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Hence, when the progress of trade and com- to the discharge of household duties as to the merce had occasioned the coining of the pre- citizens which they were to give to the comcious metals in Greece, no need of them was monwealth. They were to be the mothers of a yet felt at Sparta for the common business of robust race, and hence were early subjected to life; they were regarded as a dangerous nov- the same athletic exercises as the harder sex; elty, and the possession of them was forbidden. and it even seems to have been the legislator's Iron, the native produce of Laconia, prepared intention that they should be looked upon only so as to be of no use for other purposes, at first in this light, and should excite no affection diin little bars, afterward in a more convenient rected to any other object. It was, perhaps, form, continued to the latest times the only le- not without design, though probably with one gal currency at Sparta, unless we may believe very different from that which Plutarch suppowhat some authors relate, that leather was ap- ses, that their persons were frequently exposed plied to the same use. This restriction has in public processions and dances in a manner been often ascribed to Lycurgus, but must have which, to modern feelings, would betoken the been introduced later, if, as seems most prob- last stage of public licentiousness.* Yet it is able, the coinage of silver money was unknown certain that, in this respect, the Spartan morals to the Greeks for more than a century after were at least as pure as those of any ancient, him. With regard to gold, indeed, the prohibi- perhaps of any modern people. These spectation would in his time have been superfluous, cles, probably a relic of a primitive usage, and since it is certain, from two well-attested facts,* connected with the rites of religion, were far that, down to the Persian wars, this metal was from lowering the Spartan virgin in the esteem so rare as to be quite out of the reach of a pri- of the other sex; and the praise or blame which, vate Spartan. It seems, however, that the ac- on such occasions, she was permitted to disquisition of gold or silver money was interdict-pense to the by-standers, was found one of the ed only to private Spartans; for the provincials, who were not debarred from commerce, it must have been indispensable; nor can it have been the design of the legislator to impose any such restriction on the state itself: whether the kings were originally exempt from it, or only owed the privilege, which they undoubtedly exercised, of amassing wealth, to subsequent changes in the commonwealth, is a more doubtful question. This prohibition must certainly have contributed to preserve the simplicity of the ancient manners; but it seems to have been attended with another consequence, which was often very injurious to the public interests. The tendency of human nature to hanker after all that is forbidden renders it probable that this was the secret spring of that venality, of which we find so many remarkable instances in Spartan history. Avarice appears to have been the Vice to which the Spartan was most prone; money, for which he had scarcely any use, a bait, which even the purest patriotism could seldom resist.

most efficacious means of quickening the emulation of the youths. A Spartan marriage retained the form which had, no doubt, been given to the ceremony in the Dorian Highlands, and which to this day prevails among the Circassian tribes. The bride was considered as a prize of courage and address, and was always supposed to be carried off from the parental roof by force or stratagem. The Spartan matrons appeared in public much more rarely than before marriage; and, though the pleasures of domestic society were little valued at Sparta, where it was even disreputable for the young husband to be seen in company with his wife, they were treated with a respect, and exercised an influence which seemed to the other Greeks extravagant and pernicious; but it became such only, if at all, after the whole nation had degenerated. In the better times, they alone among the Greek women show a dignity of character which makes them worthy rivals of the Roman matrons. Adultery was long unknown at Sparta; yet so little sanctity was attached to the nupThe same spirit which exercised this abso-tial compact, that it was sacrificed without scruJute control over private property appears in all the regulations by which the citizen was to be trained to the service of the state, and even in those which laid the foundation of the family From his birth every Spartan belonged to the itself. The character of the Spartan system is state, which decided, as we have seen, whether nowhere more conspicuous than in its mode of he was likely to prove a useful member of the determining the relations of the sexes. The community, and extinguished the life of the treatment of the women may serve to illustrate sickly or deformed infant. To the age of sevthe manner in which old Hellenic usages were en, however, the care of the child was delegahere modified by the peculiar design of the legis- ted to its natural guardians, yet not so as to be lator. The freedom they enjoyed, and the def- left wholly to their discretion, but subject to erence paid to them, which were censured as certain established rules of treatment, which excessive in later ages, when they formed a guarded against every mischievous indulgence contrast to the custom then prevalent in Greece, of parental tenderness. At the end of seven were vestiges of remote antiquity, and conform-years began a long course of public discipline, able to the habits described in the Homeric poems. But it was more especially the liberty allowed to the young unmarried women that distinguished the Spartan institutions. Their education was conducted with a view not so much

The Spartans send to Lydia for a small quantity; Ileeo to Architeles the Corinthian, the only man in Greece who had amassed a considerable stock. Theopompus in Athen., v., p. 232.

ple, and in a manner which shocks our notions of decency, to maxims of state policy or private expedience.t

which grew constantly more and more severe

Yet it seems necessary to distinguish between the pri vate exercises, in which they laid aside all covering, and the public exhibitions, in which they wore the species of half-open tunic (the axiords xirov), which procured for then the epithet of φαινομε ρίδες.

