been handed down to us, are diamonds cut with diamonds; and the young Dorians were trained in concise, witty, and symbolic expression, to fit them for it. It was the object to learn, in the first place, to see the truth, and sharply define it in their thought, in order to express it exactly. This developed to their mind all the intellectual treasures of the Greek language, as the constant demands for the ode and choral song searched out all its melodies. Nor was this study of grammar, in the highest and etymological sense, including logic, their only purely intellectual training. In default of the comparative study of languages, which makes our severest discipline, they had geometry. The mystic numbers of Pythagoras probably covered an application of mathematics to nature, to trace which had a high intellectual effect; but they studied geometry with practical applications, such as we seldom enter into: witness the discoveries made of the generation of beautiful forms from simple ground forms and circles, as displayed in the architecture of the Parthenon and recent discoveries of symmetrical beauty in the antique vases.[1]
The Dorians proper seemed to have nothing to do in time of peace, but to converse. But the Perioikoi, or that part of the nation descended from the conquered race, were included in all the education; and these were not only warriors, on apparently equal footing with the Dorians proper, but agriculturists, artisans, and traders; manufacturers, artists, and mariners. In some instances, the Perioikoi of Laconia were citizens of Sparta; for, as Müller says, "the Doric dominion did not discourage or stifle the intellectual growth of her dependant subjects, but allowed it full room for a vigorous development."
It might seem like dodging to speak of the Dorians, and say nothing of the Helots.
This subject is undoubtedly involved in some obscurity. But one thing is pretty evident. The Helots were not enslaved by the Dorians: they were slaves of the conquered people, and the Dorians did not destroy their relation to the Perioikoi, when they subjected the latter. This is "the height
- ↑ See Hay on "Symmetrical Beauty."
