Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/427

 LYKURGEAN REGULATIONS ABOUT PROrER'n. 41 J with a deliberate view of providing for the younger children of numerous families, of interference on the part of the kings to dowry, the case of a sole daughter is here excepted. For this proposition he cites Plutarch, Apophtheg. Laconic, p, 227 ; Justin, iii. 3 ; ^Elian. V. H. vi. 6. These authors do certainly affirm, that there was such a regulation, and both Plutarch and Justin assign reasons for it, real or supposed. ' ; Ly- kurgus, being asked why he directed that maidens should be married without dowry, answered, In order that maidens of poor families might not remain unmarried, and that character and virtue might be exclusively attended to in the choice of a wife." The same general reason is given by Justin. Now the reason here given for the prohibition of dowry, goes, indirectly, to prove that there existed no such law of general succession, as that which had been before stated, namely, the sacred indivisibility of the primitive lot. For had this latter been recognized, the reason would have been obvious why daughters could receive no dowry ; the father's whole landed property (and a Spartan could have little of any other property, since he never acquired anything by industry) was under the strictest entail to his eldest son. Plutarch and Justin, therefore, while in their statement as to the matter of fact, they warrant Manso in affirming the prohibition of dowry (about this matter of fact, more presently), do, by the reason which they give, discountenance his former supposition as to the indivisibility of the primitive family lots. Thirdly, Manso understands Aristotle (Polit. ii. 6, 11), by the use of the adverb vvv, to affirm something respecting his own time specially, and to im ply at the same time that the ancient custom had been the reverse. I cannot think that the adverb, as Aristotle uses it in that passage, bears out such a construction: vvv 6e, there, does not signify present time as opposed to past, but the antithesis between the actual custom and that which Aristotle pronounces to be expedient. Aristotle gives no indication of being aware that any material change had taken place in the laws of succession at Sparta : this is one circumstance, for which both Manso and Miiller, who both believe in tlw extraordinary revolution caused by the permissive law of the ephor Epita- deus, censure him. Three other positions are laid down by Manso about the laws of property at Sparta. 1. A man might give away or bequeathe his land to whomsoever he pleased. 2. But none except childless persons could do this. 3. They could only give or bequeathe it to citizens who had no land of their own. Of these three regulations, the first is distinctly affirmed by Aristotle, and in^y be relied upon : the second is a restriction not noticed by Aristotle, and supported by no proof except that which arises out of the story of the ephor Epitadens, who is said to have been unable to disinherit his son without causing a new law to be passed : the third is a pure fancy. So much for the positive evidence, on the faith of which Manso and Mtlller affirm the startling fact, that the lots of land in Sparta remained dis tinct, indivisible, and unchanged in number, down to the close of the Pelo- ponnesian war. I venture to say that such positive evidence is far too weak