Ideal Commonwealths | Page 7

of Lycurgus was a new
division of the lands. For he found a prodigious inequality, the city
overcharged with many indigent persons, who had no land, and the
wealth centred in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to root out
the evils of insolence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those distempers
of a state still more inveterate and fatal, I mean poverty and riches, he
persuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land, and to make new

ones, in such a manner that they might be perfectly equal in their
possessions and way of living. Hence, if they were ambitious of
distinction they might seek it in virtue, as no other difference was left
between them but that which arises from the dishonour of base actions
and the praise of good ones. His proposal was put in practice. He made
nine thousand lots for the territory of Sparta, which he distributed
among so many citizens, and thirty thousand for the inhabitants of the
rest of Laconia. But some say he made only six thousand shares for the
city, and that Polydorus added three thousand afterwards; others, that
Polydorus doubled the number appointed by Lycurgus, which were
only four thousand five hundred. Each lot was capable of producing
(one year with another) seventy bushels of grain for each man, and
twelve for each woman, besides a quantity of wine and oil in
proportion. Such a provision they thought sufficient for health and a
good habit of body, and they wanted nothing more. A story goes of our
legislator, that some time after returning from a journey through the
fields just reaped, and seeing the shocks standing parallel and equal, he
smiled, and said to some that were by, "How like is Laconia to an estate
newly divided among many brothers!"
After this, he attempted to divide also the movables, in order to take
away all appearance of inequality; but he soon perceived that they
could not bear to have their goods directly taken from them, and
therefore took another method, counterworking their avarice by a
stratagem. First he stopped the currency of the gold and silver coin, and
ordered that they should make use of iron money only, then to a great
quantity and weight of this he assigned but a small value; so that to lay
up ten minæ, a whole room was required, and to remove it, nothing less
than a yoke of oxen. When this became current, many kinds of injustice
ceased in Lacedæmon. Who would steal or take a bribe, who would
defraud or rob, when he could not conceal the booty; when he could
neither be dignified by the possession of it, nor if cut in pieces be
served by its use? For we are told that when hot, they quenched it in
vinegar, to make it brittle and unmalleable, and consequently unfit for
any other service. In the next place, he excluded unprofitable and
superfluous arts: indeed, if he had not done this, most of them would
have fallen of themselves, when the new money took place, as the

manufactures could not be disposed of. Their iron coin would not pass
in the rest of Greece, but was ridiculed and despised; so that the
Spartans had no means of purchasing any foreign or curious wares; nor
did any merchant-ship unlade in their harbours. There were not even to
be found in all their country either sophists, wandering fortune-tellers,
keepers of infamous houses, or dealers in gold and silver trinkets,
because there was no money. Thus luxury, losing by degrees the means
that cherished and supported it, died away of itself: even they who had
great possessions, had no advantage from them, since they could not be
displayed in public, but must lie useless, in unregarded repositories.
Hence it was, that excellent workmanship was shown in their useful
and necessary furniture, as beds, chairs, and tables; and the
Lacedæmonian cup called cothon, as Critias informs us, was highly
valued, particularly in campaigns: for the water, which must then of
necessity be drank, though it would often otherwise offend the sight,
had its muddiness concealed by the colour of the cup, and the thick part
stopping at the shelving brim, it came clearer to the lips. Of these
improvements the lawgiver was the cause; for the workmen having no
more employment in matters of mere curiosity, showed the excellence
of their art in necessary things.
Desirous to complete the conquest of luxury, and exterminate the love
of riches, he introduced a third institution, which was wisely enough
and ingeniously contrived. This was the use of public tables, where all
were to eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds of it as were
appointed by law. At the same time they were forbidden to eat