Chapter VI (1)

LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA.

Plutarch begins his biography of Lykurgus with the following ominous words:—

“Concerning the lawgiver Lykurgus, we can assert absolutely nothing which is not controverted: there are different stories in respect to his birth, his travels, his death, and also his mode of proceeding, political as well as legislative: least of all is the time in which he lived agreed upon.”

And this exordium is but too well borne out by the unsatisfactory nature of the accounts which we read, not only in Plutarch himself, but in those other authors out of whom we are obliged to make up our idea of the memorable Lykurgean system. If we examine the sources from which Plutarch’s life of Lykurgus is deduced, it will appear that—excepting the poets Alkman, Tyrtæus, and Simonidês, from whom he has borrowed less than we could have wished—he has no authorities older than Xenophon and Plato: Aristotle is cited several times, and is unquestionably the best of his witnesses, but the greater number of them belong to the century subsequent to that philosopher. Neither Herodotus nor Ephorus are named, though the former furnishes some brief, but interesting particulars,—and the latter also (as far as we can judge from the fragments remaining) entered at large into the proceedings of the Spartan lawgiver.[567]

[567] See Heeren, Dissertatio de Fontibus Plutarchi, pp. 19-25.

Lykurgus is described by Herodotus as uncle and guardian to king Labôtas, of the Eurystheneid or Agid line of Spartan kings; and this would place him, according to the received chronology, about 220 years before the first recorded Olympiad (about B. C. 996).[568] All the other accounts, on the contrary, seem to represent him as a younger brother, belonging to the other or Prokleid line of Spartan kings, though they do not perfectly agree respecting his parentage. While Simonidês stated him to be the son of Prytanis, Dieutychidas described him as grandson of Prytanis, son of Eunomus, brother of Polydektês, and uncle as well as guardian to Charilaus,—thus making him eleventh in descent from Hêraklês.[569] This latter account was adopted by Aristotle, coinciding, according to the received chronology, with the date of Iphitus the Eleian, and the first celebration of the Olympic games by Lykurgus and Iphitus conjointly,[570] which Aristotle accepted as a fact. Lykurgus, on the hypothesis here mentioned, would stand about B. C. 880, a century before the recorded Olympiads. Eratosthenês and Apollodorus placed him “not a few years earlier than the first Olympiad.” If they meant hereby the epoch commonly assigned as the Olympiad of Iphitus, their date would coincide pretty nearly with that of Herodotus: if, on the other hand, they meant the first recorded Olympiad (B. C. 776), they would be found not much removed from the opinion of Aristotle. An unequivocal proof of the inextricable confusion in ancient times respecting the epoch of the great Spartan lawgiver is indirectly afforded by Timæus, who supposed that there had existed two persons named Lykurgus, and that the acts of both had been ascribed to one. It is plain from hence that there was no certainty attainable, even in the third century before the Christian era, respecting the date or parentage of Lykurgus.

[568] Herodot. i. 65. Moreover, Herodotus gives this as the
statement of the Lacedæmonians themselves.

[569] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 1. According to Dionys. Halik. (Ant.
Rom. ii. 49) Lykurgus was uncle, not son, of Eunomus.

Aristotle considers Lykurgus as guardian of Charilaus (Politic.
ii. 7, 1): compare v. 10, 3. See O. Müller (Hist. of Dorians, i.
7, 3).

[570] Phlegôn also adds Kleosthenês of Pisa (De Olympiis ap.
Meursii Opp. vii. p. 128). It appears that there existed a quoit
at Olympia, upon which the formula of the Olympic truce was
inscribed, together with the names of Iphitus and Lykurgus as the
joint authors and proclaimers of it. Aristotle believed this to
be genuine, and accepted it as an evidence of the fact which it
professed to certify: and O. Müller is also disposed to admit it
as genuine,—that is, as _contemporary_ with the times to which
it professes to relate. I come to a different conclusion: that
the quoit existed, I do not doubt; but that the inscription upon
it was actually set down in writing, in or near B. C. 880, would
be at variance with the reasonable probabilities resulting from
Grecian palæography. Had this ancient and memorable instrument
existed at Olympia in the days of Herodotus, he could hardly have
assigned to Lykurgus the epoch which we now read in his writings.

The assertions in Müller’s History of the Dorians (i. 7, 7),
about Lykurgus, Iphitus, and Kleosthenês “drawing up the
fundamental law of the Olympic armistice,” are unsupported by any
sufficient evidence. In the later times of established majesty of
the Olympic festival, the Eleians did undoubtedly exercise the
power which he describes; but to connect this with any deliberate
regulation of Iphitus and Lykurgus, is in my judgment incorrect.
See the mention of a similar truce proclaimed throughout
Triphylia by the Makistians as presidents of the common festival
at the temple of the Samian Poseidon (Strabo, viii. p. 343).

Thucydidês, without mentioning the name of Lykurgus, informs us that it was “400 years and somewhat more” anterior to the close of the Peloponnesian war,[571] when the Spartans emerged from their previous state of desperate internal disorder, and entered upon “their present polity.” We may fairly presume that this alludes to the Lykurgean discipline and constitution, which Thucydides must thus have conceived as introduced about B. C. 830-820,—coinciding with something near the commencement of the reign of king Têleklus. In so far as it is possible to form an opinion, amidst evidence at once so scanty and so discordant, I incline to adopt the opinion of Thucydidês as to the time at which the Lykurgean constitution was introduced at Sparta. The state of “eunomy” and good order which that constitution brought about,—combined with the healing of great previous internal sedition, which had tended much to enfeeble them,—is represented (and with great plausibility) as the grand cause of the victorious career beginning with king Têleklus, the conqueror of Amyklæ, Pharis, and Geronthræ. Therefore it would seem, in the absence of better evidence, that a date, connecting the fresh stimulus of the new discipline with the reign of Têleklus, is more probable than any epoch either later or earlier.[572]

[571] Thucyd. i. 18.

[572] Mr. Clinton fixes the legislation of Lykurgus, “in
conformity with Thucydidês,” at about 817 B. C., and his regency
at 852 B. C., about thirty-five years previous (Fasti Hellen. v.
i. c. 7, p. 141): he also places the Olympiad of Iphitus B. C.
828 (F. H. vol. ii. p. 410; App. c. 22).

