ANC15NT
gree:ce
^.
H-B-COTTERILL
n
Y
Q
^
K. G. OLAISUKK.
Boolibuyer & HooUseller.
25 HiKh^iate Hill, London, N. 19.
Books Hoikiht
GREAT NATIO NS
In active preparation
ROME By H. L. Havell, B.A.
FRANCE By Professor W. H. Hudson
GERMANY By T. W. RoUeston
IRELAND By Eleanor HuU and
Professor Stanley Lane-Poole
SCOTLAND By R. L. Mackie, M.A,
MEDIEVAL ITALY By H. B.
Cotterill, M.A.
eJf«.*Ji!>»»i»i»».»JfS>s'«BJ5^,»i?*5W
I White Attic Lekythus
2. Red-figured Lekythus
HCjv-
C
ANCIENT GREECE
A SKETCH OF ITS ART LITERATURE & PHILO
SOPHY VIEWED IN CONNEXION WITH ITS
EXTERNAL HISTORY FROM EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE AGE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
BY H. B. COTTERILL M.A.
Translator of the " Odyssey " Editor of " Selections from the
Inferno" Goethe's " Iphigenie " Milton's " Areopagitica " Virgil's
" Aeneid " I and VI etc.
LONDON
GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY
3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.
MCMXIII
PRINTED AT
THE BALLANTYNE PRESS
LONDON
PREFACE
WHEN the attempt is made in a book ot this size to
give a continuous account of the external history
of Greece, and into this framework to fit a
number of sketches descriptive of its art, literature, and
philosophy, as well as other matters, it is of course necessary
to omit many details and to rely on whatever skill one may
happen to possess in selection and combination. In regard to
antiquities and literature, I have drawn attention chiefly to
what is extant and of general interest, and have trusted
to description, illustration, and quotation rather than to dis-
quisition and criticism. The Sections appended to each chapter
treat subjects that are closely connected with the period
covered by the chapter. Any of these Sections can be omitted
without seriously interrupting continuity. Temples, Dress,
Coins, and Vases have been relegated to Notes at the end of
the volume, seeing that they are not specially connected with
any one period.
The letters B.C. (but not a.d.) have been generally omitted,
as unnecessary in a book on Ancient Greece.
To name in full all the books that one has to use in such work
is unnecessary, but, since space did not always allow of exact
reference on occasions when I annexed a fact or a sentiment,
it is right that I should here acknowledge my obligations to
the following modern writers : Baikie, Berard, Bergk, Ber-
noulli, Buchholz, Burrows, Bury, Busolt, Butcher, Archer
Butler, Chamberlain [Grundlagen], Christ, Dawldns, Deussen,
Diehl, Donaldson, Dorpfeld, Dussaud, Sir A. J. Kvans, Frazer
{Pausanias), Furtwangler, B. Gardner, P. Gardner, Gomperz,
Grote, Hall, Miss Harrison, Head, Hill, Hogarth, Holm,
V
PREFACE
Hommel {Chronology), A. lyang, W. I^eaf, Lowy, Mahaffy,
Meltzer, Mover, Mosso, A. S. Murray, G. Murray, F. A.
Paley, Petrie, Sir H. Rawlinson, Canon Rawlinson, Ridge-
way, Ritter and Preller, Schlegel, Schliemann, Schuchliardt,
A. H. Smith, G. Smith, W. Smith, Tsountas, H. B. Walters,
Wilamowitz, Wood {Ephesus), Zeller, Zimmermann.
Also, in regard to the illustrations, my thanks are due to
Mr. Hasluck, of the British School in Athens, and (especially
in regard to vases) to Professor H. Thiersch, of Freiburg, as
well as to many others whose names are mentioned in the lyist.
Some of the illustrations supplied by F. Bruckmann and Co.
are from their fine series of Greek and Roman Portraits ; others
are from Bernoulli's Griechische Ikonographie. The autotypes
of coins in Plates I-VI are reproductions which I was permitted
by the courtesy of the Director of the British Museum to make
from Mr. Head's official Guide to the Coins of the Ancients.
In quoting Herodotus I have, with the permission of Mr.
John Murray, frequently made use of Canon Rawlinson's
version, and in translating Thucydides I sometimes accepted
the guidance of Dale. For the compilation of the index I am
indebted to Mr. C. C. Wood.
H. B. C.
Freiburg im Breisgau,
March 19 13
VI
CONTENTS
I. The Aegaean Civilization : The Achaean
Supremacy i
Sections : A. Language and Writing. B. The Old
Religion. C. The ' Homeric Age ' and Homer. D. Chrono-
logy of Aegaean and other Contemporary Civihzations.
II. The Dark Age 74
Sections : A. ' Dipylon ' Antiquities. B. Hesiod
C. The Phoenicians and some other^Nations during the
Dark Age.
III. From the First Olympiad to Peisistratus 113
Sections : A. Egypt and Cyrene. B. Lydia : List of
Eastern Kings. C. The Games. D. The Poets.
^ IV. The Age of Peisistratus and the Rise of
Persia 172
Sections : A. Poets and Philosophers. B. Early Greek
Sculpture and Architecture.
V. The Persian Invasions 234
Sections : A. The Greeks and Carthaginians in Sicily.
B. Pindar.
VI. The Rise of the Athenian Empire 283
Sections: A. Architecture and Sculpture. B. Aeschylus:
Herodotus : Philosophers of the Period.
VII. The Peloponnesian War 326
Sections : A. Thucydides. B. Sophocles : Euripides :
Aristophanes. C. Democritus : The Sophists : Socrates.
D. Sculpture.
vii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Vlli. The Spartan and the Theban Supremacy 387
Sections : A. Xenophon. B. Sicily and the Cartha-
ginians. C. Plato. D. Sculpture, Architecture, and
Painting till the Accession of Alexander.
IX. The Rise of Macedonia : Phiwp and Ai^exander 422
Sections : A. Isocrates : Aeschines : Demosthenes :
Later Philosophers. B. Lysippus : Hellenistic Sculpture.
Note A. Greek Temples 449
Note B. Dress 458
Note C. Coins 462
Note D. Pottery and Vase-Painting 471
List of Important Dates 477
Dates of Foundation of the Early Greek Colonies 479
lyisT OF THE Persian Kings 480
List of the Chief Greek Writers, Philosophers,
AND Sculptors 481
Index 483
vnj
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
In the following list the names of those to whom the author is indebted for
permission to use copyright photographs, &c., are given in italic below the
title of the subject.
MAPS
PAGE
Greece and the Aegaean Sea i
Sicily and Magna Graecia 119
Athens and the Peiraeus 299
The Route of the Ten Thousand 390
COLOURED PLATES
PLATE
I. Two lyEKYTHi Frontispiece
Photo Mansell cS- Co. The larger, a white Attic lekythus
(funeral oil-vase) with polychrome painting of early,
severe style (c. 460). The smaller, a red-figured lekythus
of the earher and still somewhat restrained ' beautiful
style,' which afterwards became fanciful and fantastic ;
date c. 450. In British Museum.
II. lyATE-MvCENAEAN VASES (c. I200) 8
Photo Mansell &> Co. One has the polypus decoration ;
the other is an example of the characteristic Mycenaean
false-necked amphora (' Biigel-kanne '). In the latter
vessel the neck, to which the handles are attached, has
no aperture. The spout is set in the shoulder of the vessel,
and in the picture it stands in front of the ' false neck '
and hides it. In British Museum.
III. An Attic Hydria of the Middi^e Bi.ack-figured
Period (c. 550) 218
Photo Mansell &- Co. Found at Vulci. Maidens fetching
water from a fountain. Similar vases are inscribed with
the names of the fountains Kalhkrene or Kalhrrhoe. This
vase has the names of some of the maidens with the
adjective /caXj) (' beautiful ') appended, as frequently
occurs in vase-paintings. On the lower part of the vase
is depicted Heracles strangling the Nemean Hon. In
British Museum.
ix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
IV. A IvATE BI.ACK-FIGURED HyDRIA (c. 510) FROM
VUIvCI
Photo Mansell & Co. Harnessing chariot-horses. The
driver in long white robe (cf. Fig. 74). Below, a boar-
hunt. In British Museum.
V. An Apulian Funerai. Amphora with Voi^ute
Handi.es
Photo Mansell &■ Co. Date c. 300. Scenes from the ' Sack
of Troy ' [Iliou Per sis). Above, the death of Priam and
of Hecuba; below, Ajax and Cassandra. In British
Museum.
PACK
250
470
COINS
I. Co
ins of c.
700-500
II.
„ c.
600-500
III.
,, c.
480-400
IV.
,, c.
480-430
V.
,, c-
400-350
VI.
C-
380-300
VII. Portrait Coins
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
Plates I-VI consist of reproductions from the British Museum ' Guide to the Coins
of the Ancients.' Plate VII is from photographs by F. Bruckmann.
GENERAL ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Wai.Iv of the Sixth City of Troy
From the Rev. James Baikie's ' Sea Kings of Crete ' (Messrs.
A. &■ C. Black). Since this photo was taken the site
has been further excavated. See, for instance, Dr.
W. Leaf's new book on Troy. There can be very
little doubt that these are the actual walls from a tower
of which Andromache (if Homer's story is true) saw
Hector being dragged round the city behind the chariot
of Achilles (//. xxii. 460 sq.).
2. The lyiON Gate, Mycenae
Photo English Photographic Co.
3. Amenhotep III
Photo Mansell &' Co. British Museum.
10
10
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PACK
4. Men worshipping a Snake 10
From Miss J. E. Harrison's ' Prolegomena ' {Cambridge
University Press).
5. Siege Scene 12
Photo Mansell &- Co. On fragment of silver vase. From the
copy in the British Museum.
6. Cretan Statue 12
Photo Maraghiannis. From Eleutherma.
7. From a Mycenaean Gold Ring : Women and
Sacred Tree 14
From Dussaud's ' Civilisations prShelleniques ' [Geuthner,
Paris). Found south of Mycenaean acropolis. Sun and
moon and Milky Way (or ocean stream ?) ; sky-deity with
figure-of-eight shield and lance ; double axe ; child
picking the date-like (or grape-like ?) fruit of the sacred
tree ; row of animals' heads (?).
8. The ' Warrior Vase ' 14
Photo English Photographic Co. The painted fragment was
found outside acropolis at Mycenae. Note corslet, short
fringed chiton, leggings and footgear, metal (?) rings
at knee and wrist, gourd or bag for water or food (?)
hanging on spear, and the woman saying farewell.
9. Goi,DEN Mask 14
Photo Rhomaides. The mask covered the face of one of
the Mycenaean princes buried on the acropoUs.
10 y II. Mycenaean Daggers 15, 16
From Professor Bury 's ' History of Greece ' {Macmillan 6-
Co. Ltd.).
12. G01.DEN Discs and Shrine i6
Photo Rhomaides. From the third tomb on the Mycenae
acropolis. Of thin gold. Rather less than natural size.
The discs probably dress ornaments.
13. Goi^DEN Cups from Vaphio i6
Photo Rhomaides.
14. Acropows, Mycenae i8
Photo Simiriottis, Athens.
15. Excavations of Palace, Cnossus i8
Photo Maraghiannis.
xi
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
i6. The Cup-bearkr, Cnossus 20
Copyright. By permission of Mr. John Murray.
ly. Acrobats and Elands 21
Frofft Diissaud' s ' Civilisations prihelUniques ' {Getithner,
Paris). Cretan gems. Instead of the usual bull we find
here large antelopes like African elands.
18. ' Throne of Minos ' 22
Photo Maraghiannis. In the ' Council Chamber ' of the
Cnossus Palace. Fresco of " griffin with peacock-plumes
in a flowery landscape."
19. MiNOAN Game-board 22
Photo Maraghiannis. Found in Cnossus Palace.
20. Cretan Jars for Oil, or Corn 38
Photo Maraghiannis. Found in store-houses of Cnossus
Palace. Five feet high.
21. Clay Disc of Phaestus 38
Photo Maraghiannis.
22. Tablets with Cretan Linear Script 39
From Dussand' s ' Civilisations prihelUniques ' {Geuthner,
Paris). Early linear writing [c. 1600 ?).
23. Inscription on Tataia's Flask 42
Copied by the author from Mr. H. B. Walters' book on
Vases.
24. ' Harvester Vase ' 48
Photo Maraghiannis. A small vessel of black soapstone,
probably once covered with gold-leaf. Early Minoan
work. Found at Hagia Triada, Crete.
25. Cretan Sarcophagus 48
Photo Maraghiannis. Later Minoan. Plastered Hmestone,
painted. Funeral ceremony. Double axes. Musicians,
one with seven-stringed lute.
26. Griffins and Pillar 50
From Diissaud' s ' Civilisations prihelUniques ' (Geuthner,
Paris). Cretan gem.
27. Earth-Goddess and Lions 50
From Dussaud's ' Civilisations prihelUniques ' (Geuthner,
Paris). Imprint of seal found in Cnossus Palace. The
Earth-Mother on mountain (Ida ?) with lions ; shrine
and worshipper (or her son, Zeus Cretagenes ?).
xii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
28. RiTUAi. Dance and Uprooting of vS acred Tree 51
From Diissaud's ' Civilisations pr&helUniques ' {Geuthner,
Paris). Gold ring. The uprooting of the sacred tree was
perhaps a funeral ceremony.
29. Genii watering Sacred Tree 51
From Diissaud's ' Civilisations prihellSniques ' (Geuthner,
Paris). Gem found at Vaphio.
30. The ' lyADY OF WiivD Creatures ' 52
From Miss J. E. Harrison's ' Prolegomena ' [Cambridge Uni-
versity Press). Painting on a Boeotian amphora at
Athens.
31. Cretan Seaxs 53
From Dussaud's ' Civilisations prihelUniques ' [Geuthner,
Paris). Perhaps represent transformations in masked
ritual dance, or perhaps worn as charms against evil
spirits.
32. The Return of the Earth-Maiden 56
From Miss J. E. Harrison's ' Prolegomena ' [Cambridge Uni-
versity Press). Vase at Oxford. L,ike the Anodos of Kore,
but here the maiden is Pandora (generally the Greek
Eve, but here probably the ' All-giver,' Earth-goddess).
Zeus, Hermes, and Epimetheus welcome her return.
Compare the northern myth of Holda, the goddess of
spring.
33. MiNOAN, Mycenaean, and Trojan Ware 58
Photo Maraghiannis.
Top left jug and two small cups are of the exceedingly fine
Kamares ware ; found in Kamares cave, Mount Ida,
Crete. Date c. 2000.
Two other jugs on left, one with sunflower and papyrus (?),
the other with octopus, are later Minoan, c. 1500-
1400. The former is in what is called ' Cnossus Palace
style.'
Top right-hand jug, probably from an island tomb ; date
c. 2500. Black with incised Unes filled with white
substance.
Two-necked jug of ' Hissarlik ' (Trojan) type. Date c. 1800,
IfOwest to right : Mycenaean ware, but found in Cyprus.
Date c. 1300.
34. DiPYEON Vase 9^
Photo Mansell 6- Co. Two sides of same vase. Date
about 8 so or earlier. British Museum.
Xlll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG.
35. D1PY1.ON, PhaIvEron, Samian, and Corinthian
Ware, c. 800-600 100
Photo Mansell &' Co.
Upper row, three Dipylon vessels ; ancient animal decoration
(bird, two horses at manger) combined with the revived
geometric and maeander style. See Note D. Date
c. 800.
I^owest to left : ' Phaleron ware.' About fifty of such one-
handled jugs discovered. Named after first, found on
the road to Phaleron. Very different from preceding,
and far more artistic. Oriental influence ? Date c. 700.
Samian two-handled jug, found in the cemetery Fikellura,
Rhodes. Date c. 600.
Old Corinthian ; easily recognized by rather heavy but finely
balanced shape, colours (rich browns and yellows) and
style of animals, with spaces filled with flowers, &c.
Corinth was anciently a great emporium, especially for
trade with the far "West. Date, about Periander's age,
c. 600.
36. Foundations of Apollo's Temple, West Delphi 104
Photo Siniiriottis , Athens. See under Fig. 49 in this list.
37. Archaic Statue io6
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' {Macmillan
& Co. Ltd.). One of the so-called "Tauten' ('Aunts')
excavated on the Athenian Acropolis.
38. Assarhaddon with Captive Egyptian and
Aethiopian 112
Photo Graphische Gesellschaft.
39. The ' Francois Vase ' ii6
Photo Alinari. In the Etruscan Museum, Florence. Perhaps
the oldest inscribed Greek vase. Found by M. Francois
at Chiusi (Clusium, the city of Lars Porsena, where
great numbers of tombs, &c., have been discovered).
It was in about fifty fragments, but was nearly complete.
In 1900, however, an insane employ i of the museum
overthrew it, and while it lay shattered on the floor
numerous shards were stolen, so that many important
portions (as seen in the picture) are wanting. For
questions of ancient Greek dress, weapons, chariots,
vases, &c., it is invaluable. See Index and Note B.
Many of the figures in the numerous scenes are named,
and we learn the names of the painter and maker by
the words KXtrta? /x' eypa^ev 'Epyurt/noy /x' inoirjafv. Date
perhaps about 650. Greek work imported into
Etruria.
40. I^ACiNiAN Cape and Column 120
From ' Aus dem klass. Suden,' by permission of Herr Ch.
Coleman, Liibeck.
xiv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
41. Poseidon's Temple, Paestum ^ 120
Photo Brogi. To left a part of the ' Basilica.' Note the
greater bulge (entasis) of the columns. See Note A.
42. Apoi^lo's Temple, Corinth 130
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. See Note A.
43. Site of Corinth and the Acrocorinthus 130
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. Looking south. The rock of the
ancient citadel Acrocorinth is some 1900 feet high. A
village existed on the old site till 1858, when it was
destroyed by an earthquake, and New Corinth was then
founded on the sea-shore.
44. Colossi of Abu Simbel 148
Photo Frith. They all represent Ramses II (c. 1300, the
Pharaoh of Moses' youth). The Greek inscription is on
the legs of the headless colossus. It is signed by ' Archon
and Pelekos,' who had " travelled with King Psamtik
to Elephantine, and as far as the river permits." Date
594-
45. Cimmerians 148
Photo Mansell &- Co. A terra-cotta sarcophagus found at Clazo-
menae, now in the British Museum. The head-dress,
weapons, and war-dogs make it Ukely that these are
the mysterious Cimmerians. Others take it for a
chariot-race or a ' Doloneia.'
46. Site of Olympia and Vale of the Alpheios 152
Photo Simiriottis, Athens.
47. Heraion, Olympia 152
Photo Simiriottis . Athens.
48. Vale of Tempe and Mouth of River Peneios 156
Photo Simiriottis, Athens.
49. Site of Delphi 156
Before the old village of Zastri had been cleared away. Photo
by Dr. Walter Leaf, Hellenic Society. In background
lower precipices of Parnassus and ravine, from the left
side of which springs the Castalian Fount. The great
Temple Ues further west.
50. ' Artemis of Delos ' 172
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' {Macmillan
(S- Co. Ltd.). Primitive image with hair (as in Cretan
statue. Fig. 6) in Egyptian style. Dedicated by
Nicandra of Naxos to the Dehan Artemis. Found in
Delos.
XV
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
51. Stele of Aristion 172
Photo Alinari. Athens National Museum.
52. The Croesus Column 182
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' {Macmillan
&■ Co. Ltd.). The inscription is on the moulding
beneath the figure. It is unfortunately almost invisible.
53. Tomb of Cyrus 192
From Dr. Sarre's ' Iranische Felsreliefs ' {Ernst Wasmuth,
A.-G., Berlin). Seep. 193.
54. The Olympieion, Athens 192
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. See p. 456.
55. Black-figured Vases, c. 700-500 204
Photo Mansell & Co.
Greek vase found at Vulci, Etruria. Achilles slaying Penthe-
silea. Date c. 550.
Panathenaic prize vase. Victor being crowned. Date
perhaps only c. 420, but in these prize vases the old
black-figured style of the sixth century was kept.
In middle : Attic amphora. Birth of Athene (springing from
the head of Zeus).
Left lower : Ancient Corinthian crater (mixing bowl).
Return of Hephaestus to Olympus, mounted on mule and
accompanied by Dionysus and satyrs. A not infrequent
comic subject.
From Daphnae, Egypt. Such water-jars (about thirty)
only found at Daphnae (and perhaps Clazomenae).
Decoration all of same type : above, Sphinxes ; below,
geese ; in middle, procession of women. Black-figured
st^de with white women's faces. Date c. 560 (age of
Solon, Croesus, and Amasis).
56. Ancient Black-figured Amphora 210
Photo Mansell &• Co. From Vulci, in Etruria, but Attic
work. Athene, Zeus, and Hermes. Archaic style.
Date c. 560.
57. Temple near Segesta 214
Photo Brogi. See Note A.
58. Statue from the Branchidae Temple 222
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' {Macmillan
&- Co. Ltd.). Inscribed with name of Chares of Teichiussa.
British Museum.
59. The ' Harpy Tomb ' 222
Photo Mansell & Co. British Museum.
XV i
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAOE
60. EUROPA ON THE Bui,!, 226
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' [Macmillan
&' Co. Ltd.). Metope from temple at Selinus. At
Palermo. Somewhat later than the Selinus reliefs of
Perseus and the Gorgon, and the extraordinary fore-
shortened chariot, models of which are in the British
Museum.
61. The Tyrannicides 230
Photo Alinari. Naples.
62. Tempi^e of Aphaia, Aegina 232
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. See Note A.
63. Aegina Pediment 232
Photo F. Bruckmann. Central group. Restored by Thor-
waldsen.
64. The ' Darius Vase ' 236
Photo F. Bruckmann. At Naples. An Apulian vase of about
300. Darius is seated in his throne, and before him
stands a counsellor who is supposed to be warning him
against invading Greece.
65. Pythagoras 242
Photo Alinari. Vatican. Almost incredible as genuine
portrait. No sign of great character or intellect.
66. Aeschyi^us 242
Photo Alinari. Capitol. Old type in simple grand style.
Possible portrait. Date c. 420.
67. MlI^TIADES 242
Doubtful. He was painted, by Micon or Polygnotus, in
pictures of Marathon, and his statue was the centre of a
group by Pheidias at Delphi. Old drawings exist of
ancient busts, now lost. This bust (helm ornamented
with hons) is in the I,ouvre. Replica, called ' Masinissa,'
in Capitol.
68. Themistoci.es 242
Photo F. Bruckmann. At Munich. Often called "unknown
archaic warrior." Very fine, and dates probably from
Persian wars. Bernoulli says it is possibly Themistocles.
69. Thermopyi^ae 260
From a photo by Miss A. R. Fry, Failand, Bristol. From the
I^eonidas mound, looking west, towards Malian Plain
and the Spercheios. In foreground the West Gate and
the Hot Springs ; to left KalUdromos and Trachinian
cliffs. In distance, spur of Mount Oeta (?) and range
of Mount Othrys.
b xvii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
70. Tomb of I^eonidas (?) 260
Photo English Photographic Co. Ruins on a mound near
Thermopylae ; just possibly remains of the tomb of
I^eonidas, on which a lion was erected.
71. Bay of Sai^amis 266
Photo Simiriotiis, Athens. From Mount Aegaleos, looking south.
Aegina and Epidaurian coast in distance. Salamis to
right, Psyttaleia to left.
72. Wali^s of Thkmistoci.es 266
Photo Siminottis, Athens. From near Dipylon. Hymettus in
distance. Acropolis and Theseion to right.
73. Tomb of Darius 274
The entrance, which is on the face of a perpendicular precipice.
See Note, p. 193.
74. Charioteer found at Dei^phi 274
Photo Simiriotiis, Athens.
75. OSTRAKA OF ThEMISTOCI.ES AND XANTHIPPUS,
Father of Pericles 274
Photo Mansell &' Co. The second is a shard of a painted
vase " from the pre-Persian debris on the Athenian
Acropolis." Another has been found with the name of
Megacles, possibly the Megacles mentioned by Pindar.
76. Temple of ' Concordia,' Acragas 278
Photo Brogi. See Note A.
yy. ' Hiero's Helmet ' 278
Photo Mansell 6- Co.
78. Group of Gods, Parthenon Frieze 284
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' {Macmillan
& Co. Ltd.).
79. The ' Strangford ' Shield 284
Photo Mansell & Co. Copy of the shield of the Pheidian
Athene Parthenos, in British Museum. The figure
that half covers its face with its arm is said to be that of
Pericles, and the "bald-headed but vigorous" man on
his right side to be Pheidias himself.
80. Temple on Sunion 288
Photo by Dr. Walter Leaf, Hellenic Society.
81. Theseion, or perhaps Temple of Hephaestus 288
Photo English Photographic Co.
xviii
LLSiT OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PACK
82. Metopes from the Parthenon ^ 292
Photo Mansell & Co. British Museum.
83. Parthenon, from West 296
Photo Alinari.
84. Apollo's Temple, Phigaleia 296
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. See Note A.
85. Portions of Parthenon Frieze 3^4
Photo Mansell &■ Co.
86. The Pediments of the Parthenon 306
Reconstructed by Karl Schwerzek, Ritter des kaiserl. Franz-
Joseph Ordens. The work was specially favoured by the
late Empress of Austria and the Imperial family. It is
regarded as a very successful attempt, founded on a most
careful study of aU the remains. My thanks are due to the
artist for kind permission to reproduce the pictures of
his models given in his Erlciuterungen, published by
himself in Vienna.
87. Probable Copy of the Pheidian Athene IvEmnia 310
Photo R. Tamme, Dresden; reproduced by permission of the
Director of the Albertinum. A very fine head at Bologna
was found by Professor Furtwangler to fit exactly a
headless Athene at Dresden, which evidently belonged to
the Pheidian school of sculpture. Our picture represents
this body furnished with a cast of the Bologna head, and
according to Professor Furtwangler, whose authority few
would care to question, we have in the complete statue a
fine copy of the celebrated Lemnian Athene of Pheidias.
Another similar, but much mutilated, statue in the
Dresden Museimi has been restored on the same lines.
The face of the Lemnia is cited by Lucian in a famous
passage {Imag. vi.) as of ideal beauty and nobihty,
and Himerius says, probably in reference to this statue,
that Pheidias sometimes " decked the virgin goddess
with a blush instead of a helmet."
88. Probable Copy of Myron's Athene 310
Photo supplied and permission for reproduction given by Dr.
Swarzenski, Director of the Stddtische Gallerie, Frankfurt-
a.-M. The rather repellent Marsyas of Myron is well
known from a coin, a painted and a sculptured vase, and
from the statue in the Lateran Museimi and a small bronze
in the British Museum. The Marsyas belonged to a group
in which Athene, who had invented flutes and had cast
them away (because they disfigured her face when she
played), was represented looking disdainfully at the
satyr, who " while advancing to pick up the discarded
flutes is suddenly confronted by the goddess" and starts
xix
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
riC. PAGE
back in dismay. The Athene was supposed to be
hopelessly lost ; but about 1882 this statue of Parian
marble was dug up in Rome, and after lying for twenty
years in a shed was recognized as probably the lost
Myron, and transferred by some rich German Hellenists
to the Frankfurt Gallery. It is a beautiful statue,
and, if it is Myron's, must give us an idea of him as
artist very different from what we gain from the Marsyas
or the Discobolos.
Three possibi^e Copies of the Pheidian Athene :
89. head of a statue in ROME 314
From Professor E. Luwy's ' Griechische Plastik ' {Klinkhardt
and Biermann, Leipzig). By Antiochos, a sculptor
otherwise unknown. Museo Nazionale delle Terme. The
dress and helm are not like those of the Athene Parthenos,
but the face is believed to be the best extant copy of that
of the Pheidian goddess, and is very much the finest of
the three here given.
90. A STATUETTE FOUND AT ATHENS, NEAR THE
VARVAKEION 314
Photo English Photographic Co. Supposed by some to be a
model, by a Roman artist, of the Pheidian Athene. But
it is quite incredible that it should be an exact repre-
sentation. The general pose may be reproduced (as it is
also in another half -finished statuette found by M.
I^enormant near the Pnyx), but it is impossible to accept
the face, or the exceedingly ugly device of the column
supporting the right hand — though it may have been
added to the original statue at some later time to
prevent collapse.
91. A RED JASPER INTAGWO INSCRIBED WITH THE NAME
ASPASIOS 314
From Brunn-Bruckmann' s ' Denkniiiler der griech. und runt.
Sculptur.' At Vienna. Evidently a copy of the Pheidian
Athene.
92. The ' Meidias Vase ' 326
Photo Mansell &' Co. Hydria signed with name ' Meidias.'
Winckelmann esteemed it " above all others known to
him " for beauty of drawing. Date c. 430, but, though rich,
still very pure and unaffected by the ' fine style.' Below,
Heracles in the Garden of the Hesperides ; above, the
Leucippidae carried off by Castor and Pollux.
93. The Nike (Victory) of Paeonius 336
From Gardner's ' Handbook of Greek Sculpture ' [Macmillan
&' Co. Ltd.). In the Museum at Olympia.
XX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PACE
94. Herodotus 348
Photo Brogi. From double herm (^ith Thucydides) at
Naples. Ancient type and possible portrait,
95. Thucydides 348
Photo Anderson. Capitol. Somewhat like the Holkam
bust, which is perhaps the best ; but the types vary
considerably.
96. Perici.es 348
Photo Anderson. British Museum. Perhaps after the bust
or statue by Cresilas, whose name is on a base found on
the Acropolis. Date c. 450. Pericles was born c. 500,
and is represented here in his prime. On the ' Strangford '
Shield he is probably ten years older.
97. A1.CIBIADES 348
Photo Anderson. Capitol. Doubtful, but ancient. Several
copies exist.
98. Sophoci.es 358
Photo Anderson. Lateran. Other statues and busts of same
type exist.
99. Euripides 362
Photo Anderson. Vatican. Body once with other head.
A Euripides head (too small 1) put on it by Pio VII.
Tragic mask.
100, Socrates 376
Photo Brogi. Naples. Probably the most authentic of many
portraits of the philosopher.
loi. Plato 376
Photo Brogi. Uffizi, Florence. Small — one-third of life-size.
Built into the wall. Inscribed name ancient. A small
bronze copy is at Oxford. A Plato bust at Copenhagen
is somewhat similar. But Bernoulli says these are
entirely overthrown by a bust lately discovered, now at
Berlin.
102. Aristophanes 376
Photo Anderson. Capitol. Several of same type,
103. lyYSIAS 376
Photo F. Bruckmann. Capitol. Several of same type, one
of the best at Holkam.
104. Mourning Athene 384
Photo Simirioitis, Athens. Perhaps mourning over the
epitaph of warriors fallen in battle (c. 450). Found built
into wall of Acropolis.
105. Stele with Woman carrying Vase 384
Photo English Photographic Co. From the Cerameicus at
Athens.
106. Stele of Hegeso 384
Photo English Photographic Co. From the Cerameicus at
Athens.
xxi
LiLSiT OF ILLUSTRATIONS
107. Figure from Greek Tomb
Photo Mansell &- Co. The ' Trentham Hall ' statue. Since
1907 in. British Museum. Probably stood on a tomb in
the Cerameicus. For dress see Note B. Date about
fourth century. Probably found in Italy, and perhaps
reinscribed for monument of Roman lady.
108. Amazon by Poi,yci<eitus
Photo Alinari. So-called ' Mattel Amazon,' in Vatican,
Rome.
109. StEI^E of DEXII.EOS
Photo Simiriottis, Athens. The inscription (in Athens National
Museum Catalogue) seems to give Coroneia as the place
where he fell, though others mentioned in the epitaph
were killed near Corinth.
1X0. From the Mausoi<eum
Photo Mansell & Co. Ionic colxunn and architrave in British
Museum.
384
III.
112.
113-
114.
115.
116.
117.
118.
119.
zxii
Head of Cnidian Aphrodite
Photo F. Bruckmann. Possibly a copy from the statue by
Praxiteles. In collection of Herr von Kaufmann, Berlin.
The Hermes of Oi^ympia
Photo Alinari. By Praxiteles.
Hypnos
Photo Mansell &' Co. The well-known bronze winged head
in the British Museum has lately been set on the body,
newly discovered. It represents a youth running and
bending forward. He probably held a poppy in his
hand. The work is evidently of the Praxitelean age
(c. 360), and is Greek, though found near Perugia, in Italy.
The Satyr (Faun) of Praxitei^es
Photo Anderson. Capitoline Museum, Rome. The best known
of the copies of the original. A torso in the I<ouvre is
believed by some to be a part of the original statue.
Apoho Sauroctonos
Photo Mansell &• Co. Copy of the statue by Praxiteles.
Demeter
Photo Mansell &• Co. Head perhaps by Scopas.
EiRENE and P1.UTUS
Photo F. Bruckmann. By Cephisodotus.
The Cnidian Aphrodite
Photo Mansell S- Co. Copy of the statue by Praxiteles.
Drum of CoIvUmn
From the later temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Photo
Mansell & Co. British Musexun.
392
392
392
392
394
394
400
404
408
414
418
420
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. ^'■'--^
120. MausoIvUS 422
Photo Mansell & Co. British Museum. .
121. The I/IOn of Chakroneia 430
Photo Simiriottis, Athens.
122. Arcadian Gate, Messene 430
Photo Simiriottis. Athens. Messene was founded by Epamei-
nondas.
123. Alexander 434
Photo Mansell S' Co. British Museum.
124. ISOCRATES 434
Photo Graphische Gesellschaft. Berlin. Same type as the
bust with inscribed name in Villa Albani, Rome. Possibly
copied from the statue of Isocrates by I^eochares (see
p. 443) set up at Eleusis by Timotheus, son of Conon ; but
poor work, and represents him at earUer time of life.
If genuine, the portrait taken during his hfe, for otherwise
he would be represented as very old, having lived about
ninety-nine years.
125. Aeschines 434
Photo Anderson. Vatican. Several of same type.
126. Epicurus 434
Photo F. Bruckmann. Copenhagen.
127. Demosthenes 438
Photo Anderson. Vatican. False restoration with book.
Hands should be lightly interlocked and hold no book.
128. Aristotle 442
Sitting statue : Photo Anderson. Bust : Photo F. Bruckmann.
The beardless seated statue in the Spada Palace at
Rome has inscription arist . . . S, but the s is not
at the right distance for aristoTEi^ES, and the head
seems not to belong to the body. A drawing of an
ancient bust of Aristotle (such busts were very common
among the Romans — vide Juv. Sat. II, vi.) has been found
in an old manuscript, and has led to identification at
Vienna of the bearded bust, which may be an authentic
likeness ; but unfortunately it has a restored irregular
nose, whereas the drawing and old descriptions give him
an aquiline nose !
129. Aphrodite of Melos 444
Photo Alinari. Louvre.
130. The ' Alexander Sarcophagus ' 446
Photo Sebah and Joaillier. Constantinople. The larger rehef
represents the battle of Issus. Alexander is on horseback
at the left end.
131. The Nike of Samothrace 448
Photo Alinari. Louvre.
132. Temple of Athene Nike 454
Photo Alinari.
xxiii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGB
133. Erechtheion 454
Photo English Photographic Co.
134. The Acropolis from near the Oi^ympieion 456
Photo English Photographic Co. Relics of ancient city wall
and columns of Olympieion in foreground. Under
Cimon's great south wall of Acropolis (just above the
white house) the Theatre of Dionysus, and further left
the site of the Odeion of Herodes.
135. Caryatid from Erechtheion 460
Photo Mansell & Co.
136. Monument of Lysicrates 460
Photo Alinari.
137. Bronze and Sii^ver Dress-pins 460
From the British Museum ' Guide to the Department of Greek and
Roman Antiquities.' Mycenaean and later.
138. Ionic Chiton and Himation 460
Photo Mansell (S- Co. A very beautiful bronze statuette in the
British Museum.
139. Doric Chiton and Dagger-i.ike Pins 460
From the British Museum ' Guide to the Department of Greek
and Roman Antiquities.' From a toilet-box in the
British Museum.
140. Early Female Dress 461
From the FranQois Vase.
141. Red-figured Vases and White Lekythi, c.
520-350 472
Photo Mansell &> Co.
Attic hydria from Vulci, Etruria. Medea and the daughters
of Pelias (The trick of the rejuvenated ram). Datec.470.
Attic stamnos from Vulci. Odysseus and Sirens. Date c. 520.
White Attic lekythi, oil-flasks, found generally in tombs.
Earlier black on white, later polychrome. Date of these
c. 400. Very fine collection in British Museum.
Attic (or possibly Itahan) hydria, found in Southern Italy.
Late rich ' Apulian ' style, but not debased. Scene
similar to some on Attic stelae. Date c. 350.
XXIV
-'N..I A
Pelia
,4g>Therma
Mrthniie.^6;-:V_Ch a LcTd i ce
'MP©
uS^I
'''o-; m
■ TlierianpylaJrTr ^
TOLIAl. .: -^ ^v, .^
;;:phocis v*^,.
Naupaclus ■'locRiI j^, ^l^haeVoneaX^
^;-
' .P Z° a .W'^SC' I
.4 J . • "'"''■ €orinth* •
Tegea
T.iessena i ^ ^ ,; s;
Cff/f-fil
U
-'n
f'-ii
CHAPTER I
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION : THE
ACHAEAN SUPREMACY
(down to c. iioo)
^") SECTIONS : I^ANGUAGE AND WRITING : THE OIvD RELIGION :
^ THE ' HOMERIC AGE ' AND HOMER : CHRONOI.OGY OF
AEGAEAN AND CONTEMPORARY CIVIUZATIONS
NOT very long ago the history of Greece (such history as is
founded on the evidence of contemporary inscriptions
and similar relics) was held to begin about the tra-
ditional date of the first Olympiad — namely, 776. It is true
that for some two thousand years a chronology of the 'pre-
historic ' or ' mythical ' age of Greece was accepted with more
or less diffidence, and has been handed down to our times.
This chronology, based on the calculations of ancient writers ^
and drawn up finally (c. 220) by the keeper of the great
Alexandrian library, Eratosthenes, takes us back to the founda-
tion of Thebes by Cadmus in 13 13, a date of modest pre-
tensions compared with those given by some old writers, who
by calculating the generations of ancient dynasties and hero-
families lead us back beyond Deucalion, the Greek Noah
and father of all Hellenes, to Pelasgus, the ancestor of all
Pelasgians, and his ancestor Inachus, the first king of Argos,
who is said to have lived about 1986.
All this chronology and all the traditions of the so-called
mythical age were until quite lately rejected as of no historical
value by almost every modern writer on Greece — as valueless
1 See Hdt. vii. 204, where, according to the accepted genealogy of the Spartan
kings, Leonidas is shown to have been the twenty-first from Heracles, whose
traditional date is 1261-1209. C/. Hdt. viii. 131. Some assert that Eratosthenes
went back only to the Fall of Troy ( 1 1 84) . Thucydides fixes the Dorian invasion
(return of Heracleidae) at eighty years after the Fall of Troy. Some of these
dates come curiously near to those accepted by modern archaeolog)^
A I
tl
ANCIENT GREECE
as the legends of Brute the Trojan and the Cornish giants and
early kings of Britain, which Geoffrey of Monmouth gives as
serious history, and which even Milton in his history of England
is half inclined to accept on the ground that " never any
to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least some
part of what so long hath been remember'd, cannot be thought
without too strict an incredulity."
That in this ' mythical age ' of Greece, long before the Fall
of Troy, great wars had been waged ^ and great empires had
existed was not denied ; but even such statements as those
of Thucydides and Herodotus about the sea-empire of Minos
the Cretan were relegated to the realm of fable — the realm of
demigods and monsters.
Nor was it denied that from certain points of view fables and
traditions are of supreme interest and value. Plato himself
has pointed out ^ the great ethical value of poetic fiction and
the uselessness and folly of attempting to unweave the rainbows
of old fables — of decomposing them into allegories or sun-
myths ; and in this he has been followed by perhaps the
greatest modern historian of Greece, Grote, who has devoted
the first of his ten volumes almost entirely to the consideration
of the Greek myths as wonderful products of Greek imagination,
and has carefully weighed their influence on the Greek mind
and on the course of Greek history.
But Grote also agrees with Plato in believing it to be use-
less and foolish to analyse these ancient myths for the purpose
of discovering any deposit of historical fact. " The hope,"
he says, " that we may, by carrying our researches up the
stream of time, exhaust the limits of fiction and land ulti-
mately upon some points of solid truth appears to me no less
illusory than the northward journey in quest of the Hyperborean
Elysium" — the Earthly Paradise of the ancients, the lyand
beyond the North Wind.
Within the last thirty years or more this point of view has
been gradually abandoned, even by the most sceptical. How-
^ Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi. . . . — HoRACB.
2 lu the Phaedriis.
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
ever disdainfully the modern historian may still speak of such
' fables ' as those of Pelops and I^ycurgus (whom, b'orrowing a
phrase from Herodotus, they describe as " not men, but only
gods "), none would now venture to deny that there are " points
of sohd truth" in legends that indicate the former existence
of a great ancient Mycenaean civilization, or a still greater
and more ancient civilization in Crete ; for we now possess
indisputable evidence that such civilizations existed, and that
in many an old legend there was at least a germ of truth. Nor
is it impossible that ere long the excavator and the philologist
(for both of whom a vast amount of unexplored and unde-
ciphered material is at hand) may open up yet more wonderful
vistas and help us to reconstruct and repeople far more fully
and vividly the so-called mythical age of Greece. vShould this
happen, I doubt not that many more of the old myths will be
found to contain some historical truth in the midst of their
poetic fictions, and that once more many a sceptic will have
to reweave his theories.
This, however, is a task for the archaeologist and the linguist.
For the historian it is still nearly as true as it was in Grote's
day that " two courses, and two only, are open : either to pass
over the myths altogether, or else to give an account of them
as myths." And seeing that to give a full account of myths
regarded as creations of poetic imagination, or as interesting
folk-lore, seems to be in this age of specialists the task of
other writers rather than that of the historian, and considering
that classical dictionaries and books about mythology are easily
obtained, and that a very full and systematic account of these
ancient Greek myths may be found in Grote's first volume, I
shall only relate, or mention, those which appear to have some
connexion with historical facts, or with such reconstructions as
may be reasonably built up on the rehcs of prehistoric times.
The first part of my subject is the so-called Aegaean civihza-
tion, which has been brought to light within the last thirty or
forty years. Enough has been discovered by excavation and
research to assure us that a once undreamt-of civilization
of very considerable importance did actually exist in Aegaean
3
ANCIENT GREECE
lands long before the first Olympiad, or the invasion of the
Dorians, or even the first coming of those Achaeans by whom
Troy is said to have been sacked — a civilization which in all
probability was already in existence at a period as far anterior
to the age of Pericles as that age is anterior to our own. So
much seems certain ; but what further deductions we are
justified in making, and how we are to adjust and use all the
evidence tliat has come to light, it is at present difficult to see.
It should therefore be the aim of every one who writes on the
subject to place the evidence clearly, fully, and accurately
before his readers and to indulge as little as possible in theoretics.
A certain amount of theory and hypothesis is necessary in
order that the facts may be classified and presented in a dis-
tinct and graphic form, but it must not be forgotten that at
any moment new discoveries may be made which may roughly
upset our most plausible reconstructions.
At what stage in the history of humanity the first wave of
Aryan migration reached Central Europe we have no means
of knowing, but it is indubitable that the people whom we
call the ancient Greeks, and who called themselves Hellenes,
were mainly ^ of this Indo-Germanic race, and that when
their northern ancestors first pushed southward into Greece
they found there a race of quite a different kind — a dark-
haired, lithe-limbed race, which in that age under various
names seems to have inhabited most of the European lands
bordering on the Mediterranean. The Northmen probably
came in small bands at first, and, like the Normans of later
days in Southern Europe, established themselves as chieftains
among the less warlike Southerners. In time they would be
followed by successive waves of invaders, many of whom
would settle in the country, appropriate the land and the
1 This is perhaps too strong. Possibly the intermixture of the northern
(Achaean and Dorian) invaders with the aborigines was in time somewhat
such as that of the Normans with the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic population in
Britain, and the strangely rapid development and perfection of classical
Greek art may have been due to the revival of art-feeling that had existed
in the race before the advent of the northern invaders, just as the supremacy
of Tuscan art in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was possibly due to
the old Etruscan element.
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
women and enslave the men, or drive them forth to take
refuge in more barren or mountainous districts, such as Attica
and Arcadia.^
Now the evidence suppHed by excavation and research points
to the fact that in Greece, at a period not much anterior to
the age of the fair-haired Achaean princes described by Homer,
this dark-haired, hthe-hmbed Mediterranean race was still in
possession ; and similar evidence makes it clear that in Crete
a people probably belonging to the same race, and of a like
civilization, existed from a very early time, and possessed a
powerful empire until the advent of the northern conquerors.
It is this so-called Minoan and Mycenaean civilization which
of late years has been revealed to us.
The Trojan Cities
In the year 1870 the first beginning was made, by Dr. Schlie-
mann, of the excavations that have led to this result. Long
before that date the ancient history of Egypt and of Mesopo-
tamia had been to a large extent reconstructed by the dis-
coveries of monuments and the deciphering of hieroglyphic
and cuneiform inscriptions, but of the first ages of Greece what
few relics were known, such as old ' Pelasgic ' walls and a
few ancient sepulchres and remnants of primeval pottery,
were regarded with hopeless wonderment as the survivals of a
civilization which had passed away into eternal oblivion.
Much incredulity and some ridicule met the enthusiasm of
Dr. Schliemann, therefore, when he announced his intention
first to excavate ancient Troy and then to discover the tomb
of Agamemnon (described by Pausanias) at Mycenae. The
site of Homeric Troy he believed, in spite of the contrary
opinion of scholars, to be that of the later Roman city Novum
IHum, now the Hill of Hissarhk. On this site he and his
successors discovered the remains of no less than seven —
possibly nine — towns. Traces of the rough-stone walls^of
^ In this connexion the celebrated opening chapters of Thucydides' history
should be read. The discoveries of late years have added greatly to their
interest.
ANCIENT GREECE
the earliest of these towns are still visible, and within them
have been discovered fragments of primitive black pottery
and stone implements — among which is an axe-head of white
jade (nephrite), a stone said to be found in its natural state
only in China. ^ The second town had great ramparts with
towers and a fortified gate, all of sun-baked brick, with a
paved ramp and stone foundations. The relics were pottery
(still hand-made) and stone and copper implements. Bronze
seems to have been still rare, but near to the great gate, within
a kind of acropolis, was discovered a very considerable treasure
of gold and silver vessels and ornaments, together with copper
weapons and a hideous leaden idol of some ancient female
deity. The great ramparts and the wealth and art evidenced
by these finely wrought gold and silver ornaments made
Schliemann conclude that this was the Homeric city, and
that he had discovered the Treasure of King Priam. But,
almost incredible as it seemed before the discoveries of similar
treasures and other works of art in Crete and at Mycenae,
it is now believed that this second city of Troy existed at least
a thousand years before the days of Priam and Agamemnon,
and that the ruins of the sixth stratum are in all probability
those of the Homeric city. These ruins consist of great and
well-built walls of wrought stone (Fig. i), far better built
than so-called ' Pelasgic ' walls, and enclosing a very consider-
able area, with remains of a high- terraced acropolis, on the
summit of which was doubtless, as at Mycenae and Tiryns,
the regal palace. Of the four city gates the two greatest,
those to the south and the east, were guarded by strong towers,
and one of these might be the famous ' Scaean Gate ' of the
Iliad except for the fact that Homer's ' Scaean Gate ' seems
to have looked towards the Grecian camp and the sea —
1 Jade and jadite are to be found in the Alps and in European megalithic
monuments. In one of the latter, in Brittany, an axe-head of white jade
seems to have been discovered {Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race, by
T. W. Rolleston). It seems therefore a little over-fanciful to build up on a
bit of nephrite the possibility of commerce between this primeval Trojan town
and China via Nineveh. But even such a guess may be verified by future
discovery.
6
I. Wai,l of the Sixth City of Troy
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
evidently to the north-west, in which part the old walls were
demolished (50 B.C.) in order to fortify Sigeion (Sigeum).
In this sixth city bronze ^ weapons were found, and many
fragments of what is called ' Mycenaean ' pottery — a glazed
and painted wheel-made ware which denotes the later period
of Mycenaean civilization {c. 1400-1200), and which has been
found not only in Aegaean lands, but in Spain, Italy, Egypt,
Cyprus, and Asia Minor. From these and other evidences it
seems highly probable that Homeric Troy was built at the
time when (c. 1350) the northern Achaean race was still pouring
down through Thessaly into I^ower Greece ; that the builders
were a northern Aryan (Danubian) people related to the fair-
haired Achaeans, namely, the Bhryges, or Phrygians ; and
that this sixth city ^ was afterwards burnt by foreign enemies,
whom we may most reasonabl}^ suppose to have been the
Achaean princes of Greece and their followers (a mixed host
of Achaeans, Argives, and Aegaeans) described by Homer.
The Bhryges, or Phrygians, were apparently a tribe of the
same great Aryan race (originally from Northern India, but
long inhabiting Central Europe) to which the Mysians and
perhaps also the Lydians and Lycians and other peoples of
Asia Minor belonged,-^ as well as the Achaeans of Greece. They
seem to have come over from Thrace in successive waves
during several centuries. The second city of Troy was probably
founded by earlier Phrygian or northern invaders, and it was
possibly to later invasions of the same northern race that the
destruction and refounding of the third, fourth, and fifth
cities were due, on which occasions the earlier comers (Lycians
1 But only one specimen of iron— a knife, which SchUemann believed to have
slipped down from a higher stratum.
* Possibly also the fifth, for tradition tells us of a former sack of Troy by
Telamon and Heracles.
^ The original inhabitants of Lydia may have been non-Aryan, but they
were conquered by and amalgamated with the Phrygians. These mixed
peoples are called Maeonians (Mr/ovfy) by Homer, who does not mention
Lydians. The Lycians I believe to have been of Aryan stock, but not the
Carians, whom Homer describes as " speaking a strange tongue." The
Pamphylians are believed to have belonged to the later Dorian race of
invaders, of whom three tribes are often mentioned : Hylleis, Pamphyli,
Dymanes.
ANCIENT GREECE
and others) were driven further south. Or possibly these
Aryan invaders for several centuries, before they made them-
selves masters of these north-western parts of Asia Minor,
had been obliged to fight for existence against the older
inhabitants. Who these older inhabitants were is not known
for certain, but it is believed that in this age the great Empire
of the Hittites, a Semitic race (mentioned in the Old Testament,
and perhaps the K/jreioi of Odyssey xi. 521), whose chief
city was Carchemish, extended over much of Asia Minor.
This seems proved by numerous inscriptions in Hittite script,
a syllabic hieroglyphic writing, which has been partly
deciphered.^ Tablets, too, have been discovered with official
correspondence between the Hittite kings and subject states,
and a cuneiform version of a treaty between the Hittite
king Chetasor and Ramses II of Egypt.
We hear also of a great nation of Cappadocians (probably
different from the Hittites), whose chief city was Pteria.
These nations blocked the western expansion of Babylon and
Assyria, and of eastern art and cuneiform writing.
The Homeric Trojans were evidently a mixed people com-
posed of northern and aboriginal elements (Queen Hecabe,
for instance, was a Phrygian), speaking a language closely
akin to that of the Achaeans, and worshipping similar northern
deities.^ The chivalrous respect with which, in Homer's
poem, the Achaean princes regard their foes doubtless existed
in reality between the northern conquerors on both sides of
the Aegaean, and, in spite of all arguments about pure Achaean
blood and fair hair (which the Phrygian chieftains may also
have had), we can feel assured that the traditions that make
Pelops, the son of the Phrygian king Tantalus, give his name
to the Peloponnese and found the royal house of the Pelopidae,
to which Agamemnon and Menelaus belonged, as well as the
traditions (repeated by the sane-minded Thucydides) which
derived the great wealth of ' golden Mycenae ' from Phrygian
mines and the gold-sands of the Pactolus, have some historical
basis.
1 See Section A, ' Writing/ " See Section B, ' The Old Religion.'
8
00
Id
tn
<
>
2
<
<
z
Cd
<
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
That the founder of a royal Peloponnesian dynasty came
from Phrygia, as tradition avers, we have no good reason to
doubt, but the question is, I think, whether this was not
long before the advent of the Achaeans in the Peloponnese or
the Phrygians in Asia Minor. If it were so, then the older
Pelopid monarchs of Pisa, Mycenae, and Sparta may well have
been of Aegaean or even Hittite race, and have ruled over
an aboriginal Aegaean population, and the tombs of which we
shall soon hear may be those of these older monarchs, into
whose family the Achaeans may have married when they
conquered the land.
Schliemann had proved conclusively that a great Trojan
city had existed, and that it had been burnt about the time
of the traditional date of the Fall of Troy (1184). He had
shown that there is a very solid historical basis in Homer's
great poem ; and further research has enabled us to recon-
struct and rej)eople this Homeric age. But excavation was
to open up vistas into far more distant ages.
Mycenae
Dr. Schliemann had announced his intention of discovering
the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae ; and if he did not find,
as he firmly believed he had done, the tomb and the very
body of the great Achaean king, he found something perhaps
still more wonderful.
Homer's " golden, wide-wayed Mycenae," the home of
Agamemnon, 1 was evidently one of the principal cities of
Achaean Greece, larger than Argos, Tiryns, Corinth, or Sparta.
In later days its importance declined so much that it could
supply only eighty men for Thermopylae and two hundred
for Plataea. Soon afterwards (462) it was destroyed by the
^ Some modern writers have propounded the idea that Agamemnon had
nothing to do with Mycenae, but was king of the old district of Argos in
Thessaly, and was ' translated,' together with his Achaeans and Argives,
to the Peloponnese by some late contributor to the Homeric poems ! This
would indeed be an easy solution of the Mycenae problem. In the Odyssey
Agamemnon is evidently murdered at Mycenae. The dramatists make Argos
the scene of the slaughter.
ANCIENT GREECE
Argives and the inhabitants were expelled, and the ingenuity
of Thucydides finds some difficulty in explaining away the
apparent insignificance of its ruins.
Some of these ruins were the massive ramparts and the
well-known I^ion Gate, which still exist ; and it was within
these walls of the ancient Mycenaean acropolis that the
Greek traveller and writer Pausanias (to whose descriptions
we owe much of our knowledge of Greek antiquities) saw
the tombs, or what were then {c. a.d. 160) beheved to be the
tombs, of Atreus and Agamemnon. " Some remnants of the
encirchng wall," says Pausanias, " are still visible, and also
a gate which has lions over it. These, as they say, were
built by the Cyclopes. . . . There is the tomb of Atreus
and of the men whom Aegisthus slew at the banquet when
they returned from Troy . . . and the tomb of Agamemnon.
But Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus were buried a short distance
outside the walls, for they were deemed unworthy to lie
within, where Agamemnon was interred and those who fell
with him."
Trusting in this description. Dr. Schliemann, in 1876, sank
a pit, some 40 yards square, within the walls of the acropolis,
not far from the Lion Gate. He first came upon stone slabs,
vertical and horizontal, forming what he thought to be the
seats of an agora (place of council). Below these he found
an altar and some tombstones {stelae), and under these again,
some 25 feet below the surface, six square tombs hewn vertically
in the solid rock. These had originally been covered with
great slabs of stone. The slabs had given way, and the tombs
(which are from 10 to 15 feet deep and of various sizes) were
filled with earth and stones, amidst which lay embedded
no less than seventeen human bodies. On excavating these
tombs a great amount of treasure was discovered — rings and
sword-hilts and bracelets and pins and brooches and necklaces
and hundreds of other ornaments, all of pure gold, more than
seven hundred golden plaques (probably once attached to the
women's dresses), diadems of gold on the heads of the women
and masks of gold covering the faces of some of the men,
10
w
H
o
33
w
a
o
P-l
l-t
w
o
o
w
o
o
w
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
besides many other costly objects, in silver, bronze, amber,
and ivory. " Au seul point de vue de la valeur venale," says
Diehl, " les bijoux representent plus de 100,000 francs d'or ;
au point de vue artistique et scientifique, leur prix est
inestimable." It was scarcely strange that Dr. Schhemann
in his hour of triumph dispatched a telegram to the King of
Greece announcing that he had discovered the tombs that
Pausanias describes, and probably the tombs of those Achaean
princes of ' golden Mycenae ' of whom Homer sang. But are
these the tombs which Pausanias saw ? And are they the
tombs of the Achaean princes ? Before venturing to answer
this question let us hear more.
