Other proceedings, ascribed to the ephors against the Helots, are

conceived in the same spirit as the incident just recounted from

Thucydidês, though they do not carry with them the same certain

attestation. It was a part of the institutions of Lykurgus (according

to a statement which Plutarch professes to have borrowed from

Aristotle) that the ephors should every year declare war against

the Helots, in order that the murder of them might be rendered

innocent; and that active young Spartans should be armed with

daggers and sent about Laconia, in order that they might, either

in solitude or at night, assassinate such of the Helots as were

considered formidable.[654] This last measure passes by the name of

the Krypteia, yet we find some difficulty in determining to what

extent it was ever realized. That the ephors, indeed, would not

be restrained by any scruples of justice or humanity, is plainly

shown by the murder of the two thousand Helots above noticed; but

this latter incident really answered its purpose, while a standing

practice, such as that of the Krypteia, and a formal notice of war

given beforehand, would provoke the reaction of despair rather

than enforce tranquillity. There seems, indeed, good evidence that

the Krypteia was a real practice,[655]—that the ephors kept up a

system of police or espionage throughout Laconia, by the employment

of active young citizens, who lived a hard and solitary life, and

suffered their motions to be as little detected as possible. The

ephors might naturally enough take this method of keeping watch

both over the Periœkic townships and the Helot villages, and the

assassination of individual Helots by these police-men, or Krypts,

would probably pass unnoticed. But it is impossible to believe in

any standing murderous order, or deliberate annual assassination of

Helots, for the purpose of intimidation, as Aristotle is alleged to

have represented,—for we may well doubt whether he really did make

such a representation, when we see that he takes no notice of this

measure in his Politics, where he speaks at some length both of the

Spartan constitution and of the Helots. The well-known hatred and

fear, entertained by the Spartans towards their Helots, has probably

colored Plutarch’s description of the Krypteia, so as to exaggerate

those unpunished murders which occasionally happened into a constant

phenomenon with express design. A similar deduction is to be made

from the statement of Myrôn of Priênê,[656] who alleged that they

were beaten every year without any special fault, in order to put

them in mind of their slavery,—and that those Helots, whose superior

beauty or stature placed them above the visible stamp of their

condition, were put to death; while such masters as neglected to keep

down the spirit of their vigorous Helots were punished. That secrecy,

for which the ephors were so remarkable, seems enough of itself to

refute the assertion that they publicly proclaimed war against the

Helots; though we may well believe that this unhappy class of men may

have been noticed as objects for jealous observation in the annual

ephoric oath of office. Whatever may have been the treatment of the

Helots in later times, it is at all events hardly to be supposed

that any regulation hostile to them can have emanated from Lykurgus.

For the dangers arising from that source did not become serious

until after the Messenian war,—nor, indeed, until after the gradual

diminution of the number of Spartan citizens had made itself felt.

[654] Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 28; Heraclides Pontic. p. 504, ed.

Crag.

[655] Plato, Legg. i. p. 633: the words of the Lacedæmonian

Megillus designate an existing Spartan custom. Compare the same

treatise, vi. p. 763, where Ast suspects, without reason, the

genuineness of the word κρυπτοί.

[656] Myron, ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 657. ἐπικόπτειν τοὺς ἁδρουμένους

does not strictly mean “to put to death.”

The manumitted Helots did not pass into the class of Periœki,—for

this purpose a special grant, of the freedom of some Periœkic

township, would probably be required,—but constituted a class apart,

known at the time of the Peloponnesian war by the name of Neodamôdes.

Being persons who had earned their liberty by signal bravery, they

were of course regarded by the ephors with peculiar apprehension,

and, if possible, employed on foreign service,[657] or planted on

some foreign soil as settlers. In what manner these freedmen employed

themselves, we find no distinct information; but we can hardly

doubt that they quitted the Helot village and field, together with

the rural costume (the leather cap and sheepskin) which the Helot

commonly wore, and the change of which exposed him to suspicion,

if not to punishment, from his jealous masters. Probably they, as

well as the disfranchised Spartan citizens (called Hypomeiones, or

Inferiors), became congregated at Sparta, and found employment either

in various trades or in the service of the government.

[657] Thucyd. v. 34.

It has been necessary to give this short sketch of the orders of

men who inhabited Laconia, in order to enable us to understand the

statements given about the legislation of Lykurgus. The arrangements

ascribed to that lawgiver, in the way that Plutarch describes them,

presuppose, and do not create, the three orders of Spartans, Periœki,

and Helots. We are told by Plutarch that the disorders which Lykurgus

found existing in the state arose in a great measure from the gross

inequality of property, and from the luxurious indulgence and

unprincipled rapacity of the rich,—who had drawn to themselves the

greater proportion of the lands in the country, leaving a large body

of poor, without any lot of land, in hopeless misery and degradation.

To this inequality (according to Plutarch) the reforming legislator

applied at once a stringent remedy. He redistributed the whole

territory belonging to Sparta, as well as the remainder of Laconia;

the former, in nine thousand equal lots, one to each Spartan citizen;

the latter, in thirty thousand equal lots, one to each Periœkus: of

this alleged distribution, I shall speak farther presently. Moreover,

he banished the use of gold and silver money, tolerating nothing

in the shape of circulating medium but pieces of iron, heavy and

scarcely portable; and he forbade[658] to the Spartan citizen every

species of industrious or money-seeking occupation, agriculture

included. He farther constituted,—though not without strenuous

opposition, during the course of which his eye is said to have

been knocked out by a violent youth, named Alkander,—the Syssitia,

or public mess. A certain number of joint tables were provided,

and every citizen was required to belong to some one of them,

and habitually to take his meals at it,[659]—no new member being

admissible without an unanimous ballot in his favor by the previous

occupants. Each provided from his lot of land a specified quota of

barley-meal, wine, cheese, and figs, and a small contribution of

money for condiments: game was obtained in addition by hunting in

the public forests of the state, while every one who sacrificed to

the gods,[660] sent to his mess-table a part of the victim killed.

From boyhood to old age, every Spartan citizen took his sober meals

at this public mess, where all shared alike; nor was distinction of

any kind allowed, except on signal occasions of service rendered by

an individual to the state.

[658] Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 7.

[659] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 15; substantially confirmed by

Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 1, 5.

[660] See the authors quoted in Athenæus, iv. p. 141.

These public Syssitia, under the management of the Polemarchs, were

connected with the military distribution, the constant gymnastic

training, and the rigorous discipline of detail, enforced by

Lykurgus. From the early age of seven years, throughout his whole

life, as youth and man no less than as boy, the Spartan citizen

lived habitually in public, always either himself under drill,

gymnastic and military, or a critic and spectator of others,—always

under the fetters and observances of a rule partly military,

partly monastic,—estranged from the independence of a separate

home,—seeing his wife, during the first years after marriage, only

by stealth, and maintaining little peculiar relation with his

children. The supervision, not only of his fellow-citizens, but

also of authorized censors, or captains nominated by the state, was

perpetually acting upon him: his day was passed in public exercises

and meals, his nights in the public barrack to which he belonged.

Besides the particular military drill, whereby the complicated

movements required from a body of Lacedæmonian hoplites in the

field, were made familiar to him from his youth,—he also became

subject to severe bodily discipline of other kinds, calculated to

impart strength, activity, and endurance. To manifest a daring

and pugnacious spirit,—to sustain the greatest bodily torture

unmoved,—to endure hunger and thirst, heat, cold, and fatigue,—to

tread the worst ground barefoot,—to wear the same garment winter

and summer,—to suppress external manifestations of feeling, and to

exhibit in public, when action was not called for, a bearing shy,

silent, and motionless as a statue,—all these were the virtues of

the accomplished Spartan youth.[661] Two squadrons were often

matched against each other to contend (without arms) in the little

insular circumscription called the Platanistûs, and these contests

were carried on, under the eye of the authorities, with the utmost

extremity of fury. Nor was the competition among them less obstinate,

to bear without murmuring the cruel scourgings inflicted before the

altar of Artemis Orthia, supposed to be highly acceptable to the

goddess, though they sometimes terminated even in the death of the

uncomplaining sufferer.[662] Besides the various descriptions of

gymnastic contests, the youths were instructed in the choric dances

employed in festivals of the gods, which contributed to impart to

them methodized and harmonious movements. Hunting in the woods and

mountains of Laconia was encouraged, as a means of inuring them to

fatigue and privation. The nourishment supplied to the youthful

Spartans was purposely kept insufficient, but they were allowed to

make up the deficiency not only by hunting, but even by stealing

whatever they could lay hands upon, provided they could do so without

being detected in the fact; in which latter case they were severely

chastised.[663] In reference simply to bodily results,[664] the

training at Sparta was excellent, combining strength and agility

with universal aptitude and endurance, and steering clear of that

mistake by which Thebes and other cities impaired the effect of their

gymnastics,—the attempt to create an athletic habit, suited for the

games, but suited for nothing else.

[661] Xenoph. Rep. Lac. 2-3, 3-5, 4-6. The extreme pains taken to

enforce καρτερία (fortitude and endurance) in the Spartan system

is especially dwelt upon by Aristotle (Politica, ii. 6, 5-16);

compare Plato, De Legibus, i. p. 633; Xenophon, De Laced. Repub.

ii. 9, with the references in Schneider’s note,—likewise Cragius,

De Republica Laced. iii. 8, p. 325.

[662] It is remarkable that these violent contentions of the

youth, wherein kicking, biting, gouging out each other’s

eyes, was resorted to,—as well as the διαμαστίγωσις, or

scourging-match, before the altar of Artemis,—lasted down to

the closing days of Sparta, and were actually seen by Cicero,

Plutarch, and even Pausanias. Plutarch had seen several persons

die under the suffering (Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 16, 18-30; and

Instituta Laconica, p. 239; Pausan. iii. 14, 9, 16, 7; Cicero,

Tuscul. Disp. ii. 15).

The voluntary tortures, undergone by the young men among the

Mandan tribe of Indians, at their annual religious festival,

in the presence of the elders of the tribe,—afford a striking

illustration of the same principles and tendencies as this

Spartan διαμαστίγωσις. They are endured partly under the

influence of religious feelings, as an acceptable offering to

the Great Spirit,—partly as a point of emulation and glory

on the part of the young men, to show themselves worthy and

unconquerable in the eyes of their seniors. The intensity of

these tortures is, indeed, frightful to read, and far surpasses

in that respect anything ever witnessed at Sparta. It would be

incredible, were it not attested by a trustworthy eye-witness.

See Mr. Catlin’s Letters on the North American Indians, Letter

22, vol. i. p. 157, _seq._

“These religious ceremonies are held, in part, for the purpose

of conducting all the young men of the tribe, as they annually

arrive at manhood, through an ordeal of privation and torture;

which, while it is supposed to harden their muscles and prepare

them for extreme endurance,—enables the chiefs who are spectators

of the scene, to decide upon their comparative bodily strength

and ability, to endure the extreme privations and sufferings

that often fall to the lot of Indian warriors; and that they may

decide who is the most hardy and best able to lead a war-party in

case of emergency.”—Again, p. 173, etc.

The καρτερία or power of endurance (Aristot. Pol. ii. 6, 5-16)

which formed one of the prominent objects of the Lycurgean

training, dwindles into nothing compared to that of the Mandan

Indians.

[663] Xenophon, Anab. iv. 6, 14; and De Repub. Lac. c. 2, 6;

Isokratês, Or. xii. (Panath.) p. 277. It is these licensed

expeditions for thieving, I presume, to which Isokratês alludes,

when he speaks of τῆς παίδων αὐτονομίας at Sparta, which, in its

natural sense, would be the reverse of the truth (p. 277).

[664] Aristot. Polit. viii. 3, 3,—the remark is curious,—νῦν μὲν

οὖν αἱ μάλιστα δοκοῦσαι τῶν πόλεων ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῶν παίδων αἱ μὲν

ἀθλητικὴν ἕξιν ἐμποιοῦσι, λωβώμεναι τά τ᾽ εἴδη καὶ τὴν αὔξησιν

τῶν σωμάτων· οἱ δὲ Λάκωνες ταύτην μὲν οὐχ ἥμαρτον τὴν ἁμαρτίαν,

etc. Compare the remark in Plato, Protagor. p. 342.

