The History of Ancient Greece: 3rd millennium B.C. - 323 B.C.. John Bagnell Bury
of the tyrannis there was however a deeper cause than the fact that many tyrants were oppressors. It placed in the hands of an unconstitutional ruler arbitrary control, whether he exercised it or not, over the lives and fortunes of the citizens. It was thus repugnant to the Greek love of freedom, and it seemed to arrest their constitutional growth. As a matter of fact, this temporary arrest during the period when the first tyrannies prevailed may have been useful; for the tyrannis, though its direct political effect was retarding, forwarded the progress of the people in other directions. And even from a constitutional point of view it may have had its uses at this period. In some cases, it secured an interval of repose and growth, during which the people won experience and knowledge to fit them for self-government.
The period which saw the fall of the aristocracies is often called the age of the tyrants. The expression is unhappy, because it might easily mislead. The tyrannis first came into existence at this period; there was a large crop of tyrants much about the same time in different parts of Greece; they all performed the same function of overthrowing aristocracies, and in many cases they paved the way for democracies. But on the other hand, the tyrannis was not a form of government which appeared only at this transitional crisis, and then passed away. There is no age in the subsequent history of Greece which might not see, and did not actually see, the rise of tyrants here and there. Tyranny was always with the Greeks. It, as well as oligarchy, was a danger by which their democracies were threatened at all periods.
Ionia seems to have been the original home of the tyrannis, and in this may have been partly due to the seductive example of the rich court of the Lydian “tyrants” at Sardis. But of the Ionian tyrannies we know little. We hear of factions and feuds in the cities, of aristocratic houses overthrown and despotisms established in various states. A tyrant of Ephesus marries the daughter of the Lydian monarch Alyattes. The most famous of these tyrants was Thrasybulus of Miletus, under whose rule that city held a more brilliant position than ever. Abroad, he took part in planting some of the colonies on the Black Sea, and successfully resisted the menaces of Lydia. At home, he developed the craft of tyranny to a fine art.
In Lesbian Mytilene we see the tyrannis and also a method by which it might be avoided. Mytilene had won great commercial prosperity; its ruling nobles, the Penthilids, were wealthy and luxurious and oppressed the people. Tyrants rose and fell in rapid succession; the echoes of hatred and jubilation still ring to us from relics of the lyric poems of Alcaeus. “Let us drink and reel, for Myrsilus is dead.” The poet was a noble and a fighter; but in a war with the Athenians on the coast of the Hellespont he threw away his shield, like Archilochus, and it hung as a trophy at Sigeum. He plotted with Pittacus against the tyrant, but Pittacus was not a noble and his friendship with Alcaeus was not enduring. Pittacus however, who distinguished himself for bravery in the same war with Athens, was to be the saviour of the state. He gained the trust of the people and was elected ruler for a period of ten years in order to heal the sores of the city. Such a governor, possessing supreme power but for a limited time, was called an aesymnētes. Pittacus gained the reputation of a wise lawgiver and a firm, moderate ruler. He banished the nobles who opposed him, among others the two most famous of all Lesbians, the poets Alcaeus and Sappho. At the end of ten years he laid down his office, to be enrolled after his death in the number of the Seven Wise Men. The ship of state had reached the haven, to apply a metaphor of Alcaeus, and the exiles could safely be allowed to return.
This was the brilliant period of the history of Lesbos, and a few surviving fragments of its two great poets, who struck new notes and devised new cadences of lyric song, give a glimpse of the free and luxurious life of the Aeolian island. The radiant genius of Sappho was inspired by her passionate attachments to young Lesbian maidens; the songs of Alcaeus, mirroring the commotions of party warfare, rang with the clatter of arms and the clinking of drinking-cups.
