Lycurgus of Sparta

“ During his travels in other parts of the world, Lycurgus had had opportunities to compare rich states with poor ones, and he had concluded that the richest were not always the best governed, and that wealth did not always bring happiness. He was determined that the Spartans should become good soldiers and that they should be great in war, for he believed that simple habits and simplicity of living were more easily acquired by a nation of warriors than by one devoted only to peace. To this end he {82} wanted to have neither rich nor poor in Sparta, but that all should be alike. ”

“ Lycurgus, then, did not create any of the main elements of the Spartan constitution, though he may have regulated their powers and defined their position. But tradition represented him as finding Sparta the prey of disunion, weakness and lawlessness, and leaving her united, strong and subject to the most stable government which the Greek world had ever seen. Probably Grote comes near to the truth when he says that Lycurgus “is the founder of a warlike brotherhood rather than the lawgiver of a political community.” ”

“ There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely any thing is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest. Their sentiments are quite different as to the family he came of, the voyages he undertook, the place and manner of his death, but most of all when they speak of the laws he made and the commonwealth which he founded. They cannot, by any means, be brought to an agreement as to the very age in which he lived ”

“ When Charilaus, the infant king, had grown up, Lycurgus prepared to go away. Before he left the town, he called all the citizens together, reminded them of all he had done to make them a great people, and ended by asking every man present to swear to obey the laws until he came back.
The Spartans were very grateful for all he had done for them, so they gladly took this oath, and Lycurgus left the place. Some time after, he came back to Greece; but, hearing that the Spartans were thriving under the rules he had laid down, he made up his mind never to visit Sparta again. ”

“ Lycurgus, having thus obtained possession of the babe, carried him to the council hall. There the child was named king; and Lycurgus promised that he would watch carefully over him, educate him well, and rule for him until he should be old and wise enough to reign alone.
While he was thus acting as ruler, Lycurgus made use of his power to bring many new customs into Sparta, and to change the laws. As he was one of the wisest men who ever lived, he knew very well that men must be good if they would be happy. He also knew that health is far better than riches ”

“ Among the children's children's children (or descendants) of Sous was the famous man Lycurgus (Ly-kur-gus) , about 825 B.C., who was teacher and lawgiver to the Spartans as Moses was to the Jews. Now, Lycurgus had made up his mind to give the best laws he could plan to the people of Sparta; but, as he knew it was harder to rule men than to rule sheep, or even wolves or lions, he first went about the world to learn all he could concerning people and their manners. ”

“ Every man was a law unto himself, and confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the oracle at Delphi, and received instructions as to how he should act to bring about a better state of affairs.
Plutarch, who tells so many charming stories about the ancient Greeks and Romans, gives us the following account. According to him the brother of Lycurgus was king of Sparta. When he died Lycurgus was offered the throne, but he declined the honor and made his infant nephew, Charilaus, king. ”

“ In this dangerous situation, Lycurgus was the only man from whom help and deliverance could be expected. The people hoped from him protection against the nobles, and the kings believed that he would put an end to the disobedience of the people. More than once, ambassadors were sent to entreat him to come to the assistance of the state.
He long resisted, but at last yielded to the urgent wishes of his fellow-citizens. At his arrival in Sparta, he found that not only particular abuses were to be suppressed, but that it would be necessary to form an entirely new constitution. ”

“ Of the position occupied by women at the time when Lycurgus is said to have been lawgiver at Sparta, there seems to be much evidence going to show that they were in the possession of a remarkable degree of liberty, and that they were possessed of great power and influence. We have seen that while the men of Sparta were away from their homes engaged in warfare, the country had become wealthy and prosperous. ”

“ The council of elders and the assembly are not in any sense peculiar to Sparta, but are present in the heroic government of Greece as depicted in the Homeric poems. The ephors, again, are almost universally held to be either an immemorial heritage of the Dorian stock or—and this seems more probable—an addition to the Spartan constitution made at a later date than can be assigned to Lycurgus. Further, the tradition of the Lycurgan partition of the land is open to grave objections. ”

“ Then Lycurgus bade farewell to his friends and to his son, and set out for the temple of Apollo at Delphi, and the god told him that the laws which he had established for Sparta were good and useful. The lawgiver thought that, if he never returned to his native land, the citizens would never alter the laws. ”

“ The Helots, also, were often employed as light-armed soldiers, and there was always danger that they might revolt against their oppressors, a fact which made constant discipline and vigilance necessary to the Spartan citizens.
Lycurgus found great inequality in the state. A few owned all the land, and the remainder were poor. The rich lived in luxury; the poor were reduced to misery and want. He divided the whole territory of Sparta into nine thousand equal lots, one of which was given to each citizen. ”

“ Modern writers have doubted his existence, but without sufficient reason:—such assaults on our belief are but the amusements of skepticism. All the popular accounts of Lycurgus agree in this— that he was the uncle of the king (Charilaus, an infant) , and held the rank of protector—that unable successfully to confront a powerful faction raised against him, he left Sparta and travelled into Crete, where all the ancient Doric laws and manners were yet preserved, vigorous and unadulterated. There studying the institutions of Minos, he beheld the model for those of Sparta. ”

“ The disorders which reigned at Sparta induced him to reform the government; and the more effectually to execute his undertaking, he had recourse to the oracle of Delphi. He was received by the priestess of the god with every mark of honour, his intentions were warmly approved by the divinity, and he was called the friend of gods, and himself rather god than man. After such a reception from the most celebrated oracle of Greece, Lycurgus found no difficulty in reforming the abuses of the state, and all were equally anxious in promoting a revolution which had received the sanction of heaven. ”

