The Historians' History of the World 03

Among these, the first in rank retained the distinguishing title of The Archon, and the year was marked by his name. He represented the majesty of the state, and exercised a peculiar jurisdiction—that which had belonged to the king as the common parent of his people, the protector of families, the guardian of orphans and heiresses, and of the general rights of inheritance. For the second archon the title of king, if it had been laid aside, was revived, as the functions assigned to him were those most associated with ancient recollections. He represented the king as the high priest of his people; he regulated the celebration of the mysteries and the most solemn festivals; decided all causes which affected the interests of religion, and was charged with the care of protecting the state from the pollution it might incur through the heedlessness or impiety of individuals. The third archon bore the title of polemarch, and filled the place of the king, as the leader of his people in war, and the guardian who watched over its security in time of peace. Connected with this character of his office was the jurisdiction he possessed over strangers who had settled in Attica under the protection of the state, and over freedmen. The remaining six archons received the common title of thesmothetes, which literally signifies legislators, and was probably applied to them, as the judges who determined the great variety of causes which did not fall under the cognisance of their colleagues; because, in the absence of a written code, those who declare and interpret the laws may be properly said to make them.

These successive encroachments on the royal prerogatives, and the final triumph of the nobles, are almost the only events that fill the meagre annals of Attica for several centuries. Here, as elsewhere, a wonderful stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and adventure, and the throng of interesting characters, that present themselves to our view in the heroic age. Life seems no longer to offer anything for poetry to celebrate, or for history to record. Are we to consider this long period of apparent tranquillity, as one of public happiness, of pure and simple manners, of general harmony and content, which has only been rendered obscure by the absence of the crimes and the calamities which usually leave the deepest traces in the page of history? We should willingly believe this, if it were not that, so far as the veil is withdrawn which conceals the occurrences of this period from our sight, it affords us glimpses of a very different state of things. In the list of the magistrates who held the undivided sovereignty of the state, the only name with which any events are connected is that of Hippomenes, the last archon of the line of Codrus. It was made memorable by the shame of his daughter, and by the extraordinary punishment which he inflicted on her and her paramour. Tradition long continued to point out as accursed ground the place where she was shut up to perish from hunger, or from the fury of a wild horse, the companion of her confinement. The nobles, glad perhaps to seize an opportunity so favourable to their views, deposed Hippomenes, and razed his house to the ground.

This story would seem indeed to indicate the austerity, as well as the hardness, of the ancient manners: but on the other hand we are informed, that the father had been urged to this excess of rigour by the reproach that had fallen upon his family from the effeminacy and dissoluteness of its members. Without however drawing any inference from this isolated story, we may proceed to observe, that the accounts transmitted to us of the legislation of Draco, the next epoch when a gleam of light breaks through the obscurity of the Attic history, do not lead us to suppose that the people had enjoyed any extraordinary measure of happiness under the aristocratical government, or that their manners were peculiarly innocent and mild.

DRACO, THE LAWGIVER

[ca. 650-600 B.C.]

The immediate occasion which led to Draco’s legislation is not recorded, and even the motives which induced him to impress it with that character of severity to which it owes its chief celebrity, are not clearly ascertained. We know however that he was the author of the first written laws of Athens: and as this measure tended to limit the authority of the nobles, to which a customary law, of which they were the sole expounders, opposed a much feebler check, we may reasonably conclude that the innovation did not proceed from their wish, but was extorted from them by the growing discontent of the people. On the other hand, Draco undoubtedly framed his code as much as possible in conformity to the spirit and the interests of the ruling class, to which he himself belonged; and hence we may fairly infer that the extreme rigour of its penal enactments was designed to overawe and repress the popular movement which had produced it.