Читать книгу History of Greece (Vol. 1-12) - Grote George - Страница 64

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Having in the preceding chapter touched upon the Greeks in their aggregate capacity, I now come to describe separately the portions of which this aggregate consisted, as they present themselves at the first discernible period of history.

It has already been mentioned that the twelve races or subdivisions, members of what is called the Amphiktyonic convocation, were as follows:—

North of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Thessalians, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Achæans, Melians, Ænianes, Dolopes.

South of the pass of Thermopylæ,—Dorians, Ionians, Bœotians, Lokrians, Phokians.

Other Hellenic races, not comprised among the Amphiktyons, were—

The Ætolians and Akarnanians, north of the gulf of Corinth.

The Arcadians, Eleians, Pisatans, and Triphylians, in the central and western portion of Peloponnêsus: I do not here name the Achæans, who occupied the southern or Peloponnesian coast of the Corinthian gulf, because they may be presumed to have been originally of the same race as the Phthiot Achæans, and therefore participant in the Amphiktyonic constituency, though their actual connection with it may have been disused.

The Dryopes, an inconsiderable, but seemingly peculiar subdivision, who occupied some scattered points on the sea-coast,—Hermionê on the Argolic peninsula; Styrus and Karystus in Eubœa; the island of Kythnus, etc.

Though it may be said, in a general way, that our historical discernment of the Hellenic aggregate, apart from the illusions of legend, commences with 776 B. C., yet, with regard to the larger number of its subdivisions just enumerated, we can hardly be said to possess any specific facts anterior to the invasion of Xerxes in 480 B. C. Until the year 560 B. C., (the epoch of Crœsus in Asia Minor, and of Peisistratus at Athens,) the history of the Greeks presents hardly anything of a collective character: the movements of each portion of the Hellenic world begin and end apart from the rest. The destruction of Kirrha by the Amphiktyons is the first historical incident which brings into play, in defence of the Delphian temple, a common Hellenic feeling of active obligation.

But about 560 B. C., two important changes are seen to come into operation, which alter the character of Grecian history,—extricating it out of its former chaos of detail, and centralizing its isolated phenomena: 1. The subjugation of the Asiatic Greeks by Lydia and by Persia, followed by their struggles for emancipation,—wherein the European Greeks became implicated, first as accessories, and afterwards as principals. 2. The combined action of the large mass of Greeks under Sparta, as their most powerful state and acknowledged chief, succeeded by the rapid and extraordinary growth of Athens, the complete development of Grecian maritime power, and the struggle between Athens and Sparta for the headship. These two causes, though distinct in themselves, must, nevertheless, be regarded as working together to a certain degree,—or rather, the second grew out of the first. For it was the Persian invasions of Greece which first gave birth to a wide-spread alarm and antipathy among the leading Greeks (we must not call it Pan-Hellenic, since more than half of the Amphiktyonic constituency gave earth and water to Xerxes) against the barbarians of the East, and impressed them with the necessity of joint active operations under a leader. The idea of a leadership or hegemony of collective Hellas, as a privilege necessarily vested in some one state for common security against the barbarians, thus became current,—an idea foreign to the mind of Solôn, or any one of the same age. Next, came the miraculous development of Athens, and the violent contest between her and Sparta, which should be the leader; the larger portion of Hellas taking side with one or the other, and the common quarrel against the Persian being for the time put out of sight. Athens is put down, Sparta acquires the undisputed hegemony, and again the anti-barbaric feeling manifests itself, though faintly, in the Asiatic expeditions of Agesilaus. But the Spartans, too incompetent either to deserve or maintain this exalted position, are overthrown by the Thebans,—themselves not less incompetent, with the single exception of Epameinondas. The death of that single man extinguishes the pretensions of Thebes to the hegemony, and Hellas is left, like the deserted Penelopê in the Odyssey, worried by the competition of several suitors, none of whom is strong enough to stretch the bow on which the prize depends.430 Such a manifestation of force, as well as the trampling down of the competing suitors, is reserved, not for any legitimate Hellenic arm, but for a semi-Hellenized431 Macedonian, “brought up at Pella,” and making good his encroachments gradually from the north of Olympus. The hegemony of Greece thus passes forever out of Grecian hands; but the conqueror finds his interest in rekindling the old sentiment under the influence of which it had first sprung up. He binds to him the discordant Greeks, by the force of their ancient and common antipathy against the Great King, until the desolation and sacrilege once committed by Xerxes at Athens is avenged by annihilation of the Persian empire. And this victorious consummation of Pan-Hellenic antipathy,—the dream of Xenophon432 and the Ten Thousand Greeks after the battle of Kunaxa,—the hope of Jason of Pheræ,—the exhortation of Isokratês,433—the project of Philip, and the achievement of Alexander,—while it manifests the irresistible might of Hellenic ideas and organization in the then existing state of the world, is at the same time the closing scene of substantive Grecian life. The citizen-feelings of Greece become afterwards merely secondary forces, subordinate to the preponderance of Greek mercenaries under Macedonian order, and to the rudest of all native Hellens,—the Ætolian mountaineers. Some few individuals are indeed found, even in the third century B. C., worthy of the best times of Hellas, and the Achæan confederation of that century is an honorable attempt to contend against irresistible difficulties: but on the whole, that free, social, and political march, which gives so much interest to the earlier centuries, is irrevocably banished from Greece after the generation of Alexander the Great.

