Eurystnenes; the minor, the Eurypontids, from their institutions and manners, and conversed Eurypon, the successor of Sous, son of Procles: with their sages. Crete and the laws of Minos a remarkable fact, not very satisfactorily ex- are said to have been the main object of his plained from the martial renown of these prin- study, and a Cretan poet one of his instructers ces, and perhaps indicating a concealed break in the art of legislation; but the Egyptian in each series. Agis was followed by Eches- priests likewise claimed him as their disciple; tratus and Labotas; and, according to Herodo- and reports were not wanting among the later tus, it was during the minority of the latter that Spartans that he had penetrated as far as InLycurgus, his guardian,* governing as regent, dia, and had sat at the feet of the Bramins. employed the power thus accidentally placed in On his return, he found the disorders of the his hands to establish his institutions. This, state aggravated, and the need of a reform more however, contradicts both the received chronol- generally felt. Having strengthened his authorogy and the better attested tradition, that the ity with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, which lawgiver belonged to the Eurypontid line. He declared his wisdom to transcend the common was commonly believed to have been the son level of humanity, and having secured the aid of Eunomus, the grandson of Eurypon; though of a numerous party among the leading men, the poet Simonides, following a different gene- who took up arms to support him, he succesalogy, called him the son of Prytanis, who is sively procured the enactment of a series of generally supposed to have been the father of solemn ordinances or compacts (Rhetras), by Eunomus, and the immediate successor of Eury- which the civil and military constitution of the pon. Eunomus is said to have been killed in a commonwealth, the distribution of property, the fray which he was endeavouring to quell, and education of the citizens, the rules of their daiwas succeeded by his eldest son Polydectes, ly intercourse and of their domestic life, were who shortly after dying childless, left Lycurgus to be fixed on a hallowed and immutable basis. apparently entitled to the crown. But as his Many of these regulations roused a violent opbrother's widow was soon discovered to be position, which even threatened the life of Lypregnant, he declared his purpose of resigning curgus; but his fortitude and patience finally his dignity if she should give birth to an heir. triumphed over all obstacles, and he lived to The ambitious queen, however, if we may be- see his great idea, unfolded in all its beauty, lieve a piece of court scandal reported by Plu- begin its steady course, bearing on its front the tarch, put his virtue to a severer test. She se- marks of immortal vigour. His last action was cretly sent proposals to him of securing him on to sacrifice himself to the perpetuity of his work. the throne on condition of sharing it with him, He set out on a journey to Delphi, after having by destroying the embryo hopes of Sparta. Sti- bound his countrymen by an oath to make no fling his indignation, he affected to embrace her change in his laws before his return. When offer, but, as if tender of her health, bade her the last seal had been set to his institutions by do no violence to the course of nature: "The the oracle, which foretold that Sparta should infant, when born, might be easily despatched." flourish as long as she adhered to them, having As the time drew near, he placed trusty attend- transmitted this prediction to his fellow-citiants round her person, with orders, if she should zens, he resolved, in order that they might nevbe delivered of a son, to bring the child imme-er be discharged from their oath, to die in a fordiately to him. He happened to be sitting at table with the magistrates when his servants came in with a new-born prince. Taking the infant from their arms, he placed it on the royal seat, and in the presence of the company proclaimed it King of Sparta, and named it Charilaus, to express the joy which the event diffused among the people. eign land. The place and manner of his death are veiled in an obscurity befitting the character of the hero; the sacred soils of Delphi, of Crete, and of Elis, all claimed his tomb; the Spartans honoured him, to the latest times, with a temple and yearly sacrifices, as a god. Such are the outlines of a story which is too familiar to be cast away as an empty fiction, even if it should be admitted that no part of it can bear the scrutiny of a rigorous criticism. But the main question is whether the view it presents of the character of Lycurgus as a statesman is substantially correct; and in this respect we should certainly be led to regard him in a very different light, if it should appear that the institutions which he is here supposed to have collected with so much labour, and to have founded with so much difficulty, were in exist ence long before his birth; and not only in Crete, but at Sparta, nor at Sparta only, but in other Grecian states. And this we believe to have been the case with every important part of these institutions. As to most of those, indeed, which were common to Crete and Sparta, Though proof against such temptation, Lycurgus had the weakness, it seems, to shrink from a vile suspicion. Alarmed lest the calumnies propagated by the incensed