7
Archaic and Classical Sparta
CHAPTER CONTENTS
7.1 Thucydides on the Spartan City WEB
7.2 The Messenian Wars (735–650) and the Conquered Population
7.3 The Helots
7.4 Eliminating Helots
7.5 The Krypteia
7.6 Lycurgus’ Regulations
7.7 Early Sparta WEB
7.8 The Spartan Government and the Great Rhetra
7.9 Spartan Kingship
7.10 Xenophon on Spartan Kingship WEB
7.11 The Spartan Gerousia (Council)
7.12 The Ephors
7.13 The Ephors and Theopompus; Aristotle on the Spartan Government WEB
7.14 State and Family: The Scrutiny of Spartan Babies
7.15 The Schooling of Boys
7.16 Xenophon on the Schooling of Spartan Boys WEB
7.17 Girls’ Education and Rituals
7.18 Plutarch on Spartan Girls’ Education and Rituals WEB
7.19 Spartan Marriage
7.20 Wife-Sharing
7.21 Sayings of Spartan Mothers WEB
7.22 The Common Messes
7.23 Aristotle on the Common Messes WEB
7.24 Spartan Equality: Ideology and Reality
7.25 Courage and Cowardice in Sparta
7.26 The Peloponnesian League and Spartan Alliances
7.27 Sparta, Arcadia, and Corinth WEB
7.28 King Cleomenes, Plataea, and Athens (519)
7.29 King Cleomenes WEB
7.30 Links of Interest WEB
The history of early and even Classical Sparta is handicapped by our problematic evidence. Except for very few Spartan sources, most of the accounts on Sparta were written by outsiders, some without the benefit of having visited the state. Significant information comes from late authors who anachronistically attributed to early Sparta later laws and practices based on the Spartan belief in the intact preservation of their institutions and way of life. In the Hellenistic period, the Spartan kings Agis IV and Cleomenes III legitimized their reforms by presenting them as based on alleged precedents from an earlier and better Sparta. Their actions and propaganda had an impact on depictions of Archaic Sparta in some sources.
Authors were also impressed by the prolonged political and military dominance of Sparta in Greece, which stretched from the Archaic period to Sparta’s defeat by Thebes in the battle of Leuctra in 371. Sparta’s success led many Greeks to view it as a desirable model and to idealize its community and institutions. The Spartans themselves contributed to the bias of their history by imagining themselves and their ancestors as living in the best-governed Greek polis. The result was what modern scholars have termed a “Spartan mirage,” a distorted or fictional image of Sparta that held sway over the Spartans themselves and colored ancient and modern perceptions. This was a construct of a politically stable state with an egalitarian and well-ordered society. It characterized the Spartans as excelling other Greeks in character, communal spirit, and especially in military achievement. It depicted Spartan men as strong, highly disciplined, fearing shame more than death, and eager to sacrifice their lives for the common good. Spartan men were supported by equally dedicated women. This construct was not entirely imaginary, but it represented an idealized state more than the real Sparta.
This chapter discusses Spartan images, ideology, and practices, including those that violated Spartan ideals. Although recent studies claim that many Spartan practices and concepts should be dated to no earlier than the Classical Age, it is assumed that the phenomena described here belonged to Archaic times, and even if archaized, the desire to make them ancient is worthy of consideration. Accordingly, the chapter discusses Sparta’s early wars with its neighbors and its treatment of the occupied population, especially the helots. It deals with the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus, the regulations attributed to him, and the city’s political leaders and institutions. The examination of Spartan society includes the relationship between family and state, the schooling of boys and girls, the nature of Spartan marriage, and the common messes. Spartan values and the relations between ideology and reality are illustrated as well. The chapter concludes by discussing Sparta’s relationships with states in and outside the Peloponnese.
See WEB 7.1 for Sparta’s origins and Thucydides’ description of fifth-century Sparta as an undistinguished settlement.
7.2 The Messenian Wars (735–650)and the Conquered Population
The Spartan expansion in Laconia and westward into Messenia in the eighth century had a pivotal impact on the state and Spartan way of life.
Sparta completed its occupation of Messenia following two wars, which many historians date to ca. 735–715 and ca. 660–650, respectively. The dates are not secure, but it is safe to say that Messenia was finally subjugated by the end of the seventh century. To some extent Messenia substituted for the Spartans the search for resources overseas, which in part motivated Greek colonization (see Chapter 4). Sparta’s only colony was Taras (Tarentum) in southern Italy, which, according to unreliable traditions, was founded by a group of undesirable Spartans around 706.
The most informative sources on the Messenian wars are unfortunately too late or heavily influenced by tendentious and unreliable earlier sources. Yet a fragmentary poem by the Archaic poet Tyrtaeus is instructive about the First Messenian War. Tyrtaeus was a Spartan by birth or by naturalization, and, according to a late source, was a contemporary of the Second Messenian War. The rich land of Messenia mentioned in his poem probably constituted a major incentive for its occupation.
Tyrtaeus fr. 5 (West)
To our king Theopompus, loved by the gods, thanks to whom we captured broad Messene – Messene that is good for plowing and good for planting. Over this land the warrior fathers of our fathers fought without pause for nineteen years, with hearts ever courageous. In the twentieth year the Messenians fled from great mountains of Ithome, leaving behind their rich farms.1
Note
1. The fragment is collated from three different sources. King Theopompus is also reputed to have helped shape the Spartan government and introduced the office of the ephorate.
The occupied land of Messenia was divided among the conquerors. In Sparta, land ownership was of crucial importance because owning a plot of land (kleros) and contributing produce to the common messes (see 7.22) were among the conditions for Spartan citizenship.
7.3 The Helots
The Spartans divided the pre-Dorian population in both Laconia and Messenia into two main categories. The more privileged group comprised perioeci (perioikoi, lit. “dwellers around”). They enjoyed personal freedom and local autonomy, but had no political rights in Sparta. Many of them were farmers. After Spartan male citizens made themselves an elite whose sole legitimate occupation was fighting, the perioeci filled the vacuum by becoming craftsmen and traders. They were obliged to obey Spartan calls to military duty, and in the late fifth century they served as hoplites with Spartans in the same units. The perioeci cooperated only rarely with the other category of the subjugated population – helots – against the Spartans.
Helots (“captives”) comprised the second category of the occupied population. In some respects they resembled chattel slaves, and in others they stood between slaves and medieval serfs. The Spartans helotized local inhabitants already in Laconia, but the bulk were Messenian Greeks. The state assigned Spartan masters to helots, who lived on lands that used to be their own.
Tyrtaeus describes the treatment of helots in verses which the second-century CE geographer and traveler Pausanias paraphrases. The reference to helots’ wives suggests that, unlike chattel slaves, they were allowed to have families. Indeed, in the 460s the Spartans permitted rebel helots to leave Messenia with their wives and children (Thucydides 1.103).
7.3.A Tyrtaeus on the Helots
Tyrtaeus frs. 6–7 (West) = Pausanias Description of Greece 4.14.4–5
(Fr. 6) Like asses in distress under heavy loads, bearing to their masters from wretched necessity half of all the fruits the land produces.
(Fr. 7) The Messenians, they and their wives alike, mourned for their masters whenever death’s tragic lot overtook one of them.
It appears that the helots were sharecroppers, who gave up half of their crop. This form of payment constituted an easier and more flexible burden than fixed taxes. The state also set limits on the power of the Spartan masters over their helots. The first-century geographer Strabo describes the origins of helotage, based on the fourth-century historian Ephorus.
Strabo Geography 8.5.4
… But Agis,1 son of Eurysthenes, took from them [i.e., those who lived around Sparta] their constitutional equality and commanded that they pay taxes to Sparta. All obeyed apart from the Heleians, who live in Helos. They revolted, and after being defeated in battle they were condemned to serfdom on certain fixed conditions, namely that no owner was to liberate them or sell them beyond the country’s borders.2 This conflict was called “The War with the Helots.” In fact, the helot system, which lasted right down to the time of the Roman hegemony, was pretty well the invention of Agis and his courtiers.3 For the Lacedaemonians kept the helots virtually as slaves of the state, assigning to them places to live and specific jobs to do.
Notes
1. Agis I was the founder of the Agiad royal dynasty in Sparta, presumably in the tenth century.
2. The meaning of this restriction is unclear and refers perhaps to a ban on selling helots outside Sparta.
3. Since the historian Ephorus died prior to the Roman hegemony, it is unlikely that the second half of this passage is taken from him.
7.3.B The Helot System
It is a matter of debate how public or private the helots’ servitude was, although it is safe to say that the Spartan state had a paramount interest in keeping them subjugated. For helots provided the infrastructure necessary for the Spartans to concentrate on training for war and maintaining their way of life. Additionally, without helots working his land, a Spartan would be unable to meet one of the conditions for citizenship, which was to contribute food to his common mess (syssition; see 7.22). Yet the helots also threatened the very existence of the state.
