and still continued to prescribe,—divesting wealth of its principal advantages, and thus keeping up the sentiment of personal equality among the poorer citizens,—became more and more eluded by the richer, through the venality as well as the example of ephors and senators;[411] while for those who had no means of corruption, it continued unrelaxed, except in so far as many of them fell into a still more degraded condition by the loss of their citizenship. [405] Thucyd. i, 80. ἀλλὰ πολλῷ ἔτι πλέον τούτου (χρημάτων) ἐλλείπομεν, καὶ οὔτε ἐν κοινῷ ἔχομεν, οὔτε ἑτοίμως ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων φέρομεν. [406] Aristotel. Polit. ii, 6, 23. Φαύλως δ᾽ ἔχει καὶ περὶ τὰ κοινὰ κρήματα τοῖς Σπαρτιάταις· οὔτε γὰρ ἐν τῷ κοινῷ τῆς πόλεώς ἐστιν οὐδὲν, πολέμους μεγάλους ἀναγκαζομένους φέρειν· εἰσφέρουσί τε κακῶς, etc. Contrast what Plato says in his dialogue of Alkibiades, i, c. 39, p. 122 E. about the great quantity of gold and silver then at Sparta. The dialogue must bear date at some period between 400-371 B.C. [407] See the speeches of the Corinthian envoys and of King Archidamus at Sparta (Thucyd. i, 70-84; compare also viii, 24-96). [408] See the criticisms upon Sparta, about 395 B.C. and 372 B.C. (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 5, 11-15; vi, 3, 8-11). [409] Thucyd. i, 77. Ἄμικτα γὰρ τά τε καθ᾽ ὑμᾶς αὐτοὺς νόμιμα τοῖς ἄλλοις ἔχετε, etc. About the ξενηλασίαι of the Spartans—see the speech of Perikles in Thucyd. i, 138. [410] Aristotel. Politic. ii, 6, 10. [411] Aristot. Politic. ii, 6, 16-18; ii, 7, 3.