Spartan Constitution, 49 conceded to Dr Arnold. But it appears to me that he has not laid sufficient stress on its oligarchical character in respect of the citizens alone, and that he has committed a fundamental error in referring the expressions of the ancients on the form of its government to the structure of its entire community, inclusive of the subject classes, and in not limiting them to the internal arrangement of its body politic. In order to shew the grounds of this opinion, it will be necessary first to examine Dr ArnoWs account of the disposition of the sovereign power in the Lacedaemonian state, then to collect the various names which the ancients gave to its constitution, and to explain their meaning and application. The two royal Heraclide families are rightly described by Dr Arnold (after Muller) as deriving their hereditary title from traditionary feelings of religious respect handed down from an early period, and as reigning by a species of divine right ascending to their ancestors, the founders of the state ^ : the domestic and civil power of the kings in the times of which we have any knowledge, and after the legislation of Lycurgus, was however so inconsiderable as not to form an important branch of the constitution ; nor is it ever noticed as influencing the form of government, except by the speculative politicians in treating of mixed go- vernments ^ Dr Arnold then proceeds to describe the Ephoralty as a magistracy contrived for the purpose of protecting the body of the Spartan nobles against the power of the kings and the council of Elders : and to the existence of this office he attributes the stability of the Spartan constitution : for whereas in other Doric states the compact (as he styles it) between the Heraclide princes and the Dorian people was broken either by one or the other party, so that the kings 8 Those (says Aristotle) who have greatly benefited the state have been made kings, some by saving it, others by freeing it, from a foreign yoke, others KTicravTe^ n KTijad- jievoL x^^P^^y uicnrep oi AaKedai/uLOvicoj/ /3ao-iXel9 kcu MaK€S6va)v Kal MoXoTTtoi/, PoL V. 10. But see above p. 41. 9 The circumstance of there being two kings does not prevent Dr Arnold from speaking of " the hereditary monarchy of the Heraclidae," p. 644- In this phraseology however he is countenanced by some writers alluded to by Aristotle, below p. 57- by Polybius vi. 11. 6, 7. who calls the Roman government monarchical on account of the two consuls ; and by a passage attributed to Archytas, below p. 58. Vol. II. No. 4. G
