READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE. TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII

NORTHERN AND CENTRAL GREECE

I.

THESSALY

THE early history of northern and central Greece, being a record of parallel development among a number of independent states, cannot conveniently be traced along one single line of narrative, but requires a separate section for each constituent group.

Since neither Macedonia nor Epirus was reckoned as a Greek country until late in Greek history, the borderland of Greece in the north was Thessaly. This district forms one of the most distinctive units of Greece. Created by a wide subsidence in a lofty plateau, it is a lowland encompassed on all sides by over­shadowing heights. The floor of the basin is drained through the vale of Tempe, an earthquake fissure in Thessaly’s sea-wall. Apart from a few hollows on its eastern margin where shallow lakes are formed, and a diagonal partition of hill country, the lowland is rolled out into an unbroken level of 3000 square miles, the largest plain in Greece.

The soil of this plain, a rich alluvial clay, is eminently well suited to the growth of wheat. Along the river Peneus, which traverses the lowland from end to end, and along the numerous tributaries that feed its upper course, long strips of horse and cattle pasture supplement the corn land. Except in its south­eastern corner, where the intrusion of the sea into the Gulf of Pagasae creates an equable climate and so favours the growth of olives and other sub-tropical plants, the plain is as bare as a steppe. Its Greek summer drought is fatal to deciduous trees, while, in turn, the snows of its continental winter ruin the ever­greens. The surrounding mountains, which rise to 10,000 ft. in the peak of Olympus and to 7000 ft. in the Pindus range, are among the highest in Greece. Their upper slopes, watered by the heavy winter snows, are richly clad with forests and summer pastures.

The richness and the variety of its products make Thessaly one of the most self-contained lands of Greece. Its configuration makes it one of the most secluded. The mountains which frame it in form an almost continuous barrier to foreign intercourse.

The vale of Tempe, the sea-inlet of Pagasae, and the Thaujnaki pass across Mt Othrys in the south, offer the only convenient passages for traffic. The passes of the Pindus range in the west and of the Olympus range in the north are too high and desolate for ordinary travel, and on the east side Mts Ossa and Pelion form a rock-bound coast without a single shelter from the prevailing Levanters. Thus Thessaly is cut off from its neighbours by land and sea.

This geographical isolation had a lasting effect upon Thessalian history. From prehistoric days Thessaly remained at most times out of close touch with the commerce and culture of other Greek lands. Its contributions to Greek art, literature and religion were insignificant. But its natural wealth and consequent abundance of man-power made it a potential leader of the Greek nation. In the seventh and sixth centuries, and again in the fourth, Thessaly for a brief period directed its resources to a common political purpose and for the time being could aspire to a predominant position in Greece.

The population of Thessaly was composed in historic times of two main groups: a complex of prehistoric tribes, and the Thessalians proper, who entered the land to which they gave their name at a time not far distant from the Dorian Invasion. The latter of these groups will require special notice, for it was this section which made the history of Thessaly.

We need not discuss here from what country and by what route the Thessalians came, nor the dates at which they began and completed the occupation of Thessaly. But it is important to observe that their invasion was a forcible one. The doubtless protracted wars between the conquerors and the indigenous population left but a faint mark on Greek tradition, but their consequences are manifest in the economic and political condition of the country in the historic era. The Thessalians have become the owners of the rich central plain. Of the earlier inhabitants a large portion have either emigrated overseas or withdrawn to the outer ring of mountains. Of the tribes which took refuge in the highlands, the Perrhaebi are settled on Olympus and the adjacent ranges, the Magnetes on Ossa and Pelion, the Achaeans (or ‘Phthiotian’ Achaeans, as they are called to distinguish them from their Peloponnesian namesakes) on the ridge of Othrys.

Compared with the Perioeci of Laconia, these dwellers on the outskirts of Thessaly enjoyed considerable freedom. They retained distinctive tribal names and tribal organizations, and among the Achaeans at least a separate dialect survived. But the security and the economic welfare of the central lowlands, whose occupants required access to the forests and summer pastures of the mountains, and protection against their inhabitants, demanded that the Perioeci of Thessaly should be brought under control. Although the mountain tribes were allowed to call themselves ‘allies’ of the Thessalians, they became in effect subjects and were liable to taxation and conscription.

Those natives who remained in the lowlands were reduced to substantially the same position as the Helots of Laconia. These so-called ‘Penestae,’ though not under such elaborate supervision as the Laconian serfs, were equally tied to the soil and served no purpose but to cultivate the domains of their Thessalian masters. The Penestae were probably responsible for the large ‘Aeolic’ or ‘North Greek’ element which preponderated over the ‘West Greek’ element in the Thessalian dialect. But their part in Thessalian history was a purely passive one.

Within the ruling Thessalian people we must distinguish between the demos and the nobles. The former constituted a free peasantry like that which nowadays clusters round the springs at the edge of the plain. But their holdings were probably mere islands in an ocean of aristocratic large estates, which would comprise the cornland and the riverside pastures and be cultivated mainly by Penestae. The assignation of these estates to the nobility probably occurred at the time of the conquest, for there is no record of a later distribution by a Thessalian Lycurgus. It was certainly on a generous scale. The individual allotments, being required to support a contingent of 120 men for the Thessalian army, cannot have fallen far short of five square miles.

From these great domains the nobles drew revenues which most other Greek aristocrats would have envied. Unlike other such nobles, they did not capitalize their resources. Favoured by the self-sufficiency of their land, they neglected industry and commerce. They did not foster the growth of art, and although they engaged famous poets to celebrate the victories of their teams at the national Greek games, they never helped to give birth to a specific Thessalian literature. Their energies, like those of mediaeval barons, were devoted to hunting and feasting and to the pursuit of war. Each nobleman kept a troop of personal retainers, who were mounted on horses of the excellent native breed and constituted the finest cavalry in Greece.

The economic and military preponderance of the Thessalian nobles provided a secure basis for their political power. In Thessaly the normal political unit was the city. The Thessalian towns were mostly situated on mountain bastions near the edge of the plain (e.g. Pherae, Pharsalus, Atrax), or on low mounds arising out of the plain (e.g. Larissa, Cierium). Except Larissa, all these places were of small size, for the Thessalian demos was essentially rustic. But each city was an independent centre of government.

The earliest municipal constitutions were of the usual monarchical type. From the fact that the municipal ‘tagi’ or chief magistrates who succeeded the kings were not eponymous, we may infer that they were of late creation, and the disappearance of the kings cannot be set earlier than in the seventh century. But the aristocracies which rose to power after the fall of the kings were among the most long-lived in Greek history. Not till about 400 BC were they threatened by tyrants, and in Aristotle’s days the demos in some Thessalian towns was not even allowed to set foot in the political meeting-place.

The Thessalian nobles did not steer clear of the municipal feuds which so often wasted the strength of Greek city-states. But they were statesmanlike enough to co-operate in the formation of a federal union which was the most distinctive feature in Thessalian politics, and formed the basis of Thessaly’s occasional ascendancy among Greek states. Of the federal institutions thus created little is known for certain. The cities were grouped together in four ‘tetrades,’ or cantons, known as Thessaliotis, Hestiaeotis, Pelasgiotis and Phthiotis, with an elective ‘tetrarch’ at the head of each. These four sections together constituted the Koinon or pan-Thessalian federation, whose chief official was a ‘tagus,’ elected indifferently from any Thessalian town. The functions of the tagi and tetrarchs, and therefore also of the units over which they ruled, were mainly military. Every other statement about the federal constitution is open to dispute. But its details may be tentatively filled in as follows. Thessaliotis comprised the southern and Hestiaeotis the northern part of the Upper Peneus plain. Pelasgiotis extended over the Lower Peneus plain, including the three important towns of Larissa, Crannon and Pherae. Phthiotis was a small strip north of Mt Othrys, with Pharsalus for its chief town; it is to be held distinct from Phthiotian Achaea, which was Perioecic land and lay outside Thessaly proper.

The only cantonal authorities to whom any allusions are made in ancient texts are the tetrarchs. It is all but certain that these held office for life. There is no mention of a cantonal assembly, but we can hardly doubt that the constituent cities convened such an assembly from time to time, if only to appoint the tetrarchs.

The federal tagus was compared by Dionysius of Halicarnassus with the Roman dictator. This comparison is borne out by a fifth-century inscription which contains the crucial words ‘whether a tagus be in office or not.’ From this expression it maybe safely inferred that the tagus was appointed only in emergencies; and it further follows that his tenure of office was not for life, but for some shorter term, perhaps only for the duration of the crisis which gave him birth. Another inscription, which records that a particular Thessalian grandee was tagus for twenty-seven years, suggests that the term of office could be renewed or extended; it does not prove that the office was conferred for life.

