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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
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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