Chapter VI (4)

Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217)
supposes “that the best land was already parcelled, before the
time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to
the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine
thousand.” For this assertion, I know no evidence: it departs
from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated
or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia
among the Periœki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any
comment, and seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218).

Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division
of land prior to Lykurgus,—that it had degenerated into
abuse,—and that Lykurgus corrected it, restoring, not absolute
equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i.
pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of
Wachsmuth.

O. Müller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he
says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been
set out before the Messenian war; and he adheres to the idea of
equality as contained in Plutarch; but he says that the equality
consisted in “equal estimate of average produce,”—not in equal
acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that “the lots
of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of
the Periœki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as extensive
(_i. e._ in the aggregate): each lot must, therefore, have been
seven times greater,” (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3,
6; iii. 10, 2.) He also supposes, that “similar partitions of
land had been made from the time of the first occupation of
Laconia by the Dorians.” Whoever compares his various positions
with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful
disproportion between the basis and the superstructure.

The views of Schömann, as far as I collect from expressions
somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He
admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at
variance with the representations of Plato (Schömann, Antiq. Jur.
Pub. iv. 1, 7, note 4, p. 116).

I cannot but take a different view of the statement made by Plutarch. The moment that we depart from that rule of equality, which stands so prominently marked in his biography of Lykurgus, we step into a boundless field of possibility, in which there is nothing to determine us to one point more than to another. The surmise started by Dr. Thirlwall, of lands unjustly taken from the conquered Achæans by wealthy Spartan proprietors, is altogether gratuitous; and granting it to be correct, we have still to explain how it happened that this correction of a partial injustice came to be transformed into the comprehensive and systematic measure which Plutarch describes; and to explain, farther, from whence it arose that none of the authors earlier than Plutarch take any notice of Lykurgus as an agrarian equalizer. These two difficulties will still remain, even if we overlook the gratuitous nature of Dr. Thirlwall’s supposition, or of any other supposition which can be proposed respecting the real Lykurgean measure which Plutarch is affirmed to have misrepresented.

It appears to me that these difficulties are best obviated by adopting a different canon of historical interpretation. We cannot accept as real the Lykurgean land division described in the life of the lawgiver; but treating this account as a fiction, two modes of proceeding are open to us. We may either consider the fiction, as it now stands, to be the exaggeration and distortion of some small fact, and then try to guess, without any assistance, what the small fact was. Or we may regard it as fiction from first to last, the expression of some large idea and sentiment so powerful in its action on men’s minds at a given time, as to induce them to make a place for it among the realities of the past. Now the latter supposition, applied to the times of Agis the Third, best meets the case before us. The eighth chapter of the life of Lykurgus by Plutarch, in recounting the partition of land, describes the dream of king Agis, whose mind is full of two sentiments,—grief and shame for the actual condition of his country,—together with reverence for its past glories, as well as for the lawgiver from whose institutions those glories had emanated. Absorbed with this double feeling, the reveries of Agis go back to the old ante-Lykurgean Sparta, as it stood more than five centuries before. He sees, in the spirit, the same mischiefs and disorders as those which afflict his waking eye,—gross inequalities of property, with a few insolent and luxurious rich, a crowd of mutinous and suffering poor, and nothing but fierce antipathy reigning between the two. Into the midst of this froward, lawless, and distempered community, steps the venerable missionary from Delphi,—breathes into men’s minds new impulses, and an impatience to shake off the old social and political Adam,—and persuades the rich, voluntarily abnegating their temporal advantages, to welcome with satisfaction a new system, wherein no distinction shall be recognized, except that of good or evil desert.[701] Having thus regenerated the national mind, he parcels out the territory of Laconia into equal lots, leaving no superiority to any one. Fraternal harmony becomes the reigning sentiment, while the coming harvests present the gratifying spectacle of a paternal inheritance recently distributed, with the brotherhood contented, modest, and docile. Such is the picture with which “mischievous Oneirus” cheats the fancy of the patriotic Agis, whispering the treacherous message that the gods have promised _him_ success in a similar attempt, and thus seducing him into that fatal revolutionary course, which is destined to bring himself, his wife, and his aged mother, to the dungeon and the hangman’s rope.[702]

[701] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 8. συνέπεισε τὴν χώραν ἅπασαν εἰς
μέσον θέντας, ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναδάσασθαι, καὶ ζῆν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἅπαντας,
ὁμαλεῖς καὶ ἰσοκλήρους τοῖς βίοις γενομένους, τὸ δὲ πρωτεῖον
ἀρετῇ μετιόντας· ὡς ἄλλης ἑτέρῳ πρὸς ἕτερον οὐκ οὔσης διαφορᾶς,
οὐδὲ ἀνισότητος, πλὴν ὅσην αἰσχρῶν ψόγος ὁρίζει καὶ καλῶν
ἔπαινος. Ἐπάγων δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τὸ ἔργον, διένειμε, etc.

