COSMI
COSMI (
κόσμοι), the chief
magistrates of Crete. It is proposed under this head to give a brief account
of the Cretan constitution.
Different opinions are held by scholars as to the time when Crete, where the
Phoenicians had settlements, was first colonised by the Greeks. O.
Müller (
Dorians, i. p. 36 ff.) believes in Andron's
account (
Strab. x. p.475,
fin.; Steph. Byz. s. v.
Δώριον;
Diod. 5.80), according to which Dorians came to
Crete, before the time of Minos, from Hestiaeotis, at that time called
Doris, together with some Achaeans and Pelasgi who had remained in Thessaly,
and looks upon
[p. 1.554]Cnosus (
Κνωσός on coins and inscriptions; in MSS. mostly
Κνωσσός as the first Greek settlement in the
island. This view is opposed by Hoeck (
Kreta, ii. p. 15 ff.)
and Grote (
Hist. of Gr. ii. p. 311, n. 3). Duncker
(
Hist. of Gr. i. p. 321 f.) likewise considers Cnosus to
have been the first settlement of the Greeks; but according to him, Dorians
from Argos, under their leader Althaemenes, succeeded in reducing Karath (in
Greek legend the abode of Minos), which now received the name of Cnosus
(Strab. p. 479, 653; Conon,
Narr. 47). At least a century
later (p. 421 ff.) Achaeans, with Pollis as their leader, landed on the
island, built Lyctus (Gortyn, according to Conon,
Narr. 36;
Plato,
Legg. iv. p. 708 A, says, Gortyn was founded
ἐξ Ἄργους), and subjugated many other cities
(
Plut. de Mulier. Virt. p.
247 d.;
Quaest. Gr. p. 296 b.). Hoeck (ii. p. 445 ff.)
adduces strong reasons against the opinion that Cnosus was the oldest Greek
settlement in Crete, and it is now more generally believed that Argives and
Lacedaemonians settled in the island subsequent to the return of the
Heracleidae (
Diod. 5.80), and that Lyctus
(
Λύκτος in MSS.,
Λύττος on coins and inscriptions), a colony of the
Lacedaemonians (Arist.
Pol. 2.7, 1 S.=10, 2
B.), was the oldest Greek town there (
Plb. 4.54).
This question as to the time of the earliest settlement is closely connected
with that of the relation existing between the Cretan and Spartan
constitutions. The social and political institutions of Crete appeared to be
so similar to the Spartan, that it was a disputed point amongst the ancients
whether the Spartan constitution had its origin in Crete, or whether the
Cretan constitution was transferred from Laconia thither. Ephorus argues at
length that the Spartan institutions originally existed in Crete, but were
perfected in Sparta; and Aristotle agrees in the general view that the
Cretan institutions were older than the Spartan. Hoeck (3.8 ff.), however,
shows that this is an untenable position (cf. Trieber,
Forschungen z.
spart. Verfassungsgesch. p. 95 ff.). In O. Müller's
opinion, “at a very remote period the principles of the Doric
constitution were systematised and established in Crete, so that they
afterwards became the model and standard for other states of that
race;” he considers Minos of Cnosus to have been a Dorian, and takes
the name of Minos to indicate “a period in which the Doric invaders
united a part of the island into one state, and by extending their power
over the Cyclades and many maritime districts obtained, according to the
expression of Herodotus, Thucydides and Aristotle, the dominion of the
sea” (
Dor. i. p. 36; cf. Curtius,
Griech. Gesch. i.4 p. 157). According
to Duncker, on the other hand, the tradition of the Greeks had personified
and expressed in the form of Minos the dominion of the Phoenicians in the
Aegean Sea, in his laws the well-ordered life of the cities of Crete which
the Phoenicians had occupied (Karath =
Καίρατος, the old name of Cnosus; Ethanath =
Ἰτανός Lebana =
Λεβήν, Arvad =
Ἄραδος,
etc.). He holds (p. 371) that the Spartan laws were asserted to have come
from Crete (Arist.
l.c.; [Plat.]
