 Part 9 of Volume 1 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Graham Redman. Volume 1 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Lycurgus Part 2. As for the public messes, the Cretans call them Andriah, but the Lacedaemonians Phyditea, either because they are conducive to friendship and friendliness, Phyditea being equivalent to Phylitea, or because they are custom men to simplicity and thrift, for which their word is phydo. But it is quite possible, as some say, that the first letter of the word Phyditea has been added to it, making Phyditea out of Editea, which refers merely to meals and eating. They met in companies of fifteen, a few more or less, and each one of the messmates contributed monthly a bushel of barley meal, eight gallons of wine, five pounds of cheese, two and a half pounds of figs, and, in addition to this, a very small sum of money for such relishes as flesh and fish. Besides this, whenever any one made a sacrifice of first fruits or brought home game from the hunt, he sent a portion to his mess. For whenever any one was belated by a sacrifice or the chase, he was allowed to sup at home, but the rest had to be at the mess. For a long time this custom of eating at common mess tables was rigidly observed. For instance, when King Aegis, on returning from an expedition in which he had been victorious over the Athenians, wished to sup at home with his wife, and sent for his rations, the polymarchs refused to send them to him, and when on the following day his anger led him to omit the customary sacrifice, they laid a fine upon him. Boys also used to come to these public messes as if they were attending schools of sobriety. There they would listen to political discussions and see instructive models of liberal breeding. There they themselves also became accustomed to sport and jest without scurrility, and to endure jesting without displeasure. Indeed it seems to have been especially characteristic of a Spartan to endure jesting, but if any one could not bear up under it, he had only to ask it and the jester ceased. As each one came in, the oldest of the company pointed to the door and said to him, Through that door no word goes forth outside, and they say that a candidate for membership in one of these messes underwent the following ordeal. Each of the messmates took in his hand a bit of soft bread, and when a servant came along with a bowl upon his head, then they cast it into this without a word, like a ballad, leaving it just as it was if he approved of the candidate, but if he disapproved, squeezing it tight in his hand first. For the flattened piece of bread had the force of a perforated or negative ballad, and if one such is found in the bowl, the candidate is not admitted to the mess, because they wish all its members to be congenial. The candidate thus rejected is said to have been cadished, for Cadicus is the name of the bowl into which they cast the pieces of bread. Of their dishes the black broth is held in the highest esteem, so that the elderly men do not even ask for a bit of meat, but leave it for the young men, while they themselves have the broth poured out for their meals. And it is said that one of the kings of Pontus actually bought a Spartan cook for the sake of having this broth, and then, when he tasted it, disliked it, whereupon the cook said, O king, those who relish this broth must first have bathed in the river Eurotas. After drinking moderately they go off home without a torch, for they are not allowed to walk with the light, either on this or any other occasion, for they may accustom themselves to marching boldly and without fear in the darkness of night. Such, then, is the fashion of their common messes. None of his laws were put into writing by Lycurgus, indeed one of the so-called retros forbids it, for he thought that if the most important and binding principles which conduced to the prosperity and virtue of a city were implanted in the habits and training of its citizens, they would remain unchanged and secure, having a stronger bond than compulsion in the fixed purposes imparted to the young by education, which performs the office of a law-giver for every one of them. And as for minor matters, such as business contracts and cases where the needs vary from time to time, it was better, as he thought, not to hamper them by written constraints or fixed usages, but to suffer them as occasion demanded to receive such modifications as educated men should determine. Indeed, he assigned the function of law-making wholly and entirely to education. One of his retros accordingly, as I have said, prohibited the use of written laws. Another was directed against extravagance, ordaining that every house should have its roof fashioned by the axe and its doors by the saw only, and by no other tool. For, as in later times Epaminondas is reported to have said at his own table, that such a meal did not comport with treachery, so Lycurgus was the first to see clearly that such a house does not comport with luxury and extravagance. Nor is any man so vulgar and senseless as to introduce into a simple and common house silver-footed couches, purple covelets, gold drinking cups, and all the extravagance which goes along with these, but one must of necessity adapt and proportion his couch to his house, his covelets to his couch, and to this the rest of his supplies and equipment. It was because he was used to this simplicity that Leoticaides the Elder, as we are told, when he was dining in Corinth and saw the roof of the house adorned with costly panellings, asked his host if trees grew square in that country. A third retra of Lycurgus is mentioned, which forbids making frequent expeditions against the same enemies in order not to accustom such enemies to frequent defence of themselves which would make them warlike. And this was the special grievance which they had against King Egyceleus in later times, namely that by his continual and frequent incursions and expeditions into Biosha he rendered the Thebans a match for the Lacedaemonians, and therefore when Antalcidas saw the king wounded he said, This is a fine tuition fee which thou art getting from the Thebans for teaching them how to fight when they did not wish to do it and did not know how. Such ordinances as these were called retras by Lycurgus, implying that they came from the god and were oracles. In the matter of education which he regarded as the greatest and noblest task of the lawgiver he began at the very source by carefully regulating marriages and births. For it is not true that, as Aristotle says, he tried to bring the women under proper restraint but desisted because he could not overcome the great licence and power which the women enjoyed on account of the many expeditions in which their husbands were engaged. During these the men were indeed obliged to leave their wives in sole control at home and for this reason paid them greater deference than was their due and gave them the title of mistress. But even to the women Lycurgus paid all possible attention. He made the maidens exercise their bodies in running, wrestling, casting the discus and hurling the javelin in order that the fruit of their wombs might have vigorous root in vigorous bodies and come to better maturity and that they themselves might come with vigour to the fullness of their times and struggle successfully and easily with the pangs of childbirth. He freed them from softness and delicacy and all effeminacy by accustomed the maidens no less than the youths to wear tunics only in processions and at certain festivals to dance and sing when the young men were present as spectators. There they sometimes even mocked and railed good-naturedly at any youth who had misbehaved himself and again they would sing the praises of those who had shown themselves worthy and so inspired the young men with great ambition and ardour for he who was thus extolled for his valour and held in honour among the maidens went away exalted by their praises. While the sting of their playful railery was no less sharp than that of serious admonitions especially as the kings and senators together with the rest of the citizens were all present at the spectacle. Nor was there anything disgraceful in this scant clothing of the maidens for modesty attended them and wantonness was banished. Nay, rather it produced in them habits of simplicity and an ardent desire for health and beauty of body. It gave also to woman kind a taste of lofty sentiment for they felt that they too had a place in the arena of bravery and ambition. Wherefore they were led to think and speak as Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, is said to have done. When some foreign woman as it would seem said to her you Spartan women are the only ones who rule their men she answered yes we are the only ones that give birth to men. Moreover there were incentives to marriage in these things I mean such things as the appearance of the maidens without much clothing in processions and athletic contests where young men were looking on for these were drawn on by necessity not geometrical but the sort of necessity which lovers know as Plato says nor was this all. Lycurgus also put a kind of public stigma upon confirmed bachelors. They were excluded from the sight of the young men and maidens at their exercises and in winter the magistrates ordered them to march round the marketplace in their tunics only and as they marched they sang a certain song about themselves and its burden was that they were justly punished for disobeying the laws. Besides this they were deprived of the honour and gracious attentions which the young men habitually paid to their elders. Therefore there was no one to find fault with what was said to Dersilidas reputable general though he was. As he entered a company namely one of the younger men would not offer him his seat but said indeed thou hast begotten no son who will one day give his seat to me. For their marriages the women were carried off by force not when they were small and unfit for wedlock but when they were in full bloom and holy ripe. After the woman was thus carried off the bridesmaid so-called took her in charge cut her hair off close to the head put a man's cloak and sandals on her and laid her down on a pallet on the floor alone in the dark. Then the bridegroom, not flown with wine nor enfeebled by excesses but composed and sober after supping at his public mess-table as usual slipped stoutily into the room where the bride lay loosed her virgin's zone and bore her in his arms to the marriage-bed. Then after spending a short time with his bride he went away compositely to his usual quarters there to sleep with the other young men and so he continued to do from that time on spending his days with his comrades and sleeping with them at night but visiting his bride by stealth and with every precaution full of dread and fear lest any of her household should be aware of his visits. His bride also contriving and conspiring with him that they might have stolen interviews as occasion offered and this they did not for a short time only but long enough for some of them to become fathers before they had looked upon their own wives by daylight. Such interviews not only brought into exercise self-restraint and moderation but united husbands and wives when their bodies