Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/411

 PAKTITION OF LANDb. 395 their wealth in point of superior comfort ; but he never glances at any original measure carried into effect by Lykurgus for equalizing possessions. Plato too, 1 while he touches upon the great advantage possessed by the Dorians, immediately after their conquest of Peloponnesus, in being able to apportion land suitably to all, ever hints that this original distribution had degenerated into an abuse, and that an entire subsequent redi- vision had been resorted to by Lykurgus : moreover, he is him. self deeply sensible of the hazards of that formidable proceeding. Lastly, Aristotle clearly did not believe that Lykurgus had re- divided the soil. For he informs us first, that, " both in Lacedae- mon and in Krete, 2 the legislator had rendered the enjoyment of property common through the establishment of the Syssitia, or public mess." Now this remark (if read in the chapter of which it forms a part, a refutation of the scheme of Communism for the select guardians in the Platonic Republic) will be seen to tell little for its point, if we assume that Lykurgus at the same time equalized all individual possessions. Had Aristotle known that fact, he could not have failed to notice it : nor could he have assimilated the legislators in Lacedaemon and Krete, seeing that in the latter no one pretends that any such equaliza- tion was ever brought about. Next, not only does Aristotle dwell upon the actual inequality of property at Sparta as a serious public evil, but he nowhere treats this as having grown out of a system of absolute equality once enacted by the law- giver as a part of the primitive constitution : he expressly notices inequality of property so far back as the second Messenian war. Moreover, in that valuable chapter of his Politics, where the scheme of equality of possessions is discussed, Phaleas of Chal- kedon is expressly mentioned as the first author of it, thus indi- rectly excluding Lykurgus. 3 The mere silence of Aristotle is in 1 Plato, Legg. iii. p. 684. Kpr/Tiy Tolf avoffirioif 6 vofiofieTTif iKoivuaE. 3 Aristot. Politic, ii. 4, 1, about Phaleas; and about Sparta and Krete, generally, the whole sixth and seventh chapters of the second book ; abo, r. 6, 2-7. Theophrastus (apud Plutarch, Lycurg. c. 10) makes a similar observation, that the public mess, and the general simplicity of habits, tended to render
 * Aristotel. Politic, ii. 2, 10. ua-nep TO. nepl ruf KT^aeif v Aantdaipovi nal