Minos, p. 318 C), “because it was supposed that the
laws of the Cretan cities came from Minos, and that Minos received them
from Zeus (
Odyss. 19.178). If Sparta's laws came from
Crete, they came from Zeus.” In Duncker's opinion, the similarity
of institutions in Crete and Sparta is due to their resting on the same
foundations, viz. an armed immigration and a long period of war; and
Schoemann (
Griech. Alterth. i. p. 297) expresses a like
opinion: “This similarity may be explained, without intentional
imitation, by the community of nationality, which under like conditions
must produce like institutions.” This then, and especially the
fact that colonists from Sparta transplanted Spartan institutions to Cretan
soil, accounts for this similarity (cf. Busolt,
Griech.
Gesch. i. pp. 128, 191), limited as it is (
Plb.
6.45, speaking of his own time only, denies it altogether); and
this view agrees with the statement of Ephorus (Strab. p. 481), that the
political system of Lyctus, Gortyn, and some smaller towns maintained itself
more primitive than that of Cnosus, the ancient residence of Minos. Gilbert
(
Handb. ii. p. 216 f., n.) gives the names of forty-three
independent towns (there were also dependent cities; cf. Strab. p. 478,
479); and Strabo (p. 476) names Cnosus, Gortyn, and Cydonia as the most
powerful among them: “When Cnosus and Gortyn acted in harmony, they
held sway over all the other towns; when they quarrelled, the whole
island was divided into two parties.” Discord seems to have been
the normal condition in Crete; only when it was necessary to keep off an
invader, were the towns united (
Συγκρητισμός,
Plut. de Frat. Amor. p. 490
b.;
Etym. M. s. v.
συγκρητίσαι: see also
Plb. 29.4).
Individual towns were at different times bound to one another by special
treaties (
φιλία καὶ συμμαχία καὶ
ἰσοπολιτεία): cf.
C. I. G. No. 2554, 50.186 and
1. 214=Cauer, del.2 No. 119;
C. I. G. No.
2555=C. No. 116; C. No. 117, etc.
In an inscription belonging (according to Boeckh) to the end of the 3rd
century B.C. (
C. I. G. No. 2556, treaty between Hierapytna
and Priansium), the
κοινοδίκιον, a kind of
supreme court, in which matters in dispute between different cities were
settled, is mentioned as suspended (it was again in existence in B.C. 184,
Plb. 23.15), and arrangements are made in
this treaty as to the manner in which disputes which had arisen (since the
suspension) between the inhabitants of the two towns in question should be
settled, viz. before a
δικαστήριον
(probably of a third city), on which the two cities had agreed, and which
was presided over by the Cosmi of the two cities (Hoeck, iii. p. 88,
identifies the
διεξαγωγά/un> with
the
ἡγεμονία δικαστηρίου of Attic law);
for the future such disputes were to be referred to an arbitrator (
πρόδικος), from whose decision an appeal might
be made to a court (
ἐπικριτήριον),
consisting of inhabitants of a third city, on which both cities should agree
; or, according to Boeckh, to a joint court of the two cities with
inhabitants of a third city added ( “
ἐπικριτήριον optime dicebatur numerus iudicum
additicius” ), the same with the
κοινὸν
δικαστήριον (50.48), before which Cosmus or private
individual was to be accused who endeavoured to upset this treaty.
Our information as regards the constitution of the Cretan cities (in all
essential points the same, for
Plb. 6.46 speaks
of
ἡ Κρητικὴ πολιτεία),--which is
derived from Ephorus and Aristotle,
[p. 1.555]between whose
accounts there is great resemblance, and from later writers, as Dosiades,
Sosicrates, who wrote
Κρητικά, etc.--has
been considerably increased by the discovery of the Gortyn Code (probably
B.C. 450-350), of which H. J. Roby (
Law Quarterly Rev., April
1886) has published a translation, with notes, giving also an account of
other translations and commentaries. (We shall refer especially to Joh. and
Theod. Baunack (B.); Comparetti in
Mus. Ital. di Antich.
Class. i. (C.); Jac. Simon (S.); and E. Zitelmann in
Rh.
