Herodotus (Swayne)/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE TYRANTS OF GREECE.
List to the counsel of a friend;
Call on thyself calamity;
And that, from all thy treasures bright,
In which thy heart takes most delight,
Commit forthwith to deepest sea."
—Schiller, "Ring of Polycrates."
The original constitution of most of the Greek States was a limited monarchy, though the king was emphatically "hedged by divinity," since the founder of his family was generally supposed to he a god. In time, as the royal prestige wore out, this constitution was generally superseded by an oligarchy, which lasted until some ambitious individual, by courting the unprivileged classes, managed to raise himself to the supremacy.
In the fifth century before Christ there were so many of these usurpers at the same time in Greece, that it has been called the Age of Tyrants. Mr Grote prefers to call them "despots;" but the name matters little if no sinister meaning is necessarily attached to the word Tyrant. Their number at one time was a fact in support of those who believe in social and political epidemics. One of the most famous of them was Polycrates of Samos. He was great in arms and arts, and the poet Anacreon was the companion of his revels, just as Goethe enjoyed his Rhenish with Charles Augustus, the jolly Grand-Duke of Weimar. His prosperity was so perfect, that his friend King Amasis of Egypt, as a prudent man, thought it his duty to give him a solemn warning, and advised him to avert the anger of the gods by sacrificing some object which he held very precious. Polycrates chose out of his abundant treasures a favourite emerald ring, which he at once threw into the sea. Five or six days afterwards, a poor fisherman caught so magnificent a fish that it struck him that it was only fit to set before a king. To Polycrates, therefore, he presented it, with many compliments. The tyrant, with his usual geniality, made it a condition that the fisherman would come and help him to eat it. He bashfully accepted the honour. When the fish was served, behold! the emerald ring was there in its inside. The servants were exceedingly glad that the king's lost ring was found—possibly they had been charging each other with stealing it; but Polycrates looked serious, for he felt that the gods had rejected his offering. He thought it right to inform his friend Amasis of the result. Amasis, with less generosity than foresight, at once sent a herald to Samos to renounce the alliance of Polycrates, as he felt sure that the gods had decreed his ruin, and did not wish to be himself involved in it. The tale of the fisherman and the ring has been transferred to Arabian fable.
Fortune still continued to smile on Polycrates, and he overcame all his enemies by force or fraud. Some Samians, whom lie had driven out, managed to set on foot against him an expedition from Lacedæmon. The visit of these people to Sparta is characteristically told. They made a long speech there in the assembly, which they would have hardly done if they had known the Spartan temper better. The authorities made reply that they had forgotten the first half of their discourse, and could not understand the second. The Samians then held up an empty bag, merely remarking, "The bag wants flour." The Spartans said that the word "bag" was quite unnecessary—the gesture was enough. However, they sent a force to Samos to support the exiles; and Polycrates is said to have bribed them to return with leaden money gilt over. The existence of the story is singularly illustrative of the avarice as well as the gullibility of this people.
But the doom of Polycrates could only be deferred. Towards the end of the reign of Cambyses, he was unfortunate enough to excite the cupidity of Creates, the Persian satrap of Sardis, who proceeded to set a trap for him. Orœtes said that he feared the covetousness of Cambyses, and offered to deposit all his treasure with Polycrates. The latter sent his secretary to inspect it, who was shown some large chests full of stones, just covered with gold. Satisfied with this report, in spite of all the warnings of his daughter, Polycrates started for the court of Orœtes to fetch the treasure. The satrap at once arrested him, put him to a cruel death, and then impaled his dead body. But the murderer afterwards came to a violent end himself in the reign of Darius.
