Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/469

 CHAP. XIII. REVOLUTIONS OF SPARTA. 463 tion of them. Still there are a few which history has not been able to overlook. We know that the colo- nists who founded Taientum were Spartans who had attempted to overthrow the government. An indiscre- tion of the poet Tyrtaetis revealed to all Greece that, during the Messenian wars, a party had conspired to obtain a division of the lands. Wh;it saved Sparta was the extreme division which existed in the lower orders. The Helots did not agree with the Laconians; and the McLhacos despised the Neodamodes. No coalition was possible; and the aristocracy — thanks to its militaiy education and the close union of its membei's! — was always strong enough to make head against any one class of its ene- mies. The kings attempted what no class could realize. All those among them Avho aspired to escape from the state of inferiority in which the aristocracy held them sought support among the lower classes. During the Persian war Pausr.nias formed the project of elevating royalty and the lower orders at the same time by over- throwing the oligarchy. The Spartans put him to death, accusing him of having conspired with the king of Persia ; his real crime was, rather, entertaining the thought of freeing the Helots.' We can see in history how numerous were the kings who were exiled by the ephors. The cause of these condemnations is easily guessed; and Aristotle says, "The kings of Sparta, in order to make head against the ephors and the senate, became demagogues." * In 397 B. C. a conspiracy came near overthrowing ' Aristotle, Politics, VIII. 1 (V. 1). Thucydides, I. 13, 2 • Aristotle, Politics, I(. G, 14.