politics

Chapter 16 Volume (B) II (8)
In Rageni, women's indulgence has a long history, and we can trace these origins. In 1270ɑ they successively fought against the Argives, the Messenians, and the Acadians, and the men went out for many years.They are already athletes, and with a lifetime of fighting, they have developed many good (obedience) virtues in the army.After returning home after the war, they had a desire for leisure. Therefore, some people said that the "legislator" (creator) of Sparta mentioned in this chapter refers to Lycagus, and some say it refers to Seopangpo (1270b19 ) should be the former here.According to this statement, Lycagus should create the Spartan law ("Oral Charter" Pραι) after the First Messinian War, that is, after 723 BC.But in 1271b25 Aristotle said that Laikagushi was the guardian of the Spartan prince Kerrylao (χαρλαυ), so according to the general chronicle, it should be around 880 BC (see Plutarch: "The Biography of Laikagushi" 14).The arrangement is readily accepted. 5 But women at home did not develop the same law-abiding spirit during the war.It is said that Lycagus also thought about making women subject to the law, but because they unitedly opposed it, he had to give up this idea. Refer to Plato's "Laws" 780B and 781A. .It can be seen from this that the Spartan women's immorality is self-inflicted.We reproduce these experiences now just to explain the right and wrong of one thing, and we don't want to get to the bottom of who is responsible for this mistake. 10
As mentioned earlier, pampering women not only directly cultivates their habit of indulgence, which endangers the political structure of the whole country, but also indirectly cultivates their evil virtue of greed.Therefore we must comment here on the inequality of the rich and the poor in Lacedaemon. 15 There, some people's property was very large, while others were very poor, so a few people slowly annexed the land.The Spartan legal system was flawed in this respect.The legislator well stipulated that the land owned by each citizen should not be bought or sold, but he allowed everyone to give his property to anyone he wanted.After a long time, the wealth of the whole country will become uneven,20 just as the result of free mergers.In fact a few families and some women own two-fifths of the land in the state.It is common for women to inherit inheritance in Sparta, and the local custom of dowry is very prevalent, so they naturally became the richest men in the state.In fact, dowry is not a good law, and it is best to have no dowry. 25 If there must be, it should be only a few or some appropriate property.

Under the legal system of Sparta, a citizen can marry a daughter who inherits the property to any man, rich or poor; if the citizen's daughter is not married before his death, and he has no clear will, the daughter can also be legally protected by her A man marries any man he chooses. 30 According to the Spartan system, the father divides the inheritance among his children by his own will, and chooses a son-in-law for his daughter by his own will.Therefore, girls from rich families often marry into rich families, and rich families become richer because of dowries, while poor families find it difficult to marry rich families, or become poorer because of dowry.Athens law stipulates that a daughter who inherits property must choose a spouse among close relatives, choose a husband according to seniority, and must not marry unrelated men casually.The Cretan system stipulated that the dowry should not exceed half of the sons' inheritance.Sparta has the custom of dowry, which often causes the family to worry about losing property, which is not conducive to men's inheritance of property.The people of the country reborn females and despised males.Furthermore, under Spartan law, those who could not pay for public meals would be disqualified from citizenship, and poor men mostly lost their citizenship.Aristotle believes that the main reason for the decline of military registration in Spartan household registration is because of it (see "New School" 1326-330 notes).

In the early days of Lycagus’s legislation, Sparta’s entire state had 6 households and 4 lands. Two centuries later, until the 1265th century BC, the number of lands remained as originally recorded. Speed ​​up, and by the time of Aristotle in the 15th century BC, there were only 1269 citizen-warrior households who owned land. .The consequence of this legal system is that the entire territory of Ragenni could originally maintain 38 cavalry and 369 heavy infantry, which is inconsistent with the above statement in 362a1000 that the size of the Greek city-states is not enough to support [-] "idlemen" . , but in modern times it refers to the period of the Thebes invasion in [-]b[-] above, that is, between [-] and [-] BC. However, the number of its citizens who are all responsible for the war is no longer [-].History has proved that Sparta’s property system was inappropriate. Regarding the reasons for Sparta’s decline, Greek historians have two opinions: one is that Xenophon and others argued that the Spartans did not abide by the old system of Lyricus. , so they became poor and weak day by day.Another theory is that the old system was inherently flawed.Although Aristotle respected Lyricus, he also believed that Lyricus' property system, harsh treatment of Helutai (serfs) and contempt for women's education were inappropriate.

