1.Greece is a small hilly country in the south of Europe,about the size of England and Wales.It is not a place of much importance at the present day,but more than two thousand years ago the Greeks were famous all over the world for their skill in building,sculpture ,painting,poetry,and almost every art .
2.Their temples were built with very great skill and taste.The ruins of many of them are still standing,like these you see in the picture on next page.Yet these works were done at a time when Britain was a wild forest and its inhabitants savages.
3.The Greeks were brave soldiers,but they never became a great and strong nation.The country was divided into many kingdoms,few of them larger than an English county,and these little kingdoms were often at war among themselves.
4.The kingdom of Sparta was in the south of Greece.The Spartans were the bravest of all the Greeks.They had very strange laws and customs,which were well fitted for a nation of soldiers.Their laws are said to have been drawn up by a wise man called Lycurgus.
5.When Lycurgus had drawn up all the laws he thought necessary,he hit upon a plan to prevent them from being altered.He said that he had to go on a visit to a distant temple,and he got the rulers to promise that they would keep his laws unchanged until his return.
6.After he had visited the temple,he made up his mind that he would never return to Sparta,so that his laws might never be changed.He therefore killed himself,in order that his country might always enjoy those wise laws.Thus his death was an example of that love of country which he tried to teach during his life.
7.Let us now see what were some of those laws,and how they affected the life of the people of Sparta.Of course the Spartans must have been a brave,hardy race to begin with,or such laws would never have been obeyed among them.
8.Lycurgus wanted the people to live a plain,simple life,without any love of luxuryor wealth.With this object,he forbade the use of gold and silver in the country,and ordered that all money should be made of iron.
9.This was really almost the same as forbidding the use of money entirely.If we had only copper money,it would be very difficult to carry about with us even as much as the value of five pounds,while twenty pounds'worth of copper would make a good load for a man.Now,as iron is cheaper than copper,iron money would be even heavier than copper money.A man who wished to have money always with him would need a pair of horses and a waggon to carry his purse.
10.The use of iron money soon put a stop to that hoarding of wealth which turns men into misers.It also put a stop to robbery,for no thief could carry away so much as would make it worth his while to steal.
11.But it put a stop to trade with other countries;and this was one thing which Lycurgus specially wished he did not want strangers to come and live in Sparta,lest they should bring in new customs,and spoil the people.
