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CHAPTER VIII.

Early period of the Greek history continued-Earliest state of agriculture in Greece-Erectheus institutes the Eleusinian Mysteries-Obtains the sove reignty of Attica-Theseus unites the cities of Attica-This the age of the marvellous-End of that period-Expedition of the Argonauts-Course of their voyage-The solstitial and equinoctial points fixed by Chiron-This the foundation of Sir Isaac Newton's chronology-Twofold proof on which it rests-Progress of maritime affairs in Greece-State of the military art— War of Thebes-War of the Epigonoi-War of Troy-Ancient system of warfare-The tactic or arrangement of their troops-Subsistence of the armies-Arms-The war of the Heraclide-Change of government in Greece-Commencement of the democracy of Athens-Origin of the Greek colonies-Causes of their rapid advancement.

FROM the period of the arrival of the first of those Eastern colonies which formed establishments in Greece, down to the era of the war of Troy, is an interval of above 300 years, in which the Greeks were gradually shaking off their original barbarism, and advancing in civilization and the knowledge of the arts of life. This whole space of time, however, is accounted the fabulous period of the Grecian history. Not that it contains no facts of which the authenticity can be relied on, but that it abounds with many, which, with a basis of truth, have served as the foundation for an immense superstructure of fable. Part of the history of this period I have given in the preceding chapter, in which I have shortly traced the progress of the Greeks from their most barbarous state down to the introduction of letters into Greece by Cadmus. I shall now throw together such facts as are tolerably well authenticated, and may be relied on as the great outlines of the history of what remains of that doubtful period down to the Trojan war. From that era, when it is generally allowed that fiction ceases to mix itself with authentic history, we shall proceed with a greater degree of light, and find the objects of our study gradually rising upon us in point of importance.

Greece, which is not naturally a fertile country, nourishing only a few inhabitants, and these seeking their sustenance, like other savages, from the woods and mountains, did not begin to practise agriculture till about 150 years after the time of Cecrops. At this time Erectheus, either a Greek who had sailed to Egypt, or the leader of a new colony of Egyptians, is said to have introduced agriculture into Attica, and to have relieved that country, then suffering from famine, by the importation of a large quantity of Egyptian grain. The only produce of the native soil at this time

was the olive, which served as a very nourishing food, but of which the various uses were then so little known that it has been doubted if, even in the days of Homer, the Greeks used oil for the purpose of giving light. It is certain that this great poet, who is abundantly minute in describing every circumstance of domestic life, never mentions oil as applied to that purpose.*

Erectheus, called by the latter Greeks Ericthonius, is said to have cultivated the plains of Eleusis, then a barren waste, and to have instituted, in honor of Ceres, the Eleusinian Mysteries, in imitation of the Egyptian games of Isis. Ceres is feigned to have come herself into Greece at this period; and the poets have recorded many prodigies of her performance. As to the precise nature of those Eleusinian mysteries, the moderns can only form conjectures; since, even among the ancients, they were kept an inviolable secret from all but those who were initiated. They certainly were of a religious and even of a moral nature; since we find the wisest among the ancients expressing themselves with regard to them in strains of the highest encomium. Cicero, speaking of them, says, (De Leg. 1. 2.) "Among many other advantages which we have derived from Athens, this is the greatest; for it has improved a rude and barbarous people, instructed us in the art of civilized life, and has not only taught us to live cheerfully, but to die in peace in the hope of a more happy futurity." For a very learned conjectural explanation of those mysteries, we refer the reader to Bishop Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses; and many curious particulars regarding the actual ceremonies performed in those sacred solemnities are enumerated by Mr. Cumberland in his Observer, a work which contains a great deal of valuable research on various topics of the antiquities and literature of the Greeks.t

*Their apartments were lighted only by fires, and in the palaces of princes odoriferous wood was employed for that purpose.-Odyss. v. 59; Ibid. vi. 306. They likewise used torches of pine and resinous woods.--Odyss. xviii. 309.

