This perhaps might be done where people are contented to be poor and hardy; but if they would likewise enjoy their ease and the comforts of the world, and be at once an opulent, potent, and flourishing, as well as a warlike nation, it is utterly impossible. I have heard people speak of the mighty figure the Spartans made above all the commonwealths of Greece, notwithstanding their uncommon frugality and other exemplary virtues. But certainly there never was a nation whose greatness was more empty than theirs: The splendor they lived in was inferior to that of a theatre, and the only thing they could be proud of, was, that they enjoyed nothing. They were, indeed, both feared and esteemed abroad: they were so famed for valour and skill in martial affairs, that their neighbours did not only court their friendship and assistance in their wars, but were satisfied, and thought themselves sure of the victory, if they could but get a Spartan general to command their armies. But then their discipline was so rigid, and their manner of living so austere and void of all comfort, that the most temperate man among us would refuse to submit to the harshness of such uncouth laws. There was a perfect equality among them: gold and silver coin were cried down; their current money was made of iron, to render it of a great bulk, and little worth: To lay up twenty or thirty pounds, required a pretty large chamber, and to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. Another remedy they had against luxury, was, that they were obliged to eat in common of the same meat, and they so little allowed any body to dine, or sup by himself at home, that Agis, one of their kings, having vanquished the Athenians, and sending for his commons at his return home (because he desired privately to eat with his queen) was refused by the Polemarchi.