He interdicted immoderate luxury, and an extravagant number of slaves. Idleness he considered as especially dangerous. So little true did he remain to the democratic principles of his father, that he expelled the people from the city;(716) and in order the more readily to accustom them to agricultural and mechanical labour, only permitted them to wear the dress of peasants.(717) His own expenses were trifling, and therefore he required no other taxes than harbour-dues and market-tolls. He also avoided, where his projects did not require it, all violence and open injustice; and was even at times so strict a maintainer of public morality, that the numerous procuresses of the luxurious Corinth were by his orders thrown into the sea;(718) the hospitable damsels of Aphrodite(719) being protected by religion. He, as well as his father, made the construction of splendid monuments of art(720) a means of taxing the property of the rich, and of employing the body of the people; though indeed his own refined taste took pleasure in such works. And in general, if considered in reference to the cultivation of taste and intellect, and the interests of agriculture and trade, the age of the tyrants was productive of a very great advancement in the Grecian states. The unpliant disposition, strict in the observance of all ancient customs and usages, was then first bent and subdued, and more liberal and extended views became prevalent. The tyrants were frequently in intimate connexion with the inhabitants of Asia Minor, whom Sparta despised for their luxury and effeminacy; and from the Lydian sultan in his harem at Sardes, a chain of communication, most important in its consequences, was established through the princes of Miletus and Samos with the countries in the immediate neighbourhood of Sparta. Periander was in correspondence not only with Thrasybulus, but also with Halyattes, the king of Lydia, and sent to the latter prince some Corcyræan youths to be castrated according to the oriental custom.(721) The names of his kinsmen, Psammetichus and Gordias, the latter Phrygian, the former Egyptian, are proofs of an hospitable intercourse with those countries. On the other side of Greece, the policy of the Cypselidæ led them to attempt the occupation of the coast of the Ionian sea as far as Illyria, and to establish a connexion with the barbarous nations of the interior.(722) Periander was of a daring and comprehensive spirit, and rivalled by few of his contemporaries, bold in the field, politic in council, though misled by continual distrust to undertake unworthy measures, and having too little regard for the good of the people when it interfered with his own designs; a friend of the arts, of an enlightened mind, but at the same time overcome by the strength of his passions; and, although devoid of awe for all sacred things, yet at times a prey to the most grovelling superstition. After the death of