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CHAPTER V.
GROWTH OF ATHENS IN THE SIXTH CENTURY
Sect.
1. The Conquest of Salamis and Nisaea
In the midst of these domestic troubles and party
struggles, there were a few statesmen who found time to attend to foreign
affairs, and saw that the time had come for Athens to take a new step in her
political career. Under her aristocracy, Athens had enjoyed a long period of
development which may be called peaceful, if we compare the growth of some
other states; and this prepared her to take her place in the general scene of
Greek history. Though Attica was a poor country, scantily watered and with light
soil, her prosperity in the oil trade might encourage her to look forward to
becoming rich. But, if she was ever to become a political power, there was one
thing to be achieved at all hazards. Every Athenian who stood on his strong
hill and looked south-westward could see what this was. He descried, lying
close to his own shore, an island which was not his own. And, if he walked
across Mount Aegaleos, he saw how this foreign island
blocked up the bay of what was now his own Eleusis. Almost equally distant from
Athens and Megara, parted by a narrow water from both, Salamis in the hands of
either must be a constant menace to the other. The possession of Salamis must
decide the future history of both Megara and Athens. At this period Megara with
her growing colonial connexions was a strong state
and a formidable neighbour; and her expanding trade must have been viewed with
alarm and jealousy by Athenian statesmen. A struggle with Megara, sooner or
later, was inevitable, and the Cylonian conspiracy,
as we saw, furnished an occasion of war. Theagenes could not easily brook the
slaughter of his men in violation of the promise which had been given to them,
and he sent his ships to harry the Attic coasts. The Athenians sought to occupy
Salamis, but all their efforts to gain a permanent footing failed, and they
abandoned the attempt in despair. Years passed away. At length Solon saw that
the favourable hour had come. It was, perhaps, a
quarter of a century after the year of his lawgiving; he had returned from his
travels and was living at Athens, one of the Council of the Areopagus. Megara
was now weaker than in the days of Theagenes, and, whether she had given any
new cause of offence to Athens or not, Solon and his friends decided that it
was time to strike. The great legislator came forward now, not as before to
assuage strife but to stir up to conquest. He composed a stirring poem which
Solon’s began: “I came myself as a herald from lovely Salamis, but with song on
my lips instead of common speech.” He blamed the peace policy of the “men who
let slip Salamis,” as dishonourable; and cried,
“Arise and come to Salamis, to win that fair island and undo our shame.” The
poem of Solon was intended to have the effect which in later times, when
“common speech” had been perfected to a fine art, would have been wrought by
the eloquence of an orator in the Assembly. His appeal moved the hearts of his
countrymen to a national effort, and an Athenian army went forth to lay the
first stone of their country’s greatness
An intimate friend of Solon took part in the
enterprise,— Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates, whose home and estates were near Brauron. It has been thought that Pisistratus was the
polemarch of the year, but it is more probable that he was only a general
subordinate to the polemarch. He helped the expedition to a successful issue.
Not only was the disputed island wrested from Megara, but Salamis he captured
the port of Nisaea over against the island. We may
conjecture that Nisaea was surprised first, and that its
capture enabled the Athenians to occupy Salamis. Thus, though Pisistratus was
associated with the conquest of Nisaea, not with the
conquest of Salamis, it was to him, along with his friend Solon who inspired
the enterprise, that the great achievement was really due. The seizure of her
port was a great shock to the trade of Megara. It was indeed afterwards
restored, when peace was made through the mediation of Sparta; but the hopes of
Athenian policy, which its possession aroused, are reflected in the legend,
created at this time, that Nisus the Megarian hero was a son of Pandion an
early Athenian king. Shortly afterwards the text of the Iliad which assumed, as
we shall see, its final shape at Athens, was tampered with. The Athenians
entered in that venerable record the political geography which they desired. In
the Catalogue of the Ships (where Megara has no independent place, she is
counted as a city of Boeotia), two verses were inserted implying that Salamis
belonged to Athens in the time of the Trojan war. There is no reason to suppose
that there was any truth in this prehistoric claim. But Salamis now became
permanently annexed to Attica. The island was afterwards divided in lots among
Athenian citizens, who were called cleruchs or
“lot-holders.” Salamis, unlike Eleusis, was not incorporated in Attica, though
it was nearer Athens. There have been found fragments of a document inscribed
on a stone-pillar, perhaps (but it is difficult to judge the dates of early
Attic writings) not many years later than the conquest,—a decree of the people
which concerns the settlement of Salamis; one of the earliest scriptured stones of Athenian history, and the earliest
example we possess of a decree of the Athenian people. The old inhabitants of
the island were to pay the same taxes as the “Athenians ” and to serve in the
army, but they were to dwell on their farms in the island, and were not to let
their lots to others under pain of a fine.
The conquest of Salamis was a decisive event for
Athens. Her territory was now rounded off; she had complete command of the
landlocked Eleusinian bay; it was she who now threatened Megara.
Sect.
2. Athens under Pisistratus
The conqueror of Nisaea was
the hero of the day. By professing democratic doctrines and practising popular arts, he ingratiated himself with those extreme democrats who, being
bitterly opposed to the nobles and not satisfied by the Solonian compromise,
were outside both the Plain and the Coast. Pisistratus thus organised a new party which was called the Hill, as it largely consisted of the poor hillsmen of the highlands of Attica; but it also included
the hektemors, for whom Solon had done little, and
many discontented men, who, formerly rich, had been impoverished by Solon’s
measure of cancelling old debts. With this party at his back, Pisistratus aimed
at no the less a thing than grasping the supreme power for himself. One day he
appeared in the agora, wounded, he said, by a foul attack of his political
foes—his foes because he was a friend of the people; and he showed wounds which
he bore. In the Assembly, packed by the Hillsmen, a
bodyguard of fifty clubsmen was voted to him on the
proposal of Aristion. We have a monument, which we may associate with the
author of this memorable act, in a sepulchral slab discovered near Brauron, on which is finely wrought in very low relief the
portrait of “Aristion” standing armed by his tombstone; and is hardly too bold
to recognise in this contemporary sculpture the
friend of Pisistratus, when we remember that the home of the Pisistratid family was at Brauron.
Having secured his bodyguard —the first step in the tyrant’s
progress—Pisistratus seized the acropolis, and made himself master of the
state.
It was the fate of Solon to live long enough to see
the establishment of the tyranny which he dreaded. We know not what part he had
taken in the troubled world of politics since his return of Athens. The story
was invented that he called upon the citizens to arm themselves against the
tyrant, but called in vain; and that then, laying his arms outside the
threshold of his house, he cried, “I have aided, so far as I could, my country
and the constitution, and I appeal to others to do likewise.” Nor has the story
that he refused to live under a tyranny and sought refuge with his Cyprian
friend the king of Soli, any good foundation. We know only that in his later
years he enjoyed the pleasures of wine and love, and that he survived but a
short time the seizure of the tyranny by Pisistratus, who at least treated the
old man with respect.