“ When we are told that the object of Lycurgus was to root out the luxury and effeminacy existent in Sparta, a moment’s reflection tells us that effeminacy and luxury could not have existed. A tribe of fierce warriors, in a city unfortified—shut in by rocks—harassed by constant war—gaining city after city from foes more civilized, stubborn to bear, and slow to yield—maintaining a perilous yoke over the far more numerous races they had subdued—what leisure, what occasion had such men to become effeminate and luxurious? ”

“ Lycurgus saw that the salvation of Sparta depended on its citizens being a nation of warriors. Only by being always ready for war and by possessing an invincible body of soldiery could the State fulfil its destiny in the work of the world. He realized further that the natural antecedent of a nation of men strong physically and intellectually is a race of healthy, sturdy, able-bodied women. Hence his training of the daughters of Sparta was the corner-stone of his system. ”

“ The commonwealth of Sparta became, under the institutions [Pg 263] of Lycurgus, one great camp. The nation was a nation of soldiers. Every possible device was resorted to to inure all classes of the population, the young and the old, the men and the women, the rich and the poor, to every species of hardship and privation. The only qualities that were respected or cultivated were such stern virtues as courage, fortitude, endurance, insensibility to pain and grief, and contempt for all the pleasures of wealth and luxury. Lycurgus did not write out his system. ”

“ Separate the old and intelligent from the young and thoughtless, and you immediately give a loose to all the wild, buoyant feelings of youth. Lycurgus could never have succeeded in Sparta in enforcing so completely his celebrated system of laws, but for the public tables, which brought the old and young, intelligent and simple together. ”

“ In truth, the laws of Lycurgus were unnatural, and in the end could but fail. They were framed to make one-sided men, and only whole men can long succeed. Human nature will have its way, and luxury and corruption crept into Sparta despite these laws. Nor did the Spartans prove braver or more successful in war than the Athenians, whose whole nature was developed, and who were alike great in literature, art, and war. ”

“ It is quite recently that the tyrants raised them as a stronghold and defence for themselves, not for the city; and if Lycurgus could today rise from the dead, he would be glad to see them in ruins, and would say that he now recognised his old Sparta. For like disfiguring brands they marked you as slaves, and you ought to have torn down and demolished with your own hands, Lacedaemonians, every vestige of the tyrant's rule, and not have waited for Philopoemen and the Achaeans to do it. ”

“ To these institutions the laws of Lycurgus bear a striking resemblance. The features of his constitution were severe and forbidding; it was however calculated to inspire the most enthusiastic love of liberty and martial honor. In no country was the patriotic passion more energetic than in Sparta; no laws ever excluded the idea of separate property in an equal degree, or inspired a greater contempt for the manners of other nations. The prohibition of money, commerce and almost every thing desirable to effeminate nations, excluded foreigners from Sparta ”

“ Lycurgus determined that he would train the youths of Sparta as strictly as the soldiers in Egypt were trained. They should be neither ploughmen nor merchants, but the best soldiers the world had ever seen. ”

“ Those who say, that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of states. But in my opinion, it was in aftertimes that these cruelties took place among the Lacedæmonians; chiefly after the great earthquake, when, as history informs us, the helots, joining the Messenians, attacked them, did infinite damage to the country, and brought the city to the greatest extremity. I can never ascribe to Lycurgus so abominable an act as that of the ambuscade. ”

“ You alone have a nature made to rule and a genius to gain obedience.’
Lycurgus was at length persuaded to return to Sparta, but before he would attempt to reform the laws of his country he went to Delphi to ask the help and advice of Apollo.
The oracle encouraged the future lawgiver, for it told him that he was the beloved of the gods, who heard his prayers, and that his laws would make Sparta the most famous kingdom in the world. ”

“ Such a man was Lycurgus, if we may trust the persistent tradition that he was the framer of the new constitution and the second founder of the Dorian state of Sparta. From time to time the question has been raised, was the work of Lycurgus original or an imitation, shaped perhaps by his observations among the Dorian folk on the island of Crete? It does not matter what the answer shall be. The statesman who fitly adapts may be as wise and skilful as he who invents and creates. ”

“ Nor has modern historical criticism arrived at any certain results. Many scholars, indeed, suppose him to be in reality a god or hero, appealing to the existence of a temple and cult of Lycurgus at Sparta as early as the time of Herodotus, (i. 66) , and to the words of the Delphic oracle (Herod. i. 65) —
If this be so, he is probably to be connected with the cult of Apollo Lycius or with that of Zeus Lycaeus. But the majority of modern historians agree in accepting Lycurgus as an historical person, however widely they may differ about his work. ”

“ The whole youth of Sparta was educated not as the children of their parents, but of the state. They imbibed the same sentiments of frugality, temperance, and love of simplicity. They exercised the same employment, and were occupied in the same way in every respect. The simplicity of Lycurgus’s plan, rendered this a practicable scheme. The multiplicity and variety of employments among us, makes it absolutely necessary to trust the parents with the education of their children; whereas in Sparta, there were not two employments for a free man ”

“ And, indeed, they were now grown far better soldiers than ever they had been, being so continually kept in training, by the frequency of the Lacedæmonian expeditions against them. Out of the foresight of which it was, that anciently Lycurgus, in three several laws, forbade them to make many wars with the same nation, as this would be to instruct their enemies in the art of it. Meanwhile, the allies of Sparta were not a little discontented at Agesilaus, because this war was commenced not upon any fair public ground of quarrel, but merely out of his private hatred to the Thebans ”