After having divided their immoveables, he undertook likewise to make the same equal division of all their moveable goods and chattels, that he might utterly banish all manner of equality from among them. But perceiving that this would go against the grain, if he went openly about it, he endeavoured to effect it by sapping the very foundations of avarice. For first he cried down all gold and silver money, and ordained that no other should be current than that of iron; which he made so very heavy, and fixed at so low a rate, that a cart and two oxen were necessary to carry home a sum of ten minas (about 20l.), and a whole chamber to keep it in.
Being desirous to make a yet more effectual war upon luxury, and utterly to extirpate the love of riches, Lycurgus made a third regulation, which was that of public meals. That he might entirely suppress all the magnificence and extravagance of expensive tables, he ordained, that all the citizens should eat together of the same common victuals, which the law prescribed, and expressly forbade all private eating at their own houses. The tables consisted of about fifteen persons each; where none could be admitted but with the consent of the whole company. Each person furnished, every month, a bushel of flour, eight measures of wine, five pounds of cheese, two and a half pounds of figs, and a small sum of money for preparing and cooking the food. The very children ate at these public tables, and were carried thither as to a school of wisdom and temperance. Nay, they were sure to see nothing but what tended to their instruction and entertainment. The conversation was often enlivened with ingenious and sprightly raillery, but never intermingled with any thing vulgar or shocking; and if their jesting seemed to make any person uneasy, they never proceeded any farther. Here their children were likewise trained up, and accustomed to great secrecy; as soon as a young man came into the dining-room, the oldest of the company used to say to him, pointing to the door, "Nothing spoken here must ever go out there."
Lycurgus looked upon the education of youth as the greatest and most important object of a legislator's care. His grand principle was, that children belonged more to the state than to their parents; and, therefore, he would not have them brought up according to their humours and fancies; he would have the state intrusted with the general care of their education, in order to have them formed upon correct and uniform principles, which might inspire them betimes with the love of virtue and of their country.
The most usual occupation of the Lacedæmonians was hunting, and other bodily exercises. They were forbidden to exercise any mechanic art: the Elotæ, a sort of slaves, tilled their land for them; for which they were paid a certain revenue by way of wages. Lycurgus would have his citizens enjoy a great deal of leisure: they had common halls, where the people used to meet to converse together; and though their discourses chiefly turned upon grave and serious topics, yet they seasoned them with a mixture of wit and facetious humour, both agreeable and instructive. They passed little of their time alone; being accustomed to live like bees, always together, always about their chiefs and leaders. The love of their country and of the public good was their predominant passion; and they did not imagine they belonged to themselves but to their country.
The end Lycurgus proposed was the public happiness: convinced that the happiness of a city, like that of a private person, depends upon virtue, and upon being well within himself. He regulated Lacedæmon so as it might always suffice to its own happiness, and act upon principles of wisdom and equity. From thence arose that universal esteem of the neighbouring people, and even of strangers, for the Lacedæmonians, who asked them neither money, ships, nor troops; but only that they should lend them a Lacedæmonian to command their armies; and when they had obtained their request, they paid him certain obedience, with every kind of honour and respect.
There were a multitude of other regulations, some of which were, doubtless, of a very imperfect tendency; but it is certain that the declension of Sparta began with the violation of Lycurgus's laws. No sooner had the ambition of reigning over all Greece inspired them with the design of having naval armies and foreign troops, and that money was necessary for the support of those forces, than Lacedæmon, forgetting her ancient maxims, saw herself reduced to have recourse to the Barbarians, which, till then, she had detested, and basely to betray her court to the kings of Persia, whom she had formerly vanquished with so much glory; and that only to draw from them some aids of money and troops against their own brethren; that is to say, against people born and settled in Greece, like themselves. Thus had they the imprudence and misfortune to recal, with gold and silver, all the vices and crimes which the iron money had banished; and to prepare the way to the changes which ensued, and were the causes of their ruin. And this infinitely exalts the wisdom of Lycurgus, in having foreseen at such a distance what might strike at the happiness of his citizens, and provided salutary remedies against it in the form of government he established at Lacedæmon.
Ancient Sparta is thus described by Polybius:—"It is of a circular form, and forty-eight stadia in circumference, situated in a plain, but containing some rough places and eminences. The Eurotas flows to the east, and the copiousness of its waters renders it too deep to be forded during the greater part of the year. The hills, on which the Menelaion is situated, are on the south-east of the city, on the opposite side of the river. They are rugged, difficult of ascent, and throw their shadows over the space which is between the city and the Eurotas. The river flows close to the foot of the hills, which are not above a stadium and a half from the city." Its former condition is thus described by Anacharsis:—"The houses at Lacedæmon are small, and without ornament. Halls and porticos have been erected, to which the citizens resort to converse together, or transact business. On the south side of the city is the hippodromus, or course for foot and horse races; and at a little distance from that, the platanistas, or place of exercise for youth, shaded by beautiful plane-trees, and inclosed by the Eurotas on one side, a small river which falls into it, and a canal, by which they communicate, on the other. It is entered by two bridges, on one of which is the statue of Hercules, or 'All-subduing Force;' and on the other that of Lycurgus, or 'All-regulating Law.'"
In what condition is this celebrated city at present? "Passing over the Eurotas," says Mr. Dodwell, "we viewed the first remains of the Lacedæmonian capital, now called Palaio-Kastro, consisting of uncertain traces and heaps of large stones, tossed about in a sort of promiscuous wreck. In a few minutes we reached the theatre, which is of large dimensions. The Koilon is excavated in the hill, which rose nearly in the middle of the city, and which served as an Acropolis. The theatre appears of Roman construction, and the walls of the proscenium are principally of brick. The white marble, of which, Pausanias says, it was composed, has disappeared. Near the theatre are the remains of a Roman brick tower. Sparta was originally without walls, and Lycurgus prohibited their erection. Justin asserts that the Spartans first surrounded their capital with walls, when Cassander entered the Peloponnesus; according to Livy, they were built by the tyrant; and Plutarch says they were destroyed by Philopœmen. Pausanias asserts, that the walls were constructed with precipitate haste, when Demetrius and Pyrrhus besieged Sparta. They were afterwards strongly fortified by the tyrant Nabis, and destroyed by the Achæans, by whom, it appears, they were afterwards rebuilt.
A fine sepulchral chamber, of a square form, regularly constructed with large blocks, is situated nearly opposite the theatre, and a short distance from it. It has been opened, and the interior is found to be composed of brick-work. Many other ruins are dispersed in this direction, some of which are of Roman origin. They appear to have suffered more from sudden violence than from gradual decay; and have, no doubt, been torn to pieces to supply materials for the modern town of Misithra. Several inscriptions have also been found. From all this, it will appear, that Chateaubriand is not quite correct, when he asserts, that "Sparta is occupied by the single hut of a goat-herd, whose wealth consists in the crop, that grows upon the graves of Agis and Agesilaus."[337]