by
Damien F. Mackey
The esteemed Spartan “Lawgiver”, Lycurgus, is so
reminiscent of the biblical Moses as to inspire scholarly efforts to attempt running
‘parallel lives’ between these two characters.
Given the semi-legendary nature of early ancient
Greek ‘history’, the apparent ‘Dark Ages’, and the constant borrowings of
Greece from its more easterly neighbours, might not “Lycurgus” be simply
another of those manifold Greek appropriations from the Hebrews?
Scholars are intrigued by the “Ten Lost Tribes of
Israel”, and the apparent disappearance from the biblical record of a large
portion of the tribe of Simeon, which some think may have become the Spartans
of Greek Lacedaemonia. That there was a blood connection between the Spartans
and the Jews is apparent from a letter written in the Maccabean age by the
Spartan king, Arius, to the high priest, Onias (I Maccabees 12:20-21):
“King Arius of
Sparta to Onias the High Priest, greetings. We have
found a document about the Spartans and the Jews indicating that we are related
and that both of our nations are descended from Abraham”.
whilst preserving the conventional belief that Lycurgus was a real C9th
(900-800) BC Spartan. I, for my part, when confronted by what I perceived to be
certain notable parallels between the so-called Athenian statesman, Solon, and
king Solomon of Israel - and being acutely aware of the problems of early Greek
history in need of a revision - had opted for Solon as, not just like Solomon,
but rather as a Greek appropriation of King Solomon: my bottom line here being
that there was no historical Athenian
statesman, Solon.
I wrote briefly about this in my:
Solomon and Sheba
in which I proposed that the quasi-royal official, Senenmut (or Senmut), of
18th dynasty Egypt (who was a real person) was also Solomon:
APPENDIX B: SOLOMON IN
GREEK FOLKLORE
There is a case in Greek
‘history’ of a wise lawgiver who nonetheless over-organised his country, to the
point of his being unable to satisfy either rich or poor, and who then went off
travelling for a decade (notably in Egypt). This was Solon, who has come down
to us as the first great Athenian statesman. Plutarch [115] tells that, with
people coming to visit Solon every day, either to praise him or to ask him
probing questions about the meaning of his laws, he left Athens for a time,
realising that ‘In great affairs you cannot please all parties’. According to
Plutarch:
‘[Solon]
made his commercial interests as a ship-owner an excuse to travel and
sailed away ... for ten years from the Athenians, in the hope that during this period
they would become accustomed to his laws. He went first of all to Egypt and
stayed for a while, as he mentions himself
‘where the Nile pours forth
its
waters by the shore of Canopus’.’
We recall
Solon's intellectual encounters with the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis and
Saïs (in the Nile Delta), as described in Plutarch's ‘Life of Solon’ and
Plato's ‘Timaeus’ [116]. The chronology and parentage of Solon were disputed
even in ancient times [117]. Since he was a wise statesman, an intellectual
(poet, writer) whose administrative reforms, though brilliant, eventually led
to hardship for the poor and disenchantment for the wealthy; and since Solon's
name is virtually identical to that of ‘Solomon’; and since he went to Egypt
(also to Cyprus, Sidon and Lydia) for about a decade at the time when he was
involved in the shipping business, then I suggest that ‘Solon’ of the Greeks
was their version of Solomon, in the mid-to-late period of his reign. The
Greeks picked up the story and transferred it from Jerusalem to Athens, just as
they (or, at least Herodotus) later confused Sennacherib's attack on Jerusalem
(c. 700 BC), by relocating it to Pelusium in Egypt [118].
Much has
been attributed to the Greeks that did not belong to them - e.g. Breasted [119]
made the point that Hatshepsut's marvellous temple structure was a witness to
the fact that the Egyptians had developed architectural styles for which the
later Greeks would be credited as originators. Given the Greeks' tendency to
distort history, or to appropriate inventions, one would not expect to find in
Solon a perfect, mirror-image of King Solomon.
Thanks to
historical revisions [120], we now know that the ‘Dark Age’ between the
Mycenaean (or Heroic) period of Greek history (concurrent with the time of
Hatshepsut) and the Archaic period (that commences with Solon), is an
artificial construct. This makes it even more plausible that Hatshepsut and
Solomon were contemporaries of ‘Solon’. The tales of Solon's travels to Egypt,
Sidon and Lydia (land of the Hittites) may well reflect to some degree
Solomon's desire to appease his foreign women - Egyptian, Sidonian and Hittite
- by building shrines for them (I Kings 11: 1, 7-8).
