Part 19 (1/2)

LEGISLATION OF SOLON, 594-593 B.C.

The second step was the legislation of Solon. This celebrated Athenian was accounted among the wisest men of his age. The people held him in high honor and gave him power to make much-needed reforms. At this time the condition of the Attic peasants was deplorable. Many of them had failed to pay their rent to the wealthy landowners, and according to the old custom were being sold into slavery. Solon abolished the custom and restored to freedom all those who had been enslaved for debt. He also limited the amount of land which a n.o.ble might hold. By still another law he admitted even the poorest citizens to the popular a.s.sembly, where they could vote for magistrates and judge of their conduct after their year of office was over. By giving the common people a greater share in the government, Solon helped forward the democratic movement at Athens.

TYRANNY OF PISISTRATUS, 560-527 B.C.

Solon's reforms satisfied neither the n.o.bility nor the commons. The two cla.s.ses continued their rivalry until the disorder of the times enabled an ambitious politician to gain supreme power as a tyrant. [24] He was Solon's own nephew, a n.o.ble named Pisistratus. The tyrant ruled with moderation and did much to develop the Athenian city-state. He fostered agriculture by dividing the lands of banished n.o.bles among the peasants.

His alliances with neighboring cities encouraged the rising commerce of Athens. The city itself was adorned with handsome buildings by architects and sculptors whom Pisistratus invited to his court from all parts of Greece.

REFORMS OF CLISTHENES, 508-507 B.C.

Pisistratus was succeeded by his two sons, but the Athenians did not take kindly to their rule. Before long the tyranny came to an end. The Athenians now found a leader in a n.o.ble named Clisthenes, who proved to be an able statesman. He carried still further the democratic movement begun by Draco and Solon. One of his reforms extended Athenian citizens.h.i.+p to many foreigners and emanc.i.p.ated slaves (”freedmen”) then living in Attica.

This liberal measure swelled the number of citizens and helped to make the Athenians a more progressive people. Clisthenes, it is said, also established the curious arrangement known as ostracism. Every year, if necessary, the citizens were to meet in a.s.sembly and to vote against any persons whom they thought dangerous to the state. If as many as six thousand votes were cast, the man who received the highest number of votes had to go into honorable exile for ten years. [25] Though ostracism was intended as a precaution against tyrants, before long it came to be used to remove unpopular politicians.

ATHENS A DEMOCRATIC STATE

There were still some steps to be taken before the rule of the people was completely secured at Athens. But, in the main, the Athenians by 500 B.C.

had established a truly democratic government, the first in the history of the world. The hour was now rapidly approaching when this young and vigorous democracy was to show forth its worth before the eyes of all Greece.

29. COLONIAL EXPANSION OF GREECE (ABOUT 750-500 B.C.)

THE GREAT AGE OF COLONIZATION

While Athens, Sparta, and their sister states were working out the problems of government, another significant movement was going on in the Greek world. The Greeks, about the middle of the eighth century B.C., began to plant numerous colonies along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean and of the Black Sea. The great age of colonization covered more than two hundred years. [26]

REASONS FOR FOUNDING COLONIES

Several reasons led to the founding of colonies. Trade was an important motive. The Greeks, like the Phoenicians, [27] could realize large profits by exchanging their manufactured goods for the food and raw materials of other countries. Land hunger was another motive. The poor soil of Greece could not support many inhabitants and, when population increased, emigration afforded the only means of relieving the pressure of numbers. A third motive was political and social unrest. Greek cities at this period contained many men of adventurous disposition who were ready to seek in foreign countries a refuge from the oppression of n.o.bles or tyrants. They hoped to find in their new settlements more freedom than they had at home.

CHARACTER OF THE GREEK COLONY

A Greek colony was not simply a trading post; it was a center of Greek life. The colonists continued to be Greeks in customs, language, and religion. Though quite independent of the parent state, they always regarded it with reverence and affection: they called themselves ”men away from home.” Mother city and daughter colony traded with each other and in time of danger helped each other. A symbol of this unity was the sacred fire carried from the public hearth of the old community to the new settlement.

COLONIZATION IN THE NORTH AND EAST

The Greeks planted many colonies on the coast of the northern Aegean and on both sides of the long pa.s.sage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Their most important colony was Byzantium, upon the site where Constantinople now stands. They also made settlements along the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea. The cities founded here were centers from which the Greeks drew their supplies of fish, wood, wool, grain, metals, and slaves. The immense profits to be gained by trade made the Greeks willing to live in a cold country so unlike their own and among barbarous peoples.

COLONIZATION IN THE WEST

The western lands furnished far more attractive sites for colonization.

The Greeks could feel at home in southern Italy, where the genial climate, pure air, and sparkling sea recalled their native land. At a very early date they founded c.u.mae, on the coast just north of the bay of Naples.

Emigrants from c.u.mae, in turn, founded the city of Neapolis (Naples), which in Roman times formed a home of Greek culture and even to-day possesses a large Greek population. To secure the approaches from Greece to these remote colonies, two strongholds were established on the strait of Messina: Regium (modern Reggio) on the Italian sh.o.r.e and Messana (modern Messina) on that of Sicily. Another important colony in southern Italy was Tarentum (modern Taranto).

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”TEMPLE OF NEPTUNE,” PAESTUM Paestum, the Greek Poseidonia, was a colony of Sybaris The malarial atmosphere of the place led to its desertion in the ninth century of our era. Hence the buildings there were not used as quarries for later structures. The so called ”Temple of Neptune” at Paestum is one of the best preserved monuments of antiquity.]

THE SICILIAN COLONIES

Greek settlements in Sicily were mainly along the coast. Expansion over the entire island was checked by the Carthaginians, who had numerous possessions at its western extremity. The most celebrated colony in Sicily was Syracuse, established by emigrants from Corinth. It became the largest of Greek cities.