were full of creative energy and their affections new and fresh not when they were sated and dulled by unrestricted intercourse and there was always left behind in their hearts some residual spark of mutual longing and delight. After giving marriage such trays of reserve and decorum he nonetheless freed men from the empty and womanish passion of jealous possession by making it honourable for them while keeping the marriage relation free from all wanton irregularities to share with other worthy men in the begetting of children laughing to scorn those who regard such common privileges as intolerable and resort to murder and war rather than grant them. For example, an elderly man with a young wife if he looked with favour and esteem on some fair and noble young man might introduce him to her and adopt her offspring by such a noble father as his own and again a worthy man who admired some woman for the fine children that she bore her husband and the modesty of her behaviour as a wife might enjoy her favours if her husband would consent thus planting as it were in a soil of beautiful fruitage and begetting for himself noble sons who would have the blood of noble men in their veins for in the first place Lycurgus did not regard sons as the peculiar property of their fathers but rather as the common property of the state and therefore would not have his citizens spring from random parentage but from the best there was. In the second place he saw much folly and vanity in what other peoples enacted for the regulation of these matters. In the breeding of dogs and horses they insist on having the best sires which money or favour can secure but they keep their wives under lock and key demanding that they have children by none but themselves even though they be foolish or infirm or diseased as though children of bad stock did not show their badness to those first who possessed and reared them and children of good stock contrary wise their goodness. The freedom which thus prevailed at that time in marriage relations was aimed at physical and political well-being and was far removed from the licentiousness which was afterwards attributed to their women so much so that adultery was wholly unknown among them and a saying is reported of one Gerardas a Spartan of very ancient type who on being asked by a stranger what the punishment for adulterers was among them answered stranger there is no adulterer among us suppose then replied the stranger there should be one a bull said Gerardas would be his forfeit a bull so large that it could stretch over Mount Taegitus and drink from the river Eurotas then the stranger was astonished and said but how could there be a bull so large to which Gerardas replied with a smile but how could there be an adulterer in Sparta such then are the accounts we find of their marriages offspring was not reared at the will of the father but was taken and carried by him to a place called Leski where the elders of the tribes officially examined the infant and if it was well built and sturdy they ordered the father to rear it and assigned it one of the nine thousand lots of land but if it was ill-born and deformed they sent it to the so-called apothecai a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taegitus in the conviction that the life of that which nature had not well equipped at the very beginning for health and strength was of no advantage either to itself or the state on the same principle the women used to bathe their newborn babes not with water but with wine thus making a sort of test of their constitutions for it is said that epileptic and sickly infants are thrown into convulsions by the strong wine and loose their senses while the healthy ones are rather tempered by it like steel and given a firm habit of body their nurses too exercised great care and skill they reared infants without swaddling bands and thus left their limbs and figures free to develop besides they taught them to be contented and happy not dainty about their food nor fearful of the dark nor afraid to be left alone nor given to contemptible peevishness and whimpering this is the reason why foreigners sometimes bought Spartan nurses for their children Amichler, for instance, the nurse of the Athenian alcibiades is said to have been a Spartan and yet alcibiades as Plato says had for a tutor set over him by Pericles one Zopyrus who was just a common slave but Lycurgus would not put the sons of Spartans in charge of purchased or hired tutors nor was it lawful for every father to rear or train his son as he pleased but as soon as they were seven years old Lycurgus ordered them all to be taken by the state and enrolled in companies where they were put under the same discipline and nurture and so became accustomed to share one another's sports and studies the boy who excelled in judgment and was most courageous in fighting was made captain of his company on him the rest all kept their eyes obeying his orders and submitting to his punishments so that their boyish training was a practice of obedience besides the elderly men used to watch their sports and by ever and a non egging them on to mimic battles and disputes learned accurately how each one of them was naturally disposed when it was a question of boldness and aggressiveness in their struggles of reading and writing they learned only enough to serve their turn all the rest of their training was calculated to make them obey commands well endure hardships and conquer in battle therefore as they grew in age their bodily exercise was increased their heads were close clipped and they were accustomed to going barefoot and to playing for the most part without clothes when they were 12 years old they no longer had tunics to wear received one cloak a year had hard dry flesh and knew little of baths and ointments only on certain days of the year and few at that did they indulge in such amenities they slept together in troops and companies on pallet beds which they collected for themselves breaking off with their hands no knives allowed the tops of the rushes which grew along the river Eurotas in the winter time they added to the stuff of these pallets the so-called lycophone or thistle down which was thought to have warmth in it when the boys reached this age they were favored with the society of lovers from among the reputable young men the elderly men also kept close watch of them coming more frequently to their places of exercise and observing their contests of strength and wit not cursorily but with the idea that they were all in a sense the fathers and tutors and governors of all the boys in this way at every fitting time and in every place the boy who went wrong had someone to admonish and chastise him nor was this all one of the noblest and best men of the city was appointed pedinome or inspector of the boys and under his directions the boys in their several companies put themselves under the command of the most prudent and warlike of the so-called irons this was the name given to those who had been for two years out of the class of boys and Mel Irene's or would be Irene's was the name for the oldest of the boys this Irene then a youth of 20 years commands his subordinates in their mimic battles and indoors makes them serve him at his meals he commissions the larger ones to fetch wood and the smaller ones pot herbs and they steal what they fetch some of them entering the gardens and others creeping right slyly and cautiously into the public messes of the men but if a boy is caught stealing he is soundly flogged as a careless and unskillful thief they steal to whatever food they can and learn to be adept in setting upon people when asleep or off their guard but the boy who is caught gets a flogging and must go hungry for the meals allowed them are scanty in order that they may take into their own hands the fight against hunger and so be forced into boldness and cunning this is the main object of their spare diet a secondary one is to make them grow tall for it contributes to height of stature when the vitality is not impeded and hindered by a mass of nourishment which forces it into thickness and width but a sense of its own lightness and when the body grows freely and easily the same thing seems also to conduce to beauty of form for lean and meager habits yield more readily to the force of articulation whereas the gross and overfed are so heavy as to resist it just so we may be sure women who take physics while they are pregnant bear children which are lean it may be but well shaped and fine because the lightness of the parent matter makes it more susceptible to moulding however the reason for this I must leave for others to investigate the boys make such a serious matter of their stealing that one of them as the story goes who was carrying concealed under his cloak a young fox which he had stolen suffered the animal to tear out his bowels with its teeth and claws and died rather than have his theft detected and even this story gains credence from what their youths now endure many of whom I have seen expiring under the lash at the altar of Artemis Orthea the Irene as he reclined after supper would order one of the boys to sing a song and to another would put a question requiring a careful and deliberate answer as for instance who is the best man in the city or what think is thou of this man's conduct in this way the boys were accustomed to pass right judgments and interest themselves at the very outset in the conduct of the citizens for if one of them was asked who was a good citizen or who an infamous one and had no answer to make he was judged to have a torpid spirit and one that would not aspire to excellence and the answer must not only have reasons and proof given for it but also be couched in very brief and concise language and the one who gave a faulty answer was punished with a bite in the thumb from the Irene often times too the Irene punished the boys in the presence of the elders and magistrates thus showing whether his punishments were reasonable and proper or not while he was punishing them he suffered no restraint but after the boys were gone he was brought to an account if his punishments were harsher than was necessary or on the other hand too mild and gentle the boy's lovers also shared with them in their honor or disgrace and it is said that one of them was once fined by the magistrates because his favorite boy had let an ungenerous cry escape him while he was fighting moreover though this sort of love was so approved among them that even the maidens found lovers in good and noble women still there was no jealous rivalry in it but those who fixed their affections on the same boys made this rather a foundation for friendship with one another and persevered in common efforts to make their loved one as noble as possible the boys were also taught to use a discourse which combined pungency with grace and condensed much observation into a few words his iron money indeed like Ergus made of large weight and small value as I have observed but the current coin of discourse he adapted to the expression of deep and abundant meaning with simple and brief diction by contriving that the general habit of silence should make the boys sententious and correct in their answers for as sexual incontinence generally produces unfruitfulness and sterility so intemperance