The most usual occupation of the Lacedæmonians was hunting, and other bodily exercises. They were forbid to exercise any mechanic art. The Elota, who were a sort of slaves, tilled their land for them, for which they paid them a certain revenue * Lycurgus would have his citizens enjoy a great deal of leisure: they had large common halls, where the people used to meet to converse together: and though their discourses chiefly turned upon grave and serious topics, yet they seasoned them with a mixture of wit and facetious humour, both agreeable and instructive. They passed little of their time alone, being accustomed to live like bees always together, always about their chiefs and leaders. The love of their country and of the public good was their predominant passion: they did not imagine they belonged to themselves, but to their country. Pedaretus having missed the honour of being chosen one of the three hundred who had a certain rank of distinction in the city, went home extremely pleased and satisfied, saying," he was overjoyed there were three hundred men in Sparta more honourable and worthy than himself." At Sparta every thing tended to inspire the love of virtue, and the hatred of vice; the actions of the citizens, their conversations, public monuments, and inscriptions. It was hard for men brought up in the midst of so many living precepts and examples, not to become virtuous, as far as heathens were capable of virtue. It was to preserve these happy dispositions, that Lycurgus did not allow all sorts of persons to travel, lest they should bring home foreign manners, and return infected with the licentious customs of other countries, which would necessarily create, in a little time, an aversion for the life and maxims of Lacedæmon. On the other hand, he would suffer no strangers to remain in the city, who did not come thither to some useful and profitable end, but out of mere curiosity; being afraid they should bring along with them the defects and vices of their own countries; and being persuaded, at the same time, that it was more important and necessary to shut the gates of the town against depraved and corrupt manners, than against infectious distempers. Properly speaking, the very trade and business of the Lacedæmonians was war: every thing with them tended that way: arms were their only exercise and employment: their life was much less hard and austere in the camp, than in the city; and they were the only people in the world, to whom the time of war was a time of ease and refreshment, because then the reins of that strict and severe discipline, which prevailed at Sparta, were somewhat relaxed, and the men were indulged in a little more liberty. With them the first and most inviolable law of war, as Demaratus told Xerxes, was never to fly, or turn their backs, whatever superiority of numbers the enemy's army might consist of; never to quit their post; never to deliver up their arms; in a word, either to conquer or to die on the spot. This maxim was so important and essential in their opinion, that when the poet Archilochus came to Sparta, they obliged him to leave their city immediately; because they understood, that, in one of his poems, he had said, "It was better for a man to throw down his arms, than to expose himself to be killed." Hence it is, that a mother recommended to her son, who was going to make a campaign, that he should return either with or upon his shield; and that another, hearing that her son was killed in fighting for his country, answered very coldly, "I brought him into the world for no other end."** This bumour was general among the Lacedæmonians. After the famous battle of Leuctra, which was so fatal to the Spartans, the parents of those that died in the action congratulated each other upon it, and went to the temples to thank the gods that their children had done their duty; whereas the relations of those who † Idem, p. 55. Plut. In Vit. Lyc. p. 54. Idem, p. 56. Herod. l. vii. cap. 104 Plut. in Lacon. Institut p. 239. *Αλλη προσαναδιδέσα τω παιδὶ τὴν ἀσπίδα, και παρακελευομένη. Τέκνον, (έφη) ή τάν, ἢ ἐπὶ τας. Plut. in Lacon. Apophthegm. p. 241. Sometimes they that were slain were brought home upon their shichis **Cic. 1. i. Tusc. Quæst. n, 102. Plut. in Vit. Ages. p. 612. Survived the defeat, were inconsolable. If any of the Spartans fled in battle, they were dishonoured and disgraced for ever. They were not only excluded from all posts and employments in the state, from all assemblies and public diversions; but it was thought scandalous to make any alliances with them by marriage and a thousand affronts and insults were publicly offered them with impunity. : The Spartans never went to fight without first imploring the help of the gods by public sacrifices and prayers; and, when that was done, they marched against the enemy with a perfect confidence and expectation of success, as being assured of the divine protection; and to make use of Plutarch's expression," As if God were present with, and fought for them." s To ε σvμragóνтos. When they had broken and routed their enemy's forces, they never pursued them farther than was necessary to make themselves sure of the victory; after which they retired, as thinking it neither glorious, nor worthy of Greece, to cut in pieces and destroy an enemy that yielded and fled. And this proved as useful as honourable to the Spartans; for their enemies, knowing that all who resisted them were put to the sword, and that they spared none but those who fled, generally chose rather to fly than to resist.