The Great Events by Famous Historians

Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the words now used, "Come hither all ye peoples," was the proclamation then used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations. But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided the people into three classes, of Eupatridæ or nobles, Geomori or farmers, Demiurgi or artisans.

To the Eupatridæ he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs sacred or profane; yet he placed them on an equality with the other citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us that he was the first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title of king; and Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people of the Athenians alone of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of ships.

Theseus also struck money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to the bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos' general, or else to encourage farming among the citizens. Hence, they say, came the words, "worth ten," or "worth a hundred oxen." He permanently annexed Megara to Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote the distinction between the countries in two trimeter lines, of which the one looking east says,

"This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,

and the one looking west says,

"This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia."

And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Heracles; that, just as Heracles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic games in honor of Zeus, so by Theseus' appointment they should celebrate the Isthmian games in honor of Poseidon.

[22] Smith.

THE FORMATION OF THE CASTES IN INDIA

B.C. 1200

GUSTAVE LE BON[23] W.W. HUNTER

The institution of caste was not peculiar to India. In Rome there was a long struggle over the connubium. Among the Greeks the right of commensality, or eating together, was restricted. In fact, the phenomena of caste are world-wide in their extent. In India the priests and nobles contended for the first place. India had progressed along the line of ethnic evolution from a loose confederacy of tribes into several nations, ruled by kings and priests, and the iron fetters of caste were becoming more rigidly welded. At first the father of the family was the priest. Then the chiefs and sages took the office of spiritual guide, and conducted the sacrifices. As writing was unknown, the liturgies were learned by heart, and handed down in families. The exclusive knowledge of the ancient hymns became hereditary, as it were. The ministrants increased in number, and thus sprang up the powerful priestly caste.

Then the warrior class arose and grew strong in numbers and power, becoming differentiated from the agriculturists, and forming the military caste. The husbandmen drifted into another caste, and the three orders were rigidly separated by a cessation of intermarriage.

At the bottom came the Sudras, or slave bands, the servile dregs of the population. In course of time, from various influences, the third class became almost eliminated in many provinces. From the cradle to the grave these cruel barriers still intervene between the strata of the people, relentless as fate and insurmountable as death.

GUSTAVE LE BON

In ancient times the power of kings [in India] was only nominal. In the Aryan village, forming a little republic, the chief, bearing the name of rajah, was secure in his fortress, exercising full sway. Such was the political system prevailing in India through all the ages, and which has always been respected by the conquerors, whoever they might be. So, for so many centuries back we see arise the first elements of an organization which still endures.

We find here also the beginnings of that system of castes, which, at first indistinct and floating, when the classes sought only to be distinguished from each other, was to become so rigid, when it was constituted under the influence of ethnological reasons, as to dig fathomless abysses between the races.

In the Vedas may be traced the progression of the distance between the priests and the warriors, at first slight, and then increasing more and more. The division of functions did not stop there. While the sacrificing priest was consecrating himself more exclusively day by day to the accomplishment of the sacred rites and to the composition of hymns; while the warrior passed his days in adventurous expeditions or daring feats, what would have become of the land and what would it have produced if others had not applied themselves without ceasing, to cultivate it? A third class became distinct, the agriculturists.