in talking makes discourse empty and vapid King Aegis accordingly when a certain Athenian decried the Spartan swords for being so short and said that jugglers on the stage easily swallowed them replied and yet we certainly reach our enemies with these daggers and I observe that although the speech also of the Spartans seemed short yet it certainly reaches the point and arrests the thought of the listener and indeed like Ergus himself seems to have been short and sententious in his speech if we may judge from his recorded sayings that for instance on forms of government to one who demanded the establishment of democracy and the city go thou said he and first established democracy in thy household that again to one who inquired why he ordained such small and inexpensive sacrifices that we may never omit said he to honour the gods again in the matter of athletic contests he allowed the citizens to engage only in those where there was no stretching forth of hands there are also handed down similar answers which he made by letter to his fellow citizens when they asked how they could ward off an invasion of enemies he answered by remaining poor and by not desiring to be greater the one than the other and when they asked about fortifying their city he answered a city will be well fortified which is surrounded by brave men and not by bricks now regarding these and similar letters belief and skepticism are alike difficult of their aversion to long speeches the following apathems are proof King Leonidas when a certain one discourse with him out of all season on matters of great concern said my friend the matter urges but not the time Carolius the nephew of Lycurgus when asked why his uncle had made so few laws answered men of few words need few laws Archidemidas when certain ones found fault with Hecateus the sophist for saying nothing after being admitted to their public mess answered he who knows how knows also when to speak instances of the pungent sayings not devoid of grace of which I spoke are the following Demoratus when a troublesome fellow was answering him with ill-timed questions and especially with the oft repeated query who was the best of the Spartans answered at last he who is least like the and ages when certain ones were praising the aliens for their just and honorable conduct of the Olympic games said and what great matter is it for the aliens to practice righteousness one day in five years and the opompous when a stranger kept saying as he showed him kindness that in his own city he was called a lover of Sparta remarked my good sir it were better for thee to be called a lover of thine own city and Pleistonex the son of Borsanias when an Athenian orator declared that the Lacedemonians had no learning said true we are indeed the only Hellenes who have learned no evil from you and Archidamus when someone asked him how many Spartans there were replied enough good sir to keep evil men away and even from their jests it is possible to judge of their character for it was there won't never to talk at random and to let slip no speech which did not have some thought or other worth serious attention for instance when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the nightingale he said I have heard the bird herself and another on reading the epitaph tyrannous fires they were trying to quench when panoplyd Ares slew them Salinas looked down from her gates on their death said the men deserved to die they should have let the fires burn out entirely and a youth when someone promised to give him game cocks that would die fighting said don't do that but give me some of the kind that kill fighting another seeing men seated on stools in a privy said may I never sit where I cannot give place to an elder the character of their apathems then was such as to justify the remark that love of wisdom rather than love of bodily exercise was the special characteristic of a Spartan nor was their training in music and poetry any less serious a concern than the stimulus purity of their speech may their very songs had a stimulus that roused the spirit and awoke enthusiastic and effectual effort the style of them was simple and unaffected and their themes were serious and edifying they were for the most part praises of men who had died for Sparta calling them blessed and happy censure of men who had played the coward picturing their grievous and ill-starred life and such promises and boasts of valor as befitted the different ages of the last it may not be amiss to site one by way of illustration they had three choirs at their festivals corresponding to the three ages and the choir of old men would sing first we once did deeds of prowess and were strong young men then the choir of young men would respond we are so now and if you wish behold and see and then the third choir that of the boys would sing we shall be sometime mightier men by far than both in short if one studies the poetry of Sparta of which some specimens were still extant in my time and makes himself familiar with the marching songs which they used to the accompaniment of the flute when charging upon their foes he will conclude that panda and pinda were right in associating valor with music the former writes thus of the harmonians flourish there both the spear of the brave and the muses clear message justice to walks the broad streets and pinda says there are councils of elders and young men's conquering spears and dances the muse and joyousness the Spartans are thus shown to be at the same time most musical and most warlike in equal poise to match the sword hangs the sweet art of the harpist as their poet says for just before their battles the king sacrificed to the muses reminding his warriors as it would seem of their training and of the firm decisions they had made in order that they might be prompt to face the dread issue and might perform such martial deeds as would be worthy of some record end of lycurgus part two recording by Graham Redmond part 10 of volume one of plutarx parallel lives this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Graham Redmond volume one of plutarx parallel lives of the noble Greeks and Romans translated by Bernadotte Perrin lycurgus part three in time of war two they relaxed the severity of the young men's discipline and permitted them to beautify their hair and ornament their arms and clothing rejoicing to see them like horses prance and nay for the contest therefore they wore their hair long as soon as they ceased to be youths and particularly in times of danger they took pains to have it glossy and well combed remembering a certain saying of lycurgus that a fine head of hair made the handsome more cumbly still and the ugly more terrible their bodily exercises too were less rigorous during their campaigns and in other ways their young warriors were allowed a regimen which was less curtailed and rigid so that they were the only men in the world with whom war brought a respite in the training for war and when at last they were drawn up in the array and the enemy was at hand the king sacrificed the customary she goat commanded all the warriors to set garlands upon their heads and ordered the pipers to pipe the strains of the hymn to castor then he himself led off in a marching peon and it was a sight equally grand and terrifying when they marched in step with the rhythm of the flute without any gap in their line of battle and with no confusion in their souls but calmly and cheerfully moving with the strains of their hymn into the deadly fight neither fear nor excessive fury is likely to possess men so disposed but rather a firm purpose full of hope and courage believing as they do that heaven is their ally the king marched against the enemy in close companionship with one who had been crowned victor in the great games and they tell of a certain Spartan who refused to be bought off from a contest at Olympia by large sums of money and after a long struggle out wrestled his antagonist when someone said to him then what advantage of Spartan has thou got from thy victory he answered with a smile I shall stand in front of my king when I fight our enemies when they had conquered and routed an enemy they pursued him far enough to make their victories secure by his flight and then at once retired thinking it ignoble and unworthy of a heli into human two pieces who had given up the fight and abandoned the field and this was not only a noble and magnanimous policy but it was also useful for their antagonists knowing that they slew those who resisted them but showed mercy to those who yielded to them were apt to think flight more advantageous than resistance. Hippias the Sophist says that Lycurgus himself was very well versed in war and took part in many campaigns and fellow Stefanus attributes to him the arrangement of the Spartan cavalry by Ulamoi explaining that the Ulamos as constituted by him was a troop of 50 horsemen in a square formation but Demetrius the Falyrian says he engaged in no war like undertakings and established his constitution in a time of peace and indeed the design of the Olympic truce would seem to bespeak a man of gentleness and predisposed to peace and yet there are some who say as Hermipus reminds us that at the outset Lycurgus had nothing for ever to do with Iphetus and his enterprise but happened to come that way by chance and be a spectator at the games that he heard behind him however what seemed to be a human voice chiding him and expressing amazement that he did not urge his fellow citizens to take part in the great festival and since on turning round he did not see the speaker anywhere he concluded that the voice was from heaven and therefore betook himself to Iphetus and assisted him in giving the festival a more notable arrangement and a more enduring basis the training of the Spartans lasted into the years of full maturity no man was allowed to live as he pleased but in their city as in a military encampment they always had a prescribed regimen and employment in public service considering that they belonged entirely to their country and not to themselves watching over the boys if no other duty was laid upon them and either teaching them some useful thing or learning it themselves from their elders for one of the noble and blessed privileges which Lycurgus provided for his fellow citizens was abundance of leisure since he forbade their engaging in any mechanical art whatsoever and as for money making with its laborious efforts to amass wealth there was no need of it at all since wealth awakened no envy and brought no honor besides the helots tilled their ground for them and paid them the produce mentioned above therefore it was that one of them who was subjunting at Athens when the courts were in session and learned that a certain Athenian had been fined for idleness and was going home in great distress of mind and attended on his way by sympathetic and sorrowing friends begged the bystanders to show him the man who had been fined for living like a free man so servile a thing did they regard the devotion to the mechanical arts and to money making and lawsuits of course vanished from among them with their gold and silver coinage for they knew neither greed nor want but equality and well-being was established there and easy living based on simple wants coral dances and feasts and festivals and