The senators, 28 in number, or 30 together with the two kings, were to side with the people, should the kings abuse their authority, and if, on the other hand, the power of the people became too great, the Senate would protect the kings against the people. To prevent the republic from ever again being tossed to and fro between royal tyranny and anarchic democracy, Lycurgus established a third power, as a counterweight, between the two he founded a Senate. The first decrees concerned the government. But he was dissuaded of this fear, and in the end became so persuaded, that he actively supported Lycurgus’s plan himself. King Charilaus, terrified by these measures, fled into the Temple of Minerva, because he believed it all directed against him. ![]() And that is the condition in which Lycurgus found Sparta: No clear distinction between the authority of the kings and the people, unequal distribution of earthly goods among the citizens, lack of public spirit and concord, and complete political destitution, were the maladies confronting the legislator, of which, therefore, he had to take account in his legislation.Īs the day arrived, when Lycurgus wanted to announce his laws, he had thirty of the most prominent citizens, whom he had previously won over to his plan, appear armed in the marketplace, thus to instill fear in anyone who might resist. Torn asunder by internal discord, the weak state had inevitably fallen prey to hostile neighbors, or fallen completely apart into a number of smaller tyrannies. The rich citizens tyrannized the poor, and the desperation of the latter expressed itself in revolt. No line was drawn between the rights of the people and the authority of the kings, and wealth flowed into the hands of a few families. The state wavered to and fro, between monarchy and democracy, and swung in rapid succession from one extreme to the other. By bestowing greater freedoms, each king attempted to corrupt the people to incline to him, and these concessions led the people to become insolent and, ultimately, to insurrection. This jealousy had been passed from the first two kings, Prokles and Eurysthes, and their mutual lineages, down to Lycurgus, so that Sparta was incessantly troubled by factions over this long span of time. Two kings, both furnished with the same authority, stood at the head of the state each jealous of the other, each busy to secure himself a following, thus to set limits to the authority of his counterpart on the throne. ![]() To properly appreciate the Lycurgian plan, we must look back to the political situation in Sparta of that time, and come to know the condition in which he found Lacadaemon when he came forth with his new design. Nineteenth-century statue of Lycurgus at the neoclassical Palais de Justice in Brussels, Belgium / Photo by Mattpopovich, Wikimedia Commons The essay has been abridged, and subheads have been added. A renewed struggle to defend those republican principles today, against the push for an fascist, imperial USA, is being led by the political movement of Lyndon LaRouche. Solon’s republican principles became the inspiration for Plato’s dialogue, The Republic, the “Rosetta Stone” for the concept of the nation-state, based on the principle of the common good, or general welfare, which informs our own U.S. 55 9 BCE) republican government is premised on a conception of man raised to the level of participation in the divine. 800 BCE), reduces man to a beast, denying individual human creativity. The oligarchic, associated with Lycu rgus (ca. The essay puts forth two alternative conceptions of government-a republican and an oligarchic form-which have existed since the time of the Greeks. Schiller delivered his essay on Lycurgus and Solon in the context of his lectures on Universal History, at Jena University, in August 1789. Two alternative conceptions of government – a republic and an oligarchy. Bas-reliefs of Lycurgus and Solon, two of twenty-three great lawgivers depicted in the chamber of the U.S.
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