Problems in Greek history Part 18

But Athens stood sullenly aloof from this powerful organization, remembering always her long-lost primacy, and probably regarding these mountaineers as hardly h.e.l.lenes, and as unworthy to rank beside the ancient and educated States, which had once utilized them as mere semi-barbarous mercenaries. And yet the aetolians were the only Greeks who were able to make a serious and obstinate struggle for their liberties, even against the power of Rome.

[Sidenote: or the Achaeans.]

-- 74. But if to have rude aetolians as co-equal members of a common council would have been too bitter a degradation for Athens, why not ally herself to the civilized and orderly Achaeans? For the Achaean cities, though insignificant heretofore, had old traditions, legendary glories; and in later times Sicyon especially had been a leading centre, a chosen home for the fine arts. When Corinth and Argos were forced to join this League, why should Athens stand aloof? Yet here was the inevitable limit, beyond which the Achaean League could never obtain a footing. It stopped with the Isthmus, because no arguments could ever induce Athens to give it her adhesion[178:1].

[Sidenote: Sparta and the Achaeans.]

Within the Peloponnesus the case was even worse; for here Sparta was ever the active opponent of the Achaean League, and sought by arms or by intrigues to separate cities and to make any primacy but her own impossible. Thus the Leagues had to contend with the sullen refusal or the active opposition of the princ.i.p.al Powers of Greece; and if, in spite of all that, they attained to great and deserved eminence, it only shows how unworthy was the opposition of those States whose narrow patriotism could not rise beyond their own susceptibilities. This it was which made the success of the experiment from the first doubtful.

[Sidenote: A larger question.]

[Sidenote: What right has a federation to coerce its members?]

-- 75. But there was a const.i.tutional question behind, which is one of the permanent problems of statecraft, and therefore demands our earnest attention. The mode of attack upon the Leagues, especially upon the const.i.tutional and orderly Achaean League, adopted by Macedon, Sparta, and Athens, was to invite some member to enter upon separate negotiations with them, without consulting the common council of the federation. And time after time this move succeeded, till at last the interference of the Romans in this direction sapped the power and coherence of the League.

[Sidenote: Disputed already in the Delian Confederacy by Athens and the lesser members.]

[Sidenote: Duruy's att.i.tude on this question.]

The same kind of difficulty had occurred long before under the old dominations of Sparta, Athens, and Thebes; but I did not refer to it before, because this is the proper place to bring the problem in all its bearings before the reader. Under the Athenian supremacy many members had voluntarily entered into the Delian Confederacy; others had done so either under protest, or for some special object, such as the clearing of the aegean from Persian occupation. Presently, when the particular object was fulfilled, and when the Athenian tax-gatherers insisted upon the tribute which was spent on public, but Athenian, objects, the separate members declared their right to secede, and revolted whenever they had the power. The Athenians argued that the peace and prosperity of the aegean had been secured by the common effort of the Confederacy and by the zeal and self-sacrifice of Athens. They denied that each member which had so long profited by the arrangement had a right to secede, and in any case they declared that they would coerce the seceder. In Duruy's chapter on the pa.s.sage of the Delian Confederacy into the Athenian empire[179:1] he shows little sympathy for the individual members and their hardships, and justifies Athens in her aggressive policy. In a mere pa.s.sing note he compares the case of the North against the South in the late American Civil War. But as he has not argued out the problem, I may be of service to the reader in discussing it here.

[Sidenote: Greek sentiment very different.]

It was to this dispute that the real origin of the Peloponnesian war is to be traced. And though most people thought Athens quite justified in holding what she had obtained, and not surrendering the empire which had cost such labour and returned in exchange such great glory, yet the general feeling of the Greek world was distinctly in favour of the seceder,--in favour of the inalienable right of every city to rea.s.sert its autonomy as a separate State[180:1], not only with communal independence, but with perfect liberty to treat as it chose with neighbouring States. Whenever, therefore, this conflict between Imperialism and Particularism arose, public sympathies sided with the a.s.sertion of local independence.

[Sidenote: Nature of the Achaean League.]

