The Historians' History of the World 03

But after this their relations did not develop in the same harmless manner. The Dorians believed themselves betrayed by their leaders, and in consequence of a Dorian reaction Cresphontes found himself compelled to overthrow the old order of things; to abolish equality before the law; to unite the Dorians in one close society in Stenyclarus, and to make this place the capital of the country, while the rest of Messenia was reduced to the position of a conquered district. The disturbances went on. Cresphontes himself became the victim of a bloody insurrection; his family were overthrown and no Cresphontidæ followed. Æpytus succeeded. He is by name and race an Arcadian, brought up in Arcadia whence he penetrated into Messenia, then on the verge of dissolution. He gave order and direction to the development of the country, and hence its subsequent kings are called Æpytidæ. But the whole direction henceforth taken by the history of the country is different, non-Dorian, unwarlike. The Æpytidæ are no soldier-princes, but creators of order, and founders of forms of religious worship. And these forms are not those of the Dorians, but decidedly non-Dorian, old Peloponnesian, like those of Demeter, Æsculapius, the Æsculapidæ. The high festival of the country was a mystery-service of the so-called “great deities” and unknown to the Dorian race, while at Ithome, the lofty citadel of the country, which raises its commanding height between the two plains of the district, ruled the Pelasgic Zeus, whose worship was considered the distinctive mark of the Messenian people.

Scanty as are the relics preserved of the history of the Messenian country, some very important facts undoubtedly underlie them. From the first a remarkable insecurity reigned in this Dorian foundation; a deep gulf between the commander of the army and the people, which had its origin in the king’s connection with the ancient pre-Achæan population. He did not succeed in founding a dynasty, for it is only in subsequent legend, which here, as in the case of all Greek pedigrees, seeks to disguise a violent break, that Æpytus is made to be the son of Cresphontes. But the warlike Dorian nation must have become so weakened by internal conflicts, that it was not in a position to assert itself; the transformation of Messenia into a Dorian country was not carried into effect, and thus the main lines of its history were determined. For rich though the district was in natural resources, uniting as it did two of the finest watersheds with a coast stretching between two seas and well provided with harbours; yet the development of the State was from the first unfortunate. There was here no complete renewal, no powerful Hellenic revival in the district.

It was with far different success that a second host of Dorian warriors pressed down the long valley of the Eurotas, which from a narrow gorge gradually widens to the smiling plain of cornfields at the foot of Taygetus, the “Hollow Lacedæmon.” There is no Greek territory in which one plain is so decidedly the very kernel of the whole as it is here. Sunk deep between rugged mountains and severed from the surrounding country by high passes, it holds in its lap all the means of comfort and well-being. Here on the hillocks on the Eurotas above Amyclæ the Dorians pitched their camp, from which grew up the town of Sparta, the youngest city of the plain.

If the Dorian Sparta and the Achæan Amyclæ existed for centuries side by side, it is manifest that no uninterrupted state of war continued during this period. Here, no more than in Messenia, can a thorough occupation of the whole district have taken place, but the relations between the old and new inhabitants must have been arranged by agreement. Here, too, the Dorians dispersed through different places and mingled with the foreign nation.

ARGOS