Part 73

The Homeric poems, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," describe a condition of things in which the ruling state of Peloponnesus (the southern peninsula of Greece) was a kingdom of the Achaians, having its capital at Mycenæ, in Argolis,--the realm of King Agamemnon,--and in which Athens is unknown to the poet. Within recent years, Dr. Schliemann has excavated the ruins of Mycenæ, and has found evidence that it really must have been, in very early times, the seat of a strong and rich monarchy. But the Achaian kingdom had entirely disappeared, and the Achaian people had shrunk to an insignificant community, on the Gulf of Corinth, when the first assured views of Greek history open to us.

The Dorians.

It seems to be a fact that the Achaians had been overwhelmed by a great invasion of more barbarous Greek tribes from the North, very much as the Roman Empire, in later times, was buried under an avalanche of barbarism from Germany. The invaders were a tribe or league of tribes called Dorians, who had been driven from their own previous home on the slopes of the Pindus mountain range. Their movement southward was part, as appears, of an extensive shifting of place, or migration, that occurred at that time (not long, it is probable, before the beginning of the historic period) among the tribes of Hellas. The Dorians claimed that in conquering Peloponnesus they were recovering a heritage from which their chiefs had been anciently expelled, and their legends were shaped accordingly. The Dorian chiefs appeared in these legends as descendants of Hercules, and the tradition of the conquest became a story of "The Return of the Heraclids."

The principal states founded or possessed and controlled by the Dorians in Peloponnesus, after their conquest, were Sparta, or Lacedæmon, Argos, and Corinth. The Spartans were the most warlike of the Greeks,--the most resolute and energetic,--and their leadership in practical affairs common to the whole came to be generally acknowledged. At the same time they had little of the intellectual superiority which distinguished some of their Hellenic kindred in so remarkable a degree. Their state was organized on military principles; its constitution (the body of famous ordinances ascribed to Lycurgus) was a code of rigid discipline, which dealt with the citizen as a soldier always under training for war, and demanded from him the utmost simplicity of life. Their form of government combined a peculiar monarchy (having two royal families and two kings) with an aristocratic senate (the Gerousia), and a democratic assembly (which voted on matters only as submitted to it by the senate), with an irresponsible executive over the whole, consisting of five men called the Ephors. This singular government, essentially aristocratic or oligarchical, was maintained, with little disturbance or change, through the whole independent history of Sparta. In all respects, the Spartans were the most conservative and the least progressive among the politically important Greeks.

At the beginning of the domination of the Dorians in Peloponnesus, their city of Argos took the lead, and was the head of a league which included Corinth and other city-states. But Sparta soon rose to rivalry with Argos; then reduced it to a secondary place, and finally subjugated it completely.

The Ionians.

The extensive shifting of population which had produced its most important result in the invasion of Peloponnesus by the Dorians, must have caused great commotions and changes throughout the whole Greek peninsula; and quite as much north of the Corinthian isthmus as south of it. But in the part which lies nearest to the isthmus--the branch peninsula of Attica--the old inhabitants appear to have held their ground, repelling invaders, and their country was affected only by an influx of fugitives, flying from the conquered Peloponnesus. The Attic people were more nearly akin to the expelled Achaians and Ionians than to the conquering Dorians, although a common brotherhood in the Hellenic race was recognized by all of them. Whatever distinction there may have been before between Achaians and Ionians now practically disappeared, and the Ionic name became common to the whole branch of the Greek people which derived itself from them. The important division of the race through all its subsequent history was between Dorians and Ionians. The Æolians constituted a third division, of minor importance and of far less significance. The distinction between Ionians and Dorians was a very real one, in character no less than in traditions and name. The Ionians were the superior Greeks on the intellectual side. It was among them that the wonderful genius resided which produced the greater marvels of art, literature and philosophy in Greek civilization. It was among them, too, that the institutions of political freedom were carried to their highest attainment. Their chief city was Athens, and the splendor of its history bears testimony to their unexampled genius. On the other hand, the Dorians were less thoughtful, less imaginative, less broad in judgment or feeling--less susceptible, it would seem, of a high refinement of culture; but no less capable in practical pursuits, no less vigorous in effective action, and sounder, perhaps, in their moral constitution. Sparta, which stood at the head of the Doric states, contributed almost nothing to Greek literature, Greek thought, Greek art, or Greek commerce, but exercised a great influence on Greek political history. Other Doric states, especially Corinth, were foremost in commercial and colonizing enterprise, and attained some brilliancy of artistic civilization, but with moderate originality.

