Athens: Its Rise and Fall Part 5

XVIII. The origin of the Olympic Games is lost in darkness. The legends which attribute their first foundation to the times of demiG.o.ds and heroes, are so far consonant with truth, that exhibitions of physical strength made the favourite diversion of that wild and barbarous age which is consecrated to the heroic. It is easy to perceive that the origin of athletic games preceded the date of civilization; that, a.s.sociated with occasions of festival, they, like festivals, a.s.sumed a sacred character, and that, whether first inst.i.tuted in honour of a funeral, or in celebration of a victory, or in reverence to a G.o.d,--religion combined with policy to transmit an inspiring custom to a more polished posterity. And though we cannot literally give credit to the tradition which a.s.signs the restoration of these games to Lycurgus, in concert with Iphitus, king of Elis, and Cleosthenes of Pisa, we may suppose at least that to Elis, to Pisa, and to Sparta, the inst.i.tution was indebted for its revival.

The Dorian Oracle of Delphi gave its sanction to a ceremony, the restoration of which was intended to impose a check upon the wars and disorders of the Peloponnesus. Thus authorized, the festival was solemnized at the temple of Jupiter, at Olympia, near Pisa, a town in Elis. It was held every fifth year; it lasted four days. It consisted in the celebration of games in honour of Jupiter and Hercules. The interval between each festival was called, an Olympiad.

After the fiftieth Olympiad (B. C. 580), the whole management of the games, and the choice of the judges, were monopolized by the Eleans.

Previous to each festival, officers, deputed by the Eleans, proclaimed a sacred truce. Whatever hostilities were existent in Greece, terminated for the time; sufficient interval was allowed to attend and to return from the games. [109]

During this period the sacred territory of Elis was regarded as under the protection of the G.o.ds--none might traverse it armed. The Eleans arrogated indeed the right of a constant sanct.i.ty to perpetual peace; and the right, though sometimes invaded, seems generally to have been conceded. The people of this territory became, as it were, the guardians of a sanctuary; they interfered little in the turbulent commotions of the rest of Greece; they did not fortify their capital; and, the wealthiest people of the Peloponnesus, they enjoyed their opulence in tranquillity;--their holy character contenting their ambition. And a wonderful thing it was in the midst of those warlike, stirring, restless tribes--that solitary land, with its plane grove bordering the Alpheus, adorned with innumerable and hallowed monuments and statues--unvisited by foreign wars and civil commotion--a whole state one temple!

At first only the foot-race was exhibited; afterward were added wrestling, leaping, quoiting, darting, boxing, a more complicated species of foot-race (the Diaulus and Dolichus), and the chariot and horse-races. The Pentathlon was a contest of five gymnastic exercises combined. The chariot-races [110] preceded those of the riding horses, as in Grecian war the use of chariots preceded the more scientific employment of cavalry, and were the most attractive and splendid part of the exhibition. Sometimes there were no less than forty chariots on the ground. The rarity of horses, and the expense of their training, confined, without any law to that effect, the chariot-race to the highborn and the wealthy. It was consistent with the vain Alcibiades to decline the gymnastic contests in which his physical endowments might have ensured him success, because his compet.i.tors were not the equals to the long-descended heir of the Alcmaeonidae. In the equestrian contests his success was unprecedented. He brought seven chariots into the field, and bore off at the same time the first, second, and fourth prize [111]. Although women [112], with the exception of the priestesses of the neighbouring fane of Ceres, were not permitted to witness the engagements, they were yet allowed to contend by proxy in the chariot-races; and the ladies of Macedon especially availed themselves of the privilege. No sanguinary contest with weapons, no gratuitous ferocities, no struggle between man and beast (the graceless butcheries of Rome), polluted the festival dedicated to the Olympian G.o.d. Even boxing with the cestus was less esteemed than the other athletic exercises, and was excluded from the games exhibited by Alexander in his Asiatic invasions [113].

Neither did any of those haughty a.s.sumptions of lineage or knightly blood, which characterize the feudal tournament, distinguish between Greek and Greek. The equestrian contests were indeed, from their expense, limited to the opulent, but the others were impartially free to the poor as to the rich, the peasant as the n.o.ble,--the Greeks forbade monopoly in glory. But although thus open to all Greeks, the stadium was impenetrably closed to barbarians. Taken from his plough, the boor obtained the garland for which the monarchs of the East were held unworthy to contend, and to which the kings of the neighbouring Macedon were forbidden to aspire till their h.e.l.lenic descent had been clearly proved [114]. Thus periodically were the several states reminded of their common race, and thus the national name and character were solemnly preserved: yet, like the Amphictyonic league, while the Olympic festival served to maintain the great distinction between foreigners and Greeks, it had but little influence in preventing the hostile contests of Greeks themselves. The very emulation between the several states stimulated their jealousy of each other: and still, if the Greeks found their countrymen in Greeks they found also in Greeks their rivals.