Plutarch's "Agis" (Agis) 5, talking about Spartan women receiving dowry gifts from their fathers, originated from Epitadeus (Epitadeus), the supervisor of the fourth century BC, not Lyca The ancient system. "Biography of James Lyca" 28, also said that Lycagus did not create a "strike team" that abused serfs. Chapter 14 more clearly stated that Aristotle said that Spartan women were due to the negligence of Laikagus' initial system. And immorality is untrue.Plutarch's pseudo-book "Rageni System" 42, said that Sparta declined because of violating established laws.Plutarch seems to have seen the original two kinds of historical fact and historical theory, and in the above-mentioned books wants to defend Lyricus from the reproach of Aristotle in Politics. , this city-state was defeated for a time, so that it could not regain its former prestige.

35 The lack of men was the cause of Sparta's decline.Legend has it that the ancient Spartan kings often granted citizenship to foreigners, so even if the city-state experienced long-term wars, it would not feel the shortage of population. It is said that the number of citizens in some periods even exceeded 1.We can not discuss the authenticity of this record, but it is not a good method. Instead of maintaining the household registration amount, 1270b should try to balance the property among citizens.However, the legislators of Sparta advocated childbirth for the sake of the reproduction of the race, and once established a system: fathers with three sons were exempted from military service, and those who had four sons were exempted from all burdens of the city-state.In fact, the laws promoting multiplication had an adverse effect on the balance of property, and families with many sons were given smaller fields, a circumstance which necessarily impoverished many citizens more and more.

The problem of the gap between the rich and the poor is also related to the shortcomings of the so-called Control Council (Control Yuan)5 system.The censors of Lacedaemon had the power to decide the important affairs of the city-state, but they were elected from among the common people, and those who were elected to this office were often very poor, 10 and they were easy to accept bribes because they were in urgent need of money.This situation is very common in history.In modern times, the Andros Island incident (such as ν οs Aνδροι) was also called "the incident about the Andros people" by Zhou Yite, and the "Andros Island incident" by Newman.It is said that in 333 BC, Alexander's expeditionary force was defeated in Cilicia, and the Persian fleet went to Andros Island and Siphnos near Ragenni. The Greek city-states planned to unite to attack the Macedonian army. Revolt against Alexander's rule.It is also said that some inspectors in Sparta took bribes and passed on intelligence at that time.However, in the existing Greek historical records, no evidence for this speculation has been found (see Grott: "Grot, Histof Greece" Volume 157, page [-] and notes).

Jaeger's "Aristotle" (Jaeger, Aristotle) ​​is less than 300 pages, pointing out that the second volume of "Politics" is similar to the seventh and eighth volumes, but they have not completely discarded the influence of Plato's fantasy, thinking that they are Aristotle. It was written on the island of Yasuo when Stodd just left Athens in his middle age.According to the relevant historical facts in this section and the next chapter 1272b22, it should have been written in Athens in his later years.For example, some inspectors of the Overwatch Council took bribes and even participated in a conspiracy to harm the state.Another drawback of this important institution was its excessive power and arbitrary office, and even the king had to be restrained by it.Due to the growing power usurped by the Overwatch Council, the original political system of the city-state, including the royal family, became increasingly decadent.So Lacedaemon also changed from aristocratic (lord) 15 politics to democratic (poor) politics.But it must also be admitted here that the supervisory system has indeed played a role in uniting citizen groups and maintaining constitutionalism.Common people have equal opportunities to participate in major events in the city-state, and the masses are satisfied.Regardless of whether this effect was due to legislative influence or to a change of events, it was always beneficial to Spartan politics.

