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a measure, by the assistance of the poorer citizens, who were vastly the majority.
As soon as Lycurgus had thoroughly settled his new policy, and by his care and assiduity imprinted his laws so deeply in the minds and manners of his countrymen, that he judged the constitution able to support itself, and stand upon its own bottom, his last scheme was, to fix and perpetuate its duration down to the latest posterity, as far as human prudence and human means could effect it. To bring his scheme to bear, he had again recourse to the same pious artifice which had succeeded so well in the beginning. He told the people in a general assembly, that he could not possibly put the finishing stroke to his new establishment, which was the most essential point, till he had again consulted the oracle. As they all expressed the greatest eagerness for his undertaking the journey, he [28] laid hold of so fair an opportunity to bind the Kings, senate, and people, by the most solemn oaths, to the strict observance of his new form of government, and not to attempt the least alteration in any one particular till his return from Delphos. He had now completed the great design which he had long in view, and bid an eternal adieu to his country. The question he put to the oracle was, “Whether the laws he had already established, were rightly formed to make and preserve his countrymen virtuous and happy?” The answer he received was just as favourable as he desired. It was, “That his laws were excellently well calculated for that purpose; and that Sparta should continue to be the most renowned city in the world, as long as her citizens persisted in the observance of the laws of Lycurgus.” He transmitted both the question and the answer home to Sparta in writing, and devoted the remainder of his life to voluntary banishment. The accounts in history of the end of this great man are very uncertain. Plutarch affirms, that as his resolution was never to release his countrymen from the obligation of the oath he had laid them under, he put a voluntary end to his life at Delphos by fasting. Plutarch extols the death of Lycurgus in very pompous terms, as a most unexampled instance of heroic patriotism, since he bequeathed, as he [29] terms it, his death to his country, as the perpetual guardian to that happiness, which he had procured for them during his life-time. Yet the same historian acknowledges another tradition, that Lycurgus ended his days in the island of Crete, and desired, as
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his last request, that his body should be burnt, and his ashes thrown into the sea;a lest, if his remains should at any time be carried back to Sparta, his countrymen might look upon themselves as released from their oath as much as if he had returned alive, and be induced to alter his form of government. I own, I prefer this latter account, as more agreeable to the genius and policy of that wise and truly disinterested legislator.
The Spartans, as Plutarch asserts, held the first rank in Greece for discipline and reputation full five hundred years, by strictly adhering to the laws of Lycurgus; which not one of their Kings ever infringed for fourteen successions quite down to the reign of the first Agis. For he will not allow the creation of those magistrates called the Ephori to be any innovation in the constitution, since he affirms it to have been, “not a relaxation, but an extension, of the civil polity.”b But notwithstanding the gloss thrown over the institution of the Ephori by this nice distinction [30] of Plutarch’s, it certainly induced as fatal a change into the Spartan constitution, as the Tribuneship of the people, which was formed upon that model, did afterwards into the Roman. For instead of enlarging and strengthening the aristocratical power, as Plutarch asserts, they gradually usurped the whole government, and formed themselves into a most tyrannical Oligarchy.
The Ephori (a Greek word signifying inspectors or overseers) were five in number, and elected annually by the people out of their own body. The exact time of the origin of this institution, and of the authority annexed to their office, is quite uncertain. Herodotus ascribes it to Lycurgus; Xenophon to Lycurgus jointly with the principal citizens of Sparta. Aristotle and Plutarch fix it under the reign of Theopompus and Polydorus, and attribute the institution expressly to the former of those princes, about 130 years after the death of Lycurgus.15 I cannot but subscribe to this opinion as the most probable, because the first political contest we meet with
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at Sparta happened under the reign of those princes, when the people endeavoured to extend their privileges beyond the limits prescribed by Lycurgus. But as the joint opposition of the Kings and senate was equally warm, the creation of this magistracy out of the body of the people, seems to [31] have been the step taken at that time to compromise the affair, and restore the publick tranquillity: A measure which the Roman senate copied afterwards, in the erection of the Tribuneship, when their people mutinied, and made that memorable secession to the mons sacer.18 I am confirmed in this opinion by the relation which Aristotle gives us of a remarkable dispute between Theopompus and his wife upon that occasion.a The Queen, much dissatisfied with the institution of the Ephori, reproached her husband greatly for submitting to such a diminution of the regal authority, and asked him if he was not ashamed to transmit the crown to his posterity so much weaker and worse circumstanced, than he received it from his father. His answer, which is recorded amongst the laconic bons mots,19 was,
No, for I transmit it more lasting.b
But the event shewed that the lady was a better politician, as well as truer prophet, than her husband. Indeed the nature of their office, the circumstances of their election, and the authority they assumed, are convincing proofs that their office was first extorted, and their power afterwards gradually extended, by the violence of the people, irritated too probably by the oppres-[32]sive behaviour of the Kings and senate. For
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whether their power extended no farther than to decide, when the two Kings differed in opinion, and to over-rule in favour of him whose sentiments should be most conducive to the publick interest, as we are told by Plutarch in the life of Agis;22 or whether they were at first only select friends, whom the Kings appointed as deputies in their absence, when they were both compelled to take the field together in their long wars with the Messenians, as the same author tells us by the mouth of his hero Cleomenes,23 is a point, which history does not afford us light enough to determine. This however is certain, from the concurrent voice of all the antient historians, that at last they not only seized upon every branch of the administration, but assumed the power of imprisoning, deposing, and even putting their Kings to death by their own authority. The Kings too, in return, sometimes bribed, sometimes deposed or murdered the Ephori, and employed their whole interest to procure such persons to be elected, as they judged would be most tractable. I look therefore upon the creation of the Ephori as a breach in the Spartan constitution, which proved the first inlet to faction and corruption. For that these evils took rise from the institution of the Ephori, is evident [33] from the testimony of Aristotle, “who thought it extremely impolitick to elect magistrates, vested with the supreme power in the state, out of the body of the people; because it often happened, that men extremely indigent were raised in this manner to the helm, whom their very poverty tempted to become venal. For the Ephori, as he affirms, had not only been frequently guilty of bribery before his time, but, even at the very time he wrote, some of those magistrates, corrupted by money, used their utmost endeavours, at the publick repasts, to accomplish the destruction of the whole city. He adds too, that as their power was so great as to amount to a perfect tyranny, the Kings themselves were necessitated to court their favour by such methods as greatly hurt the constitution, which from an Aristocracy, degenerated into an absolute Democracy. For that magistracy alone had engrossed the whole government.”a
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From these remarks of the judicious Aristotle, it is evident that the Ephori had totally destroyed the balance of power established by Lycurgus. From the tyranny therefore of this magistracy proceeded those convulsions which so frequently shook the state of Sparta, and at last gradually brought on its [34] total subversion. But though this fatal alteration in the Spartan constitution must be imputed to the intrigues of the Ephori and their faction, yet it could never, in my opinion, have been effected, without a previous degeneracy
