[242] The arguments of K.O. Müller (Dorians, Eng. tr. b. iii, c. 3, §§ 3-5) in discredit of the received view, though not without weight, have never carried general conviction. Cp. Maisch, Manual of Greek Antiquities, Eng. tr. p. 17.
[243] See the recovered passage of Polybius (xii, 6, ed. Hultsch) cited (from Mai, Nov. Collect. Vet. Scriptor. ii, 384) by Müller (Dorians, Eng. tr. ii, 205). Cp. M'Lennan, Kinship in Ancient Greece, § 2.
[244] Aristotle, Politics, ii, c. 9. On Aristotle's unhesitating assumption (ii, 10) as to the normality and the effects of pæderasty, cp. the refutation of Müller, Dorians, Eng. tr. b. iv, c. 4, §§ 6-8; and as to the real causes of decline of population, see b. iii, c. 10, § 2. Primogeniture was a main factor. As the propertied class, of whom Aristotle speaks, became small through accumulations, which often went to heiresses, the whole statistic as to births is narrow and dubious. But it is safe to decide that the decline of the pure Spartan population was not a result of vice, any more than the normal dwindling of the numbers of modern aristocracies. It should be remembered that younger sons would be likely to have illegitimate offspring among the helots, if not among the perioikoi. The selfish aristocracy thus wrought for its own class extinction.
[245] Plutarch, Solon, c. 22.
[246] See refs. in Fustel de Coulanges, La cité antique, 1. iii, ch. xviii, p. 265.
[247] Aristotle, Politics, ii, 6.
[248] Cp. the Republic, v, and the Laws (bks. v, xi; Jowett's tr. 3rd ed. v, pp. 122, 313) with the Politics, vii, 16.
[249] Fr. Vat. xxxvii, 9.
[250] Cp. Hume, essay cited, as to the slight effect of the exposure check in China.
[251] Above, p. 101.