Comparison of Lycurgus and Numa (2.2-2.3)

For it was not out of cowardice that Numa put a stop to the waging of war, but to prevent the commission of injustice; neither was it to promote the commission of injustice that Lycurgus made his people warlike, but that they might not suffer injustice. Accordingly, in removing the excesses and supplying the deficiencies of their citizens, both were forced to make great innovations.

And surely, as regards the arrangement and classification of the citizens under their respective governments, Numa’s was strongly popular and inclined to favour the masses, resulting in a promiscuous and variegated commonalty of goldsmiths, musicians, and leather-workers; but that of Lycurgus was rigid and aristocratic, relegating the mechanical arts into the hands of slaves and aliens, but confining the citizens themselves to the use of the shield and the spear, so that they were artificers of war and servants of Ares, but knew and cared for nothing else than to obey their commanders and master their enemies.