Both Solomon and Solon are
portrayed as being the wisest amongst the wise. In the pragmatic Greek version
Solon prayed for wealth rather than wisdom - but ‘justly acquired wealth’,
since Zeus punishes evil [121]. In the Hebrew version, God gave ‘riches and
honour’ to Solomon because he had not asked for them, but had prayed instead
for ‘a wise and discerning mind’, to enable him properly to govern his people
(I Kings 3:12-13).
[End of quotes]
This is how I would also assess the historicity of Lycurgus, too, that there was no historical Spartan lawgiver,
Lycurgus. And even more so with him than in the case of Solon, given that
Lycurgus is supposed to have anteceded Solon by about a century and a half. And
I may be assisted in this estimation by the suspicions regarding the real
existence of Lycurgus anyway. Thus, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_of_Sparta “The
actual person Lycurgus may or may not have existed, but as a symbolic founder
of the Spartan state he was looked to as the initiator of many of its social
and political institutions …”.
Below I give some parts of what Feldman has written concerning the
considerable likenesses between Moses and Lycurgus, recommending, however, that
one read the whole document:
Parallels between the Lives of Moses and Lycurgus
We may here note a
number of similar themes in Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus and Josephus'
biography (in effect) of Moses: genealogy; upbringing, virtues of wisdom,
courage, justice, and especially moderation and piety; relation to the divine;
rejection of kingship; setting up a council of elders; military leadership;
educational systems for youths; dealings with the masses and with opponents;
suppression of rebellions; attitude toward aliens; opposition to putting laws
into writing; attitude toward wealth and poverty; setting up a tribal and
sub-tribal system; allotment of lands; laws pertaining to first-fruits; laws
and practices pertaining to marriage and parentage; laws pertaining to the
modesty of women; the status of women, priests, and slaves; the training of
soldiers; diet, burial; laws against sorcery; the manner of the lawgiver's
death; laws forbidding modification of the laws. In particular, both felt
strongly that the introduction of alien principles and institutions would destroy
the internal harmony of the state.
….
and, regarding the actual Laws:
The Legal Codes of
Moses and Lycurgus
Both Moses' laws and those of
Lycurgus were meant for the purpose of instruction. They were intended to teach
a way of life in order to direct people to act in a manner most beneficial for
themselves and for society at large. It is surely significant that the laws
promulgated by Moses are called Torah in the biblical Hebrew known to
Josephus (Josh. 8: 31–2; 2 Kgs. 14: 6; Mal. 3: 22; Neh. 8: 1). This word comes
from a root meaning ‘instruction’ or ‘teaching’. Lycurgus' social system is
called ἀγωγή (direction,
training, guidance, conduct) (Polyb. 1. 32. 1), emphasizing the relationship
between the laws and the method of their transmission.
Philo (Spec. 4. 102)
had already thought of comparing Moses to Lycurgus. Moses, he says, ‘approved
neither of rigorous austerity like the Spartan legislator, nor of dainty
living, like him who introduced the Ionians and Sybarites to luxurious (p.225) and voluptuous
practices. Instead he opened up a path midway between the two.’ He compares
him, in speaking of the dietary laws, to a musician who blends the highest and
the lowest notes of the scale, thus producing a life of harmony and concord,
which none can blame.
Josephus is well aware of the
reputation of Lycurgus as the legislator who is held in the highest admiration
and notes that the city for which he legislated is praised throughout the world
for having remained faithful to his laws (Ap. 2. 225). Nevertheless, in
comparing Moses with Lycurgus and other legislators, he states (Ap. 2.
154, Loeb trans.) that ‘our legislator’ is the most ancient of all: ‘Compared
with him, your Lycurguses and Solons and Zaleucus, who gave the Locrians their
laws, and all who are held in such high esteem by the Greeks, appear to have
been born but yesterday.’ He then remarks that the very word ‘law’ (νόμος) was
unknown in ancient Greece, for Homer never employs it in his poems. To
emphasize the durability of the constitution promulgated by Moses as compared
with that introduced by Lycurgus, he remarks that Moses' constitution has
lasted more than two thousand years, far longer than that of Lycurgus.11 Furthermore, the Spartans adhered to
Lycurgus' code only so long as they retained their independence, whereas the
Jews retained theirs, even though it imposed far stricter obligations and more
demanding physical duties than those of Sparta, for hundreds of years when they
were no longer independent and were suffering numerous calamities. Large
numbers of Spartans, in defiance of Lycurgus' code, have actually surrendered
in a body to the enemy.
In his generally favourable
description of Moses and the Jewish constitution, Hecataeus of Abdera (ap.
