A Smaller History of Greece [8]
long after the downfall of Grecian independence.
A further element of union among the Greeks was the similarity of manners and character. It is true the difference in this respect between the polished inhabitants of Athens and the rude mountaineers of Acarnania was marked and striking; but if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries, the contrast between them and the latter is still more striking. Absolute despotism human sacrifices, polygamy, deliberate mutilation of the person as a punishment, and selling of children into slavery, existed in some part or other of the barbarian world, but are not found in any city of Greece in the historical times.
The elements of union of which we have been speaking only bound the Greeks together in common feelings and sentiments: they never produced any political union. The independent sovereignty of each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. This strongly rooted feeling deserves particular notice. Careless readers of history are tempted to suppose that the territory of Greece was divided among comparatively small number of independent states, such as Attica, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and the like; but this is a most serious mistake, and leads to a total misapprehension of Greek history. Every separate city was usually an independent state, and consequently each of the territories described under the general names of Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris, contained numerous political communities independent of one another. Attica, it is true, formed a single state, and its different towns recognised Athens as their capital and the source of supreme power; but this is an exception to the general rule.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY HISTORY OF PELOPONNESUS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE END OF THE MESSENIAN WARS, B.C. 668.
In the heroic age Peloponnesus was occupied by tribes of Dorian conquerors. They had no share in the glories of the Heroic age; their name does not occur in the Iliad, and they are only once mentioned in the Odyssey; but they were destined to form in historical times one of the most important elements of the Greek nation. Issuing from their mountain district between Thessaly, Locris and Phocis, they overran the greater part of Peloponnesus, destroyed the ancient Achaean monarchies and expelled or reduced to subjection the original inhabitants of the land, of which they became the undisputed masters. This brief statement contains all that we know for certain respecting this celebrated event, which the ancient writers placed eighty years after the Trojan war (B.C. 1104). The legendary account of the conquest of Peloponnesus ran as follows:--The Dorians were led by the Heraclidae, or descendants of the mighty hero Hercules. Hence this migration is called the Return of the Heraclidae. The children of Hercules had long been fugitives upon the face of the earth. They had made many attempts to regain possession of the dominions in the Peloponnesus, of which their great sire had been deprived by Eurystheus, but hitherto without success. In their last attempt Hyllus, the son of Hercules, had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea; and the Heraclidae had become bound by a solemn compact to renounce their enterprise for a hundred years. This period had now expired; and the great-grandsons of Hyllus--Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus--resolved to make a fresh attempt to recover their birthright. They were assisted in the enterprise by the Dorians. This people espoused their cause in consequence of the aid which Hercules himself had rendered to the Dorian king, AEgimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a contest with the Lapithae. The invaders were warned by an oracle not to enter Peloponnesus by the Isthmus of Corinth, but across the mouth of the Corinthian gulf. The inhabitants of the northern coast of the gulf were favourable to their enterprise. Oxylus, king of the AEtolians, became their guide; and from Naupactus they crossed over to Peloponnesus. A single battle decided the contest. Tisamenus, the son of Orestes,
A further element of union among the Greeks was the similarity of manners and character. It is true the difference in this respect between the polished inhabitants of Athens and the rude mountaineers of Acarnania was marked and striking; but if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries, the contrast between them and the latter is still more striking. Absolute despotism human sacrifices, polygamy, deliberate mutilation of the person as a punishment, and selling of children into slavery, existed in some part or other of the barbarian world, but are not found in any city of Greece in the historical times.
The elements of union of which we have been speaking only bound the Greeks together in common feelings and sentiments: they never produced any political union. The independent sovereignty of each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. This strongly rooted feeling deserves particular notice. Careless readers of history are tempted to suppose that the territory of Greece was divided among comparatively small number of independent states, such as Attica, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and the like; but this is a most serious mistake, and leads to a total misapprehension of Greek history. Every separate city was usually an independent state, and consequently each of the territories described under the general names of Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris, contained numerous political communities independent of one another. Attica, it is true, formed a single state, and its different towns recognised Athens as their capital and the source of supreme power; but this is an exception to the general rule.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY HISTORY OF PELOPONNESUS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE END OF THE MESSENIAN WARS, B.C. 668.
In the heroic age Peloponnesus was occupied by tribes of Dorian conquerors. They had no share in the glories of the Heroic age; their name does not occur in the Iliad, and they are only once mentioned in the Odyssey; but they were destined to form in historical times one of the most important elements of the Greek nation. Issuing from their mountain district between Thessaly, Locris and Phocis, they overran the greater part of Peloponnesus, destroyed the ancient Achaean monarchies and expelled or reduced to subjection the original inhabitants of the land, of which they became the undisputed masters. This brief statement contains all that we know for certain respecting this celebrated event, which the ancient writers placed eighty years after the Trojan war (B.C. 1104). The legendary account of the conquest of Peloponnesus ran as follows:--The Dorians were led by the Heraclidae, or descendants of the mighty hero Hercules. Hence this migration is called the Return of the Heraclidae. The children of Hercules had long been fugitives upon the face of the earth. They had made many attempts to regain possession of the dominions in the Peloponnesus, of which their great sire had been deprived by Eurystheus, but hitherto without success. In their last attempt Hyllus, the son of Hercules, had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea; and the Heraclidae had become bound by a solemn compact to renounce their enterprise for a hundred years. This period had now expired; and the great-grandsons of Hyllus--Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristodemus--resolved to make a fresh attempt to recover their birthright. They were assisted in the enterprise by the Dorians. This people espoused their cause in consequence of the aid which Hercules himself had rendered to the Dorian king, AEgimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a contest with the Lapithae. The invaders were warned by an oracle not to enter Peloponnesus by the Isthmus of Corinth, but across the mouth of the Corinthian gulf. The inhabitants of the northern coast of the gulf were favourable to their enterprise. Oxylus, king of the AEtolians, became their guide; and from Naupactus they crossed over to Peloponnesus. A single battle decided the contest. Tisamenus, the son of Orestes,