Another specimen of a tyrant, and this, too, in our common acceptation of the word, was Periander of Corinth, the son of Cypselus. By his origin he was partly patrician and partly plebeian. At one time the government of Corinth was in the hands of a single family called the Bacchiadæ, who only intermarried with one another. But one of them happened to have a daughter called, from her lameness, Labda (from the Greek letter Λ (L), which originally had one leg shorter than the other), whom her parents were, on this account, obliged to marry out of the family to one Aëtion, a man of the people. In consequence of oracles which boded ill to Corinth from a son of Aëtion, the rulers sent ten of their number to despatch the infant as soon as he was born. When they came and asked to see the child, Labda showed it them, thinking their visit was only complimentary. They had agreed that whoever took the child first in his arms should dash it on the ground. Providentially, however, the babe smiled in the man's face who had taken him, so that he had no heart to kill it, but passed it on to his neighbour, and he to another, and so it went through all the ten. When the mother had carried the child indoors again, she overheard the party outside loudly reproaching one another with their faint-heartedness in not making away with it. Fearing from this that they would return, she hid the child away in a chest or corn-bin, so that when they're-entered they could not find him. From this escape be was called Cypselus or 'Bin.' When he grew up he made himself despot of Corinth, and ruled harshly, visiting the citizens with confiscations, banishment, and death. He reigned thirty years, and then his son Periander succeeded him, who, at first, was a mild ruler, until he sent to Thrasybulus, despot of Miletus, to ask him the best way of governing his people. Thrasybulus took the Corinthian herald forth into the fields, and as he passed through the corn, still questioning him about Corinthian affairs, he snapped off and threw away all the ears that overtopped the rest. He walked through the whole field doing this, till the damage was considerable. After this he dismissed his visitor without a word of advice. When the messenger returned to Periander, he said that he had been sent on a fool's errand to a madman, who gave him no answer, but only walked through a field spoiling his wheat by plucking off all the longest ears.[1] Periander said nothing; but he understood the meaning of Thrasybulus, which was, that he was to govern by cutting off all the foremost citizens. After this he became a much worse tyrant than his father, and finished the work which he had begun. On one occasion he stripped all the women of Corinth of their clothes. Having sent to consult an oracle of the dead[2] about some lost property, the shade of his wife Melissa (whom he had put to death) appeared to him, and said that she was cold, and had literally nothing to put on; for the robes buried with her were of no use, since they had not been burnt. So he made proclamation that all the matrons should go to the temple of Juno in full dress, and there having surrounded them with his guards, took all their clothes from them, and burnt them as an offering to his dead queen.
The relations of Periander with his younger son Lycophron form one of the most touching episodes in Herodotus. The lad had learnt the fact of his mother's murder, and from that time would neither speak to his father nor answer him. The father at last banished him from his house. He even sent warning to the friends with whom his son took refuge, that all who harboured him did so at their peril nay, that any who even spoke to him should pay a fine to Apollo. The lad wandered miserably from one to the other, and at last was found lying in the public porticoes. Then Periander himself went to him, and upbraided him with his folly in depriving himself by his obstinacy of a princely home. Lycophron only answered by reminding his father that he had now himself incurred the forfeit to the god. Periander saw that the case was hopeless, and sent him to Corcyra for safe keeping. But when he found himself growing old, and unequal to the cares of government, and saw that his elder son was quite incompetent, he sent to offer to resign in Lycophron's favour. No reply came. Then tho father sent his favourite sister to treat with him, and try to soften his heart. Lycophron's answer was that he would never set foot again in Samos while his father lived. Periander humbled himself so far as to offer to retire himself to Corcyra, and allow the son to take his place. To this Lycophron agreed; on hearing which the people of Corcyra murdered him, in dread of receiving as their master the terrible Periander.
A pleasanter story in connection with him will be best told, as nearly as may be, in the old historian's own words, with a little retrenchment of his diffuseness.
Arion and the Dolphin.
In Periander's days there lived a minstrel of Lesbos, Arion by name, who was second to none as a player on the lute. This Arion, who spent most of his time with Periander, sailed to Italy and Sicily, and having earned by his minstrelsy great store of treasure, hired a Corinthian ship to go back to Corinth—for whom should he trust rather than the Corinthians, whom he knew so well. When the crew were out at sea, they took counsel together to throw Arion overboard, and keep his treasure. But he divined their intent, and besought them to take his money, but spare his life. But the shipmen refused, and bade him either straightway kill himself on board, so that he might be buried on shore, or leap into the sea of his own freewill. Then Arion, being in a sore strait, begged, since it must be so, that he might don his vestments, and sing one strain standing on the quarterdeck; and when he had ended his song he promised to despatch himself. [He asked to put on his sacred garb, knowing that thereby he should gain the protection of Apollo.] The seamen consented, as well pleased once more to hear the master of all singers, and made space to hear him, withdrawing into the midship; and he chanted a lively air, and then plunged overboard, all as he was. So they sailed away to Corinth, and thought no more of Arion. But, lo! a dolphin took the minstrel up on his back, and landed him safely at the promontory of Tænarus in Laconia, whence he made his way to Corinth, all in his sacred robes, and told there all that had befallen him. But Periander did not believe him, and kept him under guard. At last the shipmen came, and when Periander asked them what had become of Arion, they said they had left him safe and sound at Tarentum, in Italy. Then Periander produced Arion in his vestments, just as he was when he leapt overboard, and they were struck dumb, and could deny their guilt no more. And Arion set up, as a thank-offering to the god, an effigy of a man riding on a dolphin.