† According to Mr. Cumberland, the Eleusinian mysteries were celebrated in the time of autumn, every fifth year, at Eleusis, where a great concourse of people met on the occasion. The ceremonies of initiation were preceded by sacrifices, prayers, and ablutions. The candidates were exercised in trials of secrecy, and prepared by vows of continence; every circumstance was contrived to render the act as awful and striking as possible; the initiation was performed at midnight, and the candidate was taken into an interior sacristy of the temple, with a myrtle garland on his head; here he was examined, if he had duly performed his stated ablutions; clean hands, a pure heart, and a native proficiency in the Greek tongue, were indispensable requisites. Having passed this examination, he was admitted into the temple, which was an edifice of immense magnitude: after proclamation made that the strictest silence should be observed, the officiating priest took out the sacred volumes containing the mysteries; these books were written in a strange character, interspersed with figures of animals, and various emblems and hieroglyphics; they were preserved in a cavity between two large blocks of stone, closely fitted to each other, and they were carefully replaced by the priest with much solemnity, after he had explained what was necessary to the initiated out of them

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The services of Erectheus were rewarded by his obtaining the sovereignty of Attica, which, from that time, began to advance in civilization; and in the succeeding age, during the reign of Theseus, the Greeks in general began to display an active and ambitious spirit, which signalized itself in some very extraordinary enterprises. Such were the expedition of the Argonauts under Jason; the war of Thebes, in which seven kings combined against Eteocles, its sovereign; and the war of Troy, which engaged all the states and princes of Greece.

Attica, before the time of Theseus, though under one sovereign, was divided into twelve detached states or cities, each governed by its own magistrates and laws. This prince laid the foundation of the grandeur of Attica, by uniting these twelve states, combining their interests, and throwing them into one people. The separate magistracies were abolished, and the whole agreed to be governed by the same code of laws, in the framing of which the principal men of each state had an equal suffrage. Erectheus had divided the citizens into four classes: Theseus reduced them to three-the nobles, the laborers, and the artisans. As the two last were the most numerous and the most powerful, he balanced that inequality, by conferring on the first the sole regulation of all that regarded religion, the administration of justice, and public policy. But there were in this institution the seeds of future discord and faction; for it was in the power of an ambitious noble, by ingratiating himself with the inferior orders, to obtain such an ascendency as to regulate every thing by his will; and, in fact, the constitution of Attica was at this time perpetually fluctuating, and the people for ever embroiled in civil commotions.

initiated were enjoined to honor their parents, to reverence the immortal gods, and abstain from particular sorts of diet, particularly tame fowls, fish, beans, and certain sorts of apples.

When this was finished, the priests began to play off the whole machinery of the temple, in all its terror; doleful groans and lamentations broke from the fane; thick and sudden darkness involved the temple, momentary gleans of light flashed forth every now and then, with tremblings as if an earthquake had shaken the edifice; sometimes these coruscations continued long enough to discover all the splendor of the shrines and images, accompanied with voices in concert, dancings, and music; at other times, during the darkness, severities were exercised upon the initiated by persons unseen; they were dragged to the ground by the hair of their heads, and beaten and lashed with stripes, without knowing from whom the blows proceeded, or why they were inflicted: lightnings, and thunderings, and dreadful apparitions were occasionally played off, with every invention to terrify and astonish; at length, upon a voice crying out some barbarous, unintelligible words, the ceremony was concluded, and the initiated dismissed. The garment which he wore upon this occasion was not to be laid aside while it would hang together, and the shreds were then to be dedicated at some shrine, as a tattered trophy of the due performance of the mysteries of Ceres. These mysteries were held in such general respect, that it afforded great cause of reproach against Socrates for having neglected his initiation. The vows of secrecy, and the penalties to be inflicted on their violation, were as binding as could possibly be devised."—Cumberland's Observer, Vol. v. No. 115.

It is principally on the age of Theseus, that the Greeks have indulged their vein for the marvellous. Every thing is supernatural, and every great man is either a god or a demi-god. The most probable source of this I conceive to be, that the princes, who had then become really powerful, and exercised a high control over their subjects, taking advantage of the superstitious character of the times, and of the people's credulity, assumed to themselves a divine origin, in order the better to support their new authority. Having at all times the priests under their influence, they could do this with great facility, by instituting religious rites in honor of their divine progenitors; and if they could thus prevail so far as to pass with their contemporaries for the offspring of the gods, it is no wonder that the, succeeding ages should retain the same idea of them, and decorate their lives and exploits with a thousand circumstances of fabulous embellishment.

