In other respects, the condition of the population of Thessaly, such as we find it during the historical period, favors the supposition of an original mixture of conquerors and conquered: for it seems that there was among the Thessalians and their dependents a triple gradation, somewhat analogous to that of Laconia. First, a class of rich proprietors distributed throughout the principal cities, possessing most of the soil, and constituting separate oligarchies, loosely hanging together.[446] Next, the subject Achæans, Magnêtes, Perrhæbi, differing from the Laconian Periœki in this point, that they retained their ancient tribe-name and separate Amphiktyonic franchise. Thirdly, a class of serfs, or dependent cultivators, corresponding to the Laconian Helots, who, tilling the lands of the wealthy oligarchs, paid over a proportion of its produce, furnished the retainers by which these great families were surrounded, served as their followers in the cavalry, and were in a condition of villanage,—yet with the important reserve, that they could not be sold out of the country,[447] that they had a permanent tenure in the soil, and that they maintained among one another the relations of family and village. This last mentioned order of men, in Thessaly called the Penestæ, is assimilated by all ancient authors to the Helots of Laconia, and in both cases the danger attending such a social arrangement is noticed by Plato and Aristotle. For the Helots as well as the Penestæ had their own common language and mutual sympathies, a separate residence, arms, and courage; to a certain extent, also, they possessed the means of acquiring property, since we are told that some of the Penestæ were richer than their masters.[448] So many means of action, combined with a degraded social position, gave rise to frequent revolt and incessant apprehensions. As a general rule, indeed, the cultivation of the soil by slaves, or dependents, for the benefit of proprietors in the cities, prevailed throughout most parts of Greece. The rich men of Thebes, Argos, Athens, or Elis, must have derived their incomes in the same manner; but it seems that there was often, in other places, a larger intermixture of bought foreign slaves, and also that the number, fellow-feeling, and courage of the degraded village population was nowhere so great as in Thessaly and Laconia. Now the origin of the Penestæ, in Thessaly, is ascribed to the conquest of the territory by the Thesprotians, as that of the Helots in Laconia is traced to the Dorian conquest. The victors in both countries are said to have entered into a convention with the vanquished population, whereby the latter became serfs and tillers of the land for the benefit of the former, but were at the same time protected in their holdings, constituted subjects of the state, and secured against being sold away as slaves. Even in the Thessalian cities, though inhabited in common by Thessalian proprietors and their Penestæ, the quarters assigned to each were to a great degree separated: what was called the Free Agora could not be trodden by any Penest, except when specially summoned.[449]
Who the people were, whom the conquest of Thessaly by the Thesprotians reduced to this predial villanage, we find differently stated. According to Theopompus, they were Perrhæbians and Magnêtes; according to others, Pelasgians; while Archemachus alleged them to have been Bœotians of the territory of Arnê,[450]—some emigrating, to escape the conquerors, others remaining and accepting the condition of serfs. But the conquest, assuming it as a fact, occurred at far too early a day to allow of our making out either the manner in which it came to pass, or the state of things which preceded it. The Pelasgians whom Herodotus saw at Krêstôn are affirmed by him to have been the descendants of those who quitted Thessaly to escape[451] the invading Thesprotians; though others held that the Bœotians, driven on this occasion from their habitations on the gulf of Pagasæ near the Achæans of Phthiôtis, precipitated themselves on Orchomenus and Bœotia, and settled in it, expelling the Minyæ and the Pelasgians.
