HKB
of no one, except Aristocrates, son of Hipparchus, and a Spartan, who has affirmed that he went to Libya and Spain, and in his Indian excursions conversed with the Gymnosophists.
The Lacedæmonians found the want of Lycurgus when absent, and sent many embassies to entreat him to return. For they perceived that their kings had barely the title and outward appendages of royalty, but in nothing else differed from the multitude; whereas Lycurgus had abilities from nature to guide the measures of government, and powers of persuasion, that drew the hearts of men to him. The kings, however, where consulted about his return, and they hoped that in his presence they should experience less insolence amongst the people. Returning then to a city thus disposed, he immediately applied himself to alter the whole frame of the constitution; sensible that a partial change, and the introducing of some new laws, would be of no sort of advantage; but, as in the case of a body diseased and full of bad humours, whose temperament is to be corrected and new formed by medicines, it was necessary to begin a new regimen. With these sentiments he went to Delphi, and when he had offered and consulted the god, he returned with that celebrated oracle, in which the priestess called him "Beloved of the gods, and rather a god than a man." As to his request that he might enact good laws, she told him, Apollo had heard his request, and promised that the constitution he should establish would be the most excellent in the world. Thus encouraged, he applied to the nobility, and desired them to put their hands to the work; addressing himself privately at first to his friends, and afterwards by degrees, trying the disposition of others, and preparing them to concur in the business. When matters were ripe, he ordered thirty of the principal citizens to appear armed in the market-place by break of day, to strike terror into such as might desire to oppose him. Hermippus has given us the names of twenty of the most eminent of them; but he that had the greatest share in the whole enterprise, and gave Lycurgus the best assistance in the establishing of his laws, was called Arithmiades. Upon the first alarm, king Charilaus, apprehending it to be a design against his person, took refuge in the Chalcioicos. But he was soon satisfied, and accepted of their oath. Nay, so far from being obstinate, he joined in the undertaking. Indeed, he was so remarkable for the gentleness of his disposition, that Archelaus, his partner in the throne, is reported to have said to some that were praising the young king, "Yes, Charilaus is a good man to be sure, who cannot find in his heart to punish the bad." Among the many new institutions of Lycurgus, the first and most important was that of a senate; which sharing, as Plato says, in the power of the kings, too imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority with them, was the means of keeping them within the bounds of moderation, and highly contributed to the preservation of the state. For before it had been veering and unsettled, sometimes inclining to arbitrary power, and sometimes towards a pure democracy; but this establishment of a senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept it in a just equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators adhering to the kings, whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and, on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings attempted to make themselves absolute. This, according to Aristotle, was the number of senators fixed upon, because two of the thirty associates of Lycurgus deserted the business through fear. But Sphærus tells us there were only twenty-eight at first entrusted with the design. Something, perhaps, there is in its being a perfect number, formed of seven multiplied by four, and withal the first number, after six, that is equal to all its parts. But I rather think, just so many senators were created, that, together with the two kings, the whole body might consist of thirty members.