In that chapter, Mr. Clinton collects and discusses the various
statements respecting the date of Lykurgus: compare, also,
Larcher ad Herodot. i. 67, and Chronologie, pp. 486-492.

The differences in these statements must, after all, be taken
as they stand, for they cannot be reconciled except by the help
of arbitrary suppositions, which only mislead us by producing a
show of agreement where there is none in reality. I agree with
Mr. Clinton, in thinking that the assertion of Thucydidês is
here to be taken as the best authority. But I altogether dissent
from the proceeding which he (in common with Larcher, Wesseling,
Sir John Marsham, and others) employs with regard to the passage
of Herodotus, where that author calls Lykurgus the guardian and
uncle of Labôtas (of the Eurystheneid line). Mr. Clinton says:
“From the notoriety of the fact that Lycurgus was ascribed to the
other house (the Prokleids), it is manifest that _the passage
must be corrupted_” (p. 144); and he then goes on to correct the
text of Herodotus, agreeably to the proposition of Sir J. Marsham.

This proceeding seems to me inadmissible. The text of Herodotus
reads perfectly well, and is not contradicted by anything to
be found elsewhere _in Herodotus himself_: moreover, we have
here a positive guarantee of its accuracy, for Mr. Clinton
himself admits that it stood in the days of Pausanias just as
we now read it (Pausan. iii. 2, 3). By what right, then, do we
alter it? or what do we gain by doing so? Our only right to do
so, is, the assumption that there must have been uniformity of
belief and means of satisfactory ascertainment, (respecting
facts and persons of the ninth and tenth centuries before the
Christian era,) existing among Greeks of the fifth and succeeding
centuries; an assumption which I hold to be incorrect. And all we
gain is, an illusory unanimity produced by gratuitously putting
words into the mouth of one of our witnesses.

If we can prove Herodotus to have been erroneously informed,
it is right to do so; but we have no ground for altering his
deposition. It affords a clear proof that there were very
different stories as to the mere question, to which of the two
lines of Herakleids the Spartan lawgiver belonged,—and that there
was an enormous difference as to the time in which he lived.

O. Müller,[573] after glancing at the strange and improbable circumstances handed down to us respecting Lykurgus, observes, “that we have absolutely no account of him as an individual person.” This remark is perfectly just: but another remark, made by the same distinguished author, respecting the Lykurgean system of laws, appears to me erroneous,—and requires more especially to be noticed, inasmuch as the corollaries deduced from it pervade a large portion of his valuable History of the Dorians. He affirms that the laws of Sparta were considered the true Doric institutions, and that their origin was identical with that of the people: Sparta is, in his view, the full type of Dorian principles, tendencies, and sentiments,—and is so treated throughout his entire work.[574] But such an opinion is at once gratuitous (for the passage of Pindar cited in support of it is scarcely of any value) and contrary to the whole tenor of ancient evidence. The institutions of Sparta were not Dorian, but peculiar to herself;[575] distinguishing her not less from Argos, Corinth, Megara, Epidaurus, Sikyôn, Korkyra, or Knidus, than from Athens or Thebes. Krête was the only other portion of Greece in which there prevailed institutions in many respects analogous, yet still dissimilar in those two attributes which form the real mark and pinch of Spartan legislation, namely, the military discipline and the rigorous private training. There were doubtless Dorians in Krête, but we have no proof that these peculiar institutions belonged to them more than to the other inhabitants of the island. That the Spartans had an original organization, and tendencies common to them with the other Dorians, we may readily concede; but the Lykurgean constitution impressed upon them a peculiar tendency, which took them out of the general march, and rendered them the least fit of all states to be cited as an example of the class-attributes of Dorism. One of the essential causes, which made the Spartan institutions work so impressively upon the Grecian mind, was their perfect singularity, combined with the conspicuous ascendency of the state in which they were manifested; while the Kretan communities, even admitting their partial resemblance (which was chiefly in the institution of the Syssitia, and was altogether more in form than in spirit) to Sparta, were too insignificant to attract notice except from speculative observers. It is therefore a mistake on the part of O. Müller, to treat Sparta as the type and representative of Dorians generally, and very many of the positions advanced in his History of the Dorians require to be modified when this mistake is pointed out.

[573] History of the Dorians, i. 7, 6.

[574] History of the Dorians, iii. 1, 8. Alf. Kopstadt recognizes
this as an error in Müller’s work: see his recent valuable
Dissertation “De Rerum Laconicarum Constitutionis Lycurgeæ
Origine et Indole,” Gryphiæ, 1849, sect. 3, p. 18.

[575] Among the many other evidences to this point, see
Aristotle, Ethic. x. 9; Xenophon, Republ. Laced. 10, 8.

The first capital fact to notice respecting the institutions ascribed to Lykurgus, is the very early period at which they had their commencement: it seems impossible to place this period later than 825 B. C. We do not find, nor have we a right to expect, trustworthy history in reference to events so early. If we have one foot on historical ground, inasmuch as the institutions themselves are real,—the other foot still floats in the unfaithful region of mythe, when we strive to comprehend the generating causes: the mist yet prevails which hinders us from distinguishing between the god and the man. The light in which Lykurgus appeared, to an intelligent Greek of the fifth century before the Christian era, is so clearly, yet briefly depicted, in the following passage of Herodotus, that I cannot do better than translate it:—

“In the very early times (Herodotus observes) the Spartans were among themselves the most lawless of all Greeks, and unapproachable by foreigners. Their transition to good legal order took place in the following manner. When Lycurgus, a Spartan of consideration, visited Delphi to consult the oracle, the instant that he entered the sanctuary, the Pythian priestess exclaimed,—

“Thou art come, Lycurgus, to my fat shrine, beloved by Zeus, and by all the Olympic gods. Is it as god or as man that I am to address thee in the spirit? I hesitate,—and yet, Lycurgus, I incline more to call thee a god.”

So spake the Pythian priestess. “Moreover, in addition to these words, some affirm that the Pythia revealed to him the order of things now established among the Spartans. _But the Lacedæmonians themselves_ say, that Lycurgus, when guardian of his nephew Labôtas, king of the Spartans, introduced these institutions out of Krete. No sooner had he obtained this guardianship, than he changed all the institutions into their present form, and took security against any transgression of it. Next, he constituted the military divisions, the Enômoties and the Triakads, as well as the Syssitia, or public mess: he also, farther, appointed the ephors and the senate. By this means the Spartans passed from bad to good order: to Lycurgus, after his death, they built a temple, and they still worship him reverentially. And as might naturally be expected in a productive soil, and with no inconsiderable numbers of men, they immediately took a start forward, and flourished so much that they could not be content to remain tranquil within their own limits,” etc.