The discord of
parties had smoothed the way for the schemes of Pisistratus; but his success
led in turn to the union of the two other parties, the Plain and the Coast,
against him, and at the end of about five years they succeeded in driving him
out. But new disunion followed, and Megacles the leader of the Coast seems to
have quarrelled not only with the Plain but with his
own party. At all events, he sought a reconciliation with Pisistratus and
undertook to help him back to the tyranny on condition that the tyrant wedded
his daughter. The legend is that the partisans of Pisistratus found in Paeania, an Attic village, a woman of loftier than common
stature, whom they arrayed in the guise of the goddess Athena. Her name was Phye. Then heralds, on a certain day, entered Athens,
crying that Pallas herself was leading back Pisistratus. Presently a car
arrived bearing the tyrant and Phye; and the trick
deceived all the common folk.
But the coalition of Pisistratus with Megacles was not
more abiding than that of Megacles with Lycurgus. By a former wife Pisistratus
had two sons—Hippias and Hipparchus; and as he desired to create a dynasty, he
feared that, if he had offspring by a second wife, the interests of his older
sons might be injured and family dissensions ensue. So, though he went through
the form of marriage with the daughter of Megacles, as he had promised, he did
not treat her as his wife. Megacles was enraged when the tyrant’s neglect
reached his ears; he made common cause with the enemies of Pisistratus and
succeeded in driving him out for the second time, perhaps in the same year in
which he had been restored.
The second exile lasted for about ten years, and
Pisistratus spent it in forming new connexions in
Macedonia. On the Thermaic gulf he organised the inhabitants of the neighbourhood of Rhaecelus into some sort of a city-state. He
exploited the gold mines of Mount Pangaeus near the
Strymon, and formed a force of mercenary soldiers, thus providing himself with
money and men to recover his position at Athens. He was supported by Lygdamis,
the tyrant of Naxos, and by the friendship of other Greek states, such as
Thessaly, which he had cultivated in the days of his power. The aristocracy of
Eretrian horsemen were well-disposed to him, and their city was an admirable
basis for an attack upon Athens. When he landed at Marathon, his adherents
flocked to his standard. The citizens who were loyal to the constitutional
government marched forth, and were defeated in battle at Pallene. Resistance
was at an end, and once more Pisistratus had the power in his hands. This time
he kept it.
The rule of Pisistratus may be described as a
constitutional tyranny. He did not stop the wheels of the democracy, but he
guided the machine entirely at his own will. The constitution of Solon seems to
have been preserved in its essential features, though in some details the lapse
of time may have brought modifications. Thus it is possible that even before
the first success of Pisistratus the assessment according to measures of corn
and oil had been converted into an assessment in money. And as money became
cheaper the earlier standards for the division of classes ceased to have the
old significance. A man who at the beginning of the sixth century just reached
the standard of the first class was passing rich; fifty years later he would be
comparatively poor. But it was not to the interest of the tyrant to raise the
census for political office. Various measures of policy were adopted by him to
protect his position, while he preserved the old forms of government. He
managed to exert an influence on the appointment of the archons, so as to
secure personal adherents, and one his own family generally held some office.
This involved the suspension or modification of the system of lot introduced by
Solon.
The tyrant kept up a standing force of paid
soldiers—among them, perhaps, Scythian archers, whom we see portrayed on Attic
vases of the time. And he kept in his power, as hostages, the children of some
noble families which he suspected. Most indeed of his more prominent opponents,
including the Alcmaeonids, had left Attica, and the large estates which they
abandoned were at his disposal.
These estates gave him the means of solving a problem
which Solon had left unsolved, and of satisfying the expectations of a large
number of his supporters. He divided the vacant lands into lots Abolition and
gave them to the labourers who had worked on these
and other estates. Thus the way was prepared for the total abolition of the hektemors. They became practically peasant proprietors, and
they had to pay only the land-tax, amounting to one-tenth of the produce. The
Land was also given to many needy people who idled in the city, and loans of
money to start them. The tax of a tenth, imposed on all estates, formed an
important source of the tyrant’s revenue, and it is generally supposed that he
introduced it. But this is not probable. We may take it that this land-tax was
an older institution which continued under Pisistratus, until either he or his
sons were able, through an increase of revenue from other sources, to reduce it
to one-twentieth. It has been plausibly suggested that this increase of revenue
came from the silver mines of Laurion, which now perhaps began to be more
effectively worked. His possessions on the Strymon were another mainstay of the
finance of Pisistratus. He exerted himself to improve agriculture, and under
his influence the olive, which had long ago found a home in Attica, was planted
all over the land.
Under Pisistratus Athens rested from the distractions
of party strife, and the old parties gradually disappeared. The mass of
discontented hektemors was absorbed in the class of
peasant proprietors. Thus the people enjoyed a tranquil period of economical
and political development. And as the free forms of the constitution were
preserved, the masses, in the Assembly and in the Law-courts, received a training
in the routine at least of public affairs, which rendered them fit for the
democracy which was to ensue when the tyranny was overthrown.
Abroad it was the consistent policy of Pisistratus to
preserve peaceful relations with other states. Aegina indeed was openly the
rival of Athens, and humbled Megara could hardly be aught save sullen. But
Athens was on friendly terms with both the rival powers of the Peloponnesus,
Sparta and Argos; and Thebes, and Thessaly, and the Eretrian knights had helped
the tyrant in the days of his adversity. His influence extended to the banks of
the Strymon and the coast of Macedonia, as we have already seen; and he had a
subservient friend in Lygdamis of Naxos, who, when he was deposed from his
tyranny by the Naxian people, was restored by
Athenian arms.
It was doubtless with the object of injuring the
Megarian trade in Pontic corn, and gaining some counterpoise to Megarian power
in the region of the Propontis, that Athens made her first venture in distant
seas. It was about forty years before Pisistratus became tyrant that Athens
seized the Lesbian fortress of Sigeum on the shore of
the Troad at the entrance to the Hellespont. The
friendship of Miletus, mother of many Pontic colonies, favoured this enterprise, which however involved Athens in a conflict with Mytilene
whose power and settlements extended along the shores of the straits. Mytilene,
failing to recover the fortress, built another, the Achilleon,
close by, which cut off the Athenians from the sea. It has been already told
how the statesman Pittacus was engaged in this war and slew an Athenian
commander in single combat, and how the poet Alcaeus threw away his shield. It
would seem that while Athens was absorbed in her party conflicts at home, Sigeum slipped from her hands, and that the recapture of it
was one of the achievements of Pisistratus. The tyrant showed the importance he
attached to it by installing one of his sons as governor. The statesmen who
first sent Athenian soldiers to the shores of the Hellespont had in truth
opened up a new path for Athenian policy, and Pisistratus pursued that path. It
was not long before a much greater acquisition than Sigeum was made in the same region; but this acquisition, though made with the
good-will, and even under the auspices, of Pisistratus, was made by one who was
his political rival and opponent. Miltiades, son of Cypselus,
belonged to the noble family of the Philaids, and was one of the leaders of the
Plain. It was after the usurpation of Pisistratus, that as he sat one day in
the porch of his country-house at Laciadae on the
road from Athens to Eleusis, he saw a company of men in Thracian dress, and
armed with spears, passing along the road. He called out to them, invited them
into his house, and proffered them hospitality. They were Dolonci,
natives of the Thracian Chersonese, and they had come to Greece in search of a
helper, who should have the strength and skill to defend them against their
northern neighbours, who were pressing them hard in war. They had gone to
Delphi, and the oracle had bidden them invite the man who first offered them
entertainment after they left the shrine. Miltiades, thus designated by the
god, obeyed the call of the Thracians, not reluctant to leave his country
fallen under a tyrant’s rule.
