§ 15. The successes of Athens had excited the jealousy of the Spartans, and they now resolved to make a third attempt to overthrow the Athenian democracy. They had meantime discovered the deception which had been practised upon them by the Delphic oracle; and they invited Hippias to come from Sigeum to Sparta, in order to restore him to Athens. The experience of the last campaign had taught them that they could not calculate upon the co-operation of their allies without first obtaining their approval of the project; and they therefore summoned deputies from all their allies to meet at Sparta, in order to determine respecting the restoration of Hippias. The despot was present at the congress; and the Spartans urged the necessity of crushing the growing insolence of the Athenians by placing over them their former master. But their proposal was received with universal repugnance; and the Corinthians again expressed the general indignation at the design. "Surely heaven and earth are about to change places, when you Spartans propose to set up in the cities that wicked and bloody thing called a Despot. First try what it is for yourselves at Sparta, and then force it upon others. If you persist in a scheme so wicked, know that the Corinthians will not second you." These vehement remonstrances were received with such approbation by the other allies, that the Spartans found it necessary to abandon their project. Hippias returned to Sigeum, and afterwards proceeded to the court of Darius.

§ 16. Athens had now entered upon her glorious career. The institutions of Clisthenes had given her citizens a personal interest in the welfare and the grandeur of their country. A spirit of the warmest patriotism rapidly sprang up among them; and the history of the Persian wars, which followed almost immediately, exhibits a striking proof of the heroic sacrifices which they were prepared to make for the liberty and independence of their state.

1. Connexion of the subject with the general history of Greece. § 2. Origin of the Greek colonies and their relation to the mother-country. 3. Characteristics common to most of the Greek colonies. § 4. The Eolic, Ionic, and Doric colonies in Asia. Miletus the most important, and the parent of numerous colonies. Ephesus. Phocæa. 5. Colonies in the south of Italy and Sicily. History of Cuma. 6. Colonies in Sicily. Syracuse and Agrigentum the most important. Phalaris, despot of Agrigentum. §7. Colonies in Magna Græcia (the south of Italy). Sybaris and Croton. War between these cities, and destruction of Sybaris. § 8. Epizephyrian Locri: its lawgiver, Zaleucus. Rhegium. § 9. Tarentum. Decline of the cities in Magna Græcia. $10. Colonies in Gaul and Spain. Massalia. § 11. Colonies in Africa. Cyrene. § 12. Colonies in Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace. § 13. Importance of a knowledge of the history

of the Greek colonies.

§ 1. AN account of the Greek colonies forms an important part of the History of Greece. It has been already observed that Hellas did not indicate a country marked by certain geographical limits, but included the whole body of Hellenes, in whatever part of the world they might be settled. Thus, the inhabitants of Trapezus on the farthest shores of the Black Sea, of Cyrene in Africa, and of Massalia in the south of Gaul, were as essentially members of Hellas as the citizens of Athens and Sparta. They all gloried in the name of Hellenes; they all boasted of their descent from the common ancestor Hellen; and they all pos

sessed and frequently exercised the right of contending in the Olympic games, and the other national festivals of Greece.

The vast number of Greek Colonies, their wide-spread diffusion over all parts of the Mediterranean, which thus became a kind of Grecian lake, their rapid growth in wealth, power, and intelligence afford the most striking proofs of the greatness of this wonderful people. It would carry us too far to give an account of the origin of all these colonies, or to narrate their history at any length. We must content ourselves with briefly mentioning the more important of them, after stating the causes to which they owed their origin, the relation in which they stood to the mother country, and certain characteristics which were common to them all.

§ 2. Civil dissensions and a redundant population were the two chief causes of the origin of most of the Greek colonies.* They were usually undertaken with the approbation of the cities from which they issued, and under the management of leaders appointed by them. In most cases the Delphic oracle had previously given its divine sanction to the enterprise, which was also undertaken under the encouragement of the gods of the mother-city. But a Greek colony was always considered politically independent of the latter and emancipated from its control. The only connexion between them was one of filial affection and of common religious ties. The colonists worshipped in their new settlement the deities whom they had been accustomed to honour in their native country; and the sacred fire, which was constantly kept burning on their public hearth, was taken by them from the Prytaneum of the city from which they sprung. They usually cherished a feeling of reverential respect for the mothercity, which they displayed by sending deputations to the principal festivals of the latter, and also by bestowing places of honour and other marks of respect upon the ambassadors and other members of the mother-city, when they visited the colony. In the same spirit, they paid divine worship to the founder of the colony after his death, as the representative of the mothercity; and when the colony in its turn became a parent, it usually sought a leader from the state from which it had itself sprung. It was accordingly considered a violation of sacred ties for a mother-country and a colony to make war upon one another. These bonds, however, were often insufficient to maintain a lasting union; and the memorable quarrel between Corinth and her colony Corcyra will show how easily they might be severed by the ambition or the interest of either state.

