Note 697 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA.

Polybius, Fragm. ap. Maii. Collect. Vett. Scrip. vol. ii. p. 384.

Perhaps, as O. Müller remarks, this may mean only, that none except the eldest brother could afford to marry; but the feelings of the Spartans in respect to marriage were, in many other points, so different from ours, that we are hardly authorized to reject the literal statement (History of the Dorians, iii. 10, 2),—which, indeed, is both illustrated and rendered credible by the permission granted in the laws of Solôn to an ἐπίκληρος who had been claimed in marriage by a relative in his old age,—ἂν ὁ κρατῶν καὶ κύριος γεγονὼς κατὰ τὸν νόμον αὐτὸς μὴ δυνατὸς ᾖ πλησιάζειν ὑπὸ τῶν ἔγγιστα τοῦ ἀνδρὸς ὀπυίεσθαι (Plutarch, Solôn, c. 20).

I may observe that of O. Müller’s statements, respecting the lots of land at Sparta, several are unsupported and some incorrect.