Lycurgus
![Lycurgus of Sparta](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Jean-jacques-francois_le_barbier_called_le_barbier_laine_la_magnanimit060915%29.jpg)
As a historical figure, almost nothing is known for certain about him, including when he lived and what he did in life. The stories of him place him at multiple times. Nor is it clear when the political reforms attributed to him, called the Great Rhetra, occurred. Ancient dates range from, putting aside the implausibly early Xenophonic 11th century BC, the early ninth century () to as late as early eighth century (). There remains no consensus as to when he lived; some modern scholars deny that he existed at all.
The reforms at various times attributed to him touch all aspects of Spartan society. They included the creation of the Spartan constitution (in most traditions after the dual monarchy), the imposition of the Spartan mess halls called syssitia, the redistribution of land to each citizen by head, Spartan austerity and frugality, and Sparta's unique wedding and funerary customs. None of these reforms can be concretely attributed to Lycurgus. Most of the reforms likely date to the late sixth century BC (shortly before 500 BC), postdating his supposed life by centuries; some of the reforms, such as for the redistribution of land, are fictitious.
The extent of the Lycurgan myth emerges from Sparta's self-justification, seeking to endow its customs with timeless and divinely sanctioned antiquity. That antiquity was also malleable, reinvented at various times to justify the new as a return to Lycurgus' ideal society: his land reforms, for example, are attested only after the reformist Spartan monarchs Agis IV and Cleomenes III who sought to redistribute Sparta's land. The reforms attributed to Lycurgus, however, have been praised by ancients and moderns alike, seeing at various times different morals projected on a figure of which so little concrete can be known. Provided by Wikipedia
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Published: [2012]
Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Classics and Near East Studies <1990
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Published: 2008
Superior document: Texte zur Forschung 93
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Published: 1865
Superior document: Griechische Prosaiker in neuen Übersetzungen 345
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Dinarchus, Hyperides, and Lycurgus / transl. by Ian Worthington, Craig R. Cooper, & Edward M. Harris
Published: 2001
Superior document: The oratory of classical Greece 5
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Published: 1973
Superior document: Minor Attic orators in two volumes 2
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Published: 1980
Superior document: Minor Attic orators in two volumes 2