foreigners; whereas now I am very well aware that those who are
reputed to be leading citizens have but one ambition, and that is to
live to the end of their days as governors-general on a foreign
soil.[4] The days were when their sole anxiety was to fit themselves
to lead the rest of Hellas. But nowadays they concern themselves much
more to wield command than to be fit themselves to rule. And so it has
come to pass that whereas in old days the states of Hellas flocked to
Lacedaemon seeking her leadership[5] against the supposed wrongdoer,
now numbers are inviting one another to prevent the Lacedaemonians
again recovering their empire.[6] Yet, if they have incurred all these
reproaches, we need not wonder, seeing that they are so plainly
disobedient to the god himself and to the laws of their own lawgiver
Lycurgus.

[1] For the relation of this chapter to the rest of the treatise, see
Grote, ix. 325; Ern. Naumann, "de Xen. libro qui" {LAK. POLITEIA}
inscribitur, p. 18 foll.; Newmann, "Pol. Aristot." ii. 326.

[2] Harmosts.

[3] "Xenelasies," {xenelasiai} technically called. See Plut. "Lycurg."
27; "Agis," 10; Thuc. ii. 39, where Pericles contrasts the liberal
spirit of the democracy with Spartan exclusiveness; "Our city is
thrown open to the world, and we never expel a foreigner or
prevent him from seeing or learning anything of which the secret,
if revealed to an enemy, might profit him."--Jowett, i. 118.

[4] Lit. "harmosts"; and for the taste of living abroad, see what is
said of Dercylidas, "Hell." IV. iii. 2. The harmosts were not
removed till just before Leuctra (371 B.C.), "Hell." VI. iv. 1,