Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the Ancient Republicks. Edward Wortley Montagu
of their city.
If we reflect that human nature is at all times and in all places the same, it seems to the last degree astonishing, how Lycurgus could be able to introduce such a self-denying plan of discipline amongst a disorderly licentious people: A scheme, which not only [25] levelled at once all distinction, as to property, between the richest and the poorest individual, but compelled the greatest persons in the state to submit to a regimen which allowed only the bare necessaries of life, excluding every thing which in the opinion of mankind seems essential to its comforts and enjoyments. I observed before, that he had secured the esteem and confidence of his countrymen; and there was, besides, at that time a very lucky concurrence of circumstances in his favour. The two Kings were men of little spirit, and less abilities, and the people were glad to exchange their disorderly state for any settled form of government. By his establishment of a Senate, consisting of thirty persons who held their seats for life, and to whom he committed the supreme power in civil affairs, he brought the principal nobility into his scheme, as they naturally expected a share in a government which they plainly saw inclined so much to an Aristocracy. Even the two Kings very readily accepted seats in his senate, to secure some degree of authority. He awed the people into obedience by the sanction he procured for his scheme from the oracle at Delphos,11 whose decisions were, at that time, revered by all Greece as divine and
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infallible. But the greatest difficulty he had to encounter, was, to procure [26] the equal partition of the lands. The very first proposal met with so violent an opposition from the men of fortune, that a fray13 ensued, in which Lycurgus lost one of his eyes. But the people, struck with the sight of the blood of this admired legislator, seized the offender, one Alcander, a young man of a hot, but not disingenuous disposition, and gave him up to Lycurgus to be punished, at discretion. But the humane and generous behaviour of Lycurgus quickly made a convert of Alcander, and wrought such a change, that from an enemy he became his greatest admirer and advocate with the people.
Plutarch and the rest of the Greek historians leave us greatly in the dark as to the means by which Lycurgus was able to make so bitter a pill, as the division of property, go down with the wealthy part of his countrymen. They tell us indeed, that he carried his point by the gentle method of reasoning and persuasion, joined to that religious awe which the divine sanction of the oracle impressed so deeply on the minds of the citizens. But the cause, in my opinion, does not seem equal to the effect. For the furious opposition which the rich made to the very first motion for such a distribution of property, evinces plainly, that they looked upon the responses of the oracle as mere priest-craft, and treated it as the esprits-forts have done reli-[27]gion in modern times;14 I mean, as a state-engine fit only to be played off upon the common people. It seems most probable, in my opinion, that as he effected the change in the constitution by the distribution of the supreme power amongst the principal persons, when he formed his senate; so the equal partition of property was the bait thrown out to bring over the body of the people intirely to his interest. I should rather think that he compelled the rich to submit to so grating
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a measure, by the assistance of the poorer citizens, who were vastly the majority.
As soon as Lycurgus had thoroughly settled his new policy, and by his care and assiduity imprinted his laws so deeply in the minds and manners of his countrymen, that he judged the constitution able to support itself, and stand upon its own bottom, his last scheme was, to fix and perpetuate its duration down to the latest posterity, as far as human prudence and human means could effect it. To bring his scheme to bear, he had again recourse to the same pious artifice which had succeeded so well in the beginning. He told the people in a general assembly, that he could not possibly put the finishing stroke to his new establishment, which was the most essential point, till he had again consulted the oracle. As they all expressed the greatest eagerness for his undertaking the journey, he [28] laid hold of so fair an opportunity to bind the Kings, senate, and people, by the most solemn oaths, to the strict observance of his new form of government, and not to attempt the least alteration in any one particular till his return from Delphos. He had now completed the great design which he had long in view, and bid an eternal adieu to his country. The question he put to the oracle was, “Whether the laws he had already established, were rightly formed to make and preserve his countrymen virtuous and happy?” The answer he received was just as favourable as he desired. It was, “That his laws were excellently well calculated for that purpose; and that Sparta should continue to be the most renowned city in the world, as long as her citizens persisted in the observance of the laws of Lycurgus.” He transmitted both the question and the answer home to Sparta in writing, and devoted the remainder of his life to voluntary banishment. The accounts in history of the end of this great man are very uncertain. Plutarch affirms, that as his resolution was never to release his countrymen from the obligation of the oath he had laid them under, he put a voluntary end to his life at Delphos by fasting. Plutarch extols the death of Lycurgus in very pompous terms, as a most unexampled instance of heroic patriotism, since he bequeathed, as he [29] terms it, his death to his country, as the perpetual guardian to that happiness, which he had procured for them during his life-time. Yet the same historian acknowledges another tradition, that Lycurgus ended his days in the island of Crete, and desired, as
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his last request, that his body should be burnt, and his ashes thrown into the sea;a lest, if his remains should at any time be carried back to Sparta, his countrymen might look upon themselves as released from their oath as much as if he had returned alive, and be induced to alter his form of government. I own, I prefer this latter account, as more agreeable to the genius and policy of that wise and truly disinterested legislator.
The Spartans, as Plutarch asserts, held the first rank in Greece for discipline and reputation full five hundred years, by strictly adhering to the laws of Lycurgus; which not one of their Kings ever infringed for fourteen successions quite down to the reign of the first Agis. For he will not allow the creation of those magistrates called the Ephori to be any innovation in the constitution, since he affirms it to have been, “not a relaxation, but an extension, of the civil polity.”b But notwithstanding the gloss thrown over the institution of the Ephori by this nice distinction [30] of Plutarch’s, it certainly induced as fatal a change into the Spartan constitution, as the Tribuneship of the people, which was formed upon that model, did afterwards into the Roman. For instead of enlarging and strengthening the aristocratical power, as Plutarch asserts, they gradually usurped the whole government, and formed themselves into a most tyrannical Oligarchy.
The Ephori (a Greek word signifying inspectors or overseers) were five in number, and elected annually by the people out of their own body. The exact time of the origin of this institution, and of the authority annexed to their office, is quite uncertain. Herodotus ascribes it to Lycurgus; Xenophon to Lycurgus jointly with the principal citizens of Sparta. Aristotle and Plutarch fix it under the reign of Theopompus and Polydorus, and attribute the institution expressly to the former of those princes, about 130 years after the death of Lycurgus.15 I cannot but subscribe to this opinion as the most probable, because the first political contest we meet with
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at Sparta happened under the reign of those princes, when the people endeavoured to extend their privileges beyond the limits prescribed by Lycurgus. But as the joint opposition of the Kings and senate was equally warm, the creation of this magistracy out of the body of the people, seems to [31] have been the step taken at that time to compromise the affair, and restore the publick tranquillity: A measure which the Roman senate copied afterwards, in the erection of the Tribuneship, when their people mutinied, and made that memorable secession to the mons sacer.18 I am confirmed in this opinion by the relation which Aristotle gives us of a remarkable dispute between Theopompus and his wife upon that occasion.a The Queen, much dissatisfied with the institution of the Ephori, reproached her husband greatly for submitting to such a diminution of the regal authority, and asked him if he was not ashamed to transmit the crown to his posterity so much weaker and worse circumstanced, than he received it from his father. His answer, which is recorded amongst the laconic bons mots,19 was,
No, for I transmit it more lasting.b
But the event shewed that the