Tyrtæus' and Homer. Dramatic and rhetorical compositions they had none: martial music they cultivated and admired; but whatever seeds of general taste, talent, or accomplishments might exist in any individual mind, their institutions speedily destroyed. An orator was banished for making profession of the art of eloquence, and whe Timotheus played too well on the lyre, the Ephori ordered four strings to be cut from his instrument. In a word, as the city of ferocious. Lycurgus was a camp, his people were always on parade: music was an art by which warlike feelings were cherished, and they loved it as such speech was but a medium of transacting business; and what they said was close, pertinent, and sensible. To the Samians, who besought assistance in a long harangue, they replied, they did not understand the end of the speech, and had forgotten the beginning: upon which, the ambassadors, adapting their mode of entreaty to the character of the nation, exhibited an empty bag. The Lacedæmonians understood this appeal, and promised the necessary supply. As the aristocratic part of the nation, the Dorians, thus disregarded the accomplishments of literature and art, they held in still greater contempt the occupation of manual labour. Idleness suited the dignity of their liberty, except when it was exchanged for dancing, Their sports the exercises of the gymnasium, or the chase. They wrestled, ran, and threw the javelin: they had also a game like football, and their sportive combats had the ferocity of warfare without its excuse. Feet, fists, nails, and teeth, were all brought into play most effectively; the state permitted and superintended these encounters, and thus trained her citizens by an absurd and cruel system, fit only for uncivilized savages. For such pastimes as these, she left agriculture and the mechanical arts in the hands of the Helots; they hired from the proprietor that land which each head of a family possessed, and 3 Plut. Agis. 1 Athenæus, xiv. ch. viii. 2 Ar. Pol. 5. 4 The well-known "Veni, vidi, vici," of Cæsar is not so good in its way as Lysander's letter, "Athens is taken.' Herod. iii. 46, and conf. vii. 228. 6 Lucian, de Gymn. tenure of thus profited by the folly of the state, in marking such pursuits as a Spartan degradation. These original estates were private property, and passed, property. without increase or diminution,' to the eldest son. But, in some respects, there was a community of goods at Sparta; he, for instance, who wished to hunt, or to travel, took his neighbour's dogs or equipage without hesitation: wives occasionally were not excepted under this plan of mutual accommodation. To improve the breed of citizens was the legislator's great aim: he recommended his system most pertinently by illustrations drawn from dogs and horses; and his people admitted its efficacy, apparently without thinking that they paid too high a price for it. women. It was, indeed, especially in his conduct in respect of the female Condition of sex, that Lycurgus showed his ignorance of the true source of human happiness. Political liberty he secured; but, in its attainment, he lost almost all that could make it valuable; for he violated all the sanctities of domestic life, and many of the decencies of natural propriety. The gymnastics of his young females, their dancing, running, wrestling, leaping, throwing the javelin and the quoit, were performed in public. Even their ordinary dress was notorious, and proverbial for its indecorous exhibition of the person. It may be doubted, whether this state of things was a part of the legislator's deliberate design, or whether it arose from his systematic neglect; but, in either case, the effects were equally immoral. The time of marriage for all the citizens was appointed by law, but Marriage. not actually enforced. In early ages, the marriageable girls were collected in a room perfectly dark; the young men were admitted, and she whom each one caught became his wife. This custom, however, afterwards fell into disuse. But as late as the days of Lysander, the law punished those who did not marry at all; or who remained widowers; or who married too late; or who married ill. Thus, A law, permitting their alienation, was passed by the influence of Epitadeus. Its consequences were the accumulation of landed property in the hands of a few, general poverty and discontent, the decay of public spirit, and a restless desire of change.-Plut. Agis. 2 Arist. Pol. 3 Xenoph. Res. Lac. 4 Plut. in Lyc. 5 ὅσας γὰρ τὰ κατὰ γυναικας φᾶυλα ὥσπερ Λακεδαιμονιοίς, σχεδὸν κατὰ τὸ ἥμισυ οὐκ εὐδαιμονοῦσι.-Ar. Rhet. i. 5. 