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MERIVALE'S SCHOOL HISTORY OF ROME. With Eleven Maps. 75 cents. 16mo, Cloth. PtTBLisHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. f The ahove works are far sale btf all booksellers, or they will be sent by Harper & Brothers, to any address on receipt of price as quoted. If ordered lent by mail, 10 per cent, iliauld be added to the price to cover cott of postage. X. X U ^ PREFACE In the i^reparation of this vohime it has been my wish and purpose to present the history of tlie Greek people in a form which may interest readers of all classes, as well as the scholar and the critic. The great lessons which that history teaches must be learnt by all who would really imderstand the life of the modern world ; and the task of learning them is one which calls for no greater eiFort than the attention which the lioiicst love of truth will never fail to awaken. During the present century historical criticism has, it is well known, been largely busied with the earlier history both of Greece and Rome ; but stress may be fairly laid on the fact that in the former the most rigid scrutiny has tended rather to determine the true course of events than to throw over the whole traditional story a dark, if not an impenetrable, veil. In his General History of Rome, Dean Merivale is constrained to admit that 'thei'e is scarcely one particular of importance throughout three centuries of our j)retended annals on the exact truth of which we can securely rely.' The historian of Greece may well rejoice in the happier assurance that our knowledge of the Persian Wars and of many events whicii preceded tliose wars is scarcely less full or less trustworthy than our knowledge of the Norman Conquest of England. Throughout this earlier portion of my task I have striven to exhibit clearly the motives and policy of the actors in this great struggle; and the conviction that I have established rather than destroyed tlie history has enabled me to give without hesitation my reasons for calling into question or rejecting the statements of the traditional narratives, whenever it became necessary to do so. The history of Greece is the history of the most wonder- ful political and intellectual growth which the world has VI PREFACE. yet seen. Its interest is the more absorbing from the rapid march of events in the mighty drama which may fairly be said to have been played out in less than three centuries. This astonishing quickness of development and decay must be ascribed to the fact that the ancient Hel- lenic communities never coalesced into a nation. The ex- planation of this fact is the most important task of the historian of Greece. Nor can we regard it as explained by a mere reference to the centrifugal tendencies (as they have been called) which compelled the Greeks to see in the Polls or City the ultimate Unit of Society, or by the assertion that particular clans or tribes worshipped particular gods and that the mixture of persons of different race in the same commonAvealth tended in their belief to confuse the relations of life and their notions of right and wiong ; — for, in truth, the tendency which brought about these results is the very fact to be explained. Nor can the question be really answered until we have traced the political and social life of the Greeks to its source in the earliest Aryan civilisation. The clue once given may be followed through the whole history of the Greek states. I may honestly say tliat I have followed it Aviih special care, sparing no pains to bring out in the clearest light all the circumstances which at Athens tended to soften, if not to remove, and at Sparta to keep alive, the narrow exclusiveness of the primitive society. We are thus able to understand the wonderful deve- lopment of Athenian power which followed the flight of Xerxes and the defeat of Mardonios. The empire so called into being was in reality nothing more than an attempt to weld isolated fragments into something like national union, — an attempt Avhich roused the fiercest opposition of the Spartans and their allies, as soon as they began to compre- hend the significance of the changes which they themselves had been foremost in bringing about. The necessary result of this antagonism was the Pelo- poiinesian War, which ended in the triumph of the old theory of exclusiveness. Thus far my narrative is in sub- stance the same as that of the more detailed history which I have brought down to the Surrender of Athens, B.C. 404. In the subsequent chapters, written for this volume, I have had to exhibit the falling back of Athens into the ranks of mere city communities, sharing in the suspicions or jealousies always awakened where the growth of one city seemed likely to affect the complete independence of its PREFACE. vii neighbors. Such a state of things could end only in foreign subjugation. From this point therefore the his- torian is charged with the gloomier task of tracing the in- fluence of Makedonian and Roman conquest on the country which was to become the seat of the Empire of the East, and ultimately to pass under the sway of the Ottoman Turks. To relate in detail, in addition to the narrative of pre- vious events, the history of the Greek people from the times of the Makedonian conquests to our own, is in the limits of a single volume of moderate size obviously impossible. I would gladly have dwelt more especially on the working of the federal principle in central Greece when the day of the grea' cities, Sparta, Thebes, and Athens, had passed away; but although this could not be attempted, I felt tliat some acquaintance with the later fortunes of a people still repre- senting, in blood scarcely less than in language, the Greeks of Perikles, Agesilaos, and Philopoimen, is almost as neces- sary as a knowledge of the more brilliant history of earlier times. This want has not been met, so far as I am aware, by any of the smaller Greek histories hitherto published. The last Book of the present volume may therefore, I irusr, lay before the reader the outlines of a picture which I hoj^e to draw out in more full detail in the concluding volumes of my larger history. The actors in this great drama I have striven to bring before the reader as living persons with whom we may sym- pathise, while they must be submitted to the judgment of tlie moral tribunal to which we are all responsible. Of all I have spoken plainly and honestly, being well assured that the sternest condemnation of the treasons and lies of men iike Alkibiades and Theramenes will in no way clash with the profoundest veneration for the sober wisdom of The- mistokles and Perikles, for the heroism of the gallant Demosthenes who all but saved the army brought to its doom by Nikias, and for the genius and patriotism of his mightier namesake who, in the immortal speech Avhich un- masked the treachery of ^schines, pronounced the funeral oration of Athenian freedom. I am indebted to the Proprietoi*s of the Encyclopaedia Britannica for permission to make use of some portions of the Chapter on Alexander the Great. To the Rev. North Pinder I express my grateful thanks for much valuable aid given to me in carrying this volume through the press. vill PREFACE. Note on the Spelling of Greeh Names. No attempt has been made in this volume to alter the spellinfj of Greek names which have assumed genuine English forms, — e. g., Athens, Thebes, Corinth, Thrace. It would be well perhaps if such forms had been more numerous. The Latin form has been kept, where it has become so familiar to English ears that a change would be disagreeable, e. g., Thucydides, Cyrus. This last name is, indeed, neither Latin nor Greek ; and the adoption of either the Greek or the Latin form is a matter of compara- tive indifference. Probably it would be to the benefit of historical study to revert to the true Persian form, and to write Gustashp for Hystaspes. But these exceptions do not affect the general rule of giving the Greek forms, wherever it may be practicable or advisable to do so. This rule may be followed in all instances in which either the names or the persons are unknown to the mass of English readers. Thus, while we speak still of Alexander the Great, his obscure predi cesser who acts a subordinate part in the drama of the Persian wars may appear as Alexandres. The general adoption of the Greek form is indeed justified, if not rendered necessary, bj' the practice of most recent writers on Greek History. It is, therefore, unnecessary perhaps to say more than that the adoption of the Greek form may help on the change in the English pronunciation of Latin, which the most eminent schoolmasters of the day have pronounced to be desirable. So long as the Phrygian town is mentioned under its Latin form of Celcenm, there will be a strong temp- tation for young readers to pronounce it as if it were the Greek name for the moon Selene. It is well therefore that they should become familiarised with the Greek form Kelainai, and thus learn that the Greek spelling involves practically no difference of sound from that of the true Latin pronunciation, the sound of the and K being identi- cal, and the diphthongs being pronounced as we pronounce ai in fail. CONTENTS BOOK I. THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP CONTINENTAL HELLAS. Hellas not a geograpliical name Mountain systems. — The Thessalian mountains The ranges of Oita, Othrvs, and ParnasTOs Mountains of Attica and the Peloponnesos The rivers of continental Greece Land and sea communication . Climate and products of Hellas PAGB 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 CHAPTER II. ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF HELLENIC CIVILISATION. Character of ancient civilisation . . . .5 The family the original unit of society . . .6 Exclusiveness of the ancient family . . . ,6 Origin of the religious character of the family . . 7 The house and its dependents . . . . . " 8 Ideas of property . . . . . .9 Laws of inheritance . . . . . .9 Identity of religious and civil penalties • . .9 Influence of religion . . . . . .10 Obstacles hindering the growth of civil society . . 10 Slow growth of the State . . . . .11 The Family and the Clan . . . . .11 The Clan and the Tribe . . . . .12 The Tribes and the City . . . . .12 Course of political development in Greece and Rome . 12 CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. THE MYTHOLOGY AND TKIBAL LEGENDS OF THE GREKKS. General character of Greek mytliical tradition Greek idejis of nature .... Kelijjious festivals of the Greek tribes Inconsistencies and contradictions of Greek myths Dynastic and tribal legends Greek tribal legends . . . . , Historical value of Greek myths The return of the Herakleids . Movements following the Dorian migration . Greek settlements in Asia Minor PAGE 13 13 15 15 16 16 17 18 20 20 CHAPTER IV. HELLENES AND BAKBARIANS. Growth of a common Hellenic sentiment The Hellenes and the barbarian world Religious associations among the Greek tribes The great games Greek ethnology Evidence of geoijraphical names Early condition of Thessaly The Lokrians, Dorians, and Phokians Tlie Aitolians and Akarnanians The Bolotian confederacy Ancient supremacy of Argos . The Eleians and the Arkadians The Messenians . The Spartans Lykourgos Mythical lawgivers 21 21 22 23 24 24 24 25 26 26 26 27 28 28 29 29 CHAPTER V. THE CONSTITUTION AND EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. The Spartan Gerousia ; the Ephors ; and the Kings . 30 The Spartiatai, the Perioikoi, and the Helots . . 31 Gradual improvement in the condition of the Perioikoi and the Helots . . . . . . .32 The Krypteia . . . . . . .32 The Messenian wars . . . . . .32 Narratives of the Messenian wars . . . .33 The first Messenian war . . . . .33 The second Messenian war . . . . .34 Spartan aggression against Arkadia . . . .37 Rivalry of Sparla and Argos . . . . .38 Early supremacy of Sparta . . . . .39 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER VI. THE GREEK DESPOTS. PAGE Tendencies of early Aryan civilisation . . . iiO Decay of the kingly power in Hellas . . . .40 Subversion of the Greek oligarchies by tyrants . . 40 Ancient and modern notions of monarchical government . 41 The power of the kinoes in Sparta . . . .43 History of the Greek despots, — Kleisthenes of Sikyon . 43 The Bacchiad oligrarchs of Corinth . . .44 Kypselos and Periandros . . . . .44 Theagenes of Megara . . . . . .46 CHAPTER VII. THE INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION OP THE GREEKS. The greatness of the Ionic race, and the settlement of Eu- boia .... Pan-Ionic festival at Delos Pan-Hellenic festivals . The Delian Hymn to Apollon . The Neniean and Isthmian games The influence of art on the growth of a Pan-Hellenic senti- ment .... Growth of physical science Source of Greek philosophy Greek astronomy Thales and the Ionic school Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans The Pythagorean brotherhood . Influence of the philosophers . 4? 47 48 48 4U 50 51 53 54 54 55 55 56 CHAPTER VIII. HELLAS SPORADIKE. Early Hellenic migrations Greek colonisation in Sicily Social conditions of the Greek colonists in Sicily B.C. Greek settlements in Italy 510 War between Sybaris and Kroton Effects of the destruction of Sybaris . The Corinthian colony of Korkyra Joint colonies of the Corinthians and Korkyraians Akarnanians and other neighboring tribes Epeirotai . . . , Illyrians and Makedonians Thrakians .... Greek settlements in Thrace Megarian colonies on the Propontis Greek colonisation .*d Africa Sources of the prosperity of Kyrene . 56 57 58 58 59 60 60 61 62 62 62 63 63 64 64 65 .di CONTENTS. Conflicts between the Carthaginians and the Greeks Career of Dorieus in Africa and Sicily B.C. Foundation of the Qelonian dynasty of Syracuse 481 Incroachments of Gelon on Carthaginian ground 480 ? The Battle of Himera .... 4G7 The fall of the Qelonian dynasty PAGE 65 G5 G6 66 67 69 CHAPTER IX. EARLY CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ATHENS. Contrast between Sparta and Athens as drawn by Perikles . 69 Complicated character of the Athenian constitutions . 70 Athens in the time of Kleisthenes . . . .70 The Trittyes and Naukrariai . . . . .71 Tlie Union of the Attic Demoi . , . .71 Right of intermarriage . . . • .73 The Eupatridai, Geomoroi, and Demiourgoi . . .72 The council of Areiopagos . . . . .73 The Drakonian legislation . . . . .73 The conspiracy of Kylon . . . . .74 CHAPTER X. ATHENS, AND THE SOLONIAN LEGISLATION. Historical records of the time of Solon . . .75 Misery of the Athenian people . . .75 Various opinions as to the causes of this misery , . 76 The question of debt and mortgage . . . .76 Actual measures of Solon . . . . .79 Lowering of the currency . . . . .79 New classification of the citizens ; the Pentakosiomedimnoi, Hippeis, Zeugitai, and Thetes . . . .79 The Probouleutic Council . . . . .80 Relationship of the four classes to the Tribes . . 81 Later years of Solon . . . . . .81 Usurpation of Peisistratos and death of Solon . . 82 CHAPTER XI. THE TYRANNY OP THE PEISISTRATIDAI. Slow growth of the Democratic spirit at Athens . . 82 560 Seizure of the Akropolis by Peisistratos . . .83 Character of the administration of Peisistratos . . 83 Expulsion and restoration of Peisistratos . . .83 Second expulsion of Peisistratos ' . . . .84 527 ? Death of Peisistratos and subsequent liistory of his house . 84 Policy and plans of Hippias . . . . .85 Intrigues of the Alkmaionidai for the overthrow of Hippiaa 85 510 Final expulsion of the Peisistratidai . . - .86 CONTENTS. xm CHAPTER XII. THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. B c Oligarcliical elements in tbe Solonian constitution 509 Renewal of factions after tlie fall of Hippias Need of a new classification of citizens This classification the cause of tlie opposition of Isagoras The Council of the Five Hundred The Heliaia and the Dikastai . The Archons ... The court of Areiopagos Ostracism Expulsion and return of Kleisthenes 509 ? Alliance of Plataia with Athens Discomfiture of Kleomenes at Eleusis . r^^ ^^ -a- Victories of the Athenians over the Boiotians and Chalkidi- ans . . • : Warlike activity of the Athenians Predominance of Sparta in Athens Congress of allies at Sparta . Return of Hippias to Sigeion . 87 89 90 91 93 93 93 94 94 94 95 96 BOOK II. THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA, AND THE GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. 540 CHAPTER I. THE PERSIAN EMPIRE UNDER CYRUS AND KAMBYSES. The historical and traditional Cyrus . The story of Astyages and Cyrus The story of Deibkes . _ . Scythian invasion of Media Physical geography of Persia . The Median and Lydian dynasties Geography of Asia Minor The Lydian dynasties . The Lydian Kings and the Asiatic Greeks The last of the Mermnad Kings Conquest of the Asiatic Greeks by Kroisos The drama of the life of Kroisos • The beginning of woes in the death of Atys The paying of the penalty due for the iniquity of Gyges Unhistorical character of all the details The revolt of Paktyas . Flight and surrender of Paktyas The story of the Phokaians . The conquest of Lykia 97 97 98 99 100 101 101 103 104 104 104 104 105 106 109 110 111 111 112 XIV CONTENTS. B.C. 570? 625? 520? PAGE Later conquests of Cyrus . . , . .112 Babylon and its people ..... 112 Siege and capture ot Babylon ..... 114 Last scenes in the drania of the life of- Cyrus . . 115 The Valley of the Nile . . . . .116 The people of the Nile Valley . . . .117 Opening of Egypt to Greek commerce . . .118 Invasion of Egypt by Kambyses .... 118 Expeditions against the Ethiopians and the temple of Amoun 119 Failure of the proposed expedition against Carthage . 120 Kambyses and the Egyptian priests .... 120 Kambyses and the Magian Smerdis .... 121 The conspiracy of the Seven Persians . . . 122 Accession of Dareios to the Persian throne , . . 123 516? CHAPTER II. THE PERSIAKf EMPIRE UNDER DAREIOS. The revolt of Babylon .... The despotism of Polykrates in Samos The last scenes in the career of Polykrates . The despotism of Maiandrios and of Syloson Organization of the Persian Empire . The story of Demokedes Influence and intrigues of Atossa The Scythian expedition Credibility of the narrative of the Scythian expedition 124 125 126 126 127 127 129 130 132 CHAPTER in. THE IONIC REVOLT. Dareios and the Athenians The schemes of Aristagoras of Miletos 502 ? The mission of Aristagoras at Sparta and at Athena The burning of Sardeis Extension of the revolt to Byzantion and Karia Mission of Histiaios to Sardeis The revolt of Kypros and Karia The death of Aristagoras Adventures and death of Histiaios The Ionian fleet at Lade 495 ? Battle of Lade, and fall of Miletos Third conquest of Ionia Flight of Miltiades to Athens . The punishment of Phrynichos 134 136 137 139 139 139 139 140 140 141 143 144 144 144 CHAPTER IV. THE INVASION OF THRACE BY MARDONIOS, AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. Administration of Artaphemes in Asia Minor 493 ? The reforms of Mardonios 145 146 CONTENTS. XV PAGE Failure of Mardonios in Thrace .... 147 Missiou of the Persian lieralds to demand eartb and water from the Western Greeks ..... 147 Treatment of the heralds at Sparta and Athens . . 147 Deposition and exile of Demaiatos .... 149 Capture of Naxos and Eretria by the Persians . . 149 Landing of the Persians at Marathon .... 150 Rivalry of Themistokles and Aristeides . . . 150 Genius and policy of Themistokles .... 151 Debates in the Athenian camp at Marathon . . .151 The story of the battle of Marathon .... 153 The details of the battle ..... 154 The raising of the white shield .... 155 The expedition of Miltiadesto Paros : his trial and his death 157 The alleged ingratitude of the Athenians . . . 158 CHAPTER V. THE INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. Preparation for the invasion of Europe The opposition of Artabanos . Character of the narrative of Herodotos March of Xerxes to Kelainai . Bridfre across tlie Hellespont . Scourging of the Hellespont . The march from Sardeis to Abydos The crossing of the Hellespont The review of the army and fleet at Doriskos The conference of Xerxes and Demaratos Significance and value of this conversation 160 161 163 163 163 163 164 166 167 169 170 Functions of Demaratos in the narrative of the Persian war. 170 Forced contributions from Hellenic and other cities . . 171 Visit of Xerxes to the vale of Tempe .... 172 Rivalry of Themistokles and Aristeides . . . 173 Pan-Hellenic congress at the Isthmus of Corinth . . 174 Sendintj of the spies to Sardeis, and the answers received at Delphoi by the Athenians . . . . .175 Faithlessness of the Argives, Kretans, and Korkyraians . 177 Mission to Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse .... 178 Abandonment of the pass of Tempe .... 179 Mission of Leonidas from Sparta to Thermopylai (June) . 180 Destruction of a portion of the Persian fleet by a storm on the Magnesian coast ...... 183 March of Hydarues over Anopaia .... 183 Heroism of Leonidas ...... 185 The victory of the Persians ..... 186 The sight-seeing in Thermopylai .... 188 The generalship of Leonidas ..... 189 The motives of Leonidas and his allies . . . 190 The Greek fleet at Artemision .... 191 Indecisive action off Artemision , . . . 193 XV i CONTENTS. PAGE Destruction of the Persian squadron dispatched to the Euripos 192 Second action o£E Artemisiou, resulting in the victory and retreat of the Greeks ..... 193 Fortification of the Corinthian isthmus . . . 193 • Migration of the Athenian people .... 194 Devastation of Phokis ...... 194 The attack on Delphoi ...... 195 Occupation of Athens by Xerxes .... 196 Intended abandonment of Salamis by the confederates . 197 Policy of Themistokles . . ... .198 Battle of Salamis ...... 200 Artemisia and the Kalyndian ship .... 202 Euin of the Persian fleet ..... 203 Counsel of Mardonios ...... 203 Alleged second message of Themistokles to Xerxes . . 204 The Hiffht of Xerxes . . . . . .205 General credibility of the narrative . . . . 207 Siege of Andros by the confederates .... 210 Distribution of honors among the Greeks . . . 210 CHAPTER VI. BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALE. Movements of the Greek and Persian fleets . . .211 Offers of alliance made by Mardonios to the Athenians . 212 Embassy of the Spartans to Athens .... 213 Re-occupation of Athens by Mardonios . . . 213 March of the Spartans under Pausanias from Sparta . 215 Paction of the Argives with Mardonios . . . 215 The feast of Attaginos ..... 216 B.C. Historical value of the story ..... 217 479 Advance of the confederates into Boiotia . . . 218 Attack of the Persian cavalry, and death of Masistios . 218 Change of the Greek position ..... 219 Counsel of Timagenidas ..... 219 The infatuation of Mardonios ..... 220 The conference of the Makedonian Alexandres with the Athenian generals ...... 220 Clianges of position in the Greek and Persian armies . 221 The resistance of Amompbaretos to the orders of Pausanias 222 . 223 . 224 . 225 . 225 . 226 . 226 . 227 . 228 . 230 . 230 Tlie battle of Plataiai Retreat of Artabazos .... Obstinate resistance of the Tliebans . Storming of the Persian camp . The graves at Plataiai .... Siege of Thebes .... Movements of the Greek fleet to Samos and Mykale Battle of Mykale .... Foundation of the maritime empire of Athens The siege of Sestos .... General character of the historv of the Persian war . 232 CONTENTS. xvn CHAPTER VII. THE CONFEDERACY OP DELOS. B.C. PAGE 479 The rebuildinfr of Athens, and the fortification of Peiraieus 282 Public works of Theniistokles . . . . . 234 478 Change in the conduct of Pausanias . ... . 234 477 Formation of the confederacy ot Delos . . .236 The assessment of Aristeides ..... 236 Treason and deatli of Pausanias .... 237 Traditional narrative of the later history of Themistokles . 238 Alleged journey of Themistokles to Sousa . . . 240 Uniform policy of Themistokles .... 240 Amount of evidence against Themistokles . . . 242 Relations of Tliemistokles with the Persian King . . 243 Alleged personal corruption of Themistokles . . 243 Extent of the guilt of Themistokles .... 344 468 ? Death of Aristeides . . . . . .245 CHAPTER VIII. THE GROWTH OP THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. Objects of the Delian confederation .... 246 Change in the relations of Athens with her allies . . 246 466 Athenian operations to the battles of the Eurymedon . 247 465 The Dllian synod, and the revolt of Thasos . . .248 464 The revolt of the Helots ; and the the alliance of Athens with Argos ....... 248 459-8 Siege of Aigina. Building of the Long Walls of Athens . 250 Battles of Tanagra and Oinophyta .... 250 457 Fall of Aigina . . . . . . .251 455 Disaster of the Athenians in Egypt .... 251 Final victories and death of Kimon .... 252 447 Evacuation of Boiotia by the Athenians . . . 252 446 The revolt of Euboia and Megara. The Thirty Years' Truce 253 Gradual development of the Athenian Democracy . . 254 Rivalry of Kimon and Perikles .... 255 The reforms of Ephialtes . . . . .256 BOOK III. THE EMPIRE OP ATHENS. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA. CHAPTER I. THE THIRTY YEARS* TRUCE. Public works of Perikles . . . . . 258 Extension of Athenian settlements .... 259 440 Revolt of Samos . . . . . .259 xviil CONTENTS. B.C. FAOB 436 Quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra . . . 261 433 Proposals for au alliance between Korbyra and Athens . 263 Counter arguments of the Corinthians . . . 263 433 Defensive alliance between Athens and Korkyra . . 264 Battle between the Corinthian and Korkyraian fleets off the Island of Sybota . . . . . .264 Revolt of Potidaia . . . . . .266 Council of the Peloponnesian allies at Sparta . . 2*57 Secret debate of the Spartans ..... 269 Formal Congress of the allies at Sparta . . . 270 Efforts of the Spartans to bring about the downfall of Perikles 270 Prosecutions ot Anaxagoras, Pheidias, and Aspasia . . 271 General policy of Athens in reference to the alleged causes of the Peloponnesian War ..... 272 CHAPTER II. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE SURPRISE OF PLATAIAI TO THE CLOSE OP THE PUBLIC LIFE OF PERIKLES. 431 Night attack on Plataiai by the Thebans . . .273 Slaughter of the Theban prisoners .... 274 Impolicy and immorality of this act .... 275 Spartan overtures to the Persian king . . . 275 The allies of Athens and of Sparta .... 275 The resources of Athens ..... 276 Attack of Oinoe, and invasion of Attica . . . 277 The expulsion of the Aiginetans .... 278 Measures for the safety of Attica and Athens . . 278 Alliance of the Athenians with the Thrakian chief Sitalkea 279 Public burial at Athens and funeral oration of Perikles . 279 430 The plague at Athens . . . . . .281 Depression of the Athenian people .... 283 Close of the career of Perikles . . . 284 CHAPTER III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FRO.M THE CLOSE OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF PERIKLES TO THE DESTRUCTION OF PLATAIAI. Execution of Spartan envoys at Athens . . . 285 The surrender of Potidaia ..... 286 429 Attack on Plataiai by the Spartans under Archidamos . 286 Defeat of tlie Athenians in Clialkidike . . . 288 Invasion of Akarnania by the Spartans, aided by Chaonians, Molossians, and other mountain clans . . . 288 Victory of Phormion over the Corinthian fleet . . 289 Athenian expedition to Krete . . . . . 290 Battle of Naupaktns, and second victory of Phormion . 291 Propo.sed night attack on Peiraieus .... 292 Expedition of SitalUes against Makedonia and Clialkidike . 293 428 The revolt of Lesbos . . . . .394 CONTENTS. XIX B.C. PAGE Audience of tlie Lesbian envoys at Olympia . ^ . . 296 Measures taken by the Athenians for the sujipression of the revolt . ...... 296 427 Surrenderor Mytilene to Paches . . . .297 ('ondenmation of the Mytilenaian people by the Athenian assembly ....... 298 Influence and character of Kleon .... 299 Second debate, and withdrawal of the sentence against the Mytilenaian people ...... 300 The subjujration of Lesbos . . . . . 002 The destruction of Plataiai ..... 803 CHAPTER IV. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE REVOLUTION IN KORKYRA TO THE CAPTURE OP SPHAKTERIA BY DEMOSTHENES AND KLEON. 427 State of parties in Korkyra ..... 305 Intrigues of the prisoners set free by the Corinthians . 306 Open enmity of the populace and the aristocratic factions . 300 Massacres at Korkyra ...... 308 Capture of Minoa by Nikias ..... 310 426 Second outbreak of plague at Athens . . . .311 Foundation of Herakleia by the Spartans . , . 311 Defeat of Demosthenes in Aitolia .... 312 Attempt of the Aitolians and Spartans on Naupaktos . 313 Retreat of the Peloponnesians after the defeat at Olpai . 314 Destruction of the Ambrakiots at Idomene . . . 314 •125 Occupation of Pylos by Demosthenes .... 315 The bay of Sphakteria . . . . .310 Attack of Brasidas on Pylos ..... 316 Embassy of the Spartans to Athens for the negotiation of a peace ....... 318 Debate at Athens on the propositions of the Spartan envoys 319 Rupture of the truce ...... 320 Resumption of the war ; blockade of Sphakteria . . 320 Causes tending to prolong the siege .... 321 Mission of Kleon with reinforcements for Pylos . . 321 Attitude of Nikias and the oligarchic party . . . 322 Attack of Sphakteria by the Athenians . . . 323 Return of Kleon with the Spartan prisoners to Athens . 325 CHAPTER V. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE CAPTURE OP SPHAKTERIA TO THE PEACE OP NIKIAS. Change in the popular feeling at Athens . . . 325 Campaign of Nikias on the coasts of the Saronic gulf . 326 Capture of the Persian envoyArtaphernes on his way to Sparta 326 Order to the Cliians to pull down the new wall of their city 327 424 Athenian occupation of Kythera .... 327 XX CONTENTS. B.C. PAGE Massacre of Helots by tlie Spartans . . . . 338 Proposed expedition of Brasidas to Thrace . . . 329 Attempts of the Athenians on Nisaia and Megara . . 329 Schemes of tlie Athenians for the recovery of their suprema- cy in Boiotia ....... 830 Battle of Delion . . . . . . .331 Refusal of the Boiotians to yield up the Athenian dead . 382 Assault and capture of Delion ..... 333 March of Brasidas through Thessaly .... 333 Remissness of the Athenians . . . . . 334 Revolt of Akanthos . , . . . .334 Surrender of Amphipolis ..... 335 Lightness of the Athenian imperial yoke . . . 336 Effects of the fall of Amphipolis on the Athenians and the Spartans . . . . . . .337 The exile of Thucydides . . , . .337 Capture of Torone by Brasidas . ... . 338 433 Truce for a year between Athens and Sparta . . 338 Revolt of Skione and Mende from Athens . . . 338 Difficulties of Brasidas in Makedonia .... 839 Recovery of-Mende by the Athenians .... 340 Arrival of Ischagoras and other Spartan commissioners . 840 423 Expedition of Kleon to Makedonia . . . 841 Capture of Torone by Kleon ..... 343 Battle of Amphipolis. Death of Brasidas and of Kleon . 342 Comparative merits of Brasidas and Kleon . . . 844 Negotiations for peace ...... 345 Terms of the treaty ...... 345 CHAPTER VI. THE TELOPONNESIAN "WAR FROM THE PEACE OP NIKIAS TO THE MASSACRE AT MELOS. 421 Separate treaty of alliance between Athens and Sparta .346 Scheme for setting up a new Peloponnesian confederacy under the presidency of Argos .... 347 Intrigues for bringing about an alliance between Sparta and Argos . . . . . . .348 420 Separate alliance between Sparta and the Boiotians . . 349 Dismissal of the Spartan ambassadors from Atliens . . .349 Intrigues of Alkibiades ..... 349 Treachery of Alkibiades to the Spartan envoys . . 351 Alliance between Athens and Argos .... 352 Exclusion of the Spartans from the Olympian games . 352 419 Operations of Alkibiades in Argos and Epidauros . . 353 418 Invasion of Argos by the Spartans under Agis . . 354 The battle of Mantineia ..... 354 Treaties between Sparta and Argos . . ' . . 356 417 Restoration of democracy at Argos .... 256 Failure of an Athenian expedition for the recovery of Amphi- polis ........ 357 416 Tlie massacre of Melos ...... 357 CONTENTS. XXI PAGE Historical autliority of the Melian Conference . . 359 The ostracism of Hyperbolos ..... 360 Position of the chief Hellenic states .... 360 CHAPTER VII. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR — THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION. 427 First interference of the Athenians in the affairs of Sicily . 361 424 Conorress of Sicilian Greeks at Gela .... 361 Punishment of the Athenian commanders . . . 362 423 Renewed dissensions in Leontinoi .... 363 416 Quarrel between Selinous and Egesta . . . 363 Resolution of the Athenians to maintain the cause of the Egestaiaus ....... 363 415 Opposition of Nikias ...... 364 Counter arguments or Alkibiades .... 365 Attempt of Nikias to disgust the people by insisting on the vast efforts needed to carry out the enterprise . . 366 Compliance of the Athenians with all the demands of Nikias . . . . . . .366 The mutilation of the Hermai .... 367 Accusation of Alkibiades ..... 368 The departure of the fleet from Peiraieus . . . 369 Public debate at Syracuse ..... 370 Reply of Atheuagoras to Hermokrates . . . 370 Progress of the Athenian armament to the Straits of Messene 371 Plans of the Athenian commanders .... 372 Occupation of Katane, and alliance with the Katanaians . 372 Recall of Alkibiades . . . . . .373 Victory of the Athenians on the shores of the Great Har- bor of Syracuse ...... 374 Activity of the Syracusans during the winter . . 377 Debate at Kamarina ...... 377 Neutrality of the Kamarinaians .... 378 Traitorous schemes of Alkibiades .... 379 414 Mission of Gylippos to Sicily ..... 381 Surprise of Epipolai by the Athenians . . . 382 Destruction of the first Syracusan counterwork . . 383 Destruction of the second Syracusan counterwork. Death of Lamachos ..... 384 Prospects of the Athenians and Syracusans . , . 385 ■ Voyage of Gylippos to Italy ..... 386 Entry of Gylippos into Syracuse .... 387 Third counterwork of the Syracusans . . . 388 Letter of Nikias to the Athenians .... 389 413 Outbreak of the so-called Dekeleian war . . . 390 Peloponnesian and Athenian reinforcements for Sicily . 391 Naval victory of the Athenians ; and capture of Plemmyrion by Gylippos . . . . . . .391 Indecisive Athenian operations in the Great Harbor . . 392 Voyage of Demosthenes to Korkyra and Italy . . 392 Arrival of Demosthenes at Syracuse .... 393 XXH CONTENTS. PAGE Night attack by the Atlienians on tbe Syracusan cross-wall. 395 Refusal of Nikias to retreat, or allow the lieet to leave the Great Harbor . . . . . .396 The eclipse of the moon ..... 398 Defeat of the Athenian fleet, and death of Euryinedon . 398 Effects of the victory on the Syracusans . . . 399 Closing of the mouth of the Great Harbor by the Syra- cusans ....... 400 Preparations for the final conflict in the Great Harbor . 401 Destruction of the Athenian fleet . . . . 402 Stratagem of Hermokrates to delay the retreat of the Athe- nian army ....... 403 The departure of the Athenians from their fortified camp . 404 Exhortations of Nikias on the march . . . 405 History of the retreat to the surrender of Demosthenes . 405 Defeat and surrender of Nikias .... 407 Sufferings and treatment of the prisoners . . . 408 Death of Nikias and Demosthenes .... 409 Effect of the expedition on the subsequent history of Greece 409 CHAPTER Vni. THE PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN) WAR FROM THE CATAS- TROPHE AT SYRACUSE TO THE SUPPRESSION OF THE OLI- GARCHY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. B.C. 413 Effects of the Spartan occupation of Dekeleia . . 410 Tiie massacre of Mykalessos ..... 411 State of Athens when the catastrophe in Sicily became known ....... 413 State of feelinij in Peloponnesos and among the oligarchical factions in the cities subject to Athens . . . 412 Overtures of Tissaphernes and Pharnabazos to the Spartans. 413 Synod of the Spartan allies at Corinth . . . 414 413 Defeat and death of Alkamenes at Peiraion . . . 415 Revolt of Chios, Erythrai, and Klazomenai from Athens . 416 Employment of the Athenian reserv^e fund to meet this crisis. 416 Revolt of Miletos. First treaty between Sparta and Persia 417 Rising of the Samian Demos against the Qeomoroi . . 418 Revolt and recovery of Lesbos .... 418 Defeat and death of Chalkideus. Athenian ravages in Chios. 419 Victory of the Atlienians and Argives over Astyochos and Tissaphernes at Miletos ..... 420 Dispute between Tissaphernes and Hermokrates . . 421 Second treaty between Sparta and Persia . . . 422 Fortification of Delphinion ; and ravaging of Chios by the Athenians ....... 422 Defeat of Charminos by the Spartan admiral Astyochos . 423 Rupture between Lichas and Tissaphernes . . . 423 Revolt of Rhodes from Athens .... 424 Intended murder of Alkibiades by the Spartans . . 424 Growing influence of Alkibiades with Tissaphernes . . 425 Suggestion of Alkibiades for prolonging the war . . 425 Overtures of Alkibiades to the Athenian officers at Samos . 426 CONTENTS. XXIH B.C. PAGB Opposition of Plirynichoo ..... 427 Reception of Peisandros and the envoys from Sarnos at Atliens . . . . . . .428 Appointment of Athenian commissioners for settling affairs with Alkibiades and Tissaphernes .... 429 Organization of the olifjarchic conspiracy at Athens . 429 Victories of the Athenians at Rhodes and Chios. Death of Pedaritos . . . . . .430 Abortive negotiation of the Athenian commissioners with Tissaphernes ...... 430 411 Progress of the oligarchic conspiracy in Samos . . 431 Revolt of Thasos . . . . . .432 Political assassinations at Athens by the oligarchic conspir- ators . . . . . . . - 432 Expulsion of the Council of the Five Hundred . . 434 Overtures of the Four Hundred to Agis . . . 435 Attempted oligarchic revolution at Samos . . . 435 Determination of the Athenians in Samos to maintain the constitution ....... 436 Resolution of the citizens at Samos to treat Athens as a re- volted city . . . . . . . 437 Election of Alkibiades as general by the citizens at Samos . 437 Reception of the oligarchic envoys at Samos . . 438 Opposition of Theramenes in the Council of the Four Hun- dred 439 Fortification of Eetionia by the Four Hundred . . 439 Destruction of the fort on Eetionia with the sanction of Theramenes ....... 440 Defeat of Thymocliares, and revolt of Euboia . . 441 Consternation iit Athens on the defeat of Thymocliares . 442 The suppression of the tyranny ronunciation of these flames and that of the Greeks was scarcely more than perceptible. HISTORY OF GREECE. •♦•-- BOOK I. THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. CHAPTER I. PnYSICAl, GEOGRAPHY OP CONTINENTAL HELLAS. To the Greeks of the historical ages the idea of Hellas was not associated with any detiiiite geographical limits. Of a Hellas lying within certain specified bounds, and containing ueilasnot within it only Greek inhabitants, they knew nothing, ageo^raphi- Not only were some of the most important Greek states planted on the soil of barbarian tribes, but for ages the title of many so-called Greek clans to the Hellenic name remained a matter of controversy. Nor in the description of Greece can we start with an historical order, as though there were some definite region which could be styled the mother country of the rest. In the prehistoric age the name Hellas is confined to the small and mountainous territory from which Achilleus, it is said, went forth with his Myrmidones to fight at Ilion ;' but it is absurd to regard the land of the I'hthiotic chieftain as the original seat of the Hel- lenic people, and all attempts to determine the course of the migrations which brought about the geographical distribution of the historical Greeks can yield at best only conjectural results. For the sake of convenience Greek geographers drew a distinc- tion between the lands which they regarded as the Mountain continuous or continental Hellas and the Sporadic or ^^^^^^ scattered Hellas of the Egean sea and of the Asiatic, Han motm- Sicilian, and other coasts.^ Adopting this division, *^'°*- we have in the former a country with an area not so large as ' Iliad, ii. 683. ix. 447. " 'EAAdf cvvexm- The otlier name, 'E7,Aaf anopadiKr/, is seldom used. 1 2 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. that of Portugal, stretching from the gigantic range of Olyrapos and the Kanibounian mountains on the north to the southern- most promontories of the Peloponnesos, and exhibiting, through- out, a singuhirly distinct and marked geography. Olympos itself, rising to a height of nearly 10,000 feet, forms with its neighbor- ino- hills only the northern wall of a lower region which may be rouo-hly described as a square 60 miles in length and breadth, the western rampart of these Thessalian lowlands being the chain of Pindos, which runs southward at right angles to the Kanibounian range about half way between the Ionian and the Egean seas, until at about the 39th parallel of latitude the southern barrier juts off eastwards from Pindos, under the names of Tymphrcstos and Otlirvs, and ends in the highlands between the Malian and Paga- sai.iii gulfs. From the latter gulf northwards the eastern wall of Thessaly is formed by the mighty masses of Pelion and Ossa, to the east of which lies the narrow strip of Magnesian coast, terrible for its ruggedness and its storms. The waters of this mountain- locked basin are carried off by the stream of Peneios through the far-famed vale of Tempe which separates Ossa fiom Olympos. Starting almost from the point whence Tymphrestos shoots eastwards from Pindos, the great chain of Oita trends for a few The ranges miles in a more southerly direction and then, running othrvs'and P'^rallcl with Otlirvs, reaches the Malian gulf, leaving Parnas'sos. between its base and the sea only the narrow- pass of Thermopylai, and shutting in between itself and Othrys the fertile valley of the Spercheios. To the southwest of Oita the lands to the north of the Corinthian gulf are for the most part occupied by the wilderness of mountains which formed the fast- nesses of Aitolian and Akarnanian tribes, and which still shelter a marauding and lawless population. To the southeast the range extends with but little interruption under the names of Parnassos, Helikon, and Kithairon, leaving to the north the rugged territory of Phokis and the more fertile region of Boiotia. Separated from mount Parnes to the east by the pass of Phyle, Kithairon forms with that mountain the northern wall of Attica, Mountains whicli stretches from the eastern end of the Krissaian anA"'ePelo- *^'' Corinthian gulf to the headland of Rhamnous, and pomiesos. rises up as the back-ground of the plain of Marathon. To the southwest of Kithairon the ridges of Aigiplanktos and Geraneia run as a back-bone along the Corinthian isthmus, and by the Akrokorinthos are joined with that labyrinth of mountains, which, having started as a continuation of the Aitolian highlands from the western end of the gulf, rise up as an impregnable for- tress in the heart of the Peloponnesos, leaving to the north at the base of Kyllene and Erymanthos the long and narrow Chap. I.J PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 3 rc>j;ioii known as the bi>-torical Achaia. To the south of this mass of mountains, and dividing the southern half of I'eloponnesos into two nearly eIakaria on the other, runs on to its abrupt termination in cape Tainaros. Following a nearly parallel course about 30 miles to the east, another range, striking southwards from the Arkadian moun- tains under the names 1 'anion, Thornax, and Zarex, leaves between itself and the sea a strip of land not unlike the Thessalian Mag- nesia and ends with tlu; formidable cape of Maleai, The whole of this (-(juntry, whieh may be described generally as consisting of gre}' limestone, exhibits almost everywhere the same features. Less than half the land is even capable The rivers of cultivation ; and of this land, of whieli a mere neni'tll" fraction is at present in u.se, a large portion pro- tireece. bably even at the best of times lay idle. Of the mountains not a few are altogether barren, while othei*s, if not well woo k'd, supply pasture for flocks when the lowlands are burnt up in summer. If, again, these mountain ma.sse.s, leaving room for few plains and even for few valleys of much length, raise barriers practically fatal to intercourse between tribes who in a |)Iain eountry would feel themselves near neighbors, this dittieulty is not removed or lessened by the preseiieeof any considerable rivers. The (ireek streams are for the most part raging torrent.^; in winter and drv betls in summer ; ami the names ( 'harailrai and ( 'heimarroi commonly ap[)lied to them attest the fury with which they cleave their way through the limestone rocks, wlien they carry off the mountain drainage in the rainy season. Of these rivei-s the most important arc the Peneios, which drains tiie Thessalian valley, and the Aeheloos which separates Akarnania from Ailolia. The Kephis<»s and Ilissos pour in summer a scanty title not much sur- pas.sed by that of the Eleian Alpheios ; and the persistent flow of tlu! Argive Lyrkeio> ' when the neighboring streams are altsorbed in tlic marshes of Lcrnai was recorded in the myth of Lynkeus anf life, This utter isolation of the primitive Aryan, as doubtless of Exclusive- every other, human home, is sufficiently attested by ancient*^'' social conditions which we find existing in historical family. timcs. In Latium and Rome, as in Hellas, cyery house was a fortress, carefully cut off by its precinct from every ' The word father, 7rdrr7pr<3enot- except itself a rif^lit to deal with the ed, at first, mere power, without a lives and property of its members, trace of the holier feelinjj since as- If tliese do wronjf, tlie state must sociated with it. It is but another claim to be their sole judge. If the name for the potent man, and re- right of j adding them be under appears in tlie (ireek SeanoTr)^, certain circumstances conceded to dasa-pati, the lord or conqueror of others, tliis must clearly be the re- enemies. Precisely tlie same notion suit of a comjimmise. The same of mere power is expressed in the remark ai>plies to the ancient laws Greek Troair, a husband, of marriage and inheritance. The ' It cannot be questioned that the history of investitures and of the Roman patria potestas is not the legal immuiiiiies of the Clergy creation of Roman state law. It is shows the natural workings of a of the very essence of a state to be state in reference to claims of pri- intolerant of private jurisdiction, vate or alien jurisdicticm. It cannot possibly recognise in any Chap. II] GROWTH OF HELLENIC CIVILISATION. 7 '_fjthGi:, No party walls might join togetlier the possessions of different families ; no plough might break the neutral ground which left each abode in impenetrable seclusion. The action of the state, as such, must be to unite its citizens, so far as may be possible, into a single body, by common interests, by a common law, and by a common religion. When then we have before us a condition of society in which each house or family stands wholly by itself and is only accidentally connected with any other, worshipping each its own deity at its own altar, and owning no obedience to a law which may extend its protection to aliens, we see that the materials out of which states have grown are not those which the state would have desired as most suitable for its work. Such as they were, they must be rough hewn to serve a wider purpose ; and the history of the Greek and Latin tribes is the history of efforts to do away with distinctions on which their progenitors had insisted as indispensable. But the den which the primitive man defended for his mate and his offspring with the instinctive tenacity of a brute would have remained a den for ever, if no higher feeling Origin of had been evoked in the mind of its possessor. This charactfr'of ini})ulse was imparted by the primitive belief in the the family, continuity of human life. The owner of the den had not ceased to live because he was dead. He retained the wants and felt the pleasures and pains of his former life ; his power to do harm was even greater than it had been ;'^ Fut above all, Ins rights of property were in no way changed. lie was still the lord of his own house, with the further title to reverence that he had now become the object of its worship, its god. This religious foun- dation once laid, the superstructure soon assumed the form of a systematic and well-ordered fabric. If the disembodied soul cannot obtain the rest which it needs, it will wreak its ven- geance on the living ; and it cannot rest if the body remain un- buried. This last office can be discharged only by the dead man's legitimate representative,--in other words, his eldest son, born in lawf ul wed lock of a jft'oinarTmitiatedr^into llie "^niily religion. Thus, as the generations went on, the Tiving'Tmster of the house ruled simply as the vicegerent of the man from whom he had ^ That tins belief would become a consumed by fire, as in tlie story of source of frightful cruelty, it is easy Periandros and Melissa. Herod, v. to imagine. The dead man would 92, 7. If be be slain, his spirit must still hunt and eat and sleep as in be appeased by human sacrifices, the days of his life ; therefore his as by the slaughter of the Trojan horse, his cook, and his wife must ca^Vives on the pyre of Patroklos. be dispatched to bear him company In short, the fulldevelopement of in the spirit world. He must be Chthonian worship with all its clothed : and therefore the costliest horrors would follow in a natural raiment must be offered to him and and rapid course. 8 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. inherited liis authority ; and he ruled strictly by virtue of a re- ligious sanction which set at defiance the promptings and impulses of natural affection. His Avife was his slave. He might have sons grown up about him, and they might even be fathers of children ; but so long as he lived, they could not escape from the sphere of his authority. Nor even, when he died, could he leave his daughter as his heiress or co-heiress with her brothers ; and for the younger brothers themselves the death of their father brouiiht no freedom. They became now the subjects of the elder brother, as before they had all been at the absolute disposal of tjieir father. At once, then, the master of each household be- came its priest and its king. He alone could offer the sacrifices before the sacred hearth ; and so long as these sacrifices were duly performed, he was strong in the protection of all his pre- decessors. In the worship which he thus conducted they only who belonged to the family could take part, as the lion's cubs alone would have a right to share the lion's den. Hence the continuity of the family became an indispensable condition for the welfare and repose of the dead. These could neither rest nor be rightly honored, if the regular succession fi-om father to son was brokenly Hence first for the father of the family and then /foF all its male members marriage became a duty, and celibacy brought with it in later times not merely a stigraa but political degradation. If the natural succession failed, the remedy lay in adoption. But this adoption w'as effected by: a^jcejigious^ 3? mony of the most solemn kind ; and the subject of it renounced^ -his own family and the worship of its gods to pass to another hearth and to the worship of other deities. Xor can the solem- nity of this sanction be better attested than by the fact that ex- cept in case of failure of natural heirs resort could not be had to adoption, Tiius^each_house_J:).ecame a temple, of which the inaster^ or fath(ii_(fi.>rr-as ive haye seen, the two terms have but the same The house ineaning)^as also the priest, who, as serving only and its de-- the_godvS of bis -Gwn rcccsscs, knew notlliiig of nny pen enttf. vdigjous bonds which linked him with any one be- yond the limits of his own household. These, of course, were extended with each generation, the younger sons becoming the iieadsx>f new iamilies-wh.LcIi, ALCrjg ,kept_jn stric t subordin ation to the chief who in a direct line represented the original pro- genito r~ttnd who tlius T>ccame the king of a number of houses or ajclan. But it was indispensable that the same blood should flow or be thought to flow through the veins of every mem- .ber of these houses, and that they must worship the same gods with the same sacrifices. All who could not satisfy these con- V ditions were aliens or enemies, for the two wox'ds were synony- "0 Chap. II.] GROWTH OP HELLENIC CIVILISATION. 9 mous ; and thus wc liave in tlic East the growth of caste, in the West that of a plebs or a cHentehi, beneath whom might be placed the serf or the helot.' Hence in the primitive Aryan states whether of the East or tlie West the distinction of orders was altogether based on re- ligion ; and if in these states citizenship was deriv- ideas of able, as it has been said, only from race, this was the property, necessary result of the action of the earliest religious faith, and nothing more. The question of property was at first merely a secondary consideration, The home of the family must, it is true, have its hearth and its altar ; but the notion of property in the soil was fully developed only when the death of the founder made it necessary to set apart a certain spot of ground as his tomb and as the burial-place of his successors ; and from the in\iolability of the grave followed necessarily the doctrine that the soil itself might not be alienated. From the reverence or the worship paid to the master or the founder of the family after death followed that strict law of pri- mogeniture which made the eldest son, as his father~Y,aws of in- had been, the absolute lord of all (^ther members of his heritance. house. It was impossible for the father to divest lum of his sacred character, and impossible for him to admit any of his younger-sons / y\ to a share of his dignity, From this root sprang that exclusive and_ j^ intolerant spirit which pervaded the whole civilisation of the ancient 1 ^^^-■ world and which in its intensity is to us almost inconceivable. But if the walls of separation between the orders in the state or city slowly crumbled away, the barriers which cut oS the stranger from the rights of citizenship were never re- identity of moved. The Athenian, the Spartan, the Megarian, and^dvii and the Theban were as closely akin as the men of penalties. Kent and Essex, of Norfolk and Lincoln. Yet out of the bounds of his own city each was a stranger or alien who had no proper claim to the protection of the laws, who could not become an owner of land in a soil sacred to the worship of other gods, or inherit from the citizens, because all inheritance involved the imiintciiaiice of a particular ritual. In short, to the citizen of tlie/^C,,^ ancient eunnnuiiities the city was not merely his home ; it waS his world. Here alone coufd he' ttve" under the protection of law, that is, of religion. Hence the doom of banishment became not less terrible than that of death, and was regarded as an adequate punishment for the gravest political offences, for the ^ The position of the domestic plebeian, as such, could have no slave was in one sense liio-her. He worship at all, and bad therefore was initiated into the family wor- no title to the consideration of ship, and so far liad a community those who were above him. of interest with his master. Tlie 10 THE FORMATION OF HULIiAS. [Book i. banished man Avas wiped ont from liis family and from the wor- ship of the family gods, lie was no longer husband or father ; and his wife and children were free to act as though he liad never lived. Tlie same religious feehng ran through every relation into Avhich the citizens of one state could be brought with those of another. Influence of Each city remained as much an isolated unit as each religion. original family of the state had ever been ; and the process of consolidation never went further than the immediate neighborhood of the great cities. But the effects of the old reli- gion did not stop here. If it denied to all strangers the riglit of intermarriage, it fed the feelings of jealousy, suspicion, and dis- like which the citizens of one state felt for those of other states even in times of peace, and intensitied all the horrors of war. Each war was, in short, a crusade, not a struggle for the attainment of some jwlitical end. The duties of mercy and pity to the conquered were things unknown. The life of the vanquished was at the disposal of the victor who, if he did not slay him, sold him as a slave ; and if terms were made with the enemy, the contract went for nothing if the religious ceremonies were neglected. \The liistory of every form of Aryan polity, although it e.vhibits the working of a more generous feeling, points unmistakeably to Obstacles J the time when each house existed in utter loneliness hinderinn: I and in necessary antagonism with all around it. ^AU of civil a^ indeed that the state could do was to modify the rules ciety.^ of the ancient family life to suit its own purposes, and to -work out its own ends rather by means of compromise than by open opposition to principles which derived their sanction from religion. The Greek Fhratriai and the Latin Curi;e were but clubs in which a number of houses were combined. Xo change was made in the character of the houses themselves. All that was done was to provide a common ground on which j^ertain famihes might meet to promote their secular interests, while their religion and their morality remained unchanged. This morality was_ t jie fruit chi efly of a religious belief, which touched neither the heart iior^thc conscience. If a certain act was to be done or left undone, this was not because they had in themselves a certain sen.se which told them that the one Avas right and thc"T>thor wrong, but because a wolf or a rabbit had crossed their path, or because they had lieard a crow chatter, or sec"n the lightning flash on one side rather than on the other. T heir only idea of th e gods whom they worshipped, that[s, of their own ancest ors, was that of beings who retained their human appetites while thev had ac- qiiired superhuman power and superhuman malignity. It was~^ impossible^ that kindly affections could~Dave any real scope amoiig~~ Chap. II.] GROWTH OF HELLENIC CIVILISATION. H men who breat hed s ucjia m ora l atinosphei^ejis this^r_ that the society to which the_^ belonged coiild fail t o exhibit the in tole- rauce, liar.sliness, and crnelty of the principle whi ch la y at theroot of their family life, if not of their social order. By bearing in mind this origin of Hellenic polity, we shall be able to find our way with coniparative ease through the compli- cated forms which that polity assumed at different siowgrowth periods. AVe might indeed have thought that the con- of t^i" state. stitution of the prim;x3val Aryan family could never depart from its ancient simplicity : and of itself possibly it might never have done so. But the members of these families recognised no duties beyond the limits of their own homes ; and on others who were not so strong or not so cunning they could prey witliout hin- drance or scruple. Hence the natural inequality of mankind allowed the most powerful families to lay the foundations of an irresponsible despotism, while the weaker were brought into a condition of clientship which differed from slavery in little more than its name. But so far as these original families were actually or nearly on a level in point of power, it was possible that they might combine for the purpose of extending that power and increasing rp^^, pamilv it : and by the establishment of a common worship and tiie which in no way interfered with that of tlie family '^^' this union was at once accomplished. Thus united, the Greek houses formed a Phratria or brotherhood. But while the circle of interests was widened, tlie bond of union remained not less strictly religious ; and each group of families had a common altar erected in lionor of a common deity who was supposed to be more powerful than the gods of eacli separate household. The principle of combination thus introduced was capable of indofiuite extension ; and as tlie grouping of houses or families had formed the Phratria, so the union of Phratriai alone was needed to form in the tribe a religious society strictly analo- gous to the Phratria or the family. The societies thus formed would always have tlieir own territory, the fields in which each family liad its own tomb with the common ground which lav between tlieir several landmarks ; but the principle of these com- binations was essentially not local, and thus the dependents of these houses could never acquire interest or possession in the soil on which they lived, toiled, and died, xVt best they might be suffered to retain a certain portion of the produce on condition of their laying the rest at the feet of the lord ; and thus a perpetual burden was laid not on the land but on the tillers of it who, if they failed either to yield the amount demanded, or in any other way, might be reduced to personal slavery. 