CHAP.

X.

Argos.

Pausanias it would rather seem as if the title of king had been held by a number of petty chiefs at once.1 If so, the revolution must have had its origin in causes more general than those assigned to it by Polybius. It was probably accelerated by the number of Achæan emigrants who sought refuge in Achaia from other parts of Peloponnesus, and who soon crowded the country, till it was relieved by its Italian colonies. What Polybius and Strabo term a democracy may however have been a polity, or a very liberal and welltempered form of oligarchy. Of its details we know nothing; nor are we informed in what relation the twelve principal Achaian towns — a division adopted from the Ionians-stood to the hamlets, of which each had seven or eight in its territory, like those of Tegea and Mantinea. As little are we able to describe the constitution of the confederacy in which the twelve states were now united.

More light has been thrown by ancient authors on the history of the states in the north-east quarter of Peloponnesus, those of Argolis in the largest sense of the word. At Argos itself, regal government subsisted down to the Persian wars, although the line of the Heracleid princes appears to have become extinct toward the middle of the preceding century. Pausanias remarks, that, from a very early period, the Argives were led by their peculiarly independent spirit to limit the prerogatives of their kings so narrowly, that Medon (grandson of Temenus the Conqueror) and his posterity retained no more than the name of royalty, and his descendant Maltas was condemned by the people, and entirely deprived of his dignity. We cannot however place much reliance on

I vii. 6. 2.

Strabo, viii. p. 386., who remarks, oi μèv 'Iŵves kwunddv čkovv, oi d' 'Axaini

πόλεις ἔκτισαν.

3 11. 19. 2. ̓Αργεῖοι, ἅτε ἰσηγορίαν καὶ τὸ αὐτόνομον ἀγαπῶντες, ἐκ παλαιοτάτου τὰ τῆς ἐξουσίας τῶν βασιλέων ἐς ἐλάχιστον προήγαγον. κ. τ. λ.

such a general reflection of a late writer. But we have seen that Pheidon, who, about the year 750 B. C., extended the power of Argos further than any of his predecessors, also stretched the royal authority so much beyond its legitimate bounds, that he is sometimes called a tyrant, though he was rightful heir of Temenus. After his death, as his conquests appear to have been speedily lost, so it is probable that his successors were unable to maintain the ascendency which he had gained over his Dorian subjects, and the royal dignity may henceforth have been, as Pausanias describes it, little more than a title. Hence too on the failure of the ancient line, about B. c. 560, Egon, though of a different family, may have met with the less opposition in mounting the throne. The substance of power rested with, the Dorian freemen: in what manner it was distributed among them we can only conjecture from analogy. Their lands were cultivated by a class of serfs, corresponding to the Spartan helots, who served in war as light-armed troops, whence they derived their peculiar name. They were also sovereigns of a few towns, the inhabitants of which, like the Laconians subject to Sparta, though personally free, were excluded from all share in their political privileges. The events which put an end to this state of things, and produced an entire change in the form of government at Argos, will be hereafter related.

CHAP.

X.

Among the states of the Argolic acte, Epidaurus Epidaurus deserves notice, not so much for the few facts which and gina. are known of its internal history, as on account of its relation to Ægina. This island, destined to take no inconsiderable part in the affairs of Greece, was long subject to Epidaurus, which was so jealous of her sovereignty as to compel the Æginetans to resort

1 yʊuvîtes (Pollux, iii. 8. § 83.) yvμvýσioι (Steph. Byz. Xios. Eustath. ad Dion.

CHAP.

X.

to her tribunals for the trial of their causes. It seems to have been as a dependency of Epidaurus that Ægina fell under the dominion of the Argive Pheidon. After recovering her own independence, Epidaurus still continued mistress of the island. Whether she had any subjects on the main land standing on the same footing, we are not expressly informed. But here likewise the ruling class was supported by the services of a population of bondmen, distinguished by a peculiar name (Conipodes, the dusty-footed), designating indeed their rural occupations, but certainly expressive of contempt. Toward the end of the seventh century B. C., and the beginning of the next, Epidaurus was subject to a ruler named Procles, who is styled a tyrant, and was allied with Periander the tyrant of Corinth. But nothing is known as to the origin and nature of his usurpation. He incurred the resentment of his son-in-law Periander, who made himself master of Procles and of Epidaurus. It was perhaps this event which afforded Ægina an opportunity of shaking off the Epidaurian yoke. But, had it been otherwise, the old relation between the two states could not have subsisted much longer. Egina was rapidly outgrowing the mother country, was engaged in a flourishing commerce, strong in an enterprising and industrious population, enriched and adorned by the arts of peace, and skilled in those of war.1 The sepa