* When the first institutions of Lycurgus were received and confirmed by practice, and the form of government he had established, seemed strong and vigorous enough to support itself; as Plato says of God, that after he had finished the creation of the world, he rejoiced when he saw it revolve and perform its first motions with so much justness and harmony ;t so the Spartan-legislator, pleased with the greatness and beauty of his laws, felt his joy and satisfaction redouble, when he saw them, as it were, walk alone, and go forward so happily. But desiring, as far as depended on human prudence, to render them immortal and unchangeable, he signified to the people, that there was still one point remaining to be performed, the most essential and important of all, about which he would go and consult the oracle of Apollo; and in the mean time he made them all take an oath, that till his return they would inviolably maintain the form of government which he had established. When he was arrived at Delphos, he consulted the god, to know whether the laws he had made were good, and sufficient to render the Lacedæmonians happy and virtuous. The priestess answered, that nothing was wanting to his laws; and that, as long as Sparta observed them, she would be the most glorious and happy city in the world. Lycurgus sent this answer to Sparta; and then thinking he had fulfilled his ministry, he voluntarily died at Delphos, by abstaining from all manner of sustenance. His idea was, that even the death of great persons and statesmen should not be useless and unprofitable to the state, but a kind of supplement to their ministry, and one of their most important actions, which ought to do them as much or more honour than all the rest. He therefore thought, that in dying thus he should crown and complete all the services which he had rendered his fellow-citizens during his life; since his death would engage them to a perpetual observance of his institutions, which they had sworn to maintain inviolably till his return. Although I represent the sentiments of Lycurgus upon his own death, in the light wherein Plutarch has transmitted them to us, I am very far from approving them; and I make the same declaration with respect to several other facts of the like nature, which I sometimes relate without making any reflections upon them, though I think them very unworthy of approbation. The pretended wise men of the heathens had, as well concerning this article as several others, but very faint and imperfect ideas; or, to speak more properly, remained in great darkness and error. They laid down this admirable princi *Plut. in Vit. Lycurg. p. 54. This passage of Plato is in his Timæus, and gives us reason to believe this philosopher had read what Moses says of God, when he created the world: "Vidit Dous cuncta quæ fecerat, et erant valde bona.”Gen. i. 31. Idem, p. 57. ple, which we meet with in many of their writings, that man, placed in the world as in a certain post by his general, cannot abandon it without the express command of him upon whom he depends, that is, of God himself. At other times, they looked upon man as a criminal condemned to a melancholy son.* from whence, indeed, he might desire to be released, but could not attempt to be so, but by the course of justice, and the order of the magistrate; and not by breaking his chains, and forcing the gates of his priThese ideas are beautiful, because they are true; but the appiication they made of them was wrong, namely, as they took that for an express order of the Deity, which was the pure effect of their own weakness or pride, by which they were led to commit suicide, either that they might deliver themselves from the pains or troubles of this life, or immortalize their names, as was the case with Lycurgus, Cato, and a number of others. REFLECTIONS UPON THE GOVERNMENT OF SPARTA, AND UPON THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS. 1. THINGS COMMENDABLE IN THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS. THERE must needs have been, to judge only by the event, a great fund of wisdom and prudence in the laws of Lycurgus; since, as long as they were observed in Sparta, which was above five hundred years, it was a most flourishing and powerful city. It was not so much, says Plutarch, speaking of the laws of Sparta, the government and polity of a city, as the conduct and regular behaviour of a wise man, who passes his whole life in the exercise of virtue: or rather, continues the same author, as the poets feign, that Hercules, only with his lion's skin and club, went from country to country to free the world of robbers and tyrants; so Sparta, with a slip of parchment and an old coat, gave laws to all Greece, which willingly submitted to her dominion; suppressed tyrannies and unjust authority in cities; put an end to wars as she thought fit, and appeased insurrection; and all this generally without moving a shield or a sword, and only by sending a simple ambassador among them, who no sooner appeared, than all the people submitted, and flocked about him like so many bees about their queen: so much respect did the justice and good government of this city imprint upon the minds of all their neighbours. 