Part 2

"Thucydides says that before the Dorian conquest, the date of which is traditionally fixed at B. C. 1104, Mycenae was the only city whence ruled a wealthy race of kings. Archaeology produces the bodies of kings ruling at Mycenae about the twelfth century and spreads their wealth under our eyes. Thucydides says that this wealth was brought in the form of gold from Phrygia by the founder of the line, Pelops. Archaeology tells us that the gold found at Mycenae may very probably have come from the opposite coast of Asia Minor which abounded in gold; and further that the patterns impressed on the gold work at Mycenae bear a very marked resemblance to the decorative patterns found on graves in Phrygia. Thucydides tells us that though Mycenae was small, yet its rulers had the hegemony over a great part of Greece. Archæology shews us that the kings of Mycenae were wealthy and important quite out of proportion to the small city which they ruled, and that the civilisation which centred at Mycenae spread over south Greece and the Aegean, and lasted for some centuries at least. It seems to me that the simplest way of meeting the facts of the case is to suppose that we have recovered at Mycenae the graves of the Pelopid race of monarchs. It will not of course do to go too far. … It would be too much to suppose that we have recovered the bodies of the Agamemnon who seems in the Iliad to be as familiar to us as Caesar or Alexander, or of his father Atreus, or of his charioteer and the rest. {1568} We cannot of course prove the Iliad to be history; and if we could, the world would be poorer than before. But we can insist upon it that the legends of heroic Greece have more of the historic element in them than anyone supposed a few years ago. … Assuming then that we may fairly class the Pelopidae as Achaean, and may regard the remains at Mycenae as characteristic of the Achaean civilisation of Greece, is it possible to trace with bolder hand the history of Achaean Greece? Certainly we gain assistance in our endeavour to realize what the pre-Dorian state of Peloponnesus was like. We secure a hold upon history which is thoroughly objective, while all the history which before existed was so vague and imaginative that the clear mind of Grote refused to rely upon it at all. But the precise dates are more than we can venture to lay down, in the present condition of our knowledge. … The Achaean civilisation was contemporary with the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (B. C. 1700-1400). It lasted during the invasions of Egypt from the north (1300-1100). When it ceased we cannot say with certainty. There is every historical probability that it was brought to a violent end in the Dorian invasion. The traditional date of that invasion is B. C. 1104. But it is obvious that this date cannot be relied upon."

_P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapters 2-3._

ALSO IN: _R. Schliemann, Mycenæ._

_C. Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations, chapter 4._

GREECE: Ancient political and geographical divisions.

"Greece was not a single country. … It was broken up into little districts, each with its own government. Any little city might be a complete state in itself, and independent of its neighbours. It might possess only a few miles of land and a few hundred inhabitants, and yet have its own laws, its own government, and its own army. … In a space smaller than an English county there might be several independent cities, sometimes at war, sometimes at peace with one another. Therefore when we say that the west coast of Asia Minor was part of Greece, we do not mean that this coast-land and European Greece were under one law and one government, for both were broken up into a number of little independent States: but we mean that the people who lived on the west coast of Asia Minor were just as much Greeks as the people who lived in European Greece. They spoke the same language, and had much the same customs, and they called one another Hellenes, in contrast to all other nations of the world, whom they called barbarians … , that is, 'the unintelligible folk,' because they could not understand their tongue."

_C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primers), chapter 1._

"The nature of the country had … a powerful effect on the development of Greek politics. The whole land was broken up by mountains into a number of valleys more or less isolated; there was no central point from which a powerful monarch could control it. Hence Greece was, above all other countries, the home of independence and freedom. Each valley, and even the various hamlets of a valley, felt themselves possessed of a separate life, which they were jealous to preserve."

_E. Abbott, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 1._

See AKARNANIANS; ACHAIA; ÆGINA; ÆTOLIA; ARCADIA; ARGOS; ATHENS; ATTICA; BŒOTIA; CORINTH; DORIS AND DRYOPIS; ELIS; EPIRUS; EUBŒA; KORKYRA; LOCRI; MACEDONIA; MANTINEA; MEGALOPOLIS; MEGARA; MESSENE; OLYNTHUS; PHOKIANS; PLATÆA; SICYON; SPARTA; THEBES; and THESSALY.

GREECE: Political evolution of the leading States. Variety in the forms of Government. Rise of democracy at Athens.

