Sparta
Lacedaemon Λακεδαίμων ( Greek polytheism | |||||||||
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Government | Diarchy | ||||||||
King | |||||||||
• c. 930–900 BC | Agis I | ||||||||
• 207–192 BC | Nabis | ||||||||
Legislature |
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Historical era | Foundation | 900s BC | |||||||
685–668 BC | |||||||||
480 BC | |||||||||
431–404 BC | |||||||||
362 BC | |||||||||
192 BC | |||||||||
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Sparta
Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens.[3] Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC),[4] from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. The decisive Battle of Leuctra against Thebes in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until its forced integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city nevertheless recovered much autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and prospered during the Roman Empire, as its antiquarian customs attracted many Roman tourists. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric, and underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives.
Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its
Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in
Names
The
The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀨𐀐𐀅𐀖𐀛𐀍, ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo, "Lakedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script,[9][n 1] the equivalent of the later Greek Λακεδαιμόνιος, Lakedaimonios (Latin: Lacedaemonius).[15][16]
Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for the
The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι; Latin: Lacedaemonii, but also Lacedaemones). The ancients sometimes used a back-formation, referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country. As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the feminine: Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαιμονία, Lakedaimonia). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone.
"Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in
Lakedaimona was until 2006 the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia.
Geography
Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern
Mythology
Tyrtaeus, an archaic era Spartan writer, is the earliest source to connect the origin myth of the Spartans to the lineage of the hero Heracles; later authors, such as Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, and Apollodorus, also made mention of Spartans understanding themselves to be descendants of Heracles.[24][25][26][27]
Archaeology of the classical period
Thucydides wrote:
Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame. Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show.[28][29]
Until the early 20th century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the
The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 and enlarged in 1907. Partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens. The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period.[28]
In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself.[28]
A "small circus" (as described by Leake) proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after 200 AD around the altar and in front of the Temple of Artemis Orthia. It is believed that musical and gymnastic contests took place here, as well as the famous flogging ordeal administered to Spartan boys (diamastigosis). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BC, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BC, which were found in great profusion within the precinct range, supply invaluable information about early Spartan art.[28]
In 1907, the location of the sanctuary of
In terms of domestic archaeology, little is known about Spartan houses and villages before the Archaic period, but the best evidence comes from excavations at Nichoria in Messenia where postholes have been found. These villages were open and consisted of small and simple houses built with stone foundations and clay walls.[30]
Menelaion
The
Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that the area around the Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.[32] The Mycenaean settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left of its original structures save for ruined foundations and broken potsherds.[28]
History
Prehistory, "dark age" and archaic period
The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is distorted by oral tradition.[33] The earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres (1.2 miles) south-southwest of Sparta.[34]
This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by the late
Nothing distinctive in the archaeology of the Eurotas River Valley identifies the Dorians or the Dorian Spartan state. The prehistory of the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (the Early Iron Age) at this moment must be treated apart from the stream of Dorian Spartan history.[citation needed]
The legendary period of Spartan history is believed to fall into the Dark Age. It treats the mythic heroes such as the
Between the 8th and 7th centuries BC the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later attested by both Herodotus and Thucydides.
Classical Sparta
In the Second Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled.[41] At its peak around 500 BC, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger Greek city-states;[42][43] however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BC was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger.[n 2]
In 480 BC, a small force led by King
The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the
In 464 BC, a violent earthquake occurred along the Sparta faultline destroying much of what was Sparta and many other city-states in ancient Greece. This earthquake is marked by scholars as one of the key events that led to the First Peloponnesian War.
In later Classical times, Sparta along with
During the
After a few more years of fighting, in 387 BC the
As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle.
Hellenistic and Roman Sparta
Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BC and the subsequent helot revolts. In 338, Philip II invaded and devastated much of Laconia, turning the Spartans out, though he did not seize Sparta itself.[52] Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out."[53], the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: αἴκα, "if".[54][55][56] When Philip created the League of Corinth on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia".
