You can read the first two portions of this three part essay here and here.
After listing these primary reforms that Lycurgus brought to the Spartans, Plutarch shifts gears, indulging in a somewhat exhaustive survey of the social institutions and practices that set Sparta apart from its neighbors. While this is all presented as “ideas introduced by Lycurgus,” the multi-generational aspects of his analysis of those traditions turns this middle portion of the book into something other than merely a biography on Lycurgus. Step-by-step, we are taken on a little tour of classical Sparta from its education systems (for boys), its war-making machine (for older boys), its law-making practices (you get the drift).
Though this section of the work is interesting, it also muddles up our sense of time flowing as Lycurgus, a man who lived and died, is lost to the traditions that were born from his reorganization of Spartan culture. There is an implication throughout the work that Lycurgus (or the Senate or some combination of the two) instituted all of the reforms in a relatively short period of time and yet the picture that Plutarch sketches out for us looks more like a time-lapsed photo than a snapshot in time. Much like Pythagoras (with whom Lycurgus’ legacy shares many commonalities), traditions that would have taken generations to develop into actual mores are attributed to the iconic law-giver with little attempt to harmonize the inconsistencies. This cognitive dissonance is amplified when Plutarch returns to the actual subject of his narrative.
When he perceived that his more important institutions had taken root in the minds of his countrymen, that custom had rendered them familiar and easy, that his commonwealth was now grown up and able to go alone…[Lycurgus] conceived the thought to make it immortal too, and, as far as human forecast could reach, to deliver it down unchangeable to posterity. [47]
Calling a great assembly, Lycurgus tells his people that he has one final edict to issue but before he does, he wishes to consult the Oracle at Delphi one last time. He elicits an oath from them to change no law until his return and, with that, makes his way to the Oracle. His question for the Oracle was simply whether his reforms had been for the good of Sparta. When the Oracle returned an answer that his law were sound and would result in the ascendancy of Sparta for many generations to come, Lycurgus sprung his secret plan into action. Committing the Oracle’s response to writing, he sent it to the people of Sparta and never returned, thus binding them to their oath to uphold his laws without change essentially forever. He, then, undergoes a slow and stately suicide by starvation at an undisclosed location.
So what are we to make of this biography of Lycurgus? The entire account is historically challenged by Plutarch’s accurate description of his subject in the section’s heading as legendary. Indeed, the Sparta that deposed tyranny throughout Greece for centuries and opposed Athens’ attempt to dominate the Mediterranean was itself mostly legend by the time Plutarch is writing in the first century of the Common Era. Still, Plutarch enjoys certain advantages over others who might attempt a similar work in his sustained access to the Delphic records which spanned the epoch that separates him from his subject. In combining three sources (what was commonly believed about Lycurgus, what was known about Sparta, and the records of Lycurgus’ consultations at the Oracle), Plutarch is able to assemble a story that straddles history and myth; taking from both what best harmonizes with his own authorial agenda while discarding that which does not.
Showing posts with label Lycurgus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lycurgus. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Great Books: Plutarch's Biography of Lycurgus (Part 2)
The first portion of this essay can be read here.
Lycurgus’ establishment of the Senate as a counterbalance to the two kings (Charilaus and his brother Archelaus) was merely the beginning of his reforms. Plutarch provocatively leaves the exact manner in which he brought about the rest as something of a mystery. The protocol for law making that Plutarch describes has the kings and the Senate crafting a new law and then bringing it before an assembly of the people for an up or down vote. There are, however, four essential laws or Rhetra that Lycurgus seems to have pushed through before the new process was allowed to commence. The first was the establishment of the Senate and the process for adding or amending law. No mention is made beyond Charilaus’ brief retreat to the Temple of Minerva of any meaningful opposition to this change. Still, Lycurgus was so concerned about the efficacy of his reforms that he again consulted the Oracle at Delphi and, having received a second confirmation of divine assent at his innovation, he proceeded to establish three more Rhetra that would define Sparta for the next five hundred years.
