vaded country are defeated in battle, they lose their lands,
and their only alternatives are to remain and cultivate them
as the tenants of the new lords, or to migrate and seek
settlements elsewhere ; and thus they who have been van-
quished, and have lost their own lands, often appear as
conquerors in another quarter. So it was in the present
case ; a portion of the Achaean race remained in Thessaly,
the tenants of the Thesprotians; the more enterprising
quitted the country they had lost, and, invading Boeotia, ex-
pelled a part of its inhabitants, and seized their lands.
These invasions do not seem to have been productive of
any important consequences ; but, thirty years later, that is,
eighty years after the Trojan war, the vicinity of Boeotia
sent forth a body of invaders, whose successes altered the
appearance and condition of a large portion of Greece;
this was the celebrated Dorian Migration, or Return of the
Heracleids. We will relate it in the mythic form in which
it has been transmitted to us, and then endeavor to show
what may have been its real nature and course.*
According to the poets, the royal family of Argos, named
the Perseids, derived their lineage and name from Perseus,
the son of the god Zeus by Danae, a maiden descended from
the Egyptian Danaiis. Alcmena, a granddaughter of Per-
seus, and wife to her cousin Amphitryon, the son of Alcasus,
Perseus' eldest son, bore to the same god a son named
Hercules, who, as poets tell, was, by a stratagem of the
queen of heaven, deprived of his birthright, and made the
* Apollodorus, ii. 8.
THE DORIAN MIGRATION. 19
subject of his cousin Eurystheus, the son of a younger son
of Perseus. The right to the throne, therefore, lay with
Hercules, and consequently descended to his children.
After the assumption of that hero to heaven, Eurystheus,
who had been his persecutor in life, continued his hostility
to his children, whom he forced to fly from Peloponnesus.
They sought refuge with Ceyx, king of Trachis, at Mount
(Eta : but after some time, this prince being menaced with
vengeance by Eurystheus, they quitted Trachis, and coming
as supplicants to Athens, sought protection. The Athe-
nians, who always held sacred the rights of hospitality,
refusing to give them up to Eurystheus, he led an army into
Attica; but his forces were defeated and all his sons slain,
and he himself, as he fled in his chariot along the pass of
the Scironian rocks, fell by the hands of Hyllus, the son of
Hercules. The Heracleids now entered Peloponnesus, and
became masters of the whole country; but the following
year a pestilence broke out, and the oracle at Delphi, on
being consulted, said, that the Heracleids were the cause,
who had returned before their time. They therefore aban-
doned the country, and went and dwelt at Marathon in
Attica.
After some time, Hyllus consulted the oracle, and was
told to wait for the third crop, and then to return by the
strait. Supposing it to be the third year and the Isthmus
that were meant, after waiting the due time, he attempted to
pass the Isthmus, but met with only defeat and death from
the Pelopids, who now occupied the throne. Other attempts
proved equally fruitless : at length, after many years, the
grandsons of Hyllus, Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cres-
phontes, consulted the oracle, which still gave the same
response ; and Temenus making answer that when they had
followed it they had proved unfortunate, the god replied that
it was the third crop (generation) of men, not of the ground
he had meant, and that the passage should be made by sea
in the narrow part of the gulf of Corinth. They now col-
lected an army, and, building ships at a place thence named
20 HISTORY OF GREECE.
Naupactus, (Ship-buildirig,) prepared to pass over. While
they were here, Aristodemus was struck with lightning, and
died,* leaving two sons, named Eurysthenes and Procles ;
and a soothsayer having been slain by one of the Heracleids,
the anger of the gods was manifested by a storm which de-
stroyed their ships, and a famine which forced their army to
disperse.
The oracle, being consulted, directed that the homicide
should go into exile for two years, and that they should
take the three-eyed man for their guide. The former part
of the response was easy to obey ; the latter was of doubt-
ful meaning. They sought after a three-eyed man, and at
length meeting an ^Etolian, named Oxylus, who was blind
of an eye, and was mounted on a horse, they judged him
to be the person designated by the oracle, and made him
their leader. When they landed in Peloponnesus, Tisame-
nus, son of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, gave them battle.
He was defeated and slain; and on the side of the invaders
fell Pamphylus and Dyman, the sons of the Dorian king
JEgimius.
