ordered thirty of the principal citizens to appear armed in the
market-place by break of day, to strike terror into such as might desire
to oppose him. Hermippus has given us the names of twenty of the most
eminent of them; but he that had the greatest share in the whole
enterprise, and gave Lycurgus the best assistance in the establishing of
his laws, was called Arithmiades. Upon the first alarm, king Charilaus,
apprehending it to be a design against his person, took refuge in the
Chalcioicos. But he was soon satisfied, and accepted of their oath. Nay,
so far from being obstinate, he joined in the undertaking. Indeed, he
was so remarkable for the gentleness of his disposition, that Archelaus,
his partner in the throne, is reported to have said to some that were
praising the young king, "Yes, Charilaus is a good man to be sure, who
cannot find in his heart to punish the bad." Among the many new
institutions of Lycurgus, the first and most important was that of a
senate; which sharing, as Plato says, in the power of the kings, too
imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority with them,
was the means of keeping them within the bounds of moderation, and
highly contributed to the preservation of the state. For before it had
been veering and unsettled, sometimes inclining to arbitrary power, and
sometimes towards a pure democracy; but this establishment of a senate,
an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in a just equilibrium, and
put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators adhering to the
kings, whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and, on the other
hand, supporting the people, when the kings attempted to make themselves
absolute. This, according to Aristotle, was the number of senators fixed
upon, because two of the thirty associates of Lycurgus deserted the
business through fear. But Sphærus tells us there were only twenty-eight
at first entrusted with the design. Something, perhaps, there is in its
being a perfect number, formed of seven multiplied by four, and withal
the first number, after six, that is equal to all its parts. But I