Plutarch's Lives: Lycurgus

Ancient Greece and has been a popular topic of study and fascination for centuries due in part to the fact that it influences the world even today. During the first century A.D., a Greek historian by the name of Plutarch delved into the lives of countless significant figures of the ancient Greek world and documented his studies and observations about them. One such subject was Lycurgus, lawgiver of Sparta. From the early stages of Spartan development, Lycurgus set the standard for society through a series of political, economic, and social reforms that would drastically alter their way of life for 500 years and influence the people of the world centuries later.

Lycurgus lived from approximately 700 to 630 B.C.E.. Heralded as the son of Hercules, he was next in line to inherit the kingdom when his father and brother died. However, his brother's wife had been impregnated before his passing, thus the child-assuming it was a male and survived-would be the rightful heir. The woman offered to abort the baby if Lycurgus would take her as his queen, but he refused, instead opting to become the guardian of the child. The people greatly respected a man willing to cast aside his rule because of moral obligation. This is the first of many examples of the quality of character that Plutarch depicts of Lycurgus.

However, with every popular man comes a select few who have disdain for him. The child's mother, along with her relatives, were envious of Lycurgus for being able to attain such a great deal of support from the people. In retaliation, they began spreading rumors that Lycurgus had plans to kill the child king. Ultimately, Lycurgus decided that the only way to prove his innocence was to leave Sparta until the child had grown up. Upon reaching this conclusion, he departed for the island of Crete.

During his time away from Sparta, Lycurgus studied various political, economic, and social policies in which he brought back home with him. The ever-popular Lycurgus was begged by the people of Sparta to return. With his newfound knowledge in hand, he obliged. First came the governmental reforms. Lycurgus decided that instead of patching up flaws with new regulations, he would start from the ground up and construct an entirely new system of government. This decision separates him from other leaders of his era, for it is not easy for a king to sacrifice a system that works in order to rebuild for the future. It took a tremendous amount of time and struggle to implement the new system-taking one step back in order to take two steps forward as it were-but it was a pivotal choice that allowed a large number of new reforms to follow. Next, Lycurgus set up a senate consisting of 28 men. This senate balanced the scale between democracy and tyranny, bringing forth stability, which is a fundamental attribute of successful societies.

He also made an unusual and fascinating change: laws were not to be written down. Instead of providing a scripted law for each and every fathomable circumstance, Lycurgus provided a general set of laws that were judgmentally interpreted based on the current circumstances. After all, Lycurgus' laws were designed to create a society filled with virtuous people, so each and every member of Spartan society knew the laws: be good people. In that sense, the laws themselves became superfluous, thus writing them down would be unnecessary. Also, Lycurgus didn't want the manner in which the laws were written to be twisted around to exploit loopholes. If the laws were general ideas instead of specific words that can be misinterpreted, then this problem is alleviated. There is a fundamental problem with this method of government, however. If laws are not physically written out, then violators are given the opportunity to plead ignorant. While Lycurgus himself may not have sacrificed his virtue and moral fiber to escape or lessen punishment, others may have been more willing to do so.

The next set of reforms began as economic changes, but ultimately translated into a fundamental change in social structure. Lycurgus believed that merit should be the measure of man's worth, not money, so he redistributed the land equally to all people so that there would be no envy of one another in a material sense. This caused a significant decrease in crime and civil violence because all people owned the same amount of property. It is here that the differences between Lycurgus and other great leaders differ. Alexander the Great, renowned as one of the history's greatest leaders, strived to build a vast empire by dominating other societies and merging them with his own. Conversely, Lycurgus focused on internal stability and purification instead of expansion and assimilation. This is no way to establish an empire, but that was never Lycurgus' goal. He believed that a longing for power and wealth would destroy the soul and lead to severe unhappiness. He was much more concerned with constructing his own utopia at home.

