XXXI. Lycurgus, their famous founder and lawgiver, instilled these principles, and by his power with them, made them laws to rule them. Let us hear what he did: Lycurgus, willing to retire his citizens from a luxurious to a virtuous life, and show them how much good conduct and honest industry might meliorate the state of mankind, applied himself to introduce a new model of government, persuading them to believe, that though they were descended of noble and virtuous ancestors, if they were not exercised in a course of virtue, they would, like the dog in the kitchen, rather leap at the meat than run at the game. In fine, they agreed to obey him. The first thing then that he did to try his power with them, was, to divide the land into equal portions, so that the whole Laconic country seemed but the lots of brethren: this grieved the rich; but the poor, which were the most, rejoiced.--He rendered wealth useless by community; and forbad the use of gold and silver: he made money of iron, too base and heavy to make a thief. He retrenched their laws of building, suffering no more ornament than could be made with a hatchet and a saw: and their furniture was like their houses. This course disbanded many trades: no merchant, no cook, no lawyer, no flatterer, no divine, no astrologer, was to be found in Lacedæmonia. Injustice was banished, their society having cut up the root of it, which is avarice, by introducing a community, and making gold and silver useless. To prevent the luxury of tables, as well as of apparel, he ordained public places of eating, where all should publicly be served; those that refused to come thither, were reputed voluptuous and reproved, if not corrected. He forbad costly offerings in the temple, that they might offer often; for that God regardeth the heart, not the offering.--These and some more, were the laws he instituted; and whilst the Spartans kept them, it is certain they were the first state of Greece; which lasted about five hundred years. It is remarkable, that he would never suffer the laws to be written, to avoid barratry; and that the judges might not be tied religiously to the letter of the law; but left to the circumstances of fact; in which no inconvenience was observed to follow. II. _The_ ROMANS _also yielded us instances to our point in hand_, viz. 1. Cato.--2. Scipio Africanus.--3. Augustus.--4. Vespasian.--5. Trajan.--6. Adrian.--7. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.--8. Pertinax.--9. Pescennius.--10. Alexander Severus.--11. Dioclesian.--12. Theodosius.