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

That the golden dream just described was dreamed by some Spartan patriots is certain, because it stands recorded in Plutarch; that it was not dreamed by the authors of centuries preceding Agis, I have already endeavored to show; that the earnest feelings, of sickness of the present and yearning for a better future under the colors of a restored past, which filled the soul of this king and his brother-reformers,—combined with the levelling tendency between rich and poor which really was inherent in the Lykurgean discipline,—were amply sufficient to beget such a dream, and to procure for it a place among the great deeds of the old lawgiver, so much venerated and so little known,—this too I hold to be unquestionable. Had there been any evidence that Lykurgus had interfered with private property, to the limited extent which Dr. Thirlwall and other able critics imagine,—that he had resumed certain lands unjustly taken by the rich from the Achæans,—I should have been glad to record it; but, finding no such evidence, I cannot think it necessary to presume the fact, simply in order to account for the story in Plutarch.[703]

[703] I read with much satisfaction, in M. Kopstadt’s
Dissertation, that the general conclusion which I have endeavored
to establish respecting the alleged Lykurgean redivision of
property, appears to him successfully proved. (Dissert. De Rerum
Laconic. Const. sect. 18, p. 138.)

He supposes, with perfect truth, that, at the time when the
first edition of these volumes was published, I was ignorant of
the fact, that Lachmann and Kortüm had both called in question
the reality of the Lykurgean redivision. In regard to Professor
Kortüm, the fact was first brought to my knowledge, by his notice
of these two volumes, in the Heidelberger Jahrbücher, 1846, No.
41, p. 649.

Since the first edition, I have read the treatise of Lachmann
(Die Spartanische Staats Verfassung in ihrer Entwicklung und
ihrem Verfalle, sect. 10, p. 170) wherein the redivision ascribed
to Lykurgus is canvassed. He, too, attributes the origin of
the tale, as a portion of history, to the social and political
feelings current in the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the
Third. He notices, also, that it is in contradiction with Plato
and Isokratês. But a large proportion of the arguments which
he brings to disprove it, are connected with ideas of his own
respecting the social and political constitution of Sparta, which
I think either untrue or uncertified. Moreover, he believes in
the inalienability as well as the indivisibility of the separate
lots of land,—which I believe to be just as little correct as
their supposed equality.

Kopstadt (p. 139) thinks that I have gone too far in rejecting
every middle opinion. He thinks that Lykurgus must have done
something, though much less than what is affirmed, tending to
realize equality of individual property.

I shall not say that this is impossible. If we had ampler
evidence, perhaps such facts might appear. But as the evidence
stands now, there is nothing whatever to show it. Nor are we
entitled (in my judgment) to presume that it was so, in the
absence of evidence, simply in order to make out that the
Lykurgean mythe is only an exaggeration, and not entire fiction.

The various items in that story all hang together, and must be understood as forming parts of the same comprehensive fact, or comprehensive fancy. The fixed total of nine thousand Spartan, and thirty thousand Laconian lots,[704] the equality between them, and the rent accruing from each, represented by a given quantity of moist and dry produce,—all these particulars are alike true or alike uncertified. Upon the various numbers here given, many authors have raised calculations as to the population and produce of Laconia, which appear to me destitute of any trustworthy foundation. Those who accept the history, that Lykurgus constituted the above-mentioned numbers both of citizens and of lots of land, and that he contemplated the maintenance of both numbers in unchangeable proportion,—are perplexed to assign the means whereby this adjustment was kept undisturbed. Nor are they much assisted in the solution of this embarrassing problem by the statement of Plutarch, who tells us that the number remained fixed of itself, and that the succession ran on from father to son, without either consolidation or multiplication of parcels, down to the period when foreign wealth flowed into Sparta, as a consequence of the successful conclusion of the Peloponnesian war. Shortly after that period (he tells us) a citizen named Epitadeus became ephor,—a vindictive and malignant man, who, having had a quarrel with his son, and wishing to oust him from the succession, introduced and obtained sanction to a new Rhetra, whereby power was granted to every father of a family either to make over during life, or to bequeathe after death, his house and his estate to any one whom he chose.[705] But it is plain that this story (whatever be the truth about the family quarrel of Epitadeus) does not help us out of the difficulty. From the time of Lykurgus to that of this disinheriting ephor, more than four centuries must be reckoned: now, had there been real causes at work sufficient to maintain inviolate the identical number of lots and families during this long period, we see no reason why his new law, simply permissive and nothing more, should have overthrown it. We are not told by Plutarch what was the law of succession prior to Epitadeus. If the whole estate went by law to one son in the family, what became of the other sons, to whom industrious acquisition in any shape was repulsive as well as interdicted? If, on the other hand, the estate was divided between the sons equally (as it was by the law of succession at Athens), how can we defend the maintenance of an unchanged aggregate number of parcels?

[704] Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11) remarks that the territory of
the Spartans would maintain fifteen hundred horsemen and thirty
thousand hoplites, while the number of citizens was, in point of
fact, less than one thousand. Dr. Thirlwall seems to prefer the
reading of Göttling,—three thousand instead of thirty thousand;
but the latter seems better supported by MSS, and most suitable.

[705] Plutarch, Agis, c. 5.

Dr. Thirlwall, after having admitted a modified interference with private property by Lykurgus, so as to exact from the wealthy a certain sacrifice in order to create lots for the poor, and to bring about something approaching to equi-producing lots for all, observes: “The average amount of the rent, paid by the cultivating Helots from each lot, seems to have been no more than was required for the frugal maintenance of a family with six persons. The right of transfer was as strictly confined as that of enjoyment; the patrimony was indivisible, inalienable, and descended to the eldest son; in default of a male heir, to the eldest daughter. The object seems to have been, after the number of the allotments became fixed, that each should be constantly represented by one head of a household. But the nature of the means employed for this end is one of the most obscure points of the Spartan system.... In the better times of the commonwealth, this seems to have been principally effected by adoptions and marriages with heiresses, which provided for the marriages of younger sons in families too numerous to be supported on their own hereditary property. It was then probably seldom necessary for the state to interfere, in order to direct the childless owner of an estate, or the father of a rich heiress, to a proper choice. But as all adoption required the sanction of the kings, and they had also the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses, there can be little doubt that the magistrate had the power of interposing on such occasions, even in opposition to the wishes of individuals, to relieve poverty and check the accumulation of wealth.” (Hist. Gr. ch. 8, vol. i. p. 367).

