Whether it be true, as O. Müller and other learned men conceive, that the Homeric mode of fighting was the general practice in Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece anterior to the invasion of the Dorians, and that the latter first introduced the habit of fighting with close ranks and protended spears, is a point which cannot be determined. Throughout all our historical knowledge of Greece, a close rank among the hoplites, charging with spears always in hand, is the prevailing practice; though there are cases of exception, in which the spear is hurled, when troops seem afraid of coming to close quarters.[815] Nor is it by any means certain, that the Homeric manner of fighting ever really prevailed in Peloponnesus, which is a country eminently inconvenient for the use of war-chariots. The descriptions of the bard may perhaps have been founded chiefly upon what he and his auditors witnessed on the coast of Asia Minor, where chariots were more employed, and where the country was much more favorable to them.[816] We have no historical knowledge of any military practice in Peloponnesus anterior to the hoplites with close ranks and protended spears.
One Peloponnesian state there was, and one alone, which disdained to acknowledge the superiority or headship of Lacedæmon. Argos never forgot that she had once been the chief power in the peninsula, and her feeling towards Sparta was that of a jealous, but impotent, competitor. By what steps the decline of her power had taken place, we are unable to make out, nor can we trace the succession of her kings subsequent to Pheidôn. It has been already stated that, about 669 B. C., the Argeians gained a victory over the Spartans at Hysiæ, and that they expelled from the port of Nauplia its preëxisting inhabitants, who found shelter, by favor of the Lacedæmonians, at the port of Mothônê, in Messenia:[817] Damokratidas was then king of Argos. Pausanias tells us that Meltas, the son of Lakidês, was the last descendant of Temenus who succeeded to this dignity; he being condemned and deposed by the people. Plutarch, however, states that the family of the Herakleids died out, and that another king, named Ægôn, was chosen by the people at the indication of the Delphian oracle.[818] Of this story, Pausanias appears to have known nothing. His language implies that the kingly dignity ceased with Meltas,—wherein he is undoubtedly mistaken, since the title existed, though probably with very limited functions, at the time of the Persian war. Moreover, there is some ground for presuming that the king of Argos was even at that time a Herakleid,—since the Spartans offered to him a third part of the command of the Hellenic force, conjointly with their own two kings.[819] The conquest of Thyreātis by the Spartans deprived the Argeians of a valuable portion of their Periœkis, or dependent territory; but Orneæ, and the remaining portion of Kynuria,[820] still continued to belong to them; the plain round their city was very productive; and except Sparta, there was no other power in Peloponnesus superior to them. Mykenæ and Tiryns, nevertheless, seem both to have been independent states at the time of the Persian war, since both sent contingents to the battle of Platæa, at a time when Argos held aloof and rather favored the Persians. At what time Kleônæ became the ally, or dependent, of Argos, we cannot distinctly make out. During the Peloponnesian war, it is numbered in that character along with Orneæ;[821] but it seems not to have lost its autonomy about the year 470 B. C., at which period Pindar represents the Kleonæans as presiding and distributing prizes at the Nemean games.[822] The grove of Nemea was less than two miles from their town, and they were the original presidents of this great festival,—a function of which they were subsequently robbed by the Argeians, in the same manner as the Pisatans had been treated by the Eleians with reference to the Olympic Agôn. The extinction of the autonomy of Kleônæ and the acquisition of the presidency of the Nemean festival by Argos, were doubtless simultaneous, but we are unable to mark the exact time; for the statement of Eusebius, that the Argeians celebrated the Nemean festival as early as the 53d Olympiad, or 568 B. C., is contradicted by the more valuable evidence of Pindar.[823]
Of Corinth and Sikyôn it will be more convenient to speak when we survey what is called the Age of the Tyrants, or Despots; and of the inhabitants of Achaia (who occupied the southern coast of the Corinthian gulf, westward of Sikyôn, as far as Cape Araxus, the north-western point of Peloponnesus), a few words exhaust our whole knowledge, down to the time at which we are arrived. These Achæans are given to us as representing the ante-Dorian inhabitants of Laconia, whom the legend affirms to have retired under Tisamenus to the northern parts of Peloponnesus, from whence they expelled the preëxisting Ionians and occupied the country. The race of their kings is said to have lasted from Tisamenus down to Ogygus,[824]—how long, we do not know. After the death of the latter, the Achæan towns formed each a separate republic, but with periodical festivals and sacrifice at the temple of Zeus Homarius, affording opportunity of settling differences and arranging their common concerns. Of these towns, twelve are known from Herodotus and Strabo,—Pellênê, Ægira, Ægæ, Bura, Helikê, Ægium, Rhypes, Patræ, Pharæ, Olenus, Dymê, Tritæa.[825] But there must originally have been some other autonomous towns besides these twelve; for in the 23d Olympiad, Ikarus of Hyperêsia was proclaimed as victor, and there seems good reason to believe that Hyperêsia, an old town of the Homeric Catalogue, was in Achaia.[826] It is affirmed that, before the Achæan occupation of the country, the Ionians had dwelt in independent villages, several of which were subsequently aggregated into towns: thus Patræ was formed by a coalescence of seven villages, Dymê from eight (one of which was named Teuthea), and Ægium also from seven or eight. But all these towns were small, and some of them underwent a farther junction one with the other; thus Ægæ was joined with Ægeira, and Olenus with Dymê.[827] All the authors seem disposed to recognize twelve cities, and no more, in Achaia; for Polybius, still adhering to that number, substitutes Leontium and Keryneia in place of Ægæ and Rhypes; Pausanias gives Keryneia in place of Patræ.[828] We hear of no facts respecting these Achæan towns until a short time before the Peloponnesian war, and even then their part was inconsiderable.
The greater portion of the territory comprised under the name of Achaia was mountain, forming the northern descent of those high ranges, passable only through very difficult gorges, which separate the country from Arcadia to the south, and which throw out various spurs approaching closely to the gulf of Corinth. A strip of flat land, with white clayey soil, often very fertile, between these mountains and the sea, formed the plain of each of the Achæan towns, which were situated for the most part upon steep outlying eminences overhanging it. From the mountains between Achaia and Arcadia, numerous streams flow into the Corinthian gulf, but few of them are perennial, and the whole length of coast is represented as harborless.[829]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Hesiod, Eoiai, Fragm. 58, p. 43, ed. Düntzer.
[2] Diodôr. iv. 37-60; Apollodôr. ii. 7, 7; Ephorus ap. Steph. Byz. Δυμᾶν, Fragm. 10, ed. Marx.
The Doric institutions are called by Pindar τεθμοὶ Αἰγιμίου Δωρικοί (Pyth. i. 124).
There existed an ancient epic poem, now lost, but cited on some few occasions by authors still preserved, under the title Αἰγίμιος; the authorship being sometimes ascribed to Hesiod, sometimes to Kerkops (Athenæ. xi. p. 503). The few fragments which remain do not enable us to make out the scheme of it, inasmuch as they embrace different mythical incidents lying very wide of each other,—Iô, the Argonauts, Pêleus, and Thetis, etc. But the name which it bears seems to imply that the war of Ægimius against the Lapithæ, and the aid given to him by Hêraklês, was one of its chief topics. Both O. Müller (History of the Dorians, vol. i. b. 1, c. 8) and Welcker (Der Epische Kyklus, p. 263) appear to me to go beyond the very scanty evidence which we possess, in their determination of this last poem; compare Marktscheffel, Præfat. Hesiod. Fragm. cap. 5, p. 159.