The circumstances of the foundation of Athenian power
in the Chersonese were thus wrought by the story-shaping instinct of the Greeks
into a picturesque tale. The simple fact seems to have been that the Dolonci applied directly to Athens, inviting the settlement
of an Athenian colony in their midst Pisistratus was well pleased to promote
Athenian influence on the Hellespontine shores; and the selection of Miltiades
was not unwelcome to him, since it removed a dangerous subject. We may feel no
doubt that it was as an oecist duly chosen by the
Athenian people that Miltiades went forth, blessed by the Delphic oracle, to
the land of his Thracian guests. But the oecist who
went forth, as it was said, to escape tyranny, became absolute ruler in his new
country. He ruled as a Thracian prince over the Dolonci;
he ruled as a tyrant over his Athenian fellow-settlers. He protected the
peninsula against invasions from the north by a wall which he built across the
neck from Cardia to Pactye. We hear of his war with
Lampsacus and his friendship with the king of Lydia.
It is not too much to say that Pisistratus took the
first steps on the path which led Athens to empire. That path had indeed been
pointed out to him by nameless predecessors; but his sword conquered Salamis;
under his auspices Athens won a footing on both shores of the Hellespont. We
cannot estimate too highly the statesmanship which sought a field for Athenian
enterprise in the regions ° of the Propontis. The Ionian cities had forestalled
Athens in venturing into the vast spaces of the eastern sea and winning the
products of its shores. But though she entered into the contest late, she was
destined to outstrip both her friend Miletus, and Megara her foe. Many years
indeed were still to run before her ships dominated the Euxine; but it was much
that she now set her posts as a watcher on either side of the narrow gate
Pisistratus strongly asserted the claim of Athens to
be the mother festival. and ]eader of the Ionian
branch of the Greek race. The temple of Apollo in Delos, the island of his
mythical birth, had been long a religious centre of
the Ionians on both sides of the Aegean. There, as an ancient hymn sang, “the
long-robed Ionians gather with their children and their wives,” to honour Apollo with dance and song and games: “a stranger
who came upon the Ionians in their throng, seeing the men and the fair-girdled
women and the swift ships and all their wealth, would say that they were beings
free for ever from death and eld.” Pisistratus “purified” the sacred spot by
digging up all the tombs that were within sight of the sanctuary and removing
the bones of the dead to another part of the island.
And Athens took not only the Ionian festival under her
special care, but also the great Ionann epics. It was
probably towards the end of his reign that Pisistratus and his son Hipparchus
took in hand the work of arranging and writing down the Homeric poems. Since
the poet of Chios had composed the Iliad, since another Ionian poet had framed
the Odyssey, new parts had been added by their successors; such as the
Catalogue of the Ships and the poem of Dolon. The minstrels who recited Homer,
at the Delian festival for example, adhered to no very strict order of parts in
their recitations, and discrepancies were inevitable both in the order and in
the text. At the instance of Pisistratus, some men of letters undertook the
task of fixing definitely the text of both poems, and wrote them down in the
old Attic alphabet. Thus Athens became one of the birth-cities of Homer; the
Iliad and Odyssey assumed their final shape there. But what the Athenians did
for Homer was entirely an achievement in literary criticism; it was in no way a
work of original composition. We may say that the Pisistratean revision of Homer was the beginning of literary criticism in Europe. Some
liberties indeed were taken with the text; a line or two were added, a line or
two may have been omitted, for the sake of the political interest or the vanity
of Athens. We have met an instance in regard to Salamis. The Homeric enterprise
of Pisistratus was thoroughly successful; Athens grew to be the centre of the Greek book trade, and the Athenian text was
circulated through the whole Greek world. But before this circulation began, it
had been copied out in a new shape. About half a century later, Athenian poets
began to give up the old Attic alphabet and use the more convenient Ionic
alphabet instead. Homer was then copied out of the Attic letters into the
Ionic, and our texts are still disfigured by some errors which arose in the
process.
The immediate purpose of the revision of Pisistratus
was to regulate the Homeric recitations which he had made a feature of the
great Panathenaic festival. This feast had been remodelled,
if not founded, shortly before he seized the tyranny, and, on the pattern of
the national gatherings at Olympia and Delphi, was held every fourth year.
It was celebrated with athletic and musical contests, but the centre and motive of the feast was the great procession
which went up to the house of Athena on her hill, to offer her a robe woven by
the hands of Athenian maidens. The “rich fane” of Athens, wherein she accorded
Erechtheus a place, had the distinction of passing into the Homeric poems. It
was situated near the northern cliff; and to the south of it a new house had
been reared for the goddess of the city to inhabit, close to the ruins of the
palace of the ancient kings. It had been built before the days of Pisistratus,
but it was probably he who encompassed it with a Doric colonnade. From its
length this temple was known as the House of the Hundred Feet, and many of the
lowest stones of the walls, still lying in their places, show us its site and
shape. The triangular gables displayed what Attic sculptors of the day could
achieve. Hitherto the favourite material of these
sculptors had been the soft marly limestone of the Piraeus, and by a curious
stroke of luck some striking specimens of such work — Zeus encountering the
three-headed Typhon, Heracles destroying the Hydra—have been partly preserved,
the early efforts of an art which a hundred and fifty years would bring to
perfection. But now—in the second half of the sixth century—Greek sculptors
have begun to work in a nobler and harder material; and on one of the pediments
of the renovated temple of Athena Polias the battle
of the Gods and Giants was wrought in Parian marble. Athena herself in the centre of the composition, slaying Enceladus with her
spear, may still be seen and admired.