Spartan demography is a knotty problem if only because the Spartans kept the number of their citizens secret. The number of helots is even more difficult to estimate, although it is a fair assumption that there were many more helots than Spartans. The threat of revolt, especially by Messenian helots, must have weighed heavily on Spartan minds. The fourth-century philosophers Plato and Aristotle mention frequent helot revolts (Plato Laws 6.777b–c: WEB 36.5.I Aristotle Politics 2.5.2 1269a37–39).
Spartans resorted to different measures to deal with the threat, some of which were drastic and inhuman. In 424, the Spartan government permitted its general Brasidas to recruit helots for a campaign in northeastern Greece. Thucydides says that, fearing sedition, it gladly allowed Brasidas to take the helots away, then describes a mass killing of helots at an uncertain date.
7.4 Eliminating Helots
Thucydides 4.80.3–4
(4.80.3) At all times Lacedaemonian policy was mostly focused on protective measures against the helots, and through fear of their propensity for mischief and of their numbers the Spartans once took the following course of action. They issued a public order for a selection to be made of all helots who felt they had provided the Spartans with particularly distinguished service against the enemy, apparently to grant them their freedom. They were, in fact, putting them to a test, thinking that it was precisely those individuals who thought they should be freed first who would be the ones most likely to have the spirit to attack them. (80.4) They selected about 2,000, and these men put on garlands and went around the temples as though they had already been freed. Not long afterwards, however, the Spartans did away with them, with no one knowing how each of them met his end.
7.5 The Krypteia
It is likely that the Spartans’ treatment of the helots was closely linked to their evolution into a community of warriors. Fear of helots encouraged the Spartans to promote ideals of military excellence, exclusivity, and communal equality that fostered solidarity among citizens. Concerns about the helots also had an impact on Sparta’s foreign policy, which was cautious and sought to prevent runaway helots from finding shelter.
Plutarch reports on the institution of the krypteia, an elite group of young men that was sent to kill helots in the fields. The license to kill, as well as frequent declarations of war on the helots, freed the killers from punishment and pollution. Some scholars have interpreted the krypteia as an initiation rite to adulthood, which the Spartans incorporated into the socialization of their youth. In Plato’s Laws 1.633b, it is described only as a test of enduring cold in the winter, which appeared to have been required of any Spartan male youth. The sending of selected young men to kill helots suggests that the state, rather than the individual landowner, controlled the helots’ fate. The mockery and humiliation of helots as reported by Plutarch illustrates their otherness in comparison with the Spartans.
Plutarch Lycurgus 28.1–13
(28.1) In these measures there is not a trace of injustice or high-handedness, the criticism that some people level against the laws of Lycurgus, saying that they are effective in fostering courage but wanting in terms of justice. (28.2) Now the so-called krypteia (if indeed it is one of Lycurgus’ institutions, as Aristotle recorded) might have given Plato, as well as Aristotle, such an opinion about the constitution and the man.1
(28.3) The krypteia functioned as follows. Those in charge of the youth would occasionally send those young men who seemed the most intelligent into different parts of the countryside, taking nothing with them other than their daggers and such food as they needed. (28.4) In the daytime the youths would scatter into coverts, concealing themselves and resting, but at night they would come down to the roads and cut the throats of any helots they caught. (28.5) Often, too, they would make their way into the fields, where they would kill the strongest and most enterprising of them. (28.6) In the same vein, Thucydides, in his Peloponnesian War, tells [4.80.3–4: see 7.4] of some helots who had been singled out for their courage by being crowned with garlands by the Spartiates, as though they had been freed, and then going around the temples of the gods. Shortly afterwards, however, they all disappeared, more than two thousand of them, without anyone being able to account for their loss, either at the time or later. (28.7) And there is especially the statement of Aristotle that, at the beginning of their term of office, the ephors formally declared war on the helots so that killing them would involve no pollution.
(28.8) In general, the Spartiates were ruthless and cruel in their treatment of the helots. They would force them to drink large amounts of unmixed wine and bring them into their communal messes to show their children what drunkenness was. (28.9) And they would order them to sing vile and ludicrous songs and dance vile and ludicrous dances, and to avoid those that were suitable for free men. (28.10) And so it is said that, later on, during the expedition of the Thebans into Laconia [370/69], the helots taken by the Thebans refused an order to sing the works of Terpander, Alcman, and Spendon the Laconian, saying it was against their masters’ wishes.2 (28.11) Thus those who say that in Lacedaemon the free man is truly free while a slave is truly a slave have well understood the difference between the two.
(28.12) In my opinion, such instances of cruelty began later amongst the Spartiates, and did so especially after the great earthquake when, historians tell us, the helots joined the Messenians to attack them, inflicting serious damage on the countryside and putting the city in the greatest danger [ca. 460].3 (28.13) For I personally could not ascribe to Lycurgus such a brutal institution as the krypteia, not if I judge his character from his general kindness and uprightness – a character to which the god also bore witness.
Notes
1. Aristotle discussed these practices in his Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, now lost. For Plato see the introduction to this passage.
2. Terpander was a poet from Lesbos, who won the musical contest in the Spartan festival of the Carnea in 676. Alcman was a seventh-century Spartan poet who wrote hymns to the gods and choral songs sung by maidens in Spartan festivals (see 7.17). Spendon is unknown.
3. See 18.12 (“Sparta’s Wars in the Peloponnese”) for these events.
Questions
1. What motivated the Spartans to wage war on the Messenians?
2. In what ways were the helots similar to but also different from slaves?
3. How did the Spartans control the perioeci and the helots (7.3–5)?
7.6 Lycurgus’ Regulations
The Spartans would not acknowledge that their relationship with the helots contributed to the way their society and state were shaped. By their account, they owed their government and way of life to their lawgiver, Lycurgus.
The Spartans believed that Lycurgus saved them from a prolonged crisis. Literary and archaeological evidence indeed points to a state of inequality and restlessness in seventh- and sixth-century Sparta. See WEB 7.7.I–II on the crisis and economic disparity in early Sparta.
The many contradictory traditions about Lycurgus make it impossible to ascertain when or if he ever existed. Whether Lycurgus was a historical or invented figure, it is fair to assume that he was used by the Spartans to legitimize existing and even new practices and institutions by attributing them to him. Scholars tend to place the reforms ascribed to Lycurgus at the end of the seventh century or even later. See WEB 7.7.III for the second-century CE biographer Plutarch’s summary of ancient views about Lycurgus’ identity, which reveal the lack of consensus about him. For Plutarch, see Introduction III.6.
According to the Spartans, Lycurgus established eunomia, a political and social system that guaranteed law, order, and enduring stability. The system allowed for personal fulfillment through service to the polis and supposedly made the Spartans superior to other Greeks. The Spartans proudly believed that Lycurgus’ measures remained unchanged since he introduced them.
Herodotus 1.65.2–66.1
(1.65.2) How the Spartans changed to a good, lawful government [eunomia] was as follows. Lycurgus was a prominent Spartiate who went to consult the oracle at Delphi. As soon as he entered the great hall of the temple, the Pythian priestess said to him: (65.3) “So you have arrived at my rich temple, Lycurgus, you who are dear to Zeus and to all who have their homes on Olympus! I ask myself whether I shall call you a god or a man in my prophecy, but I think rather that you are a god, Lycurgus.” (65.4) Some people say that, in addition to this, the Pythia revealed to him the system of government that the Spartiates have today. In the account of the Spartans themselves, however, Lycurgus brought these institutions back from Crete1 when he had become the guardian of Leobotas, his nephew who was a king of Sparta.2 (65.5) For as soon as he took up his position as guardian he changed all the rules of the society and saw to it that no one broke them. It was also Lycurgus who later on established all the military institutions, the sworn companies [enomotiai], the Thirties [triakades], and the messes [syssitia] as well as the ephors and the council of elders.3 (66.1) With these changes the Spartans achieved good government. When Lycurgus died they built him a shrine and they hold him in high esteem.
Notes
1. A common ancient tradition held that the Spartans were influenced by Cretan practices, but the similarities could be due to their common Dorian heritage.
2. Leobotas is said to have reigned in the ninth century. Aristotle ( Politics 2.7.1 1271b25–26) and Plutarch ( Lycurgus 3.4) name Lycurgus’ ward, Charilaus.
3. The sworn company was a military unit comprising thirty-five to forty men during the Classical era. The Thirty is an unknown military unit. See this chapter for the other terms.
Questions
1. What difficulties beset Sparta prior to Lycurgus’ legislation according to the testimonies in WEB 7.7.I–II?
2. Discuss the problems of authenticating Lycurgus’ legislation in light of the traditions about him in Herodotus (7.6) and Plutarch (WEB 7.7.III).
7.8 The Spartan Government and the Great Rhetra
The Spartans were very proud of their government and noted that, unlike other poleis, they experienced no tyranny. Needless to say, the Spartan political structure evolved and changed over time.
