



Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger





ATHENS: ITS RISE AND FALL

by Edward Bulwer Lytton




DEDICATION.

TO HENRY FYNES CLINTON, ESQ., etc., etc.  AUTHOR OF "THE FASTI
HELLENICI."


My Dear Sir,

I am not more sensible of the distinction conferred upon me when you
allowed me to inscribe this history with your name, than pleased with
an occasion to express my gratitude for the assistance I have derived
throughout the progress of my labours from that memorable work, in
which you have upheld the celebrity of English learning, and afforded
so imperishable a contribution to our knowledge of the Ancient World.
To all who in history look for the true connexion between causes and
effects, chronology is not a dry and mechanical compilation of barren
dates, but the explanation of events and the philosophy of facts.  And
the publication of the Fasti Hellenici has thrown upon those times, in
which an accurate chronological system can best repair what is
deficient, and best elucidate what is obscure in the scanty
authorities bequeathed to us, all the light of a profound and
disciplined intellect, applying the acutest comprehension to the
richest erudition, and arriving at its conclusions according to the
true spirit of inductive reasoning, which proportions the completeness
of the final discovery to the caution of the intermediate process.  My
obligations to that learning and to those gifts which you have
exhibited to the world are shared by all who, in England or in Europe,
study the history or cultivate the literature of Greece.  But, in the
patient kindness with which you have permitted me to consult you
during the tedious passage of these volumes through the press--in the
careful advice--in the generous encouragement--which have so often
smoothed the path and animated the progress--there are obligations
peculiar to myself; and in those obligations there is so much that
honours me, that, were I to enlarge upon them more, the world might
mistake an acknowledgment for a boast.

    With the highest consideration and esteem,
                 Believe me, my dear sir,
             Most sincerely and gratefully yours,
                      EDWARD LYTTON BULWER
    London, March, 1837.




ADVERTISEMENT.


The work, a portion of which is now presented to the reader, has
occupied me many years--though often interrupted in its progress,
either by more active employment, or by literary undertakings of a
character more seductive.  These volumes were not only written, but
actually in the hands of the publisher before the appearance, and
even, I believe, before the announcement of the first volume of Mr.
Thirlwall's History of Greece, or I might have declined going over any
portion of the ground cultivated by that distinguished scholar [1].
As it is, however, the plan I have pursued differs materially from
that of Mr. Thirlwall, and I trust that the soil is sufficiently
fertile to yield a harvest to either labourer.

Since it is the letters, yet more than the arms or the institutions of
Athens, which have rendered her illustrious, it is my object to
combine an elaborate view of her literature with a complete and
impartial account of her political transactions.  The two volumes now
published bring the reader, in the one branch of my subject, to the
supreme administration of Pericles; in the other, to a critical
analysis of the tragedies of Sophocles.  Two additional volumes will,
I trust, be sufficient to accomplish my task, and close the records of
Athens at that period when, with the accession of Augustus, the annals
of the world are merged into the chronicle of the Roman empire.  In
these latter volumes it is my intention to complete the history of the
Athenian drama--to include a survey of the Athenian philosophy--to
describe the manners, habits, and social life of the people, and to
conclude the whole with such a review of the facts and events narrated
as may constitute, perhaps, an unprejudiced and intelligible
explanation of the causes of the rise and fall of Athens.

As the history of the Greek republics has been too often corruptly
pressed into the service of heated political partisans, may I be
pardoned the precaution of observing that, whatever my own political
code, as applied to England, I have nowhere sought knowingly to
pervert the lessons of a past nor analogous time to fugitive interests
and party purposes.  Whether led sometimes to censure, or more often
to vindicate the Athenian people, I am not conscious of any other
desire than that of strict, faithful, impartial justice.  Restlessly
to seek among the ancient institutions for illustrations (rarely
apposite) of the modern, is, indeed, to desert the character of a
judge for that of an advocate, and to undertake the task of the
historian with the ambition of the pamphleteer.  Though designing this
work not for colleges and cloisters, but for the general and
miscellaneous public, it is nevertheless impossible to pass over in
silence some matters which, if apparently trifling in themselves, have
acquired dignity, and even interest, from brilliant speculations or
celebrated disputes.  In the history of Greece (and Athenian history
necessarily includes nearly all that is valuable in the annals of the
whole Hellenic race) the reader must submit to pass through much that
is minute, much that is wearisome, if he desire to arrive at last at
definite knowledge and comprehensive views.  In order, however, to
interrupt as little as possible the recital of events, I have
endeavoured to confine to the earlier portion of the work such details
of an antiquarian or speculative nature as, while they may afford to
the general reader, not, indeed, a minute analysis, but perhaps a
sufficient notion of the scholastic inquiries which have engaged the
attention of some of the subtlest minds of Germany and England, may
also prepare him the better to comprehend the peculiar character and
circumstances of the people to whose history he is introduced: and it
may be well to warn the more impatient that it is not till the second
book (vol. i., p. 181) that disquisition is abandoned for narrative.
There yet remain various points on which special comment would be
incompatible with connected and popular history, but on which I
propose to enlarge in a series of supplementary notes, to be appended
to the concluding volume.  These notes will also comprise criticisms
and specimens of Greek writers not so intimately connected with the
progress of Athenian literature as to demand lengthened and elaborate
notice in the body of the work.  Thus, when it is completed, it is my
hope that this book will combine, with a full and complete history of
Athens, political and moral, a more ample and comprehensive view of
the treasures of the Greek literature than has yet been afforded to
the English public. I have ventured on these remarks because I thought
it due to the reader, no less than to myself, to explain the plan and
outline of a design at present only partially developed.

London, March, 1837.




CONTENTS.


 BOOK I

  CHAPTER

     I  Situation and Soil of Attica.--The Pelasgians its earliest
          Inhabitants.--Their Race and Language akin to the Grecian.--
          Their varying Civilization and Architectural Remains.--
          Cecrops.--Were the earliest Civilizers of Greece foreigners
          or Greeks?--The Foundation of Athens.--The Improvements
          attributed to Cecrops.--The Religion of the Greeks cannot
          be reduced to a simple System.--Its Influence upon their
          Character and Morals, Arts and Poetry.--The Origin of
          Slavery and Aristocracy.

    II  The unimportant consequences to be deduced from the admission
          that Cecrops might be Egyptian.--Attic Kings before
          Theseus.--The Hellenes.--Their Genealogy.--Ionians and
          Achaeans Pelasgic.--Contrast between Dorians and Ionians.--
          Amphictyonic League.

   III  The Heroic Age.--Theseus.--His legislative Influence upon
          Athens.--Qualities of the Greek Heroes.--Effect of a
          Traditional Age upon the Character of a People.

    IV  The Successors of Theseus.--The Fate of Codrus.--The
          Emigration of Nileus.--The Archons.--Draco.

     V  A General Survey of Greece and the East previous to the
          Time of Solon.--The Grecian Colonies.--The Isles.--Brief
          account of the States on the Continent.--Elis and the
          Olympic Games.

    VI  Return of the Heraclidae.--The Spartan Constitution and
          Habits.--The first and second Messenian War.

   VII  Governments in Greece.

  VIII  Brief Survey of Arts, Letters, and Philosophy in Greece,
          prior to the Legislation of Solon.


 BOOK II

  CHAPTER

     I  The Conspiracy of Cylon.--Loss of Salamis.--First Appearance
          of Solon.--Success against the Megarians in the Struggle for
          Salamis.--Cirrhaean War.--Epimenides.--Political State of
          Athens