LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS, 53

shall deal first with the new government which he
instituted. The two kings were left unchanged. But
under them was formed a senate of twenty-eight mem-
bers, to whom the kings were joined, making thirty
in all. The people also were given their assemblies,
but they could not debate any subject, all the power
they had was to accept or reject what the senate had
decreed. At a later date five men, called ephors,
were selected from the people, into whose hands fell
nearly all the civil power, so that the kings had
little more to do than to command the army and
lead it to war. The kings, however, were at the
head of the religious establishment of the country,
and were respected by the people as descendants of
the gods.

The government of Sparta thus became an aris-
tocracy or oligarchy. The ephors came from the
people, and were appointed in their interest, but they
came to rule the state so completely that neither the
kings, the senate, nor the assembly had much voice
in the government. Such was the outgrowth of the
governmental institutions of Lycurgus.

It is the civil laws made by Lycurgus, however,
which are of most interest, and in which Sparta
differed from all other states. The people of Laconia,
the country of which Sparta was the capital, were
composed of two classes. That country had origi-
nally been conquered by the Spartans, and the
ancient inhabitants, who were known as Helots,
were held as slaves by their Spartan conquerors.
They tilled the ground to raise food for the citizens,
who were all soldiers, and whose whole life and

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