ots, and that
immediately adjoining the metropolis among the native Spartans, in nine
thousand lots, for to that number they then amounted. Some say that
Lykurgus made six thousand lots, and that Polydorus added three thousand
afterwards; others that he added half the nine thousand, and that only
half was allotted by Lykurgus.

Each man's lot was of such a size as to supply a man with seventy
medimni of barley, and his wife with twelve, and oil and wine in
proportion; for thus much he thought ought to suffice them, as the food
was enough to maintain them in health, and they wanted nothing more. It
is said that, some years afterwards, as he was returning from a journey
through the country at harvest-time, when he saw the sheaves of corn
lying in equal parallel rows, he smiled, and said to his companions that
all Laconia seemed as if it had just been divided among so many
brothers.

IX. He desired to distribute furniture also, in order completely to do
away with inequality; but, seeing that actually to take away these
things would be a most unpopular measure, he managed by a different
method to put an end to all ostentation in these matters. First of all
he abolished the use of gold and silver money, and made iron money alone
legal; and this he made of great size and weight, and small value, so
that the equivalent for ten minae required a great room for its stowage,
and a yoke of oxen to draw it. As soon as this was established, many
sorts of crime became unknown in Lacedaemon. For who would steal or take
as a bribe or deny that he possessed or take by force a mass of iron
which he could not conceal, which no one envied him for possessing,
which he could not even break up and so make use of; for the iron when
hot was, it is said, quenched in vinegar, so as to make it useless, by
rendering it brittle and hard to work?

After this, he ordered a general expulsion of the workers in useless
trades. Indeed, without this, most of them must have left the country
when the ordinary currency came to an end, as they would not be able to
sell their wares: for the iron money was not current among other Greeks,
and had no value, being regarded as ridiculous; so that it could not be
used for the purchase of foreign trumpery, and no cargo was shipped for
a Laconian port, and there came into the country no sophists, no
vagabond soothsayers, no panders, no goldsmiths or workers in silver
plate, because there was no money to pay them with