When was lycurgus born

After the woman was thus carried off, the bride's-maid, so called, took her in charge, cut her hair off close to the head, put a man's cloak and sandals on her, and laid her down on a pallet, on the floor, alone, in the dark. Then the bride-groom, not flown with wine nor enfeebled by excesses, but composed and sober, after supping at his public mess-table as usual, slipped stealthily into the room where the bride lay, loosed her virgin's zone, and bore her p in his arms to the marriage-bound.

And so he continued to do from that time on, spending his days with his comrades, and sleeping with them at night, but visiting his bride by stealth and with every precaution, full of dread and fear lest any of her household should be aware of his visits, his bride also contriving and conspiring with him that they might have stolen interviews as occasion offered.

Such interviews not only brought into exercise self-restraint and moderation, but united husbands and wives when their bodies were full of creative energy and their affections new and fresh, not when they were sated and dulled by unrestricted intercourse; and there was always left behind in their hearts some residual spark of longing and delight.

And again, a worthy man who admired some woman for the fine children that she bore her husband and the modesty of her behaviour as a wife, might enjoy her favours, if her husband would consent, thus planting, as it were, in a soil of bountiful fruitage, and begetting for himself noble sons, who would have the blood of noble men in their veins.

In the second place, he saw much folly and vanity in what other peoples enacted for the regulation of these matters; in the breeding of dogs and horses they insist on having the best sires which money or favour can secure, but they keep their wives under lock and key, demanding that they have children by none but themselves, even though they be foolish, or infirm, or diseased; 9 as though children of bad stock did not show their badness to those first who possessed and reared them, and children of good stock, contrariwise, their goodness.

The freedom which thus prevailed at that time in marriage relations was aimed at physical and political well-being, and was far removed from the licentiousness which was afterwards attributed to their women, so much so that adultery was wholly unknown among them. On the same principle, the women used to bathe their new-born babes not with water, but with wine, thus making a sort of test of their constitutions.

For it is said that epileptic and sickly infants are thrown into convulsions by the strong wine and loose their senses, while the healthy ones are rather tempered by it, like steel, and given a firm habit of body. This is the reason why foreigners sometimes brought Spartan nurses for their children. Amycla, for instance, the nurse of the Athenian Alcibiades, is said to have been a Spartan. Besides, the elderly men used to watch their sports, and by ever and anon egging them on to mimic battles and disputes, learned accurately how each one of them was naturally disposed when it was a question of boldness and aggressiveness in their struggles.

Therefore, as they grew in age, their bodily exercise was increased; their heads were close-clipped, and they p were accustomed to going bare-foot, and to playing for the most part without clothes. When they were twelve years old, they no longer had tunics to wear, received one cloak a year, had hard, dry flesh, and knew little of baths and ointments; only on certain days of the year, and few at that, did they indulge in such amenities.

The elderly men also kept close watch of them, coming more frequently to their places of exercises, and observing their contests of strength and wit, not cursorily, but with the idea that they were all in a sense the fathers and tutors and governors of all the boys. In this way, at every fitting time and in every place, the boy who went wrong had someone to admonish and chastise him. This eiren, then, a youth of twenty years, commands his subordinates in their p mimic battles, and in doors makes them serve him at his meals.

And they steal what they fetch, some of them entering the gardens, and others creeping right slyly and cautiously into the public messes of the men; but if a boy is caught stealing, he is soundly flogged, as a careless and unskilful thief. They steal, too, whatever food they can, and learn to be adept in setting upon people when asleep or off their guard.

For the meals allowed them are scanty, in order that they may take into their own hands the fight against hunger, and so be forced into boldness and cunning. This is the main object of their spare diet; a secondary one is to make them grow tall. For it contributes to height of stature when the vitality is not impeded and hindered by a mass of nourishment which forces it into thickness and width, 51 but ascends of its own lightness, and when the body grows freely and easily. Just so, we may be sure, women who take physic while they are pregnant, bear children which are lean, it may be, but well-shaped and fine, because the lightness of the parent matter makes it more susceptible to moulding.

However, the reason for this I must leave for others to investigate. And even this story gains credence from what their youths now endure, many of whom I have seen expiring under the lash at the altar of Artemis Orthia. For if one of them was asked who was a good citizen, or who an infamous one, and had no answer to make, he was judged to have a torpid spirit, and one that would not aspire to excellence. Often-times, too, the eiren punished the boys in the presence of the elders and magistrates, thus showing whether his punishments were reasonable and proper or not.

