For the reasons given above, Plutarch and the other literary sources, although numerous, are often unreliable, especially as the dates of these sources stretch over many centuries and most are not contemporary. Consequently great care must be exercised in their use when attempting to establish concrete facts about early Spartan politics and society.
The background
The Dorians arrived in the Peloponnese around 1000 BC, and justified their conquests on the grounds that they were the descendants of Heracles and were legitimately re-claiming their former lands. The Spartan Dorians settled in the valley of the Eurotas River, situated in Laconia (also known as Lacedaimon) in the southern Peloponnese, probably in four villages (‘obai’); the fifth village (‘oba’) of Amyclai, which was about five kilometres further south and became an integral part of the city of Sparta, was added sometime later. The Spartans then set about establishing their control throughout Laconia (and possibly south-east Messenia) by conquering the other Dorian-controlled communities, whose inhabitants came to be known, according to their status, as either the Perioeci (‘those who live around’)or Helots. The name Helot may have been derived from ‘the inhabitants of Helos’, which was a village close to the head of the Laconian Gulf, or (more likely) from the Greek word for ‘those captured (in war)’.
The Perioeci were citizens in their own communities and, for the most part, possessed autonomy in the conduct of their internal affairs; but their foreign policy was controlled by the Spartans, and they were obliged to supply troops for Spartan campaigns. However, they did hold a privileged position constitutionally, as the Spartans called themselves officially ‘the Lacedaimonians’ (the inhabitants of Lacedaimon) and thus they considered the Perioeci communities to be part of the Spartan state, at any rate for military purposes. After the introduction of the policy which forbade the Spartans from participating in manual trades, the Perioeci became a crucial element in the maintenance of the Spartan system by supplying the necessary economic needs of the state in the form of manufacture, trade and other service industries. The Helots were the other group of inferiors, lower than the Perioeci in status and in political rights (if any), although it is difficult to know in what ways and to what degree, as later writers make no distinction between these and the Messenian Helots (see below).
By the middle of the eighth century (750) there was little to distinguish the Spartans in their political development from the other main Greek city-states: a landed aristocracy exercising power through a council. The chief difference was the continued existence of kingship, which in other states had been removed totally or had evolved into an appointed public office, and the fact that there were two kings. The Spartans also, in common with the rest of Greece, experienced the problems of over-population and of the consequent land-hunger (see Chapter 2). However, the Spartan solution – conquest in Messenia rather than overseas colonization (apart from Taras in southern Italy) – was the key factor in creating the Spartan state that was uniquely different from the other Classical Greek states of the fifth century.
The First Messenian War
This war can reliably be dated from around 730 to 710 BC, and was fought by the Spartans against fellow Dorians who lived in and owned the fertile land of Messenia in the south-west Peloponnese. The evidence for the dating of this war comes from Tyrtaeus, a Spartan poet writing around the middle of the seventh century, and the Olympic victor lists. Tyrtaeus places the war in the reign of King Theopompos, two generations before his own:
to our king, the friend of the gods, Theopompos, through whom we captured wide-spaced Messene; Messene good for ploughing and good for planting, over which they fought – the spearmen fathers of our fathers – for nineteen years, always unceasingly and with an enduring spirit; and in the twentieth year the enemy, leaving behind their fertile lands, fled from the great heights of Ithome.
(Tyrtaeus fr. 5)
In addition, the Olympic victor lists record seven Messenians from 777 to 736, but only one more subsequently; whereas the Spartans gain their first victor in 720 and dominate the lists to 576.
It is not clear whether the Spartan victory in the First Messenian War resulted in the annexation of the whole of Messenia, or just the eastern half, i.e. the fertile land in and around the valley of the river Pamisos that flows due south into the Messenian Gulf. Some of the conquered Messenians fled to different parts of Greece, almost certainly to the neighbouring Arcadians, who aided the Messenians in their revolt from Sparta during the seventh century (see below). The others were forced to work for their Spartan conquerors:
Just like asses, worn out by their mighty burdens, they bring to their masters through wretched necessity a half of all the fruit that the land brings forth.
