Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh

“ They went a long way towards securing an absolute democracy. The assembly, or ecclesia, in which every citizen of eighteen years of age could vote, had always been nominally supreme, but under the tyrants had no doubt been seldom summoned, and had exercised little practical control. It was henceforth called at stated times and business of all kinds, having first been prepared by the Boulè, was brought before it. The cardinal point of Solon's constitution had been the division of the citizens into classes, according to the amount of their rateable property. ”

“ He was trained to endure every kind of hardship, to live on the plainest food, to dress in a single garment, to sleep on a mat of rushes, to walk barefooted, to bear the severest punishment without flinching, and to submit to his elders and officers with unquestioning obedience. At twenty the youths began regular military service, and were called eirenes, but had no part in civil business till thirty, and meanwhile were under a discipline as severe as that of their boyhood. ”

“ Solon suggested the constitution of a court, by whose decision the whole family were exiled. These achievements, and, perhaps, the absence of the Alcmaeonidae, gave Solon the first place in the regard of his fellow-citizens, and he was able to crown his public services by a measure of relief for the impoverished farmers of Attica. They were overburdened with debt, their lands were mortgaged, and if the produce was insufficient for the discharge of their liabilities they might be forced to sell their families into slavery and eventually to become slaves themselves. ”

“ They could reprimand or punish the kings no less than other officers or citizens, and when a king was commanding a military expedition one of their number accompanied him and controlled his actions or secured his recall. It is to them that the external policy of Sparta is in most cases to be ascribed, though the kings were nominally heads of the state, and in dignity and ceremonial observances always occupied the chief place.
In all Greek states it is to be remembered that freedom and democracy mean, after all, the rule of the few over the many ”

“ He grew suspicious of all around him, and not only put many of the citizens to death on various pretexts, but surrounded himself with armed guards, and looked out for support from abroad, hiring mercenary troops, and making personal alliances with other tyrants, and probably with the Persian Satraps in Asia. He regarded Sigeium—the one Asiatic possession of Athens—as the private property of his family, and placed one of his brothers in command of it. ”

“ The Dorians first seem to have settled in Central Greece (in which a small district long retained their name) , and at some time between B.C. 1000 and 800 to have pushed southward, occupying on their way Megara, Corinth, and Sicyon, and eventually to have overrun the greater part of the Peloponnese, in which Argolis, Laconia, and Messenia became predominately Dorian. This immigration, whatever its nature, seems not to have been a solitary movement, for we find that in the Homeric times the Dorians had already found their way to Crete. Nor was their occupation of the Peloponnese complete. ”

“ In Argos, especially, Pheidon did great things. He extended the influence of his country in the Peloponnese, and promoted its commercial importance by the introduction of a new coinage, for which he first set up a mint in the island of Ægina. We must not be led astray by the modern meaning of tyrant and tyranny. A Greek tyrannus did not necessarily mean an oppressive ruler, but one who obtained power contrary to the laws.
COINS OF ÆGINA.
Still, though he did not always rule badly, the rule of a single man supported by force is certain sooner or later to offend large classes of citizens. ”

“ The constitution as he left it was still oligarchical in that certain offices were not open to all; but all men were on an equal footing as far as the power of obtaining redress in the law courts was concerned, of voting in the assembly, and of serving on juries. Solon had had before his mind the problem which continually presented itself in Greek States, how to restrain the selfishness of a noble class and grant the largest liberty to the people, while still keeping up the safeguards against tyranny ”

“ In Argos for many generations a family claiming to be descended from the original king Temenus had the monopoly of power, till they, too, were overthrown by Pheidon.
Now these tyrants who held power in the Peloponnese, roughly between B.C. 700 and B.C. 600, were often men of remarkable character, who did much for the prosperity and power of their states. Corinth and Sicyon both rose to importance under them, in wealth as well as in naval strength. ”

“ Sometimes this came about because the man himself, or more often his son and successor, was corrupted by the possession of absolute power, and became a tyrant in the modern sense. Sometimes it was even because he aimed too high, and tried to enforce good laws more strictly than the people would bear. Resistance or discontent made the ruler suspicions, and he defended himself by acts of severity. From one reason or another a Greek tyranny rarely lasted beyond the second generation. ”

“ The one thing a man had to show before exercising civil rights was citizenship. This was secured by the council of each deme registering every boy when he came to the age of sixteen. It was the duty of the demesmen to see that he was properly a citizen by birth, and they were liable to be fined by the Boule if they made a wrong entry. ”

“ Most of the cities, therefore, which became important were near the coast, and their inhabitants, much shut off from the interior and from other cities, took to the sea and became bold and skilful mariners, finding their way from island to island, and from headland to headland, noting spots here and there which were uninhabited or so thinly inhabited as to invite settlers. From remote times trade with the countries round the Black Sea became important to the Greeks. ”

“ Ability to furnish a man's own arms, and later on inclusion in the first assessment of Solon, took the place of birth, and later still it was thrown open to all citizens alike. Military commanders were from the first elected, and not chosen by lot. No doubt there were always some means of assembling and consulting the citizens, but we know nothing of the working of an assembly before the time of Solon, or of the internal state of the city. ”

“ As always happens with close corporations, the number of true Spartans tended to diminish, and the lands fell into the hands of too few. The jealous exclusion of strangers made the Spartans narrow, and unfit to govern others or work with other states. ”

“ The Spartan soldiers had the highest reputation in Greece for fighting in the open field. They were believed to prefer death to quitting ground once occupied, and they certainly showed dogged perseverance in the face of difficulty and disaster. ”

“ By B.C. 500 these tyrannies had disappeared almost entirely in European Greece, and the political contests which were always frequent in the states were between oligarchy and democracy.
But one state in the Peloponnese went through none of these changes. As far as we know anything of the history of Sparta, its constitution had scarcely varied at all. And this stability is one of the reasons of its commanding influence. Sparta never governed the whole of the Peloponnese; Elis, Arcadia, Achaia, Sicyon, and Corinth remained independent. ”

“ They lived like a garrison in a conquered country, bound to be always ready against a rising of their serfs, always engaged in martial exercises or actual war, and regarding all other employments as either un- important or undignified. ”

“ Every citizen was bound to marry, but was allowed neither free choice nor unrestricted intercourse with his wife. The women were trained with almost equal severity, engaged in athletic exercises with the youths, and were taught to regard sons and husbands as belonging to the State rather than to themselves. ”

“ The Æolians occupied Central and Northern Greece from Bœotia to Thessaly, some islands, and the northern part of the coast of Asia Minor. The Ionians made their way to the northern part of Peloponnese, to certain islands, to Attica, and to the part of Asia Minor between ^Eolis and Caria. ”

“ If an infant seemed weak and unpromising at its birth it was exposed on Mount Taygetus to perish. If it was decided to rear a male child, from his seventh year he was removed from his mother and brought up with other boys under the care of public officers. ”

“ For selection of officials by lot or merit, for payment of taxes or performance of military duty, the whole people were divided into ten tribes, each containing a certain number of domes, or townships, not necessarily contiguous. ”