lacking incentive to
support it. There was no clear and convincing identification of
individual interest and national purpose.

The strength of Greek and Roman oligarchies, on the other hand, lay in
precisely this _morale_, or solidarity of interest. Their small size
and racial homogeneity brought the ruler into direct relations with a
constituency which was clearly conscious of its purpose and held him
closely to it. So even where the kingship lingered on as a form, this
polity was virtually a compact self-governing community. The benefits
of government, to which every other interest was harshly subordinated,
were still judgment and military prowess. But these benefits were
effectually guaranteed; and the sacrifices which they required became a
code of honor, both to be praised and gloried in as parts of happiness.
Those who think that the Spartans felt their discipline to be
essentially a hardship should read the song of Tyrtaeus, {155} which
they recited in their tents on the eve of battle:

With spirit let us fight for this land, and for our children die, being
no longer chary of our lives. Fight, then, young men, standing fast
one by another, nor be beginners of cowardly flight or fear. But rouse
a great and valiant spirit in your breasts, and love not life when ye
contend with men. And the elders, whose limbs are no longer active,
the old desert not or forsake. For surely this were shameful, that
fallen amid the foremost champions, in front of the youths, an older
man should lie low, having his head now white and his beard hoary,
breathing out a valiant spirit in the dust. . . . Yet all this befits
the young while he enjoys the brilliant bloom of youth. To mortal men
and women he is lovely to look upon, whilst he lives; and noble when he
has fallen in the foremost ranks.[8]

But the cost is none the less heavy because it is not felt. In the
first place, there was the cost untold to those whom the oligarchy held
in subjection, a hundred thousand Messenians and twice as many Helots.
Their unequal participation in the benefits of government, necessary
though it may have been, lent instability to the whole polity. It was
the menace of their resentment that forced upon their rulers a policy
of perpetual vigilance and military discipline. And in the second
place, there was the cost to the Spartan himself of attaining to a
physical efficiency equal to that of ten Helots.

{156}

In the rival poli