9) The office of Admiral sets up a rival to the Kings.

ro) The state, as Plato truly says, is framed with a view to a part of virtue only, the virtue of the soldier, which gives victory in war, but in time of peace is useless or injurious.

11) The Spartans conceive that the goods of life are to be obtained by virtue, but are mistaken in preferring them to virtue. They have a right idea of the means, but a wrong idea of the end.

12) Lastly, their revenues are ill-managed. The citizens are impatient of taxation, and the greater part of the land being in their own hands, they allow one another to cheat. Instead of the citizens being poor and the state rich, the citizens are too fond of money, and the state is impoverished.

The constitutions of Sparta, Crete, and Carthage are said by Aristotle to be excellent, but against each of the three he brings. rather a heavy indictment. Of all three the accounts are warped by the desire to compare them, and are not always consistent with themselves. The Lacedaemonian government did not aim at the best end, and did not succeed in attaining the end at which it aimed. The Spartans had not found out the secret of managing their slaves; the men were hardy and temperate; but they fell under the influence of their women, who were licentious and disorderly. Equality had been the aim of the legislator, but inequality had been the result. Their administration of justice, their common meals, their finances were ill-managed. Their great magistrates received bribes from foreign states; the Ephors were very ordinary men invested with tyrannical powers; the elders were corrupt and often superannuated. The spirit of suspicion and distrust reigned in their government; they regarded virtue as a means only and not as the great end of life. The inefficiency of the Spartan government, in almost every particular, is severely commented upon by Aristotle.

To what form of government the Spartan constitution is to be referred is a question which greatly exercises ancient writers; Aristotle inclines to think that it is three in one, a combination of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy.

c. 10.

(For a fuller consideration of the criticism of Sparta in the Politics, see vol. ii, Essay on the Spartans and their Institutions.)

The Cretan constitution resembles the Spartan, and in some respects is quite as good, but being older, it is less perfect in form. Lycurgus is said to have taken it as his model. The Cretan town of Lyctus is a Lacedaemonian colony, and he appears to have been attracted to Crete by the connection between the two countries. The situation of the island between Asia Minor and Hellas was favourable to the growth of a maritime power; and hence Minos acquired the dominion of the sea.

There are many similarities in the Cretan and Lacedaemonian constitutions. The Cretan Perioeci correspond to the Helots, and like the Spartans, the Cretans have common meals; the ten Cosmi answer to the five Ephors. There is a council of Elders which corresponds to the Lacedaemonian; and the Cretans formerly had kings. There is also an assembly, but it can only ratify the decrees of the Cosmi and of the Elders [as at Lacedaemon].

1) The Cretan common meals are supported out of the public revenues, so that no citizen is excluded from them; in this respect they are an improvement upon the Lacedaemonian. There is a common stock, in which the women and children share. The legislator has many ingenious ways of preventing his citizens from eating and drinking too much; and in order to check the increase of population, he separates men from women, lest there should be too many mouths to feed. 2) The Cosmi are like the Ephors, but they are even a worse form of magistracy; for they are elected out of certain families and not out of the whole people. The institution is not unpopular: but it has great evils, and the remedy for them is as bad. For the mischief can only be cured by a revolution among the nobles, or the violent expulsion of the Cosmi from office. And so the Cretan government, while possessing some constitutional elements, really becomes a close oligarchy. 3) The Council is formed of ex-Cosmi. The members of it, like the Spartan Council of Elders, are appointed for life, and judge by unwritten laws.

Crete has the good fortune to be an island, or the incessant factions would long ago have destroyed the state.

Aristotle compares the Cretan to the Spartan constitution—in some respects to the advantage of the former. Among the desirable aims which the Cretan legislator proposed to himself, he notices moderation in eating, the good arrangement of the Syssitia, the suppression of population. But the whole machinery of government was very rude and imperfect; although their insular situation preserved the Cretans from servile wars, they could correct political evils only by a periodical revolution. This anarchy of Crete contrasted with the stability of Lacedaemon.

