Lycurgus Of Sparta Quotes

While in the case of his iron money, as I have explained, Lycurgus arranged for heavy weight to be matched by low value, he did the opposite for the currency of speech. Here he developed the technique of expressing a wide range of ideas in just a few, spare words.

A certain Spartan, whose name hasn’t even been passed down, despised death so greatly that when he was being led to execution after his condemnation by the ephors, he maintained a relaxed and joyous expression. To an enemy’s challenge – ‘Is this how you mock the laws of Lycurgus?’ – he answered, ‘On the contrary, I give great thanks to him, for he decreed a punishment that I can pay without taking out a loan or juggling debts.’101 O worthy man of Sparta! His spirit was so great that it seems he must have been an innocent man condemned to die. There have been many such in our own country.

Some thirty-six years after the death of Leonidas, King Agesilaus of Sparta, as Plutarch recounts, showed that the essential Spartan spirit, which distinguished her citizens from all others in Greece, still had not changed. At that time there was a war between a coalition led by Athens against Sparta and her allies. The latter had been complaining to Agesilaus that it was they who provided the bulk of the army. Agesilaus, accordingly, called a council meeting at which all the Spartan allies sat down on one side and the Spartans on the other. The king then told a herald to proclaim that all the potters among the allies and the Spartans should stand up. After this the herald called on the blacksmiths, the masons, and the carpenters to do likewise; and so he went on through all the crafts and trades. By the end of the herald’s recital almost every single man among the allies had risen to his feet. But not a Spartan had moved. The laws of Lycurgus still obtained. The king laughed and turned to his allies, remarking: ‘You see, my friends, how many more soldiers we send out than you do.’ The whole Spartan attitude is contained in those words.

Aristotle, who lived after the downfall of Sparta, gives a very hostile account of its constitution.5 What he says is so different from what other people say that it is difficult to believe he is speaking of the same place, e.g. 'The legislator wanted to make the whole State hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a State wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizens fall under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races…. Even in regard to courage, which is of no use in daily life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women has been most mischievous…. This license of the Lacedaemonian women existed from the earliest times, and was only what might be expected. For ... when Lycurgus, as tradition says, wanted to bring the women under his laws, they resisted, and he gave up the attempt.' He goes on to accuse Spartans of avarice, which he attributes to the unequal distribution of property. Although lots cannot be sold, he says, they can be given or bequeathed. Two-fifths of all the land, he adds, belongs to women. The consequence is a great diminution in the number of citizens: it is said that once there were ten thousand, but at the time of the defeat by Thebes there were less than one thousand. Aristotle criticizes every point of the Spartan constitution. He says that the ephors are often very poor, and therefore easy to bribe; and their power is so great that even kings are compelled to court them, so that the constitution has been turned into a democracy. The ephors, we are told, have too much licence, and live in a manner contrary to the spirit of the constitution, while the strictness in relation to ordinary citizens is so intolerable that they take refuge in the secret illegal indulgence of sensual pleasures.

Polybius credited the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus with the invention of mixed government. Naturally, mixed governments themselves would eventually succumb to degeneration. But this process would take centuries rather than decades. This was shown by the examples of Sparta, the Republic of Carthage, and Rome.

Lycurgus was said to have been the guardian of an early Spartan king. Faced with civil strife and lawlessness, he created harmony among the Spartiates and made them into fierce warriors by establishing his laws and seeing that they were obeyed. In fact, no known ancient source for Lycurgus predates the fifth century, suggesting that the story of his lawgiving originated then.

These words by Plutarch sum up the background of Lycurgus’s land reforms in Sparta.

Next, Lycurgus addressed the coinage system of Sparta.

Lycurgus unveiled his third reform, which mandated that every man of Sparta,

Lycurgus was an ardent believer in military discipline and physical fitness,

Lycurgus established himself as a man averse to greed.

Some historical accounts accuse Lycurgus of being a perfection-obsessed fascist