Sparta continued to be one of the Peloponesian powers until its eventual loss of independence in 192 BC. During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BC to secure the island for the Persian interest.[57][58] Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BC. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle.[59] More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops.[60] Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin.[61] Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused.[62]
During the
In 214 AD, Roman emperor Caracalla, in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia, recruited a 500-man Spartan cohort (lokhos). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx, implying it fought like the old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian phalanx. Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated.[68]
An exchange of letters in the
Areus king of the Lacedemonians to Onias the high priest, greeting: It is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham: Now therefore, since this is come to our knowledge, ye shall do well to write unto us of your prosperity. We do write back again to you, that your cattle and goods are ours, and ours are yours.
— Authorized King James Version 1 Maccabees 12.20
The letters are reproduced in a variant form by Josephus.[69] Jewish historian Uriel Rappaport notes that the relationship between the Jews and the Spartans expressed in this correspondence has "intrigued many scholars, and various explanations have been suggested for the problems raised ... including the historicity of the Jewish leader and high priest Jonathan's letter to the Spartans, the authenticity of the letter of Arius to Onias, cited in Jonathan's letter, and the supposed 'brotherhood' of the Jews and the Spartans." Rappaport is clear that "the authenticity of [the reply] letter of Arius is based on even less firm foundations than the letter of Jonathan".[70]
Spartans long spurned the idea of building a defensive wall around their city, believing they made the city's men soft in terms of their warrior abilities. A wall was finally erected after 184 BCE, after the peak of the city-state's power had come and gone.[71]
Postclassical and modern Sparta
In 396 AD, Sparta was sacked by Visigoths under Alaric I.[72][73] According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century. The Tsakonian language still spoken in Tsakonia is the only surviving descendant of the ancient Doric language. [74] In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras, and Sparta fell further in even local importance. Modern Sparta was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece.
Structure of Classical Spartan society
Constitution
Sparta was an
The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BC, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses (
Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the
Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and Gerousia.[28]
An assembly of citizens called the Ekklesia was responsible for electing men to the Gerousia for life.
Citizenship
The Spartan education process known as the
There were two exceptions. trophimoi or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a syntrophos[79] if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate.[80] Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could lose their citizenship.
These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.
Non citizens
The other classes were the
Helots
The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population. The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in
The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of
Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor.[87] They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.[88] Initially, helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BC.
In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.
There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BC) that led to prolonged conflict. By the tenth year of this war the Spartans and Messenians had reached an agreement in which Messenian rebels were allowed to leave the Peloponnese.[91] They were given safe passage under the terms that they would be re-enslaved if they tried to return. This agreement ended the most serious incursion into Spartan territory since their expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries BC.[92] Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."[93][94] On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BC to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BC 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.[95] What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.[citation needed]
As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene[96] of the middle 3rd century BC:
They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap (κυνῆ / kunễ) and wrap himself in skins (διφθέρα / diphthéra) and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat.[97]
Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous –
Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution.[99] This fight seems to have been carried out by kryptai (sing. κρύπτης kryptēs), graduates of the agoge who took part in the mysterious institution known as the Krypteia.[100] Thucydides states:
The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.[101][102]
Perioikoi
The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society. Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots. The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade.[103] Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,[104] they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.[105]
Economy
Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi.[28] This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.[106] Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors,[107] and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.
Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding.[108][109] It was not until the 260s or 250s BC that Sparta began to mint its own coins.[110] Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.[111]
Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BC, a massive land reform had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which was expected to provide his living.[112] The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, nothing is known of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries.[113] However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land.[28][114] By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BC) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors,[28] but this could not reverse the trend.
Life in Classical Sparta
Birth and death
Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. According to Plutarch after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not.[28] It is commonly stated that if they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀποθέται, "Deposits").[115][116] This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics.[115] Plutarch is the sole historical source for the Spartan practice of systemic infanticide motivated by eugenics.[117] Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes: "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule."[118] There is controversy about the matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains, likely belonging to criminals[119] and Greek sources contemporary to Sparta does not mention systemic infanticide motivated solely by eugenics.[120]
Spartan burial customs changed over time. The Archaic Spartan poet Tyrtaeus spoke of the Spartan war-dead as follows:
Never do his [the war-dead's] name and good fame perish,
But even though he is beneath the earth he is immortal,
Young and old alike mourn him,
All the city is distressed by the painful loss,
and his tomb and children are pointed out among the people,
and his children’s children and his line after them.