M. Suppl. vol. 40 (Z.).)
The population of the island was divided into three classes: slaves,
ὑπήκοοι, and freemen. The slaves were of three
kinds: (
a) slaves of the state (
ἡ κοινὴ δουλεία), called by a collective term
μνοία, or
μνῷται; these cultivated the land which the state had
reserved to itself as domain land, whilst (
b）
the
ἀφαμιῶται or
κλαρῶται cultivated the estates of individuals (
ἡ ἰδία δουλεία: Sosicrates in
Ath. 6.263 f.); these are the
Ϝοικέες of the Gortyn Code,
“householders,” who had their own goods, whose marriages
were recognised, and who, in default of kin, succeeded to the inheritance of
their lord (Z., p. 63 f., p. 144; yet this explanation of
ὁ κλᾶρος has been called in question by S. p.
85 ff., and Schaube,
Herm. 1886, p. 222, in whose opinion
ὁ κλᾶρος is the estate itself, and
τὰ κρέματα went with the
κλᾶρος, of which the state had to dispose).
These two classes of slaves were probably the ancient inhabitants of the
island conquered in war (
μνῷται οἱ ἐγγενεῖς
οἰκέται,
Athen. 6.267 c.;
ἀφαμιῶται οἱ κατ᾽ ἀγρόν, ἐγχώριοι μὲν ὄντες,
δουλωθέντες δὲ κατὰ πόλεμον, p. 263 e.), and are thus
distinguished from (
c) the purchased slaves
(
οἱ κατὰ πόλιν οἰκέται χρυσώνητοι;
perhaps
ἡ ἐνδοθιδία δώλα in Gortyn Code,
2.11). The treatment of slaves in Crete was not harsh; for “the
Cretans gave them the same institutions as their own, but forbade them
gymnastic exercises and the possession of arms” (Arist.
Pol. 2.2, 12 S.=5, 19 B.: cf. Hybrias in
Athen. 15.695 e.); when therefore
Eustathius (
Il. 1.321, p. 110, 9; and
Dionys. Perieg. 5,
533) says that the Cretans obtained armed
attendants (
θεράποντες) from among their
slaves, the third class (
c) must probably be
understood.
Aristotle says, “The Helots are the husbandmen of the Lacedaemonians,
and the Perioeci of the Cretans” (
Pol. 2.7, 3 S. = 10, 5 B. In 4.9, 1b
S.=7.10, 1 B. he distinguishes
τὸ
μάχιμον and
τὸ γεωργοῦν); but
from this the conclusion should not be drawn (which Grote, ii. p. 365 n.,
draws), that there was not in Crete also another class of subject population
corresponding more closely to the
περίοικοι
of Laconia, the name of which Sosicrates has preserved. This writer clearly
distinguishes from the
μνῷται and
ἀφαμιῶται a third class, to whom he applies a
term clearly intended to recall the Laconian institution of Perioeci:
τοὺς δὲ περιοίκους (
οἱ Κρῆτες καλοῦσι)
ὑπηκόους (
Athen. 6.
263 f.), whilst other writers identify the Helots with the
κλαρῶται, e. g. Photius, s. v.
Καλλικύριοι: . . . ὅμοιοι τοῖς παρὰ Λακεδαιμονίοις
εἵλωσι καὶ παρὰ Θεσσαλοῖς πενέσταις καὶ παρὰ Κρησὶ
κλαρώταις: cf. Bekk.
Anecd. i. p. 292, 7.
Aristotle, who does not mention the Lacedaemonian
περίοικοι at all, must be supposed to understand by
περίοικοι in Crete the
ἀφαμιῶται (or
κλαρῶται),
who may fitly be called so as dwellers in the open country (cf. Hesych.
ἀφαμιῶται: οἰκέται ἀγροῖκοι,
πάροικοι); and among them the laws of Minos, he says, were still
in force (cf. Plat.
