try which had no money; so that
luxury, deprived little by little of that which fed and fomented
it, wasted to nothing, and died away of itself. For the rich had no
advantage here over the poor, as their wealth and abundance had no road
to come abroad by, but were shut up at home doing nothing. And in this
way they became excellent artists in common necessary things; bedsteads,
chairs, and tables, and such like staple utensils in a family, were
admirably well made there; their cup, particularly, was very much in
fashion, and eagerly sought for by soldiers, as Critias reports; for
its color was such as to prevent water, drunk upon necessity and
disagreeable to look at, from being noticed; and the shape of it was
such that the mud stuck to the sides, so that only the purer part
came to the drinker's mouth. For this, also, they had to thank their
lawgiver, who, by relieving the artisans of the trouble of making
useless things, set them to show their skill in giving beauty to those
of daily and indispensable use.

The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which
he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of
riches, was the ordinance he made that they should all eat in common,
of the same bread and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and
should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid
tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their tradesmen and
cooks, to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not
their minds only but their very bodies, which, enfeebled by indulgence
and excess, would stand in need of long sleep, warm bathing, freedom
from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they
were continually sick. It was certainly an extraordinary thing to have
brought about such a result as this, but a greater yet to have taken
away from wealth, as Theophrastus observes, not merely the property of
being coveted, but its very nature of being wealth. For the rich, being
obliged to go to the same table with the poor, could not make use of or
enjoy their abundance, nor so much as please their vanity by looking at
or displaying it. So that the common proverb, that Plutus, the god of
riches, is blind, was nowhere in all the world literally verified but
in Sparta. There, indeed, he was not only blind, but, like a picture,
without either life or motion. Nor were they allowed to take food at
home first, and then attend th