The existence of a federal assembly for the election of the tagus and the discussion of federal policy is indicated by Herodotus’ reference to the Koiní gnómi, ‘the joint decision,’ of the Thessalians, and in any case might be taken for granted; but nothing can be said as to its composition.

The whole history of the federation shows that it had a military purpose, and Thessalian tradition declared that its founder had organized the recruitment of the federal army. The power to levy taxes can hardly be dissociated from that of levying troops, and it is on record that one of the tagi fixed the contributions due from the Perioeci. Of the method of making levies nothing is known, except that a quota of soldiers was raised from each large estate. In accordance with the general practice of Greek federations, the enforcement of levies was probably left to the constituent cities. The primary object for which the federation was created was no doubt the exercise of an effective control over the Penestae and the Perioeci, a task which might easily have proved beyond the strength of individual cities. A similar purpose brought about the union of the original Swiss cantons in the thirteenth century A.D.

The federal institutions were certainly in full working order before the end of the seventh century. Their origin cannot be dated with any precision. The absence of any reference to a common Thessalian festival like the Pamboeotia of the Boeotians indicates that the Thessalian League was of comparatively late growth, for a sacral institution of this kind was an almost necessary concomitant of an archaic association. The date at which the League was completed cannot therefore be pushed back far beyond 700 BC. The cantons were no doubt of earlier origin But as they were not natural tribal units but artificial aggregates of territory they were probably not created until some considerable time after the Thessalian invasion.

Of the makers of the League we know practically nothing. The assessment of the Perioecic tribute was ascribed to one Scopas. As such financial operations are not the kind of achievements which mythology assigns to its heroes, Scopas may be taken as a historical personage and a member of the family of Scopadae, the principal house of Crannon. As this family was at the height of its influence in the sixth century, Scopas probably belongs to a late period of the League’s history and completed rather than began its organization. Another tradition ascribed to Aleuas, ‘the Red-Head,’ the formation of the tetrades and the military organization. The epithet ‘Red-Head’ favours the view that Aleuas too was a historical figure, presumably one of the Aleuadae, the leading family of Larissa. But since the tetrades were probably not cast in one mould, it is safer not to ascribe them to Aleuas or to any one individual. The Aleuas tradition is therefore not above suspicion, and it may be surmised that it was concocted by and for the Aleuadae, in justification of their attempt to establish a hereditary tageia in the early fifth century.

Whatever the precise origin and structure of the Thessalian League, there can be no doubt of its importance as a factor in Thessalian history. It led to the formation of a federal army which was the strongest military force in Greece previous to the sixth century. In the fourth century the Thessalian levy was computed at 6000 horsemen, at least 10,000 hoplites, and unlimited numbers of light troops. True enough, the hoplites, who were recruited from the peasantry, and the light troops, consisting of Perioeci, were seldom, if ever, mobilized en masse, and they were probably available for home defence only. But the cavalry, which was drawn from the nobles and their dependents, was practically a standing force, and of high quality.

By means of this force the Thessalians not only secured their hold on Thessaly, but achieved foreign conquests which form the main content of their history in the seventh and sixth centuries. The record of these conquests has been almost obliterated. But by 600 BC they had subdued the Dolopes on the south-eastern edge of Mt Pindus, had overrun the land of the Malians and Aenianes in the Spercheus valley, and had carried the pass of Thermopylae. It is not known whether they proceeded to invade Phocis, Locris and Boeotia, but their participation in the Lelantine War suggests that they had free access to the farther end of Boeotia. The ascendancy gained by the Thessalians in central Greece is also proved by the predominant position which they assumed in the Amphictyonic League during the sixth century.

This League was a union of states which were ‘Amphictyones’ or ‘neighbours’ in reference to the sanctuary of Demeter at Anthela near Thermopylae. The origin and primary aims of the association are uncertain, but it exerted an important political influence upon its members, for it pledged them in case of mutual war not to cut off" each other’s water supply or to destroy each other’s towns. As a bond of union among Greek states the Amphictyonic League was potentially of great value. But its title, ‘League of Neighbours,’ suggests that its original membership was small; indeed we may doubt whether at first it included more than the communities of the Spercheus and the Upper Cephisus districts.

By 600 BC, however, the League had come to comprise all the peoples of central and northern Greece, viz. the Thessalians, Perrhaebi, Magnetes, Phthiotian Achaeans, Dolopes, Malians, Aenianes, Locrians, Dorians (of Doris), Phocians, Boeotians and Ionians (of Euboea). This extended list of members comprised three peoples, the Perrhaebi, Magnetes and Achaeans, who had long been mere vassals of Thessaly, and three others, the Dolopes, Malians and Aenianes, who had more recently fallen under the same control. Thus the Thessalians could dispose in all of the votes of seven out of the twelve communities in the League, and as each member possessed one vote, and one only, the Thessalian bloc had a permanent majority in the League Council. It is highly probable that this extension and reorganization of the League was carried out at the instance of the Thessalians, after they had established their influence in central Greece; at all events, it had the effect of consolidating that influence.

The ascendancy which the extended Amphictyonic League conferred upon the Thessalians was further increased by a master­ful stroke of policy which they carried out through the medium of the League in 590. A dispute between the two Phocian communities of Crisa and Delphi, in regard to the tolls which Crisa imposed upon pilgrims to the sanctuary at Delphi, was magnified by the Amphictyones into a crusade on behalf of the national Greek god Apollo. The Thessalians on behalf of the League dispatched a force to the assistance of Delphi, and in conjunction with contingents from Athens and Sicyon took possession of the sanctuary.

According to one tradition this ‘First Sacred War’ was initiated by the Athenian Solon. But this story is probably nothing more than Athenian propaganda. At all events, the Thessalians took the chief part in the field operations and dictated the settlement to suit their own interests. While Delphi was declared free from Crisa, it was brought under the tutelage of the Amphictyones, who took over the trusteeship and administration of the sanctuary and transferred two of their four yearly council sessions from Anthela to their new protectorate. The control which Thessaly thus exercised had, it is true, to be shared with Athens and Sicyon. These states had probably entered the Sacred War for the very purpose of securing a foothold in Delphi and preventing a purely Thessalian dominion, and Sicyon had contributed materially to the downfall of Crisa by the building of a fleet which cut the enemy’s avenues of supply in the Corinthian Gulf. The Amphictyones accordingly duplicated the votes of the ‘Ionians’ and ‘Dorians,’ and allotted the second vote to the Athenians and the Peloponnesian Dorians respectively. But at the same time they doubled the votes of all the other members, so that Thessaly still possessed a majority of fourteen votes out of twenty-four. In addition, the Amphictyones took over the management of the Pythian festival, which was presently elevated into one of the great national festivals of Greece. Henceforth a Thessalian delegate frequently if not regularly presided over these games.

The Sacred War and the establishment of the Thessalians as the trustees of Greece at Delphi constitute the high-water mark of their power. Soon after this episode the ascendancy of Thessaly came to an end, and the leadership of Greece fell to Sparta. A comparison between the two first states to attain hegemony in Greece will show that they had much in common. Both the Thessalians and the Spartans had their home in a secluded and self-sufficient corner of Greece and took little part in the general life of the nation. Both gained their subsistence by the exploitation of a conquered serf population, and this at once enabled and compelled them to specialize in the profession of arms. By their specialized military skill each acquired a political ascendancy over its neighbours, and drew them together into a political union which might have served as a nucleus for a national Greek state.

The Thessalians possessed a large acreage of fertile land and therefore did not suffer from the lack of man-power which hampered Sparta. But their mounted soldiery proved in the long run less suited to Greek warfare than the Spartan hoplites. The less equable distribution of land among the citizen population and the more rigid division between rich and poor brought on party strife in Thessaly at an earlier date than in Sparta. Lastly, while the slight extent of the Laconian plain facilitated the synoecism of the whole Spartan community in one state, the wider expanse of Thessaly encouraged the growth of several independent cities. The rivalry between these cities was held in check for a time by their subordination to the tetrarchs and the tagi, but eventually paralysed the federal organs and so caused the downfall of Thessalian power.

II.

