Kitap 4
81
The fact is that the Lacedaemonians enjoyed a mostDecline of Sparta. excellent constitution, and had a most extensive power, from the time of the legislation of Lycurgus to that of the battle of Leuctra. B. C. 800 (?)-B. C. 371. But after that event their fortune took an unfavourable turn; and their political state continued ever growing worse and worse, until they finally suffered from a long succession of internal struggles and partisan warfare; were repeatedly agitated by schemes for the redivision of lands and the banishment of one party or another; and were subjected to the severest possible slavery, culminating in the tyrannical government of Nabis: though the word tyrant was one which they had in old times scarcely endured to hear mentioned. However, the ancient history of Sparta as well as the great part of it since, has been recorded by many in terms of eulogy or the reverse; but the part of that history which admits of the least controversy is that which followed the entire destruction of the ancient constitution by Cleomenes;Yet the avowed project of Cleomenes was the restoration of the ancient constitution. Plutarch, Cleom. c. 10. and that shall be narrated by me in the order of events as they occur. B. C. 236-222.
