The principal duties of the private citizen meals derived their Cretan appellation from the were to be discharged, not in the popular assem- men who partook of them,* who were divided bly, but in the field of battle: his chief pleasures into companies, originally, perhaps, correspondwere those which he derived from the society ing to some relations of kindred, but afterward of his equals; and the main end of the institu- associated by mutual inclination and free choice. tions which regulated his private life was to The management of the table was committed prepare him for the one, and to afford him the to a woman, undoubtedly of free birth, who amplest opportunities of enjoying the other. openly selected the choicest part of the fare for The most important feature in the Cretan mode the persons most distinguished for valour or of life is the usage of the Syssitia, or public prudence. One regulation, peculiar to the Cremeals, of which all the citizens partook, with- tan system, is remarkably characteristic of the out distinction of rank or age. The origin of friendly intercourse which prevailed, at least in this institution cannot be traced: we learn, early times, among the Dorian cities of the however, from Aristotle, that it was not pecu-island. In every town were two public buildhar to the Greeks, but existed still earlier in ings, destined, the one for the lodging of stranthe south of Italy among the Enotrians.* The gers, the other for the meals of the citizens; Cretan usage, in common with all the rest, he and in the banqueting-room, two tables were attributes to Minos. This, however, must be set apart for the foreign guests. The temperate considered rather as the philosopher's opinion repast was followed by conversation, which was than as an historical tradition. But as we have first made to turn on the affairs of the state; no such reason for questioning his authority and it cannot be doubted that the freedom of with regard to the Italian custom, and as the discussion allowed at the festive board made institution itself bears all the marks of high an- no slight amends for the restrictions imposed tiquity, it would seem probable enough that the on the deliberations of the public assembly. Peloponnesian colonies might have found it in After this, the discourse fell on valiant deeds Crete, even if no people of the same race had and illustrious men, whose praises might rouse before settled in the island. That they intro- the younger hearers to generous emulation. duced it there could only be proved by showing Whatever may have been the origin of this that it existed in Sparta before the time of Ly-institution, it manifestly answered several imcurgus, or in other Dorian states, and of this portant ends besides that for which it was imthere does not seem to be sufficient evidence.mediately designed. On the one hand, it mainIts analogy with the public banquets of the tained a stricter separation between the ruling Homeric heroes is too slight to authorize us to and the subject classes; it kept alive in the consider it as an old Hellenic usage,† unless, former the full consciousness of their superior indeed, we go back to the patriarchal communi- station and their national character: on the ties in the infancy of society; but we then other hand, it bound the citizens together by want an historical deduction to carry it down ties of the most endearing intimacy, taught to the period in which we find it really existing. them to look on each other as members of one Still, its uniform prevalence in the Dorian colo- family, and gave an efficacy to the power nies in Crete is a strong argument for believing of public opinion which must have nearly that they did not adopt it from the mother-coun- superseded the necessity of any penal laws. try. It may have obtained among the Dorians To this we may add, that it provided a main before the invasion of Peloponnesus, and may part of the education of the young. have been retained by the Spartans, because it they had reached their eighteenth year, the was adapted to the wants of their peculiar situ- sons accompanied their fathers to the public ation, while it soon fell into disuse among their hall with the orphans of the deceased. The brethren. In most of the Cretan cities the ex-younger waited at the table; the rest, seated pense of the public meals was defrayed by the beside the men on a lower bench, received a state, out of the revenue of the domain lands portion suited to their age, of plainer fare, and and the tribute they received from their sub-listened to the conversation of their elders. jects, so that no distinction could arise between They were here under the eye of an officer pubthe rich and the poor. Each individual received liely appointed to superintend them.