12 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L But as the worship of the family was subordinated to that of the Phratria, and that of the Phratriai to the worship of the tribe, The Clan ^^ tribes Avhicli were locally near to each other could and the not fail to desire for themselves a union similar to " ^' that of the phratriai or the houses. This final union of tribes constituted the Polls or State, the society which, founded on a common religion, embraced all Its members within the circle of a common law, and which was destined in the end to sweep away those distinctions of blood in which its foundations bad been laid. With the formation of the State, in other words, of the in- dividual city, the political growth of the Greek may in strictness The Tribes of speech be said to have ended ; and his inability to and the City, advance to any other idea of Parliament than a Primary- Assembly' Involved a fatal hindrance to the growth of a nation. In blood and in religion the men of Athens, Thebes, and Sparta were as closely connected perhaps as the men of London, Manchester, and Liverpool ; but In going to war with each other Athens, Thebes, and Sparta could not even be charged with that violation of duty which during their great civil war was urged against tlie southern states of the American Union. Hence the country which was called Hellas remained practically throughout its whole history a territory In which a certain number of cities inhabited by people more or less resembling each other might or might not be allied together. The theory of Greek citizenship was the same as that of the Latin city which achieved the conquest of the world ; but Rome attained her power not by calling nations into existence but by numbering Italians or Gauls among her citizens by a process which would Intitle Englishmen or Prussians to their rights only as possessing the freedom of the cities of London or Beilin. This device secured to Rome universal dominion : the refusal or the failure to adopt It Insured the reduction of the Hellenic Course of \nnd to the form of a Roman province. But wliat- poiiticai de- ever might b'e the extent of Roman or Athenian in (ireecc powcr, the character of each was the same. It was auduiKomc. j^ power which they only could share who were citizens, and a vast body of men lay at all times beyond the circle of citizenship. The powerful families, who were able to domineer over their weaker neighbors and whose confederation was essentially religious, drew between themselves and their de- pendents a line of separation, to pass wliich was an Impiety and a sacrilege. The attempts to pass it sum up the history of the political contests l)etween the patricians of Rome and the plebeians ; in other forms the same struggle marks the history of Athens, and in greater or less degree that of all the other cities of Greece. ' A parliament in which every citizen has his place. CHAPTER III. THE MYTHOLOGY AND TRIBAL LEGENDS OF THE GREEKS. Of all the Aryan nations, and therefore, it may be said, of ali the nations of the world, none has amassed so rich and varied -a store of popular tradition as the Greek. Into this General mas^nificent storehouse of his thoughts the Greek cjiaiactcr of gathered together all that he knew, or thought that my'thical he knew, of the heaven and the earth, of day and 'edition. night, of fire and frost, of light and darkness, of the bright and the swarthy gods, of giants and nymphs and men. All were there, endowed with life and with all the feelings and the passions of men. But if this rich harvest sprung with a random or irregu- lar growth, it was destined to be garnered np not only by the greatest of epic, lyric, and tragic poets, but by the more systematic hands of mythographers who wove the whole into a connected history from the awful confusion of Chaos, the parent of Erebos and Night, to the settlements of the Ilerakleids in the Peloponne- sos and the founding of every Hellenic city. It follows then that this vast mass of popular tradition was not all of one kind. If in portions it expressed the religious or philosophical thought of the people, in others there were blended stories of tribal wars and heroic exploits which may have had some foundation in the world of historical fact. But all rest upon the same authority, and the achievements of Ilektor, Achilleus; and Sarpedon are as much or as little attested as the terrific combats of Zeus with Typhon and the Titans or the torturing of Prometheus on the crao-s of Cau- casus. It is enough to say that for the Greek, as for the Aryan con- querors of India, the whole world of sense was alive. For him the trees, the clouds, the waters were all sentient beings : Greek ideas the dawn and the gloaming were living persons, con- "fniture. nected with the brilliant god whose daily approach waked all thino-s from slumber and whose departure left them in darkness repulsive as that of death. For him the blue heaven over his head was the liv- ing husband of the earth on which he seemed to descend each eve- ning. He was Zeus, the glittering or shining god, whose bride Gaia or Ida was the teeming mother of growths awful or lovely, healthful or deadly ; or he was Ouranos, the being who spreads his veil over the earth which he loves. For him the sun was Helios, the in- habitant of a house so dazzling in its splendor that no mortal might look on its glory and live ; or he was Phoibos the lord of 14 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L life who sprang into light and strength in Delos or Ortygia, the land of the morning ; or he was Heraklcs toiling along up the steep path of heaven, laden with blessings for mankind ; or he was Sisyphos, the wise or crafty, doomed to roll daily to the mountain summit the stone which then rolled down again to the abyss ; or Tantalos sentenced to parch into slime the waters from which he would drink, or to scorch the fruits, which were his own children, before the eyes of Zeus, the broad heaven. For him the corn came up from the living bosom of the Earth Mother, and the sum- mer was her child, torn from her arms as Persephone each winter and restored to her at Eleusis, the joyous trysting place, in the spring. For him the golden grape was ihe gift of the wine-god Dionysos, the wonderful being who, gentle at his birth as a babe, could change himself into a tierce lion and rouse his worshippers into irrepressible frenzy. But more frequently present to his thoughts were the bright inhabitants of the dawn land, — the flashing-eyed maiden who springs fully armed from the cloven forehead of her sire and who has her home on the sunlit rock of brilliant and happy Athens, — the queen of loveliness and grace who, as Aphrodite, rises in faultless beauty from the sea foam, — the rosy -fingered Eos who leaves the couch of Tithonos to gladden the eyes of mortal men, — the pure Artemis whose sjDcar never misses her mark, — the shortlived Daphne who vanishes away be- fore the fiery breath of her lover, — the beautiful Arethousa who plunges into the blue waters in her flight from the huntsman Alpheios, — the glowing Charites who tend the bath of Aphrodite or array in a robe of spotless white the form of the new-born Phoibos, — the tender Proki'is who dies loving and loved, because earth has no longer a place to shelter her ; — and over all these, rather oppressive in lier greatness than winning in her beauty, Here the majestic queen of heaven, whom Ixion woos to his ruin, bringing on himself the doom which l)inds him to his blazing wheel for ever and ever. AVith these beings of the dawn land came the harpi-r Hermes, the babe who can soothe all cares away as he sings softly in his cradle, the Master-Thief who, when a few hours old, steals the bright cattle of the sun-god, the mighty giant who in liis rage can dasli the branches of the forest together till tliey burst into flame but who, be he ever so hungry, cannot eat of the fleth which the fire has roasted. For the Greek, lastly, Ilepliaistos, the youngest of the gods, limping from his birth, yet terrible in his power, was the lord of earthly fire, while the spotless Ilestia dwelt in the everlasting flame which gleamed on the sanctuary of each household hearth.' 'In this briof summary I liav(* or n^fiil beinjrs wlio peopled tbe iiiiiiied a few only of tlie beautiful niytliiral woild of the Greeks. Ex- Chap. III. J GREEK TRIBAL LEGENDS. 15 All these beings with a thousand others were to the Greeks objects of love or fear, of veneration, reverence, or worship ; and the worship of some among; them may be regarded as Religious the very foundation of the brilliant social life on tiie Greek which, in some of its aspects, in spite of its failure inbes. to waken the Greeks to a national life, we still look with undi- minished admiration. In the magnificent gatherings of Olympia, in the contests of the Corinthian isthmus, in the Nemean and Pythian games, the Hellenic race received an education, which, regardjd in the light of the purpose which it was designed to serve, has fallen to the lot of no other people upon earth. Here strength of body was used not as a means for supplying the bloody and brutal pleasures of a Roman amphitheatre, but as an instrument for a systematic training which brought out all its powers. Here the painter and the sculptor could feed his genius in the study of the most splendid of human models ; and here the simple wreath which formed the prize of victory in the games car- ried with it a glory which kings might envy and a power which struck terror into the mind of the barbarian.' For working purposes then it may be said that the mythical or popular beliefs about the gods and the heroes formed a kind of reliction, which no one felt it to be to his interest, and ^ P 1 1 • 1 • 1 • Iiiconsisten- perhap.s none regarded it as his duty, to gainsay or to cies and weaken. But in no other sense can we identify Hel- tions^of**^' lenic religion or morality with Hellenic mythology. Greeic The so-called Hesiodic poems give us some of the '^^ most repulsive of these legends, and string together the loves of Zeus, his fight with his father Kronos, his struggles Avith the giants, and his cheating of mankind. But when the poet betakes himself to his work as a teacher, we hear no more of these stories ; and we are told simply that the eyes of Zeus are in every place beholding the evil and the good ; that his even justicfi requites every man according to his work, and that all are bound to avoid the smooth road to evil and to choose the strait path of good, which, rough at first, becomes easy to those who walk in it." If, however, these popular traditions are not to be taken as em- b.)diments of either religious faith or moral convictions or philo- sophical thought, by the vast mass of the Greeks they were cept in its bearinjr on the intellec- orijjiii, I must refer the reader to tual and religious growth of the IhnMytJiolofiy of the Aryan Nations people, this mythology cannot be and the I'alfS of Ancient Greece. regarded as a part of Greek his- ' Herod, viii. 2G. tory. For the myths connected with "^ Works and Days, 35, 315, 263 these gods and heroes, and their Myth. Ar. Nat. i. 351. 16 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [BOOK L unquestionably received as genuine and veritable history. The strongest sentiment of tlie Hellenic mind was that of the absolute Dynastic independence of each city from all other cities ; and and tribal each town had its founder or heroic EpoTiymos whose cgen b. name it bore and whose exploits shed a lustre on his descendants for ever. The x\rgives looked back to the glorioiis days of Perseus, the child of the golden shower, who, bearing the sword of Chrysuur in his hand and the sandals of the Xymphs on his feet, journeyed away to the land of the gloaming and there by the merciful stroke of his weapon brought to an end the woes of the mortal Gorgon.' The Theban legend told the tale of Laios and Oidipous from the day when the babe was cast forth to frost and heat on the slopes of Kithairon to the hour when, after the slaughter of the Sphinx and his unwitting ofience against the sanctities of law, the blind old man departed on the wanderings which were to end in the holy grove of the Erinyes.^ The Athenian pointed proudly to a richer inheritance. He could tell of the Dragon-kings Kekrops and Erechtheus and recount the sorrows of the gentle Prokris and the wrongs done to the beautiful Aithra. He could dwell on the glorious career of the child Theseus, how, on reaching the vigor of full manhood, he raised the great stone and, taking in his hand the sword of destiny, proved, like Arthur, that he was rightwise born a king,' how he cast in his lot with the doomed tribute-children, and sailing to Krete trod the mazes of the labyrinth and smote the horrible Minotauros.'' But the mere naming of a few such mythical stories can scarcely give an idea of the stupendous fabric reared by later poets and Greek tribal mythographers, when they came to cement together legends. ^}jg stones which they found more or less ready hewn to their hand. Not only were there myths which belonged to •particular families, clans, or cities ; but around these flowed the stream of a tradition which in a certain sense may be called national, and which professed to furnish a continuous history in the talcs of the Kalydonian boar hunt, of the voyage of the Argonauts, of the rescuing of Helen, the returns of the heroes, the banishment of the Herakleidai, and their triumphant restoration to their ancient home. But the fact on which we have now to lay stress is that all these stories were to the several tribes or cities genuine records of actual events, the independent chronicles of kings and heroes whose fortunes ran each in its' own peculiar channel ; and yet that, regarded as a whole, these traditions strictly ' ^f^|th. Ar. Nat. ii. 58 et seq. die Af/i's. Introduction. "= Ih. ii 08 et xcq. * Myth. Ar. Nat. ii. 61. ' Popular Roinanees of the Mid- Chap. III.] GREEK TRIBAL LEGENDS. 17 resemble a prism in which a thousand pictures flash from a few planes while all are reflected from a single piece of glass.' It is therefore no part of the historian's task to relate at length the mythical tales which make up the great fabric of Hellenic tradition. Grains of fact may lie buried in its stu- Historical pendous mass ; but the means of separating the fact oi-eeit" from the fiction are lacking. It is, of course, pos- myths, siblc that there may have been a war undertaken to avenge the wrongs of an earthly Helen, that this war lasted ten years, that ten years more were spent by the leaders in their return home- wards, and even that the chief incident in this war was the quarrel of the greatest of all the heroes with a mean-spirited king. But for this war we have confessedly no contemporary historical evidence, and it is of the very essence of the narra- tive, as given by the poets, that Paris, who had deserted Oinone, and before whom the three queens of the air had appeared as claimants of the golden apple, steals from Sparta the divine sister of the Dioskouroi ; that the chiefs are summoned together for no other purpose than to avenge her woos and wrongs ; that the sea- nymph's son, the wielder of invincible weapons and the lord of undying horses, goes to fight in a quarrel which is not his own ; that his wrath is roused because he is robbed of the maiden Briseis ; that henceforth he takes no part in the strife until his friend Patroklos has been slain ; and that then he puts on the new armor which Thetis brings to him from the anvil of Hephaistos and goes forth to win the victory. But this is a tale which we find with all its essential features in every Aryan land :^ and therefore, if such a war took place, it must be carried back to a time preced- ing the dispersion of the Aryan tribes, and its scene can be placed neither in the Penjab (the land of the Five Streams), nor on the plains of the Asiatic Troy, not in Germany, or Norway, or Wales. It has, therefore, in strictness of speech, nothing to do with Greek history. The poems may, and undoubtedly do, tell us much of the state of society and law at the time when they took shape. The pictures of Andromache and Nausikaa may be fairly taken as proof that the condition of women in the days of the poets was inde- finitely higher than that of Athenian women in the days of Peri- kles. The Boule or Council of the chiefs may be regarded as the germ of the great assemblies of the future Athenian people ; and in spite of the manifest working of feudal tyranny we see in the * See fujflier Myth. Ar. Nat. thology, and the Introductionn to book i. cli. X. the Popular Romances of the Mid- ^ The proposition is a sweeping' die Ages, and the Tales of the Teu- one. For the proof of it I must tonic Lands. refer the reader to my Aryan My- 18 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. AcLaians the forefathers of the conquerors of Xerxes. We may even allow that the poet rightly gives the names of dynasties of which he speaks as flourishing in his own day ; but these names can give us no knowledge of the deeds which may liave been done by those who bore them. Pre-eminent among the traditions for whicli a larger amount of credibility has been claimed, stands the legend which relates the The return return of the Herakleidai. Of this event it is enough of the Hera- to sav that it is the last in the series of movements kJgi(1s which balanced eacli other in the popular stories of the Greeks, and that the object of all these movements is to regain a stolen treasure or to recover a lost inheritance.' But we cannot venture to say that we have these traditions in their original form. They were altered, almost at will, by later poets and mythographers in accordance with local or tribal prejudices or fancies, and forced into arrangements wdiich were regarded as chronological. The story ran that when Herakles died, his tyrant and tormentor Eurystheus insisted on the surrender of his sons, and that Ilyllos the son of Deianeira with his brothers hastily fled, and after wandering to many other places found a refuge at last in the only city where the children of Herakles could be safe. Eurystheus marches with his hosts against Athens, and the Athenians come forth to meet him led by Theseus, the great solar-hero of the land, who is accompanied by lolaos, the son of Ipli ikies the twin brother of Herakles, as well as by the banished Hyllos. Eurystheus is slain, and Hyllos carries his head back to Alkmene. In other words, the children of the sun return to the evening land with the treasure which the dark powers had carried away to the east ; but day and night follow each the other, and thus the Herakleidai cannot maintain their footing in the Pelopon- nesos for more than a year and then by an irresistible necessity find their way back to Athens. These alternations, which repre- sent simply the succession of day and night, might be, and would have been, repeated any nuujber of times, if the myths had not at length become mixed up with traditions of the local settlement of the country, — in other words, if certain names found in the myths had not become associated with particular spots or districts in the Peloponnesos. To follow all tlie versions and variations of these legends is a task not more profitable than threading the mazes of alabyrintli ; but we may trace in many, probably in most of them, tlie working of the f-ame ideas. Thus the version which after the death of Eurystheus takes Hyllos to Thebes makes liijj dwell by the p]lektrian, or Amber, Gates. The next stage in the liistory is ^ Myth. Ar. Nat. book ii. oh. iii. Chap. III.] GREEK TRIBAL LEGENDS. 19 another homeward journey of the children of Herakles which ends in the slaughter of Hyllos in single combat with Echemos ; and the Herakleidai are bound by compact to forego all attempts at return for fifty or a hundred years, periods which are mere multi- ples of the ten years of the Trojan war and of the Nostoi or home- ward wanderings of the Achaian chiefs. The subsequent fortunes of Kleodaios and Aristomachos, the son and grandson of Herakles, simply repeat those of Hyllos ; but at length in the next genera- tion the myth pauses, and the repetition of the whole drama is prevented by the gradual awakening of the historical sense in the Hellenic tribes. For this last return the preparations are on a scale whicli may remind us in some degree of the brilliant gathering of the Achaian chieftains with their ships in Aulis. A fleet is built at the entrance of the Corinthian gulf, at a spot which hence bora the name of Naupaktos, and the three sons of Aristomachos, — Aristodemos, Temenos, and Kresphontes, — make ready for the last great enterprise. But Aristodemos is smitten by lightning before he can pass over into the heritage of his fathers, and his place is taken by his twin sons Eurysthenes and Prokles, the pro- genitors of the double line of Spartan kings. The sequel exhibits yet other points of resemblance to the tale of the Trojan war. The soothsayer Chryses reappears in the prophet Karnos, whose death by the hand of Hippotes answers to the wrong done to Chryses by Agamemnon. In either case tlie wrath of ApoUon is roused, and a plague follows. The people die of famine, nor is the hand of the god lifted ofE them \intil, as for Chryses, a full atone- ment is made. Hippotes is banished, and the chiefs are then told to take as their guide the three-eyed man who is found in the Aitolian Oxylos who rides on a one-eyed horse. But as the local myth exhibited Tisamenos the son of Orestes as at this time the ruler of Peloponnesos, that prince must be brought forward as the antagonist of the returning Herakleids. A great battle follows, in which he is slain, while, according to one version, Pamphylos and Dymas, the sons of the Dorian Aigimios, fall on the side of the in- vaders. With the partition of the Peloponnesos among the con- querors the myth comes to an end. Argos falls to the lot of Temenos, while Sparta becomes the portion of the sons of Aristo- demos, and Messene that of Kresphontes. A sacrifice is offered by way of thanksgiving by these chiefs on their respective altars ; and as they draw near to complete the rite, on the altar of Sparta is seen a serpent, on that of Ai'gos a toad, on that of Messene a fox. The soothsayers were, of course, ready with their interpretations. The slow and sluggish toad denoted the dull and unenterprising disposition of the future Argive people ; the serpent betokened the 20 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L terrible energy of the Spartans ; tlie fox, the wiliness and cunning of the Messenians. The legends which relate to this so-called Dorian Migration have lost in great degree the freshness and charm of the myths Movements which gathered round the fairhaired Helen and the the Dorian ^^i^^ Medcia. This poverty may arise from their Migration, comparative nearness to an historical age, and from the intermixture of real incidents on which the floating myths of earlier times had fastened themselves. That this may have occurred again and again, is matter less of conjecture than of certainty, although the fact of the intermixture furnishes no ground of hope for those who think to find history in mythology. Unless they are known to us from contemporary writers, the real events, whatever they may have been, are disguised, distorted, and blotted out as effectually as the stoutest trees in American forests are killed by the parasitical plants which clamber up their sides. Whether the eastward migrations, which are said to be caused by the return of the Herakleids, re(jresent any real events, we cannot tell. All that can be said further about these legends as a whole is that the historical character of any of the incidents recorded in them can be attested only by evidence distinct from these myths ; and no such evidence is forthcoming. These eastward migrations which followed the Herakleid con- quests led, it is said, to the founding of those Hellenic settlements Greeksettle- "^^lii^li studded the western coasts of Asia Minor, Avith ments in the shorcs of the Hellespont and the Propontis, and which were found even on the banks of the Borys- thenes and the Tanais. These settlements are grouped under the three classes of Aiolian, Dorian and Ionian colonies. Of these colonies we shall speak more particularly hereafter. It is enough to remark here that the chronology of many of these events is given with an assurance which might w ell mislead the unwary, and that Thucydides has as little hesitation in assigning dates to events following close on the Trojan war or to the successive settlements of non-Hellenic and Hellenic inhabitants of Sicily as to the expulsion of the Peisistratidai from Athens or the forma- tion of the confederacy of Delos. CHAPTER IT. HELLENES AND BARBARIANS. Long before tlie dawn of contemporary history a certain feeling of kinship had sprung up among the tribes which were in the habit of calling themselves Greeks, or rather Hellenes, Growth of and this feeling found expression in customs and usages Hy"™,™,?" which separated them from other tribes by which they sentiment. were surrounded. There was first the bond of a common language ; but this connexion was acknowledged, uecessarily, only in so far as one tribe understood the dialect of another, and the frontier was soon passed in an age which regarded only the practical uses of speech in the common business of life. All who could not be thus easily understood were cut ofE from the great Hellenic society by barriers which were supposed to be impassable. They were speakers of barbarous tongues, and belonged, therefore, virtually to another world. But these convictions rested on no solid historical grounds. Thus Herodotos could assert, as we shall see more clearly hereafter, that the dialects common to the distant towns of Plakia and Kreston, settlements reputed to be Pelasgic, proved that the old Pelasgic speech was barbarous, that is, non- Hellenic ;' but he could also maintain in a far larger number of passages that there was no essential difference between the Pelasgic and Hellenic dialects, and that the Pelasgians formed coinmon names from strictly Hellenic roots by etymologies not always very obvious. In short, it may be safely said that, in spite of one or two disclaimers, Pelasgians and Hellenes were in his eyes one and the same people. Inconsistencies such as these suffice of themselves to show that the ethnological traditions of the Greek tribes are not to be trusted, and that the attempt to extract history from the genealogies of eponymous heroes is a mere waste of labor. All that can be said, then, is that long trains of circumstances, which it would be impossible to trace or to account for, led cer- tain tribes to acknowledge in some cases relationship The Hei- which they repudiated in others, unconscious that the^barba- their tests of union, if logically applied, would carry "an world, them far beyond the range of the Hellenic horizon. So far as this relationship was recognised, a common speech was regarded as evidence of descent from a common stock. But this evidence was not admitted in many cases where we see the affinity clearly enough ; and thus to the Dorian or the Ionian a Roman was ' Herod, i. 57. 22 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. not much less a barbarian than were the Phenicians or the Gauls. Still, "as time went on, the character of many of these tribes was so far modified by like influences as to present features ^^'llich sufficiently distinguished them from other tribes. To the Asiatic generally the human body was a thing which, if he had the power, he might insult and mutilate at will, or disgrace by unseemly and servile prostrations, or offer up in sacrifice to wrathful and bloodthirsty deities. In his eyes w^oman was a mere chattel, or instrument of hisj)l^ejisures j and while he might have about him a multitude of wives, he mig ht make profit of his children by selling them into slavery. Of these abominable usages the Greek practically knew nothing ; and as he would have shrunk from the gouging out of eyes, the ripping up of stonuichs, and the slitting of ears and noses, which Persians and English- men, it w^ould seem, have regarded as a duty, so he rejoiced to look upon the vigor and beauty of the unclothed body which carried to the Oriental a sense of unseemliness and shame, and the exhibition of this form in games uf strength and skill bec^ne t hrough the~ great festivals of the separate or c ollect ed" tlTbc s bound up intimately with his religion. Above all, withTiTm this respect for the person was accompanied by a moral self-respect Avhich no adverse conditions could ever wholly extinguish. The Boiotian oligarch who could oppress his serfs still refused to submit to the rnie of one absolute master ; and the most powerful of Greek despots, though he might be guarded by the spears of foreign mercenaries, still moved familiai'ly among his subjects, who would as soon have thought of returning to primitive canni- balism as of approaching him with the slavish adoration of Persian nobles. Looking at these points of marked contrast Avith the nations of Asia whether Aryan or Semitic, we may speak broadly of a Greek national character ; and this contrast Avould, we can- not doubt, have crossed the mind of every Athenian and Spartan on being asked to what race he belonged. This feeling of nationality, which, however, was never allowed to intrude into the region of politics, was sustained and strength- Religious ened, as we have seen, by a common religion. The pri- amon|th°^ mitive hearth and altar' had been froni' the first the Greek tribes, sacred spot where the members of the family might meet on all occasions of festival ; and these feasts were marked by games which in the course of ages began to attract visitors from other clans now recognised as sprung from the same stock. Such was the simple origin of those splendid and solemn gather- ings which made the names of Pytho and Olympia famous. For tlieir preJ^ervation and for the general regulation of the festivals some of the (Treek tribes formed themselves into societies called Chap. IV.] HELLENES AND BARBARIANS. 23 Amphiktyoniai, as denoting the nearness of their abode to the common sanctuary. Of the many societies thus formed some at- tained a wide celebrity. But there was one which from the completeness of its organisation became so far pre-eminent as to be styled expressly the Amphiktyonia. This was the alliance of which the representatives met at Delphoi in the spring, and in the autumn at Tliermopylai. The chief work of this council was to watch over the safety and to guard the interests of the Delphian temple ; and the discharge of this office sometimes involved the carrying on of war against those who were supposed to have injured them. But it is obvious that, unless this alliance rested on a thorough national union, its action or inaction would be far more mischievous than beneficial. Its powers might be diverted to promote the schemes of the predominant states, or they might be kept altogether in abeyance, while on the other hand the plea of defending the weaker members of the Amphiktyonia might be used to justify the interference of the Makedonian kings in the politics of the Greek cities. Under these conditions the alliance was at one time prominent, at another obscure ; but at no time did it achieve that subordination of separate cities under a central representative government, without which nations cannot exist. The tribes composing this Amphiktyonia did not include all who were intitled to be called Hellenes ; but the tribes which were shut out could make use of the oracle at Delphoi or The great contend in the games at the Olympic and Pythian games, festivals. All Greeks therefore were admitted to share the large intellectual inheritance which placed them in the front ranks of mankind. The full influence of these great gatherings on the education of the people at large cannot be easily realised ; yet, as we read the stirring strains of the great Delian hymn, we may to some extent understand the charm which attracted to them all that was noble and generous tlu'ough the wide range of Greek society. But although from Pytho or Olympia, from Delos or Nemea or the Corinthian isthmus, he return(!d to his home ennobled by the stirring associations with which these splendid festivals were surrounded, he was brought none the nearer to that English feeling which would regard as treason the mere thought of war between Birmingham and Manchester. He felt a justifiable pride in being a Hellen ; but he was as far ^s ever from wishing to merge the sovereign authority of his city under a central govern- ment which should check the feuds and rivalries of all the Greek cities alike. In various portions of Hellas the system of village communities still kept its ground. The Spartan boasted that his city had not walls, and the historian pointed to the four hamlets of which it was composed, with the remark that the ruins of 24 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book i. Sparta would never tell tlic tale of its ancient greatness/ This life of villages was kept up not merely throughout Epeiros, where it has continued to our own day, but in Arkadia, Achaia, and Elis. Tliis great Hellenic aggregate, in one sense a nation, in another a mere fortuitous combination of isolated and centrifugal atoms, Greek must be accepted as the starting point of our history. Of ethnology, ^jjg changes which preceded the advent or growth of this Hellenic people we know nothing. The record of them was never made, or it has been lost irretrievablj^ It would, in truth, be easy to fill a volume with speculations on the origin and the early move- ments of these several tribes : but history is not a legitimate field for speculation, and the result of such speculation must be a pretence of knowledge in place of the reality. In any attcm{)ts of this kind we can but take their traditions ; and these traditions betray not merely complete ignorance, but the fixed idea that they might be moulded at will to suit the sentiment of each tribe, of which indeed they were only the expression. There are, however, other sources from which we may obtain sure historical results and from which we may be justified in Evidence drawing important inferences. Of these the most phica?^* trustworthy is hmguage. From the speech of Greeks names. and Romans, Teutons and Hindus, we infer with certainty not merely their connnon origin from a single home, but their mode of life, and the stage which they reached in civilisa- tion, science, and law. From identical geographical names, however widely separated may be the regions in which we find them, we infer that they have been given by the same or nearly cog- nate tribes, and thus we assert that Keltic races have dwelt on the banks of the Don and the Danube, of the Teign and theTjiie, the Tagus, the Tavy, and the Tay, of the Neda and the Nith, the Euenos and the Avon, the Kebren and the Severn, the Dart and the Douro, the Durance and the Derwent, while their kinsmen have sojourned on those of the Axios and the Acheloos, the Exe and the Esk. Confining ourselves within these limits, we may yet form a clear idea of the actual condition of the several countries collec- Earlycon- tively regarded as Hellas, at a time when history was ditionof in its dawn. The statement of Thucydides^ that the icssay. Spartan colony of Ilerakleia in Trachis, founded early in the Peloponnesian w;^-, was })lanted on Thessalian ground proves the fact of Thessalian supremacy from Thermojjylai to the pass of Tempe, while the wall built by the Phokians to bar the pass at Pylai^ may be taken as evidence that long before the Persian war the Thessalians threatened to make further conquests to the ' Time. i. 10. -■ iii. 92, 93. ' Herod, rii. 21.'>. Chap. IV.] HELLENES AND BARBARIANS. 25 south. But in this region were found Magnesians to the east, Achaians and Malians on the south, and Dolopes in the western higlilands of Pindos andTymphrestos. Whatever may have been the precise affinities of these tribes with each other or Avith the ThessaUans, they were certainly in a state of more or less depen- dence on the latter, who were lords of the rich plains watered by the Peneios and studded with cities, among which Pherai and Pharsalos, Krannon and Larissa are historically the most promi- nent. In these towns dwelt a nobility who, drawing their revenues from tlie rich lands round about, spent their time in feuds and feasting and the management of their splendid breed of horses. Of the origin of that third class of the Thcssalian population, which, as contrasted with the subject tribes already named, was known by the title Penestai, or working men, we can say little. That these Avere earlier inhabitants reduced to serfdom, there is perhaps little doubt ; but whether they were, as some said, Perrhaibians and Magnetes, or Pelasgians, or, as some would have it, Boiolians driven from the territory of Arno, it is impossible to determine.' The legends which brought them from the south of the lake Kopais are contradicted by others which reverse the process. From the turbulent oligarchs, of whom the Skopadai of Krannon and the Aleuadai of Larissa may be taken as fair specimens, not mucli unity of action was to be expected. The Thessalian Tagos answered to the Dictator chosen, like Lars Porsena, to head the Etruscan clans ; but fierce feuds often made the election of a Tagos impossible, and even in the Peluponnesian war not all the Thes- salian cities sent their forces to aid their ancient Athenian allies." To the south of the rich and beautiful valley of the Spercheios, bounded by the luxuriant slopes of Othrys to the north and the more barren range of Oita to the south, dwelt the The Lok- Lokrians, Dorians, and Phokians, of whom it cannot rjans', ami be said that we possess any continuous history. Sep- Phokians. arated by the territory of Daphnous, a small corner of ground to the north of mount Knemis which gave to the Phokians their only access to the Euboian Sea, lay the lands of the Epi- knemidian Lokrians to the west, and of the Lokrians of Opous to the east. With these sections of the Lokrian name must be taken another isolated portion of the same race inhabiting tlio I corner of land which ran up north ward j from the Corinthian gulf between Aitolia and Phokis, and also the town of the Epizephyrian Lokrians at the southern extremity of the Italian peninsula. These Lokrians were regarded as Hellenes ; but their name seems to point to an affinity with the Ligurians ofthegulf of Genoa and Grote, Hist. Gr. ii. 375. = Thuc. ii. 23. 26 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. the Lloegry of Britain and Gaul. To the south of mount Knemis lay the Phokian plain of the Kephisos, which, flowing from Par- Jiassos, receives the stream of the Euenos near the town of Elateia and runs into the lake Kopais near the Boiotian Orchomenos. To the west of the Ozolian Lokrians and of the little state of Doris lay the fastnesses of mountain tribes, some of which were The Aito- allowed to be Hellenes while to others the title was Aktuna-^ refused, — on what grounds, it would perhaps be not uiaus. easy to determine. Probably both in their language and their usages the Aitolians and Akarnanians were as much or as little entitled to be regarded as Greeks as were the Agraians and Amphilochians of the Ambrakian gulf, who were classed among barbarians.' With these rude and savage clans the comparatively orderly people of Doris and Phokis stand out in marked contrast; but in The Boiotian historical importance all these are far surpassed by the coufedeiacy. Boiotiaus, whose theory even from prehistoric times seems to have been that the whole country stretching from Chai- roneia and Orchomenos to the Euboian sea and from the lands of the Opountain Lokrians to the Corinthian gulf was the inalienable possession of the Boiotian confederacy. Whether this confederacy was coeval with the greatness of Orchomenos, we cannot say ; but certain it is that Orchomenos was the seat of a powerful people at a time when Mykenai and Tiryns stood foremost among the cities in the Peloponnesos. The huge works by which the imperfect drainage of the lake Kopais through the natural Katabothra was rendered complete point to a government as stable as that which produced the Cloacae of Rome. But before the dawn of the historic ages the greatness of Orchomenos had passed away, and Thebes becomes the leader of the confederacy, from which by the aid or the connivance of Sparta Plataiai seceded to form its splendid but disastrous alliance with Athens. If from these communities to the north of the Corinthian gulf Ancient ^^^ ^"^'" ^^ ^^^^ Peloponncsos at the beginning of the supremacy genuine historical age, we find that the preponderant ° ^^'^^' state is Sparta. Iler territory includes nearly half the peninsula in a line extending from Thyrea on the east to the mouth of the Neda on the west. She has thus swallowed up all Messuno, and no small portion of land which, as the tradition asserts, had once been under the dominion of Argos, There had, indeed, been a time in which the same Argos had devoted not mere- ly the city which held aloof from the struggle w ith Xerxes, but the ■ Yet these Agraians are in the common designation of the name simply the (iniioi orGraikoi, Hellenic tribes, whose name the Latins adopted as Chap. IV.] HELLENES AND BARBARIANS. 27 wliole of the Peloponnesos and many a district lyino- Leyond ita limits ; and therefore the town of Arg-os was already shrank when she was deprived of that long strip of land which, stretching; from Tliyrea to Cape Malea, is cat off, like Magnesia, hy the mountain range of Thornax and Zarex from the lands which lie to the west. This ancient supremacy of Argos may be indicated in the myth Avhicli in the Ilcrakleid conquest assigns the northeastern portion of the peninsula as the prize of Temenos the eldest smn-iving son of Aristomachos; and thus the Dorian conquerors Avould become inheritors of her ancient greatness. Here, as in the Hellenic lands to the north of the Corinthian isthmus, we must content ourselves with that grouping of states which is revealed to us at the dawn of the historical j,^^ Eieians ages ; and this grouping in the Peloponnesos exhibits and tiie Dorians as possessing the whole peninsula with the exception of that portion to the northwest which included the lands of the Triphylians, Pisatans, Eieians, Achaians, and Arka- dians. The Tri{)hylians, separated from the Dorian .states by the river Xeda, fell, it was said, like the men of Pisa, mider the yoke of the Eieians, later immigrants from Aitolia, while the Achaians retained in their dodekapolis some fragments of the ancient in heritance won from lonians whom they had driven from their homes.' It is of more importance to remark that the tribes who occupied the central highlands of the Peloponnesos exhibit, at the time when we first become historically acquainted with them, social conditions much resembling those of the highland tribes ■*■<) the north of the Corinthian gulf. Girt in Avithin the mighty ranges of Kyllenc and Erymanthos to the north, of Pholos to the northwest, of the Maiualian and Parthenian hills to the south- east, this bare and rugged region furnishedahome to village com- munities ordered after the primitiAC Aryan model. But if Arkadia could boast of no beautiful or magnificent cities, it was rich in its wealth of popular traditions. The birth-place of Hermes Avas in the Kyllenian hill, and here lay the cradle to which the child returned Avhen wearied with his Avork of destruction. Among these same hills, near the town of Xonakris, flowed the awful stream of Styx, the Avater which imparted a deadly sanction to the oaths of those who swore by it, Avhile far away on the Lykaian heights rose the town Avhich the simple faith of the people maintained to be the most ancient of all cities and the first Avhich Helios (the sun) had ever beheld. Here, as they Avould have it, Zeus had been nourished by the nymphs Theisoa, Neda, and Hagno ; and here in Kretea, and not in the Egean island, Avas the ■■ Herod, vili. 73. 28 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L mighty son of Kronos born. Half conscious that he was but say- ing in other wuids tliat the blue heaven is seen first in the morn- ing against tlie bright mountain-tops on -which the sun's rays rest before they liglit up the regions beneath, llie Arkadian, localising in his Lykaian Tenienos the old faith that uo man might look on the face of Zens and Uve, averred not • I 1 1 • • -11 Perioikoi, severally are suinciently clear ; but it seems impossible and the to attain any certainty as to the mode in v/hich they Helots, grew up. In the age of Herodotos no distinction of race existed between the full Spartan citizens and the Perioikoi, while a large proportion of the Ilelots was also Dorian, if the fact that they were conquered Messenians gave them a claim to that title. We are therefore left to mere guesswork, when we seek for the reason why the Dorians (f outlying districts did not share the privileges of the Spartans, and why certain other Dorians, with other inhabit- ants whose very name of Helots we cannot account for, should have been reduced to the condition of villenage. The Dorian con- quest of the Peloponnesos is shrouded in the mists of popular tra- dition ; and when we reach the historical ages, we can but accept facts as we find them. These facts exhibit to us an oligarchical body filling towards the other inhabitants the relation of feudal lords to their dependents, supported, like the Thessalian nobility, entirely from their lands, and regarding all labor, whether agri- cultural or mechanical, as derogatory to their dignity. In their relations with one another, these lords were the soldiers of an army of occupation and subjected, as such, to a severe military disci- pUne. In fact, they retained their citizenship only on condition of submitting to this discipline and of paying their quota to the Syssitia or public messes, which supplied the place of home life to '32 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L the Spartans. Failure in eitlier of these duties intailed disfran- chisement: and it may be readily supposed that the nmltipli cation of families too proud to labor, and even forbidden to labor, had its necessary result in producing a class of men who had lost their franchise merely from inability to contribute to these public messes. These disfranchised citizens came to be known by the name Hypo- meiones or Inferiors, and answered closely to the ' mean whites ' of the late slave-holding states of the American union. The full . citizens were distinguished by the title of Ilomoioi, or Peers. Thus while the oligarchic body of governing citizens Avas per- petually throwing ofE a number of landless and moneyless men, Gradual im- the condition of the Perioikoi and even that of the provement Helots was by comparison gradually improving. The in tnc condi- */ i. o *> i o tion of the former carried on the various trades on which the and the^^ Spartan looked witli profound scorn ; the latter, as Helots. cultivators of the soil, lost nothing by the increase of I their numbers, while they differed altogether from the slaves of Athens or Thebes as being strictly ' adscripti gleba?,' and not liable to be sold out of the country, or perhaps even to be sold at all. Such a polity was not one to justify any great feeling of security on the part of the rulers. We find accordingly that the Spartan TheKryp- government looked with constant anxiety to the classes tela. which it regarded with an instinctive dread. The ephors could put Perioikoi to death without trial ; crowds of Helots sometimes disappeared for ever when their lives seemed to portend danger for the supremacy of the dominant class ; and the Krypteia (even if we reject the idea of deliberate annual massacres of the Helots) was yet a police institution by which young citizens were employed to carry out a system of espionage through the whole of Lakonia. But with all its faults the Spartan constitu- tion fairly answered its purpose, and challenged the respect of the Hellenic world. In the belief of Herodotos and Thucydides Sparta, in times ancient even in their day, had been among the most dis- orderly of states ; but since the reforms of Lykourgos none had been better governed or more free from faction. The fixity of their political ideas or sentiments won for them the esteem of their fel- low-Hellenes, among whom changes were fast and frequent, while this esteem in its turn fed the pride of the Spartans and inspired them with a temper as self-satisfied as that of the iidiabitants of the Celestial Empire, and even more arrogant and exclusive. The empire of Sparta was extended to the western sea by the The Mc8- result of two wars with the Messenians, the second of Bcnian which ended in their utter ruin. Of these wars we ^^""' have some scanty knowledge from the fragments which remain of the elegies of Tyrtaios. This poet wlio belonged to Chap. V.] EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 33 the Attic deme of Aphidnai was for the Spartans in tlie later war wliat Solon was to the Athenians in the struggle for Salamis. Fi'om him we learn that the two contests were separated by an interval of two generations. The fathers of our fathers, he said, conquered the Messenians ; but this first conquest, he tells us, was acliieved at the cost of a war which lasted for twenty years and in which the most eminent of the Spartan warriors was the king Theopompos. The second war he describes as not less obstinate and dangerous for Sparta, against which the Messenians were sup- ported by the aid of other states in the Peloponnesos. This is practically all that we learn from Tyrtaios, and it is not much. Of Tyrtaios himself later writers related that he was a lame school- master sent by the Athenians to aid the Spartans who had been commanded by the Delphian priestess to find a leader at Athens. Of these wars we learn nothing from writers preceding the age of Epameinondas ; and the inference seems to be that for the wealth of incident and splendor of coloring thrown j^arratives over the narrative of this long struggle we are in- oftheMes- debled not to traditions of the time but to fictions ^euianwars. which grew up after the restoration of Messenia and the founding of the city of Messeiie. If either from Herodotos or Thucydides or Xenophon Ave had heard of the treasure buried by Aristoraenes as a pledge of the future resurrection of his country, we might have pointed to the later story of Pausanias as the genuine sequel of an old tradition. As it is, we can but take as we find it the tale which tells us how, when the battle of Leuktra had justified the liopes of Aristomenes, the Argive Epiteles was bidden in a dream to recover the old woman who was well nigh at her last gasp be- neath the sods of Ithome ; how his search was rewarded by the discovery of a water jar in which was contained a plate of the finest tin ; how on this plate were inscribed the mystic rites for the worship of the great gods, and how the history of the new Messene was thus linked on with that of the old. That the first war lasted twenty years and ended in the aban- donment of Ithomo by the Messenians, we learn on the authority of Tyrtaios ; but the causes aild the course of the war rpj^cflrst are wrapped in the mists which gather round all popular Messenian traditions, if the accounts of these conflicts can be ^^^'^' called traditions at all. We can make nothing of stories which speak of disputes at the border temple of Artemis Limnatis, aris- ing, as the Messenians said, from the licence of the Spartan youths, or, as the Spartans retorted, by the insolence and lust of the Mes- senians. In one of the ; some had taken refnge in Kyllene, a port of the Eleians ; others tnrncd tlieir thonghts to Sicily and besouglit the hero to become their leader. This he refused to be. There was still a hope that he might yet be able to do some hurt to the Spartans ; and with this hope he went to take counsel at Delphoi. Here lie met Dama- getos the king of the Rhodian lalysos, who had been bidden to marry the daughter of the bravest of the Hellenes. Damagetos, knowing that none could challenge the right of Aristomenes to this title, besought of him his child and offered him a home in the beautiful island which rose up from the sea to be the bride of Helios.' To Rhodes therefore he went, and thus became the pro- genitor of the illustrious family of the Diagoridai. A peaceful end in the happy island of the sun was the fittest close of a career in which, as in a stormy day, the blackness of darkness is from time to time broken by outbursts of dazzling light. Far older than the comparatively modern romances of the Messenian wars were the legends which told the story of Spartan aggressions or conquests in the direction of Arkadia Spartan and Argolis. If we are to believe Pausanias,^ Tegea a^flnsf"^^ was attacked by Chaiulaos, the king whose rights were Arkadia. maintained by Lykourgos ; but the invader was taken prisoner by the Tegeatan women who had placed themselves in ambush near the scene of battle. According to Herodotos,^ the unity and discipline of the Lykourgean system so materially added to the strength of Sparta that nothing less than the conquest of all Arkadia could satisfy her ambition. But when the Spartans asked Phoibos at Delphoi, how this ambition could best be grati- fied, the answer was that the larger scheme must be given up, although they might dance on the plain of Tegea and measure it out with ropes. If the expedition undertaken in the faith of this response was that in which Charilaos failed, we must suppose further that the Spartans carried with them fetters to be worn by the conquered Tegeatans, and learnt by bitter experience that the chains were to be worn not by their enemies but by themselves. The long series of defeats which the Spartans underwent at the hands of the Tegeatans w^as at length brought to an end in the reigns of Anaxandridas and Ariston. The Pythian priestess had told them that they would win the day if they could briiig back to Sparta the bones of Orestes, which lay on a level spot in Tegea where two winds were made to blow by main force, and where stroke followed stroke and woe was laid on woe. The riddle set the wit of the Spartans to work, and at length it was solved by ' Find. Olymp. vii. 137. ^ iii. 7, 3. = i. 66. 38 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. Lichas, one of their roving police, who, happening to visit a black- smith's forge, gazed in wonder as the hammer fell with mighty power on the anvil. The smith told him that he would have had better cause for wonder if he had seen the cofBn, seven cubits long, and the body as gigantic as the coffin, which he had found beneath his forge. Hastening home, Lichas said that the blows of the blacksmith's hammer must represent tlie stroke on stroke and woe on woe of the Delphian enigma ; and bidding them pass on him a sentence of banishment, he departed, like Zopyros or Sextus Tarquinius, to work the ruin of an unsuspecting enemy. Ob- taining after some difficulty a lease of the forge, he dug up the gigantic bier and departed with a treasure as precious as the bones of Oidipous or the purple loclcs of Nisos. Henceforth the success of the Spartans was as great as their disasters had been ; but what may have been the result of their victories it is not easy to see. If Tegea was conquered, it still remained independent. In the Pcrsi;ii\ wars we shall find the Tegeatans sending as the equal allies of Sparta, and claiming as their right the post of honor on the left wing, which in the battle of Plataiai was for the first time yielded to the Athenians. Not more, and perhaps not less, likely, and certainly not better attested, is the tradition which asserted that before the last Lydian Rivalry of ^"^S Ki""isos souglit alliance with the chief state of Sparta and Western Hellas, Sparta had gained possession of that °°^' long strip of Argive territory which, lying between the range of Mount Thornax and the sea, stretched from Thyrea to theMalean cape. The dispute about the Thyreatis was settled, it is said, by a duel, in which three hundred Spartans fought with three hundred Argives on a field from which all but the combatants were rigidly shut out. The combat was as fierce and fatal as that of the Clans Chattan and Key on the Inch of Perth before Robert III. of Scotland, and at sundown the only survivors were the Spartan Othryades and the Argives Chromios and Alkenor. The latter hastened home, claiming the victory ; the Spartan plundered the bodies of the dead, and kept liis post until on the next day the Spartan and Argive armies came to see the result. The Argives dechned that by the terms of the agreement Thyrea must remain with tlu'in as two of their champions had returned home. The Spartans argued that the victory must be adjudged to the side which held the ground, and the controversy ended in a battle which rendered the previous duel superfluous. The countrymen of Othryades were again conquerors ; but Othryades, ashamed to return to Spaita as the sole survivor of three hundred, slew him- self on the field. However it may have been acquired, the conquest of Thyrea Chap. V.] EARLY HISTORY OF SPARTA. 39 marked the utmost extension of Spartan territory within the limits of the Peloponnesos. Over two-fifths of the peninsula the Spartans were now supreme ; and if their state had its weak ^.^^.^ mmre- side in the discontent of the Helots or the Perioikoi, macj' of it had its strength in a geographical position which ^P'*'"'^- made it practically secure against all attacks from foreign enemies. With these conditions there is nothing to surprise us, if, as we approach the age of genuine history, we find Sparta not merely supreme in the Peloponnesos, but tacitly or openly recognised as the head of the ill-cemented communities wliich claimed the Hellenic name. The true narrative of the events which brought about this result may be lost irretrievably ; but the result itself stands out as the most important fact in the early history of the Greeks. CHAPTER VI. THE GREEK DESPOTS. Although the foimdations of Aryan society were laid, as we have seen, in an intense selfishness which regarded all persons not actual members of the family as beyond the pale Tendencies of law, yet from the first it was possible that two Aryan^ or more of the heads of such families might enter civilisation, into a league either for mutual protection or to advance their own interests — a task which in these primitive ages would mean simply interference with and opposition to the interests of others. These heads of families thus combined would naturally form a close and exclusive order — in other words, an oligarchy. They would also be sole owners of the land on which their families lived ; and as soon as all the houses within a given district were combined in this league, the name of Landholder, Gamoros or Geomoros, would become a general designation for the ruling class, as contrasted with the main body of people whom they may have been able to subjugate. Thus the members of the dominant houses would be calkul Gamoroi and Eupatridai indif- ferently. But the growth (.)f population would, by increasing the number of younger sons and their families, multiply the number of so-called Gamoroi who would not be owners of land, but who, by virtue of their common descent from the same sacred stock, would belong to the great patrician order. Thus far the natural ten- dency of Hellenic as of other Aryan society would be towards 40 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I oligarcliy. The chiefs of the houses thus formed into clans, hav- ing been originally independent of each other, would be theo- retically at least on an equality. Each would of necessity have his seat and his vote in the council, and his voice "would carry equal weight with that of the wealthiest and most powerful of his fellows. But if equal among themselves in relation to their subjects they would be a college of kings, owing no duties except to the members of their own houses, acknowledging no responsi- bility even to them, and extending the benefits of law to their dependents, so far as they extended them at all, as a matter not of right, but of favor, which might at any moment be with- drawn. We are justified, therefoi'e, in regarding Hellenic kingship as a comparatively late developement which carried with it the signs Decay cf of its speedy decay. If the description in the Iliad powerm^ may be accepted as a faithful picture of early Hellenic Hellas. society, the Basileus is one who holds his power in direct trust from Zeus, and who, if he takes counsel with his chiefs, is still free to reject their advice. But, whatever might be its seeming insignificance, the gathering of subordinate chiefs was the germ of those democratic assemblies in which Athenian citizens learnt to respect themselves and to obey the law. When, therefore, an Hellenic dynasty was set aside and an oligarchy set up in its place, this was strictly nothing more than a return to the earlier form of government. The great chiefs resumed the full rights, of which they had conceded, or been compelled to yield, some portion to the king. For this reason also the change from monarchy to oligarchy seems to have been effected gene- rally without any great convulsion and even without much dis- turbance. It might be supposed that the Greek cities which were thus governed by oligarchies were now on the high road to constitu- Siibvcrsion tioiial order and freedom ; but many an English citi- oiilrarchk? 2*^" ^^'^^^ would rise against the tyranny of men above by tyrants, him with the energy of Hampden, and wlio would even spend his life in pulling down the shattered fabric of feudal- ism, may yet show to his inferiors not a little of feudal im- periousness. In these such conduct is, of course, grossly and unreasonably inconsistent ; to tlie ancient oligarch the charge of such inconsistency would have seemed simply ludicrous. It was Irne that there lay a large multitude beyond the sacred circle of liis order, a multitude constantly increasiiig from many causes which kept his ow n class stationary, or even lessened its numbers ; but then it was a sacred circle, and beyond its limits he recognised no duties. In this unprivileged crowd lay the sunken rocks on CHAP. VI.j THE GREEK DESPOTS. 41 which oHgarchies must sooner or later make shipwreck, for, happily for the advancement of mankind, these close and exclusive bodies are pre-eminently liable to the plagues of jealousy and dissension, and divergence of int(;rcst is sure to create an opposing minority which, if it cannot gain its own ends, may yet clog the movements of others. Of the general effect of oligarchical rule on the subject population we shall be better able to judge when we reach the early history of Athens. It may be enough to say liere that whether under the kings or under the oligarchs the subject classes were alike shut out ivom the benefits of an equal and impartially adi.iinistered law. The change from kingship to oligarchy had been in theory no change for them ; and the later state of things differed from the former only in this, that even in the ruling class there were persons whose discontent and disaffection might break out at any time in revolution, and who, to achieve their own selfish purpose, might court the favor of the people, and enlist their aid by promising them justice. This was, in fact, the most potent, and perhaps the most frequently employed of the modes by which some ambitious or discontented member of the ruling class succeeded in making himself absolute. The man who aimed at supreme power came forward commonly in the character of the demagogue, and declaiming against the wanton insolence and cruelty of his fellow Eupatdds, perhaps exhibiting in his own person the real or pretended evidences of their brutality, induced them to take up arms in his behalf and to surround him with a bodyguard. The next step was to gain a commanding military position ; and then if, like Peisistratos in the Athenian Akropolis, he could gather round him a band of foreign mercenaries, his task was at once practically accomplished. But both among the oligarchs and among the unfranchised people were some in whom the sense of law and of duty, as arising from law, seemed almost intuitive; men who were Ancient and animated by the conviction that law is an eternal modern uo- ,.-', . .... ., 1 tions 01 power, benig the expression or divme righteousness, monarciiicai Such a conviction must be repressed by stern and government prompt persecution, or it will spread like a slow fire ready to burst out at any vent : but so long as this feeling existed, it was im- possible for the tyrant to rule with impartial justice, even if he might desire to do so. Living in constant fear of unknown dangers and unseen enemies, he was tempted to trust more and more to terrorism, and to seek his own safety by cutting off the tallest among the ears of corn.^ By slaying or banishing dangerous or ' Soph. Old. Tyr. 863-871. v. 93, 6, and to Tarquin the Proud, * Tliis is the counsel ascribed to Livy, i. 54. Arist. Polit. ill. 13, the Milesian Thrasyboulos, Herod. IG ; v. 10, 13. 