were also deleted, and the same fate befell such chapters as dealt with mere temporary matters. The most important of these was Chapter LXI., which provided for the appointment of 25 executors to compel John to observe the charter. The next year peace was made at Lambeth (Sept. 11, 1217) between Henry III. and Louis and another reissue of the charter was promised. This promise was carried out, but two charters appeared, one being a revised issue of Magna Carta proper, and the other a separate charter dealing with the forests, all references to which were omitted from the more important document. The date of this issue appears to have been the 6th of November 1217. The issue of a separate forest charter at this time led subsequently to some confusion. Roger of Wendover asserts that John issued a separate charter of this kind when Magna Carta appeared. This statement was believed by subsequent writers until the time of Blackstone, who was the first to discover the mistake.
As issued in 1217 Magna Carta consists of 47 chapters only. It declares that henceforward scutages shall be taken according to the precedents of Henry II.’s reign. New provisions were introduced for the preservation of the peace—unlawful castles were to be destroyed—while others were directed towards making the administration of justice by the visiting justices less burdensome. With regard to the land and the services due therefrom a beginning was made of the policy which culminated in the statutes of Mortmain and of Quia Emptores. The sheriffs were ordered to publish the revised charter on the 22nd of February 1218. Then in February 1225 Henry III. again issued the two charters with only two slight alterations, and this is the final form taken by Magna Carta, this text being the one referred to by Coke and the other early commentators. Subsequently the charters were confirmed several times by Henry III. and by Edward I., the most important occasion being their confirmation by Edward at Ghent in November 1297. On this occasion some supplementary articles were added to the charter; these were intended to limit the taxing power of the crown.
There are at present in existence four copies of Magna Carta, sealed with the great seal of King John, and several unsealed copies. Of the four two are in the British Museum. Both came into the possession of the Museum with the valuable collection of papers which had belonged to Sir Robert Cotton, who had obtained possession of both. One was found in Dover castle about 1630. This was damaged by fire in 1731; the other is undamaged. The two other sealed copies belong to the cathedrals of Lincoln and of Salisbury. Both were written evidently in a less hurried fashion than those in the British Museum, and the one at Lincoln was regarded as the most perfect by the commissioners who were responsible for the appearance of the Statutes of the Realm in 1810. The British Museum also contains the original parchment of the Articles of the Barons. Magna Carta was first printed by Richard Pynson in 1499. This, however, was not the original text, which was neglected until the time of Blackstone, who printed the various issues of the charter in his book The Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest (1759). The earliest commentator of note was Sir Edward Coke, who published his Second Institute, which deals with Magna Carta, by order of the Long Parliament in 1642. Modern commentators, who also print the various texts of the charter, are Richard Thomson, An Historical Essay on the Magna Carta of King John (1829); C. Bémont, in his Chartes des libertés anglaises (1892); and W. Stubbs in his Select Charters (1895). A more recent book and one embodying the results of the latest research is W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (1905). The text of Magna Carta is also printed in the Statutes of the Realm (1810–1828), and in T. Rymer’s Foedera (1816–1869). In addition to Blackstone, Coke and these later writers, the following works may also be consulted: John Reeves, History of English Law (1783–1784); L. O. Pike, A Constitutional History of the House of Lords (1894); W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England (1897); Sir F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law (1895); W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (1903), and Kate Norgate, John Lackland (1902). (A. W. H.*)
MAGNA GRAECIA (ἡ μεγάλη Ἑλλάς), the name given (first,
apparently, in the 6th century B.C.) to the group of Greek
cities along the coast of the “toe” of South Italy (or more strictly
those only from Tarentum to Locri, along the east coast), while
the people were called Italiotes (Ἰταλιῶται). The interior,
which the Greeks never subdued, continued to be in the hands of
the Bruttii, the native mountaineers, from whom the district
was named in Roman times (Βρεττία also in Greek writers).