BOEOTIA

In its geographical conformation central Greece bears some resemblance to Thessaly. Its principal portion is a sunken lowland, boxed in by a framework of mountains, which seclude it from the waters of the Corinthian Gulf and the Euboic Channel, and from the adjacent lands of northern Greece and Attica. The greater part of this plain is watered by a single river system, whose main stream, the Cephisus, traverses central Greece almost from end to end. But this valley is narrowed in its upper regions by the projecting buttress of Mt Parnassus, and its broad lower plain has a larger inundation area than Thessaly. Compared with the Thessalian lowlands, the Cephisus basin has a far smaller acreage of cultivable soil. The river valley, moreover, is bisected by a cross ridge which sunders it into two distinct compartments, Boeotia and Phocis; and the coastal mountains leave room for several pockets of alluvial lowland where small independent communities, such as the Malians, the Aenianes and the Locrians, could be formed. Lastly, the island of Euboea, cut off from its continent by a prehistoric subsidence, formed a state-system of its own. Thus geographical conditions were less favourable to political unity in central Greece than in Thessaly.

Among central Greek lands the predominant was Boeotia. This country was a wide expanse of mountain-girt lowland, divided by a low central range of hills into two basins, the valleys of the Asopus and of the Lower Cephisus. The Asopus plain, which stood at a relatively high level, was drained into the Euboic Channel through a gap in the mountains. The more sunken Cephisus valley had no surface outlet for its river, but depended for its drainage on a system of subterranean channels which were formed by nature but required the hand of man to keep them in repair. The extent of this valley has therefore varied considerably, according as these outlets have been kept open or not; whenever they have been neglected, the Cephisus has inundated the plain. The Boeotian lowlands recall those of Thessaly in the richness of their alluvial soil, the polarizing of their climate towards a hot summer and a snowy winter, and the consequent dearth of trees. Boeotia was above all a wheat-growing land. But in some well-watered regions, such as the borders of the Cephisus and the hill-land of Thebes with its copious springs, tree cultivation and horse-breeding could be carried on. The surrounding mountain ranges were not lofty enough to hold the winter snows or attract summer rains, consequently they lacked the rich vegetation of Olympus or Pelion. Except on the eastern slopes of Helicon, which were well watered and wooded, the upland was a region of stunted grass and scrub. As a barrier to human intercourse the Boeotian mountains played a lesser part than those of Thessaly. True enough, they prevented the growth of any intensive mari­time trade, and the rise of other than a few fishing villages on either seaboard. But they seldom proved an effective military barrier: on the south, invading armies repeatedly scaled Mt Cithaeron or turned its eastern flank; in the north-west, they entered by the gap through which the Cephisus channel is cut. Thus Boeotia earned an unenviable title, ‘the dancing-floor of Ares.’ But thanks to these openings in its ring-walls Boeotia was never shut off from the intellectual and artistic life of Greece. Indeed, in spite of a reputation for stupidity which was fastened upon them, the people of the country made large and continuous contributions to Greek culture. Boeotia, though inferior to Thessaly in natural wealth and man-power, made a far deeper mark upon Greek history.

The ‘Boeotians’ of historic times were regarded in Greek tradition as an invading stock. In all probability they were composed of at least three racial elements. Their language was a mixture of the ‘Aeolic’ dialect (as spoken in Thessaly) and of the ‘west-Greek’ speech. In the southern part of their country Ionic Greek long remained predominant, and in Thebes itself Ionic inscriptions of the seventh century (presumably to be identified with the ‘Cadmeian writings’ of Herodotus have been discovered. But tradition was by no means clear as to the date and circumstances of the invasion by the main Boeotian stock, and the invasion left no such distinct marks as we have noticed in Thessaly. Though Boeotia had its full pleasure of internal conflicts, with city arrayed against city and oligarch against democrat, yet the line of cleavage was not racial, and the duel between Thessalians and Penestae, between Spartans and Helots, was not reproduced here. For practical purposes therefore the Boeotians may be considered a single people.

At the outset of the historic period the cultivable area of Boeotia suffered a serious curtailment through the choking of the Cephisus outlets and the inundation of the adjacent valley. The northern Boeotian lowland was thus converted into a lake. This Copaic Sea, as it came to be called, dried up almost completely in summer, but in winter it flooded the greater part of the Lower Cephisus valley; in spite of repeated attempts to drain it off by the clearance of the outlets, its basin remained unreclaimed until 1890. The Copaic Lake, besides submerging the richest part of the Boeotian plain, had a deleterious effect upon the climate. It rendered the Boeotian winters less cold, but made them notoriously foggy, and the summers correspondingly sultry.

The stoppage of the Cephisus outlets may be explained by the action of earthquakes, which have always been frequent in central Greece, or by the political upheaval of the Boeotian invasion, which may have caused the tunnels to fall into disrepair. But ancient tradition ascribed it to the deliberate action of the Theban god Heracles, who was said to have used this means of destroying the ancient preponderance of Orchomenus in Boeotia. And if the case is to be settled by applying the test cui bono. the Thebans were certainly the guilty party. While several minor settlements in the Cephisus valley were wholly obliterated, and the territory of Orchomenus was reduced to that of a second-rate town, Thebes rose from the position of a subordinate and perhaps tributary place to that of a capital. From the sixth century the history of Boeotia becomes more and more merged in that of Thebes.

The predominance of Thebes rested partly on its central position in the southern Boeotian lowlands, to which the economic centre of the country was shifted after the formation of Lake Copais, and partly on its superior political energy. The chief political problem which lay before the early Boeotians was to federate themselves in some such league as that of the early Thessalians, for although they had to fear no internal rebellions from serfs or Perioeci, they were frequently exposed to foreign invasion. A tribal union was indeed in existence from the days of the Boeotian invasion, and delegates from all the Boeotian communities attended the festival of the Pamboeotia at the temple of Athena Itonia near Coronea; but this congress was of a purely sacral character. Political power was at first divided among a number of independent communities, of which twenty-nine are enumerated in the Homeric Catalogue. This number, it is true, had been reduced by the sixth century to thirteen, as the small unfortified settlements came to be absorbed by their more powerful neighbours. Thus Tanagra extended its territory along the Euboic Channel, while Plataea and Thespiae divided among themselves the villages along the Corinthian Gulf. But the very growth of these larger units constituted an obstacle to federation, for mutual jealousies among the more ambitious towns ran high. Nevertheless the task of embracing all Boeotia in one league was steadily pursued by Thebes, and the growing strength and aggressiveness of the Thessalian Confederacy supplied the Boeotians with an urgent reason for federating themselves in self­defence. According to tradition, this city had to wage wars against its neighbours on all sides to secure their membership, and Plataea and Orchomenus kept aloof until the fifth century. But by 550 BC the other important towns, including Coronea, Haliartus and Tanagra, had joined the League and blazoned on their coins the Boeotian shield which was its symbol. Eventually Thebes united the whole of Boeotia in a well-organized federation and thus raised the country to the rank of a first-class power.

The importance of the Boeotian League is set off by the weakness of the individual cities before the federation became effective. Boeotia did not figure in the First Sacred War, and in the Lelantine War it had played a purely passive part, offering no resistance to the foreign forces which trespassed on the country. This debility was assuredly not due to military incapacity, for the horsemen of Boeotia were among the best in Greece, and its hoplites were a match even for the Spartans: its cause is to be sought in political disunion. The growth of the League in the sixth century suggests that the Boeotians had been taught the need of unity by the Lelantine War.

The almost complete absence of traditions concerning Boeotian kings suggests that they were supplanted at an early date by aristocracies and the ‘basileus’, of whose rule the poet Hesiod complained, are probably to be regarded as noblemen. In Thespiae and Thebes, and no doubt in other towns, political rights were based on the possession of land, and in the latter town a legislator named Philolaus (probably c. 600) endeavoured to safeguard property by framing careful laws of succession. But the Boeotian nobles drew no such revenue from their estates as the owners of the great Thessalian domains, and the economic basis of their ascendancy was therefore less secure.

The economic history of Boeotia is that of an essentially agricultural people who drew a rough plenty from their soil, and lacked the incentive, as well as the geographical facilities, for commerce. The proximity of the trading towns of Euboea was not indeed without its effects upon Boeotia. Excavations at Mycalessus, a village near the Euboic straits, have brought to light much proto-Corinthian, Corinthian and Ionic pottery, but the nature of the commerce thus indicated is not yet clear. The prehistoric trade connections of Orchomenus were kept in remembrance by the Calaurian League, a sacral union of maritime states of the eastern Greek coast which met at the temple of Poseidon at Calauria on the Argive coast and counted Orchomenus among its members; but in historic times the commerce which gave rise to this league was nothing but a memory.

