Chapter 11

The financial history of Greece has been unsatisfactory from the outset. Excessive military and naval expenditure (mainly due to repeated and hasty mobilizations), a lax and improvident system of administration, the corruption of political partiesFinance.and the instability of the government, which has rendered impossible the continuous application of any scheme of fiscal reform—all alike have contributed to the economic ruin of the country. For a long series of years preceding the declaration of national insolvency in 1893 successive budgets presented a deficit, which in years of political excitement and military activity assumed enormous proportions: the shortcomings of the budget were supplied by the proceeds of foreign loans, or by means of advances obtained in the country at a high rate of interest. The two loans which had been contracted during the war of independence were extinguished by means of a conversion in 1889. Of the existing foreign loans the earliest is that of 60,000,000 frs., guaranteed by the three protecting powers in 1832; owing to the payment of interest and amortization by the powers, the capital amounted in 1871 to 100,392,833 fr.; on this Greece pays an annual sum of 900,000 fr., of which 300,000 have been granted by the powers as a yearly subvention to King George. The only other existing foreign obligation of early date is the debt to the heirs of King Otho (4,500,000 dr.) contracted in 1868. A large amount of internal debt was incurred between 1848 and 1880, but a considerable proportion of this was redeemed with the proceeds of the foreign loans negotiated after this period. At the end of 1880 the entire national debt, external and internal, stood at 252,652,481 dr. In 1881 the era of great foreign loans began. In that year a 5% loan of 120,000,000 fr. was raised to defray the expenses of the mobilization of 1880. This was followed in 1884 by a 5% loan of 170,000,000 fr., of which 100,000,000 was actually issued. The service of these loans was guaranteed by various State revenues. A “patriotic loan” of 30,000,000 dr. without interest, issued during the war excitement of 1885, proved a failure, only 2,723,860 dr. being subscribed. In 1888 a 4% loan of 135,000,000 fr. was contracted, secured on the receipts of the five State monopolies, the management of which was entrusted to a privileged company. In the following year (1889) two 4% loans of 30,000,000 fr. and 125,000,000 fr. respectively were issued without guarantee or sinking fund; Greek credit had now apparently attained an established position in the foreign money market, but a decline of public confidence soon became evident. In 1890, of a 5% loan of 80,000,000 fr. effective, authorized for the construction of the Peiraeus-Larissa railway, only 40,050,000 fr. was taken up abroad and 12,900,000 fr. at home; large portions of the proceeds were devoted to other purposes. In 1892 the government was compelled to make large additions to the internal floating debt, and to borrow 16,500,000 fr. from the National Bank on onerous terms. In 1893 an effort to obtain a foreign loan for the reduction of the forced currency proved unsuccessful. (For the events leading up to the declaration of national bankruptcy in that year see underRecent History.) A funding convention was concluded in the summer, under which the creditors accepted scrip instead of cash payments of interest. A few months later this arrangement was reversed by the Chamber, and on the 13th December a law was passed assigning provisionally to all the foreign loans alike 30% of the stipulated interest; the reduced coupons were made payable in paper instead of gold, the sinking funds were suspended, and the sums encashed by the monopoly company were confiscated. The causes of the financial catastrophe may be briefly summarized as follows: (1) The military preparations of 1885-1886, with the attendant disorganization of the country; the extraordinary expenditure of these years amounted to 130,987,772 dr. (2) Excessive borrowing abroad, involving a chargefor the service of foreign loans altogether disproportionate to the revenue. (3) Remissness in the collection of taxation: the total loss through arrears in a period of ten years (1882-1891) was 36,549,202 dr., being in the main attributable to non-payment of direct taxes. (4) The adverse balance of trade, largely due to the neglected condition of agriculture; in the five years preceding the crisis (1888-1892) the exports were stated to amount to £19,578,973, while the imports reached £24,890,146; foreign live stock and cereals being imported to the amount of £6,193,579. The proximate cause of the crisis was the rise in the exchange owing to the excessive amount of paper money in circulation. Forced currency was first introduced in 1868, when 15,000,000 dr. in paper money was issued; it was abolished in the following year, but reintroduced in 1877 with a paper issue of 44,000,000 dr. It was abolished a second time in 1884, but again put into circulation in 1885, when paper loans to the amount of 45,000,000 dr. were authorized. In 1893 the total authorized forced currency was 146,000,000 dr., of which 88,000,000 (including 14,000,000 dr. in small notes) was on account of the government. The gold and silver coinage had practically disappeared from circulation. The rate of exchange, as a rule, varies directly with the amount of paper money in circulation, but, owing to speculation, it is liable to violent fluctuations whenever there is an exceptional demand for gold in the market. In 1893 the gold franc stood at the ratio of 1.60 to the paper drachma; the service of the foreign loans required upwards of 31,000,000 dr. in gold, and any attempt to realize this sum in the market would have involved an outlay equivalent to at least half the budget. With the failure of the projected loan for the withdrawal of the forced currency repudiation became inevitable. The law of the 13th of December was not recognized by the national creditors: prolonged negotiations followed, but no arrangement was arrived at till 1897, when the intervention of the powers after the war with Turkey furnished the opportunity for a definite settlement. It was stipulated that Turkey should receive an indemnity of £T4,000,000 contingent on the evacuation of Thessaly; in order to secure the payment of this sum by Greece without prejudice to the interests of her creditors, and to enable the country to recover from the economic consequences of the war, Great Britain, France and Russia undertook to guarantee a 2½% loan of 170,000,000 fr., of which 150,000,000 fr. has been issued. By the preliminary treaty of peace (18th of September 1897) an International Financial Commission, composed of six representatives of the powers, was charged with the payment of the indemnity to Turkey, and with “absolute control” over the collection and employment of revenues sufficient for the service of the foreign debt. A law defining the powers of the Commission was passed by the Chamber, 26th of February 1898 (o.s.). The revenues assigned to its supervision were the five government monopolies, the tobacco and stamp duties, and the import duties of Peiraeus (total annual value estimated at 39,600,000 dr.): the collection was entrusted to a Greek society, which is under the absolute control of the Commission. The returns of Peiraeus customs (estimated at 10,700,000 dr.) are regarded as an extra guarantee, and are handed over to the Greek government; when the produce of the other revenues exceeds 28,900,000 dr. the “plus value” or surplus is divided in the proportion of 50.8% to the Greek government and 49.2% to the creditors. The plus values amounted to 3,301,481 dr. in 1898, 3,533,755 dr. in 1899, and 3,442,713 dr. in 1900. Simultaneously with the establishment of the control the interest for the Monopoly Loan was fixed at 43%, for the Funding Loan at 40%, and for the other loans at 32% of the original interest. With the revenues at its disposal the International Commission has already been enabled to make certain augmentations in the service of the foreign debt; since 1900 it has begun to take measures for the reduction of the forced currency, of which 2,000,000 dr. will be annually bought up and destroyed till the amount in circulation is reduced to 40,000,000 dr. On the 1st of January 1901 the authorized paper issue was 164,000,000 dr., of which 92,000,000 (including 18,000,000 in fractional currency) was on account of the government; the amount in actual circulation was 148,619,618 dr. On the 31st of July 1906 the paper issue had been reduced to 152,775,975 dr., and the amount in circulation was 124,668,057 dr. The financial commission retains its powers until the extinction of all the foreign loans contracted since 1881. Though its activity is mainly limited to the administration of the assigned revenues, it has exercised a beneficial influence over the whole domain of Greek finance; the effect may be observed in the greatly enhanced value of Greek securities since its institution, averaging 25.76% in 1906. No change can be made in its composition or working without the consent of the six powers, and none of the officials employed in the collection of the revenues subject to its control can be dismissed or transferred without its consent. It thus constitutes an element of stability and order which cannot fail to react on the general administration. It is unable, however, to control the expenditure or to assert any direct influence over the government, with which the responsibility still rests for an improved system of collection, a more efficient staff of functionaries and the repression of smuggling. The country has shown a remarkable vitality in recovering from the disasters of 1897, and should it in future obtain a respite from paroxysms of military and political excitement, its financial regeneration will be assured.The following table gives the actual expenditure and receipts for the period 1889-1906 inclusive:Year.ActualReceipts.ActualExpenditure.Surplus orDeficit.Drachmae.Drachmae.Drachmae.188983,731,591110,772,327− 27,040,736189079,931,795125,932,579− 46,000,784189190,321,872122,836,385− 32,514,513189295,465,569107,283,498− 11,817,9291893*96,723,41892,133,565+ 4,589,8531894102,885,64385,135,752+ 17,749,891189594,657,06591,641,967+ 3,015,098189696,931,72690,890,607+ 6,041,1191897**92,485,825137,043,929− 44,558,1041898***104,949,718110,341,431− 5,391,7131899111,318,273104,586,504+ 6,731,7691900112,206,849112,049,279+ 157,5701901115,734,159113,646,301+ 2,087,8581902123,949,931121,885,707+ 2,064,2241903120,194,362117,436,549+ 2,757,8131904121,186,246120,200,247+ 985,9991905126,472,580118,699,761+ 7,772,8191906125,753,358124,461,577+ 1,291,781* Reduction of interest on foreign debt by 70%.