Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/183

EARLY IONIC FESTIVAL AT DELOS. 1(,7 dependence upon Eretria: 1 other islands seem to have been in like manner dependent upon Naxos, which at the time immedi- ately preceding the Ionic revolt possessed a considerable maritime force, and could muster eight thousand heavy-armed citizens, 2 a very large force for any single Grecian city. Nor was the mili- tary force of Eretria much inferior; for in the temple of the Amarynthian Artemis, nearly a mile from the city, to which the Eretrians were in the habit of marching in solemn procession to celebrate the festival of the goddess, there stood an ancient col- umn setting forth that the procession had been performed by no less than three thousand hoplites, six hundred horsemen, and sixty chariots. 3 The date of this inscription cannot be known, but it can hardly be earlier than the 45th Olympiad, or GOO B. c., near about the time of the Solonian legislation. Chalkis waa 5till more powerful than Eretria; both were in early times gov- erned by an oligarchy, which among the Chalkidians was called hippobota?, or horse-feeders, proprietors probably of most part of the plain called Lelantum, and employing the adjoining moun- tains as summer pasture for their herds. The extent of their property is attested by the large number of four thousand kle- ruchs, or out-freemen, whom Athens quartered upon their lands, after the victory gained over them when they assisted the ex- pelled Hippias in his efforts to regain the Athenian sceptre. 4 Confining our attention, as we now do, to the first two centuries of Grecian history, or the interval between 776 B. c. and 560 b. c., there are scarce any facts which we can produce to ascer- tain the condition of these Ionic islands. Two or three circum- 1 Strabo, x, p. 448. 2 Herodot. v, 31. Compare the accounts of these various islands in the recent voyages of Professor Ross, Reisen auf den Griechischen Inseln, vol. i, letter 2; vol. ii, letter 15. The population of Xaxos is now about eleven thousand souls ; that of Andros fifteen thousand (Ross, vol. i, p. 28; vol. ii, p. 22). But the extent and fertility of the Naxian plain perfectly suffice for that aggregate population of one hundred thousand souls, which seems implied in the account of Herodotus. 3 Strabo, /. c. 4 Herodot. v, 77; Aristoteles, Fragment, ^fpl n*itTeiCn>, ed. Neumann, pp 111-112 : compare Aristot. Polit. iv, 3, 2.