Note 644 — Chapter VI · LAWS AND DISCIPLINE OF LYKURGUS AT SPARTA.

Aristot. Polit. ii. 6, 23. διὰ γὰρ τὸ τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν εἶναι τὴν πλείστην γῆν, οὐκ ἐξετάζουσιν ἀλλήλων τὰς εἰσφοράς.

Mr. G. C. Lewis, in the article above alluded to (Philolog. Mus. ii. p. 54), says, about the Periœki: “They lived in the country or in small towns of the Laconian territory, and cultivated the land, which they did not hold of any individual citizen, but paid for it a tribute or rent to the state; being exactly in the same condition as the possessores of the Roman domain, or the Ryots, in Hindostan, before the introduction of the Permanent Settlement.” It may be doubted, I think, whether the Periœki paid any such rent or tribute as that which Mr. Lewis here supposes. The passage just cited from Aristotle seems to show that they paid direct taxation individually, and just upon the same principle as the Spartan citizens, who are distinguished only by being larger landed-proprietors. But though the principle of taxation be the same, there was practical injustice (according to Aristotle) in the mode of assessing it. “The Spartan citizens (he observes) being the largest landed-proprietors, take care not to canvass strictly each other’s payment of property-tax”—i. e. they wink mutually at each other’s evasions. If the Spartans had been the only persons who paid εἰσφορὰ, or property-tax, this observation of Aristotle would have had no meaning. In principle, the tax was assessed, both on their larger properties and on the smaller properties of the Periœki: in practice, the Spartans helped each other to evade the due proportion.