Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/423

 INEQUALITY OF LANDKD PROPERTY. 407 tween the sons equally (as it was by the law of succession at Athens), how can we defend the maintenance of an unchanged aggregate number of parcels ? Dr. Thirlwall, after having admitted a modified interference with private property by Lykurgus, so as to exact from the wealthy a certain sacrifice in order to create lots for the poor, and to bring about something approaching to equi-producing lots for ell, observes : " The average amount of the rent, paid by the cul- tivating Helots from each lot, seems to have been no more than was required for the frugal maintenance of a family with six persons. The right of transfer was as strictly confined as that of enjoyment ; the patrimony was indivisible, inalienable, and descended to the eldest son ; in default of a male heir, to the eldest daughter. The object seems to have been, after the number of the allotments became fixed, that each should be constantly represented by one head of a household. But the nature of the means employed for this end is one of the most obscure points of the Spartan system .... In the better times of the commonwealth, this seems to have been principally effected by adoptions and marriages with heiresses, which provided for the marriages of younger sons in families too numerous to be supported on their own hereditary property. It was then probably seldom necessary for the state to interfere, in order to direct the childless owner of an estate, or the father of a rich heiress, to a proper choice. But as all adoption required the sanction of the kings, and they had also the disposal of the hand of orphan heiresses, there can be little doubt that the magistrate had the power of interposing on such occasions, even in opposition to the wishes of individuals, to relieve poverty and check the accumulation of wealth." (Hist Gr. ch. 8, vol. i. p. 367). I cannot concur in the view which Dr. Thirlwall here takes >f the state of property, or the arrangements respecting its trans mission, in ancient Sparta. Neither the equal modesty of pos session which he supposes, nor the precautions for perpetuating it, can be shown to have ever existed among the pupils of Ly- kurgus. Our earliest information intimates the existence of rich men at Sparta : the story of king Aristo and Agetus, in Herodo tus, exhibits to us the latter as a man who cannot be supposed to have had only just " enough to maintain six persons frugally ,"