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He also proposed decrees,Several decrees moved by him are extant, e.g. I.G. ii.² 337, 338. making use of a certain Olynthian named Eucleides, who was an expert in decrees. And although he was well-to-do, he wore one and the same cloak winter and summer and put on sandals only on days when they wTere necessary. He studied night and day, since he had no natural gift for extemporaneous speaking, and he lay on a cot with only a sheepskin and a pillow on it, so that he might wake up easily and study. When someone found fault with him for paying money to sophists although he made words his profession, he replied that if anyone would promise to make his sons better, he would pay him, not thousands only, but half his property. He was an outspoken speaker on account of his good birth. Once, indeed, when the Athenians were showing dissent as he was speaking, he burst out with: O Corcyraean whip, how ma ly talents you are worth! The Corcyraean whip was especially stinging, and the orator’s outbreak means: I would give a great deal to use a cat-o’-nine-tails on you people. And when they were proclaiming Alexander a god, What sort of god, he said, is he when those who come out of his temple have to sprinkle themselves with holy water? After his death his sons were handed over to the eleven executioners on the accusation of Menesaechmus, the indictment being written by Thrasycles; but when Demosthenes, who was at that time in exile, wrote a letter to the Athenians Cf. Demosthenes, Epistle iii., and Aeschines, Epistle xii. 14. saying that their reputation was suffering because of Lycurgus’s sons, they changed their mind and released them, Democles, a pupil of Theophrastus, speaking in their defence. He himself and some of his descendants were buried at public expense; and their monuments are opposite the Paeonian Athena in the garden of the philosopher MelanthiusJudeich, Topogr. v. Athen ², p. 409, conjectures that the garden of Melanthius was in the neighbourhood of the Academy.; they are in the form of tables, and those of Lycurgus and his children have inscriptions and are still preserved in our day. His greatest achievement was the raising of the State revenue to twelve hundred talents when it had previously been sixty. When he was at the point of death he gave orders that he be carried to the temple of the Great Mother and into the Bouleuterion,The Bouleuterion was the meeting-place of the Boulê or Senate; the foundations of this and of the temple of the Great Mother have recently been found on the west side of the Agora. See T. L. Shear, Hesperia, iv. pp. 349 ff. as he wished to give an accounting for his public acts; and when no one had the face to accuse him except Menesaechmus, he freed himself from his false accusations, was carried to his house, and died,His death occurred about 324 b.c. having been considered a honourable man throughout his whole life, and highly praised for his speeches. He never was convicted, though many brought accusations against him.