I cannot concur in the view which Dr. Thirlwall here takes of the state of property, or the arrangements respecting its transmission, in ancient Sparta. Neither the equal modesty of possession which he supposes, nor the precautions for perpetuating it, can be shown to have ever existed among the pupils of Lykurgus. Our earliest information intimates the existence of rich men at Sparta: the story of king Aristo and Agêtus, in Herodotus, exhibits to us the latter as a man who cannot be supposed to have had only just “enough to maintain six persons frugally,”—while his beautiful wife, whom Aristo coveted and entrapped from him, is expressly described as the daughter of opulent parents. Sperthiês and Bulis, the Talthybiads, are designated as belonging to a distinguished race, and among the wealthiest men in Sparta.[706] Demaratus was the only king of Sparta, in the days of Herodotus, who had ever gained a chariot-victory in the Olympic games; but we know by the case of Lichas, during the Peloponnesian war, Evagoras, and others, that private Spartans were equally successful;[707] and for one Spartan who won the prize, there must of course have been many who bred their horses and started their chariots unsuccessfully. It need hardly be remarked, that chariot-competition at Olympia was one of the most significant evidences of a wealthy house: nor were there wanting Spartans who kept horses and dogs without any exclusive view to the games. We know from Xenophon that, at the time of the battle of Leuktra, “the very rich Spartans” provided the horses to be mounted for the state-cavalry.[708] These and other proofs, of the existence of rich men at Sparta, are inconsistent with the idea of a body of citizens each possessing what was about enough for the frugal maintenance of six persons, and no more.

[706] Herod. vi. 61. οἷα ἀνθρώπων τε ὀλβίων θυγατέρα, etc; vii.
134.

[707] Herod. vi. 70-103; Thucyd. v. 50.

[708] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 11; Xenoph. de Rep. Lac. v. 3;
Molpis ap. Athenæ. iv. p. 141; Aristot. Polit. ii. 2, 5.

As we do not find that such was in practice the state of property in the Spartan community, so neither can we discover that the lawgiver ever tried either to make or to keep it so. What he did was to impose a rigorous public discipline, with simple clothing and fare, incumbent alike upon the rich and the poor (this was his special present to Greece, according to Thucydidês,[709] and his great point of contact with democracy, according to Aristotle); but he took no pains either to restrain the enrichment of the former, or to prevent the impoverishment of the latter. He meddled little with the distribution of property, and such neglect is one of the capital deficiencies for which Aristotle censures him. That philosopher tells us, indeed, that the Spartan law had made it dishonorable (he does not say, peremptorily forbidden) to buy or sell landed property, but that there was the fullest liberty both of donation and bequest: and the same results, he justly observes, ensued from the practice tolerated as would have ensued from the practice discountenanced,—since it was easy to disguise a real sale under an ostensible donation. He notices pointedly the tendency of property at Sparta to concentrate itself in fewer hands, unopposed by any legal hindrances: the fathers married their daughters to whomsoever they chose, and gave dowries according to their own discretion, generally very large: the rich families, moreover, intermarried among one another habitually, and without restriction. Now all these are indicated by Aristotle as cases in which the law might have interfered, and ought to have interfered, but did not,—for the great purpose of disseminating the benefits of landed property as much as possible among the mass of the citizens. Again, he tells us that the law encouraged the multiplication of progeny, and granted exemptions to such citizens as had three or four children,—but took no thought how the numerous families of poorer citizens were to live, or to maintain their qualification at the public tables, most of the lands of the state being in the hands of the rich.[710] His notice, and condemnation, of that law, which made the franchise of the Spartan citizen dependent upon his continuing to furnish his quota to the public table,—has been already adverted to; as well as the potent love of money[711] which he notes in the Spartan character, and which must have tended continually to keep together the richer families among themselves: while amongst a community where industry was unknown, no poor citizen could ever become rich.

[709] Thucyd. i. 6; Aristot. Polit. iv. 7, 4, 5; viii. 1, 3.

[710] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 10-13; v. 6, 7.

[711] The panegyrist Xenophon acknowledges much the same
respecting the Sparta which he witnessed; but he maintains that
it had been better in former times (Repub. Lac. c. 14).

