THE HELLENES BEYOND SEA

Colonization.—The Hellenes did not inhabit Greece alone. Colonists from the Greek cities had gone forth to found new cities in all the neighboring countries. There were little states in all the islands of the Archipelago, over all the coast of Asia Minor, in Crete and Cyprus, on the whole circumference of the Black Sea as far as the Caucasus and the Crimea, along the shore of Turkey in Europe (then called Thrace), on the shore of Africa, in Sicily, in south Italy, and even on the coasts of France and Spain.

Character of These Colonies.—Greek colonies were being founded all the time from the twelfth century to the fifth; they issued from various cities and represented all the Greek races—Dorian, Ionian, and AEolian. They were established in the wilderness, in an inhabited land, by conquest, or by an agreement with the natives. Mariners, merchants, exiles, or adventurers were their founders. But with all this diversity of time, place, race, and origin, the colonies had common characteristics: they were established at one stroke and according to certain fixed rules. The colonists did not arrive one by one or in small bands; nor did they settle at random, building houses which little by little became a city, as is the case now with European colonists in America. All the colonists started at once under a leader, and the new city was founded in one day. The foundation was a religious ceremony; the "founder" traced a sacred enclosure, constructed a sacred hearth, and lighted there the holy fire.

Traditions Concerning the Colonists.—The old stories about the founding of some of these colonies enable us to see how they differed from modern colonies. The account of the settlement of Marseilles runs as follows: Euxenus, a citizen of Phocaea, coming to Gaul in a merchant galley, was invited by a Gallic chief to the marriage of his daughter; according to the custom of this people, the young girl about the time of the feast entered bearing a cup which she was to present to the one whom she would choose for a husband; she stopped before the Greek and offered him the cup. This unpremeditated act appeared to have been inspired from heaven; the Gallic chief gave his daughter to Euxenus and permitted him and his companions to found a city on the gulf of Marseilles. Later the Phocaeans, seeing their city blockaded by the Persian army, loaded on their ships their families, their movables, the statues and treasures of their temple and went to sea, abandoning their city. As they started, they threw into the sea a mass of red-hot iron and swore never to return to Phocaea until the iron should rise to the surface of the water. Many violated this oath and returned; but the rest continued the voyage and after many adventures came to Marseilles.

At Miletus the Ionians who founded the city had brought no wives with them; they seized a city inhabited by the natives of Asia, slaughtered all the men, and forcibly married the women and girls of the families of their victims. It was said that the women, affronted in this manner, swore never to eat food with their captors and never to call them by the name of husband; this custom was for centuries preserved among the women of Miletus.[49]

The colony at Cyrene in Africa was founded according to the express command of the oracle of Apollo. The inhabitants of Thera, who had received this order, did not care to go to an unknown country. They yielded only at the end of seven years since their island was afflicted with dearth; they believed that Apollo had sent misfortune on them as a penalty. Nevertheless the citizens who were sent out attempted to abandon the enterprise, but their fellow-citizens attacked them and forced them to return. After having spent two years on an island where no success came to them, they at last came to settle at Cyrene, which soon became a prosperous city.[50]

Importance of the Colonies.—Wherever they settled, the colonists constituted a new state which in no respect obeyed the mother town from which they had come out. And so the whole Mediterranean found itself surrounded by Greek cities independent one of the others. Of these cities many became richer and more powerful than their mother towns; they had a territory which was larger and more fertile, and in consequence a greater population. Sybaris, it was said, had 300,000 men who were capable of bearing arms. Croton could place in the field an infantry force of 120,000 men. Syracuse in Sicily, Miletus in Asia had greater armies than even Sparta and Athens. South Italy was termed Great Greece. In comparison with this great country fully peopled with Greek colonies the home country was, in fact, only a little Greece. And so it happened that the Greeks were much more numerous in the neighboring countries than in Greece proper; and among these people of the colonies figure a good share of the most celebrated names: Homer, Alcaeus, Sappho, Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, Empedocles, Aristotle, Archimedes, Theocritus, and many others.

FOOTNOTES:

[46] "Balmy and clement," says Euripides, "is our atmosphere. The cold of winter has no extremes for us, and the shafts of the sun do not wound."

[47] Autochthones.

[48] The story of the collection of the Homeric poems by Pisistratus is without foundation—"eine blosse Fabel." Busolt, "Griechische Geschichte." Gotha, 1893, i., 127.—ED.

[49] Probably this custom has another origin the recollection of which was lost.—ED.

[50] Herodotus, iv., 150-158.



CHAPTER X

GREEK RELIGION

The Gods. Polytheism.—The Greeks, like the ancient Aryans, believed in many gods. They had neither the sentiment of infinity nor that of eternity; they did not conceive of God as one for whom the heavens are only a tent and the earth a foot-stool. To the Greeks every force of nature—the air, the sun, the sea—was divine, and as they did not conceive of all these phenomena as produced by one cause, they assigned each to a particular god. This is the reason that they believed in many gods. They were polytheists.

Anthropomorphism.—Each god was a force in nature and carried a distinct name. The Greeks, having a lively imagination, figured under this name a living being, of beautiful form and human characteristics. A god or goddess was represented as a beautiful man or woman. When Odysseus or Telemachus met a person peculiarly great and beautiful, they began by asking him if he were not a god. Homer in describing the army pictured on the shield of Achilles adds, "Ares and Athena led the army, both clad in gold, beautiful and great, as becomes the gods, for men were smaller." Greek gods are men; they have clothing, palaces, bodies similar to ours; if they cannot die, they can at least be wounded. Homer relates how Ares, the god of war, struck by a warrior, fled howling with pain. This fashion of making gods like men is what is called Anthropomorphism.

Mythology.—The gods, being men, have parents, children, property. Their mothers were goddesses, their brothers were gods, and their children other gods or men who were half divine. This genealogy of the gods is what is called the Theogony. The gods have also a history; we are told the story of their birth, the adventures of their youth, their exploits. Apollo, for example, was born on the island of Delos to which his mother Latona had fled; he slew a monster which was desolating the country at the foot of Parnassus. Each canton of Greece had thus its tales of the gods. These are called myths; the sum of them is termed Mythology, or the history of the gods.

The Local Gods.—The Greek gods, even under their human form, remained what they were at first, phenomena of nature. They were thought of both as men and as forces of nature. The Naiad is a young woman, but at the same time a bubbling fountain. Homer represents the river Xanthus as a god, and yet he says, "The Xanthus threw itself on Achilles, boiling with fury, full of tumult, foam, and the bodies of the dead." The people itself continued to say "Zeus rains" or "Zeus thunders." To the Greek the god was first of all rain, storm, heaven, or sun, and not the heaven, sun, or earth in general, but that corner of the heaven under which he lived, the land of his canton, the river which traversed it. Each city, then, had its divinities, its sun-god, its earth-goddess, its sea-god, and these are not to be confounded with the sun, the earth, and the sea of the neighboring city. The Zeus of Sparta is not the same as the Zeus of Athens; in the same oath one sometimes invokes two Athenas or two Apollos. A traveller who would journey through Greece[51] would therefore meet thousands of local gods (they called them Poliades, or gods of the city). No torrent, no wood, no mountain was without its own deity,[52] although often a minor divinity, adored only by the people of the vicinity and whose sanctuary was only a grotto in the rock.

The Great Gods.—Above the innumerable legion of local gods of each canton the Greeks imagined certain great divinities—the heaven, the sun, the earth, and the sea—and these everywhere had the same name, and had their temple or sanctuary in every place. Each represented one of the principal forces of nature. These gods common to all the Greeks were never numerous; if all are included, we have hardly twenty.[53] We have the bad habit of calling them by the name of a Latin god. The following are their true names: Zeus (Jupiter), Hera (Juno), Athena (Minerva), Apollo, Artemis (Diana), Hermes (Mercury), Hephaistos (Vulcan), Hestia (Vesta), Ares (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), Poseidon (Neptune), Amphitrite, Proteus, Kronos (Saturn), Rhea (Cybele), Demeter (Ceres), Persephone (Proserpina), Hades (Pluto), Dionysos (Bacchus). It is this little group of gods that men worshipped in all the temples, that men ordinarily invoked in their prayers.

Attributes of the Gods.—Each of these great gods had his form, his costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him. Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers. Each has his role in the world, performing his determined functions, ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him.

Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast. She is the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess of dignity and majesty.

Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form of a lame and ugly blacksmith. It is he who forges the thunderbolt.

Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests hunting with a troop of nymphs. She is the goddess of the woods, of the chase, and of death.

Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile showers. But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence. He it is who guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity presiding over the breeding of cattle.

Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another.

Olympus and Zeus.—Each one of these gods is like a king in his own domain. Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word served them for the idea of order and of universe. They supposed, then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them.

In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no man had ever climbed. This was Olympus. On this summit, which was hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods assembled. Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the affairs of the world. Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the gathering: he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god "who masses the clouds," who launches the thunderbolt—an old man of majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold. It is he who commands and the other gods bow before him. Should they essay to resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,[54] "Bind to heaven a chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign ordainer, to the earth. On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea. Then I would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be suspended. By so much am I superior to gods and men."

Morality of the Greek Mythology.—The greater part of their gods were conceived by the Greeks as violent, sanguinary, deceitful, dissolute. They ascribed to them scandalous adventures or dishonest acts. Hermes was notorious for his thieving, Aphrodite for her coquetry, Ares for his ferocity. All were so vain as to persecute those who neglected to offer sacrifices to them. Niobe had seen all her children pierced with arrows by Apollo because she herself had boasted of her numerous family. The gods were so jealous that they could not endure seeing a man thoroughly happy; prosperity for the Greeks was the greatest of dangers, for it never failed to draw the anger of the gods, and this anger became a goddess (Nemesis) about whom were told such anecdotes as the following: Once Polycrates of Samos, become very powerful, feared the jealousy of the gods; and so a ring of gold which he still retained was cast into the sea that his good fortune might not be unmixed with evil. Some time after, a fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for his good fortune.

Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men. The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which among men are culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body." Xenophanes was right; the primitive Greeks had created their gods in their own image. As they were then sanguinary, dissolute, jealous, and vain, their gods were the same. Later, as the people became better, their descendants were shocked with all these vices; but the history and the character of the gods were fixed by the ancient traditions, and later generations, without daring to change them, had received the gross and dishonest gods of their ancestors.

THE HEROES

The Hero.—The hero in Greece is a man who has become illustrious, and after death a mighty spirit—not a god, but a demi-god. The heroes do not live on Olympus in the heaven of the gods, they do not direct the life of the world. And yet they, too, possess a power higher than that of any human, and this permits them to aid their friends and destroy their enemies. For this reason the Greeks rendered them worship as to the gods and implored their protection. There was not a city, not a tribe, not a family but had its hero, a protecting spirit which it adored.

Different Kinds of Heroes.—Of these heroes many are legendary persons (Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon); some without doubt never existed (Herakles, OEdipus); others like Hellen, Dorus, AEolus are only names. But their worshippers regarded them as men of the olden time; and, in fact, the most of the heroes lived at one time. Many are historical personages: generals like Leonidas, Lysander; philosophers like Democritus and Aristotle; legislators like Lycurgus and Solon. The people of Croton adored even one of their fellow-citizens, Philip by name, because he had been in his time the most beautiful man in Greece. The leader who had guided a band of colonists and founded a city became for the inhabitants the Founder; a temple was raised to him and every year sacrifices were offered to him. The Athenian Miltiades was thus worshipped in a city of Thrace. The Spartiate Brasidas, killed in the defence of Amphipolis, had divine honors paid to him in that city, for the inhabitants had come to regard him as their Founder.

Presence of the Heroes.—The hero continued to reside in the place where his body was interred, either in his tomb or in the neighborhood. A story told by Herodotus (v. 67) depicts this belief in a lively way. The city of Sicyon adored the hero Adrastus and in a public place was a chapel dedicated to his honor. Cleisthenes, the tyrant of Sicyon, took a fancy to rid himself of this hero. He went to the oracle at Delphi to ask if it would aid him in expelling Adrastus. The oracle replied to his question that Adrastus was king of the Sicyonians and Cleisthenes was a brigand. The tyrant, not daring to evict the hero, adopted a ruse; he sent to Thebes to seek the bones of Melanippus, another hero, and installed them with great pomp in the sanctuary of the city. "He did this," says Herodotus, "because Melanippus during his life had been the greatest enemy of Adrastus and had killed his brother and his son-in-law." Then he transferred to Melanippus the festivals and the sacrifices formerly paid to the honor of Adrastus. He was persuaded, and all the Greeks with him, that the hero would be irritated and would flee.

Intervention of the Heroes.—The heroes have divine power; like the gods, they can according to their whim send good or evil. The poet Stesichorus had spoken ill of the famous Helen (that Helen who the legend states was carried away to Troy); he suddenly became blind; when he retracted what he had said, the heroine restored his sight.

