Chapter II: Part 2

Looking down the vista of the past ages we see standing conspicuous among men David, the father of Solomon. In David's case it is as if the all-wise God had constructed in one human being an organ with all the keys and stops possible to humanity, and as if the Holy Ghost had on that organ with those keys and stops played every tune of every song that all humanity may need to sing in life or death, or carry in memory from earth to heaven. When we remember who Solomon's father was we are helped to grasp the significance of the life and character of the son, who, narrower indeed than his father, was yet more brilliant and more intense.

In 1033 B.C., shortly after the death of David's first child by Bathsheba, which was begotten in sin, a second child was born, whom David called "Solomon," or "peaceful," probably with reference to the peace between God and David brought about by the latter's deep penitence for his sin against Uriah. But the Prophet Nathan, to whose wise and tender care he was early committed, called him "Jedediah," or, "The beloved of the Lord." If, as the best authorities are agreed, Solomon wrote the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, he had still another name, "Lemuel," which means, "to God," or "dedicated to God."

The great number and variety of traditions about Solomon extant in Persia, Arabia, Abyssinia, and among the Jews and other peoples, is a proof of the profound impression which he made on his age, and an evidence of his greatness; for only the great among men beget many traditions. Before taking up the authentic and credible history of Solomon a few specimens of these traditions may well receive our attention.

The Abyssinians claim that a son given to the Queen of Sheba by Solomon was the founder of their imperial dynasty! In Persian literature Solomon is a favorite character. With nothing to say of David, it has countless stories of his gifted son. One alone, called "Solomon-Nameh," fills eighty books. Arabia also claims Solomon as the Father of her kings, and to this day, under the eastern sky dusky Arabs sit around the lonely tent-fire and tell weird and wonderful tales of the wit, wisdom, and wealth of Solomon. Legends of which he is the hero are also preserved not only in Asia and Africa, but also in the remotest corners of Europe. According to these stories he could interpret the language of birds and beasts, was acquainted with the mysterious virtues of herbs and gems, knew spells for casting out demons and charms for curing diseases, possessed a ring which revealed to him the past, present, and future, was acquainted with the arts of magic and by them made evil spirits his slaves, who helped him with his vast buildings and other great enterprises. It was with the assistance of demons called Jinns that he built the gorgeous city of Persepolis; while other evil spirits, rebelling, he conquered after a long and fierce struggle and immured in dark depths and caves of the sea. But let us return to sober history. The only trustworthy account of the wise king available, is that which is written in the Bible and in the crumbling ruins of his great buildings and public and private works in the East, especially in and around Jerusalem.

He was ten years of age when the rebellion of his older brother, Absalom, fell almost like a death-blow upon the brow and heart of his aged father David, with whom he shared the perils of flight and a brief exile. Not many years later Adonijah, another brother, with the connivance of Joab, David's rugged old general, and Abiathar, the elder high priest, attempting to steal the throne, Zadok the high priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah, the most famous and heroic of Israel's captains after Joab, together with Bathsheba, the beautiful and ambitious mother of Solomon, succeeded in thwarting Adonijah's base designs and roused in David for a short time his old-time energy. Whereupon he placed Solomon upon the throne while yet a young man only fifteen or twenty years of age.

Upon taking up his sceptre Solomon first of all, removed his father's enemies and the heads of the conspiracies which had been made against the throne, not even hesitating to cut off Joab, whose deeds of prowess had added a marvellous lustre to the military fame of Israel. Solomon now sat secure upon his throne, the undisputed monarch of the wide territory secured by the conquests of his great father. About this time, in order to strengthen his kingdom, he married a daughter of the Pharaoh of Northern Egypt, an alliance which pleased the people, for it showed that their king was a king among kings. The end of this political alliance, however, was not as brilliant as its beginning promised; because, although Egypt was at that time the most mighty nation of the world, because the most wealthy and civilized, yet it was divided into two kingdoms, and after the lapse of years, the Pharaoh of the united kingdom did not hesitate to become Solomon's foe because one of his wives had been an Egyptian princess.

After removing the enemies of the throne, and marrying the daughter of Pharaoh, Solomon repaired to the heights of Gibeon, six miles north of Jerusalem, a spot far-famed as the home of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, which was the original Tent of the wanderings. On the brazen altar in front of the Tabernacle the young king offered to Jehovah a holocaust of a thousand victims.

It was on the night after this magnificent sacrifice that the Lord offered to Solomon, dreaming, his heart's chief desire. The wise and as yet pious young king asking for wisdom, the Lord was so pleased that He promised him not only wisdom, but also wealth, honor, and long life. He had already been endowed with extreme personal beauty.

