Leliæ, the first king of Laconia, began his reign about 1516 years
before the Christian era. Tyndarus[336], the ninth king of Lacedæmon,
had, by Leda, Castor and Pollux, who were twins, besides Helena, and
Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ. Having survived his
son, he began to think of choosing a successor, by looking out for a
husband for his daughter Helena. All the pretenders to this princess
bound themselves by oath, to abide by, and entirely submit to, the
choice which the lady herself should make, who determined in favour of
Menelaus. She had not lived above three years with her husband, before
she was carried off by Paris, son of Priam, king of the Trojans, which
rape was the cause of the Trojan war. The Greeks took Troy after a siege
of ten years, about the year of the world 2820, and 1184 before Christ.
Eighty years after the taking of this city, the Heraclidæ re-entered the
Peloponnesus, and seized Lacedæmon; when two brothers, Eurysthenes and
Procles, sons of Aristodemus, began to reign together, and from their
time the sceptre always continued jointly in the hands of the
descendants of those two families.
Many years after this, Lycurgus instituted that body of laws, which
rendered both the legislature and the republic so famous in history: and
since the constitution of Lycurgus seems to have been the true
groundwork of our own, we insert some few particulars in respect to it;
for the ruins of institutions are even more important subjects of
contemplation than those of the walls in which they were engendered. The
following account is taken from Rollin. We have not space, however, for
the whole of his observations; we shall select, therefore, only the most
important ones. Of all the institutions, made by Lycurgus, the most
considerable was that of the senate; which, by tempering and balancing
the too absolute power of the kings by an authority of equal weight and
influence with theirs, became the principal support and preservation of
the state. For whereas, before, it was ever unsteady, and tending one
while to tyranny, by the violent proceedings of the kings; at other
times towards democracy, by the excessive power of the people, the
senate served as a kind of counterpoise to both; which kept the state in
a due equilibrium, and preserved it in a firm and steady situation; the
twenty-eight senators, of which it consisted, siding with the king, when
the people were aiming at too much power; and, on the other hand,
espousing the interests of the people whenever the kings attempted to
carry their authority too far.
Lycurgus having thus tempered the government, those that came after him
thought the power of the senate too absolute; and, therefore, as a check
upon them, they devised the authority of the Ephori. These were five in
number, and remained but one year in office. They were all chosen out of
the people, and in that respect considerably resembled the tribunes of
the people among the Romans. Their authority extended to the arresting
and imprisoning the persons of their kings. This institution began in
the reign of Theopompus, whose wife reproached him, that he would leave
his children the regal authority in a worse condition than he had
received it. "No!" said he, "on the contrary, I shall leave it them in a
much better condition; as it will be more permanent and lasting." The
Spartan government then was not purely monarchical. The nobility had a
share in it, and the people were not excluded. Each part of this body
politic, in proportion as it contributed to the public good, found in it
their advantage.
The second institution of Lycurgus was the division of the lands, which
he looked upon as absolutely necessary for establishing peace and good
order in the commonwealth. The major part of the people were so poor,
that they had not one inch of land of their own, whilst a small number
of particular persons were possessed of all the lands and wealth of the
country. In order to banish insolence, envy, fraud, luxury, and two
other distempers of the state, still greater and more ancient than
those, excessive poverty and excessive wealth, he persuaded the citizens
to give up all their lands to the commonwealth, and to make a new
division of them.
This scheme, as extraordinary as it was, was immediately executed.
Lycurgus divided the lands of Laconia into thirty thousand parts, which
he distributed among an equal number of citizens. It is said that, some
years after, as Lycurgus was returning from a long journey, and passing
through the lands of Laconia, in the time of harvest, and observing, as
he went along, the perfect equality of the reaped corn, he turned
towards those who were with him, and said smilingly, "Does not Laconia
look like the possession of several brothers, who have just been
dividing their inheritance among them?"
After having divided their immoveables, he undertook likewise to make
the same equal division of all their moveable goods and chattels, that
he might utterly banish all manner of equality from among them. But
perceiving that this would go against the grain, if he went openly about
it, he endeavoured to effect it by sapping the very foundations of
avarice. For first he cried down all gold and silver money, and ordained
that no other should be current than that of iron; which he made so very
heavy, and fixed at so low a rate, that a cart and two oxen were
necessary to carry home a sum of ten minas (about 20_l._), and a whole
chamber to keep it in.
Being desirous to make a yet more effectual war upon luxury, and utterly
to extirpate the love of riches, Lycurgus made a third regulation, which
was that of public meals. That he might entirely suppress all the
magnificence and extravagance of expensive tables, he ordained, that all
the citizens should eat together of the same common victuals, which the
law prescribed, and expressly forbade all private eating at their own
houses. The tables consisted of about fifteen persons each; where none
could be admitted but with the consent of the whole company. Each person
furnished, every month, a bushel of flour, eight measures of wine, five
pounds of cheese, two and a half pounds of figs, and a small sum of
money for preparing and cooking the food. The very children ate at these
public tables, and were carried thither as to a school of wisdom and
temperance. Nay, they were sure to see nothing but what tended to their
instruction and entertainment. The conversation was often enlivened with
ingenious and sprightly raillery, but never intermingled with any thing
vulgar or shocking; and if their jesting seemed to make any person
uneasy, they never proceeded any farther. Here their children were
likewise trained up, and accustomed to great secrecy; as soon as a young
man came into the dining-room, the oldest of the company used to say to
him, pointing to the door, "Nothing spoken here must ever go out there."
