The Antiquities of Greece Volume 1, Pts. 2-5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880 Excerpt: ...contradiction with the earlier custom, according to which, for instance, only such men were sent with Leonidas to Thermopylae as had already begotten children, by whom, if they themselves fell, their house might still be continued.8 But it is clear that such measures were unable to remedy the evil. Aristotle reckons that in his time there were only about a thousand Spartiate,4 and less than a century afterwards there were no more than seven hundred, of whom about a hundred were possessed of landed property.6 There were, therefore, six hundred poor to one hundred rich; a part of the latter being inordinately so. Along with such inequality in property it was naturally impossible for the old Lycurgic rules of life to continue in force. The rich, we read, observed these rules indeed in part, but only in appearance. For instance, they visited the Phiditia, but after remaining there a short time they feasted at home with oriental luxury.6 The Ephors, whose function it ought to have been to watch over the observance of the Agoge, exempted themselves for the most part from their own regulations,7 and were without doubt, although the office should have been open to all without distinction, taken at that time only from among the rich. The poorer citizens however had to submit to being maintained by the rich, and perhaps either took to handicrafts, or, as lessees of pieces of ground belonging to the rich, tilled the soil as the Helots did.8 It can in fact hardly be conceived how the State could still exist, and how the dominion of the Spartiatae over the Helots and Periceci could still be maintained. We can only assume that to some extent the length of time that had elapsed had accustomed them to their position of subjection, while the harshness of the relation had al...