Arcadians

“ I was on this saluted by the whole assembly in chorus, under the name of Polisseno Phlegræio, and embraced by them as a fellow-shepherd and brother. The Arcadians are very rich, as you may perceive, my dear reader: we possess estates in Greece; we water them with our labours for the sake of reaping laurels, and the Turks sow them with grain, and plant them with vines, and laugh at both our titles and our songs. ”

“ I have said thus much for the sake of the Arcadians and Messenians themselves; that, remembering all the misfortunes which have befallen their countries at the hands of the Lacedaemonians, they may cling close to the policy of mutual affection and fidelity; and let no fear of war, or desire of peace, induce them to abandon each other in what affects the highest interests of both. ”

“ And in the third year of the war, when an engagement was about to take place at what was called The Great Trench, and when the Arcadians had come from all their cities to help the Messenians, the Lacedæmonians bribed Aristocrates, the son of Icetas, a native of Trapezus, king and general of the Arcadians at this period. The Lacedæmonians [Pg 261] are the first we know of that bribed an enemy, and the first that made renown in arms a thing to be purchased by money. ”

“ But if the Thebans actually recover and survive the attack, they will at least be weaker; for the Arcadians will have become our allies, and will owe their preservation to us. Thus on every ground it is to our interest not to sacrifice the Arcadians, nor to let them think that their deliverance, if they are really saved, is due to themselves, or to any other people than you. ”

“ Peloponnesus, among all its various present inhabitants, was the proper country of the Arcadians alone; the rest were really strangers. Nor were the Arcadians the most ancient only, they were the most powerful of the Grecian tribes; they were the most numerous, and they excelled in strength of body. It was notorious that the troops of no other Grecian people were in equal request. The Lacedæmonians knew their value: they had never invaded Attica without Arcadian auxiliaries; nor would the Thebans now venture to invade Laconia without them. ”

“ Ancæus therefore was not an Arcadian but an Ætolian: and his son Agapenor was probably either the first Arcadian of his race, or else a stranger appointed by Agamemnon to command the Arcadians in the Trojan war. Their having ships from Agamemnon, and a chief either foreign or of non-Arcadian extraction, are facts which tend to mark the Arcadians as politically dependent, and therefore pro tanto as Pelasgian: for it cannot be doubted that whatever in Greece was Pelasgian at the epoch of the Troica, was also subordinate to some race of higher and more effective energies. ”

“ Every one is familiarly acquainted with the fact that the Arcadians are the only people among whom boys are by the laws trained from infancy to sing hymns and paeans, in which they celebrate in the traditional fashion the heroes and gods of their particular towns. ”

“ The Arcadians, now that Agesilaus had retired, realising that he had disbanded his troops, while they themselves were fully mustered, marched upon Heraea, the citizens of which town had not only refused to join the Arcadian league, but had joined the Lacedaemonians in their invasion of Arcadia. ”

“ If they disapproved of the conduct of the Arcadians and Pisatans as an unjust intrusion, they would disapprove yet more of that spoliation of the rich temples at Olympia, whereby the intruders rewarded themselves. The Arcadians, always on the look-out for plunder and pay as mercenary soldiers, found themselves supplied with both, in abundant measure, from this war: the one from the farms, the stock, and the field-laborers, of the Eleian neighborhood generally, more plentiful than in any part of Peloponnesus ”

“ The commencement of the Seventh Eclogue is especially instructive, because it gives us reason to believe, that while many of the Arcadians left their country in consequence of that excess of population, to which mountainous regions are subject, in order to become foreign mercenaries, others, on the contrary, entered into foreign service as shepherds and goatherds, and in this condition not only made themselves useful by their experience, skill, and fidelity, but also introduced at the same time their native music together with that refinement of manners and feelings which it promoted. ”