** War with Turkey.*** International Financial Commission instituted.The steady increase of receipts since 1898 attests the growing prosperity of the country, but expenditure has been allowed to outstrip revenue, and, notwithstanding the official figures which represent a series of surpluses, the accumulated deficit in 1905 amounted to about 14,000,000, dr. in addition to treasury bonds for 8,000,000 dr. A remarkable feature has been the rapid fall in the exchange since 1903; the gold franc, which stood at 1.63 dr. in 1902, had fallen to 1.08 in October 1906. The decline, a favourable symptom if resulting from normal economic factors, is apparently due to a combination of exceptional circumstances, and consequently may not be maintained; it has imposed a considerable strain on the financial and commercial situation. The purchasing power of the drachma remains almost stationary and the price of imported commodities continues high; import dues, which since 1904 are payable in drachmae at the fixed rate of 1.45 to the franc, have been practically increased by more than 30%. In April 1900 a 4% loan of 43,750,000 francs for the completion of the railway from Peiraeus to the Turkish frontier, and another loan of 11,750,000 drachmae for the construction of a line from Pyrgos to Meligala, linking up the Morea railway system, were sanctioned by the Chamber; the first-named, the “Greek Railways Loan,” was taken up at 80 by the syndicate contracting for the works and was placed on the market in 1902. The service of both loans is provided by the International Commission from the surplus funds of the assigned revenues. On the 1st of January 1906 the external debt amounted to 725,939,500 francs and the internal (including the paper circulation) to 171,629,436 drachmae.The budget estimates for 1906 were as follows: Civil list, 1,325,000 dr.; pensions, payment of deputies, &c., 7,706,676 dr.; public debt, 34,253,471 dr.; foreign affairs, 3,563,994 dr.; justice, 6,240,271 dr.; interior, 13,890,927 dr.; religion and education, 7,143,924 dr.; army, 20,618,563 dr.; navy, 7,583,369 dr.; finance, 2,362,143 dr.; collection of revenue, 10,650,487 dr.; various expenditure, 9,122,752 dr.; total, 124,461,577 dr.The two privileged banks in Greece are the National Bank, founded in 1841; capital 20,000,000 drachmae in 20,000 shares of 1000 dr. each, fully paid up; reserve fund 13,500,000 dr.; notes in circulation (September 1906) 126,721,887 dr., of which 76,360,905 dr. on account of the government; and the Ionian Bank, incorporated in 1839; capital paid up £315,500 in 63,102 shares, of £5 each; notes in circulation, 10,200,000 drachmae, of which 3,500,000 (in fractional notes of 1 and 2 dr.) on account of the government. The notes issued by these two banks constitute the forced paper currency circulating throughout the kingdom. In the case of the Ionian Bank the privilege of issuing notes, originally limited to the Ionian Islands, will expire in 1920. The National Bank is a private institution under supervision of the government, which is represented by a royal commissioner on the board of administration; the central establishment is at Athens with forty-two branches throughout the country. The headquarters of the Ionian Bank, which is a British institution, are in London; the bank has a central office at Athens and five branches in Greece. The privileged Epiro-Thessalian Bank ceased to exist from the 4th of January 1900, when it was amalgamated with the National Bank. There are several other banking companies, as well as private banks, at Athens. The most important is the Bank of Athens (capital 40,000,000 dr.), founded in 1893; it possesses five branches in Greece and six abroad.Greece entered the Latin Monetary Union in 1868. The monetary unit is the new drachma, equivalent to the franc, and divided into100 lepta or centimes. There are nickel coins of 20, 10 and 5 lepta, copper coins of 10 and 5 lepta. Gold and silver coins were mintedCurrency, weights and measures.in Paris between 1868 and 1884, but have since practically disappeared from the country. The paper currency consists of notes for 1000 dr., 500 dr., 100 dr., 25 dr., 10 dr. and 5 dr., and of fractional notes for 2 dr. and 1 dr. The decimal system of weights and measures was adopted in 1876, but some of the old Turkish standards are still in general use. The dram =1⁄10oz. avoirdupois approximately; the oke = 400 drams or 2.8 ℔; the kilo = 22 okes or 0.114 of an imperial quarter; the cantar or quintal = 44 okes or 123.2 ℔. Liquids are measured by weight. The punta = 15⁄8in.; the ruppa, 3½ in.; the pik, 26 in.; the stadion = 1 kilometre or 1093½ yds. The stremma (square measure) is nearly one-third of an acre.Authorities.—W. Leake,Researches in Greece(1814),Travels in the Morea(3 vols., 1830),Travels in Northern Greece(4 vols., 1834),Peloponnesiaca(1846); Bursian,Geographie von Griechenland(2 vols., Leipzig, 1862-1873); Lolling, “Hellenische Landeskunde und Topographie” in Ivan Müller’sHandbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft; C. Wordsworth,Greece; Pictorial, Descriptive and Historical(new ed., revised by H. F. Tozer, London, 1882); K. Stephanos,La Grèce(Paris, 1884); C. Neumann and J. Partsch,Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland(Breslau, 1885); K. Krumbacher,Griechische Reise(Berlin, 1886); J. P. Mahaffy,Rambles and Studies in Greece(London, 1887); R. A. H. Bickford-Smith,Greece under King George(London, 1893); Ch. Diehl,Excursions archéologiques en Grèce(Paris, 1893); Perrot and Chipiez,Histoire de l’art, tome vi., “La Grèce primitive” (Paris, 1894); tome vii., “La Grèce archaïque” (Paris, 1898); A. Philippson,Griechenland und seine Stellung im Orient(Leipzig, 1897); L. Sergeant,Greece in the Nineteenth Century(London, 1897); J. G. Frazer,Pausanias’s Description of Greece(6 vols., London, 1898);Pausanias and other Greek Sketches(London, 1900);Greco-Turkish War of 1897, from official sources, by a German staff officer (Eng. trans., London, 1898); J. A. Symonds,Studies, andSketches in Italy and Greece(3 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1898); V. Bérard,La Turquie et l’hellénisme contemporaine(Paris, 1900).For the climate: D. Aeginetes,Τὸ κλῖμα τῆς Ἑλλάδος(Athens, 1908).For the fauna: Th. de Heldreich,La Fauna de la Grèce(Athens, 1878).For special topography: A. Meliarakes,Κυκλαδικὰ ἤτοι γεωγραφία καί ἱστορία τῶν Κυκλαδικῶν νήσων(Athens, 1874);Ὑπομνήματα περιγραφικὰ τῶν Κυκλάδων νήσων Ἄνδρου καὶ Κέω(Athens, 1880);Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Ἀργολίδος καὶ Κορινθίας(Athens, 1886);Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Κεφαλληνίας. (Athens, 1890); Th. Bent,The Cyclades(London, 1885); A. Bötticher,Olympia(2nd ed., Berlin, 1886); J. Partsch,Die Insel Corfu: eine geographische Monographie(Gotha, 1887);Die Insel Leukas(Gotha, 1889);Kephallenia und Ithaka(Gotha, 1890);Die Insel Zante(Gotha, 1891); A. Philippson,Der Peloponnes. (Versuch einer Landeskunde auf geologischer Grundlage.) (Berlin, 1892); “Thessalien und Epirus” (Reisen und Forschungen im nördlichen Griechenland) (Berlin, 1897);Die griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres(Berlin, 1897); W. J. Woodhouse,Aetolia(Oxford, 1897); Schultz and Barnsley,The Monastery of St Luke of Stiris(London, 1901); M. Lamprinides,Ἡ Ναυπλία(Athens, 1898);Monuments de l’art byzantin, publiés par le Ministère de l’Instruction, tome i.; G. Millet, “Le Monastère de Daphni” (Paris, 1900). For the life, customs and habits of the modern Greeks: C. Wachsmuth,Das alte Griechenland im neuen(Bonn, 1864); C. K. Tuckerman,The Greeks of to-day(London, 1873); B. Schmidt,Volksleben der Neugriechen und das hellenische Altertum(Leipzig, 1871); Estournelle de Constant,La Vie de province en Grèce(Paris, 1878); E. About,La Grèce contemporaine(Paris, 1855; 8th ed., 1883); J. T. Bent,Modern Life and Thought among the Greeks(London, 1891); J. Rennell Rodd, The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece (London, 1892). Guide-books, Baedeker’sGreece(3rd ed., Leipzig, 1905); Murray’sHandbook for Greece(7th ed., London, 1905); Macmillan’sGuide to the Eastern Mediterranean(London, 1901).