Such is our oldest statement (coming from Herodotus) respecting Lykurgus, ascribing to him that entire order of things which the writer witnessed at Sparta. Thucydidês also, though not mentioning Lykurgus, agrees in stating that the system among the Lacedæmonians, as he saw it, had been adopted by them four centuries previously,—had rescued them from the most intolerable disorders, and had immediately conducted them to prosperity and success.[576] Hellanikus, whose writings a little preceded those of Herodotus, not only did not (any more than Thucydidês) make mention of Lykurgus, but can hardly be thought to have attached any importance to the name; since he attributed the constitution of Sparta to the first kings, Eurysthenes and Prokles.[577]

[576] Herodot. i. 65-66; Thucyd. i. 18.

[577] Strabo, viii. p. 363.

But those later writers, from whom Plutarch chiefly compiled his biography, profess to be far better informed on the subject of Lykurgus, and enter more into detail. His father, we are told, was assassinated during the preceding state of lawlessness; his elder brother Polydektês died early, leaving a pregnant widow, who made to Lykurgus propositions that he should marry her and become king. But Lykurgus, repudiating the offer with indignation, awaited the birth of his young nephew Charilaus, held up the child publicly in the agora, as the future king of Sparta, and immediately relinquished the authority which he had provisionally exercised. However, the widow and her brother Leonidas raised slanderous accusations against him, of designs menacing to the life of the infant king,—accusations which he deemed it proper to obviate, by a temporary absence. Accordingly, he left Sparta and went to Krête, where he studied the polity and customs of the different cities; next, he visited Ionia and Egypt, and (as some authors affirmed) Libya, Iberia, and even India. While in Ionia, he is reported to have obtained from the descendants of Kreophylus a copy of the Homeric poems, which had not up to that time become known in Peloponnesus: there were not wanting authors, indeed, who said that he had conversed with Homer himself.[578]

[578] Plutarch, Lykurg. 3, 4, 5.

Meanwhile, the young king Charilaus grew up and assumed the sceptre, as representing the Prokleid or Eurypontid family. But the reins of government had become more relaxed, and the disorders worse than ever, when Lykurgus returned. Finding that the two kings as well as the people were weary of so disastrous a condition, he set himself to the task of applying a corrective, and with this view consulted the Delphian oracle; from which he received strong assurances of the divine encouragement, together with one or more special injunctions (the primitive Rhetræ of the constitution), which he brought with him to Sparta.[579] He then suddenly presented himself in the agora, with thirty of the most distinguished Spartans, all in arms, as his guards and partisans. King Charilaus, though at first terrified, when informed of the designs of his uncle, stood forward willingly to second them; while the bulk of the Spartans respectfully submitted to the venerable Herakleid, who came as reformer and missionary from Delphi.[580] Such were the steps by which Lykurgus acquired his ascendency: we have now to see how he employed it.

[579] For an instructive review of the text as well as the
meaning of this ancient Rhetra, see Urlichs, Ueber die
Lycurgischen Rhetren, published since the first edition of this
History. His refutation of the rash charges of Göttling seems
to me complete: but his own conjectures are not all equally
plausible; nor can I subscribe to his explanation of ἀφιστάσθαι.

[580] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 5-6. Hermippus, the scholar of
Aristotle, professed to give the names of twenty out of these
thirty devoted partisans.

There was, however, a different story, which represented that
Lykurgus, on his return from his travels, found Charilaus
governing like a despot (Heraclid. Pontic. c. 2).

His first proceeding, pursuant to the Rhetra or Compact brought from Delphi, was to constitute the Spartan senate, consisting of twenty-eight ancient men; making an aggregate of thirty in conjunction with the two kings, who sat and voted in it. With this were combined periodical assemblies of the Spartan people, in the open air, between the river Knakiôn and the bridge Babyka. Yet no discussion was permitted in these assemblies,—their functions were limited to the simple acceptance or rejection of that which had previously been determined in the senate.[581] Such was the Spartan political constitution as fixed by Lykurgus; but a century afterwards (so Plutarch’s account runs), under the kings Polydôrus and Theopompus, two important alterations were made. A rider was then attached to the old Lykurgean Rhetra, by which it was provided that, “in case the people decided crookedly, the senate, with the kings, should reverse their decisions:”[582] while another change, perhaps intended as a sort of compensation for this bridle on the popular assembly, introduced into the constitution a new executive Directory of five men, called Ephors. This Board—annually chosen, by some capricious method, the result of which could not well be foreseen, and open to be filled by every Spartan citizen—either originally received, or gradually drew to itself, functions so extensive and commanding, in regard to internal administration and police, as to limit the authority of the kings to little more than the exclusive command of the military force. Herodotus was informed, at Sparta, that the ephors as well as the senate had been constituted by Lykurgus; but the authority of Aristotle, as well as the internal probability of the case, sanctions the belief that they were subsequently added.[583]

[581] The words of the old Rhetra—Διὸς Ἑλλανίου καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς
Ἑλλανίας ἱερὸν ἱδρυσάμενον, φυλὰς φυλάξαντα, καὶ ὠβὰς ὠβάξαντα,
τριάκοντα, γερουσίαν σὺν ἀρχαγέταις, καταστήσαντα, ὥρας ἐξ ὥρας
ἀπελλάζειν μεταξὺ Βαβύκας καὶ Κνακίωνος, οὕτως εἰσφέρειν τε καὶ
ἀφίστασθαι· δάμῳ δ᾽ ἀγορὰν εἶμεν καὶ κράτος. (Plutarch, _ib._)

The reading ἀγορὰν (last word but three) is that of Coray’s
edition: other readings proposed are κυρίαν, ἀνωγὰν, ἀγορίαν,
etc. The MSS., however, are incurably corrupt, and none of the
conjectures can be pronounced certain.

