanchor">[43]</a> either wholly or partly colonies from
-Eretria. In the Sithonian peninsula were Assa, Pilôrus, Singus,
-Sartê, Torônê, Galêpsus, Sermylê, and Mekyberna; all or most of
-these seem to have been of Chalkidic origin. But at the head of
-the Torônaic gulf (which lies between Sithonia and Pallênê) was
-placed Olynthus, surrounded by an extensive and fertile plain.
-Originally a Bottiæan town, Olynthus will be seen at the time of the
-Persian invasion to pass into the hands of the Chalkidian Greeks,<a
-id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> and
-gradually to incorporate with itself several of the petty neighboring
-establishments belonging to that race; whereby the Chalkidians
-acquired that marked preponderance in the peninsula which they
-retained, even against the efforts of Athens, until the days of
-Philip of Macedon.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[p. 25]</span>On the scanty
-spaces, admitted by the mountainous promontory, or ridge, ending
-in Athos, were planted some Thracian and some Pelasgic settlements
-of the same inhabitants as those who occupied Lemnos and Imbros; a
-few Chalkidic citizens being domiciliated with them, and the people
-speaking both Pelasgic and Hellenic. But near the narrow isthmus
-which joins this promontory to Thrace, and along the north-western
-coast of the Strymonic gulf, were Grecian towns of considerable
-importance,—Sanê, Akanthus, Stageira, and Argilus, all colonies
-from Andros, which had itself been colonized from Eretria.<a
-id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a>
-Akanthus and Stageira are said to have been founded in 654
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-<p>Following the southern coast of Thrace, from the mouth of the
-river Strymôn towards the east, we may doubt whether, in the year
-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, any considerable independent
-colonies of Greeks had yet been formed upon it. The Ionic colony
-of Abdêra, eastward of the mouth of the river Nestus, formed from
-Teôs in Ionia, is of more recent date, though the Klazomenians<a
-id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> had
-begun an unsuccessful settlement there as early as the year 651
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; while Dikæa—the Chian settlement
-of Marôneia—and the Lesbian settlement of Ænus at the mouth of the
-Hebrus, are of unknown date.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47"
-class="fnanchor">[47]</a> The important and valuable territory near
-the mouth of the Strymôn, where, after many ruinous failures,<a
-id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> the
-Athenian colony of Amphipolis afterwards maintained itself, was at
-the date here mentioned possessed by Edonian Thracians and Pierians:
-the various Thracian tribes,—Satræ, Edonians, Dersæans, Sapæans,
-Bistones, Kikones, Pætians, etc.—were in force on the principal part
-of the tract between Strymôn and Hebrus, even to the sea-coast. It
-is to be remarked, however, that the island of Thasus, and that
-of Samothrace, each possessed what in Greek was called a Peræa,<a
-id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a>—a
-strip of the adjoining mainland cultivated and defended by means of
-for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[p. 26]</span>tified posts, or
-small towns: probably, these occupations are of very ancient date,
-since they seem almost indispensable as a means of support to the
-islands. For the barren Thasus, especially, merits even at this day
-the uninviting description applied to it by the poet Archilochus,
-in the seventh century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—“an
-ass’s backbone, overspread with wild wood:”<a id="FNanchor_50"
-href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> so wholly is it
-composed of mountain, naked or wooded, and so scanty are the patches
-of cultivable soil left in it, nearly all close to the sea-shore.
-This island was originally occupied by the Phenicians, who worked the
-gold mines in its mountains with a degree of industry which, even in
-its remains, excited the admiration of Herodotus. How and when it
-was evacuated by them, we do not know; but the poet Archilochus<a
-id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> formed
-one of a body of Parian colonists who planted themselves on it in the
-seventh century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and carried on war,
-not always successful, against the Thracian tribe called Saians: on
-one occasion, Archilochus found himself compelled to throw away his
-shield. By their mines and their possessions on the mainland (which
-contained even richer mines, at Skaptê Hylê, and elsewhere, than
-those in the island), the Thasian Greeks rose to considerable power
-and population. And as they seem to have been the only Greeks, until
-the settlement of the Milesian Histiæus on the Strymôn about 510
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, who actively concerned themselves
-in the mining districts of Thrace opposite to their island, we cannot
-be sur<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[p. 27]</span>prised to
-hear that their clear surplus revenue before the Persian conquest,
-about 493 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, after defraying the
-charges of their government without any taxation, amounted to the
-large sum of two hundred talents, sometimes even to three hundred
-talents, in each year (from forty-six thousand to sixty-six thousand
-pounds).</p>
-
-<p>On the long peninsula called the Thracian Chersonese there may
-probably have been small Grecian settlements at an early date, though
-we do not know at what time either the Milesian settlement of Kardia,
-on the western side of the isthmus of that peninsula, near the Ægean
-sea,—or the Æolic colony of Sestus on the Hellespont,—were founded;
-while the Athenian ascendency in the peninsula begins only with the
-migration of the first Miltiadês, during the reign of Peisistratus
-at Athens. The Samian colony of Perinthus, on the northern
-coast of the Propontis,<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52"
-class="fnanchor">[52]</a> is spoken of as ancient in date, and the
-Megarian colonies, Selymbria and Byzantium, belong to the seventh
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: the latter of these two is
-assigned to the 30th Olympiad (657 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),
-and its neighbor Chalkêdôn, on the opposite coast, was a few
-years earlier. The site of Byzantium in the narrow strait of the
-Bosphorus, with its abundant thunny-fishery,<a id="FNanchor_53"
-href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> which both employed
-and nourished a large proportion of the poorer freemen, was alike
-convenient either for maritime traffic, or for levying contributions
-on the numerous corn ships which passed from the Euxine into the
-Ægean; and we are even told that it held a considerable number of the
-neighboring Bithynian Thracians as tributary Periœki. Such dominion,
-though probably maintained during the more vigorous period of Grecian
-city life, became in later times impracticable, and we even find the
-Byzantines not always competent to the defence of their own small
-surrounding territory. The place, however, will be found to possess
-considerable importance during all the period of this history.<a
-id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>
-
-<p>The Grecian settlements on the inhospitable south-western coast
-of the Euxine, south of the Danube, appear never to have<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[p. 28]</span> attained any
-consideration: the principal traffic of Greek ships in that sea
-tended to more northerly ports, on the banks of the Borysthenês
-and in the Tauric Chersonese. Istria was founded by the Milesians
-near the southern embouchure of the Danube,—Apollonia and Odêssus
-on the same coast, more to the south,—all probably between 600-560
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> The Megarian or Byzantine colony
-of Mesambria, seems to have been later than the Ionic revolt;
-of Kallatis the age is not known. Tomi, north of Kallatis and
-south of Istria, is renowned as the place of Ovid’s banishment.<a
-id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a> The
-picture which he gives of that uninviting spot, which enjoyed but
-little truce from the neighborhood of the murderous Getæ, explains to
-us sufficiently why these towns acquired little or no importance.</p>
-
-<p>The islands of Lemnos and Imbros, in the Ægean, were at this early
-period occupied by Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, were conquered by the Persians
-about 508 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and seem to have passed
-into the power of the Athenians at the time when Ionia revolted from
-the Persians. If the mythical or poetical stories respecting these
-Tyrrhenian Pelasgi contain any basis of truth, they must have been
-a race of buccaneers not less rapacious than cruel. At one time,
-these Pelasgi seem also to have possessed Samothrace, but how or when
-they were supplanted by Greeks, we find no trustworthy account; the
-population of Samothrace at the time of the Persian war was Ionic.<a
-id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_27">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[p. 29]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVII.<br />
- KYRENE AND BARKA. — HESPERIDES.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">It has</span> been already
-mentioned, in a former chapter, that Psammetichus king of Egypt,
-about the middle of the seventh century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-first removed those prohibitions which had excluded Grecian commerce
-from his country. In his reign, Grecian mercenaries were first
-established in Egypt, and Grecian traders admitted, under certain
-regulations, into the Nile. The opening of this new market emboldened
-them to traverse the direct sea which separates Krête from Egypt,—a
-dangerous voyage with vessels which rarely ventured to lose sight
-of land,—and seems to have first made them acquainted with the
-neighboring coast of Libya, between the Nile and the gulf called the
-Great Syrtis. Hence arose the foundation of the important colony
-called Kyrênê.</p>
-
-<p>As in the case of most other Grecian colonies, so in that
-of Kyrênê, both the foundation and the early history are very
-imperfectly known. The date of the event, as far as can be
-made out amidst much contradiction of statement, was about 630
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>:<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57"
-class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Thêra was the mother-city, herself a
-colony from Lacedæmon; and the settlements formed in Libya became no
-inconsiderable ornaments to the Dorian name in Hellas.</p>
-
-<p>According to the account of a lost historian,
-Meneklês,<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58"
-class="fnanchor">[58]</a>—political dissension among the inhabitants
-of Thêra led to that emigration which founded Kyrênê; and the
-more ample legendary details which Herodotus collected, partly
-from Theræan, partly from Kyrenæan informants, are not positively
-inconsistent with this statement, though they indicate more
-particularly bad seasons, distress, and over-population. Both of
-them dwell emphatically on the Delphian oracle as the instigator
-as well as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[p. 30]</span>
-director of the first emigrants, whose apprehensions of a dangerous
-voyage and an unknown country were very difficult to overcome. Both
-of them affirmed that the original œkist Battus was selected and
-consecrated to the work by the divine command: both called Battus
-the son of Polymnêstus, of the mythical breed called Minyæ. But on
-other points there was complete divergence between the two stories,
-and the Kyrenæans themselves, whose town was partly peopled by
-emigrants from Krête, described the mother of Battus as daughter of
-Etearchus, prince of the Kretan town of Axus.<a id="FNanchor_59"
-href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> Battus had an
-impediment in his speech, and it was on his intreating from the
-Delphian oracle a cure for this infirmity that he received directions
-to go as “a cattle-breeding œkist to Libya.” The suffering Theræans
-were directed to assist him, but neither he nor they knew where Libya
-was, nor could they find any resident in Krête who had ever visited
-it. Such was the limited reach of Grecian navigation to the south
-of the Ægean sea, even a century after the foundation of Syracuse.
-At length, by prolonged inquiry, they discovered a man employed in
-catching the purple shellfish, named Korôbius,—who said that he had
-been once forced by stress of weather to the island of Platea, close
-to the shores of Libya, and on the side not far removed from the
-western limit of Egypt. Some Theræans being sent along with Korôbius
-to inspect this island, left him there with a stock of provisions,
-and returned to Thêra to conduct the emigrants. From the seven
-districts into which Thêra was divided, emigrants were drafted for
-the colony, one brother being singled out by lot from the different
-numerous families. But so long was their return to Platea deferred,
-that the provisions of Korôbius were exhausted, and he was only saved
-from starvation by the accidental arrival of a Samian ship, driven
-by contrary winds out of her course on the voyage to Egypt. Kôlæus,
-the master of this ship (whose immense profits made by the first
-voyage to Tartêssus have been noticed in a former chapter), supplied
-him with provisions for a year,—an act of kindness, which is said
-to have laid the first foundation of the alliance and good feeling
-afterwards prevalent between Thêra, Kyrênê, and Samos. At length
-the expected emigrants reached the island,<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_31">[p. 31]</span> having found the voyage so perilous
-and difficult, that they once returned in despair to Thêra, where
-they were only prevented by force from relanding. The band which
-accompanied Battus was all conveyed in two pentekonters,—armed ships,
-with fifty rowers each. Thus humble was the start of the mighty
-Kyrênê, which, in the days of Herodotus, covered a city-area equal to
-the entire island of Platea.<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60"
-class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>
-
-<p>That island, however, though near to Libya, and supposed by the
-colonists to be Libya, was not so in reality: the commands of the
-oracle had not been literally fulfilled. Accordingly, the settlement
-carried with it nothing but hardship for the space of two years, and
-Battus returned with his companions to Delphi, to complain that the
-promised land had proved a bitter disappointment. The god, through
-his priestess, returned for answer, “If you, who have never visited
-the cattle-breeding Libya, know it better than I, who <i>have</i>, I
-greatly admire your cleverness.” Again the inexorable mandate forced
-them to return; and this time they planted themselves on the actual
-continent of Libya, nearly over against the island of Platea, in
-a district called Aziris, surrounded on both sides by fine woods,
-and with a running stream adjoining. After six years of residence
-in this spot, they were persuaded by some of the indigenous Libyans
-to abandon it, under the promise that they should be conducted to a
-better situation: and their guides now brought them to the actual
-site of Kyrênê, saying, “Here, men of Hellas, is the place for
-you to dwell, for here the sky is perforated.”<a id="FNanchor_61"
-href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> The road through which
-they passed had led through the tempting region of Irasa with its
-fountain Thestê, and their guides took the precaution to carry them
-through it by night, in order that they might remain ignorant of its
-beauties.</p>
-
-<p>Such were the preliminary steps, divine and human, which brought
-Battus and his colonists to Kyrênê. In the time of Herodotus, Irasa
-was an outlying portion of the eastern territory of this powerful
-city. But we trace in the story just related an<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_32">[p. 32]</span> opinion prevalent among his Kyrenæan
-informants, that Irasa with its fountain Thestê was a more inviting
-position than Kyrênê with its fountain of Apollo, and ought in
-prudence to have been originally chosen; out of which opinion,
-according to the general habit of the Greek mind, an anecdote is
-engendered and accredited, explaining how the supposed mistake was
-committed. What may have been the recommendations of Irasa, we are
-not permitted to know: but descriptions of modern travellers, no
-less than the subsequent history of Kyrênê, go far to justify the
-choice actually made. The city was placed at the distance of about
-ten miles from the sea, having a sheltered port called Apollonia,
-itself afterwards a considerable town,—it was about twenty miles
-from the promontory Phykus, which forms the northernmost projection
-of the African coast, nearly in the longitude of the Peloponnesian
-Cape Tænarus (Matapan). Kyrênê was situated about eighteen hundred
-feet above the level of the Mediterranean, of which it commanded a
-fine view, and from which it was conspicuously visible, on the edge
-of a range of hills which slope by successive terraces down to the
-port. The soil immediately around, partly calcareous, partly sandy,
-is described by Captain Beechey to present a vigorous vegetation and
-remarkable fertility, though the ancients considered it inferior in
-this respect both to Barka<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62"
-class="fnanchor">[62]</a> and Hesperides, and still more inferior to
-the more westerly region near Kinyps. But the abundant periodical
-rains, attracted by the lofty heights around, and justifying the
-expression of the “perforated sky,” were even of greater importance,
-under an African sun, than extraordinary richness of soil.<a
-id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a>
-The maritime regions near Kyrênê and Barka,<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_33">[p. 33]</span> and Hesperides, produced oil and wine
-as well as corn, while the extensive district between these towns,
-composed of alternate mountain, wood, and plain, was eminently
-suited for pasture and cattle-breeding; and the ports were secure,
-presenting conveniences for the intercourse of the Greek trader
-with Northern Africa, such as were not to be found along all the
-coasts of the Great Syrtis westward of Hesperides. Abundance of
-applicable land,—great diversity both of climate and of productive
-season, between the sea-side, the low hill, and the upper mountain,
-within a small space, so that harvest was continually going on,
-and fresh produce coming in from the earth, during eight months of
-the year,—together with the monopoly of the valuable plant called
-the Silphium, which grew nowhere except in the Kyrenaic region,
-and the juice of which was extensively demanded throughout Greece
-and Italy,—led to the rapid growth of Kyrênê, in spite of serious
-and renewed political troubles. And even now, the immense remains
-which still mark its desolate site, the evidences of past labor and
-solicitude at the Fountain of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[p.
-34]</span> Apollo, and elsewhere, together with the profusion of
-excavated and ornamented tombs,—attest sufficiently what the grandeur
-of the place must have been in the days of Herodotus and Pindar.
-So much did the Kyrenæans pride themselves on the Silphium, found
-wild in their back country, from the island of Platea on the east
-to the inner recess of the Great Syrtis westward,—the leaves of
-which were highly salubrious for cattle, and the stalk for man,
-while the root furnished the peculiar juice for export,—that they
-maintained it to have first appeared seven years prior to the arrival
-of the first Grecian colonists in their city.<a id="FNanchor_64"
-href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>
-
-<p>But it was not only the properties of the soil which
-promoted the prosperity of Kyrênê. Isokratês<a id="FNanchor_65"
-href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> praises the well-chosen
-site of that colony because it was planted in the midst of indigenous
-natives apt for subjection, and far distant from any formidable
-enemies. That the native Libyan tribes were made conducive in an
-eminent degree to the growth of the Greco-Libyan cities, admits of
-no doubt; and in reviewing the history of these cities, we must bear
-in mind that their population was not pure Greek, but more or less
-mixed, like that of the colonies in Italy, Sicily, or Ionia. Though
-our information is very imperfect, we see enough to prove that the
-small force brought over by Battus the Stammerer was enabled first
-to fraternize with the indigenous Libyans,—next, reinforced by
-additional colonists and availing themselves of the power of native
-chiefs, to overawe and subjugate them. Kyrênê—combined with Barka
-and Hesperides, both of them sprung from her root<a id="FNanchor_66"
-href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a>—exercised over the
-Libyan tribes between the borders of Egypt and the inner recess
-of the Great Syrtis, for a space of three degrees of longitude,
-an ascen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[p. 35]</span>dency
-similar to that which Carthage possessed over the more westerly
-Libyans near the Lesser Syrtis. Within these Kyrenæan limits, and
-further westward along the shores of the Great Syrtis, the Libyan
-tribes were of pastoral habits; westward, beyond the Lake Tritônis
-and the Lesser Syrtis,<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67"
-class="fnanchor">[67]</a> they began to be agricultural.
-Immediately westward of Egypt were the Adyrmachidæ, bordering upon
-Apis and Marea, the Egyptian frontier towns;<a id="FNanchor_68"
-href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> they were subject
-to the Egyptians, and had adopted some of the minute ritual and
-religious observances which characterized the region of the Nile.
-Proceeding westward from the Adyrmachidæ were found the Giligammæ,
-the Asbystæ, the Auschisæ, the Kabales, and the Nasamônes,—the latter
-of whom occupied the south-eastern corner of the Great Syrtis;—next,
-the Makæ, Gindânes, Lotophagi, Machlyes, as far as a certain river
-and lake called Tritôn and Tritônis, which seems to have been near
-the Lesser Syrtis. These last-mentioned tribes were not dependent
-either on Kyrênê or on Carthage, at the time of Herodotus, nor
-probably during the proper period of free Grecian history, (600-300
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) In the third century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-the Ptolemaic governors of Kyrênê
-extended their dominion westward, while Carthage pushed her colonies
-and castles eastward, so that the two powers embraced between them
-the whole line of coast between the Greater and Lesser Syrtis,
-meeting at the spot called the Altars of the Brothers Philæni,—so
-celebrated for its commemorative legend.<a id="FNanchor_69"
-href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> But even in the sixth
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, Carthage was jealous
-of the extension of Grecian colonies along this coast, and aided
-the Libyan Makæ<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[p. 36]</span>
-(about 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) to expel the Spartan
-prince Dorieus from his settlement near the river Kinyps. Near that
-spot was afterwards planted, by Phenician or Carthaginian exiles,
-the town of Leptis Magna<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70"
-class="fnanchor">[70]</a> (now Lebida), which does not seem to have
-existed in the time of Herodotus. Nor does the latter historian
-notice the Marmaridæ, who appear as the principal Libyan tribe near
-the west of Egypt, between the age of Skylax and the third century
-of the Christian era. Some migration or revolution subsequent to the
-time of Herodotus must have brought this name into predominance.<a
-id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>
-
-<p>The interior country, stretching westward from Egypt along the
-thirtieth and thirty-first parallel of latitude, to the Great Syrtis,
-and then along the southern shore of that gulf, is to a great degree
-low and sandy, and quite destitute of trees; yet affording in
-many parts water, herbage, and a fertile soil.<a id="FNanchor_72"
-href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> But the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[p. 37]</span> maritime region north
-of this, constituting the projecting bosom of the African coast
-from the island of Platea (Gulf of Bomba) on the east to Hesperides
-(Bengazi) on the west, is of a totally different character; covered
-with mountains of considerable elevation, which reach their highest
-point near Kyrênê, interspersed with productive plain and valley,
-broken by frequent ravines which carry off the winter torrents into
-the sea, and never at any time of the year destitute of water.
-It is this latter advantage that causes them to be now visited
-every summer by the Bedouin Arabs, who flock to the inexhaustible
-Fountain of Apollo and to other parts of the mountainous region
-from Kyrênê to Hesperides, when their supply of water and herbage
-fails in the interior:<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73"
-class="fnanchor">[73]</a> and the same circumstance must have<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[p. 38]</span> operated in ancient times
-to hold the nomadic Libyans in a sort of dependence on Kyrênê and
-Barka. Kyrênê appropriated the maritime portion of the territory
-of the Libyan Asbystæ;<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74"
-class="fnanchor">[74]</a> the Auschisæ occupied the region south
-of Barka, touching the sea near Hesperides,—the Kabales near
-Teucheira in the territory of Barka. Over the interior spaces
-these Libyan Nomads, with their cattle and twisted tents, wandered
-unrestrained, amply fed upon meat and milk,<a id="FNanchor_75"
-href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> clothed in goatskins,
-and enjoying better health than any people known to Herodotus. Their
-breed of horses was excellent, and their chariots or wagons with
-four horses could perform feats admired even by Greeks: it was to
-these horses that the princes<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76"
-class="fnanchor">[76]</a> and magnates of Kyrênê and Barka often owed
-the success of their chariots in the games of Greece. The Libyan
-Nasamônes, leaving their cattle near the sea, were in the habit of
-making an annual journey up the country to the Oasis of Augila, for
-the purpose of gathering the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[p.
-39]</span> date-harvest,<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77"
-class="fnanchor">[77]</a> or of purchasing dates,—a journey which the
-Bedouin Arabs from Bengazi still make annually, carrying up their
-wheat and barley, for the same purpose. Each of the Libyan tribes was
-distinguished by a distinct mode of cutting the hair, and by some
-peculiarities of religious worship, though generally all worshipped
-the Sun and the Moon.<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78"
-class="fnanchor">[78]</a> But in the neighborhood of the Lake
-Tritônis (seemingly the western extremity of Grecian coasting trade
-in the time of Herodotus, who knows little beyond, and begins to
-appeal to Carthaginian authorities), the Grecian deities Poseidôn
-and Athênê, together with the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, had
-been localized. There were, moreover, current prophecies announcing
-that one hundred Hellenic cities were destined one day to be founded
-round the lake,—and that one city in the island Phla, surrounded by
-the lake, was to be planted by the Lacedæmonians.<a id="FNanchor_79"
-href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> These, indeed, were
-among the many unfulfilled prophecies which from every side cheated
-the Grecian ear,—proceeding in this case probably from Kyrenæan or
-Theræan traders, who thought the spot advantageous for settlement,
-and circulated their own hopes under the form of divine assurances.
-It was about the year 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small><a
-id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> that
-some of these Theræans conducted the Spartan prince Dorieus to found
-a colony in the fertile region of Kinyps, belonging to the Libyan
-Makæ. But Carthage, interested in preventing the extension of Greek
-settlements westward, aided the Libyans in driving him out.</p>
-
-<p>The Libyans in the immediate neighborhood of Kyrênê were
-materially changed by the establishment of that town, and constituted
-a large part—at first, probably, far the largest part—of its
-constituent population. Not possessing that fierce tenacity of habits
-which the Mohammedan religion has impressed upon the Arabs of the
-present day, they were open to the mingled influence of constraint
-and seduction applied by Grecian settlers; so that in the time
-of Herodotus, the Kabales and the Asbystæ<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_40">[p. 40]</span> of the interior had come to copy
-Kyrenæan tastes and customs.<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81"
-class="fnanchor">[81]</a> The Theræan colonists, having obtained
-not merely the consent but even the guidance of the natives to
-their occupation of Kyrênê, constituted themselves like privileged
-Spartan citizens in the midst of Libyan Periœki.<a id="FNanchor_82"
-href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> They seem to have
-married Libyan wives, whence Herodotus describes the women of Kyrênê
-and Barka as following, even in his time, religious observances
-indigenous and not Hellenic.<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83"
-class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Even the descendants of the primitive
-œkist Battus were semi-Libyan. For Herodotus gives us the curious
-information that Battus was the Libyan word for a king, deducing
-from it the just inference, that the name Battus was not originally
-personal to the œkist, but acquired in Libya first as a title,<a
-id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a>—and
-that it afterwards passed to his descendants as a proper name.
-For eight generations the reigning princes were called Battus and
-Arkesilaus, the Libyan denomination alternating with the Greek, until
-the family was finally deprived of its power. Moreover, we find the
-chief of Barka, kinsman of Arkesilaus of Kyrênê bearing the name
-of Alazir; a name certainly not Hellenic, and probably Libyan.<a
-id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a>
-We are, therefore, to conceive the first Theræan colonists as
-established in their lofty fortified post Kyrênê, in the centre of
-Libyan Periœki, till then strangers to walls, to arts, and perhaps
-even to cultivated land. Probably these Periœki were always subject
-and tributary, in a greater or less degree, though they continued for
-half a century to retain their own king.</p>
-
-<p>To these rude men the Theræans communicated the elements of
-Hellenism and civilization, not without receiving themselves much
-that was non-Hellenic in return; and perhaps the reactionary
-influence of the Libyan element against the Hellenic might have
-proved the stronger of the two, had they not been reinforced
-by new-comers from Greece. After forty years of Battus<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[p. 41]</span> the œkist (about
-630-590 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), and sixteen years of his son
-Arkesilaus (about 590-574 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),
-a second Battus<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86"
-class="fnanchor">[86]</a> succeeded, called Battus the Prosperous,
-to mark the extraordinary increase of Kyrênê during his presidency.
-The Kyrenæans under him took pains to invite new settlers from all
-parts of Greece without distinction,—a circumstance deserving notice
-in Grecian colonization, which usually manifested a preference for
-certain races, if it did not positively exclude the rest. To every
-new-comer was promised a lot of land, and the Delphian priestess
-strenuously seconded the wishes of the Kyrenæans, proclaiming that
-“whosoever should reach the place too late for the land-division,
-would have reason to repent it.” Such promise of new land, as
-well as the sanction of the oracle, were doubtless made public at
-all the games and meetings of Greeks, and a large number of new
-colonists embarked for Kyrênê. The exact number is not mentioned,
-but we must conceive it to have been very great, when we are told
-that during the succeeding generation, not less than seven thousand
-Grecian hoplites of Kyrênê perished by the hands of the revolted
-Libyans,—yet leaving both the city itself and its neighbor Barka
-still powerful. The loss of so great a number as seven thousand
-Grecian hoplites has very few parallels throughout the whole history
-of Greece. In fact, this second migration, during the government of
-Battus the Prosperous, which must have taken place between 574-554
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, ought to be looked upon as
-the moment of real and effective colonization for Kyrênê. It was on
-this occasion, probably, that the port of Apollonia, which afterwards
-came to equal the city itself in importance, was first occupied and
-fortified,—for this second swarm of emigrants came by sea direct,
-while the original colonists had reached Kyrênê by land from the
-island of Platea through Irasa. The fresh emigrants came from
-Peloponnesus, Krete, and some other islands of the Ægean.</p>
-
-<p>To furnish so many new lots of land, it was either necessary, or
-it was deemed expedient, to dispossess many of the Libyan Periœki,
-who found their situation in other respects also greatly<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[p. 42]</span> changed for the worse.
-The Libyan king Adikran, himself among the sufferers, implored aid
-from Apriês king of Egypt, then in the height of his power; sending
-to declare himself and his people Egyptian subjects, like their
-neighbors the Adyrmachidæ. The Egyptian prince, accepting the offer,
-despatched a large military force of the native soldier-caste,
-who were constantly in station at the western frontier-town
-Marea, by the route along shore to attack Kyrênê. They were met
-at Irasa by the Greeks of Kyrênê, and, being totally ignorant of
-Grecian arms and tactics, experienced a defeat so complete that
-few of them reached home.<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87"
-class="fnanchor">[87]</a> The consequences of this disaster in Egypt,
-where it caused the transfer of the throne from Apriês to Amasis,
-have been noticed in a former chapter.</p>
-
-<p>Of course the Libyan Periœki were put down, and the redivision
-of lands near Kyrênê among the Greek settlers accomplished, to the
-great increase of the power of the city. And the reign of Battus
-the Prosperous marks a flourishing era in the town, and a large
-acquisition of land-dominion, antecedent to years of dissension and
-distress. The Kyrenæans came into intimate alliance with Amasis
-king of Egypt, who encouraged Grecian connection in every way,
-and who even took to wife Ladikê, a woman of the Battiad family
-at Kyrênê, so that the Libyan Periœki lost all chance of Egyptian
-aid against the Greeks.<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88"
-class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p>
-
-<p>New prospects, however, were opened to them during the reign
-of Arkesilaus the Second, son of Battus the Prosperous, (about
-554-544 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>). The behavior of this
-prince incensed and alienated his own brothers, who raised a revolt
-against him, seceded with a portion of the citizens, and induced a
-number of the Libyan Periœki to take part with them. They founded
-the Greco-Libyan city of Barka, in the territory of the Libyan
-Auschisæ, about twelve miles from the coast, distant from Kyrênê by
-sea about seventy miles to the westward. The space between the two,
-and even beyond Barka, as far as the more westerly Grecian colony
-called Hesperides, was in the days of Skylax provided with commodious
-ports for refuge or landing:<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89"
-class="fnanchor">[89]</a> at what<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_43">[p. 43]</span> time Hesperides was founded we do not
-know, but it existed about 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small><a
-id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a>
-Whether Arkesilaus obstructed the foundation of Barka is not certain;
-but he marched the Kyrenæan forces against those revolted Libyans
-who had joined it. Unable to resist, the latter fled for refuge
-to their more easterly brethren near the borders of Egypt, and
-Arkesilaus pursued them. At length, in a district called Leukôn, the
-fugitives found an opportunity of attacking him at such prodigious
-advantage, that they almost destroyed the Kyrenæan army, seven
-thousand hoplites (as has been before intimated) being left dead on
-the field. Arkesilaus did not long survive this disaster. He was
-strangled during sickness by his brother Learchus, who aspired to the
-throne; but Eryxô, widow of the deceased prince,<a id="FNanchor_91"
-href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> avenged the crime, by
-causing Learchus to be assassinated.</p>
-
-<p>That the credit of the Battiad princes was impaired by such a
-series of disasters and enormities, we can readily believe. But it
-received a still greater shock from the circumstance, that Battus
-the Third, son and successor of Arkesilaus, was lame and deformed in
-his feet. To be governed by a man thus personally disabled, was in
-the minds of the Kyrenæans an indignity not to be borne, as well as
-an excuse for preëxisting discontents; and the resolution was taken
-to send to the Delphian oracle for advice. They were directed by
-the priestess to invite from Mantineia, a moderator, empowered to
-close discussions and provide a scheme of government,—the Mantineans
-selecting Demônax, one of the wisest of their citizens, to solve
-the same problem which had been committed to Solon at Athens. By
-his arrangement, the regal prerogative of the Battiad line was
-terminated, and a republican government established seemingly
-about 543 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; the dispossessed
-prince retaining both the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[p.
-44]</span> landed domains<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92"
-class="fnanchor">[92]</a> and the various sacerdotal functions which
-had belonged to his predecessors.</p>
-
-<p>Respecting the government, as newly framed, however, Herodotus
-unfortunately gives us hardly any particulars. Demônax classified
-the inhabitants of Kyrênê into three tribes; composed of: 1.
-Theræans with their Libyan Periœki; 2. Greeks who had come from
-Peloponnesus and Krete; 3. Such Greeks as had come from all other
-islands in the Ægean. It appears, too, that a senate was constituted,
-taken doubtless from these three tribes, and we may presume, in
-equal proportion. It seems probable that there had been before no
-constitutional classification, nor political privilege, except what
-was vested in the Theræans,—that these latter, the descendants of
-the original colonists were the only persons hitherto <i>known to the
-constitution</i>,—and that the remaining Greeks, though free landed
-proprietors and hoplites, were not permitted to act as an integral
-part of the body politic, nor distributed in tribes at all.<a
-id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a> The
-whole powers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[p. 45]</span> of
-government,—up to this time vested in the Battiad princes, subject
-only to such check, how effective we know not, which the citizens
-of Theræan origin might be able to interpose,—were now transferred
-from the prince to the people; that is, to certain individuals or
-assemblies chosen somehow from among all the citizens. There existed
-at Kyrênê, as at Thêra and Sparta, a board of Ephors, and a band of
-three hundred armed police,<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94"
-class="fnanchor">[94]</a> analogous to those who were called the
-Hippeis, or Horsemen, at Sparta: whether these were instituted by
-Demônax, we do not know, nor does the identity of titular office, in
-different states, afford safe ground for inferring identity of power.
-This is particularly to be remarked with regard to the Periœki at
-Kyrênê, who were perhaps more analogous to the Helots than to the
-Periœki of Sparta. The fact that the Periœki were considered in the
-new constitution as belonging specially to the Theræan branch of
-citizens, shows that these latter still continued a privileged order,
-like the Patricians with their Clients at Rome in relation to the
-Plebs.</p>
-
-<p>That the rearrangement introduced by Demônax was wise, consonant
-to the general current of Greek feeling, and calculated to work well,
-there is good reason to believe: and no discontent within would
-have subverted it without the aid of extraneous force. Battus the
-Lame acquiesced in it peaceably during his life; but his widow and
-his son, Pheretimê and Arkesilaus, raised a revolt after his death,
-and tried to regain by force the kingly privileges of the family.
-They were worsted and obliged to flee,—the mother to Cyprus, the
-son to Samos,—where both employed themselves in procuring foreign
-arms to invade and conquer Kyrênê. Though Pheretimê could obtain no
-effective aid from Euelthôn prince of Salamis in Cyprus, her son
-was more successful in Samos, by inviting new Greek settlers to
-Kyrênê, under promise of a redistribution of the land. A large<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[p. 46]</span> body of emigrants
-joined him on this promise; the period seemingly being favorable to
-it, since the Ionian cities had not long before become subject to
-Persia, and were discontented with the yoke. But before he conducted
-this numerous band against his native city, he thought proper to
-ask the advice of the Delphian oracle. Success in the undertaking
-was promised to him, but moderation and mercy after success was
-emphatically enjoined, on pain of losing his life; and the Battiad
-race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Kyrênê for
-eight generations, but no longer,—as far as four princes named Battus
-and four named Arkesilaus.<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95"
-class="fnanchor">[95]</a> “More than such eight generations (said
-the Pythia), Apollo forbids the Battiads even to aim at.” This
-oracle was doubtless told to Herodotus by Kyrenæan informants when
-he visited their city after the final deposition of the Battiad
-princes, which took place in the person of the fourth Arkesilaus,
-between 460-450 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; the invasion of
-Kyrênê by Arkesilaus the Third, sixth prince of the Battiad race,
-to which the oracle professed to refer, having occurred about 530
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> The words placed in the mouth of
-the priestess doubtless date from the later of these two periods,
-and afford a specimen of the way in which pretended prophecies are
-not only made up by antedating after-knowledge, but are also so
-contrived as to serve a present purpose. For the distinct prohibition
-of the god, “not even to aim at a longer lineage than eight Battiad
-princes,” seems plainly intended to deter the partisans of the
-dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them.</p>
-
-<p>Arkesilaus the Third, to whom this prophecy purports to have
-been addressed, returned with his mother Pheretimê and his army of
-new colonists to Kyrênê. He was strong enough to carry all before
-him,—to expel some of his chief opponents and seize upon others, whom
-he sent to Cyprus to be destroyed; though the vessels were driven
-out of their course by storms to the peninsula of Knidus, where the
-inhabitants rescued the prisoners and sent them to Thêra. Other
-Kyrenæans, opposed to the Battiads, took refuge in a lofty private
-tower, the property<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[p. 47]</span>
-of Aglômachus, wherein Arkesilaus caused them all to be burned,
-heaping wood around and setting it on fire. But after this career
-of triumph and revenge, he became conscious that he had departed
-from the mildness enjoined to him by the oracle, and sought to avoid
-the punishment which it had threatened by retiring from Kyrênê. At
-any rate, he departed from Kyrênê to Barka, to the residence of the
-Barkæan prince, his kinsman Alazir, whose daughter he had married.
-But he found in Barka some of the unfortunate men who had fled from
-Kyrênê to escape him: these exiles, aided by a few Barkæans, watched
-for a suitable moment to assail him in the market-place, and slew
-him, together with his kinsman the prince Alazir.<a id="FNanchor_96"
-href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p>
-
-<p>The victory of Arkesilaus at Kyrênê, and his assassination
-at Barka, are doubtless real facts; but they seem to have been
-compressed together and incorrectly colored, in order to give to the
-death of the Kyrenæan prince the appearance of a divine judgment. For
-the reign of Arkesilaus cannot have been very short, since events of
-the utmost importance occurred within it. The Persians under Kambysês
-conquered Egypt, and both the Kyrenæan and the Barkæan prince sent
-to Memphis to make their submission to the conqueror,—offering
-presents and imposing upon themselves an annual tribute. The presents
-of the Kyrenæans, five hundred minæ of silver, were considered by
-Kambysês so contemptibly small, that he took hold of them at once
-and threw them among his soldiers. And at the moment when Arkesilaus
-died, Aryandes, the Persian satrap after the death of Kambysês, is
-found established in Egypt.<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97"
-class="fnanchor">[97]</a></p>
-
-<p>During the absence of Arkesilaus at Barka, his mother Pheretimê
-had acted as regent, taking her place at the discussions in the
-senate; but when his death took place, and the feeling against the
-Battiads manifested itself strongly at Barka, she did not feel
-powerful enough to put it down, and went to Egypt to solicit aid from
-Aryandes. The satrap, being made to believe that Arkesilaus had met
-his death in consequence of steady devotion to the Persians, sent a
-herald to Barka to demand the men who had slain him. The Barkæans
-assumed the collective<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[p.
-48]</span> responsibility of the act, saying that he had done them
-injuries both numerous and severe,—a farther proof that his reign
-cannot have been very short. On receiving this reply, the satrap
-immediately despatched a powerful Persian armament, land-force
-as well as sea-force, in fulfilment of the designs of Pheretimê
-against Barka. They besieged the town for nine months, trying to
-storm, to batter, and to undermine the walls;<a id="FNanchor_98"
-href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> but their efforts
-were vain, and it was taken at last only by an act of the grossest
-perfidy. Pretending to relinquish the attempt in despair, the
-Persian general concluded a treaty with the Barkæans, wherein it
-was stipulated that the latter should continue to pay tribute to
-the Great King, but that the army should retire without farther
-hostilities: “I swear it (said the Persian general), and my oath
-shall hold good, as long as this earth shall keep its place.” But
-the spot on which the oaths were exchanged had been fraudulently
-prepared: a ditch had been excavated and covered with hurdles, upon
-which again a surface of earth had been laid. The Barkæans, confiding
-in the oath, and overjoyed at their liberation, immediately opened
-their gates and relaxed their guard; while the Persians, breaking
-down the hurdles and letting fall the superimposed earth, so that
-they might comply with the letter of their oath, assaulted the city
-and took it without difficulty.</p>
-
-<p>Miserable was the fate which Pheretimê had in reserve for these
-entrapped prisoners. She crucified the chief opponents of herself and
-her late son around the walls, on which were also affixed the breasts
-of their wives: then, with the exception of such of the inhabitants
-as were Battiads, and noway concerned in the death of Arkesilaus,
-she consigned the rest to slavery in Persia. They were carried away
-captive into the Persian empire, where Darius assigned to them a
-village in Baktria as their place of abode, which still bore the name
-of Barka, even in the days of Herodotus.</p>
-
-<p>During the course of this expedition, it appears, the Persian army
-advanced as far as Hesperides, and reduced many of the Libyan tribes
-to subjection: these, together with Kyrênê and<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_49">[p. 49]</span> Barka, figure among the tributaries and
-auxiliaries of Xerxês in his expedition against Greece. And when
-the army returned to Egypt, by order of Aryandês, they were half
-inclined to seize Kyrênê itself in their way, though the opportunity
-was missed and the purpose left unaccomplished.<a id="FNanchor_99"
-href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p>
-
-<p>Pheretimê accompanied the retreating army to Egypt, where she
-died shortly of a loathsome disease, consumed by worms; thus
-showing, says Herodotus,<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100"
-class="fnanchor">[100]</a> that “excessive cruelty in revenge brings
-down upon men the displeasure of the gods.” It will be recollected
-that in the veins of this savage woman the Libyan blood was
-intermixed with the Grecian. Political enmity in Greece proper kills,
-but seldom if ever mutilates or sheds the blood, of women.</p>
-
-<p>We thus leave Kyrênê and Barka again subject to Battiad
-princes, at the same time that they are tributaries of Persia.
-Another Battus and another Arkesilaus have to intervene before
-the glass of this worthless dynasty is run out, between 460-450
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> I shall not at present carry the reader’s
-attention to this last Arkesilaus, who stands honored by two chariot
-victories in Greece, and two fine odes of Pindar.</p>
-
-<p>The victory of the third Arkesilaus, and the restoration of
-the Battiads, broke up the equitable constitution established by
-Demônax. His triple classification into tribes must have been
-completely remodelled, though we do not know how. For the number
-of new colonists whom Arkesilaus introduced must have necessitated
-a fresh distribution of land, and it is extremely doubtful whether
-the relation of the Theræan class of citizens with their Periœki, as
-established by Demônax, still continued to subsist. It is necessary
-to notice this fact, because the arrangements of Demônax are spoken
-of by some authors as if they formed the permanent constitution of
-Kyrênê; whereas they cannot have outlived the restoration of the
-Battiads, nor can they even have been revived after that dynasty was
-finally expelled, since the number of new citizens and the large
-change of property, introduced by Arkesilaus the Third, would render
-them inapplicable to the subsequent city.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_28">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[p. 50]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVIII.<br />
- PAN-HELLENIC FESTIVALS — OLYMPIC, PYTHIAN, NEMEAN, AND&nbsp;ISTHMIAN.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">In the</span> preceding chapters
-I have been under the necessity of presenting to the reader a
-picture altogether incoherent and destitute of central effect,—to
-specify briefly each of the two or three hundred towns which agreed
-in bearing the Hellenic name, and to recount its birth and early
-life, as far as our evidence goes,—but without being able to point
-out any action and reaction, exploits or sufferings, prosperity or
-misfortune, glory or disgrace, common to all. To a great degree,
-this is a characteristic inseparable from the history of Greece from
-its beginning to its end, for the only political unity which it ever
-receives is the melancholy unity of subjection under all-conquering
-Rome. Nothing short of force will efface in the mind of a free Greek
-the idea of his city as an autonomous and separate organization; the
-village is a fraction, but the city is an unit,—and the highest of
-all political units, not admitting of being consolidated with others
-into a ten or a hundred, to the sacrifice of its own separate and
-individual mark. Such is the character of the race, both in their
-primitive country and in their colonial settlements,—in their early
-as well as in their late history,—splitting by natural fracture
-into a multitude of self-administering, indivisible cities. But
-that which marks the early historical period before Peisistratus,
-and which impresses upon it an incoherence at once so fatiguing
-and so irremediable, is, that as yet no causes have arisen to
-counteract this political isolation. Each city, whether progressive
-or stationary, prudent or adventurous, turbulent or tranquil, follows
-out its own thread of existence, having no partnership or common
-purposes with the rest, and not yet constrained into any active
-partnership with them by extraneous forces. In like manner, the races
-which on every side surround the Hellenic world appear distinct
-and unconnected, not yet taken up into any coöperating mass or
-system.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[p. 51]</span>Contemporaneously
-with the accession of Peisistratus, this state of things becomes
-altered both in and out of Hellas,—the former as a consequence of the
-latter: for at that time begins the formation of the great Persian
-empire, which absorbs into itself not only Upper Asia and Asia Minor,
-but also Phenicia, Egypt, Thrace, Macedonia, and a considerable
-number of the Grecian cities themselves; and the common danger,
-threatening the greater states of Greece proper from this vast
-aggregate, drives them, in spite of great reluctance and jealousy,
-into active union. Hence arises a new impulse, counterworking the
-natural tendency to political isolation in the Hellenic cities,
-and centralizing their proceedings to a certain extent for the two
-centuries succeeding 560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; Athens and
-Sparta both availing themselves of the centralizing tendencies which
-had grown out of the Persian war. But during the interval between
-776-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, no such tendency can be
-traced even in commencement, nor any constraining force calculated
-to bring it about. Even Thucydidês, as we may see by his excellent
-preface, knew of nothing during these two centuries except separate
-city-politics and occasional wars between neighbors: the only event,
-according to him, in which any considerable number of Grecian cities
-were jointly concerned, was the war between Chalkis and Eretria, the
-date of which we do not know. In this war, several cities took part
-as allies; Samos, among others, with Eretria,—Milêtus with Chalkis:<a
-id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> how
-far the alliances of either may have extended, we have no evidence
-to inform us, but the presumption is that no great number of Grecian
-cities was comprehended in them. Such as it was, however, this war
-between Chalkis and Eretria was the nearest approach, and the only
-approach, to a Pan-Hellenic proceeding which Thucydidês indicates
-between the Trojan and the Persian wars. Both he and Herodotus
-present this early period only by way of preface and contrast to
-that which follows,—when the Pan-Hellenic spirit and tendencies,
-though never at any time predominant, yet counted for a powerful
-element in history, and sensibly modified the universal instinct of
-city-isolation. They tell us little about it, either because they
-could find no trustworthy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[p.
-52]</span> informants, or because there was nothing in it to
-captivate the imagination in the same manner as the Persian or the
-Peloponnesian wars. From whatever cause their silence arises, it is
-deeply to be regretted, since the phenomena of the two centuries from
-776-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, though not susceptible of
-any central grouping, must have presented the most instructive matter
-for study, had they been preserved. In no period of history have
-there ever been formed a greater number of new political communities,
-under such variety of circumstances, personal as well as local. And a
-few chronicles, however destitute of philosophy, reporting the exact
-march of some of these colonies from their commencement,—amidst all
-the difficulties attendant on amalgamation with strange natives, as
-well as on a fresh distribution of land,—would have added greatly to
-our knowledge both of Greek character and Greek social existence.</p>
-
-<p>Taking the two centuries now under review, then, it will appear
-that there is not only no growing political unity among the Grecian
-states, but a tendency even to the contrary,—to dissemination and
-mutual estrangement. Not so, however, in regard to the other feelings
-of unity capable of subsisting between men who acknowledge no
-common political authority,—sympathies founded on common religion,
-language, belief of race, legends, tastes and customs, intellectual
-appetencies, sense of proportion and artistic excellence, recreative
-enjoyments, etc. On all these points the manifestations of Hellenic
-unity become more and more pronounced and comprehensive, in spite
-of increased political dissemination, throughout the same period.
-The breadth of common sentiment and sympathy between Greek and
-Greek, together with the conception of multitudinous periodical
-meetings as an indispensable portion of existence, appears decidedly
-greater in 560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> than it had been a
-century before. It was fostered by the increased conviction of the
-superiority of Greeks as compared with foreigners,—a conviction
-gradually more and more justified as Grecian art and intellect
-improved, and as the survey of foreign countries became extended,—as
-well as by the many new efforts of men of genius in the field of
-music, poetry, statuary, and architecture, each of whom touched
-chords of feeling belonging to other Greeks hardly less than to
-his own peculiar city. At the same time, the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_53">[p. 53]</span> life of each peculiar city continues
-distinct, and even gathers to itself a greater abundance of facts
-and internal interests. So that during the two centuries now under
-review there was in the mind of every Greek an increase both of
-the city-feeling and of the Pan-Hellenic feeling, but on the other
-hand a decline of the old sentiment of separate race,—Doric, Ionic,
-Æolic.</p>
-
-<p>I have already, in my former volume, touched upon the many-sided
-character of the Grecian religion, entering as it did into all the
-enjoyments and sufferings, the hopes and fears, the affections and
-antipathies, of the people,—not simply imposing restraints and
-obligations, but protecting, multiplying, and diversifying all the
-social pleasures and all the decorations of existence. Each city and
-even each village had its peculiar religious festivals, wherein the
-sacrifices to the gods were usually followed by public recreations of
-one kind or other,—by feasting on the victims, processional marches,
-singing and dancing, or competition in strong and active exercises.
-The festival was originally local, but friendship or communion
-of race was shown by inviting others, non-residents, to partake
-in its attractions. In the case of a colony and its metropolis,
-it was a frequent practice that citizens of the metropolis were
-honored with a privileged seat at the festivals of the colony, or
-that one of their number was presented with the first taste of
-the sacrificial victim.<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102"
-class="fnanchor">[102]</a> Reciprocal frequentation of religious
-festivals was thus the standing evidence of friendship and fraternity
-among cities not politically united. That it must have existed to a
-certain degree from the earliest days, there can be no reasonable
-doubt; though in Homer and Hesiod we find only the celebration of
-funeral games, by a chief at his own private expense, in honor
-of his deceased father or friend,—with all the accompanying
-recreations, however, of a public festival, and with strangers not
-only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[p. 54]</span> present,
-but also contending for valuable prizes.<a id="FNanchor_103"
-href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> Passing to historical
-Greece during the seventh century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-we find evidence of two festivals, even then very considerable, and
-frequented by Greeks from many different cities and districts,—the
-festival at Delos, in honor of Apollo, the great place of meeting
-for Ionians throughout the Ægean,—and the Olympic games. The
-Homeric Hymn to the Delian Apollo, which must be placed earlier
-than 600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, dwells with emphasis on
-the splendor of the Delian festival,—unrivalled throughout Greece,
-as it would appear, during all the first period of this history,
-for wealth, finery of attire, and variety of exhibitions as well
-in poetical genius as in bodily activity,<a id="FNanchor_104"
-href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a>—equalling probably
-at that time, if not surpassing, the Olympic games. The complete
-and undiminished grandeur of this Delian Pan-Ionic festival is one
-of our chief marks of the first period of Grecian history, before
-the comparative prostration of the Ionic Greeks through the rise
-of Persia: it was celebrated periodically in every fourth year,
-to the honor of Apollo and Artemis. It was distinguished from the
-Olympic games by two circumstances both deserving of notice,—first,
-by including solemn matches not only of gymnastic, but also of
-musical and poetical excellence, whereas the latter had no place
-at Olympia; secondly, by the admission of men, women, and children
-indiscriminately as spectators, whereas women were formally excluded
-from the Olympic ceremony.<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105"
-class="fnanchor">[105]</a> Such exclusion may have depended in part
-on the inland situation of Olympia, less easily approachable by
-females than the island of Delos; but even making allowance for this
-circumstance, both the one distinction and the other mark the rougher
-character of the Ætolo-Dorians in Peloponnesus. The Delian festival,
-which greatly dwindled away during the subjection of the Asiatic and
-insular Greeks to Persia, was revived afterwards by Athens during the
-period of her empire, when she was seeking in every way to strengthen
-her central ascendency in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[p.
-55]</span> Ægean. But though it continued to be ostentatiously
-celebrated under her management, it never regained that commanding
-sanctity and crowded frequentation which we find attested in the
-Homeric Hymn to Apollo for its earlier period.</p>
-
-<p>Very different was the fate of the Olympic festival,—on the
-banks of the Alpheius<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106"
-class="fnanchor">[106]</a> in Peloponnesus, near the old oracular
-temple of the Olympian Zeus,—which not only grew up uninterruptedly
-from small beginnings to the maximum of Pan-Hellenic importance,
-but even preserved its crowds of visitors and its celebrity for
-many centuries after the extinction of Greek freedom, and only
-received its final abolition, after more than eleven hundred years
-of continuance, from the decree of the Christian emperor Theodosius
-in 394 <small>A. D.</small> I have already recounted, in
-the preceding volume of this history, the attempt made by Pheidon,
-despot of Argos, to restore to the Pisatans, or to acquire for
-himself, the administration of this festival,—an event which proves
-the importance of the festival in Peloponnesus, even so early as
-740 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> At that time, and for some
-years afterwards, it seems to have been frequented chiefly, if not
-exclusively, by the neighboring inhabitants of central and western
-Peloponnesus,—Spartans, Messenians, Arkadians, Triphylians, Pisatans,
-Eleians, and Achæans,<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107"
-class="fnanchor">[107]</a>—and it forms an important link
-connecting the Etolo-Eleians, and their privileges as Agonothets
-to solemnize and preside over it, with Sparta. From the year 720
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, we trace positive evidences of the
-gradual presence of more distant Greeks,—Corinthians, Megarians,
-Bœotians, Athenians, and even Smyrnæans from Asia.</p>
-
-<p>We observe also another proof of growing importance, in the
-increased number and variety of matches exhibited to the spectators,
-and in the substitution of the simple crown of olive, an honorary
-reward, in place of the more substantial present which the Olympic
-festival and all other Grecian festivals began by conferring
-upon the victor. The humble constitution of the Olympic games
-presented originally nothing more than a match of runners<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[p. 56]</span> in the measured course
-called the Stadium: a continuous series of the victorious runners
-was formally inscribed and preserved by the Eleians, beginning
-with Korœbus in 776 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and was made to
-serve by chronological inquirers from the third century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> downwards, as a means of measuring
-the chronological sequence of Grecian events. It was on the occasion
-of the 7th Olympiad after Korœbus, that Daiklês the Messenian first
-received for his victory in the stadium no farther recompense than a
-wreath from the sacred olive-tree near Olympia:<a id="FNanchor_108"
-href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> the honor of being
-proclaimed victor was found sufficient, without any pecuniary
-addition. But until the 14th Olympiad, there was no other match
-for the spectators to witness beside that of simple runners in the
-stadium. On that occasion a second race was first introduced, of
-runners in the double stadium, or up and down the course; in the
-next, or 15th Olympiad (720 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), a third
-match, the long course for runners, or several times up and down
-the stadium. There were thus three races,—the simple stadium, the
-double stadium, or diaulos, and the long course, or dolichos, all for
-runners,—which continued without addition until the 18th Olympiad,
-when the wrestling-match and the complicated pentathlon—including
-jumping, running, the quoit, the javelin, and wrestling—were
-both added. A farther novelty appears in the 23rd Olympiad (688
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), the boxing-match; and another, still more
-important, in the 25th (680 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),
-the chariot with four full-grown horses. This last-mentioned addition
-is deserving of special notice, not merely as it diversified
-the scene by the introduction of horses, but also as it brought
-in a totally new class of competitors,—rich men and women, who
-possessed the finest horses and could hire the most skilful
-drivers, without any personal superiority, or power of bodily
-display, in themselves.<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109"
-class="fnanchor">[109]</a> The prodigious<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_57">[p. 57]</span> exhibition of wealth in which the
-chariot proprietors indulged, is not only an evidence of growing
-importance in the Olympic games, but also served materially to
-increase that importance, and to heighten the interest of spectators.
-Two farther matches were added in the 33rd Olympiad (648
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),—the pankration, or boxing and
-wrestling conjoined,<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110"
-class="fnanchor">[110]</a> with the hand unarmed or divested of
-that hard leather cestus<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111"
-class="fnanchor">[111]</a> worn by the pugilist, which rendered the
-blow of the latter more terrible, but at the same time prevented
-him from grasping or keeping hold of his adversary,—and the single
-race-horse. Many other novelties were introduced one after the other,
-which it is unnecessary fully to enumerate,—the race between men
-clothed in full panoply, and bearing each his shield,—the different
-matches between boys, analogous to those between full-grown men,
-and between colts, of the same nature as between full-grown horses.
-At the maximum of its attraction the Olympic solemnity occupied
-five days, but until the 77th Olympiad, all the various matches
-had been compressed into one,—beginning at daybreak and not always
-closing before dark.<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112"
-class="fnanchor">[112]</a> The 77th Olympiad follows immediately
-after the success<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[p.
-58]</span>ful expulsion of the Persian invaders from Greece, when
-the Pan-Hellenic feeling had been keenly stimulated by resistance to
-a common enemy; and we may easily conceive that this was a suitable
-moment for imparting additional dignity to the chief national
-festival.</p>
-
-<p>We are thus enabled partially to trace the steps by which, during
-the two centuries succeeding 776 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-the festival of the Olympic Zeus in the Pisatid gradually passed
-from a local to a national character, and acquired an attractive
-force capable of bringing together into temporary union the dispersed
-fragments of Hellas, from Marseilles to Trebizond. In this important
-function it did not long stand alone. During the sixth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, three other festivals, at first
-local, became successively nationalized,—the Pythia near Delphi, the
-Isthmia, near Corinth, the Nemea near Kleônæ, between Sikyôn and
-Argos.</p>
-
-<p>In regard to the Pythian festival, we find a short notice of the
-particular incidents and individuals by whom its reconstitution
-and enlargement were brought about,—a notice the more interesting,
-inasmuch as these very incidents are themselves a manifestation
-of something like Pan-Hellenic patriotism, standing almost
-alone in an age which presents little else in operation except
-distinct city-interests. At the time when the Homeric Hymn to the
-Delphinian Apollo was composed (probably in the seventh century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), the Pythian festival had as yet
-acquired little eminence. The rich and holy temple of Apollo was
-then purely oracular, established for the purpose of communicating
-to pious inquirers “the counsels of the immortals.” Multitudes of
-visitors came to consult it, as well as to sacrifice victims and to
-deposit costly offerings; but while the god delighted in the sound
-of the harp as an accompaniment to the singing of pæans, he was
-by no means anxious to encourage horse-races and chariot-races in
-the neighborhood,—nay, this psalmist considers that the noise of
-horses would be “a nuisance,” the drinking of mules a desecration
-to the sacred fountains, and the ostentation of fine-built
-chariots objectionable,<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113"
-class="fnanchor">[113]</a> as tending to divert the attention of
-spectators away from the great temple and its wealth.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[p. 59]</span>From such
-inconveniences the god was protected by placing his sanctuary
-“in the rocky Pytho,”—a rugged and uneven recess, of no great
-dimensions, embosomed in the southern declivity of Parnassus, and
-about two thousand feet above the level of the sea, while the topmost
-Parnassian summits reach a height of near eight thousand feet. The
-situation was extremely imposing, but unsuited by nature for the
-congregation of any considerable number of spectators,—altogether
-impracticable for chariot-races,—and only rendered practicable by
-later art and outlay for the theatre as well as for the stadium;
-the original stadium, when first established, was placed in the
-plain beneath. It furnished little means of subsistence, but the
-sacrifices and presents of visitors enabled the ministers of the
-temple to live in abundance,<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114"
-class="fnanchor">[114]</a> and gathered together by degrees a village
-around it. Near the sanctuary of Pytho, and about the same altitude,
-was situated the ancient Phocian town of Krissa, on a projecting
-spur of Parnassus,—overhung above by the line of rocky precipice
-called the Phædriades, and itself overhanging below the deep ravine
-through which flows the river Pleistus. On the other side of this
-river rises the steep mountain Kirphis, which projects southward
-into the Corinthian gulf,—the river reaching that gulf through the
-broad Krissæan or Kirrhæan plain, which stretches westward nearly to
-the Lokrian town of Amphissa; a plain for the most part fertile and
-productive, though least so in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[p.
-60]</span> its eastern part immediately under the Kirphis, where the
-seaport Kirrha was placed.<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115"
-class="fnanchor">[115]</a> The temple, the oracle, and the wealth
-of Pytho, belong to the very earliest periods of Grecian antiquity;
-but the octennial solemnity in honor of the god included at first no
-other competition except that of bards, who sang each a pæan with the
-harp. It has been already mentioned, in my preceding volume, that the
-Amphiktyonic assembly held one of its half-yearly meetings near the
-temple of Pytho, the other at Thermopylæ.</p>
-
-<p>In those early times when the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was composed,
-the town of Krissa appears to have been great and powerful,
-possessing all the broad plain between Parnassus, Kirphis, and
-the gulf, to which latter it gave its name,—and possessing also,
-what was a property not less valuable, the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_61">[p. 61]</span> adjoining sanctuary of Pytho itself,
-which the Hymn identifies with Krissa, not indicating Delphi as a
-separate place. The Krissæans, doubtless, derived great profits from
-the number of visitors who came to visit Delphi, both by land and
-by sea, and Kirrha was originally only the name for their seaport.
-Gradually, however, the port appears to have grown in importance
-at the expense of the town, just as Apollonia and Ptolemais came
-to equal Kyrênê and Barka, and as Plymouth Dock has swelled into
-Devonport; while at the same time, the sanctuary of Pytho with
-its administrators expanded into the town of Delphi, and came to
-claim an independent existence of its own. The original relations
-between Krissa, Kirrha, and Delphi, were in this manner at length
-subverted, the first declining and the two latter rising. The
-Krissæans found themselves dispossessed of the management of the
-temple, which passed to the Delphians, as well as of the profits
-arising from the visitors, whose disbursements went to enrich
-the inhabitants of Kirrha. Krissa was a primitive city of the
-Phocian name, and could boast of a place as such in the Homeric
-Catalogue, so that her loss of importance was not likely to be
-quietly endured. Moreover, in addition to the above facts, already
-sufficient in themselves as seeds of quarrel, we are told that the
-Kirrhæans abused their position as masters of the avenue to the
-temple by sea, and levied exorbitant tolls on the visitors who
-landed there,—a number constantly increasing from the multiplication
-of the transmarine colonies, and from the prosperity of those in
-Italy and Sicily. Besides such offence against the general Grecian
-public, they had also incurred the enmity of their Phocian neighbors
-by outrages upon women, Phocian as well as Argeian, who were
-returning from the temple.<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116"
-class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p>
-
-<p>Thus stood the case, apparently, about 595 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-when the Amphiktyonic meeting
-interfered—either prompted by the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_62">[p. 62]</span> Phocians, or perhaps on their own
-spontaneous impulse, out of regard to the temple—to punish the
-Kirrhæans. After a war of ten years, the first Sacred War in
-Greece, this object was completely accomplished, by a joint force
-of Thessalians under Eurylochus, Sikyonians under Kleisthenês,
-and Athenians under Alkmæon; the Athenian Solon being the person
-who originated and enforced, in the Amphiktyonic council, the
-proposition of interference. Kirrha appears to have made a strenuous
-resistance until its supplies from the sea were intercepted by the
-naval force of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês; and even after the town
-was taken, its inhabitants defended themselves for some time on
-the heights of Kirphis.<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117"
-class="fnanchor">[117]</a> At length, however, they were thoroughly
-subdued. Their town was destroyed, or left to subsist merely as
-a landing-place; and the whole adjoining plain was consecrated
-to the Delphian god, whose domains thus touched the sea. Under
-this sentence, pronounced by the religious feeling of Greece, and
-sanctified by a solemn oath publicly sworn and inscribed at Delphi,
-the land was condemned to remain untilled and unplanted, without any
-species of human care, and serving only for the pasturage of cattle.
-The latter circumstance was convenient to the temple, inasmuch
-as it furnished abundance of victims for the pilgrims who landed
-and came to sacrifice,—for without preliminary sacrifice no man
-could consult the oracle;<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118"
-class="fnanchor">[118]</a> while the entire prohibition of tillage
-was the only means of obviating the growth of another troublesome
-neighbor on the sea-board. The fate of Kirrha in this war is
-ascertained: that of Krissa is not so clear, nor do we know whether
-it was destroyed, or left subsisting in a position of inferiority
-with regard to Delphi. From this time forward, however, the Delphian
-community appears as substantive and autonomous, exercising in
-their own right the management of the temple; though we shall find,
-on more than one occasion, that the Phocians contest this right,
-and lay claim<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[p. 63]</span>
-to the management of it for themselves,<a id="FNanchor_119"
-href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a>—a remnant of that
-early period when the oracle stood in the domain of the Phocian
-Krissa. There seems, moreover, to have been a standing antipathy
-between the Delphians and the Phocians.</p>
-
-<p>The Sacred War just mentioned, emanating from a solemn
-Amphiktyonic decree, carried on jointly by troops of different states
-whom we do not know to have ever before coöperated, and directed
-exclusively towards an object of common interest, is in itself a fact
-of high importance as manifesting a decided growth of Pan-Hellenic
-feeling. Sparta is not named as interfering,—a circumstance which
-seems remarkable when we consider both her power, even as it then
-stood, and her intimate connection with the Delphian oracle,—while
-the Athenians appear as the prime movers, through the greatest and
-best of their citizens: the credit of a large-minded patriotism rests
-prominently upon them.</p>
-
-<p>But if this Sacred War itself is a proof that the Pan-Hellenic
-spirit was growing stronger, the positive result in which it ended
-reinforced that spirit still farther. The spoils of Kirrha were
-employed by the victorious allies in founding the Pythian games.
-The octennial festival hitherto celebrated at Delphi in honor of
-the god, including no other competition except in the harp and the
-pæan, was expanded into comprehensive games on the model of the
-Olympic, with matches not only of music, but also of gymnastics and
-chariots,—celebrated, not at Delphi itself, but on the maritime
-plain near the ruined Kirrha,—and under the direct superintendence
-of the Amphiktyons themselves. I have already mentioned that Solon
-provided large rewards for such Athenians as gained victories in
-the Olympic and Isthmian games, thereby indicating his sense of the
-great value of the national games as a means of promoting Hellenic
-intercommunion. It was the same feeling which instigated the
-foundation of the new games on the Kirrhæan plain, in commemoration
-of the vindicated honor of Apollo, and in the territory newly made
-over to him. They were celebrated in the latter half of summer,
-or first half of every third Olympic year,—the Amphiktyons being
-the ostensible agonothets, or administrators, and appointing
-persons to discharge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[p.
-64]</span> the duty in their names.<a id="FNanchor_120"
-href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a> At the first Pythian
-ceremony (in 586 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), valuable rewards
-were given to the different victors; at the second (582
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), nothing was conferred but wreaths
-of laurel,—the rapidly attained celebrity of the games being such
-as to render any farther reward superfluous. The Sikyonian despot
-Kleisthenês himself, one of the leaders in the conquest of Kirrha,
-gained the prize at the chariot-race of the second Pythia. We find
-other great personages in Greece frequently mentioned as competitors,
-and the games long maintained a dignity second only to the Olympic,
-over which, indeed, they had some advantages; first, that they
-were not abused for the purpose of promoting petty jealousies and
-antipathies of any administering state, as the Olympic games were
-perverted by the Eleians, on more than one occasion; next, that
-they comprised music and poetry as well as bodily display. From
-the circumstances attending their foundation, the Pythian games
-deserved, even more than the Olympic, the title bestowed on them by
-Demosthenês,—“The common Agôn of the Greeks.”<a id="FNanchor_121"
-href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[p. 65]</span>The Olympic
-and Pythian games continued always to be the most venerated
-solemnities in Greece: yet the Nemea and Isthmia acquired a
-celebrity not much inferior; the Olympic prize counting for
-the highest of all.<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122"
-class="fnanchor">[122]</a> Both the Nemea and the Isthmia were
-distinguished from the other two festivals by occurring, not once
-in four years, but once in two years; the former in the second
-and fourth years of each Olympiad, the latter in the first and
-third years. To both is assigned, according to Greek custom, an
-origin connected with the interesting persons and circumstances
-of Grecian antiquity: but our historical knowledge of both begins
-with the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> The
-first historical Nemead is presented as belonging to Olympiad 52
-or 53 (572-568 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), a few years
-subsequent to the Sacred War above mentioned and to the origin of
-the Pythia. The festival was celebrated in honor of the Nemean
-Zeus, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Kleônæ,—and
-originally by the Kleônæans themselves, until, at some period after
-460 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, the Argeians deprived them of that
-honor and assumed the honors of administration to themselves.<a
-id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a>
-The Nemean games had their Hellanodikæ<a id="FNanchor_124"
-href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> to superintend,
-to keep order, and to distribute the prizes, as well as the
-Olympic. Respecting the Isthmian festival, our first historical
-information is a little earlier, for it has already been
-stated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[p. 66]</span> that
-Solon conferred a premium upon every Athenian citizen who gained
-a prize at that festival as well as at the Olympian,—in or after
-594 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> It was celebrated by the
-Corinthians at their isthmus, in honor of Poseidôn; and if we may
-draw any inference from the legends respecting its foundation,
-which is ascribed sometimes to Theseus, the Athenians appear to
-have identified it with the antiquities of their own state.<a
-id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[p. 67]</span>We thus
-perceive that the interval between 600-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-exhibits the first historical manifestation of the Pythia, Isthmia,
-and Nemea,—the first expansion of all the three from local into
-Pan-Hellenic festivals. To the Olympic games, for some time the only
-great centre of union among all the widely dispersed Greeks, are now
-added three other sacred agônes of the like public, open, national
-character; constituting visible marks, as well as tutelary bonds,
-of collective Hellenism, and insuring to every Greek who went to
-compete in the matches, a safe and inviolate transit even through
-hostile Hellenic states.<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126"
-class="fnanchor">[126]</a> These four, all in or near Peloponnesus,
-and one of which occurred in each year, formed the period, or
-cycle, of sacred games, and those who had gained prizes at all
-the four received the enviable designation of periodonikes:<a
-id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a>
-the honors paid to Olympic victors on their return to their
-native city were prodigious, even in the sixth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and became even more extravagant
-afterwards. We may remark that in the Olympic games alone, the
-oldest as well as the most illustrious of the four, the musical
-and intellectual element was wanting: all the three more recent
-agônes included crowns for exercises of music and poetry, along with
-gymnastics, chariots, and horses.</p>
-
-<p>Nor was it only in the distinguishing national stamp set upon
-these four great festivals that the gradual increase of Hellenic
-family-feeling exhibited itself, during the course of this earliest
-period of our history. Pursuant to the same tendencies, religious
-festivals in all the considerable towns gradually became more and
-more open and accessible, and attracted guests as well as<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[p. 68]</span> competitors from beyond
-the border; the dignity of the state, as well as the honor rendered
-to the presiding god, being measured by numbers, admiration,
-and envy, in the frequenting visitors.<a id="FNanchor_128"
-href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a> There is no positive
-evidence, indeed, of such expansion in the Attic festivals earlier
-than the reign of Peisistratus, who first added the quadrennial or
-greater Panathenæa to the ancient annual or lesser Panathenæa; nor
-can we trace the steps of progress in regard to Thebes, Orchomenus,
-Thespiæ, Megara, Sikyôn, Pellênê, Ægina, Argos, etc., but we find
-full reason for believing that such was the general reality. Of the
-Olympic or Isthmian victors whom Pindar and Simonidês celebrated,
-many derived a portion of their renown from previous victories
-acquired at several of these local contests,<a id="FNanchor_129"
-href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a>—victories sometimes
-so numerous, as to prove how wide-spread the habit of mutual
-frequentation had become;<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130"
-class="fnanchor">[130]</a> though we find, even in the third century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, treaties of alliance between
-different cities, in which it is thought necessary to confer this
-mutual right by express stipulation. Temptation was offered, to the
-distinguished gymnastic or musical competitors, by prizes of great
-value; and Timæus even asserted, as a proof of the overweening pride
-of Kroton and Sybaris, that these cities tried to supplant the
-preëminence of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[p. 69]</span>
-Olympic games, by instituting games of their own with the richest
-prizes, to be celebrated at the same time,<a id="FNanchor_131"
-href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a>—a statement in itself
-not worthy of credit, but nevertheless illustrating the animated
-rivalry known to prevail among the Grecian cities in procuring for
-themselves splendid and crowded games. At the time when the Homeric
-Hymn to Dêmêtêr was composed, the worship of that goddess seems to
-have been purely local at Eleusis; but before the Persian war, the
-festival celebrated by the Athenians every year, in honor of the
-Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, admitted Greeks of all cities to be initiated,
-and was attended by vast crowds of them.<a id="FNanchor_132"
-href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a></p>
-
-<p>It was thus that the simplicity and strict local application
-of the primitive religious festival, among the greater states in
-Greece, gradually expanded, on certain great occasions periodically
-recurring, into an elaborate and regulated series of exhibitions,—not
-merely admitting, but soliciting the fraternal presence of all
-Hellenic spectators. In this respect Sparta seems to have formed
-an exception to the remaining states: her festivals were for
-herself alone, and her general rudeness towards other Greeks was
-not materially softened even at the Karneia,<a id="FNanchor_133"
-href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> or Hyakinthia, or
-Gymnopædiæ. On the other hand, the Attic Dionysia were gradually
-exalted, from their original rude spontaneous outburst of
-village<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[p. 70]</span> feeling
-in thankfulness to the god, followed by song, dance, and revelry
-of various kinds,—into costly and diversified performances,
-first, by a trained chorus, next, by actors superadded to it;<a
-id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a>
-and the dramatic compositions thus produced, as they embodied
-the perfection of Grecian art, so they were eminently calculated
-to invite a Pan-Hellenic audience and to encourage the sentiment
-of Hellenic unity. The dramatic literature of Athens, however,
-belongs properly to a later period; previous to the year 560
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, we see only those commencements
-of innovation which drew upon Thespis<a id="FNanchor_135"
-href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> the rebuke of Solon,
-who himself contributed to impart to the Panathenaic festival a more
-solemn and attractive character, by checking the license of the
-rhapsodes, and insuring to those present a full, orderly recital of
-the Iliad.</p>
-
-<p>The sacred games and festivals, here alluded to as a class,
-took hold of the Greek mind by so great a variety of feelings,<a
-id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>
-as to counterbalance in a high degree the political disseverance,
-and to keep alive among their wide-spread cities, in the midst of
-constant jealousy and frequent quarrel, a feeling of brotherhood
-and congenial sentiment such as must otherwise have died away.
-The Theôrs, or sacred envoys, who came to Olympia or Delphi from
-so many different points, all sacrificed to the same god and at
-the same altar, witnessed the same sports, and contributed by
-their donatives to enrich or adorn one respected scene. Nor must
-we forget that the festival afforded opportunity for a sort<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[p. 71]</span> of fair, including much
-traffic amid so large a mass of spectators,<a id="FNanchor_137"
-href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a> and besides the
-exhibitions of the games themselves, there were recitations and
-lectures in a spacious council-room for those who chose to listen
-to them, by poets, rhapsodes, philosophers, and historians,—among
-which last, the history of Herodotus is said to have been publicly
-read by its author.<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138"
-class="fnanchor">[138]</a> Of the wealthy and great men in the
-various cities, many contended simply for the chariot victories
-and horse victories. But there were others whose ambition was
-of a character more strictly personal, and who stripped naked
-as runners, wrestlers, boxers, or pankratiasts, having gone
-through the extreme fatigue of a complete previous training.
-Kylon, whose unfortunate attempt to usurp the sceptre at Athens
-has been recounted, had gained the prize in the Olympic stadium:
-Alexander son of Amyntas, the prince of Macedon, had run for it.<a
-id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>
-The great family of the Diagoridæ at Rhodes,<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_72">[p. 72]</span> who furnished magistrates and generals
-to their native city, supplied a still greater number of successful
-boxers and pankratiasts at Olympia, while other instances also occur
-of generals named by various cities from the lists of successful
-Olympic gymnasts; and the odes of Pindar, always dearly purchased,
-attest how many of the great and wealthy were found in that list.<a
-id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a>
-The perfect popularity and equality of persons at these great
-games, is a feature not less remarkable than the exact adherence to
-predetermined rule, and the self-imposed submission of the immense
-crowd to a handful of servants armed with sticks,<a id="FNanchor_141"
-href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> who executed the
-orders of the Eleian Hellanodikæ. The ground upon which the ceremony
-took place, and even the territory of the administering state, was
-protected by a “Truce of God,” during the month of the festival,
-the commencement of which was formally announced by heralds sent
-round to the different states. Treaties of peace between different
-cities were often formally commemorated by pillars there erected,
-and the general impression of the scene suggested nothing but
-ideas of peace and brotherhood among Greeks.<a id="FNanchor_142"
-href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> And I may<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[p. 73]</span> remark that the
-impression of the games as belonging to all Greeks, and to none but
-Greeks, was stronger and clearer during the interval between 600-300
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, than it came to be afterwards.
-For the Macedonian conquests had the effect of diluting and
-corrupting Hellenism, by spreading an exterior varnish of Hellenic
-tastes and manners over a wide area of incongruous foreigners, who
-were incapable of the real elevation of the Hellenic character; so
-that although in later times the games continued undiminished, both
-in attraction and in number of visitors, the spirit of Pan-Hellenic
-communion, which had once animated the scene, was gone forever.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_29">
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIX.<br />
- LYRIC POETRY. — THE SEVEN WISE MEN.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">The</span> interval between
-776-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> presents to us a remarkable
-expansion of Grecian genius in the creation of their elegiac,
-iambic, lyric, choric, and gnomic poetry, which was diversified
-in a great many ways and improved by many separate masters. The
-creators of all these different styles—from Kallinus and Archilochus
-down to Stesichorus—fall within the two centuries here included;
-though Pindar and Simonidês, “the proud and high-crested bards,”<a
-id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a>
-who carried lyric and choric poetry to the maximum of elaboration
-consistent with full poetical effect, lived in the succeeding
-century, and were contemporary with the tragedian Æschylus. The
-Grecian drama, comic as well as tragic, of the fifth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, combined the lyric and choric song<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[p. 74]</span> with the living action of
-iambic dialogue,—thus constituting the last ascending movement in the
-poetical genius of the race. Reserving this for a future time, and
-for the history of Athens, to which it more particularly belongs, I
-now propose to speak only of the poetical movement of the two earlier
-centuries, wherein Athens had little or no part. So scanty are the
-remnants, unfortunately, of these earlier poets, that we can offer
-little except criticisms borrowed at second-hand, and a few general
-considerations on their workings and tendency.<a id="FNanchor_144"
-href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a></p>
-
-<p>Archilochus and Kallinus both appear to fall about the middle of
-the seventh century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and it is with
-them that the innovations in Grecian poetry commence. Before them, we
-are told, there existed nothing but the epos, or daktylic hexameter
-poetry, of which much has been said in my former volume,—being
-legendary stories or adventures narrated, together with addresses or
-hymns to the gods. We must recollect, too, that this was not only the
-whole poetry, but the whole literature of the age: prose composition
-was altogether unknown, and writing, if beginning to be employed as
-an aid to a few superior men, was at any rate generally unused, and
-found no reading public. The voice was the only communicant, and
-the ear the only recipient, of all those ideas and feelings which
-productive minds in the community found themselves impelled to pour
-out; both voice and ear being accustomed to a musical recitation,
-or chant, apparently something between song and speech, with simple
-rhythm and a still simpler occasional accompaniment from the
-primitive four-stringed harp. Such habits and requirements of the
-voice and ear were, at that time, inseparably associated with the
-success and popularity of the poet, and contributed doubtless to
-restrict the range of subjects with which he could deal. The<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[p. 75]</span> type was to a certain
-extent consecrated, like the primitive statues of the gods, from
-which men only ventured to deviate by gradual and almost unconscious
-innovations. Moreover, in the first half of the seventh century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, that genius which had once created
-an Iliad and an Odyssey was no longer to be found, and the work
-of hexameter narrative had come to be prosecuted by less gifted
-persons,—by those Cyclic poets of whom I have spoken in the preceding
-volumes.</p>
-
-<p>Such, as far as we can make it out amidst very uncertain evidence,
-was the state of the Greek mind immediately before elegiac and lyric
-poets appeared; while at the same time its experience was enlarging
-by the formation of new colonies, and the communion among its various
-states tended to increase by the freer reciprocity of religious games
-and festivals. There arose a demand for turning the literature of the
-age—I use this word as synonymous with the poetry—to new feelings and
-purposes, and for applying the rich, plastic, and musical language of
-the old epic, to present passion and circumstance, social as well as
-individual. Such a tendency had become obvious in Hesiod, even within
-the range of hexameter verse; but the same causes which led to an
-enlargement of the subjects of poetry inclined men also to vary the
-metre.</p>
-
-<p>In regard to this latter point, there is reason to believe that
-the expansion of Greek music was the immediate determining cause; for
-it has been already stated that the musical scale and instruments
-of the Greeks, originally very narrow, were materially enlarged
-by borrowing from Phrygia and Lydia, and these acquisitions seem
-to have been first realized about the beginning of the seventh
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, through the Lesbian harper
-Terpander,—the Phrygian (or Greco-Phrygian) flute-player Olympus,—and
-the Arkadian or Bœotian flute-player Klonas. Terpander made the
-important advance of exchanging the original four-stringed harp for
-one of seven strings, embracing the compass of one octave or two
-Greek tetrachords, and Olympus as well as Klonas taught many new
-nomes, or tunes, on the flute, to which the Greeks had before been
-strangers,—probably also the use of a flute of more varied musical
-compass. Terpander is said to have gained the prize at the first
-recorded celebration of the Lacedæmonian festival of the Karneia,
-in 676<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[p. 76]</span>
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: this is one of the best-ascertained
-points among the obscure chronology of the seventh century; and there
-seem grounds for assigning Olympus and Klonas to nearly the same
-period, a little before Archilochus and Kallinus.<a id="FNanchor_145"
-href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> To Terpander,
-Olympus, and Klonas, are ascribed the formation of the earliest
-musical nomes known to the inquiring Greeks of later times: to the
-first, nomes on the harp; to the two latter, on the flute,—every
-nome being the general scheme, or basis, of which the airs actually
-performed constituted so many variations, within certain<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[p. 77]</span> defined limits.<a
-id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a>
-Terpander employed his enlarged instrumental power as a new
-accompaniment to the Homeric poems, as well as to certain epic
-proœmia or hymns to the gods of his own composition. But he does
-not seem to have departed from the hexameter verse and the daktylic
-rhythm, to which the new accompaniment was probably not quite
-suitable; and the idea may thus have been suggested of combining the
-words also according to new rhythmical and metrical laws.</p>
-
-<p>It is certain, at least, that the age (670-600) immediately
-succeeding Terpander,—comprising Archilochus, Kallinus, Tyrtæus, and
-Alkman, whose relations of time one to another we have no certain
-means of determining,<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147"
-class="fnanchor">[147]</a> though Alkman seems to have been the
-latest,—presents a remarkable variety both of new metres and of
-new rhythms, superinduced upon the previ<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_78">[p. 78]</span>ous daktylic hexameter. The first
-departure from this latter is found in the elegiac verse, employed
-seemingly more or less by all the four above-mentioned poets,
-but chiefly by the first two, and even ascribed by some to the
-invention of Kallinus. Tyrtæus in his military march-songs employed
-the anapæstic metre, but in Archilochus as well as in Alkman we
-find traces of a much larger range of metrical variety,—iambic,
-trochaic, anapæstic, ionic, etc.,—sometimes even asynartetic or
-compound metres, anapæstic or daktylic, blended with trochaic or
-iambic. What we have remaining from Mimnermus, who comes about the
-close of the preceding four, is elegiac; his contemporaries Alkæus
-and Sappho, besides employing most of those metres which they found
-existing, invented each a peculiar stanza of their own, which is
-familiarly known under a name derived from each. In Solon, the
-younger contemporary of Mimnermus, we have the elegiac, iambic, and
-trochaic: in Theognis, yet later, the elegiac only. But both Arion
-and Stesichorus appear to have been innovators in this department,
-the former by his improvement in the dithyrambic chorus or circular
-song and dance in honor of Dionysus,—the latter by his more elaborate
-choric compositions, containing not only a strophê and antistrophê,
-but also a third division or epode succeeding them, pronounced by the
-chorus standing still. Both Anakreon and Ibykus likewise added to the
-stock of existing metrical varieties. And we thus see that, within
-the century and a half succeeding Terpander, Greek poetry (or Greek
-literature, which was then the same thing) became greatly enriched in
-matter as well as diversified in form.</p>
-
-<p>To a certain extent there seems to have been a real connection
-between the two: new forms were essential for the expression of
-new wants and feelings,—though the assertion that elegiac metre is
-especially adapted for one set of feelings,<a id="FNanchor_148"
-href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a> trochaic for<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[p. 79]</span> a second, and iambic for
-a third, if true at all, can only be admitted with great latitude of
-exception, when we find so many of them employed by the poets for
-very different subjects,—gay or melancholy, bitter or complaining,
-earnest or sprightly,—seemingly with little discrimination.</p>
-
-<p>But the adoption of some new metre, different from the perpetual
-series of hexameters, was required when the poet desired to do
-something more than recount a long story or fragment of heroic
-legend,—when he sought to bring himself, his friends, his enemies,
-his city, his hopes and fears with regard to matters recent or
-impending, all before the notice of the hearer, and that, too, at
-once with brevity and animation. The Greek hexameter, like our blank
-verse, has all its limiting conditions bearing upon each separate
-line, and presents to the hearer no predetermined resting-place
-or natural pause beyond.<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149"
-class="fnanchor">[149]</a> In reference to any long composition,
-either epic or dramatic, such unrestrained license is found
-convenient, and the case was similar for Greek epos and drama,—the
-single-lined iambic trimeter being generally used for the dialogue
-of tragedy and comedy, just as the daktylic hexameter had been
-used for the epic. The metrical changes introduced by Archilochus
-and his contemporaries may be compared to a change from our blank
-verse to the rhymed couplet and quatrain: the verse was thrown into
-little systems of two, three, or four lines, with a pause at the
-end of each; and the halt thus assured to, as well as expected and
-relished by, the ear, was generally coincident with a close, entire
-or partial,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[p. 80]</span> in
-the sense, which thus came to be distributed with greater point and
-effect. The elegiac verse, or common hexameter and pentameter (this
-second line being an hexameter with the third and sixth thesis,<a
-id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a>
-or the last half of the third and sixth foot, suppressed, and a
-pause left in place of it), as well as the epode (or iambic trimeter
-followed by an iambic dimeter) and some other binary combinations
-of verse which we trace among the fragments of Archilochus, are
-conceived with a view to such increase of effect both on the ear
-and the mind, not less than to the direct pleasures of novelty and
-variety.</p>
-
-<p>The iambic metre, built upon the primitive iambus, or coarse
-and licentious jesting,<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151"
-class="fnanchor">[151]</a> which formed a part of some Grecian<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[p. 81]</span> festivals (especially
-of the festivals of Dêmêtêr as well in Attica as in Paros, the
-native country of the poet), is only one amongst many new paths
-struck out by his inventive genius; whose exuberance astonishes
-us, when we consider that he takes his start from little more than
-the simple hexameter,<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152"
-class="fnanchor">[152]</a> in which, too, he was a distinguished
-composer,—for even of the elegiac verse he is as likely to have been
-the inventor as Kallinus, just as he was the earliest popular and
-successful composer of table-songs, or Skolia, though Terpander may
-have originated some such before him. The entire loss of his poems,
-excepting some few fragments, enables us to recognize little more
-than one characteristic,—the intense personality which pervaded
-them, as well as that coarse, direct, and out-spoken license,
-which afterwards lent such terrible effect to the old comedy at
-Athens. His lampoons are said to have driven Lykambês, the father
-of Neobulê, to hang himself: the latter had been promised to
-Archilochus in marriage, but that promise was broken, and the poet
-assailed both father and daughter with every species of calumny.<a
-id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a>
-In addition to this disappointment, he was poor, the son of
-a slave-mother, and an exile from his country, Paros, to the
-unpromising colony of Thasos. The desultory notices respecting
-him betray a state of suffering combined with loose conduct which
-vented itself sometimes in complaint, sometimes in libellous
-assault; and he was at last slain by some whom his muse had thus
-exasperated. His extraordinary poetical genius finds but one voice
-of encomium throughout antiquity. His triumphal song to Hêra<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[p. 82]</span>klês was still popularly
-sung by the victors at Olympia, near two centuries after his death,
-in the days of Pindar; but that majestic and complimentary poet at
-once denounces the malignity, and attests the retributive suffering,
-of the great Parian iambist.<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154"
-class="fnanchor">[154]</a></p>
-
-<p>Amidst the multifarious veins in which Archilochus displayed
-his genius, moralizing or gnomic poetry is not wanting, while
-his contemporary Simonides, of Amorgos, devotes the iambic metre
-especially to this destination, afterwards followed out by Solon
-and Theognis. But Kallinus, the earliest celebrated elegiac poet,
-so far as we can judge from his few fragments, employed the elegiac
-metre for exhortations of warlike patriotism; and the more ample
-remains which we possess of Tyrtæus are sermons in the same strain,
-preaching to the Spartans bravery against the foe, and unanimity as
-well as obedience to the law at home. They are patriotic effusions,
-called forth by the circumstances of the time, and sung by single
-voice, with accompaniment of the flute,<a id="FNanchor_155"
-href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a> to those in whose
-bosoms the flame of courage was to be kindled. For though what we
-peruse is in verse, we are still in the tide of real and present
-life, and we must suppose ourselves rather listening to an orator
-addressing the citizens when danger or dissension is actually
-impending. It is only in the hands of Mimnermus that elegiac verse
-comes to be devoted to soft and amatory subjects. His few fragments
-present a vein of passive and tender sentiment, illustrated by
-appropriate matter of legend, such as would be cast into poetry in
-all ages, and quite different from the rhetoric of Kallinus and
-Tyrtæus.</p>
-
-<p>The poetical career of Alkman is again distinct from that of
-any of his above-mentioned contemporaries. Their compositions,
-besides hymns to the gods, were principally expressions of feeling
-intended to be sung by individuals, though sometimes also suited
-for the kômus, or band of festive volunteers, assembled on some
-occasion of common interest: those of Alkman were principally
-choric, intended for the song and accompanying dance of<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[p. 83]</span> the chorus. He was
-a native of Sardis in Lydia, or at least his family were so;
-and he appears to have come in early life to Sparta, though his
-genius and mastery of the Greek language discountenance the story
-that he was brought over to Sparta as a slave. The most ancient
-arrangement of music at Sparta, generally ascribed to Terpander,<a
-id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a>
-underwent considerable alteration, not only through the elegiac and
-anapæstic measures of Tyrtæus, but also through the Kretan Thalêtas
-and the Lydian Alkman. The harp, the instrument of Terpander, was
-rivalled and in part superseded by the flute or pipe, which had been
-recently rendered more effective in the hands of Olympus, Klonas, and
-Polymnêstus, and which gradually became, for compositions intended
-to raise strong emotion, the favorite instrument of the two,—being
-employed as accompaniment both to the elegies of Tyrtæus, and to the
-hyporchemata (songs, or hymns, combined with dancing) of Thalêtas;
-also, as the stimulus and regulator to the Spartan military march.<a
-id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a></p>
-
-<p>These elegies (as has been just remarked) were sung by one
-person, in the midst of an assembly of listeners, and there were
-doubtless other compositions intended for the individual voice.
-But in general such was not the character of music and poetry at
-Sparta; everything done there, both serious and recreative, was
-public and collective, so that the chorus and its performances
-received extraordinary development. It has been already stated,
-that the chorus usually, with song and dance combined, constituted
-an important part of divine service throughout all Greece, and
-was originally a public manifestation of the citizens gener<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[p. 84]</span>ally,—a large proportion
-of them being actively engaged in it,<a id="FNanchor_158"
-href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> and receiving some
-training for the purpose as an ordinary branch of education. Neither
-the song nor the dance, under such conditions, could be otherwise
-than extremely simple. But in process of time, the performance at the
-chief festivals tended to become more elaborate, and to fall into
-the hands of persons expressly and professionally trained,—the mass
-of the citizens gradually ceasing to take active part, and being
-present merely as spectators. Such was the practice which grew up in
-most parts of Greece, and especially at Athens, where the dramatic
-chorus acquired its highest perfection. But the drama never found
-admission at Sparta, and the peculiarity of Spartan life tended much
-to keep up the popular chorus on its ancient footing. It formed, in
-fact, one element in that never-ceasing drill to which the Spartans
-were subject from their boyhood, and it served a purpose analogous
-to their military training, in accustoming them to simultaneous
-and regulated movement,—insomuch that the comparison between the
-chorus, especially in its Pyrrhic, or war-dances, and the military
-enomoty, seems to have been often dwelt upon.<a id="FNanchor_159"
-href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> In the singing of the
-solemn pæan in honor of Apollo, at the festival of the Hyakinthia,
-king Agesilaus was under the orders of the chorus-master, and sang in
-the place allotted to him;<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160"
-class="fnanchor">[160]</a> while the whole body of Spartans without
-exception,—the old,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[p. 85]</span>
-the middle-aged, and the youth, the matrons, and the virgins,—were
-distributed in various choric companies,<a id="FNanchor_161"
-href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> and trained to
-harmony both of voice and motion, which was publicly exhibited at the
-solemnities of the Gymnopædiæ. The word <i>dancing</i> must be understood
-in a larger sense than that in which it is now employed, and as
-comprising every variety of rhythmical, accentuated, conspiring
-movements, or gesticulations, or postures of the body, from the
-slowest to the quickest;<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162"
-class="fnanchor">[162]</a> cheironomy, or the decorous and expressive
-movement of the hands, being especially practised.</p>
-
-<p>We see thus that both at Sparta and in Krête (which approached
-in respect to publicity of individual life most nearly to Sparta),
-the choric aptitudes and manifestations occupied a larger space
-than in any other Grecian city. And as a certain degree of
-musical and rhythmical variety was essential to meet this want,<a
-id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a>
-while music was never taught to Spartan citizens individually,—we
-farther understand how strangers like Terpander, Polymnêstus,
-Thalêtas, Tyrtæus, Alkman, etc., were not only received, but acquired
-great influence at Sparta, in spite of the preponderant spirit
-of jealous seclusion in the Spartan character. All these masters
-appear to have been effective in their own special vocation,—the
-training of the chorus,—to which they imparted new rhythmical
-action, and for which they composed new music. But Alkman did
-this, and something more; he possessed the genius of a poet,
-and his compositions were read afterwards<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_86">[p. 86]</span> with pleasure by those who could not
-hear them sung or see them danced. In the little of his poems which
-remains, we recognize that variety of rhythm and metre for which
-he was celebrated. In this respect he (together with the Kretan
-Thalêtas, who is said to have introduced a more vehement style both
-of music and dance, with the Kretic and Pæonic rhythm, into Sparta<a
-id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a>)
-surpassed Archilochus, and prepared the way for the complicated
-choric movements of Stesichorus and Pindar: some of the fragments,
-too, manifest that fresh outpouring of individual sentiment and
-emotion which constitutes so much of the charm of popular poetry.
-Besides his touching address in old age to the Spartan virgins,
-over whose song and dance he had been accustomed to preside.—he is
-not afraid to speak of his hearty appetite, satisfied with simple
-food and relishing a bowl of warm broth at the winter tropic.<a
-id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a>
-And he has attached to the spring an epithet, which comes home to
-the real feelings of a poor country more than those captivating
-pictures which abound in verse, ancient as well as modern: he calls
-it “the season of short fare,”—the crop of the previous year being
-then nearly consumed, the husbandman is compelled to pinch himself
-until his new harvest comes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[p.
-87]</span> in.<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166"
-class="fnanchor">[166]</a> Those who recollect that in earlier
-periods of our history, and in all countries where there is little
-accumulated stock, an exorbitant difference is often experienced in
-the price of corn before and after the harvest, will feel the justice
-of Alkman’s description.</p>
-
-<p>Judging from these and from a few other fragments of this
-poet, Alkman appears to have combined the life and exciting vigor
-of Archilochus in the song properly so called, sung by himself
-individually,—with a larger knowledge of musical and rhythmical
-effect in regard to the choric performance. He composed in the
-Laconian dialect,—a variety of the Doric with some intermixture of
-Æolisms. And it was from him, jointly with those other composers
-who figured at Sparta during the century after Terpander, as
-well as from the simultaneous development of the choric muse<a
-id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a>
-in Argos, Sikyôn, Arcadia, and other parts of Peloponnesus, that
-the Doric dialect acquired permanent footing in Greece, as the only
-proper dialect for choric compositions. Continued by Stesichorus
-and Pindar, this habit passed even to the Attic dramatists, whose
-choric songs are thus in a great measure Doric, while their dialogue
-is Attic. At Sparta, as well as in other parts of Peloponnesus,<a
-id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> the
-musical and rhythmical style appears to have been fixed by Alkman
-and his contemporaries, and to have been tenaciously maintained,
-for two or three centuries, with little or no innovation; the more
-so, as the flute-players at Sparta formed an hereditary profession,
-who followed the routine of their fathers.<a id="FNanchor_169"
-href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[p. 88]</span>Alkman was
-the last poet who addressed himself to the popular chorus. Both
-Arion and Stesichorus composed for a body of trained men, with a
-degree of variety and involution such as could not be attained by a
-mere fraction of the people. The primitive dithyrambus was a round
-choric dance and song in honor of Dionysus,<a id="FNanchor_170"
-href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> common to Naxos,
-Thebes, and seemingly to many other places, at the Dionysiac
-festival,—a spontaneous effusion of drunken men in the hour of
-revelry, wherein the poet Archilochus, “with the thunder of wine full
-upon his mind,” had often taken the chief part.<a id="FNanchor_171"
-href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> Its exciting
-character approached to the worship of the Great Mother in Asia,
-and stood in contrast with the solemn and stately pæan addressed to
-Apollo. Arion introduced into it an alteration such as Archilochus
-had himself brought about in the scurrilous iambus. He converted
-it into an elaborate composition in honor of the god, sung and
-danced by a chorus of fifty persons, not only sober, but trained
-with great strictness; though its rhythm and movements, and its
-equipment in the character of satyrs, presented more or less an
-imitation of the primitive license. Born at Methymna in Lesbos,
-Arion appears as a harper, singer, and composer, much favored by
-Periander at Corinth, in which city he first “composed, denominated,
-and taught the dithyramb,” earlier than any one known to Herodotus.<a
-id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a>
-He did not, however, remain permanently there, but travelled from
-city to city, exhibiting at the festivals for money,—especially
-to Sicilian and Italian Greece, where he acquired large gains.
-We may here again remark how the poets as well as the festivals
-served to promote a sentiment of unity among the dispersed
-Greeks. Such transfer of the dithyramb, from the field<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[p. 89]</span> of spontaneous nature
-into the garden of art,<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173"
-class="fnanchor">[173]</a> constitutes the first stage in the
-refinement of Dionysiac worship; which will hereafter be found still
-farther exalted in the form of the Attic drama.</p>
-
-<p>The date of Arion seems about 600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-shortly after Alkman: that of Stesichorus is a few years later. To
-the latter the Greek chorus owed a high degree of improvement, and
-in particular the last finished distribution of its performance into
-the strophê, the antistrophê, and the epôdus: the turn, the return,
-and the rest,—the rhythm and metre of the song during each strophê
-corresponded with that during the antistrophê, but was varied during
-the epôdus, and again varied during the following strophês. Until
-this time the song had been monostrophic, consisting of nothing
-more than one uniform stanza, repeated from the beginning to the
-end of the composition;<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174"
-class="fnanchor">[174]</a> so that we may easily see how vast was
-the new complication and difficulty introduced by Stesichorus,—not
-less for the performers than for the composer, himself at that
-time the teacher and trainer of performers. Both this poet and his
-contemporary the flute-player Sakadas of Argos,—who gained the prize
-at the first three Pythian games founded after the Sacred War,—seem
-to have surpassed their predecessors in the breadth of subject
-which they embraced, borrowing from the inexhaustible province of
-ancient legend, and expanding the choric song into a well-sustained
-epical narrative.<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175"
-class="fnanchor">[175]</a> Indeed, these Pythian games opened a
-new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[p. 90]</span> career to
-musical composers just at the time when Sparta began to be closed
-against musical novelties.</p>
-
-<p>Alkæus and Sappho, both natives of Lesbos, appear about
-contemporaries with Arion, <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> 610-580.
-Of their once celebrated lyric compositions, scarcely anything
-remains. But the criticisms which are preserved on both of them place
-them in strong contrast with Alkman, who lived and composed under the
-more restrictive atmosphere of Sparta,—and in considerable analogy
-with the turbulent vehemence of Archilochus,<a id="FNanchor_176"
-href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a> though without
-his intense private malignity. Both composed for their own local
-audience, and in their own Lesbian Æolic dialect; not because there
-was any peculiar fitness in that dialect to express their vein
-of sentiment, but because it was more familiar to their hearers.
-Sappho herself boasts of the preëminence of the Lesbian bards;<a
-id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a>
-and the celebrity of Terpander, Perikleitas, and Arion, permits us
-to suppose that there may have been before her many popular bards
-in the island who did not attain to Hellenic celebrity. Alkæus
-included in his songs the fiercest bursts of political feeling,
-the stirring alternations of war and exile, and all the ardent
-relish of a susceptible man for wine and love.<a id="FNanchor_178"
-href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a> The love-song seems
-to have formed the principal theme of Sappho, who, however, also
-composed odes or songs<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179"
-class="fnanchor">[179]</a> on a great vari<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_91">[p. 91]</span>ety of other subjects, serious as well as
-satirical, and is said farther to have first employed the Mixolydian
-mode in music. It displays the tendency of the age to metrical and
-rhythmical novelty, that Alkæus and Sappho are said to have each
-invented the peculiar stanza, well-known under their respective
-names,—combinations of the dactyl, trochee, and iambus, analogous
-to the asynartetic verses of Archilochus; they by no means confined
-themselves, however, to Alkaic and Sapphic metre. Both the one
-and the other composed hymns to the gods; indeed, this is a theme
-common to all the lyric and choric poets, whatever may be their
-peculiarities in other ways. Most of their compositions were songs
-for the single voice, not for the chorus. The poetry of Alkæus is the
-more worthy of note, as it is the earliest instance of the employment
-of the Muse in actual political warfare, and shows the increased hold
-which that motive was acquiring on the Grecian mind.</p>
-
-<p>The gnomic poets, or moralists in verse, approach by the tone
-of their sentiments more to the nature of prose. They begin with
-Simonidês of Amorgos or of Samos, the contemporary of Archilochus:
-indeed, the latter himself devoted some compositions to the
-illustrative fable, which had not been unknown even to Hesiod.
-In the remains of Simonidês of Amorgos we trace nothing relative
-to the man personally, though he too, like Archilochus, is said
-to have had an individual enemy, Orodœkidês, whose character was
-aspersed by his muse.<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180"
-class="fnanchor">[180]</a> His only<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_92">[p. 92]</span> considerable poem extant is devoted to
-a survey of the characters of women, in iambic verse, and by way
-of comparison with various animals,—the mare, the ass, the bee,
-etc. It follows out the Hesiodic vein respecting the social and
-economical mischief usually caused by women, with some few honorable
-exceptions; but the poet shows a much larger range of observation
-and illustration, if we compare him with his predecessor Hesiod;
-moreover, his illustrations come fresh from life and reality. We find
-in this early iambist the same sympathy with industry and its due
-rewards which are observable in Hesiod, together with a still more
-melancholy sense of the uncertainty of human events.</p>
-
-<p>Of Solon and Theognis I have spoken in former chapters. They
-reproduce in part the moralizing vein of Simonidês, though with
-a strong admixture of personal feeling and a direct application
-to passing events. The mixture of political with social morality,
-which we find in both, marks their more advanced age: Solon bears
-in this respect the same relation to Simonidês, as his contemporary
-Alkæus bears to Archilochus. His poems, as far as we can judge
-by the fragments remaining, appear to have been short occasional
-effusions,—with the exception of the epic poem respecting the
-submerged island of Atlantis; which he began towards the close of
-his life, but never finished. They are elegiac, trimeter iambic, and
-trochaic tetrameter: in his hands certainly neither of these metres
-can be said to have any special or separate character. If the poems
-of Solon are short, those of Theognis are much shorter, and are
-indeed so much broken (as they stand in our present collection), as
-to read like separate epigrams or bursts of feeling, which the poet
-had not taken the trouble to incorporate in any definite scheme or
-series. They form a singular mixture of maxim and passion,—of general
-precept with personal affection towards the youth Kyrnus,—which
-surprises us if tried by the standard of literary composition, but
-which seems a very genuine manifestation of an impoverished exile’s
-complaints and restlessness. What remains to us of Phokylidês,
-another of the gnomic poets nearly contemporary with Solon, is
-nothing more than a few maxims in verse,—couplets, with the name of
-the author in several cases embodied in them.</p>
-
-<p>Amidst all the variety of rhythmical and metrical
-innovations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[p. 93]</span> which
-have been enumerated, the ancient epic continued to be recited by
-the rhapsodes as before, and some new epical compositions were added
-to the existing stock: Eugammon of Kyrênê, about the 50th Olympiad,
-(580 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) appears to be the last of
-the series. At Athens, especially, both Solon and Peisistratus
-manifested great solicitude as well for the recitation as for the
-correct preservation of the Iliad. Perhaps its popularity may have
-been diminished by the competition of so much lyric and choric
-poetry, more showy and striking in its accompaniments, as well as
-more changeful in its rhythmical character. Whatever secondary
-effect, however, this newer species of poetry may have derived from
-such helps, its primary effect was produced by real intellectual or
-poetical excellence,—by the thoughts, sentiment, and expression, not
-by the accompaniment. For a long time the musical composer and the
-poet continued generally to be one and the same person; and besides
-those who have acquired sufficient distinction to reach posterity,
-we cannot doubt that there were many known only to their own
-contemporaries. But with all of them the instrument and the melody
-constituted only the inferior part of that which was known by the
-name of music,—altogether subordinate to the “thoughts that breathe
-and words that burn.”<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181"
-class="fnanchor">[181]</a> Exactness and variety of rhythmical
-pronunciation gave to the latter their full effect upon a delicate
-ear; but such pleasure of the ear was ancillary to the emotion of
-mind arising out of the sense conveyed. Complaints are made by the
-poets, even so early as 500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, that
-the accompaniment was becoming too prominent. But it was not until
-the age of the comic poet Aristophanês, towards the end of the fifth
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, that the primitive relation
-between the instrumental accompaniment and the words was really
-reversed,—and loud were the complaints to which it gave rise;<a
-id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> the
-performance of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[p. 94]</span> the
-flute or harp then became more elaborate, showy, and overpowering,
-while the words were so put together as to show off the player’s
-execution. I notice briefly this subsequent revolution for the
-purpose of setting forth, by contrast, the truly intellectual
-character of the original lyric and choric poetry of Greece; and of
-showing how much the vague sentiment arising from mere musical sound
-was lost in the more definite emotion, and in the more lasting and
-reproductive combinations, generated by poetical meaning.</p>
-
-<p>The name and poetry of Solon, and the short maxims, or sayings,
-of Phokylidês, conduct us to the mention of the Seven Wise Men of
-Greece. Solon was himself one of the seven, and most if not all
-of them were poets, or composers in verse.<a id="FNanchor_183"
-href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> To most of them
-is ascribed also an abundance of pithy repartees, together with
-one short saying, or maxim, peculiar to each, serving as a sort
-of distinctive motto;<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184"
-class="fnanchor">[184]</a> indeed, the test of an accomplished
-man about this time was his talent for singing or reciting
-poetry, and for making smart and ready answers. Respecting this
-constellation of wise men,—who in the next cen<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_95">[p. 95]</span>tury of Grecian history, when philosophy
-came to be a matter of discussion and argumentation, were spoken of
-with great eulogy,—all the statements are confused, in part even
-contradictory. Neither the number, nor the names, are given by
-all authors alike. Dikæarchus numbered ten, Hermippus seventeen:
-the names of Solon the Athenian, Thalês the Milesian, Pittakus
-the Mitylenean, and Bias the Prienean, were comprised in all the
-lists,—and the remaining names as given by Plato<a id="FNanchor_185"
-href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> were, Kleobulus
-of Lindus in Rhodes, Myson of Chênæ, and Cheilon of Sparta. By
-others, however, the names are differently stated: nor can we
-certainly distribute among them the sayings, or mottoes, upon which
-in later days the Amphiktyons conferred the honor of inscription
-in the Delphian temple: Know thyself,—Nothing too much,—Know thy
-opportunity,—Suretyship is the precursor of ruin. Bias is praised
-as an excellent judge, and Myson was declared by the Delphian
-oracle to be the most discreet man among the Greeks, according to
-the testimony of the satirical poet Hippônax. This is the oldest
-testimony (540 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) which can be
-produced in favor of any of the seven; but Kleobulus of Lindus,
-far from being universally extolled, is pronounced by the poet
-Simonidês to be a fool.<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186"
-class="fnanchor">[186]</a> Dikæarchus, however, justly observed, that
-these seven or ten persons were not wise men, or philosophers, in the
-sense which those words bore in his day, but persons of practical
-discernment in reference to man and society,<a id="FNanchor_187"
-href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a>—of the same turn
-of mind as their con<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[p.
-96]</span>temporary the fabulist Æsop, though not employing the same
-mode of illustration. Their appearance forms an epoch in Grecian
-history, inasmuch as they are the first persons who ever acquired an
-Hellenic reputation grounded on mental competency apart from poetical
-genius or effect,—a proof that political and social prudence was
-beginning to be appreciated and admired on its own account. Solon,
-Pittakus, Bias, and Thalês, were all men of influence—the first two
-even men of ascendency,<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188"
-class="fnanchor">[188]</a>—in their respective cities. Kleobulus was
-despot of Lindus, and Periander (by some numbered among the seven) of
-Corinth. Thalês stands distinguished as the earliest name in physical
-philosophy, with which the other contemporary wise men are not said
-to have meddled; their celebrity rests upon moral, social, and
-political wisdom exclusively, which came into greater honor as the
-ethical feeling of the Greeks improved and as their experience became
-enlarged.</p>
-
-<p>In these celebrated names we have social philosophy in its early
-and infantine state,—in the shape of homely sayings or admonitions,
-either supposed to be self-evident, or to rest upon some great
-authority divine or human, but neither accompanied by reasons nor
-recognizing any appeal to inquiry and discussion as the proper
-test of their rectitude. From such unsuspecting acquiescence,
-the sentiment to which these admonitions owe their force, we are
-partially liberated even in the poet Simonidês of Keôs, who (as
-before alluded to) severely criticizes the song of Kleobulus as well
-as its author. The half-century which followed the age of Simonidês
-(the interval between about 480-430 B.&nbsp;C.) broke down that sentiment
-more and more, by familiarizing the public with argumentative
-controversy in the public assembly, the popular judicature, and
-even on the dramatic stage. And the increased self-working of the
-Grecian mind, thus created, manifested itself in Sokratês, who laid
-open all ethical and social doctrines to the scrutiny of reason,
-and who first awakened among his countrymen that love of dialectics
-which never left them,—an analytical interest in the mental process
-of inquiring out, verifying, proving, and expounding truth. To this
-capital item of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[p. 97]</span>
-human progress, secured through the Greeks—and through them only—to
-mankind generally, our attention will be called at a later period
-of the history; at present, it is only mentioned in contrast with
-the naked, dogmatical laconism of the Seven Wise Men, and with the
-simple enforcement of the early poets: a state in which morality has
-a certain place in the feelings,—but no root, even among the superior
-minds, in the conscious exercise of reason.</p>
-
-<p>The interval between Archilochus and Solon (660-580
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) seems, as has been remarked
-in my former volume, to be the period in which writing first
-came to be applied to Greek poems,—to the Homeric poems among
-the number; and shortly after the end of that period, commences
-the era of compositions without metre or prose. The philosopher
-Pherekydês of Syros, about 550 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, is
-called by some the earliest prose-writer; but no prose-writer for
-a considerable time afterwards acquired any celebrity,—seemingly
-none earlier than Hekatæus of Milêtus,<a id="FNanchor_189"
-href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> about 510-490
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—prose being a subordinate and
-ineffective species of composition, not always even perspicuous,
-but requiring no small practice before the power was acquired of
-rendering it interesting.<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190"
-class="fnanchor">[190]</a> Down to the generation preceding Sokratês,
-the poets continued to be the grand leaders of the Greek mind: until
-then, nothing was taught to youth except to read, to remember,
-to recite musically and rhythmically, and to comprehend poetical
-composition. The comments of preceptors, addressed to their pupils,
-may probably have become fuller and more instructive, but the text
-still continued to be epic or lyric poetry. We must recollect
-also that these poets, so enunciated, were the best masters for
-acquiring a full command of the complicated accent and rhythm of
-the Greek language,—essential to an educated man in ancient times,
-and sure to be detected if not properly acquired. Not to mention
-the Choliambist Hippônax, who seems to have been possessed with the
-devil of Archilochus, and in part also with his<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_98">[p. 98]</span> genius,—Anakreon, Ibykus, Pindar,
-Bacchylidês, Simonidês, and the dramatists of Athens, continue the
-line of eminent poets without intermission. After the Persian war,
-the requirements of public speaking created a class of rhetorical
-teachers, while the gradual spread of physical philosophy widened
-the range of instruction: so that prose composition, for speech or
-for writing, occupied a larger and larger share of the attention of
-men, and was gradually wrought up to high perfection, such as we see
-for the first time in Herodotus. But before it became thus improved,
-and acquired that style which was the condition of wide-spread
-popularity, we may be sure that it had been silently used as a
-means of recording information; and that neither the large mass of
-geographical matter contained in the Periegêsis of Hekatæus, nor the
-map first prepared by his contemporary, Anaximander, could have been
-presented to the world, without the previous labors of unpretending
-prose writers, who set down the mere results of their own experience.
-The acquisition of prose-writing, commencing as it does about the age
-of Peisistratus, is not less remarkable as an evidence of past, than
-as a means of future, progress.</p>
-
-<p>Of that splendid genius in sculpture and architecture, which shone
-forth in Greece after the Persian invasion, the first lineaments only
-are discoverable between 600-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-in Corinth, Ægina, Samos, Chios, Ephesus, etc.,—enough, however,
-to give evidence of improvement and progress. Glaukus of Chios is
-said to have discovered the art of welding iron, and Rhœkus, or
-his son Theodôrus of Samos, the art of casting copper or brass in
-a mould: both these discoveries, as far as can be made out, appear
-to date a little before 600 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small><a
-id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a>
-The primitive memorial,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[p.
-99]</span> erected in honor of a god, did not even pretend to be
-an image, but was often nothing more than a pillar, a board, a
-shapeless stone, a post, etc., fixed so as to mark and consecrate the
-locality, and receiving from the neighborhood respectful care and
-decoration, as well as worship. Sometimes there was a real statue,
-though of the rudest character, carved in wood; and the families
-of carvers,—who, from father to son, exercised this profession,
-represented in Attica by the name of Dædalus, and in the Ægina by
-the name of Smilis,—adhered long, with strict exactness, to the
-consecrated type of each particular god. Gradually, the wish grew
-up to change the material, as well as to correct the rudeness, of
-such primitive idols; sometimes the original wood was retained as
-the material, but covered in part with ivory or gold,—in other
-cases, marble or metal was substituted. Dipœnos and Skyllis of Krête
-acquired renown as workers in marble, about the 50th Olympiad (580
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), and from them downwards a series
-of names may be traced, more or less distinguished; moreover, it
-seems about the same period that the earliest temple-offerings,
-in works of art, properly so called, commence,—the golden statue
-of Zeus, and the large carved chest, dedicated by the Kypselids
-of Corinth at Olympia.<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192"
-class="fnanchor">[192]</a> The pious associations, however, connected
-with the old type were so strong, that the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_100">[p. 100]</span> hand of the artist was greatly
-restrained in dealing with statues of the gods. It was in statues of
-men, especially in those of the victors at Olympia and other sacred
-games, that genuine ideas of beauty were first aimed at and in part
-attained, from whence they passed afterwards to the statues of the
-gods. Such statues of the athletes seem to commence somewhere between
-Olympiad 53-58, (568-548 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>).</p>
-
-<p>Nor is it until the same interval of time (between 600-550
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) that we find any traces of these
-architectural monuments, by which the more important cities in
-Greece afterwards attracted to themselves so much renown. The
-two greatest temples in Greece known to Herodotus were, the
-Artemision at Ephesus, and the Heræon at Samos: the former of these
-seems to have been commenced, by the Samian Theodorus, about 600
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—the latter, begun by the Samian Rhœkus,
-can hardly be traced to any higher antiquity. The first attempts to
-decorate Athens by such additions proceeded from Peisistratus and his
-sons, near the same time. As far as we can judge, too, in the absence
-of all direct evidence, the temples of Pæstum in Italy and Selinus
-in Sicily seem to fall in this same century. Of painting, during
-these early centuries, nothing can be affirmed; it never at any time
-reached the same perfection as sculpture, and we may presume that its
-years of infancy were at least equally rude.</p>
-
-<p>The immense development of Grecian art subsequently, and the great
-perfection of Grecian artists, are facts of great importance in the
-history of the human race. And in regard to the Greeks themselves,
-they not only acted powerfully on the taste of the people, but were
-also valuable indirectly as the common boast of Hellenism, and as
-supplying one bond of fraternal sympathy as well as of mutual pride,
-among its widely-dispersed sections. It is the paucity and weakness
-of these bonds which renders the history of Greece, prior to 560
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, little better than a series of
-parallel, but isolated threads, each attached to a separate city; and
-that increased range of joint Hellenic feeling and action, upon which
-we shall presently enter, though arising doubtless in great measure
-from new and common dangers threatening many cities at once,—also
-springs in part from those other causes which have been enumerated in
-this chapter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[p. 101]</span> as
-acting on the Grecian mind. It proceeds from the stimulus applied to
-all the common feelings in religion, art, and recreation,—from the
-gradual formation of national festivals, appealing in various ways
-to tastes and sentiments which animated every Hellenic bosom,—from
-the inspirations of men of genius, poets, musicians, sculptors,
-architects, who supplied more or less in every Grecian city,
-education for the youth, training for the chorus, and ornament for
-the locality,—from the gradual expansion of science, philosophy, and
-rhetoric, during the coming period of this history, which rendered
-one city the intellectual capital of Greece, and brought to Isokratês
-and Plato pupils from the most distant parts of the Grecian world.
-It was this fund of common tastes, tendencies, and aptitudes, which
-caused the social atoms of Hellas to gravitate towards each other,
-and which enabled the Greeks to become something better and greater
-than an aggregate of petty disunited communities like the Thracians
-or Phrygians. And the creation of such common, extra-political
-Hellenism, is the most interesting phenomenon which the historian has
-to point out in the early period now under our notice. He is called
-upon to dwell upon it the more forcibly, because the modern reader
-has generally no idea of national union without political union,—an
-association foreign to the Greek mind. Strange as it may seem to find
-a song-writer put forward as an active instrument of union among
-his fellow-Hellens, it is not the less true, that those poets, whom
-we have briefly passed in review, by enriching the common language,
-and by circulating from town to town either in person or in their
-compositions, contributed to fan the flame of Pan-Hellenic patriotism
-at a time when there were few circumstances to coöperate with them,
-and when the causes tending to perpetuate isolation seemed in the
-ascendant.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_30">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[p. 102]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXX.<br />
- GRECIAN AFFAIRS DURING THE GOVERNMENT OF PEISISTRATUS AND&nbsp;HIS SONS AT ATHENS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">We now</span> arrive at what may
-be called the second period of Grecian history, beginning with the
-rule of Peisistratus at Athens and of Crœsus in Lydia.</p>
-
-<p>It has been already stated that Peisistratus made himself despot
-of Athens in 560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: he died in 527
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and was succeeded by his son
-Hippias, who was deposed and expelled in 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-thus making an entire space of fifty years between the
-first exaltation of the father and the final expulsion of the
-son. These chronological points are settled on good evidence: but
-the thirty-three years covered by the reign of Peisistratus are
-interrupted by two periods of exile,—one of them lasting not less
-than ten years,—the other, five years. And the exact place of
-the years of exile, being nowhere laid down upon authority, has
-been differently determined by the conjectures of chronologers.<a
-id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a>
-Partly from this half-known chronology, partly from a very scanty
-collection of facts, the history of the half-century now before
-us can only be given very imperfectly: nor can we wonder at our
-ignorance, when we find that even among the Athenians themselves,
-only a century afterwards, statements the most incorrect and
-contradictory respecting the Peisistratids were in circulation, as
-Thucydidês distinctly, and somewhat reproachfully, acquaints us.</p>
-
-<p>More than thirty years had now elapsed since the promulgation of
-the Solonian constitution, whereby the annual senate of Four Hundred
-had been created, and the public assembly (preceded in its action as
-well as aided and regulated by this senate) invested with a power
-of exacting responsibility from the magis<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_103">[p. 103]</span>trates after their year of office. The
-seeds of the subsequent democracy had thus been sown, and no doubt
-the administration of the archons had been practically softened by
-it; but nothing in the nature of a democratical sentiment had yet
-been created. A hundred years hence, we shall find that sentiment
-unanimous and potent among the enterprising masses of Athens and
-Peiræeus, and shall be called upon to listen to loud complaints of
-the difficulty of dealing with “that angry, waspish, intractable
-little old man, Dêmus of Pnyx,”—so Aristophanes<a id="FNanchor_194"
-href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a> calls the Athenian
-people to their faces, with a freedom which shows that <i>he</i> at
-least counted on their good temper. But between 560-510
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> the people are as passive in respect
-to political rights and securities as the most strenuous enemy
-of democracy could desire, and the government is transferred
-from hand to hand by bargains and cross-changes between two or
-three powerful men,<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195"
-class="fnanchor">[195]</a> at the head of partisans who echo their
-voices, espouse their personal quarrels, and draw the sword at their
-command. It was this ancient constitution—Athens as it stood before
-the Athenian democracy—which the Macedonian Antipater professed to
-restore in 322 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, when he caused
-the majority of the poorer citizens to be excluded altogether from
-the political franchise.<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196"
-class="fnanchor">[196]</a></p>
-
-<p>By the stratagem recounted in a former chapter,<a
-id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a>
-Peisistratus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[p. 104]</span>
-had obtained from the public assembly a guard which he had employed
-to acquire forcible possession of the acropolis. He thus became
-master of the administration; but he employed his power honorably
-and well, not disturbing the existing forms farther than was
-necessary to insure to himself full mastery. Nevertheless, we may
-see by the verses of Solon<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198"
-class="fnanchor">[198]</a> (the only contemporary evidence which we
-possess), that the prevalent sentiment was by no means favorable to
-his recent proceeding, and that there was in many minds a strong
-feeling both of terror and aversion, which presently manifested
-itself in the armed coalition of his two rivals,—Megaklês at the head
-of the Parali, or inhabitants of the sea-board, and Lykurgus at the
-head of those in the neighboring plain. As the conjunction of the two
-formed a force too powerful for Peisistratus to withstand, he was
-driven into exile, after no long possession of his despotism.</p>
-
-<p>But the time came, how soon we cannot tell, when the two rivals
-who had expelled him quarrelled, and Megaklês made propositions to
-Peisistratus, inviting him to resume the sovereignty, promising
-his own aid, and stipulating that Peisistratus should marry his
-daughter. The conditions being accepted, a plan was laid between
-the two new allies for carrying them into effect, by a novel
-stratagem,—since the simulated wounds and pretence of personal
-danger were not likely to be played off a second time with success.
-The two conspirators clothed a stately woman, six feet high, named
-Phyê, in the panoply and costume of Athênê,—surrounded her with the
-processional accompaniments belonging to the goddess,—and placed
-her in a chariot with Peisistratus by her side. In this guise the
-exiled despot and his adherents approached the city and drove up to
-the acropolis, preceded by heralds, who cried aloud to the people:
-“Athenians, receive ye cordially Peisistratus, whom Athênê has
-honored above all other men, and is now bringing back into her own
-acropolis.” The people in the city received the reputed goddess
-with implicit belief and demonstrations of worship, while among the
-country cantons the report quickly spread<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_105">[p. 105]</span> that Athênê had appeared in person to
-restore Peisistratus, who thus found himself, without even a show of
-resistance, in possession of the acropolis and of the government.
-His own party, united with that of Megaklês, were powerful enough
-to maintain him, when he had once acquired possession; and probably
-all, except the leaders, sincerely believed in the epiphany of the
-goddess, which came to be divulged as having been a deception, only
-after Peisistratus and Megaklês had quarrelled.<a id="FNanchor_199"
-href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[p. 106]</span>The daughter
-of Megaklês, according to agreement, quickly became the wife of
-Peisistratus, but she bore him no children; and it became known
-that her husband, having already adult sons by a former marriage,
-and considering that the Kylonian curse rested upon all the
-Alkmæônid family, did not intend that she should become a mother.<a
-id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a>
-Megaklês was so incensed at this behavior, that he not only renounced
-his alliance with Peisistratus, but even made his peace with the
-third party, the adherents of Lykurgus,—and assumed so menacing an
-attitude, that the despot was obliged to evacuate Attica. He retired
-to Eretria in Eubœa, where he remained no less than ten years;
-but a considerable portion of that time was employed in making
-preparations for a forcible return, and he seems to have exercised,
-even while in exile, a degree of influence much exceeding that<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[p. 107]</span> of a private man.
-He lent valuable aid to Lygdamis of Naxos,<a id="FNanchor_201"
-href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> in constituting
-himself despot of that island, and he possessed, we know not how,
-the means of rendering valuable service to different cities, Thebes
-in particular. They repaid him by large contributions of money to
-aid in his reëstablishment: mercenaries were hired from Argos, and
-the Naxian Lygdamis came himself, both with money and with troops.
-Thus equipped and aided, Peisistratus landed at Marathon in Attica.
