Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/418

 402 HISTORY OF GREECE. provided allotments both for the poorer citizens and for the sul> ject Laconians. Such is the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, who at the same time admits that the exact proportion of the Lykurgean distribution can hardly be ascertained. 1 I cannot but take a different view of the statement made by Plutarch. The moment that we depart from that rule of equality, wtich stands so prominently marked in his biography of Lykur- 1 Hist, of Greece, ch. viii.vol. i. pp. 344-347. C. F. Hermann, on the contrary, considers the equal partition of Laconia into lots indivisible and inalienable, as "an essential condition" (cine wesent liche Bedingung) of the whole Lykurgean system (Lehrbuch der Griechis chen Staatsalterthiimer, sect. 28). Tittmann (Griechische Staatsverfussungen, pp. 588-596) states and seems to admit the equal partition as a fact, without any commentary. Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217) snppose-j " that the best land was already parcelled, before the time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine thousand." For this assertion, I know no evidence : it departs from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia among the Periceki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any comment, anil seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218). Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division of land prior to Lykurgus, that it had degenerated into abuse, and that Lyknr- gus corrected it, restoring, not absolute equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of Wachsmuth. 0. Muller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been set out before the Messenian war; and h'e adheres to the idea of equality as contained in Plutarch ; but he says that the equality consisted in " equal estimate of average produce," not in equal acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that " the lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many meu as the lots of the Periceki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as exten- sive ({. e. ift the aggregate) : each lot must, therefore, have been seven times greater," (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3, 6 ; iii. 10, 2.) He also sup- poses, that " similar partitions of land had been made from the time of the first occupation of Laconia by the Dorians." Whoever compares his various positions with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful disproportion between the basis and the superstructure. The views of Schomann, as far as I collect from expressions somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at -rnriance with the represent* tions of Plato (Schomann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. iv 1, 7, note 4 p 116)