[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.

[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.

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

[577] Strabo, viii. p. 363.

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

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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).

[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:—

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[614] The ephors are sometimes considered as a democratical element, because every Spartan citizen had a chance of becoming ephor; sometimes as a despotical element, because in the exercise of their power they were subject to little restraint and no responsibility: see Plato, Legg. iv. p. 712; Aristot. Polit. ii. 3, 10; iv. 7, 4, 5.

[615] A specimen of the way in which this antiquity was lauded, may be seen in Isokratês, Or. xii. (Panathenaic.) p. 288.

[616] Herodot. v. 68; Stephan. Byz. Ὑλλέες and Δυμᾶν; O. Müller, Dorians, iii. 5, 2; Boeckh ad Corp. Inscrip. No. 1123.

Thucyd. i. 24, about Phalius, the Herakleid, at Corinth.

[617] See Tyrtæus, Fragm. 8, 1, ed. Schneidewin, and Pindar, Pyth. i. 61. v. 71, where the expressions “descendants of Hêraklês” plainly comprehend more than the two kingly families. Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22; Diodor. xi. 58.

[618] Herodot. iv. 149; Pindar, Pyth. v. 67; Aristot. Λακων. Πολιτ. p. 127, Fragm. ed. Neuman. The Talthybiadæ, or heralds, at Sparta, formed a family or caste apart (Herod. vii. 134).

O. Müller supposes, without any proof, that the Ægeids must have been adopted into one of the three Dorian tribes; this is one of the corollaries from his fundamental supposition, that Sparta is the type of pure Dorism (vol. ii. p. 78). Kopstadt thinks (Dissertat. p. 67) that I have done injustice to O. Müller, in not assenting to his proof: but, on studying the point over again, I can see no reason for modifying what is here stated in the text. The Section of Schömann’s work (Antiq. Jur. Publ. Græc. iv. 1, 6, p. 115) on this subject asserts a great deal more than can be proved.

[619] Herod. v. 68-92; Boeckh, Corp. Inscrip. Nos. 1130, 1131; Stephan. Byz. v. Ὑρνίθιον; Pausan. ii. 28, 3.

[620] Photius Πάντα ὀκτώ; also. Proverb. Vatic. Suidas, xi. 64; compare Hesychius, v. Κυνόφαλοι.

[621] Müller, Dorians, iii. 5, 3-7; Boeckh ad Corp. Inscription. part iv. sect. 3, p. 609.

[622] Pausan. iii. 16, 6; Herodot. iii. 55; Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. Nos. 1241, 1338, 1347, 1425; Steph. Byz. v. Μεσόα; Strabo, viii. p. 364; Hesych. v. Πιτάνη.

There is much confusion and discrepancy of opinion about the Spartan tribes. Cragius admits six (De Republ. Lacon. i. 6); Meursius, eight (Rep. Lacon. i. 7): Barthélemy (Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, iv. p. 185) makes them five. Manso has discussed the subject at large, but I think not very satisfactorily, in the eighth Beilage to the first book of his History of Sparta (vol. ii. p. 125); and Dr. Thirwall’s second Appendix (vol. i. p. 517) both notices all the different modern opinions on this obscure topic, and adds several useful criticisms. Our scanty stock of original evidence leaves much room for divergent hypotheses, and little chance of any certain conclusion.

[623] Thucyd. i. 10.

[624] One or two Periœkic officers appear in military command towards the end of the Peloponnesian war (Thucyd. viii. 6, 22), but these seem rare exceptions, even as to foreign service by sea or land, while a Periœkus, as magistrate at Sparta, was unheard of.

[625] One half was paid by the enslaved Messenians (Tyrtæus, Frag. 4, Bergk): ἥμισυ πᾶν, ὅσσον κάρπον ἄρουσα φέρει.