Besides the six shaft-graves on the acropolis there exist
(partly known before excavation by Schliemann and others)
nine great vaulted sepulchres, of which the so-called Treasury
of Atreus is the largest. It is a lofty ' beehive ' chamber,
about 50 feet high, sunk into the side of a hill, and approached
by a deep passage about 40 yards in length. The fagade was
once richly decorated. The portal, which has a Hntel nearly
30 feet long and weighing some 120 tons, was flanked by
alabaster columns with zigzag and spiral ornament.^ Above
the lintel was a large triangle of red porphyry, the architectural
device being evidently copied from the Lion Gate. In these
great sepulchres no treasure was found. They had been
plundered and stripped even of their bronze decorations.
Nor were any bodies discovered. But what few evidences
came to light made it clear that these tombs were of a later
age than the shaft- tombs of the acropolis.
Some less pretentious square tombs with slanting roofs
were also discovered cut out of the rock on a lower level —
probably the site of the town of Mycenae ; and the remains
^ Portions of these columns are in the British Museum. Another similar
tomb, and nearly as large, is known as the Tomb of Clytaemnestra. It was
mostly excavated by Mrs. Schliemann. In order to avoid perplexing the
reader with details I do not describe the further excavations at Tiryns,
Orchomenus, and other places, where interesting evidences of the Aegaean
civilization were found, but nothing at all comparable with the tombs of
Mycenae.
II
ANCIENT GREECE
of a palace, probably of the Achaean age, were found on the
summit of the hills.
Now let us, with the aid of our illustrations, consider towards
what conclusion the evidence points. I believe it will be found
to point towards this conclusion : that the shaft-graves of the
acropolis are the tombs of princes (possibly Pelopidae) who
ruled over an ' Aegaean ' people before the advent of the
Achaean invaders. And I believe that the great vaulted
sepulchres of later date are most probably the tombs of the
Achaean princes,^ and that the palace was built by them.
(i) Firstly, the human remains were skulls and bones " on
which were remnants of flesh and skin." They had evidently
not been burnt. (Ashes were found, but probably these
were the ashes of sacrificed victims — possibly also human.)
Now the Acliaeans, if we are to believe Homer, burnt their
dead, sometimes burying the ashes under a great mound.
Embalming or ' drying ' a body is once mentioned, but the
slain Homeric heroes (Achilles, Hector, Patroclus, Elpenor)
are all burnt on a funeral pyre, and the graphic account of
the process given by the ghost of Odysseus' mother {Od. xi.)
surely shows that burning was customary among the
Achaeans.^
(2) Secondly, the dress and arms of the portrayed Mycenaean
warriors are not at all what one associates with the Homeric
Achaeans. In a siege-scene depicted on a fragment of a silver
vessel (Fig. 5) most of the defenders of the fort are armed with
slings and bows, and are stark naked, while two in the rear
rank are enveloped in great hide (or bark ?) shields, apparently
suspended by a baldrick of thongs or cords, for the men are
^ This is of course inconsistent with the assertion of Pausanias given above.
He may have seen the acropolis tombs, but it is very remarkable that if they
were known in his day they should have remained unrifled.
2 Burial and burning often existed side b}'^ side, as was certainly the case
in the ' classical ' age of Greece. A curious inconsistency occurs to me. The
skeleton of the Achaean Orestes, Herodotus tells us (i. 68), was foiind at
Tegea in a coffin over ten feet long ; but Sophocles brings on to the stage, in
the Electra, the (supposed) ashes of Orestes enclosed in an urn. The supposed
bones of Theseus, who belonged to the Aegaean age, were found by Cimon
in Scyros, whence they were transported to Athens.
12
N
w
H
<!
H
m
<
w
w
>
Pi
W
>
i-T
In
o
{-I
W
o
«
O
W
w
u
I
W
o
w
M
s
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
not holding them. Such shields are found, often in a figure-of-
eight form, on other Aegaean (Mycenaean and Cretan) gems
and seals. This great man-covering, ox-hide shield (" as great
as a tower ") is, indeed, not unknown to Homer, but as a rule
the Homeric shield seems to have been circular and smaller
and carried by a handle,^ and the armour (helm, greaves,
and breastplate) of the Homeric warriors was of bronze.
Now the warriors on the Mycenaean ' Warrior Vase ' (Fig. 8)
do certainly seem to carry a round, or rather a crescent-shaped,
light shield, with perhaps a rim {avrvK) of metal, but the
rest of their equipment is surely not Homeric. Allowance
may be made for the artlessness of the painter, but surely these
fighters are not the well-greaved, bronze-clad and bronze-
helmed Achaeans.
On an old painted tombstone found in the lower town of
Mycenae there is depicted underneath a row of warriors a
row of horses. Moreover, on old Aegaean pottery (see Fig. 33)
and in paintings found at Tiryns and on gems one finds horses,
and also warriors in primitive two-horsed chariots with wicker
breastwork. Does this, it may be asked, point to an age after
the Achaean invasion ? I think not. It is evident that the
horse was introduced into Greece before the coming of the
Achaeans, and probably the ancient myths that describe the
wars between ThessaHan I^apithae and the Centaurs are a
reminiscence of a very early appearance of horsemen from the
north. The myth of Pegasus, too (connected with Perseus
and the Medusa), presupposes a knowledge of the horse.
[It may be remarked in passing that the horse is said not to
be found in early Egyptian art. Possibly it was introduced
by the Shepherd Kings, about 1800. It is first mentioned in
the Bible in connexion with Joseph and Jacob, who died in
Egypt (see Gen. xlvii. 17 and 1. 9). Joseph's chariot is also
mentioned in Gen. xlvi. 29. Joseph probably lived under the
^ This is a point much disputed. Some argue from the apparent incon-
sistencies that the Iliad is a poem of mixed authorship and diverse ages.
The small shield was invented by the Carians, according to Herodotus (i. 171).
The huge shield of Ajax in Homer has seven layers of ox-hide, and must have
been of enormous weight.
13
ANCIENT GREECE
last of the Shepherd Kings. Abraham, who visited Egypt
about the year 2000, was given sheep and asses and camels by
Pharaoh, but no horses are mentioned.]
But to return to the subject of Mycenaean dress. In the
' siege-scene ' there are women standing on the very solidly
and regularly built rampart. They seem to be applauding
their defenders and deriding the foe. Their dress is not easy
to discern ; but on the gold ring (Figs. 7 and 28) one sees
7. From a Mycenaean Goi,d Ring
distinctly what the dress of the Mycenaean ladies of this age
was like. It apparently very much resembled that of fashion-
able dames of modern times, except that the whole bust seems
to have been often uncovered.
Now in Homer the dress of the women is entirely different.
Instead of rich-embroidered jackets or blouses (very ^e'co/Z^^^'^s
sometimes, or conspicuous for their absence) and heavily
flounced skirts and lofty coiffures of hair, the Achaean ladies
wore a thin ^ chiton (tunic, chemise) and an ample over-garment
^ Even the chiton of Odysseus was as soft and glossy as the inner skin of an
onion. See Note B, ' Dress.'
14
8. The ' Warrior Vase '
9. Goi^DEN IMask from Mycenae
14
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
{peplos or pharos) of lighter or tliicker stuff, according to the
season, confined round the waist by
a zone, and fastened over the shoul-
ders and down the side by brooches.
(The peplos given to Penelope by a
suitor had twelve of such brooches ;
and it is remarkable that scarcely
one has been found among all the
Mycenaean treasures.) Over the
head they wore a coif of soft, glisten-
ing tissue {Od. i. 354), and above this
sometimes a large veil {Od. v. 232).
The men, moreover, when not in
armour were not content with the
bathing-drawers sort of garment
which we often find as the only
article of dress in Aegaean por-
traiture, but even such people as
swineherds wore the tunic {chiton)
and a mantle or cloak {chlaina,
pharos). The tunic was fastened
round the waist by a belt {zoster).
Thus the dress, both of men and of
women, of these Mycenaeans, as far
as we can judge from the evidence
supplied by excavation, was very
different from that of the Homeric
Achaeans.
(3) The remains of various palaces
and other buildings discovered at
Mycenae, Tiryns, and other places
where the rehcs (such as pottery)
make us suspect a similar ' My-
cenaean ' civilization are in some
respects hke the Homeric palaces,
and a decorative material men-
tioned by Homer {cyan, or blue glass-paste) has been found.
15
10. Mycenaean Dagger
ANCIENT GREECE
These buildings, however, are possibly not Aegaean, but
Achaean.
(4) Among the weapons dis-
covered at Mycenae are two
daggers (Figs. 10 and 11) the blades
of which are most skilfully inlaid
with gold and silver and a dark
substance on a ground of enamelled
bronze. It is true that we find
something similar in Homer, whose
' Shield of Achilles ' and ' Brooch
of Odysseus ' and ' Belt of Hera-
cles,' as well as his descriptions
of the process of inlaying, testify
to high skill in the art. But here
again we have the loin-cloths and
the figure-of-eight shield (in the
lion-hunt), and a scene which
reminds one much more of Egypt
or Crete than of Homer, namely,
a representation of cats, or ichneu-
mons, hunting ducks amidst the
papyrus on the banks of a river
that may be meant for the Nile.
There was discovered at Thebes in
Egypt a very similar wall-painting ;
but the art of the Mycenae dagger
is distinctly not Egyptian : it is
evidently native work, and is a
striking evidence of the high
development which the art of
the metal - worker had already
reached among the pre-Achaean
Greeks.
(5) But still more striking as
II. Mycenaean Dagger ^Qj-ks of art are two golden
cups (Fig. 13) which were found, not at Mycenae, but at
16
■j
12. Goi,DEN Discs and Shrine
13. Goi,DEN Cups from Vaphio
16
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
Vaphio/ near the ancient capital of lyaconia, Amyclae. The
skill, both in design and execution, with which the scene
(perhaps the capture of wild bulls) is wrought is astonishing.
" We see here, as in the Mycenae daggers, the highest attain-
ments of a mature art, not the promising attempts of one that
is yet in its infancy. . . . They in no way resemble the
often successful but always tentative experiments of an
archaic Greek artist." -
How are we to explain the existence of such art at such an
epoch in Greece ? There are, I think, only two possible
explanations : either these folk of golden Mycenae, whose
warriors were, when clad at all, clad and armed so differently
from the Homeric Achaeans, and whose women-folk were
bedizened like the fashionable dames of latter-day Europe,
not only possessed wealth and an abundance of gold (wliich
assuredly was not produced by the Peloponnese, or any other
part of Greece) and were in a high state of material civilization,
but also must have been the heirs of an age of art — for such works
as these Vaphio cups presume a long artistic training ; ^ or else
these cups are not a native product, but were imported from
some land where art had flourished for a long period. This land
could not have been Assyria or Phoenicia or Egypt, for there
is no trace whatever of the special characteristics of Oriental
or Egyptian art in this splendid repousse work, which is like
some chef-d'ceuvre of Benvenuto Cellini rather than a relic of
antiquity. " The design," says Professor E. Gardner, " which
is all round the outside of the cups, is beaten up from behind
into bold relief and finished with a chisel in front ; the repousse
plates are backed with others which are turned over at the
back, so as to hold in the reliefs." If not native Mycenaean
work, and if not Assyrian, Phoenician, or Egyptian, whence
could these cups have come ?
^ In a great vaulted tomb that had been brought to light by a landslip — ^'
perhaps the tomb of some Pelopid lord of I^aconia.
' Gardner's Handbook of Greek Sculpture.
* If Dr. Flinders Petrie is right in tracing the periodical rise and decline of
art by means of sculpture and in assigning about 2000 years to such periods,
it would seem that the Vaphio cups were the product of an art at least 1000
years old. . - . .
B 17
ANCIENT GREECE
Crete
There can be only one answer. They must have come from
Crete, or must have been the product of Cretan workmanship.
Ivong before — perhaps for a thousand years before — the days of
those ancient pre- Achaean kings whose bones were unearthed
at Mycenae there had existed in Crete a civiHzation which has
only of late years been brought to light, and which we now
know to have produced artistic work of a quality no less
admirable than that of the Vapliio cups, and to have passed
its highest development before the era of ' Mycenaean '
civilization — which civilization seems to have been at its
highest and to have extended over a great part of the Aegaean
islands and over parts of Northern Greece, and to Cyprus and
Rhodes, about 1500 to 1200. This far more ancient Cretan
civilization, evidences of which, discovered during the last
dozen years, take us back to the Stone Age (say 3000 B.C. at
the very least), is only indirectly connected with the history
of the Hellenic race (if one uses the word history in its ordinary
sense), but it is of very great interest and importance in regard
to artistic and religious matters. I shall therefore devote a
short space to its consideration.
The excavations in Crete that have opened up for us a vista
into so vast a realm of the past — very much more distant
than that revealed by the Mycenaean and the Trojan researches
of Schliemann and his successors— were first seriously begun
in 1901 by Dr. (now Sir Arthur) Evans, who went to Crete
primarily in the hope of discovering further evidence of an
ancient written language, his curiosity having been awakened
at Athens by Cretan seals engraved with unknown hieroglyphic
and linear characters. After many difficulties he was enabled
to make extensive excavations on the site of the ancient city
of Cnossus (or Knosos), which Homer mentions as the chief
of ninety (or a hundred) towns of Crete, and where the famous
artist and inventor Daedalus built the lyabyrinth for King
Minos, and a beautiful dancing-ground for the princess, fair-
haired Ariadne. Ere long the excavators unearthed the
foundations of a very large palace, and a vast complex of
18
M
-T>3«9^
14. AcROPOWS, Mycenae
15. Excavations of Palace, Cnossus
18
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
buildings which are beheved by some to have formed the
celebrated Labyrinth. Store-rooms were found with rows of
enormous jars, and shrines with idols and other sacred objects,
and a great hall, and remains of frescoes, still bright with colour,
and a handsome stone seat which has been dignified with the
title ' The Throne of Minos,' and finely worked vessels of
syenite and marble and alabaster and steatite (soapstone),
and a great quantity of tablets covered with inscriptions
of which no single word has been satisfactorily deciphered,
and, of course, a great deal of pottery, some of it dating
probably from at least 3000 — indeed, some of the ancient
black pottery (like Etruscan hticchero) found among the
Stone Age deposits ^ on the hill of Cephala, near Cnossus, may
date from very much earlier times, possibly from 8000.
At Phaestus, on the south side of the island, and at Gortyna
and Gournia and Hagia Triada numerous finds have been made
that have supplemented and confirmed the evidence of Cnossus.
Any day important discoveries may bring us further knowledge
and upset some of our theories.
Let us briefly consider the present evidence, and then see
what conclusions may reasonably be drawn from it. Our
illustrations will give us a fair conception of some of the
relics.
The walls of the palace (especially in the great Hall of the
Double Axes ^) show evident signs of a great conflagration.
Possibly the palace and city were sacked twice during the
long era of this so-called Minoan civilization, and almost
everything portable that w^as worth carrying off (such as
precious metals) has disappeared. Of what remains probably
the thousands of inscribed tablets, none of which has yet
been deciphered, will ultimately prove the most valuable to
the historian, if only some bihngual monument should be
discovered that will enable us to read and understand the old
1 These deposits (beneath the first stratum of the Bronze Age, which
began about 3000) are about 20 feet deep, which gives, according to
the usual calculations of archaeologists, a period of at least six thousand
years.
* For the ' Labrys ' see Section B.
19
ANCIENT GREECE
Cretan language, as the Rosetta stone, with its Greek trans-
lation of a hieroglyphic inscription, enabled Champollion to
read the ancient language of Egypt, and as a list of Persian
kings proved the key to the cuneiform script, and as the
cuneiform version of the treaty between Ramses II and
King Chetasor taught us to decipher Hittite monuments.
But at present these Cretan tablets are a closed book to us,
and it is perhaps the pictures of these Minoan people that most
deeply interest one. In the ' Cup-bearer ' (Fig. i6) we have
a very striking portrait (perhaps some 3500 years old) of
one of these Minoan Cretans — for the features are most
certainly not Oriental or Egyptian. " The flesh- tint," says
Sir^Arthur Evans, "is of a deep reddish brown ; the limbs are
finely moulded, though the waist, as usual in Mycenaean
fashions, is tightly drawn in by a silver-mounted girdle. . . .
The profile is almost classically Greek, and the physiognomy
has certainly no Semitic cast. There was something very
impressive in this vision of brilliant youth and of male beauty
recalled after so long an interval to the upper air from what had
been, till yesterday, a forgotten world." The youth is bearing,
says Mr. Baikie, a " gold-mounted silver cup. His loin-cloth
is decorated with a beautiful quatrefoil pattern ; he wears
a silver ear-ornament, silver rings on the neck and upper arm,
and on the wrist a bracelet with an agate gem." Other
frescoes contain similar youths, a lady (perhaps a queen) in
a magnificent dress, and many other figures, as well as scenes
from bull-fights. In these scenes (found also on seals), athletes,
generally boys and girls, are depicted as awaiting the charge
of the infuriated animal or catching it by the horns and turning
a somersault, or vaulting, over its back. The bull figures
largely in Minoan art. As will be seen later, the animal
was intimately connected with the old Cretan rehgion, a
fact which forms a " sohd point of truth " in the legends
of Theseus and the Minotaur. The connexion between
Mycenaean and Cretan art and religious practices is, more-
over, graphically confirmed by a fresco found at Tiryns,
near Mycenae, and by various gems or seals where similar
20
l6. TllK CUI'-BKARKK, CnOSSUS
20
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
scenes are depicted. It is just possible, too, that the Vaphio
cups may represent a scene of ' bull-grappHng ' {ravpoKaOaypLo)
by athletes.
The Minoan ladies are pictured (as we find also in Egyptian
art and on early Greek vases) wi,th a skin of chalky white-
ness. They are dressed in the same way as the Mycenaean
women already described — with towering coiffures, tight
bodices, often covering but little of the bust, richly embroidered
heavily pleated and flounced skirts, and often with almost
17. Acrobats and Elands (?)
incredible wasp-waists. .Such figures are found both in colour
and also incised on seals (see Figs. 7 and 28).
Besides frescoes there were found figures and other objects
in terra-cotta, faience, ivory, and other material, and brightly
coloured reliefs in plaster, one of which is a life-sized bull's
head (perhaps once a part of a complete bull) . It is very finely
modelled and coloured, and testifies to as highly developed art
as do the Vaphio cups. Also many of the Minoan vessels
are of artistic workmanship. One of the steatite vessels,'
once probably covered with gold-leaf, represents a boxing
match, another a company of soldiers with their officers
(most interesting as a contrast to the Mycenae ' Warrior Vase '),
and another (Fig. 24) a band of people in procession carrying
what may be palm-branches and preceded by a huge figure in
21
1
ANCIENT GREECE
a curious plaited costume. It is generally called a procession
of harvesters, but the presence of a man with a sistrum (metal
rattle) seems rather to point, I think, to some reHgious ceremony
— possibly a procession of Cretan Curetes, the priests of the
Cretan Zeus.
The painted stone sarcophagus found at Hagia Triada
(Fig. 25) is not a specimen of good Minoan art (possibly it
dates after the collapse of Cretan power and art, about 1400),
but is intensely interesting as an illustration of rehgious rites.
I shall speak of it again later, together with various idols,
seals with pictures of demons (genii), and other objects.
The only other relic that I shall here describe is a very
beautiful table (Fig. 19), which is beheved to have been the
board on which some game like draughts (mentioned in Homer)
used to be played. Its framework was of gold-plated ivory,
and it was richly set with crystals, blue cyan, gold, and silver,
and decorated with reliefs of flowers and shells of great
beauty.
Besides such relics we have in the vast ruins a most impressive
testimony to the greatness of Crete in this so-called Minoan
age. Whether or not the excavators have brought once more
to the light of day the veritable Ivabyrinth of Cnossus or
the actual dancing-ground made by Daedalus for fair-haired
Ariadne, they have, at any rate, proved that the ancient
traditions about the great naval power of the Cretans are not
merely empty myths, and they have shown it to be highly
probable that even the Minotaur fable is an imaginative version
of facts, doubtless some of them of terribly tragic nature,
connected with Cretan bull-worship and the bull-grappling
spectacles, in which the boy and girl athletes must have often
lost their lives.
Thus it seems proved that in Crete a civihzed and at one time
powerful nation existed from at least 3000 (possibly from much
earlier) down to about 1350, when some great calamity befell
it, from which it never recovered.
Now both Thucydides and Herodotus speak of the ancient
naval supremacy of Crete under a king Minos. Old myths
22
t^f^l^
i
,■/
h it
VJ
1 8. ' Throne of Minos '
19. MiNOAN Game-board
22
J
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
tell of two Cretan kings of this name. One was the son of
Zeus, a great lawgiver, who after his earthly life was made
a judge (as Homer describes him) in the nether world.
The other Minos was said to be his grandson. He was
the husband of Pasiphae, and in his reign Daedalus built
the Labyrinth for the Minotaur, whom the Athenian hero
Theseus slew. Homer also speaks of tliis later Minos. He
calls him the father of Ariadne and Deucalion and the grand-
father of the Cretan hero Idomeneus, who fought at Troy, and
says that he conversed as a familiar friend with Zeus, and
reigned " for a space of nine years."
Now it is almost certain that ' Minos ' was, Hke ' Pharaoh,'
a royal title, and that these kings of Crete or Cnossus were
beheved to be descended from the great Cretan god, the
Dictaean Zeus, and it is thought that the king, as High-priest
of Zeus, went up once every nine years to ' converse ' with the
deity in the Dictaean cave and to receive his laws (like Moses
on Sinai). Moreover, research and excavation have made it
clear that the old Cretan religion was closely associated
with the bull, as is intimated by the myths of Europa ^ and
Pasiphae. Bulls were doubtless sacrificed to Zeus, and the
king-priest seems to have performed ceremonies in the disguise
of a bull-headed monster — a fact that is probably the real
explanation of the Minotaur and Pasiphae myths. By some
it is believed that the priest-king, when he entered the Dictaean
cave at the end of his nine-years reign, was walled up there,
or slain, 2 and it is evident that at the bull-grappling spectacles
given in honour of the Bull-god many human victims were
done to death, mostly youths and maidens (as in the case
of the sacrifices of first-born children to Moloch). It seems,
therefore, that behind these old m3^ths of the ' Bull of Minos '
^ Europa, according to the myth, was carried off by Zeus, in the form of a
bull, from Phoenicia, and it was formerly assumed that the bull-headed Cretan
deity was the Phoenician Baal or Moloch. Doubtless both the Minotaur and
the Talos myth do seem to point to the bull-headed Moloch and human
burnt sacrifice ; but at present the Phoenicians, like the Pelasgians, are in
disrepute, and it is asserted that Phoenician influence on Crete and Greece
was much later and much less important than was formerly supposed.
^ As happened to the Pharaoh-priest at the ' Sed ' festival in Egypt.
23
ANCIENT GREECE
and Theseus and the Athenian youths and maidens sent every
nine years (as Plutarch tells us) to be given over as victims to
this Minotaur, there is a good deal of fact, and when Thucydides
(who strongly condemns " careless investigation of truth ")
tells us that Minos of Crete was the first monarch to acquire
a navy and that he " made himself master of the greater
part " of the Aegaean and " swept piracy from the sea," we need
no longer doubt his accuracy nor the possibility of trustworthy
traditions of the great Minoan Empire having reached the age
of Pericles. That it was an empire founded on naval supremacy
is remarkably confirmed by the fact that Cnossus possessed no
fortifications. Moreover, the existence of numerous settlements
named Minoa on the Mediterranean shores seems to prove it.
One of these was on the island off Megara. In the Theseus myth
Minos lays even Athens under tribute.
But before we draw conclusions in regard to this Minoan
race and its connexion with the early history of the Hellenic
nation there is another group of evidence to be considered,
namely, that which Egypt ^ supplies.
Egypt and Crete
The earliest evidences of what is called Minoan civilization
in Crete are perhaps a little later than the age (c. 3500) in which
King Mena is said to have founded the first of the Egyptian
dynasties, 2 and the final fall of the Minoan Empire, about
1350, corresponds with the end of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
In the age of the first two dynasties there was doubtless some
intercourse between Egypt and Crete, but the only possible
evidence of it consists in fragments of bucchero (black pottery)
which have been found in very ancient Egyptian tombs,
This pottery is believed to have come from Crete. On the
other hand, very ancient vessels of syenite, some of which have
^ There is only the very faintest evidence, if indeed it can be accepted as
evidence, of any intercourse in these ages between Crete (or any other Aegaean
land) and Babylonia or Assyria, and (what seems strange considering the
gr^at' antiquity of Sidon) very much less Phoenician influence than was
formerly believed to liave existed.
2 Others put this back some two thousand years to 5500.
24
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
been found at Cnossus, are believed to have come from
Egypt. From the era of Cheops and other Pyramid-builders
(Ilird to Xlth Dynasties) there is considerably more
evidence of a similar nature ; but it was not till about 2000,
during the Xllth Dynasty, that the Cretan ware, especially
the beautiful ' Kamares ' porcelain, seems to have been
largely imported into Egypt. Indubitable specimens of this
polychrome Minoan ware have been discovered in Egyptian
tombs of this period, together with cylinders inscribed with
the name of Amenemhat III, the last of the dynasty. It was
this great king who built the Ivabyrinth near Lake Moeris in
Egypt which very possibly was imitated at Cnossus by King
Minos — unless indeed the Egyptian lyabyrinth was suggested
by the Cretan.^
Then follows the Dark Age of Egyptian history (Xlllth to
XVIIth Dynasties), during which for some five centuries the
Hyksos (a Canaanite or African nomad race) were the lords of
Egypt. Of these so-called ' Shepherd Kings ' the only one at
all known is Khyan (' Embracer of Eands '). His cartouche,
carved on a Hon, has been found even at Bagdad, and at Cnossus
the lid of an alabaster box has been discovered bearing his
name. After the Dark Age and the domination of the Hyksos
(broken by the Wars of Independence) we have the famous
XVIIIth Dynasty, founded by Aahmes in 1580. To this
dynasty belonged the great monarchs Queen Hatshepsut,
King Tutmes, and Amenhotep III (Fig. 3), who extended
Egyptian trade and influence into distant countries. In
the numerous inscribed and painted Egyptian records of
this era there figure many foreign races, and among these is
one, that of the Kephtiu, which formerly used to be regarded
as Phoenician, but which is evidently Cretan. In feature, in
dress, and in the high coiffure with long down-hanging tresses,
these painted Kephtiu bear a most striking resemblance to
the type that we have in the ' Cup-bearer ' (Fig. 16), and the
^ This Egyptian Labyrinth, with its 4500 rooms, was seen by Herodotus,
who describes (ii. 148) the enormous complex as the most wonderful building on
earth, " surpassing the Pyramids." Evidently this I/abyrinth was very much
larger than anything discovered in Crete.
25
ANCIENT GREECE
name Kephtiu, which is said to mean ' the men from beyond '
{i.e. from beyond the sea), is one that well suits the Cretans.
Also the fact that these Kephtiu are depicted carrying, as
tribute or gifts, gold and silver vessels very similar to the
Vaphio cups confirms one's belief that they are Cretans,
all the more when one remembers that the era of this
XVIIIth Dynasty corresponds to that of the great Palace
at Cnossus, with its wonderful frescoes and other signs of an
advanced civilization. Moreover, the evidence from pottery is
here very strong, great quantities of Cretan ware of this period
and of the succeeding centuries having been found in Egypt.
It is very striking that about 1400, the era of the sack of
Cnossus and the fall of the Minoan Empire, the Kephtiu suddenly
disappear from Egyptian records, and that some 100 years
later, about the time of the Biblical Exodus, the names of a
number of strange northern tribes are found, among whom are
the ' Aqayuasha ' — very possibly the Achaeans.
Not much later, again (c. 1200 — just about the time of the
Trojan War), a great host of ' people of the sea,' leagued
with the Hittites, threatened Egypt from the north-east, but
they were defeated and dispersed by Ramses III. Among
these invaders are mentioned Danauna (possibly Danai, i.e.
Argives) and Pulosathu, who were probably Cretan refugees and
identical with the Kephtiu — perhaps the Biblical Philistines of
Kaphtor.i
Egypt and Mycenae
During the later period of Minoan civilization (say 1700-1400)
the Mycenaean civilization was probably at its highest, ^ and
^ See Jer. xlvii. 4 and Gen. x. 14. After their defeat by Ramses these
Pulosathu (Pelasgians ? Philistines ?) seem to have settled in Palestine, and
it is remarkable that Cretan pottery is said to have been discovered at their
chief town, Gath. Perhaps Gohath was a Cretan, and perhaps, after all, the
Philistines were of a people that for some reasons may claim to be children of
Light no less than the Israelites — artistically anyhow.
^ Not only are traces of ' Mycenaean ' civilization found in Aegaean lands
and islands, as well as in Northern Greece, and even in Sicily and Spain, but
it seems that there were Mycenaean kings in Cyprus about 1450. And yet
Mycenae was evidently not a great naval power.
26
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
to this period may belong the shaft-tombs on the acropoHs
of Mycenae. Amongst the relics there discovered we have
already noted an evident Nile scene on an inlaid dagger-blade.
But besides this the cartouche of the Egyptian Amenhotep III
(Fig. 3), the great king of the XVIIIth Dynasty, was found
in one of the later vaulted tombs, as well as several pieces
of porcelain inscribed with his name. Amenhotep reigned
from 1414 to 1380, so it seems hkely that these later Mycenaean
tombs were built about 1400. The old Aegaean (Pelopid ?)
kings of the earlier tombs were probably supreme at Mycenae,
and in the rest of the Peloponnese, until about this date, when
Mycenae seems to have been conquered by some foreign enemy.
Shortly afterwards the same enemy seems to have sacked
Cnossus.
General Conclusions
The question now naturally arises, who were these invaders ?
And this question leads us to a still larger one, namely, what
conclusions can we from all this evidence reasonably draw in
regard to the early inhabitants of Greece, and those migrations
and invasions and heroes and dynasties of which Greek myths
tell so much, but which till lately were generally regarded as
quite worthless fables ?
Firstly, then, who were these invaders who seem to have
conquered Mycenae and some years later to have sacked
Cnossus ?
The old tradition, handed down to us by Herodotus, says
that when Daedalus made himself wings and thus escaped
to Southern Italy and Sicily he was pursued by Minos, and that,
Minos having come to a tragic end in Sicily, a great host of
Cretans set forth in ships to avenge his death ; but they failed
in their object and lost their fleet in a tempest and founded
llyndi. in Southern Italy, where they changed their name to
Messapian lapygians. Herodotus also learnt from the inhabi-
tants of Praesos, in Crete, that after this national disaster
" men of various nations flocked to Crete, destitute as it now
was of inhabitants ; but none came in such numbers as the
27
ANCIENT GREECE
Greeks." He places the death of this King Minos three gene-
rations before the Trojan War, say in 1330 — i.e. not long after
the time when, we are assured by modern archaeologists,
Cnossus was sacked and the great palace burnt.
What truth there may be in this tale of a Cretan-Sicilian
expedition one cannot say. Possibly it represents the general
exodus of Cretans after the advent of " men of various nations "
from over the sea. Of these invaders, according to Herodotus,
the Greeks (Hellenes) were the most numerous, and among
the various nations which inhabited Crete in a somewhat
later, post-Dorian, age the first that Homer mentions are the
Achaeans,^ which looks as if then they were still the paramount
race.
All our evidence, I think, points to the Achaeans as the
conquerors of the Mycenaeans and other Aegaean peoples,
and as the sackers of Cnossus, and points to the period
1400-1200 as that during which these northern invaders (of
whom we have already heard much in connexion with the
Homeric age and the sixth city of Troy) extended their conquests
over Greece and as far as Crete. That these Achaeans (perhaps
the ' Aqayuasha ' of Egyptian records, of whom we have
heard) made themselves lords not only of mainland Greece
but also of the Aegaean, and perhaps Crete, seems probable
also from Homer's statement (quoted by Thucydides) that
Agamemnon, the great Achaean king, ruled not only over all
Argos but over ' many islands.'
The second and larger question which we must endeavour
to answer is, what conclusions we may reasonably accept
in regard to the races which inhabited Greece before the advent
of the Achaeans. We have already seen that they were
probably a dark-haired, lithe-Hmbed people, such as we find
the ancient Cretans to be depicted, and we have spoken of
them as the ' Aegaean ' race. lyCt us now hear what old
Greek tradition says about these early inhabitants of Greece,
and their conquerors, the Achaeans.
^ Od. xix. 175. He mentions also aboriginal Cretans, Cydonians, Pelasgians,
and the (evidently later) Dorians.
28
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
At the beginning of his history Thucydides, after speaking
of the continual migrations of the tribes of ancient Greece,
mentions the ' Pelasgian ' name as that which was most widely
applied to these tribes. L^ong before the time of Thucydides
these Pelasgians had been frequently mentioned by Homer,
who speaks of them in Thessaly, Boeotia, Attica, and even
in the Peloponnese, and also in Asia Minor (possibly aboriginal
Phrygians, fighting on the side of the Trojans) and in Crete
He gives the epithet ' divine ' (heaven-descended ? aboriginal ?)
to these Pelasgians. Moreover, he applies the epithet ' Pelas-
gian ' to the northern (Thessalian) Argos, and to the Zeus whose
oracle was at Dodona, in Epirus.
Herodotus also tells us of Pelasgians who built the old walls
of the Athenian Acropolis, and it seems certain that the original
lords of what was later the Athenian Acropolis were those
Pelasgi or Gecropes whom later ' autochthonous ' families
of Athens claimed as their ancestors.
It seems not impossible that these ancient Pelasgians were
of the same race as the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, called
Tyrseni (perhaps ' Tower Men ') by the Greeks. ^ It is also
not impossible that the Pulosathu of Crete (the Philistines?),
of whom we have already heard, were Pelasgians ; and,
lastly, it is quite possible that the Turusha, one of the
oversea tribes mentioned as having invaded Egypt about 1300
together with the Aqayuasha (Achaeans ?), were these Tyrseni
or Etruscans.
However this may be, it is not surprising that formerly all
writers on Greece accepted the word ' Pelasgian ' as the most
satisfactory name to cover the unknown tribes inhabiting
Greece at the time of the Achaean invasions. But of late
^ Hesiod (c. 750), or some early imitator, mentions the Tyrseni of Italy and
possibly even King L,atinus ! The Etruscans called themselves' Rasena.' Some
three centuries later Herodotus asserts that the Tyrseni of Italy came from
Lydia, and also that Pelasgians were expelled from Athens and settled in
Lemnos. Now other traditions say that there were people called Tyrsenes
in I,emnos, who were believed to be Tyrrhenians, and an inscription found
in lycmnos is said to show similarities to old Etruscan. According to Pliny
and Varro, there was a great Labyrinth, like the Cretan, connected with the
tomb of I,ars Porsena at Clusium, in Etruria. Cf. Thuc. iv. log.
29
ANCIENT GREECE
years this name has met with disfavour, for it is evident that
the newly discovered ' Aegaean ' race was not identical with
the Pelasgic, and it is our knowledge of this so-called Aegaean
race that now allows us to reconstruct and repeople to some
extent that obscure ' mythical ' age formerly regarded as
unworthy of the attention of the historian.
The only satisfactory answer, therefore, that we can give
in regard to the pre-Achaean inhabitants of Greece is this :
There were doubtless also other peoples (such as these Pelas-
gians), but in the southern parts of Greece the main race,
and the only race that we really know anything about for
certain, was this Mycenaean, or Aegaean, race, to which
probably the Cretans were closely related. They were a dark-
haired, long-headed people, not of Semitic origin, but possibly
with some affinity to the Egyptians. They lived in Greece in
what is called the Bronze Age — that is, before iron came into
general use — and perhaps before bronze was invented, which
could not have been until tin was brought from western lands
(from Spain, and perhaps even from Britain) . Before tin was
procurable to mix with their copper, which they obtained
in abundance from Cyprus and also from Chalcis, in Euboea,
they were obliged to make their weapons and tools of copper,
or of stone or obsidian. In early times possibly some of these
Aegaean folk {e.g. at Orchomenus, Tiryns, and other marshy
places) dwelt in lake- villages, like the Stone Age inhabitants of
other parts of Europe. The northern invaders, the Achaeans,
seem to have introduced the more general use of bronze for
weapons and armour. Then, about 1250, iron, wliich hitherto
had been among Aegaean peoples a rare material for rings and
small ornaments, began to be used for sharp-edged tools (as
we find it in Homer), and gradually won its way into general
use.^ Possibly the arts of smelting and of forging iron (graphi-
cally described in the Odyssey, ix. 391) may have been intro-
duced by the Achaeans ; but the metal may have been found
less commonly by them in Greece, which may account for its
comparatively rare mention by Homer.
* See Hesiod's Erga for these various Ages. C/. p. 105.
30
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
During this Bronze Age (that is, before the advent of the
northern invaders) there were in Greece doubtless other
important cities, besides Mycenae and Tiryns and Amyclae
and Orchomenus, inhabited by Aegaeans or Pelasgians or
whatever else we may call these early races, but, except in a
few cases, their memorials have utterly perished. Of Athens,
however, and of Thebes we have some remarkable traditions.
Athens in Pre-Dorian Times
On account of the poverty of its soil, as Thucydides tells us,
and also perhaps on account of the more warlike character
of its inhabitants, Attica seems never to have been permanently
conquered by invaders. It apparently remained (as also
Arcadia in the Peloponnese) finally unoccupied by the
Achaeans,! and the ancient Pelasgian race was the main stock
from which the later Athenians sprang, though much else
was grafted upon it. Of these old Pelasgian aborigines a
relic may still be seen, namely, a few blocks of bluish Hme-
stone which formed a part of the rampart built round their
citadel. This old wall was by the later Athenians called the
' Pelasgic ' or ' Pelargic ' wall, and to the north-west of the
Acropohs was an open space called the ' Pelasgion,' on which
it was forbidden to build, until at the beginning of the Pelo-
ponnesian War (431), when thousands were flocking from the
country into the city, the old law was allowed to lapse. 2
Herodotus tells of old Pelasgian kings of Attica, Cecrops
and Erechtheus, regarded, of course, later as divine ^ and
associated with the ancient snake-worship so common in the
cult of the dead. According to one old legend, Cecrops came
from Egypt — which, indeed, possibly was the cradle of the
Aegaean and Pelasgian people. He is said to have introduced
^ This evidently accounts for the fact that Athens is almost entirely ignored
by Homer, the glorifier of the Achaeans. (In later times the Athenians
perhaps inserted certain lines in their own honour.)
' Thuc. ii. 17.
* The ancient Erechtheion, or ' house of Erechtheus,' preceded the temple of
Athene. Some writers assert that Cecrops (as also many another old hero, such
as Odysseus, or even the lawgiver Lycurgus) was originally " only a god."
Surely the reverse process is more credible.
31
ANCIENT GREECE
a higher form of religion and to have aboHshed bloody (human ?)
sacrifice. On the old Cecropian citadel was built by his son
Krechtheus a temple, first dedicated to Poseidon, but after-
wards (as we see from Homer, Od. vii. 82) given over to the
new tutelary deity, Athene ; ^ or perhaps they shared it until
the first Parthenon was built. Aegeus, grandson of Krechtheus,
is said to have been the father of Theseus, and if (as we have
seen to be possible) the myth of Theseus and King Minos
refers to facts that occurred in the last era of Minoan civiliza-
tion — i.e. about 1350 — it will follow that Cecrops might have
lived (granting that tradition is fairly correct) about 1450.
Thus the era of the ancient traditional Pelasgian kings of
Athens would correspond with the highest period of Mycenaean
civilization, and the tradition which tells us that Theseus was
driven from his throne ^ may very possibly be founded on the
fact that the Achaeans, though they did not retain possession,
captured Athens. And the strange story of the fierce battle,
in the very midst of the city, in which Theseus conquered the
Amazons may point to some disturbance caused by the pressure
from the north of the Achaean invaders.
Thebes in Pre-Dorian Times
Another ancient city of Greece was seven-gated Thebes,
which has left us many remarkable legends, but very few ruins,
and almost no relics of its early existence — as is the case
with most places that have been continuously inhabited.
Homer speaks of Amphion (Niobe's husband) and Zethus
as its founders, and perhaps this is the oldest tradition, and
points to a dynasty (possibly from Phrygia, the home of
Niobe and her brother Pelops) before that of Cadmus, who is
^ The contest between Poseidon and Athene for the tutelage of the city was
the subject of the west pediment of the later Parthenon (see Fig. 86). Codrus
is said to have decided it. Others say that it was decided by the votes of the
Athenian women, who beat the men t)y one vote — aid were straightway dis-
franchised 1
2 He retired to the island Scyros, where he was murdered. Some nine
hundred years later what were supposed to be his bones were brought to
Athens by Cimon and consigned to the Theseion (Theseum) — perhaps not
what is now so called.
32
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
generally said to have founded Thebes. Cadmus, according
to Herodotus, was a Phoenician/ and "introduced the art of
writing, whereof the Greeks till then had been ignorant."
Fourth in descent from Cadmus was Oedipus, whose tragic
fate is related by Sophocles. One of the sons of Oedipus,
according to the old legend, expelled by his brother fled to
the Peloponnese and incited the famous and disastrous expe-
dition of the Seven against Thebes, in which six of the seven
heroes perished ; but later their descendants (Epigoni) made
a second expedition and razed Thebes to the ground.
This well-known myth doubtless rests on traditions of real
facts, and these facts were probably of this nature. When
the successive waves of northern invaders — whom we may
conveniently call by the collective name of Achaeans —
rolled southward through Upper Greece, the seven-portal' d
stronghold of Thebes, with its mighty ramparts and towers
(see Od. xi. 264) and its Cadmeia, the acropolis built
by Cadmus, at first proved impregnable ; but after the
invaders had firmly planted themselves in southern Argos
they sent an army across the Isthmus or the Gulf of Corinth
and succeeded in capturing the city. With this theory the
traditional date of Cadmus (1313) and that of the expedition
of the Seven against Thebes (1213) fit in very fairly, and the
theory that these attacks on Thebes were made by an elder
generation of the Homeric ' Achaeans ' and * Argives ' is in
agreement with what Homer and Hesiod and others relate.
But let us hear further what is known, or what may be reason-
ably inferred, about these invaders who, doubtless in many
successive waves and under many different names, poured into
Greece, evidently from the north, during perhaps two centuries
(1400-1200).
It is said ^ that parts of Central Europe during these ages
were peopled by a race which in many points resembled the
^ The name may possibly mean ' the Oriental ' ; cf. Hebrew gedem, the
East. Some, however, assert that what few relics have been discovered of
Thebes are purely Minoan in character.
* See especially Professor Ridgeway's Early Age of Greece. Others regard
this ' Hallstatt civilization ' as dating only from about 700.
c 33
ANCIENT GREECE
Achaeans described by Homer. In the Austrian Alps not
far from Salzburg there is a place named Hallstatt, where
about a thousand graves have been examined. The relics
point to a transition between the ages of bronze and iron.
Armour and shields (round metal shields very unlike the huge
Aegaean shield) and swords of both metals were found, and a
great number of brooches [fibulae, irepovai), such as those
with which, as we have already seen, the Homeric woman's
peplos and the man's chlaina were fastened. Not much silver
was found, but many ornaments of amber (from northern
seas), and gold and a blue vitreous substance like the Homeric
cyan. Both burial and cremation seem to have been prac-
tised. Whether there is any evidence of horses and chariots
I do not know.
It seems possible that bands of this northern, fair-haired,
broad-headed Aryan race ^ made their way from time to time
down into Epirus and Thessaly, and estabhshed themselves
in the district of Pelasgic Argos, also called Phthiotis, the
home of the Homeric Achilles. Here they probably collected a
large army of the native Argives, and at the head of this Argive
host pressed southward, crossed the Corinthian Gulf, over-
ran the Peloponnese (except perhaps Arcadia), and founded
that southern Argos of which Agamemnon was afterwards
king, 2 and which before the advent of the Achaeans and their
Argives was probably called L^arisa (one of the very numerous
' lyarisas,' or forts, in Greece and Asia Minor) and was a mere
outpost of royal Mycenae.
Now in Thessaly, perhaps before the advent of the Achaeans
(unless they accompanied or followed them from the north),
lived a people called Hellenes. They were evidently of Aryan,
not Pelasgic, race. Tradition makes Hellen, their ancestor,
son of the Greek Noah, Deucalion, and asserts that he
^ Tttes-carrles is even nowadays (besides its other meaning) used as a
sobriquet for the Teuton race.
^ In Homer Diomede seems to be prince of the city Argos, probably under
the suzerainty of Agamemnon, who lived at Mycenae. The theory has already
been mentioned that Agamemnon and his Achaeans and Argives were only
transported from Thessaly to the Peloponnese by a poet's imagination.
34
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
reigned over Thessalian Phthiotis, or Phthia, as Homer calls
it, which was the home of Achilles. The district inhabited
by these Hellenes — the original Hellas — seems to have been
the valley of the river Spercheios (now called Ellada), which
runs into the sea not far north of Thermopylae. Some of
these Hellenes seem to have joined in the southward march,
and to have been merged in the larger host of Argives and
Achaeans — for in Homer the Hellenes, and the pan-Hellenes,
are still the Thessalian folk who followed Achilles, and Hellas
is still only a district in Thessaly. It was not till much later,
as Thucydides says, that the names Hellas and Hellenes
won their broader meanings, and denoted the land and the
peoples of what we call the Greek race not only in Greece
proper but in Asia Minor, Africa, Sicily, and Italy. ^
These invading bands of Achaeans, with their Argive and
Hellene followers, seem to have settled themselves chiefly in
the Peloponnese. Mycenae was evidently captured by them,
but the signs of conflagration which are found both at Mycenae
and at Tiryns are very Hkely due to the later Dorians, of whom
we shall hear ere long. The Achaeans were probably not such
a refined and artistically civihzed people as the Mycenaeans
whom they had conquered, but they were not, as the Dorians
seem to have been, what Homer calls " savages wanton and
wild, despisers of justice," and they seem to have assimilated
much that was valuable in the old Aegaean civilization.
Indeed, the pictures that Homer gives us of these Achaean
princes are those of men warlike and haughty, and sometimes
terribly cruel and crafty, but endowed with deep feelings of
affection and reverence and with a keen sensitiveness to all
1 It is curious also how the word ' Greek ' won its way from an equally
obscure origin. Aristotle indeed asserts that near Dodona, in Epirus, there
lived in early ages a people "then called Greeks, but now Hellenes"; and
Sophocles perhaps used the name ; but it is generally supposed that it was
the Romans who first gave the name to the Hellenes whom they met in
Southern Italy (Magna Graecia). It has been pointed out that a band of
Graians from Boeotia joined the Euboeans in founding Cyme (Cumae) in
Italy, and that their name was applied by the Romans to all Hellenic people.
Nations are sometimes named from apparently small causes {e.g. Americans,
Swiss), and are often known to foreigners by non-native names, e.g. Germans,
Allemands, Tedeschi, Dutch, Kafirs, Etruscans (Rasena), I/ycians (Termilae).
35
ANCIENT GREECE
that is gracious and beautiful. To their possession of such
quahties may be due the otherwise inexpHcable fact that the
tombs of the Mycenaean monarchs were discovered intact
after the lapse of more than 3000 years. How these could
have escaped the Dorians and later marauders is puzzling
enough, but that they were not at once plundered by the
Achaeans seems explainable by assuming (as I assumed before)
that these Achaeans did not ravage and enslave, but, like the
Norman adventurers in later ages, constituted themselves the
lords of the native population, and probably married princesses
of the native dynasties. On this assumption Atreus and
Agamemnon, though mainly of Achaean blood, might have
regarded the old Pelopidae as their ancestors, and in this case
would have carefully kept intact their tombs on the acropolis.
Later, perhaps, the effects of some conflagration may have
concealed them from the invader.
Having thus given a sketch of what is known about the early
— so-called Aegaean — age of Greece, and having shown the
connexion between this Aegaean civilization and that of
Crete, Egypt, and Troy, and having discussed some of the
more important traditions in their possible relation to certain
great occurrences in Greece proper down to the final establish-
ment of the Achaeans in Southern Greece (say about 1200), I
shall now, before continuing the account of historical, or
quasi-historical, events, treat in the following three sections
three subjects connected with what has been already written —
namely, the questions of (A) lyanguage and Writing, (B) The
Old Religion, (C) The ' Homeric Age ' and Homer. The fourth
section will contain a chronological table (with, of course,
many somewhat audaciously hazarded dates) which will
give a bird's-eye view of the era that we have been considering.
These and other such sections may be regarded as supple-
mentary monographs, not as integral parts of the main subject
of the book.
36
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
SECTION A : LANGUAGE AND WRITING
A chapter on the old Aegaean and Pelasgic languages
necessarily exhibits some similarity to the celebrated chapter
on the snakes of Ireland. Of ancient Cretan, which was
perhaps related to the Mycenaean and other Aegaean lan-
guages, we do, indeed, possess some thousands of inscriptions,
but not one single symbol or letter of all these inscriptions
has yet been satisfactorily deciphered, far less has any certain
meaning been extracted. It is uncertain whether Pelasgic
was of the same family as the Aegaean and Cretan, and whether
all these languages, or any one of them, belonged to the Aryan
stock or to the Semitic, or to some other entirely unknown
stock, from which perhaps also the Hittite language was
derived.
Herodotus tells us that, to judge from various Pelasgian
tribes of his day (some in Macedonia, others on the Hellespont)
and from cities " which have dropped the name, but are in
fact Pelasgian," their language was certainly ' barbarous ' ;
but of course this is no proof of its having been a non-Aryan
language, and tells us no more than Homer does when he calls
the Carians ' barbarous- tongued.' As we have already seen,
there is a possibility of the Pelasgic being closely related to
the Etruscan, and we have also seen that this same language
may possibly have been spoken by Goliath and his fellow-
Philistines. But to speak of the Pelasgic as the principal
language or dialect of ancient Greece, and to assume that it
may have been the same as the Mycenaean, and related to the
Cretan, is, of course, mere guesswork. All we can be fairly
certain about is that the pre-Hellenic language, or languages,
left behind names of places and other words which were
adopted by the northern invaders, and which are evidently
from no Greek source. ' I^arisa ' is a name that survived both
in Thessaly and in Asia Minor. It seems to mean ' a fortress.'
'Olympos' and 'Parnassus' are others. Words with the termi-
nation -inth{os) are thought to be Pelasgic or Aegaean — e.g.
Corinthos, Tiryn(th)s, Olynthos, Zacynthos, Rhadaminthys,
^7
ANCIENT GREECE
Hyacintlios, and Labyrinthos. As far as we can tell, these
and other such words, supposed to be reHcs of the old Pelasgic
or Aegaean, have no affinity to any Aryan or to any Semitic
language.
Formerly it was believed that no writing existed in Europe
before the Phoenicians introduced their alphabet into Crete,
whence it was brought to Greece. There seems, indeed,
no evidence that writing, whether alphabetic or other, was
known in pre-Hellenic Greece, for although Herodotus (v. 58)
asserts that Cadmus and his Phoenicians brought the art of
writing, " whereof the Greeks had been till then ignorant,"
to Boeotia when they founded Thebes (traditional date 1313),
nevertheless no inscription of any sort has, I believe, been
found in Greece itself of a date earlier than about 700, and
nothing at all in any script except the alphabetic. Amid all
the costly and artistic treasures of the Mycenaean kings
there has been discovered no sign of writing.
But, strange as it may seem, writing was well known at this
time not only in Egypt and Babylonia, and perhaps in a
great part of Asia Minor, but also in Crete, and, as ancient
seals and other inscribed objects prove, it had existed there
ever since at least 2000 — long before the advent of the
Phoenician alphabet. This Minoan script — of which there are
various forms — was probably a Cretan ^ invention, although
in its oldest form it seems to have some affinity to Egyptian
hieroglyphics, and in its later possibly to the Hittite and Cypriot
writing. In its oldest form Minoan script was pictographic.
It consisted of rude pictures or symbols denoting objects
themselves. Later it became hieroglyphic, in which system
the symbol denoted the name of an object, i.e. a word.
Finally it became linear, each sign probably denoting
a syllable (not a mere sound, as in the alphabetic system).
Thousands of tablets with this linear script have been dis-
covered. It went through various changes, and after the
great catastrophe of c. 1400 developed a more systematic
method of representing words and sentences, and a cursive
^ Similar script has been found in some of the islands -i?.^. Thera and Melos.
38
20. Cretan Jars for Oii. or Corn
A,.
m
\\ J
€<>
"m -^
21. Ci.AY Disc of Piiaestus
38
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
character which seems to presume the knowledge of pen and
ink. In the later form the Minoan script stands on a level
very much higher than Egyptian hieroglyphics or Babylonian
cuneiform. Hitherto, as we have said, all attempts to decipher
Cretan script have failed, except that possibly certain numerical
symbols, like the Egyptian, have been recognized.^
Perhaps the most remarkable of all inscriptions found in
Crete is that on both faces of the so-called disc of Phaestus
Ig^pf&qSijgf
22. Cretan Linear Script
(Fig. 2i), a circular clay tablet about 7 inches in diameter.
The date is perhaps about 1800. It is evidently not merely
pictographic, and is divided into periods, which may repre-
sent words, or sentences. The regularity of these divisions
and the repetition of certain symbols, such as the crested or
horse-maned warrior ^ and the circle with seven dots (can they
^ Supposed to have been on a decimal system, the unit signified by an
upright stroke, the tens by points, the hundreds by bars, and the thousands
by lozenges.
2 Reminding one of Egyptian pictures of the Pulosathu (Philistines), and
still more of the description by Herodotus of Libyans in the army of
Xerxes who wore on the head "the scalps of horses with the ears and mane
standing upright asacrest." In Central Africa I have seen similar crests made
of zebra scalps. c^t "-;
^39
ANCIENT GREECE
be the sky and seven planets?), have made some beHeve that
it is a poem — possibly a hymn to the Cretan Zeus or the
Great Mother. Sir Arthur Evans holds it to be I^ycian rather
than Cretan script.
In later times, after Greek influence had established itself in
Crete, there was a considerable district at the eastern end of
the island inhabited by the descendants of the old Cretan
race (Kteocretes, or true-Cretans, as Homer calls them)
Among them an old Cretan language survived, as the Erse
in Ireland and the Basque in Spain. But the old scrij^t was
apparently forgotten, and an inscription in this language
written in Greek letters has been discovered. Unfortunately,
although we can read it, we cannot extract any meaning
from it.
In Greece itself, as has been already said, there has been
found no sign of any script but the alphabetic, and the hope
of discovering a clue to ancient Mycenaean or Pelasgic
is therefore immeasurably less than in the case of the old
Cretan languages. The earliest mention of writing in Greek
literature is probably to be found in Homer's Iliad (vi. i68),
where King Proetus of Argos sends Bellerophon to Lycia
with ' direful signs ' written on a ' closed tablet,' in order that
the lyycian king should kill him on his arrival. These ' direful
signs ' may have been pictorial, or (as Proetus had lived in
I^ycia) they may have been in Lycian writing, ^ or in such a
script as the Hittites employed — hieroglyphic or the so-called
Cypriot syllabarium — which seems to have been widely
used in Asia Minor, for imitations of it are said to have been
found among the ornamental devices on ancient Trojan
pottery.