43 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. suspected citizens and by confiscating their property he might maintain himself in power during his own lifetime ; but the chances were always against the establishment of any permanent d3'nasty, and when at length the tyrants were put down, the feelings of hatred long pent up burst forth with a vehemence which showed plainly the bent of the popular mind. The despots had really done good service. They had made the idea of irresponsible power inexpressibly odious, and they had made the name of the monarch or tyrant the most hateful and contemptible of titles. For them tlie rule of one man was henceforth associated with the ideas of lawlessness and violence, and Avith nothing else. We may thus ascribe to the tyrants tlis greatest impulse given to Greek democracy. If the despotism of Peisistratos had not The power foHowed the legislation of Solon, and made the of the kinj,'8 xVtlieniaus realise the full extent of their loss, the pa a- reforms which were carried in the days of Kleisthenes might not have been accomplished before the time of Perikles, and a different turn might have been given to the history of the Persian invasion. As it was, a state of feeling was produced eminently unfavorable to the schemes of the Persian monarch. The mind of the people was constantly becoming more and more awake to the need of legal safeguards for all their rights, and more and more averse to that stolid servility which, seeking no further remedy for unbearable oppression, is well satisfied when Tibni dies and Oniri reigns. S{)ai-ta, with its two hereditary kings, the ex officio commanders of her armies, might seem to be an excep- tion. The theory of kings ruling by divine right Avas there ac- knowledged down to the days of Agis and Kleomencs ; but it was acknowledged, even in words, only because they had never been suffered to make themselves despots and because the jealousies and contentions of the kings presented an effectual hindrance to com- mon action for the purpose of setting up a tyranny. Still the Spartans were not satisfied with these negative checks. There was fair ground for thinking that the council of twenty-eight old men holding office for life might be rather an instrument in the hands of the kings than an independent assembly ; and this danger was averted by the appointment of a board of annually renewed commissioners.' AVhen the kings had been made directly respon- sible to the Ephors both in peace and in war, the Spartans might well feel that there was no need to interfere with the style and dignity of chiefs who, as lineal descendants of the mighty Ilerakles, were pre-eminently fitted to be the generals of a state depending for its safety on the perfection of its militJiry discipline, ' See p. 31. Chap. VI.] THE GREEK DESPOTS. -^3 The history of the Peisistratidai at Athens, in spite of some perplexing passages in the narrative, sufficiently illustrates the means by which tyrannies were established and put History of down ; and when we find stories more or less resem- ^^^ Greek bling the Athenian traditions told of other Greek cities Kleisthenes at the same or in earlier times, we may fairly infer ^f^^^'^y""- that throughout Ileilas generally the change was going on which by the substitution of oligarchical for kingly rule, followed by the usurpation of despots who made the sway of one man still more hateful, fostered the growth of the democratic spirit, until it be came strong enough to sweep away every obstacle to its free de- velopement. But when we examine the tales which profess to re- late the deeds of these tyrants and to determine their characters, we find ourselves in that misty twilight which marks the province of oral tradition, and especially of oral tradition warped and colored by strong political passions and prejudices. From the stories related of the Orthagorid Kleisthenes of Sikyon we may be tempted to infer the existence of a bitter feud between that city and Argos ; but how far the acts ascribed to the tyrant are his own and how far they may be reflexions of popular antipathies among his Dorian and non-Dorian subjects, we have no means of ascertaining. Nor can we venture to say how far their antagonism may have given color to the singular story which ascribes to Kleisthenes the expulsion of Adrastos from Sikyon. This hero of the Theban wars who is regarded as personally present in Sikyon is represented as exciting the violent hatred of the tyrant who sees in him the tutelar genius of Dorism. Everything must be done to get rid of him ; but Kleisthenes seeks in vain to get his plan of direct banishment sanctioned by the Pythian priestess. Her answer is that Adrastos is king of Sikyon while Kleisthenes is a murderer ; and the despot, sending to Thebes, invites the hero Melanippos, the enemy of Adrastos, to come and take up his abode in Sikyon. The invitation is accepted, and when the festivals hitherto kept m honor of Adrastos had been transferred to Melanippos, it is con- cluded that the former has deserted a place which could no longer have any attractions for him.' Of Kleisthenes we are further told that he took part in the sacred war against Kirrha, that he gave his daughter in marriage to the Alkinaionid Megakles, and that thus the name of the Sikyonian despot became connected with the ref onns carried out at Athens by his grandson Kleisthenes the s^n of Megakles and Agariste. But the strange story^ which tells us how this marriage was brought about, belongs apparently to the class of legends framed to explain proverbial sayings and only adds ' Herod, v. 67. =* lb. vi. 126, et seg. 44 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L to the darkness which has gathered round the last of the Ortha- goridai. The accounts given of Kleisthenes serve but to convince us of the fact that lost history cannot be recovered. The same lesson is brought home to us still more forcibly by the contradictory legends of the despots of Corinth. According to The Bac- Ilerodotos the Bacchiad oligarchs of that city had been gar'chs°at ■warned by the Delphian priestess to be on their guard Corinth. against the lion which should be born of an cagh among the rocks (I'etrai) ; and when Eetion one of the Lapitliai and a descendant of Kaineus sent to Delphoi to learn the fortunes of the child of his wife Labda the lame daughter of the Bacchiad Amphion, the answer that he would be the bane of the Corinthian oligarchs determined the latter to slay the babe as soon as it should be born. Ten of them accordingly went to the house of Eetion in the demos of Petrai (the rocks among which the lion should be born), and there received the child from the unsuspect- ing Labda. But the man who took him from his mother's hands, un- nerved by a smile of the babe, handed him on to the next man, and this man to the third until, when all had in turn taken him, the tenth restored him to Labda who, pausing to listen at the door, heard them chiding each other for their faint-heartediiess until they agreed to enter the house together and slay the child. Before they went in, the mother had had time to {)lar.e him in a chest ; and the murderers thus foiled went back and informed the Baechiads that lliey had done the work for which they had been sent. The child grew up, and as having been saved from his pursuers in the coffer was called Kypselos. Having reached man- hood, he became tyrant of Corinth and verified the predictions of the Delphian priestess. Many of the Corinthians, we are told, he drove into exile, many more he deprived of all their goods, and a larger number still he put to death.' The story refutes itself. That ten of the Bacchiad chiefs should be faithless to their own body, IS simply incredible ; nor can it be supposed that they could have the least scruple or difticulty in compassing the death of the child at some later and more convenient season. Wilting at least two centmnes later, Aristotle" places Kypselos in the ranks of those tyrants who rose to power by courting the Kypselos and favor of the people, and ascribes to him so tirni a I'eriandroB. ]^q\(\ on their affections that he never needed or used the protection of a body guard. The two traditions, if they be such, exclude each other. But strange as may be the inconsis- tencies of these Kypsclid legends, the stories told of his son Peri andros are far more astonishing. Like Aristodemos of the Italian Mlcn.d. V. 92. "I'olit v. 13. 4. Chap. VI.] THE GREEK DESPOTS. i-^ Ciima% lie is a model tyrant, chastising with scorpions where his father had scourged with whips ; and a portion at least of the story of Oidipous and lokaste was by some mythographers im- ported into the tradition to account for that excess of cruelty which Herodotos traced to the influence of Thrasyhoulos tyrant of Miletos. This despot, he tells us/ on receiving from Periandros a request for counsel in the general management of his affairs, gave no verbal answer to his messenger, but going into a cornfield cut off and threw away the tallest and richest of the ears of corn. Like Sextus Tarquinius at Gabii, Periandros knew that he should deal with the first men of his city as his friend had dealt with the ears of corn, and the mildness of his previous rule \Aas followed by a savage and merciless oppression. Whatever the father had spared, now fell by the hand of his bloodthirsty son who in one day stripped of their raiment all the women of Corinth, whether free or inslaved, and burnt the dresses that their ghosts might clothe the shivering phantom of his beautiful w'dc Melissa the daughter of Proklcs tyrant of Epidauros.'^ j\Ielissa had been murdered by her husband ; and on hearing of the crime Prokles sent for her two sons, and having kept them for some time, bade them at parting remember who it was that had slain their mother. On the elder son the words made no impression : in the younger they awakened a feeling of ineradicable hatred for his father, whom he treated with silent contempt. The patience of Periandros was at last ex- hausted, and the young man was driven from his home, a heavy penalty to be paid to Apollon being denounced on all who might speak to him or give him food or shelter. Undismayed, Lyko- phron lived as best he might in the porticoes, where his father came to see him when he was half starved. Contrasting his pre- sent misery with the luxury which he had forfeited, Periandros prayed him to return home. The only answer of the young man was that his father was debtor to Apollon for the penalty de- nounced on any who might speak to him. Wearied out with his obstinacy, the tyrant sent his son to Korkyra, and then marching to Epidauros made Proklcs a prisoner. But still yearning for his younger son, he sent his sister who in a speech garnished with a profusion of proverbs worthy of Sancho Panza besought him to return to Corinth. The answer was that lie woidd never look on its walls so long as his father was there ; and Periandros in his despair proposed that he should go to Korkyra while his son took his place as despot at Corinth. So great, however, was the dread or the hatred of Periandros that on hearing of the proposed ar- rangement the Korkyraians at once put Lykophron to death. But ' Herod, v. 93-6 ^ See note 1, page 7. 46 THE FORMATION' OF HELLAS. [Book T. Ave have other versions of the story of Melissa and the hiirnt gar- ments, first in the talc that Periandros at a feast stri})ped the women of their golden ornaments because he had made a vow to dedicate a statue of gold at Olympia if he won the chariot race, and secondly in the statement that he obtained the gold by exacting for ten years a property tax of ten per cent. In short, from first to last, Periandros lives in a world of marvels and wonders •, and the story of Arion' carried on the dolphin's back from the Italian seas to Tainaron is a worthy pendent of the legends of Lykophron and Melissa. AVe need only to note further that this rigid ruler or bloodthirsty murderer is in other legends ranked among the seven wise men of Ilellas and that from this point of view he is represented as compelling his subjects to support themselves by honest industry and to make a report of their means of livelihood. The dilemma is clearly not to be solved like the quarrel of the two knights about the shield with the brazen and silver sides. AVe can scarcely be said to know more of the Megarian despot Theagenes. Like Kypsclos, he is represented as acting the part Theagenes of a demagogue, and thus obtaining from the people a ofMegara. bodyguard which he employed after the fashion, of Peisistratos at Athens. At best the traditions respecting him are uncertain and obscure ; but Mcgara, as the mother-city of colonies so important as Byzantion in the east and Thapsos in the west, stands forth as a state fully able to hold its ground against Athens which only after a desperate struggle succeeded in wresting the island of Salamis from her dominion. Henceforth, as with Argos, her greatness belonged to the past ; and it is possible that the prosperity of these cities m.ay have been promoted by the friend- ship or alliance of the despots who governed them." But while the general course of developeinent from oligarchy to despotism, and from despotism through oligarchy to democratic rule is per- fectly clear, it is strange that the history of individual despots should have come down to us in forms so fragmentary and dis- torted with a coloring so unreal and deceptive. That the gov- ernment of these despots and oligarchs secured to their cities for the time a large amount of wealth and power, although it may have hastened their dec:iy or their downfall, there is no reason to doubt ; and with this conclusion we must be content. • Herod, i. 94. Myth. Ar. Nat. ii. 26, 245. " Herod, vi. 128. CHAPTER VII. THE INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS. In the liistorical ages Athens stands pre-eminent above all the states or cities whose people belonged to the Ionic stock. But before we reach these ages the glory of the Ionic name ^^^ j^_ had in great part passed away. The time had been ness of the when all the Ionian tribes regarded as an honorable Ju^liV'''' title the name by which the Greeks generally were preiustoric known to the barbarian world of the East. But the " ' sons of Javaii on the western coasts of Asia i\Iinor and in many of the islands of the Egean sea had fallen under the power of IochI despots or of the Lydian kings, and with these had been brought under the harsher yoke of the Persian monarch ; and if constant oppression had not, us some said, destroyed the spirit and bravery of the Asiatic lonians, it had so far weakened their judgment and their powers of combination and action that the Western lonians, and more especially the Athenians, no longer cared to be distinguished by the name.' The Athenians, indeed, still delighted in being known as the men of the violet crown :' but they had pro- bably forgotten that in ages not very far removed from their own they were not the foremost or the greatest of the Ionian race. In this respect the history of Athens bears no distant likeness to that of Rome, the insignihcant Latin town which was destined to ex- tend its empire first over Italy and then over the world. But in the times of the despots and the oligarchs the f ower of Athens was eclipsed l)y that of many cities which in the days of her own greatness had almost vanished from the political stage. The prosperity of these cities belongs to that golden age of the Ionic race in which Delos Avas a centre of attraction not less bril- liant than Olympia became for all the Hellenic tribes, p^^.j^nig Here in the craggy island where Phoibos was born festival of and to which after his daily wanderings he returned with ever fresh delight,^ were gathered at the end of each fourth year the noblest and the most beautiful of the children of men. Here, as he looked on the magnificent throng of women'' whose loveliness could nowhere be matched and of men unsurpassed for ' Herod, i. 143. had secluded the women of Alliens "^ Myth. Ar. Hat. i. 228. Arist. had not yet taken place amono: the Acliarn. 60G. lonians ; and the Delian festival ^ Hymn, Apoll. 146. presents a pleasant contrast to that ■* Hence the miserable change of Olympia from which women which before the days of Perikles were excluded on pain of death. 48 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I, splendor of form and strength of nerve, the spectator might -well fancy that he gazed on beings whom age and death could never touch. Here on the sacred shore were drawn up the ships which brought thither the riches and the treasures of distant lands, and which had already made the lonians formidable rivals even of the Phenician mariners.' But in the days of Thucydides the glowing descriptions of the blind old bard of Chios were those of a time which had long since passed away. The splendor of the Dclian festival had long faded before the growing popularity of the Eplie- sian games ; and when in the days of the brilliant Pan-Athenaic celebrations of their own city the Athenians made some attempt to renew the glories of the Delian feast, the Hymn which spoke of those ancient gatherings was the only document from which Tlmcydides could obtain any knowledge of that time.^ At no time was the Delian festival more than a Pan-Ionic gathering. But similar restrictions had been common to those p festivals which afterwards became Pan-Hellenic, just Hellenic as the feasts open to the Ionic, xViolic, or Dorian races estiva s. respectively had once been strictly local celebrations of cities or villages ; nor can we doubt that but for its geographical position Delos would have become the resort of a congress not less general. But the conquests of the Lydian kings first broke up the Ionic society, and their downfall left the Egean waters open to the Phenician fleets of the Persian despots ; and thus the espe- cially ennobling influences of the gathering at Delos passed for the time away. The genius of xVthens had as yet been very par- tially called forth, and at Olympia there was neither that free mingling of men and women Avhich is one of the redeeming fea- tures of the so-called heroic age, nor that rivalry of art and poetry in which the bard of the Delian hymn expresses so keen an inte- rest.^ Far removed, not only as an inland city but by its position in the western corner of the Peloponnesos, from all danger of at- tack by Persian fleets, Olympia rose to greatness as the glory of Delos waned. In luarked contrast with the shortlived prosperity of Delos, the quadrennial celebration of the Olympic festival was never interrupted until the Christian Theodosius decreed its abo- lition 800 years after the death of Herodotos and Thucydides. The so-called Homeric Hymn to Apollon combines with the Th'Dli poem which speaks of the Delian festival another Hymn to and a later pocm in which Ai)ollon is represented as Apo on. journeying westwards, seeking a home which he cannot find either in lolkos or the Lelantian plain, in Mykalessos or in ^ Hymn, AjjoU. l^S-155. bos, B.C. 776. The era may be con- - Thuc. iii. 104. venieut as a chronological basis, but ^ Hymn, ApoU.1(i7-n5. Tlieenu- it represents no well-attested his- meration of the Olympiads begins torical fact. with the alleged victory of Koroi- Chap, VII.] EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS. J:9 Thebes. At last lie is advised by tlic nymph of the Telphousian stream to go further still until in one of the glens of Parnassos he should reach the village of Krisa. There beneath the mighty crags wliich beetled over it, he marked the spot on which Tro- phonios and Agamedes raised his shrine, and there he slew the mighty dragon, the child of Here, and leaving his body to be scorched by the sun commanded that thenceforth the place shuuld be called Pytho, the ground of the rotting. But though his temple had been reared, priests were lacking to it, and spying a Kretan ship far off on the sea, he hastened towards it and assuming the form of a dolphin brought the vessel without aid of wind or helm or sail along the Lakonian coast by Ilelos and Tainaron to Sam6 and Zakynthos, and then through the gulf which severs the Pelopomiesos from the northern land t(j the haven of Krisa with its rich soil and its vinc-clothcd plain. There coming forth from the sea like a star, he guided them to their future home where their hearts failed them for its rugged nakedness. ' The whole land is bare and desolate,' they said ; ' whence shall we get food ? ' ' Foolish men,' answered the god, ' stretch forth your hands and slay each day the rich offerings, for they shall come to you with- out stint and sparing, seeing that the sons of men shall hasten hither from all lands to learn my will. Only guard ye my temple well, for if ye deal rightly, no man shall take away your glory ; but if ye speak lies and do iniquity, if ye hurt the people who come to my altar and make them go astray, then shall other men rise up in your place and ye shall be thrust out for ever.' ' But if the llynm speaks of Pytho or Dclphoi as rich in wealth of offerings and as crowded with pilgrims from all lands, it seems to draw out almost with anxious care the contrast _. ,,. 1 IlG WGinc^n between this rock-bound sanctuary and the broad andisth- Olympian plain with its splendid Stadion and vast ""^^ games, racecourse. Here among the glens of Parnassos, the ear of Phoibos, it is said, can never be vexed with the tumult of beasts of bur- den or the stamping of war steeds ; and we are thus prepared to learn that the Pythian festival was designed to call forth rather the rivalry of poets than the competition of the chariot race. It is perhaps only an accident that traditions not less rich in marvels have failed to reach us respecting the origin of the games which the Kleoiiaians or the Argives celebrated in the Nemean valley in honor of Zeus, or of the festival which the Corinthians kept at the isthmus in honor of Poseidon. These feasts, unlike those of Pytho and Olympia, were held every two years ; but all four were ' Hymn, Apoll. 182-554. The and Phinelias in their dealings conduct against which they are with the congregation, warned is precisely tliat of Hophni 3 50 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. instances of local celebrations which, having passed through the stage of tribal popularity, had become centres of attraction to the whole Hellenic world. That the full force of all these influences on minds so sensitive and impressible as those of the Greeks can scarcely be realised under our changed conditions of society, we have already admitted : but powerful as they may have been, they could not even tend to produce the convictions which seem to us the very basis of our political beliefs. However vivid might be the glow of Pan-Hellenic sentiment at Eleusis or Olymj^ia, it left untouched the veneration paid to the city as the first and the final unit of human society, and in no way interfered with the local jealousies and the strifes of towns which challenged for their quar- rels the high-sounding title of wars. Even the sacred truce pro- claimed before these games might be used to further the interests of one belligerent city against those of another. So far therefore as there was a common national feeling and any national action among Greeks, it was created and kept alive by influences with which their political tendencies were in complete antagonism. Happily the ambition of the Persian kings awakened in some of the Hellenic tribes feelings more generous than the selfish and brutal instincts which arrested the growth of Thrakians, Aitolians and Epeirots ; but it is obvious that the ill-organised resistance made in fact by Athens and Sparta would have been no resistance at all, if they had not been so far educated as to value their national life above the mere independence or wealth of their own cities. This education even before the days of Peisistratos was of a veiy complex kind. Imperfect in all its parts, it exhibited the The in- gemis of the mighty growth of after ages; and the flueuce of great festivals with their tribal or Pan-Hellenic gather- growth of ings were without doubt the most j:)owerful instru- Heilenic merits in promoting it. These supplied a constant in- sentiment. centive to genius, and the activity awakened in one direction led by a necessary consequence to greater energy in another. The old heroic lays, Avhich told the tales of Ilion and Thebes, of the Argonauts and the Herakleidai, were followed by a school of poetry which unveiled the mind of the poet himself, and lit the torch which has been handed down from Hellas to Italy and from Italy to Germany and England. Along with the poet, the sculptor, and the painter the orator Avas daily attaining to wider power ; but the eloquence even of Themistokles was necessarily directed first and chiefly to promoting the individual iiitcrcsts of Athens. Art cannot be thus selfish : and the sense of beauty, springing as it did from a thoroughly patient and truthful obser- vation of fact, was combined with the possession of a connnon trea- Chap. VII.] EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS. 51 sure of poetry, linking togetlier by a national bond tribes wLich could never be schooled into our notions of political union. But beyond the province ot" the poet, the rhetorician, and the statesman, there lay a boundless hold in which the Greek first dared to drive his plouofh ; and the very fact that this „ ,, , t^ =' ' i- 1 ,• -1 Growth of attempt was made, at the cost or whatever raiiures or physical delusions, marked the great chasm between the thought ^^i'^"'^^- of the Eastern and the Western Aryans, and insured the growth of the science of modern Europe. The Greek found himself the member of a human society with definite duties and a law which both challenged, and commended itself to, his obedience. But if the thought of this law and these duties might set him pondering on the nature and source of his obligations, he was surrounded by objects which carried his mind on to inquiries of a wider compass. He found himself in a world of everlasting change. The day gave place to night ; the buds and germs put forth in the spring ripened through sunnner into fruits which were gathered in autumn tide, and then the earth fell back into the sleep from which it was again roused at the end of winter. By day the sun accomplished his journey in calm or storm across the wide heaven : and by night were seen myriads of lights, some like motionless thrones, others moving in intricate courses. Sometimes living fires might leap from the sky with a deafening roar, or the earth might tremble beneath their feet and swallow man and his works in its yawning jaws. Whence came all these wonderful or terrible things ? What was the wind which crashed among the trees, or spoke to the heart with its happy and heavenly music ? These and a thou- sand other questions were all asked again and again, and all in one stage of thought received an adequate answer. The subject was one which admitted of no doubt, and the system thus gradually raised had the solemn sanction of religion. This syste'i was the mythological, and it w^as marked by this special feature that it never was, and never could be, at a loss for the solution of any difiiculty. All things were alive, most things were conscious beings ; and all the phenomena of the universe were but the actions of these personal agents. For the Greek the moon 'wandering among the stars of lesser birth ' was Asterodia surrounded by the fifty daughters of Endymion, the attendant virgins of Ursula in the Christianised myth. All the movements of the planets were for him fully explained by this unquestioned fact ; and with the same unhesitating assurance he would account for all sights or sounds on the earth or in the heavens. The snow-storm was Niobe weeping for her murdered children ;' the earthquake was the heaving caused ' Mi/th. Ar. ma. ii. 279. 52 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L by the struggles of imprisoned giants "who av ere paying tlie penalty for rebellion against tbe lord of heaven. Such a belief as this might seem to give a dangerous scope to utterly capricious agents ; but even here the theological explanation was forthcoming. There was a fixed and orderly movement of the sun through the sky, a stately march of the stars across the nightly heavens ; but this was because tlie great Zeus ruled over all, and all were his obedient or unwilling servants. The movements of some were penal ; with others they were the expression of gladness and joy. The stars and the clouds were the exulting dancers wlio clashed their cym- bals round the cradle of Zeus ;' the sun was the hero cora2)elledto go his weary round for the children of men,^ or crucified daily on his blazing wheel, ^ or condemned to heave to the summit of the heaven the stone which thence rolled down to the abyss. ■* Tliis syslem might be developed to any extent ; but it amounts to no- thing more than the assertion tliat all phenomena were tbe volun- tary or involuntary acts of individual agents. Its weak point la}'' in the forming of cosmogonies. It might be easy to say that the great mountains and the mighty sea, that Erebos and Night were all the children of Chaos f but whence came Chaos ? In other words, whence came all things ? The weakest attempt to answer this question marked a revolution in thought ; and the man who first nerved himself to the effort achieved a task beyond the powers of Babylonian and Egyptian priests with all their wealth of astro- nomical observations. He began a new work and he set about its accomplishment by the application of a new method. Henceforth the object to be aimedat was a knowledge of things in themselves, and the test of the truth or the falsity of the theory must be the measure in which it explained or disagreed with ascertained facts." His first steps, and the steps of many who should come after him might be like the painful and uncertain totterings of infants ; but the human mind had now begun the search for truth, and the torch tlius lit should be handed down from Thales to Aristarcho?,' and from Aristarchos to Galileo, Copernicus, and Newton. * lb. i. 364; ii. 314. against the intricate system of ^ lb. ii. 43 ct seq. Eudoxos of Knidos is perhaps the ^ lb. ii. 36. most noteworthy fact in the whole Mb. ii. 27. history of ancient phihisophy. Ar- ^ Hes. Thcofj. 123. chimedcs rejected liis theory, and is " It is scarcely necessary to say therefore a witness beyond su*pi- that Macaulay, when writing his ciou, when lie tells us that that essay on Lord Bacon, never thought most illustrious man believed the of this aspect of early Greek philo- earth to revolve in a circle of which sophy ; hut it is unfortunate that the sun was the immovable centre, for many the true facts should be the fixed stars being .also motion- kept out of sight by the fallacies of less, and that he explained the ap- a popular writer. parent annual motion of the sun in 'The protest of Aristarchos the ecliptic by supposing the orbit Chap. VII.] EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS. 53 Sucli was the mighty change wrouglit by the old Hellenic philosophers. But was the Greek himself reaping on a field where others had sown the seed ? Was his work confined „ „ , . . I'll! hource or to the introduction of a philosophy which had grown Greek phi- up elsewhere ? Greek traditions of a later day pointed '^^^P'^y- to foreign lands as the sources of their science : and the admission was eagerly welcomed by Egyptian priests who boasted of obser- vations extended over more than 600,000 years, and professed to liavc unlocked the secrets of heaven to the stargazers of Chaldjiea. Thus the Egyptian claimed to be the teacher of the Greek, and the later Greeks made no resistance to the claim. It remains to be seen whether it had any foundation in fact. At the outset we may note that the Egyptians are said to liave been taught how to mea- sure the height of the pyramids by Thales' who is stated to have gained his knowledge in Egypt. The assertion is not more likely than the statement that he discovered the seasons,^ while his specu- lations on the risings of the Nile would not prove that he had even seen it. Herodotos^ speaks of these risings as caused by the Etesian winds without mentioning Thales ; and the phenomenon was one which attracted the attention of Greek observers in gene- ral. If the Egyptians had accumulated a stock of astronomical observations indefinitely larger than that of the Greeks, Aristotle makes no mention of Egyptian astronomical treatises, or indeed of anything received from them in writing. It is not pretended that Aristotle or later writers derived their knowledge from Egypt ; and the plea that they revealed to Hipparchos the precession of the equino.xes discovered by that illustrious astronomer is a purely gratuitous assumption. If on the other hand the relative prece- dence of Egyptian and Asiatic astronomers were to be determined by their own assertions, we should have simply to reject a mass of claims and counter claims, all equally incredible and absurd. The debt due from Greece to Egypt was expressly repudiated by Hip- parchos ; but if taken in their widest meaning, the statements of Greek writers come to no more than this, — that in their time the Egyptians had amassed a store of observations, that they had a calendar scarcely so accurate as the Greek, and that they used sun- dials for the notation of time. If there is nothing to contradict Herodotos when he says that the Egyptians were careful in record- ing unusual phenomena,* there are yet the more significant facts that no single Egyptian astronomer is known to us by name and of tlis earth to be inclined to its 'Lewis, Astronomy of the An- axis. In sliort, with the exception cients, 80. of a formal enunciation of tlieprin- ^ lb. 81, 85. ciple of jjravitation, he put fortli ^ ii. 20. the Copernican or Newtonian sys- * Herod, ii. 83. Lewis, Astr, tern of astronomy. Anc. 70. 54 THE FORMATION OP HELLAS. [Book I. that even Ptolemy never mentions any observations made by a native Egyptian. Tlie most that can be said for Egypt is tliat if its science was meagre and its influence weak, it seems to have been at least harmless. It was otherwise with the Babylonians. The gTcat gift of Syrian science was the boon of genethliuc astro- logy. It was the special work of Chaldean astronomers to link the fortunes of man with the position of the planets at his birth, and to draw out into elaborate system a superstition which almost more than any other dwarfs and cripples the human intellect. In Egypt that system was an exotic, not less than at Athens or Rome ; but Egyptian vanity, or the weakness of Egyptian intellect, Avas dazzled by the mysterious art ; and forged treatises sprung up in abundance to prove that it was of ancient and indigenous growth.' These characteristics of the so-called science whether of Egypt or of Assyria dispose effectually of the assertion that it was the Greek parent of the really historical and always progressive astrouomy. science of Greece. While the names of Chaldtean, Babylonian, and Egyptian astronomers remain wholly unknown, with Thales begins a long line of philosophers who contributed to the advance of practical astronomy as much as they failed to im- prove it in theory. Most of these philosophers here mentioned are to us little more than shadows. They belong to that happy band who, in the words ^, , 1 of Euripides, have given their lives to the task of scru- Thales and ...^,',S ,,. the Ionic tnnsmg the everlasting order of mimortal nature, and school. ^y. ^j^gjj. i^jjg]- i^ave been raised far above the murky regions of meanness and vice.^ But they lived before the age of a written history ; they left behind them no writings of their own, and the outlines of the picture have in each case become faint and, blurred. The lifetime of Thales is said to belong in part to the age of Solon, who with him was numbered among the Seven Wise Men ; but Solon as a philosopher recedes far into the mists of po- pular tradition. We shall come across Thales hereafter in the stories of the two last Lydian kings and again in the disastrous revolt of the lonians against Dareios.' But what is there saiid of him proves no more than that his name was associated with ideas of great knowledge and power ; and Aristotle who speaks of him as the founder of philosophy cites his opinions from hearsay.* 'i'Jor are we justified in saying that he established a definite school, for the series of the so-called Ionic philosophers were independent * See at length Sir G. C. Lewis, vened between the death of Solon Astron. Arte. chs. i. and v. and the Ionian revolt, Thales must * Fraprm. (965) 136. Clem. Alex, have been a mere child in the last Strom, iv. 25, ^ 157. days of the Athenian lawgiver. * As according to the reputed * Lewes, Hist. Phil. i. 7. chronology some sixty years inter- Chap. VII.] EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS. 55 thinkers, not much indebted perhaps the one to the others and exhibiting wide differences of belief. The so-called Ionic scliool is connected with a more widely ex- tended and more celebrated society, if the tale be true that Pytha- goras, the contemporary of Solon and Thales, was a p ^ j, „ ^ pupil of the Ionian philosopher Anaximandros. Tra- aud the Py- dition assigned him to the age of Polykrates and of thagoreane. Tarquinius Superbus ; but association with these misty personages can scarcely impart an historical character to a being still more shadowy. If we say that of las personal life we have no trust- worthy information, we call into question neither his own exist- ence nor that of his school or brotherhood. But the stories told of him must be classed along with the tales which related the ex- ploits of the Messenian Aristomenes. These tales, as we have seen,' were seemingly unknown to the historians who lived before the re-establishment of Mcssene, and thus are rather the deliberate manufacture of a later age than the genuine growth of popular tradition. The revival of Pythagorean doctrines by the Neopla- tonists answers to the political changes wrought by Epameinondas ; and the result was that the person of Pythagoras became the cen- tre of a throng of myths which had been applied to many before him and were yet to be applied to many after him. He now be- came the son of Phoibos, whose glory rested everlastingly on his form. He had a golden thigh, as Indra Savitar had a golden hand,^ and the Hyperborean Abaris ^ flew to him on a golden ar- row. He was present in more than one place at the same time, and his ears were soothed with that music of the spheres to wdiich duller mortals are deaf. Clad in robes of white and crowned with a golden diadem, he became the embodiment of that impas- sive and eternal calm which the worshipper feels stealing over him as he gazes on the majestic face of Buddha. This mysterious being was, it is said, the first who called him- self a philosopher.* The Peloponnesian Leontios wished to know his art. The sage replied that he had none. He was rrijep„<;ha- the lover and the seeker of wisdom, that source of gorean liappiness more precious than fine gold, sought by so brotherhood few among the children of men who have all come down from heaven to sojourn upon this earth for a little while. The answer ' See p. 33. which denoted a man of large ^ Myth. Ar. Nat. i. 370 : see also powers of tboujrht and observa- references in index s.v. Maimed tion honestly used for the discovery Deities. of truth, without any of those sec- ^ lb. ii. 114. ondary and selfish considerations * With Herodotos, iv. 95, Pytlia- which in later times formed part goras is a Sophist, in the primary of the connotation of the term. and obvious meaning of the word. 56 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L points to the doctrine of Metempsychosis, which hecanie promi- nent in the system bearing his name. But his name is for us more closely linked with the sect or brotherhood or secret society of which he is the real or the reputed founder. The teaching of all these schools was marked by fancies and notions which may seem to us as grotesque as they are strange. But the mere propounding of the first guess was the the philo- emancipation of the human mind from the yoke of sophers. mythological belief ; and each successive guess, linked as it was to the theories which had preceded it, and having fur- ther a certain logical justification, had the effect of strengthening the mind and widening the range of its knowledge. The influ- ence of these philosophical schools must be carefully distinguished from those general influences which, culminating in the great games and festivals, wrought so powerfully towards the formation of a Panhellenic, although unhappily not of a really national, sen- timent. It was not a popular influence. The schools themselves were liable at any moment to be draAvn into deadly collision with the popular belief ; and this collision became inevitable when from the condemnation of human conceptions about the gods they went on to deny the functions of the gods in the pro- duction of physical phenomena. But they did, nevertheless, a mighty Avork. They moulded the highest thought of their coun- trymen ; and the teaching of Xenophanes and Anaxagoras had its fruit in the statesmanship of Perikles and in the judicial criticism of the greatest of Greek historians. CHAPTER YIII. HELLAS SPORADIKE. At the beginning of the historical age we find the whole of the Peloponnesos with the islands of 'the Egean sea and the lands lying between the ranges of Pindos and the Corinthian Hellenic gulf in the possessiou of tribes claiming the common migrations, ^j^j^ ^f Hellenes. Beyond these limits lay a vast number of Hellenic cities in countries which contained among their inhabitants tribes either non-Hellenic or barbarian. Hellas thus became a land which had no borders, for, inserting itself in wedge- like fashion amongst indifferent or hostile races, it was found on the banks of the Tanais and under the ranges of the Caucasus, on Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SPORADIKI;. 57 the moutli of the Rhone and the shores of Spain. At Trapezous and Sinope, in Massalia, Aleria, and the Iberian Zalcynthos (Sagun- tinn) were seen societies of inen who in langnage and religion, in manners and in forms of thought, acknowledged some common bond ; and the citizen of the Tauric Chersonesos or the Scythian Olbia, although he might know nothing of our modern national life, might yet take pride in the thought that he belonged to a people which stood in the front ranks of mankind. But if the light of Greek civilisation shed some lustre even on these distant settlements, it shone out with full splendor in the magnificent cluster of ctties which lined the eastern shores of the Egean sea, and gave to the southern portion of the Italian peninsula its name of Megale Hellas (Magna Grajcia). How these tribes found their way into tlie lands of the Kepliisos and the Eurotas, we cannot say. The Greek saw in the Latin an alien, and in the Persian a barbarian : yet the evidence of language points unmistakably to a time when the ancestors of the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Teuton, and the Hindu, all dwelt together as a single people. It shows us further that before this ancient people was separated, they had made no small progress in the decencies of life and in thede- velopement of morality and law. We know that they could build houses, tend cattle, plough, sow, and reap, that they had devised for relations of affinity names more precisely accurate than those which we have retained ourselves, — nay, even that they had stored up a vast mass of phrases and maxims, and of popular tales illus- trating these maxims and forming now the folk lore of tribes and nations which since the separation hcive been cut o£E utterly from ail communication with each other. We find the Hindu in the land of the Five Streams ; we find the Hellen in the valleys of Phthiotis and the cliftsof Olympos and Parnassos. But we have no means of tracing the stages of the journey which carried these offshoots from the same stock to their eascern and western homes. When Thucydides Avas about to trace the course of xhat disas- trous expedition which the sagacity of Perikles had by anticipation emphatically condemned, he thought it right to give ^ q i. i brief sketch of Hellenic colonisation in the island of nisaiionin Sicily. This sketch is drawn with all the confidence ^''^^^y- of a man who feels sure of the trustworthiness and completeness of his evidence. Nothing can be more precise than his ethnolugy, nothing more definite than the dates which he assigns to the seve- ral Greek settlements in the island. From first to last the narra- tive is to all appearance thoroughly probable ; but the account which he gives of the Trojan war has the same air of likelihood. In the latter case we know the process by which this result baa been obtained, and we have no guarantee that his early Sicilian 3* 58 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I history may not be of precisely the same kind. This at least is certain that for none of it was there any contemporary registration and that most of the events recorded in it took place by his own admission more than four hundred years before his own day. But whatever may be the precise order in which the Hellenic colonies of Sicily were founded, the great prosperity which for the Social con- most part they enjoyed for generations preceding the ditionsof^ despotism of Peisistratos at Athens is beyond ques- eoionistsin tion. These new communities were established in a Sicily. ]antl of singular fertility, the resources of which, especially in its eastern and southern portions, had never been systematically drawn out. In a country where the people had thus far obtained from the earth just enough to supply the wants of a life spent in caves, there now sprung up cities secured by their walls against attack from without, and rich in all the varied appliances of Hellenic civilisation. The influence of this civilisa- tion was brought to bear on the natives, the gradual blending of the new comers with these ti'ibes being sufficiently attested by the adoption of a non-Hellenic system of weights and measures. This blending had in turn its effect oii the character of the Sikeliot; Hellenes, who were left behind in the race by their eastern kinsfolk. But unlike the Greek communities of Asia Minor or Africa, the Sicilian colonies soon acquired sufiicient strength to insure the failure of any attacks which might be made upon them by neighboring populations. The Asiatic Hellenes lost their independence under the Lydian kings ; they passed under a far heavier yoke when Cyrus entered Sardeis in triumph. The great Eastern despot had in Sicily no more powerful imitator than the Sikel prince Douketios, and the attempts of Douketios ended in nothing. Great as were the attractions of Sicily, those of the neighbor- ing peninsula were far greater. On either side of the mountain ,, , rano'e which fonns its backbone magnificent forests settlements rose above valleys of marvellous fei'tility, and pastures m Italy. green in the depth of summer sloped down to plains which received the flocks and herds on the approach of winter. The exuberance of this teeming soil in wine, oil, and grain veiled the perils involved in a region of great volcanic activity. Tliis mighty force has in recent ages done much towards changing the face of the land, while many parts have become unhealthy and noxious which in the days of Thucydides had no such evil repu- tation. "^Mien Ave allow for the effects of these causes and sub- tract further the results of misgovernment, if not of anarchy, ex- tended over centuries, we may form some idea of the wealth and splendor of southern Italy in the pahny days of Kroton and Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SPORADIKIi. 59 Sybaris, of Thourioi, Siris, Taras and Metapontion. When, final- ly, we remember tliat by the conditions of ancient navigation every ship sailing from Athens or Argos, from Corinth or any other Peloponaesian port, worked its way coastwise to Korkyra and thence crossed tlie sea to the lapygian or Sallentine cape, we might well suppose that every Hellenic colony in southern Italy, with the exception perhaps of Brentesion (Brundusium) which lay to the north-west of the cape, would have been established before any attempts were made to occupy the coasts of Sicily. According to the traditional chronology the course of Hellenic colonisation reversed this natural order, and the chief Sicilian cities had been established for years when at length Sybaris was founded at the mouth of the river of the same name on a line almost due west of the lapygian promontory. Ten years later, it is said, an Achaian named Myskellos led a colony to Kroton, about forty miles to the south of Sybaris on the mouth of the Aisaros. But these cities in their turn sent out colonists to the western coasts of the peninsula. The dates assigned to these settlements claim for them a compa- ratively modest antiquity ; but it is clear that the tales which represented a vast number of the Hellenic colonies in Italy as founded by the heroes returning from Troy were not contented with these humble limits, while they also go far to prove that the later stories are not more trustworthy than the earlier. Whether planted earlier or later than the Sicilian settlements, these Italian colonies soon attained to a far greater pi'osperity. Their dominion extended from sea to sea ; but their War be- predominance was secured much less by force than by baHs'and" the influence of that civilisation which had been Kroton. moulded by the poetry, the worship, the tribal and in a certain sense national festivals, of the mother country. How long the two great cities of Sybaris and Krotos had flourished before the friendly feeling between them gave way to furious hatred, it is impossible to say ; but the story goes that, in the same year which witnessed the expulsion of the Peisistratidai from Athens, five hundred of the wealthier citizens of Sybaris fled for refuge to Kroton from the oppression of the tyrant Telys.' Fear of a power, which at this time, it would seem, far surpassed that of Athens, had almost impelled the Krotoniates to surrender the fugitives, when Pythagoras came forward to de- nounce the impiety. On hearing that his demand for the exiles had been rejected, Telys advanced soutli wards, and a battle was fought in which 100,000 Krotoniates under the athlete Milon ut- terly routed 300,000 Sybarites. Hastening onwards after a victory * Herod, v. 44. 60 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book 1. pressed without mercy, tlie conquerors stormed Sybaris, scattered its people, aud destroyed its power. Such as escaped fled to Laos and Skidros. The result was disastrous not only for Sybaris, but for the Italian Hellenes generally. Whether the destruction of the Pythagorean order should be reckoned among the evils thus caused, it a\ ould perhaps be rash to say. •The effect of the ruin of Sybaris on the Greek world generally was a matter of greater moment. Thus far the lonians had been Effects of the predominant race in Hellas. The prosperity of tion of*^'"'^ Sybaris and Kroton belonged to the golden age of the Sybaris. great Panionic festival at Delos. Among the repre- sentatives of the several Ionic tribes there assembled there is no- thing to lead us to suj^pose that the Athenians filled the foremost place, and Sparta was as yet scarcely sensible of the position which the conditions of the Greek world were tending to secure to her. In the west the great Italian colonies had not merely planted themselves firmly on the coast, but were extending their influence and their power even over* the inland regions of the peninsula. The defeat of Kroisos and the fall of Sybaris went far towards changing the face of things. The Asiatic Greeks became subjects of the Persian despot. The Italian Greeks became less and less able to extend their conquests, or even to maintain their ground against the pressure of native tribes ; and henceforth the title of Megale Hellas, the Magna Gra?cia of the Latins, becomes confined to a strip of \and running along the coast. We might have suppo.sed that the course followed by the navigation of the ancient world would have determined chro- The nologically the order in which the several settlements coiony'of" would be founded. AVe have already seen that the Korkyra. popular traditions respecting the Hellenic cities of Italy and Sicily reverse this order, and the same inversion marks the traditions of the colonies scattered along the Eastern shores of the Ionian sea. We might have supposed that the point from which all ships sailing from the Peloponnesos struck off across the open water to the Italian peninsula would have been chosen as the spot for the earliest settlement in this direction ; but Korkyra' is said to have been colonised about the same time as Syracuse, and therefore some years later than the Sicilian Naxos. The stem and rugged mountain country whii'h on the main land rises to the magnificent Akrokeraunian range furnished, it is true, no great attraction for Hellenic colonists ; but Korkyra with its broad plains and fertile valleys might have satisfied emigrants who had not been accustomed to therich soil of Messene. Severed from ' The name is so given on the coins of the colony. Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SPORADIKfi. 61 the main land by a strait at its northern end scarcely wider than that of Euripos, it still had the advantage of an insular position at^ainst attack from without, while its moderate size, not exceed- ing forty miles in length by half that distance in width, involved none of the difficulties and dangers of settlement on a coast line with barbarous and perhaps hostile tribes in the rear. Nowhere rising to a greater height than 3,000 feet, the highlands of the northern end, Avhich give to the island its modern name of Koru- phoi (Corfu), subside into a broken and plain country, now covered in great part with olive woods planted under Venetian rale, but capable of yielding everywhere abundant harvests of grain and wine. Here, it might be thought that a colony would have grown up which we might class among the most peaceful of Hellenic communities : here in fact grew up perhaps the most turbulent, if not the most ferocious, of Greek societies. Alliance with Athens did little to soften the violence of their passions ; and the rapid developement of the feud between the Korkyraian colony and the mother city of Corinth may be attested by the tradition that the first naval battle of the Greeks was fought by the fleets of these two cities. "We have no means of ascertaining the cause of this implacable enmity against the mother city of which the Corin- thians bitterly complained. It is more than likely that it had its origin in jealousies of trade. The Korkyraians had acquired on the opposite side of the strait a strip of land which enabled them to anticipate the Corinthians in traffic with the Epeirotic tribes and to protect their own property within strong fortifications ; and it is not unlikely that this fact may have determined the Corin- thians to found their colony of Ambrakia near the mouth of the Arachthos which after a due southward course runs into the Am- brakian gulf on its northern shore. But in spite of their jealousies joint colonists from Corinth and Korkyra founded the settlement of Anaktorion at the southern entrance of the Ambrakian gulf, on the waters where jojnt colo- the fortunes of the Roman world were decided by the "i«* o^ f^e victory of Octavianus at Aktion (Actium). Another andKorky- joint colony was founded at Leukas, now Santa Maura, ''^"'"s- which became an island when, in the fourth century b.c, the Leukadians cut through the narrow isthmus between the city and the main land. The slaughter of the Akarnanian settlers who, it is said, had invited the new comers may account for the hatred with which the neighboring tribes regarded the colonies of Ambra- kia, Anaktorion, and Leukas. The joint foundation of the two northernmost Greek settlements on the Epeirotic coast had more important results in the later history of Greece. These two Kor- kyraian colonies were founded the one at Apolloniaon the mouth ^2 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. of the Aoos about sixty miles north of Korkyra, the other at Epi- damiios, about the same distance still further north, with the Corinthian Phalios as Oikistes. Corinth had thus a technical right of interference in their affairs, and the exercise of this right was one of the alleged causes for the outbreak of the Peloponne- sian war. Between the coast extending from Leukas to Bouthroton (opposite the northernmost promontory of Korkyra) and the Akama- mountain range of Pindos lay a number of tribes,' niansand some of which Were regarded as belonsinsr in some other nci*^ii- t • o o boring ° sort to the Hellenic stock, while others were looked tribes. upon as mere barbarians. Socially and morally they stood probably on much the same level. The physical features of the country, broken up throughout by hills and mountains with mere glens or gaps but no broad valleys or plains between them, made the growth of cities an impossibility ; and even the village communities scattered over this wild region were linked together, if joined at all, by the slenderest of bonds. Of these tribes th.e most reputable were the Akarnanians, who, though they preyed npon each other, met together near the Amphilochian Argos to settle their disputes, and, though they tended their flocks with anns in their hands, lacked the deep cunning and treachery which gave to their brutal Aitolian neighbors a decided advantage over them. Of the tribes which lay to the north of the Arkananian terri- tory we need say but little. By the southern Greeks they were included under the common term Epeirotai, or people of the main land : among themselves they were distin- guished as Chaonians, Thesprotians, Molossians, or by other names. Beyond these Epeirotic tribes stretched to the north and the east, from the Hadriatic to the Euxine seas, a vast region inhabited 111 Tians and ^"*y I'aces more or less nearly akin to each other, and all Makedo- perhaps having some affinity with the ruder Hellenic °^^^^^- clans. Of these tribes the most prominent are the Illyrians, Makedonians, and Thrakians, each of these being subdi- vided into several subordinate tribes, and all exhibiting character- istics common to the inhabitants of countries whose physical fea- tures present an effectual barrier to political union and the life of cities. By far the larger portion of this enormous region is occu- pied by mountains often savage in their ruggedncss and almost everywhere presenting impassable barriers to the passage of armies. At best therefore we find the inhabitants dwelling in village com- munities ; and of some we can scarcely speak as having attained to any notions of society whatever. Of these tribes many were, as they are still, mere robbers. Some made a trade of selling their Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SPORADIKfi. 63 cliildren fur exportation : many more were ready to hire themselves out as mercenaries and were thus employed in maintaining the pow- er of the most hateful of Greek despots. The more savage lUyrian and Thrakian clans tattoed their bodies and retained in the histo- rical ages that practice of human sacrifices which in Hellas be- longed to a comparatively remote past. Without power of com- bination in time of peace, they followed in war the fashion wliich sends forth mountaineers like a torrent over the land and then draws them back again whether to reap the harvest or to feast and sleep through winter. Like the warfare of the Scottish High- landers, their tactics were confined to a wild and impetuous rush upon the enemy. If this failed they could only retreat as hastily as they had advanced. More fortunate in their soil and in the possession of comparatively extensive plains watered by t*he Eri- gon, the Haliakmon, and the Axios, the Makedonians, although in the time of Herodotos they had not yet extended their conquests to the sea, were still far in advance of their neighbors. A few generations after the time of Herodotos the Makedonians were to be lords of Hellas and almost of the world ; but in his own day they were not the most formidable of the ti'ibes to the north of the Kambounian hills. In his belief ' the Thrakians might with even moderate powers of combination carry everything before them ; but there was no fear of such united action on the part of these tattoed savages whose roving and desultory warfare was only once interrupted by the abortive expedition of the Odrysian Sitalkes.^ The Thrakian was a mere ruffian who bought his wives, allowed his children to herd together like beasts, and then sold them into slavery. With these habits was combined that fierce periodical excitement which, like the most savage of African or Polynesian tribes of our own day, they were pleased to call religious worship. The attraction of the frenzied rites which were thus celebrated among the mountains whether on the European or the Asiatic side of the Propontis was unhappily not confined to themselves. The madness spread west- wards and southwards, and gave rise to one of the most disgrace- ful phases of Greek social life. The coast line of the regions occupied by these savages was dotted with Hellenic settlements ; but Greek civilisation brought with it no charm for Thrakian tribes. Foremost in _ the enterprise was, it is said, the Euboian city Avhich ments in had founded the earliest colony in Sicily, and the Thrace, whole of the country south of a line drawn between Therme and ' Herod, v. 3. Tliucydides, ii. 98, Scytliians. 7, asserts that this remark would ^ Thuc. ii. ^6. ai>ply even more strongly to the 64 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. Stageiros received the name of Chalkidike in attestation of her activity. This territory of Chalkidike is cut off from the country to the north by a range of mountains sloping down to two of the three peninsulas which run out into the sea between the Thermaic and the Strymonic gulfs. On the easternmost of these projections called Akte the magnificent mass of Atlios, casting its shadow as far as the island of Lemnos, rises sheer from the coast to a lieight exceeding six thousand feet, the ridge connecting it with the mountains at the base being about half that height. The inter- mediate peninsula, though thickly wooded like that of Akte, still has more of open ground ; and on these spaces rose among other Chalkidian cities the towns of Torone near the end of the penin- sula and of Olynthos at the head of the Toronaic gi'lf. At the neck of the third or Pallenian peninsula, Avhose earlier name of Phlegra points to ancient volcanic action, stood the Corinthian city of Potidaia, while the peninsula itself contained Skione, Mende, Sane, and other towns. Further yet to the east we reach the Thrakian Chersonesos which, starting from a base scarcely more than four miles in width, Megarian Stretches to the southwest for fifty miles from the the^Pro'- "^ long wall near the Milesian colony of Kardia to Elaious pontis. at the entrance of the Hellespontos.^ On the Euro- pean side of this strait and of the Propontis lay the Ai)lic Sestos, and the Megarian settlements of Selymbria and of Byzantion, the future home of Roman emperors and Turkish sultans. The fact that a city like Megara could thus, in the century (it is said) pre- ceding the lifetime of Solon, lay its hands on the kej^to the Eux- ine and the Egean, brings before us a picture in strange contrast with the familiar features of later Athenian history. In the ex- tension of the Hellenic race along the Makedonian and Thrakian coasts or along the shores of Epeiros, Illyrikon, and Sicily, such cities as Chalkis, Eretria, and Megara seem by comparison every- where, Athens nowhere. We might almost say that these states, which liad thus reached tlieir maturity before Athens had passed under the sway of the Peisistratidai, exhausted thehiselves in the multiplication of isolated units, while the strength of Athens was reserved for the conflict which determined the future course of European history. The opening of Egypt to Greek trade by Psammitichos ^ gave „ , that impulse to Hellenic colonisation in Africa which colonisation raised up to the east of the great Syrtis a city not un- in Africa. -worthy to be the rival of Carthage. Placed on a mountain terrace nearly two thousand feet in height and com- ' Herod, v. 33. ' Herod, ii. 178. Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SPORADIKEl. 65 manding from a distance of ten miles a vast sweep of the sea, Ky- rene had in the loftier liiils whicli rose behind it a source of wealth more precious than the richness of the most fertile soil, sources of With water even poor soils will yield marvellously perjfy^of under an African sun ; and that boon was abundantly Kyrene. secured to Kyrene by the constant vapors and rains condensed and precipitated by these beneficent mountains. AVith this moist- ure the plains near the sea yielded lavish liarvcsts of grain, while the lower hills and valleys furnished never-failing pasture. Nay, with the differences of climate between the higher and the lower lands, the fruits were ripening and harvest was going on all the year round ; and lastly in the Silphium, whose leaves nourished cattle while the stalk furnished food for men and the root yielded a juice highly valued in all parts of Hellas, Kyrene had a special source of wealth which, in spite of civil dissensions and tumults, carried the colony to a height of prosperity reached by no other African city except Carthage. Thus in tliat fertile region which, lying between the island of Platea in the cast to tlie settlement of Ilesperides (Bengazi) in the west, stretched from the coast to the scnithern moun- conflicts tain ranges,' Greek colonists had a field for enterprise i>etweenthe which, if persistent, could not fail to be richly re- frinians and warded; and commercially, it must l)e admitted that t'>« G'^eks. these colonies were successful. The lands which lay to the west of Ilesperides were manifestly regarded by Carthago as ground over which she could suffer no dominion to be established but her own. She had now career of been compelled to j^ut down Hellenic incroachments in ^frVcaand Africa. The same task awaited her in Sicily, calling Sicily, for greater efforts on her part and involving a risk of more serious failure. Her first conflict in that battle-ground of opposing races was with the Spartan Dorieus who had attempted to found a set- tlement on the banks of the Kinyps. The history of Dorieus be- longs to a class of traditions which would seem strange if ascribed to any Greek city but Sparta. But for the oflicious meddling of the ephors and the senate^ Dorieus would liave been king instead of the mad Kleomencs. Thus deprived of his iidicritance, he re- solved to quit Sparta. "With all the high spirit of his younger brother the illustrious Leonidas, he sailed to Libya without asking, it is said, the advice of the Delphian god ; and this carelessness was probably regarded as fully explaining his expulsion by the Libyan tribes in alliance with Carthage. Thus driven out, he re- turned to Sparta, and had he chosen to remain there he would have ' The land to the south of these mountains is desert. " Herod, v. 41. 