Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Lycurgus took the oracle in writing, and sent it over to Sparta; and,
having sacrificed the second time to Apollo, and taken leave of his
friends and his son, he resolved that the Spartans should not be
released from the oath they had taken, and that he would, of his own
act, close his life where he was. He was now about that age in which
life was still tolerable, and yet might be quitted without regret.
Every thing, moreover, about him was in a sufficiently prosperous
condition. He, therefore, made an end of himself by a total abstinence
from food; thinking it a statesman's duty to make his very death, if
possible, an act of service to the state, and even in the end of his
life to give some example of virtue and effect some useful purpose. He
would, on the one hand, crown and consummate his own happiness by a
death suitable to so honorable a life, and, on the other, would secure
to his countrymen the enjoyment of the advantages he had spent his life
in obtaining for them, since they had solemnly sworn the maintenance of
his institutions until his return. Nor was he deceived in his
expectations, for the city of Lacedaemon continued the chief city of all
Greece for the space of five hundred years, in strict observance of
Lycurgus's laws; in all which time there was no manner of alteration
made, during the reign of fourteen kings, down to the time of Agis, the
son of Archidamus. For the new creation of the ephori, though thought
to be in favor of the people, was so far from diminishing, that it very
much heightened, the aristocratical character of the government.
In the time of Agis, gold and silver first flowed into Sparta, and with
them all those mischiefs which attend the immoderate desire of riches.
Lysander promoted this disorder; for, by bringing in rich spoils from
the wars, although himself incorrupt, he yet by this means filled his
country with avarice and luxury, and subverted the laws and ordinances
of Lycurgus; so long as which were in force, the aspect presented by
Sparta was rather that of a rule of life followed by one wise and
temperate man, than of the political government of a nation. And as the
poets feign of Hercules, that, with his lion's skin and his club, he
went over the world, punishing lawless and cruel tyrants, so may it be
said of the Lacedaemonians, that, with a common staff and a coarse
coat, they gained the willing and joyful obedience of Greece, through
whose whole extent they suppressed unjust usurpations and despotisms,
arbitrated in war, and composed civil dissensions; and this often
without so much as taking down one buckler, but barely by sending some
one single deputy, to whose direction all at once submitted, like bees
swarming and taking their places around their prince. Such a fund of
order and equity, enough and to spare for others,
existed in their state.
And therefore I cannot but wonder at those who say that the Spartans
were good subjects, but bad governors, and for proof of it allege a
saying of king Theopompus, who, when one said that Sparta held up so
long because their kings could command so well, replied, "Nay, rather
because the people know so well how to obey." For people do not obey,
unless rulers know how to command; obedience is a lesson taught by
commanders. A true leader himself creates the obedience of his own
followers; as it is the last attainment in the art of riding to make a
horse gentle and tractable, so is it of the science of government, to
inspire men with a willingness to obey. The Lacedaemonians inspired men
not with a mere willingness, but with an absolute desire, to be their
subjects. For they did not send petitions to them for ships or money,
or a supply of armed men, but only for a Spartan commander; and, having
obtained one, used him with honor and reverence; so the Sicilians
behaved to Gylippus, the Chalcidians to Brasidas, and all the Greeks in
Asia to Lysander, Callicratidas, and Agesilaus; they styled them the
composers and chasteners of each people or prince they were sent to, and
had their eyes always fixed upon the city of Sparta itself, as the
perfect model of good manners and wise government. The rest seemed as
scholars, they the masters of Greece; and to this Stratonicus pleasantly
alluded, when in jest he pretended to make a law that the Athenians
should conduct religious processions and the mysteries, the Eleans
should preside at the Olympic games, and, if either did amiss, the
Lacedaemonians be beaten. Antisthenes, too, one of the scholars of
Socrates, said, in earnest, of the Thebans, when they were elated by
their victory at Leuctra, that they looked like schoolboys who had
beaten their master.