Min. 16, p. 321 B.). To the
ὑπήκοοι Hoeck (iii. p. 24 ff.) refers
Aristotle's remark about “the tribute which is paid by the
περίοικοι” (
Pol. 2.7, S.=46, 10, 8 B.), and he connects with this Dosiades'
statement in
Athen. 4.143 b:
τῶν δούλων ἕκαστος Αἰγιναῖον φέρει στατῆρα κατὰ
κεφαλήν, δοῦλοι being used in his opinion as a general term
for those who were not free citizens; he bases this view mainly on the
assumption that the
μνῷται and
ἀφαμιῶται had no property of their own. Since,
however, we learn from the Gortyn Code, 4.42, that with regard to the latter
the contrary was the case, it seems advisable to accept O. Müller's
view (ii. p. 53), according to which
δοῦλοι
meant the
ἀφαμιῶται. These
ὑπήκοοι were probably the inhabitants of
non-Dorian cities, which were dependent on one or other of the autonomous
Dorian cities. Z. identifies with them the
ἀπέταιροι of the Gortyn Code; in his opinion the
ἑταιρεῖαι were originally subdivisions of the
φυλαί, and corresponded to the Attic
phratries, inasmuch as the adopter had to give to his own
ἑταιρεία a victim and a pitcher of wine (Gortyn
Code, 10.38), and only at a later period they became “common
messes” (Dosiades in
Athen. 4.143 b,
διῄρηνται δ᾽οἱ πολῖται πάντες καθ᾽
ἑταιρίας, καλοῦσι δὲ ταύτας ἀνδρεῖα). C. explains
ἀφέταιροι to mean those who, as a kind
of punishment, were excluded from the common mess (Poll. 3.58 puts
ἀφέταιροι together with
ἀπολῖται and
ἀπαθηναῖοι);
Roby suggests, “they are perhaps freedmen or other unprivileged
persons;” and Wachsmuth (
Nachr. d. kgl. Ges. d. W. in
Göttingen, 1885, p. 202 foll.) sees in it a name for
ξένοι. So much is certain, that the
ἀφέταιροι occupied a position between
the freemen and the slaves, as is indicated by the scale of fines for
certain offences.
The freemen, the ruling class, were probably divided into the three Dorian
φυλαί: the Gortyn Code mentions
φυλαί (7.51; 8.6, 11, etc.), but
without giving their names, yet
Ὑλλεῖς
(cf.
Hesych. sub voce
Ὕλεες),
Δυμᾶνες, and
Πάμφυλοι occur
in inscriptions which will be quoted below in connexion with the
κόσμοι. Whilst the Gortyn Code speaks of
πολιαταί simply (10.35; 11.14), without
any mention of privileged classes among them, we learn from Aristotle that
there were such; for the
κόσμοι were not
chosen
ἐξ ἁπάντων, but
ἐκ τινῶν γενῶν (
Polit. 2.7, 5b S.=10, 10 B.). The office of
κόσμοι (
κοσμίοντες, Gort. Code, 1.51; Cauer,2
No. 121;
κόσμιοι,
C. I. G. No. 3047;
κόρμοι,
Bull. de Corr. Hell. ix. No. 13 (1886, p. 19), and 1. 2
ἐκόρμιον, but 1. 5
κόσμοι)--ten in number (
Strab. x. p.484,
ἄρχοντας δὲ δέκα
αἱροῦνται)--is identified by Aristotle and Ephorus in
Strab. x. p.482 (cf.
Cic. de Rep. 2.33) with that of the ephors of
Laconia; yet the resemblance is but slight. In the first place, at Sparta
the kingly rule lasted on; and the kings being
ἀΐδιοι στρατηγοί (Arist.
Pol. 2.6, 22 S.=9, 33 B.), the ephors never acquired the military
command; whilst in Crete the kingly power, if it ever existed, had long
since been abolished (only Herodotus,
4.154,
mentions
[p. 1.556]a
βασιλεὺς Etearchus at Axus, yet it is impossible to draw any
inference from this; he may have been a sacerdotal functionary, such as we
find under the title of king in many places, or Herodotus may have used the
term inaccurately for the Protokosmos), and command in war was so much the
prime function of the
κόσμοι that Hesychius
explains
κόσμος: στρατηγὸς κεκοσμημένος.
