(About 884-820 B.C.)
[Footnote 5: Copyright. 1894. by Selmar Hess.]
Scholars generally agree in the judgment that Lycurgus was a real
person. It is probable that he was born in the ninth century B.C., and
that, in the later part of the same century (850-820), he was an
important, if not the principal, agent in the reconstruction of the
Dorian state of Sparta, in the Peloponnesus. According to Herodotus, he
was the uncle of King Labotas, of the royal line of Eurysthenes. Others,
whom Plutarch follows, describe him as the uncle and guardian of King
Charilaus, and therefore in the line of Procles. Either way his
mythical lineage would be traced to Hercules. We are able to find no
trustworthy records of the circumstances of his birth, and of the
incidents of his childhood and youth. Plutarch, with all his diligence,
found nothing. Nor could he sift and blend the varying stories of his
later life and so construct a consistent and credible narrative, O.
Mueller says: "We have absolutely no account of him as an individual
person."
[Illustration: Lycurgus. [TN]]
Accordingly Lycurgus appears already in his maturity. We know what he
was only from what he did. He has this imperishable honor, that he did
something, and did it in such a manner and with such effect that the
memory of him and his deeds has lasted until this late time, and bids
fair to last throughout all time.
The following traditions concerning Lycurgus are commonly repeated.
Polydectes, his brother, was king in Sparta. After the king's death a
son was born to the widow. Lycurgus became his guardian and presented
him to the magistrates as their future king. He was suspected by the
queen's brother of a design to take the crown, and even of a purpose to
destroy his infant nephew. Accordingly he went into exile. He remained
some time in Crete, studying the institutions of the Dorian people of
that island. He travelled extensively in Asia and was especially careful
to observe the manners and customs of the Ionians. He found the poems of
Homer, transcribed and arranged them, and caused them to be more
generally known. The Egyptians claimed that he visited their country and
derived much of his wisdom from them. Meanwhile the affairs of Sparta
were in a critical condition and the king and the people alike desired
his presence and his aid in restoring peace and renewing the prosperity
of the community and the people of Laconia. Immediately upon his return
he entered upon the work of framing a constitution and reconstructing
the state. Notwithstanding much opposition and complaint from the
classes obliged to make concessions and sacrifices for the common good,
he secured the assent of the people to his legislation. Having seen the
system in working order, he announced his purpose to leave the country
for a period, and moved the citizens to take an oath that they would
observe the laws until he should return. He departed to remain away to
the end of his life, but first repaired to Delphi and obtained an oracle
promising prosperity to the Spartans, so long as they should maintain
faithfully the constitution.
Laconia was the southeastern portion of the peninsula. The soil was
mainly mountain land and meagrely productive under toilsome and careful
tillage. So much of it as was naturally fertile lay in the centre, shut
in from the sea by the mountains. At the time of the Dorian immigration,
it was occupied in part by the descendants of the old Pelasgian
population and in part by a mixed people which had come in at different
times and from various sources. Because of the limited area there was
already considerable pressure between the several elements. Accordingly
the Dorians and their Achaean and AEolian allies met with a stout
resistance, and established themselves after an obstinate and
long-continued struggle. They descended from the sources of the Eurotas
and forced their way into the plains in the midst of the land. They
seized the heights on the right bank of the river at a point where its
channel is split by an island and it was most easy to cross the stream.
The hill of Athene became the centre of the settlement. Their
establishment in the land was a slow process. It is said Laconia was
divided into six districts, with six capital cities, each ruled by a
king. The immigrants were distributed among the inhabitants and lands
were allotted to them, in return for which they recognized the authority
of the kings and engaged to support them in power. They seem to have
been adopted by the kings, as their kindred were in Crete, as the
military guardians of their prerogatives. The result was inevitable.
They who are intrusted to maintain power become conscious that it is
really their own, take formal possession of it, and exercise it for
their own ends.
Two leading families drew to themselves the central body of the Dorians,
rallied the rest, gathered them all at one point, and made it the centre
of the district and the seat of government. They were supported by
families of common descent and recognized by the people of the land, who
suffered no change in the circumstances of their life. These gave them
homage, paid to them taxes, and united with their kindred in celebrating
funeral rites at their tombs. Sparta became the capital of the whole
country, while the former capitals became country towns.
But there were difficulties in the way of the new regime. There were
conflicting claims between the two royal families. Both of them were in
collision with families in all respects their equals as to lineage and
rank. The older and newer elements of the mass of the population were
mingled but not yet combined. Everywhere there was friction, with
occasions enough for irritation and confusion. The descendants of the
primitive races were attached to their ancient ways. The Dorians were
not less, but more tenacious of their traditional customs. And they were
conscious of their vantage and knew they were able to insist on their
preferences. As the props of the royal houses they could hope to make
terms with them, or withdraw and let them fall, or turn to cast them
down. The kings were compelled, on the one hand, to exert themselves to
hold in control a subject people, and, on the other, to check the
headstrong Dorian warriors. There was danger of the disruption of the
kingdom, a lapse into anarchy, the rise of opposing factions, and a
conflict destructive alike and equally of the welfare of all classes of
the people.