The most ancient sources on the early government of Sparta are a poem by Tyrtaeus and an archaic document cited by the biographer Plutarch, who might have found it in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians (now lost).
Tyrtaeus’ poem, entitled Eunomia (“good government”), survived only in fragments. The first fragment (fr. 2) calls upon the Spartans to obey their kings – Sparta was unique in having two royal houses of the Agiad and Europontid dynasties. The second fragment (fr. 4) mentions an oracle, which according to the historian Diodorus of Sicily (7.12.5–6) was given to Lycurgus. The poem is not entirely clear about the division of power in the state. Tyrtaeus tells the Spartans that Apollo confirmed the power of the kings and elders to counsel the city. The people should respond with straight rhetrai (lit. “utterances”), which probably means laws or agreements. This gives the people power to approve or reject the kings’ and elders’ counsel. Yet the Greek can also be understood as if the people “respond to rhetrai” of the kings and elders, which suggests a significantly lesser power. The fragmentary lines that precede the first fragment have been restored as a call to obey the kings.
7.8.A Tyrtaeus on the Spartan Government
Tyrtaeus frs. 2, 4 (West)
(Fr. 2) For the son of Cronus and husband of beautifully garlanded Hera, Zeus himself, has given this city to the Heraclidae, with whom, leaving windy Erineus, we reached the broad island of Pelops.1
(Fr. 4) After hearing Phoebus [Apollo], they brought home from Pytho the oracles and sure predictions of the god. He told the kings – who are honored by the gods and who care for the lovely city of Sparta – and the hoary elders to commence their consultation. And the common people he told to answer with straightforward utterances [rhetrai], making good comments, taking just action in everything, and not delivering crooked advice to the city.2 Victory and strength would attend the mass of the people, he said. Such was Phoebus’ declaration to the city on such matters.
Notes
1. Erineus, in Doris in central Greece, was regarded as the mother-city of the Dorians. The island of Pelops was the Peloponnesian peninsula.
2. The line is corrupt, and the word “crooked” is a modern emendation.
Plutarch cites the so-called Great Rhetra, which provides additional information on the government of Sparta. This highly controversial document mentions the gerousia, a council of elders that included the kings. The kings in the following document seem to have less authority than they do in Tyrtaeus’ poem. The rhetra also gives the people power to approve or reject the elders’ proposals. Many scholars, however, agree that what Plutarch describes as a later rider setting limits on popular power was, in fact, part of the original rhetra.
7.8.B Plutarch on Lycurgus’ Rhetra
Plutarch Lycurgus 6.1–9
(6.1) So enthused was Lycurgus about this form of government [of the elders] that he brought back from Delphi an oracle on the subject which they call a “rhetra.” (6.2) It runs as follows: “Having founded a sanctuary of Zeus Syllanius and Athena Syllania;1 having formed tribes and made ‘obai’;2 and having set up a gerousia of thirty members, including the archagetai [leaders] – after this hold an Apella [appelazein] from time to time between Babyca and Cnacion, and thus make proposals and lodge objections. But the people are to have the authority [kyria] and the power.”3
(6.3) In the above “form tribes” and “make obai” refer to dividing and arranging the citizen body in groups, some of which Lycurgus called “tribes” and others “obai.” “Archagetai” means “kings,” and “hold an Apella” means “hold an assembly,” because it refers to Apollo as the origin and source of the constitution.4 (6.4) Babyca they now call […] and Cnacion they call Oenus (Aristotle claims Cnacion is a river and Babyca a bridge). The Spartans held their assemblies between the two, as there were no halls or any other permanent structure. (6.5) Lycurgus did not think that such things were helpful for sound deliberation, that they were, in fact, detrimental to it. For he believed they stupefied and befuddled the intellects of those assembled with fatuous thoughts, one’s attention during the meetings being turned to statues and pictures, or to the stage ornamentation in theaters, or to the excessively detailed work on the roofs of meeting halls.
(6.6) When the populace had gathered, Lycurgus permitted no one other than the elders and kings to make a proposal, but the people were sovereign in judging the measures that they put forward. (6.7) Later, however, the common people began distorting and perverting the proposals by subtracting from them and making additions, and so the kings Polydorus and Theopompus [ca. 760–700] added the following article to the rhetra: (6.8) “If the people vote for a crooked motion, the elders and leaders are authorized to set it aside,” which is to say not confirm the decision, but instead completely break up and dismiss the assembly of the people on the grounds that they are making changes and amendments to a proposal contrary to the state’s best interests. (6.9) The kings also persuaded the citizens that the addition was authorized by the god, as Tyrtaeus possibly suggests in the following: [continues as Tyrtaeus fr. 4 above].
Notes
1. Syllanian Zeus and Athena are unknown cults. Yet Zeus was the father of Heracles, the ancestor of the Spartan kings, and Athena was the city’s patron goddess.
2. The Spartans were divided into three tribes. The obai were local and kinship units, probably the villages that comprised Sparta.
3. The text of this sentence is corrupt.
4. The assembly’s association with Apollo’s festivals suggests that these were monthly meetings.
Questions
1. Compare and contrast the powers of the kings, council, and assembly as described by Tyrtaeus and Plutarch (7.8.A–B).
2. What might aristocrats as well as commoners find appealing in the Spartan political system?
7.9 Spartan Kingship
The Spartans explained the origins of their dual kingship by attributing it to twin descendants of Heracles. The privileges and powers of the early Spartan kings are shrouded in mystery. In Archaic and Classical times, however, they held supreme command over the military and so could influence foreign policy as well. They fulfilled certain religious and judicial duties and enjoyed special honors in life and death. Their death rites indicated their heroization – they were, after all, Heracles’ descendants – as well as their identification with the state. Herodotus describes their powers and honors. See WEB 7.10 for Xenophon’s account of additional royal honors and powers in Sparta.
Herodotus 6.56–59
(6.56) The Spartiates have conferred the following privileges on their kings. They both hold two priesthoods, that of Lacedaemonian Zeus and that of Heavenly Zeus, and can commence a war on any country they choose, and no Spartiate may stand in their way, on pain of bringing a curse upon himself. On campaign the kings take the lead in the advance, and are last in retreat; and they have a bodyguard of a hundred handpicked men in the field. On their expeditions they have at their disposal as much livestock as they wish, and they may take for themselves the hides and backs of all sacrificed animals.
(57.1) Such are their privileges in war; in peacetime they have been granted others, which are as follows. At a public sacrifice, the kings are the first seated for the feast, and the servants must start with them, giving each of them twice as much of everything as the other diners. They have the right to make the first libation, and to take the hides of the sacrificed animals. (57.2) At every new moon, and on the seventh of the month, they are each given a full-grown sacrificial animal, at public expense, for sacrifice in the temple of Apollo, and along with it a bushel of barley-meal and a Laconian quart of wine. They also have select seating at all the games. In addition, it is the prerogative of the kings to appoint citizens of their choice as proxenoi [guest-friends], and of each of them to select two Pythians, officials who deal with Delphi, and who take their meals with the kings at public expense. (57.3) If the kings decline to attend the public dinner, two choinikes [3.10 liters] of barley-meal and a cotylê [0.38 liter] of wine are sent to each of them at his home; and if they do attend they must be given double helpings of everything.1 The same honor must be accorded them if they are invited to dinner by private individuals. (57.4) It is they who guard the oracles that are received (and the Pythians also have knowledge of these). The kings’ jurisdictional functions are limited to the following, but in them they have sole authority. If a girl has been left as an heiress without her father having betrothed her, it is they who decide to whom she should be married, and they also have jurisdiction over public roads.2 (57.5) Furthermore, if a person wants to adopt a child, that has to be done before the kings. They also have the right to sit with the elders, who are twenty-eight in number. If they do not wish to attend, those of the elders who are most closely related to them are entitled to assume the kings’ privileges, casting two proxy votes for them, and a third for themselves.3
(58.1) Such are the rights accorded the kings during their lifetime by the community of Spartiates, and in death they receive the following. Horsemen carry news of the event throughout Laconia, and women beat cauldrons as they wend their way through the city. When this has taken place, two free persons from each house, a man and a woman, are obliged to befoul themselves in mourning, and failure to do so incurs heavy fines. (58.2) Lacedaemonian custom on the deaths of their kings is the same as that of barbarians in Asia, for most barbarians observe that very custom on their kings’ deaths. When a king of the Lacedaemonians dies, not only the Spartiates but a fixed number of the perioeci are obliged to attend the funeral from all over Lacedaemon. (58.3) When these, the helots, and the Spartiates themselves are gathered together in one place, many thousands strong, they, in company with the women, fervently beat their foreheads and break into interminable lamentation, declaring on each occasion that the last of their kings to die was the very best of their kings. If any of the kings dies in battle, they make a statue of him, set it on a richly covered bier, and carry it out for burial. When they have buried it, there is no commercial business or electoral meeting for a period of ten days, days which they devote entirely to mourning.
