Sparta or Lacedaemon, city of the Peloponnese in Laconia.

I promised at the word Lacedaemon to describe it, and how could I forget my promise? Its name alone recalls greater things, and above all greater virtues, than all the other cities of Greece put together. Its glory has been so largely celebrated in the world and in the annals of history that one never tires of speaking of it. Historians generally called the inhabitants of the town Spartans and the inhabitants of the countryside Lacedemonians . Herodotus, Xenophon and Diodorus almost always respected this practice.

The city was built by Lacedaemon, who reigned with Eurotas, in Laconia in the 67th year of antiquity (1539 BC). He named the city Sparta after his wife. This is the only name that Homer uses for the capital of Laconia.

It was older than Rome by 983 years; older than Carthage by 867 years; than Syracuse by 995 years; than Alexandria by 1405 years; than Lyon by 1693 years and older than Marseille by 1136 years, according to Eusebius, who says that the last named city was built in 1736 BC.

Sparta was circular, built on uneven land and divided by hills, according to the description of Polybius. He estimated that it was 48 stades in circumference, or a little over two French leagues. Sparta was thus quite different from Athens, which measured nearly 100 stades. It is on this point that Thucydides makes such a fine observation regarding the fortune of the two cities, which once divided all of Greece between them. “Let us imagine,” he writes, “that the city of Sparta were razed to the ground and that only the temples and the plan of its buildings were left behind. In this condition, posterity could never imagine that its power and glory have grown as much as they have. If we suppose, on the other hand, that the city of Athens were reduced to an esplanade, then the sight of it would still persuade us that its power had been twice as great as it is.”

In earliest times, Sparta had no city wall, but was nonetheless defended by Agesilaus II against Epaminondas, after the battle of Leuctra. It remained without walls for six or seven centuries, according to most historians, until the times of Pyrrhus the tyrant, when Nabis built walls around it. Philopoemen had them demolished, and Appius Claudius had them rebuilt again soon after.

Herodotus says that in the time of Xerxes, the city of Sparta could supply eight thousand soldiers, but this number later increased and nothing proves better the size of the republic’s population than the colonies it produced. The city peopled Byzantine, four or five cities of Asia, one in Africa, five or six in Greece, three or four Italian provinces, a city in Portugal, and another in Spain near Cordoba. Yet the number of its inhabitants was renewed only by the fecundity of its marriages. Sparta did not allow foreign families to settle within its walls. No city has ever been more vigilant concerning the right to citizenship.

During their time as its rulers, the Romans always held the city in high esteem. It eventually fell under Turkish domination in 1460 AD, seven years after the fall of Constantinople, five years after the fall of Athens and 3210 years after its foundation. Its present-day name is Mystras (See the article of this name) . I pass now to the description made of Sparta by Pausanias, from which I will leave out very little.

Coming down from Thornax, he says, one found oneself before the city of Sparta , which was so called from its foundation, but which later took the name of Lacedaemon because it was the region’s name. There were many things in the city worthy of curiosity. First, the town square, where the senate of the elders met, who were 28 in number; the senate of the keepers of the laws; the senate of Ephors, and the senate of the magistrates, known as the Bidiaioi . The senate of the elders was the Lacedemonians’ supreme court, where all the state’s affairs were settled. The other senators were, strictly speaking, the Archons. There were five Ephors and five Bidiaioi. The latter were responsible for supervising young people and presiding over their exercises, both in the square called the Planistai and elsewhere. The Ephors were given greater tasks. Each year they chose one of their number as president, whose name was used to mark the year, in the same way that the nine archons in Athens elected a member as the supreme archon.

The most beautiful building in the square was the portico of the Persians, so called because it had been built from the spoils taken from the Persians. Later, it was much enlarged and ornamented. All the barbarian army chiefs, including Mardonios, son of Gobryas, were represented inside with a white marble statue standing on a column. There was also a statue of Artemisia, the daughter of Lygdamis and Halicarnassos. It is said that this queen joined forces with Xerxes of her own accord to make war on the Greeks and that during the naval battle fought off Salamis she performed great feats of bravery.

After the portico of the Persians, the most beautiful things in the square were two temples, one devoted to Julius Caesar and the other to Augustus, his son. On the altar of the latter was a figure of Agias, engraved in copper. It was Agias who predicted to Lysander that he would be the master of all the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, with the exception of ten galleys, which did indeed escape to Cyprus.

In the main square of Sparta there were also three statues of Apollo Pythaeus, Artemis and Leto. The place where the statues stood was named Choros because all the Sparta youth would go there to take part in the public games, which were celebrated with a great deal of solemnity, and would be grouped into musical choirs in honour of Apollo.

Nearby were several temples, one consecrated to Earth, another to Zeus Agoraios, another to Athena Agoraia, and a fourth to Poseidon, known as Asphalios . There were also statues of Apollo and Hera, a large statue representing the people of Sparta and, a little lower, the temple of the Moirae. Near the temple was the tomb of Orestes, next to which was a portrait of King Polydoros, the son of Alcamenes. The Lacedemonians held this king in higher esteem than all others, so that public acts were for a long time stamped with his seal.

Also in the square was a statue of Hermes, known as Agoraios , carrying a small Dionysus. There were also rows of ancient statues representing the Ephors of the time, in the midst of which was the tomb of Epimenides, as well as that of Aphareus, the son of Perieres. To the right were the Moirae. From here one could see the rooms in which the Lacedemonians ate the public meals known as phidities . There were also statues of Zeus Xenios and Athena Xenia.

Leaving the square, and passing along the Aphetaïd Road, one saw a house called the Boöneta . Above the Senate of the Bidiaioi was a temple to Athena, where it was said that Odysseus had consecrated a statue to the goddess, with the name Athena Keleuthea , as a monument to the victory he had won over Penelope’s suitors. He had had three other temples built elsewhere with the same name. At the end of the Aphetaïd Road was a shrine to Sparta’s heroes, including Iops, who it was believed had lived at about the time of Lelex and Myles, and Amphiaraus, son of Oïkles.

Nearby stood the temple of Poseidon, named Tainaron, and not too far away a statue of Athena. On the same side was the Hellenion square, so called because when Xerxes was in Europe, all the Greek cities that took arms against him sent their representatives to Sparta , where the representatives debated how best to resist such a mighty power. Others say that the name was older still, and originated when the princes of Greece assembled in the square to deliberate their expedition and the siege of Troy, out of love for Menelaus, and how they should take revenge on Paris for carrying off Helen.

Near this square was the tomb of Talthybios, although the Achaeans of Aigion also had a tomb in the main square of their town which they claimed to be his. In the same area stood an altar dedicated to Apollo Akritas, so called because it was built on higher ground. In the same place was a temple of the Earth, known as Gasepton , and a little above it another temple to Apollo, named Maleates. After the Aphetaïd Road, close to the city wall, was a sanctuary to Dictynna, and also the tombs of the kings known as the Eurypontidai .

Near the Hellenion square was the temple of Arsinoë, the daughter of Leucippos, and the sister-in-law of Castor and Pollux. Close to the ramparts stood a temple to Artemis, and a little further on the shrine of the seers who came from Elis, who were called Iamidai . Maron and Alpheios, two great leaders, who, after Leonidas, showed the greatest courage at the battle of Thermopylae, also had shrines there. A few steps away was the temple of Zeus Tropaios. But of all the temples at Sparta , the most revered was that of the mother of the gods. Nearby was the hero’s monument to Hippolytos, the son of Theseus, and another to Arkadian Aulon, the son of Tlesimenes and the brother of Parthenopaios.

The main square of Sparta had another road leading off it in which there stood a building where the Spartans went to escape the summer heat. It was said that the edifice was the work of Theodoros of Samos, who was the first to discover the art of smelting iron and of making statues from it. From the vault of this building the Lacedemonians hung the lyre of Timotheus of Miletus, after having punished him for adding four strings to the seven on the traditional lyre.

