the victories which Agesilaus won in Asia Minor.

Plato, like Aristotle, had in his mind some form of a mean state which
should escape the evils and secure the advantages of both aristocracy
and democracy. It may however be doubted whether the creation of such
a state is not beyond the legislator's art, although there have been
examples in history of forms of government, which through some community
of interest or of origin, through a balance of parties in the state
itself, or through the fear of a common enemy, have for a while
preserved such a character of moderation. But in general there arises a
time in the history of a state when the struggle between the few and
the many has to be fought out. No system of checks and balances, such as
Plato has devised in the Laws, could have given equipoise and stability
to an ancient state, any more than the skill of the legislator could
have withstood the tide of democracy in England or France during the
last hundred years, or have given life to China or India.

The basis of the Magnesian constitution is the equal division of land.
In the new state, as in the Republic, there was to be neither poverty
nor riches. Every citizen under all circumstances retained his lot, and
as much money as was necessary for the cultivation of it, and no one was
allowed to accumulate property to the amount of more than five times
the value of the lot, inclusive of it. The equal division of land was a
Spartan institution, not known to have existed elsewhere in Hellas. The
mention of it in the Laws of Plato affords considerable presumption that
it was of ancient origin, and not first introduced, as Mr. Grote and
others have imagined, in the reformation of Cleomenes III. But at
Sparta, if we may judge from the frequent complaints of the accumulation
of property in the hands of a few persons (Arist. Pol.), no provision
could have been made for the maintenance of the lot. Plutarch indeed
speaks of a law introduced by the Ephor Epitadeus soon after the
Peloponnesian War, which first allowed the Spartans to sell their land
(Agis): but from the manner in which Aristotle refers to the subject,
we should imagine this evil in the state to be of a much older standing.
Like some other countries in which small proprietors have been numerous,
the original equality passed into inequality, and, instead of a large
middle class, there was probably at Sparta greater disproportion in the
property of the citizens than i