Achaean League

“ On the other hand the golden mean between an easily dissoluble relationship, more like an alliance than a federation, and a national system resulting from synoecism was practically never attained in early Greek history. There are, however, examples in Greece proper, and one, Lycia in Asia Minor, of real federal unions. The chief Greek federations were those of Thessaly, Boeotia, Acarnania, Olynthus, Arcadia, Aetolia, Achaea, the most important as well as the most complete in respect of organization being the Aetolian League and the Achaean League. ”

“ The previous history of these countries has been written by a number of historians already, and is known to all the world; nor in our days has any change specially remarkable or unprecedented occurred to them demanding a reference to their past. The progress of the Achaean league.But in regard to the Achaean league, and the royal family of Macedonia, it will be in harmony with my design to go somewhat farther back: for the latter has become entirely extinct; while the Achaeans, as I have stated before, have in our time made extraordinary progress in material prosperity and internal unity. ”

“ Of the remaining Greeks the Sicyonians were the first to join the Achaean League, and after the Sicyonians there entered it yet other Peloponnesians, some forthwith and others after an interval. Some too who lived outside the Isthmus were persuaded to join the Achaean League by its unbroken growth in power.
7.7.3 Alone among the Greeks the Lacedemonians were the bitter enemies of the Achaeans and openly carried on war against them. Pellene, a city of the Achaeans, was captured by Agis, the son of Eudamidas, who was king at Sparta ”

“ No League was strong enough to face the risk of compromising itself with a victorious great power. Achaean statesmen did their best, but they too could not save their country from ruin, once the League became entangled in the diplomacy of Rome. Nor was it the old Hellas alone that thus drifted to its doom. Between Rome and Carthage the western Greeks lost whatever power and freedom their own disunion and quarrels had left them. The Rhodian republic and its maritime League of islanders had to become the subject allies of Rome. ”

“ They are the first two examples of which we have detailed knowledge of a serious attempt at united action on the part of a large number of self-governing states at a relatively high level of conscious political development. The first league, moreover, in its later period affords the first example in recorded history of self-conscious imperialism in which the subordinate units enjoyed a specified local autonomy with an organized system, financial, military and judicial. The second league is further interesting as the precursor of the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues. ”

“ Why are your eight score Oneidas absent—the eight score who still remain in the Long House? Surely, brothers, there are sachems among them? Why are they not here? Do you fear they might not agree to the punishment of the Oneida nation?"
I folded my arms and stared at the Mohawks.
"Clan ties are close, national ties closer, but strongest and closest of all, the six iron links that form the Great League! Why do you punish now? How can you punish now? Is it well to break the oldest League law to punish those who have broken the law of the League?" ”

“ J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 10. See, also, HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE. GREECE: B. C. 280-146. The Achaian League. Its rise and fall. Destruction of Sparta. Supremacy of Rome. The Achaian League, which bore a leading part in the affairs of Greece during the last half of the third and first half of the second century before Christ, was in some sense the revival of a more ancient confederacy among the cities of Achaia in Peloponnesus. The older League, however, was confined to twelve cities of Achaia and had little weight, apparently, in general Hellenic politics. ”

“ If Peel's measure should become law, then the Council will be compelled to face the question, 'What shall the League do during the three years?' It has struck me that under such circumstances we might absolve the large subscribers from all further calls, put the staff of the League on a peace footing, and merely keep alive a nominal organization to prevent any attempt to undo the good work we have effected. ”

“ For about thirty years the league did not include any cities outside Achaia: but in 251 B.C. Aratus of Sicyon, when only twenty years of age, rescued his native city out of the power of its tyrant by surprising the garrison, and, in order to provide for its future safety, induced his fellow-citizens to enrol their state as a member of the confederation. In the year 245 B.C. he was elected to the office of strategus or chief magistrate of the league: and that office he held, as a general rule, thenceforward in alternate years till his death thirty-two years later. ”

“ Argos was emancipated and annexed, B. C. 228, and "the League was now the greatest power of Greece. {1603} A Federation of equal cities, democratically governed, embraced the whole of old Achaia, the whole of the Argolic peninsula, the greater part of Arkadia, together with Phlious, Sikyon, Corinth, Megara, and the island of Aigina." The one rival of the Achaian League in Peloponnesus was Sparta, which looked with jealousy upon its growing power, and would not be confederated with it. ”

“ Any little bundle of human beings, however small, illiterate, and unimportant, provided only that it was a law unto itself and waved a flag about and insisted upon a cantankerous independence, was regarded as a possible unit by the pedants who devised the League. Any body of people, however numerous, intelligent, and significant in human affairs, provided it had grouped itself into any other larger political aggregation, ceased, on the other hand, to be anything but a merged participator in the League’s affairs. ”

“ For such men have again and again been the authors of manifold advantages to their own countries. But not to go any 213 further for example, my meaning can be made clear by the circumstances of the present case. For, if Aristaenus had not at this time opportunely caused the Achaeans to leave their alliance with Philip and join that of Rome, it is clear that the whole league would have been utterly ruined. But as it was, this man and this policy were confessedly the sources, not only of security to individual Achaeans at the time, but of the aggrandisement of the whole league. ”