queen-mother and her kinsmen, who charged him with a design against the life of his nephew, might chance to be seemingly confirmed by the untimely death of Charilaus, he determined, instead of staying to exercise his authority for the benefit of the young king and of the state, to withdraw beyond the reach of slander till the maturity of his ward and the birth of an heir should have removed every pretext for such imputations. Thus the prime of his life, notwithstanding the regret and the repeated invitations of his countrymen, was spent in voluntary exile; which, however, he employed in maturing a plan al-it seems scarcely to admit of a doubt, and is ready conceived for remedying the evils under which Sparta had long laboured, by a great change in its constitution and laws. With this view he visited many foreign lands, observed Dionysius Hal., ii., 49, names Eunomus as the ward. equally evident, whether we acknowledge or deny that some settlements of the Dorians in Crete preceded the conquest of Peloponnesus. It was at Lyctus, a Laconian colony, as Aristotle informs us, that the institutions which Lycurgus was supposed to have taken for his mod el, flourished longest in their original purity; which he applied to them, are nowhere dis and hence some of the ancients contended that tinctly described, and can only be gathered by a they were transferred from Laconia to Crete; difficult and uncertain process of combination an argument which Ephorus thought to confute, and inference. Herodotus and Thucydides use by remarking that Lycurgus lived five genera- only very general and vague language in detions later than Athæmenes, who founded one scribing the state of Sparta previous to the leof the Dorian colonies in the island. But un- gislation of Lycurgus. The former says that it less we imagine that each of these colonies pro- was the worst-ordered country in Greece, both duced its Minos or its Lycurgus, we must con- as regarded the mutual relations of the citizens, clude that they merely retained what they and their inhospitable treatment of foreigners; brought with them from the mother-country. a singular remark, since in her best times Whether they found the same system already Sparta was most celebrated for the jealousy established in Crete, depends on the question with which she excluded foreigners from her whether a part of its population was already territory. Thucydides speaks of a long period Dorian. On any other view, the general adop-of civil discord which had preceded the estabtion of the laws of Minos in the Dorian cities lishment of the good government existing in his of Crete, and the tenacity with which Lyctus own day. Aristotle gives a somewhat more adhered to them, are facts unexplained and dif- definite, though a very obscure hint, when he obficult to understand. We suspect, indeed, that serves, that in the reign of Charilaus the Spartan the contrary opinion rests on a false notion of government changed from a tyranny to an aristhe omnipotence of human legislators, which tocracy.* Plutarch, indeed, is much more exhas been always prevalent among philosophers, plicit, but he seems to have been unable to form but has never been confirmed by experience. a clear conception of the subject. According to It may be reasonably doubted whether the his- him, the root of the evil lay in the relaxation of tory of the world furnishes any instance of a po- the royal authority, which had begun in the litical creation such as that attributed to Minos reign of Eurypon, and had increased until, in or Lycurgus. No parallel is afforded by a le- the time of Lycurgus, the kingly power was regislation in which, as in that of Moses, religion duced to a shadow; and this he thinks the lawis not merely the basis, but the main element giver designed to correct, by instituting a counof the system. Without some such extraordi-cil which should at once support and restrain nary aid, that union of absolute power and con- the kings, and should maintain an equipoise besummate prudence which Plato thought neces-tween them and the people. The next main sary for the foundation of his commonwealth, cause of disorder described by Plutarch was might still be found incapable of moulding and transforming a people at the will of an individual. We lay no stress, however, on these general grounds; it is the contemplation of the Spartan institutions themselves that seems to justify the conclusion that they were not so much a work of human art and forethought as a form of society originally congenial to the character of the Dorian people, and to the situa-tinctions, and to exclude all enjoyments which tion in which they were placed by their new conquests; and in its leading features not even peculiar to this, or to any single branch of the Hellenic nation. the excessive disproportion in the distribution of private property; and he informs us that for this Lycurgus provided an immediate remedy in a new partition of the land, which was not confined to the Spartans, but extended to all the inhabitants of Laconia; and that he then proceeded to attack the disease in its inmost seat, by a series of regulations tending to abolish all dis the former, Lycurgus, it is said, was seconded by the leading men; while in the latter, he was opposed by the wealthy class with a fury which threatened his life. There is still greater difficulty in reconciling this account with Aristotle's remark, that the