Passing over the legends on this subject, and confining ourselves to historical time, we find an established quadruple division of Thessaly, said to have been introduced in the time of Aleuas, the ancestor (real or mythical) of the powerful Aleuadæ,—Thessaliôtis, Pelasgiôtis, Histiæôtis, Phthiôtis.[452] In Phthiôtis were comprehended the Achæans, whose chief towns were Melitæa, Itônus, Thebæ, Phthiôtides, Alos, Larissa, Kremastê, and Pteleon, on or near the western coast of the gulf of Pagasæ. Histiæôtis, to the north of the Peneius, comprised the Perrhæbians, with numerous towns strong in situation, but of no great size or importance; they occupied the passes of Olympus[453] and are sometimes considered as extending westward across Pindus. Pelasgiôtis included the Magnêtes, together with that which was called the Pelasgic plain, bordering on the western side of Pelion and Ossa.[454] Thessaliôtis comprised the central plain of Thessaly and the upper course of the river Peneius. This was the political classification of the Thessalian power, framed to suit a time when the separate cities were maintained in harmonious action by favorable circumstances, or by some energetic individual ascendency; for their union was in general interrupted and disorderly, and we find certain cities standing aloof while the rest went to war.[455] Though a certain political junction, and obligations of some kind towards a common authority, were recognized in theory by all, and a chief, or Tagus,[456] was nominated to enforce obedience,—yet it frequently happened that the disputes of the cities among themselves prevented the choice of a Tagus, or drove him out of the country; and left the alliance little more than nominal. Larissa, Pharsalus,[457] and Pheræ,—each with its cluster of dependent towns as adjuncts,—seem to have been nearly on a par in strength, and each torn by intestine faction, so that not only was the supremacy over common dependents relaxed, but even the means of repelling invaders greatly enfeebled. The dependence of the Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Achæans, and Malians, might, under these circumstances, be often loose and easy. But the condition of the Penestæ—who occupied the villages belonging to these great cities, in the central plain of Pelasgiôtis and Thessaliôtis, and from whom the Aleuadæ and Skopadæ derived their exuberance of landed produce—was noway mitigated, if it was not even aggravated, by such constant factions. Nor were there wanting cases in which the discontent of this subject-class was employed by members of the native oligarchy,[458] or even by foreign states, for the purpose of bringing about political revolutions.
“When Thessaly is under her Tagus, all the neighboring people pay tribute to her; she can send into the field six thousand cavalry and ten thousand hoplites, or heavy-armed infantry,”[459] observed Jason, despot of Pheræ, to Polydamas of Pharsalus, in endeavoring to prevail on the latter to second his pretensions to that dignity. The impost due from the tributaries, seemingly considerable, was then realized with arrears, and the duties upon imports at the harbors of the Pagasæan gulf, imposed for the benefit of the confederacy, were then enforced with strictness; but the observation shows that, while unanimous Thessaly was very powerful, her periods of unanimity were only occasional.[460] Among the nations which thus paid tribute to the fulness of Thessalian power, we may number not merely the Perrhæbi, Magnêtes, and Achæans of Phthiôtis, but also the Malians and Dolopes, and various tribes of Epirots extending to the westward of Pindus.[461] We may remark that they were all (except the Malians) javelin-men, or light-armed troops, not serving in rank with the full panoply; a fact which, in Greece, counts as presumptive evidence of a lower civilization: the Magnêtes, too, had a peculiar close-fitting mode of dress, probably suited to movements in a mountainous country.[462] There was even a time when the Thessalian power threatened to extend southward of Thermopylæ, subjugating the Phokians, Dorians, and Lokrians. So much were the Phokians alarmed at this danger, that they had built a wall across the pass of Thermopylæ, for the purpose of more easily defending it against Thessalian invaders, who are reported to have penetrated more than once into the Phokian valleys, and to have sustained some severe defeats.[463] At what precise time these events happened, we find no information; but it must have been considerably earlier than the invasion of Xerxes, since the defensive wall which had been built at Thermopylæ, by the Phokians, was found by Leonidas in a state of ruin. But the Phokians, though they no longer felt the necessity of keeping up this wall, had not ceased to fear and hate the Thessalians,—an antipathy which will be found to manifest itself palpably in connection with the Persian invasion. On the whole, the resistance of the Phokians was successful, for the power of the Thessalians never reached southward of the pass.[464]
