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Title: Of The Laws Of Lycurgus
Author: R. D. Cumming [
More Titles by Cumming]
Lycurgus reigned over a place called Lacedæmon, which is a part of Greece, about the year 820 B.C. Now, this is a great many years ago, and is further back into the archives of history than most of us can remember. There is no doubt, however, that this great ruler, Lycurgus, was crazy, or he was one of those persons whose brains cease to develop after they have left their teens. He certainly secures the first prize as a "whim" strategist. In spite of his insane eccentricities, he was allowed the full exercise of his freedom. Had he flourished in 1915 A.D. instead of 820 "B.C." (which does not mean British Columbia), the asylum for the insane at New Westminster would not have been strong enough to retain him. Lycurgus did one redeeming thing--he founded a Senate; "which, sharing,"--we are following Plutarch--"as Plato says, in the power of the kings, too imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within bounds of moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the State. The establishment of a Senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators adhering to the kings whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings attempted to make themselves absolute."
Now, what in the world possessed this despotic imbecile to form a senate? His action in this can only be accounted for in the light that it was one of those unpremeditated whims of a narrow-minded faddist. One naturally wonders what the newly created senators were doing while the king was imposing his insane laws. This body was formed for the "preservation of the state." The wonder is that there was any state left, for the king paralyzed commerce, smothered ambition, choked art to death, and placed a ban on modesty. Further than having been "formed," the "Senate" never again appears on the pages of the "Lycurgus" book.
Plutarch, who lived in Greece about the year 100 A.D., nine hundred years after the subject of his biography, relates the forming and imposing of those laws with the utmost faith, and the most implicit innocence; which goes to prove that the Grecian idea of government, with all its knowledge, had not advanced much, at least up to the time of Plutarch.
And now for the laws.
"A second and bolder political enterprise of Lycurgus was a new division of the lands. For he found a prodigious inequality; the city overcharged with many indigent persons, who had no land; and the wealth centred in the hands of the few. Determined, therefore, to root out the evils of insolence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those distempers of a state still more inveterate than fatal--I mean poverty and riches--he persuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land and to make new ones, in such a manner as they might be perfectly equal in their possessions and way of living.
His proposal was put in practice.
"After this he attempted to divide also the movables, in order to take away all appearance of inequality; but he soon perceived that they could not bear to have their goods taken directly from them, and therefore took another method, counterworking their avarice by a stratagem."
Now, this seems to be the only law to which they made objection; and this proves that the love of personal "icties" has very deep roots. Perhaps the influence of the "senate" sustained them in this, for qualifications for a senator, even in those days, must have called for men of some means, and they, when the shoe began to pinch their own feet, would not care to divide up their sugar and flour with the rank and file. It does not appear, however, that they had any say in the matter, and, beyond the statement that they were formed for a purpose, they seem to have taken no part in the affairs of state; if they had, Lycurgus and his laws would never have been made part of history.
"First he stopped the currency of the gold and silver coin"--thus he paralyzed industry--"and ordered that they should make use of iron money only; then to a great quantity and weight of this he assigned but a small value.... In the next place he excluded unprofitable and superfluous arts.... Their iron coin would not pass in the rest of Greece, but was ridiculed and despised, so that the Spartans had no means of purchasing any foreign or curious wares, nor did any merchant ship unlade in their harbor." Even Plutarch sees nothing suicidal in all this voluntary isolating of themselves from the main arteries of commerce.
"Desirous to complete the conquest of luxury and exterminate the love of riches, he introduced a third institution, which was wisely enough and ingeniously contrived. This was the use of public tables, where all were to eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds of it as were appointed by law. At the same time they were forbidden to eat at home, or on expensive couches and tables.... Another ordinance levelled against magnificence and expense, directed that the ceilings of houses should be wrought with no tool but the axe, and the doors with nothing but the saw. Indeed, no man could be so absurd as to bring into a dwelling so homely and simple, bedsteads with silver feet, purple coverlets, or golden cups." Thus he smothered art and personal ambition, two of the most requisite essentials to a people on their onward and upward trend to civilization and success. "A third ordinance of Lycurgus was, that they should not often make war against the same enemy, lest, by being frequently put upon defending themselves, they too should become able warriors in their turn."
And thus he made them defenceless against their enemies.
"For the same reason he would not permit all that desired to go abroad and see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners, gain traces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of government. He forbade strangers, too, to resort to Sparta who could not assign a good reason for their coming!"
Improvement with Lycurgus means retrogression with us. He wished, perhaps ignorantly, to arrest the progress of civilization and substitute a slovenly ideal of his own. His purpose was to cancel the civilization which the race had gained during thousands of years of effort, and bring it back to a semi-savagery. But the world was too big for him. It had things in view which were too great for his small, hampered mind to have any suspicion of. No doubt he was sincere in his little, infinitesimal way; but it is a blessing for the world that his influence was confined to a very small corner of the then civilized world, and that others of broader views succeeded him to manage the affairs of states and nations. With all deference to old Plutarch, the biographer of Lycurgus, we wish to say that however grand the laws of this man may have been as ideals, they were utter failures when brought into practice.
[The end]
R. D. Cumming's short story: Of The Laws Of Lycurgus
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