Immediately following this vision the wisdom of the king was tested in a way which showed that his God was a faithful promiser. Into the royal presence two women of bad character were ushered by the authorities, bringing two babes, the one living and the other cold in death. In the night the latter's mother had by accident smothered it, whereupon she had stolen the living babe from its mother's side. In the morning a bitter conflict was waged by the two women over the living child, each wildly claiming it as her own. When the officers of the law were appealed to they brought the case before their king, whose wisdom and fitness to judge a great kingdom were now to be tried. As the spectators of the dramatic scene looked on, it was with anxious curiosity, which in a moment was turned into horror as Solomon ordered a stalwart attendant to take a keen sword and cut the living little one into two parts and give to each mother a half. One of the women appeared stolidly satisfied with this arrangement, but the other sprang between the babe and its executioner, and, weeping, pleaded that its life might be spared and her rival be permitted to have the whole child. In this pity and tenderness Solomon discovered the true mother heart, and to her gave the babe, while the news of the marvellous wisdom of the new king spread like wild-fire through Jerusalem and all Israel.

Solomon had now secured an assured place in the hearts of his subjects, and was firmly seated on a throne from which for forty years he governed Israel with a rule whose wisdom was surpassed only by its magnificence.

As it is impossible at this date to get at the exact chronological order of the events of his life from the time that he ascended the throne, and as it was remarkable for the fruits of peace rather than war, we may best study it by considering his government, household, buildings, riches, and writings.

Solomon's rule extended over a wide territory and over many peoples, for it had been the glory of David that he fought successfully with and subdued the enemies of Israel on every side. From the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates, and from the Red Sea to the northern bounds of Syria, the great son of David held sway, and thus was God's ancient promise to Abraham fulfilled. (Gen. xv. 18.)

Solomon's government was Asiatic, that is it was an absolutism, marked by luxury, display, and taxation so heavy as to amount almost to oppression. Its luxuriousness and display are illustrated by his seraglio, which included seven hundred wives (1 Kings xi. 3); and its despotic nature is seen in such acts as his summary and severe punishment of Adonijah, Joab, and Abiathar.

For the first time in the history of Israel, alliances were entered into with other nations. We have already seen how Solomon had married an Egyptian princess. Then he made a treaty with his neighbor on the Mediterranean coast, Hiram, king of Tyre, who in exchange for corn agreed to supply Solomon with timber for building the Temple and his own magnificent palace. The timber was floated down from Tyre to Joppa whence it was transported to Jerusalem or wherever needed.

At peace with surrounding nations, and with a thoroughly systematized and centralized government, Solomon sat on his throne of ivory and gold and looked around on his people, to see an astonishing increase of population and a tremendous growth in business and wealth, especially during the first half of his reign.

Entering his court and his household, one saw all things in keeping with his Asiatic government: magnificent palaces, surrounded by beautiful gardens; multitudes of slaves, each one having his work and doing it with swiftness and precision; troops of courtiers, and a harem of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Around his gorgeous throne stood his officers and attendants, in his stables were forty thousand horses, and chariots in proportion. Whenever he went forth before his people it was to dazzle them with his splendor. But, fond as he was of display and of women, he nevertheless did not neglect the business of his kingdom, a large part of each day being spent either in his throne-room with his officials, or superintending his great public and private works. Besides this no inconsiderable part of his time in his home was given to study, meditation, and writing.

The king was one of the greatest builders of the ages. Among the structures erected by him, easily first in splendor was the Temple. In Solomon's Temple lies Solomon's true greatness and glory rather than in his songs, his proverbs, his riches, and his outward splendor. It was the bud whose blooming was in Christ and Christianity. Around it was to be preserved the people chosen to save the true knowledge of their God for the human race and produce the human nature of Jesus Christ, humanity's incarnate God and Saviour.

The conception of a fitting, permanent, earthly abode for Jehovah, and for the ark and the sacred symbols therein, was David's. He it was who took the ark to Jerusalem and placed it in a temporary tabernacle or tent while he collected money and materials for a great shrine. To aid him in his great work David had already secured the friendship of Hiram, king of Tyre, with whom, as we have seen, Solomon made a treaty, and from whom he procured both workmen and materials for his great enterprise.

The Temple was begun four hundred and eighty years after the exodus from Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign, or 1012 B.C., and was completed in the twelfth year of his reign. Its site was Mount Moriah at the point where Araunah's threshing-floor had been, and where the angel met David at the time the plague was stayed.

The house of the Lord finished, Solomon built his gorgeous palaces. And thirteen years after the completion of the Temple (991 B.C.) the people of Israel assembled on the occasion of its dedication. This occurred at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, when a magnificent festival of two weeks' duration was held. The priests bore the ark into the "Holy of Holies" and deposited it under the wings of the cherubim. When they had retired the cloud of glory filled the whole edifice, and thus proclaimed the approving presence of Jehovah. Thereupon Solomon stood upon the brazen platform which had been built for him and made his memorable prayer. He thanked God for helping him to build the Temple; and prayed that He would hear the prayers that should there be made. Scarcely was his prayer ended when fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice which had been laid on the altar, and the awe-stricken multitude bowed with their faces to the ground upon the pavement and worshipped and adored the Lord, saying, "For He is good; for His mercy endureth forever." (2 Chron. vii. 3.)