It will be recollected that these different ancient races, Perrhæbi, Magnêtes, Achæans, Malians, Dolopes,—though tributaries of the Thessalians, still retained their Amphiktyonic franchise, and were considered as legitimate Hellenes: all except the Malians are, indeed, mentioned in the Iliad. We shall rarely have occasion to speak much of them in the course of this history: they are found siding with Xerxes (chiefly by constraint) in his attack of Greece, and almost indifferent in the struggle between Sparta and Athens. That the Achæans of Phthiôtis are a portion of the same race as the Achæans of Peloponnesus it seems reasonable to believe, though we trace no historical evidence to authenticate it. Achæa Phthiôtis is the seat of Hellên, the patriarch of the entire race,—of the primitive Hellas, by some treated as a town, by others as a district of some breadth,—and of the great national hero, Achilles. Its connection with the Peloponnesian Achæans is not unlike that of Doris with the Peloponnesian Dorians.[465] We have, also, to notice another ethnical kindred, the date and circumstances of which are given to us only in a mythical form, but which seems, nevertheless, to be in itself a reality,—that of the Magnêtes on Pelion and Ossa, with the two divisions of Asiatic Magnêtes, or Magnesia, on Mount Sipylus and Magnesia on the river Mæander. It is said that these two Asiatic homonymous towns were founded by migrations of the Thessalian Magnêtes, a body of whom became consecrated to the Delphian god, and chose a new abode under his directions. According to one story, these emigrants were warriors, returning from the Siege of Troy; according to another, they sought fresh seats, to escape from the Thesprotian conquerors of Thessaly. There was a third story, according to which the Thessalian Magnêtes themselves were represented as colonists[466] from Delphi. Though we can elicit no distinct matter of fact from these legends, we may, nevertheless, admit the connection of race between the Thessalian and the Asiatic Magnêtes, as well as the reverential dependence of both, manifested in this supposed filiation, on the temple of Delphi. Of the Magnêtes in Krete, noticed by Plato as long extinct in his time, we cannot absolutely verify even the existence.
Of the Malians, Thucydidês notices three tribes (γένη) as existing in his time,—the Paralii, the Hierês (priests), and the Trachinii, or men of Trachin:[467] it is possible that the second of the two may have been possessors of the sacred spot on which the Amphiktyonic meetings were held. The prevalence of the hoplites or heavy-armed infantry among the Malians, indicates that we are stepping from Thessalian to more southerly Hellenic habits: the Malians recognized every man as a qualified citizen, who either had served, or was serving, in the ranks with his full panoply.[468] Yet the panoply was probably not perfectly suitable to the mountainous regions by which they were surrounded; for, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the aggressive mountaineers of the neighboring region of Œta, had so harassed and overwhelmed them in war, that they were forced to throw themselves on the protection of Sparta; and the establishment of the Spartan colony of Herakleia, near Trachin, was the result of their urgent application. Of these mountaineers, described under the general name of Œtæans, the principal were the Ænianes, (or Eniênes, as they are termed in the Homeric Catalogue, as well as by Herodotus),—an ancient Hellenic[469] Amphiktyonic race, who are said to have passed through several successive migrations in Thessaly and Epirus, but who, in the historical times, had their settlement and their chief town, Hypata, in the upper valley of the Spercheius, on the northern declivity of Mount Œta. But other tribes were probably also included in the name, such as those Ætolian tribes, the Bomians and Kallians, whose high and cold abodes approached near to the Maliac gulf. It is in this sense that we are to understand the name, as comprehending all the predatory tribes along this extensive mountain range, when we are told of the damage done by the Œtæans, both to the Malians on the east, and to the Dorians on the south: but there are some cases in which the name Œtæans seems to designate expressly the Ænianes, especially when they are mentioned as exercising the Amphiktyonic franchise.[470]
The fine soil, abundant moisture, and genial exposure of the southern declivities of Othrys,[471]—especially the valley of the Spercheius, through which river all these waters pass away, and which annually gives forth a fertilizing inundation,—present a marked contrast with the barren, craggy, and naked masses of Mount Œta, which forms one side of the pass of Thermopylæ. Southward of the pass, the Lokrians, Phokians, and Dorians, occupied the mountains and passes between Thessaly and Bœotia. The coast opposite to the western side of Eubœa, from the neighborhood of Thermopylæ, as far as the Bœotian frontier at Anthêdôn, was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern frontier town, Alpêni, was conterminous with the Malians. There was, however, one narrow strip of Phokis—the town of Daphnus, where the Phokians also touched the Eubœan sea—which broke this continuity, and divided the Lokrians into two sections,—Lokrians of Mount Knêmis, or Epiknemidian Lokrians, and Lokrians of Opus, or Opuntian Lokrians. The mountain called Knêmis, running southward parallel to the coast from the end of Œta, divided the former section from the inland Phokians and the upper valley of the Kephisus: farther southward, joining continuously with Mount Ptôon by means of an intervening mountain which is now called Chlomo, it separated the Lokrians of Opus from the territories of Orchomenus, Thebes, and Anthêdôn, the north-eastern portions of Bœotia. Besides these two sections of the Lokrian name, there was also a third, completely separate, and said to have been colonized out from Opus,—the Lokrians surnamed Ozolæ,—who dwelt apart on the western side of Phokis, along the northern coast of the Corinthian gulf. They reached from Amphissa—which overhung the plain of Krissa, and stood within seven miles of Delphi—to Naupaktus. near the narrow entrance of the gulf; which latter town was taken from these Lokrians by the Athenians, a little before the Peloponnesian war. Opus prided itself on being the mother-city of the Lokrian name, and the legends of Deukaliôn and Pyrrha found a home there as well as in Phthiôtis. Alpeni, Nikæa, Thronium, and Skarpheia, were towns, ancient but unimportant, of the Epiknemidian Lokrians; but the whole length of this Lokrian coast is celebrated for its beauty and fertility, both by Ancient and modern observers.[472]
The Phokians were bounded on the north by the little territories called Doris and Dryopis, which separated them from the Malians,—on the north-east, east, and south-west, by the different branches of Lokrians,—and on the south-east, by the Bœotians. They touched the Eubœan sea, (as has been mentioned) at Daphnus, the point where it approaches nearest to their chief town, Elateia; their territory also comprised most part of the lofty and bleak range of Parnassus, as far as its southerly termination, where a lower portion of it, called Kirphis, projects into the Corinthian gulf, between the two bays of Antikyra and Krissa; the latter, with its once fertile plain, lay immediately under the sacred rock of the Delphian Apollo. Both Delphi and Krissa originally belonged to the Phokian race, but the sanctity of the temple, together with Lacedæmonian aid, enabled the Delphians to set up for themselves, disavowing their connection with the Phokian brotherhood. Territorially speaking, the most valuable part of Phokis[473] consisted in the valley of the river Kephisus, which takes its rise from Parnassus, not far from the Phokian town of Lilæa, passes between Œta and Knêmis on one side, and Parnassus on the other, and enters Bœotia near Chæroneia, discharging itself into the lake Kôpaïs. It was on the projecting mountain ledges and rocks on each side of this river, that the numerous little Phokian towns were situated. Twenty-two of them were destroyed and broken up into villages by the Amphiktyonic order, after the second Sacred War; Abæ (one of the few, if not the only one, that was spared) being protected by the sanctity of its temple and oracle. Of these cities, the most important was Elateia, situated on the left bank of the Kephisus, and on the road from Lokris into Phokis, in the natural march of an army from Thermopylæ into Bœotia. The Phokian towns[474] were embodied in an ancient confederacy, which held its periodical meetings at a temple between Daulis and Delphi.