Although not related in very ancient Greek literature, the
fable of Philomela (daughter of the old Athenian king Pandion)
seems to imply the knowledge of some kind of writing, as she
^ The ancient I^ycian alphabet is said to have had more vowels than con-
sonant?, so that it was probably non-Semitic, but it differed entirely from the
Greek, although Greece and Lycia seem to have been from early times closely
connected. Indeed, the word ' I/ycian ' is wholly Greek. The people called
themselves ' Termilae,' as Herodotus says, and as is proved by inscriptions.
40
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
wove words into a peplos to communicate with her sister
Procne ; and the Apple of Discord was inscribed.
The invention, or anyhow the introduction into Europe,
of the alphabet is due to the Phoenicians.^ The Phoenician
script consisted (like other Semitic scripts) solely of consonants
and breathings. The Greeks seem to have adopted about
fourteen consonants from the Phoenicians and to have used
the Phoenician breatliings (aspirates) to represent the four
vowel sounds A, B, I, O. Then from the East probably came
the Greek upsilon (Y), wliich at first was a consonant {i.e.
the digamma, pronounced like V or F), and the eta (H), which
in classical Greek is e, but at first was an aspirate, as later in
Latin. It is found as aspirate on old Greek vases, Later
it was cut in half vertically, and the halves were used
as the hard and soft breathings. The H as aspirate can be
seen on Hiero's helmet (Fig. yy) and on Tataia's oil-flask
(Fig. 23). Other consonants, e.g. "^, S, and the long vowel
Vt, were invented later — probably in Ionia, or perhaps Sicily.
The ancient 9 [koppa ; Hebr. Koph) was introduced very early
into Corinth, and is found on Corinthian vases down to Roman
times. The old form of the four-stroke S was undulatory,
nearly like our S (Fig. 23). At Corinth it was sometimes
written M. This is found also on coins of Paestum. Euripides
(in a fragment) describes all the letters of the name
9H2EY2, and hence we see that in Attica about 440 the H
was the e and the S was already written with four strokes.
As we have seen, the art of writing is said by old authors
to have been brought to Greece by Cadmus of Thebes. It
is perhaps more probable that it was first introduced from the
East into Asiatic Hellas, and thence to Athens. But several
variations of Hellenic script existed, and the ' Cadmean' or some
other may have preceded the Ionian in Greece proper. The full
alphabet of twenty-four letters (called the Simonidean, after
the Cean poet) seems first to have been used in Samos, and not
to have reached Athens until after the Peloponnesian War
^ How far the Phoenician alphabetic system influenced Cretan script is
not easy to determine. The latest form of Cretan script seems to be syllabic.
41
ANCIENT GREECE
(403). At first the Greeks often wrote from right to left
(see Fig. 23), as was done in Phoenician and other Semitic
languages. Then they sometimes wrote alternate lines in
different directions, " turning the oxen," as they expressed
it, at the end of each Hne {^ovcrrpo(l>riS6v), or else they placed
the words in a column {KiovnSov), as in some Oriental
languages.
We may regard 1000-900 [i.e. about the age of Solomon
and Hiram of Tyre) as the period in which the art of writing
became known to the Greeks through the same Phoenicians
who helped Solomon to build his Temple. Although doubtless
'^^ >V^ y ^
^
.MfAV'®
>s?t 'hc/Jea an 4.*.
■isj"^ Txrcctes c-fu hguSas hos dki/ fit KU^mTvfks f-n^
'-Jam TutaJaJ f^'''^ ^it- uhcriTor Slhd} mc sia/f i^tmc O^nii]
Fig. 23.
it was long before it came into anything Hke general use,
it was most probably used for private, if not pubHc, purposes ^
during one or two centuries before an Attic jar, now in the
Museum at Athens, was incised with what is believed to
be the earhest Greek inscription extant. The inscription,
scratched on the shoulder of the jar in primitive Greek
letters, is to this effect : " He who of all the dancers the most
gaily skips. His shall be this vase." The date of this jar and
of the inscription (which seems to have been incised in the still
soft clay) is supposed to be about 700. Above is shown another
very interesting inscription, perhaps nearly as old, scratched
1 The name of I^ycurgus is said to have been inscribed on the ancient discus
of Iphitus which was preserved at Olympia. The entire absence of all relics
of Greek inscriptions of this age is remarkable.
42
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
by a child (or for a child) on her lekythus — a clay bottle for oil
or scented water. Do not the letters seem to build a fairy
bridge across the gulf of all these 2500 years ? The signature
of the artists Krgotimus and CHtias, who made and painted
the Francois Vase (Fig. 39), may be not very much later.
The Greek inscriptions on the Abu vSimbel colossus (Fig. 44)
are of about 594.
SECTION B : THE OLD RELIGION
When we speak of the old religion of the Greeks as distin-
guished from the later worship of the Olympian deities it must
not be forgotten that the feeling of awe and the sense of mystery
which were the sources of that earlier religion are inexhaustible
in human nature, and that side by side with the worship of
Zeus and Athene there continued to exist all through the
so-called classical age many old rites and esoteric creeds and
secret practices, such as we hear of in connexion with the Eleu-
sinian and other mysteries, and with the Dionysiac (Bacchic)
orgies, and the occult and doubtless sometimes noble teachings
of the Orphic theology. Indeed, this old mysticism long
survived, as it was bound to do, what has been called the
short-lived puppet-show of the Olympian hierarchy, and one
of the last things that we know of the Athenians is that many
centuries after they had lost what little belief they ever had
in the deities of their pantheon they had reverted to that
' wonder ' which is said to be the fountain-head of all religion,
and were standing once more in doubt and awe before the
altar of a nameless god.
It would be futile to divide the ages of Greek history into
certain periods and assign to each its pecuhar form of religion.
But there are certain underlying principles and many external
characteristics which distinguish the pre-Hellenic and the
Homeric forms of religion ; and even the external form of
a nation's religion is of interest and helps one to understand
that nation. I shall, therefore, first consider some of the
distinguishing principles and then some of the very striking
43
ANCIENT GREECE
differences in the kind of deities and the kind of worship that
we find in the two reHgions.
What chiefly distinguishes the old rehgion from the later
is that it was based mainly, if, not entirely, on the dread
of evil spirits {^eia-iSaijuovla) . It was a religion of atone-
ment, propitiation, exorcism, purification, riddance — the
turning aside of evil influence (aTror/ooTD/). Sacrifices and
offerings were made on the principle do ut aheas — i.e. " I give
in order that thou depart."
As it is still with many a barbarous people, so also in Greece
in early times, before the Hellenic imagination had personified
in human shape the powers of nature, every not quite usual
manifestation of natural force and every unusual natural
object was suspected of harbouring powers hostile to man.
" The earth is full of evil things, and full the sea," saysHesiod.
Pests and plagues and deadly ' snatchers ' and winged disease
were lurking and swarming and flitting about on all sides,
and the evil eye was ever on the watch. Ghosts and ghoulish
things haunted the darkness of night and of the grave.
The souls of the dead manifested themselves not seldom
in the form of snakes, to which propitiatory offerings were
made, and the powers of the nether world, hungering for
blood, were doubtless at times appeased by human sacrifice —
of which many evidences survived to a later age in ceremonies
of substitution or other curious rites whose meaning had long
been lost.^ And in later times, as we shall see, there were
many other survivals of old chthonic ritual, as it is called, con-
nected with the worship of the powers of the earth, especially
with that of the Earth-Mother, Demeter, and of Dionysus.
This religion of dread and exorcism gave place — probably
somewhat rapidly and not permanently — to a religion which
was not only wholly different in its external forms of worship,
but was founded on an entirely different basis, namely, that of
service [Qepa-n-eia), the principle of which was do ut des — i.e.
^ The stories of Isaac and of Ipliigeneia denote the substitution of animals
for the human victim. Aelian tells of a curious rite where a baby calf was
dressed up and furnished with boots [cothurni) and thus sacrificed.
44
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
" I give that thou mayst give." The offering was no longer
made in order to propitiate some dreaded demonic power,
but given to a deity endowed with human feelings and human
reason — one who would surely grant some favour in return for
the service. The gloomy chthonic rites and the horrors of
human sacrifice and the orgies of Dionysus Zagreus, in which
the victim was torn to pieces and devoured raw (with some
idea of ' eating the god '), and all the ' spook ' and mystery
and monstrosity and barbarity and sacerdotalism ^ that is
connected with such religion, disappeared apparently in a
short time after the coming of the Achaeans — for in all Homer
there is scarce a trace of such things.^ It is true that we
cannot infer from Homer's picture (even if it is a true picture
of a certain class) that the bulk of the Greek nation in the
so-called heroic age had renounced the old faith and adopted
the new. Possibly behind the dazzling scene of the Achaean
and Argive hosts and behind all the brilliant ' puppet show '
of the Olympian hierarchy there was still a dark background
in Greece itself where the old monstrous beliefs and the old
ritual still lurked, hke the Python of Delphi before it was slain
by Apollo.
But for a time at least this new and brighter rehgion was
destined to prevail — to become the recognized national religion
of Greece — and before returning to consider some of the
ancient pre-Hellenic deities and their ' supersession ' (as it
has been called) by the gods of the northern invaders, we
should note well how the Hellenic imagination transformed
all the ghouls and pests and other evil and monstrous things
into Fates and Harpies and Sirens and Gorgons, depriving
them thus of the vague, gruesome horror of their mysterious
ww-human nature. Apollo comes with his bright shafts, and
^ The immense number of priests, prophets, hierophants, and other such
mediums connected with the Orphic and similar mystic systems is often
mentioned. Priestly ofl&ce connected with the mysteries was the hereditary
right of certain great famiUes, such as the Eumolpidae. What such things
can develop into may be seen from the history of the Persian Magi.
2 There certainly is the slaughter of Trojan captives by Achilles at the
funeral of Patroclus ; but that was scarcely human sacrifice.
45
ANCIENT GREECE
Heracles, the god of health/ the conqueror of Death itself
and the husband of ever-blooming Hebe — and they put to
flight the swarming hordes of evil things, and the mountain
glades re-echo to the laughter of dryads and nymphs, and the
sands of the sea-shore become the dancing-grounds of ocean
nereids. Even the terrible Furies themselves — though in a
later age still worshipped with mystical chthonic rites as
denizens of Hell — seem to have won for themselves a worship
of service, and almost of affectionate veneration, as the August
and Kindly Goddesses. Instead of hideous and savage rites
and human sacrifice and wild orgies where live victims are torn
to pieces and their bleeding flesh devoured by the worshippers
in their mystical yearning to ' eat the god ' and thus participate
in the divine, we have Homeric prayer and sacrifice and libation,
by which the gods are invoked as beings endowed with human
affections, in the full assurance (scarce ever deceived) of help
and favour ; ^ we have joyous sacrificial feasts at which the
gods themselves sometimes are present in visible shape. " Ever
till now," says King Alcinous (who, though no Achaean, is of
orthodox Olympian creed), " ever till now have the gods
appeared to us in manifest form whenever we offered glorious
hecatombs, and they feast with us, sitting at our side where
we are seated. Ay, and if any lonely wayfarer meet them,
they nowise conceal themselves — for we are nigh [akin] unto
the gods." The common form of invocation to the supreme
deity as ' Father Zeus,' the father both of men and of gods,
whose thunder is often a sign of favour, and who " follows
with his protecting care " even the stranger and the beggar, is
in itself a striking evidence of the new religious spirit, reminding
one much more of the northern All-Vater, Woden, than the
Bull-god of Crete or the monstrous and horrid Dionysus
Zagreus.
In Homer all is intensely human. There is none of that
1 Miss Harrison reproduces pictures in one of which Heracles is beating
to death with his club a little winged pest [ktip) — perhaps a prehistoric bacillus
— and in another an emaciated bald-headed thing — perhaps the bacillus of
old age.
^ Unfulfilled prayer we find occasioually ; e.g. Od. ix. 553.
46
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
' spook ' and that childish dread of the supernatural which
often make folk-lore lose its human interest. We find very
few monstrous shapes (such as the huge octopus-like Scylla,
and the vague terror of the ' Gorgon head ' in Od. xi. 634),
no bull-headed or serpent-tailed men (Proteus is no permanent
monster, and the sirens and sea-nymphs are purely human in
form), no owl-headed Athene or cow-headed Hera, although
the old epithets of these goddesses point to the monstrosities
of an earHer creed. Even the winged Pegasus is omitted in
the story of Bellerophon as told by Homer. It is true that
we have Circe (' Hawk-goddess ') with her wand and her
baleful drugs — but how intensely human she is ! How this
' dread goddess,' this hawk-headed Eastern witch, is trans-
formed into a human being with womanly affections of love
and pity ! In the Homeric Hades, too, one feels, it is true, the
presence of the supernatural. But could anything be more
pathetically human than the meeting of Odysseus with his
mother, or with Elpenor, or with Agamemnon — or with
Ajax ? Here and there in the Odyssey charms and drugs
are mentioned — but never with superstitious awe. The plant
' moly ' which Hermes gives Odysseus as a charm — " black at
the root, but the flower is like unto milk in its whiteness " —
excites in us a sense of delight, not of dread or mystery ;
and when the sons of Autolycus bind for Odysseus the wound
that the boar of Parnassus had ripped in liis leg, and " staunch
the dark red blood with a song of enchantment," we notice it
merely as we should notice some old superstitious habit of
the present day. The Cyclops himself is nothing but an
enormous human being ; and he too prays to Poseidon as
his father, although he speaks contemptuously of the gods
as his inferiors in strength. And how the touch of nature
makes us akin to the divine when Hermes complains of his
weary flight across the boundless expanses of ocean, afar from
the cities of men where he might have obtained a little refresh-
ment at some sacrificial feast ! And how touching is the
motherly pride and joy of Leto while she watches her daughter
Artemis among her attendant nymphs ! The Homeric gods
47
ANCIENT GREECE
are as intensely human as the Pheidian gods that on the
Parthenon frieze await the approaching procession of their
worshippers. And they are the gods of all " bread-eating
races of mortals " — universal deities, not mere local or ancestral
divinities.
This different conception of the supernatural was doubtless
introduced by the northern invaders, whom we may perhaps
speak of under the collective name of Achaeans. The character
of these northmen evidently differed much from that of the
southern peoples whom they conquered. They had the vigour,
the courage, the open, if somewhat overbearing and inartistic,
nature of northern folk ; they had the contempt for all craven
dread of supernatural powers and monstrous things which
characterizes the best of the Aryan people. They looked up
to the heights of the sunlit dome of heaven and to the vast
expanses of cloudland and imagined there the home of the
gods — not in the gloom of a nether world haunted by forms of
horror. They did not hide their dead in shaft-tombs, but sent
them heavenwards in the flames that leaped upward from the
funeral pyre.
lyct us now consider some of the ancient deities and rites
as contrasted with those of the later ' heroic ' age. Out of
a vast and confused congeries of fact and theory I shall choose
just a few of the most intelligible.
As in the case of pre-Hellenic races and pre-Hellenic civiliza-
tion, we have to turn to Crete and Mycenae for most of our
evidence in regard to pre-Hellenic religion. The evidence
supplied by Crete is, of course, only indirectly applicable,
but it seems to confirm and supplement what little is known
about the religion of the Mycenaean and other Aegaean and
Pelasgic peoples, if we may use these words to denote the
early inhabitants of what we mean by ' Greece ' and some of its
adjacent islands.
In the earliest age of which we have evidence no temples
seem to have existed. Probably groves and caverns were
first used, such as the cave at Delphi, or the Dictaean cave in
Crete, the fabled birthplace of the Cretan Zeus, where an
48
J
24. ' Harvester Vase '
25. Cretan Sarcophagus
48
f
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
ancient altar and a table of libation have been found, as well
as the ashes of victims and votive offerings, among which
are numerous bronzed models of the double axe, the symbol
of divinity.
In Crete no remains have been discovered of large temples,
but in the palaces as well as in ordinary houses small
rooms seem to have been set apart for worship, and in one
case, at Gournia, what seems to have been a little much-
frequented shrine (for it was approached by a well-worn
paved path) stood in the midst of the town.
In Greece itself, among the Aegaean and Pelasgic peoples,
if we may draw conclusions from the evidence of later days,
the first objects of religious worship were stocks and stones
— possibly sometimes such meteorites as the images of the
Tauric and Ephesian Artemis, which "fell from heaven."
These were at first formless and unhoused. I^ater they were
shaped into some rough resemblance to the human form,
though generally legless, as we see from old descriptions of
archaic wooden Greek idols {^6am), and from many ancient
images in earth- ware which have been dug up.
In Crete, besides such ancient legless and armless idols, have
been discovered many representations or models of (i) sacred
symbolic objects, (2) divinities.
The symbohc objects evidently signified the presence of
divinity in what is called an-iconic ritual {i.e. a ritual without
actual idols ; such as was used in the Mysteries, where certain
sacred objects were believed to possess a supernatural influence) .
Of these symbols the horns of consecration and the double
axe (see the Cretan Sarcophagus, Fig. 25) are the commonest.
The horns (reminding one of the horns of the Jewish altar,
and evidently connected with the worship of a Bull-god
— possibly Moloch) are depicted frequently in frescoes and
on seals when any religious scene is represented. They
have also been found at Mycenae. The double axe also
occurs on seals and in frescoes, often in combination with
the horns, and is, moreover, found impressed on stucco or
cut on stonework.
D 49
26. Griffins and Pn;i,AR
ANCIENT GREECE
In the great Palace of Cnossus this Labrys, or double axe, is
to be seen on many a pillar or block, and it can scarcely be
doubted that Labyrinth
means ' the house [or
place] of the double axe.'
The word Labrys is said
to be Carian. It occurs
in the title Labraunda,
given to the Carian Zeus.
The termination -nth we
have already noted as
probably Aegaean. What
was symbolized by the
Cretan I^abrys, or double
axe, is not known, but
it has been supposed that
it may have intimated
the combined godhead of
Sun and Moon, or of the ancient Cretan Earth-goddess and
the Cretan Zeus. The symbol is not confined to Crete. It may
be seen on Carian
and other coins
(PlatesI.5andV. 2).
Besides the horns
and the axe we find
the pillar — evidently
also a symbol of
divine presence, as
was probably the
pillar set up by Jacob
at Bethel. In the
picture of the lyion
Gate at Mycenae
(Fig. 2) and in the
figure with griffins it will be seen that between the animals stands
a pillar, whereas in the next illustration we have the same
motive, but the goddess herself has taken the place of the pillar.
50
27. Earth-Goddess and I^ions
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
Another symbol, or sacred object, is a tree that reminds
one somewhat of the ancient Babylonian and Biblical Tree of
28. RiTUAi, Dance and Uprooting of Sacred Tree
Life or of Knowledge. It occurs on gems and seals and in
paintings (see Figs. 7 and 28). Sometimes it is being watered
by grotesque genii, or is being uprooted by a priest, or it
bears great bunches of fruit like
dates, which in one case are being
gathered by a diminutive female.
Another very interesting sacred
object — for such it seems to be, as
it was found in a shrine — is a cross
of grey and yellow marble, which is
exactly like a Christian cross " of
orthodox Greek shape," as Sir
Arthur Evans says. A model of
this cross may be seen in the British
Museum.
Many rude idols have been found — mostly legless and
armless — merely grotesque attempts to represent the super-
natural. Remarkable evidences of demon and bogy
worship are given by numerous seals and gems' (see
Fig. 31), where we find hideous and monstrous combinations
51
29. Genii (Priests ?)
WATERING Sacred Tree
ANCIENT GREECE
of bird, beast, and human being. Perhaps they were used as
charms.^
But the most important fact of this nature that has been
brought to Hght by excavation is that the most ancient Cretan
deity was a goddess whom we meet in Greek mythology
under various names — for doubtless Ge (Earth), Cybele ^ or
Rhea (daughter of Earth and the Great Mother of the gods),
Demeter (Mother Earth), and the ancient pre-Hellenic or
Asiatic Hecate or Artemis (triform and many-breasted) are all
■; 30. Tim ' IvADY Or WlIvD CrEAI^URES '
closely related to this ancient Cretan goddess. We find her,
pictured amidst all kinds of wild animals, as the goddess of
nature, the ' I^ady of Wild Creatures ' [Trorvia Ojjpwi), as was
the later Artemis. Frequently, as we have already seen,
she is attended by lions, or by serpents which coil them-
selves around her. Possibly as goddess of the air she is
given doves and other birds, as goddess of earth she is attended
^ Some hold these monstrous forms to be priests or priestesses in disguise,
perhaps performing a kind of transformation dance.
^ Semele (mother of Dionysus) may also mean ' Earth-goddess ' and be
another form of Cybele. Both Cybele and Dionysus are attended by lions.
Cybele (also Cybelle and perhaps Cybebe) seems to have been the Phrygian
name of Rhea.
52
fsi- Cretan Seai^s (from_Zakro)
ANCIENT GREECE
by lions, and as goddess of the nether world she has the
serpent, thus resembhng the triform Hecate — who was moon-
goddess Selene in heaven, the huntress Artemis on earth, and
identical with Persephone in Hades.
According to the Theogony of Hesiod the first of all things
that sprang from Chaos was Gaia, or Ge (Earth), who by
Uranus (Heaven) was the mother of the Titan-god Cronos
(Time?). The sister and wife of this old god Cronos was
Rhea (Rheia), or Cybele, and their children were the elder
Olympian gods, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus
(who seems to have been not the eldest, though the King of
Olympus). Now Cronos had the habit of swallowing his
offspring, but Rhea fled to Crete and gave birth to Zeus
in a cavern on Mount Ida or Mount Dicte ; or, according
to Hesiod, she gave over the child to " mighty Gaia in
broad Crete to nurse and rear," and Gaia hid it "in an
inaccessible cavern under the divine earth on the Aegaean ^
mount."
It seems therefore, I think, very probable that the ancient
Nature-goddess whose effigies have been found in Crete is
this ' mighty Gaia ' of Hesiod — though doubtless she was
assimilated to her daughter Rhea, who, as the mother of Zeus
Cretagenes, is called the Idaean or Dictaean, or the Mountain
Mother {'ISula, AUrvwa, M}/t>;/3 bpeirj).
We have seen how Greek mythology brings the northern god
Zeus to Crete. His worship there was not grafted on to the old
religion till the advent of northern invaders, who made their
supreme Sky-god the son of the ancient Cretan Earth-Mother.^
On old Cretan seals and gems there appears associated with the
great goddess what seems to be an inferior male deity. He
sometimes stands in a reverential attitude before her (as
perhaps in Fig. 27), and is also depicted as floating in the
1 Aegaean (Aigaios) seems to come from some Pelasgic or Aegaeau word
of unknown meaning. The name of this Cretan mountain may have given
rise to the myth that Zeus was suckled in the Dictaean cave by the goat
Amalthea (Grk. aigeios = ' of a goat '). Later writers derive ' Aegaean '
from Aegeus, the father of Theseus.
- On coins of Phaestus Zeus is represented as quite young.
54
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
sky and apparently beating his figure-of-eight shield with
his spear (Fig. 7). This possibly is meant to represent a
sky-god producing thunder, but he cannot well be Zeus, for
these reUcs date from an age far anterior to the introduction
of the northern god. This inferior male deity was perhaps
fused into the person of Zeus Cretagenes.
There were other locahties that claimed to be the birth-
place of Zeus, among them Thebes and Ithome, and also
the Trojan Ida, but the claims of Crete were generally
recognized.
A curious ancient legend relates that Zeus — weary perhaps
of sovereignty — retired to Crete and died there. His tomb was
said to be on Mount Juktas, near Cnossus. Doubtless this
legend inspired the wondrous description by Dante of the
gigantic image (Hke that of Daniel's dream) of Time, or the
World's Ages, standing within the Cretan Ida. The claim
of the Cretans to possess the tomb of the king of the gods is said
to have caused, or increased, their reputation as liars ; but if
the verse quoted by St. Paul was written by Epimenides
(c. 600) they seem to have had the reputation considerably
before what one would consider the probable date of the
decease of Zeus.
There seem to be also evidences of a younger Cretan goddess,
the daughter of the Earth-Mother, whose presence some suspect
in the stories of Britomartis, Europa, and Ariadne. In later
times she seems sometimes to have been identified with
Aphrodite ( Astarte) , but her true representative in the Olympian
family is doubtless Kore {i.e. the Maiden), the daughter of
Demeter, or Ge-meter, the Earth-Mother. This Maiden, it is
fabled, was carried off by Hades to his realm of darkness
while she was gathering flowers, and under the name of
Persephone was made the Queen of the Underworld, but was
allowed every year to return to her mother Earth — an allegory
of the yearly return of spring (see Fig. 32).
Besides these ancient Cretan deities there are, as we have
seen, many evidences of a monstrous bull-headed deity —
whether of native origin or derived from some t auriform
55
ANCIENT GREECE
Oriental deity, such as Moloch, or from the bull-Dionysus of
Thrace, of whose orgies I have already spoken, it is impossible
to feel certain. " Of the ritual of the Bull-god in Crete," says
Miss Harrison, " we know that it consisted in part of the
tearing and eating of a bull ; and behind is the dreadful
suspicion of human sacrifice." As we have already seen,
Minos was probably the high-priest, and was possibly even
regarded as the incarnation, of this monstrous deity, and may
32. The Return of the Earth-Maiden (here Pandora)
have himself been sacrificed in the Dictaean cave at the end of
his nine years of sovereignty. The later legend makes Zeus
the original Phoenician-Cretan Bull-god, and Minos his son,
but it seems more Hkely that the monstrous deity existed in
Crete long before the advent of Zeus or of the Phoenicians,
and that behind the horrid story of Pasiphae and the
Minotaur " there lurks some mystical ceremony of ritual
wedlock [of the Cretan queen] with a primitive bull-headed
divinity."
How far this ancient Cretan religion was similar to the religion
of pre-Hellenic Greece it is impossible to say. The day may
56
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
soon come when a sudden shaft of Hght will be let into what is
still a very dark corner of history. At present we can only
point to the fact that numerous signs of connexion have been
discovered. The bull is found in Mycenaean art ; the horns
of consecration, the double axe, and the sacred tree occur
on (perhaps native) gems and plaques and rings, and in
many ancient tombs in Greece and the Aegaean islands
small rude idols of stone, bronze, lead, and gold have been
found which seem to represent a Nature-goddess (sometimes
attended by birds) similar to, if not identical with, the Cretan
Gaia.
This is practically all that is known of the religion of Greece
before the coming of the Achaeans and the Olympian gods,
and, except what we are told by Homer and Hesiod, and the
still more doubtful evidence that we gather from what was
related afterwards by Herodotus and other Greek writers,
almost all our knowledge of the Olympian gods and ritual
begins after the Dark Age of some three centuries which
followed the next invasion of northmen, that of the
Dorians.
A few facts, however, seem to emerge here and there, and
these we will consider in combination with what we are told
by Homer. But it must be remembered that Homer wrote
perhaps three centuries after the Achaean, or heroic, age,
and may have indulged in a good deal of imaginative recon-
struction.
In Homer we find the regime of the new gods already well
estabHshed. Each has his or her special functions and
appointed place in the Olympian family, and instead of a
Mighty Mother we have a well-marked patria potestas. There
are, indeed, signs that the worship of these new gods had
already lasted a considerable time, for familiarity had already
bred contempt, and the behaviour of some of the deities as
described in the poems was such as to excite indignation in
the mind of even such a philosopher as Plato.
Of most of these Olympians it is difficult to trace the
lineage. In some cases they are doubtless grand and beautiful
57
ANCIENT GREECE
re-creations, the prime elements of which were deities of the
older religions, Northern, Aegaean, Pelasgian, and also some-
times Oriental. But Zeus is apparently almost purely northern
— the Aryan Dyaus-piter, the Day-Father or Sky-god, and
the Papas or Bronton (Father or Thunderer) of the Phrygians.
He was evidently introduced in a very early age into the
mountainous country in North-western Greece (Epirus, or
' Mainland,' as it was called by the islanders), which, as well
as parts of Thessaly, was then inhabited by Achaeans, or
others of the same race, before they made their great descent
on Southern Greece.^ Even before the coming of the Achaeans
there existed in Epirus the far-famed sanctuary and oracle
of Dodona, where some Pelasgian Earth-Mother gave responses
through her priestesses by the murmuring of her doves.
This sanctuary was, it seems, annexed by the northern Zeus,
who (as Homer tells us) adopted the name of the ' Dodonaean '
or ' Pelasgic ' Zeus, As god of the air he gave his oracles
through the voices of winds moaning and rusthng in his sacred
oak-grove amidst the murmur of f alhng waters and the clangor
of bronzen vessels struck by wind-moved hammers. lyater
he was brought to other Pelasgic and Aegaean lands, and
given the kingship of the new Olympian hierarchy. Apollo
was also doubtless of northern origin, but his many diverse
attributes (as Sender of Pestilence, Sun-god, Harp-god, &c.)
show that he was a re-creation out of various deities. There
was later a Dorian Apollo with special attributes (see Pindar,
Pyth. v.), of whom many old statues ^ seem to be repre-
sentations, but by the Achaeans, if we may believe Homer,
Apollo was worshipped as Phoebus, " the bright sun-god "
and sender of sudden death. Hermes, the Messenger, was
probably a native Aegaean (Arcadian) god. The Hermes
statues of later art seem to be a survival of old legless and
armless idols. Demeter, as we have already seen, was
^ The Achaeans were apparently driven finally from Epirus about the time
of the Dorian invasion of Greece (c. iioo) by a barbaric northern tribe, the
Illyrians. Epirus and Aetolia thenceforth were regarded as mainly barbarian
(non-Hellenic) lands.
^ For these ' Apollos ' see p. 225.
58
33- ^IiNOAN, Mycenaean, and Trojan Ware
c. 2000-1300
See List of Illustrations and Note D
58
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
originally a native Earth-Mother. I^eto and Semele and
Dionysus/ Artemis and others were probably old deities,
but they received many new features and were transformed
from grotesque and monstrous forms into creatures of beauty
and grandeur.
Such wondrous transmutation or re-creation one finds in
all great art, but perhaps nowhere as in Homer, When we
think of some ghoulish Aegaean idol or some many-breasted
Cybele and then turn to the majestic Zeus of Homer, or to
Hermes the Messenger, or to Artemis, the virgin huntress
amidst her forest-nymphs, and when we mark the loving
reverence and trustfulness with which Homer's men and women
address the deities and speak of their justice and their affection,
we realize the enormous and seemingly impassable gulf that
separates the two conceptions of deity — conceptions which
were not separated by any wide gulf of time, but probably
existed for a period side by side. Of course. Homer did not
live in the age that he describes, and his poetic instinct may have
eliminated much of the grotesque and monstrous which still
survived in that age, and may have lent it some features that
belonged to his own ; but, however that may be, the Homeric
gods stand already on the same level as the Olympian Zeus
and the Lemnian Athene of Pheidias, or even the still more
humanly beautiful, if less divinely majestic, Cnidian Aphrodite
of Praxiteles. Indeed, Pheidias confessed that he found in
Homer alone the ideal that he realized in his Olympian Zeus.
It is this transforming and creative power which makes
Greek art and literature by far the most precious legacy of
past ages. Antiquarian and historical research gives us what
is mere erudition when it is not touched to life by a love and
admiration for the creations of Greek imagination and the
revelations of Greek thought. All these excavations and
discoveries in Crete and Mycenae and Troy and elsewhere,
as well as all research and higher criticism in such subjects
^ Homer says but little of Dionysus, possibly avoiding him as associated
■with horrors. He associates him {Od. xi.) with Crete and probably with
the Bull-god, as well as with the East (Nysa) and Thrace (//. vi.)- It was left
for later Greek art to transform him into the joyous, boisterous wjne-god.
59
ANCIENT GREECE
as the Homeric question or the Athenian Constitution, derive
their only real value and interest from the fact that they lead
us towards a better understanding and a fuller appreciation
of the art and literature and philosophy of Greece, and of the
character of her greatest men.
SECTION C : THE 'HOMERIC AGE ' AND HOMER
Homer and the ' Homeric age ' do not really belong to the
same period, for the Homeric poems — even the earliest parts
of them — were not written in the age that they describe, as
is evident from the fact that the poet frequently speaks of
the men of his own age as far inferior to the heroes who fought
at Troy, although these were again inferior to the greater
heroes of an earlier age, such as Heracles {II. v. 304 ; Od. viii.
223, &c.) . But it is necessary to treat the two subjects together,
for these poems are the only evidence of this Achaean or
Homeric age. The Mycenaean shaft-graves have indeed
supplied evidence of an age of unsuspected civilization, but,
as we have seen, great differences are apparent in regard to
dress, armour, disposal of the dead, and probably religion,
between the Mycenaean civilization and that world which
Homer describes. These differences and the necessary supposi-
tion of an almost incredibly rapid and complete development
of another state of things, and of another entirely different
conception of deity, coupled with the fact that we have prac-
tically no evidence whatever of this ' Homeric age ' except
what we are told by the Homeric poems, have made some
writers assert that these poems give merely an imaginative
picture of a world that never existed, and that, except a small
' nucleus ' (some ancient ballad describing the ' wrath ' of a
sea-god, Achilles, against a land-god, Agamemnon, both of
whom had their habitat somewhere in Thessaly, whence they
were transported by later Homeric bards to the Peloponnese),
the Iliad is a farrago compounded by several . generations
of rhapsodists, a kind of epical romance in which the fiction
of some long-past mythical age was depicted and from wliich
60
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
almost all anachronisms ^ were carefully eliminated by the
bards themselves and their critical auditors. The Odyssey,
according to such critics, is of much later date than the older
parts of the Iliad, and was compiled by similar bards, or
perhaps by a single highly gifted bard, from old stories of
adventures in the Euxine, which were transferred to western
seas. 2 Moreover, Odysseus was " only a god," and Penelope
only a goddess.
There certainly is much vagueness in the geography of
the Odyssey, and evident confusion of the far East with
the far West. Circe's original home was Colchis, and
her island Aeaea is said to have been near the sunrise. (She
and her brother Aeetes were both, perhaps, originally
bird-headed Eastern deities.) Moreover, the original home
of the Cimmerians was evidently the Crimea. Altogether
there can, I think, be no doubt that the poems, especially
the Iliad, underwent in the course of centuries of public
recitation a certain amount of pruning and reshaping, that
ancient Aeolic words may have been modernized into the
later Ionian dialect, and that lines glorifying certain families
or places may have been inserted, and possibly also some
episodes. Moreover, it is possible that when the poems
were arranged into books and canonized in the age of Peisis-
tratus (about 520) some readjustment and welding took place.
But any long disquisition on these much-vexed questions
1 Such writers point gleefully to numerous cases where "good old Homer
is caught napping " (to use Horace's expression)— various inconsistencies and
slips of memory, such as occur in the best of poets. They also assert that he
sometimes describes shields as man-covering and as huge " as a tower," and
at other times gives the warriors the small round Carian shield and breast-
plates, &c. — as if different kinds of shield and armour might not have been
in use ! Also they point at the mention of iron {Od. six. 13) as "attracting
[to bloodshed]," whereas iron is elsewhere in the poems used only for knives
and axes — not for weapons. But the ' Iron Age ' had already begun, and it
was doubtless used already for weapons, though ' bronze ' was the usual term
in poetry. How plentiful iron already was is plain from Od. i. 184, where a
whole cargo of it is brought from Temesa (in Italy ?).
^ A French writer, Berard, has endeavoured to prove that the Odyssey is
founded on the log-books of Phoenicians (who certainly as early as the time
of Solomon visited Spain, and perhaps South Africa), and discovers Calypso's
island on the African coast not far from Gibraltar.
61
ANCIENT GREECE
would be here out of place, and I shall merely state my own
slowly formed conviction that both these poems owe their
main structure and most of their details to one great poet,
that the age which he depicted was no mere fiction, and that
he lived near enough to that age to paint, by the help of
traditions and ballads, its main features with very considerable
exactitude. It is a saying of Socrates that " about flute-
playing musicians judge best, and about poetry poets." When
the poet Goethe first read the celebrated Prolegomena of the
German scholar Wolf, the originator of modern Homer-
scepticism, he was puzzled and half convinced. But he very
wisely determined to re-read Homer, and ended by recanting
his half assent to the " subjective stuff and nonsense,"
declaring that "behind these poems there stands a splendid
unity — a single, lofty, creative mind." It was doubtless
a similar poetic instinct, innate in the Greek race, which
preserved the true Homer in the midst of a mass of inferior
ballad-epics (those of the so-called Cyclic poets), many of
which had appropriated his name, and finally sifted out the
true ore and cast aside the rubbish.
The old Boeotian poet Hesiod, whose date and works have
been subjected to a similar critical process, but whom (as I shall
explain later) we may very reasonably believe to have lived
not much later than Homer (possibly c. 850), gives testimony,
of course rejected by the critics in question, that an age of
heroes preceded his own age (the age of iron). In this heroic
age, he says, took place the expedition of the Seven against
seven-gated Thebes, and that against Troy for the sake of
fair-haired Helen. I^astly, Herodotus, whose testimony is
however of a much later date (about 480-430), tells us that
he believed Homer and Hesiod to have both lived 400 years
before his time, and after hearing all that modern criticism
has to say I think we may quite reasonably accept this as
fairly correct, placing Homer from half a century to a century
before Hesiod — i.e. about 900 or 950.
Seven cities claimed to have been the birthplace of Homer.
The presence of Aeolic forms in his Ionic Greek seems to prove
62
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
that lie lived in Soutliern Aeolis, perhaps in Chios, or in Cyme
or in its daughter-city old Smyrna, which was then Aeolian.
(It was afterwards moved a few miles south over the Ionian
frontier. But Ionia perhaps did not already exist as a defined
country in Homer's time.) Some, indeed, imagine that the
oldest strata of the Homeric poems were written entirely in
' ancient Aeolic ' (a dialect related to the later ' lycsbian ' of
Sappho and Alcaeus) , and afterwards worked over into Ionic
(an early dialect of the Ionic used some four centuries later by
Herodotus), Aeolian forms being left when the scansion did
not allow of change. This is, of course, pure guesswork,
as is also the theory that the old Achaeans of Thessaly in-
vented the hexameter rhythm, and that their ancient ballads
about their local feuds formed the basis of the Trojan fiction ;
but until this is proved I tliink we may reasonably believe
that Homer belonged to one of the early ' Ionian ' colonial
families who began to come over about 1040, some 150 years
after the fall of Troy had first attracted Achaeans and other
Greeks to settle in Aeolis. Who these ' lonians ' were I shall
discuss in the following chapter. Possibly Homer, though
himself Ionian, lived across the Aeolian (Achaean) border,
and thus came across the old Aeolic (Achaean) ballads (pos-
sibly in hexameter rhythm) and thence formed his great
epic, finding eager auditors amongst the descendants of those
Achaeans who had sacked Troy and opened up the country
to Greek colonization. Whether Homer himself emigrated
from Greece, or whether he ever visited Greece, it is impossible
to say. Hesiod uses words which have been made to mean
that he met Homer at Chalcis, in Euboea, and conquered
him in a poetical contest ; indeed, a varia lectio of these words
[E. 657) asserts this ; but it is very improbable. Homer how-
ever knew Greece well, though he may never have seen it. The
local colour of his poems is that of the mother- country, and
not of Asia Minor. His gods and his Muses dwell evidently
on the Thessalian Olympus. Achaea, Pylos, Mycenae, Argos,
Phthia, and all other Greek places, are spoken of with a kind
of Heimweh; and how often do the expressions ' homewards,'
63
ANCIENT GREECE
' fatherland/ ' land of liis fathers ' occur ! On the other hand,
Asia Minor is for Homer a wild un-Greek country. Of
Phrygia, Maeonia, I^ycia, and of islands such as I^esbos and
Chios we hear {Od. iii. 170), but no word of Aeohs or of
Ionia as Greek colonies. Miletus is mentioned as ruled by
the " Carians of barbarous tongue." Doubtless Homer hved
after the Dorian invasion of the Eastern Peloponnese (about
iioo), and he mentions Dorians as already in Crete; but
he so entirely ignores them otherwise that it seems hardly
possible that they could have already conquered Argos and
Mycenae, and have become the dominant race in Southern
Greece, which happened, as we shall see later, about 950.
But all these questions as to personality and date are
of very trivial importance in comparison with the priceless
legacy of the Homeric poems — which were not written, as is
too often assumed, for the antiquarian and the philologist.
Possibly some day another Schliemann will excavate not
only the tomb of Zeus in Crete but even Homer's tomb in the
island of los, where the pseudo-Herodotus asserts that he was
buried, and put an end to all our polemics as well perhaps
as to such theories as that Odysseus was " only a god," or
that the authoress of the Odyssey was Nausicaa herself —
which has been seriously affirmed by the talented author of
Erewhon.
It would be out of place here to retell the oft-told tale of
Troy and the Wanderings of Odysseus, but for those who
do not reject the world of Homer as a fiction it is intensely
interesting to examine his evidence — the only evidence we
possess — in regard to this age of Achaean supremacy. I will
therefore note a few points.
In the Iliad we find the Achaeans and their Argive soldiery
under the abnormal (though perhaps for them not uncommon)
conditions of war and camp-life in a foreign land, and although
we learn less of the state of civilization than we might have
learnt had the scene of the epic been laid at Sparta or Mycenae,
we learn much else. In the Odyssey, on the other hand, we
have descriptions of home life : of palaces, of farmsteads
64
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
and orchards and agriculture, of tlie cottages and work of
herdsmen, of townsfolk and their town, of meetings of the
citizens, of busy wharves and arsenals and shipping, of masters
and mistresses amid their servants and thralls ; and, besides
these Ithacan and Phaeacian pictures, we are given particulars
of a chariot journey (evidently on a tolerably good road)
across a part of the Peloponnese and a very distinct picture of
the home of Menelaus and Helen at Sparta, and also a glimpse of
the Mycenaean palace of Agamemnon. By means of all these
various pictures, and by fitting together the almost innumerable
details that we find in both poems, we are able to form a fairly
complete conception of the Achaean world in peace ^ and in
war.
Pictures of religious rites, of sacrifices and Hbations and
funeral ceremonies are frequent, and sometimes we are reminded
of the old rehgion. Thus in the visit to Hades {Od. xi.) we
have a threefold libation to the ghosts of the dead — of honey-
milk, of wine, and of water — reminding us of an ancient
Cretan libation table with three basins found in the Dictaean
cave. Moreover, on the same occasion Odysseus fills a hole
that he had dug in the ground with the blood of victims,
and the ghosts come flocking round it in their longing to drink —
a picture that recalls the ' feeding holes ' for blood libation
which have been found on the summit of Mycenaean tombs.
Again, many instances occur of sanctuaries and altars in the
open air, under oaks and plane-trees and palms {Od. vi. 162),
and there is frequent mention of sacred groves and sacred
precincts. But we also have a few definite references to
temples — such as the "house of Erechtheus " at Athens
(possibly a late accretion) and the " temples of the gods " and
the " shrine of Poseidon " (evidently not a grove) in the
^ In the following very incomplete list every word conjures up some
picture or series of pictures for any one who knows the Odyssey : Spinning,
weaving, dress, beds, tables, chairs, metal-work, inlaying, forging, goblets,
brooches, hunting, fishing, vineyards, gardening, bathing, swimming, horses,
mules, goats, cattle, swine, geese, dogs, lions, eagles, palaces, house-building,
ship-building, raft-building, sailing, rowing, feasting, athletic games, boxing,
draughts, ball-playing, acrobats, dancing, music, law-courts, funerals,
sacrifices, beggars, clothes-washing, wagons, chariots.
E 65
ANCIENT GREECE
Phaeacian city {Od. vi. lo and 266), and in the sixth book of
the Iliad there is given with a few touches a fine sketch of the
temple of Athene in Troy and the seated statue of the goddess,
on whose knees (1. 273) Hecabe lays a peplos, just as was still
done by the Athenians of the age of Pericles at the Panathenaic
festival — a scene depicted on the frieze of the Parthenon.
There are also descriptions of funeral ceremonies, such as the
celebrated picture of the funeral of Patroclus in the twenty-
third book of the Iliad, and the exquisitely beautiful, though
possibly not Homeric,^ scene of the mourning for Achilles {Od.
xxiv.), and the cortege round his funeral pyre, and the pathetic
lines which tell us how Odysseus and his men felled trees and
built a pyre and burnt the body of their comrade Elpenor,
and how they then piled a mound above his buried ashes and
erected on the top of the mound the oar " with which in life
he had rowed amidst his mates," as his ghost in Hades had
implored them to do. Achaean funerals, as we have already
seen, were generally of this character — cremation and burial
of ashes. There is, however, one word {Tapxyeiv) thrice used
in the Iliad which seems to point to some older custom, such
as was prevalent in Egypt, for the word means to ' dry ' (like
smoked fish).
Among the Homeric Achaeans the kingship was hereditary,
although it seems as if the family prerogative had to be con-
firmed by Zeus, probably through oracular response or omens,
for Telemachus allows this {Od. i. 386 sq.) and speaks of the
possibility of some other of the Ithacan princes (whom he also
calls ' kings ' — /3ao-<X»>9) being elected instead of himself.
In the Iliad Agamemnon is the over-lord of all the Achaean
princes and the head of the army ; in the Odyssey Odysseus
is the over-lord of all the Ithacan chieftains and nobles and
possesses large estates and many flocks and herds and the rights
^ The so-called NeKuta 8(VTepa (second visit to the dead), if not by Homer
himself, is worthy of him. It is like a figure by Praxiteles added to an un-
finished group by Pheidias. Some afiirm that the first descent (Book XI)
was inserted (and composed ?) by some Orphic teacher, perhaps Onomacritus,
when the Homeric poems were collected and arranged in the time of Peisis-
tratus. This I prefer not to believe.
66
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
of pasture on the mainland and in Ithaca. The king has a
privy council (Boule) formed of elders and nobles, and there is
also a public assembly (Agora), which in the Iliad naturally
consists of all the lighting men — perhaps of others too, for one
can hardly conceive Thersites as a fighter. In the Odyssey
we have descriptions of both Ithacan and Phaeacian assembhes,
consisting evidently of all the free men of the state. They
seem, as a rule, to have been summoned merely to hear the
decisions of the king and his Boule; but sometimes they
certainly took their own course, breaking up in disorder,
some following one leader and some another [e.g. Od. iii.
1375^.).
The land seems to have belonged mainly to the Achaean
noble families, who probably held their hereditary title from
the king and Boule. There seem also to have been ' common
lands ' (//. xii. 422), and even thralls, such as the swineherd
Eumaeus, could receive in tenant-right a ' lot ' (/cXf/^o?)
from his lord, and those who were not landowners {uKXnpoi)
could engage farm-labourers and evidently hire land for culti-
vation {Od. xi. 490), but the family kleroi (allotments) probably
took up most of the good soil and pasturage. These allot-
ments could be divided among members of a family (in Crete
anyhow, as we see from Od. xiv. 209), but, being held in feu-
right from a liege lord, could not be sold. Hesiod, however,
speaks of the gods granting the blessing of " buying your
neighbour's allotment instead of his buying yours." But
that was later, and in Boeotia.
The Homeric palace, or large house, stood often in a pahsaded
or walled courtyard. It consisted of a portico and a raised
' stoep,' where guests slept, and a great megaron (hall) which
was used for meals and also as a sleeping-place ; but there
were also frequently [e.g. in Odysseus' palace) workrooms and
bedrooms in the back part of the house, those for the women
upstairs. Descriptions are given, more or less full, of the palaces
of Odysseus, Alcinous, Menelaus, Circe, and what I have called
glimpses of Agamemnon's Mycenaean palace and of the quarters
of Achilles in the Greek camp. Circe's palace had a fiat roof
67
ANCIENT GREECE
where guests could sleep. The palace of Alcinous had a frieze,
or coping, of blue glass-paste {cyan) such as has been found in a
palace at Tiryns. Its walls were bronzen (doubtless plated with
bronze, as in the ' Treasury of Atreus ' at Mycenae), and its
doors and door-handle were of gold ; the door-posts and lintel
were of silver and the threshold was of bronze. The palace
of Menelaus is described as gleaming with bronze, gold, amber,
silver, and ivory.
Art treasures, Achaean and Sidonian, are frequently de-
scribed : metal-work, embroidery, fine-woven cloths, carved
woodwork, and other artistic objects. The ' Shield of Achilles '
testifies to a high proficiency in the art of metal inlay, though
we must perhaps allow something for imagination. The art
of writing has already been mentioned.
Exceedingly beautiful are the relations between those who are
bound by ties of affection and kinship. Nowhere in literature
is to be found anything more touching and beautiful than the
love of Achilles for Patroclus, of Andromache and of old
Priam for Hector, of Hector for his wife and child, of Tele-
machus for his mother, of Penelope and of Anticleia for
Odysseus ; and even such love is equalled by the tender affec-
tion of the old nurse Eurycleia and the swineherd Eumaeus
and the old Dolius (all of them slaves) for their masters and
their mistress. When the good old swineherd saw Telemachus
once more, whom he feared the suitors had murdered,
... to welcome his master he hastened.
Kissed him on both of liis cheeks, on his beautiful eyes and his forehead,
Kissed him on both of his hands, while big tears feU from his eyelids.
And in the same way all the maids who had remained
faithful to Odysseus, when they recognized him after the
slaughter of the suitors, crowded round him,
Lovingly kissing his head and his shoulders in token of welcome.
Grasping and kissing his hands.
In Homer there is not much of that high-wrought sentiment
which plays such a large part in modern romance. Indeed,
there is a good deal that would offend the dehcate sensibiHties
of the writer and reader of such romance. An hour or so after
68
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
Odysseus' rather unconventional interruption of their ball-
playing on the river-bank, Nausicaa (who was a lady if ever
there was one) confesses openly and without the slightest
touch of sentiment to her maidens that she would be delighted
to have him as a husband.
Passionate love seems in Homer to be regarded as somewhat
contemptible as well as dangerous. The names of Briseis,
Calypso, and Circe do not awaken very pleasant associations.
Helen bitterly bewails, even before Priam, the madness of
passionate love sent her by Aphrodite, and although the
greybeards of Troy seem to condone it on account of her
irresistible charms, and although — what is still more strange —
Menelaus himself condones it, and lives contentedly with her
after her ten years' infidelity, the general verdict seems to
agree with her self-accusation of ' dog-faced ' shamelessness
and with her self -contempt. Clytaemnestra affords another
example. She is described by Nestor as good by nature ;
but illicit love maddened her and led her to murder her
husband. With the deities passion cannot, of course, lead to
crime, for they are above law, but in their case such emotions
are represented as even more contemptible and ridiculous
than in the case of a mortal ; and when Hephaestus, as an
injured husband, demands compensation of Ares {Od. vii.)
the satire reaches its climax.
Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable than the way in
which the gods — who are generally treated with great respect,
and even veneration — are satirized in this matter. The
Homeric Zeus is a majestic figure, and inspires deep rever-
ence in mortal hearts, but he does not escape ridicule.
Although he sends Hermes to warn Aegisthus against
his design of seducing Clytaemnestra, the Father of the
Gods himself earns an unenviable notoriety in matters of
love, and at such moments stands on a much lower moral
level than mortals such as Hector or Odysseus ; for though
Odysseus was not faultless, the relations between him and
Penelope are very much more edifying and very much more
beautiful than are frequently the relations between the King
69
ANCIENT GREECE
and Queen of Heaven. Indeed, family life on earth is pictured
as being on the whole happier than it is in heaven. In spite
of the fact that a wife was often practically bought by the
suitor who could offer the largest ' bride-gift ' to the parents,
married life in that age, if we may accept Homer's descrip-
tions, was often a life of the deepest affection and of
unbounded confidence — such a life as Odysseus himself
pictured to Nausicaa :
So shall the gods all blessings bestow tha* thy soul desireth —
Husband and home ; and oneness of heart may heaven vouchsafe thee.
Blessing supreme — since nought can be wished that is greater and better
While united in heart and in mind are dwelling together
Husband and wife. 'Tis a sight brings sorrow to wishers of evil,
Joy to the wishers of good. But the joy in their hearts is the loudest.
As a description of a work of art — of an art derived from the
old Mycenaean and Cretan artists — the ' Shield of Achilles '
(//. xviii.) is of great interest to the antiquarian, but its chief
value, of course, consists in the fact that it is magnificent poetry
and that it gives such wondrously vivid, and in their main
features doubtless accurate, pictures of the life of this age — the
age of Achaean supremacy. The fivefold shield was wrought
by Hephaestus of " unyielding bronze and tin and costly
gold and silver." In the centre he fashioned " earth and sky
and sea and the unwearied sun and the full moon and all the
constellations with which heaven is crowned, the Pleiades and
Hyades and Orion and the Bear, who alone hath no share in the
baths of Ocean." Round the outer rim flowed the "mighty
strength of the river of Ocean," and in the middle space were
city scenes and scenes of country life. First we have scenes
of peace within a city — a bridal procession, a court of law ;
then we see a city beleaguered, and warriors, led by Ares and
Athene, arming for a sortie and an ambuscade ; then cattle-
lifting and a general fray. Next come pictures of rural life :
a field being ploughed by many ploughmen, and as each one
reaches the limit of the field he receives a cup of sweet wine,
and turns refreshed, eager to reach again the end of his furrow,
" and behind him it grew black, and looked like ploughed
earth, though wrought in gold." Then we have a reaping
70
THE AEGAEAN CIVILIZATION
scene, the heavy crop faUing in swaths at the sweep of the
sickles, and being bound into sheaves, while the king looks on
in silence with exultant heart, and beneath a great oak a banquet
is being prepared. Then comes a vintage scene — the luscious
fruit borne in woven baskets amid music and dancing. Then
herdsmen drive their cattle forth to pasture, and nigh to the
watering-place and the waving reed-bed two lions attack and
drag off a bull, while the men vainly urge on their dogs, who bark
furiously but keep aloof. Then in a beautiful valley we see
a great flock of white sheep and the sheepfolds and the shep-
herds' huts. I^astly, there is a dancing-ground " Hke to that
which once Daedalus made in broad Cnossus for fair Ariadne,"
and here maidens and youths are dancing, those crowned with
fair garlands and these with golden swords hanging from silver
baldricks, and two acrobats are turning somersaults amidst
the surrounding crowd while a minstrel makes music with his
harp.
Very interesting, too, is the description of the dress and
the golden brooch of Odysseus. The passage occurs in the
fictitious account {Od. xix.) that he gives Penelope of how
once in Cretan Cnossus he met and hospitably entertained —
himself !
Purple and thick was the cloak that was worn by the godlike Odysseus,
Twofold, knit by a brooch that was fashioned of gold and was furnished
Doubly with sockets for pins ; and the front was embossed with a picture :
Here was a hound that was holding a dappled fawn with his forefeet,
Watcliing it struggle ; and all that beheld were greatly astonished
How, though golden, the hound kept watching the fawn as he choked it.
While in the longing to win an escape with the legs it was writhing.
Further, I noticed the tunic he wore : 'twas of hnen that gUster'd
I^ike to the delicate skin that is peeled from a shrivelling onion ;
Such was the softness thereof ; and it gleamed as the sun in his glory.
71
w o
ON
O
O
o
Pi
X o
iz;
„ o
>^ o
o
p^
Pi
<
2
o
I— t
H
O
(il
C/5
72
W
CO
W
« .
