In the ancient Greek writing “Lycurgus”, the Spartan king introduces various political, social, and economic reforms that were simple enough to guide the ancient Greeks, but still complex enough to govern entire nations. The intuition and intelligence of Lycurgus, and his ability to communicate with his people at a personal level earned him unquestioned loyalty and fervent love from his subjects. His temperance and wisdom were often tested, but the great king never folded in the heat of battle. All of the aforementioned qualities became evident when Lycurgus introduced his economic reforms. The socioeconomic structure of ancient Sparta was unbalanced and disproportioned, and because of the social unrest between the citizens of Sparta economic reforms were desperately needed. Plutarch highlights this issue when he says: For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and their state was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth centered upon a very few. To the end therefore, that he might expel from the state arrogance and envy, luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate diseases of want and superfluity (Plutarch 9). The first of Lycurgus’s economic reforms was the division of land into thirty-nine thousand equal shares that where to be divided amongst the state and the people. The city received nine thousand shares of land and the remaining thirty thousand were divided equally between the people. The division of land Lycurgus implemented provided enough food and necessities for every family in Sparta, and Plutarch emphasizes this when he says:It is reported, that, as he returned from a journey shortly after the division of lands, in harvest time the ground being newly reaped, seeing the stacks all standing equal and alike, he smiled, and said to those about him, “Methinks all Laconia looks like one family estate just divided amongst a number of brothe...
