Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks. Edward Wortley Montagu

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 in their manners; which must have been the consequence of some deviation from the maxims of Lycurgus.

      It appears evidently from the testimony of Polybius and Plutarch, that the great scheme of the Spartan legislator was, to provide for the lasting security of his country against all foreign invasions, and to perpetuate the blessings of liberty and independency to the people. By the generous plan of discipline which he established, he rendered his countrymen invincible at home. By banishing gold and silver, and prohibiting commerce and the use of shipping, he proposed to confine the Spartans within the limits of their own territories; and by taking away the means, to repress all desires of making conquests upon their neighbours. But the same love of glory and of their country which made them so terrible in the field, quickly produced ambition and a lust of domination; and ambition as naturally opened the way for avarice and corruption. For Polybius truly observes, that as long as they extended [35] their views no farther than the dominion over their neighbouring states, the produce of their own country was sufficient for what supplies they had occasion for in such short excursions.a But when, in direct violation of the laws of Lycurgus, they began to undertake more distant expeditions both by sea and land, they quickly felt the want of a publick fund to defray their extraordinary expences. For they found by experience, that neither their iron money, nor their method of trucking25 the annual produce of their own lands for such commodities as they wanted (which was the only traffick allowed by

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      the laws of Lycurgus) could possibly answer their demands upon those occasions. Hence their ambition, as the same historian remarks, laid them under the scandalous necessity of paying servile court to the Persian monarchs for pecuniary supplies and subsidies, to impose heavy tributes upon the conquered islands, and to exact money from the other Grecian states, as occasions required.

      Historians unanimously agree, that wealth, with its attendants luxury and corruption, gained admission at Sparta in the reign of the first Agis. Lysander, like a Hero and a Politician; a man of the greatest abilities and the greatest dishonesty that Sparta ever produced; rapacious after money, which at the same time he despised, and a slave only to [36] ambition, was the author of an innovation so fatal to the manners of his countrymen. After he had enabled his country to give law to all Greece by his conquest of Athens,27 he sent home that immense mass of wealth, which the plunder of so many states had put into his possession. The most sensible men amongst the Spartans, dreading the fatal consequences of this capital breach of the institutions of their legislator, protested strongly before the Ephori against the introduction of gold and silver, as pests destructive to the publick. The Ephori referred it to the decision of the senate, who, dazzled with the lustre of that money, to which ’till that time they had been utter strangers, decreed, “That gold and silver money might be admitted for the service of the state; but made it death, if any should ever be found in the possession of a private person.” This decision Plutarch censures as weak and sophistical.a As if Lycurgus was only afraid simply of money, and not of that dangerous love of money which is generally its concomitant; a passion which is so far from being rooted out by the restraint laid upon private persons, that it was rather inflamed by the esteem and value which was set upon money by the publick. Thus, as he justly remarks, whilst [37] they barred up the houses of private citizens against the entrance of Wealth by the

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      terror and safeguard of the Law, they left their minds more exposed to the love of money and the influence of corruption, by raising an universal admiration and desire of it, as something great and respectable. The truth of this remark appears by the instance given us by Plutarch, of one Thorax, a great friend of Lysander’s, who was put to death by the Ephori, upon proof that a quantity of silver had been actually found in his possession.29

      From that time Sparta became venal, and grew extremely fond of subsidies from foreign powers. Agesilaus, who succeeded Agis, and was one of the greatest of their Kings, behaved in the latter part of his life more like a captain of a band of mercenaries, than a King of Sparta. He received a large subsidy from Tachos, at that time King of Egypt, and entered into his service with a body of troops which he had raised for that purpose. But when Nectanabis, who had rebelled against his uncle Tachos, offered him more advantageous terms, he quitted the unfortunate Monarch and went over to his rebellious nephew, pleading the interest of his country in excuse for so treacherous and infamous an action.a So great a change had [38] the introduction of money already made in the manners of the leading Spartans!

      Plutarch dates the first origin of corruption, that disease of the body politick, and consequently the decline of Sparta, from that memorable period, when the Spartans having subverted the domination of Athens, glutted themselves (as he terms it) with gold and silver.b For when once the love of money had crept into their city, and avarice and the most sordid meanness grew up with the possession, as luxury, effeminacy, and dissipation did with the enjoyment of wealth, Sparta was deprived of many of her ancient glories and advantages, and sunk greatly both in power and reputation, till the reign of Agis and Leonidas.c But as

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      the original allotments of land were yet preserved (the number of which Lycurgus had fixed and decreed to be kept up by a particular law) and were transmitted down from father to son by hereditary succession, the same constitutional order and equality still remaining, raised up the state again, however, from other political lapses.

      Under the reigns of those two Kings happened the mortal blow, which subverted the very foundation