13.07.2015 Views

Untitled - 24grammata.com

Untitled - 24grammata.com

Untitled - 24grammata.com

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS
  • No tags were found...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

158 ANCIENT GREECE. [CHAP. x*n.was givenin Athens or in any Grecian city, except, perhaps,Corinth. Military service was the duty of a citizen ; andhe who served, was obliged to providefor himself. But hewho receives nothing from the state, will the less submit toits <strong>com</strong>mands. From that period,the custom of payingwas so far introduced, that those who had actually taken thefield, received a very small <strong>com</strong>pensation. 1 With such aconstitution, moral causes must have outweighed <strong>com</strong>mands.Courage and patriotism can animate an army of citizens,but can hardly make a machine of them ;and what fruitswould have been gathered by him, who should have succeeded in the attempt?Beside these difficulties, there existed in many statesanother, arising from the weakness of their cavalry, or a total want of it. Homer knows nothing of cavalry. It doesnot seem to have been introduced into the Grecian statestill after the establishment of republican forms of government; since, according to the remark of Aristotle, theopulent citizens found in it at once a support of their power2and a gratification of their vanity. But whether a citycould have cavalry, depended on the nature of its territory,and the quantityof pasture which it possessed. Where theterritory was not favourable, the cavalry was not strong.Athens, where so much attention was paid to this subject,never had more than a thousand men ; Sparta appears, before Agesilaus, to have had few, or perhaps originally noneat all ;the Peloponnesus was little adapted to it ;and Thessaly,the only state of the mother country which possessedany considerable body of it,was not remarkably skilful inmaking use of Where it.3 it existed, none but wealthycitizens could serve in it,for the service was expensive.This was the case in Athens 4 ;and yet here the state provided for the support of the horses even in time of peace ;and the weak but splendid cavalry formed no inconsiderablearticle in the sum of the yearly expenditures.51,The Athenians paid from two to four oboli 2 daily.On Sparta, consult Xenoph. Op. p. 596.? See the account of their war with the Phocians. Pausan. p. 798. Theforces of Thessaly seem to have consisted chiefly in cavalry; at least nothingelse is mentioned.The surest proof of their little * progress in the art of war.The knights, iTrTmg, formed the second class according to 5 property.According to Xenoph. de Magist Equit Op. p, 956, it cost forty talentsannually.

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!