16

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XXIII.

IC9T.

meant to prove. He disposed of much idle declamationabout the Lacedaemonians by saying, most concisely, cor-rectly and happily, that the Lacedaemonian common-wealth really was a standing army which threatened allthe rest of Greece. In fact, the Spartan had no callingexcept war. Of arts, sciences and letters he was ignorant.The labour of the spade and of the loom, and the pettygains of trade, he contemptuously abandoned to men ofa lower caste. His whole existence from childhood to oldage was one long military training. Meanwhile theAthenian, the Corinthian, tlieArgive, the Theban, gavehis chief attention to his oliveyard or his vineyard, hiswarehouse or his workshop, and took up his shield andspear only for short terms and at long intervals. Thedifference therefore between a Lacedcemonian phalanxand any other phalanx was long as great as the differencebetween a regiment of the French household troops and aregiment of the London trainbands. Lacedaemon con-sequently continued to be dominant in Greece till otherstates began to employ regular troops. Then her supre-macy was at an end. She was great while she was astanding army among militias. She fell when she had tocontend with other standing armies. The lesson which isreally to be learned from her ascendency and from herdecline is this, that the occasional soldier is no match forthe professional soldier. *

* The more minutely we examine the history of the decline andfall of Lacediemon, the more reason we shall find to admire the sagacity