Such is the legend given by Herodotus. Another version makes Apollo appear to Arion in a dream, assuring him of succour before he leapt overboard, and adds that, after landing, the bard neglected to put back again into the sea his preserver, who consequently perished, and was buried by the king of the country. When the sailors came, they were made to swear to the truth of their story on the dolphin's tomb, where Arion had been previously hid. When he suddenly appeared, they confessed their guilt, and were punished by crucifixion, for the double crime of robbery with intent to murder, and perjury. Arion and his bearer afterwards became a constellation, by the will of Apollo, according to a later addition to the legend.
It is not impossible that the legend of Arion grew out of the group of the man on the dolphin, which may have been set up to commemorate the expedition which sailed from Laconia to found Tarentum, comprised of Dorian and Achaean Greeks; the dolphin, sacred to Neptune, symbolising the Achæan element, and the minstrel, loved of Apollo, the Dorian. The legend of Colston, the munificent Bristol merchant, whose anniversary is still celebrated at Bristol, is well known in the west of England. A ship in which he sailed was said to have sprung a leak, which was miraculously plugged by a self-sacrificing dolphin, and so the ship came home safe. Some rationalists have volunteered the prosaic explanation that Colston was saved and brought home in another vessel called the Dolphin. One of the charitable societies formed in his honour bears the name of the "Dolphin." The sacred character of this fish (or rather cetacean) is doubtless of remote antiquity. He is the subject of a little poem (exquisite in the original) by Philip of Thessalonica.
"Blaming Boreas, o'er the sea I was flying slowly,
For the wind of Thrace to me is a thing unholy,
When his back a dolphin showed, bending with devotion,
And the child of æther rode on the child of ocean.
I am that sweet-chanting bird whom the night doth smile at;
And like one that kept his word proved my dolphin pilot.
As he glided onward still with his oarless rowing,
With the lute within my bill I did cheer his going.
Dolphins never ply for hire, but for love and glory,
When the sons of song require; trust Arion's story."
There is also a beautiful version of the legend by the Roman poet Ovid.
Cleisthenes of Sicyon was another eminent tyrant, and a magnificent man in every way. He had one beautiful daughter named Agariste, through whom despotism was fated to receive its death-blow in Athens. Like the Orsinis and Colonnas of medieval Rome, whose feuds gave Rienzi his opportunity to establish democracy, the patrician families of the Isagorids and Alcmæonids strove for supremacy at Athens, and their strife gave birth to freedom. Herodotus gives a quaint account of the foundation of the great wealth of the latter family.
Alcmæon, the son of Megacles, had assisted Crœsus in his negotiations with the Delphic oracle, and was invited in consequence to the court of Sardis. When he had arrived, Crœsus gave him leave to go into the treasury and take as much gold as he could carry away on his person at one time. So he put on the largest tunic he could find, so as to make a capacious fold, and the roomiest buskins. First he stowed his boots with gold dust, then he packed his clothes with it, then he powdered his hair with it, and lastly he took a mouthful of it, and so came out of the treasury "dragging his legs with difficulty, and looking like anything rather than a human being, as his mouth was choked up, and everything about him was in a plethoric state." When Crœsus saw him he was highly amused, and gave him what he had taken and as much again. When Alcmæon came home to Athens he found himself rich enough to enter as a competitor at the great Olympic games, and win the blue ribbon of that national festival—the four-horse chariot-race, which made the winner a hero in the eyes of his countrymen for ever.
