Lycurgus

Lycurgus was born around 390 BC into one of the oldest priestly families of Athens — the Eteoboutadae, who held the hereditary priesthood of Poseidon-Erechtheus and Athena Polias. He studied under Plato and Isocrates before entering public life as a financial administrator of extraordinary ability.

As controller of Athenian public revenues from 338 to 326 BC, Lycurgus rebuilt Athens after the shock of Chaeronea. He restored the finances, completed the Theatre of Dionysus in stone, built a new stadium, reorganised the ephebic military training system, and commissioned official copies of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides — the manuscripts from which all later copies descend.

Only one of his speeches survives: Against Leocrates, the prosecution of a man who fled Athens during the crisis after Chaeronea. It is a fierce, patriotic oration that quotes extensively from Homer, Euripides, and Tyrtaeus to shame the defendant. Lycurgus was not the most elegant orator — his style is severe and earnest — but the speech reveals a man of deep conviction about civic duty and the moral foundations of the state.