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Updated: May 10, 2025
We cannot hear, without an instinctive glow, of the cities of Rome, Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, and others which respectively produced a Cæsar, a Demosthenes, a Lycurgus, and an Archimedes; of the islands of Samos and Ægina, whence emanated the resplendent genius of a Pythagoras and a Plato; of the villages of Alopece and Andes, immortalized as having produced a Socrates and a Virgil.
When Charilaus, the infant king, had grown up, Lycurgus prepared to go away. Before he left the town, he called all the citizens together, reminded them of all he had done to make them a great people, and ended by asking every man present to swear to obey the laws until he came back.
Far more restricted still was the power of the community in respect of the rights of property and the rights of family which were coincident, rather than merely connected, with these; in Rome the household was not absolutely annihilated and the community aggrandized at its expense, as was the case in the police organization of Lycurgus.
On his return home from this long journey Lycurgus found his country in a worse state than before. Sparta, it may be well here to say, had always two kings; but it found, as might have been expected, that two kings were worse than one, and that this odd device in government never worked well. At any rate, Lycurgus found that law had nearly vanished, and that disorder had taken its place.
Thus he guarded against the possibility of his remains being brought back to Sparta by the Lacedæmonians, lest they should then think themselves released from their oath, on the pretence that he was returned, and make innovations in the government. This is what we had to say of Lycurgus.
Porfiry couldn't sit still. What if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet a future one of course and suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it... do you see?" Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him.
Lycurgus himself seems to have been short and sententious, if we may trust the anecdotes of him; as appears by his answer to one who by all means would set up democracy in Lacedaemon. "Begin, friend," said he, "and set it up in your family." Another asked him why he allowed of such mean and trivial sacrifices to the gods. He replied, "That we may always have something to offer to them."
When his principal institutions had taken root in the manners of the people, and the government was come to such maturity as to be able to support and preserve itself, then, as Plato says of the Deity, that he rejoiced when he had created the world, and given it its first motion; so Lycurgus was charmed with the beauty and greatness of his political establishment, when he saw it exemplified in fact, and move on in due order.
The papers, however, still arrived daily, and of these he soon afterwards laid several before me, pointing, with a curious smile, to a small paragraph in each. These all appeared in the advertisement columns, were worded alike, and read as follows: 'A true son of Lycurgus, having news, desires to know the time and place of the next meeting of his Phyle.
Traditions, freedom, the thirst for glory, art, laws, creeds, vanish; but the eye thrills the breast, and hand warms to hand, as before the name of Lycurgus was heard, or Helen was borne a bride to the home of Menelaus. Under the influence of this power, then, something of youth is still retained by nations the most worn with time.
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