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Updated: June 19, 2025
They all assented, and bade him depart, and he, after making first the kings and elders, and then the rest of the citizens, swear that they would keep their existing constitution till Lykurgus came back, set out for Delphi. Upon reaching the temple he sacrificed to the god, and inquired whether his laws were good, and sufficient for the prosperity and happiness of his country.
When Lykurgus abused him freely in the public assembly and above all, reproached him with having advised the people to deliver up ten citizens to Alexander when he demanded them, he said, "I have often given the people good advice, but they will not obey me."
But Lykurgus was eleventh in direct descent from Herakles, and had reigned in Lacedaemon for many years, and had his own great reputation, friends, and interest to assist him in carrying out his reforms: and although he chose to effect his purpose by violence, so that his eye was actually knocked out, yet he succeeded in carrying that measure, so valuable for the safety and concord of the state, by which it was rendered impossible for any citizen to be either rich or poor.
XXVIII. When the leading men of the city were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his institutions, and the newly constituted state was able to walk by itself without leading-strings, and bear its own weight alone, then, as Plato says of God, that he was pleased with the world that he had created, when it first began to live and move, so was it with Lykurgus.
XXV. Lykurgus himself composed his senate, as we have seen, of the persons who took part in his plot; and in future be ordained that vacancies should be filled up by those men, upwards of sixty years of age, who were adjudged to be the most worthy.
It was not from cowardice, but because he scorned to do an injustice, that Numa did not make war; while Lykurgus made his countrymen warlike, not in order that they might do wrong, but that they might not be wronged. Each found that the existing system required very important alterations to check its excesses and supply its defects.
If, then, we believe the legends which are told about these persons, why should we doubt that Zaleukus, Minos, Zoroaster, Numa, and Lykurgus were inspired by Heaven, when they governed their kingdoms and gave them laws?
The other view, which some take about Lykurgus and Numa and such men, seems very plausible, that they, having to deal with an obstinate and unmanageable people when introducing great political changes, invented the idea of their own divine mission as a means of safety for themselves. V. It was in Numa's fortieth year that the envoys came from Rome to ask him to be king.
XVII. The motion for sending away the money was opposed by Lysander's friends, who were eager to keep it in the state; so that it was at last decided that for public purposes this money might be used, but that if any private person were found in possession of it, he should be put to death: as if Lykurgus had been afraid of money itself, and not of the covetousness produced by it, which they did not repress by forbidding private men to own money so much as they encouraged it by permitting the state to own it, conferring thereby a certain dignity upon it over and above its real value.
It is said that when at Athens Lykurgus the orator had rescued Xenokratos the philosopher from the tax-gatherers who were taking him to prison for non-payment of the tax upon resident aliens, and had them punished for their insolent conduct towards him, Xenokrates, afterwards meeting the sons of Lykurgus, said, "My children, I am making your father an honourable return for his kindness, he has the praises of the whole people for what he did for me."
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