At the beginning of his history of the great war between the Athenians and the Spartans, and their allies, Thucydides gives an account of the Greeks up to the time of the beginning of the war. Among other subjects, he tells about Minos and the Minoan Empire, the Mycenaeans, the migration of the Greek-speaking peoples into the Greek peninsula, and of how they began to think of themselves as Hellenes only after the Trojan War. This selection is just the beginning.
2. For it is plain that what is now called Hellas was not of old settled with fixed habitations, but that migrations were frequent in former times, each tribe readily leaving its own land whenever they were forced to do so by any people that was more numerous. For there was no mercantile traffic and the people did not mingle with one another without fear, either on land or by sea, and they each tilled their own land only enough to obtain a livelihood from it, having no surplus of wealth and not planting orchards, since it was uncertain, especially as they were yet without walls, when some invader might come and despoil them. And so, thinking that they could obtain anywhere the sustenance required for their daily needs, they found it easy to change their abodes, and for this reason were not strong as regards either the size of their cities or their resources in general. And it was always the best of the land that was most subject to these changes of inhabitants the districts now called Thessaly and Boeotia, most of the Peloponnesus except Arcadia, and the most fertile regions in the rest of Hellas. For the greater power that accrued to some communities on account of the fertility of their land occasioned internal quarrels whereby they were ruined, and at the same time these were more exposed to plots from outside tribes. Attica, at any rate, was free from internal quarrels from the earliest times by reason of the thinness of its soil, and therefore was inhabited by the same people always. And here is an excellent illustration of the truth of my statement that it was owing to these migrations that the other parts of Hellas did not increase in the same way as Attica: for the most influential men of the other parts of Hellas, when they were driven out of their own countries by war or sedition, resorted to Athens as being a firmly settled community, and, becoming citizens, from the very eariest times made the city still greater in the number of its inhabitants; so that Attica proved too small to hold them, and therefore the Athenians eventually sent out colonists even to Ionia.
3. The weakness of the olden times is further proved to me chiefly by this circumstance, that before the Trojan war, Hellas, as it appears, engaged in no enterprise in common. Indeed, it seems to me that as a whole it did not yet have this name, either, but that before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, this title did not even exist, and that the several tribes, the Pelasgian most extensively, gave their own names to the several districts; but when Hellen and his sons became strong in Phthiotis and were called in to the aid of the other cities, the clans thenceforth came more and more, by reason of this intercourse, to be called Hellenes, though it was a long time before the name could prevail among them all. The best evidence of this is given by Homer; for, although his time was much later even than the Trojan war, he nowhere uses this name of all, or indeed of any of them except the followers of Achilles of Phthiotis, who were in fact the first Hellenes, but designates them in his poems as Danaans and Argives and Achaeans. And he has not used the term Barbarians, either, for the reason, as it seems to me, that the Hellenes on their part had not yet been separated off so as to acquire one common name by way of contrast. However this may be, those who then received the name of Hellenes, whether severally and in succession, city by city, according as they understood one another's speech, or in a body at a later time, engaged together in no enterprise before the Trojan war, on account of weakness and lack of intercourse with one another. And they united even for this expedition only when they were no making considerable use of the sea.
4. Minos is the earliest of all those known to us by tradition who acquired a navy. He made himself master of a very great part of what is now called the Hellenic Sea, and became lord of the Cyclades islands and first colonizer of most of them, driving out the Carians and establishing his own sons in them as governors. Piracy, too, he naturally tried to clear from the sea, as far as he could, desiring that his revenues should come to him more readily.
5. It should be explained that in early times both the Hellenes and the Barbarians who dwell on the mainland near the sea, as well as those on the islands, when once they began more frequently to cross over in ships to one another, turned to piracy, under the lead of their most powerful men, whose motive was their own private gain, and the support of their weaker followers, and falling upon cities that were unprovided with walls and consisted of groups of villages, they pillaged them and got most of their living from that source. For this occupation did not as yet involve disgrace, but rather conferred something even of glory. This is shown by the practice, even at the present day, of some of the peoples on the mainland, who still hold it an honour to be successful in this business, as well as by the words of the early poets, who invariably ask the question of all who put in to shore, whether they are pirates, the inference being that neither those whom they ask ever disavow that occupation, nor those ever censure it who are concerned to have the information. On the mainland also men plundered one another; and even today in many parts of Hellas life goes on under the old conditions, as in the region of the Ozolian Locrians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and the mainland thereabout. And these mainlanders' habit of carrying arms is a survival of their old freebooting life.