The Rhetra contains various remarkable
archaisms,—ἀπελλάζειν—ἀφίστασθαι,—the latter word in the sense of
putting the question for decision, corresponding to the function
of the Ἀφεστὴρ at Knidus, (Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 4; see
Schneider, Lexicon, _ad voc._)

O. Müller connects τριάκοντα with ὠβὰς, and lays it down that
there were thirty Obes at Sparta: I rather agree with those
critics who place the comma after ὠβάξαντα, and refer the number
thirty to the senate. Urlichs, in his Dissertation Ueber Die
Lykurgisch. Rhetren (published in the Rheinisches Museum for
1847, p. 204), introduces the word πρεσβυγενέας after τριάκοντα;
which seems a just conjecture, when we look to the addition
afterwards made by Theopompus. The statements of Müller about the
Obes seem to me to rest on no authority.

The word Rhetra means a solemn compact, either originally
emanating from, or subsequently sanctioned by, the gods, who are
always parties to such agreements: see the old Treaty between the
Eleians and Heræans,—Ἁ ϝράτρα, between the two,—commemorated in
the valuable inscription still preserved,—as ancient, according
to Boeckh, as Olymp. 40-60, (Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 2, p.
26, part i.) The words of Tyrtæus imply such a compact between
contracting parties: first the kings, then the senate, lastly the
people—εὐθείαις ῥήτραις ~ἀνταπαμειβομένους~—where the participle
last occurring applies not to the people alone, but to all the
three. The Rhetra of Lykurgus emanated from the Delphian god;
but the kings, senate, and people all bound themselves, both to
each other and to the gods, to obey it. The explanations given of
the phrase by Nitzsch and Schömann (in Dr. Thirlwall’s note, ch.
viii. p. 334) seem to me less satisfactory than what appears in
C. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der Griech. Staatsalterthümer, s. 23).

Nitzsch (Histor. Homer. sect. xiv. pp. 50-55) does not take
sufficient account of the distinction between the meaning of
ῥήτρα in the early and in the later times. In the time of the
Ephor Epitadeus, or of Agis the Third, he is right in saying that
ῥήτρα is equivalent to _scitum_,—still, however, with an idea
of greater solemnity and unchangeability than is implied in the
word νόμος, analogous to what is understood by a fundamental or
organic enactment in modern ideas. The old ideas, of a mandate
from the Delphian god, and a compact between the kings and the
citizens, which had once been connected with the word, gradually
dropped away from it. There is no contradiction in Plutarch,
therefore, such as that to which Nitzsch alludes (p. 54).

Kopstadt’s Dissertation (pp. 22, 30) touches on the same subject.
I agree with Kopstadt (Dissert. pp. 28-30), in thinking it
probable that Plutarch copied the words of the old Lykurgean
constitutional Rhetra, from the account given by Aristotle of the
Spartan polity.

King Theopompus probably brought from the Delphian oracle the
important rider which he tacked to the mandate as originally
brought by Lykurgus—οἱ βασιλεῖς Θεόπομπος καὶ Πολύδωρος τάδε
τῇ ῥήτρᾳ παρενέγραψαν. The authority of the oracle, together
with their own influence, would enable them to get these words
accepted by the people.

[582] Αἲ δὲ σκολιὰν ὁ δᾶμος ἕλοιτο, τοὺς πρεσβυγενέας καὶ
ἀρχαγέτας ἀποστατῆρας εἶμεν. (Plutarch, _ib._)

Plutarch tells us that the primitive Rhetra, anterior to this
addition, specially enjoined the assembled citizens either to
adopt or reject, without change, the Rhetra proposed by the
kings and senate, and that the rider was introduced because the
assembly had disobeyed this injunction, and adopted amendments
of its own. It is this latter sense which he puts on the word
σκολιὰν. Urlichs (Ueber Lyc. Rhetr. p. 232) and Nitzsch (Hist.
Homer. p. 54) follow him, and the latter even construes the
epithet Εὐθείαις ῥήτραις ἀνταπαμειβομένους of Tyrtæus in a
corresponding sense: he says, “Populus iis (rhetris) εὐθείαις, i.
e. _nihil inflexis_, suffragari jubetur: nam lex cujus Tyrtæus
admonet, ita sanxerat—si populus rogationem _inflexam_ (_i.
e._ non nisi ad suum arbitrium immutatam) accipere voluerit,
senatores et auctores abolento totam.”

Now, in the first place, it seems highly improbable that the
primitive Rhetra, with its antique simplicity, would contain
any such preconceived speciality of restriction upon the
competence of the assembly. That restriction received its formal
commencement only from the rider annexed by king Theopompus,
which evidently betokens a previous dispute and refractory
behavior on the part of the assembly.

In the second place, the explanation which these authors give
of the words σκολιὰν and εὐθείαις, is not conformable to the
ancient Greek, as we find it in Homer and Hesiod: and these
early analogies are the proper test, seeing that we are dealing
with a very ancient document. In Hesiod, ἰθὺς and σκολιὸς are
used in a sense which almost exactly corresponds to _right_ and
_wrong_ (which words, indeed, in their primitive etymology, maybe
traced back to the meaning of _straight_ and _crooked_). See
Hesiod. Opp. Di. 36, 192, 218, 221, 226, 230, 250, 262, 264; also
Theogon. 97, and Fragm. 217, ed. Göttling; where the phrases are
constantly repeated, ἰθεῖαι δίκαι, σκολιαὶ δίκαι, σκολιοὶ μῦθοι.
There is also the remarkable expression, Opp. Di. 9. ῥεῖα δέ
τ᾽ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν: compare v. 263. ἰθύνετε μύθους: also Homer,
Iliad, xvi. 387. Οἳ βίῃ εἰν ἀγορῇ σκολιὰς κρίνωσι θέμιστας; and
xxiii. 580. ἰθεῖα; xviii. 508. ὃς μετὰ τοῖσι δίκην ἰθύντατα εἴπῃ,
etc.

If we judge by these analogies, we shall see that the words of
Tyrtæus, εὐθείαις ῥήτραις, mean “_straightforward_, _honest_,
statutes or conventions”—not _propositions adopted without
change_, as Nitzsch supposes. And so the words σκολιὰν ἕλοιτο,
mean, “adopt a _wrong or dishonest determination_,”—not a
determination different from what was proposed to them.

