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Lycurgus, the father of Sparta, shaped the Spartan way of life. He learned from other societies, banned love of money, created a universal diet, established a senate, and focused on proper education. Spartan women played a crucial role in shaping society by encouraging bravery and strength in men. What's up guys, Lycurgus, the father of Sparta, you probably didn't know that that's the guy who's responsible for the entire Spartan way of life. It's all based off of Lycurgus, his beliefs, and how he would have structured an ideal society. So I did some scouring, I did some hacking, I have access to some databases that not a lot of people have access to, thank you Reddit, and I compiled, based off of real historical documents, like stuff that Lycurgus said, stuff that Plutarch said, and I compiled them over days and days and hours of study and research, and I'm here to give them to you. So take this information what you will, whether you're planning on restructuring society, or if you just need an interesting story to tell at the dinner table, because you don't have anything interesting to say because you watch useless stuff on TikTok all the time, here you go, thank me later. So Lycurgus, here's the origin story of the father of Sparta. So he was actually an heir to the throne, his father died, his oldest brother died, which gave him the right to be the next king of Sparta. And so everything is looking fine and dandy for him, and he's most likely preparing to become the king, he's moving into the castle, he's sipping his black broth, an iconic meal in the Greek way of life. And he's perfectly happy until something happens. His older brother's wife approaches him in his castle, and she says, Lycurgus, I'm pregnant, which means that that kid is the rightful heir, not Lycurgus anymore. So she proposes an offer, she says, look, I'll abort this baby if you make me your queen, which was an interesting proposition, and Lycurgus is a man of honor, and that's the way they did things, and that was kind of a mischievous way to do things. So Lycurgus, to stop her from getting an abortion, says, look, yeah, I'll go along with your plan, under one condition, that you don't get an abortion, just bring the baby to me right after he's born, immediately. And so it's kind of understood, Lycurgus has a different plan up his sleeve for this kid, maybe he'll get rid of him, maybe he'll throw him into a chasm, like they did back then, something. So she goes, okay, deal. And she's pregnant, she has the kid, the rightful heir to the throne, and brings him to Lycurgus, and here's where it seems interesting. She takes the kid, and I'm imagining this like the Lion King holding the kid up, and he brings him to the different rulers and the people there at the castle, and he says, he says this. And he lays down his supreme power, gives it up for this kid. And the people are shocked, the lady, his older brother's wife is probably pissed off, and the people just gain this huge respect for him, that he would exalt the child and give up his power. He was admired greatly for it, and because of it, he gained the respect and gained influence over all the Spartans immediately. So this kid is named Cherleus, and he grows up to become the king, and then shortly after, the people are a little bit skeptical of Lycurgus, they don't really know him that well, so they're thinking that he might have another trick to assassinate him or something, and to prove that this was not anywhere near his intention, he kind of exiles himself, you know, willingly, honorably, and moves to Crete, the island right off the coast of Greece. So here's a little representation here. He moves from here to here, and he stays there for 30 years, he stays there for a while, and while he's there, he learns the Crete way of life, these people had it going on, they were sober-minded, they were men of principle over there, because they all listened to a guy named Thales, not to be confused with Thales, and Thales was a musician, he taught the men to be graceful, and to commune together as brothers, to civilize, and they said that he was more of a teacher of civilization than a musician, but he did so through his music, which is really interesting. Anyways, while he's there in Crete, learning the Cretan way of life, he travels around to kind of study how other people are structuring their society, he goes to the Ionians, he studies them for a while, and he studies how they're more of a pleasure-loving people, they're not as structured as the Cretans, and he takes note of what they do, what they don't do, and he compiles all his information together, and that combined with his natural leadership capabilities, he has a really good plan to make Sparta into the most powerful, the greatest city on the planet at that time. So he's over there for like 30 or so years, and the people beg him to come back, they're like, this Charlaeus guy, yeah, Charlaeus, you know, he's not doing it for us, he's not keeping us safe, he's not doing what a king should do, you're a better king than he is, you showed us your honor, we want you to be our king. So the people make way for Lycurgus to come back, and Charlaeus thinks that they're going to kill him and make Lycurgus the king. But Lycurgus is better than that. He calms the people down and kind of arranges this deal to where he will just become the ultimate authority, he's going to become the lawgiver, and everybody willingly listens to him. So it's not a dictatorship in a sense that he is the one ruler and everybody has to bow down to what he says, they willingly listen