66 THE FOEMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. been the general in command at Thermopylai. But at Sparta he could not rest ; and he departed, this time after consulting the god at Delphoi, to seek a new home in Sicily. He landed in that island to find himself opposed not only by the people of Egesta but by the full force of the Carthaginians ; and in the battle which ensued Dorieus was slain Avith all the other leaders of the colony except Euiyleon who with the remnant of the array seized the Selinoun- tian settlement of Minoa, about twenty miles to the west of Akra- gas, and having rid the city of its tyrant Peithagoras made himself despot in his stead. His subjects were not altogether satisfied with this measure of freedom, for after a while they put him to death at the very altar of Zeus Agoraios. But the rivalry of Carthage had little effect in repressing those innate vices of the Greek character which seemed to gain strength Foundation ^'^ ^^^ ^oil. The Greek Colonies in Sicily exhibit of the generally the same transitions from oligarchical govern- dynasty of ment to tyranny which mark the history of the parent Syracuse. country during the generations preceding the Persian wars. The gi-eat power and prosperity attained by many of these Greek cities in Sicily, in spite of everlasting feuds and frequent revolutions, furnish sufficient evidence of the extraordinary ad- vantages which they enjoyed in the soil, the climate, and the physical resources of the country. Among the despots who rose to power in these cities the most prominent was Gelon, despot of Syracuse, and virtually master of all Sicily east of a line drawn from the borders of Messenc to those of Akragas. AVhen the aid of this tyrant was sought against Xerxes by the envoys from Athens and Sparta, Gelon in his reply expressed, it is incroach- said, his readiness to furnish them with a force such as odon on ^^*^^ other Greek state was able to raise, and with a wealth C'artha- of supplies wholly beyond the resources of all the Greek frouiKl. cities put together. But Avhile in return for this aid 481 B.C. he insisted on being recognised as supreme commander of the Greek confederation, he took care, we are told, to rebuke them for the selfishness which now made them his suppliants, when in his time of need they had refused to help him in his efforts to avenge the death of Dorieus and drive the Carthaginians out of Sicily.' If these Avords point to historical facts, these facts fully explain the real reason for that refusal of aid to the conti- nental Greeks which the tradition of the latter ascribed to their own rejection of his claim to the Hegemony. The efforts of Gelon had succeeded in pushing the Carthaginians back to the west of a line drawn between the Greek cities of Himera on the northern ' Herod, vii. 158. Diod. xl. 20. Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SP0RADIK6. 67 and Selinoiis on the southwestern coast of the island ; but he had not succeeded in detaching these cities from their friendship for or their alliance with Carthage, a friendship shared further by the towns of Messene and Rhegion.' Within this line the Cartha- ginians retained only the settlements of Motye, Panormos, and Soloeis (Soluntum) ; and although their policy tlius far had been to avoid all wars (for their contest with Dorieus was the result of open aggression on his part), the rapid aggrandisement of Gelon made them fear that without a vigorous effort they would lose their hold even on this western corner of the island. The way was opened for such an effort by those internal feuds among Greeks which raised an insuperable barrier to the growth of a Greek nation. Combination on the part of the Greek settlers would have made them absolute masters of all Sicily. Sustained and syste- matic action would have secured the same result for tlie Cartha- ginians. Both alike failed in the conditions indispensable for permanent ascendency, and the end was the absorption of both in the dominion of imperial Rome.^ We shall find that but little trust can be placed in the minute details of the battles fought during the Persian war at Thermo[)y lai, Salamis, Plataiai, or Mykale. We are even less justi- The battle fied in fjivinff credit to the narrative of the battle of llimeia. 480 B c which, fought, it is said, on the very day of the fight at Salamis, left Gelon by the utter defeat of Hamilkar master, for the time, of all Sicily. Diodoros, who like Herodotos raised the Carthaginian army to 300,000, kills off half that number on the field of Himera where, seventy years later, the grandson of Hamilkar sacrificed three thousand Hellenic prisoners,^ v/hile he ascribes the result of the conflict to a stratagem suggested to Gelon by some intercepted letters from the Selinountians to the Cartha- ginian leader. The incident is in no way unlikely ; but the ground seems to be less firm when we reach the tale which relates the death of Hamilkar. This ill-fated chief, it is said, was never seen again after the fight. The whole field was searched with minute care by the order of Gelon, but his body could not be found ; and Herodotos was inclined to put faith in an alleged Carthaginian tradition that during the battle Hamilkar stood by a huge altar oi\ which he was sacrificing whole beasts as victims, and that on seeing the day going against him he leaped into the consuming fires. The historian adds that his countrymen raised monuments to his memory in all their colonies as well as in Carthage itself and worshipped him as a god.'' If this be true, it is of itself con- ' Herod, vii. 165. Diod. xi. 33. ' Herod, vii. 165. Died. xi. 20. =■ Ihue, History of Rome, ii. 33. * Herod, vii. 167. 68 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L elusive evidence that his defeat was not so overwhelming as his enemies would have it and that on the day of battle the general did something more than roast flesh to appease the hunger of Moloch. It was not the hahit of Carthaginians to venerate men who brought their country to the verge of ruin. The tradition is throughout disfigured by the vanity of the Sicilian Greeks. As in one version of the eastern story Xerxes was suffered to reach the Asiatic shore with only one solitary boat, so with Diodoros a single vessel reaches Carthage with the miserable remnant of the army which Hamilkar had conveyed to Sicily in more than two thousand ships. There is, in fact, no limit to their humiliation. Carthaginian envoys fall in tears at the feet of Gelon, praying him in the name of humanity to have mercy upon them. His wife Damarete plays the part of queen Philippa in the scene between Edward III. and the burgesses of Calais ; and the Carthaginians are pardoned on condition of paying 2,000 talents as the cost of the war and building two temples in which the treaty of peace might be preserved. Like men reprieved from a sentence of death, they accept these terms, with a gratitude which finds expression in the gift to Damarete of a golden crown 200 talents in Aveight. To complete the fiction, we are told that Gelon was thus indulgent to the enemies whom he had crushed, because he was anxious to take part in the continental war against Xerxes ; that, before he could set sail, the ti lings came of the victory of Salamis and the retreat of the tyrant ; that on receiving the news, he summoned the citizens to appear armed in the assembly, and going to that assembly not only without arms but even without an lapper gar- ment, entered into an elaborate review of his acts and of the policy by which they had been dictated. No Greek despot had ever thus thrown himself on the good faith of his people. The Syracusans knew how to appreciate such confidence, and hailed the tyrant by acclamation as their benefactor, their saviour, and their king.' In striking contrast with this extravagant romance the lyric poet, writing at a time not many years after the event, prays that Zeus may put oflf as long as possible the conflict then impending with the Carthaginians, which he feels must be a struggle for life or death." If the defeated Hamilkar was worshipped by his countrymen, the victorious Gelon deserved at least equal honors. He the Gelonian too was venerated as a hero, when a few months after dynasty. j^jg gj-gat triumph he died of dropsy. He had de- sired that his power should be shared between his two brothers, •■ Diod. xi. 21-26. It is clear that tradition is very modest, and there- this story must have beenin%-ented forn probably near to the truth, after the time of Herodotos, accord- ^ Find. Nem. ix. 67. Ihne, His- injJT to whom, vii lii4, the Sicilian tory of Rome, ii. 23. Chap. VIII.] HELLAS SP0RADIK]6. 69 Hieron whom he liud placed at Gela succeeding to the tyranny, while Polyzelos was to have the military command. The arrange- ment was not to Hieron's mind. Polyzelos took refuge, it is said, with Theron of Akragas, who by refusing to surrender him drew down on himself the wrath of llieron. In short, after the death of Gelon the liistory of the Greek cities in Sicily falls back into the old round of faction, revolution, and war. Between Gelon and Theron of Akragas there liad been a firm friendship : between Hieron and Thrasydaios the son of Theron there was a war in which the former paid a high price for his victory. The death of Hieron a few years later was followed by further troubles. His brother Thrasyboulos had a rival, it is said, in liis nephew the son of Gelon. He met and averted tlie danger by corrupting the boy, and then gave full play to his vindictive and merciless nature.' The result was a revolt of his subjects who besieged him in Ortygia, and, if avc are to believe the account of Diodoros, compelled him to yield np his power. Eighteen years^ only had passed since the foundation of tlie Gelonian dynasty at Syracuse when Thrasyboulos departed and took up his abode among the Epizephyrian Lokrians, who dealt with him more mercifully than the Megarians had dealt with Thrasydaios. We have now to see how and with what results, on soil not much more promising at the first, the seeds of law, order, and freedom were sown at Athens. CHAPTER IX. EARLY CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ATHENS. We have already seen that the constitutions of Athens and Sparta furnish abundant evidence of their common origin from the primi- tive Aryan household with its absolute subjection to the (.Q^f^ggf father of the family, or, in other words, to the priest between who alone could offer the necessary sacrifices to his Athen/as deified ancestors. But although the theory of this I""* -^l ^^ ancient family life remained intact in both, the dif- ferences in the growth of these two states were wide indeed. If we may accept as substantially true and fair the picture which Perikles in his great Funeral Oration' draws of the political and ' Arist. Polit. v. 10, 31. ^ lb. v. 12, 6. =" Time. ii. 35-40. 70 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I, social condition of Athens in his own day, we shall find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that distinctions of time and place go for little indeed. All the special characteristics of English polity — its freedom of speech, the right of the peojile to govern them- selves, the supremacy of the ordinary courts of law over all func- tionaries Avithout exception, the practical restriction of state inter- ference to the protection of person and property, the free play given to the tastes, fancies, prejudices, and caprices of individual citizens — may be seen in equal developement in the polity of Athens, But, like the constitution of England, the full developement of Athenian democracy was the work of ages. It was no makeshift Complicated hastily adopted and modified at haphazard after the character fashion of some European nations who expel kings and Athenian queens and then sit down to meditate on the forms of constitution, government which may best suit their interests or their fancies. Like the English constitution, it was the fruit of long and arduous struggles, slowly ripened as the people awoke more and inore to that consciousness of law and order which can be fully awakened only among men Avho feel that the law which they obey is their own law and that they obey it because it aims more and more at being in accordance with a justice and righteousness higher than that of man.' Like the constitution of Ensxland at once in its coherence and in its powers of adaptation to change of circum- stances, it carries us back in the history of its growth to times of which we must candidly confess that we know very little ; and we must on many matters be content either to suspend our judg- ment or to reason from signs which, as in the early history of English polity, seem to point to sufliciently probable conclusions. The undoubted existence down to the time of Kleisthenes (a period preceding by only a few years the battle of Marathon) of Athens in '^ subdivision by clans and houses takes us back, as we the time of have already seen, almost to the earliest form of eist enes. ]^m^-,j^^^ society. AVhatever may have been the origin snd meaning of the names which have been variously assigned to the Athenian tribes, the evidence already reviewed ^ seems to leave it certain that the point of starting Avas from the house or family upwards, and not from the larger division downwards. We have licre in fact the same growth as that of the English families into ti things, hundreds, and shires, — a division which preceded and survived the several kingdoms into Avliich the country was from time to time parcelled out.^ Nor can we questi()n that the prin- ciple underlying this grouping was one of blood and of religion, which could take no reckoning of those who Avere not sprung from ■ Soph. Old. Tyr. 864. ^ Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. * Chapter ii. i. ch. iii. ^ 2. CH.VP. IX.] EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 71 the same stock. Hence if in later times there were superadded to tjie old clan names a fm'tlier political grouping wliicli took in the whole country territorially, still this grouping would not neces- sarily embrace all its inhabitants. AH wlio could not share in the gentile sacrifices would be shut out ; and the influx of strangers and foreigners would tend to swell a population to which the existing social order allowed no political rights. It was the growth of such a popxilation which, owing to conflicts between the ruling classes, determined the form of Athenian democracy. In the Trittys and Naukraria we have a classification which clearly follows a downward course. The tribe must have been organised before it could be divided into three portions, TheTrittves and the twelve Trittyes obtained for the four tribes and Nau- were then divided each into four Naukrariai, forty- '''^"''^• eight in all. Solon, it is said, laid on each of these Naukrariai the charge of providing one sliip for the public service ; and hence it lias been inferred that the classification itself was devised by him and was thus designated from its reference to the navy. But if Ilerodotos be right in saying that Kylon was removed from sanctuary by the Prytaneis, or presidents, of the Naukraroi, it would follow that the division existed before the days of Solon and that tlie Naukraroi were simply the chief householders charged with the levying and administration of the taxes in each district.' We are still on doubtful ground when we come to the story of the settlement of Athens as related by Thucydides.* Of the Theseus who is said to have made Athens the seat of j,^^ union a central government which superseded the indepen- of the Attic dent action of a set of voluntarily confederated boroughs or cities, our knowledge comes only from the stories which tell us of his marvellous childhood, of the discovery of his father's weapons under the great stone, of his battle with tlie Minotauros and his stealing of Helen, the fatal sister of the Dioskouroi. Still, although we may not regard the narrative as liistory, we are not free to say that no such change ever took place. It is far more likely that it did. The mere classification into Trittyes and Naukrariai is of itself proof that the need was felt of political divisions which should run counter to the religious and exclusive constitution of the houses and clans ; and this feeling is brought out still more prominently in the accounts of the political changes ' The word Naukraros would the officers chartred with the duty thus be only another form of Nau- of tryinrj cases of unlawful admis- kleros in the sense of a household- siou into the Phratries. er. as vaC'ov denoted the rent of a ^ ii. 15. house, and as the Nautodikai were '^2 THE FOEMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L attributed to Kleistlienes. There could have been no reason for substituting local Demoi for the existing tribes, if the latter could have been made as available for the purposes of the statesman. The consolidation of the Attic Demoi into a single state Avould thus answer to the gradual absorption of the several English king- Riffhtof in- doms under the sovereignty of the chiefs of Wessex. termarriage. jj^ -^i^g q^^q q^^q j^g jj^ i[^q Other the task was not accomplished in a day, nor without violent struggles. The pro- hibition of intermarriage which is said to have existed among some of the Attic Demoi would point to the jealousy and animosity of communities originally independent ; nor must we leave out of sight such legends as the story of the Athenian Tellos who falls in a battle between the men of Eleusis and of Athens' and, more particularly, the evidence of poems like the Hymn to Demeter in which Eleusis is clearly still an independent state and in which the Athenians take no part in the mj-steries of the Great Mother. The strength of this cantonal feeling is further shown in the eagerness with which the Athenians returned to their country life after the Persian invasion and in the reluctance w^ith Avhich they abandoned their homes to take up their quarters within the city at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war." But when Ave come to the reforms of Theseus, we find, in place of four tribes whose names seem to liave been by no means per- TheEupa- mauent, a new division under the three titles of Eupa- morol,^nd tridai, Geomoroi, and Demiourgoi, — in other words, Demiourgoi. the uoblcs. the yeomen, and the mechanics.^ What- ever else may be denoted by this classification, it represents with suflicieiit exactness the social order which prevailed for a long ihna both at Athens and at Rome, and which gave to certain families a preponderance over all other members of the state. Whatever may have been their relation to the tribes, we may fairly accept the fact that the substantial power in tlie state was in the liands of the Eupatridai. The days of kings had long been ended. The devotion of Kodros, it is said, had made the title too sacred to be borne by any after him, as the tyranny of Tarquin had made it too horrible to be tolerated at Rome. After him there w^ere, we are told, archons for life, then for ten years, and then the office was put into commission, and a complicated con- stitution grew up, for Avhich in the earlier stages we have no contemporary history, and to Avhich writers who lived after the ' Herod, i. 30. and clients. But lie is clearly ^ Thuc. ii. 16. reasoning from Latin to Greek ^ Dionysios, ii. 8, divides the forms; and the looseness of his ar- Athenians into Eupatridai and gument is sufficiently shown from Agroikoi or dependent cultivators, his random guesses as to the answering to the Latin patricians meaning of the Latin Patres. Chap. IX.] EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 73 changes introduced by Aristeides, Perikles, and Ephialtes, ap- plied, whenever it seemed necessary, the convenient method of conjecture. But every confederation implies a council ; and xVryan history generally furnishes ample evidence that the several combinations of families into a tribe and of tribes into a city would The Council result in a subordination of the councils representing ofAreiopa- the clans and houses to the great council of the state. ^°^' This council at Athens was that of Areiopagos or the hill of Ares, known at first simply as Boule, the Council, which with the magistrates included in it inherited the large and undefined powers belonging of right first to the master of the family, then to the chief of the clan, and lastly to the king. Of these powers the most sacred, if not the most important to the state, was that of the priesthood. As the name and person of the father and the king were most closely associated with the sacerdotal idea, so the khigly title both at Athens and Rome was assigned to the officer charged with the guardianship and direction of the state religion ; and thus the Roman Rex Sacrorum answered to the Athenian Arclion Basileus whose jurisdiction embraced cases of liomicide and religious offences. Two other archons, belonging to the col- lege of nine, who are said to have entered on their functions with Kreon, bore distinctive titles, — the first, who was also head of the college, being the Archon Eponymos, as giving his name to the year, or simply the Archon, and the Archon Polemarchos. Of these two the former settled all disputes arising from the re- lations of the family, the gens, and the phratria, while the latter dealt with all quarrels between citizens and non-citizens, and had the command of the army in war. All other matters not restricted to these were under tlie cognisance of the remaining six an^lions who were known as Thesmothetai, a title, common doubtless to all the nine, which may be interpreted by the Homeric description of the judges who receive and maintain the laws for Zeus.' These oflScers at the end of their year of office became, on passing the necessary test, permanent members of the great council of the Areiopagos. The whole course of Athenian history seems to attest the gradual restriction of the powers of this body, which continued to retain its jurisdiction in cases of homicide long after rpj^^ jjj.jj^q. it had been deprived of its legislative and administra- nian ks^isia- tive functions. The basis of its power was distinctly ^'""' religious, and the power itself was necessarily exercised inflexibly. It was not competent for the Areiopagos to draw distinctions ' IL i. 239. 74r THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L between the guilt of one liomicide and that of another. There could be but one doom for all who were judged guilty of having shed blood, Avhether they might plead accident by way of excuse, or urge provocation by way of palliating the offence. The hard- ness of the Drakonian laws has passed into a proverb ; but if we give credit to the tradition, it was a movement in the way of lenity, not of severity, when Drakon made the distinctions de- manded by equity, and ordained that the court of the Ephetai, fifty-one in number, should sit in different places to adjudicate in different cases of homicide according to their complexion or to the plea urged by the criminal. If he alleged accident, he was to be tried at the Palladion ; if he pleaded provocation, he was to be arn.ignedat the Delphinion or consecrated ground of Apollonand Artemis. The religious scruples which regarded one spot as pro- faned by acts which might be lawfully done in another are ex- hibited still more clearly in the rules Avhich prescribe that a person banished for homicide and charged with a second offence of the like sort should take his trial at a place called Phreattys in a boat hauled close in on the shore, wdiile the animism of the earliest forms of thought Avhich attribute life to all sensible objects^ is seen in the jurisdiction of the four Phylo-basileis or tribe-kings who meet in the Prytaneion to try inanimate objects which have caused the death of a human being, and if found guilty, to cast them solemnly beyond the borders of the laud. That the rule of the Eupatridai exercised through this council and the College of Archons would be both harsh and irksome, is no The con- more than what we might expect ; and it was as likely spiracyof that efforts to control or change it might come from ^ °°" those w'lio wished to set up a despotism as from those who wished to introduce a democracy. Of the attempt of Kylon to seize the Akropolis, as it is said, for the former purpose, the chief importance lies in the use made of it by the Spartans to counteract the influence of Perikles before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war,'^ as it had been employed in like sort against Kleisthenes.* It is as likely that a vain attempt to erect a despotism should have been made by Kylon as that the exploit should have been achieved by Peisistratos, But the story itself is told with singular contra- dictions. In the brief summary of Herodotos Kylon tries in vain to seize on the Akropolis. When on his failure he takes refuge at the shrine, he is removed by the Prytaneis of the Naukraroi on the pledge that his life should be spared, but the coTOuant is disre- garded by the Alkmaionidai who put him to death. In the more full report of Thucydides, Kylon, aided by his father-in-law The- ' Tylor, Primitive Culture, voL i. ^ Tbuc. i. 127. cb. ii. ' Herod, v. 70. Chap. IX.] EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS. 75 agenes tyrant of Mcgara,' succeeds in occupying the Akropolis, and is foiled only by a lack of the food needed to witlLstand a long siege, the blockade being intrusted to the nine archons, who iit that time had virtually, we are told, the whole administration of the state. But according to this version Kylon and his brother escaped, and only his followers were slain in violation of the pledges given to them. With such evidence as this, we may accept tlie fact of the conspiracy and its failure ; nor, although in its details the tradition is manifestly untrustworthy, can we question that the clan of the Alkmaionidai were permanently tainted for their bad faith in tlie opinion of the people, and that in times of trouble they Avere regarded as men on whom the divine wrath specially rested and who might fairly be treated as scape-goats to appease tlio anger of the gods. CHAPTER X. ATHENS, AND THE SOLONIAK LEGISLATION. With the name of Solon, the son of Exekestides, are associated some of the most momentous changes ever made in Athenian or in any other polity ; and for even some details in Historical liis work we have indisputable evidence in tlie frag- [hcTime'of ments of his poems which have been preserved to us. Solon. Evidence also remains in the fragments of his laws ; but in examin- ing the accounts given of his legislation we are met by the diffi- culty that later writers and orators attributed to him many changes and ascribed to him many institutions with which he had nothing to do. Hence, except when we have positive statements of Solon himself, it must be carefully borne in mind that in the descriptions given of his measures we are dealing rather with the views of men who lived under very different social and political conditions, tlian with actual historical evidence ; and the conclu- sions which we are most justified in accepting will be those which arc most easily reconciled with the words of Solon and most in harmony with what we know of the earlier conditions of society in Attica and Hellas generally The chief interest of the life of Solon centres in the social con- dition of the Athenian people. If Drakon did something Misery of to soften the indiscriminate severity of the court of theAtin;ni- Areiopagos, no heed, it would seem, was taken of the ^"P®°p®- frightful sufferings of the classes who were excluded from all share ^ Sec p. 46. The date of Kylon's attempt is quite uncertain, T6 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. in tlio government. But the only points of real importance wliicli we have to determine are tlie nature and the cause of the intestine disorders prevalent in the country ; and it is on these points pre- cisely that complete informaiion fails us. If we confine ourselves to the words of Solon, we have before us the fact that tiie men who exercised power in the state were guilty of gross injustice and of violent robberies among themselves, while of the poor many were in chains and had been sold away even into foreign slavery. Nay, in the indignant appeal which, after carrying out his reforms, Solon addresses to Ge Melaina, the Black Earth, as a person, he speaks of the land itself as having been in some way inslaved and as being now by himself set free, by the removal of boundaries which had been fixed in many places. Many again, he adds, had through his efforts been redeemed from foreign captivity and brought back to their ancient homes, while those who on Attic soil were reduced to slavery and trembled before their despots were now raised to the condition of freemen. The whole question, it is obvious, turns on the meaning of the words debtor, creditor, slavery, freedom, boundary and landmark, as used in these passages ; and on this meaning it is not suqmsing that opinions not easily reconciled should have been held by writers living under later and very differ- ent conditions of society, or that these opinions should in greater or less degi'ce have received the sanction of modern historians. On the one side it has been maintained, by those who regard the representations of Plutarch as in the main trustworthy, that Various ^^^^ system which tended to reduce English freemen to opinions as villenage was in the days of Solon converting the Attic to the causes l-ti \ fi^r i of this peasants mto slaves. Arrears or rent or ot produce misery. pavable to the owners of the soil were changed into debts, for which the tenant was allowed by law to pledge his own body or the bodies of his sisters or his children. That the smaller tenures generally should be heavily mortgaged was a circum- stance, it is argued, not very favorable to the real prosperity of the country ; but this was as nothing compared with a practice which aimed at establishing and extending a servile class by the offer of loans which the lender well knew would never be repaid in money, and for which he sought no other repayment than the bodies of the borrowers. Such a state of things must sooner or later eat out the life of a nation ; and a legislator, who had the welfare of the })eople at heart, could see in it only a plague to be suppressed at all hazards. Doubtless the debts incurred by the Thetes or tenants were, it is maintained, legitimate debts, and the lenders were intitled to repayment. The repudiation of the debts must involve injustice to them ; but their maintenance would bring with it the destruction of the whole people. The growth of dis- Chap. X.] THE LEGISLATION OF SOLON. 77 content and rebellion had frightened the ruling class ; and when Solon was invested with something like dictatorial power, ho used it not to make himself a despot, hut to put an cud to the mischief at once by introducing his Seisachtheia, or Removal of Burdens, — a measure which, it is held, annulled all mortgages on land in Athens, restored to freedom all debtors who had been reduced to slavery, provided the means for recovering such as had been sold into foreign countries, and more particularly struck at the root of the evil by prohibiting all security for loans on the body of the borrower or of his kinsfolk. The losses of the lenders who may themselves have been indebted to others were, it is said, in some measure lessened or compensated by a depreciation of the currency, while the objections urged against these measures are sufficiently answered by the fact that the public credit was not shaken and that it never again became necessary either to debase the money standard or to repudiate a debt. This view, it is maintained on the other side, involves some great, if not insurmountable, difficulties. When the distress of the Athenian agriculturists is ascribed definitely to debts ,p,|j. question secured by mortgage, the assertion lies open to the of debt and retort that the security of mortgage can be given only """^ °'^°^' by the owner of the soil, and Ihat the distressed men of Attica were not owners of the land, but only the cultivators. There can be no doubt that in the belief of Plutarch a large, if not by far the greater, part of the p()[)ular distress arose from the conditions of land-tenure imposed on the class called ThcteSj or Ilektemorioi, as paying to the owner one-sixth portion of the yearly produce, and that these distressed persons were not proprietors. Whether he is speaking of the same class when he mentions those who pledged their persons for the repayment of debts, or whether by the Dan- eistai, or money-lenders or usurers, he supposed the landlords and the landlords only to be meant, is not so clear ; and when we look more closely into the facts of the earliest .social history of Athens, so far as they are known to us at all, we are confronted by two grave difficulties, the one turning on the question whether the more modern idea of mortgage was so much as known at that time, the other making it necessary for us to determine whether thcrQ existed then a class of professed money-lenders. It is at the least difficult, if not impossible, to imagine that capitalists could be found to advance loans in money to cultivators of the soil who were unable to pay even one sixth of the produce ; nor can we well suppose that pressure caused simply by a somewhat excessive rent could assume very formida1)le proportions. If again lenders, being landowners, could be found to advance money to cultivators who could not pay to them even one-sixth part of the produce of the 78 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book 1. soil, wc can Init wonder at the superfluity of the loan, when the failure of the tenant to yield the stipulated portion of the produce involved in itself the forfeiture of his freedom. If on the other hand the landowners and the money-lenders were not the same persons, then it is scarcely a matter of douht that the Hcktemorioi would never have heen allowed by the landowners to pledge to pro- fessed usurers their persons, the value of which might far exceed the amount of the debt, for this would be directly to defraud the landlord whose claim to their bodies on failure to pay the proceeds would be paramount ; and to make two classes of men indebted to two classes of creditors, (the Thetes or Hektemorioi being pledged to the landowners, and the free proprietors of small estates pledged to professional usurers,) is to multiply gratuitous suppositions. What then were the pillars which beyond doubt Solon removed from the land ? In the absence of direct evidence that they were mortgage pillars inscribed with the name of the lender and the amount of the loan, it is reasonable to suppose that they were simply the boundaries or landmarks Avhich, whether in Attica or in Latium, and throughout the Aryan world or even beyond its limits, it was sacrilege to touch. These landmarks represented those ancient patriarchal rights which received their whole sanction from religion. That the greater part of the Athenian soil was marked off by these landmarks, is asserted by Solon himself. In other words, the Eupatridai were still the lords of almost all the land ; and thus we have on the one side a few heads of families who might in the strictest sense of the tenn be spoken of as despots, and on the other the dependents who trembled before them but who were suffered to draw their livelihood from the soil on condition of paying a fixed part of the produce to the lord. It can scarcely be doubted that even this fixed payment marks a step forward in the condition of the laborer Avho had started without even this poor semblance of right. It was, however, a mere semblance after all. So long as he could comply with the terms imposed on him, he might remain nominally free ; but his real state was not changed. Tlie lord might demand a larger portion of the produce ; or a hard season might leave him unable to pay even the sixth part. In either case, he reverted necessarily to the sernle state from which he bad never been legally set free. So long as things continued thus, Solon might with perfect truth say that the land itself Avas inslaved, for t'lie scanty class of small proprietors, even if any such existed at the time, would be powerless against tlie Eupatrid land- owners, and would be liable to the same accidents which might at any moment make the client once more a slave. If this be at all a true picture of the condition of Attica in the days of Solon, it was obviously impossible that things could go on Chap. X.] THE LEGISLATION OF SOLON. 79 indefinitely as they were. If even tbe concession which raised the slave to the state of the Hcktemorios Avas wrung, as probably it was, from an unwilling master, it was certain that ^^tj^jji ^jg^. the man who had gained this poor boon would never suresof rest content in a position which had not even the ° "^"^ guarantee of law and which left him at the mercy and caprice of a despot who might, if he pleased, sell him, into foreign slavery. One of two results must follow under such circumstances. Either the half emancipated peasant must become a free owner of the soil, or lie must fall back into his original subjection. Here, then, in dealing with grievances which every year must become less and less tolerable, Solon had abundant materials for his Seisachtheia or Relief Act ; and the measures which such a state of things would render necessary are precisely those which seem to be indicated by his words. From all lands occupied by cultivators on condition of yielding a portion of the produce he removed the pillars which marked the religious ownership of the Eupatridai, and lightened the burdens of the cultivators b}" lessening the amount of produce or money which henceforth took the shape of a rent. In other words, a body of free laborers and poor landowners was not so much re- lieved of a heavy pressure, as for the first time called into being. Whether the lowering of the currency attributed to Solon be or be not merely the idea of later writers, it would seem that in their accounts of the relations of debtors with creditors Lowerino-of at the time of the Seisachtheia they transferred to the the cur-" Athens of Solon notions which belonged to a much ^'^"*^^' later generation, and comprehending but faintly the tremendous power exercised by the ancient lords of the soil, concluded that the relief which Solon gave was chiefly through the abolition or the diminution of debts. The words of Solon point rather to a struggle between slavery and freedom ; and the tradition that it was never afterwards found necessary to modify contracts or to de- base the currency may be regarded as suflScient evidence that his Avork Avas done effectually. But Solon did more than redress existing Avrongs. The tribes Avith their principle of religious association had remained thus far undisturbed ; but the greater part of the population ^^ , . , ' , , . ° ., ^ , . ,^ ^ , .» New classi- was not included \n any tribe, and it Avas clear that it flcationof the statesman Avished to avail himself of the full powers Ihe penS-^' and resources of the country, it was indispensably kosiomedim- necessary to introduce a new classification AA'hich should zeuVitai',^ ^ ' take in all the free inhabitants of the land Avithout refe- andThetes. renee to affinities of blood and be based AA^holly on property. The principle thus introduced Avas termed the timocratic, and its most important political result Avas that it excluded the poor Eupatrid 80 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book i irom offices and honors for wliicli richer citizens now became eligible who could lay no claim to the religious character of the old nobility. The Pentakosioraedimnoi, or men whose annual income was equal to 500 mediranoi (about VOO imperial bushels) of corn, the Ilippeis or Knights (so called as possessing sufficient means to serve as horsemen) who had from 300 to 500 medimnoi, and the Zeugitai, or owners of a team of oxen, who possessed from 200 to 300, paid a graduated income-tax called Eisphora, on a capital which for members of the first class was rated at twelve times, for those of the second at ten times, and for those of the third at five times their yearly income, — the Pentakosiomedimnos who had simply his 500 bushels being, for instance, rated at 6000 drachmas, the Ilippeus with 300 medimnoi at 3000, and the Zeugites of 200 drachmas at 1000, or five times his yearly income. In the fourth or Thetic class, so called as including, and not as consisting only of, the Thetes, were placed all citizens whose property fell short of 200 drachmas a year. The members of this, the largest, class in the state were not liable to the direct taxation of the Eisphora, although they shared with the men of the wealthier classes the more permanent burden of indirect taxation in the form of import duties. Nor \vere they called upon to discharge the un- paid services of the state called Leitourgiai, liturgies, while in war they served only as light-armed infantry, or in armor provided for them by the state. On the other hand, they were ineligible to all public offices — the archonship and all military commands being open only to members of the first class, while certain minor offices might be filled by the Hippeis and Zeugitai, the former of whom were bound to serve as horsemen, the latter as heavy-armed in- fantry, at their own expense. Thus in, the classification which ex- cluded the Eupatrid whose income fell sliort of 500 medimnoi from tlie high offices which he regarded as his inalienable birthright, the spell of the ancient despotism of religion and blood was broken ; and a further democratic element was introduced by the law which, while it confined the archonship to members of the first class, left the election of the archons to the Heliaia, or general council, which included not merely the men of the first three classes, but, as the Eupatrid would have termed them, the rabble of the fourth class. This law went even further, making the archons at the end of their year of office directly accountable to the pubUc assembly and sub- ject to an impeachment by it in case of misbehavior. The power of this assembly was strengthened by the institution, The Probon- fittributed to Solon, of the Probouleutic Council of Four k'utic Hundred (in the proportion of one hundred for each Council. tribe) who, like the archons, were to be elected by the whole people from the first class. This council, as its name Chap. X.] THE LEGISLATION OF SOLON. 81 implies, was charged chiefly with the preparation of matters to be brought before the assembly, with the summoning and management of its meetings, and with the execution of its decrees. Such, in the main, seems to have been the great work of Solon, a work accomplished just at a time when attempts like tho>e of Kylon or Peisistratos, if made at that moment, might Reiation^^inp have crushed for ever the rising freedom of Athens, ciasse/to\'i,y and achieved by a man who was charged with mad- tribes, ness for not following the example of tliose who had made them- selves tyrants in other Hellenic cities. But Solon himself scarcely more than laid the foundations, and it is a common error which ascribes to him developements of the constitution belonging to a time later even than that of Kleisthenes. The members of the fourth and by far the largest class of citizens could have no further inlluence on the conduct of affairs than by the check, probably not always very effectual, which they exercised by electing the archons and examining them at the end of the year. But, more particu- larly, although a citizen of the first class who was not an Eupatrid was in point of money qualification eligil)le for the archonship, he could be neither archon nor a member of the Areiopagos, unless he also belonged to a tribe ; and as the Probouleutic Council con- sisted of four hundred, or one hundred for each of the tribes, it followed that only members of the tribes could be elected to this council, and thus that the political position of non-tribal citizens, even if they belonged to the first class in the timocracy, was simply on a level with that of the fourth or Thetic class. All that the Solonian reform had done wtis to exclude from the archonship the poor Eupatrid and to adn)it to it the non-Eupatrid Pentakosiome- dimnos, if he belonged to some tribe ; but no one who did not possess the religious title could hold office, and thus Solon left the constitution, as he found it, practically oligarcliic. Over the sequel of the career of Solon the mists of oral tradition liave gathered thickly. His work as a legislator was done ; but there remained the fear that others might destroy it or Later years that he might be induced to impair it himself. He of Solon, therefore bound the Atheniaiis, we are told, by solemn oaths that for ten years, or, as some said, for a hundred years, they would suffer no change to be made in his laws, and then, to make it im- possible that this change should come from himself, he departed on the long pilgrimage which is associated with the names of other legislators as great as himself, though less historical. That he visited Egypt and Kypros (Cyprus) is proved by his own words ; but the time of the visit is undetermined, and that he cannot have sojourned witli Amasis, seems to be clear from the fact that the reign of Amasis began at least a generation after the legislation of 82 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. Solon.' Not more trustworthy chronologically is the exquisitely beautiful tale -which relates the intercourse of Solon with the Lydian king Kroisos. It is clear that in the belief of Herodotos Solon visited Sardeis not more than six or seven years before the fall of the Lydian monarchy. The death of Atys which marked the turning-point in the unbroken happiness of Kroisos was fol- lowed, after two years only, by the war with the Persian Cyrus ; and the catastrophe occurred scarcely less than fifty years after the legislation of vSolon. The story is manifestly a didactic legend setting forth the religious philosophy of the time, insisting on the divine jealousy which hates and punishes pride and self-satisfaction in mortal man, and virtually maintaining that happiness is a state ■which cannot be predicated of anyone before his eai-thly life has reached its close. The return of Solon to Athens was not to be followed by new reforms for the benefit of his countrymen. The tide had turned. Usurpation ^^ ^^^ struggle which ensued Solon, it is said, foresaw of Peisis- that Peisistratos must be the conqueror ; but he strove death of in vain to rouse the Athenians to combine against the Solon. tyranny with which they were threatened. To no purpose he stood in his armor at the door of his house, and ho could but console himself with the thought that he had done his duty, and reply to those who asked on what he relied to save him- self from the vengeance of his enemies, ' Oji my old age.' Peisis- tratos, as the story goes, did. him no harm ; and the man who had done more than any who had gone before him to make his country free died in peace, full of years and with a fame which is the purer for the unselfishness which refused to employ for his own exaltation opportunities greater than any which fell to the lof even of Peisistratos himself. CHAPTER XI. THE TYRANNY OF THE PEISISTRATIDAI, The success of Peisistratos is of itself sufficient evidence of the slow growth of the democratic spirit at Athens. The people, Slow growth which a few generations later appears in the satire of cratic spWt ^^^^ comic poct under the guise of the rude and in- at Athens, tractable old man of the Pnyx, now show themselves apt disciples in that school of indiflEerence which Solon had branded ■ Herod, i. 30. PIuLaSo?. 26. Lewis, Credibility of E.R.H. ii.532etseq. Chap. XI.] THE PEISISTRATIDAI. 83 as the worst of civil crimes; and the man who has crashed his rivals may count on their passive acquiescence under his sway. In this instance the successful plotter was supported by the faction (if such it was) of the Hyperakrians or men of seizure of the hills, whose part he professed to take. As their ^^^.-^,'^^'i; . champion, he avowed (if we are to follow the story sistratos. of Herodotos) that he had narrowly escaped from the ^^ob.c. (?) hands of his enemies who had fallen upon him in the country. Hastening to Athens, he pointed to the wounds, which he had inflicted on himself and on his mules, as attesting the truth of his tale, and prayed the people to grant him a body-guard to protect him against the weapons of the rival factions. The club-bearers by whom he was now attended may soon have become spear- bearers ; but in any case the disguise was thrown off when with their help Peisistratos seized the Akropolis, and Megakles with the Alkmaionids fled from the city. Whatever may be the value of these details, there is no reason to question the general statement of Herodotos that, having thus made himself master of Athens, Peisistratos ruled characterof wisely and well, without introducing a single consti- tjftj'o™'?^^' tutional change.' With sound instinct he perceived Peisistratos. that the Solonian forms were sufficiently oligarchic in spirit to suit his purposes : and Athens, although in the power of a despot, had the benefit of a despotism lightened as it had been lightened in no other Hellenic city. But although the praise of Herodotos is confirmed by that of Thucydides,^ who asserts that with no direct impost beyond an income-tax of five per cent. Peisistratos and his successors found means to carry on wars, to pay the cost of sacrifices, and to embellish the city, their wisdom and their other qualities failed to make the course of their despotism run smoothly. The first disaster, we are told, was not long in coming. They owed their power to the divisions among the people, and a coali- tion of the Pediaian and Paralian factions, in other Expulsion words, of the men belono-ina; to the plains and the sea- ?."^ restora- ^ ^ .-*■ tion of Pei- coast, was at once followed by their expulsion. But sistratos. this success served only to renew and whet the strife of these parties, and Megakles, as the head of the Paralians, offered to restore the exiled tyrant on the condition that the latter should marry the daughter of the Alkmaionid chief. The terms were accepted ; and to insure the assent and favor of the people, the conspirators, it is said, obtained the services of a tall and beautiful woman of the Paionian tribe, whom they placed in full armor on a chariot, and then made proclamation to the citizens that they should welcome Peisistratos whom Athene herself was bringing to her own Akro- ' Herod, i. 59. ^ vi. 54. 84 THE FORMATION OP HELLAS. [Book I. polis. Hastening to the scene, they saw a majestic woman about six feet high, and taking her at once to be the virgin goddess, gave her Avorship and received the despot/ But the curse which rested on the house of Megakles cast its dark shadow on the mind of Peisistratos, who resolved that the Second ex- marriage to wliich he had consented should be a miit^iou of barren one ; and the discovery of this design led Peisistratos. fQ^i^^^tii to the reconciliation of Megakles with Ly- kourgos, the head of the so-called Pediaian faction, and to the second expulsion of the tyrant, who, it is said, spent the next ten years chiefly in the Euboian Eretria,^ aiding Lygdamis to establish his despotism in Naxos, and in some way or other helping Thebes and other cities. The story of his restoration implies a singular indifference and inactivity on the part of the Athenians. The invader occupied Final re- Marathon Avithout opposition ; and when on his mov- the'^Peisi-^^ ing from that place the Athenians advanced against Btratidai. him, they allowed him to fall upon them while some were dicing and others sleeping after their morning meal. The sons of the tyrant rode towards Athens, and telling the citizens what had happened, bade them go home. The order was placidly obeyed, and for the tliird time Peisistratos was master of the Akropolis. He was resolved that this time no room should be left for the combinations which had twice driven him away. Me- gakles with his adherents left the country : the rest who had ventured to oppose him were compelled to give hostages in the persons of their children whom Peisistratos placed in tlie safe keeping of Lygdamis at Naxos ; and the new rule was finally established by a large force of Thrakian mercenaries. For Peisistratos himself tliere were to be no more alternations of disaster and success. He died tyrant of Athens, three and 527 B c. (?) thirty years, it is said, after the time of his first usur- Death of pation. His sons, Hippias and Hipparclios, followed, and eubse- ' we are told, tlie example of sobriety and moderation ior™of hi's ^^* ^y their father. But their political foresight house. failed to guard them against dangers arising from their pleasant vices ; and Hipparchos in an evil hour sought to ' This woman, who is called Pbye, union of the two factions bad at is said to Lave become the wife of once brought about the banishment Hipjiarchos. The contempt with of the despot, nothing more than which Herodotos stigmatises the the adhesion of one of them to silliness of the Athenians for being Peisistratos would be needed to thus duped seems to imply the accomplish his restoration, esictence of a general unbelief that - The presence of Peisistratos in manifestations of the gods could Naxos for the purjwse of lie) ping any longer take place. If we look Lygdamis is assftrted by Herodotos, to the narrative, the stratagem cer- i. 64. tainly seems superfluous. If the Chap. XI.] THE PEISISTRATIDAI, 85 form a shameful intimacy with the beautiful Harmodios. By way of revenge his paramour Aristogeiton with a few partisans deter- mined to await the greater Panathenaic festival, being sure that on seeing the blow struck the main body of the citizens would hasten to join them. When the day came and the conspirators drew near to their work, they were astonished to see one of their number talking familiarly with Hippias, and then, supposing that their de- sign was betrayed, determined that at least the man who had in- jured them should die. They found Ilipparchos near the temple of the daughters of Leos, and there they killed him. Aristogeitou for the moment escaped ; but Harmodios wa;; slain on the spot by the guards of the murdered man. Tidings of the disaster were soon brought to Hippias, who was at the Keraineikos. With great presence of mind, he simply commanded the hoplites who with shields and spears were to take part in the procession to lay down their arms and go to a certain spot. The command was obeyed under the notion that their general had something to say to them ; and the arms being seized by the mercenaries, all citizens found with daggers were set aside as sharing in the conspiracy. The death of Hipparchos and the circumstances which led toii warned Hippias that yet more disasters might be in store for him and that he would do well to provide betimes au;ainst „ ,. , 1 .1 1 TT- 1 • • 1 1 Policj' and the evil day. His decision led to momentous conse- plans of quences in the history of Athens and of the world ; ^'PP'^*- and the great struggle between Asiatic despotism and western freedom was at the least hastened by his policy. His thoughts turned to the Persian king whose power after the fall of the Ly- dian monarchy had been extended to the shores of the Hellespon- tos, and to whom the Athenian settlement at Sigeion had thus become tributary. Uippoklos, the tyrant of Lampsakos, was at this time in high favor with the Persian king ; and though an Athenian might look down upon a Lampsakene,' Hippias gladly gave his daughter Archedike in marriage to Aiantides, the sou of Hippoklos. In Sigeion then he thought that he might have a safe refuge, and in the Lampsakene despot he found a friend through whom he gained personal access to the Persian king. While Hippias was thus guarding himself against possible disasters, the intrio-ues of the Alkmaionidai were pre- . , . , paring the way for the expulsion which he dreaded, the Aik- About five and thirty years before the marriage of fi^uleover- Archedike the temple of Delphoi had been burnt by thi-o\v of accident ; and the Amphiktyonic Council determined that it should be restored at the cost of three hundred talents, about ' This is probably the meaning of the words 'A6r}valog uv Aaurl)aK7jvu. Thuc. vi. 59. S6 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. 115,000^. of our money, one fourth portion of this to be contri- buted by the Delphians themselves.' When at length the money was gathered together, the Alkmaionidai took the contract for carrying out the designs of the Corinthian Spintharos ; but they executed the work with greater sumptuousness than the contract specified, and the front of the new temple instead of being built with common tufa shone with all the brilliancy of Parian marble. The Alkmaionidai had thus won for themselves a lasting title to the gratitude of the Delphians, which according to Herodotos was heightened by further gifts bestowed on the condition that to all Spartans who might consult the oracle the answer should be re- turned by the Pythia or priestess, ' xVthens must be set free.' ^ Wearied out by the repetition of this command, the Spartans, doing violence to their own inclinations in obedience to the divine bidding, sent Anchimolios by sea with an army which landed at Phaleron. But Hippias had been forewarned. With the help of a thousand ThessaUan horsemen under their chief Kineas he ut- terly defeated the Spartans on the Phalerian plain, and Anchimo- lios found a grave on Athenian soil. The attempt was, however, repeated on a larger scale under the Spartan king Kleomenes, the son of Anaxandridas, who invaded Finales Attica by land, and, advancing to Athens, shut up thePe^sf-' Hippias within the Pelasgic wall. But he had no idea stratidai. of a permanent blockade, and the besieged Avere well provided with food. A few days more would have seen the departure of the Spartan force, when an accident brought the matter to an issue. The children of Hippias were taken in the attempt to smuggle them out of the country. The tables were effectually turned, and for the recovery of his children Hippias agreed to leave Attica within five days. Thus, after the lapse of fifty years from the establishment of the first tyranny of Peisis- tratos, the last despot of his house betook himself to the refuge which he had prepared on the banks of the Scaman- dros ; and a pillar on the Akropolis set forth for the execration of future ages the evil deeds of the dynasty and the names of all its members. ' Of course, out of moneys re- sources could not possibly Lave fur- ceived from pilgrims. The little nisbed nearly 30,000^. town of Delpboi out of its own re- ^ Herod, v. 63. CHAPTER XII. THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. The outward forms of the Solouian constitution underwent, we !ire told, little or no change under the dynasty of Peisistratos. By that constitution a shock had been given to the re- oligarchical lio-iou; sentiment which invested the Eupatridai with elements o .,,,.. T-. 1 • • ... in the So- an mcommunicable dignity. i>y ins timocratic chissi- Ionian con- tication Solon made property the title to Athenian st^'^""""- citizenship and insured to the poorest the right of voting in the Ekklesia, which elected the Archons as well as the members of the Probouleutic Council of the Four Hundred and which reviewed the administration of the magistrates at the end of their year of office. But he had not interfered with the religious constitution of the tribes, phratriai, and houses ; and while none but the mem- bers of the first and richest class of citizens were eligible for the archonship, even the richest had no further political privileges than the members of the fourth or poorest class, unless they were also members of a tribe. Hence the Archonship, the Probouleutic Senate, and the Court of Areiopagos were still confined to the sacred oligarchy of the ancient houses. Ail that the main body of the people had to do was to elect the archons and the senate from the members of the patrician tribes, and exercise a feeble judicial power on magistrates going out of office. With the expulsion of Hippias the Solonian laws, nominally at least, resumed their force. But the first fact which comes before us is a renewal of the strife which it was the object of Renewal of the Solonian constitution to put down, — the contend- factions ing parties being the Alkmaionid Kleisthenes, who was of Hippias. popularly credited with the corruption of the Delphian ^•^- ^^■ priestess, and Isagoras the son of Tisandros, a member of a noble house, who now appears on the political stage for the first time. The causes of the quarrel between them are not specified ; but when we read that the defeated Kleisthenes took the people into partnership,' or rather made common cause with the Demos, and that his first act was to substitute new tribes in place of the old, we feel that the contest went to the very foundations of social order and government. From Herodotos we learn only that he changed the name of the ancient tribes, and for four substituted ten, each tribe having its own Phylarchos or chief, and each tribe being subdivided into ten Demoi or cantons. Yet the new .clas- ' Herod, v. 66. 88 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. sification must have involved a new principle ; or else the oppo- sition between Kleisthenes and Isagoras could never have assumed formidable proportions. But if there be any truth in the accounts which we have received of the Solonian constitution, the fourth class contained Need of a practically not only all those whose annual income ficrtion of' f<^l' s^ort of 200 drachmas, but all (no matter what citizens. their wealth) who were not members of phratriai or tribes. To such men wealth, while it added to their civil bur- dens, brought no political privileges ; and the influx of strangers, allured by Athenian commerce, was constantly increasing the numbers of a class which already contained by far the larger por- tion of the population. Many of these men would be among the most intelligent and enterprising in the land ; and the discontent with which they would regard their exclusion from all civil offices would be a serious and growing danger to the state. Nor could Kleisthenes fail to see that if he wished to put out a fire which was always more than smouldering and might at any time burst into furious flame, he must strike at the root of the religious orga- nisation which rendered all true political growth impossible. There was nothing left but to do away with the religious tribes as political units, and to substitute for them a larger number of new tribes divided into cantons taking in the whole body of the Athenian citizens ; and into this body Kleisthenes, according to the express statement of Aristotle,' introduced many resident aliens and perhaps slaves. Such a change, although it might, as the Kleisthenean proposal did, leave the houses and phratries untouched as religions societies This classi- founded on an exclusive worship, would be regarded fication the i^y the conservative Eupatrid as virtually a death- CHllSG 01 tilO 1 ^ opposition of blow to the old faith. Nothing more is needed to ex- isagoras. plain the vehement opposition of Isagoras ; nor can we well avoid the conclusion that it was the proposal of this change which roused his antagonism, and that it was not the rivalry of Isagoras which led Kleisthenes to promulgate his scheme as a new method of winning popularity. The struggle at Athens is re- flected in the strife between the plebeians and the patricians of ' Polit. iii. 2, 3. The number of case, it is impossible to say. Citi- HEToiKoi, or permanently resident zensliip could at any time be jrrant- foreiprners (passing strangers or ed by a public vote of the people ; travellers never bore this name), but even without this vote, wealthy was very large at Athens. Of these non-freemen, Mr. Gfrote remarks, foreigners many became Athenian might purchase admission upon citizens, many did not. What de- the register of some poor Demos, termining circumstance may have probai)ly by means of a fictitious brought about the result in each adoption. Hint. Gr. iv. 180. Chap. XII.] THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. 