In the second place, the number and the mode of election is different; the
five ephors being chosen out of all the Spartans. With respect to the
domestic government of the state, the
κόσμοι appear to have exercised a joint authority with the
members of the
βουλή, as they are said to
have consulted with them on the most important matters (
Strab. x. p.484); besides this, they had the
administration of justice, for, as Aristotle says (
Pol. 2.7, 7 S.=10, 14 B.), “the suspension of their office
(
ἀκοσμία) was a device to which
the nobles often had recourse when they would not submit to
justice.” In the Gort. Code (5.5) the phrase occurs,
ὅκ᾽ ὁ αἰθαλεύσταρτὸς (
sic)
ἐκόσμιον οἱ σὺν
Κύλλοι, i. e. when Cyllus was
κόσμος
ἐπώνυμος (in late inscriptions called
πρωτόκοσμος). Hesychius explains
σταρτοί: αἱ τάξεις τοῦ πλήθους; probably the old
γένη, from whom according to Aristotle
the
κόσμοι were elected, were divided into
a number of
τάξεις, who in turn held the
government, and out of the
τάξις or
σταρτός a board of ten were chosen as
an executive. Two other inscriptions date by the rule of the
Αἰθαλεῖς: Cauer,2 No. 121
(Drerus),
ἐπὶ τῶν Αἰθαλέων κοσμιόντων τῶν σὺγ
Κυίᾳ καὶ Κεφάλῳ, etc., and Haussoullier,
Bull.
de Corr. Hell. ix. (1886), No. 11, p. 15,
ἐπὶ τῶν Αἰθαλέων κοσμιόντων, Τύχωνος τῶ Πειθία,
etc.; other inscriptions, which C. quotes, are headed
ἐπὶ τῶν Ἐχανορέων κοσμιόντων, [ἐπὶ τῶν . . . ]σχέων
κοσμιόντων (Latus or Camara),
ἐπὶ
τῶν Παμφύλων κ. (Messeleri),
ἐπὶ
τῶν Ὑλλέων κ. (Latus or Camara),
ἐπὶ τῶν Συμάνων κ. (Hierapytna). The relation of the
σταρτοί to the
φυλαί is not clear. Haussoullier (
l.c. p. 18) publishes an inscription from Gortyn, in which the names
of six
κόσμοι are given, and the one after
the protokosmus is
ὁ ἱεροργός. From the
Gort. Code, 1.52, Z. concludes that a
κόσμος could only be proceeded against after having resigned his
office, this resignation being, however, not spoken of as a certainty, but
as an eventuality, “if he resign;” but B. (p. 123), quoting
Cauer,2 No. 121, 100.18 (
τὸγ
κόσμον. . .ἐμβαλεῖν ἐς τὰν βωλάν, αἴ κα ἀποστᾶντι, τοῦ μηνὸς
τοῦ Κ. ἢ τοῦ Ἁ.: ἁ δὲ βωλὰ πραξάντων ἕκαστον τὸν
κοσμίοντα στατήρας πεντακοσίους, etc.), explains the phrase
correctly as referring to time, “when he resigns.” The Cosmi
probably held office only for a year (
Plb. 6.46;
cf. also the phrases
οἱ ἀεὶ κοσμίοντες, οἱ τόκα
κοσμίοντες in inscriptions, especially in Cauer,2 No. 119=
C. I. G. No. 2556, 5.66,
οἱ ἐπιστάμενοι κατ᾽ ἐνιαυτὸν
κόσμοι); they cannot have held office for life, for “the
γέροντες were elected out of those
who had been Cosmi” (Arist.; Strab., p. 484,
οἱ τῆς τῶν κόσμων ἀρχῆς ἠξιωμένοι καὶ τἄλλα
δόκιμοι κρινόμενοι). this council of the Elders, called
βουλὴ by Aristotle (
βωλὰ inscr.), is compared by him to the Spartan
Gerousia; we are not informed what was their number (Rangabé,
Antiq. Hell. ii. p. 1032, supposes that, all ex-Cosmi
finding their way into the
βουλή, their
number was not fixed) and what was the mode of their appointment, but we are
told that they retained their office for life, that they were subject to no
responsibility, and that they gave decisions according to their own
judgment, dispensing with written law. In some inscriptions (
C. I.
G. 2561; 2562, 23) a
πρείγιστος (i.
e.
