But if any one be caught, he is severely flogged for negligence or want of dexterity. The boys steal with so much caution, that one of them having conveyed a young fox under his garment, suffered the creature to tear out his bowels with his teeth and claws, choosing rather to die than to be detected. So highly, indeed, was dexterity valued by the Spartans, that for a victory gained by valour they offered only a cock, but for one acquired by a stratagem, which spared the lives of their countrymen, they sacrificed an ox."

Another severe discipline of the Spartan youth, by which "Laconia Spartan nursed her hardy sons to war," was also one of their religious rites, severity. performed at the altar of Artemis. Plutarch appears to have witnessed this celebration, and to have seen many of the youths "expire under the lash." In his Laws, &c. he thus describes the scene:

“There was, indeed, a strange and unnatural custom annually observed at the celebration of the bloody rites of Artemis Orthia. A number of children, not only of the common, but of the higher class, were whipped, almost to death, with rods, before the altar of the goddess, their parents and relations standing by, and exhorting them to resolution in suffering. Though this barbarous ceremony lasted a whole day, yet they endured these severities with such extraordinary cheerfulness and resolution, as could not have been expected from the tenderness of their age. They did not express one sigh or groan during the solemnity. But, from an emulation of glory, they contended each to excel his companion in suffering the length and sharpness of his pains, and he who held out the longest was ever the most valued person among them."

service.

Though thus early trained to hardihood, the Spartans appear not to Admitted to have been admitted into military service till thirty years of age. For military this service Lycurgus established various regulations. Their dress was scarlet, probably to hide the appalling spectacle of blood. They were never to march before the full moon, nor to fight often against the same enemies, lest they should thus teach them, though by severe experience, the art of war. They slept all night in their armour, except the advanced guard, who were not allowed their shields, that they might depend solely on their vigilance. After every meal they sang hymns to their gods, who were always represented in armour, that every thing might foster the military spirit. The king, who commanded the army, was attended by two Pythii, or augurs, with the Polemarchs, who formed a council of war, and he had an Olympic champion to fight by his side. On his departure from the city he offered a sacrifice to Zeus; a youth took from the altar a flaming brand, and bore it, at the head of the troops, till they reached the frontiers, when the king offered another sacrifice. Just before the onset of battle he sacrificed to the Muses, that they might perform deeds worthy of praise. The troops then advanced to the sound of 1 Well might Cicero say, as in the words immediately preceding the passage we lately quoted, "Pueri Spartiatæ non ingemiscunt verberum dolore laniati."

Courage of the women.

Helots reduced to slavery.

flutes, and with chaplets on their heads, as if in anticipation of a victory, the king singing the pæan, or hymn of Castor, as a signal to engage.

The Spartan wives and mothers encouraged their sons and husbands to the fight, conjuring them to return, either with their shields or upon them; never lamenting those who died in battle, but rather thanking the gods for the honour they entailed on their families. Those who fell in battle were buried in scarlet cloth, and had inscriptions on their tombs, which was not generally permitted. And that his Spartans might be familiarised with mortality, Lycurgus, contrary to the practice of the Greeks, his contemporaries, directed their tombs to be built around their temples; among which he is said to have built a temple to Laughter, and was at length honoured with one, which Sparta dedicated to her lawgiver. Whether, after all, Lycurgus was himself a soldier, it is impossible to determine. Plutarch has quoted two directly opposite testimonies; one, that he "was a man of great personal valour, and an experienced commander," which is also the report of Xenophon; the other account is, "that he never had any military employment, and that there was the profoundest ginable when he established the constitution of Sparta."

peace ima

There is one striking feature in the legislative system of Lycurgus, of which we have yet said nothing, but which well deserves to be considered; we mean the case of the Helots. A maritime town of Laconia, called Helos, was conquered, and the inhabitants were reduced to slavery by the Lacedæmonians, some ages before the time of our lawgiver. From them all the slaves in Laconia are supposed to have been called Helots. Plutarch certainly considers the domestic slaves as Helots, whom he describes as tempted, or rather forced, to intoxication, and then brought into the public halls, to deter the youths by their example.

