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PERIOECI.

truth, or arose from his confounding the Perioeci with the Helots.

Still the grievances of the Perioeci were not after all intolerable, nor do they seem to have been treated with wantonness or insolence. The distance at which many of them lived from Sparta, must have rendered it impossible for them to share in the ad­ministration of the state, or to attend the public assemblies ; a circumstance which must is some measure have blunted their sense of their political inferiority. Nor were they subjected to the re­straints and severe discipline which the necessity of maintaining their political supremacy imposed upon the Spartans, making them more like an " army of occupation in a conquered country," or,a " beleagured garrison," than a society of men united for civil government and mutual advantage. By way of compensation, too, the Perioeci enjoyed many advantages (though not considered as privi­leges) which the Spartans did not. The trade and manufactures of the country were exclusively in their hands, and carried on by them •vpth;the more facility and profit as they occupied maritime, towns. The cultivation of the arts also, as well in the higher as in the lower departments, was coined to the Perioeci, the Spartans considering it: beneath themselves ; and many distinguished artists, such as embossers and brass-founders, were found in the Laconian schools, all of whom were probably Perioeci. (Muller, Dor. iii. 2. §3.) Nor is there wanting other evidence, though not altogether free from doubts, to show that the Spartan provincials were not in the least checked or shackled in the development of their intellectual powers. (Thirl-wall and Muller, II. cc.) Moreover, it seems natural to suppose that they enjoyed.ciVjil rights in the com­munities to which they belong§d9 and which other­wise would scarcely have been galled iroeis ; but whether or no these cities had the power of elect­ing their own chief magistrate is a matter of conjec­ture. Ephorus, indeed (/. c.), informs us that on the conquest of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, they divided the country of Laconia into six districts, four of which were left in the possession of the Achaians, and governed by magistrates sent from Sparta ; but we do not know -hpw.ljOng this prac­tice lasted, nor can we draw any,cpnclusipns with respect to the government of Laconia in general from the example of Cythera, to which a Spartan officer was annually sent under the peculiar title of Rvdripodiicris, or the "Justice of Cythera."

The number of Laconian (as they are called) or subject cities, is said to have formerly amounted to 100. (Strab. viii. p. 362.) Several of them lay on the coast, as Gythium, the port of Sparta ; whence the whole coast of Laconia is called rj Trepioj/a’?. .(Thucj^d. iii. 16.) Many, however, lay more inland, as Thuria (Thucyd. i. 101) and Cardamyle, which seems to have belonged to the old Messenia. The inhabitants of the district of Sciros (f] ^Kipiris}^ on the confines of Arcadia, seem to have been distinct from the other Perioeci (Xen. Hell, v, 2. § 24), and in battle were posted by themselves on the left wing. (Thucyd. v, 67.) An enumeration of the principal of these cities is given in Clinton. (Fast. Hell. App. c. 22.) The Perioeci also occupied the island of Cythera, at the port of which the Lacedaemonian merchants usuall}r put in, on their voyages home from Egypt and Libye. (Thucyd. iv. 53, vii. 57.) We have said that the Perioeci living in these towns were the de-

PERIOECT.

sceridants of the old inhabitants of the country, we must not suppose they were exclusively so. Some of them on the contrary were foreigners, who had either accompanied the Dorians on their invasion of Laconia, or been afterwards invited by them to supply the place of the dispossessed Achaians. One of these cities, Boia, is even said to have been founded by a Heracleid chief (Strab. p. 364) ; and another, Geronthrae, was peopled by colonists sent from Sparta, after it was evacuated by the old inhabitants. (Paus. iii. 22. § 5.)

The number of Perioeci in the Persian war is thus determined by Clinton (1. c.) : — "At the battle of Plataeae in b. c. 479, the Perioeci supplied ] 0,000 men. If we ..assume this proportion to be the same as that which the Spartan force bore to the whole number on the same occasion, or five- eighths of the whole number of citizens, this would give ,16,000 for the males of full age, and the total population of this class of the inhabitants of Laconia would amount to about 66,000 persons." .

In the ‘later ; times of Spartan history, the Perioecian towns of .the cpas.t (Laconicae orae cas-tella et vici) were ^etached from Sparta by T. Quintius.Elamininus, and placed under the protec­tion of tjie Achaian .league. (Muller, iii. 2. § 1 ; Liv. xxxiv. 29, ,30, xxxviii. 31.) Subsequently to this the emperor Augustus released 24 towns from their subjection to Sparta, and formed them into separate communities, under laws of their own, They .were .consequently. called Eleuthero-Lacones. (Paus. iii. 21. §.6.) But even in the time of Pausa-nias some of the Laconian towns were not avro-, but dependent upon Sparta (ffwreAoucrcu es

A class of Perioeci,, and, also of Helots, has been said by Muller to be the basis of the Dorian form of government : we may therefore expect to find Peri­oeci amongst other Dorian communities, as well as at Sparta, as, for instance, Elis and Argos, and the , Boeotian Thebes ; the dependent towns of which states formed , separate communities, as Thespiae under Thebes, the Tryphylian cities in Elis, and Orneae under Argos,>though . they could not be called avTov6/jioi. (Wachsmuth, i. 1. ,p. 161.) From the last mentioned town., which was long independent, ‘but reduced about b.>c. 580., all the Argive Perioeci derived their name of Orneatae. About the time of the Persian war, however, the inhabitants of the •,towns. surrounding Argos were received into the city as crvvoucoi., and admitted to the rights of citizenship ; a change which was attended with a revolution in the constitution of Argos, and gave additional force to its democracy. (Muller, iii. 4. § 2.) The Dorian cities of Crete also had their Perioeci (Arist. Pol. ii. 7), as well as the colonies, of Cyrene and Thera. (Herod, iv. 161.)

The Perioeci of antiquity have been compared to other bodies, such as the plebs of Rome, and the communities of the Athenian demi or parishes. But the only resemblance they bore to the latter was in the similarity of their position relative to the chief city of their country, nor did the former body stand in the same relation to the Patricians as the Laconian provincials did to the Spartan citizens. Modern history furnishes fitter objects of comparison in the Norman conquest of England and the city of Augsburg. (Arnold, Thucyd. vol. i, App. 1 and 2.) The burghers or free citizens of Augsburg lived in the city, while there grew up