UNIT II: GREEK HISTORY (cont.)

SECTION I: GREEK HISTORY TO THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT (cont.)

II: The Early History of the Leading States Down to About 500 B.C.

In the history of the Peloponnesus after the Dorian immigration we begin to be on firmer ground. There may still be large room for doubt as to particular dates or names, but the age left permanent records in the institu-tions which survived it. The first thing which should be borne in mind with regard to the Dorian immigration is that its direct influence was confined to three districts of the Peloponnesus. Argolis, Laconia, and Messenia were thoroughly Dorianized. Of the other three districts, Arcadia remained almost wholly unaffected, Elis and Achaia were affected only indirectly, through the influx of the populations which the Dorians had displaced. The first rank in the Peloponnesus was long retained by Argos. The ancient primacy of its Achaean princes was inherited by its Dorian rulers; and now, under the dynasty of the Temenidae, Argos acquired a new prestige as the head of a federative Dorian hexapolis, of which the other members were Phlius, Sicyon, Troezene, Epidaurus, and Corinth. It was only by slow degrees that the power arose which was destined to eclipse Argos. When the Dorians entered the valley of Eurotas, they found " hollow Lacedaemon " already shared among people of other tribes. Leleges, Minyans, and Achaeans had been there before them. Both iEolian and Achaean elements remained in the land. The settle-ment of the Dorians was made in a strong position under Mount Taygetus, on the right or western bank of the Eurotas ; and the fact that, unlike most Greek cities, it was not founded on a rocky base, but on arable soil, was expressed by the name Sparte (sown land). It was indeed less a city than a group of rude hamlets,—the camp of a military occupation. And, as a natural stronghold, defended by an alert garrison, it dispensed with walls. Sparta was at first only one member of a Laconian hexa-polis. It was at a later stage that Sparta became the head-town of the country, and the seat of a central govern-ment. The origin of the dual kingship may probably be traced to this period. Such a dualism has no parallel else-where among Dorians ; and, as regards one at least of the two royal lines, we know that the Agiade Cleomenes proclaimed himself an Achaean. The two royal lines of the Agiadae and Eurypontidae may have taken their beginning from a coalition or compromise between Dorian and Achaean houses. Afterwards, when it was desired to ex-plain the dualism and to refer both lines to a common source, Agis and Eurypon were represented as descended from the twin sons of Aristodemus, Eurystheus and Procles.
The spread of Spartan power in the Peloponnesus was preceded by the building up of that political and social system which made the Spartan citizens a compact aristo-cracy, exclusively devoted to the exercises of war. The personality of Lycurgus is shadowy. He has even been classed with those beings who, like Prometheus, Hermes, and Phoroneus, bestow on men that gift of fire without which they could not have attained to a high civilization. But the charge of excessive credulity can scarcely be brought against those who hold, with E. Curtius, that " there really lived and worked in the first half of the 9th century B.C. a legislator of the name of Lycurgus, a man who, as a born Heraclide, was called to take part in public affairs." It is another question whether he was the author of all the institutions which were afterwards ascribed to him. The example of another legislator who stands in a far clearer light of history,—the Athenian Solon,'—whom the orators sometimes credit with the work of Clisthenes in addition to his own, may serve to show how loose such ascriptions often were. But at least the work of Lycurgus may be assumed to have marked an epoch in the history of the Spartan system. This system rested, first, on a dis-tinction of three orders. Dorians alone were Spartiatai, citizens of Sparta, as opposed to mere Lacedaemonii, and to them belonged all political power. Lycurgus, said the tradition, assigned nine thousand lots of land to as many Spartiatae; the land descended from father to eldest son, and, failing issue, reverted to the state. The older or non^

