Читать книгу The History of Greece from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age - John Bagnell Bury - Страница 32

Ancient Greek students of constitutional history were struck by some obvious and remarkable resemblances between the Spartan and the Cretan states, and it was believed by many that the Spartan constitution was derived from Crete, though there are notable differences as well as notable likenesses. It will be convenient to glance here at the political condition of this island, to which we shall seldom have to recur, since, owing to its geographical situation and the lack of political union, it was isolated and withdrawn from the main course of Greek history.

In a passage in the Odyssey the inhabitants of Crete are divided into five classes: Achaeans, Eteo-Cretans, Cydonians, Dorians, and Pelasgians. Of these the Eteo-Cretans, as we saw, were the original people who dwelled in the island before the Greeks came, like the Eteo-Carpathians of Carpathus. They survived chiefly in the eastern part of the island and they continued to speak their own tongue in historical times, writing it, however, not in their ancient pictorial script but in Greek characters. A specimen of it—but we have no key to the meaning—has been preserved in an inscription found at Praesus, their most important city. The people of Cydonia were perhaps ancient settlers from the Peloponnesus. The Achaeans and Pelasgians point to Thessaly, and there are some links which seem to connect Cretan towns with Perrhaebia. We may consider it probable that early settlers from Thessaly found their way to Crete.

But the most important settlers belonged to the Dorian branch of the Greek race, easily recognised by the three tribes, Hylleis, Pamphyli, and Dymanes, which always accompanied its migrations. These three tribes can be traced in many Cretan cities, and we saw that this island was one of the first places to receive the Dorian wanderers. But at a later time there seems to have been a further infusion of the “Dorian” element. New settlers came from Argolis and Laconia and mingled with the older inhabitants, refounding many cities. Thus Gortyn in the south of the island, in the valley of the river Lethaeus, was re-settled; and her neighbour Phaestos, distinguished by a mention in Homer, was invaded by newcomers from Argolis. “Well-built Lyttus”, in its central site, also of Homeric fame, and Polyrrhenion, “rich in sheep”, in the north-western corner, a haunt of the divine huntress Dictynna, were both colonised from Laconia. In the mid part of the north coast, Cnosus “the great city” of Minos, Cnosus “the broad,” set on a hill, had existed in the heroic age but was re-peopled by Dorians.

The island then, colonised first by a folk closely akin to those who conquered Lacedaemon and Argos, colonised again by those very conquerors, may be said to be doubly “Dorian”; and there is thus a double reason for resemblances between Laconian and Cretan institutions. In the Cretan cities themselves there were of course many local divergences, but the general resemblances are so close, wherever we can trace the facts, that for our purpose we may safely follow the example of the ancients in assuming a general type of Cretan polity.

The population of a Cretan state consisted of two classes, warriors and serfs. In a few cases where one city had subjugated another, the people of the subject city held somewhat the same position as the Laconian Perioeci and formed a third class, but these cases were exceptional. In general, one of the main differences between a Cretan state and Sparta was that the Cretan state had no perioeci. There were two kinds of serfs, mnoitai and aphamiotai. The mnoites belonged to the state, while the aphamiotes, also called clarotes or “lot-men”, were attached to the lots of the citizens, and belonged to the owners of the lots. These bondsmen cultivated the land themselves and could possess private property, like the Spartan Helots, but though we do not know exactly what their obligations were, they seem to have been in some ways in a better condition than the bondsmen of Laconia. If the pastas or lord of a Cretan serf died childless, the serf had an interest in his property. He could contract a legal marriage, and his family was recognised by law. The two privileges from which he was always jealously excluded were the carrying of arms and the practice of athletic exercises in the gymnasia. Unlike the Helots, the Cretan serfs found their condition tolerable, and we never hear that they revolted. The geographical conditions of the Cretans enabled them to excuse their slaves from military service.

Of the monarchical period in Crete we know nothing. In the sixth century we find that monarchy has been abolished by the aristocracy, and that the executive governments are in the hands of boards of ten annual magistrates, entitled kosmoi. The kosmoi were chosen from certain important clans (startoi), and the military as well as the other functions of the king had passed into their hands. They were assisted by the advice of the Council of elders which was elected from those who had filled the office of kosmos. The resolves of the kosmoi and Council were laid before the agorai or general assemblies of citizens, who merely voted and had no right to propose or discuss.

There is a superficial resemblance between this constitution, which prevailed in most Cretan cities, and that of Sparta. The Cretan agora answers to the Spartan apella, the Cretan to the Spartan gerusia, and the kosmoi to the ephors. The most obvious difference is that in Crete there was no royalty. But there is another important difference. The democratic feature of the Spartan constitution is absent in Crete. While the ephors were chosen from all the citizens, in a Cretan state only certain noble families were eligible to the office of kosmos; and, as the gerusia was chosen from the kosmoi, it is clear that the whole power of the state resided in a privileged class consisting of those families or clans. Thus the Cretan state was a close aristocracy.

The true likeness between Sparta and Crete lies in the circumstance that the laws and institutions of both countries aimed at creating a class of warriors. Boys were taught to read and write, and to recite certain songs ordained by law; but the chief part of their training was bodily, with a view to making them good soldiers. At the age of seventeen they were admitted into “herds”, agelai, answering to the Spartan buai, which were organised by sons of noble houses and supported at the expense of the state. The members of these associations went through a training in the public gymnasia or dromoi, and hence were called dromeis. Great days were held, on which sham fights took place between these “herds” to the sound of lyres and flutes. The dromeus was of age in the eyes of the law, and he was bound to marry, but his wife continued to live in the house of her father and kinsman, until he passed out of the state of a dromeus and became a “man.” The men dined at public messes called andreia, corresponding to the Spartan phiditia, but the boys were also permitted to join them. These meals were not defrayed altogether, as at Sparta, by the contributions of the members, but were partly at least paid for by the state; and the state also made provision for the sustenance of the women. The public income, which defrayed these and other such burdens and maintained the worship of the gods, must have been derived from public land cultivated by the mnoites, and distinct from the land which was apportioned in lots among the citizens.

We see then that in the discipline and education of the citizens, in the common meals of the men, in general political objects, there is a close and significant likeness between Sparta and Crete. But otherwise there are great differences. (1) In Crete there were, as a rule, no Perioeci; (2) the Cretan serfs lived under more favourable conditions than the Helots, and were not a constant source of danger; (3) kingship did not survive in Crete, and consequently (4) the functions which in Sparta were divided between kings and ephors were in Crete united in the hands of the kosmoi; (5) the Cretan state was an aristocracy, while Sparta, so far as the city itself was concerned, was a limited democracy; a difference which clearly reveals itself in (6) the modes of electing kosmoi and ephors; (7) there is a more advanced form of communism in Crete, in so far as state stores contribute largely to the maintenance of the citizens. If one city had become dominant in Crete and reduced the others to subjection, the resemblance between Laconia and Crete would have been much greater. A class of Cretan perioeci would have forthwith been formed.