Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/433

 GRADUAL CONQUESTS OE SPAE'lA. 417 How far the peculiar of the primitive Sparta extended w have no means of determining ; but its limits down the valley of the Eurotas were certainly narrow, inasmuch as it did not reach so far as AmyklDe. Nor can we tell what principles the Dorian conquerors may have followed in the original allotment of lands within the limits of that peculiar. Equal apportionment is not probable, because all the individuals of a conquering band are seldom regarded as possessing equal claims ; but whatever the original apportionment may have been, it remained without any general or avowed disturbance until the days of Agis the Third, and Ifleomenes the Third. Here, then, we have the primitive Sparta, including Dorian warriors with their Helot subjects, but no Periceki. And it is upon these Spartans separately, perhaps after the period of aggravated disorder and lawlessness noticed by Herodotus and Thucydides, that the painful but invigorating discipline, above sketched, must have been originally brought to bear. The gradual conquest of Laconia, with the acquisition of additional lands and new Helots, and the formation of the order of Perioeki, both of which were a consequence of it, is to be considered as posterior to the introduction of the Lykurgean system at Sparta, and as resulting partly from the increased force which that system imparted. The career of conquest went on, beginning from Teleklus, for nearly three centuries, with some interruptions, indeed, and in the case of the Messenian war, with a desperate and even precarious struggle, so that in the time of Thucydides, and for some time previously, the Spar- tans possessed two-fifths of Peloponnesus. And this series of new acquisitions and victories disguised the really weak point of the Spartan system, by rendering it possible either to plant the poorer citizens as Perioeki in a conquered township, or to supply them with lots of land, of which they could receive the produce without leaving the city, so that their numbers and their military strength were prevented from declining. It ia even affirmed by Aristotle, 1 that during these early times they augmented the numbers of their citizens by fresh admissions, which of course implies the acquisition of additional lots of 1 Aristot.Polit.ii. 6, 12. VOL. n. 18* 27oo.