Chapter 9

I. With regard to Lykurgus the lawgiver there is nothing whatever that is undisputed; as his birth, his travels, his death, and, besides all this, his legislation, have all been related in various ways; and also the dates of his birth do not in any way accord. Some say that he was contemporary with Iphitus, and with him settled the conditions of the Olympic truce; and among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of Lykurgus is still preserved. Others, among them Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, by computing the reigns of the kings of Sparta,[A] prove that he must have lived many years before the first Olympiad. Timaeus conjectures that there were two men of the name of Lykurgus in Sparta at different times, and that the deeds of both are attributed to one of them, on account of his celebrity. The elder, he thinks, must have lived not far off the time of Homer; indeed some say that he came into the presence of Homer. Xenophon gives an idea of his antiquity when he speaks of him as living in the time of the Herakleidae. By descent of course the last kings of Sparta are Herakleidae, but he appears to mean by Herakleidae the earliest of all, who were next to Herakles himself.

[Footnote A: In the Spartan constitution there were two kings, who were believed to be descended from two brothers, Eurysthenes and Prokles, the two sons of Aristodemus. When the descendants of Herakles returned to Peloponnesus, and divided that country amongst them, Lacedaemon fell to the lot of Aristodemus, who left his two sons joint heirs to the monarchy. The kings of Sparta had little real power, and to this no doubt they owed the fact of their retaining their dignity when every other Hellenic state adopted a democratic form of government.]

However, in spite of these discrepancies, we will endeavour, by following the least inconsistent accounts and the best known authorities, to write the history of his life. Simonides the poet tells us that the father of Lykurgus was not Eunomus, but Prytanis. But most writers do not deduce his genealogy thus, but say that Soüs was the son of Prokles, and grandson of Aristodemus, and that Soüs begat Euripus; Euripus, Prytanis, and Prytanis, Eunomus. Eunomus had two sons, Polydektes by his first wife, and Lykurgus by his second wife Dionassa, which makes him, according to Dieutychides, sixth in descent from Prokles, and eleventh from Herakles.

II. The most remarkable of his ancestors was Soüs, in whose reign the Spartans enslaved the Helots, and annexed a large portion of Arcadia. It is said that Soüs once was besieged by the Kleitorians, in a fort where there was no water, and was compelled to conclude a treaty to restore the territory in dispute, if he and his men were permitted to drink at the nearest spring. After this had been agreed upon, he called his men together, and offered his kingdom to any one who could refrain from drinking. But as no one could do this, but all drank, last of all he himself came down to the spring, and in the presence of the enemy merely sprinkled his face with the water, and marched off, refusing to restore the disputed territory, on the ground that all did not drink. But though he gained great fame by this, yet it was not he but his son Eurypon who gave the name of Eurypontidae to the family, because Eurypon was the first to relax the despotic traditions of his family and render his government more popular with the people. But as a consequence of this the people were encouraged to demand more freedom, and great confusion and lawlessness prevailed in Sparta for a long time, because some of the kings opposed the people and so became odious, while others were found to yield to them, either to preserve their popularity, or from sheer weakness of character. It was during this period of disorder that the father of Lykurgus lost his life. He was endeavouring to part two men who were quarrelling, and was killed by a blow from a cook's chopper, leaving the kingdom to his elder son Polydektes.

III. He also died after a short time, and, as all thought, Lykurgus ought to have been the next king. And he did indeed reign until his brother's wife was found to be pregnant; but as soon as he heard this, he surrendered the crown to the child, if it should be a boy, and merely administered the kingdom as guardian for the child. The Lacedaemonian name for the guardian of a royal orphan is _prodikus_. Now the queen made a secret proposal to him, that she should destroy her infant and that they should live together as king and queen. Though disgusted at her wickedness, he did not reject the proposal, but pretended to approve of it. He said that she must not risk her life and injure her health by procuring abortion, but that he would undertake to do away with the child. Thus he deluded her until her confinement, at which time he sent officials and guards into her chamber with orders to hand the child over to the women if it was a girl, and to bring it to him, whatever he might be doing, if it was a boy. He happened to be dining with the archons when a male child was born, and the servants brought it to him. He is said to have taken the child and said to those present, "A king is born to you, O Spartans," and to have laid him down in the royal seat and named him Charilaus, because all men were full of joy admiring his spirit and justice. He was king for eight months in all; and was much looked up to by the citizens, who rendered a willing obedience to him, rather because of his eminent virtues than because he was regent with royal powers. There was, nevertheless, a faction which grudged him his elevation, and tried to oppose him, as he was a young man.

