Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/83

Rh citizens, including the kings, were obliged to attend unless they had some valid excuse, such as illness or absence on public service, or (in the case of the kings) attendance on a state sacrifice. Still further to emphasise the fact that Spartans were born to be soldiers, they were excluded from commerce, and forbidden the use of silver or gold coins. They were supported by their share in the produce of their lands, and had no need of money. Iron tokens, or "cakes," served them as a medium of exchange at home; if they had to go abroad on public service they were supplied with money raised from the perioikoi. Whether this system was rightly attributed to Lycurgus, or to any single law-giver or not, for a long while it attained its object to a remarkable degree. The Spartan soldiers had the highest reputation in Greece for fighting in the open field. They were believed to prefer death to quitting ground once occupied, and they certainly showed dogged perseverance in the face of difficulty and disaster.

Yet they had their limitations. They did not shine in sieges or assaults upon fortified places. It was only after nearly a century of war that they subdued Messenia. In each of the two early wars ( 743-660) the enemy defied them for years upon the two heights of Mount Eira and Mount Ithome, and in the rebellion of 464-454 they proved equally unable to capture Ithome, again occupied by the Messenians, for ten weary years. Nor were the results of their stern discipline in other respects wholly satisfactory. As always happens with close corporations, the number