492 



LACED^EMON. 



Origin. 



Heraclida.] 



Mr. Heathcoat has recently invented machinery, by 

 which his second machine ia made to interweave the 

 pimp in figures or flowers at the same time that the lace 

 is made. Hitherto the machines have only made the 

 plain net, and the figures have been worked by hand af- 

 ter the net was finished, (j. F.) 



LACED.EMON, or SPARTA, now MISITRA, the ca- 

 pital of Laconia, was situated at the foot of Mount 

 Taygetus, and watered by the river Eurotas. It is 

 said by Polvbius to have, at one time, occupied so great 

 an extent of ground, as to include a circuit of forty- 

 eight Greek stadia, or about six British miles. There 

 are no certain records of its origin ; but it is generally 

 said to have been founded about 1516, B. C. by Lelex, 

 from whom it was first called Lelegia ; and it appears, 

 from Homer's description, to have been among the 

 most considerable of the Grecian states in those early 

 times. Its history is not distinguished by any re- 

 Tyndareus. ma rkable personages or events, till the reign of Tyn- 

 dareus, whose wife (the poetical Leda), was mother of 

 the celebrated brothers. Castor and Pollux, and of two 

 sisters not less celebrated, Clytemnestra and Helen. 

 The two sons having died in early manhood, the 

 daughters were married to Agamemnon and Menelaus, 

 princes of Argos and Mycena;. About 80 years after 

 the fall of Troy, Lacedoemon was wrested from Tisa- 

 menus, grandson of Agamemnon, by the descendants 

 of Hercules. Aristodemus, to whose lot Laconia fell, 

 in the division of the subjugated countries of Pelopon- 

 nesus, left two sons, Eurysthenes and Procles. The 

 mother refusing to declare which of the princes (who 

 were twins) was the first born, it was determined that 

 they should succeed to the throne of their father with 

 equal authority, and that the posterity of each should 

 inherit the rights of their respective ancestors. The 

 jealousy naturally consequent upon such a divided so- 

 vereignty, led the succeeding kings of Lacedsemon to 

 court the support of the people ; and thus produced so 

 many concessions of authority, as at last to render the 

 government of Sparta little better than a state of anar- 

 Lycurgus. chy. In this situation of affairs, the celebrated Lycur- 

 gus,, generally reckoned the fifth in descent from Pro- 

 cles, succeeded his brother Polydectes ; but contented 

 himself with acting as guardian of his nephew Chari- 

 laus, who was born after the death of his father, and 

 whom he immediately presented to the Spartans as 

 their king. Either from a thirst for knowledge, or 

 from the calumnies by which, notwithstanding his dis- 

 interested conduct, his character was assailed among 

 the lawless Lacedaemonians, he resigned the reins of 

 government, and resolved to spend the period of his 

 nephew's minority in foreign travel. The insubordi- 

 nation of Sparta, and the miseries which it produced, 

 became in a short time so intolerable, that both the 

 kings and the people united in requesting him to re- 

 turn, and take upon himself, in quality of legislator, 

 the reformation of the state. Aware of the influence 

 of religious sanctions on the human mind, he took 

 care on his way, to procure from the oracle at Delphos 

 a high testimony to his claims as a legislator. Having 

 farther secured a strong party of friends to favour -his 

 extraordinary scheme of polity, he proceeded to reno- 

 vate the Spartan citizens. He committed the execu- 

 tive power of the state to a senate of twenty-eight, se- 

 lected from the nobles, with the two kings as presi- 

 dents ; and to this assembly was assigned the entire 

 privilege of originating laws. The assembly of the 

 .people, on the other hand, was intrusted with the elec- 

 tion of the future senators, and with the prerogative of 



Hie laws. 



annulling or confirming (by sintple votes, without the 

 liberty of debate,) the laws which the senate proposed. mon> 

 The kings were nothing more than hereditary sena- ~~~v~~' 

 tors, commanders-in-chief of the armies/*-nd high- I-aws of 

 priests of the nation. He next effected the most daring Lycurgus. 

 innovation ever attempted by a legislator, namely, an 

 equal division of the lands, and levelling of conditions. 

 The whole territory of Laconia was divided into 39,000 

 shares, 9000 of which were allotted to the city of Spar- 

 ta, and the rest to the other townships. His next step 

 was to prohibit all use of gold and silver, even as a 

 circulating medium, and to substitute a cumbersome 

 coinage of iron money, which rendered the accumula- 

 tion of wealth inconvenient and almost useless, as well 

 as abolished all foreign commerce and trades of luxury. 

 Resolved to destroy every temptation to avarice, as 

 well as to preclude every display of its gains, he or- 

 dained that all the citizens, even the kings, should eat 

 only at public tables, where the strictest temperance 

 should be observed. He went so far as almost to anni- . 



hilate private property, by enacting, that every indi- 

 vidual must lend what he was not immediately using ; 

 and even that any one might take, without asking, 

 whatever he wanted of his neighbour's goods, with the 

 obligation of replacing it undamaged. By all these 

 regulations it was his aim to exalt every individual ; 

 and hence his laws farther required, that every citizen 

 should, in the strictest sense of the modern term, be 

 a gentleman. Every free Lacedaemonian was prohibit- 

 ed from exercising any of the mechanical or even agri- 

 cultural arts. He was permitted to have no business, 

 except that of the state ; and for this, whether in peace 

 or war, it was the purpose of education to qualify every 

 man. Having attempted to provide against internal 

 evils, by rendering his countrymen a nation of philoso- 

 phers, he next secured protection against external vio- 

 lence, by making them also a nation of soldiers, supe- 

 rior to the rest of mankind. In this view he began 

 with measures to provide a strong and active race of 

 subjects for the state. He directed that the young 

 women should be trained, like the young men, to ath- 

 letic exercises ; and that both sexes should appear 

 naked in the public places. He enacted that it should 

 be disgraceful to be unmarried, and unproductive of 

 children to the commonwealth ; but, at the same time, 

 disregarding the sanctity of wedlock, he held it a mat- 

 ter of indifference, who might be the father of the 

 child, provided only it was healthy and well formed. 

 To prevent, however, the natural evils of promiscuous 

 concubinage, (which would have defeated the end in 

 view,) he decreed, that it should be a reproach, and a 

 species of crime, for young men to be seen in company 

 with young women, and that even their own wives 

 should be visited only by stealth. The Spartan legis- 

 lator sacrificed to his political system, not only the 

 moral feelings, but also the natural instincts of his' fel- 

 low-creatures. He appointed that all children, as soon 

 as born, should be examined by persons set apart for 

 the office, and that only the vigorous and well-formed 

 infants should be preserved, while all that were defec- 

 tive in shape or constitution, should be instantly ex- 

 posed in the wilds of Mount Taygetus. Those, who 

 were found fit for being reared, were delivered to the 

 care of public nurses, to be brought up according to 

 the mode prescribed by law and were, after the age 

 of seven years, introduced into the public schools, where 

 all were educated on the same plan. There, both in 

 body and mind, they were moulded to such a tempera- 

 ment, as was thought most suitable for rendering them 



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