Greeks and Phœnicians.

It was natural, as noted above, that the Greeks should be induced at an early day to navigate the surrounding seas, and to engage in trade with neighboring nations. They were not original, it is supposed, in these ventures, but learned more or less of ship-building and the art of navigation from an older people, the Phœnicians, who dwelt on the coast of Syria and Palestine, and whose chief cities were Sidon and Tyre. The Phœnicians had extended their commerce widely through the Mediterranean before the Greeks came into rivalry with them. Their ships, and their merchants, and the wares they bartered, were familiar in the Ægean when the Homeric poems were composed. {993} They seem to have been the teachers of the early Greeks in many things. They gave them, with little doubt, the invention of the alphabet, which they themselves had borrowed from Egypt. They conveyed hints of art, which bore astonishing fruits when planted in the fertile Hellenic imagination. They carried from the East strange stories of gods and demigods, which were woven into the mythology of the Greeks. They gave, in fact, to Greek civilization, at its beginning, the greatest impulse it received. But all that Hellas took from the outer world it wrought into a new character, and put upon it the stamp of its own unmistakable genius. In navigation and commerce the Greeks of the coast-cities and the islands were able, ere long, to compete on even terms with the Phœnicians, and it happened, in no great space of time, that they had driven the latter entirely from the Ægean and the Euxine seas.

Greek Colonies.

They had now occupied with colonies the coast of Asia Minor and the islands on both their own coasts. The Ionian Greeks were the principal colonizers of the Asiatic shore and of the Cyclades. On the former and near it they founded twelve towns of note, including Samos, Miletus, Ephesus, Chios, and Phocæa, which are among the more famous cities of ancient times. Their important island settlements in the Cyclades were Naxos, Delos, Melos, and Paros. They possessed, likewise, the great island of Eubœa, with its two wealthy cities of Chalcis and Eretria. These, with Attica, constituted, in the main, the Ionic portion of Hellas.

The Dorians occupied the islands of Rhodes and Cos, and founded on the coast of Asia Minor the cities of Halicarnassus and Cnidus. The important Æolian colonies in Asia were Smyrna (acquired later by the Ionians), Temnos, Larissa, and Cyme. Of the islands they occupied Lesbos and Tenedos.

From these settlements on neighboring coasts and islands the vigorous Greeks pushed on to more distant fields. It is probable that their colonies were in Cyprus and Crete before the eighth century, B. C. In the seventh century B. C., during a time of confusion and weakness in Egypt, they had entered that country as allies or as mercenaries of the kings, and had founded a city, Naucratis, which became an important agent in the exchange of arts and ideas, as well as of merchandise, between the Nile and the Ægean. Within a few years past the site of Naucratis has been uncovered by explorers, and much has been brought to light that was obscure in Greek and Egyptian history before. Within the same seventh century, Cyrene and Barca had been built on the African coast, farther west. Even a century before that time, the Corinthians had taken possession of Corcyra (modern Corfu), and they, with the men of Chalcis and Megara, had been actively founding cities that grew great and rich, in Sicily and in southern Italy, which latter acquired the name of "Magna Græcia" (Great Greece). At a not much later time they had pressed northwards to the Euxine or Black Sea, and had scattered settlements along the Thracian and Macedonian coast, including one (Byzantium) on the Bosphorus, which became, after a thousand years had passed, the imperial city of Constantinople. About 597 B. C., the Phocæans had planted a colony at Massalia, in southern Gaul, from which sprang the great city known in modern times as Marseilles. And much of all this had been done, by Ionians and Dorians together, before Athens (in which Attica now centered itself, and which loomed finally greater in glory than the whole Hellenic world besides) had made a known mark in history.

Rise of Athens.

At first there had been kings in Athens, and legends had gathered about their names which give modern historians a ground-work for critical guessing, and scarcely more. Then the king disappeared and a magistrate called Archon took his place, who held office for only ten years. The archons are believed to have been chosen first from the old royal family alone; but after a time the office was thrown open to all noble families. This was the aristocratic stage of political evolution in the city-state. The next step was taken in 683 B. C. (which is said to be the beginning of authentic Athenian chronology) when nine archons were created, in place of the one, and their term of office was reduced to a single year.

Fifty years later, about 621 B. C., the people of Athens obtained their first code of written law, ascribed to one Draco, and described as a code of much severity. But it gave certainty to law, for the first time, and was the first great protective measure secured by the people. In 612 B. C. a noble named Kylon attempted to overthrow the aristocratic government and establish a tyranny under himself, but he failed.

