Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/415

 DECLINE OF SPARTAN INSTITUTIONS. 893 marrying habitually among one another, and not reinforced from without, have usually a tendency to diminish. The present is not the occasion to enter at length into that combination of causes which partly sapped, partly overthrew, both the institutions of Lykurgus and the power of Sparta. But taking the condition of that city as it stood in the time of Agis the Third (say about 250 B. c.), we know that its citizens had become few in number, the bulk of them miserably poor, and all the land in a small number of hands. The old discipline and the public mess (as far as the rich were concerned) had degenerated into mere forms, a numerous body of strangers or non-citizens (the old xenelasy, or prohibition of resident strangers, being long dis continued) were domiciled in the town, forming a powerful moneyed interest ; and lastly, the dignity and ascendency of the state amongst its neighbors were altogether ruined. It was insupportable to a young enthusiast like king Agis, as well as to many ardent spirits among his contemporaries, to contrast this degradation with the previous glories of their country : nor did they see any other way of reconstructing the old Sparta except by again admitting the disfranchised poor citizens, redividing the lands, cancelling all debts, and restoring the public mess and military training in all their strictness. Agis endeavored tc carry through these subversive measures, (such as no demagogue in the extreme democracy of Athens would ever have ventured to glance at,) with the consent of the senate and public assembly, and the acquiescence of the rich. His sincerity is attested by the fact, that his own property, and that of his female relatives, among the largest in the state, was cast as the first sacrifice into the common stock. But he became the dupe of unprincipled coadjutors, and perished in the unavailing attempt to realize his scheme by persuasion. His successor, Kleomenes, afterwards accomplished by violence a change substantially similar, though the intervention of foreign arms speedily overthrew both himself and his institutions. Now it was under the state of public feeling which gave birth to these projects of Agis and Kleomenes at Sparta, that the his- toric fancy, unknown to Aristotle and his predecessors, first gain- ed ground, of the absolute equality of property as a primitive institution of Lykurgus. How much such a belief would favor