lowing
fewness in the governors; and secondly, the prevention of all the
changes and corruption which the admission of strangers would have
occasioned. He proceeds then to show that for the long duration of a
constitution the people should be few in number, and all popular
impulse and innovation checked; yet that, for the splendour and
greatness of a state, not only population should be encouraged, but
even political ferment and agitation be leniently regarded. Sparta is
his model for duration, republican Rome for progress and empire. "To
my judgment," the Florentine concludes, "I prefer the latter, and for
the strife and emulation between the nobles and the people, they are
to be regarded indeed as inconveniences, but necessary to a state that
would rise to the Roman grandeur."

[140] Plut. de Musica.

[141] At Corinth they were abolished by Periander as favourable to an
aristocracy, according to Aristotle; but a better reason might be that
they were dangerous to tyranny.

[142] "Yet, although goods were appropriated, their uses," says
Aristotle, "were freely communicated,--a Spartan could use the horses,
the slaves, the dogs, and carriages of another." If this were to be
taken literally, it is difficult to see how a Spartan could be poor.
We must either imagine that different times are confounded, or that
limitations with which we are unacquainted were made in this system of
borrowing.

[143] See, throughout the Grecian history, the Helots collecting the
plunder of the battle-field, hiding it from the gripe of their lords,
and selling gold at the price of brass!

[144] Aristotle, who is exceedingly severe on the Spartan ladies,
says very shrewdly, that the men were trained to submission to a civil
by a military system, while the women were left untamed. A Spartan
hero was thus made to be henpecked. Yet, with all the alleged
severity of the Dorian morals, these sturdy matrons rather discarded
the graces than avoided the frailties of their softer contemporaries.
Plato [Plat. de legibus, lib. i. and lib. vi.] and Aristotle [Aristot.
Repub., lib. ii.] give very unfavourable testimonials of their
chastity. Plutarch, the blind panegyrist of Sparta, observes with
amusing composure, that the Spartan husbands were permitted to lend
their wives to each other; and Polybius (in a fragment of the 12th
book) [Fragm. Vatican., tom. ii., p. 384.] informs us that it was an
old-fashioned and common custom in Sparta f