We can scarcely conceive the vast importance attached to victory in these games [115]; it not only immortalized the winner, it shed glory upon his tribe. It is curious to see the different honours characteristically a.s.signed to the conqueror in different states. If Athenian, he was ent.i.tled to a place by the magistrates in the Prytaneum; if a Spartan, to a prominent station in the field. To conquer at Elis was renown for life, "no less ill.u.s.trious to a Greek than consuls.h.i.+p to a Roman!" [116] The haughtiest n.o.bles, the wealthiest princes, the most successful generals, contended for the prize [117]. And the prize (after the seventh Olympiad) was a wreath of the wild olive!

Numerous other and similar games were established throughout Greece.

Of these, next to the Olympic, the most celebrated, and the only national ones, were the Pythian at Delphi, the Nemean in Argolis, the Isthmian in Corinth; yet elsewhere the prize was of value; at all the national ones it was but a garland--a type of the eternal truth, that praise is the only guerdon of renown. The olive-crown was nothing!-- the shouts of a.s.sembled Greece--the showers of herbs and flowers--the banquet set apart for the victor--the odes of imperishable poets--the public register which transmitted to posterity his name--the privilege of a statue in the Altis--the return home through a breach in the walls (denoting by a n.o.ble metaphor, "that a city which boasts such men has slight need of walls" [118]), the first seat in all public spectacles; the fame, in short, extended to his native city-- bequeathed to his children--confirmed by the universal voice wherever the Greek civilization spread; this was the true olive-crown to the Olympic conqueror!

No other clime can furnish a likeness to these festivals: born of a savage time, they retained the vigorous character of an age of heroes, but they took every adjunct from the arts and the graces of civilization. To the sacred ground flocked all the power, and the rank, and the wealth, and the intellect, of Greece. To that gorgeous spectacle came men inspired by a n.o.bler ambition than that of the arena. Here the poet and the musician could summon an audience to their art. If to them it was not a field for emulation [119], it was at least a theatre of display.

XIX. The uses of these games were threefold;--1st, The uniting all Greeks by one sentiment of national pride, and the memory of a common race; 2dly, The inculcation of hardy discipline--of physical education throughout every state, by teaching that the body had its honours as well as the intellect--a theory conducive to health in peace--and in those ages when men fought hand to hand, and individual strength and skill were the nerves of the army, to success in war; but, 3dly, and princ.i.p.ally, its uses were in sustaining and feeding as a pa.s.sion, as a motive, as an irresistible incentive--the desire of glory! That desire spread through all cla.s.ses--it animated all tribes--it taught that true rewards are not in gold and gems, but in men's opinions.

The ambition of the Altis established fame as a common principle of action. What chivalry did for the few, the Olympic contests effected for the many--they made a knighthood of a people.

If, warmed for a moment from the gravity of the historic muse, we might conjure up the picture of this festival, we would invoke the imagination of the reader to that sacred ground decorated with the profusest triumphs of Grecian art--all Greece a.s.sembled from her continent, her colonies, her isles--war suspended--a Sabbath of solemnity and rejoicing--the Spartan no longer grave, the Athenian forgetful of the forum--the highborn Thessalian, the gay Corinthian-- the lively gestures of the Asiatic Ionian;--suffering the various events of various times to confound themselves in one recollection of the past, he may see every eye turned from the combatants to one majestic figure--hear every lip murmuring a single name [120]-- glorious in greater fields: Olympia itself is forgotten. Who is the spectacle of the day? Themistocles, the conqueror of Salamis, and the saviour of Greece! Again--the huzzas of countless thousands following the chariot-wheels of the compet.i.tors--whose name is shouted forth, the victor without a rival!--it is Alcibiades, the destroyer of Athens! Turn to the temple of the Olympian G.o.d, pa.s.s the brazen gates, proceed through the columned aisles [121], what arrests the awe and wonder of the crowd! Seated on a throne of ebon and of ivory, of gold and gems--the olive-crown on his head, in his right hand the statue of Victory, in his left; wrought of all metals, the cloud-compelling sceptre, behold the colossal masterpiece of Phidias, the Homeric dream imbodied [122]--the majesty of the Olympian Jove! Enter the banquet-room of the conquerors--to whose verse, hymned in a solemn and mighty chorus, bends the listening Spartan--it is the verse of the Dorian Pindar! In that motley and glittering s.p.a.ce (the fair of Olympia, the mart of every commerce, the focus of all intellect), join the throng, earnest and breathless, gathered round that sunburnt traveller;--now drinking in the wild account of Babylonian gardens, or of temples whose awful deity no lip may name--now, with clinched hands and glowing cheeks, tracking the march of Xerxes along exhausted rivers, and over bridges that spanned the sea--what moves, what hushes that mighty audience? It is Herodotus reading his history! [123]

Let us resume our survey.