Of all the attributes of this remarkable community, there is none

more difficult to make out clearly than the condition and character

of the Spartan women. Aristotle asserts that, in his time, they were

imperious and unruly, without being really so brave and useful in

moments of danger as other Grecian females;[665] that they possessed

great influence over the men, and even exercised much ascendency

over the course of public affairs; and that nearly half the landed

property of Laconia had come to belong to them. The exemption of the

women from all control, formed, in his eye, a pointed contrast with

the rigorous discipline imposed upon the men,—and a contrast hardly

less pointed with the condition of women in other Grecian cities,

where they were habitually confined to the interior of the house, and

seldom appeared in public. While the Spartan husband went through

the hard details of his ascetic life, and dined on the plainest fare

at the Pheidition, or mess, the wife (it appears) maintained an

ample and luxurious establishment at home; and the desire to provide

for such outlay was one of the causes of that love of money which

prevailed among men forbidden to enjoy it in the ordinary ways. To

explain this antithesis between the treatment of the two sexes at

Sparta, Aristotle was informed that Lykurgus had tried to bring the

women no less than the men under a system of discipline, but that

they made so obstinate a resistance as to compel him to desist.[666]

[665] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 5; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 31.

Aristotle alludes to the conduct of the Spartan women on the

occasion of the invasion of Laconia by the Thebans, as an

evidence of his opinion respecting their want of courage. His

judgment in this respect seems hard upon them, and he probably

had formed to himself exaggerated notions of what their courage

under such circumstances ought to have been, as the result

of their peculiar training. We may add that their violent

demonstrations on that trying occasion may well have arisen quite

as much from the agony of wounded honor as from fear, when we

consider what an event the appearance of a conquering army in

Sparta was.

[666] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 5, 8, 11.

The view here given by the philosopher, and deserving of course

careful attention, is not easy to reconcile with that of Xenophon

and Plutarch, who look upon the Spartan women from a different side,

and represent them as worthy and homogeneous companions to the men.

The Lykurgean system (as these authors describe it) considering

the women as a part of the state, and not as a part of the house,

placed them under training hardly less than the men. Its grand

purpose, the maintenance of a vigorous breed of citizens, determined

both the treatment of the younger women, and the regulations as

to the intercourse of the sexes. “Female slaves are good enough

(Lykurgus thought) to sit at home spinning and weaving,—but who

can expect a splendid offspring, the appropriate mission and duty

of a free Spartan woman towards her country, from mothers brought

up in such occupations?”[667] Pursuant to these views, the Spartan

damsels underwent a bodily training analogous to that of the Spartan

youth,—being formally exercised, and contending with each other

in running, wrestling, and boxing, agreeably to the forms of the

Grecian agônes. They seem to have worn a light tunic, cut open

at the skirts, so as to leave the limbs both free and exposed to

view,—hence Plutarch speaks of them as completely uncovered, while

other critics, in different quarters of Greece, heaped similar

reproach upon the practice, as if it had been perfect nakedness.[668]

The presence of the Spartan youths, and even of the kings and the

body of citizens, at these exercises, lent animation to the scene. In

like manner, the young women marched in the religious processions,

sung and danced at particular festivals, and witnessed as spectators

the exercises and contentions of the youths; so that the two sexes

were perpetually intermingled with each other in public, in a way

foreign to the habits, as well as repugnant to the feelings, of other

Grecian states. We may well conceive that such an education imparted

to the women both a demonstrative character and an eager interest in

masculine accomplishments, so that the expression of their praise

was the strongest stimulus, and that of their reproach the bitterest

humiliation, to the youthful troop who heard it.

[667] Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 3-4; Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 13-14.

[668] Eurip. Androm. 598; Cicero, Tuscul. Quæst. ii. 15. The

epithet φαινομηρίδες, as old as the poet Ibykus, shows that the

Spartan women were not uncovered (see Julius Pollux, vii. 55).

It is scarcely worth while to notice the poetical allusions of

Ovid and Propertius.

How completely the practice of gymnastic and military training

for young women, analogous to that of the other sex, was approved

by Plato, may be seen from the injunctions in his Republic.

The age of marriage (which in some of the unrestricted cities

of Greece was so early as to deteriorate visibly the breed of

citizens)[669] was deferred by the Spartan law, both in women and

men, until the period supposed to be most consistent with the

perfection of the offspring. And when we read the restriction which

Spartan custom imposed upon the intercourse even between married

persons, we shall conclude without hesitation that the public

intermixture of the sexes, in the way just described, led to no

such liberties, between persons not married, as might be likely

to arise from it under other circumstances.[670] Marriage was

almost universal among the citizens, enforced by general opinion at

least, if not by law. The young Spartan carried away his bride by a

simulated abduction, but she still seems, for some time at least, to

have continued to reside with her family, visiting her husband in

his barrack in the disguise of male attire, and on short and stolen

occasions.[671] To some married couples, according to Plutarch, it

happened, that they had been married long enough to have two or

three children, while they had scarcely seen each other apart by

daylight. Secret intrigue on the part of married women was unknown

at Sparta; but to bring together the finest couples was regarded by

the citizens as desirable, and by the lawgiver as a duty. No personal

feeling or jealousy on the part of the husband found sympathy from

any one,—and he permitted without difficulty, sometimes actively

encouraged, compliances on the part of his wife, consistent with this

generally acknowledged object. So far was such toleration carried,

that there were some married women who were recognized mistresses

of two houses,[672] and mothers of two distinct families,—a sort of

bigamy strictly forbidden to the men, and never permitted, except in

the remarkable case of king Anaxandrides, when the royal Herakleidan

line of Eurysthenes was in danger of becoming extinct. The wife of

Anaxandrides being childless, the ephors strongly urged him, on

grounds of public necessity, to repudiate her and marry another. But

he refused to dismiss a wife who had given him no cause of complaint;

upon which, when they found him inexorable, they desired him to

retain her, but to marry another wife besides, in order that at any

rate there might be issue to the Eurystheneid line. “He thus (says

Herodotus) married two wives, and inhabited two family-hearths, a

proceeding unknown at Sparta;”[673] yet the same privilege which,

according to Xenophon, some Spartan women enjoyed without reproach

from any one, and with perfect harmony between the inmates of both

their houses. O. Müller[674] remarks—and the evidence, as far as we

know it, bears him out—that love-marriages and genuine affection

towards a wife were more familiar to Sparta than to Athens; though

in the former, marital jealousy was a sentiment neither indulged nor

recognized,—while in the latter, it was intense and universal.[675]

[669] Aristot. Polit. vii. 14, 4.

[670] “It is certain (observes Dr. Thirlwall, speaking of the

Spartan unmarried women) that in this respect the Spartan morals

were as pure as those of any ancient, perhaps of any modern,

people.” (History of Greece, ch. viii. vol. i. p. 371.)

[671] Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 15; Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 5. Xenophon

does not make any allusion to the abduction as a general custom.

There occurred cases in which it was real and violent: see Herod.

v. 65. Demaratus carried off and married the betrothed bride of

Leotychides.

[672] Xenoph. Rep. Lac. i. 9. Εἰ δέ τις αὖ γυναικὶ μὲν

συνοικεῖν μὴ βούλοιτο, τέκνων δὲ ἀξιολόγων ἐπιθυμοίη, καὶ

τούτῳ νόμον ἐποίησεν, ἥντινα ἂν εὔτεκνον καὶ γενναίαν ὁρῴη,

πείσαντα τὸν ἔχοντα, ἐκ ταύτης τεκνοποιεῖσθαι. Καὶ πολλὰ μὲν

τοιαῦτα συνεχώρει. ~Αἵ τε γὰρ γυναῖκες δίττους οἴκους βούλονται

κατέχειν~, οἵ τε ἄνδρες ἀδελφοὺς τοῖς παισὶ προσλαμβάνειν, οἳ

τοῦ μὲν γένους καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως κοινωνοῦσι, τῶν δὲ χρημάτων οὐκ

ἀντιποιοῦνται.

[673] Herodot. v. 39-40. Μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα, γυναῖκας ἔχων δύο, διξὰς

ἱστίας οἴκεε, ποιέων οὐδαμᾶ Σπαρτιητικά.

[674] Müller, Hist. of Dorians, iv. 4, 1. The stories recounted

by Plutarch, (Agis, c. 20; Kleomenês, c. 37-38,) of the conduct

of Agesistrata and Kratesikleia, the wives of Agis and Kleomenês,

and of the wife of Panteus (whom he does not name) on occasion of

the deaths of their respective husbands, illustrate powerfully

the strong conjugal affection of a Spartan woman, and her devoted

adherence and fortitude in sharing with her husband the last

extremities of suffering.

[675] See the Oration of Lysias, De Cæde Eratosthenis, Orat. i.

p. 94, _seq._

To reconcile the careful gymnastic training, which Xenophon and

Plutarch mention, with that uncontrolled luxury and relaxation which

Aristotle condemns in the Spartan women, we may perhaps suppose that,

in the time of the latter, the women of high position and wealth

had contrived to emancipate themselves from the general obligation,

and that it is of such particular cases that he chiefly speaks. He

dwells especially upon the increasing tendency to accumulate property

in the hands of the women,[676] which seems to have been still more

conspicuous a century afterwards, in the reign of Agis the Third. And

we may readily imagine that one of the employments of wealth thus

acquired would be to purchase exemption from laborious training,—an

object more easy to accomplish in their case than in that of the

men, whose services were required by the state as soldiers. By what

steps so large a proportion as two-fifths of the landed property

of the state came to be possessed by women, he partially explains

to us. There were (he says) many sole heiresses,—the dowries given

by fathers to their daughters were very large,—and the father had

unlimited power of testamentary bequest, which he was disposed to

use to the advantage of his daughter over his son. In conjunction

with this last circumstance, we have to notice that peculiar sympathy

and yielding disposition towards women in the Spartan mind, of which

Aristotle also speaks,[677] and which he ascribes to the warlike

temper both of the citizen and the state,—Arês bearing the yoke of

Aphroditê. But, apart from such a consideration, if we suppose, on

the part of a wealthy Spartan father, the simple disposition to

treat sons and daughters alike as to bequest,—nearly one half of the

inherited mass of property would naturally be found in the hands of

the daughters, since on an average of families the number of the two

sexes born is nearly equal. In most societies, it is the men who make

new acquisitions: but this seldom or never happened with Spartan men,

who disdained all money-getting occupations.

[676] Plutarch, Agis, c. 4.

[677] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 6; Plutarch, Agis, c. 4. τοὺς

Λακεδαιμονίους κατηκόους ὄντας ἀεὶ τῶν γυναικῶν, καὶ πλεῖον

ἐκείναις τῶν δημοσίων, ἢ τῶν ἰδίων αὐτοῖς, πολυπραγμονεῖν

δίδοντας.

Xenophon, a warm panegyrist of Spartan manners, points with some

pride to the tall and vigorous breed of citizens which the Lykurgic

institutions had produced. The beauty of the Lacedæmonian women was

notorious throughout Greece, and Lampitô, the Lacedæmonian woman

introduced in the Lysistrata of Aristophanês, is made to receive

from the Athenian women the loudest compliments upon her fine shape

and masculine vigor.[678] We may remark that, on this as well as on

the other points, Xenophon emphatically insists on the peculiarity

of Spartan institutions, contradicting thus the views of those who

regard them merely as something a little Hyper-Dorian. Indeed, such

peculiarity seems never to have been questioned in antiquity, either

by the enemies or by the admirers of Sparta. And those who censured

the public masculine exercises of the Spartan maidens, as well as

the liberty tolerated in married women, allowed at the same time

that the feelings of both were actively identified with the state

to a degree hardly known in Greece; that the patriotism of the men

greatly depended upon the sympathy of the other sex, which manifested

itself publicly, in a manner not compatible with the recluse life

of Grecian women generally, to the exaltation of the brave as well

as to the abasement of the recreant; and that the dignified bearing

of the Spartan matrons under private family loss seriously assisted

the state in the task of bearing up against public reverses. “Return

either with your shield or upon it,” was their exhortation to their

sons when departing for foreign service: and after the fatal day of

Leuktra, those mothers who had to welcome home their surviving sons

in dishonor and defeat, were the bitter sufferers; while those whose

sons had perished, maintained a bearing comparatively cheerful.[679]

[678] Aristophan. Lysistr. 80.

