Note 703 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA. (continued 2)
Reading edition
I read with much satisfaction, in M. Kopstadt’s Dissertation, that the general conclusion which I have endeavored to establish respecting the alleged Lykurgean redivision of property, appears to him successfully proved. (Dissert. De Rerum Laconic. Const. sect. 18, p. 138.)
He supposes, with perfect truth, that, at the time when the first edition of these volumes was published, I was ignorant of the fact, that Lachmann and Kortüm had both called in question the reality of the Lykurgean redivision. In regard to Professor Kortüm, the fact was first brought to my knowledge, by his notice of these two volumes, in the Heidelberger Jahrbücher, 1846, No. 41, p. 649.
Since the first edition, I have read the treatise of Lachmann (Die Spartanische Staats Verfassung in ihrer Entwicklung und ihrem Verfalle, sect. 10, p. 170) wherein the redivision ascribed to Lykurgus is canvassed. He, too, attributes the origin of the tale, as a portion of history, to the social and political feelings current in the days of Agis the Third, and Kleomenês the Third. He notices, also, that it is in contradiction with Plato and Isokratês. But a large proportion of the arguments which he brings to disprove it, are connected with ideas of his own respecting the social and political constitution of Sparta, which I think either untrue or uncertified. Moreover, he believes in the inalienability as well as the indivisibility of the separate lots of land,—which I believe to be just as little correct as their supposed equality.
Kopstadt (p. 139) thinks that I have gone too far in rejecting every middle opinion. He thinks that Lykurgus must have done something, though much less than what is affirmed, tending to realize equality of individual property.
I shall not say that this is impossible. If we had ampler evidence, perhaps such facts might appear. But as the evidence stands now, there is nothing whatever to show it. Nor are we entitled (in my judgment) to presume that it was so, in the absence of evidence, simply in order to make out that the Lykurgean mythe is only an exaggeration, and not entire fiction.