The artistic record of early Boeotia is slender. The prehistoric culture of Orchomenus and Thebes was obliterated soon after its inception, and the big geometric vases made in southern Boeotia in the proto-historic period are scarcely recognizable as descendants of the Late Minoan ware. The promise of Boeotian sculpture, as represented by the early statues from the temple of Apollo on Mt Ptous, was not fulfilled save on a modest scale and at a much later date among the terracotta artists of Tanagra. But the Boeotians were among the foremost musicians of Greece. The aulos or double flute in its improved concert variety was an essentially Boeotian instrument, and Boeotian performers procured for it a vogue hardly inferior to that of the national Greek lyre. It was a musical no less than a literary skill that gave distinction to the odes of Pindar.

The chief contribution of Boeotia to early Greek culture lay in the field of literature. In this country a school of epic poets carried on the Homeric tradition into the eighth and seventh centuries. Whether this school derived its technique from Ionia by way of Chalcis, or plied a craft already domiciled in Boeotia in Late Minoan times, its affiliation to the Homeric epic is unmistakable. Some of these poets were content to round off the Homeric cycle with epilogues and appendixes moulded in the common Homeric form, but devoid of imagination and disfigured with erudition. These lesser epics, however, are of slight importance beside the poems of Homer’s principal successor, Hesiod. Of the two undoubtedly authentic compositions of Hesiod, the Theogony attempts to round off the theology of Homer and of the more primitive figures of the vast Greek pantheon into a compact system. Judged from this standpoint, it was a great success, and Hesiod came to be reckoned along with Homer as the author who fixed the attributes and relations of the Greek gods.

But the principal poem of Hesiod is his Works and Days. In this work he faithfully reflects his experience as a husbandman on the craggy slopes of Helicon. His general outlook upon life is that of the boor as we find him in all countries and ages. In the ordering of his farm-work he clings to all manner of rustic taboos; he distrusts the chances of seafaring commerce; he gives for the sake of the return; he advocates Malthusianism in the interests of his property; he sets his wife on a level with the labouring ox. He also shares the peasant’s faith in resolute hard work and betrays a somewhat un-Greek impatience of gossips and loungers. But in addition to these typical traits he displays a truly individual character in his strong moral earnestness. Stung by personal injuries suffered at the hands of forsworn witnesses and rapacious judges, Hesiod muses deeply over right and wrong. At times he sinks into pessimism and asks ‘why be just when the unjust flourish?’ But his belief in justice always reasserts itself. His guiding principle is that justice is the law of man, as violence is the law of brutes; and he warns corrupt rulers that ‘Zeus has thirty-thousand watchers’ who will spy out the wicked and avenge their sins upon them. His conception of punishment is quite materialistic, and he retains the primitive belief that the guilty man’s community must suffer with him. But his stout belief in the moral order is a new phenomenon in Greek poetry. The Boeotian peasant rather than Homer should be regarded as the originator of that vein of ethical speculation which runs through Greek literature.

III.

LOCRIS AND PHOCIS

The smaller states of central Greece occupied the country which lies between Boeotia and Thessaly. In this region the mountains do not merely form a framework for the interior low­lands but encroach upon it and break it up into little sections. The great massifs of Oeta and Corax form a solid block of mountain land in the west, while on the southern margin of the plain the square buttress of Parnassus is thrust forward like a headland into the central valley of the Cephisus. This valley, and. the gap left between Mt Oeta and the southern Thessalian heights, where the river Spercheus flows as in a trough, are the only considerable tracts of level country. The remainder of the cultivable land is wedged in between the mountains on the coasts of the Corinthian and Malian Gulfs. These isolated plains were grouped together in six different state systems. The Malians and Aenianes formed two separate communities in the Spercheus valley; the upper Cephisus valley and the adjacent coastal plains were shared by the Dorians, the Phocians, and the two branches of the Locrian people, the ‘Opuntian’ and the ’Ozolian.’

The basin of the Spercheus, which had attained a brief im­portance in prehistoric days as the home of Achilles and the first Greek abode of the tribe of the Hellenes, was occupied in historic times by two insignificant peoples. The Aenianes dwelt at the head of the valley, the Malians in its lower and broader reaches, hard by the little town of Trachis. The Aenianes are little more than a name to us, and all we can say about them is that they were a member of the Amphictyonic League and virtually dependent on Thessaly since the seventh century. The Malians play a somewhat larger but a merely passive part in Greek history. They had the misfortune to live in a land of passage and their proximity to the defiles of Thermopylae and the Asopus valley which form the northern gates of central Greece exposed them to invasion by conquering powers. The Malians were no doubt the first of the central Greek peoples to become dependent on Thessaly. Their vote in the Amphictyonic League, like that of the Aenianes, was always at Thessaly’s disposal.

Beyond Thermopylae the cultivable strips of the northern coastland were inhabited by the Locrians; and the same people were settled in the hill country between the Corinthian Gulf and the head of the Cephisus valley. Near the source of the Cephisus four villages were grouped in the territory of Doris. This tiny community was unduly honoured in being reckoned the metropolis of the entire Dorian branch of the Greek nation, and in possessing one of the two Dorian votes in the Amphictyonic League. The greater part of the upper Cephisus valley, together with the plain of Crisa and the hill country of Cirphis to the south of Mt Parnassus, was in the hands of the Phocians.

The Phocians and Locrians, who alone need occupy our attention, are shown by their dialect to have been composed of an earlier ‘Aeolic’ stock and a predominant element of invaders who had immigrated at the dawn of the historic period. Though the Phocians and Locrians were evidently akin, their precise relations are difficult to determine. A question which obtrudes itself upon us is why the Locrian territory did not form one contiguous whole, but was split up into two sections by the intervening of Phocian land. It is conceivable that the Locrians entered central Greece in two distinct streams which proceeded forthwith to occupy separate territories on the Malian and Corinthian Gulfs, and that they never set foot on the central plain because this was already in the hands of the Phocians. In support of this view it has been urged that in historic times there were no traces of Locrian place-names, cults or myths in Phocis, such as might have been expected to survive a Locrian occupation of that country. But this argumentum ex silentio does not carry much weight, for we need not suppose that the Locrians remained in Phocis long enough to leave permanent traces. There is better reason for believing that the Locrians once occupied the whole breadth of central Greece from sea to sea, but that a subsequent Phocian irruption into the Cephisus valley drove a wedge through them, just as the intrusion of the Anglo-Saxons into western Britain sundered its Celtic inhabitants into several scattered fragments. This view accords well with the fact that in historic times the Phocians made encroachments upon Locrian territory. It is also confirmed by the survival of a political union between the two branches of the Locrian people at least as late as the fifth century. The laws of the Locrians at this period still recognized a general Locrian franchise over and above that of the separate communities. Such regulations point to the existence of one undivided Locrian state at a time not too far remote. We may therefore take it that the Locrians were first in possession, and that the Phocians were a later band of intruders.

We may now consider in turn the early history of Locris and Phocis. The Phocian invasion which bisected the Locrian people and deprived them of the best part of their territory also relegated them to the margin of Greek history. In eastern Locris the coast route which leads from Thermopylae into the Cephisus valley by the pass of Elatea was of strategic importance, and in western Locris the fertile valley of Amphissa formed part of a thoroughfare from Thermopylae to Delphi and the Corinthian Gulf. But apart from this valley, and the plain of Opus on the Euboean channel, the Locrians had no cultivable land worth mentioning. Their trade was so scanty that they did not issue coins until about 400 BC. Their population therefore remained sparse, and so backward was their culture that in Thucydides’ time the western Locrians still practised piracy and wore armour.

In spite of these deficiencies the Locrians made one conquest which might have proved important. They carried the fortified frontier line which protected the main outlet of the river Cephisus against an invasion from the north, and occupied the harbour of Larymna at its mouth. But the advantages of this conquest, which no doubt was made at the time of the Locrian immigration into central Greece, were minimized by the choking of the Cephisus tunnels and the consequent decay of such commerce as the towns of the Copaic basin had carried on. The discovery of proto­Corinthian pottery at Larymna indicates that some trade lingered on until the eighth or seventh century, but this traffic never attained any important dimensions.

The Locrians appear in history chiefly as the victims of aggressive neighbours. The Phocian conquest of Daphnus, by which eastern Locris was split into two sections, was probably an incident of the Third Sacred War, c. 350, for the division of the eastern Locrians into an ‘Opuntian’ and a ‘Hypocnemidian’ group, which was almost certainly a consequence of the Phocian irruption into Daphnus, is not mentioned by any early Greek writer. On the other hand, the pass of Thermopylae passed at an early date into Phocian hands, and it is doubtful whether the neighbouring town of Alpeni, which was regarded as the ‘metropolis’ of the Locrians, remained in Locrian possession. The subsequent encroachments of the Thessalians upon central Greece do not appear to have met with Locrian opposition. When the Thessalians reorganized the Amphictyonic League and duplicated its votes, the eastern and western Locrians each received one vote. It is not known how their previous single vote was apportioned among them.