-How the Athenian government had been conducted during his ten years’
-absence, we do not know; but the leaders of it permitted him to
-remain undisturbed at Marathon, and to assemble his partisans both
-from the city and from the country: nor was it until he broke up
-from Marathon and had reached Pallênê on his way to Athens, that
-they took the field against him. Moreover, their conduct, even when
-the two armies were near together, must have been either extremely
-negligent or corrupt; for Peisistratus found means to attack them
-unprepared, routing their forces almost without resistance. In fact,
-the proceedings have altogether the air of a concerted betrayal:
-for the defeated troops, though unpursued, are said to have
-dispersed and returned to their homes forthwith, in obedience to the
-proclamation of Peisistratus, who marched on to Athens, and found
-himself a third time ruler.<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202"
-class="fnanchor">[202]</a></p>
-
-<p>On this third successful entry, he took vigorous precautions for
-rendering his seat permanent. The Alkmæônidæ and their immediate
-partisans retired into exile; but he seized the children of those
-who remained, and whose sentiments he suspected, as hostages for
-the behavior of their parents, and placed them in Naxos, under the
-care of Lygdamis. Moreover, he provided himself with a powerful body
-of Thracian mercenaries, paid by taxes levied upon the people:<a
-id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> nor
-did he omit to conciliate the favor of the gods by a purification of
-the sacred island of Delos:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[p.
-108]</span> all the dead bodies which had been buried within sight
-of the temple of Apollo were exhumed and reinterred farther off.
-At this time the Delian festival,—attended by the Asiatic Ionians
-and the islanders, and with which Athens was of course peculiarly
-connected,—must have been beginning to decline from its pristine
-magnificence; for the subjugation of the continental Ionic cities
-by Cyrus had been already achieved, and the power of Samos, though
-increased under the despot Polykratês, seems to have increased at
-the expense and to the ruin of the smaller Ionic islands. From
-the same feelings, in part, which led to the purification of
-Delos,—partly as an act of party revenue,—Peisistratus caused the
-houses of the Alkmæônids to be levelled with the ground, and the
-bodies of the deceased members of that family to be disinterred and
-cast out of the country.<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204"
-class="fnanchor">[204]</a></p>
-
-<p>This third and last period of the rule of Peisistratus lasted
-several years, until his death in 527 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>:
-it is said to have been so mild in its character, that he
-once even suffered himself to be cited for trial before the Senate
-of Areopagus; yet as we know that he had to maintain a large body
-of Thracian mercenaries out of the funds of the people, we shall
-be inclined to construe this eulogium comparatively rather than
-positively. Thucydidês affirms that both he and his sons governed
-in a wise and virtuous spirit, levying from the people only an
-income-tax of five per cent.<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205"
-class="fnanchor">[205]</a> This is high praise coming from such an
-au<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[p. 109]</span>thority, though
-it seems that we ought to make some allowance for the circumstance of
-Thucydidês being connected by descent with the Peisistratid family.<a
-id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> The
-judgment of Herodotus is also very favorable respecting Peisistratus;
-that of Aristotle favorable, yet qualified,—since he includes these
-despots among the list of those who undertook public and sacred works
-with the deliberate view of impoverishing as well as of occupying
-their subjects. This supposition is countenanced by the prodigious
-scale upon which the temple of Zeus Olympius at Athens was begun by
-Peisistratus,—a scale much exceeding either the Parthenôn or the
-temple of Athênê Polias, both of which were erected in later times,
-when the means of Athens were decidedly larger,<a id="FNanchor_207"
-href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> and her disposition
-to demonstrative piety certainly no way diminished. It was left by
-him unfinished, nor was it ever completed until the Roman emperor
-Hadrian undertook the task. Moreover, Peisistratus introduced the
-greater Panathenaic festival, solemnized every four years, in the
-third Olympic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[p. 110]</span>
-year: the annual Panathenaic festival, henceforward called the
-Lesser, was still continued.</p>
-
-<p>I have already noticed, at considerable length, the care
-which he bestowed in procuring full and correct copies of the
-Homeric poems, as well as in improving the recitation of them
-at the Panathenaic festival,—a proceeding for which we owe him
-much gratitude, but which has been shown to be erroneously
-interpreted by various critics. He probably also collected the
-works of other poets,—called by Aulus Gellius,<a id="FNanchor_208"
-href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> in language not
-well suited to the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-a library thrown open to the public; and the service which he thus
-rendered must have been highly valuable at a time when writing
-and reading were not widely extended. His son Hipparchus followed
-up the same taste, taking pleasure in the society of the most
-eminent poets of the day,<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209"
-class="fnanchor">[209]</a>—Simonidês, Anakreon, and Lasus; not to
-mention the Athenian mystic Onomakritus, who, though not pretending
-to the gift of prophecy himself, passed for the proprietor and editor
-of the various prophecies ascribed to the ancient name of Musæus. The
-Peisistratids were well versed in these prophecies, and set great
-value upon them; but Onomakritus, being detected on one occasion in
-the act of interpolating the prophecies of Musæus, was banished by
-Hipparchus in consequence.<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210"
-class="fnanchor">[210]</a> The statues of Hermês, erected by this
-prince or by his personal friends in various parts of Attica,<a
-id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a>
-and inscribed with short moral sentences, are extolled by the author
-of the Platonic dialogue called Hipparchus, with an exaggeration
-which approaches to irony; but it is certain that both the sons
-of Peisistratus, as well as himself, were exact in fulfilling
-the religious obligations of the state, and ornamented the city
-in several ways, especially the public fountain Kallirrhoê. They
-are said to have maintained the preëxisting forms of law and
-justice, merely taking care always to keep themselves and their
-adherents in the effective<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[p.
-111]</span> offices of state, and in the full reality of power.
-They were, moreover, modest and popular in their personal demeanor,
-and charitable to the poor; yet one striking example occurs of
-unscrupulous enmity, in their murder of Kimôn, by night, through the
-agency of hired assassins.<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212"
-class="fnanchor">[212]</a> There is good reason, however, for
-believing that the government both of Peisistratus and of his sons
-was in practice generally mild until after the death of Hipparchus
-by the hands of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn, after which event the
-surviving Hippias became alarmed, cruel, and oppressive during his
-last four years. And the harshness of this concluding period left
-upon the Athenian mind<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213"
-class="fnanchor">[213]</a> that profound and imperishable hatred,
-against the dynasty generally, which Thucydidês attests,—though he
-labors to show that it was not deserved by Peisistratus, nor at first
-by Hippias.</p>
-
-<p>Peisistratus left three legitimate sons,—Hippias, Hipparchus, and
-Thessalus: the general belief at Athens among the contemporaries of
-Thucydidês was, that Hipparchus was the eldest of the three and had
-succeeded him; but the historian emphatically pronounces this to be a
-mistake, and certifies, upon his own responsibility, that Hippias was
-both eldest son and successor. Such an assurance from him, fortified
-by certain reasons in themselves not very conclusive, is sufficient
-ground for our belief,—the more so as Herodotus countenances the
-same version. But we are surprised at such a degree of historical
-carelessness in the Athenian public, and seemingly even in Plato,<a
-id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a>
-about a matter both interesting and comparatively recent. In order to
-abate this surprise, and to explain how the name of Hipparchus came
-to supplant that of Hippias in the popular talk, Thucydidês recounts
-the memorable story of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn.</p>
-
-<p>Of these two Athenian citizens,<a id="FNanchor_215"
-href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> both belonging to
-the ancient<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[p. 112]</span> gens
-called Gephyræi, the former was a beautiful youth, attached to the
-latter by a mutual friendship and devoted intimacy, which Grecian
-manners did not condemn. Hipparchus made repeated propositions to
-Harmodius, which were repelled, but which, on becoming known to
-Aristogeitôn, excited both his jealousy and his fears lest the
-disappointed suitor should employ force,—fears justified by the
-proceedings not unusual with Grecian despots,<a id="FNanchor_216"
-href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a> and by the absence of
-all legal protection against outrage from such a quarter. Under these
-feelings, he began to look about, in the best way that he could,
-for some means of putting down the despotism. Meanwhile Hipparchus,
-though not entertaining any designs of violence, was so incensed at
-the refusal of Harmodius, that he could not be satisfied without
-doing something to insult or humiliate him. In order to conceal
-the motive from which the insult really proceeded, he offered it,
-not directly to Harmodius, but to his sister. He caused this young
-maiden to be one day summoned to take her station in a religious
-procession as one of the kanêphoræ, or basket carriers, according
-to the practice usual at Athens; but when she arrived at the place
-where her fellow-maidens were assembled, she was dismissed with scorn
-as unworthy of so respectable a function, and the summons addressed
-to her was disavowed.<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217"
-class="fnanchor">[217]</a> An insult thus publicly offered<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[p. 113]</span> filled Harmodius
-with indignation, and still farther exasperated the feelings of
-Aristogeitôn: both of them, resolving at all hazards to put an end
-to the despotism, concerted means for aggression with a few select
-associates. They awaited the festival of the Great Panathenæa,
-wherein the body of the citizens were accustomed to march up in
-armed procession, with spear and shield, to the acropolis; this
-being the only day on which an armed body could come together
-without suspicion. The conspirators appeared armed like the rest
-of the citizens, but carrying concealed daggers besides. Harmodius
-and Aristogeitôn undertook with their own hands to kill the two
-Peisistratids, while the rest promised to stand forward immediately
-for their protection against the foreign mercenaries; and though
-the whole number of persons engaged was small, they counted upon
-the spontaneous sympathies of the armed bystanders in an effort to
-regain their liberties, so soon as the blow should once be struck.
-The day of the festival having arrived, Hippias, with his foreign
-body-guard around him, was marshalling the armed citizens for
-procession, in the Kerameikus without the gates, when Harmodius and
-Aristogeitôn approached with concealed daggers to execute their
-purpose. On coming near, they were thunderstruck to behold one of
-their own fellow-conspirators talking familiarly with Hippias, who
-was of easy access to every man, and they immediately concluded
-that the plot was betrayed. Expecting to be seized, and wrought
-up to a state of desperation, they resolved at least not to die
-without having revenged themselves on Hipparchus, whom they found
-within the city gates near the chapel called the Leôkorion, and
-immediately slew him. His attendant guards killed Harmodius on the
-spot; while Aristogeitôn, rescued for the moment by the surrounding
-crowd, was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[p. 114]</span>
-afterwards taken, and perished in the tortures applied to make him
-disclose his accomplices.<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218"
-class="fnanchor">[218]</a></p>
-
-<p>The news flew quickly to Hippias in the Kerameikus, who heard it
-earlier than the armed citizens near him, awaiting his order for the
-commencement of the procession. With extraordinary self-command,
-he took advantage of this precious instant of foreknowledge, and
-advanced towards them,—commanding them to drop their arms for a
-short time, and assemble on an adjoining ground. They unsuspectingly
-obeyed, and he immediately directed his guards to take possession of
-the vacant arms. He was now undisputed master, and enabled to seize
-the persons of all those citizens whom he mistrusted,—especially all
-those who had daggers about them, which it was not the practice to
-carry in the Panathenaic procession.</p>
-
-<p>Such is the memorable narrative of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn,
-peculiarly valuable inasmuch as it all comes from Thucydidês.<a
-id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a>
-To possess great power,—to be above legal restraint,—to inspire
-extraordinary fear,—is a privilege so much coveted by the giants
-among mankind, that we may well take notice of those cases in which
-it brings misfortune even upon themselves. The fear inspired by
-Hipparchus,—of designs which he did not really entertain, but was
-likely to entertain, and competent to execute without hindrance,—was
-here the grand cause of his destruction.</p>
-
-<p>The conspiracy here detailed happened in 514
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, during the thirteenth year of the
-reign of Hippias,—which lasted four years longer, until 510
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> And these last four years, in the belief
-of the Athenian public, counted for his whole reign; nay, many of
-them made the still greater historical mistake of eliding these
-last four years altogether, and of supposing that the conspiracy
-of Harmodius and Aristogeitôn had deposed the Peisistratid
-gov<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[p. 115]</span>ernment and
-liberated Athens. Both poets and philosophers shared this faith,
-which is distinctly put forth in the beautiful and popular Skolion
-or song on the subject: the two friends are there celebrated as
-the authors of liberty at Athens,—“they slew the despot and gave
-to Athens equal laws.”<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220"
-class="fnanchor">[220]</a> So inestimable a present was alone
-sufficient to enshrine in the minds of the subsequent democracy
-those who had sold their lives to purchase it: and we must farther
-recollect that the intimate connection between the two, so repugnant
-to the modern reader, was regarded at Athens with sympathy,—so that
-the story took hold of the Athenian mind by the vein of romance
-conjointly with that of patriotism. Harmodius and Aristogeitôn were
-afterwards commemorated both as the winners and as the protomartyrs
-of Athenian liberty. Statues were erected in their honor shortly
-after the final expulsion of the Peisistratids; immunity from taxes
-and public burdens was granted to the descendants of their families;
-and the speaker who proposed the abolition of such immunities,
-at a time when the number had been abusively multiplied, made
-his only special exception in favor of this respected lineage.<a
-id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a>
-And since the name of Hipparchus was universally notorious as the
-person slain, we discover how it was that he came to be considered by
-an uncritical public as the predominant member of the Peisistratid
-family,—the eldest son and successor of Peisistratus,—the reigning
-despot,—to the comparative neglect of Hippias. The same public
-probably cherished many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[p.
-116]</span> other anecdotes,<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222"
-class="fnanchor">[222]</a> not the less eagerly believed because they
-could not be authenticated, respecting this eventful period.</p>
-
-<p>Whatever may have been the moderation of Hippias before,
-indignation at the death of his brother, and fear for
-his own safety,<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223"
-class="fnanchor">[223]</a> now induced him to drop it altogether. It
-is attested both by Thucydidês and Herodotus, and admits of no doubt,
-that his power was now employed harshly and cruelly,—that he put to
-death a considerable number of citizens. We find also a statement,
-noway improbable in itself, and affirmed both in Pausanias and in
-Plutarch,—inferior authorities, yet still in this case sufficiently
-credible,—that he caused Leæna, the mistress of Aristogeitôn, to
-be tortured to death, in order to extort from her a knowledge of
-the secrets and accomplices of the latter.<a id="FNanchor_224"
-href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> But as he could not
-but be sensible that this system of terrorism was full of peril to
-himself, so he looked out for shelter and support in case of being
-expelled from Athens; and with this view he sought to connect himself
-with Darius king of Persia,—a connection full of consequences to
-be hereafter developed. Æantidês, son of Hippoklus the despot of
-Lampsakus on the Hellespont, stood high at this time in the favor of
-the Persian monarch, which induced Hippias to give him his daughter
-Archedikê in marriage; no small honor to the Lampsakene, in the
-estimation of Thucydidês.<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225"
-class="fnanchor">[225]</a> To explain how Hippias came to fix upon
-this town, however, it is necessary to say a few words on the foreign
-policy of the Peisistratids.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[p. 117]</span>It has already
-been mentioned that the Athenians, even so far back as the days of
-the poet Alkæus, had occupied Sigeium in the Troad, and had there
-carried on war with the Mityleneans; so that their acquisitions
-in these regions date much before the time of Peisistratus. Owing
-probably to this circumstance, an application was made to them in the
-early part of his reign from the Dolonkian Thracians, inhabitants
-of the Chersonese on the opposite side of the Hellespont, for aid
-against their powerful neighbors the Absinthian tribe of Thracians;
-and opportunity was thus offered for sending out a colony to acquire
-this valuable peninsula for Athens. Peisistratus willingly entered
-into the scheme, and Miltiadês son of Kypselus, a noble Athenian,
-living impatiently under his despotism, was no less pleased to take
-the lead in executing it: his departure and that of other malcontents
-as founders of a colony suited the purpose of all parties. According
-to the narrative of Herodotus,—alike pious and picturesque,—and
-doubtless circulating as authentic at the annual games which the
-Chersonesites, even in his time, celebrated to the honor of their
-œkist,—it is the Delphian god who directs the scheme and singles
-out the individual. The chiefs of the distressed Dolonkians went
-to Delphi to crave assistance towards procuring Grecian colonists,
-and were directed to choose for their œkist the individual who
-should first show them hospitality on their quitting the temple.
-They departed and marched all along what was called the Sacred
-Road, through Phocis and Bœotia to Athens, without receiving a
-single hospitable invitation; at length they entered Athens, and
-passed by the house of Miltiadês, while he himself was sitting in
-front of it. Seeing men whose costume and arms marked them out as
-strangers, he invited them into his house and treated them kindly:
-they then apprized him that he was the man fixed upon by the oracle,
-and abjured him not to refuse his concurrence. After asking for
-himself personally the opinion of the oracle, and receiving an
-affirmative answer, he consented; sailing as œkist, at the head of a
-body of Athenian emigrants, to the Chersonese.<a id="FNanchor_226"
-href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a></p>
-
-<p>Having reached this peninsula, and having been constituted
-despot of the mixed Thracian and Athenian population, he lost<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[p. 118]</span> no time in fortifying
-the narrow isthmus by a wall reaching all across from Kardia to
-Paktya, a distance of about four miles and a half; so that the
-Absinthian invaders were for the time effectually shut out,<a
-id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a>
-though the protection was not permanently kept up. He also entered
-into a war with Lampsakus, on the Asiatic side of the strait, but was
-unfortunate enough to fall into an ambuscade and become a prisoner.
-Nothing preserved his life except the immediate interference of
-Crœsus king of Lydia, coupled with strenuous menaces addressed
-to the Lampsakenes, who found themselves compelled to release
-their prisoner; Miltiadês having acquired much favor with this
-prince, in what manner we are not told. He died childless some
-time afterwards, while his nephew Stesagoras, who succeeded him,
-perished by assassination, some time subsequent to the death of
-Peisistratus at Athens.<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228"
-class="fnanchor">[228]</a></p>
-
-<p>The expedition of Miltiadês to the Chersonese must have occurred
-early after the first usurpation of Peisistratus, since even his
-imprisonment by the Lampsakenes happened before the ruin of Crœsus,
-(546 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>). But it was not till much
-later,—probably during the third and most powerful period of
-Peisistratus,—that the latter undertook his expedition against
-Sigeium in the Troad. This place appears to have fallen into the
-hands of the Mityleneans: Peisistratus retook it,<a id="FNanchor_229"
-href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> and placed there his
-illegitimate son Hegesistratus as despot. The Mityleneans may<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[p. 119]</span> have been enfeebled
-at this time (somewhere between 537-527 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>)
-not only by the strides of Persian conquest on the
-mainland, but also by the ruinous defeat which they suffered from
-Polykratês and the Samians.<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230"
-class="fnanchor">[230]</a> Hegesistratus maintained the place against
-various hostile attempts, throughout all the reign of Hippias, so
-that the Athenian possessions in those regions comprehended at
-this period both the Chersonese and Sigeium.<a id="FNanchor_231"
-href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a> To the former of
-the two, Hippias sent out Miltiadês, nephew of the first œkist, as
-governor, after the death of his brother Stesagoras. The new governor
-found much discontent in the peninsula, but succeeded in subduing
-it by entrapping and imprisoning the principal men in each town. He
-farther took into his pay a regiment of five hundred mercenaries,
-and married Hegesipylê, daughter of the Thracian king Olorus.<a
-id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> It
-appears to have been about 515 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> that
-this second Miltiadês went out to the Chersonese.<a id="FNanchor_233"
-href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> He seems to have
-been obliged to quit it for a time, after the Scythian expedition
-of Darius, in consequence of having incurred the hostility of the
-Persians; but he was there from the beginning of the Ionic revolt
-until about 493 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, or two or three
-years before the battle of Marathon, on which occasion we shall find
-him acting commander of the Athenian army.</p>
-
-<p>Both the Chersonese and Sigeium, though Athenian possessions, were
-however now tributary and dependent on Persia. And it was to this
-quarter that Hippias, during his last years of alarm, looked for
-support in the event of being expelled from Athens: he calculated
-upon Sigeium as a shelter, and upon Æantidês, as well as Darius, as
-an ally. Neither the one nor the other failed him.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[p. 120]</span>The same
-circumstances which alarmed Hippias, and rendered his dominion in
-Attica at once more oppressive and more odious, tended of course
-to raise the hopes of his enemies, the Athenian exiles, with
-the powerful Alkmæônids at their head. Believing the favorable
-moment to be come, they even ventured upon an invasion of Attica,
-and occupied a post called Leipsydrion in the mountain range of
-Parnês, which separates Attica from Bœotia.<a id="FNanchor_234"
-href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a> But their schemes
-altogether failed: Hippias defeated and drove them out of the
-country. His dominion now seemed confirmed, for the Lacedæmonians
-were on terms of intimate friendship with him; and Amyntas king of
-Macedon, as well as the Thessalians, were his allies. Yet the exiles
-whom he had beaten in the open field succeeded in an unexpected
-manœuvre, which, favored by circumstances, proved his ruin.</p>
-
-<p>By an accident which had occurred in the year 548
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235"
-class="fnanchor">[235]</a> the Delphian temple was set on fire
-and burnt. To repair this grave loss was an object of solicitude
-to all Greece; but the outlay required was exceedingly heavy, and
-it appears to have been long before the money could be collected.
-The Amphiktyons decreed that one-fourth of the cost should be
-borne by the Delphians themselves, who found themselves so heavily
-taxed by this assessment, that they sent envoys throughout all
-Greece to collect subscriptions in aid, and received, among
-other donations, from the Greek settlers in Egypt twenty minæ,
-besides a large present of alum from the Egyptian king Amasis:
-their munificent benefactor Crœsus fell a victim to the Persians
-in 546 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, so that his treasure was no
-longer open to them. The total sum required was three hundred
-talents (equal probably to about one hundred and fifteen thousand
-pounds sterling),<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236"
-class="fnanchor">[236]</a>—a prodigious amount to be collected from
-the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[p. 121]</span> dispersed
-Grecian cities, who acknowledged no common sovereign authority,
-and among whom the proportion reasonable to ask from each was
-so difficult to determine with satisfaction to all parties. At
-length, however, the money was collected, and the Amphiktyons were
-in a situation to make a contract for the building of the temple.
-The Alkmæônids, who had been in exile ever since the third and
-final acquisition of power by Peisistratus, took the contract;
-and in executing it, they not only performed the work in the best
-manner, but even went much beyond the terms stipulated; employing
-Parian marble for the frontage, where the material prescribed to
-them was coarse stone.<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237"
-class="fnanchor">[237]</a> As was before remarked in the case of
-Peisistratus when he was in banishment, we are surprised to find
-exiles whose property had been confiscated so amply furnished with
-money,—unless we are to suppose that Kleisthenês the Alkmæônid,
-grandson of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês,<a id="FNanchor_238"
-href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> inherited through his
-mother wealth independent of Attica, and deposited it in the temple
-of the Samian Hêrê. But the fact is unquestionable, and they gained
-signal reputation throughout the Hellenic world for their liberal
-performance of so important an enterprise. That the erection took
-considerable time, we cannot doubt. It seems to have been finished,
-as far as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[p. 122]</span> we can
-conjecture, about a year or two after the death of Hipparchus,—512
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—more than thirty years after the
-conflagration.</p>
-
-<p>To the Delphians, especially, the rebuilding of their temple on
-so superior a scale was the most essential of all services, and
-their gratitude towards the Alkmæônids was proportionally great.
-Partly through such a feeling, partly through pecuniary presents,
-Kleisthenês was thus enabled to work the oracle for political
-purposes, and to call forth the powerful arm of Sparta against
-Hippias. Whenever any Spartan presented himself to consult the
-oracle, either on private or public business, the answer of the
-priestess was always in one strain, “Athens must be liberated.”
-The constant repetition of this mandate at length extorted from
-the piety of the Lacedæmonians a reluctant compliance. Reverence
-for the god overcame their strong feeling of friendship towards
-the Peisistratids, and Anchimolius son of Aster was despatched by
-sea to Athens, at the head of a Spartan force to expel them. On
-landing at Phalêrum, however, he found them already forewarned and
-prepared, as well as farther strengthened by one thousand horse
-specially demanded from their allies in Thessaly. Upon the plain of
-Phalêrum, this latter force was found peculiarly effective, so that
-the division of Anchimolius was driven back to their ships with great
-loss and he himself slain.<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239"
-class="fnanchor">[239]</a> The defeated armament had probably been
-small, and its repulse only provoked the Lacedæmonians to send a
-larger, under the command of their king Kleomenês in person, who on
-this occasion marched into Attica by land. On reaching the plain of
-Athens, he was assailed by the Thessalian horse, but repelled them
-in so gallant a style, that they at once rode off and returned to
-their native country; abandoning their allies with a faithlessness
-not unfrequent in the Thessalian character. Kleomenês marched on to
-Athens without farther resistance, and found himself, together with
-the Alkmæônids and the malcontent Athenians generally, in possession
-of the town. At that time there was no fortification except around
-the acropolis, into which Hippias retired with his mercenaries and
-the citizens most faithful to him; having taken care to provision it
-well beforehand, so that it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[p.
-123]</span> was not less secure against famine than against assault.
-He might have defied the besieging force, which was noway prepared
-for a long blockade; but, not altogether confiding in his position,
-he tried to send his children by stealth out of the country; and in
-this proceeding the children were taken prisoners. To procure their
-restoration, Hippias consented to all that was demanded of him, and
-withdrew from Attica to Sigeium in the Troad within the space of five
-days.</p>
-
-<p>Thus fell the Peisistratid dynasty in 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-fifty years after the first usurpation of its founder.<a
-id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a>
-It was put down through the aid of foreigners,<a id="FNanchor_241"
-href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> and those foreigners,
-too, wishing well to it in their hearts, though hostile from a
-mistaken feeling of divine injunction. Yet both the circumstances of
-its fall, and the course of events which followed, conspire to show
-that it possessed few attached friends in the country, and that the
-expulsion of Hippias was welcomed unanimously by the vast majority of
-Athenians. His family and chief partisans would accompany him into
-exile,—probably as a matter of course, without requiring any formal
-sentence of condemnation; and an altar was erected in the acropolis,
-with a column hard by, commemorating both the past iniquity
-of the dethroned dynasty, and the names of all its members.<a
-id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_31">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[p. 126]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXI.<br />
- GRECIAN AFFAIRS AFTER THE EXPULSION OF THE PEISISTRATIDS. — REVOLUTION
- OF&nbsp;KLEISTHENES AND&nbsp;ESTABLISHMENT OF&nbsp;DEMOCRACY AT&nbsp;ATHENS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">With</span> Hippias disappeared
-the mercenary Thracian garrison, upon which he and his father
-before him had leaned for defence as well as for enforcement of
-authority; and Kleomenês with his Lacedæmonian forces retired also,
-after staying only long enough to establish a personal friendship,
-productive subsequently of important consequences, between the
-Spartan king and the Athenian Isagoras. The Athenians were thus left
-to them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[p. 127]</span>selves,
-without any foreign interference to constrain them in their political
-arrangements.</p>
-
-<p>It has been mentioned in the preceding chapter, that the
-Peisistratids had for the most part respected the forms of the
-Solonian constitution: the nine archons, and the probouleutic or
-preconsidering Senate of Four Hundred (both annually changed),
-still continued to subsist, together with occasional meetings
-of the people,—or rather of such portion of the people as was
-comprised in the gentes, phratries, and four Ionic tribes. The
-timocratic classification of Solon (or quadruple scale of income and
-admeasurement of political franchises according to it) also continued
-to subsist,—but all within the tether and subservient to the
-purposes of the ruling family, who always kept one of their number
-as real master, among the chief administrators, and always retained
-possession of the acropolis as well as of the mercenary force.</p>
-
-<p>That overawing pressure being now removed by the expulsion of
-Hippias, the enslaved forms became at once endued with freedom
-and reality. There appeared again, what Attica had not known for
-thirty years, declared political parties, and pronounced opposition
-between two men as leaders,—on one side, Isagoras son of Tisander,
-a person of illustrious descent,—on the other, Kleisthenês the
-Alkmæônid, not less illustrious, and possessing at this moment a
-claim on the gratitude of his countrymen as the most persevering as
-well as the most effective foe of the dethroned despots. In what
-manner such opposition was carried on we are not told. It would seem
-to have been not altogether pacific; but at any rate, Kleisthenês
-had the worst of it, and in consequence of this defeat, says the
-historian, “he took into partnership the people, who had been before
-excluded from everything.”<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243"
-class="fnanchor">[243]</a> His partnership with the people gave birth
-to the Athenian democracy: it was a real and important revolution.</p>
-
-<p>The political franchise, or the character of an Athenian citizen,
-both before and since Solon, had been confined to the primitive<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[p. 128]</span> four Ionic tribes,
-each of which was an aggregate of so many close corporations or
-quasi-families,—the gentes and the phratries. None of the residents
-in Attica, therefore, except those included in some gens or phratry,
-had any part in the political franchise. Such non-privileged
-residents were probably at all times numerous, and became more and
-more so by means of fresh settlers: moreover, they tended most to
-multiply in Athens and Peiræus, where emigrants would commonly
-establish themselves. Kleisthenês broke down the existing wall of
-privilege, and imparted the political franchise to the excluded
-mass. But this could not be done by enrolling them in new gentes
-or phratries, created in addition to the old; for the gentile tie
-was founded upon old faith and feeling, which, in the existing
-state of the Greek mind, could not be suddenly conjured up as a
-bond of union for comparative strangers: it could only be done by
-disconnecting the franchise altogether from the Ionic tribes as well
-as from the gentes which constituted them, and by redistributing the
-population into new tribes with a character and purpose exclusively
-political. Accordingly, Kleisthenês abolished the four Ionic tribes,
-and created in their place ten new tribes founded upon a different
-principle, independent of the gentes and phratries. Each of his
-new tribes comprised a certain number of demes or cantons, with
-the enrolled proprietors and residents in each of them. The demes
-taken altogether included the entire surface of Attica, so that the
-Kleisthenean constitution admitted to the political franchise all the
-free native Athenians; and not merely these, but also many Metics,
-and even some of the superior order of slaves.<a id="FNanchor_244"
-href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> Putting out of
-sight the general body of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[p.
-129]</span> slaves, and regarding only the free inhabitants, it was
-in point of fact a scheme approaching to universal suffrage, both
-political and judicial.</p>
-
-<p>The slight and cursory manner in which Herodotus announces this
-memorable revolution tends to make us overlook its real importance.
-He dwells chiefly on the alteration in the number and names of
-the tribes: Kleisthenês, he says, despised the Ionians so much,
-that he would not tolerate the continuance in Attica of the four
-tribes which prevailed in the Ionic cities,<a id="FNanchor_245"
-href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a> deriving their names
-from the four sons of Ion,—just as his grandfather, the Sikyonian
-Kleisthenês, hating the Dorians, had degraded and nicknamed the three
-Dorian tribes at Sikyôn. Such is the representation of Herodotus, who
-seems himself to have entertained some contempt for the Ionians,<a
-id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a>
-and therefore to have suspected a similar feeling where it had no
-real existence. But the scope of Kleisthenês was something far more
-extensive: he abolished the four ancient tribes, not because they
-were Ionic, but because they had become incommensurate with the
-existing condition of the Attic people, and because such abolition
-procured both for himself and for his political scheme new as well
-as hearty allies. And indeed, if we study the circumstances of the
-case, we shall see very obvious reasons to suggest the proceeding.
-For more than thirty years—an entire generation—the old constitution
-had been a mere empty formality, working only in subservience to
-the reigning dynasty, and stripped of all real controlling power.
-We may be very sure, therefore, that both the Senate of Four
-Hundred and the popular assembly, divested of that free speech
-which imparted to them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[p.
-130]</span> not only all their value but all their charm, had come
-to be of little public estimation, and were probably attended only
-by a few partisans; and thus the difference between qualified
-citizens and men not so qualified,—between members of the four old
-tribes, and men not members,—became during this period practically
-effaced. This, in fact, was the only species of good which a Grecian
-despotism ever seems to have done: it confounded the privileged and
-the non-privileged under one coercive authority common to both, so
-that the distinction between the two was not easy to revive when the
-despotism passed away. As soon as Hippias was expelled, the senate
-and the public assembly regained their efficiency. But had they been
-continued on the old footing, including none except members of the
-four tribes, these tribes would have been reinvested with a privilege
-which in reality they had so long lost, that its revival would have
-seemed an odious novelty, and the remaining population would probably
-not have submitted to it. If, in addition, we consider the political
-excitement of the moment,—the restoration of one body of men from
-exile, and the departure of another body into exile,—the outpouring
-of long-suppressed hatred, partly against these very forms, by
-the corruption of which the despot had reigned,—we shall see that
-prudence as well as patriotism dictated the adoption of an enlarged
-scheme of government. Kleisthenês had learned some wisdom during
-his long exile; and as he probably continued, for some time after
-the introduction of his new constitution, to be the chief adviser
-of his countrymen, we may consider their extraordinary success as a
-testimony to his prudence and skill not less than to their courage
-and unanimity.</p>
-
-<p>Nor does it seem unreasonable to give him credit for a more
-generous forward movement than what is implied in the literal account
-of Herodotus. Instead of being forced against his will to purchase
-popular support by proposing this new constitution, Kleisthenês may
-have proposed it before, during the discussions which immediately
-followed the retirement of Hippias; so that the rejection of it
-formed the ground of quarrel—and no other ground is mentioned—between
-him and Isagoras. The latter doubtless found sufficient support, in
-the existing senate and public assembly, to prevent it from being
-carried without an actual appeal to the people, and his opposition
-to it is not difficult to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[p.
-131]</span> understand. For, necessary as the change had become,
-it was not the less a shock to ancient Attic ideas. It radically
-altered the very idea of a tribe, which now became an aggregation
-of demes, not of gentes,—of fellow-demots, not of fellow-gentiles;
-and it thus broke up those associations, religious, social, and
-political, between the whole and the parts of the old system, which
-operated powerfully on the mind of every old-fashioned Athenian.
-The patricians at Rome, who composed the gentes and curiæ,—and the
-plebs, who had no part in these corporations,—formed for a long time
-two separate and opposing fractions in the same city, each with its
-own separate organization. It was only by slow degrees that the
-plebs gained ground, and the political value of the patrician gens
-was long maintained alongside of and apart from the plebeian tribe.
-So too in the Italian and German cities of the Middle Ages, the
-patrician families refused to part with their own separate political
-identity, when the guilds grew up by the side of them; even though
-forced to renounce a portion of their power, they continued to be
-a separate fraternity, and would not submit to be regimented anew,
-under an altered category and denomination, along with the traders
-who had grown into wealth and importance.<a id="FNanchor_247"
-href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> But the reform of
-Kleisthenês effected this change all at once, both as to the name and
-as to the reality. In some cases, indeed, that which had been the
-name of a gens was retained as the name of a deme, but even then the
-old gentiles were ranked indiscriminately among the remaining demots;
-and the Athenian people, politically considered, thus became one
-homogeneous whole, distributed for convenience into parts, numerical,
-local, and politically equal. It is, however, to be remembered, that
-while the four Ionic tribes were abolished, the gentes and phratries
-which composed them were left untouched, and continued to subsist
-as family and religious associations, though carrying with them no
-political privilege.</p>
-
-<p>The ten newly-created tribes, arranged in an established order
-of precedence, were called,—Erechthêis, Ægêis, Pandiŏnis,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[p. 132]</span> Leontis, Akamantis,
-Œnêis, Kekrŏpis, Hippothoöntis, Æantis, Antiochis; names
-borrowed chiefly from the respected heroes of Attic legend.<a
-id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a>
-This number remained unaltered until the year 305 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-when it was increased to twelve by the
-addition of two new tribes, Antigonias and Demetrias, afterwards
-designated anew by the names of Ptolemais and Attalis. The mere
-names of these last two, borrowed from living kings, and not from
-legendary heroes, betray the change from freedom to subservience at
-Athens. Each tribe comprised a certain number of demes,—cantons,
-parishes, or townships,—in Attica. But the total number of these
-demes is not distinctly ascertained; for though we know that,
-in the time of Polemô (the third century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),
-it was one hundred and seventy-four, we cannot be
-sure that it had always remained the same; and several critics
-construe the words of Herodotus to imply that Kleisthenês at first
-recognized exactly one hundred demes, distributed in equal proportion
-among his ten tribes.<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249"
-class="fnanchor">[249]</a> But such construction of the words is
-more than doubtful, while the fact itself is improbable; partly
-because if the change of number had been so considerable as the
-difference between one hundred and one hundred and seventy-four,
-some positive evidence of it would probably be found,—partly because
-Kleisthenês would, indeed, have a motive to render the amount of
-citizen population nearly equal, but no motive to render the number
-of demes equal, in each of the ten tribes. It is well known how great
-is the force of local habits, and how unalterable are parochial
-or cantonal boundaries. In the absence of<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_133">[p. 133]</span> proof to the contrary, therefore, we
-may reasonably suppose the number and circumscription of the demes,
-as found or modified by Kleisthenês, to have subsisted afterwards
-with little alteration, at least until the increase in the number of
-the tribes.</p>
-
-<p>There is another point, however, which is at once more certain,
-and more important to notice. The demes which Kleisthenês assigned to
-each tribe were in no case all adjacent to each other; and therefore
-the tribe, as a whole, did not correspond with any continuous portion
-of the territory, nor could it have any peculiar local interest,
-separate from the entire community. Such systematic avoidance of
-the factions arising out of neighborhood will appear to have been
-more especially necessary, when we recollect that the quarrels of
-the Parali, the Diakrii, the Pediaki, during the preceding century,
-had all been generated from local feud, though doubtless artfully
-fomented by individual ambition. Moreover, it was only by this
-same precaution that the local predominance of the city, and the
-formation of a city-interest distinct from that of the country,
-was obviated; which could hardly have failed to arise had the city
-by itself constituted either one deme or one tribe. Kleisthenês
-distributed the city (or found it already distributed) into several
-demes, and those demes among several tribes; while Peiræus and
-Phalêrum, each constituting a separate deme, were also assigned to
-different tribes; so that there were no local advantages either to
-bestow predominance, or to create a struggle for predominance, of
-one tribe over the rest.<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250"
-class="fnanchor">[250]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[p.
-134]</span> Each deme had its own local interests to watch over; but
-the tribe was a mere aggregate of demes for political, military, and
-religious purposes, with no separate hopes or fears, apart from the
-whole state. Each tribe had a chapel, sacred rites and festivals,
-and a common fund for such meetings, in honor of its eponymous hero,
-administered by members of its own choice;<a id="FNanchor_251"
-href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> and the statues of
-all the ten eponymous heroes, fraternal patrons of the democracy,
-were planted in the most conspicuous part of the agora of Athens.
-In the future working of the Athenian government, we shall trace no
-symptom of disquieting local factions,—a capital amendment, compared
-with the disputes of the preceding century, and traceable, in
-part, to the absence of border-relations between demes of the same
-tribe.</p>
-
-<p>The deme now became the primitive constituent element of the
-commonwealth, both as to persons and as to property. It had its own
-demarch, its register of enrolled citizens, its collective property,
-its public meetings and religious ceremonies, its taxes levied
-and administered by itself. The register of qualified citizens<a
-id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a>
-was kept by the demarch, and the inscription of new citizens took
-place at the assembly of the demots, whose legitimate sons were
-enrolled on attaining the age of eighteen, and their adopted sons
-at any time when presented and sworn to by the adopting citizen.
-The citizenship could only be granted by a public vote of the
-people, but wealthy non-freemen were enabled sometimes to evade this
-law and purchase admission upon the register of some poor deme,
-probably by means of a fictitious adoption. At<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_135">[p. 135]</span> the meetings of the demots, the
-register was called over, and it sometimes happened that some
-names were expunged,—in which case the party thus disfranchised
-had an appeal to the popular judicature.<a id="FNanchor_253"
-href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> So great was the
-local administrative power, however, of these demes, that they are
-described as the substitute,<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254"
-class="fnanchor">[254]</a> under the Kleisthenean system, for the
-naukraries under the Solonian and ante-Solonian. The trittyes and
-naukraries, though nominally preserved, and the latter (as some
-affirm) augmented in number from forty-eight to fifty, appear
-henceforward as of little public importance.</p>
-
-<p>Kleisthenês preserved, but at the same time modified and expanded,
-all the main features of Solon’s political constitution; the public
-assembly, or ekklesia,—the preconsidering senate, composed of members
-from all the tribes,—and the habit of annual election, as well as
-annual responsibility of magistrates, by and to the ekklesia. The
-full value must now have been felt of possessing such preëxisting
-institutions to build upon, at a moment of perplexity and dissension.
-But the Kleisthenean ekklesia acquired new strength, and almost a
-new character, from the great increase of the number of citizens
-qualified to attend it; while the annually-changed senate, instead
-of being composed of four hundred members taken in equal proportion
-from each of the old four tribes, was enlarged to five hundred,
-taken equally from each of the new ten tribes. It now comes before
-us, under the name of Senate of Five Hundred, as an active and
-indispensable body throughout the whole Athenian democracy: and the
-practice now seems to have begun (though the period of commencement
-cannot be decisively proved), of determining the names of the
-senators by lot. Both the senate thus constituted, and the public
-assembly, were far more popular and vigorous than they had been under
-the original arrangement of Solon.</p>
-
-<p>The new constitution of the tribes, as it led to a change
-in the annual senate, so it transformed, no less directly, the
-military<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[p. 136]</span>
-arrangements of the state, both as to soldiers and as to officers.
-The citizens called upon to serve in arms were now marshalled
-according to tribes,—each tribe having its own taxiarchs as officers
-for the hoplites, and its own phylarch at the head of the horsemen.
-Moreover, there were now created for the first time ten strategi, or
-generals, one from each tribe; and two hipparchs, for the supreme
-command of the horsemen. Under the prior Athenian constitution it
-appears that the command of the military force had been vested in the
-third archon, or polemarch, no strategi then existing; and even after
-the latter had been created, under the Kleisthenean constitution,
-the polemarch still retained a joint right of command along with
-them,—as we are told at the battle of Marathon, where Kallimachus
-the polemarch not only enjoyed an equal vote in the council of
-war along with the ten strategi, but even occupied the post of
-honor on the right wing.<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255"
-class="fnanchor">[255]</a> The ten generals, annually changed, are
-thus (like the ten tribes) a fruit of the Kleisthenean constitution,
-which was at the same time powerfully strengthened and protected
-by such remodelling of the military force. The functions of the
-generals becoming more extensive as the democracy advanced, they
-seem to have acquired gradually not merely the direction of military
-and naval affairs, but also that of the foreign relations of the
-city generally,—while the nine archons, including the polemarch,
-were by degrees lowered down from that full executive and judicial
-competence which they had once enjoyed, to the simple ministry of
-police and preparatory justice. Encroached upon by the strategi on
-one side, they were also restricted in efficiency by the rise of the
-popular dikasteries or numerous jury-courts, on the other. We may be
-very sure that these popular dikasteries had not been permitted to
-meet or to act under the despotism of the Peisistratids, and that
-the judicial business of the city must then have been conducted
-partly by the Senate of Areopagus, partly by the archons; perhaps
-with a nominal responsibility of the latter at the end of their year
-of office to an acquiescent ekklesia. And if we even assume it to
-be true, as some writers contend, that the habit of direct popular
-judicature, over and above this annual trial of responsibility,
-had been partially introduced by Solon, it must have<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[p. 137]</span> been discontinued
-during the long coercion exercised by the supervening dynasty. But
-the outburst of popular spirit, which lent force to Kleisthenês,
-doubtless carried the people into direct action as jurors in the
-aggregate Heliæa, not less than as voters in the ekklesia,—and the
-change was thus begun which contributed to degrade the archons from
-their primitive character as judges, into the lower function of
-preliminary examiners and presidents of a jury. Such convocation of
-numerous juries, beginning first with the aggregate body of sworn
-citizens above thirty years of age, and subsequently dividing them
-into separate bodies or pannels, for trying particular causes, became
-gradually more frequent and more systematized: until at length, in
-the time of Periklês, it was made to carry a small pay, and stood out
-as one of the most prominent features of Athenian life. We cannot
-particularize the different steps whereby such final development was
-attained, and the judicial competence of the archon cut down to the
-mere power of inflicting a small fine; but the first steps of it are
-found in the revolution of Kleisthenês, and it seems to have been
-consummated by the reforms of Periklês. Of the function exercised by
-the nine archons as well as by many other magistrates and official
-persons at Athens, in convoking a dikastery, or jury-court, bringing
-on causes for trial,—and presiding over the trial,—a function
-constituting one of the marks of superior magistracy, and called the
-Hegemony, or presidency of a dikastery,—I shall speak more at length
-hereafter. At present, I wish merely to bring to view the increased
-and increasing sphere of action on which the people entered at the
-memorable turn of affairs now before us.</p>
-
-<p>The financial affairs of the city underwent at this epoch as
-complete a change as the military: in fact, the appointment of
-magistrates and officers by tens, one from each tribe, seems to
-have become the ordinary practice. A board of ten, called Apodektæ,
-were invested with the supreme management of the exchequer, dealing
-with the contractors as to those portions of the revenue which
-were farmed, receiving all the taxes from the collectors, and
-disbursing them under competent authority. The first nomination of
-this board is expressly ascribed to Kleisthenês,<a id="FNanchor_256"
-href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a> as a substitute
-for certain persons called Kôlakretæ, who<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_138">[p. 138]</span> had performed the same function before,
-and who were now retained only for subordinate services. The duties
-of the apodektæ were afterwards limited to receiving the public
-income, and paying it over to the ten treasurers of the goddess
-Athênê, by whom it was kept in the inner chamber of the Parthenon,
-and disbursed as needed; but this more complicated arrangement cannot
-be referred to Kleisthenês. From his time forward too, the Senate
-of Five Hundred steps far beyond its original duty of preparing
-matters for the discussion of the ekklesia: it embraces, besides, a
-large circle of administrative and general superintendence, which
-hardly admits of any definition. Its sittings become constant, with
-the exception of special holidays, and the year is distributed into
-ten portions called Prytanies,—the fifty senators of each tribe
-taking by turns the duty of constant attendance during one prytany,
-and receiving during that time the title of The Prytanes: the
-order of precedence among the tribes in these duties was annually
-determined by lot. In the ordinary Attic year of twelve lunar
-months, or three hundred and fifty-four days, six of the prytanies
-contained thirty-five days, four of them contained thirty-six: in
-the intercalated years of thirteen months, the number of days was
-thirty-eight and thirty-nine respectively. Moreover, a farther
-subdivision of the prytany into five periods of seven days each,
-and of the fifty tribe-senators into five bodies of ten each, was
-recognized: each body of ten presided in the senate for one period
-of seven days, drawing lots every day among their number for a
-new chairman, called Epistatês, to whom during his day of office
-were confided the keys of the acropolis and the treasury, together
-with the city seal. The remaining senators, not belonging to the
-prytanizing tribe, might of course attend if they chose; but the
-attendance of nine among them, one from each of the remaining nine
-tribes, was imperatively necessary to constitute a valid meeting, and
-to insure a constant representation of the collective people.</p>
-
-<p>During those later times known to us through the great
-orators, the ekklesia, or formal assembly of the citizens, was
-convoked four times regularly during each prytany, or oftener if
-necessity required,—usually by the senate, though the stratêgi
-had also the power of convoking it by their own authority. It
-was presided over by the prytanes, and questions were put to
-the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[p. 139]</span> vote by
-their epistatês, or chairman; but the nine representatives of the
-non-prytanizing tribes were always present as a matter of course,
-and seem, indeed, in the days of the orators, to have acquired to
-themselves the direction of it, together with the right of putting
-questions for the vote,<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257"
-class="fnanchor">[257]</a>—setting aside wholly or partially the
-fifty prytanes. When we carry our attention back, however, to the
-state of the ekklesia, as first organized by Kleisthenês (I have
-already remarked that expositors of the Athenian constitution are too
-apt to neglect the distinction of times, and to suppose that what
-was the practice between 400-330 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-had been always the practice), it will appear probable that he
-provided one regular meeting in each prytany, and no more; giving
-to the senate and the stratêgi power of convening special meetings
-if needful, but establishing one ekklesia during each prytany, or
-ten in the year, as a regular necessity of state. How often the
-ancient ekklesia had been convoked during the interval between Solon
-and Peisistratus, we cannot exactly say,—probably but seldom during
-the year. But under the Peisistratids, its convocation had dwindled
-down into an inoperative formality; and the reëstablishment of it by
-Kleisthenês, not merely with plenary determining powers, but also
-under full notice and preparation of matters beforehand, together
-with the best securities for orderly procedure, was in itself a
-revolution impressive to the mind of every Athenian citizen. To
-render the ekklesia efficient, it was indispensable that its meetings
-should be both frequent and free. Men thus became trained to the
-duty both of speakers and hearers, and each man, while he felt that
-he exercised his share of influence on the decision, identified
-his own safety and happiness with the vote of the majority, and
-became familiarized with the notion of a sovereign authority which
-he neither could nor ought to resist. This is an idea new to the
-Athenian bosom; and with it came the feelings sanctifying free speech
-and equal law,—words which no Athenian citizen ever afterwards heard
-unmoved: together with that sentiment of the entire commonwealth
-as one and indivisible, which always over<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_140">[p. 140]</span>ruled, though it did not supplant, the
-local and cantonal special ties. It is not too much to say that these
-patriotic and ennobling impulses were a new product in the Athenian
-mind, to which nothing analogous occurs even in the time of Solon.
-They were kindled in part doubtless by the strong reaction against
-the Peisistratids, but still more by the fact that the opposing
-leader, Kleisthenês, turned that transitory feeling to the best
-possible account, and gave to it a vigorous perpetuity, as well as
-a well-defined positive object, by the popular elements conspicuous
-in his constitution. His name makes less figure in history than we
-should expect, because he passed for the mere renovator of Solon’s
-scheme of government after it had been overthrown by Peisistratus.
-Probably he himself professed this object, since it would facilitate
-the success of his propositions: and if we confine ourselves to the
-letter of the case, the fact is in a great measure true, since the
-annual senate and the ekklesia are both Solonian,—but both of them
-under his reform were clothed in totally new circumstances, and
-swelled into gigantic proportions. How vigorous was the burst of
-Athenian enthusiasm, altering instantaneously the position of Athens
-among the powers of Greece, we shall hear presently from the lips
-of Herodotus, and shall find still more unequivocally marked in the
-facts of his history.</p>
-
-<p>But it was not only the people formally installed in their
-ekklesia, who received from Kleisthenês the real attributes of
-sovereignty,—it was by him also that the people were first called
-into direct action as dikasts, or jurors. I have already remarked,
-that this custom may be said, in a certain limited sense, to have
-begun in the time of Solon, since that lawgiver invested the popular
-assembly with the power of pronouncing the judgment of accountability
-upon the archons after their year of office. Here, again, the
-building, afterwards so spacious and stately, was erected on a
-Solonian foundation, though it was not itself Solonian. That the
-popular dikasteries, in the elaborate form in which they existed
-from Periklês downward, were introduced all at once by Kleisthenês,
-it is impossible to believe; yet the steps by which they were
-gradually wrought out are not distinctly discoverable. It would
-rather seem, that at first only the aggregate body of citizens
-above thirty years of age exercised judicial<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_141">[p. 141]</span> functions, being specially convoked and
-sworn to try persons accused of public crimes, and when so employed
-bearing the name of the heliæa, or heliasts; private offences and
-disputes between man and man being still determined by individual
-magistrates in the city, and a considerable judicial power still
-residing in the Senate of Areopagus. There is reason to believe that
-this was the state of things established by Kleisthenês, and which
-afterwards came to be altered by the greater extent of judicial
-duty gradually accruing to the heliasts, so that it was necessary
-to subdivide the collective heliæa. According to the subdivision,
-as practised in the times best known, six thousand citizens above
-thirty years of age were annually selected by lot out of the whole
-number, six hundred from each of the ten tribes: five thousand of
-these citizens were arranged in ten pannels or decuries of five
-hundred each, the remaining one thousand being reserved to fill up
-vacancies in case of death or absence among the former. The whole
-six thousand took a prescribed oath, couched in very striking words,
-and every man received a ticket inscribed with his own name as well
-as with a letter designating his decury. When there were causes or
-crimes ripe for trial, the thesmothets, or six inferior archons,
-determined by lot, first, which decuries should sit, according to
-the number wanted,—next, in which court, or under the presidency of
-what magistrate, the decury B or E should sit, so that it could not
-be known beforehand in what cause each would be judge. In the number
-of persons who actually attended and sat, however, there seems to
-have been much variety, and sometimes two decuries sat together.<a
-id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a>
-The arrangement here described, we must recollect, is given to us as
-belonging to those times when the dikasts received a regular pay,
-after every day’s sitting; and it can hardly have long con<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[p. 142]</span>tinued without that
-condition, which was not realized before the time of Periklês. Each
-of these decuries sitting in judicature was called <i>The Heliæa</i>,—a
-name which belongs properly to the collective assembly of the people;
-this collective assembly having been itself the original judicature.
-I conceive that the practice of distributing this collective
-assembly, or heliæa, into sections of jurors for judicial duty,
-may have begun under one form or another soon after the reform of
-Kleisthenês, since the direct interference of the people in public
-affairs tended more and more to increase. But it could only have
-been matured by degrees into that constant and systematic service
-which the pay of Periklês called forth at last in completeness. Under
-the last-mentioned system the judicial competence of the archons
-was annulled, and the third archon, or polemarch, withdrawn from
-all military functions. Still, this had not been yet done at the
-time of the battle of Marathon, in which Kallimachus the polemarch
-not only commanded along with the stratêgi, but enjoyed a sort of
-preëminence over them: nor had it been done during the year after
-the battle of Marathon, in which Aristeidês was archon,—for the
-magisterial decisions of Aristeidês formed one of the principal
-foundations of his honorable surname, the Just.<a id="FNanchor_259"
-href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a></p>
-
-<p>With this question, as to the comparative extent of judicial power
-vested by Kleisthenês in the popular dikastery and the archons, are
-in reality connected two others in Athenian constitutional law;
-relating, first, to the admissibility of all citizens for the post
-of archon,—next, to the choosing of archons by lot. It is well known
-that, in the time of Periklês, the archons, and<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_143">[p. 143]</span> various other individual functionaries,
-had come to be chosen by lot,—moreover, all citizens were legally
-admissible, and might give in their names to be drawn for by lot,
-subject to what was called the dokimasy, or legal examination into
-their status of citizen, and into various moral and religious
-qualifications, before they took office; while at the same time the
-function of the archon had become nothing higher than preliminary
-examination of parties and witnesses for the dikastery, and
-presidence over it when afterwards assembled, together with the
-power of imposing by authority a fine of small amount upon inferior
-offenders.</p>
-
-<p>Now all these three political arrangements hang essentially
-together. The great value of the lot, according to Grecian
-democratical ideas, was that it equalized the chance of office
-between rich and poor. But so long as the poor citizens were
-legally inadmissible, choice by lot could have no recommendation
-either to the rich or to the poor; in fact, it would be less
-democratical than election by the general mass of citizens, because
-the poor citizen would under the latter system enjoy an important
-right of interference by means of his suffrage, though he could
-not be elected himself.<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260"
-class="fnanchor">[260]</a> Again, choice by lot could<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[p. 144]</span> never under any
-circumstances be applied to those posts where special competence,
-and a certain measure of attributes possessed only by a few, could
-not be dispensed with without obvious peril,—nor was it ever
-applied, throughout the whole history of democratical Athens, to
-the stratêgi, or generals, who were always elected by show of
-hands of the assembled citizens. Accordingly, we may regard it as
-certain that, at the time when the archons first came to be chosen
-by lot, the superior and responsible duties once attached to that
-office had been, or were in course of being, detached from it, and
-transferred either to the popular dikasts or to the ten elected
-stratêgi: so that there remained to these archons only a routine
-of police and administration, important indeed to the state, yet
-such as could be executed by any citizen of average probity,
-diligence, and capacity. At least there was no obvious absurdity
-in thinking so; and the dokimasy excluded from the office men of
-notoriously discreditable life, even after they might have drawn the
-successful lot. Periklês,<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261"
-class="fnanchor">[261]</a> though chosen stratêgus, year after year
-successively, was never archon; and it may even be doubted whether
-men of first-rate talents and ambition often gave in their names
-for the office. To those of smaller aspirations<a id="FNanchor_262"
-href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> it was doubtless a
-source of importance, but it imposed troublesome labor, gave no pay,
-and entailed a certain degree of peril upon any archon who might
-have given offence to pow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[p.
-145]</span>erful men, when he came to pass through the trial of
-accountability which followed immediately upon his year of office.
-There was little to make the office acceptable either to very poor
-men, or to very rich and ambitious men; and between the middling
-persons who gave in their names, any one might be taken without
-great practical mischief, always assuming the two guarantees of
-the dokimasy before, and accountability after, office. This was
-the conclusion—in my opinion a mistaken conclusion, and such as
-would find no favor at present—to which the democrats of Athens
-were conducted by their strenuous desire to equalize the chances of
-office for rich and poor. But their sentiment seems to have been
-satisfied by a partial enforcement of the lot to the choice of some
-offices,—especially the archons, as the primitive chief magistrates
-of the state,—without applying it to all, or to the most responsible
-and difficult. Nor would they have applied it to the archons, if it
-had been indispensably necessary that these magistrates should retain
-their original very serious duty of judging disputes and condemning
-offenders.</p>
-
-<p>I think, therefore, that these three points: 1. The opening of the
-post of archon to all citizens indiscriminately; 2. The choice of
-archons by lot; 3. The diminished range of the archon’s duties and
-responsibilities, through the extension of those belonging to the
-popular courts of justice on the one hand and to the stratêgi on the
-other—are all connected together, and must have been simultaneous,
-or nearly simultaneous, in the time of introduction: the enactment
-of universal admissibility to office certainly not coming after the
-other two, and probably coming a little before them.</p>
-
-<p>Now in regard to the eligibility of all Athenians indiscriminately
-to the office of archon, we find a clear and positive testimony
-as to the time when it was first introduced. Plutarch tells us<a
-id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a>
-that the oligarchical,<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264"
-class="fnanchor">[264]</a> but high-principled Aristeidês, was
-himself the proposer of this constitutional change,—shortly
-after the battle of Platæa, with the consequent expulsion of the
-Persians from Greece, and the return of the refugee Athenians<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[p. 146]</span> to their ruined city.
-Seldom has it happened in the history of mankind, that rich and poor
-have been so completely equalized as among the population of Athens
-in that memorable expatriation and heroic struggle. Nor are we at
-all surprised to hear that the mass of the citizens, coming back
-with freshly-kindled patriotism as well as with the consciousness
-that their country had only been recovered by the equal efforts of
-all, would no longer submit to be legally disqualified from any
-office of state. It was on this occasion that the constitution was
-first made really “common” to all, and that the archons, stratêgi,
-and all functionaries, first began to be chosen from all Athenians
-without any difference of legal eligibility.<a id="FNanchor_265"
-href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> No mention is made
-of the lot, in this important statement of Plutarch, which appears
-to me every way worthy of credit, and which teaches us that, down to
-the invasion of Xerxês, not only had the exclusive principle of the
-Solonian law of qualification continued in force (whereby the first
-three classes on the census were alone admitted to all individual
-offices, and the fourth or Thêtic class excluded), but also the
-archons had hitherto been elected by the citizens,—not taken by
-lot.</p>
-
-<p>Now for financial purposes, the quadruple census of Solon was
-retained long after this period, even beyond the Peloponnesian war
-and the oligarchy of Thirty. But we thus learn that Kleisthenês
-in his constitution retained it for political purposes also, in
-part at least: he recognized the exclusion of the great mass of
-the citizens from all individual offices,—such as the archon, the
-stratêgus, etc. In his time, probably, no complaints were raised on
-the subject. His constitution gave to the collective bodies—senate,
-ekklesia, and heliæa, or dikastery—a degree of power and importance
-such as they had never before known or imagined: and we may well
-suppose that the Athenian people of that day had no objection even
-to the proclaimed system and theory of being exclusively governed
-by men of wealth and station as individual magistrates,—especially
-since many of the newly-enfranchised citizens had been previously
-metics and slaves. Indeed, it is to be added that, even under the
-full<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[p. 147]</span> democracy
-of later Athens, though the people had then become passionately
-attached to the theory of equal admissibility of all citizens to
-office, yet, in practice, poor men seldom obtained offices which
-were elected by the general vote, as will appear more fully in the
-course of this history.<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266"
-class="fnanchor">[266]</a></p>
-
-<p>The choice of the stratêgi remained ever afterwards upon the
-footing on which Aristeidês thus placed it. But the lot for the
-choice of archon must have been introduced shortly after his
-proposition of universal eligibility, and in consequence too of
-the same tide of democratical feeling,—introduced as a farther
-corrective, because the poor citizen, though he had become eligible,
-was nevertheless not elected. And at the same time, I imagine,
-that elaborate distribution of the Heliæa, or aggregate body of
-dikasts, or jurors, into separate pannels, or dikasteries, for the
-decision of judicial matters, was first regularized. It was this
-change that stole away from the archons so important a part of their
-previous jurisdiction: it was this change that Periklês more fully
-consummated by insuring pay to the dikasts. But the present is not
-the time to enter into the modifications which Athens underwent
-during the generation after the battle of Platæa. They have been
-here briefly noticed for the purpose of reasoning back, in the
-absence of direct evidence, to Athens as it stood in the generation
-before that memorable battle, after the reform of Kleisthenês.
-His reform, though highly democratical,<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_148">[p. 148]</span> stopped short of the mature democracy
-which prevailed from Periklês to Demosthenês, in three ways
-especially, among various others; and it is therefore sometimes
-considered by the later writers as an aristocratical constitution:<a
-id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a> 1.
-It still recognized the archons as judges to a considerable extent,
-and the third archon, or polemarch, as joint military commander
-along with the stratêgi. 2. It retained them as elected annually
-by the body of citizens, not as chosen by lot.<a id="FNanchor_268"
-href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> 3. It still
-excluded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[p. 149]</span> the
-fourth class of the Solonian census from all individual office,
-the archonship among the rest. The Solonian law of exclusion,
-however, though retained in principle, was mitigated in practice
-thus far,—that whereas Solon had rendered none but members of the
-highest class on the census (the Pentakosiomedimni) eligible to the
-archonship, Kleisthenês opened that dignity to all the first three
-classes, shutting out only the fourth. That he did this may be
-inferred from the fact that Aristeidês, assuredly not a rich man,
-became archon.</p>
-
-<p>I am also inclined to believe that the Senate of Five Hundred, as
-constituted by Kleisthenês, was taken, not by election, but by lot,
-from the ten tribes,—and that every citizen became eligible to it.
-Election for this purpose—that is, the privilege of annually electing
-a batch of fifty senators, all at once, by each tribe—would probably
-be thought more troublesome than valuable; nor do we hear of separate
-meetings of each tribe for purposes of election. Moreover, the office
-of senator was a collective, not an individual office; the shock,
-therefore, to the feelings of semi-democratized Athens, from the
-unpleasant idea of a poor man sitting among the fifty prytanes, would
-be less than if they conceived him as polemarch at the head of the
-right wing of the army, or as an archon administering justice.</p>
-
-<p>A farther difference between the constitution of Solon and that
-of Kleisthenês is to be found in the position of the Senate of
-Areopagus. Under the former, that senate had been the principal
-body in the state, and he had even enlarged its powers; under the
-latter, it must have been treated at first as an enemy, and kept
-down. For as it was composed only of all the past archons, and as,
-during the preceding thirty years, every archon had been a creature
-of the Peisistratids, the Areopagites collectively must have been
-both hostile and odious to Kleisthenês and his partisans,—perhaps a
-fraction of its members might even retire into exile with Hippias.
-Its influence must have been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[p.
-150]</span> sensibly lessened by the change of party, until it
-came to be gradually filled by fresh archons springing from the
-bosom of the Kleisthenean constitution. But during this important
-interval, the new-modelled Senate of Five Hundred, and the popular
-assembly, stepped into that ascendency which they never afterwards
-lost. From the time of Kleisthenês forward, the Areopagites cease to
-be the chief and prominent power in the state: yet they are still
-considerable; and when the second fill of the democratical tide took
-place, after the battle of Platæa, they became the focus of that
-which was then considered as the party of oligarchical resistance. I
-have already remarked that the archons, during the intermediate time
-(about 509-477 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), were all elected
-by the ekklesia, not chosen by lot,—and that the fourth (or poorest
-and most numerous) class on the census were by law then ineligible;
-while election at Athens, even when every citizen without exception
-was an elector and eligible, had a natural tendency to fall upon
-men of wealth and station. We thus see how it happened that the
-past archons, when united in the Senate of Areopagus, infused into
-that body the sympathies, prejudices, and interests of the richer
-classes. It was this which brought them into conflict with the more
-democratical party headed by Periklês and Ephialtês, in times when
-portions of the Kleisthenean constitution had come to be discredited
-as too much imbued with oligarchy.</p>
-
-<p>One other remarkable institution, distinctly ascribed to
-Kleisthenês, yet remains to be noticed,—the Ostracism; upon
-which I have already made some remarks,<a id="FNanchor_269"
-href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> in touching upon the
-memorable Solonian proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. It
-is hardly too much to say that, without this protective process, none
-of the other institutions would have reached maturity.</p>
-
-<p>By the ostracism, a citizen was banished without special
-accusation, trial, or defence, for a term of ten years,—subsequently
-diminished to five. His property was not taken away, nor his
-reputation tainted; so that the penalty consisted solely in the
-banishment from his native city to some other Greek city. As to
-reputation, the ostracism was a compliment rather than otherwise;<a
-id="FNanchor_270" href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a>
-and so it was vividly felt to be, when, about ninety years<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[p. 151]</span> after Kleisthenês, the
-conspiracy between Nikias and Alkibiadês fixed it upon Hyperbolus.
-The two former had both recommended the taking of an ostracizing
-vote, each hoping to cause the banishment of the other; but before
-the day arrived, they accommodated the difference. To fire off the
-safety-gun of the republic against a person so little dangerous
-as Hyperbolus, was denounced as the prostitution of a great
-political ceremony: “it was not against such men as him (said the
-comic writer, Plato),<a id="FNanchor_271" href="#Footnote_271"
-class="fnanchor">[271]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[p.
-152]</span> that the oyster-shell (or potsherd) was intended to be
-used.” The process of ostracism was carried into effect by writing
-upon a shell, or potsherd, the name of the person whom a citizen
-thought it prudent for a time to banish; which shell, when deposited
-in the proper vessel, counted for a vote towards the sentence.</p>
-
-<p>I have already observed that all the governments of the Grecian
-cities, when we compare them with that idea which a modern reader is
-apt to conceive of the measure of force belonging to a government,
-were essentially weak, the good as well as the bad,—the democratical,
-the oligarchical, and the despotic. The force in the hands of any
-government, to cope with conspirators or mutineers, was extremely
-small, with the single exception of a despot surrounded by his
-mercenary troop; so that no tolerably sustained conspiracy or usurper
-could be put down except by the direct aid of the people in support
-of the government; which amounted to a dissolution, for the time,
-of constitutional authority, and was pregnant with reactionary
-consequences such as no man could foresee. To prevent powerful men
-from attempting usurpation was, therefore, of the greatest possible
-moment; and a despot or an oligarchy might exercise preventive
-means at pleasure,<a id="FNanchor_272" href="#Footnote_272"
-class="fnanchor">[272]</a> much sharper than the ostracism, such
-as the assassination of Kimon, mentioned in my last chapter, as
-directed by the Peisistratids. At the very least, they might
-send away any one, from whom they apprehended attack or danger,
-without incurring even so much as the imputation of severity. But
-in a democracy, where arbitrary action of the magistrate was the
-thing of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[p. 153]</span> all
-others most dreaded, and where fixed laws, with trial and defence
-as preliminaries to punishment, were conceived by the ordinary
-citizen as the guarantees of his personal security and as the
-pride of his social condition,—the creation of such an exceptional
-power presented serious difficulty. If we transport ourselves to
-the times of Kleisthenês, immediately after the expulsion of the
-Peisistratids, when the working of the democratical machinery was
-as yet untried, we shall find this difficulty at its maximum; but
-we shall also find the necessity of vesting such a power somewhere
-absolutely imperative. For the great Athenian nobles had yet to
-learn the lesson of respect for any constitution; their past history
-had exhibited continual struggles between the armed factions of
-Megaklês, Lykurgus, and Peisistratus, put down after a time by the
-superior force and alliances of the latter. And though Kleisthenês,
-the son of Megaklês, might be firmly disposed to renounce the
-example of his father, and to act as the faithful citizen of a
-fixed constitution,—he would know but too well that the sons of his
-father’s companions and rivals would follow out ambitious purposes
-without any regard to the limits imposed by law, if ever they
-acquired sufficient partisans to present a fair prospect of success.
-Moreover, when any two candidates for power, with such reckless
-dispositions, came into a bitter personal rivalry, the motives to
-each of them, arising as well out of fear as out of ambition, to put
-down his opponent at any cost to the constitution, might well become
-irresistible, unless some impartial and discerning interference could
-arrest the strife in time. “If the Athenians were wise (Aristeidês
-is reported to have said,<a id="FNanchor_273" href="#Footnote_273"
-class="fnanchor">[273]</a> in the height and peril of his
-parliamentary struggle with Themistoklês), they would cast both
-Themistoklês and me into the barathrum.”<a id="FNanchor_274"
-href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a> And whoever<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[p. 154]</span> reads the sad narrative
-of the Korkyræan sedition, in the third book of Thucydidês, together
-with the reflections of the historian upon it,<a id="FNanchor_275"
-href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a> will trace the
-gradual exasperation of these party feuds, beginning even under
-democratical forms, until at length they break down the barriers of
-public as well as of private morality.</p>
-
-<p>Against this chance of internal assailants Kleisthenês had to
-protect the democratical constitution,—first, by throwing impediments
-in their way and rendering it difficult for them to procure the
-requisite support; next, by eliminating them before any violent
-projects were ripe for execution. To do either the one or the other,
-it was necessary to provide such a constitution as would not only
-conciliate the good-will, but kindle the passionate attachment,
-of the mass of citizens, insomuch that not even any considerable
-minority should be deliberately inclined to alter it by force. It was
-necessary to create in the multitude, and through them to force upon
-the leading ambitious men, that rare and difficult sentiment which
-we may term a constitutional morality; a paramount reverence for the
-forms of the constitution, enforcing obedience to the authorities
-acting under and within those forms, yet combined with the habit of
-open speech, of action subject only to definite legal control, and
-unrestrained censure of those very authorities as to all their public
-acts,—combined too with a perfect confidence in the bosom of every
-citizen, amidst the bitterness of party contest, that the forms of
-the constitution will be not less sacred in the eyes of his opponents
-than in his own. This coexistence of freedom and self-imposed
-restraint,—of obedience to authority with unmeasured censure of the
-persons exercising it,—may be found in the aristocracy of England
-(since about 1688) as well as in the democracy of the American United
-States: and because we are familiar with it, we are apt to suppose
-it a natural sentiment; though there seem to be few sentiments more
-difficult to establish and diffuse among a community, judging by the
-experience of history. We may see how imperfectly it exists at this
-day in the Swiss cantons; and the many violences of the first French
-revolution illustrate, among various other lessons, the fatal effects
-arising from its absence, even among a people high in the scale of
-intelligence. Yet the dif<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[p.
-155]</span>fusion of such constitutional morality, not merely among
-the majority of any community, but throughout the whole, is the
-indispensable condition of a government at once free and peaceable;
-since even any powerful and obstinate minority may render the working
-of free institutions impracticable, without being strong enough to
-conquer ascendency for themselves. Nothing less than unanimity, or
-so overwhelming a majority as to be tantamount to unanimity, on the
-cardinal point of respecting constitutional forms, even by those who
-do not wholly approve of them, can render the excitement of political
-passion bloodless, and yet expose all the authorities in the state to
-the full license of pacific criticism.</p>
-
-<p>At the epoch of Kleisthenês, which by a remarkable coincidence
-is the same as that of the regifuge at Rome, such constitutional
-morality, if it existed anywhere else, had certainly no place at
-Athens; and the first creation of it in any particular society
-must be esteemed an interesting historical fact. By the spirit of
-his reforms,—equal, popular, and comprehensive, far beyond the
-previous experience of Athenians,—he secured the hearty attachment
-of the body of citizens; but from the first generation of leading
-men, under the nascent democracy, and with such precedents as they
-had to look back upon, no self-imposed limits to ambition could be
-expected: and the problem required was to eliminate beforehand any
-one about to transgress these limits, so as to escape the necessity
-of putting him down afterwards, with all that bloodshed and reaction,
-in the midst of which the free working of the constitution would be
-suspended at least, if not irrevocably extinguished. To acquire such
-influence as would render him dangerous under democratical forms,
-a man must stand in evidence before the public, so as to afford
-some reasonable means of judging of his character and purposes;
-and the security which Kleisthenês provided, was, to call in the
-positive judgment of the citizens respecting his future promise
-purely and simply, so that they might not remain too long neutral
-between two formidable political rivals,—pursuant in a certain way
-to the Solonian proclamation against neutrality in a sedition, as I
-have already remarked in a former chapter. He incorporated in the
-constitution itself the principle of <i>privilegium</i> (to employ the
-Roman phrase, which signifies, not a peculiar<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_156">[p. 156]</span> favor granted to any one, but a
-peculiar inconvenience imposed), yet only under circumstances solemn
-and well defined, with full notice and discussion beforehand, and
-by the positive secret vote of a large proportion of the citizens.
-“No law shall be made against any single citizen, without the same
-being made against <i>all</i> Athenian citizens; unless it shall so seem
-good to six thousand citizens voting secretly.”<a id="FNanchor_276"
-href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a> Such was that
-general principle of the constitution, under which the ostracism
-was a particular case. Before the vote of ostracism could be taken,
-a case was to be made out in the senate and the public assembly
-to justify it. In the sixth prytany of the year, these two bodies
-debated and determined whether the state of the republic was menacing
-enough to call for such an exceptional measure.<a id="FNanchor_277"
-href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a> If they decided in
-the affirmative, a day was named, the agora was railed round, with
-ten entrances left for the citizens of each tribe, and ten separate
-casks or vessels for depositing the suffrages, which consisted of a
-shell, or a potsherd, with the name of the person written on it whom
-each citizen designed to banish. At the end of the day, the number
-of votes was summed up, and if six thousand votes were found to
-have been given against any one person, that person was ostracized;
-if not, the ceremony ended in nothing.<a id="FNanchor_278"
-href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> Ten days were allowed
-to him for settling his af<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[p.
-157]</span>fairs, after which he was required to depart from Attica
-for ten years, but retained his property, and suffered no other
-penalty.</p>
-
-<p>It was not the maxim at Athens to escape the errors of the
-people, by calling in the different errors, and the sinister
-interest besides, of an extra-popular or privileged few; nor was
-any third course open, since the principles of representative
-government were not understood, nor indeed conveniently applicable
-to very small communities. Beyond the judgment of the people—so
-the Athenians felt—there was no appeal; and their grand study was
-to surround the delivery of that judgment with the best securities
-for rectitude and the best preservatives against haste, passion, or
-private corruption. Whatever measure of good government could not
-be obtained in that way, could not, in their opinion, be obtained
-at all. I shall illustrate the Athenian proceedings on this head
-more fully when I come to speak of the working of their mature
-democracy: meanwhile, in respect to this grand protection of the
-nascent democracy,—the vote of ostracism,—it will be found that
-the securities devised by Kleisthenês, for making the sentence
-effectual against the really dangerous man, and against no one else,
-display not less foresight than patriotism. The main object was, to
-render the voting an expression of deliberate public feeling, as
-distinguished from mere factious antipathy: the large minimum of
-votes required, one-fourth of the entire citizen population, went
-far to insure this effect,—the more so, since each vote, taken as it
-was in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[p. 158]</span> secret
-manner, counted unequivocally for the expression of a genuine and
-independent sentiment, and could neither be coerced nor bought.
-Then again, Kleisthenês did not permit the process of ostracizing
-to be opened against any one citizen exclusively. If opened at all,
-every one without exception was exposed to the sentence; so that the
-friends of Themistoklês could not invoke it against Aristeidês,<a
-id="FNanchor_279" href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a>
-nor those of the latter against the former, without exposing their
-own leader to the same chance of exile. It was not likely to be
-invoked at all, therefore, until exasperation had proceeded so far
-as to render both parties insensible to this chance,—the precise
-index of that growing internecive hostility, which the ostracism
-prevented from coming to a head. Nor could it even then be ratified,
-unless a case was shown to convince the more neutral portion of the
-senate and the ekklesia: moreover, after all, the ekklesia did not
-itself ostracize, but a future day was named, and the whole body of
-the citizens were solemnly invited to vote. It was in this way that
-security was taken not only for making the ostracism effectual in
-protecting the constitution, but to hinder it from being employed
-for any other purpose. And we must recollect that it exercised
-its tutelary influence, not merely on those occasions when it was
-actually employed, but by the mere knowledge that it might be
-employed, and by the restraining effect which that knowledge produced
-on the conduct of the great men. Again, the ostracism, though
-essentially of an exceptional nature, was yet an exception sanctified
-and limited by the constitution itself; so that the citizen, in
-giving his ostracizing vote, did not in any way depart from the
-constitution or lose his reverence for it. The issue placed before
-him—“Is there any man whom you think vitally dangerous to the state?
-if so, whom?”—though vague, was yet raised directly and legally. Had
-there been no ostracism, it might probably have been raised both
-indirectly and illegally, on the occasion of some special imputed
-crime of a suspected political leader, when accused before a court
-of justice,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[p. 159]</span> —a
-perversion, involving all the mischief of the ostracism, without its
-protective benefits.</p>
-
-<p>Care was taken to divest the ostracism of all painful consequence
-except what was inseparable from exile; and this is not one of
-the least proofs of the wisdom with which it was devised. Most
-certainly, it never deprived the public of candidates for political
-influence: and when we consider the small amount of individual evil
-which it inflicted,—evil too diminished, in the cases of Kimon
-and Aristeidês, by a reactionary sentiment which augmented their
-subsequent popularity after return,—two remarks will be quite
-sufficient to offer in the way of justification. First, it completely
-produced its intended effect; for the democracy grew up from infancy
-to manhood without a single attempt to overthrow it by force,<a
-id="FNanchor_280" href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a>—a
-result, upon which no reflecting contemporary of Kleisthenês
-could have ventured to calculate. Next, through such tranquil
-working of the democratical forms, a constitutional morality quite
-sufficiently complete was produced among the leading Athenians,
-to enable the people after a certain time to dispense with that
-exceptional security which the ostracism offered.<a id="FNanchor_281"
-href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a> To the nascent
-democ<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[p. 160]</span>racy,
-it was absolutely indispensable; to the growing yet militant
-democracy, it was salutary; but the full-grown democracy both could
-and did stand without it. The ostracism passed upon Hyperbolus,
-about ninety years after Kleisthenês, was the last occasion of its
-employment. And even this can hardly be considered as a serious
-instance: it was a trick concerted between two distinguished
-Athenians (Nikias and Alkibiadês), to turn to their own political
-account a process already coming to be antiquated. Nor would
-such a manœuvre have been possible, if the contemporary Athenian
-citizens had been penetrated with the same, serious feeling of the
-value of ostracism as a safeguard of democracy, as had been once
-entertained by their fathers and grandfathers. Between Kleisthenês
-and Hyperbolus, we hear of about ten different persons as having
-been banished by ostracism. First of all, Hipparchus of the deme
-Cholargus, the son of Charmus, a relative of the recently-expelled
-Peisistratid despots;<a id="FNanchor_282" href="#Footnote_282"
-class="fnanchor">[282]</a> then Aristeidês, Themistoklês, Kimon,
-and Thucydidês son of Melêsias, all of them renowned political
-leaders; also Alkibiadês and Megaklês (the paternal and maternal
-grandfathers of the distinguished Alkibiadês), and Kallias,
-belonging to another eminent family at Athens;<a id="FNanchor_283"
-href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a> lastly, Damôn, the
-preceptor of Periklês in poetry and music, and eminent for his
-acquisitions in philosophy.<a id="FNanchor_284" href="#Footnote_284"
-class="fnanchor">[284]</a> In this last case comes out the vulgar
-side of humanity, aristocratical as well as democratical; for with
-both, the process of philosophy and the persons of philosophers are
-wont to be alike unpopular. Even Kleisthenês himself is said to have
-been ostracized under his own law, and Xanthippus; but both upon
-authority too weak to trust.<a id="FNanchor_285" href="#Footnote_285"
-class="fnanchor">[285]</a> Miltiadês was not ostracized at all, but
-tried and punished for misconduct in his command.</p>
-
-<p>I should hardly have said so much about this memorable
-and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[p. 161]</span> peculiar
-institution of Kleisthenês, if the erroneous accusations against
-the Athenian democracy,—of envy, injustice, and ill-treatment of
-their superior men, had not been greatly founded upon it, and if
-such criticisms had not passed from ancient times to modern with
-little examination. In monarchical governments, a pretender to the
-throne, numbering a certain amount of supporters, is, as a matter
-of course, excluded from the country. The duke of Bordeaux cannot
-now reside in France,—nor could Napoleon after 1815,—nor Charles
-Edward in England during the last century. No man treats this as any
-extravagant injustice, yet it is the parallel of the ostracism,—with
-a stronger case in favor of the latter, inasmuch as the change from
-one regal dynasty to another does not of necessity overthrow all
-the collateral institutions and securities of the country. Plutarch
-has affirmed that the ostracism arose from the envy and jealousy
-inherent in a democracy,<a id="FNanchor_286" href="#Footnote_286"
-class="fnanchor">[286]</a> and not from justifiable fears,—an
-observation often repeated, yet not the less demonstrably untrue.
-Not merely because ostracism so worked as often to increase the
-influence of that political leader whose rival it removed,—but
-still more, because, if the fact had been as Plutarch says, this
-institution would have continued as long as the democracy; whereas
-it finished with the banishment of Hyperbolus, at a period when
-the government was more decisively democratical than it had been
-in the time of Kleisthenês. It was, in truth, a product altogether
-of fear and insecurity,<a id="FNanchor_287" href="#Footnote_287"
-class="fnanchor">[287]</a> on the part both of the democracy and
-its best friends,—fear perfectly well-grounded, and only appearing
-needless because the precautions taken prevented attack. So soon
-as the diffusion of a constitutional morality had placed the mass
-of the citizens above all serious fear of an aggressive usurper
-the ostracism was discontinued. And doubtless the feeling, that it
-might safely be dispensed with, must have been strengthened by the
-long ascendency of Periklês,—by the spectacle of the great<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[p. 162]</span>est statesman whom
-Athens ever produced, acting steadily within the limits of the
-constitution; as well as by the ill-success of his two opponents,
-Kimon and Thucydidês,—aided by numerous partisans and by the great
-comic writers, at a period when comedy was a power in the state
-such as it has never been before or since,—in their attempts to get
-him ostracized. They succeeded in fanning up the ordinary antipathy
-of the citizens towards philosophers, so far as to procure the
-ostracism of his friend and teacher Damôn: but Periklês himself, to
-repeat the complaint of his bitter enemy, the comic poet Kratinus,<a
-id="FNanchor_288" href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a>
-“was out of the reach of the oyster-shell.” If Periklês was not
-conceived to be dangerous to the constitution, none of his successors
-were at all likely to be so regarded. Damôn and Hyperbolus were
-the two last persons ostracized: both of them were cases, and the
-only cases, of an unequivocal abuse of the institution, because,
-whatever the grounds of displeasure against them may have been,
-it is impossible to conceive either of them as menacing to the
-state,—whereas all the other known sufferers were men of such
-position and power, that the six or eight thousand citizens who
-inscribed each name on the shell, or at least a large proportion
-of them, may well have done so under the most conscientious belief
-that they were guarding the constitution against real danger. Such a
-change, in the character of the persons ostracized, plainly evinces
-that the ostracism had become dissevered from that genuine patriotic
-prudence which originally rendered it both legitimate and popular. It
-had served for two generations an inestimable tutelary purpose,—it
-lived to be twice dishonored,—and then passed, by universal
-acquiescence, into matter of history.</p>
-
-<p>A process analogous to the ostracism subsisted at Argos,<a
-id="FNanchor_289" href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> at
-Syracuse, and in some other Grecian democracies. Aristotle states
-that it was abused for factious purposes: and at Syracuse,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[p. 163]</span> where it was introduced
-after the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty, Diodorus affirms that
-it was so unjustly and profusely applied, as to deter persons of
-wealth and station from taking any part in public affairs; for which
-reason it was speedily discontinued. We have no particulars to enable
-us to appreciate this general statement. But we cannot safely infer
-that because the ostracism worked on the whole well at Athens, it
-must necessarily have worked well in other states,—the more so, as
-we do not know whether it was surrounded with the same precautionary
-formalities, nor whether it even required the same large minimum of
-votes to make it effective. This latter guarantee, so valuable in
-regard to an institution essentially easy to abuse, is not noticed
-by Diodorus in his brief account of the Petalism,—so the process was
-denominated at Syracuse.<a id="FNanchor_290" href="#Footnote_290"
-class="fnanchor">[290]</a></p>
-
-<p>Such was the first Athenian democracy, engendered as well by
-the reaction against Hippias and his dynasty as by the memorable
-partnership, whether spontaneous or compulsory, between Kleisthenês
-and the unfranchised multitude. It is to be distinguished, both
-from the mitigated oligarchy established by Solon before, and from
-the full-grown and symmetrical democracy which prevailed afterwards
-from the beginning of the Peloponnesian war towards the close of the
-career of Periklês. It was, indeed, a striking revolution, impressed
-upon the citizen not less by the sentiments to which it appealed
-than by the visible change which it made in political and social
-life. He saw himself marshalled in the ranks of hoplites, alongside
-of new companions in arms,—he was enrolled in a new register, and
-his property in a new schedule, in his deme and by his demarch, an
-officer before unknown,—he found the year distributed afresh, for
-all legal purposes, into ten parts bearing the name of prytanies,
-each marked by a solemn and free-spoken ekklesia, at which he had
-a right to be present,—that ekklesia was convoked and presided by
-senators called prytanes, members of a senate novel both as to number
-and distribution,—his political duties were now performed as member
-of a tribe, designated by a name not before<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_164">[p. 164]</span> pronounced in common Attic life,
-connected with one of ten heroes whose statues he now for the first
-time saw in the agora, and associating him with fellow-tribemen
-from all parts of Attica. All these and many others were sensible
-novelties, felt in the daily proceedings of the citizen. But the
-great novelty of all was, the authentic recognition of the ten new
-tribes as a sovereign dêmos, or people, apart from all specialties
-of phratric or gentile origin, with free speech and equal law;
-retaining no distinction except the four classes of the Solonian
-property-schedule with their gradations of eligibility. To a
-considerable proportion of citizens this great novelty was still
-farther endeared by the fact that it had raised them out of the
-degraded position of metics and slaves; and to the large majority of
-all the citizens, it furnished a splendid political idea, profoundly
-impressive to the Greek mind,—capable of calling forth the most
-ardent attachment as well as the most devoted sense of active
-obligation and obedience. We have now to see how their newly-created
-patriotism manifested itself.</p>
-
-<p>Kleisthenês and his new constitution carried with them so
-completely the popular favor, that Isagoras had no other way of
-opposing it except by calling in the interference of Kleomenês and
-the Lacedæmonians. Kleomenês listened the more readily to this call,
-as he was reported to have been on an intimate footing with the wife
-of Isagoras. He prepared to come to Athens; but his first aim was
-to deprive the democracy of its great leader Kleisthenês, who, as
-belonging to the Alkmæônid family, was supposed to be tainted with
-the inherited sin of his great-grandfather Megaklês, the destroyer
-of the usurper Kylôn. Kleomenês sent a herald to Athens, demanding
-the expulsion “of the accursed,”—so this family were called by their
-enemies, and so they continued to be called eighty years afterwards,
-when the same manœuvre was practised by the Lacedæmonians of that
-day against Periklês. This requisition had been recommended by
-Isagoras, and was so well-timed that Kleisthenês, not venturing to
-disobey it, retired voluntarily, so that Kleomenês, though arriving
-at Athens only with a small force, found himself master of the city.
-At the instigation of Isagoras, he sent into exile seven hundred
-families, selected from the chief partisans of Kleisthenês: his next
-attempt was to dissolve the new Senate of<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_165">[p. 165]</span> Five Hundred and place the whole
-government in the hands of three hundred adherents of the chief
-whose cause he espoused. But now was seen the spirit infused into
-the people by their new constitution. At the time of the first
-usurpation of Peisistratus, the Senate of that day had not only not
-resisted, but even lent themselves to the scheme. But the new Senate
-of Kleisthenês resolutely refused to submit to dissolution, and the
-citizens manifested themselves in a way at once so hostile and so
-determined, that Kleomenês and Isagoras were altogether baffled.
-They were compelled to retire into the acropolis and stand upon the
-defensive; and this symptom of weakness was the signal for a general
-rising of the Athenians, who besieged the Spartan king on the holy
-rock. He had evidently come without any expectation of finding, or
-any means of overpowering, resistance; for at the end of two days
-his provisions were exhausted, and he was forced to capitulate. He
-and his Lacedæmonians, as well as Isagoras, were allowed to retire
-to Sparta; but the Athenians of the party captured along with him
-were imprisoned, condemned,<a id="FNanchor_291" href="#Footnote_291"
-class="fnanchor">[291]</a> and executed by the people.</p>
-
-<p>Kleisthenês, with the seven hundred exiled families, was
-immediately recalled, and his new constitution materially
-strengthened by this first success. Yet the prospect of renewed
-Spartan attack was sufficiently serious to induce him to send
-envoys to Artaphernês, the Persian satrap at Sardis, soliciting
-the admission of Athens into the Persian alliance: he probably
-feared the intrigues of the expelled Hippias in the same quarter.
-Artaphernês, having first informed himself who the Athenians were,
-and where they dwelt,—replied that, if they chose to send earth
-and water to the king of Persia, they might be received as allies,
-but upon no other condition. Such were the feelings of alarm under
-which the envoys had quitted Athens, that they went the length of
-promising this unqualified token of submission. But their countrymen,
-on their return, disavowed them with scorn and indignation.<a
-id="FNanchor_292" href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a></p>
-
-<p>It was at this time that the first connection began between
-Athens and the little Bœotian town of Platæa, situated on the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[p. 166]</span> northern slope of the
-range of Kithæron, between that mountain and the river Asôpus,—on
-the road from Athens to Thebes; and it is upon this first occasion
-that we become acquainted with the Bœotians and their polities. In
-one of my preceding volumes,<a id="FNanchor_293" href="#Footnote_293"
-class="fnanchor">[293]</a> the Bœotian federation has already been
-briefly described, as composed of some twelve or thirteen autonomous
-towns under the headship of Thebes, which was, or professed to have
-been, their mother-city. Platæa had been, so the Thebans affirmed,
-their latest foundation;<a id="FNanchor_294" href="#Footnote_294"
-class="fnanchor">[294]</a> it was ill-used by them, and discontented
-with the alliance. Accordingly, as Kleomenês was on his way back
-from Athens, the Platæans took the opportunity of addressing
-themselves to him, craved the protection of Sparta against Thebes,
-and surrendered their town and territory without reserve. The
-Spartan king, having no motive to undertake a trust which promised
-nothing but trouble, advised them to solicit the protection of
-Athens, as nearer and more accessible for them in case of need.
-He foresaw that this would embroil the Athenians with Bœotia; and
-such anticipation was in fact his chief motive for giving the
-advice, which the Platæans followed. Selecting an occasion of public
-sacrifice at Athens, they dispatched thither envoys, who sat down
-as suppliants at the altar, surrendered their town to Athens, and
-implored protection against Thebes. Such an appeal was not to be
-resisted, and protection was promised; it was soon needed, for the
-Thebans invaded the Platæan territory, and an Athenian force marched
-to defend it. Battle was about to be joined, when the Corinthians
-interposed with their mediation, which was accepted by both parties.
-They decided altogether in favor of Platæa, pronouncing that the
-Thebans had no right to employ force against any seceding member of
-the Bœotian federation.<a id="FNanchor_295" href="#Footnote_295"
-class="fnanchor">[295]</a> But the Thebans, finding the decision
-against them, refused to abide by it, and, attacking the Athenians on
-their return, sustained a complete defeat: the latter avenged this
-breach of faith by joining to Platæa the portion of Theban territory
-south of the Asôpus, and making that river the limit between<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[p. 167]</span> the two. By such
-success, however, the Athenians gained nothing, except the enmity
-of Bœotia,—as Kleomenês had foreseen. Their alliance with Platæa,
-long continued, and presenting in the course of this history several
-incidents touching to our sympathies, will be found, if we except
-one splendid occasion,<a id="FNanchor_296" href="#Footnote_296"
-class="fnanchor">[296]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[p.
-168]</span> productive only of burden to the one party, yet
-insufficient as a protection to the other.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Kleomenês had returned to Sparta full of resentment
-against the Athenians, and resolved on punishing them, as well as on
-establishing his friend Isagoras as despot over them. Having been
-taught, however, by humiliating experience, that this was no easy
-achievement, he would not make the attempt, without having assembled
-a considerable force; he summoned allies from all the various states
-of Peloponnesus, yet without venturing to inform them what he was
-about to undertake. He at the same time concerted measures with the
-Bœotians, and with the Chalkidians of Eubœa, for a simultaneous
-invasion of Attica on all sides. It appears that he had greater
-confidence in their hostile dispositions towards Athens than in those
-of the Peloponnesians, for he was not afraid to acquaint them with
-his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[p. 169]</span> design,—and
-probably the Bœotians were incensed with the recent interference of
-Athens in the affair of Platæa. As soon as these preparations were
-completed, the two kings of Sparta, Kleomenês and Demaratus, put
-themselves at the head of the united Peloponnesian force, marched
-into Attica, and advanced as far as Eleusis on the way to Athens. But
-when the allies came to know the purpose for which they were to be
-employed, a spirit of dissatisfaction manifested itself among them.
-They had no unfriendly sentiment towards Athens; and the Corinthians
-especially, favorably disposed rather than otherwise towards that
-city, resolved to proceed no farther, withdrew their contingent
-from the camp, and returned home. At the same time, king Demaratus,
-either sharing in the general dissatisfaction, or moved by some
-grudge against his colleague which had not before manifested itself,
-renounced the undertaking also. And these two examples, operating
-upon the preëxisting sentiment of the allies generally, caused the
-whole camp to break up and return home without striking a blow.<a
-id="FNanchor_297" href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a></p>
-
-<p>We may here remark that this is the first instance known in
-which Sparta appears in act as recognized head of an obligatory
-Peloponnesian alliance,<a id="FNanchor_298" href="#Footnote_298"
-class="fnanchor">[298]</a> summoning contingents from the cities to
-be placed under the command of her king. Her headship, previously
-recognized in theory, passes now into act, but in an unsatisfactory
-manner, so as to prove the necessity of precaution and concert
-beforehand,—which will be found not long wanting.</p>
-
-<p>Pursuant to the scheme concerted, the Bœotians and Chalkidians
-attacked Attica at the same time that Kleomenês entered it. The
-former seized Œnoê and Hysiæ, the frontier demes of Attica on the
-side towards Platæa, while the latter assailed the north-eastern
-frontier, which faces Eubœa. Invaded on three sides, the Athenians
-were in serious danger, and were compelled to concentrate all their
-forces at Eleusis against Kleomenês, leaving the Bœotians and
-Chalkidians unopposed. But the unexpected breaking up of the invading
-army from Peloponnesus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[p.
-170]</span> proved their rescue, and enabled them to turn the whole
-of their attention to the other frontier. They marched into Bœotia to
-the strait called Euripus, which separates it from Eubœa, intending
-to prevent the junction of the Bœotians and Chalkidians, and to
-attack the latter first apart. But the arrival of the Bœotians
-caused an alteration in their scheme; they attacked the Bœotians
-first, and gained a victory of the most complete character,—killing
-a large number, and capturing seven hundred prisoners. On the very
-same day they crossed over to Eubœa, attacked the Chalkidians, and
-gained another victory so decisive that it at once terminated the
-war. Many Chalkidians were taken, as well as Bœotians, and conveyed
-in chains to Athens, where after a certain detention they were at
-last ransomed for two minæ per man; and the tenth of the sum thus
-raised was employed in the fabrication of a chariot and four horses
-in bronze, which was placed in the acropolis to commemorate the
-victory. Herodotus saw this trophy when he was at Athens. He saw
-too, what was a still more speaking trophy, the actual chains in
-which the prisoners had been fettered, exhibiting in their appearance
-the damage undergone when the acropolis was burnt by Xerxês: an
-inscription of four lines described the offerings and recorded
-the victory out of which they had sprung.<a id="FNanchor_299"
-href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p>
-
-<p>Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory.
-The Athenians planted a body of four thousand of their citizens as
-klêruchs (lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy
-Chalkidian oligarchy called the Hippobotæ,—proprietors probably in
-the fertile plain of Lêlantum, between Chalkis and Eretria. This
-is a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed
-out by the Athenians in the days of their power; partly with the
-view of providing for their poorer citizens,—partly to serve as
-garrison among a population either hostile or of doubtful fidelity.
-These Attic klêruchs (I can find no other name by which to speak
-of them) did not lose their birthright as Athenian citizens: they
-were not colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are known by a
-totally different name,—but they corresponded very nearly to the
-colonies formally planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The
-increase of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[p. 171]</span> the
-poorer population was always more or less painfully felt in every
-Grecian city. For though the aggregate population never seems to
-have increased very fast, yet the multiplication of children in
-poor families caused the subdivision of the smaller lots of land,
-until at last they became insufficient for a maintenance; and the
-persons thus impoverished found it difficult to obtain subsistence
-in other ways, more especially as the labor for the richer classes
-was so much performed by imported slaves. Doubtless some families
-possessed of landed property became extinct; but this did not at
-all benefit the smaller and poorer proprietors; for the lands thus
-rendered vacant passed, not to them, but by inheritance, or bequest,
-or intermarriage, to other proprietors, for the most part in easy
-circumstances,—since one opulent family usually intermarried with
-another. I shall enter more fully at a future opportunity into this
-question,—the great and serious problem of population, as it affected
-the Greek communities generally, and as it was dealt with in theory
-by the powerful minds of Plato and Aristotle. At present it is
-sufficient to notice that the numerous klêruchies sent out by Athens,
-of which this to Eubœa was the first, arose in a great measure out of
-the multiplication of the poorer population, which her extended power
-was employed in providing for. Her subsequent proceedings with a view
-to the same object will not be always found so justifiable as this
-now before us, which grew naturally, according to the ideas of the
-time, out of her success against the Chalkidians.</p>
-
-<p>The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Bœotian
-allies, still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage
-of the latter, until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask
-advice of the Delphian oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from
-those nearest to them.”<a id="FNanchor_300" href="#Footnote_300"
-class="fnanchor">[300]</a> “How (they replied) are we to obey? Our
-nearest neighbors, of Tanagra, Korôneia, and Thespiæ, are now, and
-have been from the beginning, lending us all the aid in their power.”
-An ingenious Theban, however, coming to the relief of his perplexed
-fellow-citizens, dived into the depths of legend and brought up a
-happy meaning. “Those nearest to us (he said) are the inhabitants
-of Ægina: for Thêbê (the eponym of Thebes) and Ægina (the eponym of
-that island)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[p. 172]</span> were
-both sisters, daughters of Asôpus: let us send to crave assistance
-from the Æginetans.” If his subtle interpretation (founded upon
-their descent from the same legendary progenitors) did not at once
-convince all who heard it, at least no one had any better to suggest;
-and envoys were at once sent to the Æginetans,—who, in reply to
-a petition founded on legendary claims, sent to the help of the
-Thebans a reinforcement of legendary, but venerated, auxiliaries,—the
-Æakid heroes. We are left to suppose that their effigies are here
-meant. It was in vain, however, that the glory and the supposed
-presence of the Æakids Telamôn and Pêleus were introduced into the
-Theban camp. Victory still continued on the side of Athens; and the
-discouraged Thebans again sent to Ægina, restoring the heroes,<a
-id="FNanchor_301" href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a>
-and praying for aid of a character more human and positive. Their
-request was granted, and the Æginetans commenced war against Athens
-without even the decent preliminary of a herald and declaration.<a
-id="FNanchor_302" href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a></p>
-
-<p>This remarkable embassy first brings us into acquaintance with the
-Dorians of Ægina,—oligarchical, wealthy, commercial, and powerful at
-sea, even in the earliest days; more analogous to Corinth than to
-any of the other cities called Dorian. The hos<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_173">[p. 173]</span>tility which they now began without
-provocation against Athens,—repressed by Sparta at the critical
-moment of the battle of Marathon,—then again breaking out,—and hushed
-for a while by the common dangers of the Persian invasion under
-Xerxês, was appeased only with the conquest of the island about
-twenty years after that event, and with the expulsion and destruction
-of its inhabitants some years later. There had been indeed,
-according to Herodotus,<a id="FNanchor_303" href="#Footnote_303"
-class="fnanchor">[303]</a> a feud of great antiquity between Athens
-and Ægina,—of which he gives the account in a singular narrative,
-blending together religion, politics, exposition of ancient customs,
-etc.; but at the time when the Thebans solicited aid from Ægina, the
-latter was at peace with Athens. The Æginetans employed their fleet,
-powerful for that day, in ravaging Phalêrum and the maritime demes
-of Attica; nor had the Athenians as yet any fleet to resist them.<a
-id="FNanchor_304" href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a>
-It is probable that the desired effect was produced, of diverting a
-portion of the Athenian force from the war against Bœotia, and thus
-partially relieving Thebes. But the war of Athens against both of
-them continued for a considerable time, though we have no information
-respecting its details.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile the attention of Athens was called off from these
-combined enemies by a more menacing cloud, which threatened to burst
-upon her from the side of Sparta. Kleomenês and his countrymen, full
-of resentment at the late inglorious desertion of Eleusis, were yet
-more incensed by the discovery, which appears to have been then
-recently made, that the injunctions of the Delphian priestess for the
-expulsion of Hippias from Athens had been fraudulently procured.<a
-id="FNanchor_305" href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a>
-Moreover, Kleomenês, when shut up in the acropolis of Athens with
-Isagoras, had found there various prophecies previously treasured
-up by the Peisistratids, many of which foreshadowed events highly
-disastrous to Sparta. And while the recent brilliant manifestations
-of courage, and repeated victories, on the part of Athens, seemed
-to indicate that such prophecies might perhaps be realized,—Sparta
-had to reproach herself, that, from the foolish and mischievous
-conduct<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[p. 174]</span> of
-Kleomenês, she had undone the effect of her previous aid against
-the Peisistratids, and thus lost that return of gratitude which the
-Athenians would otherwise have testified. Under such impressions, the
-Spartan authorities took the remarkable step of sending for Hippias
-from his residence at Sigeium to Peloponnesus, and of summoning
-deputies from all their allies to meet him at Sparta.</p>
-
-<p>The convocation thus summoned deserves notice as the commencement
-of a new era in Grecian politics. The previous expedition of
-Kleomenês against Attica presents to us the first known example
-of Spartan headship passing from theory into act: that expedition
-miscarried because the allies, though willing to follow, would
-not follow blindly, nor be made the instruments of executing
-purposes repugnant to their feelings. Sparta had now learned the
-necessity, in order to insure their hearty concurrence, of letting
-them know what she contemplated, so as to ascertain at least
-that she had no decided opposition to apprehend. Here, then, is
-the third stage in the spontaneous movement of Greece towards a
-systematic conjunction, however imperfect, of its many autonomous
-units. First we have Spartan headship suggested in theory, from a
-concourse of circumstances which attract to her the admiration of
-all Greece,—power, unrivalled training, undisturbed antiquity, etc.:
-next, the theory passes into act, yet rude and shapeless: lastly, the
-act becomes clothed with formalities, and preceded by discussion and
-determination. The first convocation of the allies at Sparta, for the
-purpose of having a common object submitted to their consideration,
-may well be regarded as an important event in Grecian political
-history. The proceedings at the convocation are no less important,
-as an indication of the way in which the Greeks of that day felt and
-acted, and must be borne in mind as a contrast with times hereafter
-to be described.</p>
-
-<p>Hippias having been presented to the assembled allies, the
-Spartans expressed their sorrow for having dethroned him,—their
-resentment and alarm at the new-born insolence of Athens,<a
-id="FNanchor_306" href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a>
-already tasted by her immediate neighbors, and menacing to every
-state represented in the convocation,—and their anxiety to<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[p. 175]</span> restore Hippias, not
-less as a reparation for past wrong, than as a means, through his
-rule, of keeping Athens low and dependent. But the proposition,
-though emanating from Sparta, was listened to by the allies with one
-common sentiment of repugnance. They had no sympathy for Hippias,—no
-dislike, still less any fear, of Athens,—and a profound detestation
-of the character of a despot. The spirit which had animated the armed
-contingents at Eleusis now reappeared among the deputies at Sparta,
-and the Corinthians again took the initiative. Their deputy Sosiklês
-protested against the project in the fiercest and most indignant
-strain: no language can be stronger than that of the long harangue
-which Herodotus puts into his mouth, wherein the bitter recollections
-prevalent at Corinth respecting Kypselus and Periander are poured
-forth. “Surely, heaven and earth are about to change places,—the
-fish are coming to dwell on dry land, and mankind going to inhabit
-the sea,—when you, Spartans, propose to subvert the popular
-governments, and to set up in the cities that wicked and bloody
-thing called a Despot.<a id="FNanchor_307" href="#Footnote_307"
-class="fnanchor">[307]</a> First try what it is, for yourselves
-at Sparta, and then force it upon others if you can: you have not
-tasted its calamities as we have, and you take very good care to
-keep it away from yourselves. We adjure you, by the common gods of
-Hellas,—plant not despots in her cities: if you persist in a scheme
-so wicked, know that the Corinthians will not second you.”</p>
-
-<p>This animated appeal was received with a shout of approbation
-and sympathy on the part of the allies. All with one accord united
-with Sosiklês in adjuring the Lacedæmonians<a id="FNanchor_308"
-href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> “not to revolutionize
-any Hellenic city.” No one listened to Hippias when he replied,
-warning the Corinthians that the time would come, when they, more
-than any one else, would dread and abhor the Athenian democracy, and
-wish the Peisistratidæ back again. He knew well, says Herodotus, that
-this would be, for he was better acquainted with the prophecies than
-any man. But no one then believed him, and he was forced to take
-his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[p. 176]</span> departure
-back to Sigeium: the Spartans not venturing to espouse his cause
-against the determined sentiment of the allies.<a id="FNanchor_309"
-href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a></p>
-
-<p>That determined sentiment deserves notice, because it marks the
-present period of the Hellenic mind: fifty years later it will
-be found materially altered. Aversion to single-headed rule, and
-bitter recollection of men like Kypselus and Periander, are now
-the chords which thrill in an assembly of Grecian deputies: the
-idea of a revolution, implying thereby a great and comprehensive
-change, of which the party using the word disapproves, consists in
-substituting a permanent One in place of those periodical magistrates
-and assemblies which were the common attribute of oligarchy and
-democracy: the antithesis between these last two is as yet in the
-background, nor does there prevail either fear of Athens or hatred of
-the Athenian democracy. But when we turn to the period immediately
-before the Peloponnesian war, we find the order of precedence
-between these two sentiments reversed. The anti-monarchical feeling
-has not perished, but has been overlaid by other and more recent
-political antipathies,—the antithesis between democracy and oligarchy
-having become, not indeed the only sentiment, but the uppermost
-sentiment, in the minds of Grecian politicians generally, and the
-soul of active party-movement. Moreover, a hatred of the most deadly
-character has grown up against Athens and her democracy, especially
-in the grandsons of those very Corinthians who now stand forward
-as her sympathizing friends. The remarkable change of feeling here
-mentioned is nowhere so strikingly exhibited as when we contrast the
-address of the Corinthian Sosiklês, just narrated, with the speech
-of the Corinthian envoys at Sparta, immediately antecedent to the
-Peloponnesian war, as given to us in Thucydidês.<a id="FNanchor_310"
-href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> It will hereafter be
-fully explained by the intermediate events, by the growth of Athenian
-power, and by the still more miraculous development of Athenian
-energy.</p>
-
-<p>Such development, the fruit of the fresh-planted democracy as
-well as the seed for its sustentation and aggrandizement, continued
-progressive during the whole period just adverted to. But the first
-unexpected burst of it, under the Kleisthenean constitution, and
-after the expulsion of Hippias, is described by<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_177">[p. 177]</span> Herodotus in terms too emphatic to be
-omitted. After narrating the successive victories of the Athenians
-over both Bœotians and Chalkidians, that historian proceeds: “Thus
-did the Athenians grow in strength. And we may find proof, not merely
-in this instance but everywhere else, how valuable a thing freedom
-is: since even the Athenians, while under a despot, were not superior
-in war to any of their surrounding neighbors, but, so soon as they
-got rid of their despots, became by far the first of all. These
-things show that while kept down by one man, they were slack and
-timid, like men working for a master; but when they were liberated,
-every single man became eager in exertions for his own benefit.”
-The same comparison reappears a short time afterwards, where he
-tells us, that “the Athenians when free, felt themselves a match for
-Sparta; but while kept down by any man under a despotism, were feeble
-and apt for submission.”<a id="FNanchor_311" href="#Footnote_311"
-class="fnanchor">[311]</a></p>
-
-<p>Stronger expressions cannot be found to depict the rapid
-improvement wrought in the Athenian people by their new democracy.
-Of course this did not arise merely from suspension of previous
-cruelties, or better laws, or better administration. These, indeed,
-were essential conditions, but the active transforming cause here
-was, the principle and system of which such amendments formed the
-detail: the grand and new idea of the sovereign People, composed of
-free and equal citizens,—or liberty and equality, to use words which
-so profoundly moved the French nation half a century ago. It was this
-comprehensive political idea which acted with electric effect upon
-the Athenians, creating within them a host of sentiments, motives,
-sympathies, and capacities, to which they had before been strangers.
-Democracy in Grecian antiquity possessed the privilege,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[p. 178]</span> not only of kindling
-an earnest and unanimous attachment to the constitution in the
-bosoms of the citizens, but also of creating an energy of public and
-private action, such as could never be obtained under an oligarchy,
-where the utmost that could be hoped for was a passive acquiescence
-and obedience. Mr. Burke has remarked that the mass of the people
-are generally very indifferent about theories of government; but
-such indifference—although improvements in the practical working
-of all governments tend to foster it—is hardly to be expected
-among any people who exhibit decided mental activity and spirit
-on other matters; and the reverse was unquestionably true, in the
-year 500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, among the communities of
-ancient Greece. Theories of government were there anything but a
-dead letter: they were connected with emotions of the strongest as
-well as of the most opposite character. The theory of a permanent
-ruling One, for example, was universally odious: that of a ruling
-Few, though acquiesced in, was never positively attractive, unless
-either where it was associated with the maintenance of peculiar
-education and habits, as at Sparta, or where it presented itself
-as the only antithesis to democracy, the latter having by peculiar
-circumstances become an object of terror. But the theory of democracy
-was preëminently seductive; creating in the mass of the citizens
-an intense positive attachment, and disposing them to voluntary
-action and suffering on its behalf, such as no coercion on the part
-of other governments could extort. Herodotus,<a id="FNanchor_312"
-href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> in his comparison
-of the three sorts of government, puts in the front rank of the
-advantages of democracy, “its most splendid name and promise,”—its
-power of enlisting the hearts of the citizens in support of their
-constitution, and of providing for all a common bond of union and
-fraternity. This is what even democracy did not always do: but it
-was what no other government in Greece <i>could</i> do: a reason alone
-sufficient to stamp it as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[p.
-179]</span> the best government, and presenting the greatest chance
-of beneficent results, for a Grecian community. Among the Athenian
-citizens, certainly, it produced a strength and unanimity of positive
-political sentiment, such as has rarely been seen in the history of
-mankind, which excites our surprise and admiration the more when we
-compare it with the apathy which had preceded,—and which is even
-implied as the natural state of the public mind in Solon’s famous
-proclamation against neutrality in a sedition.<a id="FNanchor_313"
-href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> Because democracy
-happens to be unpalatable to most modern readers, they have been
-accustomed to look upon the sentiment here described only in its
-least honorable manifestations,—in the caricatures of Aristophanês,
-or in the empty common-places of rhetorical declaimers. But it is
-not in this way that the force, the earnestness, or the binding
-value, of democratical sentiment at Athens is to be measured.
-We must listen to it as it comes from the lips of Periklês,<a
-id="FNanchor_314" href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a>
-while he is strenuously enforcing upon the people those active duties
-for which it both implanted the stimulus and supplied the courage;
-or from the oligarchical Nikias in the harbor of Syracuse, when he
-is endeavoring to revive the courage of his despairing troops for
-one last death-struggle, and when he appeals to their democratical
-patriotism as to the only flame yet alive and burning even in
-that moment of agony.<a id="FNanchor_315" href="#Footnote_315"
-class="fnanchor">[315]</a> From the time of Kleisthenês downward, the
-creation of this new mighty impulse makes an entire revolution in the
-Athenian character. And if the change still stood out in so prominent
-a manner before the eyes of Herodotus, much more must it have been
-felt by the contemporaries among whom it occurred.</p>
-
-<p>The attachment of an Athenian citizen to his democratical
-constitution comprised two distinct veins of sentiment: first,
-his rights, protection, and advantages derived from it,—next,
-his obligations of exertion and sacrifice towards it and with
-reference<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[p. 180]</span> to it.
-Neither of these two veins of sentiment was ever wholly absent; but
-according as the one or the other was present at different times
-in varying proportions, the patriotism of the citizen was a very
-different feeling. That which Herodotus remarks is, the extraordinary
-efforts of heart and hand which the Athenians suddenly displayed,—the
-efficacy of the active sentiment throughout the bulk of the citizens;
-and we shall observe even more memorable evidences of the same
-phenomenon in tracing down the history from Kleisthenês to the end
-of the Peloponnesian war: we shall trace a series of events and
-motives eminently calculated to stimulate that self-imposed labor
-and discipline which the early democracy had first called forth. But
-when we advance farther down, from the restoration of the democracy
-after the Thirty Tyrants to the time of Demosthenês,—I venture upon
-this brief anticipation, in the conviction that one period of Grecian
-history can only be thoroughly understood by contrasting it with
-another,—we shall find a sensible change in Athenian patriotism. The
-active sentiment of obligation is comparatively inoperative,—the
-citizen, it is true, has a keen sense of the value of the democracy
-as protecting him and insuring to him valuable rights, and he is,
-moreover, willing to perform his ordinary sphere of legal duties
-towards it; but he looks upon it as a thing established, and capable
-of maintaining itself in a due measure of foreign ascendency,
-without any such personal efforts as those which his forefathers
-cheerfully imposed upon themselves. The orations of Demosthenês
-contain melancholy proofs of such altered tone of patriotism,—of that
-languor, paralysis, and waiting for others to act, which preceded
-the catastrophe of Chæroneia, notwithstanding an unabated attachment
-to the democracy as a source of protection and good government.<a
-id="FNanchor_316" href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a>
-That same preternatural activity which the allies of Sparta, at the
-beginning of the Peloponnesian war, both denounced and admired in the
-Athenians, is noted by the orator as now belonging to their enemy
-Philip.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[p. 181]</span>Such variations
-in the scale of national energy pervade history, modern as well as
-ancient, but in regard to Grecian history, especially, they can never
-be overlooked. For a certain measure, not only of positive political
-attachment, but also of active self-devotion, military readiness,
-and personal effort, was the indispensable condition of maintaining
-Hellenic autonomy, either in Athens or elsewhere; and became so
-more than ever when the Macedonians were once organized under an
-enterprising and semi-Hellenized prince. The democracy was the first
-creative cause of that astonishing personal and many-sided energy
-which marked the Athenian character, for a century downward from
-Kleisthenês. That the same ultra-Hellenic activity did not longer
-continue, is referable to other causes, which will be hereafter in
-part explained. No system of government, even supposing it to be
-very much better and more faultless than the Athenian democracy,
-can ever pretend to accomplish its legitimate end apart from the
-personal character of the people, or to supersede the necessity of
-individual virtue and vigor. During the half-century immediately
-preceding the battle of Chæroneia, the Athenians had lost that
-remarkable energy which distinguished them during the first century
-of their democracy, and had fallen much more nearly to a level with
-the other Greeks, in common with whom they were obliged to yield to
-the pressure of a foreign enemy. I here briefly notice their last
-period of languor, in contrast with the first burst of democratical
-fervor under Kleisthenês, now opening,—a feeling which will be found,
-as we proceed, to continue for a longer period than could have been
-reasonably anticipated, but which was too high-strung to become a
-perpetual and inherent attribute of any community.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_32">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[p. 182]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXII.<br />
- RISE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. — CYRUS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">In the</span> preceding chapter, I
-have followed the history of Central Greece very nearly down to the
-point at which the history of the Asiatic Greeks becomes blended with
-it, and after which the two streams begin to flow to a great degree
-in the same channel. I now revert to the affairs of the Asiatic
-Greeks, and of the Asiatic kings as connected with them, at the point
-in which they were left in my seventeenth chapter.</p>
-
-<p>The concluding facts recounted in that chapter were of sad and
-serious moment to the Hellenic world. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks
-on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and made tributary by the
-Lydian king Crœsus: “down to that time (says Herodotus) all Greeks
-had been free.” Their conqueror Crœsus, who ascended the throne in
-560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, appeared to be at the summit of human
-prosperity and power in his unassailable capital, and with his
-countless treasures at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the
-whole of Asia Minor, as far as the river Halys to the east; on
-the other side of that river began the Median monarchy under his
-brother-in-law Astyagês, extending eastward to some boundary which
-we cannot define, but comprising in a south-eastern direction Persis
-proper, or Farsistan, and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians
-on the west by the line of Mount Zagros—the present boundary-line
-between Persia and Turkey. Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between
-the Euphrates and the Tigris, was occupied by the Assyrians, or
-Chaldæans, under their king Labynêtus: a territory populous and
-fertile, partly by nature, partly by prodigies of labor, to a degree
-which makes us mistrust even an honest eye-witness who describes it
-afterwards in its decline,—but which was then in its most flourishing
-condition. The Chaldæan dominion under Labynêtus reached to the
-borders of Egypt, including, as dependent territories, both Judæa
-and Phe<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[p. 183]</span>nicia.
-In Egypt reigned the native king Amasis, powerful and affluent,
-sustained in his throne by a large body of Grecian mercenaries, and
-himself favorably disposed to Grecian commerce and settlement. Both
-with Labynêtus and with Amasis, Crœsus was on terms of alliance; and
-as Astyagês was his brother-in-law, the four kings might well be
-deemed out of the reach of calamity. Yet within the space of thirty
-years or a little more, the whole of their territories had become
-embodied in one vast empire, under the son of an adventurer as yet
-not known even by name.</p>
-
-<p>The rise and fall of Oriental dynasties has been in all times
-distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
-prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and
-greedy, acquires dominion,—while his successors, abandoning
-themselves to sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive
-and irascible dispositions, become in process of time victims to
-those same qualities in a stranger which had enabled their own
-father to seize the throne. Cyrus, the great founder of the Persian
-empire, first the subject and afterwards the dethroner of the Median
-Astyagês, corresponds to this general description, as far at least as
-we can pretend to know his history. For in truth, even the conquests
-of Cyrus, after he became ruler of Media, are very imperfectly known,
-whilst the facts which preceded his rise up to that sovereignty
-cannot be said to be known at all: we have to choose between
-different accounts at variance with each other, and of which the most
-complete and detailed is stamped with all the character of romance.
-The Cyropædia of Xenophon is memorable and interesting, considered
-with reference to the Greek mind, and as a philosophical novel:<a
-id="FNanchor_317" href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a>
-that it should have been quoted so largely as authority on matters
-of history, is only one proof among many how easily authors have
-been satisfied as to the essentials of historical evidence. The
-narrative given by Herodotus of the relations between Cyrus and
-Astyagês, agreeing with Xenophon in little more than the fact that it
-makes Cyrus son of Kambysês and Mandanê, and<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_184">[p. 184]</span> grandson of Astyagês, goes even beyond
-the story of Romulus and Remus in respect to tragical incident and
-contrast. Astyagês, alarmed by a dream, condemns the new-born infant
-of his daughter Mandanê to be exposed: Harpagus, to whom the order is
-given, delivers the child to one of the royal herdsmen, who exposes
-it in the mountains, where it is miraculously suckled by a bitch.<a
-id="FNanchor_318" href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a>
-Thus preserved, and afterwards brought up as the herdsman’s child,
-Cyrus manifests great superiority both physical and mental, is
-chosen king in play by the boys of the village, and in this capacity
-severely chastises the son of one of the courtiers; for which offence
-he is carried before Astyagês, who recognizes him for his grandson,
-but is assured by the Magi that his dream is out, and that he has no
-farther danger to apprehend from the boy,—and therefore permits him
-to live. With Harpagus, however, Astyagês is extremely incensed, for
-not having executed his orders: he causes the son of Harpagus to be
-slain, and served up to be eaten by his unconscious father at a regal
-banquet. The father, apprized afterwards of the fact, dissembles his
-feelings, but conceives a deadly vengeance against Astyagês for this
-Thyestean meal. He persuades Cyrus, who has been sent back to his
-father and mother in Persia, to head a revolt<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_185">[p. 185]</span> of the Persians against the Medes;
-whilst Astyagês—to fill up the Grecian conception of madness as a
-precursor to ruin—sends an army against the revolters, commanded by
-Harpagus himself. Of course the army is defeated,—Astyagês, after a
-vain resistance, is dethroned,—Cyrus becomes king in his place,—and
-Harpagus repays the outrage which he has undergone by the bitterest
-insults.</p>
-
-<p>Such are the heads of a beautiful narrative which is given at
-some length in Herodotus. It will probably appear to the reader
-sufficiently romantic, though the historian intimates that he
-had heard three other narratives different from it, and that all
-were more full of marvels, as well as in wider circulation, than
-his own, which he had borrowed from some unusually sober-minded
-Persian informants.<a id="FNanchor_319" href="#Footnote_319"
-class="fnanchor">[319]</a> In what points the other three stories
-departed from it, we do not hear.</p>
-
-<p>To the historian of Halikarnassus, we have to oppose the
-physician of the neighboring town Knidus,—Ktêsias, who contradicted
-Herodotus, not without strong terms of censure, on many points,
-and especially upon that which is the very foundation of the early
-narrative respecting Cyrus; for he affirmed that Cyrus was noway
-related to Astyagês.<a id="FNanchor_320" href="#Footnote_320"
-class="fnanchor">[320]</a> However indignant we may be with Ktêsias,
-for the disparaging epithets which he presumed to apply to an
-historian whose work is to us inestimable,—we must nevertheless
-admit that as surgeon, in actual attendance on king Artaxerxês
-Mnêmon, and healer of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[p.
-186]</span> wound inflicted on that prince at Kunaxa by his brother
-Cyrus the younger,<a id="FNanchor_321" href="#Footnote_321"
-class="fnanchor">[321]</a> he had better opportunities even than
-Herodotus of conversing with sober-minded Persians; and that the
-discrepancies between the two statements are to be taken as a proof
-of the prevalence of discordant, yet equally accredited, stories.
-Herodotus himself was in fact compelled to choose one out of four. So
-rare and late a plant is historical authenticity.</p>
-
-<p>That Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror, and that the space
-which he overran covered no less than fifty degrees of longitude,
-from the coast of Asia Minor to the Oxus and the Indus, are facts
-quite indisputable; but of the steps by which this was achieved, we
-know very little. The native Persians, whom he conducted to an empire
-so immense, were an aggregate of seven agricultural and four nomadic
-tribes,—all of them rude, hardy, and brave,<a id="FNanchor_322"
-href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a>—dwelling in a
-mountainous region, clothed in skins, ignorant of wine or fruit, or
-any of the commonest luxuries of life, and despising the very idea
-of purchase or sale. Their tribes were very unequal in point of
-dignity, probably also in respect to numbers and powers, among one
-another: first in estimation among them stood the Pasargadæ; and the
-first phratry, or clan, among the Pasargadæ were the Achæmenidæ,
-to whom Cyrus himself belonged. Whether his relationship to the
-Median king whom he dethroned was a matter of fact, or a politic
-fiction, we cannot well determine. But Xenophon, in noticing the
-spacious deserted cities, Larissa and Mespila,<a id="FNanchor_323"
-href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a> which he saw in his
-march with the Ten Thousand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[p.
-187]</span> Greeks on the eastern side of the Tigris, gives us to
-understand that the conquest of Media by the Persians was reported
-to him as having been an obstinate and protracted struggle. However
-this may be, the preponderance of the Persians was at last complete:
-though the Medes always continued to be the second nation in the
-empire, after the Persians, properly so called; and by early Greek
-writers the great enemy in the East is often called “the Mede,<a
-id="FNanchor_324" href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a>”
-as well as “the Persian.” Ekbatana always continued to be one of
-the capital cities, and the usual summer residence, of the kings of
-Persia; Susa on the Choaspês, on the Kissian plain farther southward,
-and east of the Tigris, being their winter abode.</p>
-
-<p>The vast space of country comprised between the Indus on the
-east, the Oxus and Caspian sea to the north, the Persian gulf and
-Indian ocean to the south, and the line of Mount Zagros to the west,
-appears to have been occupied in these times by a great variety of
-different tribes and people, but all or most of them belonging to the
-religion of Zoroaster, and speaking dialects of the Zend language.<a
-id="FNanchor_325" href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a>
-It was known amongst its inhabitants by the common name of Iran, or
-Aria: it is, in its central parts at least, a high, cold plateau,
-totally destitute of wood and scantily supplied with water; much of
-it, indeed, is a salt and sandy desert, unsusceptible of culture.