“ It would therefore seem to be certain that, while the memory of these losses in lives and wealth lasts, all the members of the League will faithfully carry out the obligations connected with the membership of the League into which they enter for the purpose of avoiding such a disaster as, like a bolt from the blue, fell upon mankind by the outbreak of the present war. On the other hand, I will not deny that no one can guarantee the future; that conflicts may arise which will shake the foundations of the League of Nations; that the League may fall to pieces ”

“ Most people’s ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want the League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a League that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of “our independence.” ”

“ As far as I can make out, the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; so, when he died, it was found that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay, and very little to do.'
"The League has a vacancy." ”

“ In this war a new confederacy was formed, which was extended beyond Peloponnesus; the community of danger and of victory having, besides a momentary combination, also produced an union destined for some duration. It was the assembly of this league—a fixed congress at Corinth during, and at Sparta after, the war—that settled the internal differences of Greece, that invited Argos, Corcyra, and Gelon to join the league, and afterwards called upon Themistocles to answer for his proceedings.804 So much it did for the present emergency. ”

“ The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a member of such a league are manifest. The risk of war would be eliminated within the League. Obviously the only things that are vital to a nation are its land and its independence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged itself to respect the territory and the sovereignty of every other, a refusal to do so will logically lead to expulsion from the League. Thus every vital question will be automatically reserved from both war and arbitration. ”

“ And it, and it alone, must carry on, and carry on in public, negotiations with powers outside the league. All disputes that may arise between members of the league must be settled by judicial process. And none of the forces of the league must be available for purposes of aggression by any member against any other. ”

“ Originally, this council or congress was composed of deputies from twelve States, or tribes—Thessalians, Bœotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Octæans, Phthiots, Achæans, Melians, and Phocians. These tribes assembled together before authentic history commences, before the return of the Heracleids. There were other States which were not represented in this league—Arcadia, Elis, Æolia, and Acarnania; but the league was sufficiently powerful to make its decisions respected by the greater part of Greece. Each tribe, whether powerful or weak, had two votes in the assembly. ”

“ It is convenient to describe the former group as advocating a league of peace, since we are generally agreed that a league is a form of concert from which the constituent members may withdraw at will, and in which does not reside power to force them to do what they do not find reasonable. The second group wish to have a federation, if by that term we understand a united group in which exists power sufficient to preserve the common cause against any possible disobedient member. To form a league is easier than to form a federation. ”

“ Kimmensen's hands crushed his thighs, and he stared grimly at Messerschmidt's back.
"Let's look at the record. You and I are citizens of the Freemen's League. Which is a voluntary organization. Now—who founded the League? Josef Kimmensen. Who's been the only League President we've ever had? Who is the League, by the grace of considerable spellbinding powers and an electorate which—by the very act of belonging to the League—is kept so split up that it's rare when a man gets a chance to talk things out with his neighbor? ”

“ The sense of a common peril and a common triumph brought with it the need of a common union; it was Athens, however, instead of Sparta, by whom the first conscious effort was made to transcend the isolation of the Greek political system and to bring the units into combination. The league thus founded (the Delian League, established in 477 B.C.) was under the presidency of Athens, but it included hardly any other state besides those that had conducted the defence of Greece. ”

“ This League was formed for the purpose of crystallizing the fetters upon conquered people; of driving the nails into the coffin of the hopes of conquered masses upon penalty of being set upon, not by one nation but by the united powers of the earth. ”

“ Opposition to League growing more intense from day to day. Its bitterness and pettiness producing reaction. New polls throughout country indicate strong drift toward league. League of Nations and just peace inseparable. Neither half can stand alone. Know you will not be drawn away from announced programme to incorporate League covenant in treaty. You can afford to go any length in insisting upon this. There is no doubt of your success here and abroad. The real friends of a constructive peace have not begun to fight. ”

“ I think, too, it justifies my reiterated assertion that the constitution of the League is so hopeless, so childish, so diplomatically conceived and useless, that nothing but reorganisation from the ground upward can give us a proper organ for the expression of the real need and desire for unity in the world. ”

“ This ghostly evolution having been performed, and the trembling Leaguers finding themselves invested at every point, the Grand Cyclops had orders to ascend the rostrum, and from that elevated position deliver to the (constructive) culprits an oath whose [Pg 96] principal features were as follows: To forever abjure all allegiance to the secret organization known as the Loyal League; to cease to employ the elective franchise as an instrument of oppression against the white population of the State; to forsake the acquaintance of all men, irrespective of party, who sought to profit by their votes ”

“ Does this League of Nations which has been created by the covenant of 1919 contain within it the germ of any permanent{v2-584} federation of human effort? Will it grow into something for which, as Stallybrass says, men will be ready to “work whole-heartedly and, if necessary, fight”—as hitherto they have been willing to fight for their country and their own people? There are few intimations of any such enthusiasm for the League at the present time. The League does not even seem to know how to talk to common men. ”

“ Any member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a member of the League by a vote of the council concurred in by the representatives of all the other members of the League represented thereon. ”