[153]
I acknowledge that I am going to speak at length of the institutions of Sparta, not taking the view, however, that Lycurgus invented or conceived any of them, but that he imitated as well as he could the government of our ancestors,1 establishing among the Spartans a democracy tempered with aristocracy—even such as existed in Athens—, enacting that the offices be filled, not by lot, but by election,
1 See Isoc. 4.39 and note.