89 Rome, and again between the great families of the German and Italian cities in the middle ages and the guilds which grew up around them. While tlie principle wliieh avoided all unnecessary interference with existing forms left a nominal existence to the Trittyes and Naukrariai, the Probouleutic council of Four Hundred „, r,Qj,jgji underwent more important changes. To that assembly of the Five only those citizens were eligible who belonged to the "" ^^ ' first class and were members of one of the four tribes, which had each a hundred representatives in the Senate. In the new council of Five Hundred, to which all citizens were eligible, each of the ten new tribes was represented by fifty senators, who seem now to have been elected by lot. By the definition of Aristotle those only can be rightly called citizens, who exercise in their own persons a judicial as well as a legislative power ;' and this judicial authority was w r " extended to all the citizens by the constitution of the and the Heliaia, in which, as we find it in the days of Perikles, ^''^'^^t'^'- 6000 persons called Dlkastai or jurymen, above the age of thirty years, were elected annually by lot in the proportion of 600 for each of the ten tribes, 1000 of these being reserved to fill vacan- cies caused by death or absence among the remaining 5000 who were subdivided into ten decuries of 500 each. To each man was given a ticket bearing a letter denoting the pannel to which he was assigned, while the dii^tribution of the causes to be tried by the decuries was left to the Thesmotlietai or six inferior archons. Thus no juryman knew until the time of trial, in wliat court or under what magistrate he might be called upon to sit ; and in his ignorance lay the best guarantee that he would approach without prejudice tlie cause which he was pledged by his solemn oath to determine with strict justice and truth. In the discharge of this function each decury was regarded as the collective state, and like the whole body of Six Thousand was called the Heliaia. Thus each decision was the decision of the people, and from it there was no appeal. But the constitution which intrusted to the archons the assign- ment of the causes to the several Dikasteria, or jury- The courts, insured the downfall of their ancient power. Archons. The experience of these courts furnished a high legal education to ' PoUt. iii. 1, 6. In the republic deed assign to the city an exact of Andorre Aristotle would find all limit of numbers ; but he asserts that is needed to constitute a Polls ; distinctly that the limit of a Statn tliti idea of a parliament like that or Polls is passed if it lias a iiopula- )f (ii'eat Britain would to him have tion which would be far less than ii]) pared to involve impracticable that of Birmingham. Eth. Nik. complications. He could not in- ix. 10. 90 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. the Athenian citizens, and the exercise of judicial power became for them more and more a necessary constituent of their civil U- berty, while the functions of the archon became more and more subordinate to those of the Hcliaia. Accordingly in the time of Perikles we find the Dikastai in receipt of a certain fixed, thougli small, payment for their services, while the archons are amongst the ofiicers who are chosen by lot. Under the Solonian constitu- tion which admitted to the archonship none but members of tribes who belonged to the wealthiest class, such a mode of appointment would have been more acceptable to the Eupatridai than election by the Ekklesia in v/hich the poorest had their vote, though they could not be elected themselves. But when all offices of state had been thrown open to the general body of citizens, it was clear that selection by lot could be applied to those ofiices only which needed on the part of those who filled th?m nothing more than the con)mon honesty and average abilit}" of ordinary citi- zens. This method, which had value for the poor as giving them a chance of obtaining oflices to which they were legally eligible, Avas never applied to the appointment of the Strategoi or generals, who Avere always chosen by show of hands of the people in the Ekklesia. The mere fact that it Avas applied to the selection of archons shoAvs how completely the relative positions of the Strate- goi and the archon Polemarchos had been reversed since the days Avhen Miltiades applied to Kallimachos to decide in favor of battle on the field of Marathon,' and further pro\es that their an- cient poAvers had been cut down to the scantiest measure, as they could not fail to be, when the Dikastai had incroached on their judicial functions on the one side and the Strategoi had taken their place as military leaders on the other. The law which made all citizens eligible to the archonship dealt the deathblow to the predominance of the Areiopagos. By The Court of the Solonian constitution this court remained strictly Areiopagos. oligarchical, Avhile during the usurpation of the Peisis- Iratidai the archons by' Avhom its numbers Avere recruited Avere necessarily mere creatures of the tyrant ; and so long as only the Avealthy members of tribes could be elected to the office, the Areiopagos would continue to be the bulwark and garrison of ■ It is true that Herodotos, vi. 490 B.C. tlie political conditionB of 109, speaks of Kallimaclios as Athens in his own day. Jiavinp: been chosen by lot ; but if Dr. Curtius {Hist. Or. i. 478, it seems impossible to believe that trans.) holds tliat the assertion of the Strategoi Avere elected, as they Ht-rodotos must be conclusive as to always were, Avliile the Polemar- the fact. It would be so if Herodo- chos, at a time when his functions tos had been speaking of a time for were the same as theirs, was taken Avliich he had l)efore him a written by lot, it would follow tliat the his- contemporary history. torian has transferred to the year Chap. XII.] THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. 91 oligarchy. This character it retained at the time when Perikles and Ephialtes carried their measures of reform : hat when it.s seats began to be filled with archons who had been chosen by lot, the safeguards of its ancient dignity were taken away, and it gradually became merely a respectable assembly of average Athe- nian citizens. If these various reforms raised an effectual barrier against the abuse of political power whether by the tribes or the demoi, there remained a more formidable danger from the over- weening influence which might be exercised by iin- '' '''''^"'™- scrupulous individual citizens. It was true that the Kleisthenean constitution could not fail to give to the main body of the people a political education which should build up in them a strong reverence for the principle of law : but there Avere many in whom this moral sense had not been formed. The aliens, or slaves (if any such there were) who had been admitted to citizenship, and the citizens generally of the poorest class who had been declared eligible to high offices, would find their interest in the new order of things ; but the changes welcomed by them would rouse no feel- ing but those of indignation and hatred in the minds of the genuine Eupatrid oligarchs. For such men there would be an almost irresistible temptation to subvert the constitution from which they had nothing to expect but constant incroachments pu their ancient privileges ; and if one like Peisistratos or Isagoras should give the signal for strife, the state could look to the people alone to maintain the law. In other words, the only way to peace and order would lie through civil war, in which there would be everything to encourage the oligarch, and very little to inspirit their opponents. The difficulty was met by an appeal to that sense of the sovereign authority of the people which Avas soon to make Athens pre-eminent alike among all Hellenic and non-Hellen- ic states ; and it was left to the citizens to decide, once perhaps in each year, by their secret and irresponsible vote, whether for the safety of the Avhole community one of the citizens should go for a definite period of years into an exile which involved neither loss of property nor civil infamy. But against the abuse even of. this power the most jealous precautions were taken. No one could be sent into exile, unless at the least 6000 votes, or in other words the votes of one-fourth of the whole body of citizens, were given against him ; and it was expressly provided by the Kleisthenean constitution that apart from this secret vote of 6000 citizens no law should be made against any single citizen, unless that same law were made against all Athenian citizens. Th« result might be that a less number than 6000 votes demanded the banishment of an indefinite number of citizens, and in this case the ceremony J)2 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book L went for nothing. If, liowever, more than 6000 votes were given against any man, he received warning to quit Athens within ten days ; bnt lie departed without civil disgrace and without losing any portion of his property. Thus without bloodshed and without strife the state was freed from the presence of a man who might be tempted to upset the laws of his country ; and this relief was obtained by a mode which left no room for the indulgence of per- sonal ill-will. On the whole, the Athenians had no cause to feel ashamed of a device which had wrought far more good than harm, and which at the cost of the least possible hardship to the banished men prevented the recurrence of the feuds and intrigues which had led to the despotism of former days. No shame can attach to a practice certainly less harsh than that which banishes pretend- ers from the countries Avhose crowns they claim, and which was so far from being the necessary fruit of democratic suspicions and jealousies that it fell into disuse just when the government of Athens was most thoroughly democratical. It was this constitution with its free-spoken Ekklesia, its per- manent Probouleutic senate, and its new military organisation, Expulsion which Isagoras determined, if it were possible, to Klei'Thenes"^ Overthrow. His oligarchical instinct left him in no B.C. 509. • doubt tliat, unless the impulse given by freedom of speech and by admitting to public offices all but the poorest class of citizens were speedily checked, the result would assuredly be the growth of a popular sentiment, which would make the revival of Eupatrid ascendancy a mere dream. Feeling that his resources at Athens were inadequate to the task, he appealed to his friend the Spartan king Kleomenes, who availed himself of the old re- ligious terrors inspired by the curse pronounced on the Alkmaio- nidai for the death of Kylon or his adherents more than a hundred years before. This terror was still so great that Kleisthenes with many Athenian citizens was constrained to leave Athens.' After his departure Kleomenes, having entered the city with a small force, drove out as being under the old curse seven hundred families whoso names had been furnished to him by Isagoras. In his next step he encountered an unexpected opposition. The Council of Five Hundred refused to be dissolved, and the Spartan king with Isagoras and his adhei'ents took refuge in the Akropolis. But he had no means of withstanding a blockade, and on the third day he agreed to leave the city with his Spartan force. The departure of Kleomenes was followed by the restoration of Kleis- thenes and the seven hundred exiled families ; but impelled by the conviction that between Sparta and Athens tlieiew'as a deadly quarrel, tlie Athenians made an effort to anlici[)ate the intrigues of Ilippias, and sent an embassy to Sardeis to make an indepen- Chap. XII.] THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. 93 dent alliance with the Persian King. The envoys on being admit- ted to the presence of Artaphenies were asked who they were and where they lived, and were then told that Dareios wonld admit them to an alliance on their giving him earth and water. To this demand of absolute subjection the envoys gave an assent wliich was indignantly repudiated by the whole body of Athenian citizens.' But Kleomenes had not yet laid aside the hope of punishing the Athenians. On liis retreat from the city he took the road whicli led him by Plataiai, a small Boiotian town Alliance of wliich lay at a distance of about thirty mik^s from ^Vin.'^'wi „. J ,,.i.» 1 ^^^^" Athens. Athens to the south of the river Asopos on the nortliern b.c. 509. (.?> slopes of Kithairon. This town the Thebans claimed as their latest colony ;'' but the Plataians, who were probably unwilling subjects and certainly complained of ill-treatment on the part of the Thebans, availed themselves eagerly of the presence of Kleo- menes to surrender themselves and their city on condition of being admitted among the allies of Sparta.^ For the Spartans he felt that the alliance had no attraction and must be a source of annoy- ance and trouble ; but he was not unwilling to suggest a step which should transfer this annoyance to Athens and lead perhaps to a series of wars between that city and the Theban confederacy. The distance of Sparta was alleged as a reason why the Plataians should look out for nearer allies ; and the Athenians were named as those who were best able to help them. The counsel was fol- lowed, and some Plataians reaching Athens during a festival of the twelve gods sat as suppliants at the altar and made to the Athenians the proposals which had been rejected by Kleomenes. A prayer thus urged was not to be resisted ; but the anticipations of Kleomenes were justified by the event. The alliance embroiled Athens with Thebes, and did no good ultimately to Plataiai. Foiled for the time in his efforts, Kleomenes was not cast down. Regarding the Kleisthenean constitution as a personal insult to himself, he w^as determined that Isagoras should be Discom- despot of Athens. With this view he gathered an Kieolj^J^es army from all parts of Peloponnesos and arranged with atEiensie. the Boiotians a simultaneous invasion of Attica. The latter ac- cordingly seized llysiai and Oinoe, Attic cantons, the one about eight, the other about twenty miles from Plataiai, while the men of the Euboian Chalkis ravaged other parts of Attica. The punishment of these invaders the Athenians left to some future day. For the present they marched to Eleusis, which Kleomenes had reached with an army from Avhich he carefully concealed the purpose of the campaign. The appearance of the Athenians, and possibly the tidings of the Boiotian invasion of Attica on the ' Herod, vi. 70-73. - Tliuc. iii. 61. ' Thuc. iii. 68. 94 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. north, taught them what this purpose was ; andKleomenes found that his opponents Avere not confined to the Kleisthenean council of Five Hundred. The Corinthians, confessing tliat they had come on an unrighteous errand, went home, followed by the other Spartan king, Demaratos the son of Ariston. The Athenians were now free to turn their arms against their other enemies. They marched against the Chalkidians ; but as y. . they fell in with the Boiotians who were hastening to of the their aid at the Euripos, they attacked these first, and over^the"^ having inflicted on them a signal defeat, crossed on Boiotians the same day into Euboia and won another great Chalkidians. victory Over the Chalkidians, The Chalkidianr, were B.C. 509. further punished. Four thousand Athenian settlers, wlio under the title of Klerouchoi retained all their riglits as citizens, were placed on the lands of the wealthy Chalkidian owners called Hippobotai or horse-feeders, and served like the Roman Colonise as a garrison in a conquered country. Such were the first-fruits of Athenian freedom ; and contrast- ing this outburst of warlike activity with their stipineness under Warlike the factions of the Eupatrids and the despotism of the onhe*^ Peisistratidai, llerodotos cannot repress the utterance Athenians, of his convictioii that liberty of speech is a right good thing, since the Athenians under their tyrants were in war no better than any of their neighbors, but on being rid of them rose rapidly to pre-eminence, the reason being that forced service for a master took away all their spirit, whereas on winning their freedom each man made vigorous elf orts for himself.' This change in the Athenian character excited no feelings of admiration in the Thcbans, who entered into an alliance with the Aiginetans. The new energy of Athens is seen in the continued maintenance of a war with Thebes and Aigina at once. But it was now clear to the Spartan king and to his countrymen that the Athenians would not acquiesce in the predominance of Sparta ; that if they retained their freedom, the power of Athens would soon become equal to their own ;^ and that their only safety lay in providing the Athe- nians with a tyrant. An invitation was, therefore, sent to Hippias at Sigeion, to attend a congress of the allies of Sparta, who were summoned to meet on the arrival of the exiled despot. The words in which Herodotos relates these facts show not merely that Sparta regarded herself as in some sort the first city Prcdomi- in Hellas, but that among the Hellenic states there Spartaln ^^'^''^ ^^°^ ^ ^^^^ ^^'^^^ "^^'^-^'^ disposed to look up to her Hellas. as such. Her claim to supremacy is seen in the com- plaint that Athens was not willing to acknowledge it ; and the * Herod, v. 78. "Herod, v. 9L Chap. XII.] THE REFORMS OF KLEISTHENES. 96 recognition of this claim in certain quarters is proved by the fact tliat the men of Corinth and other cities marched witli Kleomenes to Eleusis even tliough they did not know the purpose for which they had been brought together. Tiie Congress now summoned exhibits Sparta still more clearly as in some sort the head of a confederacy, able to convoke her allies at will, yet not able to dispense with the debates in council which implied their freedom to accept or reject her plans. The assembly in which Ilippias appeared to plead the cause of despotism seems to have gone through all the formalities needed to maintain the self-respect of citizens of subordinate but independent states. The address of the Spartans to the allies thus convoked was brief after their fashion and to the point. It candidly confessed their folly in having been duped by the Pythia at congress of Delphoi, and in having given over the city of Athens l^'j^'^jf'' to an ungrateful Demos, which had already made the b.c. 509. Boiotians and Chalkidians feel the sting of democracy and would speedily make others feel it also ; and not less candidly it besought the allies to help them in punishing the Athenians and in re- storing to Hippias the power which he had lost. The reply put into the mouth of the Corinthian Sosikles is an indignant con- demnation of this selfish and heartless policy. " Surely heaven and earth a.re going to change places," he said, " and fishes will live on land, and men in the sea, now that you, Lakedaimonians, mean to put down freo governments and to restore in each city that most unrighteous and most bloodthirsty thing, — a despotism. If you think that a tyranny has a single good feature to recommend it, try it first yourselves, and then seek to bring others to your opinion about it. But in point of fact you have not tried it, and being religiously resolved that you never will try it, you seek to force it upon others. Experience would have taught you a more wholesome lesson : we have had this experience, and we have learnt this lesson." This moral is inforced by the strange stories which Sosikles goes on to tell of Kypselos and Periandros, the memory of whose crimes made Corinthians shudder ; and he ends with Spartan plainness of speech by confessing the wonder which their invitation to Ilippias had excited at Corinth, and the still greater astonishment with which they now heard the explanation of a policy, in the guilt of which the Corinthians at least wen resolved that they would not be partakers. The Spartan in this debate differed from the Corinthian only in tlie clearness with which he saw that there was that in Athenian democracy which, if not repressed, must prove fatal to the oligarchical constitutions around it. To this point the Corinthian had not yet advanced, and he could urge now as a sacred thing the duty of not meddling 96 THE FORMATION OF HELLAS. [Book I. with the interna] affairs of an autonomous community. In the debates which preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian Avar the Corinthian deputies held a very different languajye. Their eyes had been opened in the meantime to the radical antagonism of the system in which every citizen is invested with legislative and judicial powers, and the system in which these powers are in the hands of an hereditary patrician caste. That the Corinthians would be brought to see this hereafter, was the gist of the reply made by Hippias. The time was coming, Return of he said, in which they would find the Athenians a thorn ^^?ori^*^*' in tbeir side. For the present his exhortations were B.C. 509. thrown away. The allies protested unanimously against all attempts to interfere with the internal administration of any Helieuic city ; and Hippias went back disappointed to Sigeion. BOOK II. THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA, AND THE GROWTH OF THE A THENIAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER I. THE PERSIAN EMPIRE UNDER CYRUS AND KAMBYSES. Fhe Persian king by whose aid Hippias hoped to recover his ost power was lord of a vast inheritance of conquest. With- n tlie compass of a few years the kingdoms of the The iiistori- Sledes, the Lydians, and the Egyptians had been ab- traditional iorbed into the huge mass wliose force was soon to be ciyrus. jrecipitated on the ill-cemented confederacy of the Hellenic tribes. [f we follow the popular chronology, Peisistratos made himself lespot at Athens at the very time when Cyras founded ,his great empire by the dethronement of the Median istyages. But the figure of Cyrus emerges only for a time from he cloud-land to which the earliest and the latest scenes of his life )elong. In the version of the tale which Herodotos followed, he was he grandson of the Median king Astyages, who, frightened by a )rapliecy that his daughter's child will be his ruin, The story of !;ives the babe on its birth to Harpagos Avith orders Astyages hat it shall be forthwith slain. By the advice of his ^° ^"'^' vife Harpagos, instead of killing the child, places it in the hands )f one of the royal lierdsmen, who carries it home. Finding that lis wife had just given birth to a dead infant, the herdsman ex- )0se3 the corpse, and brings up Cyrus as his own son. But his ligh lineage cannot be hidden. In the village sports the boy plays he king so well that a complaint is carried to Astyages ; and by the evere judge is found to be the child who had been doomed to die )ut who turns out to be the man born to be king. Astyages is iwe-struck: but nevertheless he takes vengeance on Harpagos by nviting him to a banquet at ^hich he feasts on the body of his !wn son, and his fears are quieted by the soothsayers avIio tell him hat the election of Cyrus as king by the village children has ful iiied the prophecy. Harpagos, however, is resolved that there 5 98 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book U. shall be a second and a more serious fulfilment ; and he drives Cyrus into the rebellion which ends in the dethronement of the despot. To achieve this end Cyrus, according to the notion of a historian who is thinking only of the inhabitants of a small canton, convokes the Persian tribes, and holds forth the boon of freedom, in other words, of immunity from taxation, if they will break the Median yoke from off their necks. The contrast of a banquet to which they are bidden after a day sj^ent in severe toil so weighs with them, that they at once throw in their lot with Cyrus and presently change their state of oppression for tlie more agreeable power of oppressing others. The latter part of this story is an in- stitutional legend accounting for the fiscal immunities of the Persian clans. The former is a myth which reappears, amongst many more, m the tales of Oidipous, Telephos, Paris, Romulus and Remus, The Median dynasty, which ended with Astyages, began, it is said, with Deiokes. Of this Deiokes we are told, according to The story of the uotion Avhich regarded all the Persians as in- Dciokes. habitants of a single township, that, aiming from the first at despotism, he set himself to administer justice amongst the lawless men by whom he was surrounded, and having at length won a high name for impartiality withdrew himself from them on the plea that he was unable to bear the continued tax on his time. The seven tribes or clans of the Medes then met in council and resolved on making Deiokes their king. Tlieir offer is accepted, and Deiokes at once bids them build him a palace with seven concenti'ic walls, and taking up his abode in the centre becomes henceforth a cruel tyrant. These seven walls have been regarded by some as having reference to the seven Median tribes : by others they are supposed to signify the seven planets, the worship of the sun being denoted by the palace in the centre." Deiokes in neither case retains any historical character : and when we see that here also, in the details which do not belong to the myth, we have simply an institutional legend describing generally the origin of despotism, the credit of the whole narrative is gone. Nay, this very origin of Eastern monarchy is described not as it would be conceived by the Medes, but as it would present itself to Greeks acquainted only with the arts by which their own tyrants had worked their way to power. The turbulence and factiousness of the Median tribes in their small cantons, the rigid justice under which Deiokes masks the object steadilj'^ aimed at from the first, the care which he takes, as soon as the offer of king- ship is made to hini, to build himself a stronghold and surround his person with a body-guard, are all features which belong to the ' Leiioiiiiant, Manual of Ancient TJiHtory, book v. cli. 3, tJ| 3. Chap. I.] THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 99 liistory of Greek rather than of Oriental despots. The Greek ideal is still further shown in the ascription to Deiokes of a severe, laborious, and impartial administration which probably no Asiatic government ever sought to realise. Thus of Deiokes himself and of the incidents of his life we know nothing ; and at the utmost the Avhole story can be regarded as nothing more than a tradition indi- cating some change in the political relations of the Medes and the Assyrians, though whether this change involved the destruction of the city of Nineveh or was merely the revolt of some mountain tribes, it is impossible to say. According to Herodotos' Nineveh itself had undergone no disaster, when Phraortes, the son of Dei- okes, after a reign of two and twenty years met his death before its walls. His successor Kyaxares sought, it is said, to avenge his father by again besieging Nineveh, but was compelled to abandon or interrupt the blockade owing to an irruption of Scythians, who had chased the Kimmerians out of Europe.^ It may possibly have been before this inroad that the cause of quarrel arose between Kyaxares the Median king and Alyattea the father of Kroisos. Herodotos tells us that some fugi- gcy^ijian tive Scythians found their way into the Median terri- invasion of tory, where they were well treated by the king as long '^ '''■ as they brought the tribute imposed on their captures in hunting. The harsh punishment with which an accidental failure was visited led the Scythians, first, to place on the banquet board before the king the limbs of one of the Median youths who had been sent to them to be taught archery, and then to avoid the consequences of their revenge by taking refuge in the laud of the Lydian king. Alyattes gave them shelter, and even refused to yield them up at the request of Kyaxares. The war Avhich ensued lasted, it is said, for six years,and was brought to an end partly by an eclipse which took place in the midst of a battle, and in part by the mediation of Labynetos king of Babylon and the Kilikian chief Syennesis. These sovereigns determined that the doubtful reconcihation should be strengthened by a marriage between Aryenis the daughter of Alyattes and Astyages the heir to the Median throne. While the Median dynasty was thus connected with that of Lydia, the alliance with Babylon was cemented, according to Berosos, by the marriage of Nebucadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, with Amuhia the daughter of Kyaxares. Thus Kroisos became the brother-in-law of Astyages, and Astyages the brother-in-law of Nebucadnezzar. The chain might well have been deemed strong: but the links broke, and left to the brother-in-law of Astyages the duty of avenging him, — a duty which seems not to have troubled ' i. 102. ' Herod, i. 103. 100 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL Nebucadnezzar, but Avhicli, if we are to believe Herodotos, was to Kroisos the strongest motive for raeasiiiing bis strength against that of the Persian king.' For Kyaxares himself the troubles of the Scythian inroad were followed, if we may belie\e the story, by a brilliant triumph when with the aid of the Babylonian Nabopolassar he overthrew the ancient dynasty of the Assyrian kings and made Nineveh a dependency of the sovereigns of Media. Over the vast territory thus brought under the Median rule the Persian king became lord, on the ending of the struggle Avhich is described as the war between Cyrus and Astyages. The supremacy in Asia thus passed into the hands of a king whose chief strength lay in that comparatively small country which Physical still bears the name of Fars or Far.istan. This was irpema^ the home of the dominant tribe in Iran or the land of Proper. the Aryans, a tenu already used in an indefinitely contracted meaning. By Herodotos this region is called a scanty and rugged land," — a description not altogether unbefitting a country which, with the exception of the hot district or strip of plain lying between the mountains and the coast line, consists chiefly of the high plateau formed by the continuation of the mountain-system, which, having furnished a boundary to the Meso- potamian plain, turns eastwards and broadens out into the high land of Persia Proper. Of the whole of this country it may be said that where there is water, there is fertility ; but much that is now desert Avas doubtless rich in grass and fruits in the days when Cyrus is said to have warned his people that, if they migrated to a wealthier soil, they must bid farewell to their supremacy among the nations. Strong in a mountain-barrier pierced by astonishingly precipitous gorges along which roads wind in zigzag or are thrown across furious torrents on bridges of a single span, this beautiful or desolate land was not rich in the number of its cities. Near Mur- gab, about sixty miles almost due north of Shiraz, are the ruins of Pasargadai, probably in its original form Parsa-gherd or the castle of the Persians.^ On a larger plain, about half-way between these two towns, rose the second capital Persepolis. The two streams by which this plain is watered maintain the exquisite verdure which a supply of water never fails to produce in Persia. But ruggf d in parts and sterile as this plateau may be, it must be distingiiished from that vast region which at a height varying be- ^tween 3000 and 5000 feet extends from the Zagros and Elburz ranges ' Herod. 5. 73. well as with the Latinised names ^ ix. 122. of the Parthian cities Titjranocerta. " Mr. Rawlinson' compares tlie Carcathrocerta. This terminatiou name Parsa-g-herd with the names is found again in our girth and Darab-gherd, Lasjird, Burujird, as gnrth. Chap. I.] THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 101 on the west and north over an area of 1 100 by 500 miles to the Suli- man and Hala mountains on the east, and on the south to the great coast chain which continues the plateau of Persia Proper almost as far as the Indus. Of this immense region, nearly two- thirds are absolute desert, in which the insignificant streams fail before the summer heats instead of affording nourishment to veo-e- tation. In such a country the habits of a large proportion of the population will naturally be nomadic ; and the fresher pastures and more genial climate of the hills and valleys about Ekbatana would draw many a roving clan with their lierds and tents from regions scorched by a heat which left them no water. Into the vast empire ruled by the lord of these Aryan tribes there was now to be absorbed another kingdom which had grown up to great power and splendor on the west of the The Median river Halys, the stream which, flowing from the Tauros and Lydian range, discharges itself into the Euxine about sixty ^"'^^ '°^' miles to the east of the Greek settlement of Sinope. This stream was the boundary which separated the Semitic inhabitants of Asia Minor on its eastern side from the non-Hellenic nations on the west, who acknowledged a certain brotherhood not only between themselves but with the Thrakian tribes beyond the Hellespont and the Chersonese. The conquests which had brought the Lydian king thus far placed him in dangerous pi'oximity with a power not less aggressive and more formidable than his own. By a strange coincidence (if any trust may be placed on the narrative) the dynasty represented by Kroisos the last Lydian king had supplanted the ancient line of the Ilerakleidai (whatever this may mean) about the same time when the Median power asserted its independence of the Assyrian empire. But the relations which existed between Kroisos and the Greeks of Asia Minor imparted to the catastrophe at Sardcis a significance altogether beyond that which could be attached to the mere transference of power from the despot Astyages to the despot Cyrus. The Lydian kingdom had grown up in a country iahabited by a number of tribes, between most or perhaps all of whom there existed some sort of affinity. These tribes, whatever Gcoori"L midway between Smyrna and Phokaia. To the cast of Smyrna rise the heights of Olympos and Drakon, whicli r.iay be regarded as a westward extension of mount TirK)ios, between which and mount Messogis the Kaystros finds its way to the sea hard by Ephesos and about ten miles to the east of Kolophon. Finally beneath the southern slopes of Messogis the winding Maiandros, having received not far from Tralleis the waters of the Marsyas, goes on its westward way until, a little below the Maiandrian Magnesia, it tnms like the Hermos to the south, and running by Thymbria and Myous on its left bank discharges itself into tlie gulf which bears its name, precisely opposite to the promontory of Miletos. From this point stretch to westward the Latmian hills where, as the tale went, Selene came to gaze upon Endymion in his dreamless sleep. Thus each between its mountain walls, the four streams, Kaikos, Hermos, 'em York: Ilarj^er Chap. I.] THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 103 Kaystros, and Maiandros, follow courses which may roughly bo re- garded as parallel, through lauds thau which few are richer in their wealth of historical association. Round the ruins of Sardeis gather the recollections uot only of the great Lydian kingdom but of the visionary conversations between Kvoisos and the illustrious Athe- nian law-giver, while f rora Abydos on the north to the promontory of Kynossema, facing the seaborn island of Rhodos, every bay and headland of this glorious coast brings before us some name sacred from its ancient memories, not the least among these being the birthplace of Herodotos, and among the greatest that spot on the seashore l)eneaththe heights of Mykale where, as fame would have it, the fleet of the barbarian was shattered at the very time when Mardonios underwent his doom at Plataiai. It is scarcely necessary to say that of the dynasty of Lydian kings which came to an end with Kroisos we have no contemporary liistory whatever. The Ilerakleid dynasty of Lydia TheLydiaa ends with Kandaules of whom Herodotos speaks as dynasties, known to the Greeks by the wholly different name of Myrtilos. Five centuries liad passed away while these kings reigned in an uninterrupted succession of fatlier and son until Kandaules, as Herodotos believed, fulfilled his destiny by insisting on exhibiting the unclothed form of his beautiful wife to liis spear-bearer Gyges. His queen, discovering the trick, offers to Gyges the alternative of death or of life and marriage with herself when he shall have slain his master. Of this story it is enough to say that we find quite another version in Plato who tells us that far beneath the surface of tlie earth Gyges takes from the hand of a gigantic corpse a ring which has the power of making the wearer invisible, and that having by means of this ring corrupted the wife of Kandaules he slew his lord and usurped his throne.' This ring, discovered beneath the earth, is the magic ring of the dwarf Andvari in the Volsung tale, and its wonderful powers are seen in the Arabian story of Allah-ud-deen where a giant is its slave as in the story of Gyges he is its lifeless guardian ; and the maiden whom he wins is one of those fair women who in a crowd of legends have been wedded to beings who represent the darkness, as lokaste of Thebes to Laios, and who are all married afterwards to the spear-bearer armed with the rays of the glancing sun. The wife of Kandaules is, in short, Urvasi, the dawn-goddess, who is invested with the beauty, the daring, and promptitude of the Teutonic Brynhild.^ For this nuirder of Kandaules the divine penalty, we arc told by Herodotos, Avas to descend not on the head of Gyges but on ' Piato. Pnlit. 859. mnnces of MidMe Ages, introd. ' Myth. Ar. Nat. i. 248, 380 ; ii. Tales of Teutonic Lands, ib. 63. 163, 174, 295. Popular Ro- 104 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. that of Kroisos his fifth descendant, the last who should sit on his throne.' The accession of Kroisos brings us to the last act The Lyclian in the drama. The heir of immense wealth and the^sfatic master of a stronghold, invulnerable as Achilleus, in Greeks. the akropolis of Sardeis, living under the brightest of skies and amid the most beautiful of earthly scenes, Kroisos is depicted as from the first animated by the ambition of being a The last of ^^^PPJ ™an, and by the conviction that he had really tbeMerm- attained to the state at which he aimed. The golden " ■ sands of the Paktolos, or, as others said, the produce of his mines at Pergamos, speedily filled his treasure-houses, and throughout the world the fame went that Kroisos was the wealthi- est and happiest of men. It was the destiny of this magnificent sovereign to bring under the yoke of the Persian king not merely the people who had been Conquest of subject to the rulc of his forefathers, but the Hellenes Greeksb'y' ^f the eastern coast of the Egean. The political dis- Kroisos. union to which the Greeks whether of continuous or of scattered Hellas seem to have clung as the most precious heritage of the ancient Aryan family type, had insured his success against these Hellenic settlements as at a later day it insured the triumph of Makedonian kings and Roman consuls. Unquestionably the conquest, whatever may have been its character, had wrought a momentous change in their position. They were now included in a vast empire which was at any time liable to the sudden and irreparable disasters which so frequently changed the face of the Asiatic world. If these Hellenes could so far have modified their nature as to combine Avith the decision and firmness of English- men, their union might have broken the power of Xerxes before he could set foot on the soil of Europe. But no danger could impress on them the need of such a sacrifice as this ; their posi- tion on the borders of a vast undefended country deprived them of the advantages enjoyed by their kinsmen of western Hellas ; and the whips of Kroisos were therefore soon exchanged for the scorpions of the Persian despot. Splendid as is the drama Avhich Herodotos brings before us in his narrative of the life of Kroisos, we have to re- of the life of member that it is strictly a drama, arranged in accor- Kioisos. djxnce with a fixed religious idea, — a drama which admirably illustrates the popular sentiment of the age,but of which, ^ In otlier words, the sun kills the dRrkness. In short, the traditional nisrlit: but the slauo-hter of the history of the Lydian kinprdom. like niffht cannot be avenged until the that of so many other dynasties, end of the day, when the sun in has been tilted into the framework his turn must be conquered by the of a solar myth. Chap. I.] THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 105 if we regard it as belonging to the every-day world, of fact, we know neither the motives nor the incidents. To the facts that Kroisos was king of Lydia, that from some cause or other he be- came involved in a quarrel with Persia after having subdued the Asiatic Hellenes, that in this quarrel he had the worst, and that all his subjects passed at once under the do- ^'^' minion of his conqueror, there is probably not a single detail which we can add with any feeling of confidence that we are re- gistering an historical incident. We have to mark at the outset that Kroisos in the legend inslaves the autonomous Hellenic com- munities, that he can put to death with horrible tortures' those whom he regards as his enemies, and yet that he is loved not less 6y these Asiatic Hellenes than by the Lydians, and that the catas- trophe which overwhelms him excites no other feeling than that of profound sorrow. In truth, as soon as he has chronicled the fact of the Ionian conquest, the historian forgets that he is deal- ing with an Asiatic despot, and Kroisos becomes to him a being in whose life we read the sad and stern lesson that man abides never in one stay and that he is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Impressive as the tale may be thus regarded as a para- ble, it can scarcely be said to have any other value. The very advice given by Sandanis^ at the outset of the struggle shows un- mistakeably how far we have wandered from the regions of history. It is simply ludicrous to suppose that anyone could have repre- sented to Kroisos the conquest of Persia as an enterprise in which he had nothing to gain and everything to lose. The conqueror of Media could not without absurdity be described as the ruler of a poverty-stricken kingdom ; nor without even greater absurdity could Sandanis be said to thank the gods that they had not put into the minds of the Persians to go against the Lydians, when the whole course of the narrative implies that the one absorbing dread which oppressed Kroisos was the fear of that insatiable spirit of aggression which marks all Asiatic empires until they pass from robbery to laziness. But the task of preparing for the invasion of Persia or for the attack of the Persian king was not for Kroisos the beginning of troubles. In the warning of Solon that none might TUebegin- be called happy before his life was ended he saw the f^ Uie^dc°ti! handwriting on the wall which foreboded the coming of Atys. catastrophe. Thus far most things had gone well vvith him, and the dumbness of his younger son seemed as nothing to be set in the balance against the vigor of Atys the brave and fair, the pride and the hope of his life. But the word of the god had gone '■ im Kvu' in the details of the narrative. The stories of Ilero- dotos and Ktesias cannot be reconciled ; and the statements of the Beliistun inscription, so far as it notices the reign of Kambyses, Zon>astri:in inmiotlie- s'orics of nnl)ounded jileuty con- ism whidi must iiavf been bis ncctoil with the earth and its sym- taitli, if he was a tnn- Pcrfiaii. hols, there can be no qufstinn. See ' Tlie calf was noi siitfered to live Afijt/iolotji/ of A r. Xdt. hook \'\. vh. more than twelve years. If it 3, section I'J. reached that aire, it was .solemnly ^ It is possible that this expodi- slain and its luxiy reverently iiii- ti ui may have been prompted bj balmeif. CiiAi'. I.J THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 121 liairs oil tlie tail, and a beetle mark ou its tongue. But the tyrant would have it that they were niakino- merry over liis cala- mities. In vain did the natives whom he had himself intrusted with the government of Memphis strive to explain the real cause of the rejoicing. They were all put to death. The priests who were next summoned gave the same explanation ; and Kamhyses said that he would see this tame god who had come among them. The beast was brought, and Kambyses, drawing his dagger, wounded him on the thigh. ' I'oor fools, these then are your gods,' he cried, ' things of flesh and blood, which may be wou'.uled by men. Truly the god and his Avorshippers are well matched : but you shall smart for raising a laugh against me.' So the priests were scourged ; an order was issued that everyone found in holiday guise should forthwith be slain ; and the feast was broken up in terror. The calf-god pined away and died in the temple ; and the priests in secret buried it with the Avonted rites. From this time, so said the Egyptians, Kambyses became hopelessly mad. It is possible that his madness may have been not without method, and that these insults to Apis and his worshippers were only part of a deliberate plan, such as would commend itself to Nadir Shah or Timour, for crushing the spirit of the conquered nation ; but the opinion must remain little more than a conjecture. It is to this period that Ilerodotos assigns the murder of his brother whom, in jealousy of his strength and beauty, he had sent back to Sousa. In the dreams which followed his departure the tyrant had seen a lierald and heard from his lips that Smerdis sat on a throne and that his head touched the heaven. Putting on this vision the only interpretation which would suggest itself to a despot, Kambyses at once sent Prexaspes home with orders to slay the prince. When it was afterwards discovered that the deed had been done to no purpose, Prexaspes swore solemnly that he had not only slain but buried him with his own hands ; but the his- torian admits that while one account represented him as murder- ing Smerdis on a hunting expedition, others said that he had enticed him out to sea and thrown him overboard. The Bchlstun inscription shuts out both these tales by saying that the tyrant's brother was murdered long before the army started for Egypt. We now come to the last act of the tragedy. The army had reached on its homeward march a Syrian village named Agbatana, when a herald coming from Sousa bade all Persians Kambyses to own as their king not Kambyses who was deposed ^^J^^ but his brother Smerdis the son of Cyrus. To a iSinerdi«. question of Prexaspes, put by the order of Kambyses, the herald replied that he had received his message not from the new king, whom lie had never seen, but from the Magian who was over 12S THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II his household. A farther question put by Kainbyses to Prexaspes himself called forth the answer that he knew not who could have hatched this plot but Patizeithes, whom Kambyses had left at Sousa as his high steward, and his brother Smerdis. So then this was the Smerdis whose head was to touch the heaven : and the despot wept for his brother whom he had so uselessly done to death. Presently he said that he Avould march on at once against the usurper, and leaping on his horse gashed his thigh (the part where he had wounded the calf-god) with his sword from which the sheath had accidentally fallen off. ' What is the name of this place ? ' asked Kambyses, when he felt that the wound was serious. Tliey told him that he was at Agbatana ; and the tyrant, loiowing now that only a misinterpretation of the oracle from Bouto which said that he must die at Agbatana had led him to indulge in pleasant dreams of an old age spent among the Median hills, confessed that his brother had been righteously avenged. His remaining days or hours were spent in bewailing his evil deeds to his courtiers, and in exhortations to them to stand out bravely against the Magian usurpation which, he clearly saw, was designed to transfer to the Modes the supremacy of the Persians. His words were naturally received with little faith, for Prexaspes, of course, swore as stoutly before the Persians that he had never harmed Smerdis as he had to Kam- byses averred that he had buried him with his own hands ; and thus the Magian Smerdis became king of the Persians. Such is the dramatic version of Herodotos, which absolutely needs the doubling of the names Agbatana and Smerdis. The Be- The conspi- histuu inscription, it is said, affirms that Kambyses se\^enPer- billed liimself purposely; that the name of the Magian sians. was Gomates, not Smerdis ; and that his usurpation was a religious, and not, as has been generally supposed, a national rebellion, its object being to restore the ancient magism or element worship, which the predominance of the stricter monotheism of Zoroaster had placed under a cloud. The details of the sequel may be passed lightly over. The false Smerdis, who had had his cars cut off, is discovered by the daughter of Otanes, who passes her hands over his head while he sleeps ; and Otanes, taking counsel with Aspathines and Gobryas, gains over to the conspiracy Inta- phernes, Megabyzos, and Ilydarncs, Dareios being admitted last of all as the seventh, on his arrival from the province of Persia l*roper, of which his father Ilystaspes was the viceroy. The number of con- .spirators l>eing complete, two debates follow, the first issuing in the resolution to slay the Magian and his supporters at once ; the second, after their death, to determine the form of government which it would be wise to set up. Otanes, the author of the conspiracy, Chap. I.J THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. 123 having proposed a republic on the ground that in no other way can a really responsible government be attained, is opposed by Mega- byzos who,' urging that the insolent violence of the mob is quite as hateful as that of any despot, recommends an oligarchy, while Dareios with the old stuck argument that, if the ruler be perfect as lie tnight to be, no form of polity can be preferable to monarchy, insists that the customs of the Persians shall not be changed. Upon this, Otanes, it is said, seeing that things would go as Dareios wislied, made a paction that he would neither be king himself nor submit to anyone else as king, lie and his successors with their families should remain independent for ever, while the king on his part must covenant to take his wives only from the families of the seven conspirators, who should have as their special privilege the right of entering the king's presence without being announced. The sovereign power was to belong to that man whose horse should neigh first after being mounted on the following morning. All these conditions, it has been urged, furnish clear evidence that these seven conspirators are not, as Herodotos supposes, founders of seven families who form henceforth the _, The nccGs- highest nobility of Persia, but heads of seven existing sion of Da- princely houses, who thus carried into action their pe,?|ian ''^° protest against the usurpation of the infidel.' Such a throne, national movement may have taken place : but we can " ^''^' scarcely venture to affirm the fact positively, while the Behistun inscription compels us to reject almost every portion of the story as given by Herodotos. Of the mutilation of the Magian by Kam- byses, of Ins discovery through the agency of Phaidyme, of the conspiracy of the Seven, this monument says absolutely nothing. To the version of Herodotos, who represents Dareios as the last who joined the conspirators, it gives the most complete contradic- tion. Dareios asserts unequivocally that no one dared to say any- thing against the Magian until he arrived. To the seven he makes no reference, unless possibly in the words that ' with his faithful men ' he fell on the Magian and slew him, whde the legend of his election by the trick of liis groom Oibares is put aside by his asser- tion that the empire of which (jomates dispossessed Kamb3'ses had from the olden time been in the family of Dareios.' The incidents so rejected are the chief and (issential features in the narrative of Herodotos ; and the rock inscription must, on the supposition of their truth, have made to them at least some passing allusion, if ^ Niebuhr, who takes this view, would have remained, so that the Lect. Anc. Hist. \. 13] , says thut aa famihes cannot be the descen- lliese seven (jraudees continue to be dants of the seven conspirators, mentioned in later Persian history, ^ This would mean that Cyrus, and as Dareios, being an Achai- like Dareios, was an Achaimenid. menid, was one of them, only six 124 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. not some direct reference. But if such a monument as the inscrip- tion of Behistun overthrows on such important points a series of narratives in the history of one of the most trustworthy of men, and if other large portions ars to be set aside as mere retiexionsof Hellenic thought or feeling, alike absurd and impossible in the East, with what trust may we receive any story which paints the course of intrigue and illustrates the secret history of a Persian or Assyrian Court ? for, with the exception of the niarcli of armies and tales of foreign conquest, the annals of those courts are only a secret history. Hints of execrable cruelties may force their way into the outer air ; pictures of fancied luxury and generosity may light up the dim recesses of the hidden harem : but what reason hav3 we to suppose that of any single motive we shall have a faith- ful description, of any single deed a true report ? We liave ar- rived at a time in which such intrigues and ludden motives are said to be the mainspring of actions affecting all Hellas ; and the answer to this doubt must seriously affect almost the whole history of Persia in its connexion with events which have changed the fortunes of the world. CHAPTER U. THE PERSIAN EMPIRE UNDER DAREIOS. The death of the usurper who dethroned Kambyses was followed, it is said, by a general massacre of the Magians. This massacre The revolt Seems to point to a state of confusion and disorder of Babylon, which, according to Herodotos,' prevented Dareios from taking the strong measures which he otherwise would have taken against some refractory or rebellious satra[)s of the empire. The statement is amply borne out by the inscription of Behistun, which describes the early years of the reign of I)areios as occupied with putting down a scries of obstinate insurrections against his author- ity. The massacre of the Magian and liis partisans seems in no way to have deterred the Medians from making a general effort to recover the supremacy of which they had been deprived by Cyrus. But the fortune of war went against them. The revolt of Babylon may have appeared a matter even more serious ; but our knowledge can scarcely be said to extend beyond the facts that it broke out and that it was with groat difficulty suppressed ; the walls of the ' Herod, iii. 120, 127, 150. The Trpvyunnjv, if justified by the facts, phrases // rapa^?;, and oit^f^irwv tuv would indicate a partial anarchy. Chap. II.] THE REIGN OF DAREIOS. 125 city being now so far dismantled as to leave the place lienceforth at the mercy of the conqueror. But the worst enemies of Dareios came sometimes from his own people. In Aryaudes, who had been appointed satrap of Egypt by Kambyses, he found a rival rather than a subject : but The despo- the career of the viceroy who dared to have an indepen- po^-krates dent mint was soon cut short.' Another formidable insamos. antagonist was Oroites, the. satrap of Lydia, who has a wider fame as the murderer of Polykrates the despot of Samos. This unscru- pulous tyrant liad, it is said, seized on the government of the island some time before the Egyptian expedition of Kambyses," and had shared it at first with his brothers Pantagnotos and Syloson ; but having afterwards killed the one and banished the other, he en- tered into a close alliance with Amasis king of Egypt,^ and soon achieved a greatness inferior only to that of Minos, like whom he is said to have had a navy which was the terror of the islands and countries round about. In the emphatic words of Herodotos,^ he was lord of the most magnificent city in the world. His war-ships plundered friends and foes alike ; and the men of Lesbos who ven- tured to aid the Milesians paid tlie penalty by having to dio- in chains the moat round the wall of tlie city of Samos. But in spite of all his iniquities Polykrates enjoyed an unbroken good fortune; and his well-doing became, we are told, a cause of grief and mis- giving to his ally Amasis, who reminded him of the Divine Jea- lousy, and counselled him to inflict some pain on himself, if none were sent to him by the gods. ' Seek out,' he said, * that thing for the loss of which thy soul would most be grieved, and cast it away so that it may never come to mortal hand : and if hereafter thy good fortune be not mixed with woe, remedy it in the manner which I have set before thee.' This counsel Poykrates thought that he could not follow more effectually than by rowing out into the deep sea and casting into the water a seal-ring of emerald set in gold, wrought by the Samian Theodores. A few days later a fisherman brought to him as a gift a fish which seemed to him too fine to be taken to the market. Polykrates in requital bade the man to supper : but before the time for the meal came, his servants had found the seal-ring in the fish. In great astonishment Poly- krates sent to Amasis a letter telling him what had happened. The Egyptian king, feeling now that no man could deliver another from that which was to come upon him, sent a herald to Samos and broke off the alliance, in order that, when some evil fate overtook Polykrates, his own heart might not be grieved as for a friend. * Herod, iv. 166. ' lb. iii. 55. ^ lb. iii. 39. * lb. iii. 139. 126 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. It is possible, as some have tlioiight, that the alliance was broken off not by Aniasis but b}' Polykrates liimself, for the next thing The hist Avhich Herodotos relates of him is an offer to furnish career of ^"^"^ troops for the army of Kambyses.' The Persian king Polykrates. eagerly accepted the offer, and Polykrates as eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to get rid of those Samians whom he regarded as disaffected towards himself. But in the epical method of Herodotos the time was now come when the man who had been victorious over all his enemies should exhibit in his own person the working of that law which keeps human affairs in constant flow and ebb. We can, therefore, only say, as he tells us, that Oroites whom Cyrus had left as satrap in Sardeis had made up his mind to intrap and slay Polykrates, and sent a messenger to Samos with this message, 'Thussaith Oroites to Polykrates, I hear that thou art set on great things, but that thou hast not money ac- cording to thy designs. Know then that king Kambyses seeks to slay me. Therefore come and take me away and my money, and keep part of it for thyself, and part of it let me have. So, if thou thinkest for money, thou shalt be ruler over all Hellas ; and if thou believest not about my wealth, send the trustiest of thy servants, and to liim will I show it.' These words roused the greed of Polykrates, and Maiandrios his scribe was sent to test the words of Oroites who, when he liad heard that the Samian was nigh at hand, filled eight vessels with stones all but a little about the brim, and having placed gold on the stones'' fastened the vessels and kept them ready. Maiandrios, having seen the jars, broTight the tidings to Polykrates, who made ready to go, although the soothsayers with his friends forbade him to do so. His daughter pleaded that she had seen a vision which betokened disaster ; but she pleaded in vain. Polykrates sailed from Samos, taking with him many of his comrades, and among them Demokedes, the son of Kalliphon of Kroton, a physician famed beyond all others of his time for the iro^ /.x practice of his art. But he reached Mac^nesia, the liistorian adds, only to perish with an end befitting neither himself nor his great designs, for Avith the exception of the despots of Syracuse no one of the Greek tyrants deserved to be compared for greatness with Polykrates. Wlien the tidings of his death were brouglit to Samos, his The degpo- deputy Maiandrios made a strong effort, it is said, to andrios and restore thu constitution which his master liad subverted. ofSjloson. He offered to resign his power and to obey the laws as a simple citizen, reserving to himself only a grant of six talents ' Herod, iii. 44. Athenians, and seems to linve "A trick somewhat resemblintr turned the scale at Athens in favor this was actually played off by tlie of their disastrous expedition to men of Egesta in Sicily upon the that island. Time. vi. 8 and 40. Chap. II.] THE REIGN OF DAREIOS. 127 and the priesthood of Zeus the DeUvLTcr. The ofier was con- temptuously refused, and Maiandrios against his will wa.s com- pelled to remain a despot, until a new actor appeared upon the scene in the person of Syloson the exiled brother of Polykrates. Syloson by the gift of a cloak had earned the gratitude of Dareios when the latter was serving with the army of Kambyses in Egypt. He now claimed from Dareios the Persian king the aid which hi had promised in his humbler station ; and a Persian tieet under Otanes appeared before Samos to inforce the pretensions of Sylo- .son. By Maiandrios no opposition Avas offered, but the mad folly of his brother Charilaos brought about a massacre of the unsus- pecting Persian officers in the market-place of the city. Otanes retaliated by an indiscriminate slaughter alike of men, women, and children throughout the island. Syloson remained, it would seem, tributary despot of Samos and was succeeded by his sou Aiakes.' Thus the first whether of Hellenic or of barbarian cities passed in a state of desolation under the yoke of Dareios who was known among his subjects rather as an organiser than as a orfani^^atiou conqueror, or, as the Persians put it, rather as a buck- of the Per- ster than as the father of his people. Under the former kings the several portions of the empire had sent yearly gifts. Henceforth the several provinces were to pay an assessed tribute ; and Herodotos is naturally careful to state the measure of ^he bur- dens imposed on the Asiatic Greeks. Four hundred silver talents were demanded yearly from the lonians, Magnesians, Aiolians, Ka- rians, Lykians, ]\Iilyans, and Pamphylians, who were ranged in one department or Xomos. On the second which included the My- sians and Lvdians was assessed the sum of five hundred talents. The third department which stretched from the Hellespont east- wards paid three hundred and sixty talents in silver. But although something was thus done for the wealth and dignity of the king, the Persian empire remained, as it had been, a mere agglomeration of units, with no other bond than that of a common liability to tribute and taxation, with no common sentiment extending be- yond the bounds of the several tribes, and with no inherent safe- guards against disruption from without or decay and disorganisa- tion within. The tragedy of Polykrates is followed by two stories from which^it is no easy task to extract much historical fact. Of the^e stories the former is associated with the name of the The story of Krotonian physician Demokedes, who, on the death of Demokedes. Oroites, was carried to Sousa along with the other slaves found in his household and for some time remained there unknown and un- cared for. At length it happened, so the story ran, that Dareios in ' Herod, vi. 13. 