The victors now prepared to divide the realm of the
vanquished prince. Elis, according to agreement, being
assigned to Oxylus, they raised three altars to Father
Zeus, and, having offered sacrifice upon them, proposed to
cast lots for their respective shares ; Argos being the first
lot, Lacedaemon the second, and Messene the third. As
the mode adopted was for each to cast a pebble into an
urn of water, Cresphontes, who was desirous of getting
Messene, cast in a piece of earth, while Temenus and the
sons of Aristodemus threw in pebbles; and, as the earth
dissolved, the other two lots were of course first drawn,
and he gained his object.f It was said, too, that on the
altar for Argos was found a toad, on that of Lacedaemon
* The Spartan tradition (Herod, vi. 52.) made him live to share in
the conquest.
t The legend, as related by Pausanias, (iv. 3. 5,) differs slightly
from this.
THE DORIAN MIGRATION. 21
a serpent, and on that of Messene a fox, emblematic of
the future characters of these nations.
Such is the form in which the important event of the
conquest of Peloponnesus has been transmitted to us, and
its claims to the name of strict historic truth are evidently
no better founded than those of the Trojan war. The fol-
lowing may, perhaps, be regarded as a nearer approach to
the real state of the case.
The conquerors of the Peloponnesus were evidently the
Dorians; for a new dialect, new manners and institutions
were introduced, and their descendants always bore the
name of Dorians. These were a tribe whose first seats
appear to have been about Mount Olympus, whence they
migrated southwards, and settled in the district named from
them Doris, between Mount CEta and Parnassus. It is
certainly by no means an improbable event that a branch
of the royal family of Argos, being driven from their paternal
seats, may have sought to allure a mountain tribe to aid
in recovering them, by the prospect of the acquisition of
rich, fertile, and cultivated lands. But when we consider
the highly mythic character of Perseus and Hercules, their
supposed ancestors, and the many improbabilities which
this account involves, we may incline to regard this sup-
posed descent of the chiefs of the conquering nation from
the royal line of Argos, as a late fiction, devised to give
legitimacy to their possession. It would then appear more
probable that the Dorians, a mountain race, feeling excess
of population, and want of room, or, perhaps, urged merely
by the desire of change, or pressed on in consequence of
the migration of the Thesprotians into Thessaly, or excited by
their example, might, like the Helvetians in the time of
Caesar, have resolved to quit their mountains and seek
their fortune in Peloponnesus. As the Isthmus was remote
from them, and might be easily guarded, they made a treaty
of alliance and division of conquests with a portion of the
./Etolians, who dwelt to the south of them ; and vessels of
various kinds being constructed or collected at the nar-
22 HISTORY OF GREECE.
rowest part of the Corinthian Gulf, the allies passed over.
That it was not at the Isthmus they entered, is evident ; for,
according to all testimony, Corinth was the last of their
conquests.
The Dorians were accompanied on their expedition by
their wives and children. It is computed that the number
of the men may have been about twenty thousand the same
number that the Duke of Normandy led to the conquest of
England.* There is evidence enough remaining to prove
that the Peloponnesus was not won in a single battle, but
was gradually, and, in some cases, slowly, gained. The
^Etolians appear to have acquired, by peaceful composition,
preeminence, and a share of the land from the people of
Elis, to whom they were akin. The Arcadians would also
seem to have been friendly disposed towards the Dorians, as
they gave them a passage through their country, and in
some places treachery or agreement with portions of the
Achaeans facilitated the Dorian conquests.
It was always the custom of the descendants of the
Dorians, transmitted to them, probably, from their fore-
fathers, to fight on foot, in full armor, and in close columns;
and supposing the Achreans' mode of fighting to be that
described above, after Homer, we may easily see how in-
ferior they must have proved in the field to the invaders.
But it may be said, their towns, such as Tiryns and Mycena?,
were strong, fenced in by their huge Cyclopian walls, and
the Dorians were never skilled in besieging. Here, how-
ever, again tradition comes to our aid ; the places were
shown on which the Dorian invaders were said to have fixed
their permanent camps in the proximity of Argos and
Corinth, whence they harassed the people of these towns
till they forced them to a composition.
In antiquity, the different races were distinguished by
their predilection for different political numbers. The
* Sismondi, Histoire des Francois, iv. 353. Mackintosh's History
of England, i. 97.