.2 <u
So
•c P-
o
■a
CO
>-l
.Si N
g .g I ° §
2 S ■ " 2
-a «^ £P
a a B ^
S i 3 rt
0,2 O g
I
o fd
o S a>
w
8. si
M 0) Pa
■— XI ^
^ ui ^
!>, ^ °
2 2 rt
^ g -S
.2 o
^§
Ul ■*-»
(/) u
< M
^ O
X)
H
o
2^
* a 0)
o «
S3S<
o 5p o)
^3 -2-
1-1 ■" J2
.2 8
111
1-1 ^ to
Oh
1^ rt s>
■K ^ 5
1.^ (D
•a
d
o
s
'fl
Q
IS
<:
hj
t/5
Q
<
<
z
w
o
><
H
w
o 5)
c8 " CO n
0) *; <u o
3 '^'^
CO J !-■
■• a
a
o
5 - s "-.r
o.a
.CJ
O
a
W .■-^
CO
O N
CQ
•°2
CO m
m
c
• +-»
^_> C/J (/I
V 3 «
n § ^1
o
82
^•3
-< -9
!>< S
J. a
•-I CO
I-'
D -a
a
CO
vt
Q<
O
H ^
o "
o *->
w CO
O O'^ p.
CO Vh ^ "^^ (/]
s .as a
ao
>
i>
X
.M
(A
■0
X
■3
>.
XI
ni
5.^'
i-i
>>
-M CD
rt
u
-as
P
??j^
R-i
<
Men CO o 2
W — ' t? M CO
(1> >»
XI *i-
8 J< B 3
»s o.'tt o 3
■g .J S CO
|<g coo.
0}
be
<
N
C
o
b.S&, ja
CO— o d
K g«8 «
0. 1/1 3
- m p m
"2 a dtl
— ' CO CU
.^ CO
•a
d
CO
•a
.9
'u
V
c
CO
o
d
d -
tof
X3->
o
■a
d
3
be
3
u
"o"
o
00
(0 <ti
c
u
ci d
ra r—
0?
c i^
c/) Slj 2
s s.a "^
> CO o >»
oj'bo^ 15
B d <',1
S 3 r^ M
t/5
^W
^ 0) rt rt en fl
■o 1- d ^j^'
d -, "g o CO 5f
(D N CO CO ^ +J ,r
d, <D a -o t: .y d
^ T3 o 4) CO XI t;
« 2.d 3 " e-"
bO_i t>-cB d beg-
is
fe
'ji
d
■Q
X3
bo
. d
- S'-^
CO 3-r
bo r
rt
1:S&
g « <u S
CO CO ,1
^rv yxi
^ — .2
""i +j CO ^
d COOi >>
ft ?-
T-1 ^^
fTTrl rt H >-•
E.5fe
OJ 0) O
0) <»S ^^
g<«
bo « 2
<ti CO M
cd "bo S^
t/) m'S
4J d^ •
2 2'**2
2S-g
o
o
00
a
o
;2 >^
-id
o c
o o
<N ft
or
w8
bo
o
-a
M o
K
a
, «
> D 5
"> o 2
tn H rt
fi 3 C
1-1 C I— I
v a w
(U m c
in O
w O
^ -2 "
.5 o
C lO
(D (M
1-1 yj
G ■<-» ui ifl rt
c 4j o ti bo
•a
e
'•4->
Rl
N
'H
_o
"3
a
.5
"3
<
C/J.GHT3
.^ s
-♦-» ^ !-»« "-M
" 5! « o
a
o
til .' ..
<D
►-H rt ,»H
5 in P^-'
So C
^SH
Pn
^3 '^ m O
c8
R)
a
o
"2
c/5
■o
a
a
•a
.a a
O ■So in
or:
«>
^ ri 9,'o _
So a
M Ui o
W - rt _
o .2 §-:2W
c 'a m g c
•3 O S « 4)
W V
« o ,5 " > Sj
bj).^^
H
on
3
T3
o l-l
M O
T3
a
o
'^ .2
m n
o I
I/) o
K.
"■S
t^ TJ -t->
S
-i-i
a
H
o
o
in
O
CO
ID
<ll
CI
<u
•c
iU
o
o o
(/J
is
tS 5
a
o
c
s
<
§ W
T a
o S
mi:
.3 "
0)
4)
«
s
a.
a,
a
a
il
^ >
o
J3
fli
a
c
V
u
ca -a
> (O
■c s
c/i 3
2 XI -
B
OS
X
X
bo
W
v
Di
0, X
bo
w —
3
rt
rt
1) 00
■a "
e
t>>
Q
i-cO
cd
S ^ w 3
O o ns c/)
a.
o
H
,,
>^
,3
■**
xn
Q)
■S
13
o<
n
•a
»-4
n
XI
X
S
►«
cd
j3
>>
Q
.2
S 3
rt o
cj ex
12 t/i
^ n)
N CO
P w
is
o
it: cj
3 OJ
JO (3
• aj
t/] en o
CIS biS
bo
rj « I— I u — '
T3 CU I> J5 ">
t^ « o S 9
lu - -1,
^-<
ui'JS "•"
■m'O <« O
VI CO X] rt CJ
bo
■/i.a
3 >
fl c«
u
u
3.2 0.0^ s
CD 5P" h IU "
'^ «J3 «XJ^
ctf cfi en
CO o S
• " 2
cfl cj o 13
4)
tfl -
S "
*J 4-1
nJ tn
m
cciD,-
ft
3
C0T3 ^
x: c m
C/l 0)
3 c«
^ en c
o tn 0)
S O "
.2 -as
rt B c
5Wbo
H O
■a
<
^ g
in u
•o 1-1
o
a a
a p
a'a
■a
o
bO
<
t/1
8-3 -
S S S
i a B
B
o
Q,CJ
in ^ '
2 •-
"3 o
s I
•a
S
i-2g
f« ft o
cj qT3 ■«
o rt o ai)^
^a«-3
^ t/l <■■ ^ TT
S-Ocn-SfO
U 0)
•rt U *-•
cu
CD
■§
o
V
•**
ei
•O
*-4
c<
a
o
: .;g
C [-4
CO^
o <2
Qg
r<
fio
S 60
°2 ♦■a
i5
C9
X]
_ft
■«
IU
o
o
a
o
73
CHAPTER II
THE DARK AGE
(c. iioo TO 776)
The Dorians : The Coi,onization of Aeows, Ionia, and Doris
SECTIONS : DIPYI.ON ANTIQUITIES : HESIOD : THE PHOENICIANS
AND SOME OTHER NATIONS DURING THE DARK AGE
OF the age that we have been considering, that of
the Achaean supremacy, we have in Homer's poems
a wonderfully distinct, though perhaps somewhat
imaginative, picture. These Homeric men and women and the
world in which they lived, although we have no memorials of
them but words, seem very near to us — nearer by far than
many nations of whom we have abundant relics, such as the
Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians — nearer, too, than
many a people of an age not far removed from our own.
Without its vates sacer this Achaean age would doubtless be
as much of a blank as the three centuries which followed it —
an epoch which is indeed fairly rich in myths, but about which
we know for certain much less than we do about the far earlier
Minoan and Egyptian civilizations. One fact, however, is
indubitable. It was an epoch of great invasions or ' migra-
tions,' which rapidly changed the character of the population
and the civilization in many parts of Greece and extended the
Hellenic name to large tracts of country on the other side of
the Aegaean Sea.
First, let us see what the myths say.
Mythical Accounts of the Migrations
Hellen, king of Phthia, in Thessaly, and son of Deucalion
(the Greek Noah), was the mythical ancestor of all the Hellenes.
74
THE DARK AGE
Aeolus and Dorus were his sons, Achaeus and Ion his grandsons
through another son. From these ' eponymous ' heroes were
descended the AeoHans, Dorians, Achaeans, and lonians.
The Aeohans hved in Thessaly and the Dorians in Doris, a
small district in central North Greece. The lonians settled in
the country afterwards called Achaea, and the Achaeans
conquered the whole of the Peloponnese except this district
of the lonians and the mountain strongholds of the Arcadians.
Now in the Peloponnese there had been before the coming of
the Achaeans two great reigning dynasties — the descendants
of Perseus (who is said to have founded Tiryns and Mycenae)
and the Pelopid princes of Pisa, Olympia, and Amyclae, with
whom, as we have already seen, the northern Achaean invaders
probably intermarried and identified themselves. The last
of the Perseid dynasty had been Eurystheus (the king of Argos
who enslaved Heracles). He was succeeded by the Pelopid
Atreus. On the death of Heracles (traditional date 1209)
liis children were exiled from Argos. They endeavoured to
return and recover their possessions, but after Hyllus, the son
of Heracles, had been killed in single combat they promised
to renounce all further attempts for a hundred years. At
the end of this time (1104) they put themselves at the head
of a great army of Dorians,^ who espoused their cause, and
who were finding the little district of Doris between Oeta and
Parnassus too narrow for their needs. This Dorian host,
helped by the Aetolians and Locrians, built a fleet at a port
thereafter known as Naupactus (' Place of Shipbuilding '),
and overran most of the Peloponnese, which was divided among
the Heracleidae and their Dorian allies. The most powerful
of the Peloponnesian monarchs was the Pelopid-Achaean
Tisamenus, son of Orestes (and, therefore, grandson of Aga-
memnon) . He was either slain or else compelled to retire with
^ Plato gives a very different story, namely, that the Achaeans who
returned from Troy were not received by the people at home, and, being
expelled, put themselves under the leadership of a chief named Dorieus
and changed their name to Dorians. They then allied themselves with the
Heracleidae and recaptured the Peloponnese. This is worth mentioning if
only to show the very great variations in such old myths.
75
ANCIENT GREECE
his Achaeans to the northern district of the Peloponnese,
which was, as already stated, inhabited by lonians. These
lonians were driven out by the Achaeans, and took refuge in
Attica.
Now the king of Athens about this time was Codrus, of the
race of Nestor, whose descendants had been driven out of
Pylos by the Dorians. When the Dorians also attacked Attica
Codrus devoted himself to death, and thus (in accordance with
an oracle) saved his country. His sons quarrelled, and when
the oracle gave its verdict for one of them the other went off
with a ' mixed multitude ' consisting to a great extent of the
Ionian refugees, and, making his way from island to island
across the Aegaean, founded colonies on the coast of Asia
Minor, which ultimately developed into Ionia with its twelve
great cities.
The story of the ' Aeolic migration ' is thus narrated by
old writers.
On the 'Return of the Heracleidae ' — i.e. invasion of the
Peloponnese by the Dorians — those of the Achaeans who did
not remain with Tisamenus in Achaea crossed the Isthmus
and made their way to Boeotia and thence through Thessaly and
Thrace to the Hellespont ; or else they reached the port of Aulis,
the very place where Agamemnon had been delayed by winds
and had started with his assembled fleet for Troy, and thence,
accompanied by many Euboeans and others, they sailed across
the Aegaean by the chain of islands that stretches from Euboea
to the Troad . They made settlements in I^esbos and the ad j acent
mainland, capturing or founding twelve cities, of which Cyme,
named after a town in Euboea, was the first — the mother-
city of Smyrna, and mother, or perhaps sister, to the more
famous Cyme in Italy, the Cumae of the Romans.
Other forms of the legend, one of which is given by Pindar,
make this Aeolian migration take place some twenty years
before the 'Return of the Heracleidae' [i.e. in 1124), and
affirm that Orestes himself led the emigrants. According to
the Augustan writer Strabo, Orestes started with them, but
died in Arcadia — a version which agrees with the story of
76
THE DARK AGE
Herodotus that the bones of Orestes were discovered some
five and a half centuries later at Tegea, in Arcadia.
Now under these various myths about the Dorian invasion
and the Aeolic and Ionic migrations there is doubtless a basis
of historical facts, and probably these facts are somewhat as
follows.
Aeolic Migration
Possibly even before the siege of Troy there had been a
considerable stream of migration across the Northern Aegaean
by way of the islands that form a chain between the Pagasaean
Gulf in Thessaly and the Troad. Pagasae is celebrated in
mythology as the port where Jason built the Argo, and whence
the Argonauts set forth on their voyage to unknown eastern
lands, and the legend evidently gives poetic form to some
such early adventures. From Thessaly, which was in early
days the home of the Achaeans and the ' Aeolian Boeotians,'
it is quite possible that bands of sea-rovers, who either called
themselves or were called by their Mysian and Phrygian foes
Aeolians (possibly a corruption of the word Achaeans), made
their way across to Lesbos and the Troad, and that it was
the hostility between these Greek adventurers and the natives
(also of northern Aryan race) which ultimately brought about
the Trojan War and the expedition of Agamemnon and his
allies and the fall of the great Phrygian stronghold.
Even if we accept Homer's account, which gives no
hint of Aeolian or any other Greek settlements in Asia Minor,
it is not unlikely that the fall of Troy may have at once opened
up the south of the Troad and I^esbos and the adjacent mainland
to emigrants from Greece, Achaean and other, who prob-
ably assembled at Pagasae, or Aulis, or some such point of
departure and crossed the Aegaean by the islands. This
theory seems to fit in fairly well with the version of the myth
which makes Orestes head the first band of emigrants not so
very long after the Trojan War and some time before the
invasion of the Dorian Northmen. Doubtless the pressure
of this invasion caused a large increase of emigration to the
77
ANCIENT GREECE
Aeolian settlements, as well as to the country to the south of
Aeolis, which had been till then only sparsely occupied, if
occupied at all, by another section of the Greek race — the
lonians, or lavones, as they called themselves.
Ionic Migration
According to the myths, as we have seen, the lonians
originally inhabited the north of the Peloponnese, and when
pressed by the refugee Achaeans withdrew to Attica, and thence,
under leaders of the Pylian house of Codrus, passed over to
Asia Minor. This would make the Ionic migration a direct
result of the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese ; and doubtless,
as already remarked, this invasion did cause a great exodus of
the conquered peoples, many of whom made their way to
the islands and to Crete, as well as to the mainland on the
further side of the Aegaean.
As Ionia plays such an important part in Greek history, it
is a question of deep interest who these lavones, or lonians,
were. They are only once mentioned by Homer, He
gives them the epithet ' chiton-trailing ' — a strange epithet
for warriors, and never used by any other Greek writer.
They take part in defending the ships against the attack
of Hector, and are apparently closely associated, if not
identified, with the Athenians. All tradition agrees with
Homer in such association or identification. If not actually
Athenians, these lavones, or lonians, were certainly non-
Achaean settlers in Argolis and Attica, and probably of the
same Aegaean or Pelasgic race as the Athenians themselves. For
it seems fairly certain that the Athenians, who always boasted
of their old Pelasgic origin, remained to a large extent as a
race unaffected both by Achaean and by Dorian influence.
They were, as Herodotus asserts, Hellenized Pelasgians and
Aegaeans rather than true Hellenes. In speech and religion
they were Hellenic, just as much as the Achaeans, but in their
deeper instincts there were elements which were derived from
the old pre-Hellenic race and which very possibly accounted
for many of their characteristics and proved the main cause
78
THE DARK AGE
of that rapid and wonderful aesthetic and intellectual develop-
ment which took place later among the Ionic section of the
Greek race.
In the case of the Asiatic lonians probably these aesthetic
instincts were less modified by vigorous Northern influences
than was the case with the Athenians, and doubtless also
in time the enervating climate (though highly praised by
Herodotus, whose native clime it was), as well as the enervating
influences of the wealthy Lydians and the semi-Oriental
Carians and other peoples of Asia Minor, contributed to
produce that Ionian luxury and voluptuousness which were
in such sharp contrast to the o-w^/oocrwr), the self-restraint,
of all that is greatest in Athenian art and character. For some
centuries, however, Ionia, like the Greek colonies in Sicily and
Italy, seems to have far outstripped the mother-country
not only in the size and magnificence of its cities — some of
which were probably never surpassed by Athens itself — but
also in most civihzed arts. For instance, as we have seen,
Ionia probably knew and practised the art of writing for some
time before it was much used in Greece.
The colonists were by no means only lonians. Herodotus
calls them a mixed multitude composed of many diverse tribes
from North and South Greece. Moreover, he states that they
brought no wives with them and intermarried largely with the
Carians. They founded, or captured and refounded, in course
of time the twelve important cities which later formed the
Ionic Amphictiony, Phocaea being the northernmost and the
southernmost Miletus (formerly a Carian city, according to
Homer), which, together with Myus and Priene, lay on the
magnificent Bay of lyatmus, now changed into a vast swampy
plain by the deposits of the river Maeander. These twelve
cities afterwards had a common place of assembly and of
worship, sacred to Poseidon, on the northern slope of Mount
Mycale. Here they met at the pan-Ionic festival, as the
pan-Hellenic world met at Olympia.
But this is anticipating. For the present it suffices to have
pointed out the probability of this Ionian migration having
79
ANCIENT GREECE
begun before the advent of the Dorians in the Peloponnese,
and to have shown the likeHhood that many of these ' Ionian '
emigrants were of non-Hellenic (that is, of Aegaean rather
than Achaean) race. The fact that in Ionia — indeed, on
all the coast of Western Asia Minor — very few traces of
' Mycenaean ' civilization have as yet been discovered need
not disturb us, for these lonians of, say, iioo were by no means
the Aegaeans of the ' Mycenaean ' age, and the fact that the
great Ionian cities were, with the exception of Miletus, con-
tinuously inhabited down to a late age makes it unlikely that
relics of early times have survived. Moreover, what few
relics have been discovered — especially by Mr. Hogarth in
his excavation of the earliest temple of Artemis at Ephesus —
seem at least to have a strong affinity to the relics of Aegaean
and Cretan civilization. Among these are many figurines of
Artemis as Earth-Mother and golden plaques and the double-
axe decoration.
Doric Invasion
Though the colonization of Aeolis and Ionia evidently began
before the great pressure of the Dorian invasion (c. iioo),
it was doubtless owing to that invasion that such multitudes
found their way across the Aegaean. We have already heard
the mythical account of these Dorians and of the ' Return of
the Heracleidae.' These myths probably arose from the fact
that the descendants of these Dorian conquerors tried to make
out some hereditary claim to the countries which their ancestors
had invaded ; but it is, of course, possible that invasion
may have been incited by exiles, a thing that has happened
many times in history. More probably, however, the Dorians
moved southward because they were hard pressed by other
northern tribes.
Northern Greece had been from early ages the scene of con-
stant invasions and of constant migrations. We have already
heard of a great nation of northern barbarians, the Illyrians,
who poured into Epirus and swept the Achaeans eastward
across the Pindus range into the country north of the Peneios.
80
THE DARK AGE
Hither from the north came the Petthaloi, or Thessaloi, and
drove the Achaeans southward to Phthia. For some time
these Thessahans held North Thessaly and reduced the original
natives to serfdom. Then they attacked the Boeotians, who
were, it is said, an Aeolian people at that time inhabiting
the fertile valley of the Peneios in Central Thessaly. The
Boeotians, forced southward, occupied the country known
henceforth as Boeotia ; and it is likely that this invasion
may have caused the Dorians to cross over into the Pelo-
ponnese. These Dorians were apparently just at that time
encamped in the basin between Mount Oeta and Mount
Parnassus (to the north-west of Delphi). The small area^of
this district of ' Doris ' seems to preclude the possibility
that a great host of warriors, such as the Dorians certainly
were, could have made it their settled home for any length
of time. Probably they had made their way down from
the far north, following the great central range of Pindus,
and had for the time occupied what was afterwards known
as Doris and regarded as the original home of the Dorian
race. During their sojourn here or on their moves southward
(which probably went on for years) they seem to have possessed
themselves of the Delphic shrine and oracle, for we find at
a later period ancient Dorian famiHes at Delphi possessing
prerogatives as Apollo's priests.
Doubtless these Dorians were of the same Aryan stock as
the Achaeans. They seem to have worshipped the same, or
similar, deities, and to have accepted the Olympian religion
as they found it in Greece, possibly adding a few features,
such as the cult of the Doric Apollo — possibly that god of the
sun who with his bright arrows slew the Python of Delphi
and banished the old snake-worship. But in many points
they were evidently very different. Instead of assimilating
the civilization of the conquered peoples they seem to have
swept it almost out of existence. But possibly the ' darkness ' of
this age is due mainly to our ignorance. Although no evidence
is forthcoming of anything in the way of art and refinement
in the countries overrun by these early Dorians during several
F 8i
ANCIENT GREECE
centuries, it is just possible that their advent did not cause such
devastation as has been supposed. Still, judging from the
Spartans, who were the only pure Dorians of later times, one
may reasonably believe that their early ancestors, fresh from
the north, were barbarians such as the Gauls or Huns, and it
seems a very natural conclusion that the Aegaean-Achaean
civilization was for a long time almost annihilated in
Greece, except in Attica, which preserved its independence
and helped also to foster civilization in the colonies of Asia
Minor.
The Dorians seem to have been armed with iron, the
commoner use of which metal may have given them a great
superiority in war. They bore round metal shields, and wore
a square woollen cloak, fastened over the shoulders with
brooches (safety-pins) .
We have seen that they built a number of ships at Naupactus.
In these ships many of them evidently crossed over to the
Peloponnese, landing at various points. They conquered all
the south-western parts, driving out the Achaean or Aegaean
lords of Amyclae, near which they founded Sparta — destined,
though without wall or citadel, to become the mistress not only
of lyaconia, but for a time of nearly the whole of Hellas.
But it seems probable that a considerable force of these
Dorians set forth at once in their new-built ships for more
distant conquests. They captured and occupied the islands
of Thera and Melos, and made a descent on Crete, where they
swept away the last remnants of Minoan civilization and
introduced Dorian customs and laws.^ The similarity of
the name of one of the three Dorian clans (Pamphyli) to
that of the people of Pamphylia has induced some writers
to assert that these adventurers even reached and gave their
name and language to that land.
^ The similarity of Spartan and Cretan laws and constitution is noticed
by old writers. Homer speaks of Dorians as one of many diverse races in
Crete — the only time he mentions the name — and possibly calls them ' three-
tribed.' If these are the Dorians of iioo or so the mention is an anachronism,
but it only proves that Homer did not write before that date. ' Pamphyli '
really means ' of mixed races.'
82
THE DARK AGE
In the Peloponnese the Dorians eventually extended their
conquests to Argolis, and it was doubtless their devastating
fire which, about 950, left its marks on the ruins of Mycenae
and Tiryns. Argos now was made the chief city of the Argive
plain, and the Dorian occupation lasted apparently for some
centuries ; but afterwards, although traces of Dorian govern-
ment remained, Argos became a great adversary of Sparta.
The lofty citadel of Corinth, the Acrocorinthus, was also
seized by a Dorian adventurer, Aletes ('Wanderer'), and
the city, under the sovereignty of the Dorian Argive kings,
became, doubtless by virtue of its two seas, a place of maritime
importance. Even Megara was seized and became a thoroughly
Dorian town ; and later (perhaps about 800) the island of
Aegina was also occupied, and for nearly four centuries proved
a Dorian thorn in the side of Athens, until the Athenians
were forced (as we were in the case of the Acadians of Nova
Scotia) to clear the country of its older population and settle
it anew with loyal colonists.
It was probably after thus extending and consolidating their
conquests in the Peloponnese that the Dorian chiefs led bands
of emigrants across the Aegaean, evidently by way of the
Doric islands of Thera and Melos, to Crete and thence to
Rhodes, where they founded, or annexed, the three cities of
lyindus, lalysus, and Cameirus.^ Then the island Cos was
occupied by them, and two cities, Cnidus and Halicarnassus,
were founded on the mainland. These six settlements formed
the Hexapolis of the new oversea Doris — nominally a Dorian
colony, but to a large extent really Carian ; for, especially
in Halicarnassus, which was by far the most important of
these cities, the native Carian element was preponderant,
and ' Carian dynasts ' (among whom we shall later find Queen
1 Mentioned in the 'Catalogue of the Ships' {Iliad, ii.). The Rhodians
also in this passage are described as divided into three (Dorian) clans. But
the ' Catalogue ' is admittedly full of late intercalations. Thera, Melos, and
Rhodes were colonized by Aegaeans long before the coming of the Dorians.
A ' Mycenaean ' cemetery at lalysus has given many evidences of this.
In Thera a volcanic disturbance buried a Mycenaean town, which has been
partially excavated, and in Melos a citadel has been discovered dating from
about 2000.
83
ANCIENT GREECE
Artemisia I and Mausolus) seem to have established their
rule from an early period.
Thus during this so-called Dark Age very great and im-
portant movements and changes evidently took place. The
Aegaean, from which (if Thucydides is right) in an earlier
age the Minoan fleets had swept the pirates and expelled the
Carians, became during this period a Grecian sea, fringed on
all sides, except the extreme north, with Grecian colonies —
which extended, as we shall see later, even to Cyprus. Nor
were the changes in social and political matters less important,
for even in the twilight of the archaic period, before we emerge
into the full light of history, we can discern the fact that
the old monarchical system has already begun to give way,
that to a considerable extent constituted law has taken the
place of absolute government and those unwritten traditional
ordinances {Ot-fxiareg) of which we hear in Homer, and that
the city, with its larger and more systematized community
and its function as political centre of a district, has succeeded
to migratory life and loosely grouped village communities clus-
tered (as in Mycenae) around the stronghold of some chieftain.
Moreover, the sites of towns were affected by the new state of
things, as Thucydides tells us in his celebrated opening chapters.
"When there were now greater facihties for navigation," he
says, "cities were built with walls on the sea-shore, and they
began to occupy isthmuses, with a view to commerce and
security, whereas the older cities, owing to the long continuance
of piracy, were built farther off the sea." Of the cities especially
affected by the disappearance of piracy and the more settled
state of things was Corinth, which took advantage of its
position on the Isthmus, and in early days became a great
emporium and the first naval power in Greece, so that we
may well credit the assertion of Thucydides that the first
triremes were built there ^ — war-galleys of 170 oars with
^ This was not until c. 700, when they were perhaps introduced by the
Phoenicians. The trireme does not seem to have superseded the old fifty-
oared biremes in other parts of Greece till shortly before the Persian wars
(c. 500). In later times warships had often five banks. Alexander and the
Ptolemies built vessels which, it is avSserted, had forty banks !
84
THE DARK AGE
three banks of oarsmen — and that the first Greek naval battle
was between the Corinthians and their own colonists, the
Corcyraeans.
Of other cities in Greece during this Dark Age we have a few
dim myths and a few reUcs, such as the contents of the so-called
Dipylon cemetery at Athens (see Section A) and various objects
found at Argos and Sparta. But when the veil rises and Greek
history begins we find some of these cities, or rather states
(for they had already begun to develop into organized com-
munities), furnished with constitutions and in possession of
much else that necessarily presumes a considerable period of
stable government and prosperity. It will therefore be well
to consider here some of the more important facts connected
with two cities which will later occupy much of our attention,
namely, Athens and Sparta, and see how far these facts, as
they meet our view at the dawn of history (say about 700),
may be traced to their sources in this Dark Age (say between
1000 and 700), although in doing this we shall be forestalling
to some extent. It is, of course, quite incredible that these
three or four centuries between the Dorian invasion and the
beginning of certified history should in Greece itself have been
a total blank, but almost the only proof that it was not so
resides in facts that really belong to the next age — facts which
it may not be too audacious to try to trace to their origin with
the help of more or less mythical accounts given by ancient
writers.
Athens
Of Athens and its ancient mythical history we have already
heard something, namely, how it was perhaps captured, but
not permanently held, by the Achaeans, how it repelled the
Dorians and retained its independence, and how the last of its
kings, Codrus, for his country's sake devoted himself to death
(c. 1044).
Now so great, it is said, was the admiration of the Athenians
for this heroic act of Codrus that they determined to allow
no one else the royal prerogatives, and elected Medon, the son
85
ANCIENT GREECE
of the king/ as their chief magistrate for life, giving him the
title archon {' ruler'). Such is the possibly mythical version
of the fact that early in the Dark Age the absolute monarch in
Athens was superseded by a constitutional and accountable
magistracy — perhaps elected by the nobles out of their own
body. This magistracy consisted probably from the first
of three archons, such as existed (though combined later with
' lawgivers *) down to the time of the Roman Emperors. They
were the chief civil magistrate (called later eponymos, because
he gave his name to the year), the chief military commander
(polemarch) , and the King Archon [hasileus) . The King Archon
may at first have belonged to the royal house, but he held the
merest shadow of kingly power, being allowed to retain little
but the pontifical functions of royalty (as the Rex Sacrificulus
at Rome after the expulsion of the kings and the election of
praetors and consuls). This seems to have been in many
of the states of Hellas the first stage in the evolution of the
later republics. On account of the great increase of ordinary
citizens, traders, agriculturists, and so on, the military element
gradually lost its exclusive political influence, and the king,
as head of the army, lost his political supremac5^ Some
powerful clique or family of nobles then assumed this supremacy,
electing perhaps one of their number as polemarch, or war-
leader, and others as permanent, or annual, civil magistrates.
This state of things — that of a close aristocracy or oligarchy
— we find in early days at Corinth, where the Bacchiad family
for a considerable time held the reins of government. And as
it happened at Corinth, so it also happened in many other cases
that some specially strong-minded and ambitious noble over-
threw the aristocracy (sometimes by coming forward as a
demagogue and obtaining the support of the people) and
constituted himself ' tyrant ' or despot. He differed from a
hereditary monarch by basing his claims on force rather than
1 His younger brother, Neleus, led the emigrants to Ionia (see p. 78). The
archonship was at first a life-office and perhaps limited to the Medontid
family. About 750 its term was reduced to ten years, in 683 it was made
an annual office, and finally the nine chief magistrates were all called
archons,
86
THE DARK AGE
on divine right, and generally surrounded himself with a strong
bodyguard, but not unfrequently he proved a beneficent
ruler, and one that forwarded the material prosperity of the
people far more than was often done by republican govern-
ments. The last stage of evolution was, as we shall see later,
the establishment of a constitutional democracy on the expul-
sion of the tyrannos.
It was either during the reigns of the early Athenian kings
(tradition attributes it to the reign of Theseus) or shortly
after the institution of the archonship that Athens became
the capital of the whole of Attica — an event which was of the
very greatest moment, giving her in time a position as political
centre of an united state which was possessed by no other city
in Greece. In spite of the poverty of its soil Attica had received
many foreign immigrants, such as the Achaean and the Ionian
refugees. We hear of twelve Attic ' kingships ' in the age of
Cecrops. These petty chief tains in course of time, either by com-
pulsion or willingly, became subject to the growing Athenian
power, which extended its dominion first over the plain of
the Cephisus and then over the country east of Mount
Hymettus and north of Pentelicus from Cape Sunion to
Marathon. To the west, over Eleusis and its plain, the new
Athenian state did not for the present extend its sovereignty,
but the whole of the Acte (or ' coastland ') — from which word
is probably derived the name ' Attica ' — formed now a single
community.^ This community was divided into four tribes,
which received old Ionian names, ^ the meanings of which are
obscure. Tradition attributes the formation and naming of
these four ' Ionian ' tribes of Attica to the mythical King
Ion, ancestor of all lonians. Some modem writers assert
that the names were derived from Miletus, where similar tribes
existed. But it seems more reasonable to suppose that they
were names in use among Ionian settlers in Attica, who
probably were divided into four tribes as the Dorians were
^ This (TvvoiKia, or Union of Attica, was commemorated even in the days
of Plutarch by a festival in which offerings were made to the goddess Eirene
(Peace).
3 Geleontes, Argades, Aegicores, and Hopletes.
87
ANCIENT GREECE
into three. Each tribe had its tribe-king, and contained
three phratrias (brotherhoods) and numerous clans and
famihes.^ The famihes of each clan recognized, and perhaps
worshipped, a common ancestor, or a special deity, and were
bound together by various social ties. They had a special
burial-place, and perhaps community in land property.
But besides this it seems probable that from the first these
four ' Ionian ' tribes were divided into the trittyes (thirds)
and naucraries (shipownings) of which we hear so much in
later days. These divisions were perhaps local (like the
original demes, or townships, into which Theseus is said to
have portioned out Attica), but they were evidently made for
purposes of military and naval finance, the naucraries each
probably supplying, as later in Solon's constitution, the equip-
ment of one ship.^
During this period of about three centuries {i.e. from the
abolition of monarchy until the first Olympiad), during which
Athens gradually became the political centre of Attica, the
Athenian state was doubtless, as we find it still in the seventh
century, an aristocracy with democratic tendencies. This
seems plain not only from the political constitution which we
have been considering, but also from what little we know of
the social order. The whole people was divided into three
classes, the Eupatridae ('Well-born'), the Georgi (' lyand-
workers '), and the Demiurgi (' Pubhc Workers '). The nobles
were large landowners. Many of them had removed into the
city from their country estates, which they worked by means
of labourers, who retained a sixth of the produce. The Demi-
urgi were craftsmen of all kinds, such as those who made
and painted those ' Dipylon ' vases which are the sole relics
of this age. Some of the workers probably had a limited
franchise, but there seems to have been a large number
^ In later writers the calculation was i tribe = 30 phratrias. = 90 clans =
2700 families, thus giving 10,800 families in all.
* Until lately this has been doubted, and the word naucraria has been
derived from other sources, because it was assumed that Athens hacl no
fleet before the time of Solon. We shall see that this a.ssumptiou was vfrong.
See Section A.
88
THE DARK AGE
even of the free population who had not the rights of
citizenship.
This is about all we know, or can venture to guess, about
Athens in the Dark Age, except what we may infer from what
is called ' Dipylon civiHzation,' which I shall consider later.
Sparta
I^et us now turn to Sparta, which offers a very interesting
contrast.
After the Dorians had established themselves in the western
and southern part of the Peloponnese some of them seem to
have put themselves at the head of bands of those fighting
men and adventurers who had doubtless accompanied them in
great numbers from the north and to have set forth in quest
of new conquests in lands over the sea. Other Dorian chiefs
in course of time, as we have seen, also doubtless at the head
of armies largely composed of non-Dorians, made themselves
masters of Mycenae, Argos, Corinth, and even Aegina. But
the main body of the true-born Dorians — a body of probably
only some six or eight thousand warriors — seem to have chosen
Sparta, or Lacedaemon, the ancient residence of the Achaean
princes (in Homer it is the residence of Menelaus), as their
permanent abode. It was evidently at this time a place
consisting of several (afterwards five) villages, which even in
a later age were not closely united in one community, and
remained unwalled and without a fortified acropoHs almost
down to the time of the Romans ; for the Dorians despised
fortifications ^ and rehed solely on their superiority in open
battle. They were a comparatively small number in the
midst of a hostile population, and it was evidently with no
small difficulty that they held their own, for even at the
beginning of the so-called historical age of Greece {c. 776)
they were in possession of little more than the valley of the
Eurotas, on which their city lay, and tradition asserts that it
1 Their want of practice in siege operations caused them often great trouble
in wars against the Messenians, and during the Persian and Peloponnesian
wars they had frequently to rely on the assistance of their allies in such
matters.
89
ANCIENT GREECE
was not for over 200 years — i.e. not until the reign of the
Spartan king Teleclus [c. 850) — that they succeeded in
dislodging a remnant of the Achaeans from the ancient town
of Amyclae, about half a dozen miles distant from Sparta.
The aborigines, Aegaeans, Achaeans, Cynurians, or whatever
else they may have been, were either reduced to serfdom
and called Helots (probably ' Captives '), or were allowed
to form free municipalities in the neighbourhood of Sparta ^
without being granted civic rights. These latter, treated,
perhaps, more leniently because they had offered less resistance,
were called Perioeci (' Dwellers round about '), and formed the
mercantile class, the Spartiatae, or true Dorian Spartans, not
deigning to engage in such occupations or to acquire wealth.
The Helots were not slaves. They were in some ways no
worse off than the mediaeval villein or Russian serf, and could
even acquire property, which was more than the Roman slave
was allowed, for even his peculium belonged by law to his
master. But the original Helots had been masters of the
country, and their descendants, conscious of this, and being
doubtless often equal to the Spartiates in civilized instincts,
bitterly resented their lot, and the constant danger of insur-
rection was one of the main reasons why Sparta lived under
martial law. A very striking specimen of the measures adopted
by the Spartans to meet this danger was the Crypteia, or
secret society of young Spartiates, who were empowered by law
to kill at once any Helot whom they might suspect as dangerous.
To cover such glaring injustice by a show of law it was the
custom for certain magistrates (the ephors) every year, when
assuming office, to declare war formally against the Helots !
The whole of the political power lay in the hands of the
Spartiatae, who formed a military caste of no great size.^
As might be expected, kingship was the inherent and permanent
^ Later in the whole of Laconia, where there were a hundred snch townships ;
but they formed no organic state hke the Attic towns— indeed, they were a
constant source of danger to Sparta.
* After Thermopylae (according to Herodotus) Xerxes was told by Dema-
ratus that Sparta contained about 8000 full-grown men. After I,euctra (371)
the Spartans with full citizenship numbered only about 1500.
90
THE DARK AGE
form of rule. The Spartan kings, who claimed an unbroken
lineage from Hercules (extending back a century beyond the
advent of the Dorians), retained the regal office and title, if
with diminished rights, for nearly a thousand years, while
almost every other city of Hellas passed through various
phases of government. Possibly the fact that two kings held
power at the same time, though it sounds a dangerous state
of things, may have limited the abuse of regal power and
helped to preserve kingship from its usual fate. This dual
kingship is said by old writers to have arisen from the diffi-
culty caused by the fact that the king of the Dorian invaders,
Aristodemus, left twins as heirs tohisthrone. Modern M'riters try
to explain it by a possible coalition of two tribes, each of which
insisted on retaining its king ; but the old explanation seems
quite as probable. However that may be, the state of things
was evidently not such as would seem likely to result in a very
satisfactory dispensation of justice, far less in any form of
settled government and constituted law. So it is not surprising
that Herodotus (i. 65) is of the opinion that in early times
the lyacedaemonians were " the very worst governed people in
Greece." But Sparta at some period during the Dark Age
received a very complete and rigid, if not a very highly organized,
constitution. It was not such a constitution as is gradually
evolved to meet the higher needs of a people. It has all the
marks of construction, and the main structure was doubtless
conceived and framed by some one lawgiver. This lawgiver,
according to old tradition, was lyycurgus. He was regent
for his young nephew, King lyabotas, or Charilaus, and either
during this regency or after a period of voluntary exile and of
travel in distant lands, being encouraged by the Delphic oracle
and having gained the support of the chief men of the city, he
procured the introduction of his new constitution. Then, after
having extracted a promise from the people to keep his laws
until liis return, he quitted Sparta for ever. Modern criticism
tells us that " Lycurgus was not a man ; he was only a god " ; ^
^ The phrase seems to be borrowed from Herodotus : " Whether Zalmoxie
was really a man, or nothing but a native god of the Getae, I now bid him
91
ANCIENT GREECE
that his name means ' protector against wolves,' and that
he may have been identical with the ancient Arcadian wolf-
repeUing deity who was called by the Greeks Zeus Lykaios.
All tliis is possible ; but it seems to some minds more natural
that one should begin by being a hero, or a great lawgiver,
and end in being a god. Anyhow, to save time and space
for more important matters, let us accept Lycurgus, whether
a man or only a god, as the great lawgiver who, when the
" very worst governed people in Greece " found things
becoming intolerable, was begged, or allowed, to draw up a
constitution of a very rigid and drastic nature— such a con-
stitution as should be fitting for a military camp where martial
law was to prevail and where the one end of all law and
all social order was to turn out the best soldiers and the best
soldiers' wives.
The following are, shortly stated, some of the chief features
of this constitution as it existed about 700 to 600. It is
impossible to say for certain which portions of the structure
are the most ancient, but there is no reason to doubt that the
greater part had existed, as Thucydides asserts, at least from
about 800, and that many of these ' Dorian ordinances,' as
Pindar calls them, were derived from very early times, if
not, as he believed, from the days of the mythical Dorian hero
Aegimius.
The functions of the two kings were military and religious.
They had supreme command and dictatorial power in war,
and were high-priests of the Spartan Zeus and Apollo. The
kingship was hereditary, but the son succeeded who was
eldest born after his father's accession. In later times (for
instance, during the Persian wars) only one king held military
command. The kings had a council, like the Hom.eric
Boule, called the Gerusia (Council of Elders). It consisted
only of nobles, but they were elected by the people. There
farewell " (iv. 96). Herodotus (i. 65) tells us that Lycurgus " introduced from
Crete the system of laws still observed by the Spartans." This is also asserted
by Aristotle. The resemblances in the Cretan and Spartan constitutions
seem to be limited to a few features such as the syssitia, and are probably due
to Doric influences in Crete.
92
THE DARK AGE
was also a public assembly, like the Homeric Agora, called
the Apella. To this every citizen of thirty years belonged.
In early days it was summoned by the kings, later by
the ephors. The vote of the public assembly was given by
acclamation.
Although Sparta never reached democracy pure and simple,
things had with them, as everywhere else, a tendency towards
democracy, of which the creation of the ephors (possibly not
till about 760) was a proof. The ephors (' overseers ' or
' guardians ') were representatives of the people, like the
tribunes in Roman history, elected after long contests between
the military caste and the working classes, which seem to have
included many who had been degraded from the ranks of the
Spartiatae as well as the lyaconian Perioeci. Every month
the ephors and the kings exchanged vows to abide by the laws
and to support one another's authority. There were five
ephors — one evidently for each of the five villages, or demes,
of which, as we have seen, Sparta was composed. They had
much of the judicial power in their hands, and could even
indict the kings. Two of them accompanied the army in
war.
Thus at Sparta we find a striking example of that mixed
constitution which, when a carefully balanced construction,
has proved elsewhere (as, for instance, in England) more
durable than any other form of government, possessing
something of the stability of the triangle of forces and of an
universe of three dimensions.
More characteristic even than this political machinery
was the social constitution of Sparta, which was regarded
with intense admiration (at a distance) by many other Greek
citizens, and which Plato, struck perhaps by its artistic
symmetry, like that of some great Doric temple, took as the
type after which he constructed the framework of his Ideal
State — although his ideal ruler and ideal citizen had nothing
in common with those of the Spartan lawgiver. ^
^ For a very full discussion of Lycurgus and his ' Laws and Discipline ' see
Grote, Part II, chap, vi
93
ANCIENT GREECE
Many of the details of this ' Spartan discipline ' and many-
stories connected therewith are well known. I shall therefore
merely touch on a few points.
One of the main points was that the Spartiat warrior-citizen
should be wholly free from the degrading necessity of working
to provide for himself and his family. He possessed landed
patrimony which could not be sold or broken up, and this land
was tilled by serfs, who had to supply the lord of the manor
with corn, wine, and fruit. The serfs (Helots) of the Spartan
noble were not his property. They belonged to the state,
which alone could emancipate them ; and this was sometimes
done as a reward for valour in war. Hence arose a class like
the Roman lihertini (freedmen).
Every new-born child was inspected by the tribal authorities,
and if deemed too feeble or unhealthy it was taken to Mount
Taygetus and left there to die. At seven years the boy was
taken from home and was kept in a great military school
until the age of twenty, when he entered the army and was
allowed to marry, but was still obliged to live apart from his
wife in barracks. At thirty he was considered a man and
received the rights of a citizen.
Every Spartan male citizen was obliged to take his meals
at a public ' mess ' [syssition) under the management of the
War Minister — such messes as More imagined in his Utopia,
except that in Utopia messing in the public halls was not
compulsory, and women were also admitted.
The education of the Spartan had an aim very different
from that of the Athenian — anyhow the Athenian of the
higher type in classical times, whose ideal was a truly cultured,
perfectly balanced, harmonious character, not the production
of a highly trained fighter nor professional or mercantile suc-
cess. Money-making and luxury were indeed, theoretically,
despised by the Spartiat, though he seems to have been more
open to a bribe than other Hellenes.^ But his contempt
^ To substantiate this I would refer the reader to Hdt. iii. 148, v. 51, vi. 72 ;
Thuc. i. 129 and 131, ii. 21, viii. 50. What use the gold would be to them in
Sparta, where only iron money was allowed until the time of Alexander the
Great, it is difficult to see.
94
THE DARK AGE
for such things did not spring from any hunger for angels*
food, as Dante calls it. The Spartan youth — as also the
Spartan girl — doubtless received a splendid physical train-
ing, and did full credit to the scientific breeding of muscular
and athletic citizens, but they were, even in the age of Demos-
thenes, ^ for the most part not taught to read, and, according
to Plato, many of the Spartans " could not do the simplest
sum in arithmetic, nor did they care a jot for science, or logic,
or any such things." Thus the governing classes in Sparta
were probably more illiterate than the mercantile Perioeci,
or even the Helots, and had to depend (as was also often the
case among the Romans) on slaves or hired amanuenses.
The love of the Spartans for brevity in speech — which
accounts for the meaning of the word ' laconic ' — is well illus-
trated by the following story, told by Herodotus. Some Samians
came to Sparta to ask for aid against the tyrant Polycrates,
and " had audience of the magistrates, before whom they made
a long speech, as was natural with persons greatly in need of
help. Now after this speech was ended the Spartans replied
that they had forgotten the first half of it and could make
nothing of the remainder. So the Samians had another
audience, whereat they simply said, showing a bag that they
had brought with them, The hag needs flour. The Spartans
answered that they did not need to have said The hag." In
the speeches attributed by Thucydides to I^acedaemonians
during the Peloponnesian War they seem to be quite as fond
of long-winded argument as other speakers. But the pitilessly
curt question by which, Thucydides says, they decided the
fate of the Plataeans certainly savoured of Spartan brevity.
A curious Spartan custom (scarcely traceable to their
northern origin) was that of not only allowing, even in regard
to female dress, a free exposure of the person, but also of
insisting on nudity, in the case of both sexes, on certain public
occasions, such as displays of gymnastic exercises. What
many might regard as a survival of barbarism was regarded
not only by the Spartans, but in course of time (as Thucydides
^ See Grote, ii. 307, and Plato's Hippias Major.
95
ANCIENT GREECE
seems to intimate) by all Hellenes, as a proof of higher civiliza-
tion — though only as far as male nudity was concerned. How
different the feeling in the rest of Greece was in regard to
female nudity can be seen from the fact that, though nude
male statues in early times are the rule, undraped female
statues are extremely rare until about 400.
The Dorian race, like some other northern races, seems to
have possessed very little art instinct ; but, as has happened
in other cases, the intermingling of the vigorous northern
with the softer and more imaginative southern nature produced
a very fine type of artistic character. Many of the Dorian
or half-Dorian cities of Hellas, such as Argos, Sicyon, Syracuse,
Halicarnassus, and Acragas, were distinguished for art — for
their sculpture, their coins, their magnificent temples — while
Sparta, or the dominant class in Sparta, remained to a wonder-
ful degree purely Dorian, and inartistic. Some writers have
suggested that before the introduction of their militar}^ dis-
cipline the tastes of the Spartans were somewhat more cultured
than they were in historical times. However that may be, a
certain amount of art feeling seems to have survived even that
discipline, for although, as Professor Gardner says, " the
traditional notion of the Spartan character is hardly such as
to lead us to expect that Sparta was in early times a centre of
artistic work and influence," nevertheless we do find that
the art of sculpture, probably introduced from Crete, flourished
in Sparta in the seventh century, and we hear of Sparta being
visited by the great lycsbian musician, Terpander (676), and
by the I^ydian lyric poet, Alcman,^ who is said to have made
it his home (c. 650).
Terpander is said to have instituted at Sparta a musical
contest at the great festival in honour of the Carneian Apollo.
He was the musician who added three strings to the tetrachord
of the lyre. It may seem strange that the conservative
Spartans gave him such a friendly reception, for on a later
occasion, when Timotheus of Miletus, who had added four
^ Fragments of songs by Alcman composed for choirs of Spartan girls are
still extant.
96
THE DARK A,GE
strings to the heptachord, visited Sparta, the ephors, says
Cicero, ordered his extra strings to be broken before he was
allowed to compete.
By the way, Terpander seems to have got credit for what
he was not the first to invent, seeing that on a Cretan sarco-
phagus (Fig. 25) of a date at least eight centuries before
Terpander a musician is depicted with a lyre of seven strings.
We know, of course, very little about Greek music of this
age, but it seems that the native Dorian music not only
differed from the I^ydian, Aeohan, Phrygian, and lastian
(Ionian) in * mode ' — whether that means scale or pitch —
but also in rhythm and time, being used generally as
accompaniment to processionals and martial strains rather
than to bardic and lyric poetry. The Homeric KiOapi^ (cithara) ,
or phorminx, was perhaps originally the harp or lute of the
northern races, and probably this instrument rather than the
lyra or chelys (tortoise-shell) — i.e. the Aegaean and Egyptian
lyre — was popular at Sparta, and what dehghted the soul of
the Spartiat was doubtless the old martial ballad or war-song,
such as we shall hear of when we come to Tyrtaeus.
We have wandered somewhat from the Dark Age while
following up things which had their first origins in that erai
Before passing on to what until lately, before the discovery
of the Minoan and Mycenaean civihzations, was regarded as
the beginning of Greek history, I shall in the following sections
briefly discuss two subjects, namely, ' Dipylon ' antiquities
and Hesiod's poems, the consideration of which may throw faint
shafts of light into the obscurity of the two centuries preceding
the first Olympiad. In the third section I shall offer a few
remarks about the contemporary history of certain nations
closely connected with the history of Greece. Of these the
somewhat mysterious Phoenician people specially interests us,
for in early times it came into closer contact with the Hellenic
world than did the great Oriental empires or Egypt, and the
desperate conflict of this Semitic race with the Sicilian Greeks
and later with the Romans lends additional interest to the
subject.
G 97
ANCIENT GREECE
SECTION A : ' DIPYLON ' ANTIQUITIES
The expression ' Dipylon antiquities ' is used rather loosely
to cover all Greek relics of the age to which belong many of the
objects found in an ancient cemetery excavated near the ruins
of the Dipylon — that is, the ' Double Gate ' of Athens, a great
city gate with an inner and an outer portal, probably built
in Periclean times not far from the more ancient and smaller
Sacred Gate, through which the Sacred Way led to Eleusis,
passing through the Outer Cerameicus (Potters' Quarter).
The Cerameicus was used as the cemetery of Athens, and many
beautiful monuments {stelae) of a later age are still to be seen
there, in the ' Street of Tombs.' The ancient cemetery near
the Dipylon was to a great extent covered by later tombs,
under and amidst which have been excavated some hundreds of
ancient graves. Some of these are said to date from the ninth
century or even earlier. In many of the graves of the ' Dipylon
age ' (say looo to 800 B.C.) the dead had been buried unburnt ;
in some their ashes were found. The most valuable relics were
very numerous fragments of pottery, as well as entire vases,
some of which, of large size, were standing upright on the top
of shaft-graves or tile-built tombs. The oldest of this pottery,
which is of red clay painted with lustrous black on a yellowish
surface, is geometric in its style, showing that there had been
a curious relapse from the much earlier Mycenaean style, in
which we have already found sea animals and even human
beings depicted. These early Dipylon vases (see Fig. 35) show
a fine decorative sense, but at first offer nothing but geometric
patterns. Then they begin to introduce animals, and more
generally birds, of an amusingly primitive type. Then they
give other animals, such as horses ; then human figures ; and
finally we have large compositions (found, however, only on
Athenian Dipylon vases) showing an ambitious style of painting
not far removed from that of the first black-figured Attic vases,
such as the Frangois Vase (Fig. 39) . These pictures give by far
the most clear and intelligible information that we possess con-
cerning the ' Dipylon age.' Almost all else besides pottery
98
34- EiPvi^oN Vase
See List of Illustrations
98
THE DARK AGE
seems to have entirely disappeared, except some old founda-
tions and a vast quantity of bronze and terra-cotta objects,
most of which tell us next to nothing.
First to be noticed are the ships. They are biremes, with
forty or fifty oarsmen in two ranks, and this proves that the
Athenians already possessed the beginnings of a fleet and a
considerable skill in shipbuilding and naval matters. The
ships seem even already to be furnished with rams at the bows.
But it also seems to show that these pictures date before the
introduction of the trireme, which was known to the Corinthians
by about 700, as we have already seen ; indeed, the picture of
an Athenian bireme given in Fig. 34 may be of a date two
centuries before 700, and is an exceedingly interesting and
valuable confirmation of what we have heard on the subject
of the Athenian naucrariae (p. 88).
Then we have numerous pictures of horses and of chariots :
first two-horsed chariots, with very primitive horses and with
men whose wasp-waists remind one of Minoan and Mycenaean
art ; and in some cases much of the human figure is concealed
by the great Mycenaean or Minoan figure-of-eight shield,
while in others the smaller round shield is held by the handle.
Then we find — what are not found in Homer — four-horsed
chariots, and also even horsemen. Finally we have scenes
— sea-fights, processions, funeral ceremonies, &c. Some of
the funeral scenes intimate an ostentation and magnificence
quite astonishing in this Dark Age — although not unknown to
us in Homer — the bier being attended by a great number of
chariots or ships.
The general appearance of the Athenians (and doubtless of
other Greek peoples) in the ' Dipylon ' age is depicted graphi-
cally, though perhaps not flatteringly, on these vases. Both
men and women have impossibly narrow waists, and the legs,
when in view, are often enormously thick. Much of this is, of
course, due to want of skill and exaggeration, but the main
features of the dress are doubtless true. The women are
dressed much in the same fashion as the Minoan and Mycenaean
women, in tight bodices and bell-shaped skirts — such as Hesiod
99
ANCIENT GREECE
also describes (p. 107). It is evident that the Achaean peplos of
Homer's women, if it ever became fashionable at Athens in
early days, had in the period 1000-800 given way again
to the earlier Mycenaean style of dress, while the square
Doric dress, with a flap over the shoulder needing a long pin
or fibula (brooch, safety-pin) , such as one sees on the Fran9ois
Vase (Fig. 39), had not yet been adopted at Athens, although
the immense number of very long metal pins and of large
fibulae found with later ' Dipylon ' vases in Boeotia and at
Argos (not to mention Sparta) shows that fashion changed
rapidly, as it is wont to do.^
Everything seems to point to a civilization at Athens in the
Dark Age something like the old Mycenaean, and not much
changed either by the Achaean (Homeric) or the later Doric
influence — at all events, in its earlier stages.
Pottery of the same kind as the Athenian, but not with large
painted scenes, has been excavated from the temple of Apollo
on Mount Ptoos, in Boeotia, and also at Tanagra and Thebes —
mostly geometric in style, but some of it evidently dating from
late Mycenaean times, notably an earthenware box discovered
at Thebes, on which we find the Earth-Mother with her animals
In the great Doric temple of Aphaia and the shrine of
Aphrodite in Aegina much pottery has been excavated, some
of it Mycenaean and some imported or native ' Dipylon '
ware and early Corinthian This pottery supplements the
evidence from Athens.
In the temple of Hera at Argos, excavated by the American
School at Athens, have been found, besides many bronzes and
long dress-pins (used in the Doric female dress), a number of
fragments of vases with pictures of horses and chariots like
those discovered at Athens, and of the same ' Dipylon ' period.
On the island Thera ' Dipylon ' ware and other rehcs of this
age have been found, and what are possibly some of the first
known Greek inscriptions cut on rock.
At Delphi and at Olympia thousands of bronzes dating from
this age have been excavated, all testifying to no mean civiliza-
1 For more on the subject of dres« see Note B.
100
o
o
o
o
I
o
o
CO
«
iz;
O
in
i I
<
o
«
w
<!
a
;^"
o
O
THE DARK AGE
tion and to an enormous cult of certain deities. At Tiryns,
besides much else, we have various representations of the
female dress of the Dark Age, and again we find a tight-fitting
frock, evidently more like the Mycenaean bodice and skirt than
the square Doric chiton fastened at the shoulder with pins.
Contemporary with this ' Dipylon ' ware, found in all these
places and testifying to a civilization very different from the
Spartan, we have the wonderfully beautiful proto-Corinthian
ware, which shows a very advanced state of artistic skill,
but gives us no such pictures of contemporary life as the
Athenian vases. This is unfortunate, for Corinth in this age
was a great trade emporium and a naval power, and it
would be most interesting to discover some evidences of this
Corinthian civilization.
Now, if we turn to Sparta we find something quite different.