The foregoing brief sketch will show that, taking the period from Crœsus and Peisistratus down to the generation of Alexander (560-300 B. C.), the phenomena of Hellas generally, and her relations both foreign and interpolitical, admit of being grouped together in masses, with continued dependence on one or a few predominant circumstances. They may be said to constitute a sort of historical epopee, analogous to that which Herodotus has constructed out of the wars between Greeks and barbarians, from the legends of Iô and Eurôpa down to the repulse of Xerxes. But when we are called back to the period between 776 and 560 B. C., the phenomena brought to our knowledge are scanty in number,—exhibiting few common feelings or interests, and no tendency towards any one assignable purpose. To impart attraction to this first period, so obscure and unpromising, we shall be compelled to consider it in its relation with the second; partly as a preparation, partly as a contrast.

Of the extra-Peloponnesian Greeks north of Attica, during these two centuries, we know absolutely nothing; but it will be possible to furnish some information respecting the early condition and struggles of the great Dorian states in Peloponnesus, and respecting the rise of Sparta from the second to the first place in the comparative scale of Grecian powers. Athens becomes first known to us at the legislation of Drako and the attempt of Kylôn (620 B. C.) to make himself despot; and we gather some facts concerning the Ionic cities in Eubœa and Asia Minor, during the century of their chief prosperity, prior to the reign and conquests of Crœsus. In this way, we shall form to ourselves some idea of the growth of Sparta and Athens,—of the short-lived and energetic development of the Ionic Greeks,—and of the slow working of those causes which tended to bring about increased Hellenic intercommunication,—as contrasted with the enlarged range of ambition, the grand Pan-Hellenic ideas, the systematized party-antipathies, and the intensified action, both abroad and at home, which grew out of the contest with Persia.

There are also two or three remarkable manifestations which will require special notice during this first period of Grecian history: 1. The great multiplicity of colonies sent forth by individual cities, and the rise and progress of these several colonies; 2. The number of despots who arose in the various Grecian cities; 3. The lyric poetry; 4. The rudiments of that which afterwards ripened into moral philosophy, as manifested in gnomes, or aphorisms,—or the age of the Seven Wise Men.

But before I proceed to relate those earliest proceedings (unfortunately too few) of the Dorians and Ionians during the historical period, together with the other matters just alluded to, it will be convenient to go over the names and positions of those other Grecian states respecting which we have no information during these first two centuries. Some idea will thus be formed of the less important members of the Hellenic aggregate, previous to the time when they will be called into action. We begin by the territory north of the pass of Thermopylæ.

Of the different races who dwelt between this celebrated pass and the mouth of the river Peneius, by far the most powerful and important were the Thessalians. Sometimes, indeed, the whole of this area passes under the name of Thessaly,—since nominally, though not always really, the power of the Thessalians extended over the whole. We know that the Trachinian Herakleia, founded by the Lacedæmonians in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, close at the pass of Thermopylæ, was planted upon the territory of the Thessalians.434 But there were also within these limits other races, inferior and dependent on the Thessalians, yet said to be of more ancient date, and certainly not less genuine subdivisions of the Hellenic name. The Perrhæbi435 occupied the northern portion of the territory between the lower course of the river Peneius and Mount Olympus. The Magnêtes436 dwelt along the eastern coast, between Mount Ossa and Pelion on one side and the Ægean on the other, comprising the south-eastern cape and the eastern coast of the gulf of Pagasæ as far as Iôlkos. The Achæans occupied the territory called Phthiôtis, extending from near Mount Pindus on the west to the gulf of Pagasæ on the east,437—along the mountain chain of Othrys with its lateral projections northerly into the Thessalian plain, and southerly even to its junction with Œta. The three tribes of the Malians dwelt between Achæa Phthiôtis and Thermopylæ, including both Trachin and Herakleia. Westward of Achæa Phthiôtis, the lofty region of Pindus or Tymphrêstus, with its declivities both westward and eastward, was occupied by the Dolopes.

All these five tribes, or subdivisions,—Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Achæans of Phthiôtis, Malians, and Dolopes, together with certain Epirotic and Macedonian tribes besides, beyond the boundaries of Pindus and Olympus,—were in a state of irregular dependence upon the Thessalians, who occupied the central plain or basin drained by the Peneius. That river receives the streams from Olympus, from Pindus, and from Othrys,—flowing through a region which was supposed by its inhabitants to have been once a lake, until Poseidôn cut open the defile of Tempê, through which the waters found an efflux. In travelling northward from Thermopylæ, the commencement of this fertile region—the amplest space of land continuously productive which Hellas presents—is strikingly marked by the steep rock and ancient fortress of Thaumaki;438 from whence the traveller, passing over the mountains of Achæa Phthiôtis and Othrys, sees before him the plains and low declivities which reach northward across Thessaly to Olympus. A narrow strip of coast—in the interior of the gulf of Pagasæ, between the Magnêtes and the Achæans, and containing the towns of Amphanæum and Pagasæ439—belonged to this proper territory of Thessaly, but its great expansion was inland: within it were situated the cities of Pheræ, Pharsalus, Skotussa, Larissa, Krannôn, Atrax, Pharkadôn, Trikka, Metropolis, Pelinna, etc.

