History of Greece, Volume 03 (of 12)

[1] Thucyd. i, 13.

[2] Thucyd. i, 13.

[3] Plutarch, Amator. Narrat. c. 2, p. 772; Diodor. Fragm. lib. viii, p. 26. Alexander, Ætolus (Fragm. i, 5, ed. Schneidewin), and the Scholiast ad Apollon. Rhod. iv, 1212, seem to connect this act of outrage with the expulsion of the Bacchiadæ from Corinth, which did not take place until long afterwards.

[4] The first account seems referred to Dêmôn (an author of about 280 B. C., and a collector of Attic archæology, or what is called Ἀτθιδόγραφος. See Phanodêmi, Dêmônis, Clitodêmi, atque Istri, Ἀτθίδων, Fragmenta, ed. Siebelis, Præfatio, pp. viii-xi), and is given as the explanation of the locution—ὁ Διὸς Κόρινθος. See Schol. ad Pindar. Nem. vii, ad finem; Schol. Aristophan. Ran. 440: the Corinthians seem to have represented their eponymous hero as son of Zeus, though other Greeks did not believe them (Pausan. ii, 1, 1). That the Megarians were compelled to come to Corinth for demonstration of mourning on occasion of the decease of any of the members of the Bacchiad oligarchy, is, perhaps, a story copied from the regulation at Sparta regarding the Periœki and Helots (Herod. vi, 57; Pausan. iv, 14, 3; Tyrtæus, Fragm.). Pausanias conceives the victory of the Megarians over the Corinthians, which he saw commemorated in the Megarian θησαυρὸς at Olympia, as having taken place before the 1st Olympiad, when Phorbas was life-archon at Athens: Phorbas is placed by chronologers fifth in the series from Medon, son of Codrus (Pausan. i, 39, 4; vi, 19, 9). The early enmity between Corinth and Megara is alluded to in Plutarch, De Malignitate Herodoti, p. 868, c. 35.

The second story noticed in the text is given by Plutarch, Quæstion. Græc. c. 17, p. 295, in illustration of the meaning of the word Δορύξενος.

[5] Pausanias, i, 44, 1, and the epigram upon Orsippus in Boeckh, Corpus Inscript. Gr. No. 1050, with Boeckh’s commentary.

[6] See a striking passage in Plutarch. Præcept. Reipubl. Gerend. c. 5, p. 801.

[7] Plutarch, Pyrrh. c. 5. Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 1.

[8] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 1.

[9] See this subject discussed in the admirable collection of letters, called the Federalist, written in 1787, during the time when the federal constitution of the United States of America was under discussion.—Letters 9, 10, 14, by Mr. Madison.

“Il est de la nature d’une république (says Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, viii, 16) de n’avoir qu’un petit territoire: sans cela, elle ne peut guère subsister.”

[10] David Hume, in his Essay xii (vol. i, p. 159, ed. 1760), after remarking “that all kinds of government, free and despotic, seem to have undergone in modern times (i. e. as compared with ancient) a great change for the better, with regard both to foreign and domestic management,” proceeds to say:—

“But though all kinds of government be improved in modern times, yet monarchical government seems to have made the greatest advances towards perfection. It may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies, what was formerly said in praise of republics alone, that they are a government of laws, not of men. They are found susceptible of order, method, and constancy to a surprising degree. Property is there secure; industry encouraged; the arts flourish; and the prince lives secure among his subjects, like a father among his children. There are, perhaps, and have been for two centuries, near two hundred absolute princes, great and small, in Europe; and allowing twenty years to each reign, we may suppose that there have been in the whole two thousand monarchs, or tyrants, as the Greeks would have called them; yet of these there has not been one, not even Philip the Second of Spain, so bad as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, who were four in twelve amongst the Roman emperors. It must, however, be confessed, that though monarchical governments have approached nearer to popular ones in gentleness and stability, they are still much inferior. Our modern education and customs instil more humanity and moderation than the ancient, but have not as yet been able to overcome entirely the disadvantages of that form of government.”

[11] See the Lectures of M. Guizot, Cours d’Histoire Moderne, Leçon 30, vol. iii, p. 187, edit. 1829.

[12] M. Augustin Thierry observes, Lettres sur l’Histoire de France, Lettre xvi, p. 235:—

“Sans aucun souvenir de l’histoire Grecque ou Romaine, les bourgeois des onzième et douzième siècles, soit que leur ville fut sous la seigneurie d’un roi, d’un comte, d’un duc, d’un évêque ou d’une abbaye, allaient droit à la république: mais la réaction du pouvoir établi les rejetait souvent en arrière. Du balancement de ces deux forces opposées résultait pour la ville une sort de gouvernement mixte, et c’est ce qui arriva, en général, dans le nord de la France, comme le prouvent les chartes de commune.”