Lycurgus’ second reform was to take the land inside Sparta and the surrounding kingdom of Lacedaemon and divide it into equal plots, divvying it up among the people equally. As the Spartan civilization had grown and become more complex, greater concentrations of wealth had fallen into fewer and fewer hands. The primary measurement of this wealth was not coin but land, which dictated the quantity of foodstuffs that a family might be able to produce in excess of what they actually needed which might then be transformed into other kinds of wealth. While this kind of wealth redistribution may seem radical even within the context of contemporary political ideologies that have sought to reduce or eliminate the gap between the haves and have-nots, the idea was not unique to Lycurgus or without precedent in the ancient world. The first great civilization in Sumer held all land in common under the authority of the Temple and all food produced on it was held similarly, to be redistributed to the people of the city on the basis of need. Moreover, there was a tradition in Judaism that after a set period of time, any land acquired by one person at the expense of another was essentially forfeited on the basis of a family’s fundamental right to a particular piece of land as their birthright. One is tempted to believe that Lycurgus was ignorant of these traditions. Plutarch, on the other hand, is specific in noting that Lycurgus took great inspiration from some laws of the Cretans as the basis for his own reforms. Whether this particular facet was borrowed from them, from elsewhere, or conceived of whole cloth from his imagination is lost to the ages.
The third reform, an extension of Lycurgus’ assault on the corrupting influence of wealth was to abolish gold, silver, and other precious metals as legal currency within the state in favor of a functionally worthless currency based on large quantities of unworkable iron. This is a means with a panoply of discernable ends. It made the accumulation of coin a fruitless task. Plutarch wryly notes that, “to lay up twenty or thirty pounds, there was required a pretty large closet, and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen” [36]. Lycurgus would go on to abolish all “needless and superfluous arts,” but the eradication of easily transferred monies made that edict itself superfluous. Though Plutarch doesn’t bring it up in the text, one must also assume that this Rhetra had the effect of isolating Sparta from trade with other developing city-states that didn’t share the Lacedaemonian disdain for coin for centuries to come.
If we are to take Plutarch at his word, Lycurgus’ first three reforms were accepted by the people, however begrudgingly, as means aiming at the highest social good. The fourth, seemingly innocuous in contrast with some as tangible as land re-distribution and the eradication of wealth, struck so deeply the nerves of ambition and status that it was met with eventual violence.
The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of riches, was the ordinance, he made, that they should all eat in common, of the same and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their tradesmen and cooks to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not their minds only but their very bodies which, enfeebled by indulgence and excess, freedom from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they were continually sick. [36]
Plutarch goes into extraordinary detail about the nature of these daily, common feastings but it is in a passing observation on the name used to describe them (phiditia) that he reveals something important about their implementation, noting that the “Cretans called them andria” [37]. This suggests that the cultural innovation, like the formation of a Senate before it, may have been one of the ideas that Lycurgus’ borrows wholesale from the people of Crete.
Upon being stripped of their last means to benefit in some meaningful way from their acquired wealth, the wealthier men of Sparta rose up against Lycurgus’new-found authority and, as Plutarch so skillfully phrases it, “and from ill words came to throwing stones, so that at length he was forced to run out of the market-place and make to sanctuary to save his own life” [37]. While this is hardly surprising, given the vehemence with which he has struck at the things that made them distinct, Lycurgus manages to avoid all harm until he is confronted by a young man named Alcander who wounds him grievously in one eye. The resolution of this conflict is almost too strange to be strictly historical as Lycurgus, using his wound as a symbol of his virtue, rallies the people behind him and, takes Alcander into his house whereupon he becomes one of Lycurgus’ most vocal and ardent supporters. After this uprising is quelled, Lycurgus builds a new temple to Minerva and the social experiment is underway.
Lycurgus’ establishment of the Senate as a counterbalance to the two kings (Charilaus and his brother Archelaus) was merely the beginning of his reforms. Plutarch provocatively leaves the exact manner in which he brought about the rest as something of a mystery. The protocol for law making that Plutarch describes has the kings and the Senate crafting a new law and then bringing it before an assembly of the people for an up or down vote. There are, however, four essential laws or Rhetra that Lycurgus seems to have pushed through before the new process was allowed to commence. The first was the establishment of the Senate and the process for adding or amending law. No mention is made beyond Charilaus’ brief retreat to the Temple of Minerva of any meaningful opposition to this change. Still, Lycurgus was so concerned about the efficacy of his reforms that he again consulted the Oracle at Delphi and, having received a second confirmation of divine assent at his innovation, he proceeded to establish three more Rhetra that would define Sparta for the next five hundred years.
