this alone raises such works. There can be little doubt of their being of the Caucasian race. They entered Greece from Thrace, and spread over the whole country: for their chief remains are in Peloponnesus. Possibly they were of the same race with the aborigines of Italy. To these succeeded the Pelasgians, a numerous tribe, who overran Greece, Italy, the islands and a part of Lesser Asia: they, too, came from Thrace. Agriculture was their chief employment: the arts of peace flourished among them. The religion of Greece was chiefly Pelasgian. The thickly-peopled regions of Thrace still sent forth its tribes. The Achæans, the race who fought at Troy, next succeeded, and overcame the Pelasgians. Legends of the Lapithe and Centaurs, if credit is to be given to them, may relate to contests between the Achæan and Pelasgian races, for the possession of Thessaly.

Colonies, it is said, came from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Phrygia, and civilised the barbarous, mast-eating savages who roamed the wilds of Greece. Danaus, an Egyptian, ruled at Argos; Cecrops, from Saïs, at Athens; Pelops, the Phrygian, gave name to Peloponnesus; Cadmus, the Phoenician, founded Thebes. Little reliance is to be placed on these accounts: there is no evidence of any race of the inhabitants of Greece having been in the savage state. The Phoenicians, undoubtedly, early visited the coasts of Greece, and a colony did, perhaps, settle there; yet it is unusual for a maritime people to go so far inland as Thebes. With respect to the Egyptian colonies, it is not unlikely that the artful and vainglorious priests of Saïs, and of other towns of Egypt, imposed their fables on the credulous Greeks who first visited that country.

The Achæan period is the heroic age of Greece: then flourished, or are said to have flourished, the mythic heroes Hercules, Theseus, Jason, and others: then were the Argonautic expedition, the wars of Thebes, and that of Troy, eternised by the verses of Homer. As a real historic event, the chief that this period offers is, the

erection of a kingdom by Minos in Crete, three generations before the Trojan war. This monarch, at once king, prophet, and lawgiver, collected the various tribes of Crete into one state, established a marine, conquered the piratic Carians, who swarmed in the Ægean, and reduced the isles beneath his power.

The Achæans, like the Pelasgians, were devoted to agriculture and navigation. Their government was aristocrato-monarchic: they possessed numerous slaves, acquired by war or by purchase, who performed all servile offices. Their chief amusements, like those of the Germans and Scandinavians, were gymnastic exercises, and at banquets listening to the songs of bards, who chanted the deeds of living or departed heroes. Manners, language, religion, were the same in all the states: even between the Achæans and the Trojans no difference is to be perceived on these points. The Pythian and Dodonean oracles tended to keep up union: no traces of castes appear: the princes and fathers of families were priests. The monarch was distinguished chiefly by his personal qualities: he had the command in war, a larger share of the booty, precedence, and a portion of land assigned him. The nobles were distinguished as much by their powers of mind and body as by birth. The people had a voice in matters of war and peace: no law could be made without their approbation. The elements of the future democracy were there.

The religion of Greece was the worship of deities presiding over the various parts of nature and powers of mind. Under the names of Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, Hera, Pallas, &c., names mostly of unknown origin, these deities were honoured by temples, sacrifices, processions: oracles were believed to announce their will and the future. This system of religion was Grecian, and unborrowed. The Phoenicians may have introduced some new deities; and, when an intercourse was opened with Egypt, mysteries and new rites and dogmas were imported from that country.

Dorian Migration.

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The Achæan race acknowledged a supreme head in the king of Mycena. After the Trojan war, the bonds that united them were loosed. A time of disturbance and revolution came: the Dorians, a brave and hardy race, left their abodes in the mountains, and came down on Greece. This movement was followed by great changes: numerous emigrations took place: Grecian colonies covered the coasts of southern Italy, Sicily, and Lesser Asia. The Dorians, it is said, were led by the descendants of Hercules to make good their claim to the throne of Argos, of which their ancestor had been deprived; and the Dorian immigration is called the Return of the Heracleides. But Hercules is a mythic personage,who, it is probable, never had a real existence; and the Dorians were, doubtless, moved by other causes. They speedily overran the Peloponnesus: her mountains defended Arcadia: Achæa alone remained to the Atreidæ : Laconia, Messenia, and Argolis became the property of the Dorians: Ægina and the neighbouring islands fell to them, and a portion of them settled in Crete. That branch of the Achæans named Ionians retreated to Attica, and joined its inhabitants, who were of the same race; being pressed for room, a portion of these migrated to the banks of the Hermus, in Lesser Asia, and the adjacent isles. Peloponnesians, named Æolians, had previously settled on the coast from Cyzicus to the Hermus. No great kingdom existed at that time in Lesser Asia the coasts had been possessed by pirate states of Leleges and Carians. The people of the interior favoured the settlement of the Ionians; a race of mild manners, less addicted to war than to trade and manufactures. The conquering Dorians afterwards came from Crete, and took from the Carians Cnidus, Halicarnassus, and Rhodes. Thus were formed the Grecian cities of Lesser Asia, where poetry, philosophy, arts, and science bloomed ere they attained any height in Greece.*

The common name of the Greeks was Hellenes, a name posterior to the time of Homer. It is uncertain when it first came into use,

Sparta.

The Dorian state of Laconia was, at this period, the greatest state of Greece. Two kings were at the head of it; under them stood the Dorian nobility, the Spartans; then the Perioci or Laconians, and, lastly, the Helots, or descendants of the conquered people, a body of oppressed, ill-used serfs. Disputes and unfixed relations among these orders made the want of a settled system of legislation apparent. Lycurgus, brother to one of the kings, and guardian of his infant heir, saw this necessity, and resolved to remedy it. He went to Crete, whose constitution, originally established by Minos, and renewed by the Dorians, was then in the highest repute; made himself acquainted with its institutions, and formed a code of laws, such as he deemed fitted for Sparta. The Delphic oracle, so highly venerated by all of Dorian race, applauded his project, and pronounced him inspired.

The object of all Dorian legislation was the maintenance of a martial character in the upper and dominant classes. To crush and grind down the ill-fated serfs, and give leisure for the practice of military exercises to the warlike race of the conquerors, was the aim of both Cretan and Spartan legislation. In Crete there were but two orders, the lords and the serfs: in Laconia there were three; the Pericci or Laconians, whether Dorians of mingled marriages, or Achæans who had been left some privileges by the conquerors, forming a link between the two former. Lycurgus divided the lands of Laconia into 39,000 lots; 9000 large ones for the Spartans, and 30,000 smaller for the Perioci, all to be tilled for them by the miserable serfs. The government was in the hands of the Spartans alone. Both Spartans and Perioci were alike engaged in unceasing military exercises. By a fatal error in legislation, the number of the Spartan families was closed, and in default of male issue daughters could inherit landed property; hence there arose an inequality among the leading families, and a per

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nicious oligarchy, where women had powerful influence. At the time of the Theban war, the greater part of the land was in the hands of females.

The Spartan government consisted of the two kings of the race of Hercules, and a senate of twenty-eight old men (the Gerusia), chosen by the people. The kings were leaders in war, and out of Laconia their power was unlimited. The people (i. e. the Spartans) were assembled every full moon to decide on measures proposed by the senate, which they could only accept or reject; they decided on all crimes against the state, on the succession of the kings, and the election and dismissal of magistrates. If peace or war was the question, the Pericci were called to the council, as they were to share in the danger. The Helots had no part in legislation, or even in religious festivals.

As a counterpoise to the power of the kings, a magistracy, the Ephorate, was introduced in the time of king Theopompus. The Ephori were five men selected from the people (the Spartans), without regard to age. They alone were always in connection with the people; they had the inspection of all magistrates, were present at every transaction, always attended the kings, directed all foreign affairs, accused kings and magistrates before the people, where they were themselves both judges and accusers. At length they completely crushed all other power, and became the tyrants of the state.

The greatest rigour of manners was enjoined by Lycurgus. He established syssitia, or public meals, at which all the male part of the citizens ate together. The most implicit obedience and regard to age was impressed on the minds of youth; the most inflexible endurance of pain inculcated; most things, even slaves, horses, and dogs, were possessed in common. The chase was their favourite enjoyment; every species of trade was prohibited; money was huge masses of iron.

The natural result of such an education was a sternness of character, a pride and haughtiness, and love of command. While the institutions of Lycurgus continued