THE DORIAN MIGRATION. 23
Dorian number was three; and hence we find that three
was the number of the great division of their conquests in
Peloponnesus, Argos, Laconia, Messene. The Dorians
of Argos extended their power northwards, and Phlius,
Sicyon, Corinth, Epidaurus, and Troezen, and finally, the
isle of JEgina, became Dorian. When Corinth grew pow-
erful, an attempt was made to extend the Dorian name be-
yond the Isthmus, and Megaris was won; but the efforts
against Attica, as we shall see, were without effect.
The Dorians, also, it is uncertain at what time,
passed over to Crete, and, acquiring the supremacy in that
island, as in Peloponnesus, gave the Dorian character to its
language and institutions.
After the Dorian migration, no changes of abode occurred
among the tribes of Greece. The Greeks continued to be
one people, divided into separate communities, regarding
themselves as of common origin, and totally distinct from
all other peoples, whom they called Barbarians* The
main supports of their nationality were, language, religion,
and common institutions.
Like the modern Italians, the Greeks spoke different
dialects of one language : the difference, however, was not
such as to throw much difficulty in the way of communi-
cation ; and a Dorian and an Ionian could perhaps converse
together with more ease than a Venetian and a Neapolitan.
The epic poetry of the lonians was sung all through Greece;
the ^Eolian lyrics were every where listened to with delight,
and a mingled audience could enjoy the stately drama of
Athens.
The same deities claimed the belief and worship of all
Greece, though some were adored more in one, some in
another state. The temples of Delphi, Delos, and Olym-
pia, were repaired to from all parts, and all Hellas sought
* This word originally designated those whose language was not
Greek.
24 HISTORY OF GREECE.
oracular responses from Olympia, Delphi, and the ancient
oracle of Dodona in Epirus. At Olympia, Delphi, the
Isthmus, and Nemea, games were, at different intervals of
times, celebrated in honor of the gods ; and in the gymnic
and other exercises at these games, none but persons of
true Hellenic descent were permitted to contend. People
resorted from all parts of Greece to witness these games,
which thus tended strongly to uphold the unity of the
nation.
Associations, named Amphictyonies, seem also, from very
early times, to have kept up union among various portions
of the inhabitants of Greece. They are said to have been
instituted by Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion ; but it is
far more probable that, as the word denotes, they were
so named from their consisting of the tribes which dwelt
round some temple at which they worshipped, and which
they supported in common.* There were several of these
Amphictyonies ; but by far the most celebrated is that which
had charge of the temple of Apollo, at Delphi, and of which
most of the leading states of Greece were members. This
assembly met twice a year, in spring and autumn, at Pylae
and Delphi, and was composed of deputies from the different
states belonging to it. It regulated all things relative to the
temple, and decided on some political matters of common
interest. The number of peoples composing this Amphic-
tyony was twelve, namely, the Thessalians, Boeotians, Dori-
ans, Ionians, Perrhaebians, Magnetes, Locrians, CEtaeans,
Phthiotic Achaeans, Melians, Phocians, Delphians.
* There is every reason to suppose that the proper orthography is
ipipixritav, (from aiupl, round, and ktiw, to dwell,) and not an<pixrvon>,
(from an imaginary personage.)
THE COLONIES. 25
CHAPTER IV.
THE COLONIES.
The Dorian migration was the event which scattered
Grecian colonies over the coasts of the iEgean, and eventu-
ally over those of the Mediterranean and Euxine Seas. As
they commenced at the time of the migration, the present is,
perhaps, the most suitable place for giving an account of
these foreign settlements of the Greeks.
Various circumstances will conquer the natural love of
the land of his birth in the heart of man. As in the pres-
ent case, proud and high-spirited men, who have been
overcome, and have lost their lands to invaders, will gladly,
rather than become the subjects of the conquerors, try
their fortune in distant regions, where their swords may
win them possessions equal to those they had lost. Other
colonies are indebted for their origin to the spirit of civil
discord, in which a beaten or a discontented faction re-
solves to quit home, rather than remain witnesses of the
triumph and the insolence of their rivals ; such was the ori-
gin of some of the later Grecian colonies. Commercial
advantages have led to the formation of numerous colonies
at all times ; such were the Grecian colonies in the Euxine,
those of the Phoenicians, and several in modern times.