The Syssitia, called Andria by the Cretans, were provided out of a public fund. They were not therefore exclusive, like the common meals of the Spartans. They would rather help to relieve the poverty of some of the citizens. The good principle which Aristotle praises among the Spartans of having some things in common was carried further by the Cretans. They all had a dinner at the expense of the state. Women and children also shared in the public stock, although it is not said by Aristotle that they partook of the common meals. And Aristotle himself observes that the presence of women at the common meals was a novelty first proposed by Plato. He also intimates that the intention of the legislator was to separate the sexes and not to bring them together. The similarity which Aristotle supposes to exist in the three states, Sparta, Crete, Carthage, is slenderly, if at all, confirmed by facts. It is an old remark that mankind observe similarities sooner than differences, and some general similarities may be expected to be found in all governments which are similarly circumstanced. The ancients, having a very limited knowledge of the world, were apt to regard these general similarities as proofs of a common origin. (Thus Herodotus, wherever he goes among his friends the priests, is apt to discover resemblances between the Greek and Egyptian religions.) In his criticism on the institutions of Crete Aristotle is expecting to find a similarity with Lacedaemon, derived from a common origin; but in the course of his enquiry

c. 11.

he discovers more differences than points of resemblance. The one real similarity is the Syssitia, which may naturally have arisen out of the military necessities of a conquering race, and would easily lead to the invention of the various legends by which Crete is connected with Lacedaemon. The Cretan institutions had no revival, and the tradition of them had not the same hold on the mind of Hellas as the tradition of Lycurgus. The Cretans never attained to the power and importance in Hellas for which the situation of the great island seemed to intend them. There was not in their nature the capacity of adapting themselves to the changing circumstances of the Greek world. They did not exclude foreigners, but they were seldom visited by them. They remained in the background of the history of Hellas, and did not ever become a considerable maritime power. They were renowned as archers, but not as heavy-armed troops. Their naval fame was legendary, going back to the times of Minos, the sea king, who put down the pirates. In later legend he is also called the lawgiver, who received laws from Zeus as Lycurgus did from Apollo. No historical king of Crete is mentioned in antiquity: the office was not retained as at Sparta, but shared the downfall of the other kingships of Hellas in the age when the oligarchies grew powerful.

The Carthaginian constitution resembles the Spartan and Cretan: all three are like one another, but unlike any others. The Carthaginian, though containing an element of democracy, has lasted well, and has never degenerated into a tyranny. At Carthage there are clubs which have common tables: these answer to the Spartan pheiditia. There is also a magistracy of 104, which answers to the Ephoralty, but unlike the Ephors, the Carthaginian magistrates are elected for merit. Like the Spartans they have Kings and a Council of Elders, but, unlike the Spartan, their Kings are elected for merit, and are not always of the same family.

The deviations of Carthage from the perfect state are the same as in most other states. The deviations from aristocracy and polity incline both to democracy and to oligarchy. For instance,

the people discuss and determine any matter which has been brought before them by the Kings and Elders (this is not the case at Sparta and Crete); and when the Kings and Elders are not unanimous, the people may decide whether the matter shall be brought forward or not. These are democratical features. But the election of the magistrates by co-optation and their great power after they have ceased to hold office are oligarchical features. The inclination to oligarchy is further shown in the regard which is paid in all elections, to wealth. (On this point however the majority of mankind would agree with the Carthaginians.) Once more, the appointment to offices without salary, the election by vote and not by lot, and the practice of having all suits tried by certain magistrates, and not some by one and some by another, are characteristic of aristocracy. The constitution of Carthage therefore is neither a pure aristocracy nor an oligarchy, but a third form which includes both, and has regard both to merit and wealth. 1) The over-estimation of wealth leads to the sale of offices, which is a great evil. True, the rulers must have the leisure which wealth alone can supply, but office should be the reward of merit, and therefore the legislator should find some other way of making a provision for the ruling class. The sale of offices is a gross abuse, and is a bad example to the people, who always imitate their rulers. 2) It is not a good principle In a large state they

that one man should hold several offices.

should be distributed as much as possible. 3) The Carthaginians remedy the evils of their government by sending out colonies. The accident of their wealth and position enables them to avail themselves of this outlet; but the safety of the state should not depend upon accidents.

Of the Carthaginian constitution Aristotle knows less than of Crete or Sparta. Though he is inclined to praise, his statements hardly justify his panegyric; nor does he make good the resemblance which he assumes to exist between the Spartan and Carthaginian constitutions. The purchase of the highest offices which prevailed among the Carthaginians, and their pluralism, are corruptions, which, as far as we know, existed nowhere in