In keeping with the Temple were the gorgeous palaces on which for thirteen years Solomon lavished time and toil and money. In the "Tower of the House of David," as one of these was called, hung a thousand golden bucklers; while in the great judgment-hall stood the far-famed throne of the great king. (1 Kings x. 18-20.) Solomon's other buildings were beautiful gardens and pools, and aqueducts and a luxurious summer resort. He moreover, either established or built many important towns or fortresses, among others being Tadmor in the wilderness, afterward celebrated in history as Palmyra. Countless workmen and inestimable wealth were involved in the building enterprises of the great king, which included at the last, to his shame, rival temples to Moloch, and the other false gods of his heathen wives.

Of course, Solomon's government, household, and buildings, as we have considered them, involved the accumulation and expenditure of vast sums of money. But the king's ambition, energy, industry, and business talent rose to the height of these demands. From two sources he drew his vast wealth, namely, taxation and commerce. He received large revenues in the way of tributes from subject peoples, in addition to the increasingly heavy taxes which he imposed on the people of Israel. Besides taxation, the king increased his wealth by means of his great commercial operations in the desert, which was the highway between the Orient and the Occident, and by means of his two fleets, one on the Mediterranean and the other on the eastern arm of the Red Sea, which provided a waterway to both Southern Asia and Western Africa. So rich did Solomon become from these sources that it is said that he "made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plentiful as stones." (2 Chron. i. 15.) There was, however, one fatal fault in Solomon's commercial policy: all the gain went to the palace and the government. Herein lay one of the secrets of the division and fall of the nation immediately upon the close of his career.

Naturally, Solomon's commercial greatness, together with the pomp and splendor of his court and government, carried his fame to all parts of the earth. But that for which he received the greatest respect from surrounding nations was his wisdom, manifested in many ways but chiefly in his writings. One of the marked effects of David's long and vigorous reign was to stimulate mental activity in the Hebrew mind. The great foreign wars with the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, the Sabeans, and the surrounding nations, who were more or less advanced in a knowledge of the arts and sciences, had the effect of widening the range of knowledge of Israel as a nation, and of stirring her up to an ambition to excel her neighbors in affairs of peace as well as in those of war. Solomon's peaceful and wise reign, characterized as it was by commercial prosperity, gave the people both the time and means for cultivating the arts. In study and in wisdom the king was the leader of his day and generation. He was learned in political economy, a great king. He was learned in music and poetry, having composed some of the most beautiful of the Psalms, such as the second. But in cultivating the fine arts he did not neglect the physical sciences, for he was a botanist, writing of all kinds of trees and plants; and he was a natural historian, writing works on beasts, birds, reptiles, and fishes. It would be most interesting to see these science primers prepared by Solomon, and compare them with what we see on the same subjects in our own day. But the Bible has not preserved them, and they have long centuries ago passed into oblivion. Solomon's knowledge was not of that shallow sort which is limited to the sphere of earthly material, "seen things;" for he was wise with that deeper knowledge which has for its object God and the human soul, and their natures and movements in their natural relations. This wisdom is illustrated and handed down to us in his Proverbs of which we are told he spoke three thousand. A portion of these is in the Book of Proverbs, the others are lost to us.

In his poetry also was crystallized much of his wisdom. This consisted of one thousand and five songs, all of which have gone down in the flood of years, with the exception of the Song of Solomon, which is an epithalamium, in which pure wedded love is incarnated. It is a sort of poetry of the family relations, and, therefore, worthy a place in the sacred canon. Taken literally and read with a pure heart, it is eminently fitted to spiritualize the family relations. This theory of this much discussed portion of Solomon's writings by no means shuts out the more spiritual use of the book, wherein we see in it the Church represented by the bride and God by the bridegroom.

In Ecclesiastes we have the latest conclusions of Solomon's moral wisdom. Read in the light of its general scope rather than the dim light of detached portions, it appears as the confessions of a humbled, penitent, believing, godly man, who, after piety followed by apostasy, comes back to piety with the conclusion that after all, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Through his writings and sayings Solomon's genius flashed from Jerusalem into the surrounding darkness of the heathen nations, and lighted by its rays, as mariners by the beacon in the light-house tower, there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom, (1 Kings x. 1-10.) The celebrated visit of the Queen of Sheba is a deeply interesting illustration of these royal visits to the court of Israel's splendid king.

