Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians

XIV[1]

Now, if the question be put to me, Do you maintain that the laws of Lycurgus remain still to this day unchanged? that indeed is an assertion which I should no longer venture to maintain; knowing, as I do, that in former times the Lacedaemonians preferred to live at home on moderate means, content to associate exclusively with themselves rather than to play the part of governor-general[2] in foreign states and to be corrupted by flattery; knowing further, as I do, that formerly they dreaded to be detected in the possession of gold, whereas nowadays there are not a few who make it their glory and their boast to be possessed of it. I am very well aware that in former days alien acts[3] were put in force for this very object. To live abroad was not allowed. And why? Simply in order that the citizens of Sparta might not take the infection of dishonesty and light-living from foreigners; whereas now I am very well aware that those who are reputed to be leading citizens have but one ambition, and that is to live to the end of their days as governors-general on a foreign soil.[4] The days were when their sole anxiety was to fit themselves to lead the rest of Hellas. But nowadays they concern themselves much more to wield command than to be fit themselves to rule. And so it has come to pass that whereas in old days the states of Hellas flocked to Lacedaemon seeking her leadership[5] against the supposed wrongdoer, now numbers are inviting one another to prevent the Lacedaemonians again recovering their empire.[6] Yet, if they have incurred all these reproaches, we need not wonder, seeing that they are so plainly disobedient to the god himself and to the laws of their own lawgiver Lycurgus.

[1] For the relation of this chapter to the rest of the treatise, see

Grote, ix. 325; Ern. Naumann, "de Xen. libro qui" {LAK. POLITEIA}

inscribitur, p. 18 foll.; Newmann, "Pol. Aristot." ii. 326.

[2] Harmosts.

[3] "Xenelasies," {xenelasiai} technically called. See Plut. "Lycurg."

27; "Agis," 10; Thuc. ii. 39, where Pericles contrasts the liberal

spirit of the democracy with Spartan exclusiveness; "Our city is

thrown open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or

prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret,

if revealed to an enemy, might profit him."-Jowett, i. 118.

[4] Lit. "harmosts"; and for the taste of living abroad, see what is

said of Dercylidas, "Hell." IV. iii. 2. The harmosts were not

removed till just before Leuctra (371 B.C.), "Hell." VI. iv. 1,

and after, see Paus. VIII. lii. 4; IX. lxiv.

[5] See Plut. "Lycurg." 30 (Clough, i. 124).

[6] This passage would seem to fix the date of the chapter xiv. as

about the time of the Athenian confederacy of 378 B.C.; "Hell." V.

iv. 34; "Rev." v. 6. See also Isocr. "Panegyr." 380 B.C.; Grote,

"H. G." ix. 325. See the text of a treaty between Athens, Chios,

Mytilene, and Byzantium; Kohler, "Herm." v. 10; Rangabe, "Antiq.

Hellen." ii. 40, 373; Naumann, op. cit. 26.