[626] Strabo, viii. p. 362. Stephanus Byz. alludes to this total of one hundred townships in his notice of several different items among them,—Ἀνθάνα—πόλις Λακωνικὴ μία τῶν ἑκατον; also, v. Ἀφροδισιὰς, Βοῖαι, Δυῤῥάχιον, etc: but he probably copied Strabo, and, therefore, cannot pass for a distinct authority. The total of one hundred townships belongs to the maximum of Spartan power, after the conquest and before the severance of Messenia; for Aulôn, Boiæ, and Methônê (the extreme places) are included among them.

Mr. Clinton (Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 401) has collected the names of above sixty out of the one hundred.

[627] Thucyd. iv. 53.

[628] Xenophon, Hellen. iv. 5, 11; Herod. ix. 7; Thucyd. v. 18-23. The Amyklæan festival of the Hyacinthia, and the Amyklæan temple of Apollo, seem to stand foremost in the mind of the Spartan authorities. Αὐτοὶ καὶ οἱ ἐγγύτατα τῶν περιοίκων (Thucyd. iv. 8), who are ready before the rest, and march against the Athenians at Pylus, probably include the Amyklæans.

Laconia generally is called by Thucydidês (iii. 16) as the περιοικὶς of Sparta.

[629] The word περίοικοι is sometimes used to signify simply “surrounding neighbor states,” in its natural geographical sense: see Thucyd. i. 17, and Aristot. Polit. ii. 7, 1.

But the more usual employment of it is, to mean, the unprivileged or less privileged members of the same political aggregate living without the city, in contrast with the full-privileged burghers who lived within it. Aristotle uses it to signify, in Krête, the class corresponding to the Lacedæmonian Helots (Pol. ii. 7, 3): there did not exist in Krête any class corresponding to the Lacedæmonian Periœki. In Krête, there were not two stages of inferiority,—there was only one, and that one is marked by the word περίοικοι; while the Lacedæmonian Periœkus had the Helot below him. To an Athenian the word conveyed the idea of undefined degradation.

To understand better the status of the Periœkus, we may contrast him with the Metœkus, or Metic. The latter resides in the city, but he is an alien resident on sufferance, not a native: he pays a special tax, stands excluded from all political functions, and cannot even approach the magistrate except through a friendly citizen, or Prostatês (επὶ προστάτον οἰκεῖν—Lycurgus cont. Leocrat. c. 21-53): he bears arms for the defence of the state. The situation of a Metic was, however, very different in different cities of Greece. At Athens, that class were well-protected in person and property, numerous and domiciliated: at Sparta, there were at first none,—the Xenêlasy excluded them; but this must have been relaxed long before the days of Agis the Third.

The Periœkus differs from the Metic, in being a native of the soil, subject by birth to the city law.

M. Kopstadt (in his Dissertation above cited, on Lacedæmonian affairs, sect. 7, p. 60) expresses much surprise at that which I advance in this note respecting Krête and Lacedæmon,—that in Krête there was no class of men analogous to the Lacedæmonian Periœki, but only two classes,—i. e. free citizens and Helots. He thinks that this position is “prorsus falsum.”

But I advance nothing more here than what is distinctly stated by Aristotle, as Kopstadt himself admits (pp. 60, 71). Aristotle calls the subject class in Krête by the name of Περίοικοι. And in this case, the general presumptions go far to sustain the authority of Aristotle. For Sparta was a dominant or capital city, including in its dependence not only a considerable territory, but a considerable number of inferior, distinct, organized townships. In Krête, on the contrary, each autonomous state included only a town with its circumjacent territory, but without any annexed townships. There was, therefore, no basis for the intermediate class called, in Laconia, Periœki: just as Kopstadt himself remarks (p. 78) about the Dorian city of Megara. There were only the two classes of free Krêtan citizens, and serf-cultivators in various modifications and subdivisions.

Kopstadt (following Hoeck, Krêta, b. iii. vol. iii. p. 23) says that the authority of Aristotle on this point is overborne by that of Dosiadas and Sosikratês,—authors who wrote specially on Krêtan affairs. Now if we were driven to make a choice, I confess that I should prefer the testimony of Aristotle,—considering that we know little or nothing respecting the other two. But in this case I do not think that we are driven to make a choice: Dosiadas (ap. Athenæ. xiv. p. 143) is not cited in terms, so that we cannot affirm him to contradict Aristotle: and Sosikratês (upon whom Hoeck and Kopstadt rely) says something which does not necessarily contradict him, but admits of being explained so as to place the two witnesses in harmony with each other.