(Tyrtaeus fr. 6)
This sudden increase in land brought immense economic prosperity to a number of Spartans, but by no means to all. There was at least one group of Spartans who were very discontented with the sharing-out of the spoils of a long and difficult war: the ‘Partheniai’. It is not clear how they were different from the other Spartans, but clearly they were considered an inferior group within the body politic, and discrimination against them fomented revolution among their ranks (Aristotle, Politics 1306b 29–31). Colonization had been used by other Greek states as a safety valve to ease social tension (Plato, Laws 735f), and Sparta adopted this solution for the only time in its history by sending out the Partheniai as colonists to found Taras (Tarentum) in southern Italy in c.706. It would seem that their status as inferior citizens and, coming so soon after the Messenian War, their failure to acquire land were the chief grievances of the Partheniai. Their discontent has gained the most publicity in the ancient sources, but there is every reason to believe that other Spartans were also deeply unhappy at the unfair distribution of land, both in Laconia and especially in the newly acquired (or part of) Messenia.
Many of the later sources, encouraged by Spartan propaganda, played a major part in the creation of the Spartan myth – the idealization of Sparta as the perfect, well-ordered society, always free from the civil strife (stasis) that deeply scarred so many other Greek states; and the attribution of the radical political, social and economic reorganization of Sparta to the legendary law-giver, Lycurgus (see below). However, Herodotus did not accept the myth of perpetual Spartan eunomia (good order/under good laws):
before this they were the worst governed (‘kakonomotatoi’) of virtually all the Greeks, having no dealings with each other or with strangers.
(Herodotus 1.65)
This picture of an earlier Sparta, racked by internal discord, is further reinforced by Thucydides:
For although Lacedaimon … had civil strife (‘stasiasasa’) for the longest period of time that we know, nevertheless it acquired ‘good order’ earlier than any other state and has always been free from tyrants.
(Thucydides 1.18.1)
The military success against Messenia and the subsequent unfair land distribution would have exacerbated the tensions which already existed in Sparta and which were manifesting themselves in other Greek states in the eighth and seventh centuries: the inequality in the size of land-holdings and the injustice of aristocratic government (see Chapter 2, especially the grievances of Hesiod of Boeotia who was writing about this time).
Events in the second quarter of the seventh century (675–650) brought these problems to a head. The Spartans, encouraged by their defeat of the Messenians, decided to challenge the power of the Argives, and attempted to seize control of the fertile Thyreatis, which was the area in the north-east Peloponnese that separated their two spheres of influence. The battle of Hysiae in 669 (Pausanias 2.24.7) resulted in a crushing defeat for the Spartans, very possibly inflicted upon them by the newly created ‘hoplites’ under the command of King Pheidon of Argos (see Chapter 3). Defeat in war would have increased the discontent in Sparta and would have led to renewed calls for land reform. According to Pausanias, King Polydorus who ruled from c.700 to 6
65 took up the grievances of the ordinary Spartan and proposed some form of land distribution, but was assassinated by the aristocrat Polemarchos before his proposals could be implemented (3.3.3). The overwhelming military defeat at the hands of the Argives and the increasing political discord within Sparta almost certainly provided the incentive for the Messenians to rise up in revolt.
The Second Messenian War
The sources are contradictory about the date of the Second Messenian War (or the Revolt of the Messenian Helots), but the combination of the events outlined above and the fact that the poet Tyrtaeus, who fought in the war, lived around the middle of the seventh century strongly suggests that the war or revolt should be dated to around 650. According to Strabo (8.4.10), the Messenians were helped by Argos, Elis, Pisa and (if an emendation to Strabo’s text is accepted) Arcadia. The poetry of Tyrtaeus strongly suggests how desperate this war was for the Spartans, threatening their very existence and bringing heavy defeats:
For you know the destructive deeds of sorrow-inducing Ares, and you have well learnt the anger of brutal war; you, young men, have often tasted flight and pursuit, and have had your fill of both.
