II. FROM OLIGARCHIES TO DESPOTISMS.
The fall of the oligarchies was not accomplished, however, by the people. "The commonalty," says THIRLWALL, "even when really superior in strength, could not all at once shake off the awe with which it was impressed by years of subjection. It needed a leader to animate, unite, and direct it; and it was seldom that one capable of inspiring it with confidence could be found in its own ranks," Hence this leader was generally found in an ambitions citizen, perhaps a noble or a member of the oligarchy, who, by artifice and violence, would make himself the supreme ruler of the state. Under such circumstances the overthrow of an oligarchy was not a triumph of the people, but only the triumph of a then popular leader. To such a one was given the name of tyrant, but not in the sense that we use the term. HEEREN says, "The Grecians connected with this word the idea of an illegitimate, but not necessarily of a cruel, government." As the word therefore signifies simply the irresponsible rule of a single person, such person may be more correctly designated by the term despot, or usurper; although, in point of fact, the government was frequently of the most cruel and tyrannical character.
"The merits of this race of rulers," says BULWER, "and the unconscious benefits they produced, have not been justly appreciated, either by ancient or modern historians. Without her tyrants Greece might never have established her democracies. The wiser and more celebrated tyrants were characterized by an extreme modesty of deportment: they assumed no extraordinary pomp, no lofty titles—they left untouched, or rendered yet more popular, the outward forms and institutions of the government—they were not exacting in taxation—they affected to link themselves with the lowest orders and their ascendancy was usually productive of immediate benefit to the working-classes, whom they employed in new fortifications or new public buildings—dazzling the citizens by a splendor that seemed less the ostentation of an individual than the prosperity of a state. It was against the aristocracy, not against the people, that they directed their acute sagacities and unsparing energies. Every politic tyrant was a Louis the Eleventh, weakening the nobles, creating a middle class. He effected his former object by violent and unscrupulous means. He swept away by death or banishment all who opposed his authority or excited his fears. He thus left nothing between the state and a democracy but himself; and, himself removed, democracy naturally and of course ensued."[Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," vol. i., pp. 148, 149.]
From the middle of the seventh century B.C., and during a period of over one hundred and fifty years, there were few Grecian cities that escaped a despotic government. While the history of Athens affords, perhaps, the most striking example of it, the longest tyranny in Greece was that in the city of Si'çyon, which lasted a hundred years under Orthag'orus and his sons. Their dynasty was founded about 676 B.C., and its long duration is ascribed to its mildness and moderation. The last of this dynasty was Clis'thenes, whose daughter became the mother of the Athenian Clisthenes, the founder of democracy at Athens on the expulsion of the Pisistrat'idæ. The despots of Corinth were more celebrated. Their dynasty endured seventy-four years, having been founded in the year 655. Under Perian'der, who succeeded to power in 625, and whose government was cruel and oppressive, Corinth reached her highest prosperity. His reign lasted upward of forty years, and soon after his death the dynasty ended, being overpowered by Sparta.
Across the isthmus from Corinth was the city of Meg'ara, of which, in 630 B.C., Theag'enes, a bold and ambitious man, made himself despot. Like many other usurpers of his time, he adorned the city with splendid and useful buildings. But he was overthrown after a rule of thirty years, and a violent struggle then ensued between the oligarchy and the people. At first the latter were successful; they banished many of the nobles, and confiscated their property, but the exiles returned, and by force of arms recovered their power. Still the struggle continued, and it was not until after many years that an oligarchical government was firmly established. Much interest is added to these revolutions in Megara by the writings of THEOG'NIS, a contemporary poet, and a member of the oligarchical party. "His writings," says THIRLWALL, "are interesting, not so much for the historical facts contained in them as for the light they throw on the character and feelings of the parties which divided his native city and so many others."
In the poems of THEOGNIS "his keen sense of his personal sufferings is almost absorbed in the vehement grief and indignation with which he contemplates the state of Megara, the triumph of the bad [his usual term for the people], and the degradation of the good [the members of the old aristocracy]." Some of the social changes which the popular revolution had effected are thus described:
Our commonwealth preserves its former fame:
Our common people are no more the same.
They that in skins and hides were rudely dressed,
Nor dreamed of law, nor sought to be redressed
By rules of right, but in the days of old
Lived on the land like cattle in the fold,
Are now the Brave and Good; and we, the rest,
Are now the Mean and Bad, though once the best.
It appears, also, that some of the aristocracy by birth had so far forgotten their leading position as to inter-marry with those who had become possessed of much wealth; and of this condition of things the poet complains as follows:
But in the daily matches that we make
The price is everything; for money's sake
Men marry—women are in marriage given;
The Bad or Coward, that in wealth has thriven,
May match his offspring with the proudest race:
Thus everything is mixed, noble and base.
The usurpations in Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara furnish illustrations of what occurred in nearly all of the Grecian states during the seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era. Some of those of a later period will be noticed in a subsequent chapter.
CHAPTER VI.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS.