The English Works of Thomas Hobbes (1839) 2 vols. - Vol. 8 (71 page)

The Greek and their own.

[See vi. 88, note.]

[See viii. 93, note.]

[“Having privily visited him”.]

[“
Through
the wall”.]

[“Advanced a little and then lay still; but sent” c.]

[
Planks,
forming inclined planes to the wall. Arnold.]

[“The rest of his men”.]

[“Having seized on the extremity of Torone, reaching to the sea and separated from the city by a narrow isthmus”. Arn. Goell.]

[ἀδεῶς πολιτεύειν: “and exercise the rights of citizens there in security”.]

[“The fort”.]

[“That had no hand in it”.]

[“They would not think worse of them, but be so much the better disposed to them as they will deal justly by them”.]

[“But for the past, not themselves (the Lacedæmonians) were injured, but they (the Toronæans) rather by other men” c.]

[“Upon the top of
a
building”:—“and carried up many jars and casks of water and great stones: and many men being” c.]

[“Thus did the Athenians abandon the place, and in their boats and galleys got safe to Pallene”.]

[“And stripping the houses of their furniture, he consecrated the whole ground.”]

[“Make a general peace”.]

[No good sense has yet been made of this passage.]

[From the beginning to “This truce shall be for a year”, the words of the treaty are those of the Lacedæmonians, who are throughout to be understood by ἡμῖν. Then follows the ratification by the Athenian people, ἔδοξε τῷ δήμῳ.]

[“Of our
ancestors
”. The Athenians and their allies had probably been excluded from the oracle during the war.]

[“Both we and you, and of the rest such as please, abiding and doing right and justice all of us by the laws of our
ancestors
”. Hobbes generally renders πατρίοις νόμοις, “laws of the
country
”.—The sacred treasures had been openly treated by the Peloponnesians (see i. 121.) as property to be converted to their own purposes: and the Athenians probably had discovered or suspected some unfair dealings with it. Thirlwall.]

[“And the following seem good to the Lacedæmonians and the rest of the allies, if the Athenians agree to a truce: namely, that each side remain within their own territory, retaining what they now hold; the Lacedæmonians in Coryphasium staying within” c.]

[“And that neither the Megareans nor their allies pass beyond this road”. These words should be in a parenthesis: the article then continuing: “and retaining possession of the island, which the Athenians have taken, neither having commerce with the other side”.]

[“That the
Lacedæmonians
keep c.” The “agreement” here spoken of, is the thirty years’ peace; whereby the possession of Trœzen was conceded to the Lacedæmonians. Goeller, Arnold.]

[“And that the Lacedæmonians and their allies shall have free navigation c: but shall not pass the seas in a long ship” c. Goell. Arn.]

[“The people decreed: the tribe Acamantis gave the Prytanes: Phænippus was scribe: Niciades epistates: Laches put the question, ‘
that
with good fortune there be concluded’ c. And the assembly agreed, ‘that there be a suspension, c., to begin from
this
day, being’ c.”—On the expulsion of the Pisistradæ and the success of the party of Cleisthenes over that of Isagoras, that is, of the democracy over the aristocracy, Cleisthenes, amongst other changes reorganizing the whole frame of the state, abolished the four Ionic tribes, and formed
ten
new ones: and from each drawing fifty senators, increased the senate from 400 to 500. The fifty senators of each tribe succeeded by lot to the office of President for 35 or 36 days, being called during that time the
prytanes:
the time of office,
prytaneia:
and this decree, made in the pryteneia of the tribe Acamantis, is therefore inscribed ἀκάμαντις ἐπρυτάνευε. The prytanes were distributed by lot into five decuriæ, each decuria presiding over the rest for seven days; thence called πρόεδροι,
presidents:
and during each of the seven days, the powers of all the proedri centered in one, called
epistates,
who kept the keys of the citadel and the treasury. Originally, these proedri proposed matters for deliberation, and presided in the senate and assembly. But in time the presidency in both was committed to nine men, also called
proedri,
chosen by the epistates, one out of each of the other nine tribes: these also had their
epistates
(here, Niciades). There were
scribes
both of the senate and assembly: of whom one was γραμματεὺς κατὰ πρυτανείαν (in the present case, Phænippus), his office being to take charge of all votes and public writings made during his prytaneia.]

[“These articles the Lacedæmonians agreed to, and the allies also swore to”.]

[“By
the
storm which befell the Achæans”.]

[“Should light upon some greater vessel”.]

[“Undergo the greatest hardships,
if
their state shall be” c.]

[“And he was about to lay hands on those cities. But” c.]

[Vulgo, ἤ. Bekker c., [Editor: illegible character]: “the truth was rather
as
” c.]

[“
That
they came in
manifestly
c.:
for
somewhat” c.]

[τότε: “at the time before mentioned”: see the end of ch. 121.]

[“And they (the Scionæans and Mendæans, and Brasidas’ men) made their arrangements in common, as expecting” c.

[The Macedonians are here classed with the barbarians, as in ch. 124 they are distinguished from the Greeks. Arnold. Herodotus (v. 22.) tells us, that the father of Perdiccas, Alexander the Philhellene, was desirous of contending at the Olympic games, but as a
Macedonian
was driven from the course as a barbarian, until he proved his Hellenic descent by tracing it from Temenus of Argos.]