1. THE NATURE OF THE SPARTAN GOVERNMENT. WE find at the end of Lycurgus's life a single reflection made by Plutarch, which of itself comprehends a great encomium upon that legislater. He there says, that Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all those who have treated of the establishment of a political state or government, took their plans from the republic of Lycurgus; with this difference, that they confined themselves wholly to words and theory; but Lycurgus, without dwelling upon ideas and theoretical systems, did really and effectually institute an inimitablé pulity, and form a whole city of philosophers. In order to succeed in this undertaking, and to establish the most perfect form of a commonwealth that could be, he melted down, as it were, and blended together what he found best in every kind of government, or most conducive * Vetat Pythagoras, injussu imperatoris, id est, Dei, de præsidio et statione vita decedere.-Cic. de Senect. n. 73. Cato sic abiit e vita, ut causam moriendi nactum se esse gauderet. Vetat enim dominans ille, in nobis Deus injussu hinc nos suo demigrare. Cum vero causam justam Deus ipse dederit, ut tunc Socrati, nune Catoni, sæpe multis; ne ille, medius fidius, vir sapiens, lætus ex his tenebris in lucem illam excesserit. Nee tamen illa vincula carceris ruperit; leges enim vetant: sed, tanquam a magistratu aut ab aliqua potestate legitima, sic a Deo evocatus atque emissus, exierit.-Id. i. Tusc. Quæst. n. 74. †This was what the Spartans called a seytale, a thong of leather or parchment, which they twisted round a staff in such a manner, that there was no vacancy or void space left upon it. They wrote upon this thong, and when they had written they untwisted it, and sent it to the general for whom it was intended. This general, who had another stick of the same size with that on which the thong was twisted and writ ten upon, wrapt it round that staff in the same manner, and, by that means, found out the connexion and the right placing of the letters, which otherwise were so displaced ad out of order, that there was no po sibility of their being read.-Plut. in Vit. Lyc. p. 444. to the public good; thus tempering one species with another, and balancing the inconveniences to which each of them in particular is subject, with the advantages that result from their being united together. Sparta had something of the monarchial form of government, in the authority of her kings. The council of thirty, otherwise called the senate, was a true aristocracy; and the power vested in the people of nominating the senators, and of giving sanction to the laws, resembled a democratical government. The institution of the Ephori afterwards served to rectify what was amiss in those previous establishments, and to supply what was defective. Plato, in more places than one, admires the wisdom of Lycurgus in his institution of the senate, which was equally advantageous both to the king and people; because by this means the law became the only supreme ruler of the kings, and the kings never became tyrants over the law.* 2. EQUAL DIVISION OF THE LANDS: GOLD AND SILVER BANISHED FROM SPARTA. THE design formed by Lycurgus of making an equal distribution of the lands among the citizens, and of entirely banishing from Sparta all luxury, avarice, law-suits, and dissensions, by abolishing the use of gold and silver, would appear to us a scheme of a commonwealth finely conceived for speculation, but utterly incapable of execution, did not history assure us, that Sparta actually subsisted in that condition for many ages. When I place the transaction I am now speaking of among the laudable parts of Lycurgus's laws, I do not pretend it to be absolutely unexceptionable; for I think it can scarcely be reconciled with that general law of nature, which forbids the taking away one man's property to give it to another; and yet this is what was really done upon this occasion. Therefore in this affair of dividing the lands, I consider only so much of it as was truly commendable in itself, and worthy of admiration. Can we possibly conceive, that a man could persuade the richest and most opulent inhabitants of a city, to resign all their revenues and estates, in order to level and confound themselves with the poorest of the people; to subject themselves to a new way of living, both severe in itself, and full of restraint; in a word, to debar themselves of the use of every thing, wherein the happiness and comfort of life is thought to consist? And yet this is what Lycurgus actually effected in Sparta. Such an institution as this would have been less wonderful, had it subsisted only during the life of the legislator; but we know that it lasted many ages after his decease. Xenophon, in the encomium he has left us of Agesilaus, and Cicero, in one of his orations, observed, that Lacedæmon was the only city in the world that preserved her discipline and laws for so considerable a term of years unaltered and inviolate. Soli, said the latter, speaking of the Lacedæmonians, toto orbe terrarum