"The Hellenes followed no common political aim. … Independent and self-centred, they created, in a constant struggle of citizen with citizen and state with state, the groundwork of those forms of government which have been established in the world at large. We see monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, rising side by side and one after another, the changes being regulated in each community by its past experience and its special interests in the immediate present. These forms of government did not appear in their normal simplicity or in conformity with a distinct ideal, but under the modifications necessary to give them vitality. An example of this is Lakedæmon. If one of the families of the Heracleidæ [the two royal families-see SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION] aimed at a tyranny, whilst another entered into relations with the native and subject population, fatal to the prerogatives of the conquerors, we can understand that in the third case, that, of the Spartan community, the aristocratic principle was maintained with the greatest strictness. Independently of this, the divisions of the Lakedæmonian monarchy between two lines, neither of which was to have precedence, was intended to guard against the repetition in Sparta of that which had happened in Argos. Above all, the members of the Gerusia, in which the two kings had only equal rights with the rest, held a position which would have been unattainable to the elders of the Homeric age. But even the Gerusia was not independent. There existed in addition to it a general assembly, which, whilst very aristocratic as regards the native and subject population, assumed a democratic aspect in contrast with the king and the elders. The internal life of the Spartan constitution depended upon the relations between the Gerusia and the aristocratic demos. … The Spartan aristocracy dominated the Peloponnesus. But the constitution contained a democratic clement working through the Ephors, by means of which the conduct of affairs might be concentrated in a succession of powerful hands. Alongside of this system, the purely aristocratic constitutions, which were without such a centre, could nowhere hold their ground. The Bacchiadæ in Corinth, two hundred in number, with a prytanis at their head, and inter-marrying only among themselves, were one of the most distinguished of these families. They were deprived of their exclusive supremacy by Kypselus, a man of humble birth on his father's side, but connected with the Bacchiadæ through his mother. … As the Kypselidæ rose in Corinth, the metropolis of the colonies towards the west, so in the corresponding eastern metropolis, Miletus, Thrasybulus raised himself from the dignity of prytanis to that of tyrant; in Ephesus, Pythagoras rose to power, and overthrew the Basilidæ; in Samos, Polycrates, who was master also of the Kyklades, and of whom it is recorded that he confiscated the property of the citizens and then made them a present of it again. By concentrating the forces of their several communities the tyrants obtained the means of surrounding themselves with a certain splendor, and above all of liberally encouraging poetry and art. {1569} To these Polycrates opened his citadel, and in it we find Anacreon and Ibycus; Kypselus dedicated a famous statue to Zeus, at Olympia. The school of art at Sikyon was without a rival, and at the court of Periander were gathered the seven sages—men in whom a distinguished political position was combined with the prudential wisdom derived from the experience of life. This is the epoch of the legislator of Athens, Solon, who more than the rest has attracted to himself the notice of posterity.

See ATHENS: B. C. 594.

He is the founder of the Athenian democracy. … His proverb 'Nothing in excess' indicates his character. He was a man who knew exactly what the time has a right to call for, and who utilized existing complications to bring about the needful changes. It is impossible adequately to express what he was to the people of Athens, and what services he rendered them. That removal of their pecuniary burdens, the seisachtheia, made life for the first time endurable to the humbler classes.

See DEBT, LAWS CONCERNING: ANCIENT GREEK.

Solon cannot be said to have introduced democracy, but, in making the share of the upper classes in the government dependent upon the good pleasure of the community at large, he laid its foundations. The people were invested by him with attributes which they afterwards endeavored to extend. … Solon himself lived long enough to see the order which he established serve as the basis of the tyranny which he wished to avoid; it was the Four Hundred themselves who lent a hand to the change. The radical cause of failure was that the democratic element was too feebly constituted to control or to repress the violence of the families. To elevate the democracy into a true power in the state other events were necessary, which not only rendered possible, but actually brought about, its further development. The conflicts of the principal families, hushed for a moment, were revived under the eyes of Solon himself with redoubled violence. The Alemæonidæ [banished about 595 B. C.—see ATHENS: B. C. 612-595] were recalled, and Æthelred around them a party consisting mainly of the inhabitants of the seacoast, who, favored by trade, had the money in their hands; the genuine aristocrats, described as the inhabitants of the plains, who were in possession of the fruitful soil, were in perpetual antagonism to the Alemæonidæ; and, whilst these two parties were bickering, a third was formed from the inhabitants of the mountain districts, inferior to the two others in wealth, but of superior weight to either in the popular assemblies. At its head stood Peisistratus, a man distinguished by warlike exploits, and at an earlier date a friend of Solon. It was because his adherents did not feel themselves strong enough to protect their leader that they were induced to vote him a body-guard chosen from their own ranks. … As soon, however, as the first two parties combined, the third was at a disadvantage, so that after some time sentence of banishment was passed upon Peisistratus. … Peisistratus … found means to gather around him a troop of brave mercenaries, with whom, and with the support of his old adherents, he then invaded Attica. His opponents made but a feeble resistance, and he became without much trouble master both of the city and of the country.