When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.[122] These headstones likely acted as memorials, rather than as grave markers. Evidence of Spartan burials is provided by the Tomb of the Lacedaimonians in Athens.[citation needed] Excavations at the cemetery of classical Sparta, uncovered ritually pierced kantharoid-like ceramic vessels, the ritual slaughter of horses, and specific burial enclosures alongside individual 'plots'. Some of the graves were reused over time.[123][124]
In the Hellenistic Period, grander, two-storey monumental tombs are found at Sparta. Ten of these have been found for this period.[124]
Education
When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the agoge system. The agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the agoge, the boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to have enough."[125] In addition, they were trained to survive in times of privation, even if it meant stealing.[126] Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently "laconically" (i.e. briefly and wittily).[127]
Spartan boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear). Xenophon, an admirer of the Spartan educational system whose sons attended the agoge, explicitly denies the sexual nature of the relationship.[128][125]
Some Spartan youth apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the
Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. Spartan girls received an education known as mousikē. This included music, dancing, singing and poetry. Choral dancing was taught so Spartan girls could participate in ritual activities, including the cults of Helen and Artemis.[130] In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.[131]
Military life
At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member.[28] Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.[132]
Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty.[133] According to these sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen,[134] with the lover responsible for the boy's training.
However, other scholars question this interpretation. Xenophon explicitly denies it,[125] but not Plutarch.[135]
Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age 60. Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30. They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the
Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his aspis (shield) and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).[138] This is almost certainly propaganda. Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their shield.[139] Nevertheless, it is fair to say that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or greaves than his shield, since the former were designed to protect one man, whereas the shield also protected the man on his left. Thus, the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms – messmates and friends, often close blood relations.
According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective. He observed:
It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.[140]
One of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands.[141][142] The myth can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17 "sayings" of "Spartan women", all of which paraphrase or elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.[139]
Agriculture, food, and diet
Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizen's kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia.[143] The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.[144]
Marriage
Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:
The custom was to capture women for marriage... The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl. She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark. The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.[145]
The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage. These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways. One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.[146]
Role of women
Political, social, and economic equality
Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were fed the same food as their brothers.[147] Nor were they confined to their father's house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but exercised and even competed in sports.[147] Most important, rather than being married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy among adolescents. Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10 years below that of men.[148]
Unlike
Another practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of "wife-sharing". In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives. Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer.[151] For this reason many considered Spartan women polygamous or polyandrous.[152] This practice was encouraged in order that women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could. The Spartan population was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle and the intense physical inspection of newborns.[153]
Spartan women were also literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even in public.[154] Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts). Plato praised Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical discussion.[155]
Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.[156] The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father because she had no living brothers to inherit (an epikleros), the woman was not required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal relative.[156]
Historic women
Many women played a significant role in the history of Sparta.[157] Queen Gorgo, heiress to the throne and the wife of Leonidas I, was an influential and well-documented figure. Herodotus records that as a small girl she advised her father Cleomenes to resist a bribe. She was later said to be responsible for decoding a warning that the Persian forces were about to invade Greece; after Spartan generals could not decode a wooden tablet covered in wax, she ordered them to clear the wax, revealing the warning.[158] Plutarch's Moralia contains a collection of "Sayings of Spartan Women", including a laconic quip attributed to Gorgo: when asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men".[159] In 396, Cynisca, sister of the Eurypontid king Agesilaos II, became the first woman in Greece to win an Olympic chariot race. She won again in 392, and dedicated two monuments to commemorate her victory, these being an inscription in Sparta and a set of bronze equestrian statues at the Olympic temple of Zeus.[160][161]
Laconophilia
Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and its culture or constitution. Sparta was subject of considerable admiration in its day, even in rival
With the revival of classical learning in
A German
Certain early Zionists, and particularly the founders of Kibbutz movement in Israel, were influenced by Spartan ideals, particularly in education. Tabenkin, a founding father of the Kibbutz movement and the Palmach strikeforce, prescribed that education for warfare "should begin from the nursery", that children should from kindergarten be taken to "spend nights in the mountains and valleys".[166][167]
In modern times, the adjective "Spartan" means simple, frugal, avoiding luxury and comfort.[168] The term "laconic phrase" describes the very terse and direct speech characteristic of the Spartans.