The following table gives the actual expenditure and receipts for the period 1889-1906 inclusive:

The steady increase of receipts since 1898 attests the growing prosperity of the country, but expenditure has been allowed to outstrip revenue, and, notwithstanding the official figures which represent a series of surpluses, the accumulated deficit in 1905 amounted to about 14,000,000, dr. in addition to treasury bonds for 8,000,000 dr. A remarkable feature has been the rapid fall in the exchange since 1903; the gold franc, which stood at 1.63 dr. in 1902, had fallen to 1.08 in October 1906. The decline, a favourable symptom if resulting from normal economic factors, is apparently due to a combination of exceptional circumstances, and consequently may not be maintained; it has imposed a considerable strain on the financial and commercial situation. The purchasing power of the drachma remains almost stationary and the price of imported commodities continues high; import dues, which since 1904 are payable in drachmae at the fixed rate of 1.45 to the franc, have been practically increased by more than 30%. In April 1900 a 4% loan of 43,750,000 francs for the completion of the railway from Peiraeus to the Turkish frontier, and another loan of 11,750,000 drachmae for the construction of a line from Pyrgos to Meligala, linking up the Morea railway system, were sanctioned by the Chamber; the first-named, the “Greek Railways Loan,” was taken up at 80 by the syndicate contracting for the works and was placed on the market in 1902. The service of both loans is provided by the International Commission from the surplus funds of the assigned revenues. On the 1st of January 1906 the external debt amounted to 725,939,500 francs and the internal (including the paper circulation) to 171,629,436 drachmae.

The budget estimates for 1906 were as follows: Civil list, 1,325,000 dr.; pensions, payment of deputies, &c., 7,706,676 dr.; public debt, 34,253,471 dr.; foreign affairs, 3,563,994 dr.; justice, 6,240,271 dr.; interior, 13,890,927 dr.; religion and education, 7,143,924 dr.; army, 20,618,563 dr.; navy, 7,583,369 dr.; finance, 2,362,143 dr.; collection of revenue, 10,650,487 dr.; various expenditure, 9,122,752 dr.; total, 124,461,577 dr.

The two privileged banks in Greece are the National Bank, founded in 1841; capital 20,000,000 drachmae in 20,000 shares of 1000 dr. each, fully paid up; reserve fund 13,500,000 dr.; notes in circulation (September 1906) 126,721,887 dr., of which 76,360,905 dr. on account of the government; and the Ionian Bank, incorporated in 1839; capital paid up £315,500 in 63,102 shares, of £5 each; notes in circulation, 10,200,000 drachmae, of which 3,500,000 (in fractional notes of 1 and 2 dr.) on account of the government. The notes issued by these two banks constitute the forced paper currency circulating throughout the kingdom. In the case of the Ionian Bank the privilege of issuing notes, originally limited to the Ionian Islands, will expire in 1920. The National Bank is a private institution under supervision of the government, which is represented by a royal commissioner on the board of administration; the central establishment is at Athens with forty-two branches throughout the country. The headquarters of the Ionian Bank, which is a British institution, are in London; the bank has a central office at Athens and five branches in Greece. The privileged Epiro-Thessalian Bank ceased to exist from the 4th of January 1900, when it was amalgamated with the National Bank. There are several other banking companies, as well as private banks, at Athens. The most important is the Bank of Athens (capital 40,000,000 dr.), founded in 1893; it possesses five branches in Greece and six abroad.

Greece entered the Latin Monetary Union in 1868. The monetary unit is the new drachma, equivalent to the franc, and divided into100 lepta or centimes. There are nickel coins of 20, 10 and 5 lepta, copper coins of 10 and 5 lepta. Gold and silver coins were mintedCurrency, weights and measures.in Paris between 1868 and 1884, but have since practically disappeared from the country. The paper currency consists of notes for 1000 dr., 500 dr., 100 dr., 25 dr., 10 dr. and 5 dr., and of fractional notes for 2 dr. and 1 dr. The decimal system of weights and measures was adopted in 1876, but some of the old Turkish standards are still in general use. The dram =1⁄10oz. avoirdupois approximately; the oke = 400 drams or 2.8 ℔; the kilo = 22 okes or 0.114 of an imperial quarter; the cantar or quintal = 44 okes or 123.2 ℔. Liquids are measured by weight. The punta = 15⁄8in.; the ruppa, 3½ in.; the pik, 26 in.; the stadion = 1 kilometre or 1093½ yds. The stremma (square measure) is nearly one-third of an acre.

Authorities.—W. Leake,Researches in Greece(1814),Travels in the Morea(3 vols., 1830),Travels in Northern Greece(4 vols., 1834),Peloponnesiaca(1846); Bursian,Geographie von Griechenland(2 vols., Leipzig, 1862-1873); Lolling, “Hellenische Landeskunde und Topographie” in Ivan Müller’sHandbuch der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft; C. Wordsworth,Greece; Pictorial, Descriptive and Historical(new ed., revised by H. F. Tozer, London, 1882); K. Stephanos,La Grèce(Paris, 1884); C. Neumann and J. Partsch,Physikalische Geographie von Griechenland(Breslau, 1885); K. Krumbacher,Griechische Reise(Berlin, 1886); J. P. Mahaffy,Rambles and Studies in Greece(London, 1887); R. A. H. Bickford-Smith,Greece under King George(London, 1893); Ch. Diehl,Excursions archéologiques en Grèce(Paris, 1893); Perrot and Chipiez,Histoire de l’art, tome vi., “La Grèce primitive” (Paris, 1894); tome vii., “La Grèce archaïque” (Paris, 1898); A. Philippson,Griechenland und seine Stellung im Orient(Leipzig, 1897); L. Sergeant,Greece in the Nineteenth Century(London, 1897); J. G. Frazer,Pausanias’s Description of Greece(6 vols., London, 1898);Pausanias and other Greek Sketches(London, 1900);Greco-Turkish War of 1897, from official sources, by a German staff officer (Eng. trans., London, 1898); J. A. Symonds,Studies, andSketches in Italy and Greece(3 vols., 2nd ed., London, 1898); V. Bérard,La Turquie et l’hellénisme contemporaine(Paris, 1900).

For the climate: D. Aeginetes,Τὸ κλῖμα τῆς Ἑλλάδος(Athens, 1908).

For the fauna: Th. de Heldreich,La Fauna de la Grèce(Athens, 1878).

For special topography: A. Meliarakes,Κυκλαδικὰ ἤτοι γεωγραφία καί ἱστορία τῶν Κυκλαδικῶν νήσων(Athens, 1874);Ὑπομνήματα περιγραφικὰ τῶν Κυκλάδων νήσων Ἄνδρου καὶ Κέω(Athens, 1880);Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Ἀργολίδος καὶ Κορινθίας(Athens, 1886);Γεωγραφία πολιτικὴ νέα καὶ ἀρχαία τοῦ νομοῦ Κεφαλληνίας. (Athens, 1890); Th. Bent,The Cyclades(London, 1885); A. Bötticher,Olympia(2nd ed., Berlin, 1886); J. Partsch,Die Insel Corfu: eine geographische Monographie(Gotha, 1887);Die Insel Leukas(Gotha, 1889);Kephallenia und Ithaka(Gotha, 1890);Die Insel Zante(Gotha, 1891); A. Philippson,Der Peloponnes. (Versuch einer Landeskunde auf geologischer Grundlage.) (Berlin, 1892); “Thessalien und Epirus” (Reisen und Forschungen im nördlichen Griechenland) (Berlin, 1897);Die griechischen Inseln des ägäischen Meeres(Berlin, 1897); W. J. Woodhouse,Aetolia(Oxford, 1897); Schultz and Barnsley,The Monastery of St Luke of Stiris(London, 1901); M. Lamprinides,Ἡ Ναυπλία(Athens, 1898);Monuments de l’art byzantin, publiés par le Ministère de l’Instruction, tome i.; G. Millet, “Le Monastère de Daphni” (Paris, 1900). For the life, customs and habits of the modern Greeks: C. Wachsmuth,Das alte Griechenland im neuen(Bonn, 1864); C. K. Tuckerman,The Greeks of to-day(London, 1873); B. Schmidt,Volksleben der Neugriechen und das hellenische Altertum(Leipzig, 1871); Estournelle de Constant,La Vie de province en Grèce(Paris, 1878); E. About,La Grèce contemporaine(Paris, 1855; 8th ed., 1883); J. T. Bent,Modern Life and Thought among the Greeks(London, 1891); J. Rennell Rodd, The Customs and Lore of Modern Greece (London, 1892). Guide-books, Baedeker’sGreece(3rd ed., Leipzig, 1905); Murray’sHandbook for Greece(7th ed., London, 1905); Macmillan’sGuide to the Eastern Mediterranean(London, 1901).

(J. D. B.)

2. History

a.Ancient; to 146B.C.

