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I believe that those who recover from illness are more indebted to the care of Hippocrates than to the power of Æsculapius; that Sparta received her laws from Lycurgus rather than from Apollo; that those eyes of the maritime coast, Corinth and Carthage, were plucked out, the one by Critolaus, the other by Hasdrubal, without the assistance of any divine anger, since you yourselves confess that a Deity cannot possibly be angry on any provocation.
And, indeed, the Olympic holy truce, or cessation of arms, that was procured by his means and management, inclines me to think him a kind-natured man, and one that loved quietness and peace. Notwithstanding all this, Hermippus tells us that he had no hand in the ordinance; that Iphitus made it, and Lycurgus came only as a spectator, and that by mere accident too.
The timber required for floor, door, and beds, was all prepared with the axe; our building being thus rendered habitable without even going to the extent of Lycurgus' frugal laws, for the axe was our only implement. My opponent returned in four days, having been at an Indian camp, not far distant, where both he and our people traded a considerable quantity of furs.
He was for prepossessing the mind of Lycurgus in our favor, naming the increasing wantonness of Lycas as the cause of our secret and sudden change of habitation. When Lycurgus had heard everything, he swore that he would always be a tower of strength between us and our enemies.
The Achaians demanded that the guilty should be given up to them for punishment, and a war began, which ended by a savage attack on Sparta, in which Philopœmen forgot all but the old enmity between Achaia and Laconia, put ninety citizens to death, pulled down the walls, besides abolishing the laws of Lycurgus, which, however, nobody had observed since the fall of Cleomenes.
Perhaps it was the Cryptia, as they called it, or ambuscade, if that was really one of this lawgiver's institutions, as Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the country, provided only with daggers and some necessary provisions.
At first Lycurgus’ laws displeased some of the citizens much, and, when he was proposing them, a young man named Alcander struck him on the face with his staff, and put out his eye. The others were shocked, and put Alcander into Lycurgus’ hands, to be punished as he thought fit.
Thus the sovereign has no right to touch the property of one or many; but he may lawfully take possession of the property of all, as was done in Sparta in the time of Lycurgus; while the abolition of debts by Solon was an unlawful deed.
They had, indeed, already obtained some slight repute amongst the Greeks, and scattered portions, as chance conveyed them, were in the hands of individuals; but Lycurgus first made them really known.
So that to have seen him at Lacedaemon, a man, judging by the outward appearance, would have said, "'T is not Achilles' son, but he himself, the very man" that Lycurgus designed to form. After the defeat which the Athenians received in Sicily, ambassadors were despatched to Sparta at once from Chios and Lesbos and Cyzicus, to signify their purpose of revolting from the Athenians.
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