Diod. Sic. 40. 36) asserts that ‘their lawgiver was careful also to make
provision (πρόνοια) for warfare, and required the young men to cultivate
manliness (ἀνδρεία),
steadfastness (καρτερία), and, generally, the endurance (ὑπομονή) of every hardship
(κακοπαθεία)’, the implication being that the laws were of Moses' own devising.
Furthermore, according to Hecataeus (ap. Diod. Sic. 40. 3. 4), ‘the
sacrifices that he established differ from those of other nations, as does
their way of living, for as a result of their own expulsion (p.226) from Egypt he
introduced a somewhat unsocial and intolerant mode of life’. Similarly, when
Plutarch's Lycurgus returned to Sparta after his travels abroad, he was
convinced (Lyc. 5. 2) that a mere partial change of laws would not
suffice and so introduced a new and different regimen.
Josephus' Moses, in preparing
the Israelites for departure from Egypt, arranged them by fraternities (AJ
2. 312), this unit (ϕρατρία) being a subdivision of the tribe (ϕυλή) in Greek political usage. Again in connection with the Passover (AJ
3. 248) he divided the Israelites into tribes and into subdivisions of tribes
known as fraternities or brotherhoods (ϕρατρίαι). The word ϕρατρία (or ϕατρία in Josephus—depending upon the manuscripts) is also
used of a group celebrating the pagan festival of the Karneia at Sparta
(Demetrius of Scepsis, ap. Ath. 4. 141f). Lycurgus also (Lyc. 6.
1–2), following advice from the Delphic oracle, divided the people into tribes
(ϕυλαί) and subdivisions known as ὠβαί, corresponding to ϕρατρίαι.
One of the institutions that
Josephus' Moses established to assist him in governing the Israelites was a
council of elders (γερουσία, AJ 4. 186). Similarly, according to
Plutarch (Lyc. 5. 6) the first and most important of the innovations
made by Lycurgus was his institution of a council of elders (γέροντες), which,
as Plutarch says, citing Plato (Leg. 691e), ‘by being blended with the
feverish government of the kings, and by having an equal vote with them in
matters of the highest importance, brought safety and due moderation into
counsels of state’, through avoiding the extremes of tyranny and democracy.
According to Hecataeus of
Abdera (ap. Diod. Sic. 40. 3. 7), Moses assigned equal allotments to
private citizens, though greater parcels to the priests. As to Lycurgus'
reforms, Plutarch (Lyc. 8. 2) says that Lycurgus, in his determination
to banish insolence, envy, crime, and luxury, persuaded his fellow-citizens to
make one parcel of all their territory and allotted equal amounts of land to
all citizens, so that later when he traversed the land just after the harvest
and saw heaps of grain equal to one another, he remarked (Lyc. 8. 4):
‘All Laconia looks like a family estate newly divided among many brothers.’
Whereas the Bible (Exod. 20:
4, Deut. 5: 7–9) prohibits making a graven image or any likeness of anything
that is in heaven, on earth, or beneath the earth, Josephus (Ap. 2. 191,
Loeb trans.) (p.227) goes much further in explaining why this is so. ‘No
materials’, he says, ‘however costly, are fit to make an image of Him; no art
has skill to conceive and represent it. The like of Him we have never seen, we
do not imagine, and it is impious to conjecture.’ Although, of course, Sparta
did have statues, the arts were not practised, since, as Plutarch says (Lyc.
9. 3), Lycurgus banished the ‘unnecessary and superfluous’ arts. Instead, the
Spartans excelled in producing common and necessary utensils, such as the
famous Laconian drinking-cup (Lyc. 9. 4–5).
In Deut. 18: 10–11 we read
that an enchanter, conjurer, charmer, consulter with familiar spirits, and a
wizard are not to be tolerated among the Israelites. Exod. 22: 17 specifically
reads ‘You shall not permit a sorceress to live.’ The Septuagint renders this
latter verse as ‘You shall not preserve poisoners’, and Josephus (AJ 4.
279) renders it similarly: ‘Let not even one of the Israelites have poison,
whether deadly or one of those made for other injuries; and if, having acquired
it, he should be discovered, let him die.’ Lycurgus, Plutarch says (Lyc.
9. 3), by banishing all gold and silver money and by permitting the use of iron
money only, which proved to be so heavy and clumsy, effectively made it
impossible to acquire a vagabond soothsayer. Moreover, whereas, according to
the Bible (Lev. 21: 7; cf. AJ 3. 276), only a priest is actually forbidden
to marry a prostitute, Josephus has carried this further in stating that it is
forbidden for anyone to marry a prostitute (AJ 4. 245). Similarly,
according to Plutarch (Lyc. 9. 3), Lycurgus, by banishing gold and
silver money and permitting only cumbersome iron money, made it impractical to
purchase a keeper of harlots.