tyranny of Charilaus was followed by an aristocratical government. This, indeed, reminds us of what Plutarch relates, that the first tumult occasioned by the measures of Lycurgus alarmed Charilaus so much, that, fancying a conspiracy formed against himself, he took refuge in the sanctuary of the Brazen House, where Lycurgus himself was afterward forced to take shelter. We read, however, that his fears were quieted, and that he even actively joined in promoting the new reform. could supply fuel to private cupidity. Plutarch does not attempt to point out any connexion between these two measures, which, indeed, are directly opposite in their tendency; the first This view of the subject may seem scarcely checking popular license by an aristocratical into leave room for the intervention of Lycurgus, stitution, while the second levels all advantages and to throw some doubt on his individual ex-of rank and property. Accordingly, in carrying istence; so that Hellanicus, who made no mention of him, and referred his institutions to Eurysthenes and Procles, would appear to have been much more correctly informed, or to have had a much clearer insight into the truth, than the later historians, who ascribed everything Spartan to the more celebrated lawgiver. But, remarkable as this variation is, it cannot be allowed to outweigh the concurrent testimony of the other ancient writers, from which we must, at least, conclude that Lycurgus was not an imaginary or symbolical person, but one whose name marks an important epoch in the history of his country. Through all the conflicting accounts of his life, we may distinguish one fact, which is unanimously attested, and seems independent of all minuter discrepancies-that by If we admit the fact that a revolution of some him Sparta was delivered from the evils of an- kind was really effected by Lycurgus, it seems archy or misrule, and that from this date she necessary, in order to understand the various began a long period of tranquillity and order. descriptions given of it, to suppose that its obBut the origin and the precise nature of the dis-jects were not precisely such as the language orders which he found existing, and, consequently, the real aim and spirit of the remedies * Pol., v., 12. + Plut., Ap. Luc., 7. of the ancient writers at first sight suggests. | subsequently submitted to Sparta may have afSo long as we confine our view to the Dorians forded some of the leading men opportunities of Sparta, we are at a loss to explain the grow of enriching themselves at the expense of the ing ascendency of a commonalty, which finally ancient land-owners, and to the exclusion of tramples on the royal prerogatives, and which their less fortunate brethren, who might thus it is found necessary to balance by an aristo-be disposed to favour the pretensions of the Lacratical institution; while, in the same state, a conian provincials. small class preponderates over the rest by its If this supposition at all corresponds to the overgrown possessions, to a degree which state of things which Lycurgus found existing, drives the legislator to the democratical expe- it will not be difficult to understand the double dient of a general repartition. It is true that aspect which his legislation presents. He must such extremes may often be found combined in have had two main objects in view one, to a stage of society immediately preceding a great maintain the sovereignty of Sparta over the political convulsion; but if such a convulsion rest of Laconia; the other-a necessary condiensues, and the wealthy class is forced to yield, tion of the former-to unite the Spartans by the the result will surely not be a rigid and steady closest ties among themselves The manner aristocratical government; and it would be at- in which he accomplished this twofold purpose tributing, not wisdom, but magic, to Lycurgus, may not have been the less admirable because to suppose that he extracted such a constitution he found all the instruments he required ready out of such elements. It seems impossible to to his hand, and was seconded by the general comprehend the nature of his reform, unless we wishes of the people. Nothing more, indeed, may be allowed to think that it determined not seems to have been necessary for securing the merely the relations of the Dorians among one harmony and the internal strength of Sparta another or to their kings, but that in which they than that she should return into the ancient stood to their subjects, the provincials of Laco- track, from which she appears for a time to nia; and that this is not a wholly unauthorized have been drawn partially aside; that her citiconjecture appears from the tradition that Ly-zens, where they had cast off the habits of their curgus extended his agrarian regulation over forefathers, should resume them; and, sacrithe whole country. Those authors, indeed, ficing all artificial distinctions and newly-acwho represent the conquest of Laconia as com- quired inclinations, should live together after pleted some generations sooner, would lead us the old fashion, as brothers in arms, under the to conclude that the relation between the con-rigid but equal discipline of a camp. querors and their subjects had been long before mode of life was undoubtedly not only familiar fixed on its ultimate footing. But as we have to the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus, geen reason to suspect that the conquest