[679] See the remarkable account in Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 16;

Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 29; one of the most striking incidents in

Grecian history. Compare, also, the string of sayings ascribed to

Lacedæmonian women, in Plutarch, Lac. Apophth. p. 241, _seq._

Such were the leading points of the memorable Spartan discipline,

strengthened in its effect on the mind by the absence of

communication with strangers. For no Spartan could go abroad without

leave, nor were strangers permitted to stay at Sparta; they came

thither, it seems, by a sort of sufferance, but the uncourteous

process called xenêlasy[680] was always available to remove them, nor

could there arise in Sparta that class of resident metics or aliens

who constituted a large part of the population of Athens, and seem to

have been found in most other Grecian towns. It is in this universal

schooling, training, and drilling, imposed alike upon boys and men,

youths and virgins, rich and poor, that the distinctive attribute of

Sparta is to be sought,—not in her laws or political constitution.

[680] How offensive the Lacedæmonian xenêlasy or expulsion of

strangers appeared in Greece, we may see from the speeches of

Periklês in Thucydidês (i. 144; ii. 39). Compare Xenophon, Rep.

Lac. xiv. 4; Plutarch, Agis, c. 10; Lykurgus, c. 27; Plato,

Protagoras, p. 348.

No Spartan left the country without permission: Isokratês, Orat.

xi. (Busiris), p. 225; Xenoph. _ut sup._

Both these regulations became much relaxed after the close of the

Peloponnesian war.

Lykurgus (or the individual to whom this system is owing, whoever

he was) is the founder of a warlike brotherhood rather than the

lawgiver of a political community; his brethren live together like

bees in a hive (to borrow a simile from Plutarch), with all their

feelings implicated in the commonwealth, and divorced from house

and home.[681] Far from contemplating the society as a whole, with

its multifarious wants and liabilities, he interdicts beforehand,

by one of the three primitive Rhetræ, all written laws, that is

to say, all formal and premeditated enactments on any special

subject. When disputes are to be settled or judicial interference

is required, the magistrate is to decide from his own sense of

equity; that the magistrate will not depart from the established

customs and recognized purposes of the city, is presumed from the

personal discipline which he and the select body to whom he belongs,

have undergone. It is this select body, maintained by the labor of

others, over whom Lykurgus exclusively watches, with the provident

eye of a trainer, for the purpose of disciplining them into a state

of regimental preparation,[682] single-minded obedience, and bodily

efficiency and endurance, so that they may be always fit and ready

for defence, for conquest and for dominion. The parallel of the

Lykurgean institutions is to be found in the Republic of Plato, who

approves the Spartan principle of select guardians carefully trained

and administering the community at discretion; with this momentous

difference, indeed, that the Spartan character[683] formed by

Lykurgus is of a low type, rendered savage and fierce by exclusive

and overdone bodily discipline,—destitute even of the elements of

letters,—immersed in their own narrow specialities, and taught to

despise all that lay beyond,—possessing all the qualities requisite

to procure dominion, but none of those calculated to render dominion

popular or salutary to the subject; while the habits and attributes

of the guardians, as shadowed forth by Plato, are enlarged as well

as philanthropic, qualifying them not simply to govern, but to

govern for purposes protective, conciliatory, and exalted. Both

Plato and Aristotle conceive as the perfection of society something

of the Spartan type,—a select body of equally privileged citizens,

disengaged from industrious pursuits, and subjected to public and

uniform training. Both admit (with Lykurgus) that the citizen

belongs neither to himself nor to his family, but to his city; both

at the same time note with regret, that the Spartan training was

turned only to one portion of human virtue,—that which is called

forth in a state of war;[684] the citizens being converted into a

sort of garrison, always under drill, and always ready to be called

forth either against Helots at home or against enemies abroad. Such

exclusive tendency will appear less astonishing if we consider the

very early and insecure period at which the Lykurgean institutions

arose, when none of those guarantees which afterwards maintained

the peace of the Hellenic world had as yet become effective,—no

constant habits of intercourse, no custom of meeting in Amphiktyony

from the distant parts of Greece, no common or largely frequented

festivals, no multiplication of proxenies (or standing tickets of

hospitality) between the important cities, no pacific or industrious

habits anywhere. When we contemplate the general insecurity of

Grecian life in the ninth or eighth century before the Christian era,

and especially the precarious condition of a small band of Dorian

conquerors in Sparta and its district, with subdued Helots on their

own lands and Achæans unsubdued all around them,—we shall not be

surprised that the language which Brasidas in the Peloponnesian

war addresses to his army in reference to the original Spartan

settlement, was still more powerfully present to the mind of Lykurgus

four centuries earlier—“We are a few in the midst of many enemies; we

can only maintain ourselves by fighting and conquering.”[685]

[681] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 25.

[682] Plutarch observes justly about Sparta, under the discipline

of Lykurgus, that it was “not the polity of a city, but the life

of a trained and skilful man,”—οὐ πόλεως ἡ Σπάρτη πολίτειαν, ἀλλ᾽

ἀνδρὸς ἀσκητοῦ καὶ σοφοῦ βίον ἔχουσα (Plutarch, Lyk. c. 30).

About the perfect habit of obedience at Sparta, see Xenophon,

Memorab. iii. 5, 9, 15-iv. 4, 15, the grand attributes of Sparta

in the eyes of its admirers (Isokratês, Panathen. Or. xii. pp.

256-278), πειθαρχία—σωφροσύνη—τα γυμνάσια τἄκει καθεστῶτα καὶ

πρὸς τὴν ἄσκησιν τῆς ἀνδρίας καὶ πρὸς τὴν ὁμόνοιαν καὶ συνόλως

τὴν περὶ τὸν πόλεμον ἐμπειρίαν.

[683] Aristot. Polit. viii. 3, 3. Οἱ Λάκωνες ... θηριώδεις

ἀπεργάζονται τοῖς πόνοις.

That the Spartans were absolutely ignorant of letters, and could

not read, is expressly stated by Isokratês (Panathen. Or. xii. p.

277). οὗτοι δὲ τοσοῦτον ἀπολελειμμένοι τῆς κοινῆς παιδείας καὶ

φιλοσοφίας εἰσὶν, ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ γράμματα μανθάνουσιν, etc.

The preference of rhetoric to accuracy, is so manifest in

Isokratês, that we ought to understand his expressions with some

reserve; but in this case it is evident that he means literally

what he says, for in another part of the same discourse, there

is an expression dropped, almost unconsciously, which confirms

it. “The most rational Spartans (he says) will appreciate this

discourse, if they _find any one to read it to them_,”—ἢν λάβωσι

τὸν ἀναγνωσόμενον (p. 285).

[684] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 22; vii. 13, 11; viii. 1, 3; viii.

3, 3. Plato, Legg. i. pp. 626-629. Plutarch, Solôn, c. 22.

[685] Thucyd. iv. 126. Οἵ γε μηδὲ ἀπὸ πολιτειῶν τοιούτων ἥκετε,

ἐν αἷς οὐ πολλοὶ ὀλίγων ἄρχουσι, ἀλλὰ πλειόνων μᾶλλον ἐλάσσους·

οὐκ ἄλλῳ τινὶ κτησάμενοι τὴν δυναστείαν ἢ τῷ μαχόμενοι κρατεῖν.

The most remarkable circumstance is, that these words are

addressed by Brasidas to an army composed, in large proportion,

of manumitted Helots (Thucyd. iv. 81).

Under such circumstances, the exclusive aim which Lykurgus proposed

to himself is easily understood; but what is truly surprising, is the

violence of his means and the success of the result. He realized his

project of creating, in the eight thousand or nine thousand Spartan

citizens, unrivalled habits of obedience, hardihood, self-denial, and

military aptitude,—complete subjection on the part of each individual

to the local public opinion, and preference of death to the

abandonment of Spartan maxims, intense ambition on the part of every

one to distinguish himself within the prescribed sphere of duties,

with little ambition for anything else. In what manner so rigorous

a system of individual training can have been first brought to bear

upon any community, mastering the course of the thoughts and actions

from boyhood to old age,—a work far more difficult than any political

revolution,—we are not permitted to discover. Nor does the influence

of an earnest and energetic Herakleidman,—seconded by the still

more powerful working of the Delphian god behind, upon the strong

pious susceptibilities of the Spartan mind,—sufficiently explain a

phenomenon so remarkable in the history of mankind, unless we suppose

them aided by some combination of coöperating circumstances which

history has not transmitted to us,[686] and preceded by disorders so

exaggerated as to render the citizens glad to escape from them at any

price.

[686] Plato treats of the system of Lykurgus, as emanating from

the Delphian Apollo and Lykurgus as his missionary (Legg. i. p.

632).

Respecting the ante-Lykurgean Sparta we possess no positive

information whatever. But although this unfortunate gap cannot be

filled up, we may yet master the negative probabilities of the case

sufficiently to see that, in what Plutarch has told us (and from

Plutarch the modern views have, until lately, been derived), there is

indeed a basis of reality, but there is also a large superstructure

of romance,—in not a few particulars essentially misleading. For

example, Plutarch treats Lykurgus as introducing his reforms at a

time when Sparta was mistress of Laconia, and distributing the whole

of that territory among the Periœki. Now we know that Laconia was

not then in possession of Sparta, and that the partition of Lykurgus

(assuming it to be real) could only have been applied to the land in

the immediate vicinity of the latter. For even Amyklæ, Pharis, and

Geronthræ, were not conquered until the reign of Têleklus, posterior

to any period which we can reasonably assign to Lykurgus: nor can

any such distribution of Laconia have really occurred. Farther, we

are told that Lykurgus banished from Sparta coined gold and silver,

useless professions and frivolities, eager pursuit of gain, and

ostentatious display. Without dwelling upon the improbability that

any one of these anti-Spartan characteristics should have existed at

so early a period as the ninth century before the Christian era, we

may at least be certain that coined silver was not then to be found,

since it was first introduced into Greece by Pheidon of Argos in the

succeeding century, as has been stated in the preceding section.

But amongst all the points stated by Plutarch, the most suspicious

by far, and the most misleading, because endless calculations have

been built upon it, is the alleged redivision of landed property.

He tells us that Lykurgus found fearful inequality in the landed

possessions of the Spartans; nearly all the land in the hands of a

few, and a great multitude without any land; that he rectified this

evil by a redivision of the Spartan district into nine thousand equal

lots, and the rest of Laconia into thirty thousand, giving to each

citizen as much as would produce a given quota of barley, etc.; and

that he wished, moreover, to have divided the movable property upon

similar principles of equality, but was deterred by the difficulties

of carrying his design into execution.

Now we shall find on consideration that this new and equal partition

of lands by Lykurgus is still more at variance with fact and

probability than the two former alleged proceedings. All the

historical evidences exhibit decided inequalities of property among

the Spartans,—inequalities which tended constantly to increase;

moreover, the earlier authors do not conceive this evil as having

grown up by way of abuse out of a primeval system of perfect

equality, nor do they know anything of the original equal redivision

by Lykurgus. Even as early as the poet Alkæus (B. C. 600-580) we

find bitter complaints of the oppressive ascendency of wealth, and

the degradation of the poor man, cited as having been pronounced

by Aristodêmus at Sparta: “Wealth (said he) makes the man,—no poor

person is either accounted good or honored.”[687] Next, the historian

Hellanikus certainly knew nothing of the Lykurgean redivision,—for

he ascribed the whole Spartan polity to Eurysthenês and Proklês,

the original founders, and hardly noticed Lykurgus at all. Again,

in the brief, but impressive description of the Spartan lawgiver by

Herodotus, several other institutions are alluded to, but nothing

is said about a redivision of the lands; and this latter point is

in itself of such transcendent moment, and was so recognized among

all Grecian thinkers, that the omission is almost a demonstration of

ignorance. Thucydidês certainly could not have believed that equality

of property was an original feature in the Lykurgean system; for

he says that, at Lacedæmon, “the rich men assimilated themselves

greatly in respect of clothing and general habits of life to the

simplicity of the poor, and thus set an example which was partially

followed in the rest of Greece:” a remark which both implies the

existence of unequal property, and gives a just appreciation of

the real working of Lykurgic institutions.[688] The like is the

sentiment of Xenophon:[689] he observes that the rich at Sparta

gained little by their wealth in point of superior comfort; but he

never glances at any original measure carried into effect by Lykurgus

for equalizing possessions. Plato too,[690] while he touches upon the

great advantage possessed by the Dorians, immediately after their

conquest of Peloponnesus, in being able to apportion land suitably

to all,—never hints that this original distribution had degenerated

into an abuse, and that an entire subsequent redivision had been

resorted to by Lykurgus: moreover, he is himself deeply sensible

of the hazards of that formidable proceeding. Lastly, Aristotle

clearly did not believe that Lykurgus had redivided the soil. For he

informs us first, that, “both in Lacedæmon and in Krete,[691] the

legislator had rendered the enjoyment of property common through

the establishment of the Syssitia, or public mess.” Now this remark

(if read in the chapter of which it forms a part, a refutation of

the scheme of Communism for the select guardians in the Platonic

Republic) will be seen to tell little for its point, if we assume

that Lykurgus at the same time equalized all individual possessions.

