Great Rhetra

The classical authors and the literate population of Sparta knew better than to suppose that the rhetra went into effect as written by an oracle and remained unchanged.

For example, Cyrus the Younger knew perfectly well that Lysander was forbidden by law to hold a second term as navarch, and yet he requested the Spartan government to make an exception.

According to Herodotus,[1] at some time before the reigns of Leon of Sparta and Agasicles, the Spartans "had been the very worst governed people in Greece."

Imitating customs he found in Dorian Crete he innovated the Gerousia, the Ephorate, the Enomotiae, the Triacades and the Syssitia.

The younger source, Plutarch, speaks less confidently of the details of Lycurgus' life, being faced by that time with multiple traditions, and having no way to judge between them.

He says:[2] "There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely any thing is asserted by one of them which is not called into question or contradicted by the rest."

[3] These oracles they from Apollo heard, And brought from Pytho home the perfect word; The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land, Shall foremost in the nation's council stand; The elders next to them; the commons last; Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed.