The Comparison of Numa with Lycurgus   

or were parricides, or killed their mothers, so the Roman writers
report it as the first example, that Spurius Carvilius divorced his
wife, being a case that never before happened, in the space of two
hundred and thirty years from the foundation of the city; and that
one Thalaea, the wife of Pinarius, had a quarrel (the first instance
of the kind) with her mother-in-law, Gegania, in the reign of Tarquinius
Superbus; so successful was the legislator in securing order and good
conduct in the marriage relation. Their respective regulations for
marrying the young women are in accordance with those for their education.
Lycurgus made them brides when they were of full age and inclination
for it. Intercourse, where nature was thus consulted, would produce,
he thought, love and tenderness, instead of the dislike and fear attending
an unnatural compulsion; and their bodies, also, would be better able
to bear the trials of breeding and of bearing children, in his judgment
the one end of marriage.
The Romans, on the other hand, gave their daughters in marriage as
early as twelve years old, or even under; thus the thought their bodies
alike and minds would be delivered to the future husband pure and
undefiled. The way of Lycurgus seems the more natural with a view
to the birth of children; the other, looking to a life to be spent
together, is more moral. However, the rules which Lycurgus drew up
for superintendence of children, their collection into companies,
their discipline and association, as also his exact regulations for
their meals, exercises, and sports, argue Numa no more than an ordinary
lawgiver. Numa left the whole matter simply to be decided by the parent's
wishes or necessities; he might, if he pleased, make his son a husbandman
or carpenter, coppersmith or musician; as if it were of no importance
for them to be directed and trained up from the beginning to one and
the same common end, or as though it would do for them to be like
passengers on shipboard, brought thither each for his own ends and
by his own choice, uniting to act for the common good only in time
of danger upon occasion of their private fears, in general looking
simply to their own interest.
We may forbear, indeed, to blame common legislators, who may be deficient
in power or knowledge. But when a wise man like Numa had received
the sovereignty over a new and docile people, was there anything that
would better deserve his attention than the education of children,
and the training up of the young, not to contrariety and discordance
of character, but to the unity of the common model of virtue, to which
from their cradle they should have been formed and moulded? One benefit
among many that Lycurgus obtained by his course was the permanence
which it secured to his laws. The obligation of oaths to preserve
them would have availed but little, if he had not, by discipline and
education, infused them into the children's characters, and imbued
their whole early life with a love of his government. The result was
that the main points and fundamentals of his legislation continued
for above five hundred years, like some deep and thoroughly ingrained
tincture, retaining their hold upon the nation. But Numa's whole design
and aim, the continuance of peace and goodwill, on his death vanished
with him; no sooner did he expire his last breath than the gates of
Janus's temple flew wide open, and, as if war had, indeed, been kept
and caged up within those walls, it rushed forth to fill all Italy
with blood and slaughter; and thus that best and justest fabric of
things was of no long continuance, because it wanted that cement which
should have kept all together, education. What, then, some may say,
has not Rome been advanced and bettered by her wars? A question that
will need a long answer, if it is to be one to satisfy men who take
the better to consist in riches, luxury, and dominion, rather than
in security, gentleness, and that independence which is accompanied
by justice. However, it makes much for Lycurgus, that, after the Romans
had deserted the doctrine and discipline of Numa, their empire grew
and their power increased so much; whereas so soon as the Lacedaemonians
fell from the institutions of Lycurgus, they sank from the highest
to the lowest state, and, after forfeiting their supremacy over the