Leucádia (Santa Maura), was originally a peninsula, but the isthmus that joined it to the mainland was cut through to facilitate navigation.

The Echin'ades (Curzolari) were a small cluster of islands near the mouth of the river Achelóus, of which the most celebrated was Dulichium, part of the kingdom of Ulys'ses. Near it was the little island of Ith'aca (Theaki), immortalized by Homer.

Cephalonia, anciently called Schéria, was the largest of the western Grecian islands, and the least noted in history.

South of this was Zacyn'thus (Zante), with a capital of the same name, celebrated for its fertile meads, its luxuriant woods, and its abundant fountains of bitumen.

West of the Peloponnésus are the Stroph'ades (Strivoli), more anciently called Plote, because they were supposed to have been floating islands; and south of them is the island of Sphactéria (Sphagia), which guards the entrance of Py'los (Navarino).

South of the Peloponnésus is the island of Cyth'erea (Cerigo), sacred to Venus, and celebrated in ancient times for its fertility and beauty.

SECTION V.-Social and Political Condition of Greece.

It is useless to investigate the social condition of the Greeks in what are called the heroic ages, because we have no credible account of that period. But when the certain history of Greece commences, we find the country divided between two races, the Ionian and the Dorian, distinguished from each other by striking characteristics, which were never wholly obliterated. We know, also, that two other races, the Æolian and Achæan, existed; but they seem to have become in great degree identified with one or other of the two former.

The Ionians were remarkable for their democratic spirit, and consequent hostility to hereditary privileges. They were vivacious, prone to excitement, easily induced to make important changes in their institutions, and proud of their country and themselves. Their love of refined enjoyments made them diligent cultivators of the fine arts, but without being destitute of martial vigor. They were favorably disposed toward commerce; but, like too many other free states, they encumbered it with short-sighted restrictions, and they were cruel masters to their colonial dependancies.

The Dorian race, on the contrary, was remarkable for the severe simplicity of its manners, and its strict adherence to ancient usages. It preferred an aristocratic form of government, and required age as a qualification for magistracy, because the old are usually opposed to innovation. They were ambitious of supremacy, and the chief object of their institutions was to maintain the warlike and almost savage spirit of the nation. Slavery in its worst form prevailed in every Dorian state; and the slaves were almost deprived of hope-for the Dorian legislation was directed chiefly to fix every man in his hereditary condition. Commerce was discouraged on account of its tendency to change the ranks of society, and the fine arts all but prohibited, because they were supposed to lead to effeminacy.

The differences between these two races is the chief characteristic

of Grecian politics; it runs, indeed, through the entire history, and was the principal cause of the deep-rooted hatred between Athens and Sparta. Next to this, the most marked feature in the political aspect of Greece is, that it contained as many free states as cities. Attica, Meg'aris, and Lacónia, were civic rather than territorial states; but there are few of the other divisions of the country that were united under a single government. The cities of A'chaia, Arcádia, and Bæótia, were independent of each other, though the Achæan cities were united by a federative league; and Thebes generally exercised a precarious dominion over the other cities of Baótia. The supremacy of the principal state was called by the Greeks Hegemony; it included the right of determining the foreign relations of the inferior states, and binding them to all wars in which the capital engaged, and all treaties of peace which it concluded; but it did not allow of any interference in the internal administration of each government. This parcelling out of a small country, added to the frequent revolutions, facilitated by the narrow limits of each state, necessarily led to a more rapid development of political science in Greece than in any other country.

Divided as the Greeks were, there were many circumstances that united the whole Hellenic race by a common bond of nationality. Of these the chief was unity of religion, connected with which were the national festivals and games, at which all the Hellenes, and none others, were allowed to take a share. If, as is commonly supposed, the Greeks derived the elements of their religion from Asia or Egypt, they soon made it so peculiarly their own, that it retained no features of its original source. All Asiatic deities are more or less of an elementary character; that is, they symbolize some natural object, such as the sun, the earth, an important river; or some power of nature, such as the creative, the preserving, and the destroying power. In many instances both were combined, and the visible object was associated with the latent power. On the other hand, the gods of Greece were human personages, possessing the forms and the attributes of men, though in a highly exalted degree. The paganism of Asia was consequently a religion of fear; for it was impossible to conceive deities of monstrous forms sympathizing with man: hence, also, the priesthood formed a peculiar caste; for the mystery which veiled the god was necessarily extended to the mode in which he should be worshipped.