The protecting heroes of a city kept it from plagues and famine and even fought against its enemies. At the battle of the Marathon the Athenian soldiers saw in the midst of them Theseus, the mythical founder of Athens, clad in shining armor. During the battle of Salamis the heroes Ajax and Telamon, once kings of Salamis, appeared on the highest point of the island extending their hands to the Greek fleet. "It is not we," said Themistocles, "that have vanquished the Persians; it is the gods and heroes." In "OEdipus at Colonus," a tragedy of Sophocles, OEdipus at the point of death receives the visit of the king of Athens and of the king of Thebes, both of whom as gods request him to have his body interred in their territory, and to become a protecting hero. OEdipus at last consents to be buried in the soil of the Athenians, and says to the king, "Dead, I shall not be a useless inhabitant of this country, I shall be a rampart for you, stronger than millions of warriors." In himself alone a hero was as efficient as a whole army; his spirit was mightier than all living men.

WORSHIP

Principles of Worship of the Gods.—Gods and heroes, potent as they were, bestowed on men all good or evil fortune according to their will. It was dangerous to have them against you, wise to have them on your side. They were conceived as like men, irritated if they were neglected, contented if they were venerated. On this principle worship was based. It consisted in doing things agreeable to the gods to obtain their favor. Plato expresses as follows[55] the thought of the common man, "To know how to say and do those things that are pleasing to the gods, either in prayers or in offerings, this is piety which brings prosperity to individuals and to states. The reverse is impiety which ruins everything." "It is natural," says Xenophon at the end of his treatise on Cavalry, "that the gods should favor those especially who not only consult them in need, but honor them in the day of prosperity." Religion was first of all a contract; the Greek sought to delight the gods and in return required their services. "For a long time," says a priest of Apollo to his god, "I have burned fat bullocks for you; now grant my petitions and discharge your arrows against my enemies."

The Great Festivals.—Since the gods had the feelings of men they were to be pleased in the same way as men. Wine, cakes, fruits, food were brought to them. Palaces were built for them. Festivals were given in their honor, for they were "joyous gods" who loved pleasure and beautiful spectacles. A festival was not, as with us, purely an occasion of rejoicing, but a religious ceremony. On those days free from the daily toil men were required to rejoice in public before the god. The Greek, without doubt, delighted in these fetes; but it is for the god and not for himself that he celebrates them. "The Ionians," says an ancient hymn to Apollo, "delight thee with trial of strength, the hymn, and the dance."

The Sacred Games.—From these diversions offered to the gods originated the solemn games. Each city had them to the honor of its gods; ordinarily only its citizens were admitted to them; but in four districts of Greece were celebrated games at which all Greeks could be present and participate. These are called the Four Great Games.

The principal of these four festivals was that at Olympia. This was given every four years in honor of Zeus and continued five or six days. The multitude coming from all parts of Greece filled the amphitheatre. They commenced by sacrificing victims and addressing prayers to Zeus and the other gods. Then came the contests; they were:

The foot-race around the stadion.

The Pentathlon, so called because it comprised five exercises. The competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and wrestle.

Boxing, in which one fought with arms bound with thongs of hide.

The chariot races, which were held in the hippodrome; the cars were light and were drawn by four horses.

The judges of the games were clothed in purple, crowned with laurel. After the combat a herald proclaimed before the whole assembly the name of the victor and of his city. A crown of olive was the only reward given him; but his fellow-citizens on his return received him as a conquering hero; sometimes they threw down a section of the city wall to give him entrance. He arrived in a chariot drawn by four horses, clothed in purple, escorted by all the people. "These victories which we leave today to the athletes of the public shows appeared then the greatest of all. Poets of greatest renown celebrated them; Pindar, the most illustrious lyric poet of antiquity, has hardly done more than sing of chariot races. It is related that a certain Diagoras, who had seen his two sons crowned on the same day, was borne in triumph by them in the sight of the spectators. The people, holding such an honor too great for a mortal, cried out, 'Perish, Diagoras, for after all you cannot become a god.' Diagoras, suffocated with emotion, died in the arms of his sons. In his eyes and the eyes of the Greeks the fact that his sons possessed the stoutest fists and the nimblest limbs in Greece was the acme of earthly happiness."[56] The Greeks had their reasons for thus admiring physical prowess: in their wars in which they fought hand to hand the most vigorous athletes were the best soldiers.

Omens.—In return for so much homage, so many festivals and offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches, victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city," says Herodotus,[57] "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the anticipating signs sent them by the deity."

The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed—in a word, everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he, had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy closed the port, destroyed the fleet, and exterminated his army. The Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen, let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."[58]

The Oracles.—Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel. These are Oracles.

There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted were at Dodona in Epirus, and at Delphi, at the foot of Mount Parnassus. At Dodona it was Zeus who spoke by the rustling of the sacred oaks. At Delphi it was Apollo who was consulted. Below his temple, in a grotto, a current of cool air issued from a rift in the ground. This air the Greeks thought[59] was sent by the god, for he threw into a frenzy those who inhaled it. A tripod was placed over the orifice, a woman (the Pythia), prepared by a bath in the sacred spring, took her seat on the tripod, and received the inspiration. At once, seized with a nervous frenzy, she uttered cries and broken sentences. Priests sitting about her caught these expressions, set them to verse, and brought them to him who sought advice of the god.

The oracles of the Pythia were often obscure and ambiguous. When Croesus asked if he should make war on the Persians, the reply was, "Croesus will destroy a great empire." In fact, a great empire was destroyed, but it was that of Croesus.

The Spartans had great confidence in the Pythia, and never initiated an expedition without consulting her. The other Greeks imitated them, and Delphi thus became a sort of national oracle.

Amphictyonies.—To protect the sanctuary of Delphi twelve of the principal peoples of Greece had formed an association called an Amphictyony.[60] Every year deputies from these peoples assembled at Delphi to celebrate the festival of Apollo and see that the temple was not threatened; for this temple contained immense wealth, a temptation to pillage it. In the sixth century the people of Cirrha, a neighboring city of Delphi, appropriated these treasures.[61] The Amphictyons declared war against them for sacrilege. Cirrha was taken and destroyed, the inhabitants sold as slaves, the territory left fallow. In the fourth century the Amphictyons made war on the Phocidians also who had seized the treasury of Delphi, and on the people of Amphissa who had tilled a field dedicated to Apollo.

Still it is not necessary to believe that the assembly of the Amphictyons ever resembled a Greek senate. It was concerned only with the temple of Apollo, not at all with political affairs. It did not even prevent members of the Amphictyony fighting one another. The oracle and the Amphictyony of Delphi were more potent than the other oracles and the other amphictyonies; but they never united the Greeks into a single nation.

FOOTNOTES:

[51] See the account of the traveller Pausanias.

[52] "There are," says Hesiod, "30,000 gods on the fruitful earth."

[53] Greek scholars formed a select society of twelve gods and goddesses, but their choice was arbitrary, and all did not agree on the same series. The Greeks of different countries and of different epochs often represented the same god under different forms. Further, the majority of the gods seem to us to have vague and undetermined attributes; this is because they were not the same everywhere.