+ Plut., Lyc., 15. See also some remarks of Mr. Lewis in the Philological Museum, vol. ii., p. 70, note 43.

It was exposed in a glen of Taygetus, hence called the 'Amo0irat. The twelve tables contained a similar enactment. Cic., De Leg., iii., 8.

as the boy approached towards manhood. The ger, to forage in the fields or houses which they education of the young was in some degree the might contrive to enter by stealth. The ingebusiness of all the elder citizens; for there was nious and successful pilferer gained applause none who did not contribute to it, if not by his with his booty: one who was detected was active interference, at least by his presence and made to smart, not for the attempt, but for the inspection. But it was placed under the espe- failure. It seems a gross, though not an uncial superintendence of an officer* selected from common mistake, to treat this practice as a vithe men of most approved worth; and he, again, | olation of property and an encouragement to chose a number of youths, just past the age of theft; it was a preparation, not more remarkatwenty, and who most eminently united cour- ble than many others, for the hardships and age with discretion, to exercise a more imme- shifts of a military life. The hateful cryptia diate command over the classest into which the was apparently a similar institution, but made boys were divided. The leader of each class subservient to a political end. directed the sports and tasks of his young troop, The Muses were appropriately honoured at and punished their offences with military rig- Sparta with a sacrifice on the eve of a batour, but was himself responsible to his elders tle, and the union of the spear and the lyre was for the mode in which he discharged his office. a favourite theme with the Laconian poets, and The Spartan education was simple in its ob- those who sang of Spartan customs. Though jects it was not the result of any general view bred in the discipline of the camp, the young of human nature, or of any attempt to unfold its Spartan, like the hero of the Iliad, was not a various capacities; it aimed at training men stranger to music and poetry. He was taught who were to live in the midst of difficulty and to sing, and to play on the flute and the lyre: danger, and who could only be safe themselves but the strains with which his memory was while they held rule over others. The citizen stored, and to which his voice was formed, was to be always ready for the defence of him- were either sacred hymns, or breathed a marself and his country, at home and abroad; and tial spirit; and it was because they cherished he was, therefore, to be equally fitted to com- such sentiments that the Homeric lays, if not mand and to obey. His body, his mind, and introduced by Lycurgus, were early welcomed his character were formed for this purpose, and at Sparta; for the same reason Tyrtæus was for no other; and hence the Spartan system, held in honour, while Archilochus, the delight making directly for its main end, and rejecting of Greece, was banished, because he had not all that was foreign to it, attained, within its been ashamed to record his own inglorious flight own sphere, to a perfection which it is impos- from a field of battle.* As these musical exersible not to admire. The young Spartan was cises were designed to cultivate, not so much perhaps unable either to read or write; he an intellectual as a moral taste, so it was probscarcely possessed the elements of any of the ably less for the sake of sharpening their ingearts or sciences by which society is enriched or nuity than of promoting presence of mind and adorned; but he could run, leap, wrestle, hurl promptness of decision, that the boys were the disc or the javelin, and wield every other led into the habit of answering all questions weapon, with a vigour, agility, and grace which proposed to them with a ready, pointed, sentenwere nowhere surpassed. These, however, tious brevity, which was a proverbial characterwere accomplishments to be learned in every istic of Spartan conversation. But the lessons Greek palæstra: he might find many rivals in which were most studiously inculcated-more, all that he could do; but few could approach indeed, by example than by precept-were those him in the firmness with which he was taught of modesty, obedience, and reverence for age to suffer. From the tender age at which he and rank; for these were the qualities on which, left his mother's lap for the public schools, his above all others, the stability of the commonlife was one continued trial of patience. Coarse wealth reposed. The gait and look of the Sparand scanty fare, and this occasionally withheld; tan youths, as they passed along the streets, a light dress, without any change in the depth observed Xenophon, breathed modesty and reof winter; a bed of reeds, which he himself serve. In the presence of their elders they gathered from the Eurotas; blows exchanged were bashful as virgins and silent as statues, with his comrades; stripes inflicted by his gov- save when a question was put to them. It ernors, more by way of exercise than of pun- was, as Plutarch supposes, to signify the imishment, inured him to every form of pain and portance of these virtues that the Temple of hardship. One test of this passive fortitude Fear was erected near the mansion-house of was very celebrated among the ancients. In the ephors. In truth, the respect for the laws, early times, probably before the Dorian con- which rendered the Spartan averse to innovaquest, human victims appear to have been of- tion at home, was little more than another form fered in Laconia to an image of Artemis, which of that awe with which his early habits inspired Orestes was believed to have brought with him him for the magistrates and the aged. With from Scythia. Lycurgus, it is said, abolished this feeling was intimately connected that quick this bloody rite, but substituted for it a contest and deep sense of shame, which shrank from little less ferocious, in which the most generous dishonour as the most dreadful of evils, and enyouths, standing on the altar, presented them-abled him to meet death so calmly, when he selves to the lash, and were sometimes seen to saw in it the will of his country.

