To the end therefore that he might expel out of the state arrogance and envy, luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate diseases of want and superfluity, he obtained of them to renounce their properties, and to consent to a new division of the land, and that they should live altogether on an equal footing, — merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference as between man and man.
— PLUTARCH, Life of Lycurgus.
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