1 Doctor Alessandro Pini, a Florentine, who was settled in the Morea under the Venetian government in 1703, and wrote a Description of the Peninsula, which has not yet been published, says of Ægina: "Sul mare verso la parte di Morea si osservano le reliquie d'un vastissimo e smisurato molo, che formava un porto sicuro, e capace: adesso, oltre l'essere rovinato il molo, è imbonito il porto, ne vi si possono ancorare che piccole barche. Nè posso darmi pace che Tucidide, Pausania, Strabone, e tanti altri chiarissimi istorici e geografi Greci, gente secondo Plinio in laudem suorum effusissimi non encomino un si magnifico molo che trapassa la magnificenza di tutte le opere degli Ateniesi che li soggettarono " Dr. C. Wordsworth (Athens and Attica, p. 263.) observes of the port of Ægina: From its size and beauty it once attracted the admiration of its Athenian neighbours and enemies; and refers to Demosth. c. Aristocr. p. 691., where however no such feeling appears to be expressed, but rather the reverse: νῆσον οἰκοῦντας οὕτω σμικρὰν καὶ οὐδὲν ἔχοντας ἐφ ̓ ᾧ μέγα χρὴ φρονεῖν αὐτούς.

X.

ration which soon after took place was embittered by CHAP. mutual resentment; and the Æginetans, whose navy soon became the most powerful in Greece, retaliated on Epidaurus for the degradation they had suffered by a series of insults. But the same causes to which they owed their national independence seem to have deprived the class which had been hitherto predominant in Ægina of its political privileges. The island was torn by the opposite claims and interests arising out of the old and the new order of things, and became, as we shall see, the scene of a bloody struggle.

the Bac

chiads.

At Corinth, the descendants of Aletes retained the Corinth; power and the title of royalty for five generations, after which, according to Pausanias, the sceptre passed into another family, called the Bacchiads, from Bacchis, the first king of their race, and was transmitted in this line for five generations more; when Telestes, the last of these princes, having been murdered, the kingly office was abolished, and, in its place, yearly magistrates, with the title of prytanes, were elected, exclusively however from the house of Bacchis. This account indeed cannot be reconciled with Strabo's, that the Bacchiads, as a body, ruled 200 years, which, if added to the ten generations of Pausanias, would bring down the termination of the Bacchiad dynasty more than a century too low. But we do not know the grounds of Strabo's calculation, and it seems not improbable that his 200 years may include a period during which the Bacchiads permitted members of their house to exercise an authority which may have been gradually limited, as at Athens. The Bacchiads must not be considered as a single family, but probably comprehended many, which, though bearing a common name, were but distantly connected by blood. On the other hand, they undoubtedly included only a small part of the Dorian freemen, and they appear to have

СНАР.

X.

Cypselus overthrows the Bacchiads.

estranged themselves as much from the great body of their countrymen as from the conquered Æolians; for they not only engrossed all political power, but intermarried exclusively with one another. It seems natural to suppose, that the effect of this exclusion would be to efface the distinctions which before separated the other classes in the state, and to leave only two orders, conscious of different views and interests, the dominant caste and their subjects. The situation of Corinth inviting the commerce of the east, and stimulating its people to extend it toward the west, the influx of strangers, augmented from time to time by the national games celebrated on the Isthmus, and the consequences hence arising to the numbers, the condition, and habits of the industrious class, must have contributed to the same result. With the wealth of Asia, Corinth seems very early to have admitted Asiatic vices and luxury, which flourished under the shelter of an exotic superstition.1 The ruling class itself was not exempt from this contagion. The great wealth attributed to the Bacchiad Demaratus, in the Roman story, indicates that the Corinthian nobles did not disdain to enrich themselves by commerce. Aristotle indeed speaks of a very ancient Corinthian legislator, named Pheidon, who had endeavoured so to regulate and limit the acquisition of property, and the numbers of the citizens, as to preserve either the same amount or the same proportions. But these institutions, which probably related only to the nobles, if they were ever adopted, seem not to have been durable.

It would have been scarcely possible that so narrow an oligarchy could have kept its ground long under such circumstances, even if it had used its power with

1 Strabo, viii. p. 378.

Kreuser, in a little work called Der Hellenen Priesterstaat, p. 71., labours hard to destroy the credit of Strabo's assertion as to the Co. rinthian Hierodules but has not observed how strongly it is confirmed by the passage of Athenæus containing the fragments of Pindar's Scholion, xiii. c. 33. See Boeckh on Pindar, iii. p. 611.