† How far, his separate share, out of which he paid his in other respects, the state assumed a direct contributions to one of the public tables and control over their education, does not appear; provided for the females of his household. In but it seems highly probable that the same offiLyctus a different system seems to have pre-cer who watched over their behaviour in public, vailed: the citizen devoted a tithe of the fruits of his own land to the same purposes; but perhaps there, as elsewhere, the poor were supported from the public stock. These social Till also enforced the other branches of discipline to * They were called 'Avěpti i or 'Avěpia. year they were subjected to a stricter rule. different opinions that have been entertained as They were now divided into troops,* each head- to its origin and its author. It has been usual, ed by a youth of some noble family, whose pride both with ancient and modern writers, to conit was to collect the greatest number he could sider it as the work of a single man-as the under his command. He was himself placed fruit of the happy genius, or of the commanding under the control of some elder person, general-character of Lycurgus, who has generally been ly his father, who directed the exercises of the supposed to have had the merit, if not of introop in the chase, the course, and the wrest- venting it, yet of introducing and establishing ling-school. On stated days the rival troops it among his countrymen. Viewed in this light, engaged in a mimic tight, with movements meas- it has justly excited not only admiration, but asured by the flute and the lyre; and the blows tonishment; it appears a prodigy of art, on they exchanged on these occasions were dealt which we gaze as on an Egyptian pyramid-a not merely with the hand and with clubs, but structure wonderful in its execution, but myswith iron weapons, probably with a view of put- terious in its design. We admire the power ting their skill, patience, and self-command, as which the legislator has exerted over his felwell as their strength, to the trial, by the ne- low-men; but while we are amazed at his boldcessity of defending themselves without inflict-ness and success, we can scarcely refrain from ing a dangerous wound. How long the youths suspecting that he must have been partly swayremained in these troops we are not informed. ed by the desire of raising an extraordinary monAs soon as they quitted them to enter into the ument to his own fame. According to the opsociety of the men, the law compelled each to posite view of the subject, it was not an artifichoose a bride, who, however, was not per-cial fabric, but the spontaneous growth of a pemitted, it is said, to undertake the duties of a culiar nature, which at the utmost required matron until she was found capable of dis-only a few slight touches from the hand of man, charging them; that is, probably, she continued for some time to live under the roof of her parents. The Cretan institutions sanctioned, and even enforced, a close intimacy between the men and the youths, which was undoubtedly designed to revive that generous friendship of the heroic ages which was so celebrated in song, and to add a new motive to the love of glory in the noblest spirits. But the usage, which was singularly regulated by the law,t degenerated in later times into a frightful license, which was often mistaken for its primitive form, and consequently attributed to political views, which, if they had even existed, would have been equally odious and absurd.‡ CHAPTER VIII. THE LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. We now return to the Dorians of Peloponnesus, whose history, scanty as is the information transmitted to us concerning its earlier ages, is still somewhat less obscure, and much more interesting than that of the other Greek tribes during the same period. Our attention will for some time be fixed on the steps by which Sparta rose to a supremacy above the rest of the Dorian states, which was finally extended over the whole of Greece. This is the most momentous event of the period intervening between the return of the Heracleids and the Persian wars. It was, in part, an effect of the great addition which Sparta made to her territory by swallowing up that of her western neighbour. But this conquest may itself be regarded as a result of those peculiar institutions which, once firmly established, decided her character and destiny to the end of her political existence, and which are in themselves one of the most interesting subjects that engage the attention of the statesman and the philosopher in the history of Greece. Before we attempt to describe the Spartan Constitution, it will be necessary to notice the + Ephorus in Strabo, x., 483. · ἀγέλαι. and the agency of Lycurgus shrinks into so narrow a compass that even his personal existence becomes a question of much doubt and of little moment. The truth will, perhaps, be found to lie midway between these two extremes. The reasons which prevent us from unreservedly adopting either opinion will be best understood if we consider, first, the history of Lycurgus himself, as transmitted to us by the general consent of the ancients, and then the mode in which they describe the scope and character of his institutions. Experience proves that scarcely any amount of variation as to the time and circumstances of a fact, in the authors who record it, can ever be a sufficient ground for doubting its reality. But the chronological discrepancies in the accounts of Lycurgus, which struck Plutarch as singularly great, on closer inspection do not appear very considerable. Xenophon, indeed, in a passage where it is his object to magnify the antiquity of the laws of Sparta, mentions a tradition or opinion that Lycurgus was a contemporary of the Heracleids.