hunting and bodily exercise and social converse occupied their whole time when they were not on a military expedition those who were under 30 years of age did not go into the marketplace at all but had their household wants supplied at the hands of their kinsfolk and lovers and it was disreputable for the elderly men to be continually seen loitering there instead of spending the greater part of the day in the places of exercise that are called less guy for if they gathered in these they spent their time suitably with one another making no allusions to the problems of money making or of exchange nay they were chiefly occupied there in praising some noble action or censuring some base one with jesting and laughter which made the path to instruction and correction easy and natural for not even like Kurgis himself was immoderately severe indeed Sir Sibius tells us that he actually dedicated a little statue of laughter and introduced seasonable jesting into their drinking parties and like diversions to sweeten as it were their hardships and meek affair in a word he trained his fellow citizens to have neither the wish nor the ability to live for themselves but like bees they were to make themselves always integral parts of the whole community clustering together about their leader almost beside themselves with enthusiasm and noble ambition and to belong wholly to their country this idea can be traced also in some of their utterances for instance Peter Eters when he failed to be chosen among the 300 best men went away with a very glad countenance as if rejoicing that the city had three hundred better men than himself and again Polycratidas one of an embassy to the generals of the Persian king on being asked by them whether the embassy was there in a private or a public capacity replied if we succeed in a public capacity if we fail in a private again our Jillianus the mother of Brassidas when some amphipolitans who had come to Sparta paid her a visit asked them if Brassidas had died nobly and in a manner worthy of Sparta then they greatly extolled the man and said that Sparta had not such another to which she answered say not so strangers Brassidas was noble and brave but Sparta has many better men than he the senators were at first appointed by Lycurgus himself as I have said from those who shared his councils but afterwards he arranged that any vacancy caused by death should be filled by the man elected as most deserving out of those above sixty years of age and of all the contests in the world this would seem to have been the greatest and the most hotly disputed for it was not the swiftest of the swift nor the strongest of the strong but the best and wisest of the good and wise who was to be elected and have for the rest of his life as a victor's prize for excellence what I may call the supreme power in the state Lord as he was of life and death honor and dishonor and all the greatest issues of life the election was made in the following manner an assembly of the people having been convened chosen men were shut up in a room nearby so that they could neither see nor be seen but only hear the shouts of the assembly for as in other matters so here the cries of the assembly decided between the competitors these did not appear in a body but each one was introduced separately as the lot fell and passed silently through the assembly then the secluded judges who had writing tablets with them recorded in each case the loudness of the shouting not knowing for whom it was given but only that he was introduced first second or third and so on whoever was greeted with the most and loudest shouting him they declared elected the victor then set a wreath upon his head and visited in order the temples of the gods he was followed by great numbers of young men who praised and extolled him as well as by many women who celebrated his excellence in songs and dwelt on the happiness of his life each of his relations and friends set a repast before him saying the city honors thee with this table when he had finished his circuit he went off to his mess table here he fared in other ways as usual but a second portion of food was set before him which he took and put by after the supper was over the women who were related to him being now assembled at the door of the mess hall he called to him the one whom he most esteemed and gave her the portion he had saved saying that he had received it as a mead of excellence and as such gave it to her upon this she too was lauded by the rest of the women and escorted by them to her home. Furthermore Lycurgus made most excellent regulations in the matter of their burials to begin with he did away with all superstitious terror by allowing them to bury their dead within the city and to have memorials of them near the sacred places thus making the youth familiar with such sites and accustomed to them so that they were not confounded by them and had no horror of death as polluting those who touched a corpse or walked among graves. In the second place he permitted nothing to be buried with the dead they simply covered the body with a scarlet robe and olive leaves when they laid it away. To inscribe the name of the dead upon the tomb was not allowed unless it were that of a man who had fallen in war or that of a woman who had died in sacred office. He set apart only a short time for mourning eleven days. On the twelfth they were to sacrifice to demeanor and cease their sorrowing. Indeed nothing was left untouched and neglected but with all the necessary details of life he blended some commendation of virtue or a buc of vice and he filled the city full of good examples whose continual presence and society must have necessity exerciser controlling and molding influence upon those who were walking the path of honour. This was the reason why he did not permit them to live abroad at their pleasure and wander in strange lands assuming foreign habits and imitating the lives of peoples who were without training and lived under different forms of government. Nay more he actually drove away from the city the multitudes which streamed in there for no useful purpose, not because he feared they might become imitators of his form of government and learn useful lessons in virtue as the Ucidides says, but rather that they might not become in any wise teachers of evil. For along with strange people strange doctrines must come in and novel doctrines bring novel decisions from which there must arise many feelings and resolutions which destroy the harmony of the existing political order. Therefore he thought it more necessary to keep bad manners and customs from invading and filling the city than it was to keep out infectious diseases. Now in all this there is no trace of injustice or arrogance which some attribute to the laws of Lycurgus declaring them efficacious in producing valour but defective in producing righteousness. The so-called cryptire or secret service of the Spartans, if this be really one of the institutions of Lycurgus as Aristotle says it was, may have given Plato also this opinion of the man and his civil polity. This secret service was of the following nature. The magistrates from time to time sent out into the country at large the most discreet of the young warriors equipped only with daggers and such supplies as were necessary. In the daytime they scattered into obscure and out of the way places where they hid themselves and lay quiet but in the night they came down into the highways and killed every hellet whom they caught. Oftentimes too they actually traversed the fields where hellets were working and slew the sturdiest and best of them. So too Thucydides in his history of the Peloponnesian War tells us that the hellets who had been judged by the Spartans to be superior in bravery set wreaths upon their heads in token of their emancipation and visited the temples of the gods in procession, but a little while afterwards all disappeared more than two thousand of them in such a way that no man was able to say either then or afterwards how they came by their deaths. And Aristotle in particular says also that the effers as soon as they came into office made formal declaration of war upon the hellets in order that there might be no impiety in slaying them. And in other ways also they were harsh and cruel to the hellets, for instance they would force them to drink too much strong wine and then introduce them into their public messes to show the young men what a thing drunkenness was. They also ordered them to sing songs and dance dances that were low and ridiculous, but to let the nobler kind alone. And therefore in later times they say when the Thebans made their expedition into Laconia they ordered the hellets whom they captured to sing the songs of Tapanda, Alkman, and Spendon the Spartan. But they declined to do so on the plea that their masters did not allow it, thus proving the correctness of the saying, in Sparta the free man is more a free man than anywhere else in the world and the slave more a slave. However in my opinion such cruelties were first practiced by the Spartans in later times, particularly after the great earthquake when the hellets and messenians together rose up against them, wrought the widest devastation in their territory, and brought their city into the greatest peril. I certainly cannot ascribe to Lycurgus so abominable a measure as the cryptire judging of his character from his mildness and justice in all other instances. To this the voice of the god also bore witness. When his principal institutions were at last firmly fixed in the customs of the people and his civil polity had sufficient growth and strength to support and preserve itself, just as Plato says that deity was rejoiced to see his universe come into being and make its first motion, so Lycurgus was filled with joyful satisfaction in the magnitude and beauty of his system of laws, now that it was in operation and moving along its pathway. He therefore ardently desired, so far as human forethought could accomplish the task, to make it immortal and let it go down unchanged to future ages. Accordingly he assembled the whole people and told them that the provisions already made were sufficiently adapted to promote the prosperity and virtue of the state, but that something of the greatest weight and importance remained which he could not lay before them until he had consulted the god at Delphi. They must therefore abide by the established laws and make no change nor alteration in them until he came back from Delphi in person. Then he would do whatever the god thought best. When they all agreed to this and bade him set out on his journey, he exacted an oath from the kings and the senators and afterwards from the rest of the citizens that they would abide by the established polity and observe it until Lycurgus should come back. Then he set out for Delphi. On reaching the oracle he sacrificed to the god and asked if the laws which he had established were good and sufficient to promote a city's prosperity and virtue. Apollo answered that the laws which he had established were good and that the city would continue to be held in highest honor while it kept to the polity of Lycurgus. This oracle Lycurgus wrote down and sent it to Sparta. But for his own part he sacrificed again to the god, took affectionate leave of his friends