Even among the Italian cities, which became practically self-governing, and produced despots as many in number and as unprincipled in character as the Grecian (I shall touch upon this comparison more largely hereafter), Mr. Hallam observes, that “the sovereignty of the emperors, though not very effective, was in theory always admitted: their name was used in public acts and appeared upon the coin.”—View of the Middle Ages, part i, ch. 3, p. 346, sixth edit.

See also M. Raynouard, Histoire du Droit Municipal en France, book iii, ch. 12, vol. ii. p. 156: “Cette séparation essentielle et fondamentale entre les actes, les agens du gouvernement—et les actes, les agens de l’administration locale pour les affaires locales—cette démarcation politique, dont l’empire Romain avoit donné l’exemple, et qui concilioit le gouvernement monarchique avec une administration populaire—continua plus ou moins expressément sous les trois dynasties.”

M. Raynouard presses too far his theory of the continuous preservation of the municipal powers in towns from the Roman empire down to the third French dynasty; but into this question it is not necessary for my purpose to enter.

[13] In reference to the Italian republics of the Middle Ages, M. Sismondi observes, speaking of Philip della Torre, denominated signor by the people of Como, Vercelli, and Bergamo, “Dans ces villes, non plus que dans celles que son frère s’était auparavant assujetties, le peuple ne croyoit point renoncer à sa liberté: il n’avoit point voulu choisir un maître, mais seulement un protecteur contre les nobles, un capitaine des gens de guerre, et un chef de la justice. L’expérience lui apprit trop tard, que ces prérogatives réunies constituoient un souverain.”—Républiques Italiennes, vol. iii, ch. 20, p. 273.

[14] Herod. iii, 80. Νóμαιά τε κινεῖ πάτρια, καὶ βιᾶται γυναῖκας, κτείνει τε ἀκρίτους.

[15] Euripides (Supplices, 429) states plainly the idea of a τύραννος, as received in Greece the antithesis to laws:—

Compare Soph. Antigon. 737. See, also, the discussion in Aristot. Polit. iii, sect. 10 and 11, in which the rule of the king is discussed in comparison with the government of laws; compare also iv, 8, 2-3. The person called “a king according to law” is, in his judgment, no king at all: Ὁ μὲν γὰρ κατὰ νόμον λεγόμενος βασιλεὺς οὔκ ἐστιν εἶδος καθάπερ εἴπομεν βασιλείας (iii, 11, 1).

Respecting ἰσονομίη, ἰσηγορίη, παῤῥησία,—equal laws and equal speech,—as opposed to monarchy, see Herodot. iii, 142, v. 78-92; Thucyd. iii, 62; Demosthen. ad Leptin. c. 6, p. 461; Eurip. Ion. 671.

Of Timoleon it was stated, as a part of the grateful vote passed after his death by the Syracusan assembly,—ὅτι τοὺς τυράννους καταλύσας,—ἀπέδωκε τοὺς νόμους τοῖς Σικελιώταις (Plutarch. Timoleon. c. 39).

See Karl Fried. Hermann, Griech. Staatsalterthümer, sect. 61-65.

[16] See the account of Deiokês, the first Median king, in Herodotus, i, 98, evidently an outline drawn by Grecian imagination: also, the Cyropædia of Xenophon, viii, 1, 40; viii, 3, 1-14; vii, 5, 37 ... οὐ τούτῳ μόνῳ ἐνόμιζε (Κῦρος) χρῆναι τοὺς ἄρχοντας τῶν ἀρχομένων διαφέρειν τῷ βελτίονας αὐτῶν εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ καταγοητεύειν ᾤετο χρῆναι αὐτοὺς, etc.

[17] David Hume, Essay xvii, On the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences, p. 198, ed. 1760. The effects of the greater or less extent of territory, upon the nature of the government, are also well discussed in Destutt Tracy, Commentaire sur l’Esprit des Loix de Montesquieu, ch. viii.

[18] Aristot. Polit. iii, 9, 7; iii, 10, 7-8.

M. Augustin Thierry remarks, in a similar spirit, that the great political change, common to so large a portion of mediæval Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, whereby the many different communes or city constitutions were formed, was accomplished under great varieties of manner and circumstance; sometimes by violence, sometimes by harmonious accord.