While he was punishing them, he suffered no restraint, but after the boys were gone, he was brought to an account if his punishments were harsher than was necessary, or, on the other hand, too mild and gentle. Moreover, though this sort of love was so approved among them that even the maidens found lovers in good and noble women, still, there was no jealous rivalry in it, but those who fixed their attentions on the same boys made this rather a foundation for friendship with one another, and persevered in common efforts to make their loved one as noble as possible.

For as sexual incontinence generally produces unfruitfulness and sterility, so intemperance in talking makes discourse empty and vapid. When they asked how they could ward off an invasion of enemies, he answered: "By remaining poor, and by not desiring to be greater the one than the other. King Leonidas, when a certain one discoursed with him out of all season on matters of great concern, said: "My friend, the matter urges, but not the time.

Demaratus, when a troublesome fellow was pestering him with ill-timed questions, and especially with the oft repeated query who was the best of the Spartans, answered at last: "He who is least like thee. For it was their wont never to talk at random, and to let slip no speech which did not have some thought or other worth serious attention.

For instance, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the nightingale, he said: "I have heard the bird herself. They were for the most part praises of men who had died for Sparta, calling them blessed and happy; censure of men who had played the coward, picturing their grievous and ill-starred life; and such promises and boasts of valour as befitted the different ages.

They had three choirs at their festivals, corresponding to the three ages, and the choir of old men would sing first:— "We once did deeds of prowess and were strong young men. The former writes thus of the Lacedaemonians:— "Flourish there both the spear of the brave and the Muse's clear message, Justice, too, walks the broad streets —.

For just before their battles, the king sacrificed to the Muses, reminding his warriors, as it would seem, of their training, and of the firm p decisions they had made, in order that they might be prompt to face the dread issue, and might perform such martial deeds as would be worthy of some record. Therefore they wore their hair long as soon as they ceased to be youths, and particularly in times of danger they took pains to have it glossy and well-combed, remembering a certain saying of Lycurgus, that a fine head of hair made the handsome more comely still, and the ugly more terrible.

And when at last they were drawn up in battle array and the enemy was at hand, the king sacrificed the customary she-goat, commanded all the warriors to set garlands upon their heads, and ordered the pipers to pipe the strains of the hymn to Castor; 3 then he himself led off in a marching paean, and it was a sight equally grand and terrifying when they marched in step with the rhythm of the flute, without any gap in their line of battle, and with no confusion in their souls, but calmly and cheerfully moving with the strains of their hymn into the deadly fight.

Neither fear nor excessive fury is likely to possess men so disposed, p but rather a firm purpose full of hope and courage, believing as they do that Heaven is their ally. When some one said to him then: "What advantage, O Spartan, hast thou got from thy victory? And this was not only a noble and magnanimous policy, but it was also useful.

For their antagonists, knowing that they slew those who resisted them, but showed mercy to those who yielded to them, were apt to think flight more advantageous than resistance. But Demetrius the Phalerean says he engaged in no warlike undertakings, and established his constitution in a time of peace. And yet there are some who say, as p Hermippus reminds us, that at the outset Lycurgus had nothing whatever to do with Iphitus and his enterprise, but happened to come that way by chance, and be a spectator at the games; that he heard behind him, however, what seemed to be a human voice, chiding him and expressing amazement that he did not urge his fellow-citizens to take part in the great festival; and since, on turning round, he did not see the speaker anywhere, he concluded that the voice was from heaven, and therefore betook himself to Iphitus, and assisted him in giving the festival a more notable arrangement and a more enduring basis.

No man was allowed to live as he pleased, but in their city, as in a military encampment, they always had a prescribed regimen and employment in public service, considering that they belonged entirely to their country and not to themselves, watching over the boys, if no other duty was laid upon them, and either teaching them some useful thing, or learning it themselves from their elders.

So servile a thing did they regard the devotion to the mechanical arts and to money-making. Choral dances and feasts and festivals and hunting and bodily exercise and social converse occupied their whole time, when they were not on a military expedition. And it was disreputable for the elderly men to be continually seen loitering there, instead of spending the greater part of the day in the places of exercise that are called " leschai. For not even Lycurgus himself was immoderately severe; indeed, Sosibius tells us that he actually dedicated a little statue of Laughter, and introduced seasonable jesting into their drinking parties and like p diversions, to sweeten, as it were, their hardships and meagre fare.

This idea can be traced also in some of their utterances. And again, Polycratidas, one of an embassy to the generals of the Persian king, on being asked by them whether the embassy was there in a private or a public capacity, replied: "If we succeed, in a public capacity; if we fail, in a private. Then they greatly extolled the man and said that Sparta had not such another, to which she answered: "Say not so, Strangers; Brasidas was noble and brave, but Sparta has many better men than he.