-Parts of it are eminently fertile, where water can be procured
-and irrigation applied; and scattered masses of tolerably dense
-population thus grew up. But continuity of cultivation is not
-practicable, and in ancient times, as at present, a large proportion
-of the population of Iran seems to have consisted of wandering or
-nomadic tribes, with their tents and cattle. The rich pastures,
-and the freshness of the summer climate, in the region of mountain
-and valley near Ekbatana, are extolled by modern travellers, just
-as they attracted the Great King in ancient times, during the hot
-months. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[p. 188]</span>
-more southerly province called Persis proper (Farsistan) consists
-also in part of mountain land interspersed with valley and plain,
-abundantly watered, and ample in pasture, sloping gradually down
-to low grounds on the sea-coast which are hot and dry. The care
-bestowed, both by Medes and Persians, on the breeding of their
-horses, was remarkable.<a id="FNanchor_326" href="#Footnote_326"
-class="fnanchor">[326]</a> There were doubtless material differences
-between different parts of the population of this vast plateau
-of Iran. Yet it seems that, along with their common language and
-religion, they had also something of a common character, which
-contrasted with the Indian population east of the Indus, the
-Assyrians west of Mount Zagros, and the Massagetæ and other Nomads
-of the Caspian and the sea of Aral,—less brutish, restless, and
-bloodthirsty, than the latter,—more fierce, contemptuous, and
-extortionate, and less capable of sustained industry, than the two
-former. There can be little doubt, at the time of which we are now
-speaking, when the wealth and cultivation of Assyria were at their
-maximum, that Iran also was far better peopled than ever it has been
-since European observers have been able to survey it; especially the
-north-eastern portion, Baktria and Sogdiana: so that the invasions of
-the nomads from Turkestan and Tartary, which have been so destructive
-at various intervals since the Mohammedan conquest, were before that
-period successfully kept back.</p>
-
-<p>The general analogy among the population of Iran probably enabled
-the Persian conqueror with comparative ease to extend his empire
-to the east, after the conquest of Ekbatana, and to become the
-full heir of the Median kings. And if we may believe Ktêsias, even
-the distant province of Baktria had been before subject to those
-kings: it at first resisted Cyrus, but finding that he had become
-son-in-law of Astyagês as well as master of his person, it speedily
-acknowledged his authority.<a id="FNanchor_327" href="#Footnote_327"
-class="fnanchor">[327]</a></p>
-
-<p>According to the representation of Herodotus, the war between
-Cyrus and Crœsus of Lydia began shortly after the capture of
-Astyagês, and before the conquest of Baktria.<a id="FNanchor_328"
-href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> Crœsus was<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[p. 189]</span> the assailant, wishing
-to avenge his brother-in-law, to arrest the growth of the Persian
-conqueror, and to increase his own dominions: his more prudent
-councillors in vain represented to him that he had little to gain,
-and much to lose, by war with a nation alike hardy and poor. He is
-represented, as just at that time recovering from the affliction
-arising out of the death of his son. To ask advice of the oracle,
-before he took any final decision, was a step which no pious king
-would omit; but in the present perilous question, Crœsus did more,—he
-took a precaution so extreme, that, if his piety had not been placed
-beyond all doubt by his extraordinary munificence to the temples, he
-might have drawn upon himself the suspicion of a guilty skepticism.<a
-id="FNanchor_329" href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a>
-Before he would send to ask advice respecting the project itself,
-he resolved to test the credit of some of the chief surrounding
-oracles,—Delphi, Dôdôna, Branchidæ near Milêtus, Amphiaraus at
-Thebes, Trophônius at Lebadeia, and Ammôn in Libya. His envoys
-started from Sardis on the same day, and were all directed on the
-hundredth day afterwards to ask at the respective oracles how Crœsus
-was at that precise moment employed. This was a severe trial: of the
-manner in which it was met by four out of the six oracles consulted,
-we have no information, and it rather appears that their answers were
-unsatisfactory. But Amphiaraus maintained his credit undiminished,
-and Apollo at Delphi, more omniscient than Apollo at Branchidæ,
-solved the question with such unerring precision, as to afford a
-strong additional argument against persons who might be disposed
-to scoff at divination. No sooner had the envoys put the question
-to the Delphian priestess, on the day named, “What is Crœsus now
-doing?” than she exclaimed, in the accustomed hexameter verse,<a
-id="FNanchor_330" href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a>
-“I know the number of grains of sand, and the measures of the
-sea; I understand the dumb, and I hear the man who speaks not.
-The smell reaches me of a hard-skinned tortoise boiled in a
-copper with lamb’s flesh,—copper above and copper below.” Crœsus
-was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[p. 190]</span> awestruck
-on receiving this reply. It described with the utmost detail that
-which he had been really doing, insomuch that he accounted the
-Delphian oracle and that of Amphiaraus the only trustworthy oracles
-on earth,—following up these feelings with a holocaust of the most
-munificent character, in order to win the favor of the Delphian god.
-Three thousand cattle were offered up, and upon a vast sacrificial
-pile were placed the most splendid purple robes and tunics, together
-with couches and censers of gold and silver: besides which he sent
-to Delphi itself the richest presents in gold and silver,—ingots,
-statues, bowls, jugs, etc., the size and weight of which we read with
-astonishment; the more so as Herodotus himself saw them a century
-afterwards at Delphi.<a id="FNanchor_331" href="#Footnote_331"
-class="fnanchor">[331]</a> Nor was Crœsus altogether unmindful of
-Amphiaraus, whose answer had been creditable, though less triumphant
-than that of the Pythian priestess. He sent to Amphiaraus a spear
-and shield of pure gold, which were afterwards seen at Thebes by
-Herodotus: this large donative may help the reader to conceive the
-immensity of those which he sent to Delphi.</p>
-
-<p>The envoys who conveyed these gifts were instructed to ask, at
-the same time, whether Crœsus should undertake an expedition against
-the Persians,—and, if so, whether he should prevail on any allies
-to assist him. In regard to the second question, the answer both of
-Apollo and Amphiaraus was decisive, recommending him to invite the
-alliance of the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most
-momentous question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection
-as it had been before for detective sagacity: they told Crœsus that,
-if he invaded the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The
-blindness of Crœsus interpreted this declaration into an unqualified
-promise of success. He sent farther presents to the oracle, and again
-inquired whether his kingdom would be durable. “When a mule shall
-become king of the Medes (replied the priestess), then must thou
-run away,—be not ashamed.”<a id="FNanchor_332" href="#Footnote_332"
-class="fnanchor">[332]</a></p>
-
-<p>More assured than ever by such an answer, Crœsus sent to Sparta,
-under the kings Anaxandridês and Aristo, to tender presents and
-solicit their alliance.<a id="FNanchor_333" href="#Footnote_333"
-class="fnanchor">[333]</a> His propositions were fa<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[p. 191]</span>vorably entertained,—the
-more so, as he had before gratuitously furnished some gold to the
-Lacedæmonians, for a statue to Apollo. The alliance now formed was
-altogether general,—no express effort being as yet demanded from
-them, though it soon came to be. But the incident is to be noted,
-as marking the first plunge of the leading Grecian state into
-Asiatic politics; and that too without any of the generous Hellenic
-sympathy which afterwards induced Athens to send her citizens
-across the Ægean. Crœsus was the master and tribute-exactor of the
-Asiatic Greeks, and their contingents seem to have formed part of
-his army for the expedition now contemplated; which army consisted
-principally, not of native Lydians, but of foreigners.</p>
-
-<p>The river Halys formed the boundary at this time between the
-Median and Lydian empires: and Crœsus, marching across that river
-into the territory of the Syrians or Assyrians of Kappadokia,
-took the city of Pteria and many of its surrounding dependencies,
-inflicting damage and destruction upon these distant subjects of
-Ekbatana. Cyrus lost no time in bringing an army to their defence
-considerably larger than that of Crœsus, and at the same time
-tried, though unsuccessfully, to prevail on the Ionians to revolt
-from him. A bloody battle took place between the two armies, but
-with indecisive result: and Crœsus, seeing that he could not hope
-to accomplish more with his forces as they stood, thought it wise
-to return to his capital, in order to collect a larger army for
-the next campaign. Immediately on reaching Sardis, he despatched
-envoys to Labynêtus king of Babylon; to Amasis king of Egypt; to the
-Lacedæmonians, and to other allies; calling upon all of them to send
-auxiliaries to Sardis during the course of the fifth coming month. In
-the mean time, he dismissed all the foreign troops who had followed
-him into Kappadokia.<a id="FNanchor_334" href="#Footnote_334"
-class="fnanchor">[334]</a></p>
-
-<p>Had these allies appeared, the war might perhaps have been
-prosecuted with success; and on the part of the Lacedæmonians at
-least, there was no tardiness; for their ships were ready and their
-troops almost on board, when the unexpected news reached them that
-Crœsus was already ruined.<a id="FNanchor_335" href="#Footnote_335"
-class="fnanchor">[335]</a> Cyrus had foreseen and forestalled the
-defensive plan of his enemy. He pushed on with<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_192">[p. 192]</span> his army to Sardis without delay,
-compelling the Lydian prince to give battle with his own unassisted
-subjects. The open and spacious plain before that town was highly
-favorable to the Lydian cavalry, which at that time, Herodotus
-tells us, was superior to the Persian. But Cyrus devised a
-stratagem whereby this cavalry was rendered unavailable,—placing
-in front of his line the baggage camels, which the Lydian horses
-could not endure either to smell or to behold.<a id="FNanchor_336"
-href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> The horsemen of
-Crœsus were thus obliged to dismount; nevertheless, they fought
-bravely on foot, and were not driven into the town till after a
-sanguinary combat.</p>
-
-<p>Though confined within the walls of his capital, Crœsus had
-still good reason for hoping to hold out until the arrival of his
-allies, to whom he sent pressing envoys of acceleration: for Sardis
-was considered impregnable,—one assault had already been repulsed,
-and the Persians would have been reduced to the slow process of
-blockade. But on the fourteenth day of the siege, accident did for
-the besiegers that which they could not have accomplished either
-by skill or force. Sardis was situated on an outlying peak of the
-northern side of Tmôlus; it was well-fortified everywhere except
-towards the mountain; and on that side, the rock, was so precipitous
-and inaccessible, that fortifications were thought unnecessary, nor
-did the inhabitants believe assault to be possible. But Hyrœades,
-a Persian soldier, having accidentally seen one of the garrison
-descending this precipitous rock to pick up his helmet, which had
-rolled down, watched his opportunity, tried to climb up, and found it
-not impracticable. Others followed his example, the strong-hold was
-thus seized first, and the whole city was speedily taken by storm.<a
-id="FNanchor_337" href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a></p>
-
-<p>Cyrus had given especial orders to spare the life of Crœsus,
-who was accordingly made prisoner. But preparations were made for
-a solemn and terrible spectacle. The captive king was destined to
-be burnt in chains, together with fourteen Lydian youths, on a
-vast pile of wood: and we are even told that the pile was already
-kindled and the victim beyond the reach of human aid, when Apollo
-sent a miraculous rain to preserve him.<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_193">[p. 193]</span> As to the general fact of supernatural
-interposition, in one way or another, Herodotus and Ktêsias
-both agree, though they describe differently the particular
-miracles wrought.<a id="FNanchor_338" href="#Footnote_338"
-class="fnanchor">[338]</a> It is certain that Crœsus, after
-some time, was released and well treated by his conqueror, and
-lived to become the confidential adviser of the latter as well
-as of his son Kambysês:<a id="FNanchor_339" href="#Footnote_339"
-class="fnanchor">[339]</a> Ktêsias also acquaints us that a
-considerable town and territory near Ekbatana, called Barênê, was
-assigned to him, according to a practice which we shall find not
-unfrequent with the Persian kings.</p>
-
-<p>The prudent counsel and remarks as to the relations between
-Persians and Lydians, whereby Crœsus is said by Herodotus to have
-first earned this favorable treatment, are hardly worth repeating;
-but the indignant remonstrance sent by Crœsus to the Delphian god
-is too characteristic to be passed over. He obtained permission
-from Cyrus to lay upon the holy pavement of the Delphian temple the
-chains with which he had at first been bound. The Lydian envoys were
-instructed, after exhibiting to the god these<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_194">[p. 194]</span> humiliating memorials, to ask whether
-it was his custom to deceive his benefactors, and whether he was not
-ashamed to have encouraged the king of Lydia in an enterprise so
-disastrous? The god, condescending to justify himself by the lips
-of the priestess, replied: “Not even a god can escape his destiny.
-Crœsus has suffered for the sin of his fifth ancestor (Gygês), who,
-conspiring with a woman, slew his master and wrongfully seized the
-sceptre. Apollo employed all his influence with the Mœræ (Fates) to
-obtain that this sin might be expiated by the children of Crœsus,
-and not by Crœsus himself; but the Mœræ would grant nothing more
-than a postponement of the judgment for three years. Let Crœsus know
-that Apollo has thus procured for him a reign three years longer
-than his original destiny,<a id="FNanchor_340" href="#Footnote_340"
-class="fnanchor">[340]</a> after having tried in vain to rescue him
-altogether. Moreover, he sent that rain which at the critical moment
-extinguished the burning pile. Nor has Crœsus any right to complain
-of the prophecy by which he was encouraged to enter on the war; for
-when the god told him, that he would subvert <i>a great empire</i>, it was
-his duty to have again inquired which empire the god meant; and if he
-neither understood the meaning, nor chose to ask for information, he
-has himself to blame for the result. Besides, Crœsus neglected the
-warning given to him, about the acquisition of the Median kingdom
-by a mule: Cyrus was that mule,—son of a Median mother of royal
-breed, by a Persian father, at once of different race and of lower
-position.”</p>
-
-<p>This triumphant justification extorted even from Crœsus himself a
-full confession, that the sin lay with him, and not with the god.<a
-id="FNanchor_341" href="#Footnote_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a>
-It certainly illustrates, in a remarkable manner, the theological
-ideas of the time; and it shows us how much, in the mind<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[p. 195]</span> of Herodotus, the
-facts of the centuries preceding his own, unrecorded as they were
-by any contemporary authority, tended to cast themselves into a
-sort of religious drama; the threads of the historical web being
-in part put together, in part originally spun, for the purpose of
-setting forth the religious sentiment and doctrine woven in as a
-pattern. The Pythian priestess predicts to Gygês that the crime
-which he had committed in assassinating his master would be expiated
-by his fifth descendant, though, as Herodotus tells us, no one
-took any notice of this prophecy until it was at last fulfilled:<a
-id="FNanchor_342" href="#Footnote_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a>
-we see thus that the history of the first Mermnad king is made up
-after the catastrophe of the last. There was something in the main
-facts of the history of Crœsus profoundly striking to the Greek mind:
-a king at the summit of wealth and power,—pious in the extreme,
-and munificent towards the gods,—the first destroyer of Hellenic
-liberty in Asia,—then precipitated, at once and on a sudden, into
-the abyss of ruin. The sin of the first parent helped much towards
-the solution of this perplexing problem, as well as to exalt the
-credit of the oracle, when made to assume the shape of an unnoticed
-prophecy. In the affecting story (discussed in a former chapter<a
-id="FNanchor_343" href="#Footnote_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a>) of
-Solon and Crœsus, the Lydian king is punished with an acute domestic
-affliction, because he thought himself the happiest of mankind,—the
-gods not suffering anyone to be arrogant except themselves;<a
-id="FNanchor_344" href="#Footnote_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a>
-and the warning of Solon is made to recur to Crœsus after he has
-become the prisoner of Cyrus, in the narrative of Herodotus. To
-the same vein of thought belongs the story, just recounted, of the
-relations of Crœsus with the Delphian oracle. An account is provided,
-satisfactory to the religious feelings of the Greeks, how and why he
-was ruined,—but nothing less than the overruling and omnipotent Mœræ
-could be invoked to explain so stupendous a result.</p>
-
-<p>It is rarely that these supreme goddesses, or
-hyper-goddesses—since the gods themselves must submit to them—are
-brought into such distinct light and action. Usually, they are
-kept in the dark, or are left to be understood as the unseen
-stumbling-block<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[p. 196]</span>
-in cases of extreme incomprehensibility; and it is difficult
-clearly to determine (as in the case of some complicated political
-constitutions) where the Greeks conceived sovereign power to
-reside, in respect to the government of the world. But here the
-sovereignty of the Mœræ, and the subordinate agency of the gods, are
-unequivocally set forth.<a id="FNanchor_345" href="#Footnote_345"
-class="fnanchor">[345]</a> Yet the gods are still extremely pow<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[p. 197]</span>erful, because the
-Mœræ comply with their requests up to a certain point, not thinking
-it proper to be wholly inexorable; but their compliance is carried
-no farther than they themselves choose. Nor would they, even in
-deference to Apollo,<a id="FNanchor_346" href="#Footnote_346"
-class="fnanchor">[346]</a> alter the original sentence of punishment
-for the sin of Gygês in the person of his fifth descendant,—a
-sentence, moreover, which Apollo himself had formally prophesied
-shortly after the sin was committed; so that, if the Mœræ had
-listened to his intercession on behalf of Crœsus, his own prophetic
-credit would have been endangered. Their unalterable resolution
-has predetermined the ruin of Crœsus, and the grandeur of the
-event is manifested by the circumstance, that even Apollo himself
-cannot prevail upon them to alter it, or to grant more than a
-three years’ respite. The religious element must here be viewed as
-giving the form—the historical element as giving the matter only,
-and not the whole matter—of the story; and these two elements will
-be found conjoined more or less throughout most of the history of
-Herodotus, though, as we descend to later times, we shall find
-the historical element in constantly increasing proportion. His
-conception of history is extremely different from that of Thucydidês,
-who lays down to himself the true scheme and purpose of the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[p. 198]</span> historian, common to
-him with the philosopher,—to recount and interpret the past, as a
-rational aid towards the prevision of the future.<a id="FNanchor_347"
-href="#Footnote_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a></p>
-
-<p>The destruction of the Lydian monarchy, and the establishment
-of the Persians at Sardis—an event pregnant with consequences
-to Hellas generally—took place in 546 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small><a
-id="FNanchor_348" href="#Footnote_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a>
-Sorely did the Ionic Greeks now repent that they had rejected the
-propositions made to them by Cyrus for revolting from Crœsus,—though
-at the time when these propositions were made, it would have been
-highly imprudent to listen to them, since the Lydian power might
-reasonably be looked upon as the stronger. As soon as Sardis had
-fallen, they sent envoys to the conqueror, entreating that they
-might be enrolled as his tributaries, on the footing which they had
-occupied under Crœsus. The reply was a stern and angry refusal,
-with the exception of the Milesians, to whom the terms which they
-asked were granted:<a id="FNanchor_349" href="#Footnote_349"
-class="fnanchor">[349]</a> why this favorable exception was extended
-to them, we do not know. The other continental Ionians and Æolians
-(exclusive of Milêtus, and exclusive also of the insular cities which
-the Persians had no means of attacking), seized with alarm, began to
-put themselves<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[p. 199]</span>
-in a condition of defence: it seems that the Lydian king had caused
-their fortifications to be wholly or partially dismantled, for we are
-told that they now began to erect walls; and the Phôkæans especially
-devoted to that purpose a present which they had received from the
-Iberian Arganthônius, king of Tartêssus. Besides thus strengthening
-their own cities, they thought it advisable to send a joint embassy
-entreating aid from Sparta; they doubtless were not unapprized that
-the Spartans had actually equipped an army for the support of Crœsus.
-Their deputies went to Sparta, where the Phôkæan Pythermus, appointed
-by the rest to be spokesman, clothing himself in a purple robe,<a
-id="FNanchor_350" href="#Footnote_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a>
-in order to attract the largest audience possible, set forth
-their pressing need of succor against the impending danger. The
-Lacedæmonians refused the prayer; nevertheless, they despatched to
-Phôkæa some commissioners to investigate the state of affairs,—who
-perhaps, persuaded by the Phôkæans, sent Lakrinês, one of their
-number, to the conqueror at Sardis, to warn him that he should not
-lay hands on any city of Hellas,—for the Lacedæmonians would not
-permit it. “Who are these Lacedæmonians? (inquired Cyrus from some
-Greeks who stood near him)—how many are there of them, that they
-venture to send me such a notice?” Having received the answer,
-wherein it was stated that the Lacedæmonians had a city and a regular
-market at Sparta, he exclaimed: “I have never yet been afraid of men
-like these, who have a set place in the middle of their city, where
-they meet to cheat one another and forswear themselves. If I live,
-they shall have troubles of their own to talk about, apart from the
-Ionians.” To buy or sell, appeared to the Persians a contemptible
-practice; for they carried out consistently, one step farther, the
-principle upon which even many able Greeks condemned the lending
-of money on interest; and the speech of Cyrus was intended as a
-covert reproach of Grecian habits generally.<a id="FNanchor_351"
-href="#Footnote_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a></p>
-
-<p>This blank menace of Lakrinês, an insulting provocation to<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[p. 200]</span> the enemy rather
-than a real support to the distressed, was the only benefit which
-the Ionic Greeks derived from Sparta. They were left to defend
-themselves as best they could against the conqueror; who presently,
-however, quitted Sardis to prosecute in person his conquests in
-the East, leaving the Persian Tabalus with a garrison in the
-citadel, but consigning both the large treasure captured, and the
-authority over the Lydian population, to the Lydian Paktyas. As he
-carried away Crœsus along with him, he probably considered himself
-sure of the fidelity of those Lydians whom the deposed monarch
-recommended. But he had not yet arrived at his own capital, when
-he received the intelligence that Paktyas had revolted, arming the
-Lydian population, and employing the treasure in his charge to
-hire fresh troops. On hearing this news, Cyrus addressed himself
-to Crœsus, according to Herodotus, in terms of much wrath against
-the Lydians, and even intimated that he should be compelled to
-sell them all as slaves. Upon which Crœsus, full of alarm for his
-people, contended strenuously that Paktyas alone was in fault,
-and deserving of punishment; but he at the same time advised
-Cyrus to disarm the Lydian population, and to enforce upon them
-effeminate attire, together with habits of playing on the harp and
-shopkeeping. “By this process (he said) you will soon see them become
-women instead of men.”<a id="FNanchor_352" href="#Footnote_352"
-class="fnanchor">[352]</a> This suggestion is said to have been
-accepted by Cyrus, and executed by his general Mazarês. The
-conversation here reported, and the deliberate plan for enervating
-the Lydian character supposed to be pursued by Cyrus, is evidently an
-hypothesis imagined by some of the contemporaries or predecessors of
-Herodotus,—to explain the contrast between the Lydians whom they saw
-before them, after two or three generations of slavery, and the old
-irresistible horsemen of whom they heard in fame, at the time when
-Crœsus was lord from the Halys to the Ægean sea.</p>
-
-<p>To return to Paktyas,—he had commenced his revolt, come down
-to the sea-coast, and employed the treasures of Sardis in levying
-a Grecian mercenary force, with which he invested the place and
-blocked up the governor Tabalus. But he manifested no courage worthy
-of so dangerous an enterprise; for no sooner<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_201">[p. 201]</span> had he heard that the Median general
-Mazarês was approaching at the head of an army dispatched by Cyrus
-against him, than he disbanded his force and fled to Kymê for
-protection as a suppliant. Presently, arrived a menacing summons
-from Mazarês, demanding that he should be given up forthwith, which
-plunged the Kymæans into profound dismay; for the idea of giving
-up a suppliant to destruction was shocking to Grecian sentiment.
-They sent to solicit advice from the holy temple of Apollo, at
-Branchidæ near Milêtus; and the reply directed, that Paktyas should
-be surrendered. Nevertheless, so ignominious did such a surrender
-appear, that Aristodikus and some other Kymæan citizens denounced the
-messengers as liars, and required that a more trustworthy deputation
-should be sent to consult the god. Aristodikus himself, forming
-one of the second body, stated the perplexity to the oracle, and
-received a repetition of the same answer; whereupon he proceeded to
-rob the birds’-nests which existed in abundance in and about the
-temple. A voice from the inner oracular chamber speedily arrested
-him, exclaiming: “Most impious of men, how darest thou to do such
-things? Wilt thou snatch my suppliants from the temple itself?”
-Unabashed by the rebuke, Aristodikus replied: “Master, thus dost
-<i>thou</i> help suppliants thyself: and dost thou command the Kymæans
-to give up a suppliant?” “Yes, I do command it<a id="FNanchor_353"
-href="#Footnote_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a> (rejoined the god
-forthwith), in order that the crime may bring destruction upon you
-the sooner, and that you may not in future come to consult the oracle
-upon the surrender of suppliants.”</p>
-
-<p>The ingenuity of Aristodikus completely nullified the oracular
-response, and left the Kymæans in their original perplexity. Not
-choosing to surrender Paktyas, nor daring to protect him against a
-besieging army, they sent him away to Mitylênê, whither the envoys of
-Mazarês followed and demanded him; offering a reward so considerable,
-that the Kymæans became fearful of trusting them, and again conveyed
-away the suppliant to Chios, where he took refuge in the temple of
-Athênê Poliuchus. But here again the pursuers followed, and the
-Chians were persuaded to drag him from the temple and surrender him,
-on consideration of receiving the territory of Atarneus (a dis<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[p. 202]</span>trict on the continent
-over against the island of Lesbos) as purchase-money. Paktyas was
-thus seized and sent prisoner to Cyrus, who had given the most
-express orders for this capture: hence the unusual intensity of the
-pursuit. But it appears that the territory of Atarneus was considered
-as having been ignominiously acquired by the Chians; none even of
-their own citizens would employ any article of its produce for holy
-or sacrificial purposes.<a id="FNanchor_354" href="#Footnote_354"
-class="fnanchor">[354]</a></p>
-
-<p>Mazarês next proceeded to the attack and conquest of the Greeks on
-the coast; an enterprise which, since he soon died of illness, was
-completed by his successor Harpagus. The towns assailed successively
-made a gallant but ineffectual resistance: the Persian general by
-his numbers drove the defenders within their walls, against which
-he piled up mounds of earth, so as either to carry the place by
-storm or to compel surrender. All of them were reduced, one after
-the other: with all, the terms of subjection were doubtless harder
-than those which had been imposed upon them by Crœsus, because
-Cyrus had already refused to grant these terms to them, with the
-single exception of Milêtus, and because they had since given
-additional offence by aiding the revolt of Paktyas. The inhabitants
-of Priênê were sold into slavery: they were the first assailed by
-Mazarês, and had perhaps been especially forward in the attack made
-by Paktyas on Sardis.<a id="FNanchor_355" href="#Footnote_355"
-class="fnanchor">[355]</a></p>
-
-<p>Among these unfortunate towns, thus changing their master
-and passing out into a harsher subjection, two deserve especial
-notice,—Teôs and Phôkæa. The citizens of the former, so soon<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[p. 203]</span> as the mound around
-their walls had rendered farther resistance impossible, embarked
-and emigrated, some to Thrace, where they founded Abdêra,—others
-to the Cimmerian Bosphorus, where they planted Phanagoria; a
-portion of them, however, must have remained to take the chances
-of subjection, since the town appears in after-times still peopled
-and still Hellenic.<a id="FNanchor_356" href="#Footnote_356"
-class="fnanchor">[356]</a></p>
-
-<p>The fate of Phôkæa, similar in the main, is given to us with
-more striking circumstances of detail, and becomes the more
-interesting, since the enterprising mariners who inhabited it had
-been the torch-bearers of Grecian geographical discovery in the
-west. I have already described their adventurous exploring voyages
-of former days into the interior of the Adriatic, and along the
-whole northern and western coasts of the Mediterranean as far as
-Tartêssus (the region around and adjoining to Cadiz),—together with
-the favorable reception given to them by old Arganthônius, king of
-the country, who invited them to emigrate in a body to his kingdom,
-offering them the choice of any site which they might desire. His
-invitation was declined, though probably the Phôkæans may have
-subsequently regretted the refusal; and he then manifested his
-good-will towards them by a large present to defray the expense of
-constructing fortifications round their town.<a id="FNanchor_357"
-href="#Footnote_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> The walls, erected
-in part, by this aid, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[p.
-204]</span> both extensive and well built; yet they could not hinder
-Harpagus from raising his mounds of earth up against them, while
-he was politic enough at the same time to tempt them with offers
-of a moderate capitulation; requiring only that they should breach
-their walls in one place by pulling down one of the towers, and
-consecrate one building in the interior of the town as a token of
-subjection. To accept these terms, was to submit themselves to the
-discretion of the besieger, for there could be no security that they
-would be observed; and the Phôkæans, while they asked for one day
-to deliberate upon their reply, entreated that, during that day,
-Harpagus should withdraw his troops altogether from the walls. With
-this demand the latter complied, intimating, at the same time, that
-he saw clearly through the meaning of it. The Phôkæans had determined
-that the inevitable servitude impending over their town should not be
-shared by its inhabitants, and they employed their day of grace in
-preparation for collective exile, putting on ship-board their wives
-and children as well as their furniture and the movable decorations
-of their temples. They then set sail for Chios, leaving to the
-conqueror a deserted town for the occupation of a Persian garrison.<a
-id="FNanchor_358" href="#Footnote_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[p. 205]</span>It appears
-that the fugitives were not very kindly received at Chios; at least,
-when they made a proposition for purchasing from the Chians the
-neighboring islands of Œnussæ as a permanent abode, the latter were
-induced to refuse by apprehensions of commercial rivalry. It was
-necessary to look farther for a settlement: and Arganthônius their
-protector, being now dead, Tartêssus was no longer inviting. Twenty
-years before, however, the colony of Alalia in the island of Corsica
-had been founded from Phôkæa by the direction of the oracle, and
-thither the general body of Phôkæans now resolved to repair. Having
-prepared their ships for this distant voyage, they first sailed back
-to Phôkæa, surprised the Persian garrison whom Harpagus had left
-in the town, and slew them: they then sunk in the harbor a great
-lump of iron, and bound themselves by a solemn and unanimous oath
-never again to see Phôkæa until that iron should come up to the
-surface. Nevertheless, in spite of the oath, the voyage of exile
-had been scarcely begun when more than half of them repented of
-having so bound themselves,—and became homesick.<a id="FNanchor_359"
-href="#Footnote_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> They broke their vow
-and returned to Phôkæa. But as Herodotus does not mention any divine
-judgment as having been consequent on the perjury, we may, perhaps,
-suspect that some gray-headed citizen, to whom transportation to
-Corsica might be little less than a sentence of death, both persuaded
-himself, and certified to his companions, that he had seen the
-sunken lump of iron raised up and floating for a while buoyant upon
-the waves. Harpagus must have been induced to pardon the previous
-slaughter of his Persian garrison, or at least to believe that it
-had been done by those Phôkæans who still persisted in exile. He
-wanted tribute-paying subjects, not an empty military post, and the
-repentant home-seekers were allowed to number themselves among the
-slaves of the Great King.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile the smaller but more resolute half of the Phôkæans
-executed their voyage to Alalia in Corsica, with their<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[p. 206]</span> wives and children, in
-sixty pentekontêrs, or armed ships, and established themselves along
-with the previous settlers. They remained there for five years,<a
-id="FNanchor_360" href="#Footnote_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a>
-during which time their indiscriminate piracies had become so
-intolerable (even at that time, piracy committed against a foreign
-vessel seems to have been both frequent and practised without much
-disrepute), that both the Tyrrhenian seaports along the Mediterranean
-coast of Italy, and the Carthaginians, united to put them down. There
-subsisted particular treaties between these two, for the regulation
-of the commercial intercourse between Africa and Italy, of which
-the ancient treaty preserved by Polybius between Rome and Carthage
-(made in 509 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) may be considered as a specimen.<a
-id="FNanchor_361" href="#Footnote_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a>
-Sixty Carthaginian and as many Tuscan ships attacked the sixty
-Phôkæan ships near Alalia, and destroyed forty of them, yet not
-without such severe loss to themselves that the victory was said
-to be on the side of the latter; who, however, in spite of this
-Kadmeian victory (so a battle was denominated in which the victors
-lost more than the vanquished), were compelled to carry back their
-remaining twenty vessels to Alalia, and to retire with their wives
-and families, in so far as room could be found for them, to Rhegium.
-At last, these unhappy exiles found a permanent home by establishing
-the new settlement of Elea, or Velia, in the gulf of Policastro, on
-the Italian coast (then called Œnôtrian) southward from Poseidônia,
-or Pæstum. It is probable that they were here joined by other exiles
-from Ionia, in particular by the Kolophonian philosopher and poet
-Xenophanês, from whom what was afterwards called the Eleatic school
-of philosophy, distinguished both for bold consistency and dialectic
-acuteness, took its rise. The Phôkæan captives, taken prisoners in
-the naval combat by Tyrrhenians and Carthaginians, were stoned to
-death; but a divine judgment overtook the Tyrrhenian town of Agylla,
-in consequence of this cruelty; and even in the time of Herodotus,
-a century afterwards, the Agyllæans were still expiating the sin
-by a periodical solemnity and agon, pursuant to the penalty which
-the Delphian oracle had imposed upon them.<a id="FNanchor_362"
-href="#Footnote_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a></p>
-
-<p>Such was the fate of the Phôkæan exiles, while their
-brethren<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[p. 207]</span> at home
-remained as subjects of Harpagus, in common with all the other Ionic
-and Æolic Greeks except Milêtus. For even the insular inhabitants of
-Lesbos and Chios, though not assailable by sea, since the Persians
-had no fleet, thought it better to renounce their independence and
-enrol themselves as Persian subjects,—both of them possessing strips
-of the mainland which they were unable to protect otherwise. Samos,
-on the other hand, maintained its independence, and even reached,
-shortly after this period, under the despotism of Polykratês, a
-higher degree of power than ever. Perhaps the humiliation of the
-other maritime Greeks around may have rather favored the ambition
-of this unscrupulous prince, to whom I shall revert presently. But
-we may readily conceive that the public solemnities in which the
-Ionic Greeks intermingled, in place of those gay and richly-decked
-crowds which the Homeric hymn describes in the preceding century as
-assembled at Delos, presented scenes of marked despondency: one of
-their wisest men, indeed, Bias of Priênê, went so far as to propose,
-at the Pan-Ionic festival, a collective emigration of the entire
-population of the Ionic towns to the island of Sardinia. Nothing like
-freedom, he urged, was now open to them in Asia; but in Sardinia,
-one great Pan-Ionic city might be formed, which would not only be
-free herself, but mistress of her neighbors. The proposition found no
-favor; the reason of which is sufficiently evident from the narrative
-just given respecting the unconquerable local attachment on the part
-of the Phôkæan majority. But Herodotus bestows upon it the most
-unqualified commendation, and regrets that it was not acted upon.<a
-id="FNanchor_363" href="#Footnote_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> Had
-such been the case, the subsequent history of Carthage, Sicily, and
-even Rome, might have been sensibly altered.</p>
-
-<p>Thus subdued by Harpagus, the Ionic and Æolic Greeks were
-employed as auxiliaries to him in the conquest of the south-western
-inhabitants of Asia Minor,—Karians, Kaunians, Lykians, and Doric
-Greeks of Knidus and Halikarnassus. Of the fate of the latter town,
-Herodotus tells us nothing, though it was<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_208">[p. 208]</span> his native place. The inhabitants
-of Knidus, a place situated on a long outlying tongue of land, at
-first tried to cut through the narrow isthmus which joined them
-to the continent, but abandoned the attempt with a facility which
-Herodotus explains by referring it to a prohibition of the oracle:<a
-id="FNanchor_364" href="#Footnote_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a> nor
-did either the Karians or the Kaunians offer any serious resistance.
-The Lykians only, in their chief town Xanthus, made a desperate
-defence. Having in vain tried to repel the assailants in the open
-field, and finding themselves blocked up in their city, they set
-fire to it with their own hands; consuming in the flames their
-women, children, and servants, while the armed citizens marched out
-and perished to a man in combat with the enemy.<a id="FNanchor_365"
-href="#Footnote_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> Such an act of brave
-and even ferocious despair is not in the Grecian character. In
-recounting, however, the languid defence and easy submission of the
-Greeks of Knidus, it may surprise us to call to mind that they were
-Dorians and colonists from Sparta. So that the want of steadfast
-courage, often imputed to Ionic Greeks as compared to Dorian, ought
-properly to be charged on Asiatic Greeks as compared with European;
-or rather upon that mixture of indigenous with Hellenic population,
-which all the Asiatic colonies, in common with most of the other
-colonies, presented, and which in Halikarnassus was particularly
-remarkable; for it seems to have been half Karian, half Dorian, and
-was even governed by a line of Karian despots.</p>
-
-<p>Harpagus and the Persians thus mastered, without any considerable
-resistance, the western and southern portions of Asia Minor;
-probably, also, though we have no direct account of it, the entire
-territory within the Halys which had before been ruled by Crœsus. The
-tributes of the conquered Greeks were transmitted to Ekbatana instead
-of to Sardis. While Harpagus was thus employed, Cyrus himself had
-been making still more extensive conquests in Upper Asia and Assyria,
-of which I shall speak in the coming chapter.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_33">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[p. 209]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXIII.<br />
- GROWTH OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">In the</span> preceding chapter
-an account has been given, the best which we can pick out from
-Herodotus, of the steps by which the Asiatic Greeks became subject
-to Persia. And if his narrative is meagre, on a matter which
-vitally concerned not only so many of his brother Greeks, but even
-his own native city, we can hardly expect that he should tell us
-much respecting the other conquests of Cyrus. He seems to withhold
-intentionally various details which had come to his knowledge, and
-merely intimates in general terms that while Harpagus was engaged
-on the coast of the Ægean, Cyrus himself assailed and subdued
-all the nations of Upper Asia, “not omitting any one of them.”<a
-id="FNanchor_366" href="#Footnote_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a>
-He alludes to the Baktrians and the Sakæ,<a id="FNanchor_367"
-href="#Footnote_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> who are also named
-by Ktêsias as having become subject partly by force, partly by
-capitulation; but he deems only two of the exploits of Cyrus worthy
-of special notice,—the conquest of Babylon, and the final expedition
-against the Massagetæ. In the short abstract which we now possess
-of the lost work of Ktêsias, no mention appears of the important
-conquest of Babylon; but his narrative, as far as the abstract
-enables us to follow it, diverges materially from that of Herodotus,
-and must have been founded on data altogether different.</p>
-
-<p>“I shall mention (says Herodotus)<a id="FNanchor_368"
-href="#Footnote_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a> those conquests which
-gave Cyrus most trouble, and are most memorable: after he had subdued
-all the rest of the continent, he attacked the Assyrians.” Those who
-recollect the description of Babylon and its surrounding territory,
-as given in a former chapter, will not be surprised to learn that the
-capture of it gave the Persian aggressor much trouble: their only
-surprise will be, how it could ever have been<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_210">[p. 210]</span> taken at all,—or, indeed, how a
-hostile army could have even reached it. Herodotus informs us that
-the Babylonian queen Nitôkris—mother of that very Labynêtus who was
-king when Cyrus attacked the place—had been apprehensive of invasion
-from the Medes after their capture of Nineveh, and had executed many
-laborious works near the Euphratês for the purpose of obstructing
-their approach. Moreover, there existed what was called the wall
-of Media (probably built by her, but certainly built prior to the
-Persian conquest), one hundred feet high and twenty feet thick,<a
-id="FNanchor_369" href="#Footnote_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a>
-across the entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the
-Tigris with one of the canals of the Euphratês. And the canals
-themselves, as we may see by the march of the Ten Thousand Greeks
-after the battle of Kunaxa, presented means of defence altogether
-insuperable by a rude army such as that of the Persians. On the east,
-the territory of Babylonia was defended by the Tigris, which cannot
-be forded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[p. 211]</span> lower
-than the ancient Nineveh or the modern Mosul.<a id="FNanchor_370"
-href="#Footnote_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> In addition to
-these ramparts, natural as well as artificial, to protect the
-territory,—populous, cultivated, productive, and offering every
-motive to its inhabitants to resist even the entrance of an enemy,—we
-are told that the Babylonians were so thoroughly prepared for the
-inroad of Cyrus that they had accumulated a store of provisions
-within the city walls for many years.</p>
-
-<p>Strange as it may seem, we must suppose that the king of Babylon,
-after all the cost and labor spent in providing defences for the
-territory, voluntarily neglected to avail himself of them, suffered
-the invader to tread down the fertile Babylonia without resistance,
-and merely drew out the citizens to oppose him when he arrived under
-the walls of the city,—if the statement of Herodotus is correct.<a
-id="FNanchor_371" href="#Footnote_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a>
-And we may illustrate this unaccountable omission by that which we
-know to have happened in the march of the younger Cyrus to Kunaxa
-against his brother Artaxerxês Mnêmon. The latter had caused to
-be dug, expressly in preparation for this invasion, a broad and
-deep ditch, thirty feet wide and eight feet deep, from the wall
-of Media to the river Euphratês, a distance of twelve parasangs,
-or forty-live English miles, leaving only a passage of twenty
-feet broad close alongside of the river. Yet when the invading
-army arrived at this important pass, they found not a man there
-to defend it, and all of them marched without resistance through
-the narrow inlet. Cyrus the younger, who had up to that moment
-felt assured that his brother would fight, now supposed that he
-had given up the idea of defending Babylon:<a id="FNanchor_372"
-href="#Footnote_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> instead of which, two
-days afterwards,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[p. 212]</span>
-Artaxerxês attacked him on an open plain of ground, where there was
-no advantage of position on either side; though the invaders were
-taken rather unawares in consequence of their extreme confidence,
-arising from recent unopposed entrance within the artificial
-ditch.</p>
-
-<p>This anecdote is the more valuable as an illustration, because all
-its circumstances are transmitted to us by a discerning eye-witness.
-And both the two incidents here brought into comparison demonstrate
-the recklessness, changefulness, and incapacity of calculation,
-belonging to the Asiatic mind of that day,—as well as the great
-command of hands possessed by these kings, and their prodigal
-waste of human labor.<a id="FNanchor_373" href="#Footnote_373"
-class="fnanchor">[373]</a> We shall see, as we advance in this
-history, farther evidences of the same attributes, which it is
-essential to bear in mind, for the purpose of appreciating both
-Grecian dealing with Asiatics, and the comparative absence of such
-defects in the Grecian character. Vast walls and deep ditches are
-an inestimable aid to a brave and well commanded garrison; but
-they cannot be made entirely to supply the want of bravery and
-intelligence.</p>
-
-<p>In whatever manner the difficulties of approaching Babylon may
-have been overcome, the fact that they were overcome by Cyrus is
-certain. On first setting out for this conquest, he was about to
-cross the river Gyndês (one of the affluents from the East which
-joins the Tigris near the modern Bagdad, and along which lay
-the high road crossing the pass of Mount Zagros from Babylon to
-Ekbatana), when one of the sacred white horses, which accompanied
-him, insulted the river<a id="FNanchor_374" href="#Footnote_374"
-class="fnanchor">[374]</a> so far as to march in and try to cross
-it by himself. The Gyndês resented this insult, and the horse was
-drowned: upon which Cyrus swore in his wrath that he would so break
-the strength of the river as that women in future should pass it
-without wetting their knees. Accordingly, he employed his entire
-army, during the whole summer season, in digging three hundred and
-sixty artificial channels to disseminate the unity of the stream.
-Such, accord<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[p. 213]</span>ing
-to Herodotus, was the incident which postponed for one year the fall
-of the great Babylon; but in the next spring Cyrus and his army were
-before the walls, after having defeated and driven in the population
-who came out to fight. But the walls were artificial mountains (three
-hundred feet high, seventy-five feet thick, and forming a square
-of fifteen miles to each side), within which the besieged defied
-attack, and even blockade, having previously stored up several years’
-provision. Through the midst of these walls, however, flowed the
-Euphratês; and this river, which had been so laboriously trained
-to serve for protection, trade, and sustenance to the Babylonians,
-was now made the avenue of their ruin. Having left a detachment of
-his army at the two points where the Euphratês enters and quits
-the city, Cyrus retired with the remainder to the higher part of
-its course, where an ancient Babylonian queen had prepared one of
-the great lateral reservoirs for carrying off in case of need the
-superfluity of its water. Near this point Cyrus caused another
-reservoir and another canal of communication to be dug, by means of
-which he drew off the water of the Euphrates to such a decree that
-it became not above the height of a man’s thigh. The period chosen
-was that of a great Babylonian festival, when the whole population
-were engaged in amusement and revelry; and the Persian troops left
-near the town, watching their opportunity, entered from both sides
-along the bed of the river, and took it by surprise with scarcely
-any resistance. At no other time, except during a festival, could
-they have done this, says Herodotus, had the river been ever so low;
-for both banks throughout the whole length of the town were provided
-with quays, with continuous walls, and with gates at the end of every
-street which led down to the river at right angles: so that if the
-population had not been disqualified by the influences of the moment,
-they would have caught the assailants in the bed of the river “as a
-trap,” and overwhelmed them from the walls alongside. Within a square
-of fifteen miles to each side, we are not surprised to hear that both
-the extremities were already in the power of the besiegers before
-the central population heard of it, and while they were yet absorbed
-in unconscious festivity.<a id="FNanchor_375" href="#Footnote_375"
-class="fnanchor">[375]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[p. 214]</span>Such is
-the account given by Herodotus of the circumstances which placed
-Babylon—the greatest city of western Asia—in the power of the
-Persians. To what extent the information communicated to him was
-incorrect, or exaggerated, we cannot now decide; but the way in which
-the city was treated would lead us to suppose that its acquisition
-cannot have cost the conqueror either much time or much loss. Cyrus
-comes into the list as king of Babylon, and the inhabitants with
-their whole territory become tributary to the Persians, forming the
-richest satrapy in the empire; but we do not hear that the people
-were otherwise ill-used, and it is certain that the vast walls and
-gates were left untouched. This was very different from the way in
-which the Medes had treated Nineveh, which seems to have been ruined
-and for a long time absolutely uninhabited, though reoccupied on a
-reduced scale under the Parthian empire; and very different also from
-the way in which Babylon itself was treated twenty years afterwards
-by Darius, when reconquered after a revolt.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[p. 215]</span>The importance
-of Babylon, marking as it does one of the peculiar forms of
-civilization belonging to the ancient world in a state of full
-development, gives an interest even to the half-authenticated
-stories respecting its capture; but the other exploits ascribed to
-Cyrus,—his invasion of India, across the desert of Arachosia,<a
-id="FNanchor_376" href="#Footnote_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a>—and
-his attack upon the Massagetæ, nomads ruled by queen Tomyris, and
-greatly resembling the Scythians, across the mysterious river which
-Herodotus calls Araxês,—are too little known to be at all dwelt
-upon. In the latter he is said to have perished, his army being
-defeated in a bloody battle.<a id="FNanchor_377" href="#Footnote_377"
-class="fnanchor">[377]</a> He was buried at Pasargadæ, in his
-native province of Persis proper, where his tomb was honored and
-watched until the breaking up of the empire,<a id="FNanchor_378"
-href="#Footnote_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> while his memory was
-held in profound veneration among the Persians.</p>
-
-<p>Of his real exploits, we know little except their results; but
-in what we read respecting him there seems, though amidst constant
-fighting, very little cruelty. Xenophon has selected his life as
-the subject of a moral romance, which for a long time was cited
-as authentic history, and which even now serves as an authority,
-expressed or implied, for disputable and even incorrect conclusions.
-His extraordinary activity and conquests admit of no doubt. He
-left the Persian empire<a id="FNanchor_379" href="#Footnote_379"
-class="fnanchor">[379]</a> extending from Sogdiana and the rivers
-Jaxartês and Indus eastward, to the Hellespont and the Syrian coast
-westward, and his successors made no permanent addition to it except
-that of Egypt. Phenicia and Judæa were dependencies of Babylon,
-at the time when he conquered it, with their princes and grandees
-in Babylonian captivity. They seem to have yielded to him, and
-become his tributaries,<a id="FNanchor_380" href="#Footnote_380"
-class="fnanchor">[380]</a> without difficulty; and the restoration
-of their captives was con<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[p.
-216]</span>ceded to them. It was from Cyrus that the habits of the
-Persian kings took commencement, to dwell at Susa in the winter, and
-Ekbatana during the summer; the primitive territory of Persis, with
-its two towns of Persepolis and Pasargadæ, being reserved for the
-burial-place of the kings and the religious sanctuary of the empire.
-How or when the conquest of Susiana was made, we are not informed; it
-lay eastward of the Tigris, between Babylonia and Persis proper, and
-its people, the Kissians, as far as we can discern, were of Assyrian
-and not of Arian race. The river Choaspês, near Susa, was supposed
-to furnish the only water fit for the palate of the Great King, and
-is said to have been carried about with him wherever he went.<a
-id="FNanchor_381" href="#Footnote_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a></p>
-
-<p>While the conquests of Cyrus contributed to assimilate the
-distinct types of civilization in western Asia,—not by elevating
-the worse, but by degrading the better,—upon the native Persians
-themselves they operated as an extraordinary stimulus, provoking
-alike their pride, ambition, cupidity, and warlike propensities.
-Not only did the territory of Persis proper pay no tribute to
-Susa or Ekbatana,—being the only district so exempted between the
-Jaxartês and the Mediterranean,—but the vast tributes received
-from the remaining empire were distributed to a great degree
-among its inhabitants. Empire to them meant,—for the great men,
-lucrative satrapies, or pachalics, with powers altogether unlimited,
-pomp inferior only to that of the Great King, and standing
-armies which they employed at their own discretion, sometimes
-against each other,<a id="FNanchor_382" href="#Footnote_382"
-class="fnanchor">[382]</a>—for the common soldiers, drawn from their
-fields or flocks, constant plunder, abundant maintenance, and an
-unrestrained license, either in the suite of one of the satraps, or
-in the large permanent troop which moved from Susa to Ekbatana with
-the Great King. And if the entire population of Persis proper did
-not migrate from their abodes to occupy some of those more inviting
-spots which the immensity of the imperial dominion furnished,—a
-dominion extending (to use the language of Cyrus the younger, before
-the battle of Kunaxa)<a id="FNanchor_383" href="#Footnote_383"
-class="fnanchor">[383]</a> from the region of insupportable heat
-to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[p. 217]</span> that
-of insupportable cold,—this was only because the early kings
-discouraged such a movement, in order that the nation might maintain
-its military hardihood,<a id="FNanchor_384" href="#Footnote_384"
-class="fnanchor">[384]</a> and be in a situation to furnish
-undiminished supplies of soldiers.</p>
-
-<p>The self-esteem and arrogance of the Persians was no less
-remarkable than their avidity for sensual enjoyment. They were
-fond of wine to excess; their wives and their concubines were both
-numerous; and they adopted eagerly from foreign nations new fashions
-of luxury as well as of ornament. Even to novelties in religion,
-they were not strongly averse; for though they were disciples
-of Zoroaster, with magi as their priests, and as indispensable
-companions of their sacrifices, worshipping Sun, Moon, Earth,
-Fire, etc., and recognizing neither image, temple, nor altar,—yet
-they had adopted the voluptuous worship of the goddess Mylitta
-from the Assyrians and Arabians. A numerous male offspring was the
-Persian’s boast, and his warlike character and consciousness of
-force were displayed in the education of these youths, who were
-taught, from five years old to twenty, only three things,—to ride,
-to shoot with the bow, and to speak the truth.<a id="FNanchor_385"
-href="#Footnote_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> To owe money, or even
-to buy and sell, was accounted among the Persians disgraceful,—a
-sentiment which they defended by saying, that both the one and the
-other imposed the necessity of telling falsehood. To exact tribute
-from subjects, to receive pay or presents from the king, and to
-give away without forethought whatever was not immediately wanted,
-was their mode of dealing with money. Industrious pursuits were
-left to the conquered, who were fortunate if by paying a fixed
-contribution, and sending a military contingent when required, they
-could purchase undisturbed immunity for their remaining concerns.<a
-id="FNanchor_386" href="#Footnote_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a>
-They could not thus purchase safety for the family<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[p. 218]</span> hearth, since we find
-instances of noble Grecian maidens torn from their parents for
-the harem of the satrap.<a id="FNanchor_387" href="#Footnote_387"
-class="fnanchor">[387]</a></p>
-
-<p>To a people of this character, whose conceptions of political
-society went no farther than personal obedience to a chief, a
-conqueror like Cyrus would communicate the strongest excitement
-and enthusiasm of which they were capable. He had found them
-slaves, and made them masters; he was the first and greatest of
-national benefactors,<a id="FNanchor_388" href="#Footnote_388"
-class="fnanchor">[388]</a> as well as the most forward of leaders in
-the field; they followed him from one conquest to another, during
-the thirty years of his reign, their love of empire growing with the
-empire itself. And this impulse of aggrandizement continued unabated
-during the reigns of his three next successors,—Kambysês, Darius, and
-Xerxês,—until it was at length violently stifled by the humiliating
-defeats of Platæa and Salamis; after which the Persians became
-content with defending themselves at home, and playing a secondary
-game. But at the time when Kambysês son of Cyrus succeeded to his
-father’s sceptre, Persian spirit was at its highest point, and he
-was not long in fixing upon a prey both richer and less hazardous
-than the Massagetæ, at the opposite extremity of the empire. Phenicia
-and Judæa being already subject to him, he resolved to invade Egypt,
-then highly flourishing under the long and prosperous reign of
-Amasis. Not much pretence was needed to color the aggression, and
-the various stories which Herodotus mentions as causes of the war,
-are only interesting inasmuch as they imply a vein of Egyptian party
-feeling,—affirming that the invasion was brought upon Amasis by a
-daughter of Apriês, and was thus a judgment upon him for having
-deposed the latter. As to the manner in which she had produced this
-effect, indeed, the most contradictory stories were circulated.<a
-id="FNanchor_389" href="#Footnote_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a></p>
-
-<p>Kambysês summoned the forces of his empire for this new
-enterprise, and among them both the Phenicians and the Asiatic<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[p. 219]</span> Greeks, Æolic
-as well as Ionic,<a id="FNanchor_390" href="#Footnote_390"
-class="fnanchor">[390]</a> insular as well as continental,—nearly
-all the maritime force and skill of the Ægean sea. He was apprized
-by a Greek deserter from the mercenaries in Egypt, named Phanês, of
-the difficulties of the march, and the best method of surmounting
-them; especially the three days of sandy desert, altogether without
-water, which lay between Egypt and Judæa. By the aid of the
-neighboring Arabians,—with whom he concluded a treaty, and who were
-requited for this service with the title of equal allies, free from
-all tribute,—he was enabled to surmount this serious difficulty,
-and to reach Pelusium at the eastern mouth of the Nile, where the
-Ionian and Karian troops in the Egyptian service, as well as the
-Egyptian military, were assembled to oppose him.<a id="FNanchor_391"
-href="#Footnote_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a></p>
-
-<p>Fortunately for himself, the Egyptian king Amasis had died during
-the interval of the Persian preparations, a few months before the
-expedition took place,—after forty-four years of unabated prosperity.
-His death, at this critical moment, was probably the main cause of
-the easy conquest which followed; his son Psammenitus succeeding
-to his crown, but neither to his abilities nor his influence. The
-result of the invasion was foreshadowed, as usual, by a menacing
-prodigy,—rain falling at Thebes in Upper Egypt; and was brought about
-by a single victory, though bravely disputed, at Pelusium,—followed
-by the capture of Memphis, with the person of king Psammenitus, after
-a siege of some duration. Kambysês had sent forward a Mitylenæan ship
-to Memphis, with heralds to summon the city; but the Egyptians, in
-a paroxysm of fury, rushed out of the walls, destroyed the vessel,
-and tore the crew into pieces,—a savage proceeding, which drew
-upon them severe retribution after the capture. Psammenitus, after
-being at first treated with harshness and insult, was at length
-released, and even allowed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[p.
-220]</span> retain his regal dignity as a dependent of Persia. But
-being soon detected, or at least believed to be concerned, in raising
-revolt against the conquerors, he was put to death, and Egypt was
-placed under a satrap.<a id="FNanchor_392" href="#Footnote_392"
-class="fnanchor">[392]</a></p>
-
-<p>There yet lay beyond Egypt territories for Kambysês to
-conquer,—though Kyrênê and Barka, the Greek colonies near the coast
-of Libya, placed themselves at once out of the reach of danger by
-sending to him tribute and submission at Memphis. He projected
-three new enterprises: one against Carthage, by sea; the other
-two, by land, against the Ethiopians, far to the southward up the
-course of the Nile, and against the oracle and oasis of Zeus Ammon,
-amidst the deserts of Libya. Towards Ethiopia he himself conducted
-his troops, but was compelled to bring them back without reaching
-it, since they were on the point of perishing with famine; while
-the division which he sent against the temple of Ammon is said to
-have been overwhelmed by a sand-storm in the desert. The expedition
-against Carthage was given up, for a reason which well deserves to
-be commemorated. The Phenicians, who formed the most efficient part
-of his navy, refused to serve against their kinsmen and colonists,
-pleading the sanctity of mutual oaths as well as the ties both of
-relationship and traffic.<a id="FNanchor_393" href="#Footnote_393"
-class="fnanchor">[393]</a> Even the frantic Kambysês was compelled to
-accept, and perhaps to respect, this honorable refusal, which was not
-imitated by the Ionic Greeks when Darius and Xerxês demanded the aid
-of their ships against Athens,—we must add, however, that they were
-then in a situation much more exposed and helpless than that in which
-the Phenicians stood before Kambysês.</p>
-
-<p>Among the sacred animals so numerous and so different throughout
-the various nomes of Egypt, the most venerated of all was the bull
-Apis. Yet such peculiar conditions were required by the Egyptian
-religion as to the birth, the age, and the marks of this animal,
-that, when he died, it was difficult to find a new calf properly
-qualified to succeed him. Much time was sometimes spent in the
-search, and when an unexceptionable suc<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_221">[p. 221]</span>cessor was at last found, the
-demonstrations of joy in Memphis were extravagant and universal.
-At the moment when Kambysês returned to Memphis from his Ethiopian
-expedition, full of humiliation for the result, it so happened that a
-new Apis was just discovered; and as the population of the city gave
-vent to their usual festival pomp and delight, he construed it into
-an intentional insult towards his own recent misfortunes. In vain did
-the priests and magistrates explain to him the real cause of these
-popular manifestations; he persisted in his belief, punished some
-of them with death and others with stripes, and commanded every man
-seen in holiday attire to be slain. Furthermore,—to carry his outrage
-against Egyptian feeling to the uttermost pitch,—he sent for the
-newly-discovered Apis, and plunged his dagger into the side of the
-animal, who shortly afterwards died of the wound.<a id="FNanchor_394"
-href="#Footnote_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a></p>
-
-<p>After this brutal deed,—calculated to efface in the minds of the
-Egyptian priests the enormities of Cheops and Chephrên, and doubtless
-unparalleled in all the twenty-four thousand years of their anterior
-history,—Kambysês lost every spark of reason which yet remained to
-him, and the Egyptians found in this visitation a new proof of the
-avenging interference of their gods. Not only did he commit every
-variety of studied outrage against the conquered people among whom
-he was tarrying, as well as their temples and their sepulchres,—but
-he also dealt his blows against his Persian friends and even his
-nearest blood-relations. Among these revolting atrocities, one of the
-greatest deserves peculiar notice, because the fate of the empire was
-afterwards materially affected by it. His younger brother Smerdis had
-accompanied him into Egypt, but had been sent back to Susa, because
-the king became jealous of the admiration which his personal strength
-and qualities called forth.<a id="FNanchor_395" href="#Footnote_395"
-class="fnanchor">[395]</a> That jealousy was aggravated into
-alarm and hatred by a dream, portending dominion and conquest to
-Smerdis; so that the frantic Kambysês sent to<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_222">[p. 222]</span> Susa secretly a confidential Persian,
-Prexaspês, with express orders to get rid of his brother. Prexaspês
-fulfilled his commission effectively, burying the slain prince
-with his own hands,<a id="FNanchor_396" href="#Footnote_396"
-class="fnanchor">[396]</a> and keeping the deed concealed from all
-except a few of the chiefs at the regal residence.</p>
-
-<p>Among these few chiefs, however, there was one, the Median
-Patizeithês, belonging to the order of the Magi, who saw in it
-a convenient stepping-stone for his own personal ambition, and
-made use of it as a means of covertly supplanting the dynasty of
-the great Cyrus. Enjoying the full confidence of Kambysês, he had
-been left by that prince, on departing for Egypt, in the entire
-management of the palace and treasures, with extensive authority.<a
-id="FNanchor_397" href="#Footnote_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a>
-Moreover, he happened to have a brother extremely resembling in
-person the deceased Smerdis; and as the open and dangerous madness
-of Kambysês contributed to alienate from him the minds of the
-Persians, he resolved to proclaim this brother king in his room, as
-if it were the younger son of Cyrus succeeding to the disqualified
-elder. On one important point, the false Smerdis differed from the
-true. He had lost his ears, which Cyrus himself had caused to be
-cut off for an offence; but the personal resemblance, after all,
-was of little importance, since he was seldom or never allowed to
-show himself to the people.<a id="FNanchor_398" href="#Footnote_398"
-class="fnanchor">[398]</a> Kambysês, having heard of this revolt
-in Syria on his return from Egypt, was mounting his horse in haste
-for the purpose of going to suppress it, when an accident from his
-sword put an end to his life. Herodotus tells us that, before his
-death, he summoned the Persians around him, confessed that he had
-been guilty of putting his brother to death, and apprized them that
-the reigning Smerdis was only a Median pretender,—conjuring them
-at the same time not to submit to the disgrace of being ruled by
-any other than a Persian and an Achæmenid. But if it be true that
-he ever made known the facts, no one believed him. For Prexaspês,
-on his part, was compelled by regard to his own safety, to deny
-that he had imbrued his hands in the blood<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_223">[p. 223]</span> of a son of Cyrus;<a id="FNanchor_399"
-href="#Footnote_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> and thus the
-opportune death of Kambysês placed the false Smerdis without
-opposition at the head of the Persians, who all, or for the most
-part, believed themselves to be ruled by a genuine son of Cyrus.
-Kambysês had reigned for seven years and five months.</p>
-
-<p>For seven months did Smerdis reign without opposition, seconded
-by his brother Patizeithês; and if he manifested his distrust of
-the haughty Persians around him, by neither inviting them into his
-palace nor showing himself out of it, he at the same time studiously
-conciliated the favor of the subject provinces, by remission of
-tribute and of military service for three years.<a id="FNanchor_400"
-href="#Footnote_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a> Such a departure
-from the Persian principle of government was in itself sufficient
-to disgust the warlike and rapacious Achæmenids at Susa. But it
-seems that their suspicions as to his genuine character had never
-been entirely set at rest, and in the eighth month those suspicions
-were converted into certainty. According to what seems to have been
-the Persian usage, he had taken to himself the entire harem of
-his predecessor, among whose wives was numbered Phædymê, daughter
-of a distinguished Persian, named Otanês. At the instance of her
-father, Phædymê undertook the dangerous task of feeling the head of
-Smerdis while he slept, and thus detected the absence of ears.<a
-id="FNanchor_401" href="#Footnote_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a>
-Otanês, possessed of the decisive information, lost no time in
-concerting, with five other noble Achæmenids, means for ridding
-themselves of a king who was at once a Mede, a Magian, and a
-man without ears;<a id="FNanchor_402" href="#Footnote_402"
-class="fnanchor">[402]</a> Darius, son of Hystaspês, the satrap
-of Persis proper, arriving just in time to join the conspiracy as
-the seventh. How these seven noblemen slew Smerdis in his palace
-at Susa,—how they subsequently debated among themselves whether
-they should establish in Persia a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a
-democracy,—how, after the first of the three had been resolved upon,
-it was determined that the future king, whichever he might be, should
-be bound to take his wives only from the families of the seven
-con<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[p. 224]</span>spirators,—how
-Darius became king, from the circumstance of his horse being the
-first to neigh among those of the conspirators at a given spot,
-by the stratagem of the groom Œbarês,—how Otanês, standing aside
-beforehand from this lottery for the throne, reserved for himself
-as well as for his descendants perfect freedom and exemption from
-the rule of the future king, whichsoever might draw the prize,—all
-these incidents may be found recounted by Herodotus with his usual
-vivacity, but with no small addition of Hellenic ideas as well as of
-dramatic ornament.</p>
-
-<p>It was thus that the upright tiara, the privileged head-dress
-of the Persian kings,<a id="FNanchor_403" href="#Footnote_403"
-class="fnanchor">[403]</a> passed away from the lineage of Cyrus,
-yet without departing from the great phratry of the Achæmenidæ,—to
-which Darius and his father Hystaspês, as well as Cyrus, belonged.
-That important fact is unquestionable, and probably the acts
-ascribed to the seven conspirators are in the main true, apart from
-their discussions and intentions. But on this as well as on other
-occasions, we must guard ourselves against an illusion which the
-historical manner of Herodotus is apt to create. He presents to us
-with so much descriptive force the personal narrative,—individual
-action and speech, with all its accompanying hopes, fears, doubts,
-and passions,—that our attention is distracted from the political
-bearing of what is going on; which we are compelled often to gather
-up from hints in the speeches of performers, or from consequences
-afterwards indirectly noticed. When we put together all the
-incidental notices which he lets drop, it will be found that the
-change of sceptre from Smerdis to Darius was a far larger political
-event than his direct narrative would seem to announce. Smerdis
-represents preponderance to the Medes over the Persians, and
-comparative degradation to the latter; who, by the installation of
-Darius, are again placed in the ascendent. The Medes and the Magians
-are in this case identical; for the Magians, though indispensable
-in the capacity of priests to the Persians, were essentially
-one of the seven Median<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[p.
-225]</span> tribes.<a id="FNanchor_404" href="#Footnote_404"
-class="fnanchor">[404]</a> It thus appears that though Smerdis
-ruled as a son of the great Cyrus, yet he ruled by means of Medes
-and Magians, depriving the Persians of that supreme privilege and
-predominance to which they had become accustomed.<a id="FNanchor_405"
-href="#Footnote_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> We see this by what
-followed immediately after the assassination of Smerdis and his
-brother in the palace. The seven conspirators, exhibiting the bloody
-heads of both these victims as an evidence of their deed, instigated
-the Persians in Susa to a general massacre of the Magians, many
-of whom were actually slain, and the rest only escaped by flight,
-concealment, or the hour of night. And the anniversary of this day
-was celebrated afterwards among the Persians by a solemnity and
-festival, called the Magophonia; no Magian being ever allowed on that
-day to appear in public.<a id="FNanchor_406" href="#Footnote_406"
-class="fnanchor">[406]</a> The descendants of the Seven maintained a
-privileged name and rank,<a id="FNanchor_407" href="#Footnote_407"
-class="fnanchor">[407]</a> even down to the extinction of the
-monarchy by Alexander the Great.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[p. 226]</span>Furthermore,
-it appears that the authority of Darius was not readily acknowledged
-throughout the empire, and that an interval of confusion ensued
-before it became so.<a id="FNanchor_408" href="#Footnote_408"
-class="fnanchor">[408]</a> The Medes actually revolted, and tried
-to maintain themselves by force against Darius, who however
-found means to subdue them: though, when he convoked his troops
-from the various provinces, he did not receive from the satraps
-universal obedience. The powerful Orœtês, especially, who had been
-appointed by Cyrus satrap of Lydia and Ionia, not only sent no
-troops to the aid of Darius against the Medes,<a id="FNanchor_409"
-href="#Footnote_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> but even took
-advantage of the disturbed state of the government to put to death
-his private enemy Mitrobatês satrap of Phrygia, and appropriate that
-satrapy in addition to his own. Aryandês also, the satrap nominated
-by Kambysês in Egypt, comported himself as the equal of Darius
-rather than as his subject.<a id="FNanchor_410" href="#Footnote_410"
-class="fnanchor">[410]</a> The subject provinces generally, to whom
-Smerdis had granted remission of tribute and military service for
-the space of three years, were grateful and attached to his memory,
-and noway pleased with the new dynasty; moreover, the revolt of
-the Babylonians, conceived a year or two before it was executed,
-took its rise from the feelings of this time.<a id="FNanchor_411"
-href="#Footnote_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a> But the renewal of
-the old conflict between the two principal sections of the empire,
-Medes and Persians, is doubtless the most important feature in this
-political revolution. The false Smerdis with his brother, both of
-them Medes and Magians, had revived the Median nationality to a
-state of supremacy over the Persian, recalling the memory of what
-it had been under Astyagês; while Darius,—a pure Persian, and not
-(like the mule Cyrus) half Mede and half Persian,—replaced the
-Persian nationality in its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[p.
-227]</span> ascendent condition, though not without the necessity of
-suppressing by force a rebellion of the Medes.<a id="FNanchor_412"
-href="#Footnote_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[p. 228]</span>It has already
-been observed that the subjugation of the recusant Medes was not
-the only embarrassment of the first years of<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_229">[p. 229]</span> Darius. Orœtês, satrap of Phrygia,
-Lydia, and Ionia, ruling seemingly the entire western coast of Asia
-Minor,—possessing a large military force and revenue, and surrounded
-by a body-guard of one thousand native Persians,—maintained a haughty
-independence. He secretly made away with couriers sent to summon him
-to Susa, and even wreaked his vengeance upon some of the principal
-Persians who had privately offended him.<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_230">[p. 230]</span> Darius, not thinking it prudent to
-attack him by open force, proposed to the chief Persians at Susa,
-the dangerous problem of destroying him by stratagem. Thirty among
-them volunteered to undertake it, and Bagæus, son of Artontês,
-to whom on drawing lots the task devolved, accomplished it by a
-manœuvre which might serve as a lesson to the Ottoman government,
-in its embarrassments with contumacious Pashas. Having proceeded to
-Sardis, furnished with many different royal ordinances, formally set
-forth and bearing the seal of Darius,—he was presented to Orœtês in
-audience, with the public secretary of the satrapy close at hand, and
-the Persian guards standing around. He presented his ordinances to
-be read aloud by the secretary, choosing first those which related
-to matters of no great importance; but when he saw that the guards
-listened with profound reverence, and that the king’s name and seal
-imposed upon them irresistibly, he ventured upon the real purport of
-his perilous mission. An ordinance was handed to the secretary, and
-read by him aloud, as follows: “Persians, king Darius forbids you to
-serve any longer as guards to Orœtês.” The obedient guards at once
-delivered up their spears, when Bagæus caused the final warrant to be
-read to them: “King Darius commands the Persians in Sardis to kill
-Orœtês.” The guards drew their swords and killed him on the spot: his
-large treasure was conveyed to Susa: Darius became undisputed master,
-and probably Bagæus satrap.<a id="FNanchor_413" href="#Footnote_413"
-class="fnanchor">[413]</a></p>
-
-<p>Another devoted adherent, and another yet more memorable piece
-of cunning, laid prostrate before Darius the mighty walls and
-gates of the revolted Babylon. The inhabitants of that city had
-employed themselves assiduously,—both during the lax provincial
-superintendence of the false Smerdis, and during the period of
-confusion and conflict which elapsed before Darius became firmly
-established and obeyed,—in making every preparation both for
-declaring and sustaining their independence. Having accumulated a
-large store of provisions and other requisites for a long siege,
-without previous detection, they at length proclaimed their
-independence openly. And such was the intensity of their resolution
-to maintain it, that they had recourse to a proceeding, which,
-if correctly reported by Herodotus, forms<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_231">[p. 231]</span> one of the most frightful enormities
-recorded in his history. To make their provisions last out longer,
-they strangled all the women in the city, reserving only their
-mothers, and one woman to each family for the purpose of baking.<a
-id="FNanchor_414" href="#Footnote_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a> We
-cannot but suppose that this has been magnified from a partial into
-an universal destruction. Yet taking it even with such allowance, it
-illustrates that ferocious force of will,—and that predominance of
-strong nationality, combined with antipathy to foreigners, over all
-the gentler sympathies,—which seems to mark the Semitic nations, and
-which may be traced so much in the Jewish history of Josephus.</p>
-
-<p>Darius, assembling all the forces in his power, laid siege to
-the revolted city, but could make no impression upon it, either by
-force or by stratagem. He tried to repeat the proceeding by which
-Cyrus had taken it at first; but the besieged were found this time
-on their guard. The siege had lasted twenty months without the
-smallest progress, and the Babylonians derided the besiegers from
-the height of their impregnable walls, when a distinguished Persian
-nobleman Zopyrus,—son of Megabyzus, who had been one of the seven
-conspirators against Smerdis,—presented himself one day before Darius
-in a state of frightful mutilation: his nose and ears were cut off,
-and his body misused in every way. He had designedly so maimed
-himself, “thinking it intolerable that Assyrians should thus laugh
-the Persians to scorn,”<a id="FNanchor_415" href="#Footnote_415"
-class="fnanchor">[415]</a> in the intention which he presently
-intimated to Darius, of passing into the town as a deserter, with a
-view of betraying it,—for which purpose measures were concerted. The
-Babylonians, seeing a Persian of the highest rank in so calamitous
-a condition, readily believed his assurance, that he had been thus
-punished by the king’s order, and that he came over to them as the
-only means of procuring for himself single vengeance. They intrusted
-him with the command of a detachment, with which he gained several
-advantages in different sallies, according to previous concert
-with Darius, until at length, the confidence of the Babylonians
-becom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[p. 232]</span>ing
-unbounded, they placed in his hands the care of the principal gates.
-At the critical moment these gates were thrown open, and the Persians
-became masters of the city.<a id="FNanchor_416" href="#Footnote_416"
-class="fnanchor">[416]</a></p>
-
-<p>Thus was the impregnable Babylon a second time reduced,<a
-id="FNanchor_417" href="#Footnote_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a>
-and Darius took precautions on this occasion to put it out of
-condition for resisting a third time. He caused the walls and gates
-to be demolished, and three thousand of the principal citizens to
-be crucified: the remaining inhabitants were left in the dismantled
-city, fifty thousand women being levied by assessment upon the
-neighboring provinces, to supply the place of the women strangled
-when it first revolted.<a id="FNanchor_418" href="#Footnote_418"
-class="fnanchor">[418]</a> Zopyrus was ap<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_233">[p. 233]</span>pointed satrap of the territory for
-life, with enjoyment of its entire revenues, receiving besides every
-additional reward which it was in the power of Darius to bestow,
-and generous assurances from the latter that he would rather have
-Zopyrus without wounds than the possession of Babylon. I have already
-intimated in a former chapter that the demolition of the walls here
-mentioned is not to be regarded as complete and continuous, nor was
-there any necessity that it should be so. Partial demolition would
-be quite sufficient to leave the city without defence; and the
-description given by Herodotus of the state of things as they stood
-at the time of his visit, proves that portions of the walls yet
-subsisted. One circumstance is yet to be added in reference to the
-subsequent condition of Babylon under the Persian empire. The city
-with the territory belonging to it constituted a satrapy, which not
-only paid a larger tribute (one thousand Euboic talents of silver)
-and contributed a much larger amount of provisions in kind for the
-maintenance of the Persian court, than any other among the twenty
-satrapies of the empire, but furnished besides an annual supply of
-five hundred eunuch youths.<a id="FNanchor_419" href="#Footnote_419"
-class="fnanchor">[419]</a> We may presume that this was intended in
-part as a punishment for the past revolt, since the like obligation
-was not imposed upon any other satrapy.</p>
-
-<p>Thus firmly established on the throne, Darius occupied it
-for thirty-six years, and his reign was one of organization,
-different from that of his two predecessors; a difference which
-the Persians well understood and noted, calling Cyrus the father,
-Kambysês the master, and Darius the retail-trader, or huckster.<a
-id="FNanchor_420" href="#Footnote_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a>
-In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[p. 234]</span> the mouth
-of the Persians this latter epithet must be construed as no
-insignificant compliment, since it intimates that he was the first to
-introduce some methodical order into the imperial administration and
-finances. Under the two former kings there was no definite amount of
-tribute levied upon the subject provinces: which furnished what were
-called presents, subject to no fixed limit except such as might be
-satisfactory to the satrap in each district. But Darius—succeeding
-as he did to Smerdis, who had rendered himself popular with the
-provinces by large financial exemptions, and having farther to
-encounter jealousy and dissatisfaction from Persians, his former
-equals in rank—probably felt it expedient to relieve the provinces
-from the burden of undefined exactions. He distributed the whole
-empire into twenty departments, imposing upon each a fixed annual
-tax, and a fixed contribution for the maintenance of the court. This
-must doubtless have been a great improvement, though the limitation
-of the sum which the Great King at Susa would require, did not at all
-prevent the satrap in his own province from indefinite requisitions
-beyond it. The latter was a little king, who acted nearly as he
-pleased in the internal administration of his province,—subject only
-to the necessity of sending up the imperial tribute, of keeping off
-foreign enemies, and of furnishing an adequate military contingent
-for the foreign enterprises of the Great King. To every satrap
-was attached a royal secretary, or comptroller, of the revenue,<a
-id="FNanchor_421" href="#Footnote_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a>
-who probably managed the imperial finances in the province, and to
-whom the court of Susa might perhaps look as a watch upon the satrap
-himself. It is not to be supposed that the Persian authorities in
-any province meddled with the details of taxation, or contribution,
-as they bore upon individuals. The court having fixed the entire
-sum payable by the satrapy in the aggregate, the satrap or the
-secre<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[p. 235]</span>tary
-apportioned it among the various component districts, towns, or
-provinces, leaving to the local authorities in each of these latter
-the task of assessing it upon individual inhabitants. From necessity,
-therefore, as well as from indolence of temper and political
-incompetence, the Persians were compelled to respect authorities
-which they found standing both in town and country, and to leave
-in their hands a large measure of genuine influence; frequently
-overruled, indeed, by oppressive interference on the part of the
-satrap, whenever any of his passions prompted,—but never entirely
-superseded. In the important towns and stations, Persian garrisons
-were usually kept, and against the excesses of the military there
-was probably little or no protection to the subject people. Yet
-still, the provincial governments were allowed to continue, and often
-even the petty kings who had governed separate districts during
-their state of independence prior to the Persian conquest, retained
-their title and dignity as tributaries to the court of Susa.<a
-id="FNanchor_422" href="#Footnote_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a>
-The empire of the Great King was thus an aggregate of heterogeneous
-elements, connected together by no tie except that of common fear
-and subjection,—noway coherent nor self-supporting, nor pervaded
-by any common system or spirit of nationality. It resembled, in
-its main political features, the Turkish and Persian empires
-of the present day,<a id="FNanchor_423" href="#Footnote_423"
-class="fnanchor">[423]</a> though distinguished materially by the
-many differences arising out of Mohammedanism and Christianity, and
-apparently not reaching the same extreme of rapacity, corruption, and
-cruelty in detail.</p>
-
-<p>Darius distributed the Persian empire into twenty satrapies, each
-including a certain continuous territory, and one or more nations
-inhabiting it, the names of which Herodotus sets forth. The amount
-of tribute payable by each satrapy was determined: payable in gold,
-according to the Euboic talent, by the Indians in the easternmost
-satrapy,—in silver, according to the Babylonian, or larger talent,
-by the remaining nineteen. Herodotus computes the ratio of gold to
-silver as 13&nbsp;:&nbsp;1. From the nineteen satrapies which paid in silver,
-there was levied annually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[p.
-236]</span> the sum of seven thousand seven hundred and forty
-Babylonian talents, equal to something about two million nine
-hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds sterling: from the Indians,
-who alone paid in gold, there was received a sum equal (at the
-rate of 1&nbsp;:&nbsp;13) to four thousand six hundred and eighty Euboic
-talents of silver, or to about one million two hundred and ninety
-thousand pounds sterling.<a id="FNanchor_424" href="#Footnote_424"
-class="fnanchor">[424]</a></p>
-
-<p>To explain how it happened that this one satrapy was charged
-with a sum equal to two-fifths of the aggregate charge on the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[p. 237]</span> other nineteen,
-Herodotus dwells upon the vast population, the extensive territory,
-and the abundant produce in gold, among those whom he calls
-Indians,—the easternmost inhabitants of the earth, since beyond them
-there was nothing but uninhabitable sand,—reaching, as far as we can
-make it out, from Baktria southward along the Indus to its mouth,
-but how far eastward we cannot determine. Darius is said to have
-undertaken an expedition against them and subdued them: moreover,
-he is affirmed to have constructed and despatched vessels down the
-Indus, from the city of Kaspatyri and the territory of the Paktyes,
-in its upper regions, all the way down to its mouth: then into the
-Indian ocean, round the peninsula of Arabia, and up the Red Sea
-to Egypt. The ships were commanded by Skylax,—a Greek of Karyanda
-on the south-western coast of Asia Minor;<a id="FNanchor_425"
-href="#Footnote_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> who, if this
-statement be correct, executed a scheme of nautical enterprise
-not only one hundred and seventy years earlier, but also far more
-extensive, than the famous voyage of Nearchus, admiral of Alexander
-the Great,—since the latter only went from the Indus to the Persian
-gulf. The eastern portions of the Persian empire remained so unknown
-and unvisited until the Macedonian invasion, that we are unable to
-criticize these isolated statements of Herodotus. None of the Persian
-kings subsequent to Darius appear to have visited them, and whether
-the prodigious sum demandable from them according to the Persian
-rent-roll was ever regularly levied, may reasonably be doubted. At
-the same time, we may reasonably believe that the mountains in the
-northern parts of Persian India—Cabul and Little Thibet—were at that
-time extremely productive in gold, and that quantities of that metal,
-such as now appear almost fabulous, may have been often obtained.
-It appears that the produce of gold in all parts of the earth, as
-far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[p. 238]</span> as hitherto
-known, is obtained exclusively near the surface; so that a country
-once rich in that metal may well have been exhausted of its whole
-supply, and left at a later period without any gold at all.</p>
-
-<p>Of the nineteen silver-paying satrapies, the most heavily
-imposed was Babylonia, which paid one thousand talents: the next in
-amount of charge was Egypt, paying seven hundred talents, besides
-the produce of the fish from the lake of Mœris. The remaining
-satrapies varied in amount, down as low as one hundred and seventy
-talents, which was the sum charged on the seventh satrapy (in the
-enumeration of Herodotus), comprising the Sattagydæ, the Gandarii,
-the Dodikæ, and the Aparytæ. The Ionians, Æolians, Magnesians on
-the Mæander, and on Mount Sipylus, Karians, Lykians, Milyans, and
-Pamphylians,—including the coast of Asia Minor, southward of Kanê,
-and from thence round the southern promontory to Phasêlis,—were rated
-as one division, paying four hundred talents. But we may be sure
-that much more than this was really taken from the people, when we
-read that Magnesia alone afterwards paid to Themistoklês a revenue
-of fifty talents annually.<a id="FNanchor_426" href="#Footnote_426"
-class="fnanchor">[426]</a> The Mysians and Lydians were included,
-with some others, in another division, and the Hellespontine Greeks
-in a third, with Phrygians, Bithynians, Paphlagonians, Mariandynians,
-and Syrians, paying three hundred and sixty talents,—nearly the same
-as was paid by Syria proper, Phenicia, and Judæa, with the island of
-Cyprus. Independent of this regular tribute, and the undefined sums
-extorted over and above it,<a id="FNanchor_427" href="#Footnote_427"
-class="fnanchor">[427]</a> there were some dependent nations,
-which, though exempt from tribute, furnished occasional sums called
-presents; and farther contributions were exacted for the maintenance
-of the vast suite who always personally attended the king. One entire
-third of this last burden was borne by Babylonia alone in consequence
-of its exuberant fertility.<a id="FNanchor_428" href="#Footnote_428"
-class="fnanchor">[428]</a> It was paid in produce, as indeed the
-peculiar productions of every part of the empire seem to have been
-sent up for the regal consumption.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[p. 239]</span>However
-imperfectly we are now able to follow the geographical distribution
-of the subject nations as given by Herodotus, it is extremely
-valuable as the only professed statistics remaining, of the entire
-Persian empire. The arrangement of satrapies, which he describes,
-underwent modification in subsequent times; at least it does not
-harmonize with various statements in the Anabasis of Xenophon, and
-in other authors who recount Persian affairs belonging to the fourth
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> But we find in no other author except
-Herodotus any entire survey and distribution of the empire. It is,
-indeed, a new tendency which now manifests itself in the Persian
-Darius, compared with his predecessors: not simply to conquer,
-to extort, and to give away,—but to do all this with something
-like method and system,<a id="FNanchor_429" href="#Footnote_429"
-class="fnanchor">[429]</a> and to define the obligations of the
-satraps towards Susa. Another remarkable example of the same tendency
-is to be found in the fact, that Darius was the first Persian king
-who coined money: his coin, both in gold and silver, the Daric,
-was the earliest produce of a Persian mint.<a id="FNanchor_430"
-href="#Footnote_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> The revenue, as
-brought to Susa in metallic money of various descriptions, was
-melted down separately, and poured in a fluid state into jars or
-earthenware vessels; when the metal had cooled and hardened, the
-jar was broken, leaving a standing solid mass, from which portions
-were cut off as the oc<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[p.
-240]</span>casion required.<a id="FNanchor_431" href="#Footnote_431"
-class="fnanchor">[431]</a> And in addition to these administrative,
-financial, and monetary arrangements, of which Darius was the first
-originator, we may probably ascribe to him the first introduction
-of that system of roads, resting-places, and permanent relays of
-couriers, which connected both Susa and Ekbatana with the distant
-portions of the empire. Herodotus describes in considerable detail
-the imperial road from Sardis to Susa, a journey of ninety days,
-crossing the Halys, the Euphratês, the Tigris, the Greater and
-Lesser Zab, the Gyndês, and the Choaspês. And we may see by this
-account that in his time it was kept in excellent order, with
-convenience for travellers.<a id="FNanchor_432" href="#Footnote_432"
-class="fnanchor">[432]</a></p>
-
-<p>It was Darius also who first completed the conquest of the Ionic
-Greeks by the acquisition of the important island of Samos. That
-island had maintained its independence, at the time when the Persian
-general Harpagus effected the conquest of Ionia. It did not yield
-voluntarily when Chios and Lesbos submitted, and the Persians had
-no fleet to attack it; nor had the Phenicians yet been taught to
-round the Triopian cape. Indeed, the depression which overtook the
-other cities of Ionia, tended rather to the aggrandizement of Samos,
-under the energetic and unscrupulous despotism of Polykratês. That
-ambitious Samian, about ten years after the conquest of Sardis by
-Cyrus (seemingly between 536-532 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), contrived
-to seize by force or fraud the government of his native island,
-with the aid of his brothers Pantagnôtus and Sylosôn, and a small
-band of conspirators.<a id="FNanchor_433" href="#Footnote_433"
-class="fnanchor">[433]</a> At first, the three brothers shared the
-supreme power; but presently Polykratês put to death Pantagnôtus,
-banished Sylosôn, and made himself despot alone. In this station,
-his ambition, his perfidy, and his good fortune, were alike
-remarkable. He con<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[p.
-241]</span>quered several of the neighboring islands, and even
-some towns on the mainland; he carried on successful war against
-Milêtus; and signally defeated the Lesbian ships which came to
-assist Milêtus; he got together a force of one hundred armed ships
-called pentekonters, and one thousand mercenary bowmen,—aspiring to
-nothing less than the dominion of Ionia, with the islands in the
-Ægean. Alike terrible to friend and foe by his indiscriminate spirit
-of aggression, he acquired a naval power which seems at that time
-to have been the greatest in the Grecian world.<a id="FNanchor_434"
-href="#Footnote_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> He had been in
-intimate alliance with Amasis, king of Egypt, who, however,
-ultimately broke with him. Considering his behavior towards allies,
-such rupture is not at all surprising; but Herodotus ascribes it to
-the alarm which Amasis conceived at the uninterrupted and superhuman
-good fortune of Polykratês,—a degree of good fortune sure to draw
-down ultimately corresponding intensity of suffering from the hands
-of the envious gods. Indeed, Herodotus,—deeply penetrated with
-this belief in an ever-present nemesis, which allows no man to be
-very happy, or long happy, with impunity,—throws it into the form
-of an epistolary warning from Amasis to Polykratês, advising him
-to inflict upon himself some seasonable mischief or suffering; in
-order, if possible, to avert the ultimate judgment,—to let blood in
-time, so that the plethora of happiness might not end in apoplexy.<a
-id="FNanchor_435" href="#Footnote_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a>
-Pursuant to such counsel, Polykratês threw into the sea a favorite
-ring, of matchless price and beauty; but unfortunately, in a few
-days, the ring reappeared in the belly of a fine fish, which a
-fisherman had sent to him as a present. Amasis now foresaw that
-the final apoplexy was inevitable, and broke off the alliance with
-Polykratês without delay,—a well-known story, interesting as evidence
-of ancient belief, and not less to be noted as showing the power of
-that belief to beget fictitious details out of real characters, such
-as I have already touched upon in the history of Solon and Crœsus,
-and elsewhere.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[p. 242]</span>The facts
-mentioned by Herodotus rather lead us to believe that it was
-Polykratês, who, with characteristic faithlessness, broke off his
-friendship with Amasis;<a id="FNanchor_436" href="#Footnote_436"
-class="fnanchor">[436]</a> finding it suitable to his policy to
-cultivate the alliance of Kambysês, when that prince was preparing
-for his invasion of Egypt. In that invasion, the Ionic subjects of
-Persia were called upon to serve, and Polykratês, deeming it a good
-opportunity to rid himself of some Samian malcontents, sent to the
-Persian king to tender auxiliaries from himself. Kambysês, having
-eagerly caught at the prospect of aid from the first naval potentate
-in the Ægean, forty Samian triremes were sent to the Nile, having on
-board the suspected persons, as well as conveying a secret request to
-the Persian king that they might never be suffered to return. Either
-they never went to Egypt, however, or they found means to escape;
-very contradictory stories had reached Herodotus. But they certainly
-returned to Samos, attacked Polykratês at home, and were driven
-off by his superior force without making any impression. Whereupon
-they repaired to Sparta to entreat assistance.<a id="FNanchor_437"
-href="#Footnote_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a></p>
-
-<p>We may here notice the gradually increasing tendency in the
-Grecian world to recognize Sparta as something like a head,
-protector, or referee, in cases either of foreign danger or internal
-dispute. The earliest authentic instance known to us, of application
-to Sparta in this character, is that of Crœsus against Cyrus: next,
-that of the Ionic Greeks against the latter: the instance of the
-Samians now before us, is the third. The important events connected
-with, and consequent upon, the expulsion of the Peisistratidæ from
-Athens, manifesting yet more formally the headship of Sparta, occur
-fifteen years after the present event; they have been already
-recounted in a previous chapter, and serve as a farther proof of
-progress in the same direction. To watch the growth of these new
-political habits, is essential to a right understanding of Grecian
-history.</p>
-
-<p>On reaching Sparta, the Samian exiles, borne down with despondency
-and suffering, entered at large into the particulars of their
-case. Their long speaking annoyed instead of moving the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[p. 243]</span> Spartans, who said, or
-are made to say: “We have forgotten the first part of the speech,
-and the last part is unintelligible to us.” Upon which the Samians
-appeared the next day, simply with an empty wallet, saving: “Our
-wallet has no meal in it.” “Your wallet is superfluous,” (said the
-Spartans;) <i>i. e.</i> the words would have been sufficient without it.<a
-id="FNanchor_438" href="#Footnote_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a> The
-aid which they implored was granted.</p>
-
-<p>We are told that both the Lacedæmonians and the Corinthians,—who
-joined them in the expedition now contemplated,—had separate grounds
-of quarrel with the Samians,<a id="FNanchor_439" href="#Footnote_439"
-class="fnanchor">[439]</a> which operated as a more powerful motive
-than the simple desire to aid the suffering exiles. But it rather
-seems that the subsequent Greeks generally construed the Lacedæmonian
-interference against Polykratês as an example of standing Spartan
-hatred against despots. Indeed, the only facts which we know, to
-sustain this anti-despotic sentiment for which the Lacedæmonians had
-credit, are, their proceedings against Polykratês and Hippias; there
-may have been other analogous cases, but we cannot specify them with
-certainty. However this may be, a joint Lacedæmonian and Corinthian
-force accompanied the exiles back to Samos, and assailed Polykratês
-in the city. They did their best to capture it, for forty days, and
-were at one time on the point of succeeding, but were finally obliged
-to retire without any success. “The city would have been taken,”
-says Herodotus, “if all the Lacedæmonians had acted like Archias
-and Lykôpas,”—who, pressing closely upon the retreating Samians,
-were shut within the town-gates, and perished. The historian had
-heard this exploit in personal conversation with Archias, grandson
-of the person above mentioned, in the deme Pitana at Sparta,—whose
-father had been named Samius, and who respected the Samians above
-any other Greeks, because they had bestowed upon the two brave
-warriors, slain within their town, an honorable and public funeral.<a
-id="FNanchor_440" href="#Footnote_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> It
-is rarely that Herodotus thus specifies his informants: had he done
-so more frequently the value as well as the interest of his history
-would have been materially increased.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[p. 244]</span>On the
-retirement of the Lacedæmonian force, the Samian exiles were left
-destitute; and looking out for some community to plunder, weak as
-well as rich, they pitched upon the island of Siphnos. The Siphnians
-of that day were the wealthiest islanders in the Ægean, from the
-productiveness of their gold and silver mines,—the produce of which
-was annually distributed among the citizens, reserving a tithe
-for the Delphian temple.<a id="FNanchor_441" href="#Footnote_441"
-class="fnanchor">[441]</a> Their treasure-chamber was among the
-most richly furnished of which that holy place could boast, and
-they themselves, probably, in these times of early prosperity, were
-numbered among the most brilliant of the Ionic visitors at the Delian
-festival. The Samians landing at Siphnos, demanded a contribution,
-under the name of a loan, of ten talents: which being refused, they
-proceeded to ravage the island, inflicting upon the inhabitants
-a severe defeat, and ultimately extorting from them one hundred
-talents. They next purchased from the inhabitants of Hermionê, in
-the Argolic peninsula, the neighboring island of Hydrea, famous in
-modern Greek warfare. But it appears that their plans must have been
-subsequently changed, for, instead of occupying it, they placed it
-under the care of the Trœzenians, and repaired themselves to Krete,
-for the purpose of expelling the Zakynthian settlers at Kydônia. In
-this they succeeded, and were induced to establish themselves in that
-place. But after they had remained there five years, the Kretans
-obtained naval aid from Ægina, whereby the place was recovered, and
-the Samian intruders finally sold into slavery.<a id="FNanchor_442"
-href="#Footnote_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a></p>
-
-<p>Such was the melancholy end of the enemies of Polykratês:
-meanwhile, that despot himself was more powerful and prosperous
-than ever. Samos, under him, was “the first of all cities,
-Hellenic or barbaric:<a id="FNanchor_443" href="#Footnote_443"
-class="fnanchor">[443]</a>” and the great works admired by
-Herodotus in the island,<a id="FNanchor_444" href="#Footnote_444"
-class="fnanchor">[444]</a>—an aqueduct for the city, tunnelled
-through a mountain for the length of seven furlongs,—a mole to
-protect the harbor, two furlongs long and twenty fathoms deep,
-and the vast temple of Hêrê, may probably have been enlarged and
-com<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[p. 245]</span>pleted, if not
-begun, by him. Aristotle quotes the public works of Polykratês as
-instances of the profound policy of despots, to occupy as well as to
-impoverish their subjects.<a id="FNanchor_445" href="#Footnote_445"
-class="fnanchor">[445]</a> The earliest of all Grecian thalassokrats,
-or sea-kings,—master of the greatest naval force in the Ægean,
-as well as of many among its islands,—he displayed his love of
-letters by friendship to Anakreon, and his piety by consecrating
-to the Delian Apollo<a id="FNanchor_446" href="#Footnote_446"
-class="fnanchor">[446]</a> the neighboring island of Rhêneia. But
-while thus outshining all his contemporaries, victorious over
-Sparta and Corinth, and projecting farther aggrandizement, he was
-precipitated on a sudden into the abyss of ruin;<a id="FNanchor_447"
-href="#Footnote_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> and that too, as if
-to demonstrate unequivocally the agency of the envious gods, not from
-the revenge of any of his numerous victims, but from the gratuitous
-malice of a stranger whom he had never wronged and never even seen.
-The Persian satrap Orœtês, on the neighboring mainland, conceived
-an implacable hatred against him: no one could tell why,—for he
-had no design of attacking the island; and the trifling reasons
-conjecturally assigned, only prove that the real reason, whatever it
-might be, was unknown. Availing himself of the notorious ambition
-and cupidity of Polykratês, Orœtês sent to Samos a messenger,
-pretending that his life was menaced by Kambysês, and that he was
-anxious to make his escape with his abundant treasures. He proposed
-to Polykratês a share in this treasure, sufficient to make him master
-of all Greece, as far as that object could be achieved by money,
-provided the Samian prince would come over to convey him away.
-Mæandrius, secretary of Polykratês, was sent over to Magnêsia on
-the Mæander, to make inquiries; he there saw the satrap with eight
-large coffers full of gold,—or rather apparently so, being in reality
-full of stones, with a layer of gold at the top,<a id="FNanchor_448"
-href="#Footnote_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a>—tied up ready
-for departure. The cupidity of Polykratês was not proof against
-so rich a bait: he crossed over to Magnêsia with a considerable
-suite, and thus came into the power of Orœtês, in spite of the
-warnings of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[p. 246]</span>
-prophets and the agony of his terrified daughter, to whom his
-approaching fate had been revealed in a dream. The satrap slew him
-and crucified his body; releasing all the Samians who accompanied
-him, with an intimation that they ought to thank him for procuring
-them a free government,—but retaining both the foreigners and the
-slaves as prisoners.<a id="FNanchor_449" href="#Footnote_449"
-class="fnanchor">[449]</a> The death of Orœtês himself, which
-ensued shortly afterwards, has already been described. It is
-considered by Herodotus as a judgment for his flagitious deed in
-the case of Polykratês.<a id="FNanchor_450" href="#Footnote_450"
-class="fnanchor">[450]</a></p>
-
-<p>At the departure of the latter from Samos, in anticipation of a
-speedy return, Mæandrius had been left as his lieutenant at Samos;
-and the unexpected catastrophe of Polykratês filled him with surprise
-and consternation. Though possessed of the fortresses, the soldiers,
-and the treasures, which had constituted the machinery of his
-powerful master, he knew the risk of trying to employ them on his
-own account. Partly from this apprehension, partly from the genuine
-political morality which prevailed with more or less force in every
-Grecian bosom, he resolved to lay down his authority and enfranchise
-the island. “He wished (says the historian, in a remarkable phrase)<a
-id="FNanchor_451" href="#Footnote_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a> to
-act like the justest of men; but he was not allowed to do so.” His
-first proceeding was to erect in the suburbs an altar in honor of
-Zeus Eleutherius, and to inclose a piece of ground as a precinct,
-which still existed in the time of Herodotus: he next convened an
-assembly of the Samians. “You know (says he) that the whole power
-of Polykratês is now in my hands, nor is there anything to hinder
-me from continuing to rule over you. Nevertheless, what I condemn
-in another I will not do myself,—and I have always disapproved of
-Polykratês, and others like him, for seeking to rule over men as
-good as themselves. Now that Polykratês has come to the end of his
-destiny, I at once lay down the command, and proclaim among you equal
-law; reserving to myself as privileges, first, six talents out of the
-treasures of Polykratês,—next, the hereditary<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_247">[p. 247]</span> priesthood of Zeus Eleutherius for
-myself and my descendants forever. To him I have just set apart a
-sacred precinct, as the God of that freedom which I now hand over to
-you.”</p>
-
-<p>This reasonable and generous proposition fully justifies the
-epithet of Herodotus. But very differently was it received by the
-Samian hearers. One of the chief men among them, Telesarchus,
-exclaimed, with the applause of the rest, “<i>You</i> rule us, low-born
-and scoundrel as you are! you are not worthy to rule: don’t
-think of that, but give us some account of the money which you
-have been handling.”<a id="FNanchor_452" href="#Footnote_452"
-class="fnanchor">[452]</a></p>
-
-<p>Such an unexpected reply caused a total revolution in the mind
-of Mæandrius. It left him no choice but to maintain dominion at
-all hazards,—which he accordingly resolved to do. Retiring into
-the acropolis, under pretence of preparing his money-accounts for
-examination, he sent for Telesarchus and his chief political enemies,
-one by one,—intimating that they were open to inspection. As fast
-as they arrived they were put in chains, while Mæandrius remained
-in the acropolis, with his soldiers and his treasures, as the
-avowed successor of Polykratês. And thus the Samians, after a short
-hour of insane boastfulness, found themselves again enslaved. “It
-seemed (says Herodotus) that they were not willing to be free.”<a
-id="FNanchor_453" href="#Footnote_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a></p>
-
-<p>We cannot but contrast their conduct on this occasion with that
-of the Athenians about twelve years afterwards, on the expulsion
-of Hippias, which has been recounted in a previous chapter. The
-position of the Samians was far the more favorable of the two, for
-the quiet and successful working of a free government; for they had
-the advantage of a voluntary as well as a sincere resignation from
-the actual despot. Yet the thirst for reactionary investigation
-prevented them even from taking a reasonable estimate of their own
-power of enforcing it: they passed at once from extreme subjection
-to overbearing and ruinous rashness. Whereas the Athenians, under
-circumstances far less promising, avoided the fatal mistake of
-sacrificing the pros<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[p.
-248]</span>pects of the future to recollections of the past;
-showed themselves both anxious to acquire the rights, and willing
-to perform the obligations, of a free community; listened to wise
-counsels, maintained unanimous action, and overcame, by heroic
-efforts, forces very greatly superior. If we compare the reflections
-of Herodotus on the one case and on the other,<a id="FNanchor_454"
-href="#Footnote_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> we shall be
-struck with the difference which those reflections imply between
-the Athenians and the Samians,—a difference partly referable,
-doubtless, to the pure Hellenism of the former, contrasted with the
-half-Asiatized Hellenism of the latter,—but also traceable in a great
-degree to the preliminary lessons of the Solonian constitution,
-overlaid, but not extinguished, during the despotism of the
-Peisistratids which followed.</p>
-
-<p>The events which succeeded in Samos are little better than a
-series of crimes and calamities. The prisoners, whom Mæandrius had
-detained in the acropolis, were slain during his dangerous illness,
-by his brother Lykarêtus, under the idea that this would enable him
-more easily to seize the sceptre. But Mæandrius recovered, and must
-have continued as despot for a year or two: it was, however, a weak
-despotism, contested more or less in the island, and very different
-from the iron hand of Polykratês. In this untoward condition, the
-Samians were surprised by the arrival of a new claimant for their
-sceptre and acropolis,—and, what was much more formidable, a Persian
-army to back him.</p>
-
-<p>Sylosôn, the brother of Polykratês, having taken part originally
-in his brother’s conspiracy and usurpation, had been at first allowed
-to share the fruits of it, but quickly found himself banished. In
-this exile he remained during the whole life of Polykratês, and until
-the accession of Darius to the Persian throne, which followed about
-a year after the death of Polykratês. He happened to be at Memphis,
-in Egypt, during the time when Kambysês was there with his conquering
-army, and when Darius, then a Persian of little note, was serving
-among his guards. Sylosôn was walking in the agora of Memphis,
-wearing a scarlet cloak, to which Darius took a great fancy, and
-proposed to buy it. A divine inspiration prompted Sylosôn to reply,<a
-id="FNanchor_455" href="#Footnote_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a>
-“I cannot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[p. 249]</span> for
-any price sell it; but I give it you for nothing, if it must be
-yours.” Darius thanked him, and accepted the cloak; and for some
-years the donor accused himself of a silly piece of good-nature.<a
-id="FNanchor_456" href="#Footnote_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> But
-as events came round, Sylosôn at length heard with surprise that the
-unknown Persian, whom he had presented with the cloak at Memphis, was
-installed as king in the palace at Susa. He went thither, proclaimed
-himself as a Greek, as well as benefactor of the new king, and was
-admitted to the regal presence. Darius had forgotten his person,
-but perfectly remembered the adventure of the cloak, when it was
-brought to his mind,—and showed himself forward to requite, on the
-scale becoming the Great King, former favors, though small, rendered
-to the simple soldier at Memphis. Gold and silver were tendered to
-Sylosôn in profusion, but he rejected them,—requesting that the
-island of Samos might be conquered and handed over to him, without
-slaughter or enslavement of inhabitants. His request was complied
-with. Otanês, the originator of the conspiracy against Smerdis, was
-sent down to the coast of Ionia with an army, carried Sylosôn over to
-Samos, and landed him unexpectedly on the island.<a id="FNanchor_457"
-href="#Footnote_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a></p>
-
-<p>Mæandrius was in no condition to resist the invasion, nor were
-the Samians generally disposed to sustain him. He accordingly
-concluded a convention with Otanês, whereby he agreed to make way
-for Sylosôn, to evacuate the island, and to admit the Persians at
-once into the city; retaining possession, however—for such time
-as might be necessary to embark his property and treasures—of
-the acropolis, which had a separate landing-place, and even a
-subterranean passage and secret portal for embarkation,—probably
-one of the precautionary provisions of Polykratês. Otanês willingly
-granted these conditions, and himself with his principal officers
-entered the town, the army being quartered around; while Sylosôn
-seemed on the point of ascending the seat of his deceased brother
-without violence or bloodshed. But the Samians were destined to
-a fate more calamitous. Mæandrius had a brother named Charilaus,
-violent in his temper, and half a madman, whom he was obliged to keep
-in confine<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[p. 250]</span>ment.
-This man looking out of his chamber-window, saw the Persian officers
-seated peaceably throughout the town and even under the gates of
-the acropolis, unguarded, and relying upon the convention: it
-seems that these were the chief officers, whose rank gave them the
-privilege of being carried about on their seats.<a id="FNanchor_458"
-href="#Footnote_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> The sight inflamed
-both his wrath and his insane ambition; he clamored for liberty and
-admission to his brother, whom he reviled as a coward no less than a
-tyrant. “Here are you, worthless man, keeping me, your own brother,
-in a dungeon, though I have done no wrong worthy of bonds; while you
-do not dare to take your revenge on the Persians, who are casting
-you out as a houseless exile, and whom it would be so easy to put
-down. If you are afraid of them, give me your guards; I will make the
-Persians repent of their coming here, and I will send you safely out
-of the island forthwith.”<a id="FNanchor_459" href="#Footnote_459"
-class="fnanchor">[459]</a></p>
-
-<p>Mæandrius, on the point of quitting Samos forever, had little
-personal motive to care what became of the population. He had
-probably never forgiven them for disappointing his honorable
-intentions after the death of Polykratês, nor was he displeased to
-hand over to Sylosôn an odious and blood-stained sceptre, which he
-foresaw would be the only consequence of his brother’s mad project.
-He therefore sailed away with his treasures, leaving the acropolis
-to his brother Charilaus; who immediately armed the guards, sallied
-forth from his fortress, and attacked the unsuspecting Persians. Many
-of the great officers were slain without resistance before the army
-could be got together; but at length Otanês collected his troops and
-drove the assailants back into the acropolis. While he immediately
-began the siege of that fortress, he also resolved, as Mæandrius had
-foreseen, to take a signal revenge for the treacherous slaughter of
-so many of his friends and companions. His army, no less incensed
-than him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[p. 251]</span>self,
-were directed to fall upon the Samian people and massacre them
-without discrimination,—man and boy, on ground sacred as well as
-profane. The bloody order was too faithfully executed, and Samos
-was handed over to Sylosôn, stripped of its male inhabitants.<a
-id="FNanchor_460" href="#Footnote_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a>
-Of Charilaus and the acropolis we hear no farther, perhaps he and
-his guards may have escaped by sea. Lykarêtus,<a id="FNanchor_461"
-href="#Footnote_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> the other brother of
-Mæandrius, must have remained either in the service of Sylosôn or in
-that of the Persians; for we find him some years afterwards intrusted
-by the latter with an important command.</p>
-
-<p>Sylosôn was thus finally installed as despot of an island peopled
-chiefly, if not wholly, with women and children: we may, however,
-presume, that the deed of blood has been described by the historian
-as more sweeping than it really was. It seems, nevertheless, to have
-sat heavily on the conscience of Otanês, who was induced sometime
-afterwards, by a dream and by a painful disease, to take measures
-for repeopling the island.<a id="FNanchor_462" href="#Footnote_462"
-class="fnanchor">[462]</a> From whence the new population came, we
-are not told: but wholesale translations of inhabitants from one
-place to another were familiar to the mind of a Persian king or
-satrap.</p>
-
-<p>Mæandrius, following the example of the previous Samian exiles
-under Polykratês, went to Sparta and sought aid for the purpose
-of reëstablishing himself at Samos. But the Lacedæmonians had no
-disposition to repeat an attempt which had before turned out so
-unsuccessfully, nor could he seduce king Kleomenês by the display of
-his treasures and finely-wrought gold plate. The king, however, not
-without fear that such seductions might win over some of the Spartan
-leading men, prevailed with the ephors to send Mæandrius away.<a
-id="FNanchor_463" href="#Footnote_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a></p>
-
-<p>Sylosôn seems to have remained undisturbed at Samos, as a
-tributary of Persia, like the Ionic cities on the continent: some
-years afterwards we find his son Æakês reigning in the island.<a
-id="FNanchor_464" href="#Footnote_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a>
-Strabo states that it was the harsh rule of Sylosôn which caused
-the depopulation of the island. But the cause just recounted out
-of Herodotus is both very different and sufficiently plausible
-in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[p. 252]</span> itself;
-and as Strabo seems in the main to have derived his account from
-Herodotus, we may suppose that on this point he has incorrectly
-remembered his authority.<a id="FNanchor_465" href="#Footnote_465"
-class="fnanchor">[465]</a></p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_34">
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXIV.<br />
- DEMOKEDES. — DARIUS INVADES SCYTHIA.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">Darius</span> had now acquired
-full authority throughout the Persian empire, having put down
-the refractory satrap Orœtês, as well as the revolted Medes and
-Babylonians. He had, moreover, completed the conquest of Ionia, by
-the important addition of Samos; and his dominion thus comprised all
-Asia Minor, with its neighboring islands. But this was not sufficient
-for the ambition of a Persian king, next but one in succession to
-the great Cyrus. The conquering impulse was yet unabated among the
-Persians, who thought it incumbent upon their king, and whose king
-thought it incumbent upon himself, to extend the limits of the
-empire. Though not of the lineage of Cyrus, Darius had taken pains
-to connect himself with it by marriage; he had married Atossa and
-Artystonê, daughters of Cyrus,—and Parmys, daughter of Smerdis, the
-younger son of Cyrus. Atossa had been first the wife of her brother
-Kambysês; next, of the Magian Smerdis, his successor; and thirdly
-of Darius, to whom she bore four children.<a id="FNanchor_466"
-href="#Footnote_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> Of those children the
-eldest was Xerxês, respecting whom more will be said hereafter.</p>
-
-<p>Atossa, mother of the only Persian king who ever set foot in
-Greece, the Sultana Validi of Persia during the reign of Xerxês,
-was a person of commanding influence in the reign of her<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[p. 253]</span> last husband,<a
-id="FNanchor_467" href="#Footnote_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> as
-well as in that of her son, and filled no inconsiderable space even
-in Grecian imagination, as we may see both by Æschylus and Herodotus.
-Had her influence prevailed, the first conquering appetites of Darius
-would have been directed, not against the steppes of Scythia, but
-against Attica and Peloponnesus; at least, so Herodotus assures us.
-The grand object of the latter in his history is to set forth the
-contentions of Hellas with the barbarians or non-Hellenic world;
-and with an art truly epical, which manifests itself everywhere
-to the careful reader of his nine books, he preludes to the real
-dangers which were averted at Marathon and Platæa, by recounting the
-first conception of an invasion of Greece by the Persians,—how it
-originated, and how it was abandoned. For this purpose,—according
-to his historical style, wherein general facts are set forth as
-subordinate and explanatory accompaniments to the adventures of
-particular persons,—he give us the interesting, but romantic, history
-of the Krotoniate surgeon Dêmokêdês.</p>
-
-<p>Dêmokêdês, son of a citizen of Krotôn named Kalliphôn, had turned
-his attention in early youth to the study and practice of medicine
-and surgery (for that age, we can make no difference between the
-two), and had made considerable progress in it. His youth coincides
-nearly with the arrival of Pythagoras at Krotôn, (550-520,) where
-the science of the surgeon, as well as the art of the gymnastic
-trainer, seem to have been then prosecuted more actively than in
-any part of Greece. His father Kalliphôn, however, was a man of
-such severe temper, that the son ran away from him, and resolved to
-maintain himself by his talents elsewhere. He went to Ægina, and
-began to practice in his profession; and so rapid was his success,
-even in his first year,—though very imperfectly equipped with
-instruments and apparatus,<a id="FNanchor_468" href="#Footnote_468"
-class="fnanchor">[468]</a>—that the citizens of the island made a
-contract with him to remain there for one year, at a salary of one
-talent (about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[p. 254]</span>
-three hundred and eighty-three pounds sterling, an Æginæan talent).
-The year afterwards he was invited to come to Athens, then under the
-Peisistratids, at a salary of one hundred minæ, or one and two-thirds
-of a talent; and in the following year, Polykratês of Samos tempted
-him by the offer of two talents. With that<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_255">[p. 255]</span> despot he remained, and accompanied him
-in his last calamitous visit to the satrap Orœtês: on the murder of
-Polykratês, being seized among the slaves and foreign attendants, he
-was left to languish with the rest in imprisonment and neglect. When
-again, soon after, Orœtês himself was slain, Dêmokêdês was numbered
-among his slaves and chattels and sent up to Susa.</p>
-
-<p>He had not been long at that capital, when Darius, leaping from
-his horse in the chase, sprained his foot badly, and was carried home
-in violent pain. The Egyptian surgeons, supposed to be the first
-men in their profession,<a id="FNanchor_469" href="#Footnote_469"
-class="fnanchor">[469]</a> whom he habitually employed, did him no
-good, but only aggravated his torture; for seven days and nights he
-had no sleep, and he as well as those around him began to despair.
-At length, some one who had been at Sardis, accidentally recollected
-that he had heard of a Greek surgeon among the slaves of Orœtês:
-search was immediately made, and the miserable slave was brought, in
-chains as well as in rags,<a id="FNanchor_470" href="#Footnote_470"
-class="fnanchor">[470]</a> into the presence of the royal sufferer.
-Being asked whether he understood surgery, he affected ignorance;
-but Darius, suspecting this to be a mere artifice, ordered out the
-scourge and the pricking instrument, to overcome it. Dêmokêdês now
-saw that there was no resource, admitted that he had acquired some
-little skill, and was called upon to do his utmost in the case before
-him. He was fortunate enough to succeed perfectly, in alleviating the
-pain, in procuring sleep for the exhausted patient, and ultimately
-in restoring the foot to a sound state. Darius, who had abandoned
-all hopes of such a cure, knew no bounds to his gratitude. As a
-first reward, he presented him with two sets of chains in solid
-gold,—a commemoration of the state in which Dêmokêdês had first come
-before him,—he next sent him into the harem to visit his wives.
-The conducting eunuchs introduced him as the man who had restored
-the king to life, and the grateful sultanas each gave to him a
-saucer full of golden coins called staters;<a id="FNanchor_471"
-href="#Footnote_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> in all so numerous,
-that the slave Skitôn,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[p.
-256]</span> who followed him, was enriched by merely picking up the
-pieces which dropped on the floor. Nor was this all. Darius gave
-him a splendid house and furniture, made him the companion of his
-table, and showed him every description of favor. He was about to
-crucify the Egyptian surgeons who had been so unsuccessful in their
-attempts to cure him; but Dêmokêdês had the happiness of preserving
-their lives, as well as of rescuing an unfortunate companion of his
-imprisonment,—an Eleian prophet, who had followed the fortunes of
-Polykratês.</p>
-
-<p>But there was one favor which Darius would on no account grant;
-yet upon this one Dêmokêdês had set his heart,—the liberty of
-returning to Greece. At length accident, combined with his own
-surgical skill, enabled him to escape from the splendor of his
-second detention, as it had before extricated him from the misery of
-the first. A tumor formed upon the breast of Atossa; at first, she
-said nothing to any one, but as it became too bad for concealment,
-she was forced to consult Dêmokêdês. He promised to cure her, but
-required from her a solemn oath that she would afterwards do for
-him anything which he should ask,—pledging himself at the same time
-to ask nothing indecent.<a id="FNanchor_472" href="#Footnote_472"
-class="fnanchor">[472]</a> The cure was successful, and Atossa was
-required to repay it by procuring his liberty. He knew that the favor
-would be refused, even to her, if directly solicited, but he taught
-her a stratagem for obtaining under false pretences the consent
-of Darius. She took an early opportunity, Herodotus tells us,<a
-id="FNanchor_473" href="#Footnote_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a> in
-bed, of reminding Darius that the Persians expected from him some
-positive addition to the power and splendor of the empire; and when
-Darius, in answer, acquainted her that he contemplated a speedy
-expedition against the Scythians, she entreated him to postpone
-it, and to turn his forces first against Greece: “I have<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[p. 257]</span> heard (she said)
-about the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and Corinth, and I want
-to have some of them as slaves to serve me—(we may conceive the
-smile of triumph with which the sons of those who had conquered
-at Platæa and Salamis would hear this part of the history read by
-Herodotus);—you have near you the best person possible to give
-information about Greece,—that Greek who cured your foot.” Darius
-was induced by this request to send some confidential Persians into
-Greece to procure information, along with Dêmokêdês. Selecting
-fifteen of them, he ordered them to survey the coasts and cities
-of Greece, under guidance of Dêmokêdês, but with peremptory orders
-upon no account to let him escape or to return without him. He next
-sent for Dêmokêdês himself, explained to him what he wanted, and
-enjoined him imperatively to return as soon as the business had been
-completed; he farther desired him to carry away with him all the
-ample donations which he had already received, as presents to his
-father and brothers, promising that on his return fresh donations
-of equal value should make up the loss: lastly, he directed that a
-storeship, “filled with all manner of good things,” should accompany
-the voyage. Dêmokêdês undertook the mission with every appearance of
-sincerity. The better to play his part, he declined to take away what
-he already possessed at Susa,—saying, that he should like to find his
-property and furniture again on coming back, and that the storeship
-alone, with its contents, would be sufficient both for the voyage and
-for all necessary presents.</p>
-
-<p>Accordingly, he and the fifteen Persian envoys went down to
-Sidon in Phenicia, where two armed triremes were equipped, with a
-large storeship in company; and the voyage of survey into Greece
-was commenced. They visited and examined all the principal places
-in Greece,—probably beginning with the Asiatic and insular Greeks,
-crossing to Eubœa, circumnavigating Attica and Peloponnesus,
-then passing to Korkyra and Italy. They surveyed the coasts and
-cities, taking memoranda<a id="FNanchor_474" href="#Footnote_474"
-class="fnanchor">[474]</a> of everything worthy of note which they
-saw: this Periplûs, if it had been preserved, would have been
-inestimable, as an account<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[p.
-258]</span> of the actual state of the Grecian world about
-518 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> As soon as they arrived at Tarentum,
-Dêmokêdês—now within a short distance of his own home, Krotôn—found
-an opportunity of executing what he had meditated from the beginning.
-At his request Aristophilidês, the king of Tarentum, seized the
-fifteen Persians, and detained them as spies, at the same time taking
-the rudders from off their ships,—while Dêmokêdês himself made his
-escape to Krotôn. As soon as he had arrived there, Aristophilidês
-released the Persians, and suffered them to pursue their voyage: they
-went on to Krotôn, found Dêmokêdês in the market-place, and laid
-hands upon him. But his fellow-citizens released him, not without
-opposition from some who were afraid of provoking the Great King,
-and in spite of remonstrances, energetic and menacing, from the
-Persians themselves: indeed, the Krotôniates not only protected the
-restored exile, but even robbed the Persians of their storeship.
-The latter, disabled from proceeding farther, as well by this loss
-as by the secession of Dêmokêdês, commenced their voyage homeward,
-but unfortunately suffered shipwreck near the Iapygian cape, and
-became slaves in that neighborhood. A Tarentine exile, named Gillus,
-ransomed them and carried them up to Susa,—a service for which
-Darius promised him any recompense that he chose. Restoration to his
-native city was all that Gillus asked; and that too, not by force,
-but by the mediation of the Asiatic Greeks of Knidus, who were
-on terms of intimate alliance with the Tarentines. This generous
-citizen,—an honorable contrast to Dêmokêdês, who had not scrupled
-to impel the stream of Persian conquest against his country, in
-order to procure his own release,—was unfortunately disappointed
-of his anticipated recompense. For though the Knidians, at the
-injunction of Darius, employed all their influence at Tarentum to
-procure a revocation of the sentence of exile, they were unable to
-succeed, and force was out of the question.<a id="FNanchor_475"
-href="#Footnote_475" class="fnanchor">[475]</a> The last words
-addressed by Dêmokêdês at parting to his Persian companions, exhorted
-them to acquaint Darius that he (Dêmokêdês) was about to marry the
-daughter of the Krotoniate Milo,—one of the first men in Krotôn,
-as well as the greatest wrestler of his time. The reputation of
-Milo was very great with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[p.
-259]</span> Darius,—probably from the talk of Dêmokêdês himself:
-moreover, gigantic muscular force could be appreciated by men who
-had no relish either for Homer or Solon. And thus did this clever
-and vainglorious Greek, sending back his fifteen Persian companions
-to disgrace, and perhaps to death, deposit in their parting ears a
-braggart message, calculated to create for himself a factitious name
-at Susa. He paid a large sum to Milo as the price of his daughter,
-for this very purpose.<a id="FNanchor_476" href="#Footnote_476"
-class="fnanchor">[476]</a></p>
-
-<p>Thus finishes the history of Dêmokêdês, and of the “first
-Persians (to use the phrase of Herodotus) who ever came over
-from Asia into Greece.”<a id="FNanchor_477" href="#Footnote_477"
-class="fnanchor">[477]</a> It is a history well deserving of
-attention, even looking only to the liveliness of the incidents,
-introducing us as they do into the full movement of the ancient
-world,—incidents which I see no reason for doubting, with a
-reasonable allowance for the dramatic amplification of the historian.
-Even at that early date, Greek medical intelligence stands out
-in a surpassing manner, and Dêmokêdês is the first of those
-many able Greek surgeons who were seized, carried up to Susa,<a
-id="FNanchor_478" href="#Footnote_478" class="fnanchor">[478]</a> and
-there detained for the Great King, his court, and harem.</p>
-
-<p>But his history suggests, in another point of view, far more
-serious reflections. Like the Milesian Histiæus (of whom I shall
-speak hereafter,) he cared not what amount of risk he brought upon
-his country in order to procure his own escape from a splendid
-detention at Susa. And the influence which he originated and brought
-to bear was on the point of precipitating upon Greece the whole force
-of the Persian empire, at a time when Greece was in no condition
-to resist it. Had the first aggressive<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_260">[p. 260]</span> expedition of Darius, with his own
-personal command and fresh appetite for conquest, been directed
-against Greece instead of against Scythia (between 516-514 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), Grecian independence would have perished almost
-infallibly. For Athens was then still governed by the Peisistratids;
-what she was, under them, we have had occasion to notice in a
-former chapter. She had then no courage for energetic self-defence,
-and probably Hippias himself, far from offering resistance, would
-have found it advantageous to accept Persian dominion as a means
-of strengthening his own rule, like the Ionian despots: moreover,
-Grecian habit of coöperation was then only just commencing. But
-fortunately, the Persian invader did not touch the shore of Greece
-until more than twenty years afterwards, in 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>;
-and during that precious interval, the Athenian character had
-undergone the memorable revolution which has been before described.
-Their energy and their organization had been alike improved, and
-their force of resistance had become decupled; moreover, their
-conduct had so provoked the Persian that resistance was then a
-matter of necessity with them, and submission on tolerable terms an
-impossibility. When we come to the grand Persian invasion of Greece,
-we shall see that Athens was the life and soul of all the opposition
-offered. We shall see farther, that with all the efforts of Athens,
-the success of the defence was more than once doubtful; and would
-have been converted into a very different result, if Xerxês had
-listened to the best of his own counsellors. But had Darius, at the
-head of the very same force which he conducted into Scythia, or even
-an inferior force, landed at Marathon in 514 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-instead of sending Datis in 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—he would have
-found no men like the victors of Marathon to meet him. As far as
-we can appreciate the probabilities, he would have met with little
-resistance except from the Spartans singly, who would have maintained
-their own very defensible territory against all his efforts,—like the
-Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor, or like the Mainots of Laconia
-in later days; but Hellas generally would have become a Persian
-satrapy. Fortunately, Darius, while bent on invading some country,
-had set his mind on the attack of Scythia, alike perilous and
-unprofitable. His personal ardor was wasted on those unconquerable
-regions, where he narrowly escaped the disastrous fate of
-Cyrus,—nor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[p. 261]</span> did he
-ever pay a second visit to the coasts of the Ægean. Yet the amorous
-influences of Atossa, set at work by Dêmokêdês might well have been
-sufficiently powerful to induce Darius to assail Greece instead
-of Scythia,—a choice in favor of which all other recommendations
-concurred; and the history of free Greece would then probably have
-stopped at this point, without unrolling any of the glories which
-followed. So incalculably great has been the influence of Grecian
-development, during the two centuries between 500-300 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, on the destinies of mankind, that we cannot pass without
-notice a contingency which threatened to arrest that development
-in the bud. Indeed, it may be remarked that the history of any
-nation, considered as a sequence of causes and effects, affording
-applicable knowledge, requires us to study not merely real events,
-but also imminent contingencies,—events which were on the point of
-occurring, but yet did not occur. When we read the wailings of Atossa
-in the Persæ of Æschylus, for the humiliation which her son Xerxês
-had just undergone in his flight from Greece,<a id="FNanchor_479"
-href="#Footnote_479" class="fnanchor">[479]</a> we do not easily
-persuade ourselves to reverse the picture, and to conceive the same
-Atossa twenty years earlier, numbering as her slaves at Susa the
-noblest Hêrakleid and Alkmæônid maidens from Greece. Yet the picture
-would really have been thus reversed,—the wish of Atossa would have
-been fulfilled, and the wailings would have been heard from enslaved
-Greek maidens in Persia,—if the mind of Darius had not happened to
-be preoccupied with a project not less insane even than those of
-Kambysês against Ethiopia and the Libyan desert. Such at least is the
-moral of the story of Dêmokêdês.</p>
-
-<p>That insane expedition across the Danube into Scythia comes now
-to be recounted. It was undertaken by Darius for the purpose of
-avenging the inroad and devastation of the Scythians in Media and
-Upper Asia, about a century before. The lust of conquest imparted
-unusual force to this sentiment of wounded dignity, which in the
-case of the Scythians could hardly be connected with any expectation
-of plunder or profit. In spite of the dissuading admonition of
-his brother Artabanus,<a id="FNanchor_480" href="#Footnote_480"
-class="fnanchor">[480]</a> Darius<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_262">[p. 262]</span> summoned the whole force of his
-empire, army and navy, to the Thracian Bosphorus,—a force not less
-than seven hundred thousand horse and foot, and six hundred ships,
-according to Herodotus. On these prodigious numbers we can lay no
-stress. But it appears that the names of all the various nations
-composing the host were inscribed on two pillars, erected by order
-of Darius on the European side of the Bosphorus, and afterwards seen
-by Herodotus himself in the city of Byzantium,—the inscriptions
-were bilingual, in Assyrian characters as well as Greek. The Samian
-architect Mandroklês had been directed to throw a bridge of boats
-across the Bosphorus, about half-way between Byzantium and the mouth
-of the Euxine. So peremptory were the Persian kings that their orders
-for military service should be punctually obeyed, and so impatient
-were they of the idea of exemptions, that when a Persian father
-named Œobazus entreated that one of his three sons, all included in
-the conscription, might be left at home, Darius replied that all
-three of them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[p. 263]</span>
-should be left at home,—an answer which the unsuspecting father
-heard with delight. They were indeed all left at home,—for they
-were all put to death.<a id="FNanchor_481" href="#Footnote_481"
-class="fnanchor">[481]</a> A proceeding similar to this is ascribed
-afterwards to Xerxês;<a id="FNanchor_482" href="#Footnote_482"
-class="fnanchor">[482]</a> whether true or not as matters of fact,
-both tales illustrate the wrathful displeasure with which the Persian
-kings were known to receive such petitions for exemption.</p>
-
-<p>The naval force of Darius seems to have consisted entirely of
-subject Greeks, Asiatic and insular; for the Phenician fleet was
-not brought into the Ægean until the subsequent Ionic revolt.
-At this time all or most of the Asiatic Greek cities were under
-despots, who leaned on the Persian government for support, and
-who appeared with their respective contingents to take part in
-the Scythian expedition.<a id="FNanchor_483" href="#Footnote_483"
-class="fnanchor">[483]</a> Of Ionic Greeks were seen,—Strattis,
-despot of Chios; Æakês son of Sylosôn, despot of Samos; Laodamas, of
-Phôkæa; and Histiæus, of Milêtus. From the Æolic towns, Aristagoras
-of Kymê; from the Hellespontine Greeks, Daphnis of Abydus, Hippoklus
-of Lampsakus, Hêrophantus of Parium, Metrodôrus of Prokonnêsus,
-Aristagoras of Kyzikus, and Miltiadês of the Thracian Chersonese.
-All these are mentioned, and there were probably more. This large
-fleet, assembled at the Bosphorus, was sent forward into the
-Euxine to the mouth of the Danube,—with orders to sail up the
-river two days’ journey, above the point where its channel begins
-to divide, and to throw a bridge of boats over it; while Darius,
-having liberally recompensed the architect Mandroklês, crossed the
-bridge over the Bosphorus, and began his march through Thrace,
-receiving the submission of various Thracian tribes in his way, and
-subduing others,—especially the Getæ north of Mount Hæmus, who were
-compelled to increase still farther the numbers of his vast army.<a
-id="FNanchor_484" href="#Footnote_484" class="fnanchor">[484]</a> On
-arriving at the Danube, he found the bridge finished and prepared for
-his passage by the Ionians: we may remark here, as on so many other
-occasions, that all operations requiring intelligence are performed
-for the Persians either by Greeks or by Phenicians,—more usually by
-the for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[p. 264]</span>mer. He
-crossed this greatest of all earthly rivers,<a id="FNanchor_485"
-href="#Footnote_485" class="fnanchor">[485]</a>—for so the Danube
-was imagined to be in the fifth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—and
-directed his march into Scythia.</p>
-
-<p>As far as the point now attained, our narrative runs smoothly and
-intelligibly: we know that Darius marched his army into Scythia,
-and that he came back with ignominy and severe loss. But as to all
-which happened between his crossing and recrossing the Danube,
-we find nothing approaching to authentic statement,—nothing even
-which we can set forth as the probable basis of truth on which
-exaggerating fancy has been at work. All is inexplicable mystery.
-Ktêsias indeed says that Darius marched for fifteen days into the
-Scythian territory,—that he then exchanged bows with the king of
-Scythia, and discovered the Scythian bow to be the largest,—and
-that, being intimidated by such discovery, he fled back to the
-bridge by which he had crossed the Danube, and recrossed the river
-with the loss of one-tenth part of his army,<a id="FNanchor_486"
-href="#Footnote_486" class="fnanchor">[486]</a> being compelled to
-break down the bridge before all had passed. The length of march is
-here the only thing distinctly stated; about the direction nothing
-is said. But the narrative of Ktêsias, defective as it is, is much
-less perplexing than that of Herodotus, who conducts the immense host
-of Darius as it were through fairy-land,—heedless of distance, large
-intervening rivers, want of all cultivation or supplies, destruction
-of the country—in so far as it could be destroyed—by the retreating
-Scythians, etc. He tells us that the Persian army consisted chiefly
-of foot,—that there were no roads nor agriculture; yet his narrative
-carries it over about twelve degrees of longitude from the Danube
-to the country east of the Tanais, across the rivers Tyras<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[p. 265]</span> (Dniester), Hypanis
-(Bog), Borysthenês (Dnieper), Hypakyris. Gerrhos, and Tanais.<a
-id="FNanchor_487" href="#Footnote_487" class="fnanchor">[487]</a>
-How these rivers could have been passed in the face of enemies by so
-vast a host, we are left to conjecture, since it was not winter time,
-to convert them into ice: nor does the historian even allude to them
-as having been crossed either in the advance or in the retreat. What
-is not less remarkable is, that in respect to the Greek settlement
-of Olbia, or Borysthenês, and the agricultural Scythians and
-Mix-hellenes between the Hypanis and the Borysthenês, across whose
-country it would seem that this march of Darius must have carried
-him,—Herodotus does not say anything; though we should have expected
-that he would have had better means of informing himself about this
-part of the march than about any other, and though the Persians could
-hardly have failed to plunder or put in requisition this, the only
-productive portion of Scythia.</p>
-
-<p>The narrative of Herodotus in regard to the Persian march north of
-the Ister seems indeed destitute of all the conditions of reality.
-It is rather an imaginative description, illustrating the desperate
-and impracticable character of Scythian warfare, and grouping in
-the same picture, according to that large sweep of the imagination
-which is admissible in epical treatment, the Scythians, with all
-their barbarous neighbors from the Carpathian mountains to the river
-Wolga. The Agathyrsi, the Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchlæni,
-the Budini, the Gelôni, the Sarmatians, and the Tauri,—all of
-them bordering on that vast quadrangular area of four thousand
-stadia for each side, called Scythia, as Herodotus conceives it,<a
-id="FNanchor_488" href="#Footnote_488" class="fnanchor">[488]</a>—are
-brought into deliberation and action in consequence of the Persian
-approach. And Herodotus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[p.
-266]</span> takes that opportunity of communicating valuable
-particulars respecting the habits and manners of each. The kings of
-these nations discuss whether Darius is justified in his invasion,
-and whether it be prudent in them to aid the Scythians. The latter
-question is decided in the affirmative by the Sarmatians, the Budini,
-and the Gelôni, all eastward of the Tanais,<a id="FNanchor_489"
-href="#Footnote_489" class="fnanchor">[489]</a>—in the negative by
-the rest. The Scythians, removing their wagons with their wives and
-children out of the way northward, retreat and draw Darius after them
-from the Danube all across Scythia and Sarmatia to the north-eastern
-extremity of the territory of the Budini,<a id="FNanchor_490"
-href="#Footnote_490" class="fnanchor">[490]</a> several days’ journey
-eastward of the Tanais. Moreover, they destroy the wells and ruin
-the herbage as much as they can, so that during all this long march,
-says Herodotus, the Persians “found nothing to damage, inasmuch as
-the country was barren;” it is therefore not easy to see what they
-could find to live upon. It is in the territory of the Budini, at
-this easternmost terminus on the borders of the desert, that the
-Persians perform the only positive acts which are ascribed to them
-throughout the whole expedition. They burn the wooden wall before
-occupied, but now deserted, by the Gelôni, and they build, or begin
-to build, eight large fortresses near the river Oarus. For what
-purpose these fortresses could have been intended, Herodotus gives
-no intimation; but he says that the unfinished work was yet to be
-seen even in his day.<a id="FNanchor_491" href="#Footnote_491"
-class="fnanchor">[491]</a></p>
-
-<p>Having thus been carried all across Scythia and the other
-territories above mentioned in a north-easterly direction,
-Darius and his army are next marched back a prodigious distance
-in a north-westerly direction, through the territories of the
-Melanchlæni, the Androphagi, and the Neuri, all of whom flee
-affrighted into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[p. 267]</span>
-the northern desert, having been thus compelled against their will
-to share in the consequences of the war. The Agathyrsi peremptorily
-require the Scythians to abstain from drawing the Persians into
-<i>their</i> territory, on pain of being themselves treated as enemies:<a
-id="FNanchor_492" href="#Footnote_492" class="fnanchor">[492]</a> the
-Scythians in consequence respect the boundaries of the Agathyrsi,
-and direct their retreat in such a manner as to draw the Persians
-again southward into Scythia. During all this long march backwards
-and forwards, there are partial skirmishes and combats of horse,
-but the Scythians steadily refuse any general engagement. And
-though Darius challenges them formally, by means of a herald,
-with taunts of cowardice, the Scythian king Idanthyrsus not only
-refuses battle, but explains and defends his policy, and defies the
-Persian to come and destroy the tombs of their fathers,—it will
-then, he adds, be seen whether the Scythians are cowards or not.<a
-id="FNanchor_493" href="#Footnote_493" class="fnanchor">[493]</a>
-The difficulties of Darius have by this time become serious, when
-Idanthyrsus sends to him the menacing presents of a bird, a mouse, a
-frog, and five arrows: the Persians are obliged to commence a rapid
-retreat towards the Danube, leaving, in order to check and slacken
-the Scythian pursuit, the least effective and the sick part of
-their army encamped, together with the asses which had been brought
-with them,—animals unknown to the Scythians, and causing great
-alarm by their braying.<a id="FNanchor_494" href="#Footnote_494"
-class="fnanchor">[494]</a> However, notwithstanding some delay thus
-caused, as well as the anxious haste of Darius to reach the Danube,
-the Scythians, far more rapid in their movements, arrive at the river
-before him, and open a negotiation with the Ionians left in guard
-of the bridge, urging them to break it down and leave the Persian
-king to his fate,—inevitable destruction with his whole army.<a
-id="FNanchor_495" href="#Footnote_495" class="fnanchor">[495]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[p. 268]</span>Here we
-reënter the world of reality, at the north bank of the Danube, the
-place where we before quitted it. All that is reported to have passed
-in the interval, if tried by the tests of historical matter of
-fact, can be received as nothing better than a perplexing dream. It
-only acquires value when we consider it as an illustrative fiction,
-including, doubtless, some unknown matter of fact, but framed chiefly
-to exhibit in action those unattackable Nomads, who formed the
-north-eastern barbarous world of a Greek, and with whose manners
-Herodotus was profoundly struck. “The Scythians<a id="FNanchor_496"
-href="#Footnote_496" class="fnanchor">[496]</a> (says he) in regard
-to one of the greatest of human matters, have struck out a plan
-cleverer than any that I know. In other respects I do not admire
-them; but they have contrived this great object, that no invader of
-their country shall ever escape out of it, or shall ever be able
-to find out and overtake them, unless they themselves choose. For
-when men have neither walls nor established cities, but are all
-house-carriers and horse-bowmen,—living, not from the plough, but
-from cattle, and having their dwellings on wagons,—how can they be
-otherwise than unattackable and impracticable to meddle with?” The
-protracted and unavailing chase ascribed to Darius,—who can neither
-overtake his game nor use his arms, and who hardly even escapes in
-safety,—embodies in detail this formidable attribute of the Scythian
-Nomads. That Darius actually marched into the country, there can be
-no doubt. Nothing else is certain, except his ignominious retreat
-out of it to the Danube; for of the many different guesses,<a
-id="FNanchor_497" href="#Footnote_497" class="fnanchor">[497]</a> by
-which critics<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[p. 269]</span>
-have attempted to cut down the gigantic sketch of Herodotus into a
-march with definite limits and direction, not one rests upon any
-positive grounds, or carries the least conviction. We can trace the
-pervading idea in the mind of the historian, but cannot find out what
-were his substantive data.</p>
-
-<p>The adventures which took place at the passage of that river,
-both on the out-march and the home-march, wherein the Ionians are
-concerned, are far more within the limits of history. Here Herodotus
-possessed better means of information, and had less of a dominant
-idea to illustrate. That which passed between Darius and the Ionians
-on his first crossing is very curious: I have reserved it until
-the present moment, because it is particularly connected with the
-incidents which happened on his return.</p>
-
-<p>On reaching the Danube from Thrace, he found the bridge of
-boats ready, and when the whole army had passed over, he ordered
-the Ionians to break it down, as well as to follow him in his
-land-march into Scythia;<a id="FNanchor_498" href="#Footnote_498"
-class="fnanchor">[498]</a> the ships being left with nothing but
-the rowers and seamen essential to navigate them homeward.<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[p. 270]</span> His order was on the
-point of being executed, when, fortunately for him, the Mitylenæan
-general Kôês ventured to call in question the prudence of it, having
-first asked whether it was the pleasure of the Persian king to listen
-to advice. He urged that the march on which they were proceeding
-might prove perilous, and retreat possibly unavoidable; because the
-Scythians, though certain to be defeated if brought to action, might
-perhaps not suffer themselves to be approached or even discovered.
-As a precaution against all contingencies, it was prudent to leave
-the bridge standing and watched by those who had constructed it.
-Far from being offended at the advice, Darius felt grateful for it,
-and desired that Kôês would ask him after his return for a suitable
-reward,—which we shall hereafter find granted. He then altered his
-resolution, took a cord, and tied sixty knots in it. “Take this
-cord (said he to the Ionians), untie one of the knots in it each
-day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here and
-guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if by
-that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home.”<a
-id="FNanchor_499" href="#Footnote_499" class="fnanchor">[499]</a>
-After such orders he began his march into the interior.</p>
-
-<p>This anecdote is interesting, not only as it discloses the simple
-expedients for numeration and counting of time then practised, but
-also as it illustrates the geographical ideas prevalent. Darius did
-not intend to come back over the Danube, but to march round the
-Mæotis, and to return into Persia on the eastern side of the Euxine.
-No other explanation can be given of his orders. At first, confident
-of success, he orders the bridge to be destroyed forthwith: he
-will beat the Scythians, march through their country, and reënter
-Media from the eastern side of the Euxine. When he is reminded that
-possibly he may not be able to find the Scythians, and may be obliged
-to retreat, he still continues persuaded that this must happen within
-sixty days, if it happens at all; and that, should he remain absent
-more than sixty days, such delay will be a convincing proof that he
-will take the other road of return instead of repassing the Danube.
-The reader<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[p. 271]</span> who
-looks at a map of the Euxine and its surrounding territories may be
-startled at so extravagant a conception. But he should recollect
-that there was no map of the same or nearly the same accuracy before
-Herodotus, much less before the contemporaries of Darius. The idea
-of entering Media by the north from Scythia and Sarmatia over the
-Caucasus, is familiar to Herodotus in his sketch of the early marches
-of the Scythians and Cimmerians: moreover, he tells us that after
-the expedition of Darius, there came some Scythian envoys to Sparta,
-proposing an offensive alliance against Persia, and offering on
-their part to march across the Phasis into Media from the north,<a
-id="FNanchor_500" href="#Footnote_500" class="fnanchor">[500]</a>
-while the Spartans were invited to land on the shores of Asia Minor,
-and advance across the country to meet them from the west. When we
-recollect that the Macedonians and their leader, Alexander the Great,
-having arrived at the river Jaxartês, on the north of Sogdiana,
-and on the east of the sea of Aral, supposed that they had reached
-the Tanais, and called the river by that name,<a id="FNanchor_501"
-href="#Footnote_501" class="fnanchor">[501]</a>—we shall not be
-astonished at the erroneous estimation of distance implied in the
-plan conceived by Darius.</p>
-
-<p>The Ionians had already remained in guard of the bridge beyond the
-sixty days commanded, without hearing anything of the Persian army,
-when they were surprised by the appearance, not of that army, but
-of a body of Scythians, who acquainted them that Darius was in full
-retreat and in the greatest distress, and that his safety with the
-whole army depended upon that bridge. They endeavored to prevail upon
-the Ionians, since the sixty days included in their order to remain
-had now elapsed, to break the bridge and retire; assuring them that,
-if this were done, the destruction of the Persians was inevitable,—of
-course, the Ionians themselves would then be free. At first, the
-latter were favorably disposed towards the proposition, which was
-warmly espoused by the Athenian Miltiadês, despot, or governor, of
-the Thracian Chersonese.<a id="FNanchor_502" href="#Footnote_502"
-class="fnanchor">[502]</a> Had he prevailed, the victor of
-Marathon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[p. 272]</span>—for such
-we shall hereafter find him—would have thus inflicted a much more
-vital blow on Persia than even that celebrated action, and would have
-brought upon Darius the disastrous fate of his predecessor Cyrus. But
-the Ionian princes, though leaning at first towards his suggestion,
-were speedily converted by the representations of Histiæus of
-Milêtus, who reminded them that the maintenance of his own ascendency
-over the Milesians, and that of each despot in his respective city,
-was assured by means of Persian support alone,—the feeling of the
-population being everywhere against them: consequently, the ruin of
-Darius would be their ruin also. This argument proved conclusive.
-It was resolved to stay and maintain the bridge, but to pretend
-compliance with the Scythians, and prevail upon them to depart,
-by affecting to destroy it. The northern portion of the bridge
-was accordingly destroyed, for the length of a bow-shot, and the
-Scythians departed under the persuasion that they had succeeded
-in depriving their enemies of the means of crossing the river.<a
-id="FNanchor_503" href="#Footnote_503" class="fnanchor">[503]</a>
-It appears that they missed the track of the retreating host, which
-was thus enabled, after the severest privation and suffering, to
-reach the Danube in safety. Arriving during the darkness of the
-night, Darius was at first terrified to find the bridge no longer
-joining the northern bank: an Egyptian herald, of stentorian powers
-of voice, was ordered to call as loudly as possible the name of
-Histiæus the Milesian. Answer being speedily made, the bridge was
-reëstablished, and the Persian army passed over before the Scythians
-returned to the spot.<a id="FNanchor_504" href="#Footnote_504"
-class="fnanchor">[504]</a></p>
-
-<p>There can be no doubt that the Ionians here lost an opportunity
-eminently favorable, such as never again returned, for emancipating
-themselves from the Persian dominion. Their despots, by whom the
-determination was made, especially the Milesian Histiæus, were
-not induced to preserve the bridge by any honorable reluctance to
-betray the trust reposed in them, but simply by selfish regard to
-the maintenance of their own unpopular dominion. And we may remark
-that the real character of this impelling motive, as well as the
-deliberation accompanying it, may be assumed as resting upon very
-good evidence, since we are now arrived within the personal knowledge
-of the Milesian historian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[p.
-273]</span> Hekatæus, who took an active part in the Ionic revolt
-a few years afterwards, and who may, perhaps, have been personally
-engaged in this expedition. He will be found reviewing with prudence
-and sobriety the chances of that unfortunate revolt, and distrusting
-its success from the beginning; while Histiæus of Milêtus will
-appear on the same occasion as the fomenter of it, in order to
-procure his release from an honorable detention at Susa, near the
-person of Darius. The selfishness of this despot having deprived his
-countrymen of that real and favorable chance of emancipation which
-the destruction of the bridge would have opened to them, threw them
-into perilous revolt a few years afterwards against the entire and
-unembarrassed force of the Persian king and empire.</p>
-
-<p>Extricated from the perils of Scythian warfare, Darius marched
-southward from the Danube through Thrace to the Hellespont, where he
-crossed from Sestus into Asia. He left, however, a considerable army
-in Europe, under the command of Megabazus, to accomplish the conquest
-of Thrace. Perinthus on the Propontis made a brave resistance,<a
-id="FNanchor_505" href="#Footnote_505" class="fnanchor">[505]</a>
-but was at length subdued, and it appears that all the Thracian
-tribes, and all the Grecian colonies between the Hellespont and
-the Strymon, were forced to submit, giving earth and water, and
-becoming subject to tribute.<a id="FNanchor_506" href="#Footnote_506"
-class="fnanchor">[506]</a> Near the lower Strymon, was the Edonian
-town of Myrkinus, which Darius ordered to be made over to Histiæus
-of Milêtus; for both this Milesian, and Kôês of Mitylênê, had been
-desired by the Persian king to name their own reward for their
-fidelity to him on the passage over the Danube.<a id="FNanchor_507"
-href="#Footnote_507" class="fnanchor">[507]</a> Kôês requested that
-he might be constituted despot of Mitylênê, which was accomplished
-by Persian authority; but Histiæus solicited that the territory near
-Myrkinus might be given to him for the foundation of a colony. As
-soon as the Persian conquests extended thus far, the site in question
-was presented to Histiæus, who entered actively upon his new scheme.
-We shall find the territory near Myrkinus eminent hereafter as the
-site of Amphipolis. It offered great temptation to settlers, as
-fertile, well wooded, convenient for maritime commerce, and near to
-auriferous and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[p. 274]</span>
-argentiferous mountains.<a id="FNanchor_508" href="#Footnote_508"
-class="fnanchor">[508]</a> It seems, however, that the Persian
-dominion in Thrace was disturbed by an invasion of the Scythians,
-who, in revenge for the aggression of Darius, overran the country
-as far as the Thracian Chersonese, and are even said to have sent
-envoys to Sparta proposing a simultaneous invasion of Persia from
-different sides, by Spartans and Scythians. The Athenian Miltiadês,
-who was despot, or governor, of the Chersonese, was forced to quit
-it for some time, and Herodotus ascribes his retirement to the
-incursion of these Nomads. But we may be permitted to suspect that
-the historian has misconceived the real cause of such retirement.
-Miltiadês could not remain in the Chersonese after he had incurred
-the deadly enmity of Darius by exhorting the Ionians to destroy the
-bridge over the Danube.<a id="FNanchor_509" href="#Footnote_509"
-class="fnanchor">[509]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[p. 275]</span>Nor did the
-conquests of Megabazus stop at the western bank of the Strymon. He
-carried his arms across that river, conquer<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_276">[p. 276]</span>ing the Pæonians, and reducing the
-Macedonians under Amyntas to tribute. A considerable number of the
-Pæonians were transported across into Asia, by express order of
-Darius; whose fancy had been struck by seeing at Sardis a beautiful
-Pæonian woman carrying a vessel on her head, leading a horse to
-water, and spinning flax, all at the same time. This woman had
-been brought over, we are told, by her two brothers, Pigrês and
-Mantyês, for the express purpose of arresting the attention of the
-Great King. They hoped by this means to be constituted despots of
-their countrymen, and we may presume that their scheme succeeded,
-for such part of the Pæonians as Megabazus could subdue were
-conveyed across to Asia and planted in some villages in Phrygia.
-Such violent transportations of inhabitants were in the genius of
-the Persian government.<a id="FNanchor_510" href="#Footnote_510"
-class="fnanchor">[510]</a></p>
-
-<p>From the Pæonian lake Prasias, seven eminent Persians were sent
-as envoys into Macedonia, to whom Amyntas readily gave the required
-token of submission, inviting them to a splendid banquet. When
-exhilarated with wine, they demanded to see the women of the regal
-family, who, being accordingly introduced, were rudely dealt with by
-the strangers. At length, the son of Amyntas, Alexander, resented the
-insult, and exacted for it a signal vengeance. Dismissing the women,
-under pretence that they should return after a bath, he brought back
-in their place youths in female attire, armed with daggers: the
-Persians, proceeding to repeat their caresses, were all put to death.
-Their retinue and splendid carriages and equipment which they had
-brought with them disappeared at the same time, without any tidings
-reaching the Persian army. And when Bubarês, another eminent Persian,
-was sent into Macedonia to institute researches, Alexander contrived
-to hush up the proceeding by large bribes, and by giving him his
-sister Gygæa in marriage.<a id="FNanchor_511" href="#Footnote_511"
-class="fnanchor">[511]</a></p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Megabazus crossed over into Asia, carrying with
-him the Pæonians from the river Strymon. Having been in<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[p. 277]</span> those regions, he
-had become alarmed at the progress of Histiæus with his new city
-of Myrkinus, and communicated his apprehensions to Darius; who was
-prevailed upon to send for Histiæus, retaining him about his person,
-and carrying him to Susa as counsellor and friend, with every mark
-of honor, but with the secret intention of never letting him revisit
-Asia Minor. The fears of the Persian general were probably not
-unreasonable; but this detention of Histiæus at Susa, became in the
-sequel an important event.<a id="FNanchor_512" href="#Footnote_512"
-class="fnanchor">[512]</a></p>
-
-<p>On departing for his capital, Darius nominated his brother
-Artaphernês satrap of Sardis, and Otanês, general of the forces on
-the coast, in place of Megabazus. The new general dealt very severely
-with various towns near the Propontis, on the ground that they had
-evaded their duty in the late Scythian expedition, and had even
-harassed the army of Darius in its retreat. He took Byzantium and
-Chalkêdon, as well as Antandrus in the Troad, and Lampônium; and
-with the aid of a fleet from Lesbos, he achieved a new conquest,—the
-islands of Lemnos and Imbros, at that time occupied by a Pelasgic
-population, seemingly without any Greek inhabitants at all.</p>
-
-<p>These Pelasgi were of cruel and piratical character, if we
-may judge by the tenor of the legends respecting them; Lemnian
-misdeeds being cited as a proverbial expression for atrocities.<a
-id="FNanchor_513" href="#Footnote_513" class="fnanchor">[513]</a>
-They were distinguished also for ancient worship of Hêphæstus,
-together with mystic rites in honor of the Kabeiri, and even human
-sacrifices to their Great Goddess. In their two cities,—Hephæstias on
-the east of the island, and Myrina on the west,—they held out bravely
-against Otanês, nor did they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[p.
-278]</span> submit until they had undergone long and severe
-hardship. Lykarêtus, brother of that Mæandrius whom we have
-already noticed as despot of Samos, was named governor of Lemnos;
-but he soon after died.<a id="FNanchor_514" href="#Footnote_514"
-class="fnanchor">[514]</a> It is probable that the Pelasgic
-population of the islands was greatly enfeebled during this struggle,
-and we even hear that their king Hermon voluntarily emigrated,
-from fear of Darius.<a id="FNanchor_515" href="#Footnote_515"
-class="fnanchor">[515]</a></p>
-
-<p>Lemnos and Imbros thus became Persian possessions, held by a
-subordinate prince as tributary. A few years afterwards their lot was
-again changed,—they passed into the hands of Athens, the Pelasgic
-inhabitants were expelled, and fresh Athenian settlers introduced.
-They were conquered by Miltiadês from the Thracian Chersonese; from
-Elæus at the south of that peninsula to Lemnos being within less
-than one day’s sail with a north wind. The Hephæstieans abandoned
-their city and evacuated the island with little resistance; but
-the inhabitants of Myrina stood a siege,<a id="FNanchor_516"
-href="#Footnote_516" class="fnanchor">[516]</a> and were not expelled
-without difficulty: both of them found abodes in Thrace, on and near
-the peninsula of Mount Athos. Both these islands, together with that
-of Skyros (which was not taken until after the invasion of Xerxês),
-remained connected with Athens in a manner peculiarly intimate. At
-the peace of Antalkidas (387 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),—which guaranteed
-universal autonomy to every Grecian city, great and small,—they
-were specially reserved, and considered as united with Athens.<a
-id="FNanchor_517" href="#Footnote_517" class="fnanchor">[517]</a>
-The property in their soil was held by men who, without losing
-their Athenian citizenship, became Lemnian kleruchs, and as such
-were classified apart among the military force of the state; while
-absence in Lemnos or Imbros seems to have been<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_279">[p. 279]</span> accepted as an excuse for delay before
-the courts of justice, so as to escape the penalties of contumacy, or
-departure from the country.<a id="FNanchor_518" href="#Footnote_518"
-class="fnanchor">[518]</a> It is probable that a considerable number
-of poor Athenian citizens were provided with lots of land in these
-islands, though we have no direct information of the fact, and are
-even obliged to guess the precise time at which Miltiadês made the
-conquest. Herodotus, according to his usual manner, connects the
-conquest with an ancient oracle, and represents it as the retribution
-for ancient legendary crime committed by certain Pelasgi, who, many
-centuries before, had been expelled by the Athenians from Attica,
-and had retired to Lemnos. Full of this legend, he tells us nothing
-about the proximate causes or circumstances of the conquest, which
-must probably have been accomplished by the efforts of Athens,
-jointly with Miltiadês from the Chersonese, daring the period that
-the Persians were occupied in quelling the Ionic revolt, between
-502-494 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—since it is hardly to be supposed
-that Miltiadês would have ventured thus to attack a Persian
-possession during the time that the satraps had their hands free. The
-acquisition was probably facilitated by the fact, that the Pelasgic
-population of the islands had been weakened, as well by their former
-resistance to the Persian Otanês, as by some years passed under the
-deputy of a Persian satrap.</p>
-
-<p>In mentioning the conquest of Lemnos by the Athenians and<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[p. 280]</span> Miltiadês, I have
-anticipated a little on the course of events, because that
-conquest,—though coinciding in point of time with the Ionic revolt
-(which will be recounted in the following chapter), and indirectly
-caused by it, in so far as it occupied the attention of the
-Persians,—lies entirely apart from the operations of the revolted
-Ionians. When Miltiadês was driven out of the Chersonese by the
-Persians, on the suppression of the Ionic revolt, his fame, derived
-from having subdued Lemnos,<a id="FNanchor_519" href="#Footnote_519"
-class="fnanchor">[519]</a> contributed both to neutralize the
-enmity which he had incurred as governor of the Chersonese, and to
-procure his election as one of the ten generals for the year of the
-Marathonian combat.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_35">
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXV.<br />
- IONIC REVOLT.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">Hitherto</span>, the history of
-the Asiatic Greeks has flowed in a stream distinct from that of
-the European Greeks. The present chapter will mark the period of
-confluence between the two.</p>
-
-<p>At the time when Darius quitted Sardis on his return to Susa,
-carrying with him the Milesian Histiæus, he left Artaphernês, his
-brother, as satrap of Sardis, invested with the supreme command of
-Western Asia Minor. The Grecian cities on the coast, comprehended
-under his satrapy, appear to have been chiefly governed by native
-despots in each; and Milêtus especially, in the absence of Histiæus,
-was ruled by his son-in-law Aristagoras. That city was now in the
-height of power and prosperity,—in every respect the leading city
-of Ionia. The return of Darius to Susa may be placed seemingly
-about 512 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, from which time forward the state
-of things above described continued, without disturbance, for eight
-or ten years,—“a respite from suffering,” to use the significant
-phrase of the historian.<a id="FNanchor_520" href="#Footnote_520"
-class="fnanchor">[520]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[p. 281]</span>It was about
-the year 506 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, that the exiled Athenian despot
-Hippias, after having been repelled from Sparta by the unanimous
-refusal of the Lacedæmonian allies to take part in his cause,
-presented himself from Sigeium as a petitioner to Artaphernês at
-Sardis. He now, doubtless, found the benefit of the alliance which he
-had formed for his daughter with the despot Æantidês of Lampsakus,
-whose favor with Darius would stand him in good stead. He made
-pressing representations to the satrap, with a view of procuring
-restoration to Athens, on condition of holding it under Persian
-dominion; and Artaphernês was prepared, if an opportunity offered,
-to aid him in his design. So thoroughly had he resolved on espousing
-actively the cause of Hippias, that when the Athenians despatched
-envoys to Sardis, to set forth the case of the city against its
-exiled pretender, he returned to them an answer not merely of
-denial, but of menace,—bidding them receive Hippias back again, if
-they looked for safety.<a id="FNanchor_521" href="#Footnote_521"
-class="fnanchor">[521]</a> Such a reply was equivalent to a
-declaration of war,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[p.
-282]</span> and so it was construed at Athens. It leads us to infer
-that he was even then revolving in his mind an expedition against
-Attica, in conjunction with Hippias; but, fortunately for the
-Athenians, other projects and necessities intervened to postpone for
-several years the execution of the scheme.</p>
-
-<p>Of these new projects, the first was that of conquering the island
-of Naxos. Here, too, as in the case of Hippias, the instigation
-arose from Naxian exiles,—a rich oligarchy which had been expelled
-by a rising of the people. This island, like all the rest of the
-Cyclades, was as yet independent of the Persians.<a id="FNanchor_522"
-href="#Footnote_522" class="fnanchor">[522]</a> It was wealthy,
-prosperous, possessing a large population both of freemen and slaves,
-and defended as well by armed ships as by a force of eight thousand
-heavy-armed infantry. The exiles applied for aid to Aristagoras,
-who saw that he could turn them into instruments of dominion for
-himself in the island, provided he could induce Artaphernês to embark
-in the project along with him,—his own force not being adequate by
-itself. Accordingly, he went to Sardis, and laid his project before
-the satrap, intimating that as soon as the exiles should land with
-a powerful support, Naxos would be reduced with little trouble:
-that the neighboring islands of Paros, Andros, Tênos, and the other
-Cyclades, could not long hold out after the conquest of Naxos, nor
-even the large and valuable island of Eubœa. He himself engaged,
-if a fleet of one hundred ships were granted to him, to accomplish
-all these conquests for the Great King, and to bear the expenses of
-the armament besides. Artaphernês warmly entered into the scheme,
-loaded him with praise, and promised him in the ensuing spring two
-hundred ships instead of one hundred. A messenger despatched to Susa,
-having brought back the ready consent of Darius, a large armament
-was forthwith equipped, under the command of the Persian Megabatês,
-to be placed at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[p. 283]</span>
-the disposal of Aristagoras,—composed both of Persians and of all the
-tributaries near the coast.<a id="FNanchor_523" href="#Footnote_523"
-class="fnanchor">[523]</a></p>
-
-<p>With this force Aristagoras and the Naxian exiles set sail from
-Milêtus, giving out that they were going to the Hellespont. On
-reaching Chios, they waited in its western harbor of Kaukasa for
-a fair wind to carry them straight across to Naxos. No suspicion
-was entertained in that island of its real purpose, nor was any
-preparation made for resistance, and the success of Aristagoras
-would have been complete, had it not been defeated by an untoward
-incident ending in dispute. Megabatês, with a solicitude which we
-are surprised to discern in a Persian general, personally made the
-tour of his fleet, to see that every ship was under proper watch,
-and discovered a ship from Myndus (an Asiatic Dorian city near
-Halikarnassus), left without a single man on board. Incensed at this
-neglect, he called before him Skylax, the commander of the ship, and
-ordered him to be put in chains, with his head projecting outwards
-through one of the apertures for oars in the ship’s side. Skylax
-was a guest and friend of Aristagoras, who, on hearing of this
-punishment, interceded with Megabatês for his release; but finding
-the request refused, took upon him to release the prisoner himself.
-He even went so far as to treat the remonstrance of Megabatês with
-disdain, reminding him that, according to the instructions of
-Artaphernês, he was only second and himself (Aristagoras) first.
-The pride of Megabatês could not endure such treatment: as soon as
-night arrived, he sent a private intimation to Naxos of the coming of
-the fleet, warning the islanders to be on their guard. The warning
-thus fortunately received was turned by the Naxians to the best
-account. They carried in their property, laid up stores, and made
-every preparation for a siege, so that when the fleet, probably
-delayed by the dispute between its leaders, at length arrived, it
-was met by a stout resistance, remained on the shore of the island
-for four months in prosecution of an unavailing siege, and was
-obliged to retire without accomplishing anything beyond the erection
-of a fort, as lodgment for the Naxian exiles. After a large cost
-incurred, not only by the Persians, but also by<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_284">[p. 284]</span> Aristagoras himself, the unsuccessful
-armament was brought back to the coast of Ionia.<a id="FNanchor_524"
-href="#Footnote_524" class="fnanchor">[524]</a></p>
-
-<p>The failure of this expedition threatened Aristagoras with entire
-ruin. He had incensed Megabatês, deceived Artaphernês, and incurred
-an obligation, which he knew not how to discharge, of indemnifying
-the latter for the costs of the fleet. He began to revolve in his
-mind the scheme of revolting from Persia, when it so happened
-that there arrived nearly at the same moment a messenger from his
-father-in-law, Histiæus, who was detained at the court of Susa,
-secretly instigating him to this very resolution. Not knowing whom to
-trust with this dangerous message, Histiæus had caused the head of a
-faithful slave to be shaved,—branded upon it the words necessary,—and
-then despatched him, so soon as his hair had grown, to Milêtus,
-with a verbal intimation to Aristagoras that his head was to be
-again shaved and examined.<a id="FNanchor_525" href="#Footnote_525"
-class="fnanchor">[525]</a> Histiæus sought to provoke this perilous
-rising, simply as a means of procuring his own release from Susa,
-and in the calculation that Darius would send him down to the
-coast to reëstablish order. His message, arriving at so critical
-a moment, determined the faltering resolution of Aristagoras, who
-convened his principal partisans at Milêtus, and laid before them
-the formidable project of revolt. All of them approved it, with one
-remarkable exception,—the historian Hekatæus of Milêtus; who opposed
-it as altogether ruinous, and contended that the power of Darius
-was too vast to leave them any prospect of success. When he found
-direct opposition fruitless, he next insisted upon the necessity of
-at once seizing the large treasures in the neighboring temple of
-Apollo, at Branchidæ, for the purpose of carrying on the revolt.
-By this means alone, he said, could the Milesians, too feeble to
-carry on the contest with their own force alone, hope to become
-masters at sea,—while, if <i>they</i> did not take these treasures, the
-victorious enemy surely would. Neither of these recommendations,
-both of them indicating sagacity and foresight in the proposer, were
-listened to. Probably the seizure of the treasures,—though highly
-useful for the impending struggle, and though<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_285">[p. 285]</span> in the end they fell into the hands of
-the enemy, as Hekatæus anticipated,—would have been insupportable to
-the pious feelings of the people, and would thus have proved more
-injurious than beneficial:<a id="FNanchor_526" href="#Footnote_526"
-class="fnanchor">[526]</a> perhaps, indeed, Hekatæus himself may have
-urged it with the indirect view of stifling the whole project. We may
-remark that he seems to have urged the question as if Milêtus were to
-stand alone in the revolt; not anticipating, as indeed no prudent man
-could then anticipate, that the Ionic cities generally would follow
-the example.</p>
-
-<p>Aristagoras and his friends resolved forthwith to revolt, and
-their first step was to conciliate popular favor throughout Asiatic
-Greece by putting down the despots in all the various cities,—the
-instruments not less than the supports of Persian ascendency, as
-Histiæus had well urged at the bridge of the Danube. The opportunity
-was favorable for striking this blow at once on a considerable scale.
-The fleet, recently employed at Naxos, had not yet dispersed, but
-was still assembled at Myus, with many of the despots present at
-the head of their ships. Iatragoras was despatched from Milêtus,
-at once to seize as many of them as he could, and to stir up the
-soldiers to revolt. This decisive proceeding was the first manifesto
-against Darius. Iatragoras was successful: the fleet went along
-with him, and many of the despots fell into his hands,—among
-them Histiæus (a second person so named) of Termera, Oliatus of
-Mylasa (both Karians),<a id="FNanchor_527" href="#Footnote_527"
-class="fnanchor">[527]</a> Kôês of Mitylênê, and Aristagoras (also
-a second person so named) of Kymê. At the same time the Milesian
-Aristagoras himself, while he formally proclaimed revolt against
-Darius, and invited the Milesians to follow him, laid down his own
-authority, and affected to place the government in the hands of the
-people. Throughout most of the towns of Asiatic Greece, insular and
-continental, a similar revolution was brought about; the despots
-were expelled, and the feelings of the citizens were thus warmly
-interested in the revolt. Such of these despots as fell into the
-hands of Aristagoras were surrendered into the hands of their former
-subjects, by whom they were for the most part quietly dismissed,
-and we shall find them hereafter active auxil<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_286">[p. 286]</span>iaries to the Persians. To this
-treatment the only exception mentioned is Kôês, who was stoned to
-death by the Mitylenæans.<a id="FNanchor_528" href="#Footnote_528"
-class="fnanchor">[528]</a></p>
-
-<p>By these first successful steps the Ionic revolt was made to
-assume an extensive and formidable character; much more so, probably,
-than the prudent Hekatæus had anticipated as practicable. The naval
-force of the Persians in the Ægean was at once taken away from them,
-and passed to their opponents, who were thus completely masters of
-the sea; and would in fact have remained so, if a second naval force
-had not been brought up against them from Phenicia,—a proceeding
-never before resorted to, and perhaps at that time not looked for.</p>
-
-<p>Having exhorted all the revolted towns to name their generals,
-and to put themselves in a state of defence, Aristagoras crossed the
-Ægean to obtain assistance from Sparta, then under the government
-of king Kleomenês; to whom he addressed himself, “holding in his
-hand a brazen tablet, wherein was engraved the circuit of the
-entire earth, with the whole sea and all the rivers.” Probably
-this was the first map or plan which had ever been seen at Sparta,
-and so profound was the impression which it made, that it was
-remembered there even in the time of Herodotus.<a id="FNanchor_529"
-href="#Footnote_529" class="fnanchor">[529]</a> Having emphatically
-entreated the Spartans to step forth in aid of their Ionic brethren,
-now engaged in a desperate struggle for freedom,—he proceeded to
-describe the wealth and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[p.
-287]</span> abundance (gold, silver, brass, vestments, cattle,
-and slaves), together with the ineffective weapons and warfare of
-the Asiatics. The latter, he said, could be at once put down, and
-the former appropriated, by military training such as that of the
-Spartans,—whose long spear, brazen helmet and breastplate, and
-ample shield, enabled them to despise the bow, the short javelin,
-the light wicker target, the turban and trowsers, of a Persian.<a
-id="FNanchor_530" href="#Footnote_530" class="fnanchor">[530]</a>
-He then traced out on his brazen plan the road from Ephesus to
-Susa, indicating the intervening nations, all of them affording
-a booty more or less rich; but he magnified especially the vast
-treasures at Susa: “Instead of fighting your neighbors, he concluded,
-Argeians, Arcadians, and Messenians, from whom you get hard blows
-and small reward, why do you not make yourself ruler of all Asia,<a
-id="FNanchor_531" href="#Footnote_531" class="fnanchor">[531]</a>
-a prize not less easy than lucrative?” Kleomenês replied to these
-seductive instigations by desiring him to come for an answer on the
-third day. When that day arrived, he put to him the simple question,
-how far it was from Susa to the sea? To which Aristagoras answered,
-with more frankness than dexterity, that it was a three months’
-journey; and he was proceeding to enlarge upon the facilities of the
-road when Kleomenês interrupted him: “Quit Sparta before sunset,
-Milesian stranger; you are no friend to the Lacedæmonians, if you
-want to carry them a three months’ journey from the sea.” In spite of
-this peremptory mandate, Aristagoras tried a last resource: he took
-in his hand the bough of supplication, and again went to the house of
-Kleomenês, who was sitting with his daughter Gorgô, a girl of eight
-years old. He requested Kleomenês to send away the child, but this
-was refused, and he was desired to proceed; upon which he began to
-offer to the Spartan king a bribe for compliance, bidding continually
-higher and higher from ten talents up to fifty. At length, the
-little girl suddenly ex<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[p.
-288]</span>claimed, “Father, the stranger will corrupt you, if you do
-not at once go away.” The exclamation so struck Kleomenês, that he
-broke up the interview, and Aristagoras forthwith quitted Sparta.<a
-id="FNanchor_532" href="#Footnote_532" class="fnanchor">[532]</a></p>
-
-<p>Doubtless Herodotus heard the account of this interview from
-Lacedæmonian informants. But we may be permitted to doubt, whether
-any such suggestions were really made, or any such hopes held out,
-as those which he places in the mouth of Aristagoras,—suggestions
-and hopes which might well be conceived in 450-440 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, after a generation of victories over the Persians, but
-which have no pertinence in the year 502 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Down
-even to the battle of Marathon, the name of the Medes was a terror
-to the Greeks, and the Athenians are highly and justly extolled as
-the first who dared to look them in the face.<a id="FNanchor_533"
-href="#Footnote_533" class="fnanchor">[533]</a> To talk about an easy
-march up to the treasures of Susa and the empire of all Asia, at the
-time of the Ionic revolt, would have been considered as a proof of
-insanity. Aristagoras may very probably have represented, that the
-Spartans were more than a match for Persians in the field; but even
-thus much would have been considered, in 502 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-rather as the sanguine hope of a petitioner than as the estimate of a
-sober looker-on.</p>
-
-<p>The Milesian chief had made application to Sparta, as the
-presiding power of Hellas,—a character which we thus find more
-and more recognized and passing into the habitual feeling of the
-Greeks. Fifty years previously to this, the Spartans had been
-flattered by the circumstance, that Crœsus singled them out from all
-other Greeks to invite as allies: now they accepted such priority
-as a matter of course.<a id="FNanchor_534" href="#Footnote_534"
-class="fnanchor">[534]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[p. 289]</span>Rejected at
-Sparta, Aristagoras proceeded to Athens, now decidedly the second
-power in Greece. And here he found an easier task, not only as it
-was the metropolis, or mother-city, of Asiatic Ionia, but also as
-it had already incurred the pronounced hostility of the Persian
-satrap, and might look to be attacked as soon as the project came to
-suit his convenience, under the instigation of Hippias: whereas the
-Spartans had not only no kindred with Ionia, beyond that of common
-Hellenism, but were in no hostile relations with Persia, and would
-have been provoking a new enemy by meddling in the Asiatic war.
-The promises and representations of Aristagoras were accordingly
-received with great favor by the Athenians: who, over and above
-the claims of sympathy, had a powerful interest in sustaining the
-Ionic revolt as an indirect protection to themselves,—and to whom
-the abstraction of the Ionic fleet from the Persians afforded a
-conspicuous and important relief. The Athenians at once resolved
-to send a fleet of twenty ships, under Melanthius, as an aid to
-the revolted Ionians,—ships which are styled by Herodotus, “the
-beginning of the mischiefs between Greeks and barbarians,”—as the
-ships in which Paris crossed the Ægean had before been called in
-the Iliad of Homer. Herodotus farther remarks that it seems easier
-to deceive many men together than one,—since Aristagoras, after
-having failed with Kleomenês, thus imposed upon the thirty thousand
-citizens of Athens.<a id="FNanchor_535" href="#Footnote_535"
-class="fnanchor">[535]</a> But on this remark two comments suggest
-themselves. First, the circumstances of Athens and Sparta were
-not the same in regard to the Ionic quarrel,—an observation which
-Herodotus himself had made a little while before: the Athenians
-had a material interest in the quarrel, political as well as<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[p. 290]</span> sympathetic, while
-the Spartans had none. Secondly, the ultimate result of their
-interference, as it stood in the time of Herodotus, though purchased
-by severe intermediate hardship, was one eminently gainful and
-glorifying, not less to Athens than to Greece.<a id="FNanchor_536"
-href="#Footnote_536" class="fnanchor">[536]</a></p>
-
-<p>When Aristagoras returned, he seems to have found the Persians
-engaged in the siege of Milêtus. The twenty Athenian ships soon
-crossed the Ægean, and found there five Eretrian ships which had
-also come to the succor of the Ionians; the Eretrians generously
-taking this opportunity to repay assistance formerly rendered to
-them by the Milesians in their ancient war with Chalkis. On the
-arrival of these allies, Aristagoras organized an expedition from
-Ephesus up to Sardis, under the command of his brother Charopinus,
-with others. The ships were left at Korêssus,<a id="FNanchor_537"
-href="#Footnote_537" class="fnanchor">[537]</a> a mountain and
-seaport five miles from Ephesus, while the troops marched up under
-Ephesian guides, first, along the river Kayster, next, across the
-mountain range of Tmôlus to Sardis. Artaphernês had not troops
-enough to do more than hold the strong citadel, so that the
-assailants possessed themselves of the town without opposition. But
-he immediately recalled his force near Miletus,<a id="FNanchor_538"
-href="#Footnote_538" class="fnanchor">[538]</a> and summoned Persians
-and Lydians from all the neighboring districts, thus becoming more
-than a match for Charopinus; who found himself, moreover, obliged
-to evacuate Sardis, owing to an accidental conflagration. Most of
-the houses in that city were built in great part with reeds or
-straw, and all of them had thatched roofs; hence it happened that
-a spark touching one of them set the whole city in flame. Obliged
-to abandon their dwellings by this accident, the population of the
-town congregated in the market-place,—and as reinforcements were
-hourly crowding in, the position of the Ionians and Athe<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[p. 291]</span>nians became precarious:
-they evacuated the town, took up a position on Mount Tmôlus, and,
-when night came, made the best of their way to the sea-coast. The
-troops of Artaphernês pursued, overtook them near Ephesus, and
-defeated them completely. Eualkidês, the Eretrian general, a man of
-eminence and a celebrated victor at the solemn games, perished in
-the action, together with a considerable number of troops. After
-this unsuccessful commencement, the Athenians betook themselves to
-their vessels and sailed home, in spite of pressing instances on the
-part of Aristagoras to induce them to stay. They took no farther
-part in the struggle;<a id="FNanchor_539" href="#Footnote_539"
-class="fnanchor">[539]</a> a retirement at once so sudden and so
-complete, that they must probably have experienced some glaring
-desertion on the part of their Asiatic allies, similar to that which
-brought so much danger upon the Spartan general Derkyllidas, in 396
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Unless such was the case, they seem open to
-censure rather for having too soon withdrawn their aid, than for
-having originally lent it.<a id="FNanchor_540" href="#Footnote_540"
-class="fnanchor">[540]</a></p>
-
-<p>The burning of a place so important as Sardis, however,
-including the temples of the local goddess Kybêbê, which perished
-with the remaining buildings, produced a powerful effect on both
-sides,—encouraging the revolters, as well as incensing the Persians.
-Aristagoras despatched ships along the coast, northward as far as
-Byzantium, and southward as far as Cyprus. The Greek cities near
-the Hellespont and the Propontis were induced, either by force or
-by inclination, to take part with him: the Karians embraced his
-cause warmly; even the Kaunians, who had not declared themselves
-before, joined him as soon as they heard of the capture of Sardis;
-while the Greeks in Cyprus, with the single exception of the town
-of Amathûs, at once renounced the authority of Darius, and prepared
-for a strenuous contest. Onesilus of Salamis, the most considerable
-city in the island,—finding the population willing, but his brother,
-the despot Gorgus, reluctant,—shut the latter out of the gates, took
-the command of the united forces of Salamis and other revolting
-cities, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[p. 292]</span> laid
-siege to Amathûs. These towns of Cyprus were then, and seem always
-afterwards to have continued, under the government of despots; who,
-however, unlike the despots in Ionia generally, took part along with
-their subjects in the revolt against Persia.<a id="FNanchor_541"
-href="#Footnote_541" class="fnanchor">[541]</a></p>
-
-<p>The rebellion had now assumed a character more serious than
-ever, and the Persians were compelled to put forth their strongest
-efforts to subdue it. From the number of different nations
-comprised in their empire, they were enabled to make use of the
-antipathies of one against the other; and the old adverse feeling
-of Phenicians against Greeks was now found extremely serviceable.
-After a year spent in getting together forces,<a id="FNanchor_542"
-href="#Footnote_542" class="fnanchor">[542]</a> the Phenician
-fleet was employed to transport into Cyprus the Persian general
-Artybius with a Kilikian and Egyptian army,<a id="FNanchor_543"
-href="#Footnote_543" class="fnanchor">[543]</a>—while the force under
-Artaphernês at Sardis was so strengthened as to enable him to act
-at once against all the coast of Asia Minor, from the Propontis to
-the Triopian promontory. On the other side, the common danger had
-for the moment brought the Ionians into a state of union foreign to
-their usual habit, and we hear now, for the first and the last time,
-of a tolerably efficient Pan-Ionic authority.<a id="FNanchor_544"
-href="#Footnote_544" class="fnanchor">[544]</a></p>
-
-<p>Apprized of the coming of Artybius with the Phenician fleet,
-Onesilus and his Cyprian supporters solicited the aid of the Ionic
-fleet, which arrived shortly after the disembarkation of the Persian
-force in the island. Onesilus offered to the Ionians their choice,
-whether they would fight the Phenicians at sea or the Persians on
-land. Their natural determination was in favor of the seafight,
-and they engaged with a degree of courage and unanimity<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[p. 293]</span> which procured for them
-a brilliant victory; the Samians being especially distinguished.<a
-id="FNanchor_545" href="#Footnote_545" class="fnanchor">[545]</a> But
-the combat on land, carried on at the same time, took a different
-turn. Onesilus and the Salaminians brought into the field, after
-the fashion of Orientals rather than of Greeks, a number of scythed
-chariots, destined to break the enemy’s ranks; while on the other
-hand the Persian general Artybius was mounted on a horse, trained
-to rise on his hind legs and strike out with his fore legs against
-an opponent on foot. In the thick of the fight, Onesilus and his
-Karian shield-bearer came into personal conflict with this general
-and his horse; and by previous concert, when the horse so reared as
-to get his fore legs over the shield of Onesilus, the Karian with
-a scythe severed the legs from his body, while Onesilus with his
-own hand slew Artybius. But the personal bravery of the Cypriots
-was rendered useless by treachery in their own ranks. Stêsênor,
-despot of Kurium, deserted in the midst of the battle, and even the
-scythed chariots of Salamis followed his example. The brave Onesilus,
-thus weakened, perished in the total rout of his army, along with
-Aristokyprus despot of Soli, on the north coast of the island: this
-latter being son of that Philokyprus who had been immortalized more
-than sixty years before, in the poems of Solon. No farther hopes now
-remained for the revolters, and the victorious Ionian fleet returned
-home. Salamis relapsed under the sway of its former despot Gorgus,
-while the remaining cities in Cyprus were successively besieged and
-taken: not without a resolute defence, however, since Soli alone
-held out five months.<a id="FNanchor_546" href="#Footnote_546"
-class="fnanchor">[546]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[p. 294]</span>Meanwhile
-the principal force of Darius having been assembled at
-Sardis,—Daurisês, Hymeas, and other generals who had married
-daughters of the Great King, distributed their efforts against
-different parts of the western coast. Daurisês attacked the towns
-near the Hellespont,<a id="FNanchor_547" href="#Footnote_547"
-class="fnanchor">[547]</a>—Abydus, Perkôtê, Lampsakus, and
-Pæsus,—which made little resistance. He was then ordered southward
-into Karia, while Hymeas, who, with another division, had taken Kios
-on the Propontis, marched down to the Hellespont and completed the
-conquest of the Troad as well as of the Æolic Greeks in the region
-of Ida. Artaphernês and Otanês attacked the Ionic and Æolic towns
-on the coast,—the former taking Klazomenæ,<a id="FNanchor_548"
-href="#Footnote_548" class="fnanchor">[548]</a> the latter Kymê.
-There remained Karia, which, with Milêtus in its neighborhood,
-offered a determined resistance to Daurisês. Forewarned of his
-approach, the Karians assembled at a spot called the White Pillars,
-near the confluence of the rivers Mæander and Marsyas. Pixodarus,
-one of their chiefs, recommended the desperate expedient of fighting
-with the river at their back, so that all chance of flight might
-be cut off;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[p. 295]</span>
-but most of the chiefs decided in favor of a contrary policy,<a
-id="FNanchor_549" href="#Footnote_549" class="fnanchor">[549]</a>—to
-let the Persians pass the river, in hopes of driving them back into
-it and thus rendering their defeat total. Victory, however, after a
-sharp contest, declared in favor of Daurisês, chiefly in consequence
-of his superior numbers: two thousand Persians, and not less than
-ten thousand Karians, are said to have perished in the battle.
-The Karian fugitives, reunited after the flight, in the grove of
-noble plane-trees consecrated to Zeus Stratius, near Labranda,<a
-id="FNanchor_550" href="#Footnote_550" class="fnanchor">[550]</a>
-were deliberating whether they should now submit to the Persians or
-emigrate forever, when the appearance of a Milesian reinforcement
-restored their courage. A second battle was fought, and a second
-time they were defeated, the loss on this occasion falling chiefly
-on the Milesians.<a id="FNanchor_551" href="#Footnote_551"
-class="fnanchor">[551]</a> The victorious Persians now proceeded to
-assault Karian cities, but Herakleidês of Mylasa laid an ambuscade
-for them with so much skill and good fortune, that their army was
-nearly destroyed, and Daurisês with other Persian generals perished.
-This successful effort, following upon two severe defeats, does
-honor to the constancy of the Karians, upon whom Greek proverbs
-generally fasten a mean reputation. It saved for the time the Karian
-towns, which the Persians did not succeed in reducing until after
-the capture of Milêtus.<a id="FNanchor_552" href="#Footnote_552"
-class="fnanchor">[552]</a></p>
-
-<p>On land, the revolters were thus everywhere worsted, though<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[p. 296]</span> at sea the Ionians
-still remained masters. But the unwarlike Aristagoras began to
-despair of success, and to meditate a mean desertion of the
-companions and countrymen whom he had himself betrayed into danger.
-Assembling his chief advisers, he represented to them the unpromising
-state of affairs, and the necessity of securing some place of
-refuge, in case they were expelled from Milêtus. He then put the
-question to them, whether the island of Sardinia, or Myrkinus in
-Thrace, near the Strymon (which Histiæus had begun some time before
-to fortify, as I have mentioned in the preceding chapter), appeared
-to them best adapted to the purpose. Among the persons consulted
-was Hekatæus the historian, who approved neither the one nor the
-other scheme, but suggested the erection of a fortified post in the
-neighboring island of Leros; a Milesian colony, wherein a temporary
-retirement might be sought, should it prove impossible to hold
-Milêtus, but which permitted an easy return to that city, so soon
-as opportunity offered.<a id="FNanchor_553" href="#Footnote_553"
-class="fnanchor">[553]</a> Such an opinion must doubtless have been
-founded on the assumption, that they would be able to maintain
-superiority at sea. And it is important to note such confident
-reliance upon this superiority in the mind of a sagacious man, not
-given to sanguine hopes, like Hekatæus,—even under circumstances
-very unprosperous on land. Emigration to Myrkinus, as proposed by
-Aristagoras, presented no hope of refuge at all; since the Persians,
-if they regained their authority in Asia Minor, would not fail again
-to extend it to the Strymon. Nevertheless, the consultation ended
-by adopting this scheme, since, probably, no Ionians could endure
-the immeasurable distance of Sardinia as a new home. Aristagoras
-set sail for Myrkinus, taking with him all who chose to bear him
-company; but he perished not long after landing, together with nearly
-all his company, in the siege of a neighboring Thracian town.<a
-id="FNanchor_554" href="#Footnote_554" class="fnanchor">[554]</a>
-Though making profession to lay down his supreme authority at the
-commencement of the revolt, he had still contrived to retain it in
-great measure; and on departing for Myrkinus, he devolved it on
-Pythagoras, a citizen in high esteem. It appears however that the
-Milesians, glad to get rid of a leader who had brought them<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[p. 297]</span> nothing but mischief,<a
-id="FNanchor_555" href="#Footnote_555" class="fnanchor">[555]</a>
-paid little obedience to his successor, and made their government
-from this period popular in reality as well as in profession. The
-desertion of Aristagoras, with the citizens whom he carried away,
-must have seriously damped the spirits of those who remained:
-nevertheless, it seems that the cause of the Ionic revolters was
-quite as well conducted without him.</p>
-
-<p>Not long after his departure, another despot—Histiæus of Milêtus,
-his father-in-law, and jointly with him the fomenter of the
-revolt—presented himself at the gates of Milêtus for admission. The
-outbreak of the revolt had enabled him, as he had calculated, to
-procure leave of departure from Darius. That prince had been thrown
-into violent indignation by the attack and burning of Sardis, and
-by the general revolt of Ionia, headed (so the news reached him)
-by the Milesian Aristagoras, but carried into effect by the active
-coöperation of the Athenians. “The Athenians (exclaimed Darius),
-who are <i>they</i>?” On receiving the answer, he asked for his bow,
-placed an arrow on the string, and shot as high as he could towards
-the heavens, saying: “Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on the
-Athenians.” He at the same time desired an attendant to remind him
-thrice every day at dinner: “Master, remember the Athenians;” for
-as to the Ionians, he felt assured that their hour of retribution
-would come speedily and easily enough.<a id="FNanchor_556"
-href="#Footnote_556" class="fnanchor">[556]</a></p>
-
-<p>This Homeric incident deserves notice as illustrating the epical
-handling of Herodotus. His theme is, the invasions of Greece by
-Persia: he has now arrived at the first eruption, in the bosom of
-Darius, of that passion which impelled the Persian forces towards
-Marathon and Salamis,—and he marks the beginning of the new phase
-by act and word both alike significant. It may be compared to the
-libation and prayer addressed by Achilles in the Iliad to Zeus, at
-the moment when he is sending forth Patroklus and the Myrmidons to
-the rescue of the despairing Greeks.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[p. 298]</span>At first,
-Darius had been inclined to ascribe the movement in Ionia to the
-secret instigation of Histiæus, whom he called into his presence and
-questioned. But the latter found means to satisfy him, and even to
-make out that no such mischief would have occurred, if he, Histiæus,
-had been at Milêtus instead of being detained at Susa. “Send me
-down to the spot, he asseverated, and I engage not merely to quell
-the revolt, and put into your hands the traitor who heads it, but
-also, not to take off this tunic from my body, before I shall have
-added to your empire the great island of Sardinia.” An expedition
-to Sardinia, though never realized, appears to have been among the
-favorite fancies of the Ionic Greeks of that day.<a id="FNanchor_557"
-href="#Footnote_557" class="fnanchor">[557]</a> By such boasts
-and assurances he obtained his liberty, and went down to Sardis,
-promising to return as soon as he should have accomplished them.<a
-id="FNanchor_558" href="#Footnote_558" class="fnanchor">[558]</a></p>
-
-<p>But on reaching Sardis he found the satrap Artaphernês better
-informed than the Great King at Susa. Though Histiæus, when
-questioned as to the causes which had brought on the outbreak,
-affected nothing but ignorance and astonishment, Artaphernês
-detected his evasions, and said: “I will tell you how the facts
-stand, Histiæus: it is you that have stitched this shoe, and
-Aristagoras has put it on.”<a id="FNanchor_559" href="#Footnote_559"
-class="fnanchor">[559]</a> Such a declaration promised little
-security to the suspected Milesian who heard it; and accordingly,
-as soon as night arrived, he took to flight, went down to the
-coast, and from thence passed over to Chios. Here he found himself
-seized on the opposite count, as the confidant of Darius and the
-enemy of Ionia: he was released, however, on proclaiming himself
-not merely a fugitive escaping from Persian custody, but also as
-the prime author of the Ionic revolt. And<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_299">[p. 299]</span> he farther added, in order to increase
-his popularity, that Darius had contemplated the translation of the
-Ionian population to Phenicia, as well as that of the Phenician
-population to Ionia,—to prevent which translation he, Histiæus, had
-instigated the revolt. This allegation, though nothing better than
-a pure fabrication, obtained for him the good-will of the Chians,
-who carried him back to Milêtus. But before he departed, he avenged
-himself on Artaphernês by despatching to Sardis some false letters,
-implicating many distinguished Persians in a conspiracy jointly with
-himself: these letters were so managed as to fall into the hands of
-the satrap himself, who became full of suspicion, and put to death
-several of the parties, to the great uneasiness of all around him.<a
-id="FNanchor_560" href="#Footnote_560" class="fnanchor">[560]</a></p>
-
-<p>On arriving at Milêtus, Histiæus found Aristagoras no longer
-present, and the citizens altogether adverse to the return of their
-old despot. Nevertheless, he tried to force his way by night into the
-town, but was repulsed and even wounded in the thigh. He returned
-to Chios, but the Chians refused him the aid of any of their ships:
-he next passed to Lesbos, from the inhabitants of which island he
-obtained eight triremes, and employed them to occupy Byzantium,
-pillaging and detaining the Ionian merchant-ships as they passed
-into or out of the Euxine.<a id="FNanchor_561" href="#Footnote_561"
-class="fnanchor">[561]</a> The few remaining piracies of this
-worthless traitor, mischievous to his countrymen down to the day
-of his death, hardly deserve our notice, amidst the last struggles
-and sufferings of the subjugated Ionians, to which we are now
-hastening.</p>
-
-<p>A vast Persian force, both military and naval, was gradually
-concentrating itself near Milêtus, against which city Artaphernês had
-determined to direct his principal efforts. Not only the whole army
-of Asia Minor, but also the Kilikian and Egyptian troops fresh from
-the conquest of Cyprus, and even the conquered Cypriots themselves,
-were brought up as reinforcements; while the entire Phenician fleet,
-no less than six hundred ships strong, coöperated on the coast.<a
-id="FNanchor_562" href="#Footnote_562" class="fnanchor">[562]</a> To
-meet such a land-force in the field, being far beyond the strength
-of the Ionians, the joint Pan-Ionic council resolved that the
-Milesians should be left to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[p.
-300]</span> defend their own fortifications, while the entire force
-of the confederate cities should be mustered on board the ships. At
-sea they had as yet no reason to despair, having been victorious
-over the Phenicians near Cyprus, and having sustained no defeat.
-The combined Ionic fleet, including the Æolic Lesbians, amounting
-in all to the number of three hundred and fifty-three ships, was
-accordingly mustered at Ladê,—then a little island near Milêtus,
-but now joined on to the coast, by the gradual accumulation of
-land in the bay at the mouth of the Mæander. Eighty Milesian ships
-formed the right wing, one hundred Chian ships the centre, and sixty
-Samian ships the left wing; while the space between the Milesians
-and the Chians was occupied by twelve ships from Priênê, three from
-Myus, and seventeen from Teôs,—the space between the Chians and
-Samians was filled by eight ships from Erythræ, three from Phôkæa,
-and seventy from Lesbos.<a id="FNanchor_563" href="#Footnote_563"
-class="fnanchor">[563]</a></p>
-
-<p>The total armament thus made up was hardly inferior in number to
-that which, fifteen years afterwards, gained the battle of Salamis
-against a far larger Persian fleet than the present. Moreover, the
-courage of the Ionians, on ship-board, was equal to that of their
-contemporaries on the other side of the Ægean; while in respect
-of disagreement among the allies, we shall hereafter find the
-circumstances preceding the battle of Salamis still more menacing
-than those before the coming battle of Ladê. The chances of success,
-therefore, were at least equal between the two; and indeed the
-anticipations of the Persians and Phenicians on the present occasion
-were full of doubt, so that they thought it necessary to set on
-foot express means for disuniting the Ionians,—it was fortunate for
-the Greeks that Xerxês at Salamis could not be made to conceive the
-prudence of aiming at the same object. There were now in the Persian
-camp all those various despots whom Aristagoras, at the beginning
-of the revolt, had driven out of their respective cities. At the
-instigation of Artaphernês, each of these men despatched secret
-communications to their citizens in the allied fleet, endeavoring
-to detach them severally from the general body, by promises of
-gentle treatment in the event of compliance, and by threats of<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[p. 301]</span> extreme infliction
-from the Persians if they persisted in armed efforts. Though
-these communications were sent to each without the knowledge of
-the rest, yet the answer from all was one unanimous negative.<a
-id="FNanchor_564" href="#Footnote_564" class="fnanchor">[564]</a> And
-the confederates at Ladê seemed more one, in heart and spirit, than
-the Athenians, Spartans, and Corinthians will hereafter prove to be
-at Salamis.</p>
-
-<p>But there was one grand difference which turned the scale,—the
-superior energy and ability of the Athenian leaders at Salamis,
-coupled with the fact that they <i>were</i> Athenians,—that is, in command
-of the largest and most important contingent throughout the fleet.</p>
-
-<p>At Ladê, unfortunately, this was quite otherwise: each separate
-contingent had its own commander, but we hear of no joint commander
-at all. Nor were the chiefs who came from the larger cities—Milesian,
-Chian, Samian, or Lesbian—men like Themistoklês, competent and
-willing to stand forward as self-created leaders, and to usurp for
-the moment, with the general consent and for the general benefit, a
-privilege not intended for them. The only man of sufficient energy
-and forwardness to do this, was the Phôkæan Dionysius,—unfortunately,
-the captain of the smallest contingent of the fleet, and therefore
-enjoying the least respect. For Phôkæa, once the daring explorer of
-the western waters, had so dwindled down since the Persian conquest
-of Ionia, that she could now furnish no more than three ships;
-and her ancient maritime spirit survived only in the bosom of her
-captain. When Dionysius saw the Ionians assembled at Ladê, willing,
-eager, full of talk and mutual encouragement, but untrained and
-taking no thought of discipline, or nautical practice, or coöperation
-in the hour of battle,—he saw the risk which they ran for want of
-these precautions, and strenuously remonstrated with them: “Our fate
-hangs on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia: either to be freemen or
-slaves,—and slaves too, caught after running away. Set yourself at
-once to work and duty,—you will then have trouble indeed at first,
-with certain victory and freedom afterwards. But if you persist
-in this carelessness and disorder, there is no hope for you to
-escape the king’s revenge for your revolt. Be persuaded and commit
-yourself to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[p. 302]</span> me;
-and I pledge myself, if the gods only hold an equal balance, that
-your enemies either will not fight, or will be severely beaten.”<a
-id="FNanchor_565" href="#Footnote_565" class="fnanchor">[565]</a></p>
-
-<p>The wisdom of this advice was so apparent, that the Ionians,
-quitting their comfortable tents on the shore of Ladê and going on
-board their ships, submitted themselves to the continuous nautical
-labors and manœuvres imposed upon them by Dionysius. The rowers, and
-the hoplites on the deck, were exercised in their separate functions,
-and even when they were not so employed, the ships were kept at
-anchor, and the crews on board, instead of on shore; so that the work
-lasted all day long, under a hot summer’s sun. Such labor, new to
-the Ionian crews, was endured for seven successive days, after which
-they broke out with one accord into resolute mutiny and refusal:
-“Which of the gods have we offended, to bring upon ourselves such
-a retribution as this? madmen as we are, to put ourselves into the
-hands of this Phôkæan braggart, who has furnished only three ships!<a
-id="FNanchor_566" href="#Footnote_566" class="fnanchor">[566]</a>
-He has now got us, and is ruining us without remedy: many of us are
-already sick, many others are sickening; we had better make up our
-minds to Persian slavery, or any other mischiefs, rather than go on
-with these present sufferings. Come, we will not obey this man any
-longer.” And they forthwith refused to execute his orders, resuming
-their tents on shore, with the enjoyments of shade, rest, and
-inactive talk, as before.</p>
-
-<p>I have not chosen to divest this instructive scene of the
-dramatic liveliness with which it is given in Herodotus,—the
-more so as it has all the air of reality, and as Hekatæus, the
-historian, was probably present in the island of Ladê, and may
-have described what he actually saw and heard. When we see the
-in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[p. 303]</span>tolerable
-hardship which these nautical manœuvres and labors imposed upon the
-Ionians, though men not unaccustomed to ordinary ship-work,—and
-when we witness their perfect incapacity to submit themselves to
-such a discipline, even with extreme danger staring them in the
-face,—we shall be able to appreciate the severe and unremitting toil
-whereby the Athenian seaman afterwards purchased that perfection
-of nautical discipline which characterized him at the beginning
-of the Peloponnesian war. It will appear, as we proceed with this
-history, that the full development of the Athenian democracy worked
-a revolution in Grecian military marine, chiefly by enforcing upon
-the citizen seaman a strict continuous training, such as was only
-surpassed by the Lacedæmonian drill on land,—and by thus rendering
-practicable a species of nautical manœuvring which was unknown even
-at the time of the battle of Salamis. I shall show this more fully
-hereafter: at present, I contrast it briefly with the incapacity of
-the Ionians at Ladê, in order that it may be understood how painful
-such training really was. The reader of Grecian history is usually
-taught to associate only ideas of turbulence and anarchy with the
-Athenian democracy; but the Athenian navy, the child and champion
-of that democracy, will be found to display an indefatigable labor
-and obedience nowhere else witnessed in Greece, and of which even
-the first lessons, as in the case now before us, prove to others so
-irksome as to outweigh the prospect of extreme and imminent peril.
-The same impatience of steady toil and discipline, which the Ionians
-displayed to their own ruin before the battle of Ladê, will be found
-to characterize them fifty years afterwards as allies of Athens, as
-I shall have occasion to show when I come to describe the Athenian
-empire.</p>
-
-<p>Ending in this abrupt and mutinous manner, the judicious
-suggestions of the Phôkæan leader did more harm than good. Perhaps
-his manner of dealing may have been unadvisedly rude, but we are
-surprised to see that no one among the leaders of the larger
-contingents had the good sense to avail himself of the first
-readiness of the Ionians, and to employ his superior influence in
-securing the continuance of a good practice once begun. Not one such
-superior man did this Ionic revolt throw up. From the day on which
-the Ionians discarded Dionysius, their camp be<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_304">[p. 304]</span>came a scene of disunion and mistrust.
-Some of them grew so reckless and unmanageable, that the better
-portion despaired of maintaining any orderly battle; and the Samians
-in particular now repented that they had declined the secret
-offers made to them by their expelled despot,<a id="FNanchor_567"
-href="#Footnote_567" class="fnanchor">[567]</a>—Æakês, son of
-Sylosôn. They sent privately to renew the negotiation, received
-a fresh promise of the same indulgence, and agreed to desert
-when the occasion arrived. On the day of battle, when the two
-fleets were on the point of coming to action, the sixty Samian
-ships all sailed off, except eleven, whose captains disdained
-such treachery. Other Ionians followed their example; yet amidst
-the reciprocal crimination which Herodotus had heard, he finds
-it difficult to determine who was most to blame, though he names
-the Lesbians as among the earliest deserters.<a id="FNanchor_568"
-href="#Footnote_568" class="fnanchor">[568]</a> The hundred ships
-from Chios, constituting the centre of the fleet—each ship carrying
-forty chosen soldiers fully armed—formed a brilliant exception to
-the rest; they fought with the greatest fidelity and resolution,
-inflicting upon the enemy, and themselves sustaining, heavy loss.
-Dionysius, the Phôkæan, also behaved in a manner worthy of his
-previous language,—capturing with his three ships the like number
-of Phenicians. But these examples of bravery did not compensate the
-treachery or cowardice of the rest, and the defeat of the Ionians at
-Ladê was complete as well as irrecoverable. To the faithful Chians,
-the loss was terrible, both in the battle and after it. For though
-some of their vessels escaped from the defeat safely to Chios,
-others were so damaged as to be obliged to run ashore close at hand
-on the promontory of Mykalê, where the crews quitted them, with the
-intention of marching northward, through the Ephesian territory, to
-the continent opposite their own island. We hear with astonishment
-that, at that critical moment, the Ephesian women were engaged in
-solemnizing the Thesmophoria,—a festival celebrated at night, in the
-open air, in some uninhabited portion of the territory, and without
-the presence of any male person. As the Chian fugitives entered
-the Ephesian territory by night, their coming being neither known
-nor anticipated,—it was believed that they were thieves or pirates
-coming to seize the women, and under this<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_305">[p. 305]</span> error they were attacked by the
-Ephesians and slain.<a id="FNanchor_569" href="#Footnote_569"
-class="fnanchor">[569]</a> It would seem from this incident that
-the Ephesians had taken no part in the Ionic revolt, nor are
-they mentioned amidst the various contingents. Nor is anything
-said either of Kolophon, or Lebedus, or Eræ.<a id="FNanchor_570"
-href="#Footnote_570" class="fnanchor">[570]</a></p>
-
-<p>The Phôkæan Dionysius, perceiving that the defeat of Ladê was the
-ruin of the Ionic cause, and that his native city was again doomed
-to Persian subjection, did not think it prudent even to return home.
-Immediately after the battle he set sail, not for Phôkæa, but for the
-Phenician coast, at this moment stripped of its protecting cruisers.
-He seized several Phenician merchantmen, out of which considerable
-profit was obtained: then setting sail for Sicily, he undertook the
-occupation of a privateer against the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians,
-abstaining from injury towards Greeks.<a id="FNanchor_571"
-href="#Footnote_571" class="fnanchor">[571]</a> Such an employment
-seems then to have been perfectly admissible. A considerable body of
-Samians also migrated to Sicily, indignant at the treachery of their
-admirals in the battle, and yet more indignant at the approaching
-restoration of their despot Æakês. How these Samian emigrants became
-established in the Sicilian town of Zanklê,<a id="FNanchor_572"
-href="#Footnote_572" class="fnanchor">[572]</a> I shall mention as a
-part of the course of Sicilian events, which will come hereafter.</p>
-
-<p>The victory of Ladê enabled the Persians to attack Milêtus by
-sea as well as by land; they prosecuted the siege with the utmost
-vigor, by undermining the walls, and by various engines of attack:
-in which department their resources seem to have been enlarged since
-the days of Harpagus. In no long time the city was taken by storm,
-and miserable was the fate reserved to it. The adult male population
-was chiefly slain; while such of them as were preserved, together
-with the women and children, were sent in a body to Susa, to await
-the orders of Darius,—who assigned to them a residence at Ampê, not
-far from the mouth of the Tigris. The temple at Branchidæ was burned
-and pillaged, as Hekatæus had predicted at the beginning of the
-revolt: the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[p. 306]</span> large
-treasures therein contained must have gone far to defray the costs
-of the Persian army. The Milesian territory is said to have been
-altogether denuded of its former inhabitants,—the Persians retaining
-for themselves the city with the plain adjoining to it, and making
-over the mountainous portions to the Karians of Pedasa. Some few of
-the Milesians found a place among the Samian emigrants to Sicily.<a
-id="FNanchor_573" href="#Footnote_573" class="fnanchor">[573]</a>
-It is certain, however, that new Grecian inhabitants must have been
-subsequently admitted into Milêtus; for it appears ever afterwards as
-a Grecian town, though with diminished power and importance.</p>
-
-<p>The capture of Milêtus, in the sixth year from the commencement
-of the revolt,<a id="FNanchor_574" href="#Footnote_574"
-class="fnanchor">[574]</a> carried with it the rapid submission
-of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[p. 307]</span> the
-neighboring towns in Karia.<a id="FNanchor_575" href="#Footnote_575"
-class="fnanchor">[575]</a> During the next summer,—the Phenician
-fleet having wintered at Milêtus,—the Persian forces by sea
-and land reconquered all the Asiatic Greeks, insular as well
-as continental. Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos,—the towns in the
-Chersonese,—Selymbria and Perinthus in Thrace,—Prokonnêsus and
-Artakê in the Propontis,—all these towns were taken or sacked by the
-Persian and Phenician fleet.<a id="FNanchor_576" href="#Footnote_576"
-class="fnanchor">[576]</a> The inhabitants of Byzantium and Chalkêdôn
-fled for the most part, without even awaiting its arrival, to
-Mesembria, and the Athenian Miltiadês only escaped Persian captivity
-by a rapid flight from his abode in the Chersonese to Athens. His
-pursuers were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[p. 308]</span>
-indeed so close upon him, that one of his ships, with his son
-Metiochus on board, fell into their hands. As Miltiadês had been
-strenuous in urging the destruction of the bridge over the Danube,
-on the occasion of the Scythian expedition, the Phenicians were
-particularly anxious to get possession of his person, as the most
-acceptable of all Greek prisoners to the Persian king; who, however,
-when Metiochus the son of Miltiadês was brought to Susa, not only
-did him no harm, but treated him with great kindness, and gave him
-a Persian wife with a comfortable maintenance.<a id="FNanchor_577"
-href="#Footnote_577" class="fnanchor">[577]</a></p>
-
-<p>Far otherwise did the Persian generals deal with the reconquered
-cities on and near the coast. The threats which had been held out
-before the battle of Ladê were realized to the full. The most
-beautiful Greek youths and virgins were picked out, to be distributed
-among the Persian grandees as eunuchs, or inmates of the harems; the
-cities with their edifices, sacred as well as profane, were made
-a prey to the flames; and in the case of the islands, Herodotus
-even tells us, that a line of Persians was formed from shore to
-shore, which swept each territory from north to south, and drove
-the inhabitants out of it.<a id="FNanchor_578" href="#Footnote_578"
-class="fnanchor">[578]</a> That much of this hard treatment is well
-founded, there can be no doubt. But it must be exaggerated as to
-extent of depopulation and destruction, for these islands and cities
-appear ever afterwards as occupied by a Grecian population, and
-even as in a tolerable, though reduced, condition. Samos was made
-an exception to the rest, and completely spared by the Persians,
-as a reward to its captains for setting the example of desertion
-at the battle of Ladê; at the same time, Æakês the despot of that
-island was reinstated in his government.<a id="FNanchor_579"
-href="#Footnote_579" class="fnanchor">[579]</a> It appears that
-several other despots were also replaced in their respective cities,
-though we are not told which.</p>
-
-<p>Amidst the sufferings endured by so many innocent persons, of
-every age and of both sexes, the fate of Histiæus excites but
-little sympathy. Having learned, while carrying on his piracies at
-Byzantium, the surrender of Milêtus, he thought it expedient to
-sail with his Lesbian vessels to Chios, where admittance was<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[p. 309]</span> refused to him. But the
-Chians, weakened as they had been by the late battle, were in little
-condition to resist, so that he defeated their troops and despoiled
-the island. During the present break-up of the Asiatic Greeks, there
-were doubtless many who, like the Phôkæan Dionysius, did not choose
-to return home to an enslaved city, yet had no fixed plan for a
-new abode: of these exiles, a considerable number put themselves
-under the temporary command of Histiæus, and accompanied him to
-the plunder of Thasos.<a id="FNanchor_580" href="#Footnote_580"
-class="fnanchor">[580]</a> While besieging that town, he learned
-the news that the Phenician fleet had quitted Milêtus to attack the
-remaining Ionic towns; and he left his designs on Thasos unfinished,
-in order to go and defend Lesbos. But in this latter island the
-dearth of provisions was such, that he was forced to cross over to
-the continent to reap the standing corn around Atarneus and in the
-fertile plain of Mysia near the river Kaïkus. Here he fell in with a
-considerable Persian force under Harpagus,—was beaten, compelled to
-flee, and taken prisoner. On his being carried to Sardis, Artaphernês
-the satrap caused him to be at once crucified: partly, no doubt, from
-genuine hatred, but partly also under the persuasion that, if he were
-sent up as a prisoner to Susa, he might again become dangerous,—since
-Darius would even now spare his life, under an indelible sentiment of
-gratitude for the maintenance of the bridge over the Danube. The head
-of Histiæus was embalmed and sent up to Susa, where Darius caused
-it to be honorably buried, condemning this precipitate execution
-of a man who had once been his preserver.<a id="FNanchor_581"
-href="#Footnote_581" class="fnanchor">[581]</a></p>
-
-<p>We need not wonder that the capture of Milêtus excited the
-strongest feeling, of mixed sympathy and consternation, among
-the Athenians. In the succeeding year (so at least we are led to
-think, though the date cannot be positively determined), it was
-selected as the subject of a tragedy,—The Capture of Milêtus,—by the
-dramatic poet Phrynichus; which, when performed, so painfully wrung
-the feelings of the Athenian audience, that they burst into tears
-in the theatre, and the poet was condemned to pay a fine of one
-thousand drachmæ, as “having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[p.
-310]</span> recalled to them their own misfortunes.”<a
-id="FNanchor_582" href="#Footnote_582" class="fnanchor">[582]</a>
-The piece was forbidden to be afterwards acted, and has not come
-down to us. Some critics have supposed that Herodotus has not
-correctly assigned the real motive which determined the Athenians
-to impose this fine.<a id="FNanchor_583" href="#Footnote_583"
-class="fnanchor">[583]</a> For it is certain that the subjects
-usually selected for tragedy were portions of heroic legend, and not
-matters of recent history; so that the Athenians might complain of
-Phrynichus on the double ground,—for having violated an established
-canon of propriety, as well as for touching their sensibilities too
-deeply. Still, I see no reason for doubting that the cause assigned
-by Herodotus is substantially the true one; but it is very possible
-that Phrynichus, at an age when tragic poetry had not yet reached its
-full development, might touch this very tender subject with a rough
-and offensive hand, before a people who had fair reason to dread
-the like cruel fate for themselves. Æschylus, in his Persæ, would
-naturally carry with him the full tide of Athenian sympathy, while
-dwelling on the victories of Salamis and Platæa. But to interest the
-audience in Persian success and Grecian suffering, was a task in
-which much greater poets than Phrynichus would have failed,—and which
-no judicious poet would have undertaken. The sack of Magdeburg, by
-Count Tilly, in the Thirty Years’ war, was not likely to be endured
-as the subject of dramatic representation in any Protestant town of
-Germany.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_36">
- <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[p. 311]</span></p>
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXVI.<br />
- FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">In the</span> preceding chapter,
-I indicated the point of confluence between the European and Asiatic
-streams of Grecian history,—the commencement of a decided Persian
-intention to conquer Attica; manifested first in the form of a
-threat by Artaphernês the satrap, when he enjoined the Athenians to
-take back Hippias as the only condition of safety, and afterwards
-converted into a passion in the bosom of Darius in consequence of the
-burning of Sardis. From this time forward, therefore, the affairs
-of Greece and Persia came to be in direct relation one with the
-other, and capable of being embodied, much more than before, into one
-continuous narrative.</p>
-
-<p>The reconquest of Ionia being thoroughly completed, Artaphernês
-proceeded to organize the future government of it, with a degree of
-prudence and forethought not often visible in Persian proceedings.
-Convoking deputies from all the different cities, he compelled
-them to enter into a permanent convention, for the amicable
-settlement of disputes, so as to prevent all employment of force
-by any one against the others. Moreover, he caused the territory
-of each city to be measured by parasangs (each parasang was equal
-to thirty stadia, or about three miles and a half), and arranged
-the assessments of tribute according to this measurement, without
-any material departure, however, from the sums which had been
-paid before the revolt.<a id="FNanchor_584" href="#Footnote_584"
-class="fnanchor">[584]</a></p>
-
-<p>Unfortunately, Herodotus is unusually brief in his allusion to
-this proceeding, which it would have been highly interesting to be
-able to comprehend perfectly. We may, however, assume it as certain,
-that both the population and the territory of many among the Ionic
-cities, if not of all, were materially altered in consequence of
-the preceding revolt, and still more in conse<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_312">[p. 312]</span>quence of the cruelties with which the
-suppression of the revolt had been accompanied. In regard to Milêtus,
-Herodotus tells us that the Persians retained for themselves the
-city with its circumjacent plain, but gave the mountain portion of
-the Milesian territory to the Karians of Pêdasa.<a id="FNanchor_585"
-href="#Footnote_585" class="fnanchor">[585]</a> Such a proceeding
-would naturally call for a fresh measurement and assessment of
-tribute; and there may have been similar transfers of land elsewhere.
-I have already observed that the statements which we find in
-Herodotus, of utter depopulation and destruction falling upon the
-cities, cannot be credited in their full extent; for these cities
-are all peopled, and all Hellenic, afterwards. But there can be no
-doubt that they are partially true, and that the miseries of those
-days, as stated in the work of Hekatæus, as well as by contemporary
-informants with whom Herodotus had probably conversed, must have
-been extreme. New inhabitants would probably be admitted in many of
-them, to supply the loss sustained; and such infusion of fresh blood
-would strengthen the necessity for the organization introduced by
-Artaphernês, in order to determine clearly the obligations due from
-the cities both to the Persian government and towards each other.
-Herodotus considers that the arrangement was extremely beneficial to
-the Ionians, and so it must unquestionably have appeared, coming as
-it did immediately after so much previous suffering. He farther adds,
-that the tribute then fixed remained unaltered until his own day,—a
-statement requiring some comment, which I reserve until the time
-arrives for describing the condition of the Asiatic Greeks after the
-repulse of Xerxês from Greece proper.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile, the intentions of Darius for the conquest of Greece
-were now effectively manifested: Mardonius, invested with the
-supreme command, and at the head of a large force, was sent down
-in the ensuing spring for the purpose. Having reached Kilikia in
-the course of the march, he himself got on ship-board and went
-by sea to Ionia, while his army marched across Asia Minor to the
-Hellespont. His proceeding in Ionia surprises us, and seems to have
-appeared surprising as well to Herodotus himself as to his readers.
-Mardonius deposed the despots throughout the various Greek cities,<a
-id="FNanchor_586" href="#Footnote_586" class="fnanchor">[586]</a>
-and left the people of each<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[p.
-313]</span> to govern themselves, subject to the Persian dominion
-and tribute. This was a complete reversal of the former policy of
-Persia, and must be ascribed to a new conviction, doubtless wise and
-well founded, which had recently grown up among the Persian leaders,
-that on the whole their unpopularity was aggravated, more than their
-strength was increased, by employing these despots as instruments.
-The phenomena of the late Ionic revolt were well calculated to teach
-such a lesson; but we shall not often find the Persians profiting by
-experience, throughout the course of this history.</p>
-
-<p>Mardonius did not remain long in Ionia, but passed on with his
-fleet to the Hellespont, where the land-force had already arrived.
-He transported it across into Europe, and began his march through
-Thrace; all of which had already been reduced by Megabazus, and
-does not seem to have participated in the Ionic revolt. The island
-of Thasus surrendered to the fleet without any resistance, and the
-land-force was conveyed across the Strymon to the Greek city of
-Akanthus, on the western coast of the Strymonic gulf. From hence
-his land-force marched into Macedonia, and subdued a considerable
-portion of its inhabitants, perhaps some of those not comprised in
-the dominion of Amyntas, since that prince had before submitted to
-Megabazus. Meanwhile, he sent his fleet to double the promontory
-of Mount Athos, and to join the land-force again at the gulf of
-Therma, with a view of conquering as much of Greece as he could,
-and even of prosecuting the march as far as Athens and Eretria;<a
-id="FNanchor_587" href="#Footnote_587" class="fnanchor">[587]</a> so
-that the expedition afterwards accomplished by Xerxês would<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[p. 314]</span> have been tried at
-least by Mardonius, twelve or thirteen years earlier, had not a
-terrible storm completely disabled the fleet. The sea near Athos was
-then, and is now, full of peril to navigators. One of the hurricanes,
-so frequent in its neighborhood, overtook the Persian fleet,
-destroyed three hundred ships, and drowned or cast ashore not less
-than twenty thousand men: of those who reached the shore, many died
-of cold, or were devoured by the wild beasts on that inhospitable
-tongue of land. This disaster checked altogether the farther
-progress of Mardonius, who also sustained considerable loss with his
-land-army, and was himself wounded, in a night attack made upon him
-by the tribe of Thracians called Brygi. Though strong enough to repel
-and avenge this attack, and to subdue the Brygi, he was yet in no
-condition to advance farther. Both the land-force and the fleet were
-conveyed back to the Hellespont, and from thence across to Asia, with
-all the shame of failure. Nor was Mardonius again employed by Darius,
-though we cannot make out that the fault was imputable to him.<a
-id="FNanchor_588" href="#Footnote_588" class="fnanchor">[588]</a> We
-shall hear of him again under Xerxês.</p>
-
-<p>The ill-success of Mardonius seems to have inspired the Thasians,
-so recently subdued, with the idea of revolting. At least, they
-provoked the suspicion of Darius by making active preparations for
-defence, building war-ships, and strengthening their fortifications.
-The Thasians were at this time in great opulence, chiefly from their
-gold and silver mines, both in their island and in their mainland
-territory opposite. Their mines at Skaptê Hylê, in Thrace, yielded
-to them an annual income of eighty talents; and altogether their
-surplus revenue—after defraying all the expenses of government, so
-that the inhabitants were entirely untaxed—was two hundred talents
-(forty-six thousand pounds, if Attic talents; more, if either
-Euboic or Æginæan). With these large means, they were enabled soon
-to make preparations which excited notice among their neighbors,
-many of whom were doubtless jealous of their prosperity, and
-perhaps inclined to dispute with them possession of the profitable
-mines<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[p. 315]</span> of Skaptê
-Hylê. As in other cases, so in this: the jealousies among subject
-neighbors often procured revelations to the superior power: the
-proceedings of the Thasians were made known, and they were forced to
-raze their fortifications as well as to surrender all their ships
-to the Persians at Abdêra.<a id="FNanchor_589" href="#Footnote_589"
-class="fnanchor">[589]</a></p>
-
-<p>Though dissatisfied with Mardonius, Darius was only the more
-eagerly bent on his project of conquering Greece, and Hippias
-was at his side to keep alive his wrath against the Athenians.<a
-id="FNanchor_590" href="#Footnote_590" class="fnanchor">[590]</a>
-Orders were despatched to the maritime cities of his empire to
-equip both ships of war and horse-transports for a renewed attempt.
-His intentions were probably known in Greece itself by this time,
-from the recent march of his army to Macedonia; but he thought it
-advisable to send heralds round to most of the Grecian cities, in
-order to require from each the formal token of submission,—earth and
-water; and thus to ascertain what extent of resistance his intended
-expedition was likely to experience. The answers received were to
-a high degree favorable. Many of the continental Greeks sent their
-submission, as well as all those islanders to whom application was
-made. Among the former, we are probably to reckon the Thebans and
-Thessalians, though Herodotus does not particularize them. Among
-the latter, Naxos, Eubœa, and some of the smaller islands, are not
-included; but Ægina, at that time the first maritime power of Greece,
-is expressly included.<a id="FNanchor_591" href="#Footnote_591"
-class="fnanchor">[591]</a></p>
-
-<p>Nothing marks so clearly the imminent peril in which the liberties
-of Greece were now placed, and the terror inspired by the Persians
-after their reconquest of Ionia, as this abasement on the part of
-the Æginetans, whose commerce with the Asiatic islands and continent
-doubtless impressed them strongly with the melancholy consequences
-of unsuccessful resistance to the Great King. But on the present
-occasion, their conduct was dictated as much by antipathy to Athens
-as by fear, so that Greece was thus threatened with the intrusion
-of the Persian arm as ally and arbiter in her internal contests: a
-contingency which, if it had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[p.
-316]</span> occurred now in the dispute between Ægina and Athens,
-would have led to the certain enslavement of Greece,—though when
-it did occur nearly a century afterwards, towards the close of the
-Peloponnesian war, and in consequence of the prolonged struggle
-between Lacedæmon and Athens, Greece had become strong enough in her
-own force to endure it without the loss of substantial independence.
-The war between Thebes and Ægina on one side, and Athens on the
-other,—begun several years before, and growing out of the connection
-between Athens and Platæa,—had never yet been terminated. The
-Æginetans had taken part in that war from gratuitous feeling, either
-of friendship for Thebes, or of enmity to Athens, without any
-direct ground of quarrel,<a id="FNanchor_592" href="#Footnote_592"
-class="fnanchor">[592]</a> and they had begun the war even without
-the formality of notice. Though a period apparently not less than
-fourteen years (from about 506-492 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) had elapsed
-since it began, the state of hostility still continued; and we may
-well conceive that Hippias, the great instigator of Persian attack
-upon Greece, would not fail to enforce upon all the enemies of Athens
-the prudence of seconding, or at least of not opposing, the efforts
-of the Persian to reinstate him in that city. It was partly under
-this feeling, combined with genuine alarm, that both Thebes and Ægina
-manifested submissive dispositions towards the heralds of Darius.</p>
-
-<p>Among these heralds, some had gone both to Athens and to
-Sparta, for the same purpose of demanding earth and water. The
-reception given to them at both places was angry in the extreme.
-The Athenians cast the herald into the pit called the barathrum,<a
-id="FNanchor_593" href="#Footnote_593" class="fnanchor">[593]</a>
-into which they sometimes precipitated public crimi<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[p. 317]</span>nals: the Spartans threw
-the herald who came to them into a well, desiring the unfortunate
-messenger to take earth and water from thence to the king. The
-inviolability of heralds was so ancient and undisputed in Greece,
-from the Homeric times downward, that nothing short of the fiercest
-excitement could have instigated any Grecian community to such
-an outrage. But to the Lacedæmonians, now accustomed to regard
-themselves as the first of all Grecian states, and to be addressed
-always in the character of superiors, the demand appeared so gross an
-insult as to banish from their minds for the time all recollection of
-established obligations. They came subsequently, however, to repent
-of the act as highly criminal, and to look upon it as the cause of
-misfortunes which overtook them thirty or forty years afterwards: how
-they tried at that time to expiate it, I shall hereafter recount.<a
-id="FNanchor_594" href="#Footnote_594" class="fnanchor">[594]</a></p>
-
-<p>But if, on the one hand, the wounded dignity of the Spartans
-hurried them into the commission of this wrong, it was on the other
-hand of signal use to the general liberties of Greece, by rousing
-them out of their apathy as to the coming invader, and placing
-them with regard to him in the same state of inexpiable<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[p. 318]</span> hostility as Athens
-and Eretria. We see at once the bonds drawn closer between Athens
-and Sparta. The Athenians, for the first time, prefer a complaint
-at Sparta against the Æginetans for having given earth and water
-to Darius,—accusing them of having done this with views of enmity
-to Athens, and in order to invade Attica conjointly with the
-Persian. This they represented “as treason to Hellas,” calling
-upon Sparta as head of Greece to interfere. And in consequence
-of their appeal, Kleomenês king of Sparta went over to Ægina, to
-take measures against the authors of the late proceeding, “for the
-general benefit of Hellas.”<a id="FNanchor_595" href="#Footnote_595"
-class="fnanchor">[595]</a></p>
-
-<p>The proceeding now before us is of very great importance in the
-progress of Grecian history. It is the first direct and positive
-historical manifestation of Hellas as an aggregate body, with Sparta
-as its chief, and obligations of a certain sort on the part of its
-members, the neglect or violation of which constitutes a species
-of treason. I have already pointed out several earlier incidents,
-showing how the Greek political mind, beginning from entire severance
-of states, became gradually prepared for this idea of a permanent
-league with mutual obligations and power of enforcement vested in
-a permanent chief,—an idea never fully carried into practice, but
-now distinctly manifest and partially operative. First, the great
-acquired power and territory of Sparta, her military training, her
-undisturbed political traditions, create an unconscious deference
-towards her, such as was not felt towards any other state: next,
-she is seen in the proceedings against Athens, after the expulsion
-of Hippias, as summoning and conducting to war a cluster of
-self-obliged Peloponnesian allies, with certain formalities which
-gave to the alliance an imposing permanence and solemnity: thirdly,
-her position becomes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[p.
-319]</span> recognized as first power or president of Greece, both
-by foreigners who invite alliance (Crœsus), or by Greeks who seek
-help, such as the Platæans against Thebes, or the Ionians against
-Persia. But Sparta has not been hitherto found willing to take
-on herself the performance of this duty of protector-general.
-She refused the Ionians and the Samian Mæandrius, as well as the
-Platæans, in spite of their entreaties founded on common Hellenic
-lineage: the expedition which she undertook against Polykratês of
-Samos, was founded upon private motives of displeasure, even in the
-estimation of the Lacedæmonians themselves: moreover, even if all
-these requests had been granted, she might have seemed to be rather
-obeying a generous sympathy than performing a duty incumbent upon
-her as superior. But in the case now before us, of Athens against
-Ægina, the latter consideration stands distinctly prominent. Athens
-is not a member of the cluster of Spartan allies, nor does she claim
-the compassion of Sparta, as defenceless against an overpowering
-Grecian neighbor. She complains of a Pan-Hellenic obligation as
-having been contravened by the Æginetans to her detriment and danger,
-and calls upon Sparta to enforce upon the delinquents respect to
-these obligations. For the first time in Grecian history, such a call
-is made; for the first time in Grecian history, it is effectively
-answered. We may reasonably doubt, whether it would have been thus
-answered,—considering the tardy, unimpressible, and home-keeping
-character of the Spartans, with their general insensibility
-to distant dangers,<a id="FNanchor_596" href="#Footnote_596"
-class="fnanchor">[596]</a>—if the adventure of the Persian herald had
-not occurred to gall their pride beyond endurance; to drive them into
-unpardonable hostility with the Great King; and to cast them into the
-same boat with Athens for keeping off an enemy who threatened the
-common liberties of Hellas.</p>
-
-<p>From this time, then, we may consider that there exists a
-recognized political union of Greece against the Persians,<a
-id="FNanchor_597" href="#Footnote_597" class="fnanchor">[597]</a>—or
-at least something as near to a political union as Grecian temper
-will permit,—with Sparta as its head for the present. To such a
-preëminence of Sparta, Grecian history had been gradually<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[p. 320]</span> tending; but the final
-event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled for the time
-her ancient and only rival—Argos—is now to be noticed.</p>
-
-<p>It was about three or four years before the arrival of these
-Persian heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Milêtus was
-besieged by the Persian generals, that a war broke out between
-Sparta and Argos,<a id="FNanchor_598" href="#Footnote_598"
-class="fnanchor">[598]</a>—on what grounds Herodotus does not inform
-us. Kleomenês, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should
-take Argos, led the Lacedæmonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus,
-the border river of the Argeian territory. But the sacrifices,
-without which no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he
-altered his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon,<a
-id="FNanchor_599" href="#Footnote_599" class="fnanchor">[599]</a> and
-carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos,
-and to the territory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their
-forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia,
-near Tiryns: Kleomenês, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his
-enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Herodotus, was
-enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive victory.
-For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached
-by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against the
-enemy, that they listened for the commands proclaimed aloud by the
-Lacedæmonian herald, and performed with their own army the same order
-which they thus heard given.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[p.
-321]</span> This came to the knowledge of Kleomenês, who communicated
-private notice to his soldiers, that when the herald proclaimed
-orders to go to dinner, they should not obey, but immediately
-stand to their arms. We are to presume that the Argeian camp was
-sufficiently near to that of the Lacedæmonians to enable them to
-hear the voice of the herald, yet not within sight, from the nature
-of the ground. Accordingly, so soon as the Argeians heard the
-herald in the enemy’s camp proclaim the word to go to dinner,<a
-id="FNanchor_600" href="#Footnote_600" class="fnanchor">[600]</a>
-they went to dinner themselves; and in this disorderly condition they
-were easily overthrown by the Spartans. Many of them perished in the
-field, while the fugitives took refuge in a thick grove consecrated
-to their eponymous hero Argus. Kleomenês pursued and inclosed them
-therein; but thinking it safer to employ deceit rather than force,
-he ascertained from deserters the names of the chief Argeians thus
-shut up, and then invited them out successively by means of a
-herald,—pretending that he had received their ransom, and that they
-were released. As fast as each man came out, he was put to death; the
-fate of these unhappy sufferers being concealed from their comrades
-within the grove by the thickness of the foliage, until some one
-climbing to the top of a tree detected and proclaimed the destruction
-going on,—after about fifty of the victims had perished. Unable to
-entice any more of the Argeians from their consecrated refuge, which
-they still vainly hoped would protect them, Kleomenês set fire to the
-grove, and burnt it to the ground, insomuch that the persons within
-it appear to have been destroyed, either by fire or by sword.<a
-id="FNanchor_601" href="#Footnote_601" class="fnanchor">[601]</a>
-After the conflagration had begun, he inquired for the first time
-to whom the grove belonged, and learnt that it belonged to the hero
-Argus.</p>
-
-<p>Not less than six thousand citizens, the flower and strength
-of Argos, perished in this disastrous battle and retreat. And so
-completely was the city prostrated, that Kleomenês might easily
-have taken it, had he chosen to march thither forthwith and attack
-it with vigor. If we are to believe later historians whom<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[p. 322]</span> Pausanias, Polyænus,
-and Plutarch have copied, he did march thither and attack it,
-but was repulsed by the valor of the Argeian women; who, in the
-dearth of warriors occasioned by the recent defeat, took arms along
-with the slaves, headed by the poetess Telesilla, and gallantly
-defended the walls.<a id="FNanchor_602" href="#Footnote_602"
-class="fnanchor">[602]</a> This is probably a mythe, generated by
-a desire to embody in detail the dictum of the oracle a little
-before, about “the female conquering the male.”<a id="FNanchor_603"
-href="#Footnote_603" class="fnanchor">[603]</a> Without meaning to
-deny that the Argeian women might have been capable of achieving so
-patriotic a deed, if Kleomenês had actually marched to the attack
-of their city, we are compelled, by the distinct statement of
-Herodotus, to affirm that he never did attack it. Immediately after
-the burning of the sacred grove of Argos, he dismissed the bulk of
-his army to Sparta, retaining only one thousand choice troops,—with
-whom he marched up to the Hêræum, or great temple of Hêrê, between
-Argos and Mykênæ, to offer sacrifice. The priest in attendance
-forbade him to enter, saying that no stranger was allowed to offer
-sacrifice in the temple. But Kleomenês had once already forced his
-way into the sanctuary of Athênê, on the Athenian acropolis, in
-spite of the priestess and her interdict,—and he now acted still
-more brutally towards the Argeian priest, for he directed his helots
-to drag him from the altar and scourge him.<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_323">[p. 323]</span> Having offered sacrifice, Kleomenês
-returned with his remaining force to Sparta.<a id="FNanchor_604"
-href="#Footnote_604" class="fnanchor">[604]</a></p>
-
-<p>But the army whom he had sent home returned with a full persuasion
-that Argos might easily have been taken,—that the king alone was
-to blame for having missed the opportunity. As soon as he himself
-returned, his enemies—perhaps his colleague Demaratus—brought him
-to trial before the ephors, on a charge of having been bribed,
-against which he defended himself as follows: He had invaded the
-hostile territory on the faith of an assurance from the oracle that
-he should take Argos; but so soon as he had burnt down the sacred
-grove of the hero Argus,—without knowing to whom it belonged,—he
-became at once sensible that this was all that the god meant by
-<i>taking Argos</i>, and therefore that the divine promise had been
-fully realized. Accordingly, he did not think himself at liberty
-to commence any fresh attack, until he had ascertained whether the
-gods would approve it and would grant him success. It was with this
-view that he sacrificed in the Hêræum. But though his sacrifice
-was favorable, he observed that the flame kindled on the altar
-flashed back from the bosom of the statue of Hêrê, and not from her
-head. If the flame had flashed from her head, he would have known
-at once that the gods intended him to take the city by storm;<a
-id="FNanchor_605" href="#Footnote_605" class="fnanchor">[605]</a>
-but the flash from her bosom plainly indicated that the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[p. 324]</span> topmost success was
-out of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories
-which they intended for him. We may see that Herodotus, though
-he refrains from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a
-fabrication. Not so the Spartan ephors: to them it appeared not less
-true as a story than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenês
-an honorable acquittal.<a id="FNanchor_606" href="#Footnote_606"
-class="fnanchor">[606]</a></p>
-
-<p>Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos,
-his victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as
-she did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of
-all condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedæmon. I
-have already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history,
-Argos stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary
-claims to headship, and decidedly above Lacedæmon; who gradually
-usurps from her, first the reality of superior power, next the
-recognition of preëminence,—and is now, at the period which we have
-reached, taking upon herself both the rights and the duties of a
-presiding state over a body of allies who are bound both to her and
-to each other. Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted
-at Argos, and it is very probable that the war just described grew
-in some way or other out of the increasing presidential power which
-circumstances were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete
-temporary prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the
-quiet acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or
-three years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it
-removed the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete
-with Sparta,—a rival who might well have prevented any effective
-union under another chief, though she could no longer have secured
-any Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself,—a rival who would have
-seconded Ægina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have
-lamed incurably the defen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[p.
-325]</span>sive force of Greece. The ships which Kleomenês had
-obtained from the Æginetans as well as from the Sikyonians, against
-their own will, for landing his troops at Nauplia, brought upon both
-these cities the enmity of Argos, which the Sikyonians compromised
-by paying a sum of money, while the Æginetans refused to do so.<a
-id="FNanchor_607" href="#Footnote_607" class="fnanchor">[607]</a>
-And thus the circumstances of the Kleomenic war had the effect not
-only of enfeebling Argos, but of alienating her from natural allies
-and supporters, and clearing the ground for undisputed Spartan
-primacy.</p>
-
-<p>Returning now to the complaint preferred by Athens to the Spartans
-against the traitorous submission of Ægina to Darius, we find that
-king Kleomenês passed immediately over to that island for the purpose
-of inquiry and punishment. He was proceeding to seize and carry away
-as prisoners several of the leading Æginetans, when Krius and some
-others among them opposed to him a menacing resistance, telling him
-that he came without any regular warrant from Sparta and under the
-influence of Athenian bribes,—that, in order to carry authority, both
-the Spartan kings ought to come together. It was not of their own
-accord that the Æginetans ventured to adopt so dangerous a course.
-Demaratus, the colleague of Kleomenês in the junior or Prokleid
-line of kings, had suggested to them the step and promised to carry
-them through it safely.<a id="FNanchor_608" href="#Footnote_608"
-class="fnanchor">[608]</a> Dissension between the two coördinate
-kings was no new phenomenon at Sparta; but in the case of Demaratus
-and Kleomenês, it had broken out some years previously on the
-occasion of the march against Attica; and Demaratus, hating his
-colleague more than ever, entered into the present intrigue
-with the Æginetans with the deliberate purpose of frustrating
-his intervention. He succeeded, and Kleomenês was compelled to
-return to Sparta; not without unequivocal menace against Krius
-and the other Æginetans who had repelled him,<a id="FNanchor_609"
-href="#Footnote_609" class="fnanchor">[609]</a> and not without a
-thorough determination to depose Demaratus.</p>
-
-<p>It appears that suspicions had always attached to the legiti<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[p. 326]</span>macy of Demaratus’s
-birth. His reputed father Aristo had had no offspring by two
-successive wives: at last, he became enamored of the wife of his
-friend Agêtus,—a woman of surpassing beauty,—and entrapped him into
-an agreement, whereby each solemnly bound himself to surrender
-anything belonging to him which the other might ask for. That which
-Agêtus asked from Aristo was at once given: in return, the latter
-demanded to have the wife of Agêtus, who was thunderstruck at the
-request, and indignantly complained of having been cheated into a
-sacrifice of all others the most painful: nevertheless, the oath was
-peremptory, and he was forced to comply. The birth of Demaratus took
-place so soon after this change of husbands, that when it was first
-made known to Aristo, as he sat upon a bench along with the ephors,
-he counted on his fingers the number of months since his marriage,
-and exclaimed with an oath, “The child cannot be mine.” He soon,
-however, retracted his opinion, and acknowledged the child, who grew
-up without any question being publicly raised as to his birth, and
-succeeded his father on the throne. But the original words of Aristo
-had never been forgotten, and private suspicions were still cherished
-that Demaratus was really the son of his mother’s first husband.<a
-id="FNanchor_610" href="#Footnote_610" class="fnanchor">[610]</a></p>
-
-<p>Of these suspicions, Kleomenês now resolved to avail himself,
-exciting Leotychidês, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings,
-to impugn publicly the legitimacy of Demaratus; engaging to second
-him with all his influence as next in order for the crown, and
-exacting in return a promise that he would support the intervention
-against Ægina. Leotychidês was animated not merely by ambition, but
-also by private enmity against Demaratus, who had disappointed him
-of his intended bride: he warmly entered into the scheme, arraigned
-Demaratus as no true Herakleid, and produced evidence to prove
-the original doubts expressed by Aristo. A serious dispute was
-thus raised at Sparta, and Kleomenês, espousing the pretensions of
-Leotychidês, recommended that the question as to the legitimacy of
-Demaratus should be decided by reference to the Delphian oracle.
-Through the influence of Kobôn, a powerful native of Delphi, he
-procured from the Pythian priestess an answer pronouncing<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[p. 327]</span> that Demaratus was
-not the son of Aristo.<a id="FNanchor_611" href="#Footnote_611"
-class="fnanchor">[611]</a> Leotychidês thus became king of the
-Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private station, and
-was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopædia to an official
-function. The new king, unable to repress a burst of triumphant
-spite, sent an attendant to ask him, in the public theatre, how he
-felt as an officer after having once been a king. Stung with this
-insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried them both, and
-that Leotychidês might in time come to try them both also: the
-question, he added, shall bear its fruit,—great evil, or great good,
-to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired home from the
-theatre,—offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the altar of Zeus
-Herkeios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to him who
-his real father was,—then at once quitted Sparta for Elis, under
-pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle.<a id="FNanchor_612"
-href="#Footnote_612" class="fnanchor">[612]</a></p>
-
-<p>Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious
-man,—noted, among other things, as the only Lacedæmonian king down
-to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory
-at Olympia; and Kleomenês and Leotychidês became alarmed at the
-mischief which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no
-Herakleid was allowed to establish his residence out of the country,
-on pain of death: this marks the sentiment of the Lacedæmonians, and
-Demaratus was not the less likely to give trouble because they had
-pronounced him illegitimate.<a id="FNanchor_613" href="#Footnote_613"
-class="fnanchor">[613]</a> Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him,
-and seized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[p. 328]</span> him
-in the island of Zakynthus. But the Zakynthians would not consent
-to surrender him, so that he passed unobstructed into Asia, where
-he presented himself to Darius, and was received with abundant
-favors and presents.<a id="FNanchor_614" href="#Footnote_614"
-class="fnanchor">[614]</a> We shall hereafter find him the companion
-of Xerxês, giving to that monarch advice such as, if it had been
-acted upon, would have proved the ruin of Grecian independence; to
-which, however, he would have been even more dangerous, if he had
-remained at home as king of Sparta.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile Kleomenês, having obtained a consentient colleague in
-Leotychidês, went with him over to Ægina, eager to revenge himself
-for the affront which had been put upon him. To the requisition and
-presence of the two kings jointly, the Æginetans did not dare to
-oppose any resistance. Kleomenês made choice of ten citizens, eminent
-for wealth, station, and influence, among whom were Krius and another
-person named Kasambus, the two most powerful men in the island.
-Conveying them away to Athens, he deposited them as hostages in the
-hands of the Athenians.<a id="FNanchor_615" href="#Footnote_615"
-class="fnanchor">[615]</a></p>
-
-<p>It was in this state that the affairs of Athens and of Greece
-generally were found by the Persian armament which landed at
-Marathon, the progress of which we are now about to follow. And the
-events just recounted were of material importance, considered in
-their indirect bearing upon the success of that armament. Sparta had
-now, on the invitation of Athens, assumed to herself for the first
-time a formal Pan-Hellenic primacy, her ancient rival Argos being too
-much broken to contest it,—her two kings, at this juncture unanimous,
-employ their presiding interference in coercing Ægina, and placing
-Æginetan hostages in the hands of Athens. The Æginetans would not
-have been unwilling to purchase victory over a neighbor and rival at
-the cost of submission to Persia, and it was the Spartan interference
-only which restrained them from assailing Athens conjointly with the
-Persian invaders; thus leaving the hands of the latter free, and her
-courage undiminished, for the coming trial.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile, a vast Persian force, brought together in consequence
-of the preparation made during the last two years in<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[p. 329]</span> every part of the
-empire, had assembled in the Aleïan plain of Kilikia, near the
-sea. A fleet of six hundred armed triremes, together with many
-transports, both of men and horses, was brought hither for their
-embarkation: the troops were put on board, and sailed along the
-coast to Samos in Ionia. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks constituted an
-important part of this armament, and the Athenian exile Hippias was
-on board as guide and auxiliary in the attack of Attica. The generals
-were Datis, a Median,<a id="FNanchor_616" href="#Footnote_616"
-class="fnanchor">[616]</a>—and Artaphernês, son of the satrap of
-Sardis, so named, and nephew of Darius. We may remark that Datis is
-the first person of Median lineage who is mentioned as appointed
-to high command after the accession of Darius, which had been
-preceded and marked, as I have noticed in a former chapter, by an
-outbreak of hostile nationality between the Medes and Persians.
-Their instructions were, generally, to reduce to subjection and
-tribute all such Greeks as had not already given earth and water.
-But Darius directed them most particularly to conquer Eretria and
-Athens, and to bring the inhabitants as slaves into his presence.<a
-id="FNanchor_617" href="#Footnote_617" class="fnanchor">[617]</a>
-These orders were literally meant, and probably neither the generals
-nor the soldiers of this vast armament doubted that they would be
-literally executed; and that before the end of the year, the wives,
-or rather the widows, of men like Themistoklês and Aristeidês would
-be seen among a mournful train of Athenian prisoners, on the road
-from Sardis to Susa, thus accomplishing the wish expressed by queen
-Atossa at the instance of Dêmokêdês.</p>
-
-<p>The recent terrific storm near Mount Athos deterred the
-Persians from following the example of Mardonius, and taking their
-course by the Hellespont and Thrace. It was resolved to strike
-straight across the Ægean<a id="FNanchor_618" href="#Footnote_618"
-class="fnanchor">[618]</a> (the mode of attack which
-intelligent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[p. 330]</span>
-Greeks like Themistoklês most feared, even after the repulse of
-Xerxês), from Samos to Eubœa, attacking the intermediate islands in
-the way. Among those islands was Naxos, which ten years before had
-stood a long siege, and gallantly repelled the Persian Megabatês
-with the Milesian Aristagoras. It was one of the main objects of
-Datis to efface this stain on the Persian arms, and to take a signal
-revenge on the Naxians.<a id="FNanchor_619" href="#Footnote_619"
-class="fnanchor">[619]</a> Crossing from Samos to Naxos, he landed
-his army on the island, which was found an easier prize than he had
-expected. The terrified citizens, abandoning their town, fled with
-their families to the highest summits of their mountains; while the
-Persians, seizing as slaves a few who had been dilatory in flight,
-burnt the undefended town with its edifices sacred and profane.</p>
-
-<p>Immense, indeed, was the difference in Grecian sentiment towards
-the Persians, created by the terror-striking reconquest of Ionia,
-and by the exhibition of a large Phenician fleet in the Ægean.
-The strength of Naxos was the same now as it had been before the
-Ionic revolt, and the successful resistance then made might have
-been supposed likely to nerve the courage of its inhabitants. Yet
-such is the fear now inspired by a Persian armament, that the
-eight thousand Naxian hoplites abandon their town and their gods
-without striking a blow,<a id="FNanchor_620" href="#Footnote_620"
-class="fnanchor">[620]</a> and think of nothing but personal safety
-for themselves and their families. A sad augury for Athens and
-Eretria!</p>
-
-<p>From Naxos, Datis despatched his fleet round the other Cyclades
-islands, requiring from each, hostages for fidelity and a contingent
-to increase his army. With the sacred island of Delos, however,
-he dealt tenderly and respectfully. The Delians had fled before
-his approach to Tênos, but Datis sent a herald to invite them back
-again, promised to preserve their persons and property inviolate, and
-proclaimed that he had received express orders from the Great King to
-reverence the island in which Apollo and Artemis were born. His acts
-corresponded with this language; for the fleet was not allowed to
-touch the island,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[p. 331]</span>
-and he himself, landing with only a few attendants, offered a
-magnificent sacrifice at the altar. A large portion of his armament
-consisted of Ionic Greeks, and this pronounced respect to the island
-of Delos may probably be ascribed to the desire of satisfying their
-religious feelings; for in their days of early freedom, this island
-had been the scene of their solemn periodical festivals, as I have
-already more than once remarked.</p>
-
-<p>Pursuing his course without resistance along the islands, and
-demanding reinforcements as well as hostages from each, Datis at
-length touched the southernmost portion of Eubœa,—the town of
-Karystus and its territory.<a id="FNanchor_621" href="#Footnote_621"
-class="fnanchor">[621]</a> The Karystians, though at first refusing
-either to give hostages or to furnish any reinforcements against
-their friends and neighbors, were speedily compelled to submission by
-the aggressive devastation of the invaders. This was the first taste
-of resistance which Datis had yet experienced; and the facility with
-which it was overcome gave him a promising omen as to his success
-against Eretria, whither he soon arrived.</p>
-
-<p>The destination of the armament was no secret to the inhabitants
-of this fated city, among whom consternation, aggravated by intestine
-differences, was the reigning sentiment. They made application to
-Athens for aid, which was readily and conveniently afforded to them
-by means of those four thousand kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom
-the Athenians had planted sixteen years before in the neighboring
-territory of Chalkis. Notwithstanding this reinforcement, however,
-many of them despaired of defending the city, and thought only of
-seeking shelter on the unassailable summits of the island, as the
-more numerous and powerful Naxians had already done before them;
-while another party, treacherously seeking their own profit out of
-the public calamity, lay in wait for an opportunity of betraying
-the city to the Persians.<a id="FNanchor_622" href="#Footnote_622"
-class="fnanchor">[622]</a> Though a public resolution was taken to
-defend<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[p. 332]</span> the city,
-yet so manifest was the absence of that stoutness of heart which
-could alone avail to save it, that a leading Eretrian named Æschinês
-was not ashamed to forewarn the four thousand Athenian allies of the
-coming treason, and urge them to save themselves before it was too
-late. They followed his advice and passed over to Attica by way of
-Orôpus; while the Persians disembarked their troops, and even their
-horses, in expectation that the Eretrians would come out and fight,
-at Tamynæ and other places in the territory. As the Eretrians did
-not come out, they proceeded to lay siege to the city, and for some
-days met with a brave resistance, so that the loss on both sides
-was considerable. At length two of the leading citizens, Euphorbus
-and Philagrus, with others, betrayed Eretria to the besiegers; its
-temples were burnt, and its inhabitants dragged into slavery.<a
-id="FNanchor_623" href="#Footnote_623" class="fnanchor">[623]</a>
-It is impossible to credit the exaggerated statement of Plato,
-which is applied by him to the Persians at Eretria, as it had
-been before applied by Herodotus to the Persians at Chios and
-Samos,—that they swept the territory clean of inhabitants by
-joining hands and forming a line across its whole breadth.<a
-id="FNanchor_624" href="#Footnote_624" class="fnanchor">[624]</a>
-Evidently, this is an idea illustrating the possible effects of
-numbers and ruinous conquest, which has been woven into the tissue
-of historical statements, like so many other illustrative ideas
-in the writings of Greek authors. That a large proportion of the
-inhabitants were carried away as prisoners, there can be no doubt.
-But the traitors who betrayed the town were spared and rewarded by
-the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[p. 333]</span> Persians,<a
-id="FNanchor_625" href="#Footnote_625" class="fnanchor">[625]</a> and
-we see plainly that either some of the inhabitants must have been
-left or new settlers introduced, when we find the Eretrians reckoned
-ten years afterwards among the opponents of Xerxês.</p>
-
-<p>Datis had thus accomplished with little or no resistance one of
-the two express objects commanded by Darius, and his army was elated
-with the confident hope of soon completing the other. Alter halting
-a few days at Eretria, and depositing in the neighboring islet of
-Ægilia the prisoners recently captured, he reëmbarked his army to
-cross over to Attica, and landed in the memorable bay of Marathon
-on the eastern coast,—the spot indicated by the despot Hippias, who
-now landed along with the Persians, twenty years after his expulsion
-from the government. Forty-seven years had elapsed since he had
-made as a young man this same passage, from Eretria to Marathon, in
-conjunction with his father Peisistratus, on the occasion of the
-second restoration of the latter. On that previous occasion, the
-force accompanying the father had been immeasurably inferior to that
-which now seconded the son; yet it had been found amply sufficient
-to carry him in triumph to Athens, with feeble opposition from
-citizens alike irresolute and disunited. And the march of Hippias
-from Marathon to Athens would now have been equally easy, as it was
-doubtless conceived to be by himself, both in his waking hopes and
-in the dream which Herodotus mentions,—had not the Athenians whom he
-found been men radically different from those whom he had left.</p>
-
-<p>To that great renewal of the Athenian character, under the
-democratical institutions which had subsisted since the dispossession
-of Hippias, I have already pointed attention in a former chapter.
