5. At Athens however, and generally throughout Greece, the first result of these democratic movements was the establishment of tyranny or despotism; which may be considered as a violent revulsion, destined to precede a complete subversion of all the existing institutions. It has been already shown that the tyrants of Corinth, Sicyon, Megara, and Epidaurus, were originally leaders of the popular party against the Doric nobility, or demagogues, according to the expression of Aristotle; and for this reason Sparta, as being the protector of aristocracy, overthrew them, wherever her power extended.[20] In Ionia and Sicily the tyrants found an oligarchical timocracy, which was commonly opposed by a democratical party;[21] and in some instances, as in that of Gelon, the tyrant acted against the popular faction. At the time of the Persian war democracy had struck deep root among the Ionians; and Mardonius the Persian, after the expulsion of the tyrants, restored it in their cities as the desired form of government.[22] In Athens Cleisthenes had deprived the union of the houses (the last support of the aristocracy) of its political importance; [pg 010] and Aristides was at length compelled by circumstances to change the timocracy into a democracy. For in the Persian invasion the lower orders had discovered, while serving as rowers and sailors in the fleet, how much the safety of the state depended upon their exertions, and would no longer submit to be excluded from a share in the highest offices.[23] The democracy flourished so long as great men understood how to guide it by the imposing superiority of their individual characters, and educated persons (οἱ βελτίονες) dared to take a share in public affairs; it fell when the greedy and indolent people, allured by the prospect of rewards pernicious to the state, filled the public assemblies and courts of justice. We will not carry on any further our picture of the ochlocracy, in which all social union was entirely dissolved, and the state was surrendered to the arbitrary will of a turbulent populace.
6. The last of these changes, produced by what is called the spirit of the times, we have illustrated by the history of Athens, although the same course may be shown to have taken place in other, even originally Doric states. Thus in Ambracia, about the same time as at Athens, the timocracy gradually passed into a democracy,[24] and at Argos also the democracy rose at the same period. At the time of Polybius, the people had in the Doric states of Crete so unlimited an authority, that this writer himself wonders that his description of them should be so entirely opposed to all former accounts.[25] But since, in general, these alterations threw down the Doric families from their high station, and put an end to the Doric customs, they [pg 011] have not so strong a claim upon our attention, as the peculiar system of the Doric form of government, which was most strongly expressed in the ancient Cretan and Lacedæmonian constitutions: the latter of which, although in many points it yielded and adapted itself to the progress of civilization, existed in its essential parts for five centuries;[26] and by its durability preserved Sparta alone among all the states of Greece from revolutions and revolutionary excesses.[27]
7. But, it may be asked, what right have we to speak of a Doric constitution in general; and why should we select Sparta in preference to any other state of the Doric race, as a model of that system? May not Lycurgus have formed his legislation from reflection upon the condition and wants of his own nation, or have conceived it from arbitrary principles of his own, and have thus impressed upon Sparta the character which it ever after retained, as an essential element of its system?[28] Against this opinion, not unfrequently advanced, instead of bringing forward any general arguments, we prefer adducing the words of Pindar,[29] who, beyond a doubt, was far better acquainted with the basis and origin of ancient constitutions, than either Ephorus or Plutarch. Pindar mentions that Hieron, the Syracusan, wished to establish the new city of Ætna (which was inhabited by 5000 [pg 012] Syracusans, and the same number of Peloponnesians) upon the genuine Doric principles; as in later times Dion wished to establish in Syracuse itself a Lacedæmonian or Cretan constitution.[30] He founded it “with heaven-built freedom, according to the laws of the Hylean model;” i.e., after the example of the Spartan constitution. “For the descendants of Pamphylus, and of the Heraclidæ, who dwell under the brow of Taygetus, wish always to retain the Doric institutions of Ægimius.” Now in the first place, this passage proves that the laws of Sparta were considered the true Doric institutions; and, secondly, that their origin was held to be identical with that of the people. It proves that the Spartan laws (νόμοι) were the true Doric institutions (νόμιμα), and indeed, in no other nation was the distinction between usage and positive law less marked; from which circumstance alone it is evident how little opportunity the legislator had for fresh enactments, since custom can never be the work of one person. From this view of the subject we can also explain why Hellanicus, the most ancient writer on the constitution of Sparta,[31] made no mention of Lycurgus (for which he is ignorantly censured by Ephorus),[32] and attributed what are called the institutions of Lycurgus to the first kings, Procles and Eurysthenes. It also follows, that when Herodotus describes the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus, as being in a state of the greatest [pg 013] anarchy,[33] he can only mean that the original constitution (the τεθμοὶ Αἰγιμίου) had been overthrown and perverted by external circumstances, until it was restored and renewed by Lycurgus. Lycurgus, of whose real or imaginary existence we have already spoken,[34] must at the time of Herodotus have been considered a mythical personage, as he had a temple, annual sacrifices, and, in fact, a regular worship.[35] Now it is the tendency of mythological narration to represent accordant actions of many minds at different times under the name of one person: consequently, the mere name of an institution of Lycurgus says very little respecting its real origin and author.
