Of the Duties of the Principal, ARTICLE II. Of the Studies, ibid 36 370 ARTICLE III. Of the Discipline of the College, 37 ARTICLE IV. Of Education, ARTICLE V. Of Religion, 1. Instructions, 2. Of the Use of Sacraments, CHAP. II. Of the Duty of the Regents, 38 38 ibic 39 39 39 39 39 ARTICLE I. Of the Discipline of the Classes, ibid ARTICLE II. To make the Scholars appear in Public, 1. Of Exercises, 2. Of Tragedies, III. Of Pronunciation, 1. Of the Voice, 2. Of Gesture, 40 ibi 40 41 41 41 ARTICLE III. Of Compositions and public Acts, 49 ARTICLE IV. Of the Studies of the Masters, 49 ARTICLE V. The Application of some parti cular Rules to the Government of the OF HISTORY. CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE PERSIANS AND GREEKS. THE THIRD PIECE, EXTRACTED FROM THE GRECIAN HISTORY. OF THE LACEDEMONIAN GOVERNMENT. THERE is nothing perhaps in all Profane History better attested, nor at the same time more incredible, than the Lacedæmonian government and the discipline established by Lycurgus. This wise legislator was son to one of the two kings of Sparta, who governed jointly; and might easily have obtained the crown, if he had pleased, upon the death of his elder brother, who left no male issue behind him. But he thought himself obliged to wait till the queen his sister was brought to bed, who was then with child; and upon her happy delivery, he took upon him to be tutor and guardian to the infant against the attempts of its own mother, who had offered to make away with her son, if Lycurgus would marry her. He formed the bold design of thoroughly reforming the Lacedæmonian government; and that he might be the better enabled to make wise regulations in it, he judged it expedient to take several journies, to inform himself personally of the different manners of nations, and advise with such persons as were best skilled and most evnerienced in the arts of cavern' desired by his citizens; and the kings themselves pressed him to return, as being sensible they stood in need of his authority to keep the people within the bounds of duty and obedience. At his return to Sparta, he took pains to change the whole form of the government, upon a persuasion that some particular laws would produce no great effect. He began with gaining over the principal men of the city, to whom he communicated his views; and being fully assured of their concurrence, he came into the public assembly, attended by a body of soldiers, to terrify and intimidate all such as should oppose his design. The new form of government he introduced at Lacedæmon, may be reduced to three principal institutions. THE FIRST INSTITUTION. The Senate. The greatest and most considerable of all the new institutions of Lycurgus was that of the Senate, which as Plato observes, tempering the too absolute power of the kings by an authority equal to theirs, was the principal cause of the safety of the state. For whereas before it was always tottering, sometimes inclining towards tyranny through the violence of their kings, and sometimes to a democracy through the too absolute power of the people; the senate served as a counterpoise to keep it in equilibrium, and give it a firm and certain situation; [a] the eight and twenty senators, of which it was composed, adhering to the kings, when the people were for assuming too much power; and going over on the other hand to the side [a] This council consisted of thirty person, including the two kings." powerful; for which reason they gave it a curb, by opposing the authority of the [b] ephori to it above an hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus. The ephori were five in number, and continued but one year in office. They had a right to arrest the kings, and commit them to prison, as happened in the case of Pausanias. These ephori were first instituted under king Theopompus. And as his wife reproached him with leaving his children a far less authority than he had received, No, [c] says he, I shall leave them a much greater, as it will be more lasting. THE SECOND INSTITUTION. The Division of the Lands, and Prohibition of Gold and Silver Money. The second institution of Lycurgus, and the boldest of all, was the division of the lands. He judged it absolutely necessary for the establishment of peace and good order in the republic. Most of the inhabitants of the country were so poor, that they had not an inch of ground belonging to them, and all the wealth lay in the hands of a few private persons. That he might therefore banish insolence, envy, fraud, and luxury from the government, with two other evils, still greater and of longer standing than these, I mean indigence and excessive riches; he persuaded all the citizens to give up their lands in common, and to make a new distribution of them, that they might live together in a perfect equality, without any other pre-eminence and honour than what was given to virtue and merit. [b] That is, comptrollers, in- [c] Μείζω μὲν ἦν, (εἶπεν,) ὅσῳ χρωνιώτερον. spectors, |