HISTORY OF GREECE. 



of Grecian lake ; and Trapezus, on the furthest 

 shores of the Black Sea, Cyrene, in Africa, and 

 Massilia (founded 597 B.C. now Marseilles), in 

 Gaul, were as essentially Greek states as Sparta 

 or Athens. 



Argos Sparta. 



In Greece Proper, the states that made the most 

 important figure in the earliest ages were the 

 Dorian states of Peloponnesus ; and the first 

 glimpses of history shew us Argos as the leading 

 power. Pheidon, king of Argos (747 B.C.), aimin_ 

 at the universal sovereignty of Peloponnesus, was 

 opposed and defeated by the Spartans, who hence- 

 forth became the dominant power. 



The ascendency of Sparta was mainly owing to 

 her peculiar institutions, which tradition ascribed to 

 the legislator Lycurgus, who probably existed some- 

 where about 900 or 800 B.C. and more clearly defined 

 and fixed already existing usages and regulations ; 

 for the peculiar constitution of the Spartans arose 

 necessarily out of the circumstances in which they 

 lived. They were originally a handful of con- 

 querors among a subject race. In other parts of 

 the Peloponnesus the Dorian conquerors coalesced 

 in time with the natives ; but in Laconia the separ- 

 ation was maintained. Such of the Achasans as 

 readily submitted were allowed to retain their 

 personal freedom, but they had no political rights, 

 were governed by Spartan magistrates, and paid 

 a rent to the state for their land. The greater 

 part, however, of the conquered population were 

 reduced to a state of slavery, and belonged as 

 property, along with the patches of land to which 

 they were attached, to individual citizens. By 

 these Helots, as they were called, all labour was 

 performed, the free Spartan disdaining every kind 

 of industrial occupation. 



The citizens of Sparta were thus a small class 

 of lords among a tenfold number of slaves and 

 subjects ; and consequently their whole organisa- 

 tion and training was military. Military discipline 

 and military objects regulated every detail even of 

 domestic life. Marriage itself was not a matter of 

 affection, but of producing a vigorous and warlike 

 offspring. Hence weakly children were exposed 

 to perish. The whole time of the Spartans was 

 spent in public. They took their frugal meals at 

 public tables in messes or companies, to which 

 each contributed so much from the produce of his 

 land. The rest of the time was spent in gymnastic 

 exercises and military drill ; for the education of 

 a Spartan, beginning with his seventh year, was 

 not relaxed till his sixtieth. He was inured to 

 hunger and thirst, to the extremes of heat and 

 cold ; was obliged to tread every kind of ground 

 barefooted, and to wear the same garment summer 

 and winter. The virtues of an accomplished 

 Spartan included likewise the exhibition of a silent 

 and motionless deportment in public when action 

 was not called for ; the suppression at all times of 

 external manifestations of feeling, and even the 

 poxyer of enduring bodily torture without com- 

 plaint. To habituate them to endure suffering, 

 they were at certain seasons scourged at the altar 

 of Diana, and sometimes expired under the suffer- 

 ing without having betrayed it by word or gesture. 

 To teach them strategy and secrecy, there were 

 licensed expeditions for thieving, and severe 

 punishment for those who allowed themselves to 

 be detected in it 



The Spartan females were placed under a 

 scarcely less hardy system of discipline. The 

 beauty and vigour of the Spartan women were 

 famous throughout all Greece, and the influence 

 of their patriotism in sustaining that of the men 

 is matter of historic celebrity. 'Return either 

 with your shield, or on it ! ' was the exhortation 

 of a mother to her son on his departure for the 

 field of battle. 



Spartan education produced warriors, but 

 nothing else. From the wanton oppression with 

 which they systematically treated the Helots 

 they lived in constant dread of the revolt of 

 that wretched class; and in their devices to 

 keep them down, they hesitated at nothing, 

 however flagrant or cowardly. There was a 

 regular system of espionage or police, called 

 crypteia, consisting of select bands of Spartan 

 youths, who ranged the country, and secretly assas- 

 sinated such as were considered formidable. On 

 one occasion, on which the Helots had stood their 

 masters good stead in battle, they were invited to> 

 choose out all the bravest of their numbers for the 

 purpose of receiving their freedom ; but the 2000 

 selected for this high reward were never again 

 seen or heard of. 



It was the constant sense of this internal source 

 of danger that enabled the Spartans to submit to- 

 a rigour of discipline such as no people before 

 or since has endured. Sparta was the only govern- 

 ment in Greece which could trace an unbroken 

 and peaceable descent from a high antiquity, and 

 from its reputed founder ; and this was one of the 

 main causes of that astonishing ascendency which 

 the Spartans acquired over the Hellenic mind, 

 and which they appear not to have deserved 

 through any superior ability in the management 

 of political affairs. 



The constitution of Sparta was mixed. There 

 were two joint-kings, belonging to parallel lines, 

 who were very much restricted in power by the 

 senate and by the popular assembly. The dele- 

 gates of this popular body, called Ephors, grad- 

 ually came to usurp the greater part of the 

 executive power. Strictly speaking, there was no- 

 popular element in the constitution ; for with 

 regard to the great body of the inhabitants, the 

 qualified citizens were a small and exclusive aris- 

 tocracy. 



Originally, the territory of Sparta was confined 

 to the basin of the Eurotas, in the south-east of 

 the peninsula ; but after a protracted struggle, 

 extending, with an interval of forty years, from 

 743 to 668 B.C. and known as the First and 

 second Messenian Wars, the Spartans succeeded 

 n reducing their brother Dorians of Messenia to 

 subjection and slavery, and thus extended their 

 dominion to the Ionian Sea. 



Athens. 



It was the Ionic race that manifested most 

 signally the distinguishing characters of Greek 

 civilisation ; and of this portion of Hellas, 

 Athens stands out most prominently. Accord- 

 ng to the legend, Codrus, the last of its line 

 of heroic kings, had devoted himself to certain 

 death to save his country ; and the Athenians 

 sermitting no one after him to assume the 

 lame of king, his successors ruled for a time 

 as archons for life. The dignity of archon was 

 then restricted to the duration of ten years ; 



