For accustomed easily to abandon his place and possessions, whenever compelled to do so by an invasion of a greater number. 2. For since there was no trade by sea, and no man mingled without fear and without hazard with other men, on land or water; since no one appropriated to himself or used what he had, farther or more than to sustain his daily life, accumulating nothing, nor so much as planting a tree or a vine, uncertain when another might invade and snatch the product of his toil away,the cities too all unwalled; and since moreover it was universally thought that the needful supply of daily sustenance might be found anywhere, men habitually and perpetually migrated, without difficulty, without resistance, without regret. this reason, too, the nations or tribes of these times did not grow to strength by the magnitude of their cities, or by any other form of military preparation.1 3. These changes of inhabitants were most frequent in the more fertile regions of Greece, -in what is now Thessaly, for example, in Boeotia, in the greater part of the Peloponnesus, except Arcadia. 4. For by means of the fertility of the soil, inequalities of fortune were produced, some citizens acquiring more wealth than others, and thus dissensions and revolutions were brought on, by which they perished. Such, too, were more exposed to the incursion of foreign or distinct tribes. 5. Attica, on the other hand, exempted from internal dissension and revolution, from the remotest period, by the lightness or thinness of its soil, untempting, the same men had inhabited immemorially.2 6. And in this instance of Attica, its history and its comparatively more rapid growth, I remark a proof of the statement which I before advanced, that it was 1 The historical fact here asserted may well be presumed to be true and to have been true from the time the first Pelasgic or ante-Pelasgic hunter set foot in Greece, for ages of barbarism. The great feature in the sketch is the practice of migration. There was no fixed individual or social or political state, residence, and existence. All intercourse was hostile and fearful. No one made accumulations of property, or sought from property more than support of daily life, the means of which he could find anywhere. He walled no cities, he planted no vine or tree. He expected to be driven out by a greater number and a greater strength. His habits and sentiments were formed to it; he of fered slight resistance, and he suffered little regret. What epoch is described in these sections? The ante-Hellenic? The age subsequent to the diffusion upon Greece of the Pelasgi, — that in which foreign settlers are beginning to approach Greece? Or is it true of many periods, the original occupation by the Pelasgi, that of the accession of foreigners, that of the development of the Hellenes, all the time down to the dawn of the historic period? 2 The fact of infrequency of change rests on Thucydides. His disposition to speculation you discern in his explanation of the fact. Inequalities of fortune, larger accumulations side by side with smaller, induce revolution, dissension, and invite hostility; and these inequalities and accumulations you find only-while as yet trade has no existence on rich soils. attributable to this practice of incessant migration that other parts of Greece did not thrive. The truth is, that of those who by faction or by invasion were driven from other parts, the more wealthy and more considerable retired on Athens, as a place of security; and being admitted to the privilege of citizenship, they even in the earliest ages so filled the city with inhabitants, that at length, Attica becoming insufficient to contain them, colonies were sent forth to Ionia.1 III. I discern the political weakness and insignificance of these old times in these things also, that before the Trojan war Greece had accomplished no united and national undertaking, nor had its cities and tribes so much as the common name of Greece. Before the age of Hellen, the son of Deucalion, this designation, Hellas, appears not to have existed at all; and 1 This passage is thought to be and is obscure. I interpret thus: Thucydides opens his second chapter by the statement that anciently migrations were incessant from place to place in Greece, and that nowhere were secure and permanent settlements. He exposes the causes; and declares that by reason of it the strength of cities and the preparations of war were not attained. He then adverts to the fact that these migrations were most frequent in the most fertile parts; and gives the reason that there the acquisition of inequalities of wealth generated faction and tempted invasion, he instances Thessaly and Boeotia as examples of fertile regions torn by faction and wasted by invasion, and Attica as an example of a country whose light soil exempted it from both, and enabled it at all times to retain its original inhabitants at home. With this, he dismisses this incidental or parenthetical remark about the effect of fertility and barrenness, and returns to his original statement that migrations were frequent and hindered the