ON GEROUSIA:
- Xenophon:
“Lycurgus also provided for the continual cultivation of virtues even to old age, by fixing the election to the council of elders as a last ordeal at the goal of life, thus making it impossible for a high standard of virtuous living to be disregarded even in old age.... Moreover he laid upon them, like some irresistible necessity, the obligation to cultivate the whole virtue of a citizen. Provided they duly perform the injunctions of the law, the city belonged to them each and all, in absolute possession, and on an equal footing.... “.
- Polybius:
“in each constitution there is naturally engendered a particular vice inseparable from it: in kingship it is absolutism; in aristocracy it is oligarchy; in democracy lawless ferocity and violence; and to these vicious states all these forms of government are, as I have lately shown, inevitably transformed. Lycurgus, I say, saw all this and accordingly combined together all the excellences and distinctive features of the best constitutions, that no part should become unduly predominant and be perverted into its kindred vice; and that, each power being checked by the others, no one part should turn the scale or decisively out-balance the others; but that, by being accurately adjusted and in exact equilibrium, the whole might remain long steady like a ship sailing close to the wind. The royal power was prevented from growing insolent by fear of the people, which had also assigned to it an adequate share in the constitution. The people in their turn were restrained from a bold contempt of the kings by fear of the Gerusia, the members of which, being selected on grounds of merit, were certain to throw their influence on the side of justice in every question that arose; and thus the party placed at a disadvantage by its conservative tendency was always strengthened and supported by the weight and influence of the Gerusia. The result of this combination has been that the Lacedaemonians retained their freedom for the longest period of any people with which we are acquainted.”
- Plutarch:
“Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which having a power equal to the king's in matters of great consequence, and, as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth……..found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy.”
MODERN HISTORIANS:
- “It would take a brave and confident king to pursue a policy that did not command the support of the majority of the Gerousia, knowing that in the event of failure, he was likely to be prosecuted upon his return.” Buckley ( see G E M De Ste Croix )
- “ Even the kings whose position was more exalted than of other citizens, were tried before the Gerousia and ephors…the Gerousia was the highest lawcourt in Sparta, the only court that could inflict the graver penalties of deat, exile or loss of civil rights.” Andrews
- “ Any Spartan, even a king, might be influenced in his course of action by the knowledge that he was likely to be prosecuted if he pursued an unsuccessful policy, in opposition to the wishes of the faction then dominant in the Gerousia..Xenophon tells us when King Cleombrotus was leading the army in Boeotia, and his friends told him that if he let the Thebans escape without a battle, he would be “ in danger of suffering the extreme penalty at the hands of the city.”And his enemies commented that this time Cleombrotus would really show whether the rumour of his partiality for the Thebans was true or not. The result was that Cleombrotus, who would have been well aware of the personal influence on many gerontes of the passionately anti Theban King Agesilaus, was prompted to join battle, perhaps against his better judgement.” (Ste Croix)