expire under it without a groan. Another usage,

The interval between the age of twenty and

not less famous, served to train the Spartan boys thirty was looked upon as a stage of transition at once to suffering and to action. They were at times compelled, either by the express com- *Plut., Inst. Lac, 33. Valerius Maximus (vi., 3, E. 1) mand of their leader or by the cravings of hun-assigns a different and much less probable motive, but refers the expulsion, which, according to Plutarch, befell thepoet himself, to his works. ↑ Cleom., 9.

* The παιδονόμος.

tayeλki, as in Crete.

LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS.

137

from boyhood to manhood. During this period | peditions against the same enemy: a precauthe young Spartan was released, indeed, from tion, it is supposed, against the danger of trainthe discipline of the classes, but he was not yet ing a weak adversary, by repeated attacks, into permitted to appear among the men in the assembly, and was, perhaps, chiefly employed in Sparta's first great reverse was owed to the vioa bold and skilful one. all military service which might be required lation of this rule. But it is difficult to name any Plutarch thinks that within the frontier. But his education could period of history during which it appears to scarcely be said to have ceased even after he have been observed. had reached his full maturity, and had entered mitted, that caution was a prominent quality in on the duties of a husband and a father. The the Spartan character, and, combined with the It must, however, be adlife of the Spartan, in time of peace, was one of consciousness of superiority, it may sometimes leisure, for this was essential to the dignity of have supplied the place of humanity in softena freeman; but it was not one of ease and in- ing the ferocity of warfare. A wholesome sudolence, for this would have unfitted him for perstition, which respected certain religious the duties of a citizen and a warrior. His time, festivals as sacred armistices, contributed to little occupied by domestic cares when not en- the same end. But the martial spirit of the gaged by any public service, was principally di- Spartan institutions is evinced, not only by the vided between the exercises of the palæstra whole system of education, but still more strongand the toils of the chase. From these he rest-ly by the care taken to render war as attractive ed at the public meals. Of this institution, as possible. As the city, in many respects, rewhich Sparta, in common with Crete, retained sembled a camp, so the life of the camp was to the latest times, we need here only speak to studiously freed from many of the hardships point out one or two features which were pe- and restraints imposed on that of the city. War culiar to the Spartan usage. At Sparta the en- was the element in which the Spartan seems to tertainment was provided at the expense, not have breathed most freely, and to have enjoyed of the state, but of those who shared it. head of each family, as far as his means reach-dressed his hair and crowned himself for a batThe the fullest consciousness of his existence. He ed, contributed for all its members; but the cit-tle as others for a feast; and the mood in which izen who was reduced to indigence lost his he advanced to the mortal struggle was no less place at the public board. The guests were di- calm and cheerful than that in which he entervided into companies, generally of fifteen per-ed the lists for a prize at the public games. sons, who filled up vacancies by ballot, in which unanimous consent was required for every election. No member, not even the kings, was permitted to stay away, except on some extraor dinary occasion, as of a sacrifice or a lengthened chase, when he was expected to send a pres-ture to imitate. Its principles were probably ent to the table: such contributions frequently derived from an antiquity even more remote varied the frugal repast, which was constantly than the conquest of Peloponnesus, and perhaps enlivened by sallies of tempered mirth and contributed mainly to that event; but it was friendly pleasantry. The sixtieth year closed undoubtedly perfected by the experience of sucthe military age. The period which ensued was ceeding generations. We subjoin some details one of peaceful repose, yet not of monotonous on the organization of the Spartan army in a inaction it was cheered by the natural reward note,* and shall here content ourselves with a of an honourable career, by respect, and prece- few general remarks. dence, and authority: it found a regular and Spartan army lay in its heavy-armed infantry, gentle employment, if not in the affairs of the and no other kind of service was thought equalThe strength of the state, in the superintendence and direction of ly worthy of the free warrior, because none callthe young. When disabled from more active ed forth courage and discipline in the same derecreations, the old man could still enjoy the society of his equals in the lesche, a place ded-ry; and, though in the Peloponnesian war it icated at Sparta, as in most Greek cities, to was found necessary to pay greater attention. gree. Hence little value was set on the cavalmeetings for public conversation, where he to it, it never acquired any great efficacy or repmight beguile the evening of his life with recol-utation. The name of horsemen was, indeed, lections of his well-spent youth.

