ON THE DEVELOPEMENT OF THE SPARTAN CONSTITUTION

Since the publication of the First Volume of this History, in which (Appendix I.) several works relating to the Spartan constitution were mentioned, another has appeared in Germany which may be classed with the most valuable on the subject. Its title is: Die Spartanische Staats-verfassung in ihrer Entwickelung und ihrem Verfalle von Dr. Karl Heinrich Lachmann. Breslau. 1836. Though it was published early in the year, it came into my hands too late to be noticed in the preceding pages. But several readers may be interested in an account of the author's views on some of the more difficult and important questions which have been already discussed in the course of this work.

The foundation of his theory is laid in an Introduction on the origin of the Greek religions, and on the early history of the Ionians, whom he conceives to have been closely allied to the Minyans, and of the Archæans, including an inquiry into the legends of the Pelopids, and of the Trojan war. (With respect to the historical substance of the latter legend, he adopts a hypothesis proposed by Voelcker in a German periodical, which seems not to differ very widely in its leading features from the view taken of the same subject in this history.) The main object of these preliminary investigations is to ascertain the state of Laconia before the Dorian invasion.