(59) There is another practice in which the Spartans resemble the Persians. When another king takes the throne after the previous king’s death, the new king releases from his obligations any of the Spartiates indebted to the crown or the state. Amongst the Persians, too, the king releases all the cities from any outstanding tribute when he ascends the throne.
Notes
1. Apparently the kings were not obliged to participate in the common messes, or lost this privilege in the late fifth century (Plutarch Lycurgus 12.3). The kings did not have to go through the Spartan education system either.
2. It is unclear if the royal jurisdiction over heiresses and adoption was real or a mere formality. In the fourth century this power was largely transferred to private individuals.
3. Thucydides, who understood Herodotus to mean that each king had two votes, sharply disagreed (1.20.3).
Questions
1. What were the powers of the Spartan kings according to Herodotus (7.9) and Xenophon (WEB 7.10)?
2. Which communal values were confirmed in the honors paid to the Spartan kings?
7.11 The Spartan Gerousia (Council)
The political power of the Spartan kings was constrained by the powers of the gerousia (council of elders) and the popular assembly. The gerousia was made up of the two kings and twenty-eight men, aged sixty and over, who were probably of elite background and who served for life. The manner of their election by acclamation, which was also used in other voting in the assembly (Thucydides 1.87.2), reflected the Spartan devaluation of individualism. In the gerousia, however, voting was not done by shouting. The gerousia sat in judgment of criminal cases, including those of the kings, and as suggested by the great rhetra, had the power to initiate policy, make proposals, and even reject popular decisions. Its members enjoyed the prestige of the office and the respect accorded old age in Sparta.
Plutarch Lycurgus 26.1–5
(26.1) As noted above, Lycurgus initially saw to the appointment of elders himself, choosing from amongst those who had taken part in his project, but later he established a system whereby a man judged to be of the highest quality [aretê] amongst those who were over sixty replaced an elder who died. (26.2) And this was regarded as the most important contest in the world, and the most keenly fought. For the judgment bore not on who was the swiftest among the swift, or the strongest among the strong, but on who amongst the good and the sound-minded [sophron] was the best and most sound-minded. And the reward he received for his excellence was a lifelong power within the government that was virtually absolute, it being for him to decide whether citizens were to live or die, or be dishonored – to decide, generally, on the most important things in life.
(26.3) The electoral process was as follows. The assembly would be convened, and a number of chosen individuals would be secluded in a room close by, unable to see the assembly or be seen by it, and only hearing the shouts of its members. (26.4) For, as in other matters, it was by acclamation that they judged the candidates. These did not all appear together but were brought in individually, in an order decided by lot, and they would walk in silence through the assembly. (26.5) The sequestered men had writing-tablets and on them they recorded for each person the volume of the applause. They were unaware of the man’s identity, knowing only that he was first, second, third, or whatever he was, of those brought in. Whoever received the longest and loudest applause they declared elected.
Question
1. What was Spartan in the qualifications of candidates to the gerousia?
7.12 The Ephors
The popular assembly, composed of male Spartan citizens, elected men to office and voted on legislation and matters of policy, including war and peace. But its lack of initiative, and the fact that speakers in it tended to be the kings, elders, and magistrates called ephors, demonstrate the limited extent of popular power in Sparta.
The ephors (ephoroi, “overseers”) were five annually elected officials. They are not mentioned in Tyrtaeus’ poem and the Great Rhetra, which implies that they became powerful relatively late in Spartan history. The Spartans, however, ascribed the ephorate either to Lycurgus (Herodotus 1.65.5: see 7.6), or to the eighth-century king Theopompus (see WEB 7.13.I for the ephors and king Theopompus). The third-century CE author Diogenes Laertius (1.68–73) attributes the ephorate to the sixth-century Spartan sage Chilon. See WEB 7.13.II for Aristotle on the mixed constitution in which the ephorate serves as a constraint upon kingship.
The ephors accompanied the kings on campaigns and sat with the gerousia in judgment of them. The ephors also fulfilled some religious and judicial functions and oversaw the draft. They were active in foreign policy, supervised Spartan education, and proclaimed war on the helots as well as the notorious xenalasia, or periodic expulsion of foreigners. The last-mentioned practice, which was motivated either by security considerations or by xenophobia, and which was attested for the Classical Age, offended the norms of Greek hospitality and gave ammunition to Sparta’s critics. Plutarch, however, finds merit in this custom as well as in the restriction of Spartans traveling abroad.
Plutarch Lycurgus 27.7–9
(27.7) This was also why he [Lycurgus] would not grant his permission to those who wanted to leave the country and travel abroad, where they would pick up foreign customs and start imitating unenlightened lifestyles and different political systems. Indeed, he even drove out of Sparta people who came streaming into the city in large numbers for no useful purpose. This was not because he feared, as Thucydides claims [2.39.1], that they would copy his political structure or learn some valuable moral lesson; rather, it was to prevent these people from teaching anything bad. (27.8) For along with foreign personages foreign ideas necessarily enter a society, and new ideas bring new value judgments. From these inevitably come many sentiments and choices that are out of tune with the harmony, as it were, of the established political system. (27.9) Lycurgus accordingly thought it was his duty to keep the city free from infection by bad habits – more so than physical illnesses – that might enter it from outside.
7.14 State and Family: The Scrutiny of Spartan Babies
In Sparta the community controlled the right of babies to live. Elsewhere, whether infants survived or were exposed was normally at the discretion of parents. The scrutiny of infants in Sparta also illustrates the honorary place old men held there and the tensions that existed between state and family.
Plutarch Lycurgus 16.1–2
(16.1) After the child was born the father did not have the authority to bring it up. Instead, he would take it in his arms to a place called “Leschê,” where the eldest members of his tribe would sit in council. The elders would examine the baby, and if it was robust and sturdy they would give the order for it to be brought up, assigning to it one of the 9,000 plots of land.1 (16.2) If, however, it was in poor condition and deformed, they would send it to the so-called “Apothetae,” a precipice near Mt. Taugetus. Their reasoning was that it was better, both for the child itself and for the city, that a child born poorly formed at the start in terms of health and strength not continue its life.
Note
1. Plutarch follows the tradition that Lycurgus fixed the number of Spartan citizens at 9,000, each with a plot of land.
7.15 The Schooling of Boys
In addition to shaping the Spartan government, Lycurgus was credited with introducing the Spartan education system, called agoge (lit. “raising”) in Hellenistic times. Spartan education was not static but was reformed and changed throughout its history. It is likely, however, that the following passages give a credible account of its character during the Classical Age, if not earlier.
The Spartans trained and indoctrinated young boys into becoming men, citizens, and warriors. While in most Greek states education was private and voluntary, Spartan education was public and obligatory. It constituted a precondition for Spartan citizenship, and was supervised by the state and the community.
Boys started their education at the age of seven. They were taken away from their families and grouped together by age in bands, whose names were borrowed from cattle herding. In addition to reading, writing, music, and dancing, the boys were trained in physical endurance. Plutarch Lycurgus 18.1 tells an unlikely story of a hungry boy who hid a fox cub under his garment, and died because he let the cub gnaw his guts rather than reveal the theft. The story illustrates the value the Spartans placed on endurance and fear. The fourth-century historian Xenophon gives our earliest account of Spartan education. (For Xenophon, see Introduction III.4.) He highlights the teaching of self-denial and fortitude, which were attained mostly by punitive means. Generally, Xenophon tries to rationalize and defend Spartan education, which led to his functionalist interpretation of customs such as stealing cheese and punishing those who failed by whipping. Yet the original purpose of these customs could have been ritualistic. Noteworthy also is the use of competition in training young Spartans.
Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.1–13
(2.1) Amongst the rest of the Greeks, those who claim to give their sons the best education appoint tutors [paidagogoi] to look after them just as soon as the boys can understand what they are being told.1 They also immediately send them to school to learn letters, music, and the sports of the wrestling-ground [palaestra]. In addition, they make the children’s feet tender by supplying them with sandals, and soften their bodies with changes of clothing. They also think their bellies should tell the children how much food they should eat.
(2.2) Lycurgus, however, instead of leaving each individual to appoint slaves as tutors, put one man in charge of directing the boys, a man selected from the class from which the chief magistracies were filled. He was given the title supervisor [paidonomos], and to him Lycurgus granted the authority to assemble the boys, and, in the process of inspecting them, to punish severely any misbehavior. He also assigned to him a group of young men who carried whips, and who were to take disciplinary action whenever necessary. The result is a combination in Sparta of great modesty and strict obedience.
