Gerousia

The Gerousia was the Spartan council of elders. This governmental body is a gerontocracy that was made up of 60-year-old Spartan males. It was created by the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus in the seventh century BC, in his Great Rhetra ("Great Pronouncement"). According to Lycurgus' biographer Plutarch, the Gerousia was the first significant constitutional innovation instituted by Lycurgus.