Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/751

 LYCUKGUS 745 densely clothed with small leaves. This spe- cies is largely used to make wreaths and other Christmas decorations; just before the holi- days immense quantities of this are sold in New York and other cities ; the stems are tied together to form continuous " ropes," as the dealers call them, and are sold by the yard ; the preceding species is also in great demand for Christmas green. Some of our species are only found upon high mountains or far northward, while others inhabit swamps and bogs ; but the three above mentioned are the only ones that have any interest except to bot- anists. The delicate plants cultivated in green- houses for the beauty of their foliage, though generally called lycopodiums, belong to a re- lated genus, selaginella, which differs from ly- copodium in having spore cases of two kinds, one two-valved, containing innumerable mi- nute spores, and the other three- or f our-valved, with three or four large spores ; three species of this genus are found wild in the northern states, but they are greatly inferior in beauty to the exotics ; one of the commonest of these is 8. Eraussiana (lycopodium denticulatum of the florists), which is a very quick-growing species, well adapted to a Wardian case, and when the air is not too dry will sometimes flourish in a hanging basket. A dozen or more other species are to be found in collec- tions of plants. An interesting species is found in southern California and northern Mexico, S. lepidopJiylla ; it consists of a tuft of flattened branching stems clothed with mi- nute leaves, and has much the aspect of a fern. In the arid climate in which the plant is found clinging to the crevices of rocks, the stems are for the greater part of the year curled up to form a nest-like ball, and show only their brown under surfaces; when the rainy season comes, the dry stems uncurl, and the plants then appear as beautiful rosettes of a brilliant green. When quite dead the plants retain this property of expanding when mois- tened, and are frequently sold by street venders as " resurrection plants." The lepidodendrons, sigillarias, and other plants of the coal forma- tion were enormous forms of lycopodiacea. LYCURGUS, the Spartan legislator, concern- ing whose personal history nothing certain is known, and many modern critics have doubted whether he ever really existed. According to Herodotus, he lived about 996 B. C., and the tradition in regard to him is that he became guardian to his nephew King Labotas of the Eurystheneid line of Spartan kings, and in this capacity transformed the institutions of his country into the order which they retained for centuries. Whether his system of things was revealed to him by the Pythian priestess, whose oracle he visited, or was learned by him in Crete, where he was said to have travelled, was a matter of dispute, the Spartans them- selves taking the latter view. Under his insti- tutions the Spartans became from the most lawless of the Greeks tranquil and prosperous, and they regarded him reverentially, and built a temple to him after his death. This is the oldest statement concerning him. Thucydides, without mentioning Lycurgus, agrees in stating that the political system of the Spartans had been adopted by them four centuries before, and had successfully rescued them from intol- erable disorders. This would make the intro- duction of the Lycurgan discipline to have oc- curred in 830-820 B. C., which Grote accepts as the most probable date. Tim&us supposed two persons to have existed bearing the name, and that the acts of both had been ascribed to one. The more detailed account of Plutarch is deduced from Xenophon and Aristotle, and the poets Alcman, Tyrtseus, and Simonides. He is stated to have been of the Proclid line of kings, llth in descent from Hercules, son of Eunomus, younger brother of Polydectes, and uncle and guardian to Charilaus. After the death of Polydectes, leaving a pregnant widow, the latter proposed to Lycurgus that he should destroy her offspring, marry her, and become king. He refused the proffer, though tempo- rarily exercising authority, and on the birth of Charilaus immediately presented him in the agora as the future king of the Spartans. Ac- cused by the widow of ambitious designs, he left Sparta, and went to Crete, where he studied the laws of Minos and the institutions and cus- toms of the different cities ; thence he visited Ionia and Egypt, and, as some authors affirm, Libya, Iberia, and even India. In Ionia he is said to have obtained from the descendants of Creophylus a copy of the Homeric poems, which had not previously been known in the Peloponnesus; and some authors report that he had even conversed with Homer himself. Meantime, under the sway of Charilaus, Sparta was in a state of anarchy. On his return, find- ing the two kings as well as the people weary of their condition, and that he was regarded as the man to correct the disorders of the state, he undertook the task, and with this view consulted the Delphian oracle. Eeceiving strong assurances of divine encouragement, and also more special instructions, which were the primitive rhetra of his constitution, he suddenly presented himself in the agora, with 30 of the most distinguished Spartans, all in arms, as his guards and partisans. King Chari- laus at once consented to second the designs of his uncle, and the bulk of the Spartans sub- mitted to the venerable Heraclid, who appear- ed both as a reformer and as Delphic mission- ary. "Lycurgus," says Grote, "does not try to make the poor rich nor the rich poor ; but he imposes upon both the same subjugating drill, the same habits of life, gentlemanlike idleness, and unlettered strength, the same fare, clothing, labors, privations, endurance, punishments, and subordination. It is a lesson instructive at least, however unsatisfactory, to political students, that with all this equality of dealing he ends with creating a community in whom not merely the love of preeminence, but