Lycurgus looked upon the education of youth as the greatest and most
important object of a legislator's care. His grand principle was, that
children belonged more to the state than to their parents; and,
therefore, he would not have them brought up according to their humours
and fancies; he would have the state intrusted with the general care of
their education, in order to have them formed upon correct and uniform
principles, which might inspire them betimes with the love of virtue and
of their country.
The most usual occupation of the Lacedæmonians was hunting, and other
bodily exercises. They were forbidden to exercise any mechanic art: the
Elotæ, a sort of slaves, tilled their land for them; for which they were
paid a certain revenue by way of wages. Lycurgus would have his citizens
enjoy a great deal of leisure: they had common halls, where the people
used to meet to converse together; and though their discourses chiefly
turned upon grave and serious topics, yet they seasoned them with a
mixture of wit and facetious humour, both agreeable and instructive.
They passed little of their time alone; being accustomed to live like
bees, always together, always about their chiefs and leaders. The love
of their country and of the public good was their predominant passion;
and they did not imagine they belonged to themselves but to their
country.
The end Lycurgus proposed was the public happiness: convinced that the
happiness of a city, like that of a private person, depends upon virtue,
and upon being well within himself. He regulated Lacedæmon so as it
might always suffice to its own happiness, and act upon principles of
wisdom and equity. From thence arose that universal esteem of the
neighbouring people, and even of strangers, for the Lacedæmonians, who
asked them neither money, ships, nor troops; but only that they should
lend them a Lacedæmonian to command their armies; and when they had
obtained their request, they paid him certain obedience, with every kind
of honour and respect.
There were a multitude of other regulations, some of which were,
doubtless, of a very imperfect tendency; but it is certain that the
declension of Sparta began with the violation of Lycurgus's laws. No
sooner had the ambition of reigning over all Greece inspired them with
the design of having naval armies and foreign troops, and that money was
necessary for the support of those forces, than Lacedæmon, forgetting
her ancient maxims, saw herself reduced to have recourse to the
Barbarians, which, till then, she had detested, and basely to betray her
court to the kings of Persia, whom she had formerly vanquished with so
much glory; and that only to draw from them some aids of money and
troops against their own brethren; that is to say, against people born
and settled in Greece, like themselves. Thus had they the imprudence and
misfortune to recal, with gold and silver, all the vices and crimes
which the iron money had banished; and to prepare the way to the changes
which ensued, and were the causes of their ruin. And this infinitely
exalts the wisdom of Lycurgus, in having foreseen at such a distance
what might strike at the happiness of his citizens, and provided
salutary remedies against it in the form of government he established at
Lacedæmon.
Ancient Sparta is thus described by Polybius:--"It is of a circular
form, and forty-eight stadia in circumference, situated in a plain, but
containing some rough places and eminences. The Eurotas flows to the
east, and the copiousness of its waters renders it too deep to be forded
during the greater part of the year. The hills, on which the Menelaion
is situated, are on the south-east of the city, on the opposite side of
the river. They are rugged, difficult of ascent, and throw their shadows
over the space which is between the city and the Eurotas. The river
flows close to the foot of the hills, which are not above a stadium and
a half from the city." Its former condition is thus described by
Anacharsis:--"The houses at Lacedæmon are small, and without ornament.
Halls and porticos have been erected, to which the citizens resort to
converse together, or transact business. On the south side of the city
is the hippodromus, or course for foot and horse races; and at a little
distance from that, the platanistas, or place of exercise for youth,
shaded by beautiful plane-trees, and inclosed by the Eurotas on one
side, a small river which falls into it, and a canal, by which they
communicate, on the other. It is entered by two bridges, on one of which
is the statue of Hercules, or 'All-subduing Force;' and on the other
that of Lycurgus, or 'All-regulating Law.'"
In what condition is this celebrated city at present? "Passing over the
Eurotas," says Mr. Dodwell, "we viewed the first remains of the
Lacedæmonian capital, now called Palaio-Kastro, consisting of uncertain
traces and heaps of large stones, tossed about in a sort of promiscuous
wreck. In a few minutes we reached the theatre, which is of large
dimensions. The Koilon is excavated in the hill, which rose nearly in
the middle of the city, and which served as an Acropolis. The theatre
appears of Roman construction, and the walls of the proscenium are
principally of brick. The white marble, of which, Pausanias says, it was
composed, has disappeared. Near the theatre are the remains of a Roman
brick tower. Sparta was originally without walls, and Lycurgus
prohibited their erection. Justin asserts that the Spartans first
surrounded their capital with walls, when Cassander entered the
Peloponnesus; according to Livy, they were built by the tyrant; and
Plutarch says they were destroyed by Philopoemen. Pausanias asserts,
that the walls were constructed with precipitate haste, when Demetrius
and Pyrrhus besieged Sparta. They were afterwards strongly fortified by
the tyrant Nabis, and destroyed by the Achæans, by whom, it appears,
they were afterwards rebuilt.
A fine sepulchral chamber, of a square form, regularly constructed with
large blocks, is situated nearly opposite the theatre, and a short
distance from it. It has been opened, and the interior is found to be
composed of brick-work. Many other ruins are dispersed in this
direction, some of which are of Roman origin. They appear to have
suffered more from sudden violence than from gradual decay; and have, no
doubt, been torn to pieces to supply materials for the modern town of
Misithra. Several inscriptions have also been found. From all this, it
will appear, that Chateaubriand is not quite correct, when he asserts,
that "SPARTA is occupied by the single hut of a goat-herd, whose wealth
consists in the crop, that grows upon the graves of Agis and
Agesilaus."[337]