narrow neck, called yuxor, whence men with long necks are by the comedian termed in derision γύλιαύχενες *.

CHAP. V.

Of the Officers in the Athenian and Lacedæmonian Armies.

THE

HE Grecian cities being governed by different laws, the nature and titles of their offices, whether in military or civil affairs, must of consequence be distinguished. Wherefore, it being an endless undertaking to recount the various commands throughout the whole Grecian nation, I shall only present you in this place with a short view of the chief offices in the Athenian and Lacedæmonian armies.

And

In the primitive times, when most states were governed by kings, the supreme command belonged to them of course; and it was one principal part of their duty towards their subjects, to lead them forth in person against their enemies, and in single combat to encounter the bravest of them at the head of their armies. it may be observed, that when any prince, through cowardice, or other weakness, was judged unable to protect his people, it was customary for them, withdrawing their allegiance, to substitute a person better qualified in his place; a memorable instance whereof we have in Thymoetes an Athenian king, who declining a challenge sent by Xanthus king of Boeotia, was deposed without farther ado, and succeeded by a foreigner, one Melanthius a Messenian, who undertook to revenge the quarrel of Athens on the Boeotians".

Yet, on some occasions, it was not impracticable for the king to nominate a person of eminent worth and valour to be his Пoxéμagxos, or general, who either commanded under the king, or, when the emergency of other affairs required his absence, supplied his place: which honourable post was conferred by king Erectheus upon Ion, the son of Xuthus, in the Eleusinian war z.

But the government being at length devolved upon the people, affairs were managed after a new method; for all the tribes being invested with an equal share of power, it was appointed that each of them should nominate a commander out of their own body.

Απατάρι

x Pace. y Vide Archæolog. nostr. lib. ii, cap. 20. in Axarégia. Z Pausan. Atticis, VOL. II.

That this was done in the time of Cimon, appears from Plutarch. But whether each of the tribes perpetually made choice of one of their own body, or sometimes named men of other tribes, is not very certain. No person was appointed to this command, unless he had children and land within the territory of Athens. Those were accounted pledges to the commonwealth. And sometimes the children were punished for the treason of their fathers; which, though seemingly cruel and unjust, was yet antiquum et omnium civitatum, an ancient custom, and received in all cities, as Cicero hath observed. He gives us in the same place an instance in Themistocles's children, who suffered for the crimes of their father. Hence Sinon in Virgil, pretending to have quitted the Grecian for the Trojan interest, speaks thus of his children":

Quos illi fors ad pœnas ob nostra reposcent

Effugia, et culpam hanc miserorum morte piabunt.
Whom haply Greece to slaughter has decreed,

And for my fatal flight condemn'd to bleed.

PITT.

To return to our subject. The nomination of the generals was made in an assembly of the people, which, on this occasion, was convened in the pnyx, and frequently lighted on the same persons, if they behaved themselves with courage and prudence, and executed their office for the safety and honour of their country; insomuch that it is reported of Phocion, that he was a commander five-and-forty times, though he never sued, or canvassed for that honour, but was always promoted by the free and voluntary choice of the people. Before their admission to office, they took an oath of fidelity to the commonwealth, wherein one thing is more peculiarly remarkable, viz. that they obliged themselves to invade the Megarians twice every year: which clause was first inserted in the oath by a decree preferred by Charinus, on account of Anthemocritus, an Athenian herald, whom the Megarians had barbarously murdered about the beginning of the Peloponnesian warf. This done, the command of all the forces, and warlike preparations, was intrusted in their hands, to be employed and managed as they judged convenient; yet was not their power absolute and unlimited, it being wisely ordered, that upon the expiration of their command, they should be liable to render an account of their administration: only on some extraordinary occasions, it seemed fit to exempt them from this restraint, and send them with full

a Cimone.

b Conf. Petitus Comment in Leges Atticas, Dinarchus in Demosthenem.

e Epist. xvi. ad Brutum. Conf. Cœlius Rhodiginus, lib. xiv. cap. 12.

d Eneid. lib. ii. v. 139.
e Plutarch. Phocione.
f Plutarch, Pericle.

τορες

and uncontroulable authority, and then they were stiled Auroxgá8: which title was conferred on Aristides, when he was general, at the famous battle of Platea; upon Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus, in the Sicilian expedition, and several others". These commanders were ten, according to the number of the Athenian tribes, and all called Ergarnfoi, being invested with equal power, and about the first times of their creation frequently dispatched all together in expeditions of concern and moment, where every one enjoyed the supreme command by days. But lest, in controverted matters, an equality of voices should retard their proceedings, we find an eleventh person joined in commission with them, and called Пoxiagos, whose vote, added to either of the contesting parties, weighed down the balance, as may appear from Herodotus's account of the Athenian affairs in the Median war. To the same person the command of the left wing of the army belonged of right i.

