Page:History of Greece Vol IX.djvu/253

CHANGE IN SPARTAN HABITS. 231 quisitions were received ; though it still continued to be a penal offence (and was even made a capital offence, if we may trust Plutarch) for any individual to be found with gold and silver in his possession. 1 To enforce such a prohibition, however, even if practicable before, ceased to be practicable so soon as these rnetals were recognized and tolerated in the possession, and for the pur- poses of the government. There can be no doubt that the introduction of a large sum of coined gold and silver into Sparta was in itself a striking and im- portant phenomenon, when viewed in conjunction with the pecu liar customs and discipline of the state. It was likely to raise strong antipathies in the bosom of an old fashioned Spartan, and probably king Archidamus, had he been alive, would have taken part with the opposing ephors. But Plutarch and others have criticised it too much as a phenomenon by itself; whereas, it was really one characteristic mark and portion of a new assemblage of circumstances, into which Sparta had been gradually arriving during the last years of the war, and which were brought into the most effective action by the decisive success at JEgospotami. The institutions of Lykurgus, though excluding all Spartan citi- zens, by an unremitting drill and public mess, from trade and in- dustry, from ostentation, and from luxury, did not by any means extinguish in their bosoms the love of money ; 2 while it had a positive tendency to exaggerate, rather than to abate, the love of power. The Spartan kings, Leotychides and Pleistoanax, had 1 Plutarch, Lysand. c. 1 7. Compare Xen. Rep. Laced, vii, 6. Both Ephorus and Theopompus recounted the opposition to the iutro duction of gold and silver into Sparta, each mentioning the name of one of the ephors as taking the lead in it. There was a considerable body of ancient sentiment, and that too among high-minded and intelligent men, which regarded gold and silver as a cause of mischief and corruption, and of which the stanza of Horace (Od. iii, 3) is an echo : Aurum irrepertum, et sic melius situm Cum terra celat, spernere fortior Quam cogere humanos in usus, Omne sacrum rapiente dextra. 2 Aristotel. Politic, ii, 6, 23. (5g TOVVUVTIOV ty vofio&erri rov ovpQepovTof TTJV fi(.v y&p i^arov, rof)f 6' iituraf