However, it was not the design of Lycurgus that his city should govern a
great many others; he thought rather that the happiness of a state, as
of a private man, consisted chiefly in the exercise of virtue, and in
the concord of the inhabitants; his aim, therefore, in all his
arrangements, was to make and keep them free-minded, self-dependent, and
temperate. And therefore all those who have written well on politics,
as Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno, have taken Lycurgus for their model,
leaving behind them, however, mere projects and words; whereas Lycurgus
was the author, not in writing but in reality, of a government which
none else could so much as copy; and while men in general have treated
the individual philosophic character as unattainable, he, by the example
of a complete philosophic state, raised himself high above all other
lawgivers of Greece. And so Aristotle says they did him less honor at
Lacedaemon after his death than he deserved, although he has a temple
there, and they offer sacrifices yearly to him as to a god.
It is reported that when his bones were brought home to Sparta his tomb
was struck with lightning; an accident which befell no eminent person
but himself, and Euripides, who was buried at Arethusa in Macedonia;
and it may serve that poet's admirers as a testimony in his favor, that
he had in this the same fate with that holy man and favorite of the
gods. Some say Lycurgus died in Cirrha; Apollothemis says, after he had
come to Elis; Timaeus and Aristoxenus, that he ended his life in Crete;
Aristoxenus adds that his tomb is shown by the Cretans in the district
of Pergamus, near the strangers' road. He left an only son, Antiorus,
on whose death without issue, his family became extinct. But his
relations and friends kept up an annual commemoration of him down to a
long time after; and the days of the meeting were called Lycurgides.
Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus, says that he died in Crete, and
that his Cretan friends, in accordance with his own request, when they
had burned his body, scattered the ashes into the sea; for fear lest, if
his relics should be transported to Lacedaemon, the people might pretend
to be released from their oaths, and make innovations in the government.
Thus much may suffice for the life and actions of Lycurgus.
NUMA POMPILIUS
Though the pedigrees of noble families of Rome go back in exact form as
far as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst historians
concerning the time in which he reigned; a certain writer called
Clodius, in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology, avers that
the ancient registers of Rome were lost when the city was sacked by the
Gauls, and that those which are now extant were counterfeited, to
flatter and serve the humor of some men who wished to have themselves
derived from some ancient and noble lineage, though in reality with no
claim to it. And though it be commonly reported that Numa was a scholar
and a familiar acquaintance of Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted
by others, who affirm, that he was acquainted with neither the Greek
language nor learning, and that he was a person of that natural talent
and ability as of himself to attain to virtue, or else that he found
some barbarian instructor superior to Pythagoras. Some affirm, also,
that Pythagoras was not contemporary with Numa, but lived at least five
generations after him; and that some other Pythagoras, a native of
Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olympiad, in the third year of which Numa
became king, won a prize at the Olympic race, might, in his travel
through Italy, have gained acquaintance with Numa, and assisted him in
the constitution of his kingdom; whence it comes that many Laconian laws
and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions. Yet, in any case,
Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony
of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain;
especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games,
which were published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on
no positive authority. Commencing, however, at a convenient point, we
will proceed to give the most noticeable events that are recorded of the
life of Numa.
It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation of Rome,
when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of July,
called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat's
Marsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky
was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the
common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this
whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living
or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the patricians, and
rumors were current among the people as if that they, weary of kingly
government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of
Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and made him away,
that so they might assume the authority and government into their own
hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine
honors to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated to a higher
condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus
caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he
ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him
by the name of Quirinus.
This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about the
election of a new king: for the minds of the original Romans and the new
inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, but
that there were diversities of factions amongst the commonalty, and
jealousies and emulations amongst the senators; for though all agreed
that it was necessary to have a king. yet what person or of which
nation, was matter of dispute. For those who had been builders of the
city with Romulus, and had already yielded a share of their lands and
dwellings to the Sabines, were indignant at any pretension on their part
to rule over their benefactors. On the other side, the Sabines could
plausibly allege, that, at their king Tatius's decease, they had
peaceably submitted to the sole command of Romulus; so now their turn
was come to have a king chosen out of their own nation; nor did they
esteem themselves to have combined with the Romans as inferiors, nor to
have contributed less than they to the increase of Rome, which, without
their numbers and association, could scarcely have merited the name of a
city.
Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest meanwhile
discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general
confusion, it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators should
interchangeably execute the office of supreme magistrate, and each in
succession, with the ensigns of royalty, should offer the solemn
sacrifices and dispatch public business for the space of six hours by
day and six by night; which vicissitude and equal distribution of power
would preclude all rivalry amongst the senators and envy from the