Lycurgus’ second reform was to take the land inside Sparta and the surrounding kingdom of Lacedaemon and divide it into equal plots, divvying it up among the people equally. As the Spartan civilization had grown and become more complex, greater concentrations of wealth had fallen into fewer and fewer hands. The primary measurement of this wealth was not coin but land, which dictated the quantity of foodstuffs that a family might be able to produce in excess of what they actually needed which might then be transformed into other kinds of wealth. While this kind of wealth redistribution may seem radical even within the context of contemporary political ideologies that have sought to reduce or eliminate the gap between the haves and have-nots, the idea was not unique to Lycurgus or without precedent in the ancient world. The first great civilization in Sumer held all land in common under the authority of the Temple and all food produced on it was held similarly, to be redistributed to the people of the city on the basis of need. Moreover, there was a tradition in Judaism that after a set period of time, any land acquired by one person at the expense of another was essentially forfeited on the basis of a family’s fundamental right to a particular piece of land as their birthright. One is tempted to believe that Lycurgus was ignorant of these traditions. Plutarch, on the other hand, is specific in noting that Lycurgus took great inspiration from some laws of the Cretans as the basis for his own reforms. Whether this particular facet was borrowed from them, from elsewhere, or conceived of whole cloth from his imagination is lost to the ages.
The third reform, an extension of Lycurgus’ assault on the corrupting influence of wealth was to abolish gold, silver, and other precious metals as legal currency within the state in favor of a functionally worthless currency based on large quantities of unworkable iron. This is a means with a panoply of discernable ends. It made the accumulation of coin a fruitless task. Plutarch wryly notes that, “to lay up twenty or thirty pounds, there was required a pretty large closet, and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen” [36]. Lycurgus would go on to abolish all “needless and superfluous arts,” but the eradication of easily transferred monies made that edict itself superfluous. Though Plutarch doesn’t bring it up in the text, one must also assume that this Rhetra had the effect of isolating Sparta from trade with other developing city-states that didn’t share the Lacedaemonian disdain for coin for centuries to come.
If we are to take Plutarch at his word, Lycurgus’ first three reforms were accepted by the people, however begrudgingly, as means aiming at the highest social good. The fourth, seemingly innocuous in contrast with some as tangible as land re-distribution and the eradication of wealth, struck so deeply the nerves of ambition and status that it was met with eventual violence.
The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of riches, was the ordinance, he made, that they should all eat in common, of the same and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their tradesmen and cooks to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not their minds only but their very bodies which, enfeebled by indulgence and excess, freedom from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they were continually sick. [36]
Plutarch goes into extraordinary detail about the nature of these daily, common feastings but it is in a passing observation on the name used to describe them (phiditia) that he reveals something important about their implementation, noting that the “Cretans called them andria” [37]. This suggests that the cultural innovation, like the formation of a Senate before it, may have been one of the ideas that Lycurgus’ borrows wholesale from the people of Crete.
Upon being stripped of their last means to benefit in some meaningful way from their acquired wealth, the wealthier men of Sparta rose up against Lycurgus’new-found authority and, as Plutarch so skillfully phrases it, “and from ill words came to throwing stones, so that at length he was forced to run out of the market-place and make to sanctuary to save his own life” [37]. While this is hardly surprising, given the vehemence with which he has struck at the things that made them distinct, Lycurgus manages to avoid all harm until he is confronted by a young man named Alcander who wounds him grievously in one eye. The resolution of this conflict is almost too strange to be strictly historical as Lycurgus, using his wound as a symbol of his virtue, rallies the people behind him and, takes Alcander into his house whereupon he becomes one of Lycurgus’ most vocal and ardent supporters. After this uprising is quelled, Lycurgus builds a new temple to Minerva and the social experiment is underway.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Great Books: Plutarch's Biography of Lycurgus (Part 1)
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus
Written by Plutarch sometime in the latter part of the 1st century CE
Place: Chaeronea in the province of Boeotia (Greece)
The complete text of Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus can be found online at http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/lycurgus.html. It utilizes the same Dryden translation of Lycurgus used in the Great Books' series and, indeed, for this essay. Page numbers cited correspond to the 2nd edition of the GB's set.
Part One:
Unlike Plutarch’s biographies of figures closer to him in time, his treatment of Lycurgus (as well as Numa Pompilius) is more an exercise in selective storytelling than a serious historical document. Plutarch himself notes in his opening that there is great discord, even in his time, between those who have written about the legendary figure of Spartan history. By the time Plutarch got around to writing about him, somewhere between 600 and 900 years had passed since Lycurgus had walked the Earth and reorganized the Spartan culture on his journey. For this reason, parsing myth from fact is nigh impossible. Still, Plutarch is upfront about his methodology, announcing that “we shall endeavor to compose the history of his life, adhering to those statements which are least contradicted, and depending upon those authors most worthy of credit” [32].
Plutarch begins his examination of Lycurgus’ life with a summary of the events that led up to his great reshuffling of Spartan culture. He was born in a line of kings supposedly descended from Hercules himself though the line (the Eurypontids) was named for his ancestor, Eurypon. Eurypon was remembered as having “released the rigor of the monarchy” [34], beginning a trend of multi-generational chaos that found its climax in Lycurgus’ own father’s assassination. After acquiring the throne after his short-lived brother (with no suggestion in the text that Lycurgus himself might have been responsible for his death), Lycurgus quickly abdicates his throne when it is discovered that his brother’s wife is pregnant with his brother’s child. This child, named Charilaus, is installed, essentially at birth, as the rightful heir to the throne and, for a period of time, Lycurgus functions as regent to the infant king.
In short order, however, it became clear to Lycurgus that other powers in the Queen’s family resented his influence on the throne and had begun to plot his death in turn. Rather than suffering his father’s fate, Lycurgus imposed a self-exile, making himself notably scarce until Charilaus had reached the age of marriage and, himself, produced a legitimate heir. His own claim to the throne now twice nullified, Lycurgus began to travel the world in order to collect information from a variety of cultures of the most effective and virtuous means of governance. Visiting Crete, Lycurgus was greatly impressed by their system of governance and convinced the Cretan poet and philosopher, Thales to return to Lacedaemon with him in order to bring some of that harmony to his people. From there, he sailed to Asia (modern day Turkey) to contrast the Cretan style of politics with the more sensual Ionians who resided there. It is from this visit that Lycurgus is said to have first come into contact with the epic poetry of Homer and, in turn, transmitted it for the first time to the people of Lacedaemon, thus assuring that body of work a place in Greek culture for many centuries to come.
In his absence, many had grown weary of the monarchical rule of his nephew and were receptive to his permanent return and involvement in government. Plutarch has them suggesting that, “for kings indeed we have who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects” [34]. Seizing on this half-hearted support for continuing the monarchy as was, Lycurgus begins considering the possibility of bringing his new-found wisdom on governance back to his people. In order to ensure the best outcome, Lycurgus, we are told, consulted the Oracle at Delphi as to the proper course of action. Plutarch describes the Oracle’s response, writing that:
He returned with that renowned oracle, in which he is called beloved of God, and rather God than man; that his prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the commonwealth which observed them the most famous in the world. [34]
It is, of course, tempting to assume that just as history is written by the victor, so may oracles be later re-written in order to appear favorable to something that turned out well. Plutarch’s participation as a priest of Apollo at Delphi (though much later) lends a good deal of credence to the idea that the utterance that Lycurgus’ received there is, in fact, the same one upon which he built his plans for a new kind of state.
Armed with this divine providence, Lycurgus sets about to reforming the state through measures designed to make sweeping changes to the Spartan way of life; indeed, changes that would define the Spartan apart from other Greeks for centuries to follow. By Plutarch’s account, Lycurgus’ coup of the existing state was essentially bloodless. Gathering thirty prominent Spartans he had won to his cause, the men assembled with arms in a show of force that left King Charilaus taking refuge in the temple of Minerva. After some negotiation, he was brought into Lycurgus’ revolution and, from this vantage, legitimized it among the skeptics and loyalists through his participation. In his first act as lawmaker for this new Spartan state, Lycurgus created a Senate, composed of twenty-eight prominent men of the city, to rule in a co-equal status with the kingship. By Plutarch’s assessment, the establishment of the Senate served as a moderating force between those advocating for an absolute monarchy and those who clamored for absolute rule of the people. We may infer from this that Lycurgus saw both of those ideas of governance as intrinsically flawed and in need of a moderating influence from the oligarchy to act as “ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium” [34].
Written by Plutarch sometime in the latter part of the 1st century CE
Place: Chaeronea in the province of Boeotia (Greece)
The complete text of Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus can be found online at http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/lycurgus.html. It utilizes the same Dryden translation of Lycurgus used in the Great Books' series and, indeed, for this essay. Page numbers cited correspond to the 2nd edition of the GB's set.
Part One:
Unlike Plutarch’s biographies of figures closer to him in time, his treatment of Lycurgus (as well as Numa Pompilius) is more an exercise in selective storytelling than a serious historical document. Plutarch himself notes in his opening that there is great discord, even in his time, between those who have written about the legendary figure of Spartan history. By the time Plutarch got around to writing about him, somewhere between 600 and 900 years had passed since Lycurgus had walked the Earth and reorganized the Spartan culture on his journey. For this reason, parsing myth from fact is nigh impossible. Still, Plutarch is upfront about his methodology, announcing that “we shall endeavor to compose the history of his life, adhering to those statements which are least contradicted, and depending upon those authors most worthy of credit” [32].
Plutarch begins his examination of Lycurgus’ life with a summary of the events that led up to his great reshuffling of Spartan culture. He was born in a line of kings supposedly descended from Hercules himself though the line (the Eurypontids) was named for his ancestor, Eurypon. Eurypon was remembered as having “released the rigor of the monarchy” [34], beginning a trend of multi-generational chaos that found its climax in Lycurgus’ own father’s assassination. After acquiring the throne after his short-lived brother (with no suggestion in the text that Lycurgus himself might have been responsible for his death), Lycurgus quickly abdicates his throne when it is discovered that his brother’s wife is pregnant with his brother’s child. This child, named Charilaus, is installed, essentially at birth, as the rightful heir to the throne and, for a period of time, Lycurgus functions as regent to the infant king.
In short order, however, it became clear to Lycurgus that other powers in the Queen’s family resented his influence on the throne and had begun to plot his death in turn. Rather than suffering his father’s fate, Lycurgus imposed a self-exile, making himself notably scarce until Charilaus had reached the age of marriage and, himself, produced a legitimate heir. His own claim to the throne now twice nullified, Lycurgus began to travel the world in order to collect information from a variety of cultures of the most effective and virtuous means of governance. Visiting Crete, Lycurgus was greatly impressed by their system of governance and convinced the Cretan poet and philosopher, Thales to return to Lacedaemon with him in order to bring some of that harmony to his people. From there, he sailed to Asia (modern day Turkey) to contrast the Cretan style of politics with the more sensual Ionians who resided there. It is from this visit that Lycurgus is said to have first come into contact with the epic poetry of Homer and, in turn, transmitted it for the first time to the people of Lacedaemon, thus assuring that body of work a place in Greek culture for many centuries to come.
In his absence, many had grown weary of the monarchical rule of his nephew and were receptive to his permanent return and involvement in government. Plutarch has them suggesting that, “for kings indeed we have who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects” [34]. Seizing on this half-hearted support for continuing the monarchy as was, Lycurgus begins considering the possibility of bringing his new-found wisdom on governance back to his people. In order to ensure the best outcome, Lycurgus, we are told, consulted the Oracle at Delphi as to the proper course of action. Plutarch describes the Oracle’s response, writing that:
He returned with that renowned oracle, in which he is called beloved of God, and rather God than man; that his prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the commonwealth which observed them the most famous in the world. [34]
It is, of course, tempting to assume that just as history is written by the victor, so may oracles be later re-written in order to appear favorable to something that turned out well. Plutarch’s participation as a priest of Apollo at Delphi (though much later) lends a good deal of credence to the idea that the utterance that Lycurgus’ received there is, in fact, the same one upon which he built his plans for a new kind of state.
Armed with this divine providence, Lycurgus sets about to reforming the state through measures designed to make sweeping changes to the Spartan way of life; indeed, changes that would define the Spartan apart from other Greeks for centuries to follow. By Plutarch’s account, Lycurgus’ coup of the existing state was essentially bloodless. Gathering thirty prominent Spartans he had won to his cause, the men assembled with arms in a show of force that left King Charilaus taking refuge in the temple of Minerva. After some negotiation, he was brought into Lycurgus’ revolution and, from this vantage, legitimized it among the skeptics and loyalists through his participation. In his first act as lawmaker for this new Spartan state, Lycurgus created a Senate, composed of twenty-eight prominent men of the city, to rule in a co-equal status with the kingship. By Plutarch’s assessment, the establishment of the Senate served as a moderating force between those advocating for an absolute monarchy and those who clamored for absolute rule of the people. We may infer from this that Lycurgus saw both of those ideas of governance as intrinsically flawed and in need of a moderating influence from the oligarchy to act as “ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium” [34].
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