[54] Iliad, viii., 18.

[55] In the dialogue "Eutyphron."

[56] Taine, "Philosophy of Art."

[57] Herodotus, vi., 27

[58] Xenophon, "Anabasis," iii, 2.

[59] This idea gained currency only in the later periods of Grecian history.—ED.

[60] There were similar amphictyonies at Delos, Calauria, and Onchestus.

[61] The special charge against Cirrha was the levying of toll on pilgrims coming to Delphi.—ED.



CHAPTER XI

SPARTA

THE PEOPLE

Laconia.—When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in Laconia three classes: Helots, Perioeci, Spartiates.

The Helots.—The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them—indeed, they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted."

The Perioeci.—The Perioeci (those who live around) inhabited a hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors, they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to life. They were free and administered the business of their village, but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them.

Condition of the Spartiates.—Helots and Perioeci despised the Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped the catastrophe. At the same time the Perioeci rose and refused obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Perioeci was certain to exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it was done no one ever knew.[63]

And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 Perioeci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its people was an army always in readiness.

EDUCATION

The Children.—They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer.

Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from perplexing situations when they were in the field.

They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle, without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline.

The Girls.—The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest women in Greece.

The Discipline.—The men, too, have their regular life and this a soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising and retiring, meals, exercise—everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks.

Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms; he disciplines all the members of the body—the neck, the arms, the shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's territory.

Laconism.—These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases—or as we say, laconically—the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens, he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen."

Music. The Dance.—The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of music—the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so that the step might be regular.

Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were armed and imitated all the movements of a battle; they made the gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the javelin.

Heroism of the Women.—The women stimulated the men to combat; their exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that collections of stories of them were made.[64] A Spartan mother, seeing her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying; "The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the gods."

THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA

The Kings and the Council.—The Spartiates had at first, like the other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to them and they were closely watched.

The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern.

The Ephors.—The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year. They decided peace and war, and had judicial functions; when the king commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was, therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed Inferiors and had no part in the government.

The Army.—Thanks to this regime, the Spartiates preserved the rude customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they became "adepts in the military art,"[65] and instructors of the other Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of combat, a better method of athletic exercise.

The Hoplites.—Before them the Greeks marched into battle in disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead, the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion, helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for defence, the breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head, the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an astonishing novelty.

The Phalanx.—Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx. The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far as they were able, imitated the Spartans; everywhere men were armed as hoplites and fought in phalanx.

Gymnastics.—To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises, and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning feature of the great festivals.

In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium. There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin, to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil).

Athletes.—Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals. Gymnastics were the school of war.

Role of the Spartiates.—The Spartans taught the other Greeks to exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly took the Spartans as chiefs—and with justice, said an Athenian orator.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6.

[63] See Thucydides, iv., 80.

[64] A collection by Plutarch is still preserved.

[65] A phrase of Xenophon.



CHAPTER XII

ATHENS

THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE

Attica.—The Athenians boasted of having always lived in the same country; their ancestors, according to their story, originated from the soil itself. The mountaineers who conquered the south land passed by the country without invading it; Attica was hardly a temptation to them.

Attica is composed of a mass of rocks which in the form of a triangle advances into the sea. These rocks, renowned for their blocks of marble and for the honey of their bees,[66] are bare and sterile. Between them and the sea are left three small plains with meagre soil, meanly watered (the streams are dry in summer) and incapable of supporting a numerous population.

Athens.—In the largest of these plains, a league from the sea, rises a massive isolated rock: Athens was built at its foot. The old city, called the Acropolis, occupied the summit of the rock.

The inhabitants of Attica commenced, not by forming a single state, but by founding scattered villages, each of which had its own king and its own government. Later all these villages united under one king,[67] the king of Athens, and established a single city. This does not mean that all the people came to dwell in one town. They continued to have their own villages and to cultivate their lands; but all adored one and the same protecting goddess, Athena, divinity of Athens, and all obeyed the same king.

Athenian Revolutions.—Later still the kings were suppressed. In their place Athens had nine chiefs (the archons) who changed every year. This whole history is little known to us for no writing of the time is preserved. They used to say that for centuries the Athenians had lived in discord; the nobles (Eupatrids) who were proprietors of the soil oppressed the peasants on their estates; creditors held their debtors as slaves. To reestablish order the Athenians commissioned Solon, a sage, to draft a code of laws for them (594).

Solon made three reforms:

1. He lessened the value of the money, which allowed the debtors to release themselves more easily.

2. He made the peasants proprietors of the land that they cultivated. From this time there were in Attica more small proprietors than in any other part of Greece.

3. He grouped all the citizens into four classes according to their incomes. Each had to pay taxes and to render military service according to his wealth, the poor being exempt from taxation and military service.

After Solon the Athenians were subject to Pisistratus, one of their powerful and clever citizens; but in 510 the dissensions revived.

Reforms of Cleisthenes.—Cleisthenes, leader of one of the parties, used the occasion to make a thoroughgoing revolution.

There were many strangers in Athens, especially seamen and traders who lived in Piraeus near the harbor. Cleisthenes gave them the rights of citizenship and made them equal[68] to the older inhabitants. From this time there were two populations side by side—the people of Attica and those of Piraeus. A difference of physical features was apparent for three centuries afterward: the people of Attica resembled the rest of the Greeks; those in Piraeus resembled Asiatics. The Athenian people thus augmented was a new people, the most active in Greece.

THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE

In the fifth century the society of Athens was definitely formed: three classes inhabited the district of Attica—slaves, foreigners, and citizens.

The Slaves.—The slaves constituted the great majority of the population; there was no man so poor that he did not have at least one slave; the rich owned a multitude of them, some as many as five hundred. The larger part of the slaves lived in the house occupied with grinding grain, kneading bread, spinning and weaving cloth, performing the service of the kitchens, and in attendance on their masters. Others labored in the shops as blacksmiths, as dyers, or in stone quarries or silver mines. Their master fed them but sold at a profit everything which they produced, giving them in return nothing but their living. All the domestic servants, all the miners, and the greater part of the artisans were slaves. These men lived in society but without any part in it; they had not even the disposition of their own bodies, being wholly the property of other men. They were thought of only as objects of property; they were often referred to as "a body" (σωμα). There was no other law for them than the will of their master, and he had all power over them—to make them work, to imprison them, to deprive them of their sustenance, to beat them. When a citizen went to law, his adversary had the right to require that the former's slaves should be put to the torture to tell what they knew. Many Athenian orators commend this usage as an ingenious means for obtaining true testimony. "Torture," says the orator Isaeus, "is the surest means of proof; and so when you wish to clear up a contested question, you do not address yourselves to freemen, but, placing the slaves to the torture, you seek to discover the truth."

