On the Cosmi of Crete, Prytanes of Corinth, &c. On the Artynœ and Demiurgi in other cities.

1. The cosmi of Crete are compared by Aristotle, Ephorus, and Cicero, with the ephors of Lacedæmon. We are first led to suspect the correctness of this comparison by the fact that the larger part of the extensive power of the ephoralty did not exist in the ancient constitution of Sparta, and consequently there could not have been any thing corresponding with it in the sister constitution of Crete. This conjecture is still further confirmed when we remember that the cosmi were chosen from particular families, rather according to their dignity than their personal merits. For to take away from the office of ephors their election from among the people would be to give up its most essential characteristic. If then we abandon this comparison, it will be necessary to find some other analogous office, on account of the great similarity between the two constitutions, and it will then appear that the parallel magistrates to the cosmi in the Spartan government were the kings; whom indeed the cosmi appear to have succeeded, as the prytanes, artynæ, &c. in other states, the expiring monarchical dignity having been replaced by an aristocratical magistrate.

This assertion is confirmed by whatever knowledge we have of the powers of the cosmi, which indeed chiefly regards their influence in foreign affairs.

On the Periœci of Laconia.

1. The clearest notion of the subjection enforced by the dominant race of Dorians may be collected from the speech of Brasidas to the Peloponnesians, as related by Thucydides. “You are not come,” he says, “from states in which the many rule over the few, but the few over the many, having obtained their sovereignty in no other manner than by victory in the field.” The only right indeed which they possessed was the right of conquerors; the Dorians had by the sword driven out the Achæans, and these again could not rest their claim to the Peloponnese on any better title. It seemed also like a continuation of the heroic age, the existence of which was founded on the rule exercised by the military over the agricultural classes. The relative rights of the Dorians and Achæans appear however to have been determined by mutual compact, since the Dorians, obtaining the superiority only by slow degrees, were doubtless glad to purchase the accession of each town on moderate conditions; and this was perhaps especially the case in Messenia. The native inhabitants of the towns thus reduced to a state of dependence were called Περίοικοι. The difference of races was strictly preserved; and was not (as elsewhere) obliterated by an union in the same city and political community.

On the meals of the Dorians.

1. With respect to the food and meals of the Dorians, we will only mention those points which are connected with some historical or moral fact, since we have already considered this subject in connexion with the economy of the state.

In the first place, the adherence of the Dorians to ancient Greek usages is visible in their custom of eating together, or of the syssitia. For these public tables were not only in use among the Dorians, (with whom, besides in Crete and Sparta, they also existed at Megara in the time of Theognis, and at Corinth in the time of Periander), but they had also once been a national custom among the Œnotrians, and their kinsmen the Arcadians, particularly at Phigaleia; and among the Greeks of Homer the princes at least eat together, and at the cost of the community; a custom which was retained by the Prytanes at Athens, Rhodes, and elsewhere. In particular, the public tables of Sparta have in many points a great resemblance to the Homeric banquets (δαῖτες); only that all the Spartans were in a certain manner considered as princes.

On the private dwellings and architecture of the Dorians.

1. Having now examined the political institutions of the Doric states, we next proceed to consider their private life and domestic economy; which two subjects were so intimately connected in the habits of this race, that we shall not attempt to separate them by any exact line of distinction. Our observations will be confined to those matters which appear most to exhibit the peculiar character of the Dorians. For which purpose, having first considered their domestic conveniences, such as dwellings, &c., we will proceed to their domestic relations, their arts, and literature.

2. The dwellings of the Dorians were plain and simple. By a law of Lycurgus the doors of every house were to be fashioned only with the saw, and the cieling with the axe; not that the legislator intended to abolish altogether the science of architecture, but merely to restrain it to its proper objects, viz. temples and public buildings, and to prevent it from purveying to private luxury. The kings of Greece in Homer's time lived not only in spacious, but also richly ornamented houses, the walls of which glittered with brass, silver, gold, amber, and ivory; but no such splendour was seen in the dwellings of the Heraclide princes.

On the historical writings of the Dorians; their brevity of speech, and metaphorical mode of expression; the symbolical language; the Pythagorean philosophy, and its connection with the character of the Dorians.

1. It has been shewn in the preceding chapter that the national and original poetry of the Doric race was not the epic, but the lyric; which is occupied rather in expressing inward feelings, than in describing outward objects. If this predilection may be considered as natural to the whole race, it will enable us to explain why history neither originated among, nor was cultivated by the Dorians. For both its progress and invention we are indebted to the Ionians, who were also the first to introduce prose-composition in general. The Dorians however did not always retain this incapacity; for we are told that the Spartans gladly listened to the sophist Hippias of Elis, speaking of the families of heroes and men, the settlements by which the cities had in ancient times been founded, and of ancient events in general. This naturally suggests the remark, that the Dorians paid more attention to the events of the past than of the present time; in which they are greatly opposed to the Ionians, who from their governments and geographical position were more thrown into society, and interested themselves more in the passing affairs of the day.

Genealogy of Hellen.

There is a particular tendeney which may be traced throughout all the accounts that have come down to us of early Grecian history, viz. of reducing every thing to a genealogical form. It was much encouraged by the opinion of the later historians, that every town and valley had received its name from some ancient prince or hero; thus even Pausanias meets with persons who explained every thing by means of genealogies; who, e. g., out of the Pythian temple at Delphi made a son of Delphus Pythis, a prince of early times. This tendency, however, is manifestly founded on the genuine ancient language of mythology. With the inventors of these fabulous narratives, nations, cities, mountains, rivers, and gods became real persons, who stood to one another in the relation of human beings, were arranged in families, and joined to one another in marriage. Now although such fictions are in many cases easily seen through, and the meaning of the connexion may be readily deciphered, yet these genealogies, as there was nothing of arbitrary and fanciful invention in them, in after-times passed for real history; and were, both by early and late historians, with full confidence in their general accuracy, made use of for the establishment of a sort of chronology.

