History of Greece, Volume 03 (of 12)

by George Grote

That these first of all Grecian written laws were few and simple, we may be sufficiently assured. The only fact certain respecting them is their extraordinary rigor:[723] they seem to have enjoined the application of the lex talionis as a punishment for personal injuries. In this general character of his laws, Zaleukus was the counterpart of Drako. But so little was certainly known, and so much falsely asserted, respecting him, that Timæus the historian went so far as to call in question his real existence,[724]—against the authority not only of Ephorus, but also of Aristotle and Theophrastus. The laws must have remained, however, for a long time, formally unchanged; for so great was the aversion of the Lokrians, we are told, to any new law, that the man who ventured to propose one appeared in public with a rope round his neck, which was at once tightened if he failed to convince the assembly of the necessity of his proposition.[725] Of the government of the Epizephyrian Lokri we know only, that in later times it included a great council of one thousand members, and a chief executive magistrate called Kosmopolis: it is spoken of also as strictly and carefully administered.

The date of Rhegium (Reggio), separated from the territory of the Epizephyrian Lokri by the river Halex, must have been not only earlier than Lokri, but even earlier than Sybaris,—if the statement of Antiochus be correct, that the colonists were joined by those Messenians, who, prior to the first Messenian war, were anxious to make reparation to the Spartans for the outrage offered to the Spartan maidens at the temple of Artemis Limnatis, but were overborne by their countrymen and forced into exile. A different version, however, is given by Pausanias of this migration of Messenians to Rhegium, yet still admitting the fact of such migration at the close of the first Messenian war, which would place the foundation of the city earlier than 720 B. C. Though Rhegium was a Chalkidic colony, yet a portion of its inhabitants seem to have been undoubtedly of Messenian origin, and amongst them Anaxilas, despot of the town between 500-470 B. C., who traced his descent through two centuries to a Messenian emigrant named Alkidamidas.[726] The celebrity and power of Anaxilas, just at the time when the ancient history of the Greek towns was beginning to be set forth in prose, and with some degree of system, caused the Messenian element in the population of Rhegium to be noticed prominently; but the town was essentially Chalkidic, connected by colonial sisterhood with the Chalkidic settlements in Sicily,—Zanklê, Naxos, Katana, and Leontini. The original emigrants departed from Chalkis, as a tenth of the citizens consecrated by vow to Apollo in consequence of famine; and the directions of the god, as well as the invitation of the Zanklæans, guided their course to Rhegium. The town was flourishing, and acquired a considerable number of dependent villages around,[727] inhabited doubtless by cultivators of the indigenous population. But it seems to have been often at variance with the conterminous Lokrians, and received one severe defeat, in conjunction with the Tarentines, which will be hereafter recounted.

Between Lokri and the Lakinian cape were situated the Achæan colony of Kaulônia, and Skyllêtium; the latter seemingly included in the domain of Krotôn, though pretending to have been originally founded by Menestheus, the leader of the Athenians at the siege of Troy: Petilia, also, a hill-fortress north-west of the Lakinian cape, as well as Makalla, both comprised in the territory of Krotôn, were affirmed to have been founded by Philoktêtês. Along all this coast of the gulf of Tarentum, there were various establishments ascribed to the heroes of the Trojan war,[728]—Epeius, Philoktêtês, Nestor,—or to their returning troops. Of these establishments, probably the occupants had been small, miscellaneous, unacknowledged bands of Grecian adventurers,[729] who assumed to themselves the most honorable origin which they could imagine, and who became afterwards absorbed into the larger colonial establishments which followed; the latter adopting and taking upon themselves the heroic worship of Philoktêtês or other warriors from Troy, which the prior emigrants had begun.

During the flourishing times of Sybaris and Krotôn, it seems that these two great cities divided the whole length of the coast of the Tarentine gulf, from the spot now called Rocca Imperiale down to the south of the Lakinian cape. Between the point where the dominion of Sybaris terminated on the Tarentine side, and Tarentum itself, there were two considerable Grecian settlements,—Siris, afterwards called Herakleia, and Metapontium. The fertility and attraction of the territory of Siris, with its two rivers, Akiris and Siris, were well known even to the poet Archilochus[730] (660 B. C.), but we do not know the date at which it passed from the indigenous Chônians or Chaonians into the hands of Greek settlers. A citizen of Siris is mentioned among the suitors for the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês, (580-560 B. C.) We are told that some Kolophonian fugitives, emigrating to escape the dominion of the Lydian kings, attacked and possessed themselves of the spot, giving to it the name Polieion. The Chônians of Siris ascribed to themselves a Trojan origin, exhibiting a wooden image of the Ilian Athênê, which they affirmed to have been brought away by their fugitive ancestors after the capture of Troy. When the town was stormed by the Ionians, many of the inhabitants clung to this relic for protection, but were dragged away and slain by the victors,[731] whose sacrilege was supposed to have been the cause that their settlement was not durable. At the time of the invasion of Greece by Xerxês, the fertile territory of Siritis was considered as still open to be colonized; for the Athenians when their affairs appeared desperate, had this scheme of emigration in reserve as a possible resource;[732] and there were inspired declarations from some of the contemporary prophets, which encouraged them to undertake it. At length, after the town of Thurii had been founded by Athens, in the vicinity of the dismantled Sybaris, the Thurians tried to possess themselves of the Siritid territoiy, but were opposed by the Tarentines.[733] According to the compromise concluded between them, Tarentum was recognized as the metropolis of the colony, but joint possession was allowed both to Tarentines and Thurians. The former transferred the site of the city, under the new name Herakleia, to a spot three miles from the sea, leaving Siris as the place of maritime access to it.[734]

