Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/396

 580 HISTORY OF GREECE. or Inferiors), became congregated at Sparta, and found employ mcnt either in various trades or in the service of the government. It has been necessary to give this short sketch of the orders of men vho inhabited Laconia, in order to enable us to under- stand the statements given about the legislation of Lykurgus. The arrangements ascribed to that lawgiver, in the way that Plutarch describes them, presuppose, and do not create, the three orders of Spartans, Perioeki, and Helots. We are told by Plutarch that the disorders which Lykurgus found existing in the state arose in a great measure from the gross inequality of property, and from the luxurious indulgence and unprincipled rapacity of the rich, who had drawn to themselves the greater proportion of the lands in the country, leaving a large body of poor, without any lot of land, in hopeless misery and degrada- tion. To this inequality (according to Plutarch) the reforming legislator applied at once a stringent remedy. He redistributed the whole territory belonging to Sparta, as well as the remainder of Laconia ; the former, in nine thousand equal lots, one to each Spartan citizen ; the latter, in thirty thousand equal lots, one to each Perioekus : of this alleged distribution, I shall speak farther presently. Moreover, he banished the use of gold and silver money, tolerating nothing in the shape of circulating medium but pieces of iron, heavy and scarcely portable ; and he forbade 1 to the Spartan citizen every species of industrious or money- seeking occupation, agriculture included. He farther constituted, though not without strenuous opposition, during the course of which his eye is said to have been knocked out by a violent youth, named Alkander, the Syssitia, or public mess. A cer- tain number of joint tables were provided, and every citizen was required to belong to some one of them, and habitually to take his meals at it, 2 no new member being admissible without an unanimous ballot in his favor by the previous occupants. Each provided from his lot of land a specified quota of barley-meal, wine, cheese, and figs, and a small contribution of money for con- diments : game was obtained in addition by hunting in the 1 Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. 7. Lac. c. 1, 5.
 * Plutarch, T.ykurg. c. 15; substantially confirmed by Xencphon, Rep