128 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL a huut leaped from his horse, and so twisted his foot that the ankle bone was moved from its soclcet. Tlie Egyptian physicians, whom he kept about him, made the mischief worse than they found it ; and it was not until he had passed eight wretched and sleepless nights that some one, who had heard in Sardeis of the great skill of Demokedes, told the king, at whose bidding the friend of Polykra^es was brought before him, dragging his chains and clothed in rags. This man's heart, we are told, was tilled with one absorbing desire, for the attainment of which he was ready to shape both his words and his actions and to work on persistently, no matter what misery and ruin he might bring on the land which he yearned to see once more. Hence when Dareios asked him of his craft, Demokedes denied that he had any, fearing that, if he should be found useful to the king, he should have no hope of setting foot again on Hellenic soil. But Dareios saw that he was lying, and scourges and goads, brought at his bidding, drew from Demokedes the admission that he knew the art of the physician, but that he knew it poorly. Such as it was, Dareios bade him use it at once on the injured limb, which Demokedes so handled that in a little while it was as sound as it had ever been. Persian despots are seldom ungrateful for benefits which add to their own comfort ; and Demokedes was rewarded with a great house in Sousa and Avith the })rivilege of eating at the king's table. He had, in short, every wish of his heart but one. The king Avould not part with him ; and Demokedes would rather starve in Hellas than feast at Sousa. But the illness of Atossa, the ruling spirit in the seraglio of Dareios, brought an opportunity of escape of which Demokedes eagerly and deliberately availed himself. Grateful for the healing of a tumor which had long tortured her, this daughter of Cyrus, following the instructions of the physician, went to Dareios and reproached him with sitting idle on his throne without making an effort to gain nations or kingdoms for the Persians. Dareios hastened to answer that he had just resolved to do as she now desired him, and that he was making ready to go against the Scythians. ' Nay,' replied Atossa, in words which to the Athe- nians who heard or read the narrative of the great historian conveyed an exquisite irony, 'go not against the Sc3'thians first. I have heard of the beauty of the women of Hellas, and I desire to have Laconian and Argive and Athenian and Corinthian maidens to be my servants. Go then against Hellas : and thou hast here one who above all men can show thee how thou mayest do this — I mean him who has healed thy foot.' Dareios so far yielded as to sjvy that Demokedes should serve as a guide to the Persians whom he would send to spy out Hellas and bring back an account of what they might see there. xVccordingly fifteen Persian officers Chap. II.] THE REIGN OF DAREIOS. 129 left Sidon with Dcmokedes, and sailing along the coasts of Hellas, made a record of all that they saw until they came to Taras, which the Latins called Tjtrcntum, in Italy. There Aristophilides, the king of the Tai-antines, at the suggestion of Demokedes, took off the rudders of the Persian ships and shut up the Persians themselves in prison as spies ; and while they were in this plight, Demokedes fled away to Kroton. Having given his friend time to escape, Aristophilides let the Persians go ; but their mis- fortunes were not yet ended. They were wrecked on the lapy- gian coast, but a Tarantine exile ransomed them from slavery and took them to Darcios. So fared the first Persians who visited Hellas to the west of the Egean sea. It is useless to speculate on the amount of knowledge which we might have obtained from the records of this Persian Periplous, if they had been preserved, when the point to be influence determined is whether the Periplous was made at all. tri^u'esof The results of Persian observation would probably in Atossa. any case have had but little value : but when we renrember the unlikelihood of the story, we must at the least place it amongst the tales of which we can neither affirm nor deny the reality. The plan of Demokedes was to obtain his freedom at the possible cost of the ruin of his country : the plan of Atossa clearly was to pre- cipitate the whole power of Persia upon Hellas at a time when Hippias was still tyrant of Athens, and when the Persian could have encountered no serious resistance, unless perhaps from the mountaineers of the Peloponnesos. This plan confessedly failed ; but there is no record that Dareios expressed any indignation at the treatment of his oflicers. As a political motive, these intrigues are thus superfluous, and all that can be said in favor of the narrative is that, unlike the stories of Deiokes or of the seven con- spirators against Smerdis, it is, at least in its earlier scenes, so strictly Oriental in its coloring as to come before us with a specially deceptive force. But if the plausible form thus assumed by the story may tempt us to think that it cannot be without some historical value, still the different impressions which even eye- witnesses receive of the same events and the same scenes, and the irresistible temptation or the unconscious tendency to vary the coloring of a story at each successive recital, must justify a strong reluctance to admit the truthfulness of vivid or minute detail in any but a contemporary narrative. This reluctance must pass into positive unbelief, if the tradition involves an imputation of im- probable or unaccountable motives or assigns some secondary or irrelevant causes where more simple and forcible motives are not wanting. There is nothing in itself unlikely in the tale that Dareios was incited by his wife Atossa to an attack on Athens and 6* 130 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. Sparta. But the admission of her influence cannot necessarily lead us to admit motives which are improbable in the case of Demokedes, which are more unlikel}' still in the case of Histiaios, and fairly pass the bounds of credibility in that of Themistokles. The very completeness of the picture drawn for us in the story of the Krotoniate physician may reasonably lead us to question whether these are the genuine movements which stirred the ancient world. Polykrates is undoubtedly an historical person : but the tale of his life is in great part a romance to illustrate an ethical or theological theory ; and the image of Demokedes already grows more indistinct, when we see that his careei is, almost more legendary than that of his master. But in truth it seems enough to note that the inscription at Behistun is very far from bearing out the rebuke of Dareios by Atossa for warlike inactivity in the first or in anv other part of his reign. The matter is not mended if we say that the words of Atossa were true and that the records of the inscription are false. These may fairly be received as the genuine work of Dareios : for the words of Atossa w^c can have no evidence beyond that which is attributed to a deliberate traitor.* When from the story of Demokedes we turn to the second tale, that, namely, of the Scythian expedition, the residuum of fact is The Scy- fouud to be scarcely less scanty. With 600 ships and dufom^^" an army of 700,000 men Dareios, it is said, reached the 516 B.C. (?) bridge of boats thrown across the Thrakian Bosporos, and thence marched on through Thrace to the spot wdiere the loni- ans whose ships had been sent round by the Black Sea had pre- pared the bridge of boats by which lie was to cross the Istros, or Danube. This bridge, after all had crossed over, Dareios, it is said, gave orders to break up ; but Koes of Mytilene warned him, not of the danger of defeat in battle, (for this he professed to regard as im- possible), but of starvation in a country where thcrcwere no settled dweUings and no tillage. The king, following his advice, com- manded the lonians to guard the bridge for sixty days, and, if he should not by that time have come back, then to break it up and sail away. The story of the campaign which follows is told with an abundance of detail illustrating the plan of the Scythians to avoid all battles but to entice the Persians continually further from their base of supplies, if they thought of having any, through tlie countries of those nations who would not take part with them in the war. In this way the Persians are lured across the Tanais and to the banks of the Oaros, which, like the Lykos, Tanais, and Syrgis, is represented as flowing into the Maietian lake (Azoff). ' Tliey are seemingly inconsistent things early in the reign of Dareioa ■with the words in which Ilerodotos See page 124. Limself describes the condition of Chap. II.] THE REIGN OF DAREIOS. 131 At this point the Scythians who act as decoys begin to move west- wards ; and Dareios, taking it to be a general movement of the tribes, orders iiis army to march in the same direction. Accord- ingly they wander on through the lands of the Black Coats (Melanchlainoi), the Cannibals ( Anthropopliagoi), and other tribes, whom the Scythians wished to punish, until Dareios in sheer weariness sent a herald to the Scythian king to beg him either to come forward and fight like a man or to give earth and water as a slave. ' Tell your master,' said the wandering chief, ' that he is quite mistaken if ho thinks that \ye are ruiming away from liim. The fact is that we are only doing now wliat we always do, for it is our way to move about. If he wants to fight us, let him find out the tombs of our forefathers ; and if he lays hands on them, he shall soon know how the Scythians can strike.' So Dareios was obliged to go on his way. But the monotony of his course was at last broken by the arrival of a Scythian herald who brought as gifts for the king not earth and water but a bird and a mouse, a frog and five arrows, and, having left them, went his way. Sum- moning his chief men, Dareios expressed his opinion that by these gifts the Scythians meant that they yielded up themselves, their land, and their water, because the mouse lives on the land and the frog on the water, and the bird signified the horses of warriors and the arrows showed that they gave up their power. But Gobryas, one of the six who rose up with him against the Magian Smerdis, gave another interpretation and warned the Persians that, unless they should become birds and tiy up into heaven, or go down like mice beneath the earth or becoming hogs leap into the lake, they would be shot to death by the Scythian arrows. The words of Gobryas struck a chill into the heart of Dareios ; but while he with his bulky army made what speed he could to reach the bridge on the Danube, a body of Scythians taking a shorter road hastened to the lonians wlio were guarding it, and urged them to abandon their trust, not only because by so doing they would free them- selves but because they were acting unrighteously in aiding and abetting a wanton invader. The advice of Miltiades, the future victor of Marathon, was that they should do as the Scythians wislied. But although the other despots there present gave at first an eager assent, they at once changed their minds when His- tiaios of Sliletos warned them that without the help of Dareios they could not possibly hope to retain their power. Still it was necessary to do something to get rid of the Scythian army on the banks of the river. The lonians therefore pretended to accept their proposal, and setting to work to loosen the bridge on the Scythian side, urged them to go in search of the Persian iiost and destroy it. The Scythians accordingly hurried off, but were as 132 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. unsuccessful now in finding the Persians as the Persians had been in tracking them. Meanwliile Dareioswas hurrying to the Istros. Jt was night when they reached the bridge : and when they found Ihat the boats were unloosed, they feared greatly that the lonians Lad left them to perish. But Dareios commanded an Egyptian in bis army who had a very loud voice to call Histiaios of Miletos ; and at the first cry Histiaios had the bridge fastened again. Thus the Persians got over in safety ; and the Scythians on learning hov/ they liad been tricked comforted themselves by reviling the fonians as cowards who hug their chains. We may smile at such details; but only by a summary of the wi ole narrative can it be shown that no one part of the story is CTedibility ^'cally more trustworthy than any other. It is quite of the narra- true that the record of all that takes place on the Scythian*^ Scythiau side of the Danube is like a bewildering expedition, dream. The great rivers which water the vast regions on the north of the Black Sea are forgotten by the historian in his description of the Avanderings of a million of men through a coun- try which yielded no food and in many places no Avater. An eastward marcli of 700 or 800 miles in Avhich no great stream seemingly is crossed except the Tanais, and in Avhich the Scythians never attack them, Avhen to attack them would be to destroy them utterly, is followed by a march of a like length Avestward, Avith the same result. The tale is incredible from beginning to end ; but there is nothing to justify the belief that Ave enter the Avorld of reality on the Thrakian bank of the Istros. The motive assigned for the expedition is the desire of Dareios to avenge the Avrong done to the Median or Persian empire about a hundred years be- fore : but this motive is scarcely more constraining than that Avhich is supposed to have taken the Persians to Egypt to avenge the slaughter of their remote forefathers by Ramcses or Sesostris. The story of the ignominious retreat of Dareios must be compared with that of the still more ignominious retreat of Xerxes ; and if there be good reason for caHing into question the later tradition, not much can be urged in favor of the older. The incidents in the guarding of the bridge are even more bewildering than any Avhich Avere supposed to have taken place in the rugged deserts of Scythia. Even under the circumstances as they are given in the narrative, there is no need to suppose a liaste to cross the river so pressing as to make it impossible to wait till the day had dawned. Still more absurd is it, with the noise of a vast army in disorderly retreat, to introduce the Egyptian lierald with his Stentorian voice to rouse the attention of Histiaios. If any debates took place among the guardians of the bridge, Ave cannot decide Avhat amount of exagge- ration or oven of Avilful falsehood may have been introduced into Chap. 11. ] THE REIGN OF DAREIOS. 133 the report of them. But the mutter is speedily brought to an issue. Eitlier tlie Ionian s were faithful to Dareios or they were not. Either the Scythians were in earnest in their efforts to defend tlicir country and to defeat the invaders, or they were not. Under either alternative it is in".possible to give any credit to the story of the incidents which are supposed to have taken place at the bridge. Whctlier the Greeks Avished to abandon Dareios or to save him, they would in eitlier case have urged the Scythians to remain on the bank, — in the one case that these Sythians might destroy the Persian army in the desperate confusion caused by the efforts of an unwieldly multitude caught in a deadly snare, — in the other that they might fall victims to the Persian host. On the other hand, whatever may be the stupidity of wandering tribes, the folly attributed to the Scythians exceeds that which might well be ascribed to Australian savages. An enormous and unmanageable army is lost in a trackless desert or has to cross rivers which may not be forded ; and yet during a march of sixteen hundred miles not an effort is made by a determined enemy to in trap or crush them. Nay more, — the Scythians are represented c/^ knowing perfectly well the position of the Persian army at every stage of their march ; and therefore, as knowing that Dareios was in full retreat for the bridge, they knew that he and his army must cross it or speedily perish.' Yet they are infatuated enough to depart at the bidding of the lonians to go and look for an enemy, whom, if only they remained where they were, they might assuredly slaughter at their ease. The folly which could forego so sure and easy a means of vengeance is so stupendous that we are driven to dismiss the story of the Scythian campaign of Dareios as unhis- torical in all its details, even if it be admitted that any such expedition ever took place at all. But it is perfectly natural that the Hellenic tradition should represent the defeat of the Persian ' III liis play of the Persians maiiied at home. But it seems ^schylos makes neither reference more likely that neither iEschylos nor allusion to the Scythian expedi- nor his audience kiie\y anythino: of tiou, while the language which he the Scythian expedition ; and it puts into the mouth of Dareios must be remembered that no light seems altogether to exclude it. whatever is thrown on it by the Dareios here speaks of the catastro- inscriptions at Behistun. As to the plie which had befallen Xerxes as a Athenians, we can scarcely suppose fit retribution for his impiety in that they would have much greater bridging over the Hellespont. It regard for Dareios than for Xerxes, certainly is just possible that the or that they would have allowed poet may have purposely exhibited the poet to exhibit the latter as the Dareios as lying by implication ; first to lay profane hands on the and the conquests which (P('mr/;is, sacred wateis of the Hellesijont, 864) he is said to have made with- when they knew that the same out crossing the Halys or even with- offence had been committed by llio out moving from his hearth can re- man whose phantom in the drama fer only to conquests achieved by upbraids his infatuated son. his fifenerals while he himself re- 134 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. king as more disastrous than it really was. That it has thus over- colored the disorder of the flight of Xerxes, we shall presently see ; but we may note here the significant circumstance that with the passage of the Danube on his return all the difficulties of Dareios disappear. It was his wish that the Thrakians should be made his subjects ; and his general Megabazos bears down all opposition with a vigor which the incapacity of the Persians on the northern side of the Danube would not lead us to expect and to which we might suppose that Scythian revenge would offer some hindrance. But from the Scythians Megabazos encounters no resistance ; and his course to the Strymon is one of uninter- rupted conquest. Near the mouth of this river was tlie Edonian town of Myrkinos, in a neighborhood rich in forests and corn- land as well as in mines of gold and silver. Here, when the great king announced his wish to reward his benefactors, Histiaios begged that lie might be suffered to take up his abode, while Koes contented himself with asking that he might be made despot of Mytilene. But Megabazos advanced still farther westward, and from the lake of Prasiai sent envoys to the Makedonian Amyntas, who gave them earth and water. The supremacy of the Persian king was at the same time extended to Lemnos, an island inhabited, it is said, by a Pelasgian population ; and Lyka- retos, the brother of the Samian Maiandrios, was appointed governor. But Lemnos was not to remain long under Persian power. When the resources of the empire were being strained to suppress the Ionic revolt, the Athenian Miltiades, sailing from Elaious in the Chersonesos, made a descent on the island, which with Skyros, subsequently conquered, remained henceforth most closely connected with Athens. CHAPTER TIL THE IONIC REVOLT. When after the outbreak of the Ionic revolt a joint expedition of Athenians and lonians under the Milesian Aristagoras led to the Dareios unci accidental burning of Sardeis, Dareios, we are told, on thcAthe- hearing the tidings, asked who the Athenians might """"*■ be, anil, on being informed, shot an arrow into the air, praying Zeus to suffer hiin to take vengeance on this folk. About thelonians and their share in the matter he said nothing. These he knew that he might punish as he might clioose : but so careful Chap. III.] THE IONIC REVOLT. 135 was he not to forget the foreigners who had done him wrong, th;it an attendant received orders to bid liis master liefore every meal to remember the Athenians.' If the chronology of this period may at all be trusted, ten or twelve years had passed away since Hippias allied himself with llippoklos, the Lampsakene despot, on the express gronnd that lie stood high in the favor of Darcios ; and eight years perhaps had gone by since Hippias, expelled from Athens, departed to Sigeion with the deti- nite purpose of stirring up the Persian king against his country- men. His intrigues were probably not less active than those of James H. at St. Germain's : and his disappointment at the congress in Sparta^ probably sent him back to the Hellespont not less determined to regain his power by fair means or by foul. AVe may be sure that the friendship of Hippoklos Avas taxed to this end to the uttermost ; and we may well believe the words of Hero- dotos that from the moment of his return from Sparta he left not a stone unturned to provoke Artaphernes, the Sardian satrap, to the conquest of Athens, in order that the Peisistratidai might hold it as tributaries of Dareios. The conclusion seems to follow irre- sistibly that Dareios had heard the whole story of their expulsion, and that he gave no such answer to their prayers as effectually to discourage their importunities. The acts, of which we have here a significant glimpse, were not done in a corner. The Athenians were perfectly aware of the way in which Hippias was employing himself at Sardeis ; and their ambassadors, appearing before Arta- phernes, laid before him the whole state of the case, and urged every available argument to dissuade the Persian king from inter- fering in the affairs of the Western Greeks. The answer of Artaphernes (and we cannot suppose that it was given without the full sanction of Dareios) charged the Athenians, if they valued their safety, to receive Hippias again as their tyrant. The Athe- nians retorted by a ilat refusal, and interpreting the words of Artaphernes as a practical declaration of war' were induced to aid Aristagoras with a force of twenty ships, which Herodotos regarded as a beginning of evils both to the barbarians and to the Greeks.* Yet these are the people of whom Dareios, on hearing of the burning of Sardeis with the temple of Kybcbe, speaks as though he had never so much as heard their name. This is a sample of the details which form the greater part of the narrative of the Ionic revolt, and furnishes a measure of their general trust- ^ Herod, v. 105. details are uncertain when tlipy ^ See page 96. come from Hellenic sources, :iiiil ^ Herod. V. 96. It is in these iu- perliaps altofretlier unti'iistwo! ihy cidental remarks tlitit we liave the when the informants are Persians, real history of the time, lor even in ^ Herod, v. 96. the narrative of the Ionic revolt the 136 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book 11. worthiness. In short, these details are essentially dramatic, not historical. For the Ionic revolt, as in the earlier portions of the history, tiie Traditional narrative mnst be given in its integrity. In no The schemes other way can we hope to determine the degree of ras^'f Mlfe°-" ^^'^^^t which may be placed in it. The story takes us tos. back to the time when Dareios, having recrossed the Danube, rewaixled his supposed benefactors Koes and Ilistiaios, and Megabazos found his way to Sardeis with the Paionians whom he was charged to transport into Asia. This general carried with him the tidings that Histiaios was busily occupied in fortifying Myrkinos, and warned Dareios of the great imprudence of allowing him to establish there a power which might become formidable even to the great king. Unless the enterprise were nipped in the bud, the Greeks and barbarians round about the city Avould take Ilistiaios for a chief and do his will by day and by night. If therefore war was to be avoided, Histiaios must be removed be- yond the reach of temptation. So a messenger was sent to Myrkinos with a letter in whicli Dareios told him that he needed the help of his counsel forthwith at Sardeis. Thither Ilistiaios hastened, delighted Avith a summons whicli proved his importance, and Avas received by Dareios with the bland assurance that there is nothing more precious than a wise and kind friend. ' Tliis, I know, thou art to me,' added the king, ' for I have learnt it not by thy words, but by thy deeds. So now thou must leave Miletos and thy Tlirakian city, and come with me to Sousa.' But although Ilistiaios was thus carried into splendid captivity, the causes of disquiet were not removed, for either he or the king had placed the gov- ernment of Miletos in the hands of Aristagoras, a nephew of His- ^ tiaios ; and the help of Aristagoras was now sought by some oligarchic exiles from Naxos. But althougli Arista- goras would gladly have made himself master of Naxos and of the large group to which it belonged, he felt that his own power alone could not achieve the task, and lie told them that they must have the help of Ai-taphernes, the brother of tlie great king. The exiles in their turn besought him to stint nothing in promises. They would pay him well for his aid and would further take on them- selves the cost of the expedition. To Artaphernes, therefore, Aristagoras held out, with these inducements, the further bait that the conquest of Naxos would bring Avith it the possession of Paros, Andros, and the other islands known as the Kyklades, and probably of the large and wealthy island of Euboin, which would give him the conunand of a large portion of the Boiotian and Attic coast. One hundred ships, he said, would amply suffice for the enterprise ; but Artaphernes, expressing a hearty assent to Chap. III.J THE IONIC REVOLT. 137 the plan, promised liiin two Imndrod, while Davcios, -when the re- port of Artaphernes was laid before him, expressed his full ap- proval of the scheme. The general appointed to command the expedition was Megabatcs, a cousin of Dareios and Artaphernes, who, sailing with the ileetfrom Miletos professedly for the Helles- pont, stopped at the Kaukasian promontory of Chios that he might sail down on Naxos with a north wind. But it had been destined, adds the historian, that the Naxians should not be de- stroyed by the army under Megabates and Aristagoras. That night, as it so happened, no watch was kept on board a Myndiau vessel ; and Megabates in his anger ordered Skylax the captain of the ship to be placed in one of the oar-holes with his head hanging out over the water. To the prayer of Aristagoras that he would release liis friend Megabates would not listen. Aristagoras there- fore released the man himself ; and when the Persian on learning this became even more vehement, Aristagoras told him that Arta- phernes had sent him as a subordinate, not as a master. Mega- bates made no reply ; but as soon as it was dark, he sent a vessel to warn the Naxians of their peril and to acquaint them with all that had happened. The result was that, when the fleet approached the island, the Naxians were well prepared. Four months passed away. The money which Megabates and Aristagoras had brought was all spent, and the Naxians were not subdued. Aristagoras further suspected that Megabates meant to deprive him of his power at Miletos ; and the result of his deliberations was a deter- mination to revolt, in which he was confirmed, it is said, by a mes- sage which at this time he chanced to receive from Histiaios. This man, it seems, like Demokedes, was ready to sacrifice his country and his friends, if only he might win what he called his freedom. Having- shaved the head of his most trusty servant, he tattooed a message upon it, and then having kept him till his hair was again grown, he sent him to Miletos, with the simple charge that Aristagoras should shave his head and look at it. Aristagoras there read advice which jumped with his own conclusions, and made up his mind to begin the revolt which Histiaios hoped that he might be sent downi to suppress. In the council which Aristagoras tlicn convoked the logographer Hekataios warned them that they could not expect to cope with the Persian power, but that, if they resolved to run ths risk, they should at the least take care that they sionof Aris- had the command of the sea. He further urged them sp^;,7Ja",i'ncl to seize the vast wealth of the oracle at Branchidai, if at Athens. only to make sure that these resources should not fall ~^-'--^- into the hands of the enemy. His advice was rejected ; but a ship was sent to Myous, where the army was encamped on its 138 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. return from Naxos, -witli orders to seize on sncli of tlie Hellenic tyrants as might be found there. Among the despots thus seized were Aristagoras of Kyme and the more notorious Koes of Myti- lene. These Avcre all given up to the people of their respective cities by Aristagoras, who, in name at least, surrendered his own power at Miletos, in order to insure greater harmony and enthu- siasm in the conduct of the enterprise. Aristagoras of Kyme and the rest were allowed by their former subjects to depart unhurt, the only exception being Koes, who was stoned to death. Thus having put down the tyrants and ordered the citizens of the towns to choose each their own Strategos or general, the -Milesian Aris- tagoras sailed away in the hope of getting help from Sparta, bear- ing with him a brazen tablet on Avhicli was drawn a map of the world, as then known. Having reached Sparta, he pleaded his cause earnestly before king Kleomenes. He dwelt on the slavery of the Asiatic Greeks as a disgrace to the city whi(;li had risen to the headship of Hellas, and on the wealth as well as the glory which with little trouble and risk they could assuredly win. The trousered and turbaned Persians who fought with bows and javelins it would be no specially hard task to vaiiquish ; and the whole land from Sardeis to Sousa would then be for the Spartans one continuous mine of Avealth. The picture was tempting ; but when Aristagoras appeared again on the third day to receive the final answer, he was asked how far it might be from the coast to Sousa. ' A three months' journey,' said the unlucky Aristagoras, who was going on to show how easily it might be accomplished,' when Kleomenes bade him leave Sparta before the sun went down. There seemed to be yet one last hope. AVith a suppliant's branch Aristagoras went to the house of Kleomenes. Finding him with his daughter Gorgo, the future wife of the far-famed Leonidas, ho asked that the child, then eight or nine years old, should be sent away. The king bade him say what he wished in lier presence ; and the Milesian, beginning with a protfcr of ten talents, had raised the bribe to a sum of fifty talents, when the child cried out ' Father, the stranger will corrupt you, if you do not go away. Kleomenes rose up and went into another house ; and Aristagoras, leaving Sparta with the story of tlie easy march from Sardeis to Sousa untold," hastened to Atliens. Here to his glowing descrip^ tions he added the plea that Miletos was a colony from Athens and that to help the Milesians was a clear duty. The historian ' A fi'at perhaps even more bazar- tlian in the reality. Tliere was an (lous was, as we shall see, actually excellent road the whole way, of nchieved in the march of the Ten which Herodotos (v. 52— 54) {rives a Thousand with Xenophon. niinnteaccount, with the number of '^ In fact, the difficulties lay rather the stages, in the imagiDation of the Spartans Chap. III.] THE IONIC REVOLT. 130 remarks that Aristagoras found it easier to deceiv^e thirty thousand Athenian citizens tlian a soUtary Sjiartan, for the Athenians at once promised to send twenty ships under the command of Mehm- thios. But he forgot that the circumstances of the two cities were widely different. Athens was ah-eady virtually at war with Persia ; and in pledging themselves to help Aristagoras, the Athe- nians were entering on a course which after a severe struggle secured to them abundant wealth and a brilliant empire. At last Aristagoras reached Miletos with the twenty Athenian ships and five sent by the Eretrians. There he set in order an expedition to Sardeis, which was occupied witliout The burning any resistance, Artaphernes being unable to do more °^ sardeis. than hold the Akropolis ; but the accidental burning of a hut (the Sardian houses were built wholly of reeds or had reed roofs) caused a conflagration which so terrified all the Lydians and Persians that they rushed with frantic eagerness to the Agora. The Athenians, fearing to be overborne by mere numbers, retreated to the lieights of Tmolos, and as soon as it was dark hastened away to their ships. The fire at Sardeis by destroying the temple of Kybebe furnished, it is said, an excuse for the deliberate destruction of the temples in Western Hellas by the army of Xerxes. The revolt now assumed a more serious character in spite of the desertion of the Athenians. The lonians sailing to the Hellespont, prevailed on the citizens of Byzantion and the neigh- Extension boring towns to take part in the revolt. The Karians tfl^Bvzantixin for the most part also joined, and even the Kaunians and Kaiia. threw in their lot with them when they heard of the burning of Sardeis. Still more important was the adhesion of Kyi)ros (Cyprus), in which large and wealthy island the city of Amathous alone remained faithful to the Persians. The tidings of these events, so the story runs, roused the ve- hement indignation of Dareios, who, sending for Histiaios, frankly expressed his strono; suspicion that his old friend had ^, . . 11 1 1 • I 7 • TkT 1 • 1 TT- • • Tlie mission had a hand m the business. iNay, said Histiaios, of Histiaios 'had I been in Ionia, these things would never have i^" '^^^''^^is. happened, if they have happened at all ; and even now I pledge myself, if thou wilt let me go thither, to bring this revolt to an end.' ' Be it so,' answered Dareios ; ' but be sure, when thou hast done thy work, to come back to nic here at Sousa.' So Histiaios departed on his errand. Meanwhile the Kyprians with their allies now made ready for the great struggle with their anatagonists ; but they ,j,^g ^^.^.^ju were completely defeated, and from this time the his- of Kypms tory of the Ionian revolt is little more than a chronicle of disasters. From Sardeis the lonians were driven to their ships 140 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. by the Persian generals, who advancing thence towards the Hellespont, took the five cities of Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsakos, and Paisos, it is said, in as many days, and were on their way to Parion, when tidings came that the Karians had broken out into rebellion. They at once turned their arms south- wards ; but the news of their approach reached the Karians early enough to enable them to take up a strong position at the White Pillars (Leukai Stelai) on the banks of the Marsyas, a tributary of the Maiandros. In the ensuing battle the Karians were borne down by mere numbers. The survivors flying to Labranda, a temple of Zeus the Lord of Armies (Stratios), were there besieged, and were holding counsel on the prudence of yielding or of aban- doning Asia, when the an'ival of the Milesians and their allies made them resolve on renewing the struggle. The result was a defeat more terrible than that which they had already undergone, the Milesians being the greatest sufferers. But the Karian spirit was not yet broken. Having heard that the Persians were about to plunder their cities one by one, they lay in ambush, and cut off, seemingly, the whole Persian force with Daurises, Amorges, and Sisimakes at its head. This catastrophe had no influence on the general issue of the revolt. Tlie golden visions of Aristagoras had now given way to The death of the simple desire of securing his own safety, and he Aristagoras. hastened to suggest to the allies that they ought to be ready, in case of expulsion from Miletos, Avith a place of refuge whether at Myrkinos or in Sardo (Sardinia). His own mind was really made up before he summoned the council. Leaving Py- thagoras in command of the city, he sailed to Myrkinos, of which he succeeded in taking possession. Soon after, he attacked and besieged a Thi'akian town, but was surprised and slain with all his forces. The career of Histiaios was brought to an end not long after tlie death of his nepliew. The narrative reads like a wild and perplexing romance ; and if it represents actual fact, and death of it assuredly illustrates the adage that truth may be Histiaios. stranger than fiction. On reaching Sardeis Histiaios appeared before Ailaphernes in seeming ignorance of all that had liappened during his stay in Sousa. ' It is just this,' said Arta- phernes bluntly ; ' you stitched the slipper, and Aristagoras put it on.' Ilistiaos took the hint thus broadly given, and making his escape to Chios was seized by the Chians who, however, gave him his freedom when they learnt that he had come to fight against Dareios, not for him. His next step was to send by Hermippos of Atarneus to the Persians in Sardeis letters which spoke of a plan for revolt ah-cady concerted between them and himself. Chap. III.] THE IONIC REVOLT. 141 Hermippos carried the letters straight to Aitaphernes, who told him to give them to the persons to whom they were addressed and to bring him the answers. These, we are told, were of sucli a nature that Artaphernes ordered many Persians to be executed. From Chios Histiaios was at his own wish conveyed to Miletos ; but the Milesians, well pleased to be rid of Aristagoras, had no notion of submitting to their old master. It was night when Histiaios tried to force his way into the city, and in the scuffle he received a wound in the thigh. It was clearly necessary to try some other course. His request for ships was refused by the Chians ; but he succeeded in persuading the Lesbians to man eight triremes and sail under his command to Byzantion, where he seized all Ionian ships entering from the Black Sea except such as were at once surrendered to hira. Here he remained until he received tidings of the last and crowning disaster to the Ionian cause in the fall of Miletos ; and leaving Bisaltes of Abydos in charge of matters at the Hellespont, he sailed to Chios, where he seized Polichna. From Chios he sailed with a large force, it is said, of lonians and Aiolians to Thasos, attracted possibly by its neigh- borhood to his old haunts at Myrkinos ; but abandoning the siege of the island on hearing that the Phenician fleet was advancing from Miletos, he hastened back to Lesbos, whence he crossed over to Atarncus to reap the standing corn for his army which was now starving. Here he was surprised by a troop of cavalry under Harpagos, and being overtaken in his flight he confessed to the man who was going to kill him that he was Histiaios of Miletos. His motive in thus surrendering himself was, it is said, the hope that he would easily be able to make his peace with Dareios; but Harpagos, determined that he should never have the oppor- tunity, ordered him to be crucified, and sent his head to Sousa, where Dareios, upbraiding those who had put him to death, gave charge that it should be washed and buried as the head of a man who had been a great benefactor to himself and to the Persians. The hopes of the lonians now rested on their fleet. It was de- cided therefore at Panionion that no attempt should be made to op- pose the Persian land forces, and that the Milesians Tj^gj^^ij^^ should be left to defend their walls against the be- fleet at Lade, siegers, while the ships should assemble at Lade, then an island off the Milesian promontory to which by an accumulation of sand it is now attached. But even these resolutions take it for granted that the whole force of the Persians would be concentrated on the blockade of Miletos, or at least that the other towns had nothing to fear from such attacks as might be made on them. Yet of these towns Myous and Priene were but a few miles distant from Mile- 14-2 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. tos ; and nothing within past experience of Persian generalship warranted the hope that the Hellenic cities would only be attacked in succession. But if the lonians were afraid of the land forces opposed to thera, the Persians seem to have been scarcely less afraid of the Hellenic fleet, although they had little reason to shrink from a comparison of their Phenician seamen with the Asiatic Greeks. This want of confidence in themselves led them, it is said, to resort to a policy wdiich might cause division and disunion among their adversaries. The Greek tyrants, who were allowed to go free by their former subjects when the Mytilenaian Koes was stoned to death, were instructed to tell them that immediate submission would be rewarded not only by a full amnesty but by a pledge that they should not be called on to endure any burdens heavier than those which had already been laid upon them, but if they should carry their resistance so far as to shed Persian blood in battle, the punishment which defeat would bring upon them would be terrible indeed. These profEers were conveyed to the Greek cities by mes- sengers who entered them by night ; and the citizens of each town, thinking, it is said, that the overtures were made to themselves alone, returned a positive refusal. For a time the debates at Lade took another turn. The remnant of the Phokaians, who in viola- tion of an awful oath came back to their old city while their kins- folk sailed on their ill-omened voyage to Alalia, were brave enough or faithless enough to rise once more against their Persian masters ; and their general Dionysios now came forward to give his advice. Warning the lonians that the issue whether of slavery or of free- dom hung on a razor's edge, he told them that they could not hope to escape the punishment of runaway slaves, unless they had spirit enough to bear with present hardship for the sake of future ease ; but at the same time he pledged himself that if they Avould sub- mit to his direction, he would insure to them a complete victory. Their acceptance of his prosposal was followed by constant and sys- tematic manoeuvring of the fleet, while, after the daily drill was over, the crews, instead of lounging and sleeping in their tents on the shore, were compelled to remain on board their ships which were anchored. For seven days they endured this terrible tax on tlicir patience ; but at the end of the week Ionian nature could hold out no longer. Many were already sick ; many more were threatened with illness. In short, rather than submit to be thus handled by an upstart Phokaian who had brought only three ships, they would gladly take their chances in I'ersian slavery, whatever this might be. What these would be, unless they sub- mitted before fighting, they had according to the story been dis- tinctly informed. Their grown men were to be slain, their boys made eunuchs and with the women carried away into Persia, while Chap. III.] THE IONIC REVOLT. 143 tlieir cities should be given to strangers. But tl;eir object was not, it seems, immediate submission. They were quite ready to light, when the time for fighting sliould be come ; but, rather than take any trouble to secure success, they would prefer death, muti- lation, or everlasting banishment. In short, the two stories ex- clude each other, and come from two dilferent sources. The one was apparently framed in the interests of the expelled tyrants by their partisans : the second certainly is a tale devised to account for the disastrous issue of the revolt. Of the details of the battle which decided the issue of the revolt Herodotos admits that he knows practically nothing.' That in spite of its confusion and inconsistencies the narrative Tiie battle of points ti> an astonishing lack of coherence among the J^f(ff,',n"f confederates, we cannot doubt. Almost everywhere Miietos. we see a selfish isolation, of which distrust and treachery arc the natural fruits : but, as in the intrigues of Ilippias we have a real cause for Persian interference in Western Greece which makes the story of Demokedes utterly superfluous, so in this selfishness and obstinacy of the Asiatic Greeks we have an explanation of the catastrophe to which the episode of the Phokaian Dionysios fails to impart either force or clearness. The outlines suffice at least to show that the brief splendor of the Tonic revolt was closing iu darkness and disaster. The fate of the revolt was sealed by the partisans of the banished despots ; and Dionysios determined to quit his country for ever. With three war-ships which he took from the enemy, he sailed straight to Phenicia ; and, if the tale be true, he must liave swooped down on some unguarded or weak port, for, having sunk some merchant-vessels, he sailed with a large booty to Sicily. Here he turned pirate, imposing on himself the condition that his pillage should be got from the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians and not from the Italiot or Sikeliot Greeks. The dis- persion and ruin of the Ionic fleet left Miietos exposed to blockade by sea as well as by land. The Persians now set vigorously to work, undermining the walls and bringing all kind^ of engines to bear upon them ; and at last, in the sixth year after the outbreak of the revolt under Aristagoras,^ the great city fell. .^^^ ,„ The historian adds that the grown men were for the most part slain ; that the rest of the inhabitants were carried away to Sousa ; and that Miietos with the plain surrounding it was oc- cupied by Persians, while the neigliboring highlands were given ' Herod, vi. 14. gorasandthedestructionof hiscity: ^ This date, the only definite in- but while the chronology of earlier dication of time iu the narrative of and later events remains uncertain, the Ionic revolt, may be regarded as we can scarcely say more than that representing accurately the inter- the fall of Miietos may probably be val between the rebellion of Arista- assigned to the year 496-5 B.C. 144 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book n„ to IvHrians from the town of Pedasa. The picture is overcolored, unless we suppose that new Greek inhabitants were afterwards ad- mitted into the city, for, although its greatness was gone for ever, Miletos continued to be, as it had been, Hellenic. The Persian operations of the following year were directed against the islands. Chios, Lesbos, andTenedos were taken ; and, Third con- if we choose to believe the story, the Persians, holding ?oula. hand to hand and without even breaking their order, 495 B.C. (?) went from one end of each island to the other, caring for no hindrances of mountains, precipices, torrents and streams, and sweepirig oii every living thing that came in their way. This pleasant pastime of netting human beings Herodotos' for some not very obvious reason pronounces impracticable on the mainland ; and hence the Hellenes of the Asiatic continent escaped th^ fate of their insular kinsfolk. Thus was brought about that which Herodotos speaks of as the third conquest of Ionia. From the conquest of the Ionic cities the Persian fleet sailed on against the towns on the northern shores of the Helle^pont. Plight of ^^^ towns on its Asiatic shore had already been rc- Miftiades to duced by Dauriscs and other I'ersian generals f and the subjugation of the European cities was apparently no hard task. Perinthos, Selymbria, and the forts on the Thrakian march, were at once surrendered, while the inhabitants of Byzan- tion and of Chalkedon on the opposite Asiatic promontory fled hastily away and founded the city of Messembia on the Euxine sea.^ The deserted towns, we are told, were burnt to the ground * by the Phenicians, who also destroyed in like manner the cities of Prokonnesos and Artake and took all the towns of the Cher- soncsos except Kardia. Here the future victor of Maratlion lingered, until he heard that the Phenicians were at Tcnedos, when witli five ships loaded with his goods he set sail for Athens. When, some years earlier, the Hellenic colony of Sybaris had been conquered by the men of Kroton, the men of Miletos had The punish- shaved their heads in token of their mourning. Milc- Ph"vn?chos **^^ itself was a city built by colonists whom the Ko- 495 B.C. (?) drid Neileus had, it is said, brought from Athens : but the great disaster which had now befallen it called forth no such signs of sori'ow on the part of the Athenians. The drama in which Phrynichos exhibited the terrible scenes which accompanied its ' vi. 31. this tiinetheymay have undergone. ^ Herod, v. 117, 123. * KaraKavaavrec. Herod, vi. 38. ^ Herod, vi. 33. It is not easy to This word also must be probably receive without stron<; qualification taken in a very modified sense. Ky- Buch statements about cities wliich zikos, we are told, had already sub- unquestionably remained Hellenic mitted to Oibares, the satrap of iu spite of the disasters which at Daskyleiou, Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 145 downfall brought involuntary tears to the eyes of the audience ; but his only recompense, we are told, was a fine of a thousand drachmas for daring to remind them of calamities which touched them so closely, and a decree that the play should never be acted again. Had this drama been preserved, it might possibly have explained the reason for that abandoment of the Ionic cause by the Athenians which may have been forced on them by the feuds and factions of the allies. It might also have taught lis the nature of those evils or misfortunes, the remembrance of which so stung the Athenian hearers of Phrynichos. Although the subjects of tragedy had hitherto been chosen mainly, if not altogether, from the old legends or theogonies, it may be doubted whether their resentment was caused by any effort on the part of the poet to in- terest his audience in Persian success and Grecian suffering as such or by any dread of similar disasters for themselves, so much as by the intimation that they were in reality chargeable with the ruin of the most illustrious of their own colonies. Apart from this consciousness of their guilt or weakness, the picture of Hel- lenic misfortunes could have roused in them only a more strenuous patriotism, and stirred them under disappointment or defeat with an enthusiasm not less deep, although more grave, than that with which, after the victory at Salamis, they drank in the words of -^schylos. CHAPTER IV. THE INVASION OF THRACE BY MARDONIOS AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON. The threats of terrible vengeance by which it is said that the Per- sians sought to chill the courage of the Asiatic Greeks might have prepared us for a long tale of wanton cruelty and op- Administra- pression. But after the complete subjugation of the p^eme^^'**" country the scene is suddenly changed; and the Sar- Asia Minor, dian satrap Artaphernes comes before us as an administrator en- gaged in placing on a permanent footing the relations of these Greeks with their masters. If the materials with which he had to deal had been of a different kind, if the lonians of Asia Minor had had any of that capacity for establishing an empire on the basis of self-government which marked their western kinsfolk, he might have deserved blame rather than praise for striking at the root of the evils which had nipped in the bud the political growth 7 146 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL of the Asiatic Greeks. By compelling them to lay aside their in- cessant feuds and bickerings, and to obey, if not a national, yet an interpolilical law whicli should put an end to acts of violence and pillage between the Hellenic cities, he was inforcing changes which would soon have made men of a temper really fonnidable to the king, and which in any case must be regarded as avast im- provement of tlieir condition.* These changes, the historian re- marks significantly, he compelled them to adopt, whether they willed to do so or not, while, after having the Avhole country sur- veyed, he also imposed on each that assessment of tribute which, Avhether paid or not, (and we shall find that for nearly seventy years it was not paid) remained on the king'sbooksas the legal obligation of the Asiatic Greeks, until the Persian empire itself fell before the victorious arms of the Makedoniau Alexander, As the amount of this assessment was much wliat it had been before the revolt, the Persians cannot be charged with adding to their hnv- dens by Avay of retaliation. Still more remarkable, in the judgment of Herodotos, Avere the measures of Mardonios who in the spring of the second ^ year The reforms after the fall of Miletos marched Avith a large army as nios^^"^*^" far as the Kilikian coast, Avhere he took ship, while the 493 B.C. (?) troops found their Avay across Asia Minor to the Hel- lespont. This man, avIioso name is associated Avith the memor- able battle at Plataiai, Avas now in the prime of manhood. The errand on Avhich he came Avas nothing less than the extension of tlic Persian empire over the Avhole of Western Greece ; but before he Avent on to take tliat special vengeance on Athens and Eretria Avhich Avas the alleged object of the expedition, he undertook and achieved, it is said, the task of putting down the tyrants and of establishing democracies in all the Ionic cities. Yet the Avork of Mardonios can mean no more than that he drove away, or possibly killed (as the more efiectual mode of dealing Avith them) the Hellenic tyrants, on Avhose deposition the people Avould at once revert to the constitution subverted by these despots : nor is it easy to see Avherein tliis task differed from that Avhich Herodotos has just ascribed to Artaphernes. All therefore that can be said is that, if Artaphernes really carried out his measures before the ar- rival of Mardonios, notliing more remained for the latter than to sanction changes of Avhich he approved. But Mardonios was not destined to achieve the greater Avork for Avhich he had been dispatched from Sousa. Thasos submitted without opposition ; and on the mainland the Avork of conquest ' Herod, vi. 42. ;fp//ff7ua Kupra rolai '\uai. » Herod, vi. 31, 43. Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 1.17 was carried beyond the bounds reached by Megabazos. But when, having left Akanthos, the fleet was coasting along the peninsula of Akte, a fearful storm dashed three hundred ships, Failure of it is said, on the iron coast of mount Athos, about i^'xfjrace^ twenty thousand men being killed either by the force 4'J2b.c. (?) of the waves beating against the rocks or by tlie sharks which abounded in this part of tlie sea. The disaster made it impossible to advance further south ; and Mardonios returned home, where during the reign of Dareios he is heard of no more. The failure of Mardonios seems to have made Dareios more than ever resolve to ascertain how far he might rely on the submission of the Greeks to the extension of the Persian empire. ,,. . mi /> • I !• !• 1 1 mi Mission of Ihe nrst step came in the form or an order to the iha- the Persian sians to take down the walls with whicli they were |icnia'|i*/° fortifying their city and to surrender their ships at Ab- earth and dera. In the next step taken by Dareios we may fairly the Western discern the influence of Hippias, who left nothinsr un- 9JP'^^^',„, 11' ® 491 B.C. (?) done to fan the flame which he had kindled.' The way would be in great measure cleared for the complete subjugation of Hellas if the king could, without the trouble of fighting, learn how many of the insular and continental Greeks would be willing to inroU themselves as liis slaves. Heralds were accordingly sent, it is said, througliout all Hellas, demanding in the king's name the tribute of a little earth and a little water. The summons was readily obeyed, we are told, by the men of all the islands visited by the heralds, and probably also by those cities which we afterwards find among the zealous allies of Xerxes. Among the islanders who thus yielded up their freedom were the Aiginetans, who by this conduct drew down upon themselves the wrath of the Athenians with whom the}' were in a chronic state of war. Athenian ambassadors appeared at Sparta with a formal accusation against the Aiginetans. Tliey had acted treacherously not towards the Athenians or towards any Greek city in particular but against Hellas : and the charge shows not merely the growth of a certain collective or almost national Hellenic life, but that Sparta was the recognised head of this informal confederacy. The embassy of the Athenians was followed by prompt action on the part of the Spartans, or rather on the part of their king Kleomenes. This joint action of the Athenians and ^jjg t^eat- Kleomenes, it has been thought, can be accounted for mentof the only by the alleged treatment of the Persian heralds sparta and when they came first to Athens and then to Sparta, at Athens. asking earth and water. In the former city, these men, in spite > Herod, vi. 94. 148 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IT. of the inviolability of the character in which they appeared, were thrown into the Barathron, in the latter into a well, and bidden to get there the earth and water which they wished to carry to the king. This treatment of the messengers of Dareios is alleged as the reason why Xerxes, when he sent his heralds again to the Hellenic states, excepted Athens and Sparta from the number of the cities to whom he offered his mercy ;' but the story cannot be dismissed without a reference to the difficulties which seem to be involved in it. Among the many perplexing statements in the history of the Persian wars not the least remarkable are the stories of occasional vehemence displayed by men who for the most part were little chargeable witli any furious and unreasoning valor. The subsequent conduct of the Athenians may exhibit nothing inconsistent with their alleged treatment of the heralds of Dareios : but neither pride (although at this time it seems not to have been great) as the acknowledged heads of the Hellenic world, nor security against Persian invasion, can wholly explain the strange agreement of the Spartans in a retaliation which it is unlikely that they could have devised for themselves, and which, while inconsistent with their subsequent conduct, was by no means rendered more prudent by the submission of their near neighbors. But this very circumstance warrants the suspicion that the story of the violation of the heralds is the unhistorical growth of a later tradition. The point especially to be noted is this, that the political results would be precisely the same, whether the Athenians or Spartans killed the heralds sent to them or whether they were saved from this iniquity by not having any heralds to kill. It is not very likely that Dareios would send messengers to a people who, according to the story, had eagerly espoused the cause of Kroisos, had sent an imperious mandate to Cyrus himself, and had been warned by Cyrus that they should smart for their presumption. But it is altogether unlikely that any overtures for submission would be made to Athens. Had it been so, they must have taken the form of a demand that they should receive again their old master Hippias. But in truth Ar- taphernes had long since taken their refusal to receive him as a virtual declaration of war ;^ and we can scarcely suppose that a sum- mons addressed to those with whom the Persian king had not come into conflict would be sent to men who were his open and avowed enemies. If then these two great cities were exempted from the number of those who were bidden to acknowledge the supremacy of Persia, they would be as much driven to make com- mon cause with each other as if they had slain the officers of Dareios. The unflagging zeal with which the Athenians in spite ' Herod, vii. 133. ^ ' See p. 135. Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 149 of all discouragements maintained the contest against Xerxes would readily account for the growth of a story which seemed to be in harmony with their general conduct throughout the Persian war. But whatever may have been the treatment experienced by the Persian heralds, Sparta might perhaps have shrunk, as she did in the case of Plataiai, from asserting her jurisdiction The deposi- over the Aiginetans, if her old rival Argos had not exi?eo'f*i)e- already been humbled. The narrative of the struggle maratos. with Argos and of the events which followed it exhibits a strange picture of feud and discord in the Spartan state. The humiliation of Argos seemed to justify Kleomenes, the Eurysthenid king, in making an effort to seize those Aiginetans who had been foremost in swearing obedience to Dareios. His demand for their surrender was met by a refusal to yield them up to a Spartan king who was acting illegally, not only as having been bribed by the Athenians, but as having come without his colleague, the Prokieid Demaratos, the future companion and adviser of Xerxes in the wonderful epic of the Persian war. Kleomenes went back to Sparta, fully re- solved to bring about the downfall of the man who had thwarted and foiled him in his march to Athens ;' and he found the means in the stories told about his birth. Evidence was forthcoming, it is said, to prove that Demaratos was not the son of his reputed father : and his deposition was followed by his flight into Asia, where we are, of course, toM that Dareios assigned him a terri- tory with cities to afford him a revenue. Against tribes thus agitated by the turmoil of incessant in- trigues and habituated to an almost complete political isolation, the Persian king was now preparing to discharge the pro- Capture of digious forces at his command. He had some old Naxosand wrongs to avenge ; but the Peisistratidai were at hand theVefsia^us. to urge him on by their still more importunate plead- 490 b.c. ing. In place of the disgraced Mardonios he intrusted the com- mand of the expedition to Artaphernes and to the Median Datis who, announcing himself, it is said, as the representative of Medos the son of the Athenian Aigeus and his wife the Kolchian Medeia, claimed of right the style and dignity of king of Athens. Their mission was to inslave the men oJF that city and also of Eretria and bring them into their master's presence. Their first object was to punish the Naxians for daring to defeat Megabates,^ and the task was now by comparison an easy one. The suppres- sion of the Ionic revolt had struck terror into the hearts of the Greeks generally ; and the Naxians at the approach of the Per- ' Page 94. ^_ ^ Herod, vi. 96. 