Sosikratês says (ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 263), Τὴν μὲν κοινὴν δουλείαν οἱ Κρῆτες καλοῦσι μνοίαν, τὴν δὲ ἰδίαν ἀφαμίωτας, τοὺς δὲ περιοίκους ὑπηκόους. Now the word περιοίκους seems to be here used just as Aristotle would have used it, to comprehend the Krêtan serfs universally: it is not distinguished from μνώιται and ἀφαμιῶται, but comprehends both of them as different species under a generic term. The authority of Aristotle affords a reason for preferring to construe the passage in this manner, and the words appear to me to admit of it fairly.

[630] The πόλεις of the Lacedæmonian Periœki are often noticed: see Xenophon (Agesilaus, ii. 24; Laced. Repub. xv. 3; Hellenic. vi. 5, 21).

[631] Herod. viii. 73-135; Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 1, 8; Thucyd. iv. 76-94.

[632] Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 3, 5, 9, 19. Isokratês, writing in the days of Theban power, after the battle of Leuktra, characterizes the Bœotian towns as περίοικοι of Thebes (Or. viii. De Pace, p. 182); compare Orat. xiv. Plataic. pp. 299-303. Xenophon holds the same language, Hellen. v. 4, 46: compare Plutarch, Agesilaus, 28.

[633] Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23.

[634] Thucyd. i. 77-95; vi. 105. Isokratês (Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 283), Σπαρτιάτας δὲ ὑπεροπτικοὺς καὶ πολεμικοὺς καὶ πλεονέκτας, οἵους περ αὐτοὺς εἶναι πάντες ὑπειλήφασι. Compare his Oratio de Pace (Or. viii. pp. 180-181); Oratio Panegyr. (Or. iv. pp. 64-67).

[635] Isokratês, Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 280. ὥστε οὐδεὶς ἂν αὐτοὺς διά γε τὴν ὁμόνοιαν δικαίως ἐπαινέσειεν, οὐδεν μᾶλλον ἢ τοὺς καταποντιστὰς καὶ λῄστας καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὰς ἄλλας ἀδικίας ὄντας· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ὁμονοοῦντες τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπολλύουσι.

[636] Isokratês, Orat. xii. (Panathenaic.) pp. 270-271. The statement in the same oration (p. 246), that the Lacedæmonians “had put to death without trial more Greeks (πλείους τῶν Ἑλλήνων) than had ever been tried at Athens since Athens was a city,” refers to their allies or dependents out of Laconia.

[637] Ephorus, Fragm. 18, ed. Marx; ap. Strabo, viii. p. 365.

[638] Dr. Arnold (in his Dissertation on the Spartan Constitution, appended to the first volume of his Thucydidês, p. 643) places greater confidence in the historical value of this narrative of Isokratês than I am inclined to do. On the other hand, Mr. G. C. Lewis, in his Review of Dr. Arnold’s Dissertation (Philological Museum, vol. ii. p. 45), considers the “account of Isokratês as completely inconsistent with that of Ephorus;” which is saying rather more, perhaps, than the tenor of the two strictly warrants. In Mr. Lewis’s excellent article, most of the difficult points respecting the Spartan constitution will be found raised and discussed in a manner highly instructive.

Another point in the statement of Isokratês is, that the Dorians, at the time of the original conquest of Laconia, were only two thousand in number (Or. xii. Panath. p. 286). Mr. Clinton rejects this estimate as too small, and observes, “I suspect that Isokratês, in describing the numbers of the Dorians at the original conquest, has adapted to the description the actual numbers of the Spartans in his own time.” (Fast. Hellen. ii. p. 408.)

This seems to me a probable conjecture, and it illustrates as well the absence of data under which Isokratês or his informants labored, as the method which they took to supply the deficiency.

[639] Schömann, Antiq. Jurisp. Græcorum, iv. 1, 5, p. 112.