πρέσβιστος)
βουλῆς is mentioned. From the inscription (Cauer,2 No. 121) quoted above we learn that the
βουλή exercised a kind of authority over the
Cosmi (cf. in the treaty between Lyctos and Malla,
Bull. de
Corr. ix. (1886), No. 10, pp. 11, 12,
αἰ δὲ
μὴ ναωσαίεν τὰν ἀγέλαν ἀποτεισ[άντων ὁ] κόσμος ἑκατὸν
στατήρας; Buecheler in
Rh. M. 1886, p. 311,
explains
ναοῦν
“cause to assemble in the temple,” as causative to
ναεύειν in Gort. Code, 1.39; cf. also Cauer,2 No. 119, 44 ff.), and that the
βουλή in their turn, if they did not enforce the payment of
the fine from the Cosmi, had to pay a fine themselves to the
οἱ πρεγευταί (Bursian, Rangabé;
ἐφεῦται ῀ ἐφέται, Dethier, Cauer)
τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων, probably high
officials of the treasury (Rang. ii. p. 1035). Ephorus (
Strab. x. p.481) mentions by the side of
ἡ τῶν γερόντων ἀρχή also that
τῶν ἱππέων; of their duties, etc. we
know nothing (Hoeck, iii. p. 58). Caillemer (
Dict. des Antiq.
s. v.
Crete) sees in them a distinct class of
the population. We find also mention of
ὁ
δικαστὰς and
ὁ μνάμων (Gort.
Code, 1.12, etc.); Haussoullier (
Bull. ix. p. 15) publishes
an inscription--not necessarily from Drerus, “because the
κόσμοι were chosen from the
Αἰθαλεῖς” ; cf. Gort. Code,
5.5--from which we learn that the inhabitants of one Cretan city had asked
for
δικασταί from two other towns, one from
Cnosus and two from Lyctus, to settle their disputes, etc. The
μνάμων acts alone in the event of the
renunciation of adoption (Gort. Code, 11.16); he and the
δικαστάς are the proper authority, before whom
the husband who seeks a divorce has to lay whatever he imputes to his wife,
the fourth day before the trial (Gort. Code, 11.53); and the same persons
have to give evidence as to the fact of an alleged judgment having been
really given (Gort. Code, 9.32). The functions of the
μνάμων are practically the same as those of the
μνήμονες in Arist.
Pol. 7.5, 4c S.=6.8, 7 B., “another
officer registers all private contracts. .. and also all preliminary
proceedings;” he had not the charge of religious matters (as in
C. I. G. iii. p. 584), and must likewise be distinguished
from the
κόσμων μνάμων and the
μνάμων ἱεροργῶ (
Bull. de Corr.
ix. (1886), p. 19), i. e.
γραμματεύς
(
Schol. Arist.
Nub. 623).
Ὀρπανοδικασταί are mentioned in Gort. Code,
12.21, 25, as an extraordinary magistracy, who would exercise the control
over heiresses previously given to kinsmen.
1 An inscription belonging perhaps to the 3rd century speaks of
πρέγιστοι ἐπ᾽ εὐνομίας,
“elders for the preservation of good order,” whom Boeckh
compares to the Spartan
σύνδικοἰ ἐπὶ τὰ
ἔθη and
σύνδικοι ἐπι τοὺς
νόμους (
C. I. g.
[p. 1.557]ii. p. 407b). All classes of
freemen shared in the assembly (
ἀγορά,
Gort. Code, 10.34, 11.12; Bekk.
Anecd. i. p. 210, 9), but it
could only ratify the decrees of the elders and the Cosmi (Arist.
Pol. 2.7, 4 S. = 10, 7 B.: cf. Plat.
Legg. i. p. 634); according to the Gortyn Code, adoption and
renunciation of adoption took place before the popular assembly (in Sparta
βασιλέων ἐναντίον,
Hdt. 6.57,
3).
About the middle of the 3rd century B.C. the aristocratic character of the
constitution had given way to democratic institutions (cf. Cauer,2 No. 181, 66 ff.:
τὰν
καθεστακυῖαν δαμοκρατίαν παρὰ Ἱεραπυτνίοις). Polybius
(
6.46) speaks of the annual election of the
ἀρχαί, which, Gilbert (p. 227,, n. 2)
suggests, referred also to the
βουλή, and
points to this as a democratic feature in the constitution. As we learn from
inscriptions, the power of the freemen in assembly (
ἁ
πόλις ῀ ὁ δᾶμος, ἐκκλησία,
C. I. G. 2556, 33 ff.=Cauer,2 No. 119,
etc.) was supreme, and the name of the Cosmi is given in the heading of
decrees merely to fix the year; only in case of treaties with foreign states
do the Cosmi act as a kind of executive, conducting the business of their
city with the foreign ambassadors. The
βουλή continued to exist, but its constitution had necessarily
undergone changes and its power must have been curtailed (Hoeck, iii. p. 75
foll.).
