LYCURGUS, the celebrated legislator of the Spartans, was the son of Eunomes, king of Sparta. He travelled in Greece, the island of Crete, Egypt, and even proceeded to the Indies, to converse with the sages and learned men of those countries, and to learn their manners, customs, and laws. After the death of his brother Polydectes, who was king of Sparta, his widow offered the crown to Lycurgus, promising that she would cause herself to miscarry of the child of which she was pregnant, provided he would marry her; but Lycurgus nobly refused these advantageous offers, and afterwards contented himself with being tutor to his nephew Charillus, whom he restored to the government when he came of age. Notwithstanding this honourable and generous conduct, however, he was accused of a design to usurp the crown. This calumny obliged him to retire to the island of Crete, where he applied himself to the study of the laws and customs of nations. On his return to Lacedæmon, he reformed the government, and, to prevent the disorders occasioned by luxury and the love of riches, he prohibited the use of gold and silver; placed all the citizens in a state of equality; and introduced the strictest temperance, the most exact discipline, and those remarkable laws which, with few exceptions, have been celebrated by all historians. It is said, that, to engage the Lacedæmonians to observe them inviolably, he made them promise upon oath not to change any part of them till his return; and that he afterwards went to the island of Crete, where he killed himself, having ordered that his ashes should be thrown into the sea, from fear lest, if his body should be carried to Sparta, the Lacedæmonians would think themselves absolved from their oath. He flourished about 870 B. C.