But the taking of Troy is the era when the marvellous part of the Grecian history ceases all at once. The reason appears to be this: the absence of the kings and chiefs at this tedious siege involved the several states in great disorders. Many of these princes were slain, or perished by shipwreck; others were assassinated or deposed. The few who survived found every thing in misery and confusion, the country ravaged, the people pillaged and oppressed. In this state of things, the mind, awake only to real calamities and sufferings, is little disposed to indulge itself in romantic and poetic fictions. The games, which cherished that spirit, were for many years interrupted, and when again renewed, the more enlightened character of the Greeks, and the decline of that superstitious turn of mind which disposes to the love of the marvellous, had drawn a distinct line of separation between fiction and authentic history.

But even in the latter part of the fabulous period, there are some events of which the great outlines are sufficiently authentic, and which, as strongly characteristic of the genius, spirit, and manners of the times, are too important to be passed over without some reflections. The expedition of the Argonauts, the sieges of Thebes and of Troy, are very singular enterprises in so rude a period of society.

The Greeks, among other arts which they learned from the Phoenicians, were indebted to them for that of navigation; and they had not been long in possession of this art before they put it in practice in a very bold experiment. The voyage of the Argonauts to Colchis was undertaken 1280 years before the Christian era, according to Usher's Chronology, and 937 according to that of Sir Isaac Newton; and, when all its circumstances are con sidered, was certainly a very remarkable enterprise. What was the real purpose of the voyage, is extremely difficult to be determined. The poets have feigned a variety of fabulous circumstances, both of the enterprise and of its object; but among the ser

ous opinions of the best informed writers, the most probable seems to be that of Eustathius, who conjectures this voyage to have been both a military and a mercantile expedition. The object, in his opinion, was to open to the Greeks the commerce of the Euxine Sea, and to secure some establishments upon its Asiatic coasts. For these purposes a fleet and troops were necessary. The armament consisted of many ships, of which Argo, the largest, was 50 cubits, or 75 feet, in length; about the size of a modern vessel of 200 tons burden. A number of heroes from every quarter of Greece joined in the expedition—the fathers of those brave warriors who afterwards distinguished themselves at the siege of Troy.

The Argonauts, under the command of Jason, set sail from the coast of Thessaly. Their expedition was lengthened by unfavora ble weather, unskilful seamen, and the consequent necessity of keeping; as near as possible to the coasts. The variety of adventures which they met with in touching at many different islands and ports in the course of their voyage, have furnished ample matter of poetical fiction, resting on a slender basis of truth. Apollonius Rhodius, in Greek, and Valerius Flaccus, in Latin heroics, have sung the exploits of the Argonauts with no mean powers of poetry. The outlines of their expedition may be very shortly detailed. From the isle of Lemnos, where they made some stay, they proceeded to Samothrace. Thence sailing round the Chersonesus, they entered the Hellespont; and keeping along the coast of Asia, touched at Cyzicus, and spent some time on the coast of Bithynia; thence they entered the Thracian Bosphorus, and proceeding onward through the Euxine, at length discovered Caucasus at its eastern extremity. This mountain was their landmark, which directed them to the port of Phasis near to Oea, then the chief city of Colchis, which was the ultimate object of their voyage. Following the Argonauts through this tract of sea, and coasting it as they must have done, it appears evident that they performed a voyage of at least 440 leagues. Those who consider not the times and the circumstances in which the Greeks accomplished this navigation, have not perceived the boldness of the enterprise. These daring Greeks had been but recently taught the art of sailing, by the example of foreigners; it was their first attempt to put it in practice. They were utterly ignorant of navigation as a science; and they went to explore an extent of sea that was altogether unknown to them. Let us do those heroes justice, and freely acknowledge that the voyage of the Argonauts was a noble enterprise for the times in which it was executed.

Preparatory to this remarkable voyage, the Argonauts were furnished with instructions by Chiron the astronomer, who framed

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