Dorian population, settled chiefly on the mountain slopes around the Spartan lands, were called Perioikoi. They were free farmers, who had no share in the government, and were not required to perform military service. Lastly, the Helots cultivated the lands of the Spartans, not as slaves belonging to private masters, but as serfs of the commonwealth; hence no Spartan citizen could sell a Helot or remove him from the land. From each farm the Helots had to produce annually a certain quantity of barley, oil, and wine; if there was a surplus, they could keep it for themselves. The condition of the Helots was thus in some respects better than that of ordinary Greek slaves. But it was such as constantly to remind them that they had once been a free peasantry. It was this, as much per-haps as positive ill-usage, which made it so peculiarly galling. The hatred of the Helots was a standing mec&ce Character to the Spartan commonwealth. As Aristotle says, the of the Spartan kingship meant practically a life-tenure of the men™" c^ie^ military command. The government was essentially an official oligarchy, in which the power of the irresponsible ephors was not importantly modified by the gerousia, while the popular assembly played a part hardly more active than that of the Homeric agora, with its formal privilege of The social simple affirmation or veto. The military training, from childhood upwards, to which the whole social life of Sparta was made subservient, was at first a necessity; but it soon became thoroughly identified with the ambition and with the pride of an exclusive warrior-caste. Sparta was sharply marked off from the other Greek communities by this systematic treatment of war as the business of life. When the military prestige of Sparta began to decline in the course of the 4th century B.C., it was remarked that this was due to the increased attention which other states had begun to pay to the art of war, whereas in old days the Spartans had been like professional soldiers matched against civilians.
Growth of The mountain wall of Taygetus had set a barrier between
Spartan Laconia and Messenia, which might have seemed to forbid
power. the extension of Spartan power towards the west. If the
Dorians in Messenia had fully preserved the warlike
character of the race, they would probably have had little
to fear. But they seem to have been in some measure
enervated by the natural wealth of a country which, at the
same time, excited the envy of their neighbours. Myths
have grown thickly around the story of the two Messenian
wars. This, at least, appears certain : the gradual con-
quest of Messenia by Sparta occupied not less than a
hundred years (about 750-650 B.C.). The legend that, at
a critical time, the stirring war-songs of the Attic Tyrtaeus
raised the sinking spirit of Sparta, agrees with the
tradition of a long and doubtful struggle. Nor was the
strife confined to the two chief combatants. Messenia was
aided by other Peloponnesian states which dreaded a like
fate for themselves,—Argos, Sicyon, Arcadia. Sparta was
helped by Elis and Corinth. When Messenia had been con-
quered and the Dorian inhabitants reduced to the state of
Helots, Sparta had overcome the most difficult obstacle to
her ambition. By conquests, of which the details are
obscure, she won from Argolis a strip of territory on the
eastern coast of the Peloponnesus, and finally carried her
north-eastern border to Thyrea. In southern Arcadia alone
the Spartan arms were decisively repulsed by Tegea ; and
the Tegeans, accepting the supremacy of Sparta, were
enrolled, about 560 B.C., as honoured allies of the power
which they had checked.
The The repulse warned Sparta that it was better to aim at
Olympic leading the Peloponnesus than at conquering it; and an o opportunity was found of asserting this leadership in a manner far more effective than any military demonstration. At Olympia, in the valley through which the Alpheus
passes to the western coast, there was an ancient sanctuary of the Pelasgian Zeus. An amphictyony, or league of neighbouring towns, held sacrifice and games there once in four years, the management of the festival being shared between Pisa and Elis. A dispute arose.between these two states. Sparta confirmed Elis in the religious super-intendence of the festival, and at the same time arrogated to herself the political headship of the sacred league. Every effort was now made by the Spartans to extend the popularity and enhance the brilliancy of the Olympic games. Sparta—already supreme in Laconia and Mes-senia, already the victorious rival of Argos in the east of the land—now appears at the Olympian shrine of Zeus in a character peculiarly well adapted to attract the loyalty of the western Achaeans. The general recognition of Sparta as the first state in the Peloponnesus may be said to date from the time when, under Spartan auspices, the Olympic festival acquired a new celebrity.
For political reasons Dorian Sparta had always cherished Transi-the traditions of the Achaean princes; but the monarchy tlon fro™ of the Achaean age, if it. still existed anywhere, was a rare j."0"^™ y survival. The form of government which had generally arohy. succeeded to it was oligarchy, that iz, the rule of a group of noble families claiming descent from the heroes, possessing certain religious rites in which no aliens parti-cipated, and claiming to be, by a divine authority, the interpreters of the unwritten law. These noble families made up the state. The commons, who lived in or around the city as artisans, labourers, or farmers, were free men, but had no political rights. The Dorian ascendency in the Peloponnesus was peculiarly favourable to oligarchies. Sparta was, in fact, such an oligarchy, though not of the closest kind,—the Dorian citizens being the privileged class, while the Periceci answered to the commons else-where. It was a fortunate circumstance for the political development of Greece that oligarchy did not, as a rule, pass directly into democracy. A period of transition was needed, during which the people, hitherto debarred from all chance of political education, should learn the meaning of membership in the state.
This was afforded, at least in some measure, by that The peculiar phase in the life of the Greek commonwealths tyra* which intervenes between oligarchy and democracy,—the uies" age of the tyrannies. A turannos meant one whose power is both superior and contrary to the laws. An absolute ruler is not a turannos if the constitution of the state gives him absolute power; nor is a ruler unauthorized by the laws less a turannos because he rules mildly. The genesis of the tyrant was different in different cases. Most often he is a member of the privileged class, who comes forward as the champion of the people against his peers, overthrows the oligarchy with the help of the people, and establishes his own rule in its stead. Such was Pisistratus at Athens. Sometimes he is himself one of the people ; this was the case with Orthagoras, who (about 676 B.C.) overthrew the Dorian oligarchy at Sicyon. The case of Cypselus at Corinth is intermediate between these two; for he belonged to a noble Dorian house, though not to the inner circle of those Bacchiadae whose rule he overthrew. Or the tyrant is one who raises himself to absolute power from the stepping-stone of some office with which the oligarchy itself had entrusted him. An example is supplied by Phalaris of Agrigentum, and by the tyrants of some Ionic cities in Asia Minor. Lastly, the tyrant might be a king who had overstepped his constitutional prerogative. Phei-don, king of Argos, is adduced by Aristotle as an instance of this rarer case. In all cases the tyrant properly so-called must be distinguished from a ruler whom a community has voluntarily placed above the law, either tem-porarily or for his life. Such was properly called an