-- 76. The debate in the present case was somewhat different in its details. The Achaean League, a number of small cities situated upon a coast exposed to pirates, and able to foresee from lofty posts the coming raid, united voluntarily for attack and defence, and so formed a Confederacy, which lasted a long time before the wealth gained by its members as mercenaries and the decay of the greater Powers of Greece brought it into prominence[181:1]. These cities had a common executive and a sort of cabinet, preparing the business for the general a.s.sembly, which met for three days twice a year, and then decisions were obtained from this a.s.sembly and measures ratified by its votes. But as the more distant members could not attend in great numbers, the members of each city present, whether few or many, gave that city's vote, which counted as an unit in the Confederacy. The result was of course to put political power into the hands of the richer cla.s.ses, who had leisure to leave their own affairs and go regularly to the a.s.sembly at aegion[181:2].

[Sidenote: Statement of the new difficulty]

The difficulties which now arose were these: Had any of the original twelve towns, that had voluntarily formed this Union, the right to withdraw their adhesion? In a lesser degree, had the towns that afterwards joined in consequence of the pressure of circ.u.mstances, but by a deliberate and public vote, a right to rescind that vote? And in a still less degree, had any town which had subscribed to the Achaean const.i.tution any right to violate its observance in one point, as by negotiating separately with another State, or was it bound to observe in all respects the terms imposed by the Union from which it was not allowed to secede?

[Sidenote: in its clearest form never yet settled except by force.]

The first of these cases is by far the most perplexing, and I am not aware that it has ever been settled by any argument better than an appeal to force. To the Greeks, at all events, it seemed that the right of autonomy--the power to manage one's own affairs--was the inalienable right of every _city_; just as the Irish Nationalists may be heard daily a.s.serting it for every _nation_[182:1].

[Sidenote: Case of the American Union.]

In our own youth we heard this right far more seriously urged by the seceding States of the American Union, some of which had been members of the first combination, and had voluntarily ceded certain portions of their political rights, at least their theoretical rights, in return for the protection and support of the Confederation as a whole. These States argued that if the Union began to interfere in the domestic concerns of each,--such, for example, as the practice of permitting household slaves,--it was a breach of contract, and justified the State in formally repudiating the remainder of the contract. But even had there been no encroachment by new legislation, the Greek city claimed the right of returning to its isolated independence.

[Sidenote: Arguments for coercion of the several members.]

-- 77. On the other side, it has always been argued that though contracts for a definite period need not be renewed, there are many contracts intended by their very nature to be permanent, and which are so far-reaching in their consequences that for any one party to abandon them is a profound injustice to the remainder, whose lives have been inst.i.tuted and regulated upon these contracts[183:1]. Let us take an ill.u.s.tration from everyday life. From the contract of marriage there arise such important consequences that a dissolution does not permit the contracting parties to resume their original life; and therefore in all higher civilizations legal divorce has been made very difficult, and secession by either party without legal sanction a grave offence.

In like manner it was argued that the several cities had grown rich and powerful under the League. The lives of its members had been sacrificed to defend every city attacked; the funds of the League had been spent on each as they were needed. Was it just that after growing and thriving upon these conditions any one of them should, for its own convenience, repudiate the bond and regard all the accruing benefits as a private property, to be disposed of to any strange Power?

[Sidenote: Cases of doubtful or enforced adherence.]

To answer this question and to adjudicate between the litigants is hard enough, and yet I have stated the simplest difficulty. For in the case of many of the additions to the Achaean League a revolution had first taken place, the existing government had been overthrown, and then the new majority had placed themselves under the protection of the Confederation. If the old rulers returned to power, were they bound by the Government which had coerced them, and which they regarded as revolutionary? Others, again, had been constrained by the presence of an armed force, and by threats of imminent danger if they did not accept the League's protection. When circ.u.mstances changed, could they not argue that they were coerced, and that an apparently free _plebiscite_ was wrung from them against their better judgment?

[Sidenote: Various internal questions.]

-- 78. Such were the profoundly interesting and thoroughly modern problems which agitated the minds of men in post-Alexandrian Greece.

There were moreover various internal questions,--whether new cities which joined should have equal rights with the original members; whether large cities should have a city vote only equal to the vote of the smallest; whether the general a.s.sembly should be held in turn at each of the cities, or in the greatest and most convenient centre, or in a place specially chosen for its insignificance, so that the a.s.sembly might be entirely free from local influences? All these questions must have agitated the minds of the founders of the Swiss Union and the American Union, for the problems remain the same, however nations may wax and wane.