and of his son, and resolved never to release his fellow citizens from their oath, but of his own accord to put an end to his life where he was. He had reached an age in which life was not yet a burden and death no longer a terror when he and his friends moreover appeared to be sufficiently prosperous and happy. He therefore abstained from food till he died, considering that even the death of a statesman should be of service to the state and the ending of his life not void of effect but recognized as a virtuous deed. As for himself, since he had wrought out fully the noblest tasks, the end of life would actually be a consummation of his good fortune and happiness, and as for his fellow citizens he would make his death the guardian as it were of all the blessings he had secured for them during his life, since they had sworn to observe and maintain his polity until he should return. And he was not deceived in his expectations, so long did his city have the first rank in Hellas for good government and reputation, observing as she did for five hundred years the laws of Lycurgus in which no one of the fourteen kings who followed him made any change down to Aegis the son of Archidamus, for the institution of the effers did not weaken, but rather strengthened the civil polity, and though it was thought to have been done in the interests of the people, it really made the aristocracy more powerful. But in the reign of Aegis, gold and silver money first flowed into Sparta, and with money greed and a desire for wealth prevailed through the agency of Lysander, who though incorruptible himself filled his country with the love of riches and with luxury by bringing home gold and silver from the war and thus subverting the laws of Lycurgus. While these remained in force Sparta led the life not of a city under a constitution, but of an individual man under training and full of wisdom. Nay, rather, as the poets weaved their tales of Heracles, how with his club and Lyon's skin he traversed the world, chastising lawless and savage tyrants, so we may say that Sparta, simply with the dispatch staff and cloak of her envoys, kept Hellas in willing and glad obedience, put down illegal oligarchies and tyrannies in the different states, arbitrated wars and quelled seditions, often without so much as moving a single shield, but merely sending one ambassador, whose commands all at once obeyed, just as bees, when their leader appears, swarmed together and arrayed themselves about him. Such a surplus fund of good government and justice did the city enjoy. Therefore I for one am amazed at those who declared that the Lacedaemonians knew how to obey, but did not understand how to command, and, quote, with approval the story of King Theopompus, who, when someone said that Sparta was safe and secure because her kings knew how to command, replied, Nay, rather because her citizens know how to obey. For men will not consent to obey those who have not the ability to rule, but obedience is a lesson to be learned from a commander. For a good leader makes good followers, and just as the final attainment of the art of horsemanship is to make a horse gentle and tractable, so it is the task of the science of government to implant obedience in men. And the Lacedaemonians implanted in the rest of the Greeks not only a willingness to obey, but a desire to be their followers and subjects. People did not send requests to them for ships or money or hoplites, but for a single Spartan commander. And when they got him they treated him with honour and reverence, as the Sicilians treated Guy Lippus, the Calcedians Brassidas, and all the Greeks resident in Asia, Lysander, Calicratidas, and Gisileus. These men, wherever they came, were styled regulators and chaseners of people and magistrates, and the city of Sparta from which they came was regarded as a teacher of well ordered private life and settled civil polity. To this position of Sparta Stratonicus would seem to have mockingly alluded when, in jest, he proposed a law that the Athenians should conduct mysteries and processions, and that the Elians should preside at games since herein lay their special excellence, but that the Lacedaemonians should be cudgled if the others did amiss. This was a joke, but Antisthenes the Socratic, when he saw the Thebans in high feather after the battle of Leuctra, said in all seriousness that they were just like little boys strutting about because they had thrashed their tutor. It was not, however, the chief design of Lycurgus then to leave his city in command over a great many others, but he thought that the happiness of an entire city, like that of a single individual, depended on the prevalence of virtue and concord within its own borders. The aim, therefore, of all his arrangements and adjustments was to make his people free-minded, self-sufficing, and moderate in all their ways, and to keep them so as long as possible. His design for a civil polity was adopted by Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and by all those who have won approval for their treatises on this subject, although they left behind them only writings and words. Lycurgus, on the other hand, produced not writings and words, but an actual polity which was beyond imitation, and because he gave to those who maintained that the much talked of natural disposition to wisdom exists only in theory, an example of an entire city given to the love of wisdom, his fame rightly transcended that of all who ever founded polities among the Greeks. Therefore Aristotle says that the honors paid him in Sparta were less than he deserved, although he enjoys the highest honors there. For he has a temple, and sacrifices are offered to him yearly as to a god. It is also said that when his remains were brought home his tomb was struck by lightning, and that this hardly happened to any other eminent man after him except Euripides, who died and was buried at Arithusa in Macedonia. The lovers of Euripides therefore regard it as a great testimony in his favour that he alone experienced after death what had earlier befallen a man who was most holy and beloved of the gods. Some say that Lycurgus died in Cyra, Apollothymus that he was brought to Elis and died there, Timaeus and Aristoxinus that he ended his days in Crete, and Aristoxinus adds that his tomb is shown by the Cretans in the district of Pergamus near the public highway. It is also said that he left an only son, Antiochus, on whose death without issue the family became extinct. His friends and relations, however, instituted a periodical assembly in his memory which continued to be held for many ages, and they called the days on which they came together Lycurgidii. Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus, says that the friends of Lycurgus, after his death in Crete, burned his body and scattered the ashes into the sea, and that this was done at his request and because he wished to prevent his remains from ever being carried to Sparta, lest the people there should change his polity on the plea that he had come back and that they were therefore released from their oaths. This, then, is what I have to say about Lycurgus. End of Lycurgus Part 3 Recording by Graham Redman Part 11 of Volume 1 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by MB Volume 1 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans translated by Bernadotte Perron Numa Part 1 There is likewise a vigorous dispute about the time at which King Numa lived, although from the beginning down to him the ideologies seemed to be made out accurately. But a certain Clodius, in a book entitled An Examination of Chronology, insists that the ancient records were lost when the city was sacked by the Gauls, and that those which are now exhibited as such were forged, their compilers wishing to gratify the pride of certain persons by inserting their names among the first families and the most illustrious houses, where they had no cause to appear. Accordingly, when it is said that Numa was an intimate friend of Pythagoras, some deny utterly that Numa had any Greek culture, holding either that he was naturally capable of attaining excellence by his own efforts, or that the culture of the king was due to some barbarian superior to Pythagoras. Others say that Pythagoras, the philosopher, lived as many as five generations after Numa, but that there was another Pythagoras, the Spartan, who was Olympic victor in the foot race for the 16th Olympiad, in the third year of which Numa was made king, and that in his wanderings about Italy he made the acquaintance of Numa and helped him arrange the government of the city once it came about that many Spartan customs were mingled with the Roman as Pythagoras taught them to Numa. And at all events, Numa was of Sabine descent and the Sabines will have it that they were colonists from Lassa Demon. Chronology, however, is hard to fix, and especially that which is based on the names of victors in the Olympic games, the list of which is said to have been published at a late period by Hippias of Elise, who had no fully authoritative basis for his work. I shall therefore begin at a convenient point and relate the noteworthy facts which I have found in the life of Numa. For 37 years now, Rome had been built and Romulus had been its king, and on the fifth day of July, which day they now call the Capritinonus, Romulus was offering a public sacrifice outside the city at the so-called Goats Marsh in the presence of the Senate and most of the people. Suddenly there was a great commotion in the air and the cloud descended upon the earth, bringing with it blasts of wind and rain. The throng of common folk were terrified and fled in all directions, but Romulus disappeared and was never found again either alive or dead. Upon this a grievous suspicion attached itself to the patricians, and an accusing story was current among the people to the effect that they had long been weary of kingly rule and desired to transfer the power to themselves and had therefore made away with the king. And indeed it had been noticed for some time that he had treated them with greater harshness and arrogance. This suspicion the patricians sought to remove by ascribing divine honors to Romulus on the ground that he was not dead but blessed with a better lot. And Proculus, a man of eminence, took oath that he had seen Romulus ascending to heaven in full armor and had heard his voice commanding that he be called queerness. The city was beset with fresh disturbance and faction over the king to be appointed in his stead, for the newcomers were not yet altogether blended with the original citizens, but the commonality was still like a surging sea and the patricians full of jealousy towards one another on account of their different nationalities. It is indeed true that it was the pleasure of all to have a king, but they wrangled and quarreled not only about the man who should be their leader but also about the tribe which should furnish him. For those who had built the city with Romulus at the outset thought it intolerable that the Sabines, after getting a share in the city and its territory, should insist on ruling those who had received them into such privileges. And the Sabines, since on the death of their king Tatius, they had raised no faction against Romulus, but suffered him to rule