Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/416

 400 HISTORY OF GREECE. the schemes of innovation is too obvious to require notice ; and without supposing any deliberate imposture, we cannot be aston- ished that the predispositions of enthusiastic patriots interpreted, according to their own partialities, an old unrecorded legislation from which they were separated by more than five centuries. The Lykurgean discipline tended forcibly to suggest to men's minds the idea of equality among the citizens, that is, the nega- tion of all inequality not founded on seme personal attribute, inasmuch as it assimilated the habits, enjoyments, and capacities of the rich to those of the poor; and the equality thus existing in idea and tendency, which seemed to proclaim the wish of the founder, was strained by the later reformers into a positive insti- tution which he had at first realized, but from which his degene- rate followers had receded. It was thus that the fancies, longings, and indirect suggestions of the present assumed the character of recollections out of the early, obscure, and extinct historical past. Perhaps the philosopher Sphzerus of Borysthenes (friend and companion of Kleomenes, 1 disciple of Zeno the Stoic, and author of works now lost, both on Lykurgus and Socrates, and on the constitution of Sparta) may have been one of those who gave currency to such an hypothesis. And we shall readily believe that, if advanced, it would find easy and sincere credence, when we recollect how many similar delusions have obtained vogue in 'Plutarch, Kleomenes, cap. 2-11, with the note of Sdiomann, p. 175; also, Lycurg. cap. 8 ; Athense. iv. p. 141. Phylarchus, also, described the proceedings of Kleomenes, seemingly with favor (Athenae. ib.) ; compare Plutarch, Agis, c. 9. Polybius believed, that Lykurgus had introduced equality of landed pos- session, both in the district of Sparta, and throughout Laconia : his opinion is, probably, borrowed from these same authors, of the third century before the Christian era. For he expresses his great surprise, how the best-informed ancient authors (ol /loyujrarot TUV up%aiuv avyypatyiuv), Plato, Xenophon, Ephorus, Kallisthenes, can compare the Kretan polity to the old Lacedaemo- nian, the main features of the two being (as he says) so different, equality of property at Sparta, great inequality of property in Kretc. among other differences (Polyb. vi. 45-48). This remark of Polybius, exhibits the difference of opinion of the earlier writers, as compared with those during the third century before the Christian era. The former compared Spartf.n and Kretan institutions, because they did not conceive equality of landed property as a feature in old Sparta.