Lycurgus of Sparta and Solon of Athens both influential leaders of their time, faced similar issues during their govern-shiptime in leadership, but implemented different techniques in resolving those these issues. Lycurgus of Sparta was traditionally portrayed as the leader who created his own unique system that turned Sparta into a successful military society. His system which was then titled the Lycurgan system, privileged social stability, group values, and devotion to an overarching state, and in turn it marginalized cultural and economic innovations as well as individual family life . (Bailkey and Lim, page129) Before Lyrcurgus implemented the new system that would be later be known as a turnaround time in history for the Spartans, Sparta
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The biggest change he implemented was the redistribution of lands. The poor and needy were becoming a burden to the state, so` Lycurgus wanted to abolish all pride and envy between the Spartans and sought to remove the disparity between the rich and the poor and achieve equality. Lycurgus successfully abolished all pride, envy, crime, and luxury, which came from old and horrible evils of riches and poverty, by inducing all landowners to offer their estates for redistribution and prevailing upon all citizens to live on equal standards with equal incomes. The citizens were to strive only in surpassing one another in courage and virtue, which eradicated any room for social inequalities among them except as praise or blame can create. Still wanting to ensure that an equal standard of living were maintained, he introduced a common dining table where men would eat and dine together on a fixed allowance of food. Instead of eating in their own homes and feasting on richly prepared meals or unhealthy indulgences. He wanted to make sure that any room for jealousy, envy or inequality was completely removed in this system. He then abolished the use of gold and silver money and made iron money the only legal …show more content…
Just like in Sparta, the tensions between the rich and the poor were reaching a point of crisis. The city was on the edge of a revolution, and the only way to achieve stability seemed to be by changing to a tyranny. All the common people were in debt to the rich. Many peasants increasingly lost their meager landholdings and became tenant farmers working for the rich; this progressively led to the rich getting richer and the poor remaining poor. Solon 's economic and political strategy sought to reach a compromise between the rich and the poor in a way that allowed neither to triumph
The biggest change he implemented was the redistribution of lands. The poor and needy were becoming a burden to the state, so` Lycurgus wanted to abolish all pride and envy between the Spartans and sought to remove the disparity between the rich and the poor and achieve equality. Lycurgus successfully abolished all pride, envy, crime, and luxury, which came from old and horrible evils of riches and poverty, by inducing all landowners to offer their estates for redistribution and prevailing upon all citizens to live on equal standards with equal incomes. The citizens were to strive only in surpassing one another in courage and virtue, which eradicated any room for social inequalities among them except as praise or blame can create. Still wanting to ensure that an equal standard of living were maintained, he introduced a common dining table where men would eat and dine together on a fixed allowance of food. Instead of eating in their own homes and feasting on richly prepared meals or unhealthy indulgences. He wanted to make sure that any room for jealousy, envy or inequality was completely removed in this system. He then abolished the use of gold and silver money and made iron money the only legal …show more content…
Just like in Sparta, the tensions between the rich and the poor were reaching a point of crisis. The city was on the edge of a revolution, and the only way to achieve stability seemed to be by changing to a tyranny. All the common people were in debt to the rich. Many peasants increasingly lost their meager landholdings and became tenant farmers working for the rich; this progressively led to the rich getting richer and the poor remaining poor. Solon 's economic and political strategy sought to reach a compromise between the rich and the poor in a way that allowed neither to triumph