Public education began in Crete with the completion of the seventeenth year
(in Sparta as early as the completion of the seventh). Up to that time boys
were left in their parents' houses, and were called
σκότιοι (Schol.
Eur. Alc.
989, and Aristoph. Byz. p. 431, in Miller,
Mélanges
de la Litt. Gr.), or
ἁπάγελοι
(
Hesych. sub voce), from the circumstance
of their not yet belonging to the
ἀγέλαι
or divisions; they were, however, taken to the common mess by their fathers
(
Strab. x. p.483). With their eighteenth
year they entered the
ἀγέλαι: they were
not, as in Sparta, assigned by the Paedonomus to this or that
ἀγέλη, but banded themselves together, of their
own choice, under one of the most prominent of the young men, whose father
was usually the leader of the
ἀγέλη
(Heracl. Pont. iii. and Schneidewin‘s note on p. 57,
ὃν (sc. the leader)
καλοῦσιν ἀγελάτην). From that time the youths were called
ἀγελάστοι (Hesychius,
ἀγελάστους: τοὺς ἐφήβους, which Cohn,
de Arist. Byz. p. 300, alters to
ἀγελάτας, and Baunack,
Studien, 1.1, p. 40, to
ἀγελάστανς;
ἀγελάοι, Cauer,2 No. 121, 1. 10) or
δρομεῖς (Gort. Code), from being
admitted to the gymnasia (Suid.:
δρόμοις: τοῖς
γυμνασίοις, κατὰ Κρῆτας: cf. the Spartan
σφαιρεῖς,
Paus. 3.14,
6;
C. I. G. 1386, 1432). They probably remained ten years in
the
ἀγέλαι (
Hesych.
sub voce
δεκάδρομοι); and it is usually supposed, on
the authority of Ephorus (
Strab. x. p.482),
that they were compelled by law to marry on their release from the
ἀγέλαι; yet Gilbert (ii. p. 224, n. 1) doubts
that
ἀγέλη is used in this passage in its
technical sense, and points to Gort. Code, 7.40 ff., from which we learn
that a relative, if a
δρομεύς, lost his
right to marry an heiress if he did not do so “within two
months:” hence he concludes that the Cretan youth was allowed to
marry, when he was admitted to the
δρόμοι:
that the wives, however, remained under the roof of their fathers or
brothers for some time longer (see Gort. Code, 2.20 ff., 8.20 ff.),
“until they were fit to manage their own households”
(Strab. p. 482 c.). Girls were deemed marriageable at twelve years of age
(Gort. Code, 12.31 ff.). In Gort. Code, 7.35, there occurs the term
ἀπόδρομος, by which some definite age must be
meant (Wachsmuth, p. 201, “the sixteenth year ;” Gilbert, p.
222, “the seventeenth year” ); for we find there three
distinctions of age recognised:
ἄνωροσ--ἀπόδρομος
ἡβίων--δρομεύς. It is very probable that those who had been
united in an Agela as youths remained united as men in the
ἑταιρεῖαι, which messed together (
ἀνδρεῖα,
Athen. 4.143 b, and Strab.). According to
Aristotle (
Aristot. Pol. 2.7, 4b S.= 10, 7 B.: cf. 6, 21 S. =9, 31 B.), these common
meals were better managed in Crete than in Lacedaemon, being provided at the
public cost. Dosiades (
Athen. 4.143) gives a
full description of the Syssitia of Lyctus, and his account as to the manner
of raising the funds differs somewhat from that given by Aristotle. Some
further details are to be found in Heracl. Pont. iii.: e. g. that four
portions were given to the
ἄρχων, that
strangers were served first, that the Cretans continued to sit at meals,
whilst the Spartans departed from the ancient custom and reclined at table
(cf. O. Müller, ii. p. 290 m, and p. 291 n).
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