Lycurgus

“ In a few words I told Ascyltos of the robbery, when he joined us, and of our unfortunate love-affairs as well. He was for prepossessing the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, naming the increasing wantonness of Lycas as the cause of our secret and sudden change of habitation. When Lycurgus had heard everything, he swore that he would always be a tower of strength between us and our enemies. Until Tryphaena and Doris were awake and out of bed, our flight remained undiscovered, for we paid them the homage of a daily attendance at the morning toilette. ”

“ With affairs in this posture, I follow my love, but Lycurgus, who had renewed his old relations with Ascyltos, would not permit him to leave, so it was decided that he should remain with Lycurgus, but that we would accompany Lycas. Nevertheless, we had it understood among ourselves that whenever the opportunity presented itself, we would each pilfer whatever we could lay hands upon, for the betterment of the common stock. ”

“ Morpher to Lycurgus, to whom M’liss’s answer had afforded boundless satisfaction. “You’re getting to be just as bad as her, and mercy knows you never were a seraphim!”
“What’s a seraphim, mother, and what do they do?” asked Lycurgus, with growing interest.
“They don’t ask questions when they should be eating their supper, and thankful for it,” interposed Clytie, authoritatively, as one to whom the genteel attributes and social habits of the seraphim had been a privileged revelation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This last ordinance in particular exasperated the wealthier men. They collected in a body against Lycurgus, and from ill words came to throwing stones, so that at length he was forced to run out of the market-place, and make to sanctuary to save his life; by good-hap he outran all, excepting one Alcander, a young man otherwise not ill accomplished, but hasty and violent, who came up so close to him, that, when he turned to see who was near him, he struck him upon the face with his stick, and put out one of his eyes. Lycurgus. ”

“ Woe to those fathers whose sons face my might. If, however, you are one of the immortals and have come down from heaven, I will not fight you; for even valiant Lycurgus, son of Dryas, did not live long when he took to fighting with the gods. ”

“ The close-embattled phalanx shatter’d wide.
Him by address, not by superior force,165
Lycurgus vanquish’d, in a narrow pass,
Where him his iron whirl-bat [5] nought avail’d.
Lycurgus stealing on him, with his lance
Transpierced and fix’d him to the soil supine.
Him of his arms, bright gift of brazen Mars,170
He stripp’d, which after, in the embattled field
Lycurgus wore himself, but, growing old,
Surrender’d them to Ereuthalion’s use
His armor-bearer, high in his esteem,
And Ereuthalion wore them on the day175
When he defied our best. All hung their heads
And trembled ”

“ Hyperides, a member of a middle-class family, was born in 389 B.C., and so was almost exactly contemporary with Lycurgus, whose political views he shared. He too, according to his biographer, was a pupil of Isocrates and of Plato, but the influence of the latter can nowhere be traced in his work.
A man of easy morals and self-indulgent habits, he presents a striking contrast to the austerity of Lycurgus. The comic poets satirized his gluttony and his partiality for fish, and the Pseudo-Plutarch records that he took [286] a walk through the fish-market every day of his life ”

“ They were accustomed to run up the steepest rocks barefoot; and swimming, dancing, hunting, boxing, and wrestling, were their constant diversions. Lycurgus was equally solicitous in training up the youth to a habit of passive courage as well as active. They were taught to despise pain no less than danger, and to bear the severest scourgings with the most invincible constancy and resolution. ”

“ The dispositions of Lycurgus. Through this Philip was obliged to pass on his return march, with the city, and the Lacedaemonians ready and drawn up for battle, on his left hand, and on his right the river, and the division of Lycurgus posted upon the hills. In addition to these arrangements the Lacedaemonians had had recourse to the following device: They had dammed up the river above the town, and turned the stream upon the space between the town and the hills; with the result that the ground became so wet that men could not keep their feet, to say nothing of horses. ”

“ Some stories tell that Lycurgus made a copy of part of the poet’s works, for it is thought that the Greeks at this time (about 800 or 900 B.C.) already knew how to write. It was thus Lycurgus who made the works of Homer well known to his countrymen.
But in all his travels what interested Lycurgus most was the way the soldiers were trained in Egypt. In other countries he had seen men who ploughed their fields or plied their trade, leave their work to fight when war broke out, but the Egyptian soldiers were soldiers and nothing else all the year round. ”

“ A mystery and halo were thrown about them by their being attributed to the creative genius of a single lawgiver, Lycurgus.
Lycurgus, according to tradition, lived about the ninth century B.C. He is represented as acquainting himself with the laws and institutions of different lands, by converse with their priests and sages. He is said to have studied with great zeal the laws of Minos, the legendary lawgiver of the Cretans. Like the great legislator Moses, he became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. ”

“ Let all ill-constituted children die. Let the conquered—i.e., the weaker—serve; it belongs to the strong to rule. To develop the physical frame duly, Lycurgus caused even the young women to wrestle publicly, without drapery of any kind. ”

“ The Edonians, the Bassarids, and the Young Men constituted a connected series of plays—a Lycurgeia, with Lycurgus for the satyric supplement. Remembering that Æschylus called his own tragedies morsels picked up from the great Homeric banquet-table, we may conclude that this tetralogy set forth the Dionysian fable told by Diomede to Glaucus in the Iliad (vi. 131) :
No, for not Dryas' son, Lycurgus strong,
Who the divine ones fought, on earth lived long. ”

