and does not fall into verse. I do not perceive why it might not have been written, as well as the contemporaneous inscription on the Quoit of Iphitus, and the ancient oracles cited by Herodotus; at least we cannot in any other way account for the preservation of the words. The original rhetras, however, were very few, and formed merely the nucleus of a system of laws, more as a help to the memory than as a perfect code; hence the ancients could with propriety say, that Zaleucus was the first who committed laws to writing.(564) The three rhetras, which were preserved besides the former one, were merely certain general formulas, and by no means explicit laws; they had the form of an oracle, as having proceeded from the Pythian god,(565) but were written entirely in prose.(566) Next in the list of public monuments come the ὅροι, or landmarks of territory. It is well known that we are in possession of such records of a later period, belonging to the sacred territory of the Pythian Apollo (in which earlier surveys of the Amphictyonic Hieromnemons, and ancient inscriptions on boundary-stones are appealed to), belonging to Cretan towns, and likewise to Samos and Priene, in which the inhabitants of Priene cite ancient records, preserved from the time of Bias in the temple of Athene.(567) Historical works were also composed from these memorials.(568) Now there must also have been records of this kind in Peloponnesus, although the inscriptions, by which the Messenians wished to prove to the Romans their original boundary towards Laconia, were evidently not made till after their re-establishment by Epaminondas.(569) 5. These documents, if we were in possession of them, would afford a valuable foundation for an account of the three centuries before regular history begins; but merely an outline, which would require to be filled up from other sources. This might partly be done from the writings of the _Lyric poets_, who flourished at that time, as Eumelus, Thaletas, Tyrtæus, Alcman, and Terpander;(570) which writers had frequent intercourse with the Spartans, and introduced the events of the time into their poetry to a much greater degree than the epic poets. And in fact we find in the fragments of Tyrtæus and Alcman a lively representation of the feelings and manners of the period. The next source of information is _oral tradition_, which, though erring continually with regard to names and numbers, yet always relates something essential; and, finally, the _political institutions_ continuing to exist in later times, which had their origin in this period.