XX. Midland, in the Peloponnesus, lies the pastoral Arcady. Besides the rivers of Alpheus and Erymanthus, it is watered by the gloomy stream of Styx; and its western part, intersected by innumerable brooks, is the land of Pan. Its inhabitants were long devoted to the pursuits of the herdsman and the shepherd, and its ancient government was apparently monarchical. The Dorian irruption spared this land of poetical tradition, which the oracle of Delphi took under no unsuitable protection, and it remained the eldest and most unviolated sanctuary of the old Pelasgic name. But not very long after the return of the Heraclidae, we find the last king stoned by his subjects, and democratic inst.i.tutions established. It was then parcelled out into small states, of which Tegea and Mantinea were the chief.

XXI. Messenia, a fertile and level district, which lies to the west of Sparta, underwent many struggles with the latter power; and this part of its history, which is full of interest, the reader will find briefly narrated in that of the Spartans, by whom it was finally subdued. Being then incorporated with that country, we cannot, at the period of history we are about to enter, consider Messenia as a separate and independent state. [124]

And now, completing the survey of the Peloponnesus, we rest at Laconia, the country of the Spartans.

CHAPTER VI.

Return of the Heraclidae.--The Spartan Const.i.tution and Habits.--The first and second Messenian War.

I. We have already seen, that while the Dorians remained in Thessaly, the Achaeans possessed the greater part of the Peloponnesus. But, under the t.i.tle of the Return of the Heraclidae (or the descendants of Hercules), an important and lasting revolution established the Dorians in the kingdoms of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The true nature of this revolution has only been rendered more obscure by modern ingenuity, which has abandoned the popular accounts for suppositions still more improbable and romantic. The popular accounts run thus:--Persecuted by Eurystheus, king of Argos, the sons of Hercules, with their friends and followers, are compelled to take refuge in Attica. a.s.sisted by the Athenians, they defeat and slay Eurystheus, and regain the Peloponnesus. A pestilence, regarded as an ominous messenger from offended heaven, drives them again into Attica. An oracle declares that they shall succeed after the third fruit by the narrow pa.s.sage at sea. Wrongly interpreting the oracle, in the third year they make for the Corinthian Isthmus. At the entrance of the Peloponnesus they are met by the a.s.sembled arms of the Achaeans, Ionians, and Arcadians.

Hyllus, the eldest son of Hercules, proposes the issue of a single combat. Echemus, king of Tegea, is selected by the Peloponnesians.

He meets and slays Hyllus, and the Heraclidae engage not to renew the invasion for one hundred years. Nevertheless, Cleodaeus, the son, and Aristomachus, the grandson, of Hyllus, successively attempt to renew the enterprise, and in vain. The three sons of Aristomachus (Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes), receive from Apollo himself the rightful interpretation of the oracle. It was by the Straits of Rhium, across a channel which rendered the distance between the opposing sh.o.r.es only five stadia, that they were ordained to pa.s.s; and by the Return of the third fruit, the third generation was denoted.

The time had now arrived:--with the a.s.sistance of the Dorians, the Aetolians, and the Locrians, the descendants of Hercules crossed the strait, and established their settlement in Peloponnesus (B. C. 1048).

II. Whether in the previous expeditions the Dorians had a.s.sisted the Heraclidae, is a matter of dispute--it is not a matter of importance.

Whether these Heraclidae were really descendants of the Achaean prince, and the rightful heritors of a Peloponnesian throne, is a point equally contested and equally frivolous. It is probable enough that the bold and warlike tribe of Thessaly might have been easily allured, by the pretext of reinstating the true royal line, into an enterprise which might plant them in safer and more wide domains, and that while the prince got the throne, the confederates obtained the country [125]. All of consequence to establish is, that the Dorians shared in the expedition, which was successful--that by time and valour they obtained nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus--that they transplanted the Doric character and inst.i.tutions to their new possessions, and that the Return of the Heraclidae is, in fact, the popular name for the conquest of the Dorians. Whatever distinction existed between the Achaean Heraclidae and the Doric race, had probably been much effaced during the long absence of the former among foreign tribes, and after their establishment in the Peloponnesus it soon became entirely lost. But still the legend that a.s.signed the blood of Hercules to the royalty of Sparta received early and implicit credence, and Cleomenes, king of that state, some centuries afterward, declared himself not Doric, but Achaean.

