In Search of a Constitutional Utopia

Lycurgus’ Sparta in Juliusz Słowacki’s “Agesilaus“

Abstract

The article discusses how the legacy of the semi-legendary Spartan legislator Lycurgus was introduced to Juliusz Słowacki’s late, unfinished drama Agezylausz [Agesilaos]. The first part focuses on the presence of Lycurgus in 18th- and 19th-century texts. The analysis of Słowacki’s drama, which was based on one of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, proves that the customs and reforms associated with the figure of the old Spartan legislator are not only manifestly present in the statements made by king-reformer Agis, but also scattered throughout the text as minor allusions. Seemingly presented approvingly, they turn out to be controversial, sometimes discriminatory and susceptible to interpretation of individual characters. At the same time, the presence of Lycurgus underpins the supra-historical sense of Słowacki’s late works, as the situation of seeking a political inspiration in the ancient past evokes associations with the poet’s opinions on the Polish Commonwealth’s state system before the reforms of the Great Sejm.