In western Locris there is no trace of a cantonal authority. In the fifth century at least its tiny individual communities made treaties with each other like independent states, without reference to any cantonal organization. In eastern Locris the government was highly centralized, for the town of Opus had absorbed all its neighbours and extended its municipal franchise over the whole territory, just as the Athenians extended their franchise to the whole of Attica. The supreme authority at Opus was vested in an assembly known as ‘The Thousand”, who were probably drawn from a group of noble families known as ‘The Hundred Houses.’ The property of these Houses appears to have been safeguarded by a law which prohibited the sale of land except in cases of extreme necessity, but it is not certain whether this regulation refers to Opus or to some other Locrian community.

The principal achievement of the early Locrians was the foundation of a colony, in southern Italy, not far from the Chalcidian colony of Rhegium. Though this settlement was no doubt made by agreement with the Euboean discoverers of southern Italy, it drew its population mainly from Opus and bore the name of Locri. This ‘Locri of the West’ was never more than a small agrarian community, but it achieved a reputation as one of the best ordered cities in the Greek world.

The territory of Phocis had a composite character, for it was made up of two distinct portions, the valley of the Upper Cephisus and the coastal plain of Crisa by the Corinthian Gulf, which had no good connection except a pass across the southern spurs of Parnassus. But Phocis was not broken sheer apart like Locris, and it always formed a single political unit. Apart from the petty profits which accrued to the town of Crisa from the traffic of pilgrims at Delphi, Phocis depended wholly on its agricultural resources. But its cultivable land was of good quality. The Cephisus valley contained excellent pastures, crop-lands and plantations, and the plain of Crisa is at once a corn-field and an olive grove. The population of Phocis was distributed among some twenty small towns, most of which were perched on the spurs of the heights overlooking the Cephisus valley. The positions of these towns illustrate one distinctive feature in Phocian history, the exposure of the country to invasion. Phocis was eminently a land of passage, for all land communications between northern and southern Greece went through it. The route from Thermopylae through the Asopus gorge continued its course through the whole length of the Cephisus valley, and the road along the Locrian coast rejoined the inland route in eastern Phocis through the pass of Elatea.

The early history of Phocis is largely taken up with the determined but unsuccessful resistance which its people offered to the Thessalian invasion of central Greece. The Phocians attempted at first to check the Thessalian advance by fortifying the pass of Thermopylae. But this advanced position fell into the hands of the Thessalians before the end of the seventh century, for the invaders must already have been in possession of the pass at the time when they organized the Amphictyonic League at Anthela. In 590 BC, moreover, the Phocian territory was completely penetrated by the Thessalians, who, as we have seen, utilized a quarrel between the Phocian communities of Crisa and Delphi in order to proclaim a ‘Sacred War’ against the former. The transference of the Amphictyonic League to Delphi at the close of this war shows that the Thessalians henceforth had free access to the heart of Phocis. The Thessalian occupation, it is true, did not last long, and the Phocians eventually took the principal part in expelling the intruders from central Greece. But this story belongs to another chapter.

The Phocians were able to make a better stand against Thessaly than their neighbours because they had an effective tribal organization. It is not certain whether this tribal government was a survival from the time when the Phocians first entered central Greece, or was instituted in the seventh century for the very purpose of resisting the Thessalians. In any case, in the sixth century the Phocian federal assembly was in full working order: it struck federal Phocian coins and appointed the commanders of the joint Phocian levy. Unlike the Thessalian and the Boeotian Leagues, the Phocian federation did not suffer disruption at the hands of its constituent communities, which never attained political importance and apparently never attempted to obtain complete independence. The success of the Phocians in maintaining the proper relations between the national and the merely local governments is the most distinctive feature in their domestic

IV.

EUBOEA

Among the constituent countries of central Greece may be reckoned the island of Euboea, whose history connects it with the adjacent mainland rather than with the other Greek islands.

In spite of its insular position, Euboea enjoyed but indifferent communications by sea. Its rock-bound eastern coast, exposed to the full force of the prevailing north-easters, did not possess a single safe harbour. Its western waters, though relatively sheltered, were rendered unsafe by the sudden gusts which swoop down from the mountains, breaking in upon a flat calm. A notorious obstacle to navigation was offered by the tortuous passage of the Euripus at the meeting-point of the two inner channels. The tides flowing up these two funnels at varying heights and times here create an alternating current which races along at speeds rising to six or eight miles per hour, and reverses its direction with baffling rapidity. Among peoples accustomed to tideless waterways the Euripus became proverbial. The easiest sea approach to Euboea lay through the Artemisium straits on its northern side; but this avenue was of slight commercial importance. Euboea therefore was not such a natural home of sailors as a glance at the map might suggest. On the other hand, Euboea lay within easy reach of the mainland. The subsidence-groove which parted the island from its continent shrank at the Euripus into a narrow trench 1000 yards across, and sea-works abutting on a reef in mid-channel were constructed about 400 BC, so as to reduce this width by half.

In spite of its mountainous interior, Euboea was a relatively rich country. Its heights were mostly clad with tall timber of chestnut and oak; and they left room near the sea for several fertile strips of cattle pasture and vineland, such as the territory of Histiaea in the north and of Carystus in the south, and chief of all the central alluvial plain of the river Lelantus. The wealth of Euboea’s soil was supplemented by purple fisheries in the interior channel, by marble quarries at Carystus, and by several deposits of copper and iron. These metals are now found only near Carystus, but their principal source in early antiquity was a composite mine containing both metals on the Lelantine plain.

The Euboean mountains, however, had the effect of sundering the island into several isolated compartments. The north, centre and south of Euboea were shut off' from each other by parallel chains running diagonally across the land, and each of these sections had a history of its own. Owing to the difficulties of internal communication Euboea never achieved political unity.

The prehistoric population of Euboea, which was closely cognate with the prehistoric stocks of the adjacent mainland, was not overlaid, like that of Thessaly, with a dominant group of proto-historic invaders. Its constituent elements did not readily fuse into a homogeneous mass, but remained distinct for many centuries. Nevertheless, as early as the seventh century Euboea as a whole was reckoned an Ionic country. The two principal towns of the island, Chalcis and Eretria, belonged to the stock out of which the Ionic branch of the Greek nation was formed, and their dialect was more purely Ionic than that of Athens, their reputed metropolis. Owing to the preponderant part which Chalcis and Eretria played in the history of Euboea, the whole island could for all practical purposes be counted in with Greater Ionia, and so we find that in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, not Chalcis and Eretria, but simply Euboea, is named as a participant in the pan-Ionian festival at Delos.

The history of Euboea almost coincides with that of Chalcis and Eretria. Of the more northerly communities Histiaea is occasionally mentioned on account of its vineyards and its strategic position on the straits of Artemisium. But it lay too far from the main currents of Greek commerce to sustain a continuous part in Greek history. The little town of Cyme on the eastern coast gave its name and a contingent of settlers to the important colony of Cumae in southern Italy, but has no further claim upon our attention. In the south Carystus had the makings of an important town by reason of its quarries and mines. But the Carystian marble, with its peculiar green streaks running through the white mass, found no favour in early Greece, and the mines, if worked at all, would appear to have been exploited for the benefit of Chalcis or Eretria. Carystus therefore figures hardly at all in history. On the other hand, Chalcis and Eretria were among the principal cities of early Greece.

The prosperity of these two towns was originally based on the purple fisheries of the Euboic channel, and upon the vinelands and pastures of the Lelantine plain, of which Chalcis occupied the western and Eretria the eastern edge. Nevertheless, the Chalcidians and Eretrians were not content to rely on these home resources, but took a leading part in the discovery of fresh lands for Greek settlers overseas. Although, as we have seen, the Euboic seas were not specially favourable to navigation, and the Euboean mariners had no natural advantages except an unrivalled supply of ship timber from the mountains of their island, yet Euboea may claim to have been the first Greek land to revive a ‘thalassocracy ’ like that of prehistoric Crete.

The overseas settlements of the Chalcidians and Eretrians were made in two comparatively restricted areas. One stream of emigration was directed to the fertile little islands off the Thessalian coast and to the peninsula of Chalcidice in Macedonia, where a Greek-speaking tribe with the name of Chalcideis was already established in the interior. The Euboean colonies were mostly established on the western or leeward side of the Chalcidian promontories. It will suffice here to mention Torone, the principal settlement by Chalcis, and Mende, the chief Eretrian foundation.

