worth nothing while
they were obliged to carry on the most extensive wars, and the subsidies
were very badly raised; for as the Spartans possessed a large extent of
country, they were not exact upon each other as to what they paid in.
And thus an event contrary to the legislator's intention took place;
for the state was poor, the individuals avaricious. Enough of the
Lacedaemonian government; for these seem the chief defects in it.

CHAPTER X

The government of Crete bears a near resemblance to this, in some few
particulars it is not worse, but in general it is far inferior in its
contrivance. For it appears and is allowed in many particulars the
constitution of Lacedaemon was formed in imitation of that of Crete;
and in general most new things are an improvement upon the old. For they
say, that when Lycurgus ceased to be guardian to King Charilles he
went abroad and spent a long time with his relations in Crete, for the
Lycians are a colony of the Lacedaemonians; and those who first settled
there adopted that body of laws which they found already established by
the inhabitants; in like manner also those who now live near them have
the very laws which Minos first drew up.

This island seems formed by nature to be the mistress of Greece, for it
is entirely surrounded by a navigable ocean which washes almost all the
maritime parts of that country, and is not far distant on the one side
from Peloponnesus, on the other, which looks towards Asia, from Triopium
and Rhodes. By means of this situation Minos acquired the empire of
the sea and the islands; some of which he subdued, in others planted
colonies: at last he died at Camicus while he was attacking Sicily.
There is this analogy between the customs of the Lacedaemonians and
the Cretans, the Helots cultivate the grounds [1272a] for the one, the
domestic slaves for the other. Both states have their common meals, and
the Lacedaemonians called these formerly not _psiditia_ but _andpia_,
as the Cretans do; which proves from whence the custom arose. In this
particular their governments are also alike: the ephori have the same
power with those of Crete, who are called _kosmoi_; with this difference
only, that the number of the one is five, of the other ten. The senators
are the same as those whom the Cretans call the council. There was
formerly also a kingly power in Crete; but it was afterwards dissolved,
and the command of their armies was given to the _kosmoi_. Eve