Part 11 (1/2)
CHAPTER XV.
THE GRECIAN STATES AND COLONIES TO THE PERSIAN WARS.
We come now to consider those States which grew into importance about the middle of the eighth century before Christ, at the close of the legendary period.
(M356) The most important of these was Sparta, which was the leading State. We have seen how it was conquered by Dorians, under Heraclic princes. Its first great historic name was Lycurgus, whom some historians, however, regard as a mythical personage.
(M357) Sparta was in a state of anarchy in consequence of the Dorian conquest, a contest between the kings, aiming at absolute power, and the people, desirous of democratic liberty. At this juncture the king, Polydectes, died, leaving Lycurgus, his brother, guardian of the realm, and of the infant heir to the throne. The future lawgiver then set out on his travels, visiting the other States of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and other countries, and returned to Sparta about the period of the first Olympiad, B.C. 776, with a rich store of wisdom and knowledge. The State was full of disorders, but he inst.i.tuted great reforms, aided by the authority of the Delphic oracle, and a strong party of influential men.
His great object was to convert the citizens of Sparta into warriors united by the strongest bonds, and trained to the severest discipline, governed by an oligarchy under the form of the ancient monarchy. In other words, his object was to secure the ascendency of the small body of Dorian invaders that had conquered Laconia.
(M358) The descendants of these invaders, the Spartans, alone possessed the citizens.h.i.+p, and were equal in political rights. They were the proprietors of the soil, which was tilled by Helots. The Spartans disdained any occupation but war and government. They lived within their city, which was a fortified camp, and ate in common at public tables, and on the simplest fare. Every virtue and energy were concentrated on self-discipline and sacrifice, in order to fan the fires of heroism and self-devotion. They were a sort of stoics-hard, severe, proud, despotic, and overbearing. They cared nothing for literature, or art, or philosophy.
Even eloquence was disdained, and the only poetry or music they cultivated were religions hymns and heroic war songs. Commerce was forbidden by the const.i.tution, and all the luxuries to which it leads. Only iron was allowed for money, and the precious metals were prohibited. Every exercise, every motive, every law, contributed to make the Spartans soldiers, and nothing but soldiers. Their discipline was the severest known to the ancients. Their habits of life were austere and rigid. They were trained to suffer any hards.h.i.+p without complaint.
(M359) Besides these Spartan citizens were the _Perici_-remnants of the old Achaean population, but mixed with an inferior cla.s.s of Dorians. They had no political power, but possessed personal freedom. They were landed proprietors, and engaged in commerce and manufactures.
(M360) Below this cla.s.s were the Helots-pure Greeks, but reduced to dependence by conquest. They were bound to the soil, like serfs, but dwelt with their families on the farms they tilled. They were not bought and sold as slaves. They were the body servants of the Spartan citizens, and were regarded as the property of the State. They were treated with great haughtiness and injustice by their masters, which bred at last an intense hatred.
(M361) All political power was in the hands of the citizen warriors, only about nine thousand in number in the time of Lycurgus. From them emanated all delegated authority, except that of kings. This a.s.sembly, or _ecclesia_, of Spartans over thirty years of age, met at stated intervals to decide on all important matters submitted to them, but they had no right of amendment-only a simple approval or rejection.
(M362) The body to which the people, it would seem, delegated considerable power, was the Senate, composed of thirty members, not under sixty years of age, and elected for life. They were a deliberative body, and judges in all capital charges against Spartans. They were not chosen for n.o.ble birth or property qualifications, but for merit and wisdom.
(M363) At the head of the State, at least nominally, were two kings, who were numbered with the thirty senators. They had scarcely more power than the Roman consuls; they commanded the armies, and offered the public sacrifices, and were revered as the descendants of Hercules.
(M364) The persons of most importance were the ephors, chosen annually by the people, who exercised the chief executive power, and without responsibility. They could even arrest kings, and bring them to trial before the Senate. Two of the five ephors accompanied the king in war, and were a check on his authority.
(M365) It would thus seem that the government of Sparta was a republic of an aristocratic type. There were no others n.o.bler than citizens, but these citizens composed but a small part of the population. They were Spartans-a handful of conquerors, in the midst of hostile people-a body of lords among slaves and subjects. They sympathized with law and order, and detested the democratical turbulence of Athens. They were trained, by their military education, to subordination, obedience, and self-sacrifice.
They, as citizens or as soldiers, existed only for the _State_, and to the State every thing was subordinate. In our times, the State is made for the people; in Sparta, the people for the State. This generated an intense patriotism and self-denial. It also permitted a greater interference of the State in personal matters than would now be tolerated in any despotism in Europe. It made the citizens submissive to a division of property, which if not a perfect community of goods, was fatal to all private fortunes. But the property which the citizens thus shared was virtually created by the Helots, who alone tilled the ground. The wealth of nations is in the earth, and it is its cultivation which is the ordinary source of property. The State, not individual masters, owned the Helots; and they toiled for the citizens. In the modern sense of liberty, there was very little in Sparta, except that which was possessed by the aristocratic citizens-the conquerors of the country-men, whose very occupation was war and government, and whose very amus.e.m.e.nt were those which fostered warlike habits. The Roman citizens did not disdain husbandry, nor the Puritan settlers of New England, but the Spartan citizens despised both this and all trade and manufacture. Never was a haughtier cla.s.s of men than these Spartan soldiers. They exceeded in pride the feudal chieftain.