But the most important achievement of the Euboean colonists was the opening up of the western Mediterranean. The first step towards the discovery of the west was a settlement of Eretrians, probably reinforced by a contingent from Carystus, on the island of Corcyra. This colony, it is true, was not long-lived, and its very existence has been called into doubt. But its establishment is attested both by Strabo and by Plutarch, the latter of whom had a specialist’s acquaintance with the antiquities of central Greece. Their evidence moreover is supported by a series of Carystian coins whose type is all but identical with the standard type of Corcyra. We may therefore infer that the Eretrians and Carystians made a temporary settlement on the island of Corcyra.

This colony, however, was quite eclipsed by the more per­manent foundations of the Chalcidians in Sicily and southern Italy. The first landing on Sicilian soil was made by Theocles of Chaicis at the foot of Mt Etna, where the altar dedicated by him to Apollo Archegetes long remained as a memorial of the Greek discovery of the west. The town of Naxos which Theocles founded on this site was followed by settlements farther south at Catana and Leontini, and on either side of the Sicilian straits at Zancle and Rhegium. All these towns played a considerable part in Greek history, but the most important of all Euboean colonies was founded at Cumae on the outskirts of the bay of Naples. This colony and its daughter-city, Naples, formed the northern outposts of the Greek nation in Italy and achieved a work of permanent importance in introducing Greek culture to Rome.

In the foundation of the western colonies Eretria left the field almost entirely to Chalcis. But the latter city often reinforced its settlers with drafts from the smaller Euboean towns and from Boeotia. An insignificant Boeotian stock which contributed to the population of Cumae, the Grai, in all probability gave rise to the name of ‘Graeci,’ which the Romans have fastened upon the Hellenes.

The proto-geometric pottery which has been discovered at Cumae proves that this settlement dates far back into the eighth century. Of the Sicilian colonies Naxos was reputed the oldest: here stood an altar to Apollo to which all Sicilian Greeks paid homage as the earliest monument of their settlement. Of its two foundation-dates, 790 and 735 BC, the latter is to be preferred. The only Macedonian colonies whose dates are recorded, Acanthus and Stagirus, lay far out on the farther side of Chalcidice and were probably among the last to be established. Their foundation-date, 655, may be taken to mark the end of the process of settlement. The age of Euboean exploration thus falls between 800 and 650. It begins some fifty years before the other pioneers of the colonial movement made their first settlements, and ends a full century before that movement drew to a close.

The reason why Chaicis and Eretria were the first to enter and the first to leave the field of foreign settlement was no doubt because they felt the need of fresh land, and satisfied that need, before the other Greeks. The Euboean plains, however fruitful, were of no great extent, and the limits of cultivation on them may well have been reached in the eighth century. On the other hand, the Chalcidians and Eretrians, being first in the field, had a free choice of good colonial land. Their Macedonian settlements were mostly made on snug coastal lowlands resembling the Lydantine plain; their western colonies were mostly situated on the rich volcanic soils of Etna and Vesuvius. These acquisitions probably sufficed to appease the land hunger which had prompted Euboean exploration.

A further reason for the early withdrawal of the Euboean towns from the colonial movement may be found in the develop­ment of their industries. In the seventh and sixth centuries Chalcis became one of the chief manufacturing centres of Greece, and its staple products, pottery and metal-ware, formed two of the principal articles of early Greek commerce. The Chalcidian vases which have been discovered in Etruscan tombs are fully equal to the best Corinthian ware, and inferior only to the ceramics of Attica. An even greater proficiency was attained by the Chalcidians in metallurgy. The deposits of iron and copper in the Lelantine plain, which were worked so intensively that they became completely exhausted in the later period of Greek history, were apparently more than sufficient to supply the needs of Chalcis, for it is not unlikely that the metal industries of Corinth and other Peloponnesian towns were fed from this source. The forests of the Euboean upland provided fuel in such abundance as no other industrial centre of Greece could rival. The Chalcidians made such good use of these natural advantages that their iron and copper ware was reputed the best in Greece, and writers of the seventh, sixth and fifth centuries refer to the armour of Chalcis as mediaeval writers might speak of Milan or Toledo steel. In the fifth century Chalcis also made silver ware which became a familiar object of luxury in Athens. But it is doubtful whether this industry was of earlier date, for before 500 BC the output of the Greek silver mines was probably not sufficient for its industrial needs.

The part played by Eretria in this industrial development was comparatively modest. Although this city probably had access to the mines of Carystus, there is no clear evidence of its having become a metallurgical centre, and we may surmise that the product of the southern Euboean mines was not consumed locally but exported to Aegina or other metal-working cities. On the other hand, Eretria undoubtedly participated in the ceramic industry of the island. Its vases, indeed, were but inferior imitations of Cycladic or Attic ware, and hardly comparable with the fabrics of Chalcis, but they were apparently manufactured on a scale surpassing that of the Chalcidian potteries.

Did the Euboeans take any active share in the trade which grew out of their industrial proficiency? No certain conclusion can be drawn from the coinage of Chalcis and Eretria, for it is doubtful whether these towns struck money before 550 BC. More importance attaches to the wide diffusion of the Euboic standard of weights, which was adopted in the course of the sixth and fifth centuries by Athens and Corinth, by numerous towns of the Aegean area, and almost universally among the western Greeks. But the energies of the Euboeans appear to have been increasingly absorbed in their manufactures. In the sixth century the Chalcidians and Eretrians no longer appear among the chief seafaring peoples of Greece. It is not unlikely that part at least of their exports was shipped by traders from other states, such as Aegina, Miletus, and above all Corinth, which probably acted as middleman between Chaicis and her colonies in the west.

Of the domestic politics of Euboea we know very little. At Chalcis the memory of a king Amphidamas was preserved. But it is impossible to assign any certain date to this ruler, or even to determine whether he was a historical personage. During the seventh and sixth centuries Chalcis and Eretria were generally under aristocratic government, though at Chalcis the reign of the nobles was interrupted by a tyranny which was probably contemporary with that of Periander at Corinth, i.e. 600 BC or somewhat later. The name of ‘horse-grazers,’ which the Chalcidian nobles retained to the end of the sixth century, indicates that the aristocracy was recruited from the large landowners. Whether these formed a separate class from the industrial magnates it is impossible to say.

In foreign affairs the Chalcidians appear to have been content with trading alliances. The Eretrians pursued a more ambitious policy. Among the Cyclades they conquered Andros, Tenos and Ceos. In southern Euboea they probably reduced Carystus to vassalage. On the Boeotian coast they seized Oropus. It has also been conjectured that they held Tanagra previous to its absorption into the Boeotian League; but the evidence in favour of this view is very slender, and it is unlikely in itself that the Eretrians should have penetrated so far inland. The date at which this miniature empire was formed is uncertain. But since Andros made colonial settlements on its own account about 650, the Eretrian conquests in the Cyclades were probably subsequent to this time. The date at which Eretria lost control of the Cyclades is equally unknown. Oropus, as we shall see, was wrested from Eretria early in the seventh century. Carystus was apparently under Eretrian rule as late as 490.

The relations of Eretria and Chalcis fluctuated strangely during the period of colonization. Sometimes the two cities joined forces in making a new settlement. But a conflict between them was invited by their situation at opposite ends of a fertile but none too roomy plain, within which the Lelantus rivulet made but an indifferent frontier; and it is not unlikely that they competed as well as collaborated in the quest for colonial sites. Greek tradition preserved the memory of a war (the so-called ‘Lelantine War’) between these two states which drew in a considerable part of the Greek world and developed into the greatest conflict in Greek lands since the Trojan War. Un­fortunately the details of this struggle were mostly forgotten, and the conjectures of modern scholars concerning it are widely divergent.

In reconstructing the history of the Lelantine War the safest point of departure is the list of allies on either side, which is comparatively complete. Chalcis was aided by Corinth, Samos and the Thessalian League; Eretria received the aid of Aegina, Miletus, and possibly Megara. Apart from the Thessalian League, all the states here mentioned were centres of commerce, and most of them took an active part in colonization. The struggle therefore probably arose from the scramble for colonial sites and commercial bases, in the course of which two rival coalitions formed round the Euboean cities. If this explanation is correct, the date of the war must fall in the eighth or seventh century. The latter date is perhaps to be preferred, as this is the period of most intensive colonization. But the conflict, like the colonial wars of modern times, may have spread over a considerable period and have belonged to more than one century. A more precise dating, such as modern scholars have attempted on the basis of some very uncertain literary allusions, is hardly possible with the means at our disposal.