aisumnetes or dictator,—as Pittacus of Mitylene. The benefits conferred on the Greek commonwealths by the tyrannies were chiefly of two kinds. (1) The tyrant often instituted new religious festivals, in which the whole body of the citizens might take part. A feeling of civic unity was thus created, which could not exist while the nobles formed a separate caste, as exclusive in their worship as in their other privileges. (2) The court of the tyrant became a centre to which poets and artists were attracted. Such a man as Periander of Corinth (625-585) might aim at resembling an Eastern despot, but his encourage-ment of liberal arts must still have given an impulse to the higher civilization of Corinth. Polycrates of Samos, the friend of Anacreon, welcomed all men of fine gifts to his court; Pisistratus showed a like care for poetry, and for the artistic embellishment of Athens. The root of evil in the tyranny was its unlawful origin, and its consequent reliance upon force, frequently leading the tyrant to aim at keeping the citizens in a state of helplessness and mutual mistrust, But the founder of a tyranny was usually a man with some inborn qualities for command, and the baser forms of oppression were not required until he had given place to a weaker successor.





The age of. the oligarchies and tyrannies coincides with the most active period of Greek colonization, which received an impulse both from redundant population and from political troubles at home. The two centuries from 750 to 550 B.C. saw most of the Greek colonies founded. Sicily received settlements from both the two great branches of the Greek race. Naxos, founded by the Chalcidians of Eubcea (735 B.C.), with Leontini and Catana, founded soon afterwards by Naxos, formed a group of Ionic communities on the eastern side of the island. Syracuse, founded by Corinth (734 B.C.), Gela, colonized by Rhodians and Cretans (690 B.C.), and Agrigentum, of which Gela was the parent city (582 B.C.), were among the chief of the Dorian commonwealths on the south-eastern and south-western coasts. These Siceliot cities formed a fringe round the Siceli and Sicani of the interior; but, though in the presence of non-Hellenic populations, they never lost among themselves the sharp distinction between Dorian and Ionian (or " Chalcidic "), a distinction which was long the key-note to the inner history of the Siceliots. The earliest of the Greek settlements in Italy was the Ionic Cumae, on the coast near Cape Misenum, a little to the north-west of Naples. It was founded by Chalcidians of Eubcea, as early, according to the tradition, as 1050 B.C. The Dorian Tarentum,—a colony of Sparta,—and the Achaean (iEolic) settlements of Sybaris and Croton, dated from the latter part of the 8th century B.C. Poseidonia (Paestum) was founded by Sybaris. Locri, an iEolic settlement near Cape Zephyrium (whence its epithet " Epizephyrian "), and the Ionic Rhegium, founded from Chalcis, complete the series of nourishing cities which made south-western Italy appear as a new and richer land of the Hellenes, as Megale Hellas, Magna Grcecia. The turning-point in its prosperity was the war between the two foremost of the Achaean cities, ending in the destruction of Sybaris by Croton (510 B.C.). By this event, just at the time when the Ionians of Asia Minor were passing under the sway of Persia, the Greeks of Italy were rendered less able to make head against the native tribes of the peninsula. The name Megale Hellas remained, but its old significance was gone; the spirit of confident progress had been quenched.