to him. So this is what a society would look like if it was like a good dictatorship. That's how I see it. So that's how Lycurgus comes to power, and this is the beginning of Sparta. This is the beginning of the way of life that is so famous, that made the movie 300 so famous, and this is what he did. These are all the changes that he made. First, the love of money. The love of money is the root of all evil. So what did he do? He just got rid of it. He banned all silver and gold and all luxuries and replaced the currency with iron coins because it had no value back then. Apparently iron has no value. Next, he banned all useless occupations. So those died out. I'm sure that along with those were fortune-telling and prostitution and other things like that. He said that gold and silver caused fraud, prostitution, and all those sort of crimes were a result of the love of money, so he just got rid of it. Next, he decreed that food must be eaten in public mess halls. This was because the rich people would normally be lying on their couches, stuffing their faces with food and unwholesome delicacies, like pigs being fattened for the slaughter. He was going to have none of this, and he made a universal diet that everybody had to eat, and it was at these public mess halls. This was to stop people from becoming so weak by lazy overindulgence that they needed long sleep, warm baths, and about as much care as if they were constantly sick. That's how he puts it. So next, he established a senate. So until then, Sparta and Greece had oscillated between extremes of democracy and tyranny, and it made the people unhappy with this anarchy and dictatorship. So he's a thinker, and he devised a plan, which was to basically just make a senate. I think it was 28 men. Don't quote me on that. But this just provided a balance which resisted both extremes, and the government became more stable, and the people and their rulers respected each other. Next, he's the lawgiver, and he says that his most important task is proper education of the young. So I'm going to get into that. I'm going to start with the ladies. There's not a lot about them here, but he does note that he made them run and exercise so that the succeeding generations, the kids that would be born, would be nice and strong and healthy and as strong as possible. So next is a really interesting way that he basically promoted all the good traits in people and discouraged all the bad traits. There's this, you know, that's kind of a hard thing to do, how to set that up, how to discourage laziness and weakness and actually make people afraid of being weak. And so what he did to the ladies was he made them dance and sing naked in front of all the young men. Totally different times, of course. Probably would not slide today. Yeah, not at all. But this is 7th century B.C., and so the way that he structured things was this was just what one guy thought would be the most utopian way to build, you know, the strongest, best city on Earth, and this is what he came up with. So this was to make them brave and to be ashamed of being fat or weak. So yes, they had fat shaming back then, and it was to make people stronger. And that was a really good way to do it. So because of this, the young ladies were actually happy to display their beauty to appreciative audiences of young men. And this is not to idolize them or anything like that. It looks like this was to encourage the men and the women, and I'll explain. So they sang songs, and in their songs, they praised the men who were brave and strong, and in other songs, they actually made fun of the men who were weak and cowardly and who they didn't like. So in this way, the women are choosing what traits the men should have in their songs. It's a really interesting way to structure things. I'm not sure if it's genius or crazy or impossible, but he made it happen. This is a real thing that happened, which is mind-blowing. And what this did for the men was it sharpened their love for glory and increased their fear of shame. Again, you'd have all the women in the entire city making fun of you if you were weak or cowardly or distasteful or whatever they didn't like, and you were made fun of by all of them. So good luck finding a mate at that point, because the entire city knows that you're weak. So because of this, the Spartan women judged manhood, and they actually decided what was to be considered a good man. And so the Athenians, you know, in the next city over here, in Greece, not that far away, Greece is not that big. The Athenians, they judged the Spartans a little bit. They kind of geared and jabbed back and forth, and they were like, you know, what you got going on over there, you know, it's pretty crazy, but you guys are some of the strongest men that we've seen. How is this possible? And the women replied with, we are the only women who raise men. So they got to decide what their men were like. And, you know, obviously, these dances had their effect on the young men, and lovers had to meet in secret. It was totally frowned upon, you know, to be open about any of that stuff, or you'd be made fun of, you'd be made a public spectacle if you were caught, you know, doing any, you know, mischievous, dirty deeds like that. Next, how we set up marriages. It's crazy how we did it, but you weren't allowed to be an open couple, you know, living together until the age of 30. So what did they do before that? They had to take place in secret, and this is, you know, some historical stuff right here, but, and, you know, I can't prove any of this, but it looks like there was a simple private ceremony, you know, go and do