Of the time employed in consummating the conquest of the invaders we are unable to determine--but, by degrees, Sparta, Argos, Corinth, and Messene, became possessed by the Dorians; the Aetolian confederates obtained Elis. Some of the Achaeans expelled the Ionians from the territory they held in the Peloponnesus, and gave to it the name it afterward retained, of Achaia. The expelled Ionians took refuge with the Athenians, their kindred race.

The fated house of Pelops swept away by this irruption, Sparta fell to the lot of Procles and Eurysthenes [126], sons of Aristodemus, fifth in descent from Hercules; between these princes the royal power was divided, so that the const.i.tution always acknowledged two kings--one from each of the Heracleid families. The elder house was called the Agids, or descendants of Agis, son of Eurysthenes; the latter, the Eurypontids, from Eurypon, descendant of Procles. Although Sparta, under the new dynasty, appears to have soon arrogated the pre-eminence over the other states of the Peloponnesus, it was long before she achieved the conquest even of the cities in her immediate neighbourhood. The Achaeans retained the possession of Amyclae, built upon a steep rock, and less than three miles from Sparta, for more than two centuries and a half after the first invasion of the Dorians.

And here the Achaeans guarded the venerable tombs of Ca.s.sandra and Agamemnon.

III. The consequences of the Dorian invasion, if slowly developed, were great and lasting. That revolution not only changed the character of the Peloponnesus--it not only called into existence the iron race of Sparta--but the migrations which it caused made the origin of the Grecian colonies in Asia Minor. It developed also those seeds of latent republicanism which belonged to the Dorian aristocracies, and which finally supplanted the monarchical government--through nearly the whole of civilized Greece. The revolution once peacefully consummated, migrations no longer disturbed to any extent the continent of Greece, and the various tribes became settled in their historic homes.

IV. The history of Sparta, till the time of Lycurgus, is that of a state maintaining itself with difficulty amid surrounding and hostile neighbours; the power of the chiefs diminished the authority of the kings; and while all without was danger, all within was turbulence.

Still the very evils to which the Spartans were subjected--their paucity of numbers--their dissensions with their neighbours--their pent up and encompa.s.sed situation in their mountainous confines--even the preponderating power of the warlike chiefs, among whom the unequal divisions of property produced constant feuds--served to keep alive the elements of the great Doric character; and left it the task of the first legislative genius rather to restore and to harmonize, than to invent and create.

As I am writing the history, not of Greece, but of Athens, I do not consider it necessary that I should detail the legendary life of Lycurgus. Modern writers have doubted his existence, but without sufficient reason:--such a.s.saults on our belief are but the amus.e.m.e.nts of skepticism. All the popular accounts of Lycurgus agree in this-- that he was the uncle of the king (Charilaus, an infant), and held the rank of protector--that unable successfully to confront a powerful faction raised against him, he left Sparta and travelled into Crete, where all the ancient Doric laws and manners were yet preserved, vigorous and unadulterated. There studying the inst.i.tutions of Minos, he beheld the model for those of Sparta. Thence he is said to have pa.s.sed into Asia Minor, and to have been the first who collected and transported to Greece the poems of Homer [127], hitherto only partially known in that country. According to some writers, he travelled also into Egypt; and could we credit one authority, which does not satisfy even the credulous Plutarch, he penetrated into Spain and Libya, and held converse with the Gymnosophists of India.

Returned to Sparta, after many solicitations, he found the state in disorder: no definite const.i.tution appears to have existed; no laws were written. The division of the regal authority between two kings must have produced jealousy--and jealousy, faction. And the power so divided weakened the monarchic energy without adding to the liberties of the people. A turbulent n.o.bility--rude, haughty mountain chiefs-- made the only part of the community that could benefit by the weakness of the crown, and feuds among themselves prevented their power from becoming the regular and organized authority of a government [128].

Such disorders induced prince and people to desire a reform; the interference of Lycurgus was solicited; his rank and his travels gave him importance; and he had the wisdom to increase it by obtaining from Delphi (the object of the implicit reverence of the Dorians) an oracle in his favour.

Thus called upon and thus encouraged, Lycurgus commenced his task. I enter not into the discussion whether he framed an entirely new const.i.tution, or whether he restored the spirit of one common to his race and not unfamiliar to Sparta. Common sense seems to me sufficient to a.s.sure us of the latter. Let those who please believe that one man, without the intervention of arms--not as a conqueror, but a friend--could succeed in establis.h.i.+ng a const.i.tution, resting not upon laws, but manners--not upon force, but usage--utterly hostile to all the tastes, desires, and affections of human nature: moulding every the minutest detail of social life into one system--that system offering no temptation to sense, to ambition, to the desire of pleasure, or the love of gain, or the propensity to ease--but painful, hard, steril, and unjoyous;--let those who please believe that a system so created could at once be received, be popularly embraced, and last uninterrupted, unbroken, and without exciting even the desire of change for four hundred years, without having had any previous foundation in the habits of a people--without being previously rooted by time, custom, superst.i.tion, and character into their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. For my part, I know that all history furnishes no other such example; and I believe that no man was ever so miraculously endowed with the power to conquer nature. [129]

But we have not the smallest reason, the slightest excuse, for so pliant a credulity. We look to Crete, in which, previous to Lycurgus, the Dorians had established their laws and customs, and we see at once the resemblance to the leading features of the inst.i.tutions of Lycurgus; we come with Aristotle to the natural conclusion, that what was familiar to the Dorian Crete was not unknown to the Dorian Sparta, and that Lycurgus did not innovate, but restore and develop, the laws and the manners which, under domestic dissensions, might have undergone a temporary and superficial change, but which were deeply implanted in the national character and the Doric habits. That the regulations of Lycurgus were not regarded as peculiar to Sparta, but as the most perfect development of the Dorian const.i.tution, we learn from Pindar [130], when he tells us that "the descendants of Pamphylus and of the Heraclidae wish always to retain the Doric inst.i.tutions of Aegimius." Thus regarded, the legislation of Lycurgus loses its miraculous and improbable character, while we still acknowledge Lycurgus himself as a great and profound statesman, adopting the only theory by which reform can be permanently wrought, and suiting the spirit of his laws to the spirit of the people they were to govern.

When we know that his laws were not written, that he preferred engraving them only on the hearts of his countrymen, we know at once that he must have legislated in strict conformity to their early prepossessions and favourite notions. That the laws were unwritten would alone be a proof how little he introduced of what was alien and unknown.

V. I proceed to give a brief, but I trust a sufficient outline, of the Spartan const.i.tution, social and political, without entering into prolix and frivolous discussions as to what was effected or restored by Lycurgus--what by a later policy.

There was at Sparta a public a.s.sembly of the people (called alia), as common to other Doric states, which usually met every full moon--upon great occasions more often. The decision of peace and war--the final ratification of all treaties with foreign powers--the appointment to the office of counsellor, and other important dignities--the imposition of new laws--a disputed succession to the throne,--were among those matters which required the a.s.sent of the people. Thus there was the show and semblance of a democracy, but we shall find that the intention and origin of the const.i.tution were far from democratic. "If the people should opine perversely, the elders and the princes shall dissent." Such was an addition to the Rhetra of Lycurgus. The popular a.s.sembly ratified laws, but it could propose none--it could not even alter or amend the decrees that were laid before it. It appears that only the princes, the magistrates, and foreign amba.s.sadors had the privilege to address it.

The main business of the state was prepared by the Gerusia, or council of elders, a senate consisting of thirty members, inclusive of the two kings, who had each but a simple vote in the a.s.sembly. This council was in its outline like the a.s.semblies common to every Dorian state.

Each senator was required to have reached the age of sixty; he was chosen by the popular a.s.sembly, not by vote, but by acclamation. The mode of election was curious. The candidates presented themselves successively before the a.s.sembly, while certain judges were enclosed in an adjacent room where they could hear the clamour of the people without seeing the person, of the candidate. On him whom they adjudged to have been most applauded the election fell. A mode of election open to every species of fraud, and justly condemned by Aristotle as frivolous and puerile [131]. Once elected, the senator retained his dignity for life: he was even removed from all responsibility to the people. That Mueller should consider this an admirable inst.i.tution, "a splendid monument of early Grecian customs,"

seems to me not a little extraordinary. I can conceive no elective council less practically good than one to which election is for life, and in which power is irresponsible. That the inst.i.tution was felt to be faulty is apparent, not because it was abolished, but because its more important functions became gradually invaded and superseded by a third legislative power, of which I shall speak presently.