If we duly weigh these evidences, we shall see that equality of possessions neither existed in fact, nor ever entered into the scheme and tendencies of the lawgiver at Sparta. And the picture which Dr. Thirlwall[712] has drawn of a body of citizens each possessing a lot of land about adequate to the frugal maintenance of six persons,—of adoptions and marriages of heiresses arranged with a deliberate view of providing for the younger children of numerous families,—of interference on the part of the kings to insure this object,—of a fixed number of lots of land, each represented by one head of a household,—this picture is one, of which the reality must not be sought on the banks of the Eurotas. The “better times of the commonwealth,” to which he refers, may have existed in the glowing retrospect of Agis, but are not acknowledged in the sober appreciation of Aristotle. That the citizens were far more numerous in early times, the philosopher tells us, and that the community had in his day greatly declined in power, we also know: in this sense, the times of Sparta had doubtless once been better. We may even concede that during the three centuries succeeding Lykurgus, when they were continually acquiring new territory, and when Aristotle had been told that they had occasionally admitted new citizens, so that the aggregate number of citizens had once been ten thousand,—we may concede that in these previous centuries the distribution of land had been less unequal, so that the disproportion between the great size of the territory and the small number of citizens was not so marked as it had become at the period which the philosopher personally witnessed; for the causes tending to augmented inequality were constant and uninterrupted in their working. But this admission will still leave us far removed from the sketch drawn by Dr. Thirlwall, which depicts the Lykurgean Sparta as starting from a new agrarian scheme not far removed from equality of landed property,—the citizens as spontaneously disposed to uphold this equality, by giving to unprovided men the benefit of adoptions and heiress-marriages,—and the magistrate as interfering to enforce this latter purpose, even in cases where the citizens were themselves unwilling. All our evidence exhibits to us both decided inequality of possessions and inclinations on the part of rich men, the reverse of those which Dr. Thirlwall indicates; nor will the powers of interference which he ascribes to the magistrate be found sustained by the chapter of Herodotus on which he seems to rest them.[713]

[712] The view of Dr. Thirlwall agrees, in the main, with that of
Manso and O. Müller (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 118-128; and vol.
ii. Beilage, 9, p. 129; and Müller, History of the Dorians, vol.
ii. b. iii. c. 10, sect. 2, 3).

Both these authors maintain the proposition stated by Plutarch
(Agis c. 5, in his reference to the ephor Epitadeus, and the
new law carried by that ephor), that the number of Spartan
lots, nearly equal and rigorously indivisible, remained with
little or no change from the time of the original division, down
to the return of Lysander, after his victorious close of the
Peloponnesian war. Both acknowledge that they cannot understand
by what regulations this long unalterability, so improbable in
itself, was maintained: but both affirm the fact positively.
The period will be more than four hundred years if the original
division be referred to Lykurgus: more than three hundred years,
if the nine thousand lots are understood to date from the
Messenian war.

If this alleged fact be really a fact, it is something almost
without a parallel in the history of mankind: and before we
consent to believe it, we ought at least to be satisfied that
there is considerable show of positive evidence in its favor,
and not much against it. But on examining Manso and Müller, it
will be seen that not only is there very slender evidence in its
favor,—there is a decided balance of evidence against it.

The evidence produced to prove the indivisibility of the
Spartan lot, is a passage of Herakleidês Ponticus, c. 2 (ad.
calc. Cragii, p. 504), πωλεῖν δὲ γὴν Λακεδαιμονίοις αἰσχρὸν
νενόμισται,—τῆς ἀρχαίας μοίρας ἀνανέμεσθαι (or νενεμῆσθαι) οὐδὲν
ἔξεστι. The first portion of this assertion is confirmed by,
and probably borrowed from, Aristotle, who says the same thing,
nearly in the same words: the second portion of the sentence
ought, according to all reasonable rules of construction, to be
understood with reference to the first part; that is, to the
_sale_ of the original lot. “To sell land, is held disgraceful
among the Lacedæmonians, nor is it permitted to sever off any
portion of the original lot,” i. e. _for sale_. Herakleidês is
not here speaking of the law of _succession_ to property at
Lacedæmon, nor can we infer from his words that the whole lot
was transmitted entire to one son. No evidence except this very
irrelevant sentence is produced by Müller and Manso to justify
their positive assertion, that the Spartan lot of land was
indivisible in respect to inheritance.

Having thus determined the indivisible transmission of lots
to one son of a family, Manso and Müller presume, without any
proof, that that son must be the eldest: and Müller proceeds
to state something equally unsupported by proof: “The extent
of his rights, however, was perhaps no farther than that he
was considered master of the house and property; while the
other members of the family had an equal right to the enjoyment
of it.... The master of the family was, therefore, obliged
to contribute for all these to the syssitia, without which
contribution no one was admitted.”—pp. 199, 200.

All this is completely gratuitous, and will be found to produce
as many difficulties in one way as it removes in another.

The next law as to the transmission of property, which Manso
states to have prevailed, is, that all daughters were to marry
without receiving any dowry,—the case of a sole daughter is here
excepted. For this proposition he cites Plutarch, Apophtheg.
Laconic. p. 227; Justin, iii. 3; Ælian. V. H. vi. 6. These
authors do certainly affirm, that there was such a regulation,
and both Plutarch and Justin assign reasons for it, real or
supposed. “Lykurgus, being asked why he directed that maidens
should be married without dowry, answered,—In order that
maidens of poor families might not remain unmarried, and that
character and virtue might be exclusively attended to in the
choice of a wife.” The same general reason is given by Justin.
Now the _reason_ here given for the prohibition of dowry, goes,
indirectly, to prove that there existed no such law of general
succession, as that which had been before stated, namely, the
sacred indivisibility of the primitive lot. For had this latter
been recognized, the reason would have been obvious why daughters
could receive no dowry; the father’s whole landed property (and
a Spartan could have little of any other property, since he
never acquired anything by industry) was under the strictest
entail to his eldest son. Plutarch and Justin, therefore, while
in their statement as to the matter of fact, they warrant
Manso in affirming the prohibition of dowry (about this matter
of fact, more presently), do, by the reason which they give,
discountenance his former supposition as to the indivisibility of
the primitive family lots.