1.Introductory.—It is necessary to indicate at the outset the scope and object of the present article. The reader must not expect to find in it a compendious summary of the chief events in the history of ancient Greece. It is not intended to supply an “Outlines of Greek History.” It may be questioned whether such a sketch of the history, within the limits of space which are necessarily imposed in a work of reference, would be of utility to any class of readers. At any rate, the plan of the present work, in which the subject of Greek history is treated of in a large number of separate articles, allows of the narrative of events being given in a more satisfactory form under the more general of the headings (e.g.Athens,Sparta,Peloponnesian War). The character of the history itself suggests a further reason why a general article upon Greek history should not be confined to, or even attempt, a narrative of events. A sketch of Greek history is not possible in the sense in which a sketch of Roman history, or even of English history, is possible. Greek history is not the history of a single state. When Aristotle composed his work upon the constitutions of the Greek states, he found it necessary to extend his survey to no less that 158 states. Greek history is thus concerned with more than 150 separate and independent political communities. Nor is it even the history of a single country. The area occupied by the Greek race extended from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, and from southern Russia to northern Africa. It is inevitable, therefore, that the impression conveyed by a sketch of Greek history should be a misleading one. A mere narrative can hardly fail to give a false perspective. Experience shows that such a sketch is apt to resolve itself into the history of a few great movements and of a few leading states. What is still worse, it is apt to confine itself, at any rate for the greater part of the period dealt with, to the history of Greece in the narrower sense,i.e.of the Greek peninsula. For the identification of Greece with Greece proper there may be some degree of excuse when we come to the 5th and 4th centuries. In the period that lies behind the year 500B.C.Greece proper forms but a small part of the Greek world. In the 7th and 6th centuries it is outside Greece itself that we must look for the most active life of the Greek people and the most brilliant manifestations of the Greek spirit. The present article, therefore, will be concerned with the causes and conditions of events, rather than with the events themselves; it will attempt analysis rather than narrative. Its object will be to indicate problems and to criticize views; to suggest lessons and parallels, and to estimate the importance of the Hellenic factor in the development of civilization.

2.The Minoan and Mycenaean Ages.—When does Greek history begin? Whatever may be the answer that is given to this question, it will be widely different from any that could have been proposed a generation ago. Then the question was, How late does Greek history begin? To-day the question is, How early does it begin? The suggestion made by Grote that the first Olympiad (776B.C.) should be taken as the starting-point of the history of Greece, in the proper sense of the term “history,” seemed likely, not so many years ago, to win general acceptance. At the present moment the tendency would seem to be to go back as far as the 3rd or 4th millenniumB.C.in order to reach a starting-point. It is to the results of archaeological research during the last thirty years that we must attribute so startling a change in the attitude of historical science towards this problem. In the days when Grote published the first volumes of hisHistory of Greecearchaeology was in its infancy. Its results, so far as they affected the earlier periods of Greek history, were scanty; its methods were unscientific. The methods have been gradually perfected by numerous workers in the field; but the results, which have so profoundly modified our conceptions of the early history of the Aegean area, are principally due to the discoveries of two men, Heinrich Schliemann and A. J. Evans. A full account of these discoveries will be found elsewhere (seeAegean CivilizationandCrete). It will be sufficient to mention here that Schliemann’s labours began with the excavations on the site of Troy in the years 1870-1873; that he passed on to the excavations at Mycenae in 1876 and to those at Tiryns in 1884. It was the discoveries of these years that revealed to us the Mycenaean age, and carried back the history to the middle of the 2nd millennium. The discoveries of Dr A. J. Evans in the island of Crete belong to a later period. The work of excavation was begun in 1900, and was carried on in subsequent years. It has revealed to us the Minoan age, and enabled us to trace back the development and origins of the civilization for a further period of 1000 or 1500 years. The dates assigned by archaeologists to the different periods of Mycenaean and Minoan art must be regarded as merely approximate. Even the relation of the two civilizations is still, to some extent, a matter of conjecture. The general chronological scheme,however, in the sense of the relative order of the various periods and the approximate intervals between them, is too firmly established, both by internal evidence, such as the development of the styles of pottery, and of the art in general, and by external evidence, such as the points of contact with Egyptian art and history, to admit of its being any longer seriously called in question.

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If, then, by “Greek history” is to be understood the history of the lands occupied in later times by the Greek race (i.e.the Greek peninsula and the Aegean basin), the beginnings of the history must be carried back some 2000 years before Grote’s proposed starting-point. If, however, “Greek history” is taken to mean the history of the Greek people, the determination of the starting-point is far from easy. For the question to which archaeology does not as yet supply any certain answer is the question of race. Were the creators of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilization Greeks or were they not? In some degree the Minoan evidence has modified the answer suggested by the Mycenaean. Although wide differences of opinion as to the origin of the Mycenaean civilization existed among scholars when the results of Schliemann’s labours were first given to the world, a general agreement had gradually been arrived at in favour of the view which would identify Mycenaean with Achaean or Homeric. In presence of the Cretan evidence it is no longer possible to maintain this view with the same confidence. The two chief difficulties in the way of attributing either the Minoan or the Mycenaean civilization to an Hellenic people are connected respectively with the script and the religion. The excavations at Cnossus have yielded thousands of tablets written in the linear script. There is evidence that this script was in use among the Mycenaeans as well. If Greek was the language spoken at Cnossus and Mycenae, how is it that all attempts to decipher the script have hitherto failed? The Cretan excavations, again, have taught us a great deal as to the religion of the Minoan age; they have, at the same time, thrown a new light upon the evidence supplied by Mycenaean sites. It is no longer possible to ignore the contrast between the cults of the Minoan and Mycenaean ages, and the religious conceptions which they imply, and the cults and religious conceptions prevalent in the historical period. On the other hand, it may safely be asserted that the argument derived from the Mycenaean art, in which we seem to trace a freedom of treatment which is akin to the spirit of the later Greek art, and is in complete contrast to the spirit of Oriental art, has received striking confirmation from the remains of Minoan art. The decipherment of the script would at once solve the problem. We should at least know whether the dominant race in Crete in the Minoan age spoke an Hellenic or a non-Hellenic dialect. And what could be inferred with regard to Crete in the Minoan age could almost certainly be inferred with regard to the mainland in the Mycenaean age. In the meanwhile, possibly until the tablets are read, at any rate until further evidence is forthcoming, any answer that can be given to the question must necessarily be tentative and provisional. (SeeAegean Civilization.)

It has already been implied that this period of the history of Greece may be subdivided into a Minoan and a Mycenaean age. Whether these terms are appropriate is a question of comparatively little importance. They at least serve to remind us of the part played by the discoveries at Mycenae and Cnossus in the reconstruction of the history. The term “Mycenaean,” it is true, has other associations than those of locality. It may seem to imply that the civilization disclosed in the excavations at Mycenae is Achaean in character, and that it is to be connected with the Pelopid dynasty to which Agamemnon belonged. In its scientific use, the term must be cleared of all such associations. Further, as opposed to “Minoan” it must be understood in a more definite sense than that in which it has often been employed. It has come to be generally recognized that two different periods are to be distinguished in Schliemann’s discoveries at Mycenae itself. There is an earlier period, to which belong the objects found in the shaft-graves, and there is a later period, to which belong the beehive tombs and the remains of the palaces. It is the latter period which is “Mycenaean” in the strict sense;i.e.it is “Mycenaean” as opposed to “Minoan.” To this period belong also the palace at Tiryns, the beehive-tombs discovered elsewhere on the mainland of Greece and one of the cities on the site of Troy (Schliemann’s sixth). The pottery of this period is as characteristic of it, both in its forms (e.g.the “stirrup” or “false-necked” form of vase) and in its peculiar glaze, as is the architecture of the palaces and the beehive-tombs. Although the chief remains have been found on the mainland of Greece itself, the art of this period is found to have extended as far north as Troy and as far east as Cyprus. On the other hand, hardly any traces of it have been discovered on the west coast of Asia Minor, south of the Troad. The Mycenaean age, in this sense, may be regarded as extending from 1600 to 1200B.C.The Minoan age is of far wider extent. Its latest period includes both the earlier and the later periods of the remains found at Mycenae. This is the period called by Dr Evans “Late Minoan.” To this period belong the Great Palace at Cnossus and the linear system of writing. The “Middle Minoan” period, to which the earlier palace belongs, is characterized by the pictographic system of writing and by polychrome pottery of a peculiarly beautiful kind. Dr Evans proposes to carry back this period as far as 2500B.C.Even behind it there are traces of a still earlier civilization. Thus the Minoan age, even if limited to the middle and later periods, will cover at least a thousand years. Perhaps the most surprising result of the excavations in Crete is the discovery that Minoan art is on a higher level than Mycenaean art. To the scholars of a generation ago it seemed a thing incredible that the art of the shaft-graves, and the architecture of the beehive-tombs and the palaces, could belong to the age before the Dorian invasion. The most recent discoveries seem to indicate that the art of Mycenae is a decadent art; they certainly prove that an art, hardly inferior in its way to the art of the classical period, and a civilization which implies the command of great material resources, were flourishing in the Aegean perhaps a thousand years before the siege of Troy.