6 It was a chiton, or frock, without sleeves, and often did not reach the knees; one side was quite open, and it was fastened on the shoulders by clasps. This is perhaps what Plutarch calls γύμνωσις τῶν παρθενῶν; but at times, in public, the Spartan females wore no garment.-Bekker. 7 Paropengidis.-Plut. in Num. 8 Conf. Plut. in Lyc. and Ar. Pol. lib. ii. The undisciplined manners of the Spartan women are inconsistent with every wise plan of legislation, and totally adverse to the principal aim of Lycurgus, who, exacting the most rigid temperance in his men, with a view to harden them to fortitude, has granted every indulgence to his women, and thereby corrupted them with licentiousness.-Arist. Pol. lib. ii; Gillies, vol. ii. p. 122. 10 Plut. in Lyc. Celibacy discouraged at Sparta. Marriage customs. Respect granted to the married; the unmarried. though it was not absolutely compulsory, yet it consigned bachelors to public disgrace; it obliged them to march, in an ignominious procession, singing songs to their own discredit; and once a-year they were personally chastised. On a certain festival, the women might beat them with the hand, or with a stick. Whether the thickness of the latter was regulated by law, as it is said to be in modern times, with reference to its application in conjugal discipline, is uncertain. Now, a Spartan lady, in one of the plays of Aristophanes, is thus complimented by her friend Lysistrate: "My beloved Lampito, how handsome you are; your complexion is so fine, and your person so ful and healthy; why, you could strangle a bull." "Yes," replies Lampito, "I fancy I could, for I exercise myself in jumping till my heels touch my back." Doubtless, such personal vigour was not rare in Laconia; the chastisement, then, of an annual vapulation, received from such hands, and inflicted, probably with considerable severity, for the honour of the fair sex, was a disagreeable tax on celibacy. Certainly, the victims would not be spared, if Euripides gives a just character of the Spartan females (avopoμavēis); but, as a man, he was unjust to the sex in general; and, as an Athenian, his testimony may be suspected, with regard to Lacedæmonian ladies in particular. It seems as if the institutions of this extraordinary state were always to be at variance with good sense and good feeling: the law commanded a man to marry, and then public opinion forbade him to associate with his wife. The early meetings of the wedded pair were contrived with secrecy, and abridged in their duration, lest the absence of the bridegroom from his usual occupations and friends should awaken a suspicion of its cause. When the course of true love does not run smooth, it is often most interesting in its adventures; in its alternations of hope and fear; in the tenderness of stolen meetings between parties engaged by affection, and yet separated by accident or thwarted by design; in the bold dexterity of their interviews or the stratagems of their escape; in their detection or in their success. But the romantic charm of these things is lost in their absurdity, when the marriage has been already ordered by the law, permitted by the families, and solemnized by the individuals. The Still, in the unions thus singularly arranged and conducted, as there was commonly less disparity of years than was customary elsewhere, freedom to so there was more of mutual confidence and respect, and as the married women enjoyed more public respect (their customary title, déσπоiai, showed it), so the unmarried enjoyed more freedom. men claimed no intellectual superiority, and on the common level of patriotism they met as equals. For this, the strongest instincts and the purest feelings were so far subdued, that Spartan mothers have been known to slay their sons for cowardice, or to count, with satis faction, the honourable wounds upon their corpses. The truly heroic patriotism of the mother of Brasidas is admirably contrasted with this unnatural ferocity. He who communicated to her that general's death, mixed commendation with condolence, by calling him the bravest of the Spartans. "Stranger," she replied, "my son was brave, but Sparta can boast of citizens still braver." These examples illustrate, perhaps, the best and the worst consequences produced by Spartan customs on the female mind and character: and here, before we pass on to the corresponding subject at Athens, we may consider the Lacedæmonians in one more of those relations which arise out of the structure of civil society-their conduct as masters to their servants. degraded. It might, indeed, have been supposed, that they who knew so well Slaves at Sparta the value of liberty, would be inclined to communicate its blessings. oppressed But the fact was so far otherwise, that it was proverbially said, and "Where the free