Lycurgus

Lycurgus is the lawgiver to whom the Spartans attributed their entire constitution, and it is not certain that he existed. Plutarch, writing some eight centuries after the traditional date, opens his life by observing that nothing can be said about him that is not disputed, including when he lived — estimates in antiquity ranged across four hundred years. The tradition makes him a member of the royal house who became regent for his infant nephew, travelled to Crete, Egypt and Ionia studying their institutions, and returned to reform Sparta on the instruction of the Delphic oracle. The system attributed to him, the Great Rhetra, has three parts. Politically, it established a mixed constitution: two hereditary kings, a council of elders, an assembly of citizens and later the five ephors, balancing one another. Socially, it created the agoge, the compulsory state upbringing that removed boys from home at seven and trained them in endurance, obedience and warfare, and the syssitia, the common messes to which every citizen contributed and at which all ate together. Economically, it is said to have redistributed land into equal lots, banned gold and silver coinage in favour of iron bars too heavy to hoard, and prohibited trade and luxury. The purpose of all of it was to produce a citizen body of equals wholly available for war, sustained by a subjugated helot population. He is said to have made the Spartans swear to keep the laws until he returned, and then to have starved himself to death abroad so that they never could. Modern historians generally treat him as a figure onto whom a system built up over generations was retrospectively projected.

• Nationality: Spartan
• Roles: ruler, statesman