“ But it may be that the constellation is merely named in honor of Callisto, since her grave is pointed out by the Arcadians. 8.4.1 After the death of Nyctimus, Arcas the son of Callisto came to the throne. He introduced the cultivation of crops, which he learned from Triptolemus, and taught men to make bread, to weave clothes, and other things besides, having learned the art of spinning from Adristas. After this king the land was called Arcadia instead of Pelasgia and its inhabitants Arcadians instead of Pelasgians. ”

“ Archidamus lay wounded before their eyes; in their ears rang the names of those who had died, the fallen being not only brave men, but, one may say, the flower of Spartan chivalry. The two armies were now close together, when one of the older men lifted up his voice and cried: "Why need we fight, sirs? Why not rather make truce and part friends?" Joyously the words fell on the ears of either host, and they made a truce. The Lacedaemonians picked up their dead and retired; the Arcadians withdrew to the point where their advance originally began, and set up a trophy of victory. ”

“ There is a temple of Artemis Hymnia on the borders between Orchomenus and Mantinea. She was worshipped of old by all the Arcadians. And her priestess at this time was a maiden. And Aristocrates, as she resisted all his attempts to seduce her, and fled at last for refuge to the altar near the statue of Artemis, defiled her there. And when his wickedness was reported to the Arcadians they stoned him to death, and their custom was thenceforward changed. For instead of a maiden as priestess of Artemis they had a woman who was tired of the company of men. ”

“ The Arcadian divine or heroic pedigree begins with Pelasgus, whom both Hesiod and Asius considered as an indigenous man, though Akusilaus the Argeian represented him as brother of Argos and son of Zeus by Niobê, daughter of Phorôneus: this logographer wished to establish a community of origin between the Argeians and the Arcadians. ”

“ He ordered everyone therefore to run away when he gave the signal. And when the Lacedæmonians began the engagement and the Messenians were opposite to them, thereupon at the commencement of the battle Aristocrates led off the Arcadians, and thus the Messenian centre and left wing was left exposed. For the Arcadians had occupied both these parts of the field, as the people of Elis were not present at the battle, nor the people of Argos and Sicyon. And Aristocrates put the finishing touch to his treason by fleeing through the Messenian lines. ”

“ The Eleians were only rescued by a reinforcement from their allies in Achaia, who came in large force and placed the city in safety; so that the Arcadians could do nothing more than lay waste the territory around. [685]
Retiring on this occasion, the Arcadians renewed their invasion not long afterwards; their garrison still occupying Olympia, and the exiles continuing at Pylus. They now marched all across the country, even approaching Kyllênê, the harbor of Elis on the western sea. ”

“ To that all the other shepherds present uttered pitiful voices, especially the very born Arcadians. For as for the other, though humanity moved them to pity human cases, especially in a prince under whom they had found a refuge of their miseries, and justice equally administered, yet could they not so naturally feel the lively touch of sorrow. ”

“ The Arcadians had just ended their Eleian campaign, and, without disbanding their levies, hastened to the rescue, surrounded Cromnus with a double line of trenches, and having so secured their position, proceeded to lay siege to those inside the place. The city of Lacedaemon, annoyed at the siege of their citizens, sent out an army, again under Archidamus, who, when he had come, set about ravaging Arcadia to the best of his power, as also the Sciritid, and did all he could to draw off, if possible, the besieging army. ”

“ Archidamus and the Spartans invade Arcadia. — Archidamus establishes a Spartan garrison at Kromnus. The Arcadians gain advantages over him — armistice. — The Arcadians blockade Kromnus, and capture the Spartan garrison. — The Arcadians celebrate the Olympic festival along with the Pisatans — excluding the Eleians. — The Eleians invade the festival by arms — conflict on the plain of Olympia — bravery of the Eleians. — Feelings of the spectators at Olympia. — The Arcadians take the treasures of Olympia to pay their militia. ”

“ Yet seeing that this is no time for wrangling about our place in the battle, we are ready to obey you, men of Lacedaemon! and take whatso place and face whatso enemy you deem most fitting; wheresoever you set us, we will strive to be valiant men. Command us then, as knowing that we will obey.” Thus the Athenians answered; and the whole army shouted aloud that the Athenians were worthier to hold the wing than the Arcadians. ”