But the tyrant planned a greater work than the new
sanctuary on the hill. Down below, south-eastward from the citadel, on the
banks a of the Ilisus, he began the building of a great Doric temple for the
Olympian Zeus. He began but never finished it, nor his sons after him. So
immense was the scale of his plan that Athens, even when she reached the height
of her dominion and fulfilled many of the aspirations of Pisistratus, never
ventured to undertake the burden of completing it. A full completion was indeed
to come, though in shape far different from the old Athenian’s plan; but not
until Athens and Greece had been gathered under the wings of a power which had
all Europe at its feet. The richly ornamented capitals of the few lofty pillars
which still stand belong to the work of the Roman emperor, but we must remember
that the generations of Athenians, with whom this history has to do, saw only
plain Doric columns there, the monument of the wealth and ambition of the
tyrant who had done more for their city than they cared to think.
Pisistratus was indeed scrupulous and zealous in all
matters concerned with religion, and his sons more than himself. But no act of
his was more fruitful in results than what he did for the worship of Dionysus.
In the marshes on the south side of the Areopagus the bacchic god had an
ancient sanctuary, of which the foundations have been recently uncovered ; but
Pisistratus built him a new house at the foot of the Acropolis, and its ruins
have not yet wholly disappeared. In connexion with
this temple Pisistratus instituted a new festival, called the Great Dionysia of
the City, and it completely overshadowed the older feast of the Winepress (Lenaea), which still continued to be held in the first days
of spring at the temple of the Marshes. The chief feature of the Dionysiac
feasts was the choir of satyrs, the god’s attendants, who danced around the
altar clothed in goat-skins, and sang their “goat song.” But it became usual
for the leader of the dancers, who was also the composer of the song, to
separate himself from his fellows and hold speech with them, assuming the
character of some person connected with the events which the song celebrated,
and wearing an appropriate dress. Such performances, which at the rural feasts
had been arranged by private enterprise, were made an official part of the
Great Dionysia, and thus taken under state protection, in the form of a
“tragic” contest, two or more choruses competing for a prize. It was the work
of a generation to develop these simple representations into a true drama, by
differentiating the satyric element. Legends not
connected with Dionysus were chosen for representation, and the dancers
appeared, not in the bacchic goat-dress, but in the costume suitable for their
part in the story. This performance was divided into three acts; the dancers
changed their costumes for each act; and only at the end they come forward in
their true goat-guise and perform a which preserved the original satyric character of “tragedy.” Then their preponderant
importance was by degrees diminished, and a second actor was introduced; and by
a development of this kind, hidden from us in its details, the goat song of the
days of Pisistratus grew into the tragedy of Aeschylus.
The popularity of the worship of Dionysus at Athens in
the days of Pisistratus might be observed in the workshops of the potters. No
subject was more favoured than Dionysiac scenes by
the artists—Exekias and his fellows—who painted the black-figured jars of this
period. There is another thing which the student of history may learn among the
graceful vessels of the potters of Athens. On the jars of the Pisistratean age the deeds of Heracles are a favourite theme, while Theseus is little regarded. But
before the golden age of vase-painting sets in, about the time of the fall
imagination as the great Attic hero, and this is reflected in painting on the
cups of Euphronius and the other brilliant masters of
the red-figured style. If we remember that Theseus was specially associated
with the hill country of north Attica, which was the stronghold of the Pisistratean party, we may be tempted to infer that the
glorification of Theseus was partly due to the policy of Pisistratus.
But besides caring for the due honours of the gods, the tyrant busied himself with such humbler matters as the
improvement of the water-supply of Athens. West and south-west of the
Acropolis, in the rocky valley between the Areopagus and the Pnyx, his
water-works have recently come to light. A cistern there received the waters
which an aqueduct conveyed from the upper stream of the Ilisus. It is indeed on
this side of Athens, south and west of the oldest Athens of all, that the chief
stone memorials of the age of Pisistratus stood, apart from what he may have
built on the Acropolis itself. But he not only built; he also demolished. He
pulled down the old city-wall, and for more than half a century Athens was an
unwalled town.
Sect.
3. Growth of Sparta, and the Peloponnesian League
While a tyrant was moulding the destinies of Athens, the growth of the Spartan power had changed the
political aspect of the Peloponnesus. About the middle of the sixth century
Sparta won successes against her northern neighbours Tegea and Argos; and in
consequence of these successes she became the predominant power in the
peninsula.
Eastern Arcadia is marked by a large plain, high above
the sealevel; the villages in the north of this
plain had coalesced into the town of Mantinea, those in the south had been
united in Tegea. Sparta had gradually pressed up to the borders of the Tegean territory, and a long war was the result. This war
is associated with an interesting legend based on the tradition that the
Laconian hero Orestes was buried in Tegea. When the Spartans asked the Delphic
oracle whether they might hope to achieve the conquest of Arcadia, they
received a promise that the god would give them Tegea. Then, on account of this
answer, they went forth against Tegea with fetters, but were defeated; and
bound in the fetters which they had brought to bind the Tegeates were compelled to till the Tegean plain. Herodotus
professed that in his day the very fetters hung in the temple of Athena Aiea,
the protectress of Tegea. War went on, and the Spartans, invariably defeated,
at last consulted the oracle again. The god bade them bring back the bones of
Orestes, but they could find no trace of the hero’s burying-place, and they
asked the god once more. This time they received an oracle couched in obscure
enigmatic words:
Among Arcadian hills a level space
Holds Tegea, where blow two blasts perforce
And woe is laid on woe and face to face
Striker and counter-striker; there the corse
Thou seekest lies, even
Agamemnon’s son ;
Convey him home and victory is won.
This did not help them much. But it befell that,
during a truce with the Tegeates, a certain Lichas, a Spartan man, was in Tegea and entering a smith’s
shop saw the process of beating out iron. The smith in conversation told him
that wishing to dig a well in his courtyard he had found a coffin seven cubits
long and within it a corpse of the same length, which he replaced. Lichas guessed at once that he had won the solution of the
oracular enigma, and returning to Sparta communicated his discovery. The courtyard
was hired from the reluctant smith, the coffin was found, and the bones brought
home to Laconia. Then Tegea was conquered, and here we return from fable to
fact. The territory of the Arcadian city was not treated like Messenia; it was
not incorporated in the territory of Lacedaemon. It became a dependent state,
contributing a military contingent to the army of its conqueror; and it bound
itself to harbour no Messenians within its borders.
At this period the counsels of Sparta seem to have
been guided by Chilon, whose name became proverbial
for wisdom. It was much about the same time, perhaps shortly after the victory
over Tegea, that Sparta at length succeeded in rounding off the frontier of
Laconia on the north-eastern side by wresting the disputed territory of Thyreatis from Argos. The armies of the two states met in
the marchland, but the Spartan kings and the Argive chiefs agreed to decide the
dispute by a combat between three hundred chosen champions on either side. The
story is that all the six hundred were slain except three, one Spartan and two
Argives; and that while the Argives hurried home to announce their victory, the
Spartan— Othryades was his name—remained on the field
and erected a trophy. In any case, the trial was futile, for both parties
claimed the victory and a battle was fought in which the Argives were utterly
defeated. Thyreatis was the last territorial
acquisition of Sparta. She changed her policy, and instead of aiming at gaining
new territory, she endeavoured to make the whole
Peloponnesus a sphere of Lacedaemonian influence. This change of policy was
exhibited in her dealing with Tegea.