your own research on this, but they cut off her hair, and they dressed her in male clothes. Then they had dinner together with the bridegroom and the lady's family, and then they would go, you know, stealthily, the bridegroom would go lay with her, you know, do whatever they did, and then he would hurry back to go sleep with his companion, and then they would have to sleep with his companions in a fear that anyone would find out. So they stayed in different places, and they kind of had to do this little sneaky thing where they'd go out, you know, do their thing, come back, try not to get caught. So next, what would they do if two men liked the same woman? They had some interesting ideas about this. Like, Kyrgios said that jealousy is absolutely forbidden, there's no bickering, there's no fighting over the same woman, if that happens, it should be a reason to be friends. Oh, you two like the same woman, you have the same taste, good, you should be friends because you're similar. That's how they approached it, so next, like, Kyrgios actually made it honorable for a man to lend his wife to another man as to get good seed from her. You guys get what that means. They're looking for the best traits. Again, they don't care about jealousy, they're not super attached to their wives at this point because they can't even live together, and if you wanted to have the best sons and have a son who was a leader, an Olympic, you know, champion, if that meant giving your wife to another man to get a really good son, get some really good genes going on, then that's what it meant. So, you know, the views on children back then were drastically different. So they weren't property of their parents like they are today, and they don't specifically belong to their parents, they're thought of as just members of society. I don't think they're owned by the government or anything like that, I think that they were like a collective parenting of children. It says that back then, the kids, the young men, when they were walking around, they would keep their gaze low as to not provoke anybody, as to, you know, they were all about silence, not speaking unless you had something important to say. And because of this, anyone, any of the older people, if they were just... The older people were considered leaders over the men, they all had authority over the young men, they could scold any of the older, any of the leaders could scold any of the young men for whatever reason they felt necessary. And so it was like a collective societal parenting of these kids. So, like Hergis' view on the whole, you know, lending your wife thing, to us, it seems like cheating, or like, it's swinger, it wasn't like that, it was, it was honorable. And he said that, why should men be so careful about the breeding of his dogs and horses? And again, I mean, that's like Hergis speaking, he has, you know, his words pack a punch, that was the whole point. You're supposed to pack as much meaning as you can into a short phrase, and the way he handles this is, why should men be so careful about the breeding of his horses and dogs? It just goes to show that all he's cared about is making the most, the strongest society possible. Whatever that means is what they're going to do. So, if a man insists, like Hergis' reason that if a man insists on his wife having children only by himself, then obviously the bad qualities of the father's children are going to be a then obviously the bad qualities of the father would be passed on to the kid, and the kid would be worse off because of it. Whereas, children of good men would be a blessing to that man, rather than a curse. So, it was considered a blessing for a man to father a kid, even if it wasn't his own kid, if he had really good qualities. So, that's how they thought of it. Next, defective children. You guys get what that means. Disabilities, things like that. Like, Hergis had a specific way of handling that, and it was that they were to be assessed for their defects, and then whatever they decided, you know, kind of a should I stay or should I go type of thing, they would drop them into a chasm if they failed the test. Yeah, they dropped them into a chasm. Yeah, so next, this is how the kids, this is how the guys grew up. So, as children, you know, below the age of seven, they grew up free and active. He notes, they were not afraid of the dark, and they were not finicky with their food. Two traits right there. At seven, Spartan boys left for the military. Here's where they learned command and obedience above all else. Command and obedience above all else. Next, they learned to read and write. That was of, like, the next most important thing that they learned at that stage in their life, and they learned to endure pain. I'm not sure by what, you know, measures, but they were constantly honing their physical bodies, getting in shape. That was paramount for success back then. You just needed the strongest army possible, whoever was stronger, whoever was more structured, organized, whoever had the best battle plan won. So, that was their whole point in life up to the age of seven, or at seven to 12. That was what they were doing. At 12, their military education began, commanded by Irens, I-R-E-N-S. Irens are 20-year-old men, and they were to be the leader of these groups of 12-year-olds in battle, and their absolute master at home. So, they kind of all lived together in this military type of, you know, situation, and it was 20-year-olds leading these 12-year-olds. That's how he had it structured, and they stayed in this hard school until the age of 18. Now, just a little bit about the military lifestyle. They