Foreigners.—The name Metics was applied to people of foreign origin who were established in Athens. To become a citizen of Athens it was not enough, as with us, to be born in the country; one must be the son of a citizen. It might be that some aliens had resided in Attica for several generations and yet their family not become Athenian. The metics could take no part in the government, could not marry a citizen, nor acquire land. But they were personally free, they had the right of commerce by sea, of banking and of trade on condition that they take a patron to represent them in the courts. There were in Athens more than ten thousand families of metics, the majority of them bankers or merchants.

The Citizens.—To be a citizen of Athens it was necessary that both parents should be citizens. The young Athenian, come to maturity at about eighteen years of age, appeared before the popular assembly, received the arms which he was to bear and took the following oath: "I swear never to dishonor these sacred arms, not to quit my post, to obey the magistrates and the laws, to honor the religion of my country." He became simultaneously citizen and soldier. Thereafter he owed military service until he was sixty years of age. With this he had the right to sit in the assembly and to fulfil the functions of the state.

Once in a while the Athenians consented to receive into the citizenship a man who was not the son of a citizen, but this was rare and a sign of great favor. The assembly had to vote the stranger into its membership, and then nine days after six thousand citizens had to vote for him on a secret ballot. The Athenian people was like a closed circle; no new members were admitted except those pleasing to the old members, and they admitted few beside their sons.

THE GOVERNMENT OF ATHENS

The Assembly.—The Athenians called their government a democracy (a government by the people). But this people was not, as with us, the mass of inhabitants, but the body of citizens, a true aristocracy of 15,000 to 20,000 men who governed the whole nation as masters. This body had absolute power, and was the true sovereign of Athens. It assembled at least three times a month to deliberate and to vote. The assembly was held in the open air on the Pnyx; the citizens sat on stone benches arranged in an amphitheatre; the magistrates before them on a platform opened the session with a religious ceremony and a prayer, then a herald proclaimed in a loud voice the business which was to occupy the assembly, and said, "Who wishes to speak?" Every citizen had the right to this privilege; the orators mounted the tribune according to age. When all had spoken, the president put the question; the assembly voted by a show of hands, and then dissolved.

The Courts.—The people itself, being sovereign, passed judgment in the courts. Every citizen of thirty years of age could participate in the judicial assembly (the Heliaea). The heliasts sat in the great halls in sections of five hundred; the tribunal was, then, composed of one thousand to fifteen hundred judges. The Athenians had no prosecuting officer as we have; a citizen took upon himself to make the accusation. The accused and the accuser appeared before the court; each delivered a plea which was not to exceed the time marked off by a water-clock. Then the judges voted by depositing a black or white stone. If the accuser did not obtain a certain number of votes, he himself was condemned.

The Magistrates.—The sovereign people needed a council to prepare the business for discussion and magistrates to execute their decisions. The council was composed of five hundred citizens drawn by lot for one year. The magistrates were very numerous: ten generals to command the army, thirty officials for financial administration, sixty police officials to superintend the streets, the markets, weights and measures, etc.[69]

Character of This Government.—The power in Athens did not pertain to the rich and the noble, as in Sparta. In the assembly everything was decided by a majority of votes and all the votes were equal. All the jurors, all the members of the council, all the magistrates except the generals were chosen by lot. The citizens were equal not only in theory, but also in practice. Socrates said[70] to a well-informed Athenian who did not dare to speak before the people: "Of what are you afraid? Is it of the fullers, the shoe-makers, the masons, the artisans, or the merchants? for the assembly is composed of all these people."

Many of these people had to ply their trade in order to make a living, and could not serve the state gratuitously; and so a salary was instituted: every citizen who sat in the assembly or in the courts received for every day of session three obols (about eight cents of our money), a sum just sufficient to maintain life at that time. From this day the poor administered the government.

The Demagogues.—Since all important affairs whether in the assembly or in the courts were decided by discussion and discourse, the influential men were those who knew how to speak best. The people accustomed themselves to listen to the orators, to follow their counsels, to charge them with embassies, and even to appoint them generals. These men were called Demagogues (leaders of the people). The party of the rich scoffed at them: in a comedy Aristophanes represents the people (Demos) under the form of an old man who has lost his wits: "You are foolishly credulous, you let flatterers and intriguers pull you around by the nose and you are enraptured when they harangue you." And the chorus, addressing a charlatan, says to him, "You are rude, vicious; you have a strong voice, an impudent eloquence, and violent gestures; believe me, you have all that is necessary to govern Athens."

PRIVATE LIFE

The Athenians created so many political functions that a part of the citizens was engaged in fulfilling them. The citizen of Athens, like the functionary or soldier of our days, was absorbed in public affairs. Warring and governing were the whole of his life. He spent his days in the assembly, in the courts, in the army, at the gymnasium, or at the market. Almost always he had a wife and children, for his religion commanded this, but he did not live at home.

The Children.—When a child came into the world, the father had the right to reject it. In this case it was laid outside the house where it died from neglect, unless a passer-by took it and brought it up as a slave. In this custom Athens followed all the Greeks. It was especially the girls that were exposed to death. "A son," says a writer of comedy, "is always raised even if the parents are in the last stage of misery; a daughter is exposed even though the parents are rich."

If the father accepted the child, the latter entered the family. He was left at first in the women's apartments with the mother. The girls remained there until the day of their marriage; the boys came out when they were seven years old. The boy was then entrusted to a preceptor (pedagogue), whose business it was to teach him to conduct himself well and to obey. The pedagogue was often a slave, but the father gave him the right to beat his son. This was the general usage in antiquity.

Later the boy went to school, where he learned to read, write, cipher, recite poetry, and to sing in the chorus or to the sound of the flute. At last came gymnastics. This was the whole of the instruction; it made men sound in body and calm in spirit—what the Greeks called "good and beautiful."

To the young girl, secluded with her mother, nothing of the liberal arts was taught; it was thought sufficient if she learned to obey. Xenophon represents a rich and well-educated Athenian speaking thus of his wife with Socrates: "She was hardly twenty years old when I married her, and up to that time she had been subjected to an exacting surveillance; they had no desire that she should live, and she learned almost nothing. Was it not enough that one should find in her a woman who could spin the flax to make garments, and who had learned how to distribute duties to the slaves?" When her husband proposed that she become his assistant, she replied with great surprise, "In what can I aid you? Of what am I capable? My mother has always taught me that my business was to be prudent." Prudence or obedience was the virtue which was required of the Greek woman.

