M. Kopstadt (in his Dissertation above cited, on Lacedæmonian affairs, sect. 7, p. 60) expresses much surprise at that which I advance in this note respecting Krête and Lacedæmon,—that in Krête there was no class of men analogous to the Lacedæmonian Periœki, but only two classes,—i. e. free citizens and Helots. He thinks that this position is “prorsus falsum.”
But I advance nothing more here than what is distinctly stated by Aristotle, as Kopstadt himself admits (pp. 60, 71). Aristotle calls the subject class in Krête by the name of Περίοικοι. And in this case, the general presumptions go far to sustain the authority of Aristotle. For Sparta was a dominant or capital city, including in its dependence not only a considerable territory, but a considerable number of inferior, distinct, organized townships. In Krête, on the contrary, each autonomous state included only a town with its circumjacent territory, but without any annexed townships. There was, therefore, no basis for the intermediate class called, in Laconia, Periœki: just as Kopstadt himself remarks (p. 78) about the Dorian city of Megara. There were only the two classes of free Krêtan citizens, and serf-cultivators in various modifications and subdivisions.
Kopstadt (following Hoeck, Krêta, b. iii. vol. iii. p. 23) says that the authority of Aristotle on this point is overborne by that of Dosiadas and Sosikratês,—authors who wrote specially on Krêtan affairs. Now if we were driven to make a choice, I confess that I should prefer the testimony of Aristotle,—considering that we know little or nothing respecting the other two. But in this case I do not think that we are driven to make a choice: Dosiadas (ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 143) is not cited in terms, so that we cannot affirm him to contradict Aristotle: and Sosikratês (upon whom Hoeck and Kopstadt rely) says something which does not necessarily contradict him, but admits of being explained so as to place the two witnesses in harmony with each other.
Sosikratês says (ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 263), Τὴν μὲν κοινὴν δουλείαν οἱ Κρῆτες καλοῦσι μνοίαν, τὴν δὲ ἰδίαν ἀφαμίωτας, τοὺς δὲ περιοίκους ὑπηκόους. Now the word περιοίκους seems to be here used just as Aristotle would have used it, to comprehend the Krêtan serfs universally: it is not distinguished from μνώιται and ἀφαμιῶται, but comprehends both of them as different species under a generic term. The authority of Aristotle affords a reason for preferring to construe the passage in this manner, and the words appear to me to admit of it fairly.
[630] The πόλεις of the Lacedæmonian Periœki are often noticed: see Xenophon (Agesilaus, ii. 24; Laced. Repub. xv. 3; Hellenic. vi. 5, 21).
[631] Herod. viii. 73-135; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 8; Thucyd. iv. 76-94.
[632] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 5, 9, 19. Isokratês, writing in the days of Theban power, after the battle of Leuktra, characterizes the Bœotian towns as περίοικοι of Thebes (Or. viii. De Pace, p. 182); compare Orat. xiv. Plataic. pp. 299-303. Xenophon holds the same language, Hellen. v. 4, 46: compare Plutarch, Agesilaus, 28.
[633] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23.
[634] Thucyd. i. 77-95; vi. 105. Isokratês (Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 283), Σπαρτιάτας δὲ ὑπεροπτικοὺς καὶ πολεμικοὺς καὶ πλεονέκτας, οἵους περ αὐτοὺς εἶναι πάντες ὑπειλήφασι. Compare his Oratio de Pace (Or. viii. pp. 180-181); Oratio Panegyr. (Or. iv. pp. 64-67).
[635] Isokratês, Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 280. ὥστε οὐδεὶς ἂν αὐτοὺς διά γε τὴν ὁμόνοιαν δικαίως ἐπαινέσειεν, οὐδεν μᾶλλον ἢ τοὺς καταποντιστὰς καὶ λῄστας καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀδικίας ὄντας· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὁμονοοῦντες τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπολλύουσι.