Apophthegmata Laconica

Having introduced the abolition of debts, he next undertook to divide equally all household furnishings, so as to do away completely with all inequality and disparity. But when he saw that the people were likely to demur about assenting to this outright spoliation, he decreed that gold and silver coin should in future have no value, and ordained that the people should use iron money only. He also limited the time within which it was lawful to exchange their present holdings for this money. When this had been done, all wrongdoing was banished from Sparta. For nobody was able to steal or to accept a bribe or to defraud or rob any more, when the result was something of which concealment was not possible, nor was its acquisition envied, nor its use without risk, nor its exportation or importation safe. As an added measure, he brought about the banishment from Sparta of everything not absolutely necessary. And, by reason of this, no merchant, no public lecturer, no soothsayer or mendicant priest, no maker of fancy articles ever made his way into

Sparta. The reason was that he permitted no handy coinage to circulate among them, but instituted the iron coinage exclusively, which in weight was over a pound and a quarter, and in value not quite a penny. [*](Plutarch tells all this, at somewhat greater length, in his Life of Lycurgus, chap. ix. (440). Cf. also Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 7. 5 and 6; Plato, Eryxias, 400 B; Pollux, Onomasticon, vii. 105, and ix. 79; Justin, Historiae Philippicae, iii. 2. 11-12.)