Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217) supposes “that the best land was already parcelled, before the time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine thousand.” For this assertion, I know no evidence: it departs from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia among the Periœki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any comment, and seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218).
Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division of land prior to Lykurgus,—that it had degenerated into abuse,—and that Lykurgus corrected it, restoring, not absolute equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of Wachsmuth.
O. Müller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been set out before the Messenian war; and he adheres to the idea of equality as contained in Plutarch; but he says that the equality consisted in “equal estimate of average produce,”—not in equal acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that “the lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of the Periœki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as extensive (i. e. in the aggregate): each lot must, therefore, have been seven times greater,” (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3, 6; iii. 10, 2.) He also supposes, that “similar partitions of land had been made from the time of the first occupation of Laconia by the Dorians.” Whoever compares his various positions with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful disproportion between the basis and the superstructure.
The views of Schömann, as far as I collect from expressions somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at variance with the representations of Plato (Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. iv. 1, 7, note 4, p. 116).
[701] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 8. συνέπεισε τὴν χώραν ἅπασαν εἰς μέσον θέντας, ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναδάσασθαι, καὶ ζῆν μετ᾽ ἀλλήλων ἅπαντας, ὁμαλεῖς καὶ ἰσοκλήρους τοῖς βίοις γενομένους, τὸ δὲ πρωτεῖον ἀρετῇ μετιόντας· ὡς ἄλλης ἑτέρῳ πρὸς ἕτερον οὐκ οὔσης διαφορᾶς, οὐδὲ ἀνισότητος, πλὴν ὅσην αἰσχρῶν ψόγος ὁρίζει καὶ καλῶν ἔπαινος. Ἐπάγων δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τὸ ἔργον, διένειμε, etc.
[702] Plutarch, Agis, c. 19-20.
[703] I read with much satisfaction, in M. Kopstadt’s Dissertation, that the general conclusion which I have endeavored to establish respecting the alleged Lykurgean redivision of property, appears to him successfully proved. (Dissert. De Rerum Laconic. Const. sect. 18, p. 138.)
He supposes, with perfect truth, that, at the time when the first edition of these volumes was published, I was ignorant of the fact, that Lachmann and Kortüm had both called in question the reality of the Lykurgean redivision. In regard to Professor Kortüm, the fact was first brought to my knowledge, by his notice of these two volumes, in the Heidelberger Jahrbücher, 1846, No. 41, p. 649.
Since the first edition, I have read the treatise of Lachmann (Die Spartanische Staats Verfassung in ihrer Entwicklung und ihrem Verfalle, sect. 10, p. 170) wherein the redivision ascribed to Lykurgus is canvassed. He, too, attributes the origin of the tale, as a portion of history, to the social and political feelings current in the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the Third. He notices, also, that it is in contradiction with Plato and Isokratês. But a large proportion of the arguments which he brings to disprove it, are connected with ideas of his own respecting the social and political constitution of Sparta, which I think either untrue or uncertified. Moreover, he believes in the inalienability as well as the indivisibility of the separate lots of land,—which I believe to be just as little correct as their supposed equality.
Kopstadt (p. 139) thinks that I have gone too far in rejecting every middle opinion. He thinks that Lykurgus must have done something, though much less than what is affirmed, tending to realize equality of individual property.