Sparta also features prominently in modern
Notable ancient Spartans
- Agesilaus II – king
- Agis I – king
- Agis II – king
- Chilon – philosopher
- Chionis (7th century BC) – athlete
- Ten Thousand.
- Cleomenes I – king
- Cleomenes III – king and reformer
- Cynisca (4th century BC) – princess and athlete
- Gorgo – queen and politician
- Helen – princess in the Trojan War
- Leonidas I (c. 520–480 BC) – king, commander at the Battle of Thermopylae
- Lycurgus(10th century BC) – lawgiver
- Lysander (5th–4th century BC) – general
- Menelaus – king during the Trojan War
- Nabis – king
- Xanthippus of Carthage– Spartan mercenary in the First Punic War
See also
Notes
- ^ According to Thucydides, the Athenian citizens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC) numbered 40,000, making a total of 140,000 people when including their families. The metics, i.e. those who did not have citizen rights and paid for the right to reside in Athens, numbered a further 70,000, whilst slaves were estimated at between 150,000 to 400,000.[44]
- ^ Especially the Diamastigosis at the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, Limnai outside Sparta. There an amphitheatre was built in the 3rd century AD to observe the ritual whipping of Spartan youths.[64][65] Visiting Romans came to see Sparta as having degraded to a disgusting cult of fetish brutality.[66][67]
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- ^ a b c "TH 229 Fq (305)". "TH Fq 258 (305)". "TH 275 Fq (305)". "TH 253 Fq (305)". "TH 284 Fq (305)". "TH 325 Fq (305)". "TH 339 Fq (305)". "TH 382 Fq (305)". "TH 227 Gp (306)". "MY 603 Ge + frr. (58a)". "MY 604 Ge (58a)". DĀMOS Database of Mycenaean at Oslo. University of Oslo.
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- ^ Liddell & Scott 1940. Λακεδαιμόνιος, s.v. Λακεδαίμων.
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- ^ Wiener, Leo (1920). Contributions toward a History of Arabico-Gothic Culture. Vol. III: Tacitus' Germania & Other Forgeries. Philadelphia: Innes & Sones. p. 20.
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- ^ a b Pausanias 1918, Description of Greece, ΙΙΙ.1.2.
- ^ Diodorus Siculus, 4.57-8
- ^ Apollodorus, 2.8.2-4
- ^ Kennel, Nigel. "Spartans: A New History | Wiley". Wiley.com. pp. 37–39. Retrieved 2021-02-03.
- ^ Hdt., 9.26.2
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o public domain: Tod, Marcus Niebuhr (1911). "Sparta". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 609–14. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the
- ^ Thucydides, i. 10
- ^ Cavanagh, William (2018). "An Archaeology of Ancient Sparta with Reference to Laconia and Messenia". A COMPANION TO SPARTA. Vol. 1. Hoboken USA: Wiley Blackwell. p. 62.
- ^ The British School at Athens, Home.
- ^ The Mycenaean presence in the southeastern Eurotas valley: Vouno Panagias and Ayios Georgios, by Emilia Banou.
- ^ a b Herodot, Book I, 56.3
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 28.
- ^ a b Ehrenberg 2002, p. 31.
- ^ Ehrenberg 2002, p. 36.
- ^ Ehrenberg 2002, p. 33.
- ^ Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, 1
- ^ Herodotus, 1.65-66
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, 6.1-2
- ^ "A Historical Commentary on Thucydides". David Cartwright, p. 176
- ^ Morris, Ian (December 2005), The growth of Greek cities in the first millennium BC. v.1 (PDF), Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics, archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09
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- ^ Herodotus, 7.202, 7.228
- ^ Green 1998, p. 10.
