Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/413

 PARTITION OF LANDS. 397 greatly aggravated during the century between him and Agis. The number of citizens, reckoned by Herodotus in the time of the Persian invasion at eight thousand, had dwindled down in the time of Aristotle to one thousand, and in that of Agis to seven hundred, out of which latter number one hundred alone possessed most of the landed property of the state. 1 Now, by the ancient rule of Lykurgus, the qualification for citizenship was the ability to furnish the prescribed quota, incumbent on each individual, at the public mess : so soon as a citizen became too poor to answer to this requisition, he lost his franchise and his eligibility to offices. 2 The smaller lots of land, though it was held discredit- able either to buy or sell them, 3 and though some have asserted 1 Plutarch, Agis, c. iv. ' 2 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 21. Hapu 6e rolf AUKUOIV tKaarov Jet tyepsiv, Kal a(j>n6pa TTfVT/Tuv tviuv OVTUV, teal TOVTO Tb uvu^ufia oil tivvoftsvuv 6a.Kavq.v. uf) 6vvu JJLEV ov TOVTO rb re/t-of (j> sps iv, /*# ft ere^e iv avr^f. So also Xenophon, Rep. Lac. c. vii. laa /lev ipepeiv elf TO. cmr^deia, ofioiuc 6e diaiTaatiai rufac. The existence of this rate-paying qualification, is the capital fact in the history of the Spartan constitution ; especially when we couple it with the other fact, that no Spartan acquired anything by any kind of industry. 3 Herakleides Ponticus, ad calcem Cragii De Eepub. Laced, p. 504. Com- pare Cragius, iii. 2, p. 196. Aristotle (ii. 6, 10) states that it was discreditable to buy or sell a lot of land, but that the lot might be either given or bequeathed at pleasure. He mentions nothing about the prohibition to divide, and even states what con- tradicts it, that it was the practice to give a large dowry when a rich man's daughter married (ii. 6, 11). The sister of Agesilaus, Kyniska, was a person of large property, which apparently implies the division of his father's estate (Plutarch, Agesilaus, 30). Whether there was ever any law prohibiting a father from dividing his lot among his children, may well be doubted. The Rhetra of the ephor Epitadeus (Plutarch, Agis, 5), granted unlimited power of testamentary disposition to the possessor, so that he might give away or bequeathe his land to a stranger if he chose. To this law great effects are ascribed : but it is evident that the tendency to accumulate property in few hands, and the tendency to diminution in the number of qualified citizens, were powerfully manifested before the time of Epitadeus, who came after Lysander. Plutarch, in another place, notices Hesiod, Xenokrates, and Lykurgus, as having con- curred with Plato, in thinking that it was proper to leave only one single heir (Iva fiovov K~X.rip6vofj.ov KaTahnrelv] ('^C^op>f)(iaTa fie 'Haiodov, Fragm vol. v. p. 777, Wyttcub.). But Hesiod Iocs not lay down this as a necessity
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