Legislation of Solon.

Then there came forward in public life another noble, who was one of the wisest men and purest patriots of any country or age, and who made an attempt of quite another kind. This was Solon, the famous lawgiver, who became archon in 594 B. C. The political state of Athens at that time has been described for us in an ancient Greek treatise lately discovered, and which is believed to be one of the hitherto lost writings of Aristotle. "Not only," says the author of this treatise, "was the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were in absolute slavery to the rich. ... The whole country was in the hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent, they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. Their persons were mortgaged to their creditors." Solon saw that this was a state of things not to be endured by such a people as the Athenians, and he exerted himself to change it. He obtained authority to frame a new constitution and a new code of laws for the state. In the latter, he provided measures for relieving the oppressed class of debtors. In the former, he did not create a democratic government, but he greatly increased the political powers of the people. He classified them according to their wealth, defining four classes, the citizens in each of which had certain political duties and privileges measured to them by the extent of their property and income. But the whole body of citizens, in their general assembly (the Ecclesia), were given the important right of choosing the annual archons, whom they must select, however, from the ranks of the wealthiest class. At the same time, Solon enlarged the powers of the old aristocratic senate--the Areopagus--giving it a supervision of the execution of the laws and a censorship of the morals of the people.

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"These changes did not constitute Democracy,--a form of government then unknown, and for which there was as yet no word in the Greek language. But they initiated the democratic spirit. ... Athens, thus fairly started on her way,--emancipated from the discipline of aristocratic school-masters, and growing into an age of manly liberty and self-restraint,--came eventually nearer to the ideal of 'the good life' [Aristotle's phrase] than any other State in Hellas."

(W. W. Fowler.)

Tyranny of Pisistratus.

But before the Athenians reached their nearness to this "good life," they had to pass under the yoke of a "tyrant," Pisistratus, who won the favor of the poorer people, and, with their help, established himself in the Acropolis (560 B. C.) with a foreign guard to maintain his power. Twice driven out, he was twice restored, and reigned quite justly and prudently, on the whole, until his death in 527 B. C. He was succeeded by his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus; but the latter was killed in 514, and Hippias was expelled by the Spartans in 510 B. C.; after which there was no tyranny in Athens.

The Democratic Republic.

On the fall of the Pisistratidæ, a majority of the noble or privileged class struggled hard to regain their old ascendancy; but one of their number, Cleisthenes, took the side of the people and helped them to establish a democratic constitution. He caused the ancient tribal division of the citizens to be abolished, and substituted a division which mixed the members of clans and broke up or weakened the clannish influence in politics. He enlarged Solon's senate or council and divided it into committees, and he brought the "ecclesia," or popular assembly, into a more active exercise of its powers. He also introduced the custom of ostracism, which permitted the citizens of Athens to banish by their vote any man whom they thought dangerous to the state. The constitution of Cleisthenes was the final foundation of the Athenian democratic republic. Monarchical and aristocratic Sparta resented the popular change, and undertook to restore the oligarchy by force of arms; but the roused democracy of Athens defended its newly won liberties with vigor and success.

The Persian Wars.

Not Athens only, but all Greece, was now about to be put to a test which proved the remarkable quality of both, and formed the beginning of their great career. The Ionian cities of Asia Minor had recently been twice conquered, first by Crœsus, King of Lydia, and then by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian empire, who had overthrown Crœsus (B. C. 547), and taken his dominions. The Persians oppressed them, and in 500 B. C. they rose in revolt. Athens and Eretria sent help to them, while Sparta refused. The revolt was suppressed, and Darius, the king of Persia, planned vengeance upon the Athenians and Eretrians for the aid they had given to it. He sent an expedition against them in 493 B. C., which was mostly destroyed by a storm. In 490 B. C. he sent a second powerful army and fleet, which took Eretria and razed it to the ground. The great Persian army then marched upon Athens, and was met at Marathon by a small Athenian force of 9,000 men. The little city of Platæa sent 1,000 more to stand with them in the desperate encounter. They had no other aid in the fight, and the Persians were a great unnumbered host. But Miltiades, the Greek general that day, planned his battle-charge so well that he routed the Asiatic host and lost but 192 men. The Persians abandoned their attempt and returned to their wrathful king. One citizen of Athens, Themistocles, had sagacity enough to foresee that the "Great King," as he was known, would not rest submissive under his defeat; and with difficulty he persuaded his fellow citizens to prepare themselves for future conflicts by building a fleet and by fortifying their harbors, thus making themselves powerful at sea. The wisdom of his counsels was proved in 480 B. C., when Xerxes, the successor of Darius, led an army of prodigious size into Greece, crossing the Hellespont by a bridge of boats. This time, Sparta, Corinth, and several of the lesser states, rallied with Athens to the defence of the common country; but Thebes and Argos showed friendship to the Persians, and none of the important island-colonies contributed any help. Athens was the brain and right arm of the war, notwithstanding the accustomed leadership of Sparta in military affairs.

