Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

888 PERIOECT. PERIOECT.
truth, or arose from his confounding thei Perioeci scendants of the old inhabitants of the country, bIltvith the Helots. we must not suppose they were exclusively so.
Still the grievances of the Perioeci were not Some of them on the contrary were foreigners,
after all intolerable, nor do they seem to have been who had either accompanied the Dorians on their
treated with wantonness or insolence. The distance invasion of Laconia, or been afterwards invited by
at which many of them lived from Sparta, must have them to supply the place of the dispossessed
rendered it impossible for them to share in the ad- Achaians. One of these cities, Boia, is even said
ministration of the state, or to attend the public to have been founded by a Hleracleid chief (Strab.
assemblies; a circumstance which must is some p. 364); and another, Geronthrae, was peopled by
measure have blunted their sense of their political colonists sent from Sparta, after it was evacuated
inferiority. Nor were they subjected to the re- by the old inhabitants. (Paus. iii. 22. ~ 5.)
straints and severe discipline which the necessity The number of Perioeci in the Persian war
of maintaining their political supremacy imposed is thus determined by Clinton (I. c.): —" At the
upon the Spartans, making them more like an battle of Plataeae in B. c. 479, the Perioeci supplied
"army of occupation in a conquered country," orca ] 0,000 men. -If we assume this proportion to be
"beleagured garrison," than a society of men the same as that which the Spartan force bore to
united for civil government and mutual advantage. the whole number on the same occasion, or fiveBy way of compensation, too, the Perioeci enjoyed eighths of the whole number of citizens, this
many advantages (though not considered as privi- would give;16,000 for the males of full age,
leges) which the Spartans did not. The trade and and the total population of this class of the
manufactures of the country were exclusively in inhabitants of Laconia would amount to about
their hands, and carried on by them imith the more 66,000 persons."
facility and profit as they occupied maritime, towns. In the alater times of Spartan history, the
The cultivation of the arts also, as well in the Perioecian townls of ~the cpas.t (Laconicae orae cashigher as in the lower departments, was co.fined tella et vici) were detached from Sparta by T.
to the Perioeci, the Spartans considering it: beneat~h Quintius Flamininus, and placed under the protecthemselves; and many distinguished artists, such tion of tJle Achaian.league. (MUller, iii. 2. ~ 1;
as-embossers and brass-founders, were found in the Liv. xxxiv. 29, 30, xxxviii. 31.) Subsequently
Laconian schools, all of whom were probably to this the emperor Augustus released 24 towns
Perioeci. (Miiller, Dor. iii. 2. ~ 3.) Nor is there from their subjection to Sparta, and formed them
wanting other evidence, though not altogether free into separate communities, under laws of their own.
from doubts, to show that the Spartan provincials They.ere.copsuently called Eleuthero-Lacones.
were not in the least checked or shackled in the (Paus. iii. 21. ~ 6.) But even in the time of Pausadevelopment of their intellectual powers. (Thirl- nias some of the Laconian towns were not aUr'oNwall and MUller, 11. ce.) Moreover, it seems natural vdyol, but dependent upon Sparta (o'urTeoUera- Es
to suppose that they enjoyedcivil rights in the com- Irdp'rqv).
inunities to which they belongadd and which other. A class of Perioeci,,and.also:of Helots, has been
wise would scarcely have been' alled 7rodess; but said by Miiller to be the basis of the Dorian form of
whether or no these cities had the power of elect- government: we Lamy therefore expect to find Periing their own chief magistrate is a matter of conjec- oeci amongst other Dorian communities, as well as at
ture. Ephorus, indeed (I. c.), informs us that on the Sparta, as, for instance, Elis and Argos, and the~
conquest of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, they Boeotian Thebes: the dependent towns of which
divided the country of Laconia into six districts, states formed sepgrate communities, as Thespiae
four of which were left in the possession of the under:Thebes, the Tryphylian cities in Elis, and
Achaians, and governed by magistrates sent from Orneae under Argos,though they could not be called
Sparta; but we do not know hlpt\.Oing this prac- ebTorvyozo. (WVachsmuth, i. 1. p. 161.) From the
tice lasted, nor can we draw any,con.clusipns with last mentioned town, which was long independent,
respect to the government of Laconia in general but reduced about B.c. 580, all the Argive Perioeci
from the example of Cythera, to which a Spartan derived their name of Orneatae. About the time
officer was annually sent under the peculiar title of the Persian war, however, the inhabitants of the
of KvOnpo~sc7rs, or the "Justice of Cythera." towns surrounding Argos were received into the
The number of Laconian (as they are called) city as oSpollocor, and admitted to the rights of
or subject cities, is said to have formerly amounted citizenship; a change which was attended with a
to 100. (Strab. viii. p. 362.) Several of them lay revolution in the constitution of Argos, and gave
on the coast, as Gythium, the port of Sparta; additional force to its democracy. (Muller, iii. 4.
whence the whole coast of Laconia is called -; ~ 2.) The Dorian cities of Crete also had their
7repiondciL. (Thucyd. iii. 16.) Many, however, lay Perioeci (Arist. Pol. ii. 7), as well as the colonies
snore inland, as Thuria (Thucyd. i. 101) and of Cyrene and Thera. (Herod. iv. 161.)
Cardamyle, which seems to have belonged to the The Perioeci of antiquity have been compared
old Messenia. The inhabitants of the district of to other bodies, such as the plebs of Rome, and the
Sciros (s mKcpiTrs), on the confines of Arcadia, seem communities of the Athenian demi or parishes.
to have been distinct from the other Perioeci But the only resemblance they bore to the latter
(Xen. Hell. v. 2. ~ 24), and in battle were posted by was in the similarity of their position relative to
themselves on the left wing. (Thucyd. v. 67.) An the chief city of their country, nor did the former
enumeration of the principal of these cities is given body stand in the same relation to the Patricians
in Clinton. (Fast. Hell. App. c. 22.) The Perioeci as the Laconian provincials did to the Spartan
also occupied the island of Cythera, at the port of citizens. Modern history furnishes fitter objects
which the Lacedaemonian merchants usually put of comparison in the Norman conquest of England
in, on their voyages home from Egypt and Libye. and the city of Augsburg. (Arnold, Tlstqcyd. vol. i.
(Thucyd. iv. 53, vii. 57.) We have said that App. 1 and 2.) The burghers or free citizens of
the Periocci living in these toivns were the de- Augsburg lived in the city, while there grew up