Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/406

 390 HISTORY OF GREECE. with all their feelings implicated in the commonwealth, and di vorced from house and home. 1 Far from contemplating the society as a whole, with its multifarious wants and liabilities, he interdicts beforehand, by one of the three primitive Rhetrae, all written laws, that is to say, all formal and premeditated enact- ments on any special subject. When disputes are to be settled or judicial interference is required, the magistrate is to decide from his own sense of equity ; that the magistrate will not de- part from the established customs and recognized purposes of the city, is presumed from the personal discipline which he and the select body to whom he belongs, have undergone. It is this select body, maintained by the labor of others, over whom Lykur- gus exclusively watches, with the provident eye of a trainer, for the purpose of disciplining them into a state of regimental prep- aration, 2 single-minded obedience, and bodily efficiency and endurance, so that they may be always fit and ready for defence, for conquest and for dominion. The parallel of the Lykurgean institutions is to be found in the Republic of Plato, who approves the Spartan principle of select guardians carefully trained and administering the community at discretion ; with this momentous difference, indeed, that the Spartan character 3 formed by Lykur- 1 Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 25. that it was " not the polity of a city, but the life of a trained and skilful man," ov Tro/lewf TI 'Ziruprj) iro'kiTeiav, d/U,' uvdpbf UOKTITOV Kal aoov (3iov IXOVOCL (Plutarch, Lyk. c. 30). About the perfect habit of obedience at Sparta, see Xenophon, Memorab. Hi. 5, 9, 15-iv. 4, 15, the grand attributes of Sparta in the eyes of its ad- mirers (Isokrates, Panathen. Or. xii. pp. 256-278), ireidapx'ta cuppoavvr) T& yvpvaota TU.KEI Kadeffrura Kal Trpde rijv uaKqoiv rfc uvdpia^ ical Trpof TTJV 6fiovoiav Kal owoAwf TTJV nepl TOV irohepov i/nreipiav. 3 Aristot. Polit. viiL 3, 3. Ol Aaxovef dtiptudeif uirep-yu&VTai rolf irovoif. That the Spartans were absolutely ignorant of letters, and could not read, is expressly stated by Isokrates (Panathen. Or. xii. p. 277). ovroi 6e TOOOV- TOV aTrohefai/i.(ievoi TJjf KOIVTIS iraidciae Kal (jtrtoaoQiaf elalv, war' ov6e ypdfipaTa /tavSavovaiv, etc. The preference of rhetoric to accuracy, is so manifest in Isokrates, that we ought to understand his expressions with some reserve ; but in this case it ia evident that he means literally what he says, for in another part of the same discourse, there is an expression dropped, almost unconsciously, which con
 * Plutarch observes justly about Sparta, under the discipline of Lykurgus,