The distinctive character of Greek colonization is seen less vividly where, as in Sicily and Italy, Greek communities clustered together, than at those lonely outposts of Hellenic life where a single city stood in barbarian lands. Massalia (Marseilles) was founded by the Ionians of Phocaea about 600 B.C, and became the parent of colonies on the east coast of Spain. If Carthage had not fulfilled the purpose for which it was founded, by serving as the jealous guardian of Phoenician commerce in the western Mediter-ranean, Greek settlements would probably have multiplied on those shores as rapidly as elsewhere. Cyrene, on the African coast, was a Dorian colony (630 B.C.) from Thera, itself colonized by Sparta, and became the founder of Barca. Corcyra was colonized by Corinth about 700 B.C., and joined with the mother-city in founding settlements (among others, Epidamnus) on the coast of Epirus. The northern shores of the jEgean and the Propontis were dotted with colonies, from the group of towns planted by Chalcis in the peninsula thence called Chalcidice, to Byzan-tium,—which, like Selymbria, was founded by Megara (657 B.C.). Among the colonies on the western coast of Asia Minor, Miletus was especially active in creating other settlements, particularly for purposes of commerce. Nau-cratis, in the delta of the Nile, was a trading colony from Miletus, and flourished from 550 B.C. On the southern shores of the Propontis and the Euxine, Cyzicus and Sinope (itself the parent city of Trapezus) were daughters of Miletus. Here too were the remotest of Greek settle-ments,—Panticapaeum (Kertch in the Crimea), afterwards the capital of the Greek kings of the Bosporus; Olbia (or Borysthenes) on the adjacent mainland ; and Istria, at the mouth of the Danube. The above enumeration, though not exhaustive, will serve to mark the wide extent of the area included by Greek colonization. As the city was the highest unit in the political conception of the Greeks, so each colony contained within itself the essentials of a com-plete political life. Its relation to the parent-city was one of filial piety, not of constitutional dependence. In so far as the cult of the gods and heroes whom it worshipped was localized in the mother-country, it was needful that a link should exist between the religious rites of the colony and those of its parent ; and this religious continuity was symbolized by the sacred fire which the founder (ot/acmjs) carried with him from the public hearth to the new settle-ment. For the rest, Massalia and Olbia were cities of Hellas in as full sense as Athens or Sparta. It was due to the self-sufficing character (avTapKaa) of the Hellenic city as such that Hellas was not a geographical expression.
When Attica first comes into the view of history, it already forms a single state of which Athens is the capital: the kingly period is over, and, though a close oligarchy still exists, there are signs of coming change. But the hints of poetical legend, and sometimes the surer evidence of the ground itself, enable us to go further back, and to form at least a general conception of earlier chapters in the story of the land. Of the three plains on the northern shore of theSaronic gulf,—those of Megara, Eleusis, and Athens,— the Attic plain is that which offered the greatest advantage to settlers. It is the most spacious; it is the best watered; it holds the most central position in the district which stretches south-east from the chains of Cithaeron and Parnes to the ^Egean; it has the best seaboard for navigation and commerce; and it contains the best site for a city. Traces of early immigrants of various stocks sur-vived in the names of places, in worships, and in legends. Eleusis, Piraeus, Phaleron, are Minyan names ; the myths and cults tell also of Carians, Leleges, Cretans, Tyrrhenians. But the chief influence which came to Attica from beyond sea must have been that of the Phoenician settlement at Salamis (Salama, the place of peace), a name which, as in the Cyprian worship of Zeus Salaminios (Baal-Sal am), points to the Phoenician effort to establish friendly inter-course between alien races. Herodotus (viii. 44) distin-guishes four periods in the early history of Attica, with each of which he connects an appellative. In the first the inhabitants were " Pelasgoi called Kranaoi," in the

