Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
II. Both evidently encouraged the spirit of independence and self-control among their people, while of other virtues, Lykurgus loved bravery, and Numa loved justice best; unless indeed we should say that, from the very different temper and habits of the two states, they required to be treated in a different manner.
Moreover Numa's regulations about young girls were of a much more feminine and orderly nature, while those of Lykurgus were so highflown and unbecoming to women, as to have been the subject of notice by the poets, who call them Phainomerides, that is with bare thighs, as Ibykus says; and they accuse them of lust, as Euripides says
Some say that he was contemporary with Iphitus, and with him settled the conditions of the Olympic truce; and among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of Lykurgus is still preserved.
Moreover the institution of the Olympic truce seems to be the idea of a man of gentle and peaceful temperament, some however say, according to Hermippus, that Lykurgus had at first no communication with Iphitus, but happened to be present in the crowd; that he then heard a voice as it were of a man behind him blaming him and wondering why he did not encourage his fellow-citizens to take part in the festival.
Numa, though a private man and not even a Roman, was chosen by the Romans as their king; but Lykurgus from being a king reduced himself to a private station. It is honourable to obtain a crown by righteousness, but it is also honourable to prefer righteousness to a crown.
XVI. By this measure he pleased neither party, but the rich were dissatisfied at the loss of their securities, and the poor were still more so because the land was not divided afresh, as they hoped it would be, and because he had not, like Lykurgus, established absolute equality.
Lykurgus did not view children as belonging to their parents, but above all to the state; and therefore he wished his citizens to be born of the best possible parents; besides the inconsistency and folly which he noticed in the customs of the rest of mankind, who are willing to pay money, or use their influence with the owners of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of horses or dogs, while they lock up their women in seclusion and permit them to have children by none but themselves, even though they be mad, decrepit, or diseased; just as if the good or bad qualities of children did not depend entirely upon their parents, and did not affect their parents more than any one else.
For this reason, although they all let their hair grow long after the age of puberty, yet it was especially in time of danger that they took pains to have it smooth and evenly parted, remembering a saying of Lykurgus about the hair, that it made a well-looking man look handsomer, and an ugly man look more ferocious.
XIX. The following anecdotes show their dislike of long speeches. When some one was discoursing about matters useful in themselves at an unfitting time, King Leonidas said, "Stranger, you speak of what is wanted when it is not wanted." Charilaus the cousin of Lykurgus, when asked why they had so few laws answered, that men of few words required few laws.
But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to all, Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like any commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the hands of their fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that whoever chose might bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a musician, as though the citizens ought not from the very outset to direct their attention to one object, but were like people who have embarked in the same ship for various causes, who only in time of danger act together for the common advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own private ends.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking