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You remember that after a hundred years the grandsons of Hercules
returned, bringing with them their followers of Dorian birth, and
conquered Laconia. These Dorians called themselves Spartans, and were
the rulers of the land, though the Greeks, who were there before them,
were also freemen, all but those of one city, called Helos, which
revolted, and was therefore broken up, and the people were called Helots,
and became slaves to the Spartans. One of the Spartan kings, sons of
Hercules, had twin sons, and these two reigned together with equal
rights, and so did their sons after them, so that there were always two
kings at Sparta. One line was called the Agids, from Agis, its second
king; the other Eurypontids, from Eurypon, its third king, instead of
from the two original twins.
The affairs of Sparta had fallen into a corrupt state by the third
generation after Eurypon. The king of his line was killed in a quarrel,
and his widow, a wicked woman, offered his brother Lycurgus to kill her
little new-born babe, if he would marry her, that she might continue to
be queen. Lycurgus did not show his horror, but advised her to send the
child alive to him, that he might dispose of it. So far from killing it
was he, that he carried it at once to the council, placed it on the
throne, and proclaimed it as Charilaus, king of Sparta.
There were still murmurs from those who did not know that Lycurgus had
saved the little boy's life. As he was next heir to the throne, it was
thought that he must want to put Charilaus out of the way, so as to reign
himself; so, having seen the boy in safe keeping, Lycurgus went on his
travels to study the laws and ways of other countries. He visited Crete,
and learnt the laws of Minos; and, somewhere among the Greek settlements
in Asia, he is said to have seen and talked to Homer, and heard his
songs. He also went to Egypt, and after that to India, where he may have
learnt much from the old Brahmin philosophy; and then, having made his
plan, he repaired to Delphi, and prayed until he received answer from
Apollo that his laws should be the best, and the state that obeyed them
the most famous in Greece. He then went home, where he had been much
missed, for his young nephew Charilaus, though grown to man's estate, was
too weak and good-natured to be much obeyed, and there was a great deal
of idleness, and gluttony, and evil of all sorts prevailing.
Thirty Spartans bound themselves to help Lycurgus in his reform, and
Charilaus, fancying it a league against himself, fled into the temple of
Pallas, but his uncle fetched him out, and told him that he only wanted
to make laws for making the Spartans great and noble. The rule was only
for the real Dorian Spartans, the masters of the country, and was to make
them perfect warriors. First, then, he caused all the landmarks to be
taken up, and the lands thrown into one, which he divided again into
lots, each of which was large enough to yield 82 bushels of corn in a
year, with wine and oil in proportion. Then, to hinder hoarding, he
allowed no money to be used in the country but great iron weights, so
that a small sum took up a great deal of room, and could hardly be
carried about, and thus there was no purchasing Phoenician luxuries; nor
was anyone to use gold or ivory, soft cushions, carpets, or the like, as
being unworthy of the race of Hercules. The whole Spartan nation became,
in fact, a regiment of highly-disciplined warriors. They were to live
together in public barracks, only now and then visiting their homes, and
even when they slept there, being forbidden to touch food till they came
to the general meal, which was provided for by contributions of meal,
cheese, figs, and wine from each man's farm, and a little money to buy
fish and meat; also a sort of soup called black broth, which was so
unsavoury that nobody but a Spartan could eat it, because it was said
they brought the best sauce, namely, hunger. A boy was admitted as soon
as he was old enough, and was warned against repeating the talk of his
elders, by being told on his first entrance, by the eldest man in the
company, "Look you, sir; nothing said here goes out there." Indeed no
one used more words than needful, so that short, pithy sayings came to be
called Laconic. To be a perfect soldier was the great point, so boys
were taught that no merit was greater than bearing pain without
complaint; and they carried this so far, that a boy who had brought a
young wolf into the hall, hidden under his tunic, let it bite him even to
death without a groan or cry. It is said that they were trained to
theft, and were punished, not for the stealing, but the being found out.
And, above all, no Spartan was ever to turn his back in battle. The
mothers gave the sons a shield, with the words, "With it, or on it." The
Spartan shields were long, so that a dead warrior would be borne home on
his shield; but a man would not dare show his face again if he had thrown
it away in flight. The women were trained to running, leaping, and
throwing the bar, like the men, and were taught stern hardihood, so that,
when their boys were offered to the cruel Diana, they saw them flogged to
death at her altar without a tear. All the lives of the Spartans were
spent in exercising for war, and the affairs of the state were managed
not so much by the kings, but by five judges called Ephors, who were
chosen every year, while the kings had very little power. They had to
undergo the same discipline as the rest--dressed, ate, and lived like
them; but they were the high priests and chief captains, and made peace
or war.
