Lycurgus

The Plutarch Podcast

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Lycurgus was once asked why Sparta had no defensive wall around its perimeter. He responded, "A city is well-fortified with a wall of men instead of brick."
Parallel - Numa

Important Places

• Sparta
• Crete
• Asia Minor
• Egypt

Important People

• Homer
• Alcander
• Lysander

Outline

• Uncertain origins: second son of King of Sparta
  • Expected to become king when father and brother dead
  • Chemical Abortion or Infanticide?
  • Charilaus born - joy of the people
  • 8-month reign as regent incites envy

Lycurgus Learns through Travel

• Travels
  • Crete
    • Poetry makes good laws palatable
    • Private hostilities calmed
  • Asia Minor
    • Crete was healthy “simple and severe”
    • Asia diseased “extravagant and permissive”
    • Lycurgus discovers the poems of Homer!
      • makes Homer famous all over mainland Greece
      • Homer's poetry harmonizes well with the Spartan ideals of military courage as the highest virtue
• Return Home
  • Lycurgus resolves to rewrite the entire Spartan system of government
    • Not a written constitution; this will become particularly clear later on
  • Apollo gives his blessing calling Lycurgus “more god than man”
    • Apollo also prophesies that his reforms will be “by far the strongest and best of all constitutions”
  • He and 30 friends take over the marketplace

Legals changes 1, 2, 3

• ONE: Gerousia (Senate)
  • γέρων (gerōn) – old man – Council of Elders --> γερουσία (Gerousia)
  • senex – old man – Council of Elders --> Senate (see Life of Romulus)
  • Rhetrai [sections 6 and 13]
    • Verbal contracts with sacred force
    • The name for most utterances of the gods to men
    • Not to be ignored or trampled over lightly
    • “named in the belief that they came from the gods as oracles”
  • The GREAT RHETRA (from Apollo)
    • Mixed Constitution
      • 2 Kings
      • Gerousia
      • 5 Ephors – balance the power of the oligarchs
• TWO: Redistribution of Land
  • Purpose – “To end jealousy, vice, and luxury”
  • Homoioi – equals
  • Perikoikoi – (not mentioned in this life)
  • Helots – etym. “the seized” a particularly brutal form of slavery, even by an ancient standard [28]
  • Citizens forbidden from
    • Using coins (iron bars instead)
    • Practicing a trade
• THREE: Syssitia (Common Meals)
  • Fixed Menu – black broth the staple!
  • Wealth – blind, lifeless, and still in Sparta
  • The wealthy react poorly
  • Lycurgus loses an eye!
    • Punishment for Alcander
      • Serve Lycurgus
      • Converted to thinking L is best man and himself becomes “Sparta’s most well-mannered and wise citizens”
      • Temple to Athena Optilis
    • The COHORT (15 members)
      • Everyone contributes food
      • King Agis not allowed to dine at home
      • Children learn self-discipline here (GRK: σωφροσύνη)
        • What happens in here, stays in here
        • Take a joke, and give one!
      • Bread-basket ballot
• Three other minor rhetras
  • Don’t write these down! (Training and Ethics more important than Laws)
  • Simple Homes: All tools except ax and saw forbidden
  • Don’t fight consistently against the same enemy
• Marriage and Childbirth [14-16]
• The Agōgē (ἀγωγή) [16-19] and the Political Setup (for next time)

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