On the civil and criminal law in Doric states.

1. The civil laws, as well as the economy of the Dorians, seem to bear a character of very great antiquity, as far as our scanty means of information permit us to judge. They exhibit strong marks of the early time at which they originated, and it is impossible not to recognise in them a certain loftiness and severity of character. For this reason they were ill suited to the circumstances of the more unrestrained and active manners of later times, and only owed their continuance to the isolated situation in which Sparta succeeded in keeping herself. Thus the law of private property was less definite and settled here than in any other part of Greece in early times, as property was, according to the Spartan notions, to be looked upon as a matter of indifference; in the decrees and institutions attributed to Lycurgus, no mention was made of this point, and the ephors were permitted to judge according to their own notions of equity. The ancient legislators had an evident repugnance to any strict regulations on this subject; thus Zaleucus, who however first made particular enactments concerning the right of property, expressly interdicted certificates of debt: on the contrary, the laws of that early period had a much more personal tendency, and rather regulated the actions of every individual by means of the national customs.

On the establishment of the worship of Apollo by Cretans in Lycia and the Troad, in Thrace, Trœzen, Megara, and Thoricus in Attica. On the extension of the Pythian worship to Bœotia and Attica.

1. But whilst the worship of Apollo was experiencing so much opposition in the north of Greece, the sea, with the neighbouring coasts and islands, afforded ample opportunities for its propagation from the shores of Crete. This serves to account for the singular fact, that the most ancient temples of Apollo throughout the south of Greece, are found in maritime districts, and generally on promontories and headlands.

The colonies of Apollo branched out in various directions from the northern coast of Crete, carrying every where with them the expiatory and oracular ceremonies of his worship. The remarkable regularity with which these settlements were established cannot however be regarded as the work of missions systematically carried on, or as part of the policy of Minos. They are to be accounted for by the natural desire of the tribes of Crete, whilst migrating along the coast of the Ægean sea, to erect, wherever they touched, temples to that god, whose worship was blended with their spiritual existence.

We shall first advert to those settlements which (taking the coast of Crete as our centre) were founded in the direction of Lycia, Miletus, Claros, and the Troad; the first and last of which were the most ancient, the others being perhaps a century later.