The State: Its History and Development Viewed SociologicallyOppenheimer, Franz
History
The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically
Oppenheimer, Franz
State, The
These harbor markets developed from probably two general types: they
grew up either as piratical fortresses directly and intentionally
placed in hostile territory, or else as “merchant colonies” based on
treaty rights in the harbors of foreign primitive or developed feudal
states.
Of the first type, we have a number of important examples from ancient
history which correspond exactly to the fourth stage of our scheme,
where an armed colony of pirates plants itself down at a commercially
and strategically defendable point on the seacoast of a foreign state.
The most notable instance is Carthage; and in like manner, the Greek
sea nomads, Ionians, Dorians and Achæans, settled in their sea castles
on the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coasts of Southern Italy, on the
islands of these seas, and on the gulfs of Southern Gaul. Phœnicians,
Etruscans,[M] Greeks, and according to modern investigation, Carians,
all about the Mediterranean, founded their “States” after the same
type, with identical class division into masters and servile peasantry
of the neighboring territory.[79]
[M] Whether the Etruscans were immigrants into Italy by land who took
up piracy after having made war successfully on land, or whether as sea
nomads they had already settled the country along the sea named after
them, has not been determined.
Some of these states on the coast developed into feudal states
of the type of the territorial states; and the master class then
became a landed aristocracy. The factors in this change were: first,
geographical conditions, lack of good harbors, and a wide stretch
of _hinterland_ cultivated by peaceful peasants; and secondly, very
probably, the acquired organization into classes taken with them from
their original homes. In many cases, they were fugitive nobles, the
vanquished of domestic feuds, or younger sons, sometimes an entire
generation of youth of both sexes, who thus started “on the viking,”
and having at home had lands and serfs, as petty lords, they again
sought in foreign lands what they regarded as their due. The occupation
of England by the Anglo-Saxons, and of Southern Italy by the Normans,
are examples of this method; so too are the Spanish and Portuguese
colonizations of Mexico and of South America. The Achæan colonies of
Greater Greece in Southern Italy furnish additional and very important
instances of this development of territorial feudal states by sea
nomads: “This Achæan League of cities was a true colonization. The
cities were without harbors--Croton only had a fair roadstead--_and
were without any trade of their own_; the Sybarite could boast of
his growing gray in his water town between his home bridges, while
buying and selling were carried on by Milesians and Etruscans. On the
other hand, the Greeks in this region not only controlled the fringe
of the shore, but ruled from sea to sea; ... the native agricultural
inhabitants were forced into a relation of clientage or serfdom, and
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