“C’est une controverse qui doit finir, que celle des franchises municipales obtenues par l’insurrection et des franchises municipales accordées. Quelque face du problême qu’on envisage, il reste bien entendu que les constitutions urbaines du xii et du xiii siècle, comme toute espèce d’institutions politiques dans tous les temps, ont pu s’établir à force ouverte, s’octroyer de guerre lasse ou de plein gré, être arrachées ou sollicitées, vendues ou données gratuitement: les grandes révolutions sociales s’accomplissent par tous ces moyens à la fois.”—(Aug. Thierry, Récits des Temps Mérovingiens, Préface, p. 19, 2^de édit.)

[19] Aristot. Polit. iii, 10, 7. Ἐπεὶ δὲ (i. e. after the early kings had had their day) συνέβαινε γίγνεσθαι πολλοὺς ὁμοίους πρὸς ἀρετὴν, οὔκετι ὑπέμενον (τὴν Βασίλειαν), ἀλλ’ ἐζήτουν κοινόν τι, καὶ πολίτειαν καθίστασαν.

Κοινόν τι, a commune, the great object for which the European towns in the Middle Ages, in the twelfth century, struggled with so much energy, and ultimately obtained: a charter of incorporation, and a qualified privilege of internal self-government.

[20] The definition of a despot is given in Cornelius Nepos, Vit. Miltiadis, c. 8: “Omnes habentur et dicuntur tyranni, qui potestate sunt perpetuâ in eâ civitate, quæ libertate usa est:” compare Cicero de Republicâ, ii, 26, 27; iii, 14.

The word τύραννος was said by Hippias the sophist to have first found its way into the Greek language about the time of Archilochus (B. C. 660): Boeckh thinks that it came from the Lydians or Phyrgians (Comment. ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 3439).

[21] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 2, 3, 4. Τύραννος—ἐκ προστατικῆς ῥίζης καὶ οὐκ ἄλλοθεν ἐκβλαστάνει (Plato, Repub. viii, c. 17, p. 565). Οὐδενὶ γὰρ δὴ ἄδηλον, ὅτι πᾶς τύραννος ἐκ δημοκόλακος φύεται (Dionys. Halic. vi, 60): a proposition decidedly too general.

[22] Aristot. iii, 9, 5; iii, 10, 1-10; iv, 8, 2. Αἰσυμνῆται—αὐτοκράτορες μόναρχοι ἐν τοῖς ἀρχαίοις Ἕλλησι—αἱρετὴ τυραννίς: compare Theophrastus, fragment. περὶ Βασιλείας, and Dionys. Hal. A. R. v, 73-74; Strabo, xiii, p. 617; and Aristot. Fragment. Rerum Publicarum, ed. Neumann, p. 122, Κυμαίων Πολιτεία.

[23] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 2, 3, 4; v, 4, 5. Aristotle refers to one of the songs of Alkæus as his evidence respecting the elevation of Pittakus: a very sufficient proof doubtless,—but we may see that he had no other informants, except the poets, about these early times.

[24] Dionys. Hal. A. R. vii, 2, 12. The reign of Aristodemus falls about 510 B. C.

[25] Thucyd. i, 17. Τύραννοι δὲ ὅσοι ἦσαν ἐν ταῖς Ἑλληνικαῖς πόλεσι, τὸ ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν μόνον προορώμενοι ἔς τε τὸ σῶμα καὶ ἐς τὸ τὸν ἴδιον οἶκον αὔξειν δι᾽ ἀσφαλείας ὅσον ἐδύναντο μάλιστα, τὰς πόλεις ᾤκουν.

[26] Wachsmuth (Hellenische Alterthumskunde, sect. 49-51) and Tittmann (Griechisch. Staatsverfassungen, pp. 527-533) both make too much of the supposed friendly connection and mutual good-will between the despot and the poorer freemen. Community of antipathy against the old oligarchy was a bond essentially temporary, dissolved as soon as that oligarchy was put down.

[27] Aristot. Polit. v, 4, 4; 7, 3. Ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ἀρχαίων, ὅτε γένοιτο ὁ αὐτὸς δημαγωγὸς καὶ στρατηγὸς, εἰς τυραννίδα μετέβαλλον· σχεδὸν γὰρ οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν ἀρχαίων τυράννων ἐκ δημαγωγῶν γεγόνασι. Αἴτιον δὲ τοῦ τότε μὲν γενέσθαι, νῦν δὲ μὴ, ὅτι τότε μὲν, οἱ δημαγωγοὶ ἦσαν ἐκ τῶν στρατηγούντων· οὐ γάρ πω δεινοὶ ἦσαν λέγειν· νῦν δὲ, τῆς ῥητορικῆς ηὐξημένης, οἱ δυνάμενοι λέγειν δημαγωγοῦσι μὲν, δι’ ἀπειρίαν δὲ τῶν πολεμικῶν οὐκ ἐπιτίθενται, πλὴν εἴ που βραχύ τι γέγονε τοιοῦτον.

