The Historians' History of the World 03

These settlements unquestionably form the most brilliant part of the warlike march of the Dorians through the Peloponnesus. By the energy of these Dorians and their leaders of the race of Hercules, who must have joined in these undertakings in specially large numbers, all parts of the many sections into which the country was split up were successfully occupied, and the new Argos, stretching from the island of Cythera as far as the Attic frontiers, far exceeded the bounds of the modest settlements on the Pamisus and Eurotas. For even if the leaders of the armies had not everywhere founded new states, still those existing had all become homogeneous by the acceptance of a Dorian element, which formed the military and preponderating section of the population.

This transformation had started from Argos, and consequently all these settlements stood in a filial relation to the mother city, so that we may regard Argos, Phlius, Sicyon, Trœzen, Epidaurus, and Corinth as a Dorian hexapolis forming a confederation like that in Caria.

Moreover this organisation was not an entirely new one. In Achæan times Mycenæ had formed with Heræum the centre of the country; in the Heræum Agamemnon had received the oath of fealty from his vassals. This was why the goddess Hera [Juno] is said to have preceded the Temenidæ to Sicyon, when they sought to revive the union between the towns which had become estranged from one another. Thus here also the remodelling was connected with the ancient tradition.

But now a central point for the confederacy was found in the worship of Apollo, which the Dorians had found established in Argos and had merely reconstituted, in the guise of the Delphic or Pythian god, through whose influence they had become an active people and under whose auspices they had hitherto been led. The towns sent their yearly offerings to the temple of Apollo Pythæus, which stood in Argos at the foot of the Larissa, but the mother city possessed the rights of a chief town as well as the government of the sanctuary.

In the meantime the size of Argos and the splendour of her new foundations, constituted a dangerous superiority. For the extension of power implied its division, and this was in the highest degree increased by the natural peculiarities of the Argive territory, which is more broken than any other Peloponnesian country.

In regard to the internal relations of the different states, great complications prevailed from the time that the older and younger population had mutually arranged themselves. For where the victory of the Dorians had been decided by force of arms, the old occupants had been driven from rights and possessions; an Achæo-Dorian town was formed and none were citizens save those belonging to the three tribes.

But in most cases it was otherwise. For example where, as in Phlius and Sicyon, a prosperity founded on agriculture, industrial activity, and commerce already existed; there the population did not, at least for any length of time, submit to be oppressed and thrust on one side. They remained no nameless and insignificant mass, but were recognised as forming one or several tribes, side by side with the three Dorian divisions, though not with the same rights. Where, therefore, more than three phylæ or tribes are met with; where, besides the Hylleans, Dymanes and Pamphylians, there are also mentioned “Hyrnethians” as in Argos, or “Ægialæans” (shore people) as in Sicyon, or a “Chthonophyle” (which was perhaps the tribal name of the natives in Phlius), it may be concluded that the immigrants had not left the older people entirely outside the newly-founded commonwealth, but had sooner or later given them a certain recognised standing. However insignificant the latter might be, it was still the germ of important developments, and the existence of such co-tribes suffices to indicate a peculiar history for those states in which they occur.

Originally the various tribes also occupied different localities. As the diverse sections of the army had been separated in the camp, so the Pamphylians, the Dymanes and the Hylleans had their special quarters in Argos, and these long subsisted as such; when the Hyrnethians were admitted into the municipal commonwealth, they formed a fourth quarter. How long a period generally elapsed before the various elements of the population became amalgamated, is most clearly shown by the fact that places like Mycenæ continued their quiet existence as Achæan communities. Here the ancient traditions of the age of the Pelopidæ lived on undisturbed on the very spot where they had been enacted; here the anniversary of Agamemnon’s death was celebrated year after year at the place of his burial, and even during the Persian War, we see the men of Mycenæ and Tiryns, mindful of their old hero kings, as they take their part in the national quarrel against Asia.