No wonder, therefore, that the
king, as the chief priest of the state, or as himself a god, should
be liable to deposition or death at the end of an astronomical
period. When the great luminaries had run their course on high, and
were about to renew the heavenly race, it might well be thought that
the king should renew his divine energies, or prove them unabated,
under pain of making room for a more vigorous successor. In Southern
India, as we have seen, the king's reign and life terminated with
the revolution of the planet Jupiter round the sun. In Greece, on
the other hand, the king's fate seems to have hung in the balance at
the end of every eight years, ready to fly up and kick the beam as
soon as the opposite scale was loaded with a falling star.
Whatever its origin may have been, the cycle of eight years appears
to have coincided with the normal length of the king's reign in
other parts of Greece besides Sparta. Thus Minos, king of Cnossus in
Crete, whose great palace has been unearthed in recent years, is
said to have held office for periods of eight years together.
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