150 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. sians fled to the monntains. Those who remained in the town were inshived ; and the city with its temples was burnt. The Persian force was increased on its voyage westwards by men from the islands who were compelled to serve against their kinsfolk. The first opposition to Datis came from the people of Karystos the southernmost town of Euboia, which, after resisting the at- tacks of the Persians for six days, was taken by treachery. From Karystos the fleet sailed northwards to Erctria. Here, as else- where, the Persians j)lundered and burnt the temples and partiallv reduced the inhabitants to slavery. At Eretria the Persians might well have fancied their task practically done. Thus far their enemies had given way before Landing of them like chaff before the wind ; and Hippias prob- at^M^ra"""^ ably flattered their vanity by assurances that they thon. need look for no more serious resistance at Athens or at Sparta. But meanwhile they must advance with at least ordinary care ; and his knowledge of the land which he had once ruled might now serve his Persian friends to good purpose. The best ground which it contained for the movements of cavalry was the plain of Marathon bounded by the northeastern Cliersonesos or promontory of Attica ; and at Marathon accordingly the ban- ished tyrant of Athens landed with liis Persian supporters to fight his Battle of the Boyne. By a strange turn in the course of things the exiled despot of Athens in setting foot once more on Attic ground was confronted by the very man wliom, as an apt pupil in his own school of tyranny, ho had sent to govern tJie Thrakian Chersonesos. How far Miltiades, the son-in-law of a Thrakian king, and the employer of Thrakian mercenaries, had outgrown the ideas of his earlier years, we can scarcely venture to say. The whole history of the man from the time of his leaving Athens to liis return is wrapped in an obscurity so strange that we can do no more than ascribe his election as one of the ten generals, at a time when Hippias and the Persians were known to be on their way westwards, to the reputation which he had acquired by the conquest of Lemnos. A more formidable hindiancc to the plans of Hippias and Dareios was involved in the rise of statesmen at Athens like The- Rivalrj'of mistokles and Aristeides. Neither of tliem belonged kles™nd°' ^^ ^^^^ "^^^ Eupatrid nobility. But although neither Aristeides. wealthy nor by birth illustrious, these two men were to exercise a momentous influence on the history not only of their own city but of all western civilisation. Singularly unlike each other in temper and tone of thought, they were to be throughout life rivals in whom the common danger of their Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 151 country could yet suppress the feeling of liabitual animosity. It would have been happy for themselves, happier for Atliens, if tbey liad been rivals also in that virtue whicli Greek statesmen down to our own day have commonly and fatally lacked. Unfortunately Themistokles never attempted to aim at that standard of incor- ruptibility which won for liis rival the name of the Righteous or the Just. Tlie very title implies the comparative corruption of the leading citizens ; and thus Aristeides might the more easily gain the reputation of Avhich the rustic who asked him to write his name on the shell professed himself so heartily tired of hearing. Of his rival it would be as absurd to draw a picture free from seams and stains as it would be to attempt the same ridiculous task for Oliver Cromwell or Warren Hastings. That Genius and he started on his career with a bare competence and i^'^emisto- that he heaped together by not the fairest means an kies. enormous fortune, is a fact which cannot be disputed. That, while he was determined to consult and to advance the true in- terests of his country, he was not less resolved that his own greatness should be secured through those interests, is not less certain. Endowed with a marvellous power of tracing the true relations of things to all seeming thoroughly confused and of dis- cerning the method by which the worst complications miglit be nnravelled, he went straight to liis mark, while yet, so long as he wished it, he could keep that mark liidden from every one. With the life of such a man popular fancy could not fail to be busy ; and so the belief grew up that he knew every citizen of Athens by name. But however this may have been, he was enabled, as Thucydides tells us,' by his astonishing powers of appi'chension and foresight, to form the truest judgment of existing things and. without toilsome calculation to forecast the future, while yet no man was ever more free from that foolhardy temper which thinks that mere dash and bravery can make up for inexperience and lack of thought. But the genius of Themistokles was not yet to shine out in its full lustre. While the Athenians were vainly seeking aid from Sparta,' Hippias was busy on the Persian side in Deijatesia drawing up his allies in battle array on the held of theAthe- Marathon. He had a vision which seemed to portend atMara- the recovery of his former power : but he lacked the "^°"- readiness of the Norman Wi'liam in turning to good account the * i. 138. garded.not perhaps without reason, ^ The feat ascribed to the courier as an impossibility by writers who Pheidippides, who was sent to ask are well aware of the powers of this aid, Herod, vi. 106, has been re- Asiatic runners at the present time- 152 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book If. fall of one of his teeth which a violent fit of conghing forced from his jaw. The Conqueror would have interpreted the acci- dent as a presage of victory. Hippias could only bewail among his friends the "fate which assigned to him no larger a portion of Attic soil than might suffice to bury a tooth. On the Athenian side a sign of coming success was furnished by the arrival of the Plataians with the full military force of their little city ; but tlie unanimity of the Plataians Avas not reflected in the councils of the Athenian leaders, if we may accept the story that Miltiades, who Avith four others wished for immediate battle, appealed to the Polemarch Kallimachos of Aphidnai to give his casting vote against the five generals who wished to postpone it. The appeal was made in stirring language. It depended on Kallimachos not only whether Athens should be the first of Hellenic cities, but whe- ther she and Hellas should even be free. Delay would sap the energy of the faithful and swell the number of the traitors who even now counselled submission to the Persian despot. Yet the story carries with it in some measure its own contradiction. Kal- limachos decides to fight at once ; but the fight does not take place. Tlie four generals who had all along agreed with Miltiades handed over to him the presidency which came daily to each in his turn ; and still Miltiades would not fight until his own presi- dency came in its ordinary course. We can scarcely bring our- selves to think that the Athenian generals would deprive the city of its main military force, unless they had resolved already to fight on the first favorable opportunity. Still less can we think that when more than half felt the urgent need of immediate action they Avould allow nearly a week to j^ass before they took any step to bring matters to an issue. They must have known that by so doing they Avere putting it in the power of the Persians to detach an overwhelming force from their fleet and army and send it round Cape Sounion against Athens, Avhile they lay inactiA'e at Marathon. Here then in the broad plain which by the loAver road between Hymettos and Pentelikos lay at a distance of about twenty-five ThcHtoryof "liles from Athens, Miltiades and his colleagues pre- thu battle of pared to .strike a blow in defence of their own freedom Marathon. .^^^j ^|,_^,. ^f jj^,,,.^^ j^^ ^j^j^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^j^.^ ^j_^.^ .^ ^ marsh, the nr)rtlicru one being still at all seasons of the year im- passable, Avhilc the smaller one to the south is almost dried up during the summer heats. On this broad and level surface between the rugged hills which rose around it and the firm sandy beach on which the Persians were drawn uj) to receive them, stood, in the simple story of Herodotos, the Athenian tribes. The Polemarch Kallimachos (for such was then the law of the Athenians) headed the right wing ; the men of Plataiai stood on the left. But as with Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 153 their scantier numbers it was needful to present a front equal to that of the Persian host, the middle part of the Greek army was only a few men deep and was very weak, while the wings were comparatively strong. At length the orders were all given ; and when the signs from the victims Avere declared to be good, the Athenians began the onset and went running towards the barba- rians, the space between the two armies being not less than a mile. The Persians, when they saw them coming, made ready to receive them, at the same time thinking the Athenians mad, because, being so few in number, they came on furiously without either bows or horses. But the Athenians on coming to close quarters with the barbarians foaght well, being, the historian adds, the first Greeks who charged the enemy running and who endured the sight of the Median dress, for up to this time the Greeks had dreaded even to hear their name.' Long time they fought in Marathon ; and in the middle the barbarians were victorious, Avhere the Persians and Sakians were drawn up. These broke the centre of the Athenians, and drove them back on the plain ; but the Athenians and Pla- taianshad the best on both wings. Still they would not go in chase of the barbarians who were running away ; but they closed on the enemy which had broken their centre, and fought until they over- came them. Then they went after the Persians as they fled, and slaughtered them until they reached the sea, where they tried to set the ships of the Persians on fire. In this struggle the Pole- march Kallimachos fell fighting bravely ; and there died also Ste- * This is one of the few utterly move twenty miles without corn- astonishing' and bewildering state- ing to some Greek island or some nients which we come across in the Hellenic city, whereas in the other pages of Herodotos. Without the they would have to grope their way least qualification he here asserts along coasts on which they would that the Athenians were the first find but two or three scattered Greeks who could look without settlements of their most venture- terror even on the dress of the Per- some kinsfolk, sians or dare to withstand them in The plain fact is that this state- the field. Not less sweepingly he ment of Herodotos is not true, al- affirms.viii. 133, that not only to the though at the time of his writing it boorish and ignorant Spartans but he made it, beyond doubt, in good to the Greeks generally the eastern faith. He had just related the his- waters of the Egean were as terri- tory of the Ionic revolt ; and al- ble as those of the western Medi- though the whole narrative shows terranean, and that in the imagina- a pitiable lack of cohesion and very tion of the Greeks who had con- indifferent generalship on the part quered at Salamis a voyage from of the Asiatic Greeks, it certainly Delos to Saraos appeared as long as does not justify imputations of a voyage to the pillars of Herakles, habitual cowardice. — thedistancein the one case being We shall come across another a bare 100 miles, while the other by statement even more glaringly im- the methods of ancient navigation probable in the words put into the extended to 4,000 or 5,000 miles, mouth of Pausanias on the eve of with the further diflTerence that in the battle of Plataiai. the one case they could scarcely 154 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL silaos, one of the generals, and Kynegeiros, the son of Euphorion.* In this wav the Athenians took seven ships : with the rest the bar- barians beat out to sea, and taking up the Eretrian captives whom they had left in the islet of Aigilia, sailed round Sounion, wishing to reach the city before the Athenians could return thither. But the victors hastened back with all speed and, reaching the city first, incamped in the Herakleion in Kynosarges as they had in- camped in the Herakleion at Marathon. For a while the barbarians lay Avith their ships off Phaleron which was at that time the port of the Athenians, and then Datis and Artaphernes sailed away to Asia, and led their Eretrian slaves up to Sousa where Dareios, though ho had been very wroth with them because they had begun the wrong, did them no harm, but made them dwell in theKissian land in his own region which is called Ardericca. There, Hero- dotos adds, they were living down to his own time, speaking still their own language. As to the Spartans, when the moon was full, they set out in haste and reached Attica on the third day after they left Sparta f but although they were too late for the battle, they still wished to look upon the Medes. So they went to Marathon and saw them, and having praised the Athenians for all that they had done, v.'ent home again. Now Dareios had been very bitter against the Athenians because they had taken Sardeis ; but when he heard the tale of the battle of Marathon, he was much more wroth and desired yet more eagerly to march against Hellas. Straightway he sent heralds to all the cities, and bade them make ready an army, and to furnish much more than they had done be- fore, both ships and liorses and corn ; and while the heralds were going round, all Asia was shaken for three years ; but in the fourth year the Egyptians, who had been made slaves by Kara- byses, rebelled against the Persians, and then the king sought only the more vehemently to go both against the Egyptians and against the Greeks. So he named Xerxes his son to be king over tlie I'ersians after himself, and made ready for the march. But in the year after the revolt of Egypt Dareios himself died ; nor was he suffered to punish the Athenians or the Egyptians who had rebelled against him. Such is the epical, or rather the religions, form which Hero- dotos has imparted to a history of which the most exact and The details searching criticism can never diminish the splendor, of the buttle. That the great question of Hellenic freedom or barbaric tyranny was virtually settled on the field of Marathon ; that this ' lie was thus a brother of the time of their leavintr Sparta, — a great trajjic poet ^-Escliylos. feat for a large body of heavy -armed ' This would mean in Greek com- men even more astoundinpf than pntation that they accomplished that of Pbeidippides. Herod, vi. the march of 1.50 miles in certainly 130. not more than GO hours from the Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MAl^ATHON. 155 battle decided the issue of the subsequent invasion of Xerxes; and that the glory of this victory belonged altogether to the men of Athens and Plataiai, are facts which none will dispute. The number engaged on either side, the precise position of the Athe- nians and the barbarians, the exact tactics of the battle, are points of little moment in comparison. According to the traditional ac- counts no cavalry took part in the struggle : but every niglit from tliat time forth might be heard the neighing of phantom horses and the clashing of swords and spears. With these wonders and witli perplexities of a less extraordinary kind any elaborate de- scription of the battle and its military incidents seems at best a superfluous labor. The event of the battle is made to turn on the rapid charge of the Athenians and on the success gained by their two wings wlule their centre was broken by the forces op- posed to it. This ill-success of the centre audits cause have both been debated by recent historians ; but although the inference seems to be fully warranted that their haste had something to do with their repulse, we are scarcely justitied in attempting, without any distinct historical statements, to determine the extent of ground over which the Athenian centre was driven back. But the tradition that the two armies faced each other for many days at Marathon is more seriously impugned Ijy the inci- dent which was supposed to point to the existence of dark and mysterious plots at Athens in favor of Hip- of the white pias and the Persians. The banished tyrant, we arc ^'"•'•'^• told, w-as not without partisans still in the city which he had ruled : and the story which Herodotos had heard was that these trai- tors had agreed with their former master to raise a white shield on some conspicuous point, in all likelihood on the summit of mount Pentelikos, as a signal that the Persians should at once begin an attack on Athens which they would second to the best of their power within the city. The raising of this shield Herodotos regards as a fact not to be questioned, although he admits that everything else connected with it is hopelessly uncertain, except the circumstance that it was raised when the Persians were already in their ships after their defeat, — in other words, that it was raised too late. It would follow then that the intention of the traitors was to give the sign before any battle could be fought, or indeed before the Athenian army could reach Marathon, and, as we may fairly infer, with the purpose of bringing upon Athens a powerful detachment of the barbarian fleet and army, while the rest re- mained to oppose the Athenians and Plataians at Marathon. The very choice of a signal is proof conclusive that time was held to be of the utmost .CMisequence. But for this urgent need, it would 156 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. tave been easier and far more safe to send by sea a messenger who would not, like the sliiold, have been seen by the Athenians whose return they wished to anticipate. Doubtless these partisans of Ilippias would have preferred to raise the signal as soon as Miltiades and the other generals had left Athens. The time needed for completing their preparations may have prevented their doing this: but tliey could scarcely have formed a bolder or more sagacious plan for furthering the interests of Hippias andDareios than that of bringing down on the city an overwhelming Persian force, so soon as the main body of the Athenians had set out on their way to the field of Marathon. If on this momentous jour- ney the Athenians had seen on the heights of Pentelikos a sign which they must have construed as an invitation to their enemies to fall on Aihens during their absence, the judgment of their gen- erals and the courage of their men must have been alike paralysed, for they Avould remember that the plain of Phaleron (the Phaleric wall was not vet built) was as serviceable for the action of cavalry as the plain of Marathon, and that if the men left to guard Athens should be defeated there, there would be but faint hope of Iheir being able to maintain the city against the machinations of traitors within it. All this is perfectly intelligible on the supposition that not more than about two days passed from the time when Miltia- des left Athens to the hour when he returned to it in the full flush of a victory which he could scarcely have hoped to win. But according to the narrative of Herodotos the armies faced each other for several days before the battle Avas fought : and it be- comes impossible to understand why, after the Persians must with their own eves have seen the Athenian force in front of them, their partisans in Athens should still have insisted on hoisting a signal which was now utterly unnecessary, and which, if it had any effect at all, could only tend to disconcert their plans by betraying them to the Athenian generals. It is absurd to suppose that any sign could under such circumstances be needed to inform Datis that the Marathonian army was absent from Athens, wliile their very absence would be a bettor surety to Ilippias for the success of ins schemes than any signal which might be exhibited by his friends. AYe c;in far more readily suppose that IIip[)ia.s ])lanncd the landing at Marathon for the very purpose of Avithdrawiiig the •nain Athenian force from the city and thus leaving it defenceless against the real attack to be made from the side of Phaleron, than that he should idiv waste dav after day when the visible presence of Miltiades and his men showed him that thus far things were going precisely as he would have them go. If then wc may con- clude that the raising of the shield was unavoidably delayed for Chap. IV.] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 157 some few hours or perhaps for a day, that during tliis time Mil- tiades was able to complete liis march, to engage the Persian armv and to defeat them, and that he then hurried back so rapidly as to reach Kynosarges before the Persians could get round Sounion, the series of events becomes clear and coherent. But this supposition makes the anxious debates and the 'long delay at Marathon an utter impossibility. We can scarcely avoid the con- clusion that in this instance Cornelius Nepos has liit upon the fact, and that Miltiades and liis colleagues held in Athens the council of wa.' which the informants of Herodotos transferred to the field of Marathon. For Miltiades the battle, in which he had won an imperish- able name, and in which ^-Eschylos fought by the side of his brother Kynegeiros, laid open a path which led to a The expedi- terrible disaster. According to the narrative of Hero- j!°" of Mii- 11 • <• m-'?- Ill • tiiidea to dotos, the reputation or Miltuides, already great smce Paros : his his reduction of Lemnos, was immeasurably inhauced deatii!" "** by the victory of Marathon. Never before had any one 489 b.c. man so fixed on hinrself the eyes of all Athenian citizens ; and the confidence thus inspired in them he sought to turn to account by an expedition which, he said, would make them rich for ever. Nothing more would he say. It was not for them to ask whither he meant to lead them : all that they had to do was to furnish ships and men. These they, therefore, gave ; and Miltiades sailed to Paros, an island lying a few miles to the west of Naxos, and, laying siege to the city, demanded a hundred talents under the threat that ho would destroy the place in case of refusal. But the Parians put him off under various pretences, until by working diligently at night they had so strengthened their walls as to be able to set him at defiance. The siege therefore went on, aiul went on to no pui'pose. This is all that we can be said to know of the affair, beyond the fact that after a blockade of six-and- twenty days Miltiades was obliged to return to Athens with his fleet, having utterly failed of attaining his object, and with his thigh, or, as some said, his knee severely strained. No sooner had he reached Athens than the indignation of the people who professed to have- been deceived and cheated by him found utter- ance in a capital charge brought against him by Xanthippos, (the father of the great Perikles). Miltiades was carried on a bed into the presence of his judges, before whom, as the gangrene of his wound prevented him from speaking, his friends made for him the best defence, or rather perhaps offered the best excuses, that they could. It was urged that a fine of fifty talents, which woidd perhaps sufiicc also to meet the expenses of the expedition, might 158 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. he an adequate punishment for the great general but for whom Athens might now have been the seat of a Persian satrapy. This penalty was chosen in place of that of death. Miltiades died in disgrace, and the citizens whom he wished to enrich recovered from his family half the sum which lie had demanded from the Parians. But there seems to be no ground for thinking that they subjected him to the superfluous indignity of imprisonment ; and the words of Pausanias' might almost warrant the belief that* his ashes were laid in the tomb raised to his memory at Mara- thon. If the history of the Persian war involves (especially in all that relates to the barbarian world) the task of sifting truth from The alleged fiction, difficulties uf a very different kind present ofThe Athe- themselves in the lives and fortunes of the most emi- niaus. ncnt of the Hellenic leaders. They are difficulties caused not by any commingUng of fiction with reality, but by the misrepresentations or misconceptions which ensue from changes of public feeling, and which must be especially powerful in an age which can make no appeal to contemporary history. In the case of Miltiades the charge of fraud and deception urged against the general has been almost thrust into the background by that of fickleness and levity commonly advanced against the people which condemned him. Such an accusation, it must be admitted, is eagerly welcomed by all to whom any form of democratical government seems repulsive. Unquestionably a leader who has won for himself a wide fame for his wisdom and for success in war cannot on the ground of his reputation claim the privilege of breaking his trust and leading his countrymen Avith impunity to their ruin. As little can it be doubted that fickleness and ingrati- tude, in the meaning commonly attached to these words, are not to be reckoned among the special sins of democracy, and, least of all, of such a democracy as that of Athens. Put because in a democracy a change of opinion, once admitted, must be expressed freely and candidly, the expression of that change is apt to be vehement and angry ; and the language of indignation, when it comes to be felt, may be interpreted as the result of ingratitude when the offender happens to be a man eminent for former ser- vices. Yet more it must be admitted that the ingratitude and injustice of democracies (whatever they may be)aie neither more frecjuent nor more severe than the iniquities of any other form of government. Still we may fairly ask whether there was not in the Athenian people a disposition to shrink from responsibility not altogether rcJounding to their honor, and a reluctance to take ' i. 32, 3. Chap. IV] THE CAMPAIGN OF MARATHON. 159 to themselves any blame for results to which they had deliberate- ly contributed. NVheu the Syracusan e.xpedition had ended iu ruin, they accused the orators who had urged them to undertake it.' When they had condemned to death by a single vote the generals who had just returned from their victory at Argennoussai, they decreed that the men who had intrapped them into the sen- tence should be brought to trial.'' Yet citizens, who had been trained in the daily exercise of a judicial and critical power, were surely not justified in throwing upon others the blame of their own inconsiderate vehemence or greed.' No state or people can, under any circumstances, be justified in engaging the strength of the country in enterprises, with the details of which they have not been made acquainted. If their admii'ation for lofty senti- ment or heroic courage tempt them to give their sanction to such a scheme, the responsibility is shifted from him who gives to those who adopt the counsel, — to this extent at least, that they cannot, in the event of failure, visit him in any fairness with penal conse- quences. Nor are we justified in allowing much force to the plea that Athenian polity was then only in the days of its infancy and that peculiar caution was needed to guard against a dispositio i too favorable to the re-establishment of a tyranny. Such a senti- ment could not be expressed or felt at the time : and the imputa- tion is not flattering to men who had lived for twenty years under the constitution of Solon, as extended and reformed by Kleisthc- nes. It may be true that the leading Greeks generally could not bear prosperity without mental depravation, and that owing to this tendency the successful leader was apt to become one of the ' Thuc. viii. 1. themselves constrained to pay to ^ Xenophon, Hellen. I. vii. 39. Tliemistokles the money which ^ No one, of course, will suppose they refused to yield to Atiltiades. that the whole plan of Miltiades In short, Miltiades was goiujf ou was confined to tlie expedition to an expedition by which he thought Paros and the paltry demand of a to increase the revenue and to hundred talents from the inhabi- establish the naval supremacy of tants of that island. Such a sum Athens. It is nffom Therme, as he looked westwards and southwards, the eyes of Xerxes rested on that magnificent chain of mountains Visit, of Xer- which rises to a head in the crests of Olympos and valVof*^^ Ossa, and leaving between these two hills the defile Tempe. through which the Peneios rushes to the sea, stretches under the name of Pelion along the coast which was soon to make him feel the wrath of the invisible gods. The tidings that the channel of the Peneios was also a gate of Thessaly determined liim to go and see the beautiful vale of Tempe. Here the histo- rian represents him as gazing in wonder at the mighty walls of rock which rose on either side, and asking whether it would be possible to treat the Peneios as Cyrus had treated the Gyndes or the Euphrates. Among the Hellenic or semi-Hellenic tribes who stooped to yield him earth and water the Aleuad chieftains of Thessaly had been the most prominent and the most zealous. From them the question of Xerxes brought out the fact that they lived in a mere basin where it was needful only to stop the one outlet of its streams in order to make the whole land a sea and destroy every soul within its mountain barriers. Xerxes was not slow, it is said, in appreciating the force and meaning of Thes- salian ardor. People who live in a country which can be taken without trouble do wisely, he maintained, in making a league betimes with the invader. Long before the departure of Xerxes from Sousa the course of events in Western Hellas had been determining the parts which Athens and Sparta were severally to play in the approaching struggle. The long and uninteresting feud or warfare between Athens and Aigina had at least one good result in fixing the attention of the Athenians rather on their navy than on their army. Of the need of an eflficient fleet Themistoklcs had from the ' Herod, vii. 115. Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 1T3 very beginning of his career been conscious, and this want he persistently strained every nerve to supply. With him the mari- time greatness of Athens was the one end on which all his efforts were concentrated ; and the change of policy, on which he was thus led to insist, undoubtedly embittered the anta- Eivalry of gonism which had already placed a great gulf between kies'and°" himself and Aristeides. The growing wealth of Themi- Aristeicles. stokles, the increasing poverty of his rival ; the rigid integrity of the latter, the winning versatility of the former ; the attachment of Aristeides to the old forms of Athenian life, the determination of Themistokles to make Athens pre-eminently a maritime power — all presented a contrast involving so much danger to the state that Aristeides himself (if we believe a tradition already noticed) said that if the Athenians were wise they would put an end to their rivalry by throwing them both into theBarathron ; and the Demos so far took the same view that by a vote of ostracism Aristeides was sent into exile. In him Athens lost a citizen incomparably superior to his rival in every pri- vate virtue and in general morality ; in Themistokles she retained the only man who could guide her, through seemingly hopeless difficulties, to victory and imperial power. The ostracism of Aristeides affirmed the adoption of the new policy in preference to the old conservative theory which regarded the navy as the seed-bed of novelty and change : and it cannot be doubted that Themistokles would strengthen this resolution by dwelling on the certainty of a fresh effort on the part of the Persian king to carry out the design on which, as they knew, his father Dareios had set his heai't. From the petty strife with Aigina he would lead them to the momentous contest which awaited them with the whole power of Asia. He would not fail to impress on them the fact that this mighty force was to be directed especially against them- selves, and that it. was as necessary to be prepared against the formidable Phenician fleet which had crushed their eastern kins- folk as against any armies which might assail them by land. Nor would there be any difficulty in persuading them that the foundations of their naval supremacy should be laid in the forti- fication of Peiraieus with its three natural harbors' rather than in the open bay of Phaleron to the east of the promontory of Mounychia. It was a happy thing both for the statesman and for the city whose true interests he had so thoroughly at heart, that the proposed expedition of Dareios was delayed first by the revolt of Egypt, then by his death, and lastly by the long time spent by Xerxes before he set out from Sousa, while the internal ' Time. i. 93. 174 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. resources of Athens were enormously increased by the proceeds of the silver mines of Laurcion, a district lying between the triangle of which a line drawn from Thorikos on the east to Anaphlystos on the west forms the base with cape Sounion for its apex. This quickening of the Athenian mind under the guidance of Themistokles was not the only good effect produced by the sha- Pan-heilenic ^*^^^ ^^ ^^^^ storm-cloud approaching from the East. congress at Some at least among the other Greeks began to see that ofVorimh. they were not fulfilling their true mission by wasting 481 B.C. their years in perpetual warfare and feud; and in an assembly which deserved to be considered in some degree as a Pan-hellenic congress, they acknowledged the paramount need of making up all existing quarrels in presence of a danger which threatened all alike. In face of this common peril the men of Aigina laid aside their feud with the Athenians ; but the joint action of the day was in their case followed unhappily by the renewed enmity of the morrow. In fact, %vhatever might be the outward look of things, the Hellenic character was not changed ; and although invitations were sent to the Greeks of Sporadic' Hellas from Krete to Sicily, the summons was by some disregard- ed, while even among the states which were prepared to sacrifice most in the common cause no further approach was made towards a true national union. It was a time of high excitement. Of all the Hellenic cities the greater number were Medizing, or taking sides with the Persian, while they who refused to submit to Xerxes were cast down at the thought of tlie utter inadequacy of their navy to cope with his Phenician fleet. In this season of su- preme depression the great impulse to hope and vigorous action came from Athens. The historian asserts that his words, which he knows w'ill give great offence in many quarters, are forced from him by strong conviction of their truth ; and his emphatic judg- ment is that if the Athenians had feared the coming danger and left their country, or, even without leaving it, had yielded them- selves to Xerxes, none else would have dared to withstand the king by sea, while on land, even if many walls had been raised across the isthmus, the Spartans would have been forsaken by their allies, as these submitted one by one to the Persian fleet. Hence tlie Athenians are with him pre-eminently the saviours of Hellas. With them the scale of things w-as to turn ; and they chose that Hellas should continue free, and raised up and cheered all those who would not yield to the Persian. Thus next after the gods, he adds, they drove away the king, because they feared not the 1 See p. 1. Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 1T5 oracles of Delplioi neith(n' were scared by the gi-cat perils wliicli were coming upon their country.' But for the present the plan of his narrative rendered it neces- sary to bring out in the most striking contrast the seemingly irre- sistible might of the Persian king and the disunion and ,p|,g,jQ. vacillation of his adversaries. This contrast becomes swers re- most forcible when the Athenians, who are regarded as oelphotby the special objects of his wrath, betake themselves for the Athe- coiinsel in the hour of need to the god at Delphoi. How little worth are the answers ascribed to the Pythian priest-ess, we shall see at once when wc remember that the numerical majority of the Greek states was decidedly in favor of submission to Xerxes, that the policy of resisting chiefly by sea was thoroughly distaste- ful to the strictly conservative citizens headed by Aristeides, and that even those Greeks who were determined not to submit to the Persian were greatly depressed by tiie memory of the Ionic revolt and its disastrous issue. Here, as elsewhere, the epical feeling of the historian and his informants has exhibited itself in a narrative of singular beauty. We have first the very blackness of darkness in the pitiless response of the god to the Athenian messengers when first they approached the Delphian shrine. O wretched people, why sit ye still ? Leave your homes and the strong- holds of your city, and tiee away. Head and body, feet and hands, nothing is sound, but all is wretched ; For fire and war, which are liasieaing hither on a Syrian chariot, wilt presently make it low ; And other strong places also shall they destroy and not yours only, And many temples of the undying gods shall they give to the flame. Down their walls the big drops are streaming, as they tremble for fear ; And from their roofs the black blood is poured down, for the sorrow that is coming : But go ye from my holy place and brace up your hearts for the evil. The messengers were dismayed ; but they received the first glim- mering of comfort from the Delphian Timon who bade them take olive-branches and try the god once more. To their entreaty for a more merciful answer they added that, if they failed to receive it, ihey would stay there till they died. Their supplication was rewarded with these mysterious utterances, Pallas cannot prevail with Zeus who lives on Olympos, though she has besought him with many prayers ; And his word which I now tell you is firmly fixed as a rock. For thus saith Zeus that, when all else within the land of Kekrops is wasted, the wooden wall alone shall not be taken ; and this shall help you and your children. ' Herod, vii. 139. 1T6 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. But wait not until tlie horsemen come and the footmen ; turn your backs upon them now, and one day ye shall meet them. And thou, divine Salamis, shalt destroy those that are born of women, when the seedtime comes or the harvest. These words, as being more hopeful, the messengers, we are told, wrote down, and having returned to Athens read them before the people.' This fact is distinctly asserted by Herodotos, and we have no reason for questioning it : but the very ease with which this response was made to coincide with the policy of Themisto- kles, seems to throw a clear light on the influence which produced it. The mind of the great statesman had long been made up that Athens should become a maritime power. He had resolved not less firmly that the main work of beating ofl the Persians should be wrought at sea, as he saw little chance of its being done effectually by land only ; and his whole career supplies evidence that he would with slight scruple or none adopt whatever measures might be needed to carry out his resolutions. ~\Ve have then uo reason for doubting that when the answer was read out before the assembled citizen.s, Themistokles could at once come forward and say, as he is reported to have said, ' Athenians, the soothsayers wlio bid you leave your country and to seek another elsewhere, are wrong ; and so are the old men who tell you to stay at homo and guard the Akropolis, as though the god pointed to our Akro- polis wlien he speaks of the wooden wall, because long ago there was a thorn hedge around it. This will not help you ; and they are all leading you astray when they say that you must be beaten in a sea-fight at Salamis, and that this is meant by the words which tell of Salamis as destroying the children of women. The words do not mean this. If they had been spoken of us, the priestess would certainly have said " Salamis the wretched," not " Salamis the divine," if the people of the land were doomed to die there. They arc spoken not of us, but of our enemies. Ami then for the fight at sea, for the fleet is your wooden wall.' But if we may not question the fact that the response was susceptible of the in- terpretation put upon it by Themistokles, and indeed that it could not well bear any other, we have to remember the means by which the responses Avere produced which bade Kleomenes drive the Peisistratidai from Athens," or enjoined the deposition of Dema- ratos.^ It is notorious that Themistokles was at least as unscrupu- lous as Kleisthencs ; and it is to the last degree unlikely that he should fail to avail himself of an instrument so well fitted to fur- ther his designs. ' If we take these words in their to involve the fact that that re- strict sense, they would imply that sponse was of later labrication. the previous answer was not written ' See p. 86. down, — a conclusion which seems ' See p. 149. Chap. V.j INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 1T7 But although by adopting the policy of Themistokles Athens virtually insured her own supremacy in Hellas, the time was not yet come when it could be generally recognised. The ^ ... position of Athens and the large number of ships ness of the which she was able to contribute seemed to justify her Krltlns', claim to the conduct of the war by sea : but the allies and liorky- assembled in the congress at the isthmus declared bluntly that they would rather dissolve the confederacy than sub- mit to any other than the Spartan rule ; and the genuine patriot- ism of the Athenians led them at once to waive a clain*on which they might fairly have insisted.' From Argos, from Boiotia gen- erally, and from Thebes in particular they had nothing to hope. The Argives were content, as they said, to be neutral in a strife in which their kinsfolk on either side were antagonists. With the ex- ception of Thespiai and Plataiai the Boiotian cities, it is clear, were passive instruments in the hands of their chief men ; and these men were actuated by a vehement Medism which with them became the expression of an anti-Hellenic feeling beyond the power of defeat and disaster to repress or even to check. The Kretans urged as an excuse for not meddling in these matters a Delphian response which bade them remember how little they had gained by their efforts to avenge the death of Daidalos and the wrongs and woes of Helen. ^ The men of Korkyra, carrying thus early into prac- tice the policy of isolation for which they afterwards became no- torious,^ met the messengers from the Congress with eager assur- ances of ready help. They even carried their words into action : but the sixty ships which they manned were under officers who were charged to linger on their way along the southern coasts of Peloponnesos. Their conviction was that the Hellenic fleet and armies mu.st alike be defeated ; and thus, when Xerxes had be- come lord of Hellas, they might fall down before him and take credit for the goodwill which had withheld them from exerting against him a force not altogether to be despised. The event disappointed their expectations : but it was easy to satisfy the victors of Salamis that they were making what haste they could to the scene of action when the Etesian winds baffled all their efforts to double cape Malea.'' From Gelon, the tyrant of the great Corinthian colony of Syracuse, the continental Hellenes expected greater things. In this hope they were disappointed ; but the inconsistent stories told to account for his refusal to help them sufficiently show the stuff out of which popular traditions arc made and the processes by which they take shape. The city of Syracuse had risen to a posi' ' Herod, viii. 2, 3. ' Time. i. 33-37. ^ II). vii. 169. ■* Herod, vii. 168. 8* ITS THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. tion and a power second only to that of Sparta or of Athens : and it was as natural to suppose that Gelon would stand un his dignity Mission to and insist on co-ordinate power with those two states of'sTracu^e"' ^* ^hat they should refuse to admit his claim. Tliis 481 B.C. idea has taken shape in the tale which relates liow the messengers from the Congress told him of the coming of the Persian, professedly for the purpose of taking vengeance on Athens, but really with the design of inslaving all the Greeks, and besought him, in his own interest as well as theirs, to unite hand and heart in the effort to break his power. ' It is vain to think,' they urged, ' that the Persian will not come against you, if we are conquered. Take heed in time. By aiding us thou savest thy- self ; and a good issue commonly follows wise counsel.' The answer of Gelon was a vehement outburst against their grasping selfishness. ' When I sought your aid,' he said, ' against the men of Karchedon (Carthage), and proinised to open to you markets from which you have reaped rich gains, ' ye would not come ; and, as far as lies with you, all this country had been under the barbarians to this day. But I have prospered ; and now that war threatens you, ye begin to remember Gelon. I will not, however, deal with you, as ye have dealt with me. I will give you 200 triremes and 20,000 hoplites, with horsemen and archers, slingers and runners. I will also give corn for ail the army of the Greeks as long as the war may last ; but I will do this only on condition that I be the chieftain and leader of the Greeks against the barbarians.' This demand over-taxed the patience of the Spartan Syagros. ' In very deed,' he said, ' would Agamemnon the son of Pelops mourn, if he were to hear that the Spartans had been robbed of their honor by Gelon and the Syracusans. Dream not that we shall ever yield it to you. If thou choosest to aid Hellas, do so, under the Spartans : if thou wilt not have it so, then stay at home.' But Gelon was ready with liis answer. ' Spartan friend,' he said, ' abuse commonly makes h. man angry ; but I will not pay back insults in kind, and thus far I will yield. If ye rule by sea, I will rule by land ; and if ye rule by land, then must I rule on the sea.' But here the Athenian messenger stood forth and said, ' King of the Syracusans, the Hellenes have sent us not because they want a leader, but because they want an army. Of an army thou sayest little ; about the command much. When thou didst ask to lead us all, we left it to the Spartans to speak : but as to ruling on the sea, that we cannot yield. We grudge not to the Spai'tans their power by land ; but we will give place to none on the sea. We have more seamen than all the Greeks ; we are of all Greeks the ' Herod, vii. 158. Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 179 most ancient nation, and in the war of wliicli Homer sings, our leader was the best of those who came to Ilion to set an army in battle array.' ' ' Athenians,' answered Gelon, ' you seem likely to have many leaders, but few to be led. But since ye will yield nothing and grasp evci*ything, hasten home and tell the Greeks tliat the spring-time has been taken out of their year.' Such is the tale which Herodotos relates as most generally believed among the continental Greeks about the conduct of Gelon during the Persian war ; but he has the candor to give other accounts which deprive the popular tradition of all its valuo. According to one of these stories Gelon sent Kadmos of Kos with a charge similar to that which was given to the commander of the Korky- raian fleet. He was to go with a large sum of money to Delphoi ; and if the Persian gained the victory, he was to present the money to Xerxes as a peace-offering. If the Greeks should gain the day, he was to bring it back again. The historian, having added that to his great credit he did bring it back, goes on to give the Sicilian version of the affair which asserted that in spite of Spartan supremacy Gelon would still have aided the Greeks, had not Terillos the banished tyrant of Himera brought against him under Haniilkar a host of Phenicians, Libyans, Iberians and other tribes equal in number to the Persians who fought under Mardonios at Pkxtaiai,'' and that therefore, being unable to help them with men, he sent a supply of money for their use to Delphoi. But if Argos and Korkyra, Krete and Syracuse, were not to be trusted, and if Thebes with the Boiotian cities was bitterly hostile, it was still possible to preserve the Hellenic tribes Abandon- which lay to the south of the pass of Tempe and to meut of the secure their aid against the invader. In any effort to Teinpe. guard the defile of Tempe the Thessalians declared 4S0b.c. themselves eager to take pare to the utmost of their power : but tliey admitted plainly that their geographical position left them absolutely dependent on the aid of their Hellenic kinsfolk, and that, if tbis aid were withheld, they must secure their safety by making a covenant with the Persian king which would assuredly constrain them to fight against those whom they would infinitely prefer to help. It might well have been thought that no post could have been more easily tenable than this Thessalian defile, along which for a distance of five miles a road stretches, nowhere more than 20, and sometimes not more than 13 feet in width. Hence no time was lost in occupying the pass with 10,0UU hoplites, aided by the Thessalian cavalry, under the command of » Herod, ii. 554. ' lb. vii. 165. 180 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. the Spartan Euainetos and the Athenian Themistokles. But they held the pass for a few days only ; and popular traditions, as usual, assigned its abandonment to different motives. The thought of guarding Terape being given up, it was resolved that a stand should be made in the detile of Thermopylai while the fleet should take up its station on the northernmost coast of Euboia which received its name from a temple of Artemis. It would have suited better with the Greek tactics of this day to await the Persians in the narrower pass of the strait which separated Chal- kis from the Boiotian coast : but to do this would have been to allow the Persian fleet to take the guardians of Thermopylai in the rear. The accumulation of mud at the mouth of the Spercheios has in the course of three-and-twcnty centuries so changed the coast _,. . . of the Malian gulf that some of the most material fea- Thc mission , , v . . , tt i , i of Lconidas tures in the description of Herodotos no longer cha- to°Thermo-'* ractcrisc this memorable spot. In his day the Sper- pyiai. June, cheios, which drained the plain between the ransre of 480 B c Tymphrestos and Othrys on the north and that of Oita on the south precisely as the Peneios drained the great Thessalian plain to the south of Pindos, ran into the gulf near the town of Anti- kyra at a point about 22 miles due west of the Kenaian or north- westernmost promontory of Euboia. From its mouth the coast, liaving stretched southwards for somewhat more than two miles, trended away to the east ; and at short intervals the sea here re- ceived the small streams of the Dyras, Melas, and Asopos. These insignificant rivers are now discharged into the Spercheios which, flowing on the south instead of on the north side of Antikyra, reaches the sea at a point considerably to the east of Thermopylai. We look therefore in vain for the narrow space which, leaving room for nothing more than a cart track, gave access to the pass within which so many Persians were to meet their death. Close above the town of Anthela, the ridge of Oita, known there by the name Anopaia, came down so close to the water as to leave only this narrow pathway. Between this point, at a distance of perhaps a mile and a half to the east and a little to the west of the first Lokrian hamlet of Alpenoi, another spur of the mountain locked in the wider space within which the array of Leonidas took up its post, but which for all practical purposes was as narrow as the passes at either extremity which received the name of the Gates or the Hot Gates (Pylai, or Thermopylai). This narrow road was hemmed in by the precipitous mountain on the one side, and on the other by the marshes produced by the hot springs. But to render the passage still more difficult than nature had made it, the Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 181 Phokians bad led the mineral waters almost over the whole of it and had Jilso built across it near the western entrance a wall with strong gates. Mncb of this work had fallen from age ; but it was now repaired, and behind it we are told that the Greek army determined to await the' attack of the Persians. Here, about the summer solstice, when Xerxes had already reached Therme, was assembled a force of Spartans and their allies under Leonidas who to his surprise had succeeded to the kingly office. Of his two elder brothers Dorieus had been killed in Sicily,' and Kleomenes had died without sons. Thus Leonidas became the representative of Eurysthenes, and, as Spartan custom permitted, married his brother's daughter who had foiled the efforts of the Milesian Aristagoras to bribe her fatber into undertaking a wild and desperate enterprise.^ He had set out on this his first and last expedition as king with three hundred picked hoplites or heavy- armed citizens. On his march he had been joined, it is said, by 1000 from Tegea and Mantineia, by 120 Arkadians from Orchomenos and 1000 more from other cities, together with 400 Corinthians, 200 from Phlious and 80 from Mykenai, the once proud city of Agamemnon. As he drew near to the pass, his army was increased by 1000 Phokians, by the whole force of the Lokrians of Opous, by 700 Thespians, and lastly by 400 Thebans whom Leonidas was anxious to take with him as host- ages for the good faith of a city strongly suspected of Medism. The fact remains, if the narrative generally deserve any credit, that at a time when they supposed the Persians to be coming against them almost with millions, they were content to send forward for the maintenance of a pass second in importance only to the defile of Tempo a body of troops not exceeding 10,000 men. It was the month, Herodotos tells us, of the Karneian festival, during which it was forbidden to Dorians to go out to war. It" was also the time of the great Olympic feast ; and the conclusion is forced upon us that this was regarded at Sparta as a sufficient reason for sending on an advanced guard of only 300 hea\y-armed citizens, and by the Athenians as a reason for sending none at all. But according to the story the power of the Persians was still too great to allow to the Greeks even the possibility of resistance ; and the terror which already oppressed them was deepened when they heard that ten of the fastest sailing ships of the Persian fleet had fallen in with the three scout sliips which the Greeks had stationed off the island of Skiathos about three miles to the east of the southernmost promontory of Magnesia. At the sight of the Persian vessels the Greek ships fled ; but the Troizenian ship was soon taken. The ' See p. 65. "^ See p. 138. 182 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. Athenian ship steered straight for the mouth of the Peneios, and, wonderful to say, found its way safely along a coast some eighty miles in length through the throng of Persian ships which were Imrrying southwards. The crew left the stranded hull to the barbarians, and by a good luck still more wonderful contrived to march through Thessaly then occupied by some three or four millions of Persians, and so to reach Athens. But the tidings of this first encounter of Hellenes and barbarians at sea had been conveyed by fire signals from Skiathos to the fleet at Artemision ; and the commanders at once sailed to Chalkis with the iutention of guarding the Euripos. Starting from Therme, eleven days after the departure of Xerxes with the land-forces, the Persian fleet reached, we are told, after Destruction a single day's sail the southern part of the strip of of fhe"per-" coast stretching from the mouth of the Peneios to the 8ian fleet by promontory which marks the entrance of the gulf of theMagne- Pagasai. In utter unconsciousness of danger the siau coast. Persian commanders moored upon the Magnesian beach those ships which came first, while the rest lay beyond them at anchor, ranged in rows eight deep facing the sea. At break of day the air was clear, and the sea still : but the breeze, here called the wind of the Hellespont, soon rose and gathered to a storm. Those who had time drew their ships upon the shore and escaped ; but all the vessels which were out at sea were borne away and dashed upon the Ovens of Pelion and all along the beach as far as Meliboia and Kasthanaia. Of the corn-ships and other vessels that were wrecked the numbers were never known : but with the wood obtained from them the captains threw up a strong fortification on the shore as a precaution, it is said, against attacks from the Thessalians.' Meanwhile the Greeks, who on the second day of the storm had heard of the mischief done to their enemies, plucked up courage and through the comparatively smooth waters of the Euboian sea sailed back to Artemision. The barbarians, however, were not so sorely crippled as the Greeks had hoped to find them. AVhen the storm abated, their ships, drawn down from the shore, sailed to Aphetai at the en- trance of the Pagasaian gulf and took up their position precisely opposite to the Greek fleet at Artemision. Some hours later, fifteen ships, having taken longer to repair, mistook the Greek ' Herod, vii. 191. The statement ing- their vocation upon men whose is singularly inconsistent with the wrong's might be aveni,'ed by an conduct ascribed to the Thessalians army of many millions or even after the abandonment of the pass many myriads then passinfj on the of Tempt! by Theiuistokles. But is other side of tlie ridge which had it credible that even Thessalian proved so fatal to the Persian fleet? wreckers would venture on practis- Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 183 fleet for their own and sailing straight to Artemision were pre- sently captured. Xerxes in the meanwhile had advanced through Thessaly to the Achaian AIos on the western shore of the Pagasaian gulf. Thence working his wajr along the Pagasaian shore The march under the southern slopes of Othrys, he reached J^gg^oveT' Antikyra, and about twelve days after his departure Anopaia. from Therme incaniped in the Malian Trachis between the streams of Melas and Asopos. Here he was separated only by a few milus of ground from the defenders of Thermopylai which, if \vg may believe Diodoros,' the Lokriaus, who had now gone over from the Greek side, had promised to keep open for the passage of the Persian army. At tliis point the traditional narrative, as given by Herodotos, breaks out into one of thos>3 beautiful picture i which impart a marvellous life to his history. There Avas enough of disunion and dissension in the Greek camp, when a horseman sent by Xerxes came to learn their numbers and see what they were doing. The Greeks had repaired the old Phokian wall, and the horseman could advance no further : but outside of it were the Lakedaimoniaus with their arms piled against the wall, whi! ■ some of them were wrestling and others combing their hair. The horseman having counted their numbers went ha'^k quietly, for none pursued hun or took notice of him. His report seemed to Xerxes to convict his enemies of childish folly : but Demaratos was at hand to explain to him that when the Spartans have to face a mortal danger, their custom is to comb and deck out their hair. * Be sure,' he added from that Spartan point of view which was needed to throw a plausible coloring over the story, ' be sure that if thou canst conquer these and the rest who remain behind in Sparta, there is no other nation which shall dare to raise a hand against thee, for now thou art face to face with the bravest men of all Hellas.' ' How can so few men ever fight with my great army?' asked the king. The only answer which he received was that he might deal with Demaratos as a liar, if things came not to pass as he said. Still Xerxes could not believe him, and for four days he waited, thinking that they would assuredly run away. At last his anger was kindled and he charged the Medians and Kissians to go and bring them all bound before him. The time for testing the power of Hellenic discipline and the force of Hellenic weapons was now come. The messengers of Xerxes advanced to do his bidding. Many were slain, and although others to()k their places, their errand was not done. At last, like the Imperial Guard at Waterloo, the Immortals under Hydarnes advanced to the attack. But their spears were shorter ' xi. 4. 184 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. than those of the Greeks : Imen tunics could avail little in an encounter with iron-clad men, and mere numbers were of no use in the narrow pass. On the other hand the Spartans by pretending to fly drew the barbarians into the pass where they turned upon them suddenly and slew great multitudes until they all fled back to their camp. Thrice the king leaped from his throne in terror for his army : but on the next day he sent them forth again, thinking that the enemy would be too weary to fight. The Greeks, however, were all drawn out in battle array, save only the Phokians ; and these were placed upon the hill to guard the pathway. Again the Persians fared as they had done before, and Xerxes Avas sorely troubled until a Malian named Ephialtes in hope of some great reward told him of the path which led over the liill, and thus destroyed the Greeks who were guarding Thermopylai.' Xerxes now regarded the conquest of the pass as practically achieved. As the daylight died away, Hydarnes set out from the camp with the troops under his command. All night long they followed the path Anopaia along the ridge which bore the same name, with the mountains of Oita on the right hand and the hills of Trachis on the left. The day Avas dawning with the exquisite stillness which marks early morning in Greece, when they reached the peak of the mountain where the thousand Phokians, who had charged themselves with this task, were guarding the pathway. Wliile the Persians were climbing the hill, the Phokians knew not of their coming, for the whole hill Avas covered Avith oak-trees : but they knew Avhat had happened as soon as the Persians reached the summit. Not a breath of Avind was stirring, and they heard at once the trampling of their feet as they trod on the fallen leaves. Instantly they started up ; but before they had Avell put on their arms, the barbarians Avere upon them. The sight dismayed the Persians at first, for Hydarnes had not expected any resistance : ' This pass Avas well known to the g^uard. These must therefore have people of Trachis, avIio had guided pointed it out to him from the first, the Tliessalians over it, Avhen tlie Indeed they could not fail to do so. Phokians had bullitheirAvall across Between them andtheThessalians thepassof Thermopylai. Leonidas there Avas an enmity so bitter tliat may have been ignorant of its exist- Herodotos does not hesitate to say ence when he set out for Sparta ; but that the Phokians would have it was Ills business to have made taken sides Avitli Xerxes if the himself acquainted with tlie geo- Thessaliana had ranged themselves graphy of a spot which lie knew to with the Greeks. Like the stories be of supreme importailce for the of Demokedes and Histiaios, the in- Greek cause. The Athenians, ac- troduction o' Epliialies or other cording to the story, showed the traitors is alto^iether superfluous, saineciilpable ignorance at Tempe: There was no secret about thepath- but Leonidas could not have re- way ; and Leonidas Avas guilty of mained long unaware of this path grave neglect of duty in notguard- which the Phokians volunteered to iug it more efficiently. CiiAP. v.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 185 but learning from Epliialtcs that these men were not the Spartans, he drew out liis men for battle. The Phokians, covered with a shower of arrows, fell back to the highest ground, thinking tliat the Persians were coming chiefly against them,i and there they made ready to fight and die. But the Persians, taking no more heed of them, hastened down the mountain. In the pass itself the soothsayer Megistias, as he looked upon the victims, had told them, the historian assures us, that on the next day they must die. Deserters also came who The heroism said that the Persians were coming round ; and as the of Leonicias. day was dawning, watchmen ran to tell them the same thing.'^ On receiving these tidings the Greeks took counsel, and some ' This statement may fairly be thought incredible. The Phokians had volunteered to guard this path, and they had done so as knowing that on its occupation and mainte- nance depended the salvation of the army in Thermopylai. They knew that if any force of the enemy as- cended the hill, it could only be for the one purpose of taking Leonidas and his men in the rear, while the main body of the Persians attacked them in front. But no sooner do they feel the Persian arrows tlian witliout a thought of their allies they at once abandon the pathway, where their resistance would have been of the utmost value and migiit have insured a signal Hellenic vic- tory, and then make ready to fight to the death a little higher up where their resistance was worth no more than the mimic campaigning of children. It is impossible tw restore the true history of all these inci- dents : but we are none the less driven to the conclusion that the true history has not been handed down to us. What became of these Phokians when Hydarnes and his men had passed on ? We can scarcely suppose that they remain- ed on the top of the hill in fighting attitude, when there were none with whom they could fight. We are not told how many men were under the command of Hydarnes : but had they been ten times the number of the Phokians, the latter might have taken them in the rear and committed fearful havoc among them. It is possible, but not very likely, that they might have been overpowered. English soldiers in such a position would withstand twenty times their own number: and the very point of the story is that the Phokians were prepared to fight till not a man of them should remain alive. Tlie likelihood is that, had they followed Hydarnes at a moderate distance, they could have done so with perfect safety. These Persians would then have been caught both in front and rear ; and not only would the scheme of Hydarnes have failed, but the de- struction of his whole force would probably have been insured before the army of Xerxes could be made aware of what had happened, as it is obvious that when once Hydarnes had reached the base of the hill, no messenger could have escaped to tell the tale, if Leonidas himself op- posed them in front and if the Pho kians occupied the higher and therefore the safer ground in the rear. Either then the events are inaccurately related, or these Pho- kians were deliberate traitors : but this latter hypothesis is opposed to other facts which seem to be clear- ly ascertained. Their fidelity was sufficiently secured by the presence of the hated Thessalians in the camp of Xerxes. ^ Herod, vii. 219. These, we must suppose, were scouts placed on the eastern slopes of the hill, be- neath the level of the ground occu- pied by the Phokians. 