About twenty-five miles eastward of Siris, on the coast of the Tarentine gulf, was situated Metapontium, a Greek town which was affirmed by some to draw its origin from the Pylian companions of Nestor,—by others, from the Phocian warriors of Epeius, on their return from Troy. The proofs of the former were exhibited in the worship of the Neleid heroes,—the proofs of the latter in the preservation of the reputed identical tools with which Epeius had constructed the Trojan horse.[735] Metapontium was planted on the territory of the Chônians or Œnotrians, but the first colony is said to have been destroyed by an attack of the Samnites,[736] at what period we do not know. It had been founded by some Achæan settlers,—under the direction of the œkist Daulius, despot of the Phocian Krissa, and invited by the inhabitants of Sybaris, who feared that the place might be appropriated by the neighboring Tarentines, colonists from Sparta and hereditary enemies in Peloponnesus of the Achæan race. Before the new settlers arrived, however, the place seems to have been already appropriated by the Tarentines; for the Achæan Leukippus only obtained their permission to land by a fraudulent promise, and, after all, had to sustain a forcible struggle both with them and with the neighboring Œnotrians, which was compromised by a division of territory. The fertility of the Metapontine territory was hardly less celebrated than that of the Siritid.[737]

Farther eastward of Metapontium, again at the distance of about twenty-five miles, was situated the great city of Taras, or Tarentum, a colony from Sparta founded after the first Messenian war, seemingly about 707 B. C. The œkist Phalanthus, said to have been an Herakleid, was placed at the head of a body of Spartan emigrants,—consisting principally of some citizens called Epeunaktæ, and of the youth called Partheniæ, who had been disgraced by their countrymen on account of their origin, and were on the point of breaking out into rebellion. It was out of the Messenian war that this emigration is stated to have arisen, in a manner analogous to that which has been stated respecting the Epizephyrian Lokrians. The Lacedæmonians, before entering Messenia to carry on the war, had made a vow not to return until they should have completed the conquest; a vow in which it appears that some of them declined to take part, standing altogether aloof from the expedition. When the absent soldiers returned after many years of absence consumed in the war, they found a numerous progeny which had been born to their wives and daughters during the interval, from intercourse with those (Epeunaktæ) who had stayed at home. The Epeunaktæ were punished by being degraded to the rank and servitude of Helots; the children thus born, called Partheniæ,[738] were also cut off from all the rights of citizenship, and held in dishonor. But the parties punished were numerous enough to make themselves formidable, and a conspiracy was planned among them, intended to break out at the great religious festival of the Hyacinthia, in the temple of the Amyklæan Apollo. Phalanthus was the secret chief of the conspirators, who agreed to commence their attack upon the authorities at the moment when he should put on his helmet. The leader, however, never intending that the scheme should be executed, betrayed it beforehand, stipulating for the safety of all those implicated in it. At the commencement of the festival, when the multitude were already assembled, a herald was directed to proclaim aloud, that Phalanthus would not on that day put on his helmet,—a proclamation which at once revealed to the conspirators that they were betrayed. Some of them sought safety in flight, others assumed the posture of suppliants; but they were merely detained in confinement, with assurance of safety, while Phalanthus was sent to the Delphian oracle to ask advice respecting emigration. He is said to have inquired whether he might be permitted to appropriate the fertile plain of Sikyon, but the Pythian priestess emphatically dissuaded him, and enjoined him to conduct his emigrants to Satyrium and Tarentum, where he would be “a mischief to the Iapygians.” Phalanthus obeyed, and conducted the detected conspirators as emigrants to the Tarentine gulf,[739] which he reached a few years after the foundation of Sybaris and Krotôn by the Achæans. According to Ephorus, he found these prior emigrants at war with the natives, aided them in the contest, and received in return their aid to accomplish his own settlement. But this can hardly have consisted with the narrative of Antiochus, who represented the Achæans of Sybaris as retaining, even in their colonies, the hatred against the Dorian name which they had contracted in Peloponnesus.[740] Antiochus stated that Phalanthus and his colonists were received in a friendly manner by the indigenous inhabitants, and allowed to establish their new town in tranquillity.