second " Kekropidae," in the th\rd " Athenians," in the fourth " Ionians." The extensive series of rock-dwellings found on the south and south-west of the Acropolis are, by tiie ingenious and probable conjecture of E. Gurtius, connected with the first of these periods. This primitive Pelasgic settlement was the Rock-town (Kpavaai); its inhabitants were Kranaoi, the dwellers in the rocks. The second period was one in which the Acropolis became the seat of a small number of nobles, and of a princely family claiming descent from the earth-born Cecrops. The cita-del becomes the centre of religious and political life; beneath it dwell Pelasgic bondmen, who work for the Cecropidse as the Cyclopes worked for the Perseidse at Argos. The city of the Cecropid»—no longer of the Kranaoi—becomes the head of the twelve cities among which the Attic land was divided. As the leading families are drawn towards the Cecropid city, rivalries ensue, which are mythically represented by the strife of rival gods on the Acropolis. Zeus, the Pelasgic god, has priority of possession. But his honours are disputed by Poseidon, the deity of the Thracians settled on the gulf of Salamis, and of their priestly clan, the Eumolpidse. The third claimant is Athena, the diviuity of a race possessing a higher culture, the giver of the olive to the land. The final victory falls to Atheua. But Zeus keeps the place of honour as protector of the whole community,—Polieus ; and Athena shares her sanctuary with Poseidon. The mythical Erechtheus,—representing at once the ancient Poseidon and the nursling of Athena,—is the symbol of the victory and the conciliation. This is the third period of Herodotus; " Erechtheus having succeeded to power," the Cecropiche become Athenians. The fourth and last period is that in which Ionian settlers press forward from their earlier seat on the bay of Marathon, and establish themselves—not without opposition—on the banks of the Ilissus. The worship of the Ionian Apollo takes its place beside that of Zeus and Athena. The Ionic settlement on the Ilissus was included in an enlarged Athens, and the close of the epoch was marked by that union (cruvouaa) of Attica into a single state which Attic tradition ascribed to the hero king Theseus.
The light soil of Attica had protected it from such wholesale changes of population as had passed over Thessaly, Bceotia, and the Peloponnesus. In contrast with the occupiers of those lands the Attic population claimed to be indigenous ; and the claim was true in this sense that the basis of the population was an element which had been there from prehistoric times. On the other hand the maritime advantages of Attica had been sufficient to attract foreign immigrants. Thus in Attica no one type of life and character prevailed to the same extent as the Dorian in the Peloponnesus or the iEolian in Bceotia. The Ionian element wa3 tempered by others older than itself. This fact is the key to that equable and harmonious development which so remarkably distinguished the Attic people alike in culture and in politics. The institutions which are found existing in Attica in the 7th century B.C. may be regarded as dating from the age which tradition called that of Theseus,—the age, namely, in which the loose canton-system of Attica was knit together into a single state. The inhabitants of Attica form three classes,—the Eupatridae or nobles; the Geomori, free husbandmen ; and the Demiurgi, or handicraftsmen. The government was wholly in the hands of the Eupatridae, who alone were citizens in the proper sense. The Eupatrid order was divided into four tribes, called after the sons of Ion,—Geleon, Hoples, iEgicoreus, Argadeus. Each tribe contained three phra-triai or clans, and each clan thirty gene or houses. The members of each clan were united by the worship of an heroic ancestor, and all the clans were bound together by the common worship of Zeus Herkeios and Apollo Patrous.
The transition from monarchy to oligarchy was more Kingship gradual at Athens than it seems to have been elsewhere. —archon-First, the priestly office of the king was taken away; and, s J?-as the old name basileus implied religious as well as civil authority, he was henceforth called simply the ruler, archon. But the office of archon was still held for life, and was hereditary. The second step was to appoint the archon for ten years only. The third and last step was to divide the old regal power among nine archons appointed annually (633 B.C.). The first archon, called Eponymos, because his name marked the date of official documents, had a general supervision of affairs, and in particular re-presented the state as the guardian of orphans and minors; the second archon was high priest (basileus); the third was commander-in-chief (polemarch) ; the remaining six were the custodians of the laws (" thesmothetae "). After this reform, two events are the chief landmarks of Attic history before Solon. The first is the legislation of Draco, the second is the revolution of Cylon. Hitherto the Eupatridae had been the depositaries and sole interpreters of an un-written law. Draco, himself a Eupatrid, was now com- Draco, missioned, not to frame a new code, but to write down the laws as they existed in oral tradition. To a later age the laws of Draco became a proverb of severity ; but their severity was that of the rude age from which they had come down, not of the man who was employed to tabulate them. By this code (620 B.C.), and by the establishment of a court of fifty-one judges (e</>eVa<.) in capital cases, the people were so far secured against abuse of the judicial office. But the existence of serious popular discontent a few years later is shown by the attempt of Cylon (612 B.C.). Cylon. Stimulated by the example of his father-in-law, Theageues, the tyrant of Megara, he resolved to seize the supreme power at Athens. Promises of relief and of a new agrarian law gained him adherents among the distressed classes; but when he had succeeded in seizing the Acropolis, he found himself disappointed of popular support and surrounded by the troops of the archons. He escaped. His partisans surrendered, on the promise of the archon Megacles that their lives should be spared; but, when they had left the altars, they were cut down. The " Cylonian crime " was denounced by the people as having brought a pollution upon the city, and the punishment of the whole clan of the Alcmaeonidae—to which Megacles belonged—was de-manded as an expiation. The Eupatridae refused to yield, until Solon, one of their order, prevailed on the Alcmaeonidae to stand a trial before three hundred of their peers. They were found guilty of sacrilege, and were banished.
Solon was now to come forward as the umpire of still Legisla-graver issues. The influence of his ardent and lofty nature tlon of on the people is expressed in the legend that his recitation Solon-of his elegy, " Salamis," fired them to strike the blow by which "the fair island" was won back from the Megarians. The part which he had taken in the Alcmaeonid affair was well fitted to make him trusted both by the nobles and by the people. His legislation had a twofold scope. In the first place he aimed at giving immediate relief to a class Relief of whose plight was desperate. As there was little money in debtors, the land, those in whose hands it was had been able to force up the rate of interest as they pleased. The small farmers (geomori) were being crushed out of existence by a load of debt, mortgaging their farms to their creditors, who, in default of land, could even sell the debtor as a slave. Solon depreciated the value of the silver drachma by 27 per cent., so that a debt of 100 old drachmas could be paid with 73 ; debts to the state were cancelled alto-gether. In a fine iambic fragment, Solon calls as witness of his work " the greatest of Olympian deities, the black earth, wherefrom I took up of yore the pillars that had been set in many a place,"—these (opoi) being the stones

