"To my judgment," the Florentine concludes, "I prefer the latter, and for the strife and emulation between the nobles and the people, they are to be regarded indeed as inconveniences, but necessary to a state that would rise to the Roman grandeur." [140] Plut.

de Musica.
[141] At Corinth they were abolished by Periander as favourable to an aristocracy, according to Aristotle; but a better reason might be that they were dangerous to tyranny.
[142] "Yet, although goods were appropriated, their uses," says Aristotle, "were freely communicated,--a Spartan could use the horses, the slaves, the dogs, and carriages of another." If this were to be taken literally, it is difficult to see how a Spartan could be poor.
We must either imagine that different times are confounded, or that limitations with which we are unacquainted were made in this system of borrowing.
[143] See, throughout the Grecian history, the Helots collecting the plunder of the battle-field, hiding it from the gripe of their lords, and selling gold at the price of brass! [144] Aristotle, who is exceedingly severe on the Spartan ladies, says very shrewdly, that the men were trained to submission to a civil by a military system, while the women were left untamed.

A Spartan hero was thus made to be henpecked.

Yet, with all the alleged severity of the Dorian morals, these sturdy matrons rather discarded the graces than avoided the frailties of their softer contemporaries.
Plato [Plat.

de legibus, lib.i.and lib.