Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/425

 FAKCY RESPECTING SPARTAN PROPERTY. 409 of donation and bequest : and the same results, he justly observes, ensued from the practice tolerated as would have ensued from the practice discountenanced, since it was easy to disguise a real sale under an ostensible donation. He notices pointedly the tendency of property at Sparta to concentrate itself in fewer hands, unopposed by any legal hindrances : the fathers married their daughters to whomsoever they chose, and gave dowries according to their own discretion, generally very large : the rich families, moreover, intermarried among one another habitually, and without restriction. Now all these are indicated by Aristotle as cases in which the law might have interfered, and ought to have interfered, but did not, for the great purpose of dissemi- nating the benefits of landed property as much as possible among the mass of the citizens. Again, he tells us that the law en- couraged the multiplication of progeny, and granted exemptions to such citizens as had three or four children, but took no thought how the numerous families of poorer citizens were to live, or to maintain their qualification at the public tables, most of the lands of the state being in the hands of the rich. 1 His notice, and condemnation, of that law, which made the franchise of the Spartan citizen dependent upon his continuing to furnish his quota to the public table, has been already adverted to ; as well as the potent love of money 2 which he notes in the Spartan character, and which must have tended continually to keep together the richer families among themselves : while amongst a commu- nity where industry was unknown, no poor citizen could ever become rich. If we duly weigh these evidences, we shall see that equality of possessions neither existed in fact, nor ever entered into the scheme and tendencies of the lawgiver at Sparta. And the pic- ture which Dr. Thirl wall 3 has drawn of a body of citizens each 1 Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 10-13 ; v. 6. 7. z The panegyrist Xenophon acknowledges much the same respecting the Sparta which he witnessed ; but he maintains that it had been better in former times (Repub. Lac. c. 14). 3 The view of Dr. Thirlwall agrees, in the main, with that of Manso and 0. Mailer (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 1 18-128 ; and vol. ii. Beilage, 9, p. 129; nd Miiller, History of the Dorians, vol. ii. b. iii. c. 10, sect. 2, 3). Both these authors maintain the proposition stated by Plutarch (Agis c U. 18