MEURSIUS, _De regno Laconico_; and _Miscellanea Laconica_. Both laborious compilations. 8. The Dorians now gradually conquered, and established themselves in many cities of the peninsula; forming, if not the whole population, at least the only part of it that enjoyed any power, as the Achaeans that remained were reduced to slavery. No long time, however, elapsed ere the city of Sparta usurped an authority over the whole country, which it ever afterwards preserved; the other towns, formerly considerable, becoming unfortified, defenceless, and insignificant. Relation between the Spartan citizens of the capital as a ruling body, and the Lacedaemonians, or [Greek: perioikoi], inhabitants of the country, as subjects who paid tribute and military service. Even in the time of Agis, the successor of Eurysthenes, this subjection was effected by force; the inhabitants of Helos were made slaves, as a punishment for their opposition; while the others, by the sacrifice of their political freedom, preserved their personal liberty, however confined it might be. 9. The history of the two following centuries, to the time of Lycurgus, exhibits nothing but the repeated wars of the Spartans with their neighbours the Argives; their domestic broils, occasioned by the too unequal division of property, by the feuds, and the diminished power of the kings, and which lasted until Lycurgus, the uncle and guardian of the minor king, Charilaus, about the year 880, gave to Sparta that constitution to which she was principally indebted for her subsequent splendour. _Illustration of the principal features in the Spartan constitution._ Some preliminary observations are necessary. (_a_) As the legislation of Lycurgus occurred at so early a period, and as his laws were not written, but conveyed in apophthegms, ([Greek: rhetrai],) which were confirmed by the oracle of Delphi, many things of later origin have been attributed to Lycurgus. (_b_) Much that is rightly attributed to him was not original, but deduced from ancient Dorian institutions, which being now upon the decline, were reestablished by force of law. Hence it follows, that the legislation of Lycurgus must naturally have had many points of resemblance with that of the Cretans, likewise of Dorian origin, although much, as we are told, was directly borrowed from them. (_c_) The principal object of the laws of Lycurgus was to ensure the existence of Sparta by creating and supporting a vigorous and uncorrupted race of men. Hence those laws had a more peculiar reference to private life and physical education, than to the constitution of the state, in which the legislator appears to have introduced but few alterations.