DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0740
4
GENERAL HISTORY OF THE GRECIAN STATES.
first where any permanent settlement was made. It early exhibited a civilized state
of society, a regular internal policy, and a system of laws far superior to any thing
of the kind upon the continent. The want of written records at that period prevents
us from ascertaining, with any degree of certainty, the causes, means and instruments,
by which all these improvements were effected. Tradition refers us to Minos, a king
of the island, who appears to have been a prince of extraordinary wisdom, vigour,
and decision. By some he is supposed to have been a native of Crete ; by others,
with more probability, a leader of adventurers from Phoenicia. Actuated by the am-
bition of a conqueror, he not only reduced the whole island of Crete to subjection,
but cleared the Archipelago of those pirates which had long infested it, and plunder-
ed the inhabitants of the continent and islands.
The laws established by this prince are remarkable for being the model upon which
Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, formed his institutions. They rested upon two
principles—' that all free men were equal, and that slaves were necessary to relieve
them from every servile employment.' The profession of arms was the only busi-
ness suited to the high spirit of the former, while the latter, far superior in numbers,
consisting probably of the original inhabitants of the island, or captives taken in war,
were doomed to labour and toil. Plato remarks, that the Cretan constitution did
not so much resemble a civil community as a military station. Hence the education of
the youth was directed to make them soldiers. The strictest discipline was enforc-
ed. Modesty and temperance were particularly inculcated, and merit alone obtained
distinction. The free citizens were not allowed any private property in land, and but
little of any thing else, as their wants and necessities were provided for out of the
public stock. That their manners and habits might be as uniform as possible, they
were obliged to eat together at the public tables; and that they might be restrained
from every kind of vice or excess, a severe moral code was enacted, which reached
to many of those small deviations from rectitude, that are supposed in other coun-
tries to be checked by public opinion. In these institutions may be observed the
germ of that more extended system which Lycurgus is said to have framed for the
Spartans, and which shall afterwards be detailed at greater length.
The early period of Grecian history is so much involved in uncertainty and fable,
owing to the want of written records, that we find it almost impossible to obtam any
rational account of various tribes whose names alone survived, to shew that they had
once inhabited the country. It is extremely probable that the original inhabitants
were wandering tribes of Scythians, who, having quitted their mountains and forests,
proceeded along the western coast of the Black Sea, established themselves in Thrace,
and spread by degrees through Macedonia to Thessaly and other parts of Greece.
These barbarians obtained the general name of Pelasgi ; from what origin is uncer-
tain. It may seem strange that the Pelasgi, who were supposed to have occupied the
whole of Greece, should have left so few memorials of their having possessed the
country, and that even their name should have been obliterated at a very early pe-
riod. Whether it was owing to their unsettled mode of life, wh'ch induced them to
migrate to other places, or t hat they were forced to give way to other tribes of bar-
barians, cannot now be well ascertained. A more likely supposition is, that the gene-
ral name of the Pelasgi, given to those who first established themselves in the moun-
tainous country of Thessaly. was gradually lost when bands of adventurers proceeded
to other parts of Greece in qiest of new settlements, as it was a common custom to as-
sume the name of their respective leaders, and bestow it upon the province or district
where they fixed themselves, As long as the remembrance of their common origin
remained among them, they would still consider themselves as belonging to the Pelas-
gic nation: but when time and other causes had effaced that impression, they would
uniformly be called by the names of their respective leaders, assumed, it is probable,
at first to distinguish them from other adventurers, but afterwards retained through
familiar use, and as a mark of nationality. A portion of the Greeks were, from this
circumstance, called Hellenes, from Hellen the son of Deucalion, a prince of Thessaly,
who, putting himself, as was supposed, at the head of a confederacy of the Pelasgi,
to repel the invasion of strangers, gave to the people who composed it, his own name.
