426 PROFESSOR BLACKIE ON THE AGRARIAN LAWS OF LYCURGUS, 



time of their original institution, as contrasted with any changes ^^'hich, in the 

 declension of Spartan influence, they afterwards suffered, could no more be known 

 as an existing fact by Aristotle than by Polybius, who lived nearly 200 years 

 later. There was no such destruction of books and documents in the period 

 intervening between these two great political writers, as to put the one in a more 

 favourable position with regard to written testimony than the other ; nay, so far 

 as parchment documents were concerned, from the accumulated stores of the 

 Alexandrian Library, Polybius had, in all likelihood, much more ample means 

 of information at hand than Aristotle. Polybius, therefore, who* along with 

 Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, is^the principal direct and positive authority 

 for the Agrarian laws, as a part of the Spartan constitution, is, so far as the 

 lapse of time is concerned, a witness by no means to be postponed even to the 

 Stagyrite. As little in respect of any other virtue of a historical authority can 

 any such inferiority be maintained. There is, indeed, no historical author among 

 the ancients, after Thucydtdes, whose political sagacity and penetration is more 

 generally acknowledged ; and the book in which his remarks on the Spartan con- 

 stitution occur is expressly directed to the comparison of different forms of civil 

 polity ; besides, as a native of Megalopolis in Arcadia, and living in the age imme- 

 diately succeeding the great Agrarian movements of Agis and Cleomenes, he had 

 the most ample means of being locally well informed as to the characteristic 

 points of the Spartan constitution. As to PLUTARCH,f though I may not deny that 

 his account of the Spartan institutions is tinged strongly with rose colour, yet I 

 can by no means share in the light temper of those who habitually talk of the 

 wise old Cheronsean as an amiable, indeed, but superficial and ignorant writer. 

 I think it plain, on the contrary, that his writings everywhere bear the stamp of 

 good sense, of just discrimination, of honest research, and various reading. His 

 point of view, if not always leading to a perfectly just appreciation of his object, 

 was the point of view of the ancient world generally ; and on no occasion, so far as 

 my reading goes, can he be suspected of having lightly committed himself to a 

 serious historical assertion. But whatever may be the particular weak points of 

 this most agreeable and most popular, and now most undeservedly neglected 

 writer, we must bear in mind, that, in reference to such a matter of old historical 

 belief as the Spartan constitution, what he does give us, is not to be regarded 

 as his opinion merely, but as the condensed and concentrated result of all the 

 historical testimony that had come through his hands ; and as he constantly quotes 



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 /leVeoTt irXeZov, aXXa vavTas Toiis iroXtVas itrov ex*''' ^'' '^'^ TrokiriKrjs )((i)pas. — vi. 45. 



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 crvvep(>vy]K6T0s, v^piv Kai (j>06i'ov koI KaKovpyiav Koi rpvtjirjv Koi to, tovtidv en irpeajSvrepa Kal /xeiXa) vocnjiMaTa 

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 (,ijv [ler aXX-qXiav aTravras 6/xaAets kou 'uroKXt^pov; rots /3iots yevo/jievov^. — Vit. Lye. viii. 