Thirdly, Manso understands Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11), by
the use of the adverb νῦν, to affirm something respecting his
own time specially, and to imply at the same time that the
ancient custom had been the reverse. I cannot think that the
adverb, as Aristotle uses it in that passage, bears out such a
construction: νῦν δὲ, there, does not signify present time as
opposed to past, but the antithesis between the actual custom
and that which Aristotle pronounces to be expedient. Aristotle
gives no indication of being aware that any material change had
taken place in the laws of succession at Sparta: this is one
circumstance, for which both Manso and Müller, who both believe
in the extraordinary revolution caused by the permissive law of
the ephor Epitadeus, censure him.

Three other positions are laid down by Manso about the laws of
property at Sparta. 1. A man might give away or bequeathe his
land to whomsoever he pleased. 2. But none except childless
persons could do this. 3. They could only give or bequeathe
it to citizens who had no land of their own. Of these three
regulations, the first is distinctly affirmed by Aristotle, and
may be relied upon: the second is a restriction not noticed by
Aristotle, and supported by no proof except that which arises out
of the story of the ephor Epitadeus, who is said to have been
unable to disinherit his son without causing a new law to be
passed: the third is a pure fancy.

So much for the positive evidence, on the faith of which Manso
and Müller affirm the startling fact, that the lots of land in
Sparta remained distinct, indivisible, and unchanged in number,
down to the close of the Peloponnesian war. I venture to say that
such positive evidence is far too weak to sustain an affirmation
in itself so improbable, even if there were no evidence on the
other side for contradiction. But in this case there is powerful
contradictory evidence.

First, the assertions of these authors are distinctly in the
teeth of Aristotle, whose authority they try to invalidate,
by saying that he spoke altogether with reference to his
own time at Sparta, and that he misconceived the primitive
Lykurgean constitution. Now this might form a reasonable ground
of presumption against the competency of Aristotle, if the
witnesses produced on the other side were older than he. But it
so happens, that _every one_ of the witnesses produced by Manso
and Müller, are _younger_ than Aristotle: Herakleidês Ponticus,
Plutarch, Justin, Ælian, etc. Nor is it shown that these authors
copied from any source earlier than Aristotle,—for his testimony
cannot be contradicted by any inferences drawn from Herodotus,
Thucydidês, Xenophon, Plato, Isokratês, or Ephorus. None of
these writers, anterior to, or contemporary with, Aristotle,
countenance the fancy of equal, indivisible, perpetual lots, or
prohibition of dowry.

The fact is, that Aristotle is not only our best witness, but
also our oldest witness, respecting the laws of property in
the Spartan commonwealth. I could have wished, indeed, that
earlier testimonies had existed, and I admit that even the most
sagacious observer of 340-330 B. C. is liable to mistake when he
speaks of one or two centuries before. But if Aristotle is to be
discredited on the ground of late date, what are we to say to
Plutarch? To insist on the intellectual eminence of Aristotle
would be superfluous: and on this subject he is a witness the
more valuable, as he had made careful, laborious, and personal
inquiries into the Grecian governments generally, and that
of Sparta among them,—the great _point de mire_ for ancient
speculative politicians.

Now the statements of Aristotle, distinctly exclude the idea of
equal, indivisible, inalienable, perpetual lots,—and prohibition
of dowry. He particularly notices the habit of giving very large
dowries, and the constant tendency of the lots of land to become
consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. He tells us nothing upon
the subject which is not perfectly consistent, intelligible, and
uncontradicted by any known statements belonging to his own,
or to earlier times. But the reason why men refuse to believe
him, and either set aside or explain away his evidence, is,
that they sit down to the study with their minds full of the
division of landed property ascribed to Lykurgus by Plutarch.
I willingly concede that, on this occasion, we have to choose
between Plutarch and Aristotle. We cannot reconcile them except
by arbitrary suppositions, every one of which breaks up the
simplicity, beauty, and symmetry of Plutarch’s agrarian idea,—and
every one of which still leaves the perpetuity of the original
lots unexplained. And I have no hesitation in preferring the
authority of Aristotle (which is in perfect consonance with what
we indirectly gather from other authors, his contemporaries and
predecessors) as a better witness on every ground; rejecting the
statement of Plutarch, and rejecting it altogether, with all its
consequences.

But the authority of Aristotle is not the only argument which may
be urged to refute this supposition that the distinct Spartan
lots remained unaltered in number down to the time of Lysander.
For if the number of distinct lots remained undiminished, the
number of citizens cannot have greatly diminished. Now the
conspiracy of Kinadôn falls during the life of Lysander, within
the first ten years after the close of the Peloponnesian war:
and in the account which Xenophon gives of that conspiracy, the
paucity of the number of citizens is brought out in the clearest
and most emphatic manner. And this must be before the time when
the new law of Epitadeus is said to have passed, at least before
that law can have had room to produce any sensible effects.
If, then, the ancient nine thousand lots still remained all
separate, without either consolidation or subdivision, how are we
to account for the small number of citizens at the time of the
conspiracy of Kinadôn?

This examination of the evidence, for the purpose of which I
have been compelled to prolong the present note, shows—1. That
the hypothesis of indivisible, inalienable lots, maintained
for a long period in undiminished number at Sparta, is not
only sustained by the very minimum of affirmative evidence,
but is contradicted by very good negative evidence. 2. That
the hypothesis which represents dowries to daughters as being
prohibited by law, is, indeed, affirmed by Plutarch, Ælian, and
Justin, but is contradicted by the better authority of Aristotle.

