B. C. A general principle of the Spartan Institutions Restrictions on the use of the precious metals at Sparta Condition and Education of the Spartan Women Exercises of patience Cultivation of intellectual faculties, and of moral habits Page 323 324 325 - 327 - 328 - 329 330 Connection between the Dorian and the old Hellenic In- 337 743. Beginning of the first Messenian War Authorities for the History of the Messenian Wars The Messenians fortify Ithomé Aristodemus - 341 - 342 - 343 - 344 - 345 Consequences arising to Sparta from the Conquest of Mes Admission of new citizens to Sparta - 352 - 353 Rise of a new distinction among the citizens of Sparta - 354 Enlargement of the power of the Ephors - 355 748. Pheidon, King of Argos Comparison between the Ephors and the Roman Tribunes 356 - 357 685. Beginning of the second Messenian War Aristomenes and Tyrtæus - 359 - 360 Mude of repremutation in the Auptutyse Couutil Afluetic Contests Nenueau aud Isthmau Games Effects of the Olympic Festival as an Instrument of na Its Effects on the Diffusion of Knowledge and the Cultur Efteris on the national Character and Hauts The Gram いぬ Difference in the Forms of Government a Cause of The ガソン Causes of the short Duration of the tyrannical dynasties neriname of Sparta in the ovartbrow AUS HISTORY OF GREECE. CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINES OF GREECE. THE character of every people is more or less closely connected with that of its land. The station which the Greeks filled among nations, the part which they acted, and the works which they accomplished, depended in a great measure on the position which they occupied on the face of the globe. The manner and degree in which the nature of the country affected the bodily and mental frame, and the social institutions of its inhabitants, may not be so easily determined; but its physical aspect is certainly not less important in a historical point of view, than it is striking and interesting in itself. An attentive survey of the geographical site of Greece, of its general divisions, and of the most prominent points on its surface, is an indispensable preparation for the study of its history. In the following sketch nothing more will be attempted, than to guide the reader's eye over an accurate map of the country, and to direct his attention to some of those indelible features, which have survived all the revolutions by which it has been desolated. The land which its sons called Hellas, and for which we have adopted the Roman name Greece, lies on the south-east verge of Europe, and in length extends no further than from the thirty-sixth to the fortieth degree of latitude. It is distinguished among European coun tries by the same character which distinguishes Europe itself from the other continents, the great range of its coast compared with the extent of its surface; so that while in the latter respect it is considerably less than Portugal, in the former it exceeds the whole Pyrenean peninsula. The great eastern limb which projects from the main trunk of the continent of Europe grows more and more finely articulated as it advances toward the south, and terminates in the peninsula of Peloponnesus, the smaller half of Greece, which bears some resemblance to an outspread palm. Its southern extremity is at a nearly equal distance from the two neighbouring continents: it fronts one of the most beautiful and fertile regions of Africa, and is separated from the nearest point of Asia by the southern outlet of the Ægean sea, the sea, by the Greeks familiarly called their own, which, after being contracted into a narrow stream by the approach of the opposite shores at the Hellespont, suddenly finds its liberty in an ample basin as they recede toward the east and the west, and at length, escaping between Cape Malea and Crete, confounds its waters with the broader main of the Mediterranean. Over that part of this sea which washes the coast of Greece a chain of islands, beginning from the southern headland of Attica, Cape Sunium, first girds Delos with an irregular belt, the Cyclades, and then, in a waving line, links itself to a scattered group (the Sporades) which borders the Asiatic coast. Southward of these the interval between the two continents is broken by the larger islands Crete and Rhodes. From the isle of Cythera, which is parted by a narrow channel from Laconia, the snowy summits of the Cretan Ida are clearly visible, and from them the eye can probably reach the Rhodian Atabyrus1, and the mountains of Asia Minor; smaller islands occupy a part of the boundary which this line of view 1 Diodorus, v. 59. Apollod. iii. 21. On the distance at which objects may be distinguished in the atmosphere of the Archipelago, see Dodwell, Travels in Greece, vol. i. p. 194. |