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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: his institutions until his return. Nor was he deceived in his
expectations, for the city of Lacedaemon continued the chief city of all
Greece for the space of five hundred years, in strict observance of
Lycurgus's laws; in all which time there was no manner of alteration
made, during the reign of fourteen kings, down to the time of Agis, the
son of Archidamus. For the new creation of the ephori, though thought
to be in favor of the people, was so far from diminishing, that it very
much heightened, the aristocratical character of the government.
In the time of Agis, gold and silver first flowed into Sparta, and with
them all those mischiefs which attend the immoderate desire of riches.
Lysander promoted this disorder; for, by bringing in rich spoils from
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