War and Peace 95 



The citizens then have the arms and the land and all political 

 power. Among themselves they are on an equal footing, only divided 

 functionally according to age : deliberative and judicial duties belonging 

 to the elder men, military activities to the younger. It is impossible 

 to overlook the influence of the Spartan system on the speculations 

 of Aristotle as well as those of Plato. The equality of Spartan 

 citizens was regarded as evidence 1 of a democratic element in their 

 constitution, and we find this same theoretical equality among the 

 full citizens at any given moment in the developing constitution of 

 Rome. It is significant that Aristotle felt the necessity of such an 

 equality. He remarks 1 that the permanence of a constitution depends 

 on the will of the possessors of arms. We may observe that he 

 seldom refers to the mercenaries so commonly employed in his day, 

 save as his bodyguard of usurping tyrants. But in one passage 3 he 

 speaks of oligarchies being driven to employ them at a pinch for their 

 own security against the Demos, and of their own overthrow in con- 

 sequence. Therefore he did not ignore the risk run by relying on 

 hirelings : naturally he would prefer to keep the military service of 

 his model state in the hands of his model citizens. But he had no 

 belief 4 in the blind devotion of Sparta to mere preparation for war- 

 fare. Peace is the end of war, not war of peace. If you do not learn 

 to make a proper use of peace, in the long run you will fail in war 

 also : hence the attainment of empire was the ruin of Sparta : she 

 had not developed the moral qualities needed for ruling in time of 

 peace. But in his model state he seems not to make adequate pro- 

 vision for the numbers required in war. His agricultural labourers 

 are not to be employed in warfare, as the Laconian Helots regularly 

 were. He only admits them to the service of the oar, controlled by 

 the presence of marine soldiers, who are free citizens like the poorer 

 class of Athenians who generally served in that capacity. The servile 

 character of rustic labour on his plan is thus reasserted, and with it 

 the superior standing of land forces as compared with maritime. 

 The days were past when Athenians readily served at the oar in their 

 own triremes, cruising among the subject states and certain of an 

 obsequious reception in every port. Hired rowers had always been 

 employed to some extent, even by Athens : in this later period the 

 motive power of war-gallies of naval states was more and more ob- 

 tained from slaves. There was an economic analogy between farm-labour 

 and oar-labour. The slave was forced to toil for practically no more* 



1 Pol ii 6 17, 9 21-2, iv 9 f 7-9. The same view is found in Isocrates- 



*/Wvii95- 3 ^Wv6g 17,13. 



4 Pol vii 14, 15, viii 4, cf ii 9 34. 



* Economics I 5 3 &ov\tf & fuffffot rootf. Cf the saying about the ass, Ethics x 5 8. 