The recent edition of Herakleidês Ponticus, published by
Schneidewin, in 1847, since my first edition, presents an amended
text, which completely bears out my interpretation. His text,
derived from a fuller comparison of existing MSS., as well as
from better critical judgment (see his Prolegg. c. iii. p.
liv.), stands—Πωλεῖν δὲ γὴν Λακεδαιμονίοις αἰσχρὸν νενόμισται·
τῆς δὲ ἀρχαίας μοίρας οὐδὲ ἔξεστιν (p. 7). It is plain that all
this passage relates to sale of land, and not to testation, or
succession, or division. Thus much _negatively_ is certain, and
Schneidewin remarks in his note (p. 53) that it contradicts
Müller, Hermann, and Schömann,—adding, that the distinction
drawn is, between land inherited from the original family lots,
and land otherwise acquired, by donation, bequest, etc. Sale
of the former was absolutely illegal: sale of the latter was
discreditable, yet not absolutely illegal. Aristotle in the
Politics (ii. 6, 10) takes no notice of any such distinction,
between land inherited from the primitive lots, and land
otherwise acquired. Nor was there, perhaps, any well-defined line
of distinction, in a country of unwritten customs, like Sparta,
between what was simply disgraceful and what was positively
illegal. Schneidewin, in his note, however, assumes the original
equality of the lots as certain in itself, and as being the cause
of the prohibition: neither of which appears to me true.

I speak of this confused compilation still under the name of
Herakleidês Ponticus, by which it is commonly known: though
Schneidewin, in the second chapter of his Prolegomena, has shown
sufficient reason for believing that there is no authority for
connecting it with the name of Herakleidês. He tries to establish
the work as consisting of Excerpta from the lost treatise of
Aristotle’s περὶ Πολιτειῶν: which is well made out with regard
to some parts, but not enough to justify his inference as to the
whole. The article, wherein Welcker vindicates the ascribing
of the work to an Excerptor of Herakleidês, is unsatisfactory
(Kleine Schriften, p. 451).

Beyond this irrelevant passage of Herakleidês Ponticus, no
farther evidence is produced by Müller and Manso to justify their
positive assertion, that the Spartan lot of land was indivisible
in respect to inheritance.

[713] Herod. vi. 57, in enumerating the privileges and
perquisites of the kings—δικάζειν δὲ μούνους τοὺς βασιλῆας τόσαδε
μοῦνα· πατρούχου τε παρθένου πέρι, ἐς τὸν ἱκνέεται ἔχειν, ἢν μή
περ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτὴν ἐγγυήσῃ· καὶ ὁδῶν δημοσιέων πέρι· καὶ ἤν τις
θετὸν παῖδα ποιέεσθαι ἐθέλῃ, βασιλήων ἐνάντιον ποιέεσθαι.

It seems curious that πατρούχος πάρθενος should mean a damsel who
has _no father_ (literally, _lucus a non lucendo_): but I suppose
that we must accept this upon the authority of Julius Pollux and
Timæus. Proceeding on this interpretation, Valckenaer gives the
meaning of the passage very justly: “Orbæ nuptias, necdum a patre
desponsatæ, si plures sibi vindicarent, fieretque ἡ ἐπίκληρος,
ut Athenis loquebantur, ἐπίδικος, Spartæ lis ista dirimebatur a
regibus solis.”

Now the judicial function here described, is something very
different from the language of Dr. Thirlwall, that “the kings
had the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses in cases where
the father had not signified his will.” Such disposal would
approach somewhat to that omnipotence which Aristophanês (Vesp.
585) makes old Philokleon claim for the Athenian dikasts (an
exaggeration well calculated to serve the poet’s purpose of
making the dikasts appear monsters of caprice and injustice), and
would be analogous to the power which English kings enjoyed three
centuries ago as feudal guardians over wards. But the language of
Herodotus is inconsistent with the idea that the kings _chose_
a husband for the orphan heiress. She was claimed, as of right,
by persons in certain degrees of relationship to her. Whether
the law about ἀγχίστεια, affinity carrying legal rights, was the
same as at Athens, we cannot tell; but the question submitted
for adjudication at Sparta, to the kings, and at Athens to the
dikasteries, was certainly the same, agreeably to the above note
of Valckenaer,—namely, to whom, among the various claimants
for the marriage, the best legal title really belonged. It
is, indeed, probable enough, that the two royal descendants
of Hêraklês might abuse their judicial function, as there are
various instances known in which they take bribes; but they were
not likely to abuse it in favor of an unprovided youth.

Next, as to adoption: Herodotus tells us that the ceremony
of adoption was performed before the kings: probably enough,
there was some fee paid with it. But this affords no ground
for presuming that they had any hand in determining _whom_ the
childless father was to adopt. According to the Attic law about
adoption, there were conditions to be fulfilled, consents to be
obtained, the absence of disqualifying circumstances verified,
etc; and some authority before which this was to be done was
indispensable (see Meier und Schömann, Attisch. Prozess, b.
iii. ch. ii. p. 436). At Sparta, such authority was vested by
ancient custom in the king: but we are not told, nor is it
probable, “that he could interpose, in opposition to the wishes
of individuals, to relieve poverty,” as Dr. Thirlwall supposes.

