Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.4, 1865).djvu/484

 476 CLEOMENES. first that raised the ephors to that height of power, lived a great many years after their institution. So long, there- fore, he continued, as they contained themselves within their own proper sphere, it had been better to bear with them than to make a disturbance. But that an upstart, introduced power should so far subvert the ancient form of government as to banish some kings, murder others, without hearing their defence, and threaten those who desired to see the best and most divine constitution re- stored in Sparta, was not to be borne. Therefore, if it had been possible for him, without bloodshed, to free Lacedoemon from those foreign plagues, luxury, sump- tuosity, debts, and usury, and from those yet more ancient evils, poverty and riches, he should have thought himself the happiest king in the world, to have succeeded, like an expert physician, in curing the diseases of his country without pain. But now, in this necessity, Lycur- gus's example favored his proceedings, who being neither king nor magistrate, but a private man, and aiming at the kingdom, came armed into the market-place, so that king Charillus fled in alarm to the altar. He, being a good man, and a lover of his country, readily concurred in Lycurgus's designs, and admitted the revolution in the state. But, by his own actions, Lycurgus had neverthe- less borne witness that it was difficult to change the gov- ernment without force and fear, in the use of which he himself, he said, had been so moderate as to do no more than put out of the way those who opposed themselves to Sparta's happiness and safety. For the rest of the na- tion, he told them, the whole land was now their common property ; debtors should be cleared of their debts, and examination made of those who were not citizens, that the bravest men might thus be made free Spartans, and give aid in arms to save the city, and " We " he said, " may no longer see Laconia, for want of men to defend it, wasted by the iEtolians and Illyrians."