Chapter IX (3)

We hear in general terms of more than one revolution in the government of Megara,—a disorderly democracy, subverted by returning oligarchical exiles, and these again unable long to maintain themselves;[65] but we are alike uninformed as to dates and details. And in respect to one of these struggles, we are admitted to the outpourings of a contemporary and a sufferer,—the Megarian poet Theognis. Unfortunately, his elegiac verses, as we possess them, are in a state so broken, incoherent, and interpolated, that we make out no distinct conception of the events which call them forth,—still less, can we discover in the verses of Theognis that strength and peculiarity of pure Dorian feeling, which, since the publication of O. Müller’s History of the Dorians, it has been the fashion to look for so extensively. But we see that the poet was connected with an oligarchy, of birth and not of wealth, which had recently been subverted by the breaking in of the rustic population previously subject and degraded,—that these subjects were contented to submit to a single-headed despot, in order to escape from their former rulers,—and that Theognis had himself been betrayed by his own friends and companions, stripped of his property, and exiled, through the wrong doing “of enemies whose blood he hopes one day to be permitted to drink.”[66] The condition of the subject cultivators previous to this revolution he depicts in sad colors;—they “dwelt without the city, clad in goatskins, and ignorant of judicial sanctions or laws:”[67] after it, they had become citizens, and their importance had been immensely enhanced. And thus, according to his impression, the vile breed has trodden down the noble,—the bad have become masters, and the good are no longer of any account. The bitterness and humiliation which attend upon poverty, and the undue ascendency which wealth confers even upon the most worthless of mankind,[68] are among the prominent subjects of his complaint, and his keen personal feeling on this point would be alone sufficient to show that the recent revolution had no way overthrown the influence of property; in contradiction to the opinion of Welcker, who infers without ground, from a passage of uncertain meaning, that the land of the state had been formally redivided.[69] The Megarian revolution, so far as we apprehend it from Theognis, appears to have improved materially the condition of the cultivators around the town, and to have strengthened a certain class whom he considers “the bad rich,”—while it extinguished the privileges of that governing order, to which he himself belonged, denominated in his language “the good and the virtuous,” with ruinous effect upon his own individual fortunes. How far this governing order was exclusively Dorian, we have no means of determining. The political change by which Theognis suffered, and the new despot whom he indicates as either actually installed or nearly impending, must have come considerably after the despotism of Theagenês; for the life of the poet seems to fall between 570-490 B. C., while Theagenês must have ruled about 630-600 B. C. From the unfavorable picture, therefore, which the poet gives as his own early experience of the condition of the rural cultivators, it is evident that the despot Theagenês had neither conferred upon them any permanent benefit, nor given them access to the judicial protection of the city.

[65] Aristot. Polit. iv, 12, 10; v, 2, 6; 4, 3.

[66] Theognis, vv. 682, 715, 720, 750, 816, 914, Welcker’s
edition:—

Τῶν εἴη μέλαν αἷμα πιεῖν, etc.

[67] Theognis, v, 20.—

Κύρνε, πόλις μὲν ἔθ᾽ ἥδε πόλις, λαοὶ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι,
Οἳ πρόσθ᾽ οὕτε δίκας ᾔδεσαν οὔτε νόμους,
Ἀλλ᾽ ἀμφὶ πλευρῇσι δορὰς αἰγῶν κατέτριβον,
Ἔξω δ᾽ ὥστ᾽ ἔλαφοι τῆσδ’ ἐνέμοντο πόλεος.

[68] See, especially, the lines from 500-560, 816-830, in
Welcker’s edition.

[69] Consult the Prolegomena to Welcker’s edition of Theognis;
also, those of Schneidewin (Delectus Elegiac. Poetar. pp. 46-55).

The Prolegomena of Welcker are particularly valuable and full of
instruction. He illustrates at great length the tendency common
to Theognis, with other early Greek poets, to apply the words
_good_ and _bad_, not with reference to any ethical standard,
but to wealth as contrasted with poverty,—nobility with low
birth,—strength with weakness,—conservative and oligarchical
politics as opposed to innovation (sect. 10-18). The ethical
meaning of these words is not absolutely unknown, yet rare, in
Theognis: it gradually grew up at Athens, and became popularized
by the Socratic school of philosophers as well as by the orators.
But the early or political meaning always remained, and the
fluctuation between the two has been productive of frequent
misunderstanding. Constant attention is necessary when we read
the expressions οἱ ἀγαθοὶ, ἐσθλοὶ, βέλτιστοι, καλοκἀγαθοὶ,
χρηστοὶ, etc., or on the other hand, οἱ κακοὶ, δειλοὶ, etc.,
to examine whether the context is such as to give to them the
ethical or the political meaning. Welcker seems to go a step too
far, when he says that the latter sense “fell into desuetude,
through the influence of the Socratic philosophy.” (Proleg. sect.
11, p. xxv.) The two meanings both remained extant at the same
time, as we see by Aristotle (Polit. iv, 8, 2),—σχεδὸν γὰρ παρὰ
τοῖς πλείστοις οἱ εὔποροι, τῶν καλῶν κἀγαθῶν δοκοῦσι κατέχειν
χώραν. A careful distinction is sometimes found in Plato and
Thucydides, who talk of the oligarchs as “the persons called
super-excellent,”—τοὺς καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ὀνομαζομένους (Thucyd.
viii, 48),—ὑπὸ τῶν πλουσίων τε καὶ καλῶν κἀγαθῶν λεγομένων ἐν τῇ
πόλει (Plato, Rep. viii, p. 569).

The same double sense is to be found equally prevalent in the
Latin language: “_Boni_que et _mali_ cives appellati, non ob
merita in rempublicam, omnibus pariter corruptis: sed uti quisque
locupletissimus, et injuriâ validior, quia præsentia defendebat,
pro bono habebatur.” (Sallust, Hist. Fragment. lib. i, p. 935,
Cort.) And again, Cicero (De Republ. i, 34): “Hoc errore vulgi
cum rempublicam opes paucorum, non virtutes, tenere cœperunt,
nomen illi principes _optimatium_ mordicus tenent, re autem
carent eo nomine.” In Cicero’s Oration pro Sextio (c. 45) the two
meanings are intentionally confounded together, when he gives his
definition of _optimus quisque_. Welcker (Proleg. s. 12) produces
several other examples of the like equivocal meaning. Nor are
there wanting instances of the same use of language in the laws
and customs of the early Germans,—boni homines, probi homines,
Rachinburgi, Gudemänner. See Savigny, Geschichte des Römisch.
Rechts im Mittelalter, vol. i, p. 184; vol. ii, p. xxii.

It is thus that the despots of Corinth, Sikyôn, and Megara serve as samples of those revolutionary influences, which towards the beginning of the sixth century B. C., seem to have shaken or overturned the oligarchical governments in very many cities throughout the Grecian world. There existed a certain sympathy and alliance between the despots of Corinth and Sikyôn:[70] how far such feeling was farther extended to Megara, we do not know. The latter city seems evidently to have been more populous and powerful during the seventh and sixth centuries B. C., than we shall afterwards find her throughout the two brilliant centuries of Grecian history: her colonies, found as far distant as Bithynia and the Thracian Bosphorus on one side, and as Sicily on the other, argue an extent of trade as well as naval force once not inferior to Athens: so that we shall be the less surprised when we approach the life of Solon, to find her in possession of the island of Salamis, and long maintaining it, at one time with every promise of triumph, against the entire force of the Athenians.

[70] Herod. vi. 128.