Furthering his efforts, Lycurgus then banned all gold and silver coins, leaving only iron coins as Spartan currency. These iron coins were then dipped in vinegar so that they would become brittle and worthless, in an attempt to further discourage theft. A flaw with this thinking, however, is that despite the fact that the iron coins have no material value, they can still be used to purchase goods, so there would still be a motive for crime. However, it did stifle luxury imports, since merchants did not want to trade their goods for worthless coins. Therefore, material equality was emphasized. It was not only social equality that drove Lycurgus to ban valuable commodities, though. He believed that luxuries made men less effective, making them indolent and soft; real men do not require warm baths and soft couches. Frivolous occupations were eliminated as well. Prostitution, fortune-telling, and other jobs that were not beneficial to society were banned for the betterment of Spartan society. This maximized the labor force and eliminated social stereotypes based on occupation. It is worth noting, however, that Spartans did have a lower class called the Helots that did all of the labor, so complete social equality was not achieved.

To further encourage social equality, Lycurgus made all people eat together in public mess-halls. Men were responsible for supplying a certain amount of food, which everyone at the table shared. That way, people ate the same foods and could not indulge in more luxurious meals. However, it wasn't just food that was shared. As bizarre as it may seem by modern standards, Spartan men shared their women as well. If two men desired the same woman, that was reason for them to be happy for one another, not jealous. As a result, they would each take their turn with the woman in order to maximize the number of good genes in the population.

The Spartans prided themselves with their own perfection. Newborn children were taken before a trial of elders and inspected. Any children with defects or abnormalities were cast into a deep chasm so that their imperfections would not permeate throughout the population. Those accepted by society were raised under harsh conditions under the guidance of their parents until the age of seven, where they were taken and added to a group of other children of the same age, where they lived alone and were forced to fend for themselves. At the age of twelve, they were given formal military training, and at eighteen, they became full-fledged adults and joined the military. This was a very effective system for developing physically and mentally strong men. As many Spartans have been recorded saying, times of war are the only breaks they get. Training is so difficult that the actual fighting of wars seems easy. This directly contributes to the Spartan proficiency in battle. Spartan women were encouraged to stay physically fit as well. Periodically, they were required to dance in naked in front of a crowd of men. Those who were in good shape, neither to thin nor fat, were confident doing so; those who were not were deeply embarrassed and ashamed. Shame is the ultimate nemesis of Spartans. The possibility of disgrace undoubtedly motivated the women into honing their bodies. It may seem extreme by modern standards, but Lycurgus was able to identify the aspects of life that most successfully motivated his people and use them to encourage the development of a virtuous lifestyle.

In order to maintain their engineered society, Sparta was closed to immigrants and visitors. Lycurgus did not want to risk contamination of their society by allowing strangers to influence Sparta in a negative way. Once again, this is certainly not a good tactic for someone trying to build an empire, but for Lycurgus' purpose, it was the best course of action. Spartans were taught to say a great deal with very few words in order to minimize the amount of time that they were in contact with foreign people. They do not speak frivolously, but rather reserve their speech for when they have something constructive and pertinent to say. That way, when they do deem it appropriate to speak, they more effectively gain the attention of others because what they are saying is so profound.

Contact with others was limited even during times of war. Lycurgus made it a priority never to fight the same enemy for an extended period of time so that they would not learn and be able to replicate Spartan war tactics. This kept their military prowess high above that of everyone else's, thus preserving their society.

After Sparta had experienced success under these new reforms for some time, Lycurgus decided that he would leave his home permanently-although he told his people that it was only a temporary leave of absence. At this point, he was convinced that he was at the stage of his life where he could die and not have any regrets. He left Sparta and starved himself, dying a happy and virtuous man. His home lived on under his policies for five hundred years, during which time it was one of the most famous cities in Greece. The corruption of Spartan society came when Lysander brought back gold and silver as spoils from a war, thus re-establishing social divisions that had long ago been abolished. The lawgiver of Sparta provided the city with a stable governmental, economic, and social system that lasted for five centuries. His accomplishments earned himself a place in history, and historians even today marvel at all that he was able to accomplish in his lifetime. Plutarch obviously recognized Lycurgus' greatness and documented his successes over 200 years after his institutions had dissolved. Lycurgus' model of society has a great deal of merit. As ideological as it may seem, it was a success for a long period of time, so it is possible to implement a similar system today. Perhaps in time, the modern world may revert back to Lycurgus' methods.