Instead of this gloomy system, the Greeks had a religion of love; they regarded their gods as a kind of personal friends, and hence their worship was cheerful and joyous. The priesthood was open to all; the office was commonly filled for a limited time only, and was not deemed inconsistent with other occupations. There is no doubt that the Grecian religion received its peculiar form from the beautiful fictions of the poets, especially Homer and Hesiod; for in all its features it is essentially poetical. We need scarcely dwell on the beneficial effects produced by this system on the fine arts, or its facilitating the progress of knowledge, by separating religion from philosophy.

The oracles of Dodóna and Delphi, the temples of Olym'pia and Délos, were national; they belonged to the whole Hellenic race. The responses of the oracles were more reverenced by the Dorian than the Ionian race, for the latter early emancipated itself from the trammels

of superstition. The worship in all was voluntary, and the large gifts emulously sent to them were the spontaneous offers of patriotic affection. Del'phi was under the government of the Amphictyon'ic council; but this body did not limit its attention to the government of the temple: by its influence over the oracle, it acquired no small share in the affairs of different states; and it superintended the administration of the law of nations, even when the states represented in it were engaged in war.

The great public games were the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian. Foreigners might be spectators at these games, but Hellenes alone could contend for the prize. This right belonged to the colonies as well as to the states in the mother-country; and, as it was deemed a privilege of the highest value, it preserved the unity even of the most distant branches of the Hellenic race.

All the constitutions of the Grecian states were republican; but they varied so much in the different cities, that hardly any two were alike. In general, however, it may be stated, that in all the most severe public and private labors were intrusted to slaves; and in many, as Lacónia, agriculture was managed by them exclusively. This degraded manufacturing industry, and led to an undue depression not only of artisans and retailers, but even of master manufacturers. Foreign merchants were treated with unwise jealousy, and could never obtain the privileges of citizens. The right of coinage was reserved to the state; but it was not until a very late period that the Greeks began to pay attention to finance. Little or no taxation was necessary while the citizens served as voluntary soldiers; and the magistrates were rewarded with honor, not money. But when mercenary armies were employed, and ambassadors sent into distant lands, when the importance of a navy induced cities to outbid each other in the pay of their sailors, heavy taxes became necessary, and these brought many of the cities into great pecuniary embarrassment.

Another source of expense was the provision for public festivals and theatrical shows; to which was added, in Athens and other places, the payment of the dicasts, or persons analogous to our jurymen; though, instead of their number being limited to twelve, they frequently amounted to several hundreds, and had no presiding judges. This was doubly injurious; the multitude of the dicasts not only entailed a heavy expense upon the state, but the sum paid being small, few save those of the lower classes attended, whose decisions were not unfrequently guided by prejudice and passion, instead of law and justice.

The poetical nature of its religion, and the free constitution of its states, not only rendered Greece peculiarly favorable to the progress of literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, but gave these, in turn, a decided influence on the government. The tragic and lyric poets produced their pieces in honor of the gods; the comic poets at Athens discussed public affairs on the stage with a freedom, or rather licentiousness, which the wildest excesses of the modern press have never equalled; and the influence of the orators at Athens rendered them the leaders of the state.

The seeds of dissolution were thickly sown in the social system of the Greeks. The rivalry between the Dorian and Ionian races; the

turbulence and sedition natural to small republics; and the gradual decline of religion, followed by a consequent corruption of moralsrendered the duration of the constitution as brief as it was glorious.

SECTION VI.-The traditional History of Greece from the earliest Ages to the Commencement of the Trojan War.

FROM AN UNKNOWN PERIOD TO ABOUT 1200 B. C.

SACRED history, confirmed by uniform tradition, informs us that Thrace, Macedon, and Greece, were peopled at an earlier period than the other portions of the western world. The first inhabitants were tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose earliest approaches to civilization were associations for mutual defence against robber-tribes, and the Phoenician corsairs that swept the coast of the Ægean to kidnap slaves. The Pelas'gi were the first tribe that acquired supremacy in Greece: they were probably of Asiatic origin; and the first place in which they appear to have made a permanent settlement was the Peloponnésus, where they erected Sic'yon (*B. c. 2000), and Argos (*B. c. 1800). In'achus was regarded by the Pelas'gi as their founder: he was probably contemporary with Abraham; but nothing certain is known of his history.

