[580] Plutarch, Lykurg. c. 5-6. Hermippus, the scholar of Aristotle, professed to give the names of twenty out of these thirty devoted partisans.
There was, however, a different story, which represented that Lykurgus, on his return from his travels, found Charilaus governing like a despot (Heraclid. Pontic. c. 2).
[581] The words of the old Rhetra—Διὸς Ἑλλανίου καὶ Ἀθηνᾶς Ἑλλανίας ἱερὸν ἱδρυσάμενον, φυλὰς φυλάξαντα, καὶ ὠβὰς ὠβάξαντα, τριάκοντα, γερουσίαν σὺν ἀρχαγέταις, καταστήσαντα, ὥρας ἐξ ὥρας ἀπελλάζειν μεταξὺ Βαβύκας καὶ Κνακίωνος, οὕτως εἰσφέρειν τε καὶ ἀφίστασθαι· δάμῳ δ᾽ ἀγορὰν εἶμεν καὶ κράτος. (Plutarch, ib.)
The reading ἀγορὰν (last word but three) is that of Coray’s edition: other readings proposed are κυρίαν, ἀνωγὰν, ἀγορίαν, etc. The MSS., however, are incurably corrupt, and none of the conjectures can be pronounced certain.
The Rhetra contains various remarkable archaisms,—ἀπελλάζειν—ἀφίστασθαι,—the latter word in the sense of putting the question for decision, corresponding to the function of the Ἀφεστὴρ at Knidus, (Plutarch, Quæst. Græc. c. 4; see Schneider, Lexicon, ad voc.)
O. Müller connects τριάκοντα with ὠβὰς, and lays it down that there were thirty Obes at Sparta: I rather agree with those critics who place the comma after ὠβάξαντα, and refer the number thirty to the senate. Urlichs, in his Dissertation Ueber Die Lykurgisch. Rhetren (published in the Rheinisches Museum for 1847, p. 204), introduces the word πρεσβυγενέας after τριάκοντα; which seems a just conjecture, when we look to the addition afterwards made by Theopompus. The statements of Müller about the Obes seem to me to rest on no authority.
The word Rhetra means a solemn compact, either originally emanating from, or subsequently sanctioned by, the gods, who are always parties to such agreements: see the old Treaty between the Eleians and Heræans,—Ἁ ϝράτρα, between the two,—commemorated in the valuable inscription still preserved,—as ancient, according to Boeckh, as Olymp. 40-60, (Boeckh, Corp. Inscript. No. 2, p. 26, part i.) The words of Tyrtæus imply such a compact between contracting parties: first the kings, then the senate, lastly the people—εὐθείαις ῥήτραις ἀνταπαμειβομένους—where the participle last occurring applies not to the people alone, but to all the three. The Rhetra of Lykurgus emanated from the Delphian god; but the kings, senate, and people all bound themselves, both to each other and to the gods, to obey it. The explanations given of the phrase by Nitzsch and Schömann (in Dr. Thirlwall’s note, ch. viii. p. 334) seem to me less satisfactory than what appears in C. F. Hermann (Lehrbuch der Griech. Staatsalterthümer, s. 23).
Nitzsch (Histor. Homer. sect. xiv. pp. 50-55) does not take sufficient account of the distinction between the meaning of ῥήτρα in the early and in the later times. In the time of the Ephor Epitadeus, or of Agis the Third, he is right in saying that ῥήτρα is equivalent to scitum,—still, however, with an idea of greater solemnity and unchangeability than is implied in the word νόμος, analogous to what is understood by a fundamental or organic enactment in modern ideas. The old ideas, of a mandate from the Delphian god, and a compact between the kings and the citizens, which had once been connected with the word, gradually dropped away from it. There is no contradiction in Plutarch, therefore, such as that to which Nitzsch alludes (p. 54).
Kopstadt’s Dissertation (pp. 22, 30) touches on the same subject. I agree with Kopstadt (Dissert. pp. 28-30), in thinking it probable that Plutarch copied the words of the old Lykurgean constitutional Rhetra, from the account given by Aristotle of the Spartan polity.
King Theopompus probably brought from the Delphian oracle the important rider which he tacked to the mandate as originally brought by Lykurgus—οἱ βασιλεῖς Θεόπομπος καὶ Πολύδωρος τάδε τῇ ῥήτρᾳ παρενέγραψαν. The authority of the oracle, together with their own influence, would enable them to get these words accepted by the people.