The migration of the Dorians to Crete.

Cnosus, the Minoian Cnosus, was even so late as the time of Plato the first city in Crete, and the chief domicile of the Cretan laws and customs: and Plato, in his Treatise on Laws, takes a Cnosian as the representative and defender of the Cretan laws in general: although Cnosus about his time had declined from internal corruption, and the fame of having preserved the good laws of ancient Crete soon passed from her to Gortyna and Lyctus. In earlier times, however, the Cretan laws, (Κρητιϰοί νόμοι,) which Archilochus even mentions as being of a distinct character, were preserved in the greatest purity at Cnosus. Now when modern writers admit indeed that the Cretan laws were founded upon the customs of the Doric race, but affirm that this race did not penetrate into Crete before the expedition of the Heraclidæ, and that migrations subsequently took place from the Peloponnese; it is necessary for them first of all to shew that Cnosus received its Doric inhabitants from that country, i. e. probably either from Argos or Sparta. But had such been the case, the memory of these migrations would assuredly never have been lost: Argos and Sparta would have been too proud to possess such a colony.

On the double character of Apollo as a punishing and avenging, and also as a healing and protecting deity. On the meaning and etymology of his different titles of Apollo, Phœbus, Pœan, Agyieus, and Lyceus.

1. Homer, as we have already seen, had, both from hearsay and personal observation, acquired a very accurate knowledge of the Cretan worship of Apollo in the Smintheum, in the citadel of Troy, in Lycia near mounts Ida and Cragus, as well as of Pytho and the Delian palm-tree. His picture of Apollo is, however, considerably changed by the circumstance of the god acting as a friend to the Trojans and an enemy to the Greeks, although both equally honour him with sacrifices and pæans. Yet he generally appears to the Greeks in a darker and more unfavourable view. “Dread the son of Jupiter,” says the priest of Chryse to the Greeks, “he walks dark as night; the sure and deadly arrows rattle on his shoulders.” His punishments are sudden sickness, rapid pestilence, and death, the cause and occasion of which is generally unseen; yet sometimes he grants death as a blessing. His arrows are said to wound from afar, because they are unforeseen and unexpected. He is called the far-darting god; his divine vengeance never misses its aim.

On the Ephors and other magistrates of Sparta.

1. But before we treat of the powers of the cosmi, it will be necessary to inquire into an office, which is of the greatest importance in the history of the Lacedæmonian constitution. For while the king, the council, and the people preserved upon the whole the same political power and the same executive authority, the office of the ephors was the moving principle by which, in process of time, this most perfect constitution was assailed, and gradually overthrown. From this remark three questions arise; first, what was the original nature of the office of ephor; secondly, what changes did it experience in the lapse of time, and, thirdly, from what causes did these changes originate.

There is an account frequently repeated by ancient writers, that Theopompus, the grandson of Charilaus the Proclid, founded this office in order to limit the authority of the kings. “He handed down “the royal power to his descendants more durable, “because he had diminished it.” If however the ephoralty was an institution of Theopompus, it is difficult to account for the existence of the same office in other Doric states. In Cyrene the ephors punished litigious people and impostors with infamy; the same office existed in the mother-city Thera, which island had been colonized from Laconia long before the time of Theopompus.

Migration of the Dorians into the Peloponnese.

1. The most important, and the most fertile in consequences of all the migrations of Grecian races, and which continued even to the latest periods to exert its influence upon the Greek character, was the expedition of the Dorians into the Peloponnese.

It is however so completely enveloped in fables, and these were formed at a very early period in so connected a manner, that it is of no use to examine it in detail, without first endeavouring to separate the component parts. The traditionary name of this expedition is “the Return of the descendants “of Hercules.” Hercules, the son of Jupiter, is (even in the Iliad) both by birth and destiny, the hereditary prince of Tiryns and Mycenæ, and ruler of the surrounding nations. But through some evil chance Eurystheus obtained the precedency, and the son of Jupiter was compelled to serve him. Nevertheless he is represented as having bequeathed to his descendants his claims to the dominion of the Peloponnese, which they afterwards made good in conjunction with the Dorians. Hercules having also performed such actions in behalf of this race, that his descendants were always entitled to the possession of one-third of the territory. The heroic life of Hercules was therefore the fabulous title, through which the Dorians were made to appear not as unjustly invading, but merely as reconquering a country which had belonged to their princes in former times.

On the Helots of Sparta.

1. The condition of the Periœci and that of the Helots must be carefully distinguished from each other; for the latter state we have no other expression than “bondage,” to which that of the Periœci had not the slightest resemblance. The common account of the origin of this class is, that the inhabitants of the maritime town Helos were reduced by Sparta to this state of degradation, after an insurrection against the Dorians already established in power. This explanation however rests merely on an etymology, and that by no means probable, since such a Gentile name as Εἵλως (which seems to be the more ancient form) cannot by any method of formation have been derived from Ελος. The word Εἵλως is probably a derivative from ῝Ελω in a passive sense, and consequently means the prisoners. Perhaps it signifies those who were taken after having resisted to the uttermost, whereas the Periœci had surrendered under conditions; at least Theopompus calls them Achæans as well as the others. It appears to me however more probable that they were an aboriginal race, which was subdued at a very early period, and which immediately passed over as slaves to the Doric conquerors.

In speaking of the condition of the Helots, we will consider their political rights and their personal treatment under separate heads, though in fact the two subjects are very nearly connected.