ubject. Theopompus tells us that it was Skiraphidas, but Ephorus says
that it was Phlogidas who advised the Spartans not to receive the gold
and silver coinage into their country, but to continue to use that
which their fathers had used. This was iron money, which had first
been dipped in vinegar when red hot, so that it could not be worked,
as its being quenched in this manner rendered it brittle and useless,
while it was also heavy, difficult to transport from place to place,
and a great quantity of it represented but a small value. It appears
probable that all money was originally of this kind, and that men used
instead of coin small spits[150] of iron or copper. For this reason we
still call small coins obols, and we call six obols a drachma, meaning
that this is the number of them which can be grasped by the hand.

XVII. The motion for sending away the money was opposed by Lysander's
friends, who were eager to keep it in the state; so that it was at
last decided that for public purposes this money might be used, but
that if any private person were found in possession of it, he should
be put to death: as if Lykurgus had been afraid of money itself, and
not of the covetousness produced by it, which they did not repress by
forbidding private men to own money so much as they encouraged it by
permitting the state to own it, conferring thereby a certain dignity
upon it over and above its real value. It was not possible for men who
saw that the state valued silver and gold to despise it as useless, or
to think that what was thus prized by the whole body of the citizens
could be of no concern to individuals. On the contrary, it is plain
that national customs much sooner impress themselves on the lives and
manners of individuals, than do the faults and vices of individuals
affect the national character. When the whole becomes corrupt the
parts necessarily become corrupt with it; but the corruption of some
of the parts does not necessarily extend to the whole, being checked
and overpowered by those parts which remain healthy. Thus the Spartans
made the law and the fear of death guard the houses of their citizens
so that money could not enter them, but they did not guard their minds
against the seductions of money, nay, even encouraged them to admire
it, by proclaiming that it was a great and important matter that the
commonwealth should be rich. However, I have discussed the conduct of
the Lacedaemonians in this respect in an