On the cosmos
‘Those who study nature think that the heavens would be halted if strife were removed from the universe, that generation and motion would cease because all things would be in harmony; similarly, it is held, the Spartan lawgiver mixed into his constitution the spirit of rivalry and ambition; his aim was that the good should always have feelings of competition with one another, for he supposed that a system of reciprocal favours, without testing, was inactive and uncompetitive and should not be called concord’ (Plutarch, Agesilaus 5.5)
...at Lycurgus 29 he compares Lycurgus’ feeling of satisfaction over Sparata’s new constitution with Plato’s remarks on the contentment experienced by the god when he observed the formation of the cosmos and its first movement. p 42.
Comment
What people think when the world is detached from love: the Greeks didn't seem to have the God who is love at the start of their cosmogony, and so needed the results of the fall (strife) as the starting point of their understanding.