that marked a mortgaged homestead. Secondly, Solon aimed at establishing a permanent equilibrium between New classes. He classed the citizens by their rated property as classes. (i) Pentakosio-medimnoi, (2) Hippeis, (3) Zeugitai, (4) Thetes. The first class alone could hold the archonship ; the fourth had no political privilege except that of voting Ecclesia. in the assembly. But Solon made the assembly (£KKA??O-IQ.) what it had never before been, a real power. He gave to it (1) the right of passing laws, (2) the right of calling magistrates to account, (3) the right of electing archons. Council. At the same time he created a council of four hundred, to be elected annually by the people, through which all business should be introduced to the assembly. He Areopa- strengthened the old Eupatrid Areopagus, by adding to its S^- jurisdiction in homicide a general power of moral censor-ship, and provided that the archons of each year should, if found worthy, pass at the end of it into this senate. Athenians of a later age often described Solon as the founder of the democracy. This was not his own concep-Solon's tion of his work. We have his own description of it:— account " I gave the people as much strength as is enough, without work. Wn taking away from their due share (ripi}?), or adding thereto.





But as for those who had power and the splendour of riches, to them also I gave counsel, even that they should not uphold violence. And I stood with my strong shield spread over both, and suffered neither to prevail by wrong." Solon was not a champion of popular rights, but a philo-sophic mediator between classes.
The removal of the urgent pressure of usury, the sub-stitution of wealth for birth as the canon of privilege, and the bestowal of strictly limited political power on the people were Solon's achievements. It is no proof of their inadequacy that they were soon followed by the appearance Tyranny of a successful demagogue. The Attic population was of Pisis- locally divided into three classes,-—the Diacrii or the ra us- " highlanders " of the north-east district (the poorest); the Parali, the boatmen and fishermen of the coast; and the " Pedieis," the richer farmers of the Attic plain. Each of these classes formed a political faction, with an ambitious noble at its head. The Diacrii were led by Pisistratus, the Parali by Megacles, the Pedieis by Lycurgus. On the pretence that he had been murderously assaulted by the enemies of the people, Pisistratus obtained a guard of 50 men. It was presently increased to 400. He then seized the Acropolis (560 B.C). After having been twice driven out by the combined factions of the Plain and the Shore, he finally established himself as tyrant in 545 B.C., and reigned till his death in 527 B.C. He did not abolish Solon's con-stitution, though he reserved some of the higher offices for members of his own house. His government appears to have been mild and wise. He set the example of submission to the laws. By many new enactments he promoted good order and morality. The convenience of the citizens and the beauty of Athens were consulted by the construc-tion of new buildings, roads, and aqueducts. There were but two things to remind Athenians that this paternal rule had been founded in force,—the presence of hired troops, and the levy of tithes on private lands. Pisistratus was suc-ceeded by his eldest son Hippias. In 514 B.C. Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogiton, in revenge for an affront offered to the sister of Harmodius. The rule of Hippias, which had hitherto resembled that of his father, now became cruel. The Alcmaeonidae—who had been in banishment since the final return of Pisistratus in 545—had won the favour of the Delphic priesthood by an act of liberality. The temple at Delphi having been burned down, they had undertaken to rebuild it, and, instead of common limestone, which would have satisfied the contract, used Parian marble for the east side of the temple. They now exerted their influence.