See ATHENS: B. C. 560-510.

He thus attained to power; it is true, with the approbation of the people, but nevertheless by armed force. … We have almost to stretch a point in order to call Peisistratus a tyrant—a word which carries with it the invidious sense of a selfish exercise of power. No authority could have been more rightly placed than his; it combined Athenian with Panhellenist tendencies. But for him Athens would not have been what she afterwards became to the world. … Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Peisistratus governed Athens absolutely, and even took steps to establish a permanent tyranny. He did, in fact, succeed in leaving the power he possessed to his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. … Of the two brothers it was the one who had rendered most service to culture, Hipparchus, who was murdered at the festival of the Panathenæa. It was an act of revenge for a personal insult. … In his dread lest he should be visited by a similar doom, Hippias actually became an odious tyrant and excited universal discontent. One effect, however, of the loss of stability which the authority of the dominant family experienced was that the leading exiles ejected by Peisistratus combined in the enterprise which was a necessary condition of their return, the overthrow of Hippias. The Alcmæonidæ took the principal part. … The revolution to which this opened the way could, it might seem, have but one result, the establishment of an oligarchical government. … But the matter had a very different issue," resulting in the constitution of Cleisthenes and the establishment of democracy at Athens, despite the hostile opposition and interference of Sparta.

_L. von Ranke, Universal History: The oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, chapter 5._

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 510-507, and 509-506.

GREECE: B. C. 752. The Archonship at Athens thrown open to the whole body of the people.

See ATHENS: FROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO B. C. 683.

GREECE: B. C. 624. The Draconian legislation at Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 624.

GREECE: B. C. 610-600. War of Athens and Megara for Salamis. Spartan Arbitration.

See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586.

GREECE: B. C. 595-586. The Cirrhæan or first Sacred War.

See ATHENS: B.C. 610-586; and DELPHI.

GREECE: B. C. 500-493. Rising of the Ionians of Asia Minor against the Persians. Aid rendered to them by the Athenians. Provocation to Darius.