itself but can never have sunk into very general diswas much more gradual, so it seems not im- use: it had probably been most neglected by probable that it was reserved for Lycurgus final- those whose possessions raised them above the ly to settle the relative position of the several common level, and when this inequality was reclasses. And it must be remembered, that moved, came again almost spontaneously into among them, besides the conquered Achæans, force. The occasion, however, required that were other foreigners who had aided the Dori- what had hitherto been no more than lax and ans in their enterprise, and might therefore undefined usage, should henceforth be made to seem to have stronger claims to an equality of assume the character of strict law, solemnly political rights. It would be natural, and in ac-enacted, and consecrated by the sanction of recordance with the policy which we find actuallyligion. If Lycurgus did no more than this, afpursued by the Dorian kings of Messenia, ifter having surmounted the obstacles which inthese claims had been favoured by one of the royal houses at Sparta; and it would be no uncommon mistake or perversion of language if this was the fact indicated by Eurypon's ambition of popularity, by the death of Eunomus, and by the tyranny of Charilans. Eurypon would be a demagogue, and Charilaus a tyrant, in the same sense in which Cresphontes might have been called so by his Dorians, whom he wished to reduce to the same level with his other sub-probable shall have been proposed, we believe jects and it may have been in a like struggle that Eunonius also lost his life. This terest and passion threw in his way, he will indeed lose the glory of a marvellous triumph over nature, but he will retain the honour of having judiciously and successfully applied the simplest and most efficacious means which nature afforded to a great and arduous end. While, therefore, we do not wish the reader to forget that this is no more than a hypothesis, which must give way as soon as another more that we come nearest to the truth in supposing that the occasion that called forth the legislation of Lycurgus was the danger which threatened the Spartan Dorians, while divided among themselves, of losing the privileges which rais The gradual progress of the conquest may, perhaps, also serve to explain the inequality of property among the Dorians, which must be considered not as an effect of the original dis-ed them above their subjects-the common freetribution, nor of successive casual transfers, but of encroachment and usurpation; and which, therefore, though tolerated for a time, would excite discontent and division among the conquerors. Though at the first irruption a division of land probably took place in that part of the territory which was immediately occupied by the Dorian arms-and if so, may have been conducted on principles of equality-the subjugation of the several towns and districts which men of Laconia: that, consequently, the basis of all his regulations was a new distribution of property, which removed the principal causes of discord, and facilitated the correction of other abuses; that this was accompanied by a more precise determination of political rights; and, finally, that this same opportunity was taken to enforce and to widen all those distinctions of education and habits, which, while they separated the citizens from the subjects, bound the perhaps, most of the mines and quarries, and the woody mountain tracts, which afforded the citizens the exercise of the chase; another portion was withdrawn, in scattered parcels, from private uses for the service of the numerous temples. higher class more firmly together. Such, at the largest calculation, the military force of the least, appears to have been the aim and ten- Laconians did not exceed 16,000 men.* On dency of the Spartan institutions, whatever this supposition, Plutarch would have been may be thought as to their origin and author; mistaken only as to the number of the allotand we shall therefore follow this order in pro- ments made by Lycurgus, but would be correct ceeding to describe their principal features. as to their proportion-15,000 to 4500. On anAccording to one of the accounts transmitted other very important point, however, his deto us by Plutarch, Lycurgus divided the whole scription suggests a totally erroneous notion; of Laconia into 39,000 parcels, of which 9000 for it supposes, as has been observed, that the were assigned to as many Spartan families, 39,000 parcels were all equal, at least in their 30,000 to their free subjects. Plutarch seems average dimensions. This was far from being to have supposed that these parcels were all the case. Aristotle appears to intimate that equal, so that the Spartan had no advantage the largest part of Laconia was occupied by over the Laconian, any more than over his fel- the_Spartans † Their share was undoubtedly, low-citizens; for he relates that Lycurgus, hav- as Isocrates expressly remarks, the most fering once returned from abroad, towards the end tile and valuable ;‡ and, to judge from the popof harvest, gazed with delight on the uniformulation which it supported, it cannot have been aspect of the corn-fields, and observed that all much inferior to the rest in extent. At Plataa, Laconia looked like a heritage newly shared each Spartan was attended by seven Helots; among many brothers. It must, however, be and, on the