If a political system wants to be stable and stable for a long time, the people of all parts (all classes) of the state must have the will to allow it to exist and continue. An important principle of Aristotelian politics is to use the "will" of the people as the basis of political organization. Foundation: The establishment of any political system must have the support of all or the majority of people, and the maintenance of stability must have the support of the majority of people.Refer to Volume 20, Chapter 1294, 38b1296, Chapter 15, 1309b14, and Volume 17, Chapter [-], [-]b[-]-[-]. , and in Sparta the will was shared by all parts: the two kings were satisfied with the glory of this constitution, the nobles were glad that the House of Elders could express each one's opinion, and each could use his own and for the common people, everyone has the opportunity to be elected as a supervisor, so they are satisfied with this supervisory system, and they also support this regime. Sparta is economically behind Athens, etc. In the city, industry and commerce have always been underdeveloped, and agriculture has always been the mainstay. The whole state is composed of five agricultural administrative regions, and the clan and royal family maintain a large and long-term influence.The Spartan political system proposed by Lycagus is roughly as follows: Agidae and Euripontidae each have a king, and the "two kings" together serve as the officiant of the ceremony, adjudicating cases within the clan .

In wartime, a king is used as the general of the army, and he goes out to fight in all directions.The House of Elders (γερουσα) is composed of two kings and 28 elders, who manage the government affairs of the whole state. The elders are selected by the "Citizens Assembly" (ππλαι) from among the talented and virtuous people of all ethnic groups. The "Supervision Yuan" (φορεα) supervises a total of 5 people, supervises all behaviors of the two kings and all military and political personnel, and is elected by the citizens' assembly among all citizens.A citizens' meeting is held once a month; the citizens' meeting decides important military affairs such as peace and war plans.But according to Juan VII 1313a26, it was not Laika Gushi who created the supervisory system, and the legislator in line 19 of this chapter should refer to "Seopangpo". .It is certainly true that every citizen has the right to be elected to public office, but the way in which elections are held is naive.Furthermore, although the inspectors are civilians,30 they have the power to make decisions on military and political affairs, so they should not make arbitrary decisions based on private intentions like they do now, and should handle all cases carefully in accordance with the written provisions of the law.In addition, the lives of the censors are not in line with the basic spirit of the Spartan regime, and they have adopted a laissez-faire approach to them.But the Spartan law was so strict on the lives of other citizens that it went to the other extreme, so that many people could not bear those strict constraints and sought their sensual pleasures in private. 35
The organization of the House of Elders (meeting of elders) also has shortcomings. If the elders are all upright people and have the talents of men through exercise, this is of course beneficial to the organization of the city-state.But even with enough good people in power together, we cannot easily establish that elders should be tenure-track positions like the current system.Virtue is like the body, 40 will gradually weaken with age.Moreover, the actual talents and virtues of those elected as elders may not match the original intentions of the legislators, 1271ɑ, so the elders' house is not a perfect institution.According to history, it is known that people appointed as elders always practice favoritism and malpractice in handling public affairs, so another institution should be set up to supervise them.In Sparta, such a monitoring system still existed. 5 The Ombudsman has the power to inspect the conduct of all administrative personnel.However, it seems too much for such special powers to be granted to such inspectors, and the proposed method of inspection is not entirely appropriate for elders.There are also drawbacks to the way elders are elected.The procedure for re-election is naive, commenting on the election method with the words "naive" can be found in 1270b28.There is no description of the "childish" reality in this book.

According to Plato's "Laws" 690C and 692A, the re-election of Spartan censors is done by "casting lots". Plato compares it to divination. As long as the primary election is qualified and the lucky ones are blessed by God, they will be accepted. As long as one is unlucky and does not get the lottery for this important position, it is still the ruled people (see note 324 of the second edition of "Su Xiao"; and Hermann's "Greek Stories" [Hermann, GrAntiq] volume 247 pp. 26).According to Plutarch's "Lysander" (Lysander) [-], the number of elders elected by the Spartan Citizens' Assembly was more than the quota.Those who passed the preliminary selection were led to the assembly in turn, and the crowd cheered and applauded, and the electors selected (re-elected) the elders with the loudness of their voices.

(End of this chapter)