growth of strong cities and the accumulations of preparations for war. The instance of Attica-the facts of its history and the causes of its more rapid growth than the rest of Greece, afford me a proof of what I have said, to wit, that migrations prevented the thriving of old Greece. Attica was a place of security. Her old population could and did live ever safely at home. When war or faction banished the more wealthy and powerful of other cities, they fled to this asylum. Thus, in the earliest times she became so overstocked as to be compelled to colonize Ionia. Comparing this case with the rest of Greece, you see the influence of migration on prosperity. This case of Attica-its greater growth-proves my position that these other places were checked by migration. To them none resorted. From them many fled. She held her own. She welcomed new. These facts, introduced by kk yùp &c., are the rode preceding. The real question, however, is, is διὰ τὰς μετοικίας a repetition and explanation of what 2óyog is, or is it the proof of the λόγος ? Is it this, and the fact that other parts of Greece did not grow equally with Attica, proves what I said above, and leaving the reader to go back for what he said? I rather incline to this; for this assertion, đườ &c., is an assertion not made before. He had not said that others had not grown or thriven as much as Athens. He had said migrations were common, and checked growth. He said where they were most frequent, where least, and why; i.e., from qualities of soil. But he had not yet said that those where fewest were most prosperous. He now says that. The case of Athens suggests it. Here, said he, in this fact, to wit, that other parts flourished less, I find proof of disastrous effects of migration. every tribe, the Pelasgic more extensively than any other, gave its own name to its own habitation. 2. After Hellen and his children had come to be chiefs of power in Phthiotis, they were called in by other tribes to contribute succor from time to time, and thus one tribe after another, by continuance of intercourse with them, came to be called Hellenes; yet was it long before that spread to be the prevalent national name.1 3. And of this assertion Homer affords the strongest proof; for although writing long after the Trojan war, he does not bestow this name as a common appellation on all the Greeks, nor does he apply it at all except to the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the first Hellenes, as I have before said; but when he speaks of the Greeks collectively, he calls them Argives, Danai, and Achæans. 4. Neither does he employ the term Bápßapor as a general designation of all not Greeks, apparently because the Greeks themselves were not yet set apart and gathered together by that or any one national name, distinguishing them from all others. 5. This people, I repeat, whose various cities and communities thus came gradually and successively to be called Hellenes, by adopting a common Hellenic language, and to which, as a whole, that appellation came at last to be applied, although, as we have seen, subsequently to Homer, this people, before the Trojan war, in no stage of progress in the ante-Hellenic or post-Hellenic period, effected any great common enterprise, through weakness and the want of alliance and coöperation with each other. And for even that war they were able and inclined to unite, only because they had then become more familiar with the life of the sea. IV. The first who constructed a navy, of whom we hear, was Minos, who acquired the command of the greater part of the Hellenic Sea, conquered the Cyclades, and first colonized the larger number of them, having expelled some of their Carian inhabitants and established his own sons in the government. Piracy, too, he swept from the sea, as he naturally would do, as far as he was able, for the sake of securing larger returns of revenue to himself. V. Now, anciently, the Greeks and such of the barbarians as dwelt either on the coasts of the mainland or on islands, after they had begun more frequently to traverse the sea in vessels, 1 The general fact that the earliest inhabitants of the after Greece were disunited tribes, and that before the Trojan war they associated for no common enterprise, and bore no common name, is received. That these tribes gave each its own name to its own re VOL. II. 39 gion, may be. The wider extension of the Pelasgic, and its priority to the time and name of Hellen, is also generally received. Thessaly, where is Phthiotis, produced the race and name by which Greece became called and created. devoted themselves to the practice of piracy. Setting forth under the command of leaders of consideration and power, to enrich themselves and to procure food for those in want, they would fall upon unwalled towns and on the scattered inhabitants of villages, and plunder them, and thence they derived the chief of their subsistence. And this way of life was marked by no disgrace, but rather conferred something of glory. 