Such was King Solomon the magnificent, and such the life of one of earth's most famous men. But, after all, he is a striking illustration of Plato's saying, that "Princes are never without flatterers to seduce them, ambition to deprave them, and desires to corrupt them." So, forgetting that as a king he was God's vicegerent, he lived more and more to gratify his lusts and ambitions, and to please his flatterers, especially his heathen wives. These finally seduced him into permitting temples to be built to Moloch and their other false gods. This ended in Solomon's becoming idolatrous himself. Then his wealth gradually melted away, his allies plotted against him, and, in the midst of life, being about fifty-eight years old, he died in the year 975 B.C., leaving a terrible legacy to his sons: a corrupted religion, a depleted treasury, and a discontented and broken people.

Although there is every reason to believe that Solomon died a penitent man, yet his sins and the consequent wretchedness of soul, and the ruin of his kingdom, teach most emphatically the weakness of human nature, even when accompanied by the greatest genius, the perils of material prosperity, and the real insufficiency of all possible earthly good to satisfy the wants of the soul of man.

[Signature of the author.]

LYCURGUS[5]

By REV. JOSEPH T. DURYEA

(About 884-820 B.C.)

[Footnote 5: Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.]

Scholars generally agree in the judgment that Lycurgus was a real person. It is probable that he was born in the ninth century B.C., and that, in the later part of the same century (850-820), he was an important, if not the principal, agent in the reconstruction of the Dorian state of Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. According to Herodotus, he was the uncle of King Labotas, of the royal line of Eurysthenes. Others, whom Plutarch follows, describe him as the uncle and guardian of King Charilaus, and therefore in the line of Procles. Either way his mythical lineage would be traced to Hercules. We are able to find no trustworthy records of the circumstances of his birth, and of the incidents of his childhood and youth. Plutarch, with all his diligence, found nothing. Nor could he sift and blend the varying stories of his later life and so construct a consistent and credible narrative, O. Mueller says: "We have absolutely no account of him as an individual person."

]

Accordingly Lycurgus appears already in his maturity. We know what he was only from what he did. He has this imperishable honor, that he did something, and did it in such a manner and with such effect that the memory of him and his deeds has lasted until this late time, and bids fair to last throughout all time.

The following traditions concerning Lycurgus are commonly repeated. Polydectes, his brother, was king in Sparta. After the king's death a son was born to the widow. Lycurgus became his guardian and presented him to the magistrates as their future king. He was suspected by the queen's brother of a design to take the crown, and even of a purpose to destroy his infant nephew. Accordingly he went into exile. He remained some time in Crete, studying the institutions of the Dorian people of that island. He travelled extensively in Asia and was especially careful to observe the manners and customs of the Ionians. He found the poems of Homer, transcribed and arranged them, and caused them to be more generally known. The Egyptians claimed that he visited their country and derived much of his wisdom from them. Meanwhile the affairs of Sparta were in a critical condition and the king and the people alike desired his presence and his aid in restoring peace and renewing the prosperity of the community and the people of Laconia. Immediately upon his return he entered upon the work of framing a constitution and reconstructing the state. Notwithstanding much opposition and complaint from the classes obliged to make concessions and sacrifices for the common good, he secured the assent of the people to his legislation. Having seen the system in working order, he announced his purpose to leave the country for a period, and moved the citizens to take an oath that they would observe the laws until he should return. He departed to remain away to the end of his life, but first repaired to Delphi and obtained an oracle promising prosperity to the Spartans, so long as they should maintain faithfully the constitution.

Laconia was the southeastern portion of the peninsula. The soil was mainly mountain land and meagrely productive under toilsome and careful tillage. So much of it as was naturally fertile lay in the centre, shut in from the sea by the mountains. At the time of the Dorian immigration, it was occupied in part by the descendants of the old Pelasgian population and in part by a mixed people which had come in at different times and from various sources. Because of the limited area there was already considerable pressure between the several elements. Accordingly the Dorians and their Achaean and AEolian allies met with a stout resistance, and established themselves after an obstinate and long-continued struggle. They descended from the sources of the Eurotas and forced their way into the plains in the midst of the land. They seized the heights on the right bank of the river at a point where its channel is split by an island and it was most easy to cross the stream. The hill of Athene became the centre of the settlement. Their establishment in the land was a slow process. It is said Laconia was divided into six districts, with six capital cities, each ruled by a king. The immigrants were distributed among the inhabitants and lands were allotted to them, in return for which they recognized the authority of the kings and engaged to support them in power. They seem to have been adopted by the kings, as their kindred were in Crete, as the military guardians of their prerogatives. The result was inevitable. They who are intrusted to maintain power become conscious that it is really their own, take formal possession of it, and exercise it for their own ends.

Two leading families drew to themselves the central body of the Dorians, rallied the rest, gathered them all at one point, and made it the centre of the district and the seat of government. They were supported by families of common descent and recognized by the people of the land, who suffered no change in the circumstances of their life. These gave them homage, paid to them taxes, and united with their kindred in celebrating funeral rites at their tombs. Sparta became the capital of the whole country, while the former capitals became country towns.