Two generations afterwards this family made a splendid marriage. Cleisthenes of Sicyon had added this to his renown, that he too had been a victor at Olympia. Under these circumstances he was not inclined to throw away a beauty and heiress like his daughter Agariste on the first comer, but, like the father in Goldoni's "Matrimonio per concorso," he proclaimed that she should be wooed and won by public competition. He invited all the most eligible youths in Greece to come and spend a year at his court, promising to give his decision when it had elapsed; and he prepared an arena expressly for the purpose of testing their athletic proficiency. Among the suitors was the exquisite Smyndyrides of Sybaris, the most luxurious man of the most luxurious Hellenic city. It was he who was said to have complained of the crumpled rose-leaf on his couch, and to have fainted when he once saw a man hard at work in the fields. He would certainly have broken down in the athletic ordeal. Not so Males, the brother of Titormus, a kind of human gorilla of enormous strength who lived in the wilds of Ætolia; but he would scarcely have been polished enough as a son-in-law for Cleisthenes. And the father might be loath to intrust his daughter to the son of Pheidon, the despot of Argos, a man notorious for rapacity and violence. The two Athenian candidates, Megacles son of Alcmseon,[3] and Hippocleides, a member of the great rival family, were probably the favourites from the first; for it is hard to imagine that there was no betting on an occasion so tempting to the sporting characters of antiquity. Cleisthenes having first ascertained that his guests could give satisfactory references, made proof of their manhood, their tempers, their accomplishments, and their tastes, sometimes bringing them altogether, sometimes holding private conversations with each. Although gymnastics were very important, he seemed to have laid most stress on their qualities as diners-out. The man who at the end of the year seemed, in the opinion of all, to have the best chance, was Hippocleides, who indeed was connected with the royal Cypselids of Corinth, as well as an Athenian of the highest fashion. When the great day arrived for the suitors to know their fate, Cleisthenes sacrificed a hundred oxen, and gave a public feast, to which he invited not only the foreign suitors, but all his own people. After the feast there was one more trial in music and in rhetoric,—probably to see how the suitors could carry their wine. As the cup went round, Hippocleides, abashing the rest of the party by his assurance, called to the flute-player to strike up a dance. Then he danced, in a manner which gave perfect satisfaction to himself, though Cleisthenes began to look grave. Next he ordered a table to be brought in, mounted on it, and rehearsed certain Laconian and Attic figures. To crown all, he stood on his head and kicked his legs in the air. This last performance, which Hippocleides might perhaps have learnt /in his youth from the street-boys of the Piraeus, was too much for Cleisthenes, who had long contained himself with difficulty. "Son of Tisander, thou hast danced away thy marriage," he exclaimed, in fierce disgust. The other quietly answered, "Hippocleides does not care!" from which "Hippocleides don't care" became a proverbial expression. Then, as Herodotus tells us, Cleisthenes rose and spoke to this effect:—
"Gentlemen, suitors of my daughter,—I am well pleased with you all—so well pleased that, if it were possible, I would make you all my sons-in-law. But as I have but one daughter, that is unfortunately impossible. You have all done me much honour in desiring the alliance of my house. In consideration of this? and of the inconvenience to which you have been put in wasting your valuable time at my court, I beg to present you with a talent of silver each. But to Megacles, the son of Alcmæon, I betroth my daughter Agariste to be his wife according to the usage of Athens."
The issue of this marriage was Cleisthenes, the great Athenian reformer, who was named after his maternal grandfather.
Pisistratus, the despot of Athens, has been already mentioned as contemporary with Croesus. He won immortality by digesting the poems of Homer into a consecutive whole,—settling, as it were, the canon of the Greek Scriptures. His rule was just and mild, until his enemies forced greater severity upon him in his latter days. He was succeeded by his son Hippias. An abortive attempt to assassinate this prince was made by two men bound together by the tie of romantic friendship peculiar to the Greeks, Harmodius and Aristogeiton. This pair have always been celebrated as model patriots by the admirers of tyrannicide; but they bungled in their business by slaying the wrong brother, Hipparchus instead of Hippias, and only provoked Hippias to sterner measures of repression. At last the Alcmæonids, growing weary of exile, made such strong interest with the god of Delphi that his oracle continually urged the Spartans to expel the Pisistratids. The clan, after a long struggle, were compelled to quit Athens, and retired to Sigeium, on the Hellespont, having selected this asylum as most convenient for intriguing with the Court of Persia for their restoration. They had ruled in Athens from B.C. 560 to B.C. 510, which was about the date of the expulsion of the kings from Borne. They traced their origin to Codrus and Melanthus, semi-mythical kings of Attica, and remotely to the Homeric Nestor of Pylos, after whose son Pisistratus the great ruler of Athens was named.
A festival song in honour of the famous tyrannicides was long the "Marseillaise" of republican Athens:—
Like those who struck down Athens' lord,
Our laws engrafting equal right on—
Harrnodius and Aristogeiton.
But in the happy isles, they say,
Where fleet Achilles lives for aye,
And good Tydeides Diomed.
Like those who laid Hipparchus low,
When on Athene's holiday
The tyrant wight they dared to slay.
They gave to Athens equal laws,
Eternal fame shall shed a light on
Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
- ↑ The English reader will remember the words of the gardener in Shakespeare:—"Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth."
—'Richard II.,' Act. iii. sc. 4. - ↑ Hence the word "necromancy." The parallel of Saul, the witch of Endor, and the ghost of Samuel, is at once suggested.
- ↑ The son in this family took the grandfather's name: Megacles, Alcmæon, Megacles, Alcmæon, and so on. This was Alcmæon II.