* A colony was called ¿ñoɩñía; a colonist, йñolкos; the mother city, μητρόπολις, and the leader of a colony οἰκιστής.

§ 3. The Greek colonies, unlike most which have been founded in modern times, did not consist of a few straggling bands of ad venturers, scattered over the country in which they settled, and only coalescing into a city at a later period. On the contrary, the Greek colonists formed from the beginning an organized po litical body. Their first care upon settling in their adopted country was to found a city, and to erect in it those public buildings which were essential to the religious and social life of a Greek. Hence it was quickly adorned with temples for the worship of the gods, with an agora or place of public meeting for the citizens, with a gymnasium for the exercise of the youth, and at a later time with a theatre for dramatic representations. Almost every colonial Greek city was built upon the sea-coast, and the site usually selected contained a hill sufficiently lofty to form an acropolis. The spot chosen for the purpose was for the most part seized by force from the original inhabitants of the country. The relation in which the colonists stood to the latter naturally varied in different localities. In some places they were reduced to slavery or expelled from the district; in others they became the subjects of the conquerors, or were admitted to a share of their political rights. In many cases intermarriages took place between the colonists and the native population, and thus a foreign element was introduced among them -a circumstance which must not be lost sight of, especially in tracing the history of the Ionic colonies.

It has frequently been observed that colonies are favourable to the development of democracy. Ancient customs and usages cannot be preserved in a colony as at home. Men are of necessity placed on a greater equality, since they have to share the same hardships, to overcome the same difficulties, and to face. the same dangers. Hence it is difficult for a single man or for a class to maintain peculiar privileges, or to exercise a permanent authority over the other colonists. Accordingly, we find that a democratical form of government was established in most of the Greek colonies at an earlier period than in the mother-country, and that an aristocracy could rarely maintain its ground for any length of time. Owing to the freedom of their institutions, and to their favourable position for commercial enterprise, many of the Greek colonies became the most flourishing cities in the Hellenic world; and in the earlier period of Grecian history several of them, such as Miletus and Ephesus in Asia, Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, and Croton and Sybaris in Italy, surpassed all the cities of the mother-country in power, population, and wealth.

The Grecian colonies may be arranged in four groups: 1. Those.

founded in Asia Minor and the adjoining islands; 2. Those in the western parts of the Mediterranean, in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, and Spain; 3. Those in Africa; 4. Those in Epirus, Macedonia, and

Thrace.

§ 4. The earliest Greek colonies were those founded on the western shores of Asia Minor. They were divided into three great masses, each bearing the name of that section of the Greek race with which they claimed affinity. The Eolic cities covered the northern part of this coast; the Ionians occupied the centre, and the Dorians the southern portion. The origin of these colonies is lost in the mythical age; and the legends of the Greeks respecting them have been given in a previous part of the present work.* Their political history will claim our attention when we come to relate the rise and progress of the Persian empire; and their successful cultivation of literature and the arts will form the chief subject of our next chapter. It is sufficient to state on the present occasion that the Ionic cities were early distinguished by a spirit of commercial enterprise, and soon rose superior in wealth and in power to their Æolian and Dorian neighbors. Among the Ionic cities themselves Miletus was the most flourishing, and during the eighth and seventh centuries before Christ was the first commercial city in Hellas. In search of gain its adventurous mariners penetrated to the farthest parts of the Mediterranean and its adjacent seas; and for the sake of protecting and enlarging its commerce, it planted numerous colonies, which are said to have been no fewer than eighty. Most of them were founded on the Propontis and the Euxine; and of these, Cyzicus on the former, and Sinope on the latter sea, became the most celebrated. Sinope was the emporium of the Milesian commerce in the Euxine, and became in its turn the parent of many prosperous colonies.

Ephesus, which became at a later time the first of the Ionic cities, was at this period inferior to Miletus in population and in wealth. It was never distinguished for its enterprise at sea, and it planted few maritime colonies; it owed its greatness to its trade with the interior, and to its large territory, which it gradually obtained at the expense of the Lydians. Other Ionic cities of less importance than Ephesus possessed a more powerful navy; and the adventurous voyages of the Phocæans deserve to be particularly mentioned, in which they not only visited the coasts of Gaul and Spain, but even planted in those countries several colonies, of which Massalia became the most prosperous and celebrated.

5. The colonies of whose origin we have an historical ac* See p. 35.