VII. CHAP. hopeless, withdrew their forces from Attica. Such is the story which continued for centuries to warm the B. C. 1104. patriotism of the Athenians, and which therefore, as there is nothing improbable in its general outlines, we feel loath to criticise, though we cannot answer for the truth of the details. To some even this may seem to be confirmed by the fact mentioned by the orator Lycurgus1, that Cleomantis and his posterity were honoured with the privilege of sharing the entertainment provided in the Prytaneum at Athens, for the guests of the state. But we scarcely know how the pre current tradition is to be reconciled with another served by Pausanias: that a part of the Dorian army effected their entrance by night within the walls, and, being surrounded by their enemies, took refuge at the altars of the Eumenides on the Areopagus, and were spared by the piety of the Athenians.2 If however either must be rejected as a fabrication, this has certainly the slighter claim to credit. But though this expedition was defeated in its main object, it produced Conquest of one permanent and important result. The little territory of Megara was now finally separated from Attica 3, and occupied by a Dorian colony, which continued long closely united with Corinth as its parent city, or rather was held in a subjection, which at length became too oppressive to be borne. Megara itself was at this time only one, though probably the principal, among five little townships, which were independent of each other, and were not unfrequently engaged in hostilities, which however were so mitigated and regulated by local usage, as to present rather the image, Megara 3 Pausanias (i. 39. 4.) says, that Megaris was wrested from Athens by the Dorians. But this is inconsistent with the fragments of Megarian tradition, which he has preserved in this and the following chapters of his work, from which it would seem, that the country was not subject even to an Attic prince for more than one reign- that of Nisus, son of Pandion - and that it afterwards fell under the power of a different dynasty. Hyperion, a son of Agamemnon, is said to have been the last king. They VII. B. C. 1104. than the reality and the baneful effects, of war. They CHAP. were never allowed to interrupt the labours of the husbandmen; the captive taken in these feuds was entertained as a guest in his enemy's house, and, when his ransom was fixed, was dismissed before it was paid. If he discharged his debt of honour he became, under a peculiar name1, the friend of his host: a breach of the compact dishonoured him for life, both among the strangers and his neighbours — a picture of society, which we could scarcely believe to have been drawn from life, if it did not agree with other institutions, which we find described upon the best authority as prevailing at the same period in other parts of Greece. Though we reserve a general survey of the Greek and Ægina. colonies for another place, we must here mention some which are connected in a peculiar manner with the history of the Dorian conquest. The first of these is that by which Ægina, hitherto the seat of an Eolian population, was transformed into a Dorian island. This colony was led, by a chief named Triaco 2, from Epidaurus, to which Ægina seemed to be assigned by its situation as a natural appendage, though it attained to a much higher degree of prosperity and power than the parent state. The number of the new settlers cannot have been great, and they appear to have mingled on equal terms with the old inhabitants, though their influence was sufficient to introduce the Dorian language, manners, and institutions. But the colonies which passed from Peloponnesus into Crete in the third generation after the conquest, are of still greater importance, because, though they may not have been the first of the Dorian race which settled in the island, they appear to have contributed much more than any previous migrations of the same 1 Aopúgevos. Plut. Qu. Gr. 17. Tzetz. on Lyc. 176. Paus. ii, 29.5. CHAP. people, which, as we have seen, are not even sufficiently ascertained, to stamp Crete with the character B. C. 1104. which it retained to the end of its history; and to them therefore the influence which it is commonly believed to have exercised on the institutions and the destinies of the mother country may, so far as it really existed, be most justly ascribed. It is only to be regretted that, though the fact itself is unquestionable, the sources of our information are so scanty and turbid, as to leave our curiosity unsatisfied on some of the most interesting circumstances connected with it. Expeditions of the Dorians to Crete. Colonies founded by Pollis. Two principal expeditions are said to have proceeded from Peloponnesus to Crete, about the same time which chronologers fix for the beginning of the Ionian migration, sixty years after the Dorian invasion. One of these expeditions issued from Laconia, the other