These words gave to the kings and senate power to cancel any
decision of the public assembly which they disapproved. It
retained only the power of refusing assent to some substantive
propositions of the authorities, first of the kings and senate,
afterwards of the ephors. And this limited power it seems always
to have preserved.

Kopstadt explains well the expression σκολιὰν, as the antithesis
to the epithet of Tyrtæus, εὐθείαις ῥήτραις (Dissertat. sect. 15,
p. 124).

[583] Herod. i. 65: compare Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 7; Aristot.
Polit. v. 9, 1 (where he gives the answer of king Theopompus).

Aristotle tells us that the ephors were chosen, but not _how_
they were chosen; only, that it was in some manner excessively
puerile,—παιδαριώδης γάρ ἐστι λίαν (ii. 6, 16).

M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire, in his note to the passage of
Aristotle, presumes that they were of course chosen in the same
manner as the senators; but there seems no sufficient ground in
Aristotle to countenance this. Nor is it easy to reconcile the
words of Aristotle respecting the election of the senators, where
he assimilates it to an αἵρεσις δυναστευτικὴ (Polit. v. 5, 8; ii.
6, 18), with the description which Plutarch (Lycurg. 26) gives of
that election.

Taking the political constitution of Sparta ascribed to Lykurgus, it appears not to have differed materially from the rude organization exhibited in the Homeric poems, where we always find a council of chiefs or old men, and occasional meetings of a listening agora. It is hard to suppose that the Spartan kings can ever have governed without some formalities of this sort; so that the innovation (if innovation there really was) ascribed to Lykurgus, must have consisted in some new details respecting the senate and the agora,—in fixing the number[584] thirty, and the life-tenure of the former,—and the special place of meeting of the latter, as well as the extent of privilege which it was to exercise; consecrating the whole by the erection of the temples of Zeus Hellanius and Athênê Hellania. The view of the subject presented by Plutarch as well as by Plato,[585] as if the senate were an entire novelty, does not consist with the pictures of the old epic. Hence we may more naturally imagine that the Lykurgean political constitution, apart from the ephors who were afterwards tacked to it, presents only the old features of the heroic government of Greece, defined and regularized in a particular manner. The presence of two coexistent and coordinate kings, indeed, succeeding in hereditary descent, and both belonging to the gens of Herakleids, is something peculiar to Sparta,—the origin of which receives no other explanation than a reference to the twin sons of Aristodêmus, Eurysthenês and Proklês. These two primitive ancestors are a type of the two lines of Spartan kings; for they are said to have passed their lives in perpetual dissensions, which was the habitual state of the two contemporaneous kings at Sparta. While the coexistence of the pair of kings, equal in power and constantly thwarting each other, had often a baneful effect upon the course of public measures, it was, nevertheless, a security to the state against successful violence,[586] ending in the establishment of a despotism, on the part of any ambitious individual among the regal line.

[584] Kopstadt agrees in this supposition, that the number of the
senate was probably not peremptorily fixed before the Lykurgean
reform (Dissertat. ut sup. sect. 13, p. 109).

[585] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 691; Plato Epist. viii. p. 354, B.

[586] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 691; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 20.

During five successive centuries of Spartan history, from Polydôrus and Theopompus downward, no such violence was attempted by any of the kings,[587] until the times of Agis the Third and Kleomenês the Third,—240 B. C. to 220 B. C. The importance of Greece had at this last-mentioned period irretrievably declined, and the independent political action which she once possessed had become subordinate to the more powerful force either of the Ætolian mountaineers (the rudest among her own sons) or to Epirotic, Macedonian, and Asiatic foreigners, preparatory to the final absorption by the Romans. But amongst all the Grecian states, Sparta had declined the most; her ascendency was totally gone, and her peculiar training and discipline (to which she had chiefly owed it) had degenerated in every way. Under these untoward circumstances, two young kings, Agis and Kleomenês,—the former a generous enthusiast, the latter more violent and ambitious,—conceived the design of restoring the Lykurgean constitution in its supposed pristine purity, with the hope of reviving both the spirit of the people and the ascendency of the state. But the Lykurgean constitution had been, even in the time of Xenophon,[588] in part, an _idéal_ not fully realized in practice—much less was it a reality in the days of Kleomenês and Agis moreover, it was an _idéal_ which admitted of being colored according to the fancy or feelings of those reformers who professed, and probably believed, that they were aiming at its genuine restoration. What the reforming kings found most in their way, was the uncontrolled authority, and the conservative dispositions, of the ephors,—which they naturally contrasted with the original fulness of the kingly power, when kings and senate stood alone. Among the various ways in which men’s ideas of what the primitive constitution _had_ been, were modified by the feelings of their own time (we shall presently see some other instances of this), is probably to be reckoned the assertion of Kleomenês respecting the first appointment of the ephors. Kleomenês affirmed that the ephors had originally been nothing more than subordinates and deputies of the kings, chosen by the latter to perform for a time their duties during the long absence of the Messenian war. Starting from this humble position, and profiting by the dissensions of the two kings,[589] they had in process of time, especially by the ambition of the ephor Asterôpus, found means first to constitute themselves an independent board, then to usurp to themselves more and more of the kingly authority, until they at last reduced the kings to a state of intolerable humiliation and impotence. As a proof of the primitive relation between the kings and the ephors, he alluded to that which was the custom at Sparta in his own time. When the ephors sent for either of the kings, the latter had a right to refuse obedience to two successive summonses, but the third summons he was bound to obey.[590]

[587] The conspiracy of Pausanias, after the repulse of Xerxes,
was against the liberty of combined Hellas, to constitute himself
satrap of Hellas under the Persian monarch, rather than against
the established Lacedæmonian government; though undoubtedly one
portion of his project was to excite the Helots to revolt, and
Aristotle treats him as specially aiming to put down the power of
the ephors (Polit. v. 5, 6: compare Thucyd. i. 128-134; Herodot.
v. 32).

[588] Xenophon, Republic. Laced, c. 14.

[589] Plutarch, Agis, c. 12. Τοῦτο γὰρ τὸ ἀρχεῖον (the ephors)
ἰσχύειν ἐκ διαφορᾶς τῶν βασιλέων, etc.

[590] Plutarch, Kleomenês, c. 10. σημεῖον δὲ τούτου, ~τὸ μέχρι
νῦν~, μεταπεμπομένων τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἐφόρων, etc.