The original duties of the Gerusia were to prepare the decrees and business to be submitted to the people; they had the power of inflicting death or degradation without written laws, they interpreted custom, and were intended to preserve and transmit it. The power of the kings may be divided into two heads--power at home--power abroad: power as a prince--power as a general. In the first it was limited and inconsiderable. Although the kings presided over a separate tribunal, the cases brought before their court related only to repairs of roads, to the superintendence of the intercourse with other states, and to questions of inheritance and adoption.

When present at the council they officiated as presidents, but without any power of dictation; and, if absent, their place seems easily to have been supplied. They united the priestly with the regal character; and to the descendants of a demiG.o.d a certain sanct.i.ty was attached, visible in the ceremonies both at demise and at the accession to the throne, which appeared to Herodotus to savour rather of Oriental than h.e.l.lenic origin. But the respect which the Spartan monarch received neither endowed him with luxury nor exempted him from control. He was undistinguished by his garb--his mode of life, from the rest of the citizens. He was subjected to other authorities, could be reprimanded, fined, suspended, exiled, put to death. If he went as amba.s.sador to foreign states, spies were not unfrequently sent with him, and colleagues the most avowedly hostile to his person a.s.sociated in the mission. Thus curbed and thus confined was his authority at home, and his prerogative as a king. But by law he was the leader of the Spartan armies. He a.s.sumed the command--he crossed the boundaries, and the limited magistrate became at once an imperial despot! [132] No man could question--no law circ.u.mscribed his power.

He raised armies, collected money in foreign states, and condemned to death without even the formality of a trial. Nothing, in short, curbed his authority, save his responsibility on return. He might be a tyrant as a general; but he was to account for the tyranny when he relapsed into a king. But this distinction was one of the wisest parts of the Spartan system; for war requires in a leader all the license of a despot; and triumph, decision, and energy can only be secured by the unfettered exercise of a single will. Nor did early Rome owe the extent of her conquests to any cause more effective than the unlicensed discretion reposed by the senate in the general. [133]

VI. We have now to examine the most active and efficient part of the government, viz., the Inst.i.tution of the Ephors. Like the other components of the Spartan const.i.tution, the name and the office of ephor were familiar to other states in the great Dorian family; but in Sparta the inst.i.tution soon a.s.sumed peculiar features, or rather, while the inherent principles of the monarchy and the gerusia remained stationary, those of the ephors became expanded and developed. It is clear that the later authority of the ephors was never designed by Lycurgus or the earlier legislators. It is entirely at variance with the confined aristocracy which was the aim of the Spartan, and of nearly every genuine Doric [134] const.i.tution. It made a democracy as it were by stealth. This powerful body consisted of five persons, chosen annually by the people. In fact, they may be called the representatives of the popular will--the committee, as it were, of the popular council. Their original power seems to have been imperfectly designed; it soon became extensive and encroaching. At first the ephoralty was a tribunal for civil, as the gerusia was for criminal, causes; it exercised a jurisdiction over the Helots and Perioeci, over the public market, and the public revenue. But its character consisted in this:--it was strictly a popular body, chosen by the people for the maintenance of their interests. Agreeably to this character, it soon appears arrogating the privilege of inst.i.tuting an inquiry into the conduct of all officials except the counsellors.

Every eighth year, selecting a dark night when the moon withheld her light, the ephors watched the aspect of the heavens, and if any shooting star were visible in the expanse, the kings were adjudged to have offended the Deity and were suspended from their office until acquitted of their guilt by the oracle of Delphi or the priests at Olympia. Nor was this prerogative of adjudging the descendants of Hercules confined to a superst.i.tious practice: they summoned the king before them, no less than the meanest of the magistrates, to account for imputed crimes. In a court composed of the counsellors (or gerusia), and various other magistrates, they appeared at once as accusers and judges; and, dispensing with appeal to a popular a.s.sembly, subjected even royalty to a trial of life and death. Before the Persian war they sat in judgment on the King Cleomenes for an accusation of bribery;--just after the Persian war, they resolved upon the execution of the Regent Pausanias. In lesser offences they acted without the formality of this council, and fined or reprimanded their kings for the affability of their manners, or the size [135] of their wives. Over education--over social habits-over the regulations relative to amba.s.sadors and strangers--over even the marshalling of armies and the number of troops, they extended their inquisitorial jurisdiction. They became, in fact, the actual government of the state.