“ The way of Lycurgus seems the more natural with a view to the birth of children; the other, looking to a life to be spent together, is more moral. However, the rules which Lycurgus drew up for superintendence of children, their collection into companies, their discipline and association, as also his exact regulations for their meals, exercises, and sports, argue Numa no more than an ordinary lawgiver. ”

“ About dinner time Lycurgus's wife brought a hansome young man about 22 to the tents whoom they both seemd to acknowledge as their son. At night he and another chief who had also visited us went away to the westward, but Lycurgus and his wife went towards the place I was at in the morning which makes us not doubt of their staying with us for the future. ”

“ And [Pg 67] her tomb is at Pergamus beyond the Caicus, a mound of earth with a stone wall round it, and on the tomb a device in bronze, a naked woman. And after the death of Aleus Lycurgus his son succeeded to the kingdom by virtue of being the eldest. He did nothing very notable except that he slew by guile and not fairly Areithous a warrior. And of his sons Epochus died of some illness, but Ancæus sailed to Colchi with Jason, and afterwards, hunting with Meleager the wild boar in Calydon, was killed by it. Lycurgus lived to an advanced old age, having survived both his sons. ”

“ He died while president of the theatre of Dionysus, and was buried on the road leading to the Academy at the expense of the state.
Lycurgus was a man of action; his orations, of which fifteen were published, are criticized by the ancients for their awkward arrangement, harshness of style, and the tendency to digressions about mythology and history, although their noble spirit and lofty morality are highly praised. The one extant example, Against Leocrates, fully bears out this criticism. ”

“ Accordingly in the Lives of the Ten Orators [223] we learn that Lycurgus introduced laws, and among them one about comic writers ‘to hold a performance at the Chytroi, a competitive one, in the theatre,’ and ‘to record the victor as a victor in the city,’ which had formerly not been allowed. He thus revived the performance which had fallen into disuse.
Lycurgus meant well we may be sure, but he was a Butad [224] , he ought to have known better than to pluck up an old festival by the roots like that and think to foster it by transplantation. The end was certain ”

“ Lycurgus allowed a man who was advanced in years and had a young wife to recommend some virtuous and approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. ”

“ Those who were used to luxurious living were not ready to be brought down to such simple fare, and a number of these attacked Lycurgus in the market-place, and would have stoned him to death had he not run briskly for his life. ”

“ Lycurgus was of another mind; he would not have masters bought out of the market for his young Spartans, nor such as should sell their pains; nor was it lawful, indeed, for the father himself to breed up the children after his own fancy; but as soon as they were seven years old they were to be enrolled in certain companies and classes, where they all lived under the same order and discipline, doing their exercises and taking their play together. ”

“ What art thou, boldest of the race of man? Our eyes till now that aspect ne’er beheld, Where fame is reap’d amid the embattled field; Yet far before the troops thou dar’st appear, And meet a lance the fiercest heroes fear. Unhappy they, and born of luckless sires, Who tempt our fury when Minerva fires! But if from heaven, celestial, thou descend, Know with immortals we no more contend. Not long Lycurgus view’d the golden light, That daring man who mix’d with gods in fight. ”

“ For his alone, of all the Greek or royal armies, had no stage-players, no jugglers, no dancing or singing women attending it, but was free from all sorts of looseness, wantonness, and festivity; the young men being for the most part at their exercises, and the old men giving them lessons, or, at leisure times, diverting themselves with their native jests, and quick Laconian answers; the good results of which we have noticed in the life of Lycurgus. ”

“ But, that we may complete what is still wanting, I will give my explanation respecting the men who are esteemed wise. Minos, who has been thought to excel in every kind of wisdom, and mental acuteness, and legislative capacity, lived in the time of Lynceus, who reigned after Danaus in the eleventh generation after Inachus. Lycurgus, who was born long after the taking of Troy, gave laws to the Lacedemonians. ”

“ When young, and while the flesh is white throughout, the plant is edible, although so small that it would take a quantity to make a good [Pg 4-9] dish. It is found chiefly in pastures in the autumn. Sometimes found growing in company with Agaricus campestris. Of pleasant flavor when young.
Fig. 11. Basidium and spores of a Lycoperdon highly magnified.
An English author states that inflammation of the throat and swelling of the tongue have been known to ensue from eating some of the small species of Lycoperdon in the raw state. ”

“ Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comes up from the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours basking in the sun. Here, on their mother's back, the youngsters stretch their limbs delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor-power, absorb energy. ”

“ The Lycosa’s affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest and most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. What cares the Lycosa for her brood! She accepts another’s as readily as her own; she is satisfied so long as her back is burdened with a swarming crowd, whether it issue from her ovaries or elsewhence. ”

“ A number of species of Lycopodium are epiphytic and those of Isoëtes live submerged in water. Vegetative reproduction is effected in various ways: by the separation of the branches of a creeping stem in some Lycopodia, the persistence through the winter of the apex of the shoot in L. inundatum, and by the formation of leafy bulbils on the aerial stem of L. Selago and others. A highly specialized means of vegetative reproduction is seen in the tubers of Phylloglossum and the embryos of some Lycopods. The modifications shown by the gametophyte of Lycopodium will be described below. ”