But there were difficulties in the way of the new regime. There were conflicting claims between the two royal families. Both of them were in collision with families in all respects their equals as to lineage and rank. The older and newer elements of the mass of the population were mingled but not yet combined. Everywhere there was friction, with occasions enough for irritation and confusion. The descendants of the primitive races were attached to their ancient ways. The Dorians were not less, but more tenacious of their traditional customs. And they were conscious of their vantage and knew they were able to insist on their preferences. As the props of the royal houses they could hope to make terms with them, or withdraw and let them fall, or turn to cast them down. The kings were compelled, on the one hand, to exert themselves to hold in control a subject people, and, on the other, to check the headstrong Dorian warriors. There was danger of the disruption of the kingdom, a lapse into anarchy, the rise of opposing factions, and a conflict destructive alike and equally of the welfare of all classes of the people.

There was need of a statesman who could comprehend the problem, find a solution, commend it to the judgment of all classes, and gain their cordial consent to the renovation of the state upon a more equitable basis. He must be a man of large capacity, great attainments, thorough sincerity, earnest devotion, generous and self-sacrificing patriotism. He must have ability to conceive a high ideal, steadily contemplate it, and nevertheless consider the materials on which and the conditions under which he must do his work, maintain the sober judgment which discriminates between the ideal and the practicable, and exercise the rigid self-control which calmly renounces the best conceivable and resolutely attempts the best attainable. He must have regard to the ideas, sentiments, associations, sacred traditions, and immemorial customs of the several races and classes of the people. He must be prudently conservative and keenly cautious in shaping and applying new measures and methods. He must study and comprehend the inevitable oppositions of interests, and conceive modes of action which involve reasonable concessions accompanied by manifest compensations. He must ally himself with no party and yet command the confidence of all parties. Whatever prior advantage he may have had in the matters of birth, rank, and association, he must use to conciliate those who would be asked to make the largest apparent sacrifices, and so turn it to account for the benefit of those who might otherwise suspect and distrust him and fall away from his influence. He must be able to explain and commend the system he might devise, convince the several parties of its wisdom, persuade them to yield their preferences and accept the needful compromises, and move them to make a fair and full experiment of its provisions. Such a man was Lycurgus, if we may trust the persistent tradition that he was the framer of the new constitution and the second founder of the Dorian state of Sparta. From time to time the question has been raised, was the work of Lycurgus original or an imitation, shaped perhaps by his observations among the Dorian folk on the island of Crete? It does not matter what the answer shall be. The statesman who fitly adapts may be as wise and skilful as he who invents and creates. The man who loves his people, plans and labors for their good, will not peril their welfare by his experiments, disdaining the help of those who have wrought before him, and the guidance of his contemporaries in examples, the benign results of which he may have had opportunity to witness. The truth appears to be that Lycurgus had respect to the reverence of the people for the ancient ways, and retained as far as he was able the suitable elements of the primitive polity of the Homeric age. This was based on the Council of Chiefs or Elders and occasional meetings of an assembly of the people to listen and learn, to assent and give heed. From whatsoever sources he drew, he adapted the materials of his knowledge to the conditions under which his structure must be shaped, the circumstances under which it must get on its base and stand secure. Those who affirm the exemplary influence of the Cretan polity, hold fast to the tradition that Lycurgus visited the island and could not have failed to observe the features of society there, and could not have expelled from his mind the similarity of conditions among the two peoples and the expedients which the lawgiver of Crete had employed to meet and resolve the difficulties he encountered and secure the results he attained. It must, however, be remembered that similar peoples with common traditions and customs, under like circumstances may independently work out for themselves systems of society analogous in many particulars and varying only by adaptation to special conditions. If Lycurgus perceived what was suitable to the exigency, wrought it into a plan, moved the people to accept it, brought harmony out of discord, order out of confusion, contentment out of unrest, prosperity out of impending calamity, and rescued the commonwealth for the time, he deserved abundant honor and still deserves a permanent rank among the notable statesmen of the world.

The constitution was unwritten. Its provisions were expressed in forms known as Rhaetra. The kings were retained. Their power was a guaranty of unity. They maintained the continuity of civic life. Each was a check upon the other. They were held under restraint by the senate. Its composition and functions were now fixed. It met not only to deliberate and advise, but to perform judicial offices. In case of capital offences the kings sat with the elders, each having, with every other member, but a single vote. The members were thirty in number, one for each of the ten clans of each of the three tribes, the kings representing their clans and sitting as equals with equals, though presiding at the sessions. The elders must be of the age of sixty and upward, and were appointed for life. The ancient division of the people was preserved; the households were grouped in thirties, the thirties in clans, the clans in tribes. Their capital was Sparta. It was not a compact walled town. It stretched into the open country and Dorians lived along the entire valley of the Eurotas. Not only those dwelling at the ford of the river, but all were acknowledged as Spartans. The kings were required to summon the heads of the families in the assembly once every month. The place was designated. The session was brief. To encourage brevity there was no provision for seats, but the freemen stood. Elders and other public officers were chosen. Official persons made known new laws, declarations of war and peace and treaties. The people simply voted aye or nay. The decision was according to the volume of sound. The session closed with a military review.

The army: The Dorians had entered the land and held their place in it by force of arms. To maintain their power it was necessary to develop a military system and maintain a body of vigorous and able soldiers. All citizens were constituted guardians of the nation. To all their rights was attached the duty of military service. They composed a standing army. The valley became a camp. The men left their estates under the management of the women. The wife cared for the home, reared the young children, and superintended the laborers in the business of the farm. The soldier could not leave the valley or enter it without announcement. The older men visited their homes on "leave of absence," the younger by stealth at night. Emigration was desertion punishable by death. To have gold and silver was to risk the same penalty. The heavy iron money only could be held, and this was without value in foreign parts. The soldier was part of an animated machine. His simple duty was to obey. Speech was repressed. It became abrupt, brief, pithy. Relief was found at the Lesche, near the training-ground, where talk was often free and even merry. The whole aim of the discipline was to form the soldier. Marriage was delayed for the sake of vigorous offspring. The girls were trained for motherhood. They were subject to a system of athletic exercises, and engaged in contests of running, wrestling, and boxing. The boys were put under training at the age of eight years. They became accustomed to severe exercise, and were inured to patient and painful endurance. They were compelled to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and fatigue, and to bear torture without flinching or show of emotion. Their food was kept almost within the limits of war rations. To increase the amount and variety they were allowed to steal. But they were careful not to be detected, lest they should be severely punished. Likely this was a device for training them to stealthy and cautious movements. After the time of their maturity they continued gymnastic culture. They hunted the goats, boars, stags, and bears on the rugged heights of the Taygetus range. There was no system of liberal education; mental growth and development were not sought as ends. They were rather feared. Poetry and music were used to a limited degree, so far as they might be made conducive to forming the traits of the soldier.

While the Spartans were solely occupied in preparation for the art of war, it is evident there must have been a population as wholly given to the pursuit of the practical arts, or the community could not have existed. There were two classes of laborers. The Perioeci dwelt in the rural townships. They were mainly of the mixed population of the lands, but there were Dorians among them. They were freemen; they held lands, and enjoyed certain rights of local government, voting for their magistrates in their townships. More and more they were trained for military service and entered the ranks as heavy-armed infantry. Some of them were shepherds and herdsmen. From them came all the skilled workmen, who wrought in the quarries and mines, provided building materials, shaped iron implements, made woollen stuff and leathern wares. Their number was three times as great as that of the citizens of the capital city. But over all their townships the Spartans held sway through the kings, the senate, and the assembly. These facts exhibit the civil polity which became so common during Greek and Roman times, and obtained again in Italy after the fall of the empire and the barbarian invasions, up to the time of the Renaissance.

The Helots were a rural people dwelling on the lands of the Spartans which lay about the capital or in the Laconian towns. Some of them were in the country as villagers and rustics when the Dorians came. They remained upon their lands as they were before, but were forced to pay a part of the annual produce of barley, oil, and wine. Some of them were people made captive in the border wars. They were serfs. They were, however, wards of the state. No one could treat them as personal property. They could not be sold or given away. They belonged to the inventory of the farm. Their taxes were defined by law. More could not be exacted. They could not be harmed in person. They were of value to the state and therefore protected. More and more they were needed in the army, where they were respected and honored for energy and bravery. Grote says they were as happy as the peasantry of the most civilized and humane modern nations. They lived in their villages, enjoyed their homes and the companionship of their wives and children, and the common fellowship of their neighbors, with ample supply for their needs and comfort from the surplus product of their labor and apart from the eye of their masters. Still the Helot had in him the common sentiments of our nature. His state was servile and mean. It was not to be expected he would always remain content in his subjection to his superiors in social and civil life. More and more his discontent would menace the stability of the community. Especially when the exigencies of war should compel his rulers to place arms in his hands and enlist him for defence against the foreign foe, it would become necessary to keep close watch upon him and to use strong measures for the repression of his impulse toward freedom.

Judged by the highest standards, Lycurgus certainly did not form the Laconians into an ideal nationality. He set up a military sovereignty in the land, and this demanded that the citizens should be soldiers, live in the camp, and devote themselves solely to the art of war. It is likely he perceived the imperfections of the system, anticipated its reflex effect upon the character and manners of the Spartans, and foreknew its weakness and the consequent perils of the people when it should inevitably be put to stress and strain by the aspirations of the subject classes after freedom and social equality. Could he speak for himself, he would doubtless say, with Solon, that he had not done the best he knew but the best he could, that his constitution was provisional and suited to the time, and that it was designed to serve as a bridge over which his countrymen could cross a torrent and reach safely the solid ground on which they might securely stand to rearrange their polity and form themselves on a more equitable and generous basis into a real and happy commonwealth.