Excavations made by the British School of Athens have brought
to light what seems to be the base of the great altar of Artemis
Orthia. This goddess and her altar are mentioned by Xenophon
and by Plutarch.^ Spartan youths were flogged at the altar
in order to test their endurance, and sometimes died under
the ordeal. In or near this old altar and the neighbouring
temple of Artemis Orthia (which existed from early days
down to about 600) a vast number of lead and terra-cotta
votive figures of the goddess, as well as bronzes and fragments
of pottery, were found. The early pottery is geometric and
something like the 'Dipylon,' but the other relics seem to
point to quite a different (Doric) civilization. There are many
grotesque winged figures and evident Earth-Mothers, and also
many nude female figures, which are attributed to Oriental
influence (as being un-Greek), but which surely seem to point
towards the curious Spartan ideas on this subject already
mentioned.
^ In Hdt. iv, 87 we find an Artemis Orthosia at Byzantium, and we hear
of her also in Lemnos. Also the form Orthasia has been discovered at
Sparta. The word Orthia means ' straight ' or ' loud-voiced ' in Greek. It
may refer to the yells of the priests trying to drown the cries of human victims
— for this ceremony of bloody flogging may have been substitutory. But
perhaps it is some northern word in disguise.
lOI
ANCIENT GREECE
SECTION B: HESIOD
The personality of Hesiod has not been questioned Hke that
of Homer. It is perhaps too frequently and strongly affirmed
by Hesiod himself, who names himself and gives us a good
deal about his father and his brother Perses, and a great
deal about his own philosophy of life, whereas nowhere in the
Iliad or the Odyssey is there any personal note, such as we
have in Milton's great epic, nor any suggestion of the poet's
existence, except in the opening addresses to the Muse — unless,
indeed, we are to recognize Homer in his blind bard, Demodocus,
as we recognize Shakespeare in Prospero.
Hesiod's date, however, and Hesiod's poems afford rich
material for the sceptic.
Herodotus, as we have already seen, places both Hesiod and
Homer at about 850 or 900, and he mentions Hesiod before
Homer, as do several other writers. But internal evidence seems
to show that the Homeric poems are older than the Erga and the
Theogonia, and such modern criticism as delights in " bringing
low the strong and diminishing the illustrious," as Hesiod
expresses it, has brought low and diminished his date little
by little until we find him flourishing about 700, seventy years
and more after the first Olympiad.
To discuss the question in detail is here impossible. As in
the case of Homer, I can only state my belief. Much evidence
seems to me to point to about 850 as the date of Hesiod's
poems, and this belief is confirmed by something besides,
and perhaps better than, philological and archaeological
arguments.
About two centuries after Hesiod's age we shall meet with
what is sometimes called the first exact date in Greek history.
It is the date April 6, 648, on which day, astronomers tell us,
a total solar eclipse took place. Now Hesiod tells us something
about the star Arcturus which, although it certainly does not
allow us to make such an exact deduction, does supply us
with very interesting information. He says that Arcturus
had its sunset-rising sixty days after the winter solstice,
102
THE DARK AGE
i.e. about February 19. But Arcturus now rises at sunset in
Greece about March 30, and one can calculate from this
difference (caused by the precession of equinoxes) that Hesiod
probably lived about 2780 years ago. This gives his date
at about 870. He had, of course, no means of observing
very accurately such risings and settings of the stars, and
he may have got his information from some older observer,
so that the evidence cannot be regarded as quite exact, but
within fifty years or so it seems to be trustworthy.
Hesiod tells us that his father came from Cyme in Aeolis,
whither perhaps the family had migrated from Aeolian Boeotia
(Thessaly), and had settled at Ascra, on the northern slopes of
Mount Helicon — a place "bad in winter, wretched in summer,
and never pleasant." Possibly Hesiod was born at Cyme,
and he may have had memories of the softer climate of Asia
Minor, as also of the Aeolic dialect, which he sometimes uses ;
but he seems to have passed his early years at Ascra,
shepherding his father's flocks or working on the farm, and
doubtless often wandering alone on Mount Helicon and
neglecting his work ; and against the theory of his Asiatic
birth stands the fact that, as he tells us, he was only once on
the sea, namely, when he crossed the Euripus Strait, from
Aulis to Euboea, in order to take part in a poetical contest —
at which he won a tripod. Legend, as we have already seen,
asserts that he won that tripod in a contest against Homer
himself. On the death of his father his brother Perses
succeeded in ousting him from his share of the farm by bribing
the judges — " gift-devouring kings," as he calls them.
The poems attributed to Hesiod, and cited as his by Pindar,
Aristophanes, Plato, and other ancient writers, are the Works
and Days {Erga kai Hemerai, i.e. ' Farming Operations and
Lucky and Unlucky Days ') and the Theogonia (' The Genea-
logy of the Gods '). Another poem. The Shield of Heracles,
is generally printed with his works, but is evidently of later date.
The two former poems contain, no doubt, many interpolations
made by rhapsodes and later ' Hesiodic poets,' but there is
much that is undoubtedly authentic and valuable to the
103
ANCIENT GREECE
historian. Moreover, what is of more importance, across the
homespun warp of rules and maxims there runs many a bright
thread of Horatian wit and wisdom and of deep and true
feeling, and at times there comes a golden flash of true poetry,
as in the description of the Five Ages in the Erga and the
celebrated meeting of Hesiod with the Muses on Mount Helicon
which forms the opening of the Theogonia.
As a creative poet and a master of language Homer is incom-
parably the greater, but Hesiod touches at times chords of
far deeper import, giving voice to his own human nature and
that of the common people.
The Erga (' Works and Days ') is addressed to his brother,
most foolish Perses," to whom he gives many a sharp reproof
and much sage advice, in order to save him from being ruined
by his thriftless and dishonest ways and his love of lounging
and gossip. The poem offers us a very graphic picture of
Boeotian country life in the ' Dipylon ' age. Hesiod's love of
the country and of animals and of the stars, his interest in
farming and in ships and boats (in spite of his dislike of the
" churlish sea "), his reverence for Zeus and his laws, his belief
in prayer and in good guardian spirits (1. 122), his conviction
that work is the happiest lot for a mortal, " whatever he may
be in fortune " ; that often " the half is more than the whole " ;
that wealth should not be " clutched at " nor won by guile of
tongue, but accepted as the gift of heaven ; that home-life is far
better than gadding about and gossiping — all this testifies to a
state of mind by no means entirely miserable and discontented
among the country folk of Boeotia, The very epithets and
names that he gives to animals show his delight in them and
his keen observation. The ox is described as if he were, like
the Irishman's pig, a member of the family ; the snail is the
' house-carrier,' the ant is ' the knowing one,' the cuttle-fish
is ' the boneless one,' wild beasts are ' forest-sleepers,' the
swallow is ' early- wailing,' the spider is ' high-hovering.'
Bees, drones, hawks, ravens, nightingales, dogs, mules, are all
mentioned with knowledge and sympathy. The horse (if we
exclude Pegasus) is referred to once only, and that in a line of
104
36. Foundations of Apor,i,o's Tempi<e, West Delphi
104
THE DARK AGE
doubtful authenticity. As regards Hesiod's keen observation
of nature, what could be more Wordsworthian than his likening
of a certain kind of tree-leaf as it unfolds in spring to the
" foot of an alighting raven " ?
But there is a dark side to his picture. He inveighs with
great bitterness against the avarice and injustice of this age
of iron in which fate has set him — this age in which " money is
the life of wretched mortals," and which will go from bad to
worse until, " veihng their fair faces in white mantles. Honour
and Righteous Indignation shall leave mankind and flee away
from the broad-wayed earth to Olympus, to the race of the
immortal gods." He denounces people for their jealousies and
strife and scandal-mongering and eternal lawsuits. " Potter
quarrels with potter and carpenter with carpenter ; beggar envies
beggar and minstrel minstrel . ' ' And his bitterness is especially
intense against the heartlessness and greed and injustice
that he sees in those around him — intensest, perhaps, against
his own brother and the unrighteous judges who have deprived
him of his heritage. He calls upon Zeus to smite with his
thunderbolt, and to send again to earth his daughter. Justice,^
who has been dragged with insults through the streets by
mortals and expelled from her own tribunals — that goddess
who alone can bring back peace and golden prosperity to a
land ruined by tyranny and the idleness of wealth.
We have thus a picture of aristocratic oppression such as
we found also intimated at Athens, and of an unhappy state
of things among the working classes. lyaws and law-courts
and law-court holidays are mentioned, but it is evident that
the power of " deciding questions of ancient right [Oejunarail
by straight judgments," of which Hesiod speaks, too often
lay in the hands of " gift-devouring kings." Hesiod's cry for
justice and for equality before the law is the earliest in European
literature. So, too, he is the first to assert the nobihty of
work rather than that of rank and wealth, and to claim for
^ The word Dike (Justice), or some word derived from it, occurs fourteen
times in thirty lines. Homer's description of the blessings brought by a
good king offers a striking contrast {Od. xix. 109).
105
ANCIENT GREECE
poetry a function higher than that of recounting pretty fictions
in the halls of the nobihty.^
Hesiod touches at times on questions of the deepest import.
His maxims are, however, not always such as we approve.
Thus he tells us that " easy and smooth is the way to evil
and toilsome the way to virtue, steep and rough at first ; but
when one reaches the height then it becomes easier, though
ever difficult " — which reads like a combined quotation from
the Bible and from Dante. But he also tells us to " love those
who love us," to " give to him that giveth, but not to him that
giveth not," and to ask a next-door neighbour to dinner because
he may prove useful in some future village squabble. Again,
" Give good measure," he says, " yes, an over-measure if you
can, so that you may find a sure supply when you need it."
Another of his maxims shows a dry humour and a worldly
wisdom, doubtless learnt by bitter experience. " Even in the
case of a brother," he says, " insist on having a witness — but
do it with a laugh."
In the Erga there are evident signs of that superstitious
dread of the supernatural which we noticed in the older
Greek religion, but which is scarcely perceptible in Homer.
Hesiod speaks with gloomy apprehension of all the curses, the
swarming diseases and things of dread, that have been brought
on the earth by the theft of Prometheus and the creation of
the first woman. Pandora. " The land," he exclaims, " is full
of evil things and full the sea." And he gives numerous rules
for the avoidance of evil results : " Not at a feast of the gods
to cut the dry from the quick on the five-branched thing
[the hand] " ; " not, when men are drinking, to lay the wine-
ladle over the wine-bowl — for 'tis a most fatal thing to do."
1 '' Field-abiding shepherds, shameless ones, mere belly-gods," exclaim the
Muses who bring to Hesiod the staff of laurel, " we know to tell of many
things resembling what is real, but we know also to sing, whene'er we wish,
of what is true. ' ' Doubtless he refers here once more to lounging and scandal-
mongering, such as was connected with recitations of old ballads. It
by no means follows that he considered ' didactic ' poetry higher than such
poetry as that of Homer. He was too good a poet for that ; but he believed,
as Aristophanes did, that the poet was the ' teacher of men ' in the highest
sense.
io6
37- Archaic Statue
Excavated on the Acropolis
See List of Illustrations
io6
THE DARK AGE
Then he gives a long list of lucky and unlucky days, reminding
one forcibly of Old Moore's Almanack,
Lastly, dress is sometimes mentioned. In his description
of the effects of cold weather (which he evidently hated)
Hesiod advises one to get as a " protection for one's flesh " a
thick-woven soft chlaina (mantle) and a chiton (tunic) reaching
down to the feet, and ox-hide sandals lined with felt. This
male attire is thoroughly Homeric ; but the dress of the
fashionable lady among these Boeotian country folk seems to
have been rather of the Mycenaean style, such as we found
in contemporary Dipylon vase-paintings. Doubtless the lady
in question wore a dress of the latest Athenian fashion, with
tight bodice and flounced skirt and well-padded protrusions,
Hesiod is giving advice to a young farmer, such as his brother :
" Don't let yourself be taken in," he says, " by any fashionably
dressed woman who comes trying with wheedling flatteries to
making herself mistress of your farm " — and the real meaning
of the epithet he applies to her is " furnished with a big bustle
behind."
The Theogonia is more Homeric in its language than the
Erga, and of a quite different tone. It is chiefly taken
up with a long account of the genesis of the Universe from
Chaos and with a genealogy of the gods. The presence of
Love as the formative and creative principle in this Hesiodic
Genesis is very remarkable. It forestalls some of the wisest
guesses of later Greek sages. The poem does not throw so
much light as the Erga on life in the Dark Age, but it shows
that a very complex and complete mythology had already
grown up around the hierarchy formed by the superimposition
of the northern on the old Aegaean or Pelasgian deities. The
opening lines of the Theogonia, describing the visit of the
Muses to Hesiod on Mount Helicon, are of very high merit as
poetry, and, together with not a few other passages in his
poems, entirely justify the honour conferred by these daughters
of Memory on one whom a modern writer has called a ' gifted
rustic'
107
ANCIENT GREECE
SECTION C : THE PHOENICIANS AND SOME OTHER
NATIONS DURING THE DARK AGE
Since the discovery of the Minoan and Mycenaean civiliza-
tions the Phoenicians have lost the credit of having introduced
art into Crete and Greece. But they had most of the Aegaean
and Mediterranean sea-trade in their hands for some centuries
— probably from the decline of the Minoan naval supremacy
until the rise of Corinthian and Athenian sea-power (about
1400 to 750). Indeed, in still earher times they seem to have
been a nation of merchant princes, such as Isaiah describes
them (xxiii.). They probably introduced the Egyptian
decimal coinage into Babylon as well as the ' ell.' They are
said to have brought the vine and the olive to Crete. In old
Egyptian monuments the tribute of the Phoenicians includes
the products of many distant lands. In the time of Moses
(c. 1350) they possessed the colony of Tartessus, or Tarshish,
in Spain, and had perhaps already reached Britain and the
Baltic, as well as the west coast of Africa (where later they had
three hundred factories) and the Euxine. Gades (Cadiz) was
founded probably about the time of the Trojan War, and Utica
about 1 100. In the time of Solomon (960) they had fleets also
on the Red Sea, which brought gold from India or South Africa.
Indeed, perhaps these were the oldest fleets possessed by the
Phoenicians, for the men of Tyre and Sidon are said to have
come originally from the Red Sea, or Persian Gulf — perhaps
from the ' land of Punt,' as Abyssinia or Somaliland is called in
an Egyptian inscription of the Vth Dynasty (c. 3000) . Possibly,
too, the Greek name Phoenix, which was believed to mean
' the red man,' or ' the man of the red land ' (land of the sun,
or sun-god ?), may have originally meant ' the man of Punt '
(c/. Latin Punicus, Poenus).
When Herodotus visited new Tyre (c. 450) he was told by
the priests of Melcarth, the Phoenician Heracles, that ancient
Tyre was founded about 2750. If Tyre was the ' daughter of
Sidon,' as we are told in the Bible, Sidon must have existed
from at least 3000, and it was the chief city of Phoenicia
108
THE DARK AGE
until about 1120, when it was conquered by the Phihstines.
A century or so later, in the days of Solomon and King
Hiram, Tyre took the lead. Both Jezebel, Ahab's wife,
and Queen Dido were members of the same dynasty as
Hiram, At this era Assyria became very powerful under
Shalmanezer II, and Tyre was captured by the Assyrians.
Perhaps on account of this Assyrian oppression a large body
of Phoenicians, led, as tradition says, by the Princess Elissa
(Dido), made a new home (c. 825) on the coast of Africa, not
far from the older colony Utica. This new city was Carthage.
The fact that the Phoenicians had settlements in all quarters
of the Mediterranean even in the fourteenth century, and that
they doubtless took with them the worship of the bull-headed
Phoenician sun-god Baal, or Moloch, to whom human sacrifices
were made, has very naturally caused many to believe that
the Cretan bull-worship and the Minotaur and Talos legends
were originally derived from this source, and that the myths
of Theseus and Iphigeneia are reminiscences of the abohtion of
Phoenician human sacrifice by Greek influence. However that
may be, it is evident that the Phoenicians had little or nothing
to do with Aegaean and Cretan art or with ancient Minoan
writing. But they introduced, as we have seen, the alphabet
into Hellas, and they also {pace some modern writers) possessed
no mean craft as ' cunning workers,' as the Bible and also
Homer tell us. Thus a silver wine-bowl described by Homer
was " more beautiful than all others on earth, since it was
wrought by those cunning workers the Sidonians." Another
such crater was given to Menelaus by the king of the Sidonians,
and a beautiful peplos worked by Sidonian women is mentioned.
But it must be allowed that the Odyssey usually gives us a
picture of the Phoenician not as craftsman but as trader
and artful huckster of gauds and trinkets — such a despicable
creature as the Phaeacian Kuryalus describes when pouring
contempt on Odysseus :
Nay, O stranger, and truly I liken thee not to a mortal
Practised in any of all of the contests known to the nations ;
Rather to one that frequents with his well-benched vessel the harbours,
109
ANCIENT GREECE
Skipper, methinks, of a folk of the sea who traffic as chapmen,
Mindful of nought but the bales and careful of nought but the cargo.
Ay and the grab and the gain.
No large settlements were made by the Phoenicians on
Aegaean shores, except perhaps Cameirus, in Rhodes, but they
had numerous marts and purple-factories — one perhaps on
the Isthmus of Corinth and another near the Peiraeus. The
struggle between the Semitic and Japhetic races— a struggle
which, no less than the Persian wars, was to decide the destiny
of Europe — took place, not in the Aegaean, but in Sicily,
where by the eighth century the Phoenicians, Uticans, and
Carthaginians possessed many trade-stations, and whither
during the eighth century, as we shall see, a large stream of
Greek colonists began to find its way. This struggle (with
which the battles of Himera and Crimisus and the Punic wars
are connected) lasted for six centuries, till the total demolition
of Carthage by the Romans in 146.
Of Crete during the Dark Age very little is known. We have
seen that in the heroic age, if we may accept Homer's account,
it possessed, some two centuries after the sack of Cnossus,
ninety or a hundred towns and was inhabited by many different
races, among whom Dorians are mentioned. The great Dorian
invasion a century or so later evidently subjected the whole
island to that race, and for some centuries it was probably
under Dorian kings and had a constitution not unlike the
Spartan, except that there seem to have been no perioeci, but
only serfs and nobles. I^ater we find the kingly office abolished
and an aristocracy in power, and the executive in the hands of
ten magistrates called cosmoi.
Of Cyprus we had some notice during the age of Aegaean
civilization. Mycenaean kings are said to have ruled there in
the fifteenth century. Aegaean pottery of this era, together
with Egyptian scarabs and ornaments of the XVIIIth Dynasty
(Queen Ti and Amenhotep III), have been discovered in a
tomb at Enkomi, near Salamis, and clay tablets have been
found in Egypt inscribed with cuneiform missives to the
Pharaohs from these Mycenaean Cypriot kings. The island
no
THE DARK AGE
was in early ages sometimes subject to Egypt, and on
account of its valuable copper-mines was also evidently
occupied by Phoenicians, but the latest researches (by
Ohnefalsch Richter) seem to prove that Hellenic civilization
and the Olympian gods (Athene, Heracles, Aphrodite, and
others) preceded the Phoenician supremacy, and that the
Phoenician kings destroyed Greek temples and razed Greek
inscriptions.^ If this be so, the Paphian Aphrodite was not
derived from the Eastern Astarte, but Astarte was super-
imposed on the Cyprian-Greek divinity, who seems to have
been a kind of Earth-goddess, or a Spring-goddess (like Kore),
with such titles as ' The Idaean Mother ' and ' She who spreadeth
abroad the roses.' The Greeks who introduced these deities
were, of course, not the Mycenaeans, but Hellenes, and it seems
likely that the old tradition (see Hor. Carm. I, vii., and Virg.
Aen. i. 619) about Teucer, brother of Ajax, having been
expelled from Salamis on his return from Troy and having
founded a new Salamis in Cyprus has for its basis an historical
fact ; for about the time when the colonization of Ionia was
at its height {c. 1050) a considerable body of Greeks, probably
Achaeans with Arcadian and other followers who were pressed
by Dorian invaders, are said to have left Greece and to have
made their way to the old Aegaean colonies in Cyprus. The
chief Greek towns in Cyprus were Paphos, I^apathus, Marion,
Curion, Salamis, and later Soli ; but in some of these there was
also a large Phoenician element. During the next two centuries
and more Cyprus seems to have been ruled by the ' kings '
of the numerous cities, for about 720 the Assyrian monarch
Sargon (who carried Israel away into captivity) conquered the
island, and we find in the inscription on the stele which he
set up there (now in Berlin) seven Yatman (Cyprian) kings
mentioned, and in an inscription of Assarhaddon, the son
of Sennacherib (Fig. 38), ten Cypriot kings are described as
his subjects.
Of Egypt during this age the notices are scanty. In the
1 It seems strange that in these Greek (or Cypriot ?) inscriptions neither
Zeus nor Kore nor Dionysus is mentioned.
Ill
ANCIENT GREECE
period 1120-950 (from the time of Samson and the Phihstine
supremacy in Palestine until the days of Solomon) it was ruled
by the inglorious priestly Tanite Dynasty (the XXIst). Then
Sheshenk, or Shishak, of the XXIInd Dynasty, carried war into
Palestine and captured Jerusalem, as we learn from an inscrip-
tion at Karnak [cf. 2 Chron. xii.). After this Egypt was
evidently overrun by the Aethiopian hosts of whom we read in
2 Chron. xiv., and the XXVth Dynasty was one of Aethiopian
kings. Then, about 674, Egypt is conquered by the great
Assyrian monarch Assarhaddon. The liberation of Egypt
[c. 665) from the Assyrian yoke by Psamtik I with the aid
of Ionian ' men of bronze ' opened, as we shall see later, a new
epoch, and brought Egypt into closer relations with Greece.
The great empires of the East, Babylonia and Assyria, have
hitherto come into no direct contact with Greece, nor even
with the Greek colonies, except, perhaps, in the case of Sargon's
conquest of Cyprus, which has been mentioned. It is enough
to note here that Assyria during the Dark Age was in
constant war with Babylonia, and in the ninth century, under
its great kings Assurnasirpal and Shalmanezer II, conquered
Phoenicia and made head against the Syrian kings of
Damascus.
After the expulsion of the Assyrians from Egypt, and the
rise of the Median power under Cyaxares, these Oriental
peoples will occupy more of our attention ; for one of the
striking traits which especially distinguish the history of
Greece is the fact that we are so often brought into contact
with other great ancient civilizations, and it is of deep import
that, although subjected to such influences, Hellenic art and
literature and philosophy retained an almost perfectly in-
dependent character, and have remained till our own day not
only supreme in beauty of form, but also incomparable for
originality, if we accept that word in its true sense.
112
38. AssARiiADDON, WITH Captivk EcvrTiAX
AND AETHIOPIAN 112
CHAPTER III
FROM THE FIRST OLYMPIAD TO
PEISISTRATUS
(776 TO 560)
An Age of Coi,onization : The Euxine : Sicii:<y : South Itai,y :
The Homei<and : Argos : Sparta : Tyrants and Sages : Athens
SECTIONS : EGYPT AND CYRENE) : LYDIA, LIST OF EASTERN
KINGS : THE GAMES : THE POETS
AlyTHOUGH when we speak of Greek art and literature
and philosophy (the three priceless legacies that Greece
has left us) we instinctively think of Greece itself
and especially of Athens, which in the so-called classic era was
the ' eye of Hellas,' the fact is that Greece owes much
of its fame to its colonies.^ Of colonial origin were Homer,
Archilochus, Terpander, Arion, Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus,
Simonides, Anacreon, the younger Simonides, Theocritus, and
other Greek poets. The historian Herodotus was born at
Halicarnassus. All the great early philosophers were lonians.
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes were of Miletus,
Heracleitus of Ephesus, Pythagoras of Samos, Xenophanes
of Colophon. Of the seven sages four were colonials, and
among celebrated colonial artists may be mentioned Paeonius,
Pythagoras, Scopas, Polygnotus, Parrhasius, Apelles, Zeuxis.
The arts of working in marble and of bronze-casting came, it
is said, from Chios and Lesbos ; sculpture came from Crete.
The coins, too, of many of the cities of Greater Hellas, such as
the beautiful Syracusan coins, were finer than any produced
in the mother-country ; and, lastly, many of the magnificent
* See dates of the foundation of early Greek colonies, p. 479.
H 113
ANCIENT GREECE
temples in Ionia, Sicily, and Southern Italy, of which some are
still standing, were built long before the Parthenon.
It is, indeed, a striking view that the Hellenic world offers
about the end of the seventh century. Greece itself, with no
very large population and in no very highly advanced state of
civilization or art, is already the mother of cities, which
extend from Sicily and Italy, and even the south of Gaul, to
the further shores of the Euxine. The Aeolian and Ionian
and Cyprian Greek cities date, as we have seen, from much
earlier times. Doubtless emigration went on continuously
during the interval, but it is not till about the date of the
first Olympiad that we hear for certain of the first Hellenic
colonies in the West and on the Propontis and Euxine.
The question arises, what were the reasons of this very large
emigration from the old country ? Greece is not a fertile land.
" Want hath ever been a foster-sister to Hellas," said the
Spartan Demaratus to King Xerxes. But doubtless also a
land-grabbing aristocracy (who were glad to get rid of dis-
contents), as well as the wretched state of things that we have
seen described by Hesiod, aggravated much the condition
of the peasant and the artisan, so that without any great
surplus of population ^ there was a natural impulse among the
working classes to get away to freer lands ; and many of the
leisured classes would also be attracted by the love of adventure.
The vast numbers of emigrants may thus be partly explained,
and the huge population of some of these colonial cities was,
of course, partly due to a large native element.
Although in early days serious conflicts took place between
some of the colonies and their mother-cities, such as the naval
war (c. 664) between Corinth and Corcyra already mentioned,
the general result of the expansion of Greece was to strengthen
immensely Hellenic patriotism, if one may use these words
to express the sense of the oneness of the whole Hellenic race — •
or rather of the whole people of Greece, including all its diverse
^ Even two and a half centuries later (430) Athens had only 80,000 inhabi-
tants, half of whom were slaves. At Marathon (490) the Athenian army only
numbered about 9000.
114
39- The ' Francois Vase '
See List of Illustrations
Ii6
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
races, and all its progeny in other lands — in contradistinction to
the outer world of barbarians. The Greek colonies were, as
a rule, more Greek than Greece itself. They looked on the
mother-country with the deepest affection and reverence.
No colony was founded without consulting the great Greek
oracle at Delphi and procuring an oekist (founder appointed
by some Greek mother-city) ; and a flame from the sacred fire
that burnt in the town-hall (prytaneion) at home was carried
abroad in order to light the public hearth in the new city.
They took with them also the religion of their Grecian home.
They sent frequent deputations to the festivals of the metro-
polis, and received with reverence its envoys. The founder
who had been supplied by the city in Greece was often wor-
shipped after his death as a divinity ; and no new colony
was sent forth from a Greek colony without obtaining a
founder from the mother-city.
And for Greece itself the existence of her colonies — of this
great Hellenic community extending over so much of the
then known world — was of great moment. " The influence
of Greater Greece," says the late Professor Butcher, " is the
determining fact in the history of the Hellenic people." Not
only, as was the case in our Elizabethan age, did the opening
up of new worlds stir the imagination and enlarge the vision of
Greek poets and deepen the insight of Greek thinkers, but the
existence of Greater Hellas had much influence in developing,
for good or for evil, the imperial policy of Athens in the days of
her power, and in determining her fate.
The Euxine
Although they were, perhaps, not so ancient as some of the
colonies in the far West, Greek settlements on the Euxine and
the Propontis were founded in very early times. ^ Doubtless
there was trade between the Euxine shores and the Greek
cities of Asia Minor from early days of the first colonization of
Aeolis and Ionia. Indeed, as we have seen, the old fable of
the Argonauts points to the beginnings of intercourse between
^ The plates of coins should be referred to, and the explanations in Note C.
ANCIENT GREECE
Greece itself and the Euxine even before the Aeolian migration.
The Greek town of Sinope, on the south shore of the Euxine,
claimed to have been founded by Miletus about the middle of
the eighth century. It was, old writers say, destroyed by
the Cimmerians, and was refounded about 630. Another
Milesian colony, Trapezus (now Trebizond), lay some 400
miles more to the east, not far from Colchis, the country of
Medea and the mythical Golden Fleece. Probably even in
these early days there were Grecian marts and halting-places
along the coasts of the Propontis and Euxine. On not a few
of these sites regular settlements were in course of time founded
by various Greek cities. Little Megara especially distinguished
itself by founding {c. 685) Chalcedon, on the Thracian Bosporus,
and some thirty years later occupied the opposite shore, where,
on account of the magnificent site that it enjoyed, the city of
Byzantium rose rapidly to importance, and in later times
became one of the most famous cities in the world. Sestos
and Lampsacus (once Phoenician) were settled by Aeolians,
Abydos and Cyzicus by Milesians. These Hellespontine towns
owed their prosperity to the ever-increasing commerce between
the Euxine and the Aegaean and Grecian ports. The trade in
iron and silver and flax and other products from Colchis and
the country of the Chalybes and other lands on the South
Euxine was in course of time supplemented by trade with its
northern shores, where numerous Greek settlements were
made, such as Odessus and Olbia, on the Dnieper mouth, and
Panticapaeum in the Tauric Chersonese (Crimea), while at the
mouth of the river Phasis — where the Argonauts reached the
home of Medea — the Greek town of Phasis arose, and another,
Dioscurias, still closer to the great range of the Caucasus.
On the North Aegaean, too, various cities were now founded,
of which Potidaea, a colony of Corinth, and Methone, a
Euboean settlement, are of the most importance historically.
Cyme in Italy
The western waters of the Mediterranean were navigated
by Phoenician traders in very early times, and some of their
116
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
settlements preceded the first Greek settlements in these parts
by at least 500 years. By about 1350, as we have seen,
Tarshish, or Tartessus, the Phoenician port in Spain, was well
known, and Gades was founded about 1200. Doubtless these
navigators spread the worship of their gods, Melcarth (the
Phoenician Heracles) and the bull-headed sun-god Baal or
Moloch, and hence we have the old Greek legends of Heracles
erecting pillars at the straits near Tarshish and capturing
the cattle of the monster Geryon, and of the sacred cattle
of the sun-god Eelios, which, as Homer tells us, the com-
panions of Odysseus slew in Sicily.^ Herodotus, indeed,
intimates that a hundred years and more before the days
of Odysseus a Greek city. Cyme (Cumae), existed in Italy,
close to what was afterwards known as Lake Avernus, nor
far from the frontier of the great Etrurian or Tyrrhenian
nation — those Tyrseni of whom we heard in connexion with
the Pelasgians, and whom we shall meet again in the time of
Hiero.2 The tradition about this ancient Greek city is repeated
by Virgil ; Daedalus, he says, after flying from Crete to escape
Minos, alighted at Cumae, and hung up his wings there in
Apollo's temple. Cyme is also said by old tradition to have
received Greek settlers from Corsica, where a still more ancient
Boeotian colony of the Thespiadae is asserted to have existed.
Perhaps, however, the first important colonization of Cyme
by the Greeks took place about 800. The colonists were
mainly from Cyme in Aeolis, the home of Hesiod's father,
and from Cyme in Euboea, the mother-city. Chalcidians and
other Euboeans joined, and it is just possible that a small
contingent of Graioi from Boeotia gave to the Italians in the
neighbourhood of Cumae the name which the natives of Italy
first applied to the Hellene race, and by which we now
generally designate it.
^ Od. xii. The seven herds probably have reference to the seven planets.
Can the name Eelios be connected with El, the primitive Semitic name of
God — probably the sun-god ?
* Hesiod (if the passage is authentic) speaks not only of Etruria, but of the
Latins and King Latinus. His connexion with Aeolian Cyme may explain
his knowledge.
117
ANCIENT GREECE
Sicily
The Chalcidians of Buboea and the Cymaeans also founded
(735) the first Greek city in Sicily, Naxos (destroyed in later
times by Dionysius), and not long afterwards Catane (now
Catania), Leontini, Zancle (the ' sickle-harbour,' Hke Drepanon ;
afterwards renamed as Messene), and Himera on the north
coast (celebrated later for the great victory of Greeks over
Carthaginians in 480, perhaps on the same day as the victory
of Salamis ; finally razed to the ground by the Carthaginians
in 409).
Before the coming of the Greeks the eastern half of Sicily
was held by the Sicels, who had probably crossed from Italy
and driven the older inhabitants, the Sicans, towards the
western parts of the island. Besides these there were the
Ely mi, whose chief city was Egesta, and whom tradition
asserted to be descendants of Trojans left there by Aeneas
on his voyage to lyatium. On the Sicilian coasts there were
also numerous Phoenician stations, but no large settlements.
It was not until after the rise of the naval and military power
of Carthage, about 550, that Sicily became the arena of the
great struggle between the Semitic and Hellenic races.
Some 1 of the most famous of the Greek cities of Sicily were
founded by Dorians, mostly in the south-western corner of the
island. Of these cities Syracuse, a colony of Corinth, was the
oldest, and in the same year (734) Corcyra (Corfu) was also
colonized by the Corinthians. ^ The small state of Megara,
which showed such vigour on the Euxine, placed a Hyblaean
Megara on the coast north of Syracuse, and a century later
this settlement, with the aid of the mother-city, founded on the
south-western coast the city of Selinus, famed for its majestic
temples, all built in the two centuries of its existence before
its utter destruction by the Carthaginian Hannibal at the same
^ Our main authority is here Thucydides (Book VI).
^ Both sites had already been occupied by Euboeans, who were expelled.
Corcyra never became of much importance, and after the Peloponnesian War
dwindled to almost nothing, while Syracuse at its prime occupied a larger space
than Rome under the Empire. Its walls were about fifteen miles in length,
those of Rome about twelve. But Rome's population was greater by far.
118
ANCIENT GREECE
time as Himera (409) . The remains of these temples and of the
acropolis form probably the greatest mass of ruins in Europe, and
the metopes of the temples afford some of the oldest and most
interesting specimens of Greek sculpture (see Fig. 60). The
name of Selinus is probably of Phoenician origin, but the word
selinon means ' wild celery ' in Greek, and that the Selinuntines
accepted this meaning is proved by their coins, on which the
plant is depicted (see Plate IV, 5). Possibly Homer's descrip-
tion of Calypso's isle with its " meadows of violets and celery "
may have favoured the interpretation.
About 688 Gela, a Sicel town overlooking the southern sea,
was occupied by Greek Rhodians and Cretans. It became later
a city of importance, and is famous as the home of the great
Syracusan princes Gelo and Hiero, and as the death-place
of Aeschylus. In 581 Gela founded, with an oekist from Rhodes,
the city of Acragas (Agrigentum, and now Girgenti), about
fifty miles distant towards the west, on a lofty site not far from
the sea. Acragas, the city of the notorious tyrant Phalaris
and of Thero, who shared with Gelo the victory of Himera,
became a city of vast population and wealth, as was testified
by the line of magnificent temples on its southern front, some
of which are still standing (see Fig. 76). The greatest of
these, the Olympieion, now a wilderness of ruin, was the
vastest of all Greek temples.
The Greeks did not try to colonize the west of Sicily.^ Here
Egesta (or Segesta), the city of the Ely mi, held sway in alliance
with Phoenicians, whose settlements at Panormus (Palermo)
and on the island Motya gradually developed into important
towns. The people of Motya were afterwards (397) trans-
ferred by the Carthaginians to the great Punic city of lyily-
baeum, on the neighbouring mainland. At the north-west
corner of Sicily, on Mount Eryx, overlooking the sea, stood a
famous temple dedicated to a goddess, called Aphrodite by
the Greeks and Venus Erycina by the Romans — evidently
either a Phoenician Astarte or some Elymian (Phrygian ?)
Nature-goddess.
^ But see Greek temple, Fig. 57.
120
■«M^:'
40. Lacinian Cape and Cor,UMN
41. Poseidon's Tempi^e, Paestum
120
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
'H fxeydXr] "EXXa?— Magna Graecia
We must now return to Italy. Here by the middle of the
seventh century we find some fifteen flourishing Greek cities
occupying almost the whole of the line of the southern coasts
from Brundisium to Cumae ; and by about 550 their number
will have increased to twenty or more, some of them greater
than any city in the mother-country. The earliest of these was
founded in 721 by Achaeans from the Peloponnese, who seem
to have found their harbourless and rugged country, with
its twelve obscure townships, both unattractive and over-
populated, and to have made settlements first in the island
Zacynthus, and then to have made their way across to Italy,
as the south-western extremity of the Hesperian peninsula was
already called.
Here, just within the great gulf, they founded Sybaris, on an
alluvial plain between the rivers Sybaris and Crathis, and some
eighteen years later they planted Croton on a fine harbour,
near to the Lacinian promontory, where still stands a solitary
column of the great temple of Hera which for ages greeted the
Greek as he came from the motherland to Greater Hellas,
and where he was wont to sacrifice and offer gifts before he
sailed further (see Fig. 40). Both of these settlements
became at an early era very great and powerful cities and the
mothers of many other Greek towns. Sybaris is said to have
possessed twenty-five such dependencies and to have ruled
over four of the native peoples. It became a great trade
emporium, and in order to extend its commerce by land-routes
to Etruria and the far West it founded on the Tyrrhene Sea the
cities of lyaos and Scidros and that of Poseidonia (Paestum),
whose magnificent Doric temples are still standing almost intact
(Fig. 41). The wealth and luxury of Sybaris are proverbial.
Its army is said to have numbered 300,000 (perhaps mainly
native troops), and the circuit of its walls to have rivalled
that of Syracuse. But even in the days of Herodotus Sybaris
was only a memory, for in 510 it was utterly destroyed by its
rival Croton, as we shall see later when we come to the life
121
ANCIENT GREECE
of Pythagoras. On the western coast also Croton planted
various towns, of which Terina was one (see coin 13 on
Plate III), Another was on the site of the old Ausonian port
Temesa (or Tempsa) , perhaps mentioned in the Odyssey as an
export-mart for bronze.^
Another great Greek city was Taras, or Tarentum, situate
in lapygian territory at the head of the great gulf which still
bears its name. It is said to have been originally a Cretan
settlement, but about 708 it was occupied by Spartans. Taras
was the only colony ever founded by Sparta, and tradition
accounts for its foundation by a strange story, perhaps invented
to explain the word Partheniae (' The Maidens' Children '), who
are said to have been its first settlers, for it was related that on
their return from a very long campaign against the Messenians
the Spartans found a large number of illegitimate youths,
and that these, after an attempted rebellion, were dispatched
to the far West under the leadership of a certain Phalanthus,
This Phalanthus was afterwards worshipped as the son of
Poseidon, and was represented on Tarentine coins astride a
dolphin (see Plate II, 3). Taras became renowned for its
industrial products — its wool and pottery and dyes — but is
historically connected more with Rome than Greece, although
for a long period, after the fall of Sybaris, it was perhaps the
most powerful and wealthy of all the cities of Greater Hellas.
Two other Greek cities, Metapontion and Siris, stood on the
shores of the Gulf of Tarentum, between Tarentum and
Sybaris. The former was founded by Sybaris with the aid
of the Peloponnesian Achaeans, Siris by the Ionian city
Colophon. 2 No other city of Ionia attempted to found a
colony during this age in the West ; but the Aeolians were
more venturesome, for Phocaea, which had already the
important settlement of Lampsacus on the Propontis, about
600 planted a colony at Massalia (Marseille), near the delta
of the Rhone — the westernmost of all Greek cities, except its
own later settlements in Spain. The Phocaeans also had
1 If so, this {Od. i. 184) is the earliest mention of any Italian town.
* The poet Archilochus {c. 650) writes of Siris as if it were known to him.
122
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
settlements in Corsica, where about 565 (according to Hero-
dotus) they founded a city called Alalia. Some twenty years
later, as we shall see, in order to escape from the Persians,
almost the whole population of Phocaea took ship for Alalia,
but being expelled from Corsica by the Carthaginians and
Etruscans they fled to Rhegium and thence founded Blea
(Velia), on the west Italian coast, to the south of Poseidonia.
It is possible that Xenophanes of Colophon may have fled
to Siris from Asia to escape the Persians, and may have joined
the Phocaean fugitives at Rhegium and have been among the
first colonists of the city, whose name owes its survival mainly
to the fame of the school of philosophy that he founded there.
Among the more important Greek colonies of this age must
be mentioned Cyrene, in North Africa ; but as its foundation
(c. 630) is connected with the opening up of Egypt to Greek com-
merce it will be described later when we consider that subject.
The Homeland : Corinth
The Greeks calculated all their dates from the victory of
Coroebus in the foot-race at the Olympic Games (revived, it
is said, by Lycurgus and Iphitus) in the year that we call
776 B.C. They regarded this as the beginning of the historical
period ; but there is very little known for certain about
Greece — less, perhaps, than we know about the Greek colonies
— during the first century of this epoch.
It is evident that about the eighth century Corinth was
a great mercantile and maritime power. With her newly
invented triremes and her great trading vessels she dominated
two seas. She had founded Syracuse and colonized Corcyra,
which colony had become strong enough by 664 to oppose
her mother-city in the first sea-fight known to Thucydides.
Argos
In the Peloponnese, while Sparta was engaged in long warfare
with the Messenians and at times holding her own with diffi-
culty, Argos seems to have been a leading state. In 668 the
Argives, it is said, defeated the Spartans at Hysiae. They
123
ANCIENT GREECE
captured Mycenae and Tiryns, overran Aegina, and, perhaps,
held for some time all the eastern coast of lyaconia and even
the island of Cythera (see Hdt. i. 82). Corinth, too, is said to
have fallen for a time into their hands. The successes of Argos
at this era are attributed to the famous Argive king Pheidon,
who (as we shall see later) reinstated the people of Pisa in the
management of the Olympic Games and instituted himself
as president, claiming the right through his ancestor Heracles.
His date is, however, very uncertain. ^ To him is also attributed
the introduction of systematic weights and measures, as
standards for which he deposited bars of metal in the great
temple of Argive Hera. The first homeland Greek coins
were struck in Aegina, probably in Pheidon's reign and after
Pheidonian standards.
The Argive hegemony in the Peloponnese seems to have
declined rapidly after the reign of Pheidon, a fact evidently
due to the rise of the Spartan power. According to tradition,
Pheidon's interference at Olympia roused the wrath of the
Spartans, who reinstated the Eleans and expelled the Argives.
Sparta
Sparta during the first century of the historical period,
as we have seen, took but little share in colonization, and her
one colony, Taras, is said to have originated from her political
difficulties. During these years she was mainly engaged in
fighting the Messenians — those western neighbours of hers
who, after a hundred years of warfare, submitted (those who
remained in Messenia) to be treated almost as slaves for two
centuries, and then, having rebelled, were ejected (in 464)
from their homeland, and finally, a century later, were restored
by Hpameinondas, never again to be conquered by their old
enemies, but to become the subjects of Rome.
These Messenians inhabited the south-western corner of
1 Alexander the Great, to prove his right to compete at Olympia, claimed
descent from Pheidon. Pausanias (a.d. 160) asserts that Pheidon presided
at the eighth Olympiad (748), but Herodotus says that Pheidon's son was a
suitor for Agarista, which would make his date about 620, and his father's
about 660.
124
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
the Peloponnese/ cut off from the Spartan valley of the
Eurotas by the great range of Mount Taygetus. Their land
consisted of the fertile plain of Stenyclarus, through which the
river Pamisus flows ; and to the west is a mountainous district
in which the strong fortress of Ithome was built, overlooking
the plain across which Homer describes Telemachus driving
on his journey from Pylos to Plierae and Sparta.
The first Dorian chiefs, who, in order to justify their over-
lordship, claimed descent from Heracles, seem to have resided
at Stenyclarus, on the northern stream of the Pamisus, and
never to have conquered the southern district of Pylos. The
number of these Dorians was evidently small, and in course
of time the dominant race may have been very considerably
merged in the native Messenian people. This may partly
explain the treatment these rebellious half-castes received — as
severe as that accorded to revolted Helots — at the hands of
the pure-bred Dorian Spartiates.
Of the origin and the events of the first Messenian war
(traditional date 743-724) many picturesque legends survive,
handed down by writers who lived much later, but who may
have collected the traditions from the Messenians restored
to their country by Epameinondas (370). These legends tell
of a Messenian hero, Aristodemus, who determined to sacrifice
his own daughter to save his country, then slew her in anger,
and slew himself afterwards on her tomb. They tell of a
Spartan king, Theopompus, who, after man}^ battles, in the
twentieth year of the war captured and razed Ithome and
reduced all the Messenians who did not leave their country
to the same level of serfdom as that of the Helots.
After about forty years the Messenians again rebelled, and a
second war of nearly equal length took place (traditional date
685-668). In the first war some of the other Peloponnesian
states had taken a part, and on the outbreak of hostilities
Corinth again sent aid to Sparta, while on the side of the
Messenians were the Argives, Arcadians, Sicyonians, and the
* Homer mentions Messene, the district of Pherae, and its ruler Orsilochus.
The city of Messene was iirst built by Rpameinondas.
ANCIENT GREECE
people of Pisa. The hero of this war was Aristomenes, under
whose leaderstiip the Messenians inflicted such defeats on the
Spartans that they sent to the Delphic oracle for advice.
This bade them apply to Athens for a leader. The Athenians,
it is said, sent them in disdain a lame schoolmaster, Tyrtaeus,
and this man by his martial songs so aroused the courage of
the Spartans that, although they were defeated in a great
battle by the Boar's Grave, on the plain of Stenyclarus, they
again renewed the contest, and besieged the Messenians,
it is said, for eleven years in their new mountain stronghold,
Eira. During this siege Aristomenes performed many prodigies
of valour, and was several times taken prisoner ; but he always
managed to escape — once, it is said, even from the great pit
Caiadas in Sparta, into which the Spartans used to cast their
criminals. This feat he performed by grasping the tail of a
fox, which, struggling to get free, showed him the underground
aperture by which it had entered. But no heroism could
save the Messenians. Eira was captured. Many escaped to
Arcadia or to Rhegium and other places over the sea ; the rest
were again enslaved. Aristomenes is said to have gone to
Rhodes, and to have died there.
Fragments of the songs of Tyrtaeus exist, and I shall speak
of them later. They mention some of the events of this second
Messenian war ; but they do not name Aristomenes. The
songs were, says Athenaeus, chanted by a single voice to
the accompaniment of the flute. They consisted in spirited
appeals to the Spartans to show courage in battle and to
maintain law and order [eunomia) at home. It should perhaps
be added that some modern writers regard Tyrtaeus as a
Spartan and the story of his origin as an Athenian invention.
Tyrants (Ionia : Corinth : Megara : Sicyon)
While Sparta was thus laying the foundations of her future
supremacy very important changes had been taking place
in other cities of Greece. We have already seen how the old
hereditary monarchies of Homeric days had in many cases
given place to constitutions wliich were aristocracies in form
126
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
but which contained within them a strong tendency towards
democracy — a tendency that even under the permanent
monarchical system of the Spartan state manifested itself
in the creation of the popular magistracy of the ephors. We
have also noticed the growing demand for constituted law
and the adoption by Sparta of a code possibly founded to some
extent on the laws of Crete and other ancient nations. Besides
the half-mythical Lycurgus we hear of the shepherd Zaleucus,
who (about 664) was authorized by the Delphic oracle to devise
a constitution for the Italian lyocrians, and slew himself for
having unwittingly transgressed one of his own laws ; and of
Charondas, who gave a code to Sicihan Catane ; and ere long
we shall hear of the Athenian lawgivers Dracon and Solon.
The cry for justice — for equality before the law — uttered by
Hesiod was making itself heard. And the great increase of
the trading and labouring classes began to give them a con-
sciousness of power and the desire for self-government. More-
over, the introduction of a new method in warfare helped
greatly towards these ends. Instead of a Homeric Achilles
or a Messenian Aristomenes we have serried ranks of mailed
hoplites, and it is on these infantry-spearmen, drawn from
the poorer classes, rather than on the high-born hippeis
(knights), that the hope of victory now depends.
But the struggle of the people for self-government was long
and difficult. In not a few cases it led to nothing but frequent
and violent changes of constitution, which proved perhaps
more disastrous than a permanent absolutism would have
been. In others its first result was a relapse — or perhaps we
may regard it as an advance towards democracy through a
necessary phase. Aristocracy was exchanged for tyranny.
The process has already been described. Feuds (such as arose
in mediaeval Florence) disunited the aristocratic party, and
some ambitious noble would invoke the aid of the people
against his rivals and succeed in establishing himself as
' tyrant ' — that is, as an unconstitutional despot. ^ Greek
* The word tyrannos (possibly a Doric form of kohanos, a ruler, and con-
nected with the common word kurios, lord, or perhaps an Asiatic word) had
127
ANCIENT GREECE
' tyrannies ' seem to have first arisen in Ionia. About 620 we
hear of a tyrant of Ephesus marrying the daughter of Alyattes,
the king of I^ydia, and about the same time Miletus flourished
exceedingly under the tyrant Thrasybulus.
lycsbos, on the other hand, evidently suffered long and
severely from its aristocrats and despots, being oppressed
first by the oligarchy of the Penthelids and then by tyrants.
The last tyrant seems to have been expelled from Mytilene
by the people under the leadership of Pittacus and the brothers
of the poet Alcaeus, of both of whom we shall learn more
when we turn to the poets and sages of this era. Pittacus
had distinguished himself in war against Athens, and had won
the confidence of the people. He was elected absolute dictator
{aisymnetes) of Mytilene for ten years, during which time he
governed with such wisdom as to render possible the return of
the exiled nobles, among whom was the poet Alcaeus himself.
Of the wealth and splendour of the Ionian cities during
this age of despots, both on the mainland of Asia and on the
Aegaean islands, there is evidence enough, although we know
almost nothing about their history. In the so-called Homeric
Hymn to Apollo (perhaps dating from about 600) a fine de-
scription is given of the magnificence of the great festival on
the island Delos, which was the religious centre of the Ionic
world until the Asiatic lonians instituted their festivals at the
temple of Ephesus.
Indeed, at this time Ionia was apparently far in advance of the
homeland in many civilized arts, and during the age of Solon and
Peisistratus Athens adopted largely Ionian luxury and Ionian
dress — that soft linen raiment and those golden cicalas, worn
even by men as hair ornaments, of which Thucydides speaks
somewhat contemptuously. And probably surpassing Athens
itself in Ionian splendour were the Euboean cities of Eretria
and Chalcis, of which we have already heard as the mothers of
colonies. But they exhausted themselves in a conflict for
no moral significance. It merely signified that the ruler had no hereditary or
constitutional claim. It was perhaps first used by the Greeks with reference
to the I^ydian kings (see Archilochus, frag. 21). The king of Persia was
always Basiletis.
128
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
the possession of the fertile lyelantine plain. So long and
embittered was this war that, if we believe Thucydides, almost
all Greece (as well as Miletus and Samos) took part in it.
These Euboean cities declined rapidly in importance. Chalcis
was crushed by Athens, and the Eretrians were carried away
to Persia by Darius.
In the homeland several important cities during this era
(660-560) fell under tyrannies. Those of Corinth, Megara,
and Sicyon are of special interest.
At Corinth the monarchy of the Heracleid kings had long ago,
as we have already seen, given way to the oligarchy of the
noble, or royal, family of the Bacchiadae. This oligarchy
was overthrown (c. 655) by Cypselus, about whose birth
Herodotus relates a curious old story. The mother, it was said,
belonged to the Bacchiad family, but she was lame, and was
given in marriage to Action, who was poor but of the noble house
of the Lapithae. An oracle had declared that their son would
prove a rock to fall on Corinth and crush lawless power, and
the oligarchs sent men to murder the cliild ; but (as in the
' Babes in the Wood ') the murderers were overcome by pity,
and while they hesitated the mother, I^abda, hid her infant
in a cypsele — either a corn-bin or a great jar (tt/^o?), such as
the one depicted in Fig. 20 — and thus saved him. So he
very naturally received the name Cypselus. The story is,
perhaps, scarcely worth repeating except as an example of the
kind of mjrth that higher criticism rejects as being evolved in
explanation of a name ; but it is also interesting because this
chest or jar connects itself, as we shall see later, with the
celebrated ' chest of Cypselus' — perhaps the earliest Greek work
of art (besides the Shield of Achilles and that of Heracles !) of
which we have a detailed description.
It was probably before, possibly during, the reign of
Cypselus that the naval battle between Corinth and Corcyra
took place which has been mentioned. Corinth evidently
gained the victory, for while Cypselus and his son Periander
held power this city seems to have developed on the north-
western coast of Greece a considerable colonial empire, including
I 129
ANCIENT GREECE
Anactorium, Ambracia, Apollonia, and Leucas — which in the
Homeric age was a peninsula (Nericon, the kingdom of Laertes),
but was now converted into an island by a channel cut through
its isthmus. It was also evidently at this time that Corcyra,
with an oekist of Heracleid descent from the mother-city,
Corinth, founded that city of Epidamnus which, according to
Thucydides, was the first cause of open hostilities in the
Peloponnesian War.
The son of Cypselus, Periander, could claim at least the
shadow of hereditary right, but he seems to have found it
necessary to protect himself by means of a strong bodyguard of
mercenaries and by forcibly ridding himself of troublesome
nobles. In this connexion Herodotus tells almost exactly the
same story that is told by Livy about Tarquin. Periander sent
for advice to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, who said nothing
to the messenger, but led him through a field of corn and
" broke off and threw away, as he went, all such ears of corn
as overtopped the rest." Aristotle and other writers confirm
the description of Periander given by Herodotus. Together
with Thrasybulus, he is said to have drawn up a regular code
of ' sanguinary maxims,' as Grote calls them, of a Machia-
vellian nature. He is described by Herodotus as at first
" milder than his father," but afterwards a bloodthirsty despot ;
and revolting stories are recounted of his private life (including
the murder of his wife, Melissa, and his quarrel with his son,
whom he outlawed and banished to Corcyra) . So hated was
the tyrant by all that when, in old age, he proposed that his son
should return and take his place at Corinth, and that he himself
should come to Corcyra, the Corcyraeans, in their terror at
the prospect, put the son to death — for which deed Periander
took on them a terrible vengeance. '^
This is one view. Others laud Periander as a wise and just
though a severe ruler, and explain away the alleged acts of
cruelty and oppression as wholesome sumptuary legislation. His
^ See Hdt. iii. 48-53, v. 92. The story of the 300 Corcyraean youths whom
Periander seized and attempted to send to Alyattes of L,ydia is told with
great detail by Herodotus and bears the stamp of truth.
130
'f-'
42. Apoi:<i.o's Temple, Corinth
43. Site of Corinth and the Acrocorinthus
130
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
wisdom was, indeed, so famed in some quarters that his name is
found in some hsts of the Seven Sages. That Corinth rose to
great prosperity under his rule is undeniable, and it is more
than possible that the immense increase of wealth and luxury-
made repressive measures necessary. Of wealth and magni-
ficence an evident proof is what we hear of a colossal golden
statue of Zeus and the famous chest of Cypselus, two of many
splendid offerings made to Olympia by the Cypselid family.
At Delphi, too, the treasure-house of the Corinthians was built,
it is said, by Cypselus ; and there still exists at Corinth a
relic of the age, perhaps of the reign, of Periander — seven great
columns of what was once a mighty Doric temple sacred to
Apollo (Fig. 42). Like others of the Greek tyrants, Periander
seems to have been a patron not only of sculpture and archi-
tecture, but also of music and poetry, for Arion, the Jonah-
like story of whose escape (on the back of a dolphin) when
cast into the sea seems to belong to the region of myths,
was doubtless a minstrel at the Corinthian court. ^ Corinth,
with its two seas, had fleets on both sides of the Isthmus,
and was in touch not only with the Adriatic, Great Hellas,
Sicily, and the far West, not only with the Euxine and with
Miletus and Rhodes and Cyprus, but also with the newly
founded Cyrene and with Egypt, in this age first opened up to
Greek trade. The reign of Periander (625-585) was contem-
porary with the last years of Psamtik I, who liberated Egypt
from Assyria, and the reigns of the famous Pharaoh Necho
and his son Psamtik II. It is an interesting proof of the
tyrant's close connexion with Egypt that the nephew who
succeeded him bore the name Psammetichus.