lowest computation grounded on remembered, in the first place, that in the time this statement, the Helots must at that time of Lycurgus several districts of Laconia were have been to the free Laconians nearly as three probably independent of Sparta; and next, that, to one. But the Helots are everywhere deeven if this had been otherwise, and with re- scribed as slaves, not of the Laconians, but of gard to the part then subject to the conquerors, the Spartans; so that, even if the greater part the nature of the ground must have rendered a belonged to Messenia, those of Laconia must nicely equal partition for such an age and peo-have required little less than half the country ple utterly impracticable. Nor does it appear for the maintenance of themselves and their what motive could have induced the legislator masters. The whole of the land, however, was to aim at establishing such an equality among not in private hands; the state remained in the Laconians, in whose case the physical dif-possession of a considerable domain, including, ficulty would be the greatest. On the other hand, we find that it was a question among the ancients whether the 9000 Spartan parcels were all contained in Laconia itself, or included those which were acquired after the age of Lycurgus in Messenia. Plutarch mentions two opimons on this subject. According to one, Though what has been said shows that it is 6000 parcels were assigned by Lycurgus him- scarcely possible to ascertain the exact proporself, and 3000 were added by King Polydorus tion in which the Lacedæmonian territory was at the end of the first Messenian war; ac- distributed in the days of Lycurgus, it is highly cording to the other, the original number, 4500, probable that the tendency of his agrarian reguwas doubled by Polydorus. The latter opinion lations-of those, at least, which related to the seems to be strongly confirmed by the plan of Spartans-was towards a general equality of the unfortunate Agis, who proposed to divide landed property. But it is not clear that for the Spartan territory into 4500 allotments, at the this purpose he was obliged to remove all ansame time that he assigned 15,000 to the La-cient landmarks, and to make an entirely new conian provincials. And Aristotle, who wrote partition: he may have found it sufficient to after Messenia had been wrested from the do- compel the wealthy to resign a part of their minion of Sparta, speaking of the Spartan land possessions, that perhaps to which they had no in Laconia, appears to say that it is capable of title but an unauthorized occupation. If we maintaining 3000 infantry and 1500 horsemen ;* suppose the inequality of property among the adding that the Spartans were reported to have Spartans to have arisen chiefly from acts of once amounted to 10,000. Indeed, if there was usurpation, by which the leading men had seized any foundation for the assertion of Isocrates, lands of the conquered Achæans, which, if taken that they originally numbered only 2000, it from their owners, belonged of right to the state, would be scarcely credible that they should by their resumption might afford the means at once any means have attained to much more than of correcting an evil which disturbed the intertwice that number in the days of Lycurgus:nal tranquillity of Sparta, and of redressing a the causes to which their subsequent increase wrong which provoked discontent among her may have been due will be hereafter explain-subjects. The kings, we are informed, had doed. And as Plutarch's statement seems to mains in the districts of several provincial require correction in this respect, so it may towns; similar acquisitions may have been be suspected that it greatly exaggerates the amount of the Laconian free population. The proportion which it bore to that of Sparta, in the time of Lycurgus, was probably nearly the same as that which Agis endeavoured to restore; otherwise an inexplicable decrease must have taken place before the Persian war, when, on * Pol., ii., 6. According to the reading, τρισχιλιους, hich the context seems to require. made by many private Spartans before the time of Lycurgus; and his partition, so far as it regarded the subject Laconians, may have consisted chiefly in the restoration and distribution of such lands. When, from the division of the territory, we * See Clinton, Fast. Hell., ., p. 407. proceed to inquire into the condition of its in- | pensated by their exemption from many irkhabitants, we find three classes, which must be some restraints and inflictions, which habit separately considered: the Dorians of Sparta; only could render tolerable, to which the ruling their serfs, the Helots; and the people of the caste were forced to submit. If they were provincial districts. These last, who stand compelled to bestow their labour on an ungratemost apart from the rest, will most fitly come ful part of the soil, they, on the other hand, enfirst under our notice. They were a mixed joyed undivided possession of the trade and race, composed partly of the conquered Achæ- manufactures of the country. It is true that ans, partly of strangers who had either accom- the value of this advantage was very much dipanied the conquerors in their expedition, or minished by the peculiar character of the Sparhad been invited by them to supply the place tan institutions, which banished luxury and its of the old inhabitants. It is possible that there ministering arts from the capital, and discourmay have been also some Dorians among them, aged, if it did not wholly prevent, all influx of as we learn that the town of Box was founded strangers; but though the simplicity of the by a chief of the Heracleid race; and that, not Spartan mode of life, and the jealous policy of long after the time of Lycurgus, Geronthræ, the government, tended to check the industry evacuated by the Achæans, was peopled by a of the artificer, must have found very profitcolony sent from Sparta.