The defeat of Argos placed Sparta at the head of the
peninsula. All the Peloponnesian states, except Argos and Achaea, were enrolled
in a loose confederacy, engaging themselves to supply military contingents in
the common interest, Lacedaemon being the leader. The meetings of the
confederacy were held at Sparta, and each member sent representatives. Corinth
readily joined; for Corinth was naturally ranged against Argos, while her
commercial rival, the island state of Aegina, was a friend of Argos. Periander
had already inflicted a blow upon the Argives by seizing Epidaurus and thus
cutting off their nearest communications with Aegina. The other Isthmian state,
Megara, in which the rule of the nobles had been restored, was also enrolled.
Everywhere Sparta exerted her influence to maintain oligarchy, everywhere she
discountenanced democracy; so that her supremacy had important consequences for
the constitutional development of the Peloponnesian states.
In northern Greece the power of the Thessalians was
declining; and thus Sparta became the strongest state in Greece in the second
half of the sixth century. She was on the most friendly terms with Athens
throughout the reign of Pisistratus; but the tyrant was careful to maintain
good relations with Argos also. With Argos herself indeed Athens had no cause
for collision; but the rivalry which existed between Athens and Aegina
naturally ranged Athens and Argos in opposite camps. It was, perhaps, not long
before the accession of Pisistratus that the Athenians had landed forces in
Aegina and had been repulsed with Argive help. The policy of Pisistratus
avoided a conflict with his island neighbour and courted the friendship of
Argos; but the deeper antagonism is shown by the embargo which Argos and Aegina
placed upon the importation of Attic pottery. The excavations of the temple of
the Argive Hera have illustrated this hostile measure; hardly any fragments of
Attic pottery, dating from the period of Pisistratus or fifty years after his
death, have been found in the precinct.
Sect.
4. Fall of the Pisistratids and Intervention of
Sparta
When Pisistratus died, his eldest son Hippias took his
place. Hipparchus helped him in the government, while Thessalus took little or no share in politics. The general policy of Pisistratus, both in
home and foreign affairs, was continued. But the court of Athens seems to have
acquired a more distinctive literary flavour.
Hippias, who was a iearned student of oracles, and
Hipparchus were abreast of the most modern culture. The eminent poets of the
day came to their court. Simonides of Ceos, famous
for his choral odes; Anacreon of Teos, boon companion, singer of wine and love; Lasus of Hermione, who made his mark by novelties in
the treatment of the dithyramb, and amused his leisure hours by composing “ hissless hymns,” in which the sound did not occur—all these
were invited or welcomed by Hipparchus. One of the most prominent figures in
this society was Onomacritus, a religious teacher, who took part in preparing
the new edition of Homer.
The first serious blow aimed at the power of the
tyrants was due to a personal grudge, not to any widespread dissatisfaction;
but nevertheless it produced a series of effects which resulted in fall of
the tyranny. It would seem—but conflicting accounts of the affair were in
circulation—that Hipparchus gave offence to a comely young man named Harmodius
and his lover Aristogiton. It is said that Hipparchus
was in love with Harmodius, and, when his wooing was rejected, avenged himself
by putting a slight on the youth’s sister, refusing to allow her to “bear a
basket” in the Panathenaic procession. Harmodius and Aristogiton then formed the plan of slaying the tyrants, and chose the day of that
procession, because they could then, without raising suspicion, appear publicly
with arms. Very few were initiated in the plot, as it was expected that when
the first blow was struck, the citizens would declare themselves for freedom.
But, as the hour approached, it was observed that one of the conspirators was
engaged in speech with Hippias in the outer Ceramicus.
His fellows leapt hastily to the conclusion that their plot was betrayed, and,
giving up the idea of attacking Hippias, rushed to the market-place and slew
Hipparchus near the Leokorion. Harmodius was cut down
by the mercenaries, and Aristogiton, escaping for the
moment, was afterwards captured, tortured, and put to death.
At the time no sympathy was manifested, little perhaps
felt, for the conspirators. But their act led to a complete change in the
government of Hippias. Not knowing what ramifications the plot might have, and
what dangers might still lurk about his feet, he became a hard and suspicious
despot. He fortified Munychia, to have a post on the shore, from which he might
at any hour flee overseas, and he began to turn his eyes towards Persia, where
a new power had begun to cast its shadow over the Hellenic world. Then many
Athenians came to hate him, and longed to shake off the reins of tyranny; and
they began to cherish the memory of Harmodius and Aristogiton as tyrant-slayers.
The overthrow of the tyranny was chiefly brought about
by the Alcmaeonids, who desired to return to Athens, and could not win their
desire so long as the Pisistratids were in power.
They had taken care to cultivate an intimacy with the priesthood of Delphi,
which they now turned to account. The old sanctuary of Apollo had been burned
down by a mischance, and it was resolved to build a new temple at an enormous
cost. A Panhellenic subscription was organised, and
by this means about a quarter of the needed money was raised; the rest was
defrayed from the resources of Delphi. The Alcmaeonids undertook the contract
for the work, and the story went that a frontage of Parian marble was added at
their own expense, poros-stone having been specified
in the agreement. The temple was not unworthy of the greatest shrine of Hellas.
An Athenian poet has sung of the “glancing light of the two fair faces” of the
pillared house of Loxias, and has vividly described
sculptured metopes with heroes destroying monsters, and a pediment with the
gods quelling the giants. It must have been about the time when the new temple
was approaching its completion, or soon after, that to the holy buildings of
Delphi was added one of the richest of all. The islanders of Siphnos spent some of the wealth which they dug out of
their gold-mines, in making themselves a treasury at the mid-centre of the earth, and its remains, recently recovered,
show us the richness of its decoration. Perhaps the building marks the height
of Siphnian prosperity. Before a hundred years had
passed, their supply of precious metal was withdrawn; their miners had got
below the sea-level, and the water filtering in cut them off from the sources
of their wealth.
Large sums of money passed through the hands of the
Alcmaeonids during the building of the temple, and their enemies said that this
enabled them to hire mercenaries for their design on Attica. Their first
attempt was a failure. They and other exiles seized Leipsydrion,
a strong position on a spur of Mount Pames looking
down on Paeanidae and Achamae;
but they were too few to take the field by themselves, and the people had no
desire to drive out the tyrant for the sake of setting up an oligarchy of
nobles. They were soon forced to abandon their fortress and leave Attica.
Convinced that they could only accomplish their schemes by foreign help, they
used their influence with the Delphic oracle to put pressure on Sparta.
