[122] Aristotle, in his comments upon the Platonic Republic (Politic. ii. 5. p. 1262, b. 42 seq.), advances arguments just in themselves, in favour of individual property, and against community of property. But these arguments have little application to the Republic.
Nevertheless we are obliged to divine what Plato means about the condition of the producing classes in his Commonwealth. He himself tells us little or nothing about them; though they must constitute the large numerical majority. And this defect is in him the less excusable, since he reckons them as component members of his Commonwealth; while Aristotle, in his ideal Commonwealth, does not reckon them as component members or citizens, but merely as indispensable adjuncts, in the same manner as slaves. All that we know about the producers in the Platonic Commonwealth is, that each man is to have only one business — that for which he is most fit:— and that all are to be under the administration of the Rulers through the Guardians.
Soldiership as a separate profession has acquired greater development in modern times.
The enlistment of soldiers, apart from civilians, and the holding of them under distinct laws and stricter discipline, is a practice familiar to modern ideas, though it had little place among the Greeks of Plato’s day. There prevailed also in Egypt[123] and in parts of Eastern Asia, from time immemorial, a distinction of castes: one caste being soldiers, invested with the defence of the country, and enjoying certain lands by the tenure of such military service: but in other respects, private proprietors like the rest — and receiving no special discipline, training, or education. In Grecian Ideas, military duties were a part, but only a part, of the duties of a citizen. This was the case even at Sparta. Though in practice, the discipline of that city tended in a preponderant degree towards military aptitude, yet the Spartan was still a citizen, not exclusively a soldier.
[123] Aristot. Politic. vii. 10. Herodot. ii. 164. Plato alludes (Timæ. 24 A) to the analogy of Egyptian castes.
Spartan institutions — great impression which they produced upon speculative Greek minds.
It was from the Spartan institutions (and the Kretan, in many respects analogous) that the speculative political philosophers in Greece usually took the point of departure for their theories. Not only Plato did so, but Xenophon and Aristotle likewise. The most material fact which they saw before them at Sparta was, a public discipline both strict and continued, which directed the movements of the citizens, and guided their thoughts and feelings, from infancy to old age. To this supreme controul the private feelings, both of family and property, though not wholly suppressed, were made to bend: and occasionally in a way quite as remarkable as any restrictions proposed by either Plato or Xenophon.[124] Moreover, the Spartan institutions were of immemorial antiquity; believed to have been suggested or sanctioned originally by Apollo and the Delphian oracle, as the Kretan institutions were by Zeus.[125] They had lasted longer than other Hellenic institutions without forcible subversion: they obtained universal notice, admiration, and deference, throughout Greece. It was this conspicuous fact which emboldened the Grecian theorists to postulate for the lawgiver that unbounded controul, over the life and habits of citizens, which we read not merely in the Republic of Plato but in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, and to a great degree even in the Politica of Aristotle. To an objector, who asked them how they could possibly expect that individuals would submit to such unlimited interference, they would have replied — “Look at Sparta. You see there interference, as constant and rigorous as that which I propose, endured by the citizens not only without resistance, but with a tenacity and long continuance such as is not found among other communities with more lax regulations. The habits and sentiments of the Spartan citizen are fashioned to these institutions. Far from being anxious to shake them off, he accounts them a necessity as well as an honour.” This reply would have appeared valid and reasonable, in the fourth century before the Christian era. And it explains — what, after all, is the most surprising circumstance to a modern reader — the extreme boldness of speculation, the ideal omnipotence, assumed by the leading Grecian political theorists: much even by Aristotle, though his aspirations were more limited and practical — far more by Xenophon — most of all by Plato. Any theorist, proceeding avowedly κατ’ εὐχὴν, considered himself within bounds when he assumed to himself no greater influence than had actually been exercised by Lykurgus.
[124] See Xenophon, Hellenic. vi. 4, 16, the account of what passed at Sparta after the battle of Leuktra, related also in my “History of Greece,” chap. 78, vol. x. p. 253.
[125] Plato, Legg. i. pp. 632 D, 634 A.
Plans of these speculative minds compared with Spartan — Different types of character contemplated.