But had Sparta no apology to offer, for these actions, to humanity? Her rulers discovered one which appears to have satisfied their own consciences. Every year, on taking office, the Ephori, formally, in their good city of Sparta, declared war against their unarmed and unhappy vassals, “that they might be massacred under pretence of law.”[206] Mr. Müller overwhelmed with the weight of these testimonies, does not yet yield up the point: “Were not these Helots, who in many districts lived entirely alone, united by despair for the sake of common protection; and did they not every year kindle a most bloody and determined war throughout the whole of Laconia?” The historian is pleasant upon the Helots. Kindle a war! How happens it that the Chinese, who, at many periods of their history, have rivalled the Helots in suffering, and like them, too, have rebelled occasionally, yet make annually no “bloody and determined war” against the Mantchoo Tartars? The answer is written on every page of the history of the world, and was put in form by Alexander when he inquired whether one butcher were afraid of many sheep? Nevertheless, even the spirit of slavery itself did sometimes revolt against oppression and cruelty, and kindled such “bloody and determined wars” as Sparta, without foreign aid, was unable to terminate. They were, in fact, during many years, prevented from disputing with the Athenians the supremacy in Greece, by contests with their own vassals.[207] And on the occasion of the great earthquake when nearly every house in Sparta was shaken to the ground,[208] did not the Helots rejoice at the calamity, and come flocking to the environs of the city from the whole country round, in order to put an end to their tyrants as they were escaping in terror from their tottering habitations? Revolt, then, was not unfamiliar to the Helots—again and again was the standard of freedom unfurled[209]—and the day, though late, at length came, when the Spartan saw his slave placed on a level with himself.[210] ----- Footnote 206: Plut. Lycurg. § 28. Footnote 207: Πολέμοις οἰκείοις ἐξειργόμενοι. Thucyd. i. 118. Footnote 208: Plut. Cim. § 16. Diod. Sic. xi. 63. Footnote 209: Athen. vi. 87. Footnote 210: Strab. viii. t. c. 6. t. ii. p. 190. ----- To render credible this sketch of cruelty, the character and education of the Spartans must be kept in view: Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,