- ^ Herodotus, 7.220-7.225
- ^ Britannica ed. 2006, "Sparta"
- ^ "Dictionary of Ancient & Medieval Warfare". Matthew Bennett, p. 86
- ^ a b "The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World" p. 141, John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray
- ^ Fine, The Ancient Greeks, 556–59
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 273 "Philip laid Lakonia waste as far south as Gytheion and formally deprived Sparta of Dentheliatis (and apparently the territory on the Messenian Gulf as far as the Little Pamisos river), Belminatis, the territory of Karyai and the east Parnon foreland."
- ^ Plutarch; W.C.Helmbold. "De Garrulitate". Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University. Retrieved 2021-05-05.
ἂν ἐμβάλω εἰς τὴν Λακωνικήν, ἀναστάτους ὑμᾶς ποιήσω
- ^ Davies 1997, p. 133.
- ^ Plutarch 1874, De garrulitate, 17.
- ^ Plutarch 1891, De garrulitate, 17; in Greek.
- ^ "Agis III – Livius". www.livius.org. Archived from the original on 2013-05-08. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
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- JSTOR 4475455.
- ^ Diodorus, World History
- ^ Diodorus, World History, 17.62.1–63.4; tr. C.B. Welles
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- ^ Cartledge & Spawforth 2001, p. 82.
- ^ Cicero (1918). "II.34". In Pohlenz, M. (ed.). Tusculanae Disputationes (in Latin). Leipzig: Teubner. At the Perseus Project.
- ^ Michell, Humfrey (1964). Sparta. Cambridge University Press. p. 175.
- ^ Thomas J. Figueira, "Population Patterns in Late Archaic and Classical Sparta", Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-2014), Vol. 116 (1986), The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 165-213
- ^ Myke Cole, Legion versus Phalanx: The Epic Struggle for Infantry Supremacy in the Ancient World, Osprey Publishing, 2018
- ^ Cartledge & Spawforth 2001, p. 108.
- ISBN 0-520-23506-1(2002)
- ^ Rappaport, U., 47. 1 Maccabees in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001), The Oxford Bible Commentary Archived 2017-11-22 at the Wayback Machine, p. 729
- ^ What were the Spartans like? Note to Lego Masters: they didn’t build city walls
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- ISBN 9780199548552– via Google Książki.
- ^ Liosis, Nikos. "Tsakonian Studies: The State-of-the-Art". researchgate. Institute of Modern Greek Studies. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 89.
- ^ The Greeks at War By Philip De Souza, Waldemar Heckel, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Victor Davis Hanson
- ^ The Politics By Aristotle, Thomas Alan Sinclair, Trevor J. Saunders
- ^ A companion to Greek studies By Leonard Whibley
- ^ Liddell & Scott 1940. σύντροφος.
- ^ Powel, Anton (1987). The Greek World. Routledge.
- ^ Ancient Greece By Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts
- ^ Herodotus (IX, 28–29)
- ^ Xenophon, Hellenica, III, 3, 5
- ^ "Sparta". HISTORY. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
- ^ Kennell, Nigel M. "Helots and Perioeci" Sparta: A New History. Wiley-Blackwell pp. 136. 2010
- ^ Figueira, Thomas, "Helotage and the Spartan Economy," p. 566-574. In A Companion to Sparta, edited by Anton Powell, 565-589. Vol. 1 of A Companion to Sparta. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Balckwell, 2018.
- ^ West 1999, p. 24.
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 141.
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 140.
- ^ Ehrenberg 2002, p. 159.
- ISBN 978-1-139-05037-1, retrieved 2021-02-24
- ^ Kennell, Nigel M. (2010). Spartans: A New History. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 122.
- ^ Thucydides (IV, 80); the Greek is ambiguous
- ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 211.
- ^ Thucydides (VII, 27)
- ^ Talbert, p. 26.