Megara, of whose adventurous spirit and maritime power
we have already had remarkable evidence in the foundation
of Byzantium and Sehnus, seems to have suffered as much as
any Greek city from a despotic aristocracy. At last, possibly
with the help of the Corinthian Cypselus, a certain Theagenes
estabhshed himself as tyrant {c. 630) by adopting the usual
method of obtaining permission to form a bodyguard and then
* For Arion see Index.
ANCIENT GREECE
exterminating political rivals. After a reign of about twenty-
years his power was overthrown, and Megara became for a
long time the arena of fierce conflicts between the popular
and aristocratic parties, of which what little is known reminds
one by its intensely bitter personal feeling of the old Florentine
feuds rather than of political and social upheavals such as the
Secession of the Plebs. Again and again the nobles were
expelled and the popular party sated their lust for vengeance
by confiscating property, cancelling the debts of the poor,
and demanding even repayment of the interest ; again and
again the nobles returned, and finally established themselves
firmly in power. It is of these troubled times that the poet
Theognis sings. I shall speak of his poems later.
Sicyon, whose small territory lay not far to the west of
Corinth and was under Dorian oligarchs in early times,
seems to have been ruled by tyrants of Ionian blood from the
days of the second Messenian war. Of these only Cleisthenes
is known to history, and that mainly on account of his connexion
with Athens ; for his daughter Agarista, of whose wooing and
wedding Herodotus (vi. 126 sq.) gives us such a graphic and
humorous account, was the wife of Megacles, and mother of
the Athenian reformer Cleisthenes. The Sicyonian tyrant,
it is said, in his hatred of all tilings Dorian and Argive, forbade
at Sicyon the recitation of Homer, who glorifies Argos and
the Argives, and changed the names of the three Doric tribes
in Sicyon into names meaning swine, asses, and pigs.
The Sages
In the later period of the age which we are considering is
found the first distinct evidence of that philosophical thought,
that earnest search after truth, which is one of the noblest
characteristics of Greek civilization. Before the days of
Socrates Greek thought was directed more towards the solution
of physical than metaphysical problems. The so-called Ionic
philosophers propounded theories of wonderful boldness and
penetration on the origin and constitution of the material
universe, wliich formed as it were stepping-stones to doctrines
132
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
on the nature of the soul and of deity. But even before these
Ionic philosophers and others, whom I shall consider at the
end of the age of Peisistratus, we find signs of deep reflexion
on ethical questions, on questions of right and wrong, on the
moral sense as a guide to action, on virtue and vice, justice and
injustice.
Many such reflexions, revealing the deep, fundamental beliefs
of the human heart, we find in Homer — though not stated
didactically — and, as we have seen, the cry for justice is loud
in Hesiod. Of course these beliefs exist in every age ; but it is
not till towards the end of the seventh century that we find
them expressed by Greek thinkers and men of action, and the
form of expression is either the sententious and passionate
verse of the so-called gnomic poets (among whom Solon
and Theognis and the older Simonides are reckoned), or
m^oralizing stories in prose, such as the Fables of Aesop, or else
short, pithy, wise sayings, such as those which are attributed to
the Seven Sages.
Some of these Seven, all of whom flourished in the period
600-550, and whom the next age reverenced for their wisdom,
were men pre-eminent as rulers or lawgivers, and one was
renowned as the first and perhaps the greatest of the Ionic
philosophers. Most of them doubtless wrote, and some of their
writings were probably well known to the ancients, but hardly
anything remains except fragments of Solon's verse, of which
I shall speak later.
According to Plato the vSeven Sages were Thales of Miletus,
Solon of Athens, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, Cleobulus
of lyindus (Rhodes), Myson of Chenae, and Chilon of Sparta.
Others, strangely enough, insert Periander of Corinth in the
place of Myson. Opinions seem to have differed much as to
the authentic list. Not only do the names of the last three
vary considerably, but we have lists of ten, and even of seven-
teen. In later times each of the Sages was credited with
one distinctive maxim, and some of these maxims, such as
" Know thyself," " Nothing too much," " Know thy oppor-
tunity," were inscribed on Apollo's temple at Delphi. Cleobulus
133
ANCIENT GREECE
and his daughter seem to have made a reputation b}'^ their
riddles, and the poet Simonides speaks of this Sage as a ' fooHsh
mortal.' Periander, as we have seen, may have suffered
much from calumny, but if his wisdom, as is likely, was such
as is found in Machiavelli's Principe, we cannot wonder that
Plato omits him.
Athens, 776-560
In a former chapter we obtained glimpses of Athens in the
Dark Age, and saw that she too, like most of the Greek cities,
was at that time under the rule of aristocracies. This con-
tinued during the seventh century. The government was
carried on by archons, whose term of office had been [c. 750)
reduced to ten years. Then, in 683, three annual archons
were instituted. From this time onward a list seems to have
been kept of the archons, the chief of whom gave his name
to the year, and was therefore called the archon eponymos.
As deliberative and legislative council, like the Homeric
Boule, the archons had the Areopagus, consisting of past
archons and fifty-one special judges (ephetae) and other nobles
(Eupatridae) .
The Areopagus, one of the most ancient institutions of
Athens, was originally a court of justice for cases of murder
and homicide, evidently established, like the English ' blood-
wite,' in order to regulate private vengeance. According to
the legend adopted by the Greek dramatists, it was before this
divinely instituted court, and by the votes of the gods them-
selves, that Orestes was acquitted when, chased by the Furies
for the murder of his mother, he sought sanctuary at Athene's
shrine in Athens. As Aeschylus intimates, the court was
closely connected with the worship of the Furies as avengers of
blood, and it is likely that the name Areopagus, which was
conferred to distinguish this court from Solon's Boule, and
was in later ages believed to mean ' The Hill of Mars ' [Areios
pagos), really means ' The Hill of the Arai ' (Avengers)— as the
Semnai, or ' Awful Goddesses,' are called by Aeschylus himself.
The court was gradually empowered to interfere in matters
134
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
of religion and morals, and then in political affairs ; but after
serving as the supreme council of the aristocracy it lost much
of its power under the reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes, and
finally (in the age of Demosthenes) was allowed to retain no
authority except in trivial questions of ritual, gymnastics,
public parks, and the like.
The Athenian Ecclesia, the great popular assembly lineally
descended from the Homeric Agora, probably began to gain
more political influence after the institution of annual
archons and of the tribal guilds. There are many evidences
of a considerable advance towards democracy about the
opening of the seventh century. On account of the great
increase of trade and the invention of money, wealth began to
abound and to determine social and political status. As in
the later Servian constitution at Rome, the people (formerly,
as we have seen, divided into nobles, land-workers, and public
workers) were now, or perhaps in Solon's time, for political
purposes classed according to income. Five hundred measures
of corn and oil (or the equivalent) put a man in the highest
class, to which the chief magistracies were confined ; three
hundred gave him the title of knight, and two hundred that of
zeugites, which meant that he belonged to the rank of the well-
to-do peasant, the owner of a span of oxen. Another sign of
advance was the annual election (about 650) of six legislators
(thesmothetae), who, like the Roman decemviri, or perhaps more
like the Roman tribunes of the people, represented a growing
determination to acquire equal rights before the law. These six
thesmothetae, whose office was to examine laws and supervise
justice, were associated with the three supreme magistrates,
so that henceforth we hear of nine archons.
While matters were in this state an event took place which,
perhaps because it is so graphically described by Thucydides,
as well as by Herodotus and by Plutarch, seems to stand out
as the first distinct picture in the history of Athens.
Among the Athenian noble families (Eupatridae) one of the
most distinguished was that of the Alcmaeonidae, a branch of
the Neleid family, which claimed descent from the kings of
ANCIENT GREECE
Pylos. Now in the year 632, when the Alcmaeonid Megacles
was archon, an attempt was made by an Athenian noble,
Cylon by name, who had distinguished himself as winner of
the foot-race at Olympia, to establish himself as tyrant at
Athens. He had married the daughter of Theagenes of Megara,
and, incited by this tyrant's success, and by an oracle which
he misinterpreted, with a band of young Athenians and
Megarian soldiery he seized the Acropohs, trusting in popular
discontent. He was not supported, and, after being blockaded
for some time, he is said by Thucydides (not, however, by
Herodotus) to have made his escape. His comrades were forced
to capitulate. They sought sanctuary at the " altar of the
Acropolis " — evidently that of Athene Polias. " And those of
the Athenians who had been commissioned to keep guard,
when they saw them dying of famine in the temple raised them
up, promising to do them no harm ; but they led them away
and killed them. Others were cut down as they tried to seat
themselves in front of the altars of the Awful Goddesses."
Plutarch adds a graphic touch — one that recalls other examples
of the virtue of divine protection being transmitted by contact.
He says that the besieged, when under promise of quarter
they left Athene's temple, fastened themselves with a rope to
the statue of the goddess and were making their way down
from the Acropohs, when the rope broke,^ and they fled to
the sanctuary of the Furies, which happened to be near, but
were all cut down.
Cylon's unsuccessful raid is historically of importance, for
the belief that a curse had been incurred by Megacles and by the
Alcmaeonidae in this double act of sacrilege influenced the
course of events on more than one occasion. The taint, as
Grotesays, " was supposed to be transmitted to the descendants
of Megacles, and we shall find the wound reopened not only
in the second and third generation, but also two centuries
1 This, according to Plutarch, was urged by the Alcmaeonidae as a defence
against the charge of sacrilege. For other cases of a belief in the efficacy
of attachment see Hdt. i. 26 (where Ephesus, when besieged, is connected
by a cord with the temple of Artemis outside the walls), and Thuc. iii. 104
(where Rheneia is connected with Delos by a chain).
136
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
after the original event." (See Index and Hdt. v. 71, Thuc. i.
126.) For a long time public feeling seems to have been
deeply affected by exasperation mingled with superstitious
dread. At length — perhaps about 625, or perhaps later (for
Solon is said by some to have suggested it) — the Alcmaeonidae
were tried before a special court of 300 nobles and were banished,
those who had already died being disinterred and cast forth
as an ' accursed thing ' beyond the borders of Attica. But
religious excitement and despondent gloom still dominated.
Pestilence appeared, and neither sacrifice nor purification was
of any avail. The Delphic oracle was consulted, and bade the
Athenians seek some healer from a distant land.
It will be remembered that in Hesiod, as well as elsewhere,
there are many evidences of the persistence of the super-
stitious dread of the supernatural and of the belief in the efficacy
of propitiatory rites and charms which were such striking
characteristics of the ancient Greek religion, but which seem
to have crept away for a time into obscure hiding-places at the
advent of the Olympian gods. In a later age we shall find
these superstitions revived in the Mysteries and the Orphic
religion, and it is interesting to notice that also at the period
which we are now considering such vague terrors and beliefs
prevailed very generally. We read of many magicians and
healers, such as the Hyperborean Abaris, and Aristeas of
Metapontion, and Thaletas the Cretan, who was summoned
to Sparta to stay a pestilence, and in connexion with this
ineradicable tendency towards deisidaimonia may be named
the philosopher Pythagoras and the Sicilian Empedocles, both
of whom were regarded as more than human.
The healer whom the Athenians sent for (perhaps about
625, perhaps considerably later) was the Cretan Epimenides,
about whom wondrous tales are told.- He is said to have
fallen asleep in a cave and to have slept (like Rip Van Winkle)
for more than half a century, and to have lived 150 or even
300 years. By his contemporaries, as also by Plato and
Cicero, he was regarded as divinely inspired, and even Aristotle
himself speaks of him as something not quite canny. Besides
137
ANCIENT GREECE
being a prophet and a healer, he was a proHfic poet, and
possibly one very celebrated line of his, on the subject of the
Cretans, has been preserved by St. Paul. As for his visit to
Athens, I will quote what is said by Grote, who does not dis-
miss this very possible case of faith-healing, which is of great
interest both psychologically and historically, with the curt
contempt shown by some other writers. " Epimenides is
said to have turned out some white and black sheep on the
Areopagus, directing attendants to follow and watch them,
and to erect new altars to the appropriate local deities on the
spots where the animals lay down. He founded new chapels
and established various lustral ceremonies ; and more espe-
cially he regulated the worship paid by the women in such a
manner as to calm the violent impulses which had before
agitated them. . . . The general fact of his visit and the
salutary effects produced in removing the religious despondency
which oppressed the Athenians are well attested."
The pestilence very probably departed in the wake of the
religious despondency, but in this disturbed state of public
feeling doubtless political animosities were intensified and
lawlessness grew rampant.
As a drastic remedy the Athenians commissioned Dracon,
the archon of the year 621, to reform the laws and publish a
written code. Dracon's laws were " written in blood," as an
orator of later days expressed it. His reforms seem to have
consisted largely in terrorism. He increased penalties to
such an extent that petty theft was punishable by death, ^
and debt exposed a man to the danger of slavery. Such
relapse to barbarism may have had an effect for a time, but
could not permanently satisfy either rich or poor. The fact
1 See Hor. Sat. I, iii. 115 sq., where the allusion is evidently to Dracon,
Aristotle intimates that even idleness was thus punishable. An Egyptian law
of King Amasis punished with death a man who would not work to support
his family. Dracon's laws have perhaps been misrepresented. He may
have merely codified old and severe laws, some already lapsed. He seems to
have instituted some carefully framed legal forms, such as trials for various
cases of homicide. Even inanimate objects charged with homicide, if con-
demned, were solemnly cast forth beyond the frontier. Also the fifty-one
ephetae (special judges) may have been his creation.
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
that the laws were now fixed in writing was an immense
advantage, but their publication doubtless made the poorer
classes realize all the more keenly the intolerable state of
bondage and misery into which they had been brought by
debt and mortgage and the insolent exactions of the rich,
by which many had been reduced to actual slavery or to the
necessity of selling their own children as slaves to pitiless
creditors.
At this crisis a great and wise man arose who refounded the
state on the basis of true democracy, as some two and a half
centuries later the celebrated Rogations of Licinius set upon
its true basis the Roman republic.
I do not intend to give any detailed account of Solon's
constitution. It is a subject that requires full and special
treatment, and such it has received from writers who regard
the political history of Greece as of great importance. To me
it seems that we have little to learn from Greece in politics —
as little, perhaps, as from her perpetual intestine feuds,
I shall, therefore, while giving a sketch of Solon's personality,
touch very briefly on his reforms.
Solon was born about 638, some seventeen years before the
archonship of Dracon. He claimed descent from Codrus, and
from Poseidon through the Pylian Nestor, and his mother was
a cousin of Peisistratus. But his patrimony had been wasted,
and he took to trade and visited many distant lands, where
he gained not only riches but a knowledge of the world and of
human character and of letters which placed him on a level
probably much higher than that of most Athenians of his
day. It was natural that under such circumstances he should
express his opinions and feelings in a written form ; and that
this form should be verse was almost inevitable, for (as we
shall see in a subsequent section) there was as yet no prose
literature. His high birth and the great reputation that his
knowledge brought him, and perhaps also his newly acquired
wealth, led to his election, in 594, as archon with unlimited
legislative powers, in order that he should discover some
modus Vivendi between the people and the rapacious aristocracy.
139
ANCIENT GREECE
Doubtless his life had brought him much in contact with the
working classes, and at the same time he was closely connected
with the nobility, so that great hopes were placed in his
mediation.
His first move must have startled both parties. On entering
office he should have made the usual public declaration that
he would " preserve undiminished all private property."
Instead of this, he published an ordinance named the Seisach-
theia (the ' Shaking off of Burdens '), which cancelled all
obligations that pledged the liberty of the debtor and set free
all debtor-slaves. 1 Then he repealed all Dracon's laws except
those that dealt with homicide, and having thus cleared the
ground, and having deprived the oligarchic Areopagus of some
important functions, he laid the foundation of the future
Athenian democracy by extending the franchise to the Thetes
(lit. hirelings), the lowest of the four classes, by instituting
the Heliaea, or popular courts of justice, in which every
citizen in turn could take his place among the dicasts (judges
or jurymen), and by introducing election by lot.^ Moreover,
he formed a new council (Boule) of 400 members chosen from
the whole people except the Thetes, and transferred to this
council from the Areopagus the work of preparing measures
to be submitted to the Ecclesia. In addition to these con-
stitutional reforms he limited private land-owning and forbade
exportation of Attic products, except oil. Solon's laws were
written, or inscribed, on tablets or pillars (a^oi'e?, Kup^ei^),
which revolved on a pivot, and were first kept in the Acropolis,
but later, by the advice of Ephialtes, were placed in the
Agora.
Whether it was before, during, or even long after his
archonship is quite uncertain, but the conquest of Salamis
by Athens is said to have been due to Solon's influence. Eleusis
had been annexed long before, but Salamis, lying close in front
^ The Greek expression enl rm (rafiari davelCfiv corresponds to the Latin
nexum ivire. See addictus and nexus in Diet. Ant.
* Lot was used for selecting the nine archons out of forty candidates pro-
posed by the tribes. The Heliaea soon deprived the archons of all judicial
power and became the final court of justice.
140
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
of the Peiraeus, was still in the possession of Megara, and
so often had tke Athenians vainly tried to conquer it that,
it is said, they forbade under penalty of death any proposal
to renew the attempt. Pretending to be in a divinely inspired
frenzy, Solon recited in public some verses in which he passion-
ately denounced the cowardice of ' Salamis-abandoners,' and
called on the Athenians to " cast aside their disgrace " and once
more to " fight for the lovely island." The result of this appeal
was another attack on Salamis, which ended, perhaps by the
arbitrage of Sparta, in the island being separated permanently
from Megara and divided among Athenian cleruchs (' lot-
holders '). It seems possible that Peisistratus acted as
general in this war, and succeeded in occupying Nisaea, the
port of Megara — a military success that perhaps made effective
the Athenians' claim that Salamis had originally belonged to
them.i
Herodotus tells us that the Athenians swore to obey
Solon's laws for ten (Plutarch says a hundred) years, and that
during these ten years he visited Egypt and Cyprus ^ and other
distant lands. If this took place soon after his archonship
he must have returned to Athens about 582, and as he did not
die till about 558 there is an interval of over twenty years
which we must suppose him to have passed at Athens, possibly
making voyages from time to time across the Aegaean. But
even if his visit to Eg3^pt and Cyprus took place much later
(Herodotus says he was in Egypt in the reign of Amasis, who
came to the throne in 570), and if he did not return to Athens
until about 562, there is no reason why between 560 and his
death in 558 he may not have visited King Croesus, as
Herodotus asserts — although this was denied even in Plutarch's
day as chronologically impossible, and is denied by some
modern writers. The well-known story of this visit, so
beautifully narrated by Herodotus, will be given later.
^ Both sides appealed to the mode of burial in the ancient tombs of Salamis.
The Athenians cited the (perhaps interpolated) line in the Homeric ' Cata-
logue of Ships ' in which Ajax, who brought twelve ships from Salamis, is said
to have " drawn them up where the Athenian hosts were encamped."
" In Cyprus he is said to have persuaded a prince to found the city Soli.
141
ANCIENT GREECE
It was probably during the absence of Solon {c. 568) that
the unsuccessful attack on Aegina was made by the Athenians
which, according to Herodotus (v. 87), had such a dramatic
ending and caused a revolution in the dress fashions of Athenian
women, on account of their having stabbed to death with their
long stiletto dress-pins the sole survivor of the ill-fated
expedition (see Note B, on Dress). This attack was repelled
with Argive help ; and for some time to come we shall find
Athens and Argos on anything but friendly terms
Fierce dissensions had again broken out in Athens — so fierce
that for two years no archons were elected. The party of the
Plain, composed of rich landowners, was headed by lyycurgus ;
that of the Coast, formed mainly of the industrial and working
classes, was led by that Megacles who had married Agarista
of Sicyon — a grandson of the Megacles whose sacrilege in the
matter of Cylon had caused a temporary banishment of the
Alcmaeonid family. At last, taking advantage of these
dissensions, a friend and relative of Solon, a man who had
distinguished himself in the war against Megara and had won
great favour among the extreme democrats and other dis-
contents, created a third party, that of the Hills — so called
because it comprised many of the peasants of the Attic high-
lands. This man was Peisistratus, the rise and fall of whose
tyranny will be the subject of the next chapter.
Solon is said to have detected and denounced, but in vain,
the ambitious projects of Peisistratus. He died about two
years after the establishment of the tyranny. His ashes, it
is said, were by his orders strewn over the soil of Salamis.
SECTION A : EGYPT AND CYRENE {c 670-570)
In Section C, Chapter II, I sketched the history of Egypt,
as far as it touches that of Greece, down to its conquest {c. 674)
by the Assyrian monarch Assarhaddon. Some five years later
this great king of Nineveh and Babylon abdicated (weary of
power, like Charles V), and was succeeded by the unwarlike and
literary Assurbanipal, known to the Greeks as Sardanapalos.
142
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
Now of the twelve vassal-kings who still governed Egypt
under the suzerainty of Assyria, one named Psamtik (Psam-
metichus), of Libyan descent, who reigned at Sais, in the
Delta, is said by Herodotus to have been dethroned by his
fellow-rulers and to have fled to the marshes. Having sent
to inquire of the famous Eg3^ptian oracle of Leto, he was told
that " vengeance would come from the sea, when bronzen
men should appear." Not long afterwards some bronze-clad
Carian and Ionian warriors were driven by storms to the
Egyptian shore (modern criticism believes they were purposely
sent by the king of Lydia) , and by their help Psamtik brought
the whole land under his sway, founding thus the dynasty of
the four Saitic kings, and defeated Assurbanipal [c. 664) and
finally drove the Assyrians out of Egypt. He naturally showed
great favour to the lonians and other Greeks, who now for the
first time were allowed to settle freely in Egypt. About 660
the Milesians founded the trade-settlement Naucratis, the
ruins of which have lately been discovered on the west bank
of the Canopus Nile, not far from Sais.^ Greek mercenaries
formed the right wing of the army, and also the garrison in the
new and least remote Egyptian stronghold, Defenneh (called
by the Greeks ' Daphnae,' i.e. Laurels), which Psamtik had
built as a defence against his eastern foes. These favours are
said to have so incensed the native Egyptian soldiery, who had
to garrison the distant Aethiopian and Libyan frontiers, that
they revolted, and 240,000 of them marched south and settled
inAethiopia (perhaps Abyssinia) , four months' journey beyond
Syene (Assouan) and two beyond Meroe (Khartum).
Psamtik reigned for forty-seven years, and extended his
dominions to the boundaries of Syria, but there he was stopped
by the Scythians, who at this period swept over the east of
Asia Minor and were only induced by a large bribe not to
attack Egypt itself. Of Necho, his successor, we have already
heard. He also favoured the Greeks, and they helped him to
^ No large temples but numerous small ones have been found — evidently
tlie ' chapels ' of the various Hellenic settlers. Later a great fortified brick
enclosure, the Helleneion, with large stone storehouses, vras built, probably
by leave of King Amasis.
H3
ANCIENT GREECE
build his triremes and merchant fleets. In his ships Phoeni-
cians circumnavigated Africa. He cut a canal from the Nile
to the Red Sea, and prolonged the vSuez Canal, begun in the
fourteenth century B.C. by King Seti and finished by de I^esseps
in the nineteenth century a.d. He defeated and slew King
Josiah at Megiddo, and advanced as far as the Euphrates,
but was defeated at Carchemish (60 1) by Nebucadnezar, the
young king of the new Babylonian Empire — for Nineveh and
the Assyrian Empire had fallen in the year 606.
His son, Psammis (Psamtik II), made an expedition against
the Aethiopians, or possibly the Deserters ^ who had settled in
Aethiopia. In his army were many Greek mercenaries, and one
can yet see at Abu Simbel, on the Upper Nile, some forty miles
before reaching Wady Haifa, Greek names and inscriptions on
the legs of a colossus (Fig. 44) cut by some of these soldiers.
Psamtik II was succeeded by his son Apries (the Hophra
of the Bible), who gave refuge to a ' remnant ' of Jews after
Judah had been carried away to Babylon by Nebucadnezar
in 587. Among these Jews was Jeremiah, who had been set
free by Nebucadnezar and had in vain tried to dissuade his
countrymen from leaving their native land, but had accom-
panied them to Tahpanhes (Defenneh, or Daphnae), where
they were allowed to settle, protected by the Greek garrison of
the frontier fortress. ^ It will be remembered how Jeremiah
(xliii. 10) buried great stones in clay at the entry of ' Pharaoh's
house ' at Daphnae and prophesied that Nebucadnezar would
come and set up his throne and his royal pavilion above these
stones. Nebucadnezar did come {c. 572), as both Jeremiah
and Ezekiel had prophesied, and overran Egypt right up to
Syene (Assouan) ; and at Daphnae the modern excavator
has found not only Greek pottery in abundance, but the relics
of the burnt palace of Hophra (which " to this day, most
curiously, bears the title of the house of the Jew's daughter"),
and also a square pavement which may possibly be the very
^ Called also ' I<eft-wing men ' (' Asmachs ' =:Abyssinians ?) because deprived
of the place of honour on the right wing ; whence their discontent and rebellion.
* 2 Kings XXV. 26 ; Jer. xl.-xliii. (perhaps partly by the ' Deutero- Jeremiah ').
144
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
stones " hid in the clay " by Jeremiah, above which the king
of Babylon set up his throne and pavilion. Nebucadnezar
and his Babylonians did not remain long, and an unsuc-
cessful expedition by the Egyptian native army against
Cyrene caused disturbances amidst which Hophra (Apries),
although supported by his Greek troops, was dethroned by
Aahmes, known in Greek history as Amasis, in whose reign,
as we shall see later, there was much friendly intercourse
between Egypt and Hellas ; for although Greek mercenaries
had fought against him he was wise enough to forget it.
The unsuccessful expedition of the Egyptian army against
Cyrene was possibly made against the wishes of Apries,
and none of his Greek soldiers took part in it — as was but
natural, for Cyrene (some 200 miles to the west of Egypt) was
a Greek colony. It was founded {c. 630) by aborigines of the
small volcanic island Thera, who had quarrelled with Dorian
settlers. After several failures ^ a site was found in the hills
about eight miles from the coast and about 1800 feet above the
sea, near to a fine spring and in a part of lyibya where, according
to Herodotus, there were three different climates, allowing
harvest during eight months of the year, and such abundant
rains that the natives described the place as one in which
" the sky leaks." Here Aristoteles of Thera founded Cyrene
and adopted the native name Battus (' King '), and for eight
generations the Battiadae held kingly power. About 560
Cyrene founded Barca, which soon rivalled its mother-city.
In its earlier days (c. 580) Cyrene gained literary fame from its
poet Eugammon, who, like other Cyclic poets, tried to finish
the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey. He wrote the Telegoneia,
the story of the son of Odysseus and Circe, and (as Virgil
did for the Romans) connected the legend of Troy with the
history of his countrymen. At a later period Cyrene was
the home of several renowned philosophers and literary men,
and Cyrenaica, with its five prosperous cities, became a very
rich province of the Ptolemies, and afterwards of Rome.
^ Herodotus (iv. 145 5^.) gives a very long story of these Therans and of
misinterpreted oracles, &c. See also iv. 199.
K 145
ANCIENT GREECE
The wealth of the country was largely due to the rather
mysterious plant siiphion — for which see coin 6, Plate VI.
SECTION B : LYDIA {776-S60)
Except Cyrene there was no point of antagonism between
Hellas and Egypt, and the conflict between the Hellenic and
Semitic races in Sicily was yet to come, but in Asia Minor the
Greek colonies had a vast hinterland of Oriental or semi-
Oriental nations — the wild Pisidian tribes, the lyycians,
Carians, Mysians, Phrygians, Lydians — some of them of
Aryan blood largely intermixed with that of the old Cappa-
docian and Hittite aborigines. And behind all these again
loomed during the earlier ages the mighty empires of old
Babylonia, of Assyria, and of the Babylon of Nebucadnezar,
soon to be replaced by the still more dangerous empire of the
Medes and Persians.
Perhaps it is not too much to say that the destiny of
modern Europe was decided by the battles of Salamis
and Himera — which took place, if we may believe tradition,
on the self-same day. Anyhow, it was decided by the
result of the conflict of Hellas with the non-Hellenic world,
especially with Persia and Carthage. It is therefore advisable,
without distracting our attention too much, to keep the chief
of these nations in view.
Down to the conquest of I^ydia by Cyrus (546) the great
empires of the far East had not come into direct contact with
the Hellenic world, except that Greeks in Cyprus had become
subjects of the Assyrian kings Sargon and Assarhaddon, and
Greek mercenaries had fought against Nebucadnezar in Egypt.
In Ionia and Greece itself much had doubtless been heard
of the vast cities and armies of Assyria and Babylonia, and
something of the learning of the East, such as the Chaldaean
astronomy and their system of weights, had been introduced ;
but during the age that we are considering (776-560)
Phrygia and I^ydia formed a buffer between Asiatic Hellas
and the far East, and what at present concerns us is the
146
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
history of these nearer Oriental countries and their relation to
Ionia.
In Phrygia, which enclosed I^ydia on the east, the dominant
race (as we saw in Chapter I) was of Northern (Aryan) stock,
and therefore was akin to the Greek. Phrygians evidently
settled also in Lydia and are the ' Maeonians ' mentioned
by Homer (who knows nothing of ' I^ydians '). They founded
what some writers have even called a ' Heracleid ' (Greek)
dynasty of Lydian kings, who, as also the Phrygian kings
(named alternately Gordias and Midas), lived on friendly
terms with the Ionian and Aeolian Greeks. The wealth and
civilization of both nations were evidently considerable. They
seem to have introduced the alphabet at an early age, and their
music and decorative art had influence on the Greeks. One
King Midas (perhaps the one to whom the fable gives
donkey's ears) made the gift of his royal throne to the temple
at Delphi — the first offering, says Herodotus, made by a
' barbarian.'
But it is of I^ydia that we hear most. Its capital, Sardis.
was built on a precipitous spur of Mount Tmolus, whence
flowed into the Hermus the gold-bearing stream Pactolus —
one of the sources of lyydian wealth. The ' Heracleid ' kings
seem to have brought the country to a high state of prosperity.
Herodotus even relates that these early I^ydians colonized
Umbria, in Italy, and founded the Tyrrhenian (Ktruscan)
nation ; and he tells us that they invented " all the games
that are common to them and the Greeks," and also the use of
gold-and-silver {electron) coinage.
The last of the ' Heracleid ' kings was Candaules.^ He was
slain {c. 716) by Gyges, who established the dynasty of the
native I^ydian Mermnadae, to which Croesus belonged. Gyges
extended the Lydian power over Mysia and endeavoured to
conquer the Greek seaboard of the Aegaean, but about 680
^ An Aryan name meaning ' dog-throttler,' corresponding to KwdyKTjs,
an epithet given by Hipponax to the god Hermes : " O dog-throttler Hermes,
by the Maeonians called Candaules." War-dogs were used by the Cimmerians
and other barbarians. For the dramatic story of Candaules and Gyges see
Hdt. i. 7. Coinage was probably first introduced by Gyges. See Note C.
ANCIENT GREECE
Lydia itself was attacked from the north and east by the
innumerable hordes of a wild northern people called the
Cimmerians,
The Cimmerians (doubtless the originals of Homer's
fabulous Cimmerians on the further shore of the river Ocean)
were probably driven south from their country (Cimmeria,
i.e. the Crimea) by the pressure of other northern tribes.
Whether they came by way of the Danube delta or the
Caucasus is unknown, but they captured the Greek city
Sinope and made it their cliief camp, whence they ravaged
almost the whole of Asia Minor, and even attacked the great
Assyrian king, Assarhaddon. At first Gyges was successful,
and he sent many Cimmerian captives in chains to Nineveh — the
first act of Lydian homage to Assyria, if such it was, that we
hear of. But two years later the Cimmerians again poured
down from the north, slew Gyges, plundered Sardis, and
pressed southwards, where they destroyed Magnesia and burnt
the great temple of Artemis that stood outside the city walls of
Ephesus. Of these hordes of ravaging northern barbarians the
Ephesian poet Callinus speaks (as we shall see in Section D),
and a vivid picture of them is given on a sarcophagus of
Clazomenae (Fig. 45).
Between Gyges and Croesus three kings reigned, Ardys
(678-629), Sadyattes (629-617), and Alyattes (617-560).
During this period we hear of various invasions of West Asia
Minor by Cimmerians, while in the far East the Scythians,
another wild northern people, totally defeated the king of
Media, Cyaxares, and for twenty-eight years (640-612) were
dominant even as far south as the Philistine city of Ascalon,
which they sacked. Indeed, it was only by bribes that
Psamtik I saved Egypt from them.
In spite of these recurring Cimmerian invasions Ardys and
Sadyattes seem to have attacked Ionia. Priene and perhaps
other cities were taken, and Miletus was much harassed by
them. Alyattes finally expelled the Cimmerians. He then
turned his arms against the Greeks, wishing doubtless to acquire
a seaboard for Lydia. He took and utterly destroyed (c. 590)
148
44- Coi^ossi OF Abu Simbel
45. Cimmerians ox the vSARconiACus of Ci<azomenae
148
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
new Smyrna/ which now almost disappears from the history
of ancient Greece, but after warring for eleven years against
Miletus (now under the tyranny of Thrasybulus, Periander's
friend) he made peace, probably because Lydia was assailed
by a new foe, namely, the Medes, who under Cyaxares (the
conqueror of Babylon) and his son Astyages were extending
the new Median empire towards the Aegaean. In the sixth
year this war between Lydia and the Medes was ended by a
strange occurrence. In the midst of a battle the sun was
darkened, and the combatants were so alarmed that they ceased
fighting and concluded a peace. This solar eclipse, the date
of which was May 28, 585, is of interest not only because it
gives us (like the eclipse of 648 recorded by Archilochus)
an exact date, but because it was foretold, more or less accu-
rately, by the philosopher Thales. This was perhaps the first
eclipse predicted by a European. Thales gained his know-
ledge of the lunar cycle (of about seventeen years) and the
astronomical data for calculating eclipses from the Egyptians,
who themselves, it is likely, were indebted to the Chaldaeans
of Babylon. 2 But whatever may have been the source of his
knowledge, the prediction of Thales was a momentous event,
for it was, as far as we know, the very first attempt made in
Europe to lay the foundation of inductive science. It marks,
as Grote says, the beginning in the Hellenic world of scientific
prediction as distinguished from the prophecies of soothsayers,
oracles, and omens.
To seal the peace with Media King Alyattes gave his
daughter in marriage to Astyages, and for the next forty years
Lydia enjoyed, under Alyattes and his son Croesus, brilliant
prosperity, until Cyrus the Persian overthrew the Median
Astyages, and twelve years later (546) attacked and overthrew
the Lydian Croesus also, as we shall see in the next chapter.
^ See p. 63. But Pindar afterwards mentions Smyrna as a ' bright city.'
* Ptolemy, the great geographer and astronomer, although he lived in
Egypt, cites the Chaldaean calculations for eclipses as the earliest {i.e. from
721). Egyptian astronomical knowledge, however, dates at least from the
time of the Pyramids (c. 3000).
149
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
SECTION C : THE GAMES
It is a trite remark that Greece was never a nation ; and it
is true that Hellas, and even the Hellenic homeland, had no
political coherence. Very rarely, as Thucydides says, did the
Greek states take any combined action, and even against the
Persians the combination was by no means complete. Greek
patriotism was not based on the idea of political union, far
less on that of any central imperial power. All imperialism,
all hegemony of Greek over Greek, was as odious as tyranny
to the deeper instincts of the race, and although such
temporary structures as the Athenian Empire and the
Spartan and Theban supremacies arose from time to time,
they were maintained by forces foreign to true Hellenic
genius. But though not united politically, often torn asunder
by intestine feuds, the Hellenic world was united in heart by
sentiments perhaps nobler than those of ordinary patriotism
— by the proud consciousness of kinship not only in blood
but in the deepest sympathies of human nature, such as find
expression in religion and art and literature.
This fact is finely stated in the message sent by the Athenians
to Sparta before the capture of Athens by Mardonius the
Persian : " Not all the gold that the earth contains would
bribe us to take part with the Medes and help them to enslave
our countrymen. . . . There is our common brotherhood,
our common language, the altars and the sacrifices of which
we all partake, and the common character which we bear.
Did the Athenians betray all this, of a truth it would not be
well."
This consciousness, which more and more counteracted
the old antipathies between Doric, Ionian, and other sections
of the race, and inspired all Hellas with a feeling of boundless
superiority over the nations that surrounded it on all sides —
though some of these ' barbarians ' could boast of a civilization
far more ancient and a sense of truth and honour ^ far keener
^ See later remarks on the Persian character. The traitor was never far to
seek among the Greeks, but was scarcely known among the Persians.
ANCIENT GREECE
than that of the Greeks — was fostered by the great religious
festivals held by the mother-cities, to which the colonies of
the Hellenic world sent solemn embassies {Oewpiai) vying
with each other in the magnificence of their offerings.
Also for the Greeks of the colonies there were meeting-
places where great festivals were held, such as the lyicinian
promontory in South Italy, and the island of Delos. This
island, lying in the midst of the Cyclades, which offer easy
transit between Greece and Ionia, was in early times an impor-
tant entrepot. It was also the religious centre of the Ionian
world, famed as the birthplace of Artemis and Apollo and for
the most ancient oracle of the god.^ Every fifth year the
birth of the twin deities was celebrated with magnificence,
amidst a great concourse, vividly described in the ancient
Hymn to Apollo : " Hither gather the long-robed lonians
with their children and chaste wives. They wrestle, they
dance, they sing in memory of the god. He who saw them
would say they were immortal and ageless, so much grace and
charm would he find in viewing the men, the fair-girdled
women, the swift ships, and riches of every kind." (See
also Thuc. iii. 104.) These festivals seem to have been
accompanied by contests in music and poetry. The temple,
with its priceless treasure of offerings, was not touched by
the Persians, who plundered most of the other islands, but
the Delian festivals seem to have ceased during the Persian
supremacy. They were revived with great ostentation by the
Athenians of the Empire, who used to send splendid theorias
in the sacred Delian galley (Salaminia) ; but this revival
was of short duration, for Delos had lost its special sanctity
in rivalry with Delphi, and the centre of religious life for
the lonians had been long since transferred to the great temple
of Artemis at Ephesus, as that of their political life was
transferred to the pan-Ionian assembly on Mount Mycale.
^ Homer speaks only of Apollo's altar in Delos. EJxcavation lias revealed
a sanctuary with small temples of Artemis, Apollo, Ivcto, and Aphrodite —
perhaps built on the site of the great ancient temple. Statues, possibly of
Artemis, have been discovered (see Fig. 50). The original Delian statue of
Apollo was said to have been brought thither by Theseus from Crete.
152
46. Site of Oi,ympia and Vai^e of the Ai<pheios
»^ !! giW !fy! a^L». ^M IJ«Mii
47. HERAION, OtYMPIA
152
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
By far tlie most famous, if not the most ancient, pan-Hellenic
assembly was that held at Olympia, where Heracles is said to
have consecrated (c. 1200) a sanctuary to Zeus, and to have
founded games after his victory over Augeas, king of Elis.
Others even attribute the foundation to Pelops (c.1280) . Tradi-
tion asserts that the games, which had fallen into disuse,
were reinstituted by Lycurgus of Sparta and Iphitus, king
of Elis ; ^ to prove which was shown at Olympia the discus
of Iphitus inscribed with the name of Lycurgus. Perhaps it
was on this occasion that the Eleans, supported by Sparta,
usurped the presidency at the games, held till then by the
people of Pisa, in whose territory Olympia lay, and to whom,
as we have already seen. King Pheidon of Argos (c. 680) for a
time restored their rights. During the seventh century all the
victors were Spartans, Messenians, and Eleans, so that it seems
as if the games were confined to these peoples. After the
Messenian wars (c. 600) we find competitors from other Greek
states, and later many of the most celebrated victors came
from South Italy, Sicily, and other parts of Hellas. None but
pure Hellenes were allowed to compete. Foreigners might be
spectators, but no slave nor any woman was allowed to be
present. 2
From 776 to 724 the games consisted merely of a foot-race of
about three hundred yards. Longer races were then introduced,
and the pentathlon (a fivefold contest in running, leaping,
wrestling, discus- and spear-throwing) and chariot-races, and
lastly the pancratium (combined boxing and wrestling). The
competitors had to undergo a training of ten months and
special practice for a month at Olympia under supervision, and
to make sacrifices and to vow that they would compete fairly.
There were official trainers besides the judges [hellanodicae) ,
who awarded the prizes — wreaths cut with a golden knife from
the sacred olive-tree, which, it was said, Heracles had planted.
1 Traditional date 884. Others give 776, i.e. the year of the victory of
Coroebus, from which the Olympiads are dated.
* Perhaps no married women ; and possibly exceptions were made with
Spartan women. A story is told of a woman being detected in male attire,
but as her son was victor she was forgiven.
ANCIENT GREECE
Marvellous stories were told of the feats of some of the
victors. The distances (fifty feet or so) covered by them in
leaping seem incredible, but how they used the halteres
— i.e. ' leaping weights ' held in the hands while jumping — is
unknown. Of activity and endurance we have a striking
example in the victor of the nine-mile race, who is said to have
continued running after passing the goal, and to have reached
Argos, some fifty miles distant, on the same evening.
The festival took place every fourth year. At first it
was limited to a single day (probably that of the first full
moon after the summer solstice). After the Persian wars
it was extended to five days. The vast multitudes who camped
on the slopes of the Mount of Cronos and the sandy hillocks
between the beds of the Alpheus and the Cladeus, and who
for five days stood in dense throngs around the racecourse and
-palaestra, must have suffered greatly from heat and drought —
for the river-water was scanty and bad, and it was not till a
late age that a reservoir of pure water was made by the wealthy
Roman, Herodes Atticus, No wonder that special sacrifices
were offered to Zeus the Averter of Flies !
A ' holy truce ' was proclaimed for the whole month,
during which all warfare was forbidden and the land of Elis
was considered sacred.
The temenos, or sacred precinct, at Olympia was called the
Altis.^ Within it stood in early days the ancient temple of
Zeus, on the site of which was probably afterwards built the
wonderful structure for which Pheidias made his famous
statue, and where the equally famous chest of Cypselus was
kept. Another temple contained the tomb of Pelops, and
very ancient stone foundations have been excavated which
are believed to have belonged to the temple of Hera and
Zeus — an edifice of sun-baked brick with wooden Doric columns
dating from perhaps looo (see Fig. 47). In an open space
of the Altis stood the great altar of Zeus, and outside the walls
was the Stadion, a racecourse about two hundred yards in
^ Probably the Elean form of lika-os, a sacred grove. The Altis was a
square of about two hundred yards each way, enclosed by great walls.
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
length. Such was Olympia in the age of Lycurgus, and also
of Pheidon ; but in time the old buildings were replaced by
marble temples, and many other magnificent structures arose
within and without the Altis — halls and porticoes and treasure-
houses. More than eighty altars erected to the various deities
testified to the vast numbers of the worshippers, who came
from all parts of Hellas ; ^ the avenues were lined with the
statues of victorious athletes, and both within and without
the temples were erected the masterpieces of renowned sculptors,
such as the Olympian Zeus of Pheidias, the Victory of Paeonius,
and the Hermes of Praxiteles. -
Even in the sixth century, as we shall see, men like
Xenophanes the philosopher spoke disdainfully of the glori-
fication of the athlete. Euripides, too, in the fragment that
survives of his Autolycus, calls athletes the worst of all the
ills of Hellas, and Socrates, one of the hardiest and bravest
of soldiers, spoke of such men with contempt, as did also
Epameinondas.
In a still later age — when chryselephantine statues of
royal Macedonians stood in the Philippeion at Olympia — the
games degenerated into mere professional contests, and
Alexander the Great himself is said to have despised ' athleti-
cism.' Under the earlier Roman emperors the Olympic Games
were celebrated with great magnificence, but were abolished
in A.D. 394 by Theodosius I. His grandson, Theodosius II,
had all the temples burnt. But many a splendid ruin still
remained, and afforded material to Christian church-builders,
as well as to Goths, Slavs, and Turks. At last the great
columns and pediments of the temple of Zeus were overthrown
by an earthquake. Excavations made by the Germans
about 1876 brought to light not only old foundations and
many fragments of architectural sculpture, but also the two
^ As one might infer from its site on the western shores of Greece, Olympia
was frequented far more by the Greeks of Western Hellas than by those of
Ionia. Out of the twelve treasure-houses five were erected by Greeks of
Sicily and South Italy, one by Epidamnus, one by Cyrene, and one by
Byzantium.
" See Figs. 93, 112, and coin 10, Plate III.
ANCIENT GREECE
statues already mentioned, the Hermes and the Victory —
both of them original masterpieces by great Greek artists.
Of these and of the sculptures of the Zeus temple I shall
speak again later.
Pan-Hellenic festivals with athletic and sometimes musical
and poetical contests were held also at Delphi, at Nemea,
and on the Isthmus. For all of them great antiquity was
claimed. The Isthmian Games were said to date from the
age of Theseus and Sisyphus, the Nemean from that of the
Seven against Thebes, while Apollo himself was said to have
founded the Pythian Games at Delphi. But very little is
known of them until they were refounded — the Isthmian
festival, in honour of Poseidon, possibly by Periander of
Corinth, and the Nemean, in honour of Zeus, by the Argives.
These festivals were biennial. At the same time as they were
reinstituted (c. 580) the Pythian Games were revived. At the
original Pythian festival there were probably only contests in
music and poetry. The great temple stood, as the Homeric
Hymn to Apollo says, "in a hollow, rugged glen beneath the
overhanging crags of snowy Parnassus " — a site very unsuitable
for athletic gatherings and horse-races. Nor did the god himself
seem to favour such things, for in the same Hymn the poet
protests in the deity's name against the clatter of chariots and
horses around his temple, and the " drinking of mules at the
sacred fountains." But when an arena was found at sufficient
distance, so that the tumult of games should not disturb the
sanctity of his oracle, Apollo was content and vouchsafed his
favour. This arena was the plain of Cirrha, or Crissa, lying
between Delphi and the sea. The people of Crissa, to whom
belonged the port at which pilgrims landed, levied heavy dues
and otherwise annoyed the people of Delphi, who had control
of the Delphic shrine. These appealed to the Amphictiony ^ —
a religious league of North Grecian states — which espoused
their cause, and with the help of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, after
* AmphicHones means 'dwellers around.' The league was probably begun
by the neighbours of a shrine of Demeter near Thermopylae, and gradually
grew until the Amphictionic Council had great influence. See Did. Ant.
156
48. Vai,e of Tempe and Mouth of River Peneios
49. Site of DE1.PI11
156
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
a struggle of about ten years (the first Sacred War), succeeded
in capturing Crissa (590). They razed it to the ground and
dedicated the Crissaean plain to the service of the Delphian
god ; and on this plain was held the Pythian festival, which
for its musical, poetical, and artistic contests, as well as for
its chariot-races, became scarcely less famed than that of
Olympia itself. French excavators have brought to light the
remains of the great temple and of about six others, as well as a
theatre, stadium, and gymnasium, not far from the Castahan
Fount, and the paved Sacred Way which winds up the huge
stone terraces on which Apollo's temple stood. This Sacred
Way was lined by treasure-houses erected by many of the chief
cities of Greece, and was once filled with priceless works of
art, almost all of which have naturally disappeared, for Delphi
was the prey of plunderers during many ages. Fine architectural
sculptures have, however, been recovered, especially some that
belonged to the Athenian, Sicyonian, and Cnidian treasuries,
and also numerous statues, offerings to the Delphic god. Of
these the most remarkable are a colossal Sphinx dedicated
by the people of Naxos, and the bronze charioteer (Fig. 74)
which was probably erected as a thank-offering for victory in
a chariot-race by Polyzalus, the brother of Hiero.
SECTION D : THE POETS (776-560)
We have seen how by the time of Hesiod the old monarchical
and feudal feeling had largely given way to the natural yearn-
ings for personal liberty and independent thought, and how
such yearnings, thwarted by the rich and high-born oppressor,
found vent in bitter lament and the cry for justice and
equality. The true poet — who ever interprets his age — no
longer deigned to sing the praises of heaven-descended princes.
The epic bard, or rhapsode, indeed, still existed, and the
Cychc writers (so called because they attempted to finish the
whole cycle of the legend of Troy) supplied him with material
such as the Sack of Ilion, the Cypria, the Little Iliad, and the
Telegoneia, and sometimes, for a change, with mock-heroic
157
ANCIENT GREECE
parodies of the Homeric epic such as the Margites, the story
of a booby-hero who " knew many professions but knew all
badly," or the Batrachomyomachia, the ' Battle of the Frogs
and Mice.' And there were (as there are in most ages) poets
who wrote religious verse — hymns for festivals of the gods,
some of them, such as the ' Homeric ' hymns to Apollo and
Demeter, of great dignity and beauty. But all this was a
survival. The spirit of the age was another, and poetry
demanded new forms in which to sing of freedom and fatherland,
love and friendship, wisdom and virtue, life and death.
The first of these new forms was elegiac verse, which in its
original home, Caria and I^ydia, was of a dirge-like character
and was accompanied by mournful flute-music. But the
metre, a couplet consisting of the epic hexameter and a similar
but shorter and more energetic verse with two emphatic
monosyllables, was adopted by the Greeks for their war-songs,
and also for exhortatory poetry {viroQmai) and sententious
maxims (yi'w/xat), and for the expression of personal feelings
and opinions on all subjects affecting human life. Among the
elegiac poets of this age the chief were Callinus, Tyrtaeus,
Mimnermus, and Solon.
The second form was iambic verse, generally of a satiric
character, the chief writers of which were Semonides of Amorgos
and Archilochus.
The third form was lyrical verse. These early lyrical
poets stand on a level immeasurably higher than that of the
elegiac and iambic writers. The best known, though, alas !
by repute rather than from what has survived of their poetry,
are Sappho and Alcaeus, with whom one may perhaps venture
to associate Alcman, Arion, and Stesichorus.
The following brief accounts of these poets and of some of
their surviving works may prove interesting. Further bio-
graphical details will be found in classical dictionaries.
(i) Callinus of Ephesus was perhaps the inventor of the
elegiac couplet. His seems to have been mostly war-poetry.
Among the few verses of his that are extant he calls upon his
countrymen to rouse themselves : " How long will ye lie idle,
158
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
while war fills all the world ? . . . 'Tis honourable and glorious
for a man to fight for his fatherland, his children, and the
wife of his youth. ... It is not possible to escape one's
destined death. . . . Many a man has fled battle and the clash
of arms only to return to his home and find there the doom
of death." In a verse preserved by Strabo Callinus exclaims :
" Now is coming the host of the Cimmerians, those doers of
terrible deeds ! " It is therefore probable that by his war-songs
he roused the Ephesians against these savages, who (c. 678) had
captured Sardis and killed the I^ydian king Gyges, and soon
afterwards burnt the temple of Artemis, just outside the walls
of Bphesus.
(2) Of Tyrtaeus (c. 660) we have already heard. Whether
he was really an Athenian, or whether his birthplace, Aphidna
in Ivaconia, was confused with Aphidna in Attica, is unknown.
Fragments survive of ' Tyrtaean ' marching songs in anapaestic
measure — e.g.
"AyeT\ d) STrapraf evdvdpov
Kovpoi TTUTepav TToKtaratv . . .
— and about eighty elegiac couplets, some of which have a
splendid swing, such as :
TfdvdjifvaL yap kolKov eTrt Trpopa^oicri neaovTa
av8p' ayaduv rrepl rj Trarpl^L papvapevov . . .
Kol TTuda nap ttoSi ^fi? (cal err' dani8oi dcmlb epeiaras . . •
The language is almost pure Ionic, not Doric ; which is
strange if he was really »Spartan. Moreover, his poetry (if
it is his) contains numerous lines almost identical with lines
of Callinus, so that some hold that it was written in Ionia
by some Milesian poet and attributed to Tyrtaeus. Among
Tyrtaean elegiac exhortations [virodmai) are some fine verses
encouraging young warriors not to desert their elders in battle.
" What a foul sight," the poet exclaims, " is a white-headed
warrior lying dead in the front ranks ! But in the youth
everything is seemly ; he is handsome alive and handsome also
when fallen in the van of the battle." Besides, he adds,
bravery is the best policy ; the bold survive, while all the herd
159
ANCIENT GREECE
of cowards perishes. Of his elegy Eunomia {' Good Order ')
about thirty Hnes are extant. In it the poet calls on the citizens
to avoid dissension and to respect the Pythian oracle as the
source of law and order. He mentions the " god-honoured
kings " of Sparta, especially Theopompus, under whose
command, after nineteen years, " we conquered Messenia,
good to plough and good to plant." Another fragment
(possibly genuine) depicts vividly a well-known characteristic of
the Spartans : " The love of money and naught else shall
ruin Sparta. . , . Thus hath golden-haired Apollo prophesied
from his rich shrine."
(3) The poetry of Mimnermus (c. 630) is of a more personal
character. Some of it is addressed to Nanno, a flute-girl.
"What is life," he exclaims, " without golden Aphrodite? "
Old age is a terrible thing ; its doom (/c>/p) is worse than that of
death, destroying both eyes and mind.^ lyike Horace he sings of
the joys of youth, and bids one gather them donee virenti canities
abesf. Perhaps more interesting than his views on this subject
are the verses in which he tells how an ancestor of his drove
in rout the phalanxes of Lydian horsemen on the plain of the
Hermus. This was evidently in a fight between the people of
Smyrna, the poet's birthplace, and King Gyges, who failed to
take the city. Three generations later (c. 590) Alyattes of
Lydia captured and razed Smyrna (see p. 149). But Mimnermus
probably did not live to see this evil day, though he seems
to have survived to the manhood of Solon [c. 600), who
answered his assertion that life was over at seventy ^ by
bidding him substitute ' eighty.'
(4) When Solon was in Egypt, says the grandfather of
Critias in Plato's Timaeus, he heard from the priests (the same
priests who told him that the Greeks were always children)
the wonderful story of the isle Atlantis. " Ay," adds the old
Critias, "if he had not taken up poetry as a mere by-work,
but had worked at it earnestly like others and had composed
1 Perhaps these (cijpes of Mimnermus are the evil spirits, or, as Miss Harrison
has argued, the bacilli, of old age and death. See p. 46.
* Strangely enough, Solon in his Ten Ages gives seventy as the limit, and
Herodotus makes him give the same in his conversation with Croesus.
160
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
a poem on this story that he brought from Egypt, instead of
having been obhged to neglect it on account of all the political
troubles that he found here at Athens, I believe that neither
Hesiod nor Homer nor any other poet would have been more
famous."
In spite of Critias, or even of Plato himself, it is not easy to
believe that Solon could ever have been a great poet. But his
verses are often exceedingly eloquent and forcible, and on
account of his great reputation as statesman and sage they
are of supreme interest. In an age when writing was still a
rare accomplishment and one had to trust mainly to the
living voice those who had anything to say and who wished
to impress it on the memory of their hearers chose a rhythmical
form — which, after all, is the natural mode of expression for
the emotions, and far less artificial than literary prose. ^ Even
laws, it is said, were anciently published in rhythmical language,
and not only sages such as Solon and Bias (who wrote a poem of
two thousand lines) , but also many of the earlier philosophers,
as Parmenides, Heracleitus, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and
perhaps even Thales himself, expressed their doctrines in verse
— a method which, as the magnificent De Rerum Natura of
Lucretius in a later age proved, allows the imagination its
sublimest flights, but which might have its disadvantages
for writers on what is nowadays called philosophy. The
extant verses of Solon are {a) eight lines of his celebrated
verses, originally a hundred, about Salamis ; (6) Exhortations
to the Athenians ; (c) Exhortations to himself ; {d) some
trochaic and iambic verses.
