66 Dr Arnold 071 the arms, the Ephors devised a pretext for sending Cinadon into the country, where he was apprehended by his attendants, was charged with the offense imputed to him; and having confessed in the presence of the Ephors, and stated in reply to a question, that his object was to be inferior to none in Lacedaemon, he and his fellow-conspirators were dragged round the city and slain amidst all the circumstances of dis- grace and torture^^. From this account it evidently appears that at the time of Cinadon's conspiracy the Inferiors were so fully identified with the subject classes as even to be opposed to the Spartans in name as well as interest. The oligarchical constitution of the Spartan body had become so close and severe, that there was scarce any distinction between the unprivileged portion of the body politic, and the various classes which were subordinate to that body politic as a whole. The regular decline in the number of Spartans, which, in spite of the legal encouragements to marriage (Wachsmuth, H. A. 11. 1. p. 351 — 3), was caused by the mischievous institutions of their state, made it necessary for them partially to break down the barriers which excluded the inferior classes from the full rights of citizenship : hence even the Helots were in later times employed abroad, in the army as hoplites, and occasionally in a civil capacity as harmosts (Xen. Hell. III. 5. 12). The Helots moreover assumed the appearance of a regular class in the state, and became both useful and formidable to their masters in a greater degree than the Athenian slaves ; because they were not foreigners kidnapped in distant countries, and joined by no common bond of nation, 38 Xen. Hell. iii. 3. 4 — 11. comp. PolyaBn. ii. 14. Aristotle Pol. v. 7. says that revolutions take place in aristocracies oTav dvSpujdi]^ Tts fxi] jjieTtyri tlov tljulwv^ giving the example of Cinadon. It is not expressly stated that Cinadon was a Spartan ; but this appears to follow from several circumstances in the narrative of Xenophon ; and Aristotle would have said t?]? TroXtTctas, not twi/ Tifxuiv^ ' the magistracies,' if Cinadon had not been a citizen. Isocrates Panath. p. 246. B. asserts with great confidence that the Lacedaemonians had slain more of the Greeks without a trial than had ever been tried at Athens: but it does not clearly appear whether he means natives or foreigners. In p. 271. B. he states that the Ephors had power to slay without a trial; see Dr Arnold, p. 649. n. y. This statement appears to be confirmed by Xenophon's account of Cinadon's execution : but Plutarch states that Agesilaus together with the Ephors ordered certain Spartans to be executed without a trial, ovdevo's Stxa SUf}^ TedavaTWfxevov irpoTepov ^Tra/ortarwi/, Agesil. 32.