Had Aristotle known that fact, he could not have failed to notice it:

nor could he have assimilated the legislators in Lacedæmon and Krete,

seeing that in the latter no one pretends that any such equalization

was ever brought about. Next, not only does Aristotle dwell upon

the actual inequality of property at Sparta as a serious public

evil, but he nowhere treats this as having grown out of a system

of absolute equality once enacted by the lawgiver as a part of the

primitive constitution: he expressly notices inequality of property

so far back as the second Messenian war. Moreover, in that valuable

chapter of his Politics, where the scheme of equality of possessions

is discussed, Phaleas of Chalkedôn is expressly mentioned as the

first author of it, thus indirectly excluding Lykurgus.[692] The mere

silence of Aristotle is in this discussion a negative argument of

the greatest weight. Isokratês,[693] too, speaks much about Sparta

for good and for evil,—mentions Lykurgus as having established

a political constitution much like that of the earliest days of

Athens,—praises the gymnasia and the discipline, and compliments

the Spartans upon the many centuries which they have gone through

without violent sedition, extinction of debts, and redivision of the

land,—those “monstrous evils,” as he terms them. Had he conceived

Lykurgus as being himself the author of a complete redivision of

land, he could hardly have avoided some allusion to it.

[687] Alcæi Fragment. 41, p. 279, ed. Schneidewin:—

Ὡς γὰρ δήποτ᾽ Ἀριστόδαμον φαισ᾽ οὐκ ἀπάλαμνον ἐν ~Σπάρτᾳ λόγον~

Εἰπῆν—~Χρήματ᾽ ἀνηρ~· πενιχρὸς δ᾽ οὐδεὶς πέλετ᾽ ἐσθλὸς οὐδὲ τίμιος.

Compare the Schol. ad Pindar. Isthm. ii. 17, and Diogen. Laërt.

i. 31.

[688] Thucydid. i. 6. μετρίᾳ δ᾽ αὖ ἐσθῆτι καὶ ἐς τὸν νῦν τρόπον

πρῶτοι Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἐχρήσαντο, καὶ ἐς τὰ ἄλλα πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς

οἱ τὰ μείζω κεκτημένοι ἰσοδίαιτοι μάλιστα κατέστησαν. See, also,

Plutarch, Apophthegm. Lacon. p. 210. A.-F.

[689] Xenoph. Republ. Laced. c. 7.

[690] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 684.

[691] Aristotel. Politic. ii. 2, 10. ὥσπερ τὰ περὶ τὰς κτήσεις ἐν

Λακεδαίμονι καὶ Κρήτῃ τοῖς συσσιτίοις ὁ νομοθέτης ἐκοίνωσε.

[692] Aristot. Politic. ii. 4, 1, about Phaleas; and about Sparta

and Krete, generally, the whole sixth and seventh chapters of the

second book; also, v. 6, 2-7.

Theophrastus (apud Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 10) makes a similar

observation, that the public mess, and the general simplicity

of habits, tended to render wealth of little service to the

possessor: τὸν πλοῦτον ἄπλουτον ἀπεργάσασθαι τῇ κοινότητι τῶν

δείπνων, καὶ τῇ περὶ τὴν δίαιταν εὐτελείᾳ. Compare Plutarch.

Apophthegm. Lacon. p. 226 E. The wealth, therefore, was not

formally done away with in the opinion of Theophrastus: there was

no positive equality of possessions.

Both the Spartan kings dined at the public mess at the same

pheidition (Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 30).

Herakleidês Ponticus mentions nothing, either about equality of

Spartan lots or fresh partition of lands, by Lykurgus (ad calcem

Cragii, De Spartanorum Repub. p. 504), though he speaks about the

Spartan lots and law of succession as well as about Lykurgus.

[693] Isokratês, Panathen. Or. xii. pp. 266, 270, 278: οὐδὲ χρεῶν

ἀποκοπὰς οὐδὲ γῆς ἀναδασμὸν οὐδ᾽ ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲν τῶν ἀνηκέστων κακῶν.

It appears, then, that none of the authors down to Aristotle

ascribe to Lykurgus a redivision of the lands, either of Sparta

or of Laconia. The statement to this effect in Plutarch, given in

great detail and with precise specification of number and produce,

must have been borrowed from some author later than Aristotle; and

I think we may trace the source of it, when we study Plutarch’s

biography of Lykurgus in conjunction with that of Agis and

Kleomenês. The statement is taken from authors of the century after

Aristotle, either in, or shortly before, the age when both those

kings tried extreme measures to renovate the sinking state: the

former by a thorough change of system and property, yet proposed

and accepted according to constitutional forms; the latter by

projects substantially similar, with violence to enforce them. The

accumulation of landed property in few hands, the multiplication of

poor, and the decline in the number of citizens, which are depicted

as grave mischiefs by Aristotle, had become greatly aggravated

during the century between him and Agis. The number of citizens,

reckoned by Herodotus in the time of the Persian invasion at eight

thousand, had dwindled down in the time of Aristotle to one thousand,

and in that of Agis to seven hundred, out of which latter number

one hundred alone possessed most of the landed property of the

state.[694] Now, by the ancient rule of Lykurgus, the qualification

for citizenship was the ability to furnish the prescribed quota,

incumbent on each individual, at the public mess: so soon as a

citizen became too poor to answer to this requisition, he lost his

franchise and his eligibility to offices.[695] The smaller lots

of land, though it was held discreditable either to buy or sell

them,[696] and though some have asserted (without ground, I think)

that it was forbidden to divide them,—became insufficient for

numerous families, and seem to have been alienated in some indirect

manner to the rich; while every industrious occupation being both

interdicted to a Spartan citizen and really inconsistent with his

rigorous personal discipline, no other means of furnishing his

quota, except the lot of land, was open to him. The difficulty felt

with regard to these smaller lots of land may be judged of from the

fact stated by Polybius,[697] that three or four Spartan brothers

had often one and the same wife, the paternal land being just

sufficient to furnish contributions for all to the public mess, and

thus to keep alive the citizen-rights of all the sons. The tendency

to diminution in the number of Spartan citizens seems to have gone

on uninterruptedly from the time of the Persian war, and must have

been aggravated by the foundation of Messênê, with its independent

territory around, after the battle of Leuktra, an event which robbed

the Spartans of a large portion of their property. Apart from these

special causes, moreover, it has been observed often as a statistical

fact, that a close corporation of citizens, or any small number

of families, intermarrying habitually among one another, and not

reinforced from without, have usually a tendency to diminish.

[694] Plutarch, Agis, c. iv.

[695] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 21. Παρὰ δὲ τοῖς Λακῶσιν ἕκαστον

δεῖ φέρειν, καὶ σφόδρα πενήτων ἐνίων ὄντων, καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀνάλωμα

οὐ δυναμένων δαπανᾷν.... ~Ὅρος δὲ τῆς πολιτείας οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ

πάτριος, τὸν μὴ δυνάμενον τοῦτο τὸ τέλος φέρειν μὴ μετέχειν

αὐτῆς~. So also Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. vii. ἴσα μὲν φέρειν εἰς τὰ

ἐπιτήδεια, ὁμοίως δὲ διαιτᾶσθαι τάξας.

The existence of this rate-paying qualification, is the capital

fact in the history of the Spartan constitution; especially

when we couple it with the other fact, that no Spartan acquired

anything by any kind of industry.

[696] Herakleidês Ponticus, ad calcem Cragii De Repub. Laced. p.

504. Compare Cragius, iii. 2, p. 196.

Aristotle (ii. 6, 10) states that it was discreditable to buy or

sell a lot of land, but that the lot might be either given or

bequeathed at pleasure. He mentions nothing about the prohibition

to divide, and even states what contradicts it,—that it was the

practice to give a large dowry when a rich man’s daughter married

(ii. 6, 11). The sister of Agesilaus, Kyniska, was a person of

large property, which apparently implies the division of his

father’s estate (Plutarch, Agesilaus, 30).

Whether there was ever any law prohibiting a father from dividing

his lot among his children, may well be doubted. The Rhetra of

the ephor Epitadeus (Plutarch, Agis, 5), granted unlimited power

of testamentary disposition to the possessor, so that he might

give away or bequeathe his land to a stranger if he chose. To

this law great effects are ascribed: but it is evident that the

tendency to accumulate property in few hands, and the tendency to

diminution in the number of qualified citizens, were powerfully

manifested before the time of Epitadeus, who came after Lysander.

Plutarch, in another place, notices Hesiod, Xenokrates, and

Lykurgus, as having concurred with Plato, in thinking that it

was proper to leave only one single heir (ἕνα μόνον κληρόνομον

καταλιπεῖν) (Ὑπομνήματα εἰς Ἡσίοδον, Fragm. vol. v. p. 777,

Wyttenb.). But Hesiod does not lay down this as a necessity or as

a universal rule; he only says, that a man is better off who has

only one son (Opp. Di. 374). And if Plato had been able to cite

Lykurgus as an authority for that system of an invariable number

of separate κλῆροι, or lots, which he sets forth in his treatise

De Legibus (p. 740), it is highly probable that he would have

done so. Still less can Aristotle have supposed that Lykurgus or

the Spartan system either insured, or intended to insure, the

maintenance of an unalterable number of distinct proprietary

lots; for he expressly notices that scheme as a peculiarity of

Philolaus the Corinthian, in his laws for the Thebans (Polit. ii.

9, 7).

[697] Polybius, Fragm. ap. Maii. Collect. Vett. Scrip. vol. ii.

p. 384.

Perhaps, as O. Müller remarks, this may mean only, that none

except the eldest brother could afford to marry; but the feelings

of the Spartans in respect to marriage were, in many other

points, so different from ours, that we are hardly authorized to

reject the literal statement (History of the Dorians, iii. 10,

2),—which, indeed, is both illustrated and rendered credible by

the permission granted in the laws of Solôn to an ἐπίκληρος who

had been claimed in marriage by a relative in his old age,—ἂν

ὁ κρατῶν καὶ κύριος γεγονὼς κατὰ τὸν νόμον αὐτὸς μὴ δυνατὸς ᾖ

πλησιάζειν ὑπὸ τῶν ἔγγιστα τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ὀπυίεσθαι (Plutarch, Solôn,

c. 20).

I may observe that of O. Müller’s statements, respecting the lots

of land at Sparta, several are unsupported and some incorrect.

The present is not the occasion to enter at length into that

combination of causes which partly sapped, partly overthrew, both

the institutions of Lykurgus and the power of Sparta. But taking the

condition of that city as it stood in the time of Agis the Third

(say about 250 B. C.), we know that its citizens had become few in

number, the bulk of them miserably poor, and all the land in a small

number of hands. The old discipline and the public mess (as far as

the rich were concerned) had degenerated into mere forms,—a numerous

body of strangers or non-citizens (the old xenêlasy, or prohibition

of resident strangers, being long discontinued) were domiciled in the

town, forming a powerful moneyed interest; and lastly, the dignity

and ascendency of the state amongst its neighbors were altogether

ruined. It was insupportable to a young enthusiast like king Agis, as

well as to many ardent spirits among his contemporaries, to contrast

this degradation with the previous glories of their country: nor

did they see any other way of reconstructing the old Sparta except

by again admitting the disfranchised poor citizens, redividing

the lands, cancelling all debts, and restoring the public mess

and military training in all their strictness. Agis endeavored to

carry through these subversive measures, (such as no demagogue in

the extreme democracy of Athens would ever have ventured to glance

at,) with the consent of the senate and public assembly, and the

acquiescence of the rich. His sincerity is attested by the fact, that

his own property, and that of his female relatives, among the largest

in the state, was cast as the first sacrifice into the common stock.

