Ideal Commonwealths | Page 6

sharing, as Plato says, in the
power of the kings, too imperious and unrestrained before, and having
equal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within the
bounds of moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the
state. For before it had been veering and unsettled, sometimes inclining
to arbitrary power, and sometimes towards a pure democracy; but this
establishment of a senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in a
just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators

adhering to the kings, whenever they saw the people too encroaching,
and, on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings
attempted to make themselves absolute. This, according to Aristotle,
was the number of senators fixed upon, because two of the thirty
associates of Lycurgus deserted the business through fear. But Sphærus
tells us there were only twenty-eight at first entrusted with the design.
Something, perhaps, there is in its being a perfect number, formed of
seven multiplied by four, and withal the first number, after six, that is
equal to all its parts. But I rather think, just so many senators were
created, that, together with the two kings, the whole body might consist
of thirty members.
He had this institution so much at heart, that he obtained from Delphi
an oracle in its behalf, called rhetra, or the decree. This was couched in
very ancient and uncommon terms, which interpreted, ran thus: "When
you have built a temple to the Syllanian Jupiter, and the Syllanian
Minerva, divided the people into tribes and classes, and established a
senate of thirty persons, including the two kings, you shall occasionally
summon the people to an assembly between Babyce and Cnacion, and
they shall have the determining voice." Babyce and Cnacion are now
called Oenus. But Aristotle thinks, by Cnacion is meant the river, and
by Babyce the bridge. Between these they held their assemblies, having
neither halls, nor any kind of building for that purpose. These things he
thought of no advantage to their councils, but rather a disservice; as
they distracted the attention, and turned it upon trifles, on observing the
statues and pictures, the splendid roofs, and every other theatrical
ornament. The people thus assembled had no right to propose any
subject of debate, and were only authorized to ratify or reject what
might be proposed to them by the senate and the kings. But because, in
process of time, the people, by additions or retrenchments, changed the
terms, and perverted the sense of the decrees, the kings Polydorus and
Theopompus inserted in the rhetra this clause: "If the people attempt to
corrupt any law, the senate and chiefs shall retire:" that is, they shall
dissolve the assembly, and annul the alterations. And they found means
to persuade the Spartans that this too was ordered by Apollo; as we
learn from these verses of Tyrtæus:

Ye sons of Sparta, who at Phoebus' shrine Your humble vows prefer,
attentive hear The god's decision. O'er your beauteous lands Two
guardian kings, a senate, and the voice Of the concurring people,
lasting laws Shall with joint power establish.
Though the government was thus tempered by Lycurgus, yet soon after
it degenerated into an oligarchy, whose power was exercised with such
wantonness and violence, that it wanted indeed a bridle, as Plato
expresses it. This curb they found in the authority of the Ephori, about
a hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus. Elatus was the first invested
with this dignity, in the reign of Theopompus; who, when his wife
upbraided him, that he would leave the regal power to his children less
than he received it, replied, "Nay but greater, because more lasting."
And, in fact, the prerogative, so stripped of all extravagant pretensions,
no longer occasioned either envy or danger to its possessors. By these
means they escaped the miseries which befell the Messenian and
Argive kings, who would not in the least relax the severity of their
power in favour of the people. Indeed, from nothing more does the
wisdom and foresight of Lycurgus appear, than from the disorderly
governments, and the bad understanding that subsisted between the
kings and people of Messena and Argos, neighbouring states, and
related in blood to Sparta. For, as at first they were in all respects equal
to her, and possessed of a better country, and yet preserved no lasting
happiness, but, through the insolence of the kings and disobedience of
the people, were harassed with perpetual troubles, they made it very
evident that it was really a felicity more than human, a blessing from
heaven to the Spartans, to have a legislator who knew so well how to
frame and temper their government. But this was an event of a later
date.
A second and bolder political enterprise