(2.3) Instead of making tender the boys’ feet with sandals, Lycurgus ordered that they harden them by dispensing with footwear. He thought that if they practiced doing this, they would find it much easier to climb hills, and much safer to go down slopes; and also that they would have more speed in leaping, jumping, and running. (2.4) And rather than have them pampered with clothing, he established the custom that they wear a single garment throughout the year, for he thought that in this way they would be better prepared to face cold and heat. (2.5) He also ordered the team-leader [eirên]2 to have with him for distribution only a limited amount of food, to insure that the boys would not be weighed down from gorging, and would not lack the experience of going without. He thought that those brought up in this way would be better able to labor on, if necessary, without food, and better able to last a longer time on the same food rations if so ordered. They would also have less need of delicacies, and would the more easily accept all sorts of food; and they would, in addition, be in a healthier state. Lycurgus was also of the opinion that a regime that made for leanness in the physique would also contribute to height, more than one that broadened a person with its food.
(2.6) But to prevent the boys being oppressed too much by hunger, while he would not grant them the freedom to take all that they needed, he did permit them to steal some things to stave off the hunger pangs. (2.7) It was not because he was short of the sustenance to give them that he let them acquire food by their own devices, as I think everyone is aware. Obviously, the person who is going to steal must stay awake at night and also use his wits and lie in ambush by day, and the one who is likely to catch something must prepare his lookouts. By all of this Lycurgus clearly wanted to make the boys more resourceful in acquiring supplies, and make them more proficient fighters, and that was the point of this type of training. (2.8) Someone may pose the question, “Well, if Lycurgus thought stealing was good, why would he have the boy who was caught severely flogged?” My reply is this: because, as with all other subjects they teach, people punish the student who does not perform well. The Spartans therefore punish those who get caught as being bad thieves.3 (2.9) What is demonstrated here is that where speed is needed the idler gains the least and has the most trouble.
(2.10) So the boys would not be without a master even if the supervisor went away, Lycurgus arranged that one of the citizens present at the time should take charge; he could command the boys to do whatever he thought good, and punish them for any misbehavior. By doing this he achieved the further end of making the boys more respectful; for in Sparta there is nothing that either boys or men respect as much as those in power. (2.11) And so that the boys would not be without a master even if no adult male happened to be present, Lycurgus arranged that the most capable of the team-leaders [eirenes] should have authority over each team [ilê]. The result is that boys there are never without a master.
(2.12) I think I must say something about love affairs with boys, for that, too, bears on education. In the case of the other Greeks, man and boy live together as a couple (as in the case of the Boeotians) or else the men enjoy the beauty of the boys through services that they have performed for them (as with the Elians). Some again have a total ban on lovers conversing with the boys. (2.13) Lycurgus’ opinion ran contrary to all this. He approved if someone who, being himself a moral person and according the due respect to the soul of the boy, tried to make him moral, too, and to spend time with him for that, and he considered this an excellent form of education. But if a man was clearly only attracted to a boy’s body, he regarded that as absolutely disgraceful, and he saw to it that, in Lacedaemon, such lovers refrained from sexual relationships with boys no less than parents see to that in the case of their children, and brothers in the case of their sisters.4
Notes
1. Xenophon mentions three age groups: paides (boys), meirakioi (youngsters), and hebontes (youth). Plutarch ( Lycurgus 16) has finer age distinctions, but his information may reflect later times.
2. The word for the team-leaders, eirenes, is a later emendation (also in 2.11). The eirenes were the youngest of the adult group and often the boys’ lovers.
3. The point of the test was to steal as many pieces of cheese as possible from the altar of Artemis Orthia, a goddess associated with rites of passage for both boys and girls. In Roman times the ritual evolved into a flagellation show for tourists.
4. See 12.2 (“Homoerotic Couples”), 12.3 (“Courting Men and Women”), and 12.4 (“Cretan Lovers”) on Archaic Greek homosexuality. In the case of Spartan pederasty, the pairing of elite boys seemed to have been arranged. The Athenians associated the Spartans with homosexual practices.
See Xenophon in WEB 7.16 for additional information on the schooling of boys in Sparta.
Questions
1. What were the Spartans’ educational principles and how did they implement them?
2. To what extent was the community involved in Spartan education?
3. Xenophon both reports on and interprets the Spartan educational system (7.15 and WEB 7.16). Try to separate his interpretation from the practices he describes. Can you find alternative interpretations to his?
7.17 Girls’ Education and Rituals
Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 1.3–4
(1.3) First, then, childbearing, so that I may start at the beginning. In the case of girls who are to bear children, and are thought fit to be given an appropriate education, other peoples give them as moderate a diet as possible, with the smallest amount of delicacies. As for wine, they either keep them away from it altogether, or have them drink it very well watered. In addition, the other Greeks think girls should be quiet and work in wool, seated like the majority of their tradesmen. If girls are brought up like that, then, how can one expect them to produce fine offspring? (1.4) Lycurgus, however, considered slaves sufficiently capable of providing clothing; for free women the most important thing, he thought, was childbearing. Accordingly, he first gave orders that the female sex should take physical training to no less an extent than the male, and then he instituted competitions in running and physical strength for women, as well as men, in the belief that more robust children would be born from parents who were both strong.
Spartan education was unique in its inclusion of girls. Xenophon notes that in other Greek states girls were taught moderation, woolwork, and how to remain sedentary, that is, to stay indoors. In Sparta, girls exercised outdoors in the aim of making them healthy mothers. Unlike boys, however, Spartan girls lived at home until they married.
7.17.A Girls’ Education
Plutarch (WEB 7.18) provides additional information on girls’ education, their participation in religious festivals, and their role in instilling desirable manly values in Spartan youth.
The socialization of Spartan girls included participation in religious rituals. The Archaic poet Alcman (ca. 600) composed poems that were performed by choruses of girls in front of a mixed audience, (as attested by Plutarch). The following fragmentary poem mentions two chorus leaders, Agido and Hagesichora (lit. “chorus leader”), and illustrates the role that competitiveness and homoeroticism played in their rituals and social life. The poem also suggests girls’ knowledge and perhaps practice of horsemanship.
7.17.B Spartan Maidens and Rituals
Alcman Partheneion 1.40–91 (Page)
(1.40) I sing of Agido’s radiance. I see her shining as the sun, which Agido calls to witness for us. But the famed leader of our choir allows me neither to praise her nor find fault with her in any way. (45) For she appears to be preeminent, just as if a person were to place among grazing animals a strong prize-winning horse with ringing feet, a horse such as is found in winged dreams.
(50) Do you not see? The racehorse is Venetic;1 but the hair of Hagesichora my cousin has the sheen of pure gold. (55) And her silver face – but why do I tell you openly? Such is Hagesichora. But she who is second to Agido in beauty will run as a Colaxaean horse against an Ibenian.2 (60) For the Pleiads3 at dawn rise like the star of Sirius through the ambrosial night, fighting against us as we carry the plow.
(65) For we have not enough purple [raiment] to protect ourselves, nor a many-hued snake all made of gold, nor Lydian headband, the ornament of dark-eyed girls, (70) nor Nanno’s hair, nor again god-like Areta nor Sylacis nor Cleisesera; nor will you go to Aenesimbrota’s home and say: (75) “Let Astaphis be mine and let Philylla look at me, and Damareta and lovely Ianthemis. But Hagesichora torments me.4 For is not Hagesichora of the beautiful ankles right here? (80) Is she not staying close to Agido and praising our festival?” Accept their prayers, you gods. For accomplishment and fulfillment are in the gods’ hands. Chorus-leader, I would speak, (85) I who am myself just a girl; I have vainly screeched as an owl from a roof-beam. But I desire to please Aotis most of all, since she has been the healer of our sufferings.5 (90) But it was because of Hagesichora that the girls embarked upon lovely peace.
Notes
1. Venetic horses probably came from the Adriatic (cf. Strabo 1.3.21; 5.1.4) and were used mostly for chariot riding.
2. A Colaxaean horse was probably a Scythian pony, and an Ibenian was perhaps a Celtic or Ionian horse.
3. Pleiads refer either to stars or to a rival girls’ chorus.
4. The text can be read also to mean that Hagesichora “guides me” or “exhausts me with love.”
5. An attached commentary to the poem identifies Aotis with Orthia, a goddess associated with Artemis. See also note 3 on Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.8 (7.15).
7.17.C A Female Spartan Runner
The Archaic bronze figurine shown in Figure 7.1 was found in the sanctuary of Zeus in Dodona, Epirus. The second-century CE scholar Pollux (7.54–55) describes Spartan girls as wearing a chiton (tunic) with a high slit, while a scholiast on Euripides Hecube argues, based on the Archaic poet Anacreon, that Dorian women showed themselves naked (schol. Eurip. Hec. 934 = Anacreon 399).
Figure 7.1 An Archaic bronze figurine of a young Spartan female, dressed as a runner. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
Image not available in this digital edition.
Questions
1. What were the Spartans’ expectations of women according to Xenophon (7.17.A) and Plutarch (WEB 7.18)? What do they tell us about the status of Spartan women?
2. What might non-Spartans find offensive in the education of Spartan girls, and why?
3. What can we learn from Alcman’s poem (7.17.B) about the interests and concerns of Spartan girls, and about the world of their imagination?
4. In what ways do Alcman’s poem (7.17.B) and the figurine in Figure 7.1 add to, confirm, or contradict the descriptions of girls’ education by Xenophon (7.17.A) and Plutarch (WEB 7.18)?
7.19 Spartan Marriage
As in other Greek societies, marriage was considered the most important and formative event in a woman’s life. Spartan women likely married later than their Athenian counterparts, maybe around the age of eighteen to twenty. Plutarch describes Spartan marriage customs whose antiquity is hard to ascertain. They include the abduction of the bride, dressing her in men’s clothes, and cutting off her hair. Spartan men, on the other hand, grew their hair long. The bride’s being made to simulate a man has been variously interpreted. Some regard it as a rite of passage to womanhood, others see an attempt to make her resemble a man’s homosexual partners during his education, and still others consider it as intended to conceal the woman’s identity from evil forces. Plutarch’s explanation of the married couple’s conduct appears to be influenced by Xenophon’s commentary on the topic (The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 1.5).
Plutarch Lycurgus 15.4–10
(15.4) Marriage was conducted with the abduction of the bride, who was not now a small girl unripe for marriage but in her prime and completely mature. (15.5) The woman who was called the bridesmaid took the abducted bride, cut her hair close to the skin, dressed her in a man’s cloak and sandals, and set her on a pallet of straw, where she was left alone and without light. (15.6) The bridegroom, who was not drunk or drowsy, but sober, as he always was after dining in the phidition [common mess], would come in and undo her girdle and, lifting her up, would carry her to the bed. (15.7) He would not spend much time there, and would take his leave in a respectable manner to sleep amongst the other young men, where he had normally slept before his marriage. (15.8) And that is what he did later, too, spending the day amongst his comrades and sleeping amongst them, as well. He would come to his wife in secret and with caution, embarrassed and fearful that someone in the house might see him, while the wife would use her resourcefulness to arrange ways that the two could meet at appropriate moments without being observed. (15.9) The couple would do this for quite some time, with the result that some husbands had children born to them before they set eyes on their own wives in daylight. (15.10) Meeting in this manner was not only a training in self-control and moderation. It also brought the two together for sexual union when their bodies were fertile, and when they were fresh and eager for lovemaking, not sated and jaded from unlimited sexual relations, since they always left in each other some remnant of passion and affection to keep them excited.
7.20 Wife-Sharing
The primary expectation of a married couple in Greece was to produce children. In Sparta this expectation had special meaning given that helots outnumbered citizens. Spartans even allowed wife-sharing for the purpose of procreation. Xenophon thinks that the reason was to produce strong warriors, but the practice might have less to do with patriotism than with pragmatism. He and the later historian Polybius suggest that wife-sharing bonded two families together without having to split the inheritance among many heirs. The husband’s agreement to wife-share excluded such an arrangement from the category of adultery, which was regarded by other Greeks as a punishable offense: see, for example, the Cretan and Athenian dealings with adultery (WEB 13.2: “The Gortyn Law on Sexual Misconduct” and WEB 13.4: “Solon’s Laws Concerning Inheritance, Dowry, Women Outdoors, Parental Support, and Sexual Misconduct”).
7.20.A Xenophon on Wife-Sharing
Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 1.6–9
(1.6) In addition, Lycurgus also put a stop to men taking a wife whenever they wanted, and ordered them to marry in the prime of their physical strength, for he thought that this, too, promoted eugenics. (1.7) In the case of an old man having a young spouse, however, he observed that older men kept a particularly close watch over their wives, and his ideas in this case were very different. He instituted the practice that an old man should bring home, for the purposes of procreation, a male whose physical and inner qualities he admired. (1.8) And if anyone did not wish to cohabit with a wife, but did want exemplary children, Lycurgus also established that the man could – if he persuaded the lady’s husband – have children by any woman he saw who had fine children and was of noble birth.
(1.9) Lycurgus agreed to many such relationships. For the women want to be mistresses of two households, and the men want to gain as brothers for their sons boys who share with them heredity and influence within the family, but lay no claim to its property.
7.20.B Polybius on Wife-Sharing
Polybius 12.6b8
In fact it was amongst the Lacedaemonians a traditional custom, one widely practiced, for three or four men – even more if they were brothers – to have one wife, and for their children to be regarded as common to all of them. When a man had sired enough children it was quite proper, and a commonplace occurrence, for him to pass his wife on to one of his friends.
Both the marriage ritual and wife-sharing made Spartan women somewhat passive and instrumental in male transactions. Yet as wives and mothers of warriors, Spartan women enjoyed more liberties than, say, Athenian women. As co-heirs or sole heirs they could also own real property. In the late fourth century, Aristotle complained that women owned almost two-fifths of Spartan land (Politics 2.6.10 1270a23–27). In addition, women, especially in their roles as mothers, were expected to support the Spartan martial and patriotic value system. See WEB 7.21 for sayings attributed to Spartan mothers.
Questions
1. What do the marriage ritual and polyandry (multiple husbands) tell us about the standing of Spartan women?
2. Describe the integration of women into Spartan society based on the wedding ritual (7.19), sharing of wives (7.20.A–B), and sayings attributed to Spartan mothers (WEB 7.21).
7.22 The Common Messes
The preconditions for Spartan citizenship were Spartan parentage, completion of the education process, a plot of land (kleros), and a contribution to the common messes. Absence of one of these criteria disqualified a man from obtaining, or keeping, his citizenship.
The common messes, called syssitia (sitting together), syskenia (tent-companies), or pheiditia (frugal meal), were associations of Spartans who got together both in the city and over a campaign. Xenophon idealized this institution as promoting sharing, sobriety, and proper conduct. Aristotle, however, criticized the obligation to contribute to the common mess as discriminatory against the poor, who lost their citizenship for lack of means (see WEB 7.23). A rejected member was deprived of his civic rights and socially demoted.
7.22.A Xenophon on the Common Messes
Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 5.2–7
(5.2) Finding the Spartiates settled in at home like the rest of the Greeks, Lycurgus realized that this was the cause of considerable mischief. He therefore instituted public messes in the open, believing that in this way men would be least likely to disobey commands. (5.3) He also rationed their food so that they would not gorge themselves, but not go short, either. In fact, many unexpected additions to the meals also come from the spoils of the hunt, and sometimes, instead of these, the rich make contributions of bread. Accordingly the table is never bare of food until everyone leaves, nor is it extravagantly supplied. (5.4) Lycurgus also put a stop to obligatory drinking at a party, which is mentally and physically debilitating, but he allowed everyone to drink whenever he was thirsty, thinking that this was the least harmful and most pleasurable form of drinking.
How could anyone sharing a mess in this way ruin himself or his household by gluttony or drunkenness? (5.5) For in the other city-states, generally speaking, men keep company with their contemporaries, amongst whom they feel very little embarrassment. Lycurgus, however, [introduced] the system in Sparta that such company be of various ages [so that] the younger men would learn most from the experience of their elders.1 (5.6) And, in fact, the custom of the land at the common meals was for discussion to center on whatever good one could do in the city-state, so that there was very little outrageous behavior, very little drunken violence, and very little indecency in conduct and conversation. (5.7) There are also the following beneficial consequences from taking meals outdoors. The men are obliged to walk about when they leave for home, and have to make sure that they do not keel over from drunkenness, for they know that they will not be staying in the place where they had dinner. Also, they must negotiate their way in darkness as well as they can in daylight, for anyone liable for guard duty is not even allowed to walk with the aid of a torch.
Note
1. The restorations are due to lacunae in the text.
7.22.B Plutarch on the Common Messes
Plutarch adds information about the admission process to the syssition (at the age of twenty), and the institution’s rules of conduct.
Plutarch Lycurgus 12.3–7
(12.3) They would come together in groups of fifteen, or slightly fewer or slightly more than that. Each of the diners brought, every month, a medimnos [ca. 1.5 bushels] of barley-meal, eight choes [ca. 26 liters] of wine, five minae [ca. 2.2 kilos] of cheese, two and a half minae [ca. 1.1 kilos] of figs, and in addition just a little money for the purchase of fish. (12.4) Besides this, anyone who had sacrificed would send the first fruits of the offering to the mess, and anyone who had hunted would send part of the catch. For a man could dine at home whenever he was late through offering sacrifice or hunting, but all others had to attend the mess. (12.5) The practice of communal eating they religiously preserved for a long time. At any rate, when king Agis1 returned from campaign after defeating the Athenians and, wishing to dine with his wife, sent for his parts of the meal, the polemarchs [senior officers] refused his request. And when, in anger, Agis did not the following day make a sacrifice that he should have made, they fined him.
(12.6) Even male children used to frequent the common messes, and were taken to them as if they were schools of temperance. There they would listen to political talk, and observe games suitable for free persons; and they became habituated to playing these games, and also to making jokes without coarseness, and being the butt of jokes without becoming annoyed.2 (12.7) For it was thought a particularly Laconian quality to be able to take a joke; but anyone unable to do so could ask the joker to stop and he did so at once.