186 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL urged flight and went away eacli to his own city, while others made up their minds to remain with Leonidas. Another story was told that Leonidas sent them away himself lest they should all be slain : and to this tale the historian gave credit, adding that Leonidas knew them to he faint-hearted and so suftered them not to stay, but that it was not seemly for himself to fly. So he tarried where he was, and left behind him a great name, and the happiness of Sparta failed not. The priestess of Delphoi had told the Spartans, when the war began, that either Lakedaimon must be wasted or their king must die ; and Leonidas, remembering her words, sent them away that so the Spartans might have all the glory. The Thebans and Thespians alone reiuained. The m.en of Thebes Leonidas kept sorely against their will, as pledges for their people : but the Thespians would not save their own lives by forsaking Leonidas and his men. When the sun rose, Xerxes poured out wine to the god, and tarried until the time of the filling of the market, ^ for such was The victory ^^^^ bidding of Ephialtes, because the path down the of the Per- hill was much shorter than the way which led up it on the western side. Then the barbarians arose for the onset ; and the men of Leonidas, knowing now that they must die, came out into the wider part of the path,^ for thus far they had fought in the narrowest place. From the beginning of the battle the slaughter of the barbarians was great, for the leaders of their companies drove every man on with scourges and blows. Many fell into the sea and Avere drowned ; many more were trampled down alive by one another. No thought was taken of those who fell, while the Spartans fought on with all their might. At length their spears were all broken and they slew the Persians with their sw^ords, until at last Leonidas fell nobly, and other Spartans with him, whose names the historian learnt as of men * Probably not earlier than 9 or what tliey suppose to be a stronger 10 A.M. Tlie precise time denoted position, looking simply to their l)y this phrase is a matter of some own interest, and in utter forget- controversy: but it is unnecessary to fulness, it would seem, of the pur- enter into it, as no one will main- pose for wliicli they were on the tain that the market was consi- mountain at all. Having made this dered full at an earlier hour than 9 blunder, or rather having exhibited o'clnck. Taking it at the earliest, this weakness, they fail to make the wi- shall thus have four, if not five, best of the splendid opportunity liours from the time when Hy- which still remained ot falling on dames left the Phokians on the the Persians in their descent. Leo- heights of Anopaia,— a time suffi- nidas now gives up a strong posi- cient to cripple his detachment, if tion for a weaker, in order, seem- not to destroy it, if it had been as- ingly, to make a greater display of sailed i>y the Spartans in front, and personal valor, in either case the by the Phokians, who should have generalship, if the story be true, is followed them, in the rear. little better than that of savages. '■" On Anopaia the Phokians seek Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 187 wliosc memory ought not to be lost. Over his body there was a hard fight in which many great men of the Persians were slain, and among them two brothers of the king : but the Spartans gained back his body and turned the enemy to flight four times, until the traitor Ephialtes came up with his men. Then the face of the battle was changed, for the Greeks went back into the narrow part within the wall, and there they posted themselves, all in one body except the Thebans, on the hillock on which in the days of the historian the lion stood over the grave of Leonidas. In this spot they who yet had them fought with daggers, and 'the rest as they could, while the barbarians overwhelmed them, some in front, some dragging down the wall, others pressing round them on every side. So fell the Thespians and the Spartans, the bravest of the latter being Dienekes, who, as the tale ran, hearing from a man of Trachis just before the battle that whenever the Persians shot their arrows the sun was darkened by them, answered merrily, 'Our friend from Trachis brings us good news : we shall be able to fight in the shade.' They were all buried where they fell ; and over those who died before Leonidas sent the allies away the inscription recorded that four thousand men of Peloponnesos here fonglit with three hundred myriads. Over the Spartans by them- selves there was another writing which said. Tell the Spartans, at their bidding, Stranger, here in death we lie. Of these three hundred Spartans two, it is said, were lying sick in the village of Alpenoi, their names being Eurytos and Aristodemos. The former, calling for his arms, bade his guide lead him into the battle, for his eyes were diseased, and plunging into the fight was slain. Aristodemos went back alone to Sparta where he was shunned by all. None would kindle a fire for him, none would speak to him ; but every one called him Aristodemos the Dastard. Yet he got back his good name and fell fighting nobly at Plataiai. As for the Thebans, so long as they were with the Spartans in the battle, they were' compelled, it is said, to fight against the king : but when Leonidas with his men hastened to the hillock within the wall, they got away and with outstretched arms went towards the barbarians with the truest of all tales, saying that not only were they on the king's side but that they were the first to give him earth and water and that they had gone into this fight sorely against their will. As the Thessalians bore out their words, their lives were spared : but some had the bad luck to be killed as they came near to the Persians, and most of the others, beginning from their chief Leontiades, were branded with the royal mark as unfaithful servants. 188 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. The issue of this battle set the despot pondering. Summoning Demaratos, he asked him how many Spartans might he left and The sight- whether they were all warriors like those who had ThermoDv- ^^l'^*^ with Leonidas. The answer was that the lai. Lakedaimonians had many cities, of which Spai'ta was one, and that Sparta had about eight thousand men all equal to those who had fought at Pylai. To the intreaty of Xerxes that he would tell him candidly how these men were to be conquered, Demaratos replied that there was no other way than to send a detachment of the fleet to occupy the island of Kythera, of which the wise Chilon had said that it would be better for the Spartans if it were sunk in the depths of the sea. This counsel, of which only an Eastern tyrant would need the suggestion, Achaimenes, the brother of Xerxes, ascribed to the envy and hatred which all Greeks felt for those who were better or more prosperous than themselves. They had already, he urged, lost four hundred ships in the storm ; and if the fleet were further divided, the enemy would at once be a match for them. But Xerxes, though ready enough, according to the advice of his brother, to order his own matters without taking heed to the counsels, the doings, or the numbers of his enemies, bade Achaimenes beware how he spoke evil of Demaratos who, though less wise, was still his very good friend. This praise of the exiled Spartan king was followed by an order to behead and to crucify the body of the worthier Spartan king who had died in Thermopylai fighting for freedom and for law. Some time later, when the Greek fleet had retreated from Artemision and the Persian sailors were taking their ease on the shore of Histiaia, Xerxes arranged a sight for their gratification. Twenty thousand of his men had been slain at Thermopylai. Of these he left one thousand on the ground : the rest he buried in trenches under leaves and earth, so that they could not be seen. All being ready, he sent a herald who proclaimed that all who pleased might leave their posts and go to see how the king fought with those foolish men who sought to withstand his power. On this so many desired to go that there was alack of boats to carry them. But even Persians were not so easily cheated as Xerxes thought that they might be. The trick was at once seen through, when they found the thousand Persians lying by themselves, and tlie four thousand Greeks gathered into a single heap. One other picture belonging to the struggle at Thermopylai exhibits some Arkadian deserters as seeking for work from the king, who asks them what the Greeks are doing. The answer is that they were keeping the feast at Olympia and beholding the contests of wrestlers and horsemen. On hearing this one of the Persians asked what the prize might be for which they strove, and was told that it waa Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 189 an olive-wreath. ' Ah ! Mardonios,' exclaimed Tritantaichmes, who could no longer keep silence, ' what men are these against whom thou hast brought us here to fight, who strive not for money but for glory ? ' and for this saying the king held him to be a coward. Such is the traditional narrative of the battles within Tliermo- pylai. It is impossible not to feel the beauty and grandeur of the epical form into which it has been thrown : but from xheffeneral- first to last we must also feel that in many most ship of Leo- important particulars the true history of these events ' has been lost, and that of the incidents recorded not a few involve difficulties which seem to be insoluble. Among these is the alleged total absence of the Athenians from a place the maintenance of which was not only essential to their safety but injoined by the policy for which they pleaded all along with the utmost eagerness. The barbarian was not to be suffered to ravage the lands of Greek cities, if it should be possible to prevent it. Yet here they cannot spare the smallest force for the defence of a post which ten men might hold against a thousand. But even without any Athenians Leonidas brought with him from Peloponnesos, if we follow the traditional story, a force of 3,100 heavy-armed troops, whose numbers with the addition of the Pliokians, Thespians, and Thebans were raised to 5,200 men. If we allow to each Spartan citizen •the same number of helots as those which accompanied the force sent afterwards to Plataiai,' and take 1,000 as the lowest number of light-armed troops, there was assembled under the command of Leonidas an army of not less than 8,300 men. With these forces Leonidas succeeded for ten or twelve days in checking the advance nf the whole Persian army and in inflicting on them a very serious loss. Nothing could prove more clearly the practicability of his position and the likelihood of success, if he kept his ground without lessening his numbers. But still more strangely, the Greeks at Thermopylai not merely forget the Aitolian passes, through which, as they must have known, an invader could force his way into southern Hellas, but guard most inefficiently a pass close at hand which might at any moment be used to turn their position. The existence of this pass is made known to Xerxes through the super- fluous treachery of EpMalics : but although the loss of this path- way owing to the absurd, if not incredible, conduct of the Phokians destroyed, it is said, all chance of ultimate success, it still left open the possibility of retreat. The men of Corinth, of Phlions, and Mykenai, with all the Arkadian forces (including, as it would seem, their light-armed troops), were at once dismissed by Leonidas, who * Herod, ix. 10. If the text of portion of hoplites to helots was this passage be authentic, the pro- one to seven. 190 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. retained along with liis lielots the troops furnished by Thespiai and Thebes. The Thebans in the ensuing conflict did as httle as tliey could ; but even without their aid 20,000 Persians are stated to have been slain by the 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians. If a loss so enormous was caused to the Persians by so scanty a band of antagonists, it is difficultto calculate the probable result, if Leonidas had kept his allies to share the danger and tlie glory of the struggle. Without lessening the force which he kept about himself to the last, he might have detached the whole body of his Peloponnesian allies to aid the Phokians in guarding Anopaia. Four thousand men on the summit of the hill could easily have kept back twenty or forty thousand disciplined troops ; and from the nature of the land we may safely assume that the detachment of Ilydarnes did not amount to anything like the lower of these two numbers, Avhile their discipline was not to be compared with that of the Greeks. If, again, after deserting their post they had followed, as their duty bound them to follow, the descending Persians, this portion of the enemy's force must have been cut off long before the hour at which Xerxes had ordered that the troops of the main ar- my should start from the camp. But as they failed to do this, it is hard indeed to imagine how the blunder of the Phokians still left time for the retreat of a body of perhaps 5,000 men along a narrow strip of ground which in sume parts was scarcely wider than a cart track. Within an hour from the time of his leaving the- Phokians on the top of the hill, Hydarnes with his men must have reached the eastern gates. When he had once come down on the more level ground, none could possibly have retreated from the Greek camp without fighting their way through his troops ; and the narrative clearly speaks of a peaceable, or even a leisurely, de- parture, not of desperate efforts like those of an army struggling through a pass occupied by an overwhelming enemy. Still less easy is it to understand the facts related of the Thebans whom Leonidas retained by his side against their will. Their The motives presence cannot be explained by the admission that and'his'at^^ the Thebans and Boiotians, feeling little sympathy liw. for either side, were passive instruments in the hands of their leaders, who judged it imprudent in this instance to refuse the request of Leonidas : nor can we safely adopt the conclusion that they were citizens of the anti-Persian party and so remained of their own free will, but that after the fall of the Spartan king they took credit for a Medism which they did not feel. AVe do not know that Diodoros or Pausanias had access to any information of which Herodotos was ignorant : and the latter distinctly contradicts any such supposition. He main- CiiAP. v.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 101 tains that their profession of iledism was the truest of all pleas ;' and it is to the last degree unlikely that the Thessalians would have upheld the credit of men of whose Hellenic sympathies they must according to this hypothesis have been aware. If again they were thus kept wholly against their will, it is scarcely less sur- prising that they should remain quiet until the battle was at an end, when they might have either openly joined Hydarnes, or passively hindered the resistance of Leonidas. The care taken by the commanders of the Athenian fleet to obtain early tidings of the army at Thermopylai may imply that Athenian citizens were not lacking among the troops which defended the pass ; and if we admit, as we can scarcely avoid admitting, that the narrative, as we liave it, is framed for the special purpose of magnifying the Spartans, we are almost justified in inferring that the resistance in Pylai was on a far larger scale than Herodotos has represented it. A compulsory retreat of the allies might be veiled under the de- cent plea that they were dismissed ; and if tliey were conscious of faint-heartedness, they would not care to hinder the growth of a story which covered their remissness in the Hellenic cause, while it inhanced the glory of Leonidas. If the account of Herodotos is to be trusted at all, the Greeks on board their ships heard of the disaster which befell the Persian fleet off the Magnesian coast on the second day after the beginning of the storm; and no sooner had they fleet at Ar- receivcd the tidings than they set off with all speed to temision. Artemision, which they would necessarily reach on that second day. Their crews were cheerfully prepared, if not vehemently eager, for conflict ; nor was there anything to damp their courage until the Persian ships hove into sight two days later. The inva- ders had lieard already that the scanty Greek fleet was awaiting their arrival off Artemision ; and when on reaching Aphetai late in the afternoon they saw them near the opposite shore, they were deterred from attacking them at once only by tlie wish that not a single Greek vessel should escape. This result could be insured only by sending a detachment of two hundred Persian ships round the east coast of Euboia to take the Greek fleet in the rear at the Euripos. These ships the Persian commanders accordingly sent oti that same afternoon f and on the same day, it would seem, the diver Skyllias of Skione came as a deserter from the Persian fleet with the news of the damage done by the recent storm, ^ and of the mission of the two hundred ships to pi-event the flight of the Greeks by way of the Euboian strait. Thus on the very same day on ' Herod, vii. 2"3. fresli, as the Greeks had already re- - Herod, viii. 7. ceived fiiU tidings of the disaster, ^ This news cannot have been Herod, vii. 193. 102 THE STRUGGLE WITPI PERSIA. [Book If. which they first saw the enemy's ships, or at the latest on the morning of the next day, the Greek commanders were informed that they could not avoid a battle by retreating ; and until the Persian fleet became visible off Aphetai, it is distinctly implied that they had no intention of retreating. It is not easy therefore to see what room is left for the circumstantial narrative that the Greeks on seeing the Persian ships resolved to retreat as they had come, and that the Euboians in their terror at being abandoned, as the Thessalians had been abandoned at Tempe, and having failed to obtain from Eurybiades a delay which might enable tbem to remove their families from the island, prevailed on Themistokles by a bribe of thirty talents to prevent this cowardly desertion. Of this sum it is said that he bestowed, as from himself, five talents on Eury- biades, while three sufiiced to overcome the stouter opposition or more craven spirit of the Corinthian Adeimantos. The remaining twenty-two talents, we must especially note, he kept for himself, while the Spartan and Corinthian leaders both thouofht that they liad been bribed with Athenian money. It mast at least be said that the Euboian bribers kept their own counsel with astonishing secrecy and repressed by a silence not less wonderful the regret which they must have felt on learning, a few hours later, that their bribe had been a superfluous waste of money. The tidings brought by Skyllias worked a sudden change in the minds of the Greek leaders. After a long debate they resolved , - . . to stay where thev were until night came on, and tben action off under cover of darkness to move down the strait and Artenusion. jj^gg^ ^]jg squadron sent round Euboia to cut them off*. Finding, as the day wore on, that the Persian fleet remained mo- tionless, they determined with greater vigor to use the remaining hours of light in attacking the enemy and thus gaining some expe- rience of their way of fighting. As the Greeks drew nigh, the Persians, as at Marathon, thought them mad, so it is said, and surrounded them with their far more numerous and faster sailing ships. But on a given signal the confederates drew their ships into a circle with their sterns inwards and their prows ready for the charge. On a second signal the onset was made, and a conflict ensued in which the Greeks took thirty Persian ships. On the night which followed the battle the storm again burst forth with terrific lightning and deluges of rain. The wrecks and Destni f ^^^^ dead bodies were carried by the waves to Aphetai, of the Per- where they became intangled with the prows of ships ron'dm-"''^' «"^--^ Chap. V.J INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 201 On the other, a great throne was raised on one of the spurs of mount Aigaleos close to the sea, whence the Persian king might see how his skives fought on his behalf, i The day was still young when the trireme came from Aigina which had been sent to fetch the children of Aiakos ; and at once the Greeks put out to sea, while the barbarians came forward to meet them. According to the Aiginetan tradition it was this trireme Avhich after some hesitation began the fight, the form of a woman having been seen which cried out in a voice, heard by all the amiy of the Greeks, ' Good men, how long will ye back water ? ' The Athenians had their story that one of these men named Ameinias ran his ship into the enemy, and that, as it was thus entangled and could not get free, the rest came up to help him. So began the conflict, in which the Athenians found themselves opposed to the Phenicians who had the wing towards Eleusis and the west, while the loni- ans towards the east and the Peiraieus faced the Lakedaimonians. Beyond this general arrangement and the issue of the fight the historian himself admits that of this memorable battle we know practically nothing. The event in his belief was determined by the disclipine and order of the Greeks, while their enemies fell out of their ranks and did nothing wisely ; but if the popular story may be trusted, it may have depended partly on the fact that the Persian seamen had been working all night, carrying out the movements for the complete circumvention of the Hellenic fleet, while the Athenians and their allies went on board their ships on the morning of the fight, fresh from sleep and stirred by the vehement eloquence of Themistokles. But in spite of his general lack of information Herodotos notes that the Persians as a whole fought far more bravely at Salamis than at Artemision, each man thinking tliat the eye of the king was upon him, and that few of the lonians followed the advice of Themistokles by hanging back from the fight. Indeed many of the Greek ships, he adds, were taken by them, the Samians Theomestor and Phylakos being specially distinguished by their zeal for the king. Such action, if coming from Thessalians against Phokians, would be intelligible enough : in the case of the lonians it would seem to show, if the facts be true, that the desertion of the Spartans and Athenians in the revolt of Aristagoras still rankled in their minds and blinded them to the shame of revenge taken at the cost of defeat and ruin to their common country. But that there existed a counter-tradi- tion seems to be clear from the charge which in the tumult of the fight the Phenicians brought against these Asiatic Greeks. They had destroyed, it was said, the Phenician ships and betrayed '.^cliylos, Persai, 473. Herod, viii. 90. 9* 203 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. the Phenicians themselves. Happily for the lonians, the words were scarcely out of the mouth of their accusers, when a Samo- thrakian vessel rati into an Athenian ship and sank it, while one from Aigina ran into the Samothrakian, Avhose crew with their javelins drove the men of the conquering ship into the sea and took their vessel. With this conclusive proof of Ionic fidelity, Xerxes in towering rage commanded the heads of the Phenicians to be struck off that they might not lay their own cowardice to the charo-e of braver men. The general character of Phenician seamen may well warrant the suspicion that their charge against the lonians, if really made, was not altogether groundless. In truth, there is scarcely a single alleged incident of the fight of which we have not accounts more or less inconsistent with, if not exclusive of, each other. The Athenians would have it that at the beginning of the fight the Corinthian Adeimantos fled in a terror which belied his name and that the rest of the Corinthians lost no time in following his example. They were opposite to the temple of Athene Skiras — so the story ran — when a boat which no one was known to have sent met them, and the men in it cried out, ' So, Adeimantos, thou hast basely forsaken the Greeks who are now conquering their enemies as much as they had ever hoped to do.' Adeimantos would not believe : but when the men said that they would go back with him and consent to die if their words were not true, he turned his sliip and reached the scene of action when the issue of the fight was already decided. This circumstantial tale the Corinthians met by the stout assertion that they were amongst the foremost in the battle ; and their rejoinder was borne out, we are told, by all the rest of the Greeks. Another circumstantial story is related of the conduct of Artemisia. A prize of ten thousand drachmas had been promised Artemisia to the man who should take lier alive, so great, we are fyndian^^ told, being the irritation that a woman should come ship. against Athens. As it so chanced, her ship was cliased by the trierarch who, according to the Athenian story, had begun the battle and who, had he known wliom he had before him, would never have stopped until he had taken her or been taken himself. But before Artemisia there were only ships of her own side ; and as Ameinias came close upon her, she ran into a Kalyn- dian vessel commanded by the king Damasithymos. We are not told that the Avhole Kalyndian crew perished ; but Ameinias, it is said, on seeing this action thought that her ship was a Greek one or else was deserting from the Persians, and so turned away to chase others, while Xerxes, who chanced to see what was done, cried out, on being assured that the ship was that of Artemisia, ' My men are women, and tlie women men.' Yet although the Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 203 historian represents her bravery or lier good faith as by no means equal to her wisdom and foresight, it is almost incredible that such shallow seltishness should be successful. If we may not accept the grounds on which she is said to have urged her former advice to Xerxes, and if his remarks on her collision with the Kalyndian ship read like nothing but romance, little is gained by asserting that the story of her exploit has the air of truth. If again we reject the other parts of the tale, it seems impossible that even the total destruction of the ship and crew could have saved her from detection. We arc expressly told that otl^er friendly ships checked her flight no less than that of the Kalyndian king.^ They were present to see what was done ; and we cannot suppose that all were tricked by the selfish device of Artemisia, and that none would have the courage or the indignation to denounce it. But, as at Marathon, whatever may have been the order and incidents of the battle, the issue was clear enough. The Persian fleet was practically ruined. On the Greek side not Ruin of the many were killed. Unlike the Greeks, the barbarians I'ersian fleet, were for the most part unable to swim ; and the greatest slaughter took place just when their ships first turned to flee. Those which were drawn up behind pressed forward to reach the front, and so became entangled with the vessels which were hurrying away. In the midst of the frightful confusion thus caused Aristeides landed a large number of hoplites on the islet of Psyttaleia and slew every one of the Persians who Averc upon it. So ended the battle. The Greeks drew up all the disabled ships on the shore of Salamis, and made ready for another fight, thinking that the king would order the ships still remaining to him to advance against them. Their fears were not to be realised. The fancy of Xerxes that under his own eye the seamen would be invincible had been dis- placed by a conviction, which nothing now could Thg counsel shake, that no faith whatever was to be put in the of Mardo- subject tribes or nations which manned his navy, and that all hope of carrying on the war by sea was practically at an end. For such fragments of his fleet as might yet remain Xerxes had a more immediate and pressing task in guarding the bridges across the Hellespont. Like Dareios, he looked upon the safety of the bridges as the condition of his own return home ; and he could brook no delay in the carrying out of the measures which might be needed to secure it. The messenger had already set out with the message which, like the torch in the feast of Hephaistos, was to be handed on from one horseman to another until the songs and shouts of triumph at Sousa should be exchanged for ciies of grief for the king and of indignation against the stirrer-up of the mischief. This "' Herod, viii. 87. 204 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. issue Mardonios clearly foresaw ; and at once his mind was made up to carry on the war and cither to succeed in it or die. For himself except as a conqueror there could be no return : and he miojht well suppose that his own chances of success would be indefinitely increased by the absence of a ruler so absorbed by the thought of his own personal safety as to be incapable of bearing up against reverses which still left liim ample means of retrieving his fortunes. He pledged himself, therefore, to subjugate Hellas, if Xerxes would leave him three hundred thousand men, while he took all the rest away to Asia. Such a proposal was not likely to be rejected by a tyrant quaking in abject terror : but the historian adds that Xerxes submitted it to Artemisia, who urged him by all means to accept it. If Mardonios succeeded, the glory would go to his master : if he and his men were all slain, it would be but the loss of a horde of useless slaves. The safety of Xerxes and his house would more than make up for all ; and the Greeks would yet have, many times, to face a struggle for life or death with the power of Persia. Such is said to have been her counsel ; we may assure ourselves that it was never given. Xerxes knew well that in leaving with Mardonios his native Persian troops he was leaving behind the hardy soldiers on whom the very foundations of his empire rested ; and it is impossible that he should have rewarded with special praise and special honors the words of a woman who could speak of them as toys to be trifled with and flung aside without a thought. That very night the fleet sailed from the scene of its disaster, to guard the bridge across the Hellespont for the passage of the Allc-ed l^i"» ^"„v'<;i ,_v'.-„t}„, --..,fl^„ vember ; but the poet may be allow- x 'ii. aqo ed a wider license, and seemingly lie places this incident after the bat- Compare also line 187. But the fact, tleof Plataiai. The expression that as he relates it, would be inipossi- alniost the whole army was de- ble, to whatever season of the year stroyed in Boiotia can scarcely refer it may be assigned, even in places to any other event. The fleet, he twenty degrees farther north. 208 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL inhabitants. Of these niagazines the story of the retreat in Hero- dotos says nothing ; nor are we told that their contents were all consumed on the march into Greece. Yet Xerxes, as he journeyed westwards, unquestionably contemplated a speedy return to his own land, and had his dreams of leading- back a long line of Athenian and Spartan slaves in addition to the hosts which he was driving on to conquest. His need of food would be increased by the measure of liis success ; and his care to preserve and to extend these stores would be stimulated by his hopes of immediate victory. On the other hand, in proportion to the fewness of his attendants would be the ease of maintaining them from these unexhausted or replenished magazines. Yet, as though submitting to an ordinary necessity, he leaves his army to subsist by plunder or to die by famine, in a land where, as it would seem, not a single arm was raised against him in spite of all this robbery and pillage, and where we are told that he left liis sick in the cities through which he passed, not without confidence in the kindly feeling of the inhabitants. Still, with this friendliness or at least neutrality of the people, perplexing though it be, his passage is more disastrous than that of Artabazos who, as we shall see, fought his way after the battle of Plataiai through the Avild tribes of the Thrakian highlands. The story of Hcrodotos would give some countenance to the Makedonian boast, of which probably he never heard, that they had slaughtered and almost cut off the whole anny in its flight ; and unless we assume some great hostility whether of Make- donians or Thrakians, as accounting for the scanty numbers with which Xerxes is said to have reached the Hellsspont, we might be tempted to draw the conclusion that he had brought with him into Europe not many more troops than those which he left under the command of Mardonios, and that he journeyed from Thessaly only with a moderate bodyguard. We have, however, the distinct assertion that he was attended as far as the Hellespont by 60,000 men commanded by Artabazos, whose conduct after the fight at Plataiai won for him a high reputation for decision and adroitness. ^ But however this may have been, the change which comes over the spirit of the narrative as soon as Xerxes is safely restored to the luxurious tyranny of his own land tends more than anything else to call into question the tale of misery and ruin which precedes it. From the moment that Artabazos has dismissed his ma^ster he appears as a man well able to hold his ground against all efforts of his enemies without calling on his troops to undergo any special privations. We hear no more of famine or disease, of men plucking grass and roots and then lying down to die. Instead of ' Herod, viii. 120. Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 209 this, we find him deliberately resolving to remain in Makedonia, until the return of spring should allow Mardonios to move his army in Boiotia. So completely is he master of his position and his movements that he determines to attack the Greek colonies which had dared to'revolfc after the king had passed them on his retreat and when they had heard of the hurried departure of the fleet from Salamis. In truth, the real source of weakness was gone with Xerxes : and thus Artabazos had no hesitation in laying siege to Olynthos and no compunction in slaughtering its inhabi- tants when it fell and in handing the place over to the Chalkidians of Torone.i His next step was not that of a leader who, alarmed for his own safety or for that of his men, was anxious to fall back upon the main army. From Olynthos he turned his arms against Potidaia. Daring his siege of three months he was encouraged by the hope that Timoxenos the Skionaian general might succeed in betraying the town, as he had pledged himself to do. But the correspondence which by means of letters twined round arrows he had carried on with Timoxenos was discovered ; and he was glad to avail himself of an extraordinary ebbing of the sea to march across the ground which the waters had thus left bare between his camping-place and the walls of the city. But before they could reacla the other side the sea came back with a flow as astonishing as its ebb, and all who could not swim were drowned, while those Avho escaped by swimming were slaughtered by the Potidaians who came in boats to complete the work of destruction. Of the extent of his loss by this disaster we are not informed : but as we find him after the battle of Plataiai with 40,000 men still under his command,'^ we must suppose that these were a portion of the 60,000 who escorted Xerxes to the Hellespont, and that 20,000 represent the losses sustained in the siege of Potidaia and perhaps in the fatal fight which destroyed the army of Mardonios. This loss can scarcely be considered out of proportion with the great- ness of his efforts and of his disasters. But the history of Arta- bazos is, in truth, conclusive evidence that, however intense may have been the hatred of the native tribes for their Asiatic invaders, they were unable to place any serious hindrance in his path, and that though the Persians may not have enjoyed the luxuries of Sousa, they were not reduced to the hard lot of an Arabian cara- van in lack of food and water. Whatever wretchedness the tyrant underwent Avas a wretchedness of his own causing ; and probably not even the ignominy of his retreat was allowed to intex*- fere with his sensual enjoyments. The alleged operations of the Greek fleet after the battle of ' Herod, viii. 127. "" lb. ix. 66. 210 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL Salarnis seem to show that the aim of the commanders Avas not to dissipate their strength by expeditions to the Hellespont (which, Siege of however, they refused to undertake solely on the score the con-''^ of their inutility) but to repair their losses whether by federates. the forced or the voluntary contributions of Hellenic cities. Themistolvles was acting as spokesman for the Greeks generally, when he told the Andriansthat the Athenians had come to them under the guidance of two very mighty deities, ^ Faith and Necessity, and therefore pay they must. The rejoinder of the Andrians that they likewise had two deities, Poverty and Help- lessness, which would never leave their island and made it im- possible for them to pay anything, was followed by a blockade. The result verified the prediction of the Andrians that the power of Athens could never exceed their own impotence ; and the Greeks, compelled to abandon the siege, ravaged the lands of Karystos ut the southern extremity of Euboia and then sailed back to Salamis. This fact, if it took place, sufficiently refutes the story that Themistokles had already extorted large sums from the Karystians and Parians under the pledge, it must be assumed, that he would hold them scathless in person and property ; but we are told further that while the siege of Andros was still being carried on, Themistokles by threatening the otlier islands with summary measures in case of refusal collected large sums of money without the knowledge of the other leaders and retained them for himself." The charge is incredible. Themistokles and tlie agents of his extortions might keep the secret : but there was nothing to stop the mouths of his victims, and Athens was not so popular with the confederates as to make them deaf to charges which accused Themistokles of crippling the resources of the allies for his own personal advantage. The work of a memorable year was now ended. It only remained to d3dicate to the gods the thank-offerings due to them for their Distribution guardianship and active aid, and to distribute the of honors rewards and honors which the conduct of the con- aniong the , . „ Greeiis. federates might deserve. Iheir first act was to con- secrate three Phenician ships, one to the honor of Aias at Salarnis, another at Sounion, and the third, wliich Herodotos' himself had seen, at the isthmus. At the isthmus the question of personal ' Peitho, which is etymolotrically besiejred it with the deliberate de- theEn£^lish_/>/«7//,isherethe power sisn of destroyinpr the city altoge- which produces obedience or trust, ther. The farther charge of Tlie refusal of tiie Andrians to cou- Medism, Herod viii. 112, would tribute to the expenses of the war prnbaljly havw been condoned, if was refjardcd, we are told, as so the money had been paid, serious an offence atjainst the wel- ^ Herod, viii. 113. fare of Hellas that the confederates ^ viii. 121. Chap. V.] INVASION AND FLIGHT OF XERXES. 211 merit in the war was decided, it is said, by tlie written votes of the generals, each of whom claimed the first place for himself, while most of them (Plutarch says, all) assigned the second to Thcmistokles. Bnt the incredibly silly vanity which thus deprived the Athenian general of his formal pre-eminence in no way lessened his glory or interfered with the honors paid to him. If an olive-crown was given to Eurybiades as the commander-in- chief, the same prize was bestowed on Thcmistokles expressly for his unparalleled wisdom and dexterity. The most beautiful cha- riot in Sparta, the gift of the citizens, conveyed him from that city, three hundred chosen Spartiatai being his escort as far as the boundaries of Tegea. No other man, it is said, ever received such honors from the Spartans. So ended the triumph of the confederates for that victory in which the names of Aigina and Athens were associated in pre-eminent lustre. CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALE. The winter which followed the defeat at Salamis was spent by the Persian fleet at the Aiolic Kyine en the Elaiatic gulf, about ten miles to the east of the ill-fated city of Phokaia. Early Movements in the spring it moved forwards as far as Samos under and^p^-gifn the command of Mardontes and Artayntes. There fluecs. was no intention of renewing the struggle in the waters of Western Hellas. Their whole attention was tixed on the repression of re\t)lt in Asiatic Ionia, if the people who had, as it was said, shown so much zeal in behalf of the king at Salamis should be disposed to renew the trouble which they liad given in the days of Arista- goras. Of any attack from the fleet of the Western Greeks they had no fear. Any such danger had in their belief passed away when their enemies gave up the idea of pursuing them from Salamis; and they believed further that by land Mardonios would succeed in taking ample vengeance for the mishaps of the Persian navy.i The Greek fleet at the same time assembled at Aigina, 110 ships in all, — the Athenians mider ^79 b.c. Xanthippos, and the Peloponnesians under Leoty chides. They had scarcely taken up their station off the island, when an embassy ' Herod, viii. 130. 212 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. came from Chios praying them to hasten at once to the help of the lonians. The confederates in comphance with their request sailed as far as Delos, beyond which they resolutely refused to ad- vance. The waters which stretched away to the east were in their eyes, we are told, swarming with Persian or Phenician cruisers ; and Samos appeared to them as distant as the pillars of Herakles and the gates of the Atlantic ocean. Respecting this singular statement something has been said already 'A it is unnecessary to say more here than that when, a few months earlier, these hostile ships were in the waters to the west of Delos, no such fears were expressed, if the story be true that Themistokles proposed an im- mediate pursuit of the retreating Persians as far as the Hellespont and that the proposal was rejected only as being impolitic. It is impossible that the history of fifteen years should obliterate the associations and traditions of ages, or that a state of feeling should have sprung up six months after the fight of Salamis which was not in existence when Xerxes sent away his fleet to guard the bridge over the Hellespont. The occupation of Mardonios in his Thessalian winter-quarters consisted chiefly of attempts to ascertain the feelings of the Greek Offers of al- states towards him sclf and his master. The informa- I'a'iccmade tiou which he received probably encouraged him to nioi to the make the greater venture which betrayed a significant Atheuians. change iu Persian policy. Mardonios had learnt that the aid of Thessaliaus and Boiotians was as nothing in compari- son of the advantage which he would gain by an alliance with Athens : nor could he have failed to ascertain that, if the decision had rested with the Athenians, the decisive struggle between the two fleets would have been at Artemision, not at Salamis. It was Athens therefore which stood in the way ; and until this hindrance should be removed, tribute, the true end of Persian conquest, would never flow from AVestern Hellas into the treasuries of Sousa. It was worth while then to sacrifice much to turn a people so resolute from an enemy into a friend ; and if the proposal as- cribed to Mardonios was really made, the sacrifice which he pro- fessed himself ready to make must have cost his master, if not himself, no slight struggle. Nor was it a scanty recognition of Athenian greatness when the Makedonian chief Alexandros came to tell them that the great king was willing not merely to foi'give all their sins against him if they would become not his servants but his friends, but to bestow upon them in addition to their own land any territory which they might choose for independent oc- cupation and, further, to rebuild all the temples which his fol- lowers had burnt. ^ See note 1, p. 153. Chap. VI.] BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALfi. 213 The tidings of this change in Persian poUcy had reached Sparta and awakened there the liveliest alarm. The counter-proposal which they made through ambassadors hurriedly sent j;n^,,assy of was that they would maintain the households of the the Sparians Athenians as long as the war should last, if only they ° ' ^^^' would liold out stoiTtly against Mardonios. The alleged reply of the Athenians to both their suitors is marked by that real dignity which springs from the consciousness of thoroughly disinterested motives. Whether it has been handed dowu as it was uttered, or not, we can well miderstand the glow of pride with which the Athenians of a later day recalled these utterances of exalted patriotism. To Alexandres they said, ' We know that the army of the Medes is much larger than ours, and there is no need to cast this in our teeth : but in the struggle for freedom we will beat them off with all our might. And now tell Mardonios what we say, " As long as the sun shalT keep the same path in the heaven, we will never make peace with Xerxes : but wc will face him, trusting in the help of gods and heroes, whom lie has in- sulted by burning their homes and shrines." ' Then turning to the Spartans they said, ' It w:is perhaps natural that you should dread our making peace with the barbarian ; but you know little of the mind of the Athenians, for not all the gold throughout all the world could tempt us to take the part of the Medes and help to inslave Hellas. Even if we were willing to do so, there are many things to hinder us, and chietly the shrines and dwellings of the gods which they have burnt and thrown down. Yet more, the whole Hellenic race is of the same blood and speech with us ; we share in common the temples of our gods ; we have the same sacrifices and the same way of life ; and these the Athenians can never betray. Be assured now, if you knew it not before, that so long as but one Athenian shall remain, wo will never make any covenant with Xerxes. For your goodwill to us we thank you : but we will struggle on as well as we can without giving you trouble. All that we pray you to do is to send out your army with all speed, for assuredly the barbarian will soon be in our land, when he learns that we will not do as he would have us ; and we ought to meet him in Boiotia before he can advance as far as Attica.' Beautiful, however, though these words may be, yet either they were put together at a later day, or the sequel of the narrative has been falsified. At the time of the Re-occupa- embassy to Athens the Isthmian wall remained un- ^°i"g°g ],„ finished, as it had been when Xerxes began his Mardonios. homeward journey : but the pledges which they had received of Athenian steadfastness encourao;ed them to the most strenuous 214 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book IL efforts for its immediate, completion. With its completion came back seemingly tlie old indifference ; and the Persians were again in Attica before a single Spartan troop had advanced beyond the isthmus. Nay more, no sooner had the wall been finished, than Kleombrotos led the Spartan army hurriedly back to Sparta* because an eclipse of the sun had taken place. On his death, which happened almost immediately after, his son Pausanias was appointed general, and guardian of iiis cousin Pleistarchos the young son of Leonidas. Taken altogether, things looked better for Mardonios than ever they had looked for Xerxes. He was at the head of a more compact and manageable army ; and his Hellenic allies seemed to be stirred by redoubled zeal in his cause.'' But Mardonios, as Herodotos believed, v/as feverishly anxious to re- possess himself of Athens, partly because he was suffering from divinely inflicted frenzy, and partly because he wished to send the tidings of his own glorification to Sousa. His caution in avoiding acts of violence on retaking the city suflSciently disproves these inferences. Mardonios was as steadily intent on winning over the Athenians as Xerxes had been on punishing them. There was yet the chance that their stubborn will might give way when they saw their soil again trodden by invading armies, while the care of the general in protecting their city might justify them in trusting to any covenant which they might make with him. To carry out this plan he crossed the frontiers of Attica. Once more the Athenians conveyed their families and household goods to Salamis ; and ten months after the capture of the Akropolis by Xerxes Mardonios entered a silent and desolate city. Still hoping that his scheme might succeed, he dispatched a Hellespontian named Mourychides to Salamis with the same terms which he had already offered through Alexandros. The terms were rejected : but the Athenian joeople at once informed the Peloponnesians that, unless they received immediate aid, they must devise some means of escape from their present troubles. That these words indicate submission to Persia, is patent from the speech which at this point the histo- rian puts into the mouth of the Athenian, Plataian, and Megarian ambassadors at Sparta. Here we have a recapitulation of the terms offered by Mardonios : but this is no longer followed by the impassioned declaration that the sun should fall from heaven sooner than Athens would submit to the enemy and that, if but one Athenian survived, that Athenian would rather die than make any paction with the tyrant. Instead of this, we have ' Such a fact as tliis shows liow impossibility for a Spartan leader. little reliance is to be placed on the Herod, ix. 10. words which, put into the mouth of ^ Herod, ix. 1. Jjconidas, represent retreat as an Chap. VI.] BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALE. 215 the tranquil declaration that they heartily desire the weirare of Hellas, and that they will make no paction with the enemy, if they can avoid the so doing. The speech is a wretched bathos after the lofty protestations uttered in the hearing of the Make- donian chieftain, and the two traditions exclude each other. The reproaches of the Athenians, so the story runs, fell for the present on deaf ears. The Lakedaimonians were keeping the feast of the Hyakinthian Apollon ; and exactness of re- jyiarohofthe ligious ceremonial was to them of greater moment Spartans than resistance to the barbarian. They could also sanias from comfort themselves with the thought that the Isth- '^P'^'"'^^- mian wall had all but received its coping stones and battlements. They could afford therefore to put off the Athenian ambassadors by specious excuses from day to day ; and they succeeded in so putting them off for ten days until Chileos of Tegca, hearing from the ephors the substance of the Athenian demands, assured them that their wall would be of very little use, if by virtue of any covenant made with Mardonios the Athenian tieet should co- operate with the Persian land-army. As if this very obvious remark came with the merit of absolute novelty, the ephors, we are told, took the words of Chileos seriously to heart, and on that very night dispatched from Sparta five thousand hoplites under Pausanias, son of Kleombrotos, each hoplite being attended by seven helots — in other words, a force amounting to 40,000 men. Early the following morning the ambassadors of the extra-Pelo- ponnesian cities informed the ephors in few words that they were free to remain at home and keep festival to their hearts' content, but that the Athenians would at once make with the Persians the best terms which could now be obtained. ' They are gone,' replied the ephors, ' and are already in the Oresteion on their march to meet the strangers.' ' Who are gone, and who are the strangers ? ' asked the Athenians in reply to these mysteri- ous tidings. ' Our Spartans have gone with their helots,' they an- swered, ' forty thousand men in all, and the strangers are the Per- sians.' In utter amazement the ambassadors hastened away, accom- panied by 5,000 picked hoplites from the Lakedaimonian Perioikoi. The explanation of all this mystery is found in the simple statement that the Argives were under a promise to Mardonios to prevent by force, if force should be necessary, the Paction of departure of any Spartan army from the Peloponnesos,- ^"^thlvilr-^^ If any part of the narrative deserve credit, it would donios. be the unadorned and simple story of the conduct of Mardonios on the second invasion of Attica. Feeling that with the submission ' Herod, ix. 12. 216 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. or the independent alliance of Athens his task would be practi- call}' done, he saw mither that the Athenians would be best won over if the pressure put upon them should stop short of the devas- tation of their country and the burning of their houses. But there would be no chance of preventing pillage and plunder, if Attica should be made a battle-field. Hence it became of the utmost im- portance to him that no Peloponnesian force should be allowed to advance beyond the Isthmus ; and the pledge given by the Argives seemed to assure him that from this quarter there was no danger to be feared. That the agreement between the Argives and Mar- donios should come to the knowledge of the Spartan epliors, is not very surprising. Argos had from the first stood aloof in the contest; and her sympathies were known to be rather with the Persians than with their opponents. But the knowledge of this secret covenant between the Argives and the Persian general imposed on the ephors the need of absolute secrecy on their side in any military plans which they might desire to carry out, and made it scarcely less necessary to keep these plans from the knowledge of the Athenians than to prevent their being discovered by the Argives. If the latter were under any such pledge, nothing but secrecy could enable the Spartans to leave the Peloponnesos with- out fighting their way through Argive territory ; and when owing to this secrecy their plan succeeded and the Argives sent word to Athens to say that they had failed to prevent the departure of the Spartans, Mardonios felt that his own scheme had likewise become hopeless. At once the whole land was abandoned to his soldiers. Athens was set on fire ; and any walls and buildings which had escaped the ravages of the first invasion were dismantled and thrown down. He could not afford to stay and fight in a country which was ill-suited for cavahy and from which in case of defeat he would have to lead his army through narrow and dangerous passes. The order for retreat was therefore given ; and Mardo- nios in a little while found himself once again on the plain of Thebes. The epical method of Herodotos is again disclosed as he approaches the great battle in which, according to the promise of „, f ^j f Xerxes, Mardonios was to give to the Spartans satis- Attasrinos. faction for the death of Leonidas. The pride and 4i9B.c. aiTogance of the Persian leader are strengthened, while the hopes of his followers are represented as dying away. But the tale which tells how a blindness sent by the gods was on his eyes, while others foresaw the ruin, can be given only in the words of the historian. ' While the barbarians were working on their fortified camp, Attaginos the son of Phrynon, a Theban, called Mardonios, with fifty of the chief men among the Persians, to a great banquet Chap. VI.] BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALfi. 217 whicli he had made ready in Thebes. The rest of this story T heard from Thersandros, a great man among the Orchomenians, who told me that he had been invited to this feast with fifty men of the Thebans and that they lay down to meat, not separately, but one Persian and.one Theban together on each couch. When the feast was ended, as they were drinking wine, the Persian who lay on the couch with him asked him in tlie Greek language who he was : and when he answered that he was a man of Orchomenos, the Persian said, " Thou hast sat at the same table and shared the same cup with me, and I wish to leave thee a memorial of my foresight, that thou mayest be able by wise counsel to provide also for thyself. Thou seest the Persians who are with us at this banquet, and the army which we have left encamped on the river's bank. Yet a little while, and of all these but a very few shall remain alive." As the Persian said this, he wept bitterly ; and Thersandros, marvelling at him, answered, " Is it not right that Mardonios should hear this and the Persians who are of weight with him ?" But the other replied, " O friend, that which Ilcjiven is biinging to pass it is impossible for man to turn aside, for no one will believe though one spake ever so truly. All this many of ns Persians know well, but yet we follow, bound by a strong necessity : and of all the pains which men may suffer the most hateful and wretched is this, to see the evils that are coming and yet be unable to overcome them." This story I heard from Ther- sandros himself, who also added that he had told the tale to many others before the battle was fought in Plataiai.' The sentiment put into the mouth of the Persian at the banquet of Attaginos seems to be not less distinctively Greek than those which are uttered by the seven con.«pirators against jjigtoncal the usurpation of the Magians.i The expression of value of the any foreboding however slight, of any remark on the ^'*"^^' uncertainty of life as vague and general as that which is ascribed to Xerxes when he surveyed his fleet in its glory ,^ would un- consciously shape itself in the mind of Thersandros into that moral or religious form which imparts to the tale its perpetual freshness. But if we may not, on such testimony, assume that this antici- pation of utter ruin was present to the mind of the Persian lead- ers (and that it oppressed the Persians generally we have no evi- dence whatever), the anecdote from every other point of view be- comes superfluous. In the ethical conception of the history Mar- donios was already doomed from the hour when Artabanos warned him that from his westward journey there would for him be no return f and the parting words of Xerxes consecrated him ' See p. 124. - Se p. 165. ^ Herod, vii. 10. 10 218 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II afresh as the victim destined to expiate the slaugliter of Leonidas. Nor can it be said that the remark of the Persian has force or meaning, if viewed in reference to the conduct or duty of Mar- donios. To listen to vague presentiments of coming evil and in obedience to such presentiments to break up an army of over- whelming strength and fully supplied with tlie materials of war would in a general be an unpardonable offence. If the Persian who addressed Thersandros had any reasons or arguments to ad- dress to his chief, Mardonios would assuredly be bound to hear and weigh them ; but it is of the very essence of the story that he had none, and it would be the duty of Mardonios to disregard presages and fears which to him must appear to have no other source than a diseased and unmanly mind. The prophecy of the Persian at the fer.st of Attaginos is the prelude to the great fight which broke the poAver of the barbarian Advance of ^T 1^"*^ ''^^ ^^i^ battle of Salamis had crushed his hopes the confede- by sea. But the narratives of the two battles stand Boiotia. ^ by no means on the same level in point of trustworthi- 479 B.C. ness. Of the engagement at Salamis w'e know practi- cally nothing but its issue. The story of Plataiai, though not less graphic and vivid in details, not a few of which are suspicious or even incredible, brings before ns a scries of movements which ex- plain themselves and which seem to be reported with tolerable accuracy. From the Corinthian isthmus the Spartans with their Peloponnesian allies advanced to Eleusis where they were joined by the forces of the Athenians who had crossed over from Sala- mis, and thence, cheered by favorable omens, resumed their march until from the slopes of Kithairon they looked down on the Persian camp near the northern bank of the Asopos. Here, then, on the plain beneath the mighty mass of Kithairon, Mardonios with liis host, it is said, of 600,000 men, awaited with Attack of impatience the attack which he trusted that the the Persian Greeks, numbering in all 110,000, would begin. If delthTf""' Persian boastfulness exaggerated his own numbers, Masietios. those of his enemies were swollen not so much from carelessness of falsehood as from the desire that all the states which had not Medized should be represented as taking part in the final struggle with the servants of the Asiatic despot. But what- ever their numbers may liave been when Mardonios threw the die ^for battle, they were less formidable when they first incamped on the lower slopes of Kithairon. Still no time was to be lost in dis- lodging them from their vantage-ground : and on this errand the whole Persian cavalry was dispatched under Masistios, a leader noted for his bravery. Riding on a golden-bitted Nisaian steed magnificently caparisoned, Masistios led his horsemen on ; and the Chap, VI.] BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKAL^. 219 nature of the ground made their attack specially felt by the Me- garians, who sent a message to Pausanias to say that, unless tliey could be speedily supported, they must give way. The rigidity of Spartan discipline Wi)uld lead us to suppose that Pausanias issued an order and that this order was obeyed ; but instead of this we have the mere intreaty for the help of volunteers. All, it is said, including, it would seem, tlie Spartans, ^ held back, although the Persian horsemen rode up and reviled them as women ; and three hundred picked Athenians could alone be found to undertake the dangerous task. Aided by some bowmen, they moved to the Me- garian gruund, where presently the horse of Masistios struck by an arrow in its side reared and threw its rider. Throwing themselves upon him, the Athenians seized his horse : but his golden breast- plate protected him from his enemies until a spear was thrust into his eye. So died Masistios, unseen by his men who at the time were falling back to make ready for another charge. When on lialting they learnt their loss, with a fierce cry they rushed back to recover his body, of which for a little while they gained possession ; but the three hundred Athenians were now supported by the main body of their countrymen, and the Persian cavalry was definitely beaten back. All Boiotia, it is said, resounded with the Persian wail which went up for the loss of Masistios, while the body of the fallen general, stretched on a chariot, was carried along the ranks of the Greeks who crowded to sec; his grand and beautiful form. To these the death of Masistios and the repulse of his cavalry brought great encouragement ; and they resolved to move from Erythrai nearer to Plataiai, as a position far better (.^^„„g ^f both for incamping and for watering. Their road led the Greek them by Hysiai to ground stretching from the foun- P^^^'^'^"- tain of Gargaphia to the shrine of the hero Androkrates,^ and broken by low hills rising from the plain. Although the two armies were brought thus near to each other, the final conflict was delayed by the omens which were interpreted by the soothsayers on either side as un- ,j,|,p (.o„,jgei favorable to the aggressor. But if a pitched battle of Timage- was not to be thought of, Timagenidas the Theban "^ ^*" warned Mardonios against wasting more time in addition to the eight days which had already passed away. There were other things which might safely be undertaken. Every day the Greeks were receiving fresh convoys through the passes of Kithairon ; and it was easy by occupying these passes to enrich the Persians and * See note 1, p. 214. We have ^ Thucydides, iii. 24, speaks of liere another incident, wliidi, if this shrine as being within a dis- true, contradicts the supposed in- tance of six or seven furlongs from flexible practice of the Spartans. Plataiai on the road to Thebes. 220 THE STRUGGLE WITH PERSIA. [Book II. starve their enemies. His advice was promptly acted upon. Night had no sooner set in than the Persian cavalry were dis- patched to the pass of the Oak Heads ; and there 500 beasts laden with corn were cut ofi with the men who had brought them from the Peloponnesos. Two days more passed by, each adding to the numbers of the Greeks. On the morning of the eleventh Mardonios, wearied out Theinfatua- ^'i^h the delay, consulted Artabazos, . v.'ho advised ti