-The modifications introduced by Kleisthenês in the constitution
-had now existed eighteen or nineteen years, without any attempt to
-overthrow them by violence. The Ten Tribes,<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_334">[p. 334]</span> each with its constituent demes,
-had become a part of the established habits of the country, and
-the citizens had become accustomed to exercise a genuine and
-self-determined decision in their assemblies, political as well
-as judicial; while even the senate of Areopagus, renovated by the
-nine annual archons successively chosen who passed into it after
-their year of office, had also become identified in feeling with
-the constitution of Kleisthenês. Individual citizens, doubtless,
-remained partisans in secret, and perhaps correspondents of Hippias;
-but the mass of citizens, in every scale of life, could look upon
-his return with nothing but terror and aversion. With what degree
-of newly-acquired energy the democratical Athenians could act
-in defence of their country and institutions, has already been
-related in a former chapter; though unfortunately we possess few
-particulars of Athenian history during the decade preceding 490
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, nor can we follow in detail the working of
-the government. The new form, however, which Athenian politics had
-assumed becomes partially manifest, when we observe the three leaders
-who stand prominent at this important epoch,—Miltiadês, Themistoklês,
-and Aristeidês.</p>
-
-<p>The first of the three had returned to Athens, three or four years
-before the approach of Datis, after six or seven years’ absence in
-the Chersonesus of Thrace, whither he had been originally sent by
-Hippias about the year 517-516 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, to inherit the
-property as well as the supremacy of his uncle the œkist Miltiadês.
-As despot of the Chersonese, and as one of the subjects of Persia,
-he had been among the Ionians who accompanied Darius to the Danube
-in his Scythian expedition, and he had been the author of that
-memorable recommendation which Histiæus and the other despots did
-not think it their interest to follow,—of destroying the bridge and
-leaving the Persian king to perish. Subsequently, he had been unable
-to remain permanently in the Chersonese, for reasons which have
-before been noticed; yet he seems to have occupied it during the
-period of the Ionic revolt.<a id="FNanchor_626" href="#Footnote_626"
-class="fnanchor">[626]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[p.
-335]</span> What part he took in that revolt we do not know. But
-he availed himself of the period while the Persian satraps were
-employed in suppressing it, and deprived of the mastery of the sea,
-to expel, in conjunction with forces from Athens, both the Persian
-garrison and Pelasgic inhabitants from the islands of Lemnos and
-Imbros. The extinction of the Ionic revolt threatened him with ruin;
-so that when the Phenician fleet, in the summer following the capture
-of Milêtus, made its conquering appearance in the Hellespont, he
-was forced to escape rapidly to Athens with his immediate friends
-and property, and with a small squadron of five ships. One of
-these ships, commanded by his son Metiochus, was actually captured
-between the Chersonese and Imbros; and the Phenicians were most
-eager to capture himself,<a id="FNanchor_627" href="#Footnote_627"
-class="fnanchor">[627]</a>—inasmuch as he was personally odious
-to Darius from his strenuous recommendation to destroy the bridge
-over the Danube. On arriving at Athens, after his escape from
-the Phenician fleet, he was brought to trial before the judicial
-popular assembly for alleged misgovernment in the Chersonese,
-or for what Herodotus calls “his despotism” there exercised.<a
-id="FNanchor_628" href="#Footnote_628" class="fnanchor">[628]</a>
-Nor is it improbable, that the Athenian citizens settled in that
-peninsula may have had good reason to complain of him,—the more so
-as he had carried out with him the maxims of government prevalent at
-Athens under the Peisistratids, and had in his pay a body of Thracian
-mercenaries. However, the people at Athens honorably acquitted
-him, probably in part from the reputation which he had obtained
-as conqueror of Lemnos;<a id="FNanchor_629" href="#Footnote_629"
-class="fnanchor">[629]</a> and he was one of the ten annually-elected
-generals of the republic, during the year of this Persian
-expedition,—chosen at the beginning of the Attic year, shortly after
-the summer solstice, at a time when Datis and Hippias had actually
-sailed, and were known to be approaching.</p>
-
-<p>The character of Miltiadês is one of great bravery and
-decision,—qualities preëminently useful to his country on the
-present crisis, and the more useful as he was under the strongest
-motive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[p. 336]</span> to put
-them forth, from the personal hostility of Darius towards him; but he
-does not peculiarly belong to the democracy of Kleisthenês, like his
-younger contemporaries Themistoklês and Aristeidês. The two latter
-are specimens of a class of men new at Athens since the expulsion
-of Hippias, and contrasting forcibly with Peisistratus, Lykurgus,
-and Megaklês, the political leaders of the preceding generation.
-Themistoklês and Aristeidês, different as they were in disposition,
-agree in being politicians of the democratical stamp, exercising
-ascendency by and through the people,—devoting their time to the
-discharge of public duties, and to the frequent discussions in the
-political and judicial meetings of the people,—manifesting those
-combined powers of action, comprehension, and persuasive speech,
-which gradually accustomed the citizens to look to them as advisers
-as well as leaders,—but always subject to criticism and accusation
-from unfriendly rivals, and exercising such rivalry towards each
-other with an asperity constantly increasing. Instead of Attica,
-disunited and torn into armed factions, as it had been forty years
-before,—the Diakrii under one man, and the Parali and Pedieis
-under others,—we have now Attica one and indivisible; regimented
-into a body of orderly hearers in the Pnyx, appointing and holding
-to accountability the magistrates, and open to be addressed by
-Themistoklês, Aristeidês, or any other citizen who can engage their
-attention.</p>
-
-<p>Neither Themistoklês nor Aristeidês could boast of a lineage
-of gods and heroes, like the Æakid Miltiadês:<a id="FNanchor_630"
-href="#Footnote_630" class="fnanchor">[630]</a> both were of middling
-station and circumstances. Aristeidês, son of Lysimachus, was on
-both sides of pure Athenian blood. But the wife of Neoklês, father
-of Themistoklês, was a foreign woman of Thrace or of Karia: and such
-an alliance is the less surprising, since Themistoklês must have
-been born during the dynasty of the Peisistratids, when the status
-of an Athenian citizen had not yet acquired its political value.
-There was a marked contrast between these two eminent men,—those
-points which stood most conspicuous in the one, being comparatively
-deficient in the other. In the description of Themistoklês, which we
-have the advantage of finding briefly sketched by Thucydidês, the
-circumstance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[p. 337]</span>
-most emphatically brought out is, his immense force of spontaneous
-invention and apprehension, without any previous aid either from
-teaching or gradual practice. The might of unassisted nature<a
-id="FNanchor_631" href="#Footnote_631" class="fnanchor">[631]</a>
-was never so strikingly exhibited as in him: he conceived the
-complications of a present embarrassment, and divined the chances
-of a mysterious future, with equal sagacity and equal quickness:
-the right expedient seemed to flash upon his mind extempore, even
-in the most perplexing contingencies, without the least necessity
-for premeditation. Nor was he less distinguished for daring and
-resource in action. When engaged on any joint affairs, his superior
-competence marked him out as the leader for others to follow, and
-no business, however foreign to his experience, ever took him by
-surprise, or came wholly amiss to him. Such is the remarkable
-picture which Thucydidês draws of a countryman whose death nearly
-coincided in time with his own birth: the untutored readiness and
-universality of Themistoklês probably formed in his mind a contrast
-to the more elaborate discipline, and careful preliminary study,
-with which the statesmen of his own day—and Periklês especially,
-the greatest of them—approached the consideration and discussion
-of public affairs. Themistoklês had received no teaching from
-philosophers, sophists, and rhetors, who were the instructors of
-well-born youth in the days of Thucydidês, and whom Aristophanês, the
-contemporary of the latter, so unmercifully derides,—treating such
-instruction as worse than nothing, and extolling, in comparison with
-it, the unlettered courage, with mere gymnastic accomplishments, of
-the victors at Marathon.<a id="FNanchor_632" href="#Footnote_632"
-class="fnanchor">[632]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[p.
-338]</span> There is no evidence in the mind of Thucydidês of any
-such undue contempt towards his own age. Though the same terms of
-contrast are tacitly present to his mind, he seems to treat the great
-capacity of Themistoklês as the more a matter of wonder, since it
-sprung up without that preliminary cultivation which had gone to the
-making of Periklês.</p>
-
-<p>The general character given of Plutarch,<a id="FNanchor_633"
-href="#Footnote_633" class="fnanchor">[633]</a> though many of his
-anecdotes are both trifling and apocryphal, is quite consistent with
-the brief sketch just cited from Thucydidês. Themistoklês had an
-unbounded passion,—not merely for glory, insomuch that the laurels
-of Miltiadês acquired at Marathon deprived him of rest,—but also
-for display of every kind. He was eager to vie with men richer
-than himself in showy exhibition,—one great source, though not the
-only source, of popularity at Athens,—nor was he at all scrupulous
-in procuring the means of doing so. Besides being assiduous in
-attendance at the ekklesia and the dikastery, he knew most of
-the citizens by name, and was always ready with advice to them
-in their private affairs. Moreover, he possessed all the tactics
-of an expert party-man in conciliating political friends and in
-defeating political enemies; and though he was in the early part of
-his life sincerely bent upon the upholding and aggrandizement of
-his country, and was on some most critical occasions of unspeakable
-value to it,—yet on the whole his morality was as reckless as his
-intelligence was eminent. He will be found grossly corrupt in the
-exercise of power, and employing tortuous means, sometimes indeed
-for ends in themselves honorable and patriotic, but sometimes also
-merely for enriching himself. He ended a glorious life by years
-of deep disgrace, with the forfeiture of all Hellenic esteem and
-brotherhood,—a rich man, an exile, a traitor, and a pensioner of
-the Great King, pledged to undo his own previous work of liberation
-accomplished at the victory of Salamis.</p>
-
-<p>Of Aristeidês we possess unfortunately no description from the
-hand of Thucydidês; yet his character is so simple and consistent,
-that we may safely accept the brief but unqualified encomium
-of Herodotus and Plato, expanded as it is in the biog<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[p. 339]</span>raphy of Plutarch
-and Cornelius Nepos,<a id="FNanchor_634" href="#Footnote_634"
-class="fnanchor">[634]</a> however little the details of the
-latter can be trusted. Aristeidês was inferior to Themistoklês
-in resource, quickness, flexibility, and power of coping with
-difficulties; but incomparably superior to him, as well as to
-other rivals and contemporaries, in integrity, public as well as
-private; inaccessible to pecuniary temptations, as well as to other
-seductive influences, and deserving as well as enjoying the highest
-measure of personal confidence. He is described as the peculiar
-friend of Kleisthenês, the first founder of the democracy,<a
-id="FNanchor_635" href="#Footnote_635" class="fnanchor">[635]</a>—as
-pursuing a straight and single-handed course in political life,
-with no solicitude for party ties, and with little care either to
-conciliate friends or to offend enemies,—as unflinching in the
-exposure of corrupt practices, by whomsoever committed or upheld,—as
-earning for himself the lofty surname of the Just, not less by his
-judicial decisions in the capacity of archon, than by his equity in
-private arbitrations, and even his candor in political dispute,—and
-as manifesting throughout a long public life, full of tempting
-opportunities, an uprightness without flaw and beyond all suspicion,
-recognized equally by his bitter contemporary the poet Timokreon,<a
-id="FNanchor_636" href="#Footnote_636" class="fnanchor">[636]</a> and
-by the allies of Athens, upon whom he first assessed the tribute.
-Few of the leading men in any part of Greece were without some taint
-on their reputation, deserved or undeserved, in regard to pecuniary
-probity; but whoever became notoriously recognized as possessing this
-vital quality, acquired by means of it a firmer hold on the public
-esteem than even eminent talents could confer. Thucydidês ranks
-conspicuous probity among the first of the many ascendent qualities
-possessed by Periklês;<a id="FNanchor_637" href="#Footnote_637"
-class="fnanchor">[637]</a> and Nikias, equal to him in this
-respect, though immeasurably inferior in every other, owed to it a
-still larger proportion of that exaggerated confidence which the
-Athenian people continued so long to repose in him. The abilities of
-Aristeidês, though apparently adequate to every occasion on which
-he was engaged, and only inferior when we compare him with so<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[p. 340]</span> remarkable a man as
-Themistoklês, were put in the shade by this incorruptible probity,
-which procured for him, however, along with the general esteem, no
-inconsiderable amount of private enmity from jobbers whom he exposed,
-and even some jealousy from persons who heard it proclaimed with
-offensive ostentation.</p>
-
-<p>We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his
-ostracizing vote, and expressed his dislike against Aristeidês,<a
-id="FNanchor_638" href="#Footnote_638" class="fnanchor">[638]</a>
-on the simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called
-the Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to
-be so boastfully talked of as if he were the only honorable man in
-the country: the less it is obtruded, the more deeply and cordially
-will it be felt: and the story just alluded to, whether true or
-false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling, produced by
-absurd encomiasts, or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask
-of encomiasts, who trumpeted forth Aristeidês as <i>The</i> Just man at
-Attica, so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else.
-Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob
-him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen; which he enjoyed, with
-intervals of their displeasure, to the end of his life. Though he
-was ostracized during a part of the period between the battle of
-Marathon and Salamis,—at a time when the rivalry between him and
-Themistoklês was so violent that both could not remain at Athens
-without peril,—yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of
-Xerxês brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired.
-His fortune, originally very moderate, was still farther diminished
-during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the
-state was obliged to lend aid to his children.</p>
-
-<p>Such were the characters of Themistoklês and Aristeidês, the
-two earliest leaders thrown up by the Athenian democracy. Half a
-century before, Themistoklês would have been an active partisan in
-the faction of the Parali or the Pedieis, while Aristeidês would
-probably have remained an unnoticed citizen. At the present period of
-Athenian history, the characters of the soldier, the magistrate, and
-the orator, were intimately blended together in a citizen who stood
-forward for eminence, though they tended more and more to divide
-themselves during the en<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[p.
-341]</span>suing century and a half. Aristeidês and Miltiadês
-were both elected among the ten generals, each for his respective
-tribe, in the year of the expedition of Datis across the Ægean, and
-probably even after that expedition was known to be on its voyage.
-Moreover, we are led to suspect from a passage in Plutarch, that
-Themistoklês also was general of his tribe on the same occasion,<a
-id="FNanchor_639" href="#Footnote_639" class="fnanchor">[639]</a>
-though this is doubtful; but it is certain that he fought at
-Marathon. The ten generals had jointly the command of the army, each
-of them taking his turn to exercise it for a day: in addition to
-the ten, moreover, the third archon, or polemarch, was considered
-as eleventh in the military council. The polemarch of this year was
-Kallimachus of Aphidnæ.<a id="FNanchor_640" href="#Footnote_640"
-class="fnanchor">[640]</a> Such were the chiefs of the military
-force, and to a great degree the administrators of foreign affairs,
-at the time when the four thousand Athenian kleruchs, or settlers
-planted in Eubœa,—escaping from Eretria, now invested by the
-Persians,—brought word to their countrymen at home that the fall
-of that city was impending. It was obvious that the Persian host
-would proceed from Eretria forthwith against Athens, and a few days
-afterwards Hippias disembarked them at Marathon, whither the Athenian
-army marched to meet them.</p>
-
-<p>Of the feeling which now prevailed at Athens we have no
-details, but doubtless the alarm was hardly inferior to that
-which had been felt at Eretria: dissenting opinions were heard as
-to the proper steps to be taken, nor were suspicions of treason
-wanting. Pheidippidês the courier was sent to Sparta immediately
-to solicit assistance; and such was his prodigious activity, that
-he performed this journey of one hundred and fifty miles, on foot,
-in forty-eight hours.<a id="FNanchor_641" href="#Footnote_641"
-class="fnanchor">[641]</a> He revealed to the ephors that Eretria
-was already enslaved, and entreated their assistance to avert the
-same fate from Athens, the most ancient city in Greece. The Spartan
-authorities readily promised their aid, but unfortunately it was
-now the ninth day of the moon: ancient law or custom forbade them
-to march, in this month at least, during the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_342">[p. 342]</span> last quarter before the full moon; but
-after the full they engaged to march without delay. Five days’ delay
-at this critical moment might prove the utter ruin of the endangered
-city; yet the reason assigned seems to have been no pretence on the
-part of the Spartans. It was mere blind tenacity of ancient habit,
-which we shall find to abate, though never to disappear, as we
-advance in their history.<a id="FNanchor_642" href="#Footnote_642"
-class="fnanchor">[642]</a> Indeed, their delay in marching to rescue
-Attica from Mardonius, eleven years afterwards, at the imminent
-hazard of alienating Athens and ruining the Hellenic cause, marks
-the same selfish dulness. But the reason now given certainly looked
-very like a pretence, so that the Athenians could indulge no certain
-assurance that the Spartan troops would start even when the full moon
-arrived.</p>
-
-<p>In this respect the answer brought by Pheidippidês was
-mischievous, as it tended to increase that uncertainty and indecision
-which already prevailed among the ten generals, as to the proper
-steps for meeting the invaders. Partly, perhaps, in reliance on this
-expected Spartan help, five out of the ten generals were decidedly
-averse to an immediate engagement with the Persians; while Miltiadês
-with the remaining four strenuously urged that not a moment should
-be lost in bringing the enemy to action, without leaving time to the
-timid and the treacherous to establish correspondence with Hippias,
-and to take some active step for paralyzing all united action on the
-part of the citizens. This most momentous debate, upon which the
-fate of Athens hung, is represented by Herodotus to have occurred
-at Marathon, after the army had marched out and taken post there
-within sight of the Persians; while Cornelius Nepos describes it
-as having been raised before the army quitted the city,—upon the
-question, whether it was prudent to meet the enemy at all in the
-field, or to confine the defence to the city and the sacred rock.
-Inaccurate as this latter author generally is, his statement seems
-more probable here than that of Herodotus. For the ten generals would
-scarcely march out of Athens to Marathon without having previously
-resolved to fight: moreover, the question between fighting in the
-field or resisting behind the walls, which had already been raised
-at Eretria, seems the natural point on which<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_343">[p. 343]</span> the five mistrustful generals would
-take their stand. And probably indeed Miltiadês himself, if debarred
-from immediate action, would have preferred to hold possession of
-Athens, and prevent any treacherous movement from breaking out
-there,—rather than to remain inactive on the hills, watching the
-Persians at Marathon, with the chance of a detachment from their
-numerous fleet sailing round to Phalêrum, and thus distracting, by a
-double attack, both the city and the camp.</p>
-
-<p>However this may be, the equal division of opinion among the
-ten generals, whether manifested at Marathon or at Athens, is
-certain,—so that Miltiadês had to await the casting-vote of the
-polemarch Kallimachus. To him he represented emphatically the danger
-of delay, and the chance of some traitorous intrigue occurring to
-excite disunion and aggravate the alarms of the citizens. Nothing
-could prevent such treason from breaking out, with all its terrific
-consequences of enslavement to the Persians and to Hippias, except
-a bold, decisive, and immediate attack,—the success of which he
-(Miltiadês) was prepared to guarantee. Fortunately for Athens, the
-polemarch embraced the opinion of Miltiadês, and the seditious
-movements which were preparing did not show themselves until after
-the battle had been gained. Aristeidês and Themistoklês are both
-recorded to have seconded Miltiadês warmly in this proposal,—while
-all the other generals agreed in surrendering to Miltiadês their
-days of command, so as to make him, as much as they could, the sole
-leader of the army. It is said that the latter awaited the day of his
-own regular turn before he fought the battle.<a id="FNanchor_643"
-href="#Footnote_643" class="fnanchor">[643]</a> Yet considering the
-eagerness which he displayed to bring on an immediate and decisive
-action, we cannot suppose that he would have admitted any serious
-postponement upon such a punctilio.</p>
-
-<p>While the army were mustered on the ground sacred to Heraklês
-near Marathon, with the Persians and their fleet occupying the
-plain and shore beneath, and in preparation for immediate action,
-they were joined by the whole force of the little town of Platæa,
-consisting of about one thousand hoplites, who had marched directly
-from their own city to the spot, along the southern range of
-Kithærôn and passing through Dekeleia. We are<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_344">[p. 344]</span> not told that they had been invited,
-and very probably the Athenians had never thought of summoning aid
-from this unimportant neighbor, in whose behalf they had taken upon
-themselves a lasting feud with Thebes and the Bœotian league.<a
-id="FNanchor_644" href="#Footnote_644" class="fnanchor">[644]</a>
-Their coming on this important occasion seems to have been a
-spontaneous effort of gratitude which ought not to be the less
-commended because their interests were really wrapped up in those of
-Athens,—since if the latter had been conquered, nothing could have
-saved Platæa from being subdued by the Thebans,—yet many a Grecian
-town would have disregarded both generous impulse and rational
-calculation, in the fear of provoking a new and terrific enemy.
-If we summon up to our imaginations all the circumstances of the
-case,—which it requires some effort to do, because our authorities
-come from the subsequent generations, after Greece had ceased
-to fear the Persians,—we shall be sensible that this volunteer
-march of the whole Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most
-affecting incidents of all Grecian history. Upon Athens generally
-it produced an indelible impression, commemorated ever afterwards
-in the public prayers of the Athenian herald,<a id="FNanchor_645"
-href="#Footnote_645" class="fnanchor">[645]</a> and repaid by a
-grant to the Platæans of the full civil rights—seemingly without
-the political rights—of Athenian citizens. Upon the Athenians then
-marshalled at Marathon its effect must have been unspeakably powerful
-and encouraging, as a proof that they were not altogether isolated
-from Greece, and as an unexpected countervailing stimulus under
-circumstances so full of hazard.</p>
-
-<p>Of the two opposing armies at Marathon, we are told that the
-Athenians were ten thousand hoplites, either including or besides
-the one thousand who came from Platæa.<a id="FNanchor_646"
-href="#Footnote_646" class="fnanchor">[646]</a> Nor is this
-state<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[p. 345]</span>ment in
-itself improbable, though it does not come from Herodotus, who is
-our only really valuable authority on the case, and who mentions
-no numerical total. Indeed, the number named seems smaller than we
-should have expected, considering that no less than four thousand
-kleruchs, or out-settled citizens, had just come over from Eubœa. A
-sufficient force of citizens must of course have been left behind
-to defend the city. The numbers of the Persians we cannot be said
-to know at all, nor is there anything certain except that they were
-greatly superior to the Greeks. We hear from Herodotus that their
-armament originally consisted of six hundred ships of war, but we
-are not told how many separate transports there were; and, moreover,
-reinforcements had been procured as they came across the Ægean from
-the islands successively conquered. The aggregate crews on board of
-all their ships must have been between one hundred and fifty thousand
-and two hundred thousand men; but what proportion of these were
-fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have
-no means of determining.<a id="FNanchor_647" href="#Footnote_647"
-class="fnanchor">[647]</a> There were a<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_346">[p. 346]</span> certain proportion of cavalry, and some
-transports expressly prepared for the conveyance of horses: moreover,
-Herodotus tells us that Hippias selected the plain of Marathon for
-a landing place, because it was the most convenient spot in Attica
-for cavalry movements,—though it is singular, that in the battle the
-cavalry are not mentioned.</p>
-
-<p>Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica,
-and in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge
-of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by
-two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain.
-Of these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most
-difficult, is twenty-two miles in length: the southern—longer but
-more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots—is twenty-six
-miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march.
-It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the
-ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which
-Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven
-years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered
-by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water
-and a shore convenient for landing; while “its plain (says a
-careful modern observer<a id="FNanchor_648" href="#Footnote_648"
-class="fnanchor">[648]</a>) extends in a perfect level along
-this<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[p. 347]</span> fine bay,
-and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than about
-one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the plain:
-the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the conclusion
-of the great heats; but the northern, which generally covers
-considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts which
-are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad, firm,
-sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of
-the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre
-of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest of
-Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and difficult paths
-communicate with the districts of the interior.”</p>
-
-<p>The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified
-as it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Hêraklês
-near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above
-this plain, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that he protected it from
-the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the
-approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their
-fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled
-them for the battle.<a id="FNanchor_649" href="#Footnote_649"
-class="fnanchor">[649]</a> The native Persians and Sakæ, the
-best troops in the whole army, were placed in the centre, which
-they considered as the post of honor,<a id="FNanchor_650"
-href="#Footnote_650" class="fnanchor">[650]</a><span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_348">[p. 348]</span> and which was occupied by the Persian
-king himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so
-regarded by the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command
-of it; the hoplites being arranged in the order of their respective
-tribes from right to left, and at the extreme left stood the
-Platæans. It was necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal,
-or nearly equal, to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order
-to guard himself from being taken in flank: and with this view he
-drew up the central tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis, in
-shallow files, and occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of
-the wings was in stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack
-efficient on both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with
-some slaves as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either
-bowmen or cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in
-this latter force, seeing that their horses had to be transported
-across the Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled
-them to take some measure of the numbers under his command, and the
-entire absence of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm
-the confidence with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had
-impressed their generals.</p>
-
-<p>At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favorable
-for battle, and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming
-immediately to close quarters, ordered his army to advance at
-a running step over the interval of one mile which separated
-the two armies. This rapid forward movement, accompanied by the
-war-cry, or pæan, which always animated the charge of the Greek
-soldier, astounded the Persian army; who construed it as an act of
-desperate courage, little short of insanity, in a body not only
-small but destitute of cavalry or archers,—but who, at the same
-time, felt their conscious superiority sink within them. It<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[p. 349]</span> seems to have been long
-remembered also among the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of
-the battle of Marathon, and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians
-were the first Greeks who ever charged at a run.<a id="FNanchor_651"
-href="#Footnote_651" class="fnanchor">[651]</a> It doubtless
-operated beneficially in rendering the Persian cavalry and archers
-comparatively innocuous, but we may reasonably suppose that it
-also disordered the Athenian ranks, and that when they reached the
-Persian front, they were both out of breath and unsteady in that
-line of presented spears and shields which constituted their force.
-On the two wings, where the files were deep, this disorder produced
-no mischievous effect: the Persians, after a certain resistance,
-were overborne and driven back. But in the centre, where the files
-were shallow, and where, moreover, the native Persians and other
-choice troops of the army were posted, the breathless and disordered
-Athenian hoplites found themselves in far greater difficulties.
-The tribes Leontis and Antiochis, with Themistoklês and Aristeidês
-among them, were actually defeated, broken, driven back, and pursued
-by the Persians and Sakæ.<a id="FNanchor_652" href="#Footnote_652"
-class="fnanchor">[652]</a> Miltiadês<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_350">[p. 350]</span> seems to have foreseen the possibility
-of such a check, when he found himself compelled to diminish so
-materially the depth of his centre: for his wings, having routed
-the enemies opposed to them, were stayed from pursuit until the
-centre was extricated, and the Persians and Sakæ put to flight along
-with the rest. The pursuit then became general, and the Persians
-were chased to their ships ranged in line along the shore: some of
-them became involved in the impassable marsh and there perished.<a
-id="FNanchor_653" href="#Footnote_653" class="fnanchor">[653]</a>
-The Athenians tried to set the ships on fire, but the defence
-here was both vigorous and successful,—several of the forward
-warriors of Athens were slain,—and only seven ships out of the
-numerous fleet destroyed.<a id="FNanchor_654" href="#Footnote_654"
-class="fnanchor">[654]</a> This part of the battle terminated to
-the advantage of the Persians. They repulsed the Athenians from
-the sea-shore, and secured a safe reëmbarkation; leaving few or no
-prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents and equipments which had been
-disembarked and could not be carried away.</p>
-
-<p>Herodotus estimates the number of those who fell on the Persian
-side in this memorable action at six thousand four hundred men:
-the number of Athenian dead is accurately known, since all were
-collected for the last solemn obsequies,—they were one hundred
-and ninety-two. How many were wounded, we do not hear. The brave
-Kallimachus the polemarch, and Stesilaus, one of the ten generals,
-were among the slain; together with Kynegeirus son of Euphorion,
-who, in laying hold on the poop-staff of one of the vessels, had his
-hand cut off by an axe,<a id="FNanchor_655" href="#Footnote_655"
-class="fnanchor">[655]</a> and died of the wound. He was brother of
-the poet Æschylus, himself present at the fight; to whose imagination
-this battle at the ships must have emphatically recalled the
-fifteenth book of the Iliad.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[p.
-351]</span> Both these Athenian generals are said to have perished in
-the assault of the ships, apparently the hottest part of the combat.
-The statement of the Persian loss as given by Herodotus appears
-moderate and reasonable,<a id="FNanchor_656" href="#Footnote_656"
-class="fnanchor">[656]</a> but he does not specify any distinguished
-individuals as having fallen.</p>
-
-<p>But the Persians, though thus defeated and compelled to abandon
-the position of Marathon, were not yet disposed to relinquish
-altogether their chances against Attica. Their fleet was observed
-to take the direction of Cape Sunium,—a portion being sent to
-take up the Eretrian prisoners and the stores which had been left
-in the island of Ægilia. At the same time a shield, discernible
-from its polished surface afar off, was seen held aloft upon some
-high point of Attica,<a id="FNanchor_657" href="#Footnote_657"
-class="fnanchor">[657]</a>—perhaps on the summit of Mount Pentelikus,
-as Colonel Leake supposes with much plausibility. The Athenians
-doubtless saw it as well as the Persians; and Miltiadês did not
-fail to put the right interpretation upon it, taken in conjunction
-with the course of the departing fleet. The shield was a signal
-put up by partisans in the country, to invite the Persians round
-to Athens by sea, while the Marathonian army was absent. Miltiadês
-saw through the plot, and lost not a moment in returning to Athens.
-On the very day of the battle, the Athenian army marched back with
-the utmost speed from the precinct of Hêraklês at Marathon to the
-precinct of the same god at Kynosarges, close to Athens, which they
-reached before the arrival of the Persian fleet.<a id="FNanchor_658"
-href="#Footnote_658" class="fnanchor">[658]</a> Datis soon came
-off the port<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[p. 352]</span>
-of Phalêrum, but the partisans of Hippias had been dismayed by the
-rapid return of the Marathonian army, and he did not therefore find
-those aids and facilities which he had anticipated for a fresh
-disembarkation in the immediate neighborhood of Athens. Though
-too late, however, it seems that he was not much too late: the
-Marathonian army had only just completed their forced return-march.
-A little less quickness on the part of Miltiadês in deciphering the
-treasonable signal and giving the instant order of march,—a little
-less energy on the part of the Athenian citizens in superadding a
-fatiguing march to a no less fatiguing combat,—and the Persians,
-with the partisans of Hippias, might have been found in possession
-of Athens. As the facts turned out, Datis, finding at Phalêrum
-no friendly movement to encourage him, but, on the contrary, the
-unexpected presence of the soldiers who had already vanquished him at
-Marathon,—made no attempt again to disembark in Attica, and sailed
-away, after a short delay, to the Cyclades.</p>
-
-<p>Thus was Athens rescued, for this time at least, from a danger
-not less terrible than imminent. Nothing could have rescued her
-except that decisive and instantaneous attack which Miltiadês so
-emphatically urged. The running step on the field of Marathon might
-cause some disorder in the ranks of the hoplites; but extreme
-haste in bringing on the combat was the only means of preventing
-disunion and distraction in the minds of the citizens. Imperfect
-as the account is which Herodotus gives of this most interesting
-crisis, we see plainly that the partisans of Hippias had actually
-organized a conspiracy, and that it only failed by coming a little
-too late. The bright shield uplifted on Mount Pentelikus, apprizing
-the Persians that matters were prepared for them at Athens, was
-intended to have come to their view before any action had taken
-place at Marathon, and while the Athenian army were yet detained
-there; so that Datis might have sent a portion of his fleet round
-to Phalêrum, retaining the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[p.
-353]</span> rest for combat with the enemy before him. If it had
-once become known to the Marathonian army that a Persian detachment
-had landed at Phalêrum,<a id="FNanchor_659" href="#Footnote_659"
-class="fnanchor">[659]</a>—where there was a good plain for cavalry
-to act in, prior to the building of the Phalêric wall, as had been
-seen in the defeat of the Spartan Anchimolius by the Thessalian
-cavalry, in 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—that it had been joined by
-timid or treacherous Athenians, and had perhaps even got possession
-of the city,—their minds would have been so distracted by the
-double danger, and by fears for their absent wives and children,
-that they would have been disqualified for any unanimous execution
-of military orders, and generals as well as soldiers would have
-become incurably divided in opinion,—perhaps even mistrustful of
-each other. The citizen-soldier of Greece generally, and especially
-of Athens, possessed in a high degree both personal bravery and
-attachment to order and discipline; but his bravery was not of that
-equal, imperturbable, uninquiring character, which belonged to
-the battalions of Wellington or Napoleon,—it was fitful, exalted
-or depressed by casual occurrences, and often more sensitive to
-dangers absent and unseen, than to enemies immediately in his front.
-Hence the advantage, so unspeakable in the case before us, and so
-well appreciated by Miltiadês, of having one undivided Athenian
-army,—with one hostile army, and only one, to meet in the field.
-When we come to the battle of Salamis, ten years later, it will be
-seen that the Greeks of that day enjoyed the same advantage: though
-the wisest advisers of Xerxês impressed upon him the prudence of
-dividing his large force, and of sending detachments to assail
-separate Greek states—which would infallibly produce the effect of
-breaking up the combined Grecian host, and leaving no central or
-coöperating force for the defence of Greece generally. Fortunately
-for the Greeks, the childish insolence of Xerxês led him to despise
-all such advice, as implying conscious weakness. Not so Datis and
-Hippias. Sensible of the prudence of distracting the attention of
-the Athenians by a double attack, they laid a scheme, while the
-main army was at Marathon, for rallying the partisans of Hippias,
-with a force to assist them, in the neighborhood of Athens,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[p. 354]</span>—and the signal was
-upheld by these partisans as soon as their measures were taken. But
-the rapidity of Miltiadês so precipitated the battle, that this
-signal came too late, and was only given, “when the Persians were
-already in their ships,”<a id="FNanchor_660" href="#Footnote_660"
-class="fnanchor">[660]</a> after the Marathonian defeat. Even then
-it might have proved dangerous, had not the movements of Miltiadês
-been as rapid after the victory as before it: but if time had been
-allowed for the Persian movement on Athens before the battle of
-Marathon had been fought, the triumph of the Athenians might well
-have been exchanged for a calamitous servitude. To Miltiadês belongs
-the credit of having comprehended the emergency from the beginning,
-and overruled the irresolution of his colleagues by his own
-single-hearted energy. The chances all turned out in his favor,—for
-the unexpected junction of the Platæans in the very encampment
-of Marathon must have wrought up the courage of his army to the
-highest pitch: and not only did he thus escape all the depressing
-and distracting accidents, but he was fortunate enough to find this
-extraneous encouragement immediately preceding the battle, from a
-source on which he could not have calculated.</p>
-
-<p>I have already observed that the phase of Grecian history best
-known to us, amidst which the great authors from whom we draw our
-information lived, was one of contempt for the Persians in the
-field. And it requires some effort of imagination to call back
-previous feelings after the circumstances have been altogether
-reversed: perhaps even Æschylus the poet, at the time when he
-composed his tragedy of the Persæ, to celebrate the disgraceful
-flight of the invader Xerxês, may have forgotten the emotions with
-which he and his brother Kynegeirus must have marched out from
-Athens fifteen years before, on the eve of the battle of Marathon.
-It must therefore be again mentioned that, down to the time when
-Datis landed in the bay of Marathon, the tide of Persian success
-had never yet been interrupted,—and that especially during the ten
-years immediately preceding, the high-handed and cruel extinction
-of the Ionic revolt had aggravated to the highest pitch the alarm
-of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[p. 355]</span> Greeks.
-To this must be added the successes of Datis himself, and the
-calamities of Eretria, coming with all the freshness of novelty
-as an apparent sentence of death to Athens. The extreme effort of
-courage required in the Athenians, to encounter such invaders, is
-attested by the division of opinion among the ten generals. Putting
-all the circumstances together, it is without a parallel in Grecian
-history, surpassing even the combat of Thermopylæ, as will appear
-when I come to describe that memorable event. And the admirable
-conduct of the five dissentient generals, when outvoted by the
-decision of the polemarch against them, in coöperating heartily for
-the success of a policy which they deprecated,—proves how much the
-feelings of a constitutional democracy, and that entire acceptance
-of the pronounced decision of the majority on which it rests, had
-worked themselves into the Athenian mind. The combat of Marathon
-was by no means a very decisive defeat, but it was a defeat,—and
-the first which the Persians had ever received from Greeks in the
-field. If the battle of Salamis, ten years afterwards, could be
-treated by Themistoklês as a hair-breadth escape for Greece, much
-more is this true of the battle of Marathon;<a id="FNanchor_661"
-href="#Footnote_661" class="fnanchor">[661]</a> which first afforded
-reasonable proof, even to discerning and resolute Greeks, that the
-Persians might be effectually repelled, and the independence of
-European Greece maintained against them,—a conviction of incalculable
-value in reference to the formidable trials destined to follow.
-Upon the Athenians themselves, the first to face in the field
-successfully the terrific look of a Persian army, the effect of the
-victory was yet more stirring and profound.<a id="FNanchor_662"
-href="#Footnote_662" class="fnanchor">[662]</a> It supplied them with
-resolution for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[p. 356]</span>
-the far greater actual sacrifices which they cheerfully underwent
-ten years afterwards, at the invasion of Xerxês, without faltering
-in their Pan-Hellenic fidelity; and it strengthened them at home by
-swelling the tide of common sentiment and patriotic fraternity in the
-bosom of every individual citizen. It was the exploit of Athenians
-alone, but of all Athenians without dissent or exception,—the boast
-of orators, repeated until it almost degenerated into common-place,
-though the people seem never to have become weary of allusions to
-their single-handed victory over a host of forty-six nations.<a
-id="FNanchor_663" href="#Footnote_663" class="fnanchor">[663]</a>
-It had been purchased without a drop of intestine bloodshed,—for
-even the unknown traitors who raised the signal-shield on Mount
-Pentelikus, took care not to betray themselves by want of apparent
-sympathy with the triumph: lastly, it was the final guarantee of
-their democracy, barring all chance of restoration of Hippias for
-the future. Themistoklês<a id="FNanchor_664" href="#Footnote_664"
-class="fnanchor">[664]</a> is said to have been robbed of his
-sleep by the trophies of Miltiadês, and this is cited in proof of
-his ambitious temperament; but without supposing either jealousy
-or personal love of glory, the rapid transit from extreme danger
-to unparalleled triumph might well deprive of rest even the most
-sober-minded Athenian.</p>
-
-<p>Who it was that raised the treacherous signal-shield to attract
-the Persians to Athens was never ascertained: very probably, in
-the full exultation of success, no investigation was made. Of
-course, however, the public belief would not be satisfied without
-singling out some persons as the authors of such a treason; and the
-information received by Herodotus (probably about 450-440 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, forty or fifty years after the Marathonian victory)
-ascribed the deed to the Alkmæônids; nor does he notice any other
-reported authors, though he rejects the allegation against them
-upon very sufficient grounds. They were a race religiously<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[p. 357]</span> tainted, ever since
-the Kylonian sacrilege, and were therefore convenient persons to
-brand with the odium of an anonymous crime; while party feud, if it
-did not originally invent, would at least be active in spreading and
-certifying such rumors. At the time when Herodotus knew Athens, the
-political enmity between Periklês son of Xanthippus, and Kimon son
-of Miltiadês, was at its height: Periklês belonged by his mother’s
-side to the Alkmæônid race, and we know that such lineage was made
-subservient to political manœuvres against him by his enemies.<a
-id="FNanchor_665" href="#Footnote_665" class="fnanchor">[665]</a>
-Moreover, the enmity between Kimon and Periklês had been inherited by
-both from their fathers; for we shall find Xanthippus, not long after
-the battle of Marathon, the prominent accuser of Miltiadês. Though
-Xanthippus was not an Alkmæônid, his marriage with Agaristê connected
-himself indirectly, and his son Periklês directly, with that race.
-And we may trace in this standing political feud a probable origin
-for the false reports as to the treason of the Alkmæônids, on that
-great occasion which founded the glory of Miltiadês; for that
-the reports were false, the intrinsic probabilities of the case,
-supported by the judgment of Herodotus, afford ample ground for
-believing.</p>
-
-<p>When the Athenian army made its sudden return-march from
-Marathon to Athens, Aristeidês with his tribe was left to guard
-the field and the spoil; but the speedy retirement of Datis
-from Attica left the Athenians at full liberty to revisit the
-scene and discharge the last duties to the dead. A tumulus was
-erected on the spot<a id="FNanchor_666" href="#Footnote_666"
-class="fnanchor">[666]</a>—such distinction was never conferred by
-Athens except in this case only—to the one hundred and ninety-two
-Athenian citizens who had been slain. Their names were inscribed on
-ten pillars erected at the spot, one for each tribe: there was also
-a second tumulus for the slain Platæans, a third for the slaves,
-and a separate funeral monument to Miltiadês himself. Six hundred
-years after the battle, Pausanias saw the tumulus, and could still
-read on the pillars the names of the immortalized warriors;<a
-id="FNanchor_667" href="#Footnote_667" class="fnanchor">[667]</a>
-and even now a conspicuous tumulus exists about half a mile from the
-sea-shore, which Colonel Leake believes to<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_358">[p. 358]</span> be the same.<a id="FNanchor_668"
-href="#Footnote_668" class="fnanchor">[668]</a> The inhabitants of
-the deme of Marathon worshipped these slain warriors as heroes, along
-with their own eponymus, and with Hêraklês.</p>
-
-<p>So splendid a victory had not been achieved, in the belief of the
-Athenians, without marked supernatural aid. The god Pan had met the
-courier Pheidippidês on his hasty route from Athens to Sparta, and
-had told him that he was much hurt that the Athenians had as yet
-neglected to worship him;<a id="FNanchor_669" href="#Footnote_669"
-class="fnanchor">[669]</a> in spite of which neglect, however,
-he promised them effective aid at Marathon. The promise was
-faithfully executed, and the Athenians repaid it by a temple with
-annual worship and sacrifice. Moreover, the hero Theseus was seen
-strenuously assisting in the battle; and an unknown warrior, in
-rustic garb and armed only with a ploughshare, dealt destruction
-among the Persian ranks: after the battle he could not be found;
-and the Athenians, on asking at Delphi who he was, were directed to
-worship the hero Echetlus.<a id="FNanchor_670" href="#Footnote_670"
-class="fnanchor">[670]</a> Even in the time of Pausanias, this
-memorable battle-field was heard to resound every night with the
-noise of combatants and the snorting of horses. “It is dangerous
-(observes that pious author) to go to the spot with the express
-purpose of seeing what is passing; but if a man finds himself there
-by accident, without having heard anything about the matter, the gods
-will not be angry with him.” The gods, it seems, could not pardon the
-inquisitive mortal who deliberately pried into their secrets. Amidst
-the ornaments with which Athens was decorated during the free working
-of her democracy, the glories of Marathon of course occupied a
-conspicuous place. The battle was painted on one of the compartments
-of the portico called Pœkilê, wherein, amidst several figures of
-gods and heroes,—Athênê, Hêraklês, Theseus, Echetlus, and the local
-patron of Marathon,—were seen honored and prominent the polemarch
-Kallimachus and the general Miltiadês, while the Platæans were
-distinguished by their Bœotian leather casques.<a id="FNanchor_671"
-href="#Footnote_671" class="fnanchor">[671]</a> And the sixth of the
-month Boëdro<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[p. 359]</span>mion,
-the anniversary of the battle, was commemorated by an annual
-ceremony, even down to the time of Plutarch.<a id="FNanchor_672"
-href="#Footnote_672" class="fnanchor">[672]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[p. 360]</span>Two thousand
-Spartans, starting from their city, immediately after the full moon,
-reached the frontier of Attica, on the third<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_361">[p. 361]</span> day of their march,—a surprising
-effort, when we consider that the total distance from Sparta to
-Athens was about one hundred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[p.
-362]</span> and fifty miles. They did not arrive, however, until the
-battle had been fought, and the Persians departed; but curiosity
-led them to the field of Marathon to behold the dead bodies of the
-Persians, after which they returned home, bestowing well-merited
-praise on the victors.</p>
-
-<p>Datis and Artaphernês returned across the Ægean with their
-Eretrian prisoners to Asia; stopping for a short time at the island
-of Mykonos, where discovery was made of a gilt image of Apollo
-carried off as booty in a Phenician ship. Datis went himself to
-restore it to Dêlos, requesting the Delians to carry it back to the
-Delium, or temple of Apollo, on the eastern coast of Bœotia: the
-Delians, however, chose to keep the statue until it was reclaimed
-from them twenty years afterwards by the Thebans. On reaching Asia,
-the Persian generals conducted their prisoners up to the court of
-Susa, and into the presence of Darius. Though he had been vehemently
-incensed against them, yet when he saw them in his power, his wrath
-abated, and he manifested no desire to kill or harm them. They were
-planted at a spot called Arderikka, in the Kissian territory, one
-of the resting-places on the road from Sardis to Susa, and about
-twenty-six miles distant from the latter place: Herodotus seems
-himself to have seen their descendants there on his journey between
-the two capitals,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[p. 363]</span>
-and to have had the satisfaction of talking to them in Greek,—which
-we may well conceive to have made some impression upon him, at a spot
-distant by nearly three months’ journey from the coast of Ionia.<a
-id="FNanchor_673" href="#Footnote_673" class="fnanchor">[673]</a></p>
-
-<p>Happy would it have been for Miltiadês if he had shared the
-honorable death of the polemarch Kallimachus,—“animam exhalasset
-opimam,”—in seeking to fire the ships of the defeated Persians at
-Marathon. The short sequel of his history will be found in melancholy
-contrast with the Marathonian heroism.</p>
-
-<p>His reputation had been great before the battle, and after it
-the admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds:
-it appears, indeed, to have reached such a pitch that his head
-was turned, and he lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He
-proposed to his countrymen to incur the cost of equipping an armament
-of seventy ships, with an adequate armed force, and to place it
-altogether at his discretion; giving them no intimation whither
-he intended to go, but merely assuring them that, if they would
-follow him, he would conduct them to a land where gold was abundant,
-and thus enrich them. Such a promise, from the lips of the recent
-victor of Marathon, was sufficient, and the armament was granted,
-no man except Miltiadês knowing what was its destination. He sailed
-immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and sent
-in a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[p. 364]</span> herald to
-require from the inhabitants a contribution of one hundred talents,
-on pain of entire destruction. His pretence for this attack was,
-that the Parians had furnished a trireme to Datis for the Persian
-fleet at Marathon; but his real motive, so Herodotus assures us,<a
-id="FNanchor_674" href="#Footnote_674" class="fnanchor">[674]</a>
-was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen named Lysagoras,
-who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnês against him. The
-Parians amused him at first with evasions, until they had procured a
-little delay to repair the defective portions of their wall, after
-which they set him at defiance; and Miltiadês in vain prosecuted
-hostilities against them for the space of twenty-six days: he ravaged
-the island, but his attacks made no impression upon the town.<a
-id="FNanchor_675" href="#Footnote_675" class="fnanchor">[675]</a>
-Beginning to despair of success in his military operations, he
-entered into some negotiation—such at least was the tale of the
-Parians themselves—with a Parian woman named Timô, priestess or
-attendant in the temple of Dêmêtêr, near the town-gates. This woman,
-promising to reveal to him a secret which would place Paros in his
-power, induced him to visit by night a temple to which no male person
-was admissible. He leaped the exterior fence, and approached the
-sanctuary; but on coming near, was seized with a panic terror and
-ran away, almost out of his senses: on leaping the same fence to get
-back, he strained or bruised his thigh badly, and became utterly
-disabled. In this melancholy state he was placed on ship-board; the
-siege being raised, and the whole armament returning to Athens.</p>
-
-<p>Vehement was the indignation both of the armament and of
-the remaining Athenians against Miltiadês on his return;<a
-id="FNanchor_676" href="#Footnote_676" class="fnanchor">[676]</a>
-and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[p. 365]</span> Xanthippus,
-father of the great Periklês, became the spokesman of this feeling.
-He impeached Miltiadês before the popular judicature as having been
-guilty of deceiving the people, and as having deserved the penalty of
-death. The accused himself, disabled by his injured thigh, which even
-began to show symptoms of gangrene, was unable to stand, or to say
-a word in his own defence: he lay on his couch before the assembled
-judges, while his friends made the best case they could in his
-behalf. Defence, it appears, there was none; all they could do, was
-to appeal to his previous services: they reminded the people largely
-and emphatically of the inestimable exploit of Marathon, coming in
-addition to his previous conquest of Lemnos. The assembled dikasts,
-or jurors, showed their sense of these powerful appeals by rejecting
-the proposition of his accuser to condemn him to death; but they
-imposed on him the penalty of fifty talents “for his iniquity.”</p>
-
-<p>Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the
-expenses incurred by the state in fitting out the armament; but we
-may more probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian
-dikastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[p. 366]</span> minor penalty actually
-proposed by the defenders of Miltiadês themselves, as a substitute
-for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at Athens, where
-the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of the law,
-if the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to submit
-to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to
-amount of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he
-thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name
-an amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained
-to take their choice between these two,—no third gradation of
-penalty being admissible for consideration.<a id="FNanchor_677"
-href="#Footnote_677" class="fnanchor">[677]</a> Of course, under such
-circum<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[p. 367]</span>stances, it
-was the interest of the accused party to name, even in his own case,
-some real and serious penalty,—something which the jurors might be
-likely to deem not wholly inadequate to his crime just proved; for
-if he proposed some penalty only trifling, he drove them to prefer
-the heavier sentence recommended by his opponent. Accordingly, in
-the case of Miltiadês, his friends, desirous of inducing the jurors
-to refuse their assent to the punishment of death, proposed a fine
-of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty of the defendant;
-and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in the case, that
-such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the expedition. The
-fine was imposed, but Miltiadês did not live to pay it; his injured
-limb mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be paid by his son
-Kimon.</p>
-
-<p>According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he
-was put in prison, after having been fined, and there died.<a
-id="FNanchor_678" href="#Footnote_678" class="fnanchor">[678]</a>
-But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[p. 368]</span> Herodotus
-does not mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears to me
-improbable: he would hardly have omitted to notice it, had it come
-to his knowledge. Immediate imprisonment of a person fined by
-the dikastery, until his fine was paid, was not the natural and
-ordinary course of Athenian procedure, though there were particular
-cases in which such aggravation was added. Usually, a certain time
-was allowed for payment,<a id="FNanchor_679" href="#Footnote_679"
-class="fnanchor">[679]</a> before absolute execution was resorted
-to, but the person under sentence became disfranchised and excluded
-from all political rights, from the very instant of his condemnation
-as a public debtor, until the fine was paid. Now in the instance
-of Miltiadês, the lamentable condition of his wounded thigh
-rendered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[p. 369]</span> escape
-impossible,—so that there would be no special motive for departing
-from the usual practice, and imprisoning him forthwith: moreover,
-if he was not imprisoned forthwith, he would not be imprisoned
-at all, since he cannot have lived many days after his trial.<a
-id="FNanchor_680" href="#Footnote_680" class="fnanchor">[680]</a> To
-carry away the suffering general in his couch, incapable of raising
-himself even to plead for his own life, from the presence of the
-dikasts to a prison, would not only have been a needless severity,
-but could hardly have failed to imprint itself on the sympathies and
-the memory of all the beholders; so that Herodotus would have been
-likely to hear and mention it, if it had really occurred. I incline
-to believe therefore that Miltiadês died at home: all accounts
-concur in stating that he died of the mortal bodily hurt which
-already disabled him even at the moment of his trial, and that his
-son Kimon paid the fifty talents after his death. If <i>he</i> could pay
-them, probably his father could have paid them also. And this is an
-additional reason for believing that there was no imprisonment,—for
-nothing but non-payment could have sent him to prison; and to rescue
-the suffering Miltiadês from being sent thither, would have been the
-first and strongest desire of all sympathizing friends.</p>
-
-<p>Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act
-of it produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking,—his
-descent from the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a
-temple-servant, mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death
-under a sentence of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared,—that
-readers, ancient and modern, have not been satisfied without
-finding some one to blame for it: we must except Herodotus, our
-original authority, who recounts the transaction without dropping
-a single hint of blame against any one. To speak ill of the
-people, as Machiavel has long ago observed,<a id="FNanchor_681"
-href="#Footnote_681" class="fnanchor">[681]</a> is a strain in
-which every one at all times, even under a democratical government,
-indulges with impunity and without provok<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_370">[p. 370]</span>ing any opponent to reply; and in this
-instance, the hard fate of Miltiadês has been imputed to the vices of
-the Athenians and their democracy,—it has been cited in proof, partly
-of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But however such
-blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from a series
-of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to those
-facts a reasonable criticism.</p>
-
-<p>What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is
-nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of
-Miltiadês; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath.
-To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a
-change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct.
-His behavior in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at
-Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately
-after the other: what else could ensue except an entire revolution in
-the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over
-their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither,
-in the confidence of an unknown booty: he had exposed their lives
-and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge: in addition
-to the shame of an unprincipled project, comes the constructive
-shame of not having succeeded in it. Without doubt, such behavior,
-coming from a man whom they admired to excess, must have produced
-a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of his countrymen.
-The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon a person who
-forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the greatest
-torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that the
-intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this
-reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness.
-If an officer, whose conduct has been such as to merit the highest
-encomiums, comes on a sudden to betray his trust, and manifests
-cowardice or treachery in a new and important undertaking confided
-to him, are we to treat the general in command as fickle, because
-his opinion as well as his conduct undergoes an instantaneous
-revolution,—which will be all the more vehement in proportion to his
-previous esteem? The question to be determined is, whether there be
-sufficient ground for such a change; and in the<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_371">[p. 371]</span> case of Miltiadês, that question must
-be answered in the affirmative.</p>
-
-<p>In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this
-last-mentioned point—sufficiency of reason—stands tacitly admitted.
-It is conceded that Miltiadês deserved punishment for his conduct in
-reference to the Parian expedition, but it is nevertheless maintained
-that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have
-exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after
-all, this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated
-in the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really
-contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public,
-is to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the
-future? Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill and
-important victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the liberty
-of betraying his trust afterwards, and exposing his country to peril,
-without censure or penalty? This is what no one intends to vindicate
-deliberately; yet a man must be prepared to vindicate it, when he
-blames the Athenians for ingratitude towards Miltiadês. For if all
-that be meant is, that gratitude for previous services ought to pass,
-not as a receipt in full for subsequent crime, but as an extenuating
-circumstance in the measurement of the penalty, the answer is,
-that it was so reckoned in the Athenian treatment of Miltiadês.<a
-id="FNanchor_682" href="#Footnote_682" class="fnanchor">[682]</a> His
-friends had nothing whatever to urge, against<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_372">[p. 372]</span> the extreme penalty proposed by his
-accuser, except these previous services,—which influenced the dikasts
-sufficiently to induce them to inflict the lighter punishment
-instead of the heavier. Now the whole amount of punishment inflicted
-consisted in a fine which certainly was not beyond his reasonable
-means of paying, or of prevailing upon friends to pay for him, since
-his son Kimon actually did pay it. And those who blame the Athenians
-for ingratitude,—unless they are prepared to maintain the doctrine
-that previous services are to pass as full acquittal for future
-crime,—have no other ground left except to say that the fine was too
-high; that instead of being fifty talents, it ought to have been no
-more than forty, thirty, twenty, or ten talents. Whether they are
-right in this, I will not take upon me to pronounce. If the amount
-was named on behalf of the accused party, the dikastery had no legal
-power of diminishing it; but it is within such narrow limits that
-the question actually lies, when transferred from the province of
-sentiment to that of reason. It will be recollected that the death
-of Miltiadês arose neither from his trial nor his fine, but from the
-hurt in his thigh.</p>
-
-<p>The charge of ingratitude against the Athenian popular juries
-really amounts to this,—that, in trying a person accused of present
-crime or fault, they were apt to confine themselves too strictly and
-exclusively to the particular matter of charge, either forgetting,
-or making too little account of, past services which he might have
-rendered. Whoever imagines that such was the habit of Athenian
-dikasts, must have studied the orators to very little purpose. Their
-real defect was the very opposite: they were too much disposed
-to wander from the special issue before them, and to be affected
-by appeals to previous services and con<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_373">[p. 373]</span>duct.<a id="FNanchor_683"
-href="#Footnote_683" class="fnanchor">[683]</a> That which an accused
-person at Athens usually strives to produce is, an impression in the
-minds of the dikasts favorable to his general character and behavior.
-Of course, he meets the particular allegation of his accuser as well
-as he can, but he never fails also to remind them emphatically, how
-well he has performed his general duties of a citizen,—how many times
-he has served in military expeditions,—how many trierarchies and
-liturgies he has performed, and performed with splendid efficiency.
-In fact, the claim of an accused person to acquittal is made to
-rest too much on his prior services, and too little upon innocence
-or justifying matter as to the particular indictment. When we come
-down to the time of the orators, I shall be prepared to show that
-such indisposition to confine themselves to a special issue was one
-of the most serious defects of the assembled dikasts at Athens. It
-is one which we should naturally expect from a body of private,
-non-professional citizens assembled for the occasion, and which
-belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere; but it
-is the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility
-to prior services, for which they have been so often denounced.</p>
-
-<p>The fate of Miltiadês, then, so far from illustrating either
-the fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their
-just appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral, of
-no small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs;
-it teaches us the painful lesson, how perfectly maddening were
-the effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of
-an enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[p. 374]</span> that the rapid
-transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian terror
-before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have
-produced demonstrations towards Miltiadês such as were never paid
-towards any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth.
-Such unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that
-his mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence,
-and antipathy, and rapacity;—that distempered state, for which
-(according to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever
-on the watch, and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment
-startling in its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount. Had
-Miltiadês been the same man before the battle of Marathon as he
-became after it, the battle might probably have turned out a defeat
-instead of a victory. Dêmosthenês, indeed,<a id="FNanchor_684"
-href="#Footnote_684" class="fnanchor">[684]</a> in speaking of the
-wealth and luxury of political leaders in his own time, and the
-profuse rewards bestowed upon them by the people, pointed in contrast
-to the house of Miltiadês as being noway more splendid than that of a
-private man. But though Miltiadês might continue to live in a modest
-establishment, he received from his countrymen marks of admiration
-and deference such as were never paid to any citizen before or after
-him; and, after all, admiration and deference constitute the precious
-essence of popular reward. No man except Miltiadês ever dared to
-raise his voice in the Athenian assembly, and say: “Give me a fleet
-of ships: do not ask what I am going to do with them, but only
-follow me, and I will enrich you.” Herein we may read the unmeasured
-confidence which the Athenians placed in their victorious general,
-and the utter incapacity of a leading Greek to bear it without mental
-depravation; while we learn from it to draw the melancholy inference,
-that one result of success was to make the successful leader one
-of the most dangerous men in the community. We shall presently be
-called upon to observe the same tendency in the case of the Spartan
-Pausanias, and even in that of the Athenian Themistoklês. It is,
-indeed, fortunate that the reckless aspirations of Miltiadês did not
-take a turn more noxious to Athens than the comparatively unimportant
-enterprise against Paros. For had he sought to acquire dominion
-and gratify antipathies against enemies at<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_375">[p. 375]</span> home, instead of directing his blow
-against a Parian enemy, the peace and security of his country might
-have been seriously endangered.</p>
-
-<p>Of the despots who gained power in Greece, a considerable
-proportion began by popular conduct, and by rendering good service
-to their fellow-citizens: having first earned public gratitude, they
-abused it for purposes of their own ambition. There was far greater
-danger, in a Grecian community, of dangerous excess of gratitude
-towards a victorious soldier, than of deficiency in that sentiment:
-hence the person thus exalted acquired a position such that the
-community found it difficult afterwards to shake him off. Now there
-is a disposition almost universal among writers and readers to side
-with an individual, especially an eminent individual, against the
-multitude; and accordingly those who under such circumstances suspect
-the probable abuse of an exalted position, are denounced as if they
-harbored an unworthy jealousy of superior abilities. But the truth
-is, that the largest analogies of the Grecian character justified
-that suspicion, and required the community to take precautions
-against the corrupting effects of their own enthusiasm. There is
-no feature which more largely pervades the impressible Grecian
-character, than a liability to be intoxicated and demoralized by
-success: there was no fault from which so few eminent Greeks were
-free: there was hardly any danger, against which it was at once
-so necessary and so difficult for the Grecian governments to take
-security,—especially the democracies, where the manifestations of
-enthusiasm were always the loudest. Such is the real explanation of
-those charges which have been urged against the Grecian democracies,
-that they came to hate and ill-treat previous benefactors; and the
-history of Miltiadês illustrates it in a manner no less pointed than
-painful.</p>
-
-<p>I have already remarked that the fickleness, which has been so
-largely imputed to the Athenian democracy in their dealings with
-him, is nothing more than a reasonable change of opinion on the
-best grounds. Nor can it be said that fickleness was in any case
-an attribute of the Athenian democracy. It is a well-known fact,
-that feelings, or opinions, or modes of judging, which have once
-obtained footing among a large number of people, are more lasting and
-unchangeable than those which belong only to<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_376">[p. 376]</span> one or a few; insomuch that the
-judgments and actions of the many admit of being more clearly
-understood as to the past, and more certainly predicted as to the
-future. If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude, it
-will rather be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness; and
-there will occur nothing in the course of this history to prove
-that the Athenian people changed their opinions on insufficient
-grounds more frequently than an unresponsible one or few would have
-changed.</p>
-
-<p>But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian
-democracy which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness,
-without the reality: First, that the manifestations and changes
-of opinion were all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave
-utterance to their present impression, whatever it was, with perfect
-frankness; if their opinions were really changed, they had no shame
-or scruple in avowing it. Secondly,—and this is a point of capital
-importance in the working of democracy generally,—the <i>present</i>
-impression, whatever it might be, was not merely undisguised in
-its manifestations, but also had a tendency to be exaggerated in
-its intensity. This arose from their habit of treating public
-affairs in multitudinous assemblages, the well-known effect of
-which is, to inflame sentiment in every man’s bosom by mere contact
-with a sympathizing circle of neighbors. Whatever the sentiment
-might be,—fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety,
-patriotic devotion, etc,<a id="FNanchor_685" href="#Footnote_685"
-class="fnanchor">[685]</a>—and whether well-founded or ill-founded,
-it was constantly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[p. 377]</span>
-influenced more or less by such intensifying cause. This is a
-defect which of course belongs in a certain degree to all exercise
-of power by numerous bodies, even though they be representative
-bodies,—especially when the character of the people, instead of being
-comparatively sedate and slow to move, like the English, is quick,
-impressible, and fiery, like Greeks or Italians; but it operated
-far more powerfully on the self-acting Dêmos assembled in the Pnyx.
-It was in fact the constitutional malady of the democracy, of which
-the people were themselves perfectly sensible,—as I shall show
-hereafter from the securities which they tried to provide against
-it,—but which no securities could ever wholly eradicate. Frequency
-of public assemblies, far from aggravating the evil, had a tendency
-to lighten it. The people thus became accustomed to hear and balance
-many different views as a preliminary to ultimate judgment; they
-contracted personal interest and esteem for a numerous class of
-dissentient speakers; and they even acquired a certain practical
-consciousness of their own liability to error. Moreover, the
-diffusion of habits of public speaking, by means of the sophists and
-the rhetors, whom it has been so much the custom to disparage, tended
-in the same direction,—to break the unity of sentiment among the
-listening crowd, to multiply separate judgments, and to neutralize
-the contagion of mere sympathizing impulse. These were important
-deductions, still farther assisted by the superior taste and
-intelligence of the Athenian people: but still, the inherent malady
-remained,—excessive and misleading intensity of present sentiment.
-It was this which gave such inestimable value to the ascendency of
-Periklês, as depicted by Thucydidês: his hold on the people was so
-firm, that he could always speak with effect against excess of the
-reigning tone of feeling. “When Periklês (says the historian) saw the
-people in a state of unseasonable and insolent confidence, he spoke
-so as to cow them into alarm; when again they were in groundless
-terror, he combated it, and brought them back to confidence.”<a
-id="FNanchor_686" href="#Footnote_686" class="fnanchor">[686]</a>
-We shall find Dêmosthenês,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[p.
-378]</span> with far inferior ascendency, employed in the same
-honorable task: the Athenian people often stood in need of such
-correction, but unfortunately did not always find statesmen, at once
-friendly and commanding, to administer it.</p>
-
-<p>These two attributes, then, belonged to the Athenian democracy;
-first, their sentiments of every kind were manifested loudly and
-openly; next, their sentiments tended to a pitch of great present
-intensity. Of course, therefore, when they changed, the change
-of sentiment stood prominent, and forced itself upon every one’s
-notice,—being a transition from one strong sentiment past to another
-strong sentiment present.<a id="FNanchor_687" href="#Footnote_687"
-class="fnanchor">[687]</a> And it was because such alterations,
-when they did take place, stood out so palpably to remark, that
-the Athenian people have drawn upon themselves the imputation of
-fickleness: for it is not at all true, I repeat, that changes
-of sentiment were more frequently produced in them by frivolous
-or insufficient causes, than changes of sentiment in other
-governments.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter pt3" id="Chap_37">
- <h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXVII.<br />
- IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. — PYTHAGORAS. — KROTON AND SYBARIS.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="mt1"><span class="smcap">The</span> history of the
-powerful Grecian cities in Italy and Sicily, between the accession
-of Peisistratus and the battle of Marathon, is for the most part
-unknown to us. Phalaris, despot of Agrigentum in Sicily, made
-for himself an unenviable name during this obscure interval. His
-reign seems to coincide in time with the earlier part of the
-rule of Peisistratus (about 560-540 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[p. 379]</span> and the few and
-vague statements which we find respecting it,<a id="FNanchor_688"
-href="#Footnote_688" class="fnanchor">[688]</a> merely show us that
-it was a period of extortion and cruelty, even beyond the ordinary
-licence of Grecian despots. The reality of the hollow bull of brass,
-which Phalaris was accustomed to heat in order to shut up his victims
-in it and burn them, appears to be better authenticated than the
-nature of the story would lead us to presume: for it is not only
-noticed by Pindar, but even the actual instrument of this torture,
-the brazen bull itself,<a id="FNanchor_689" href="#Footnote_689"
-class="fnanchor">[689]</a>—which had been taken away from Agrigentum
-as a trophy by the Carthaginians when they captured the town, was
-restored by the Romans, on the subjugation of Carthage, to its
-original domicile. Phalaris is said to have acquired the supreme
-command, by undertaking the task of building a great temple<a
-id="FNanchor_690" href="#Footnote_690" class="fnanchor">[690]</a> to
-Zeus Polieus on the citadel rock; a pretence whereby he was enabled
-to assemble and arm a number of workmen and devoted partisans, whom
-he employed, at the festival of the Thesmophoria, to put down the
-authorities. He afterwards disarmed the citizens by a stratagem,
-and committed cruelties which rendered him so abhorred, that a
-sudden rising of the people, headed by Têlemachus (ancestor of the
-subsequent despot, Thêro), overthrew and<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_380">[p. 380]</span> slew him. A severe revenge was
-taken on his partisans after his fall.<a id="FNanchor_691"
-href="#Footnote_691" class="fnanchor">[691]</a></p>
-
-<p>During the interval between 540-500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, events
-of much importance occurred among the Italian Greeks,—especially at
-Kroton and Sybaris,—events, unhappily, very imperfectly handed down.
-Between these two periods fall both the war between Sybaris and
-Kroton, and the career and ascendency of Pythagoras. In connection
-with this latter name, it will be requisite to say a few words
-respecting the other Grecian philosophers of the sixth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-<p>I have, in a former chapter, noticed and characterized those
-distinguished persons called the Seven Wise Men of Greece, whose
-celebrity falls in the first half of this century,—men not so much
-marked by scientific genius as by practical sagacity and foresight
-in the appreciation of worldly affairs, and enjoying a high degree
-of political respect from their fellow-citizens. One of them,
-however, the Milesian Thalês, claims our notice, not only on this
-ground, but also as the earliest known name in the long line of Greek
-scientific investigators. His life, nearly contemporary with that
-of Solon, belongs seemingly to the interval about 640-550 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: the stories mentioned in Herodotus—perhaps borrowed in
-part from the Milesian Hekatæus—are sufficient to show that his
-reputation for wisdom, as well as for science, continued to be very
-great, even a century after his death, among his fellow-citizens.
-And he marks an important epoch in the progress of the Greek mind,
-as having been the first man to depart both in letter and spirit
-from the Hesiodic Theogony, introducing the conception of substances
-with their transformations and sequences, in place of that string
-of persons and quasi-human attributes which had animated the old
-legendary world. He is the father of what is called the Ionic
-philosophy, which is considered as lasting from his time down to that
-of Sokratês; and writers, ancient as well as modern, have professed
-to trace a succession of philosophers, each one the pupil of the
-preceding, between these two extreme epochs. But the appellation
-is, in truth, undefined, and even incorrect, since nothing
-entitled to the name of a school, or sect, or succession,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[p. 381]</span>—like that of the
-Pythagoreans, to be noticed presently,—can be made out. There is,
-indeed, a certain general analogy in the philosophical vein of
-Thalês, Hippo, Anaximenês, and Diogenês of Apollonia, whereby they
-all stand distinguished from Xenophanês of Elea, and his successors,
-the Eleatic dialecticians, Parmenidês and Zeno; but there are also
-material differences between their respective doctrines,—no two of
-them holding the same. And if we look to Anaximander, the person next
-in order of time to Thalês, as well as to Herakleitus, we find them
-departing, in a great degree, even from that character which all the
-rest have in common, though both the one and the other are usually
-enrolled in the list of Ionic philosophers.</p>
-
-<p>Of the old legendary and polytheistic conception of nature, which
-Thalês partially discarded, we may remark that it is a state of the
-human mind in which the problems suggesting themselves to be solved,
-and the machinery for solving them, bear a fair proportion one to
-the other. If the problems be vast, indeterminate, confused, and
-derived rather from the hopes, fears, love, hatred, astonishment,
-etc., of men, than from any genuine desire of knowledge,—so also
-does the received belief supply invisible agents in unlimited
-number, and with every variety of power and inclination. The means
-of explanation are thus multiplied and diversified as readily as the
-phenomena to be explained. And though no future events or states can
-be predicted on trustworthy grounds, in such manner as to stand the
-scrutiny of subsequent verification,—yet there is little difficulty
-in rendering a specious and plausible account of matters past, of any
-and all things alike; especially as, at such a period, matters of
-fact requiring explanation are neither collated nor preserved with
-care. And though no event or state, which has not yet occurred, can
-be predicted, there is little difficulty in rendering a plausible
-account of everything which has occurred in the past. Cosmogony, and
-the prior ages of the world, were conceived as a sort of personal
-history, with intermarriages, filiation, quarrels, and other
-adventures, of these invisible agents; among whom some one or more
-were assumed as unbegotten and self-existent,—the latter assumption
-being a difficulty common to all systems of cosmogony, and from which
-even this flexible and expansive hypothesis is not exempt.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[p. 382]</span>Now when
-Thalês disengaged Grecian philosophy from the old mode of
-explanation, he did not at the same time disengage it from the old
-problems and matters propounded for inquiry. These he retained,
-and transmitted to his successors, as vague and vast as they
-were at first conceived; and so they remained, though with some
-transformations and modifications, together with many new questions
-equally insoluble, substantially present to the Greeks throughout
-their whole history, as the legitimate problems for philosophical
-investigation. But these problems, adapted only to the old elastic
-system of polytheistic explanation and omnipresent personal agency,
-became utterly disproportioned to any impersonal hypotheses such
-as those of Thalês and the philosophers after him,—whether assumed
-physical laws, or plausible moral and metaphysical dogmas, open to
-argumentative attack, and of course requiring the like defence. To
-treat the visible world as a whole, and inquire when and how it
-began, as well as into all its past changes,—to discuss the first
-origin of men, animals, plants, the sun, the stars, etc.,—to assign
-some comprehensive reason why motion or change in general took place
-in the universe,—to investigate the destinies of the human race, and
-to lay down some systematic relation between them and the gods,—all
-these were topics admitting of being conceived in many different
-ways, and set forth with eloquent plausibility, but not reducible to
-any solution either resting on scientific evidence, or commanding
-steady adherence under a free scrutiny.<a id="FNanchor_692"
-href="#Footnote_692" class="fnanchor">[692]</a></p>
-
-<p>At the time when the power of scientific investigation was
-scanty and helpless, the problems proposed were thus such as
-to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[p. 383]</span> lie out of
-the reach of science in its largest compass. Gradually, indeed,
-subjects more special and limited, and upon which experience, or
-deductions from experience, could be brought to bear, were added
-to the list of <i>quæsita</i>, and examined with great profit and
-instruction: but the old problems, with new ones, alike unfathomable,
-were never eliminated, and always occupied a prominent place in
-the philosophical world. Now it was this disproportion, between
-questions to be solved and means of solution, which gave rise
-to that conspicuous characteristic of Grecian philosophy,—the
-antagonist force of suspensive skepticism, passing in some minds
-into a broad negation of the attainability of general truth,—which
-it nourished from its beginning to its end; commencing as early
-as Xenophanês, continuing to manifest itself seven centuries
-afterwards in Ænesidêmus and Sextus Empiricus, and including in
-the interval between these two extremes some of the most powerful
-intellects in Greece. The present is not the time for considering
-these Skeptics, who bear an unpopular name, and have not often been
-fairly appreciated; the more so, as it often suited the purpose of
-men, themselves essentially skeptical, like Sokratês and Plato, to
-denounce professed skepticism with indignation. But it is essential
-to bring them into notice at the first spring of Grecian philosophy
-under Thalês, because the circumstances were then laid which so soon
-afterwards developed them.</p>
-
-<p>Though the celebrity of Thalês in antiquity was great and
-universal, scarcely any distinct facts were known respecting
-him: it is certain that he left nothing in writing. Extensive
-travels in Egypt and Asia are ascribed to him, and as a general
-fact these travels are doubtless true, since no other means of
-acquiring knowledge were then open. At a time when the brother
-of the Lesbian Alkæus was serving in the Babylonian army, we may
-easily conceive that an inquisitive Milesian would make his way
-to that wonderful city wherein stood the temple-observatory of
-the Chaldæan priesthood; nor is it impossible that he may have
-seen the still greater city of Ninus, or Nineveh, before its
-capture and destruction by the Medes. How great his reputation
-was in his lifetime, the admiration expressed by his younger
-contemporary, Xenophanês, assures us; and Herakleitus, in the next
-generation, a severe judge of all other<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_384">[p. 384]</span> philosophers, spoke of him with
-similar esteem. To him were traced, by the Grecian inquirers of
-the fourth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, the first beginnings
-of geometry, astronomy, and physiology in its large and really
-appropriate sense, the scientific study of nature: for the Greek
-word denoting nature (φύσις), first comes into comprehensive use
-about this time (as I have remarked in an earlier chapter),<a
-id="FNanchor_693" href="#Footnote_693" class="fnanchor">[693]</a>
-with its derivatives <i>physics</i> and <i>physiology</i>, as distinguished
-from the <i>theology</i> of the old poets. Little stress can be laid on
-those elementary propositions in geometry which are specified as
-discovered, or as first demonstrated, by Thalês,—still less upon
-the solar eclipse respecting which, according to Herodotus, he
-determined beforehand the year of occurrence.<a id="FNanchor_694"
-href="#Footnote_694" class="fnanchor">[694]</a> But the main doctrine
-of his physiology,—using that word in its larger Greek sense,—is
-distinctly attested. He stripped Oceanus and Tethys, primeval parents
-of the gods in the Homeric theogony, of their personality,—and laid
-down water, or fluid substance, as the single original element
-from which everything came, and into which everything returned.<a
-id="FNanchor_695" href="#Footnote_695" class="fnanchor">[695]</a>
-The doctrine of one eternal element, remaining always the same in
-its essence, but indefinitely variable in its manifestations to
-sense, was thus first introduced to the discussion of the Grecian
-public. We have no means of knowing the reasons by which Thalês
-supported this opinion, nor could even Aristotle do more than
-conjecture what they might have been; but one of the statements
-urged on behalf of it,—that the earth itself rested on water,<a
-id="FNanchor_696" href="#Footnote_696" class="fnanchor">[696]</a>—we
-may safely refer to the Milesian himself, for it would hardly have
-been advanced at a later age. Moreover, Thalês is reported to have
-held, that everything was living and full of gods; and that the
-magnet, especially, was a living thing. Thus the gods, as far as
-we can pretend to follow opinions so very faintly transmitted, are
-conceived as active powers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[p.
-385]</span> and causes of changeful manifestation, attached to
-the primeval substance:<a id="FNanchor_697" href="#Footnote_697"
-class="fnanchor">[697]</a> the universe being assimilated to an
-organized body or system.</p>
-
-<p>Respecting Hippo,—who reproduced the theory of Thalês under
-a more generalized form of expression, substituting, in place
-of water, moisture, or something common to air and water,<a
-id="FNanchor_698" href="#Footnote_698" class="fnanchor">[698]</a>—we
-do not know whether he belonged to the sixth or the fifth century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> But Anaximander, Xenophanês, and Pherekydês
-belong to the latter half of the sixth century. Anaximander,
-the son of Praxiadês, was a native of Milêtus,—Xenophanês, a
-native of Kolophon; the former, among the earliest expositors
-of doctrine in prose,<a id="FNanchor_699" href="#Footnote_699"
-class="fnanchor">[699]</a> while the latter committed his opinions
-to the old medium of verse. Anaximander seems to have taken up the
-philosophical problem, while he materially altered the hypothesis of
-his predecessor Thalês. Instead of the primeval fluid of the latter,
-he supposed a primeval principle, without any actual determining
-qualities whatever, but including all qualities potentially, and
-manifesting them in an infinite variety from its continually
-self-changing nature,—a principle, which was nothing in itself, yet
-had the capacity of producing any and all manifestations, however
-contrary to each other,<a id="FNanchor_700" href="#Footnote_700"
-class="fnanchor">[700]</a>—a primeval something, whose essence<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[p. 386]</span> it was to be eternally
-productive of different phenomena,—a sort of mathematical point,
-which counts for nothing in itself, but is vigorous in generating
-lines to any extent that may be desired. In this manner, Anaximander
-professed to give a comprehensive explanation of change in
-general, or generation, or destruction,—how it happened that one
-sensible thing began and another ceased to exist,—according to the
-vague problems which these early inquirers were in the habit of
-setting to themselves.<a id="FNanchor_701" href="#Footnote_701"
-class="fnanchor">[701]</a> He avoided that which the first
-philosophers especially dreaded, the affirmation that generation
-could take place out of Nothing; yet the primeval Something, which he
-supposed was only distinguished from nothing by possessing this very
-power of generation.</p>
-
-<p>In his theory, he passed from the province of physics into
-that of metaphysics. He first introduced into Grecian philosophy
-that important word which signifies a beginning or a principle,<a
-id="FNanchor_702" href="#Footnote_702" class="fnanchor">[702]</a> and
-first opened that metaphysical discussion, which was carried on in
-various ways throughout the whole period of Grecian philosophy, as
-to the one and the many—the continuous and the variable—that which
-exists eternally, as distinguished from that which comes and passes
-away in ever-changing manifestations. His physiology, or explanation
-of nature, thus conducted the mind into a different route from that
-suggested by the hypothesis of Thalês, which was built upon physical
-considerations, and was therefore calculated to suggest and stimulate
-observations of physical phenomena for the purpose of verifying or
-confuting it,—while the hypothesis of Anaximander admitted only of
-being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[p. 387]</span> discussed
-dialectically, or by reasonings expressed in general language;
-reasonings sometimes, indeed, referring to experience for the purpose
-of illustration, but seldom resting on it, and never looking out
-for it as a necessary support. The physical explanation of nature,
-however, once introduced by Thalês, although deserted by Anaximander,
-was taken up by Anaximenês and others afterwards, and reproduced
-with many divergences of doctrine,—yet always more or less entangled
-and perplexed with metaphysical additions, since the two departments
-were never clearly parted throughout all Grecian philosophy. Of these
-subsequent physical philosophers I shall speak hereafter: at present,
-I confine myself to the thinkers of the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, among whom Anaximander stands prominent, not as the
-follower of Thalês, but as the author of an hypothesis both new and
-tending in a different direction.</p>
-
-<p>It was not merely as the author of this hypothesis, however,
-that Anaximander enlarged the Greek mind and roused the powers of
-thought: we find him also mentioned as distinguished in astronomy
-and geometry. He is said to have been the first to establish a
-sun-dial in Greece, to construct a sphere, and to explain the
-obliquity of the ecliptic;<a id="FNanchor_703" href="#Footnote_703"
-class="fnanchor">[703]</a> how far such alleged authorship really
-belongs to him, we cannot be certain,—but there is one step of
-immense importance which he is clearly affirmed to have made. He was
-the first to compose a treatise on the geography of the land and
-sea within his cognizance, and to construct a chart or map founded
-thereupon,—seemingly a tablet of brass. Such a novelty, wondrous even
-to the rude and ignorant, was calculated to stimulate powerfully
-inquisitive minds, and from it may be dated the commencement of
-Grecian rational geography,—not the least valuable among the
-contributions of this people to the stock of human knowledge.</p>
-
-<p>Xenophanês of Kolophon, somewhat younger than Anaximander, and
-nearly contemporary with Pythagoras (seemingly from about 570-480
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), migrated from Kolophon<a id="FNanchor_704"
-href="#Footnote_704" class="fnanchor">[704]</a> to Zanklê and
-Katana in Sicily and Elea in Italy, soon after the time when<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[p. 388]</span> Ionia became subject
-to the Persians, (540-530 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) He was the founder
-of what is called the Eleatic school of philosophers,—a real school,
-since it appears that Parmenidês, Zeno, and Melissus, pursued and
-developed, in a great degree, the train of speculation which had
-been begun by Xenophanês,—doubtless with additions and variations of
-their own, but especially with a dialectic power which belongs to
-the age of Periklês, and is unknown in the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> He was the author of more than one poem of considerable
-length, one on the foundation of Kolophon and another on that
-of Elea; besides his poem on Nature, wherein his philosophical
-doctrines were set forth.<a id="FNanchor_705" href="#Footnote_705"
-class="fnanchor">[705]</a> His manner appears to have been
-controversial and full of asperity towards antagonists; but what
-is most remarkable is the plain-spoken manner in which he declared
-himself against the popular religion, and in which he denounced as
-abominable the descriptions of the gods given by Homer and Hesiod.<a
-id="FNanchor_706" href="#Footnote_706" class="fnanchor">[706]</a></p>
-
-<p>He is said to have controverted the doctrines both of Thalês and
-Pythagoras: this is probable enough; but he seems to have taken his
-start from the philosophy of Anaximander,—not, however, to adopt it,
-but to reverse it,—and to set forth an opinion which we may call its
-contrary. Nature, in the conception of Anaximander, consisted of a
-Something having no other attribute except the unlimited power of
-generating and cancelling phenomenal changes: in this doctrine, the
-something or substratum existed only in and for those changes, and
-could not be said to exist at all in any other sense: the permanent
-was thus merged and lost in the variable,—the one in the many.
-Xenophanês laid down the exact opposite: he conceived Nature as one
-unchangeable and indivisible whole, spherical, animated, endued with
-reason, and penetrated by or indeed identical with God: he denied
-the objective reality of all change, or generation, or destruction,
-which he seems to have considered as only changes or modifications in
-the percipient, and perhaps different in one percipient and another.
-That which exists, he maintained, could not have been generated, nor
-could it ever be destroyed: there was neither real generation nor
-real destruction of anything; but that which<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_389">[p. 389]</span> men took for such, was the change
-in their own feelings and ideas. He thus recognized the permanent
-without the variable,<a id="FNanchor_707" href="#Footnote_707"
-class="fnanchor">[707]</a>—the one without the many. And his
-treatment of the received religious creed was in harmony with such
-physical or metaphysical hypothesis; for while he held the whole
-of Nature to be God, without parts or change, he at the same time
-pronounced the popular gods to be entities of subjective fancy,
-imagined by men after their own model: if oxen or lions were to
-become religious, he added, they would in like manner provide for
-themselves gods after their respective shapes and characters.<a
-id="FNanchor_708" href="#Footnote_708" class="fnanchor">[708]</a>
-This hypothesis, which seemed to set aside altogether the study of
-the sensible world as a source of knowledge, was expounded briefly,
-and as it should seem, obscurely and rudely, by Xenophanês; at
-least we may infer thus much from the slighting epithet applied
-to him by Aristotle.<a id="FNanchor_709" href="#Footnote_709"
-class="fnanchor">[709]</a> But his successors, Parmenidês and Zeno,
-in the succeeding century, expanded it considerably, supported it
-with extraordinary acuteness of dialectics, and even superadded a
-second part, in which the phenomena of sense—though considered only
-as appearances, not partaking in the reality of the one Ens—were yet
-explained by a new physical hypothesis; so that they will be found
-to exercise great influence over the speculations both of Plato and
-Aristotle. We discover in Xenophanês, moreover, a vein of skepticism,
-and a mournful despair as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[p.
-390]</span> to the attainability of certain knowledge,<a
-id="FNanchor_710" href="#Footnote_710" class="fnanchor">[710]</a>
-which the nature of his philosophy was well calculated to suggest,
-and in which the sillograph Timon of the third century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, who seems to have spoken of Xenophanês better than of
-most of the other philosophers, powerfully sympathized.</p>
-
-<p>The cosmogony of Pherekydês of Syrus, contemporary of Anaximander
-and among the teachers of Pythagoras, seems, according to the
-fragments preserved, a combination of the old legendary fancies
-with Orphic mysticism,<a id="FNanchor_711" href="#Footnote_711"
-class="fnanchor">[711]</a> and probably exercised little influence
-over the subsequent course of Grecian philosophy. By what has been
-said of Thalês, Anaximander, and Xenophanês, it will be seen that
-the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> witnessed the opening of
-several of those roads of intellectual speculation which the later
-philosophers pursued farther, or at least from which they branched
-off. Before the year 500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> many interesting
-questions were thus brought into discussion, which Solon, who died
-about 558 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, had never heard of,—just as he may
-probably never have seen the map of Anaximander. But neither of
-these two distinguished men—Anaximander or Xenophanês—was anything
-more than a speculative inquirer. The third eminent name of this
-century, of whom I am now about to speak,—Pythagoras, combined in
-his character disparate elements which require rather a longer
-development.</p>
-
-<p>Pythagoras was founder of a brotherhood, originally brought
-together by a religious influence, and with observances approaching
-to monastic peculiarity,—working in a direction at once religious,
-political, and scientific, and exercising for some time a real
-political ascendency,—but afterwards banished from government and
-state affairs into a sectarian privacy with scientific pursuits,
-not without, however, still producing some statesmen individually
-distinguished. Amidst the multitude of false and apocryphal
-statements which circulated in antiquity respecting this celebrated
-man, we find a few important facts reasonably attested and
-deserving credence. He was a native of Samos,<a id="FNanchor_712"
-href="#Footnote_712" class="fnanchor">[712]</a><span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_391">[p. 391]</span> son of an opulent merchant named
-Mnêsarchus,—or, according to some of his later and more fervent
-admirers, of Apollo; born, as far as we can make out, about the
-50th Olympiad, or 580 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> On the many marvels
-recounted respecting his youth, it is unnecessary to dwell. Among
-them may be numbered his wide-reaching travels, said to have
-been prolonged for nearly thirty years, to visit the Arabians,
-the Syrians, the Phenicians, the Chaldæans, the Indians, and
-the Gallic Druids. But there is reason to believe that he
-really visited Egypt<a id="FNanchor_713" href="#Footnote_713"
-class="fnanchor">[713]</a>—perhaps also Phenicia—and Babylon, then
-Chaldæan and independent. At the time when he saw Egypt, between
-560-540 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, about one century earlier than
-Herodotus, it was under Amasis, the last of its own kings, with
-its peculiar native character yet unimpaired by foreign conquest,
-and only slightly modified by the admission during the preceding
-century of Grecian mercenary troops and traders. The spectacle of
-Egyptian habits, the conversation of the priests, and the initiation
-into various mysteries or secret rites and stories not accessible
-to the general public, may very naturally have impressed the mind
-of Pythagoras, and given him that turn for mystic observance,
-asceticism, and peculiarity of diet and clothing,—which manifested
-itself from the same cause among several of his contemporaries, but
-which was not a common phenomenon in the primitive Greek religion.
-Besides visiting Egypt, Pythagoras is also said to have profited
-by the teaching of Thalês, of Anaximander, and of Pherekydês
-of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[p. 392]</span> Syros.<a
-id="FNanchor_714" href="#Footnote_714" class="fnanchor">[714]</a>
-Amidst the towns of Ionia, he would, moreover, have an opportunity
-of conversing with many Greek navigators who had visited foreign
-countries, especially Italy and Sicily. His mind seems to have been
-acted upon and impelled by this combined stimulus,—partly towards an
-imaginative and religious vein of speculation, with a life of mystic
-observance,—partly towards that active exercise, both of mind and
-body, which the genius of an Hellenic community so naturally tended
-to suggest.</p>
-
-<p>Of the personal doctrines or opinions of Pythagoras, whom we must
-distinguish from Philolaus and the subsequent Pythagoreans, we have
-little certain knowledge, though doubtless the first germ of their
-geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, etc. must have proceeded from him.
-But that he believed in the metempsychosis or transmigration of the
-souls of deceased men into other men, as well as into animals, we
-know, not only by other evidence, but also by the testimony of his
-contemporary, the philosopher Xenophanês of Elea. Pythagoras, seeing
-a dog beaten, and hearing him howl, desired the striker to desist,
-saying: “It is the soul of a friend of mine, whom I recognized by his
-voice.” This—together with the general testimony of Hêrakleitus, that
-Pythagoras was a man of extensive research and acquired instruction,
-but artful for mischief and destitute of sound judgment—is all that
-we know about him from contemporaries. Herodotus, two generations
-afterwards, while he conceives the Pythagoreans as a peculiar
-religious order, intimates that both Orpheus and Pythagoras
-had derived the doctrine of the metempsychosis from Egypt, but
-had pretended to it as their own without acknowledgment.<a
-id="FNanchor_715" href="#Footnote_715" class="fnanchor">[715]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[p. 393]</span>Pythagoras
-combines the character of a sophist (a man of large observation, and
-clever, ascendent, inventive mind,—the original sense of the word
-Sophist, prior to the polemics of the Platonic school, and the only
-sense known to Herodotus<a id="FNanchor_716" href="#Footnote_716"
-class="fnanchor">[716]</a>) with that of an inspired teacher,
-prophet, and worker of miracles,—approaching to and sometimes
-even confounded with the gods,—and employing all these gifts to
-found a new special order of brethren, bound together by religious
-rites and observances peculiar to themselves. In his prominent
-vocation, analogous to that of Epimenidês, Orpheus, or Melampus, he
-appears as the revealer of a mode of life calculated to raise his
-disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend them to the
-favor of the gods; the Pythagorean life, like the Orphic life,<a
-id="FNanchor_717" href="#Footnote_717" class="fnanchor">[717]</a>
-being intended<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[p. 394]</span>
-as the exclusive prerogative of the brotherhood,—approached only
-by probation and initiatory ceremonies which were adapted to
-select enthusiasts rather than to an indiscriminate crowd,—and
-exacting entire mental devotion to the master.<a id="FNanchor_718"
-href="#Footnote_718" class="fnanchor">[718]</a> In these lofty
-pretensions the Agrigentine Empedoklês seems to have greatly copied
-him, though with some varieties, about half a century afterwards.<a
-id="FNanchor_719" href="#Footnote_719" class="fnanchor">[719]</a>
-While Aristotle tells us that the Krotoniates identified Pythagoras
-with the Hyperborean Apollo, the satirical Timon pronounced him to
-have been “a juggler of solemn speech, engaged in fishing for men.”<a
-id="FNanchor_720" href="#Footnote_720" class="fnanchor">[720]</a>
-This is the same character, looked at from the different points of
-view of the believer and the unbeliever. There is, however, no reason
-for regarding Pythagoras as an impostor, because experience seems to
-show, that while in certain ages it is not difficult for a man to
-persuade others that he is inspired, it is still less difficult for
-him to contract the same belief himself.</p>
-
-<p>Looking at the general type of Pythagoras, as conceived by
-witnesses in and nearest to his own age,—Xenophanês, Hêrakleitus,
-Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Isokratês,<a id="FNanchor_721"
-href="#Footnote_721" class="fnanchor">[721]</a>—we find in
-him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[p. 395]</span> chiefly
-the religious missionary and schoolmaster, with little of the
-politician. His efficiency in the latter character, originally
-subordinate, first becomes prominent in those glowing fancies
-which the later Pythagoreans communicated to Aristoxenus and
-Dikæarchus. The primitive Pythagoras inspired by the gods to reveal
-a new mode of life,<a id="FNanchor_722" href="#Footnote_722"
-class="fnanchor">[722]</a>—the Pythagorean life,—and to promise
-divine favor to a select and docile few, as the recompense of strict
-ritual obedience, of austere self-control, and of laborious training,
-bodily as well as mental. To speak with confidence of the details
-of his training, ethical or scientific, and of the doctrines which
-he promulgated, is impossible; for neither he himself nor any of
-his disciples anterior to Philolaus—who was separated from him by
-about one intervening generation—left any memorials in writing.<a
-id="FNanchor_723" href="#Footnote_723" class="fnanchor">[723]</a>
-Numbers and lines, studied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[p.
-396]</span> partly in their own mutual relations, partly under
-various symbolizing fancies, presented themselves to him as the
-primary constituent elements of the universe, and as a sort of
-magical key to phenomena, physical as well as moral. And these
-mathematical tendencies in his teaching, expanded by Pythagoreans,
-his successors, and coinciding partly also, as has been before
-stated, with the studies of Anaximander and Thalês, acquired more
-and more development, so as to become one of the most glorious and
-profitable manifestations of Grecian intellect. Living as Pythagoras
-did at a time when the stock of experience was scanty, the license
-of hypothesis unbounded, and the process of deduction without rule
-or verifying test,—he was thus fortunate enough to strike into
-that track of geometry and arithmetic, in which, from data of
-experience few, simple, and obvious, an immense field of deductive
-and verifiable investigation may be travelled over. We must at the
-same time remark, however, that in his mind this track, which now
-seems so straightforward and well defined, was clouded by strange
-fancies which it is not easy to understand, and from which it was
-but partially cleared by his successors. Of his spiritual training
-much is said, though not upon very good authority. We hear of his
-memorial discipline, his monastic self-scrutiny, his employment
-of music to soothe disorderly passions,<a id="FNanchor_724"
-href="#Footnote_724" class="fnanchor">[724]</a> his long novitiate of
-silence, his knowledge of physiognomy, which enabled him to detect
-even without trial unworthy subjects, his peculiar diet, and his
-rigid care for sobriety as well as for bodily vigor. He is also said
-to have inculcated abstinence from animal food, and this feeling
-is so naturally connected with the doctrine of the metempsychosis,
-that we may well believe him to have entertained it, as Empedoklês
-also did after him.<a id="FNanchor_725" href="#Footnote_725"
-class="fnanchor">[725]</a> It is certain that there were
-peculiar<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[p. 397]</span>
-observances, and probably a certain measure of self-denial
-embodied in the Pythagorean life; but on the other hand, it seems
-equally certain that the members of the order cannot have been all
-subjected to the same diet, or training, or studies. For Milo the
-Krotoniate was among them,<a id="FNanchor_726" href="#Footnote_726"
-class="fnanchor">[726]</a> the strongest man and the unparalleled
-wrestler of his age,—who cannot possibly have dispensed with
-animal food and ample diet (even setting aside the tales about his
-voracious appetite), and is not likely to have bent his attention
-on speculative study. Probably Pythagoras did not enforce the same
-bodily or mental discipline on all, or at least knew when to grant
-dispensations. The order, as it first stood under him, consisted of
-men different both in temperament and aptitude, but bound together
-by common religious observances and hopes, common reverence for
-the master, and mutual attachment as well as pride in each other’s
-success; and it must thus be distinguished from the Pythagoreans
-of the fourth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, who had no communion
-with wrestlers, and comprised only ascetic, studious men, generally
-recluse, though in some cases rising to political distinction.</p>
-
-<p>The succession of these Pythagoreans, never very numerous, seems
-to have continued until about 300 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and then
-nearly died out; being superseded by other schemes of philosophy more
-suited to cultivated Greeks of the age after Sokratês. But during
-the time of Cicero, two centuries afterwards, the orientalizing
-tendency—then beginning to spread over the Grecian and Roman
-world, and becoming gradually stronger and stronger—caused the
-Pythagorean philosophy to be again revived. It was revived too,
-with little or none of its scientific tendencies, but with more
-than its primitive religious and imaginative fanaticism,<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[p. 398]</span>—Apollonius of Tyana
-constituting himself a living copy of Pythagoras. And thus, while
-the scientific elements developed by the disciples of Pythagoras had
-become disjoined from all peculiarity of sect, and passed into the
-general studious world,—the original vein of mystic and ascetic fancy
-belonging to the master, without any of that practical efficiency of
-body and mind which had marked his first followers, was taken up anew
-into the pagan world, along with the disfigured doctrines of Plato.
-Neo-Pythagorism, passing gradually into Neo-Platonism, outlasted
-the other more positive and masculine systems of pagan philosophy,
-as the contemporary and rival of Christianity. A large proportion
-of the false statements concerning Pythagoras come from these
-Neo-Pythagoreans, who were not deterred by the want of memorials from
-illustrating, with ample latitude of fancy, the ideal character of
-the master.</p>
-
-<p>That an inquisitive man like Pythagoras, at a time when there
-were hardly any books to study, would visit foreign countries, and
-converse with all the Grecian philosophical inquirers within his
-reach, is a matter which we should presume, even if no one attested
-it; and our witnesses carry us very little beyond this general
-presumption. What doctrines he borrowed, or from whom, we are unable
-to discover. But, in fact, his whole life and proceedings bear the
-stamp of an original mind, and not of a borrower,—a mind impressed
-both with Hellenic and with non-Hellenic habits and religion, yet
-capable of combining the two in a manner peculiar to himself; and
-above all, endued with those talents for religion and personal
-ascendency over others, which told for much more than the intrinsic
-merit of his ideas. We are informed that after extensive travels
-and inquiries he returned to Samos, at the age of about forty: he
-then found his native island under the despotism of Polykratês,
-which rendered it an unsuitable place either for free sentiments
-or for marked individuals. Unable to attract hearers, or found
-any school or brotherhood, in his native island, he determined to
-expatriate. And we may presume that at this period (about 535-530
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) the recent subjugation of Ionia by the Persians
-was not without influence on his determination. The trade between
-the Asiatic and the Italian Greeks,—and even the intimacy between
-Milêtus and Knidus on the one side, and Sybaris and Tarentum<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[p. 399]</span> on the other,—had been
-great and of long standing, so that there was more than one motive
-to determine him to the coast of Italy; in which direction also
-his contemporary Xenophanês, the founder of the Eleatic school of
-philosophy, emigrated, seemingly, about the same time,—from Kolophon
-to Zanklê, Katana, and Elea.<a id="FNanchor_727" href="#Footnote_727"
-class="fnanchor">[727]</a></p>
-
-<p>Kroton and Sybaris were at this time in their fullest
-prosperity,—among the first and most prosperous cities of the
-Hellenic name. To the former of the two Pythagoras directed his
-course. A council of one thousand persons, taken from among the
-heirs and representatives of the principal proprietors at its first
-foundation, was here invested with the supreme authority: in what
-manner the executive offices were filled, we have no information.
-Besides a great extent of power, and a numerous population, the large
-mass of whom had no share in the political franchise, Kroton stood
-at this time distinguished for two things,—the general excellence of
-the bodily habit of the citizens, attested, in part, by the number
-of conquerors furnished to the Olympic games,—and the superiority of
-its physicians, or surgeons.<a id="FNanchor_728" href="#Footnote_728"
-class="fnanchor">[728]</a> These two points were, in fact, greatly
-connected with each other. For the therapeutics of the day consisted
-not so much of active remedies as of careful diet and regimen;
-while the trainer, who dictated the life of an athlete during
-his long and fatiguing preparation for an Olympic contest, and
-the professional superintendent of the youths who frequented the
-public gymnasia, followed out the same general views, and acted
-upon the same basis of knowledge, as the physician who prescribed
-for a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[p. 400]</span> state
-of positive bad health.<a id="FNanchor_729" href="#Footnote_729"
-class="fnanchor">[729]</a> Of medical education properly so called,
-especially of anatomy, there was then little or nothing.<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[p. 401]</span> The physician acquired
-his knowledge from observation of men sick as well as healthy, and
-from a careful notice of the way in which the human body was acted
-upon by surrounding agents and circumstances: and this same knowledge
-was not less necessary for the trainer; so that the same place
-which contained the best men in the latter class was also likely
-to be distinguished in the former. It is not improbable that this
-celebrity of Kroton may have been one of the reasons which determined
-Pythagoras to go thither; for among the precepts ascribed to him,
-precise rules as to diet and bodily regulation occupy a prominent
-place. The medical or surgical celebrity of Dêmokêdês (son-in-law of
-the Pythagorean Milo), to whom allusion has been made in a former
-chapter, is contemporaneous with the presence of Pythagoras at
-Kroton; and the medical men of Magna Græcia maintained themselves in
-credit, as rivals of the schools of the Asklepiads at Kôs and Knidus,
-throughout all the fifth and fourth centuries <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-<p>The biographers of Pythagoras tell us that his arrival there,
-his preaching, and his conduct, produced an effect almost electric
-upon the minds of the people, with an extensive reform, public as
-well as private. Political discontent was repressed, incontinence
-disappeared, luxury became discredited, and the women, hastened to
-exchange their golden ornaments for the simplest attire. No less
-than two thousand persons were converted at his first preaching;
-and so effective were his discourses to the youth, that the
-Supreme Council of One Thousand invited him into their assembly,
-solicited his advice, and even offered to constitute him their<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[p. 402]</span> prytanis, or president,
-while his wife and daughter were placed at the head of the religious
-processions of females.<a id="FNanchor_730" href="#Footnote_730"
-class="fnanchor">[730]</a> Nor was his influence confined to Kroton.
-Other towns in Italy and Sicily,—Sybaris, Metapontum, Rhêgium,
-Katana, Himera, etc., all felt the benefit of his exhortations, which
-extricated some of them even from slavery. Such are the tales of
-which the biographers of Pythagoras are full.<a id="FNanchor_731"
-href="#Footnote_731" class="fnanchor">[731]</a> And we see that
-even the disciples of Aristotle, about the year 300 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, Herakleidês of Pontus, etc.,
-are hardly less charged with them than the Neo-Pythagoreans of
-three or four centuries later: they doubtless heard them from their
-contemporary Pythagoreans,<a id="FNanchor_732" href="#Footnote_732"
-class="fnanchor">[732]</a> the last members of a declining sect,
-among whom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[p. 403]</span> the
-attributes of the primitive founder passed for godlike, but who had
-no memorials, no historical judgment, and no means of forming a
-true conception of Kroton as it stood in 530 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small><a
-id="FNanchor_733" href="#Footnote_733" class="fnanchor">[733]</a></p>
-
-<p>To trace these tales to a true foundation is impossible: but we
-may entertain reasonable belief that the success of Pythagoras,
-as a person favored by the gods and patentee of divine secrets,
-was very great,—that he procured to himself both the reverence of
-the multitude and the peculiar attachment and obedience of many
-devoted adherents, chiefly belonging to the wealthy and powerful
-classes,—that a select body of these adherents, three hundred in
-number, bound themselves by a sort of vow both to Pythagoras and to
-each other, and adopted a peculiar diet, ritual, and observances,
-as a token of union,—though without anything like community of
-property, which some have ascribed to them. Such a band of men,
-standing high in the city for wealth and station, and bound together
-by this intimate tie, came by almost unconscious tendency to
-mingle political ambition with religious and scientific pursuits.
-Political clubs with sworn members, under one form or another, were
-a constant phenomenon in the Grecian cities,<a id="FNanchor_734"
-href="#Footnote_734" class="fnanchor">[734]</a><span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_404">[p. 404]</span> and the Pythagorean order at its first
-formation was the most efficient of all clubs; since it presented an
-intimacy of attachment among its members, as well as a feeling of
-haughty exclusiveness against the public without, such as no other
-fraternity could parallel.<a id="FNanchor_735" href="#Footnote_735"
-class="fnanchor">[735]</a> The devoted attachment of Pythagoreans
-towards each other is not less emphatically set forth than their
-contempt for every one else. In fact, these two attributes of the
-order seem the best ascertained, as well as the most permanent of
-all: moreover, we may be sure that the peculiar observances of the
-order passed for exemplary virtues in the eyes of its members, and
-exalted ambition into a duty, by making them sincerely believe
-that they were the only persons fit to govern. It is no matter of
-surprise, then, to learn that the Pythagoreans gradually drew to
-themselves great ascendency in the government of Kroton. And as
-similar clubs, not less influential, were formed at Metapontum and
-other places, so the Pythagorean order spread its net and dictated
-the course of affairs over a large portion of Magna Græcia. Such
-ascendency of the Pythagoreans must have procured for the master
-himself some real, and still more supposed, influence over the march
-of government at Kroton and elsewhere, of a nature not then possessed
-by any of his contemporaries throughout Greece.<a id="FNanchor_736"
-href="#Footnote_736" class="fnanchor">[736]</a> But his influence
-was probably exercised in the background, through the medium of the
-brotherhood who reverenced him: for it is hardly conformable to Greek
-manners that a stranger of his character should guide personally and
-avowedly the political affairs of any Grecian city.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[p. 405]</span>Nor are we to
-believe that Pythagoras came originally to Kroton with the express
-design of creating for himself an ascendent political position,—still
-less that he came for the purpose of realizing a great preconceived
-political idea, and transforming Kroton into a model-city of pure
-Dorism, as has been supposed by some eminent modern authors. Such
-schemes might indeed be ascribed to him by Pythagoreans of the
-Platonic age, when large ideas of political amelioration were
-rife in the minds of speculative men,—by men disposed to forego
-the authorship of their own opinions, and preferring to accredit
-them as traditions handed down from a founder who had left no
-memorials; but it requires better evidence than theirs to make
-us believe that any real Greek born in 580 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-actually conceived such plans. We cannot construe the scheme of
-Pythagoras as going farther than the formation of a private,
-select order of brethren, embracing his religious fancies, ethical
-tone, and germs of scientific idea,—and manifesting adhesion by
-those observances which Herodotus and Plato call the Pythagorean
-orgies and mode of life. And his private order became politically
-powerful, because he was skilful or fortunate enough to enlist a
-sufficient number of wealthy Krotoniates, possessing individual
-influence which they strengthened immensely by thus regimenting
-themselves in intimate union. The Pythagorean orgies or religious
-ceremonies were not inconsistent with public activity, bodily
-as well as mental: probably the rich men of the order may have
-been rendered even more active, by being fortified against the
-temptations of a life of indulgence. The character of the order
-as it first stood, different from that to which it was afterwards
-reduced, was indeed religious and exclusive, but also active and
-domineering; not despising any of those bodily accomplishments
-which increased the efficiency of the Grecian citizen, and which so
-particularly harmonized with the preëxisting tendencies of Kroton.<a
-id="FNanchor_737" href="#Footnote_737" class="fnanchor">[737]</a>
-Niebuhr<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[p. 406]</span> and O.
-Müller have even supposed that the select Three Hundred Pythagoreans
-constituted a sort of smaller senate at that<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_407">[p. 407]</span> city,<a id="FNanchor_738"
-href="#Footnote_738" class="fnanchor">[738]</a>—an hypothesis no way
-probable; we may rather conceive them as a powerful private club,
-exercising ascendency in the interior of the senate, and governing
-through the medium of the constituted authorities. Nor can we receive
-without great allowance the assertion of Varro,<a id="FNanchor_739"
-href="#Footnote_739" class="fnanchor">[739]</a> who, assimilating
-Pythagoras to Plato, tells us that he confined his instructions on
-matters of government to chosen disciples, who had gone through a
-complete training, and had reached the perfection of wisdom and
-virtue. It seems more probable that the political Pythagoreans were
-those who were most qualified for action, and least for speculation.
-And we may reasonably suppose in the general of the order that
-skill in turning to account the aptitudes of individuals, which two
-centuries ago was so conspicuous in the Jesuits; to whom, in various
-ways, the Pythagoreans bear considerable resemblance. All that we can
-be said to know about their political principles is, that they were
-exclusive and aristocratical, adverse to the control and interference
-of the people; a circumstance no way disadvantageous to them, since
-they coincided in this respect with the existing government of the
-city,—had not their own conduct brought additional odium on the old
-aristocracy, and raised up an aggravated democratical opposition,
-carried to the most deplorable lengths of violence.</p>
-
-<p>All the information which we possess, apocryphal as it is,
-respecting this memorable club, is derived from its warm admirers;
-yet even their statements are enough to explain how it came to
-provoke deadly and extensive enmity. A stranger coming to teach
-new religious dogmas and observances, with a tincture of science
-and some new ethical ideas and phrases, though he would obtain
-some zealous votaries, would also bring upon himself a certain
-measure of antipathy. Extreme strictness of observances, combined
-with the art of touching skilfully the springs of religious
-terror in others, would indeed do much both to fortify and to
-exalt him. But when it was discovered that science, philosophy,
-and even the mystic revelations of religion, whatever they were,
-remained confined to the private talk and practice of<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[p. 408]</span> the disciples, and
-were thus thrown into the background, while all that was seen
-and felt without, was the political predominance of an ambitious
-fraternity,—we need not wonder that Pythagorism in all its parts
-became odious to a large portion of the community. Moreover, we
-find the order represented not merely as constituting a devoted and
-exclusive political party, but also as manifesting an ostentatious
-self-conceit throughout their personal demeanor,<a id="FNanchor_740"
-href="#Footnote_740" class="fnanchor">[740]</a>—refusing the
-hand of fellowship to all except the brethren, and disgusting
-especially their own familiar friends and kinsmen. So far as
-we know Grecian philosophy, this is the only instance in which
-it was distinctly abused for political and party objects: the
-early days of the Pythagorean order stand distinguished for such
-perversion, which, fortunately for the progress of philosophy,
-never presented itself afterwards in Greece.<a id="FNanchor_741"
-href="#Footnote_741" class="fnanchor">[741]</a> Even at Athens,
-however, we shall hereafter see that Sokratês, though standing really
-aloof from all party intrigue, incurred much of his unpopularity
-from supposed political conjunction with Kritias and Alkibiadês,<a
-id="FNanchor_742" href="#Footnote_742" class="fnanchor">[742]</a>
-to which, indeed, the orator Æschinês<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_409">[p. 409]</span> distinctly ascribes his condemnation,
-speaking about sixty years after the event. Had Sokratês been known
-as the founder of a band holding together intimately for ambitious
-purposes, the result would have been eminently pernicious to
-philosophy, and probably much sooner pernicious to himself.</p>
-
-<p>It was this cause which brought about the complete and violent
-destruction of the Pythagorean order. Their ascendency had provoked
-such wide-spread discontent, that their enemies became emboldened
-to employ extreme force against them. Kylon and Ninon—the former
-of whom is said to have sought admittance into the order, but to
-have been rejected on account of his bad character—took the lead
-in pronounced opposition to the Pythagoreans; and the odium which
-the latter had incurred extended itself farther to the Senate of
-One Thousand, through the medium of which their ascendency had been
-exercised. Propositions were made for rendering the government more
-democratical, and for constituting a new senate, taken by lot from
-all the people, before which the magistrates should go through
-their trial of accountability after office; an opportunity being
-chosen in which the Senate of One Thousand had given signal offence
-by refusing to divide among the people the recently conquered
-territory of Sybaris.<a id="FNanchor_743" href="#Footnote_743"
-class="fnanchor">[743]</a> In spite of the opposition of the
-Pythagoreans, this change of government was carried through. Ninon
-and Kylon, their principal enemies, made use of it to exasperate
-the people still farther against the order, until they provoked
-actual popular violence against it. The Pythagoreans were attacked
-when assembled in their meeting-house near the temple of Apollo,
-or, as some said, in the house of Milo: the building was set
-on fire, and many of the members perished;<a id="FNanchor_744"
-href="#Footnote_744" class="fnanchor">[744]</a> none but the
-younger and more vigorous escaping. Similar disturbances, and the
-like violent suppression of the order, with destruction of several
-among the leading citizens, are said to have taken place<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[p. 410]</span> in other cities of
-Magna Græcia,—Tarentum, Metapontum, Kaulonia. And we are told that
-these cities remained for some time in a state of great disquietude
-and commotion from which they were only rescued by the friendly
-mediation of the Peloponnesian Achæans, the original founders of
-Sybaris and Kroton,—assisted, indeed, by mediators from other parts
-of Greece. The cities were at length pacified, and induced to adopt
-an amicable congress, with common religious festivals at a temple
-founded expressly for the purpose, and dedicated to Zeus Homarius.<a
-id="FNanchor_745" href="#Footnote_745" class="fnanchor">[745]</a></p>
-
-<p>Thus perished the original Pythagorean order. Respecting
-Pythagoras himself, there were conflicting accounts; some
-representing that he was burnt in the temple with his disciples;<a
-id="FNanchor_746" href="#Footnote_746" class="fnanchor">[746]</a>
-others, that he had died a short time previously; others again
-affirmed that he was alive at the time, but absent, and that he
-died not long afterwards in exile, after forty days of voluntary
-abstinence from food. His tomb was still shown at Metapontum in
-the days of Cicero.<a id="FNanchor_747" href="#Footnote_747"
-class="fnanchor">[747]</a> As an active brotherhood, the
-Pythago<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[p. 411]</span>reans
-never revived; but the dispersed members came together as a sect, for
-common religious observances and common pursuit of science. They were
-readmitted, after some interval, into the cities of Magna Græcia,<a
-id="FNanchor_748" href="#Footnote_748" class="fnanchor">[748]</a>
-from which they had been originally expelled, but to which the sect
-is always considered as particularly belonging,—though individual
-members of it are found besides at Thebes and other cities of Greece.
-Indeed, some of these later Pythagoreans sometimes even acquired
-great political influence, as we see in the case of the Tarentine
-Archytas, the contemporary of Plato.</p>
-
-<p>It has already been stated that the period when Pythagoras
-arrived at Kroton may be fixed somewhere between <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> 540-530; and his arrival is said to have occurred at a
-time of great depression in the minds of the Krotoniates. They had
-recently been defeated by the united Lokrians and Rhegians, vastly
-inferior to themselves in number, at the river Sagra; and the
-humiliation thus brought upon them is said to have rendered them
-docile to the training of the Samian missionary.<a id="FNanchor_749"
-href="#Footnote_749" class="fnanchor">[749]</a> As the birth of
-the Pythagorean order is thus connected with the defeat of the
-Krotoniates at the Sagra, so its extinction is also connected with
-their victory over the Sybarites at the river Traeis, or Trionto,
-about twenty years afterwards.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[p. 412]</span>Of the history
-of these two great Achæan cities we unfortunately know very little.
-Though both were powerful, yet down to the period of 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, Sybaris seems to have been decidedly the greatest: of
-its dominion as well as of its much-denounced luxury I have spoken
-in a former chapter.<a id="FNanchor_750" href="#Footnote_750"
-class="fnanchor">[750]</a> It was at that time that the war broke
-out between them which ended in the destruction of Sybaris. It
-is certain that the Sybaritans were aggressors in the war; but
-by what causes it had been preceded in their own town, or what
-provocation they had received, we make out very indistinctly.
-There had been a political revolution at Sybaris, we are told, not
-long before, in which a popular leader named Têlys had headed a
-rising against the oligarchical government, and induced the people
-to banish five hundred of the leading rich men, as well as to
-confiscate their properties. He had acquired the sovereignty and
-become despot of Sybaris;<a id="FNanchor_751" href="#Footnote_751"
-class="fnanchor">[751]</a> and it appears that he, or his rule at
-Sybaris, was much abhorred at Kroton,—since the Krotoniate Philippus,
-a man of splendid muscular form and an Olympic victor, was exiled
-for having engaged himself to marry the daughter of Têlys.<a
-id="FNanchor_752" href="#Footnote_752" class="fnanchor">[752]</a>
-According to the narrative given by the later Pythagoreans, those
-exiles, whom Têlys had driven from Sybaris, took refuge at Kroton,
-and cast themselves as suppliants on the altars for protection. It
-may well be, indeed, that they were in part Pythagoreans of Sybaris.
-A body of powerful exiles, harbored in a town so close at hand,
-naturally inspired alarm, and Têlys demanded that they should be
-delivered up, threatening war in case of refusal. This demand excited
-consternation at Kroton, since the military strength of Sybaris was
-decidedly superior. The surrender of the exiles was much debated,
-and almost decreed, by the Krotoniates, until<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_413">[p. 413]</span> at length the persuasion of Pythagoras
-himself is said to have determined them to risk any hazard sooner
-than incur the dishonor of betraying suppliants.</p>
-
-<p>On the demand of the Sybarites being refused, Têlys marched
-against Kroton, at the head of a force which is reckoned at three
-hundred thousand men.<a id="FNanchor_753" href="#Footnote_753"
-class="fnanchor">[753]</a> He marched, too, in defiance of the
-strongest religious warnings against the enterprise,—for the
-sacrifices, offered on his behalf by the Iamid prophet Kallias of
-Elis, were decisively unfavorable, and the prophet himself fled
-in terror to Kroton.<a id="FNanchor_754" href="#Footnote_754"
-class="fnanchor">[754]</a> Near the river Traeis, or Trionto, he
-was met by the forces of Kroton, consisting, we are informed, of
-one hundred thousand men, and commanded by the great athlete and
-Pythagorean Milo; who was clothed, we are told, in the costume and
-armed with the club of Hêraklês. They were farther reinforced,
-however, by a valuable ally, the Spartan Dorieus, younger brother of
-king Kleomenês, then coasting along the gulf of Tarentum with a body
-of colonists, intending to found a settlement in Sicily. A bloody
-battle was fought, in which the Sybarites were totally worsted,
-with prodigious slaughter; while the victors, fiercely provoked and
-giving no quarter, followed up the pursuit so warmly that they took
-the city, dispersed its inhabitants, and crushed its whole power<a
-id="FNanchor_755" href="#Footnote_755" class="fnanchor">[755]</a>
-in the short space of seventy days. The Sybarites fled in great
-part to Laos and Skidros,<a id="FNanchor_756" href="#Footnote_756"
-class="fnanchor">[756]</a> their settlements planted on the
-Mediterranean coast, across the Calabrian peninsula. And so eager
-were the Krotoniates to render the site of Sybaris untenable, that
-they turned the course of the river Krathis so as to overwhelm and
-destroy it: the dry bed in which the river had originally flowed
-was still visible in the time of Herodotus,<a id="FNanchor_757"
-href="#Footnote_757" class="fnanchor">[757]</a> who was among
-the settlers in the town of Thurii, afterwards founded, nearly
-adjoining.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[p. 414]</span>It appears,
-however, that the Krotoniates for a long time kept the site of
-Sybaris deserted, refusing even to allot the territory among the
-body of their own citizens: from which circumstances, as has been
-before noticed, the commotion against the Pythagorean order is
-said to have arisen. They may perhaps have been afraid of the
-name and recollections of the city; wherein no large or permanent
-establishment was ever formed, until Thurii was established by
-Athens about sixty-five years afterwards. Nevertheless, the name
-of the Sybarites did not perish. Having maintained themselves at
-Laos, Skidros, and elsewhere, they afterwards formed the privileged
-Old-citizens among the colonists of Thurii; but misbehaved themselves
-in that capacity, and were mostly either slain or expelled. Even
-after that, however, the name of Sybaris still remained on a reduced
-scale in some portion of the territory. Herodotus recounts what he
-was told by the Sybarites, and we find subsequent indications of them
-even as late as Theokritus.</p>
-
-<p>The conquest and destruction of the original Sybaris—perhaps in
-510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> the greatest of all Grecian cities—appears
-to have excited a strong sympathy in the Hellenic world. In Milêtus,
-especially, with which it had maintained intimate union, the
-grief was so vehement, that all the Milesians shaved their heads
-in token of mourning.<a id="FNanchor_758" href="#Footnote_758"
-class="fnanchor">[758]</a> The event happened just at the time
-of the expulsion of Hippias from Athens, and must have made a
-sensible revolution in the relations of the Greek cities on<span
-class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[p. 415]</span> the Italian coast with
-the rustic population of the interior. The Krotoniates might destroy
-Sybaris, and disperse its inhabitants, but they could not succeed to
-its wide dominion over dependent territory; and the extinction of
-this great aggregate power, stretching across the peninsula from sea
-to sea, lessened the means of resistance against the Oscan movements
-from the inland. From this time forward, the cities of Magna Græcia,
-as well as those of Ionia, tend to decline in consequence, while
-Athens, on the other hand, becomes both more conspicuous and more
-powerful. At the invasion of Greece by Xerxês, thirty years after
-this conquest of Sybaris, Sparta and Athens send to ask for aid both
-from Sicily and Korkyra,—but not from Magna Græcia.</p>
-
-<p>It is much to be regretted that we do not possess fuller
-information respecting these important changes among the
-Greco-Italian cities, but we may remark that even Herodotus,—himself
-a citizen of Thurii, and dwelling on the spot not more than eighty
-years after the capture of Sybaris,—evidently found no written
-memorials to consult; and could obtain from verbal conversation
-nothing better than statements both meagre and contradictory. The
-material circumstance, for example, of the aid rendered by the
-Spartan Dorieus and his colonists, though positively asserted by the
-Sybarites, was as positively denied by the Krotoniates, who alleged
-that they had accomplished the conquest by themselves, and with their
-own unaided forces. There can be little hesitation in crediting the
-affirmative assertion of the Sybarites, who showed to Herodotus
-a temple and precinct erected by the Spartan prince in testimony
-of his share in the victory, on the banks of the dry, deserted
-channel, out of which the Krathis had been turned, and in honor
-of the Krathian Athênê.<a id="FNanchor_759" href="#Footnote_759"
-class="fnanchor">[759]</a> This of itself forms a proof, coupled
-with the positive assertion of the Sybarites, sufficient for the
-case. But they produced another indirect argument to confirm it,
-which deserves notice. Dorieus had attacked Sybaris while he was
-passing along the coast of Italy to go and found a colony in Sicily,
-under the express mandate and encouragement of the oracle; and
-after tarrying awhile at Sybaris, he pursued his journey to the
-south<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[p. 416]</span>-western
-portion of Sicily, where he and nearly all his companions perished
-in a battle with the Carthaginians and Egestæans,—though the oracle
-had promised him that he should acquire and occupy permanently the
-neighboring territory near Mount Eryx. Now the Sybarites deduced from
-this fatal disaster of Dorieus and his expedition, combined with the
-favorable promise of the oracle beforehand, a confident proof of the
-correctness of their own statement that he had fought at Sybaris. For
-if he had gone straight to the territory marked out by the oracle,
-they argued, without turning aside for any other object, the prophecy
-on which his hopes were founded would have been unquestionably
-realized, and he would have succeeded; but the ruinous disappointment
-which actually overtook him was at once explained, and the truth of
-prophecy vindicated, when it was recollected that he had turned aside
-to help the Krotoniates against Sybaris, and thus set at nought the
-conditions prescribed to him. Upon this argument, Herodotus tells us,
-the Sybarites of his day especially insisted.<a id="FNanchor_760"
-href="#Footnote_760" class="fnanchor">[760]</a> And while we note
-their pious and literal faith in the communications of an inspired
-prophet, we must at the same time observe how perfectly that faith
-supplied the place of historical premises,—how scanty their stock was
-of such legitimate evidence,—and how little they had yet learned to
-appreciate its value.</p>
-
-<p>It is to be remarked, that Herodotus, in his brief mention of
-the fatal war between Sybaris and Kroton, does not make the least
-allusion to Pythagoras or his brotherhood. The least which we can
-infer from such silence is, that the part which they played in
-reference to the war, and their general ascendency in Magna Græcia,
-was in reality less conspicuous and overruling than the Pythagorean
-historians set forth. Even making such allowance, however, the
-absence of all allusion in Herodotus, to the commotions which
-accompanied the subversion of the Pythagoreans, is a surprising
-circumstance. Nor can I pass over a perplexing statement in Polybius,
-which seems to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[p. 417]</span>
-show that he too must have conceived the history of Sybaris in a way
-different from that in which it is commonly represented. He tells
-us that after much suffering in Magna Græcia, from the troubles
-which followed the expulsion of the Pythagoreans, the cities were
-induced by Achæan mediation to come to an accommodation, and even to
-establish something like a permanent league, with a common temple
-and sacrifices. Now the three cities which he specifies as having
-been the first to do this, are Kroton, Sybaris, and Kaulonia.<a
-id="FNanchor_761" href="#Footnote_761" class="fnanchor">[761]</a>
-But according to the sequence of events and the fatal war, just
-described, between Kroton and Sybaris, the latter city must have been
-at that time in ruins; little, if at all, inhabited. I cannot but
-infer from this statement of Polybius, that he followed different
-authorities respecting the early history of Magna Græcia in the
-beginning of the fifth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-<p>Indeed, the early history of these cities gives us little
-more than a few isolated facts and names. With regard to their
-legislators, Zaleukus and Charondas, nothing is made out except
-their existence,—and even that fact some ancient critics contested.