The first encounter was at Thermopylæ, where Leonidas and his 300 Spartans defended the narrow pass, and died in their place when the Persians found a way across the mountain to surround them. But on that same day the Persian fleet was beaten at Artemisium. Xerxes marched on Athens, however, found the city deserted, and destroyed it. His fleet had followed him, and was still stronger than the naval force of the Greeks. Themistocles forced a battle, against the will of the Peloponnesian captains, and practically destroyed the Persian fleet. This most memorable battle of Salamis was decisive of the war, and decisive of the independence of Greece. Xerxes, in a panic, hastened back into Asia, leaving one of his generals, Mardonius, with 300,000 men, to pursue the war. But Mardonius was routed and his host annihilated, at Platæa, the next year, while the Persian fleet was again defeated on the same day at Mycale.

The Golden Age of Athens.

The war had been glorious for the Athenians, and all could see that Greece had been saved by their spirit and their intelligence much more than by the valor of Sparta and the other states. But they were in a woful condition, with their city destroyed and their families without homes. Wasting no time in lamentations, they rebuilt the town, stretched its walls to a wider circuit, and fortified it more strongly than before, under the lead of the sagacious Themistocles. Their neighbors were meanly jealous, and Sparta made attempts to interfere with the building of the walls; but Themistocles baffled them cunningly, and the new Athens rose proudly out of the ashes of the old.

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The Ionian islands and towns of Asia Minor (which had broken the Persian yoke) now recognized the superiority and leadership of Athens, and a league was formed among them, which held the meetings of its deputies and kept its treasury in the temple of Apollo on the sacred island of Delos; for which reason it was called the Confederacy of Delos, or the Delian League. The Peloponnesian states formed a looser rival league under the headship of Sparta. The Confederacy of Delos was in sympathy with popular governments and popular parties everywhere, while the Spartans and their following favored oligarchies and aristocratic parties. There were many occasions for hostility between the two.

The Athenians, at the head of their Confederacy, were strong, until they impaired their power by using it in tyrannical ways. Many lesser states in the league were foolish enough to commute in money payments the contribution of ships and men which they had pledged themselves to make to the common naval force. This gave Athens the power to use that force despotically, as her own, and she did not scruple to exercise the power. The Confederacy was soon a name; the states forming it were no longer allies of Athens, but her subjects; she ruled them as the sovereign of an Empire, and her rule was neither generous nor just. Thereby the double tie of kinship and of interest which might have bound the whole circle of Ionian states to her fortunes and herself was destroyed by her own acts. Provoking the hatred of her allies and challenging the jealous fear of her rivals, Athens had many enemies.

At the same time, a dangerous change in the character of her democratic institutions was begun, produced especially by the institution of popular jury-courts, before which prosecutions of every kind were tried, the citizens who constituted the courts acting as jury and judge at once. This gave them a valuable training, without doubt, and helped greatly to raise the common standard of intelligence among the Athenians so high; but it did unquestionably tend also to demoralizations that were ruinous in the end. The jury service, which was slightly paid, fell more and more to an unworthy class, made up of idlers or intriguers. Party feeling and popular passions gained an increasing influence over the juries, and demagogues acquired an increasing skill in making use of them.

But these evils were scarcely more than in their seed during the great period of "Athenian Empire," as it is sometimes called, and everything within its bounds was suffused with the shining splendor of that matchless half-century. The genius of this little Ionic state was stimulated to amazing achievements in every intellectual field. Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, within a single generation, crowded Athenian literature with the masterpieces of classic drama. Pheidias and his companions crowned the Acropolis and filled the city with works that have been the models in art for all ages since. Socrates began the quizzing which turned philosophy into honest truth-seeking paths, and Plato listened to him and was instructed for his mission. Thucydides watched events with sagacious young eyes, and prepared his pen for the chronicling of them; while Herodotus, pausing at Athens from his wide travels, matured the knowledge he had gathered up and perfected it for his final work. Over all of them came Pericles to preside and rule, not as a master, or "tyrant," but as leader, guide, patron, princely republican,--statesman and politician in one.

The Peloponnesian War.