A few steps away from the temple of Apollo stood three altars dedicated to Zeus Amboulios, Athena Amboulia and the Dioskouroi , who were also known as the Amboulioi . Opposite was a knoll called the Kolonos , where there was a temple of Dionysos Kolonates. The temple was close to a wood consecrated to this hero, who had the honour of bringing Dionysos to Sparta . It was not far from the temple of Dionysos to the temple of Zeus Euanemos, and from the latter one could see the hero’s monument to Pleuron, from whom the children of Tyndareus were descended on their mother’s side.

Nearby was a hill on which Argive Hera had a temple, which had been consecrated, it is said, by Eurydice, the daughter of Lacedaemon and the wife of Akrisios, son of Abas. The temple to Hera Hypercheiria was built on the advice of the oracle, at a time when the river Eurotas was flooding the countryside. There was a wooden statue in the temple in very ancient style which was said to represent Aphrodite Hera. All the women with daughters they wished to marry made sacrifices to this goddess.

To the west of the square was a theatre made of white marble. Opposite the theatre was the tomb of King Pausanias, who led the Lacedemonians at the battle of Plataia. The sepulchre of Leonidas was close by. Every year funeral speeches were made on the tombs to commemorate these great warriors. The speeches were followed by funeral games, in which only Lacedemonians could compete for the prize. Leonidas was indeed buried in this place since his bones had been brought back from Thermopylae by Pausanias forty years after his death. There was also a column, on which the names of the great men who had supported the efforts of the Persians at Thermopylae were engraved, and not only their names, but also the names of their fathers. There was a district in the city that was named the Theomelida , where the kings known as the Agiads were buried. Close by was the Lesche, where the Krotanoi, who formed a cohort of the Pitanatans, would assemble.

Next could be seen the temple of Asklepios, which they called the Enapadon , and a little further on the tomb of Tainaros, from whom a well-known headland took its name. In the same area were temples to Poseidon Hippokourios and Artemis Aiginaia. Nearer the Lesche, one saw the temple of Artemis Issoria, also known as Limnaia . Near the tomb of the Agiadai was a column on which they had engraved the seven victories won by a Lacedemonian named Chionis , both at Olympia and elsewhere. The temple of Thetis also stood nearby. The Spartans believed they had received the cult of Demeter Chthonia from Orpheus, but it is more likely they had taken it from the inhabitants of Hermione, where this goddess was honoured in the same name. There were also temples in Sparta to Sarapis and Zeus Olympios.

There was a place known as Dromos , where young people were trained in running. On entering from the side overlooked by the shrine of the Agiadai, one saw the tomb of Eumedes, son of Hippocoön, on the left, and a few steps away an old statue of Hercules. It was to this god and in this place that young people would make a sacrifice at the end of adolescence in order to enter into manhood. The Dromos had two gymnasia or exercise areas, one of which had been given over to this use by Eurykles of Sparta . Outside, near the statue of Hercules, was a house that had formerly belonged to the family of Menelaus. Further on stood the temples of the Dioskouroi, the Graces, Eileithuyia, Apollo Karneios and Artemis Hegemone. To the right of Dromos was the temple of Agnitas. The name was given to Asklepios because of the wood from which the statue was made.

After the temple of Asklepios stood a trophy said to be erected by Polydeukes after the victory he had won over Lynkeus. The Dioskouroi had statues at the entrance of Dromos, like divinities presiding over the city gates. A little further on was a heroic monument to Alkôn and a few feet away a temple to Poseidon, named Domatiates . Further on was a place called the Planistai , due to the large number of tall plane trees there. See Plataniste.

Near this wood of plane trees stood the heroic monument to Kyniska, the daughter of King Archidamos. Other hero-shrines stood behind a portico, such as those to Alkimos and Enaraiphoros. A little further on were shrines to Dorkeus and Sebros. Dorkeus gave his name to a nearby fountain, and Sebrosto to a street in this part of the city. To the right of the monument to Sebros, one could see the tomb of Alkman. Here too stood the temple of Helen and the temple of Hercules, the former being nearer the shrine of Alkman and the latter against the city walls. A statue of Hercules armed stood in the temple. It is said he was represented in this way because of his combat with Hippocoön and his children.

Leaving Dromos to the east, one came across a temple dedicated to Athena Axiopoinos, or the avenger. There was also a temple to Athena on the left-hand side of the street. Next came the temple of Hipposthenes, a man famous for winning so many wrestling bouts, and opposite the temple, a very old statue representing Ares in chains, conceived along similar lines to the wingless Victory in Athens. The Lacedemonians imagined that if Ares were kept in chains, then he would always remain with them, just as the Athenians believed that Victory, deprived of her wings, could not leave them or fly away. This was why both peoples depicted these gods in this way. There was another Lesche in Sparta known as the Poikile .

Close by were the hero-monuments to Kadmos, son of Agenor, to Oiolykos, son of Theras and to Aegeus, son of Oiolykos. It was believed that Maisis, Lakas and Europas, the sons of Hyraios and grandsons of Aegeus, had had these monuments built. They also added a monument to Amphilochos, because Tisamenos, their ancestor, was the son of Demonassa, the sister of Amphilochos. The Lacedemonians were the only Greeks who worshipped Hera in the name of the goddess Aigophagôn , and sacrificed goats to her. Following the road from the theatre, one arrived at the temple of Poseidon Genethlios, and two hero-monuments, one to Kleodaios, son of Hyllos and the other to Oibalos. Asklepios had several temples in Sparta, but the most famous of all stood near Boöneta, to the left of which was the hero-monument to Teleklos.

Further on stood an old temple to Aphrodite, built at the top of a small hill. Inside was a statue representing the goddess armed. The temple was unusual, since strictly speaking it was two temples built one on top of the other. The higher one was dedicated to Morpho, which is another name for Aphrodite. The goddess was veiled and had chains on her feet. The Spartans said that Tyndareus had the chains put there to show how inviolable the fidelity of women to their husbands must be. Others said he did it to take revenge on Aphrodite, whom he blamed for the incontinence and adulteries of his own daughters.

The next temple was consecrated to Hilaeira and Phoibe. An egg wrapped in strips of cloth was hung from the temple vault and people believed that it was the egg from which Leda had been born. Every year, Spartan women would sew a tunic for the statue of Apollo at Amyclae, and the place where they sewed was generally known as the Tunic . Nearby was the house in which the sons of Tyndareus had lived, and which had since been bought by a citizen of Sparta named Phormion . One day it is said the Dioskouroi arrived at his home, saying that they were foreigners from Kyrene; they asked for hospitality, and begged him to give them a particular room in the house, since it was the one they preferred when they were among mortals. Phormion replied that the entire house was at their disposal, with the exception of this particular room, which was occupied by his young daughter. The Dioskouroi took the room they were given, but the next day the young girl and all the women who waited on her had disappeared. All that was left in the room were two statues of the Dioskouroi, a table, and on the table some silphium. This is the story that was told by the Spartans.

Walking towards the city gates, one saw the hero-monument to Cheilon, who had a great reputation for wisdom, and the monument to an Athenian hero, who was one of the most important warriors who had set out with Dorieus, son of Anaxandrides, to colonise Sicily.

The Lacedemonians also built a temple to Lycurgus, their lawgiver, as if to a god. Behind his temple was the tomb of his son Eukosmos, near an altar dedicated to Lathria and Anaxandra, the twin sisters who had married Aristodemos’s sons, who were themselves twins. Opposite the temple of Lycurgus was the tomb of Theopompos, son of Nikander, and that of Eurybiades, who commanded the Lacedemonian fleet at the battles of Artemisium and at Salamis against the Persians.

Next came the hero-monument to Astrabakos. From there, one passed along a street named Limnaion , where there was a temple dedicated to Artemis Orthia, which was itself not far from a temple to Eileithyia. The Lacedemonians said that the Delphic oracle had told them to honour Eileithyia as a goddess.