* This, however, ought not, perhaps, to be interpreted more literally than the language of Aristotle, in one of his extant works, where he might seem to suppose that the lawgiver lived after the close of the Messenian wars. The great mass of evidence, including that of Aristotle and of Thucydides, fixes his legislation in the ninth century before our era; and the variations within this period, if not merely apparent, are unimportant. There was also a disagreement, indicating some uncertainty, as to his parentage. We have already seen, that after the death of Aristodemus, the throne of Sparta was shared by his two sons, Eurysthenes and Procles. The kingly office continued to be hereditary in their lines, which were equal in power, though a certain precedence or dignity was allowed to that of Eurysthenes, grounded on his supposed priority of birth. It was not, however, from these remote ancestors that the two royal families derived their distinguishing appellations. The elder house was called the Agids, after Agis, son of Eurystnenes; the minor, the Eurypontids, from their institutions and manners, and conversed Eurypon, the successor of Sous, son of Procles: with their sages. Crete and the laws of Minos a remarkable fact, not very satisfactorily ex- are said to have been the main object of his plained from the martial renown of these prin- study, and a Cretan poet one of his instructers ces, and perhaps indicating a concealed break in the art of legislation; but the Egyptian in each series. Agis was followed by Eches- priests likewise claimed him as their disciple; tratus and Labotas; and, according to Herodo- and reports were not wanting among the later tus, it was during the minority of the latter that Spartans that he had penetrated as far as InLycurgus. his guardian,* governing as regent, dia, and had sat at the feet of the Bramins. employed the power thus accidentally placed in On his return, he found the disorders of the his hands to establish his institutions. This, state aggravated, and the need of a reform more however, contradicts both the received chronol- generally felt. Having strengthened his authorogy and the better attested tradition, that the ity with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, which lawgiver belonged to the Eurypontid line. He declared his wisdom to transcend the common was commonly believed to have been the son level of humanity, and having secured the aid of Eunomus, the grandson of Eurypon; though of a numerous party among the leading men, the poet Simonides, following a different gene- who took up arms to support him, he succesalogy, called him the son of Prytanis, who is sively procured the enactment of a series of generally supposed to have been the father of solemn ordinances or compacts (Rhetras), by Eunomus, and the immediate successor of Eury-which the civil and military constitution of the pon. Eunomus is said to have been killed in a commonwealth, the distribution of property, the fray which he was endeavouring to quell, and education of the citizens, the rules of their daiwas succeeded by his eldest son Polydectes, ly intercourse and of their domestic life, were who shortly after dying childless, left Lycurgus to be fixed on a hallowed and immutable basis. apparently entitled to the crown. But as his Many of these regulations roused a violent opbrother's widow was soon discovered to be position, which even threatened the life of Lypregnant, he declared his purpose of resigning curgus; but his fortitude and patience finally his dignity if she should give birth to an heir. triumphed over all obstacles, and he lived to The ambitious queen, however, if we may be- see his great idea, unfolded in all its beauty, lieve a piece of court scandal reported by Plu- begin its steady course, bearing on its front the tarch, put his virtue to a severer test. She se- marks of immortal vigour. His last action was cretly sent proposals to him of securing him on to sacrifice himself to the perpetuity of his work. the throne on condition of sharing it with him, He set out on a journey to Delphi, after having by destroying the embryo hopes of Sparta. Sti- bound his countrymen by an oath to make no fling his indignation, he affected to embrace her change in his laws before his return. When offer, but, as if tender of her health, bade her the last seal had been set to his institutions by do no violence to the course of nature: "The the oracle, which foretold that Sparta should infant, when born, might be easily despatched." flourish as long as she adhered to them, having As the time drew near, he placed trusty attend-transmitted this prediction to his fellow-citiants round her person, with orders, if she should be delivered of a son, to bring the child immediately to him. He happened to be sitting at table with the magistrates when his servants came in with a new-born prince. Taking the infant from their arms, he placed it