Lycurgus

a Spartan lawgiver. It is not at all certain that he was a real personage. Tradition relates that Lycurgus flourished about 900 B. C. According to popular accounts he refused the crown for himself, traveled in distant countries to study government, returned to Sparta, established a reformed plan of government, bound his neighbors to observe his laws until he came back, and then set out on a journey to return no more. The measures and institutions attributed to Lycurgus, or at least to this age, are both social and political.

1. A redistribution of land. Just what is meant by this step is not clear. It rests on the authority of Plutarch.

2. An army composed of all able-bodied Spartans. This placed the control of the situation in the hands of the citizens of a single city, Sparta. It created a warrior or governing class.

3. A reservation to the Lacedaemons, who were the citizens of associated or, more properly, subject cities, of trade, agriculture, and the handicrafts. These city people had a limited sphere of local government but no voice in central affairs.

4. A class of serfs known as helots. Menial work was performed by them. The helots comprised four-fifths of the population. They represented, no doubt, a conquered, enslaved people.

5. Two kings instead of one. This division of royal power between two kings was expected to act as a check on royalty and to prevent the development of despotism.

6. A senate of thirty elders. These elders held office for life. They were heads of noble families. The senate outweighed the kings, who were in reality but the agents of the senate.

7. A popular assembly. Membership was open to all free Spartans. This assembly chose senators and decided such matters as were laid before it.

8. The senate had a veto power, "if the people decide anything crookedly to put it back."

9. Ephors or dictators. Five magistrates were elected by the assembly yearly. They presided over the assembly and acted as judges in important matters. There was no appeal from them. Even the king, over whom they held the power of life and death, could not appeal from their decisions.

The institutions of Lycurgus may have been entirely the work of conquering invaders who established themselves in the city of Sparta and imposed their institutions on a surrounding people and on a serf population dominated by these agricultural and trading inhabitants. Spartan society and government contained at once combined elements of despotism, feudalism, aristocracy, and democracy.