Whenever Sparta or a Spartan consulted the oracle, the response always included a command to set Athens free. At last Cleomenes, king of Sparta, took the field. The children of Hippias fell into his hands, and, to save them, Hippias voluntarily withdrew from Athens (510 B.C.). The End of rule of the Pisistratid house was now at an end. In the Pisistra-phrase of the song which gave ilhmerited glory to Harmo-rule-dius and Aristogiton, Athens was once more under equal laws.
But there was a vehement strife of factions. The Eupatrid party, under Isagoras, wished to restore the aristocracy of pre-Solonian days. The party of popular rights was supported by the Alcmaeonidae, and led by Clisthenes, whose father, Megacles, had married the daughter of Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon. Clisthenes, in the words Reforms of Herodotus, took the people into partnership, and by °f Clis-his reforms became the real founder of the democracy. tllenes-Abolishing the four Ionic tribes, which had included the Eupatridae, he instituted ten new tribes, which included all The ten the free inhabitants of Attica. Each tribe was composed tribes, of several demes (townships) not adjacent to each other,— thus securing that the old clans should be thoroughly broken up among the new tribes. The number of the Council (Boule) was raised from 400 to 500,-50 members The being elected from each of the ten new tribes. Further, it Council, was arranged that each tribal contingent of 50 should take it in turn to act as a committee (7rpvrai/eis) of the council,— a board of presidents (irpo'eSpoi), and the chairman of the day, being again chosen in rotation from the committee. A new office was also instituted. The command of the army was given to a board of ten Generals (strategi), one being Generals, elected by each of the tribes. In later times the strategi became ministers of foreign affairs. Jury courts of citizens were organized out of the assembly, to share the adminis- Jury-tration of justice, which had hitherto belonged to the courts, archons and the Areopagus. As a safeguard for the state against party struggles, it was provided that, if the Council Ostra-and the Ecclesia should declare the commonwealth to be in en-danger, each citizen might be summoned to indicate by ballot the name of any man whom he thought dangerous, and that, if the same name was written on 6000 tickets (oo-rpaKa), the man so indicated should go into exile for ten years, without, however, losing his civic rights or his pro-perty. This was the institution of ostracism. Finally, choice by lot was substituted for voting in the election to the archonship, thus diminishing the danger of factious partisanship.
Isagoras, the leader of the party opposed to these Strife of reforms, had a zealous ally in Cleomenes, king of Sparta, factions Clisthenes, they alleged, was aiming at a tyranny such as that of his grandfather and namesake at Sicyon. Sparta, the leading Dorian state, was in a manner the recognized champion of aristocracy against revolution. The Spartan herald summoned the Athenians to banish the accursed Alcmaeonidae, and Clisthenes voluntarily left Attica. Cleomenes arrived at Athens with his army. Isagoras was made archon ; seven hundred " democratic " families were banished ; the newly constituted Council of five hundred was dissolved. But now the people rose in arms. Cleo-menes and Isagoras were besieged ou the Acropolis. On the third day of the siege they surrendered. Cleomenes and his troops were allowed to withdraw. Isagoras escaped, but his Athenian adherents were put to death. Clisthenes now returned to Athens. He seems, however, to have excited popular indignation by promoting a treaty with Persia, by which the supremacy of the Persian king was acknowledged. He thus lent colour to the accusation of his enemies that he was aiming at a tyranny; and he was banished. Cleomenes presently invaded Attica a second time, with the Peloponnesian allies. But the other Spartan











