Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/360

 3U HISTORY OF GREECE. who made to Lykurgus propositions that he should many her and become king. But Lykurgus, repudiating the offer with indignation, awaited the birth of his young nephew Charilaus, held up the child publicly in the agora, as the future king of Sparta, and immediately relinquished the authority which he had provisionally exercised. However, the widow and her brother Leonidas raised slanderous accusations against him, of designs menacing to the life of the infant king, ticcusations which he deemed it proper to obviate, by a temporary absence. Accord- ingly, he left Sparta and went to Krete, where he studied the polity and customs of the different cities ; next, he visited Ionia and Egypt, and (as some authors affirmed) Libya, Iberia, and even India. While in Ionia, he is reported to have obtained from the descendants of Kreophylus a copy of the Homeric poems, which had not up to that time become known in Peloponnesus : there were not wanting authors, indeed, who said that he had conversed with Homer himself. 1 Meanwhile, the young king Charilaus grew up and assumed the sceptre, as representing the Prokleid or Eurypontid family. But the reins of government had become more relaxed, and the disoixlers worse than ever, when Lykurgus returned. Finding that die two kings as well as the people were weary of so disas- trous a condition, he set himself to the task of applying a correc- tive, and with this view consulted the Delphian oracle ; from which he received strong assurances of the divine encouragement, together with one or more special injunctions (the primitive Rhetras of the constitution), which he brought with him to Sparta. 2 He then suddenly presented himself in the agora, with thirty of the most distinguished Spartans, all in arms, as his guards and partisans. King Charilaus, though at first terrified, when informed of the designs of his uncle, stood forward willingly to second them ; while the bulk of the Spartans respectfully submitted to the venerable Herakleid, who came as reformer and missionary 1 Plutarch, Lykurg. 3, 4, 5. 2 For an instructive review of the text as well as the meaning cf this ancient Rhetra, see Urlichs, Ueber die Lycurgischen Rhctrca, published sinca the first edition of this History. His refutation of the rash charges of Got- tling seems to me comp'.ete : but his own conjectures are not all cquallj plausible ; ncr can I subscribe to his explanation of aiaT(icdai.