But after all the learned researches of modern writers, this Spartan ordinance respecting the possession of money is surrounded by insurmountable difficulties. For Sparta, unquestionably, carried on some commerce, which it could not have done without possessing a coinage of universal currency; though Mr. Müller is not authorized to state, as he does, that there was a constant export of corn from Laconia and Arcadia downwards to the coast of Corinth, since the passage in Thucydides,[1531] on which he relies, merely relates in the words of the Corinthians, that unless they joined in the war against Athens in aid of the maritime states, they would find no market for the produce of their lands, (including corn, no doubt,) nor would they be able to import what they might stand in need of from abroad.[1532] However, so far back as the Persian war, the Peloponnesos did not produce corn sufficient for home consumption, since we find it importing it from the countries of the Black Sea. It is, therefore, extremely improbable that it should have done so in the time of the Peloponnesian war, when it had grown far more populous, so that possibly among the things which ἡ θάλασση τῇ ἠπείρῳ δίδωσι corn may have been included. ----- Footnote 1531: Book i. ch. iv. § 7. Footnote 1532: Thucyd. i. 120. ----- It appears, therefore, that Sparta both exported and imported; but who were the agents? The state, which alone it is supposed possessed an available instrument of exchange, could not, it is argued, have carried on the trade. But wherefore? “Because it would have required a proportionate number of public officers.”[1533] Those officers, however, might easily have been found, and, therefore, this is no reason; and that no such officers existed, our knowledge of the government is too scanty to enable us to affirm. Accordingly, it does not follow from this that the trade “was in the hands of the Periœci.” However, if such was the case, the possession of a gold and silver coinage must have been permitted to them, which at once places the great majority of the free inhabitants of Laconia in precisely the same condition as other nations in this respect. Admitting this, it will be difficult to believe that their neighbours and acquaintances, the military and ruling class, would abstain from what they enjoyed. In fact, we cannot consent to believe, that such a state of things “could not have had much influence on the Spartans, since they had not any personal connexion with the Periœci, the latter being only tributary to the state.” The reverse of all this is true, as any one might know without any other testimony than his own experience. Our countrymen in India occupy the same position as the Dorians in the Peloponnesos, and for a short time kept much aloof from the natives. But personal intercourse became inevitable, and it would now be absurd to say, that the wealth of the Hindûs would exercise