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 work known. During the time of the games a busy commerce was carried on; and in a spacious hall appropriated for the purpose, the poets, philosophers, and historians were accus tomed to read their most recent works.

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. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi surpassed all the rest in importance, and was regarded with veneration in every part of the Grecian world. In the centre of the temple of 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.

Tripod of Apollc

at Delphi.

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 bar barian world, but are not found in any city of Greece in the historical times.

The elements of union of which we have been speaking only

and consequently each of the territories described under the general names of Arcadia, Boeotia, Phocis, and Locris, contained numerous political communities independent of one another. Attica, it is true, formed a single state, and its different towns recognized Athens as their capital and the source of supreme power; but this is an exception to the general rule.

Apollo, the principal deity of the Dorians.

CHAPTER IV.

EARLY HISTORY OF PELOPONNESUS AND SPARTA, DOWN TO THE END OF THE MESSENIAN WARS, B.C. 668.

In the heroic age Peloponnesus was occupied by tribes of Dorian conquerors. They had no share in the glories of the Heroic age; their name does not occur in the Iliad, and they are only once mentioned in the Odyssey; but they were destined to form in historical times one of the most important elements of the Greek nation. Is. suing from their mountain district between Thessaly, Locris, and Phocis, they overran the greater part of Peloponnesus, destroyed the ancient Achæan monarchies, and expelled or reduced to subjection the original inhabitants of the land, of which they became the undisputed masters. This brief statement contains all that we know for certain respecting this celebrated event, which the ancient writers placed eighty years after the Trojan war (B.c. 1104). The legend ary account of the conquest of Peloponnesus ran as follows:-The Dorians were led by the Heraclidæ, or descendants of the mighty hero Hercules. Hence this migration is called the Return of the Heraclidæ. The children of Hercules had long been fugitives upon the face of the earth. They had made many attempts to regain possession of the dominions in the Peloponnesus, of which their great sire had been deprived by Eurystheus, but hitherto without

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success. In their last attempt Hyllus, the son of Hercules, had perished in single combat with Echemus of Tegea; and the Heraclidæ had become bound by a solemn compact to renounce their enterprise for a hundred years. This period had now expired; and the great-grandsons of Hyllus-Temenus, Cresphontes, and Aristolemus-resolved to make a fresh attempt to recover their birthright. They were assisted in the enterprise by the Dorians. This people espoused their cause in consequence of the aid which Hercules himself had rendered to the Dorian king Ægimius, when the latter was hard pressed in a contest with the Lapitha. The invaders were warned by an oracle not to enter Peloponnesus by the Isthmus of Corinth, but across the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf. The inhab itants of the northern coast of the gulf were favourable to their enterprise. Oxylus, king of the Ætolians, became their guide; and from Naupactus they crossed over to Peloponnesus. A single battle decided the contest.

Tisamenus, the son of Orestes, was defeat

ed, and retired with a portion of his Achæan subjects to the northern coast of Peloponnesus, then occupied by the Ionians. He expelled the Ionians, and took possession of the country, which continued henceforth to be inhabited by the Achæans, and to be called after them. The Ionians withdrew to Attica, and the greater part of them afterwards emigrated to Asia Minor.

The Heraclidæ and the Dorians now divided between them the dominions of Tisamenus and of the other Achæan princes. The kingdom of Elis was given to Oxylus as a recompense for his services as their guide; and it was agreed that Temenus, Cresphontes, and Eurysthenes and Procles, the infant sons of Aristodemus (who had died at Naupactus), should draw lots for Argos, Sparta, and Messenia. Argos fell to Temenus, Sparta to Eurysthenes and Procles, and Messenia to Cresphontes.

Such are the main features of the legend of the Return of the Heraclidæ. In order to make the story more striking and impressive, it compresses into a single epoch events which probably occupied several generations. It is in itself improbable that the brave Achæans quietly submitted to the Dorian invaders after a momentary struggle. We have, moreover, many indications that such was not the fact, and that it was only gradually and after a long protracted contest that the Dorians became undisputed masters of the greater part of Peloponnesus.

Argos was originally the chief Dorian state in Peloponnesus, but at the time of the first Olympiad its power had been supplanted by that of Sparta. The progress of Sparta from the second to the first place among the states in the peninsula was mainly owing to the military discipline and rigorous training of its citizens. The sin

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gular constitution of Sparta was unanimously ascribed by the ancients to the legislator Lycurgus, but there were different stories respecting his date, birth, travels, legislation, and death. His most probable date, however, is B. c. 776, in which year he is said to have assisted Iphitus in restoring the Olympic games. He was the son of Eunomus, one of the two kings who reigned together in Sparta. On the death of his father, his elder brother, Polydectes, succeeded to the crown, but died soon afterwards, leaving his queen with child. The ambitious woman offered to destroy the child if Lycurgus would share the throne with her. Lycurgus pretended to consent; but as soon as she had given birth to a son, he presented him in the market-place as the future king of Sparta. The young king's moth er took revenge upon Lycurgus by accusing him of entertaining de signs against his nephew's life. Hereupon he resolved to withdraw from his native country, and to visit foreign lands. absent many years, and is said to have employed his time in studying the institutions of other nations, in order to devise a system of laws and regulations which might deliver Sparta from the evils under which it had long been suffering. During his absence the young king had grown up, and assumed the reins of government; but the disorders of the state had meantime become worse than ever, and all parties longed for a termination to their present sufferings. Accordingly, the return of Lycurgus was hailed with delight, and he found the people ready and willing to submit to an entire change in their government and institutions. He now set himself to work to carry his long projected reforms into effect; but before he commenced his arduous task he consulted the Delphian oracle, from which he received strong assurances of divine support. Thus encouraged by the god, he suddenly presented himself in the marketplace, surrounded by thirty of the most distinguished Spartans in

arms.

His reforms were not carried into effect without violent opposition, and in one of the tumults which they excited, his eye is said to have been struck out by a passionate youth. But he finally triumphed over all obstacles, and succeeded in obtaining the submission of all classes in the community to his new constitution. His last act was to sacrifice himself for the welfare of his country. Having obtained from the people a solemn oath to make no alterations in his laws before his return, he quitted Sparta for ever. set out on a journey to Delphi, where he obtained an oracle from the god, approving of all he had done, and promising prosperity to the Spartans so long as they preserved his laws. Whither he went afterwards, and how and where he died, nobody could tell. Не vanished from earth like a god, leaving no traces behind him but his spirit; and his grateful countrymen honoured him with a tem

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