It is easy to perceive that it was in the nature of things that the inst.i.tution of the ephors should thus encroach until it became the prevalent power. Its influence was the result of the vicious const.i.tution of the gerusia, or council. Had that a.s.sembly been properly const.i.tuted, there would have been no occasion for the ephors. The gerusia was evidently meant, by the policy of Lycurgus, and by its popular mode of election, for the only representative a.s.sembly. But the absurdity of election for life, with irresponsible powers, was sufficient to limit its acceptation among the people. Of two a.s.semblies--the ephors and the gerusia--we see the one elected annually, the other for life--the one responsible to the people, the other not--the one composed of men, busy, stirring, ambitious, in the vigour of life--the other of veterans, past the ordinary stimulus of exertion, and regarding the dignity of office rather as the reward of a life than the opening to ambition. Of two such a.s.semblies it is easy to foretell which would lose, and which would augment, authority.

It is also easy to see, that as the ephors increased in importance, they, and not the gerusia, would become the check to the kingly authority. To whom was the king accountable? To the people:--the ephors were the people's representatives! This part of the Spartan const.i.tution has not, I think, been sufficiently considered in what seems to me its true light; namely, that of a representative government. The ephoralty was the focus of the popular power. Like an American Congress or an English House of Commons, it prevented the action of the people by acting in behalf of the people. To representatives annually chosen, the mult.i.tude cheerfully left the management of their interests [136]. Thus it was true that the ephors prevented the encroachments of the popular a.s.sembly;--but how? by encroaching themselves, and in the name of the people! When we are told that Sparta was free from those democratic innovations constant in Ionian states, we are not told truly. The Spartan populace was constantly innovating, not openly, as in the noisy Agora of Athens, but silently and ceaselessly, through their delegated ephors. And these dread and tyrant FIVE--an oligarchy constructed upon principles the most liberal--went on increasing their authority, as civilization, itself increasing, rendered the public business more extensive and multifarious, until they at length became the agents of that fate which makes the principle of change at once the vital and the consuming element of states. The ephors gradually destroyed the const.i.tution of Sparta; but, without the ephors, it may be reasonably doubted whether the const.i.tution would have survived half as long.

Aristotle (whose mighty intellect is never more luminously displayed than when adjudging the practical workings of various forms of government) paints the evils of the ephoral magistrature, but acknowledges that it gave strength and durability to the state.

"For," [137] he says, "the people were contented on account of their ephors, who were chosen from the whole body." He might have added, that men so chosen, rarely too selected from the chiefs, but often from the lower ranks, were the ablest and most active of the community, and that the fewness of their numbers gave energy and unity to their councils. Had the other part of the Spartan const.i.tution (absurdly panegyrized) been so formed as to harmonize with, even in checking, the power of the ephors; and, above all, had it not been for the lamentable errors of a social system, which, by seeking to exclude the desire of gain, created a terrible reaction, and made the Spartan magistrature the most venal and corrupt in Greece--the ephors might have sufficed to develop all the best principles of government. For they went nearly to recognise the soundest philosophy of the representative system, being the smallest number of representatives chosen, without restriction, from the greatest number of electors, for short periods, and under strong responsibilities. [138]

I pa.s.s now to the social system of the Spartans.

VII. If we consider the situation of the Spartans at the time of Lycurgus, and during a long subsequent period, we see at once that to enable them to live at all, they must be accustomed to the life of a camp;--they were a little colony of soldiers, supporting themselves, hand and foot, in a hostile country, over a population that detested them. In such a situation certain qualities were not praiseworthy alone--they were necessary. To be always prepared for a foe--to be const.i.tutionally averse to indolence--to be brave, temperate, and hardy, were the only means by which to escape the sword of the Messenian and to master the hatred of the Helot. Sentinels they were, and they required the virtues of sentinels: fortunately, these necessary qualities were inherent in the bold mountain tribes that had long roved among the crags of Thessaly, and wrestled for life with the martial Lapithae. But it now remained to mould these qualities into a system, and to educate each individual in the habits which could best preserve the community. Accordingly the child was reared, from the earliest age, to a life of hards.h.i.+p, discipline, and privation; he was starved into abstinence;--he was beaten into fort.i.tude;--he was punished without offence, that he might be trained to bear without a groan;--the older he grew, till he reached manhood, the severer the discipline he underwent. The intellectual education was little attended to: for what had sentinels to do with the sciences or the arts? But the youth was taught acuteness, promptness, and discernment--for such are qualities essential to the soldier. He was stimulated to condense his thoughts, and to be ready in reply; to say little, and to the point. An aphorism bounded his philosophy. Such an education produced its results in an athletic frame, in simple and hardy habits--in indomitable patience--in quick sagacity. But there were other qualities necessary to the position of the Spartan, and those scarce so praiseworthy--viz., craft and simulation. He was one of a scanty, if a valiant, race. No single citizen could be spared the state: it was often better to dupe than to fight an enemy.