The abundance of corn and cattle from the neighboring plains sustained in these cities a numerous population, and above all a proud and disorderly noblesse, whose manners bore much resemblance to those of the heroic times. They were violent in their behavior, eager in armed feud, but unaccustomed to political discussion or compromise; faithless as to obligations, yet at the same time generous in their hospitalities, and much given to the enjoyments of the table.440 Breeding the finest horses in Greece, they were distinguished for their excellence as cavalry; but their infantry is little noticed, nor do the Thessalian cities seem to have possessed that congregation of free and tolerably equal citizens, each master of his own arms, out of whom the ranks of hoplites were constituted,—the warlike nobles, such as the Aleuadæ at Larissa, or the Skopadæ at Krannon, despising everything but equestrian service for themselves, furnished, from their extensive herds on the plain, horses for the poorer soldiers. These Thessalian cities exhibit the extreme of turbulent oligarchy, occasionally trampled down by some one man of great vigor, but little tempered by that sense of political communion and reverence for established law, which was found among the better cities of Hellas. Both in Athens and Sparta, so different in many respects from each other, this feeling will be found, if not indeed constantly predominant, yet constantly present and operative. Both of them exhibit a contrast with Larissa or Pheræ not unlike that between Rome and Capua,—the former, with her endless civil disputes constitutionally conducted, admitting the joint action of parties against a common foe; the latter, with her abundant soil enriching a luxurious oligarchy, and impelled according to the feuds of her great proprietors, the Magii, Blossii, and Jubellii.441

The Thessalians are, indeed, in their character and capacity as much Epirotic or Macedonian as Hellenic, forming a sort of link between the two. For the Macedonians, though trained in aftertimes upon Grecian principles by the genius of Philip and Alexander, so as to constitute the celebrated heavy-armed phalanx, were originally (even in the Peloponnesian war) distinguished chiefly for the excellence of their cavalry, like the Thessalians;442 while the broad-brimmed hat, or kausia, and the short spreading-mantle, or chlamys, were common to both.

We are told that the Thessalians were originally emigrants from Thesprotia in Epirus, and conquerors of the plain of the Peneius, which (according to Herodotus) was then called Æolis, and which they found occupied by the Pelasgi.443 It may be doubted whether the great Thessalian families,—such as the Aleuadæ of Larissa, descendants from Hêraklês, and placed by Pindar on the same level as the Lacedæmonian kings444—would have admitted this Thesprotian origin; nor does it coincide with the tenor of those legends which make the eponym, Thessalus, son of Hêraklês. Moreover, it is to be remarked that the language of the Thessalians was Hellenic, a variety of the Æolic dialect;445 the same (so far as we can make out) as that of the people whom they must have found settled in the country at their first conquest. If then it be true that, at some period anterior to the commencement of authentic history, a body of Thesprotian warriors crossed the passes of Pindus, and established themselves as conquerors in Thessaly, we must suppose them to have been more warlike than numerous, and to have gradually dropped their primitive language.

In other respects, the condition of the population of Thessaly, such as we find it during the historical period, favors the supposition of an original mixture of conquerors and conquered: for it seems that there was among the Thessalians and their dependents a triple gradation, somewhat analogous to that of Laconia. First, a class of rich proprietors distributed throughout the principal cities, possessing most of the soil, and constituting separate oligarchies, loosely hanging together.446 Next, the subject Achæans, Magnêtes, Perrhæbi, differing from the Laconian Periœki in this point, that they retained their ancient tribe-name and separate Amphiktyonic franchise. Thirdly, a class of serfs, or dependent cultivators, corresponding to the Laconian Helots, who, tilling the lands of the wealthy oligarchs, paid over a proportion of its produce, furnished the retainers by which these great families were surrounded, served as their followers in the cavalry, and were in a condition of villanage,—yet with the important reserve, that they could not be sold out of the country,447 that they had a permanent tenure in the soil, and that they maintained among one another the relations of family and village. This last mentioned order of men, in Thessaly called the Penestæ, is assimilated by all ancient authors to the Helots of Laconia, and in both cases the danger attending such a social arrangement is noticed by Plato and Aristotle. For the Helots as well as the Penestæ had their own common language and mutual sympathies, a separate residence, arms, and courage; to a certain extent, also, they possessed the means of acquiring property, since we are told that some of the Penestæ were richer than their masters.448 So many means of action, combined with a degraded social position, gave rise to frequent revolt and incessant apprehensions. As a general rule, indeed, the cultivation of the soil by slaves, or dependents, for the benefit of proprietors in the cities, prevailed throughout most parts of Greece. The rich men of Thebes, Argos, Athens, or Elis, must have derived their incomes in the same manner; but it seems that there was often, in other places, a larger intermixture of bought foreign slaves, and also that the number, fellow-feeling, and courage of the degraded village population was nowhere so great as in Thessaly and Laconia. Now the origin of the Penestæ, in Thessaly, is ascribed to the conquest of the territory by the Thesprotians, as that of the Helots in Laconia is traced to the Dorian conquest. The victors in both countries are said to have entered into a convention with the vanquished population, whereby the latter became serfs and tillers of the land for the benefit of the former, but were at the same time protected in their holdings, constituted subjects of the state, and secured against being sold away as slaves. Even in the Thessalian cities, though inhabited in common by Thessalian proprietors and their Penestæ, the quarters assigned to each were to a great degree separated: what was called the Free Agora could not be trodden by any Penest, except when specially summoned.449

Who the people were, whom the conquest of Thessaly by the Thesprotians reduced to this predial villanage, we find differently stated. According to Theopompus, they were Perrhæbians and Magnêtes; according to others, Pelasgians; while Archemachus alleged them to have been Bœotians of the territory of Arnê,450—some emigrating, to escape the conquerors, others remaining and accepting the condition of serfs. But the conquest, assuming it as a fact, occurred at far too early a day to allow of our making out either the manner in which it came to pass, or the state of things which preceded it. The Pelasgians whom Herodotus saw at Krêstôn are affirmed by him to have been the descendants of those who quitted Thessaly to escape451 the invading Thesprotians; though others held that the Bœotians, driven on this occasion from their habitations on the gulf of Pagasæ near the Achæans of Phthiôtis, precipitated themselves on Orchomenus and Bœotia, and settled in it, expelling the Minyæ and the Pelasgians.