(M366) Such an exclusive body of citizens, however, jealous of their political privileges, constantly declined in numbers, so that, in the time of Aristotle, there were only one thousand Spartan citizens; and this decline continued in spite of all the laws by which the citizens were compelled to marry, and those customs, so abhorrent to our Christian notions, which permitted the invasion of marital rights for the sake of healthy children.
(M367) As it was to war that the best energies of the Spartans were directed, so their armies were the admiration of the ancient world for discipline and effectiveness. They were the first who reduced war to a science. The general type of their military organization was the phalanx, a body of troops in close array, armed with a long spear and short sword.
The strength of an army was in the heavy armed infantry; and this body was composed almost entirely of citizens, with a small mixture of Perici.
From the age of twenty to sixty, every Spartan was liable to military service; and all the citizens formed an army, whether congregated at Sparta, or absent on foreign service.
Such, in general, were the social, civil, and military inst.i.tutions of Sparta, and not peculiar to her alone, but to all the Dorians, even in Crete; from which we infer that it was not Lycurgus who shaped them, but that they existed independent of his authority. He may have re-established the old regulations, and gave his aid to preserve the State from corruption and decay. And when we remember that the const.i.tution which he re-established resisted both the usurpations of tyrants and the advances of democracy, by which other States were revolutionized, we can not sufficiently admire the wisdom which so early animated the Dorian legislators.
(M368) The Spartans became masters of the country after a long struggle, and it was henceforth called Laconia. The more obstinate Achaeans became Helots. After the conquest, the first memorable event in Spartan history was the reduction of Messenia, for which it took two great wars.
(M369) Messenia has already been mentioned as the southwestern part of the Peloponnesus, and resembling Laconia in its general aspects. The river Parnisus flows through its entire length, as Eurotas does in Laconia, forming fertile valleys and plains, and producing various kinds of cereals and fruits, even as it now produces oil, silk, figs, wheat, maize, cotton, wine, and honey. The area of Messenia is one thousand one hundred and ninety-two square miles, not so large as one of our counties. The early inhabitants had been conquered by the Dorians, and it was against the descendants of these conquerors that the Spartans made war. The murder of a Spartan king, Teleclus, at a temple on the confines of Laconia and Messenia, where sacrifices were offered in common, gave occasion for the first war, which lasted nineteen years, B.C. 743. Other States were involved in the quarrel-Corinth on the side of Sparta, and Sicyon and Arcadia on the part of the Messenians. The Spartans having the superiority in the field, the Messenians retreated to their stronghold of Ithome, where they defended themselves fifteen years. But at last they were compelled to abandon it, and the fortress was razed to the ground. The conquered were reduced to the condition of Helots-compelled to cultivate the land and pay half of its produce to their new masters. The Spartan citizens became the absolute owners of the whole soil of Messenia.
(M370) After thirty-nine years of servitude, a hero arose among the conquered Messenians, Aristomenes, like Judas Maccabeus, or William Wallace, who incited his countrymen to revolt. The whole of the Peloponnesus became involved in the new war, and only Corinth became the ally of Sparta; the remaining States of Argos, Sicyon, Arcadia, and Pisa, sided with the Messenians. The Athenian poet, Tyrtaeus, stimulated the Spartans by his war-songs. In the first great battle, the Spartans were worsted; in the second, they gained a signal victory, so that the Messenians were obliged to leave the open country and retire to the fortress on Mount Ira. Here they maintained themselves eleven years, the Spartans being unused to sieges, and trained only to conflict in the open field. The fortress was finally taken by treachery, and the hero who sought to revive the martial glories of his State fled to Rhodes. Messenia became now, B.C. 668, a part of Laconia, and it was three hundred years before it appeared again in history.
(M371) The Spartans, after the conquest of Messenia, turned their eyes upon Arcadia-that land of shepherds, free and simple and brave like themselves. The city of Tegea long withstood the arms of the Spartans, but finally yielded to superior strength, and became a subject ally, B.C. 560.
Sparta was further increased by a part of Argos, and a great battle, B.C.
547, between the Argives and Spartans, resulted in the complete ascendency of Sparta in the southern part of the Peloponnesus, about the time that Cyrus overthrew the Lydian empire. The Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor invoked their aid against the Persian power, and Sparta proudly rallied in their defense.
(M372) Meanwhile, a great political revolution was going on in the other States of Greece, in no condition to resist the pre-eminence of Sparta, The patriarchal monarchies of the heroic ages had gradually been subverted by the rising importance of the n.o.bility, enriched by conquered lands.
Every conquest, every step to national advancement, brought the n.o.bles nearer to the crown, and the government pa.s.sed into the hands of those n.o.bles who had formerly composed the council of the king. With the growing power of n.o.bles was a corresponding growth of the political power of the people or citizens, in consequence of increased wealth and intelligence.