on the royal seat, and in the presence of the company proclaimed it King of Sparta, and named it Charilaus, to express the joy which the event diffused among the people. Though proof against such temptation, Lycurgus had the weakness, it seems, to shrink from a vile suspicion. Alarmed lest the calumnies propagated by the incensed queen-mother and her kinsmen, who charged him with a design against the life of his nephew, might chance to be seemingly confirmed by the untimely death of Charilaus, he determined, instead of staying to exercise his authority for the benefit of the young king and of the state, to withdraw beyond the reach of slander till the maturity of his ward and the birth of an heir should have removed every pretext for such imputations. Thus the prime of his life, notwithstanding the regret and the repeated invitations of his countrymen, was spent in voluntary exile; which, however, he employed in maturing a plan already conceived for remedying the evils under which Sparta had long laboured, by a great change in its constitution and laws. With this view he visited many foreign lands, observed * Dionysius Hal, it, 49, names Eunomus as the ward. zens, he resolved, in order that they might never be discharged from their oath, to die in a foreign land. The place and manner of his death are veiled in an obscurity befitting the character of the hero; the sacred soils of Delphi, of Crete, and of Elis, all claimed his tomb; the Spartans honoured him, to the latest times, with a temple and yearly sacrifices, as a god. Such are the outlines of a story which is too familiar to be cast away as an empty fiction, even if it should be admitted that no part of it can bear the scrutiny of a rigorous criticism. But the main question is whether the view it presents of the character of Lycurgus as a statesman is substantially correct; and in this respect we should certainly be led to regard him in a very different light, if it should appear that the institutions which he is here supposed to have collected with so much labour, and to have founded with so much difficulty, were in existence long before his birth; and not only in Crete, but at Sparta, nor at Sparta only, but in other Grecian states. And this we believe to have been the case with every important part of these institutions. As to most of those, indeed, which were common to Crete and Sparta, it seems scarcely to admit of a doubt, and is equally evident, whether we acknowledge or deny that some settlements of the Dorians in Crete preceded the conquest of Peloponnesus. It was at Lyctus, a Laconian colony, as Aristotle informs us, that the institutions which Lycurgus was supposed to have taken for his mod el, flourished longest in their original purity; which he applied to them, are nowhere dis and hence some of the ancients contended that tinctly described, and can only be gathered by a they were transferred from Laconia to Crete; difficult and uncertain process of combination an argument which Ephorus thought to confute, and inference. Herodotus and Thucydides use by remarking that Lycurgus lived five genera- only very general and vague language in detions later than Athæmenes, who founded one scribing the state of Sparta previous to the leof the Dorian colonies in the island. But un- gislation of Lycurgus. The former says that it less we imagine that each of these colonies pro- was the worst-ordered country in Greece, both duced its Minos or its Lycurgus, we must con- as regarded the mutual relations of the citizens, clude that they merely retained what they and their inhospitable treatment of foreigners; brought with them from the mother-country. a singular remark, since in her best times Whether they found the same system already Sparta was most celebrated for the jealousy established in Crete, depends on the question with which she excluded foreigners from her whether a part of its population was already territory. Thucydides speaks of a long period Dorian. On any other view, the general adop- of civil discord which had preceded the estabtion of the laws of Minos in the Dorian cities lishment of the good government existing in his of Crete, and the tenacity with which Lyctus own day. Aristotle gives a somewhat more adhered to them, are facts unexplained and dif- definite, though a very obscure hint, when he obficult to understand. We suspect, indeed, that serves, that in the reign of Charilaus the Spartan. the contrary opinion rests on a false notion of government changed from a tyranny to an aristhe omnipotence of human legislators, which tocracy.