Marriage.—At the age of fifteen the girl married. The parents had chosen the husband; it might be a man from a neighboring family, or a man who had been a long-time friend of the father, but always a citizen of Athens. It was rare that the young girl knew him; she was never consulted in the case. Herodotus, speaking of a Greek, adds: "This Callias deserves mention for his conduct toward his daughters; for when they were of marriageable age he gave them a rich dowry, permitted them to choose husbands from all the people, and he then married them to the men of their choice."

Athenian Women.—In the inner recess of the Athenian house there was a retired apartment reserved for the women—the Gynecaeum. Husband and relatives were the only visitors; the mistress of the household remained here all day with her slaves; she directed them, superintended the house-keeping, and distributed to them the flax for them to spin. She herself was engaged with weaving garments. She left the house seldom save for the religious festivals. She never appeared in the society of men: "No one certainly would venture," says the orator Isaeus, "to dine with a married woman; married women do not go out to dine with men or permit themselves to eat with strangers." An Athenian woman who frequented society could not maintain a good reputation.

The wife, thus secluded and ignorant, was not an agreeable companion. The husband had taken her not for his life-long companion, but to keep his house in order, to be the mother of his children, and because Greek custom and religion required that he should marry. Plato says that one does not marry because he wants to, but "because the law constrains him." And the comic poet Menander had found this saying: "Marriage, to tell the truth, is an evil, but a necessary evil." And so the women in Athens, as in most of the other states of Greece, always held but little place in society.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] The marble of Pentelicus and the honey of Hymettus.

[67] This legendary king was called Theseus.

[68] Certain limitations, however, are referred to below, under "Metics."—ED.

[69] Not to mention the Archons, whom they had not ventured to suppress.

[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6.



CHAPTER XIII

WARS OF THE GREEKS

THE PERSIAN WARS

Origin of the Persian Wars.—While the Greeks were completing the organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first meet.

On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of the Greeks;[71] Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them. These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he replied,[72] "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King.

Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by surprise and burned it. Darius revenged himself by destroying the Greek cities of Asia, but he did not forget the Greeks of Europe. He had decreed, they say, that at every meal an officer should repeat to him: "Master, remember the Athenians." He sent to the Greek cities to demand earth and water, a symbol in use among the Persians to indicate submission to the Great King. Most of the Greeks were afraid and yielded. But the Spartans cast the envoys into a pit, bidding them take thence earth and water to carry to the king. This was the beginning of the Median wars.

Comparison of the Two Adversaries.—The contrast between the two worlds which now entered into conflict is well marked by Herodotus[73] in the form of a conversation of King Xerxes with Demaratus, a Spartan exile: "'I venture to assure you,' said Demaratus, 'that the Spartans will offer you battle even if all the rest of the Greeks fight on your side, and if their army should not amount to more than one thousand men.' 'What!' said Xerxes, 'one thousand men attack so immense an army as mine! I fear your words are only boasting; for although they be five thousand, we are more than one thousand to one. If they had a master like us, fear would inspire them with courage; they would march under the lash against a larger army; but being free and independent, they will have no more courage than that with which nature has endowed them.' 'The Spartans,' replied Demaratus, 'are not inferior to anybody in a hand-to-hand contest, and united in a phalanx they are the bravest of all men. Yet, though free, they have an absolute master, the Law, which they dread more than all your subjects do you; they obey it, and this law requires them to stand fast to their post and conquer or die.'" This is the difference between the two parties to the conflict: on the one side, a multitude of subjects united by force under a capricious master; on the other, little martial republics whose citizens govern themselves according to laws which they respect.

First Persian War.—There were two Persian wars. The first was simply an expedition against Athens; six hundred galleys sent by Darius disembarked a Persian army on the little plain of Marathon, seven hours distant from Athens.

Religious sentiment prevented the Spartans from taking the field before the full moon, and it was still only the first quarter; the Athenians had to fight alone.[74] Ten thousand citizens armed as hoplites camped before the Persians. The Athenians had ten generals, having the command on successive days; of these Miltiades, when his turn came, drew up the army for battle. The Athenians charged the enemy in serried ranks, but the Persians seeing them advancing without cavalry and without archers, thought them fools. It was the first time that the Greeks had dared to face the Persians in battle array. The Athenians began by turning both flanks, and then engaged the centre, driving the Persians in disorder to the sea and forcing them to reembark on their ships.

The victory of Marathon delivered the Athenians and made them famous in all Greece (490).

Second Persian War.—The second war began ten years later with an invasion. Xerxes united all the peoples of the empire, so that the land force amounted, as some say, to 1,700,000 men.[75] There were Medes and Persians clad in sleeved tunics, armed with cuirasses of iron, bucklers, bows and arrows; Assyrians with cuirass of linen, armed with clubs pointed with iron; Indians clad in cotton with bows and arrows of bamboo; savages of Ethiopia with leopard skins for clothing; nomads armed only with lassos; Phrygians armed with short pikes; Lydians equipped like Greeks; Thracians carrying javelins and daggers. The enumeration of these fills twenty chapters in Herodotus.[76] These warriors brought with them a crowd equally numerous of non-combatants, of servants, slaves, women, together with a mass of mules, horses, camels, and baggage wagons.

This horde crossed the Hellespont by a bridge of boats in the spring of 480. For seven days and nights it defiled under the lash. Then traversing Thrace, it marched on Greece, conquering the peoples whom it met.

The Persian fleet, 1,200 galleys strong, coasted the shores of Thrace, passing through the canal at Mount Athos which Xerxes had had built for this very purpose.

The Greeks, terrified, submitted for the most part to the Great King and joined their armies to the Persian force. The Athenians sent to consult the oracle of Delphi, but received only the reply; "Athens will be destroyed from base to summit." The god being asked to give a more favorable response, replied, "Zeus accords to Pallas [protectress of Athens] a wall of wood which alone shall not be taken; in that shall you and your children find safety." The priests of whom they asked the interpretation of this oracle bade the Athenians quit Attica and go to establish themselves elsewhere. But Themistocles explained the "wall of wood" as meaning the ships; they should retire to the fleet and fight the Persians on sea.

Athens and Sparta, having decided on resistance, endeavored to form a league of the Greeks against the Persians. Few cities had the courage to enter it, and these placed themselves under the command of the Spartans. Four battles in one year settled the war. At Thermopylae, Leonidas, king of Sparta, who tried to bar the entrance to a defile was outflanked and overwhelmed. At Salamis, the Persian fleet, crowded into a narrow space where the ships embarrassed one another, was defeated by the Greek navy (480). At Plataea the rest of the Persian army left in Greece was annihilated by the Greek hoplites; of 300,000 men but 40,000 escaped. The same day at Mycale, on the coast of Asia, an army of the Greeks landed and routed the Persians (479). The Greeks had conquered the Great King.

Reasons for the Greek Victory.—The Median war was not a national war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the Great King and his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies.

The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Plataea the Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects kept aloof.

The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the enemy with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre.

Results of the Persian Wars.—Sparta had commanded the troops, but as Herodotus says,[77] it was Athens who had delivered Greece by setting an example of resistance and constituting the fleet of Salamis. It was Athens who profited by the victory. All the Ionian cities of the Archipelago and of the coast of Asia revolted and formed a league against the Persians. The Spartans, men of the mountains, could not conduct a maritime war, and so withdrew; the Athenians immediately became chiefs of the league. In 476[78] Aristides, commanding the fleet, assembled the delegates of the confederate cities. They decided to continue the war against the Great King, and engaged to provide ships and warriors and to pay each year a contribution of 460 talents ($350,000). The treasure was deposited at Delos in the temple of Apollo, god of the Ionians. Athens was charged with the leadership of the military force and with collecting the tax. To make the agreement irrevocable Aristides had a mass of hot iron cast into the sea, and all swore to maintain the oaths until the day that the iron should mount to the surface.

A day came, however, when the war ceased, and the Greeks, always the victors, concluded a peace, or at least a truce,[79] with the Great King. He surrendered his claim on the Asiatic Greeks (about 449).

What was to become of the treaty of Aristides? Were the confederate cities still to pay their contribution now that there was no more fighting? Some refused it even before the war was done. Athens asserted that the cities had made their engagements in perpetuity and forced them to pay them.

The war finished, the treasury at Delos had no further use; the Athenians transferred the money to Athens and used it in building their monuments. They maintained that the allies paid for deliverance from the Persians; they, therefore, had no claim against Athens so long as she defended them from the Great King. The allies had now become the tributaries of Athens: they were now her subjects. Athens increased the tax on them, and required their citizens to bring their cases before the Athenian courts; she even sent colonists to seize a part of their lands. Athens, mistress of the league, was sovereign over more than three hundred cities spread over the islands and the coasts of the Archipelago, and the tribute paid her amounted to six hundred talents a year.

STRIFE AMONG THE GREEK STATES

The Peloponnesian War.—After the foundation of the Athenian empire in the Archipelago the Greeks found themselves divided between two leagues—the maritime cities were subject to Athens; the cities of the interior remained under the domination of Sparta. After much preliminary friction war arose between Sparta and her continental allies on the one side and Athens and her maritime subjects on the other. This was the Peloponnesian War. It continued twenty-seven years (431-404), and when it ceased, it was revived under other names down to 360.

These wars were complicated affairs. They were fought simultaneously on land and sea, in Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Sicily, ordinarily at several points at once. The Spartans had a better army and ravaged Attica; the Athenians had a superior fleet and made descents on the coasts of the Peloponnesus. Then Athens sent its army to Sicily where it perished to the last man (413); Lysander, a Spartan general, secured a fleet from the Persians and destroyed the Athenian fleet in Asia (405). The Athenian allies who fought only under compulsion abandoned her. Lysander took Athens, demolished its walls, and burnt its ships.

Wars against Sparta.—Sparta was for a time mistress on both land and sea. "In those days," says Xenophon, "all cities obeyed when a Spartan issued his orders." But soon the allies of Sparta, wearied of her domination, formed a league against her. The Spartans, driven at first from Asia, still maintained their power in Greece for some years by virtue of their alliance with the king of the Persians (387). But the Thebans, having developed a strong army under the command of Epaminondas, fought them at Leuctra (371) and at Mantinea (362). The allies of Sparta detached themselves from her, but the Thebans could not secure from the rest of the Greeks the recognition of their supremacy. From this time no Greek city was sovereign over the others.

Savage Character of These Wars.—These wars between the Greek cities were ferocious. A few incidents suffice to show their character. At the opening of the war the allies of Sparta threw into the sea all the merchants from cities hostile to them. The Athenians in return put to death the ambassadors of Sparta without allowing them to speak a word. The town of Plataea was taken by capitulation, and the Spartans had promised that no one should be punished without a trial; but the Spartan judges demanded of every prisoner if during the war he had rendered any service to the Peloponnesians; when the prisoner replied in the negative, he was condemned to death. The women were sold as slaves. The city of Mitylene having revolted from Athens was retaken by her. The Athenians in an assembly deliberated and decreed that all the people of Mitylene should be put to death. It is true that the next day the Athenians revised the decree and sent a second ship to carry a more favorable commission, but still more than one thousand Mityleneans were executed.

After the Syracusan disaster all the Athenian army was taken captive. The conquerors began by slaughtering all the generals and many of the soldiers. The remainder were consigned to the quarries which served as prison. They were left there crowded together for seventy days, exposed without protection to the burning sun of summer, and then to the chilly nights of autumn. Many died from sickness, from cold and hunger—for they were hardly fed at all; their corpses remained on the ground and infected the air. At last the Syracusans drew out the survivors sold them into slavery.

Ordinarily when an army invaded a hostile state it levelled the houses, felled the trees, burned the crops and killed the laborers. After battle it made short shrift of the wounded and killed prisoners in cold blood. In a captured city everything belonged to the captor: men, women, children were sold as slaves. Such was at this time the right of war. Thucydides sums up the case as follows:[80] "Business is regulated between men by the laws of justice when there is obligation on both sides; but the stronger does whatever is in his power, and the weaker yields. The gods rule by a necessity of their nature because they are strongest; men do likewise."

Results of These Wars.—These wars did not result in uniting the Greeks into one body. No city, Sparta more than Athens, was able to force the others to obey her. They only exhausted themselves by fighting one another. It was the king of Persia who profited by the strife. Not only did the Greek cities not unite against him, but all in succession allied themselves with him against the other Greeks. In the notorious Peace of Antalcidas (387) the Great King declared that all the Greek cities of Asia belonged to him, and Sparta recognized this claim. Athens and Thebes did as much some years later. An Athenian orator said, "It is the king of Persia who governs Greece; he needs only to establish governors in our cities. Is it not he who directs everything among us? Do we not summon the Great King as if we were his slaves?" The Greeks by their strife had lost the vantage that the Median war had gained for them.

FOOTNOTES:

[71] Twelve Ionian colonies, twelve AEolian, four Dorian.

[72] Herod., i., 153.

[73] Herod., vii., 103, 104.

[74] 1,000 Plataeans came to the assistance of the Athenians.—ED.

[75] Herodotus's statements of the numbers in Xerxes' army are incredible.—ED.

[76] Herod., vii., 61-80.

[77] vii., 139.

[78] The chronology of these events is uncertain.—ED.

