12. But the most celebrated of all the Lacedæmonian colonies, and which really proceeded from Sparta, was Tarentum. The history of its origin is buried in fable, in the accounts of the first Messenian war; the accompanying circumstances will be mentioned below. The leader of this colony was Phalanthus, son of Aratus, a Heraclide.[513] Taras, on the other hand, is called the son of Poseidon, because this colony carried over the worship of that deity from Tænarum to Italy. These emigrants also brought with them other religious rites, as for instance the worship of Hyacinthus;[514] likewise many names from their native country, as that of the Eurotas, which they gave to the river Galæsus.[515] But the fruitful and luxuriant [pg 140] territory to which they had moved, its soft and voluptuous climate, and the commerce, for which Tarentum was well situated,[516] and always open (although it never carried it on in an active manner), helped to engender that effeminacy of character, which gave countenance to the fable of the founders having been the sons of unmarried women (παρθενίαι). Still, amidst all its degeneracy, Tarentum retained a certain degree of dependence on its mother-country: at the foundation of Heraclea the Tarentines allowed Cleandridas a Spartan to be one of the original colonists.[517] The friendship, moreover, of the Cnidians with the Tarentines,[518] as well as that with the Cyreneans, was founded on the recognition of a common origin. The colony of Croton (Olymp. 19. 2. 703 B.C., according to Eusebius) consisted indeed of Achæans, who came partly from the maritime town of Rhypæ,[519] and partly from Laconia:[520] it must, however, have been established under the authority of the Doric state of Sparta, since Apollo and Hercules, the Doric god and hero, were here worshipped with especial honour;[521] the early constitution was also Doric; and although in general we are not to look for truth in the poetry of Ovid, yet in this instance we may credit his statement that Myscellus the founder was a Heraclide.[522] In like manner the Locrians, who (in Olymp. 24. 2. 683 B.C.) founded Locri, must have procured Spartans as leaders,[523] since (as their coins also show) they paid particular [pg 141] honours to the Dioscuri, in time of distress in war the statues of these gods having been sent to them from Sparta, as being a people of the same origin;[524] and even in the Peloponnesian war they still adhered to the cause of Sparta.[525] Of a nature wholly different were the rapid and transitory settlements of Dorieus the son of Anaxandrides, king of Sparta, which this noble adventurer founded in Sicily and Libya; when, scorning to submit to a worthless brother, and confiding in his own strength, he hoped to obtain by conquest a kingdom in a distant country.[526] Finally, the Lyctians of Crete and other inhabitants of this island called themselves colonists of Sparta. In all probability many of the ancient Doric cities of this country received fresh settlers from Lacedæmon; which state, at the beginning of the Olympiads[527] in the time of Alcamenes, and even during the life of Lycurgus,[528] exercised a very considerable influence upon the internal affairs of Crete.
Having taken a view of the Doric settlements without Peloponnesus, we now return to the history [pg 142] of that peninsula, which we will divide into two periods, namely, before and after the 40th Olympiad, or the year 620 B.C.
Chapter VII.
§ 1. Sources of the early history of Peloponnesus. § 2. Quoit of Iphitus, Registers of Victors at the Olympic and Carnean Games, Registers at Sicyon and Argos. § 3. Registers of the Spartan Kings. § 4. Spartan Rhetras, Land-marks. § 5. Lyric Poets, Oral Tradition, and Political Institutions. § 6. Mythical character of Lycurgus. § 7. Lycurgus founder of the sacred armistice of Olympia. § § 8. and 9. Messenian wars: sources of the history of them. § 10. First Messenian war. § 11. Second Messenian war. § 12. Influence in Arcadia obtained by the Spartans. § 13. Limited ascendancy of Argos in Argolis. § 14. Disputes between Argos and Sparta. § 15. Pheidon of Argos. § 16. Further struggles between Argos and Sparta.
