Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/369

 POWERS OF THE SPARTAN KINGS. 353 -'They possessed large royal domains, in many of the townships of the Perioeki : they received frequent occasional presents, and when victims were offered to the gods, the skins and other por- tions belonged to them as perquisites : ! they had their votes in the senate, which, if they were absent, were given on their be- half, by such of the other senators as were most nearly related to them: the adoption of children received its formal accom- plishment 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 preeminent 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 Herakles in the valley of the Eurotas. 2 They represented the state in its relations with the gods, being by right priests of Zeus Lacedasmon, (the ideas of the god and the country coalesc- ing 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, noth- ing short of a new divine revelation could induce the Spartans to step out of the genuine lineage of Eurysthenes and Prokles. 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 Achaean, 3 not Dorian 1 The hide-money (dep/ianicbv) 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. 1 57. - Tyrtffius, Fragm. 1, ed. Bergk ; Strabo, xviii. p. 362 : At'-oc -yap Kpoviuv KaM.iaTEpuvov TTOOYC 'HpiJG Zei)f 'HpaK^eifiatf rf/vde 6e6uKe "Ko7.iv Qlaiv ujj,a irpo?uiT6vT 'Eplveov yve/toEVTa Eipelav H&OTTOC vr/aw u<piKOfie-&a. Compare Thucyd. v. 16 ; Herodot. v. 39 ; Xenoph. Hcllen. iii. 3, 3 ; Plutarch, Lysand. c. 22. 3 Herod, v. 72. Sec 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, Lysaud. c. 25-26). VOL. ii. 23cc.