wealthiest and most powerful of Greek states, and at no other period of its history was it equally prosperous. Periander reigned forty years. He would willingly have transmitted his power to his son Lycophron. But Lycophron, who had gone to Corcyra in consequence of his father's cruelty, refused to come back and assume the government. Then Periander, anxious that his dynasty should continue to rule Corinth, offered to go and live at Corcyra if the son would come to Corinth. Lycophron was willing to do this, but the Corcyreans, fearing the cruel old man, put his son to death.

Periander maintained his own power to the last. After his death he was succeeded by a relative, who was only able to retain it for a few years. The despotism at Corinth is said to have been put down by the Lacedæmonians.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DORIANS AND THE PELOPONNESUS.

In the 'Iliad' of Homer we read of Agamemnon, the King of Mycena, who is represented as the most powerful of Greek kings; and the wonderful colossal structures at Mycenae attest the comparative splendour of the heroic age. Menelaus, his brother, was the King of Sparta, whose wife Helen was carried off by Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, and the two brothers between them were rulers of the whole of the Peloponnesus. A large cluster of stories is connected with the return of the Greek chiefs from Troy. The most remarkable of these is the 'Odyssey' of Homer, which relates the wanderings and sufferings of Ulysses for many years until he returned at last to his island rock of Ithaca. It shows the limited geography of those days when we remember that Ulysses was for years tossed about on waters which are now traversed in a few days or a few hours. The Odyssey,' however, is only one of a large cycle of stories which tell us in a dim unhistoric way of the changes, and revolutions, and misfortunes which subsequently happened to the conquerors of Troy. In the 'Iliad' Homer has a brief and solitary mention of the

tribe of Dorians. In course of time this Dorian race subverted the monarchies of the old Pelopid kings, so called from Pelops, the line of Agamemnon and Menelaus.

It has always been an historical law that the hardy inhabitants of the mountains, pressed by want or by some advancing wave of immigration, have poured down upon the plains, and established new states and dynasties. Thus we are told that there were certain Thesprotians,1 who drove out the people living in Thessaly, and they themselves came to be called Thessalians. Then a tribe of these displaced people who once used to live in Thessaly, passed into Boeotia, and, expelling the natives there, became themselves known by the name of Boeotians. Twenty years after this a people called Dorians issued from their mountain fortresses, and passing over the Gulf of Corinth, overran the l'eloponnese. The original seat of this people was about the northern spurs of Mount Olympus; the little tract of country called Doris does not appear to be much connected with the people called Dorians. Now, it is remarkable that all the legends about the Dorians connect them with the family of Hercules or Heracles. Hercules is the hero of Greece as St. George is of England, and all kinds of marvellous legends are told about him; how he destroyed the terrible lion and hundredheaded hydra, how he cleansed the Augean stable, how he stole away the girdle of Ares (Mars), and how he won the golden apples of the Hesperides. The story goes that Hercules had a right to the throne of Mycena, but that after his death his children were persecuted, and driven out of the country. Generation after generation they strove to come back, but always unsuccessfully; but at last the descendants of Hercules, who were called Heraclidæ, led over the Dorian tribe to the conquest of the Peloponnese. This Dorian immigration is consequently often called the return of the Heraclidæ. The Dorian immigration itself is an historical fact, but we cannot now know if it was really connected with the Heraclidæ, or if such a person as Hercules ever existed, to afford any groundwork for the legends that grew up 1 Thesprotia is a district in Epirus. Consult the map.

respecting him. The legend ran that there were three great-grandsons of Hercules: one of these obtained Argos, another obtained Messenia; and Aristodemus, the other brother, dying, his twin sons obtained Sparta, and from this circumstance the Spartans always had two kings. The part of Peloponnesus which was called Elis was given to the Ætolian king who had helped them to pass the Gulf of Corinth. It is said that the original inhabitants, displaced by the Dorian immigration, passed the Ægean Sea, and founded some of the various Greek colonies which we find spread over the western coast of Asia Minor. The account of the Dorian conquest probably represents the fact that for generations a severe war of conquest went on in the Peloponnese, and for generations there was a continual stream of emigration to Asia Minor.