could only wear one thing. They were only to wear a cloak. That's it. No shoes, no underwear, no socks, no snuggies, none of that stuff. They were just to wear one cloak, summer, winter, spring, fall, during all the seasons when it was cold and it was super hot. That's it. They didn't care. It was a luxury to have anything else, right? Again, the whole society is equal. There's nobody has any luck. There's no gold. There's no silver. He even made people build their houses with an axe, and this was because he thought that they would try to match the rest of their decor with that rustic look, which would deter them from going into luxuries again. He hated luxuries, okay, which is totally different. Nowadays, basically, innovation at every level is luxuries to make us more comfortable. We don't need anything else, but the bare minimums, food, water, sleep, which gets me to my next point. They slept in military groups. They'd go to the river, pluck some reeds to sleep on for that night. It was really tough for this education. Yes, their military lifestyle up until the age of 18 was really tough. Yes, the food part, they weren't given enough food. They were purposely starved a lot to make them stronger. It's said that starvation actually made them taller. He said that too much food weighs down the spirit of a boy and makes him short and fat. Interesting idea. It also incentivized them to put together these ingenious schemes to steal food, and if they were caught, they were whipped severely, and it wasn't because of the moral reason for stealing. It was because it was a military sin to get caught. So this is how they taught them resourcefulness and planning and strategizing by using food as their incentive, which is one of the strongest incentives that you have. Go without food for one to two days and see how civilized you are then. Go without food and rigorous training for multiple days on end, and you'll start resorting to whatever you have to get food. Next, this is just how the young men were taught to speak. They were taught to say a lot of the key words. Children, they learned a habit of long silence so that when they finally spoke, their words had weight and they were noticed. For example, the Athenians, like I was saying, they kind of jeered back and forth with Spartans. They thought that their way of life was totally different, and it was. So they said stuff like, an Athenian joked one time that sword swallowers used Spartan swords because they were so short. You know, a little jab. And the Spartan replied, we find them long enough to reach the hearts of our enemies. Like, Dazza is not playing around. He says, we find them long enough to reach the hearts of our enemies, dude. Again, they were known for their short, woody sentences that carried gravitas, right? So. Yeah, they're. Like their short, sharp swords, they had words that were short and sharp. They had these short, sharp sayings to get to the point and get the attention of the hearer. So these are some examples from Lycurgus himself. He was a young man, he was a young man, he was a young man, he was a young man, he was a young man. These are some examples from Lycurgus himself of, you know, how he spoke. So a man argued that Sparta should set up a democracy. He goes up to Lycurgus, says, you should set up a democracy, Lycurgus. And he says, begin with your own family. One of his most famous sayings right there. Another man asked, why are your sacrifices to the gods not bigger? Lycurgus, what's your deal? You should be sacrificing. You're Lycurgus. And he says, so that we may always have something to offer them. Just simple, straight to the point. His words packed a punch. It was known for his wit and they used humor a lot. It was actually considered in positions of leadership as well as an important quality for them to be humorous. And this is kind of how they balanced out their strenuous lifestyles with some good old humor. Next, they actually were taught to be, they were taught music and they actually had specific practices for being graceful in conversation. So that's just, you know, one of the things that they thought was important. The type of music they listened to had flutes and stuff in it. It kept them calm and confident and cheerful that when they walked into battle, it was with such confidence that it looked like they were somehow blessed with some supernatural immunity from the gods. That's how people described how the Spartans went into war. So this emotional effect in the Spartans was summarized by a man named Terpander. He said, their spirit was strong, their music sweet and justice. He said, their spirit was strong, their music sweet and justice kept an honored seat. So that's how he saw it. Now, next, the Olympic Games, pretty big deal back then. They were first established by Hercules. I'm pretty sure with this thing called the Olympiad and Lycurgus kind of repopularized the idea. And side note, Lycurgus was actually 11 generations down from Hercules. So he was related to the man himself. And so Lycurgus himself was a master in the martial arts and he took part in establishing these Olympic Games and he made it the greatest privilege to fight next to the king. And the way you got to fight next to the king was to be a champion in the Olympic Games, right? So he also taught, they should not be at war for long with the same enemy, bless the enemy, learn the Spartan ways, right? He's keeping his secrets under wrap. He can't let this way of life spread too far or else people might catch on to, you know, or else people might catch on. So election, this is how he structured the Olympic Games. So another saying of Lycurgus, or no, this is just a Spartan in general, an Athenian told a Spartan that your ways are ignorant. The Spartan replied, what you say is true. We have learned none of your evil ways. Again, these guys are, these guys are witty. So they prohibited foreign travel and visitors. He prohibited foreign ideas and luxuries because he said they were like a plague. Okay, so they kept to themselves. It was isolation. It's like what Conor McGregor said when he was becoming the champion, the UFC champion. He said it was isolation. It was visualization. There were no outsiders. That's kind of how the Spartans did things a little bit. So the elections were interesting. He called the people together, the people of Sparta, they met in the field and had their candidates go up one by one by one and nearby in a building with no windows were judges. Okay, so judges are over here, people are over here, there's candidates. The people cheer for the candidate that they want to be elected and the judges rate the applause of the people. And since the judges have no way of knowing who the candidates were, their judgments were fair. Anyways, whoever had the loudest applause wins. Super simple way to do things, right? No ballots, no hacking, no super complicated systems of doing it. It was just cheer for who can cheer the loudest. So that was like Kyrgios. Those are all the things, the main things that he implemented that I learned that were pretty interesting. And this is the end of his life here. So he's at an age where he could die without regret and life wasn't, it wasn't too old to where there wasn't any point to live life anymore. So basically, he calls all the people together, the kings, the senate, everybody, and he has them swear to obey his laws with an oath. They take an oath. And then one day, he left Sparta, stopped eating, and he quietly disappeared. And that was the end of Lycurgus, right? And for 500 years, the Spartans stayed true to Lycurgus's laws, and they were the strongest, most famous city. And they were the strongest, most famous city in all of Greece, and they were known across the whole world until they blamed this guy named Lysander for letting silver and gold back into Sparta, which corrupted the people and infected Sparta. And eventually, they were conquered by the Romans, who were arguably... So that's the whole story of Lycurgus. And back then, you might wonder, what did he believe? What was his foundation? Did he believe in God? What was it? Well, back then, 7th century BC, Jesus hadn't come yet. There were a few people, you know, it wasn't... Christianity wasn't a huge thing. I'm not sure about the whole history of that, but basically, they didn't have a huge idea of Christianity like we do at all. They were polytheistic, and they had gods, okay? So Lycurgus, I'm not sure if it talks about what he specifically believed regarding that, but they did have gods, and this is one thing that he did for guidance. So he consulted the oracle at Delphi a lot during, you know, when he was coming back from Crete to go be the main lawgiver for Sparta. He wanted to see if this was the right decision, this was the right move. So he goes to the oracle at Delphi. Now, this temple was where the oracle was, and it was a temple dedicated to the god Apollo, which was the god of the sun and of reason. Plutarch, famous guy, if you go and research this stuff, was also a priest there. And in this temple, the oracle at Delphi was a priestess who would go into a trance and let the god speak through her. And on this temple were two maxims inscribed right in front there that epitomized the way of ancient Greece. And it said, know yourself and nothing in excess. So that's the epitome of the Spartan way. So he would consult this oracle, he'd basically go up and ask her, should I do this? And he asked her if he should go and become the lawgiver of Sparta. And she basically, I don't have her exact words here, but she said, yeah. So he got her blessing and then he continued from there. That's why he continued to go through with this plan. So just as a bonus here, the oracle at Delphi was responsible for a lot of wisdom and people, kings would consult the oracle for what they should do. And her answers were sometimes ambiguous. So for instance, the king of Croesus of Lydia asked whether he should fight the king of Cyrus of Persia or ask for terms of surrender. And the oracle replied, if you fight, a great kingdom will fall. So hearing this, he was greatly encouraged. And Croesus, his army outnumbered that of Cyrus, two to one, went to war and met Cyrus at the Battle of Cymbra, 545 BC. And a great kingdom did indeed fall that day, but it was that of Croesus. And that's, so there you have it. The oracle at Delphi, you know, had the right answer and the kingdom did fall, but it was his. Next, another notable example here is that the Spartans asked whether Apollo would permit them to expand their domain northward. And the oracle replied that they would dance in the fields of Tegea. It was an interesting answer. So seemingly, with this favorable answer, this gave the Spartans the confidence to go into battle and they even took along chains for their captives. But they were defeated and in their own chains under which they went to work in the farm of field workers. And that is how the Spartans danced in the fields of Tegea. So that's it. That's the entire history of Lycurgus, his origin story, what he believed, some of the changes that he made. So if you're ever planning to one day become the leader of an entire city and you want some tips on the best way to structure it, there you go.