92 LYCURGUS.

The elders next to them ; the commons last ; Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed. Although Lycurgus had, in this manner, used all the qualifications possible in the constitution of his common- wealth, yet those who succeeded him found the oligarchi- cal element still too strong and dominant, and, to check its high temper and its violence, put, as Plato says, a bit in its mouth, which was the power of the ephori, esta- blished an hundred and thirtj- years after the death of Lycurgus. Elatus and his colleagues were the first who had this dignity conferred upon fhem, in the reign of king Theopompus, who, when his queen upbraided him one day that he would leave the regal power to his child- ren less than he had received it from his ancestors, said, in answer, - No, greater ; for it will last longer." For, indeed, their prerogative being thus reduced within rea- sonable bounds, the Spartan kings were at once freed from all farther jealousies and consequent danger, and never experienced the calamities of their neighbors at Messene and Argos, who, by maintaining their preroga- tive too strictly, for want of yielding a little to the popu- lace, lost it all. Indeed, whosoever shall look at the sedition and mis- government which befell these bordering nations to whom the}- were as near related in blood as situation, will find in them the best reason to admire the wisdom and fore- sight of Lycurgus. For these three states, in their first rise, were equal, or, if there were any odds, they lay on the side of the Messenians and Argives, who, in the first allot- ment, were thought to have been luckier than the Spar- tans; yet was their happiness but of small continuance, partly the tyrannical temper of their kings and partly the ungovernableness of the people quickly bringing upon them such disorders, and so complete an overthrow of all

existing institutions, as clearly to show how truly divine a