The year 776 B.C., as we have seen, is famous as the beginning of the Olympian Games. It is probable that these games existed far back in a dim mythical period, and we know that they lasted till the end of the fourth century of the Christian era. On the date we have mentioned, which has always served as a chronological era, the games were said to have been restored by Lycurgus, the Spartan, and Iphitus, King of Elis. The Eleans always managed the games; while they were going on the territory of Elis was considered as sacred ground, and in various ways the people of Elis derived great advantage from these national sports. At the period of the first Olympiad, Sparta appears as an exceedingly small state. Its dominion comprised little more than that valley of the River Eurotas in which it is situated. Yet Sparta seemed marked by nature as the cradle of great men and great deeds. A British ambassador at Athens has thus described it: "I saw in it such a landscape as nature chooses when she makes Tells, and raises at the same time, in the same spirits, the strongest attachments to soil, with the firmest nerves and resolves to defend it. My first impression on seeing Sparta and its plain, years ago, came just to this: a grander, gloomier, sterner, richer scene could not bo found: exactly the ground which my imagination would have chosen for that remarkable element of Hellenism,

the Spartan." It is "hollow Lacedæmon cleft with glens," according to Homer, who never throws an epithet away. The chief power in the Peloponnesus at this time was Argos, which not only ruled over its own territory, but was at the head of a powerful confederacy of Dorian states. Pheidon is the first king of Argos who is really historical. He broke through any limits within which the royal authority was previously confined, and made himself an absolute despot. He conquered Corinth. He aimed at making his authority supreme over the whole of the Peloponnesus, but it appears that his power was destroyed in the course of the struggle which his ambition provoked. In process of time, Sparta emerged from its inferior condition, and became the ruling state of the Peloponnesus and of Greece. This result was

mainly due to the character of her institutions and the genius of her great lawgiver Lycurgus.

CHAPTER V.

THE LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS.

Ir is said that Lycurgus might easily have been king of Sparta, as his brother, who had been king before him, had only left an infant child, and there were many, especially the widowed Olympiad. queen, who would willingly have seen Ly

B.C. 776.
First

curgus king. But Lycurgus took the greatest care of the child, and brought him forth to the Spartans as their king, and called him Charilaus, the people's joy. Then Lycurgus withdrew himself from his native country, on account of the machinations of his enemies, and spent many years in solitary travel. He went to Crete, and evidently studied deeply those institutions which the Cretans ascribed to the legendary Minos. In Crete there had been a Dorian colony established, and the Cretan institutions bore a remarkable resemblance to those of Sparta. It cannot now be ascertained whether the Cretan institutions were borrowed from Sparta or the 1 Sir Thomas Wyse's posthumous 'Excursion in the Pelopon.nesus.'

D

Spartan institutions from Crete, or whether a great deal that was common to both was derived from the fact of their common Dorian origin. Lycurgus also went to Ionia, and passed over into Egypt, and the later Spartans asserted that he had learned much from the wise Brahmins of India. During those travels of many years Lycurgus deeply meditated on the numerous evils which he had observed and lamented in his countrymen at home, and made all his observations subserve the design of being of use to them on some future day. When he returned to Sparta he found that throughout the long youthful reign of Charilaus things had become worse than ever. The nation greeted his return with joy, and at the request of both king and people, he undertook to legislate for the state. He first went to Delphi, to obtain the sanction of the Oracle, and the Oracle declared that, among the sons of men, there was none so wise as he. Armed Spartans supported him in the market-place when he brought forward his design; and Charilaus, who at first opposed what he deemed a revolution, subsequently supported his uncle's plans. Then Lycurgus promulgated a series of solemn ordinances, called Rhetræ, which dealt in an exhaustive and most effectual manner with all the great questions which affected the commonwealth-army, government, education, social manners, religion. Many of the proposed regulations excited great opposition, and Lycurgus is said to have lost an eye in one of the tumults which arose. He went on, however, patiently and bravely, and eventually saw the triumph of his plans. He then performed a deed of self-sacrifice, which consummated his success. He was about to go on a journey, he told his countrymen, and he made them take an oath that they would not alter any of his laws until his return. then went to Delphi, and there received an oracle which told him that Sparta should flourish so long as she observed his laws. He sent this message to his countrymen, and resolved that he himself would see his native land no more. That his countrymen might never be absolved from their oath, he determined to die in a foreign land. It is nowhere certainly related whither he went or how he died; Delphi, Crete, and Elis, all claimed his.

He