motives which actually prompted union, or what circumstances suggested it? We may discern two, with which we must be here content — (1) the necessities of self-defence; (2) the renown of some prominent centre of religious worship. The two might act together in many instances, but we must deal with each separately and very briefly.
It is an almost self-evident proposition that village communities would stand in need of defence from enemies, whether neighbours or pirates. Thucydides, in the passages already quoted, has pictured their weakness as he conceived it; and with his account it is interesting to compare those of modern travellers, e.g. that of Mr. A. R Wallace, who, in his Malay Archipelago, has described the dangers to which the unprotected villagers are liable in the islands of that group.[1] At a very early period, we may suppose, these little units felt the first influences of a purpose which began to agglutinate them together. Several would unite for the possession of a hill or vantage-ground of refuge, which they would fortify, and to which they could retreat from danger. Such fortified hills are found in every country, including our own. In Italy the stronghold was known as urbs, or oppidum, or arx; and in Greece as πτόλις, or πόλις.[2] Here, then, we come upon
- ↑ Malay Archipelago, p. 341, ed. 1886.
- ↑ Schömann, Antiquities of Greece (Eng, trans.), pp. 121, 123. At p. 66, speaking of the Homeric πόλις, Schömann points out that the πόλις of Homer was not always a fortified place. Probably the word was acquiring its later sense when the Homeric poems were composed.
