THE ANCIENT CUSTOMS OF THE SPARTANS (INSTITUTA LACONICA)
INTRODUCTION
Plutarch wrote an article about the Spartans, as he
tells us in his
Life of Lysander, chap. xvii. (443 a).
The only question, therefore, that can be raised is
whether
The Ancient Customs of the Spartans is that
article. It is true that adverse judgement has been
pronounced upon it, mainly because of some infelicities of language, and the character of the last
chapter; yet, whether written by Plutarch or by
another, it is in the main the work of Plutarch, and
much of it comes from the same source as Plutarch's
Life of Lycurgus. The body of facts and traditions
here set down is, in great part, to be found scattered
here and there in other writers, especially in the
extant histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Xenophon, to say nothing of other historians whose
works are now lost. Much had been brought together, long before Plutarch's time, in the
Constitution of Sparta, which is printed among the works
of Xenophon.
A hint that various sources were used in making
this compilation may be found in the fact that some
of the verbs are in the present tense and others in
the past.