Passing over the legends on this subject, and confining ourselves to historical time, we find an established quadruple division of Thessaly, said to have been introduced in the time of Aleuas, the ancestor (real or mythical) of the powerful Aleuadæ,—Thessaliôtis, Pelasgiôtis, Histiæôtis, Phthiôtis.452 In Phthiôtis were comprehended the Achæans, whose chief towns were Melitæa, Itônus, Thebæ, Phthiôtides, Alos, Larissa, Kremastê, and Pteleon, on or near the western coast of the gulf of Pagasæ. Histiæôtis, to the north of the Peneius, comprised the Perrhæbians, with numerous towns strong in situation, but of no great size or importance; they occupied the passes of Olympus453 and are sometimes considered as extending westward across Pindus. Pelasgiôtis included the Magnêtes, together with that which was called the Pelasgic plain, bordering on the western side of Pelion and Ossa.454 Thessaliôtis comprised the central plain of Thessaly and the upper course of the river Peneius. This was the political classification of the Thessalian power, framed to suit a time when the separate cities were maintained in harmonious action by favorable circumstances, or by some energetic individual ascendency; for their union was in general interrupted and disorderly, and we find certain cities standing aloof while the rest went to war.455 Though a certain political junction, and obligations of some kind towards a common authority, were recognized in theory by all, and a chief, or Tagus,456 was nominated to enforce obedience,—yet it frequently happened that the disputes of the cities among themselves prevented the choice of a Tagus, or drove him out of the country; and left the alliance little more than nominal. Larissa, Pharsalus,457 and Pheræ,—each with its cluster of dependent towns as adjuncts,—seem to have been nearly on a par in strength, and each torn by intestine faction, so that not only was the supremacy over common dependents relaxed, but even the means of repelling invaders greatly enfeebled. The dependence of the Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Achæans, and Malians, might, under these circumstances, be often loose and easy. But the condition of the Penestæ—who occupied the villages belonging to these great cities, in the central plain of Pelasgiôtis and Thessaliôtis, and from whom the Aleuadæ and Skopadæ derived their exuberance of landed produce—was noway mitigated, if it was not even aggravated, by such constant factions. Nor were there wanting cases in which the discontent of this subject-class was employed by members of the native oligarchy,458 or even by foreign states, for the purpose of bringing about political revolutions.

“When Thessaly is under her Tagus, all the neighboring people pay tribute to her; she can send into the field six thousand cavalry and ten thousand hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry,”459 observed Jason, despot of Pheræ, to Polydamas of Pharsalus, in endeavoring to prevail on the latter to second his pretensions to that dignity. The impost due from the tributaries, seemingly considerable, was then realized with arrears, and the duties upon imports at the harbors of the Pagasæan gulf, imposed for the benefit of the confederacy, were then enforced with strictness; but the observation shows that, while unanimous Thessaly was very powerful, her periods of unanimity were only occasional.460 Among the nations which thus paid tribute to the fulness of Thessalian power, we may number not merely the Perrhæbi, Magnêtes, and Achæans of Phthiôtis, but also the Malians and Dolopes, and various tribes of Epirots extending to the westward of Pindus.461 We may remark that they were all (except the Malians) javelin-men, or light-armed troops, not serving in rank with the full panoply; a fact which, in Greece, counts as presumptive evidence of a lower civilization: the Magnêtes, too, had a peculiar close-fitting mode of dress, probably suited to movements in a mountainous country.462 There was even a time when the Thessalian power threatened to extend southward of Thermopylæ, subjugating the Phokians, Dorians, and Lokrians. So much were the Phokians alarmed at this danger, that they had built a wall across the pass of Thermopylæ, for the purpose of more easily defending it against Thessalian invaders, who are reported to have penetrated more than once into the Phokian valleys, and to have sustained some severe defeats.463 At what precise time these events happened, we find no information; but it must have been considerably earlier than the invasion of Xerxes, since the defensive wall which had been built at Thermopylæ, by the Phokians, was found by Leonidas in a state of ruin. But the Phokians, though they no longer felt the necessity of keeping up this wall, had not ceased to fear and hate the Thessalians,—an antipathy which will be found to manifest itself palpably in connection with the Persian invasion. On the whole, the resistance of the Phokians was successful, for the power of the Thessalians never reached southward of the pass.464