alone, had a reasonable ground for demanding that now the ruler should come from them. They would not admit that they had added themselves as inferiors to superiors, but held rather that their addition had brought the strength of numbers and advanced both parties alike to the dignity of a city. On these questions then, they were divided into factions. But in order that their factions might not produce utter confusion from the absence of all authority, now that the administration of affairs was suspended, it was arranged by the senators, who were 150 in number, that each of them in his turn should assume the insignia of royalty, make the customary sacrifices to the gods, and transact public business for the space of six hours by day and six hours by night. This distribution of time seemed well adapted to a secure equality between the two factions, and the transfer of power likely to remove all jealousy on the part of the people when they saw the same man in the course of a single day and night become king and then a private citizen again. This form of government, the Romans call interregnum. But although in this way the senators were thought to rule constitutionally and without oppression, they aroused suspicions and clamorous charges that they had changed the form of government to an oligarchy and were holding the state in tutelage among themselves and were unwilling to be ruled by a king. Therefore it was agreed by both factions that one should appoint a king from the other. This was thought the best way to end their prevailing partisanship, and the king thus appointed would be equally well disposed to both parties, being gracious to the one as his electors and friendly to the other because of his kinship with them. Then as the Sabines gave the Romans their option in the matter, it seemed to them better to have a Sabine king of their own nomination than to have a Roman king made king by the Sabines. They took counsel therefore among themselves and nominated Numa Pompilius from among the Sabines, a man who had not joined the emigrants to Rome but was so universally celebrated for his virtues that, when he was nominated, the Sabines accepted him with even greater readiness than those who had chosen him. Accordingly, after making their decision known to the people, the leading senators of both parties were sent as ambassadors to Numa, begging him to come and assume the royal power. Numa belonged to a conspicuous city of the Sabines called Curus, from which the Romans, together with the incorporated Sabines, took the joint name of Queerites. He was a son of Pompun, an illustrious man, and was the youngest of four brothers. He was born, moreover, by some divine felicity on the very day when Rome was founded by Romulus, that is, the 21st day of April. By natural temperament he was inclined to the practice of every virtue, and he had subdued himself still more by discipline, endurance of hardships, and the study of wisdom. He had thus put away from himself not only the infamous passions of the soul but also that violence and rapacity which are in such high repute among barbarians believing that true bravery consisted in the subjugation of one's passions by reason. On this account he banished from his house all luxury and extravagance, and while citizen and stranger alike found in him a faultless judge and counselor, he devoted his hours of privacy and leisure not to enjoyments and moneymaking, but to the service of the gods and the rational contemplation of their nature and power. In consequence he had a great name and fame so that Tadius, the royal colleague of Romulus at Rome, made him the husband of his only daughter, Tattia. He was not, however, so exalted by his marriage as to go to dwell with his royal father-in-law but remained among the Sabines ministering to his aged father. Tattia too preferred the quiet life which her husband led as a private citizen to the honor and fame which she had enjoyed at Rome because of her father. But she died, as we are told, in the thirteenth year after her marriage. Then Numa, forsaking the ways of city folk, determined to live for the most part in country places and to wander there alone, passing his days in groves of the gods, sacred meadows, and solitudes. This, more than anything else, gave rise to the story about his goddess. It was not so the story ran from any distress or aberration of spirit that he forsook the ways of men, but he had tasted the joy of more august companionship and had been honored with a celestial marriage. The goddess Egyria loved him and bestowed herself upon him, and it was his communion with her that gave him a life of blessedness and a wisdom more than human. However, that this story resembles many of the very ancient tales which the Phrygians have received and cherished, concerning Attis, the Bithynians concerning Herodotus, the Arcadians concerning Endymion, and other peoples concerning other mortals that were thought to have achieved a life of blessedness in the love of the gods is quite evident. And there is some reason in supposing that deity, who is not a lover of horses or birds, but a lover of men, should be willing to consort with men of superlative goodness and should not dislike or disdain the company of a wise and holy man. But that an immortal god should take carnal pleasure in a mortal body and its beauty. This, surely, is hard to believe. And yet the Egyptians make a distinction here which is thought plausible. Namely, that while a woman can be approached by a divine spirit and made pregnant, there is no such thing as carnal intercourse or some communion between a man and a divinity. But they lose sight of the fact that intercourse is a reciprocal matter and that both parties to it enter into a like communion. However, that a god should have affection for a man and a so-called love which is based upon affection and takes the form of solicitude for his character and his virtue is fit and proper. And therefore it is no mistake when the ancient poets tell their tales of the love of Pauloborophobus, Hyacinthus, and Admetius, as well as the Syconean Hippolytus also, of whom it is said that, as often as he set out to sail from Sycyon to Cyra, the Pythian priestess, as though the god knew of his coming and rejoiced there at, chanted this prophetic verse, lo, once more doth beloved Hippolytus hither make voyage. There is a legend, too, that Pan became enamored of Pindar and his verses, and the divine powers bestowed signal honour on Arkelochus and Hesiod after their deaths for the sake of the muses. The Delphian oracle pronounced a curse on the man who killed Arkelochus because he had slain the servant of the muses. And the same oracle told the people of Orcomenus when a plague had fallen upon them that the only remedy was to bring back the bones of Hesiod from the land of Nopactus to the land of Orthomenus. There is a story still well attested that Sophocles during his life was blessed with the friendship of Escalapius, and that when he died another deity procured him fitting burial. Is it worthwhile, then, if we can cede these instances of divine favour to disbelieve that Zaluchus, Minas, Zoroaster, Numa, and Lycurgus who piloted kingdoms and formulated constitutions had frequent audience of the deity? Is it not likely, rather, that the gods are in earnest when they hold converse with such men as these in order to instruct and advise them in the highest and best way, but use poets and warbling singers, if at all, for their own diversion? However, if anyone is otherwise minded, I say with baccalaedes, broad is the way. Indeed, there is no absurdity in the other account which is given of Lycurgus and Numa and their like, namely, that since they were managing headstrong and captious multitudes and introducing great innovations in modes of government, they pretended to get a sanction from the god, which sanction was the salvation of the very ones against whom it was contrived. But, to resume the story, Numa was already completing his 40th year when the embassy came from Rome, inviting him to take the throne. The speakers were Proculus and Velesus, one or the other of whom the people was expected to use as their king. Proculus being the favorite of the people of Romulus and Velesus of the people of Tadius. These speakers then were brief, supposing that Numa would welcome his good fortune. It was, however, no slight task, but one requiring much argument and entreaty, to persuade and induce a man who had lived in peace and quiet to accept the government and owed its existence and growth in a fashion to war. His reply, therefore, in the presence of his father and one of his kinsmen named Marcius was as follows. Every change in a man's life is perilous. But when a man knows no lack and has no fault to find with his present lot, nothing short of madness and remove him from his wanted course of life, which, even though it have no other advantage, is at least fixed and secure, and therefore better than one which is all uncertain. But the lot of one who becomes your king cannot even be called uncertain, judging from the experience of Romulus, since he himself was accused of basely plotting against his colleague Tadius and involved the patricians in the charge of having basely put their king out of the way. And yet those who bring these accusations laud Romulus as a child of the gods and tell how he was preserved in an incredible way and fed in a miraculous manner when he was still an infant. But I am of mortal birth and I was nourished and trained by men whom you know. Moreover, the very traits in my disposition which are commanded are far from marking a man destined to be a king, namely, my great love of retirement, my devotion to studies inconsistent with the usual activities of men, and my well-known strong and inveterate love of peace, of unwar-like occupations and of men who come together only for the worship of the gods and for friendly intercourse, but who otherwise live by themselves as tillers of the soil or herdsmen. Whereas unto you, O Romans, whether you want them or not, Romulus has bequeathed many wars and to make head against these the city needs a king with a warrior's experience and strength. Besides, the people has become much accustomed to war and eager for it because of their successes and no one is blind to their desire for growth by conquest. I should therefore become a laughing stock if I sought to serve the gods and taught men to honor justice and hate violence and war in a city which desires a leader of its armies rather than a king. With such words did Numa decline the kingdom. Then the Romans put forth every effort to meet his objections and begged him not to plunge them again into faction in a civil war since there was none other on whom both parties could unite. His father also and Marcius when the envoys had withdrawn beset him privately and tried to persuade him to accept so great a gift of the gods even though they said thou neither desirous wealth for thyself because thou hast enough nor covetous the fame which comes from authority and power because thou hast the greater fame for virtue yet consider that the work of a true king is a service rendered to God who now rouses up and refuses to leave dormant and inactive the great righteousness which is within thee. Do not therefore avoid nor flee from this office