They soon acquired celebrity, and became second only to the great Olympic festival.

The Nemean and Isthmian games occurred more frequently than the Olympic and Pythian. They were celebrated once in two years—the Nemean in honour of the Nemean Jove, in the valley of Nemea, between Phlius and Cleonæ, originally by the Cleonæans and subsequently by the Argives-and the Isthmian by the Corinthians, on their isthmus, in honour of Poseidon (Neptune). As in the Pythian festival, contests in music and in poetry, as well as gymnastics and chariot-races, formed part of these games.

§ 7. Although the four great festivals of which we have been speaking had no influence in promoting the political union of Greece, they nevertheless were of great importance in making the various sections of the race feel that they were all members of one family, and in cementing them together by common sympathies and the enjoyment of common pleasures. The frequent occurrence of these festivals, for one was celebrated every year, tended to the same result. The Greeks were thus annually reminded of their common origin, and of the great distinction which existed between them and barbarians. Nor must we forget the incidental advantages which attended them. The concourse of so large a number of persons from every part of the Grecian world afforded to the merchant opportunities for traffic, and to the artist and the literary man the best means of making their works known. During the time of the games the Altis was surrounded with booths, in which a busy commerce was carried on; and in a spacious hall appropriated for the purpose the poets, philosophers, and historians were accustomed to read their most recent works.

The perfect equality of persons at the festival demands particular mention. The games were open to every Greek without any distinction of country or of rank. The horse-races and chariot-races were necessarily confined to the wealthy, who were allowed to employ others as riders and drivers; but the rich and poor alike could contend in the gymnastic matches. This, however, was far from degrading the former in public opinion; and some of the greatest and wealthiest men in the various cities took part in the running, wrestling, boxing, and other matches. Cylon, who attempted to make himself tyrant of Athens, had gained the prize in the foot-race; Alexander, son of Amyntas, prince of Macedon, had also run for it; and instances occur in which cities chose their generals from the victors in these games. § 8. The habit of consulting the same oracles in order to ascertain the will of the gods was another bond of union. It was the

universal practice of the Greeks to undertake no matter of importance without first asking the advice of the gods; and there were many sacred spots in which the gods were always ready to give an answer to pious worshippers. Some of these oracles were consulted only by the surrounding neighbourhood, but others obtained a wider celebrity; and the oracle of Apollo at Delphi in particular surpassed all the rest in importance, and was regarded with veneration in every part of the Grecian world. So great was its fame that it was sometimes consulted by foreign nations, such as the Lydians, Phrygians, and Romans; and the Grecian states constantly applied to it for counsel in their difficulties and perplexities. In the centre of the temple at Delphi there was a small opening in the ground, from which it was said that a certain gas or vapour ascended. Whenever the oracle was to be consulted, a virgin priestess, called Pythia, took her seat upon a tripod, which was placed over the chasm. The ascending vapour affected her brain, and the words which she uttered in this excited condition were believed to be the answer of Apollo to his worshippers. They were always in hexameter verse, and were reverently taken down by the attendant priests. Most of the answers were equivocal or obscure; but the credit of the oracle continued unimpaired long after the downfall of Grecian independence.

§ 9. A further element of union among the Greeks was the similarity of manners and character. It is true the difference in this respect between the polished inhabitants of Athens and the rude mountaineers of Acarnania was marked and striking; but if we compare the two with foreign contemporaries the contrast between them and the latter is still more striking. Absolute despotism, human sacrifices, polygamy, deliberate mutilation of the person as a punishment, and selling of children into slavery, existed in some part or other of the barbarian world, but are not found in any city of Greece in the historical times. Although we cannot mention many customs common to all the Greeks and at the same time peculiar to them, yet we cannot doubt that there did exist among them certain general characteristics in their manners and customs, which served as a bond of union among themselves, and a line of demarcation from foreigners.

§ 10. The elements of union of which we have been speaking -community of blood and language, of religion and festivals, and of manners and character-only bound the Greeks together in common feelings and sentiments. They never produced any political union. The independent sovereignty of each city was a fundamental notion in the Greek mind. The only supreme authority which a Greek recognised was to be found within his

own city walls. The exercise of authority by one city over another, whatever advantages the weaker city might derive from such a connexion, was repugnant to every Greek. This was a sentiment common to all the different members of the Greek race, under all forms of government, whether oligarchical or democratical. Hence the dominion exercised by Thebes over the cities of Boeotia, and by Athens over subject allies, was submitted to with reluctance, and was disowned on the first opportunity. This strongly rooted feeling deserves particular notice and remark. Careless readers of history are tempted to suppose that the territory of Greece was divided among a comparatively small number of independent states, such as Attica, Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, and the like; but this is a most serious mistake, and leads to a total misapprehension of Greek history. Every separate city was usually an independent state, and consequently each of the territories described under the general names of Arcadia, Bœotia, Phocis, and Locris, contained numerous political communities independent of one another. Attica, it is true, formed a single state, and its different towns recognised Athens as their capital and the source of supreme power; but this is an exception to the general rule.

The patriotism of a Greek was confined to his city, and rarely kindled into any general love for the common welfare of Hellas. The safety and the prosperity of his city were dearer to him than the safety and prosperity of Hellas, and to secure the former he was too often contented to sacrifice the latter. For his own city a patriotic Greek was ready to lay down his property and his life, but he felt no obligation to expend his substance or expose his life on behalf of the common interests of the country. So complete was the political division between the Greek cities, that the citizen of one was an alien and a stranger in the territory of another. He was not merely debarred from all share in the government, but he could not acquire property in land or houses, nor contract a marriage with a native woman, nor sue in the courts of justice, except through the medium of a friendly citizen.* The cities thus mutually repelling each other, the sympathies and feelings of a Greek became more centered in his own. It was this exclusive patriotism which rendered it difficult for the Greeks to unite under circumstances of common danger. It was this political disunion which led them to turn their arms against each other, and eventually made them subject to the Macedonian monarchs.

* Sometimes a city granted to a citizen of another state, or even to the whole state, the right of intermarriage and of acquiring landed property. The former of these rights was called ἐπιγαμία, the latter ἔγκτησις.

§ 3. The Greek colonies, unlike most which have been founded in modern times, did not consist of a few straggling bands of adventurers, 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 organised political 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 Eolian and Dorian neighbours. 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.