On the Periœci of Laconia.

1. The clearest notion of the subjection enforced by the dominant race of Dorians may be collected from the speech of Brasidas to the Peloponnesians, as related by Thucydides. “You are not come,” he says, “from states in which the many rule over the few, but the few over the many, having obtained their sovereignty in no other manner than by victory in the field.” The only right indeed which they possessed was the right of conquerors; the Dorians had by the sword driven out the Achæans, and these again could not rest their claim to the Peloponnese on any better title. It seemed also like a continuation of the heroic age, the existence of which was founded on the rule exercised by the military over the agricultural classes. The relative rights of the Dorians and Achæans appear however to have been determined by mutual compact, since the Dorians, obtaining the superiority only by slow degrees, were doubtless glad to purchase the accession of each town on moderate conditions; and this was perhaps especially the case in Messenia. The native inhabitants of the towns thus reduced to a state of dependence were called Περίοικοι. The difference of races was strictly preserved; and was not (as elsewhere) obliterated by an union in the same city and political community.