There was need of a statesman who could comprehend the problem, find a
solution, commend it to the judgment of all classes, and gain their
cordial consent to the renovation of the state upon a more equitable
basis. He must be a man of large capacity, great attainments, thorough
sincerity, earnest devotion, generous and self-sacrificing patriotism.
He must have ability to conceive a high ideal, steadily contemplate it,
and nevertheless consider the materials on which and the conditions
under which he must do his work, maintain the sober judgment which
discriminates between the ideal and the practicable, and exercise the
rigid self-control which calmly renounces the best conceivable and
resolutely attempts the best attainable. He must have regard to the
ideas, sentiments, associations, sacred traditions, and immemorial
customs of the several races and classes of the people. He must be
prudently conservative and keenly cautious in shaping and applying new
measures and methods. He must study and comprehend the inevitable
oppositions of interests, and conceive modes of action which involve
reasonable concessions accompanied by manifest compensations. He must
ally himself with no party and yet command the confidence of all
parties. Whatever prior advantage he may have had in the matters of
birth, rank, and association, he must use to conciliate those who would
be asked to make the largest apparent sacrifices, and so turn it to
account for the benefit of those who might otherwise suspect and
distrust him and fall away from his influence. He must be able to
explain and commend the system he might devise, convince the several
parties of its wisdom, persuade them to yield their preferences and
accept the needful compromises, and move them to make a fair and full
experiment of its provisions. 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. The man who loves his people, plans and labors for their
good, will not peril their welfare by his experiments, disdaining the
help of those who have wrought before him, and the guidance of his
contemporaries in examples, the benign results of which he may have had
opportunity to witness. The truth appears to be that Lycurgus had
respect to the reverence of the people for the ancient ways, and
retained as far as he was able the suitable elements of the primitive
polity of the Homeric age. This was based on the Council of Chiefs or
Elders and occasional meetings of an assembly of the people to listen
and learn, to assent and give heed. From whatsoever sources he drew, he
adapted the materials of his knowledge to the conditions under which his
structure must be shaped, the circumstances under which it must get on
its base and stand secure. Those who affirm the exemplary influence of
the Cretan polity, hold fast to the tradition that Lycurgus visited the
island and could not have failed to observe the features of society
there, and could not have expelled from his mind the similarity of
conditions among the two peoples and the expedients which the lawgiver
of Crete had employed to meet and resolve the difficulties he
encountered and secure the results he attained. It must, however, be
remembered that similar peoples with common traditions and customs,
under like circumstances may independently work out for themselves
systems of society analogous in many particulars and varying only by
adaptation to special conditions. If Lycurgus perceived what was
suitable to the exigency, wrought it into a plan, moved the people to
accept it, brought harmony out of discord, order out of confusion,
contentment out of unrest, prosperity out of impending calamity, and
rescued the commonwealth for the time, he deserved abundant honor and
still deserves a permanent rank among the notable statesmen of the
world.
The constitution was unwritten. Its provisions were expressed in forms
known as Rhaetra. The kings were retained. Their power was a guaranty of
unity. They maintained the continuity of civic life. Each was a check
upon the other. They were held under restraint by the senate. Its
composition and functions were now fixed. It met not only to deliberate
and advise, but to perform judicial offices. In case of capital offences
the kings sat with the elders, each having, with every other member, but
a single vote. The members were thirty in number, one for each of the
ten clans of each of the three tribes, the kings representing their
clans and sitting as equals with equals, though presiding at the
sessions. The elders must be of the age of sixty and upward, and were
appointed for life. The ancient division of the people was preserved;
the households were grouped in thirties, the thirties in clans, the
clans in tribes. Their capital was Sparta. It was not a compact walled
town. It stretched into the open country and Dorians lived along the
entire valley of the Eurotas. Not only those dwelling at the ford of the
river, but all were acknowledged as Spartans. The kings were required to
summon the heads of the families in the assembly once every month. The
place was designated. The session was brief. To encourage brevity there
was no provision for seats, but the freemen stood. Elders and other
public officers were chosen. Official persons made known new laws,
declarations of war and peace and treaties. The people simply voted aye
or nay. The decision was according to the volume of sound. The session
closed with a military review.
