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Updated: June 19, 2025
Observing that the public men of the day had, as if by lot, divided the duties of the war-office and of the public assembly amongst themselves, so that Eubulus, Aristophon, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, and Hypereides did nothing except make speeches to the people and bring forward bills, while Diopeithes, Menestheus, Leosthenes, and Chares rose entirely by acting as generals and by making war, Phokion wished to restore the era of Perikles, Aristeides, and Solon, statesmen who were able to manage both of these branches of the administration with equal success.
Some say that Lykurgus made six thousand lots, and that Polydorus added three thousand afterwards; others that he added half the nine thousand, and that only half was allotted by Lykurgus.
Some Greek writers corroborate the Egyptians in this, but as to Lykurgus having visited Libya and Iberia, or his journey to India and meeting with the Gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, there, no one that we know of tells this except the Spartan Aristokrates, the son of Hipparchus.
VI. Lykurgus was so much interested in this council as to obtain from Delphi an oracle about it, called the rhetra, which runs as follows: "After you have built a temple to Zeus of Greece and Athene of Greece, and have divided the people into tribes and obes, you shall found a council of thirty, including the chiefs, and shall from season to season apellazein the people between Babyka and Knakion, and there propound measures and divide upon them, and the people shall have the casting vote and final decision."
Eunomus had two sons, Polydektes by his first wife, and Lykurgus by his second wife Dionassa, which makes him, according to Dieutychides, sixth in descent from Prokles, and eleventh from Herakles. II. The most remarkable of his ancestors was Soüs, in whose reign the Spartans enslaved the Helots, and annexed a large portion of Arcadia.
For it is not true, as some say, that when the Argives after their great defeat shaved their hair in sign of mourning, the Spartans on the other hand, in pride at their victory let their hair grow long; nor was it because the Bacchiadæ, when they fled from Corinth to Sparta had their hair cut short, and looked mean and despicable that made the Spartans, themselves eager to let their hair grow long; but the fashion was enjoined by Lykurgus.
But Plato tells us that Perikles put him under the care of one Zopyrus, who was no better than the other slaves; whereas Lykurgus would not intrust the Spartan boys to any bought or hired servants, nor was each man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon as they were seven years of age he himself received them from their parents, and enrolled them in companies.
II. Aristeides became much attached to Kleisthenes, who established the democratic government after the expulsion of the sons of Peisistratus; but his reverence and admiration for Lykurgus the Lacedæmonian led him to prefer an aristocratic form of government, in which he always met with an opponent in Themistokles, the son of Neokles, the champion of democracy.
XVIII. The boys were taught to use a sarcastic yet graceful style of speaking, and to compress much thought into few words; for Lykurgus made the iron money have little value for its great size, but on the other hand he made their speech short and compact, but full of meaning, teaching the young, by long periods of silent listening, to speak sententiously and to the point.
From Crete Lykurgus sailed to Asia Minor, wishing, it is said, to contrast the thrifty and austere mode of life of the Cretans with the extravagance and luxury of the Ionians, as a physician compares healthy and diseased bodies, and to note the points of difference in the two states.
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