The History of Greece from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age. John Bagnell Bury
sense a man of the world, for he was many-sided—poet and legislator, traveller and trader, noble and friend of the people. He had the insight to discern some of the yet undeveloped tendencies of the age, and could sympathise with other than the power-holding classes. He had meditated too deeply on the circumstances of humanity to find power a temptation; he never forgot that he was a traveller between life and death. It was a promising and characteristic act for a Greek state to commit the task of its reformation to such a man, and empower him to translate into definite legislative measures the views which he expressed in his poems.
Solon’s social reforms inaugurated a permanent improvement. But his political measures, which he intended as a compromise, displeased many. Party strife broke out again bitterly soon after his archonship, and only to end, after thirty years, in the tyranny which it had been his dearest object to prevent. Of this strife we know little. It took the form of a struggle for the archonship, and two years are noted in which, in consequence of this struggle, no archons were elected, hence called years of anarchy Then a certain archon, Damasias, attempted to convert his office into a permanent tyranny and actually held it for over two years. This attempt frightened the political parties into making a compromise of some sort. Probably it was agreed that four of the nine archons should be Eupatrids, three Georgi, and two Demiurgi, all of course possessing the requisite minimum of wealth. It is unknown whether this arrangement was repeated after the year of its first trial, but it certainly did not lead to a permanent reconciliation.
The two great parties were those who were in the main satisfied with the new constitution of Solon, and those who disliked its democratic side and desired to return to the aristocratic government which he had subverted. The latter consisted chiefly of Eupatrids and were known as the men of the Plain. They were led by Lycurgus, and numbered among them the clan of the Philaidae—distinguished as the clan of Hippoclides, the wooer of Agarista, and destined to become more distinguished still as that of more than one Cimon and Miltiades. The opposite party of the Coast included not only the population of the coast, but the bulk of the middle classes, the peasants as well as the Demiurgi, who were bettered by the changes of Solon. They were led by Megacles, son of Alcmaeon, the same Megacles who married Agarista. For one of Solon’s measures was an act of amnesty which was couched in such terms that, while it did not benefit the descendants of Cylon, it permitted the return of the Alcmaeonidae. Their position severed them from the rest of the Eupatrids and associated them with the party which represented Solon’s views.
Growth of Athens in the Sixth Century
SECT. 1. THE CONQUEST OF SALAMIS AND NICAEA
In the midst of these domestic troubles and party struggles, there were a few statesmen who found time to attend to foreign affairs, and saw that the time had come for Athens to take a new step in her political career. Under her aristocracy, Athens had enjoyed a long period of development which may be called peaceful, if we compare the growth of some other states; and this prepared her to take her place in the general scene of Greek history. Though Attica was a poor country, scantily watered and with light soil, her prosperity in the oil trade might encourage her to look forward to becoming rich. But, if she was ever to become a political power, there was one thing to be achieved at all hazards. Every Athenian who stood on his strong hill and looked south-westward could see what this was. He descried, lying close to his own shore, an island which was not his own. And, if he walked across Mount Aegaleos, he saw how this foreign island blocked up the bay of what was now his own Eleusis. Almost equally distant from Athens and Megara, parted by a narrow water from both, Salamis in the hands of either must be a constant menace to the other. The possession of Salamis must decide the future history of both Megara and Athens. At this period Megara with her growing colonial connexions was a strong state and a formidable neighbour; and her expanding trade must have been viewed with alarm and jealousy by Athenian statesmen. A struggle with Megara, sooner or later, was inevitable, and the Cylonian conspiracy, as we saw, furnished an occasion of war. Theagenes could not easily brook the slaughter of his men in violation of the promise which had been given to them, and he sent his ships to harry the Attic coasts. The Athenians sought to occupy Salamis, but all their efforts to gain a permanent footing failed, and they abandoned the attempt in despair. Years passed away. At length Solon saw that the favourable hour had come. It was, perhaps, a quarter of a century after the year of his lawgiving; he had returned from his travels and was living at Athens, one of the Council of the Areopagus. Megara was now weaker than in the days of Theagenes, and, whether she had given any new cause of offence to Athens or not, Solon and his friends decided that it was time to strike. The great legislator came forward now, not as before to assuage strife but to stir up to conquest. He composed a stirring poem which Solon’s began: “I came myself as a herald from lovely Salamis, but with song on my lips instead of common speech”. He blamed the peace policy of the “men who let slip Salamis,” as dishonourable; and cried, “Arise and come to Salamis, to win that fair island and undo our shame”. The poem of Solon was intended to have the effect which in later times, when “common speech” had been perfected to a fine art, would have been wrought by the eloquence of an orator in the Assembly. His appeal moved the hearts of his countrymen to a national effort, and an Athenian army went forth to lay the first stone of their country’s greatness.
An intimate friend of Solon took part in the enterprise,—Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates, whose home and estates were near Brauron. It has been thought that Pisistratus was the polemarch of the year, but it is more probable that he was only a general subordinate to the polemarch. He helped the expedition to a successful issue. Not only was the disputed island wrested from Megara, but he captured the port of Nisaea over against the island. We may conjecture that Nisaea was surprised first, and that its capture enabled the Athenians to occupy Salamis. Thus, though Pisistratus was associated with the conquest of Nisaea, not with the conquest of Salamis, it was to him, along with his friend Solon who inspired the enterprise, that the great achievement was really due. The seizure of her port was a great shock to the trade of Megara. It was indeed afterwards restored, when peace was made through the mediation of Sparta; but the hopes of Athenian policy, which its possession aroused, are reflected in the legend, created at this time, that Nisus the Megarian hero was a son of Pandion an early Athenian king. Shortly afterwards the text of the Iliad which assumed, as we shall see, its final shape at Athens, was tampered with. The Athenians entered in that venerable record the political geography which they desired. In the Catalogue of the Ships (where Megara has no independent place, she is counted as a city of Boeotia), two verses were inserted implying that Salamis belonged to Athens in the time of the Trojan war. There is no reason to suppose that there was any truth in this prehistoric claim. But Salamis now became permanently annexed to Attica. The island was afterwards divided in lots among Athenian citizens, who were called cleruchs or “lot-holders.” Salamis, unlike Eleusis, was not incorporated in Attica, though it was nearer Athens. There have been found fragments of a document inscribed on a stone-pillar, perhaps (but it is difficult to judge the dates of early Attic writings) not many years later than the conquest,—a decree of the people which concerns the settlement of Salamis; one of the earliest scriptured stones of Athenian history, and the earliest example we possess of a decree of the Athenian people. The old inhabitants of the island were to pay the same taxes as the “Athenians” and to serve in the army, but they were to dwell on their farms in the island, and were not to let their lots to others under pain of a fine.
The conquest of Salamis was a decisive event for Athens. Her territory was now rounded off; she had complete command of the landlocked Eleusinian bay; it was she who now threatened Megara.
SECT. 2. ATHENS UNDER PISISTRATUS
The conqueror of Nisaea was the hero of the day. By professing democratic doctrines and practising popular arts, he ingratiated himself with those extreme democrats who, being bitterly opposed to the nobles and not satisfied by the Solonian compromise, were outside both the Plain and the Coast. Pisistratus thus organised a new party which was called the Hill, as it largely consisted of the poor hillsmen of the highlands of Attica; but it also