“Where there is fear, is reverence too;”
and Homer makes Helen call Priam
“My father-in-law dear,
Whom most of all I reverence and fear;”
while he speaks of the Greek army as obeying
“Its chiefs commands in silence and with fear.”
Human nature, indeed, leads most men to reverence those whom they fear; and this is why the Lacedæmonians placed the temple of Fear close to the dining-hall of the Ephors, because they invested that office with almost royal authority.
X. On the following morning Kleomenes published a list containing the names of eighty citizens, whom he required to leave the country, and removed the chairs of the Ephors, except one, which he intended to occupy himself. He now convoked an assembly, and made a speech justifying his recent acts. In the time of Lykurgus, he said, the kings and the senate shared between them the supreme authority in the State; and for a long time the government was carried on in this manner without any alteration being required, until, during the long wars with Messene, as the kings had no leisure to attend to public affairs, they chose some of their friends to sit as judges in their stead, and these persons acted at first merely as the servants of the kings, but gradually got all power into their own hands, and thus insensibly established a new power in the State. A proof of the truth of this is to be found in the custom which still prevails, that when the Ephors send for the king, he refuses to attend at the first and second summons, but rises and goes to them at the third. Asteropus, who first consolidated the power of the Ephors, and raised it to the highest point, flourished in comparatively recent times, many generations after the original establishment of the office. If, he went on to say, the Ephors would have behaved with moderation, it would have been better to allow them to remain in existence; but when they began to use their ill-gotten power to destroy the constitution of Sparta, when they banished one king, put another to death without trial, and kept down by terror all those who wished for the introduction of the noblest and most admirable reforms, they could no longer be borne. Had he been able without shedding a drop of blood to drive out of Lacedæmon all those foreign pests of luxury, extravagance, debt, money-lending, and those two more ancient evils, poverty and riches, he should have accounted himself the most fortunate of kings, because, like a skilful physician, he had painlessly performed so important an operation upon his country: as it was, the use of force was sanctioned by the example of Lykurgus, who, though only a private man, appeared in arms in the market-place, and so terrified King Charilaus, that he fled for refuge to the altar of Athena. He, however, being an honest and patriotic man, soon joined Lykurgus, and acquiesced in the reforms which he introduced, while the acts of Lykurgus prove that it is hard to effect a revolution without armed force, of which he declared that he had made a most sparing use, and had only put out of the way those who were opposed to the best interests of Lacedæmon. He announced to the rest of the citizens that the land should be divided among them, that they should be relieved from all their debts, and that all resident aliens should be submitted to an examination, in order that the best of them might be selected to become full citizens of Sparta, and help to defend the city from falling a prey to Ætolians and Illyrians for want of men to defend her.
XI. After this he himself first threw his inheritance into the common stock, and his example was followed by his father-in-law Megistonous, his friends, and the rest of the citizens. The land was now divided, and one lot was assigned to each of those whom he had banished, all of whom he said it was his intention to bring back as soon as order was restored. He recruited the numbers of the citizens by the admission of the most eligible of the Periœki to the franchise, and organised them into a body of four thousand heavy armed infantry, whom he taught to use the sarissa, or Macedonian pike which was grasped with both hands, instead of the spear, and to sling their shields by a strap instead of using a handle. He next turned his attention to the education and discipline of the youth, in which task he was assisted by Sphærus. The gymnasia and the common meals were soon re-established, and the citizens, for the most part willingly, resumed their simple Laconian habits of living. Kleomenes, fearing to be called a despot, appointed his own brother, Eukleidas, as his colleague. Then for the first time were two kings of the same family seen at once in Sparta.
XII. As Kleomenes perceived that Aratus and the Achæans thought that while Sparta was passing through so perilous a crisis her troops were not likely to leave the country, he thought that it would be both a spirited and a useful act to display the enthusiasm of his army to the enemy. He invaded the territory of Megalopolis, carried off a large booty, and laid waste a large extent of country. Finding a company of players on their road from Messene, he took them prisoners, caused a theatre to be erected in the enemy’s country, and offered them forty minæ for a performance for one day, at which he himself attended as a spectator, not that he cared for the performance, but because he wished to mock at his enemies, and to show by this studied insult the enormous superiority of which he was conscious. At this period his was the only army, Greek or foreign, which was not attended by actors, jugglers, dancing-girls, and singers; but he kept it free from all licentiousness and buffoonery, as the younger men were nearly always being practised in martial exercises, while the elders acted as their instructors; and when they were at leisure they amused themselves with witty retorts and sententious Laconian pleasantries. The great value of this kind of discipline is described at greater length in the life of Lykurgus.