It is obvious that the fact here adduced by Kleomenês (a curious point in Spartan manners) contributes little to prove the conclusion which he deduced from it, of the original nomination of the ephors as mere deputies by the kings. That they were first appointed at the time of the Messenian war is probable, and coincides with the tale that king Theopompus was a consenting party to the measure,—that their functions were at first comparatively circumscribed, and extended by successive encroachments, is also probable; but they seem to have been from the beginning a board of specially popular origin, in contraposition to the kings and the senate. One proof of this is to be found in the ancient oath, which was every month interchanged between the kings and the ephors; the king swearing for himself, that he would exercise his regal functions according to the established laws,—the ephors swearing on behalf of the city, that his authority should on that condition remain unshaken.[591] This mutual compact, which probably formed a part of the ceremony during the monthly sacrifices offered by the king,[592] continued down to a time when it must have become a pure form, and when the kings had long been subordinate in power to the ephors. But it evidently began first as a reality,—when the king was predominant and effective chief of the state, and when the ephors, clothed with functions chiefly defensive, served as guarantees to the people against abuse of the regal authority. Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero,[593] all interpret the original institution of the ephors as designed to protect the people and restrain the kings: the latter assimilates them to the tribunes at Rome.

[591] Xenophon, Republic. Lacedæmon. c. 15. Καὶ ὅρκους μὲν
ἀλλήλοις κατὰ μῆνα ποιοῦνται· Ἔφοροι μὲν ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως,
βασιλεὺς δ᾽ ὑπὲρ ἑαυτοῦ. Ὁ δὲ ὅρκος ἐστὶ, τῷ μὲν βασιλεῖ, κατὰ
τοὺς τῆς πόλεως κειμένους νόμους βασιλεύσειν· τῇ δὲ πόλει,
ἐμπεδορκοῦντος ἐκείνου, ἀστυφέλικτον τὴν βασιλείαν παρέξειν.

[592] Herodot. vi. 57.

[593] Plato, Legg. iii. p. 692; Aristot. Polit. v. 11, 1; Cicero
de Republic. Fragm. ii. 33, ed. Maii—“Ut contra consulare
imperium tribuni plebis, sic illi (ephori) contra vim regiam
constituti;”—also, De Legg. iii. 7. and Valer. Max. iv. 1.

Compare Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 7: Tittmann, Griechisch.
Staatsverfassung, p. 108, _seqq._

Such were the relations which had once subsisted between the kings and the ephors: though in later times these relations had been so completely reversed, that Polybius considers the former as essentially subordinate to the latter,—reckoning it as a point of duty in the kings to respect the ephors “as their fathers.”[594] And such is decidedly the state of things throughout all the better-known period of history which we shall hereafter traverse. The ephors are the general directors of public affairs[595] and the supreme controlling board, holding in check every other authority in the state, without any assignable limit to their powers. The extraordinary ascendency of these magistrates is particularly manifested in the fact stated by Aristotle, that they exempted themselves from the public discipline, so that their self-indulgent year of office stood in marked contrast with the toilsome exercises and sober mess common to rich and poor alike. The kings are reduced to a certain number of special functions, combined with privileges partly religious, partly honorary: their most important political attribute is, that they are _ex officio_ generals of the military force on foreign expeditions. But even here, we trace the sensible decline of their power. For whereas Herodotus was informed, and it probably had been the old privilege, that the king could levy war against whomsoever he chose, and that no Spartan could impede him on pain of committing sacrilege,[596]—we shall see, throughout the best-known periods of this history, that it is usually the ephors (with or without the senate and public assembly) who determine upon war,—the king only takes the command when the army is put on the march. Aristotle seems to treat the Spartan king as a sort of hereditary general; but even in this privilege, shackles were put upon him,—for two, out of the five ephors, accompanied the army, and their power seems to have been not seldom invoked to insure obedience to his orders.[597]

[594] Polyb. xxiv. 8.

[595] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 14-16; Ἐστὶ δὲ καὶ ἡ δίαιτα τῶν
Ἐφόρων οὐχ ὁμολογουμένη τῷ βουλήματι τῆς πόλεως· αὐτὴ μὲν γὰρ
ἀνειμένη λίαν ἐστί· ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις μᾶλλον ὑπερβάλλει ἐπὶ τὸ
σκληρὸν, etc.

[596] Herodot. vi. 56.

[597] Aristot. ii. 7, 4; Xenoph. Republ. Laced. c. 13. Παυσανíας,
πείσας τῶν Ἐφόρων τρεῖς, ἐξάγει φρουρὰν, Xenoph. Hellen. ii. 4,
29; φρουρὰν ἔφῃναν οἱ Ἔφοροι, iii. 2, 23.

A special restriction was put on the functions of the king,
as military commander-in-chief, in 417 B. C., after the
ill-conducted expedition of Agis, son of Archidamus, against
Argos. It was then provided that ten Spartan counsellors should
always accompany the king in every expedition (Thucyd. v. 63).

The direct political powers of the kings were thus greatly curtailed; yet importance, in many ways, was still left to them. They possessed large royal domains, in many of the townships of the Periœki: they received frequent occasional presents, and when victims were offered to the gods, the skins and other portions belonged to them as perquisites:[598] they had their votes in the senate, which, if they were absent, were given on their behalf, by such of the other senators as were most nearly related to them: the adoption of children received its formal accomplishment in their presence,—and conflicting claims at law, for the hand of an unbequeathed orphan heiress, were adjudicated by them. But above all, their root was deep in the religious feelings of the people. Their preëminent lineage connected the entire state with a divine paternity. They, the chiefs of the Herakleids, were the special grantees of the soil of Sparta from the gods,—the occupation of the Dorians being only sanctified and blest by Zeus for the purpose of establishing the children of Hêraklês in the valley of the Eurotas.[599] They represented the state in its relations with the gods, being by right priests of Zeus Lacedæmon, (the ideas of the god and the country coalescing into one), and of Zeus Uranius, and offering the monthly sacrifices necessary to insure divine protection to the people. Though individual persons might sometimes be put aside, nothing short of a new divine revelation could induce the Spartans to step out of the genuine lineage of Eurysthenês and Proklês. Moreover, the remarkable mourning ceremony, which took place at the death of every king, seems to indicate that the two kingly families—which counted themselves Achæan,[600] not Dorian—were considered as the great common bond of union between the three component parts of the population of Laconia,—Spartans, Periœki, and Helots. Not merely was it required, on this occasion, that two members of every house in Sparta should appear in sackcloth and ashes,—but the death of the king was formally made known throughout every part of Laconia, and deputies from the townships of the Periœki, and the villages of the Helots, to the number of several thousand, were summoned to Sparta to take their share in the profuse and public demonstrations of sorrow,[601] which lasted for ten days, and which imparted to the funeral obsequies a superhuman solemnity. Nor ought we to forget, in enumerating the privileges of the Spartan king, that he (conjointly with two officers called Pythii, nominated by him,) carried on the communications between the state and the temple of Delphi, and had the custody of oracles and prophecies generally. In most of the Grecian states, such inspired declarations were treasured up, and consulted in cases of public emergency: but the intercourse of Sparta with the Delphian oracle was peculiarly frequent and intimate, and the responses of the Pythian priestess met with more reverential attention from the Spartans than from any other Greeks.[602] So much the more important were the king’s functions, as the medium of this intercourse: the oracle always upheld his dignity, and often even seconded his underhand personal schemes.[603]

