Lycurgus set up a state in Lacedæmonia that lasted five hundred years. The state was structured such that citizens thought only of the country and the social good. Comprehensive guidelines for every aspect of daily living created an atmosphere in which citizens desired nothing beyond what was best for every citizen as a whole. Lycurgus took away the choice between right and wrong by imposing edicts that molded the life of each citizen in Sparta, beginning with their conception. Without the choice for vice, each citizen always did what Lycurgus considered virtuous, whether this was virtuous or not. Plutarch said that Lycurgus abolished vice from the state of Sparta, but after five hundred years, gold was reintroduced to Sparta, and the system fell apart as, one at a time, vices sprang up. Did the vice return with the gold, or was the vice there all along? Wherein does vice lie? Is it in material goods or is it within a person?

Rhetras

Lycurgus used Rhetra, or unwritten, "divine" ordinances to change the lifestyle of the Spartans. Plutarch refers to "The Rhetra" and individual ordinances being a Rhetra. The first Rhetra was that their laws should not be written. The second was that their ceilings should only be wrought by the axe and their gates and doors only smoothed by the saw. The third Rhetra was that they should not make war on any one nation for too often or long with the same enemy. "These laws were called the Rhetras, to intimate that they were divine sanctions and revelations" (64.)¹

With his first Rhetra, Lycurgus chose to keep anyone from writing his laws so that, through education, each ordinance would be passed into the hearts of the young people. This was much more effective than if the students were forced to follow a set of rules. With written law, a choice appeared. One could choose to follow the law, or break the law. In Sparta, the ordinances seemed more like a way of life than a list of rules since everything was passed on by word of mouth. Most likely after a few generations had passed, the citizens did not even group these sayings together and call them Rhetras, they simply became the nomos.

Lycurgus' second Rhetra forbade fancy designs on ceilings, doors, and gates. This was aimed, according to Plutarch, against luxury and extravagance. In this case it was easy to observe the phenomena of each citizen not even knowing that there was another choice in the matter. Everyone who lived in Lacedæmonia had a rough-hewed ceiling, and plain gates and doors. Because plain, rough-hewn homes were the accepted custom, fancy ceilings and doors were never considered an option.

The rational behind this Rhetra may have been that Spartans would furnish such plain houses with plain furniture rather than with expensive and beautiful furnishings. Soon people who made extravagant and decorative household goods left the country, or took up other jobs. Soon even if a citizen thought to have nice looking furniture they could not get any because no one made furniture of that sort. And if a craftsman did make decorative furniture, no one would buy it because it did not match the design of their home. Eventually the Spartans did not even know that luxuries existed.

The final Rhetra that Plutarch named was this: the Spartans would not make war often or for very long with the same enemy. Keeping their wars short motivated the Spartans to train continually, but kept their enemies from growing accustomed to being at war. In addition to this, Spartan warriors would not chase down and kill their enemies when their enemies fled. Because of this, opposing armies were less likely to stand up to the Spartans because they could flee and live. Spartans spent most of their time at war. Because they were constantly changing their enemy, they remained the premier country when it came to battle. They held off the Persians at Thermopylae, and defeated Athens in the
Peloponnesian War.

Were all the laws Plutarch named Rhetras or not? Because, in naming the third Rhetra, Plutarch broke the pattern and called it "A third ordinance of Rhetra," it seems as if all of the conventions he told us about were contained within Rhetra. But then, at the end of the paragraph on a third ordinance of Rhetra, he said, "These laws were called Rhetras..." making it sound as if he were finished speaking on Rhetras. It may be the case that other ordinances named later in Plutarch's essay on Lycurgus were more like Rhetras than these three. In any case other ordinances were definitely as important to the creation of perfect citizens as these three.

Birth to Childhood

Lycurgus set up a system beginning before conception of children that was aimed at molding the most able citizens. Children were all brought up in the same manner with every man and woman in the city functioning as their mom and dad. The children learned the way of the Spartans from birth, never questioning, simply conforming to nomos.