His sons and grandsons, by conducting the overflowing population of the country to
other places, were honoured by their particular adherents, with the assumption of their
respective names. Thus the inhabitants of Greece, whether they went by the name
of Pelasgi or Hellenes, or were called Dorians, Eolians, Ionians and Achaians, were all
sprung from the same stock, and had one common language, varied in progress of time,
according to the pursuits of the different tribes, their intercourse with oae another and
with foreigners, and their improvements in the arts and sciences,
GENERAL HISTORY OF THE GRECIAN STATES.
first where any permanent settlement was made. It early exhibited a civilized state
of society, a regular internal policy, and a system of laws far superior to any thing
of the kind upon the continent. The want of written records at that period prevents
us from ascertaining, with any degree of certainty, the causes, means and instruments,
by which all these improvements were effected. Tradition refers us to Minos, a king
of the island, who appears to have been a prince of extraordinary wisdom, vigour,
and decision. By some he is supposed to have been a native of Crete ; by others,
with more probability, a leader of adventurers from Phoenicia. Actuated by the am-
bition of a conqueror, he not only reduced the whole island of Crete to subjection,
but cleared the Archipelago of those pirates which had long infested it, and plunder-
ed the inhabitants of the continent and islands.
The laws established by this prince are remarkable for being the model upon which
Lycurgus, the Spartan legislator, formed his institutions. They rested upon two
principles—' that all free men were equal, and that slaves were necessary to relieve
them from every servile employment.' The profession of arms was the only busi-
ness suited to the high spirit of the former, while the latter, far superior in numbers,
consisting probably of the original inhabitants of the island, or captives taken in war,
were doomed to labour and toil. Plato remarks, that the Cretan constitution did
not so much resemble a civil community as a military station. Hence the education of
the youth was directed to make them soldiers. The strictest discipline was enforc-
ed. Modesty and temperance were particularly inculcated, and merit alone obtained
distinction. The free citizens were not allowed any private property in land, and but
little of any thing else, as their wants and necessities were provided for out of the
public stock. That their manners and habits might be as uniform as possible, they
were obliged to eat together at the public tables; and that they might be restrained
from every kind of vice or excess, a severe moral code was enacted, which reached
to many of those small deviations from rectitude, that are supposed in other coun-
tries to be checked by public opinion. In these institutions may be observed the
germ of that more extended system which Lycurgus is said to have framed for the
Spartans, and which shall afterwards be detailed at greater length.
The early period of Grecian history is so much involved in uncertainty and fable,
owing to the want of written records, that we find it almost impossible to obtam any
rational account of various tribes whose names alone survived, to shew that they had
once inhabited the country. It is extremely probable that the original inhabitants
were wandering tribes of Scythians, who, having quitted their mountains and forests,
proceeded along the western coast of the Black Sea, established themselves in Thrace,
and spread by degrees through Macedonia to Thessaly and other parts of Greece.
These barbarians obtained the general name of Pelasgi ; from what origin is uncer-
tain. It may seem strange that the Pelasgi, who were supposed to have occupied the
whole of Greece, should have left so few memorials of their having possessed the
country, and that even their name should have been obliterated at a very early pe-
riod. Whether it was owing to their unsettled mode of life, wh'ch induced them to
migrate to other places, or t hat they were forced to give way to other tribes of bar-
barians, cannot now be well ascertained. A more likely supposition is, that the gene-
ral name of the Pelasgi, given to those who first established themselves in the moun-
tainous country of Thessaly. was gradually lost when bands of adventurers proceeded
to other parts of Greece in qiest of new settlements, as it was a common custom to as-
sume the name of their respective leaders, and bestow it upon the province or district
where they fixed themselves, As long as the remembrance of their common origin
remained among them, they would still consider themselves as belonging to the Pelas-
gic nation: but when time and other causes had effaced that impression, they would
uniformly be called by the names of their respective leaders, assumed, it is probable,
at first to distinguish them from other adventurers, but afterwards retained through
familiar use, and as a mark of nationality. A portion of the Greeks were, from this
circumstance, called Hellenes, from Hellen the son of Deucalion, a prince of Thessaly,
who, putting himself, as was supposed, at the head of a confederacy of the Pelasgi,
to repel the invasion of strangers, gave to the people who composed it, his own name.
His sons and grandsons, by conducting the overflowing population of the country to
other places, were honoured by their particular adherents, with the assumption of their
respective names. Thus the inhabitants of Greece, whether they went by the name
of Pelasgi or Hellenes, or were called Dorians, Eolians, Ionians and Achaians, were all
sprung from the same stock, and had one common language, varied in progress of time,
according to the pursuits of the different tribes, their intercourse with oae another and
with foreigners, and their improvements in the arts and sciences,