The sense of his lines about Salamis is as follows : "I
came myself as a herald from lovely Salamis, having composed
an order [series] of verses instead of a set-speech. . . . Would
that I had been then [when we gave up Salamis] a man of
Pholegandros or Sicine [little Aegaean islands] rather than an
^ Aesop (c. 570) should here be mentioned. If he wrote his Fables in verse,
as is probable, they were known later only in a prose version ; for Socrates,
when in prison, bidden by the god to " make his life more musical," versified
some of them.
L 161
ANCIENT GREECE
Athenian, for swiftly this report might be spread abroad :
This is an Attic man — one of the Salamis-abandoners."
In his Exhortations to the Athenians he eloquently describes
the ruin brought on a city which loves injustice — how its poor
are sold into slavery and not even the courtyard doors keep out
disaster from a man's home. He sings of Order and Disorder,
and of feuds between rich and poor. " I stood holding before
both a mighty buckler, nor did I let either win unjustly." " It
is hard," he says, " to please all in great undertakings." He
speaks of the Demos, and how it best obeys its leaders when
not given too loose a rein nor held in too tight ; and he addresses
a remark to this same Demos which shows how thoroughly
he understood its nature : " Each one of you singly treadeth
in the tracks of the fox [is foxish in cunning], but when ye
are all together the mind within you is a gaping gooselike
thing ; for ye pay regard to the tongue and the word of any
wheedhng flatterer and look not at all to what is being
done."
The Exhortations to himself contain many wise saws and
maxims — e.g. " Wealth is good, but not when ill-acquired " ;
" God is a righteous judge, not quick to anger as a man."
A very interesting fragment is his Ten Ages, in which he
depicts with almost Shakespearean art the state of man at
every seventh year of his life — from the child of seven shedding
his first teeth to the septuagenarian "ripe to receive his destined
doom of death," an expression inconsistent with his answer to
Mimnermus. He probably lived eighty years himself, and one
of his finest sayings was, " I grow old ever learning many
things."
Of historical interest (if genuine) are the lines that he
addressed to Philocyprus, the Cyprian prince, bidding him
farewell, and wishing him long life at his new city, Soli (see
p. 141)-
Among the fragments of his trochaic tetrameters there is a
rather amusing passage in which he pretends to quote public
criticism of the fact that he followed the example of Pittacus
rather than that of Periander "Solon," he says, "was a
162
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
man of no deep wisdom or judgment, for when God gave
him good things he would not accept them, and, having
enclosed his catch, became nervous and did not haul his big
net to land. If / had got hold of such power and boundless
wealth, even if I had been tyrant of Athens for a single day,
I should have been willing to be flayed to make a wine-skin and
have all my family exterminated."
In his iambics he gives a most interesting account of how
he released debtors and recalled those who had been sold into
foreign slavery.
(5) Horace says that " fury armed Archilochus with his
own iambus." Doubtless iambic rhythm (which in some
languages, such as English, is the natural rhythm of emotional
language) existed before.^ It is found, for instance, in the
Margites, sometimes attributed to Homer, and it was
probably used in chants at Demeter mysteries and other reli-
gious ceremonies ; whence perhaps Archilochus borrowed it, for
his father was a priest of Demeter, and he himself won the
prize for a hymn to the goddess. But possibly the iambic
trimeter (the metre used by the great Greek dramatists) was
invented by this poet of Paros, who used it with dire effect,
it is said, in his scathing satires against I^ycambes and his
daughters. From fragments of his poems (which comprised
elegiacs, iambics, trochaic tetrameters, and also combinations
of various rhythms, imitated by Horace in his Epodes) it seems
that he visited Southern Italy, for he speaks of the " streams
of the Siris, more lovely than Thasos." Also he mentions
Euboea, and describes the Euboean mode of fighting : " not
much bending of bows nor many slings, but the terrible work
of the sword " ; so, perhaps, he took part in the Lelantine war
of Chalcis and Eretria (p. 128). He joined an expedition to
Thasos made by the Parians, attracted by the gold-mines of
that island and of the opposite Thracian mainland ; but it
seems to have been unsuccessful. He speaks of Thasos v/ith
^ The essential difference between the hexametric and iambic rhythms con-
sists in the fact that the spondee (or dactyl) is in equipoise, its two parts
balancing each other and producing a smooth onward motion, whereas the
trochee or iambus (~^ or '-'") causes an agitated, up-and-down movement.
163
ANCIENT GREECE
dislike as a bare, rocky ridge " like a donkey's back." In a
fight with Thracians he lost his shield (a fact that probably
accounts for a similar story about Alcaeus, and certainly
accounts for the imaginative loss of Horace's shield at
Philippi). His lines on the subject may be thus rendered :
Some Thracian's doubtless chuckling o'er an unexpected find —
A brand-new shield, which much against my will I left behind.
Well, anyhow, I saved my life. The shield may go to pot !
Another and a better one can easily be got.
More important for the chronologist is the fact that, perhaps
while he was in Thasos, he witnessed a solar eclipse, for this
gives us the first quite certain date in Greek history, viz.
April 8, 648. " Nothing," he says, " is incredible and impossible
any longer, since Zeus created night at noonday, hiding the
light of the blazing sun ; and pale dread fell upon mortals.
Henceforth all things can be believed and expected. Let none
wonder even if the beasts of the forest exchange with dolphins
and dwell in the briny realms, and the resounding billows
become dearer to them than the dry land, while the mountains
delight those others." Possibly there is reference here to his
former love for the fair Neobule, lyycambes' daughter, now
changed into the bitterest disdain.
But of all that has survived of Archilochus the lines are
the finest in which he addresses his own soul, as Odysseus
does in the Odyssey. " Soul, soul, storm-tossed by desperate
cares, come forth and defend thyself breast-foremost 'gainst
thy foes, and station thyself in safety anigh the ambush of
the enemy. And if victorious, triumph not openly, nor, if
conquered, fall on thy face in thy house and lament, but rejoice
in all that is joyous and vex not thyself too much because of
evil men, remembering that such is the way of mortals." Words
like these and a line such as
Gyges with aU his golden wealth is naught to me,
come like a breath of fresh air across all the long ages of dusty,
dreary warfare and politics that so often form the main subject
of history.
164
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
(6) Semonides, called also Simonides, probably from being
confused with the later poet of that name, was a Samian by
birth, but migrated, perhaps as oekist of a Samian colony,
to the little island of Amorgos. lyike Archilochus, he used the
iambic trimeter for satire ; but his satire was not directed against
individuals, and his only extant complete poem, in spite of some
very caustic passages, is quite Horatian in its playful humour.
This poem, which is of about a hundred lines, describes the
creation of ten different kinds of women — the dirty from the pig,
the sly from the fox, the shameless and inquisitive from the
dog, the stupid from earth, the unstable from water, the obsti-
nate from the donkey, the thievish from the cat, the coquettish
from the horse, the mischievous from the monkey, and, lastly,
the good and industrious from the bee. The last he describes
with as much enthusiasm as Solomon himself, and a couplet
of his preserved by Clement of Alexandria repeats almost word
for word Hesiod's assertion that "nothing can a man win
better than a good woman, or worse than a bad one." Some of
the pictures in this poem of Semonides are exceedingly vivid —
such as that of the coquette, who will take no share in household
duties, but sits afar from the hearth, fearing the soot, and
performs her ablutions and anointings twice or even three
times daily, and " carries on her head a deep mane of hair
all combed out and overshadowed with flowers — a pretty sight
indeed for others, but to her lord and master a misfortune,
unless he be some tyrant or sceptre-bearing king who delights
in such things."
(7) Alcman was born at Sardis, in I^ydia, but his father
was probably Greek. How he came to Sparta is unknown.
Either, like Terpander, he was invited thither, or he came
originally as a slave and gained his freedom and civic honours
by his poetry. He is, according to the canon of the Alexandrine
grammarians, the first Greek lyric poet. His language is the
old I^aconian dialect. He wrote hymns, love- and war-songs,
and Parthenia (songs for Spartan maidens), all of which
seem to have been true songs and of a far higher poetic value
than the verses of Tyrtaeus. The form, too, of his poems
165
ANCIENT GREECE
is very different from that of the elegiac and iambic poets.
They consist of short hnes, mostly trochaic and dactylic,
arranged in strophes and antistrophes — a system invented by
him, amplified by Stesichorus and Pindar, and adopted by
the Attic dramatists for their choral odes — in which also the
Doric dialect is often used. He lived about 670-600, and was
thus probably a contemporary of Tyrtaeus.
Of his poetry numerous fragments remain. Of these the
most important was discovered (written on papyrus) in Egypt
about sixty years ago. It is a Parthenion, meant to be sung
by virgins at the festival of Artemis Orthia (see p. loi). There
are also four hexameters of great beauty, addressed in old age
to the Spartan maidens. He laments that he can no longer
take part in their songs and dances and wishes he were some
bright-coloured sacred sea-bird "that over the foam of the
sea with dauntless heart amid the halcyons flies." His lines
descriptive of the stillness of night have all the vividness,
if not the pathos, of Goethe's Ueher alien Gipfeln ist Ruh'.
(8) Arion {c. 625) was a native of lycsbos, which he left
probably early, before the days of Alcaeus and Sappho. He
spent most of his life at the court of Periander of Corinth, where
he became famous as a minstrel and song-writer. According
to Herodotus, as well as Aristotle, he was " the first to invent
the dithyramb measure." More probably he adapted the
rough measures and boisterous ribaldry of the old Cyclic,
or dithyramb, chorus, sung at vintage dances in honour of
Dionysus. There is nothing of Arion's poetry extant, although
the historian Aelian (third century a.d.) quotes verses in which
Arion himself is supposed to give an account of his rescue by
the dolphin. Aelian also appeals to the inscription on the
bronze statue of Arion and his dolphin erected on Cape Taenarus
to prove the truth of that account ; and perhaps there is
more truth in the story than we believe. Pliny tells of a
dolphin (porpoise) who used to carry a boy to and from
school every day across the bay of Baiae.
(9) Stesichorus (c. 632-556) was born at Himera, in Sicily.
One tradition asserts that he was a son of Hesiod. He incurred
166
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
the hostility of the notorious tyrant Phalaris and fled to
Catane, where he died. His tomb gave the name to one of
the city gates. This name, Stesichorus, he is said to have
received in addition to his original name Tisias because he
was famed as an ' arranger of choruses.' He is said to have
brought the lyric art to perfection in language and rhythm,
but the bulk of his writings seems to have been on epic subjects
— the old Trojan and Orestean legends and the myths about
Heracles. Of these poems numerous fragments survive, but
they are of little interest except the first three lines (preserved
for us by Plato) of the celebrated Palinode with which Stesi-
chorus atoned for having slandered Helen of Troy and thus,
it is said, recovered his eyesight : " It is not true — that story.
Thou didst never embark on well-benched ships nor reach
the battlements of Troy." It was not Helen herself that
Paris carried off, but only a phantom — that ' double ' of
Helen which plays a part in Greek legend and literature and
is intimated in the beautiful episode of the Helena in Goethe's
Faust.
(lo) Alcaeus {c. 645-580) belonged to a noble family of
Mytilene in I^esbos. He took part against the tyrant Myrsilus,
and after the defeat of the I^esbians by the Athenians at
Sigeum (in defence of which stronghold he distinguished
himself — and perhaps lost his shield) he, as well as his brother
and many others of the aristocratic party, went into exile
[c. 596). He seems to have been for some time in Egypt,
where Apries (Hophra) was reigning and Naucratis, the Greek
settlement, was already a flourishing town. Hither, too,
perhaps with Alcaeus, came Charaxus, the brother of Sappho —
and possibly even Sappho herself. The brother of Alcaeus
took service under Nebucadnezar, and may have been at the
sack of Daphnae (see p. 144), but probably he returned with
the poet to Mytilene. Here Alcaeus violently opposed the
democratic party, and when Pittacus {c. 590) was made
dictator (p. 128) he was imprisoned ; but the wise Pittacus
seems to have forgiven him, and probably the two became
friends. A true and tender friendship existed also between
167
ANCIENT GREECE
Alcaeus and Sappho, who was the younger by a few years.
His poetry breathes passionate emotion. He sings of gods
and of men, of war and arms, of love and wine. In verses still
extant he describes the ship of the state (a picture copied by
Horace) tossed on the waves, rolling to and fro with sails
rent and the water rising ever higher in the hull. Two lines
survive addressed to Sappho : " O violet- weaving, holy,
sweetly smiling Sappho, I wish to say something to thee, but
shame prevents me." Of all his poems (ten books of which
once existed) we have but these lines and a few other fragments.
Many of his odes were written in the measure (a stanza of four
lines) invented by him, and named after him — a measure
well known from Horace's translations and imitations of the
Aeolian bard ; known also to English readers from Tennyson's
fine stanzas addressed to Milton.
(ii) Sappho, like Alcaeus, was al^esbian, and had her home
at Mytilene ; but for some years (c. 596-590) she too lived
in exile, perhaps in Sicily — possibly also at Naucratis. At
Mytilene her house, which she named ' The Home of the Muses,'
was the gathering-place of many literary and fashionable
women, and as Lesbos was at this time, it is said, rich in female
writers, some of whom tried to found schools in rivalry of
Sappho and her ill-fated friend, the poetess Erinna, jealousy
and calumny were inevitable. Hence doubtless arose the
tales that sullied her good name — tales which were more
readily believed by the Athenians because of the very different
ideas that prevailed at Athens and among the Lesbians in
regard to the amount of social freedom allowable to women.
Less intelligible is the tale that relates her hapless infatuation
for the mythical Phaon, the ugly ferryman who was rejuvenated
and beautified by Aphrodite, and her fatal leap from the
Leucadian precipice.
Sappho's poetry has the exquisite natural grace and the
delicate but distinct outlines of the finest Greek sculpture —
such sculpture as we see on the frieze of the Parthenon or on
some beautiful Athenian stele. Both in thought and in lan-
guage it offers the very greatest contrast imaginable to what
168
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
is often regarded as the true poetical method of expressing
deep emotion. It affects one not by the display of vehement
passion, but by impressing on one's mind a picture which
haunts the memory and ever afterwards has the power of
stirring one's feelings as if it were a real experience.
Even the fragments that remain of her nine books of poems
allow us to accept without hesitation the judgment of ancient
critics, who were unanimous in their almost reverential admira-
tion. Among these surviving fragments are three probably
complete odes in her favourite measure, invented by her (or
some say by Alcaeus) and known as the Sapphic.^
No translation can give any hint of the beauty and power
of her language, but even a rough prose version of some of
these relics of her poetry may be more useful and interesting
than biographical details and critical comments. First let us
take the ode to Aphrodite :
" Immortal Aphrodite on thy throne of many colours,
daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I implore thee, break not
my heart, O I^ady, with excess of love and of anguish, but come
hither, if ever before thou heardest from afar my cries and,
leaving the golden mansion of thy father, didst yoke thy
car and come ; and swiftly thy winsome sparrows brought thee
over the dark earth, eddying their rapid wings, from heaven
through the midmost aether ; and quickly they arrived, and
thou, O blessed one, smiling with thy divine countenance,
didst ask what ailed me now again, and why again I called on
thee, and what in my maddened heart I wished. Whom dost
thou desire that Persuasion should bring to thy friendship ?
Who doeth thee wrong, Sappho ? E'en if she fleeth, she shall
soon pursue thee ; and if she accepteth not gifts, yet shall she give
them ; and if she loveth not, soon shall she love — yea, even against
her imll. Come to me also now, and set me free from grievous
cares, and all that my heart longs to be fulfilled do thou fulfil,
and be once more my helper ! "
^ Horace used the vSapphic metre twenty-six times and the Alcaic thirty-
seven times. Probably the best example of the metre in English is Canning's
' Needy Knife-grinder.'
169
ANCIENT GREECE
The second is an ode that was discovered not many years
ago among the papyrus manuscripts found at Oxyrhynchus,
in Egypt. It was addressed by Sappho to her brother
Charaxus, at Naucratis, where he is said to have disgraced
himself with his relations by falling in love with the notorious
Rhodopis, who was a slave-girl (a fellow-slave, says Herodotus,
of Aesop the fable-writer), and was redeemed by Charaxus
at a great expense — for which he was " often lashed by Sappho
in her poetry " :
" I implore you. Sea-nymphs, grant that my brother return
hither in safety, and that all things which in his heart he may
desire be fulfilled, and that he may atone for all the errors
of the past and become a joy to his friends and a sorrow to
his enemies ; and to us may he never prove of no account.
And may he wish to make his sister share in his good name,
and may he forget the grievous pain of what in days past
made him mourn and break his heart, as he heard at some
festival of the citizens a wounding word that cut right deep
into the quick and, though ceasing for a time, ere long returned
again."
The third ode, also in Sapphic measure, gives us, without
any attempt at direct description, a picture of a beautiful
maiden beloved by Sappho :
" Ivike unto the gods seemeth to me that man who sits in
thy presence and nigh unto thee listens to thy sweet voice and
laughter, which ever sets a-throbbing the heart within my
bosom. For when I look e'en for a moment on thee, no voice
comes any more, but my tongue fails utterly and a soft glow
at once spreads o'er my face, and I see no more with my eyes,
and my ears are filled with sounds, and the sweat pours down
and trembling seizeth all my body, and I am more pallid than
grass and am so distraught that I seem nigh unto death
itself."
Another short poem, in a different metre, intimates by a
different poetical process, and again without any direct
170
THE AGE OF COLONIZATION
description, the loveliness of Sappho's friend Atthis, who had
married a I^ydian and had gone with him to Sardis :
" Now amidst I^ydian women she shineth in her beauty
as, whene'er the sun is set, the rosy moon, having round her all
the stars, spreads abroad her light o'er the briny sea alike
and o'er the flowery fields ; and the dew lies there, beautiful,
and roses revive and bloom, and fragile chervil and rich-
blossoming melilot."
A very different woman is pictured in another fragment :
" When thou art dead thou shalt lie there, and never shall
there be any remembrance of thee nor any longing for thee
in days to come, for thou hast no share in the roses of Pieria
[poetry and music], but when thy soul has flown forth, also in
the mansion of Hades unnoticed thou shalt flit about with the
dim inglorious dead."
Many other beautiful fragments of Sappho's poetry survive.
Well-known lines of Byron were evidently inspired by her
address to the evening star : " O Hesperus that bringest
back all things which the gleaming dawn dispersed, thou
bringest the sheep, thou bringest the goat, thou bringest the
boy back to his mother."
A graphic picture of autumn is given in a few words : " All
round it pipeth chill amidst the orchard boughs ; the leaves
are quivering and the foliage falls." Another touch of autumn,
recalling Coleridge's " one red leaf on the topmost twig," is
given in what may be the fragment of some marriage-song :
" As a sweet apple blusheth on the tip of the branch, on the
topmost tip, and the apple-pickers have forgotten it — nay,
have not forgotten it, but have been unable to reach it."
Among the many papyrus manuscripts yet undeciphered or
undiscovered we may have the fortune to come upon more of
Sappho's poetry. Indeed, it was lately reported that some-
thing more had been found. Were enough to come to light
to influence modern literature, the gain would be inestimable,
for the great qualities of Sappho's poetry are just what modern
literature lacks most.
171
CHAPTER IV
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS AND THE
RISE OF PERSIA
(560-500)
SECTIONS : POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS : THE ORDERS OF GREEK
ARCHITECTURE : SCULPTURE. DOWN TO THE PERSIAN WARS
TO the student of comparative politics the history of
Athens from 560 to 500 is especially attractive, for
during this period, while the democratic constitution
framed by Solon still continued to exist, as Thucydides says,
in its essential features, the state was for many years under
the absolute control of a single man and his heirs, who, although
the power was seized by the usual methods, may be regarded
rather as constitutional rulers than as despots. That Athens
for a time lost her liberty and emerged from the trial stronger
and better prepared to face the foe of Hellas cannot but be of
deep interest, but the phenomena of political evolution form
by no means the main subject of Greek history. Such pheno-
mena are due to ever-recurring influences working on average
human nature, and they may be traced under various conditions
in the stories of many another nation ; ^ but genius has ever
something new to tell us, and from Greek genius we may learn
what we cannot learn from any other source. I shall therefore
content myself with giving a brief account of the reign, or
tyranny, of Peisistratus and his sons and of the reforms of
Cleisthenes, and shall reserve more of the space at my disposal
for matters of greater importance.
When Solon returned to Athens (c. 562) dissension was at
^ By a strange coincidence the same year (510) saw the banishment of the
Tarquins from Rome and of the Peisistratidae from Athens.
172
50. ' Artemis of Dei<os '
51. Stei<e of Aristion
172
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
its height, and it is quite possible that, finding his influence
of no avail, he again left for the East and visited Croesus,
who ascended the throne of lyydia in 560. In this same year
Peisistratus, the cousin of Solon, and the leader, as we have
seen, of the so-called party of the Hills, consisting mainly of
peasants and ultra-democrats, persuaded the people by means of
a stratagem ^ to allow him a bodyguard, and seized the Acro-
polis. Hereupon his political opponents left Athens, and
he seems to have quietly assumed the reins of government
and to have remained in power for about five years. Solon,
when again in Athens, is said to have appealed to the people
to " pluck the tyrant up by the roots," but in vain. Some
relate that he returned to his friend the king of Soli, in
Cyprus, but from his verses to Mimnermus (if they are
his) it seems likely that he remained at Athens and lived
till c. 558, and found life at eighty not unenjoyable, even
under a despot.
Two or three years later Peisistratus was driven out by the
united parties of the Coast and the Plain, but they quarrelled,
and by the aid of Megacles he returned (c. 550). The stratagem
by which this was effected would be incredible if we did not
know how ineradicable proved the old deisidaimonia — that
eerie dread of the supernatural which was so universal in an
earlier age, and to which the Athenians seem to have been
especially susceptible. The story is that Peisistratus entered
Athens in a chariot on which there stood by his side a stalwart
peasant woman arrayed as Athene, and that the mob accepted
the apparition as genuine and reinstated him in power. Peisis-
tratus had promised to marry the daughter of Megacles
(who was the head of the Alcmaeonid nobles), and he did so,
but he refused to treat her as his wife, for he had a family
by a former wife and was unwilling to connect himself with
descendants of Cylon, who were regarded as accursed. This
led to his second banishment, which lasted for ten years,
^ By displaying self-inflicted wounds. We have a similar story connected
with Sextus Tarquin, and with Odysseus {Od. iv. 244). The grant of a body-
guard was proposed to the Ecclesia by Aristion, whose portrait we probably
have in Fig. 51.
ANCIENT GREECE
until about 540, when, with mercenaries from Argos and
Naxos, he crossed from Euboea to Marathon, surprised or
won over the Athenian troops and entered the city, where he
re-estabUshed himself as absolute ruler, sending the children
of his adversaries as hostages to his friend Lygdamis, tyrant
of Naxos, and expelling the Alcmaeonidae.
The rule of Peisistratus during the next thirteen years is
said to have been wise and beneficial. He feued much of the
land to peasants, encouraged agriculture, extended Athenian
power and commerce abroad, recapturing Sigeum from
the Lesbians and promoting Greek influence on the shores
of the Hellespont, where the Thracian Chersonese was now
governed by an Athenian — the half-uncle of the famous
Miltiades.
About this elder Miltiades a picturesque story is told. He
was, says Herodotus, a victor in the Olympian chariot-race
and a man of high distinction, but an adversary of Peisistratus.
One day (c. 558) as he sat in the porch of his house, probably
brooding over the success of his rival, some wayfarers "in
outlandish garments and armed with lances" approached.
He offered them entertainment, and after the banquet was over
they told him that the Delphic oracle had bidden them take
back with them to their country, the Thracian Chersonese,
the first man who offered them hospitality, for he would help
them against their enemies. Miltiades, perhaps glad to leave
Athens, acceded to their entreaties and became ' king ' of the
Chersonese and a friend of Croesus. He was succeeded in
his office as Thracian prince and Athenian governor of the
Greek settlements on the Hellespont by a nephew, who was
(c. 520) succeeded by the younger and more celebrated
Miltiades.
Under Peisistratus Athens seems to have begun to assert
that hegemony in the Ionic world which she afterwards
attained. The lord of the Ionian mother-city took upon
himself, as Thucydides says, to ' purify ' Delos by removing
all the tombs within sight of the temple. He also ordered that
the Homeric poems, recited at the Delian and other festivals,
174
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
should be collected and arranged and written out in the Attic
script and divided into books. Possibly on this occasion
lines may have been inserted in order to connect Athens with
the great Ionian epic — for, whatever the reason may be, Homer
had said but little about the Athenians and their legends.
This revision of Homer was undertaken by Peisistratus and
his son Hipparchus in order to regulate the hitherto arbitrary
and disconnected recitations of the poem at the great festival
of Athene, which had been lately founded. At this festival
took place the musical and athletic contests and the stately
procession of which we have such precious records in the so-
called Panathenaic prize-vases and in the frieze of the Parthenon
(see Figs. 55 and 85). -
Besides the Panathenaic festival Peisistratus revived or
amplified the vintage festival, which had been held from early
ages in honour of Dionysus (the I^enaia, or ' Festival of the
Wine-vat'), such as we have already heard of in connexion
with Arion at Corinth. At this new festival, which was
called the Great Dionysia, the old dances and songs performed
originally by peasants dressed up as satyrs were in course of
time combined with dialogue and with representations of
old legends, and this ' goat-song ' performance [TpayioSla)
developed little by little into the Attic drama. The chief
composer and director of these Dionysiac performances in
the age of Peisistratus was Thespis, who is often spoken of as
the father of Attic tragedy. He is said to have first introduced
dialogue and to have himself taken the part of the actor who,
in various disguises and with a stained or masked face, con-
versed with the chorus of dancers. The first representation
of this kind at the New Dionysia is said to have taken place
in 535-
During the rule of Peisistratus and his sons the huge
temple of Olympian Zeus was begun and many fine buildings
were erected. Some of these will be described later. One
of his most useful works was a system of pipes by which
Athens was supplied with water, possibly from the Upper
Ilissus, or more probably from Kallirrhoe ('Fair-stream'), a
175
ANCIENT GREECE
natural source near the Ilissus and the Olympieion, to the
south-east of the Acropohs.^
Peisistratus died in 527 and left the government to his
eldest son, Hippias, while the second, Hipparchus (hke a
King Archon), had, perhaps together with a younger
brother Thessalus, the control of religious festivals, literary
and musical contests, and the like.''
For thirteen years Athens seems to have enjoyed an unevent-
ful prosperity under the Peisistratidae. We know really next to
nothing of this period, except that Hippias and his brother
were, like the Medici of Florence, patrons of art, and that
Anacreon and Simonides of Ceos visited their court. Herodotus
speaks of them as oppressive tyrants, while Thucydides, who
was related to the Peisistratidae, but whose judgment was not
likely to have been warped by prejudice, asserts that they
" cultivated virtue and intellect." He allows, however, that
" their tyranny proved galling at last," and that Hippias
ultimately proved not only a tyrant but a traitor to his country.
In 514 Hipparchus was assassinated by Harmodius and
Aristogeiton. He had conceived an infatuation for the
young Harmodius, and having been repelled he insulted the
sister of the youth, refusing her as a ' basket-carrier ' in
the Panathenaic procession.^ So the two friends planned to
kill Hipparchus and his brother ; " but, having suspected," says
1 Remains of the water-pipes of Peisistratus have perhaps been discovered
between the Pnyx and the Areopagus. KalHrrhoe, sometimes depicted on
Athenian vases, changed its ancient name, as Thucydides tells us (ii. 15),
to Enneakrounos ('Nine Fountains'), after the natural spring had been
built over and the waters were collected into a reservoir furnished with
nine distributing pipes. (Herodotus, however, speaks of it as Enneakrounos
in connexion with the old Pelasgic inhabitants.) The spring still exists and
retains its ancient name (Kalhrroi), but almost every trace of the reservoir
has disappeared. The pools formed by the spring are now used by Athenian
washerwomen .
« See Thuc. i. 20 and vi. 54 sq., and Hdt. v. 55. Also the pseudo-Plato in
his Hipparchus says that this prince" first introduced Homer into Greece."
The writer, whether Plato or not, evidently regarded Hipparchus as the chief
ruler — a belief stigmatized by Thucydides.
' According to Herodotus the Gephyraean family to which Harmodius
belonged was originally Phoenician, and was " excluded at Athens from a
number of privileges." Perhaps this was a legal ground for the rejection of
the girl.
176
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
Thucydides, " that information had been given to Hippias by
their accomplices, they abstained from attacking him, as being
forewarned, and as they wished to do something at all hazards,
having fallen in with Hipparchus, who was arranging the
Panathenaic procession, they slew him."
Possibly at first no great enthusiasm was excited by the
act — or else it was suppressed by dread — but not many years
later, after the expulsion of Hippias, statues were erected to
the Tyrannicides, and popular songs, such as the well-known
drinking-song (skolion) composed by the otherwise unknown
Callistratus, ' I'll wreathe my sword in myrtle bough,' prove
how the Athenians had learnt to detest the name of the
Peisistratidae. This hatred was much intensified by the
tyrannical conduct of Hippias after the murder of his brother.
" Being now in greater apprehension," says Thucydides, " he
put to death many citizens, and also kept his eye on foreign
states in whatever quarter he had a prospect of safe retreat
in case of revolution." Doubtless among these foreign states
was Persia.
After four years the revolution came. The exiled Alc-
maeonidae, who longed to return to Athens, had at length
succeeded in obtaining the aid of Sparta in the following way.
The great temple at Delphi had been burnt down, and a public
subscription through the whole of Greece had enabled the
Delphic treasury to contract for its reconstruction. The Alc-
maeonidae undertook the contract, and, using marble instead
of the specified poros, rebuilt the temple with such magnificence
and so won the favour of the Pythian priests that whenever
the Spartans came to consult the oracle the invariable answer
was, " First liberate Athens ! " Sparta, by the conquest of
Tegea and the defeat of Argos, had made herself the head of a
Peloponnesian league, and was strong enough to interfere in
Northern Greece. The first raid into Attica was defeated by
cavalry sent from Thessaly to aid Hippias, but the Spartan
king Cleomenes then led a strong force against Athens, and
Hippias, blockaded in the ' Pelasgic fortress ' {i.e. the Acropolis),
and hearing of the capture of his children, capitulated (510).
M 177
ANCIENT GREECE
He was allowed to leave Attica ' under treaty,' together with
his children, and went, says Thucydides, " first to Sigeum, then
to lyampsacus, and thence to the court of King Darius."
Now the head of the Alcmaeonidae who had been thus
restored to Athens was Cleisthenes. He was the grandson
of Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon, whose daughter married
the Athenian Megacles. Of this Megacles we have already
heard much. It was his daughter (and therefore the sister of
Cleisthenes) whom Peisistratus married and rejected.
On the expulsion of Hippias, whose absolute rule had kept
open feuds in abeyance, political discussion once more began.
Cleisthenes, the personal foe of the Peisistratidae, was naturally
opposed to the old regime, and, as Herodotus expresses it,
" called to his aid the common people." He was opposed by
Isagoras and the aristocratical party. Isagoras, being worsted,
appealed to Sparta, and the Spartans sent a peremptory
order (as they did again seventy-seven years later, in refer-
ence to Pericles) that the Athenians should " cast out the
accursed thing " — the " pollution of the goddess " — namely,
the Alcmaeonidae.^
Cleisthenes was forced to leave Athens. This, however, did
not content Isagoras and his party. They invited the Spartans ;
whereupon King Cleomenes came and expelled 700 Athenian
families. But on his trying to dissolve the Ecclesia and establish
an oligarchy the Athenians rose. The Spartans were blockaded
for two days in the Acropolis, and then accepted terms, pur-
chasing their lives by handing over their mercenaries to the
tender mercies of the Athenians, who put them all to death,
among them a Delphian who, as pancratiast, had won three
victories at the Pythian and two at the Olympic Games,
and whose statue by the celebrated Argive sculptor Ageladas
(the master of Pheidias, Myron, and Polycleitus) was seen
nearly 700 years later at Olympia by the traveller Pausanias.
Cleisthenes and the 700 families were then recalled. Cleomenes
endeavoured to invade Attica again, and although the attempt
failed (the Spartan kings having quarrelled), the Athenians were
1 See about Cylon p. 136 ; also Thuc. i. 126, and Hdt. v. 70.
178
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
so alarmed, if we are to believe Herodotus, that they actually
sent ambassadors to Sardis to sue for the alliance of Darius ;
but they were told that the friendship of the Great King was
only to be bought by earth and water, tokens of vassalage.
Possibly it was not in alarm that they did this, but in arrogance,
for we find them soon afterwards inflicting crushing defeats
on the Boeotians and the Chalcidians (of Euboea), who had
joined the Spartans in their last invasion of Attica. The
rich lyclantine plain (p. 129) was allotted to Athenian settlers,
and many Chalcidian prisoners were kept fettered at Athens
until they were ransomed at two minae apiece (say £8 nominal,
but perhaps £^0 in present value). " The chains wherewith
they were fettered," says Herodotus, " were hung up by the
Athenians in their Acropolis, where they were still to be
seen in my day, hanging against a wall scorched by the Median
flames." From a tenth of the ransom-money a magnificent
bronze quadriga was set up to the left of the old gate of the
Acropolis. ^ Moreover, in a stoa (portico) at Delphi the Athenians
dedicated (as we learn from an inscription lately discovered
there) arms and beaks of ships captured in this war.
The people of Aegina had made common cause with the
Boeotians against their old enemy, Athens. In Solon's time,
as we have seen, the Athenians had attacked Aegina, not long
after their conquest of Salamis, but had been driven out of the
island by the Argives.^ Since that time hostility had smouldered,
but it now broke out openly, and the Aeginetans carried on a
chronic ' unheralded ' war with Athens right down to the
time of the Persian war, making constant descents on the coast
of Attica and on the Athenian port Phaleron. Such was their
embitterment that shortly before the battle of Salamis the
Spartans had to interfere and send Aeginetans as hostages to
Athens in order to prevent Aegina aiding the Persians ; nor
did Aegina cease to be a thorn in the side of Athens till (in 431)
* Pericles perhaps set up another on the right hand (c. 446), and when the
new Propylaea were built (c. 437) they were probably put on new bases.
One of these bases with traces of the inscription quoted by Herodotus (v. 77)
has been found.
* See Hdt. v. 82 sq., and Note B, Dress.
179
ANCIENT GREECE
the inhabitants were expelled and the island was incorporated
in the Attic state.
Thus Athens began to unfold her powers — a fact that
Herodotus justly attributes to her regained political freedom.
" These things show," he says, " that while undergoing
oppression they let themselves be beaten, since they worked
for a master ; but as soon as they got their liberty each man
was eager to do the best he could."
Had this rewon liberty retained the basis of the old Solonian
constitution the old political feuds would have assuredly
reappeared and led even again to some form of enslavement,
but fortune willed it that Cleisthenes should discover a
method by which all the local and clan influences which had
made party feeling so rancorous and dangerous should be
eliminated, and the weal of the state should become the one
object of political activity. Having abolished the four old
Ionic tribes, which were founded on locality, profession, and
wealth, he formed ten tribes solely for political purposes. Each
of these new political tribes consisted of three trittyes (thirds)
taken from three different regions of Attica, so that the tribal
vote was not prejudiced by local influences. Kach tribe had
to supply a contingent of hoplites, some cavalry, ^ and one of
the ten generals of the Athenian army. Fifty men from every
tribe, chosen by lot from a selected number, formed the new
council (Boule) of 500. This council, in conjunction with the
archons and other magistrates, managed all internal affairs
and initiated laws to be sanctioned by the great Assembly
(Ecclesia). But for the dispatch of business the Boule had a
permanent committee. Each of its ten groups of councillors
took it in turn to act as this committee for thirty-six days
(the tenth of the year of 360 days, which was rectified by
intercalating a month every five years). While they sat on
committee these deputies were called prytaneis (presidents),
and their tribe was the ' presiding tribe ' during this space of
^ The tribal regiment was called a ' tribe ' [phyle). The subdivisions were
rA^fis and Xo^oi. See Hdt. vi. iii. In Solon's time Athens could muster
barely a hundred horsemen, and even at the beginning of the Peloponnesian
War only about a thousand.
180
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
thirty-six days (which was called a prytaneia). The people's
Assembly (Kcclesia) probably met, as it did in later times,
every nine days — or it may have been summoned only on
special occasions to sanction a law by plebiscite or to dispose
of some referendum. Of the Areopagus we hear little at this
period. It probably existed with only an empty show of
authority.
Ostracism may have been an invention of Cleisthenes, though
it seems to have been used first in 488. It was an useful method
of getting rid for a time of a dangerous citizen. The council
and Assembly first decided (and could only do it during the
sixth prytaneia) that an ostrakismos was advisable. On a fixed
day barricades were erected in the Agora and every voter of
the ten tribes gave his vote by casting into an urn an ostrakon
(potsherd) on which he had inscribed the name of any citizen
whom he held to be especially dangerous. The man against
whom most votes were given, should his ostraka number at least
6000 — i.e. about a fifth of the number of the voters — was
exiled for ten (later for five) years, but lost neither his citizenship
nor his property.
The Rise of Persia
We must now turn from the affairs of the refounded demo-
cracy of the little Attic state to note the rise of a mighty empire
which ere long will threaten to annihilate the whole of the
eastern while Carthage is endeavouring to annihilate the
western world of Hellas.
It would take us too far afield to follow Herodotus in his
investigations of the origins of the feud between Greece and
the Asiatic ' barbarian,' nor will it be possible to repeat
many of the countless stories that he tells in connexion with
the Ivydian, Median, and Persian kings, stories with which he
allures the reader to Egypt and Scythia and many another
strange land and people before he launches out into the subject
of the Graeco-Persian war.
I have already traced the history of Assyria and Babylon
down to the death of King Nebucadnezar in 562, that of
181
ANCIENT GREECE
Lydia to the accession of Croesus in 560, and that of Media to
the death of Astyages in 559, and we have seen that the great
kings of Nineveh and Babylon had never (except in the case
of Cyprus) come into coUision with the Greeks. But the
early I^ydian kings had attacked and subjugated several of
the Ionian and Aeolian cities, and Croesus, as soon as he was
firmly seated on the I^ydian throne, made himself master of
all the Greek cities on the mainland of Asia Minor except
Miletus, and even made preparations to invade the islands,
but was, says Herodotus, deterred by a witty remark of the
sage Bias.^ Ephesus was the first city he attacked — " The
Ephesians, when he laid siege to the place, made an offering
of their city to Artemis by stretching a rope ^ from the town
wall to the temple of the goddess, which was distant from the
ancient city by a space of seven furlongs." This was evidently
the new temple of the Ephesian Artemis, which was still being
built to replace the old temple burnt by the Cimmerians in
677. After capturing Ephesus, Croesus presented to this
temple, says Herodotus, " golden heifers and most of the
columns." The sculptured drum of one of these columns is
now in the British Museum (Fig. 119). On it were found the
Greek letters BA KP AN .... EN, which
have been (doubtless rightly) restored to BA2IAEY2
KPOISOS ANA0HKEN, i.e. " King Croesus dedicated."
The wealth ^ of Croesus, as that of his ancestor Gyges and
the Phrygian Midas, was proverbial. Although the conqueror
of the Greek cities of Aeolis and Ionia, he was a great admirer
of Hellenic civilization, and his court at Sardis was frequented
by many Greeks of distinction. He made, moreover, many
splendid offerings to Greek temples, of which Herodotus gives
a description that may well excite wonder, if not incredulity.
Shortly after the accession of Croesus, perhaps in 560-559,
Solon not improbably, as we have seen, visited Sardis. Croesus,
* Herodotus says: " Within my own knowledge Croesus was the first to
inflict injury on the Greeks " ; but Alyattes, Sadyattes, and perhaps Ardys
attacked the Greek cities.
* See p. 136, foot-note.
' See Hdt. i. 50 and 92. For the Lydian coinage see Note C, Coins.
182
52. The Croesus Coi,umn
From the earlier Ephesian temple
182
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
a young man of thirty-five in the first flush of kingly pride,
bade the sage tell him whom of all men he had ever met he
deemed the most happy. Solon cited an Athenian, Tellos
by name, who had been blessed with domestic happiness and
had died a soldier's death in defence of his country, and as
second happiest he cited the Spartan youths Cleobis and Bito,
who, when the oxen failed to come, yoked themselves to a car
and drew their aged mother five-and-forty furlongs to the
festival of Hera at Argos, and died in the temple ; and when
Croesus asked him in astonishment how he ventured to put
the happiness of such people on a level with his, Solon replied
that no wealth could give good fortune, and that even a fortu-
nate man cannot for certain be called ' happy ' until he is
dead, for " in every matter it behoveth us to mark well the
end."
Soon afterwards Croesus learnt that all his gold could not
save him from the grief of losing his favourite son, and some
ten years later he was taught the wisdom of marking well the
end. His kingdom had extended itself eastward over all
Phrygia, Mysia, and Paphlygonia, as far as the river Halys,
and hearing of the presumptuous doings of Cyrus and his
Persians and Medes, he got together a great army of I^ydians
and Greeks and crossed over into Cappadocia to challenge the
new foe — not before having consulted the oracle at Delphi.
The Delphic god, though he received gifts of almost indescrib-
able magnificence from Croesus, played him a rather disingenu-
ous trick, bidding him (as Ahab was bidden) go up, for he
would destroy a mighty empire. So vast had the power of
Croesus become that doubtless he had visions of making
himself the king of Media in the place of this usurper who
had dethroned the old Astyages. But the empire that he
should destroy was his own, as the oracle afterwards ex-
plained. After an indecisive battle near the ancient capital
of Cappadocia, Pteria, he retreated to Sardis, which ere long
was stormed by Cyrus. Croesus was condemned to die. He
was placed, with twice seven noble lyydian youths, on a great
funeral pyre. The pyre was lighted, and as the flames shot
183
ANCIENT GREECE
upward he was heard to call aloud three times on the name
of Solon. Cyrus demanded the reason, and when he learnt
it he bade the fire be quenched. But it was too late ; the
flames were not to be mastered. Then Croesus called on
Apollo, and a sudden deluge of rain extinguished the fire.
Cyrus, deeply moved by the miracle, made Croesus his coun-
sellor and constant companion.
Cyrus captured Sardis probably in 546. Thirteen years
earlier he had (according to Herodotus) dethroned the
Median king Astyages. His father, Cambyses, a descendant
of a noble chieftain named Achaemenes, was prince of the
Persians, a race of bold and hardy mountaineers, closely akin
to the Medes, living in the highlands between Media and
the Persian Gulf. This Cambyses married a daughter of
the Median king, and their son, the young Cyrus, putting
himself at the head of a body of Persians, succeeded (in 559)
in conquering his grandfather and establishing the Medo-
Persian Empire, This Medo-Persian Empire, when first Cyrus
mounted the throne, ^ occupied, roughly speaking, the lands
between the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, the Indus, and the valley
of the Tigris. Its chief cities were Pasargadae, Persepolis,
Ecbatana, and Susa. The general name given to this vast
country by its inhabitants was Iran, and these inhabitants
are therefore generally said to have belonged to the Iranian
branch of the Aryan race. In religion they were followers
of Zoroaster and worshipped Mithras, the sun-god. According
to Herodotus they had neither images of gods nor temples nor
^ Herodotus gives a story about the infancy of Cyrus and his childhood at
the court of Astyages which has great similarity to the Roman legend of
Romulus and Remus and King Numitor (Hdt. i. 107 sq.). It should be
mentioned that Xenophon, who wrote later but knew personally the younger
Cyrus, and Ctesias, who was surgeon to that prince's brother (Artaxerxes II),
give versions very different from that of Herodotus. Xenophon states in his
Cyropaedeia, where he describes the bringing up of Cyrus the Great, that Cyrus
never rebelled against his grandfather, but acted as his general and the
general of his son, Cyaxares II (unknown to Herodotus), and that he even
took Babylon (538) as the general of this Cyaxares II (perhaps the ' Darius
the Median ' of Daniel v. 31), whom he later dethroned. Ctesias asserts
that Cyrus and Astyages were in no way related. According to Herodotus,
Cyrus was a great-nephew of Croesus, who married a sister of Astyages,
18+
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
altars, " accounting the use of such things a folly." As fire-
worshippers they probably had no idols, and there seems to
be no trace of ancient Persian (though of course of Chaldaean)
temples, but huge stone altars on open-air terraces have been
discovered which were apparently used for sacrifice to the
sun-god. Probably the Persians had a purer form of Zoroas-
trian fire-worship than the other Iranian peoples, such as the
Chaldaeans and Medes, regarding Height and Darkness as
symbols of the powers of good and evil, also symbolized by
the deities Ormuzd and Ahriman. The priests and religious
teachers, called Magi, formed a very select and influential
caste. Of the character and the customs of the Persians
graphic and full descriptions are given by Herodotus (i. 131 sq.
and elsewhere) and by Xenophon and other writers. It is
here impossible to treat this intensely interesting subject as
it deserves, but it is well to note in passing that, although we
are indubitably right in regarding the result of the Graeco-
Persian conflict with the deepest gratitude, nevertheless we
must allow — as, indeed, did many of the Greeks themselves —
that in some important points the Persian character (which
was evidently very different from that of the Medes and the
Babylonians) was originally greatly superior to that of the
average Hellene. It was no strong character and soon con-
tracted many Oriental and Hellenic vices ; but noble traits
remained. Many acts of magnanimity are related of the
Persian kings, ^ and their contempt for the huckstering
and rhetorical arts and deceits of the Greek Agora, as well
as for the venality and treachery not only of the ordinary
Greek but even of Greek leaders, was frequently and openly
expressed. " The most disgraceful thing in the world, in their
opinion," says Herodotus, "is to tell a lie"; and when he
^ See Hdt. vi. 41 and 119, vii. 136, &c. Even the mad Cambyses was
capable of generous impulses. Doubtless such qualities coexisted with
terrible callousness towards human suffering. As for the painful siibject of
the ever-present Greek traitor, one need only think of Eretria and Thermopylae
and Marathon and Aegina and Thebes and Pausanias and Themistocles and
Miltiades and many other names. For an arraignment of Greek character
see Mahaffv's Social Life in Greece.
185
ANCIENT GREECE
remarks that " the Persians look upon themselves as very greatly
superior in all respects to the rest of mankind," we cannot but
concede that in some respects at least they do offer a very
striking contrast to the less admirable sides of the Greek cha-
racter. Thus one cannot help contrasting such facts as the
treatment by Darius of the Eretrian captives and the terrible
decree passed by the Athenians against Mytilene. It is true
that in this case intense excitement may be pleaded and the
decree was ultimately reversed — so that the process somewhat
reminds one of what Herodotus says about the Persians :
"It is their practice to deliberate upon affairs of importance
when they are drunk, and then on the morrow, when they are
sober, to reconsider it." ^
After his conquest of Lydia Cyrus returned to the far East,
leaving his general Harpagus to reduce the Greek Asiatic cities,
all of which, with the exception of powerful Miletus, had
aided their liege-lord Croesus. Harpagus had no very difficult
task, for these cities, in constant feud, were ever a prey to the
invader. Had they but formed a confederation, as the sage
Thales, it is said,. advised, ^ Ionia and Aeolis might perhaps
have offered a successful resistance to the advance of Persia ;
but the consciousness of disunion in the face of such over-
whelming odds paralysed them, and we are scarcely surprised
when we hear that another sage. Bias of Priene, advised the
lonians to migrate en masse to Sardinia, and that the people
of Phocaea, when besieged, embarked on their ships and sailed
away (most of them) to Corsica,^ while the people of Teos
made for Thrace, where they founded Abdera.
Cyrus meantime had attacked Babylonia. The great
Nebucadnezar had died in 562, and had been succeeded by
several Babylonian kings, the fourth of whom, Nabonid (whose
regal title seems to have been I^abynetus), ruled in great state
at Babylon, where the Jews with Daniel were still in captivity.
^ Sometimes, he adds, they reversed the process. See Tacitus, Germ. xxii.
* Thales is said to have persuaded the Milesians not to aid Croesus. But
Miletus was in alliance with I,ydia, and we hear of Thales himself aiding
Croesus by damming up the river Halys in order to allow him to pass over.
' See p. 123 as to the Phocaeans at Alalia and Elea.
186
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
He had made alliance with Amasis of Egypt, Croesus of Lydia,
and Polycrates of Samos against the usurper Cyrus. The
conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus seems to have lasted about
ten years. In 538 he succeeded in capturing Babylon by
diverting the Euphrates.^ Not content with the mighty
empire that he had now under his rule, he made an expedition
into what is now Russian Turkestan against a Scythian tribe,
the Massagetae. In this remote land, near the Aral lake,
he fell in battle (529). ■ The queen of the Massagetae is said
to have placed his head in a bowl of blood and bade it drink
its fill.- Cambyses, his son, increased the Persian Empire
by the conquest of Egypt.
During the first thirty-four years of the period we are consider-
ing in this chapter (560-500) Egypt had enjoyed independence
and prosperity under King Aahmes (Amasis), whose friendship
with the Greeks has already been mentioned. He had con-
quered Cyprus and had formed an alliance with Polycrates,
the powerful despot of Samos, who, with a strong fleet of
fifty-oared ships of war, had defied Cyrus and Harpagus. All
that Polycrates undertook seemed to prosper. His court,
at which the poets Ibycus and Anacreon lived, and which
Amasis possibly honoured with his presence, rivalled the fame
of that of Periander or Peisistratus, and under his rule the
city of Samos was furnished with its splendid harbour and the
great temple of Hera and many other magnificent buildings,
as well as with the celebrated Samian aqueduct, with its
tunnel of seven furlongs. But the envy of the gods was aroused,
and Amasis, foreseeing the ruin of the Samian tyrant (as all
readers of Schiller's fine ballad know), renounced his friendship.
Perhaps the fact lying beneath the story of the Ring is that
the kings quarrelled ; for we hear that Polycrates sent forty of
his penteconters (which mutinied and never arrived) to aid
Cambyses in his attack on Egypt. Not long afterwards (523),
having apparently broken again with Cambyses, he fell into an
^ Hdt. i. 191. The Belshazzar of Daniel is either Nabonid himself or (as
inscriptions seem to prove) his son, who was acting as governor of Babylon,
** See note at end of this chapter.
187
ANCIENT GREECE
ambuscade laid by the satrap of Sardis, who crucified him.
Ere Cambyses reached Egypt King Amasis had died (525).
His son, Psamtik III, was defeated near Pelusium, and Memphis
was then captured and the whole of Egypt and Cyrene sub-
mitted to the Persians. But, incensed at his failure to conquer
Aethiopia, Cambyses vented his fury in acts of sacrilege (such
as mutilating the corpse of Amasis and stabbing the sacred
bull Apis) and in other deeds so indescribably cruel and
foolish that one is forced to believe that he was insane. One
assassination, that of his brother Bardyia, or Smerdis, who
was regent of some of the eastern provinces of the empire,
caused the fall of the tyrant ; for a false Smerdis, one of the
Magi, named Gaumata, pretending to be the murdered prince,
proclaimed himself king, and Cambyses hastened homeward,
and somewhere in Syria either met his death by an accident,
as related by Herodotus, or committed suicide, as is stated
by the Darius inscription at Behistun.
The false Smerdis, keeping himself out of sight in his palace
to avoid detection, held power for eight months so firmly that,
according to the Darius inscription, " no Persian or Mede had
the courage to oppose him." But seven nobles, who, by means
of one of the women of the royal harem, Herodotus says,
discovered that he possessed no ears and was a Mede and a
Magian whom Cambyses had thus punished for some offence,
slew the pretender and a great number of the Magi. One of
these nobles, Darius, the son of the satrap Hystaspes, was
elected king. Herodotus gives a graphic description of how
it was arranged that the man should be king whose horse
neighed first, and how the groom of Darius won the royal
crown for his master. Some modern critics, however, reject
the story as childish, and assert that Hystaspes ^ was the
legitimate heir of Cyrus. The probability is that the false
Smerdis was a pretender put forward by the party of the
Medes and Magi (who, although Persian priests, were of Median
^ Hystaspes was, according to Herodotus, " governor of Persia" (iii. 70).
In the Behistun inscription he is called a general of his son Darius (!) and a
satrap of Parthia.
l8S
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
extraction), and that his overthrow meant the triumph of the
Persian royal house of the Achaemenidae, to which Darius
(as Xerxes asserts in Hdt. vii. ii) unquestionably belonged ;
and Darius strengthened the tie by marrying Atossa, a daughter
of Cyrus, who had been Cambyses' queen.
Darius began to reign in 521, and reigned for thirty-six
years. After suppressing revolts that broke out more than
once in Media and Babylonia and forced him to capture
Babylon twice, he confirmed the Persian sovereignty in his
western empire by placing Phrygia, I^ydia, and Ionia under
satraps, to whom the tyrants of the Greek cities of the main-
land paid tribute and furnished troops and ships as vassals
of the Great King. Samos, too, which under Polycrates had
defied Darius, was conquered and ' netted ' and given over to
the brother of Polycrates, who had won the friendship of the
young Darius when he was in Egypt with Cambyses. ^
But it was not only in war that the empire of Darius was
great. It attained a wealth and a magnificence of Oriental
civilization which in ancient times were probably never
equalled. "^ The gold staters of King Darius, known as ' Darics '
(probably the ' dram ' of Ezra and Nehemiah) , circulated
throughout Hellas. The chief cities were connected by care-
fully kept roads, and there was a system of royal mails carried
by relays of horses and couriers {ayyapela). The ' royal
road ' between Sardis and Susa, some 1500 miles in length
and with about a hundred stations, was traversed by pedes-
trians in about ninety days, and by a post or courier, of course,
in far less time. (Herodotus, who describes it fully, probably
travelled by this route.)
After he had reigned about eight years Darius, it is said, con-
ceived a desire to punish the Scythians for their invasion of
Media, which had taken place about a century before (p. 148).
Whether this was his real object or whether his purpose was
the conquest of Thrace and the acquisition of the gold-mines
^ For this storj' see Hdt. iii. 139 ; and for the process of ' driving ' or
' netting ' a hostile country see Hdt. iii. 149, vi. 31.
- See Hdt. iii. 89 s(j. for an account of the revenues of Darius from his
immense empire of twenty satrapies.
189
ANCIENT GREECE
of this country and of Dacia is questioned. Herodotus had
far better opportunities than we have of learning the truth,
and there can be little doubt that the professed object was
what he asserts it to have been, but there is no less doubt
that what he describes as a disastrous failure resulted in the
establishment of Persian supremacy in Thrace, and even in
Macedonia, for the next fifteen years or so.
As for the story that Herodotus gives us of this Scythian
expedition, it certainly contains a good deal that sounds
impossible, especially in regard to the distances traversed in
a comparatively short time ; but the chronicler himself had
visited Scythia (he had been, for instance, four days' journey
up the river Bug, and evidently knew the Dnieper and its
sturgeon), and had collected an immense amount of informa-
tion about the country, as well as reports, more or less founded
on facts, about the nations further north, and what he relates
has a deep interest for every one except the purely scientific
historian. He tells us that Darius collected an army of
700,000 men and a fleet of 600 Greek ships. The ships, or
some of them, he sent up the Danube, and ordered a bridge
to be thrown across the river above the delta. His army
crossed the Bosporus by another bridge, constructed by the
Samian Mandrocles (who afterwards gave to the Heraion at
Samos a picture of the passage of the troops, with Darius
seated on his throne in the foreground) , and two marble pillars
with inscriptions in Greek and Assyrian were erected. One of
these Herodotus seems to have seen later at Byzantium.