But he became the dupe of unprincipled coadjutors, and perished in

the unavailing attempt to realize his scheme by persuasion. His

successor, Kleomenês, afterwards accomplished by violence a change

substantially similar, though the intervention of foreign arms

speedily overthrew both himself and his institutions.

Now it was under the state of public feeling which gave birth to

these projects of Agis and Kleomenês at Sparta, that the historic

fancy, unknown to Aristotle and his predecessors, first gained

ground, of the absolute equality of property as a primitive

institution of Lykurgus. How much such a belief would favor the

schemes of innovation is too obvious to require notice; and without

supposing any deliberate imposture, we cannot be astonished that the

predispositions of enthusiastic patriots interpreted, according to

their own partialities, an old unrecorded legislation from which they

were separated by more than five centuries. The Lykurgean discipline

tended forcibly to suggest to men’s minds the _idea_ of equality

among the citizens,—that is, the negation of all inequality not

founded on some personal attribute,—inasmuch as it assimilated the

habits, enjoyments, and capacities of the rich to those of the poor;

and the equality thus existing in idea and tendency, which seemed to

proclaim the wish of the founder, was strained by the later reformers

into a positive institution which he had at first realized, but from

which his degenerate followers had receded. It was thus that the

fancies, longings, and indirect suggestions of the present assumed

the character of recollections out of the early, obscure, and extinct

historical past. Perhaps the philosopher Sphærus of Borysthenês

(friend and companion of Kleomenês,[698] disciple of Zeno the Stoic,

and author of works now lost, both on Lykurgus and Socrates, and

on the constitution of Sparta) may have been one of those who gave

currency to such an hypothesis. And we shall readily believe that, if

advanced, it would find easy and sincere credence, when we recollect

how many similar delusions have obtained vogue in modern times, far

more favorable to historical accuracy,—how much false coloring has

been attached by the political feeling of recent days to matters of

ancient history, such as the Saxon Witenagemote, the Great Charter,

the rise and growth of the English House of Commons, or even the Poor

Law of Elizabeth.

[698] Plutarch, Kleomenês, cap. 2-11, with the note of Schömann,

p. 175; also, Lycurg. cap. 8; Athenæ. iv. p. 141.

Phylarchus, also, described the proceedings of Kleomenês,

seemingly with favor (Athenæ. ib.); compare Plutarch, Agis, c. 9.

Polybius believed, that Lykurgus had introduced equality of

landed possession, both in the district of Sparta, and throughout

Laconia: his opinion is, probably, borrowed from these same

authors, of the third century before the Christian era. For he

expresses his great surprise, how the best-informed ancient

authors (οἱ λογιώτατοι τῶν ἀρχαίων συγγραφέων), Plato, Xenophon,

Ephorus, Kallisthenês, can compare the Kretan polity to the old

Lacedæmonian, the main features of the two being (as he says) so

different,—equality of property at Sparta, great inequality of

property in Krete, among other differences (Polyb. vi. 45-48).

This remark of Polybius, exhibits the difference of opinion of

the earlier writers, as compared with those during the third

century before the Christian era. The former compared Spartan and

Kretan institutions, because they did not conceive equality of

landed property as a feature in old Sparta.

When we read the division of lands really proposed by king Agis, it

is found to be a very close copy of the original division ascribed to

Lykurgus. He parcels the lands bounded by the four limits of Pellênê,

Sellasia, Malea, and Taygetus, into four thousand five hundred lots,

one to every Spartan; and the lands beyond these limits into fifteen

thousand lots, one to each Periœkus; and he proposes to constitute

in Sparta fifteen pheiditia, or public mess-tables, some including

four hundred individuals, others two hundred,—thus providing a place

for each of his four thousand five hundred Spartans. With respect to

the division originally ascribed to Lykurgus, different accounts were

given. Some considered it to have set out nine thousand lots for the

district of Sparta, and thirty thousand for the rest of Laconia;[699]

others affirmed that six thousand lots had been given by Lykurgus,

and three thousand added afterwards by king Polydorus; a third tale

was, that Lykurgus had assigned four thousand five hundred lots, and

king Polydorus as many more. This last scheme is much the same as

what was really proposed by Agis.

[699] Respecting Sphærus, see Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 8; Kleomen. c.

2; Athenæ. v. p. 141; Diogen. Laërt. vii. sect. 137.

In the preceding argument respecting the redivision of land ascribed

to Lykurgus, I have taken that measure as it is described by

Plutarch. But there has been a tendency, in some able modern writers,

while admitting the general fact of such redivision, to reject the

account given by Plutarch in some of its main circumstances. That,

for instance, which is the capital feature in Plutarch’s narrative,

and which gives soul and meaning to his picture of the lawgiver—the

equality of partition—is now rejected by many as incorrect, and it

is supposed that Lykurgus made some new agrarian regulations tending

towards a general equality of landed property, but not an entirely

new partition; that he may have resumed from the wealthy men lands

which they had unjustly taken from the conquered Achæans, and thus

provided allotments both for the poorer citizens and for the subject

Laconians. Such is the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, who at the same time

admits that the exact proportion of the Lykurgean distribution can

hardly be ascertained.[700]

[700] Hist. of Greece, ch. viii. vol. i. pp. 344-347.

C. F. Hermann, on the contrary, considers the equal partition of

Laconia into lots indivisible and inalienable, as “an essential

condition” (eine wesentliche Bedingung) of the whole Lykurgean

system (Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer, sect. 28).

Tittmann (Griechische Staatsverfassungen, pp. 588-596) states

and seems to admit the equal partition as a fact, without any

commentary.

Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217)

supposes “that the best land was already parcelled, before the

time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to

the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine

thousand.” For this assertion, I know no evidence: it departs

from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated

or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia

among the Periœki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any

comment, and seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218).

Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division

of land prior to Lykurgus,—that it had degenerated into

abuse,—and that Lykurgus corrected it, restoring, not absolute

equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i.

pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of

Wachsmuth.

O. Müller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he

says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been

set out before the Messenian war; and he adheres to the idea of

equality as contained in Plutarch; but he says that the equality

consisted in “equal estimate of average produce,”—not in equal

acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that “the lots

of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of

the Periœki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as extensive

(_i. e._ in the aggregate): each lot must, therefore, have been

seven times greater,” (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3,

6; iii. 10, 2.) He also supposes, that “similar partitions of

land had been made from the time of the first occupation of

Laconia by the Dorians.” Whoever compares his various positions

with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful

disproportion between the basis and the superstructure.

The views of Schömann, as far as I collect from expressions

somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He

admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at

variance with the representations of Plato (Schömann, Antiq. Jur.

Pub. iv. 1, 7, note 4, p. 116).

I cannot but take a different view of the statement made by Plutarch.

The moment that we depart from that rule of equality, which stands

so prominently marked in his biography of Lykurgus, we step into

a boundless field of possibility, in which there is nothing to

determine us to one point more than to another. The surmise started

by Dr. Thirlwall, of lands unjustly taken from the conquered Achæans

by wealthy Spartan proprietors, is altogether gratuitous; and

granting it to be correct, we have still to explain how it happened

that this correction of a partial injustice came to be transformed

into the comprehensive and systematic measure which Plutarch

describes; and to explain, farther, from whence it arose that none of

the authors earlier than Plutarch take any notice of Lykurgus as an

agrarian equalizer. These two difficulties will still remain, even if

we overlook the gratuitous nature of Dr. Thirlwall’s supposition, or

of any other supposition which can be proposed respecting the real

Lykurgean measure which Plutarch is affirmed to have misrepresented.

It appears to me that these difficulties are best obviated by

adopting a different canon of historical interpretation. We cannot

accept as real the Lykurgean land division described in the life

of the lawgiver; but treating this account as a fiction, two modes

of proceeding are open to us. We may either consider the fiction,

as it now stands, to be the exaggeration and distortion of some

small fact, and then try to guess, without any assistance, what

the small fact was. Or we may regard it as fiction from first to

last, the expression of some large idea and sentiment so powerful

in its action on men’s minds at a given time, as to induce them to

make a place for it among the realities of the past. Now the latter

supposition, applied to the times of Agis the Third, best meets

the case before us. The eighth chapter of the life of Lykurgus by

Plutarch, in recounting the partition of land, describes the dream

of king Agis, whose mind is full of two sentiments,—grief and shame

for the actual condition of his country,—together with reverence

for its past glories, as well as for the lawgiver from whose

institutions those glories had emanated. Absorbed with this double

feeling, the reveries of Agis go back to the old ante-Lykurgean

Sparta, as it stood more than five centuries before. He sees, in the

spirit, the same mischiefs and disorders as those which afflict his

waking eye,—gross inequalities of property, with a few insolent and

luxurious rich, a crowd of mutinous and suffering poor, and nothing

but fierce antipathy reigning between the two. Into the midst of this

froward, lawless, and distempered community, steps the venerable

missionary from Delphi,—breathes into men’s minds new impulses, and

an impatience to shake off the old social and political Adam,—and

persuades the rich, voluntarily abnegating their temporal advantages,

to welcome with satisfaction a new system, wherein no distinction

shall be recognized, except that of good or evil desert.[701] Having

thus regenerated the national mind, he parcels out the territory of

Laconia into equal lots, leaving no superiority to any one. Fraternal

harmony becomes the reigning sentiment, while the coming harvests

present the gratifying spectacle of a paternal inheritance recently

distributed, with the brotherhood contented, modest, and docile. Such

is the picture with which “mischievous Oneirus” cheats the fancy of

the patriotic Agis, whispering the treacherous message that the gods

have promised _him_ success in a similar attempt, and thus seducing

him into that fatal revolutionary course, which is destined to bring

himself, his wife, and his aged mother, to the dungeon and the

hangman’s rope.[702]

[701] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 8. συνέπεισε τὴν χώραν ἅπασαν εἰς

μέσον θέντας, ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναδάσασθαι, καὶ ζῆν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἅπαντας,

ὁμαλεῖς καὶ ἰσοκλήρους τοῖς βίοις γενομένους, τὸ δὲ πρωτεῖον

ἀρετῇ μετιόντας· ὡς ἄλλης ἑτέρῳ πρὸς ἕτερον οὐκ οὔσης διαφορᾶς,

οὐδὲ ἀνισότητος, πλὴν ὅσην αἰσχρῶν ψόγος ὁρίζει καὶ καλῶν

ἔπαινος. Ἐπάγων δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τὸ ἔργον, διένειμε, etc.

[702] Plutarch, Agis, c. 19-20.

That the golden dream just described was dreamed by some Spartan

patriots is certain, because it stands recorded in Plutarch; that it

was not dreamed by the authors of centuries preceding Agis, I have

already endeavored to show; that the earnest feelings, of sickness

of the present and yearning for a better future under the colors

of a restored past, which filled the soul of this king and his

brother-reformers,—combined with the levelling tendency between rich

and poor which really was inherent in the Lykurgean discipline,—were

amply sufficient to beget such a dream, and to procure for it a place

among the great deeds of the old lawgiver, so much venerated and so

little known,—this too I hold to be unquestionable. Had there been

any evidence that Lykurgus had interfered with private property,

to the limited extent which Dr. Thirlwall and other able critics

imagine,—that he had resumed certain lands unjustly taken by the

rich from the Achæans,—I should have been glad to record it; but,

finding no such evidence, I cannot think it necessary to presume the

fact, simply in order to account for the story in Plutarch.[703]

[703] I read with much satisfaction, in M. Kopstadt’s

Dissertation, that the general conclusion which I have endeavored

to establish respecting the alleged Lykurgean redivision of

property, appears to him successfully proved. (Dissert. De Rerum

Laconic. Const. sect. 18, p. 138.)

He supposes, with perfect truth, that, at the time when the

first edition of these volumes was published, I was ignorant of

the fact, that Lachmann and Kortüm had both called in question

the reality of the Lykurgean redivision. In regard to Professor

Kortüm, the fact was first brought to my knowledge, by his notice

of these two volumes, in the Heidelberger Jahrbücher, 1846, No.

41, p. 649.