[28] Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 20. The whole tenor of this eighth chapter (of the fifth book) shows how unrestrained were the personal passions,—the lust as well as the anger,—of a Grecian τύραννος.

Τόν τοι τύραννον εὐσεβεῖν οὐ ῥᾴδιον (Sophokles ap. Schol. Aristides, vol. iii, p. 291, ed. Dindorf).

[29] Aristot. Polit. iii, 8, 3; v, 8, 7. Herodot. v, 92. Herodotus gives the story as if Thrasybulus had been the person to suggest this hint by conducting the messenger of Periander into a cornfield and there striking off the tallest ears with his stick: Aristotle reverses the two, and makes Periander the adviser: Livy (i, 54) transfers the scene to Gabii and Rome, with Sextus Tarquinius as the person sending for counsel to his father at Rome. Compare Plato, Republ. viii, c. 17, p. 565; Eurip. Supplic. 444-455.

The discussion which Herodotus ascribes to the Persian conspirators, after the assassination of the Magian king, whether they should constitute the Persian government as a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy, exhibits a vein of ideas purely Grecian, and altogether foreign to the Oriental conception of government: but it sets forth,—briefly, yet with great perspicuity and penetration,—the advantages and disadvantages of all the three. The case made out against monarchy is by far the strongest, while the counsel on behalf of monarchy assumes as a part of his case that the individual monarch is to be the best man in the state. The anti-monarchical champion Otanes concludes a long string of criminations against the despot, with these words above-noticed: “He subverts the customs of the country: he violates women: he puts men to death untried.” (Herod. iii, 80-82.)

[30] Thucyd. ii, 63. Compare again the speech of Kleon, iii, 37-40,—ὡς τυραννίδα γὰρ ἔχετε αὐτὴν, ἣν λαβεῖν μὲν ἄδικον δοκεῖ εἶναι, ἀφεῖναι δὲ ἐπικίνδυνον.

The bitter sentiment against despots seems to be as old as Alkæus, and we find traces of it in Solon and Theognis (Theognis, 38-50; Solon, Fragm. vii, p. 32, ed. Schneidewin). Phanias of Eresus had collected in a book the “Assassinations of Despots from revenge.” (Τυράννων ἀναιρέσεις ἐκ τιμωρίας,—Athenæus, iii, p. 90; x, p. 438.)

[31] See the story of Mæandrius, minister and successor of Polykratês of Samos, in Herodotus, iii, 142, 143.

[32] Thucyd. vi, 54. The epitaph of Archedikê, the daughter of Hippias (which was inscribed at Lampsakus, where she died), though written by a great friend of Hippias, conveys the sharpest implied invective against the usual proceedings of the despots:—

The position of Augustus at Rome, and of Peisistratus at Athens, may be illustrated by a passage in Sismondi, Républiques Italiennes, vol. iv, ch. 26, p. 208:—

“Les petits monarques de chaque ville s’opposaient eux-mêmes à ce que leur pouvoir fût attribué à un droit héréditaire, parce que l’hérédité aurait presque toujours été retorquée contre eux. Ceux qui avaient succédé à une république, avaient abaissé des nobles plus anciens et plus illustres qu’eux: ceux qui avaient succédé à d’autres seigneurs n’avaient tenu aucun compte du droit de leurs prédécesseurs, et se sentaient intéressés à le nier. Ils se disaient donc mandataires du peuple: ils ne prenaient jamais le commandement d’une ville, lors même qu’ils l’avaient soumise par les armes, sans se faire attribuer par les anciens ou par l’assemblée du peuple, selon que les uns ou les autres se montraient plus dociles, le titre et les pouvoirs de seigneur général, pour un an, pour cinq ans, ou pour toute leur vie, avec une paie fixée, qui devoit être prise sur les deniers de la communauté.”