Having reached the Danube, Darius left the Ionian Greeks
in charge of the bridge, and, giving them a leathern thong in
which sixty knots had been tied, he bade them untie one
every day, and if he had not returned when the last had been
untied they were to sail home. He then set out " with all
speed," and, following the retreating Scythians, marched as
far as the Maeotic lake (Sea of Azof) and the Don, and even
perhaps the Volga ! But the Scythians doubled and re-entered
their own country, and baffled and harassed the returning
Persians ; and some of them, stealing ahead, reached the
190
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
Danube and urged the Greeks to destroy the bridge. This
proposal was strongly seconded by Miltiades, who was now,
as we have seen, the Greek ' tyrant ' of the Chersonese, and
had been obliged to join the expedition. But when Histiaeus
of Miletus opposed it, saying that their existence as tyrants
depended wholly on Persia, the Greek leaders decided (to the
great disdain of the Scythians, who called them the " faith-
fullest of slaves ") only to break the bridge for a distance of a
bow-shot from the Scythian side, and to await the return of
Darius, though the sixtieth knot had long ago been untied.
At length the Persians arrived, " It was night, and their
terror when they found the bridge broken was great. . . .
But there was in the army of Darius an Egyptian, who had a
louder voice than any other man in the world. He was
bid by Darius to stand at the water's edge and call Histiaeus
the Milesian, who, hearing him at the very first summons,
brought across the fleet. . . . Thus the Persians escaped from
Scythia." And Darius, having reached Sestos, took the bulk
of his army across the Hellespont and returned to Sardis.
But, although Herodotus seems to regard the return of the
king as a flight rather than a dignified withdrawal after a
successful campaign, 80,000 men were left behind in Europe
under the command of Megabazus, who " subdued to the
dominion of the king all the towns and all the nations of
these parts." For some time the whole of Thrace and the
islands of the North Aegaean remained in the possession of
Persia, and tribute was probably exacted from the Macedonian
king.i After the revolt of Ionia in 499 the Thracians (whom
Herodotus calls " the most powerful people in the world,
except, of course, the Indians") threw off the Persian yoke,
and were forthwith invaded by the Scythians, who succeeded
even in driving Miltiades out of the Chersonese.
The fourth book of Herodotus consists mainly of his account
of Scythia and the Scythians. Whatever may be its value
from the standpoint of the historical critic, it is very fascinat-
ing. Much that he recounts is founded on his own experiences
^ For the fate of one Persian embassy demanding tribute see Hdt. v. 17.
191
ANCIENT GREECE
and may be accepted as trustworthy, and as for the stories
that he retails about the fabled lands beyond the Tanais
(Don) — about the one-eyed Arimaspi and the treasure of
sacred gold guarded by griffins (recalling the Rheingold and
the dragons of the Siegfried legend), and about the Hyper-
boreans and the ' Perpherees,' those maiden-messengers who
brought (possibly from Britain) gifts packed in wheat-straw
to the shrine of Artemis in Delos, and died there, and were
honoured as deities with the hair-offerings of Delian youths
and maidens * — all such things he merely repeats on hearsay
for whatever human interest they may possess, and he especially
warns us that much of it was derived from a very weird person,
namely, a poet and traveller named Aristeas, a kind of
' spectre-man,' as Herodotus calls him, who was said to have
vanished on several occasions and to have reappeared after
the lapse of years — once, indeed, after the lapse of over three
centuries ; having recounted which fact, Herodotus uses his
favourite formula and allows that " enough has been said
concerning Aristeas."
The geography of Herodotus is a subject too large to discuss
fully here. I must content myself with one or two of his
remarks. " I cannot but laugh," he says, " when I see numbers
of persons drawing maps of the world . . . and making the
ocean-stream running all round the earth, and the earth itself
an exact circle, as if described with a pair of compasses, with
Europe and Asia of just the same size." Doubtless here he
is making a thrust at Hecataeus, his predecessor in history-
writing, who composed a text to the map that Anaximander
made of the world (p. 205). He then proceeds to give his own
ideas as to the shape and relative size of the three continents,
and asserts that Europe is by far the largest — so much larger
that he " cannot conceive why three different names, and
women's names especially, should have been given to what is
really only one continent." In one point at least he was
right. " As for I/ibya," he says, " we know it to be washed on
^ Hdt. iv. 33. It reads like the legend of some St. Walpurga. Herodotus
himself saw their graves " on the left as one enters the precinct of Artemis."
192
53- Tomb of Cyrus
From Dr. Sarre's ' Iranische Felsreliefs ' [Ernst Wasmiith, A.-G., Berlin)
54. The OiyYMPiEioN, Athens
192
k
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia."
He gives as proof the circumnavigation of Africa by Pharaoh
Necho's Phoenician sailors/ but he rejects just the one bit
of evidence that for us is conclusive. " On their return," he
says, " they declared (and I for my part do not believe this,
though perhaps others may) that in sailing round lyibya they
had the sun upon their right hand " — i.e. on looking towards
the noonday sun the east was to their right. Another attempt
to circumnavigate Africa was made, says Herodotus, by a
nephew of Darius, who was condemned to death for some
crime, but respited on condition that he should "sail round
lyibya." He seems to have got as far as the Guinea coast,
where he discovered a " dwarfish race," but his ships " refused
to go any further " (perhaps on account of the south trade-
winds), and he returned and (like Walter Raleigh) was put to
death in execution of the former sentence.
NOTE ON THE TOMBS OF CYRUS AND DARIUS
(See Figs. 53 and 73)
The story related by Herodotus about the death of Cyrus
seems inconsistent with the fact that his tomb (a cenotaph ?)
was to be seen at Pasargadae, where Alexander the Great
visited it — and punished severely those who had pillaged it.
There still exists at Pasargadae (if the ruins in the valley of
the Murghab are really the remains of the ancient capital of
the Achaemenid princes) a square building on an eminence
amidst desolate scenery which may be this celebrated tomb of
Cyrus, once surrounded by luxuriant parks. It is now called the
' Tomb of Solomon's Mother.' Here there have been discovered
many stones inscribed with the name of Cyrus, and also a
relief of a four-winged figure surmounted by a curious structure
Hke an Egyptian headdress — possibly a portrait of Cyrus set
up by Cambyses. Darius abandoned Pasargadae and built,
sixty miles further down the valley, the magnificent city of
Persepolis, called by the Greeks "the richest city under the
1 See p. 144.
N 193
ANCIENT GREECE
sun " — until Alexander plundered its treasury, where lie
found 120,000 talents of gold. On the site of Persepolis
enormous ruins still exist of the architectural works and
sculptures of Darius and Xerxes. There is a huge pylon or
portal with winged bulls, and some of the hundred columns
of the immense Hall of Xerxes, and the great flight of steps
that led up to his palace, which, it is said, Alexander set on
fire, incited by the notorious Athenian courtesan Thais. On
the side of the Royal Mount near Persepolis are the tombs of
Darius and of some of the later Persian kings, as well as
many monuments of the Sassanidae, who ruled Persia during
the Roman Empire and until Persia fell into the hands of the
Mahometans. The tomb of Darius is cut out of the solid
rock in the middle of a perpendicular precipice (Fig. 73). At
Behistun in Media, between Babylon and Ecbatana, on the
face of the rock in a precipitous gully there may still be
seen the sculptured relief that records, with inscriptions in
three Oriental languages, the victories over revolted provinces
which Darius gained in the first three years of his reign.
SECTION A : POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS (560-500)
How far the political state of a country influences art is a
question difficult to answer. Perhaps it might be possible
to discover some apparent connexion between the events
related in the last chapter and the fact that in the Hellenic
world during this period, although many magnificent temples
were erected and sculpture was beginning to show signs of
the coming glory, as far as we can judge from surviving
fragments no really great poetry was written — nothing at all
comparable with that of Sappho or Alcaeus — while during the
next century or so more great poetry, as well as great sculpture
and architecture and oratory and philosophy, was produced by
one single city of Greece than we can perhaps find in any other
century of the world's history.
At Athens, as we have seen, the first beginnings of the
Attic drama were made, during the rule of the Peisistratidae,
194
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
by Thespis, who introduced dialogue into the rude choruses
of vintage festivals. He was followed by Choerilus and
Phrynichus and Pratinas and others, by whom these Dionysiac
performances were developed into drama. All these three
must have written plays of no mean value, for they contended
not unsuccessfully with Aeschylus himself in his younger
days. Of their works we know scarcely anything. Choerilus
wrote something like 150 pieces. Phrynichus gained a tragic
victory in 511, and some eighteen years later had the mis-
fortune to write a drama representing the capture of Miletus
by the Persians (494), which so painfully affected the Athe-
nians that he was fined 1000 drachmae. Sixteen years later
(478) he gained the prize with the Phoenissae. In this play
he gave a description of the battle of Salamis which Aeschylus
is said to have imitated in his Persae.^ But we are here
encroaching on what belongs to the next century.
Of other Greek poets, or verse-writers, of the period 560-500
the most notable are Theognis, Xenophanes, Ibycus, Anacreon,
and Simonides of Ceos.
It may be remembered that one of the cities which fell
under the rule of a tyrant was Megara. About the year 640
Theagenes overthrew the aristocratic party and held power
for some time ; but he was ejected, and for the next century
the state suffered from endless conflicts between the nobles
and the people, in the midst of which troubles the Athenians,
at Solon's instigation, wrested Salamis from Megara, and
even for a time occupied her port, Nisaea. Among the nobles
banished during a temporary supremacy of the democratic
party was Theognis. He seems to have spent many years
in exile in Sicily and Euboea (c. 550), but to have returned
and lived at Megara until the Persian peril was imminent ;
for in his poem he prays Apollo to " keep far from this city
the savage host of the Medes." Of the 1368 lines in elegiac
metre which are attributed to Theognis (collected about
400 B.C.), about half — those addressed to a young nobleman,
Gyrnus — are perhaps authentic. They pour the bitterest
1 See p. 315. In Aristophanes' Frogs (1296) this charge seems rebutted.
ANCIENT GREECE
contempt on the ' bad ' and ' cowardly ' (/ca/co), SeiXoi) —
cant terms among the aristocrats for the working classes — and
call upon the ' good ' and ' brave ' {ayadoi, ecrOXoi) to trample
on the neck of their hated inferiors and to keep themselves
from the contamination of the common herd. Theognis
laments that Megara is still the same but her people are all
changed, that for the sake of gold the noble deigns to wed the
daughter of the vile plebeian, and that those who once were
the good are now base and vile. Historically all this is of
interest. It seems also to have been thought valuable
educationally, for it was much used by schoolmasters and by
lecturing Sophists ; but regarded as poetry it is very poor
stuff, about on a level with Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy,
or even below it, being tainted with virulence and a maudlin
pessimism. ^
Of a very different character are the verses of Xenophanes.
He is, as we shall see, more important as a thinker than as a
poet, but the vigorous lines in which he expressed some of his
convictions are very notable not only for their thoughts
but also for their form. In his chief poem (He pi ^va-eoo^, ' On
Nature '), of which fragments survive, he inveighs against the
popular anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and especially
against Homer and Hesiod for attributing human weaknesses
and follies to the gods. " God," he says, " is wholly Sight and
wholly Thought and wholly Hearing, and with no effort He
rules all things by the working of His mind. . . . There is one
God, supreme among divinities and men, like unto mortals
neither in body nor in thought." The Aethiop, he says, makes
his gods black, the Thracian makes his blue-eyed and blond,
and if horses and oxen and lions had hands and could write
and do handiwork as men, they would have formed con-
ceptions and made images of gods in their own likeness.
We possess also fragments of his elegiacs, in which are found
many wise and manly sayings about self-restraint and the
1 He steals, and spoils in stealing, the well-known saying, which King Midas
learnt from the god Silenus, and which Sophocles used with such pathetic
effect, that " The happiest lot is never to have been born — or to return as soon
as possible thither whence we came."
196
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
true enjoyment of life, and a fine passage in which he contrasts
the glory won by Olympic victors with that which wisdom
confers on a man. " If any one should win by swiftness of foot,
or in the pentathlon, there where is the precinct of Zeus by the
streams of the Pisa, or else by wrestling, or by being skilled
in painful boxing, or that formidable contest that they call
the pancratium, he would be granted a conspicuous front seat
at the games, and food would be given him by the city from
public funds and a gift such as to be an heirloom for ever ;
or e'en if he won the victory by means of his horses, and not
by his own strength, he would gain all these things . . . but
he would not deserve them as I do ; for better than the
strength of man or of horses is our [human] wisdom."
Xenophanes was born at the Ionian city Colophon, but left
it (some say, banished on account of his heretical poem) at
the age of twenty-five. In the fragment which tells us this
he says that he is already ninety- two years old, having
"tossed about through Hellenic lands" for sixty-seven years.
In another fragment he asks himself : " How old wast thou
when the Mede arrived ? " It seems probable, therefore, that
he left Colophon on account of the Persian invasion under
Harpagus (c. 545), when the Phocaeans abandoned their city
and sailed to Corsica. We have already seen (p. 123) that he
possibly joined these Phocaeans in founding Elea, where he
is said to have lived in very modest circumstances to about
his hundredth year. We shall hear more of him as a philosopher.
At the semi-Oriental court of Samos we find the poets Ibycus
and Anacreon (c. 550-522). Ibycus, a native of Rhegium,
is said to have been tutor to Polycrates. From the few lines
that we possess of his voluptuously imaginative poetry, and
from the fact that he is called by Suidas the " maddest of all
love-poets," one may infer what was his influence on the youth-
ful prince. But it should be remarked that, as far as one can
judge from a few lines, there was in Ibycus (as also in the
genuine Anacreon) intense passion without any of that effemi-
nate sentimentality which is found in later Greek love-poetry.
His conception of Bros is that of a strong and terrible deity,
197
ANCIENT GREECE
" like the Thracian Boreas blazing with lightning," or of an
insidious and mighty wizard : " From under dark eyebrows
shooting forth ravishing glances with enchantments of every
kind, he casteth me into the immeasurable toils of the Cyprian
goddess." He is said also to have composed epic poems similar
to those of the Cyclic writers. The story of his death at the
hands of robbers and of the detection of the crime has become
well known through Schiller's fine ballad, The Cranes oflbycus^
Anacreon was a native of Teos, in Ionia. When the city
was taken by Harpagus (544) he migrated to Abdera, in Thrace.
Thence he came to Samos, and lived there until the crucifixion
of Polycrates in 523, when Hipparchus is said to have sent a
trireme to bring him to Athens. Here he spent some years,
but probably returned to Abdera or Teos. He died two years
after the battle of Salamis, at the age of eighty-five, choked
by a grape-stone. The Athenians erected a statue of him
(seen by Pausanias) in the characteristic guise of a drunken
old man. Much that passed under the name of Anacreon is
evidently the product of ' Anacreontic ' poets of later times.
Some of these Anacreontic odes are exceedingly clever and
pretty, such, for instance, as the Address to a Painter, which
was adduced by Lessing, in his Laocoon, as an example of the
kind of pictorial description that poetry should not attempt.
It is nevertheless very charming, and ends in a most ingenious
conceit. " Come, good painter," exclaims the poet, " paint
my absent mistress as I bid thee." He then gives exact details
— the soft black locks, the ivory brow, the milk and roses of
the cheeks, the marble neck and bust ; but, as if feeling the
uselessness of all such word-painting, he bids the painter stop,
and, turning to the picture created by his own imagination, he
calls upon it to speak and answer him. It is exceedingly clever
and pretty. But this is not how Homer and Shakespeare
make us realize the beauty of Helen and Juliet. Probably,
however, we form quite a wrong idea of Anacreon's poetry
when we associate him with such delicately worded trifles,
* Schiller imagines him journeying from Rhegium to Corinth to take part
in the Isthmian Games.
198
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
for in fragments of what is undoubtedly his work we find a
very different style and some quite different conceptions.
Thus, like Ibycus, he gives us a picture of lyove (Bros) which
offers a very striking contrast to the winged, roguish, rose-
fettered urchin of the Anacreontics. " I^ike a smith, with
mighty hammer," he says, " Eros smote me and plunged me
in a wintry torrent." This is the Eros of the older poets and
sculptors, the first-born of the gods of whom Hesiod sings,
the strong-limbed, manly Eros of Praxiteles, not the chubby
little Cupid with his toy bow and quiver whom we meet so often
in Hellenistic and Roman art.
One generally associates Simonides of Ceos (556-467) with
Marathon and Thermopylae. But while he was a boy Croesus
was still reigning, and he was already nearly thirty years of
age when Peisistratus died. About 525 he was invited by
Hipparchus to leave his home on the island of Ceos and to
come to Athens, where Anacreon was then living. When
Hipparchus was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogeiton
he went to Thessaly, probably to the court of the Aleuadae,
the princes of lyarissa, whose submission to the Persians prob-
ably occasioned his return to Athens. Here he became intimate
with Themistocles and was held in great honour for his
learning and poetical genius. Four years after the battle of
Salamis, when he was eighty years old, he gained the prize
at the Great Dionysia — the fifty-sixth public prize for poetry,
as he tells us, that he had won. Soon afterwards, together
with his nephew, the poet Bacchylides, he went to Syracuse,
where, at the court of Hiero, he met Aeschylus and Pindar.
He died at Syracuse, aged eighty-nine, in 467. Thus his life
extended almost from the age of Solon to that of Pericles, and
he was a contemporary for a few years of both Thales and
Socrates. In considering him one is therefore obHged either
to anticipate or to defer considerably. He seems to have
produced a great amount of poetry in his long life — hymns
to the gods, funeral eulogies and elegies, triumphal odes,
dithyrambs, and odes in honour of victors at the games. In
such odes he, as also his nephew BacchyUdes, had a powerful
199
ANCIENT GREECE
rival in Pindar, by whose sublimity of imagination and majesty
of language, it is said, they were both eclipsed. Nevertheless
some of the fragments of his poetry that survive are as fine as
almost anything in Pindar, and the subject is certainly some-
times on a far higher level than that of the ordinary Pindaric
ode. In an encomium on those who fell with Leonidas he
says : " Splendid was the fortune of those who died at Thermo-
pylae and glorious their fate. Their tomb is an altar ; instead
of wails there is remembrance, and lamentation is changed into
praise ; such a shroud neither decay shall e'er destroy, nor
time, that conquereth all. This resting-place of brave men
hath received to dwell within it the glory of Hellas." The
metres of these odes are probably such as had been used from
an early age in musical compositions. They seem to be
conditioned by various musical rhythms (Doric, Aeolic, Ivydian,
&c,.), and to be, as Horace says with reference to Pindar, free
from all law,^ except that the poem has certain divisions
(strophes, antistrophes, epodes, &c.). Simonides is remem-
bered chiefly on account of the famous lines, quoted by Hero-
dotus, that were engraved on the monuments at Thermopylae. ^
Herodotus does not mention Simonides as their author, but
Cicero and other writers do. Another couplet, on the
Athenians who fought at Marathon, is attributed to Simonides
by the rhetorician Aristides, and some lines of his beginning
" I am the bravest of beasts " may have been composed as the
inscription for the stone lion which, as Herodotus tells us,
was set up at Thermopylae in memory of I^eonidas. Earlier
in life (c. 506) he wrote, it is said, an epitaph for the Athenians
who fell in the Chalcidian war. Simonides is said to have
invented, or introduced, the letters n, w^ ^, \p.
1 Of the forty-four extant odes of Pindar only two have any decided metrical
similarity, and these two are addressed to the same person and probably
form one consecutive piece.
* Thus translated by Rawlinson :
Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land
Against three hundred myriads bravely stand ;
and
Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.
200
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
The Philosophers
Some of the older Greek philosophers, such as Xenophanes,
Parmenides, and Empedocles, may be classed also among the
poets, and others, such as Thales and Pythagoras, would
perhaps be conceded a like honour if their writings had sur-
vived. The incomparable insight into the life of things which
distinguishes Greek thought from what often usurps the name
of philosophy was due mainly to the poetical spirit that
animated it. As Plato tells us, the truths which are the object
of the ' lover of wisdom ' cannot be learnt in the same way
as scientific facts, but only by the help of our imaginative
faculties and by contemplation ; and his statement is con-
firmed by Aristotle himself, who says that " poetry is more
philosophical and more worthy of serious regard than history."
In the Greek thinkers of the period that we are examining
there are noticeable three distinct methods of regarding the
universe. The Ionic philosophers, fixing their gaze on the
visible order of things, endeavoured to discover the prime
element or self-created and self-moving elementary substance
to which the material universe owes its origin and existence.
The Eleatic school, of which Xenophanes was the founder,
sought the one true existence behind appearances, denying
the reality, or even the very existence, of the material world.
Pythagoras taught that the life of things — that which alone
gives them any true existence — is the relation that they bear
to the one life of all (as numbers to unity), and that their
nature and their reality as objects of the sensible universe
depend on the relation that they bear (hke numbers) to one
another. Thus, all things being bound together into a cosmos
by proportion, the universe is of the nature of harmony. To
give any full and systematic account of the theories of these
early Greek thinkers is here impossible, but if the essential
characteristics of the three schools are kept in mind the follow-
ing facts will perhaps fall into place and offer a fairly intelligible
picture,
Thales of Miletus (c, 636-546) was the first of the Ionic
201
ANCIENT GREECE
' Physicists/ and is regarded as the father of Greek philosophy,
as well as the chief of the Seven Sages. Herodotus asserts
that he was of Phoenician origin, and possibly the Semitic
strain may account for genius in his case, as it has done in
others. When Thales was still a young man, Miletus, then
" a rich and powerful city " and the mother of many colonies,
fell under the rule of the tyrant Thrasybulus (p. 130), the
friend and Machiavellian adviser of Periander; and it remained
under his rule for more than forty years. Thales is said to
have visited Egypt and to have acquired there the knowledge
of geometry and astronomical calculation which enabled him
to foretell the eclipse^ that put an end to the battle between
Astyages of Media and the Lydian king Alyattes (585) . Possibly
he also learnt in Egypt a certain amount of geology — enough
to make him a ' sedimentarist ' and a believer in water as the
prime element — for Herodotus, who also was in Egypt, gives
us a long description of the formation of the country by alluvial
deposit, which he held to have been going on for some 12,000
years. Miletus was harassed a good deal by Alyattes, but
under Croesus the Milesians (almost alone of the Ionian Greeks)
retained their independence, and Thales is said to have advised
his fellow-citizens not to aid the Lydian king against Cyrus —
advice which probably saved the city from being taken by
Harpagus. But the anxiety caused by the advance of Persia
is shown by the fact that Thales tried to persuade the lonians
to form a ' confederation,' with Teos as capital. It must have
been soon after this that he died.
Whether Thales wrote anything is not known. What we
know of his doctrines we learn from Plato, Aristotle, and other
writers. The fact that he chose water as the prime substance
should be connected closely with the fact that he conceived
such prime substance to be in perpetual motion, and mind,
^ The Chaldaeans, from whom possibly (but not probably) the Egyptians
learnt their astronomy, are said to have registered, or calculated, eclipses
from about 720. They are said to have believed the world to have existed for
172,000 years. But the Indian sages claim an antiquity of two million years
for their astronomical tables, and doubtless the most ancient names of the
constellations are of Indian origin.
202
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
or intelligence, to be present wherever there was motion ; ^
and, as motion exists everywhere in the universe, he asserted
that " all is full of gods," and that even the kinetic power of
the magnet and of amber proved their possession of what he
called a ' soulless soul ' (or ' lifeless vitality '). Cicero, indeed,
says that Thales spoke of the ' Mind of the Universe ' as being
equivalent to ' God,' but it is probable that his theories were
unconnected with religious ideas — that is, that they were
entirely materialistic and without any assumption of a spiritual
or intellectual ' first cause,' such as was proclaimed later by
Anaxagoras. Consequently, in order to account for move-
ment he was obliged to conceive his prime substance as self-
moving, and, indeed, self-created, and was thus driven to face
the same difficulties that all materialists are forced to encounter.
Some writer has remarked that " a lake formed by the Maeander
now covers the native city of the man who taught that every-
thing comes from and returns to water." The story of his
falling down a well into his favourite element while star-
gazing is perhaps a playful invention.
In connexion with Thales it may be interesting to raise the
question how far, if at all, Greek philosophy was indebted to
the philosophy of the East. It is indubitable that Thales and
Pythagoras, and perhaps other early Greek philosophers,
visited Egypt, and perhaps other Eastern lands, and it seems
possible that, as far as their external form is concerned, some
of the doctrines of Greek thinkers, such as that of ' trans-
migration,' had an Oriental or Egyptian origin,* and that the
belief in the immortality of the soul, which we find so strongly
asserted by Socrates, was not evolved by Greek thought, but
introduced from Eastern sources ; moreover, in Vedanta
philosophy there are doctrines of ' abstraction ' and of the
triune nature of the Deity (as Intelhgence, Matter, and Multi-
tude) which have a singular resemblance to the Socratic
doctrine of the " release and purification of the body " and to
^ Cf." And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." The
theory of Thales is like that of the modern Monist.
* Herodotus asserts this (ii. 123), but no proof has been found of it in
Egyptian monuments.
203
ANCIENT GREECE
the Monad and Triad doctrine of Pythagoras, and others that
closely resemble the Eleatic denial of the reality of the sensible
world ; but it is surely not impossible that the human mind
is so constructed that it may (perhaps must) arrive at similar
formulae ; or, if it be true that Greece accepted certain forms
of Eastern thought, it is no less true that Hellenic genius
reinspired these forms with a new life so that they are as truly
original creations as Hamlet or Faust.
The human mind seems generally to find no insuperable
difficulty in forming a vague conception of an inert prime
element (more or less immaterial) existing from all eternity ;
but for the conception of a cosmos, an ordered, differentiated
universe, or even of ' matter ' itself, it is necessary to account
for the ordering force, and one instinctively rejects the ' self-
moved ' material prime element of Thales and the ' self-moved '
atoms of Democritus, of which we shall hear later. This
difficulty accounts for the creative I^ove (Eros) of Hesiod,
the "love and hate of the atoms" of Empedocles, the Nous
(Mind) of Anaxagoras, and all other such attempts to visualize
and personify the mysterious power which manifests itself in
motion and life, and it is not surprising that Anaximander
(c. 610-545), a contemporary and fellow-citizen, perhaps a
disciple, of Thales, should have attempted to go a little further
toward the realm of the Immaterial in his search for a first
cause of motion. He is said to have been the first Greek
philosopher who wrote a prose work. Of this work (entitled,
as usual. About Nature) nothing but a few quotations survive,
but they prove that the author proclaimed as the prime element,
or rather the first ' principle ' (for he was the first to use the
word apxv), what he called ' the infinite ' or ' unconditioned '
{to a-ireipov) , by which he probably meant matter not exactly
in a chaotic state, but with its elements {crroLxe'ia) not yet
differentiated.^ But his apxh is really quite as materialistic
as that of Thales, and is less conceivable. Instead of ' self-
^ See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. Plato uses to ciTreipov for primal ' matter '
regarded merely as a passive, potential, formless existence — and this seems
practically what Anaximander meant.
204
55- Bl<ACK-FIGURED VaSKS
c. 700-500
See List of lllusliatinns and Note D
204
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
movement ' he lias to imagine ' counteracting forces,' such as
heat and cold, dryness and moisture, in order to produce a
cosmos. His theory that living things were evolved out of
damp matter and that men as well as all other animals were at
first fish-like has affinity to modern morphological doctrines.
He is said to have invented the sun-dial (though Herodotus
credits the Babylonians with the invention) and to have made
a map of the world and an astronomical globe. The map is
said to have been engraved on a brass tablet, and was perhaps
the very one which [c. 499) Aristagoras of Miletus took over
to show the vSpartans the extent of the Persian Empire, and
for which Hecataeus wrote a text. A third Milesian, Anaxi-
menes, proclaimed as the apxh an illimitable element of the
nature of air — the life-breath, as it were, of the universe. This
seems a relapse ; but we know too little of his doctrines to be
certain. The earth he believed to float sustained in the midst
of air, and he is said to have been the first (Greek ?) to teach
that the moon's light came from the sun. If, as it is said, he
taught Anaxagoras (born in 500) and was himself a disciple
of Anaximander, he must have lived to a great age.
In connexion with these Physicists may be mentioned
Heracleitus of Ephesus, for, although he lived somewhat later
(c. 540-470), and although his genius was of a strikingly original,
imaginative, and independent character (justifying his proud
remark, " I have gone to no teacher but myself," and perhaps
even justifying the gift of his own book to the temple of Artemis
as the most precious offering he could make), nevertheless
the fact that he accepted a ' prime element ' makes it convenient
to class him with the other Ionian philosophers.
During most of the life of Heracleitus Ephesus was under the
sovereignty of Persia and the rule of Greek tyrants. But he
evidently lived to see the day of liberation, for in his work
On Nature he pours bitter disdain on the Ephesian democracy
for having banished his friend Hermodorus (who, by the way
some twenty-six years later helped the Roman decemviri
to draw up their Twelve Tables). This would seem to prove
that he wrote the book after the recovery of Sestos by the
205
ANCIENT GREECE
Athenians and the Hberation of Ionia from the Persian yoke
(478). .
To judge from the 136 short fragments of his writings
that survive Heracleitus expressed himself in very trenchant
aphorisms. The following are some of them : " War is the
father of all things " {i.e. all things are evolved by antagonistic
forces) ; " No man can wade twice in the same stream " {i.e.
material objects are always changing) ; " The wisest of men is
an ape to the gods " ; " I,ife is the death of gods, death their
life " ; " Men are mortal gods, gods immortal men " ; "A man's
character is his destiny " ; " lycaming teaches not wisdom."
In connexion with this last aphorism he added : " Otherwise
learning would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras and
Xenophanes and Hecataeus." Still more strongly he expressed
himself about Homer and Archilochus, saying that they
" ought to be whipped." Such language is intelligible enough,
so that probably it was the abstruseness of his doctrines rather
than his words that won him the title ' the Obscure.' Even
Socrates confessed that there were many things in the book
of Heracleitus that needed a ' DeHan diver ' to bring them up
from their obscure depths.
Heracleitus held fire to be the prime element. Possibly he
was led to the choice by Oriental (Zoroastrian) influence. But
by ' fire ' he meant a subtle, fiery, aetherial substance rather
than flame. Of this self-kindled, ever-vibrating fiery aether
he conceived the human soul and the soul of the universe,
and even Deity itself, to consist.^ Doubtless fire, or heat,
was believed by him (as it is, or was until lately, believed
by modern science) to be caused by, or to be, vibration or
undulation, and it was evidently as a most striking form, or
symbol, of perpetual and inconceivably rapid motion that he
chose it, for all his philosophy was founded on the axiom that
there is no true existence except in motion, in mutation,
development, action, transition. " All is in flux " {-rrdpra pel)
* Anticipating by some 2400 years the assertion of the modern Monist,
who tells us that the only possible God is "the sum total of the vibrations of
the Ether." Socrates was accused by Aristophanes (of course falsely) of having
enthroned ' Aetherial Vortex ' in the place of Zeus,
206
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
was his fundamental dogma. There is no such thing as a
permanent state of being. Being (existence) consists in change.
Nothing exists except in merging its identity in something else.
Thus, " Death is life, life is death," and " Sleep and waking
are the same," or (if I may slightly change his form of expres-
sion and put some of his aphorisms into the words of three
great modern poets), "There is no Death ! What seems so is
transition," ^ " To sleep is to wake," and " Living are the dead,
and I am the apparition, I the spectre." Such doctrines, so
unintelligible to the many, probably credited him with the
obscurity and melancholy which have attached themselves
to his memory.
Of the life and poems of Xenophanes I have already spoken.
His philosophy offers a very striking contrast to that of Hera-
cleitus, and forms a part of the first rude foundation on which
was reared the Ideal Theory of Plato.
Heracleitus asserted that nothing truly exists except in so
far as it is in motion, mutation, transition — that is, as a link
in the endless chain of cause and effect. Xenophanes, on the
contrary, asserted that all motion and mutation and transition,
as well as the things that they affect, are merely appear-
ances, the multitudinous phenomena of the senses {to. TroXAa),
which are not existent except so far as they stand in relation
to the one eternal and immutable Reality, the " unmoved
source of motion" and the only source of all being. In his
poetry, as we have seen, he gives this immutable and eternal
Reality the name of God. As a philosopher he calls it the
One — an expression used also by Pythagoras and by Plato.
But though he held that things of the senses (the Many) are
non-existent in their variety and their mutations and their
relation to one another, he asserted that they exist truly by
virtue of their relation to the One. Thus the keystone of
the Eleatic school is ra Travra ev (' All things One ') rather
than TO ev Km TO. iravra (' The One and the Many '), which
was the formula of Platonic philosophy ; and we should regard
^ In the Phaedo Socrates (or Plato) speaks of transition from life to death
and from death to life in reference to the immortality of the soul.
207
ANCIENT GREECE
the creed of Xenophanes as pantheistic rather than duaHstic—
that is, as identifying spirit and matter rather than separating
them by an impassable gulf, as Plato seems to do. But how-
ever that may be, it is clear that Xenophanes himself allowed
the practical existence of sensible objects and of change and
motion— allowed, as Socrates did, that such phenomena,
although not the objects of true knowledge, could be used as
' rafts ' to carry us across the sea of human life — whereas some
of his successors, such as Parmenides and Zeno, insisted on the
absolute non-existence of the natural world, and were thus
landed in absurdities. Under Zeno the sublime philosophy
of the founder degenerated into metaphysical quibbles and
paradoxes and puzzles about the infinitely small and great,
such as the puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise. He denied not
only the absolute reality but also the practical existence of
the sensible world and the possibility of motion — a doctrine
refuted, it is said, by an unbeliever who rose from his seat
and walked across the lecture-room, or lecture-portico, of the
philosopher. Hence the expression Solvitur amhulando.
The one doctrine of real importance in the philosophy of
Xenophanes, and that which places it on a level quite different
from that of the Ionic Physicists, is that which asserts the
reality of things to depend on their relation to the one true
existence — a doctrine substantially the same as that of Socrates,
who taught that everything exists by virtue of its true, not its
apparent, cause, and that the only true knowledge is the
knowledge of the true cause of things.
Pythagoras (c. 570-490) was a contemporary of Xenophanes
and a generation earlier than Heracleitus. He and Xeno-
phanes, living only some 120 miles distant from each other in
Southern Italy, may be supposed to have met ; but there was
evidently not much mutual admiration, if we may judge from
some very contemptuous verses of Xenophanes . ' ' They relate, ' '
he says, " that once when he [Pythagoras] was going past
while a puppy was being whipped, he was touched with pity
and exclaimed : ' I^eave off ! Beat him not ! for he is the
soul of a friend of mine. I recognized it at once by his voice.' "
208
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
Pythagoras was a Samian, but about 540, after having visited
the East and Egypt/ he left vSamos, perhaps in order to escape
from the frivolous court of Polycrates, and settled in Croton.
Here he seems to have gained great influence with the wealthy
aristocratical party. Three hundred Crotoniats he formed into
an Order, bound together by vows of allegiance and secrecy,
after the fashion of Freemasons, whom they also resembled in
possessing secret signs. On new members a period of proba-
tion, some say of seven years, was imposed, during which they
were tested in their powers of keeping silence (like the Trap-
pists) and in keeping their temper and in mental capacities.
Only a few were initiated into the secret (esoteric) doctrines
and rites, which were perhaps of an Orphic character, and
seem to have been specially connected with the worship of
Apollo ; and it is possible that Pythagoras was identified by
his followers with Apollo and that he laid claim (as Empedocles
did later) to supernatural powers. The rule of the Order
seems to have included strict abstinence from animal food —
a practice necessarily involved in the creed of transmigration
of souls. 2 Music and athletics formed an indispensable part
in the system. When a member wished to leave the Order
he was presented with double his original subscription and
allowed to depart, but over his seat in the refectory was
erected a monument, and funeral rites were celebrated to
intimate his philosophic decease. To the chief lodge (so to
speak) at Croton were affiliated others in Taras, vSybaris,
Metapontion, and other towns.
Perhaps it was owing to the political influence of these
aristocratical Pythagorean societies that in 510 (the year when
Tarquin and Hippias were expelled) Croton utterly destroyed
* Herodotus evidently alludes (ii. 123) to him, though he declines to mention
his name, when he speaks of certain Greek writers having appropriated and
published as their own the Egyptian (?) doctrine of Transmigration. In
iv. 95 he calls him " not the meanest of Greek philosophers."
* Beans were also taboo, if we are to take Horace's joke seriously {Sat.
II, vi. 63), who intimates that some relative of Pythagoras had been a bean.
Grote rejects Pythagorean vegetarianism as a fable because Milo nmsi have
had a meat diet !
o 209
ANCIENT GREECE
Sybaris/ which had led into the field, we are told, an army of
300,000 men, against whom Milo, the celebrated Pythagorean
wrestler (six times Olympic victor), did deeds like those of
Samson. Soon after this the popular party, under the leader-
ship of Cylon, gained the upper hand in Croton, and the
Pythagorean societies fell under ban. Milo's house, where
forty disciples were assembled, was set on fire by the mob,
and all but two perished — possibly Pythagoras among them ;
but some say that he had fled to Taras some years pre-
viously, and thence to Metapontion, where 400 years later,
Cicero tells us, his tomb was to be seen.^ Probably Pytha-
goras, like Socrates and many other wise men, wrote nothing,
although there is a story of his having left all his writings to
his daughter Damo, with orders not to publish them — a com-
mand that she kept, although in great poverty. There are
extant so-called ' Golden Verses ' (seventy-one hexameters)
which are attributed to liim, but they are evidently a late fabri-
cation. One of his disciples, Philolaus, who is said to have
escaped from the conflagration and taken refuge in Greece,
incorporated the doctrines of the school in a book (of course
called On Nature), but only a few questionable rehcs of this
book, as also of about ninety other works by the older
Pythagoreans, survive (including some fragments ascribed to
Archytas, the famous Tarentine mathematician, well known to
readers of Horace) . The disappearance of these old records is
doubtless due to the fierce persecutions to which the sect was
exposed. For the life and doctrines of Pythagoras we are
almost entirely dependent on a few comments of Aristotle
and on the writings of Porphyry and lamblichus, neo-Platonists
of the third century a.d., at which epoch, at Alexandria, there
was a great revival of the mystical doctrines of the school and an
attempt to proclaim Pythagoras as the anti-Christian Messiah.
1 Sixty-seven years later, after a vain attempt to revive Croton, Thurii
was founded (443) in the vicinity. Herodotus probably took part in the
founding of Thurii and saw the ruins of Sybaris.
^ In Cicero's time the revival of Pythagoreanism was beginning. In early
days the Romans, when bidden by an oracle to erect a statue to the wisest
of the Greeks, erected one to Pythagoras.
210
56. Ancient Bi,ack-figured Amphora
See List of Illustrations and Note D
2IO
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
Plato himself borrowed largely from Pythagoras. Timaeus of
lyOcri, a Pythagorean, is said to have been Plato's teacher, and
in the dialogue Timaeus Plato propounds views on the physical
universe which are perhaps mainly Pythagorean ; but it is
as impossible to say how far they are Platonized as to say how
far the doctrines of Socrates were Pythagorized by Plato.
In the Phaednts Plato uses, doubtless merely as a parable,
the doctrine of Transmigration and of the ten periods of the
soul as it was taught by Pythagoras, and the Platonic theory
of Ideas is founded on Pythagorean and Kleatic doctrines of the
One and the Many.
The main thesis of the Pythagorean system of philosophy
is that the human mind recognizes within itself certain laws
without which thought is impossible, and in these laws it
possesses a revelation of the natural laws to which the structure
of the universe is due. Now of these intellectual laws those
of nuynher are the most immutable and categorical, and the
universe (both the sensible and the intellectual) is an ' imita-
tion ' or ' realization ' of the laws of number, where Deity is
the omnipresent Unit or Monad — of which all numbers consist,
though it is itself no number — and prime (brute, chaotic) matter
is the Duad, and the ordered Cosmos (formed by the addition
of the creative Monad to the chaotic Duad) is the Triad. ^
Now, strictly speaking, the sensible universe, according to
this theory, is number realized in space, and when number is
realized in space it is geometry. Therefore we find that with
Pythagoras, as with Plato, geometry was the foundation of
all true science. He himself is said to have discovered the most
important fact of the equality of the square on the long side of
a right-angled triangle to the sum of the squares on the shorter
sides — and to have sacrificed a hundred oxen as thank-offering. ^
But in his philosophy he seems to have adopted numbers, as
being more readily expressive of ratio and proportion than are
^ Natural objects (under three dimensions) are triads, and human nature
is a triad, and the mind's conception of Deity is also a triad. Later Pytha-
goreans made the Four represent solidity, the Five quality (colour, &c.), the
Six vitality, the Seven mind, and so on.
^ Hardly consistent with his transmigration and vegetarian principles !
211
ANCIENT GREECE
lines and areas. As numbers are dependent for their individual
existence on the unit, so sensible objects are dependent for
their specific existence on their true cause — the One, or Deity.
But the existence of natural objects as phenomena depends on
their relation to all other such objects (nothing being of any
meaning or value, or conceivable, by itself), in the same wa}^
as every intelligible number stands related, in a certain ratio
or proportion, to every other number. Thus all things of the
senses are knit together into one harmonious whole, and the
natural universe is a Harmony ^ — such as also modern science
proclaims it to be " Throughout the processes of Nature,"
says Tyndall, " we have interdependence and harmony, and
the main value of physics as a mental training consists in the
tracing out of this interdependence and the demonstration
of this harmony."
In passing it may be observed that many phenomena seem
(though this may be merely due to the constitution of the
human mind) to be the results of the vibration of some one
prime element (' ether ' ?) at different rates, so that we have
light and electricity and the octaves of sound and colour, and
possibly of taste and smell, all related and standing in certain
numerical ratios each to the other. But their specific exist-
ence, as light and sound and so on, is due, as Pythagoras
expresses it, to their relation, not to each other, but to the
Unit. Thus, when Professor Romanes asserted that with one
persistent force and one prime matter he could account for
the universe, Darwin answered : " I could not disprove it if
some one should assert that God had given certain attributes
to force so that it develops into light, heat, electricity, and
magnetism — and perhaps even into life."
This doctrine of the harmonious system of the universe is
one of the most suggestive and illuminating of all parables.
But scientifically Pythagoras was, of course, on the wrong
lines. He attempted to force Nature into accordance with
his theories ; and of this we have a striking instance in the
^ Hence the Pythagorean ' mvisic of the spheres,' which onr ears are too
dull, or from long famiUarity too callous, to perceive.
212
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
fact that, in order to complete the mystic ' Decad/ he added
a tenth to the then-known nine celestial bodies which circled
round the central Fire or Watch-tower of Zeus. This tenth
body he called the Antichthon (' Counter-earth '). How such
a method differs from that by which Neptune was discovered
need scarcely be explained.
The gulf between Physics and Ethics Pythagoras conceived
to be bridged by music, which is at once a subject of intellectual
research and a means of affecting the emotions. The explana-
tion of the musical intervals and of harmony as due to propor-
tion is attributed to him, although some accounts of his experi-
ments are apocryphal, seeing that hammers of different weight
do not produce different notes from the same anvil or bell.
But he seems to have discovered the fact that- a chord at the
same tension vibrates in proportion to its length : that half
the length produces the octave above the original note, two-
thirds produces a musical fifth, three-fourths a fourth, and
eight-ninths a major tone.
Thus from Physics to Ethics, from the sensible world to the
world of mind and morals, we pass by the bridge of Music —
climb the Beanstalk, as it were, and find ourselves in a fairy-
land where our dull, boorish materialism not seldom wakes to
find itself ' translated ' and invested with an ass's nowl. Even
in this realm Pythagoras, or later Pythagorean philosophy,
ventures to use the scale of Number and reads off vice as
imperfect and virtue as perfect proportion — a virtuous life
(i.e. virtue realized in action) as the straight line, abstract
justice as the square number, and a just life as the geometric
square. The soul he defines as a ' self-moving number,' or
triune Monad, and thus asserts it to be of the same nature as
Deity — a connexion that doubtless encouraged his claim to
supernatural powers. These formulae are, of course, merely
little curiosities preserved for us by later writers, and are of
no value except as curiosities ; nor can we regard otherwise
such stories as that of the recognition by Pythagoras in the
temple of Hera at Argos of the shield whicn he had used (as
Euphorbus, the Trojan) in a former life. But, however
213
ANCIENT GREECE
unworthy of serious regard they may appear to some minds, such
a parable as that of Metempsychosis, with its gradual redemp-
tion of the human soul by purification, initiation, and intuition,
until it is fit to dwell with the gods, and such an imaginative
conception as the harmony of the universe and the music of
the spheres, are (as Aristotle himself allows) of more value to
the true thinker than much that goes by the name of scientific
metaphysics. The main structure of the Pythagorean philo-
sophy, however dimly it looms through the ages, is of impres-
sive grandeur — a watch-tower of Zeus overlooking the infinities
of space and time.
SECTION B : THE ORDERS OF GREEK ARCHITECTURE:
SCULPTURE, DOWN TO THE PERSIAN WARS
Something has already been said about the primitive
shrines of the Mycenaean age and the temples of Homeric
times, and some of the temples of the earlier historic period
have been mentioned. Others will be mentioned later in
connexion with liistorical events and with sculpture, and further
information will be found in Note A at the end of this book,
and can be supplemented by reference to the Index and the
List of Illustrations.
But without attempting to trace minutely the evolution of
the Greek temple or to describe the technical details of Greek
architecture (on which points full information can be found in
dictionaries and text-books) it may be well to state here the
main characteristics of the different orders and to add a few-
facts in connexion with some of the chief temples.
The original shrine, generally of wood or sunburnt brick,
was an oblong, or rarely a round, building, like the ancient
Greek house, with a porch. Sometimes this porch had side
walls and perhaps a couple of wooden pillars in front, so
that the whole building consisted of a hall (the shrine proper,
or moi;) and a closed forecourt (TryooVao?).^ Then the row
of pillars or columns was extended across the whole front of
^ Ex. the Treasure-house of Megara at Delphi.
214
M
in
W
O
w
W
W
>-r
Ph
S
tt
H
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
the building and the side walls of the porch were omitted, so
that an open portico was formed.^ Then a porch or portico
was placed at both ends of the building. 2 Next, a row of
columns was extended all round the building, which was said
to be peripteros — i.e. winged, or aisled — and sometimes the
portico had two rows of columns.^ I^astly, two rows of columns
were placed all round, and there were also columned porches
at both ends of the building itself.* Such a temple was called
dipteros, ' two- winged.' The interior sanctuary (the vao^ or
crrjAfo?, in which was the statue of the divinity facing east, so
that the light of the rising sun should illuminate it) had side
walls, but frequently had also inside them two rows of columns
(as in the great Paestum temple) , forming aisles and perhaps
supporting the roof. These interior aisles were sometimes
formed by two tiers of small columns, one on the top of the
other. Whether the interior building was generally, or ever,
hypaethral — i.e. open to the sky — is not quite certain. Certain
it is that the statue was not often unprotected by a roof ;
and it is probable that the open space was only just enough
to allow of sufficient light, as in the Pantheon at Rome.
The number of columns in the front of a temple was two,
four, six, eight, or ten. The side (counting the corner columns)
had generally one more than double the number of the front
columns. Thus the Parthenon is 8 x 17, the Theseion is
6 X 13, as also is the temple of Zeus at Olympia ; but Paestum
is 6 X 14, and so is the splendid temple at Segesta (Fig. 57).
The three orders of Greek architecture are the Doric (espe-
cially used in Western Hellas), the Ionic (at first peculiar to
Ionia), and the Corinthian. In the motherland we find all
three styles, but the Doric is the most ancient.
The Corinthian, with its slender shaft and its capital orna-
mented with rows of acanthus leaves, need not occupy our
attention now, for it was first invented about the time of the
Peloponnesian War. The earliest specimen known (c. 430)
1 Ex. the Erechtheion. * Ex. the Nike temple at Athens.
* Ex. the Zeus temple at Olympia and the Parthenon.
* Ex. the Artemis temple at Ephesus,
215
ANCIENT GREECE
is said to have been a single column (now lost) inserted in the
Ionic court of the Doric temple at Phigaleia (Fig. 84). Other
fine examples are the monument of I^ysicrates (Fig. 136),
the ' Temple of the Winds,' and the splendid columns of the
Olympieion at Athens (Figs. 54, 134), erected by the Emperor
Hadrian.
The Doric order has a baseless, somewhat tapering column,
surmounted by a capital composed of a thick slab {abax, or
abacus) lying on a very flat oval moulding (the echinus). The
columns bear a plain architrave (' main beam '), which supports
the frieze and the projecting cornice.
The Ionic order has a slenderer column, ^ standing on a base,
and bearing a capital whose main characteristic is two large
spiral volutes (evidently an artistic modification of the ox-heads
which occur in Oriental architecture, e.g. in the Persepolis
columns). The columns carry an entablature composed, as
in the Doric order, of architrave, frieze, and cornice, but the
face of the architrave is cut into three planes, each pro-
jecting a little above the one below it, and the friezes of the
two orders differ essentially. This difference of the friezes will
be noted at once in pictures of Doric and Ionic temples.
It will be seen that the Ionic frieze is one undivided space,
either plain or filled with a line of figures in procession or
otherwise forming a continuous series, whereas in the Doric
temples the frieze consists of numerous spaces (metopes),
either left plain or else filled each by a single group of
figures, 2 and every metope is divided from the next by a
kind of tablet of three bands sundered by flutings (triglyphs).
These triglyphs are said to represent the ends of the rafters,
which were visible in the old wooden temples, and the small
1 The Ionic column scarcely tapers at all. Its height is 16 to 18 semi-
diameters (modules). That of the Parthenon columns is 12. In the great
Paestum temple it is only 8, and in the Apollo temple at Corinth (the
most ancient perhaps in Greece) it is only yf . The columns of Atreus' Treasury
and the I/ion Gate (Mycenae) taper downwards.
2 In the Parthenon the external frieze consisted of metopes and triglyphs,
but the frieze of the inner building was Ionic in character, although the
columns were Doric. This is the frieze, representing the Panathenaic
procession, which is in the British Museum.
216
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
spherical ornaments {mutules) below and above the frieze are
supposed to represent rain-drops, or perhaps nail-heads.
Another characteristic, especially in the Doric style, is
that the column not only tapers considerably but it has a
slight outward curve (called the entasis) in the middle, the
object of which may have been to correct some optical error
in perspective. In the Parthenon this bulge is scarcely per-
ceptible. In the temple of Demeter at Paestum, or still
more in the ' BasiHca,' it is disagreeably noticeable (Fig. 41).
At Phigaleia it seems entirely absent.
The columns of all three orders have almost always parallel
flutings. The Doric are sharp-edged, shallower, and fewer
(twenty in the Parthenon), the Ionic and Corinthian gene-
rally separated by fillets, semicircular, and numbering from
twenty-four up to thirty-two. vSometimes the lower part of
the Ionic column was left plain, or (as at Ephesus) was used for
sculptured reliefs. In later times spiral flutings were sometimes
used.
In point of size, especially in regard to height, Greek temples
are, of course, not comparable with our cathedrals, nor with
the great temples of the East, and, as Herodotus himself remarks,
" although the temple of Ephesus is worthy of note, and also
the temple of Samos, if all the great works of the Greeks could
be put together in one they would not equal " things that
are to be seen in Egypt. The length of the Olympieion at
Acragas (Girgenti), the largest temple in the Hellenic world,
but (like its Athenian namesake) never completed, was 363 feet ;
that of the Samian Heraion was 346, that of the (earlier)
Ephesian temple was 342, and that of the Parthenon is 227
feet. St. Paul's Cathedral is 513 feet long and St. Peter's at
Rome is 613 feet.
Sculpture, down to the Persian Wars
In a former section we considered some of the main charac-
teristics of the religion that preceded the introduction of the
Olympian hierarchy, and noticed how the feelings of awe and
dread for the supernatural revealed themselves in grotesque
217
ANCIENT GREECE
and horrible effigies, which were regarded with superstitious
reverence. This fetish-worship was by no means eradicated
by the new Olympian religion. Although we find Httle or no
trace of ' spook ' or superstitious awe in Homer, who seems
to shrink instinctively from all that is grotesque, monstrous,
and uncanny, the old deisidaimonia survived (as we saw in
Hesiod's case) side by side with the brighter and more openly
professed Olympian orthodoxy, and during the sixth century
there seems to have been a great recrudescence of ' chthonian '
cult, aggravated by the introduction and spread of the Orphic
creed and rites and the institution, or revival, of Dionysian
and Eleusinian Mysteries. This subject we shall meet again
when we come to the philosophers of the fifth century. At
present it will suffice to note the fact that Greek sculpture
was apparently a direct evolution from the fabrication of
grotesque fetish-idols, although it is impossible by any analysis
to discover the vital force which effected this wondrous develop-
ment—a development which in many cases, such as that of
Egypt and of Assyria and of other Oriental nations, has scarcely
taken place at all, and in no other case has been so rapid
and so perfect as in Greek art. Certainly we cannot account for
it by what we call civilization. In our sense of the word the
Persian Empire was in the age of Aeschylus and Pheidias at a
higher stage of civilization than Greece, and in the Hellenic
world the advent of a more scientific learning and research
and criticism was contemporary with the degeneracy, and was
soon followed by the disappearance, of all true art, until its
renascence in other forms. But however inexplicable it may
be, it is an incontestable fact that within less than two centuries
the superstitious awe attaching to some ghoulish monstrosity
or some formless stock or meteorite gave place to reverence
for the images of a Pheidian Zeus or Athene — reverence paid
not so much to the present deity as to the manifestation of the
grand, the serene, and the beautiful.^
1 The testimony of many writers to the effect produced by the Pheidian
Zeus at Olympia is very striking. " Let a man sick and weary in soul," says
one of these, " who has passed through many distresses and sorrows, whose
2l8
An Attic Hydria of the Middle Black-figured Period 218
THE AGE OF PEISISTRATUS
The vital power which effected this development revealed
its workings not only in sculpture but also in other creations
of Hellenic genius — in Greek literature, Greek thought, Greek
mythology, and Greek theology, all of which bear testimony
to a genius essentially formative and artistic — perhaps we
may say essentially sculpturesque — a genius well described
as the converse of that of the Jewish nation, and one for which
the dangers of idolatry were to a great extent neutralized by
poetic imagination and reverence for the ideally beautiful.
Doubtless the imaginative and allegorical pictures of the
Olympian gods and the Olympian creed which we find in the
art of Homer and Pheidias and the dramatists do not reveal
to us the gross anthropomorphic superstitions of the populace,
w^hich were, as we have seen, as bitterly denounced by Xeno-
phanes as was Jewish idolatry by Isaiah. Doubtless, as in every
age, the religion of the thinker and the true artist was not that
of the people, but in spite of all the superstitions in which it
was involved (and we need only think of Socrates to realize
them) this anthropomorphism of the popular theology was
a result of the same formative spirit to which was due the
evolution of Greek sculpture from the formless or grotesque
effigies of the early age of Greece.
Whether we should regard Greek plastic art as lineally
descended from Aegaean it is not easy to say. Aegaean
plastic art (as we see by the Vaphio cups) attained an
astonishing proficiency, but was apparently swept out of
existence by the Dorians. It may have survived and been
the germ from which sprang the glories of the Periclean age,
but it is foolish to refuse to recognize in Hellenic art, as in
Hellenic thought, the presence of many elements derived from
other sources — from Crete, Lydia, Phrygia, the East, and
Egypt — and to insist on an ' autochthonous ' originality in
the case of Greek sculpture or Greek thought which cannot
be claimed for Giotto, Dante, or Shakespeare. But whether
pillow is unvisited by kindly sle 
