lands, in harvest time, the ground being newly reaped, seeing the
stacks all standing equal and alike, he smiled, and said to those
about him, "Methinks all Laconia looks like one family estate just
divided among a number of brothers."

Not contented with this, he resolved to make a division of their
movables too, that there might be no odious distinction or
inequality left amongst them; but finding that it would be very
dangerous to go about it openly, he took another course, and
defeated their avarice by the following stratagem: he commanded
that all gold and silver coin should be called in, and that only a
sort of money made of iron should be current, a great weight and
quantity of which was worth but very little; so that to lay up a
hundred or two dollars there was required a pretty large closet,
and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. With the
diffusion of this money, at once a number of vices were banished
from Lacedaemon; for who would rob another of such a coin? Who
would unjustly detain or take by force, or accept as a bribe, a
thing which it was not easy to hide, nor a credit to have, nor
indeed of any use to cut in pieces? For when it was just red-hot,
they quenched it in vinegar, and by that means spoilt it, and made
it almost incapable of being worked.

In the next place, he declared an outlawry of all needless and
superfluous arts; but here he might almost have spared his
proclamation; for they of themselves would have gone with the gold
and silver, the money which remained being not so proper payment
for curious work; for, being of iron, it was scarcely portable,
neither, if they should take the pains to export it, would it pass
amongst the other Greeks, who ridiculed it. so there was now no