SECT. 7. THE TYRANNIES OF CENTRAL GREECE
About the middle of the seventh century, three tyrannies arose in central Greece in the neighbourhood of the Isthmus: at Corinth, at Sicyon, and at Megara. In each case the development was different, and is in each case instructive. In Sicyon the tyranny is brilliant and beneficent, in Corinth brilliant and oppressive, in Megara shortlived and followed by long intestine struggles.
The ruling clan of the Bacchiads at Corinth was overthrown by Cypselus, who had put himself at the head of the people. A characteristic legend was formed at an early time about the birth of Cypselus, suggested by the connexion of his name with κυψέλα, a jar. His mother was a Bacchiad lady named Labda, who, being lame and consequently compelled to wed out of her own class, married a certain Ēĕtion, a man of the people. Having no children and consulting the Delphic oracle on the matter, Eetion received this reply:—
High honour is thy due, Eetion,
Yet no man doth thee honour, as were right.
Labda thy wife will bear a huge millstone,
Destined to fall on them who rule alone,
And free thy Corinth from their rightless might.
The prophecy came to the ears of the Bacchiads and was confirmed to them by another oracle. So, as soon as Labda’s child was born, they sent ten men to slay it. When the men came to the court of Eetion’s dwelling they found that he was not at home, and they asked Labda for the infant. Suspecting nothing, she gave it to one of them to take in his arms, but, as he was about to dash it to the ground, the child smiled at him and he had not the heart to slay it. He passed it on to the second, but he too was moved with pity; and so it was passed round from hand to hand, and none of the ten could find it in his heart to destroy it. Then giving the infant back to the mother, and going out into the courtyard, they reviled each other for their weakness, and resolved to go in again and do the deed together. But Labda listening at the door overheard what they said, and hid the child in a jar, where none of them thought of looking. Thus the boy was saved, but the men falsely reported to the Bacchiads that they had performed their errand.
The Bacchiads were banished and their property confiscated; dangerous persons were executed, and Cypselus took the reins of government into his own hands. Of the rule of Cypselus himself we know little; he is variously represented as harsh and mild. His son Periander succeeded, and of him more is recorded. The general features of the Cypselid tyrannis were a vigorous colonial and commercial policy, and the encouragement of art.
One of the earliest triumphs of Cypselus was probably the reduction of Corcyra, which had formed a fleet of its own and had grown to be a rival of its mother in the Ionian seas. It has been already mentioned that the earliest battle of ships between two Greek states was supposed to have been fought between Corinth and Corcyra. The attempt of Corinth to form a colonial empire was an interesting experiment. The idea of Cypselus corresponded to our modern colonial system, in which the colonies are in a relation of dependence to the mother-country, and not to that of the Greeks, in which the colony was an independent sovereign state. Geographical conditions alone rendered it out of the question to apply the new principle to Syracuse, but the success at Corcyra was followed up by a development of Corinthian influence in the north-west of Greece. The Acarnanian peninsula of Leucas was occupied and made into an island by piercing a channel through the narrow isthmus. Anactorion was founded on the south side of the Ambracian gulf, and inland, on the north side, Ambracia. Apollonia was planted on the coast of Epirus; and farther north Corcyra, under the auspices of her mother-city, colonised Epidamnus. At a later period, and in another quarter of the Greek world, a son of Periander founded Potidaea in the Chalcidic peninsula.
Cypselus and Periander did their utmost to promote the commercial activity of their city. In the middle of the seventh century the rival Euboean cities, Chalcis and Eretria, were the most important merchant states of Greece. But fifty years later they had somewhat declined; Corinth and Aegina were taking their place. Their decline was brought about by their rivalry, which led to an exhausting war for the Lelantine plain. It is said that this struggle assumed the larger proportions of a Greek mercantile war, involving on one side Corinth and Samos as allies of Chalcis, on the other Megara and Miletus as allies of Eretria. The dates are uncertain, but the fact seems to be that the strife was protracted and interrupted, and at some points in its course it may have led to consequences beyond Euboea. Archilochus sang how
Euboea’s