It will be recollected that these different ancient races, Perrhæbi, Magnêtes, Achæans, Malians, Dolopes,—though tributaries of the Thessalians, still retained their Amphiktyonic franchise, and were considered as legitimate Hellenes: all except the Malians are, indeed, mentioned in the Iliad. We shall rarely have occasion to speak much of them in the course of this history: they are found siding with Xerxes (chiefly by constraint) in his attack of Greece, and almost indifferent in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. That the Achæans of Phthiôtis are a portion of the same race as the Achæans of Peloponnesus it seems reasonable to believe, though we trace no historical evidence to authenticate it. Achæa Phthiôtis is the seat of Hellên, the patriarch of the entire race,—of the primitive Hellas, by some treated as a town, by others as a district of some breadth,—and of the great national hero, Achilles. Its connection with the Peloponnesian Achæans is not unlike that of Doris with the Peloponnesian Dorians.465 We have, also, to notice another ethnical kindred, the date and circumstances of which are given to us only in a mythical form, but which seems, nevertheless, to be in itself a reality,—that of the Magnêtes on Pelion and Ossa, with the two divisions of Asiatic Magnêtes, or Magnesia, on Mount Sipylus and Magnesia on the river Mæander. It is said that these two Asiatic homonymous towns were founded by migrations of the Thessalian Magnêtes, a body of whom became consecrated to the Delphian god, and chose a new abode under his directions. According to one story, these emigrants were warriors, returning from the Siege of Troy; according to another, they sought fresh seats, to escape from the Thesprotian conquerors of Thessaly. There was a third story, according to which the Thessalian Magnêtes themselves were represented as colonists466 from Delphi. Though we can elicit no distinct matter of fact from these legends, we may, nevertheless, admit the connection of race between the Thessalian and the Asiatic Magnêtes, as well as the reverential dependence of both, manifested in this supposed filiation, on the temple of Delphi. Of the Magnêtes in Krete, noticed by Plato as long extinct in his time, we cannot absolutely verify even the existence.

Of the Malians, Thucydidês notices three tribes (γένη) as existing in his time,—the Paralii, the Hierês (priests), and the Trachinii, or men of Trachin:467 it is possible that the second of the two may have been possessors of the sacred spot on which the Amphiktyonic meetings were held. The prevalence of the hoplites or heavy-armed infantry among the Malians, indicates that we are stepping from Thessalian to more southerly Hellenic habits: the Malians recognized every man as a qualified citizen, who either had served, or was serving, in the ranks with his full panoply.468 Yet the panoply was probably not perfectly suitable to the mountainous regions by which they were surrounded; for, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the aggressive mountaineers of the neighboring region of Œta, had so harassed and overwhelmed them in war, that they were forced to throw themselves on the protection of Sparta; and the establishment of the Spartan colony of Herakleia, near Trachin, was the result of their urgent application. Of these mountaineers, described under the general name of Œtæans, the principal were the Ænianes, (or Eniênes, as they are termed in the Homeric Catalogue, as well as by Herodotus),—an ancient Hellenic469 Amphiktyonic race, who are said to have passed through several successive migrations in Thessaly and Epirus, but who, in the historical times, had their settlement and their chief town, Hypata, in the upper valley of the Spercheius, on the northern declivity of Mount Œta. But other tribes were probably also included in the name, such as those Ætolian tribes, the Bomians and Kallians, whose high and cold abodes approached near to the Maliac gulf. It is in this sense that we are to understand the name, as comprehending all the predatory tribes along this extensive mountain range, when we are told of the damage done by the Œtæans, both to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the south: but there are some cases in which the name Œtæans seems to designate expressly the Ænianes, especially when they are mentioned as exercising the Amphiktyonic franchise.470

The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure of the southern declivities of Othrys,471—especially the valley of the Spercheius, through which river all these waters pass away, and which annually gives forth a fertilizing inundation,—present a marked contrast with the barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount Œta, which forms one side of the pass of Thermopylæ. Southward of the pass, the Lokrians, Phokians, and Dorians, occupied the mountains and passes between Thessaly and Bœotia. The coast opposite to the western side of Eubœa, from the neighborhood of Thermopylæ, as far as the Bœotian frontier at Anthêdôn, was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern frontier town, Alpêni, was conterminous with the Malians. There was, however, one narrow strip of Phokis—the town of Daphnus, where the Phokians also touched the Eubœan sea—which broke this continuity, and divided the Lokrians into two sections,—Lokrians of Mount Knêmis, or Epiknemidian Lokrians, and Lokrians of Opus, or Opuntian Lokrians. The mountain called Knêmis, running southward parallel to the coast from the end of Œta, divided the former section from the inland Phokians and the upper valley of the Kephisus: farther southward, joining continuously with Mount Ptôon by means of an intervening mountain which is now called Chlomo, it separated the Lokrians of Opus from the territories of Orchomenus, Thebes, and Anthêdôn, the north-eastern portions of Bœotia. Besides these two sections of the Lokrian name, there was also a third, completely separate, and said to have been colonized out from Opus,—the Lokrians surnamed Ozolæ,—who dwelt apart on the western side of Phokis, along the northern coast of the Corinthian gulf. They reached from Amphissa—which overhung the plain of Krissa, and stood within seven miles of Delphi—to Naupaktus. near the narrow entrance of the gulf; which latter town was taken from these Lokrians by the Athenians, a little before the Peloponnesian war. Opus prided itself on being the mother-city of the Lokrian name, and the legends of Deukaliôn and Pyrrha found a home there as well as in Phthiôtis. Alpeni, Nikæa, Thronium, and Skarpheia, were towns, ancient but unimportant, of the Epiknemidian Lokrians; but the whole length of this Lokrian coast is celebrated for its beauty and fertility, both by Ancient and modern observers.472

