ar friends, and then
by degrees gained others, and animated them all to put his design in
execution. When things were ripe for action, he gave order to thirty
of the principal men of Sparta to be ready armed at the market-place at
break of day, to the end that he might strike a terror into the opposite
party. Hermippus hath set down the names of twenty of the most eminent
of them: but the name of him whom Lycurgus most confided in, and who
was of most use to him both in making his laws and putting them in
execution, was Arthmiadas. Things growing to a tumult, king Charilaus,
apprehending that it was a conspiracy against his person, took sanctuary
in the temple of Athena of the Brazen House; but, being soon after
undeceived, and having taken an oath of them that they had no designs
against him, he quitted his refuge, and himself also entered into the
confederacy with them; of so gentle and flexible a disposition he
was, to which Archelaus, his brother-king, alluded, when, hearing him
extolled for his goodness, he said: "Who can say he is anything but
good? he is so even to the bad."

Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first
and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which,
having a power equal to the kings' in matters of great consequence, and,
as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the
royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the
state, which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one
while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand,
and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the
better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like
ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the
twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy,
and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment
of absolute monarchy. As for the determinate number of twenty-eight,
Aristotle states that it so fell out because two of the original
associates, for want of courage, fell off from the enterprise; but
Sphaerus assures us that there were but twenty-eight of the confederates
at first; perhaps there is some mystery in the number, which consists of
seven multiplied by four, and is the first of perfect numbers after
six, being, as that is, equal to all its parts. For my part, I believe
Lycurgus fixed upon the