The Life of Lycurgus

Augustine Eneogwe 9/24/2009

The Greek society as a whole was made up of very different people. There were many groups people could belong to starting from the highest which was the kings and nobles and then going all the way to the lowest groups; slaves or helots. These people were all very important, because they were the society. Every person had their own specific job that had to be done or it could throw off something else. To best represent the Greek society as a whole Lycurgus can be used as an example to show the different aspects. According to Plutarch the author, of Greek Lives, there are many stories on the history of Lycurgus that give different accounts of his family. He was known as the lawgiver, because of his many laws. Lycurgus became king of Sparta after his older brother died and there was no immediate heir to the throne. His brother’s wife was pregnant and he declared that if it was a boy, that child would be the next king of Sparta. That child was a boy and Lycurgus named him Charilaus, but soon after the boy was born, suspicion began to rise that Lycurgus wanted the throne for himself. These were just lies brought on by his late brother’s wife family. Lycurgus decided to leave Sparta until the boy was grown. It was actually a good thing that he left, because now he could go to other city-states and countries to learn how they functioned. Then he could bring back what he learned and implement them in Sparta.

All the different city-states have their own sense of music and literature. One of the first places Lycurgus went was Crete. It was there that he met a man named, Thales. Thales was a composer whose music was mostly about obedience and political concord (Plutarch, Lycurgus 12). The music was very soothing