They consisted chiefly of the relatives and friends of the queen-mother, who considered that she had been insultingly treated, and her brother Leonidas once went so far in his abusive language as to hint to Lykurgus that he knew that he meant to be king, throwing the suspicion upon Lykurgus, if anything should happen to the child, that he would be supposed to have managed it. This sort of language was used by the queen-mother also, and he, grieved and alarmed, decided to avoid all suspicion by leaving the country and travelling until his nephew should be grown up and have an heir born to succeed him.

IV. With this intention he set sail, and first came to Crete, where he studied the constitution and mixed with the leading statesmen. Some part of their laws he approved and made himself master of, with the intention of adopting them on his return home, while with others he was dissatisfied. One of the men who had a reputation there for learning and state-craft he made his friend, and induced him to go to Sparta. This was Thales, who was thought to be merely a lyric poet, and who used this art to conceal his graver acquirements, being in reality deeply versed in legislation. His poems were exhortations to unity and concord in verse, breathing a spirit of calm and order, which insensibly civilised their hearers and by urging them to the pursuit of honourable objects led them to lay aside the feelings of party strife so prevalent in Sparta; so that he may be said in some degree to have educated the people and prepared them to receive the reforms of Lykurgus.

From Crete Lykurgus sailed to Asia Minor, wishing, it is said, to contrast the thrifty and austere mode of life of the Cretans with the extravagance and luxury of the Ionians, as a physician compares healthy and diseased bodies, and to note the points of difference in the two states. There, it seems, he first met with the poems of Homer, which were preserved by the descendants of Kreophylus, and observing that they were no less useful for politics and education than for relaxation and pleasure, he eagerly copied and compiled them, with the intention of bringing them home with him. There was already some dim idea of the existence of these poems among the Greeks, but few possessed any portions of them, as they were scattered in fragments, but Lykurgus first made them known. The Egyptians suppose that Lykurgus visited them also, and that he especially admired their institution of a separate caste of warriors. This he transferred to Sparta, and, by excluding working men and the lower classes from the government, made the city a city indeed, pure from all admixture. Some Greek writers corroborate the Egyptians in this, but as to Lykurgus having visited Libya and Iberia, or his journey to India and meeting with the Gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, there, no one that we know of tells this except the Spartan Aristokrates, the son of Hipparchus.

V. During Lykurgus's absence the Lacedaemonians regretted him and sent many embassies to ask him to return, telling him that their kings had indeed the royal name and state, but nothing else to distinguish them from the common people, and that he alone had the spirit of a ruler and the power to influence men's minds. Even the kings desired his presence, as they hoped that he would assist in establishing their authority and would render the masses less insolent. Returning to a people in this condition, he at once began alterations and reforms on a sweeping scale, considering that it was useless and unprofitable to do such work by halves, but that, as in the case of a diseased body, the original cause of the disorder must be burned out or purged away, and the patient begin an entirely new life. After reflecting on this, he made a journey to Delphi. Here he sacrificed to the god, and, on consulting the oracle, received that celebrated answer in which the Pythia speaks of him as beloved by the gods, and a god rather than a man, and when he asked for a good system of laws, answered that the god gives him what will prove by far the best of all constitutions. Elated by this he collected the leading men and begged them to help him, first by talking privately to his own friends, and thus little by little obtaining a hold over more men and banding them together for the work. When the time was ripe for the attempt, he bade thirty of the nobles go into the market-place early in the morning completely armed, in order to overawe the opposition. The names of twenty of the most distinguished of these men have been preserved by Hermippus, but the man who took the greatest part in all Lykurgus's works, and who helped him in establishing his laws, was Arthmiades. At first King Charilaus was terrified at the confusion, imagining that a revolt had broken out against himself, and fled for refuge to the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House; but, afterward reassured and having received solemn pledges for his safety, returned and took part in their proceedings. He was of a gentle nature, as is proved by the words of his colleague, King Archelaus, who, when some were praising the youth, said, "How can Charilaus be a good man, if he is not harsh even to wicked men?"

Of Lykurgus's many reforms, the first and most important was the establishment of the Council of Elders, which Plato says by its admixture cooled the high fever of royalty, and, having an equal vote with the kings on vital points, gave caution and sobriety to their deliberations. For the state, which had hitherto been wildly oscillating between despotism on the one hand and democracy on the other, now, by the establishment of the Council of the Elders, found a firm footing between these extremes, and was able to preserve a most equable balance, as the eight-and-twenty elders would lend the kings their support in the suppression of democracy, but would use the people to suppress any tendency to despotism. Twenty-eight is the number of Elders mentioned by Aristotle, because of the thirty leading men who took the part of Lykurgus two deserted their post through fear. But Sphairus says that those who shared his opinions were twenty-eight originally. A reason may be found in twenty-eight being a mystic number, formed by seven multiplied by four, and being the first perfect number after six, for like that, it is equal to all its parts.[A] But I think that he probably made this number of elders, in order that with the two kings the council might consist of thirty members in all.