At first Lycurgus' laws displeased some of the citizens much, and, when
he was proposing them, a young man named Alcander struck him on the face
with his staff, and put out his eye. The others were shocked, and put
Alcander into Lycurgus' hands, to be punished as he thought fit. All
Lycurgus did was to make him wait upon him at meals, and Alcander was so
touched and won over that he became one of his best supporters. After
having fully taught Sparta to observe his rule, Lycurgus declared that he
had another journey to take, and made the people swear to observe his
laws till he came back again. He never did come back, and they held
themselves bound by them for ever.
This story of Lycurgus has been doubted, but whether there were such a
man or not, it is quite certain that these were the laws of Sparta in her
most famous days, and that they did their work of making brave and hardy
soldiers. The rule was much less strict in the camp than the city, and
the news of a war was delightful to the Spartans as a holiday-time. All
the hard work of their farms was done for them by the Helots, who were
such a strong race that it was not easy to keep them down, although their
masters were very cruel to them, often killing large numbers of them if
they seemed to be growing dangerous, always ill-treating them, and, it is
said, sometimes making them drunk, that the sight of their intoxication
might disgust the young Spartans. In truth, the whole Spartan system was
hard and unfeeling, and much fitter to make fighting machines than men.
The first great Spartan war that we know of was with their neighbours of
Messenia, who stood out bravely, but were beaten, and brought down to the
state of Helots in the year 723 B.C., all but a small band, who fled into
other states. Among them was born a brave youth named Aristomenes, who
collected all the boldest of his fellow-Messenians to try to save their
country, and Argos, Arcadia, and Elis joined with them. Several battles
were fought. One, which was called the battle of the Boar's Pillar, was
long sung about. An augur had told Aristomenes that under a tree sat the
Spartan brothers Castor and Pollux, to protect their countrymen, and that
he might not pass it; but in the pursuit he rushed by it, and at that
moment the shield was rent from him by an unseen hand. While he was
searching for it, the Spartans (who do seem this time to have fled)
escaped; but Messene was free, and he was crowned with flowers by the
rejoicing women. A command from Apollo made him descend into a cave,
where he found his shield, adorned with the figure of an eagle, and, much
encouraged, he won another battle, and would have entered Sparta itself,
had not Helen and her twin brothers appeared to warn him back. At last,
however, the war turned against him, and in a battle on Laconian ground
he was stunned by a stone, and taken prisoner, with 50 more. They were
all condemned to be thrown down a high rock into a deep pit. Everyone
else was killed by the fall, but Aristomenes found himself unhurt, with
sky above, high precipices on all sides, and his dead comrades under him.
He wrapped himself in his cloak to wait for death, but on the third day
he heard something moving, uncovered his face, and saw that a fox had
crept in from a cavern at the side of the pit. He took hold of the fox's
tail, crawled after it, and at last saw the light of day. He scraped the
earth till the way was large enough for him to pass, escaped, and
gathered his friends, to the amazement of the Spartans. Again he gained
the victory, and a truce was made, but he was treacherously seized, and
thrown into prison. However, this time he was set free by a maiden, whom
he gave in marriage to his son. At last Eira, the chief city of
Messenia, was betrayed by a foolish woman, while Aristomenes was laid
aside by a wound. In spite of this, however, he fought for three days
and nights against the Spartans, and at last drew up all the
survivors--women as well as men--in a hollow square, with the children in
the middle, and demanded a free passage. The Spartans allowed these
brave Messenians to pass untouched, and they reached Arcadia. There the
dauntless Aristomenes arranged another scheme for seizing Sparta itself,
but it was betrayed, and failed. The Arcadians stoned the traitor, while
the gentle Aristomenes wept for him. The remaining Messenians begged him
to lead them to a new country, but he would not leave Greece as long as
he could strike a blow against Sparta. However, he sent his two sons,
and they founded in Sicily a new Messene, which we still call Messina.
Aristomenes waited in vain in Arcadia, till Damagetus, king of Rhodes,
who had been bidden by an oracle to marry the daughter of the best of
Greeks, asked for the daughter of Aristomenes, and persuaded him to
finish his life in peace and honour in Rhodes.
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