Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/73

63 Spartan Constitution. 63 Athenian demagogue would have well known how to apply ? And if after the first act of the Peloponnesian war and the successes of the Athenians such changes had taken place^ although the Perioeci might have been left in their ancient degradation or expelled from the country^ would the oli- garchical Boeotians and Megarians have thought an alliance with Lacedaemon more beneficial than with the democratic Argos ^^ ? The question however as to the origin of the name of the Lacedaemonian government cannot be decided in the pre- cise and definite manner which the foregoing remarks would seem to point at ; as a certain degree of obscurity and un- certainty is necessarily caused by the gradual transition of the Spartans into the inferior classes. For the citizens were not divided from the subjects and bondmen by a plain and broad line^ such as that which separated the Athenians from their allies and slaves ; but the several orders ran into each other in a manner which our imperfect knowledge of the Spartan constitution, and of the changes which in the process of time it underwent, prevents us from correctly apprehending: though it is evident that (at one time at least) all the Spartans had not equal rights, and that within the body politic there was a class whose interests coincided with those* of the sub- jects and bondmen. It appears that during the Peloponne- sian war, if not at an earlier period, the Spartans were divided into two orders, called Equals and Inferiors^ ojulolol and i/tto- fxeiove^- From a passage in Xenophon*^s Anabasis (iv, 6. 14) it would seem that the rank of an Equal was hereditary: at least Xenophon represents himself as saying that all the Lace- daemonians who belong to the class of Equals practise the art of stealing from their childhood (evOv^^ €k TraiScop), at which age merit is of course impossible. Probably the son of an Equal was an Equal, unless he lost his rank by not per- that of aristocracy," p. 647. Here Dr Arnold forgets his own explanation^ and makes the Spartan government an aristocracy in respect of the citizens, ^^ No/xt^oi/Te? (TCpLCTL T1]V 'Apyelcov drj/moKpaTLav aifTots 6Lyap')(oviievoL'S rjcrcrou <TV(x(^opov elvai Til's AaKcdaifiovlcov ^oXiTelas, Thuc. V. 31. Compare Aristophanes in Ath. III. p. 75. A. (TVKd^ (jyvTevu) iravTa TrXtjV Aa/cwi/t/c?]^'* TOVTO yap TO cvkov e^pov ecrt Kal TvpavuiKOV* OX) yap riv dv fxiKpov, ei jiu} im.Lcr6di]jJLOV i]u cr<podpa.