LYKURGEAN REGULATIONS ABOUT PROPERTY. 413 the reality must not be sought on the banks of the Eurotas. The " better times of the commonwealth," to which he refers, and predecessors) as a better witness 011 every ground ; rejecting the state- ment of Plutarch, and rejecting it altogether, with all its consequences. Bat the authority of Aristotle is not the only argument which may be urged to refute this supposition that the distinct Spartan lots rema'incd unaltered in number down to the time of Lysander. For if the number of distinct lots remained undimimshed, the number of citizens cannot have greatly diminished. Now the conspiracy of Kinadon falls during the life of Lysander, within the first ten years after the close of the Peloponnesian war: and in the account which Xcnophon gives of that conspiracy, the paucity of the number of citizens is brought out in the clearest and most emphatic manner. And this must be before the time when the new law of Epitadeus is said to have passed, at least before that law can have had room to produce any sensible effects. If, then, the ancient nine thousand lots still remained all separate, without either consolidation or subdivision, how are we to account for the small number of citizens at the time of the con- spiracy of Kinadon ? This examination of the evidence, for the purpose of which I have been compelled to prolong the present note, shows 1. That the hypothesis of indivisible, inalienable lots, maintained for a long period in undiminished number at Sparta, is not only sustained by the very minimum of affirmative evidence, but is contradicted by very good negative evidence. 2. That the hypothesis which represents dowries to daughters as being prohibited by law, is, indeed, affirmed by Plutarch, ^Elian, and Justin, but is contradicted by the better authority of Aristotle. The recent edition of HerakleidGs Ponticus, published by Schneidewin, in 1847, since my first edition, presents an amended text, which completely bears out my interpretation. His text, derived from a fuller comparison of existing MSS., as well as from better critical judgment (see his Prolegg. c. iii. p. liv.), stands Hul.eiv 6e jrjv AaKedai/zovioif ala%pbv vevo/uffrai' TI/S 6k upxaiae [loipae ovde e&ariv (p. 7). It is plain that all this passage relates to sale of land, and not to testation, or succession, or division. Thus much negatively is certain, and Schneidewin remarks in his note (p. 53) that it contra- dicts Muller, Hermann, and Schomann, adding, that the distinction drawn is, between land inherited from the original family lots, and land otherwise acquired, by donation, bequest, etc. Sale of the former was absolutely illegal : sale of the latter was discreditable, yet not absolutely illegal. Aris- totle in the Politics (ii. 6, 10) takes no notice of any such distinction, between land inherited from the primitive lots, and land otherwise acquired. Nor was there, perhaps, any well-defined line of distinction, in a country of unwritten customs, like Sparta, between what was simply disgraceful and what was positively illegal. Schneidewin, in his note, however, assumes the original equality of the lots as certain in itself, and as being the cause of tha prohibition : neither of which appears to me true.