The Phokians were bounded on the north by the little territories called Doris and Dryopis, which separated them from the Malians,—on the north-east, east, and south-west, by the different branches of Lokrians,—and on the south-east, by the Bœotians. They touched the Eubœan sea, (as has been mentioned) at Daphnus, the point where it approaches nearest to their chief town, Elateia; their territory also comprised most part of the lofty and bleak range of Parnassus, as far as its southerly termination, where a lower portion of it, called Kirphis, projects into the Corinthian gulf, between the two bays of Antikyra and Krissa; the latter, with its once fertile plain, lay immediately under the sacred rock of the Delphian Apollo. Both Delphi and Krissa originally belonged to the Phokian race, but the sanctity of the temple, together with Lacedæmonian aid, enabled the Delphians to set up for themselves, disavowing their connection with the Phokian brotherhood. Territorially speaking, the most valuable part of Phokis473 consisted in the valley of the river Kephisus, which takes its rise from Parnassus, not far from the Phokian town of Lilæa, passes between Œta and Knêmis on one side, and Parnassus on the other, and enters Bœotia near Chæroneia, discharging itself into the lake Kôpaïs. It was on the projecting mountain ledges and rocks on each side of this river, that the numerous little Phokian towns were situated. Twenty-two of them were destroyed and broken up into villages by the Amphiktyonic order, after the second Sacred War; Abæ (one of the few, if not the only one, that was spared) being protected by the sanctity of its temple and oracle. Of these cities, the most important was Elateia, situated on the left bank of the Kephisus, and on the road from Lokris into Phokis, in the natural march of an army from Thermopylæ into Bœotia. The Phokian towns474 were embodied in an ancient confederacy, which held its periodical meetings at a temple between Daulis and Delphi.

The little territory called Doris and Dryopis, occupied the southern declivity of Mount Œta, dividing Phokis on the north and north-west, from the Ætolians, Ænianes, and Malians. That which was called Doris in the historical times, and which reached, in the time of Herodotus, nearly as far eastward as the Maliac gulf, is said to have formed a part of what had been once called Dryopis; a territory which had comprised the summit of Œta as far as the Spercheius, northward, and which had been inhabited by an old Hellenic tribe called Dryopes. The Dorians acquired their settlement in Dryopis by gift from Hêraklês, who, along with the Malians (so ran the legend), had expelled the Dryopes, and compelled them to find for themselves new seats at Hermionê, and Asinê, in the Argolic peninsula of Peloponnesus,—at Styra and Karystus in Eubœa,—and in the island of Kythnus;475 it is only in these five last-mentioned places, that history recognizes them. The territory of Doris was distributed into four little townships,—Pindus, or Akyphas, Bœon, Kytinion, and Erineon,—each of which seems to have occupied a separate valley belonging to one of the feeders of the river Kephisus,—the only narrow spaces of cultivated ground which this “small and sad” region presented.476 In itself, this tetrapolis is so insignificant, that we shall rarely find occasion to mention it; but it acquired a factitious consequence by being regarded as the metropolis of the great Dorian cities in Peloponnesus, and receiving on that ground special protection from Sparta. I do not here touch upon that string of ante-historical migrations—stated by Herodotus, and illustrated by the ingenuity as well as decorated by the fancy of O. Müller—through which the Dorians are affiliated with the patriarch of the Hellenic race,—moving originally out of Phthiôtis to Histiæôtis, then to Pindus, and lastly to Doris. The residence of Dorians in Doris, is a fact which meets us at the commencement of history, like that of the Phokians and Lokrians in their respective territories.

We next pass to the Ætolians, whose extreme tribes covered the bleak heights of Œta and Korax, reaching almost within sight of the Maliac gulf, where they bordered on the Dorians and Malians,—while their central and western tribes stretched along the frontier of the Ozolian Lokrians to the flat plain, abundant in marsh and lake, near the mouth of the Euênus. In the time of Herodotus and Thucydidês, they do not seem to have extended so far westward as the Achelôus; but in later times, this latter river, throughout the greater part of its lower course, divided them from the Akarnanians:477 on the north, they touched upon the Dolopians, and upon a parallel of latitude nearly as far north as Ambrakia. There were three great divisions of the Ætolian name,—the Apodôti, Ophioneis, and Eurytanes,—each of which was subdivided into several different village tribes. The northern and eastern portion of the territory478 consisted of very high mountain ranges, and even in the southern portion, the mountains Arakynthus, Kurion, Chalkis, Taphiassus, are found at no great distance from the sea; while the chief towns in Ætolia, Kalydôn, Pleurôn, Chalkis,—seem to have been situated eastward of the Euênus, between the last-mentioned mountains and the sea.479 The first two towns have been greatly ennobled in legend, but are little named in history; while, on the contrary, Thermus, the chief town of the historical Ætolians, and the place where the aggregate meeting and festival of the Ætolian name, for the choice of a Pan-Ætolic general, was convoked, is not noticed by any one earlier than Ephorus.480 It was partly legendary renown, partly ethnical kindred (publicly acknowledged on both sides) with the Eleians in Peloponnesus, which authenticated the title of the Ætolians to rank as Hellens. But the great mass of the Apodôti, Eurytanes, and Ophioneis in the inland mountains, were so rude in their manners, and so unintelligible481 in their speech, (which, however, was not barbaric, but very bad Hellenic,) that this title might well seem disputable,—in point of fact it was disputed, in later times, when the Ætolian power and depredations had become obnoxious nearly to all Greece. And it is, probably, to this difference of manners between the Ætolians on the sea-coast and those in the interior, that we are to trace a geographical division mentioned by Strabo, into ancient Ætolia, and Ætolia Epiktêtus, or acquired. When or by whom this division was introduced, we do not know. It cannot be founded upon any conquest, for the inland Ætolians were the most unconquerable of mankind: and the affirmation which Ephorus applied to the whole Ætolian race,—that it had never been reduced to subjection by any one,—is, most of all, beyond dispute concerning the inland portion of it.482