which a wise man will regard as a field for great and noble actions where the gods are honored with magnificent worship and the hearts of men are easily honored and inclined towards piety through the molding influence of their ruler. This people loved Tatius though he was a foreign prince and they paid divine honors to the memory of Romulus and who knows but that the people even though victorious is sated with war and now that it is glutted with triumphs and spoils is desirous of a gentle prince who is a friend of justice and has of order and peace. But if indeed they are altogether intemperate and mad in their desire for war then were it not better that thou, holding the reins of government in thy hand should turn their eager course another way and that thy native city and the whole Sabine nation should have in thee a bond of goodwill and friendship with a vigorous and powerful city. These appeals were strengthened and we are told by auspicious omens and by the zealous order of his fellow citizens who when they learned of the embassy from Rome begged him to return with it and assume the royal power there in order to unite and blend together the citizens. Numa therefore decided to yield and after sacrificing to the gods sat out for Rome. The senate and people met him on his way filled with a wondrous love of the man. Women welcomed him with fitting cries of joy. Sacrifices were offered in the temples and joy was universal as if the city were receiving not a king, but a kingdom. When they would come down into the forum Spurious Vettius whose lot it was to be interrex at that hour called for a vote of the citizens and all voted for Numa. But when the insignia of royalty were brought to him he bade the people pause and said his authority must first be ratified by heaven. Then taking with him the augurs and priests he ascended the capital which the Romans of that time called the Tarpean hill. There the chief of the augurs turned the veiled head of Numa towards the south and he himself standing behind him and laying the right hand on his head prayed aloud and turned his eyes in all directions to observe whatever birds or other Romans might be sent from the gods. Then an incredible silence fell upon the vast multitude in the forum who watched in eager suspense for the issue until at last auspicious birds appeared and approached the scene on the right. Then Numa put on his royal robes and went down from the citadel to the multitude where he was received with glad cries of welcome as the most pious of men and most beloved of the gods. His first measure on assuming the government was to disband the body of 300 men that Romulus always kept about his person and called cellaries that is swift ones for he would not consent to distrust those who trusted him nor to reign over those who distrusted him. His second measure was to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third priest of Romulus whom he called the flamenqueer analysis. Now before this time the Romans called their priests flamens from the close fitting piloi or caps which they wear upon their heads and which have the longer name of pilum and I as we are told the Greek words mingled with the Latin at that time then now. Thus also the name Lina which the Romans give to the priestly mantel Juba says is the same as the Greek Lania and that name Camillus which the Romans give to the boy with both parents living who attends upon the priest of Jupiter is the same as that which some of the Greeks give to Hermes from his office of attendant and of Numa Part 1 Part 12 of Volume 1 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by M.B. Volume 12 of Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans translated by Bernadotte Perrin Numa Part 2 After taking such measures to secure the good will and favor of the people Numa straightway attempted to soften the city as iron is softened in the fire and change its harsh and warlike temper into one of greater gentleness and justice for if a city was ever in what Plato calls a feverish state Rome certainly was at that time It was brought into being at the very outset by the excessive daring and reckless courage of the boldest and most warlike spirits who forced their way thither from all parts and in its many expeditions and its continuous wars it found nourishment and increase of its power and just as what is planted in the earth gets a firmer seat the more it is shaken so Rome seemed to be made strong by its very perils and therefore Numa judging it to be no slight or trivial undertaking to mollify and newly fashion for peace so presumptuous and stubborn of people called in the gods to aid in a system it was for the most part by sacrifices processions and religious dances which he himself appointed and conducted and which mingled with their solemnity a diversion full of charm and a beneficent pleasure that he won the people's favor and tamed their fierce and warlike tempers at times also by heralding to them vague terrors from the god strange apparitions of divine beings and threatening voices he would subdue and humble their minds by means of superstitious fears this was the chief reason why Numa's wisdom and culture was said to have been due to his intimacy with Pythagoras for in the philosophy of the one and in the civil polity of the other religious services and occupations have a large place it is said also that the solemnity of his outward demeanor was adopted by him because he shared the feelings of Pythagoras about it that philosopher indeed is thought to have tamed an eagle which he stopped by certain cries of his and brought down from his lofty flight also to have disclosed his golden thigh as he passed through the assembled throngs at Olympia and we have reports of other devices and performances of his which savored the marvellous regarding which time in the Philasian wrote down to a juggler's level he syncs with his cheating devices laying nets for his men Pythagoras, lover of the bombast in like manner Numa's fiction was the love which a certain goddess or mountain nymph bore him and her secret meetings with him as already mentioned and his familiar converse with the muses for he ascribed the greater part of his oracular teachings to the muses and he taught the Romans to pay a special honors to one muse in particular whom he called tacita that is the silent or speechless one thereby perhaps handing on and honoring the Pythagorean precept of silence furthermore his ordinances concerning images are all together in harmony with the doctrines of Pythagoras for that philosopher maintained that the first disciple of being was beyond sense or feeling was invisible and uncreated and discernible only by the mind and in like manner Numa forbade the Romans to revere an image of God which had the form of man or beast nor was there among them in this earlier time any painted or graven likeness of deity but while for the first 170 years they were continually building temples and establishing sacred shrines they made no statues in bodily form for them convinced that it was impious to liken higher things to lower and that it was impossible to apprehend deity except by the intellect their sacrifices too were altogether appropriate to the Pythagorean worship for most of them involved no bloodshed but were made with flour drink offerings feast costly gifts and apart from these things other external proofs are urged to show that the two men were acquainted with each other one of these is that Pythagoras was enrolled as a citizen of Rome this fact is recorded by Epicharmus the comic poet in a certain treatise which he dedicated to Atenor and Epicharmus was an ancient and belonged to the school of Pythagoras another proof is that one of the four sons born to King Numa was named Mimersus after the son of Pythagoras and from them they say that the patrician family of the Emilii took its name Emilius being the endearing name which the king gave him for the grace and winsomeness of his speech moreover I myself have heard many people at Rome how when an oracle once commanded the Romans to erect in their city monuments to the wisest and the bravest of the Greeks they set up in the forum two statues in bronze one of Alcibiades and one of Pythagoras however since the matter of Numa's acquaintance with Pythagoras is involved in much dispute to discuss it at greater length and to win belief for it would savor of youthful contentiousness to Numa is also ascribed the institution of that order of high priests who are called pontifices and he himself is said to have been the first of them according to some they are called pontifices because employed in the service of the gods who are powerful and supreme over all the world and potens is the Roman word for powerful the name was meant to distinguish between possible and impossible functions the law giver in joining upon these priests the performance of such sacred offices only as were possible and finding no fault with them if any serious obstacle prevented but most writers give an absurd explanation of the name pontifices means they say nothing more nor less than bridge builders from the sacrifices which they performed at the bridge over the Tiber sacrifices of the greatest antiquity and the most sacred character for pawns is the Latin word for bridge they say more over that the custody and maintenance of the bridge like all other inviolable and ancestral rights attached to the priesthood for the Romans held the demolition of the wooden bridge to be not only unlawful but actually sacrilegious it is also said that it was built entirely without iron and fastened together with wooden pins in obedience to an oracle the stone bridge was constructed at a much later period when Emilius was quaestor however it is said that the wooden bridge also was later than the time of Numa and was completed by Angus Marcius the grandson of Numa by his daughter when he was king the chief of the pontifices the pontifex maximus had the duty of expounding and interpreting the divine will or rather of directing sacred rites not only being in charge of public ceremonies but also watching over private sacrifices and preventing any departure from established custom as well as teaching whatever was requisite for the worship or propitiation of the gods he was also overseer of the holy virgins called vestals for to Numa is ascribed the consecration of the vestal virgins and in general the worship and care of the perpetual fire entrusted to their charge it was either because he thought the nature of fire pure and uncorrupted and therefore entrusted it to child persons or because he thought of it as unfruitful and barren and therefore associated it with virginity since wherever in Greece a perpetual fire is kept as at Delphi and Athens it is committed to the charge not of virgins but of widows past the age of marriage and if by any chance it goes out as at Athens during the tyranny of Aristion the sacred lamp is said to have been extinguished at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Medes and as during the Mithridatic and the Roman Civil Wars when the altar was demolished and the fire extinguished then they say it must not be kindled again from other fire but made fresh and new by lighting a pure and unpolluted flame from the rays of the sun and this they usually affect by means of metallic