As the foundation of these inquiries, we may premise a rhetra of Lycurgus, which, given in the form of an oracle of the Pythian Apollo,(339) contains the main features of the whole constitution of Sparta.(340) “_Build a temple to Zeus Hellanius and Athene Hellania; divide the tribes, and institute thirty obas; appoint a council, with its princes; convene the assembly between Babyca and Cnacion; propose this, and then depart; and let there be a right of decision and power to the people._” Here then there is an unlimited authority given to the people to approve or to reject what the kings proposed. This full power was, however, more nearly defined and limited by a subsequent clause, the addition of which was ascribed to kings Theopompus and Polydorus: “_but if the people should follow a crooked opinion, the elders and the princes shall dissent_.”(341) Plutarch interprets these words thus; “That in case the people does not either approve or reject the measure _in toto_, but alters or vitiates it in any manner, the kings and councillors should dissolve the assembly, and declare the decree to be invalid.” According to this construction, indeed, the public assembly had so far the supreme power, that nothing could become a law without its consent. But it probably could not originate any legislative measure; inasmuch as such a power would have directly contravened the aristocratical spirit of the constitution, which feared nothing so much as the passionate and turbulent haste of the populace in decreeing and deciding. The sense of the rhetra of Lycurgus is also given in some verses from the Eunomia of Tyrtæus, which, on account of their antiquity and importance, we will quote in their original language:— Φοίβου ἀκούσαντες, Πυθωνόθεν οἴκαδ᾽ ἔνεικαν μαντείας τε θεοῦ καὶ τελέεντ᾽ ἔπεα. ἄρχειν μὲν βουλῆς θεοτιμήτους βασιλῆας, οἷσι μέλει Σπάρτης ἱμερόεσσα πόλις, πρεσβυγενεῖς δὲ γέροντας, ἔπειτα δὲ δημότας ἄνδρας εὐθείαις ῥήτραις ἀνταπαμειβομένους.(342) δήμου τε πλήθει νίκην καὶ κάρτος ἕπεσθαι.(343) By the sixth line Tyrtæus means to say that the popular assembly could give a _direct_ answer to a law proposed by the authorities, but not depart from or alter it.