If such was really the fact, it proves that the native inhabitants of the soil must have been of purely inland habits, making no use of the sea either for commerce or for fishery, otherwise they would hardly have relinquished such a site as that of Tarentum,—which, while favorable and productive, even in regard to the adjoining land, was with respect to sea-advantages without a parallel in Grecian Italy.[741] It was the only spot in the gulf which possessed a perfectly safe and convenient harbor,—a spacious inlet of the sea is there formed, sheltered by an isthmus and an outlying peninsula, so as to leave only a narrow entrance. This inlet, still known as the Mare Piccolo, though its shores and the adjoining tongue of land appear to have undergone much change, affords at the present day a constant, inexhaustible, and varied supply of fish, especially of shell-fish; which furnish both nourishment and employment to a large proportion among the inhabitants of the contracted modern Taranto, just as they once served the same purpose to the numerous, lively, and jovial population of the mighty Tarentum. The concentrated population of fishermen formed a predominant element in the character of the Tarentine democracy.[742] Tarentum was just on the borders of the country originally known as Italy, within which Herodotus includes it, while Antiochus considers it in Iapygia, and regards Metapontium as the last Greek town in Italy.

Its immediate neighbors were the Iapygians, who, under various subdivisions of name and dialect, seem to have occupied the greater part of south-eastern Italy, including the peninsula denominated after them,—yet sometimes also called the Salentine,—between the Adriatic and the Tarentine gulf,—and who are even stated at one time to have occupied some territory on the south east of that gulf, near the site of Krotôn. The Iapygian name appears to have comprehended Messapians, Salentines, and Kalabrians; according to some, even Peuketians and Daunians, as far along the Adriatic as Mount Garganus, or Drion; Skylax notices in his time (about 360 B. C.) five different tongues in the country which he calls Iapygia.[743] The Messapians and Salentines are spoken of as emigrants from Krête, akin to the Minoian or primitive Kretans; and we find a national genealogy which recognizes Iapyx son of Dædalus, an emigrant from Sicily. But the story told to Herodotus was, that the Kretan soldiers who had accompanied Minos in his expedition to recover Dædalus from Kamikus in Sicily, were on their return home cast away on the shores of Iapygia, and became the founders of Hyria and other Messapian towns in the interior of the country.[744] Brundusium also, or Brentesion, as the Greeks called it,[745] inconsiderable in the days of Herodotus, but famous in the Roman times afterwards, as the most frequented seaport for voyaging to Epirus, was a Messapian town. The native language spoken by the Iapygian Messapians was a variety of the Oscan: the Latin poet Ennius, a native of Rudiæ in the Iapygian peninsula, spoke Greek, Latin, and Oscan, and even deduced his pedigree from the ancient national prince or hero Messapus.[746]

We are told that during the lifetime of Phalanthus, the Tarentine settlers gained victories over the Messapians and Peuketians, which they commemorated afterwards by votive offerings at Delphi,—and that they even made acquisitions at the expense of the inhabitants of Brundusium,[747]—a statement difficult to believe, if we look to the distance of the latter place, and to the circumstance that Herodotus, even in his time, names it only as a harbor. Phalanthus too, driven into exile, is said to have found a hospitable reception at Brundusium, and to have died there. Of the history of Tarentum, however, during the first two hundred and thirty years of its existence, we possess no details; we have reason to believe that it partook in the general prosperity of the Italian Greeks during those two centuries, though it remained inferior both to Sybaris and to Krotôn. About the year 510 B. C., these two latter republics went to war, and Sybaris was nearly destroyed; while in the subsequent half-century, the Krotoniates suffered the terrible defeat of Sagra from the Lokrians, and the Tarentines experienced an equally ruinous defeat from the Iapygian Messapians. From these reverses, however, the Tarentines appear to have recovered more completely than the Krotoniates; for the former stand first among the Italiots, or Italian Greeks, from the year 400 B. C. down to the supremacy of the Romans, and made better head against the growth of the Lucanians and Bruttians of the interior.

Such were the chief cities of the Italian Greeks from Tarentum on the upper sea to Poseidonia on the lower; and if we take them during the period preceding the ruin of Sybaris (in 510 B. C.), they will appear to have enjoyed a degree of prosperity even surpassing that of the Sicilian Greeks. The dominion of Sybaris, Krotôn, and Lokri extended across the peninsula from sea to sea, and the mountainous regions of the interior of Calabria were held in amicable connection with the cities and cultivators in the plain and valley near the sea,—to the reciprocal advantage of both. The petty native tribes of Œnotrians, Sikels, or Italians, properly so called, were partially Hellenized, and brought into the condition of village cultivators and shepherds, dependent upon Sybaris and its fellow cities; a portion of them dwelling in the town, probably, as domestic slaves of the rich men, but most of them remaining in the country as serfs, penestæ, or coloni, intermingled with Greek settlers, and paying over parts of their produce to Greek proprietors.