But afterwards, it was looked on as unnecessary, and perhaps not very expedient, for so many generals to be sent with equal power to manage military affairs: wherefore, though the ancient number was elected every year, they were not all obliged to attend the wars; but one, two, or more, as occasion required, were dispatched to that service: the polemarchus was diverted to civil business, and became judge of a court, where he had cognizance of law-suits between the natives, or freemen of Athens, and foreigners: the rest of the generals had every man his proper employment; yet none were wholly free from military concerns, but determined all controversies that happened amongst men of that fession, and ordered all the affairs of war that lay in the city). Hence they came to be distinguished into two sorts; one they termed τὰς ἐπὶ τῆς διοικήσεως, because they administered the city business; the other, tùs iπì tãvöλ, from their concern about arms. The latter of these listed and disbanded soldiers, as there was occasion, and, in short, had the whole management of war devolved upon them, during their continuance in that post, which seems not to have been long, it being customary for the generals who remained in the city, to take their turns of serving in the war'. Tağlagxo were likewise ten (every tribe having the privilege of

g Suidas.

h Plutarchus Aristide, &c. i Herodotus Erato.

j Demosthenes Philipp.

pro

k Idem Orat. de Epitrierch, Plutarchus Phocione.

1 Ulpianus in Medianam.

electing one), and commanded next under the Ergarayol. They had the care of marshalling the army, gave orders for their marches, and what provisions every soldier should furnish himself with, which were conveyed to the army by public criers. They had also power to cashier any of the common soldiers, if convicted of misdemeanours. Their jurisdiction was only over the foot". "Iago, were only two in number ", and had the chief command of the cavalry next under the Στρατηγοί.

úλaga were ten; one being nominated by every tribe. They were subordinate officers to the 'Index, and invested with authority to discharge horsemen, and to fill up the vacancies, as occasion required P.

Thus much of the general-officers. The inferiors usually derived their titles from the squadron, or number of men under their command: as λοχαγοί, χιλίαρχοι, ἑκατόνταρχοι, δεκάδαρχοι, πεμπαδας xo, &c. Proceed we, in the next place, to the commanders of the Spartan army.

The supreme command was lodged in one person; for the Lacedæmonians, however fond of aristocracy in civil affairs, found, by experience, that in war, a monarchial government was on several accounts preferable to all others for it happening, that once, upon a difference in opinion between their two kings, Demaratus and Cleomenes, the former withdrew his part of the army, and left his colleague exposed to the enemy, a law was hereupon enacted, that, for the future, they should never command the army together, as had been usual before that misfortune. Yet upon extraordinary occasions, when the safety and honour of the state was in dispute, they had so much prudence, as rather,.by transgressing the letter of the law to secure their country, than, by insisting on niceties, to bring it into danger: for we find that, when Agis was engaged in a dangerous war with the Argeans and Mantineans, Plistonax, his fellow king, having raised an army out of such citizens, as by their age were at other times excused from military service, went in person to his assistance.

The general's title (as some say) was Bafos, which others will have common to all other military officers. He was ordinarily one of the kings of Sparta; it being appointed by one of Lycurgus's

m Lysias Orat. pro Mantitheo, et de neglecta militia. Aristophanis Scholiast. Avibus.

n Sigonius de Rep. Athen • Demosthenes Midiana.

P Lysias in locis citatis.

9 Isocrates ad Nicoclem.
Herodotus, lib. v. cap. 5.

$ Thucydides, lib. v.
t Hesychius,

laws, that this honour should belong to the kings: but in cares of necessity, as in their king's minority, a protector, or viceroy, called godine, was substituted for the management of military, as well as civil affairs". It was under this character that Lycurgus reformed and new-modelled the Lacedæmonian polity, and commanded their armies, during the infancy of king Charilaus. Pausanias also was tutor to Plistarchus, when he led the Lacedæmonians, and the rest of the Grecians, against Mardonius, Xerxes's lieutenant, at Platea ".

This only concerned their land-armies; for the laws made no provision for their fleets, their lawgiver having positively forbidden them to meddle with marine affairs. Wherefore, when they became masters of a navy, they confined not their elections of admirals to the royal house, but rather chose to commit that great trust to their most able and experienced seamen; as may appear from the instances of Lysander, and several others, who commanded the Spartan fleets, though never invested with royal power. Nor was it ordinarily permitted their kings, when intrusted with land-armies, to undertake the office of admiral. The only person honoured with those two commands at the same time, was the great Agesilaus *.

The king, however limited and restrained when at home, was supreme and absolute in the army, it being provided, by a particular precept of the law, that all others should be subordinate to him, and ready to obey his commands. Notwithstanding this, he was not always left wholly to himself, and the prosecution of his own measures, it being customary for some of the magistrates, called ephori, to accompany him and assist him with their advice. To these, on some occasions, others were joined. When Agis had unadvisedly entered into a league with the Argians, at a time when it lay in his power to have forced them to accept of terms far more honourable to his country, the Spartans highly resented his imprudence, and enacted a decree, that he should never again command an army, without ten counsellors to go along with him. Whether the succeeding kings were hereby obliged, does not fully appear; but it seems probable they were not sent to the wars without a council, consisting, if not of the same, however of

Xenophon de Repub. Lacedæm.

▾ Plutarchus Lycurgo.

w Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarchus, Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias.

x Plutarchus Agesilao.

y Herodotus, lib. vi. Thucydides,

lib. v.

2 Xenophon 'Eλanvınŵv lib. ii.