considerable number of citizens, arose from the disasters of infant
communities, and was no longer in force under the free but strong
government of Athens. As with the liberties fell the commerce of
Miletus and Ionia, so also another principal source of the old
colonization became comparatively languid and inert. But now, under
the name of Cleruchi [299], a new description of colonists arose--
colonists by whom the mother country not only draughted off a
redundant population, or rid herself of restless adventurers, but
struck the roots of her empire in the various places that came under
her control. In the classic as in the feudal age, conquest gave the
right to the lands of the conquered country. Thus had arisen, and
thus still existed, upon the plundered lands of Laconia, the
commonwealth of Sparta--thus were maintained the wealthy and luxurious
nobles of Thessaly--and thus, in fine, were created all the ancient
Dorian oligarchies. After the return of the Heraclidae, this mode of
consummating conquest fell into disuse, not from any moral conviction
of its injustice, but because the wars between the various states
rarely terminated in victories so complete as to permit the seizure of
the land and the subjugation of the inhabitants. And it must be ever
remembered, that the old Grecian tribes made war to procure a
settlement, and not to increase dominion. The smallness of their
population rendered human life too valuable to risk its waste in the
expeditions that characterized the ambition of the leaders of oriental
hordes. But previous to the Persian wars, the fertile meadows of
Euboea presented to the Athenians a temptation it could scarcely be
expected that victorious neighbours would have the abstinence to
forego; and we have seen that they bestowed the lands of the
Hippobotae on Athenian settlers. These colonists evacuated their
possessions during the Persian war: the Hippobotae returned, and seem
to have held quiet, but probably tributary, possession of their