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The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]». Краткое содержание книги:
Miltiades (probably B.C. 559) first of all fortified a great part of the isthmus, as a barrier to the attacks of the Absinthians; but shortly afterwards, in a feud with the people of Lampsacus, he was taken prisoner by the enemy. Miltiades, however, had already secured the esteem and protection of Crœsus; and the Lydian monarch remonstrated with the Lampsacenes in so formidable a tone of menace, that the Athenian obtained his release, and regained his new principality. In the meanwhile, his brother Cimon, (who was chiefly remarkable for his success at the Olympic Games,) sharing the political sentiments of his house, had been driven into exile by Pisistratus. By a transfer to the brilliant tyrant of a victory in the Olympic chariot-race, he, however, propitiated Pisistratus, and returned to Athens.
Full of years, and in the serene enjoyment of power, Pisistratus died (B.C. 527). His character may already be gathered from his actions: crafty in the pursuit of power, but magnanimous in its possession, we have only, with some qualification, to repeat the eulogium on him ascribed to his greater kinsman Solon—“That he was the best of tyrants, and without a vice save that of ambition.”b
THE VIRTUES OF PISISTRATUS’ RULE
Pisistratus was far from overturning the constitution of Athens; rather did Solon’s ordinances remain in full force under him. The reasonable and necessary progress of development in the state which lay at the root of the movement which produced Greek tyrannies, had been in every way provided for by Solon, and consequently wise and temperate tyrants might govern in accordance with the Solonian laws. Pisistratus honoured the memory of his relative, with whose ideas their former intercourse had made him familiar, and he therefore fostered and forwarded his instructions, so far as they were consistent with his own supremacy. He himself submitted to the laws, and is said to have appeared in person before the Areopagus, to justify himself against a complaint, so that on the whole his government greatly contributed to accustom the Athenians to the laws. It must be confessed, however, that he raised the money which he required for the maintenance of his troops, as well as for the buildings and public festivals, by the mere right of tyranny, and by levying a tenth on the real estate of the citizens.
His new measures and dispositions also exhibited the character of a wise moderation, and were in harmony with Solon. Thus he insisted on the obligation of the commonwealth to care for those who were wounded in the wars, as well as for the families of such as had fallen in battle. He especially took upon himself the charge of public morality, the fostering of those good manners which consist in the respect of youth for age and in reverence towards sacred things. He promulgated a law against idle loitering about the streets, and, although he had himself risen to greatness in the market through the agency of the people who had come in from the country, still he regarded the increasing mass of the townsfolk with anxiety. For this reason he sought to oppose a barrier to the tendency to constitute the life of a great city, which prevailed amongst the Ionic races, and following the precedent of Periander and the Orthagoridæ, he made entry into the capital more difficult. He endeavoured to raise the peasant class, which Solon had rescued, and to encourage the taste for agriculture.
With these important dispositions, whose spirit was pre-eminently that of Hipparchus to whom the whole civilisation of the country was so much indebted, were also connected the great aqueducts which brought the drinking-water from the mountains to the capital through rocky underground conduits. That these canals might be inspected and cleaned in every part, shafts were cut through the rock at stated intervals, and thus light and air were introduced into the dark channels. On the outskirts of the town the inflowing water was collected in great rock basins, where it clarified before disseminating itself into the town and feeding the public fountains. These wonderful works have continued in a state of efficiency down to our own day.
Pisistratus governed Athens, but he bore no sovereign title, on the strength of which to lay claim to unlimited supremacy. He had, in truth, grounded his rule on force; he retained in his service a standing army, which, dependent on him alone and uncontrolled by the vote of the citizens, could be all the more crushingly opposed to any attempt at a rising, since the greater part of the citizens were unarmed, the townsfolk diminished in number, and the public interest, from political circumstances, directed partly to rural economy, partly to the new town institutions. The order of the officers of state remained unaltered, only that one of them was always in the hands of a member of Pisistratus’ family, in which he managed to suppress every sign of disunion with great skill, so that to the people the ruling house appeared united in itself and animated by but one spirit. In this sense men spoke of the government of the Pisistratidæ, and could not refuse recognition to the manifold gifts which distinguished the house.
It was a wise counsel which the old state organisers gave the tyrants, that they should bestow on their rule as much as possible the character of ancient royalty, so that the usurping origin of their power might be forgotten. Thus Pisistratus did not, like the Cypselidæ and Orthagoridæ, desire to break with the past of the state, but rather to connect himself closely with the ancient and glorious history of the country, so that after all the evil which the party government of the nobility had brought on Attica, she might be restored the blessing of a united rule. Standing superior to the parties, as a relative to the ancient royal house, he believed himself especially chosen to accomplish this end. With this view, he lived on the citadel, near the altar of Zeus Herceios, the family hearth of the ancient princes of the country, watching over the turbulent citizens from the summit of the rock, which, before the building of the Propylæa, was still more inaccessible than afterwards. The very position of his dwelling must have drawn him into a close relation with the goddess of the citadel and her priesthood.
The public life of the Athenians was awakened and transformed in every direction. Athens became a new town within and without. With her new highways and military roads, her town squares, gymnasia, fountains and aqueducts, her new altars, temples and temple festivals, she stood out prominently from the crowd of Greek towns, and the Pisistratidæ neglected nothing which might contribute to lend her new importance by means of numerous alliances with the islands and shores of the Ægean Sea.
To this end, it was not enough that the Athenians ruled in Delos, Naxos, and at the Hellespont, but they must also appropriate to themselves the intellectual treasures of the further coasts where the Hellenic spirit showed itself at its best, and thus enrich their own life. For this purpose Solon had already introduced the Homeric rhapsodies into Athens, and ordained their public recitation at the festivals. Pisistratus joined in these efforts, with a full appreciation of the importance of the matter, though not with the disinterestedness of the Solonian love for art, but designedly, and for his own advantage. For he ministered at once to the fame of his ancestors and the splendour of his house.