* But as the whole able employment in the public buildings and body of the invaders was barely strong enough festivals which displayed the piety and magnifito effect the conquest, the numbers thus detach-cence of the state: for Sparta yielded to no ed from it must have been extremely small, even Grecian city in her zeal for religion, and forgot when the Spartan franchise was less valuable her parsimony in the service of the gods. than it became after the subjugation of Messe- Hence the higher as well as the subordinate nia. Isocrates represents the Dorians as pur-arts were cultivated by the provincials, though suing the policy of weakening the conquered they would have been thought all alike degraAchæans by dispersing them over a great num-ding to a Spartan; and Laconia contributed ber of miserable hamlets, which they dignified with the name of cities, and which lay in the least productive part of the territory. This is, perhaps, not a mere fiction of the rhetorician; though, as the description of a uniform system, it undoubtedly distorts, or greatly exaggerates the truth, since the population of Boæ, for instance, is said to have been collected from three more ancient towns. Still, what Isocrates mentions may sometimes have happened, and may serve to account for the extraordinary number of the Laconian cities, as they were called, which are said to have amounted to a hundred, and to have occasioned the yearly sacrifice of a hecatomb; for it does not seem necessary to suppose that this number included those of Messenia. It is also credible enough that Sparta always viewed the subject towns with jealousy, and would never have permitted them to attain a very high degree of strength or opulence. There is, no doubt, much rhetorical exaggeration in the description of the territory assigned to the conquered people, as seems clear from the fact that it included a large part of the crown lands; but still it is unquestionable that the Spartans occupied the best and fairest portion. several celebrated names to the list of Grecian artists. We should be led to form a still higher estimate of the prosperity of this class, and of the respect with which it was viewed, if we might believe that it had sent forth several successful competitors to the Olympic games. But the instances which at first sight appear to attest this fact are none of them altogether free from ambiguity. There are some other interesting points connected with this subject, on which at present we cannot decide with any greater certainty. The division of Laconia into six districts, which Ephorus supposed to have taken place immediately after the conquest, seems at least to imply that the province was once distributed into cantons, which were governed by Spartan magistrates; but we know neither the precise nature of this institution, nor how long it lasted. The example of Cythera, where we find a Spartan officer under a peculiar name (Cytherodices), affords no ground for any conclusion as to the administration of Laconia. We may infer from the difference of armour among the provincials engaged at the battle of Platæa, where each of their menat-arms was accompanied by a light-armed soldier, that there was a corresponding distinction The provincial land was tributary to the of ranks among them, by which one class, instate; but this tribute was perhaps regarded cluded under the general name of Laconians, less as a source of revenue than as an acknowl-was perhaps no less widely parted from another edgment of sovereignty. The provincials were subjects; they shared none of the political privleges of the Spartans; their municipal governTant was under the control of Spartan officers; and yet they bore the heaviest share of the public burdens, and were able to be torn from eir hells and hearths, to shed their blood in emels which only interested the pride or amtion of Sparta. These were their principal grievances; but in other respects, and comJared with the most numerous class of the population, they were highly favoured subjects, and, on the whole, they might perhaps see little to cavy in the condition of the Spartans themselves Their political dependance was comPaus., t., 22. VOL I-R than the whole body was from the Spartans. Whether, however, this was a difference of birth or of occupations, a casual or a permanent one, we have no means of ascertaining. In general, the provincials seem to have had little to complain of but the want of political independence; and if they were, in great part, strangers who had settled in the country with the permission of the Dorians, this could not be considered as a wrong or a hardship. Very different was the condition of the Helots, whose name, according to every derivation of it, recalled the loss of personal liberty as the origin and the essential character of their state. The ancients looked upon them as Achæans, who, in consequence of their obstinate resistance, |