The first kUruchia.






Athens a free common wealth.



Elements of Hel-lenic unity.



Delphi.





The na-tional sames.









Art and poetry.
king, Demaratus, was opposed to his designs. The Corin-thians refused to follow him, and his army broke up when it had advanced no further than Eleusis. Meanwhile the Thebans and the Chalcidians of Euboea had been induced to take up arms against Athens. Freed from the danger of the Peloponnesian invasion, the Athenians marched against the Thebans. They found them on the shore of the Euripus, and routed them. Crossing the strait into Euboea, they defeated the Chalcidians on the same day. The lands of the Chalcidian knights (Hippobotae) were divided in equal lots among four thousand Athenians, who occupied them, not as colonists forming a new city, but as non-resident citizens of Athens. This was the first Meru-cliia. The Spartans, incited by Cleomenes, now made a final effort to repress the democratic strength of Athens. Hippias was invited from his retreat on the Hellespont to Lacedaemon, and a Peloponnesian congress was convened at Sparta to discuss a project for restoring him to Athens as tyrant. The representative of Corinth urged that it would be shameful if Sparta, the enemy of tyrannies, should help to set up a new one. The congress was of his mind. The scheme failed, and Hippias went back to Sigeum.
In these five years (510-505) which followed the fall of the Pisistratidae the future of Athens was decided. Athens had become a free commonwealth, in which class grievances no longer hindered the citizens from acting together with vigorous spirit. The results were soon to appear in work done by the Athenians, not for Athens only, but for all Greece.
The time was now drawing near when Greece was to sustain its first historical conflict with the barbarian world. There was not, in the modern sense, an Hellenic nation. But there were common elements of religion, manners, and culture, which together constituted an Hellenic civilization, and were the basis of a common Hellenic character. The Graikoi of Epirus, united in the worship of the Pelasgian Zeus, had become the Hellenes of Thessaly, united in the worship of Apollo. The shrine of Delphi, at first the centre of the most important amphictyony, had now become the religious centre of all Hellas. It was acknowledged as such by foreigners, by the kings of Phrygia and Lydia in the east, by the Etruscan Tarquinii in the west, as after-wards by the Pioman republic. In political matters also Delphi was a common centre for the Greek states, mediat-ing or advising in feuds between factions or cities, and giving the final sanction to constitutional changes. A sense of Hellenic unity was further promoted by the great festivals. It has already been seen how Sparta lent new brilliancy to the gatherings at Olympia. The Pythian fes-tival was revived with a fresh lustre after the first Sacred War (595-585), in which Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, and his allies destroyed Crisa, the foe of Delphi. A little later two other festivals were established, the Isthmian and the Nemean, at about the time when the tyranny of the Cypselidae was overthrown at Corinth, and that of the Orthagoridae at Sicyon. The games of Nemea and of the Isthmus were new assertions of the Dorian sentiment which was so strongly opposed to tyrannies, and they exemplify the manner in which such festivals were fitted to express and strengthen national sympathy. In the gradual growth, too, of Hellenic art,—with a stamp of its own distinct from that of Assyria, Babylon, Phoenicia, or Egypt,—the Greeks found a bond of union, and the temples were centres at which the growth of such an art was encouraged and recorded. Above all, the Homeric poetry, in which the legends of the heroic age took a form mat appealed to every branch of the Greek race, was a witness to the contrast between Greek and barbarian. It was the interpretation of this contrast which made Homer so peculiarly the national poet. Still the unity of Greece had hitherto been little more than an ideal. The only great enterprise in which Greeks had made common cause against barbarians belonged to legend. The first historical event in which the unity of Greece found active expression was the struggle with Persia.


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