8. The legislation of Lycurgus was, however, according to ancient traditions, aided by the support of Crete and Delphi, and the connexion between the religious usages of these states thus influenced their political condition. The form of government which was prevalent throughout the whole of Crete, originated, according to the concurrent testimony of the ancients, in the time of Minos; and it has been already shown that the Dorians at that time extended their dominion to this island, which thus received their [pg 014] language and customs.[36] In Crete therefore, the constitution founded on the principles of the Doric race, was first moulded into a firm and consistent shape, but even in a more simple and antiquated manner than in Sparta at a subsequent period.[37] Thus Lycurgus was enabled, without forcing any foreign usages upon Sparta, to take for a model the Cretan institutions which had been more fully developed at an earlier period; so that the constitutions of Crete and Sparta had from that time, as it were, a family resemblance.[38] When therefore we are told that a pæan singer and expiatory priest of Crete, by name Thaletas of Elyrus,[39] sent by the command of the Pythian oracle, composed the troubles and dissensions of Sparta by the power of his music, and that he was the instructor of Lycurgus;[40] it is easy to perceive that the latter part of this account is an addition, made without any attention to chronology; but the operation of Cretan music upon the regulation of political affairs, is strictly in the spirit of an age, and of a race, in which religion, arts, and laws conduced far more than among any other people to attain the same end, and had their basis in the same notions.
9. On the other hand, it was the pride of the [pg 015] Spartans, that their laws had proceeded from the oracle of the Pythian god:[41] and Tyrtæus says, in some verses of his Eunomia, that the fundamental principles of the Spartan constitution had been laid down by Apollo.[42] It is probable that these laws were really composed in the form of injunctions to Lycurgus, or to the people.[43] The oracle, however, continued to possess a superintending power over the constitution, chiefly through the intervention of the Pythians,[44] four persons appointed by the kings as messengers to the temple of Pytho, who delivered the oracles truly and honestly to the kings,[45] and were equally acquainted with their purport. On account of the importance of these oracles, the Pythians were the assessors of the kings and the gerusia,[46] and were always the messmates, both at home and in the field, of the kings. It is probable that the three “Pythian interpreters” at Athens, who, besides explaining the oracles, performed public and domestic expiatory sacrifices,[47] once possessed a similar dignity, although they lost these powers at a very early period. The theori of Ægina, Mantinea, Messenia, Trœzen, and Thasos, who composed separate colleges, ate together, and who were regular magistrates, not being like the theori of Athens, [pg 016] chosen for a single theoria, may be compared with the Pythians.[48]
10. This comparison again leads us back to our former position, that in the genuine Doric form of government there were certain predominant ideas, which were peculiar to that race, and were also expressed in the worship of Apollo, viz., those of harmony and order (τὸ εὔκοσμον); of self-control and moderation (σωφροσύνη), and of manly virtue (ἀρετή).[49] Accordingly, the constitution was formed for the education as well of the old as of the young, and in a Doric state education was upon the whole a subject of greater importance than government. And for this reason all attempts to explain the legislation of Lycurgus, from partial views and considerations, have necessarily failed. That external happiness and enjoyment were not the aim of these institutions was soon perceived. But it was thought, with Aristotle,[50] that every thing could be traced to a desire of making the Spartans courageous warriors, and Sparta a dominant [pg 017] and conquering state; whereas the fact is, that Sparta was hardly ever known to seek occasion for a war, or to follow up a victory; and during the whole of her flourishing period (that is, from about the 50th Olympiad to the battle of Leuctra) did not make a single conquest by which her territory was enlarged. In conclusion we may say, that the Doric state was a body of men, acknowledging one strict principle of order, and one unalterable rule of manners; and so subjecting themselves to this system, that scarcely anything was unfettered by it, but every action was influenced and regulated by the recognised principles. Before however we come to the consideration of this system, it will be necessary to explain the condition of an order of persons, upon which it was in a certain measure founded, namely, the subject classes in the several Doric states.
