Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/309

 B(EOTIANS.-ORCHOMENUS. 295 slaves either among the Lokrians or Phokians, and that the work required to be done for proprietors was performed by poor freemen ; l a habit which is alleged to have been continued until the temporary prosperity of the second Sacred "War, when the plunder of the Delphian temple so greatly enriched the Pho- kian leaders. But this statement is too briefly given, and too imperfectly authenticated, to justify any inferences. We find in the poet Alkman (about G10 B. c.). the Erysl- chaean, or Kalydonian shepherd, named as a type of rude rus- ticity, the antithesis of Sardis, where the poet was born. 3 And among the suitors who are represented as coming forward to claim the daughter of the Sikyonian Kleisthenes in marriage, there appears both the Thessalian- Diaktorides from Krannon, a member of the Skopad family, and the -ZEtolian Males, brother of that Titormus who in muscular strength surpassed all his con- temporary Greeks, and who had seceded from mankind into the inmost recesses of JEtolia : this jEtolian seems to be set forth as a sort of antithesis to the delicate Smindyrides of Sybaris, the most luxurious of mankind. Herodotus introduces these charac- t^rs into his dramatic picture of this memorable wedding. 3 Between Phokis and Lokris on one side, and Attica (from which it 12 divided by the mountains Kithaeron and Parnes) on the other, we find the important territory called Boeotia, with its ten or twelve autonomous cities, forming a sort of confederacy under the presidency of Thebes, the most powerful among them. Even of this territory, destined during the second period of this history, to play a part so conspicuous and effective, we know nothing during the first two centuries after 776 B. c. We first acquire some insight into it, on occasion of the disputes between Thebes and Platoca, about the year 520 B. c. Orchomenus, on the north-west of the lake Kopai's, forms throughout the histori- cal times one of the cities of the Boeotian league, seemingly the second after Thebes. But I have already stated that the Orcho- 1 Timaeus, Fragm. xvii. ed. Goller; Polyb. xii. 6-7; Athenaeus, vi. p. 264. phen. Byz. ('Epvaixi]), and alluded to by Strabo, x. p. 460: see "Welrkcr Alkm. Fragm. xi. and Bergk, Alk. Fr. xii. 'Herodot. yi. 127.
 * This brief fragment of the Hap&evela of Alkman is preserved by Ste-