IV.  With this intention he set sail, and first came to Crete, where he studied the constitution and mixed with the leading statesmen.  Some part of their laws he approved and made himself master of, with the intention of adopting them on his return home, while with others he was dissatisfied.  One of the men who had a reputation there for learning and state-craft he made his friend, and induced him to go to Sparta.  This was Thales, who was thought to be merely a lyric poet, and who used this art to conceal his graver acquirements, being in reality deeply versed in legislation.  His poems were exhortations to unity and concord in verse, breathing a spirit of calm and order, which insensibly civilised their hearers and by urging them to the pursuit of honourable objects led them to lay aside the feelings of party strife so prevalent in Sparta; so that he may be said in some degree to have educated the people and prepared them to receive the reforms of Lykurgus.

From Crete Lykurgus sailed to Asia Minor, wishing, it is said, to contrast the thrifty and austere mode of life of the Cretans with the extravagance and luxury of the Ionians, as a physician compares healthy and diseased bodies, and to note the points of difference in the two states.  There, it seems, he first met with the poems of Homer, which were preserved by the descendants of Kreophylus, and observing that they were no less useful for politics and education than for relaxation and pleasure, he eagerly copied and compiled them, with the intention of bringing them home with him.  There was already some dim idea of the existence of these poems among the Greeks, but few possessed any portions of them, as they were scattered in fragments, but Lykurgus first made them known.  The Egyptians suppose that Lykurgus visited them also, and that he especially admired their institution of a separate caste of warriors.  This he transferred to Sparta, and, by excluding working men and the lower classes from the government, made the city a city indeed, pure from all admixture.  Some Greek writers corroborate the Egyptians in this, but as to Lykurgus having visited Libya and Iberia, or his journey to India and meeting with the Gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, there, no one that we know of tells this except the Spartan Aristokrates, the son of Hipparchus.

V. During Lykurgus’s absence the Lacedaemonians regretted him and sent many embassies to ask him to return, telling him that their kings had indeed the royal name and state, but nothing else to distinguish them from the common people, and that he alone had the spirit of a ruler and the power to influence men’s minds.  Even the kings desired his presence, as they hoped that he would assist in establishing their authority and would render the masses less insolent.  Returning to a people in this condition, he at once began alterations and reforms on a sweeping scale, considering that it was useless and unprofitable to do such work by halves, but that, as in the case of