[33] Consult, especially, the treatise of Xenophon, called Hiero, or Τυραννικὸς, in which the interior life and feelings of the Grecian despot are strikingly set forth, in a supposed dialogue with the poet Simonides. The tenor of Plato’s remarks in the eighth and ninth books of the Republic, and those of Aristotle in the fifth book (ch. 8 and 9) of the Politics, display the same picture, though not with such fulness of detail. The speech of one of the assassins of Euphrôn (despot of Sikyon) is remarkable, as a specimen of Grecian feeling (Xenoph. Hellen. vii, 3, 7-12). The expressions both of Plato and Tacitus, in regard to the mental wretchedness of the despot, are the strongest which the language affords: Καὶ πένης τῇ ἀληθείᾳ φαίνεται, ἐάν τις ὅλην ψυχὴν ἐπίστηται θεάσασθαι, καὶ φόβου γέμων διὰ παντὸς τοῦ βίου, σφαδασμῶν τε καὶ ὀδυνῶν πλήρης ... Ἀνάγκη καὶ εἶναι, καὶ ἔτι μᾶλλον γίγνεσθαι αὐτῷ ἢ πρότερον διὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν, φθονερῷ, ἀπίστῳ, ἀδίκῳ, ἀφίλῳ, ἀνοσίῳ, καὶ πάσης κακίας πανδοκεῖ τε καὶ τροφεῖ, καὶ ἐξ ἁπάντων τούτων μάλιστα μὲν αὐτῷ δυστυχεῖ εἶναι, ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τοὺς πλησίον αὑτῷ τοιούτους ἀπεργάζεσθαι (Republic, ix, p. 580).

And Tacitus, in the well-known passage (Annal. vi, 6): “Neque frustra præstantissimus sapientiæ firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse aspici laniatus et ictus: quando ut corpora verberibus, ita sævitiâ, libidine, malis consultis, animus dilaceretur. Quippe Tiberium non fortuna, non solitudines, protegebant, quin tormenta pectoris suasque ipse pœnas fateretur.”

It is not easy to imagine power more completely surrounded with all circumstances calculated to render it repulsive to a man of ordinary benevolence: the Grecian despot had large means of doing harm,—scarcely any means of doing good. Yet the acquisition of power over others, under any conditions, is a motive so all-absorbing, that even this precarious and anti-social sceptre was always intensely coveted,—Τυραννὶς, χρῆμα σφαλερὸν, πολλοὶ δὲ αὐτῆς ἐρασταί εἰσι (Herod. iii, 53). See the striking lines of Solon (Fragment, vii, ed. Schneidewin), and the saying of Jason of Pheræ, who used to declare that he felt incessant hunger until he became despot,—πεινῇν, ὅτε μὴ τυραννοῖ· ὡς οὐκ ἐπιστάμενος ἰδιώτης εἶναι (Aristot. Polit. iii, 2, 6).

[34] See the beautiful Skolion of Kallistratus, so popular at Athens, xxvii, p. 456, apud Schneidewin, Poet. Græc.—Ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω, etc.

Xenophon, Hiero, ii, 8. Οἱ τύραννοι πάντες πανταχῆ ὡς διὰ πολεμίας πορεύονται. Compare Isokrates, Or. viii (De Pace), p. 182; Polyb. ii, 59; Cicero, Orat. pro Milone, c. 29.

Aristot. Polit. ii, 4, 8. Επεὶ ἀδικοῦσί γε τὰ μέγιστα διὰ τὰς ὑπερβολὰς, ᾿αλλ᾽ οὐ διὰ τἀναγκαῖα· οἶον τυραννοῦσιν, οὐχ ἵνα μὴ ῥιγῶσι· διὸ καὶ αἱ τιμαὶ μεγάλαι, ἂν ἀποκτείνῃ τις, οὐ κλέπτην, ἀλλὰ τύραννον.

There cannot be a more striking manifestation of the sentiment entertained towards a despot in the ancient world, than the remarks of Plutarch on Timoleon, for his conduct in assisting to put to death his brother, the despot Timophanês (Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 4-7, and Comp. of Timoleon with Paulus Æmilius, c. 2). See also Plutarch, Comparison of Dion and Brutus, c. 3, and Plutarch, Præcepta Reipublicæ Gerendæ, c. 11, p. 805; c. 17, p. 813; c. 32, p. 824,—he speaks of the putting down of a despot (τυραννίδων κατάλυσις) as among the most splendid of human exploits,—and the account given by Xenophon of the assassination of Jason of Pheræ, Hellenic. vi, 4, 32.

[35] Livy, xxxviii, 50. “Qui jus æquum pati non possit, in eum vim haud injustam esse.”

