Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/37

 IONIC EMIGRATION. 21 Achaeans expatriated from Laconia under the guidance of the dispossessed Pelopids.* We are told that in their journey through Boeotia they received considerable reinforcements, and Strabo adds that the emigrants started from Aulis, the port from whence Agamemnon departed in the expedition against Troy. 2 lie also informs us that they missed their course and experienced many losses from nautical ignorance, but we do not know to what par- ticular incidents he alludes. 3 2. IONIC EMIGRATION. The Ionic emigration is described as emanating from and di- rected by the Athenians, and connects itself with the previous legendary history of Athens, which must therefore be here briefly recapitulated. The great mythical hero Theseus, of whose military prowess and errant exploits we have spoken in a previous chapter, was still more memorable in the eyes of the Athenians as an internal political reformer. He was supposed to have performed for them the inestimable service of transforming Attica out of many states into one. Each deme, or at least a great many out of the whole number, had before his time enjoyed political independence under its own magistrates and assemblies, acknowledging only a federal union with the rest under the presidency of Athens : by a mix- ture of conciliation and force, Theseus succeeded in putting down all these separate governments, and bringing them to unite in one political system, centralized at Athens. He is said to have es- tablished a constitutional government, retaining for himself a de- fined power as king, or president, and distributing the people into three classes : Eupatridoe, a sort of sacerdotal noblesse ; Geomori and Demiurgi, husbandmen and artisans. 4 Having brought these important changes into efficient working, he commemorated them for his posterity by introducing solemn and appropriate festivals. In confirmation of the dominion of Athens over the Megarid ter- ritory, he is said farther to have erected a pillar at the extremity of the latter towards the Isthmus, marking the boundary between Peloponnesus and Ionia. 1 Vellcius Patercul. i. 4 : compare Antiklcides ap. Athensc. xi. c. 3 ; Pan- amas, iii. 2, 1. 3 Strabo, ix. p. 401. 3 Strabo, i. p. 10. 4 Plutarch, Theseus, c. 24, 25. 26.