To conceive correctly, then, the Lykurgean system, as far as obscurity and want of evidence will permit, it seems to me that there are two current misconceptions which it is essential to discard. One of these is, that the system included a repartition of landed property, upon principles of exact or approximative equality (distinct from that appropriation which belonged to the Dorian conquest and settlement), and provisions for perpetuating the number of distinct and equal lots. The other is, that it was first brought to bear when the Spartans were masters of all Laconia. The illusions created by the old legend,—which depicts Laconia as all one country, and all conquered at one stroke,—yet survive after the legend itself has been set aside as bad evidence: we cannot conceive Sparta as subsisting by itself without dominion over Laconia; nor Amyklæ, Pharis, and Geronthræ, as really and truly independent of Sparta. Yet, if these towns were independent in the time of Lykurgus, much more confidently may the same independence be affirmed of the portions of Laconia which lie lower than Amyklæ down the valley of the Eurotas, as well as of the eastern coast, which Herodotus expressly states to have been originally connected with Argos.

Discarding, then, these two suppositions, we have to consider the Lykurgean system as brought to bear upon Sparta and its immediate circumjacent district, apart from the rest of Laconia, and as not meddling systematically with the partition of property, whatever that may have been, which the Dorian conquerors established at their original settlement. Lykurgus does not try to make the poor rich, nor the rich poor; but he imposes upon both the same subjugating drill,[714]—the same habits of life, gentlemanlike idleness, and unlettered strength,—the same fare, clothing, labors, privations, endurance, punishments, and subordination. It is a lesson instructive at least, however unsatisfactory, to political students,—that, with all this equality of dealing, he ends in creating a community in whom not merely the love of preëminence, but even the love of money, stands powerfully and specially developed.[715]

[714] Σπάρτα δαμασίμβροτος, Simonidês, apud Plutarch. Agesilaus,
c. 1.

[715] Aristotel. Polit. ii. 6, 9, 19, 23. τὸ φιλότιμον—τὸ
φιλοχρήματον.

How far the peculiar of the primitive Sparta extended we have no means of determining; but its limits down the valley of the Eurotas were certainly narrow, inasmuch as it did not reach so far as Amyklæ. Nor can we tell what principles the Dorian conquerors may have followed in the original allotment of lands within the limits of that peculiar. Equal apportionment is not probable, because all the individuals of a conquering band are seldom regarded as possessing equal claims; but whatever the original apportionment may have been, it remained without any general or avowed disturbance until the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the Third. Here, then, we have the primitive Sparta, including Dorian warriors with their Helot subjects, but no Periœki. And it is upon these Spartans separately, perhaps after the period of aggravated disorder and lawlessness noticed by Herodotus and Thucydidês, that the painful but invigorating discipline, above sketched, must have been originally brought to bear.

The gradual conquest of Laconia, with the acquisition of additional lands and new Helots, and the formation of the order of Periœki, both of which were a consequence of it,—is to be considered as posterior to the introduction of the Lykurgean system at Sparta, and as resulting partly from the increased force which that system imparted. The career of conquest went on, beginning from Têleklus, for nearly three centuries,—with some interruptions, indeed, and in the case of the Messenian war, with a desperate and even precarious struggle,—so that in the time of Thucydidês, and for some time previously, the Spartans possessed two-fifths of Peloponnesus. And this series of new acquisitions and victories disguised the really weak point of the Spartan system, by rendering it possible either to plant the poorer citizens as Periœki in a conquered township, or to supply them with lots of land, of which they could receive the produce without leaving the city,—so that their numbers and their military strength were prevented from declining. It is even affirmed by Aristotle,[716] that during these early times they augmented the numbers of their citizens by fresh admissions, which of course implies the acquisition of additional lots of land. But successful war, to use an expression substantially borrowed from the same philosopher, was necessary to their salvation: the establishment of their ascendency, and of their maximum of territory, was followed, after no very long interval, by symptoms of decline.[717] It will hereafter be seen that, at the period of the conspiracy of Kinadôn (395 B. C.), the full citizens (called Homoioi, or Peers) were considerably inferior in number to the Hypomeiŏnes, or Spartans, who could no longer furnish their qualification, and had become disfranchised. And the loss thus sustained was very imperfectly repaired by the admitted practice, sometimes resorted to by rich men, of associating with their own children the children of poorer citizens, and paying the contribution for these latter to the public tables, so as to enable them to go through the prescribed course of education and discipline,—whereby they became (under the title or sobriquet of Mothăkes[718]) citizens, with a certain taint of inferiority, yet were sometimes appointed to honorable commands.

[716] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 12.

[717] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 22. Τοιγαροῦν ἐσῴζοντο μὲν
πολεμοῦντες, ἀπώλοντο δὲ ἄρξαντες, etc. Compare also vii. 13, 15.

[718] Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 8; Phylarch. ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 271.

The strangers called Τρόφιμοι, and the illegitimate sons of
Spartans, whom Xenophon mentions with eulogy, as “having partaken
in the honorable training of the city,” must probably have been
introduced in this same way, by private support from the rich
(Xenoph. Hellen. v. 3, 9). The xenêlasy must have then become
practically much relaxed, if not extinct.