The army: The Dorians had entered the land and held their place in it by
force of arms. To maintain their power it was necessary to develop a
military system and maintain a body of vigorous and able soldiers. All
citizens were constituted guardians of the nation. To all their rights
was attached the duty of military service. They composed a standing
army. The valley became a camp. The men left their estates under the
management of the women. The wife cared for the home, reared the young
children, and superintended the laborers in the business of the farm.
The soldier could not leave the valley or enter it without announcement.
The older men visited their homes on "leave of absence," the younger by
stealth at night. Emigration was desertion punishable by death. To have
gold and silver was to risk the same penalty. The heavy iron money only
could be held, and this was without value in foreign parts. The soldier
was part of an animated machine. His simple duty was to obey. Speech was
repressed. It became abrupt, brief, pithy. Relief was found at the
Lesche, near the training-ground, where talk was often free and even
merry. The whole aim of the discipline was to form the soldier. Marriage
was delayed for the sake of vigorous offspring. The girls were trained
for motherhood. They were subject to a system of athletic exercises, and
engaged in contests of running, wrestling, and boxing. The boys were put
under training at the age of eight years. They became accustomed to
severe exercise, and were inured to patient and painful endurance. They
were compelled to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and fatigue, and to
bear torture without flinching or show of emotion. Their food was kept
almost within the limits of war rations. To increase the amount and
variety they were allowed to steal. But they were careful not to be
detected, lest they should be severely punished. Likely this was a
device for training them to stealthy and cautious movements. After the
time of their maturity they continued gymnastic culture. They hunted the
goats, boars, stags, and bears on the rugged heights of the Taygetus
range. There was no system of liberal education; mental growth and
development were not sought as ends. They were rather feared. Poetry and
music were used to a limited degree, so far as they might be made
conducive to forming the traits of the soldier.
While the Spartans were solely occupied in preparation for the art of
war, it is evident there must have been a population as wholly given to
the pursuit of the practical arts, or the community could not have
existed. There were two classes of laborers. The Perioeci dwelt in the
rural townships. They were mainly of the mixed population of the lands,
but there were Dorians among them. They were freemen; they held lands,
and enjoyed certain rights of local government, voting for their
magistrates in their townships. More and more they were trained for
military service and entered the ranks as heavy-armed infantry. Some of
them were shepherds and herdsmen. From them came all the skilled
workmen, who wrought in the quarries and mines, provided building
materials, shaped iron implements, made woollen stuff and leathern
wares. Their number was three times as great as that of the citizens of
the capital city. But over all their townships the Spartans held sway
through the kings, the senate, and the assembly. These facts exhibit the
civil polity which became so common during Greek and Roman times, and
obtained again in Italy after the fall of the empire and the barbarian
invasions, up to the time of the Renaissance.
The Helots were a rural people dwelling on the lands of the Spartans
which lay about the capital or in the Laconian towns. Some of them were
in the country as villagers and rustics when the Dorians came. They
remained upon their lands as they were before, but were forced to pay a
part of the annual produce of barley, oil, and wine. Some of them were
people made captive in the border wars. They were serfs. They were,
however, wards of the state. No one could treat them as personal
property. They could not be sold or given away. They belonged to the
inventory of the farm. Their taxes were defined by law. More could not
be exacted. They could not be harmed in person. They were of value to
the state and therefore protected. More and more they were needed in the
army, where they were respected and honored for energy and bravery.
Grote says they were as happy as the peasantry of the most civilized and
humane modern nations. They lived in their villages, enjoyed their homes
and the companionship of their wives and children, and the common
fellowship of their neighbors, with ample supply for their needs and
comfort from the surplus product of their labor and apart from the eye
of their masters. Still the Helot had in him the common sentiments of
our nature. His state was servile and mean. It was not to be expected he
would always remain content in his subjection to his superiors in social
and civil life. More and more his discontent would menace the stability
of the community. Especially when the exigencies of war should compel
his rulers to place arms in his hands and enlist him for defence against
the foreign foe, it would become necessary to keep close watch upon him
and to use strong measures for the repression of his impulse toward
freedom.
Judged by the highest standards, Lycurgus certainly did not form the
Laconians into an ideal nationality. He set up a military sovereignty in
the land, and this demanded that the citizens should be soldiers, live
in the camp, and devote themselves solely to the art of war. It is
likely he perceived the imperfections of the system, anticipated its
reflex effect upon the character and manners of the Spartans, and
foreknew its weakness and the consequent perils of the people when it
should inevitably be put to stress and strain by the aspirations of the
subject classes after freedom and social equality. Could he speak for
himself, he would doubtless say, with Solon, that he had not done the
best he knew but the best he could, that his constitution was
provisional and suited to the time, and that it was designed to serve as
a bridge over which his countrymen could cross a torrent and reach
safely the solid ground on which they might securely stand to rearrange
their polity and form themselves on a more equitable and generous basis
into a real and happy commonwealth.
[Signature of the author.]