-Of Zaleukus, whom chronologists place in 664 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-I have already spoken; the date of Charondas cannot be assigned,
-but we may perhaps presume that it was at some time between 600-500
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> He was a citizen of middling station, born
-in the Chalkidic colony of Katana in Sicily,<a id="FNanchor_762"
-href="#Footnote_762" class="fnanchor">[762]</a> and he framed laws
-not only for his own city, but for the other Chalkidic cities
-in Sicily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[p. 418]</span>
-and Italy,—Leontini, Naxos, Zanklê, and Rhêgium. The laws and
-the solemn preamble ascribed to him by Diodorus and Stobæus,
-belong to a later day,<a id="FNanchor_763" href="#Footnote_763"
-class="fnanchor">[763]</a> and we are obliged to content ourselves
-with collecting the brief hints of Aristotle, who tells us that
-the laws of Charondas descended to great minuteness of distinction
-and specification, especially in graduating the fine for
-offences according to the property of the guilty person fined,<a
-id="FNanchor_764" href="#Footnote_764" class="fnanchor">[764]</a>—but
-that there was nothing in his laws strictly original and peculiar,
-except that he was the first to introduce the solemn indictment
-against perjured witnesses before justice. The perjured witness,
-in Grecian ideas, was looked upon as having committed a crime half
-religious, half civil; and the indictment raised against him, known
-by a peculiar name, partook of both characters, approaching in some
-respects to the procedure against a murderer. Such distinct form of
-indictment against perjured testimony—with its appropriate name,<a
-id="FNanchor_765" href="#Footnote_765" class="fnanchor">[765]</a>
-which we shall find maintained at Athens<span class="pagenum"
-id="Page_419">[p. 419]</span> throughout the best-known days of Attic
-law—was first enacted by Charondas.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<h2 class="nobreak">FOOTNOTES</h2>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_1"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_1">[1]</a></span> Herodot. i, 196; Skylax, c. 19-27;
-Appian. Illyric. c. 2, 4, 8.</p>
-
-<p>The geography of the countries occupied in ancient times by the
-Illyrians, Macedonians, Pæonians, Thracians, etc., and now possessed
-by a great diversity of races, among whom the Turks and Albanians
-retain the primitive barbarism without mitigation, is still very
-imperfectly understood; though the researches of Colonel Leake, of
-Boué, of Grisebach, and others (especially the valuable travels of
-the latter), have of late thrown much light upon it. How much our
-knowledge is extended in this direction, may be seen by comparing the
-map prefixed to Mannert’s Geographie, or to O. Müller’s Dissertation
-on the Macedonians, with that in Boué’s Travels, but the extreme
-deficiency of the maps, even as they now stand, is emphatically
-noticed by Boué himself (see his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie
-in the fourth volume of his Voyage),—by Paul Joseph Schaffarik, the
-learned historian of the Sclavonic race, in the preface attached by
-him to Dr. Joseph Müller’s Topographical Account of Albania,—and
-by Grisebach, who in his surveys, taken from the summits of the
-mountains Peristeri and Ljubatrin, found the map differing at every
-step from the bearings which presented themselves to his eye. It
-is only since Boué and Grisebach that the idea has been completely
-dismissed, derived originally from Strabo, of a straight line of
-mountains (εὐθεῖα γραμμὴ, Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 3) running across
-from the Adriatic to the Euxine, and sending forth other lateral
-chains in a direction nearly southerly. The mountains of Turkey in
-Europe, when examined with the stock of geological science which M.
-Viquesnel (the companion of Boué) and Dr. Grisebach bring to the
-task, are found to belong to systems very different, and to present
-evidences of conditions of formation often quite independent of each
-other.</p>
-
-<p>The thirteenth chapter of Grisebach’s Travels presents the
-best account which has yet been given of the chain of Skardus and
-Pindus: he has been the first to prove clearly, that the Ljubatrin,
-which immediately overhangs the plain of Kossovo at the southern
-border of Servia and Bosnia, is the north-eastern extremity of a
-chain of mountains reaching southward to the frontiers of Ætolia,
-in a direction not very wide of N-S.,—with the single interruption
-(first brought to view by Colonel Leake) of the Klissoura of
-Devol,—a complete gap, where the river Devol, rising on the eastern
-side, crosses the chain and joins the Apsus, or Beratino, on the
-western,—(it is remarkable that both in the map of Boué and in that
-annexed to Dr. Joseph Müller’s Topographical Description of Albania,
-the river Devol is made to join the Genussus, or Skoumi, considerably
-north of the Apsus, though Colonel Leake’s map gives the correct
-course.) In Grisebach’s nomenclature Skardus is made to reach from
-the Ljubatrin as its north-eastern extremity, south-westward and
-southward as far as the Klissoura of Devol: south of that point
-Pindus commences, in a continuation, however, of the same axis.</p>
-
-<p>In reference to the seats of the ancient Illyrians and
-Macedonians Grisebach has made another observation of great
-importance (vol. ii, p. 121). Between the north-eastern extremity,
-Mount Ljubatrin, and the Klissoura of Devol, there are in the mighty
-and continuous chain of Skardus (above seven thousand feet high)
-only two passes fit for an army to cross: one near the northern
-extremity of the chain, over which Grisebach himself crossed, from
-Kalkandele to Prisdren, a very high <i>col</i>, not less than five
-thousand feet above the level of the sea; the other, considerably to
-the southward, and lower as well as easier, nearly in the latitude of
-Lychnidus, or Ochrida. It was over this last pass that the Roman Via
-Egnatia travelled, and that the modern road from Scutari and Durazzo
-to Bitolia now travels. With the exception of these two partial
-depressions, the long mountain-ridge maintains itself undiminished in
-height, admitting, indeed, paths by which a small company either of
-travellers or of Albanian robbers from the Dibren, may cross (there
-is a path of this kind which connects Struga with Ueskioub, mentioned
-by Dr. Joseph Müller, p. 70, and some others by Boué, vol. iv, p.
-546), but nowhere admitting the passage of an army.</p>
-
-<p>To attack the Macedonians, therefore, an Illyrian army would have
-to go through one or other of these passes, or else to go round the
-north-eastern pass of Katschanik, beyond the extremity of Ljubatrin.
-And we shall find that, in point of fact, the military operations
-recorded between the two nations carry us usually in one or other
-of these directions. The military proceedings of Brasidas (Thucyd.
-iv, 124),—of Philip the son of Amyntas king of Macedon (Diodor. xvi,
-8),—of Alexander the Great in the first year of his reign (Arrian, i,
-5), all bring us to the pass near Lychnidus (compare Livy, xxxii, 9;
-Plutarch, Flaminin. c. 4); while the Illyrian Dardani and Autariatæ
-border upon Pæonia, to the north of Pelagonia, and threaten Macedonia
-from the north-east of the mountain-chain of Skardus. The Autariatæ
-are not far removed from the Pæonian Agrianes, who dwelt near the
-sources of the Strymon, and both Autariatæ and Dardani threatened
-the return march of Alexander from the Danube into Macedonia, after
-his successful campaign against the Getæ, low down in the course of
-that great river (Arrian, i, 5). Without being able to determine the
-precise line of Alexander’s march on this occasion, we may see that
-these two Illyrian tribes must have come down to attack him from
-Upper Mœsia, and on the eastern side of the Axius. This, and the fact
-that the Dardani were the immediate neighbors of the Pæonians, shows
-us that their seats could not have been far removed from Upper Mœsia
-(Livy, xlv, 29): the fauces Pelagoniæ (Livy, xxxi, 34) are the pass
-by which they entered Macedonia from the north. Ptolemy even places
-the Dardani at Skopiæ (Ueskioub) (iii, 9); his information about
-these countries seems better than that of Strabo.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_2"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_2">[2]</a></span> Hekatæi Fragm. ed. Klausen, Fr.
-66-70; Thucyd. i, 26.</p>
-
-<p>Skylax places the Encheleis north of Epidamnus and of the
-Taulantii. It may be remarked that Hekatæus seems to have
-communicated much information respecting the Adriatic: he noticed the
-city of Adria at the extremity of the Gulf, and the fertility and
-abundance of the territory around it (Fr. 58: compare Skymnus Chius,
-384).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_3"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_3">[3]</a></span> Livy, xliii, 9-18. Mannert
-(Geograph. der Griech. und Römer, part vii, ch. 9, p. 386, <i>seq.</i>)
-collects the points and shows how little can be ascertained
-respecting the localities of these Illyrian tribes.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_4"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_4">[4]</a></span> Strabo, iv, p. 206.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_5"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_5">[5]</a></span> Strabo, vii, p. 315; Arrian, i, 5,
-4-11. So impracticable is the territory, and so narrow the means of
-the inhabitants, in the region called Upper Albania, that most of its
-resident tribes even now are considered as free, and pay no tribute
-to the Turkish government: the Pachas cannot extort it without
-greater expense and difficulty than the sum gained would repay. The
-same was the case in Epirus, or Lower Albania, previous to the time
-of Ali Pacha: in Middle Albania, the country does not present the
-like difficulties, and no such exemptions are allowed (Boué, Voyage
-en Turquie, vol. iii, p. 192). These free Albanian tribes are in the
-same condition with regard to the Sultan as the Mysians and Pisidians
-in Asia Minor with regard to the king of Persia in ancient times
-(Xenophon, Anab. iii, 2, 23).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_6"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_6">[6]</a></span> Diodor. xv, 13: Polyb. ii, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_7"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_7">[7]</a></span> See the description in Thucydidês
-(iv, 124-128); especially the exhortation which he puts into the
-mouth of Brasidas,—αὐτοκράτωρ μάχῃ, contrasted with the orderly array
-of Greeks.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">“Illyriorum velocitas ad excursiones et impetus subitos.”</p>
-<p class="ir">(Livy, xxxi, 35.)</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_8"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_8">[8]</a></span> See Pouqueville, Voyage en Grèce,
-vol. i, chs. 23 and 24; Grisebach, Reise durch Rumelien und nach
-Brussa, vol. ii, pp. 138-139; Boué, La Turquie en Europe, Géographie
-Générale, vol. i, pp. 60-65.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_9"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_9">[9]</a></span> Skymnus Chius, v, 418-425.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_10"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_10">[10]</a></span> Thucydidês mentions the ὑφαντὰ
-τε καὶ λεῖα, καὶ ἡ ἄλλη κατασκευὴ, which the Greek settlements on
-the Thracian coast sent up to king Seuthês (ii, 98): similar to the
-ὑφασμαθ᾽ ἱερὰ, and to the χεριαρᾶν τεκτόνων δαίδαλα, offered as
-presents to the Delphian god (Eurip. Ion. 1141; Pindar, Pyth. v,
-46).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_11"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_11">[11]</a></span> Strabo, vii, p. 317; Appian,
-Illyric. 17; Aristot. Mirab. Ausc. c. 138. For the extreme importance
-of the trade in salt, as a bond of connection, see the regulations
-of the Romans when they divided Macedonia into four provinces, with
-the distinct view of cutting off all connection between one and the
-other. All <i>commercium</i> and <i>connubium</i> were forbidden between them:
-the fourth region, whose capital was Pelagonia (and which included
-all the primitive or Upper Macedonia, east of the range of Pindus
-and Skardus), was altogether inland, and it was expressly forbidden
-to draw its salt from the third region, or the country between the
-Axius and the Peneius; while on the other hand the Illyrian Dardani,
-situated northward of Upper Macedonia, received express permission to
-draw <i>their</i> salt from this third or maritime region of Macedonia:
-the salt was to be conveyed from the Thermaic gulf along the road of
-the Axius to Stobi in Pæonia, and was there to be sold at a fixed
-price.</p>
-
-<p>The inner or fourth region of Macedonia, which included the
-modern Bitoglia and Lake Castoria, could easily obtain its salt from
-the Adriatic, by the communication afterwards so well known as the
-Roman Egnatian way; but the communication of the Dardani with the
-Adriatic led through a country of the greatest possible difficulty,
-and it was probably a great convenience to them to receive their
-supply from the gulf of Therma by the road along the Vardar (Axius)
-(Livy, xlv, 29). Compare the route of Grisebach from Salonichi to
-Scutari, in his Reise durch Rumelien, vol. ii.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_12"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_12">[12]</a></span> About the cattle in Illyria,
-Aristotle, De Mirab. Ausc. c. 128. There is a remarkable passage in
-Polybius, wherein he treats the importation of slaves as a matter of
-necessity to Greece (iv, 37). The purchasing of the Thracian slaves
-in exchange for salt is noticed by Menander.—Θρᾶξ εὐγενὴς εῖ, πρὸς
-ἄλας ἠγορασμένος: see Proverb. Zenob. ii, 12, and Diogenian, i, 100.
-</p>
-
-<p>The same trade was carried on in antiquity with the nations on
-and near Caucasus, from the seaport of Dioskurias at the eastern
-extremity of the Euxine (Strabo, xi, p. 506). So little have those
-tribes changed, that the Circassians now carry on much the same
-trade. Dr. Clarke’s statement carries us back to the ancient world:
-“The Circassians frequently sell their children to strangers,
-particularly to the Persians and Turks, and their princes supply
-the Turkish seraglios with the most beautiful of the prisoners
-of both sexes whom they take in war. In their commerce with the
-Tchernomorski Cossacks (north of the river Kuban), the Circassians
-bring considerable quantities of wood, and the delicious honey of the
-mountains, sewed up in goats’ hides, with the hair on the outside.
-These articles they exchange for salt, a commodity found in the
-neighboring lakes, of a very excellent quality. Salt is more precious
-than any other kind of wealth to the Circassians, and it constitutes
-the most acceptable present which can be offered to them. They weave
-mats of very great beauty, which find a ready market both in Turkey
-and Russia. They are also ingenious in the art of working silver and
-other metals, and in the fabrication of guns, pistols, and sabres.
-Some, which they offered us for sale, we suspected had been procured
-in Turkey in exchange for slaves. Their bows and arrows are made
-with inimitable skill, and the arrows being tipped with iron, and
-otherwise exquisitely wrought, are considered by the Cossacks and
-Russians as inflicting incurable wounds.” (Clarke’s Travels, vol. i,
-ch. xvi, p. 378.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_13"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_13">[13]</a></span> Theophrast. Hist. Plant. iv, 5,
-2; ix, 7, 4: Pliny. H. N. xiii, 2; xxi, 19: Strabo, vii, p. 326.
-Coins of Epidamnus and Apollonia are found not only in Macedonia,
-but in Thrace and in Italy: the trade of these two cities probably
-extended across from sea to sea, even before the construction of
-the Egnatian way; and the Inscription 2056 in the Corpus of Boeckh
-proclaims the gratitude of Odêssus (Varna) in the Euxine sea towards
-a citizen of Epidamnus (Barth, Corinthiorum Mercatur. Hist. p. 49;
-Aristot. Mirab. Auscult. c. 104).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_14"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_14">[14]</a></span> Herodot. v, 61; viii, 137:
-Strabo, vii, p. 326. Skylax places the λίθοι of Kadmus and Harmonia
-among the Illyrian Manii, north of the Encheleis (Diodor. xix, 53;
-Pausan. ix, 5, 3).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_15"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_15">[15]</a></span> Herodot. v, 22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_16"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_16">[16]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. vii, 2, 6. That
-the Macedonians were chiefly village residents, appears from Thucyd.
-ii, 100, iv, 124, though this does not exclude <i>some</i> towns.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_17"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_17">[17]</a></span> Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol.
-i, p. 199: “Un bon nombre de cols dirigés du nord au sud, comme
-pour inviter les habitans de passer d’une de ces provinces dans
-l’autre.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_18"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_18">[18]</a></span> For the general physical
-character of the region, both east and west of Skardus, continued
-by Pindus, see the valuable charter of Grisebach’s Travels above
-referred to (Reisen, vol. ii. ch. xiii, pp. 125-130; c. xiv, p. 175;
-c. xvi, pp. 214-216; c. xvii, pp. 244-245).</p>
-
-<p>Respecting the plains comprised in the ancient Pelagonia, see
-also the Journal of the younger Pouqueville, in his progress from
-Travnik in Bosnia to Janina. He remarks, in the two days’ march from
-Prelepe (Prilip) through Bitolia to Florina, “Dans cette route on
-parcourt des plaines luxuriantes couvertes de moissons, de vastes
-prairies remplies de trèfle, des plateaux abondans en pâturages
-inépuisables, où paissent d’innombrables troupeaux de bœufs, de
-chèvres, et de menu bétail.... Le blé, le maïs, et les autres
-grains sont toujours à très bas prix, à cause de la difficulté des
-débouchés, d’où l’on exporte une grande quantité de laines, de
-cotons, de peaux d’agneaux, de buffles, et de chevaux, qui passent
-par le moyen des caravanes en Hongrie.” (Pouqueville, Voyage dans la
-Grèce, tom. ii, ch. 62, p. 495.)</p>
-
-<p>Again, M. Boué remarks upon this same plain, in his Critique des
-Cartes de la Turquie, Voyage, vol. iv, p. 483, “La plaine immense de
-Prilip, de Bitolia, et de Florina, n’est pas représentée (sur les
-cartes) de manière à ce qu’on ait une idée de son étendue, et surtout
-de sa largeur.... La plaine de Sarigoul est changée en vallée,” etc.
-The basin of the Haliakmôn he remarks to be represented equally
-imperfectly on the maps: compare also his Voyage, i, pp. 211, 299,
-300.</p>
-
-<p>I notice the more particularly the large proportion of fertile
-plain and valley in the ancient Macedonia, because it is often
-represented (and even by O. Müller, in his Dissertation on the
-ancient Macedonians, attached to his History of the Dorians) as a
-cold and rugged land, pursuant to the statement of Livy (xlv, 29),
-who says, respecting the fourth region of Macedonia as distributed by
-the Romans, “Frigida hæc omnis, duraque cultu, et aspera plaga est:
-cultorum quoque ingenia terræ similia habet: ferociores eos et accolæ
-barbari faciunt, nunc bello exercentes, nunc in pace miscentes ritus
-suos.”</p>
-
-<p>This is probably true of the mountaineers included in the region,
-but it is too much generalized.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_19"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_19">[19]</a></span> Polyb. xxviii, 8, 9. This is the
-most distinct testimony which we possess, and it appears to me to
-contradict the opinion both of Mannert (Geogr. der Gr. und Röm. vol.
-vii, p. 492) and of O. Müller (On the Macedonians, sects. 28-36),
-that the native Macedonians were of Illyrian descent.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_20"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_20">[20]</a></span> The Macedonian military array
-seems to have been very like that of the Thessalians,—horsemen
-well-mounted and armed, and maintaining good order (Thucyd. ii, 101):
-of their infantry, before the time of Philip son of Amyntas, we do
-not hear much.</p>
-
-<p>“Macedoniam, quæ tantis barbarorum gentibus attingitur, ut semper
-Macedonicis imperatoribus iidem fines imperii fuerint qui gladiorum
-atque pilorum.” (Cicero, in Pison. c. xvi.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_21"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_21">[21]</a></span> Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed.
-Tafel.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_22"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_22">[22]</a></span> I have followed Herodotus in
-stating the original series of occupants on the Thermaic gulf,
-anterior to the Macedonian conquests. Thucydidês introduces the
-Pæonians between Bottiæans and Mygdonians: he says that the Pæonians
-possessed “a narrow strip of land on the side of the Axius, down
-to Pella and the sea,” (ii, 96.) If this were true, it would leave
-hardly any room for the Bottiæans, whom, nevertheless, Thucydidês
-recognizes on the coast; for the whole space between the mouths of
-the two rivers, Axius and Haliakmôn, is inconsiderable; moreover,
-I cannot but suspect that Thucydidês has been led to believe, by
-finding in the Iliad that the Pæonian allies of Troy came from the
-Axius, that there <i>must have been</i> old Pæonian settlements at the
-mouth of that river, and that he has advanced the inference as if
-it were a certified fact. The case is analogous to what he says
-about the Bœotians in his preface (upon which O. Müller has already
-commented); he stated the emigration of the Bœotians into Bœotia as
-having taken place after the Trojan war, but saves the historical
-credit of the Homeric catalogue by adding that there had been a
-<i>fraction</i> of them in Bœotia <i>before</i>, from whom the contingent which
-went to Troy was furnished (ἀποδασμός, Thucyd. i, 12).</p>
-
-<p>On this occasion, therefore, having to choose between Herodotus
-and Thucydidês, I prefer the former. O. Müller (On the Macedonians,
-sect. 11) would strike out just so much of the assertion of
-Thucydidês as positively contradicts Herodotus, and retain the rest;
-he thinks that the Pæonians came down <i>very near</i> to the mouth of
-the river, but <i>not quite</i>. I confess that this does not satisfy me;
-the more so as the passage from Livy by which he would support his
-view will appear, on examination, to refer to Pæonia high up the
-Axius,—not to a supposed portion of Pæonia near the mouth (Livy, xlv,
-29).</p>
-
-<p>Again, I would remark that the original residence of the Pierians
-between the Peneius and the Haliakmôn rests chiefly upon the
-authority of Thucydidês: Herodotus knows the Pierians in their seats
-between Mount Pangæus and the sea, but he gives no intimation that
-they had before dwelt south of the Haliakmôn; the tract between the
-Haliakmôn and the Peneius is by him conceived as Lower Macedonia, or
-Macedonis, reaching to the borders of Thessaly (vii, 127-173). I make
-this remark in reference to sects. 7-17 of O. Müller’s Dissertation,
-wherein the conception of Herodotus appears incorrectly apprehended,
-and some erroneous inferences founded upon it. That this tract
-was the original Pieria, there is sufficient reason for believing
-(compare Strabo, vii, Frag. 22, with Tafel’s note, and ix, p. 410;
-Livy, xliv, 9); but Herodotus notices it only as Macedonia.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_23"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_23">[23]</a></span> Skylax, c. 67. The conquests
-of Philip extended the boundary beyond the Strymon to the Nestus
-(Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 33, ed. Tafel).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_24"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_24">[24]</a></span> See this contrast noticed in
-Grisebach, especially in reference to the wide but barren region
-called the plain of Mustapha, no great distance from the left bank of
-the Axius (Grisebach, Reisen, v, ii, p. 225; Boué, Voyage, vol. i, p.
-168).</p>
-
-<p>For the description of the banks of the Axius (Vardar) and the
-Strymon, see Boué, Voyage en Turquie, vol. i, pp. 196-199. “La plaine
-ovale de Seres est un des diamans de la couronne de Byzance,” etc. He
-remarks how incorrectly the course of the Strymon is depicted on the
-maps (vol. iv, p. 482).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_25"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_25">[25]</a></span> The expression of Strabo
-or his Epitomator—τὴν Παιονίαν μέχρι Πελαγονίας καὶ Πιερίας
-ἐκτετάσθαι,—seems quite exact, though Tafel finds a difficulty in it.
-See his Note on the Vatican Fragments of the seventh book of Strabo,
-Fr. 37. The Fragment 40 is expressed much more loosely. Compare
-Herodot. v, 13-16, vii, 124; Thucyd. ii, 96; Diodor. xx, 19.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_26"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_26">[26]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 137-138.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_27"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_27">[27]</a></span> Herodot. v, 22. Argeadæ, Strabo,
-lib. vii, Fragm. 20, ed. Tafel, which may probably have been
-erroneously changed into Ægeadæ (Justin, vii, 1).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_28"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_28">[28]</a></span> Thucyd. iii, 7; Herodot. vi,
-34-37: compare the story of Zalmoxis among the Thracians (iv, 94).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_29"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_29">[29]</a></span> Strabo, vii, p. 326.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_30"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_30">[30]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 139. Thucydidês
-agrees in the number of kings, but does not give the names (ii, 100).
-</p>
-
-<p>For the divergent lists of the early Macedonian kings, see Mr.
-Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii, p. 221.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_31"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_31">[31]</a></span> This may be gathered, I think,
-from Herodot. vii, 73 and viii, 138. The alleged migration of the
-Briges into Asia, and the change of their name to Phryges, is a
-statement which I do not venture to repeat as credible.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_32"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_32">[32]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 123. Herodotus
-recognizes both Bottiæans between the Axius and the Haliakmôn,—and
-Bottiæans at Olynthus, whom the Macedonians had expelled from the
-Thermaic gulf,—at the time when Xerxês passed (viii, 127). These two
-statements seem to me compatible, and both admissible: the former
-Bottiæans were expelled by the Macedonians subsequently, anterior to
-the Peloponnesian war.</p>
-
-<p>My view of these facts, therefore, differs somewhat from that of
-O. Müller (Macedonians, sect. 16).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_33"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_33">[33]</a></span> Herodot. i, 59, v, 94; viii,
-136.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_34"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_34">[34]</a></span> Mannert assimilates the
-civilization of the Thracians to that of the Gauls when Julius
-Cæsar invaded them,—a great injustice to the latter, in my judgment
-(Geograph. Gr. und Röm. vol. vii, p. 23).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_35"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_35">[35]</a></span> Cicero, De Officiis, ii, 7.
-“Barbarum compunctum notis Threiciis.” Plutarch (De Serâ Numin.
-Vindict. c. 13, p. 558) speaks as if the women only were tattooed, in
-Thrace: he puts a singular interpretation upon it, as a continuous
-punishment on the sex for having slain Orpheus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_36"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_36">[36]</a></span> For the Thracians generally, see
-Herodot. v, 3-9, vii, 110, viii, 116, ix, 119; Thucyd. ii, 100, vii,
-29-30; Xenophon, Anabas. vii, 2, 38, and the seventh book of the
-Anabasis generally, which describes the relations of Xenophon and the
-Ten Thousand Greeks with Seuthês the Thracian prince.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_37"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_37">[37]</a></span> Xenoph. Anab. vi, 2, 17; Herodot.
-vii, 75.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_38"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_38">[38]</a></span> Tacit. Annal. ii, 66; iv, 46.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_39"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_39">[39]</a></span> Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. p. 293.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_40"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_40">[40]</a></span> Skylax, c. 67.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_41"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_41">[41]</a></span> For the description of
-Chalkidikê, see Grisebach’s Reisen, vol. ii, ch. 10, pp. 6-16, and
-Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, vol. iii, ch. 24, p. 152.</p>
-
-<p>If we read attentively the description of Chalkidikê as given
-by Skylax (c. 67), we shall see that he did not conceive it as
-three-pronged, but as terminating only in the peninsula of Pallênê,
-with Potidæa at its isthmus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_42"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_42">[42]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 123; Skymnus Chius,
-v, 627.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_43"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_43">[43]</a></span> Strabo, x, p. 447; Thucyd. iv,
-120-123; Pompon. Mela, ii, 2; Herodot. vii, 123.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_44"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_44">[44]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 122; viii, 127.
-Stephanus Byz. (v. Παλλήνη) gives us some idea of the mythes of the
-lost Greek writers, Hegesippus and Theagenês about Pallênê.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_45"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_45">[45]</a></span> Thucyd. iv, 84, 103, 109. See Mr.
-Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 654 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_46"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_46">[46]</a></span> Solinus, x, 10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_47"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_47">[47]</a></span> Herodot. i, 168; vii, 58-59, 109;
-Skymnus Chius, v, 675.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_48"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_48">[48]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 100, iv, 102; Herodot.
-v, 11. Large quantities of corn are now exported from this territory
-to Constantinople (Leake, North. Gr. vol. iii, ch. 25, p. 172).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_49"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_49">[49]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 108-109; Thucyd. i,
-101.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_50"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_50">[50]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">... ἥδε δ᾽ ὥστ᾽ ὄνου ῥαχις</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἕστηκεν, ὕλης ἀγρίας ἐπιστεφής.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">Archiloch. Fragm. 17-18, ed. Schneidewin.</p>
-
-<p>The striking propriety of this description, even after the
-lapse of two thousand five hundred years, may be seen in the
-Travels of Grisebach, vol. i. ch. 7, pp. 210-218, and in Prokesch,
-Denkwürdigkeiten des Orients, Th. 3, p. 612. The view of Thasus from
-the sea justifies the title Ἠερίη (Œnomaus ap. Euseb. Præpar. Evang.
-vii, p. 256; Steph. Byz. Θάσσος).</p>
-
-<p>Thasus (now Tasso) contains at present a population of about six
-thousand Greeks, dispersed in twelve small villages; it exports some
-good ship-timber, principally fir, of which there is abundance on the
-island, together with some olive oil and wax; but it cannot grow corn
-enough even for this small population. No mines either are now, or
-have been for a long time, in work.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_51"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_51">[51]</a></span> Archiloch. Fragm. 5, ed.
-Schneidewin; Aristophan. Pac. 1298, with the Scholia; Strabo, x, p.
-487, xii, p. 549; Thucyd. iv, 104.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_52"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_52">[52]</a></span> Skymnus Chius, 699-715; Plutarch,
-Quæst. Græc. c. 57. See M. Raoul Rochette, Histoire des Colonies
-Grecques chs. xi-xiv, vol. iii, pp. 273-298.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_53"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_53">[53]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. iv, 4, l.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_54"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_54">[54]</a></span> Polyb. iv, 39, Phylarch. Fragm.
-10, ed. Didot.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_55"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_55">[55]</a></span> Skymnus Chius, 720-740; Herodot.
-ii, 33, vi, 33; Strabo, vii, p. 319; Skylax, c. 68; Mannert,
-Geograph. Gr. Röm. vol. vii, ch. 8, pp. 126-140.</p>
-
-<p>An inscription in Boeckh’s Collection proves the existence of a
-pentapolis, or union, of five Grecian cities on this coast. Tomi,
-Kallatis, Mesambria, and Apollônia, are presumed by Blaramberg to
-have belonged to this union. See Inscript. No. 2056 c.</p>
-
-<p>Syncellus, however (p. 213), places the foundation of Istria
-considerably earlier, in 651 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_56"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_56">[56]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 90.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_57"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_57">[57]</a></span> See the discussion of the era
-of Kyrênê in Thrige, Historia Cyrênês, chs. 22, 23, 24, where the
-different statements are noticed and compared.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_58"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_58">[58]</a></span> Schol. ad Pindar. Pyth. iv.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_59"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_59">[59]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 150-154.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_60"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_60">[60]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 155.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_61"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_61">[61]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 158. ἐνθαῦτα γὰρ
-ὁ οὐρανὸς τέτρηται. Compare the jest ascribed to the Byzantian
-envoys, on occasion of the vaunts of Lysimachus (Plutarch, De Fortunâ
-Alexandr. Magn. c. 3, p. 338).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_62"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_62">[62]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 198.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_63"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_63">[63]</a></span> See, about the productive powers
-of Kyrênê and its surrounding region, Herodot. iv, 199; Kallimachus
-(himself a Kyrenæan), Hymn. ad Apoll. 65, with the note of Spanheim;
-Pindar, Pyth. iv, with the Scholia <i>passim</i>; Diodor. iii, 49; Arrian,
-Indica, xliii, 13. Strabo (xvii, p. 837) saw Kyrênê from the sea in
-sailing by, and was struck with the view: he does not appear to have
-landed.</p>
-
-<p>The results of modern observation in that country are given
-in the Viaggio of Della Cella and in the exploring expedition of
-Captain Beechey; see an interesting summary in the History of the
-Barbary States, by Dr. Russell (Edinburgh, 1835), ch. v, pp. 160-171.
-The chapter on this subject (c. 6) in Thrige’s Historia Cyrênês is
-defective, as the author seems never to have seen the careful and
-valuable observations of Captain Beechey, and proceeds chiefly on the
-statements of Della Cella.</p>
-
-<p>I refer briefly to a few among the many interesting notices of
-Captain Beechey. For the site of the ancient Hesperides (Bengazi),
-and the “beautiful fertile plain near it, extending to the foot
-of a long chain of mountains about fourteen miles distant to the
-south-eastward,”—see Beechey, Expedition, ch. xi, pp. 287-315;
-“a great many datepalm-trees in the neighborhood,” (ch. xii, pp.
-340-345.)</p>
-
-<p>The distance between Bengazi (Hesperides) and Ptolemeta
-(Ptolemais, the port of Barka) is fifty-seven geographical miles,
-along a fertile and beautiful plain, stretching from the mountains
-to the sea. Between these two was situated the ancient Teucheira
-(<i>ib.</i> ch. xii, p. 347), about thirty-eight miles from Hesperides (p.
-349), in a country highly productive wherever it is cultivated (pp.
-350-355). Exuberant vegetation exists near the deserted Ptolemeta, or
-Ptolemais, after the winter rains (p. 364). The circuit of Ptolemais,
-as measured by the ruins of its walls, was about three and a half
-English miles (p. 380).</p>
-
-<p>The road from Barka to Kyrênê presents continued marks of ancient
-chariot-wheels (ch. xiv, p. 406); after passing the plain of Mergê,
-it becomes hilly and woody, “but on approaching Grenna (Kyrênê) it
-becomes more clear of wood; the valleys produce fine crops of barley,
-and the hills excellent pasturage for cattle,” (p. 409.) Luxuriant
-vegetation after the winter rains in the vicinity of Kyrênê (ch. xv,
-p. 465).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_64"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_64">[64]</a></span> Theophrast. Hist. Pl. vi, 3, 3;
-ix, 1, 7; Skylax, c. 107.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_65"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_65">[65]</a></span> Isokratês, Or. v, ad Philipp. p.
-84, (p. 107, ed. Bek.) Thêra being a colony of Lacedæmon, and Kyrênê
-of Thêra, Isokratês speaks of Kyrênê as a colony of Lacedæmon.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_66"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_66">[66]</a></span> Pindar, Pyth. iv, 26.
-Κυρήνην—ἀστέων ῥίζαν. In the time of Herodotus these three cities
-may possibly have been spoken of as a Tripolis; but no one before
-Alexander the Great would have understood the expression Pentapolis,
-used under the Romans to denote Kyrênê, Apollonia, Ptolemais,
-Teucheira, and Berenikê, or Hesperides.</p>
-
-<p>Ptolemais, originally the port of Barka, had become autonomous,
-and of greater importance than the latter.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_67"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_67">[67]</a></span> The accounts respecting the lake
-called in ancient times Tritônis are, however, very uncertain: see
-Dr. Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, p. 127. Strabo mentions a lake so
-called near Hesperides (xvii, p. 836); Pherekydês talks of it as near
-Irasa (Pherekyd. Fragm. 33 <i>d.</i> ed. Didot).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_68"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_68">[68]</a></span> Eratosthenês, born at Kyrênê and
-resident at Alexandria, estimated the land-journey between the two at
-five hundred and twenty-five Roman miles (Pliny, H. N. v, 6).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_69"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_69">[69]</a></span> Sallust, Bell. Jugurth. c. 75;
-Valerius Maximus, v, 6. Thrige (Histor. Cyr. c. 49) places this
-division of the Syrtis between Kyrênê and Carthage at some period
-between 400-330 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, anterior to the loss of the
-independence of Kyrênê; but I cannot think that it was earlier than
-the Ptolemies: compare Strabo, xvii, p. 836.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_70"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_70">[70]</a></span> The Carthaginian establishment
-Neapolis is mentioned by Skylax (c. 109), and Strabo states that
-Leptis was another name for the same place (xvii, p. 835).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_71"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_71">[71]</a></span> Skylax, c. 107; Vopiscus, Vit.
-Prob. c. 9; Strabo, xvii, p. 838; Pliny, H. N. v, 5. From the Libyan
-tribe Marmaridæ was derived the name Marmarika, applied to that
-region.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_72"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_72">[72]</a></span> ταπεινή τε καὶ ψαμμώδης (Herodot.
-iv, 191); Sallust, Bell. Jugurthin. c. 17.</p>
-
-<p>Captain Beechey points out the mistaken conceptions which have
-been entertained of this region:—</p>
-
-<p>“It is not only in the works of early writers that we find the
-nature of the Syrtis misunderstood; for the whole of the space
-between Mesurata (<i>i. e.</i> the cape which forms the western extremity
-of the Great Syrtis) and Alexandria is described by Leo Africanus,
-under the title of Barka, as a wild and desert country, where there
-is neither water nor land capable of cultivation. He tells us that
-the most powerful among the Mohammedan invaders possessed themselves
-of the fertile parts of the coast, leaving the others only the desert
-for their abode, exposed to all the miseries and privations attendant
-upon it; for this desert (he continues) is far removed from any
-habitations, and nothing is produced there whatever. So that if these
-poor people would have a supply of grain, or of any other articles
-necessary to their existence, they are obliged to pledge their
-children to the Sicilians who visit the coast; who, on providing them
-with these things, carry off the children they have received....</p>
-
-<p>“It appears to be chiefly from Leo Africanus that modern
-historians have derived their idea of what they term the district
-and desert of Barka. Yet the whole of the Cyrenaica is comprehended
-within the limits which they assign to it; and the authority of
-Herodotus, without citing any other, would be amply sufficient to
-prove that this tract of country not only was no desert, but was at
-all times remarkable for its fertility.... The impression left upon
-our minds, after reading the account of Herodotus, would be much more
-consistent with the appearance and peculiarities of both, in their
-actual state, than that which would result from the description of
-any succeeding writer.... The district of Barka, including all the
-country between Mesurata and Alexandria, neither is, nor ever was,
-so destitute and barren as has been represented: the part of it
-which constitutes the Cyrenaica is capable of the highest degree of
-cultivation, and many parts of the Syrtis afford excellent pasturage,
-while some of it is not only adapted to cultivation, but does
-actually produce good crops of barley and dhurra.” (Captain Beechey,
-Expedition to Northern Coast of Africa, ch. x, pp. 263, 265, 267,
-269: comp. ch. xi, p. 321.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_73"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_73">[73]</a></span> Justin, xiii, 7. “Amœnitatem loci
-et fontium ubertatem.” Captain Beechey notices this annual migration
-of the Bedouin Arabs:—</p>
-
-<p>“Teucheira (on the coast between Hesperides and Barka) abounds
-in wells of excellent water, which are reserved by the Arabs for
-their summer consumption, and only resorted to when the more inland
-supplies are exhausted: at other times it is uninhabited. Many of the
-excavated tombs are occupied as dwelling-houses by the Arabs during
-their summer visits to that part of the coast.” (Beechey, Exp. to
-North. Afric. ch. xii, p. 354.)</p>
-
-<p>And about the wide mountain plain, or table-land of Mergê, the
-site of the ancient Barka, “The water from the mountains inclosing
-the plain settles in pools and lakes in different parts of this
-spacious valley; and affords a constant supply during the summer
-months, to the Arabs who frequent it.” (ch. xiii, p. 390.) The red
-earth which Captain Beechey observed in this plain is noticed by
-Herodotus in regard to Libya (ii, 12). Stephan. Byz. notices also the
-bricks used in building (v. Βάρκη). Derna, too, to the eastward of
-Cyrene on the sea-coast, is amply provided with water (ch. xvi, p.
-471).</p>
-
-<p>About Kyrênê itself, Captain Beechey states: “During the time,
-about a fortnight, of our absence from Kyrene, the changes which
-had taken place in the appearance of the country about it were
-remarkable. We found the hills on our return covered with Arabs,
-their camels, flocks, and herds; the scarcity of water in the
-interior at this time having driven the Bedouins to the mountains,
-and particularly to Kyrene, where the springs afford at all times
-an abundant supply. The corn was all cut, and the high grass and
-luxuriant vegetation, which we had found it so difficult to wade
-through on former occasions, had been eaten down to the roots by the
-cattle.” (ch. xviii, pp. 517-520.)</p>
-
-<p>The winter rains are also abundant, between January and March,
-at Bengazi (the ancient Hesperides): sweet springs of water near the
-town (ch. xi, pp. 282, 315, 327). About Ptolemeta, or Ptolemais, the
-port of the ancient Barka, <i>ib.</i> ch. xii, p. 363.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_74"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_74">[74]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 170-171. παραλία
-σφόδρα εὐδαίμων. Strabo, ii, p. 131. πολυμήλου καὶ πολυκαρποτάτας
-χθονὸς, Pindar. Pyth. ix, 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_75"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_75">[75]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 186, 187, 189, 190.
-Νομάδες κρεοφάγοι καὶ γαλακτοπόται. Pindar, Pyth. ix, 127, ἱππευταὶ
-Νομάδες. Pompon. Mela, i, 8.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_76"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_76">[76]</a></span> See the fourth, fifth, and
-ninth Pythian Odes of Pindar. In the description given by Sophoklês
-(Electra, 695) of the Pythian contests, in which pretence is made
-that Orestês has perished, ten contending chariots are supposed, of
-which two are Libyan, from Barka: of the remaining eight, one only
-comes from each place named.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_77"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_77">[77]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 172-182. Compare
-Hornemann’s Travels in Africa, p. 48, and Heeren, Verkehr und Handel
-der Alten Welt, Th. ii, Abth. 1, Abschnitt vi, p. 226.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_78"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_78">[78]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 175-188.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_79"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_79">[79]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 178, 179, 195,
-196.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_80"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_80">[80]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 42.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_81"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_81">[81]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 170. νόμους δὲ τοὺς
-πλείστους μιμέεσθαι ἐπιτηδεύουσι τοὺς Κυρηναίων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_82"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_82">[82]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 161. Θηραίων καὶ τῶν
-περιοίκων, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_83"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_83">[83]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 186-189. Compare,
-also, the story in Pindar. Pyth. ix, 109-126, about Alexidamus,
-the ancestor of Telesikratês the Kyrenæan; how the former won, by
-his swiftness in running, a Libyan maiden, daughter of Antæus of
-Irasa,—and Kallimachus, Hymn. Apoll. 86.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_84"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_84">[84]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 155.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_85"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_85">[85]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 164.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_86"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_86">[86]</a></span> Respecting the chronology of the
-Battiad princes, see Boeckh, ad Pindar. Pyth. iv, p. 265, and Thirge,
-Histor. Cyrenes, p. 127, <i>seq.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_87"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_87">[87]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 159.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_88"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_88">[88]</a></span> Herodot. ii, 180-181.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_89"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_89">[89]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 160; Skylax, c. 107;
-Hekatæus, Fragm. 300, ed. Klausen.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_90"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_90">[90]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 204.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_91"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_91">[91]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 160. Plutarch (De
-Virtutibus Mulier. p. 261) and Polyænus (viii, 41) give various
-details of this stratagem on the part of Eryxô; Learchus being in
-love with her. Plutarch also states that Learchus maintained himself
-as despot for some time by the aid of Egyptian troops from Amasis,
-and committed great cruelties. His story has too much the air of a
-romance to be transcribed into the text, nor do I know from what
-authority it is taken.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_92"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_92">[92]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 161. Τῷ βασιλέϊ
-Βάττῳ τεμένεα ἐξελὼν καὶ ἱρωσύνας, τὰ ἄλλα πάντα τὰ πρότερον εἶχον οἱ
-βασιλεῖς ἐς μέσον τῷ δήμῳ ἔθηκε.</p>
-
-<p>I construe the word τεμένεα as meaning all the domains, doubtless
-large, which had belonged to the Battiad princes; contrary to Thrige
-(Historia Cyrênês, ch. 38, p. 150), who restricts the expression to
-revenues derived from sacred property. The reference of Wesseling to
-Hesych.—Βάττου σίλφιον—is of no avail for illustrating this passage.
-</p>
-
-<p>The supposition of O. Müller, that the preceding king had made
-himself despotic by means of Egyptian soldiers, appears to me
-neither probable in itself, nor admissible upon the simple authority
-of Plutarch’s romantic story, when we take into consideration the
-silence of Herodotus. Nor is Müller correct in affirming that Demônax
-“restored the supremacy of the community:” that legislator superseded
-the old kingly political privileges, and framed a new constitution
-(see O. Müller, History of Dorians, b. iii, ch. 9. s. 13.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_93"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_93">[93]</a></span> Both O. Müller (Dor. b. iii,
-4, 5), and Thrige (Hist. Cyren. c. 38, p. 148), speak of Demônax
-as having abolished the old tribes and created new ones. I do not
-conceive the change in this manner. Demônax did not <i>abolish</i> any
-tribes, but distributed for the first time the inhabitants into
-tribes. It is possible indeed that, before his time, the Theræans
-of Kyrênê may have been divided among themselves into distinct
-tribes; but the other inhabitants, having emigrated from a great
-number of different places, had never before been thrown into tribes
-at all. Some formal enactment or regulation was necessary for this
-purpose, to define and sanction that religious, social, and political
-communion, which went to make up the idea of the Tribe. It is not to
-be assumed, as a matter of course, that there must necessarily have
-been tribes anterior to Demônax, among a population so miscellaneous
-in its origin.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_94"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_94">[94]</a></span> Hesychius, Τριακάτιοι; Eustath.
-ad Hom. Odyss. p. 303; Herakleidês Pontic. De Polit. c.&nbsp;4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_95"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_95">[95]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 163. Ἐπὶ μὲν
-τέσσερας Βάττους, καὶ Ἀρκεσιλέως τέσσερας, διδοῖ ὑμῖν Λοξίης
-βασιλεύειν Κυρήνης· πλέον μέντοι τούτου οὐδὲ πειρᾶσθαι παραινέει.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_96"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_96">[96]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 163-164.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_97"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_97">[97]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 13; iv, 165-166.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_98"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_98">[98]</a></span> Polyænus (Strateg. vii, 28) gives
-a narrative in many respects different from this of Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_99"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_99">[99]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 203-204.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_100"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_100">[100]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 205.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_101"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_101">[101]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 15.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_102"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_102">[102]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 26. See the tale in
-Pausanias (v, 25, 1) of the ancient chorus sent annually from Messênê
-in Sicily across the strait to Rhegium, to a local festival of the
-Rhegians,—thirty-five boys with a chorus-master and a flute-player:
-on one unfortunate occasion, all of them perished in crossing. For
-the Theôry (or solemn religious deputation) periodically sent by the
-Athenians to Delos, see Plutarch, Nicias, c. 3; Plato, Phædon, c. 1,
-p. 58. Compare also Strabo, ix, p. 419, on the general subject.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_103"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_103">[103]</a></span> Homer, Iliad, xi, 879, xxiii,
-679; Hesiod, Opp. Di. 651.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_104"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_104">[104]</a></span> Homer, Hymn. Apoll. 150;
-Thucyd. iii, 104.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_105"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_105">[105]</a></span> Pausan. v, 6, 5; Ælian, N.
-H. x, 1; Thucyd. iii, 104. When Ephesus, and the festival called
-Ephesia, had become the great place of Ionic meeting, the presence of
-women was still continued (Dionys. Hal. A. R. iv, 25).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_106"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_106">[106]</a></span> Strabo, viii, p. 353; Pindar,
-Olymp. viii, 2; Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 7, 2; iii, 2, 22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_107"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_107">[107]</a></span> See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der
-Griechischen Staats-Alterthümer, sect. 10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_108"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_108">[108]</a></span> Dionys. Halikarn. Ant. Rom. i,
-71; Phlegon. De Olympiad. p. 140. For an illustration of the stress
-laid by the Greeks on the purely honorary rewards of Olympia, and
-on the credit which they took to themselves as competitors, not for
-money, but for glory, see Herodot. viii, 26. Compare the Scholia on
-Pindar, Nem. and Isthm. Argument, pp. 425-514, ed. Boeckh.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_109"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_109">[109]</a></span> See the sentiment of Agesilaus,
-somewhat contemptuous, respecting the chariot-race, as described by
-Xenophon (Agesilaus, ix, 6); the general feeling of Greece, however,
-is more in conformity with what Thucydidês (vi, 16) puts into the
-mouth of Alkibiadês, and Xenophon into that of Simonidês (Xenophon,
-Hiero, xi, 5). The great respect attached to a family which had
-gained chariot victories is amply attested: see Herodot. vi, 35, 36,
-103, 126,—οἰκίη τεθριπποτρόφος,—and vi, 70, about Demaratus king of
-Sparta.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_110"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_110">[110]</a></span> Antholog. Palatin. ix, 588;
-vol. ii. p. 299, Jacobs.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_111"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_111">[111]</a></span> The original Greek word for
-this covering (which surrounded the middle hand and upper portion
-of the fingers, leaving both the ends of the fingers and the thumb
-exposed) was ἱμὰς, the word for a thong, strap, or whip, of leather:
-the special word μύρμηξ seems to have been afterwards introduced
-(Hesychius, v. Ἱμάς): see Homer, Iliad, xxiii, 686. Cestus, or
-Cæstus, is the Latin word (Virg. Æn. v, 404), the Greek word κεστός
-is an adjective annexed to ἱμὰς—κεστὸν ἱμάντα—πολύκεστος ἱμὰς (Iliad,
-xiv, 214; iii, 371). See Pausan. viii, 40, 3, for the description
-of the incident which caused an alteration in this hand-covering at
-the Nemean games: ultimately, it was still farther hardened by the
-addition of iron.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_112"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_112">[112]</a></span> Ἀέθλων πεμπαμέρους
-ἁμίλλαις,—Pindar, Olymp. v, 6: compare Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. iii,
-33.</p>
-
-<p>See the facts respecting the Olympic Agôn collected by Corsini
-(Dissertationes Agonisticæ, Dissert. i, sects. 8, 9, 10), and still
-more amply set forth with a valuable commentary, by Krause (Olympia,
-oder Darstellung der grossen Olympischen Spiele, Wien, 1838, sects.
-8-11 especially).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_113"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_113">[113]</a></span> Hom. Hymn. Apoll. 262.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Πημανέει σ᾽ αἰεὶ κτυπὸς ἵππων ὠκειάων,</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἀρδόμενοί τ᾽ οὐρῆες ἐμῶν ἱερῶν ἀπὸ πηγέων·</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἔνθα τις ἀνθρώπων βουλήσεται εἰσοράασθαι</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἅρματά τ᾽ εὐποίητα καὶ ὠκυπόδων κτυπὸν ἵππων,</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἢ νηόν τε μέγαν καὶ κτήματα πόλλ᾽ ἐνεόντα.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">Also v. 288-394. γυάλων ὑπὸ Παρνήσοιο—484. ὑπὸ
-πτυχὶ Παρνήσοιο—Pindar, Pyth. viii, 90. Πυθῶνος ἐν γυάλοις—Strabo,
-ix, p. 418. πετρωδὲς χώριον καὶ θεατροειδὲς—Heliodorus, Æthiop. ii,
-26: compare Will. Götte, Das Delphische Orakel (Leipzig, 1839), pp.
-39-42.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_114"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_114">[114]</a></span> Βωμοί μ᾽ ἔφερβον, οὕπιών
-τ᾽ ἀεὶ ξένος, says Ion (in Euripidês, Ion. 334) the slave of
-Apollo, and the verger of his Delphian temple, who waters it from
-the Kastalian spring, sweeps it with laurel boughs, and keeps
-off with his bow and arrows the obtrusive birds (Ion, 105, 143,
-154). Whoever reads the description of Professor Ulrichs (Reisen
-und Forschungen in Griechenland, ch. 7, p. 110) will see that the
-birds—eagles, vultures, and crows—are quite numerous enough to have
-been exceedingly troublesome. The whole play of Ion conveys a lively
-idea of the Delphian temple and its scenery, with which Euripidês was
-doubtless familiar.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_115"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_115">[115]</a></span> There is considerable
-perplexity respecting Krissa and Kirrha, and it still remains a
-question among scholars whether the two names denote the same
-place or different places; the former is the opinion of O. Müller
-(Orchomenos, p. 495). Strabo distinguishes the two. Pausanias
-identifies them, conceiving no other town to have ever existed except
-the seaport (x, 37, 4). Mannert (Geogr. Gr. Röm. viii, p. 148)
-follows Strabo, and represents them as different.</p>
-
-<p>I consider the latter to be the correct opinion, upon the
-grounds, and partly, also, on the careful topographical examination
-of Professor Ulrichs, which affords an excellent account of the whole
-scenery of Delphi (Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, Bremen,
-1840, chapters 1, 2, 3). The ruins described by him on the high
-ground near Kastri, called the Forty Saints, may fairly be considered
-as the ruins of Krissa; the ruins of Kirrha are on the sea-shore
-near the mouth of the Pleistus. The plain beneath might without
-impropriety be called either the Krissæan or the Kirrhæan plain
-(Herodot. viii, 32; Strabo, ix, p. 419). Though Strabo was right in
-distinguishing Krissa from Kirrha, and right also in the position of
-the latter under Kirphis, he conceived incorrectly the situation of
-Krissa; and his representation that there were two wars,—in the first
-of which, Kirrha was destroyed by the Krissæans, while in the second,
-Krissa itself was conquered by the Amphiktyons,—is not confirmed by
-any other authority.</p>
-
-<p>The mere circumstance that Pindar gives us in three separate
-passages, Κρίσᾳ, Κρισαῖον, Κρισαίοις (Isth. ii, 26; Pyth. v, 49, vi,
-18), and in five other passages, Κίῤῥᾳ, Κίῤῥας, Κίῤῥαθεν (Pyth. iii,
-33, vii, 14, viii, 26, x, 24, xi, 20), renders it almost certain that
-the two names belong to different places, and are not merely two
-different names for the same place; the poet could not in this case
-have any metrical reason for varying the denomination, as the metre
-of the two words is similar.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_116"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_116">[116]</a></span> Athenæus, xiii, p. 560;
-Æschinês cont. Ktesiphont. c. 36, p. 406; Strabo, ix, p. 418. Of the
-Akragallidæ, or Kraugallidæ, whom Æschinês mentions along with the
-Kirrhæans as another impious race who dwelt in the neighborhood of
-the god,—and who were overthrown along with the Kirrhæans,—we have
-no farther information. O. Müller’s conjecture would identify them
-with the Dryopes (Dorians, i, 2, 5, and his Orchomenos, p. 496);
-Harpokration, v. Κραυγαλλίδαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_117"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_117">[117]</a></span> Schol. ad Pindar, Pyth.
-Introduct.: Schol. ad Pindar, Nem. ix, 2; Plutarch, Solon, c. 11;
-Pausan. ii, 9, 6. Pausanias (x, 37, 4) and Polyænus (Strateg. iii, 6)
-relate a stratagem of Solon, or of Eurylochus, to poison the water of
-the Kirrhæans with hellebore.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_118"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_118">[118]</a></span> Eurip. Ion, 230.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_119"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_119">[119]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 112.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_120"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_120">[120]</a></span> Mr. Clinton thinks that the
-Pythian games were celebrated in the autumn: M. Boeckh refers the
-celebration to the spring: Krause agrees with Boeckh. (Clinton, Fast.
-Hell. vol. ii, p. 200, Appendix; Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscr. No. 1688, p.
-813; Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii, pp. 29-35.)
-</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Clinton’s opinion appears to me nearly the truth; the real
-time, as I conceive it, being about the beginning of August, or end
-of July. Boeckh admits that, with the exception of Thucydidês (v,
-1-19), the other authorities go to sustain it; but he relies on
-Thucydidês to outweigh them. Now the passage of Thucydidês, properly
-understood, seems to me as much against Boeckh’s view as the rest.
-</p>
-
-<p>I may remark, as a certain additional reason in the case, that
-the Isthmia appear to have been celebrated in the third year of each
-Olympiad, and in the spring (Krause, p. 187). It seems improbable
-that these two great festivals should have come one immediately after
-the other, which, nevertheless, must be supposed, if we adopt the
-opinion of Boeckh and Krause.</p>
-
-<p>The Pythian games would be sometimes a little earlier, sometimes
-a little later, in consequence of the time of full moon: notice
-being always sent round by the administrators beforehand of the
-commencement of the sacred month. See the references in K. F.
-Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstl. Alterth. der Griechen, ch.
-49, not. 12.—This note has been somewhat modified since my first
-edition,—see the note vol. vi, ch. liv.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_121"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_121">[121]</a></span> Demosthen. Philipp. iii, p.
-119.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_122"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_122">[122]</a></span> Pindar, Nem. x, 28-33.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_123"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_123">[123]</a></span> Strabo, viii, p. 377; Plutarch,
-Arat. c. 28; Mannert. Geogr. Gr. Röm. pt. viii, p. 650. Compare the
-second chapter in Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen und Isthmien, vol. ii.
-p. 108, <i>seq.</i></p>
-
-<p>That the Kleônæans continued without interruption to administer
-the Nemean festival down to Olympiad 80 (460 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>),
-or thereabouts, is the rational inference from Pindar, Nem. x, 42:
-compare Nem. iv, 17. Eusebius, indeed, states that the Argeians
-seized the administration for themselves in Olympiad 53, and in
-order to reconcile this statement with the above passage in Pindar,
-critics have concluded that the Argeians lost it again, and that the
-Kleônæans resumed it a little before Olympiad 80. I take a different
-view, and am disposed to reject the statement of Eusebius altogether;
-the more so as Pindar’s tenth Nemean ode is addressed to an Argeian
-citizen named Theiæus. If there had been at that time a standing
-dispute between Argos and Kleônæ on the subject of the administration
-of the Nemea, the poet would hardly have introduced the mention of
-the Nemean prizes gained by the ancestors of Theiæus, under the
-untoward designation of “prizes received from Kleônæan men.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_124"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_124">[124]</a></span> See Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No.
-1126.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_125"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_125">[125]</a></span> K. F. Hermann, in his
-Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer (ch. 32, not. 7. and
-ch. 65, not. 3), and again in his more recent work (Lehrbuch der
-gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen, part iii, ch. 49, also
-not. 6), both highly valuable publications, maintains,—1. That
-the exaltation of the Isthmian and Nemean games into Pan-Hellenic
-importance arose directly after and out of the fall of the despots
-of Corinth and Sikyon. 2. That it was brought about by the paramount
-influence of the Dorians, especially by Sparta. 3. That the Spartans
-put down the despots of both these two cities.</p>
-
-<p>The last of these three propositions appears to me untrue in
-respect to Sikyon,—improbable in respect to Corinth: my reasons for
-thinking so have been given in a former chapter. And if this be so,
-the reason for presuming Spartan intervention as to the Isthmian and
-Nemean games falls to the ground; for there is no other proof of it,
-nor does Sparta appear to have interested herself in any of the four
-national festivals except the Olympic, with which she was from an
-early period peculiarly connected.</p>
-
-<p>Nor can I think that the first of Hermann’s three propositions is
-at all tenable. No connection whatever can be shown between Sikyon
-and the Nemean games; and it is the more improbable in this case that
-the Sikyonians should have been active, inasmuch as they had under
-Kleisthenês a little before contributed to nationalize the Pythian
-games: a second interference for a similar purpose ought not to be
-presumed without some evidence. To prove his point about the Isthmia,
-Hermann cites only a passage of Solinus (vii, 14), “Hoc spectaculum,
-per Cypselum tyrannum intermissum, Corinthii Olymp. 49 solemnitati
-pristinæ reddiderunt.” To render this passage at all credible, we
-must read <i>Cypselidas</i> instead of <i>Cypselum</i>, which deducts from the
-value of a witness whose testimony can never under any circumstances
-be rated high. But granting the alteration, there are two reasons
-against the assertion of Solinus. One, a positive reason, that Solon
-offered a large reward to Athenian victors at the Isthmian games: his
-legislation falls in 594 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, ten years before the
-time when the Isthmia are said by Solinus to have been renewed after
-a long intermission. The other reason (negative, though to my mind
-also powerful) is the silence of Herodotus in that long invective
-which he puts into the mouth of Sosiklês against the Kypselids (v,
-92). If Kypselus had really been guilty of so great an insult to the
-feelings of the people as to suppress their most solemn festival,
-the fact would hardly have been omitted in the indictment which
-Sosiklês is made to urge against him. Aristotle, indeed, representing
-Kypselus as a mild and popular despot, introduces a contrary view of
-his character, which, if we admitted it, would of itself suffice to
-negative the supposition that he had suppressed the Isthmia.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_126"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_126">[126]</a></span> Plutarch, Arat. c. 28. καὶ
-συνεχύθη τότε πρῶτον (by order of Aratus) ἡ δεδομένη τοῖς ἀγωνισταῖς
-ἀσυλία καὶ ἀσφάλεια, a deadly stain on the character of Aratus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_127"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_127">[127]</a></span> Festus, v, Perihodos, p. 217,
-ed. Müller. See the animated protest of the philosopher Xenophanês
-against the great rewards given to Olympic victors (540-520
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), Xenophan. Fragment. 2, p 357, ed.
-Bergk.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_128"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_128">[128]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 16. Alkibiadês
-says, καὶ ὅσα αὖ ἐν τῇ πόλει χορηγίαις ἢ ἄλλῳ τῳ λαμπρύνομαι, τοῖς
-μὲν ἀστοῖς φθονεῖται φύσει, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ξένους καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσχὺς
-φαίνεται.</p>
-
-<p>The greater Panathenæa are ascribed to Peisistratus by the
-Scholiast on Aristeidês, vol. iii, p. 323, ed. Dindorf: judging
-by what immediately precedes, the statement seems to come from
-Aristotle.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_129"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_129">[129]</a></span> Simonidês, Fragm. 154-158, ed.
-Bergk; Pindar, Nem. x, 45; Olymp. xiii, 107.</p>
-
-<p>The distinguished athlete Theagenês is affirmed to have gained
-twelve hundred prizes in these various agônes: according to some,
-fourteen hundred prizes (Pausan. vi, 11, 2; Plutarch, Præcept. Reip.
-Ger. c. 15, p. 811).</p>
-
-<p>An athlete named Apollonius arrived too late for the Olympic
-games, having stayed away too long, from his anxiety to get money at
-various agônes in Ionia (Pausan. v, 21, 5).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_130"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_130">[130]</a></span> See, particularly, the treaty
-between the inhabitants of Latus and those of Olûs in Krête, in
-Boeckh’s Corp. Inscr. No. 2554, wherein this reciprocity is expressly
-stipulated. Boeckh places this Inscription in the third century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_131"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_131">[131]</a></span> Timæus, Fragm. 82, ed. Didot.
-The Krotoniates furnished a great number of victors both to the
-Olympic and to the Pythian games (Herodot. viii, 47; Pausan. x, 5,
-5&ndash;x, 7, 3; Krause, Gymnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, vol. ii,
-sect. 29, p. 752).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_132"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_132">[132]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 65. καὶ αὐτῶν ὁ
-βουλόμενος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων μυεῖται.</p>
-
-<p>The exclusion of all competitors, natives of Lampsakus, from
-the games celebrated in the Chersonesus to the honor of the œkist
-Miltiadês, is mentioned by Herodotus as something special (Herodot.
-vi, 38).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_133"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_133">[133]</a></span> See the remarks, upon the
-Lacedæmonian discouragement of stranger-visitors at their public
-festivals, put by Thucydidês into the mouth of Periklês (Thucyd. ii,
-39).</p>
-
-<p>Lichas the Spartan gained great renown by treating hospitably the
-strangers who came to the Gymnopædiæ at Sparta (Xenophon, Memorab.
-i, 2, 61; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 10),—a story which proves that <i>some</i>
-strangers came to the Spartan festivals, but which also proves that
-they were not many in number, and that to show them hospitality was a
-striking distinction from the general character of Spartans.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_134"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_134">[134]</a></span> Aristot. Poetic, c. 3 and 4;
-Maximus Tyrius. Diss. xxi. p. 215; Plutarch. De Cupidine Divitiarum.
-c. 8. p. 527: compare the treatise, “Quod non potest suaviter vivi
-secundum Epicurum.” c. 16. p. 1098. The old oracles quoted by
-Demosthenês, cont. Meidiam (c. 15. p. 531. and cont. Makartat. p.
-1072: see also Buttmann’s note on the former passage), convey the
-idea of the ancient simple Athenian festival.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_135"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_135">[135]</a></span> Plutarch. Solon, c. 29: see
-above, chap. xi. vol. iii. p. 195.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_136"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_136">[136]</a></span> The orator Lysias, in a
-fragment of his lost Panegyrical Oration preserved by Dionysius of
-Halikarnassus (vol. v. p. 520 R.), describes the influence of the
-games with great force and simplicity. Hêraklês, the founder of them,
-ἀγῶνα μὲν σωμάτων ἐποίησε, φιλοτιμίαν δὲ πλούτῳ, γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν
-ἐν τῷ καλλίστῳ τῆς Ἑλλάδος· ἵνα τούτων ἁπάντων ἕνεκα ἐς τὸ αὐτὸ
-ἔλθωμεν, τὰ μὲν ὀψόμενοι, τὰ δὲ ἀκουσόμενοι. Ἡγήσατο γὰρ τὸν ἐνθάδε
-σύλλογον <span class="gesperrt">ἀρχὴν γενέσθαι τοῖς Ἕλλησι τῆς πρὸς
-ἀλλήλους φιλίας</span>.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_137"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_137">[137]</a></span> Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. v, 3.
-“<i>Mercatum</i> eum, qui haberetur maximo ludorum apparatu totius Græciæ
-celebritate: nam ut illic alii corporibus exercitatis gloriam et
-nobilitatem coronæ peterent, alii emendi aut vendendi quæstu et lucro
-ducerentur,” etc.</p>
-
-<p>Both Velleius Paterculus also (i, 8) and Justin (xiii, 5), call
-the Olympic festival by the name <i>mercatus</i>.</p>
-
-<p>There were booths all round the Altis, or sacred precinct of Zeus
-(Schol. Pindar. Olymp. xi, 55), during the time of the games.</p>
-
-<p>Strabo observes with justice, respecting the multitudinous
-festivals generally—Ἡ πανήγυρις, ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα (x, p. 486),
-especially in reference to Delos: see Cicero pro Lege Maniliâ, c. 18:
-compare Pausanias, x, 32, 9, about the Panegyris and fair at Tithorea
-in Phokis, and Becker, Chariklês, vol. i, p. 283.</p>
-
-<p>At the Attic festival of the Herakleia, celebrated by the
-communion called Mesogei, or a certain number of the demes
-constituting Mesogæa, a regular market-due, or ἀγοραστικὸν, was
-levied upon those who brought goods to sell (Inscriptiones Atticæ
-nuper repertæ 12, by E. Curtius, pp. 3-7).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_138"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_138">[138]</a></span> Pausan. vi, 23, 5; Diodor. xiv,
-109, xv, 7; Lucian, Quomodo Historia sit conscribenda, c. 42. See
-Krause, Olympia, sect. 29. pp. 183-186.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_139"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_139">[139]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 120; Herodot.
-v, 22-71. Eurybatês of Argos (Herodot. vi, 92); Philippus and
-Phayllus of Kroton (v, 47; viii, 47); Eualkidês of Eretria (v, 102);
-Hermolykus of Athens (ix, 105).</p>
-
-<p>Pindar (Nem. iv and vi) gives the numerous victories of the
-Bassidæ and Theandridræ at Ægina: also Melissus the pankratiast and
-his ancestors the Kleonymidæ of Thebes—τιμάεντες ἀρχᾶθεν πρόξενοί τ᾽
-ἐπιχωρίων (Isthm. iii, 25).</p>
-
-<p>Respecting the extreme celebrity of Diagoras and his sons, of the
-Rhodian gens Eratidæ, Damagêtus, Akusilaus, and Dorieus, see Pindar,
-Olymp. vii, 16-145, with the Scholia; Thucyd. iii, 11; Pausan. vi, 7,
-1-2; Xenophon, Hellenic. i, 5, 19: compare Strabo. xiv, p. 655.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_140"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_140">[140]</a></span> The Latin writers remark it as
-a peculiarity of Grecian feeling, as distinguished from Roman, that
-men of great station accounted it an honor to contend in the games:
-see, as a specimen, Tacitus, Dialogus de Orator. c. 9. “Ac si in
-Græciâ natus esses, ubi ludicras quoque artes exercere honestum est,
-ac tibi Nicostrati robur Dii dedissent, non paterer immanes illos et
-ad pugnam natos lacertos levitate jaculi vanescere.” Again, Cicero,
-pro Flacco, c. 13, in his sarcastic style: “Quid si etiam occisus est
-a piratis Adramyttenus, homo nobilis, cujus est fere nobis omnibus
-nomen auditum, Atinas pugil, Olympionices? hoc est apud Græcos
-(quoniam de corum <i>gravitate</i> dicimus) prope majus et gloriosius,
-quam Romæ triumphasse.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_141"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_141">[141]</a></span> Lichas, one of the chief men of
-Sparta, and moreover a chariot-victor, received actual chastisement
-on the ground, from these staff-bearers, for an infringement of the
-regulations (Thucyd. v, 50).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_142"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_142">[142]</a></span> Thucyd. v, 18-47. and the
-curious ancient Inscription in Boeckh’s Corpus Inscr. No. 11. p. 28.
-recording the convention between the Eleians and the inhabitants of
-the Arcadian town of Heræa.</p>
-
-<p>The comparison of various passages referring to the Olympia,
-Isthmia, and Nemea (Thucydidês iii, 11; viii, 9-10; v, 49-51; and
-Xenophon, Hellenic. iv, 7, 2; v, 1, 29) shows that various political
-business was often discussed at these Games,—that diplomatists made
-use of the intercourse for the purpose of detecting the secret
-designs of states whom they suspected, and that the administering
-state often practised manœuvres in respect to the obligations of
-truce for the Hieromenia, or Holy Month.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_143"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_143">[143]</a></span> Himerius, Orat. iii, p. 426,
-Wernsdorf—ἀγέρωχοι καὶ ὑψαυχένες.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_144"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_144">[144]</a></span> For the whole subject of this
-chapter, the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters
-of O. Müller’s History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, wherein
-the lyric poets are handled with greater length than consists with
-the limits of this work, will be found highly valuable,—chapters
-abounding in erudition and ingenuity, but not always within the
-limits of the evidence.</p>
-
-<p>The learned work of Ulrici (Geschichte der Griechischen
-Poesie—<i>Lyrik</i>) is still more open to the same remark.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_145"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_145">[145]</a></span> These early innovators in
-Grecian music, rhythm, metre, and poetry, belonging to the seventh
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, were very imperfectly known, even
-to those contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle who tried to get
-together facts for a consecutive history of music. The treatise of
-Plutarch, De Musicâ, shows what very contradictory statements he
-found. He quotes from four different authors,—Herakleidês, Glaukus,
-Alexander, and Aristoxenus, who by no means agreed in their series
-of names and facts. The first three of them blend together mythe and
-history; while even the Anagraphê or inscription at Sikyon, which
-professed to give a continuous list of such poets and musicians as
-had contended at the Sikyonian games, began with a large stock of
-mythical names,—Amphion, Linus, Pierius, etc. (Plutarch, Music.
-p. 1132.) Some authors, according to Plutarch (p. 1133), made the
-great chronological mistake of placing Terpander as contemporary
-with Hippônax; a proof how little of chronological evidence was then
-accessible.</p>
-
-<p>That Terpander was victor at the Spartan festival of the
-Karneia, in 676 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, may well have been derived by
-Hellanikus from the Spartan registers: the name of the Lesbian harper
-Perikleitas, as having gained the same prize at some subsequent
-period (Plutarch, De Mus. p. 1133), probably rests on the same
-authority. That Archilochus was rather later than Terpander, and
-Thalêtas rather later than Archilochus, was the statement of Glaukus
-(Plutarch, De Mus. p. 1134). Klonas and Polymnêstus are placed later
-than Terpander; Archilochus later than Klonas: Alkman is said to have
-mentioned Polymnêstus in one of his songs (pp. 1133-1135). It can
-hardly be true that Terpander gained <i>four</i> Pythian prizes, if the
-festival was octennial prior to its reconstitution by the Amphiktyons
-(p. 1132). Sakadas gained three Pythian prizes <i>after</i> that period,
-when the festival was quadrennial (p. 1134).</p>
-
-<p>Compare the confused indications in Pollux, iv, 65-66, 78-79. The
-abstract given by Photius of certain parts of the Chrestomathia of
-Proclus (published in Gaisford’s edition of Hephæstion, pp. 375-389),
-is also extremely valuable, in spite of its brevity and obscurity,
-about the lyric and choric poetry of Greece.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_146"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_146">[146]</a></span> The difference between Νόμος
-and Μέλος appears in Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1132—Καὶ τὸν Τέρπανδρον,
-κιθαρῳδικῶν ποιητὴν ὄντα νόμων, κατὰ νόμον ἕκαστον τοῖς ἔπεσι τοῖς
-ἑαυτοῦ καὶ τοῖς Ὁμήρου μέλη περιτιθέντα, ᾅδειν ἐν τοῖς ἀγῶσι·
-ἀποφῆναι δὲ τοῦτον λέγει ὀνόματα πρῶτον τοῖς κιθαρῳδικοῖς νόμοις.</p>
-
-<p>The nomes were not many in number; they went by special names;
-and there was a disagreement of opinion as to the persons who had
-composed them (Plutarch, Music. p. 1133). They were monodic, not
-choric,—intended to be sung by one person (Aristot. Problem. xix,
-15). Herodot. i, 23, about Arion and the Nomus Orthius.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_147"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_147">[147]</a></span> Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellen.
-ad ann. 671, 665, 644) appears to me noway satisfactory in his
-chronological arrangements of the poets of this century. I agree
-with O. Müller (Hist. of Literat. of Ancient Greece, ch. xii, 9)
-in thinking that he makes Terpander too recent, and Thalêtas too
-ancient; I also believe both Kallinus and Alkman to have been more
-recent than the place which Mr. Clinton assigns to them; the epoch
-of Tyrtæus will depend upon the date which we assign to the second
-Messenian war.</p>
-
-<p>How very imperfectly the chronology of the poetical names
-even of the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>—Sappho, Anakreon,
-Hippônax—was known even to writers of the beginning of the Ptolemaic
-age (or shortly after 300 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), we may see by the
-mistakes noted in Athenæus, xiii, p. 599. Hermesianax of Kolophon,
-the elegiac poet, represented Anakreon as the lover of Sappho; this
-might perhaps be not absolutely impossible, if we supposed in Sappho
-an old age like that of Ninon de l’Enclos; but others (even earlier
-than Hermesianax, since they are quoted by Chamæleon) represented
-Anakreon, when in old age, as addressing verses to Sappho, still
-young. Again, the comic writer Diphilus introduced both Archilochus
-and Hippônax as the lovers of Sappho.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_148"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_148">[148]</a></span> The Latin poets and the
-Alexandrine critics seem to have both insisted on the natural
-mournfulness of the elegiac metre (Ovid, Heroid. xv, 7; Horat. Art.
-Poet. 75): see also the fanciful explanation given by Didymus in the
-Etymologicon Magnum, v. Ἔλεγος.</p>
-
-<p>We learn from Hephæstion (c. viii, p. 45, Gaisf.) that the
-anapæstic march-metre of Tyrtæus was employed by the comic writers
-also, for a totally different vein of feeling. See the Dissertation
-of Franck, Callinus, pp. 37-48 (Leips. 1816).</p>
-
-<p>Of the remarks made by O. Müller respecting the metres of these
-early poets (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch. xi, s.
-8-12, etc.; ch. xii, s. 1-2, etc.), many appear to be uncertified and
-disputable.</p>
-
-<p>For some good remarks on the fallibility of men’s impressions
-respecting the natural and inherent ἦθος of particular metres, see
-Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiment, part v, ch. i, p. 329), in the
-edition of his works by Dugald Stewart.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_149"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_149">[149]</a></span> See the observations in
-Aristotle (Rhetor. iii, 9) on the λέξις εἰρομένη as compared with
-λέξις κατεστραμμένη·—λέξις εἰρομένη, ἣ οὐδὲν ἔχει τέλος αὐτὴ καθ᾽
-αὑτὴν, ἂν μὴ τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ λεγόμενον τελειώθη·—κατεστραμμένη δὲ, ἡ ἐν
-περιόδοις· λέγω δὲ περίοδον, λέξιν ἔχουσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν αὐτὴν
-καθ᾽ αὑτὴν καὶ μέγεθος εὐσύνοπτον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_150"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_150">[150]</a></span> I employ, however unwillingly,
-the word <i>thesis</i> here (arsis and thesis) in the sense in which it
-is used by G. Hermann (“Illud tempus, in quo ictus est, <i>arsin</i>; ea
-tempora, quæ carent ictu, <i>thesin</i> vocamus,” Element. Doctr. Metr.
-sect. 15), and followed by Boeckh, in his Dissertation on the Metres
-of Pindar (i, 4), though I agree with Dr. Barham (in the valuable
-Preface to his edition of Hephæstion, Cambridge, 1843, pp. 5-8) that
-the opposite sense of the words would be the preferable one, just as
-it was the original sense in which they were used by the best Greek
-musical writers: Dr. Barham’s Preface is very instructive on the
-difficult subject of ancient rhythm generally.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_151"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_151">[151]</a></span> Homer, Hymn. ad Cererem.
-202; Hesychius, v. Γεφυρὶς; Herodot. v, 83; Diodor. v, 4. There
-were various gods at whose festivals scurrility (τωθασμὸς) was a
-consecrated practice, seemingly different festivals in different
-places (Aristot. Politic. vii, 15, 8).</p>
-
-<p>The reader will understand better what this consecrated
-scurrility means by comparing the description of a modern traveller
-in the kingdom of Naples (Tour through the Southern Provinces of the
-Kingdom of Naples, by Mr. Keppel Craven, London, 1821, ch. xv, p.
-287):—</p>
-
-<p>“I returned to Gerace (the site of the ancient Epizephyrian
-Lokri) by one of those moonlights which are known only in these
-latitudes, and which no pen or pencil can portray. My path lay along
-some cornfields, in which the natives were employed in the last
-labors of the harvest, and I was not a little surprised to find
-myself saluted with a volley of opprobrious epithets and abusive
-language, uttered in the most threatening voice, and accompanied with
-the most insulting gestures. This extraordinary custom is of the most
-remote antiquity, and is observed towards all strangers during the
-harvest and vintage seasons; those who are apprized of it will keep
-their temper as well as their presence of mind, as the loss of either
-would only serve as a signal for still louder invectives, and prolong
-a contest in which success would be as hopeless as undesirable.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_152"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_152">[152]</a></span> The chief evidence for the
-rhythmical and metrical changes introduced by Archilochus is to be
-found in the 28th chapter of Plutarch, De Musicâ, pp. 1140-1141, in
-words very difficult to understand completely. See Ulrici, Geschichte
-der Hellenisch. Poesie, vol. ii, p. 381.</p>
-
-<p>The epigram ascribed to Theokritus (No. 18 in Gaisford’s Poetæ
-Minores) shows that the poet had before him hexameter compositions of
-Archilochus, as well as lyric:—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">ὡς ἐμμελὴς τ᾽ ἔγεντο κἀπιδέξιος</p>
-<p class="i0">ἐπεά τε ποιεῖν, πρὸς λύραν τ᾽ ἀείδειν</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">See the article on Archilochus in Welcker’s Kleine
-Schriften, pp. 71-82, which has the merit of showing that iambic
-bitterness is far from being the only marked feature in his character
-and genius.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_153"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_153">[153]</a></span> See Meleager, Epigram. cxix, 3;
-Horat. Epist. 19, 23, and Epod. vi, 13 with the Scholiast; Ælian. V.
-H. x, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_154"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_154">[154]</a></span> Pindar, Pyth. ii, 55; Olymp.
-ix, 1, with the Scholia; Euripid. Hercul. Furens, 583-683. The
-eighteenth epigram of Theokritus (above alluded to) conveys a
-striking tribute of admiration to Archilochus: compare Quintilian, x,
-1, and Liebel. ad Archilochi Fragmenta, sects. 5, 6, 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_155"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_155">[155]</a></span> Athenæus, xiv, p. 630.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_156"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_156">[156]</a></span> Plutarch, De Musicâ, pp. 1134,
-1135; Aristotle, De Lacedæmon. Republicâ, Fragm. xi, p. 132, ed.
-Neumann; Plutarch, De Serâ Numin. Vindict. c. 13, p. 558.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_157"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_157">[157]</a></span> Thucyd. v, 69-70, with the
-Scholia,—μετὰ τῶν πολεμικῶν νόμων ... Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ βραδέως καὶ
-ὑπὸ αὐλητῶν πολλῶν νόμῳ ἐγκαθεστώτων, οὐ τοῦ θείου χάριν, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα
-ὁμαλῶς μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοιεν, καὶ μὴ διασπασθείη αὐτοῖς ἡ τάξις.</p>
-
-<p>Cicero, Tuscul. Qu. ii, 16. “Spartiatarum quorum procedit Mora ad
-tibiam, neque adhibetur ulla sine anapæstis pedibus hortatio.”</p>
-
-<p>The flute was also the instrument appropriated to Kômus, or the
-excited movement of half-intoxicated revellers (Hesiod. Scut. Hercul.
-280; Athenæ. xiv, pp. 617-618).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_158"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_158">[158]</a></span> Plato, Legg. vii, p. 803.
-θύοντα καὶ ᾅδοντα καὶ ὀρχούμενον, ὥστε τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἱλέως αὑτῷ
-παρασκευάζειν δυνατὸν εἶναι, etc.: compare p. 799; Maximus Tyr. Diss.
-xxxvii, 4: Aristophan. Ran. 950-975; Athenæus, xiv, p. 626; Polyb.
-iv, 30; Lucian, De Saltatione, c. 10, 11, 16, 31.</p>
-
-<p>Compare Aristotle (Problem xix, 15) about the primitive character
-and subsequent change of the chorus; and the last chapter of the
-eighth book of his Politica: also, a striking passage in Plutarch (De
-Cupidine Divitiarum, c. 8, p. 527) about the transformation of the
-Dionysiac festival at Chæroneia from simplicity to costliness.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_159"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_159">[159]</a></span> Athenæus, xiv, p. 628; Suidas,
-vol. iii, p. 715, ed. Kuster; Plutarch, Instituta Laconica, c.
-32,—κωμῳδίας καὶ τραγῳδίας οὐκ ἠκρόωντο, ὅπως μήτε ἐν σπουδῇ, μήτε
-ἐν παιδίᾳ, ἀκούωσι τῶν ἀντιλεγόντων τοῖς νόμοις,—which exactly
-corresponds with the ethical view implied in the alleged conversation
-between Solon and Thespis (Plutarch, Solon, c. 29: see above, ch. xi,
-vol. ii, p. 195), and with Plato, Legg. vii, p. 817.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_160"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_160">[160]</a></span> Xenophon, Agesilaus ii, 17.
-οἴκαδε ἀπελθὼν εἰς τὰ Ὑακίνθια, ὅπου ἐτάχθη ὑπὸ τοῦ χοροποιοῦ, τὸν
-παιᾶνα τῷ θεῷ συνεπετέλει.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_161"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_161">[161]</a></span> Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 14, 16,
-21: Athenæus, xiv, pp. 631-632, xv, p. 678; Xenophon, Hellen. vi, 4,
-15; De Republic. Lacedæm. ix, 5; Pindar, Hyporchemata, Fragm. 78, ed.
-Bergk.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Λάκαινα μὲν παρθένων ἀγέλα.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">Also, Alkman, Fragm. 13, ed. Bergk; Antigon.
-Caryst. Hist. Mirab. c. 27.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_162"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_162">[162]</a></span> How extensively pantomimic
-the ancient orchêsis was, may be seen by the example in Xenophon,
-Symposion, vii, 5, ix, 3-6, and Plutarch, Symposion, ix, 15, 2:
-see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der
-Griechen, ch. 29.</p>
-
-<p>“Sane ut in religionibus saltaretur, hæc ratio est: quod nullam
-majores nostri partem corporis esse voluerunt, quæ non sentiret
-religionem: nam cantus ad animum, saltatio ad mobilitatem corporis
-pertinet.” (Servius ad Virgil. Eclog. v, 73.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_163"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_163">[163]</a></span> Aristot. Politic. viii, 4, 6.
-Οἱ Λάκωνες—<span class="gesperrt">οὐ μανθάνοντες ὅμως</span> δύνανται
-κρίνειν ὀρθῶς, ὥς φασι, τὰ χρηστὰ καὶ τὰ μὴ τῶν μέλων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_164"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_164">[164]</a></span> Homer. Hymn. Apoll. 340. Οἷοί
-τε Κρητῶν παιήονες, etc.: see Boeckh. De Metris Pindari, ii, 7, p.
-143; Ephorus ap. Strabo, x, p. 480: Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1142.</p>
-
-<p>Respecting Thalêtas, and the gradual alterations in the character
-of music at Sparta. Hoeckh has given much instructive matter (Kreta.
-vol. iii, pp. 340-377). Respecting Nymphæus of Kydonia, whom Ælian
-(V. II. xii, 50) puts in juxtaposition with Thalêtas and Terpander,
-nothing is known.</p>
-
-<p>After what is called the second fashion of music (κατάστασις)
-had thus been introduced by Thalêtas and his contemporaries.—the
-first fashion being that of Terpander,—no farther innovations were
-allowed. The ephors employed violent means to prohibit the intended
-innovations of Phrynis and Timotheus, after the Persian war: see
-Plutarch Agis, c. 10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_165"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_165">[165]</a></span> Alkman. Fragm. 13-17. ed.
-Bergk, ὁ πάμφαγος Ἀλκμάν: compare Fr. 63. Aristides calls him ὁ τῶν
-παρθένων ἐπαινέτης καὶ σύμβουλος (Or. xlv, vol. ii, p. 40. Dindorf).
-</p>
-
-<p>Of the Partneneia of Alkman (songs, hymns, and dances, composed
-for a chorus of maidens) there were at least two books (Stephanus
-Byzant. v. Ἐρυσίχη). He was the earliest poet who acquired renown
-in this species of composition, afterwards much pursued by Pindar,
-Bacchylidês, and Simonidês of Keôs: see Welcker, Alkman. Fragment. p.
-10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_166"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_166">[166]</a></span> Alkman, Frag. 64, ed. Bergk.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ὥρας δ᾽ ἐσῆκε τρεῖς, θέρος</p>
-<p class="i0">Καὶ χεῖμα κ᾽ ὠπώραν τρίταν·</p>
-<p class="i0">Καὶ τέτρατον τὸ ἦρ, ὅκα</p>
-<p class="i0">Σάλλει μὲν, ἐσθίειν δ᾽ ἄδαν</p>
-<p class="i2">Οὐκ ἐστί.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_167"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_167">[167]</a></span> Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 9, p.
-1134. About the dialect of Alkman, see Ahrens, De Dialecto Æolicâ,
-sects. 2, 4; about his different metres, Welcker, Alkman. Fragm. pp.
-10-12.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_168"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_168">[168]</a></span> Plutarch, De Musicâ, c. 32,
-p. 1142, c. 37, p. 1144; Athenæus, xiv, p. 632. In Krête, also, the
-popularity of the primitive musical composers was maintained, though
-along with the innovator Timotheus: see Inscription No. 3053, ap.
-Boeckh, Corp. Ins.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_169"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_169">[169]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 60. They were
-probably a γένος with an heroic progenitor, like the heralds, to whom
-the historian compares them.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_170"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_170">[170]</a></span> Pindar, Fragm. 44, ed.
-Bergk: Schol. ad Pindar. Olymp. xiii, 25; Proclus, Chrestomathia,
-c. 12-14. ad calc. Hephæst. Gaisf. p. 382: compare W. M. Schmidt,
-In Dithyrambum Poetarumque Dithyrambicorum Reliquias, pp. 171-183
-(Berlin, 1845).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_171"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_171">[171]</a></span> Archiloch. Fragm. 72, ed.
-Bergk.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ὡς Διωνύσου ἄνακτος καλὸν ἐξάρξαι μέλος</p>
-<p class="i0">Οἶδα διθύραμβον, οἴνῳ ξυγκεραυνωθεὶς φρένας.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1">The old oracle quoted in Demosthen. cont. Meidiam,
-about the Dionysia at Athens, enjoins—Διονύσῳ δημοτελῆ ἱερὰ τελεῖν,
-<span class="gesperrt">καὶ κρατῆρα κεράσαι</span>, καὶ χοροὺς
-ἱστάναι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_172"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_172">[172]</a></span> Herodot. i, 23; Suidas, v.
-Ἀρίων; Pindar, Olymp. xiii, 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_173"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_173">[173]</a></span> Aristot. Poetic. c. 6,
-ἐγέννησαν τὴν ποίησιν ἐκ τῶν αὐτοσχεδιασμάτων; again, to the same
-effect, <i>ibid.</i> c. 9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_174"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_174">[174]</a></span> Alkman slightly departed from
-this rule: in one of his compositions of fourteen strophês, the last
-seven were in a different metre from the first seven (Hephæstion,
-c. xv, p. 134, Gaisf.; Hermann, Elementa Doctrin. Metricæ, c. xvii,
-sect. 595). Ἀλκμανικὴ καινοτομία καὶ Στησιχόρειος (Plutarch, De
-Musicâ, p. 1135).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_175"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_175">[175]</a></span> Pausanias, vi, 14, 4; x, 7, 3.
-Sakadas, as well as Stesichorus, composed an Ἰλίου πέρσις (Athenæus,
-xiii, p. 609).</p>
-
-<p>“Stesichorum (observes Quintilian, x, 1) quam sit ingenio
-validus, materiæ quoque ostendunt, maxima bella et clarissimos
-canentem duces, et epici carminis onera lyrâ sustinentem. Reddit
-enim personis in agendo simul loquendoque debitam dignitatem: ac
-si tenuisset modum, videtur æmulari proximus Homerum potuisse: sed
-redundat, atque effunditur: quod, ut est reprehendendum, ita copiæ
-vitium est.”</p>
-
-<p>Simonidês of Keôs (Frag. 19. ed. Bergk) puts Homer and
-Stesichorus together: see the epigram of Antipater in the Anthologia,
-t. i, p. 328, ed. Jacobs, and Dio Chrysostom. Or. 55, vol. ii, p.
-284, Reisk. Compare Kleine, Stesichori Fragment. pp. 30-34 (Berlin
-1828), and O. Müller, History of the Literature of Ancient Greece,
-ch. xiv, sect. 5.</p>
-
-<p>The musical composers of Argos are affirmed by Herodotus to have
-been the most renowned in Greece, half a century after Sakadas (Her.
-iii, 131).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_176"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_176">[176]</a></span> Horat. Epistol. i, 19, 23.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_177"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_177">[177]</a></span> Sappho, Fragm. 93, ed. Bergk.
-See also Plehn, Lesbiaca, pp. 145-165. Respecting the poetesses, two
-or three of whom were noted, contemporary with Sappho, see Ulrici,
-Gesch. der Hellen. Poesie, vol. ii, p. 370.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_178"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_178">[178]</a></span> Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. v, 82;
-Horat. Od. i, 32, ii, 13; Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 28; the striking
-passage in Plutarch, Symposion iii, 1, 3, ap. Bergk. Fragm. 42.
-In the view of Dionysius, the Æolic dialect of Alkæus and Sappho
-diminished the value of their compositions: the Æolic accent,
-analogous to the Latin, and acknowledging scarcely any oxyton words,
-must have rendered them much less agreeable in recitation or song.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_179"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_179">[179]</a></span> See Plutarch, De Music. p.
-1136; Dionys. Hal. de Comp. Verb. c. 23, p. 173, Reisk, and some
-striking passages of Himerius, in respect to Sappho (i, 4, 16, 19;
-Maximus Tyrius, Dissert. xxiv, 7-9), and the encomium of the critical
-Dionysius (De Compos. Verborum, c. 23, p. 173).</p>
-
-<p>The author of the Parian marble adopts, as one of his
-chronological epochs (Epoch 37), the flight of Sappho, or exile, from
-Mitylênê to Sicily somewhere between 604-596 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-There probably was something remarkable which induced him to single
-out this event; but we do not know what, nor can we trust the hints
-suggested by Ovid (Heroid. xv, 51).</p>
-
-<p>Nine books of Sappho’s songs were collected by the later
-literary Greeks, arranged chiefly according to the metres (C. F.
-Neue, Sapphonis Fragm. p. 11, Berlin 1827). There were ten books of
-the songs of Alkæus (Athenæus, xi, p. 481), and both Aristophanês
-(Grammaticus) and Aristarchus published editions of them.
-(Hephæstion, c. xv, p. 134, Gaisf.) Dikæarchus wrote a commentary
-upon his songs (Athenæus, xi, p. 461).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_180"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_180">[180]</a></span> Welcker, Simonidis Amorgini
-Iambi qui supersunt, p. 9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_181"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_181">[181]</a></span> Aristophan. Nubes, 536.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ἀλλ᾽ αὑτῇ καὶ τοῖς ἔπεσιν πιστεύουσ᾽ ἐλήλυθεν.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_182"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_182">[182]</a></span> See Pratinas ap. Athenæum, xiv,
-p. 617, also p. 636, and the striking fragment of the lost comic
-poet Pherekratês, in Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1141, containing the
-bitter remonstrance of <i>Music</i> (Μουσικὴ) against the wrong which
-she had suffered from the dithyrambist Melanippidês: compare also
-Aristophanês, Nubes, 951-972; Athenæus, xiv, p. 617; Horat. Art.
-Poetic. 205; and W. M. Schmidt, Diatribê in Dithyrambum, ch. viii,
-pp. 250-265.</p>
-
-<p>Τὸ σοβαρὸν καὶ περιττὸν—the character of the newer music
-(Plutarch, Agis, c. 10)—as contrasted with τὸ σεμνὸν καὶ ἀπερίεργον
-of the old music (Plutarch, De Musicâ, <i>ut sup.</i>): ostentation and
-affected display, against seriousness and simplicity. It is by no
-means certain that these reproaches against the more recent music of
-the Greeks were well founded; we may well be rendered mistrustful of
-their accuracy when we hear similar remarks and contrasts advanced
-with regard to the music of our last three centuries. The character
-of Greek poetry certainly tended to degenerate after Euripidês.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_183"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_183">[183]</a></span> Bias of Priênê composed a poem
-of two thousand verses, on the condition of Ionia (Diogen. Laërt. i,
-85), from which, perhaps, Herodotus may have derived, either directly
-or indirectly, the judicious advice which he ascribes to that
-philosopher on the occasion of the first Persian conquest of Ionia
-(Herod. i, 170).</p>
-
-<p>Not merely Xenophanês the philosopher (Diogen. Laërt. viii, 36,
-ix, 20), but long after him Parmenidês and Empedoklês, composed in
-verse.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_184"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_184">[184]</a></span> See the account given by
-Herodotus (vi, 128-129) of the way in which Kleisthenês of Sikyon
-tested the comparative education (παίδευσις) of the various suitors
-who came to woo his daughter,—οἱ δὲ μνήστηρες ἔριν εἶχον ἀμφί τε
-μουσικῇ καὶ τῷ λεγομένῳ ἐς τὸ μέσον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_185"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_185">[185]</a></span> Plato, Protagoras, c. 28, p.
-343.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_186"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_186">[186]</a></span> Hippônax, Fragm. 77, 34, ed.
-Bergk—καὶ δικάσσασθαι Βίαντος τοῦ Πριηνέος κρείττων.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">... Καὶ Μύσων, ὃν ὡς πολλὼν</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἀνεῖπεν ἀνδρῶν σωφρονέστατον πάντων.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1">Simonidês. Fr. 6, ed. Bergk—μωροῦ φωτὸς ἅδε βουλά.
-Diogen. Laërt. i, 6, 2.</p>
-
-<p>Simonidês treats Pittakus with more respect, though questioning an
-opinion delivered by him (Fragm. 8, ed. Bergk; Plato, Protagoras, c.
-26, p. 339).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_187"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_187">[187]</a></span> Dikæarchus ap. Diogen. Laërt.
-i. 40. συνετοὺς καὶ νομοθετικοὺς δεινότητα πολιτικὴν καὶ δραστήριον
-σύνεσιν. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 2.</p>
-
-<p>About the story of the tripod, which is said to have gone the
-round of these Seven Wise Men, see Menage ad Diogen. Laërt. i, 28, p.
-17.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_188"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_188">[188]</a></span> Cicero, De Republ. i, 7;
-Plutarch, in Delph. p. 385; Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griechischen
-Litteratur, vol. i, sect. 66, not. 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_189"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_189">[189]</a></span> Pliny, H. N. vii, 57. Suidas v.
-Ἑκαταῖος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_190"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_190">[190]</a></span> H. Ritter (Geschichte der
-Philosophie, ch. vi, p. 243) has some good remarks on the difficulty
-and obscurity of the early Greek prose-writers, in reference to the
-darkness of expression and meaning universally charged upon the
-philosopher Herakleitus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_191"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_191">[191]</a></span> See O. Müller, Archäologie der
-Kunst, sect. 61; Sillig. Catalogus Artificium,—under Theodôrus and
-Teleklês.</p>
-
-<p>Thiersch (Epochen der Bildenden Kunst, pp. 182-190, 2nd edit.)
-places Rhœkus near the beginning of the recorded Olympiads; and
-supposes two artists named Theodôrus, one the grandson of the other;
-but this seems to me not sustained by any adequate authority (for the
-loose chronology of Pliny about the Samian school of artists is not
-more trustworthy than about the Chian school,—compare xxxv, 12, and
-xxxvi, 3), and, moreover, intrinsically improbable. Herodotus (i,
-51) speaks of “<i>the</i> Samian Theodôrus,” and seems to have known only
-one person so called: Diodôrus (i, 98) and Pausanias (x, 38, 3) give
-different accounts of Theodôrus, but the positive evidence does not
-enable us to verify the genealogies either of Thiersch or O. Müller.
-Herodotus (iv, 152) mentions the Ἡραῖον at Samos in connection
-with events near Olymp. 37; but this does not prove that the great
-temple which he himself saw, a century and a half later, had been
-begun before Olymp. 37, as Thiersch would infer. The statement of O.
-Müller, that this temple was begun in Olymp. 35, is not authenticated
-(Arch. der Kunst. sect. 53).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_192"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_192">[192]</a></span> Pausanias tells us distinctly
-that this chest was dedicated at Olympia by the Kypselids,
-descendants of Kypselus; and this seems credible enough. But he
-also tells us that this was the identical chest in which the infant
-Kypselus had been concealed, believing the story as told in Herodotus
-(v, 92). In this latter belief I cannot go along with him, nor do I
-think that there is any evidence for believing the chest to have been
-of more ancient date than the persons who dedicated it,—in spite of
-the opinions of O. Müller and Thiersch to the contrary (O. Müller,
-Archäol. der Kunst, sect. 57; Thiersch, Epochen der Griechischen
-Kunst, p. 169, 2nd edit.: Pausan. v, 17, 2).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_193"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_193">[193]</a></span> Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fast.
-Hellen. vol. ii, Appendix, c. 2, p. 201) has stated and discussed the
-different opinions on the chronology of Peisistratus and his sons.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_194"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_194">[194]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ἀγροῖκος ὀργὴν, κυαμοτρὼξ, ἀκράχολος</p>
-<p class="i0">Δῆμος Πνυκίτης, δύσκολον γερόντιον.</p>
-<p class="ir">Aristoph. Equit. 41.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1">I need hardly mention that the Pnyx was the place in
-which the Athenian public assemblies were held.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_195"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_195">[195]</a></span> Plutarch (De Herodot. Malign.
-c. 15, p. 858) is angry with Herodotus for imparting so petty and
-personal a character to the dissensions between the Alkmæônids and
-Peisistratus; his severe remarks in that treatise, however, tend
-almost always to strengthen rather than to weaken the credibility of
-the historian.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_196"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_196">[196]</a></span> Plutarch, Phokion, c. 27,
-ἀπεκρίνατο φιλίαν ἔσεσθαι τοῖς Ἀθηναίοις καὶ ξυμμαχίαν, ἐκδοῦσι μὲν
-τοὺς περὶ Δημοσθένην καὶ Ὑπερείδην, πολιτευομένοις δὲ τὴν <span
-class="gesperrt">πάτριον</span> ἀπὸ τιμήματος πολιτείαν, δεξαμένοις
-δὲ φρουρὰν εἰς τὴν Μουνυχίαν, ἔτι δὲ χρήματα τοῦ πολέμου καὶ ζημίαν
-προσεκτίσασιν. Compare Diodor. xviii, 18.</p>
-
-<p>Twelve thousand of the poorer citizens were disfranchised by this
-change (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 28).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_197"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_197">[197]</a></span> See the preceding volume, ch.
-xi, p. 155.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_198"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_198">[198]</a></span> Solon. Fragm. 10, ed. Bergk.—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Εἰ δὲ πεπόνθατε λυγρὰ δι᾽ ὑμετέρην κακότητα,</p>
-<p class="i2">Μήτι θεοῖς τούτων μοῖραν ἐπαμφέρετε, etc.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_199"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_199">[199]</a></span> Herodot. i, 60, καὶ ἐν τῷ
-ἄστεϊ πειθόμενοι τὴν γυναῖκα εἶναι <span class="gesperrt">αὐτὴν
-τὴν θεὸν</span>, προσεύχοντό τε τὴν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐδέκοντο τὸν
-Πεισίστρατον. A later statement (Athenæus, xiii, p. 609) represents
-Phyê to have become afterwards the wife of Hipparchus.</p>
-
-<p>Of this remarkable story, not the least remarkable part is the
-criticism with which Herodotus himself accompanies it. He treats
-it as a proceeding infinitely silly (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, ὡς ἐγὼ
-εὐρίσκω, μακρῷ); he cannot conceive, how Greeks, so much superior
-to barbarians,—and even Athenians, the cleverest of all the
-Greeks,—could have fallen into such a trap. To him the story was told
-as a deception from the beginning, and he did not perhaps take pains
-to put himself into the state of feeling of those original spectators
-who saw the chariot approach, without any warning or preconceived
-suspicion. But even allowing for this, his criticism brings to our
-view the alteration and enlargement which had taken place in the
-Greek mind during the century between Peisistratus and Periklês.
-Doubtless, neither the latter nor any of his contemporaries could
-have succeeded in a similar trick.</p>
-
-<p>The fact, and the criticism upon it, now before us are remarkably
-illustrated by an analogous case recounted in a previous chapter,
-(vol. ii, p. 421, chap. viii.) Nearly at the same period as this
-stratagem of Peisistratus, the Lacedæmonians and the Argeians agreed
-to decide, by a combat of three hundred select champions, the dispute
-between them as to the territory of Kynuria. The combat actually
-took place, and the heroism of Othryades, sole Spartan survivor, has
-been already recounted. In the eleventh year of the Peloponnesian
-war, shortly after or near upon the period when we may conceive the
-history of Herodotus to have been finished, the Argeians concluded a
-treaty with Lacedæmon, and introduced as a clause into it the liberty
-of reviving their pretensions to Kynuria, and of again deciding the
-dispute by a combat of select champions. To the Lacedæmonians of
-that time this appeared extreme folly,—the very proceeding which had
-been actually resorted to a century before. Here is another case, in
-which the change in the point of view, and the increased positive
-tendencies in the Greek mind, are brought to our notice not less
-forcibly than by the criticism of Herodotus upon Phyê-Athênê.</p>
-
-<p>Istrus (one of the Atthido-graphers of the third century
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) and Antiklês published books respecting
-the personal manifestations or epiphanies of the gods,—Ἀπόλλωνος
-ἐπιφανεῖαι: see Istri Fragment. 33-37, ed. Didot. If Peisistratus
-and Megaklês had never quarrelled, their joint stratagem might
-have continued to pass for a genuine epiphany, and might have been
-included as such in the work of Istrus. I will add, that the real
-presence of the gods, at the festivals celebrated in their honor, was
-an idea continually brought before the minds of the Greeks.</p>
-
-<p>The Athenians fully believed the epiphany of the god Pan to
-Pheidippidês the courier, on his march to Sparta, a little before the
-battle of Marathôn (Herodot. vi, 105, καὶ ταῦτα Ἀθηναῖοι πιστεύσαντες
-εἶναι ἀληθέα), and even Herodotus himself does not controvert it,
-though he relaxes the positive character of history so far as to
-add—“as Pheidippidês himself said and recounted publicly to the
-Athenians.” His informants in this case were doubtless sincere
-believers; whereas, in the case of Phyê, the story was told to him at
-first as a fabrication.</p>
-
-<p>At Gela in Sicily, seemingly not long before this restoration
-of Peisistratus, Têlinês (ancestor of the despot Gelon) had brought
-back some exiles to Gela, “without any armed force, but merely
-through the sacred ceremonies and appurtenances of the subterranean
-goddesses,”—ἔχων οὐδεμίην ἀνδρῶν δύναμιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἱρὰ τουτέων τῶν
-θεῶν—τούτοισι δ᾽ ὦν πίσυνος ἐὼν, κατήγαγε (Herodot. vii, 153).
-Herodotus does not tell us the details which he had heard of the
-manner in which this restoration at Gela was brought about; but his
-general language intimates, that they were remarkable details, and
-they might have illustrated the story of Phyê Athênê.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_200"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_200">[200]</a></span> Herodot. i, 61.
-Peisistratus—ἐμίχθη οἱ οὐ κατὰ νόμον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_201"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_201">[201]</a></span> About Lygdamis, see Athenæus,
-viii, p. 348, and his citation from the lost work of Aristotle on the
-Grecian Πολιτεῖαι; also, Aristot. Politic. v, 5, 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_202"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_202">[202]</a></span> Herodot. i, 63.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_203"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_203">[203]</a></span> Herodot. i, 64. ἐπικούροισί
-τε πολλοῖσι, καὶ χρημάτων συνόδοισι, τῶν μὲν αὐτόθεν, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ
-Στρύμονος ποτάμου προσιόντων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_204"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_204">[204]</a></span> Isokratês, Or. xvi, De Bigis,
-c. 351.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_205"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_205">[205]</a></span> For the statement of Boeckh,
-Dr. Arnold, and Dr. Thirlwall, that Peisistratus had levied a tythe
-or tax of ten per cent., and that his sons reduced it to the half,
-I find no sufficient warrant: certainly, the spurious letter of
-Peisistratus to Solon in Diogenes Laërtius (i, 53) ought not to be
-considered as proving anything. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens,
-B. iii, c. 6 (i, 351 German); Dr. Arnold ad Thucyd. vi, 34; Dr.
-Thirlwall Hist. of Gr. ch. xi, pp. 72-74. Idomeneus (ap. Athenæ.
-xii, p. 533) considers the sons of Peisistratus to have indulged in
-pleasures to an extent more costly and oppressive to the people than
-their father. Nor do I think that there is sufficient authority to
-sustain the statement of Dr. Thirlwall (p. 68), “He (Peisistratus)
-possessed lands on the Strymon in Thrace, which yielded a large
-revenue.” Herodotus (i, 64) tells us that Peisistratus brought
-mercenary soldiers from the Strymon, but that he levied the money to
-pay them in Attica—ἐῤῥίζωσε τὴν τυραννίδα ἐπικούροισί τε πολλοῖσι,
-καὶ χρημάτων συνόδοισι, τῶν μὲν αὐτόθεν, τῶν δὲ ἀπὸ Στρύμονος ποταμοῦ
-συνιόντων. It is, indeed, possible to construe this passage so as
-to refer both τῶν μὲν and τῶν δὲ to χρημάτων, which would signify
-that Peisistratus obtained his funds partly from the river Strymon,
-and thus serve as basis to the statement of Dr. Thirlwall. But it
-seems to me that the better way of construing the words is to refer
-τῶν μὲν to χρημάτων συνόδοισι, and τῶν δὲ to ἐπικούροισι,—treating
-both of them as genitives absolute. It is highly improbable that he
-should derive money from the Strymon: it is highly probable that his
-mercenaries came from thence.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_206"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_206">[206]</a></span> Hermippus (ap. Marcellin. Vit.
-Thucyd. p. ix,) and the Scholiast on Thucyd. i, 20, affirm that
-Thucydidês was connected by relationship with the Peisistratidæ.
-His manner of speaking of them certainly lends countenance to the
-assertion; not merely as he twice notices their history, once
-briefly (i, 20) and again at considerable length (vi, 54-59),
-though it does not lie within the direct compass of his period,—but
-also as he so emphatically announces his own personal knowledge of
-their family relations,—Ὅτι δὲ πρεσβύτατος ὢν Ἱππίας ἦρξεν, <span
-class="gesperrt">εἰδὼς</span> μὲν καὶ ἀκοῇ ἀκριβέστερον ἄλλων
-ἰσχυρίζομαι (vi, 55).</p>
-
-<p>Aristotle (Politic. v, 9, 21) mentions it as a report (φασι)
-that Peisistratus obeyed the summons to appear before the Areopagus;
-Plutarch adds that the person who had summoned him did not appear
-to bring the cause to trial (Vit. Solon, 31), which is not at all
-surprising: compare Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_207"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_207">[207]</a></span> Aristot. Politic, v, 9, 4;
-Dikæarchus, Vita Græciæ, pp. 140-166, ed. Fuhr; Pausan. i, 18, 8.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_208"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_208">[208]</a></span> Aul. Gell. N. A. vi, 17.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_209"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_209">[209]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 6; Pseudo-Plato,
-Hipparchus, p. 229.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_210"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_210">[210]</a></span> Herodot. v, 93, VI, 6.
-Ὀνομάκριτον, χρησμολόγον καὶ διαθέτην τῶν χρησμῶν τῶν Μουσαίου. See
-Pausan. i, 22, 7. Compare, about the literary tendencies of the
-Peisistratids, Nitzsch, De Historiâ Homeri, ch. 30, p. 168.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_211"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_211">[211]</a></span> Philochor. Frag. 69, ed. Didot;
-Plato, Hipparch. p. 230.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_212"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_212">[212]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 38-103; Theopomp.
-ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 533.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_213"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_213">[213]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 53; Pseudo-Plato,
-Hipparch. p. 230; Pausan. i, 23, 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_214"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_214">[214]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 20, about the
-general belief of the Athenian public in his time—Ἀθηναίων γοῦν τὸ
-πλῆθος οἴονται ὑφ᾽ Ἁρμοδίου καὶ Ἀριστογείτονος Ἵππαρχον τύραννον ὄντα
-ἀποθανεῖν, καὶ οὐκ ἴσασιν ὅτι Ἱππίας μὲν πρεσβύτατος ὢν ἦρχε τῶν
-Πεισιστράτου παιδῶν, etc.</p>
-
-<p>The Pseudo-Plato in the dialogue called Hipparchus adopts this
-belief, and the real Plato in his Symposion (c. 9, p. 182) seems to
-countenance it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_215"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_215">[215]</a></span> Herodot. v, 55-58. Harmodius
-is affirmed by Plutarch to have been of the deme Aphidnæ (Plutarch,
-Symposiacon, i, 10, p. 628).</p>
-
-<p>It is to be recollected that he died before the introduction of
-the Ten Tribes, and before the recognition of the demes as political
-elements in the commonwealth.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_216"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_216">[216]</a></span> For the terrible effects
-produced by this fear of ὕβρις εἰς τὴν ἡλικίαν, see Plutarch, Kimon,
-1; Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 17.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_217"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_217">[217]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 56. Τὸν δ᾽ οὖν
-Ἁρμόδιον ἀπαρνηθέντα τὴν πείρασιν, ὥσπερ διενοεῖτο, προυπηλάκισεν·
-ἀδελφὴν γὰρ αὐτοῦ, κόρην, ἐπαγγείλαντες ἥκειν κανοῦν οἴσουσαν ἐν
-πομπῇ τινι, ἀπήλασαν, λέγοντες οὐδὲ ἐπαγγεῖλαι ἀρχὴν, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀξίαν
-εἶναι.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. Arnold, in his note, supposes that this exclusion of the
-sister of Harmodius by the Peisistratids may have been founded on
-the circumstance that she belonged to the gens Gephyræi (Herodot. v,
-57); her foreign blood, and her being in certain respects ἄτιμος,
-disqualified her (he thinks) from ministering to the worship of the
-gods of Athens.</p>
-
-<p>There is no positive reason to support the conjecture of Dr.
-Arnold, which seems, moreover, virtually discountenanced by the
-narrative of Thucydidês, who plainly describes the treatment of this
-young woman as a deliberate, preconcerted insult. Had there existed
-any assignable ground of exclusion, such as that which Dr. Arnold
-supposes, leading to the inference that the Peisistratids could not
-admit her without violating religious custom, Thucydidês would hardly
-have neglected to allude to it, for it would have lightened the
-insult; and indeed, on that supposition, the sending of the original
-summons might have been made to appear as an accidental mistake. I
-will add, that Thucydidês, though no way forfeiting his obligations
-to historical truth, is evidently not disposed to omit anything which
-can be truly said in favor of the Peisistratids.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_218"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_218">[218]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 58, οὐ ῥᾳδίως
-διετέθη: compare Polyæn. i, 22; Diodorus, Fragm. lib. x, p. 62, vol.
-iv, ed. Wess.; Justin, ii, 9. See, also, a good note of Dr. Thirlwall
-on the passage, Hist. of Gr. vol. ii, ch. xi, p. 77, 2nd ed. I
-agree with him, that we may fairly construe the indistinct phrase
-of Thucydidês by the more precise statements of later authors, who
-mention the torture.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_219"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_219">[219]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 20, vi, 54-59;
-Herodot. v, 55, 56, vi, 123; Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_220"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_220">[220]</a></span> See the words of the song:—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ὅτι τὸν τύραννον κτανέτην</p>
-<p class="i2">Ἰσονόμους τ᾽ Αθήνας ἐποιησάτην—</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">ap. Athenæum, xv, p. 691.</p>
-
-<p>The epigram of the Keian Simonidês, (Fragm. 132, ed. Bergk—ap.
-Hephæstion. c. 14, p. 26, ed. Gaisf.) implies a similar belief: also,
-the passages in Plato, Symposion, p. 182, in Aristot. Polit. v, 8,
-21, and Arrian, Exped. Alex. iv, 10, 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_221"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_221">[221]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 109; Demosthen.
-adv. Leptin. c. 27, p. 495; cont. Meidiam, c. 47, p. 569; and the
-oath prescribed in the Psephism of Demophantus, Andokidês, De
-Mysteriis, p. 13; Pliny, H. N. xxxiv, 4-8; Pausan. i, 8, 5; Plutarch,
-Aristeidês, 27.</p>
-
-<p>The statues were carried away from Athens by Xerxês, and restored
-to the Athenians by Alexander after his conquest of Persia (Arrian,
-Ex. Al. iii, 14, 16; Pliny, H. N. xxxiv, 4-8).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_222"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_222">[222]</a></span> One of these stories may
-be seen in Justin, ii, 9,—who gives the name of Dioklês to
-Hipparchus,—“Diocles, alter ex filiis, per vim stupratâ virgine, a
-fratre puellæ interficitur.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_223"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_223">[223]</a></span> Ἡ γὰρ δειλία φονικώτατόν ἐστιν
-ἐν ταῖς τυραννίσιν—observes Plutarch, (Artaxerxês, c. 25).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_224"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_224">[224]</a></span> Pausan. i, 23, 2: Plutarch, De
-Garrulitate, p. 897; Polyæn. viii, 45; Athenæus, xiii. p. 596.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_225"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_225">[225]</a></span> We can hardly be mistaken in
-putting this interpretation on the words of Thucydidês—Ἀθηναῖος ὢν,
-Λαμψακηνῷ ἔδωκε (vi, 59).</p>
-
-<p>Some financial tricks and frauds are ascribed to Hippias by
-the author of the Pseudo-Aristotelian second book of the Œconomica
-(ii, 4). I place little reliance on the statements in this treatise
-respecting persons of early date, such as Kypselus or Hippias;
-in respect to facts of the subsequent period of Greece, between
-450-300 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, the author’s means of information will
-doubtless render him a better witness.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_226"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_226">[226]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 36-37.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_227"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_227">[227]</a></span> Thus the Scythians broke into
-the Chersonese even during the government of Miltiadês son of Kimôn,
-nephew of Miltiadês the œkist, about forty years after the wall had
-been erected (Herodot. vi, 40). Again, Periklês reëstablished the
-cross-wall, on sending to the Chersonese a fresh band of one thousand
-Athenian settlers (Plutarch, Periklês, c. 19): lastly, Derkyllidas
-the Lacedæmonian built it anew, in consequence of loud complaints
-raised by the inhabitants of their defenceless condition,—about 397
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> (Xenophon. Hellen. iii, 2, 8-10). So imperfect,
-however, did the protection prove, that about half a century
-afterwards, during the first years of the conquests of Philip of
-Macedon, an idea was entertained of digging through the isthmus, and
-converting the peninsula into an island (Demosthenês, Philippic ii,
-6, p. 92, and De Haloneso, c. 10, p. 86); an idea, however, never
-carried into effect.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_228"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_228">[228]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 38, 39.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_229"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_229">[229]</a></span> Herodot. v, 94. I have already
-said that I conceive this as a different war from that in which the
-poet Alkæus was engaged.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_230"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_230">[230]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 39.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_231"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_231">[231]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 104, 139, 140.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_232"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_232">[232]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 39-103. Cornelius
-Nepos, in his Life of Miltiadês, confounds in one biography the
-adventures of two persons,—Miltiadês son of Kypselus, the œkist,—and
-Miltiadês son of Kimôn, the victor of Marathon,—the uncle and the
-nephew.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_233"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_233">[233]</a></span> There is nothing that I know to
-mark the date except that it was earlier than the death of Hipparchus
-in 514 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and also earlier than the expedition
-of Darius against the Scythians, about 516 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-in which expedition Miltiadês was engaged: see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti
-Hellenici, and J. M. Schultz, Beitrag zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen
-der Hellen. Geschichten von der 63<sup>sten</sup> bis zur
-72<sup>sten</sup> Olympiade, p. 165, in the Kieler Philologische
-Studien 1841.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_234"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_234">[234]</a></span> Herodot. v, 62. The unfortunate
-struggle at Leipsydrion became afterwards the theme of a popular song
-(Athenæus, xv, p. 695): see Hesychius, v. Λειψύδριον, and Aristotle,
-Fragm. Ἀθηναίων Πολιτεία, 37, ed. Neumann.</p>
-
-<p>If it be true that Alkibiadês, grandfather of the celebrated
-Alkibiadês, took part with Kleisthenês and the Alkmæonid exiles in
-this struggle (see Isokratês, De Bigis, Or. xvi, p. 351), he must
-have been a mere youth.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_235"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_235">[235]</a></span> Pausan. x, 5, 5.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_236"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_236">[236]</a></span> Herodot. i, 50, ii, 180. I
-have taken the three hundred talents of Herodotus as being Æginæan
-talents, which are to Attic talents in the ratio of 5&nbsp;:&nbsp;3. The
-Inscriptions prove that the accounts of the temple were kept by
-the Amphiktyons on the Æginæan scale of money: see Corpus Inscrip.
-Boeckh, No. 1688, and Boeckh, Metrologie, vii, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_237"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_237">[237]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 62. The words of
-the historian would seem to imply that they only began to think of
-this scheme of building the temple after the defeat of Leipsydrion,
-and a year or two before the expulsion of Hippias; a supposition
-quite inadmissible, since the temple must have taken some years in
-building.</p>
-
-<p>The loose and prejudiced statement in Philochorus, affirming
-that the Peisistratids caused the Delphian temple to be burnt, and
-also that they were at last deposed by the victorious arm of the
-Alkmæônids (Philochori Fragment. 70, ed. Didot) makes us feel the
-value of Herodotus and Thucydidês as authorities.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_238"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_238">[238]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 128; Cicero,
-De Legg. ii, 16. The deposit here mentioned by Cicero, which
-may very probably have been recorded in an inscription in the
-temple, must have been made before the time of the Persian
-conquest of Samos,—indeed, before the death of Polykratês in 522
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, after which period the island fell at
-once into a precarious situation, and very soon afterwards into the
-greatest calamities.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_239"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_239">[239]</a></span> Herodot. v, 62, 63.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_240"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_240">[240]</a></span> Herodot. v, 64, 65.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_241"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_241">[241]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 56, 57.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_242"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_242">[242]</a></span> Thucyd. vi, 55. ὡς ὅ τε βωμὸς
-σημαίνει, καὶ ἡ στήλη περὶ τῆς τῶν τυράννων ἀδικίας, ἡ ἐν τῇ Ἀθηναίων
-ἀκροπόλει σταθεῖσα.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. Thirlwall, after mentioning the departure of Hippias,
-proceeds as follows: “After his departure many severe measures
-were taken against his adherents, who appear to have been for a
-long time afterwards a formidable party. They were punished or
-repressed, some by death, others by exile or by the loss of their
-political privileges. The family of the tyrants was condemned to
-perpetual banishment, and appears to have been excepted from the most
-comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in later times.” (Hist. of
-Gr. ch. xi, vol. ii, p. 81.)</p>
-
-<p>I cannot but think that Dr. Thirlwall has here been misled by
-insufficient authority. He refers to the oration of Andokidês de
-Mysteriis, sects. 106 and 78 (sect. 106 coincides in part with ch.
-18, in the ed. of Dobree). An attentive reading of it will show
-that it is utterly unworthy of credit in regard to matters anterior
-to the speaker by one generation or more. The orators often permit
-themselves great license in speaking of past facts, but Andokidês in
-this chapter passes the bounds even of rhetorical license. First,
-he states something not bearing the least analogy to the narrative
-of Herodotus as to the circumstances preceding the expulsion of the
-Peisistratids, and indeed tacitly setting aside that narrative; next,
-he actually jumbles together the two capital and distinct exploits of
-Athens,—the battle of Marathon and the repulse of Xerxês ten years
-after it. I state this latter charge in the words of Sluiter and
-Valckenaer, before I consider the former charge: “Verissime ad hæc
-verba notat Valckenaerius—Confundere videtur Andocidês diversissima;
-Persica sub Miltiade et Dario et victoriam Marathoniam (v, 14)—quæque
-evenere sub Themistocle, Xerxis gesta. Hic urbem incendio delevit,
-non ille (v, 20). Nihil magis manifestum est, quam diversa ab oratore
-confundi.” (Sluiter, Lection. Andocideæ, p. 147.)</p>
-
-<p>The criticism of these commentators is perfectly borne out by the
-words of the orator, which are too long to find a place here. But
-immediately prior to those words he expresses himself as follows,
-and this is the passage which serves as Dr. Thirlwall’s authority:
-Οἱ γὰρ πατέρες οἱ ὑμέτεροι, γενομένων τῇ πόλει κακῶν μεγάλων, ὅτε
-οἱ τύραννοι εἶχον τὴν πόλιν, ὁ δὲ δῆμος ἔφυγε, νικήσαντες μαχόμενοι
-τοὺς τυράννους ἐπὶ Παλληνίῳ, στρατηγοῦντος Λεωγόρου τοῦ προπάππου τοῦ
-ἐμοῦ, καὶ Χαρίου οὗ ἐκεῖνος τὴν θυγατέρα εἶχεν ἐξ ἧς ὁ ἡμέτερος ἦν
-πάππος, κατελθόντες εἰς τὴν πατρίδα τοὺς μὲν ἀπέκτειναν, τῶν δὲ φυγὴν
-κατέγνωσαν, τοὺς δὲ μένειν ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐάσαντες ἠτίμωσαν.</p>
-
-<p>Both Sluiter (Lect. And. p. 8) and Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. p. 80)
-refer this alleged victory of Leogoras and the Athenian demus to
-the action described by Herodotus (v, 64) as having been fought by
-Kleomenês of Sparta against the Thessalian cavalry. But the two
-events have not a single circumstance in common, except that each
-is a victory over the Peisistratidæ or their allies: nor could they
-well be the same event, described in different terms, seeing that
-Kleomenês, marching from Sparta to Athens, could not have fought
-the Thessalians at Pallênê, which lay on the road from <i>Marathon</i>
-to Athens. Pallênê was the place where Peisistratus, advancing from
-Marathon to Athens, on occasion of his second restoration, gained his
-complete victory over the opposing party, and marched on afterwards
-to Athens without farther resistance (Herodot. i, 63).</p>
-
-<p>If, then, we compare the statement given by Andokidês of the
-preceding circumstances, whereby the dynasty of the Peisistratids was
-put down, with that given by Herodotus, we shall see that the two are
-radically different; we cannot blend them together, but must make our
-election between them. Not less different are the representations of
-the two as to the circumstances which immediately ensued on the fall
-of Hippias: they would scarcely appear to relate to the same event.
