The History of Greece from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age. John Bagnell Bury

and a friendship sprang up between the two cities. The mercantile development of Megara, famous for her weavers, had enriched the nobles, who held the political power and oppressed the peasants with a grinding despotism. Then Theagenes arose as a deliverer and made himself tyrant. The example of Cypselus, and probably his direct influence and help, had something to do with the enterprise of Theagenes. A connexion between the tyrannies of Corinth and Megara seems implied in the rancorous reference which the Megarian poet Theognis makes to the Cypselids. Having obtained a bodyguard, Theagenes surprised and massacred the aristocrats. His term of tyranny was marked by one solid work, the construction of an aqueduct. He was overthrown and did not, like Cypselus, transmit his power to his descendants. Then followed a political struggle between the aristocracy, which had regained its power, and the people. But the time for an unmitigated aristocracy had gone by; the demos could not be ignored or brushed aside. Concessions were wrung from the government. The economical condition of the peasants was relieved by a measure which forced the capitalists to pay back the interest which they had extorted, while the political disabilities were relieved by extending citizenship to the country population and admitting the tillers of the soil to the Assembly. These conflicts and social changes are reflected in the poems of Theognis, who meditated and lamented them. He sang in the early part of the sixth century, pouring out his heart to Cyrnus, a young noble of the Polypaid family. He had made an unsuccessful voyage, lost his land and fortune, and consequently his influence. He judges severely the short-sighted, greedy policy of his own caste, and sees that it is likely to lead to another tyranny. On the other hand, his sympathies are with an aristocratic form of government, and he discerns with dismay the growth of democratic tendencies, and the changed condition of the country folk, whom he regarded with true aristocratic contempt. The exclusiveness of the nobility was breaking down in the new circumstances, and mixed marriages were coming in. He cries:

      Unchanged the walls, but, ah, how changed the folk!

       The base, who knew erstwhile nor law nor right,

       But dwelled like deer, with goatskin for a cloak,

       Are now ennobled; and, O sorry plight!

       The nobles are made base in all men’s sight.

      It was not long before the importance of Megara as a power in Greece dwindled. The war with Athens which resulted in the loss of the island of Salamis was decisive for her own decline and for the rise of her rival.

      The rise of a tyranny in agricultural Sicyon seems to have occurred much about the same time as at mercantile Corinth. We know nothing of the circumstances. The name of the first founder, who was of low birth, is said to have been Orthagoras. The first of the house of whom we have any historical record is Cleisthenes, who ruled in the first quarter of the sixth century. His hostility to Argos, which claimed lordship over Sicyon, the part he took in the Sacred War of Delphi, and the splendour of his court are the chief facts of which we know. He was engaged in an Argive war. He would not permit rhapsodists to recite the Homeric poems at Sicyon, because there was so much in them about Argos and Argives; and he did away with the worship of the Argive hero Adrastus, whose cult in Sicyon had been conspicuous. It is also stated that not wishing that the tribes of Sicyon and Argos should have the same names, he substituted for the Dorian tribes—Hylleis, Pamphyli, Dymanes—the insulting names Swine-ites, Assites, and Pigites, and called his own tribe Archelaoi, “Rulers”; and that this nomenclature endured for sixty years after his death, when the old Dorian names were restored and Archelaoi changed to Aigialeis. In this form the story seems highly unlikely, for such a change would have been a greater slight to the mass of the Sicyonians than to the Argives. But it is quite possible that the tyrant changed the name of his own tribe Aigialeis to Archelaoi, and we can understand how the story might have arisen out of a word spoken in jest: “I have changed my Goats (Αἰγι-ᾱλεῖς) into Rulers of the folk; I have a mind to change those Argive Hy-lleis and the rest of them into Swine and Asses.”

