AND ONE OF MR GEOTE S CANONS OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM. 427 



Akistotle, it is not to be doubted, that in composing two such important Lives as 

 those of Lycurgus and Solon, he had before him that very book of croX/r£/«/, or 

 political constitutions, in which the Spartan polity was fully discussed, but of 

 which now, unfortunately, only a very few fragments remain. So far, therefore, 

 as direct positive evidence is concerned, I consider that we have in Polybius and 

 Plutarch, two independent witnesses of as good faith and authority as can l)e 

 adduced for any historical fact of similar antiquity. And let it be remembered, 

 that the fact here in question is not a small incidental matter, or a piece of personal 

 gossip, which might easily have been ignored altogether, and with equal ease 

 have been blown into existence out of nothing ; it is a grand central fact with 

 regard to the social condition of a people who played, in ancient Hellenic life, a 

 part equally prominent and peculiar^ and which, if true at all, must have been as 

 well known to the ancient Greeks, as the aristocratic rejfinement of the Episcopal, 

 and the democratic plainness of the Presbyterian Church are to modern Chris- 

 tendom. On the basis of these two authorities alone, therefore— one of which, by 

 the way, the Edinburgh Reviewer of Mr Grote's work, with a characteristic itch 

 for sceptical novelties, most superficially ignores (Edinr. Review, vol. Ixxxiv. p. 

 371,) — on the testimonies of Polybius and Plutarch alone, I see no reason wdiy we 

 should hesitate to receive the famous Agrarian laws of Lycurgus as one of the 

 most reliable traditions of the ancient world. Of course, I do not mean to say, 

 that, while accepting this general fact on the testimony of two such writers, I 

 mean to adopt along with it all the dressings and trappings with which it has 

 been tricked out in the course of time. Every one conversant with historical 

 evidence knows that the fact is true in a hundred cases — witness the story of Mac- 

 beth, — where the decorations of the fact are fabulous. I build, therefore, as little 

 as Mr Grote on the details of these Agrarian laws as given in the Life of Lycur- 

 gus ; but while willingly with him tearing away the ornate frippery, and striking 

 off the painted gauds that envelope the old sacred image, I deny his right to con- 

 clude that the piece of fine old carved wood which lies beneath the dress is a mere 

 fiction and a phantom. But let us now consider those more ancient witnesses, in 

 deference to whom only, as he would have it appear, this distinguished writer 

 has thrown the valuable testimony of Plutarch and Polybius aside. Of these, 

 the most formidable, indeed the only important one, is Aristotle, who, in the 

 second book of his master-work (chap, ix., Bekker) on Political Science, has 

 described some points of the Spartan polity with considerable detail, and among 

 others, in alluding to this very matter of the distribution of landed property, not 

 only does not confirm what the other two authorities say about the equal ambaafj^ic 

 of the lands, to them so striking and essential a fact — but actually asserts the 

 , direct contrary ; among other views of the Spartan polity, enumerating as one of 

 the chief, the diminution of small proprietors, and the accumulation of immense 

 landed properties in the hands of a few persons, especially women. This is no doubt 



