Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa

But as regards the redistribution of the land, Lycurgus, in my opinion, is not to be censured for making it, nor Numa for not making it. In the one case, the resulting equality was the foundation and base of his polity; but in the other, since the allotment of lands was recent, there was no urgent reason for introducing another division, or for disturbing the first assignment, which probably was still in force.

With regard to community in marriage and parentage, though both, by a sound policy, inculcated in husbands a freedom from selfish jealousy, still, their methods were not entirely alike. The Roman husband, if he had a sufficient number of children to rear, and another, who lacked children, could persuade him to the step, relinquished his wife to him, having the power of surrendering her entirely, or only for a season; but the Spartan, while his wife remained in his house, and the marriage retained its original rights and obligations, might allow any one who gained his consent to share his wife for the purpose of getting children by her.

And many husbands, as we have said,[*](Lycurgus, xv. 7.) would actually invite into their homes men whom they thought most likely to procure them handsome and noble children. What, then, is the difference between the two customs? We may say, perhaps, that the Spartan implies a complete indifference to the wife, and to the jealous emotions which confound and consume the hearts of most men; while the Roman, as if with shame-faced modesty, makes a veil of the new betrothal, and concedes that community of wives is really insupportable.

Still further, Numa’s watchful care of young maidens was more conducive to feminine decorum; but the treatment of them by Lycurgus, being entirely unconfined and unfeminine, has given occasion to the poets. They call them phainomerides, bare-thighed (so Ibycus), and revile them as mad after men. Thus Euripides says[*](Andromache, 587f. (Kirchhoff), slightly adapted.):—

1. They leave their homes to mingle with the youths;
2. Their thighs are naked, flying free their robes.

For in fact the flaps of the tunic worn by their maidens were not sewn together below the waist, but would fly back and lay bare the whole thigh as they walked. Sophocles pictures the thing very clearly in these words[*](Fragment 788 (Nauck).):—

1. And that young maid, whose tunic, still unsewn,
2. Lays bare her gleaming thigh
3. Between its folds, Hermione.