- ^ Apud Athenaeus, 14, 647d = FGH 106 F 2. Trans. by Cartledge, p. 305.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 28, 8–10. See also, Life of Demetrios, 1, 5; Constitution of the Lacedemonians 30; De Cohibenda Ira 6; De Commmunibus Notitiis 19.
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 28, 7.
- ^ Powell 2001, p. 254.
- ^ Thucydides (Book IV 80.4).
- ^ Classical historian Anton Powell has recorded a similar story from 1980s El Salvador. Cf. Powell, 2001, p. 256
- ^ Cartledge 2002, pp. 153–155.
- ^ Cartledge 2002, pp. 158, 178.
- ^ "Population Patterns in Late Archaic and Classical Sparta" by Thomas Figueira, Transactions of the American Philological Association 116 (1986), pp. 165–213
- ^ Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia, Routledge, London, 1979, pp. 154–59
- ^ Conrad Stibbe, Das Andere Sparta, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1996, pp. 111–27
- ISBN 0-14-028019-7
- ^ Hodkinson, Stephen (2000), Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, p. 154
- ^ Conrad Stibbe, Das Andere Sparta, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1996
- ^ A.H.M. Jones, Sparta, Basel Blackwell and Mott Ltd.,1967, pp. 40–43
- ^ Stephen Hodkinson, Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, The Classical Press of Wales, Swansea, 2000. See also Paul Cartledge's discussion of property in Sparta in Sparta and Lakonia, pp. 142–44.
- ^ a b Cartledge 2001, p. 84.
- ^ Plutarch 2005, p. 20.
- ISBN 978-0-19-878760-0.
- ^ Williamson, Laila (1978). "Infanticide: an anthropological analysis". In Kohl, Marvin (ed.). Infanticide and the Value of Life. NY: Prometheus Books. pp. 61–75 [61].
- ^ Theodoros K. Pitsios (2010). "Ancient Sparta – Research Program of Keadas Cavern" (PDF). Bulletin der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie. 16 (1–2): 13–22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-02.
- S2CID 245045967.
- ^ Tyrtaeus, fr.12 lines 27-32
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 27.2–3. However this may be conflating later practice with that of the classical period. See Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art ed. Beth Cohen, p. 263, note 33, 2000, Brill.
- ^ Tsouli, M. (2016). Testimonia on Funerary Banquets in Ancient Sparta. In: Draycott, C. M., Stamatopoulou, M., & Peeters, U. (eds.), Dining and Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the 'Funerary Banquet' in Ancient Art, Burial and Belief, Peeters, 353-383.
- ^ a b Christesen, P. (2018). The typology and topography of Spartan burials from the Protogeometric to the Hellenistic period: rethinking Spartan exceptionalism and the ostensible cessation of adult intramural burials in the Greek world. Annual of the British School at Athens, 113, 307-363.
- ^ a b c Xenophon, Spartan Society, 2
- ^ Kagan, Donald; Ozment, Steven; Frank, Turner; Frank, Alison (2013). "The Rise of Greek Civilization". Western Heritage. Pearson. pp. 44, Spartan Society.
- ^ Cartledge 2001, p. 85.
- ^ Cartledge 2001, pp. 91–105.
- ^ Cartledge 2001, p. 88.
- ^ Millender, Ellen G. (2018). Powell, Anton (ed.). A Companion to Sparta. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 504.
- ^ Cartledge 2001, pp. 83–84.
- ISBN 9004070621.
- S2CID 19140503.
Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West, pp. 64–70.
- ISBN 978-3921495773
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 18.
- ^ Readers Companion Military Hist p. 438. Cowley
- ^ Adcock 1957, pp. 8–9.
- ^ Plutarch 2004, p. 465.
- ^ ISSN 1751-0007. Retrieved 2013-09-14. (subscription required)
- ^ Forrest 1968, p. 53.
- ^ Pomeroy 2002, p. [page needed].
- ISBN 0-202-30910-X, 978-0202309101
- ISBN 978-1-78297-947-0.
- JSTOR 284141.
- ^ Plutarch, The Life of Lycurgus
- ^ Pomeroy 2002, p. 42.