Accordingly, whenever the Spartans sent to consult the god, the response always
was: “ First free Athens.”
It has been already said that the Pisistratids cultivated the friendship of Sparta, and after his brother’s murder Hippias was
more anxious than ever not to break with her. But the diplomacy of the
Alcmaeonids, of whose clan Cleisthenes, son of Megacles, was at this time head,
supported as it was by the influence of Delphi, finally prevailed, and the
Spartans consented to force freedom upon Athens. Perhaps they thought the
dealings of Hippias with Persia suspicious; he had married his daughter Archedice to a son of the tyrant of Lampsacus, who was
known to have influence at the Persian court.
A first expedition of the Spartans under Anchimolius was utterly routed with the help of a body of
Thessalian cavalry; but a second led by king Cleomenes defeated the
Thessalians, and Hippias was blockaded in the Acropolis. When his children,
whom he was sending secretly into safety abroad, fell into the hands of his
enemies, he capitulated, and, on condition that they were given back, undertook
to leave Attica within five days. He and all his house departed to Sigeum; and a pillar was set up on the Acropolis, recording
the sentence which condemned the Pisistratids to
perpetual disfranchisement (atimia).
Thus the tyrants had fallen, and with the aid of
Sparta Athens was free. It was not surprising that when she came to value her
liberty she loved to turn away from the circumstances in which it was actually
won and linger over the romantic attempt of Harmodius and Aristogiton,
which might be considered at least the prelude to the fall of Hippias. A
drinking-song, breathing the spirit of liberty, celebrated the two friends who
slew the tyrant; Harmodius and Aristogiton became
household words. A skilful sculptor Antenor wrought a
commemorative group of the two tyrant-slayers, and it was set up, not very many
years later, above the market-place.
The Athenian republic had to pay, indeed, something
for its deliverance. It was obliged to enter into the Peloponnesian league, of
which Sparta was the head; and thus Sparta acquired a certain right of
interference in the affairs of Athens. This new obligation was destined to lead
soon to another struggle.
Sect.
5. King Cleomenes and the Second Spartan Intervention
It is necessary here to digress for a moment to tell
of the strange manner of the birth of king Cleomenes, who liberated Athens. His
father king Anaxandridas was wedded to his niece, but she had no children.
The Ephors, heedful that the royal family of the Agids should not die out, urged him to put her away, and when he gainsaid, they
insisted that he should take a second wife into his house. This he did, and
Cleomenes was born. But soon afterwards his first wife, hitherto childless,
bore a son, who was named Doricus. When the old king
died, it was ruled that Cleomenes as the eldest should succeed, and Doricus, who had looked forward to the kingship, was forced
to leave Sparta. He went forth to seek his fortune in lands beyond the sea;
having attempted to plant a settlement in Libya, he led an expedition of
adventure to the west; he took part in a war of Croton with Sybaris, and then
fared to Sicily, with the design of founding a new city in the south-west
country, yet he did not bring his purpose to pass, for he fell in a battle
against the Carthaginians and their Elymian allies.
It must also be told that after the birth of Dorieus his mother brought
Anaxandridas two other sons, Leonidas and Cleombrotus,
both of whom we shall meet hereafter.
After the expulsion of the tyrant, the Athenians had
to deal with the political problems, whose solution, fifty years before, had
been postponed by the tyranny. The main problem was to modify the constitution
of Solon in such a way as to render it practicable. The old evils which had
hindered the realisation of Solon’s democracy reared
their heads again as soon as Hippias had been driven out and the Spartans had
departed. The strife of factions, led by noble and influential families, broke
out; and the Coast and Plain seem to have risen again in the parties of the
Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes and his rival Isagoras. As Cleisthenes had been the most
active promoter of the revolution, Isagoras was naturally supported by the
secret adherents of the tyrant’s house. The struggle at first turned in favour of Isagoras, who was elected to the chief
magistracy; but it was only for a moment. Cleisthenes won the upper hand by
enlisting on his side superior numbers. He rallied to his cause a host of poor
men who were outside the pale of citizenship, by promising to make them
citizens. Thus the victory of Cleisthenes—and the victory of Cleisthenes was
the victory of reform—was won by the threat of physical force; and in the year
of his rival’s archonship he introduced new democratic measures of law.
Isagoras was so far outnumbered that he had no recourse but appeal to Sparta.
At his instance the Lacedaemonians, who looked with disfavour on democracy, demanded that the Alcmaeonids, as a clan under a curse, should be
expelled from Attica; and Cleisthenes, without attempting resistance, left the
country. But this was not enough. King Cleomenes entered Attica for the second
time; he expelled 700 families pointed out by Isagoras, and attempted to
dissolve the new constitution and to set up an oligarchy. But the whole people
rose in arms; Cleomenes, who had only a small band of soldiers with him, was
blockaded with Isagoras in the Acropolis, and was forced to capitulate on the
third day “in spite of his Spartan spirit.” Cleisthenes could now return with
all the other exiles and complete his work. The event was a check for
Lacedaemon. It was the first, but it was not the last, time that Athenian
oligarchs sought Spartan intervention and Spartan men-at-arms held the hill of
Athena.
Sect.
6. Reform of Cleisthenes
Solon created the institutions, and constructed the
machinery, of the Athenian democracy. We have seen why this machinery would not
work. The fatal obstacle to its success was the political strength of the
clans; and Solon, by retaining the old Ionic tribes, had therewith retained the
clan organisation as a base of his constitution. In
order therefore to make democracy a reality, it was indispensable to deprive
the clans of political significance and substitute a new organisation.
Another grave evil during the past century had been the growth of local
parties; Attica had been split up into political sections. The memorable
achievement of Cleisthenes was the invention of a totally new organisation, a truly brilliant and, as the event proved,
practical scheme, which did away with the Ionic tribes, abolished the political
influence of the phratries and clans, and Abolition superseded the system of
the Naucraries; thus removing the danger of the undue
preponderance of social influence or local parties, and securing to the whole
body of citizens a decisive and permanent part in the conduct of public
affairs.
Taking the map of Attica as he found it, consisting of
between one and two hundred demes or small districts, Cleisthenes distinguished
three regions: the region of the city, the region of the Three coast, and the
inland. In each of these regions he divided the demes into
ten groups called trittyes, so
that there were thirty such trittyes in
all, and each trittys was named
after the chief deme which was included in it. Out of
the thirty he then formed ten groups of three, in such a way that no
group contained two trittyes from the same region.
Each of these groups constituted a tribe, and the citizens of all the demes
contained in its three trittyes were
fellow-tribesmen. Thus Kydathenaion, a trittys of the city region, was combined with Paeania, a trittys of the inland,
and Myrrhinus, a trittys of
the coast, to form the tribe of Pandionis. The ten
new tribes thus obtained were called after eponymous heroes chosen by the
Delphic priestess. The heroes had their priests and sanctuaries, and their
statues stood in front of the senate-house in the Agora.