In the city there was no citadel built on high ground, like the Cadmea in Thebes, or the Larisa at Argos, but there were several hills within the city walls, and the highest of these was used as a citadel. Athena had a temple there, with the names Athena Poliouxos and Chalkioikos , meaning Athena, guardian of the city . Tyndareus began work on this edifice and his children undertook to finish it after his death, using the spoils that had been taken from the Aphidneans. But as the building remained unfinished, the Lacedemonians built a new temple long afterwards, which was made of bronze, like the statue of the goddess. The artist they commissioned was named Gitidas . Inside the temple, most of the labours of Hercules were engraved in bronze. The feats of the descendants of Tyndareus were also engraved, in particular their ravishing of the daughters of Leukippos. There was next, on one side, Hephaistos, freeing his mother from her chains and, on the other side, Perseus, preparing to go and fight the Medusa in Libya. Nymphs were shown placing a helmet on his head and wings on his feet, so that if need be he could fly. Everything related to Athena’s birth was not forgotten, but surpassing all the rest was a breathtakingly beautiful Poseidon and Amphitrite. Nearby was a temple to Athena Erganes.

Near this temple were two porticos, one facing south, the other west. Not far from the first was a chapel to Zeus, named Kosmetas , and in front of this temple, the tomb of Tyndareus. On the second portico were two eagles with their wings outspread, each carrying a Victory. They were a gift from Lysander, and also a monument to the two victories he had won, one near Ephesos, over Antiochos, Alkibiades’s lieutenant, the commander of the Athenian galleys, and the other, also against the Athenian fleet, which the Spartans totally defeated at Aigospotamoi. In the left wing of the bronze temple was a chapel consecrated to the muses: the Lacedemonians marched on the enemy, not to the sound of the trumpet, but to the sound of flutes and the lyre.

Behind the temple was a chapel consecrated to Aphrodite Areia, containing wooden statues as old as any in Greece. In the right wing was a bronze Zeus, which was the oldest of all the bronze statues. This was not finished at one time, but was made in different periods, piece by piece. The pieces were so well fitted and joined together with nails that the end result was extremely solid. The Lacedemonians claimed that Klearchos of Rhegium made the statue of Zeus. According to some, he was a pupil of Dipoinos and Skyllis, and according to others, of Dedalus himself.

In this direction was a place called Skenôma , where there was a portrait of a woman, whom the Lacedemonians said was Euryleonis. She became famous after driving a two-horse chariot in the races and winning the prize at the Olympic games. At the altar of the temple of Athena, there were two statues of Pausanias, who had led the Lacedaemon army at the battle of Plataia. It was said that this same Pausanias, realising he had been accused and convicted of treason, was the only person to take refuge at the altar of Athena Chalkioikos and not find safety there. The reason given was that Pausanias, having some time before committed murder, had never been able to find purification. In the time that the king led the navy of the Lacedemonians and their allies on the Hellespont, he fell in love with a young Byzantine woman. The people who were ordered to bring her to his bedroom, having entered at the beginning of the night, found Pausanias already asleep. Kleonike, the young woman, on approaching the bed, accidentally overturned a lamp that was burning there. At the sound of the noise, Pausanias awoke with a start, and as he was in a perpetual state of agitation, because of his plans to betray his country, he believed he had been found out, so he got up, took his sword, struck his mistress with it and she fell dead at his feet. This was the murder for which he was unable to find purification, no matter how he begged or whatever he did. In vain he addressed himself to Zeus Phyxios; in vain he went to Phigalia in Arkadia, to beg for help from the people who can summon up the souls of the dead. All was useless, and in the end he paid the price of his crime to God and to Kleonike. The Lacedemonians, following the orders of the Delphic oracle, later erected two bronze statues to him and had made a kind of cult to the daemon of Epidotes, hoping that it would placate the goddess.