Accordingly, the boy was trained to cunning as to courage. He was driven by hunger, or the orders of the leader over him, to obtain his food, in house or in field, by stealth;--if undiscovered, he was applauded; if detected, punished. Two main-springs of action were constructed within him--the dread of shame and the love of country.

These were motives, it is true, common to all the Grecian states, but they seem to have been especially powerful in Sparta. But the last produced its abuse in one of the worst vices of the national character. The absorbing love for his native Sparta rendered the citizen singularly selfish towards other states, even kindred to that which he belonged to. Fearless as a Spartan,--when Sparta was unmenaced he was lukewarm as a Greek. And this exaggerated yet sectarian patriotism, almost peculiar to Sparta, was centred, not only in the safety and greatness of the state, but in the inalienable preservation of its inst.i.tutions;--a feeling carefully sustained by a policy exceedingly jealous of strangers [139]. Spartans were not permitted to travel. Foreigners were but rarely permitted a residence within the city: and the Spartan dislike to Athens arose rather from fear of the contamination of her principles than from envy at the l.u.s.tre of her fame. When we find (as our history proceeds) the Spartans dismissing their Athenian ally from the siege of Ithome, we recognise their jealousy of the innovating character of their brilliant neighbour;--they feared the infection of the democracy of the Agora. This attachment to one exclusive system of government characterized all the foreign policy of Sparta, and crippled the national sense by the narrowest bigotry and the obtusest prejudice.

Wherever she conquered, she enforced her own const.i.tution, no matter how inimical to the habits of the people, never dreaming that what was good for Sparta might be bad for any other state. Thus, when she imposed the Thirty Tyrants on Athens, she sought, in fact, to establish her own gerusia; and, no doubt, she imagined it would become, not a curse, but a blessing to a people accustomed to the wildest freedom of a popular a.s.sembly. Though herself, through the tyranny of the ephors, the unconscious puppet of the democratic action, she recoiled from all other and more open forms of democracy as from a pestilence. The simple habits of the Spartan life a.s.sisted to confirm the Spartan prejudices. A dinner, a fine house, these st.u.r.dy Dorians regarded as a pitiable sign of folly. They had no respect for any other cultivation of the mind than that which produced bold men and short sentences. Them, nor the science of Aristotle, nor the dreams of Plato were fitted to delight. Music and dancing were indeed cultivated among them, and with success and skill; but the music and the dance were always of one kind--it was a crime to vary an air [140] or invent a measure. A martial, haughty, and superst.i.tious tribe can scarcely fail to be attached to poetry,--war is ever the inspiration of song,--and the eve of battle to a Spartan was the season of sacrifice to the Muses. The poetical temperament seems to have been common among this singular people. But the dread of innovation, when carried to excess, has even worse effect upon literary genius than legislative science; and though Sparta produced a few poets gifted, doubtless, with the skill to charm the audience they addressed, not a single one of the number has bequeathed to us any other memorial than his name. Greece, which preserved, as in a common treasury, whatever was approved by her unerring taste, her wonderful appreciation of the beautiful, regarded the Spartan poetry with an indifference which convinces us of its want of value. Thebes, and not Sparta, has transmitted to us the Dorian spirit in its n.o.blest shape: and in Pindar we find how lofty the verse that was inspired by its pride, its daring, and its sublime reverence for glory and the G.o.ds.

As for commerce, manufactures, agriculture,--the manual arts--such peaceful occupations were beneath the dignity of a Spartan--they were strictly prohibited by law as by pride, and were left to the Perioeci or the Helots.

VIII. It was evidently necessary to this little colony to be united.

Nothing unites men more than living together in common. The syssitia, or public tables, an inst.i.tution which was common in Crete, in Corinth [141], and in Megara, effected this object in a mode agreeable to the Dorian manners. The society at each table was composed of men belonging to the same tribe or clan. New members could only be elected by consent of the rest. Each head of a family in Sparta paid for his own admission and that of the other members of his house. Men only belonged to them. The youths and boys had their own separate table. The young children, however, sat with their parents on low stools, and received a half share. Women were excluded. Despite the celebrated black broth, the table seems to have been sufficiently, if not elegantly, furnished. And the second course, consisting of voluntary gifts, which was supplied by the poorer members from the produce of the chase--by the wealthier from their flocks, orchards, poultry, etc., furnished what by Spartans were considered dainties.

Conversation was familiar, and even jocose, and relieved by songs.