To the question, “What is the origin of this civilization? Is it of foreign derivation or of native growth?” it is not possible to give a direct answer. It is clear, on the one hand that it was developed, by a gradual process ofOriental influence.differentiation, from a culture which was common to the whole Aegean basin and extended as far to the west as Sicily. It is equally clear, on the other hand, that foreign influences contributed largely to the process of development. Egyptian influences, in particular, can be traced throughout the “Minoan” and “Mycenaean” periods. The developed art, however, both in Crete and on the mainland, displays characteristics which are the very opposite of those which are commonly associated with the term “oriental.” Egyptian work, even of the best period, is stiff and conventional; in the best Cretan work, and, in a less degree, in Mycenaean work, we find an originality and a freedom of treatment which remind one of the spirit of the Greek artists. The civilization is, in many respects, of an advanced type. The Cretan architects could design on a grand scale, and could carry out their designs with no small degree of mechanical skill. At Cnossus we find a system of drainage in use, which is far in advance of anything known in the modern world before the 19th century. If the art of the Minoan age falls short of the art of the Periclean age, it is hardly inferior to that of the age of Peisistratus. It is a civilization, too, which has long been familiar with the art of writing. But it is one that belongs entirely to the Bronze Age. Iron is not found until the very end of the Mycenaean period, and then only in small quantities. Nor is this the only point of contrast between the culture of the earliest age and that of the historical period in Greece. The chief seats of the early culture are to be found either in the island of Crete, or, on the mainland, at Tiryns and Mycenae. In the later history Crete plays no part, and Tiryns and Mycenae are obscure. With the great names of a later age, Argos, Sparta and Athens, no great discoveries are connected. In northern Greece, Orchomenos rather than Thebes is the centre of influence. Further points of contrast readilysuggest themselves. The so-called Phoenician alphabet, in use amongst the later Greeks, is unknown in the earliest age. Its systems of writing, both the earlier and the later one, are syllabic in character, and analogous to those in vogue in Asia Minor and Cyprus. In the art of war, the chariot is of more importance than the foot-soldier, and the latter, unlike the Greek hoplite, is lightly clad, and trusts to a shield large enough to cover the whole body, rather than to the metal helmet, breastplate and greaves of later times (see Arms and Armour: Greek). The political system appears to have been a despotic monarchy, and the realm of the monarch to have extended to far wider limits than those of the “city-states” of historical Greece. It is, perhaps, in the religious practices of the age, and in the ideas implied in them, that the contrast is most apparent. Neither in Crete nor on the mainland is there any trace of the worship of the “Olympian” deities. The cults in vogue remind us rather of Asia than of Greece. The worship of pillars and of trees carries us back to Canaan, while the double-headed axe, so prominent in the ritual of Cnossus, survives in later times as the symbol of the national deity of the Carians. The beehive-tombs, found on many sites on the mainland besides Mycenae, are evidence both of a method of sepulture and of ideas of the future state, which are alien to the practice and the thought of the Greeks of history. It is only in one region—in the island of Cyprus—that the culture of the Mycenaean age is found surviving into the historical period. As late as the beginning of the 5th centuryB.C.Cyprus is still ruled by kings, the alphabet has not yet displaced a syllabary, the characteristic forms of Mycenaean vases still linger on, and the chief deity of the island is the goddess with attendant doves whose images are among the common objects of Mycenaean finds.

3.The Homeric Age.—Alike in Crete and on the mainland the civilization disclosed by excavation comes abruptly to an end. In Crete we can trace it back from c. 1200B.C.to the Neolithic period. From the Stone Age to the end of the Minoan Age the development is continuous and uninterrupted.4But between the culture of the Early Age and the culture of the Dorians, who occupied the island in historical times, no connexion whatever can be established. Between the two there is a great gulf fixed. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than that presented by the rude life of the Dorian communities in Crete when it is compared with the political power, the material resources and the extensive commerce of the earlier period. The same gap between the archaeological age and the historical exists on the mainland also. It is true that the solution of continuity is here less complete. Mycenaean art continues, here and there, in a debased form down to the 9th century, a date to which we can trace back the beginnings of the later Greek art. On one or two lines (e.g.architecture) it is even possible to establish some sort of connexion between them. But Greek art as a whole cannot be evolved from Mycenaean art. We cannot bridge over the interval that separates the latter art, even in its decline, from the former. It is sufficient to compare the “dipylon” ware (with which the process of development begins, which culminates in the pottery of the Great Age) with the Mycenaean vases, to satisfy oneself that the gulf exists. What then is the relation of the Heroic or Homeric Age (i.e.the age whose life is portrayed for us in the poems of Homer) to the Earliest Age? It too presents many contrasts to the later periods. On the other hand, it presents contrasts to the Minoan Age, which, in their way, are not less striking. Is it then to be identified with the Mycenaean Age? Schliemann, the discoverer of the Mycenaean culture, unhesitatingly identified Mycenaean with Homeric. He even identified the shaft-graves of Mycenae with the tombs of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Later inquirers, while refusing to discover so literal a correspondence between things Homeric and things Mycenaean, have not hesitated to accept a general correspondence between the Homeric Age and the Mycenaean. Where it is a case of comparing literary evidence with archaeological, an exact coincidence is not of course to be demanded. The most that can be asked is that a general correspondence should be established. It may be conceded that the case for such a correspondence appears prima facie a strong one. There is much in Homer that seems to find confirmation or explanation in Schliemann’s finds. Mycenae is Agamemnon’s city; the plan of the Homeric house agrees fairly well with the palaces at Tiryns and Mycenae; the forms and the technique of Mycenaean art serve to illustrate passages in the poems; such are only a few of the arguments that have been urged. It is the great merit of Professor Ridgeway’s work (The Early Age of Greece) that it has demonstrated, once and for all, that Mycenaean is not Homeric pure and simple. He insists upon differences as great as the resemblances. Iron is in common use in Homer; it is practically unknown to the Mycenaeans. In place of the round shield and the metal armour of the Homeric soldier, we find at Mycenae that the warrior is lightly clad in linen, and that he fights behind an oblong shield, which covers the whole body; nor are the chariots the same in form. The Homeric dead are cremated; the Mycenaean are buried. The gods of Homer are the deities of Olympus, of whose cult no traces are to be found in the Mycenaean Age. The novelty of Professor Ridgeway’s theory is that for the accepted equation, Homeric = Achaean = Mycenaean, he proposes to substitute the equations, Homeric = Achaean = post-Mycenaean, and Mycenaean = pre-Achaean = Pelasgian. The Mycenaean civilization he attributes to the Pelasgians, whom he regards as the indigenous population of Greece, the ancestors of the later Greeks, and themselves Greek both in speech and blood. The Homeric heroes are Achaeans, a fair-haired Celtic race, whose home was in the Danube valley, where they had learned the use of iron. In Greece they are newcomers, a conquering class comparable to the Norman invaders of England or Ireland, and like them they have acquired the language of their subjects in the course of a few generations. The Homeric civilization is thus Achaean,i.e.it is Pelasgian (Mycenaean) civilization, appropriated by a ruder race; but the Homeric culture is far inferior to the Mycenaean. Here, at any rate, the Norman analogy breaks down. Norman art in England is far in advance of Saxon. Even in Normandy (as in Sicily), where the Norman appropriated rather than introduced, he not only assimilated but developed. In Greece the process must have been reversed.

The theory thus outlined is probably stronger on its destructive side than on its constructive. To treat the Achaeans as an immigrant race is to run counter to the tradition of the Greeks themselves, by whom the Achaeans were regarded as indigenous (cf. Herod. viii. 73). Nor is the Pelasgian part of the theory easy to reconcile with the Homeric evidence. If the Achaeans were a conquering class ruling over a Pelasgian population, we should expect to find this difference of race a prominent feature in Homeric society. We should, at least, expect to find a Pelasgian background to the Homeric picture. As a matter of fact, we find nothing of the sort. There is no consciousness in the Homeric poems of a distinction of race between the governing and the subject classes. There are, indeed, Pelasgians in Homer, but the references either to the people or the name are extraordinarily few. They appear as a people, presumably in Asia Minor, in alliance with the Trojans; they appear also, in a single passage, as one of the tribes inhabiting Crete. The name survives in “Pelasgicon Argos,” which is probably to be identified with the valley of the Spercheius,5and as an epithet of Zeus of Dodona. The population, however, of Pelasgicon Argos and of Dodona is no longer Pelasgian. Thus, in the age of Homer, the Pelasgians belong, so far as Greece proper is concerned, to a past that is already remote. It is inadmissible to appeal to Herodotus against Homer. For the conditions of the Homeric age Homer is the sole authoritative witness. If, however, Professor Ridgeway has failed to prove that “Mycenaean” equals “Pelasgian,” he has certainly proved that much that is Homeric is post-Mycenaean. It is possiblethat different strata are to be distinguished in the Homeric poems. There are passages which seem to assume the conditions of the Mycenaean age; there are others which presuppose the conditions of a later age. It may be that the latter passages reflect the circumstances of the poet’s own times, while the former ones reproduce those of an earlier period. If so, the substitution of iron for bronze must have been effected in the interval between the earlier and the later periods.

