Λυκουργος

Lykurgos
776 BC

Lykurgos, king of Sparta he was the son of the king Eumenos.

After the death of his father, his older brother Polydektes took the throne. Not much later, he also died and Lykurgos became king. The widow of his brother, an ambitious and unhesitating woman, offered him to marry her and kill her unborn child. Lykurgos, knowing her character and being afraid for the life of the child, pretended to accept her offer. He said to her to bear the child and he would disappear it, as soon as the child was born. But when the time came, he took the infant boy at the Agora, proclaimed him king of the Spartans and gave him the name Charilaos (Joy of the people). When the widow learned what happened, she started plotting against Lykurgos, who left Sparta in order to avoid bloodshed.

He first went to Crete and then to Asia and Egypt and later to Libya, Spain and India. In every country that he visited, he studied their civilization, history and constitutions.
After many years Lykurgos returned to Greece and visited Delphi to question the oracle, if the constitution he had prepared to apply in Sparta was good and received approval with the answer that "he was more God than man". He then returned home and found his nephew Charilaos, a grown man and king of Sparta.

Some of this iron code of rules include;

* No Spartiate was permitted to own gold or silver ((and would not be until two centuries after the Persian wars));

* Forbidden to indulge in agriculture, craft or any kind of profession - except that of arms

* Elders need to pass a new born for suitability of it being fit and strong or, if it was reckoned at all weakly, they have the right to have the new born exposed or thrown over a cliff.

* At 7 (or 8) boys are to be taken from his parents and enrolled for 'training'

* At 13 boys are to be transferred to another group where he is to be looked after by a magistrate. ((Their whole life is to be devoted to the state.))

*He installed a new Senate and the establishment of the Ephores.

In order to persuade the Spartans to accept his laws, which demanded a lot of sacrifices, he bred two small puppies, the one indoors with a variety of foods and the other he trained it for hunting. He then gathered the people and showed them that the untrained dog was completely useless.

But if Lykurgos succeeded to persuade the poor people, he did little for the rich, who tried everything to oppose him. One of them, a youth named Alkander, in the Agora tried to hit him with his stuff and when Lykurgos turned his head, he was hit in the eye and lost it. Lykurgos did not prosecute him, but took him as his servant, giving him the opportunity to discover his character. Indeed Alkander became later a devoted disciple.

When his laws were accepted, he made Spartans swear that they would not be changed until he returns and left again.
He never came back, making sure that his laws would not change. He died at Delphi and according to some in Crete and it is said that before his death, he asked his body to be burned and the remains to be scattered in the wind. Lykurgos thus did not permit even his dead body to return.

The Constitution

The hard fought Messenian wars would not have been won, without the legislation of Lykurgos, which most of all targeted the discipline and inuring to hardships of the citizens.

According to the rettra or combact, which Lykurgos brought from Delphi, the Spartan Senate (Gerousia) was consisted from twenty eight men, at least 60 years old, elected for life and the two kings. A hundred years later, when the Gerousia became tyrannical, was dismantled and they were replaced by five Ephors (overseers).

He also arranged for periodical assemblies of the Spartan people (Apella), for people over 30 years old, in the area between the river Knakion and the bridge Babyka, though they did not vote, nor were permitted to discuss the issues, but only accept or reject them loudly.

Lykurgos, in order to avoid strife in the city, he managed to persuade the people to give their land property and then he divided it in equal shares. He also assigned equal lots of land to the Perioikoi.

In other laws, he forbade the use of money in gold and silver and in their place issued iron money, too heavy and of very little value. Also Spartans were not permitted to build their houses with other tools, except the axe and the saw.
The unwritten laws of Lykurgos most of all targeted eunomia (good application of the laws), but at the same time they had the seeds of aggressiveness. In a period of few years after they came in use, Sparta conquered almost all of Laconia. The important city of Amyklai, after a long desperate siege was captured around 750 BC, but its people were treated well.

The biographer Plutarch, writing in about 100 A.D. was so baffled at the story of Lykurgos that he concluded that he must have been more than one person. He still chose to compose his life as only one of them.

Paul Cartledge in his book 'The Spartans - An epic history' puts forward the idea that Lykurgos might have been a projection of the god Apollo. His reason for this include that both are linked to the wolf, Apollo by his wolf-nature and Lykurgos by name. Also, that the oracle delivering a message to Lykurgos comparing him to a god{O06} ^[1]. The Spartan themselves were unclear about his status, very unusual as Sparta spent so much effort on rememberance, leading us down the track that he might not have been 'just one man'. Chilon, one of the seven sages of Greece who was idealised and received heroic honour in Sparta over time has had some of his laws past off as also being done by Lykurgos.

He is believed to have dedicated a samll statue of Laughter, in order to symbolise the need to sweeten the rigorous barracks-style of life.

Reference:

• *01 Herodotus 1:65

 

 

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