According to the Bible (Num.
18: 12; Jos. AJ 4. 70), the first-fruits of all the produce that grows
from the ground are to be offered for sacrifice. Similarly, according to the Lycurgan
constitution (Lyc. 12. 2), whenever anyone made a sacrifice of
first-fruits or brought home game from the hunt, he sent a portion to his mess.
Josephus' Moses stresses the
particular importance of education in his extra-biblical remark (AJ 4.
261) of the parents to the rebellious child: ‘Giving the greatest thanks to God
we reared you with devotion, sparing nothing of what seemed to be useful for
your well-being and education (παιδεία) in the best of things.’ In an
extra-biblical statement (Ap. 2. 173–4), Josephus (p.228) emphasizes that
Moses, starting with the food fed to infants, the persons with whom one may
associate, and the period of time to be devoted to strenuous labour and the
time to be devoted to rest, left nothing to the discretion and caprice of the
individual. The code promulgated by Moses likewise prescribed matters of
clothing, notably the prohibition of mixed wool and linen (Lev. 19: 19; Deut.
22: 11; AJ 4. 208), with Josephus adding that such clothing had been
designated for the priests alone. The code likewise prohibited transvestism
(Deut. 22: 5; AJ 4. 301), which Josephus applies to warfare, and
prescribed laws pertaining to hair for nazirites (Num. 6: 5; AJ 4. 72).
We find an emphasis on education in Josephus' extra-biblical remark (AJ
4. 165) that Joshua had already been given a complete education, Moses having
taught him thoroughly, in the laws and in divine matters. A similar importance
is attached to education by Lycurgus in Plutarch's statement (Lyc. 14.
1) that ‘in the matter of education (παιδεία), which he regarded as the
greatest and noblest task of the lawgiver, he began at the very source, by
carefully regulating marriages and births’. Similarly, Lycurgus legislated
among other provisions the amount and type of food to be fed (Lyc. 8. 4,
10. 1–3, 17. 4), the people with whom one might associate (12. 4–7), the
clothing to be worn (14. 2, 16. 6), and the arrangement of hair (16. 6).
Josephus' Moses (AJ 3.
270–4) places great emphasis on the laws of marriage, adding numerous
extra-biblical remarks, particularly pertaining to the ordeal of women
suspected of adultery and the complete prohibition of adultery, ‘considering it
blessed for men to behave soundly with regard to marriage and advantageous for
both states and households that children be legitimate’. He terms it outrageous
(AJ 3. 275) for a man to have sexual relations with a woman who has
become unclean with her natural excretions, with animals, or with other males
because of the beauty in them. Being himself a priest, Josephus stresses the
special marital prohibitions for priests and, above all, for high priests (AJ
3. 276–7). In another statement of the laws of marriage (AJ 4. 244–8) he
adds further stringencies, such as the requirement to marry free-born virgins,
not to marry female slaves, even if compelled by passion, and not to marry a
prostitute. In a further restatement of the laws of marriage (Ap. 2.
199–203) he again emphasizes the provisions in the Pentateuch, (p.229) adding that
marriage is solely for the procreation of children and that abortion is
prohibited (Ap. 2. 199, 202).
Moses (Deut. 4: 2, 13: 1), in
his address to the Israelites just before his death, forbids adding to or
subtracting from the commandments of the Torah (so also Jos. Ap. 1. 42).
He further-more forbade deviating from the decisions of judges (Deut. 17:
10–11). Similarly Lycurgus (Lyc. 29. 1), just before he died, we are
told, ardently desired, so far as human forethought could accomplish the task,
to make his system of laws immortal and to let it go down unchanged to future
ages. Lycurgus accordingly (Lyc. 29. 2), like Moses, assembled the
Spartans and told them that they must abide by the established laws and make no
change in them. He then proceeded to exact an oath from the kings and the
councillors, as well as from the rest of the citizens, that they would abide by
these laws. He thereupon proceeded to consult the Delphic Oracle (Lyc.
29. 3–4), which confirmed that the laws were good and that the city would
continue to be held in the highest honour so long as it kept to the policy of
Lycurgus. He himself resolved never to release the Spartans from their oath and
proceeded to abstain from food until he died (Lyc. 29. 5).