Both the tribes and the demes were corporations with
officers, assemblies, and corporate property. The demarch or president of the
deme kept the burgess list of the place, in which was solemnly entered the name
of each citizen when he reached the age of seventeen. The organisation of the army depended on the tribes, each of which contributed a regiment of
hoplites and a squadron of horse. The trittys had no
independent constitution of this kind, no corporate existence, and consequently
it appears little in official documents. But it was the scarce visible pivot on
which the Cleisthenic system revolved, the link
between the demes and the tribes. By its means a number of groups of people in
various parts of Attica, without community of local interest, were brought
together at Athens, political action. Thus an organisation created for a purely political purpose was substituted for an organisation which was originally social and had been
adapted to political needs. The ten new tribes, based on artificial geography,
took the place of the our old tribes, based on birth. The incorporate trittys, which had no independent existence, but merely
represented the relation between the tribe and the deme, took the place of the
independent and active phratry. And the deme, a local unit, replaced the social
unit of the clan. This scheme of Cleisthenes, with the artificial trittys and the artificially formed tribe, might seem
almost too artificial to last. The secret of its permanence lay in the fact
that the demes, the units on which it was built up, were natural divisions,
which he did not attempt to reduce to a round number.
It must have taken some time to bring this reform into
full working order. The first list of demesmen on the new system decided the
deme of all their descendants. A man might change his home and reside in
another deme, but he still remained a member of the deme to which he originally
belonged. Henceforward in official documents men were distinguished by their
demes instead of, as heretofore, by their fathers’ names. All Attica was
included in this system except Eleutherae and Oropus
on the frontier, which were treated as subject districts and belonged to no
tribe.
The political purpose and significance of this reorganisation, which entitles its author to be called the
second founder of the of democracy, lay in its connexion with a reformed Council. As the existing Council of Four Hundred had been based
on the four Ionic tribes, Cleisthenes devised a Council of Five Hundred based
on his ten new tribes. Each tribe contributed fifty members, of which each deme
returned a fixed number, according to its size. They were probably appointed by
lot from a number of candidates chosen by each deme; but the preliminary
election was afterwards abolished, and Oand forty
years later they were appointed entirely by lot. All those on whom the lot fell
were proved, as to the integrity of their private and public life, by the
outgoing Council, which had the right of rejecting the unfit. They took an oath
when they entered upon office that they would “advise what is best for the
city”; and they were responsible for their acts, when they laid it down.
This Council, in which every part of Attica was
represented, was (1) the supreme administrative authority in the state. “In
conjunction with the various magistrates it managed most of the public
affairs.” An effective control was exerted on the archons and other
magistrates, who were obliged to present reports to the Council and receive the
Council’s orders. All the finances of the state were practically in its hands,
and ten new finance officers called apodektai (one from each tribe) acted under its direction.
It seems, moreover, from the very first to have been invested with judicial
powers in matters concerning the public finance, and with the right of fining
officials. Further, the Council acted as a ministry of public works, and even
as a ministry of war. It may also be regarded as the ministry of foreign
affairs, for it conducted negotiations with foreign states, and received their
envoys. It had no powers of declaring war or concluding a treaty; these powers
resided solely in the sovereign Assembly. But the Council was not only an
administrative body, it was a deliberative assembly, and had the initiation in
all legislation. No proposal could come before the Ecclesia unless it had
already been proposed and considered in the Council. Every law passed in the
Ecclesia was first sent down from the Council in the form of a probuleuma, and,
on receiving a majority of votes in the Ecclesia, became a psephisma. Again, the Council had
some general as well as some special judicial functions. It formed a Judicial court
before which impeachments could be brought, as well as before the Assembly, and
in these cases it could either pass sentence or hand them over to another
court.
It is obvious that the administrative duties could not
be conveniently conducted by a body of five hundred constantly sitting.
Accordingly the year of 360 days was divided into ten parts, and the councillors of each tribe took it in turn to act as a
committee for carrying on public business during a tenth of the year. In this
capacity as members of the acting committee of fifty, the councillors were called Prytaneis or presidents, the tribe to which they belonged was said to be the presiding,
and the divisions of this artificial year were called prytanies. It was incumbent on
the chairman, along with one trittys, of the
committee, to live permanently during his prytany in
the Tholos, a round building, where the presidents met and dined at the public
expense. The Tholos or Skias was on the south side of
the Agora, close to the Council-hall. The old prytaneion still remained in use as the office of the archon and the hearth of the city.
Cleisthenes invented an ingenious arrangement
for bringing his official year into general harmony with the civil year, so
that the beginning one should not diverge too far from the beginning of
the other. The civil year was supposed to begin as nearly as possible to the
first new moon after the summer solstice; and the difference a between the
lunar twelvemonth and the solar revolution was provided for a cycle of eight
years, in the first, third, and sixth of which additional months were intercalated.
The ordinary year consisted of 354, the intercalated of 384 days. Cleisthenes,
taking 360 as the number of days in his official year, was also obliged to
intercalate, but not so often. He adopted a cycle of five years, and once in
each cycle an intercalary month of 30 days was introduced. But this month was
not always inserted in the same year of the cycle. It was here that Cleisthenes
brought his quinquennial into line with the octennial system. The extraordinary
official month was intercalated in the first year of the official cycle that
coincided with an intercalary year of the civil cycle. The new institution of
Cleisthenes began to work in 503-2 B.C.—the first year of an octennial cycle.
The first Cleisthenic year began on the 1st of Hecatombaeon, the first month of the civil calendar; it
would not begin on that day again till forty years hence.
In opening the citizenship to a large number of people
who had hitherto been excluded, Cleisthenes was only progressing along the path
of Solon. He seems to have retained the Solonian restrictions on eligibility
for the higher offices of state. It is just possible that he may have set the
knights, in this respect, on a level with the Pentacosiomedimni;
but the two lower classes were still excluded from the archonship; the third
class remained ineligible for another half-century. But this conservatism of
Cleisthenes might be easily misjudged. We must remember that since the days of
Solon time itself had been doing the work of a democratic reformer. The money
value of five hundred medimni was a much lower rating
at the end than it had been at the beginning of the sixth century. Trade had
increased and people had grown richer.
The new tribes of Cleisthenes led to a change in the
military organisation. Each of the ten tribes was
required to supply regiment of hoplites and a squadron of horsemen; and the
hoplites were commanded by ten generals whom the people elected from each
tribe. The office of general was destined hereafter to become the most important
in the state; but at first he was merely the commander of the tribal regiment.
The Athenian Council instituted by Cleisthenes shows
that Greek statesmen understood the principle of representative government.