66

To these Helots, who were far more numerous than the free inhabitants of Laconia, were appropriated all mechanic arts, and the cultivation of their lands; for the free Lacedæmonians, when not engaged in war, or preparing for it by martial exercises, claimed the privilege of idleness, which they accounted dignity. Plutarch, in his Laws, describes the Helots as employed not only in all kinds of servile offices, but especially in tilling the fields, which were let out to them at reasonable rates." But, in his Life of Lycurgus, these Helots are represented as the victims of most wanton cruelty. They were slaves not only of individuals but of the public. The youth massacred them in cold blood, to prepare themselves for the slaughter of foreign enemies; and, lest they should become too numerous for the safety of the freemen of Laconia, they sallied forth in the evening to cut off great numbers of them as they returned home from reaping their harvests.

The author of Anacharsis (c. xlii.) distinguishes them from those who were domestic slaves, and describes their condition as like that of the serfs or villeins under the feudal establishments. "Ils tiennent plutôt le milieu entre les esclaves et les hommes libres."

This occasional destruction of the Helots appears to have been brought The Cryptia. into a regular system by the institution of the Cryptia, or ambuscade, which Plutarch describes, but is disposed to consider as an invention of much later date than the time of Lycurgus. Xenophon, however, attributes it to our lawgiver; nor is it difficult to believe that he may be correct. Even in this enlightened country, negroes were scarcely allowed to be human beings, till that æra when Granville Sharp lived and laboured for their deliverance. Was it, then, extraordinary that Lycurgus, whose legislation, after all, was only a systematic barbarism, should have considered the Helots as brutes, whose lives might be sacrificed to any purpose which his policy required ?1

How long Lycurgus remained in Sparta to superintend the practical application of his laws, and under what circumstances he finally left the country, are questions involved in the common uncertainty of his story. Plutarch describes him as living on good terms with his coun- Death of Lycurgus. trymen, and highly gratified by the effect of his institutions. He represents him as pretending an occasion for visiting the oracle at Delphi, and obliging the Spartans, by an oath, to alter nothing till his return, which he never intended. He then, after an interview with the Pythia, is said to have put an end to his life by abstaining from food, at the age, according to Lucian, of eighty-five; which must, in that case, have been after a long residence at Sparta; yet Plutarch evidently supposes him to have died in the prime of life. Tertullian, in his Apology, differs from Plutarch as to the retirement of Lycurgus. He twice alludes to the circumstance, and attributes it to the determination of the Spartans to mitigate the severity of his laws, on which he withdrew in disgust, and pined to death. These laws, which certainly discover a mind superior to the general information of his age, have been panegyrised in all times, though several of them need only a description to be justly censured. At best, they considered war rather than peace as the business of life; and it has been well observed that Sparta flourished while she was in perpetual hostilities, but in the enjoyment of tranquillity presently decayed. As to their operation on domestic life, if women were not depressed in Sparta as in other countries, yet they were formed to roughen to the sense, and appear destitute of all that cheers and softens life. But, as to human nature in general, considering the great proportion of slaves in Laconia, how ill was that provided for by Lycurgus! If we compare the two Lycurgus lawgivers who appeared in different ages, both learned in the wisdom and Moses of the Egyptians, and merely consider how one provided to mitigate the evils of bondage, and to maintain, in the commerce of the sexes, a decorum on which the other lawgiver seemed to have placed no value, we cannot avoid the conclusion that Lycurgus had only availed himself of the false pretensions of the Pythia, though with a laudable design, 1 Yet he has found an able advocate in the author of Anacharsis, whose note to his sixty-seventh chapter the reader will do well to consult.

* C. iv. xlvi.

compared.

but that Moses had repaired to that only Oracle, which is neither the author nor the victim of delusion.

Argos the centre of

Doric rule.