man is especially free, there the slave is especially a slave." The severity of the servitude inflicted on the Helots was an act of ungenerous revenge: as Messenians, they fought for their own independence with a pertinacity of resolution which a Spartan ought to have admired: whereas, the punishment inflicted on them was as degrading as it was unjust. As captives, they were the property of the state at large; but it did not shield them from the cruelty or the caprice of an individual, while it did prevent them from profiting by his compassion. The foolish notions of national dignity which preSuch traditionary stories are thus versified in the Greek Anthology:Τα πιτάνα Θρασύβουλος ἐπ' ἀσπίδος ἤλυθεν ἄπνους Ἑπτὰ πρὸς ̓Αργείων τραύματα δεξάμενος, Δεικνὺς αντία πάντα· τὸν ἀιματόεντα δ' ὁ πρέσβυς Παῖδ ̓ ἐπὶ πυρκαϊὴν Τύννιχος ἔιπε τιθείς Δειλοὶ κλαιέσθωσαν ἐγὼ δὲ σέ τέκνον άδακρυς Θάψω τὸν καὶ ἐμὸν καὶ Λακεδαιμόνιον. Dioscorides floruit circiter 230 A. C., No. 464, Edwards' Greek Anthol. The aged Tynnicus, as he placed on the funeral pile his son Thrasybulus, brought home on his shield, having received seven honourable wounds in war, spake thus, "Let cowards weep, I shall bury you, my son, without a tear-yea, my own and Sparta's son." Εἰς δηΐων πέμψασα λόχους Δημαινέτη ὀκτῶ Παῖδας ὑπὸ στήλη πάντας ἔθαπτε μια No. 465. Demainete buried eight sons from the wars in one tomb: she shed no tears in her Εῤῥι κακὸν σκυλάκευμα, κακὰ μερίς ἔῤῥε ποθ' "Αιδαν Tymnes. No. 468. • Begone, you base whelp, you fragment of villany, begone to the grave: unworthy of Sparta, you are no son of mine." See also No. 509 on the same subject. 2 Plut. in Lyc. vailed, in some degree mitigated their condition; for a Spartan could not condescend to cultivate his own land; he therefore let it to the Helots,' who paid their rent, and enjoyed the surplus of the produ In war, too, their services were employed; seven Helots attended eac Spartan at the battle of Platea. But, though the pride and idlenes of their masters might thus allow them to acquire property, a though in imminent danger they might be trusted with arms, their numbers always made them an object of suspicion and alar In no other Grecian state did the slaves so far exceed the free pope lation; probably, they were as five to one. On this account, Lacedæmonians endeavoured to break down their spirit by contume? and degradation; so far had they succeeded, that some of them, ber taken prisoners by the Thebans, and desired to sing the odes d Terpander, and other national songs, excused themselves, under plea that it was forbidden by their masters. Their common dress wis a badge of servitude, their periodical chastisement, an ordinance f cruelty, their public exhibition in all the debasement of compulsory intoxication, intended as a warning to the citizens, was a gross and odious insult. The Cryptia, or ambuscade, was an institution of exampled cowardice and barbarity. It authorized the Spartan youth to disperse themselves in the country, armed with daggers, and sallying forth by night, to kill all the Helots they could meet: may, sometimes by day they fell upon them in the fields, and murdered the bers thinned strongest of them. Lest private cruelty and wanton power should fail to thin their numbers efficiently, murder on a larger scale was per petrated by public authority. A most atrocious example is recorded by Thucydides, of ingratitude, treachery, cowardice, and barbarin. In the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war, the Lacedæmonians sent out an army against the confederates of Athens, because they desired a pretence to send away part of their Helots: "For," says the h torian, "the Lacedæmonians had ever many ordinances concerning how to look to themselves against the Helots: they did also this further fearing their youth and multitude; they caused proclamation to be made, that as many of them as claimed the estimation to have done the Lacedæmonians best service in their wars, should be made free: feeling them in this manner, and conceiving that as they should every one, out of pride, deem himself worthy to be first made free, so the would soonest also rebel against them. And when they had tha preferred about two thousand, which also, with crowns on their heads. went in procession about the temples as to receive their liberty, they not long after made them away, and no man knew how they perished." Their num by state policy. If any further proof were wanted of the inhumanity of the Spartans 1 Helots, i.e. prisoners, according to Müller's derivation of the word, from las to take, as suas from dauáw.-Smith's Dict. Antiq. 2 Herod. ix. 28. At this time they did not know gold from brass.-Herod, ix. 80. |