* Plutarch, indeed, is much more exhas been always prevalent among philosophers, plicit, but he seems to have been unable to form but has never been confirmed by experience. a clear conception of the subject. According to It may be reasonably doubted whether the his- him, the root of the evil lay in the relaxation of tory of the world furnishes any instance of a po- the royal authority, which had begun in the litical creation such as that attributed to Minos reign of Eurypon, and had increased until, in or Lycurgus. No parallel is afforded by a le-the time of Lycurgus, the kingly power was regislation in which, as in that of Moses, religion duced to a shadow; and this he thinks the lawis not merely the basis, but the main element giver designed to correct, by instituting a counof the system. Without some such extraordi-cil which should at once support and restrain nary aid, that union of absolute power and con- the kings, and should maintain an equipoise besummate prudence which Plato thought neces-tween them and the people. The next main sary for the foundation of his commonwealth, cause of disorder described by Plutarch was might still be found incapable of moulding and transforming a people at the will of an individual. We lay no stress, however, on these general grounds; it is the contemplation of the Spartan institutions themselves that seems to justify the conclusion that they were not so much a work of human art and forethought as a form of society originally congenial to the character of the Dorian people, and to the situation in which they were placed by their new conquests; and in its leading features not even peculiar to this, or to any single branch of the Hellenic nation. the excessive disproportion in the distribution of private property; and he informs us that for this Lycurgus provided an immediate remedy in a new partition of the land, which was not confined to the Spartans, but extended to all the inhabitants of Laconia; and that he then proceeded to attack the disease in its inmost seat, by a series of regulations tending to abolish all distinctions, and to exclude all enjoyments which could supply fuel to private cupidity. Plutarch does not attempt to point out any connexion between these two measures, which, indeed, are directly opposite in their tendency; the first This view of the subject may seem scarcely checking popular license by an aristocratical into leave room for the intervention of Lycurgus, stitution, while the second levels all advantages and to throw some doubt on his individual ex- of rank and property. Accordingly, in carrying istence; so that Hellanicus, who made no men- the former, Lycurgus, it is said, was seconded tion of him, and referred his institutions to Eu- by the leading men; while in the latter, he was rysthenes and Procles, would appear to have opposed by the wealthy class with a fury which been much more correctly informed, or to have threatened his life. There is still greater diffihad a much clearer insight into the truth, than culty in reconciling this account with Aristotle's the later historians, who ascribed everything remark, that the tyranny of Charilaus was folSpartan to the more celebrated lawgiver. But, lowed by an aristocratical government. This, remarkable as this variation is, it cannot be al- indeed, reminds us of what Plutarch relates, lowed to outweigh the concurrent testimony of that the first tumult occasioned by the measures the other ancient writers, from which we must, of Lycurgus alarmed Charilaus so much, that, at least, conclude that Lycurgus was not an fancying a conspiracy formed against himself, imaginary or symbolical person, but one whose he took refuge in the sanctuary of the Brazen name marks an important epoch in the history House, where Lycurgus himself was afterward of his country. Through all the conflicting ac- forced to take shelter. We read, however, counts of his life, we may distinguish one fact, that his fears were quieted, and that he even which is unanimously attested, and seems inde-actively joined in promoting the new reform. pendent of all minuter discrepancies-that by If we admit the fact that a revolution of some him Sparta was delivered from the evils of an- kind was really effected by Lycurgus, it seems archy or misrule, and that from this date she necessary, in order to understand the various began a long period of tranquillity and order. descriptions given of it, to suppose that its obBut the origin and the precise nature of the dis-jects were not precisely such as the language orders which he found existing, and, consequently, the real aim and spirit of the remedies | • Pol-, T., 12. + Plut., Ap. Lao., 7. LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS. of the ancient writers at first sight suggests. | subsequently submitted to Sparta may have afSo long as we confine our view to the Dorians forded some of the leading men opportunities of Sparta, we are at a loss to explain the grow-of enriching themselves at the expense of the ing ascendency of a commonalty, which finally ancient land-owners, and to the exclusion of tramples on the royal prerogatives, and which their less fortunate brethren, who might thus it is found necessary to balance by an aristo-be disposed to favour the pretensions of the LaIf this supposition at all corresponds to the cratical institution; while, in the same state, a conian provincials. small class preponderates over the rest by its overgrown possessions, to a degree which state of things which Lycurgus found existing, drives the legislator to the democratical expe- it will not be difficult to understand the double It is true that aspect which his legislation presents. He must dient of a general repartition. such extremes may often be found combined