Though we have contemplated Sparta as the earliest portion of Hellas subject to historic evidence, we must not fall into the error of supposing it to be the earliest well-regulated power of Greece, simply because our authorities do not furnish us such minute details as are exhibited in the Lycurgean code: those authorities are rather deductive than direct-more general than special. The great centre of Dorian rule in the Peloponnesus was Argos, the metropolis of many confederated inland settlements, which were independent cities colonized by her own population. No prominent historical fact, however, connected with individual ascendancy among this people, occurs before Pheidōn the the time of Pheidōn the Temenid,' between B. C. 770 and 750. Medōn, the grandson of Temeneus, had gradually been straitened in his influence and prerogative, and, under the title of a monarchy, popular power had become nearly paramount. The energetic ability of Pheidōn broke through the trammels that had for many years shackled the royal authority; and he now re-established the ancient supremacy of Argos over her confederate and now subject towns.

Temenid.

B. C. 770-750.

Becomes despot of Corinth.

This enterprising chief next gained sway over Corinth, and with a view to the permanency of his rule, laid a treacherous snare for seizing upon one thousand of her chief citizens a scheme only frustrated by Abron, a confidential friend, more faithful to public liberty than private interest. Not satisfied with claiming the sovereignty of Peloponnesus, Aims at the as being a descendant of Heracles, he now advanced a title to preside presidency of the Olympic at the celebrated games founded by his remote ancestor, especially the games. Olympic, a presidency which was both a dignified prize of ambitious headship, and exceedingly lucrative. The power of Pheidōn, however, received a severe check from the rising vigour of Sparta. The Pisatans, who, together with the loss of their independence, had been deprived

1 A descendant of Temeneus-according to Theopompus, the fifth in descent.

the 8th

by the Eleans of their presidency over these celebrated games, invited the powerful aid of the despot of Argos to reinstate them in their privileges. He acceded to their request, and as co-president headed, in Presides at conjunction with them, the games of the 8th Olympiad. This Olym- Olympiad. piad, therefore, the Eleans, thus unceremoniously dislodged from their dignified post, refused to register, and invoking the armed interference of Sparta, Pheidōn was defeated, the superintendence of the games reverted to Elis, and she was still further secured in her sway over Triphlyia and Pisatis.'

activity of

While the political talent of the great chief of Argos is evinced by Commercial his self-emancipation from democratic bondage, his commercial and and financial financial activity are proved by his being the first to issue a coinage of Pheidon. silver and copper in the island of Ægina, accompanied by a scale of weights and measures; the adoption of which, throughout Peloponnesus, and subsequently in Thessaly, Boeotia, and Macedonia, demonstrates no inconsiderable commercial as well as political influence.3 The maritime vigour of Argos at this period must have been great; her confederated towns embraced the whole coast-range of the Argolic and Saronic Gulfs, besides the Doric colonies of the Egean, the southwestern angle of Asia Minor, including Cos, Rhodes, and various seaboard towns.

scales of

We have no evidence stating the causes of the decay Statical and of Argive supremacy, nor the ultimate fate of Pheidōn, whose statical monetary and monetary scales demonstrate both the mental ingenuity of the Pheidon. prince and the commercial development of his people. There is every reason to believe that the almost impregnable position of Sparta, her rigid military discipline, and ambition to seize the supremacy of southern Greece, led her by degrees to cripple the power of Argos, as she did that of Messenia and northern Arcadia. The spirit of Argos, The power of however, even as late as B. C. 547, was not crushed. In that Argos year she declines. made a strong effort to recover Thyrea from the Spartans. rable combat took place between three hundred select champions on Combat of each side, while the main armies retired from the field. A conflict the three ensued so fierce and so equal, that of the six hundred warriors, only champions.

'Strabo, viii. 354-358.

A memo

Vide Boeckh, "Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfusse, und Mässe des Alterthums," Berlin, 1838.

3 Φείδωνος . . . . . τοῦ ὑβρίσαντος μέγιστα δὴ Ἑλλήνων ἀπάντων. • Vide Leake's Travels in the Morea, vol. iii. c. xxii.

Herod. vi. 127.

5 Herod. i. 82.

hundred