[36] Plutarch, Sept. Sapient. Conviv. c. 2, p. 147,—ὡς ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπὸ Μολπαγόρου τοῦ Ἴωνος, τί παραδοξότατον εἴης ἑωρακὼς, ἀποκρίναιο, τύραννον γέροντα.—Compare the answer of Thales, in the same treatise, c. 7, p. 152.

The orator Lysias, present at the Olympic games, and seeing the theors of the Syracusan despot Dionysius also present, in tents with gilding and purple, addressed an harangue, inciting the assembled Greeks to demolish the tents (Lysiæ Λόγος Ὀλυμπιακὸς, Fragm. p. 911, ed. Reisk.; Dionys. Halicar. De Lysiâ Judicium, c. 29-30). Theophrastus ascribed to Themistokles a similar recommendation, in reference to the theôrs and the prize-chariots of the Syracusan despot Hiero (Plutarch, Themistokles, c. 25).

The common-places of the rhetors afford the best proof how unanimous was the sentiment in the Greek mind to rank the despot among the most odious criminals, and the man who put him to death among the benefactors of humanity. The rhetor Theon, treating upon common-places, says: Τόπος ἐστὶ λόγος αὐξητικὸς ὁμολογουμένου πράγματος, ἤτοι ἁμαρτήματος, ἢ ἀνδραγαθήματος. Ἐστὶ γὰρ διττὸς ὁ τόπος· ὁ μέν τις, κατὰ τῶν πεπονηρευμένων, οἷον κατὰ τυράννου, προδότου, ἀνδροφόνου, ἀσώτου· ὁ δέ τις, ὑπὲρ τῶν χρηστόν τι διαπεπραγμένων· οἷον ὑπὲρ τυραννοκτόνου, ἀριστέως, νομοθέτου. (Theon, Progymnasmata, c. vii, ap. Walz. Coll. Rhett. vol. i, p. 222. Compare Aphthonius, Progymn. c. vii, p. 82 of the same volume, and Dionysius Halikarn. Ars Rhetorica, x, 15, p. 390, ed. Reiske.)

[37] Thucyd. i, 13.

[38] Aristot. Polit. iv, 3, 2; 11, 10. Aristot. Rerum Public. Fragm. ed. Neumann. Fragm. v. Εὐβοέων πολιτεῖαι, p. 112; Strabo, x, p. 447.

[39] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 21. An oracle is said to have predicted to the Sikyonians that they would be subjected for the period of a century to the hand of the scourger (Diodor. Fragm. lib. vii-x; Fragm. xiv, ed. Maii).

[40] Herodot. vi, 126; Pausan. ii, 8, 1. There is some confusion about the names of Orthagoras and Andreas; the latter is called a cook in Diodorus (Fragment. Excerpt. Vatic. lib. vii-x, Fragm. xiv). Compare Libanius in Sever. vol. iii, p. 251, Reisk. It has been supposed, with some probability, that the same person is designated under both names: the two names do not seem to occur in the same author. See Plutarch, Ser. Numin. Vind. c. 7, p. 553.

Aristotle (Polit. v, 10, 3) seems to have conceived the dominion as having passed direct from Myrôn to Kleisthenês, omitting Aristônymus.

[41] Pausan. vi, 19, 2. The Eleians informed Pausanias that the brass in these alcoves came from Tartessus (the south-western coast of Spain from the Strait of Gibraltar to the territory beyond Cadiz): he declines to guarantee the statement. But O. Müller treats it as a certainty: “Two apartments inlaid with Tartessian brass, and adorned with Doric and Ionic columns. Both the architectural orders employed in this building, and the Tartessian brass, which the Phocæans had then brought to Greece in large quantities from the hospitable king Arganthonius, attest the intercourse of Myrôn with the Asiatics.” (Dorians, i, 8, 2.) So also Dr. Thirlwall states the fact: “Copper of Tartessus, which had not long been introduced into Greece.” (Hist. Gr. ch. x, p. 483, 2d ed.) Yet, if we examine the chronology of the case, we shall see that the 33d Olympiad (648 B. C.) must have been earlier even than the first discovery of Tartessus by the Greeks,—before the accidental voyage of the Samian merchant Kôlaeus first made the region known to them, and more than half a century (at least) earlier than the commerce of the Phocæans with Arganthonius. Compare Herod. iv. 152; i, 163, 167.

[42] Herodot. v. 67.

[43] See above, vol. ii, p. 129, part i, ch. 21.

[44] Herod. v, 67. Τοῦτον ἐπεθύμησε ὁ Κλεισθένης, ἐόντα Ἀργεῖον, ἐκβαλεῖν ἐκ τῆς χώρης.