The maintenance of dominion over a conquered country is
also a cause of colonization : the Roman colonies are in-
stances, as also are the Latin colonies in Syria at the time
of the Crusades, and in some measure those of the Spaniards
in America. This last motive is, however, usually united
with a commercial one.
The difficulty, however, of procuring the necessaries
and the comforts of life at home, caused by the increase
of population, is the main motive with men to abandon their
native land. They feel every day the pressure of want ;
and as hope spreads illusive hues over the distant regions
3 d
26 HISTORY OF GREECE.
which invite them, the toils and dangers to be undergone
are unheeded.
So it was in Greece at a later period than that of which
we treat at present ; and when the power of colonizing had
in a great measure ceased, we shall find the excess of popu-
lation manifesting itself in the bands of Grecian mercenary
soldiers, and in the barbarous practice of exposing new-born
babes.*
We are now to take a view of the Grecian colonies on
the coast of Asia Minor, and the colonies which proceeded
from them.
The Achasans, when vanquished by the Dorians, submitted
in part to the conquerors. A portion of them threw them-
selves on the ^Egialeia, or southern coast of the Corinthian
Gulf, which was occupied by a kindred tribe, as it would
appear, named the Ionians. In a battle which took place,
the Ionians were defeated ; and as, according to the rules
of war in those times, they thereby lost their lands, they
abandoned their country and retired to Attica, whose in-
habitants were of the same race with themselves. The
Achaeans remained masters of the country, which took from
them the name of Achaia ; and a long period will elapse
before we meet them treading the political stage as actors
of importance.
Another portion of the defeated Achseans wandered
farther in quest of settlements. They are said to have
departed under the guidance of Penthilus, a younger son
of Orestes, and to have made their first stay in Eubcea.
Thence proceeding northwards, they made trial of the
coast of Thrace ; and finally crossing the Hellespont, took
possession of the coast of Asia Minor, from the isle of
Cyzicus, in the Propontis, to the river Hermus, the former
realm of the Trojan monarchs, whose power their fathers
* There is no allusion to this practice in the Homeric poems. The
instances of it in the mythic legends are never ascribed to the poverty
of the parents. China, the most densely peopled country, is the only
one, we believe, in which it prevails at present.
THE COLONIES. 27
had overturned. They also occupied the isles of Tenedos
and Lesbos. The number of their towns on the main land
was twelve, of which the best known are Cyme and
Smyrna. These colonists were named ^Eolians, as they
spoke the MoYic dialect of the Greek language.* The
twelve ^Eolian towns, it is said, but the fact is doubtful,
celebrated, as a bond of union, a common festival to Apollo
in the grove of Gryneion, near Myrina.
The Ionians, who had retired to Attica, finding, in the
course of half a century, a want of room and occupation
in that light land, resolved to follow the example of the
^Eolians, and pass over to Asia. Accordingly, uniting
with Bceotians and others who were desirous of change,
they crossed the sea, and attacking the Leleges and Carians,
who dwelt south of the Hermus, made themselves masters
of the coast from the mouth of that river to Cape Poseidion.
They divided themselves, as in their original country, into
twelve towns; namely, Phocaea, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Teos,
Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, Lebedus, Miletus, and
Chios and Samos, in the isles of the same name. The
leaders of the colonists are said to have been for the most
part Neleids, or princes of the royal house of Pylos in Pel-
oponnesus, who had retired from thence to Attica before
the Dorians ; and traces of the royal dignity long remained
among the Ionians. The Ionian cities had a common fes-
tival, named Panionia, which served as a bond of union
among them. It was celebrated in honor of the Helico-
nian t Poseidon, at a place named Panionion, on the wooded
promontory of Mycale, opposite Samos.
About the same time that the Ionians passed over to Asia,
the Dorians of Argos, Epidaurus, and Troezen, in conse-
quence of dissension, or from want of room, or urged by
* The greater number of them, then, must have been Boeotians, as
this was their dialect. Boeotians, therefore, are said to have joined
the Achseans ; it is more simple, however, to suppose that iEolis was
colonized from Bceotia alone.
t So named from Helice in Achaia.