Marriages in Sparta were regulated so that each man would be matched with a wife who would be ideal for bearing the strongest children. After a baby was born, the father took him to Lesche ² where elders of the tribe decided if the child should be raised or killed. If the child was well-formed, then they decided that he had the potential to contribute to the state. But if the child were puny and ill-shaped, the elders would leave him out to die, keeping with Lycurgus' principle that there was no chance that a weakling could contribute. Lycurgus decided this should be done for the sake of the child as well as for the state. There was no problem with this in the minds of the Spartans because, in their society, one who was not strong was not able contribute to the state. If one could not contribute to the state he was worthless. They did not think about the minds of each of the infants they killed, because the intellect was not valued in Spartan society.

Their children, Plutarch states, "were not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid of the dark or of being left alone; and without peevishness, or ill-humor, or crying." Notice that Plutarch did not say, "were not allowed to be dainty..." but just that they were not. Although children were not allowed to be afraid, most children probably simply suppressed any appearance of fear. Plutarch attributed the bravery of the children to the Spartan nurses who, because of their ability to train children this way, were sought after all throughout Greece, though he never stated how they are able to imprint this behavior on the children.

Education

Lycurgus set up the Spartan education to cast all of his citizens in the same mold. All traces of luxury and comfort were removed from the children's lives. They learned to work together in small groups, and to help themselves by stealing. They learned only the minimum of reading and writing. His education system was just an extension of the process that began at birth with the ultimate goal of creating perfect citizens for the state.

Lycurgus did not allow Spartans to buy masters for their children, nor to bring them up themselves. At the age of seven, all the boys were placed in companies and lived with other boys their age. The one who was most courageous and showed the "most conduct and courage" was placed over them as captain (67.) He gave orders and disciplined the other boys as he saw fit. Lycurgus calls their whole education "one continued exercise of continued and perfect obedience"(67.)
The children exercised and played together in their groups, being constantly watched by older citizens. Old men would raise quarrels among the children as they played to find their character. From this they could determine who would be brave and who a coward when more dangerous conflict arose. All citizens had an obligation to help shape young Spartans into upright citizens.

To teach them to endure pain and conquer in battle, the children were not allowed to wear undergarments and only had one set of clothes for an entire year. They played naked and only took baths on certain days of the year when it was allowed. In times of peace their exercises were so rigorous that "...they were the only people in the world to whom war gave repose" (73.) Therefore, the Spartan warriors had few complaints and were, in fact, happy to be in battle.

The best men in Sparta constantly watched much of the boys' education, so that they would always be on their best behavior. If one of the Spartan children shirked their duties, these men would punish them, if the culprit escaped the notice of the leader of the band. This kind of forced integrity seems on par with the virtue of the Spartan citizens.
The children were forced to steal food to supplement their daily ration. This taught them how to sneak around and not be noticed which has obvious applications to warfare. If they were caught stealing they were whipped without mercy and they also had to make do with their regular ration. This ration was enough to keep them alive, but was little enough to encourage stealing. Lycurgus thought to make them taller by not burdening their bodies down with too much food. One young Spartan stole a young fox and kept it under his coat so that he would not be caught, but the fox eviscerated him and he died without calling out so that he would not be caught. Plutarch points out that this was not an exceptional case. He had seen youths whipped to death in the similar practice of the corrupted Sparta, which continued to his day.³

After dinner, the under-leader would ask questions of the students; such as "who is the best man in the city?" or "what do you think of the actions of such a man?" (69.) The answers were to be deliberate and to the point. No discussion took place, but if the questioner was unsatisfied with the answer, he would bite the thumb of the answerer. They were taught to comprehend a great matter of thought in few words. Lycurgus made "a great piece of money worth an inconsiderable value, [but] on the contrary would allow no discourse to be current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and curious sense." Discussion was stifled, and questions simply not allowed. The young Spartans "by a habit of long silence, came to give just and sententious answers"(70.)

The strict guidelines laid out in the children's education set the groundwork for their life within the society Lycurgus created. Obedience was imbedded within each new Spartan's mind. The act of pondering questions contrary to the state's idiom was stamped out. Each child conformed to Lycurgus' precise specifications.

