Nor could the mother-city have derived much assistance from Byzantium, had there even been a closer connexion between them than was actually the case; as this important colony was, for the most part, in distressed circumstances, and after the introduction of democracy involved in domestic confusion. We have reasons to consider the account of the mode of life at Byzantium above quoted from Theopompus[1891] as correct; though that historian is accused of too great a fondness for censure. Damon likewise relates, that the Byzantians were so addicted to the pleasures of the table, that the citizens took up their regular abode in the numerous public houses of the city, and let their houses with their wives to strangers. The sound of the flute put them immediately into a merry movement; but they fled from that of a trumpet: and a general had no other means of keeping them on the ramparts during a close siege, than by causing the public houses and cook-shops to be removed thither.[1892] Byzantium was full of foreign and native merchants, seamen, and fishermen,[1893] whom the excellent wine of that city, supplied by Maronea and other regions, [pg 412] seldom permitted to return sober to their ships.[1894] The state of the government may be judged from the reply of a Byzantine demagogue, who being asked what the law enjoined, replied, “Whatever I please.”[1895]
Ægina, on the other hand, lost its fame only with its political existence. Its situation near the great commercial road, which had taken this course chiefly in consequence of the danger of doubling the promontory of Malea, the renown of its mythical history, and the peculiar vigour of the inhabitants, had carried their activity to such a height, as to give their island an importance in the history of Greece which will ever be remarkable.
Though at Rhodes the amalgamation of the different nations produced an uniform and consistent whole, this does not seem to have been the case at Cyrene, which was corrupted by Ægyptian and Libyan influence. We have only to notice the character of Pheretime, who from a Doric lady became an eastern sultana. It is remarkable that another Doric female, viz. Artemisia (whose father was of Halicarnassus, her mother of Crete[1896]), obtained a similar situation. In the mother-country, however, there is after the fabulous times hardly any instance of women being at the head either of Doric or other cities.[1897]
We have already spoken as much as our object [pg 413] required of the Doric town of Croton[1898] in Italy; and several times touched on the decay of the Doric discipline and manners at Tarentum. Their climate, which was very different from that of Greece,[1899] and the manners of the native tribes, must have had a very considerable share in changing the characters of these two cities; as the Tarentines did not subjugate only and slaughter the inhabitants (like the Carbinates), but received them within the limits of their large city, and gave them the rights of citizenship, by which means those words which we call Roman, but which were probably common to all the Siculians,[1900] were introduced into the Tarentine dialect.
In the Messenian state, as restored by Epaminondas, the ancient national manners were (according to Pausanias[1901]) still retained; and the dialect remained up to the time of that author the purest Doric that was spoken in Peloponnesus. The reason of this either was, that the Helots who remained in the country, and doubtless formed the larger part of the new nation, had obtained the Doric character, or that the exiles had during their long banishment really preserved their ancient language, as we know to have been the case with the Naupactians in more ancient times.[1902] This the Messenians, who dwelt among the Euesperitæ of Libya, might have done, as they resided among Dorians; but it was less easy for the [pg 414] Messenians of Sicily,[1903] and wholly impossible for those of Rhegium. In the people of Rhegium in general there appears to have been little of the Doric character;[1904] nor probably in real truth among the later Messenians, however they might have endeavoured to bring back the ancient times.
Since we have frequently considered Delphi as belonging to the number of the Doric cities, on a supposition that it was the seat of an ancient Doric nobility (although the people was chiefly formed of naturalized slaves of the temple), we have finally to observe on the character of the Delphians, that their early degeneracy (which even Æsop is said to have strongly reproved) is a phenomenon which has frequently taken place among the people residing in the immediate neighbourhood of national sanctuaries. The number and variety of strangers flocking together; the continual fumes of the altars, from which the natives were fed without labour or expense;[1905] the crowds of the market, in which jugglers and impostors of all kinds earned their subsistence,[1906] and the large donatives which Crœsus, with other monarchs and wealthy men, had distributed among the Delphians, necessarily produced a lazy, ignorant, superstitious, and sensual people; and cast a shade over the few traces of a nobler character, which can be discovered in the events of earlier times.