Concerning the course of the war we can make a somewhat more definite statement. That fighting took place on sea as well as on land may be confidently inferred from the maritime character of the belligerents on either side, and one stray piece of information, that Corinth and Samos were busy providing themselves with warships about 700 BC, may be taken as a confirmation of this view. But the absence of all allusion to any striking episode in the naval war suggests that it was made up of a long drawn out series of small skirmishes rather than of a few set battles. The land warfare on the other hand seems to have been concentrated in the Lelantine plain which has given its name to the whole conflict. To this part of the operations may be referred two ancient records which were long preserved in a temple at Eretria; one of these bears witness that Eretria could muster 3000 hoplites, 600 horsemen and 60 chariots; the other sets forth a compact with Chaicis by which either party bound itself not to use missile weapons. But the most definite piece of information regarding the land war is that it culminated in the intervention of a corps of Thessalian horsemen who won a final victory for the Chalcidian coalition. Although the reason for the participation of the Thessalians in the war is not clear, it is at all events certain that they dealt the decisive blow. As the result of their defeat the Eretrians lost their Boeotian possessions and part of the Lelantine plain.

But the Lelantine War had little effect upon the distribution of power in central Greece. The carrying trade of this region passed more and more into the hands of Corinth and Aegina, and the Eretrian territory on the mainland eventually fell to the neutral powers of Boeotia and Athens.

Though Chalcis and Eretria were pioneers of Greek colonization and industry, they contributed little to early Greek art or literature. The legend that Chalcis was the scene of a poetic contest between Hesiod and Homer, though incorporated in Hesiod’s text, is usually rejected by modern scholars as a fabrication; and Euboea never was the home of a distinctive school of art. But the influence of the Euboean cities upon the world is not yet spent. The alphabet of Chaicis, which was disseminated in Italy through the agency of the Euboean colonists at Cumae, became the parent of the Latin alphabet. Thus our present-day letter-forms are derived through Rome from Euboea.

V.

DELPHI

In dealing with the history of Phocis we have only made a casual reference to Delphi. This little town was a constituent part of Phocis until the time of the First Sacred War. But in consequence of that war it became independent both of its immediate overlord, the town of Crisa, and of the Phocian League, and towards the end of the sixth century it advertised its independence by striking coins of its own. Henceforth Delphi, though in Phocis, was not of Phocis. It did not give but received allegiance, and its sphere of influence spread from central Greece over all Hellenic lands and beyond. Its history therefore requires separate treatment.

The ascendancy of Delphi in Greece was derived simply and solely from its oracle. In itself, this oracle was not a unique institution, for divination was practised in almost every corner of the Greek world. But whereas the other soothsaying agencies seldom achieved more than local renown, Delphi became the spiritual capital of Greece.

The pre-eminence of Delphi among the seats of Greek oracles may be explained in part by the natural advantages of the site. From its central position within the Greek lands it earned the reputation of being ‘the hub of the world’; and the grandeur of its surroundings appealed to the ancient pilgrim as it does to the modern sightseer. Approaching from the south through the luxuriant olive yards of the Crisaean plain, or from the east by a winding path along the bare flank of Mt Parnassus, the traveller suddenly alights upon a semicircular recess of some five acres, poised 1000 ft. over the steep cleft between Mts Parnassus and Cirphis, and surmounted in its turn and enfolded by gleaming limestone cliffs to an altitude of 700 ft. The hard clear outlines of this landscape, and the sheer magnitude of the mountain walls which isolate and as it were imprison Delphi, exhibit the stern beauty of Greek scenery at its best. Yet the natural features of the site do not sufficiently account for its importance. Landscapes of similar if not of equal majesty abound in Greece. Moreover, though Delphi lay near the main roads that run through Greece from north to south, it did not thereby acquire any commercial importance, for these roads were not great avenues of trade. The seasonal traffic which eventually grew up at Delphi and made it the seat of a Pan-Hellenic fair was the result not the cause of Delphi’s fame.

The Delphic oracle further derived prestige from its antiquity. As we shall see presently, the sanctuary was already frequented in Late Minoan times. But several other centres of Greek divination could claim a prehistoric origin, and in point of seniority Delphi may actually have been surpassed by some of its rivals.

The principal factors in the rise of Delphi to a position of unique celebrity are to be found in its association with Apollo, and in the sagacity of the priests who interpreted the utterances of this god. The original sanctuary of Delphi belonged to a primitive earth goddess who had her first abode in a betyl-stone (known as the ‘navel of the earth’), and sent forth oracles in the form of dreams. But in historic times Earth had been displaced Apollo.

The advent of Apollo is described at length in a Homeric hymn which probably dates back to the seventh century BC Apollo, so the story runs, came in procession from Macedonia to Thessaly, and thence to Euboea and Boeotia. After a sojourn in Boeotia he continued his progress to Delphi and took forcible possession of the sanctuary by slaying Earth’s warder, the serpent Pytho. Finally, he set out to sea and brought the crew of a Cretan vessel to Delphi to be his priests. This legend not only has the authority of high age, but is con­firmed in its broad outlines by the known facts of the Apolline cult. The worship of the god first spread from the north to the eastern and insular parts of the Greek world. In Crete it acquired new features which eventually played an important part in the religion of Delphi. The epithet ‘Delphinios’, which was commonly attached to Apollo in central and Aegean Greece and may perhaps have been the origin of the name of Delphi, was probably derived from an old Cretan sea-god whose symbol was a dolphin. The ritual of purification which was prominent in early Delphian ceremony was distinctively Cretan, and the liturgy of the Paean, a slow solemn melody which was chanted at Delphi in praise of Apollo, can be traced back to the same origin. The connection between Delphi and Crete has been confirmed by finds of Late Minoan pottery and terracotta idols in the sanctuary, and most significant of all, by the discovery of a stone drinking-horn which is an exact parallel of a similar vessel from Cnossus. We may infer, then, that the cult of Apollo came originally from the north, but that it reached Delphi by a back-eddy from the Aegean area, where it had received accretions from the old Cretan worship. The tradition that Apollo was a violent intruder at Delphi is confirmed by the ritual of the historic period, which commemorated the slaying of the serpent Pytho in a mimic battle.

The date of the god’s intrusion is fixed by the Late Minoan finds and by a passage in the Odyssey which relates how Apollo gave a response to King Agamemnon. The god was evidently brought to Delphi in the course of the great migrations which closed the prehistoric period in Greece.

At the coming of the Dorians Apollo appears to have been in momentary danger of dispossession, for Greek legend represents the first appearance of their patron god Heracles in Delphi as that of an enemy and a destroyer. Yet Apollo not only maintained his hold on the oracle, but also over to his side the Dorian invaders, who eventually spread his cult to Peloponnesus and all the scenes of their later wanderings. It has even been maintained that the Delphian Apollo chiefly owed his prestige in Greece to Dorian propaganda. This view is refuted alike by Greek tradition and by the uniform diffusion of the Apollo cult over all the branches of the Greek nation; but it contains this germ of truth, that the last of the northern invaders who found Apollo installed at Delphi acknowledged his lordship of the oracle as zealously as the earlier immigrants who had set him up.

The attributes from which Apollo derived his character as a soothsayer are not laid down in ancient tradition. If Apollo was primarily a god of light, it is easy to see how he became a god of enlightenment. But his luminary properties were probably late and derivative. It is more likely that Apollo derived his oracular authority from his character as ‘Agyieus’ or ‘lord of the way.’ The god, as we have seen, was established at Delphi in the age of the migrations. He had escorted the wanderers to their new homes in Greece, and after their settlement remained their spiritual guide.

Apollo thus became adviser-in-chief to the Greek nation. But he had many seats of prophecy besides Delphi. The reason why Delphi became his oracle par excellence is to be sought in the method of divination and the opportunities which this gave to a sagacious priesthood.