[“That should fall on him”.]

[“And that they which are coming upon you, are barbarians and many”.]

[“I should not instruct, as well as encourage you”.]

[If the whole system of Spartan government and customs is to be attributed to Lycurgus, no better general view can be given of his legislation, than to say that he transformed Sparta into a camp. But it seems nearer the truth, to say that it was a camp from the time of the conquest: for no description can better suit an unwalled city, occupied by a handful of foreigners, in the midst of a hostile and half–subdued people: and the Spartan was not improperly said to be throughout the military age, ἔμϕρουρος,
on guard.
Laconia and Messenia appear to have contained three classes: the Dorians of Sparta, the helots, and the free provincials of Laconia. The last class consisted for the most part of the conquered Achæans, including possibly some few Dorians also: the towns of Bœæ and Geronthræ appearing to have been founded, the one by a Heracleid, the other by Spartans; but as the whole body of invaders was barely strong enough to effect the conquest, few could have been spared for the provinces. The provincials were absolute subjects: their land acknowledged by tribute the sovereignty of the state: political privileges they had none, their municipal government being under the controul of Spartan officers. The helots (whose condition has been described ch. 80, note) seem to have been at least thrice as numerous as the free Laconians: and the Spartans not being a third part of the latter, could have been barely a fifteenth part of the entire population. To secure the dominion of this small body, threatened with immediate dissolution from internal dissensions, was the main scope of the legislation of Lycurgus. The principal cause of discord was for the time removed by a new distribution of landed property. According to Plutarch, he divided the whole of Laconia (though in his time it could hardly have been all subdued: and whether Messenia, certainly not acquired till afterwards, was included in the 9,000 parcels, the ancients are not agreed) into 39,000 parcels: of which 9,000 were assigned to so many Spartan families, and 30,000 to the free Laconians. It seems to have been intended that each of the 9,000 parcels should always be represented by the head of a family: and it is said, that every child at its birth was brought to the elders of its tribe, and if pronounced worthy to live, had one of the parcels assigned to it. It is not easy to conceive how such a regulation, aided even as it might be by the controul of the kings over adoptions and marriages of orphan heiresses, could be made effective. At all events it wholly failed, especially when the inalienability of landed estates was relaxed by the admission of donations and devises, to prevent the extremes of wealth and indigence (Arist. ii. 7). And this is one of the causes of the decline, at this time in progress, of the Spartan power. For in spite of the penalties imposed by Lycurgus on celibacy, and the rewards assigned in later times to the father of many children, the growing temptation to concentrate the franchise as it encreased in value was too strong for Spartan patriotism: and the Dorian population, said to have contained at one time 10,000 families (Arist. ibid.), and in the Persian war 8,000 men able to bear arms (Herod. vii. 234), shewed a sensible decline from the time of the great earthquake, a blow it never recovered from. Sparta could not bring into the field at Leuctra more than 700 men: and perished at last by what may perhaps be considered as the fate of any state similarly circumstanced, διὰ τὴν ὀλιγανθρωπίαν (Arist. ibid.). See Thirl. ch. 8.]

[“Against such of them as are Macedonians”. Brasidas had just defeated the Lyncestæ, who were Macedonians.]

[“For they have no order, whereby to be made ashamed to quit their ranks when pressed”:—“and a manner of fighting wherein every one c., is especially fitted to afford them a more” c.]

[“And that they should seize and destroy them. But seeing” c.]

[“To leave their ranks and run c., and seize that height which he (Brasidas) thought was easiest to take, and try if they could” c.]

[Bekker and all the MSS., ἐπιόντας, “going up”: Goell. Arn. Popp. ἐπόντας, “that were already upon the same”.]

[“To
it
”.]

[“The first point of Perdiccas his dominions”.]

[“And thenceforth entertained for the Peloponnesians a hatred not consistent with his former feelings towards them, hitherto influenced by his hatred of the Athenians; and betraying his own natural interest, sought any means” c. Goeller.]

[“The Athenians, as they were preparing to do, set sail” c.]

[“Of the
peninsula
”.]

[“In a seditious spirit”.]

[“And Perdiccas (for it happened c.) partly” c.]

[“
When
the peace” c.]

[His friends in Thessaly: that is, the same powerful men, who, against the general wishes of the nation, had conducted Brasidas through the country. Thirlwall.]

[ἡβῶντες, those within thirty years of age. They were neither admitted to the public assembly, nor to fill any public office out of the country. Muell. iii. 4.]

[Pasitelidas (see v. 3.).

[The 56th of her priesthood (see ii. 2.).

[“To the vacant place”: that is, when the sentinel was absent. For securing the watchfulness of the sentinel, there were two contrivances: one used in times of alarm, which the Potidæans appear to have neglected, was this. An officer went his rounds with a bell, which every sentinel was to answer as soon as he heard it. The other was the delivery by one sentinel to another of a bell or staff: which thus came round at last to the point whence it set out. If any sentinel found the next man off his post, he was to carry the bell back and deliver it to the sentinel from whom he received it: so that the bell returning the wrong way, the delinquent was discovered. Goeller.]