United States or Monaco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A third ordinance or Rhetra was that they should not make war often, or long, with the same enemy, lest they should train and instruct them in war, by habituating them to defend themselves.
In consequence of this it is said that the elder Leotychides when dining in Corinth, after looking at a costly panelled ceiling, asked his host whether the trees grew square in that country. A third rhetra of Lykurgus is mentioned, which forbids the Spartans to make war frequently with the same people, lest by constant practice they too should become warlike.
It passed among the people, by their management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as appears by these verses of Tyrtaeus,
But because, in process of time, the people, by additions or retrenchments, changed the terms, and perverted the sense of the decrees, the kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted in the rhetra this clause: "If the people attempt to corrupt any law, the senate and chiefs shall retire:" that is, they shall dissolve the assembly, and annul the alterations.
Thus there was the show and semblance of a democracy, but we shall find that the intention and origin of the constitution were far from democratic. "If the people should opine perversely, the elders and the princes shall dissent." Such was an addition to the Rhetra of Lycurgus.
So eagerly set was he upon this establishment, that he took the trouble to obtain an oracle about it from Delphi, the Rhetra, which runs thus: "After that you have built a temple to Jupiter Hellanius, and to Minerva Hellania, and after that you have phyle'd the people phyles, and obe'd them into obes, you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the leaders included, and shall, from time to time, apellazein the people betwixt Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote.
He had this institution so much at heart, that he obtained from Delphi an oracle in its behalf, called rhetra, or the decree.
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."
Word Of The Day