The Lycurgus of Sparta and Plutarch emerges from the darkness or twilight of the mythical times of the Bronze Age and brings the light, the sun of Justice, to the area of Laconia, torn apart by civil wars.

The figure of Lycurgus is not merely mythical because it straddles the line between myth and history, given that he lived in the early archaic period, in the 8th century BC. Moreover, I do not believe that prehistoric times belong to mythology. Simply, the elements of recording are missing. And not always.

The three campaigns and the figures accompanying them before the great Trojan War seemingly belong to myth. The first campaign is that against Troy of Laomedon, which took place 60-65 years before the great Trojan War, with Heracles as the invader and destroyer. At that time, Priam was saved with a ransom, the only one of Laomedon's sons, as his name suggests (bought, from the aorist epriamen of the verb oneomai -oumai), and thus based on the element of Priam's age, as handed down to us by Homer, we can accurately calculate the time when this campaign (of the First Trojan War) took place.

[Excerpt from the text of the introduction of the edition]