Chapter II.
§ 1. Origin and distribution of the Periœci of Laconia. § 2. Their political condition and civil rights. § 3. Their service in war, and their occupation in manufactures, trade, and art. § 4. Noble families in Sparta not of Doric origin. Trades and crafts hereditary in Sparta.
1. The clearest notion of the subjection enforced by the dominant race of Dorians may be collected from the speech of Brasidas to the Peloponnesians, in Thucydides.[51] “You are not come,” he says, “from states in which the many rule over the few, but the few over the many, having obtained their [pg 018] sovereignty in no other manner than by victory in the field.” The only right indeed which they possessed was the right of conquerors; the Dorians had by the sword driven out the Achæans, and these again could not rest their claim to Peloponnesus on any better title. It seemed also like a continuation of the heroic age, the existence of which was founded on the rule exercised by the military over the agricultural classes. The relative rights of the Dorians and Achæans appear, however, to have been determined by mutual compact, since the Dorians, obtaining the superiority only by slow degrees, were doubtless glad to purchase the accession of each town on moderate conditions; and this was perhaps especially the case in Messenia.[52] The native inhabitants of the towns, thus reduced to a state of dependence, were called Περίοικοι.[53] The difference of races was strictly preserved; and was not (as elsewhere) obliterated by an union in the same city and political community. The Periœci were always considered as Achæans, that people having in early times composed the larger mass of the people thus subdued. So, for example, the inhabitants of the maritime town of Asopus were called by the title of Ἀχαιοὶ οἱ παρακοπαρίσσιοι.[54] At a later date, when the power of Sparta had been long broken, and her freedom annihilated by the tyrant Nabis, Titus Quinctius detached the hamlets (once called πόλεις, then κῶμαι, vici) from all connexion with Sparta, and placed [pg 019] them under the protection of the Achæan league.[55] Augustus confirmed the independence of twenty-four Laconian towns under the name of Eleutherolacones; these, like the former, being entirely released from the power of Sparta, were governed by their own laws,[56] and formed a small distinct confederation. Hence it is evident that these Periœci had previously maintained a certain degree of independence, and composed separate communities. Of these twenty-four towns eighteen are mentioned—viz., Gerenia, Alagonia, Thalamæ, Leuctra, Œtylus, Cænepolis, Pyrrhichus, Las, Teuthrone, Gythium, Asopus, Acriæ, Bœæ, Zarax, Epidaurus, Limera, Prasiæ, Geronthræ, and Marius;[57] a small part only of the coast near Cardamyle remained at that time under the power of Sparta.[58] The towns, however, belonging to the Periœci did not lie merely on the coast, but [pg 020] also more inland; for example, Thuria and Æthæa, which were in what had formerly been Messenia.[59] This Æthæa is reckoned among the hundred cities of Laconia,[60] which Androtion had enumerated at full length in his Atthis, and perhaps also Stephanus of Byzantium, on the authority of Androtion;[61] the epitome of whose work which we now possess only mentions Æthæa, Amyclæ, Croceæ, Epidaurus, Limera, Dyrrachium, Tenos, Aulon, and Anthana. Now since two of these towns are known from other authorities to have belonged to Periœci, we may perhaps infer the same of the whole hundred. The round number of a hundred cannot however have been fixed before the time when the whole of Messenia, as far as the river Neda (on which Aulon was situated), as well as Cynuria (to which Anthana, or Athene, belonged), came finally under the dominion of Sparta, that is to say, after Olymp. 58. 548 B.C.[62] It must therefore have been subsequent to this epoch that Sparta fixed the exact number of the towns inhabited by her Periœci, and somewhat arbitrarily set them at a hundred; as Cleisthenes at Athens, though by what means is indeed unknown, contrived likewise to raise the number of demi in Attica to a hundred.