[598] The hide-money (δερματικὸν) arising from the numerous
victims offered at public sacrifices at Athens, is accounted for
as a special item of the public revenue in the careful economy of
that city: see Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, iii. 7, p. 333;
Eng. Trans. Corpus Inscription. No. 157.

[599] Tyrtæus, Fragm. 1, ed. Bergk; Strabo, xviii. p. 362:—

Αὐτὸς γὰρ Κρονίων καλλιστεφάνου πόσις Ἥρης
Ζεὺς Ἡρακλείδαις τήνδε δέδωκε πόλιν·
Οἶσιν ἅμα προλιπόντες Ἐρίνεον ἠνεμόεντα
Εὐρεῖαν Πέλοπος νῆσον ἀφικόμεθα.

Compare Thucyd. v. 16; Herodot. v. 39; Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3, 3;
Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22.

[600] Herod, v. 72. See the account in Plutarch, of the abortive
stratagem of Lysander, to make the kingly dignity elective,
by putting forward a youth who passed for the son of Apollo
(Plutarch, Lysand. c. 25-26).

[601] Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3, 1. Ἄγις—ἔτυχε σεμνοτέρας ἢ κατ᾽
ἄνθρωπον ταφῆς.

[602] For the privileges of the Spartan kings, see Herodot. vi.
56-57; Xenophon, Republ. Laced. c. 15; Plato, Alcib. i. p. 123.

[603] Herodot. vi. 66, and Thucyd. v. 16, furnish examples of
this.

Sustained by so great a force of traditional reverence, a Spartan king, of military talent and individual energy, like Agesilaus, exercised great ascendency; but such cases were very rare, and we shall find the king throughout the historical period only a secondary force, available on special occasions. For real political orders, in the greatest cases as well as the least, the Spartan looks to the council of ephors, to whom obedience is paid with a degree of precision which nothing short of the Spartan discipline could have brought about,—by the most powerful citizens not less than by the meanest.[604] Both the internal police and the foreign affairs of the state are in the hands of the ephors, who exercise an authority approaching to despotism, and altogether without accountability. They appoint and direct the body of three hundred young and active citizens, who performed the immediate police service of Laconia: they cashier at pleasure any subordinate functionary, and inflict fine or arrest at their own discretion: they assemble the military force, on occasion of foreign war, and determine its destination, though the king has the actual command of it: they imprison on suspicion even the regent or the king himself:[605] they sit as judges, sometimes individually and sometimes as a board, upon causes and complaints of great moment, and they judge without the restraint of written laws, the use of which was peremptorily forbidden by a special Rhetra,[606] erroneously connected with Lykurgus himself, but at any rate ancient. On certain occasions of peculiar moment, they take the sense of the senate and the public assembly,[607]—such seems to have been the habit on questions of war and peace. It appears, however, that persons charged with homicide, treason, or capital offences generally, were tried before the senate. We read of several instances in which the kings were tried and severely fined, and in which their houses were condemned to be razed to the ground, probably by the senate, on the proposition of the ephors: in one instance, it seems that the ephors inflicted by their own authority a fine even upon Agesilaus.[608]

[604] Xenophon, Republ. Laced. c. 8, 2, and Agesilaus, cap. 7, 2.

[605] Xenoph. Rep. Laced. 8, 4; Thucydid. i. 131; Aristot. Polit.
ii. 6,14—ἀρχὴν λίαν μεγάλην καὶ ἰσοτύραννον. Plutarch, Lycurg. c.
13.—μὴ χρῆσθαι νόμοις ἐγγράφοις.

Plato, in his Republic, in like manner disapproves of any general
enactments, tying up beforehand the discretion of perfectly
educated men, like his guardians, who will always do what is best
on each special occasion (Republic, iv. p. 425).

[606] Besides the primitive constitutional Rhetra mentioned
above, page 345, various other Rhetræ are also attributed to
Lykurgus: and Plutarch singles out three under the title of “The
Three Rhetræ,” as if they were either the only genuine Lykurgean
Rhetræ, or at least stood distinguished by some peculiar sanctity
from all others (Plutarch, Quæst. Roman. c. 87. Agesilaus, c. 26).

These three were (Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 13; comp. Apophth. Lacon.
p. 227): 1. Not to resort to written laws. 2. Not to employ in
house-building any other tools than the axe and the saw. 3. Not
to undertake military expeditions often against the same enemies.

I agree with Nitzsch (Histor. Homer. pp. 61-65) that these
Rhetræ, though doubtless not actually Lykurgean, are,
nevertheless, ancient (that is, probably dating somewhere between
650-550 B. C.) and not the mere fictions of recent writers,
as Schömann (Ant. Jur. Pub. iv. 1; xiv. p. 132) and Urlichs
(p. 241) seem to believe. And though Plutarch specifies the
number _three_, yet there seems to have been still more, as the
language of Tyrtæus must be held to indicate: out of which, from
causes which we do not now understand, the three which Plutarch
distinguishes excited particular notice.