28 HISTORY OF GREECE.
their adventurous spirit, crossed the sea also, and made
themselves masters of the isles of Rhodes and Cos, and
founded on the main land Cnidos and Halicarnassus. The
three cities of Rhodes, Lindus, Jalysus, and Cameirus, with
Cos, Cnidos, and Halicarnassus, formed what was named
the Dorian Hexapolis, (Six-towns ;) and they kept a common
festival to their national god Apollo on the Triopian prom-
ontory. The Dorians also settled on some of the Sporades,
and on the isles between Crete and Rhodes.
Thus, within one hundred and twenty years after the sup-
posed date of the capture of Troy, the Grecian colonies
occupied the coast of Asia, from the Hellespont to the
borders of Lycia, a length of nearly three hundred English
miles. It is interesting to inquire how they were enabled to
obtain possession of so much territory.
We may suppose that the overthrow of the Trojan power
left the region to which the ^Eolians came in a very feeble
condition, so that probably no effectual opposition could be
made to the settlement of the martial colonists when they
landed. We have no information of the manner in which
they acquired possession of the country ; most probably it
was by treaty. The Ionians would seem to have gained
their settlements by the sword from the Carians and Lele-
ges, for we are told * that having brought no women with
them from Attica, they took to wife the Carian women
whose fathers and husbands they had slain. As these Ca-
rians and Leleges seem to have formed separate indepen-
dent communities, without any firm bond of union among
them, it was easy for the Ionians, by attacking them sepa-
rately, to subdue them one after the other ; for in such a
state of society men are singularly negligent of the ap-
proach of danger, and will stand calmly looking on, and
* Herod, i. 146. The historian says, that on this account the Ionian
women never ate with their husbands, or called them by their names,
the wives and daughters of the murdered Carians having bound them-
selves by oath not to do so, and transmitted the obligation to their
daughters. The tale was perhaps invented to account for the custom.
THE COLONIES. 29
perhaps rejoicing at the misfortunes of their neighbors, not
perceiving that their own turn will probably come next. As
to the interior of the country, there does not appear to have
been at that time any state of magnitude in it, and the various
tribes which dwelt there may have been indifferent as to who
possessed the coast, or even to have been pleased with the
arrival of the strangers, who, we know not from what cause,
seem to have been more devoted to the arts of peace than to
those of war.
During a long series of years, the causes of colonization
continued to operate. The coasts of Macedonia and Thrace
on the iEgean were occupied by Grecian settlements; the
Ionians of Miletus sent colonists to the Propontis, then
entered the Euxine, and made settlements for the sake of
commerce along the coasts of Asia, Colchis, and Scythia.
On the west, Sicily and the south coast of Italy were filled
with Grecian colonies, chiefly Dorian. In the south, the
Isle of Cyprus became Grecian; the jealous Egyptians
allowed Greeks to settle in their land, and a flourishing
Grecian state was established at Cyrene, on the coast of
Libya. The Phocaeans of Ionia, finally, as we shall see
hereafter, effected a settlement on the south coast of France,
the origin of the modern city of Marseilles.
The relation between a Greek colony, founded for the
sake of trade, or for disburdening the mother country, and
the parent state, appears in a very pleasing light. The col-
onists took with them a portion of the sacred fire which
burned in the Prytaneion or council-hall of their native city ;
they invited the tutelar deities of the state to accept abodes
in the new country to which they were going, and erected
for them there temples and altars similar to those at home.
Deputies regularly repaired from the colonies with offerings
to the religious festivals of the mother city; and its citizens,
when they appeared at those of the colonies, were treated
with the utmost respect and consideration. Finally, if the
new state was becoming a colonizer in its turn, it always
3*
30 HISTORY OF GREECE.
fetched the leader (&QXVYV T *ls) f the colony from the ori-
ginal mother country. In times of war or distress, the parent
state and its colonies mutually aided each other.
CHAPTER V.
THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION. LYCURGUS.
The uncertainty of tradition, and the want of contempo-
rary written history, make all inquiries relating to these
early ages of Greece extremely fluctuating and uncertain.
We thus find it impossible to say positively in what manner,
and in what space of time, the Dorian dominion was estab-
lished in Peloponnesus, and what was its nature ; and anal-
ogy and the view of the institutions existing in the historic
times will perhaps be safer guides than the assertions of late
historians.
The most complete parallel which history presents to
the Dorian conquest of Peloponnesus, is that of England
by the Normans.* Admitting the truth in the main features
of the mythic account of the former, the invaders, in each
case about equal in number, were led by princes who as-