“ The Arcadians, like the Scots and the Swiss in modern history, furnished the most numerous contingent to the new professional armies. A truly national army was indeed to appear once more in the history of the Peloponnesus, but in the meantime the professional soldier held the field. ”

“ So the Arcadians stoned Aristocrates to death, and cast him unburied out of their borders, and put up a pillar in the temple of Lycæan Zeus with the following inscription. “Time is sure to bring justice at last to an unjust king, and time with Zeus’ cooperation has easily found out Messene’s traitor. It is difficult for a perjured man to escape the god. ”

“ Then, Areas reminding the Arcadians of αρκτος (a bear) , while they knew the Bear constellation, ‘what was more natural than that Callisto should be changed into an arktos, a she-bear . . . placed by Zeus, her lover, in the sky’ as the Bear?
Nothing could be more natural to a savage; they all do it. {144b} But that an Aryan, a Greek, should talk such nonsense as to say that he was the descendant of a bear who was changed into a star, and all merely because ‘Areas reminded the Arcadians of arktos,’ seems to me an extreme test of belief, and a very unlikely thing to occur. ”

“ The feeding of herds and flocks constituted the principal occupation of the Proselenoi, [1802] who were little devoted to agriculture, as may be inferred from their acorn-eating habits; for no nation ever continued to feed on mast after they 407could obtain bread. A report prevailed in the ancient world that the Arcadians were of a poetical temperament, to which Virgil alludes in the well-known verses—
Arcades ambo,
Et cantare pares et respondere parati. And as improvisatori they may possibly have excelled, though Greece knew nothing of an Arcadian literature. ”

“ Pausanias [208] tells us, that the Arcadians accounted Pelasgus the first man, and that he was their first King; and taught the ignorant people to built houses, for defending themselves from heat, and cold, and rain; and to make them garments of skins; and instead of herbs and roots, which were sometimes noxious, to eat the acorns of the beech tree; and that his son Lycaon built the oldest city in all Greece: he tells us also, that in the days of Lelex the Spartans lived in villages apart. ”

“ One of the three races of people who inhabited the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece before the Dorian conquest,—the other two races being the Arcadians and the Achæans. "They were never (so far as history knows them) an independent population. ”

“ But the people of Lycaea, Tricoloni, Lycosura and Trapezus, but no other Arcadians, repented and, being no longer ready to abandon their ancient cities, were, with the exception of the last, taken to Megalopolis by force against their will,
8.27.6 while the inhabitants of Trapezus departed altogether from the Peloponnesus, such of them as were left and were not immediately massacred by the exasperated Arcadians. ”

“ But now there is perpetual enmity between the Lacedaemonians and all their neighbours, the Argives, the Messenians, and the Arcadians. Their slaves also first revolted from the Thessalians while they were engaged in wars with their neighbours the Acheans, the Perrabeans, and the Magnesians. It seems to me indeed, if nothing else, yet something very troublesome to keep upon proper terms with them; for if you are remiss in your discipline they grow insolent, and think themselves upon an equality with their masters ”

“ This battle cost the life also of another there present—the Spartan Socleides; since, it will be understood, the Lacedaemonians had by this time become allies of the Eleians. Consequently the Eleians, being sore pressed on their own territory, sent an embassy and begged the Lacedaemonians to organise an expedition against the Arcadians. They were persuaded that in this way they would best arrest the progress of the Arcadians, who would thus be placed between the two foes. In accordance with this suggestion Archidamus marched out with a body of the city troops and seized Cromnus. ”

“ So they changed their bad laws for good ones, and when Lycurgus died they built him a shrine and now greatly revere him. Then, since their land was good and their men were many, very soon they began to flourish and prosper. Nor were they satisfied to remain at peace: but being assured that they were stronger than the Arcadians, they inquired of the oracle at Delphi, with their minds set on the whole of Arcadia. The Pythian priestess gave them this reply:
“Askest Arcadia from me? ’Tis a boon too great for the giving. ”