Along with these statues, there was another representing Aphrodite, named Amoblogera , meaning Aphrodite staving off old age. It was erected on the advice of the oracle. Next came the statues of Sleep and Death, who are brothers in Homer’s Iliad . Walking from here along Alpia Street, one came across the temple of Athena, called Ophthalmitis , meaning Athena who takes care of eyesight. It was said that Lycurgus himself had consecrated this temple in the name of Athena, in memory of a riot, during which Alkander, who disliked his laws, had blinded him in one eye. It was here that Lycurgus was saved by the people, without whose help he might have lost the other eye and even his life.

Further on was the temple of Ammon, since it seems that of all the Greeks, the Lacedemonians were the ones who most often consulted the oracle in Libya. It is even said that Lysander, while besieging the city of Aphytis, near Pallene, saw an apparition of the god Ammon in the night, and that the god advised him, as something that would be beneficial both to himself and to Lacedaemon, to leave the besieged city in peace. Lysander followed the advice to the letter, lifting the siege and encouraging the Lacedemonians to honour Ammon, even more than they did already. It is a fact that the people of Aphytis worshipped the god like the Libyans did themselves.

If readers should find this description of Sparta by Pausanias a little long, I would ask them to recall that the very doors and keys of the ancient Spartans have been described by historians. How would you imagine that their doors were made, as Mr de la Guilletiere charmingly asked? Do you think they were shaped by the stars? You will indeed find them in the constellation of Cassiopeia. After you have made out, on a calm evening, the southern star at its head, and the northern star that is in Cassiopeia, you will see two others shining between them. These four stars form the outline of the Lacedemonian door, divided in the middle and opening on the two sides. Theon gives us these details in his commentaries on Aratus, but those who cannot find the Spartan doors in the sky can see them drawn by Bayerus.

As for their keys, we must admit the extent of their fame, in spite of ourselves. Menander, Suidas and Plautus are all of the same opinion on the subject. I know that Aristophanes says that the Spartan keys had three teeth, that they were dangerous and that their locks were easily picked, but the defamatory remarks of a satirist, seeking only to ingratiate himself with the people of Athens, whose vices he shared, are not calculated to convince us. This poet, whose imagination was full of the spite that was natural to him, could not attack the Spartans for their courage or their virtue, so all he had left to make fun of were their keys. ( De Jaucourt .)

After preserving the city of the Spartans in the middle of its ruins, let us now transmit to posterity the memory of its laws, the finest praise that can be given to its legislator.

Lycurgus is generally considered only as the founder of a purely military state, and the people of Sparta seen only as a people that knew how to obey, suffer and die. Perhaps Lycurgus should be seen as the philosopher with the greatest understanding of human nature, and above all as the one who saw to what extent laws, education and society could change individuals and how they could be made happy by instilling habits in them which appear to be in contradiction with their instincts and their nature.

Lycurgus should be seen as perhaps the deepest and most consistent thinker who has ever lived, as the man who shaped the most harmonious and integrated legal system the world has known to date.

Some of his laws have been widely criticized, but if they had been viewed in relation to the general system, they could only have been admired. When his plan is understood, then it is clear that each law enters necessarily into the general plan and contributes to the perfection of the order he wanted to establish.

His task was to reform a seditious, savage and weak people. He had to put this people in a position where they could resist the attempts of other cities to threaten their freedom. He therefore had to inspire obedience and the warlike virtues in the Spartans and create a people of docile warriors.

Lycurgus began by changing the form of government. He established a senate that would be the depository of the authority of the laws and liberty. The kings of Lacedaemon retained honours without power; the people was subject to the law; domestic dissention ceased. Yet this tranquillity was not only the effect of the new form of government.

Lycurgus was able to persuade the rich to give up their riches. He divided up Laconia equally. He outlawed gold and silver and replaced them with iron coins that could neither be transported nor amassed in considerable amounts.

He established public meals, which everyone had to attend and where the greatest sobriety reigned.

