Note 700 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA. (continued 2)

Hist. of Greece, ch. viii. vol. i. pp. 344-347.

C. F. Hermann, on the contrary, considers the equal partition of Laconia into lots indivisible and inalienable, as “an essential condition” (eine wesentliche Bedingung) of the whole Lykurgean system (Lehrbuch der Griechischen Staatsalterthümer, sect. 28).

Tittmann (Griechische Staatsverfassungen, pp. 588-596) states and seems to admit the equal partition as a fact, without any commentary.

Wachsmuth (Hellenisch. Alterthumskunde, v. 4, 42, p. 217) supposes “that the best land was already parcelled, before the time of Lykurgus, into lots of equal magnitude, corresponding to the number of Spartans, which number afterwards increased to nine thousand.” For this assertion, I know no evidence: it departs from Plutarch, without substituting anything better authenticated or more plausible. Wachsmuth notices the partition of Laconia among the Periœki in thirty thousand equal lots, without any comment, and seemingly as if there were no doubt of it (p. 218).

Manso, also, supposes that there had once been an equal division of land prior to Lykurgus,—that it had degenerated into abuse,—and that Lykurgus corrected it, restoring, not absolute equality, but something near to equality (Manso, Sparta, vol. i. pp. 110-121). This is the same gratuitous supposition as that of Wachsmuth.

O. Müller admits the division as stated by Plutarch, though he says that the whole number of nine thousand lots cannot have been set out before the Messenian war; and he adheres to the idea of equality as contained in Plutarch; but he says that the equality consisted in “equal estimate of average produce,”—not in equal acreable dimensions. He goes so far as to tell us that “the lots of the Spartans, which supported twice as many men as the lots of the Periœki, must, upon the whole, have been twice as extensive (i. e. in the aggregate): each lot must, therefore, have been seven times greater,” (compare History of the Dorians, iii. 3, 6; iii. 10, 2.) He also supposes, that “similar partitions of land had been made from the time of the first occupation of Laconia by the Dorians.” Whoever compares his various positions with the evidence brought to support them, will find a painful disproportion between the basis and the superstructure.

The views of Schömann, as far as I collect from expressions somewhat vague, seem to coincide with those of Dr. Thirlwall. He admits, however that the alleged Lykurgean equalization is at variance with the representations of Plato (Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Pub. iv. 1, 7, note 4, p. 116).