To the Pelas'gi are attributed the remains of those most ancient monuments generally called Cyclopian. They are usually composed of enormous rude masses piled upon one another, with small stones fitted in between the intervals to complete the work. From the Peloponnésus the Pelas'gi extended themselves northward to Attica, Boeotia, and Thessaly, which they are said to have entered under three leaders, Achæ'us, Phthius, and Pelas'gus; though by these names we ought probably to understand separate tribes rather than individuals. Here they learned to apply themselves to agriculture, and continued to flourish for nearly two centuries. (From B. c. 1700 to *B. c. 1500.)

The Hellénes, a more mild and humane race, first appeared on Mount Parnas'sus, in Phócis, under Deucálion, whom they venerated as their founder (*B. c. 1433). Being driven thence by a flood, they migrated into Thessaly, and expelled the Pelas'gi from that territory. From this time forward the Hellénes rapidly increased, and extended their dominion over the greater part of Greece, dispossessing the more ancient race, which only retained the mountainous parts of Arcádia and the land of Dodóna. Numbers of the Pelas'gi emigrated to Italy, Creté, and some of the other islands.

The Hellenic race was subdivided into four great branches, the Eolians, Ionians, Dorians, and Achæans, which, in the historic age of Greece, were characterized by many strong and marked peculiarities of dialect, customs, and political government; we may perhaps add, religious, or at least, heroic traditions, only that these appear to be connected rather with the localities in which they settled than with the stock from which they sprung. There were many smaller ramifications of the Hellenic race; but all united themselves to one or other of the four great tribes, whose names are derived from Deucalion's immediate posterity. It is the common attribute of ancient traditions to describe the achievements of a tribe or army as personal exploits of the leader;

and hence we find the history of the tribes and their migrations interwoven with the personal history of Deucalion's descendants.

Hel'len, the son of Deucalion, gave his name to the whole Hellenic race he had three sons, Æolus, Dórus, and Xúthus; of whom the first settled in the district of Thessaly called Phthiótis, and became the founder of the Æolian tribe; the second settled in Estiæótis, and there established the Dorian tribe; the third, expelled by his brethren, migrated to Athens, where he married Creusa, the daughter of king Erec'theus, by whom he had two sons, I'on and Achæus. After the death of Erec'theus, Xúthus was forced to remove to Egialeía (the province of the Peloponnésus afterward called Achaia), where he died. His son I'on, the founder of the Ionian race, became general of the Athenian forces, and lord of Ægialeía, to which he gave the name of Ionia. Achæus, the founder of the Achæan race, obtained possession of the greater part of the Peloponnésus, especially Argolis and Lacónia. The Eolian tribe spread itself over western Greece, Acarnánia, Ætolia, Phócis, Lócris, E'lis in the Peloponnésus, and the western islands. The Dorians, driven from Estiæótis by the Perrhæbians, spread themselves over Macedónia and Creté; a part of them subsequently returning, crossed Mount E'ta, and settled in Doris on the Doric Tetrap'olis, where they remained until they migrated into the Peloponnésus under the guidance of the Heracleída; an important revolution, which will soon engage our attention.

The Ionians inhabited Attica and Ægialeía; but they were expelled from the latter by the Achæans at the time of the great Dorian migration, and the name of the country changed to Achaia. The Achæans retained Argolis and Lacónia until they were expelled by the Dorians, when, as we have just said, they established themselves in Ægialeía.

From the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the fourteenth century before Christ, several colonies from Egypt, Phœnícia, and Phry'gia, settled in different parts of Greece, bringing with them the improvements in the arts and sciences that had been made in their respective countries, and thus greatly advancing the progress of civilization in Greece. The chief of these colonies were:

An Egyptian colony was led from Saïs in the Del'ta to Attica by Cecrops (*B. c. 1550): he is said to have introduced the institution of marriage and the first elements of civilization.

A second colony, from Lower Egypt, was led by Danaus, who fled from a brother's enmity, and settled in Argos (*B. c. 1500). The fable of his fifty daughters is well known; but its historical foundation is altogether uncertain.

A Phoenician colony, under Cad'mus, settled in Boeotia, and founded Thebes, nearly at the same time that Cecrops established himself at At'tica. He was the first who introduced the use of letters into Greece.

Pelops led a colony from Phry'gia, the northwestern kingdom of Asia Minor, into the Peloponnésus (*B. c. 1400): he did not acquire so large a kingdom as the settlers mentioned before; but his descendants, by intermarriages with the royal families of Argos and Lacedæ'mon, acquired such paramount influence, that they became supreme over the peninsula, and gave it the name of their great ancestor.

Several circumstances, however, impeded the progress of civilization. The coasts of Greece were temptingly exposed to the Phoenicians,