In the same way, he organised everything related to housing, furniture and dress with a uniformity and simplicity that left no room for luxury. People ceased to love riches in Sparta, where they could be of use to no one. The Spartans became less attached to their own belongings than they were to the state, the love of which everything inspired. The spirit of property disappeared to the extent that people would use each other’s slaves, horses and dogs as their own. No one dared refuse his wife to a virtuous citizen.

From earliest childhood, the Spartans became accustomed to exercise, fatigue and even pain.

Lycurgus has been criticized a great deal for condemning to death children who were born weak and malformed. It is said that this law is unjust and barbaric, and so it no doubt would be in a state where wealth, talent and intellectual pleasures could make people of delicate health happy or useful. But in Sparta , where weak individuals could only be miserable and held in contempt, it was human to prevent their sufferings by taking their lives.

Lycurgus has also been criticized for cruelty during the feast of Artemis. Children were whipped at the altar of the goddess and the least cry that escaped them would earn them a long torture. Lycurgus used this feast to accustom children to pain and to take away the fear of it, which weakens courage even more than the fear of death.

He ordered that children from the age of five should learn to dance the pyrrhiche . The dancers were armed. To the sound of the flute, they performed all the military manoeuvres that cannot be executed precisely without the help of an accompanying rhythm. One needs only read what Xenophon says about the Spartans’ tactics and manoeuvres to see that without practice and continual exercise, they would never have excelled in them.

After the pyrrhiche, the most common dance was the gymnopaedia. This dance was only a form of wrestling and pankration. The vigorous movements demanded of the dancers again contributed to the suppleness and strength of their bodies.

The Lacedemonians had to practice running a good deal and often won the prize at the Olympic Games.

Almost all the waking hours of young people were devoted to these exercises and even at a later age they were not exempted from them. Lycurgus, in contrast to so many mediocre legislators, combined the effect, action and reciprocal reaction of man’s physical and moral nature and strove to shape bodies able to bear the strict training he wanted to give them. Preserving and inspiring such training was the task of education, which was removed from the parents’ care and made over to the state. A magistrate presided over general education and men known for their wisdom and virtue served under him.

Children were taught the laws; they were brought up to respect them, to obey the magistrates, to feel contempt for pain and life, to love glory and feel horror for shame. Respect for the old was particularly encouraged in children, who, once grown to adulthood, continued to show the elderly deep veneration. In Sparta , education continued into an advanced age. Child and adult were always the disciples of the state.

This continual obedience, this suite of deprivations, of work and austerity might at first sight give us the idea of an unhappy people living hard and sad lives.

Let us now look how such extraordinary laws, such strict customs made the Lacedemonians, according to Plato, Plutarch and Xenophon, the happiest people on earth.

Poverty, side by side with wealth, were never seen in Sparta , and consequently envy, rivalry, feebleness, the thousand passions that ail mankind and the greed that opposes private interests to the public good and citizen to citizen were seen less than anywhere else.

Their jurisprudence was not at all filled with a multitude of laws. It is superfluity and luxury, division, worry and jealousy that give rise to inequality in property, to the multiplication of legal cases and the laws needed to decide them.

In Sparta there was little jealousy and a great deal of virtuous emulation. The senators were elected by the people, who chose, when a position fell vacant, the most virtuous man in the city .

Their sober meals and vigorous exercises were seasoned with a thousand pleasures, which were fed with a keen and continually satisfied passion for virtue. Each citizen was a supporter of order and goodness, which he saw all around him. He went to the assemblies to enjoy the virtues of his fellow citizens and to receive the proofs of their esteem.

To encourage virtue, no legislator ever made as much use as Lycurgus of the natural inclination both sexes have for each other.

It was not only so that physically strong women should supply the state with well-constituted children that Lycurgus ordered that they should do the same exercises as men. He knew that each sex is happy wherever they are sure to find the other. What a strong motive it was to promote the love of wrestling and exercises in the young Spartans that young girls should either compete with them or watch them compete! Such a sight must still have had its charms in the eyes of the old people presiding over the exercises, who had the task of imposing chastity at a time that the law had set aside modesty!

