for going too far, but for failing to go far enough; they did not, like the Spartan
kings Agis and Cleomenes, wholeheartedly institute ‘‘the unwritten laws con-
cerning balance and equality of property’’ so vital to republican survival. For
Plutarch, in short, the agrarian laws were praiseworthy if minimal attempts to
restore the balance and justice of the state, and the blame for the collapse of the
republic should fall squarely on the shoulders of rapacious patricians.
This rival account of the agrarian movement appealed in particular to
More’s great seventeenth-century disciple, the philosopher James Harrington.
In Harrington’sThe Commonwealth of Oceana, published in 1656 during the
Cromwellian protectorate, weWnd, in many respects, a straightforward re-
prise of the Morean project, complete with Greek nomenclature and a
comprehensive endorsement of More’s theory of justice. For Harrington, as
for More, there was a ‘‘natural aristocracy diVused by God throughout the
whole body of mankind,’’ and the people have ‘‘not only a natural, but a
positive obligation to make use of their guides’’ (Harrington 1977 , 173 ). These
wise and virtuous men, designed for rulership by nature herself, will ‘‘lead the
herd,’’ and their fellow citizens will ‘‘hang upon their lips as children upon
their fathers.’’ Harrington further agrees with More that wealth represents the
greatest single threat to the realization of this ideal arrangement; extreme
wealth, heWrmly believes, brings with it both political power and corruption,
and renders the rule of the wise impossible. Yet Harrington rejects More’s
insistence that the problem of wealth can only be addressed through the
abolition of private property: ‘‘To hold that government may be founded
upon community [of property],’’ he muses, ‘‘is to hold that there be a black
swan or a castle in the air’’ (Harrington 1977 , 808 ). Harrington’s solution is to
institute something he calls ‘‘the equal agrarian,’’ a limit on the accumulation
of wealth buttressed by inheritance laws designed to break up large estates. If
by these means fortunes are kept relatively equal, he argues, ‘‘the eminence
acquired by suVrage of the people in a commonwealth... can be ascended by
no other steps than the universal acknowledgement of virtue’’ ( 1977 , 182 ).
Agrarian laws, in short, allow for the rule of the wise, and that is the source of
their justice. Harrington draws support for this view, as he himself tells us,
from one source in particular: ‘‘he who, considering the whole story [of the
Roman agrarian laws] or only that of the Gracchi in Plutarch, shall judge
aright, must confess that, had Rome preserved a good agrarian but in Italy,
the riches of her provinces could not have torn up the roots of her liberty’’
( 1977 , 689 ). For Harrington, ‘‘the Roman writers,’’ as he calls them, have
missed the moral of their own story. It was thelackof redistribution that
republican visions 207