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The ancient authors who most admired the Spartan institutions, condemned their exclusively warlike tendency; and it can scarcely be denied that the life of a Spartan was a continual preparation for war, though undoubtedly it was something more. sense that the military system of Sparta can be It is, perhaps, only in this properly ascribed to Lycurgus, though he is said to have introduced several technical improvements. It has been more generally believed that he was the author of a maxim of policy which is said to have been sanctioned by one of his oracular ordinances, and which tended to restrain the martial ardour of his countrymen within the bounds of prudent moderation. It forbade them to make frequent ex

Hence the name pičiria, according to Plut., Lyc., 12. VOL. I.-S

seconded by a system of tactics which Xenophon praises for an admirable simplicity in the This spirit, in itself almost invincible, was midst of seeming intricacy, and which he describes with a minuteness which we do not ven

youths, chosen by three officers appointed for
that purpose by the ephors, who served in the
a title of honour borne by a band of 300 picked
field as the king's body-guard; but, notwith-
standing the title, they fought on foot, and, if
they were mounted, used their horses only on
sions.t
a march, or in executing the king's commis-

shrank from the assault of fortified places, in
which, as Lycurgus was reported to have ob-
On the same principle, the Spartan
served, a brave man might fall by the hand of

See the Appendix, II.

have been derived from the ages when the chiefs fought in
+From Thucyd., v., 72, the title would appear to be
chariots; and this may seem to be confirmed by Ephorus
merely nominal. Wachsmuth, ii., I., p 378, supposes it to
(Strabo, x., p. 481), where they are spoken of as an aph.
But Dionysius, R. A, 13, and Herodotus, viii., 124, seem
to prove that they were mounted.

The whole of the land, however, was not in private hands; the state remained in possession of a considerable domain, including, 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 On least, appears to have been the aim and ten- Laconians did not exceed 16,000 men.* 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 as to their proportion-15,000 to 4500. On anceeding to describe their principal features. According 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 Aristotle appears to intimate that to have supposed that these parcels were all the case. 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 At Platæa, aspect of the corn-fields, and observed that all much inferior to the rest in extent. 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 But the Helots are everywhere deprobably independent of Sparta; and next, that, to one. even 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. to aim at establishing such an equality among the Laconians, in whose case the physical difficulty 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 Though what has been said shows that it is opinions on this subject. According to one, 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 made by many private Spartans before the time amount of the Laconian free population. The of Lycurgus; and his partition, so far as it reproportion which it bore to that of Sparta, in the garded the subject Laconians, may have contime of Lycurgus, was probably nearly the same sisted chiefly in the restoration and distribution of such lands. 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.

When, from the division of the territory, we

See Clinton, Fast. Hell., ii., p. 407.

+ Pal., ii., 6. Σπαρτιατῶν εἶναι τὴν πλείστην γῆν. Panath., p. 270. Xenoph., De Lac. Rep., c. 15.

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 Boa 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, it 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 Achæans by dispersing them over a great number 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 opu-thera, where we find a Spartan officer under a lence. 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.

they would have been thought all alike degrading to a Spartan; and Laconia contributed 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 Cy

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.

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 Platea, 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 governTent was under the control of Spartan officers; and yet they bore the heaviest share of the puble burdens, and were liable to be torn from ter fields and hearths, to shed their blood in quarrels which only interested the pride or ambition of Sparta. These were their principal gnevances; but in other respects, and comIred with th: most numerous class of the population, they were highly favoured subjects, an 1, on the whole, they might perhaps see little to envy in the condition of the Spartans themselves Their political dependance was com

VOL. L-R

* Paus., 11., 22.

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,

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