In this article, I analyse the presence and the role played by the mythical legislator Lycurgus in Machiavelli's economic and political thought. I focus in particular on the issue of the redistribution of land in Sparta and the anti-aristocratic character that this measure takes on in Machiavelli. I assign central importance to the sources used by Machiavelli implicitly and explicitly. My thesis is that not only do the examples of Sparta and Rome not have to be opposed, but that one sheds light on and helps to understand the other, particularly through the extension of Spartan themes into the actions of the Gracchi in the Agrarian Reform.