Laconia, the state and territory of the Lacedæmonians, was affirmed, at the time of its greatest extension, to have comprehended a hundred cities,[719]—this after the conquest of Messenia; so that it would include all the southern portion of Peloponnesus, from Thyrea, on the Argolic gulf, to the southern bank of the river Nedon, in its course into the Ionian sea. But Laconia, more strictly so called, was distinguished from Messenia, and was understood to designate the portion of the above-mentioned territory which lay to the east of Mount Taygetus. The conquest of Messenia by the Spartans we shall presently touch upon; but that of Laconia proper is very imperfectly narrated to us. Down to the reign of Têleklus, as has been before remarked, Amyklæ, Pharis, and Geronthræ, were still Achæan: in the reign of that prince they were first conquered, and the Achæans either expelled or subjugated. It cannot be doubted that Amyklæ had been previously a place of consequence: in point of heroic antiquity and memorials, this city, as well as Therapnæ, seems to have surpassed Sparta. And the war of the Spartans against it is represented as a struggle of some moment,—indeed, in those times, the capture of any walled city was tedious and difficult. Timomachus, an Ægeid from Thebes,[720] at the head of a body of his countrymen, is said to have rendered essential service to the Spartans in the conquest of the Achæans of Amyklæ; and the brave resistance of the latter was commemorated by a monument erected to Zeus Tropæus, at Sparta, which was still to be seen in the time of Pausanias.[721] The Achæans of Pharis and Geronthræ, alarmed by the fate of Amyklæ, are said to have surrendered their towns with little or no resistance: after which the inhabitants of all the three cities, either wholly or in part, went into exile beyond sea, giving place to colonists from Sparta.[722] From this time forward, according to Pausanias, Amyklæ continued as a village.[723] But as the Amyklæan hoplites constituted a valuable portion of the Spartan army, it must have been numbered among the cities of the Periœki, as one of the hundred;[724] the distinction between a dependent city and a village not being very strictly drawn. The festival of the Hyacinthia, celebrated at the great temple of the Amyklæan Apollo, was among the most solemn and venerated in the Spartan calendar.

[719] Strabo, viii. p. 362; Steph. Byz. Αἴθεια.

Construing the word πόλεις extensively, so as to include
townships small as well as considerable, this estimate is
probably inferior to the truth; since, even during the depressed
times of modern Greece, a fraction of the ancient Laconia
(including in that term Messenia) exhibited much more than one
hundred _bourgs_.

In reference merely to the territory called La Magne, between
Calamata in the Messenian gulf and Capo di Magna, the lower part
of the peninsula of Tænarus, see a curious letter, addressed
to the Duc de Nevers, in 1618, (on occasion of a projected
movement to liberate the Morea from the Turks, and to insure
to him the sovereignty of it, as descendant of the Palæologi,)
by a confidential agent whom he despatched thither,—M.
Chateaurenaud,—who sends to him “une sorte de tableau statistique
du Magne, ou sont énumerés 125 bourgs ou villages renfermans
4,913 feux, et pouvans fournir 10,000 combattans, dont 4,000
armés, et 6,000 sans armes (between Calamata and Capo di Magna).”
(Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. 1842, p. 329.
Mémoire de M. Berger Xivrey.)

This estimate is not far removed from that of Colonel Leake,
towards the beginning of the present century, who considers that
there were then in Mani (the same territory) one hundred and
thirty towns and villages; and this too in a state of society
exceedingly disturbed and insecure,—where private feuds and
private towers, or pyrghi, for defence, were universal, and in
parts of which, Colonel Leake says, “I see men preparing the
ground for cotton, with a dagger and pistols at their girdles.
This, it seems, is the ordinary armor of the cultivator when
there is no particular suspicion of danger: the shepherd is
almost always armed with a musket.” ... “The Maniotes reckon
their population at thirty thousand, and their muskets at ten
thousand.” (Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. i. ch. vii. pp. 243,
263-266.)

Now, under the dominion of Sparta, all Laconia doubtless enjoyed
complete internal security, so that the idea of the cultivator
tilling his land in arms would be unheard of. Reasoning upon the
basis of what has just been stated about the Maniote population
and number of townships, one hundred πόλεις, for all Laconia, is
a very moderate computation.

[720] Aristot. Λακων. Πολιτεία, ap. Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vii. 18.

I agree with M. Boeckh, that Pindar himself identifies this march
of the Ægeids to Amyklæ with the original Herakleid conquest of
Peloponnesus. (Notæ Criticæ ad Pindar. Pyth. v. 74, p. 479.)

[721] Pausan. iii. 2, 6; iii. 12, 7.

[722] Pausan. iii. 22, 5.

[723] Pausan. iii. 19, 5.

[724] Xenoph. Hellen. iv. 5, 11.

It was in the time of Alkamenês, the son of Têleklus, that the Spartans conquered Helus, a maritime town on the left bank of the Eurotas, and reduced its inhabitants to bondage,—from whose name,[725] according to various authors, the general title _Helots_, belonging to all the serfs of Laconia, was derived. But of the conquest of the other towns of Laconia,—Gytheium, Akriæ, Therapnæ, etc.,—or of the eastern land on the coast of the Argolic gulf, including Brasiæ and Epidaurus Limêra, or the island of Kythêra, all which at one time belonged to the Argeian confederacy, we have no accounts.

[725] Pausan. iii. 2, 7; iii. 20, 6. Strabo, viii. p. 363.

If it be true, as Pausanias states, that the Argeians aided Helus
to resist, their assistance must probably have been given by sea;
perhaps from Epidaurus Limêra, or Prasiæ, when they formed part
of the Argeian federation.

Scanty as our information is, it just enables us to make out a progressive increase of force and dominion on the part of the Spartans, resulting from the organization of Lykurgus. Of this progress, a farther manifestation is found, besides the conquest of the Achæans in the south by Têleklus and Alkamenês, in their successful opposition to the great power of Pheidôn the Argeian, related in a previous chapter. We now approach the long and arduous efforts by which they accomplished the subjugation of their brethren the Messenian Dorians.