[45] Herod. v, 67. Ἐφρόντιζε μηχανὴν τῇ αὐτὸς ὁ Ἄδρηστος ἀπαλλάξεται.

[46] Ἐπαγαγόμενος δὲ ὁ Κλεισθένης τὸν Μελάνιππον, τέμενος οἱ ἀπέδεξε ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ πρυτανηΐῳ, καί μιν ἐνθαῦτα ἵδρυσε ἐν τῷ ἰσχυροτάτῳ. (Herod. ib.)

[47] Julius Pollux, iii, 83; Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 1, p. 291; Theopompus ap. Athenæum, vi, p. 271; Welcker, Prolegomen. ad Theognid. c. 19, p. xxxiv.

As an analogy to this name of Konipodes, we may notice the ancient courts of justice called Courts of Pie-powder in England, Pieds Poudrés.

[48] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 21; Pausan. x, 7, 3.

[49] Herod, v, 68. Τούτοισι τοῖσι οὐνόμασι τῶν φυλέων ἐχρέωντο οἱ Σικυώνιοι, καὶ ἐπὶ Κλεισθένεος ἄρχοντος, καὶ ἐκείνου τεθνεῶτος ἔτι ἐπ᾽ ἔτεα ἑξήκοντα· μετέπειτα μέντοι λόγον σφισι δόντες, μετέβαλον ἐς τοὺς Ὑλλέας καὶ Παμφύλους καὶ Δυμανάτας· τετάρτους δὲ αὐτοῖσι προσέθεντο ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἀδρήστου παιδὸς Αἰγιαλέος τὴν ἐπωνυμίην ποιεύμενοι κεκλῆσθαι Αἰγιαλέας.

[50] The chronology of Orthagoras and his dynasty is perplexing. The commemorative offering of Myron at Olympia is marked for 648 B. C., and this must throw back the beginning of Orthagoras to a period between 680-670. Then we are told by Aristotle that the entire dynasty lasted one hundred years; but it must have lasted, probably, somewhat longer, for the death of Kleisthenês can hardly be placed earlier than 560 B. C. The war against Kirrha (595 B. C.) and the Pythian victory (582 B. C.) fall within his reign: but the marriage of his daughter Agaristê with Megaklês can hardly be put earlier than 570 B. C., if so high; for Kleisthenês the Athenian, the son of that marriage, effected the democratical revolution at Athens in 509 or 508 B. C.: whether the daughter, whom Megaklês gave in marriage to Peisistratus about 554 B. C., was also the offspring of that marriage, as Larcher contends, we do not know.

Megaklês was the son of that Alkmæon who had assisted the deputies sent by Crœsus of Lydia into Greece to consult the different oracles, and whom Crœsus rewarded so liberally as to make his fortune (compare Herod. i, 46; vi, 125): and the marriage of Megaklês was in the next generation after this enrichment of Alkmæon,—μετὰ δὲ, γενεῇ δευτέρῃ ὕστερον (Herod. vi, 126). Now the reign of Crœsus extended from 560-546 B. C. and his deputation to the oracles in Greece appears to have taken place about 556 B. C.; and if this chronology be admitted, the marriage of Megaklês with the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenês cannot have taken place until considerably after 556 B. C. See the long, but not very satisfactory, note of Larcher, ad Herodot. v, 66.

But I shall show grounds for believing, when I recount the interview between Solon and Crœsus, that Herodotus in his conception of events misdates very considerably the reign and proceedings of Crœsus as well as of Peisistratus: this is a conjecture of Niebuhr which I think very just, and which is rendered still more probable by what we find here stated about the succession of the Alkmæonidæ. For it is evident that Herodotus here conceives the adventure between Alkmæon and Crœsus as having occurred one generation (about twenty-five or thirty years) anterior to the marriage between Megaklês and the daughter of Kleisthenês. That adventure will thus stand about 590-585 B. C., which would be about the time of the supposed interview (if real) between Solon and Crœsus, describing the maximum of the power and prosperity of the latter.

[51] Müller, Dorians, book i, 8, 2; Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, vol. i, ch. x, p. 486, 2d ed.

[52] Herod. vi, 127-131. The locution explained is,—Οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ: compare the allusions to it in the Parœmiographi, Zenob. v, 31; Diogenian. vii, 21; Suidas, xi, 45, ed. Schott.

