The Cretan Constitution Compared to the Spartan
Passing to the Cretan polity there are two points
note
which deserve our consideration. The first
is how such writers as Ephorus, Xenophon,
Callisthenes and Plato note—who are the most
learned of the ancients—could assert that it was like that
of Sparta; and secondly how they came to assert that it was
at all admirable. I can agree with neither assertion; and
I will explain why I say so. And first as to its dissimilarity
with the Spartan constitution. The peculiar merit of the latter
is said to be its land laws, by which no one possesses more than
another, but all citizens have an equal share in the public
land. note
The next distinctive feature regards the possession of
money: for as it is utterly discredited among them, the
jealous competition which arises from inequality of wealth is
entirely removed from the city. A third peculiarity of the
Lacedaemonian polity is that, of the officials by whose hands
and with whose advice the whole government is conducted,
the kings hold an hereditary office, while the members of the
Gerusia are elected for life.
