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Reforms of Lycurgus of Sparta (Institutional-Origin Tradition)

Type Event Region Europe Time c. -885–-750

Classical tradition credits Lycurgus as Sparta's lawgiver, attributing the Great Rhetra, the Gerousia (council of thirty elders including the dual ki…

Timeline

  1. c. -885Sparta · LacedaemonLater accounts claim Lycurgus received authorization to legislate from the Delphic oracle (the Great Rhetra). Herodotus makes him guardian of the Agiad king Labotas; another tradition links him to Charilaus of the Eurypontid line. Both royal houses' competing claims to him show how the legend accreted over time. His absence from the poetry of Tyrtaeus is the main reason to doubt his historicity.
  2. c. -800–-750Sparta · LacedaemonThe Great Rhetra mentions the division into tribes and villages, the establishment of a thirty-member council including the dual kings, and final decisions made by the popular assembly. Classical Spartan institutions also included the ephors and the helot and perioeci classes. Older texts mistakenly called the council 'Gerousias' (easily confused with helots). Earlier legends do not credit Lycurgus with the ephors or a wholesale reshaping of social life.

Sources