[DiatryDal]

Lycurgus ordered that leather money should be spent in his republic to take away from everyone the desire to come there, to bring merchandise there, or to bring some art there, so the city could never thicken with inhabitants.
Internally, lycurgus' laws regulating citizenship left Sparta with an extremely small and narrow citizen body. Moveover, its oligarchic and monarchial institutions made it hard for civic virtue to flourish on a wide scale. Lycurgus' concern to maintain civic unity blinded him to the advantages that well-ordered "tumults" may have for cities. These three internal defects crippled Spart'as ability to meet the growing demands placed on the city by external wars.

According to Machiavelli, Lycurgus' principal error was to order a constitution designed to maintain an extremely narrow citizen base, so that the "body" of the city could never grow to a greatness comparable to that of the Roman republic. The restrictions he placed on foreign commerce and immigration were supposedt o prevent corruption. But if the end was good, the means were problematic.

For since Lycurgus, founder of the Spartan republic, considered that nothing could dissolve his laws more easily than the mixture of new inhabitants, he did everything so that foreigners shoudl not have to deal there. Besides not admitting them into marriages, into citizenship, and into the other dealings that make men come together, he ordered that leather money should be spent in his republic to take away from everyone the desire to come there, to bring merchandise there, or to bring some art there, so the city could never thicken with inhabitants. And since all our actions imitate nature, ti is neither possible nor natural for a thin trunk to support a thick branch. So a small republic cannot seize cities or kingdoms that are sounder or thicker than it.

The Spartan "stem" - its core citizen body - was so narrowly based that when it began to acquire branches thicker than itself, "it supports it with labor, and every small wind breaks it." Eventually the "trunk alone remained without the branches. This could not happen in Rome," Machiavelli contends, "since its stem was so thick it could easily support any branch whatever." The lesson he draws about lycurgus' laws is that imitators of ancient legislation should prefer the Roman republic's policy in this regard. By encouraging immigration and admitting newcomers to citizenship, Rome continually "Thickened the body" of its citizenry, making the city formidable.



More at source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=-IK...0money&f=false

[SOgLak]

Interesting. This is what the commonwealth has been doing. Taking in anyone and everyone as citizens to boost the debt base.

[kristloken]

The main thing is preventing corruption in men and state.

That is why the laws were what they were.

The Spartans had a Constitution, called Eunomia, translates to,
" good order, law ", Eunomia is one of the freedom goddesses.

Plato later, concerns himself with the same things, Justice and the Moral State.
Same concerns as the Spartans, corruption, of men and state.

Hesiod, one the first Western books ever written, The Works and Days,
concerns himself with this as well, corruption, where does freedom
come from, etc, he contrasts himself to his brother, the Founding Fathers
of the USA almost ripped off Hesiod verbatim on where freedom comes
from. They too were very schooled in the classics and concern themselves
with the corruption of man and the state, this is why you have a Republic,
Solon invented Republicanism, Solon is one of the greatest that ever lived,
and an ancestor of Plato. Hesiod, Solon, Plato, fit totally with what we discuss
here. Laws, The Republic, Justice, the Moral State, etc .

Above I have given an overview and sources, all of this is GSUS material.

It is not just the Spartans, Spartans chose to handle it in different ways.

They were extremists about things, but we do learn from them greatly.

Their famous two sayings are legendary, they go way back,
they are Dorian sayings. They did not heed their own advice.

Now I have a question, why were the Spartans always at war
with the Athenians if they cared not for wealth. ? ? ? They
controlled no one but their own land area, this too has a story,
corroborated by archeology, we will leave that for now.

The answer is they were constantly checking Athenian Empire.

They were the guarantors of free city states, even as Mercenaries.

They even ended up in Asia to control the Persians, they lost control
of that situation, one of the most famous books ever written,
Xenophon Anabasis, Egyptian Nocturnal has comment on it in past.

There is a lot more to what E N posted above. It is very interesting.
Wealth was banned.

" they came to take our poverty away from us " Leonidas