Which institution of Lycurgus is
mentioned by Aristotle, where he says that rendering his citizens
emulous (not careless) of that honor, he assigned to the people
the election of the Senate. Wherefore Machiavel in this, as in
other places, having his eye upon the division of patrician and
plebeian families as they were in Rome, has quite mistaken the
orders of this commonwealth, where there was no such thing. Nor
did the quiet of it derive from the power of the kings, who were
so far from shielding the people from the injury of the nobility,
of which there was none in his sense but the Senate, that one
declared end of the Senate at the institution was to shield the
people from the kings, who from that time had but single votes.
Neither did it proceed from the straitness of the Senate, or
their keeping the people excluded from the government, that they
were quiet, but from the equality of their administration, seeing
the Senate (as is plain by the oracle, their fundamental law) had
no more than the debate, and the result of the commonwealth
belonged to the people.
"Wherefore when Theopompus and Polydorus, Kings of
Lacedaemon, would have kept the people excluded from the
government by adding to the ancient law this clause, 'If the
determination of the people be faulty, it shall be lawful for the
Senate to resume the debate,' the people immediately became
unquiet, and resumed that debate, which ended not till they had
set up their ephors, and caused that magistracy to be confirmed
by their kings.
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