ABSTRACT
THE institutions and life of Sparta were already a matter for astonishment to the ancients, and many customs seemed to them inexplicable. Sparta, in the midst of classical Greece, retained such a marked archaic aspect, that the origin of its social and political institutions was relegated to an almost inaccessible past, and they were attributed wholesale— except the creation of the Ephors—to a single legislator, Lycurgos. But about Lycurgos traditions were uncertain and discordant. Even Plutarch, though he readily accepted the most unhistorical stories without checking them, admits that one can say nothing about Lycurgos which is not doubtful; about his origin, his travels, his legislative activity, his death, and even the time at which he lived, there are as many different versions as there are authorities. 1 Without going so far as to deny the historical personality of Lycurgos, without regarding him, in virtue of the worship which was paid to him, 2 as a light-god or a wolf-god, a hypostasis of Apollo or Zeus, 3 we must make up our minds that we know nothing of his history.