[Sidenote: Looser bond of the aetolian League.]

The Achaean and aetolian Unions were very popular indeed, especially the latter, which required no alterations in the administration of each State, but accepted any member merely on terms of paying a general tax, and obtaining in lieu thereof military aid, and rest.i.tution of property from other members if they had carried off plunder from its territory[185:1]. The Achaean League required more. A tyrant must abdicate before his city could become a member, and in more than one case this actually took place.

The most dangerous, though pa.s.sive, enemy of this hopeful compromise between the Separatist and the truly National spirit was, as I have said, the sullen standing aloof of the greater cities. Of course the ever active foe was the power of Macedon, which could deal easily with local tyrants, or even single cities, but was balked by the strength of the combination.

[Sidenote: Radical monarchy of Cleomenes.]

At last there arose a still more attractive alternative, which was rapidly destroying the Achaean League, when its leader, Aratus, called in the common enemy from Macedon, and enslaved his country in order to checkmate his rival. This rival was the royalty of Sparta, who offered to the cities of the Peloponnesus an Union on the old lines of a Confederation under the headship of Sparta, but of Sparta as Cleomenes had transformed it; for he had a.s.sa.s.sinated the ephors, abolished the second king, and proposed sweeping reforms in the direction of socialistic equality,--division of large properties, and protection of the poor against the oppression of aristocrats or capitalists. This kind of revolution, with the military genius of Cleomenes to give it strength and brilliancy, attracted men's minds far more than the const.i.tutional, but somewhat torpid and plutocratic, League. Of course the fatal struggle led practically to the destruction of both schemes by the superior force and organization of Macedon.

FOOTNOTES:

[168:1] We may well apply to it the famous words of Tacitus at the opening of his _Histories_: 'Opus adgredior opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum; principes ferro interempti, bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta . . .

pollutae caeremoniae; magna adulteria; plenum exiliis mare; infecti caedibus scopuli . . . corrupti in dominos servi, in patronos liberti; et quibus deerat inimicus, per amicos oppressi.'

[170:1] This judgment seems likely to be reversed by the wonderful accession of new materials upon the Ptolemaic age, the first instalment of which I have published in a monograph upon the Petrie Papyri (with autotype plates, Williams & Norgate, 1891). We shall presently know the conditions of life in one province at all events, the Fayoum, which was peopled with Greek veterans along with Jews and Egyptians. I have now under my hand their wills, their private letters, their accounts, their official correspondence in hundreds of shreds and fragments.

[171:1] The best special work on the conflict of the Greek settlements with the Jewish population, and with the Asmonaean sovrans all along the coast of Palestine, is B. Stark's _Gaza und die Philistische Kuste_.

[172:1] Cf. Plutarch's _Life of Cleomenes_, cap. xi.

[173:1] Cf. the cases quoted in my _Greek Life and Thought_, pp. 394, 537, 541-543.

[173:2] Above ---- 35 _seqq._

[173:3] _Florilegium_ (ed. Teubner), ii. 247-284.

[178:1] The momentary acquisition (in 190 B.C.) of two unimportant towns, Pleuron and Heraclea, in northern Greece, need hardly count as a correction of this general statement. The acquisition of the island Zacynthos was prevented by the Romans.

[179:1] _Hist. des Grecs_, chap. xix.

[180:1] I need not pause to remind the reader that each Greek city, or [Greek: polis], was in every const.i.tutional sense a separate and independent State, just as much as the largest country is now. These cities severally made frequent treaties even with Rome, to which they stood in the same relations as a foreign king.

[181:1] These points were suggested for the first time in my _Greek Life and Thought_, pp. 7 _seqq._

[181:2] This voting by cities seems to me the nearest approach to representation that the Greeks ever made in politics, as distinct from religious councils, such as the Amphictyonies; for of course a city far from the place of a.s.sembly could agree with a small number of its citizens that they should attend and vote in a particular way. Every citizen, however, might go if he chose, so that this would be a mere private understanding.