That Council is an excellent example of representation with a careful
distribution of seats according to the size of the electorates; and it was
practically the governing body of the state. But though Greek statesmen
understood the principle, they always hesitated to entrust to a representative
assembly sovereign powers of legislation. The reason mainly lay in the fact
that, owing to the small size of the city-state, an Assembly which every
citizen who chose could attend was a practicable institution; and the
fundamental principle, that supreme legislative power is exercised by the
people itself, could be literally applied. But while we remember that the
Council could not legislate, although its co-operation was indispensable to the
making of laws, we may say that its function will be misunderstood if it be
either conceived as a sort of Second Chamber or compared to a body like the Roman
Senate. It was a popular representative assembly, and from it were taken
(though on a totally different principle) committees which performed in part
the administrative functions of our “Government.” It had a decisive influence
on legislation; and here the influence of the Council on the Ecclesia must be
rather compared to the influence of the Government on our House of Commons. But
the ratification given by the Assembly to the proposals sent down by the
Council was often as purely formal as the ratification by the Crown of bills
passed in Parliament.
Sect.
7. First Victories of the Democracy
The Athenian republic had now become a democracy in
the fullest sense, and the new government was hardly established before it was
called upon to prove its capacity. King Cleomenes, who was the greatest man in
Greece at the time, could not rest without attempting to avenge the humiliation
which he had recently endured at the hands of the Athenian people. The man who
had pulled down one tyrant now proposed to set up another. Isagoras, who had
hitherto aimed at establishing an oligarchy, now, it would seem, came forward
as an aspirant to the tyrannis. Cleomenes arranged with the Boeotians and the
Chalcidians a joint attack upon Attica. While the Lacedaemonians and their
allies invaded from the south, the Boeotians were to come down from Mount
Cithaeron, and the men of Chaicis were to cross the
Euripus; the land was to be assailed on three sides at the same moment.
The Peloponnesian host under the two kings, Cleomenes
and Demaratus, passed the isthmus and occupied Eleusis; and the Athenians
marched to the Eleusinian plain. But the peril on this side passed away without
a blow. The Corinthians, on second thoughts, disapproved of the expedition, as
unjust, and returned to Corinth. At this time Aegina was the most formidable
commercial rival of Corinth, and it therefore suited Corinthian interests to
encourage the rising power of Aegina’s enemy. This action of the Corinthians
disconcerted the whole army, and the situation was aggravated by the discord
between the Spartan leaders, Cleomenes and Demaratus. In the end the army broke
up, and there was nothing left for Cleomenes but to return home. His attempt to
thrust a tyranny had been as unsuccessful as his previous attempt to thrust an
oligarchy upon Athens. For the second time the Athenian democracy had been
saved from Spartan coercion. A hundred years hence, indeed, that coercion was
to befall her; Cleomenes is the forerunner of Lysander, who will amply avenge
him.
The Theban leaders of Boeotia had readily concurred in
the Spartan plan, for they had a recent cause of offence against Athens. The
town of Plataea, on the Boeotian slope of Mount Cithaeron, was determined to
retain her independence and hold aloof from the Boeotian league, which was
under the supremacy of Thebes. The Plataeans applied in the first instance to
Sparta; but as Sparta was unwilling to interfere, they sought and obtained the
help of Athens. This was the beginning of a long friendship between Athens and
Plataea, based on mutual interest. Plataea depended on the support of Athens to
maintain her independence in Boeotia; while it suited Athens to have a small
friendly power on the other side of Cithaeron—a sort of watchtower against
Thebes. The Athenians went to the protection of Plataea, but the threatened
conflict was averted by the intervention of Corinth. The Corinthian arbitration
ruled that Boeotian cities which did not wish to join the league must not be
coerced. But, as they were departing, the Athenians were treacherously attacked
by the Thebans, and, winning a victory, they fixed the river Asopus as the
southern boundary of the territory of Thebes. The Athenians acquired, by this
expedition, a post in Boeotia itself—the town of Hysiae,
on the northern slope of Cithaeron.
On the approach of the Peloponnesian army, the
Boeotians had seized Hysiae, and crossing the pass of
Cithaeron above it had taken Oenoe on the upper Attic slopes. When Cleomenes
and the Peloponnesians retreated, the Athenian army marched northward to check
the knights of Chalcis who were ravaging the northern demes of Attica. The
Boeotian forces then withdrew into their own land and moved northwards too, in
order to join the Chalcidians. But the Athenians, who must have been generalled by an able polemarch, succeeded in encountering
their two foes singly. They intercepted the Boeotians near the straits and won
a complete victory. Then they crossed the straits, for the Chalcidians had
retired to their island, and fought another battle, no less decisive, with the
horsemen of Chaicis. The defeat of the Chalcidians
was so crushing that they were forced to cede to Athens a large part of that
rich Lelantine plain whose possession in old days
they had disputed so hotly with Eretria. But this was not all. A multitude of
Chalcidians and Boeotians had been made prisoners; they were kept fettered in
bitter bondage until their countrymen ransomed them at two minas a man. We
cannot withhold our sympathy from the Athenian people if they dealt out hard
measure to those whom the Spartan king had so unjustly stirred up against them.
The “gloomy iron chains” in which “they quenched the insolence” of their foes
were proudly preserved on the Acropolis, and with a tithe of the ransom they
dedicated to Athena a bronze chariot.
A portico commemorative of this victory was set up
within the sanctuary of Delphi. “The Athenians dedicated the portico, with the
arms and figureheads which they took from their foes”—so runs the dedicatory
inscription found in recent years on a step of the ruined building. It would
appear from this that the Athenians captured and destroyed the ships of
Chalcis. If the victory had been some twenty years later, Athens would have
added them to her own fleet; but she had not yet come to discern that her true
element was the sea.
The democracy had not only brilliantly defended
itself, but had won a new territory. The richest part of the Chalcidian plain
was divided into lots among two thousand Athenian citizens, who transported
their homes to the fertile region beyond the straits—probably under the same
conditions as the cleruchs of Salamis.
These outsettlers retained
all their rights as citizens; they remained members of their demes and tribes.
The Salaminians were so near Athens that it was
easier for them than for most of the inhabitants of Attica to attend a meeting
of the Ecclesia and the plain of Chalcis
was not farther than Sunium from Athens.
And not only beyond the sea was new territory
acquired, but on the borders of Attica itself. This at least is the only
occasion to which we can well assign the annexation of the march district of
Oropus, the land of the people who gave to the Hellenic race its European name.
It had come under the sway of Eretria, had adopted the Eretrian dialect which
it was to retain throughout future vicissitudes, and was the last part of
Boeotia to be annexed by the Boeotian power of Thebes. This fertile little
plain was destined to be a constant subject of discord between Boeotia and
Athens, as it had before been a source of strife between Eretria and Boeotia ;
but it was now to remain subject to Athens for nearly a hundred years. Subject
to Athens, not Athenian; the men of sOropus, like the
men of Eleutherae, never became Athenian citizens.
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