mirrors they tend to follow the sides of an isosceles rectangular triangle and which converge from their circumference to a single point in the center when therefore these are placed opposite the sun so that it's rays as they fall upon them from all sides are collected and concentrated at the center the air itself is rarified there and very light and dry substances placed there from its resistance the sun's rays now acquiring the substance and force of fire some moreover are of the opinion that nothing but this perpetual fire is guarded by the sacred virgins while some say that certain sacred objects which none others may behold are kept in concealment by them what may lawfully be learned and told about these things I have written in my life of Camillus in the beginning then they say that Gagania and Verenia were consecrated to this office by Numa who subsequently added to them Canulaea and Tarpea that at a later time two others were added by Servius making the number which is continued to the present time it was ordained by the king that the sacred virgins should vow themselves to chastity for thirty years during the first decade during the second to perform the duties they have learned and during the third to teach others these duties then the thirty years being now passed anyone who wishes has liberty to marry and adopt a different mode of life after laying down her sacred office we are told however that few have welcomed the indulgence and that those who did so were not happy but were afraid to repentance a dejection for the rest of their lives thereby inspiring the rest with superstitious fears so that until old age and death they remained steadfast in their virginity but Numa bestowed great privileges upon them such as the right to make a will during the lifetime of their fathers and to transact and manage their own affairs without a guardian like the mothers of three children when they appear in public the Fasci's are carried before them and if they accidentally meet a criminal on his way to execution his life is spared but the virgin must make oath that the meeting was involuntary and fortuitous and not of design he who passes under the litter in which they are born is put to death for their minor offenses the virgins are punished with stripes the pontifax maximus sometimes scourging the culprit in a dark place with a curtain interposed but she that has broken her vow of chastity is buried alive near the call-line gate here a little ridge of earth extends for some distance along the inside of the city wall the latin word for it is agar under it a small chamber is constructed with steps leading down from above in this are placed a couch with its coverings a lighted lamp and very small portions of the necessaries of life such as bread a bowl of water, milk and oil as though they would thereby absolve themselves from the charge of destroying by hunger a life which had been consecrated to the highest services of religion then the culprit herself is placed on a litter over which coverings are thrown and fastened down with cords so that not even a cry can be heard from within and carried through the forum all the people there silently make way for the litter and follow it without uttering a sound in a terrible depression of soul no other spectacle is more appalling nor does any other day bring more gloom to the city than this when the litter reaches its destination the attendants unfasten the cords of the coverings then the high priest after stretching his hands toward heaven and uttering certain mysterious prayers before the fatal act brings forth the culprit who is closely veiled and places her on the steps leading down into the chamber after this he turns away his face as do the rest of the priests and when she has gone down the steps are taken up and great quantities of earth are thrown into the entrance to the chamber hiding it away and making the place level with the rest of the mound such is the punishment of those who break their vow of virginity furthermore it is said that Numa built the temple of Vesta where the perpetual fire was kept of a circular form not in the imitation of the shape of the earth believing Vesta to be the earth but of the entire universe at the center of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire and call it Vesta and unit and they hold that the earth is neither motionless nor situated in the center of surrounding space but that it revolves in a circle about the central fire not being one of the most important nor even one of the primary elements of the universe this is the conception we are told which Plato also in his old age had of the earth namely that it is established in a secondary space and that the central and sovereign space is reserved for some other and nobler body the pontifices also explain and direct the ancestral rights of burial for those who desire it and they were taught by Numa not to regard any such offices of pollution but to honor the gods below also with the customary rights since they receive into their keeping the most sovereign part of us and particularly the goddess called Libetina who presides over the solemn services for the dead whether she is Prosperina or as the most learned Romans maintain Venus thereby not in aptly connecting with the power of one and the same goddess Numa himself also regulated the periods of mourning according to ages for instance over a child of less than three years there was to be no mourning at all over one older than that the mourning was not to last more months than it had lived years up to ten and no age was to be mourned longer than that was the period set for the longest mourning this is also the period during which women who have lost their husbands remain in widowhood and she who took another husband before this turm was out was obliged by the laws of Numa to sacrifice a cow with calf Numa also established many other orders of priesthood of which I shall mention two besides those of the salii which more than any others give evidence of the man's reverent piety the fethiales were guardians of peace so to speak and in my opinion took their name from their office which was to put a stop to disputes by oral conference or parley and they would not suffer a hostile expedition to be made before every hope of getting justice had been cut off for the Greeks call it peace when two parties settle their quarrels for mutual conference and not by violence and the Roman fethiales often went to those who were doing them a wrong and made personal appeals for fair treatment but if the unfair treatment continued they called upon the gods to witness invoked many dreadful evils upon themselves in their country in case they resorted to hostilities unjustly and so declared war upon them but if they forbade it or withheld their consent neither soldier nor king of Rome could lawfully take up arms war had to begin with the verdict that it was just and the ruler on receiving this verdict must then deliberate on the proper way to wage it and it is said that the dreadful disaster which the city experienced at the hands of the Gauls was in consequence of the illegal treatment of these priests for when the barbarians were besieging Clusium Fabius Ambustus was sent from Rome to their camp to bring about a cessation of hostilities on behalf of the besieged but on receiving an unseemly answer he thought his office of ambassador was at an end and committed the youthful folly of taking up arms for the Clusii's and challenging the bravest of the barbarians to single combat Fabius fought successfully unhorsed his adversary and stripped him of his armor but when the Gauls discovered who he was they sent a herald to Rome denouncing Fabius for violating a truce breaking his oath and fighting against them before war was formally declared at Rome the Fetiales tried to persuade the senate to deliver Fabius into the hands of the Gauls but he took refuge with the multitude and through the favour of the populace evaded his punishment after a little therefore the Gauls came up and sacked Rome with the exception of the capital but this story is more fully given in my life of Camillus the priesthood of the salaei Numa is said to have been established for the following reason in the eighth year of his reign a pestilence which traversed Italy and Rome also the story goes that while the people were disheartened by this a bronze buckler fell from heaven which came into the hands of Numa and a wonderful account of it was given by the king which he had learned from Ageria and the Muses the buckler came he said for the salvation of the city and must be carefully preserved by making eleven others of like fashion size and shape a pestilence between them might make it difficult for a thief to distinguish the one that fell from heaven he said further that the spot where it fell and the adjacent meadows where the Muses usually had converse with him must be consecrated to them and that the spring which watered the spot should be declared holy water for the use of the vestal virgins who should daily sprinkle and purify their temple with it moreover they say that the truth was attested by the immediate cessation of the pestilence when Numa showed the buckler to the artificers and bade them do their best to make others like it they all declined except Vitorius Memorius a most excellent workman who was so happy in his imitation of it and made eleven so exactly like it that not even Numa himself could distinguish them for the watch and care of these bucklers then he appointed the priesthood of the salae now the salae were not so named as some tell the tale from a man of Samothrace or Mantonea named Salius who first taught the dance in armor but rather from the leaping which characterized the dance itself this dance they perform when they carry the sacred bucklers through the streets of the city in the month of March in purple tunics girt with broad belts of bronze wearing bronze helmets on their heads and carrying small daggers with which they strike the shields but the dance is chiefly a matter of step for they move gracefully and execute with vigor and agility certain shifting convolutions in quick and off recurring rhythm the bucklers themselves are called Ancilia for their shape for this is not round nor yet completely oval like that of the regular shield but has a curving indentation the arms of which are bent back and united with each other at the top and bottom this makes the shape and salon the Greek for curve or they are named from the elbow on which they are carried which in Greek is Ancon this is what Juba says who is bent on deriving the name from Greek but the name may come from the Greek Anikathan in as much as the original shield fell from on high or from Achesis because it healed those who were sick of the plague or from Oakmon Lysis because it put an end to the drought or further from Aniscesis because it brought a cessation of calamities just as Castor and Pollux were called Anikis by the Athenians if that is to derive the name from the Greek we are told that Memersius was rewarded for his wonderful art by having his name mentioned in a song which the salaeis sing as they perform their war dance some however say that the song does not commemorate Vittorius Memorius but Vetteram Memoriam that is to say Ancient Remembrance End of Numa part 2