[79] Called the Peace of Cimon, but it is very doubtful whether Cimon really concluded a treaty. [With more right may it be called the Peace of Callias, who was probably principal ambassador.—ED.]

[80] In his chapters on the Mityleneans.



CHAPTER XIV

THE ARTS IN GREECE

ATHENS AT THE TIME OF PERICLES

Pericles.—In the middle of the fifth century Athens found herself the most powerful city in Greece. Pericles, descended from one of the noble families, was then the director of the affairs of the state. He wasted neither speech nor personality, and never sought to flatter the vanity of the people. But the Athenians respected him and acted only in accordance with his counsels; they had faith in his knowledge of all the details of administration, of the resources of the state, and so they permitted him to govern. For forty years Pericles was the soul of the politics of Athens; as Thucydides his contemporary said, "The democracy existed in name; in reality it was the government of the first citizen."

Athens and Her Monuments.—In Athens, as in the majority of Greek cities, the houses of individuals were small, low, packed closely together, forming narrow streets, tortuous and ill paved. The Athenians reserved their display for their public monuments. Ever after they levied heavy war taxes on their allies they had large sums of money to expend, and these were employed in erecting beautiful edifices. In the market-place they built a portico adorned with paintings (the Poikile), in the city a theatre, a temple in honor of Theseus, and the Odeon for the contests in music. But the most beautiful monuments rose on the rock of the Acropolis as on a gigantic pedestal. There were two temples of which the principal, the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena, protecting goddess of the city; a colossal statue of bronze which represented Athena; and a staircase of ornamental character leading up to the Propylaea. Athens was from this time the most beautiful of the Greek cities.[81]

Importance of Athens.—Athens became at the same time the city of artists. Poets, orators, architects, painters, sculptors—some Athenians by birth, others come from all corners of the Greek world—met here and produced their masterpieces. There were without doubt many Greek artists elsewhere than at Athens; there had been before the fifth century, and there were a long time afterward; but never were so many assembled at one time in the same city. Most of the Greeks had fine sensibilities in matters of art; but the Athenians more than all others had a refined taste, a cultivated spirit and love of the beautiful. If the Greeks have gained renown in the history of civilization, it is that they have been a people of artists; neither their little states nor their small armies have played a great role in the world. This is why the fifth century is the most beautiful moment in the history of Greece; this is why Athens has remained renowned above all the rest of the Greek cities.

LETTERS

The Orators.—Athens is above all the city of eloquence. Speeches in the assembly determine war, peace, taxes, all state business of importance; speeches before the courts condemn or acquit citizens and subjects. Power is in the hands of the orators; the people follow their counsels and often commit to them important public functions: Cleon is appointed general; Demosthenes directs the war against Philip.

The orators have influence; they employ their talents in eloquence to accuse their political enemies. Often they possess riches, for they are paid for supporting one party or the other: AEschines is retained by the king of Macedon; Demosthenes accepts fees from the king of Persia.

Some of the orators, instead of delivering their own orations, wrote speeches for others. When an Athenian citizen had a case at court, he did not desire, as we do, that an advocate plead his case for him; the law required that each speak in person. He therefore sought an orator and had him compose a speech which he learned by heart and recited before the tribunal.

Other orators travelled through the cities of Greece speaking on subjects which pleased their fancy. Sometimes they gave lectures, as we should say.

The oldest orators spoke simply, limiting themselves to an account of the facts without oratorical flourishes; on the platform they were almost rigid without loud speaking or gesticulation. Pericles delivered his orations with a calm air, so quietly, indeed, that no fold of his mantle was disturbed. When he appeared at the tribune, his head, according to custom, crowned with leaves, he might have been taken, said the people, "for a god of Olympus." But the orators who followed wished to move the public. They assumed an animated style, pacing the tribune in a declamatory and agitated manner. The people became accustomed to this form of eloquence. The first time that Demosthenes came to the tribune the assembly shouted with laughter; the orator could not enunciate, he carried himself ill. He disciplined himself in declamation and gesture and became the favorite of the people. Later when he was asked what was the first quality of the orator, he replied, "Action, and the second, action, and the third, action." Action, that is delivery, was more to the Greeks than the sense of the discourse.

The Sages.—For some centuries there had been, especially among the Greeks of Asia, men who observed and reflected on things. They were called by a name which signifies at once wise men and scholars. They busied themselves with physics, astronomy, natural history, for as yet science was not separated from philosophy. Such were in the seventh century the celebrated Seven Sages of Greece.

The Sophists.—About the time of Pericles there came to Athens men who professed to teach wisdom. They gathered many pupils and charged fees for their lessons. Ordinarily they attacked the religion, customs, and institutions of Greek cities, showing that they were not founded on reason. They concluded that men could not know anything with certainty (which was quite true for their time), that men can know nothing at all, and that nothing is true or false: "Nothing exists," said one of them, "and if it did exist, we could not know it." These professors of scepticism were called sophists. Some of them were at the same time orators.

Socrates and the Philosophers.—Socrates, an old man of Athens, undertook to combat the sophists. He was a poor man, ugly, and without eloquence. He opened no school like the sophists but contented himself with going about the city, conversing with those he met, and leading them by the force of his questions to discover what he himself had in mind. He sought especially the young men and gave them instruction and counsel. Socrates made no pretensions as a scholar: "All my knowledge," said he, "is to know that I know nothing." He would call himself no longer a sage, like the others, but a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom. He did not meditate on the nature of the world nor on the sciences; man was his only interest. His motto was, "Know thyself." He was before all a preacher of virtue.

As he always spoke of morals and religion, the Athenians took him for a sophist.[82] In 399 he was brought before the court, accused "of not worshipping the gods of the city, of introducing new gods, and of corrupting the youth." He made no attempt to defend himself, and was condemned to death. He was then seventy years old.

Xenophon, one of his disciples, wrote out his conversations and an apology for him.[83] Another disciple, Plato, composed dialogues in which Socrates is always the principal personage. Since this time Socrates has been regarded as the "father of philosophy." Plato himself was the head of a school (429-348); Aristotle (384-322), a disciple of Plato, summarized in his books all the science of his time. The philosophers that followed attached themselves to one or the other of these two masters: the disciples of Plato called themselves Academicians,[84] those of Aristotle, Peripatetics.[85]

The Chorus.—It was an ancient custom of the Greeks to dance in their religious ceremonies. Around the altar dedicated to the god a group of young men passed and repassed, assuming noble and expressive attitudes, for the ancients danced with the whole body. Their dance, very different from ours, was a sort of animated procession, something like a solemn pantomime. Almost always this religious dance was accompanied by chants in honor of the god. The group singing and dancing at the same time was called the Chorus. All the cities had their festival choruses in which the children of the noblest families participated after long time of preparation. The god required the service of a troop worthy of him.