-That “the adherents of the Peisistratidæ were punished or repressed,
-some by death, others by exile, or by the loss of their political
-privileges,” which is the assertion of Andokidês and Dr. Thirlwall,
-is not only not stated by Herodotus, but is highly improbable, if we
-accept the facts which he does state; for he tells us that Hippias
-capitulated and agreed to retire while possessing ample means of
-resistance,—simply from regard to the safety of his children. It
-is not to be supposed that he would leave his intimate partisans
-exposed to danger; such of them as felt themselves obnoxious would
-naturally retire along with him; and if this be what is meant by
-“many persons condemned to exile,” here is no reason to call it in
-question. But there is little probability that any one was put to
-death, and still less probability that any were punished by the loss
-of their political privileges. Within a year afterwards came the
-comprehensive constitution of Kleisthenês, to be described in the <a
-href="#Chap_31">following chapter</a>, and I consider it eminently
-unlikely that there were a considerable class of residents in Attica
-left out of this constitution, under the category of partisans of
-Peisistratus: indeed, the fact cannot be so, if it be true that the
-very first person banished under the Kleisthenean ostracism was a
-person named Hipparchus, a kinsman of Peisistratus (Androtion, Fr. 5,
-ed. Didot; Harpokration, v. Ἵππαρχος); and this latter circumstance
-depends upon evidence better than that of Andokidês. That there were
-a party in Attica attached to the Peisistratids, I do not doubt; but
-that they were “a powerful party,” (as Dr. Thirlwall imagines,) I see
-nothing to show; and the extraordinary vigor and unanimity of the
-Athenian people under the Kleisthenean constitution will go far to
-prove that such could not have been the case.</p>
-
-<p>I will add another reason to evince how completely
-Andokidês misconceives the history of Athens between 510-480
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> He says that when the Peisistratids were
-put down, many of their partisans were banished, many others allowed
-to stay at home with the loss of their political privileges; but that
-afterwards, when the overwhelming dangers of the Persian invasion
-supervened, the people passed a vote to restore the exiles and to
-remove the existing disfranchisements at home. He would thus have
-us believe that the exiled partisans of the Peisistratids were all
-restored, and the disfranchised partisans of the Peisistratids
-all enfranchised, just at the moment of the Persian invasion,
-and with the view of enabling Athens better to repel that grave
-danger. This is nothing less than a glaring mistake; for the
-first Persian invasion was undertaken with the express view of
-restoring Hippias, and with the presence of Hippias himself at
-Marathon; while the second Persian invasion was also brought on in
-part by the instigation of his family. Persons who had remained
-in exile or in a state of disfranchisement down to that time, in
-consequence of their attachment to the Peisistratids, could not
-in common prudence be called into action at the moment of peril,
-to help in repelling Hippias himself. It is very true that the
-exiles and the disfranchised were readmitted, shortly before the
-invasion of Xerxês, and under the then pressing calamities of the
-state. But these persons were not philo-Peisistratids; they were a
-number gradually accumulated from the sentences of exile and (atimy
-or) disfranchisement every year passed at Athens,—for these were
-punishments applied by the Athenian law to various crimes and public
-omissions,—the persons so sentenced were not politically disaffected,
-and their aid would then be of use in defending the state against a
-foreign enemy.</p>
-
-<p>In regard to “the exception of the family of Peisistratus from
-the most comprehensive decrees of amnesty passed in later times,” I
-will also remark that, in the decree of amnesty, there is no mention
-of them by name, nor any special exception made against them: among a
-list of various categories excepted, those are named “who have been
-condemned to death or exile either as murderers or as despots,” (ἢ
-σφαγεῦσιν ἢ τυράννοις, Andokid. c. 13.) It is by no means certain
-that the <i>descendants</i> of Peisistratus would be comprised in this
-exception, which mentions only the person himself condemned; but
-even if this were otherwise, the exception is a mere continuance
-of similar words of exception in the old Solonian law, anterior to
-Peisistratus; and, therefore, affords no indication of particular
-feeling against the Peisistratids.</p>
-
-<p>Andokidês is a useful authority for the politics of Athens in his
-own time (between 420-390 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>), but in regard to the
-previous history of Athens between 510-480 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, his
-assertions are so loose, confused, and unscrupulous, that he is a
-witness of no value. The mere circumstance noted by Valckenaer, that
-he has confounded together Marathon and Salamis, would be sufficient
-to show this; but when we add to such genuine ignorance his mention
-of his two great-grandfathers in prominent and victorious leadership,
-which it is hardly credible that they could ever have occupied,—when
-we recollect that the facts which he alleges to have preceded and
-accompanied the expulsion of the Peisistratids are not only at
-variance with those stated by Herodotus, but so contrived as to found
-a factitious analogy for the cause which he is himself pleading,—we
-shall hardly be able to acquit him of something worse than ignorance
-in his deposition.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_243"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_243">[243]</a></span> Herodot. v, 66-69 ἑσσούμενος δὲ
-ὁ Κλεισθένης τὸν δῆμον προσεταιρίζεται—ὡς γὰρ δὴ τὸν Ἀθηναίων δῆμον,
-πρότερον ἀπωσμένον πάντων, τότε πρὸς τὴν ἑωϋτοῦ μοίρην προσεθήκατο,
-etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_244"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_244">[244]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. iii, 1, 10; vi,
-2, 11. Κλεισθένης,—πολλοῖς ἐφυλέτευσε ξένους καὶ δούλους μετοίκους.
-</p>
-
-<p>Several able critics, and Dr. Thirlwall among the number,
-consider this passage as affording no sense, and assume some
-conjectural emendation to be indispensable; though there is no
-particular emendation which suggests itself as preëminently
-plausible. Under these circumstances, I rather prefer to make the
-best of the words as they stand; which, though unusual, seem to me
-not absolutely inadmissible. The expression ξένος μέτοικος (which
-is a perfectly good one, as we find in Aristoph. Equit. 347,—εἴπου
-δικιδίον εἶπας εὖ κατὰ ξένου μετοίκου) may be considered as the
-correlative to δούλους μετοίκους,—the last word being construed both
-with δούλους and with ξένους. I apprehend that there always must have
-been in Attica a certain number of intelligent slaves living apart
-from their masters (χωρὶς οἰκοῦντες), in a state between slavery
-and freedom, working partly on condition of a fixed payment to him,
-partly for themselves, and perhaps continuing to pass nominally as
-slaves after they had bought their liberty by instalments. Such men
-would be δοῦλοι μέτοικοι: indeed, there are cases in which δοῦλοι
-signifies <i>freedmen</i> (Meier, De Gentilitate Atticâ, p. 6): they
-must have been industrious and pushing men, valuable partisans to a
-political revolution. See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griech. Staats
-Alterth. ch. 111, not. 15.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_245"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_245">[245]</a></span> Herodot. v, 69.
-Κλεισθένης,—ὑπεριδὼν Ἴωνας, ἵνα μὴ σφισι αἱ αὐταὶ ἔωσι φυλαὶ καὶ
-Ἴωσι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_246"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_246">[246]</a></span> Such a disposition seems
-evident in Herodot. i, 143.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_247"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_247">[247]</a></span> In illustration of what is here
-stated, see the account of the modifications of the constitution of
-Zurich, in Blüntschli, Staats und Rechts Geschichte der Stadt Zurich,
-book iii. ch. 2, p. 322; also, Kortüm, Entstehungs Geschichte der
-Freistädtischen Bünde im Mittelalter, ch. 5, pp. 74-75.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_248"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_248">[248]</a></span> Respecting these Eponymous
-Heroes of the Ten Tribes, and the legends connected with them,
-see chapter viii of the Ἐπιτάφιος Λόγος, erroneously ascribed to
-Demosthenês.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_249"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_249">[249]</a></span> Herodot. v, 69. δέκα δὲ καὶ
-τοὺς δήμους κατένεμε ἐς τὰς φυλάς.</p>
-
-<p>Schömann contends that Kleisthenês established exactly one
-hundred demes to the ten tribes (De Comitiis Atheniensium, Præf. p.
-xv and p. 363, and Antiquitat. Jur. Pub. Græc. ch. xxii, p. 260), and
-K. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der Griech. Staats Alt. ch. 111) thinks that
-this is what Herodotus meant to affirm, though he does not believe
-the fact to have really stood so.</p>
-
-<p>I incline, as the least difficulty in the case, to construe δέκα
-with φυλὰς and not with δήμους, as Wachsmuth (i, 1, p. 271) and
-Dieterich (De Clisthene, a treatise cited by K. F. Hermann, but which
-I have not seen) construe it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_250"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_250">[250]</a></span> The deme <i>Melitê</i> belonged to
-the tribe Kekropis; <i>Kollytus</i>, to the tribe Ægêis; <i>Kydathenæon</i>, to
-the tribe Pandionis; <i>Kerameis</i> or <i>Kerameikus</i>, to the Akamantis;
-<i>Skambônidæ</i>, to the Leontis.</p>
-
-<p>All these five were demes within the city of Athens, and all
-belonged to different tribes.</p>
-
-<p><i>Peiræus</i> belonged to the Hippothoöntis; <i>Phalêrum</i>, to the
-Æantis; <i>Xypetê</i>, to the Kekropis; <i>Thymætadæ</i>, to the Hippothoöntis.
-These four demes, adjoining to each other, formed a sort of quadruple
-local union, for festivals and other purposes, among themselves;
-though three of them belonged to different tribes.</p>
-
-<p>See the list of the Attic demes, with a careful statement of
-their localities in so far as ascertained, in Professor Ross, Die
-Demen von Attika. Halle, 1846. The distribution of the city-demes,
-and of Peiræus and Phalêrum, among different tribes, appears to me a
-clear proof of the intention of the original distributors. It shows
-that they wished from the beginning to make the demes constituting
-each tribe discontinuous, and that they desired to prevent both the
-growth of separate tribe-interests and ascendency of one tribe over
-the rest. It contradicts the belief of those who suppose that the
-tribe was at first composed of continuous demes, and that the breach
-of continuity arose from subsequent changes.</p>
-
-<p>Of course there were many cases in which adjoining demes belonged
-to the same tribe; but not one of the ten tribes was made up
-altogether of adjoining demes.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_251"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_251">[251]</a></span> See Boeckh, Corp. Inscriptt.
-Nos. 85, 128, 213, etc.: compare Demosthen. cont. Theokrin. c. 4. p.
-1326 R.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_252"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_252">[252]</a></span> We may remark that this
-register was called by a special name, the Lexiarchic register; while
-the primitive register of phrators and gentiles always retained,
-even in the time of the orators, its original name of the common
-register—Harpokration, v. Κοινὸν γραμματεῖον καὶ ληξιαρχικόν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_253"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_253">[253]</a></span> See Schömann, Antiq. Jur. P.
-Græc. ch. xxiv. The oration of Demosthenês against Eubulidês is
-instructive about these proceedings of the assembled demots: compare
-Harpokration, v. Διαψήφισις, and Meier, De Bonis Damnatorum, ch. xii,
-p. 78, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_254"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_254">[254]</a></span> Aristot. Fragment. de Republ.,
-ed. Neumann.—Ἀθην. πολιτ. Fr. 40, p. 88; Schol. ad Aristophan. Ran.
-37; Harpokration, v. Δήμαρχος—Ναυκραρικά; Photius, v. Ναυκραρία.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_255"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_255">[255]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 109-111.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_256"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_256">[256]</a></span> Harpokration, v. Ἀποδέκται.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_257"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_257">[257]</a></span> See the valuable treatise of
-Schömann, De Comitiis, <i>passim</i>; also his Antiq. Jur. Publ. Gr. ch.
-xxxi; Harpokration, v. Κυρία Ἐκκλησία; Pollux, viii, 95.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_258"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_258">[258]</a></span> See in particular on this
-subject the treatise of Schömann, De Sortitione Judicum (Gripswald,
-1820), and the work of the same author, Antiq. Jur. Publ. Græc.
-ch. 49-55, p. 264, <i>seqq.</i>; also Heffter, Die Athenäische
-Gerichtsverfassung, part ii, ch. 2, p. 51, <i>seqq.</i>; Meier and
-Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp. 127-135.</p>
-
-<p>The views of Schömann respecting the sortition of the Athenian
-jurors have been bitterly attacked, but in no way refuted, by F.
-V. Fritzsche (De Sortitione Judicum apud Athenienses Conmentatio,
-Leipsic, 1835).</p>
-
-<p>Two or three of these dikastic tickets, marking the name and the
-deme of the citizen, and the letter of the decury to which during
-that particular year he belonged, have been recently dug up near
-Athens:—</p>
-
-<table class="tins" summary="Inscriptions">
- <tr>
- <td>Δ.</td><td>Διόδωρος</td><td>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td>Ε.</td><td>Δεινίας</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td>&nbsp;</td><td>Φρεάῤῥιος</td><td>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td>Ἀλαιεύς.</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p class="toright">(Boeckh, Corp. Inscrip. Nos. 207-208.)</p>
-
-<p class="mt1">Fritzsche (p. 73) considers these to be tickets of
-senators, not of dikasts, contrary to all probability.</p>
-
-<p>For the Heliastic oath, and its remarkable particulars, see
-Demosthen. cont. Timokrat. p. 746. See also Aristophanês, Plutus, 277
-(with the valuable Scholia, though from different hands and not all
-of equal correctness) and 972; Ekklesiazusæ, 678, <i>seqq.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_259"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_259">[259]</a></span> Plutarch, Arist. 7; Herodot.
-vi, 109-111.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_260"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_260">[260]</a></span> Aristotle puts these two
-together; election of magistrates by the mass of the citizens, but
-only out of persons possessing a high pecuniary qualification;
-this he ranks as the least democratical democracy, if one may
-use the phrase (Politic. iii, 6-11), or a mean between democracy
-and oligarchy,—an ἀριστοκρατία, or πολιτεῖα, in his sense of the
-word (iv, 7, 3). He puts the employment of the lot as a symptom
-of decisive and extreme democracy, such as would never tolerate a
-pecuniary qualification of eligibility.</p>
-
-<p>So again Plato (Legg. iii, p. 692), after remarking that the
-legislator of Sparta first provided the senate, next the ephors, as a
-bridle upon the kings, says of the ephors that they were “something
-nearly approaching to an authority emanating from the lot,”—οἷον
-ψάλιον ἐνέβαλεν αὐτῇ τὴν τῶν ἐφόρων δύναμιν, ἐγγὺς τῆς κληρωτῆς
-ἀγαγὼν δυνάμεως.</p>
-
-<p>Upon which passage there are some good remarks in Schömann’s
-edition of Plutarch’s Lives of Agis and Kleomenês (Comment. ad Ag.
-c. 8, p. 119). It is to be recollected that the actual mode in which
-the Spartan ephors were chosen, as I have already stated in my first
-volume, cannot be clearly made out, and has been much debated by
-critics:—</p>
-
-<p>“Mihi hæc verba, quum illud quidem manifestum faciant, quod
-etiam aliunde constat, sorte captos ephoros non esse, tum hoc
-alterum, quod Hermannus statuit, creationem sortitioni non absimilem
-fuisse, nequaquam demonstrare videntur. Nimirum nihil aliud nisi
-prope accedere ephororum magistratus ad cos dicitur, qui sortito
-capiantur. <i>Sortitis autem magistratibus hoc maxime proprium est,
-ut promiscue—non ex genere, censu, dignitate—a quolibet capi
-possint</i>: quamobrem quum ephori quoque fere promiscue fierent ex omni
-multitudine civium, poterat haud dubie magistratus eorum ἐγγὺς τῆς
-κληρωτῆς δυνάμεως esse dici, etiamsi αἱρετοὶ essent—h. e. suffragiis
-creati. Et video Lachmannum quoque, p. 165, not. 1, de Platonis loco
-similiter judicare.”</p>
-
-<p>The employment of the lot, as Schömann remarks, implies universal
-admissibility of all citizens to office: though the converse does not
-hold good,—the latter does not of necessity imply the former. Now,
-as we know that universal admissibility did not become the law of
-Athens until after the battle of Platæa, so we may conclude that the
-employment of the lot had no place before that epoch,—<i>i. e.</i> had no
-place under the constitution of Kleisthenês.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_261"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_261">[261]</a></span> Plutarch, Periklês, c. 9-16.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_262"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_262">[262]</a></span> See a passage about such
-characters in Plato, Republic, v, p. 475 B.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_263"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_263">[263]</a></span> Plutarch, Arist. 22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_264"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_264">[264]</a></span> So at least the supporters of
-the constitution of Kleisthenês were called by the contemporaries of
-Periklês.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_265"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_265">[265]</a></span> Plutarch, Arist. <i>ut sup.</i>
-γράφει ψήφισμα, κοινὴν εἶναι τὴν πολιτείαν, καὶ τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἐξ
-Ἀθηναίων πάντων αἱρεῖσθαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_266"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_266">[266]</a></span> So in the Italian republics
-of the twelfth and thirteenth century, the nobles long continued to
-possess the exclusive right of being elected to the consulate and
-the great offices of state, even after those offices had come to be
-elected by the people: the habitual misrule and oppression of the
-nobles gradually put an end to this right, and even created in many
-towns a resolution positively to exclude them. At Milan, towards the
-end of the twelfth century, the twelve consuls, with the Podestat,
-possessed all the powers of government: these consuls were nominated
-by one hundred electors chosen by and among the people. Sismondi
-observes: “Cependant le peuple imposa lui-même a ces électeurs, la
-règle fondamentale de choisir tous les magistrats dans le corps de
-la noblesse. Ce n’étoit point encore la possession des magistratures
-que l’on contestoit aux gentilshommes: on demandoit seulement qu’ils
-fussent les mandataires immédiats de la nation. Mais plus d’une fois,
-en dépit du droit incontestable des citoyens, les consuls regnant
-s’attribuèrent l’élection de leurs successeurs.” (Sismondi, Histoire
-des Républiques Italiennes, chap. xii, vol. ii, p. 240.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_267"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_267">[267]</a></span> Plutarch, Kimon, c. 15. τὴν
-ἐπὶ Κλεισθένους ἐγείρειν ἀριστοκρατίαν πειρωμένου: compare Plutarch,
-Aristeidês, c. 2, and Isokratês, Areopagiticus, Or. vii, p. 143, p.
-192, ed. Bek.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_268"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_268">[268]</a></span> Herodotus speaks of Kallimachus
-the Polemarch, at Marathon, as ὁ τῷ κυάμῳ λαχὼν Πολέμαρχος (vi, 110).
-</p>
-
-<p>I cannot but think that in this case he transfers to the year 490
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> the practice of his own time. The polemarch,
-at the time of the battle of Marathon, was in a certain sense the
-first stratêgus; and the stratêgi were never taken by lot, but always
-chosen by show of hands, even to the end of the democracy. It seems
-impossible to believe that the stratêgi were elected, and that the
-polemarch, at the time when his functions were the same as theirs,
-was chosen by lot.</p>
-
-<p>Herodotus seems to have conceived the choice of magistrates by
-lot as being of the essence of a democracy (Herodot. iii, 80).</p>
-
-<p>Plutarch also (Periklês, c. 9) seems to have conceived the
-choice of archons by lot as a very ancient institution of Athens:
-nevertheless, it results from the first chapter of his life of
-Aristeidês,—an obscure chapter, in which conflicting authorities
-are mentioned without being well discriminated,—that Aristeidês was
-<i>chosen archon by the people</i>,—not drawn by lot: an additional reason
-for believing this is, that he was archon in the year following the
-battle of Marathon, at which, he had been one of the ten generals.
-Idomeneus distinctly affirmed this to be the fact.—οὐ κυαμευτὸν, ἀλλ᾽
-ἑλομένων Ἀθηναίων (Plutarch, Arist. c. 1).</p>
-
-<p>Isokratês also (Areopagit. Or. vii, p. 144, p. 195, ed. Bekker)
-conceived the constitution of Kleisthenês as including all the three
-points noticed in the text: 1. A high pecuniary qualification of
-eligibility for individual offices. 2. Election to these offices by
-all the citizens, and accountability to the same after office. 3. No
-employment of the lot.—He even contends that this election is more
-truly democratical than sortition; since the latter process might
-admit men attached to oligarchy, which would not happen under the
-former,—ἔπειτα καὶ δημοτικωτέραν ἐνόμιζον ταύτην τὴν κατάστασιν ἢ
-τὴν διὰ τοῦ λαγχάνειν γιγνομένην· ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῇ κληρώσει τὴν τύχην
-βραβεύσειν, καὶ πολλάκις λήψεσθαι τὰς ἀρχὰς τοὺς τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας
-ἐπιθυμοῦντας, etc. This would be a good argument if there were no
-pecuniary qualification for eligibility,—such pecuniary qualification
-is a provision which he lays down, but which he does not find it
-convenient to insist upon emphatically.</p>
-
-<p>I do not here advert to the γραφὴ παρανόμων, the νομοφύλακες, and
-the sworn νομόθεται,—all of them institutions belonging to the time
-of Periklês at the earliest; not to that of Kleisthenês.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_269"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_269">[269]</a></span> See above, chap. xi. vol. iii.
-p. 145.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_270"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_270">[270]</a></span> Aristeidês Rhetor. Orat. xlvi.
-vol ii. p. 317, ed. Dindorf.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_271"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_271">[271]</a></span> Plutarch (Nikias, c. 11;
-Alkibiad. c. 13; Aristeid. c. 7): Thucyd. viii, 73. Plato Comicus
-said, respecting Hyperbolus—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Οὐ γὰρ τοιούτων οὕνεκ᾽ ὄστραχ᾽ ηὑρέθη.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1"> Theophrastus had stated that Phæax, and not Nikias,
-was the rival of Alkibiadês on this occasion, when Hyperbolus was
-ostracized; but most authors, says Plutarch, represent Nikias as
-the person. It is curious that there should be any difference of
-statement about a fact so notorious, and in the best-known time of
-Athenian history.</p>
-
-<p>Taylor thinks that the oration which now passes as that of
-Andokidês against Alkibiadês, is really by Phæax, and was read by
-Plutarch as the oration of Phæax in an actual contest of ostracism
-between Phæax, Nikias, and Alkibiadês. He is opposed by Ruhnken
-and Valckenaer (see Sluiter’s preface to that oration, c. 1, and
-Ruhnken, Hist. Critic. Oratt. Græcor. p. 135). I cannot agree with
-either: I cannot think with him, that it is a real oration of Phæax;
-nor with them, that it is a real oration in any genuine cause of
-ostracism whatever. It appears to me to have been composed after
-the ostracism had fallen into desuetude, and when the Athenians had
-not only become somewhat ashamed of it, but had lost the familiar
-conception of what it really was. For how otherwise can we explain
-the fact, that the author of that oration complains that he is about
-to be ostracized without any secret voting, in which the very essence
-of the ostracism consisted, and from which its name was borrowed
-(οὔτε διαψηφισαμένων κρυβδὴν, c. 2)? His oration is framed as if
-the audience whom he was addressing were about to ostracize one
-out of the three, by show of hands. But the process of ostracizing
-included no meeting and haranguing,—nothing but simple deposit of the
-shells in a cask; as may be seen by the description of the special
-railing-in of the agora, and by the story (true or false) of the
-unlettered country-citizen coming into the city to give his vote,
-and asking Aristeidês, without even knowing his person, to write the
-name for him on the shell (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 7). There was,
-indeed, previous discussion in the senate as well as in the ekklesia,
-whether a vote of ostracism should be entered upon at all; but the
-author of the oration to which I allude does not address himself to
-<i>that</i> question; he assumes that the vote is actually about to be
-taken, and that one of the three—himself, Nikias, or Alkibiadês—must
-be ostracized (c. 1). Now, doubtless, in practice, the decision
-commonly lay between two formidable rivals; but it was not publicly
-or formally put so before the people: every citizen might write upon
-the shell such name as he chose. Farther, the open denunciation of
-the injustice of ostracism as a system (c. 2), proves an age later
-than the banishment of Hyperbolus. Moreover, the author having
-begun by remarking that he stands in contest with Nikias as well as
-with Alkibiadês, says nothing more about Nikias to the end of the
-speech.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_272"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_272">[272]</a></span> See the discussion of the
-ostracism in Aristot. Politic. iii, 8, where he recognizes the
-problem as one common to all governments.</p>
-
-<p>Compare, also, a good Dissertation—J. A. Paradys, De Ostracismo
-Atheniensium, Lugduni Batavor. 1793; K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der
-Griechischen Staatsalterthümer, ch. 130; and Schömann, Antiq. Jur.
-Pub. Græc. ch. xxxv, p. 233.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_273"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_273">[273]</a></span> Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_274"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_274">[274]</a></span> The barathrum was a deep pit,
-said to have had iron spikes at the bottom, into which criminals
-condemned to death were sometimes cast. Though probably an ancient
-Athenian punishment, it seems to have become at the very least
-extremely rare, if not entirely disused, during the times of Athens
-historically known to us; but the phrase continued in speech after
-the practice had become obsolete. The iron spikes depend on the
-evidence of the Schol. Aristophan. Plutus, 431,—a very doubtful
-authority, when we read the legend which he blends with his
-statement.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_275"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_275">[275]</a></span> Thucyd. iii, 70, 81, 82.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_276"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_276">[276]</a></span> Andokidês, De Mysteriis, p.
-12, c. 13. Μηδὲ νόμον ἐπ᾽ ἀνδρὶ ἐξεῖναι θεῖναι, ἐὰν μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ
-πᾶσιν Ἀθηναίοις· ἐὰν μὴ ἑξακισχιλίοις δόξῃ, κρυβδὴν ψηφιζομένοις.
-According to the usual looseness in dealing with the name of Solon,
-this has been called a law of Solon (see Petit. Leg. Att. p. 188),
-though it certainly cannot be older than Kleisthenês.</p>
-
-<p>“Privilegia ne irroganto,” said the law of the Twelve Tables at
-Rome (Cicero, Legg. iii, 4-19).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_277"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_277">[277]</a></span> Aristotle and Philochorus, ap.
-Photium, App. p. 672 and 675, ed. Porson.</p>
-
-<p>It would rather appear by that passage that the ostracism was
-never formally abrogated; and that even in the later times, to which
-the description of Aristotle refers, the form was still preserved
-of putting the question whether the public safety called for an
-ostracizing vote, long after it had passed both out of use and out of
-mind.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_278"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_278">[278]</a></span> Philochorus, <i>ut supra</i>;
-Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 7; Schol. ad Aristophan. Equit. 851; Pollux,
-viii, 19.</p>
-
-<p>There is a difference of opinion among the authorities, as
-well as among the expositors, whether the minimum of six thousand
-applies to the votes given in all, or to the votes given against
-any one name. I embrace the latter opinion, which is supported by
-Philochorus, Pollux, and the Schol. on Aristophanês, though Plutarch
-countenances the former. Boeckh, in his Public Economy of Athens, and
-Wachsmuth, (i, 1, p. 272) are in favor of Plutarch and the former
-opinion; Paradys (Dissertat. De Ostr. p. 25), Platner, and Hermann
-(see K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der Gr. Staatsalt. ch. 130, not. 6)
-support the other, which appears to me the right one.</p>
-
-<p>For the purpose, so unequivocally pronounced, of the general
-law determining the absolute minimum necessary for a <i>privilegium</i>,
-would by no means be obtained, if the simple majority of votes,
-among six thousand voters in all, had been allowed to take effect.
-A person might then be ostracized with a very small number of votes
-against him, and without creating any reasonable presumption that
-he was dangerous to the constitution; which was by no means either
-the purpose of Kleisthenês, or the well-understood operation of the
-ostracism, so long as it continued to be a reality.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_279"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_279">[279]</a></span> The practical working of the
-ostracism presents it as a struggle between two contending leaders,
-accompanied with chance of banishment to both—Periklês πρὸς τὸν
-Θουκυδίδην εἰς ἀγῶνα περὶ τοῦ ὀστράκου καταστὰς, καὶ διακινδυνεύσας,
-ἐκεῖνον μὲν ἐξέβαλε, κατέλυσε δὲ τὴν ἀντιτεταγμένην ἑταιρείαν
-(Plutarch, Periklês, c. 14; compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_280"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_280">[280]</a></span> It is not necessary in this
-remark to take notice, either of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, or
-that of Thirty, called the Thirty Tyrants, established during the
-closing years of the Peloponnesian war, and after the ostracism had
-been discontinued. Neither of these changes were brought about by the
-excessive ascendency of any one or few men: both of them grew out of
-the embarrassments and dangers of Athens in the latter period of her
-great foreign war.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_281"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_281">[281]</a></span> Aristotle (Polit. iii, 8, 6)
-seems to recognize the political necessity of the ostracism, as
-applied even to obvious superiority of wealth, connection, etc.
-(which he distinguishes pointedly from superiority of merit and
-character), and upon principles of symmetry only, even apart from
-dangerous designs on the part of the superior mind. No painter, he
-observes, will permit a foot, in his picture of a man, to be of
-disproportionate size with the entire body, though separately taken
-it may be finely painted; nor will the chorus-master allow any one
-voice, however beautiful, to predominate beyond a certain proportion
-over the rest.</p>
-
-<p>His final conclusion is, however, that the legislator ought,
-if possible, so to construct his constitution, as to have no need
-of such exceptional remedy; but, if this cannot be done, then the
-second-best step is to apply the ostracism. Compare also v, 2, 5.</p>
-
-<p>The last century of the free Athenian democracy realized the
-first of these alternatives.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_282"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_282">[282]</a></span> Plutarch, Nikias, c. 11:
-Harpokration. v. Ἵππαρχος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_283"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_283">[283]</a></span> Lysias cont. Alkibiad. A. c.
-11, p. 143: Harpokration. v. Ἀλκιβιάδης; Andokidês cont. Alkibiad.
-c. 11-12, pp. 129, 130: this last oration may afford evidence as to
-the facts mentioned in it, though I cannot imagine it to be either
-genuine, or belonging to the time to which it professes to refer, as
-has been observed in a previous note.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_284"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_284">[284]</a></span> Plutarch, Periklês. c. 4;
-Plutarch. Aristeid. c. 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_285"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_285">[285]</a></span> Ælian, V. H. xiii, 24;
-Herakleidês, περὶ Πολιτειῶν, c. 1, ed. Köhler.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_286"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_286">[286]</a></span> Plutarch, Themistoklês, 22;
-Plutarch, Aristeidês, 7, παραμυθία φθόνου καὶ κουφισμός. See the same
-opinions repeated by Wachsmuth, Hellenische Alterthumskunde, ch. 48,
-vol. i, p. 272, and by Platner, Prozess and Klagen bey den Attikern,
-vol. i, p. 386.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_287"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_287">[287]</a></span> Thucyd. viii, 73, διὰ δυνάμεως
-καὶ ἀξιώματος φόβον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_288"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_288">[288]</a></span> Kratinus ap. Plutarch,
-Periklês, 13.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ὁ σχινοκέφαλος Ζεὺς ὁδὶ προσέρχεται</p>
-<p class="i0">Περικλέης, τᾠδεῖον ἐπὶ τοῦ κρανíου</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἔχων, ἐπειδὴ τοὔστρακον παροίχεται.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1">For the attacks of the comic writers upon Damôn, see
-Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_289"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_289">[289]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. iii, 8, 4; v,
-2, 5.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_290"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_290">[290]</a></span> Diodor. xi, 55-87. This author
-describes very imperfectly the Athenian ostracism, transferring to it
-apparently the circumstances of the Syracusan Petalism.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_291"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_291">[291]</a></span> Herodot. v, 70-72; compare
-Schol. ad Aristophan. Lysistr. 274.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_292"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_292">[292]</a></span> Herodot. v, 73.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_293"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_293">[293]</a></span> See vol. ii, p. 295, part ii,
-ch. 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_294"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_294">[294]</a></span> Thucyd. iii, 61.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_295"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_295">[295]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 108. ἐᾷν Θηβαίους
-Βοιωτῶν τοὺς μὴ βουλομένους ἐς Βοιωτοὺς τελέειν. This is an important
-circumstance in regard to Grecian political feeling: I shall advert
-to it hereafter.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_296"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_296">[296]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 108. Thucydidês
-(iii, 58), when recounting the capture of Platæa by the Lacedæmonians
-in the third year of the Peloponnesian war, states that the alliance
-between Platæa and Athens was then in its 93rd year of date;
-according to which reckoning it would begin in the year 519 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, where Mr. Clinton and other chronologers place it.</p>
-
-<p>I venture to think that the immediate circumstances, as recounted
-in the text from Herodotus (whether Thucydidês conceived them in the
-same way, cannot be determined), which brought about the junction
-of Platæa with Athens, cannot have taken place in 519 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, but must have happened <i>after</i> the expulsion of Hippias
-from Athens in 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—for the following reasons:—
-</p>
-
-<p>1. No mention is made of Hippias, who yet, if the event had
-happened in 519 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, must have been the person
-to determine whether the Athenians should assist Platæa or not.
-The Platæan envoys present themselves at a public sacrifice in the
-attitude of suppliants, so as to touch the feelings of the Athenian
-citizens generally: had Hippias been then despot, <i>he</i> would have
-been the person to be propitiated and to determine for or against
-assistance.</p>
-
-<p>2. We know no cause which should have brought Kleomenês with
-a Lacedæmonian force near to Platæa in the year 519 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: we know from the statement of Herodotus (v, 76) that no
-Lacedæmonian expedition against Attica took place at that time. But
-in the year to which I have referred the event, Kleomenês is on his
-march near the spot upon a known and assignable object. From the very
-tenor of the narrative, it is plain that Kleomenês and his army were
-not designedly in Bœotia, nor meddling with Bœotian affairs, at the
-time when the Platæans solicited his aid; he declines to interpose in
-the matter, pleading the great distance between Sparta and Platæa as
-a reason.</p>
-
-<p>3. Again, Kleomenês, in advising the Platæans to solicit Athens,
-does not give the advice through good-will towards them, but through
-a desire to harass and perplex the Athenians, by entangling them in
-a quarrel with the Bœotians. At the point of time to which I have
-referred the incident, this was a very natural desire: he was angry,
-and perhaps alarmed, at the recent events which had brought about his
-expulsion from Athens. But what was there to make him conceive such a
-feeling against Athens during the reign of Hippias? That despot was
-on terms of the closest intimacy with Sparta: the Peisistratids were
-(ξείνους—ξεινίους ταμάλιστα—Herod. v, 63, 90, 91) “the particular
-guests” of the Spartans, who were only induced to take part against
-Hippias from a reluctant obedience to the oracles procured, one
-after another, by Kleisthenês. The motive, therefore, assigned by
-Herodotus, for the advice given by Kleomenês to the Platæans, can
-have no application to the time when Hippias was still despot.</p>
-
-<p>4. That Herodotus did not conceive the victory gained by the
-Athenians over Thebes as having taken place <i>before</i> the expulsion
-of Hippias, is evident from his emphatic contrast between their
-warlike spirit and success when liberated from the despots, and
-their timidity or backwardness while under Hippias (Ἀθηναῖοι
-τυραννευόμενοι μὲν, οὐδαμῶν τῶν σφέας περιοικεόντων ἔσαν τὰ πολέμια
-ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ τυράννων, μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο· δηλοῖ
-ὦν ταῦτα, ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν, ἐθελοκάκεον, etc. v, 78). The man
-who wrote thus cannot have believed that, in the year 519 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, while Hippias was in full sway, the Athenians gained an
-important victory over the Thebans, cut off a considerable portion
-of the Theban territory for the purpose of joining it to that of
-the Platæans, and showed from that time forward their constant
-superiority over Thebes by protecting her inferior neighbor against
-her.</p>
-
-<p>These different reasons, taking them altogether, appear to me to
-show that the first alliance between Athens and Platæa, as Herodotus
-conceives and describes it, cannot have taken place before the
-expulsion of Hippias, in 510 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; and induce me to
-believe, either that Thucydidês was mistaken in the date of that
-event, or that Herodotus has not correctly described the facts. Not
-seeing any reason to suspect the description given by the latter, I
-have departed, though unwillingly, from the date of Thucydidês.</p>
-
-<p>The application of the Platæans to Kleomenês, and his advice
-grounded thereupon, may be connected more suitably with his first
-expedition to Athens, after the expulsion of Hippias, than with his
-second.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_297"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_297">[297]</a></span> Herodot. v, 75.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_298"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_298">[298]</a></span> Compare Kortüm, Zur Geschichte
-Hellenischer Staats-Verfassungen, p. 35 (Heidelberg, 1821).</p>
-
-<p>I doubt, however, his interpretation of the words in Herodotus
-(v, 63)—εἴτε ἰδίῳ στόλῳ, εἴτε δημοσίῳ χρησόμενοι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_299"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_299">[299]</a></span> Herodot. v, 77; Ælian, V. H.
-vi, 1; Pausan. i, 28, 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_300"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_300">[300]</a></span> Herodot. v, 80.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_301"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_301">[301]</a></span> In the expression of Herodotus,
-the Æakid heroes are <i>really</i> sent from Ægina, and <i>really</i> sent
-back by the Thebans (v, 80-81)—Οἱ δέ σφι αἰτέουσι ἐπικουρίην τοὺς
-Αἰακίδας συμπέμπειν ἔφασαν, αὖτις οἱ Θηβαῖοι πέμψαντες, <span
-class="gesperrt">τοὺς μὲν Αἰακίδας σφι ἀπεδίδοσαν, τῶν δὲ ἀνδρῶν
-ἐδέοντο</span>. Compare again v, 75; viii, 64; and Polyb. vii, 9, 2.
-θεῶν τῶν συστρατευομένων.</p>
-
-<p>Justin gives a narrative of an analogous application from the
-Epizephyrian Lokrians to Sparta (xx, 3): “Territi Locrenses ad
-Spartanos decurrunt: auxilium supplices deprecantur: illi longinquâ
-militiâ gravati, auxilium a Castore et Polluce petere eos jubent.
-Neque legati responsum sociæ urbis spreverunt; profectique in
-proximum templum, facto sacrificio, auxilium deorum implorant.
-Litatis hostiis, <i>obtentoque, ut rebantur, quod petebant—haud secus
-læti quam si deos ipsos secum avecturi essent</i>—pulvinaria iis in navi
-componunt, faustisque profecti ominibus, <i>solatia suis pro auxiliis</i>
-deportant.” In comparing the expressions of Herodotus with those of
-Justin, we see that the former believes the direct literal presence
-and action of the Æakid heroes (“the Thebans sent back the heroes,
-and asked for men”), while the latter explains away the divine
-intervention into a mere fancy and feeling on the part of those to
-whom it is supposed to be accorded. This was the tone of those later
-authors whom Justin followed: compare also Pausan. iii, 19, 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_302"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_302">[302]</a></span> Herodot. v, 81-82.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_303"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_303">[303]</a></span> Herodot. v, 83-88.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_304"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_304">[304]</a></span> Herodot. v, 81-89. μεγάλως
-Ἀθηναίους ἐσινέοντο.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_305"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_305">[305]</a></span> Herodot. v, 90.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_306"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_306">[306]</a></span> Herodot. v, 90, 91.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_307"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_307">[307]</a></span> Herodot. v, 92. ... τυραννίδας
-ἐς τὰς πόλις κατάγειν παρασκευάζεσθε, τοῦ οὔτε ἀδικώτερον ἐστὶ οὐδὲν
-κατ᾽ ἀνθρώπους οὔτε μιαιφονώτερον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_308"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_308">[308]</a></span> Herodot. v, 93. μὴ ποιέειν
-μηδὲν νεώτερον περὶ πόλιν Ἑλλάδα.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_309"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_309">[309]</a></span> Herodot. v, 93-94.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_310"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_310">[310]</a></span> Thucydid. i, 68-71, 120-124.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_311"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_311">[311]</a></span> Herodot. v, 78-91. Ἀθηναῖοι
-μέν νυν ηὔξηντο· δηλοῖ δὲ οὐ κατ᾽ ἓν μόνον ἀλλὰ πανταχῇ, ἡ ἰσηγορίη
-ὡς ἔστι χρῆμα σπουδαῖον, εἰ καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι τυραννευόμενοι μὲν, οὐδαμῶν
-τῶν σφέας περιοικεόντων ἔσαν τὰ πολέμια ἀμείνους, ἀπαλλαχθέντες δὲ
-τυράννων, μακρῷ πρῶτοι ἐγένοντο· δηλοῖ ὦν ταῦτα, ὅτι κατεχόμενοι μὲν,
-ἐθελοκάκεον, ὡς δεσπότῃ ἐργαζόμενοι, ἐλευθερωθέντων δὲ, αὐτὸς ἕκαστος
-ἑωϋτῷ προθυμέετο κατεργάζεσθαι.</p>
-
-<p>(c. 91.) Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι—νόῳ λαβόντες, ὡς ἐλεύθερον μὲν ἐὸν τὸ
-γένος τὸ Ἀττικὸν, ἰσόῤῥοπον τῷ ἑωϋτῶν ἂν γένοιτο, κατεχόμενον δὲ ὑπό
-του τυραννίδι, ἀσθενὲς καὶ πειθαρχέεσθαι ἐτοῖμον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_312"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_312">[312]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 80. Πλῆθος δὲ
-ἄρχον, <span class="gesperrt">πρῶτα μὲν, οὔνομα πάντων κάλλιστον
-ἔχει, ἰσονομίην</span>· δεύτερα δὲ, τούτων τῶν ὁ μόναρχος, ποιέει
-οὐδέν· πάλῳ μὲν ἀρχὰς ἄρχει, ὑπεύθυνον δὲ ἀρχὴν ἔχει, βουλεύματα δὲ
-πάντα ἐς τὸ κοινὸν ἀναφέρει.</p>
-
-<p>The democratical speaker at Syracuse, Athenagoras, also puts this
-name and promise in the first rank of advantages—(Thucyd. vi, 39)—ἐγὼ
-δέ φημι, <span class="gesperrt">πρῶτα μὲν</span>, δῆμον ξύμπαν
-ὠνόμασθαι, ὀλιγαρχίαν δὲ, μέρος, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_313"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_313">[313]</a></span> See the preceding chapter
-xi, of this History, vol. iii, p. 145, respecting the Solonian
-declaration here adverted to.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_314"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_314">[314]</a></span> See the two speeches of
-Periklês in Thucyd. ii, 35-46, and ii, 60-64. Compare the reflections
-of Thucydidês upon the two democracies of Athens and Syracuse, vi, 69
-and vii, 21-55.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_315"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_315">[315]</a></span> Thucyd. vii, 69. Πατρίδος τε
-τῆς ἐλευθερωτάτης ὑπομιμνήσκων καὶ τῆς ἐν αὐτῇ ἀνεπιτακτοῦ πᾶσιν ἐς
-τὴν δίαιταν ἐξουσίας, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_316"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_316">[316]</a></span> Compare the remarkable speech
-of the Corinthian envoys at Sparta (Thucyd. i, 68-71), with the
-φιλοπραγμοσύνη which Demosthenês so emphatically notices in Philip
-(Olynthiac. i, 6, p. 13): also Philippic. i, 2, and the Philippics
-and Olynthiacs generally.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_317"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_317">[317]</a></span> Among the lost productions of
-Antisthenês the contemporary of Xenophon and Plato, and emanating
-like them from the tuition of Sokratês, was one Κῦρος, ἢ περὶ
-Βασιλείας (Diogenes Laërt. vi, 15).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_318"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_318">[318]</a></span> That this was the real story—a
-close parallel of Romulus and Remus—we may see by Herodotus, i, 122.
-Some rationalizing Greeks or Persians transformed it into a more
-plausible tale,—that the herdsman’s wife who suckled the boy Cyrus
-was named Κυνώ (Κυών is a dog, male or female); contending that
-this latter was the real basis of fact, and that the intervention
-of the bitch was an exaggeration built upon the name of the woman,
-in order that the divine protection shown to Cyrus might be still
-more manifest,—οἱ δὲ τοκέες παραλαβόντες τὸ οὔνομα τοῦτ (<span
-class="gesperrt">ἵνα θειοτέρως δοκέῃ τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι περιεῖναί σφι ὁ
-παῖς</span>), κατέβαλον φάτιν ὡς ἐκκείμενον Κῦρον κύων ἐξέθρεψε·
-ἐνθεῦτεν μὲν ἡ φάτις αὐτὴ κεχωρήκεε.</p>
-
-<p>In the first volume of this History, I have noticed various
-transformations operated by Palæphatus and others upon the Greek
-mythes,—the ram which carried Phryxus and Hellê across the Hellespont
-is represented to us as having been in <i>reality</i> a man <i>named Krius</i>,
-who aided their flight,—the winged horse which carried Bellerophon
-was a ship <i>named</i> Pegasus, etc.</p>
-
-<p>This same operation has here been performed upon the story of the
-suckling of Cyrus; for we shall run little risk in affirming that the
-miraculous story is the older of the two. The feelings which welcome
-a miraculous story are early and primitive; those which break down
-the miracle into a common-place fact are of subsequent growth.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_319"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_319">[319]</a></span> Herodot. i, 95. Ὡς ὦν Περσέων
-<span class="gesperrt">μετεξέτεροι</span> λέγουσιν, οἱ <span
-class="gesperrt">μὴ βουλόμενοι σεμνοῦν</span> τὰ περὶ Κῦρον, ἀλλὰ
-τὸν ἐόντα λέγειν λόγον, κατὰ ταῦτα γράψω· ἐπιστάμενος περὶ Κύρου καὶ
-<span class="gesperrt">τριφασίας ἄλλας</span> λόγων ὁδοὺς φῆναι. His
-informants were thus select persons, who differed from the Persians
-generally.</p>
-
-<p>The long narrative respecting the infancy and growth of Cyrus is
-contained in Herodot. i, 107-129.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_320"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_320">[320]</a></span> See the Extracts from the lost
-Persian History of Ktêsias, in Photius Cod. lxxii, also appended
-to Schweighaüser’s edition of Herodotus, vol. iv, p. 345. Φησὶ δὲ
-(Ktêsias) αὐτὸν τῶν πλειόνων ἃ ἱστορεῖ αὐτόπτην γενόμενον, ἢ παρ᾽
-αὐτῶν Περσῶν (ἔνθα τὸ ὁρᾷν μὴ ἐνεχώρει) αὐτήκοον καταστάντα, οὕτως
-τὴν ἱστορίαν συγγράψαι.</p>
-
-<p>To the discrepancies between Xenophon, Herodotus, and Ktêsias,
-on the subject of Cyrus, is to be added the statement of Æschylus
-(Persæ, 747), the oldest authority of them all, and that of the
-Armenian historians: see Bähr ad Ktesiam, p. 85: comp. Bähr’s
-comments on the discrepancies, p. 87.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_321"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_321">[321]</a></span> Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8, 26.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_322"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_322">[322]</a></span> Herodot. i, 71-153; Arrian, v,
-4; Strabo, xv, p. 727; Plato, Legg. iii, p. 695.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_323"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_323">[323]</a></span> Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 3, 6;
-iii, 4, 7-12. Strabo had read accounts which represented the last
-battle between Astyagês and Cyrus to have been fought near Pasargadæ
-(xv, p. 730).</p>
-
-<p>It has been rendered probable by Ritter, however, that the ruined
-city which Xenophon called Mespila was the ancient Assyrian Nineveh,
-and the other deserted city which Xenophon calls Larissa, situated
-as it was on the Tigris, must have been originally Assyrian, and not
-Median. See about Nineveh, above,—the Chapter on the Babylonians,
-vol. iii, ch. xix, p. 305, note.</p>
-
-<p>The land east of the Tigris, in which Nineveh and Arbêla were
-situated, seems to have been called Aturia,—a dialectic variation of
-Assyria (Strabo, xvi, p. 737; Dio Cass. lxviii, 28).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_324"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_324">[324]</a></span> Xenophanês, Fragm. p. 39, ap.
-Schneidewin, Delectus Poett. Elegiac. Græc.—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Πήλικος ἦσθ᾽ ὅθ᾽ ὁ Μῆδος ἀφίκετο;</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">compare Theognis, v, 775, and Herodot. i, 163.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_325"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_325">[325]</a></span> Strabo, xv, p. 724. ὁμόγλωττοι
-παρὰ μικρόν. See Heeren, Ueber den Verkehr der Alten Welt, part
-i, book i, pp. 320-340, and Ritter, Erdkunde, West-Asien, b. iii,
-Abtheil. ii, sects. 1 and 2, pp. 17-84.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_326"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_326">[326]</a></span> About the province of Persis,
-see Strabo, xv, p. 727; Diodor. xix, 21; Quintus Curtius, v, 13, 14,
-pp. 432-434, with the valuable explanatory notes of Mützell (Berlin,
-1841). Compare, also, Morier’s Second Journey in Persia, pp. 49-120,
-and Ritter, Erdkunde, West Asien, pp. 712-738.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_327"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_327">[327]</a></span> Ktêsias, Persica, c. 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_328"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_328">[328]</a></span> Herodot. i, 153.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_329"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_329">[329]</a></span> That this point of view should
-not be noticed in Herodotus, may appear singular, when we read his
-story (vi, 86) about the Milesian Glaukus, and the judgment that
-overtook him for having tested the oracle; but it is put forward by
-Xenophon as constituting part of the guilt of Crœsus (Cyropæd. vii,
-2, 17).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_330"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_330">[330]</a></span> Herodot. i, 47-50.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_331"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_331">[331]</a></span> Herodot. i, 52-54.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_332"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_332">[332]</a></span> Herodot. i, 55.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_333"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_333">[333]</a></span> Herodot. i, 67-70.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_334"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_334">[334]</a></span> Herodot. i, 77.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_335"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_335">[335]</a></span> Herodot. i, 83.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_336"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_336">[336]</a></span> The story about the successful
-employment of the camels appears also in Xenophon, Cyropæd. vii, 1,
-47.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_337"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_337">[337]</a></span> Herodot. i, 84.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_338"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_338">[338]</a></span> Compare Herodot. i, 84-87, and
-Ktêsias, Persica, c. 4; which latter seems to have been copied by
-Polyænus, vii, 6, 10.</p>
-
-<p>It is remarkable that among the miracles enumerated by Ktêsias,
-no mention is made of fire or of the pile of wood kindled: we have
-the chains of Crœsus miraculously struck off, in the midst of thunder
-and lightning, but no <i>fire</i> mentioned. This is deserving of notice,
-as illustrating the fact that Ktêsias derived his information from
-<i>Persian</i> narrators, who would not be likely to impute to Cyrus the
-use of fire for such a purpose. The Persians worshipped fire as a
-god, and considered it impious to burn a dead body (Herodot. iii,
-16). Now Herodotus seems to have heard the story, about the burning,
-from Lydian informants (λέγεται ὑπὸ Λυδῶν, Herodot. i, 87): whether
-the Lydians regarded fire in the same point of view as the Persians,
-we do not know; but even if they did, they would not be indisposed
-to impute to Cyrus an act of gross impiety, just as the Egyptians
-imputed another act equally gross to Kambysês, which Herodotus
-himself treats as a falsehood (iii, 16).</p>
-
-<p>The long narrative given by Nikolaus Damaskênus of the treatment
-of Crœsus by Cyrus, has been supposed by some to have been borrowed
-from the Lydian historian Xanthus, elder contemporary of Herodotus.
-But it seems to me a mere compilation, not well put together, from
-Xenophon’s Cyropædia, and from the narrative of Herodotus, perhaps
-including some particular incidents out of Xanthus (see Nikol. Damas.
-Fragm. ed. Orell. pp. 57-70, and the Fragments of Xanthus in Didot’s
-Historic. Græcor. Fragm. p. 40).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_339"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_339">[339]</a></span> Justin (i, 7) seems to copy
-Ktêsias, about the treatment of Crœsus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_340"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_340">[340]</a></span> Herodot. i, 91. Προθυμεομένου
-δὲ Λοξίεω ὅκως ἂν κατὰ τοὺς παῖδας τοὺς Κροίσου γένοιτο τὸ Σαρδίων
-πάθος, καὶ μὴ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν Κροῖσον, οὐκ οἷόν τε ἐγένετο παραγαγεῖν
-Μοίρας· ὅσον δὲ ἐνέδωκαν αὗται, ἠνύσατο, καὶ ἐχαρίσατό οἱ· τρία γὰρ
-ἔτεα ἐπανεβάλετο τὴν Σαρδίων ἅλωσιν. Καὶ τοῦτο ἐπιστάσθω Κροῖσος, ὡς
-ὕστερον τοῖσι ἔτεσι τούτοισι ἁλοὺς τῆς πεπρωμένης.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_341"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_341">[341]</a></span> Herodot. i, 91. Ὁ δὲ ἀκούσας
-συνέγνω ἑωϋτοῦ εἶναι τὴν ἁμαρτάδα, καὶ οὐ τοῦ θεοῦ.</p>
-
-<p>Xenophon also, in the Cyropædia (vii, 2, 16-25), brings Crœsus
-to the same result of confession and humiliation, though by steps
-somewhat different.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_342"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_342">[342]</a></span> Herodot. i, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_343"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_343">[343]</a></span> See above, chap, xi, vol. iii,
-pp. 149-153.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_344"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_344">[344]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 10. οὐ γὰρ ἐᾷ
-φρονέειν ἄλλον μέγα ὁ θεὸς ἢ ἑωϋτόν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_345"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_345">[345]</a></span> In the oracle reported in
-Herodot. vii, 141, as delivered by the Pythian priestess to Athens on
-occasion of the approach of Xerxês, Zeus is represented in the same
-supreme position as the present oracle assigns to the Mœræ, or Fates:
-Pallas in vain attempts to propitiate him in favor of Athens, just
-as, in this case, Apollo tries to mitigate the Mœræ in respect to
-Crœsus—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Οὐ δύναται Παλλὰς Δί᾽ Ὀλύμπιον ἐξιλάσασθαι,</p>
-<p class="i0">Λισσομένη πολλοῖσι λόγοις καὶ μήτιδι πυκνῇ, etc.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">Compare also viii, 109, and ix, 16.</p>
-
-<p>O. Müller (Dissertation on the Eumenides of Æschylus, p. 222,
-Eng. Transl.) says: “On no occasion does Zeus Soter exert his
-influence directly, like Apollo, Minerva, and the Erinnyes; but
-whereas Apollo is prophet and exegetes by virtue of wisdom derived
-from him, and Minerva is indebted to him for her sway over states
-and assemblies,—nay, the very Erinnyes exercise their functions in
-his name,—this Zeus stands always in the background, and has in
-reality only to settle a conflict existing within himself. For with
-Æschylus, as with all men of profound feeling among the Greeks from
-the earliest times, Jupiter is the only real god, in the higher sense
-of the word. Although he is, in the spirit of ancient theology, a
-generated god, arisen out of an imperfect state of things, and not
-produced till the third stage of a development of nature,—still he
-is, at the time we are speaking of, the spirit that pervades and
-governs the universe.”</p>
-
-<p>To the same purpose Klausen expresses himself (Theologumena
-Æschyli, pp. 6-69).</p>
-
-<p>It is perfectly true that many passages may be produced from
-Greek authors which ascribe to Zeus the supreme power here noted. But
-it is equally true that this conception is not uniformly adhered to,
-and that sometimes the Fates, or Mœræ are represented as supreme;
-occasionally represented as the stronger and Zeus as the weaker
-(Promêtheus, 515). The whole tenor of that tragedy, in fact, brings
-out the conception of a Zeus τύραννος,—whose power is not supreme,
-even for the time; and is not destined to continue permanently, even
-at its existing height. The explanations given by Klausen of this
-drama appear to me incorrect; nor do I understand how it is to be
-reconciled with the above passage quoted from O. Müller.</p>
-
-<p>The two oracles here cited from Herodotus exhibit plainly the
-fluctuation of Greek opinion on this subject: in the one, the supreme
-determination, and the inexorability which accompanies it, are
-ascribed to Zeus,—in the other, to the Mœræ. This double point of
-view adapted itself to different occasions, and served as a help for
-the interpretation of different events. Zeus was supposed to have
-certain sympathies for human beings; misfortunes happened to various
-men which he not only did not wish to bring on, but would have
-been disposed to avert; here the Mœræ, who had no sympathies, were
-introduced as an explanatory cause, tacitly implied as overruling
-Zeus. “Cum Furiis Æschylus Parcas tantum non ubique conjungit,”
-says Klausen (Theol. Æsch. p. 39); and this entire absence of human
-sympathies constitutes the common point of both,—that in which the
-Mœræ and the Erinnyes differ from all the other gods,—πέφρικα τὰν
-ὠλεσίοικον θεὰν, οὐ θεοῖς ὁμοίαν (Æschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 720):
-compare Eumenid. 169, 172, and, indeed, the general strain of that
-fearful tragedy.</p>
-
-<p>In Æschylus, as in Herodotus, Apollo is represented as exercising
-persuasive powers over the Mœræ (Eumenid. 724),—Μοίρας ἔπεισας
-ἀφθίτους θεῖναι βροτούς.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_346"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_346">[346]</a></span> The language of Herodotus
-deserves attention. Apollo tells Crœsus: “I applied to the Mœræ to
-get the execution of the judgment postponed from your time to that
-of your children,—but I could not prevail upon them; but as much as
-they would yield <i>of their own accord</i>, I procured for you.” (ὅσον δὲ
-<span class="gesperrt">ἐνέδωκαν αὗται</span>, ἐχαρίσατό οἱ—i, 91.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_347"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_347">[347]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_348"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_348">[348]</a></span> This important date depends
-upon the evidence of Solinus (Polyhistor, i, 112) and Sosikratês (ap.
-Diog. Laërt. i, 95): see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellen. ad ann. 546, and
-his Appendix, ch. 17, upon the Lydian kings.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Clinton and most of the chronologists accept the date
-without hesitation, but Volney (Recherches sur l’Histoire Ancienne,
-vol. i, pp. 306-308; Chronologie des Rois Lydiens) rejects it
-altogether; considering the capture of Sardis to have occurred in
-557 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and the reign of Crœsus to have begun
-in 571 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> He treats very contemptuously
-the authority of Solinus and Sosikratês, and has an elaborate
-argumentation to prove that the date which he adopts is borne out by
-Herodotus. This latter does not appear to me at all satisfactory: I
-adopt the date of Solinus and Sosikratês, though agreeing with Volney
-that such positive authority is not very considerable, because there
-is nothing to contradict them, and because the date which they give
-seems in consonance with the stream of the history.</p>
-
-<p>Volney’s arguments suppose in the mind of Herodotus a degree
-of chronological precision altogether unreasonable, in reference
-to events anterior to contemporary records. He, like other
-chronologists, exhausts his ingenuity to find a proper point of
-historical time for the supposed conversation between Solon and
-Crœsus (p.&nbsp;320).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_349"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_349">[349]</a></span> Herodot. i, 141.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_350"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_350">[350]</a></span> Herodot. i, 152. The purple
-garment, so attractive a spectacle amid the plain clothing universal
-at Sparta, marks the contrast between Asiatic and European Greece.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_351"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_351">[351]</a></span> Herodot. i, 153. ταῦτα ἐς τοὺς
-πάντας Ἕλληνας ἀπέῤῥιψε ὁ Κῦρος τὰ ἔπεα, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_352"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_352">[352]</a></span> Herodot. i, 155.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_353"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_353">[353]</a></span> Herodot. i, 159.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_354"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_354">[354]</a></span> Herodot. i, 160. The short
-fragment from Charôn of Lampsakus, which Plutarch (De Malignitat.
-Herod. p. 859) cites here, in support of one among his many unjust
-censures on Herodotus, is noway inconsistent with the statement of
-the latter, but rather tends to confirm it.</p>
-
-<p>In writing this treatise on the alleged ill-temper of Herodotus,
-we see that Plutarch had before him the history of Charôn of
-Lampsakus, more ancient by one generation than the historian whom
-he was assailing, and also belonging to Asiatic Greece. Of course,
-it suited the purpose of his work to produce all the contradictions
-to Herodotus which he could find in Charôn: the fact that he has
-produced none of any moment, tends to strengthen our faith in
-the historian of Halikarnassus, and to show that in the main his
-narrative was in accordance with that of Charôn.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_355"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_355">[355]</a></span> Herodot. i, 161-169.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_356"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_356">[356]</a></span> Herodot. i, 168; Skymnus Chius,
-Fragm. v, 153; Dionys. Perieg. v, 553.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_357"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_357">[357]</a></span> Herodot. i, 163. Ὁ δὲ
-πυθόμενος παρ᾽ αὐτῶν τὸν Μῆδον ὡς αὔξοιτο, ἐδίδου σφι χρήματα τεῖχος
-περιβαλέσθαι τὴν πόλιν.</p>
-
-<p>I do not understand why the commentators debate what or who is
-meant by τὸν Μῆδον: it plainly means the Median or Persian power
-generally: but the chronological difficulty is a real one, if we are
-to suppose that there was time between the first alarm conceived of
-the Median power of the Ionians, and the siege of Phôkæa by Harpagus,
-to inform Arganthônius of the circumstances, and to procure from him
-this large aid as well as to build the fortifications. The Ionic
-Greeks neither actually did conceive, nor had reason to conceive,
-any alarm respecting Persian power, until the arrival of Cyrus
-before Sardis; and within a month from that time Sardis was in his
-possession. If we are to suppose communication with Arganthônius,
-grounded upon this circumstance, at the distance of Tartêssus, and
-under the circumstances of ancient navigation, we must necessarily
-imagine, also, that the attack made by Harpagus upon Phôkæa—which
-city he assailed before any of the rest—was postponed for at least
-two or three years. Such postponement is not wholly impossible, yet
-it is not in the spirit of the Herodotean narrative, nor do I think
-it likely. It is much more probable that the informants of Herodotus
-made a slip in chronology, and ascribed the donations of Arganthônius
-to a motive which did not really dictate them.</p>
-
-<p>As to the fortifications (which Phôkæa and the other Ionic
-cities are reported to have erected after the conquest of Sardis by
-the Persians), the case may stand thus. While these cities were all
-independent, before they were first conquered by Crœsus, they must
-undoubtedly have had fortifications. When Crœsus conquered them, he
-directed the demolition of the fortifications; but demolition does
-not necessarily mean pulling down the entire walls: when one or a few
-breaches are made, the city is laid open, and the purpose of Crœsus
-would thus be answered. Such may well have been the state of the
-Ionian cities at the time when they first thought it necessary to
-provide defences against the Persians at Sardis: they repaired and
-perfected the breached fortifications.</p>
-
-<p>The conjecture of Larcher (see the Notes both of Larcher and
-Wesseling),—τὸν Λυδὸν instead of τὸν Μῆδον,—is not an unreasonable
-one, if it had any authority: the donation of Arganthônius would then
-be transferred to the period anterior to the Lydian conquest: it
-would get rid of the chronological difficulty above adverted to, but
-it would introduce some new awkwardness into the narrative.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_358"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_358">[358]</a></span> Herodot. i, 164.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_359"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_359">[359]</a></span> Herodot. i, 165. ὑπερημίσεας
-τῶν ἀστῶν ἔλαβε πόθος τε καὶ οἶκτος τῆς πόλιος καὶ τῶν ἠθέων τῆς
-χώρης· ψευδόρκιοί τε γενόμενοι, etc. The colloquial term which I have
-ventured to place in the text expresses exactly, as well as briefly,
-the meaning of the historian. A public oath, taken by most of the
-Greek cities with similar ceremony of lumps of iron thrown into the
-sea, is mentioned in Plutarch, Aristid. c. 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_360"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_360">[360]</a></span> Herodot. i, 166.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_361"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_361">[361]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. iii, 5, 11;
-Polyb. iii, 22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_362"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_362">[362]</a></span> Herodot. i, 167.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_363"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_363">[363]</a></span> Herodot. i, 170. Πυνθάνομαι
-γνώμην Βίαντα ἄνδρα Πριηνέα ἀποδέξασθαι Ἴωσι χρησιμωτάτην, τῇ εἰ
-ἐπείθοντο, παρεῖχε ἂν σφι εὐδαιμονέειν Ἑλλήνων μάλιστα.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_364"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_364">[364]</a></span> Herodot. i, 174.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_365"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_365">[365]</a></span> Herodot. i, 176. The whole
-population of Xanthus perished, except eighty families accidentally
-absent: the subsequent occupants of the town were recruited from
-strangers. Nearly five centuries afterwards, their descendants in
-the same city slew themselves in the like desperate and tragical
-manner, to avoid surrendering to the Roman army under Marcus Brutus
-(Plutarch, Brutus, c. 31).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_366"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_366">[366]</a></span> Herodot. i, 177.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_367"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_367">[367]</a></span> Herodot. i, 153.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_368"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_368">[368]</a></span> Herodot. i, 177. τὰ δὲ
-οἱ πάρεσχε πόνον τε πλεῖστον, καὶ ἀξιαπηγητότατά ἐστι, τούτων
-ἐπιμνήσομαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_369"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_369">[369]</a></span> See Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7,
-15; ii, 4, 12. For the inextricable difficulties in which the Ten
-Thousand Greeks were involved, after the battle of Kunaxa, and the
-insurmountable obstacles which impeded their march, assuming any
-resisting force whatever, see Xenoph. Anab. ii, 1, 11; ii, 2, 3;
-ii, 3, 10; ii, 4, 12-13. These obstacles, doubtless, served as a
-protection to them against attack, not less than as an impediment to
-their advance; and the well-supplied villages enabled them to obtain
-plenty of provisions: hence the anxiety of the Great King to help
-them across the Tigris out of Babylonia. But it is not easy to see
-how, in the face of such difficulties, any invading army could reach
-Babylon.</p>
-
-<p>Ritter represents the wall of Media as having reached across from
-the Euphratês to the Tigris at the point where they come nearest
-together, about two hundred stadia or twenty-five miles across. But
-it is nowhere stated, so far as I can find, that this wall reached
-to the Euphratês,—still less that its length was two hundred stadia,
-for the passages of Strabo cited by Ritter do not prove either point
-(ii, 80; xi, 529). And Xenophon (ii, 4, 12) gives the length of the
-wall as I have stated it in the text, = 20 parasangs = 600 stadia =
-75 miles.</p>
-
-<p>The passage of the Anabasis (i, 7, 15) seems to connect the
-Median wall with the canals, and not with the river Euphratês. The
-narrative of Herodotus, as I have remarked in a former chapter, leads
-us to suppose that he descended that river to Babylon; and if we
-suppose that the wall did not reach the Euphratês, this would afford
-some reason why he makes no mention of it. See Ritter, West Asien, b.
-iii, Abtheilung iii, Abschn. i, sect. 29, pp. 19-22.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_370"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_370">[370]</a></span> Ὁ Τίγρης μέγας τε καὶ οὐδαμοῦ
-διαβατὸς ἔς τε ἐπὶ τὴν ἐκβολὴν (Arrian, vii, 7, 7). By which he
-means, that it is not fordable below the ancient Nineveh, or Mosul;
-for a little above that spot, Alexander himself forded it with his
-army, a few days before the battle of Arbêla—not without very great
-difficulty (Arrian, iii, 7, 8; Diodor. xvii, 55).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_371"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_371">[371]</a></span> Herodot. i, 190. ἐπεὶ δὲ
-ἐγένετο ἐλαύνων ἀγχοῦ τῆς πόλιος, συνέβαλόν τε οἱ Βαβυλώνιοι, καὶ
-ἑσσωθέντες τῇ μάχῃ, κατειλήθησαν ἐς τὸ ἄστυ.</p>
-
-<p>Just as if Babylon was as easy to be approached as Sardis,—οἷά
-τε ἐπιστάμενοι ἔτι πρότερον τὸν Κῦρον οὐκ ἀτρεμίζοντα, ἀλλ᾽ ὁρέοντες
-αὐτὸν παντὶ ὁμοίως ἔθνεϊ ἐπιχειρέοντα, προεσάξαντο σίτια ἐτέων κάρτα
-πολλῶν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_372"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_372">[372]</a></span> Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 14-20;
-Diodor. xiv, 22; Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 7. I follow Xenophon
-without hesitation, where he differs from these two latter.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_373"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_373">[373]</a></span> Xenophon, Cyropæd. iii, 3, 26,
-about the πολυχειρία of the barbaric kings.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_374"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_374">[374]</a></span> Herodot. i, 189-202. ἐνθαῦτά
-οἱ τῶν τις ἱρῶν ἵππων τῶν λευκῶν ὑπὸ ὕβριος ἐσβὰς ἐς τὸν ποταμὸν,
-διαβαίνειν ἐπειρᾶτο.... Κάρτα τε δὴ ἐχαλέπαινε τῷ ποταμῷ ὁ Κῦρος
-τοῦτο ὑβρίσαντι, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_375"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_375">[375]</a></span> Herodot. i, 191. This latter
-portion of the story, if we may judge from the expression of
-Herodotus, seems to excite more doubt in his mind than all the rest,
-for he thinks it necessary to add, “as the residents at Babylon say,”
-ὡς λέγεται ὑπὸ τῶν ταύτῃ οἰκημένων. Yet if we assume the size of the
-place to be what he has affirmed, there seems nothing remarkable in
-the fact that the people in the centre did not at once hear of the
-capture; for the first business of the assailants would be to possess
-themselves of the walls and gates. It is a lively illustration of
-prodigious magnitude, and as such it is given by Aristotle (Polit.
-iii, 1, 12); who, however, exaggerates it by giving as a report that
-the inhabitants in the centre did not hear of the capture until the
-third day. No such exaggeration as this appears in Herodotus.</p>
-
-<p>Xenophon, in the Cyropædia (vii, 5, 7-18), following the story
-that Cyrus drained off the Euphratês, represents it as effected in a
-manner differing from Herodotus. According to him, Cyrus dug two vast
-and deep ditches, one on each side round the town, from the river
-above the town to the river below it: watching the opportunity of a
-festival day in Babylon, he let the water into both of these side
-ditches, which fell into the main stream again below the town: hence
-the main stream in its passage through the town became nearly dry.
-The narrative of Xenophon, however, betrays itself, as not having
-been written from information received on the spot, like that of
-Herodotus; for he talks of αἱ ἄκραι of Babylon, just as he speaks
-of the ἄκραι of the hill-towns of Karia (compare Cyropædia, vii,
-4, 1, 7, with vii, 5, 34). There were no ἄκραι on the dead flat of
-Babylon.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_376"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_376">[376]</a></span> Arrian, vi, 24, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_377"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_377">[377]</a></span> Herodot. i, 205-214; Arrian, v,
-4, 14; Justin, i, 8; Strabo, xi, p. 512.</p>
-
-<p>According to Ktêsias, Cyrus was slain in an expedition against
-the Derbikes, a people in the Caucasian regions,—though his army
-afterwards prove victorious and conquer the country (Ktesiæ Persica,
-c. 8-9),—see the comment of Bähr on the passage, in his edition of
-Ktêsias.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_378"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_378">[378]</a></span> Strabo, xv, pp. 730, 731;
-Arrian, vi, 29.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_379"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_379">[379]</a></span> The town Kyra, or Kyropolis,
-on the river Sihon, or Jaxartês, was said to have been founded by
-Cyrus,—it was destroyed by Alexander (Strabo, xi, pp. 517, 518;
-Arrian, iv, 2, 2; Curtius, vii, 6, 16).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_380"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_380">[380]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 19.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_381"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_381">[381]</a></span> Herodot. i, 188; Plutarch,
-Artaxerxês, c. 3; Diodor. xvii, 71.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_382"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_382">[382]</a></span> Xenophon, Anabas. i, 1, 8.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_383"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_383">[383]</a></span> Xenophon, Anabas. i, 7, 6;
-Cyropæd. viii, 6, 19.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_384"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_384">[384]</a></span> Herodot. ix, 122.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_385"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_385">[385]</a></span> The modern Persians at this
-day exhibit almost matchless skill in shooting with the firelock, as
-well as with the bow, on horseback. See Sir John Malcolm, Sketches of
-Persia, ch. xvii, p. 201; see also Kinneir, Geographical Memoir of
-the Persian Empire, p. 32.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_386"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_386">[386]</a></span> About the attributes of the
-Persian character, see Herodot. i, 131-140: compare i, 153.</p>
-
-<p>He expresses himself very strongly as to the facility with which
-the Persians imbibed foreign customs, and especially foreign luxuries
-(i, 135),—ξεινικὰ δὲ νόμαια Πέρσαι προσίενται ἀνδρῶν μάλιστα,—καὶ
-εὐπαθείας τε παντοδαπὰς πυνθανόμενοι ἐπιτηδεύουσι.</p>
-
-<p>That rigid tenacity of customs and exclusiveness of tastes,
-which mark the modern Orientals, appear to be of the growth of
-Mohammedanism, and to distinguish them greatly from the old
-Zoroastrian Persians.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_387"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_387">[387]</a></span> Herodot. ix, 76; Plutarch,
-Artaxerx. c. 26.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_388"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_388">[388]</a></span> Herodot. i, 210; iii, 159.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_389"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_389">[389]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 1-4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_390"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_390">[390]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 1, 19, 44.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_391"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_391">[391]</a></span> The narrative of Ktêsias is, in
-respect both to the Egyptian expedition and to the other incidents
-of Persian history, quite different in its details from that of
-Herodotus, agreeing only in the main events (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 7).
-To blend the two together is impossible.</p>
-
-<p>Tacitus (Histor. i, 11) notes the difficulty of approach for an
-invading army to Egypt: “Egyptum, provinciam aditu difficilem, annonæ
-fecundam, superstitione ac lasciviâ discordem et mobilem,” etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_392"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_392">[392]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 10-16. About the
-Arabians, between Judæa and Egypt, see iii, c. 5, 88-91.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_393"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_393">[393]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 19.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_394"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_394">[394]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 29.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_395"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_395">[395]</a></span> Ktêsias calls the brother
-Tanyoxarkês, and says that Cyrus had left him satrap, without
-tribute, of Baktria and the neighboring regions (Persica, c. 8).
-Xenophon, in the Cyropædia, also calls him Tanyoxarkês, but gives him
-a different satrapy (Cyropæd. viii, 7, 11).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_396"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_396">[396]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 30-62.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_397"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_397">[397]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 61-63.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_398"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_398">[398]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 68-69.—“Auribus
-decisis vivere jubet,” says Tacitus, about a case under the Parthian
-government (Annal. xii, 14),—nor have the Turkish authorities given
-up the infliction of it at the present moment, or at least down to a
-very recent period.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_399"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_399">[399]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 64-66.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_400"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_400">[400]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 67.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_401"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_401">[401]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 68-69.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_402"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_402">[402]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 69-73. ἀρχόμεθα
-μὲν ἐόντες Πέρσαι, ὑπὸ Μήδου ἀνδρὸς μάγου, καὶ τούτου ὦτα οὐκ
-ἔχοντος.</p>
-
-<p>Compare the description of the insupportable repugnance of the
-Greeks of Kyrênê to be governed by the <i>lame</i> Battus (Herodot. iv,
-161).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_403"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_403">[403]</a></span> Compare Aristophan. Aves, 487,
-with the Scholia, and Herodot. vii, 61; Arrian, iv, 6, 29. The cap
-of the Persians generally was loose, low, clinging about the head in
-folds; that of the king was high and erect above the head. See the
-notes of Wesseling and Schweighaüser, upon πῖλοι ἀπαγέες in Herodot.
-<i>l.&nbsp;c.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_404"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_404">[404]</a></span> Herodot. i, 101-120.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_405"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_405">[405]</a></span> In the speech which Herodotus
-puts into the mouth of Kambysês on his deathbed, addressed to the
-Persians around him in a strain of prophetic adjuration (iii, 65), he
-says: Καὶ δὴ ὑμῖν τάδε ἐπισκήπτω, θεοὺς τοὺς βασιληΐους ἐπικαλέων,
-καὶ πᾶσιν ὑμῖν καὶ μάλιστα Ἀχαιμενιδέων τοῖσι παρεοῦσι, μὴ περιϊδεῖν
-τὴν ἡγεμονίην αὖτις ἐς Μήδους περιελθοῦσαν· ἀλλ᾽ εἴτε δόλῳ ἔχουσι
-αὐτὴν κτησάμενοι (the personification of the deceased son of Cyrus),
-δόλῳ ἀπαιρεθῆναι ὑπὸ ὑμέων· εἴτε καὶ σθένεϊ τεῷ κατεργασάμενοι,
-σθένεϊ κατὰ τὸ κάρτερον ἀνασώσασθαι (the forcible opposition of the
-Medes to Darius, which he put down by superior force on the Persian
-side): compare the speech of Gobryas, one of the seven Persian
-conspirators (iii, 73), and that of Prexaspês (iii, 75); also Plato,
-Legg. iii, 12, p. 695.</p>
-
-<p>Heeren has taken a correct view of the reign of Smerdis the
-Magian, and its political character (Ideen über den Verkehr, etc.,
-der Alten Welt, part i, abth. i, p. 431).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_406"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_406">[406]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 79. Σπασάμενοι
-δὲ τὰ ἐγχειρίδια, ἔκτεινον ὅκου τινὰ μάγον εὕρισκον· εἰ δὲ μὴ νὺξ
-ἐπελθοῦσα ἔσχε, ἔλιπον ἂν οὐδένα μάγον. Ταύτην τὴν ἡμέρην θεραπεύουσι
-Πέρσαι κοινῇ μάλιστα τῶν ἡμερέων· καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ ὁρτὴν μεγάλην ἀνάγουσι,
-ἣ κέκληται ὑπὸ Περσέων Μαγοφόνια.</p>
-
-<p>The periodical celebration of the Magophonia is attested by
-Ktêsias,—one of the few points of complete agreement with Herodotus.
-He farther agrees in saying that a Magian usurped the throne, through
-likeness of person to the deceased son of Cyrus, whom Kambysês had
-slain,—but all his other statements differ from Herodotus (Ktêsias,
-10-14).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_407"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_407">[407]</a></span> Even at the battle of
-Arbela,—“Summæ Orsines præerat, a septem Persis oriundus, ad Cyrum
-quoque, nobilissimum regem, originem sui referens.” (Quintus Curtius,
-iv, 12, 7, or iv, 45, 7, Zumpt.): compare Strabo, xi, p. 531; Florus,
-iii, 5, 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_408"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_408">[408]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 127. Δαρεῖος—ἅτε
-οἰδεόντων οἱ ἔτι τῶν πρηγμάτων, etc.,—mention of the ταραχή (iii,
-126, 150).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_409"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_409">[409]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 126. Μετὰ γὰρ τὸν
-Καμβύσεω θάνατον, καὶ τῶν Μάγων τὴν βασιληΐην, μένων ἐν τῇσι Σάρδισι
-Ὀροίτης, ὠφέλει μὲν οὐδὲν Πέρσας, <span class="gesperrt">ὑπὸ Μήδων
-ἀπαραιρημένους τὴν ἀρχήν</span>· ὁ δὲ ἐν ταύτῃ τῇ ταραχῇ κατὰ μὲν
-ἔκτεινε Μιτροβάτεα ... ἄλλα τε ἐξύβρισε παντοῖα, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_410"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_410">[410]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 166. Ὁ δὲ Ἀρυάνδης
-ἦν οὗτος τῆς Αἰγύπτου ὕπαρχος ὑπὸ Καμβύσεω κατεστεώς· ὃς ὑστέρῳ χρόνῳ
-παρισεύμενος Δαρείῳ διεφθάρη.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_411"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_411">[411]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 67-150.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_412"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_412">[412]</a></span> Herodot. i, 130. Ἀστυάγης
-μέν νυν βασιλεύσας ἐπ᾽ ἔτεα πέντε καὶ τριήκοντα, οὕτω τῆς ἀρχῆς
-κατεπαύσθη. Μῆδοι δὲ ὑπέκυψαν Πέρσῃσι διὰ τὴν τούτου πικρότητα....
-Ὑστέρῳ μέντοι χρόνῳ μετεμέλησέ τέ σφι ταῦτα ποιήσασι, καὶ ἀπέστησαν
-ἀπὸ Δαρείου· ἀποστάντες δὲ, ὀπίσω κατεστράφθησαν, μάχῃ νικηθέντες·
-τότε δὲ, ἐπὶ Ἀστυάγεος, οἱ Πέρσαι τε καὶ ὁ Κῦρος ἐπαναστάντες τοῖσι
-Μήδοισι, ἦρχον τὸ ἀπὸ τούτου τῆς Ἀσίης.</p>
-
-<p>This passage—asserting that the Medes, some time after the
-deposition of Astyagês and the acquisition of Persian supremacy by
-Cyrus, repented of having suffered their discontent against Astyagês
-to place this supremacy in the hands of the Persians, revolted from
-Darius, and were reconquered after a contest—appears to me to have
-been misunderstood by chronologists. Dodwell, Larcher, and Mr. Fynes
-Clinton (indeed, most, if not all, of the chronologists) explain
-it as alluding to a revolt of the Medes against the Persian king
-Darius Nothus, mentioned in the Hellenica of Xenophon (i, 2, 12),
-and belonging to the year 408 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> See Larcher ad
-Herodot. i, 130, and his Vie d’Hérodote, prefixed to his translation
-(p. lxxxix); also Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 408 and 455,
-and his Appendix, c, 18, p. 316.</p>
-
-<p>The revolt of the Medes alluded to by Herodotus is, in my
-judgment, completely distinct from the revolt mentioned by Xenophon:
-to identify the two, as these eminent chronologists do, is an
-hypothesis not only having nothing to recommend it, but open to grave
-objection. The revolt mentioned by Herodotus was against Darius son
-of Hystaspês, not against Darius Nothus; and I have set forth with
-peculiar care the circumstances connected with the conspiracy and
-accession of the former, for the purpose of showing that they all
-decidedly imply that conflict between Median and Persian supremacy,
-which Herodotus directly announces in the passage now before us.</p>
-
-<p>1. When Herodotus speaks of Darius, without any adjective
-designation, why should we imagine that he means any other than
-Darius the son of Hystaspês, on whom he dwells so copiously in his
-narrative? Once only in the course of his history (ix, 108) another
-Darius (the young prince, son of Xerxês the First) is mentioned; but
-with this exception, Darius son of Hystaspês is uniformly, throughout
-the work, spoken of under his simple name: Darius Nothus is never
-alluded to at all.</p>
-
-<p>2. The deposition of Astyagês took place in 559 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; the beginning of the reign of Darius occurred in 520
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; now repentance on the part of the Medes,
-for what they had done at the former of those two epochs, might
-naturally prompt them to try to repair it in the latter. But between
-the deposition of Astyagês in 559 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and the
-revolt mentioned by Xenophon against Darius Nothus in 408 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, the interval is more than one hundred and fifty years.
-To ascribe a revolt which took place in 408 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-to repentance for something which had occurred one hundred and
-fifty years before, is unnatural and far-fetched, if not positively
-inadmissible.</p>
-
-<p>The preceding arguments go to show that the natural construction
-of the passage in Herodotus points to Darius son of Hystaspês, and
-not to Darius Nothus; but this is not all. There are yet stronger
-reasons why the reference to Darius Nothus should be discarded.</p>
-
-<p>The supposed mention, in Herodotus, of a fact so late as 408
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, perplexes the whole chronology of his life and
-authorship. According to the usual statement of his biography, which
-every one admits, and which there is no reason to call in question,
-he was born in 484 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Here, then, is an event
-alluded to in his history, which occurred when the historian was
-seventy-six years old, and the allusion to which he must be presumed
-to have written when about eighty years old, if not more; for his
-mention of the fact by no means implies that it was particularly
-recent. Those who adopt this view, do not imagine that he wrote his
-whole history at that age; but they maintain that he made later
-additions, of which they contend that this is one. I do not say that
-this is impossible: we know that Isokratês composed his Panathenaic
-oration at the age of ninety-four; but it must be admitted to be
-highly improbable,—a supposition which ought not to be advanced
-without some cogent proof to support it. But here no proof whatever
-is produced. Herodotus mentions a revolt of the Medes against
-Darius,—Xenophon also mentions a revolt of the Medes against Darius;
-hence, chronologists have taken it as a matter of course, that both
-authors must allude to the same event; though the supposition is
-unnatural as regards the text, and still more unnatural as regards
-the biography, of Herodotus.</p>
-
-<p>In respect to that biography, Mr. Clinton appears to me to have
-adopted another erroneous opinion; in which, however, both Larcher
-and Wesseling are against him, though Dahlmann and Heyse agree with
-him. He maintains that the passage in Herodotus (iii, 15), wherein
-it is stated that Pausiris succeeded his father Amyrtæus by consent
-of the Persians in the government of Egypt, is to be referred to a
-fact which happened subsequent to the year 414 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-or the tenth year of Darius Nothus; since it was in that year that
-Amyrtæus acquired the government of Egypt. But this opinion rests
-altogether upon the assumption that a certain Amyrtæus, whose name
-and date occur in Manetho (see Eusebius, Chronicon), is the same
-person as the Amyrtæus mentioned in Herodotus; which identity
-is not only not proved, but is extremely improbable, since Mr.
-Clinton himself admits (F. H. Appendix, p. 317), while maintaining
-the identity: “He (Amyrtæus) had conducted a war against the
-Persian government <i>more than fifty years before</i>.” This, though
-not impossible, is surely very improbable; it is at least equally
-probable that the Amyrtæus of Manetho was a different person from
-(perhaps even the <i>grandson</i> of) that Amyrtæus in Herodotus, who had
-carried on war against the Persians more than fifty wars before; it
-appears to me, indeed, that this is the more reasonable hypothesis of
-the two.</p>
-
-<p>I have permitted myself to prolong this note to an unusual
-length, because the supposed mention of such recent events in the
-history of Herodotus, as those in the reign of Darius Nothus, has
-introduced very gratuitous assumptions as to the time and manner
-in which that history was composed. It cannot be shown that there
-is a single event of precise and ascertained date, alluded to in
-his history, later than the capture of the Lacedæmonian heralds in
-the year 430 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> (Herodot. vii, 137: see Larcher,
-Vie d’Hérodote, p. lxxxix); and this renders the composition of his
-history as an entire work much more smooth and intelligible.</p>
-
-<p>It may be worth while to add, that whoever reads attentively
-Herodotus, vi, 98,—and reflects at the same time that the destruction
-of the Athenian armament at Syracuse (the greatest of all Hellenic
-disasters, hardly inferior, for its time, to the Russian campaign
-of Napoleon, and especially impressive to one living at Thurii,
-as may be seen by the life of Lysias, Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt. p.
-835) happened during the reign of Darius Nothus in 413 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—will not readily admit the hypothesis of additions made
-to the history during the reign of the latter, or so late as 408
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Herodotus would hardly have dwelt so expressly
-and emphatically upon mischief done by Greeks to each other in the
-reigns of Darius son of Hystaspês, Xerxês, and Artaxerxês, if he
-had lived to witness the greater mischiefs so inflicted during the
-reign of Darius Nothus, and had kept his history before him for the
-purpose of inserting new events. The destruction of the Athenians
-before Syracuse would have been a thousand times more striking to his
-imagination than the revolt of the Medes against Darius Nothus, and
-would have impelled him with much greater force to alter or enlarge
-the chapter vi, 98.</p>
-
-<p>The sentiment too which Herodotus places in the mouth of
-Demaratus respecting the Spartans (vii, 104) appears to have been
-written <i>before</i> the capture of the Spartans in Sphakteria, in 425
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, rather than <i>after</i> it: compare Thucyd. iv, 40.
-</p>
-
-<p>Dahlmann (Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte, vol. ii,
-pp. 41-47) and Heyse (Quæstiones Herodoteæ, pp. 74-77, Berlin,
-1827) both profess to point out six passages in Herodotus which
-mark events of later date than 430 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> But none
-of the chronological indications which they adduce appear to me
-trustworthy.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_413"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_413">[413]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 127, 128.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_414"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_414">[414]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 150.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_415"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_415">[415]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 155. δεινόν
-τι ποιεύμενος, Ἀσσυρίους Πέρσῃσι καταγελᾷν. Compare the speech of
-Mardonius, vii, 9.</p>
-
-<p>The horror of Darius, at the first sight of Zopyrus in this
-condition, is strongly dramatized by Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_416"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_416">[416]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 154-158.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_417"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_417">[417]</a></span> Ktêsias represents the revolt
-and recapture of Babylon to have taken place, not under Darius, but
-under his son and successor Xerxês. He says that the Babylonians,
-revolting, slew their satrap Zopyrus; that they were besieged by
-Xerxês, and that Megabyzus son of Zopyrus caused the city to be taken
-by practising that very stratagem which Herodotus ascribes to Zopyrus
-himself (Persica, c. 20-22).</p>
-
-<p>This seems inconsistent with the fact, that Megabyzus was general
-of the Persian army in Egypt in the war with the Athenians, about
-460 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> (Diodor. Sic. xi, 75-77): he would hardly
-have been sent on active service had he been so fearfully mutilated;
-moreover, the whole story of Ktêsias appears to me far less probable
-than that of Herodotus; for on this, as on other occasions, to blend
-the two together is impossible.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_418"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_418">[418]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 159, 160. “From
-the women thus introduced (says Herodotus) the present Babylonians
-are sprung.”</p>
-
-<p>To crucify subdued revolters by thousands is, fortunately, so
-little in harmony with modern European manners, that it may not be
-amiss to strengthen the confidence of the reader in the accuracy of
-Herodotus, by producing an analogous narrative of incidents far more
-recent. Voltaire gives, from the MS. of General Lefort, one of the
-principal and confidential officers of Peter the Great, the following
-account of the suppression of the revolted Strelitzes at Moscow, in
-1698: these Strelitzes were the old native militia, or Janissaries,
-of the Russian Czars, opposed to all the reforms of Peter.</p>
-
-<p>“Pour étouffer ces troubles, le czar part secrètement de Vienne,
-arrive enfin à Moscou, et surprend tout le monde par sa présence:
-il récompense les troupes qui ont vaincu les Strélitz: les prisons
-étaient pleines de ces malheureux. Si leur crime était grand, le
-châtiment le fut aussi. Leurs chefs, plusieurs officiers, et quelques
-prêtres, furent condamnés à la mort: quelques-uns furent roués, deux
-femmes enterrées vives. On pendit autour des murailles de la ville
-et on fit périr dans d’autres supplices deux mille Strélitz; leurs
-corps restèrent deux jours exposés sur les grands chemins, et surtout
-autour du monastère où résidaient les princesses Sophie et Eudoxe.
-On érigea des colonnes de pierre où le crime et le châtiment furent
-gravés. Un très-grand nombre qui avaient leurs femmes et leurs enfans
-furent dispersés avec leurs familles dans la Sibérie, dans le royaume
-d’Astrakhan, dans le pays d’Azof: par là du moins leur punition fut
-utile à l’état: ils servirent à défricher des terres qui manquaient
-d’habitans et de culture.” (Voltaire, Histoire de Russie, part i, ch.
-x, tom. 31, of the Œuvres Complètes de Voltaire, p. 148, ed. Paris,
-1825.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_419"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_419">[419]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 92.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_420"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_420">[420]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 89. What
-the Persian denomination was, which Herodotus or his informants
-translated κάπηλος, we do not know; but this latter word was used
-often by Greeks to signify a cheat, or deceiver generally: see
-Etymologic. Magn. p. 490, 11, and Suidas, v. Κάπελος. Ὁ δ᾽ Αἴσχυλος
-τὰ δόλια πáντα καλεῖ κάπηλα—“Κάπηλα προσφέρων τεχνήματα.” (Æschylus,
-Fragment. 328, ed. Dindorf: compare Euripid. Hippolyt. 953.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_421"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_421">[421]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 128. This
-division of power, and double appointment by the Great King, appears
-to have been retained until the close of the Persian empire: see
-Quintus Curtius, v, l, 17-20 (v, 3, 19-21, Zumpt). The present
-Turkish government nominates a Defterdar as finance administrator
-in each province, with authority derived directly from itself, and
-professedly independent of the Pacha.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_422"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_422">[422]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 15.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_423"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_423">[423]</a></span> Respecting the administration
-of the modern Persian empire, see Kinneir, Geograph. Memoir of
-Persia, pp. 29, 43, 47.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_424"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_424">[424]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 95. The text of
-Herodotus contains an erroneous summing up of items, which critics
-have no means of correcting with certainty. Nor is it possible
-to trust the huge sum which he alleges to have been levied from
-the Indians, though all the other items, included in the nineteen
-silver-paying divisions, seem within the probable truth; and indeed
-both Rennell and Robertson think the total too small: the charges on
-some of the satrapies are decidedly smaller than the reality.</p>
-
-<p>The vast sum of fifty thousand talents is said to have been
-found by Alexander the Great, laid up by successive kings at Susa
-alone, besides the treasures at Persepolis, Pasargadæ, and elsewhere
-(Arrian, iii, 16, 12; Plutarch, Alexand. 37). Presuming these talents
-to be Babylonian or Æginæan talents (in the proportion 5&nbsp;:&nbsp;3 to Attic
-talents), fifty thousand talents would be equal to nineteen million
-pounds sterling; if they were Attic talents, it would be equal to
-eleven million six hundred thousand pounds sterling. The statements
-of Diodorus give even much larger sums (xvii, 66-71: compare Curtius,
-v, 2, 8; v, 6, 9; Strabo, xv, p. 730). It is plain that the numerical
-affirmations were different in different authors, and one cannot
-pretend to pronounce on the trustworthiness of such large figures
-without knowing more of the original returns on which they were
-founded. That there were prodigious sums of gold and silver, is quite
-unquestionable. Respecting the statement of the Persian revenue given
-by Herodotus, see Boeckh, Metrologie, ch. v, 1-2.</p>
-
-<p>Amedée Jaubert, in 1806, estimated the population of the modern
-Persian empire at about seven million souls; of which about six
-million were settled population, the rest nomadic: he also estimated
-the Schah’s revenue at about two million nine hundred thousand
-tomans, or one million five hundred thousand pounds sterling. Others
-calculated the population higher, at nearer twelve million souls.
-Kinneir gives the revenue at something more than three million pounds
-sterling: he thinks that the whole territory between the Euphratês
-and the Indus does not contain above eighteen millions of souls
-(Geogr. Memoir of Persia, pp. 44-47: compare Ritter, West Asien,
-Abtheil. ii, Abschn. iv, pp. 879-889).</p>
-
-<p>The modern Persian empire contains not so much as the eastern
-half of the ancient, which covered all Asiatic Turkey and Egypt
-besides.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_425"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_425">[425]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 102; iv, 44. See
-the two Excursus of Bähr on these two chapters, vol. ii, pp. 648-671
-of his edit. of Herodotus.</p>
-
-<p>It certainly is singular that neither Nearchus, nor Ptolemy,
-nor Aristobulus, nor Arrian, take any notice of this remarkable
-voyage distinctly asserted by Herodotus to have been accomplished.
-Such silence, however, affords no sufficient reason for calling the
-narrative in question. The attention of the Persian kings, successors
-to Darius, came to be far more occupied with the western than with
-the eastern portions of their empire.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_426"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_426">[426]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 138.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_427"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_427">[427]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 117.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_428"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_428">[428]</a></span> Herodot. i, 192. Compare the
-description of the dinner and supper of the Great King, in Polyænus,
-iv, 3, 32; also Ktêsias and Deinôn ap Athenæum, ii, p. 67.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_429"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_429">[429]</a></span> Plato, Legg. iii, 12, p.
-695.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_430"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_430">[430]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 166; Plutarch,
-Kimon, 10.</p>
-
-<p>The gold Daric, of the weight of two Attic drachmæ; (Stater
-Daricus), equivalent to twenty Attic silver drachmæ (Xenoph. Anab. i,
-7, 18), would be about 16<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> English. But it seems doubtful
-whether that ratio between gold and silver (10&nbsp;:&nbsp;1) can be reckoned
-upon as the ordinary ratio in the fifth and fourth centuries
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Mr. Hussey calculates the golden Daric as equal
-to £1, 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> English (Hussey, Essay on the Ancient Weights and
-Money, Oxford, 1836, ch. iv, s. 8, p. 68; ch. vii, s. 3, p. 103).</p>
-
-<p>I cannot think, with Mr. Hussey, that there is any reason for
-believing either the name or the coin <i>Daric</i> to be older than Darius
-son of Hystaspês. Compare Boeckh, Metrologie, ix, 5, p. 129.</p>
-
-<p>Particular statements respecting the value of gold and silver, as
-exchanged one against the other, are to be received with some reserve
-as the basis of any general estimate, since we have not the means of
-comparing a great many such statements together. For the process of
-coinage was imperfectly performed, and the different pieces, both of
-gold and silver, in circulation, differed materially in weight one
-with the other. Herodotus gives the ratio of gold to silver as
-13&nbsp;:&nbsp;1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_431"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_431">[431]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 96.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_432"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_432">[432]</a></span> Herodot. v, 52-53; viii, 98.
-“It appears to be a favorite idea with all barbarous princes, that
-the badness of the roads adds considerably to the natural strength
-of their dominions. The Turks and Persians are undoubtedly of
-this opinion: the public highways are, therefore, neglected, and
-particularly so towards the frontiers.” (Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of Pers.
-p. 43.)</p>
-
-<p>The description of Herodotus contrasts favorably with the picture
-here given by Mr. Kinneir.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_433"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_433">[433]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 120.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_434"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_434">[434]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 39; Thucyd. i,
-13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_435"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_435">[435]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 40-42. ...
-ἤν δὲ μὴ ἐναλλὰξ ἤδη τὠπὸ τούτου αἱ εὐτυχίαι τοι τοιαύταισι
-πάθαισι προσπίπτωσι, τρόπῳ τῷ ἐξ ἐμεῦ ὑποκειμένῳ <span
-class="gesperrt">ἀκέο</span>: compare vii, 203, and i, 32.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_436"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_436">[436]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 44.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_437"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_437">[437]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 44.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_438"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_438">[438]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 46. τῷ θυλάκῳ
-περιείργασθαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_439"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_439">[439]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 47, 48, 52.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_440"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_440">[440]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 54-56.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_441"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_441">[441]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 57. νησιωτέων
-μάλιστα ἐπλούτεον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_442"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_442">[442]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 58, 59.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_443"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_443">[443]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 139. πολίων
-πασέων πρώτην Ἑλληνίδων καὶ βαρβάρων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_444"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_444">[444]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 60.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_445"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_445">[445]</a></span> Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 4. τῶν
-περὶ Σάμον ἔργα Πολυκράτεια· πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα δύναται ταὐτὸν, ἀσχολίαν
-καὶ πενίαν τῶν ἀρχομένων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_446"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_446">[446]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 14; iii, 104.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_447"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_447">[447]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 120.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_448"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_448">[448]</a></span> Compare the trick of Hannibal
-at Gortyn in Krete,—Cornelius Nepos (Hannibal, c. 9).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_449"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_449">[449]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 124, 125.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_450"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_450">[450]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 126. Ὀροίτεα
-Πολυκράτεος τίσιες μετῆλθον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_451"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_451">[451]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 142. τῷ
-δικαιοτάτῳ ἀνδρῶν βουλομένῳ γενέσθαι, οὐκ ἐξεγένετο. Compare his
-remark on Kadmus, who voluntarily resigned the despotism at Kôs (vii,
-164).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_452"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_452">[452]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 142. Ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽
-ἄξιος εἶ σύ γε ἡμέων ἄρχειν, γεγονώς τε κακὸς, καὶ ἐὼν ὄλεθρος· ἀλλὰ
-μᾶλλον ὅκως λόγον δώσεις τῶν ἐνεχείρισας χρημάτων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_453"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_453">[453]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 143. οὐ γὰρ δὴ,
-ὡς οἴκασι, ἐβουλέατο εἶναι ἐλεύθεροι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_454"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_454">[454]</a></span> Herodot. v, 78, and iii, 142,
-143.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_455"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_455">[455]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 139. Ὁ δὲ
-Συλοσῶν, ὁρέων τὸν Δαρεῖον μεγάλως ἐπιθυμέοντα τῆς χλάνιδος, θείῃ
-τύχῃ χρεώμενος, λέγει, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_456"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_456">[456]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 140. ἠπίστατό οἱ
-τοῦτο ἀπολωλέναι δι᾽ εὐηθίην.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_457"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_457">[457]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 141-144.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_458"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_458">[458]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 146. τῶν Περσέων
-τοὺς διφροφορευμένους καὶ λόγου πλείστου ἀξίους.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_459"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_459">[459]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 145. Ἐμὲ μὲν, ὦ
-κάκιστε ἀνδρῶν, ἐόντα σεωϋτοῦ ἀδελφεὸν, καὶ ἀδικήσαντα οὐδὲν ἄξιον
-δεσμοῦ, δήσας γοργύρης ἠξίωσας· ὁρέων δὲ τοὺς Πέρσας ἐκβάλλοντάς
-τέ σε καὶ ἄνοικον ποιεῦντας, οὐ τολμᾷς τίσασθαι, οὕτω δή τι ἐόντας
-εὐπετέας χειρωθῆναι.</p>
-
-<p>The highly dramatic manner of Herodotus cannot be melted down
-into smooth historical recital.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_460"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_460">[460]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 149. ἔρημον
-ἐοῦσαν ἀνδρῶν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_461"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_461">[461]</a></span> Herodot. v, 27.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_462"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_462">[462]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 148.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_463"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_463">[463]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 149.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_464"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_464">[464]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_465"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_465">[465]</a></span> Strabo, xiv, p. 638. He gives a
-proverbial phrase about the depopulation of the island—</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ἕκητι Συλοσῶντος εὐρυχορίη,</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">which is perfectly consistent with the narrative
-of Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_466"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_466">[466]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 88; vii, 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_467"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_467">[467]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 3. ἡ γὰρ Ἄτοσσα
-εἶχε τὸ πᾶν κράτος. Compare the description given of the ascendency
-of the savage Sultana Parysatis over her son Artaxerxês Mnêmon
-(Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 16, 19, 23).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_468"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_468">[468]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 131. ἀσκευής
-περ ἐὼν, καὶ ἔχων οὐδὲν τῶν ὅσα περὶ τὴν τέχνην ἔστιν ἐργαλήϊα,—the
-description refers to surgical rather than to medical practice.</p>
-
-<p>That curious assemblage of the cases of particular patients with
-remarks, known in the works of Hippokratês, under the title Ἐπιδήμιαι
-(Notes of visits to different cities), is very illustrative of what
-Herodotus here mentions about Dêmokêdês. Consult, also, the valuable
-Prolegomena of M. Littré, in his edition of Hippokratês now in course
-of publication, as to the character, means of action, and itinerant
-habits of the Grecian ἰατροί: see particularly the preface to vol.
-v, p. 12, where he enumerates the various places visited and noted
-by Hippokratês. The greater number of the Hippokratic observations
-refer to various parts of Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly; but there
-are some, also, which refer to patients in the islands of Syros and
-Delos, at Athens, Salamis, Elis, Corinth, and Œniadæ in Akarnania.
-“On voit par là combien étoit juste le nom de Periodeutes ou
-voyageurs donnés à ces anciens médecins.”</p>
-
-<p>Again, M. Littré, in the same preface, p. 25, illustrates the
-proceedings and residence of the ancient ἰατρός: “On se tromperoit
-si on se représentoit la demeure d’un médecin d’alors comme celle
-d’un médecin d’aujourd’hui. La maison du médecin de l’antiquité, du
-moins au temps d’Hippocrate et aux époques voisines, renfermoit un
-local destiné à la pratique d’un grand nombre d’opérations, contenant
-les machines et les instrumens nécessaires, et de plus étant aussi
-une boutique de pharmacie. Ce local se nommait ἰατρεῖον.” See Plato,
-Legg. i, p. 646, iv, p. 720. Timæus accused Aristotle of having begun
-as a surgeon, practising to great profit in surgery, or ἰατρεῖον, and
-having quitted this occupation late in life, to devote himself to
-the study of science,—σοφιστὴν ὀψιμαθῆ καὶ μισητὸν ὑπάρχοντα, καὶ τὸ
-πολυτίμητον ἰατρεῖον ἀρτίως ἀποκεκλεικότα (Polyb. xii, 9).</p>
-
-<p>See, also, the Remarques Retrospectives attached by M. Littré
-to volume iv, of the same work (pp. 654-658), where he dwells upon
-the intimate union of surgical and medical practice in antiquity. At
-the same time, it must be remarked that a passage in the remarkable
-medical oath, published in the collection of Hippokratic treatises,
-recognizes in the plainest manner the distinction between the
-physician and the operator,—the former binds himself by this oath
-not to perform the operation “even of lithotomy, but to leave it to
-the operators, or workmen:” Οὐ τεμέω δὲ οὐδὲ μὴν λιθιῶντας, ἐκχωρήσω
-δὲ ἐργάστῃσιν ἀνδράσι πρήξιος τῆσδε (Œuvres d’Hippocrate, vol. iv,
-p. 630, ed. Littré). M. Littré (p. 617) contests this explanation,
-remarking that the various Hippokratic treatises represent the ἰατρός
-as performing all sorts of operations, even such as require violent
-and mechanical dealing. But the words of the oath are so explicit,
-that it seems more reasonable to assign to the oath itself a later
-date than the treatises, when the habits of practitioners may have
-changed.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_469"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_469">[469]</a></span> About the Persian habit of
-sending to Egypt for surgeons, compare Herodot. iii, 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_470"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_470">[470]</a></span> Herodot iii, 129. τὸν δὲ ὡς
-ἐξεῦρον ἐν τοῖσι Ὀροίτεω ἀνδραπόδοισι ὅκου δὴ ἀπημελημένον, παρῆγον
-ἐς μέσον, πέδας τε ἕλκοντα καὶ ῥάκεσιν ἐσθημένον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_471"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_471">[471]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 130. The golden
-stater was equal to about 1<i>l.</i> 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> English money (Hussey,
-Ancient Weights, vii, 3, p. 103).</p>
-
-<p>The ladies in a Persian harem appear to have been less
-unapproachable and invisible than those in modern Turkey; in spite of
-the observation of Plutarch, Artaxerxês, c. 27.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_472"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_472">[472]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 133. δεήσεσθαι δὲ
-οὐδενὸς τῶν ὅσα αἰσχύνην ἐστὶ φέροντα. Another Greek physician at the
-court of Susa, about seventy years afterwards,—Apollonidês of Kôs,—in
-attendance on a Persian princess, did not impose upon himself the
-same restraint: his intrigue was divulged, and he was put to death
-miserably (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 42).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_473"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_473">[473]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 134.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_474"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_474">[474]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 136. προσίσχοντες
-δὲ αὐτῆς τὰ παραθαλάσσια ἐθήσαντο καὶ ἀπεγράφοντο.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_475"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_475">[475]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 137, 138.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_476"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_476">[476]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 137. κατὰ δὴ
-τοῦτό μοι σπεῦσαι δοκέει τὸν γάμον τοῦτον τελέσας χρήματα μεγάλα
-Δημοκήδης, ἵνα φανῇ πρὸς Δαρείου ἐὼν καὶ ἐν τῇ ἑωϋτοῦ δόκιμος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_477"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_477">[477]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 138.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_478"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_478">[478]</a></span> Xenophon, Memorab. iv, 2, 33.
-Ἄλλους δὲ πόσους οἴει (says Sokratês) διὰ σοφίαν ἀναρπάστους πρὸς
-βασιλέα γεγονέναι, καὶ ἐκεῖ δουλεύειν;</p>
-
-<p>We shall run little risk in conjecturing that, among the
-intelligent and able men thus carried off, surgeons and physicians
-would be selected as the first and most essential.</p>
-
-<p>Apollônidês of Kôs—whose calamitous end has been alluded to
-in a previous note—was resident as surgeon, or physician, with
-Artaxerxês Longimanus (Ktêsias, Persica, c. 30), and Polykritus of
-Mendê, as well as Ktêsias himself, with Artaxerxês Mnêmon (Plutarch,
-Artaxerxês, c. 31).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_479"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_479">[479]</a></span> Æschyl. Pers. 435-845, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_480"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_480">[480]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 1, 83. There is
-nothing to mark the precise year of the Scythian expedition; but as
-the accession of Darius is fixed to 521 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and
-as the expedition is connected with the early part of his reign, we
-may conceive him to have entered upon it as soon as his hands were
-free; that is, as soon as he had put down the revolted satraps and
-provinces, Orœtês, the Medes, Babylonians, etc. Five years seems a
-reasonable time to allow for these necessities of the empire, which
-would bring the Scythian expedition to 516-515 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-There is reason for supposing it to have been before 514 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, for in that year Hipparchus was slain at Athens, and
-Hippias the surviving brother, looking out for securities and
-alliances abroad, gave his daughter in marriage to Æantidês son
-of Hippoklus, despot of Lampsakus, “perceiving that Hippoklus and
-his son had great influence with Darius,” (Thucyd. vi, 59.) Now
-Hippoklus could not well have acquired this influence <i>before</i> the
-Scythian expedition; for Darius came down then for the first time
-to the western sea; Hippoklus served upon that expedition (Herodot.
-iv, 138), and it was probably then that his favor was acquired, and
-farther confirmed during the time that Darius stayed at Sardis after
-his return from Scythia.</p>
-
-<p>Professor Schultz (Beiträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen der
-Hellen. Geschicht. von der 63<sup>n</sup> bis zur 72<sup>n</sup>
-Olympiade, p. 168, in the Kieler Philolog. Studien) places the
-expedition in 513 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; but I think a year or two
-earlier is more probable. Larcher, Wesseling, and Bähr (ad Herodot.
-iv, 145) place it in 508 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, which is later
-than the truth; indeed, Larcher himself places the reduction of
-Lemnos and Imbros by Otanês in 511 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, though
-that event decidedly came after the Scythian expedition (Herodot.
-v, 27; Larcher, Table Chronologique, Trad. d’Hérodot. t. vii, pp.
-633-635).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_481"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_481">[481]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 84.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_482"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_482">[482]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 39.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_483"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_483">[483]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 97, 137, 138.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_484"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_484">[484]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 89-93.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_485"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_485">[485]</a></span> Herod. iv, 48-50.
-Ἴστρος—μέγιστος ποταμῶν πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_486"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_486">[486]</a></span> Ktêsias, Persica. c. 17. Justin
-(ii, 5—compare also xxxviii, 7) seems to follow the narrative of
-Ktêsias.</p>
-
-<p>Æschylus (Persæ. 864), who presents the deceased Darius as a
-glorious contrast with the living Xerxês, talks of the splendid
-conquests which he made by means of others,—“without crossing the
-Halys himself, nor leaving his home.” We are led to suppose, by
-the language which Æschylus puts into the mouth of the Eidôlon of
-Darius (v, 720-745), that he had forgotten, or had never heard of,
-the bridge thrown across the Bosphorus by order of Darius; for the
-latter is made to condemn severely the impious insolence of Xerxês in
-bridging over the Hellespont.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_487"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_487">[487]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 136. ἅτε δὲ τοῦ
-Περσικοῦ πολλοῦ ἐόντος πεζοῦ στρατοῦ, καὶ τὰς ὁδοὺς οὐκ ἐπισταμένου,
-ὥστε οὐ τετμημένων τῶν ὁδῶν, τοῦ δὲ Σκυθικοῦ, ἱππότεω, καὶ τὰ σύντομα
-τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐπισταμένου, etc. Compare c. 128.</p>
-
-<p>The number and size of the rivers are mentioned by Herodotus as
-the principal wonder of Scythia, c. 82—Θωϋμάσια δὲ ἡ χώρη αὐτὴ οὐκ
-ἔχει, χωρὶς ἢ ὅτι ποτάμους τε πολλῷ μεγίστους καὶ ἀριθμὸν πλείστους,
-etc. He ranks the Borysthenês as the largest of all rivers except the
-Nile and the Danube (c. 53). The Hypanis also (Bog) is ποταμὸς ἐν
-ὀλίγοισι μέγας (c. 52).</p>
-
-<p>But he appears to forget the existence of these rivers when he is
-describing the Persian march.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_488"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_488">[488]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 101.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_489"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_489">[489]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 118, 119.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_490"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_490">[490]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 120-122.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_491"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_491">[491]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 123. Ὅσον μὲν δὴ
-χρόνον οἱ Πέρσαι ἤϊσαν διὰ τῆς Σκυθικῆς καὶ τῆς Σαυρομάτιδος χώρης,
-οἳ δὲ εἶχον οὐδὲν σίνεσθαι, ἅτε τῆς χώρης ἐούσης χέρσου· ἐπεὶ δὲ
-τε ἐς τὴν τῶν Βουδίνων χώρην ἐσέβαλον, etc. See Rennell, Geograph.
-System of Herodotus, p. 114, about the Oarus.</p>
-
-<p>The erections, whatever they were, which were supposed to mark
-the extreme point of the march of Darius, may be compared to those
-evidences of the extreme advance of Dionysus, which the Macedonian
-army saw on the north of the Jaxartês—“Liberi patris terminos.”
-Quintus Curtius, vii, 9, 15, (vii, 37, 16, Zumpt.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_492"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_492">[492]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 125. Hekatæus
-ranks the Melanchlæni as a Scythian ἔθνος (Hekat. Fragment. 154, ed.
-Klausen): he also mentions several other subdivisions of Scythians,
-who cannot be farther authenticated (Fragm. 155-160).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_493"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_493">[493]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 126, 127.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_494"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_494">[494]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 128-132. The bird,
-the mouse, the frog, and the arrows, are explained to mean: Unless
-you take to the air like a bird, to the earth like a mouse, or to
-the water like a frog, you will become the victim of the Scythian
-arrows.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_495"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_495">[495]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 133.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_496"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_496">[496]</a></span> Herodot. iv. 46. Τῷ δὲ Σκυθικῷ
-γένεϊ ἓν μὲν τὸ μέγιστον τῶν ἀνθρωπηΐων πρηγμάτων σοφώτατα πάντων
-ἐξεύρηται, τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν· τὰ μέντοι ἄλλα οὐκ ἄγαμαι. Τὸ δὲ μέγιστον
-οὕτω σφι ἀνεύρηται, ὥστε ἀποφυγέειν τε μηδένα ἐπελθόντα ἐπὶ σφέας, μὴ
-βουλομένους τε ἐξευρεθῆναι, καταλαβεῖν μὴ οἷον τε εἶναι. Τοῖσι γὰρ
-μήτε ἄστεα μήτε τείχεα ᾖ ἐκτισμένα, ἀλλὰ φερέοικοι ἐόντες πάντες,
-ἔωσι ἱπποτοξόται, ζῶντες μὴ ἀπ᾽ ἀρότου, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπὸ κτηνέων, οἰκήματα
-δέ σφι ᾖ ἐπὶ ζευγέων, κῶς οὐκ ἂν εἴησαν οὗτοι ἄμαχοί τε καὶ ἄποροι
-προσμίσγειν;</p>
-
-<p>Ἐξεύρηται δέ σφι ταῦτα, τῆς τε γῆς ἐούσης ἐπιτηδέης, καὶ τῶν
-ποταμῶν ἐόντων σφι συμμάχων, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Compare this with the oration of the Scythian envoys to Alexander
-the Great, as it stands in Quintus Curtius, vii, 8, 22 (vii, 35, 22,
-Zumpt).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_497"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_497">[497]</a></span> The statement of Strabo (vii,
-p. 305), which restricts the march of Darius to the country between
-the Danube and the Tyras (Dniester) is justly pronounced by Niebuhr
-(Kleine Schriften, p. 372) to be a mere supposition suggested by
-the probabilities of the case, because it could not be understood
-how his large army should cross even the Dniester: it is not to be
-treated as an affirmation resting upon any authority. “As Herodotus
-tells us what is impossible (adds Niebuhr), we know nothing at all
-historically respecting the expedition.”</p>
-
-<p>So again the conjecture of Palmerius (Exercitationes ad Auctores
-Græcos, p. 21) carries on the march somewhat farther than the
-Dniester,—to the Hypanis, or <i>perhaps</i> to the Borysthenês. Rennell,
-Klaproth, and Reichard, are not afraid to extend the march on to the
-Wolga. Dr. Thirlwall stops within the Tanais, admitting, however,
-that no correct historical account can be given of it. Eichwald
-supposes a long march up the Dniester into Volhynia and Lithuania.
-</p>
-
-<p>Compare Ukert, Skythien, p. 26; Dahlmann, Historische
-Forschungen, ii, pp. 159-164; Schaffarik, Slavische Alterthümer, i,
-10, 3, i, 13, 4-5; and Mr. Kenrick, Remarks on the Life and Writings
-of Herodotus, prefixed to his Notes on the Second Book of Herodotus,
-p. xxi. The latter is among those who cannot swim the Dniester:
-he says: “Probably the Dniester (Tyras) was the real limit of the
-expedition, and Bessarabia, Moldavia, and the Bukovina, the scene of
-it.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_498"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_498">[498]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 97. Δαρεῖος
-ἐκέλευσε τοὺς Ἴωνας τὴν σχεδίην λύσαντας ἕπεσθαι κατ᾽ ἤπειρον ἑωϋτῷ,
-καὶ τὸν ἐκ τῶν νέων στρατόν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_499"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_499">[499]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 98. ἢν δὲ ἐν
-τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ μὴ παρέω, ἀλλὰ διέλθωσι ὑμῖν αἱ ἡμέραι τῶν ἁμμάτων,
-ἀποπλέετε ἐς τὴν ὑμετέρην αὐτέων· μέχρι δὲ τούτου, ἐπεί τε οὕτω
-μετέδοξε, φυλάσσετε τὴν σχεδίην.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_500"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_500">[500]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 84. Compare his
-account of the marches of the Cimmerians and of the Scythians into
-Asia Minor and Media respectively (Herodot. i, 103, 104, iv, 12).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_501"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_501">[501]</a></span> Arrian, Exp. Al. iii, 6, 15;
-Plutarch, Alexand. c. 45; Quint. Curt. vii, 7, 4, vii, 8, 30 (vii,
-29, 5, vii, 36, 7, Zumpt).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_502"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_502">[502]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 133, 136, 137.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_503"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_503">[503]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 137-139.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_504"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_504">[504]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 140, 141.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_505"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_505">[505]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 143, 144, v, 1,
-2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_506"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_506">[506]</a></span> Herodot. v, 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_507"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_507">[507]</a></span> Herodot. v, 11.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_508"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_508">[508]</a></span> Herodot. v, 23.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_509"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_509">[509]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 40-84. That
-Miltiadês could have remained in the Chersonese undisturbed, during
-the interval between the Scythian expedition of Darius and the Ionic
-revolt,—when the Persians were complete masters of those regions,
-and when Otanês was punishing other towns in the neighborhood for
-evasion of service under Darius, after he had declared so pointedly
-against the Persians on a matter of life and death to the king and
-army,—appears to me, as it does to Dr. Thirlwall (History of Gr. vol.
-ii, App. ii, p. 486, ch. xiv, pp. 226-249), eminently improbable. So
-forcibly does Dr. Thirlwall feel the difficulty, that he suspects the
-reported conduct and exhortations of Miltiadês at the bridge over the
-Danube to have been a falsehood, fabricated by Miltiadês himself,
-twenty years afterwards, for the purpose of acquiring popularity at
-Athens during the time immediately preceding the battle of Marathon.
-</p>
-
-<p>I cannot think this hypothesis admissible. It directly
-contradicts Herodotus on a matter of fact very conspicuous, and
-upon which good means of information seem to have been within his
-reach. I have already observed that the historian Hekatæus must have
-possessed personal knowledge of all the relations between the Ionians
-and Darius, and that he very probably may have been even present at
-the bridge: all the information given by Hekatæus upon these points
-would be open to the inquiries of Herodotus. The unbounded gratitude
-of Darius towards Histiæus shows that some one or more of the Ionic
-despots present at the bridge must have powerfully enforced the
-expediency of breaking it down. That the name of the despot who
-stood forward as prime mover of this resolution should have been
-forgotten and not mentioned at the time, is highly improbable; yet
-such must have been the case if a fabrication by Miltiadês twenty
-years afterwards could successfully fill up the blank with his own
-name. The two most prominent matters talked of, after the retreat
-of Darius, in reference to the bridge, would probably be the name
-of the leader who urged its destruction, and the name of Histiæus,
-who preserved it. Indeed, the mere fact of the mischievous influence
-exercised by the latter afterwards would be pretty sure to keep these
-points of the case in full view.</p>
-
-<p>There are means of escaping from the difficulty of the case,
-I think, without contradicting Herodotus on any matter of fact
-important and conspicuous, or indeed on any matter of fact whatever.
-We see by vi, 40, that Miltiadês <i>did quit the Chersonese</i> between
-the close of the Scythian expedition of Darius and the Ionic revolt;
-Herodotus, indeed, tells us that he quitted it in consequence of an
-incursion of the Scythians: but without denying the fact of such
-an incursion, we may reasonably suppose the historian to have been
-mistaken in assigning it as the cause of the flight of Miltiadês.
-The latter was prevented from living in the Chersonese continuously,
-during the interval between the Persian invasion of Scythia and the
-Ionic revolt, by fear of Persian enmity. It is not necessary for us
-to believe that he was never there at all, but his residence there
-must have been interrupted and insecure. The chronological data in
-Herodot. vi, 40, are exceedingly obscure and perplexing; but it seems
-to me that the supposition which I suggest introduces a plausible
-coherence into the series of historical facts, with the slightest
-possible contradiction to our capital witness.</p>
-
-<p>The only achievement of Miltiadês, between the affair on the
-Danube and his return to Athens shortly before the battle of
-Marathon, is the conquest of Lemnos; and <i>that</i> must have taken
-place evidently while the Persians were occupied by the Ionic
-revolt, (between 502-494 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>) There is nothing in
-his recorded deeds inconsistent with the belief, therefore, that
-between 515-502 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> he may not have resided in
-the Chersonese at all, or at least not for very long together: and
-the statement of Cornelius Nepos, that he quitted it immediately
-after the return from Scythia, from fear of the Persians, may be
-substantially true. Dr. Thirlwall observes (p. 487)—“As little would
-it appear that when the Scythians invaded the Chersonese, Miltiadês
-was conscious of having endeavored to render them an important
-service. He flies before them, though he had been so secure while the
-Persian arms were in his neighborhood.” He has here put his finger
-on what I believe to be the error of Herodotus,—the supposition that
-Miltiadês fled from the Chersonese to avoid the Scythians, whereas he
-really left it to avoid the Persians.</p>
-
-<p>The story of Strabo (xiii, p. 591), that Darius caused the Greek
-cities on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont to be burnt down,
-in order to hinder them from affording means of transport to the
-Scythians into Asia, seems to me highly improbable. These towns
-appear in their ordinary condition, Abydus among them, at the time of
-the Ionic revolt a few years afterwards (Herodot. v, 117).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_510"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_510">[510]</a></span> Herodot. v, 13-16. Nikolaus
-Damaskênus (Fragm. p. 36, ed. Orell.) tells a similar story about
-the means by which a Mysian woman attracted the notice of the Lydian
-king Alyattês. Such repetition of a striking story, in reference to
-different people and times, has many parallels in ancient history.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_511"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_511">[511]</a></span> Herodot. v, 20, 21.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_512"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_512">[512]</a></span> Herodot. v, 23, 24.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_513"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_513">[513]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 138. Æschyl.
-Choêphor. 632; Stephan. Byz. v. Λῆμνος.</p>
-
-<p>The mystic rites in honor of the Kabeiri at Lemnos and Imbros
-are particularly noticed by Pherekydês (ap. Strabo, x, p. 472):
-compare Photius, v. Κάβειροι, and the remarkable description of the
-periodical Lemnian solemnity in Philostratus (Heroi. p. 740).</p>
-
-<p>The volcanic mountain Mosychlus, in the north-eastern portion
-of the island, was still burning in the fourth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> (Antimach. Fragment. xviii, p. 103, Düntzer Epicc. Græc.
-Fragm.)</p>
-
-<p>Welcker’s Dissertation (Die Æschylische Trilogie, p. 248,
-<i>seqq.</i>) enlarges much upon the Lemnian and Samothracian worship.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_514"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_514">[514]</a></span> Herodot. v, 26, 27. The
-twenty-seventh chapter is extremely perplexing. As the text reads
-at present, we ought to make Lykarêtus the subject of certain
-predications which yet seem properly referable to Otanês. We must
-consider the words from Οἱ μὲν δὴ Λήμνιοι—down to τελευτᾷ—as
-parenthetical, which is awkward; but it seems the least difficulty in
-the case, and the commentators are driven to adopt it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_515"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_515">[515]</a></span> Zenob. Proverb. iii, 85.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_516"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_516">[516]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 140. Charax ap.
-Stephan. Byz. v. Ἡφαιστíα.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_517"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_517">[517]</a></span> Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 31.
-Compare Plato, Menexenus, c. 17, p. 245, where the words ἡμετέραι
-ἀποίκιαι doubtless mean Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_518"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_518">[518]</a></span> Thucyd. iv, 23, v, 8, vii, 57;
-Phylarchus ap. Athenæum, vi, p. 255; Dêmosthen. Philippic. 1, c. 12,
-p. 17, R.: compare the Inscription, No. 1686, in the collection of
-Boeckh, with his remarks, p. 297.</p>
-
-<p>About the stratagems resorted to before the Athenian dikastery,
-to procure delay by pretended absence in Lemnos or Skyros, see Isæus,
-Or. vi, p. 58 (p. 80, Bek.); Pollux, viii, 7, 81; Hesych. v. Ἴμβριος;
-Suidas, v. Λημνία δίκη: compare also Carl Rhode, Res Lemnicæ, p. 50
-(Wratislaw 1829).</p>
-
-<p>It seems as if εἰς Λῆμνον πλεῖν had come to be a proverbial
-expression at Athens for getting out of the way,—evading the
-performance of duty: this seems to be the sense of Dêmosthenês,
-Philipp. i, c. 9, p. 14. ἀλλ᾽ εἰς μὲν Λῆμνον τὸν παρ᾽ ὑμῶν ἵππαρχον
-δεῖ πλεῖν, τῶν δ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῶν τῆς πόλεως κτημάτων ἀγωνιζομένων Μενέλαον
-ἱππαρχεῖν.</p>
-
-<p>From the passage of Isæus above alluded to, which Rhode seems
-to me to construe incorrectly, it appears that there was a legal
-<i>connubium</i> between Athenian citizens and Lemnian women.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_519"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_519">[519]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 136.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_520"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_520">[520]</a></span> Herodot. v, 28. Μετὰ δὲ οὐ
-πολλὸν χρόνον, ἄνεως κακῶν ἦν—or ἄνεσις κακῶν—if the conjecture of
-some critics be adopted. Mr. Clinton, with Larcher and others (see
-Fasti Hellen. App. 18, p. 314), construe this passage as if the comma
-were to be placed after μετὰ δὲ, so that the historian would be made
-to affirm that the period of repose lasted only a short time. It
-appears to me that the comma ought rather to be placed after χρόνον,
-and that the “short time” refers to those evils which the historian
-had been describing before. There must have been an interval of eight
-years at least, if not of ten years, between the events which the
-historian had been describing—the evils inflicted by the attacks of
-Otanês—and the breaking out of the Ionic revolt; which latter event
-no one places earlier than 504 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, though some
-prefer 502 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, others even 500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-</p>
-
-<p>If, indeed, we admitted with Wesseling (ad Herodot. vi, 40; and
-Mr. Clinton seems inclined towards the same opinion, see p. 314,
-<i>ut sup.</i>) that the Scythian expedition is to be placed in 508-507
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, then indeed the interval between the campaign
-of Otanês and the Ionic revolt would be contracted into one or two
-years. But I have already observed that I cannot think 508 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> a correct date for the Scythian expedition: it seems to me
-to belong to about 515 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Nor do I know what reason
-there is for determining the date as Wesseling does, except this very
-phrase οὐ πολλὸν χρόνον, which is on every supposition exceedingly
-vague, and which he appears to me not to have construed in the best
-way.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_521"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_521">[521]</a></span> Herodot. v, 96. Ὁ δὲ Ἀρταφέρνης
-ἐκέλευέ σφεας εἰ βουλοίατο σόοι εἶναι, καταδέκεσθαι ὀπίσω τὸν
-Ἱππίην.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_522"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_522">[522]</a></span> Herodot. v, 31. Plutarch
-says that Lygdamis, established as despot at Naxos by Peisistratus
-(Herodot. i, 64), was expelled from this post by the Lacedæmonians
-(De Herodot. Malignitat. c. 21, p. 859). I confess that I do not
-place much confidence in the statements of that treatise, as to the
-many despots expelled by Sparta: we neither know the source from
-whence Plutarch borrowed them, nor any of the circumstances connected
-with them.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_523"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_523">[523]</a></span> Herodot. v, 30, 31.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_524"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_524">[524]</a></span> Herodot. v, 34, 35.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_525"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_525">[525]</a></span> Herodot. v, 35: compare Polyæn.
