PĔRĬOECI

( περίοικοι ). This word properly denotes the inhabitants of a district lying around some particular locality, but is generally used to describe a dependent population, living without the walls or in the country provinces of a dominant city, and although personally free, deprived of the enjoyment of citizenship, and the political rights conferred by it. A political condition such as that of the perioeci of Greece, and like the va alage of the Germanic nations, could hardly have originated in anything else than foreign conquest, and the perioeci of Laconia furnish a striking illustration of this. Their origin dates from the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus, when the old inhabitants of the country, the Achaeans, submitted to their conquerors on certain conditions, by which they were left in po e ion of their private rights of citizenship. They suffered indeed a partial deprivation of their lands, and were obliged to submit to a king of foreign race, but still they remained equal in law to their conquerors, and were eligible to all offices of state except the sovereignty. But this state of things did not last long: in the next generation after the conquest the relation between the two parties was changed. The Achaeans were reduced from citizens to va als; they were made tributary to Sparta; their lands were subjected to a tax; and they lost their rights of citizenship, the right of voting in the general a embly, and their eligibility to important offices in the state, such as that of a senator, . It does not, however, appear that the perioeci were generally an oppre ed people, though kept in a state of political inferiority to their conquerors. On the contrary, the most distinguished among them were admitted to offices of trust, and they sometimes served as heavy-armed soldiers; as, for instance, at the battle of Plataea. The Norman conquest of England presents a striking parallel to the Dorian conquest of Laconia, both in its achievement and consequences. The Saxons, like the old Achaeans, were deprived of their lands, excluded from all offices of trust and dignity, and reduced, though personally free, to a state of political slavery. The Normans, on the contrary, of whatever rank in their own country, were all nobles and warriors, compared with the conquered Saxons, and for a long time enjoyed exclusively the civil and ecclesiastical administration of the land.