the God who
watched over Sparta gave you two kings instead of one, that they
might balance one another; and further to lower the pulse of your body
politic, some human wisdom, mingled with divine power, tempered the
strength and self-sufficiency of youth with the moderation of age in
the institution of your senate. A third saviour bridled your rising and
swelling power by ephors, whom he assimilated to officers elected by
lot: and thus the kingly power was preserved, and became the preserver
of all the rest. Had the constitution been arranged by the original
legislators, not even the portion of Aristodemus would have been saved;
for they had no political experience, and imagined that a youthful
spirit invested with power could be restrained by oaths. Now that God
has instructed us in the arts of legislation, there is no merit in
seeing all this, or in learning wisdom after the event. But if the
coming danger could have been foreseen, and the union preserved, then
no Persian or other enemy would have dared to attack Hellas; and indeed
there was not so much credit to us in defeating the enemy, as discredit
in our disloyalty to one another. For of the three cities one only
fought on behalf of Hellas; and of the two others, Argos refused
her aid; and Messenia was actually at war with Sparta: and if the
Lacedaemonians and Athenians had not united, the Hellenes would have
been absorbed in the Persian empire, and dispersed among the barbarians.
We make these reflections upon past and present legislators because we
desire to find out what other course could have been followed. We were
saying just now, that a state can only be free and wise and harmonious
when there is a balance of powers. There are many words by which we
express the aims of the legislator,--temperance, wisdom, friendship; but
we need not be disturbed by the variety of expression,--these words have
all the same meaning. 'I should like to know at what in your opinion
the legislator should aim.' Hear me, then. There are two mother forms
of states--one monarchy, and the other democracy: the Persians have
the first in the highest form, and the Athenians the second; and no
government can be well administered which does not include both. There
was a time when both the Persians and Athenians had more the character
of a constitutional state than they now have. In the days of Cyrus the
Persians were freemen as well as lords of others, and their soldiers
were free and equa