from Argolis. The Laconian colony is involved in great obscurity, with regard to its leaders and to the people of which it was chiefly composed. The Minyans from Imbros and Lemnos whom Philonomus had planted at Amycle, are said to have revolted against the Dorians in the third generation, and in consequence to have migrated anew from Laconia to Crete, accompanied however by some Spartans, and under the command of two chiefs named Pollis and Delphus. In their passage they left a portion of their body in the isle of Melos, which dated its unfortunate connection with Sparta from this epoch. The rest occupied Gortyna (an inland town, but on the south side of the island) without any resistance from the Cretans of the surrounding district, who became their subjects. Another relation of the same events gives a somewhat fuller account of the issue of 1 Conon. 36. The name of Delphus seems to have arisen out of an error of the transcribers (for ådeλpòs), if it is not a personification, which often occurs, of the oracle which directed the enterprise. The CHAP. VII. the expedition, but introduces different actors. Lacedæmonians, Pollis, and his brother Crataidas, are here named as the chiefs; but the people whom they B.C. 1104. lead from Amycle are not Minyans, but their enemies and conquerors, the Pelasgians. They are said to have defeated the natives in several battles, and to have made themselves masters of Lyctus (an inland town, not very far from Gortyna), and of other cities.1 The substitution of the Pelasgians for the Minyans in this form of the narrative may perhaps be safely considered as an error, arising from a confusion of the stories told of them by Herodotus, though it is said that the legend in this shape was so current at Lyctus itself, that the Lyctians held themselves to be kinsmen of the Athenians by the side of their mothers, because the Pelasgians had carried off Athenian women to Lemnos. A greater difficulty may at first sight seem to arise from the part which the Spartans are described as taking in the enterprise of the Minyans, with whom, according to all accounts, their intercourse was by no means friendly, at least during the latter part of the sojourn which these strangers made in Laconia. If it were necessary to resort to conjecture for an explanation of the fact, we might perhaps probably enough suppose the occasion to have arisen from that state of disorder and discord which all writers represent to have prevailed at Sparta for many generations after the conquest, and which seems likewise to have given rise to the expedition of Theras. The ruling Spartans were undoubtedly no less willing to rid themselves of the restless and ambitious spirits among their own citizens than of their enemies, whether Minyans or Achæans, who were desirous of migrating to foreign lands. Hence such an expedition, though the bands which embarked in it were chiefly composed of Plut. de Mul. Virt. Tuppývides. CHAP. strangers, might be made under the sanction of Sparta; and the colonies which it planted would reB. C. 1104. gard her as their parent, and be open to all the influence of the Dorian character and institutions. By Althæ menes. The history of the other expedition, though not fuller, is less perplexed by contradictory statements. The domestic feuds which agitated the family of Temenus are said to have continued in the third generation. Althæmenes, the youngest son of Ceisus, at variance with his brothers, resolved on seeking a new home. It was at the time when the failure of the enterprise of the Dorians against Attica left many adventurers without employment; and those who did not find a settlement in Megara were, for the most part, willing to share the fortunes of Althæmenes.1 It is said that he was invited on the one hand by the Ionians, who were on the point of migrating to Asia, and on the other by Pollis and his Spartan followers, to unite his forces with theirs. But he rejected both proposals, that he might pursue the course marked out for him by an oracle, which had enjoined him to seek the land which should be granted to his prayers by Jupiter and by the Sun. Rhodes was the island of the Sun; the god of day had given it to his children, when it first rose out of the waters: but Crete was the birthplace of Jupiter, and Althæmenes, to comply with the oracle, while he himself bent his course to Rhodes, left a part of his followers in Crete. Their conquests must have been considerable; for Ephorus spoke of Althæmenes as if he had been the sole founder of a Dorian colony in Crete. Yet we are not distinctly informed in what part of the island they established themselves. It may however be conjectured, from some traditions which cannot be more 1 Conon. 47. Eustath. on Il. p. 313., where Althæmenes is said to have been driven out of Argos. It is nowhere distinctly stated that he shared the expedition against Attica, though this has sometimes been inferred from the words of Strabo, xiv. p. 653. |