Book III. Political Institutions Of The Dorians.
Chapter I.
1. End of a state according to the Doric notions. 2. Difference between the political institutions of the Dorians and Ionians. 3. Successive changes in the constitutions of the Greek states; 1st, royal aristocracy of the heroic ages. 4. 2nd, Timocracy, or aristocracy of wealth. 5. 3rd, Tyranny. 6. 4th, Democracy. 7. Form of government characteristic of the Doric race. 8. Supposed legislation of Lycurgus. 9. Derivation of Spartan laws from the Delphic oracle. 10. Characteristics of the Doric form of government.
With this desire to obtain a complete uniformity, an attempt after stability is necessarily connected. For an unity of this kind having been once established, the next object is to remove whatever has a tendency to destroy it, and to repress all causes which may lead to a change: yet an attempt to exclude all alteration is never completely successful: partly on account of the internal changes which take place in the national character, and partly because causes operating from without necessarily produce some modifications. These states, however, endeavour to retain unchanged a state of things once established and approved; while others, in which from the beginning the opinions of individuals have out-weighed the authority of the whole, admit, in the progress of time, of greater variety, and more innovations, readily take up whatever is offered to them by accident of time and place, or even eagerly seek for opportunities of change. States of this description must soon lose all firmness and character, and fall to pieces from their own weakness; while those which never admit of innovation will at last, after having long stood as ruins in a foreign neighbourhood, yield to the general tide of human affairs, and their destruction is commonly preceded by the most complete anarchy.
2. This description expresses, though perhaps too forcibly, the difference between the Doric and Ionic races. The former had, of all the Grecians, the [pg 004] what must have been the condition of this people, when the wives of the Ionians had mixed with Lydian women! The warning voice of such examples might well stimulate the ancient lawgivers to draw in with greater closeness the iron bond of custom.
continued to exist for a considerable time in the Ionian, Achan, and olian states; but the power of the chief ruler gradually declined, and was at last wholly abolished. With the Dorians, however, the case was very different; they were peculiar in possessing a very limited nobility, for the Heraclid had nearly an exclusive right to that appellation: while, on the other hand, a whole nation occupied by means of conquest, a station analogous to that of an aristocracy, uniting military pursuits with independence obtained by the possession of the land.
5. At Athens however, and generally throughout Greece, the first result of these democratic movements was the establishment of tyranny or despotism; which may be considered as a violent revulsion, destined to precede a complete subversion of all the existing institutions. It has been already shown that the tyrants of Corinth, Sicyon, Megara, and Epidaurus, were originally leaders of the popular party against the Doric nobility, or demagogues , according to the expression of Aristotle; and for this reason Sparta, as being the protector of aristocracy, overthrew them, wherever her power extended. The democracy flourished so long as great men understood how to guide it by the imposing superiority of their individual characters, and educated persons ( ) dared to take a share in public affairs; it fell when the greedy and indolent people, allured by the prospect of rewards pernicious to the state, filled the public assemblies and courts of justice. We will not carry on any further our picture of the ochlocracy, in which all social union was entirely dissolved, and the state was surrendered to the arbitrary will of a turbulent populace.
6. The last of these changes, produced by what is called the spirit of the times, we have illustrated by the history of Athens, although the same course may be shown to have taken place in other, even originally Doric states. Thus in Ambracia, about the same time as at Athens, the timocracy gradually passed into a democracy,
Now it is the tendency of mythological narration to represent accordant actions of many minds at different times under the name of one person: consequently, the mere name of an institution of Lycurgus says very little respecting its real origin and author.
8. The legislation of Lycurgus was, however, according to ancient traditions, aided by the support of Crete and Delphi, and the connexion between the religious usages of these states thus influenced their political condition. The form of government which was prevalent throughout the whole of Crete, originated, according to the concurrent testimony of the ancients, in the time of Minos; and it has been already shown that the Dorians at that time extended their dominion to this island, which thus received their [pg 014] it is easy to perceive that the latter part of this account is an addition, made without any attention to chronology; but the operation of Cretan music upon the regulation of political affairs, is strictly in the spirit of an age, and of a race, in which religion, arts, and laws conduced far more than among any other people to attain the same end, and had their basis in the same notions.
and conquering state; whereas the fact is, that Sparta was hardly ever known to seek occasion for a war, or to follow up a victory; and during the whole of her flourishing period (that is, from about the 50th Olympiad to the battle of Leuctra) did not make a single conquest by which her territory was enlarged. In conclusion we may say, that the Doric state was a body of men, acknowledging one strict principle of order, and one unalterable rule of manners; and so subjecting themselves to this system, that scarcely anything was unfettered by it, but every action was influenced and regulated by the recognised principles. Before however we come to the consideration of this system, it will be necessary to explain the condition of an order of persons, upon which it was in a certain measure founded, namely, the subject classes in the several Doric states.
Chapter II.
1. Origin and distribution of the Perici of Laconia. 2. Their political condition and civil rights. 3. Their service in war, and their occupation in manufactures, trade, and art. 4. Noble families in Sparta not of Doric origin. Trades and crafts hereditary in Sparta.
It must therefore have been subsequent to this epoch that Sparta fixed the exact number of the towns inhabited by her Perici, and somewhat arbitrarily set them at a hundred; as Cleisthenes at Athens, though by what means is indeed unknown, contrived likewise to raise the number of demi in Attica to a hundred.
We have already of Laconia besides that into towns, and shown that the Perici of this country had formerly dwelt in five districts, of which the chief towns were Amycl, Las, Epidaurus Limera (or else Gytheium), gys, and Pharis; as also Messenia, in addition to the territory round the city inhabited by Dorians, contained four provincesviz., Pylos, Rhium, Mesola, and Hyamia. For what length of time these districts were retained, and what relation they bore to the division into a hundred towns or hamlets, cannot now be determined.
2. It will next be necessary to ascertain what were the political rights and condition of the Perici. The main circumstances are without doubt correctly given by Ephorus. They were, he says, tributary to Sparta, and had not equal rights of citizenship. If these words are taken in their literal sense, it is plain that the Perici had not a share in the great legislative assembly of the citizens. And in truth the passages adduced by modern writers to show that they had a vote in this assembly are not by any means satisfactory.
