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52 52 Dr Arnold on the to Theopompus^^, who, together with the other king, Poly- dorus, is stated to have greatly curtailed the power of the popular assembly by taking from it the right of originating or modifying any measure, and leaving it a mere veto. Dr Arnold reconciles these apparently contradictory accounts by supposing that " the rhetra of Theopompus brought matters between the Heraclidae and Dorians to a crisis : a reaction followed, and the king was obliged to confirm those liberties which he had vainly endeavoured to overthrow.'^ (p. Q^6. n.)^^ Henceforth the Spartan constitution remained without dis- turbance in its new form. With the exception of these two constitutional powers^ all the internal institutions of Sparta were subservient to the object of maintaining the ascendancy of the Spartans over the subject classes. " Hence the strict obedience required of the young towards the old, of the private citizen towards the magistrate. Hence the great council of the whole body of nobles, the public assembly of Sparta, discussed only such questions as the council of elders submitted to it, and had no power of amending any measure proposed, but only of simply accepting or rejecting it. Hence also no private citizen — I might better say, private soldier — was allowed to speak in the assembly." (p. 644.) This is all the notice bestowed by ^2 Aristotle in his account of the Lacedagmonian constitution seems to doubt whether the Ephoralty was intended to give the people a share in the government : elTc oid toi/ vofJioQ€Ti]v eWe olo. tuxv^ ^outo (Tu/xTreTrTco/cei/ are his words, Pol. ii. 9: although in another place he states that Theopompus diminished the power of the kings by the creation of the Ephoralty and by other measures, ib. v. 11. The chief difficulty with regard to the origin of the Ephors is caused by the speech of Cleomenes in Plutarch Cleom. 10. who is represented to have stated to the Lacedaemonians, in defence of his slaughter of the Ephors, that the Ephors were originally the deputies of the Kings, appointed by them during their long absence from home in the Messenian war, and that from this beginning these officers gradually encroached on the power of those whom they represented. If Plutarch's account is to be relied upon, the most probable explanation seems to be that Cleomenes misrepresented the true facts in order to make a good case for himself. 13 This explanation had been suggested, without Dr Arnold's knowledge, by Platner, in a German journal : see Hermann Griech. Staatsalt. § 43. n. 3. The ancient error, long since corrected by Menage, that in Diog. Laert. i. 68. Chilon is stated to have been the first of the Spartan Ephors in Olymp. 56. 1. whereas it is meant that he was the first of the college, or the Ephor eponymus of that year, ought not to have been recently revived by L. Dindorf, on the Paschal Chronicle, p. 267. Miiller Vol. ii, p. 116. n. a. appears to repeat this mistake, though he refers to Manso, Sparta Vol. iii. Part II. p. 332. who corrects it.