-i, 24, and Aulus Gellius, N. A. xvii, 9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_526"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_526">[526]</a></span> Herodot. v, 36.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_527"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_527">[527]</a></span> Compare Herodotus, v, 121,
-and vii, 98. Oliatus was son of Ibanôlis, as was also the Mylasian
-Herakleidês mentioned in v, 121.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_528"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_528">[528]</a></span> Herodot. v, 36, 37; vi, 9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_529"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_529">[529]</a></span> Herodot. v, 49. Τῷ δὴ
-(Κλεομένεϊ) ἐς λόγους ἤϊε, <span class="gesperrt">ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιοι
-λέγουσι</span>, ἔχων χάλκεον πίνακα, ἐν τῷ γῆς ἁπάσης περίοδος
-ἐνετέτμητο, καὶ θάλασσά τε πᾶσα καὶ ποταμοὶ πάντες.</p>
-
-<p>The earliest map of which mention is made was prepared by
-Anaximander in Ionia, apparently not long before this period: see
-Strabo, i, p. 7; Agathemerus, 1, c. 1; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 1.</p>
-
-<p>Grosskurd, in his note on the above passage of Strabo, as well as
-Larcher and other critics, appear to think, that though this tablet
-or chart of Anaximander was the earliest which embraced the whole
-known earth, there were among the Greeks others still earlier, which
-described particular countries. There is no proof of this, nor can I
-think it probable: the passage of Apollonius Rhodius (iv, 279) with
-the Scholia to it, which is cited as evidence, appears to me unworthy
-of attention.</p>
-
-<p>Among the Roman Agrimensores, it was the ancient practice to
-engrave their plans, of land surveyed, upon tablets of brass, which
-were deposited in the public archives, and of which copies were made
-for private use, though the original was referred to in case of legal
-dispute (Siculus Flaccus ap. Rei Agrariæ Scriptores, p. 16, ed. Goes:
-compare Giraud, Recherches sur le Droit de Propriété, p. 116, Aix,
-1838).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_530"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_530">[530]</a></span> Herodot. v, 49. δεικνὺς δὲ
-ταῦτα ἔλεγε ἐς τὴν τῆς γῆς περίοδον, τὴν ἐφέρετο ἐν τῷ πίνακι
-ἐντετμημένην.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_531"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_531">[531]</a></span> Herodot. v, 49. πάρεχον δὲ τῆς
-Ἀσίης πάσης ἄρχειν εὐπετέως, ἄλλο τι αἱρήσεσθε;</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_532"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_532">[532]</a></span> Herodot. v, 49, 50, 51. Compare
-Plutarch, Apophthegm. Laconic. p. 240.</p>
-
-<p>We may remark, both in this instance and throughout all the
-life and time of Kleomenês, that the Spartan king has the active
-management and direction of foreign affairs,—subject, however, to
-trial and punishment by the ephors in case of misbehavior (Herodot.
-vi, 82). We shall hereafter find the ephors gradually taking into
-their own hands, more and more, the actual management.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_533"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_533">[533]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοί τε
-ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέοντες, καὶ ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους·
-τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_534"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_534">[534]</a></span> Aristagoras says to the
-Spartans (v, 49)—τὰ κατήκοντα γάρ ἐστι ταῦτα· Ἰώνων παῖδας δούλους
-εἶναι ἀντ᾽ ἐλευθέρων, ὄνειδος καὶ ἄλγος μέγιστον μὲν αὐτοῖσι ἡμῖν,
-ἔτι δὲ τῶν λοιπῶν ὑμῖν, ὅσῳ προεστέατε τῆς Ἑλλάδος (Herodotus, v,
-49). In reference to the earlier incident (Herodot. i, 70)—Τουτέων τε
-ὦν εἵνεκεν οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι τὴν συμμαχίην ἐδέξαντο, καὶ ὅτι ἐκ πάντων
-σφέας προκρίνας Ἑλλήνων, αἱρέετο φίλους (Crœsus).</p>
-
-<p>An interval of rather more than forty years separates the two
-events, during which both the feelings of the Spartans, and the
-feelings of others towards them, had undergone a material change.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_535"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_535">[535]</a></span> Herodot. v, 97. πολλοὺς γὰρ
-οἶκε εἶναι εὐπετέστερον διαβάλλειν ἢ ἕνα, εἰ Κλεομένεα μὲν τὸν
-Λακεδαιμόνιον μοῦνον οὐκ οἷός τε ἐγένετο διαβαλέειν, τρεῖς δὲ
-μυριάδας Ἀθηναίων ἐποίησε τοῦτο.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_536"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_536">[536]</a></span> Herodot. v, 98; Homer, Iliad,
-v, 62. The criticism of Plutarch (De Malignitat. Herodot. p. 861) on
-this passage, is rather more pertinent than the criticisms in that
-ill-tempered composition generally are.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_537"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_537">[537]</a></span> About Korêssus, see Diodor.
-xiv, 99, and Xenophon, Hellen. i, 2, 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_538"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_538">[538]</a></span> Charôn of Lampsakus, and
-Lysanias in his history of Eretria, seem to have mentioned this first
-siege of Milêtus, and the fact of its being raised in consequence
-of the expedition to Sardis; see Plutarch, de Herodot. Malignit. p.
-861,—though the citation is given there confusedly, so that we cannot
-make much out of it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_539"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_539">[539]</a></span> Herodot. v, 102, 103. It is a
-curious fact that Charôn of Lampsakus made no mention of this defeat
-of the united Athenian and Ionian force: see Plutarch, de Herodot.
-Malign. <i>ut sup.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_540"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_540">[540]</a></span> About Derkyllidas, see
-Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 2, 17-19.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_541"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_541">[541]</a></span> Herodot. v, 103, 104, 108.
-Compare the proceedings in Cyprus against Artaxerxês Mnêmon, under
-the energetic Evagoras of Salamis (Diodor. xiv, 98, xv, 2), about 386
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: most of the petty princes of the island became
-for the time his subjects, but in 351 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> there were
-nine of them independent (Diodor. xvi, 42), and seemingly quite as
-many at the time when Alexander besieged Tyre (Arrian, ii, 20, 8).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_542"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_542">[542]</a></span> Herodot. v, 116. Κύπριοι μὲν
-δὴ, ἐνιαυτὸν ἐλεύθεροι γενόμενοι, αὖτις ἐκ νέης κατεδεδούλωντο.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_543"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_543">[543]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 6. Κίλικες καὶ
-Αἰγύπτιοι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_544"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_544">[544]</a></span> Herodot. v, 109. Ἡμέας δὲ
-ἀπέπεμψε <span class="gesperrt">τὸ κοινὸν τῶν Ἰώνων</span> φυλάξοντας
-τὴν θάλασσαν, etc.: compare vi, 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_545"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_545">[545]</a></span> Herodot. v, 112.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_546"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_546">[546]</a></span> Herodot. v, 112-115. It is
-not uninteresting to compare, with this reconquest of Cyprus by the
-Persians, the conquest of the same island by the Turks in 1570,
-when they expelled from it the Venetians. See the narrative of
-that conquest (effected in the reign of Selim the Second by the
-Seraskier Mustapha-Pasha), in Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen
-Reichs, book xxxvi, vol. iii, pp. 578-589. Of the two principal
-towns, Nikosia in the centre of the island, and Famagusta on the
-north-eastern coast, the first, after a long siege, was taken by
-storm, and the inhabitants of every sex and age either put to death
-or carried into slavery; while the second, after a most gallant
-defence, was allowed to capitulate. But the terms of the capitulation
-were violated in the most flagitious manner by the Seraskier, who
-treated the brave Venetian governor, Bragadino, with frightful
-cruelty, cutting off his nose and ears, exposing him to all sorts of
-insults, and ultimately causing him to be flayed alive. The skin of
-this unfortunate general was conveyed to Constantinople as a trophy,
-but in after-times found its way to Venice.</p>
-
-<p>We read of nothing like this treatment of Bragadino in the
-Persian reconquest of Cyprus, though it was a subjugation after
-revolt; indeed, nothing like it in all Persian warfare.</p>
-
-<p>Von Hammer gives a short sketch (not always very accurate as
-to ancient times) of the condition of Cyprus under its successive
-masters,—Persians, Græco-Egyptians, Romans, Arabians, the dynasty of
-Lusignan, Venetians, and Turks,—the last seems decidedly the worst of
-all.</p>
-
-<p>In reference to the above-mentioned piece of cruelty, I may
-mention that the Persian king Kambysês caused one of the royal judges
-(according to Herodotus v, 25), who had taken a bribe to render an
-iniquitous judgment, to be flayed alive, and his skin to be stretched
-upon the seat on which his son was placed to succeed him; as a lesson
-of justice to the latter. A similar story is told respecting the
-Persian king Artaxerxês Mnêmon; and what is still more remarkable,
-the same story is also recounted in the Turkish history, as an act of
-Mohammed the Second (Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannisch. Reichs,
-book xvii, vol. ii, p. 209; Diodorus, xv, 10). Ammianus Marcellinus
-(xxiii, 6) had good reason to treat the reality of the fact as
-problematical.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_547"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_547">[547]</a></span> Herodot. v, 117.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_548"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_548">[548]</a></span> Herodot. v, 122-124.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_549"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_549">[549]</a></span> Herodot. v, 118. On the
-topography of this spot, as described in Herodotus, see a good
-note in Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der alt.
-Griechischen Geschichte, p. 116, Jena, 1844.</p>
-
-<p>He thinks, with much reason, that the river Marsyas here
-mentioned cannot be that which flows through Kelænæ, but another of
-the same name which flows into the Mæander from the southwest.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_550"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_550">[550]</a></span> About the village of Labranda
-and the temple of Zeus Stratius, see Strabo, xiv, p. 659. Labranda
-was a village in the territory of, and seven miles distant from, the
-inland town of Mylasa; it was Karian at the time of the Ionic revolt,
-but partially Hellenized before the year 350 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>
-About this latter epoch, three rural tribes of Mylasa—constituting
-along with the citizens of the town, the Mylasene community—were,
-Ταρκόνδαρα, Ὀτώρκονδα, Λάβρανδα,—see the Inscription in Boeckh’s
-Collection, No. 2695, and in Franz, Epigraphicê Græca, No. 73, p.
-191. In the Lydian language, λάβρυς is said to have signified a
-hatchet (Plutarch, Quæst. Gr. c. 45, p. 314).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_551"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_551">[551]</a></span> Herodot. v, 118, 119.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_552"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_552">[552]</a></span> Herodot. v, 120, 121; vi,
-25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_553"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_553">[553]</a></span> Herodot. v, 125; Strabo, xiv,
-p. 635.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_554"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_554">[554]</a></span> Herodot. v, 126.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_555"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_555">[555]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 5. Οἱ δὲ Μιλήσιοι,
-ἄσμενοι ἀπαλλαχθέντες καὶ Ἀρισταγόρεῳ, οὐδαμῶς ἕτοιμοι ἔσαν ἄλλον
-τύραννον δέκεσθαι ἐς τὴν χώρην, οἷά τε ἐλευθερίης γευσάμενοι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_556"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_556">[556]</a></span> Herodot. v, 105. Ὦ Ζεῦ,
-ἐκγενέσθαί μοι Ἀθηναίους τίσασθαι. Compare the Thracian practice of
-communicating with the gods by shooting arrows high up into the air
-(Herodot. iv, 94).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_557"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_557">[557]</a></span> Herodot. v, 107, vi, 2. Compare
-the advice of Bias of Priênê to the Ionians, when the Persian
-conqueror Cyrus was approaching, to found a Pan-Ionic colony in
-Sardinia (Herodot. i, 170): the idea started by Aristagoras has been
-alluded to just above (Herodot. v, 124).</p>
-
-<p>Pausanias (iv, 23, 2) puts into the mouth of Mantiklus, son of
-Aristomenês, a recommendation to the Messenians, when conquered a
-second time by the Spartans, to migrate to Sardinia.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_558"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_558">[558]</a></span> Herodot. v, 106, 107.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_559"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_559">[559]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 1. Οὕτω τοι,
-Ἱστίαιε, ἔχει κατὰ ταῦτα τὰ πρήγματα· τοῦτο τὸ ὑπόδημα ἔῤῥαψας μὲν
-σὺ, ὑπεδήσατο δὲ Ἀρισταγόρης.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_560"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_560">[560]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 2-5.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_561"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_561">[561]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 5-26.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_562"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_562">[562]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 6-9.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_563"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_563">[563]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 8.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_564"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_564">[564]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 9-10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_565"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_565">[565]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 11. Ἐπὶ ξυροῦ γὰρ
-ἀκμῆς ἔχεται ἡμῖν τὰ πρήγματα, ἄνδρες Ἴωνες, ἢ εἶναι ἐλευθέροισι ἢ
-δούλοισι, καὶ τούτοισι ὡς δρηπέτῃσι· νῦν ὦν ὑμέες, ἢν μὲν βούλησθε
-ταλαιπωρίας ἐνδέκεσθαι, τὸ παραχρῆμα μὲν πόνος ὑμῖν ἔσται, οἷοί τε δὲ
-ἔσεσθε, ὑπερβαλλόμενοι τοὺς ἐναντίους, εἶναι ἐλεύθεροι, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_566"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_566">[566]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 12. Οἱ Ἴωνες,
-οἷα ἀπαθέες ἐόντες πόνων τοιούτων, τετρυμένοι τε ταλαιπωρίῃσί τε
-καὶ ἡελίῳ, ἔλεξαν πρὸς ἑωϋτοὺς τάδε—Τίνα δαιμόνων παραβάντες, τάδε
-ἀναπίμπλαμεν, οἵτινες παραφρονήσαντες, καὶ ἐκπλώσαντες ἐκ τοῦ νόου,
-ἀνδρὶ Φωκαέει ἀλαζόνι, παρεχομένῳ νέας τρεῖς, ἐπιτρέψαντες ἡμέας
-αὐτοὺς ἔχομεν, etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_567"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_567">[567]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_568"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_568">[568]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 14, 15.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_569"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_569">[569]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 16.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_570"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_570">[570]</a></span> Thucyd. viii, 14.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_571"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_571">[571]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 17. ληϊστὴς
-κατεστήκεε Ἑλλήνων μὲν οὐδενὸς, Καρχηδονίων δὲ καὶ Τυρσηνῶν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_572"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_572">[572]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 22-25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_573"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_573">[573]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 18, 19, 20, 22.
-</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Μίλητος μέν νυν Μιλησίων ἠρήμωτο.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_574"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_574">[574]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 18, αἱρέουσι κατ᾽
-ἄκρης, ἐν τῷ ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀποστάσιος τῆς Ἀρισταγόρεω. This is
-almost the only distinct chronological statement which we find in
-Herodotus respecting the Ionic revolt. The other evidences of time
-in his chapters are more or less equivocal: nor is there sufficient
-testimony before us to enable us to arrange the events, between the
-commencement of the Ionic revolt, and the battle of Marathon, into
-the precise years to which they belong. The battle of Marathon stands
-fixed for August or September, 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: the siege
-of Milêtus may probably have been finished in 496-495 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and the Ionic revolt may have begun in 502-501 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Such are the dates which, on the whole, appear to me most
-probable, though I am far from considering them as certain.</p>
-
-<p>Chronological critics differ considerably in their arrangement
-of the events here alluded to among particular years. See Appendix,
-No. 5, p. 244, in Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici; Professor Schultz,
-Beyträge zu genaueren Zeitbestimmungen von der 63<sup>n</sup> zur
-72<sup>n</sup> Olympiade, pp. 177-183, in the Kieler Philologische
-Studien; and Weissenborn, Beyträge zur genaueren Erforschung der
-alten Griechischen Geschichte, Jena, 1844, p. 87, <i>seqq.</i>: not to
-mention Reiz and Larcher. Mr. Clinton reckons only ten years from
-the beginning of the Ionic revolt to the battle of Marathon; which
-appears to me too short; though, on the other hand, the fourteen
-years reckoned by Larcher—much more the sixteen years reckoned by
-Reiz—are too long. Mr. Clinton compresses inconveniently the latter
-portion of the interval,—that portion which elapsed between the
-siege of Milêtus and the battle of Marathon. And the very improbable
-supposition to which he is obliged to resort,—of a confusion in the
-language of Herodotus between Attic and Olympic years,—indicates that
-he is pressing the text of the historian too closely, when he states,
-“that Herodotus specifies a term of three years between the capture
-of Milêtus, and the expedition of Datis:” see F. H. ad ann. 499. He
-places the capture of Milêtus in 494 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; which I
-am inclined to believe a year later—if not two years later—than the
-reality. Indeed, as Mr. Clinton places the expedition of Aristagoras
-against Naxos (which was <i>immediately before</i> the breaking out of the
-revolt, since Aristagoras seized the Ionic despots while that fleet
-yet remained congregated immediately at the close of the expedition)
-in 501 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and as Herodotus expressly says that
-Milêtus was taken in the sixth year after the revolt, it would follow
-that this capture ought to belong to 495, and not to 494 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> I incline to place it either in 496, or in 495; and the
-Naxian expedition in 502 or 501, leaning towards the earlier of
-the two dates: Schultz agrees with Larcher in placing the Naxian
-expedition in 504 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, yet he assigns the capture of
-Milêtus to 496 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,—whereas, Herodotus states that
-the last of these two events was in the sixth year after the revolt,
-which revolt immediately succeeded on the first of the two, within
-the same summer. Weissenborn places the capture of Milêtus in 496
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, and the expedition to Naxos in 499,—suspecting
-that the text in Herodotus—ἑκτῷ ἔτεϊ—is incorrect, and that it
-ought to be τετάρτῳ ἔτεϊ, the fourth year (p. 125: compare the
-chronological table in his work, p. 222). He attempts to show that
-the particular incidents composing the Ionic revolt, as Herodotus
-recounts it, cannot be made to occupy more than four years; but his
-reasoning is, in my judgment, unsatisfactory, and the conjecture
-inadmissible. The distinct affirmation of the historian, as to the
-entire interval between the two events, is of much more evidentiary
-value than our conjectural summing up of the details.</p>
-
-<p>It is vain, I think, to try to arrange these details according to
-precise years: this can only be done very loosely.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_575"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_575">[575]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_576"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_576">[576]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 31-33. It
-may perhaps be to this burning and sacking of the cities in the
-Propontis, and on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont, that Strabo
-(xiii, p. 591) makes allusion; though he ascribes the proceeding to
-a different cause,—to the fear of Darius that the Scythians would
-cross into Asia to avenge themselves upon him for attacking them, and
-that the towns on the coast would furnish them with vessels for the
-passage.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_577"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_577">[577]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 41.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_578"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_578">[578]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 31, 32, 33.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_579"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_579">[579]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_580"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_580">[580]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 26-28. ἄγων Ἰώνων
-καὶ Αἰολέων συχνούς.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_581"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_581">[581]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 28, 29, 30.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_582"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_582">[582]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 21, ὡς ἀναμνήσαντα
-οἰκηΐα κακὰ: compare vii, 152; also, Kallisthenês ap. Strabo, xiv, p.
-635, and Plutarch, Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. p. 814.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_583"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_583">[583]</a></span> See Welcker Griechische
-Tragödien, vol. i, p. 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_584"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_584">[584]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 42.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_585"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_585">[585]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 20.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_586"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_586">[586]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 43. In recounting
-this deposition of the despots by Mardonius, Herodotus reasons from
-it as an analogy for the purpose of vindicating the correctness of
-another of his statements, which, he acquaints us, many persons
-disputed; namely, the discussion which he reports to have taken
-place among the seven conspirators, after the death of the Magian
-Smerdis, whether they should establish a monarchy, an oligarchy, or
-a democracy,—ἐνθαῦτα μέγιστον θώϋμα ἐρέω τοῖσι μὴ ἀποδεκομένοισι τῶν
-Ἑλλήνων, Περσέων τοῖσι ἕπτα Ὀτάνεα γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ὡς χρέων εἴη
-δημοκρατέεσθαι Πέρσας· τοὺς γὰρ τυράννους τῶν Ἰώνων καταπαύσας πάντας
-ὁ Μαρδόνιος, δημοκρατίας κατίστα ἐς τὰς πόλιας. Such passages as this
-let us into the controversies of the time, and prove that Herodotus
-found many objectors to his story about the discussion on theories of
-government among the seven Persian conspirators (iii, 80-82).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_587"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_587">[587]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 43, 44, ἐπορεύοντο
-δὲ ἐπί τε Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_588"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_588">[588]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 44-94. Charon of
-Lampsakus had noticed the storm near Mount Athos, and the destruction
-of the fleet of Mardonius (Charonis Fragment. 3, ed. Didot; Athenæ.
-ix, p. 394).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_589"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_589">[589]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 46-48. See a
-similar case of disclosure arising from jealousy between Tenedos and
-Lesbos (Thucyd. iii, 2).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_590"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_590">[590]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 94.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_591"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_591">[591]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 48-49; viii,
-46.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_592"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_592">[592]</a></span> Herodot. v, 81-89. See above,
-<a href="#Chap_31">chapter xxxi</a>. The legendary story there given
-as the provocation of Ægina to the war is evidently not to be treated
-as a real and historical cause of war: a state of quarrel causes all
-such stories to be raked up, and some probably to be invented. It is
-like the old alleged quarrel between the Athenians and the Pelasgi of
-Lemnos (vi, 137-140).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_593"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_593">[593]</a></span> It is to this treatment of
-the herald that the story in Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must
-allude, if that story indeed be true; for the Persian king was not
-likely to send a second herald, after such treatment of the first.
-An interpreter accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his
-own native language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that
-he should be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as
-medium for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be
-glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.</p>
-
-<p>Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting
-to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the divine
-judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From whom
-Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not from
-Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and expressly
-says that he does not know in what manner the divine judgment
-overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he) that their
-city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês; but I do not
-think that this happened on account of the outrage on the heralds.”
-(Herodot. vii, 133.)</p>
-
-<p>The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of
-some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or
-twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus has
-sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to confess
-his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with others, to
-strengthen our confidence in his general authority. His silence
-weakens the credibility, but does not refute the allegation
-of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is certainly not
-intrinsically improbable.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_594"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_594">[594]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 133.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_595"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_595">[595]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 49. Ποιήσασι
-δέ σφι (Αἰγιμήταις) ταῦτα, ἰθέως Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπεκέατο, δοκέοντες ἐπὶ
-σφίσι ἔχοντας τοὺς Αἰγινήτας δεδωκέναι (γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ), ὡς ἅμα τῷ
-Πέρσῃ ἐπὶ σφέας στρατεύωνται. Καὶ ἄσμενοι προφάσιος ἐπελάβοντο·
-<span class="gesperrt">φοιτέοντές τε ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην, κατηγόρεον τῶν
-Αἰγινητέων τὰ πεποιήκοιεν, προδόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα</span>. Compare viii,
-144, ix, 7. <span class="gesperrt">τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιούμενοι
-προδοῦναι</span>—a new and very important phrase.</p>
-
-<p>vi, 61. Τότε δὲ τὸν Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, <span
-class="gesperrt">καὶ κοινὰ τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον</span>,
-etc.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_596"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_596">[596]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 70-118. ἄοκνοι
-πρὸς ὑμᾶς (<i>i. e.</i> the Spartans) μελλητὰς καὶ ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς
-ἐνδημοτάτους.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_597"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_597">[597]</a></span> Herodot. vii, 145-148. Οἱ
-συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_598"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_598">[598]</a></span> That which marks the siege
-of Milêtus, and the defeat of the Argeians by Kleomenês, as
-contemporaneous, or nearly so, is, the common oracular dictum
-delivered in reference to both: in the same prophecy of the Pythia,
-one half alludes to the sufferings of Milêtus, the other half to
-those of Argos (Herodot. vi, 19-77).</p>
-
-<p>Χρεωμένοισι γὰρ Ἀργείοισι ἐν Δελφοῖσι περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος
-τῆς σφετέρης, τὸ μὲν ἐς αὐτοὺς τοὺς Ἀργείους φέρον, τὴν δὲ παρενθήκην
-ἔχρησε ἐς Μιλησίους.</p>
-
-<p>I consider this evidence of date to be better than the
-statement of Pausanias. That author places the enterprise against
-Argos immediately (αὔτικα—Paus. iii, 4, 1) after the accession
-of Kleomenês, who, as he was king when Mæandrius came from Samos
-(Herodot. iii, 148), must have come to the throne not later than 518
-or 517 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> This would be thirty-seven years prior to
-480 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; a date much too early for the war between
-Kleomenês and the Argeians, as we may see by Herodotus (vii, 149).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_599"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_599">[599]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 92.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_600"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_600">[600]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 78; compare
-Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xii, 6. Orders for evolutions in the field, in
-the Lacedæmonian military service, were not proclaimed by the herald,
-but transmitted through the various gradations of officers (Thucyd.
-v, 66).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_601"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_601">[601]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 79, 80.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_602"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_602">[602]</a></span> Pausan. ii, 20, 7; Polyæn.
-viii, 33; Plutarch, De Virtut. Mulier, p. 245; Suidas, v. Τελέσιλλα.
-</p>
-
-<p>Plutarch cites the historian Sokratês of Argos for this
-story about Telesilla; an historian, or perhaps composer of a
-περιήγησις Ἄργους, of unknown date: compare Diogen. Laërt. ii, 5,
-47, and Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. pp. 270-277. According to his
-representation, Kleomenês and Demaratus jointly assaulted the town
-of Argos, and Demaratus, after having penetrated into the town and
-become master of the Pamphyliakon, was driven out again by the women.
-Now Herodotus informs us that Kleomenês and Demaratus were never
-employed upon the same expedition, after the disagreement in their
-march to Attica (v, 75; vi, 64).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_603"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_603">[603]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 77.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡ θηλεῖα τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἐξελάσῃ, καὶ κῦδος ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἄρηται, etc.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1">If this prophecy can be said to have any distinct
-meaning, it probably refers to Hêrê, as protectress of Argos,
-repulsing the Spartans.</p>
-
-<p>Pausanias (ii, 20, 7) might well doubt whether Herodotus
-understood this oracle in the same sense as he did: it is plain that
-Herodotus could not have so understood it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_604"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_604">[604]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 80, 81: compare v,
-72.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_605"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_605">[605]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 82. εἰ μὲν γὰρ
-<span class="gesperrt">ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς</span> τοῦ ἀγάλματος ἐξέλαμψε,
-αἱρέειν ἂν <span class="gesperrt">κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς</span> τὴν πόλιν· ἐκ τῶν
-στηθέων δὲ λάμψαντος, πᾶν οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ὅσον ὁ θεὸς ἤθελε.</p>
-
-<p>For the expression αἱρέειν κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς, compare Herodot.
-vi, 21, and Damm. Lex. Homer. v. ἀκρός. In this expression, as
-generally used, the last words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς have lost their primitive
-and special sense, and do little more than intensify the simple
-αἱρέειν,—equivalent to something like “de fond en comble:” for
-Kleomenês is accused by his enemies,—φάμενοί μιν δωροδοκήσαντα,
-οὐκ ἑλέειν τὸ Ἄργος, παρέον εὐπετέως μιν ἑλεῖν. But in the story
-recounted by Kleomenês, the words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς come back to their
-primitive meaning, and serve as the foundation for his religious
-inference, from type to thing typified: if the light had shone from
-the head or <i>top</i> of the statue, this would have intimated that the
-gods meant him to take the city “<i>from top to bottom</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>In regard to this very illustrative story,—which there seems
-no reason for mistrusting,—the contrast between the point of view
-of Herodotus and that of the Spartan ephors deserves notice. The
-former, while he affirms distinctly that it was the real story told
-by Kleomenês, suspects its truth, and utters as much of skepticism
-as his pious fear will permit him; the latter find it in complete
-harmony, both with their canon of belief and with their religious
-feeling,—Κλεομένης δέ σφι ἔλεξε, οὔτε εἰ ψευδόμενος οὔτε εἰ ἀληθέα
-λέγων, ἔχω σαφηνέως εἶπαι· ἔλεξε δ᾽ ὦν.... Ταῦτα δὲ λέγων, πιστά
-τε καὶ οἴκοτα ἐδόκεε Σπαρτιήτῃσι λέγειν, καὶ ἀπέφυγε πολλὸν τοὺς
-διώκοντας.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_606"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_606">[606]</a></span> Compare Pausanias, ii, 20,
-8.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_607"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_607">[607]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 92.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_608"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_608">[608]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 50. Κρῖος—ἔλεγε δὲ
-ταῦτα ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς τῆς Δημαρήτου. Compare Pausan. iii, 4, 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_609"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_609">[609]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 50-61, 64.
-Δημάρητος—φθόνῳ καὶ ἄγῃ χρεώμενος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_610"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_610">[610]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 61, 62, 63.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_611"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_611">[611]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 65, 66. In
-an analogous case afterwards, where the succession was disputed
-between Agesilaus the brother, and Leotychidês the reputed son of
-the deceased king Agis, the Lacedæmonians appear to have taken upon
-themselves to pronounce Leotychidês illegitimate; or rather to assume
-tacitly such illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in preference,
-without the aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 3, 1-4;
-Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however,
-φυλάξασθαι τὴν χωλὴν βασιλείαν, was cited on the occasion, and the
-question was, in what manner it should be interpreted.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_612"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_612">[612]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer
-made by the mother to this appeal—informing Demaratus that he is the
-son either of king Aristo, or of the hero Astrabakus—is extremely
-interesting as an evidence of Grecian manners and feeling.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_613"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_613">[613]</a></span> Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. κατὰ δή
-τινα νόμον παλαιὸν, ὃς οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλοδαπῆς
-τεκνοῦσθαι, τὸν δ᾽ ἀπελθόντα τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπὶ μετοικισμῷ πρὸς ἑτέρους
-ἀποθνήσκειν κελεύει.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_614"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_614">[614]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 70.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_615"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_615">[615]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 78.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_616"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_616">[616]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 94. Δᾶτίν τε,
-ἐόντα Μῆδον γένος, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Cornelius Nepos (Life of Pausanias, c. 1) calls Mardonius a Mede;
-which cannot be true, since he was the son of Gobryas, one of the
-seven Persian conspirators (Herodot. vi, 43).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_617"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_617">[617]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 94. ἐντειλάμενος
-δὲ ἀπέπεμπε, ἐξανδραποδίσαντας Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας, ἄγειν ἑωϋτῷ ἐς
-ὄψιν τὰ ἀνδράποδα.</p>
-
-<p>According to the Menexenus of Plato (c. 17, p. 245), Darius
-ordered Datis to fulfil this order on peril of his own head; no such
-harshness appears in Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_618"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_618">[618]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 93.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_619"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_619">[619]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 95, 96. ἐπὶ ταύτην
-(Naxos) γὰρ δὴ πρώτην ἐπεῖχον στρατεύεσθαι οἱ Πέρσαι, μεμνημένοι τῶν
-πρότερον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_620"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_620">[620]</a></span> The historians of Naxos
-affirmed that Datis had been repulsed from the island. We find this
-statement in Plutarch, De Malign. Herodot. c. 36, p. 869, among his
-violent and unfounded contradictions of Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_621"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_621">[621]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 99.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_622"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_622">[622]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 100. Τῶν δὲ
-Ἐρετριέων ἦν ἄρα οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς βούλευμα, οἳ μετεπέμποντο μὲν Ἀθηναίους,
-ἐφρόνεον δὲ διφασίας ἰδέας· οἳ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐβουλεύοντο ἐκλιπεῖν
-τὴν πόλιν ἐς τὰ ἄκρα τῆς Εὐβοίης, ἄλλοι δὲ αὐτῶν ἴδια κέρδεα
-προσδεκόμενοι παρὰ τοῦ Πέρσεω οἴσεσθαι προδοσίην ἐσκευάζοντο.</p>
-
-<p>Allusion to this treason among the Eretrians is to be found in a
-saying of Themistoklês (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11).</p>
-
-<p>The story told by Hêrakleidês Ponticus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 536),
-of an earlier Persian armament which had assailed Eretria and failed,
-cannot be at all understood; it rather looks like a mythe to explain
-the origin of the great wealth possessed by the family of Kallias at
-Athens,—the Λακκόπλουτος. There is another story, having the same
-explanatory object, in Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_623"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_623">[623]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 101, 102.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_624"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_624">[624]</a></span> Plato, Legg. iii, p. 698, and
-Menexen. c. 10, p. 240; Diogen. Laërt. iii, 33; Herodot. vi, 31:
-compare Strabo, x, p. 446, who ascribes to Herodotus the statement of
-Plato about the σαγήνευσις of Eretria. Plato says nothing about the
-betrayal of the city.</p>
-
-<p>It is to be remarked that, in the passage of the Treatise de
-Legibus, Plato mentions this story (about the Persians having swept
-the territory of Eretria clean of its inhabitants) with some doubt as
-to its truth, and as if it were a rumor intentionally circulated by
-Datis with a view to frighten the Athenians. But in the Menexenus,
-the story is given as if it were an authentic historical fact.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_625"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_625">[625]</a></span> Plutarch, De Garrulitate, c.
-15, p. 510. The descendants of Gongylus the Eretrian, who passed
-over to the Persians on this occasion, are found nearly a century
-afterwards in possession of a town and district in Mysia, which the
-Persian king had bestowed upon their ancestor. Herodotus does not
-mention Gongylus (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 6).</p>
-
-<p>This surrender to the Persians drew upon the Eretrians bitter
-remarks at the time of the battle of Salamis (Plutarch, Themistoklês,
-c. 11).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_626"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_626">[626]</a></span> The chapter of Herodotus (vi,
-40) relating to the adventures of Miltiadês is extremely perplexing,
-as I have already remarked in a former note: and Wesseling considers
-that it involves chronological difficulties which our present MSS. do
-not enable us to clear up. Neither Schweighäuser, nor the explanation
-cited in Bähr’s note, is satisfactory.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_627"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_627">[627]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 43-104.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_628"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_628">[628]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 39-104.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_629"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_629">[629]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 132. Μιλτιάδης,
-καὶ πρότερον εὐδοκιμέων—<i>i. e.</i> before the battle of Marathon. How
-much his reputation had been heightened by the conquest of Lemnos,
-see Herodot. vi, 136.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_630"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_630">[630]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 35.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_631"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_631">[631]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 138. ἦν γὰρ ὁ
-Θεμιστοκλῆς βεβαιότατα δὴ <span class="gesperrt">φύσεως ἰσχὺν</span>
-δηλώσας καὶ διαφερόντως τι ἐς αὐτὸ μᾶλλον ἑτέρων ἄξιος θαυμάσαι·
-<span class="gesperrt">οἰκείᾳ γὰρ συνέσει καὶ οὔτε προμαθὼν ἐς αὐτὴν
-οὐδὲν οὔτ᾽ ἐπιμαθὼν</span>, τῶν τε παραχρῆμα δι᾽ ἐλαχίστης βουλῆς
-κράτιστος γνώμων, καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τοῦ γενησομένου
-ἄριστος εἰκαστής. Καὶ ἃ μὲν μετὰ χεῖρας ἔχοι, καὶ ἐξηγήσασθαι οἷός
-τε· ὧν δὲ ἄπειρος εἴη, κρῖναι ἱκανῶς οὐκ ἀπήλλακτο. Τό τε ἄμεινον ἢ
-χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι προεώρα μάλιστα· καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν, <span
-class="gesperrt">φύσεως μὲν δυνάμει, μελέτης δὲ βραχύτητι, κράτιστος
-δὴ οὗτος αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα ἐγένετο</span>.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_632"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_632">[632]</a></span> See the contrast of the old and
-new education, as set forth in Aristophanês, Nubes, 957-1003; also
-Ranæ, 1067.</p>
-
-<p>About the training of Themistoklês, compared with that of the
-contemporaries of Periklês, see also Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_633"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_633">[633]</a></span> Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3,
-4, 5; Cornelius Nepos, Themist. c. 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_634"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_634">[634]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 79; Plato,
-Gorgias, c. 172. ἄριστον ἄνδρα ἐν Ἀθήνῃσι καὶ δικαιότατον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_635"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_635">[635]</a></span> Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 1-4;
-Themistoklês, c. 3; An Seni sit gerenda respublica, c. 12, p. 790;
-Præcepta Reip. Gerend. c. ii, p. 805).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_636"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_636">[636]</a></span> Timokreon ap. Plutarch,
-Themistoklês, c. 21.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_637"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_637">[637]</a></span> Thucyd. ii, 65.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_638"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_638">[638]</a></span> Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_639"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_639">[639]</a></span> Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_640"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_640">[640]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 109, 110.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_641"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_641">[641]</a></span> Mr. Kinneir remarks that
-the Persian Cassids, or foot-messengers, will travel for several
-days successively at the rate of sixty or seventy miles a day
-(Geographical Memoir of Persia, p. 44).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_642"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_642">[642]</a></span> Herodot. ix, 7-10.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_643"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_643">[643]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 110.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_644"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_644">[644]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 108-112.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_645"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_645">[645]</a></span> Thucyd. iii, 55.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_646"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_646">[646]</a></span> Justin states ten thousand
-Athenians, besides one thousand Platæans. Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias,
-and Plutarch give ten thousand as the sum total of both. Justin, ii,
-9; Corn. Nep. Miltiad. c. 4; Pausan. iv, 25, 5; x, 20, 2: compare
-also Suidas, v. Ἱππίας.</p>
-
-<p>Heeren (De Fontibus Trogi Pompeii, Dissertat. ii, 7) affirms
-that Trogus, or Justin, follows Herodotus in matters concerning the
-Persian invasions of Greece. He cannot have compared the two very
-attentively; for Justin not only states several matters which are not
-to be found in Herodotus, but is at variance with the latter on some
-particulars not unimportant.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_647"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_647">[647]</a></span> Justin (ii, 9) says that
-the total of the Persian army was six hundred thousand, and that
-two hundred thousand perished. Plato (Menexen. p. 240) and Lysias
-(Orat. Funebr. c. 7) speak of the Persian total as five hundred
-thousand men. Valerius Maximus (v, 3), Pausanias (iv, 25), and
-Plutarch (Parallel. Græc. ad init.), give three hundred thousand men.
-Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 5) gives the more moderate total of
-one hundred and ten thousand men.</p>
-
-<p>See the observations on the battle of Marathon, made both by
-Colonel Leake and by Mr. Finlay, who have examined and described the
-locality; Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in Transactions of the Royal
-Society of Literature, vol. ii, p. 160, <i>seq.</i>; and Finlay, on the
-Battle of Marathon, in the same Transactions, vol. iii, pp. 360-380,
-etc.</p>
-
-<p>Both have given remarks on the probable numbers of the armies
-assembled; but there are really no materials, even for a probable
-guess, in respect to the Persians. The silence of Herodotus (whom we
-shall find hereafter very circumstantial as to the numbers of the
-army under Xerxês) seems to show that he had no information which he
-could trust. His account of the battle of Marathon presents him in
-honorable contrast with the loose and boastful assertors who followed
-him; for though he does not tell us much, and falls lamentably
-short of what we should like to know, yet all that he does say is
-reasonable and probable as to the proceedings of both armies and
-the little which he states becomes more trustworthy on that very
-account,—because it <i>is</i> so little,—showing that he keeps strictly
-within his authorities.</p>
-
-<p>There is nothing in the account of Herodotus to make us believe
-that he had ever visited the ground of Marathon.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_648"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_648">[648]</a></span> See Mr. Finlay on the Battle
-of Marathon, Transactions, etc., vol. iii, pp. 364, 368, 383, <i>ut
-suprà</i>: compare Hobhouse, Journey in Albania, i, p. 432.</p>
-
-<p>Colonel Leake thinks that the ancient town of Marathon was not on
-the exact site of the modern Marathon, but at a place called Vraná, a
-little to the south of Marathon (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in the
-Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 1829, vol. ii, p.
-166).</p>
-
-<p>“Below these two points,” he observes, “(the tumuli of Vraná and
-the hill of Kotróni,) the plain of Marathon expands to the shore of
-the bay, which is near two miles distant from the opening of the
-valley of Vraná. It is moderately well cultivated with corn, and is
-one of the most fertile spots in Attica, though rather inconveniently
-subject to inundations from the two torrents which cross it,
-particularly that of Marathóna. From Lucian (in Icaro-Menippo) it
-appears that the parts about Œnoê were noted for their fertility,
-and an Egyptian poet of the fifth century has celebrated the vines
-and olives of Marathon. It is natural to suppose that the vineyards
-occupied the rising grounds: and it is probable that the olive-trees
-were chiefly situated in the two valleys, where some are still
-growing: for as to the plain itself, the circumstances of the battle
-incline one to believe that it was anciently as destitute of trees as
-it is at the present day.” (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, Trans. of
-Roy. Soc. of Literature, vol. ii, p. 162.)</p>
-
-<p>Colonel Leake farther says, respecting the fitness of the
-Marathonian ground for cavalry movements: “As I rode across the plain
-of Marathon with a peasant of Vraná, he remarked to me that it was
-a fine place for cavalry to fight in. None of the modern Marathonii
-were above the rank of laborers: they have heard that a great battle
-was once fought there, but that is all they know.” (Leake, <i>ut sup.</i>
-ii, p. 175.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_649"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_649">[649]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 107.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_650"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_650">[650]</a></span> Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 3, p.
-619; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8, 21; Arrian, ii, 8, 18; iii, 11, 16.</p>
-
-<p>We may compare, with this established battle-array of the Persian
-armies, that of the Turkish armies, adopted and constantly followed
-ever since the victorious battle of Ikonium, in 1386, gained by
-Amurath the First over the Karamanians. The European troops, or
-those of Rum, occupy the left wing: the Asiatic troops, or those
-of Anatoli, the right wing: the Janissaries are in the centre. The
-Sultan, or the Grand Vizir, surrounded by the national cavalry, or
-Spahis, is in the central point of all (Von Hammer, Geschichte des
-Osmannischen Reichs, book v, vol. i, p. 199).</p>
-
-<p>About the honor of occupying the right wing in a Grecian army,
-see in particular the animated dispute between the Athenians and
-the Tegeates before the battle of Platæa (Herodot. ix, 27): it is
-the post assigned to the heroic kings of legendary warfare (Eurip.
-Supplices, 657).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_651"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_651">[651]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 112. Πρῶτοι μὲν
-γὰρ Ἑλλήνων πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν, δρόμῳ ἐς πολεμίους ἐχρήσαντο.</p>
-
-<p>The running pace of the charge was obviously one of the most
-remarkable events connected with the battle. Colonel Leake and Mr.
-Finlay seem disposed to reduce the run to a quick march; partly on
-the ground that the troops must have been disordered and out of
-breath by running a mile. The probability is, that they really were
-so, and that such was the great reason of the defeat of the centre.
-It is very probable that a part of the mile run over consisted of
-declivity. I accept the account of Herodotus literally, though
-whether the distance be exactly stated, we cannot certainly say:
-indeed the fact is, that it required some steadiness of discipline
-to prevent the step of hoplites, when charging, from becoming
-accelerated into a run. See the narrative of the battle of Kunaxa in
-Xenoph. Anabas. i, 8, 18; Diodor. xiv, 23: compare Polyæn. ii, 2, 3.
-The passage of Diodorus here referred to contrasts the advantages
-with the disadvantages of the running charge.</p>
-
-<p>Both Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay try to point out the exact
-ground occupied by the two armies: they differ in the spot chosen,
-and I cannot think that there is sufficient evidence to be had in
-favor of any spot. Leake thinks that the Persian commanders were
-encamped in the plain of Tricorythos, separated from that of Marathon
-by the great marsh, and communicating with it only by means of a
-causeway (Leake, Transact. ii, p. 170).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_652"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_652">[652]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 113. Κατὰ τοῦτο
-μὲν δὴ, ἐνίκων οἱ βάρβαροι, καὶ ῥήξαντες ἐδίωκον ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν.
-</p>
-
-<p>Herodotus here tells us the whole truth without disguise:
-Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 3) only says that the Persian centre made
-a longer resistance, and gave the tribes in the Grecian centre more
-trouble to overthrow.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_653"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_653">[653]</a></span> Pausan. i, 32, 6.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_654"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_654">[654]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 113-115.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_655"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_655">[655]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 114. This is the
-statement of Herodotus respecting Kynegeirus. How creditably does
-his character as an historian contrast with that of the subsequent
-romancers! Justin tells us that Kynegeirus first seized the vessel
-with his right hand: that was cut off, and he held the vessel with
-his left: when he had lost that also, he seized the ship with his
-teeth, “like a wild beast,” (Justin, ii, 9)—Justin seems to have
-found this statement in many different authors: “Cynegiri militis
-virtus, multis scriptorum laudibus celebrata.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_656"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_656">[656]</a></span> For the exaggerated stories
-of the numbers of Persians slain, see Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 2, 12;
-Plutarch, De Malign. Herodot. c. 26, p. 862; Justin, ii, 9; and
-Suidas, v. Ποικίλη.</p>
-
-<p>In the account of Ktêsias, Datis was represented as having been
-killed in the battle, and it was farther said that the Athenians
-refused to give up his body for interment; which was one of the
-grounds whereupon Xerxês afterwards invaded Greece. It is evident
-that in the authorities which Ktêsias followed, the alleged death of
-Datis at Marathon was rather emphatically dwelt upon. See Ktêsias,
-Persica, c. 18-21, with the note of Bähr, who is inclined to defend
-the statement, against Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_657"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_657">[657]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 124. Ἀνεδέχθη μὲν
-γὰρ ἄσπις, καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἔστι ἄλλως εἰπεῖν· ἐγένετο γάρ· ὃς μέντοι ἦν
-ὁ ἀναδέξας οὐκ ἔχω προσωτέρω εἰπεῖν τουτέων.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_658"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_658">[658]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 116. Οὗτοι μὲν
-δὴ περιέπλωον Σούνιον. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ, <span class="gesperrt">ὡς ποδῶν
-εἶχον, τάχιστα</span> ἐβοήθεον ἐς τὸ ἄστυ· καὶ ἔφθησάν τε ἀπικόμενοι,
-πρὶν ἢ τοὺς βαρβάρους ἥκειν, καὶ ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο ἀπιγμένοι ἐξ
-Ἡρακληΐου τοῦ ἐν Μαραθῶνι ἐς ἄλλο Ἡρακληΐον το ἐν Κυνοσάργει.</p>
-
-<p>Plutarch (Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athenienses, c. 8, p.
-350) represents Miltiadês as returning to Athens on the <i>day after</i>
-the battle: it must have been on the same afternoon, according to the
-account of Herodotus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_659"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_659">[659]</a></span> Herodot. v, 62, 63.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_660"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_660">[660]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 115. Τοῖσι
-Πέρσῃσι ἀναδέξαι ἀσπίδα, <span class="gesperrt">ἐοῦσι ἤδη ἐν τῇσι
-νηυσί</span>.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_661"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_661">[661]</a></span> Herodot. viii, 109. ἡμεῖς δὲ,
-εὕρημα γὰρ εὑρήκαμεν ἡμέας τε καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, νέφος τοσοῦτον ἀνθρώπων
-ἀνωσάμενοι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_662"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_662">[662]</a></span> Pausanias, i, 14, 4;
-Thucyd. i, 73. φαμὲν γὰρ Μαραθῶνί τε <span class="gesperrt">μόνοι
-προκινδυνεῦσαι</span> τῷ βαρβάρῳ, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοι τε ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέοντες,
-καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ
-οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.</p>
-
-<p>It is not unworthy of remark, that the memorable oath in the
-oration of Demosthenês, de Coronâ, wherein he adjures the warriors
-of Marathon, copies the phrase of Thucydidês,—οὐ μὰ τοὺς ἐν Μαραθῶνι
-<span class="gesperrt">προκινδυνεύσαντας</span> τῶν προγόνων, etc.
-(Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 60.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_663"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_663">[663]</a></span> So the computation stands in
-the language of Athenian orators (Herodot. ix, 27.) It would be
-unfair to examine it critically.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_664"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_664">[664]</a></span> Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3.
-According to Cicero (Epist. ad Attic. ix, 10) and Justin (ii, 9)
-Hippias was killed at Marathon. Suidas (v. Ἱππίας) says that he died
-afterwards at Lemnos. Neither of these statements seems probable.
-Hippias would hardly go to Lemnos, which was an Athenian possession;
-and had he been slain in the battle, Herodotus would have been likely
-to mention it.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_665"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_665">[665]</a></span> Thucyd. i, 126.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_666"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_666">[666]</a></span> Thucyd. ii, 34.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_667"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_667">[667]</a></span> Pausan. i, 32, 3. Compare the
-elegy of Kritias ap. Athenæ. i, p. 28.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_668"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_668">[668]</a></span> The tumulus now existing is
-about thirty feet high, and two hundred yards in circumference.
-(Leake, on the Demi of Attica; Transactions of Royal Soc. of Literat.
-ii, p. 171.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_669"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_669">[669]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 105; Pausan. i,
-28, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_670"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_670">[670]</a></span> Plutarch, Theseus, c. 24;
-Pausan. i, 32, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_671"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_671">[671]</a></span> Pausan. i, 15, 4; Dêmosthen.
-cont. Neær. c. 25.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_672"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_672">[672]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 120; Plutarch,
-Camill. c. 19; De Malignit. Herodoti, c. 26, p. 862; and De Gloriâ
-Atheniensium, c. 7.</p>
-
-<p>Boëdromion was the third month of the Attic year, which year
-began near about the summer solstice. The first three Attic months,
-Hekatombæon, Metageitnion, Boëdromion, approach (speaking in a loose
-manner) nearly to our July, August, September; probably the month
-Hekatombæon began usually at some day in the latter half of June.</p>
-
-<p>From the fact that the courier Pheidippidês reached Sparta on the
-ninth day of the moon, and that the two thousand Spartans arrived in
-Attica on the third day after the full moon, during which interval
-the battle took place, we see that the sixth day of Boëdromion
-could not be the sixth day of the moon. The Attic months, though
-professedly lunar months, did not at this time therefore accurately
-correspond with the course of the moon. See Mr. Clinton, Fast.
-Hellen. ad an. 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Plutarch (in the Treatise De
-Malign. Herodoti, above referred to) appears to have no conception of
-this discrepancy between the Attic month and the course of the moon.
-A portion of the censure which he casts on Herodotus is grounded on
-the assumption that the two must coincide.</p>
-
-<p>M. Boeckh, following Fréret and Larcher, contests the statement
-of Plutarch, that the battle was fought on the sixth of the month
-Boëdromion, but upon reasons which appear to me insufficient. His
-chief argument rests upon another statement of Plutarch (derived
-from some lost verses of Æschylus), that the tribe Æantis had the
-right wing or post of honor at the battle; and that the public vote,
-pursuant to which the army was led out of Athens, was passed during
-the prytany of the tribe Æantis. He assumes, that the reason why this
-tribe was posted on the right wing, must have been, that it had drawn
-by lot the first prytany in that particular year: if this be granted,
-then the vote for drawing out the army must have been passed in the
-first prytany, or within the first thirty-five or thirty-six days of
-the Attic year, during the space between the first of Hekatombæon
-and the fifth or sixth of Metageitnion. But it is certain that the
-interval, which took place between the army leaving the city and
-the battle, was much less than one month,—we may even say less than
-one week. The battle, therefore, must have been fought between the
-sixth and tenth of Metageitnion. (Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 10, 3, and
-Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, p. 291.) Herodotus (vi,
-111) says that the tribes were arranged in line ὡς ἠριθμέοντο,—“as
-they were numbered,”—which is contended to mean necessarily the
-arrangement between them, determined by lot for the prytanies of
-that particular year. “In acie instruendâ (says Boeckh, Comment. ad
-Corp. Inscript. p. 299) Athenienses non constantem, sed variabilem
-secundum prytanias, ordinem secatos esse, ita ut tribus ex hoc ordine
-inde a dextro cornu disponerentur, docui in Commentatione de pugnâ
-Marathoniâ.” Proœmia Lect. Univ. Berolin. æstiv. a. 1816.</p>
-
-<p>The Proœmia here referred to I have not been able to consult,
-and they may therefore contain additional reasons to prove the point
-advanced, viz., that the order of the ten tribes in line of battle,
-beginning from the right wing, was conformable to their order in
-prytanizing, as drawn by lot for the year; but I think the passages
-of Herodotus and Plutarch now before us insufficient to establish
-this point. From the fact that the tribe Æantis had the right wing
-at the battle of Marathon, we are by no means warranted in inferring
-that that tribe had drawn by lot the earliest prytany in the year.
-Other reasons, in my judgment equally probable, may be assigned in
-explanation of the circumstance: one reason, I think, decidedly
-<i>more</i> probable. This reason is, that the battle was fought during
-the prytany of the tribe Æantis, which may be concluded from the
-statement of Plutarch, that the vote for marching out the army from
-Athens was passed during the prytany of that tribe; for the interval,
-between the march of the army out of the city and the battle, must
-have been only a very few days. Moreover, the deme Marathon belonged
-to the tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, ad Inscript. No. 172, p. 309): the
-battle being fought in their deme, the Marathonians may perhaps have
-claimed on this express ground the post of honor for their tribe;
-just as we see that at the first battle of Mantineia against the
-Lacedæmonians, the Mantineians were allowed to occupy the right wing
-or post of honor, “because the battle was fought in their territory,”
-(Thucyd. v, 67.) Lastly, the deme Aphidnæ also belonged to the
-tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, <i>l.&nbsp;c.</i>): now the polemarch Kallimachus
-was an Aphidnæan (Herodot. vi, 109), and Herodotus expressly tells
-us, “the law or custom <i>then</i> stood among the Athenians, that the
-polemarch should have the right wing,”—ὁ γὰρ νόμος τότε εἶχε οὕτω
-τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι, τὸν πολέμαρχον ἔχειν κέρας τὸ δέξιον (vi, 111).
-Where the polemarch stood, there his tribe would be likely to
-stand: and the language of Herodotus indeed seems directly to imply
-that he identifies the tribe of the polemarch with the polemarch
-himself,—ἡγεομένου δὲ τούτου, ἐξεδέκοντο ὡς ἀριθμέοντο αἱ φυλαὶ,
-ἐχόμεναι ἀλλήλων,—meaning that the order of tribes began by that of
-the polemarch being in the leading position, and was then “taken up”
-by the rest “in numerical sequence,”—<i>i. e.</i> in the order of their
-prytanizing sequence for the year.</p>
-
-<p>Here are a concurrence of reasons to explain why the tribe Æantis
-had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, even though it may not
-have been first in the order of prytanizing tribes for the year.
-Boeckh, therefore, is not warranted in inferring the second of these
-two facts from the first.</p>
-
-<p>The concurrence of these three reasons, all in favor of the same
-conclusion, and all independent of the reason supposed by Boeckh,
-appears to me to have great weight; but I regard the first of the
-three, even singly taken, as more probable than his reason. If my
-view of the case be correct, the sixth day of Boëdromion, the day of
-battle as given by Plutarch, is not to be called in question. That
-day comes in the second prytany of the year, which begins about the
-sixth of Metageitnion, and ends about the twelfth of Boëdromion, and
-which must in this year have fallen to the lot of the tribe Æantis.
-On the first or second day of Boëdromion, the vote for marching out
-the army may have passed; on the sixth the battle was fought; both
-during the prytany of this tribe.</p>
-
-<p>I am not prepared to carry these reasons farther than the
-particular case of the battle of Marathon, and the vindication of
-the day of that battle as stated by Plutarch; nor would I apply
-them to later periods, such as the Peloponnesian war. It is certain
-that the army regulations of Athens were considerably modified
-between the battle of Marathon and the Peloponnesian war, as well
-in other matters as in what regards the polemarch; and we have not
-sufficient information to enable us to determine whether in that
-later period the Athenians followed any known or perpetual rule in
-the battle-order of the tribes. Military considerations, connected
-with the state of the particular army serving, must have prevented
-the constant observance of any rule: thus we can hardly imagine that
-Nikias, commanding the army before Syracuse, could have been tied
-down to any invariable order of battle among the tribes to which
-his hoplites belonged. Moreover, the expedition against Syracuse
-lasted more than one Attic year: can it be believed that Nikias,
-on receiving information from Athens of the sequence in which the
-prytanies of the tribes had been drawn by lot during the second
-year of his expedition, would be compelled to marshal his army in a
-new battle-order conformably to it? As the military operations of
-the Athenians became more extensive, they would find it necessary
-to leave such dispositions more and more to the general serving in
-every particular campaign. It may well be doubted whether during the
-Peloponnesian war <i>any</i> established rule was observed in marshalling
-the tribes for battle.</p>
-
-<p>One great motive which induces critics to maintain that the
-battle was fought in the Athenian month Metageitnion, is, that that
-month coincides with the Spartan month Karneius, so that the refusal
-of the Spartans to march before the full moon, is construed to apply
-only to the peculiar sanctity of this last-mentioned month, instead
-of being a constant rule for the whole year. I perfectly agree with
-these critics, that the answer, given by the Spartans to the courier
-Pheidippidês, cannot be held to prove a regular, invariable Spartan
-maxim, applicable throughout the whole year, not to begin a march in
-the second quarter of the moon: very possibly, as Boeckh remarks,
-there may have been some festival impending during the particular
-month in question, upon which the Spartan refusal to march was
-founded. But no inference can be deduced from hence to disprove the
-sixth of Boëdromion as the day of the battle of Marathon: for though
-the months of every Grecian city were professedly lunar, yet they
-never coincided with each other exactly or long together, because the
-systems of intercalation adopted in different cities were different:
-there was great irregularity and confusion (Plutarch, Aristeidês, c.
-19; Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii, p. 30: compare also K. F. Hermann, Ueber
-die Griechische Monatskunde, p. 26, 27. Göttingen, 1844; and Boeckh,
-ad Corp. Inscript. t. i, p. 734).</p>
-
-<p>Granting, therefore, that the answer given by the Spartans to
-Pheidippidês is to be construed, not as a general rule applicable to
-the whole year, but as referring to the particular month in which
-it was given,—no inference can be drawn from hence as to the day
-of the battle of Marathon, because either one of the two following
-suppositions is possible: 1. The Spartans may have had solemnities on
-the day of the full moon, or on the day before it, in <i>other months</i>
-besides Karneius; 2. Or the full moon of the Spartan Karneius may
-actually have fallen, in the year 490 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, on the
-fifth or sixth of the Attic month Boëdromion.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. Thirlwall appears to adopt the view of Boeckh, but does not
-add anything material to the reasons in its favor (Hist. of Gr. vol.
-ii, Append. iii, p. 488).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_673"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_673">[673]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 119. Darius—σφέας
-τῆς Κισσίης χώρης κατοίκισε ἐν σταθμῷ ἑωϋτοῦ τῷ οὔνομα ἐστὶ
-Ἀρδέρικκα—ἐνθαῦτα τοὺς Ἐρετριέας κατοίκισε Δαρεῖος, οἳ καὶ μέχρι ἐμέο
-εἶχον τὴν χώρην ταύτην, φυλάσοντες τὴν ἀρχαίην γλῶσσαν. The meaning
-of the word σταθμὸς is explained by Herodot. v, 52. σταθμὸς ἑωϋτοῦ
-is the same as σταθμὸς βασιλήϊος: the particulars which Herodotus
-recounts about Arderikka, and its remarkable well, or pit of bitumen,
-salt, and oil, give every reason to believe that he had himself
-stopped there.</p>
-
-<p>Strabo places the captive Eretrians in Gordyênê, which would be
-considerably higher up the Tigris; upon whose authority, we do not
-know (Strabo, xv, p. 747).</p>
-
-<p>The many particulars which are given respecting the descendants
-of these Eretrians in Kissia, by Philostratus, in his Life of
-Apollonius of Tyana, as they are alleged to have stood even in the
-first century of the Christian era, cannot be safely quoted. With
-all the fiction there contained, some truth may perhaps be mingled;
-but we cannot discriminate it (Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. i, c.
-24-30).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_674"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_674">[674]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 133. ἔπλεε ἐπὶ
-Πάρον, πρόφασιν ἔχων ὡς οἱ Πάριοι ὕπηρξαν πρότεροι στρατευόμενοι
-τριήρεϊ ἐς Μαραθῶνα ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ. Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ πρόσχημα τοῦ λόγου ἦν·
-ἀτάρ τινα καὶ ἔγκοτον εἶχε τοῖσι Παρίοισι διὰ Λυσαγόρεα τὸν Τισίεω,
-ἐόντα γένος Πάριον, διαβαλόντα μιν πρὸς Ὑδάρνεα τὸν Πέρσην.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_675"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_675">[675]</a></span> Ephorus (Fragm. 107, ed. Didot;
-ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Πάρος) gave an account of this expedition in
-several points different from Herodotus, which latter I here follow.
-The authority of Herodotus is preferable in every respect; the more
-so, since Ephorus gives his narrative as a sort of explanation of the
-peculiar phrase ἀναπαριάζειν. Explanatory narratives of that sort are
-usually little worthy of attention.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_676"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_676">[676]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 136. Ἀθηναῖοι
-δὲ ἐκ Πάρου Μιλτιάδεα ἀπονοστήσαντα ἔσχον ἐν στόμασι, οἵ τε ἄλλοι,
-καὶ μάλιστα Ξάνθιππος ὁ Ἀρίφρονος· ὃς θανάτου ὑπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὸν
-δῆμον Μιλτιάδεα, ἐδίωκε τῆς Ἀθηναίων ἀπάτης εἵνεκεν. Μιλτιάδης δὲ,
-αὐτὸς μὲν παρεὼν, οὐκ ἀπελογέετο· ἦν γὰρ ἀδύνατος, ὥστε σηπομένου
-τοῦ μηροῦ. Προκειμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐν κλίνῃ, ὑπεραπελογέοντο οἱ φίλοι,
-τῆς μάχης τε τῆς ἐν Μαραθῶνι γενομένης πολλὰ ἐπιμεμνημένοι, καὶ τὴν
-Λήμνου αἵρεσιν· ὡς ἑλὼν Λῆμνόν τε καὶ τισάμενος τοὺς Πελασγοὺς,
-παρέδωκε Ἀθηναίοισι. Προσγενομένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου αὐτῷ κατὰ τὴν
-ἀπόλυσιν τοῦ θανάτου, ζημιώσαντος δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀδικίην πεντήκοντα
-ταλάντοισι, Μιλτιάδης μὲν μετὰ ταῦτα, σφακελίσαντός τε τοῦ μηροῦ καὶ
-σαπέντος, τελευτᾷ· τὰ δὲ πεντήκοντα τάλαντα ἐξέτισεν ὁ πάϊς αὐτοῦ
-Κίμων.</p>
-
-<p>Plato (Gorgias, c. 153, p. 516) says that the Athenians passed
-a vote to cast Miltiadês into the barathrum (ἐμβαλεῖν ἐψηφίσαντο),
-and that he would have been actually thrown in, if it had not been
-for the prytanis, <i>i. e.</i> the president, by turn for that day, of
-the prytanizing senators and of the ekklesia. The prytanis may
-perhaps have been among those who spoke to the dikastery on behalf of
-Miltiadês, deprecating the proposition made by Xanthippus; but that
-he should have caused a vote once passed to be actually rescinded,
-is incredible. The Scholiast on Aristeidês (cited by Valckenaer ad
-Herodot. vi, 136) reduces the exaggeration of Plato to something
-more reasonable—Ὅτε γὰρ ἐκρίνετο Μιλτιάδης ἐπὶ τῇ Πάρῳ, <span
-class="gesperrt">ἠθέλσαν</span> αὐτὸν κατακρημνίσαι· ὁ δὲ πρύτανις
-εἰσελθὼν <span class="gesperrt">ἐξῃτήσατο</span> αὐτὸν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_677"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_677">[677]</a></span> That this was the habitual
-course of Attic procedure in respect to public indictments, wherever
-a positive amount of penalty was not previously determined, appears
-certain. See Platner, Prozess und Klagen bei den Attikern, Abschn.
-vi, vol. i, p. 201; Heffter, Die Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung,
-p. 334. Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iv, p. 725)
-maintain that any one of the dikasts might propose a third measure
-of penalty, distinct from that proposed by the accuser as well as
-the accused. In respect to public indictments, this opinion appears
-decidedly incorrect; but where the sentence to be pronounced involved
-a compensation for private wrong and an estimate of damages, we
-cannot so clearly determine whether there was not sometimes a greater
-latitude in originating propositions for the dikasts to vote upon.
-It is to be recollected that these dikasts were several hundred,
-sometimes even more, in number,—that there was no discussion or
-deliberation among them,—and that it was absolutely necessary for
-some distinct proposition to be laid before them to take a vote upon.
-In regard to some offences, the law expressly permitted what was
-called a προστíμημα; that is, after the dikasts had pronounced the
-full penalty demanded by the accuser, any other citizen who thought
-the penalty so imposed insufficient, might call for a certain limited
-amount of additional penalty, and require the dikasts to vote upon
-it,—ay or no. The votes of the dikasts were given, by depositing
-pebbles in two casks, under certain arrangements of detail.</p>
-
-<p>The ἀγὼν τιμητὸς, δίκη τιμητὸς, or trial including this separate
-admeasurement of penalty,—as distinguished from the δίκη ἀτίμητος,
-or trial where the penalty was predetermined, and where was no
-τίμησις, or vote of admeasurement of penalty,—is an important
-line of distinction in the subject-matter of Attic procedure; and
-the practice of calling on the accused party, after having been
-pronounced guilty, to impose upon himself a <i>counter-penalty</i> or
-<i>under-penalty</i> (ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι or ὑποτιμᾶθαι) in contrast with that
-named by the accuser, was a convenient expedient for bringing the
-question to a substantive vote of the dikasts. Sometimes accused
-persons found it convenient to name very large penalties on
-themselves, in order to escape a capital sentence invoked by the
-accuser (see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 34, p. 743, R). Nor was
-there any fear, as Platner imagines, that in the generality of cases
-the dikasts would be left under the necessity of choosing between an
-extravagant penalty and something merely nominal; for the interest
-of the accused party himself would prevent this from happening.
-Sometimes we see him endeavoring by entreaties to prevail upon the
-accuser voluntarily to abate something of the penalty which he had at
-first named; and the accuser might probably do this, if he saw that
-the dikasts were not likely to go along with that first proposition.
-</p>
-
-<p>In one particular case, of immortal memory, that which Platner
-contemplates actually did happen; and the death of Sokratês was
-the effect of it. Sokratês, having been found guilty, only by a
-small majority of votes among the dikasts, was called upon to name
-a penalty upon himself, in opposition to that of death, urged by
-Melêtus. He was in vain entreated by his friends to name a fine of
-some tolerable amount, which they would at once have paid in his
-behalf; but he would hardly be prevailed upon to name any penalty at
-all, affirming that he had deserved honor rather than punishment: at
-last, he named a fine so small in amount, as to be really tantamount
-to an acquittal. Indeed, Xenophon states that he would not name
-any counter-penalty at all; and in the speech ascribed to him, he
-contended that he had even merited the signal honor of a public
-maintenance in the prytaneium (Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 27; Xenoph. Apol.
-Sok. 23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 41). Plato and Xenophon do not agree;
-but taking the two together, it would seem that he must have named a
-very small fine. There can be little doubt that this circumstance,
-together with the tenor of his defence, caused the dikasts to vote
-for the proposition of Melêtus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_678"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_678">[678]</a></span> Cornelius Nepos, Miltiadês, c.
-7; and Kimon, c. 1; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 4; Diodorus, Fragment. lib.
-x. All these authors probably drew from the same original fountain;
-perhaps Ephorus (see Marx, ad Ephori Fragmenta, p. 212); but we have
-no means of determining. Respecting the alleged imprisonment of
-Kimon, however, they must have copied from different authorities,
-for their statements are all different. Diodorus states, that Kimon
-put himself voluntarily into prison after his father had died there,
-because he was not permitted on any other condition to obtain the
-body of his deceased father for burial. Cornelius Nepos affirms that
-he was imprisoned, as being legally liable to the state for the
-unpaid fine of his father. Lastly, Plutarch does not represent him as
-having been put into prison at all. Many of the Latin writers follow
-the statement of Diodorus: see the citations in Bos’s note on the
-above passage of Cornelius Nepos.</p>
-
-<p>There can be no hesitation in adopting the account of Plutarch
-as the true one. Kimon neither was, nor could be, in prison, by the
-Attic law, for an unpaid fine of his father; but after his father’s
-death, he became liable for the fine, in this sense,—that he remained
-disfranchised (ἄτιμος) and excluded from his rights as a citizen,
-until the fine was paid: see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 46, p.
-762, R.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_679"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_679">[679]</a></span> See Boeckh, Public Economy
-of Athens, b. iii, ch. 13, p. 390, Engl. Transl. (vol. i, p. 420,
-Germ.); Meier und Schömann, Attisch. Prozess, p. 744. Dr. Thirlwall
-takes a different view of this point, with which I cannot concur
-(Hist. Gr. vol. iii, Append. ii, p. 488); though his general remarks
-on the trial of Miltiadês are just and appropriate (ch. xiv, p. 273).
-</p>
-
-<p>Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 8; Kimon, c. 3) says that the
-misconduct connected with Paros was only a pretence with the
-Athenians for punishing Miltiadês; their real motive, he affirms,
-was envy and fear, the same feelings which dictated the ostracism of
-Kimon. How little there is to justify this fancy, may be seen even
-from the nature of the punishment inflicted. Fear would have prompted
-them to send away or put to death Miltiadês, not to fine him. The
-ostracism, which was dictated by fear, was a temporary banishment.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_680"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_680">[680]</a></span> The interval between his trial
-and his decease is expressed in Herodotus (vi, 136) by the difference
-between the present participle σηπομένου and the past participle
-σαπέντος τοῦ μηροῦ.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_681"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_681">[681]</a></span> Machiavel, Discorsi sopra Tito
-Livio, cap. 58. “L’ opinione contro ai popoli nasce, perchè dei
-popoli ciascun dice male senza paura, e liberamente ancora mentre
-che regnano: dei principi si parla sempre con mille timori e mille
-rispetti.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_682"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_682">[682]</a></span> Machiavel will not even admit
-so much as <i>this</i>, in the clear and forcible statement which he
-gives of the question here alluded to: he contends that the man who
-has rendered services ought to be recompensed for them, but that he
-ought to be punished for subsequent crime just as if the previous
-services had not been rendered. He lays down this position in
-discussing the conduct of the Romans towards the victorious survivor
-of the three Horatii, after the battle with the Curiatii: “Erano
-stati i meriti di Orazio grandissimi, avendo con la sua virtù vinti
-i Curiazi. Era stato il fallo suo atroce, avendo morto la sorella.
-Nondimeno dispiacque tanto tale omicidio ai Romani, che lo condussero
-a disputare della vita, non ostante che gli meriti suoi fussero
-tanto grandi e si freschi. La qual cosa, a chi superficialmente
-la considerasse, parrebbe uno esempio d’ ingratitudine popolare.
-Nondimeno chi lo esaminerà meglio, e con migliore considerazione
-ricercherà quali debbono essere gli’ ordini delle republiche,
-biasimearà quel popolo piuttosto per averlo assoluto, che per averlo
-voluto condannare: e la ragione è questa, che nessuna republica
-bene ordinata, non mai cancellò i demeriti con gli meriti dei suoi
-cittadini: ma avendo ordinati i premi ad una buona opera, e le pene
-ad una cattiva, ed avendo premiato uno per aver bene operato, se quel
-medesimo opera dipoi male, lo gastiga senza avere riguardo alcuno
-alle sue buone opere. E quando questi ordini sono bene osservati, una
-città vive libera molto tempo: altrimenti sempre rovinera presto.
-<i>Perchè se, ad un cittadino che abbia fatto qualche egregia opere
-per la città, si aggiunge oltre alla riputazione, che quella cosa
-gli arreca, una audacia e confidenza di potere senza temer pena, far
-qualche opera non buona, diventerà in breve tempo tanto insolente,
-che si risolverà ogni civiltà.</i>”—Machiavel, Discorsi sop. Tit. Livio,
-ch. 24.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_683"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_683">[683]</a></span> Machiavel, in the twenty-ninth
-chapter of his Discorsi sopra T. Livio, examines the question, “Which
-of the two is more open to the charge of being ungrateful,—a popular
-government, or a king?” He thinks that the latter is more open to it.
-Compare chapter fifty-nine of the same work, where he again supports
-a similar opinion.</p>
-
-<p>M. Sismondi also observes, in speaking of the long attachment of
-the city of Pisa to the cause of the emperors and to the Ghibelin
-party: “Pise montra dans plus d’une occasion, par sa constance à
-supporter la cause des empereurs au milieu des revers, combien la
-reconnoissance lie un peuple libre d’une manière plus puissante et
-plus durable qu’elle ne sauroit lier le peuple gouverné par un seul
-homme.” (Histoire des Républ. Italiennes, ch. xiii, tom. ii, p.
-302.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_684"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_684">[684]</a></span> Dêmosthenês, Olynth. iii, c. 9,
-p. 35, R.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_685"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_685">[685]</a></span> This is the general truth,
-which ancient authors often state, both partially, and in exaggerated
-terms as to degree: “Hæc est natura multitudinis (says Livy); aut
-humiliter servit aut superbe dominatur.” Again, Tacitus: “Nihil
-in vulgo modicum; terrere, ni paveant; ubi pertimuerint, impune
-contemni.” (Annal. i, 29.) Herodotus, iii, 81. ὠθέει δὲ (ὁ δῆμος)
-ἐμπεσὼν τὰ πρήγματα ἄνευ νοῦ, χειμάῤῥῳ ποταμῷ ἴκελος.</p>
-
-<p>It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Politica, takes little
-or no notice of this attribute belonging to every numerous assembly.
-He seems rather to reason as if the aggregate intelligence of the
-multitude was represented by the sum total of each man’s separate
-intelligence in all the individuals composing it (Polit. iii, 6, 4,
-10, 12); just as the property of the multitude, taken collectively,
-would be greater than that of the few rich. He takes no notice of
-the difference between a number of individuals judging jointly and
-judging separately: I do not, indeed, observe that such omission
-leads him into any positive mistake, but it occurs in some cases
-calculated to surprise us, and where the difference here adverted to
-is important to notice: see Politic. iii, 10, 5, 6.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_686"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_686">[686]</a></span> Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὅποτε γοῦν
-αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν
-πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ
-τὸ θαρσεῖν.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_687"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_687">[687]</a></span> Such swing of the mind, from
-one intense feeling to another, is always deprecated by the Greek
-moralists, from the earliest to the latest: even Demokritus, in the
-fifth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, admonishes against it,—Αἱ ἐκ
-μεγάλων διαστημάτων κινεόμεναι τῶν ψυχῶν οὔτε εὐσταθέες εἰσὶν, οὔτε
-εὔθυμοι. (Democriti Fragmenta, lib. iii, p. 168, ed. Mullach ap.
-Stobæum, Florileg. i, 40.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_688"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_688">[688]</a></span> The letters of Bentley
-against Boyle, discussing the pretended Epistles of Phalaris,—full
-of acuteness and learning, though beyond measure excursive,—are
-quite sufficient to teach us that little can be safely asserted
-about Phalaris. His date is very imperfectly ascertained. Compare
-Bentley, pp. 82, 83, and Seyfert, Akragas und sein Gebiet, p. 60:
-the latter assigns the reign of Phalaris to the years 570-554
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> It is surprising to see Seyfert citing the
-letters of the pseudo-Phalaris as an authority, after the exposure of
-Bentley.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_689"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_689">[689]</a></span> Pindar. Pyth. 1 <i>ad fin</i>,
-with the Scholia, p. 310, ed. Boeckh; Polyb. xii, 25; Diodor. xiii,
-99; Cicero cont. Verr. iv, 33. The contradiction of Timæus is noway
-sufficient to make us doubt the authenticity of the story. Ebert
-(Σικελίων, part ii, pp. 41-84, Königsberg, 1829) collects all the
-authorities about the bull of Phalaris. He believes the matter of
-fact substantially. Aristotle (Rhetoric, ii, 20) tells a story of
-the fable, whereby Stêsichorus the poet dissuaded the inhabitants
-of Himera from granting a guard to Phalaris: Conon (Narrat. 42 ap.
-Photium) recounts the same story with the name of Hiero substituted
-for that of Phalaris. But it is not likely that either the one or the
-other could ever have been in such relations with the citizens of
-<i>Himera</i>. Compare Polybius, vii, 7, 2.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_690"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_690">[690]</a></span> Polyæn. v, 1, 1; Cicero de
-Officiis, ii, 7.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_691"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_691">[691]</a></span> Plutarch, Philosophand. cum
-Principibus, c. 3, p. 778.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_692"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_692">[692]</a></span> The less these problems are
-adapted for rational solution, the more nobly do they present
-themselves in the language of a great poem; see as a specimen,
-Euripidês, Fragment. 101, ed. Dindorf.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἔσχε μάθησιν, μήτε πολιτῶν</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἐπὶ πημοσύνῃ, μήτ᾽ εἰς ἀδίκους</p>
-<p class="i0">Πράξεις ὁρμῶν·</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἀλλ᾽ ἀθανάτου καθορῶν φύσεως</p>
-<p class="i0">Κόσμον ἀγήρω, πῆ τε συνέστη</p>
-<p class="i0">Καὶ ὅπη καὶ ὅπως.</p>
-<p class="i0">Τοῖς δὲ τοιούτοις οὐδέποτ᾽ αἰσχρῶν</p>
-<p class="i0">Ἔργων μελέτημα προσίζει.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_693"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_693">[693]</a></span> Vol. i, ch. xvi.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_694"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_694">[694]</a></span> Diogen. Laërt. i, 23; Herodot.
-i, 75; Apuleius, Florid. iv, p. 144, Bip.</p>
-
-<p>Proclus, in his Commentary on Euclid, specifies several
-propositions said to have been discovered by Thalês (Brandis,
-Handbuch der Gr. Philos. ch. xxviii, p. 110).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_695"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_695">[695]</a></span> Aristotel. Metaphys. i, 3;
-Plutarch, Placit. Philos. i, 3, p. 875. ὃς ἐξ ὔδατος φησὶ πάντα
-εἶναι, καὶ εἰς ὕδωρ πάντα ἀναλύεσθαι.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_696"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_696">[696]</a></span> Aristotel. <i>ut supra</i>, and De
-Cœlo, ii, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_697"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_697">[697]</a></span> Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2-5;
-Cicero, De Legg. ii, 11; Diogen. Laërt. i, 24.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_698"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_698">[698]</a></span> Aristotel. De Animâ, i, 2;
-Alexander Aphrodis. in Aristotel. Metaphys. 1, 3.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_699"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_699">[699]</a></span> Apollodorus, in the second
-century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>, had before him some brief expository
-treatises of Anaximander (Diogen. Laërt. ii, 2): Περὶ Φύσεως, Γῆς
-Περίοδον, Περὶ τῶν Ἀπλανῶν καὶ Σφαῖραν καὶ ἄλλα τινά. Suidas, v.
-Ἀναξίμανδρος. Themistius. Orat. xxv, p. 317: ἐθάῤῥησε πρῶτος ὦν ἴσμεν
-Ἐλλήνων λόγον ἐξενεγκεῖν περὶ Φύσεως συγγεγραμμένον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_700"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_700">[700]</a></span> Irenæus, ii, 19, (14) ap.
-Brandis, Handbuch der Geschichte der Griech. Röm. Philos. ch.
-xxxv, p. 133: “Anaximander hoc quod immensum est, omnium initium
-subjecit, seminaliter habens in semetipso omnium genesin, ex quo
-immensos mundos constare ait.” Aristotel. Physic. Auscult. iii, 4,
-p. 203, Bek. οὔτε γὰρ μάτην αὐτὸ οἶόν τε εἶναι (τὸ ἄπειρον), οὔτε
-ἄλλην ὑπάρχειν αὐτῷ δύναμιν, πλὴν ὡς ἀρχήν. Aristotle subjects this
-ἄπειρον to an elaborate discussion, in which he says very little
-more about Anaximander, who appears to have assumed it without
-anticipating discussion or objections. Whether Anaximander called his
-ἄπειρον divine, or god, as Tennemann (Gesch. Philos. i, 2, p. 67)
-and Panzerbieter affirm (ad Diogenis Apolloniat. Fragment. c. 13, p.
-16,) I think doubtful: this is rather an inference which Aristotle
-elicits from his language. Yet in another passage, which is difficult
-to reconcile, Aristotle ascribes to Anaximander the water-doctrine of
-Thalês, (Aristotel. de Xenophane, p. 975. Bek.)</p>
-
-<p>Anaximander seems to have followed speculations analogous to
-those of Thalês, in explaining the first production of the human race
-(Plutarch Placit. Philos. v, 19, p. 908), and in other matters (ibid.
-iii, 16, p. 896).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_701"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_701">[701]</a></span> Aristotel. De Generat. et
-Destruct. c. 3, p. 317, Bek. ὃ μάλιστα φοβούμενοι διετέλεσαν οἱ
-πρῶτοι φιλοσοφήσαντες, τὸ ἐκ μηδενὸς γίνεσθαι προϋπάρχοντος· compare
-Physic. Auscultat. i, 4, p. 187, Bek.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_702"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_702">[702]</a></span> Simplicius in Aristotel.
-Physic. fol. 6, 32. πρῶτος αὐτὸς Ἀρχὴν ὀνομάσας τὸ ὑποκείμενον.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_703"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_703">[703]</a></span> Diogen. Laërt. ii, 81, 2. He
-agreed with Thalês in maintaining that the earth was stationary,
-(Aristotel. de Cœlo, ii, 13, p. 295, ed. Bekk.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_704"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_704">[704]</a></span> Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_705"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_705">[705]</a></span> Diogen. Laërt. ix, 22; Stobæus,
-Eclog. Phys. i, p. 294.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_706"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_706">[706]</a></span> Sextus Empiricus, adv. Mathem.
-ix, 193.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_707"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_707">[707]</a></span> Aristot. Metaphys.
-i, 5, p. 986, Bek. Ξενοφάνης δὲ πρῶτος τούτων <span
-class="gesperrt">ἑνίσας</span>, οὐθὲν διεσαφήνισεν, οὐδὲ τῆς φύσεως
-τούτων (τοῦ κατὰ τὸν λόγον ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν ὕλην) οὐδετέρας
-ἔοικε θιγεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τὸν ὅλον οὐρανὸν ἀποβλέψας τὸ ἓν εἶναί φησι
-τὸν θεόν.</p>
-
-<p>Plutarch. ap. Eusebium Præparat. Evangel. i, 8. Ξενοφάνης δὲ ὁ
-Κολοφώνιος ἰδίαν μέν τινα ὁδὸν πεπορευμένος καὶ παρηλλαχυῖαν πάντας
-τοὺς προειρημένους, οὔτε γένεσιν οὔτε φθορὰν ἀπολείπει, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι
-λέγει τὸ πᾶν ἀεὶ ὅμοιον. Compare Timon ap. Sext. Empiric. Pyrrh.
-Hypotyp. i, 224, 225. ἐδογμάτιζε δὲ ὁ Ξενοφάνης παρὰ τὰς τῶν ἄλλων
-ἀνθρώπων προλήψεις, ἓν εἶναι τὸ πᾶν, καὶ τὸν θεὸν συμφυῆ τοῖς πᾶσιν·
-εἶναι δὲ σφαιροειδὴ καὶ ἀπαθῆ καὶ ἀμετάβλητον καὶ λογικόν, (Airstot.
-de Xenoph. c. 3, p. 977, Bek.). Ἀδύνατόν φησιν (ὁ Ξενοφάνης) εἶναι,
-εἴ τι ἐστὶν, γενέσθαι, etc.</p>
-
-<p>One may reasonably doubt whether all the arguments ascribed to
-Xenophanês, in the short but obscure treatise last quoted, really
-belong to him.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_708"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_708">[708]</a></span> Clemens Alexand. Stromat. v, p.
-601, vii, p. 711.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_709"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_709">[709]</a></span> Aristot. Metaphysic. i, 5, p.
-986, Bek. μικρὸν ἀγροικότερος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_710"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_710">[710]</a></span> Xenophanês, Fr. xiv, ed.
-Mullach; Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, vii, 49-110; and Pyrrhon.
-Hypotyp. i, 224; Plutarch adv. Colôtên, p. 1114; compare Karsten ad
-Parmenidis Fragmenta, p. 146.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_711"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_711">[711]</a></span> See Brandis, Handbuch der
-Griech. Röm. Philosophie, ch. xxii.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_712"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_712">[712]</a></span> Herodot. iv, 95. The place
-of his nativity is certain from Herodotus, but even this fact was
-differently stated by other authors, who called him a Tyrrhenian
-of Lemnos or Imbros (Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. c. 1-10), a Syrian, a
-Phliasian, etc.</p>
-
-<p>Cicero (De Repub. ii, 15: compare Livy, i, 18) censures the
-chronological blunder of those who made Pythagoras the preceptor of
-Numa; which certainly is a remarkable illustration how much confusion
-prevailed among literary men of antiquity about the dates of events
-even of the sixth century <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> Ovid follows this
-story without hesitation: see Metamorph. xv, 60, with Burmann’s
-note.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_713"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_713">[713]</a></span> Cicero de Fin. v, 29; Diogen.
-Laërt. viii, 3; Strabo, xiv, p. 638; Alexander Polyhistor ap. Cyrill.
-cont. Julian. iv, p. 128, ed. Spanh. For the vast reach of his
-supposed travels, see Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 11; Jamblic 14, <i>seqq.</i>
-</p>
-
-<p>The same extensive journeys are ascribed to Demokritus, Diogen.
-Laërt. ix, 35.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_714"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_714">[714]</a></span> The connection of Pythagoras
-with Pherekydês is noticed by Aristoxenus ap. Diogen. Laërt. i, 118,
-viii, 2; Cicero de Divinat. i, 13.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_715"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_715">[715]</a></span> Xenophanês, Fragm. 7, ed.
-Schneidewin; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 36: compare Aulus Gellius, iv,
-11 (we must remark that this or a like doctrine is not peculiar
-to Pythagoreans, but believed by the poet Pindar, Olymp. ii, 68,
-and Fragment, Thren. x, as well as by the philosopher Pherekydês,
-Porphyrius de Antro Nympharum, c. 31).</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Καί ποτέ μιν στυφελιζομένου σκύλακος παριόντα</p>
-<p class="i2">Φασὶν ἐποικτεῖραι, καὶ τόδε φάσθαι ἔπος—</p>
-<p class="i0">Παῦσαι, μηδὲ ῥάπιζ᾽· ἐπείη φίλου ἄνερός ἐστι</p>
-<p class="i2">Ψυχὴ, τὴν ἔγνων φθεγξαμένης ἀΐων.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">Consult also Sextus Empiricus, viii, 286, as
-to the κοινωνία between gods, men and animals, believed both by
-Pythagoras and Empedoklês. That Herodotus (ii, 123) alludes to
-Orpheus and Pythagoras, though refraining designedly from mentioning
-names, there can hardly be any doubt: compare ii, 81; also Aristotle,
-De Animâ, i, 3, 23.</p>
-
-<p>The testimony of Hêrakleitus is contained in Diogenes Laërtius,
-viii, 6; ix, 1. Ἡρακλεῖτος γοῦν ὁ φυσικὸς μονονουχὶ κέκραγε καί
-φησι· Πυθαγόρης Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἤσκησεν ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα πάντων,
-καὶ ἐκλεξάμενος ταύτας τὰς συγγραφὰς, ἐποιήσατο ἑαυτοῦ <span
-class="gesperrt">σοφίην, πολυμαθείην, κακοτεχνίην</span>. Again,
-Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει· Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε καὶ Πυθαγόρην,
-αὖθις δὲ Ξενοφάνεά τε καὶ Ἑκαταῖον.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. Thirlwall conceives Xenophanês as having intended in the
-passage above cited to treat the doctrine of the metempsychosis “with
-deserved ridicule.” (Hist. of Greece, ch. xii, vol. ii, p. 162.)
-Religious opinions are so apt to appear ridiculous to those who do
-not believe them, that such a suspicion is not unnatural; yet I
-think, if Xenophanês had been so disposed, he would have found more
-ridiculous examples among the many which this doctrine might suggest.
-Indeed, it seems hardly possible to present the metempsychosis in a
-more touching or respectable point of view than that which the lines
-of his poem set forth. The particular animal selected is that one
-between whom and man the sympathy is most marked and reciprocal,
-while the doctrine is made to enforce a practical lesson against
-cruelty.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_716"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_716">[716]</a></span> Herodot. i, 29; ii, 49; iv, 95.
-Ἑλλήνων οὐ τῷ ἀσθενεστάτῳ σοφιστῇ Πυθαγόρῃ. Hippokratês distinguishes
-the σοφιστὴς from the ἰητρὸς, though both of them had handled
-the subject of medicine,—the general from the special habits of
-investigation. (Hippokratês, Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς, c. 20, vol. i, p.
-620, Littré.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_717"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_717">[717]</a></span> See Lobeck’s learned and
-valuable treatise, Aglaophamus, Orphica, lib. ii, pp. 247, 698, 900;
-also Plato, Legg. vi, 782, and Euripid. Hippol. 946.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_718"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_718">[718]</a></span> Plato’s conception of
-Pythagoras (Republ. x, p. 600) depicts him as something not unlike
-St. Benedict, or St. Francis, (or St. Elias, as some Carmelites
-have tried to make out: see Kuster ad Jamblich. c. 3)—Ἀλλὰ δὴ, εἰ
-μὴ δημοσίᾳ, ἰδίᾳ τισὶν ἡγεμὼν παιδείας αὐτὸς ζῶν λέγεται Ὅμηρος
-γενέσθαι, οἱ ἐκεῖνον ἠγάπων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις ὁδόν
-τινα βίου παρέδοσαν Ὁμηρικήν· ὥσπερ Πυθαγόρας αὐτός τε διαφερόντως
-ἐπὶ τούτῳ ἠγαπήθη, καὶ οἱ ὕστερον ἔτι καὶ νῦν Πυθαγορεῖον τροπὸν
-ἐπονομάζοντες τοῦ βίου διαφανεῖς πῃ δοκοῦσιν εἶναι ἐν τοῖς ἄλλοις.
-</p>
-
-<p>The description of Melampus, given in Herodot. ii, 49, very much
-fills up the idea of Pythagoras, as derived from ii, 81-123, and
-iv, 95. Pythagoras, as well as Melampus, was said to have pretended
-to divination and prophecy (Cicero, Divinat. i, 3, 46; Porphyr.
-Vit. Pyth. c. 29: compare Krische, De Societate a Pythagorâ in urbe
-Crotoniatarum conditâ Commentatio, ch. v, p. 72, Göttingen, 1831).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_719"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_719">[719]</a></span> Brandis, Handbuch der
-Geschichte der Griechisch. Rom. Philosophie, part i, sect. xlvii, p.
-191.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_720"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_720">[720]</a></span> Ælian. V. H. ii, 26;
-Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 31, 140; Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. c. 20;
-Diodorus, Fragm. lib. x, vol. iv, p. 56, Wess.: Timon ap. Diogen.
-Laërt. viii, 36; and Plutarch, Numa, c. 8.</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">Πυθαγόρην τε γόητος ἀποκλίναντ᾽ ἐπὶ δόξαν</p>
-<p class="i0">Θήρῃ ἐπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων, σεμνηγορίης ὀαριστὴν.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_721"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_721">[721]</a></span> Isokratês, Busiris, p. 402, ed.
-Auger. Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, ἀφικόμενος εἰς Αἴγυπτον, καὶ μαθητὴς τῶν
-ἱερέων γενόμενος, τήν τε ἄλλην φιλοσοφίαν πρῶτος εἰς τοὺς Ἕλληνας
-ἐκόμισε, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς θυσίας καὶ τὰς ἁγιστείας ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς
-ἐπιφανέστερον τῶν ἄλλων ἐσπούδασε.</p>
-
-<p>Compare Aristotel. Magn. Moralia, i, 1, about Pythagoras as an
-ethical teacher. Dêmokritus, born about 460 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>,
-wrote a treatise (now lost) respecting Pythagoras, whom he greatly
-admired: as far as we can judge, it would seem that he too must have
-considered Pythagoras as an ethical teacher (Diogen. Laërt. xi, 38;
-Mullach, Democriti Fragmenta, lib. ii, p. 113; Cicero de Orator. iii,
-15).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_722"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_722">[722]</a></span> Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 64,
-115, 151, 199: see also the idea ascribed to Pythagoras, of divine
-inspirations coming on men (ἐπίπνοια παρὰ τοῦ δαιμονίου). Aristoxenus
-apud Stobæum, Eclog. Physic. p. 206; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 32.</p>
-
-<p>Meiners establishes it as probable that the stories respecting
-the miraculous powers and properties of Pythagoras got into
-circulation either during his lifetime, or at least not long after
-his death (Geschichte der Wissenschaften, b. iii, vol. i, pp. 504,
-505).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_723"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_723">[723]</a></span> Respecting Philolaus, see
-the valuable collection of his fragments, and commentary on them,
-by Boeckh (Philolaus des Pythagoreers Leben, Berlin, 1819). That
-Philolaus was the first who composed a work on Pythagorean science,
-and thus made it known beyond the limits of the brotherhood—among
-others to Plato—appears well established (Boeckh, Philolaus, p. 22;
-Diogen. Laërt. viii, 15-55; Jamblichus, c. 119). Simmias and Kebês,
-fellow-disciples of Plato under Sokratês, had held intercourse
-with Philolaus at Thebes (Plato, Phædon, p. 61), perhaps about 420
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small> The Pythagorean brotherhood had then been
-dispersed in various parts of Greece, though the attachment of its
-members to each other seems to have continued long afterwards.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_724"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_724">[724]</a></span> Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid.
-p. 384, ad fin. Quintilian, Instit. Oratt. ix, 4.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_725"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_725">[725]</a></span> Empedoklês, ap. Aristot.
-Rhetoric. i, 14, 2; Sextus Empiric. ix, 127; Plutarch, De Esu
-Carnium, pp. 993, 996, 997; where he puts Pythagoras and Empedoklês
-together, as having both held the doctrine of the metempsychosis,
-and both prohibited the eating of animal food. Empedoklês supposed
-that plants had souls, and that the souls of human beings passed
-after death into plants as well as into animals. “I have been myself
-heretofore (said he) a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish of
-the sea.”</p>
-
-<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<p class="i0">ἤδη γάρ ποτ᾽ ἐγὼ γενόμην κοῦρός τε κόρη τε,</p>
-<p class="i0">θάμνος τ᾽, οἴωνός τε καὶ ἐξ ἁλὸς ἔμπυρος ἰχθύς.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p class="mt1 ti0">(Diogen. L. viii, 77; Sturz. ad Empedokl. Frag.
-p. 466.) Pythagoras is said to have affirmed that he had been not
-only Euphorbus in the Grecian army before Troy, but also a tradesman,
-a courtezan, etc., and various other human characters, before his
-actual existence; he did not, however, extend the same intercommunion
-to plants, in any case.</p>
-
-<p>The abstinence from animal food was an Orphic precept as well as a
-Pythagorean (Aristophan. Ran. 1032).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_726"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_726">[726]</a></span> Strabo, vi, p. 263; Diogen. L.
-viii, 40.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_727"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_727">[727]</a></span> Diogen. Laërt. ix, 18.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_728"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_728">[728]</a></span> Herodot. iii, 131; Strabo,
-vi, p. 261: Menander de Encomiis, p. 96, ed. Heeren. Ἀθηναίους ἐπὶ
-ἀγαλματοποιΐα τε καὶ ζωγραφικῇ, καὶ Κροτωνιάτας ἐπὶ ἰατρικῇ, μέγα
-φρονῆσαι, etc.</p>
-
-<p>The Krotoniate Alkmæon, a younger contemporary of Pythagoras
-(Aristotel. Metaph. i, 5), is among the earliest names mentioned
-as philosophizing upon physical and medical subjects. See Brandis,
-Handbuch der Geschicht. der Philos. sect. lxxxiii, p. 508, and
-Aristotel. De Generat. Animal. iii, 2, p. 752, Bekker.</p>
-
-<p>The medical art in Egypt, at the time when Pythagoras visited
-that country, was sufficiently far advanced to excite the attention
-of an inquisitive traveller,—the branches of it minutely subdivided
-and strict rules laid down for practice (Herodot. ii, 84; Aristotel.
-Politic, iii, 10, 4).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_729"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_729">[729]</a></span> See the analogy of the two
-strikingly brought out in the treatise of Hippokratês Περὶ ἀρχαίης
-ἰητρικῆς, c. 3, 4, 7, vol. i, p. 580-584, ed. Littré.</p>
-
-<p>Ἔτι γοῦν καὶ νῦν οἱ τῶν γυμνασίων τε καὶ ἀσκησίων ἐπιμελόμενοι
-αἰεί τι προσεξευρίσκουσι, καὶ τὴν αὐτέην ὁδὸν ζητέοντες ὅ,τι ἔδων καὶ
-πίνων ἐπικρατήσει τε αὐτέων μάλιστα, καὶ ἰσχυρότερος αὐτὸς ἑωϋτοῦ
-ἔσται (p. 580); again, p. 584: Τί οὖν φαίνεται ἑτεροῖον διανοηθεὶς
-ὁ καλεύμενος ἰητρὸς καὶ ὁμολογεομένως χειροτέχνης, ὃς ἐξεῦρε τὴν
-ἀμφὶ τοὺς κάμνοντας δίαιτάν καὶ τροφὴν, ἢ κεῖνος ὁ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς τοῖσι
-πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποισι τροφὴν, ᾗ νῦν χρεόμεθα, ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς ἀγρίης τε καὶ
-θηριώδεος εὑρών τε καὶ παρασκευάσας διαίτης: compare another passage,
-not less illustrative, in the treatise of Hippokratês Περὶ διαίτης
-ὀξέων, c. 3, vol. ii, p. 245, ed. Littré.</p>
-
-<p>Following the same general idea, that the theory and practice of
-the physician is a farther development and variety of that of the
-gymnastic trainer, I transcribe some observations from the excellent
-Remarques Rétrospectives of M. Littré, at the end of the fourth
-volume of his edition of Hippokratês (p. 662).</p>
-
-<p>After having observed (p. 659) that physiology may be considered
-as divided into two parts,—one relating to the mechanism of the
-functions; the other, to the effects produced upon the human body by
-the different influences which act upon it and the media by which
-it is surrounded; and after having observed that on the first of
-these two branches the ancients could never make progress from their
-ignorance of anatomy,—he goes on to state, that respecting the second
-branch they acquired a large amount of knowledge:—</p>
-
-<p>“Sur la physiologie des influences extérieures, la Grèce du temps
-d’Hippocrate et après lui fut le théâtre d’expériences en grand,
-les plus importantes et les plus instructives. Toute la population
-(la population libre, s’entend) étoit soumise à un système régulier
-d’éducation physique (N. B. this is a little too strongly stated):
-dans quelques cités, à Lacédémone par exemple, les femmes n’en
-étoient pas exemptées. Ce système se composoit d’exercices et d’une
-alimentation, que combinèrent l’empirisme d’abord, puis une théorie
-plus savante: il concernoit (comme dit Hippocrate lui-même, en ne
-parlant, il est vrai, que de la partie alimentaire), il concernoit et
-les malades pour leur rétablissement, et les gens bien portans pour
-la conservation de leur santé, et les personnes livrées aux exercices
-gymnastiques pour l’accroissement de leurs forces. On savoit au juste
-ce qu’il falloit pour conserver seulement le corps en bon état ou
-pour traiter un malade—pour former un militaire ou pour faire un
-athlète—et en particulier, un lutteur, un coureur, un sauteur, un
-pugiliste. Une classe d’hommes, les maîtres des gymnases, étoient
-exclusivement adonnés à la culture de cet art, auquel les médecins
-participoient dans les limites de leur profession, et Hippocrate,
-qui dans les Aphorismes, invoque l’exemple des athlètes, nous
-parle dans le Traité des Articulations des personnes maigres, qui
-n’ayant pas été amaigris par un procédé régulier de l’art, ont les
-chairs muqueuses. Les anciens médecins savoient, comme on le voit,
-procurer l’amaigrissement conformément à l’art, et reconnoitre à ses
-effets un amaigrissement irrégulier: toutes choses auxquelles nos
-médecins sont étrangers, et dont on ne retrouve l’analogue que parmi
-les <i>entraineurs</i> Anglois. Au reste cet ensemble de connoissances
-empiriques et théoriques doit être mis au rang des pertes fâcheuses
-qui ont accompagné la longue et turbulente transition du monde
-ancien an monde moderne. Les admirables institutions destinées dans
-l’antiquité à développer et affermir le corps, ont disparu: l’hygiène
-publique est déstituée à cet égard de toute direction scientifique et
-générale, et demeure abandonnée complètement au hasard.”</p>
-
-<p>See also the remarks of Plato respecting Herodikus, De Republicâ,
-iii, p. 406; Aristotel. Politic. iii, 11, 6; iv, 1, 1; viii, 4, 1.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_730"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_730">[730]</a></span> Valerius Maxim. viii, 15, xv,
-1; Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 45; Timæus, Fragm. 78, ed. Didot.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_731"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_731">[731]</a></span> Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. c.
-21-54; Jamblich. 33-35, 166.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_732"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_732">[732]</a></span> The compilations of Porphyry
-and Jamblichus on the life of Pythagoras, copied from a great variety
-of authors, will doubtless contain some truth amidst their confused
-heap of statements, many incredible, and nearly all unauthenticated.
-But it is very difficult to single out what these portions of truth
-really are. Even Aristoxenus and Dikæarchus, the best authors
-from whom these biographers quote, lived near two centuries after
-the death of Pythagoras, and do not appear to have had any early
-memorials to consult, nor any better informants than the contemporary
-Pythagoreans,—the last of an expiring sect, and probably among the
-least eminent for intellect, since the philosophers of the Sokratic
-school in its various branches carried off the acute and aspiring
-young men of that time.</p>
-
-<p>Meiners, in his Geschichte der Wissenschaften (vol. i, b. iii,
-p. 191, <i>seq.</i>), has given a careful analysis of the various authors
-from whom the two biographers have borrowed, and a comparative
-estimate of their trustworthiness. It is an excellent piece of
-historical criticism, though the author exaggerates both the merits
-and the influence of the first Pythagoreans: Kiessling, in the
-notes to his edition of Jamblichus, has given some extracts from
-it, but by no means enough to dispense with the perusal of the
-original. I think Meiners allows too much credit, on the whole, to
-Aristoxenus (see p. 214), and makes too little deduction for the
-various stories, difficult to be believed, of which Aristoxenus is
-given as the source: of course the latter could not furnish better
-matter than he heard from his own witnesses. Where Meiners’s judgment
-is more severe, it is also better borne out, especially respecting
-Porphyry himself, and his scholar Jamblichus. These later Pythagorean
-philosophers seem to have set up as a formal canon of credibility,
-that which many religious men of antiquity acted upon from a mere
-unconscious sentiment and fear of giving offence to the gods,—That
-it was <i>not right to disbelieve any story</i> recounted respecting the
-gods, and wherein the divine agency was introduced: no one could tell
-but what it <i>might be true</i>: to deny its truth, was to set bounds
-to the divine omnipotence. Accordingly, they made no difficulty
-in believing what was recounted about Aristæus, Abaris, and other
-eminent subjects of mythes (Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. c. 138-148)—καὶ
-τοῦτό γε πάντες οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι ὅμως ἔχουσι πιστευτικῶς, οἶον περὶ
-Ἀρισταίου καὶ Ἀβάριδος τὰ μυθολογούμενα καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα τοιαῦτα
-λέγεται ... τῶν τοιούτων δὲ τῶν δοκούντων μυθικῶν ἀπομνημονεύουσιν,
-<span class="gesperrt">ὡς οὐδὲν ἀπιστοῦντες ὅτι ἂν εἰς τὸ θεῖον
-ἀναγηται</span>. Also, not less formally laid down in Jamblichus,
-Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, as the fourth Symbolum, p. 324, ed.
-Kiessling. Περὶ θεῶν μηδὲν θαυμαστὸν ἀπιστεῖ, μηδὲ περὶ θείων
-δογμάτων. Reasoning from their principles, this was a consistent
-corollary to lay down; but it helps us to estimate their value as
-selectors and discriminators of accounts respecting Pythagoras. The
-extravagant compliments paid by the emperor Julian in his letters to
-Jamblichus will not suffice to establish the authority of the latter
-as a critic and witness: see the Epistolæ 34, 40, 41, in Heyler’s
-edit. of Julian’s letters.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_733"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_733">[733]</a></span> Aulus Gell. N. A. iv, 11.
-Apollonius (ap. Jamblich. c. 262) alludes to τὰ ὑπομνήματα τῶν
-Κροτωνιατῶν: what the date of these may be, we do not know, but there
-is no reason to believe them anterior to Aristoxenus.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_734"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_734">[734]</a></span> Thucyd. viii, 54. τὰς
-ξυνωμοσίας, αἵπερ ἐτύγχανον πρότερον οὖσαι ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐπὶ δίκαις καὶ
-ἀρχαῖς, ἁπάσας ἐπελθὼν, etc.</p>
-
-<p>On this important passage, in which Thucydidês notes the
-political clubs of Athens as sworn societies,—numerous, notorious,
-and efficient,—I shall speak farther in a future stage of the
-history. Dr. Arnold has a good note on the passage.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_735"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_735">[735]</a></span> Justin, xx, 4. “Sed trecenti
-ex juvenibus cum sodalitii juris sacramento quodam nexi, separatam
-a ceteris civibus vitam exercerent, quasi cœtum clandestinæ
-conjurationis haberent, civitatem in se converterunt.”</p>
-
-<p>Compare Diogen. Laërt. viii, 3; Apollonius ap. Jamblich. c. 254;
-Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. c. 33.</p>
-
-<p>The story of the devoted attachments of the two Pythagoreans
-Damon and Phintias appears to be very well attested: Aristoxenus
-heard it from the lips of the younger Dionysius the despot, whose
-sentence had elicited such manifestation of friendship (Porphyry,
-Vit. Pyth. c. 59-62, Cicero, De Officiis, iii, 10; and Davis ad
-Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 22).</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_736"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_736">[736]</a></span> Plutarch, Philosoph. cum
-Principib. c. i, p. 777. ἂν δ᾽ ἄρχοντος ἀνδρὸς καὶ πολιτικοῦ καὶ
-πρακτικοῦ καθάψηται (ὁ φιλόσοφος) καὶ τοῦτον ἀναπλήσῃ καλοκᾳγαθίας,
-πολλοὺς δι᾽ ἑνὸς ὠφέλησεν, ὡς Πυθαγόρας τοῖς πρωτεύουσι τῶν Ἰταλιωτῶν
-συγγενόμενος.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_737"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_737">[737]</a></span> I transcribe here the summary
-given by Krische, at the close of his Dissertation on the Pythagorean
-order, p. 101: “Societatis scopus fuit mere politicus, ut lapsam
-optimatium potestatem non modo in pristinum restitueret, sed firmaret
-amplificaretque: cum summo hoc scopo duo conjuncti fuerunt; moralis
-alter, alter ad literas spectans. Discipulos suos bonos probosque
-homines reddere voluit Pythagoras, et ut civitatem moderantes
-potestate suâ non abuterentur ad plebem opprimendam; et ut plebs,
-intelligens suis commodis consuli, conditione suâ contenta esset.
-Quoniam vero bonum sapiensque moderamen nisi a prudente literisque
-exculto viro exspectari (non) licet, philosophiæ studium necessarium
-duxit Samius iis, qui ad civitatis clavum tenendum se accingerent.”
-</p>
-
-<p>This is the general view (coinciding substantially with that
-of O. Müller,—Dorians, iii, 9, 16) given by an author who has gone
-through the evidences with care and learning. It differs on some
-important points from the idea which I conceive of the primitive
-master and his contemporary brethren. It leaves out the religious
-ascendency, which I imagine to have stood first among the means as
-well as among the premeditated purposes of Pythagoras, and sets forth
-a reformatory political scheme as directly contemplated by him, of
-which there is no proof. Though the political ascendency of the early
-Pythagoreans is the most prominent feature in their early history,
-it is not to be considered as the manifestation of any peculiar or
-settled political idea,—it is rather a result of their position and
-means of union. Ritter observes, in my opinion more justly: “We must
-not believe that the mysteries of the Pythagorean order were of a
-simply political character: the most probable accounts warrant us in
-considering that its central point was a mystic religious teaching,”
-(Geschicht. der Philosophie, b. iv, ch. i, vol. i, pp. 365-368:)
-compare Hoeck. Kreta, vol. iii, p. 223.</p>
-
-<p>Krische (p. 32) as well as Boeckh (Philolaus, pp. 39-42) and
-O. Müller assimilate the Pythagorean life to the Dorian or Spartan
-habits, and call the Pythagorean philosophy the expression of
-Grecian Dorism, as opposed to the Ionians and the Ionic philosophy.
-I confess that I perceive no analogy between the two, either in
-action or speculation. The Spartans stand completely distinct from
-other Dorians; and even the Spartan habits of life, though they
-present some points of resemblance with the bodily training of the
-Pythagoreans, exhibit still more important points of difference,
-in respect to religious peculiarity and mysticism, as well as to
-scientific element embodied with it. The Pythagorean philosophy,
-and the Eleatic philosophy, were both equally opposed to the Ionic;
-yet neither of them is in any way connected with Dorian tendencies.
-Neither Elea nor Kroton were Doric cities; moreover, Xenophanês as
-well as Pythagoras were both Ionians.</p>
-
-<p>The general assertions respecting Ionic mobility and inconstancy,
-contrasted with Doric constancy and steadiness, will not be found
-borne out by a study of facts. The Dorism of Pythagoras appears to
-me a complete fancy. O. Müller even turns Kroton into a Dorian city,
-contrary to all evidence.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_738"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_738">[738]</a></span> Niebuhr, Römisch. Gesch. i, p.
-165, 2nd edit.; O. Müller, Hist of Dorians, iii, 9, 16: Krische is
-opposed to this idea, sect. v, p. 84.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_739"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_739">[739]</a></span> Varro ap. Augustin. de Ordine,
-ii, 30; Krische, p. 77.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_740"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_740">[740]</a></span> Apollonius ap. Jamblichum,
-V. P. c. 254, 255, 256, 257. ἡγεμόνες δὲ ἐγένοντο τῆς διαφορᾶς οἱ
-ταῖς συγγενείαις καὶ ταῖς <span class="gesperrt">οἰκειότησιν</span>
-ἐγγύτατα καθεστηκότες τῶν Πυθαγορείων. Αἴτιον δ᾽ ἦν, ὅτι τὰ μὲν
-πολλὰ αὐτοὺς ἐλύπει τῶν πραττομένων, etc.: compare also the lines
-descriptive of Pythagoras, c. 259. Τοὺς μὲν ἑταίρους ἧγεν ἴσους
-μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι. Τοὺς δ᾽ ἄλλους ἡγεῖτ᾽ οὔτ᾽ ἐν λόγῳ, ἐν ἀριθμῷ.</p>
-
-<p>That this Apollonius, cited both by Jamblichus and by Porphyry,
-is Apollonius of Tyana, has been rendered probable by Meiners (Gesch.
-der Wissensch. v. i, pp. 239-245): compare Welcker, Prolegomena ad
-Theognid. pp. xlv, xlvi.</p>
-
-<p>When we read the life of Apollonius by Philostratus, we see that
-the former was himself extremely communicative: he might be the
-rather disposed therefore to think that the seclusion and reserve of
-Pythagoras was a defect, and to ascribe to it much of the mischief
-which afterwards overtook the order.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_741"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_741">[741]</a></span> Schleiermacher observes,
-that “Philosophy among the Pythagoreans was connected with
-political objects, and their school with a practical brotherly
-partnership, such as was never on any other occasion seen in
-Greece.” (Introduction to his Translation of Plato, p. 12.) See
-also Theopompus, Fr. 68, ed. Didot, apud Athenæum, v, p. 213, and
-Euripidês, Mêdêa, 294.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_742"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_742">[742]</a></span> Xenophon, Memorab. i, 2, 12;
-Æschines, cont. Timarch. c. 34. ὑμεῖς, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, Σωκράτην μὲν
-τὸν σοφιστὴν ἀπεκτείνατε, ὅτι Κριτίαν ἐφάνη πεπαιδευκὼς, ἕνα τῶν
-τριάκοντα.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_743"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_743">[743]</a></span> This is stated in Jamblichus,
-c. 255; yet it is difficult to believe; for if the fact had been so,
-the destruction of the Pythagoreans would naturally have produced an
-allotment and permanent occupation of the Sybaritan territory,—which
-certainly did not take place, for Sybaris remained without resident
-possessors until the foundation of Thurii.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_744"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_744">[744]</a></span> Jamblichus, c, 255-259;
-Porphyry, c. 54-57; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 39; Diodor. x, Fragm. vol.
-iv, p. 56, Wess.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_745"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_745">[745]</a></span> Polyb. ii, 39; Plutarch, De
-Genio Socratis, c. 13, p. 583; Aristoxenus, ap. Jamblich. c. 250.
-That the enemies of the order attacked it by setting fire to the
-house in which the members were assembled, is the circumstance
-in which all accounts agree. On all other points there is great
-discrepancy, especially respecting the names and dates of the
-Pythagoreans who escaped: Boeckh (Philolaus, p. 9, <i>seq.</i>) and
-Brandis (Handbuch der Gesch. Philos. ch. lxxiii, p. 432) try to
-reconcile these discrepancies.</p>
-
-<p>Aristophanês introduces Strepsiadês, at the close of the Nubes,
-as setting fire to the meeting-house (φροντιστήριον) of Sokratês
-and his disciples possibly the Pythagorean conflagration may have
-suggested this.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_746"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_746">[746]</a></span> “Pythagoras Samius suspicione
-dominatûs injustâ vivus in fano concrematus est.” (Arnobius adv.
-Gentes, lib. i, p. 23, ed. Elmenhorst.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_747"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_747">[747]</a></span> Cicero, De Finib. v, 2 (who
-seems to have copied from Dikæarchus: see Fuhr. ad Dikæarchi
-Fragment. p. 55); Justin, xx, 4; Diogen. Laërt. viii, 40; Jamblichus,
-V. P. c. 249.</p>
-
-<p>O. Müller says (Dorians, iii, 9, 16), that “the influence of the
-Pythagorean league upon the administration of the Italian states was
-of the most beneficial kind, which continued for many generations
-after the dissolution of the league itself.”</p>
-
-<p>The first of these two assertions cannot be made out, and depends
-only on the statements of later encomiasts, who even supply materials
-to contradict their own general view. The judgment of Welcker
-respecting the influence of the Pythagoreans, much less favorable, is
-at the same time more probable. (Præfat. ad Theognid. p. xlv.)</p>
-
-<p>The second of the two assertions appears to me quite incorrect;
-the influence of the Pythagorean order on the government of Magna
-Græcia ceased altogether, as far as we are able to judge. An
-individual Pythagorean like Archytas might obtain influence, but this
-is not the influence of the order. Nor ought O. Müller to talk about
-the Italian Greeks giving up the Doric customs and adopting an Achæan
-government. There is nothing to prove that Kroton ever had Doric
-customs.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_748"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_748">[748]</a></span> Aristotel. de Cœlo, ii, 13.
-οἱ περὶ τὴν Ἰταλίαν, καλούμενοι δὲ Πυθαγορεῖοι. “Italici philosophi
-quondam nominati.” (Cicero, De Senect. c. 21.)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_749"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_749">[749]</a></span> Heyne places the date of the
-battle of Sagra about 560 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>; but this is very
-uncertain. See his Opuscula, vol. ii, Prolus. ii, pp. 53, and Prolus.
-x, p. 184. See also Justin, xx, 3, and Strabo, vi, pp. 261-263. It
-will be seen that the latter conceives the battle of the Sagra as
-having happened after the destruction of Sybaris by the Krotoniates;
-for he states twice that the Krotoniates lost so many citizens at
-the Sagra, that the city did not long survive so terrible a blow: he
-cannot, therefore, have supposed that the complete triumph of the
-Krotoniates over the great Sybaris was gained afterwards.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_750"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_750">[750]</a></span> See above, vol. iii, chap.
-xxii.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_751"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_751">[751]</a></span> Diodor. xii, 9. Herodotus calls
-Têlys in one place βασιλῆα, in another τύραννον of Sybaris (v, 44):
-this is not at variance with the story of Diodorus.</p>
-
-<p>The story given by Athenæus, out of Herakleidês Ponticus,
-respecting the subversion of the dominion of Têlys, cannot be
-reconciled either with Herodotus or Diodorus (Athenæus, xii, p. 522).
-Dr. Thirlwall supposes the deposition of Têlys to have occurred
-between the defeat at the Traeis and the capture of Sybaris; but
-this is inconsistent with the statement of Herakleidês, and not
-countenanced by any other evidence.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_752"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_752">[752]</a></span> Herodot. v, 47.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_753"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_753">[753]</a></span> Diodor. xii, 9; Strabo, vi, p.
-263; Jamblichus, Vit. Pythag. c. 260; Skymn. Chi. v, 340.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_754"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_754">[754]</a></span> Herodot. v, 44.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_755"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_755">[755]</a></span> Diodor. xii, 9, 10; Strabo, vi,
-p. 263.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_756"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_756">[756]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 21; Strabo, vi, p.
-253.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_757"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_757">[757]</a></span> Herodot. v, 45; Diodor. xii,
-9, 10; Strabo, vi, p. 263. Strabo mentions expressly the turning
-of the river for the purpose of overwhelming the city,—ἐλόντες
-γὰρ τὴν πόλιν ἐπήγαγον τὸν ποταμὸν καὶ κατέκλυσαν. It is to this
-change in the channel of the river that I refer the expression in
-Herodotus,—τέμενός τε καὶ νηὸν ἐόντα <span class="gesperrt">παρὰ τὸν
-ξηρὸν</span> Κρᾶθιν. It was natural that the old deserted bed of the
-river should be called “<i>the dry Krathis</i>:” whereas, if we suppose
-that there was only one channel, the expression has no appropriate
-meaning. For I do not think that any one can be well satisfied with
-the explanation of Bähr “Vocatur Crathis hoc loco ξηρὸς <i>siccus</i>, ut
-qui hieme fluit, æstatis vero tempore exsiccatus est: quod adhuc in
-multis Italiæ inferioris fluviis observant.” I doubt whether this
-be true, as a matter of fact, respecting the river Krathis (see my
-preceding volume, ch. xxii), but even if the fact were true, the
-epithet in Bähr’s sense has no especial significance for the purpose
-contemplated by Herodotus, who merely wishes to describe the site
-of the temple erected by Dorieus. “Near the Krathis,” or “near the
-dry Krathis,” would be equivalent expressions, if we adopted Bähr’s
-construction; whereas to say, “near the deserted channel of the
-Krathis,” would be a good local designation.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_758"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_758">[758]</a></span> Herodot. vi, 21.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_759"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_759">[759]</a></span> Herodot. v, 45.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_760"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_760">[760]</a></span> Herodot. v, 45. Τοῦτο δὲ, αὐτοῦ
-Δωριέος τὸν θάνατον μαρτύριον μέγιστον ποιεῦνται (Συβαρῖται), ὅτι
-παρὰ τὰ μεμαντευμένα ποιέων διεφθάρῃ. Εἰ γὰρ δὴ μὴ παρέπρηξε μηδὲν,
-ἐπ᾽ ᾧ δὲ ἐστάλη ἐποίεε, εἷλε ἂν τὴν Ἐρυκίνην χώρην καὶ ἑλὼν κάτεσχε,
-οὐδ᾽ ἂν αὐτός τε καὶ ἡ στρατιὴ διεφθάρῃ.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_761"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_761">[761]</a></span> Polyb. ii, 39. Heyne thinks
-that the agreement here mentioned by Polybius took place Olymp. 80,
-3; or, indeed, after the repopulation of the Sybaritan territory by
-the foundation of Thurii (Opuscula, vol. ii; Prolus. x, p. 189). But
-there seems great difficulty in imagining that the state of violent
-commotion—which, according to Polybius, was only appeased by this
-agreement—can possibly have lasted so long as half a century; the
-received date of the overthrow of the Pythagoreans being about 504
-<small>B.&nbsp;C.</small></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_762"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_762">[762]</a></span> Aristot. Politic. ii, 9, 6;
-iv, 9, 10. Heyne puts Charondas much earlier than the foundation
-of Thurii, in which, I think, he is undoubtedly right: but without
-determining the date more exactly (Opuscul. vol. ii; Prolus. ix, p.
-160), Charondas must certainly have been earlier than Anaxilas of
-Rhêgium and the great Sicilian despots; which will place him higher
-than 500 <small>B.&nbsp;C.</small>: but I do not know that any more
-precise mark of time can be found.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_763"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_763">[763]</a></span> Diodorus, xii, 35; Stobæus,
-Serm. xliv, 20-40; Cicero de Legg. ii, 6. See K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch
-der Griech. Staatsalterthümer, ch. 89; Heyne, Opuscul. vol. ii, pp.
-72-164. Brandis (Geschichte der Röm. Philosophie, ch. xxvi, p. 102)
-seems to conceive these prologues as genuine.</p>
-
-<p>The mistakes and confusion made by ancient writers respecting
-these lawgivers—even by writers earlier than Aristotle (Politic. ii,
-9, 5)—are such as we have no means of clearing up.</p>
-
-<p>Seneca (Epist. 90) calls both Zaleukus and Charondas disciples of
-Pythagoras. That the former was so, is not to be believed; but it is
-not wholly impossible that the latter may have been so,—or at least
-that he may have been a companion of the earliest Pythagoreans.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_764"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_764">[764]</a></span> Aristotel. Politic. ii, 9, 8.
-Χαρώνδου δ᾽ ἴδιον μὲν οὐδέν ἐστι πλὴν αἱ δίκαι τῶν ψευδομαρτύρων·
-πρῶτος γὰρ ἐποίησε τὴν ἐπίσκηψιν· τῇ δ᾽ ἀκριβείᾳ τῶν νόμων ἐστὶ
-γλαφυρώτερος καὶ τῶν νῦν νομοθετῶν. To the fulness and precision
-predicated respecting Charondas in the latter part of this passage,
-I refer the other passage in Politic. iv, 10, 6, which is not to
-be construed as if it meant that Charondas had graduated fines on
-the rich and poor with a distinct view to that political trick (of
-indirectly eliminating the poor from public duties) which Aristotle
-had been just adverting to,—but merely means that Charondas had been
-nice and minute in graduating pecuniary penalties generally, having
-reference to the wealth or poverty of the person sentenced.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p id="Footnote_765"><span class="label"><a
-href="#FNanchor_765">[765]</a></span> Πρῶτος γὰρ ἐποίησε τὴν <span
-class="gesperrt">ἐπίσκηψιν</span> (Aristot. Politic. ii, 9, 8).
-See Harpokration, v. Ἐπεσκήψατο, and Pollux, viii, 33; Demosthenês
-cont. Stephanum, ii, c. 5; cont. Euerg. et Mnêsibul. c. 1. The word
-ἐπίσκηψις carries with it the solemnity of meaning adverted to it in
-the text, and seems to have been used specially with reference to an
-action or indictment against perjured witnesses: which indictment was
-permitted to be brought with a less degree of risk or cost to the
-accuser than most others in the Attic dikasteries, (Dêmosth. cont.
-Euerg. et Mn. <i>l.&nbsp;c.</i>)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap0" />
-
-
-<div class="chapter" id="tnote">
-<div class="transnote">
- <p class="tnotetit">Transcriber's note</p>
- <ul>
- <li>The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is
- placed in the public domain.</li>
-
- <li>Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the
- book.</li>
-
- <li>Blank pages have been skipped.</li>
-
- <li>Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected, after
- comparison with a later edition of this work. Greek text has also
- been corrected after checking with this later edition and with
- Perseus, when the reference was found.</li>
-
- <li>Original spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been kept,
- but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage
- was found.</li>
-
- <li>Nevetherless, no attempt has been made at normalizing proper
- names. The author established at the beginning of the first
- volume of this work some rules of transcription for proper names,
- but neither he nor his publisher follow them consistently.</li>
- </ul>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="full" />
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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