Young girls brought up in virtuous families and nourished with the maxims of Sparta would reward others with their praise or punish them with their criticism. Men had to win their esteem if they wanted to be accepted in marriage, whilst a thousand obstacles checked a couple’s desires. Husbands only ever saw their wives in secret. They could find pleasure and never be sated.

Religion, in harmony with the laws of Lycurgus, inspired pleasure and virtue. The Spartans worshipped Aphrodite, but an Aphrodite armed. Religious worship was simple. In the bare, crowded temples, little was offered to the gods so that people would always have something left to offer.

Along with Aphrodite, Castor and Pollux were the most honoured divinities. They had excelled in the activities prized in Sparta and were models of heroic courage and generous friendship.

The Lacedemonians blended their exercises with song and festivities. These festivities were instituted to remind them of their victories. They sang the praises of the divinity and their heroes.

They read Homer, who inspired the desire for glory. Lycurgus produced the best edition that had ever been seen of the poet.

The poet Terpander was called from Lesbos, and asked for songs that sooth men’s hearts. The Spartans never went into battle without singing the verses of Tyrtaios.

The Lacedemonians raised a temple to the Graces, but honoured only two of them. They were seen as goddesses, who lent men charity, good humour and the social virtues, but who were not the companions of Aphrodite and the frivolous muses.

Lycurgus had a statue of Risus placed in the temple of the Graces. Joy reigned in the assemblies of the Lacedemonians, who had a lively sense of humour. For this virtuous people, whatever was contrary to order was ridiculed, whereas our corrupted morality often takes virtue, which has become redundant, as the object of mockery.

In Sparta there was no constitutional or civil law, no custom that did not promote a passion for the homeland, for glory and virtue and that did not render the citizens happy by such noble sentiments.

Women gave birth on a shield. The kings were descended from Hercules. There were mausoleums only for men who died in war.

In public places the Spartans could read eulogies to great men and the story of their heroic actions. There has never been a people with so many recorded sayings expressing the wisdom of great minds and spirits, and whose monuments are a better proof of virtue. What an inscription there is on the tombs of the three hundred men who gave their lives at Thermopiles! Passer-by, go to Sparta and say that we died here to obey its sacred laws .

If education and obedience continued into an advanced age, there were pleasures for old people, who were judges of combats, of wit and great actions. The respect in which they were held encouraged them to be virtuous until their final hour, and such respect was a pleasing consolation in the age of infirmities. No rank, no dignity exempted a citizen from this consideration for old people, which is their only pleasure. Some foreigners having offered to carry a Lacedemonian general on a litter, he replied: The gods preserve me from being shut up in a vehicle, so that I couldn’t get up if I met an old person .

The legislation of Lycurgus, which was so well suited to creating a nation of philosophers and heroes, was not meant to inspire emulation outside Sparta . With its iron money, Sparta could not make war in far off countries, and Lycurgus forbade his people from having a navy, although the country was surrounded by the sea. Sparta was constituted to stay free, and not to become the conqueror of others. It had to impose respect for its customs and to enjoy them. For a long time it was the arbiter of Greece and its citizens were asked to command Greek armies. Xanthippe, Gilippe and Brasidas are famous examples.

The Lacedemonians must have been a proud and disdainful people. What must they have thought when they compared themselves with the other Greeks? But this proud people were certainly not brutish, since they cultivated the social virtues too much and had a good deal of that indulgence which comes more from disdain than from goodness. Some Clazomenians having insulted the magistrates of Sparta , they were punished only with a joke: the Ephors proclaimed that the Clazomenians are allowed to do stupid things .

The government and customs of Sparta were corrupted, because every kind of government can only last a certain time, and must necessarily destroy itself by circumstances its legislators could not foresee. The ambition and power of Athens corrupted Lacedaemon by obliging it to introduce gold and silver and to send its citizens to far off countries from which they returned covered with glory and loaded down with foreign vices.

Nothing but a few ruins remain of Lacedaemon, and no one should call it, like the Dictionnaire de Trévoux did, a bishopric and suffragan of the Archbishop of Corinth.