And of all the contests in p the world this would seem to have been the greatest and the most hotly disputed. For it was not the swiftest of the swift, nor the strongest of the strong, but the best and wisest of the good and wise who was to be elected, and have for the rest of his life, as a victor's prize for excellence, what I may call the supreme power in the state, lord as he was of life and death, honour and dishonour, and all the greatest issues of life. An assembly of the people having been convened, chosen men were shut up in a room near by so that they could neither see nor be seen, but only hear the shouts of the assembly.

For as in other matters, so here, the cries of the assembly decided between the competitors. These did not appear in a body, but each one was introduced separately, as the lot fell, and passed silently through the assembly. Whoever was greeted with the most and loudest shouting, him they declared elected. The victor then set a wreath upon his head and visited in order the temples of the gods. He was followed by great numbers of young men, who praised and extolled him, as well as by many women, who celebrated his excellence in songs, and dwelt on the happiness of his life.

Here he fared in other ways as usual, but a second portion of food was set before him, p which he took and put by. After the supper was over, the women who were related to him being now assembled at the door of the mess-hall, he called to him the one whom he most esteemed and gave her the portion he had saved, saying that he had received it as a meed of excellence, and as such gave it to her. Upon this, she too was lauded by the rest of the women and escorted by them to her home.

To begin with, he did away with all superstitious terror by allowing them to bury their dead within the city, and to have memorials of them near the sacred places, thus making the youth familiar with such sights and accustomed to them, so that they were not confounded by them, and had no horror of death as polluting those who touched a corpse or walked among graves. E6 , and to the words of the Delphic oracle Herod. If this be so, he is probably to be connected with the cult of Apollo Lycius or with that of Zeus Lycaeus.

But the majority of modern historians agree in accepting Lycurgus as an historical person, however widely they may differ about his' work. On the death of the latter he became regent and guardian of his nephew Labotas Leobotes , who was still a minor. Simonides, on the other hand, spoke of him as a Eurypontid, son of Prytanis and brother of Eunomus, and later the tradition prevailed which made him the son of Eunomus and Dionassa, and half-brother of the king Polydectes, on whose death he became guardian of the young king Charillus.

According to Herodotus he introduced his reforms immediately on becoming regent, but the story which afterwards became generally accepted and is elaborated by Plutarch represented him as occupying for some time the position of regent, then spending several years in travels, and on his return to Sparta carrying through his legislation when Charillus was king.

This latter version helped to emphasize the disinterestedness of the lawgiver, and also supplied a motive for his travels - the jealousy of those who accused him of trying to supplant his nephew on the throne. Various beliefs were held as to the source from which Lycurgus derived his ideas of reform. Herodotus found the tradition current among the Spartans that they were suggested to Lycurgus by the similar Cretan institutions, but even in the 5th century there was a rival theory that he derived them from the Delphic oracle.

These two versions are united by Ephorus, who argued that, though Lycurgus had really derived his system from Crete, yet to give it a religious sanction he had persuaded the Delphic priestess to express his views in oracular form.

The Reforms. Some of these statements are certainly false. The council of elders and the assembly are not in any sense peculiar to Sparta, but are present in the heroic government of Greece as depicted in the Homeric poems. The ephors, again, are almost universally held to be either an immemorial heritage of the Dorian stock or - and this seems more probable - an addition to the Spartan constitution made at a later date than can be assigned to Lycurgus.

Spartan law would therefore have to be imprinted in the minds of the citizens through good education, and if the education were good enough, then law would be superfluous.

Wise judges would always keep the law's spirit fresh. As for commercial law, Lycurgus was unwilling to prescribe rules for business. He preferred to let questions be decided by wise judgment rather than by specious reasoning based on interpretations of writings.

In this way, the law adapted naturally to changing circumstances. Another rhetra that, at first glance, seems bizarre -- but which on close examination turns out to be wise -- was that the ceilings of houses in Sparta had to be made using only an axe, and the gates and doors only with a saw. Rough wood in these two places made fancy furniture look anomalous.

Lycurgus knew that the people would make their beds and other furniture to match this rustic look, and all other household articles would match these. The most important job of any lawgiver, in Lycurgus' opinion, was the proper education of the young. He began at the very beginning, with the marriages that produced the children that were to be educated.

Girls were required to run and exercise so that their babies would grow in strong and healthy mothers. To make them brave, Lycurgus ordered that occasionally the girls had to dance and sing naked in front of all the young men. Therefore the girls were ashamed to be fat or weak, and they were happy to display their beauty to such an appreciative audience. In their songs, the girls praised the men who were brave and strong, and they made fun of those who were weak and cowardly, so they sharpened the men's love of glory and fear of shame.

Thus the women of Sparta got a taste of higher feelings, being in this way admitted to the field of action. The Spartan women were good judges of manhood. A foreign lady once remarked to the wife of a Spartan commander that the women of Sparta were the only women in the world who could rule men.

