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It is worth while to tabulate the more important differences between the Herodotean and the other accounts of Lycurgus: 1. H. denies that he derived his institutions from Delphi; but this was the usual fourth century account, e. g. Xen. Rep. Lac. viii. 5 and Plat. Leg. 624; cf. 691 E. Meyer (F. i. 231 seq.) ingeniously ascribes this later view to King Pausanias (408-395 B. C.), and maintains that the verses of Tyrtaeus (Plut. Lyc. 6) which assert it are a later forgery. 2. H. makes Lycurgus guardian of Leobotes, his nephew, i. e. he is an Agiad and his date is about 1000 B.C. But Simonides (Plut. Lyc. 1) makes him a Eurypontid and uncle of Charilaus (king 884 B. C.); so too Ar. Pol. ii. 10. 2, 1271 B. Plut. (ib.) also quotes Aristotle for a third date, i. e. Lycurgus is put in the eighth century, and made to organize ‘the Olympic Truce’ (on the strength of the inscription on ‘the quoit at Olympia’). No wonder Timaeus thought there were two Lycurgi. 3. H. makes him legislate as regent, Ephorus (Strabo, 482) at a time when Charilaus was actually king. 4. H. gives him the whole Spartan constitution; but v. i. for other dates for the Ephorate and Gerousia. It may be added that the one point on which traditions agree, viz. that he legislated as uncle of the king, was an obvious guess; for his name was not on the royal list, and yet men felt he must have been a Heracleid. κόσμον. The well-known Spartan ἀγωγή is implied; H. gives this to Lycurgus as a matter of course. For a comparison of the institutions of Sparta and of Crete cf. Ar. Pol. ii. 10 (1271 B seq.). Ephorus (Strabo, 481-2) argued elaborately for the priority of Crete; but his view as to the similarity of the two constitutions is criticized by Polybius (vi. 45-6); there is not sufficient evidence to decide the question. The institutions are in each case the expression of ‘the warrior life of a conquering primitive people’ (Oncken) surrounded by enemies and hostile subjects.
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