in have had two main objects in view: one, to a stage of society immediately preceding a great maintain the sovereignty of Sparta over the The manner political convulsion; but if such a convulsion rest of Laconia; the other-a necessary condiensues, and the wealthy class is forced to yield, tion of the former-to unite the Spartans by the the result will surely not be a rigid and steady closest ties among themselves aristocratical government; and it would be at- in which he accomplished this twofold purpose tributing, not wisdom, but magic, to Lycurgus, may not have been the less admirable because to suppose that he extracted such a constitution he found all the instruments he required ready It seems impossible to to his hand, and was seconded by the general out of such elements. seems to have been necessary for securing the comprehend the nature of his reform, unless we wishes of the people. Nothing more, indeed, may be allowed to think that it determined not merely the relations of the Dorians among one harmony and the internal strength of Sparta another or to their kings, but that in which they than that she should return into the ancient stood to their subjects, the provincials of Laco-track, from which she appears for a time to nia; and that this is not a wholly unauthorized have been drawn partially aside; that her citiconjecture appears from the tradition that Ly-zens, where they had cast off the habits of their curgus extended his agrarian regulation over forefathers, should resume them; and, sacriThose authors, indeed, ficing all artificial distinctions and newly-acthe whole country. This who represent the conquest of Laconia as com- quired inclinations, should live together after pleted some generations sooner, would lead us the old fashion, as brothers in arms, under the to conclude that the relation between the con- rigid but equal discipline of a camp. querors and their subjects had been long before mode of life was undoubtedly not only familiar But as we have to the Spartans before the time of Lycurgus, fixed on its ultimate footing. seen reason to suspect that the conquest itself but can never have sunk into very general diswas much more gradual, so it seems not im- use: it had probably been most neglected by probable that it was reserved for Lycurgus final- those whose possessions raised them above the ly to settle the relative position of the several common level, and when this inequality was reclasses. And it must be remembered, that moved, came again almost spontaneously into among them, besides the conquered Achæans, force. The occasion, however, required that were other foreigners who had aided the Dori- what had hitherto been no more than lax and ans in their enterprise, and might therefore undefined usage, should henceforth be made to seem to have stronger claims to an equality of assume the character of strict law, solemnly political rights. It would be natural, and in ac-enacted, and consecrated by the sanction of recordance with the policy which we find actually ligion. If Lycurgus did no more than this, afpursued by the Dorian kings of Messenia, ifter having surmounted the obstacles which inthese claims had been favoured by one of the royal houses at Sparta; and it would be no uncommon mistake or perversion of language if this was the fact indicated by Eurypon's ambition of popularity, by the death of Eunomus, and by the tyranny of Charilaus. Eurypon would be a demagogue, and Charilaus a tyrant, in the same sense in which Cresphontes might have been called so by his Dorians, whom he wished to reduce to the same level with his other sub-probable shall have been proposed, we believe jects; and it may have been in a like struggle that Eunomus also lost his life. terest and passion threw in his way, he will in- that the occasion that called forth the legislathat we come nearest to the truth in supposing tion of Lycurgus was the danger which threatened the Spartan Dorians, while divided among themselves, of losing the privileges which rais The gradual progress of the conquest may, perhaps, also serve to explain the inequality of property among the Dorians, which must be considered not as an effect of the original dis-ed them above their subjects-the common freetribution, nor of successive casual transfers, but of encroachment and usurpation; and which, therefore, though tolerated for a time, would excite discontent and division among the conThough at the first irruption a divisquerors. ion of land probably took place in that part of the territory which was immediately occupied by the Dorian arms-and if so, may have been conducted on principles of equality-the subjugation of the several towns and districts which men of Laconia: that, consequently, the basis of all his regulations was a new distribution of property, which removed the principal causes of discord, and facilitated the correction of other abuses; that this was accompanied by a more precise determination of political rights; and, finally, that this same opportunity was taken to enforce and to widen all those distinctions of education and habits, which, while they separated the citizens from the subjects, bound the |