[Footnote A: 14, 2, 7, 4, 1, make by addition 28; as 3, 2, and 1 make 6.]

VI. Lykurgus was so much interested in this council as to obtain from Delphi an oracle about it, called the _rhetra_, which runs as follows: "After you have built a temple to Zeus of Greece and Athene of Greece, and have divided the people into _tribes_ and _obes_, you shall found a council of thirty, including the chiefs, and shall from season to season _apellazein_ the people between Babyka and Knakion, and there propound measures and divide upon them, and the people shall have the casting vote and final decision." In these words tribes and obes are divisions into which the people were to be divided; the chiefs mean the kings; _apellazein_ means to call an assembly, in allusion to Apollo, to whom the whole scheme of the constitution is referred. Babyka and Knakion they now call Oinous; but Aristotle says that Knakion is a river and Babyka a bridge. Between these they held their assemblies, without any roof or building of any kind; for Lykurgus did not consider that deliberations were assisted by architecture, but rather hindered, as men's heads were thereby filled with vain unprofitable fancies, when they assemble for debate in places where they can see statues and paintings, or the proscenium of a theatre, or the richly ornamented roof of a council chamber. When the people were assembled, he permitted no one to express an opinion; but the people was empowered to decide upon motions brought forward by the kings and elders. But in later times, as the people made additions and omissions, and so altered the sense of the motions before them, the kings, Polydorus and Theopompus, added these words to the _rhetra_, "and if the people shall decide crookedly, the chiefs and elders shall set it right." That is, they made the people no longer supreme, but practically excluded them from any voice in public affairs, on the ground that they judged wrongly. However these kings persuaded the city that this also was ordained by the god. This is mentioned by Tyrtaeus in the following verses:

"They heard the god, and brought from Delphi home, Apollo's oracle, which thus did say: That over all within fair Sparta's realm The royal chiefs in council should bear sway, The elders next to them, the people last; If they the holy _rhetra_ would obey."

VII. Though Lykurgus had thus mixed the several powers of the state, yet his successors, seeing that the powers of the oligarchy were unimpaired, and that it was, as Plato calls it, full of life and vigour, placed as a curb to it the power of the Ephors. The first Ephors, of whom Elatus was one, were elected about a hundred and thirty years after Lykurgus, in the reign of Theopompus. This king is said to have been blamed by his wife because he would transmit to his children a less valuable crown than he had received, to which he answered: "Nay, more valuable, because more lasting." In truth, by losing the odium of absolute power, the King of Sparta escaped all danger of being dethroned, as those of Argos and Messene were by their subjects, because they would abate nothing of their despotic power. The wisdom of Lykurgus became clearly manifest to those who witnessed the revolutions and miseries of the Argives and Messenians, who were neighbouring states and of the same race as the Spartans, who, originally starting on equal terms with them, and indeed seeming in the allotment of their territories to have some advantage, yet did not long live happily, but the insolent pride of the kings and the unruly temper of the people together resulted in a revolution, which clearly proved that the checked and balanced constitution established among the Spartans was a divine blessing for them. But of this more hereafter.

VIII. The second and the boldest of Lykurgus's reforms was the redistribution of the land. Great inequalities existed, many poor and needy people had become a burden to the state, while wealth had got into a very few hands. Lykurgus abolished all the mass of pride, envy, crime, and luxury which flowed from those old and more terrible evils of riches and poverty, by inducing all land-owners to offer their estates for redistribution, and prevailing upon them to live on equal terms one with another, and with equal incomes, striving only to surpass each other in courage and virtue, there being henceforth no social inequalities among them except such as praise or blame can create.

Putting his proposals immediately into practice, he divided the outlying lands of the state among the Perioeki, in thirty thousand lots, and that immediately adjoining the metropolis among the native Spartans, in nine thousand lots, for to that number they then amounted. Some say that Lykurgus made six thousand lots, and that Polydorus added three thousand afterwards; others that he added half the nine thousand, and that only half was allotted by Lykurgus.

Each man's lot was of such a size as to supply a man with seventy medimni of barley, and his wife with twelve, and oil and wine in proportion; for thus much he thought ought to suffice them, as the food was enough to maintain them in health, and they wanted nothing more. It is said that, some years afterwards, as he was returning from a journey through the country at harvest-time, when he saw the sheaves of corn lying in equal parallel rows, he smiled, and said to his companions that all Laconia seemed as if it had just been divided among so many brothers.

