The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

the
election of the elders; for no one would ask to be elected if he
were not. Yet ambition and avarice, almost more than any other
passions, are the motives of crime.
    Whether kings are or are not an advantage to states, I will
consider at another time; they should at any rate be chosen, not as
they are now, but with regard to their personal life and conduct.
The legislator himself obviously did not suppose that he could make
them really good men; at least he shows a great distrust of their
virtue. For this reason the Spartans used to join enemies with them
in the same embassy, and the quarrels between the kings were held
to be conservative of the state.
    Neither did the first introducer of the common meals, called
‘phiditia,’ regulate them well. The entertainment ought to have
been provided at the public cost, as in Crete; but among the
Lacedaemonians every one is expected to contribute, and some of
them are too poor to afford the expense; thus the intention of the
legislator is frustrated. The common meals were meant to be a
popular institution, but the existing manner of regulating them is
the reverse of popular. For the very poor can scarcely take part in
them; and, according to ancient custom, those who cannot contribute
are not allowed to retain their rights of citizenship.
    The law about the Spartan admirals has often been censured, and
with justice; it is a source of dissension, for the kings are
perpetual generals, and this office of admiral is but the setting
up of another king.
    The charge which Plato brings, in the Laws, against the
intention of the legislator, is likewise justified; the whole
constitution has regard to one part of virtue only—the virtue of
the soldier, which gives victory in war. So long as they were at
war, therefore, their power was preserved, but when they had
attained empire they fell for of the arts of peace they knew
nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war.
There is another error, equally great, into which they have fallen.
Although they truly think that the goods for which men contend are
to be acquired by virtue rather than by vice, they err in supposing
that these goods are to be preferred to the virtue which gains
them.
    Once more: the revenues of the state are ill-managed; there is
no money in the treasury, although they are obliged to carry on
great wars, and they are unwilling to pay taxes. The greater part
of the land being in the hands of the Spartans, they do not look
closely into one another’s contributions. The result which the
legislator has produced is the reverse of beneficial; for he has
made his city poor, and his citizens greedy.
    Enough respecting the Spartan constitution, of which these are
the principal defects.
X
    The Cretan constitution nearly resembles the Spartan, and in
some few points is quite as good; but for the most part less
perfect in form. The older constitutions are generally less
elaborate than the later, and the Lacedaemonian is said to be, and
probably is, in a very great measure, a copy of the Cretan.
According to tradition, Lycurgus, when he ceased to be the guardian
of King Charillus, went abroad and spent most of his time in Crete.
For the two countries are nearly connected; the Lyctians are a
colony of the Lacedaemonians, and the colonists, when they came to
Crete, adopted the constitution which they found existing among the
inhabitants. Even to this day the Perioeci, or subject population
of Crete, are governed by the original laws which Minos is supposed
to have enacted. The island seems to be intended by nature for
dominion in Hellas, and to be well situated; it extends right
across the sea, around which nearly all the Hellenes are settled;
and while one end is not far from the Peloponnese, the other almost
reaches to the region of Asia about Triopium and Rhodes. Hence
Minos acquired the empire of the sea, subduing some of the islands
and colonizing others; at last he invaded Sicily, where he died
near Camicus.
    The Cretan institutions resemble the Lacedaemonian. The Helots
are the husbandmen of the one, the Perioeci of the other, and both
Cretans and Lacedaemonians have common meals, which were anciently
called by the Lacedaemonians not ‘phiditia’ but ‘andria’; and the
Cretans have the same word, the use of which proves that the common
meals originally came from Crete. Further, the two constitutions
are similar; for the office of the Ephors is the same as that of
the Cretan Cosmi, the only