The public performances of the young ladies naturally had their effect on the young men, but the meetings of the lovers had to be in secret. They lived in constant fear of being detected and made the butt of jokes.

Even their marriages took place in secret. The bride and her family had a simple private ceremony, then her hair was cut off and she was dressed in male clothes. After dinner, the bridegroom stealthily came and lay with her, then hurried back to sleep with his companions, in great fear that anyone might find out.

The husband and wife had to scheme to find opportunities to meet without being discovered. Sometimes the men of Sparta even had children by their wives before ever seeing them in daylight.

When the young man reached the age of thirty, the couple was allowed to live together openly and to set up a household. With seeing each other so difficult and rare, they always came together with a healthy appetite for love. And when they parted, it was always early enough that there was no disgust from being together too long. There was always some desire left unsatisfied.

Jealousy was forbidden. If two men liked the same woman, it was a reason for them to be friends, not enemies. With certain limitations against irresponsible passion, Lycurgus made it honorable for a man to lend his wife to another man so as to get good seed from him. He wanted the children of Sparta to be produced by the best men, so that their good qualities might be passed on.

In Lycurgus' opinion, children were not the property of their parents but members of the society. The laws of other nations about children seemed absurd and inconsistent to him. Why should a man be so careful about the breeding of his dogs and his horses, and even pay stud fees to get good offspring, but insist on his wife having children only by himself? Obviously, the bad qualities of this father would be passed on to his children and he would be their first victim, whereas children of good men would be a blessing rather than a curse to the man who gave them a home.

Whenever a child was born, it was taken to a council of elders for examination. If the baby was in any way defective, the elders dropped it into a chasm. Such a child, in the opinion of the Spartans, should not be permitted to live. New-born children were washed with wine so they would be strong. They grew up free and active, and without any sort of cry-baby ways. Spartan children were not afraid of the dark, or finicky about their food. At the age of seven, Spartan boys left home and went to live under military discipline.

Those who showed the most skill and courage were appointed by the old men to be leaders, with the authority to order the other boys and the power to punish disobedience. The main subject they studied was command and obedience.

Spartan boys learned enough reading and writing to be literate, but learning how to endure pain and conquer in battle was considered even more important. The old men kept a close eye on them, and often tested them to find out who might turn out to be a good man in a real fight. At the age of twelve, their military education began. A boy entered one of several bands, commanded by one of the irens [twenty-year-old men].

This iren was their leader in battle and their absolute master at home. They stayed in this hard school until they reached the age of eighteen, and then they were recognized as men.

While they were boys, the Spartans were not allowed to wear anything but one cloak. No shoes, no underwear, and no additional clothes were permitted -- even in winter. They slept in their military groups, on reeds they plucked at the river with their own hands.

What they were given to eat was never enough, so to keep from going hungry they were forced to plan ingenious schemes to steal food. If they got caught, they got a severe whipping -- not for the moral wrong of stealing, but for the military sin of not being careful enough to avoid capture. Starvation made them grow taller, because too much food weighs down the spirit of a boy and makes him short and fat.

Spartans were taught to say a lot with a few words. Children learned a habit of long silence, so that when they finally spoke, their words had weight and were noticed. For example, an Athenian joked that sword-swallowers used Spartan swords because they were so short, and a Spartan replied: "We find them long enough to reach the hearts of our enemies. Here are some examples from Lycurgus himself:. A man argued that Sparta should set up a democracy, and to this, Lycurgus replied: "Begin with your own family.

Another asked why the sacrifices to the gods were not bigger, and Lycurgus answered: "So that we may always have something to offer them. When Lycurgus was asked how the Spartans could prevent an invasion by enemies, he said: "By continuing to be poor, and not trying to appear better off than each other. To those who proposed to build a wall around Sparta, Lycurgus said: "A wall of men, instead of bricks, is best.

Their sayings were so sharp and pertinent that the Spartans were more famous for their wit than for their prowess as soldiers and athletes. Even though at war and in sports they were by far the best in Greece, intellectual exercise was considered to be the essence of the Spartan way of life. From an early age, they learned to pack many layers of meaning into a few words -- and, more importantly, when to speak and when to shut up. Humor was a sort of sauce for their simple, strenuous lives.

Their jokes were not frivolous, but were always based on something worth thinking about. Music was as important a part of Spartan education as training in graceful conversation. The Spartans learned inspirational songs that made them eager for action. When the time for battle came, they sang to the sound of flutes as they advanced at the enemy. Calmly and cheerfully, they walked into battle with such complete confidence that it seemed they had been blessed with immunity by some god.