Notes
1. Probably Agis II, ca. 427–399.
2. Spartan humor often involved a put-down.
Questions
1. What rules governed admittance to and participation in the Spartan common mess according to Xenophon and Plutarch (7.22.A–B)?
2. How did the common mess contribute to, but also violate, the ideology of Spartan equality?
7.24 Spartan Equality: Ideology and Reality
The sources associate the sharing of food and company and the universal obligation to attend the syssition with the Spartan ideology of an egalitarian and austere society. The Spartans paid respect to this ideology when they called themselves homoioi, “the similar ones.” Plutarch reproduces this ideology in the following traditions about Lycurgus’ distribution of land among the Spartans. The Spartans were reputed to hold the possession of money in low regard. For money they used iron ingots as well as standard foreign currency.
7.24.A Lycurgus’ Egalitarian Measures
Plutarch Lycurgus 8.1–9
(8.1) The second, and the most enterprising, of Lycurgus’ reforms is the redistribution of land. (8.2) The inequality of holdings had become extreme, and there were many poor and indigent people threatening the well-being of the state, while the wealth had fallen completely into the hands of a few. (8.3) Lycurgus now wanted to drive out arrogance, jealousy, criminality, luxury, and those ills of the state even more inveterate and serious than these, namely wealth and poverty. He therefore persuaded the Spartans to put all their land at the disposal of the community, to agree to a new division, and to live all together on an equal footing with the same amount of property for their livelihood, seeking distinction only by virtue. (8.4) There would be no difference or inequality between one person and another except that created by the censure of wicked acts and praise of noble ones.
(8.5) Following words with action, Lycurgus divided the rest of Laconia into thirty thousand lots [kleroi] for the perioeci, but the city land belonging to the city of Sparta he divided into nine thousand, which became the lots of the Spartiates. (8.6) Some say that Lycurgus’ division created only six thousand city parcels, and that three thousand were subsequently added by [king] Polydorus. Others claim that half of the nine thousand were created by Polydorus, and the other half by Lycurgus. (8.7) Each man’s lot was big enough to bear seventy medimnoi1 of barley for a man and twelve for his wife, with a proportionate amount of fruit. (8.8) For Lycurgus believed that this was sufficient nourishment for them for their health and strength, and that they would need nothing more. (8.9) It is said that, later, on his return from a voyage, he was going through the countryside when it had just been harvested. Seeing the stacks of grain standing next to each other, all alike, he smiled and said to those present that all of Laconia seemed to belong to a large band of brothers who had just divided it amongst themselves.
Note
1. A medimnos equals about 52 liters or 1.5 bushels of grain.
7.24.B The Similar Ones (Homoioi )?
Archaeological and literary evidence, however, suggests that the image of austere and equal Spartans requires modification. The fact that the Spartans could bequeath their plots of lands (kleroi) to male or female heirs or give them to others as a gift (but not apparently to sell them) testifies against egalitarian land ownership. These practices challenge the common ancient (and modern) assumption that land in Sparta was owned by the state. It appears that the Spartans, like other Greeks, maintained a fairly common pattern of land ownership. However, Spartans and other Greeks of later years cultivated the ideology of egalitarian Spartan society. Thus, Plutarch’s figures for plots of land are based on testimonies that are no earlier than the Hellenistic period.
In addition, until sometime in the sixth century, the city of Sparta showed few signs of leading an austere lifestyle, and even later Spartans continued to collect and keep valuables, although they avoided ostentation. Both Archaic and Classical sources tell us about wealthy Spartans and inequality after Lycurgus (e.g., Herodotus 6.61.3 [WEB 7.29.IV]; 7.134.2).
The Laconian cup shown in Figure 7.2, attributed to the “Naucratis Painter,” is dated to around 565. It depicts a lifestyle typical of the elite in other contemporary Greek states, but contradicts the asceticism ascribed to Sparta by the sources. The cup shows five men reclining in a symposion (banquet). The symposion was very much an aristocratic institution, and included drinking wine, entertainment (including by female pipe players depicted on other Laconian vases), male bonding, and erotic pursuit (see 12.8: “The Banquet”). The scene on the cup portrays five bearded (i.e., adult) banqueters, and a naked young cupbearer who stands next to the wine jar (kratêr). Two sirens and two winged creatures are carrying wreaths. The meaning of the winged figures is unclear. Perhaps they represent benevolent supernatural beings, perhaps divine approval of the participants. They were possibly borrowed from Near Eastern iconography.
Figure 7.2 The Symposion of Five Cup, ca. 565. © RMN/Hervé Lewandowski.
Image not available in this digital edition.
Questions
1. What constituted Spartan equality or similarity?
2. Is it possible to reconcile the scene depicted on the Laconian cup (Figure 7.2) with Xenophon’s description of the common mess (7.22.A)? Explain why or why not.
7.25 Courage and Cowardice in Sparta
The ideal of homogeneity helped to promote communal solidarity and conformity, which were espoused also in the Spartan army. The Spartan man spent his days exercising, training, and hunting in readiness for the next campaign. On the battlefield he fought alongside his comrades and was expected to return, according to a proverbial Spartan saying, “with the shield, or on the shield.” We shall revisit Spartan warriors in the chapter on the hoplite army (8.6: “The Spartan or Hoplite Ideology”). The following passage describes how the Spartan community ritualized the shaming of individuals who failed to meet its standards of manly courage and comradeship. Cowards in Sparta were labeled tresantes, lit. “tremblers” (see also Plutarch Agesilaus 30.3–4).
Xenophon The Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 9.1–6
(9.1) This, too, was a praiseworthy accomplishment of Lycurgus: he managed to make a noble death preferable to a dishonorable life in the city-state of Sparta. And, in fact, anyone looking into the matter would find that fewer of these Spartans actually lose their lives than do those who choose to retreat from a fearful situation. (9.2) To tell the truth, salvation more often goes along with courage than it does with cowardice, for courage is easier, sweeter, more inventive, and stronger. And it is obvious that glory also follows closely on valor, for all people want to be allied with the brave in some way.
(9.3) One should also not pass over the means that Lycurgus employed to bring this about. Quite clearly he provided happiness for the brave and unhappiness for the cowardly. (9.4) In other city-states, when a man turns coward all he receives is the name “coward,” and he still frequents the same marketplace as the brave man, and he sits beside him and exercises with him, if he wishes.1 In Lacedaemon, however, everybody would be ashamed to have a coward as his messmate, or as an opponent in a wrestling match. When people pick sides for a ball game, such a person is often left unchosen, and in choral dancing he is sent off to the shameful positions. In the streets he has to step out of others’ way, and when it comes to seating he must cede his even to younger men. At home he must support his unmarried female relatives, and he must put up with being blamed by them for their unmarried state. He must endure a hearth without a wife (9.5) and yet he must pay the penalty for it. He must not walk about looking comfortable, or have the appearance of men beyond reproach; otherwise he must endure a beating from his betters. (9.6) I am not at all surprised that in Sparta – since such disgrace hangs over cowards – death is preferred to a life of disgrace and shame like this.
Note
1. In fact, Athenian law from the Classical Age punished desertion with partial disenfranchisement (atimia).
Question
1. How did the Spartans shame those deemed cowards? Where else in Sparta was shame used to promote conformity to ideals?
7.26 The Peloponnesian League and Spartan Alliances
Spartan foreign policy relied greatly on alliances with other states. Often alliances were based on ties of individual xenia between prominent Spartans, especially the kings, and other Greek and non-Greek notables. Yet more reliable or stable alliances were those between states. Sparta formed a system of alliances called the Peloponnesian League, which included many states both inside and outside the Peloponnese. Among the first communities to become a Spartan ally was the Arcadian city of Tegea. Herodotus reports that around the mid-sixth century the Spartans tried to subjugate neighboring Tegea and probably to helotize it. They overcame the Tegeans only after acquiring the (alleged) bones of the mythical Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and his Spartan wife Clytemnestra. The establishment of a cult for Orestes in Sparta, and the recovery from Achaea of the (alleged) bones of Orestes’ son, Tisamenus, have been interpreted as part of a Spartan propaganda campaign that aimed to establish Spartan hegemony over other Peloponnesian states on the basis of their Achaean, i.e., pre-Dorian, heritage. See Herodotus’ description of how the Spartans obtained Orestes’ bones in WEB 7.27.I.
The Spartans did not annex Tegea to their state but signed a treaty with it, which Plutarch found in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians and partially preserves. The treaty forbade giving shelter to runaway helots.
7.26.A The Spartans’ Agreement with Tegea
Plutarch Greek Questions 5 (Moralia 292B) = Arist. F 592
“Who are the ‘good men’ amongst the Arcadians and Lacedaemonians?”
When the Lacedaemonians became reconciled with the people of Tegea, they signed a treaty and erected a stele together on the banks of the Alpheus.1 Among other things, the following was inscribed on it: “They must expel the Messenians from the country, and making them ‘good’ is forbidden.”2 Now Aristotle, in his explanation of this, says that its meaning is that the death penalty is not to be applied for assistance given to those Tegeans sympathizing with Sparta.