Life after Education

Lycurgus did not give a clear picture of exactly when the Spartan children became men or when their education stopped. Just as the children were required to conform to strict guidelines, every aspect of the lives of adults was also subject to scrutiny. Lycurgus imposed very specific instructions for marriage, relationships, travel, home life, the arts, and money.

The wedding ceremony for Spartans started when the superintendent of the wedding cut the woman's hair short and dressed her up like a man, leaving her on a bed in a dark room. The husband, after eating as usual at his common table, came in sober and dressed normally, and consummates the marriage. After they spent some time in the dark together, the man returned to sleep as usual with the other young men.

They would continue to meet in this way, the husband spending his days and nights with the other men, and the wife finding opportune times for them to meet, such that sometimes a man would have children before he saw his wife's face in the daylight.

According to the theory behind Lycurgus' strict guidelines, meeting in this way caused the young couples to practice self-control, and to always be vigorous when they met, so that they would not grow tired of each other from long habit.

To abolish all licentious disorders Lycurgus said that a man could "give the use of [his] wife to those whom [he thought] fit" for the sake of producing the best offspring (66.) Plutarch says that the Spartans did not even know what adultery meant. Because of this convention, no one would think to give a name such as "adultery" to the act. They do not even conceive that a wife is for one man alone, so they see nothing wrong with sleeping with another man's wife. If Lycurgus meant by adultery, sleeping with another man's wife without the man's consent, then the Spartans would not have this idea either. If a man is attracted to a woman who is married to another man, he asks the other man to "use" her. If the other man says no, he accepts the decision. "...They knew not what adultery meant" (66.)

Lycurgus did not allow travel abroad. After he traveled to see each form of government and many systems of law, he made unilateral decisions about which laws he thought best for making a perfect state. He took away the Spartans' ability to decide if new ideas were good for Sparta. If Spartans were allowed to travel to other countries, they would be introduced outside ideas. The ideas would be both good and bad for the state, so to get rid of the bad, he had to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

As long as Sparta was static this plan worked. But, as new challenges appeared, Sparta was doomed without a leader such as Lycurgus to decide how to handle problems. Lycurgus did not provide for the continuation of his function within the state. He would have had to let someone in Sparta lead a contemplative life so that they could learn to make decisions when problems arose.

Lycurgus called in all of the gold and silver in Sparta, and replaced it with iron "quenched with vinegar" (60.) To move around any amount of money required an ox-cart. By removing any inherent value ⁴ that the metal of the money had the Spartans no longer desired the money, therefore, lawsuits ceased. Everyone was content with their money, since food was provided for at the common table.

As money disappeared, so did the "needless [and] superfluous arts," including rhetoric masters, fortune-tellers, harlot mongers, jewelers, and gold and silversmiths (60.) Additionally, foreigners shunned the Spartan ports, since there was no gold to be had from the locals. Spartan crafts became more and more utilitarian, so that the function of the crafted thing was improved, without energy wasted on the look of the thing. Hence there was nothing in Sparta that one would want to buy with the worthless Spartan money, so money faded away within Sparta.

Occasionally, the magistrates would dispatch some of the ablest Spartans to go out and murder all of the Helots⁵ that they came upon. Plutarch noted this law immediately after saying "Hitherto, I for my part, see no sign of injustice or want of equity in the laws of Lycurgus..." (77.) He did cast doubt on the fact that this was one of Lycurgus' laws, and finally said that he could not believe that Lycurgus would institute this "wicked and barbarous" law (78.)
The Spartans depended on the Helots for their way of life. If the Spartans were forced to concentrate on farming their food, they would have no time to train for war. The Helots were a thorn in the Spartans' side from the moment they were enslaved. If a country wanted to fight Sparta, they could just give the Helots weapons to fight the Spartans. Therefore the leaders of Sparta, to keep the slaves under control, decided to begin this practice of murdering Helots at random.

Looking at the Spartan system, and why and how it came to an end, brings many questions to mind.