Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/410

 394 HISTORY OF GREECE. fact and probability than the two former alleged proceedings^ All the historical evidences exhibit decided inequalities of prop- erty among the Spartans, inequalities which tended constantly to increase ; moreover, the earlier authors do not conceive this evil as having grown up by way of abuse out of a primeval system of perfect equality, nor do they know anything of the original equal redivision by Lykurgus. Even as early as the poet Alkaeus (B. c. 600-580) we find bitter complaints of the oppressive ascendency of wealth, and the degradation of the poor man, cited as having been pronounced by Aristodemus at Sparta : " Wealth (said he) makes the man, no poor person is either accounted good or honored." 1 Next, the historian Hella- nikus certainly knew nothing of the Lykurgean redivision, for he ascribed the whole Spartan polity to Eurysthenes and Pro- kles, the original founders, and hardly noticed Lykurgus at all. Again, in the brief, but impressive description of the Spartan lawgiver by Herodotus, several other institutions are alluded to, but nothing is said about a redivision of the lands ; and this latter point is in itself of such transcendent moment, and was so recognized among all Grecian thinkers, that the omission is almost a demonstration of ignorance. Thucydides certainly could not have believed that equality of property was an origi- nal feature in the Lykurgean system ; for he says that, at Lace- dasmon, " the rich men assimilated themselves greatly in respect of clothing and general habits of life to the simplicity of the poor, and thus set an example which was partially followed in the rest of Greece :" a remark which both implies the existence of unequal property, and gives a just appreciation of the real working of Lykurgic institutions. 2 The like is the sentiment of Xenophon : 3 he observes that the rich at Sparta gained little by 'Cf yap dqiror' ' piar oda/tov (paia 1 OVK uiruhafivov h> Sir upra Xoycv EtTnJv Xp^/iar' uvrjp' irevixpbf J' oMelf Tre/ler' totihof oiide: ri.fj.iof. Compare the Schol. ad Pindar. Isthm. ii. 17, and Diogen. Lafirt. i. 31. J Thucydid. i. 6. jieTpip 6' av IffdijTi KCU If rbv vvv rpoirov irpuroi AateJai uovioi kxpfiaavTo, KOI if r& uAAa irpbf rotif 7ro/Wot)f oi rd [iiifc KeKTTjftevat ioodiaiTot Honiara Karearrjaav. See, also, Plutarch, Apophthegm. Lacon. p 0, A F.
 * Alcsei Fragment 41, p. 279, ed. Schneidewin:
 * Xenoph. Republ. Laced, c. 7.