At Delphi the method of consulting the oracle was not quite uniform. To those who preferred it advice was given through the primitive medium of dreams, or by the drawing of lots; and Apollo’s earliest messages were delivered by the rustling of his sacred laurels. But the usual procedure was as follows. On stated days the consultants were admitted to the threshold of the Adyton or Holy of Holies, a narrow rock chamber underneath Apollo’s temple, and there presented their request to the priests. The reply of the god was apparently elicited by the Pythia, a Delphian woman whose predecessors had probably been priestesses of the archaic earth oracle, though she herself was but the medium of Apollo’s priests. After some conventional ritual of purification the Pythia mounted the tripod or three-legged table in the Adyton and awaited inspiration. In spite of a persistent tradition to the contrary, it appears certain that the Pythia’s frenzy was not induced by physical intoxication from vapours ascending out of a chasm in the earth. If her ecstatic condition was due in any way to a physical agency, we must attribute it to the chewing of laurel leaves or the inhaling of laurel smoke; but it is not impossible that her prophetic mood was the result of simple hypnotic suggestion. Under the spell of her trance the Pythia broke into incoherent utterance. This was the voice of the god which the priests professed to interpret. The Pythia’s delirious gabble was recast by them into epic hexameters or (in later days) into simple prose, and was invested with any meaning which they thought fit to impart to it. In effect, the Pythia’s frenzy was by-play, the responses were originated by the priests. Here, then, we have found the chief makers of Apollo’s oracle.

The Delphic priesthood, being recruited from Delphi itself, were not the chosen best of the whole Greek nation. At first sight their success as oracle-mongers may appear strange. They possessed neither genius nor great courage. They did not soar high above the average thought of their age, and instead of originating new doctrine they were mostly content to inculcate existing beliefs and practices. Their canny timidity is exhibited amusingly in the maxim which purported to have come from the oracle, ‘go bail, and ruin stands by.’ A more tragic instance of this same calculating caution was afforded at the climax of the Persian Wars, when they undermined Greek morale by prophesying success for Persia’s big battalions. To the urgent problem of reforming the religion of early Greece they contributed but little. They left it to laymen to denounce the immoralities of the Homeric religion, and to the general Greek sense of humanity to abolish human sacrifices, of which not a few were performed at Delphi’s direct bidding. Greece produced many pioneers in thought and heroes in action, but the priests of Delphi are not to be counted among these.

On the other hand, the voice of the oracle was endowed in a conspicuous degree with those commonplace virtues which make most of all for worldly success. In relation to other deities they exhibited a broad-minded tolerance, and for their own god they merely claimed a monopoly of divination. At Delphi itself they left room for old-established cults like those of Poseidon and Athena, and they not only allowed Ge or Earth, the original possessor of Apollo’s sanctuary, to retain her sacred stone, but provided her with a temple. Among later intruders into the Greek pantheon they recognized Dionysus as a god who had come to stay. At Delphi they gave him a share of the cult in Apollo’s own temple; elsewhere they enjoined the foundation of shrines in his honour. In every part of Greece they recommended the continued observation of existing cults and sanctioned the introduction of new ones. Among the characteristic Greek worships which owed their wide diffusion to Delphi may be mentioned the cult of defunct great men or ‘heroes.’

In working the oracle the priests practised a certain amount of mystification. But they kept the temple ritual simple and free from extravagance. With characteristic prudence they discounted the risks of exposure by limiting the dies fasti to one in a month, and they parried indiscreet questioners, especially those who would pry into the future, with responses of ‘Delphic’ obscurity. Thus King Croesus on the eve of his war with Persia was told that he would destroy ‘a’ great kingdom; Pyrrhus of Epirus was assured that ‘Aeacus’ son the Romans could conquer.’ In the same spirit of caution they avoided the pitfalls which commonly bring down those in enjoyment of spiritual authority. Though they often gave advice on questions of politics, they usually refrained from taking sides between contending parties. They never sought to enforce their precepts by recourse to the ‘secular arm,’ but were content to reprove and admonish the disobedient. The essence of their wordly wisdom is concentrated in two words which they had caused to be engraved on an entrance pillar of Apollo’s temple, ‘nothing overmuch’.

Again, though the priests initiated no new moral gospel, they neither stoned nor snubbed the prophets who arose elsewhere. Solon and other leaders of Greek thought they welcomed to their sanctuary, and at times they assisted such pioneers to disseminate new doctrines for which the Greek world seemed ripe. The great transformation by which humane views of life were substituted in Greece for the primitive code of violence was frequently, if not uniformly, assisted by them. Not only did they reprove unprovoked murder, but they helped to discourage the blood-feud and laid down the cardinal rule that the moral value of an act depends, not on its external circumstances, but on its inward motive. In the later days of Greek history, when the evils of slavery had become apparent, the priests at Delphi encouraged acts of manumission and guaranteed the slave’s liberty by a fictitious purchase which made him technically a chattel of Apollo but in practice secured his freedom against all comers. In regard to the taking of money Apollo did not escape suspicion, but he never placed his spiritual functions on a purely commercial basis, and in one famous case he angrily drove away a faithless trustee when he endeavoured to compound his felony with a gift to the god. Compared with other Greek gods, who regularly expected payment for value received, Apollo’s standard of disinterested service was exemplary. With similar insight and yet greater courage the priests spoke plainly to overbearing potentates like Croesus or the Deinomenidae of Syracuse or Jason of Pherae, asserting against them that the real if not the outward prizes of life went to humble folk who quietly performed a simple duty.

But whatever the sources of Delphi’s influence may have been, there can be no doubt as to the commanding position which it acquired. In the days of Homer its fame was already spread over Greece, and in the seventh century foreign kings from Asia began to pay homage to it. In the sixth century the entire Greek world, assisted by King Amasis of Egypt, collaborated in providing Apollo with a temple worthy of his fame. In this shrine, and in numerous ‘treasure houses’ which various Greek states set up in competition during the sixth and fifth centuries, votive gifts from grateful or expectant consultants accumulated until Delphi became a standing temptation to predatory warriors and politicians. Among the dedications were included war-offerings from Greek and barbarian conquerors, and the ‘golden harvests’ from Greek colonists who had found prosperity in their new homes. These latter gifts illustrate the prestige which Apollo acquired as the ‘Archegetes’ or leader and lord of the numerous bands of emigrants who left Greek soil in the eighth, seventh and sixth centuries. Although the reputation for geographical omniscience which Apollo acquired was scarcely deserved, for the instances in which the god actually selected the site to which his consultants were to repair were few and late, and the masterful way in which he directed an unbelieving band to a happy home in Cyrene is not to be regarded as typical, yet his sanction to each new colonial enterprise was regarded as almost indispensable, and as a means of legitimizing Greek appropriations in barbarian lands it was more effective than the division which Pope Alexander VI made of the New World of modern times.

But colonization was not the only affair of state on which the oracle came to be regularly consulted. It was usual for Greek cities to obtain a blessing from Delphi for the new constitutions which they gave themselves; and several of the communities of central Greece regulated their calendar by that of Delphi.

Perhaps, however, the most significant tribute to the authority of Delphi came from the unofficial leaders of Greek thought, from the great Hellenic thinkers and poets. Solon and Pindar, the Attic dramatists and Plato acknowledged Apollo as the fount of all wisdom.

The full recognition of Delphi’s pan-Hellenic importance may be said to date from the First Sacred War. This intervention in Delphian affairs by interested neighbours, and the establishment of the Amphictyonic Council as a permanent Board of Control, were not indeed an unmixed blessing, for they exposed the sacred site to the risk of becoming a subject of sordid political intrigue. But the patronage of the Amphictyones raised Delphi to the status of a federal capital, and the festivals in which they commemorated their victory in the Sacred War put it on a level with Olympia as one of the chief seats of the Greek ‘Panegyreis’ or national holidays.

In its origin the ‘Pythian’ festival was nothing more than a ritual celebrated every eight years at the tomb of the serpent Pytho to commemorate his death, and the only part of the cult which was of more than ceremonial interest was a contest of singers accompanied by a lyre. At the first festivals celebrated by the Amphictyones (590 and 582 BC.) a contest in flute-playing was added to the musical events, and athletic matches and horse races were introduced. Though the standard of athletic performance at the Pythian games was not reckoned equal to that of Olympia, yet as an all-round exhibition of physical and of artistic prowess the Delphic festival probably stood first among the Greek Panegyreis. Thus Delphi became not only a place of pilgrimage but the home of a ‘League of Nations’ and one of the chief playgrounds of Greece.

In estimating the influence of Delphi upon the Greek world we must consider not only its educational work but also the part which it played in standardizing Greek religion and ethics, and in supplying a national court of reference in which the widely divergent customs of the several Greek cities could be reduced to a common standard. Together with the Zeus of the Olympian games, the Pythian Apollo was one of the chief agents in the fusion of the peoples of Greece into the Greek nation. But whatever relative importance we attach to the educational and to the organizing functions of the oracle, we need not hesitate to say that in its total influence upon the Greek world Delphi far surpassed all the other communities of northern and central Greece.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE COLONIAL EXPANSION OF GREECE