2. You may see a proof of this in certain inhabitants of the continent at this day, who esteem it creditable to conduct a piratical expedition adroitly and bravely; and in the old poets, who everywhere introduce persons inquiring of those who came into port whether they were pirates, and who neither represent him to whom the inquiry is addressed as denying, ashamed of such a calling, nor him who makes the inquiry as designing it for matter of reproach. 3. On land, too, this life of reciprocal plunder was led. To this very day many parts of Greece retain this old condition of society and manners. As the Locri-Ozolæ and Etolians and Acarnanians, and the continent nearest to them. Their custom of going armed while engaged in their ordinary occupations has descended to these people from the usages of the old piracy. VI. For in that earlier and unquiet day all Greece wore arms, for the reason that settlements were unfortified, travel was unsafe, and all habitually lived with weapon in hand, like the barbarians. 2. Those parts of Greece in which this practice survives, prove and exemplify what then was the universal condition of society. 3. Of all the Greeks the Athenians first disused the wearing of arms, and then relaxing the severity of ancient customs, passed into a more refined and luxurious mode of life. It is even now only a short time since the more elderly of the wealthier class of Athenians ceased to wear, so luxurious had their habits of dress become,-linen embroidered garments, and to wreathe their hair into a topping clasped around by golden grasshoppers; whence also among the elderly men of their kindred Ionians, a similar fashion prevailed. 4. A plain and simple dress, of the style of the present day, was first adopted by the Lacedæmonians and worn by all classes. In all things else, too, or in most things as well as in dress, the rich and the many of Lacedæmon lived in equality. 5. They were the first who appeared naked publicly, and stripping themselves for all to see, anointed themselves for the games. For anciently the athletes in the Olympic contests strove with broad girdles about them, for decency, and it is but recently that this practice [upon which the Lacedæmonians first innovated,] has wholly ceased. So among some of the barbarians at this day, especially the Asiatics, contests of boxing and wrestling are observed, and the competitors wear similar broad girdles. 6. Many other points of resemblance might we indicate between the customs of the ancient Greece and those of modern barbarism. VII. Cities built subsequent to the most ancient period, and after navigation had been rendered more safe and practicable, and with larger accumulation of wealth, were constructed with walls at the very sea-coast, and were made to command isthmuses for the sake of trade, and for strength against neighbors. But those founded in that earlier period, by the reason of the prevalent piracy, were built far inland, both those of the continent and of the islands; for those who dwelt near the sea, though not following the sea, plundered one another; and to this day they are built far inland. VIII. Of all pirates, the islanders, who were both Carians and Phoenicians, were not the least active and famous. These Carians and Phoenicians colonized [successively, however,] most of the islands. An illustration of which was recently afforded; for when the Athenians undertook the purification of Delos, and removed the graves of those who had died therein, above half were discovered to be Carians, recognized by the fashion of their arms which were buried with them, and by the mode of interment, the same now practised by them. 2. After Minos had constructed his navy, navigation became more practicable and safe and common; for the old robbers of the islands were removed by him, and at the same time he planted on many of them new colonists; 3. and those who lived on the sea-coast becoming more wealthy, adopted a more settled and civilized mode of life, and some of the wealthiest encircled themselves with walls. The poorer, for gain, submitted to serve others, and the richer and more powerful subjected the weaker and less wealthy. 4. And thus having advanced to a greater degree of power, at length, in an after time, they united in the war on Troy. IX. And with regard to that expedition, it seems to me that Agamemnon was able to assemble the armament which was destined to it, rather by reason of his being the most powerful prince of his time, than by reason of the oaths exacted by Tyndarus of the suitors of Helen. 2. The more clear traditions of the Peloponnesus assert that Pelops first acquired power therein by the wealth which he brought from Asia to a people who were poor, and thus, although a foreigner, gave his name to the country, and afterwards became still more renowned in his posterity. Atreus was his son. Having slain Chrysippus, his half brother, the son of Pelops, he fled to the court of Eurystheus his nephew; and he, when he set out on his expedition to Attica, for this relationship, committed to him Mycena and his whole government to administer in his absence. In that expedition Eurystheus died by the hands of the Heracleidæ in Attica; and there |