It has already been pointed out that the question whether the makers of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations were Greeks must still be regarded as an open one. No such question can be raised as to the Homeric Age.The Homeric state.The Achaeans may or may not have been Greek in blood. What is certain is that the Achaean Age forms an integral part of Greek history. Alike on the linguistic, the religious and the political sides, Homer is the starting-point of subsequent developments. In the Greek dialects the great distinction is that between the Doric and the rest. Of the non-Doric dialects the two main groups are the Aeolic and Ionic, both of which have been developed, by a gradual process of differentiation, from the language of the Homeric poems. With regard to religion it is sufficient to refer to the judgment of Herodotus, that it was Homer and Hesiod who were the authors of the Greek theogony (ii. 53οὗτοί εἰσι οἱ ποιήσαντες θεογονίην Ἔλλησι). It is a commonplace that Homer was the Bible of the Greeks. On the political side, Greek constitutional development would be unintelligible without Homer. When Greek history, in the proper sense, begins, oligarchy is almost universal. Everywhere, however, an antecedent stage of monarchy has to be presupposed. In the Homeric system monarchy is the sole form of government; but it is monarchy already well on the way to being transformed into oligarchy. In the person of the king are united the functions of priest, of judge and of leader in war. He belongs to a family which claims divine descent and his office is hereditary. He is, however, no despotic monarch. He is compelled by custom to consult the council (boulē) of the elders, or chiefs. He must ask their opinion, and, if he fails to obtain their consent, he has no power to enforce his will. Even when he has obtained the consent of the council, the proposal still awaits the approval of the assembly (agora), of the people.

Thus in the Homeric state we find the germs not only of the oligarchy and democracy of later Greece, but also of all the various forms of constitution known to the Western world. And a monarchy such as is depicted in theHomeric society.Homeric poems is clearly ripe for transmutation into oligarchy. The chiefs are addressed as kings (βασιλῆες), and claim, equally with the monarch, descent from the gods. In Homer, again, we can trace the later organization into tribe (φυλή), clan (γένος), and phratry, which is characteristic of Greek society in the historical period, and meets us in analogous forms in other Aryan societies. Theγένοςcorresponds to the Romangens, theφυλήto the Roman tribe, and the phratry to thecuria. The importance of thephratryin Homeric society is illustrated by the well-known passage (Iliadix. 63) in which the outcast is described as “one who belongs to no phratry” (ἀφρήτωρ). It is a society that is, of course, based upon slavery, but it is slavery in its least repulsive aspect. The treatment which Eumaeus and Eurycleia receive at the hands of the poet of theOdysseyis highly creditable to the humanity of the age. A society which regarded the slave as a mere chattel would have been impatient of the interest shown in a swineherd and a nurse. It is a society, too, that exhibits many of the distinguishing traits of later Greek life. Feasting and quarrels, it is true, are of more moment to the heroes than to the contemporaries of Pericles or Plato; but “music” and “gymnastic” (though the terms must be understood in a more restricted sense) are as distinctive of the age of Homer as of that of Pindar. In one respect there is retrogression in the historical period. Woman in Homeric society enjoys a greater freedom, and receives greater respect, than in the Athens of Sophocles and Pericles.

4.The Growth of the Greek States.—The Greek world at the beginning of the 6th centuryB.C.presents a picture in many respects different from that of the Homeric Age. The Greek race is no longer confined to the Greek peninsula. It occupies the islands of the Aegean, the western seaboard of Asia Minor, the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, of southern Italy and Sicily. Scattered settlements are found as far apart as the mouth of the Rhone, the north of Africa, the Crimea and the eastern end of the Black Sea. The Greeks are called by a national name,Hellenes, the symbol of a fully-developed national self-consciousness. They are divided into three great branches, the Dorian, the Ionian and the Aeolian, names almost, or entirely, unknown to Homer. The heroic monarchy has nearly everywhere disappeared. In Greece proper, south of Thermopylae, it survives, but in a peculiar form, in the Spartan state alone. What is the significance and the explanation of contrasts so profound?

It is probable that the explanation is to be found, directly or indirectly, in a single cause, the Dorian invasion. In Homer the Dorians are mentioned in one passage only (Odysseyxix. 177). They there appear as one of the races whichDorian invasion.inhabit Crete. In the historical period the whole Peloponnese, with the exception of Arcadia, Elis and Achaea, is Dorian. In northern Greece the Dorians occupy the little state of Doris, and in the Aegean they form the population of Crete, Rhodes and some smaller islands. Thus the chief centres of Minoan and Mycenaean culture have passed into Dorian hands, and the chief seats of Achaean power are included in Dorian states. Greek tradition explained the overthrow of the Achaean system by an invasion of the Peloponnese by the Dorians, a northern tribe, which had found a temporary home in Doris. The story ran that, after an unsuccessful attempt to force an entrance by the Isthmus of Corinth, they had crossed from Naupactus, at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, landed on the opposite shore, and made their way into the heart of the Peloponnese, where a single victory gave them possession of the Achaean states. Their conquests were divided among the invaders into three shares, for which lots were cast, and thus the three states of Argos, Sparta and Messenia were created. There is much in this tradition that is impossible or improbable. It is impossible,e.g.for the tiny state of Doris, with its three or four “small, sad villages” (πολεις μικραὶ καὶ λυπρόχωροι, Strabo, p. 427), to have furnished a force of invaders sufficient to conquer and re-people the greater part of the Peloponnese. It is improbable that the conquest should have been either as sudden, or as complete, as the legend represents. On the contrary, there are indications that the conquest was gradual, and that the displacement of the older population was incomplete. The improbability of the details affords, however, no ground for questioning the reality of the invasion.6The tradition can be traced back at Sparta to the 7th centuryB.C.(Tyrtaeus, quoted by Strabo, p. 362), and there is abundant evidence, other than that of legend, to corroborate it. There is the Dorian name, to begin with. If, as Beloch supposes, it originated on the coast of Asia Minor, where it served to distinguish the settlers in Rhodes and the neighbouring islands from the Ionians and Aeolians to the north of them, how came the great and famous states of the Peloponnese to adopt a name in use among the petty colonies planted by their kinsmen across the sea? Or, if Dorian is simply Old Peloponnesian, how are we to account for the Doric dialect or the Dorian pride of race?

It is true that there are great differences between the literary Doric, the dialect of Corinth and Argos, and the dialects of Laconia and Crete, and that there are affinities between the dialect of Laconia and the non-Dorian dialects of Arcadia and Elis. It is equally true, however, and of far more consequence, that all the Doric dialects are distinguished from all other Greek dialects by certain common characteristics. Perhaps the strongest sentiment in the Dorian nature is the pride of race. Indeed, it looks as if the Dorians claimed to be the sole genuine Hellenes. How can we account for an indigenous population, first imagining itself to be immigrant, and then developing acontempt for the rest of the race, equally indigenous with itself, on account of a fictitious difference in origin? Finally, there is the archaeological evidence. The older civilization comes to an abrupt end, and it does so, on the mainland at least, at the very period to which tradition assigns the Dorian migration. Its development is greatest, and its overthrow most complete, precisely in the regions occupied by the Dorians and the other tribes, whose migrations were traditionally connected with theirs. It is hardly too much to say that the archaeologist would have been compelled to postulate an inroad into central and southern Greece of tribes from the north, at a lower level of culture, in the course of the 12th and 11th centuriesB.C., if the historian had not been able to direct him to the traditions of the great migrations (μεταναστάσεις), of which the Dorian invasion was the chief. With the Dorian migration Greek tradition connected the expansion of the Greek race eastwards across the Aegean. In the historical period the Greek settlements on the western coast of Asia Minor fall into three clearly defined groups. To the north is the Aeolic group, consisting of the island of Lesbos and twelve towns, mostly insignificant, on the opposite mainland. To the south is the Dorianhexapolis, consisting of Cnidus and Halicarnassus on the mainland, and the islands of Rhodes and Cos. In the centre comes the Ioniandodecapolis, a group consisting of ten towns on the mainland, together with the islands of Samos and Chios. Of these three groups, the Ionian is incomparably the most important. The Ionians also occupy Euboea and the Cyclades. Although it would appear that Cyprus (and possibly Pamphylia) had been occupied by settlers from Greece in the Mycenaean age, Greek tradition is probably correct in putting the colonization of Asia Minor and the islands of the Aegean after the Dorian migration. Both the Homeric and the archaeological evidence seem to point to the same conclusion. Between Rhodes on the south and the Troad on the north scarcely any Mycenaean remains have been found. Homer is ignorant of any Greeks east of Euboea. If the poems are earlier than the Dorian Invasion, his silence is conclusive. If the poems are some centuries later than the Invasion, they at least prove that, within a few generations of that event, it was the belief of the Greeks of Asia Minor that their ancestors had crossed the seas after the close of the Heroic Age. It is probable, too, that the names Ionian and Aeolian, the former of which is found once in Homer, and the latter not at all, originated among the colonists in Asia Minor, and served to designate, in the first instance, the members of the Ionic and Aeolicdodecapoleis. As Curtius7pointed out, the only Ionia known to history is in Asia Minor. It does not follow that Ionia is the original home of the Ionian race, as Curtius argued. It almost certainly follows, however, that it is the original home of the Ionian name.

