Plutarch - Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius Compared

In my humble opinion, this is the genius of Plutarch. He selected various Greek figures and then chose a Roman figure to compare them to. You can imagine how that could be done with contemporary books. The only one that I can think of offhand is a very good book by Chris Matthews (yes, the pundit) on Kennedy and Nixon. Sadly, only 18 of Plutarch's comparisons are still around.
Both Lycurgus and Numa were close to power. Plutarch notes that Lycurgus turned it down and Numa (reluctantly) accepted it. Both men were scholars. Neither one was harsh. Lycurgus molded his society while Numa was somewhat hands off. Plutarch notes:

But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into
companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to all,
Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like any
commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the hands of their
fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that whoever chose might
bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a musician, as though the
citizens ought not from the very outset to direct their attention to one object,
but were like people who have embarked in the same ship for various causes, who
only in time of danger act together for the common advantage of all, and at
other times pursue each his own private ends. Allowance must be made for
ordinary lawgivers, who fail through want of power or of knowledge in
establishing such a system; but no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a
wise man, and who was made king of a newly-created state which would not have
opposed any of his designs.

Of course today we seem more value in letting people pick their own way through. We can see more of Plutarch's judgment with his closing here:

Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an
enormous increase of power by departing from Numa's policy, while the
Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus,
having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only
lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence. On the
other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for
by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without
violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed
force such as Lykurgus had to assist him, winning over all men and reducing them
to order by his wisdom and justice.

The Spartan way certainly had its success but it proved brittle in the end.