- ^ a b Xenophon, Spartan Society, 1
- ^ Blundell 1999, p. [page needed].
- ^ Guttentag and Secord, 1983; Finley, 1982; Pomeroy, 1975
- ^ Pomeroy 2002, p. 34.
- ^ Powell 2001, p. 248.
- ^ Blundell 1999, p. 154.
- ^ Powell 2001, p. 246.
- ^ Maria Dettenhofer, "Die Frauen von Sparta", Reine Männer Sache, Munich, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994, p. 25.
- ^ Pomeroy 2002, p. 9.
- ^ a b Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddess, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken Books, 1995 pp. 60–62
- ^ "Gorgo and Spartan Women". 27 October 2009. Archived from the original on 2009-10-27. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
- ^ Helena Schrader (11 July 2010). "Sparta Reconsidered—Spartan Women". Elysiumgates.com. Retrieved 2011-08-10.
- ^ Plutarch 2004, p. 457.
- ^ Pausanias, 6.1.6
- ^ Millender, Ellen G., "Spartan Women" p. 500-525. In A Companion to Sparta, edited by Anton Powell, Vol. 1 of A Companion to Sparta. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2018.
- ^ Mueller: Dorians II, 192
- ^ Hodkinson, Stephen "The Imaginary Spartan Politeria" pp. 22–81 from The Imaginary Polis: Symposium, January 7–10, 2004 edited by Mogens Herman Hansen, Copenhagen: Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005 p. 222.
- ^ Žižek, Slavoj. "The True Hollywood Left". www.lacan.com.
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- ^ The Making of Israeli Militarism, By Uri Ben-Eliezer, Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 63
- ^ Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881–1948, By Anita Shapira, Stanford University Press 1999, 300
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{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Plutarch (1891), Bernardakis, Gregorius N. (ed.), Moralia, Plutarch (in Greek), Leipzig: Teubner
- Plutarch (2005), Richard J.A. Talbert (ed.), On Sparta (2nd ed.), London: Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-044943-4
- Plutarch (2004), Frank Cole Babbitt (ed.), Moralia Vol. III, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-99270-9
- ISBN 978-0-19-954039-6
Further reading
- ISBN 0-306-81360-2
- Buxton, Richard (1999), From Myth to Reason?: Studies in the Development of Greek Thought, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 0-7534-5110-7
- Cartledge, Paul (2004), "What have the Spartans Done for us?: Sparta's Contribution to Western Civilization", Greece & Rome, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 164–179
- David, Ephraim. 1989. "Dress in Spartan Society". Ancient World 19:3–13.
- Flower, Michael A. 2009. "Spartan 'Religion' and Greek 'Religion'". In Sparta: Comparative Approaches. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson, 193–229. Swansea, UK: Classical Press of Wales.
- Hodkinson, Stephen; Gallou, Chrysanthi, eds. (2021). Luxury and wealth in Sparta and the Peloponnese. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. ISBN 9781910589830.
- Hodkinson, Stephen, and Ian MacGregor Morris, eds. 2010. Sparta in Modern Thought. Swansea, UK: Classical Press of Wales.
- Low, Polly. 2006. "Commemorating the Spartan War-Dead". In Sparta and War. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Anton Powell, 85–109. Swansea, UK: Classical Press of Wales.
- Morris, Ian (1992), Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-37611-4
- Pavlides, Nicolette A. (2023). The hero cults of Sparta: local religion in a Greek city. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9781788313001.
- Rabinowitz, Adam. 2009. "Drinking from the Same Cup: Sparta and Late Archaic Commensality". In Sparta: Comparative Approaches. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson, 113–191. Swansea, UK: Classical Press of Wales.
- Thompson, F. Hugh (2002), The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery, London: Duckworth, ISBN 0-7156-3195-0
- ISBN 0-14-044039-9
External links
- Media related to Sparta at Wikimedia Commons
- Sparta on In Our Time at the BBC
- Papakyriakou-Anagnostou, Ellen (2000–2011). "History of Sparta". Ancient Greek Cities. Archived from the original on 2001-03-05. Retrieved 2007-12-04.