It is less easy to account for the nameHellenes. The Greeks were profoundly conscious of their common nationality, and of the gulf that separated them from the rest of mankind. They themselves recognized a common race and language, and a common type of religion and culture, as the chief factors in this sentiment of nationality (see Herod. viii. 144Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα). “Hellenes” was the name of their common race, and “Hellas” of their common country. In Homer there is no distinct consciousness of a common nationality, and consequently no antithesis of Greek and Barbarian (see Thuc. i. 3). Nor is there a true collective name. There are indeed Hellenes (though the name occurs in one passage only,Iliadii. 684), and there is a Hellas; but his Hellas, whatever its precise signification may be, is, at any rate, not equivalent either to Greece proper or to the land of the Greeks, and his Hellenes are the inhabitants of a small district to the south of Thessaly. It is possible that the diffusion of the Hellenic name was due to the Dorian invaders. Its use can be traced back to the first half of the 7th century. Not less obscure are the causes of the fall of monarchy. It cannot have been the immediate effect of the Dorian conquest, for the states founded by the Dorians were at first monarchically governed. It may, however, have been an indirect effect of it. We have already seen that the power of theGovernment.Homeric king is more limited than that of the rulers of Cnossus, Tiryns or Mycenae. In other words, monarchy is already in decay at the epoch of the Invasion. The Invasion, in its effects on wealth, commerce and civilization, is almost comparable to the irruption of the barbarians into the Roman empire. The monarch of the Minoan and Mycenaean age has extensive revenues at his command; the monarch of the early Dorian states is little better than a petty chief. Thus the interval, once a wide one, that separates him from the nobles tends to disappear. The decay of monarchy was gradual; much more gradual than is generally recognized. There were parts of the Greek world in which it still survived in the 6th century,e.g.Sparta, Cyrene, Cyprus, and possibly Argos and Tarentum. Both Herodotus and Thucydides apply the title “king” (βασιλεύς) to the rulers of Thessaly in the 5th century. The date at which monarchy gave place to a republican form of government must have differed, and differed widely, in different cases. The traditions relating to the foundation of Cyrene assume the existence of monarchy in Thera and in Crete in the middle of the 7th century (Herodotus iv. 150 and 154), and the reign of Amphicrates at Samos (Herod, iii. 59) can hardly be placed more than a generation earlier. In view of our general ignorance of the history of the 7th and 8th centuries, it is hazardous to pronounce these instances exceptional. On the other hand, the change from monarchy to oligarchy was completed at Athens before the end of the 8th century, and at a still earlier date in some of the other states. The process, again, by which the change was effected was, in all probability, less uniform than is generally assumed. There are extremely few cases in which we have any trustworthy evidence, and the instances about which we are informed refuse to be reduced to any common type. In Greece proper our information is fullest in the case of Athens and Argos. In the former case, the king is gradually stripped of his powers by a process of devolution. An hereditary king, ruling for life, is replaced by three annual and elective magistrates, between whom are divided the executive, military and religious functions of the monarch (seeArchon). At Argos the fall of the monarchy is preceded by an aggrandisement of the royal prerogatives. There is nothing in common between these two cases, and there is no reason to suppose that the process elsewhere was analogous to that at Athens. Everywhere, however, oligarchy is the form of government which succeeds to monarchy. Political power is monopolized by a class of nobles, whose claim to govern is based upon birth and the possession of land, the most valuable form of property in an early society. Sometimes power is confined to a single clan (e.g.the Bacchiadae at Corinth); more commonly, as at Athens, all houses that are noble are equally privileged. In every case there is found, as the adviser of the executive, a Boulē, or council, representative of the privileged class. Without such a council a Greek oligarchy is inconceivable. The relations of the executive to the council doubtless varied. At Athens it is clear that the real authority was exercised by the archons;8in many states the magistrates were probably subordinate to the council (cf. the relation of the consuls to the senate at Rome). And it is clear that the way in which the oligarchies used their power varied also. The cases in which the power was abused are naturally the ones of which we hear; for an abuse of power gave rise to discontent and was the ultimate cause of revolution. We hear little or nothing of the cases in which power was exercised wisely. Happy is the constitution which has no annals! We know, however, that oligarchy held its ground for generations, or even for centuries, in a large proportion of the Greek states; and a government which, like the oligarchies of Elis, Thebes or Aegina, could maintain itself for three or four centuries cannot have been merely oppressive.

The period of the transition from monarchy to oligarchy is the period in which commerce begins to develop, and trade-routes to be organized. Greece had been the centre of an active trade in the Minoan and Mycenaean epochs.Trade.The products of Crete and of the Peloponnese had found their way to Egypt and Asia Minor. The overthrow of the older civilization put an end to commerce. The seas became insecure and intercourse with the East was interrupted. Our earliest glimpses of the Aegean after the period of the migrations disclose the raids of the pirate and the activity of the Phoenician trader. It is not till the 8th century has dawned that trade begins to revive, and the Phoenician has to retire before his Greek competitor. For some time to come, however, no clear distinction is drawn between the trader and the pirate. The pioneers of Greek trade in the West are the pirates of Cumae (Thucyd. vi. 4). The expansion of Greek commerce, unlike that of the commerce of the modern world, was not connected with any great scientific discoveries. There is nothing in the history of ancient navigation that is analogous to the invention of the mariner’s compass or of the steam-engine. In spite of this, the development of Greek commerce in the 7th and 6th centuries was rapid. It must have been assisted by the great discovery of the early part of the former century, the invention of coined money. To the Lydians, rather than the Greeks, belongs the credit of the discovery; but it was the genius of the latter race that divined the importance of the invention and spread its use. The coinage of the Ionian towns goes back to the reign of Gyges (c.675B.C.). And it is in Ionia that commercial development is earliest and greatest. In the most distant regions the Ionian is first in the field. Egypt and the Black Sea are both opened up to Greek trade by Miletus, the Adriatic and the Western Mediterranean by Phocaea and Samos. It is significant that of the twelve states engaged in the Egyptian trade in the 6th century all, with the exception of Aegina, are from the eastern side of the Aegean (Herod. ii. 178). On the western side the chief centres of trade during these centuries were the islands of Euboea and Aegina and the town of Corinth. The Aeginetan are the earliest coins of Greece proper (c.650B.C.); and the two rival scales of weights and measures, in use amongst the Greeks of every age, are the Aeginetan and the Euboic. Commerce naturally gave rise to commercial leagues, and commercial relations tended to bring about political alliances. Foreign policy even at this early epoch seems to have been largely determined by considerations of commerce. Two leagues, the members of which were connected by political as well as commercial ties, can be recognized. At the head of each stood one of the two rival powers in the island of Euboea, Chalcis and Eretria. Their primary object was doubtless protection from the pirate and the foreigner. Competing routes were organized at an early date under their influence, and their trading connexions can be traced from the heart of Asia Minor to the north of Italy. Miletus, Sybaris and Etruria were members of the Eretrian league; Samos, Corinth, Rhegium and Zancle (commanding the Straits of Messina), and Cumae, on the Bay of Naples, of the Chalcidian. The wool of the Phrygian uplands, woven in the looms of Miletus, reached the Etruscan markets by way of Sybaris; through Cumae, Rome and the rest of Latium obtained the elements of Greek culture. Greek trade, however, was confined to the Mediterranean area. The Phoenician and the Carthaginian navigators penetrated to Britain; they discovered the passage round the Cape two thousand years before Vasco da Gama’s time. The Greek sailor dared not adventure himself outside the Black Sea, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Greek trade, too, was essentially maritime. Ports visited by Greek vessels were often the starting points of trade-routes into the interior; the traffic along those routes was left in the hands of the natives (seee.g.Herod. iv. 24). One service, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated, was rendered to civilization by the Greek traders—the invention of geography. The science of geography is the invention of the Greeks. The first maps were made by them (in the 6th century); and it was the discoveries and surveys of their sailors that made map-making possible.