Since the first edition, I have read the treatise of Lachmann

(Die Spartanische Staats Verfassung in ihrer Entwicklung und

ihrem Verfalle, sect. 10, p. 170) wherein the redivision ascribed

to Lykurgus is canvassed. He, too, attributes the origin of

the tale, as a portion of history, to the social and political

feelings current in the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the

Third. He notices, also, that it is in contradiction with Plato

and Isokratês. But a large proportion of the arguments which

he brings to disprove it, are connected with ideas of his own

respecting the social and political constitution of Sparta, which

I think either untrue or uncertified. Moreover, he believes in

the inalienability as well as the indivisibility of the separate

lots of land,—which I believe to be just as little correct as

their supposed equality.

Kopstadt (p. 139) thinks that I have gone too far in rejecting

every middle opinion. He thinks that Lykurgus must have done

something, though much less than what is affirmed, tending to

realize equality of individual property.

I shall not say that this is impossible. If we had ampler

evidence, perhaps such facts might appear. But as the evidence

stands now, there is nothing whatever to show it. Nor are we

entitled (in my judgment) to presume that it was so, in the

absence of evidence, simply in order to make out that the

Lykurgean mythe is only an exaggeration, and not entire fiction.

The various items in that story all hang together, and must be

understood as forming parts of the same comprehensive fact, or

comprehensive fancy. The fixed total of nine thousand Spartan, and

thirty thousand Laconian lots,[704] the equality between them,

and the rent accruing from each, represented by a given quantity

of moist and dry produce,—all these particulars are alike true

or alike uncertified. Upon the various numbers here given, many

authors have raised calculations as to the population and produce of

Laconia, which appear to me destitute of any trustworthy foundation.

Those who accept the history, that Lykurgus constituted the

above-mentioned numbers both of citizens and of lots of land, and

that he contemplated the maintenance of both numbers in unchangeable

proportion,—are perplexed to assign the means whereby this adjustment

was kept undisturbed. Nor are they much assisted in the solution of

this embarrassing problem by the statement of Plutarch, who tells us

that the number remained fixed of itself, and that the succession ran

on from father to son, without either consolidation or multiplication

of parcels, down to the period when foreign wealth flowed into

Sparta, as a consequence of the successful conclusion of the

Peloponnesian war. Shortly after that period (he tells us) a citizen

named Epitadeus became ephor,—a vindictive and malignant man, who,

having had a quarrel with his son, and wishing to oust him from the

succession, introduced and obtained sanction to a new Rhetra, whereby

power was granted to every father of a family either to make over

during life, or to bequeathe after death, his house and his estate to

any one whom he chose.[705] But it is plain that this story (whatever

be the truth about the family quarrel of Epitadeus) does not help

us out of the difficulty. From the time of Lykurgus to that of this

disinheriting ephor, more than four centuries must be reckoned: now,

had there been real causes at work sufficient to maintain inviolate

the identical number of lots and families during this long period, we

see no reason why his new law, simply permissive and nothing more,

should have overthrown it. We are not told by Plutarch what was

the law of succession prior to Epitadeus. If the whole estate went

by law to one son in the family, what became of the other sons, to

whom industrious acquisition in any shape was repulsive as well as

interdicted? If, on the other hand, the estate was divided between

the sons equally (as it was by the law of succession at Athens), how

can we defend the maintenance of an unchanged aggregate number of

parcels?

[704] Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11) remarks that the territory of

the Spartans would maintain fifteen hundred horsemen and thirty

thousand hoplites, while the number of citizens was, in point of

fact, less than one thousand. Dr. Thirlwall seems to prefer the

reading of Göttling,—three thousand instead of thirty thousand;

but the latter seems better supported by MSS, and most suitable.

[705] Plutarch, Agis, c. 5.

Dr. Thirlwall, after having admitted a modified interference with

private property by Lykurgus, so as to exact from the wealthy a

certain sacrifice in order to create lots for the poor, and to

bring about something approaching to equi-producing lots for all,

observes: “The average amount of the rent, paid by the cultivating

Helots from each lot, seems to have been no more than was required

for the frugal maintenance of a family with six persons. The right of

transfer was as strictly confined as that of enjoyment; the patrimony

was indivisible, inalienable, and descended to the eldest son; in

default of a male heir, to the eldest daughter. The object seems to

have been, after the number of the allotments became fixed, that

each should be constantly represented by one head of a household.

But the nature of the means employed for this end is one of the

most obscure points of the Spartan system.... In the better times

of the commonwealth, this seems to have been principally effected

by adoptions and marriages with heiresses, which provided for the

marriages of younger sons in families too numerous to be supported on

their own hereditary property. It was then probably seldom necessary

for the state to interfere, in order to direct the childless owner

of an estate, or the father of a rich heiress, to a proper choice.

But as all adoption required the sanction of the kings, and they

had also the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses, there can be

little doubt that the magistrate had the power of interposing on

such occasions, even in opposition to the wishes of individuals, to

relieve poverty and check the accumulation of wealth.” (Hist. Gr. ch.

8, vol. i. p. 367).

I cannot concur in the view which Dr. Thirlwall here takes of the

state of property, or the arrangements respecting its transmission,

in ancient Sparta. Neither the equal modesty of possession which

he supposes, nor the precautions for perpetuating it, can be shown

to have ever existed among the pupils of Lykurgus. Our earliest

information intimates the existence of rich men at Sparta: the story

of king Aristo and Agêtus, in Herodotus, exhibits to us the latter

as a man who cannot be supposed to have had only just “enough to

maintain six persons frugally,”—while his beautiful wife, whom

Aristo coveted and entrapped from him, is expressly described as the

daughter of opulent parents. Sperthiês and Bulis, the Talthybiads,

are designated as belonging to a distinguished race, and among the

wealthiest men in Sparta.[706] Demaratus was the only king of Sparta,

in the days of Herodotus, who had ever gained a chariot-victory in

the Olympic games; but we know by the case of Lichas, during the

Peloponnesian war, Evagoras, and others, that private Spartans were

equally successful;[707] and for one Spartan who won the prize,

there must of course have been many who bred their horses and

started their chariots unsuccessfully. It need hardly be remarked,

that chariot-competition at Olympia was one of the most significant

evidences of a wealthy house: nor were there wanting Spartans who

kept horses and dogs without any exclusive view to the games. We

know from Xenophon that, at the time of the battle of Leuktra,

“the very rich Spartans” provided the horses to be mounted for the

state-cavalry.[708] These and other proofs, of the existence of rich

men at Sparta, are inconsistent with the idea of a body of citizens

each possessing what was about enough for the frugal maintenance of

six persons, and no more.

[706] Herod. vi. 61. οἷα ἀνθρώπων τε ὀλβίων θυγατέρα, etc; vii.

134.

[707] Herod. vi. 70-103; Thucyd. v. 50.

[708] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 11; Xenoph. de Rep. Lac. v. 3;

Molpis ap. Athenæ. iv. p. 141; Aristot. Polit. ii. 2, 5.

As we do not find that such was in practice the state of property

in the Spartan community, so neither can we discover that the

lawgiver ever tried either to make or to keep it so. What he did

was to impose a rigorous public discipline, with simple clothing

and fare, incumbent alike upon the rich and the poor (this was his

special present to Greece, according to Thucydidês,[709] and his

great point of contact with democracy, according to Aristotle); but

he took no pains either to restrain the enrichment of the former, or

to prevent the impoverishment of the latter. He meddled little with

the distribution of property, and such neglect is one of the capital

deficiencies for which Aristotle censures him. That philosopher

tells us, indeed, that the Spartan law had made it dishonorable

(he does not say, peremptorily forbidden) to buy or sell landed

property, but that there was the fullest liberty both of donation

and bequest: and the same results, he justly observes, ensued from

the practice tolerated as would have ensued from the practice

discountenanced,—since it was easy to disguise a real sale under an

ostensible donation. He notices pointedly the tendency of property

at Sparta to concentrate itself in fewer hands, unopposed by any

legal hindrances: the fathers married their daughters to whomsoever

they chose, and gave dowries according to their own discretion,

generally very large: the rich families, moreover, intermarried

among one another habitually, and without restriction. Now all these

are indicated by Aristotle as cases in which the law might have

interfered, and ought to have interfered, but did not,—for the great

purpose of disseminating the benefits of landed property as much as

possible among the mass of the citizens. Again, he tells us that the

law encouraged the multiplication of progeny, and granted exemptions

to such citizens as had three or four children,—but took no thought

how the numerous families of poorer citizens were to live, or to

maintain their qualification at the public tables, most of the lands

of the state being in the hands of the rich.[710] His notice, and

condemnation, of that law, which made the franchise of the Spartan

citizen dependent upon his continuing to furnish his quota to the

public table,—has been already adverted to; as well as the potent

love of money[711] which he notes in the Spartan character, and which

must have tended continually to keep together the richer families

among themselves: while amongst a community where industry was

unknown, no poor citizen could ever become rich.

[709] Thucyd. i. 6; Aristot. Polit. iv. 7, 4, 5; viii. 1, 3.

[710] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 10-13; v. 6, 7.

[711] The panegyrist Xenophon acknowledges much the same

respecting the Sparta which he witnessed; but he maintains that

it had been better in former times (Repub. Lac. c. 14).

If we duly weigh these evidences, we shall see that equality of

possessions neither existed in fact, nor ever entered into the

scheme and tendencies of the lawgiver at Sparta. And the picture

which Dr. Thirlwall[712] has drawn of a body of citizens each

possessing a lot of land about adequate to the frugal maintenance of

six persons,—of adoptions and marriages of heiresses arranged with

a deliberate view of providing for the younger children of numerous

families,—of interference on the part of the kings to insure this

object,—of a fixed number of lots of land, each represented by one

head of a household,—this picture is one, of which the reality

must not be sought on the banks of the Eurotas. The “better times

of the commonwealth,” to which he refers, may have existed in the

glowing retrospect of Agis, but are not acknowledged in the sober

appreciation of Aristotle. That the citizens were far more numerous

in early times, the philosopher tells us, and that the community had

in his day greatly declined in power, we also know: in this sense,

the times of Sparta had doubtless once been better. We may even

concede that during the three centuries succeeding Lykurgus, when

they were continually acquiring new territory, and when Aristotle had

been told that they had occasionally admitted new citizens, so that

the aggregate number of citizens had once been ten thousand,—we may

concede that in these previous centuries the distribution of land had

been less unequal, so that the disproportion between the great size

of the territory and the small number of citizens was not so marked

as it had become at the period which the philosopher personally

witnessed; for the causes tending to augmented inequality were

constant and uninterrupted in their working. But this admission will

still leave us far removed from the sketch drawn by Dr. Thirlwall,

which depicts the Lykurgean Sparta as starting from a new agrarian

scheme not far removed from equality of landed property,—the citizens

as spontaneously disposed to uphold this equality, by giving to

unprovided men the benefit of adoptions and heiress-marriages,—and

the magistrate as interfering to enforce this latter purpose, even

in cases where the citizens were themselves unwilling. All our

evidence exhibits to us both decided inequality of possessions and

inclinations on the part of rich men, the reverse of those which

Dr. Thirlwall indicates; nor will the powers of interference which

he ascribes to the magistrate be found sustained by the chapter of

Herodotus on which he seems to rest them.[713]

[712] The view of Dr. Thirlwall agrees, in the main, with that of

Manso and O. Müller (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 118-128; and vol.

ii. Beilage, 9, p. 129; and Müller, History of the Dorians, vol.

ii. b. iii. c. 10, sect. 2, 3).

Both these authors maintain the proposition stated by Plutarch

(Agis c. 5, in his reference to the ephor Epitadeus, and the

new law carried by that ephor), that the number of Spartan

lots, nearly equal and rigorously indivisible, remained with

little or no change from the time of the original division, down

to the return of Lysander, after his victorious close of the

Peloponnesian war. Both acknowledge that they cannot understand

by what regulations this long unalterability, so improbable in

itself, was maintained: but both affirm the fact positively.

The period will be more than four hundred years if the original

division be referred to Lykurgus: more than three hundred years,

if the nine thousand lots are understood to date from the

Messenian war.

If this alleged fact be really a fact, it is something almost

without a parallel in the history of mankind: and before we

consent to believe it, we ought at least to be satisfied that

there is considerable show of positive evidence in its favor,

and not much against it. But on examining Manso and Müller, it

will be seen that not only is there very slender evidence in its

favor,—there is a decided balance of evidence against it.