IX. He desired to distribute furniture also, in order completely to do away with inequality; but, seeing that actually to take away these things would be a most unpopular measure, he managed by a different method to put an end to all ostentation in these matters. First of all he abolished the use of gold and silver money, and made iron money alone legal; and this he made of great size and weight, and small value, so that the equivalent for ten minae required a great room for its stowage, and a yoke of oxen to draw it. As soon as this was established, many sorts of crime became unknown in Lacedaemon. For who would steal or take as a bribe or deny that he possessed or take by force a mass of iron which he could not conceal, which no one envied him for possessing, which he could not even break up and so make use of; for the iron when hot was, it is said, quenched in vinegar, so as to make it useless, by rendering it brittle and hard to work?

After this, he ordered a general expulsion of the workers in useless trades. Indeed, without this, most of them must have left the country when the ordinary currency came to an end, as they would not be able to sell their wares: for the iron money was not current among other Greeks, and had no value, being regarded as ridiculous; so that it could not be used for the purchase of foreign trumpery, and no cargo was shipped for a Laconian port, and there came into the country no sophists, no vagabond soothsayers, no panders, no goldsmiths or workers in silver plate, because there was no money to pay them with. Luxury, thus cut off from all encouragement, gradually became extinct; and the rich were on the same footing with other people, as they could find no means of display, but were forced to keep their money idle at home. For this reason such things as are useful and necessary, like couches and tables and chairs, were made there better than anywhere else, and the Laconian cup, we are told by Kritias, was especially valued for its use in the field. Its colour prevented the drinker being disgusted by the look of the dirty water which it is sometimes necessary to drink, and it was contrived that the dirt was deposited inside the cup and stuck to the bottom, so as to make the drink cleaner than it would otherwise have been. These things were due to the lawgiver; for the workmen, who were not allowed to make useless things, devoted their best workmanship to useful ones.

X. Wishing still further to put down luxury and take away the desire for riches, he introduced the third and the most admirable of his reforms, that of the common dining-table. At this the people were to meet and dine together upon a fixed allowance of food, and not to live in their own homes, lolling on expensive couches at rich tables, fattened like beasts in private by the hands of servants and cooks, and undermining their health by indulgence to excess in every bodily desire, long sleep, warm baths, and much repose, so that they required a sort of daily nursing like sick people. This was a great advantage, but it was a greater to render wealth valueless, and, as Theophrastus says, to neutralise it by their common dining-table and the simplicity of their habits. Wealth could not be used, nor enjoyed, nor indeed displayed at all in costly apparatus, when the poor man dined at the same table with the rich; so that the well-known saying, that "wealth is blind and lies like a senseless log," was seen to be true in Sparta alone of all cities under heaven. Men were not even allowed to dine previously at home, and then come to the public table, but the others, watching him who did not eat or drink with them, would reproach him as a sensual person, too effeminate to eat the rough common fare.

For these reasons it is said that the rich were bitterly opposed to Lykurgus on this question, and that they caused a tumult and attacked him with shouts of rage. Pelted with stones from many hands, he was forced to run out of the market-place, and take sanctuary in a temple. He outstripped all his pursuers except one, a hot-tempered and spirited youth named Alkander, who came up with him, and striking him with a club as he turned round, knocked out his eye. Lykurgus paid no heed to the pain, but stood facing the citizens and showed them his face streaming with blood, and his eye destroyed. All who saw him were filled with shame and remorse. They gave up Alkander to his mercy, and conducted him in procession to his own house, to show their sympathy. Lykurgus thanked them and dismissed them, but took Alkander home with him. He did him no harm and used no reproachful words, but sent away all his servants and bade him serve him. Alkander, being of a generous nature, did as he was ordered, and, dwelling as he did with Lykurgus, watching his kind unruffled temper, his severe simplicity of life, and his unwearied labours, he became enthusiastic in his admiration of him, and used to tell his friends and acquaintances that Lykurgus, far from being harsh or overbearing, was the kindest and gentlest of men. Thus was Alkander tamed and subdued, so that he who had been a wicked and insolent youth was made into a modest and prudent man.

As a memorial of his misfortune, Lykurgus built the temple of Athene, whom he called Optilitis, for the Dorians in that country call the eyes _optiloi_. Some writers, however, among whom is Dioskorides, who wrote an 'Account of the Spartan Constitution,' say that Lykurgus was struck upon the eye, but not blinded, and that he built this temple as a thank-offering to the goddess for his recovery.

At any rate, it was in consequence of his mishap that the Spartans discontinued the habit of carrying staffs when they met in council.