niggardly way, on the highest interest it would yield. If, in addition to this, account be taken of the large number of slaves, the small number of the property class is all the more surprising, inasmuch as Lycurgus' financial administration bears evidence that the people were in a flourishing and comfortable condition; that afterwards, peace for the most part prevailed, and that Alexander's victories enabled Grecian commerce to make large gains. Compare _Boeckh_, Staatsh. IV, 3, 9. In Sparta, the governing class finally numbered only 700 families, 100 of which owned all the land, and 600 of which were, therefore, only noble proletarians. It is well known that the social attempts at reform by Agis and Kleomenes only precipitated the downfall of the state. (_Plutarch_, Agis and Kleomenes.) _Aratos_ owed a great part of the consideration in which he was held to the reputation which he obtained by protecting the property of the Sicyonian exiles (_Thirlwall_, History of Greece, VIII, 167), while on the other hand, men like _Agathocles and Nabis_ supported their faction by persecution of the rich, new debtor-laws and new division of land. (_Polyb._, XIII, 6, XVI, 13, XVII, 17, XXVI, 2; _Livy_, XXXII, 38, 40, XXXIV, 31, XXXVIII, 34; _Plutarch_, Cleom, 20.) _Livy_ expressly says that all the _optimates_ were in favor of the Romans, and that the multitude wanted _novare omnia_ (XXXV, 34). On the frightful struggle between these opposite parties, on the revolutions and counter revolutions, see also _Polyb._, XIII, 1, 2; XVIII, 36 ff., XXX, 14; XXII, 21; XXXVIII, 2, 3; _Diodor._, XIX, 6, 9; _Exc._, 587, 623; _Livy_, XLI, 25, XLII, 5; Pausan, VII, 14. In Bœotia, no one was for 25 years, chosen by the people for the higher offices, from whom they did not expect a suspension of the administration of justice in the matter of crimes and debts, as well as the spending of the national treasure. (_Polyb._, XX, 14, 5, 6.) The events at Corinth, before its conquest by the Romans, forcibly remind one of the Paris Commune of 1871. This decline had, as usual, begun earliest in the colonies: thus, in Sicily, even in _Thucyd._, V, 4. Milesian struggle off the πλουτὶς and χειρομάχα in _Plutarch_, Qu. Gr., 32; _Athen._, XII, 524.]