Adjoining the Ætolians were the Akarnanians, the westernmost of extra-Peloponnesian Greeks. They extended to the Ionian sea, and seem, in the time of Thucydidês, to have occupied both banks of the river Achelôus, in the lower part of its course,—though the left bank appears afterwards as belonging to the Ætolians, so that the river came to constitute the boundary, often disputed and decided by arms, between them. The principal Akarnanian towns, Stratus and Œniadæ, were both on the right bank; the latter on the marshy and overflowed land near its mouth. Near the Akarnanians, towards the gulf of Ambrakia, were found barbarian, or non-Hellenic nations,—the Agræans and the Amphilochians: in the midst of the latter, on the shores of the Ambrakian gulf, the Greek colony, called Argos Amphilochicum, was established.

Of the five Hellenic subdivisions now enumerated,—Lokrians, Phokians, Dorians (of Doris), Ætolians, and Akarnanians (of whom Lokrians, Phokians, and Ætolians are comprised in the Homeric catalogue),—we have to say the same as of those north of Thermopylæ: there is no information respecting them from the commencement of the historical period down to the Persian war. Even that important event brings into action only the Lokrians of the Eubœan sea, the Phokians, and the Dorians: we have to wait until near the Peloponnesian war, before we require information respecting the Ozolian Lokrians, the Ætolians, and the Akarnanians. These last three were unquestionably the most backward members of the Hellenic aggregate. Though not absolutely without a central town, they lived dispersed in villages, retiring, when attacked, to inaccessible heights, perpetually armed and in readiness for aggression and plunder wherever they found an opportunity.483 Very different was the condition of the Lokrians opposite Eubœa, the Phokians, and the Dorians. These were all orderly town communities, small, indeed, and poor, but not less well administered than the average of Grecian townships, and perhaps exempt from those individual violences which so frequently troubled the Bœotian Thebes or the great cities of Thessaly. Timæus affirmed (contrary, as it seems, to the supposition of Aristotle) that, in early times, there were no slaves either among the Lokrians or Phokians, and that the work required to be done for proprietors was performed by poor freemen;484 a habit which is alleged to have been continued until the temporary prosperity of the second Sacred War, when the plunder of the Delphian temple so greatly enriched the Phokian leaders. But this statement is too briefly given, and too imperfectly authenticated, to justify any inferences.

We find in the poet Alkman (about 610 B. C.), the Erysichæan, or Kalydonian shepherd, named as a type of rude rusticity,—the antithesis of Sardis, where the poet was born.485 And among the suitors who are represented as coming forward to claim the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenes in marriage, there appears both the Thessalian Diaktoridês from Krannôn, a member of the Skopad family,—and the Ætolian Malês, brother of that Titormus who in muscular strength surpassed all his contemporary Greeks, and who had seceded from mankind into the inmost recesses of Ætolia: this Ætolian seems to be set forth as a sort of antithesis to the delicate Smindyridês of Sybaris, the most luxurious of mankind. Herodotus introduces these characters into his dramatic picture of this memorable wedding.486

Between Phokis and Lokris on one side, and Attica (from which it is divided by the mountains Kithærôn and Parnês) on the other, we find the important territory called Bœotia, with its ten or twelve autonomous cities, forming a sort of confederacy under the presidency of Thebes, the most powerful among them. Even of this territory, destined during the second period of this history, to play a part so conspicuous and effective, we know nothing during the first two centuries after 776 B. C. We first acquire some insight into it, on occasion of the disputes between Thebes and Platæa, about the year 520 B. C. Orchomenus, on the north-west of the lake Kôpaïs, forms throughout the historical times one of the cities of the Bœotian league, seemingly the second after Thebes. But I have already stated that the Orchomenian legends, the Catalogue, and other allusions in Homer, and the traces of past power and importance yet visible in the historical age, attest the early political existence of Orchomenus and its neighborhood apart from Bœotia.487 The Amphiktyony in which Orchomenus participated, at the holy island of Kalauria near the Argolic peninsula, seems to show that it must once have possessed a naval force and commerce, and that its territory must have touched the sea at Halæ and the lower town of Larymna, near the southern frontier of Lokris; this sea is separated by a very narrow space from the range of mountains which join Knêmis and Ptôon, and which inclose on the east both the basin of Orchomenus, Asplêdôn, and Kôpæ, and the lake Kôpaïs. The migration of the Bœotians out of Thessaly into Bœotia (which is represented as a consequence of the conquest of the former country by the Thesprotians) is commonly assigned as the compulsory force which Bœotized Orchomenus. By whatever cause, or at whatever time (whether before or after 776 B. C.) the transition may have been effected, we find Orchomenus completely Bœotian throughout the known historical age,—yet still retaining its local Minyeian legends, and subject to the jealous rivalry488 of Thebes, as being the second city in the Bœotian league. The direct road from the passes of Phokis southward into Bœotia went through Chæroneia, leaving Lebadeia on the right, and Orchomenus on the left hand, and passed the south-western edge of the lake Kôpaïs near the towns of Koroneia, Alalkomenæ, and Haliartus,—all situated on the mountain Tilphôssion, an outlying ridge connected with Helicon by the intervention of Mount Leïbethrius. The Tilphossæon was an important military post, commanding that narrow pass between the mountain and the lake which lay in the great road from Phokis to Thebes.489 The territory of this latter city occupied the greater part of central Bœotia, south of the lake Kôpaïs; it comprehended Akræphia and Mount Ptôon, and probably touched the Eubœan sea at the village of Salganeus south of Anthêdôn. South-west of Thebes, occupying the southern descent of lofty Helicon towards the inmost corner of the Corinthian gulf, and bordering on the south-eastern extremity of Phokis with the Phokian town of Bulis, stood the city of Thespiæ. Southward of the Asôpus, between that river and Mount Kithæron, were Platæa and Tanagra; in the south-eastern corner of Bœotia stood Orôpus, the frequent subject of contention between Thebes and Athens; and in the road between the Eubœan Chalkis and Thebes, the town of Mykalêssus.

