Ideal Commonwealths | Page 3

ten years, when there arose in Calabria a conspiracy against the Spanish rule. Campanella, who was an Italian patriot was seized and sent to Naples. The Spanish inquisition joined in attack on him. He was accused of books he had not written and of opinions he did not hold; he was seven times put to the question and suffered, with firmness of mind, the most cruel tortures. The Pope interceded in vain for him with the King of Spain. He suffered imprisonment for twenty-seven years, during which time he wrote much, and one piece of his prison work was his ideal of "The City of the Sun."
Released at last from his prison, Campanella went to Rome, where he was defended by Pope Urban VIII. against continued violence of attack. But he was compelled at last to leave Rome, and made his escape as a servant in the livery of the French ambassador. In Paris, Richelieu became Campanella's friend; the King of France gave him a pension of three thousand livres; the Sorbonne vouched for the orthodoxy of his writings. He died in Paris, at the age of seventy-one, in the Convent of the Dominicans.
Of Campanella's "Civitas Solis," which has not hitherto been translated into English, the translation here given, with one or two omissions of detail which can well be spared, has been made for me by my old pupil and friend, Mr. Thomas W. Halliday.
In the works (published in 1776) of the witty Dr. William King, who played much with the subject of cookery, is a fragment found among his remaining papers, and given by his editors as an original piece in the manner of Rabelais. It seems never to have been observed that this is only a translation of that part of Joseph Hall's "Mundus Alter es Idem," which deals with the kitchen side of life. The fragment will be found at the end of this volume, preceded by a short description of the other parts of Hall's World which is other than ours, and yet the same.
H.M.
March 1885.

PLUTARCH'S
LIFE OF LYCURGUS.

LIFE OF LYCURGUS.
Of Lycurgus the lawgiver we have nothing to relate that is certain and uncontroverted. For there are different accounts of his birth, his travels, his death, and especially of the laws and form of government which he established. But least of all are the times agreed upon in which this great man lived. For some say he flourished at the same time with Iphitus, and joined with him in settling the cessation of arms during the Olympic games. Among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who alleges for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the inscription of Lycurgus's name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings, place him much earlier than the first Olympiad. Tim?us, however, supposes that, as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different times, the actions of both are ascribed to one, on account of his particular renown; and that the more ancient of them lived not long after Homer: nay, some say he had seen him. Xenophon too confirms the opinion of his antiquity, when he makes him contemporary with the Heraclid?. It is true, the latest of the Laced?monian kings were of the lineage of the Heraclid?; but Xenophon there seems to speak of the first and more immediate descendants of Hercules. As the history of those times is thus involved, in relating the circumstances of Lycurgus's life, we shall endeavour to select such as are least controverted, and follow authors of the greatest credit.
Simonides the poet, tells us, that Prytanis, not Eunomus, was father to Lycurgus. But most writers give us the genealogy of Lycurgus and Eunomus in a different manner; for, according to them, Sous was the son of Patrocles, and grandson of Aristodemus, Eurytion the son of Sous, Prytanis of Eurytion, and Eunomus of Prytanis; to this Eunomus was born Polydectes, by a former wife, and by a second, named Dianassa, Lycurgus. Eutychidas, however, says Lycurgus was the sixth from Patrocles, and the eleventh from Hercules. The most distinguished of his ancestors was Sous, under whom the Laced?monians made the Helotes their slaves, and gained an extensive tract of land from the Arcadians. Of this Sous it is related, that, being besieged by the Clitorians in a difficult post where there was no water, he agreed to give up all his conquests, provided that himself and all his army should drink of the neighbouring spring. When these conditions were sworn to, he assembled his forces, and offered his kingdom to the man that would forbear drinking; not one of them, however, would deny himself, but they all drank. Then Sous went down to the spring himself, and having only sprinkled his face in sight of the