Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/384

 368 HISTORY OF GREECE. intestine warfare iu newly-conquered Sparta, between the Few and the Many, the oligarchy and the demus. The former being victorious, two important measures were the consequences of their victory. They banished th3 defeated Many from Sparta into Laconia, retaining the residence in Sparta exclusively for themselves ; they assigned to them the smallest and least fertile half of Laconia, monopolizing the larger and better for them- selves ; and they disseminated them into many very small town- ships, or subordinate little communities, while they concentrated themselves entirely at Sparta. To these precautions for insuring dominion, they added another not less important. They estab- lished among their own Spartan citizens equality of legal privi- lege and democratical government, so as to take the greatest securities for internal harmony ; which harmony, according to the judgment of Isokrates, had been but too effectually perpetu- ated, enabling the Spartans to achieve their dominion over oppressed Greece, like the accord of pirates 1 for the spolia- tion of the peaceful. The Perioekic townships, he telb us, while deprived of all the privileges of freemen, were exposed to all the toils, as well as to an unfair share of the dangers, of war. The Spartan authorities put them in situations and upon enter- prises which they deemed too dangerous for their own citizens : and, what was still worse, the ephors possessed the power of putting to death, without any form of preliminary trial, as many Perioeki as they pleased. 2 The statement here delivered by Isokrates, respecting the first origin of the distinction of Spartans and Perioeki, is nothing better than a conjecture, nor is it even a probable conjecture, since it is based on the historical truth of the old Herakleid legend, and transports the disputes of his own time, between the oligarchy and the demus, into an early period, to which such dis- ' Isokrates, Panathenaic. Or. xii. p. 280. VOTE oMrif uv avrove 6iu ye r'r/v bfiovoiav dutaiuc eTratveffmv, oMev pCMov ?/ roi-f /cara;roi'-7-af Kai /tjcrrac Kai rotif nepl raf uA/laf udiKtaf ovraf Kal yap tuelvoi aQiaiv avrolf inme oration (p. 246), that the Lacedaemonians " had put to death without trial more Greeks (irfaiovf ruv 'EAA^vwv) than had ever been tried at Athena since Athens was a city, refers to their allies or dependents out of Laconia
 * Isokrates, Orat. xii. (Panathenaic.) pp. 270-271. The statement in the