Chap.IV. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 39 



thing lefs than the wifdom of a man, of whom the oracle was In doubt 

 whether he fhould call him god or man, I mean Lycurgus ; nor could 

 it have been efFed:ed without the flridieft difcipline and fevered laws, 

 regulating every part of their life, their diet as well as their exercifes, 

 which were fuch, that war was an eafe and a pallime to their youth. 

 By thofe fevere athletic exercifes, continued without any intermif-* 

 fion, except that of war, they formed men that, I am perfuaded, 

 would have been fuperior even to the Romans in clofe fight ; nor 

 do 1 believe that the Roman legions could have ftood fuch a 

 conflict as that of Leudra or Mantina'a, though, I think, the Ro- 

 man militaiy art was, upon the whole, fuperior to theirs : But 

 the manner of fighting of their heavy armed men was truly wrefl- 

 ling, in which, from their continued exercifes in their palaeftraSy 

 they muft have been fuperior to the Romans ; and, accordingly, 

 they were not overcome till the Thebans, as Xenophon informs 

 us, became better wreftlers than they. In their government, too, 

 I praife very much the excluiion of the people from having any 

 {hare of ir ; which was the reafon of its lafting fo long, no fewer 

 than 700 years, as LIvy tells us. Bat, in every other refped, I pre- 

 fer the manners of the Romans^ and particularly, in this refpect, that 

 they tended much more to incrcafe t'le numl)ers of the people, to 

 which the pradice of agriculture, tae moft healthy of all occupa- 

 tions, muft have contributed very much. The Spartans, on the 

 other hand, had no other occupation but war, and violent athletic 

 exercifes in time of peace; which was certainly not a natural life : 

 So that we are not to wonder that their nu nbers were fo much de- 

 creafed in the time of Ariftotlc, that, as he has informed us, their 

 ftate could not bear one great blow, (he means the battle of Lcuc- 

 tra), but was ruined by the want of men*; whereas Rome, though 



more 



* Arillot. De Republican Lib. 2. Cap. 9. Ariftotlc in this paflage mentions another 

 icafon for the great decreafe of the people of Sparta ; which was their giving land as- 



