The meaning of the term Οἱ ὅμοιοι fluctuates in Xenophon; it sometimes, as here, is used to signify the privileged Peers—again De Repub. Laced. xiii, 1; and Anab. iv, 6, 14. Sometimes again it is used agreeably to the Lykurgean theory; whereby every citizen, who rigorously discharged his duty in the public drill, belonged to the number (De Rep. Lac. x, 7). There was a variance between the theory and the practice. [456] Xen. Hellen. iii, 3, 9. Ὑπηρετήκει δὲ καὶ ἄλλ᾽ ἤδη ὁ Κινάδων τοῖς Ἐφόροις τοιαῦτα. iii, 3, 7. Οἱ συντεταγμένοι ἡμῶν (Kinadon says) αὐτοὶ ὅπλα κεκτήμεθα. [457] Xen. Hellen. iii, 3, 11. μηδενὸς ἥττων εἶναι τῶν ἐν Λακεδαίμονι—was the declaration of Kinadon when seized and questioned by the ephors concerning his purposes. Substantially it coincides with Aristotle (Polit. v, 6, 2)—ἢ ὅταν ἀνδρώδης τις ὢν μὴ μετέχῃ τῶν τιμῶν, οἷον Κινάδων ὁ τὴν ἐπ᾽ Ἀγησιλάου συστήσας ἐπίθεσιν ἐπὶ τοὺς Σπαρτιάτας. It has already been mentioned that amidst the general insecurity which pervaded the political society of Laconia, the ephors maintained a secret police and system of espionage which reached its height of unscrupulous efficiency under the title of the Krypteia. Such precautions were now more than ever requisite; for the changes in the practical working of Spartan politics tended to multiply the number of malcontents, and to throw the Inferiors as well as the Periœki and the Neodamodes (manumitted Helots), into one common antipathy with the Helots, against the exclusive partnership of the Peers. Informers were thus sure of encouragement and reward, and the man who now came to the ephors either was really an intimate friend of Kinadon, or had professed himself such in order to elicit the secret. “Kinadon (said he to the ephors) brought me to the extremity of the market-place, and bade me count how many Spartans there were therein. I reckoned up about forty, besides the king, the ephors and the senators. Upon my asking him why he desired me to count them, he replied,—Because these are the men, and the only men, whom you have to look upon as enemies;[458] all others in the market-place, more than four thousand in number, are friends and comrades. Kinadon also pointed out to me the one or two Spartans whom we met in the roads, or who were lords in the country districts, as our only enemies; every one else around them being friendly to our purpose.” “How many did he tell you were the accomplices actually privy to the scheme?”—asked the ephors. “Only a few (was the reply); but those thoroughly trustworthy; these confidants themselves, however, said that all around them were accomplices,—Inferiors, Periœki, Neodamodes, and Helots, all alike; for whenever any one among the classes talked about a Spartan, he could not disguise his intense antipathy,—he talked as if he could eat the Spartans raw.”[459] [458] Xen. Hellen. iii, 3, 5.