Closely connected with the history of Greek trade is the history of Greek colonization. The period of colonization, in its narrower sense, extends from the middle of the 8th to the middle of the 6th century. Greek colonizationColonization.is, however, merely a continuation of the process which at an earlier epoch had led to the settlement, first of Cyprus, and then of the islands and coasts of the Aegean. From the earlier settlements the colonization of the historical period is distinguished by three characteristics. The later colony acknowledges a definitemetropolis(“mother-city”); it is planted by a definiteoecist(οἰκιστής); it has a definite date assigned to its foundation.9It would be a mistake to regard Greek colonization as commercial in origin, in the sense that the colonies were in all cases established as trading-posts. This was the case with the Phoenician and Carthaginian settlements, most of which remained mere factories; and some of the Greek colonies (e.g.many of those planted by Miletus on the shores of the Black Sea) bore this character. The typical Greek colony, however, was neither in origin nor in development a mere trading-post. It was, or it became, apolis, a city-state, in which was reproduced the life of the parent state. Nor was Greek colonization, like the emigration from Europe to America and Australia in the 19th century, simply the result of over-population. The causes were as various as those which can be traced in the history of modern colonization. Those which were established for the purposes of trade may be compared to the factories of the Portuguese and Dutch in Africa and the Far East. Others were the result of political discontent, in some form or shape; these may be compared to the Puritan settlements in New England. Others again were due to ambition or the mere love of adventure (see Herod. v. 42 ff., the career of Dorieus). But however various the causes, two conditions must always be presupposed—an expansion of commerce and a growth of population. Within the narrow limits of the city-state there was a constant tendency for population to become redundant, until, as in the later centuries of Greek life, its growth was artificially restricted. Alike from the Roman colonies, and from those founded by the European nations in the course of the last few centuries, the Greek colonies are distinguished by a fundamental contrast. It is significant that the contrast is a political one. The Roman colony was in a position of entire subordination to the Roman state, of which it formed a part. The modern colony was, in varying degrees, in political subjection to the home government. The Greek colony was completely independent; and it was independent from the first. The ties that united a colony to its metropolis were those of sentiment and interest; the political tie did not exist. There were, it is true, exceptions. The colonies established by imperial Athens closely resembled the colonies of imperial Rome. The cleruchy (q.v.) formed part of the Athenian state; the cleruchs kept their status as citizens of Athens and acted as a military garrison. And if the political tie, in the proper sense, was wanting, it was inevitable that political relations should spring out of commercial or sentimental ones. Thus we find Corinth interfering twice to save her colony Syracuse from destruction, and Megara bringing about the revolt of Byzantium, her colony, from Athens. Sometimes it is not easy to distinguish political relations from a political tie (e.g.the relations of Corinth, both in the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, to Ambracia and the neighbouring group of colonies). When we compare the development of the Greek and the modern colonies we shall find that the development of the former was even more rapid than that of the latter. In at least three respects the Greek settler was at an advantage as compared with the colonist of modern times. The differences of race, of colour and of climate, with which the chief problems of modern colonization are connected, played no part in the history of the Greek settlements. The races amongst whom the Greeks plantedthemselves were in some cases on a similar level of culture. Where the natives were still backward or barbarous, they came of a stock either closely related to the Greek, or at least separated from it by no great physical differences. We need only contrast the Carian, the Sicel, the Thracian or even the Scythian, with the native Australian, the Hottentot, the Red Indian or the Maori, to apprehend the advantage of the Greek. Amalgamation with the native races was easy, and it involved neither physical nor intellectual degeneracy as its consequence. Of the races with which the Greeks came in contact the Thracian was far from the highest in the scale of culture; yet three of the greatest names in the Great Age of Athens are those of men who had Thracian blood in their veins, viz. Themistocles, Cimon and the historian Thucydides. In the absence of any distinction of colour, no insuperable barrier existed between the Greek and the hellenized native. Thedemosof the colonial cities was largely recruited from the native population,10nor was there anything in the Greek world analogous to the “mean whites” or the “black belt.” Of hardly less importance were the climatic conditions. In this respect the Mediterranean area is unique. There is no other region of the world of equal extent in which these conditions are at once so uniform and so favourable. Nowhere had the Greek settler to encounter a climate which was either unsuited to his labour or subversive of his vigour. That in spite of these advantages so little, comparatively speaking, was effected in the work of Hellenization before the epoch of Alexander and the Diadochi, was the effect of a single counteracting cause. The Greek colonist, like the Greek trader, clung to the shore. He penetrated no farther inland than the sea-breeze. Hence it was only in islands, such as Sicily or Cyprus, that the process of Hellenization was complete. Elsewhere the Greek settlements formed a mere fringe along the coast.

To the 7th century there belongs another movement of high importance in its bearing upon the economic, religious and literary development of Greece, as well as upon its constitutional history. This movement is the rise ofThe tyrants.thetyrannis. In the political writers of a later age the word possesses a clear-cut connotation. From other forms of monarchy it is distinguished by a twofold differentiation. Thetyrannusis an unconstitutional ruler, and his authority is exercised over unwilling subjects. In the 7th and 6th centuries the line was not drawn so distinctly between the tyrant and the legitimate monarch. Even Herodotus uses the words “tyrant” and “king” interchangeably (e.g.the princes of Cyprus are called “kings” in v. 110 and “tyrants” in v. 109), so that it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a legitimate monarch or a tyrant is meant (e.g.Aristophilides of Tarentum, iii. 136, or Telys of Sybaris, v. 44). But the distinction between the tyrant and the king of the Heroic Age is a valid one. It is not true that his rule was always exercised over unwilling subjects; it is true that his position was always unconstitutional. The Homeric king is a legitimate monarch; his authority is invested with the sanctions of religion and immemorial custom. The tyrant is an illegitimate ruler; his authority is not recognized, either by customary usage or by express enactment. But the word “tyrant” was originally a neutral team; it did not necessarily imply a misuse of power. The origin of thetyrannisis obscure. The wordtyrannushas been thought, with some reason, to be a Lydian one. Probably both the name and the thing originated in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, though the earliest tyrants of whom we hear in Asia Minor (at Ephesus and Miletus) are a generation later than the earliest in Greece itself, where, both at Sicyon and at Corinth, tyranny appears to date back to the second quarter of the 7th century. It is not unusual to regard tyranny as a universal stage in the constitutional development of the Greek states, and as a stage that occurs everywhere at one and the same period. In reality, tyranny is confined to certain regions, and it is a phenomenon that is peculiar to no one age or century. In Greece proper, before the 4th centuryB.C., it is confined to a small group of states round the Corinthian and Saronic Gulfs. The greater part of the Peloponnese was exempt from it, and there is no good evidence for its existence north of the Isthmus, except at Megara and Athens. It plays no part in the history of the Greek cities in Chalcidice and Thrace. It appears to have been rare in the Cyclades. The regions in which it finds a congenial soil are two, Asia Minor and Sicily. Thus it is incorrect to say that most Greek states passed through this stage. It is still wider of the mark to assume that they passed through it at the same time. There is no “Age of the Tyrants.” Tyranny began in the Peloponnese a hundred years before it appears in Sicily, and it has disappeared in the Peloponnese almost before it begins in Sicily. In the latter the great age of tyranny comes at the beginning of the 5th century; in the former it is at the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th. At Athens the history of tyranny begins after it has ended both at Sicyon and Corinth. There is, indeed, a period in which tyranny is non-existent in the Greek states; roughly speaking, the last sixty years of the 5th century. But with this exception, there is no period in which the tyrant is not to be found. The greatest of all the tyrannies, that of Dionysius at Syracuse, belongs to the 4th century. Nor must it be assumed that tyranny always comes at the same stage in the history of a constitution; that it is always a stage between oligarchy and democracy. At Corinth it is followed, not by democracy but by oligarchy, and it is an oligarchy that lasts, with a brief interruption, for two hundred and fifty years. At Athens it is not immediately preceded by oligarchy. Between the Eupatrid oligarchy and the rule of Peisistratus there comes the timocracy of Solon. These exceptions do not stand alone. The cause of tyranny is, in one sense, uniform. In the earlier centuries, at any rate, tyranny is always the expression of discontent; the tyrant is always the champion of a cause. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the discontent is necessarily political, or that the cause which he champions is always a constitutional one. At Sicyon it is a racial one; Cleisthenes is the champion of the older population against their Dorian oppressors (see Herod. v. 67, 68). At Athens the discontent is economic rather than political; Peisistratus is the champion of the Diacrii, the inhabitants of the poorest region of Attica. The party-strifes of which we hear in the early history of Miletus, which doubtless gave the tyrant his opportunity, are concerned with the claims of rival industrial classes. In Sicily the tyrant is the ally of the rich and the foe of thedemos, and the cause which he champions, both in the 5th century and the 4th, is a national one, that of the Greek against the Carthaginian. We may suspect that in Greece itself the tyrannies of the 7th century are the expression of an anti-Dorian reaction. It can hardly be an accident that the states in which the tyrannis is found at this epoch, Corinth, Megara, Sicyon, Epidaurus, are all of them states in which a Dorian upper class ruled over a subject population. In Asia Minor thetyrannisassumes a peculiar character after the Persian conquest. The tyrant rules as the deputy of the Persian satrap. Thus in the East the tyrant is the enemy of the national cause; in the West, in Sicily, he is its champion.

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