septingentos jam annos amplius unis moribus et nunquam mutatis legibus vivunt. I believe that though in Cicero's time the discipline of Sparta, as well as her power, was very much relaxed and diminished, yet, however, all historians agree, that it was maintained in all its vigour till the reign of Agis, under whom Lysander, though incapable of being blinded or corrupted with gold, filled his country with luxury and the love of riches, by bringing into it immense sums of gold and silver, which were the fruits of his victories, and thereby subverting the laws of Lycurgus. But the introduction of gold and silver money was not the first wound given by the Lacedæmonians to the institutions of the legislator. It was the consequence of the violation of another law still more fundamental. Ambition was the vice that preceded, and made way for avarice. The desire of conquests drew on that of riches, without which they could not propose to extend their dominion. The main design of Lycurgus, in the establishing his laws, and es • Νόμος επειδή κύριος ἐγένετο βασιλεὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκ ἄνθρωποι τύραννοι νόμων Plat. Epist, καλά † Pro. Flac. num. Ixiii. pecially that which prohibited the use of gold and silver, was, as Polybius and Plutarch have judiciously observed, to curb and restrain the ambition of the citizens; to disable them from making conquests, and in a manner to force them to confine themselves within the narrow bounds of their own country, without carrying their views and pretensions any farther. Indeed, the government which he established was sufficient to defend the frontiers of Sparta, but was not calculated for elevating her to a dominion over other cities. The design, then, of Lycurgus, was not to make the Spartans conquerors. To remove such thoughts from his fellow-citizens, he expressly forbade them, though they inhabited a country surrounded with the sea, to meddle in maritime affairs; to have any fleets, or ever to fight upon the sea. They were religious observers of this prohibition for many ages, and even till the defeat of Xerxes: but upon that occasion they began to think of making themselves masters at sea, that they might be able to keep that formidable enemy at the greater distance. But having soon perceived, that these maritime, remote commands, corrupted the manners of their generals, they laid that project aside without any difficulty, as we shall observe when we come to speak of king Pausanias. When Lycurgus armed his fellow-citizens with shields and lances, it was not to enable them to commit wrongs and outrages with impunity, but only to defend themselves against the invasions and injuries of others. He made them indeed a nation of warriors and soldiers: but it was only that under the shadow of their arms they might live in liberty, moderation, justice, union, and peace, by being content with their own territories, without usurping those of others, and by being persuaded, that no city or state, any more than a single person, can ever hope for solid and lasting happiness, but from virtue only. Men of a depraved taste, says Plutarch farther, on the same subject, who think nothing so desirable as riches, and a large extent of dominion, may give preference to those vast empires that have subdued and enslaved the world by violence; but Lycurgus was convinced, that a city had occasion for nothing of that kind, in order to be happy. His policy, which has justly been the admiration of all ages, had no farther views, than to establish equity, moderation, liberty, and peace; and was an enemy to all injustice, violence, and ambition, and the passion of reigning and extending the bounds of the Spartan commonwealth. Such reflections as these, which Plutarch agreeably intersperses in his Lives, and in which their greatest and most essential beauties consist, are of infinite use towards the giving us true ideas of things, and making us understand wherein consists the solid and true glory of a state, that is really happy; as also to correct those false ideas we are apt to form of the vain greatness of those empires which have swallowed up kingdoms, and of those celebrated conquerors who owe all their fame and grandeur to violence and usurpation. 3. THE EXCELLENT EDUCATION OF THEIR YOUTH. THE long duration of the laws established by Lycurgus, is certainly very wonderful but the means he made use of to succeed therein, are no less worthy of admiration. The principal of these was the extraordinary care he took to have the Spartan youth brought up in an exact and severe discipline: for, as Plutarch observes, the religious obligation of an oath, which he exacted from the citizens, would have been a feeble tie, had he not by education infused his laws, as it were, into the minds and manners of the children, and made them suck in, almost with their mothers' milk, an affection for his institutions. This was the reason why his principal ordinances subsisted above five hundred years, having sunk into the very temper and hearts of the people like a strong and good die, that penetrates thoroughly. Cicero makes the same remark, and ascribes the courage and virtue of the Spartans, not so much to their own natural Polyb. I. vi. p. 491, † Plut. in Moribus Laced. P. 239. |