He assembled all the citizens, and told them that the city was now fairly well provided with materials for happiness and virtue, but that he would not bestow upon them the most valuable gift of all, until he had taken counsel with Heaven.  It was therefore their duty to abide by the already established laws, and to change and alter nothing till he returned from Delphi; on his return, he would do whatever the god commanded.  They all assented, and bade him depart, and he, after making first the kings and elders, and then the rest of the citizens, swear that they would keep their existing constitution till Lykurgus came back, set out for Delphi.  Upon reaching the temple he sacrificed to the god, and inquired whether his laws were good, and sufficient for the prosperity and happiness of his country.  Receiving answer from the oracle that his laws were indeed good, and that the city would become famous if it kept the constitution of Lykurgus, he wrote down this prophecy and sent it to Sparta.  But he himself, after offering a second sacrifice to the god, and having embraced his friends and his son, determined not to release his countrymen from their oath, but to put an end to his own life, being at an age when, though life was still pleasant, it seemed time to go to his rest, after having excellently arranged all his people’s affairs.  He departed by starvation, as he thought that a true statesman ought to make even his death of service to the state, and not like that of a private person, the useless end of an idle life.  His death came in the fulness of time, after he had done an excellent work, and it was left as the guardian of all the good that he had done, because the citizens had sworn that they would abide by his constitution until he returned to them.  Nor was he deceived in his expectations; for the state was by far the most celebrated in Greece, for good government at home and renown abroad, during a period of five hundred years, under his constitution, which was kept unaltered by fourteen kings, counting from himself down to Agis the son of Archidamus.  For the institution of Ephors was not a relaxation, but a strengthening of the original scheme, and while it seemed popular it really confirmed the power of the oligarchy.

XXIX.  But in the reign of Agis money found its way into Sparta, and, after money, selfishness and greed for gain came in, on account of Lysander, who, though himself incorruptible, yet filled his country with luxury and love of gold, as he brought back gold and silver from the wars, and disregarded the laws of Lykurgus.  Before this, when those laws were in force, Sparta was like a wise and practised warrior more than a city, or rather, she with her simple staff and cloak, like Herakles with his lion-skin and club, ruled over a willing Greece, deposed bad kings or factions, decided wars, and crushed revolutions; and that, too, often without moving a single soldier, but merely by sending a commissioner, who was at once