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48 48 Dr Arnold on the of learned priests and chronologers. Nor is it to be denied that the descent of the two royal families from twins furnishes the most probable explanation of the singular fact of two hereditary kings. The consuls of Rome and the kings or suifetes of Carthage afford no parallel, as they were not hereditary. Dr Arnold next proceeds to describe the Lacedaemonian form of government, as being an aristocracy or oligarchy rather in respect of its subjects, the conquered Achaeans, than of its citizens the conquering Dorians ; " although even in the relations of the conquering people among themselves, the constitution was far less popular than that of Athens,'^ p. 640. On the relation which subsisted between the Spar- tans and the Perioeci, the remarks of Dr Arnold admit neither of abridgement nor improvement. The Spartans were and continued to be an army of occupation in the midst of a con- quered country. They '' were a nation of nobles ; and in their feelings as well as their rank resembled the nobles of the middle ages. Relieved from all attention to agriculture by the services of their helots or villains, taught to regard trade as disgraceful, and literature as unmanly ; passing their time in manly and martial exercises, like the hunting and tourna- ments of a later period ; regarding all the members of their own body as substantially equals in spite of subordinate differences^ and all who were not of their own body as only born to render them obedience — the nobles of Sparta differed in one point alone from those of modern Europe, in their admirable organization and discipline. Their institutions united the high enthusiastic spirit of chivalry with that perfect self-command, that entire obedience to their officers, and tho- roughly systematized union of action, in which the chivalry of modern Europe was happily deficient. Had the nobles of Burgundy and Austria been trained in the school of Ly- curgus, the most truly glorious victories recorded in history would never have been won, and Morat and Sempach would be names as hateful to the lovers of liberty and justice as Ithome and Ira.'' p. 643, 4. That the Spartan constitution afforded no protection to the Perioeci and Helots, and that in this sense it was an oligarchy, and a most oppressive oligarchy, will be readily