6. Indeed, all the Hellenes used to carry arms because the places where they dwelt were unprotected, and intercourse with each other was unsafe; and in their everyday life they regularly went armed just as the Barbarians did. And the fact that these districts of Hellas still retain this custom is an evidence that at one time similar modes of life prevailed everywhere. But the Athenians were among the very first to lay aside their arms and, adopting an easier mode of life, to change to more luxurious ways. And indeed, owing to this fastidiousness, it was only recently that their older men of the wealthier class gave up wearing tunics of linen and fastening up their hair in a knot held by a golden grasshopper as a brooch; and this same dress obtained for a long time among the elderly men of the Ionians also, owing to their kinship with the Athenians. An unpretentious costume after the present fashion was first adopted by the Lacedaemonians, and in general their wealthier men took up a style of living that brought them as far as possible into equality with the masses. And they were the first to bare their bodies and, after stripping openly, to anoint themselves with oil when they engaged in atheltic exercise; for in early times, even in the Olympic games, the athletes wore girdles about their loins in the contests, and it is not many years since the practice has ceased. Indeed, even now among some of the Barbarians, especially those of Asia, where prizes for wrestling and boxing are offered, the contestants wear loin-cloths. And one could show that the eary Hellenes had many other customs similar to those of the Barbarians of the present day.
7. However, the cities which were founded in more recent times, when navigation had at length become safer, and were consequently beginning to have surplus resources, were built right on the seashore, and the isthmuses were occupied and walled off with a view to commerce and to the protection of the several peoples against their neighbours. But the older cities, both on the islands and on the mainland, were built more at a distance from the sea on account of the piracy that long prevailed for the pirates were wont to plunder not only one another, but also any others who dwelt on the coast but were not sea-faring folk and even to the present day they lie inland.
8. Still, more addicted to piracy were the islanders. These included Carians as well as Phoenicians, for Carians inhabited most of the islands, as may be inferred from the fact that, when Delos was purified by the Athenian in this war and the graves of all who have died on the island were removed, over half were discovered to be Carians, being recognized by the fashion of the armour found buried with them, and by the mode of burial, which is that still in use among them.
But when the navy of Minos had been established, navigation between various peoples became safer for the evildoers on the islands were expelled by him, and then he proceeded to colonize most of them and the dwellers on the sea coast now began to acquire property more than before and to become more settled in their homes, and some, seeing that they were growing richer than before, began also to put walls around their cities. Their more settled life was due to their desire for gain; actuated by this, the weaker citizens were willing to submit to dependence on the stronger; and the more powerful men, with their enlarged resources, were able to make the lesser cities their subjects. And later on, when they had at length more completely reached this condition of affairs, they made the expedition against Troy.
9. And it was, as I think, because Agamemnon surpassed in power the princes of his time that he was able to assemble his fleet, and not so much because Helen's suitors, whom he led, were bound by oath to Tyndareus. It is said, furthermore, by those of the Peloponnessians who have received the clearest traditional accounts from men of former times, that it was by means of the great wealth which he brought with him from Asia into the midst of a poor people that Pelops first acquired power, and consequently, stranger though he was, gave his name to the country, and that yet greater things fell to the lot of his descendants. For when Eurystheus set out on the expedition that resulted in his death in Attica at the hands of the Heracleidae, Atreus, his mother's brother, who chanced to have been banished by his father for the deathof Chrysippus, was entrusted by Eurystheus with Mycenae and the sovereignty because he was a kinsman; and when Eurystheus did not return, Atreus, in accordance with the wish of the Mycenaeans, who feared the Heracleidae, and because he seemed to be a man of power and had won the favour of the multitude, received the sovereignty over the Mycenaeans and all who were under the sway of Eurystheus. And so the house of Pelops became greater than the house of Perseus. And it was, I think, because Agamemnon had inherited all this, and at the same time had become strong in naval power beyond the rest, that he was able to collect his armament, not so much by favour as by fear, and so to make the expedition. For it is clear that he himself brought the greatest number of ships, that he had others with which to supply the Arcadians, as Homer testifies, if he is sufficient witness for anyone. And he says, in the account of the delivery of the sceptre, that Agamemnon "ruled over many islands and all Argos." Now, if he had not had something of a fleet, he could not, as he lived on the mainland, have been lord of any islands except those on the coast, and these would not be "many." And it is from this expedition that we must judge by conjecture what the situation was before that time.