These maxims or precepts of state were probably preserved along
with the dicta of the Delphian oracle, from which authority,
doubtless, many of them may have emanated,—such as the famous
ancient prophecy Ἁ φιλοχρηματία Σπάρταν ὁλεῖ, ἄλλο δὲ οὐδὲν
(Krebs, Lectiones Diodoreæ, p. 140. Aristotel. Περὶ Πολιτειῶν,
ap. Schol. ad Eurip. Andromach. 446. Schömann, Comm. ad Plutarch.
Ag. et Cleomen. p. 123).

Nitzsch has good remarks in explanation of the prohibition
against “using written laws.” This prohibition was probably
called forth by the circumstance that other Grecian states were
employing lawgivers like Zaleukus, Drako, Charondas, or Solon,—to
present them, at once, with a series of written enactments, or
provisions. Some Spartans may have proposed that an analogous
lawgiver should be nominated for Sparta: upon which proposition a
negative was put in the most solemn manner possible, by a formal
Rhetra, perhaps passed after advice from Delphi. There is no such
contradiction, therefore, (when we thus conceive the event,) as
some authors represent, in forbidding the use of written laws by
a Rhetra itself, put into writing. To employ a phrase in greater
analogy with modern controversies—“The Spartans, on the direction
of the oracle, resolve to retain their unwritten common law, and
not to codify.”

[607] Ἔδοξε τοῖς Ἐφόροις καὶ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ (Xen. Hellen. iii. 2,
23).

[608] The case of _Leotychides_, Herod. vi. 72; of _Pleistoanax_,
Thucyd. ii. 21-v. 16; _Agis the Second_, Thucyd. v. 63; _Agis the
Third_, Plutarch, Agis, c. 19: see Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 5.

Respecting the ephors generally, see Wachsmuth, Hellen.
Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, vol. i. p. 223; Cragius, Rep. Lac. ii.
4, p. 121.

Aristotle distinctly marks the ephors as ἀνυπεύθυνοι: so that the
story alluded to briefly in the Rhetoric (iii. 18) is not easy to
be understood.

War and peace appear to have been submitted, on most, if not on all occasions, to the senate and the public assembly; no matter could reach the latter until it had passed through the former. And we find some few occasions on which the decision of the public assembly was a real expression of opinion, and operative as to the result,—as, for example, the assembly which immediately preceded and resolved upon the Peloponnesian war. Here, in addition to the serious hazard of the case, and the general caution of a Spartan temperament, there was the great personal weight and experience of king Archidamus opposed to the war, though the ephors were favorable to it.[609] The public assembly, under such peculiar circumstances, really manifested an opinion and came to a division. But, for the most part, it seems to have been little better than an inoperative formality. The general rule permitted no open discussion, nor could any private citizen speak except by special leave from the magistrates. Perhaps even the general liberty to discuss, if given, might have been of no avail, for not only was there no power of public speaking, but no habit of canvassing public measures, at Sparta; nothing was more characteristic of the government than the extreme secrecy of its proceedings.[610] The propositions brought forward by the magistrates were either accepted or rejected, without any license of amending. There could be no attraction to invite the citizen to be present at such an assembly: and we may gather from the language of Xenophon that, in his time, it consisted only of a certain number of notables specially summoned in addition to the senate, which latter body is itself called “the lesser Ekklesia.[611]” Indeed, the constant and formidable diminution in the number of qualified citizens was alone sufficient to thin the attendance of the assembly, as well as to break down any imposing force which it might once have possessed.

[609] Thucyd. i. 67, 80, 87. ξύλλογον σφῶν αὐτῶν τὸν εἰωθότα.

[610] Thucyd. iv. 68. τῆς πολιτείας τὸ κρυπτόν: compare iv. 74;
also, his remarkable expression about so distinguished a man as
Brasidas, ἦν δὲ οὐκ αδύνατος, ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιος, εἰπεῖν, and iv.
24, about the Lacedæmonian envoys to Athens. Compare Schömann,
Antiq. Jur. Pub. Græc. iv. 1, 10, p. 122. Aristotel. Polit. ii.
8, 3.

[611] Τὴν μικρὰν καλουμένην ἐκκλησίαν (Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 3,
8), which means the γέροντες, or senate, and none besides, except
the ephors, who convoked it. (See Lachmann, Spart. Verfass. sect.
12, p. 216.) What is still more to be noted, is the expression
οἱ ἔκκλητοι as the equivalent of ἡ ἐκκλησία (compare Hellen. v.
2, 11; vi. 3, 3), evidently showing a special and limited number
of persons convened: see, also, ii. 4, 38; iv. 6, 3; v. 2, 33;
Thucyd. v. 77.

The expression οἱ ἔκκλητοι could never have got into use as an
equivalent for the Athenian ecclesia.

An assembly thus circumstanced,—though always retained as a formality, and though its consent on considerable matters and for the passing of laws (which, however, seems to have been a rare occurrence at Sparta) was indispensable,—could be very little of a practical check upon the administration of the ephors. The senate, a permanent body, with the kings included in it, was the only real check upon them, and must have been to a certain extent a concurrent body in the government,—though the large and imposing language in which its political supremacy is spoken of by Demosthenês and Isokratês exceeds greatly the reality of the case. Its most important function was that of a court of criminal justice, before whom every man put on trial for his life was arraigned.[612] But both in this and in their other duties, we find the senators as well as the kings and the ephors charged with corruption and venality.[613] As they were not appointed until sixty years of age, and then held their offices for life, we may readily believe that some of them continued to act after the period of extreme and disqualifying senility,—which, though the extraordinary respect of the Lacedæmonians for old age would doubtless tolerate it, could not fail to impair the influence of the body as a concurrent element of government.

[612] Xenoph. Republ. Laced. 10; Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 17; iii.
1, 7; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 23, p. 489; Isokratês, Or.
xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 266. The language of Demosthenês seems
particularly inaccurate.

Plutarch (Agesilaus, c. 32), on occasion of some suspected
conspirators, who were put to death by Agesilaus and the
ephors, when Sparta was in imminent danger from the attack of
Epameinondas, asserts, that this was the first time that any
Spartan had ever been put to death without trial.

[613] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 18. Compare, also, Thucydid.
i. 131, about the guilty Pausanias,—πιστεύων χρήμασι
διαλύσειν τὴν διαβολήν; Herodot. v. 72; Thucyd. v. 16,—about
the kings Leotychides and Pleistoanax; the brave and able
Gylippus,—Plutarch, Lysand. c. 16.