Page:History of Art in Primitive Greece - Mycenian Art Vol 1.djvu/128

The People. 107 begins to crackle, and the flame bursts forth warmer and clearer than before, as it ascends to heaven. That there was an excess of population at a given time, is proved by the frequency of encounters, displacements, confusion, and disorder, which provoked a general emigration of the masses. To account for the fact that conquerors having it all their own way should have followed the example of the conquered, without any apparent motive, we must assume that want of space made them dissatisfied with their lot. It was a fortunate accident which dispersed all these European Greeks on the western coast of Asia and the islands fronting it. Whether they were Leleges or lonians who thus returned to establish themselves in their original homes, whether iEolians or Dorians who crossed the Archipelago for the first time, they all were somewhat different from their former selves, when they had navigated the sea as pirates, and scattered themselves afterwards in small bodies over vast areas, or got domiciled on the as yet deserted coasts of the Hellenic peninsula, where they had commenced to domesticate the wheat and barley, in order to replace acorns as their staple food, or when savage and violent they had swooped down upon the lowlands of Thessaly, from the gorges of Pindus. The first settlements had prospered ; here by commerce and industry, there by tilling fruitful lands ; markets had been opened along the coast, whither the inhabi- tants of the surrounding plains, of the mountains, valleys, and table-lands came to renew their provisions. Clustering huts had been transformed into permanent hamlets; the more important, when not encircled within walls, had placed themselves under the protection of strong castles in which resided their chieftains. The ruder populations had become humanized by contact with tribes having their seats near the sea, and in perpetual relation with strangers. When the whole country was thus ** furnished and garnished," when relations beneficial to all concerned had been entered into, the next step to make them surer, was to bind themselves by solemn oaths to refrain from certain acts, so as to diminish border feuds arising out of a spring, a well or pasture, which often formed the bone of contention between these diminutive commonwealths. Hence associations were established on many points between the inhabitants of neighbouring districts, analogous to the Delphic Amphictyony,