unites men more than living together in common. The syssitia,
or public tables, an institution which was common in Crete, in Corinth
[141], and in Megara, effected this object in a mode agreeable to the
Dorian manners. The society at each table was composed of men
belonging to the same tribe or clan. New members could only be
elected by consent of the rest. Each head of a family in Sparta paid
for his own admission and that of the other members of his house. Men
only belonged to them. The youths and boys had their own separate
table. The young children, however, sat with their parents on low
stools, and received a half share. Women were excluded. Despite the
celebrated black broth, the table seems to have been sufficiently, if
not elegantly, furnished. And the second course, consisting of
voluntary gifts, which was supplied by the poorer members from the
produce of the chase--by the wealthier from their flocks, orchards,
poultry, etc., furnished what by Spartans were considered dainties.
Conversation was familiar, and even jocose, and relieved by songs.
Thus the public tables (which even the kings were ordinarily obliged
to attend) were rendered agreeable and inviting by the attractions of
intimate friendship and unrestrained intercourse.

IX. The obscurest question relative to the Spartan system is that
connected with property. It was evidently the intention of Lycurgus
or the earlier legislators to render all the divisions of land and
wealth as equal as possible. But no law can effect what society
forbids. The equality of one generation cannot be transmitted to
another. It may be easy to prevent a great accumulation of wealth,
but what can prevent poverty? While the acquisition of lands by
purchase was forbidden, no check was imposed on its acquisition by
gift or testament; and in the time of Aristotle land had become the
monopoly of the few. Sparta, like other states, had consequently her
inequalities--her comparative rich and her positive poor--from an
early period in her known history. As land descended to women, so
marriages alone established great disparities of property. "Were the
whole territory," says Aristotle, "divided into five portions, two
would belong to the women." The regulation by which the man who could
not pay his quota to the syssitia was excluded from the public tables,
proves that it was not an uncommon occurrence to be so excluded; and
indeed that exclusion grew at last so c