Note 38 — Chapter II

That this stricture is not too severe will be obvious to any one who reflects on the principles upon which this legislation was based. Inculcating that war was the great business of life, and to be terrible to one's enemies the only object of manly ambition, the Spartan laws sacrificed the noblest private virtues and domestic affections. They deprived the female character of the charms that most adorn it—modesty, tenderness, and sensibility; they made men brutal, coarse, and cruel. They stunted individual talents; Sparta has produced but few great men, and these, says Macaulay, only became great when they ceased to be Lacedemonians. Much unsound sentimentality has been expended in eulogizing Sparta, from Xenophon down to Mitford, yet the verdict of the unbiassed historian cannot differ very widely from that of Macaulay: "The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home, and dignity abroad. They cringed to the powerful, they trampled on the weak, they massacred their helots, they betrayed their allies, they contrived to be a day too late for the battle of Marathon, they attempted to avoid the battle of Salamis, they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed themselves under their protection; they bartered for advantages confined to themselves the interests, the freedom, and the lives of those who had served them most faithfully; they took, with equal complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury, and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a citizen who served them well as their deadliest enemy."—Essays, iii. 389.—H. [38]