10. And because Mycenae was only a small place, or if any particular town of that time seems now to be insignificant, it would not be right for me to treat this as an exact piece of evidence and refuse to believe that the expedition against Troy was as great as the poets have asserted and as tradition still maintains. For if the city of the Lacedaemonians should be deserted, and nothing should be left of it but its temples and the foundations of its other buildings, posterity would, I think, after a long lapse of time, be very loath to believe that their power was as great as their renown. (And yet they occupy two-fifths of the Peloponnesus and have the hegemony of the whole, as well as of their many allies outside; but still, as Sparta is not compactly built as a city and has not provided itself with costly temples and other edifices, but is inhabited village-fashion in the old Hellenic style, its power would appear less than it is.) Whereas, if Athens should suffer the same fate, its power would, I think, from what appeared of the city's ruins, be conjectured double what it is. The reasonable course, therefore, is not to be incredulous or to regard the appearance of cities rather than their power, but to believe that expedition to have been greater than any that precede it, though falling below those of the present time, if here again one may put any trust in the poetry of Homer; for though it is natural to suppose that he as a poet adorned and magnified the expedition, still even on his showing it was evidently comparatively small. For the fleet of twelve hundred vessels he has represented the ships of the Boeotians as having one hundred and twenty men each, and those of Philoctetes as having fifty, indicating, it seems to me, the largest and the smallest ships; at any rate, no mention as to the size of any others is made in the Catalogue of Ships. But that all on board were at once rowers and fighting men has been shown in the case of the ships of Pholoctetes; for he represents all the oarsmen of archers. And it is not likely that many supernumenaries sailed with the expedition, apart from the kings and those highest in office, especially as they were to cross the open sea with all the equipment of war, and, furthermore, had boats which were not provided with decks, but were built after the early style, more like pirate-boats. In any event, if one takes the mean between the largest ships and the smallest, it is clear that not a large number of men went on the expedition, considering that they were sent out from all Hellas in common.
11. The cause was not so much lack of men as lack of money. For it was a want of supplies that caused them to take out a comparatively small force, only so large as could be expected to live on the country while at war. And when they arrived and had prevailed in battle as evidently they did, for otherwise they could not have built the defence around their camp even then they seem not to have used their whole force, but to have resorted to farming in the Chersonese and to pillaging, through lack of supplies. Wherefore, since they were scattered, the Trojans found it easier to hold the field against them during those ten years, being a match for those who from time to time were left in camp. But if they had taken with them an abundant supply of food, and, in a body, without resorting to foraging and agriculture, had carried on the war continuously, they would easily have prevailed in battle and taken the city, since even with their forces not united, but with only such part as was from time to time on the spot, they yet held out; whereas, if they could have sat down and laid siege to Troy, they would have taken it in less time and with less trouble. But because of lack of money not only were the undertakings before the Trojan war insignificant, but even this expedition itself, though far more noteworthy than any before, is shown by the facts to have been inferior to its fame and to the tradition about it that now, through the influence of the poets, obtains.
12. Indeed, even after the Trojan war Hellas was still subject to migrations and in process of settlement, and hence did not get rest and wax stronger. For not only did the return of the Hellenes from Ilium, occurring as it did after a long time, cause many changes; but factions also began to spring up very generally in the cities, and, in consequence of these, men were driven into exile and founded new cities. The present Boeotians, for example, were driven from Arne by the Thessalians in the sixtieth year after the capture of Ilium and settled in the district now called Boeotia, but formerly Cadmeis; only a portion of these had been in that land before, and it was some of these who took part in the expedition against Ilium. The Dorians, too, in the eightieth year after the war, together with the Heracleidae occupied the Peloponnesus. And so when painfully and after a long course of time Hellas became permanently tranquil and its population was no longer subject to expulsion from their homes, it began to send out colonies. The Athenians colonized Ionia and most of the islands; the Peloponnesians, the greater part of Italy and Sicily and some portions of the rest of Hellas. And all these colonies were planted after the Trojan war. ...