The Ionic Greek cities, or states, of Asia Minor, first subjugated by Crœsus, King of Lydia, in the sixth century B. C., were swallowed up, in the same century, with all other parts of the dominion of Crœsus, in the conquests of Cyrus, and formed part of the great Persian Empire, to the sovereignty of which Cambyses and Darius succeeded. In the reign of Darius there occurred a revolt of the Ionians (about 502 B. C.), led by the city of Miletus, under the influence of its governor, Aristagoras. Aristagoras, coming over to Greece in person, sought aid against the Persians, first at Sparta, where it was denied to him, and then, with better success, at Athens. Presenting himself to the citizens, just after they had expelled the Pisistratidæ, Aristagoras said to them "that the Milesians were colonists from Athens, and that it was just that the Athenians, being so mighty, should deliver them from slavery. {1570} And because his need was great, there was nothing that he did not promise, till at the last he persuaded them. For it is easier, it seems, to deceive a multitude than to deceive one man. Cleomenes the Spartan, being but one man, Aristagoras could not deceive; but he brought over to his purpose the people of Athens, being thirty thousand. So the Athenians, being persuaded, made a decree to send twenty ships to help the men of Ionia, and appointed one Melanthius, a man of reputation among them, to be captain. These ships were the beginning of trouble both to the Greeks and the barbarians. … When the twenty ships of the Athenians were arrived, and with them five ships of the Eretrians, which came, not for any love of the Athenians, but because the Milesians had helped them in the old time against the men of Chalcis, Aristagoras sent an army against Sardis, but he himself abode in Miletus. This army, crossing Mount Tmolus, took the city of Sardis without any hindrance; but the citadel they took not, for Artaphernes held it with a great force of soldiers. But though they took the city they had not the plunder of it, and for this reason. The houses in Sardis were for the most part built of reeds, and such as were built of bricks had their roofs of reeds; and when a certain soldier set fire to one of these houses, the fire ran quickly from house to house till the whole city was consumed. And while the city was burning, such Lydians and Persians as were in it, seeing they were cut off from escape (for the fire was in an the outskirts of the city), gathered together in haste to the market-place. Through this market-place flows the river Pactolus, which comes down from Mount Tmolus, having gold in its sands, and when it has passed out of the city it flows into the Hermus, which flows into the sea. Here then the Lydians and Persians were gathered together, being constrained to defend themselves. And when the men of Ionia saw their enemies how many they were, and that these were preparing to give battle, they were stricken with fear, and fled out of the city to Mount Tmolus, and thence, when it was night, they went back to the sea. In this manner was burnt the city of Sardis, and in it the great temple of the goddess Cybele, the burning of which temple was the cause, as said the Persians, for which afterwards they burnt the temples in Greece. Not long after came a host of Persians from beyond the river Halys; and when they found that the men of Ionia had departed from Sardis, they followed hard upon their track, and came up with them at Ephesus. And when the battle was joined, the men of Ionia fled before them. Many indeed were slain, and such as escaped were scattered, every man to his own city. After this the ships of the Athenians departed, and would not help the men of Ionia any more, though Aristagoras besought them to stay. Nevertheless the Ionians ceased not from making preparations of war against the King, making to themselves allies, some by force and some by persuasion, as the cities of the Hellespont and many of the Carians and the island of Cyprus. For all Cyprus, save Amathus only, revolted from the King under Onesilus, brother of King Gorgus. When King Darius heard that Sardis had been taken and burned with fire by the Ionians and the Athenians, with Aristagoras for leader, at the first he took no heed of the Ionians, as knowing that they would surely suffer for their deed, but he asked, 'Who are these Athenians?' And when they told him he took a bow and shot an arrow into the air, saying, 'O Zeus, grant that I may avenge myself on these Athenians.' And he commanded his servant that every day, when his dinner was served, he should say three times, 'Master, remember the Athenians.' … Meanwhile the Persians took not a few cities of the Ionians and Æolians. But while they were busy about these, the Carians revolted from the King; whereupon the captains of the Persians led their army into Caria, and the men of Caria came out to meet them; and they met them at a certain place which is called the White Pillars, near to the river Mæander. Then there were many counsels among the Carians, whereof the best was this, that they should cross the river and so contend with the Persians, having the river behind them, that so there being no escape for them if they fled, they might surpass themselves in courage. But this counsel did not prevail. Nevertheless, when the Persians had crossed the Meander, the Carians fought against them, and the battle was exceeding long and fierce. But at the last the Carians were vanquished, being overborne by numbers, so that there fell of them ten thousand. And when they that escaped—for many had fled to Labranda, where there is a great temple of Zeus and a grove of plane trees—were doubting whether they should yield themselves to the King or depart altogether from Asia, there came to their help the men of Miletus with their allies. Thereupon the Carians, putting away their doubts altogether, fought with the Persians a second time, and were vanquished yet more grievously than before. But on this day the men of Miletus suffered the chief damage. And the Carians fought with the Persians yet again a third time; for, hearing that these were about to attack their cities one by one, they laid an ambush for them on the road to Pedasus. And the Persians, marching by night, fell into the ambush, and were utterly destroyed, they and their captains. After these things, Aristagoras, seeing the power of the Persians, and having no more any hope to prevail over them—and indeed, for all that he had brought about so much trouble, he was of a poor spirit—called together his friends and said to them, 'We must needs have some place of refuge, if we be driven out of Miletus. Shall we therefore go to Sardinia, or to Myrcinus on the river Strymon; which King Darius gave to Histiæus?' To this Hecateus, the writer of chronicles, made answer, 'Let Aristagoras build a fort in Leros (this Leros is an island thirty miles distant from Miletus) and dwell there quietly, if he be driven from Miletus. And hereafter he can come from Leros and set himself up again in Miletus.' But Aristagoras went to Myrcinus, and not long afterwards was slain while he besieged a certain city of the Thracians."

_Herodotus, The Story of the Persian War (version of A. J. Church, chapter 2)._

See, also, PERSIA: B. C. 521-493; and ATHENS: B. C. 501-490.

GREECE: B. C. 496. War of Sparta with Argos. Overwhelming reverse of the Argives.

See ARGOS: B. C. 496-421.

GREECE: B. C. 492-491. Wrath of the Persian king against Athens. Failure of his first expedition of invasion. Submission of 'Medizing' Greek states. Coercion of Ægina. Enforced union of Hellas. Headship of Sparta recognized.

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