The convocation of the suitors at the invitation of Kleisthenês from all parts of Greece, and the distinctive mark and character of each, is prettily told, as well as the drunken freak whereby Hippokleidês forfeits both the favor of Kleisthenês, and the hand of Agaristê, which he was on the point of obtaining. It seems to be a story framed upon the model of various incidents in the old epic, especially the suitors of Helen.

On one point, however, the author of the story seems to have overlooked both the exigencies of chronology and the historical position and feelings of his hero Kleisthenês. For among the suitors who present themselves at Sikyôn in conformity with the invitation of the latter, one is Leôkêdês, son of Pheidôn the despot of Argos. Now the hostility and vehement antipathy towards Argos, which Herodotus ascribes in another place to the Sikyonian Kleisthenês, renders it all but impossible that the son of any king of Argos could have become a candidate for the hand of Agaristê. I have already recounted the violence which Kleisthenês did to the legendary sentiment of his native town, and the insulting names which he put upon the Sikyonian Dorians,—all under the influence of a strong anti-Argeian feeling. Next, as to chronology: Pheidôn king of Argos lived some time between 760-730; and his son can never have been a candidate for the daughter of Kleisthenês, whose reign falls 600-500 B. C. Chronologers resort here to the usual resource in cases of difficulty: they recognize a second and later Pheidôn, whom they affirm that Herodotus has confounded with the first: or they alter the text of Herodotus, and in place of “son of Pheidôn,” read “descendant of Pheidôn.” But neither of these conjectures rests upon any basis: the text of Herodotus is smooth and clear, and the second Pheidôn is nowhere else authenticated. See Larcher and Wesseling, ad loc.; compare also vol. ii, p. 419, part ii, ch. 4, of this History.

[53] Plutarch, De Herod. Malign. c. 21, p. 859.

[54] Pausan. ii, 4, 9.

[55] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 22; Herodot. v, 92. The tale respecting Kypselus, and his wholesale exaction from the people, contained in the spurious second book of the Œconomica of Aristotle, coincides with the general view of Herodotus (Aristot. Œconom. ii, 2); but I do not trust the statements of this treatise for facts of the sixth or seventh centuries B. C.

[56] Aristot. Polit. v, 9, 2-22; iii, 8, 3; Herodot. v, 92.

[57] Ephorus, Frag. 106, ed. Marx.; Herakleidês Ponticus, Frag. v, ed. Köhler; Nicolaus Damasc. p. 50, ed. Orell.; Diogen. Laërt. i, 96-98; Suidas, v. Κυψελίδων ἀνάθημα.

[58] Herodot. iii, 47-54. He details at some length this tragical story. Compare Plutarch, De Herodoti Malignitat. c. 22, p. 860.

[59] Aristot. Polit. v, 3, 6; 8, 9. Plutarch, Amatorius, c. 23, p. 768, and De Serâ Numinis Vindictâ, c. 7, p. 553. Strabo, vii, p. 325; x, p. 452. Scymnus Chius, v, 454, and Antoninus Liberalis, c. iv, who quotes the lost work called Ἀμβρακικὰ of Athanadas.

[60] See Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ad ann. 625-585 B. C.

[61] Pausan. v, 2, 4; 17, 2. Strabo, viii, p. 353. Compare Schneider, Epimetrum ad Xenophon. Anabas. p. 570. The chest was seen at Olympia, both by Pausanias and by Dio Chrysostom (Or. xi, p. 325, Reiske).

[62] Plutarch, De Herodot. Malign. c. 21, p. 859. If Herodotus had known or believed that the dynasty of the Kypselids at Corinth was put down by Sparta, he could not have failed to make allusion to the fact, in the long harangue which he ascribes to the Corinthian Sosiklês (v, 92). Whoever reads that speech, will perceive that the inference from silence to ignorance is in this case almost irresistible.

O. Müller ascribes to Periander a policy intentionally anti-Dorian,—“prompted by the wish of utterly eradicating the peculiarities of the Doric race. For this reason he abolished the public tables, and prohibited the ancient education.” (O. Müller, Dorians, iii, 8, 3.)

But it cannot be shown that any public tables (συσσίτια), or any peculiar education, analogous to those of Sparta, ever existed at Corinth. If nothing more be meant by these συσσίτια than public banquets on particular festive occasions (see Welcker, Prolegom. ad Theognid. c. 20, p. xxxvii), these are noway peculiar to Dorian cities. Nor does Theognis, v, 270, bear out Welcker in affirming “syssitiorum vetus institutum” at Megara.

[63] Aristot. Polit. v, 4, 5; Rhetor. i, 2, 7.