Notes
1. The Alpheus River was either in Olympia or somewhere between Sparta and Tegea.
2. The phrase “making them good/useful” was often applied to the dead. The Spartans requested that their Tegean friends not be executed.
Most likely the treaty included additional provisions. Sparta’s relations with its allies in the Archaic period suggest that some of its alliance terms might have resembled the conditions accepted by the city of Olynthus when it surrendered to Sparta in 379. The agreement with Olynthus demonstrates the unequal relationship between Sparta and its allies. The allies were linked to Sparta but not to each other, and the Spartans were not obliged to reciprocate their services.
7.26.B The Spartans’ Treaty with Olynthus
Xenophon Hellenica 5.3.26
The Olynthians were in an absolutely terrible state from famine because they were deriving no food from their land, and none was being brought in to them by sea. [The Spartan commander] Polybiades then forced them to send a deputation to Lacedaemon to sue for peace. The spokesmen came with plenipotentiary authority, and they concluded a treaty by which they were to recognize the same enemies and friends, follow the Spartans wherever they would lead them, and join their alliance. After swearing to abide by these terms, they returned home.
Questions
1. What were the obligations of the members of the Peloponnesian League?
2. Describe the evolution of the Peloponnesian League from the wars against Tegea (7.26.A and WEB 7.27.I) to Cleomenes’ failed mobilization of the Peloponnesians against Athens following Corinth’s opposition (WEB 7.27.II–III).
7.28 King Cleomenes, Plataea, and Athens (519)
As a hegemonic and powerful state, Sparta was often courted by other Greeks to become their ally. Plataea’s request and rejection reveal some of the considerations that influenced Spartan foreign policy. The episode involves one of the more formidable Spartan kings, Cleomenes I.
In 519 Cleomenes led a Spartan force to Boeotia. He was approached by the city of Plataea, which was threatened by its neighbor Thebes, with a request to become Sparta’s ally. The Spartans declined on account of their geographical distance from Plataea, which rings true in view of their apprehension of helots and far-flung campaigns. Instead, they recommended an alliance with Athens, which was closer by and ruled at the time by their friend, the tyrant Hippias. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship between Athens and Plataea. It also displayed Cleomenes’ astuteness, since his policy won Athenian gratitude and curbed Thebes’ power. (Herodotus, however, attributes more sinister motives to the Spartans.)
Herodotus recounts the Plataean episode in the context of the preliminaries of the battle of Marathon between the Persians and Athenians and their Plataean allies (490; see Chapter 15: “The Ionian Revolt: Persians and Greeks”).
Herodotus 6.108.1–6
(6.108.1) The Plataeans had earlier put themselves under the protection of the Athenians, and the Athenians had already shouldered many burdens on their behalf. How the Plataeans came to put themselves under their protection is as follows:
(108.2) The Plataeans, under pressure from the Thebans, first of all offered to put themselves under the protection of Cleomenes son of Anaxandrides and the Lacedaemonians, who happened to be in the area. The Lacedaemonians, however, refused, saying to them: “We live too far away, and such help as might come to you would be in vain – you might be enslaved many times over before any of us learned of it! (108.3) Our advice to you is to offer yourselves to the Athenians; they live next door and are competent to help you.” It was not out of regard for the Plataeans that the Lacedaemonians gave this advice, but because they wanted to see the Athenians have problems in their relations with the Boeotians.
(108.4) The Plataeans did not disregard the advice that the Lacedaemonians gave them. When the Athenians were holding a sacrifice for the twelve [Olympian] gods, they sat as suppliants at the altar [in the agora], and put themselves under Athenian protection. On learning of this, the Thebans launched a campaign against the Plataeans, and the Athenians came to their defense. (108.5) But as they were about to join battle the Corinthians would not allow them to proceed. They happened to be in the area, and they effected a reconciliation between the two parties, who both turned to them for arbitration. The Corinthians marked out a boundary line in the land, on condition that the Thebans leave in peace any Boeotians not wishing to belong to the Boeotian League. After rendering this judgment, the Corinthians left. As the Athenians were pulling back, however, the Boeotians attacked them, but were defeated in the battle. (108.6) The Athenians then passed over the boundaries that the Corinthians established for the Plataeans, and made the Asopus River itself the border between Theban territory and that of Plataea and Hysiae.
That was how the Plataeans put themselves under Athenian protection, and on that occasion they came to Marathon to help them.
See WEB 7.29.I–V for the remarkable story of king Cleomenes I, which tells much about Spartan customs, domestic affairs, and foreign policy.
WEB 7.30 has useful links to the website of the Sparta Museum, including images of ancient Spartan remains and artifacts, to two resources for Spartan history, and to some Spartan poetry.
Questions
1. Who was involved in the Plataean affair and what role did they play?
2. What can the Plataean episode tell us about the workings of Greek diplomacy?
Review Questions
1. Describe the categories of inhabitants in the Spartan state and how this stratification was reflected in Spartan culture (7.2–5, WEB 7.7.I–II, WEB 7.23).
2. How was power distributed in Sparta? Was the Spartan political structure a mixed constitution with adequate checks and balances (7.8–9, 7.11–12, WEB 7.10, WEB 7.13.I–II)?
3. What values did Spartans highlight in their education of boys and girls, and how did they teach these values (7.15, 7.17, WEB 7.16, WEB 7.18)?
4. Describe how the socialization of Spartan men and women continued after they became adults (7.19, 7.22, 7.25, WEB 7.21, WEB 7.23).
5. What tensions between family and state in Sparta existed on or beneath the surface? How did the Spartans deal with these tensions (7.14, 7.15, 7.17, 7.19, 7.20, 7.22)?
6. What contributed to the Spartan egalitarian ideology and how (7.22, 24)?
7. How did Sparta become a dominant power in Greece (7.26, WEB 7.27.I–III)?
8. What does the story of Demaratus’ birth and dethroning (WEB 7.29.IV) tell us about Spartan queens?
9. Herodotus’ account of Cleomenes I appears to be based on hostile sources (WEB 7.29.I–V). Without forcing the issue, try to give a more sympathetic account of the king’s career.
Suggested Readings
Ancient sources on Sparta and the Spartan “mirage”: Tigerstedt 1965–1978; Hodkinson 1997, 83–88; Flower 2002. Spartan archaeology: Cartledge 1992, esp. 53. Messenian Wars: Hodkinson 2000, 2, 76. Land ownership in Sparta: Hodkinson 2000, 19–112; Figueira 2004. Spartan currency: Christien 2002; Figueira 2002. Krypteia: Cartledge 1987, 30–32; as an initiation rite: Vidal-Naquet 1986, 106–128. Perioeci: Cartledge 1979, 160–196; Shipley 1997b; Eremin 2002; Mertens 2002. Helots: Hodkinson 2000, 113–150; Luraghi and Alcock 2003 (includes studies questioning the great demographic disparity between helots and Spartans). Thucydides and massacre of helots: Paradiso 2004 (doubts the report); Harvey 2004 (defends it). Laconian art in its social context: Lane 1933–1934; Pipili 1987; A. Powell 1998. The Symposion cup: Pipili 1987, 71–72; A. Powell 1998, 123–126. Lycurgus and his reforms: Andrewes 1956, 66–77; Finley 1986, 161–178; V. Parker 1993; Cartledge 2002, 27–29, 57–68. Spartan education: Kennel 1995; Cartledge 2001; Ducat 2006. Spartan pederasty: Cartledge 2001, 91–105. Spartan girls and women: Dewald 1981; Scanlon 1998; Cartledge 2001, 106–126; Pomeroy 2002. Spartan maiden songs: Robbins 1994; Calame 1997. Spartan rhetra and government: Cartledge 1987, 116–132; van Wees 1999. Common messes: Singor 1999; Hodkinson 2000, 216–218. The Peloponnesian League: Ste Croix 1972, 101–124; Cartledge 1987, 9–13, 242–273. Sparta’s Achaean policy: Leahy 1955, but see Boedeker 1993 and Welwei 2004. Cleomenes and his reign: Jeffrey 1976, 123–127; Cawkwell 1993; Ste Croix 2004, 421–440.
During the Archaic Age Sparta gained many allies in and outside the Peloponnese, and thus attained hegemonic status in Greece. However, in 506 and 504, Sparta’s most powerful ally Corinth successfully opposed two attempts by the Spartan king Cleomenes I to forcibly install his friends in power in Athens. Corinth’s opposition might have led to the establishment of an assembly of allies’ representatives whose approval was required before taking action. Each member had one vote, and decisions were made by majority vote. Nevertheless, the Spartans still retained the exclusive right to call the allies together, and certainly to decline pursuing the course of action advocated by them. See WEB 7.27.II–III for Herodotus’ report on the Corinthian opposition to Cleomenes’ policy.