1. Before we begin to collect and arrange the accounts extant concerning the early history of Peloponnesus, it will be first necessary to ascertain what are our sources of information respecting the events of this period. For the epic poets, who carried on an uninterrupted series of traditions on the events of the mythical ages, and have thus thrown over this dark period some faint glimmerings which may in many places be condensed into a distinct and useful light, only touch on a few points of the period whose history we are about to examine. On the other hand, indeed, the art of writing was during this time introduced among the Greeks through their intercourse with Asia; but that a long time elapsed before it [pg 143] came into general use, is evident from the almost surprising imperfection of those written documents which have been preserved to us of a date anterior to the 60th Olympiad, in comparison with the great perfection of the works of Grecian art. For this reason, writing was long regarded in Greece as a foreign craft, and letters were considered (for example in the Tean curses) as Phœnician symbols. Nevertheless, these few and scanty registers are the first materials for real history and chronology now extant. As such, the following have been made known to us from Peloponnesus.
2. The Quoit of Iphitus, upon which was inscribed in a circle the formula for proclaiming the sacred armistice of Elis, and in which Iphitus and Lycurgus were mentioned as the founders of it.[529] There is no reason for doubting its genuineness, which was recognised by Aristotle, and the institution which it mentioned was considered by all ancient writers as a real fact.[530] Secondly, the lists of the conquerors at the Olympic games brought down uninterruptedly from the victory of Chorœbus,[531] which always recorded the conquerors in the foot-race, and in later times at least those in the other games.[532] It is probable that they were originally engraved on single pillars, and afterwards collected under the inspection of the Hellanodicæ.[533] Similar catalogues of conquerors in other [pg 144] games, besides the four great ones, were also probably not uncommon, but they were generally inscribed on separate pillars, and were therefore of little use to the historian.[534] The names of the conquerors at the Carnean games at Sparta were also registered, so that Hellanicus was enabled to compose from them a work called Καρνεονῖκαι. The register at Sicyon contained a list of the priestesses of Here at Argos, and the poets and musicians of the games.[535] But this also contained fabulous accounts: for example, the invention of playing and singing on the harp by Amphion. Nor were the catalogues of the priestesses of Here, which were probably kept at Argos, altogether free from fable, as may be perceived from the fragments of Hellanicus's chronological work on these priestesses, which was probably founded on the official catalogues.[536]
3. There were also at Lacedæmon public registers, in which Plutarch found mention of the daughters of Agesilaus;[537] and in those of the earliest times the same author discovered the Pythian oracle concerning Lycurgus,[538] the same that Herodotus refers to in his first book. These doubtless contained the names of all the kings, and probably also the years of their reigns, as far back as Procles, who, according to a statement noticed above, died one year before his [pg 145] brother Eurysthenes.[539] This fact could hardly have been derived from any other source than some national annals, though it is not impossible that it was first transferred to them from oral narrative; in which case, however, it is difficult to understand how tradition, contrary to its general character, preserved dates. It was without doubt from these registers that Charon of Lampsacus, before the time of Herodotus, composed his work entitled, “The Prytanes, or Rulers, of Lacedæmon;”[540] in which he also noticed the sacred offerings and monuments of ancient times.[541] With respect to the chronological labours of Timæus, Polybius[542] says that “this writer compared the ephors with the kings of Lacedæmon from the beginning, and the archons at Athens and priestesses at Argos with the conquerors at the Olympic games, and noted the errors which the cities had made in the registration, even when they only differed by three months.” Eratosthenes and Apollodorus founded their chronology, especially before the Olympiads, upon the same list of the kings;[543] they both nearly agreed in reckoning 327 or 328 years from the expedition of the Heraclidæ to the first Olympiad (776 B.C.),[544] which calculation would have been impossible [pg 146] if the duration of each king's reign had not been known; for if this computation is made by generations, reckoning about three to a century, quite a different number comes out.[545] Lycurgus, however, was placed by Eratosthenes 108 years before the first Olympiad;[546] in which computation he certainly went on the authority of the Quoit of Iphitus; which agrees with the statement of Apollodorus, that Homer, who according to this chronologist flourished 148 years before the first Olympiad, was a contemporary of Lycurgus when the latter was a young man.