The Greek colonies were established first as trading stations,
which grew into independent cities. At an early time a trade in
copper was carried on between Greece and Temesa (Homer, Od.
i. 181).[1] The trade for a long time was chiefly in the hands of the
Euboeans; and Cyme (Cumae) in Campania was founded in the
8th century B.C., when the Euboean Cyme was still a great city.
After this the energy of Chalcis went onward to Sicily, and the
states of the Corinthian Gulf carried out the colonization of Italy,
Rhegium having been founded, it is true, by Chalcis, but after
Messana (Zancle), and at the request of the inhabitants of the
latter. Sybaris (721) and Crotona (703) were Achaean settlements;
Locri Epizephyrii (about 710) was settled by Ozolian
Locrians, so that, had it not been for the Dorian colony of Tarentum,
the southern coast of Italy would have been entirely occupied
by a group of Achaean cities. Tarentum (whether or no founded
by pre-Dorian Greeks—its founders bore the unexplained name
of Partheniae) became a Laconian colony at some unknown date,
whence a legend grew up connecting the Partheniae with Sparta,
and 707 B.C. was assigned as its traditional date. Tarentum is
remarkable as the only foreign settlement made by the Spartans.
It was industrial, depending largely on the purple and pottery
trade. Ionian Greeks fleeing from foreign invasion founded Siris
about 650 B.C., and, much later, Elea (540).
The Italian colonies were planted among friendly, almost kindred, races, and grew much more rapidly than the Sicilian Greek states, which had to contend against the power of Carthage. After the Achaean cities had combined to destroy the Ionic Siris, and had founded Metapontum as a counterpoise to the Dorian Tarentum, there seems to have been little strife among the Italiotes. An amphictyonic league, meeting in common rites at the temple of Hera on the Lacinian promontory, fostered a feeling of unity among them. The Pythagorean and Eleatic systems of philosophy had their chief seat in Magna Graecia. Other departments of literature do not seem to have been so much cultivated among them. The poet Ibycus, though a native of Rhegium, led a very wandering life. They sent competitors to the Olympic games (among them the famous Milo of Croton); and the physicians of Croton early in the 6th century (especially in the person of Democedes) were reputed the best in Greece; but politically they appear to have generally kept themselves separate. One ship of Croton, however, fought at Salamis, though it is not recorded that Greece asked the Italiotes for help when it sent ambassadors to Gelon of Syracuse. Mutual discord first sapped the prosperity of Magna Graecia. In 510 Croton, having defeated the Sybarites in a great battle, totally destroyed their city. Croton maintained alone the leading position which had belonged jointly to the Achaean cities (Diod. xiv. 103); but from that time Magna Graecia steadily declined. In the war between Athens and Syracuse Magna Graecia took comparatively little part; Locri was strongly anti-Athenian, but Rhegium, though it was the headquarters of the Athenians in 427, remained neutral in 415. Foreign enemies pressed heavily on it. The Lucanians and Bruttians on the north captured one town after another. Dionysius of Syracuse attacked them from the south; and after he defeated the Crotoniate league and destroyed Caulonia (389 B.C.), Tarentum remained the only powerful city. Henceforth the history of Magna Graecia is only a record of the vicissitudes of Tarentum (q.v.). Repeated expeditions from Sparta and Epirus tried in vain to prop up the decaying Greek states against the Lucanians and Bruttians; and when in 282 the Romans appeared in the Tarentine Gulf the end was close at hand. The aid which Pyrrhus brought did little good to the Tarentines, and his final departure in 274 left them defenceless. During these constant wars the Greek cities had been steadily decaying; and in the second Punic war, when most of them seized the opportunity of revolting from Rome, their very existence was in some cases annihilated. Malaria increased in strength as the population diminished. We are told by Cicero (De am. 4), Magna Graecia nunc quidem deleta est. Many of the cities completely disappeared, and hardly any of them were of great importance under the Roman empire; some, like Tarentum,
- ↑ This passage should perhaps be referred to the 8th century B.C. It is the first mention of an Italian place in a literary record.
