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οὐδαμῶς Σπαρτιητικά. Bigamy was illegal throughout Greece; but the curious arrangements at Sparta (Polyb. xii. 6 b) by which (1) several brothers married one wife (cf. de Coulanges, Nouv. Recherches, p. 70 f.), now interpreted as an instance of the Levirate or a survival of polyandry, and (2) men lent their wives to friends (cf. Plut. Lyc. 15), made it seem necessary to Herodotus and Pausanias (iii. 3. 9) to declare that bigamy was unprecedented at Sparta.

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