The next day Cleomenes proscribed eighty of the citizens, whom he thought necessary to banish, and removed all the seats of the Ephori, except one, in which he himself designed to sit, and hear causes; and calling the citizens together, he made an apology for his proceedings; saying, "That by Lycurgus the senate was joined to the kings, and that that model of government had continued a long time, and needed no other sort of magistrates to give it perfection. But afterward, in the long war with the Messenians, when the kings, being to command the army, had no time to attend civil causes, they chose some of their friends, and left them to determine the suits of the citizens in their stead. These were called Ephori, and at first behaved themselves as servants to the kings; but afterward, by degrees, they appropriated the power to themselves, and erected a distinct sort of magistracy. An evidence of the truth of this may be taken from the usual behaviour of the kings, who, upon the first and second message of the Ephori, refuse to go; but upon the third, readily attend them: and Asteropus, the first that raised the Ephori to that height of power, lived a great many years after their institution; therefore, whilst they modestly contained themselves within their own proper sphere, it was better to bear with them than to make a disturbance. But that an upstart introduced power should so far destroy the old model of government, as to banish some kings, murder others without hearing their defence, and threaten those who desired to see the best and most divine constitution restored in Sparta, was insufferable; therefore if it had been possible for him, without bloodshed, to have freed Lacedæmon from those foreign plagues, luxury, vanity, debts, and usury, and from those more ancient evils, poverty and riches, he should have thought himself the happiest king in the world; having, like an expert physician, cured the diseases of his country without pain. But now, in this necessity, Lycurgus's example favoured his proceedings, who, being neither king nor magistrate, but a private man, and aiming at the kingdom, came armed into the market-place, and, for fear of the king Carileus, fled to the altar; but he being a good man, and a lover of his country, readily consented to Lycurgus's project, and admitted an alteration in the state. Thus, by his own actions, Lycurgus showed, that it was difficult to correct the government without force and fear; in using which, he said, he would be so moderate, as never to desire their assistance, but either to terrify or ruin the enemies of Sparta's happiness and safety." He commanded, that all the land should be left in common, and private claims laid aside; that debtors should be discharged of their debts, and a strict search made, who were foreigners, and who not; that the true Spartans, recovering their courage, might defend the city by their arms; and that we may no longer see Laconia, for