The evidence produced to prove the indivisibility of the

Spartan lot, is a passage of Herakleidês Ponticus, c. 2 (ad.

calc. Cragii, p. 504), πωλεῖν δὲ γὴν Λακεδαιμονίοις αἰσχρὸν

νενόμισται,—τῆς ἀρχαίας μοίρας ἀνανέμεσθαι (or νενεμῆσθαι) οὐδὲν

ἔξεστι. The first portion of this assertion is confirmed by,

and probably borrowed from, Aristotle, who says the same thing,

nearly in the same words: the second portion of the sentence

ought, according to all reasonable rules of construction, to be

understood with reference to the first part; that is, to the

_sale_ of the original lot. “To sell land, is held disgraceful

among the Lacedæmonians, nor is it permitted to sever off any

portion of the original lot,” i. e. _for sale_. Herakleidês is

not here speaking of the law of _succession_ to property at

Lacedæmon, nor can we infer from his words that the whole lot

was transmitted entire to one son. No evidence except this very

irrelevant sentence is produced by Müller and Manso to justify

their positive assertion, that the Spartan lot of land was

indivisible in respect to inheritance.

Having thus determined the indivisible transmission of lots

to one son of a family, Manso and Müller presume, without any

proof, that that son must be the eldest: and Müller proceeds

to state something equally unsupported by proof: “The extent

of his rights, however, was perhaps no farther than that he

was considered master of the house and property; while the

other members of the family had an equal right to the enjoyment

of it.... The master of the family was, therefore, obliged

to contribute for all these to the syssitia, without which

contribution no one was admitted.”—pp. 199, 200.

All this is completely gratuitous, and will be found to produce

as many difficulties in one way as it removes in another.

The next law as to the transmission of property, which Manso

states to have prevailed, is, that all daughters were to marry

without receiving any dowry,—the case of a sole daughter is here

excepted. For this proposition he cites Plutarch, Apophtheg.

Laconic. p. 227; Justin, iii. 3; Ælian. V. H. vi. 6. These

authors do certainly affirm, that there was such a regulation,

and both Plutarch and Justin assign reasons for it, real or

supposed. “Lykurgus, being asked why he directed that maidens

should be married without dowry, answered,—In order that

maidens of poor families might not remain unmarried, and that

character and virtue might be exclusively attended to in the

choice of a wife.” The same general reason is given by Justin.

Now the _reason_ here given for the prohibition of dowry, goes,

indirectly, to prove that there existed no such law of general

succession, as that which had been before stated, namely, the

sacred indivisibility of the primitive lot. For had this latter

been recognized, the reason would have been obvious why daughters

could receive no dowry; the father’s whole landed property (and

a Spartan could have little of any other property, since he

never acquired anything by industry) was under the strictest

entail to his eldest son. Plutarch and Justin, therefore, while

in their statement as to the matter of fact, they warrant

Manso in affirming the prohibition of dowry (about this matter

of fact, more presently), do, by the reason which they give,

discountenance his former supposition as to the indivisibility of

the primitive family lots.

Thirdly, Manso understands Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11), by

the use of the adverb νῦν, to affirm something respecting his

own time specially, and to imply at the same time that the

ancient custom had been the reverse. I cannot think that the

adverb, as Aristotle uses it in that passage, bears out such a

construction: νῦν δὲ, there, does not signify present time as

opposed to past, but the antithesis between the actual custom

and that which Aristotle pronounces to be expedient. Aristotle

gives no indication of being aware that any material change had

taken place in the laws of succession at Sparta: this is one

circumstance, for which both Manso and Müller, who both believe

in the extraordinary revolution caused by the permissive law of

the ephor Epitadeus, censure him.

Three other positions are laid down by Manso about the laws of

property at Sparta. 1. A man might give away or bequeathe his

land to whomsoever he pleased. 2. But none except childless

persons could do this. 3. They could only give or bequeathe

it to citizens who had no land of their own. Of these three

regulations, the first is distinctly affirmed by Aristotle, and

may be relied upon: the second is a restriction not noticed by

Aristotle, and supported by no proof except that which arises out

of the story of the ephor Epitadeus, who is said to have been

unable to disinherit his son without causing a new law to be

passed: the third is a pure fancy.

So much for the positive evidence, on the faith of which Manso

and Müller affirm the startling fact, that the lots of land in

Sparta remained distinct, indivisible, and unchanged in number,

down to the close of the Peloponnesian war. I venture to say that

such positive evidence is far too weak to sustain an affirmation

in itself so improbable, even if there were no evidence on the

other side for contradiction. But in this case there is powerful

contradictory evidence.

First, the assertions of these authors are distinctly in the

teeth of Aristotle, whose authority they try to invalidate,

by saying that he spoke altogether with reference to his

own time at Sparta, and that he misconceived the primitive

Lykurgean constitution. Now this might form a reasonable ground

of presumption against the competency of Aristotle, if the

witnesses produced on the other side were older than he. But it

so happens, that _every one_ of the witnesses produced by Manso

and Müller, are _younger_ than Aristotle: Herakleidês Ponticus,

Plutarch, Justin, Ælian, etc. Nor is it shown that these authors

copied from any source earlier than Aristotle,—for his testimony

cannot be contradicted by any inferences drawn from Herodotus,

Thucydidês, Xenophon, Plato, Isokratês, or Ephorus. None of

these writers, anterior to, or contemporary with, Aristotle,

countenance the fancy of equal, indivisible, perpetual lots, or

prohibition of dowry.

The fact is, that Aristotle is not only our best witness, but

also our oldest witness, respecting the laws of property in

the Spartan commonwealth. I could have wished, indeed, that

earlier testimonies had existed, and I admit that even the most

sagacious observer of 340-330 B. C. is liable to mistake when he

speaks of one or two centuries before. But if Aristotle is to be

discredited on the ground of late date, what are we to say to

Plutarch? To insist on the intellectual eminence of Aristotle

would be superfluous: and on this subject he is a witness the

more valuable, as he had made careful, laborious, and personal

inquiries into the Grecian governments generally, and that

of Sparta among them,—the great _point de mire_ for ancient

speculative politicians.

Now the statements of Aristotle, distinctly exclude the idea of

equal, indivisible, inalienable, perpetual lots,—and prohibition

of dowry. He particularly notices the habit of giving very large

dowries, and the constant tendency of the lots of land to become

consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. He tells us nothing upon

the subject which is not perfectly consistent, intelligible, and

uncontradicted by any known statements belonging to his own,

or to earlier times. But the reason why men refuse to believe

him, and either set aside or explain away his evidence, is,

that they sit down to the study with their minds full of the

division of landed property ascribed to Lykurgus by Plutarch.

I willingly concede that, on this occasion, we have to choose

between Plutarch and Aristotle. We cannot reconcile them except

by arbitrary suppositions, every one of which breaks up the

simplicity, beauty, and symmetry of Plutarch’s agrarian idea,—and

every one of which still leaves the perpetuity of the original

lots unexplained. And I have no hesitation in preferring the

authority of Aristotle (which is in perfect consonance with what

we indirectly gather from other authors, his contemporaries and

predecessors) as a better witness on every ground; rejecting the

statement of Plutarch, and rejecting it altogether, with all its

consequences.

But the authority of Aristotle is not the only argument which may

be urged to refute this supposition that the distinct Spartan

lots remained unaltered in number down to the time of Lysander.

For if the number of distinct lots remained undiminished, the

number of citizens cannot have greatly diminished. Now the

conspiracy of Kinadôn falls during the life of Lysander, within

the first ten years after the close of the Peloponnesian war:

and in the account which Xenophon gives of that conspiracy, the

paucity of the number of citizens is brought out in the clearest

and most emphatic manner. And this must be before the time when

the new law of Epitadeus is said to have passed, at least before

that law can have had room to produce any sensible effects.

If, then, the ancient nine thousand lots still remained all

separate, without either consolidation or subdivision, how are we

to account for the small number of citizens at the time of the

conspiracy of Kinadôn?

This examination of the evidence, for the purpose of which I

have been compelled to prolong the present note, shows—1. That

the hypothesis of indivisible, inalienable lots, maintained

for a long period in undiminished number at Sparta, is not

only sustained by the very minimum of affirmative evidence,

but is contradicted by very good negative evidence. 2. That

the hypothesis which represents dowries to daughters as being

prohibited by law, is, indeed, affirmed by Plutarch, Ælian, and

Justin, but is contradicted by the better authority of Aristotle.

The recent edition of Herakleidês Ponticus, published by

Schneidewin, in 1847, since my first edition, presents an amended

text, which completely bears out my interpretation. His text,

derived from a fuller comparison of existing MSS., as well as

from better critical judgment (see his Prolegg. c. iii. p.

liv.), stands—Πωλεῖν δὲ γὴν Λακεδαιμονίοις αἰσχρὸν νενόμισται·

τῆς δὲ ἀρχαίας μοίρας οὐδὲ ἔξεστιν (p. 7). It is plain that all

this passage relates to sale of land, and not to testation, or

succession, or division. Thus much _negatively_ is certain, and

Schneidewin remarks in his note (p. 53) that it contradicts

Müller, Hermann, and Schömann,—adding, that the distinction

drawn is, between land inherited from the original family lots,

and land otherwise acquired, by donation, bequest, etc. Sale

of the former was absolutely illegal: sale of the latter was

discreditable, yet not absolutely illegal. Aristotle in the

Politics (ii. 6, 10) takes no notice of any such distinction,

between land inherited from the primitive lots, and land

otherwise acquired. Nor was there, perhaps, any well-defined line

of distinction, in a country of unwritten customs, like Sparta,

between what was simply disgraceful and what was positively

illegal. Schneidewin, in his note, however, assumes the original

equality of the lots as certain in itself, and as being the cause

of the prohibition: neither of which appears to me true.

I speak of this confused compilation still under the name of

Herakleidês Ponticus, by which it is commonly known: though

Schneidewin, in the second chapter of his Prolegomena, has shown

sufficient reason for believing that there is no authority for

connecting it with the name of Herakleidês. He tries to establish

the work as consisting of Excerpta from the lost treatise of

Aristotle’s περὶ Πολιτειῶν: which is well made out with regard

to some parts, but not enough to justify his inference as to the

whole. The article, wherein Welcker vindicates the ascribing

of the work to an Excerptor of Herakleidês, is unsatisfactory

(Kleine Schriften, p. 451).

Beyond this irrelevant passage of Herakleidês Ponticus, no

farther evidence is produced by Müller and Manso to justify their

positive assertion, that the Spartan lot of land was indivisible

in respect to inheritance.

[713] Herod. vi. 57, in enumerating the privileges and

perquisites of the kings—δικάζειν δὲ μούνους τοὺς βασιλῆας τόσαδε

μοῦνα· πατρούχου τε παρθένου πέρι, ἐς τὸν ἱκνέεται ἔχειν, ἢν μή

περ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτὴν ἐγγυήσῃ· καὶ ὁδῶν δημοσιέων πέρι· καὶ ἤν τις

θετὸν παῖδα ποιέεσθαι ἐθέλῃ, βασιλήων ἐνάντιον ποιέεσθαι.

It seems curious that πατρούχος πάρθενος should mean a damsel who

has _no father_ (literally, _lucus a non lucendo_): but I suppose

that we must accept this upon the authority of Julius Pollux and

Timæus. Proceeding on this interpretation, Valckenaer gives the

meaning of the passage very justly: “Orbæ nuptias, necdum a patre

desponsatæ, si plures sibi vindicarent, fieretque ἡ ἐπίκληρος,

ut Athenis loquebantur, ἐπίδικος, Spartæ lis ista dirimebatur a

regibus solis.”

Now the judicial function here described, is something very

different from the language of Dr. Thirlwall, that “the kings

had the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses in cases where

the father had not signified his will.” Such disposal would

approach somewhat to that omnipotence which Aristophanês (Vesp.

585) makes old Philokleon claim for the Athenian dikasts (an

exaggeration well calculated to serve the poet’s purpose of

making the dikasts appear monsters of caprice and injustice), and

would be analogous to the power which English kings enjoyed three

centuries ago as feudal guardians over wards. But the language of

Herodotus is inconsistent with the idea that the kings _chose_

a husband for the orphan heiress. She was claimed, as of right,

by persons in certain degrees of relationship to her. Whether

the law about ἀγχίστεια, affinity carrying legal rights, was the

same as at Athens, we cannot tell; but the question submitted

for adjudication at Sparta, to the kings, and at Athens to the

dikasteries, was certainly the same, agreeably to the above note

of Valckenaer,—namely, to whom, among the various claimants

for the marriage, the best legal title really belonged. It

is, indeed, probable enough, that the two royal descendants

of Hêraklês might abuse their judicial function, as there are

various instances known in which they take bribes; but they were

not likely to abuse it in favor of an unprovided youth.

Next, as to adoption: Herodotus tells us that the ceremony

of adoption was performed before the kings: probably enough,

there was some fee paid with it. But this affords no ground

for presuming that they had any hand in determining _whom_ the

childless father was to adopt. According to the Attic law about

adoption, there were conditions to be fulfilled, consents to be

obtained, the absence of disqualifying circumstances verified,

etc; and some authority before which this was to be done was

indispensable (see Meier und Schömann, Attisch. Prozess, b.

iii. ch. ii. p. 436). At Sparta, such authority was vested by

ancient custom in the king: but we are not told, nor is it

probable, “that he could interpose, in opposition to the wishes

of individuals, to relieve poverty,” as Dr. Thirlwall supposes.

To conceive correctly, then, the Lykurgean system, as far as

obscurity and want of evidence will permit, it seems to me that

there are two current misconceptions which it is essential to

discard. One of these is, that the system included a repartition

of landed property, upon principles of exact or approximative

equality (distinct from that appropriation which belonged to the

Dorian conquest and settlement), and provisions for perpetuating the

number of distinct and equal lots. The other is, that it was first

brought to bear when the Spartans were masters of all Laconia. The

illusions created by the old legend,—which depicts Laconia as all

one country, and all conquered at one stroke,—yet survive after the

legend itself has been set aside as bad evidence: we cannot conceive

Sparta as subsisting by itself without dominion over Laconia; nor

Amyklæ, Pharis, and Geronthræ, as really and truly independent of

Sparta. Yet, if these towns were independent in the time of Lykurgus,

much more confidently may the same independence be affirmed of the

portions of Laconia which lie lower than Amyklæ down the valley

of the Eurotas, as well as of the eastern coast, which Herodotus

expressly states to have been originally connected with Argos.

Discarding, then, these two suppositions, we have to consider the

Lykurgean system as brought to bear upon Sparta and its immediate

circumjacent district, apart from the rest of Laconia, and as not

meddling systematically with the partition of property, whatever

that may have been, which the Dorian conquerors established at their

original settlement. Lykurgus does not try to make the poor rich,

nor the rich poor; but he imposes upon both the same subjugating

drill,[714]—the same habits of life, gentlemanlike idleness, and

unlettered strength,—the same fare, clothing, labors, privations,

endurance, punishments, and subordination. It is a lesson instructive

at least, however unsatisfactory, to political students,—that, with

all this equality of dealing, he ends in creating a community in

whom not merely the love of preëminence, but even the love of money,

stands powerfully and specially developed.[715]

[714] Σπάρτα δαμασίμβροτος, Simonidês, apud Plutarch. Agesilaus,

c. 1.

[715] Aristotel. Polit. ii. 6, 9, 19, 23. τὸ φιλότιμον—τὸ

φιλοχρήματον.

How far the peculiar of the primitive Sparta extended we have no

means of determining; but its limits down the valley of the Eurotas

were certainly narrow, inasmuch as it did not reach so far as

Amyklæ. Nor can we tell what principles the Dorian conquerors may

have followed in the original allotment of lands within the limits

of that peculiar. Equal apportionment is not probable, because

all the individuals of a conquering band are seldom regarded as

possessing equal claims; but whatever the original apportionment may

have been, it remained without any general or avowed disturbance

until the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the Third. Here,

then, we have the primitive Sparta, including Dorian warriors with

their Helot subjects, but no Periœki. And it is upon these Spartans

separately, perhaps after the period of aggravated disorder and

lawlessness noticed by Herodotus and Thucydidês, that the painful but

invigorating discipline, above sketched, must have been originally

brought to bear.

The gradual conquest of Laconia, with the acquisition of additional

lands and new Helots, and the formation of the order of Periœki, both

of which were a consequence of it,—is to be considered as posterior

to the introduction of the Lykurgean system at Sparta, and as

resulting partly from the increased force which that system imparted.

The career of conquest went on, beginning from Têleklus, for nearly

three centuries,—with some interruptions, indeed, and in the case of

the Messenian war, with a desperate and even precarious struggle,—so

that in the time of Thucydidês, and for some time previously, the

Spartans possessed two-fifths of Peloponnesus. And this series of

new acquisitions and victories disguised the really weak point of

the Spartan system, by rendering it possible either to plant the

poorer citizens as Periœki in a conquered township, or to supply them

with lots of land, of which they could receive the produce without

leaving the city,—so that their numbers and their military strength

were prevented from declining. It is even affirmed by Aristotle,[716]

that during these early times they augmented the numbers of their

citizens by fresh admissions, which of course implies the acquisition

of additional lots of land. But successful war, to use an expression

substantially borrowed from the same philosopher, was necessary to

their salvation: the establishment of their ascendency, and of their

maximum of territory, was followed, after no very long interval, by

symptoms of decline.[717] It will hereafter be seen that, at the

period of the conspiracy of Kinadôn (395 B. C.), the full citizens

(called Homoioi, or Peers) were considerably inferior in number to

the Hypomeiŏnes, or Spartans, who could no longer furnish their

qualification, and had become disfranchised. And the loss thus

sustained was very imperfectly repaired by the admitted practice,

sometimes resorted to by rich men, of associating with their own

children the children of poorer citizens, and paying the contribution

for these latter to the public tables, so as to enable them to go

through the prescribed course of education and discipline,—whereby

they became (under the title or sobriquet of Mothăkes[718]) citizens,

with a certain taint of inferiority, yet were sometimes appointed to

honorable commands.

[716] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 12.

[717] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 22. Τοιγαροῦν ἐσῴζοντο μὲν

πολεμοῦντες, ἀπώλοντο δὲ ἄρξαντες, etc. Compare also vii. 13, 15.

[718] Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 8; Phylarch. ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 271.

The strangers called Τρόφιμοι, and the illegitimate sons of

Spartans, whom Xenophon mentions with eulogy, as “having partaken

in the honorable training of the city,” must probably have been

introduced in this same way, by private support from the rich

(Xenoph. Hellen. v. 3, 9). The xenêlasy must have then become

practically much relaxed, if not extinct.

Laconia, the state and territory of the Lacedæmonians, was affirmed,

at the time of its greatest extension, to have comprehended a hundred

cities,[719]—this after the conquest of Messenia; so that it would

include all the southern portion of Peloponnesus, from Thyrea, on

the Argolic gulf, to the southern bank of the river Nedon, in its

course into the Ionian sea. But Laconia, more strictly so called,

was distinguished from Messenia, and was understood to designate the

portion of the above-mentioned territory which lay to the east of

Mount Taygetus. The conquest of Messenia by the Spartans we shall

presently touch upon; but that of Laconia proper is very imperfectly

narrated to us. Down to the reign of Têleklus, as has been before

remarked, Amyklæ, Pharis, and Geronthræ, were still Achæan: in the

reign of that prince they were first conquered, and the Achæans

either expelled or subjugated. It cannot be doubted that Amyklæ

had been previously a place of consequence: in point of heroic

antiquity and memorials, this city, as well as Therapnæ, seems to

have surpassed Sparta. And the war of the Spartans against it is

represented as a struggle of some moment,—indeed, in those times, the

capture of any walled city was tedious and difficult. Timomachus, an

Ægeid from Thebes,[720] at the head of a body of his countrymen,

is said to have rendered essential service to the Spartans in the

conquest of the Achæans of Amyklæ; and the brave resistance of the

latter was commemorated by a monument erected to Zeus Tropæus, at

Sparta, which was still to be seen in the time of Pausanias.[721] The

Achæans of Pharis and Geronthræ, alarmed by the fate of Amyklæ, are

said to have surrendered their towns with little or no resistance:

after which the inhabitants of all the three cities, either wholly or

in part, went into exile beyond sea, giving place to colonists from

Sparta.[722] From this time forward, according to Pausanias, Amyklæ

continued as a village.[723] But as the Amyklæan hoplites constituted

a valuable portion of the Spartan army, it must have been numbered

among the cities of the Periœki, as one of the hundred;[724] the

distinction between a dependent city and a village not being very

strictly drawn. The festival of the Hyacinthia, celebrated at the

great temple of the Amyklæan Apollo, was among the most solemn and

venerated in the Spartan calendar.

[719] Strabo, viii. p. 362; Steph. Byz. Αἴθεια.

Construing the word πόλεις extensively, so as to include

townships small as well as considerable, this estimate is

probably inferior to the truth; since, even during the depressed

times of modern Greece, a fraction of the ancient Laconia

(including in that term Messenia) exhibited much more than one

hundred _bourgs_.

In reference merely to the territory called La Magne, between

Calamata in the Messenian gulf and Capo di Magna, the lower part

of the peninsula of Tænarus, see a curious letter, addressed

to the Duc de Nevers, in 1618, (on occasion of a projected

movement to liberate the Morea from the Turks, and to insure

to him the sovereignty of it, as descendant of the Palæologi,)

by a confidential agent whom he despatched thither,—M.

Chateaurenaud,—who sends to him “une sorte de tableau statistique

du Magne, ou sont énumerés 125 bourgs ou villages renfermans

4,913 feux, et pouvans fournir 10,000 combattans, dont 4,000

armés, et 6,000 sans armes (between Calamata and Capo di Magna).”

(Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. 1842, p. 329.

Mémoire de M. Berger Xivrey.)

This estimate is not far removed from that of Colonel Leake,

towards the beginning of the present century, who considers that

there were then in Mani (the same territory) one hundred and

thirty towns and villages; and this too in a state of society

exceedingly disturbed and insecure,—where private feuds and

private towers, or pyrghi, for defence, were universal, and in

parts of which, Colonel Leake says, “I see men preparing the

ground for cotton, with a dagger and pistols at their girdles.

This, it seems, is the ordinary armor of the cultivator when

there is no particular suspicion of danger: the shepherd is

almost always armed with a musket.” ... “The Maniotes reckon

their population at thirty thousand, and their muskets at ten

thousand.” (Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. i. ch. vii. pp. 243,

263-266.)

Now, under the dominion of Sparta, all Laconia doubtless enjoyed

complete internal security, so that the idea of the cultivator

tilling his land in arms would be unheard of. Reasoning upon the

basis of what has just been stated about the Maniote population

and number of townships, one hundred πόλεις, for all Laconia, is

a very moderate computation.

[720] Aristot. Λακων. Πολιτεία, ap. Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vii. 18.

I agree with M. Boeckh, that Pindar himself identifies this march

of the Ægeids to Amyklæ with the original Herakleid conquest of

Peloponnesus. (Notæ Criticæ ad Pindar. Pyth. v. 74, p. 479.)

[721] Pausan. iii. 2, 6; iii. 12, 7.

[722] Pausan. iii. 22, 5.

[723] Pausan. iii. 19, 5.

[724] Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 5, 11.

It was in the time of Alkamenês, the son of Têleklus, that the

Spartans conquered Helus, a maritime town on the left bank of

the Eurotas, and reduced its inhabitants to bondage,—from whose

name,[725] according to various authors, the general title _Helots_,

belonging to all the serfs of Laconia, was derived. But of the

conquest of the other towns of Laconia,—Gytheium, Akriæ, Therapnæ,

etc.,—or of the eastern land on the coast of the Argolic gulf,

including Brasiæ and Epidaurus Limêra, or the island of Kythêra, all

which at one time belonged to the Argeian confederacy, we have no

accounts.

[725] Pausan. iii. 2, 7; iii. 20, 6. Strabo, viii. p. 363.

If it be true, as Pausanias states, that the Argeians aided Helus

to resist, their assistance must probably have been given by sea;

perhaps from Epidaurus Limêra, or Prasiæ, when they formed part

of the Argeian federation.

Scanty as our information is, it just enables us to make out a

progressive increase of force and dominion on the part of the

Spartans, resulting from the organization of Lykurgus. Of this

progress, a farther manifestation is found, besides the conquest

of the Achæans in the south by Têleklus and Alkamenês, in their

successful opposition to the great power of Pheidôn the Argeian,

related in a previous chapter. We now approach the long and arduous

efforts by which they accomplished the subjugation of their brethren

the Messenian Dorians.