[Signature of the author.]

THEMISTOCLES

(514-449 B.C.)

]

Themistocles, who raised Athens from a subordinate position to her proud rank as leader of the Grecian States, was born about the year B.C., 514. He was the son of Nicocles, an Athenian of moderate fortune, who, however, was connected with the priestly house of the Lycomedae; his mother, Abrotonon, or, according to others Euterpe, was not an Athenian citizen; and according to most authorities, not even a Greek, but either a native of Caria or of Thrace. The education which he received was like that of all Athenians of rank at the time, but Themistocles had no taste for the elegant arts which then began to form a prominent part in the education of Athenian youths; he applied himself with much more zeal to the pursuit of practical and useful knowledge. This, as well as the numerous anecdotes about his youthful wilfulness and waywardness, together with the sleepless nights which he is said to have passed in meditating on the trophies of Miltiades, are more or less clear symptoms of the character which he subsequently displayed as a general and a statesman. His mind was early bent upon great things, and was incapable of being diverted from them by reverses, scruples, or difficulties. The great object of his life appears to have been to make Athens great. The powers with which nature had endowed him were quickness of perception, an accurate judgment of the course which was to be taken on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, and sagacity in calculating the consequences of his own actions; and these were the qualities which Athens during her wars with Persia stood most in need of. His ambition was unbounded, but he was at the same time persuaded that it could not reach its end unless Athens was the first among the Grecian States; and as he was not very scrupulous about the means that he employed for these ends, he came into frequent conflict with Aristides the Just, who had nothing at heart but the welfare of his country and no desire for personal aggrandizement.

In the year 483 B.C., when Aristides was sent into exile by ostracism, Themistocles, who had for several years taken an active part in public affairs, and was one of the chief authors of the banishment of his rival, remained in the almost undivided possession of the popular favor, and the year after, B.C. 482, he was elected archon eponymus of Athens. The city was at that time involved in a war with AEgina, which then possessed the strongest navy in Greece, and with which Athens was unable to cope. It was in this year that Themistocles conceived and partly carried into effect the plans by which he intended to raise the power of Athens. His first object was to increase the navy of Athens; and this he did ostensibly to enable Athens to contend with AEgina, but his real intention was to put his country in a position to meet the danger of a second Persian invasion, with which Greece was threatened. The manner in which he raised the naval power was this. Hitherto the people of Athens had been accustomed to divide among themselves the yearly revenues of the silver-mines of Laurion. In the year of his archonship these revenues were unusually large, and he persuaded his countrymen to forego their personal advantage, and to apply these revenues to the enlargement of their fleet. His advice was followed, and the fleet was raised to the number of two hundred sail. It was probably at the same time that he induced the Athenians to pass a decree that for the purpose of keeping up their navy, twenty new ships should be built every year. Athens soon after made peace with AEgina, as Xerxes was at Sardis making preparations for invading Greece with all the forces he could muster. At the same time Themistocles was actively engaged in allaying the disputes and hostile feelings which existed among the several states of Greece. He acted, however, with great severity toward those who espoused the cause of the Persians, and a Greek interpreter, who accompanied the envoys of Xerxes that came to Athens to demand earth and water as a sign of submission, was put to death for having made use of the Greek tongue in the service of the common enemy.

After affairs among the Greeks were tolerably settled, a detachment of the allied troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession of Tempe, under the command of Themistocles, of Athens, and Euaenetus, of Sparta; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed by the host of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. When Xerxes arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near Artemisium on the north coast of Euboea, under the command of the Spartan admiral Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended to serve in order not to cause new dissensions among the Greeks, although Athens alone furnished one hundred and twenty-seven ships, and supplied the Chalcidians with twenty others; while the Spartan contingent was incomparably smaller. When the Persian fleet, notwithstanding the severe losses which it had sustained by a storm, determined to sail round the eastern and southern coasts of Euboea, and then up the Euripus, in order to cut off the Greek fleet at Artemisium, the Greeks were so surprised and alarmed that Themistocles had great difficulty in inducing them to remain and maintain their station. The Euboeans, who perceived the advantages of the plan of Themistocles, rewarded him with the sum of fifty talents, part of which he gave to the Spartan Eurybiades and the Corinthian Adimantus to induce them to remain at Artemisium. In the battle which then took place, the Greeks gained considerable advantage, though the victory was not decisive. A storm and a second engagement near Artemisium, severely injured the fleet of the Persians, but the Greeks also sustained great losses, as half of their ships were partly destroyed and partly rendered unfit for further service. When at the same time they received intelligence of the defeat of Leonidas, at Thermopylae, the Greeks resolved to retreat from Artemisium, and sailed to the Saronic gulf.