[547]—It appears, however, that the name of Lycurgus was not preserved in any register of the kings, since in that case it would have been impossible that he should have been called by Herodotus the guardian of his nephew Labotas the Eurysthenid,[548] by Simonides (who lived in great intimacy with king Pausanias)[549] the son of Prytanis and brother of Eunomus the Proclid, and by others the son of Eunomus and guardian of his nephew Charilaus,[550] had there existed any genealogy of [pg 147] him which was sufficiently accredited. Hence we must infer that these catalogues only contained the names of the kings, and not even of the royal guardians or protectors, such as Lycurgus. On the other hand, the variations in the enumeration of the kings are unimportant, being confined to this, that in the pedigree of the Proclidæ Herodotus[551] (or his transcribers) leaves out the name of Soüs, which occurs in all the rest, and, contrary to Pausanias, changes the order of Eunomus and Polydectes. Since the name of Polydectes is entirely wanting in Simonides and Eusebius, it is probable that Polydectes and Eunomus are only different names of the same king; and that Polydectes was the proper name, and Eunomus a title of honour.[552] Upon this hypothesis we obtain the following series of kings of the Proclid line—Prytanis, Polydectes, Charilaus, with tolerable certainty. There must also have been registers of the names and years of the princes of Corinth, and the family of the Bacchiadæ, since no one could have had the boldness to invent them.[553] Indeed there were altogether many [pg 148] pedigrees, particularly of the Heraclidæ: as, for example, of families at Cyrene,[554] and the Ptolemies;[555] their authority, however, could not have been very great; in the latter, indeed, we cannot fail to recognise the unscrupulous hand of Alexandrine flatterers. The ancient chronicles of Elis, which Pausanias saw, appear to have contained complete pedigrees from Oxylus down to Iphitus;[556] although the descendants of the former were not kings. The father of Iphitus was there stated to have been also named Iphitus, in contradiction to the common account.[557]
4. None of these registers appear to have contained anything beyond the names of conquerors at the games (which have seldom any reference to history), and princes with the years of their reigns. If anything more was noted down, it was perhaps here and there an oracle, as those belonging to the history of Sparta in Herodotus,[558] which were without doubt brought by the Pythians to Sparta in writing, at a very early period. To these may be perhaps added some ancient rhetras;[559] under which term the ancient Dorians included all political documents, laws, and treaties. The most ancient instance of the last kind [pg 149] is the treaty between the Eleans and the inhabitants of Heræa, discovered by sir William Gell,[560] the writing of which is so extremely rude as to prove that they were little practised in that art when it was engraved. It is however very doubtful how the Spartan rhetras of Lycurgus were drawn up. By some it has been supposed that they were originally composed in metre, in order to be chanted by the youth of Sparta;[561] but this is contradicted by the certain testimony[562] that Terpander of Antissa, whom the Spartans so highly esteemed, was the first who set these laws to music, and first gave them a metrical and poetical form; and Terpander did not live till after the 26th Olympiad, or 672 B.C.[563] But the rhetra which Plutarch has preserved as the genuine constitutional formula bears a truly archaic character, since it contains a command of the Pythian Apollo to the lawgiver in the infinitive mood, and does not fall into verse. I do not perceive why it might not have been written, as well as the contemporaneous inscription on the Quoit of Iphitus, and the ancient oracles cited by Herodotus; at least we cannot in any other way account for the preservation of the words. The original rhetras, however, were very few, and formed merely the nucleus of a system of laws, more as a help to the memory than as a perfect code; hence the ancients could with propriety say, that Zaleucus was the first who committed laws to writing.[564] The three rhetras, which were preserved besides the former one, were merely [pg 150] certain general formulas, and by no means explicit laws; they had the form of an oracle, as having proceeded from the Pythian god,[565] but were written entirely in prose.[566]
Next in the list of public monuments come the ὅροι, or landmarks of territory. It is well known that we are in possession of such records of a later period, belonging to the sacred territory of the Pythian Apollo (in which earlier surveys of the Amphictyonic Hieromnemons, and ancient inscriptions on boundary-stones are appealed to), belonging to Cretan towns, and likewise to Samos and Priene, in which the inhabitants of Priene cite ancient records, preserved from the time of Bias in the temple of Athene.[567] Historical works were also composed from these memorials.[568] Now there must also have been records of this kind in Peloponnesus, although the inscriptions, by which the Messenians wished to prove [pg 151] to the Romans their original boundary towards Laconia, were evidently not made till after their re-establishment by Epaminondas.[569]