eminent virtues, than because he was regent to the king and had
the royal power in his hands. Some, however, envied and sought to
impede his growing influence while he was still young; chiefly the
kindred and friends of the queen-mother, who pretended to have
been dealt with injuriously. Her brother Leonidas, in a warm
debate which fell out betwixt him and Lycurgus, went so far as to
tell him to his face that he was well assured that ere long he
should see him king; suggesting suspicions and preparing the way
for an accusation of him, as though he had made away with his
nephew, if the child should chance to fail, though by a natural
death. Words of the like import were designedly cast abroad by the
queen-mother and her adherents.

Troubled at this, and not knowing what it might come to, he
thought it his wisest course to avoid their envy by a voluntary
exile, and to travel from place to place until his nephew came to
marriageable years, and, by having a son, had secured the
succession. Setting sail, therefore, with this resolution, he
first arrived at Crete, where, having considered their several
forms of government, and got an acquaintance with the principal
men amongst them, some of their laws he very much approved of, and
resolved to make use of them in his own country; a good part he
rejected as useless. Amongst the persons there the most renowned
for their learning and their wisdom in state matters was one
Thales, whom Lycurgus, by importunities and assurances of
friendship, persuaded to go over to Lacedaemon; where, though by
his outward appearance and his own profession he seemed to be no
other than a lyric poet, in reality he performed the part of one
of the ablest lawgivers in the world. The very songs which he
composed were exhortations to obedience and concord, and the very