Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/381

 PERKEKI. 365 residents, or dwellers around the city, usually denoted native inhabitants of inferior political condition as contrasted with the riority, there was only one, and that one is marked by the word while the Lacedaemonian Perioekus had the Helot below him. To an Athen- ian the word conveyed the idea of undefined degradation. To understand better the status of the Pericekus, we may contrast him with the Metcekus, or Metic. The latter resides in the city, but he is an alien resident on sufferance, not a native: he pays a special tax, stands excluded from all political functions, and cannot even approach the magis- trate except through a friendly citizen, or Prostates) etri -Kpoarurov olxslv Lycurgns cont. Leocrat. c. 21-53) : he bears arms for the defence of the state. The situation of a Metic was, however, very different in different cities of Greece. At Athens, that class were well-protected in person and prop- erty, numerous and domiciliated : at Sparta, there were at first none, the Xenelasy excluded them ; but this must have been relaxed long before the days of Agis the Third. The Perioekus differs from the Metic. in being a native of the soil, subject by birth to the city law. M. Kopstadt (in his Dissertation above cited, on Lacedaemonian affairs, sect. 7, p. 60) expresses much surprise at that which I advance in this note respecting Krete and Lacedsemon, that in Krete there was no class of men analogous to the Lacedaemonian Periceki, but only two classes, t. e. free citizens and Helots. He thinks that this position is " prorsus falsum." But I advance nothing more here than what is distinctly stated by Aristo tie, as Kopstadt himself admits (pp. 60, 71). Aristotle calls the subject class in Krete by the name of liepioiKot. And in this case, the general presump- tions go far to sustain the authority of Aristotle. For Sparta was a domi- nant or capital city, including in its dependence not only a considerable territory, but a considerable number of inferior, distinct, organized townships. In Krete, on the contrary, each autonomous state included only a town with its circumjacent territory, but without any annexed townships. There was, therefore, no basis for the intermediate class called, in Laconia, Periceki : just as Kopstadt himself remarks (p. 78) about the Dorian city of Megara. There were only the two classes of free Kretan citizens, and serf-cultiva- tors in various modifications and subdivisions. Kopstadt (following Hoeck, Kreta, b. iii. vol. iii. p. 23) says that the authority of Aristotle on this point is overborne by that of Dosiadas and, Sosikrates, authors who wrote specially on Kretan affairs. Now it" we were driven to make a choice, I confess that I should prefer the testimony of Aristotle, considering that we know little or nothing respecting the other two. But in this case I do not think that we are driven to make a choice : Dosiadas (ap. Athena?, xiv. p. 143) is not cited in terms, so that we cannot affirm him to contradict Aristotle : and Sosikrates (upon whom Hoeck and Kopstadt rely) says something which does not necessarily contradict him,