Xerxes was now advancing from Thermopylae, and Athens trembled for her existence, while the Peloponnesians were bent upon seeking shelter and safety in their peninsula, and upon fortifying themselves by a wall across the Corinthian isthmus. On the approach of the danger the Athenians had sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about the means they should employ for their safety, and the god had commanded Athens to defend herself behind wooden walls. This oracle, which probably had been given at the suggestion of Themistocles, was now also interpreted by him as referring to the fleet, and his advice to seek safety in the fleet was followed. He then further moved that the Athenians should abandon the city to the care of its tutelary deity, that the women, children, and infirm should be removed to Salamis, AEgina, or Troezen, and that the men should embark in the ships. The fleet of the Greeks, consisting of three hundred and eighty ships, assembled at Salamis, still under the supreme command of Eurybiades. When the Persians had made themselves masters of Attica, and Athens was seen in flames at a distance, some of the commanders of the fleet, under the influence of fear, began to make preparation for an immediate retreat. Themistocles saw the disastrous results of such a course, and exerted all his powers of persuasion to induce the commanders of the fleet to maintain their post; when all attempts proved ineffectual, Themistocles had recourse to threats, and thus induced Eurybiades to stay. The example of the admiral was followed by the other commanders also. In the meantime the Persian fleet arrived in the Saronic gulf, and the fears of the Peloponnesians were revived and doubled, and nothing seemed to be able to keep them together. At this last and critical moment Themistocles devised a plan to compel them to remain and face the enemy. He sent a message to the Persian admiral, informing him that the Greeks were on the point of dispersing, and that if the Persians would attack them while they were assembled, they would easily conquer them all at once, whereas it would be otherwise necessary to defeat them one after another.

This apparently well-meant advice was eagerly taken up by the enemy, who now hastened, as he thought, to destroy the fleet of the Greeks. But the event proved the wisdom of Themistocles. The unwieldy armament of the Persians was unable to perform any movements in the narrow straits between the island of Salamis and the mainland. The Greeks gained a most complete and brilliant victory, for they only lost forty ships, while the enemy lost two hundred, or according to Ctesias, even five hundred. Very soon after the victory was decided, Xerxes with the remains of the fleet left the Attic coast and sailed toward the Hellespont. The battles of Artemisium and Salamis occurred in the same year, B.C. 480.

When the Greeks were informed of the departure of Xerxes, they pursued him as far as Andros, without gaining sight of his fleet, and Themistocles proposed to continue the chase. But he gave way to the opposition that was made to this plan, and consented not to drive the vanquished enemy to despair. The Greek fleet therefore only stayed some time among the Cyclades, to chastise those islanders who had been unfaithful to the national cause. Themistocles, in the meantime, in order to get completely rid of the king and his fleet, sent a message to him, exhorting him to hasten back to Asia as speedily as possible, for otherwise he would be in danger of having his retreat cut off. Themistocles availed himself of the stay of the Greek fleet among the Cyclades for the purpose of enriching himself at the cost of the islanders, partly by extorting money from them by way of punishment, and partly by accepting bribes for securing them impunity for their conduct. He was now, however, the greatest man in Greece, his fame spread everywhere, and all acknowledged that the country had been saved through his wisdom and resolution. But the confederate Greeks, actuated by jealousy, awarded to him only the second prize; at Sparta, whither he went, as Herodotus says, to be honored, he received a chaplet of olive-leaves--a reward which they had bestowed upon their own admiral Eurybiades--and the best chariot that the city possessed, and on his return three hundred knights escorted him as far as Tegea in Arcadia.

When the Persian army had been again defeated at Plataea and Mycale in B.C. 479, and when the Athenians had rebuilt their private dwellings, it was also resolved, on the advice of Themistocles, to restore the fortifications of Athens, but on a larger scale than they had been before, and more in accordance with the proud position which the city now occupied in Greece. This plan excited the fear and jealousy of the rival states, and especially of Sparta, which sent an embassy to Athens, and under the veil of friendship, which ill concealed its selfish policy, endeavored to persuade the Athenians not to fortify the city. Themistocles, who saw through their designs, undertook the task of defeating them with their own weapons. He advised his countrymen to dismiss the Spartan ambassadors, and to promise that Athenian envoys should be sent to Sparta to treat with them there respecting the fortifications. He himself offered to go as one of the envoys, but he directed the Athenians not to let his colleagues follow him until the walls, on which all hands should be employed during his absence, should be raised to such a height as to afford sufficient protection against any attack that might be made upon them. His advice was followed, and Themistocles, after his arrival at Sparta, took no steps toward opening the negotiations, but pretended that he was obliged to wait for the arrival of his colleagues. When he was informed that the walls had reached a sufficient height, and when he could drop the mask with safety, he gave the Spartans a well-deserved rebuke, returned home, and the walls were completed without any hindrance. He then proceeded to carry into effect the chief thing which remained to be done to make Athens the first maritime power of Greece. He induced the Athenians to fortify the three ports of Phalerum, Munychia, and Piraeus by a double range of walls.