“In Sparta, in the third century BCE, a fissure had opened up between the ruling elite and ordinary people in the two centuries following the state’s victory in the Peloponnesian War. Those who were ruled demanded change because the gap between rich and poor had become too large to tolerate. A succession of radical monarchs, Agis IV, Cleomenes III and Nabis, created a structure to help revive the state. Nobles were sent into exile. Debts were forgiven. Slaves were granted their freedom and the franchise. And land confiscated from the rich was distributed to the poor (something the European Central Bank wouldn’t tolerate today).

The early Roman Republic, threatened by this example, sent its legions under Titus Quinctius Flamininus to crush Sparta.”

-Tariq Ali in The Extreme Centre: A Second Warning