The little territory called Doris and Dryopis, occupied the southern declivity of Mount Œta, dividing Phokis on the north and north-west, from the Ætolians, Ænianes, and Malians. That which was called Doris in the historical times, and which reached, in the time of Herodotus, nearly as far eastward as the Maliac gulf, is said to have formed a part of what had been once called Dryopis; a territory which had comprised the summit of Œta as far as the Spercheius, northward, and which had been inhabited by an old Hellenic tribe called Dryopes. The Dorians acquired their settlement in Dryopis by gift from Hêraklês, who, along with the Malians (so ran the legend), had expelled the Dryopes, and compelled them to find for themselves new seats at Hermionê, and Asinê, in the Argolic peninsula of Peloponnesus,—at Styra and Karystus in Eubœa,—and in the island of Kythnus;[475] it is only in these five last-mentioned places, that history recognizes them. The territory of Doris was distributed into four little townships,—Pindus, or Akyphas, Bœon, Kytinion, and Erineon,—each of which seems to have occupied a separate valley belonging to one of the feeders of the river Kephisus,—the only narrow spaces of cultivated ground which this “small and sad” region presented.[476] In itself, this tetrapolis is so insignificant, that we shall rarely find occasion to mention it; but it acquired a factitious consequence by being regarded as the metropolis of the great Dorian cities in Peloponnesus, and receiving on that ground special protection from Sparta. I do not here touch upon that string of ante-historical migrations—stated by Herodotus, and illustrated by the ingenuity as well as decorated by the fancy of O. Müller—through which the Dorians are affiliated with the patriarch of the Hellenic race,—moving originally out of Phthiôtis to Histiæôtis, then to Pindus, and lastly to Doris. The residence of Dorians in Doris, is a fact which meets us at the commencement of history, like that of the Phokians and Lokrians in their respective territories.
We next pass to the Ætolians, whose extreme tribes covered the bleak heights of Œta and Korax, reaching almost within sight of the Maliac gulf, where they bordered on the Dorians and Malians,—while their central and western tribes stretched along the frontier of the Ozolian Lokrians to the flat plain, abundant in marsh and lake, near the mouth of the Euênus. In the time of Herodotus and Thucydidês, they do not seem to have extended so far westward as the Achelôus; but in later times, this latter river, throughout the greater part of its lower course, divided them from the Akarnanians:[477] on the north, they touched upon the Dolopians, and upon a parallel of latitude nearly as far north as Ambrakia. There were three great divisions of the Ætolian name,—the Apodôti, Ophioneis, and Eurytanes,—each of which was subdivided into several different village tribes. The northern and eastern portion of the territory[478] consisted of very high mountain ranges, and even in the southern portion, the mountains Arakynthus, Kurion, Chalkis, Taphiassus, are found at no great distance from the sea; while the chief towns in Ætolia, Kalydôn, Pleurôn, Chalkis,—seem to have been situated eastward of the Euênus, between the last-mentioned mountains and the sea.[479] The first two towns have been greatly ennobled in legend, but are little named in history; while, on the contrary, Thermus, the chief town of the historical Ætolians, and the place where the aggregate meeting and festival of the Ætolian name, for the choice of a Pan-Ætolic general, was convoked, is not noticed by any one earlier than Ephorus.[480] It was partly legendary renown, partly ethnical kindred (publicly acknowledged on both sides) with the Eleians in Peloponnesus, which authenticated the title of the Ætolians to rank as Hellens. But the great mass of the Apodôti, Eurytanes, and Ophioneis in the inland mountains, were so rude in their manners, and so unintelligible[481] in their speech, (which, however, was not barbaric, but very bad Hellenic,) that this title might well seem disputable,—in point of fact it was disputed, in later times, when the Ætolian power and depredations had become obnoxious nearly to all Greece. And it is, probably, to this difference of manners between the Ætolians on the sea-coast and those in the interior, that we are to trace a geographical division mentioned by Strabo, into ancient Ætolia, and Ætolia Epiktêtus, or acquired. When or by whom this division was introduced, we do not know. It cannot be founded upon any conquest, for the inland Ætolians were the most unconquerable of mankind: and the affirmation which Ephorus applied to the whole Ætolian race,—that it had never been reduced to subjection by any one,—is, most of all, beyond dispute concerning the inland portion of it.[482]