The Sexes in Science and History / An inquiry into the dogma of woman's inferiority to man

by Eliza Burt Gamble

Doubtless the principal changes in the government inaugurated by Lycurgus were, first, the importance which he caused to be attached to the assembly of the people, and second, the restoration of the senate. By strengthening this body, which was originally composed of the heads of the gentes, the gentile organization was in a measure restored to its original dignity. The extreme anxiety felt in the time of Lycurgus lest the people’s rights be invaded, is shown in the fact that the three administrative functions of the government were supplemented by five ephors chosen annually as agents of the people, whose chief prerogative it was to scrutinize the acts of the chief magistrate and other guardians of the commonwealth. Although the office of the ephors is much older than the Lycurgan legislation,[188] it had previously been abolished, or had sunk into disuse. The ephors of Lycurgus were “probably appointed for the special purpose of watching over the Lycurgan discipline, and punishing those who neglected it.”[189]

Later, however, when through the greed for gain and the inordinate thirst for power, the ephors in their turn had drawn to themselves the greater share of the powers belonging to the state, the military commander, or so-called king, became responsible to them for his conduct even while directing the army in the field. He received his orders from them, and although in cases of emergency he was authorized to exercise the power of life and death, according to Xenophon, they could accuse the king and compel him to defend his acts or suffer the penalty of death. By a gradual process of usurpation the ephors had, “by the time of Thucydides, completely superseded the king as the directors of affairs at Sparta.”

The fact has been observed that the authority of the senate, a body which in earlier times had been composed of the heads of the genets, who were elected by all the people, and who held their office only during good behaviour, had, in the time of Lycurgus, through the growth of the monarchial and aristocratic party become weakened; and that, as the kings had drawn to themselves the powers formerly belonging to the popular assembly, the people were no longer represented, but had been obliged to surrender their independence to the authority of the military leaders. It is altogether likely, therefore, that the load under which the Spartans are said to have groaned, and from which Lycurgus is supposed to have released them, was the undue assumption of power by the basileus and the aristocratic party; and that the chief service which he lent to the state was the sanction which he gave to those principles of equality and liberty which had been recognized and practised at a time when the gens as the unit of human society was still in its original vitality and strength, and when woman’s influence was therefore in the ascendency.

Most modern writers agree in the opinion that Lycurgus instituted no fundamental changes in the constitution of the state; indeed all the accessible facts relative to this subject go to prove that the attempt at legislative reform in the time of this lawgiver did not begin with him; but, on the contrary, that all along the line of development, for an entire ethnical period, there had been a struggle between the people on the one hand and the constantly increasing power exercised by their rulers on the other.

Concerning the measures instituted by Lycurgus, and the way in which the political power was distributed by him, we are assured that it was according to a Rhetra of this legislator given under the direction of the Pythian Apollo:

Build a temple to Jupiter Hellanius and Minerva Hellania; divide the tribes, and institute thirty obas; appoint a council, with its princes; convene the assembly between Babyca and Cnacion; propose this, and then depart; and let there be a right of decision and power to the people.[190]

By this decree the assembly was invested with authority to reject or accept any proposed measures of the council and princes. Later, however, when the chiefs and the military leaders would draw to themselves a portion of the power which had been delegated to the people, we find subjoined to the original document of the priestess the following clause: “But if the people should follow a crooked opinion, the elders and the princes shall dissent.” Or, according to Plutarch: “If the people attempt to corrupt any law, the senate and chiefs shall retire,” meaning that “they shall dissolve the assembly and annul the alterations.”[191]

According to the testimony of Plutarch, when Lycurgus entered upon the duties of lawgiver he went to Crete, and while there examined the laws of that people; those of them which he considered wise and suited to the needs of a commonwealth and which were based on principles involving the highest interests of the people, he incorporated into his system. Now the Cretans were a branch of the Doric stock,[192] and as among them descent and rights of succession were still traced through women, it would seem that they had preserved much of that simplicity of manner which characterizes primitive society. Upon his return from Crete Lycurgus made an equal division of the land, and as he could not induce the people to surrender their treasures, he prohibited the use of gold and silver currency and substituted iron in its place. To a great quantity and weight of this metal he assigned a slight value, so that to lay up a small amount of wealth a whole room was required, and for the removal of a moderate sum of money a yoke of oxen must be employed. When this became current many kinds of injustice ceased in Lacedæmonia. “Who would steal or take a bribe, who would defraud or rob, when he could not conceal the booty, when he could neither be dignified by the possession of it, nor if cut in pieces be served by its use?”[193] There is little evidence in support of the statement of Plutarch that Lycurgus attempted to establish a community of goods among the Spartans. Although he caused the landed possessions which had been parcelled out to individuals to be returned to the state, too much interest had already become attached to personal possessions to have made a division of this kind of wealth possible.

A legislator may not enact laws with the expectation of seeing them enforced which are not in accord with the temper of the people, and the degree of success which attended the legislation ascribed to Lycurgus proves that the great mass of the people were in sympathy with many of the measures which he proposed for the government of Sparta.

It is plain that the object of the person or persons, whom history has named Lycurgus, was a return to the simpler manners and purer customs of a more primitive age, which the growth of the aristocratic spirit and the accumulation of wealth in masses in the hands of the few threatened entirely to subvert; and, as a community of goods was at this time impossible, he, or they, sought to level the distinctions between rich and poor by exalting virtue and moral excellence above the mere possession of wealth and hereditary titles.