marched in at the head of their forces,
took possession, and placed Thersander, the son of Polynikes, on the
throne. And thus ends the famous old legend of the two sieges of Thebes.

_LYCURGUS AND THE SPARTAN LAWS._

Of the many nations between which the small peninsula of Greece was
divided, much the most interesting were those whose chief cities were
Athens and Sparta. These are the states with whose doings history is
full, and without which the history of ancient Greece would be little
more interesting to us than the history of ancient China and Japan. No
two cities could have been more opposite in character and institutions
than these, and they were rivals of each other for the dominant power
through centuries of Grecian history. In Athens freedom of thought and
freedom of action prevailed. Such complete political equality of the
citizens has scarcely been known elsewhere upon the earth, and the
intellectual activity of these citizens stands unequalled. In Sparta
freedom of thought and action were both suppressed to a degree rarely
known, the most rigid institutions existed, and the only activity was a
warlike one. All thought and all education had war for their object, and
the state and city became a compact military machine. This condition was
the result of a remarkable code of laws by which Sparta was governed,
the most peculiar and surprising code which any nation has ever
possessed. It is this code, and Lycurgus, to whom Sparta owed it, with
which we are now concerned.

First, who was Lycurgus and in what age did he live? Neither of these
questions can be closely answered. Though his laws are historical, his
biography is legendary. He is believed to have lived somewhere about 800
or 900 B.C., that age of legend and fable in which Homer lived, and what
we know about him is little more to be trusted than what we know about
the great poet. The Greeks had stories of their celebrated men of this
remote age, but they were stories with which imagination often had more
to do than fact, and though we may enjoy them, it is never quite safe to
believe them.

As for the very uncertain personage named Lycurgus, we are told by
Herodotus, the Greek historian, that when he was born the Spartans were
the most lawless of the Greeks. Every man was a law unto himself, and
confusion, tumult, and injustice everywhere prevailed. Lycurgus, a noble
Spartan, sad at heart for the misery of his country, applied to the
oracle