For Josephus' Moses the
hallmark of education was obedience, and the worst offence for a child was to
be disobedient (Deut. 21: 18–21; AJ 4. 260–4). Moses' success in
educating his people, says Josephus, is shown by the fact that his laws
survived his own lifetime. Indeed (AJ 3. 317–18): ‘there is not a Hebrew
who does not, just as if he were still there and ready to punish him for any
breach of discipline, obey the laws laid down by Moses, even though in
violating them he would escape detection.’ Josephus notes that only recently,
in his own lifetime, when certain non-Jews from Mesopotamia, after a journey of
several months, came to venerate the Temple in Jerusalem, they could not
partake of the sacrifices that they had offered because Moses had forbidden
this to those not governed by the laws of the Torah. Similarly Lycurgus,
clearly Plutarch's paragon of the lawgiver, regarded education as the greatest
and noblest task of the lawgiver (Lyc. 14. 1), and the training of
youths was ‘calculated to make them obey commands well, endure hardships, and
conquer in battle’. Indeed, Plutarch (Lyc. 30. 3) expresses amazement at
those who claim that the Spartans, under the inspiration of Lycurgus, knew how
to obey but did not know (p.230) how to command and quotes the remark of the Spartan king
Theopompus, who, when someone said that Sparta was safe and secure because her
kings knew how to command, replied, ‘No, rather because her citizens know how
to obey.’12 Under Lycurgus, according to Plutarch,
Sparta attained utter stability. The city maintained the first rank in Greece
for ‘good government and reputation, observing as she did for five hundred
years the laws of Lycurgus, in which no one of the fourteen kings who followed
him made any change, down to Agis the son of Archidamus’ (Lyc. 29. 6).
The main, most serious, and
most recurrent charge by intellectuals against Jews was that the Jews hated
gentiles. It was the self-isolation of the Jews that was apparently at the
heart of these attacks (Sevenster 1975: 89; Feldman 1998a: 125–49; Schäfer 1997: 170–81, 205–11). Even Hecataeus of Abdera (ap.
Diod. Sic. 40. 3. 4), though on the whole well disposed toward the Jews,
characterizes the Jewish mode of life as somewhat un-social (ἀπάνθρωπος) and hostile to
foreigners (μισόξενος). Though the Pentateuch (Exod. 23: 9) commands the Jew to
treat the stranger with respect, the dietary laws, Sabbath laws, and rules
pertaining to idolatry were formidable barriers that to a large extent
prevented the Jews from fraternizing with gentiles. In a very real sense,
Josephus' Antiquities is an extended answer to charges that the Jews
were guilty of hatred of mankind. Josephus adds to the Bible by explaining (AJ
1. 192) that the reason for the commandment of circumcision was to prevent
mixture with others and thus to preserve the individual identity of the Jewish
people. But, at the same time, Josephus' Moses interprets the law (Exod. 22:
27), as the Septuagint does, as forbidding the cursing of ‘gods whom other
cities believe in’ (AJ 4. 207) ‘out of respect for the very word “God”’
(Ap. 2. 237). Moreover, Josephus significantly omits the passages (Exod.
34: 12–13; Deut. 12: 2–3) in which God instructs Moses that when the Israelites
enter the land of Canaan they should destroy all the statues, devastate all the
high places, and make no covenant with the Canaanites. On the contrary, he
stresses (Ap. 2. 146) that the Mosaic code was designed to promote
humanity toward the world at large, that (p.231) ‘our legislator’
inculcated into the Jews the duty of sharing with others (Ap. 2.
211–13), and that not only must the Jew furnish food and supplies to those
gentile friends and neighbours who ask for them, but he must show consideration
even for declared enemies. Moses' lack of prejudice is likewise displayed in
the respect shown to Reuel (Jethro), Moses' father-in-law, who is described (AJ
2. 258) as a priest held in high veneration by the people in the country (see
Feldman 1997: 573–94).
Just as the code promulgated
by Moses was intended to make sure that the Israelites would be kept separate
and distinct from others, so Plutarch's Lycurgus (Lyc. 27. 3–4)
introduced measures to isolate the Spartans from foreign influences. In
particular, he did not permit Spartans to live abroad and, in turn, kept
foreigners away from the city, ‘for along with strange people, strange
doctrines must come in; and novel doctrines bring novel decisions, from which
there must arise many feelings and resolutions which destroy the harmony of the
existing political order.’
Josephus (Ap. 2. 259)
makes specific note of both of these practices of the Spartans, namely forbidding
citizens to travel abroad and not permitting foreigners to enter the city, and
for the reason given by Plutarch, that such contacts might lead to corruption
of their laws. At this point Josephus introduces a major difference between the
Spartans and the Jews, namely that the Jews, while having no desire to emulate
the customs of others, nonetheless gladly welcome any who wish to share their
own (Ap. 2. 261).
….