      Cleisthenes married his daughter Agarista to an Athenian noble, Megacles, of the famous family of the Alcmaeonids. A legend is told of the wooing of Agarista which illustrates the tyrant’s wealth and hospitality and the social ideas of the age. On the occasion of an Olympian festival at which he had himself won in the chariot-race, Cleisthenes made proclamation to the Greeks that all who aspired to the hand of his daughter should assemble at Sicyon, sixty days hence, and be entertained at his court for a year. At the end of the year he would decide who was most worthy of his daughter. Then there came to Sicyon all the Greeks who had a high opinion of themselves or of their families. From Sybaris and Siris in the far west, from Epidamnus and Aetolia, Arcadia and Elis, Argos and Athens, Euboea and Thessaly, the suitors for the hand of Agarista came. Cleisthenes tested their accomplishments for a year. He tried them in gymnastic exercises, but laid most stress on their social qualities. The two Athenians, Hippocleides and Megacles, pleased him best, but to Hippocleides of these two he most inclined. The day appointed for the choice of the husband came, and Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen and feasted all the suitors and all the folk of Sicyon. After the dinner, the wooers competed in music and general conversation. Hippocleides was the most brilliant, and, as his success seemed assured, he bade the flute-player strike up and began to dance. Cleisthenes was surprised and disconcerted at this behaviour, and his surprise became disgust when Hippocleides, who thought he was making a decisive impression, called for a table and danced Spartan and Athenian figures on it. The host controlled his feelings, but, when Hippocleides proceeded to dance on his head, he could no longer resist, and called out, “O son of Tisander, you have danced away your bride”. But the Athenian only replied, “Hippocleides careth not,” and danced on. Megacles was chosen for Agarista and rich presents were given to the disappointed suitors.

      SECT. 8. THE SACRED WAR - THE PANHELLENIC GAMES

      The most important achievement of Cleisthenes, and that which won him most fame in the Greek world, was his championship of the Delphic oracle.

      The temple of Delphi, or Pytho, lay in the territory of the Phocian town of Crisa. A Delphic Hymn tells how Apollo came “to Crisa, a hill facing to westward, under snowy Parnassus; a beetling cliff overhangs it, beneath is a hollow, rugged glen. Here,” he said, “I will make me a fair temple, to be an oracle for men”. The poet’s picture is perfect The sanctuary of “rocky Pytho” was terraced on a steep slope, hard under the bare sheer cliffs of Parnassus, looking down upon the deep glen of the Pleistus; an austere and majestic scene, supremely fitted for the utterance of the oracles of God. The city of Crisa lay on a vine-tressed hill to the west of the temple, and commanded its own plain which stretched southward to the sea. The men of Crisa claimed control over the Delphians and the oracle, and levied dues on the visitors who came to consult the deity. The Delphians desired to free themselves from the control of the Crisaeans, and they naturally looked for help to the great league of the north, in which the Thessalians, the ancient foes of the Phocians, were now the dominant member. The folks who belonged to this religious union were the “dwellers around” the shrine of Demeter at Anthela, close to the pass of Thermopylae; and hence they were called the Amphictiones of Anthela or Pylae. The league was probably old; it was formed, at all events, before the Thessalians had incorporated Achaean Phthiotis in Thessaly; for the people of Phthiotis were an independent member of the league, which included the Locrians, Phocians, Boeotians, and Athenians, as well as the Dorians, Malians, Dolopians, Enianes, Thessalians, Perrhaebians, and Magnetes. The members of the league were bound not to destroy, or cut off running water from, any city which belonged to it.

      The Amphictions espoused warmly the cause of Apollo and his Delphian servants, and declared a holy war against the men of Crisa who had violated the sacred territory. And Delphi found a champion in the south as well as in the north. The tyrant of Sicyon across the gulf went forth against the impious city. It was not enough to conquer Crisa and force her to make terms or promises. As she was situated in such a strong position, commanding the road from the sea to the sanctuary, it was plain that the utter destruction of the city was the only conclusion of the war which could lead to the assured independence of the oracle. The Amphictions and Sicyonians took the city after a sore struggle, rased it to the ground, and slew the indwellers. The Crisaean plain was dedicated to the god; solemn and heavy curses were pronounced against whosoever should till it. The great gulf which sunders northern Greece from the Peloponnesus,