From our first view of historical Bœotia downward, there appears a confederation which embraces the whole territory: and during the Peloponnesian war, the Thebans invoke “the ancient constitutional maxims of the Bœotians” as a justification of extreme rigor, as well as of treacherous breach of the peace, against the recusant Platæans.490 Of this confederation, the greater cities were primary members, while the lesser were attached to one or other of them in a kind of dependent union. Neither the names nor the number of these primary members can be certainly known: there seem grounds for including Thebes, Orchomenus, Lebadeia, Korôneia, Haliartus, Kôpæ, Anthêdôn, Tanagra, Thespiæ, and Platæa before its secession.491 Akræphia, with the neighboring Mount Ptôon and its oracle, Skôlus, Glisas, and other places, were dependencies of Thebes: Chæroneia, Asplêdôn, Holmônes, and Hyêttus, of Orchomenus: Siphæ, Leuktra, Kerêssus, and Thisbê, of Thespiæ.492 Certain generals or magistrates, called Bœotarchs, were chosen annually to manage the common affairs of the confederation. At the time of the battle of Delium in the Peloponnesian war, they were eleven in number, two of them from Thebes; but whether this number was always maintained, or in what proportions the choice was made by the different cities, we find no distinct information. There were likewise, during the Peloponnesian war, four different senates, with whom the Bœotarchs consulted on matters of importance; a curious arrangement, of which we have no explanation. Lastly, there was the general concilium and religious festival,—the Pambœotia,—held periodically at Korôneia. Such were the forms, as far as we can make them out, of the Bœotian confederacy; each of the separate cities possessing its own senate and constitution, and having its political consciousness as an autonomous unit, yet with a certain habitual deference to the federal obligations. Substantially, the affairs of the confederation will be found in the hands of Thebes, managed in the interests of Theban ascendency, which appears to have been sustained by no other feeling except respect for superior force and bravery. The discontents of the minor Bœotian towns, harshly repressed and punished, form an uninviting chapter in Grecian history.

One piece of information we find, respecting Thebes singly and apart from the other Bœotian towns anterior to the year 700 B. C. Though brief, and incompletely recorded, it is yet highly valuable, as one of the first incidents of solid and positive Grecian history. Dioklês, the Corinthian, stands enrolled as Olympic victor in the 13th Olympiad, or 728 B. C., at a time when the oligarchy called Bacchiadæ possessed the government of Corinth. The beauty of his person attracted towards him the attachment of Philolaus, one of the members of this oligarchical body,—a sentiment which Grecian manners did not proscribe; but it also provoked an incestuous passion on the part of his own mother, Halcyonê, from which Dioklês shrunk with hatred and horror. He abandoned forever his native city and retired to Thebes, whither he was followed by Philolaus, and where both of them lived and died. Their tombs were yet shown in the time of Aristotle, close adjoining to each other, yet with an opposite frontage; that of Philolaus being so placed that the inmate could command a view of the lofty peak of his native city, while that of Dioklês was so disposed as to block out all prospect of the hateful spot. That which preserves to us the memory of so remarkable an incident, is, the esteem entertained for Philolaus by the Thebans,—a feeling so profound, that they invited him to make laws for them. We shall have occasion to point out one or two similar cases, in which Grecian cities invoked the aid of an intelligent stranger; and the practice became common, among the Italian republics in the Middle Ages, to nominate a person not belonging to their city either as podesta or as arbitrator in civil dissensions. It would have been highly interesting to know, at length, what laws Philolaus made for the Thebans; but Aristotle, with his usual conciseness, merely alludes to his regulations respecting the adoption of children and respecting the multiplication of offspring in each separate family. His laws were framed with the view to maintain the original number of lots of land, without either subdivision or consolidation; but by what means the purpose was to be fulfilled we are not informed.493 There existed a law at Thebes, which perhaps may have been part of the scheme of Philolaus, prohibiting exposure of children, and empowering a father, under the pressure of extreme poverty, to bring his new-born infant to the magistrates, who sold it for a price to any citizen-purchaser,—taking from him the obligation to bring it up, but allowing him in return, to consider the adult as his slave.494 From these brief allusions, coming to us without accompanying illustration, we can draw no other inference, except that the great problem of population—the relation between the well-being of the citizens and their more or less rapid increase in numbers—had engaged the serious attention even of the earliest Grecian legislators. We may, however, observe that the old Corinthian legislator, Pheidôn, (whose precise date cannot be fixed) is stated by Aristotle,495 to have contemplated much the same object as that which is ascribed to Philolaus at Thebes; an unchangeable number both of citizens and of lots of land, without any attempt to alter the unequal ratio of the lots, one to the other.