But all this harsh usage was mild compared with other injuries which the laws of Sparta inflicted on them. The reader will perceive that I am about to speak of the Crypteia, not one feature of which, to my mind, has been softened or explained away, or rendered doubtful by the ingenious but very useless special pleading of some distinguished scholars among our contemporaries.[198] Mr. Müller, with much intrepidity, leads the van of Sparta’s defenders, and, by an artifice not unfamiliar to rhetoricians, seeks to beat down the authorities on which belief in the Crypteia rests. He affects to think slightingly of their means of obtaining information, though certainly, in this respect, at least, the very meanest of them possessed incalculable advantages over himself. However, of Isocrates he thus unceremoniously disposes: “Isocrates speaks of this institution in a very confused manner and from mere report.”[199] On the contrary, this “old man eloquent,” as Milton affectionately terms him, luminously, (would that Mr. Müller and I possessed equal art!) and upon the best authorities,[200] sketches the history of the Lacedæmonian government, its injustice, its oppressions; and concludes by describing the annual massacre of the Helots. It is worthy of remark, that, with Aristotle,[201] he attributes to the Ephori the direction of this servile war, in which the reins of slaughter were loosed or tightened by their authority. ----- Footnote 198: Capperonier, in the last century, entertained something like scepticism on the point, though he could not deny that the moral temperament of the Spartans rendered the existence of the institution probable. “Le défaut de preuves m’empêche, malgré la ferocité connue des Lacédémoniens, de rien décider sur l’usage de la Cryptie.” Mem. &c. p. 284. Footnote 199: Dorians, ii. 40, seq. Footnote 200: Οἱ τἀκείνων ἀκριβοῦντες. Panathen. § 73. Footnote 201: Ap. Plut. Lycurg. § 28. ----- The relation, however, of Isocrates, who probably descended to particulars, appears not to have come down to us entire. Plutarch, though he be the panegyrist, rather than the faithful historian, of Sparta, has supplied the deficiency. He does so, indeed, reluctantly; trumpets in the narration with epic flourishes, seeking, by all the art he is master of, to shield his beloved Lycurgus from the stern but deserved rebuke of Plato.[202] Too honest, however, was the old Bœotian entirely to suppress the truth. So that, at length, after much preparation, the massacre is described hurriedly, briefly, with vehement unwillingness, but, for that very reason, with the more terrible effect. ----- Footnote 202: