rd they were
employed in all mean and servile offices, and treated with extreme rigour.
These were the people who were called Elotae, or Helots. The number of them
exceedingly increased in process of time, the Lacedaemonians giving
undoubtedly the same name to all the people whom they reduced to the same
condition of servitude. As they themselves were averse to labour, and
entirely addicted to war, they left the cultivation of their lands to
these slaves, assigning every one of them a certain portion of ground, the
produce of which they were obliged to carry every year to their respective
masters, who endeavoured, by all sorts of ill usage, to make their yoke
more grievous and insupportable. This was certainly very bad policy, and
could only tend to breed a vast number of dangerous enemies in the very
heart of the state, who were always ready to take arms and revolt on every
occasion. The Romans acted more prudently; for they incorporated the
conquered nations into their state, by associating them into the freedom
of their city, and thereby converted them from enemies, into brethren and
fellow-citizens.

Lycurgus, the Lacedaemonian Lawgiver

Eurytion, or Eurypon, as he is named by others, succeeded Soues.(229) In
order to gain the affection of his people, and render his government
agreeable, he thought fit to recede in some points from the absolute power
exercised by the kings his predecessors: this rendered his name so dear to
his subjects, that all his descendants were, from him, called Eurytionidae.
But this relaxation gave birth to horrible confusion, and an unbounded
licentiousness in Sparta; and for a long time occasioned infinite
mischiefs. The people became so insolent, that nothing could restrain
them. If Eurytion's successors attempted to recover their authority by
force, they became odious; and if, through complaisance or weakness, they
chose to dissemble, their mildness served only to render them
contemptible; so that order in a manner was abolished, and the laws no
longer regarded. These confusions hastened the death of Lycurgus's father,
whose name was Eunomus, and who was killed in an insurrection. Polydectes,
his eldest son and successor, dying soon after without children, every
body expected Lycurgus would have been king. And indeed he was so in
effect, as long as the pregnancy of his brother's wife was uncertain; but
as soon as that was manifest, he declared, that the kingdom belonged to
her c