(Tyrtaeus fr. 11)
It is difficult to establish the length and factual details of this war, as Pausanias’ main sources were writing in the aftermath of the defeat of the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra in 371 by the Thebans and the liberation of the Messenian Helots in 370–369 (see Chapter 25). These third-century BC sources, Myron of Priene and Rhianos of Bene in Crete, were more concerned with creating a mythical past of glorious Messenian resistance, based around such heroic figures as Aristomenes, and consequently most of their evidence is worthless. However, it is clear that the Spartans finally defeated the Messenians and their allies, and that the whole of Messenia was gradually pacified and brought under Spartan control, possibly as late as 600. This would explain the remark attributed to Epaminondas, the Theban liberator of the Messenian Helots in 370–369, that he had (re-)founded Messenia after 230 years (Plutarch, Moralia 194B).
By 600, Sparta had emerged as the most powerful state in the Peloponnese, possessing two-fifths of its territory, and was on the threshold of acquiring greater power and influence in the sixth century (599–500). Fundamental to this success were the reforms that had been introduced at some time in the seventh century. These reforms were political, changing the constitution and emphasizing the importance of the hoplites within it; and economic and social, allocating plots of Messenian land to its citizens and creating a warrior elite of its citizens. Tradition has accredited these reforms to a single reformer, Lycurgus. Little of historical worth is known about the legendary Lycurgus, and his Life in Plutarch is part of the Spartan myth referred to earlier. In addition, all these reforms were not necessarily introduced by one single decree of government, and were certainly not fixed and unchanging, but developed and adapted over a period of time, although all modifications were eventually related back to Lycurgus. However, for the sake of convenience, the major reforms of the seventh century (699–600) that made the Spartans unique among the Greeks and enabled them to gain super-power status will be referred to as the ‘Lycurgan’ reforms.
The political reforms
The political reforms of ‘Lycurgus’ were vital for the Spartans’ rise to power in the sixth century for two reasons: first, the resolution of their internal political problems removed the primary cause of the political upheavals that produced tyranny throughout the rest of Greece; second, the constitutional harmony between the key political forces in the state (the kings, the Gerousia and the ‘damos’) allowed the Spartans to direct their concerted energy against other Greek cities, as well as to exercise control over their Helots and Perioeci. In the words of Thucydides:
For it is about four hundred years or a little more down to the end of this [i.e. Peloponnesian] war that the Lacedaimonians have enjoyed the same system of government. Having become powerful because of this, they intervened in the affairs of other states.
(Thucydides 1.18.1)
The basis for these political reforms was an archaic document known as the Great Rhetra, which is quoted in his Life of Lycurgus by Plutarch, but which he almost certainly found preserved in Aristotle’s lost work, The Constitution of the Spartans.
A ‘rhetra’ is the Spartan word for an enactment or decree which, according to tradition, was not written down, as was customary in fifth-century Athens. However, the Great Rhetra was of such immense political importance, especially to the Spartan hoplites, that its provisions were at some time written down as a guarantee that they would be respected and acted upon in the future:
Having established a cult of Syllanian Zeus and Athena, having done the ‘tribing and obing’, and having established a Gerousia of thirty members including the kings, (1) season in season out they are to hold Apellai between Babyka and Knakion; (2) the Gerousia is both to introduce proposals and stand aloof; (3) the damos [Doric Greek for ‘demos’] is to have the power to [in Plutarch’s gloss on a badly garbled Doric phrase] ‘give a decisive verdict’; … (4) but if the damos speaks crookedly, the Gerousia and kings are to be the removers.
(Plutarch, Lycurgus 6)
Unfortunately, the exact meaning and significance of these constitutional provisions, the dating of the document and the historical context at the time of its introduction are matters of the greatest controversy among modern scholars. Nevertheless the Great Rhetra, albeit in the most simplified form, laid down the powers of and the inter-relationship between three of the four main institutions of state (see below for the constitutional powers of the ‘Ephors’).
The kings
There were two hereditary kings from the families of the Agiads and the Eurypontids, and, although the former were traditionally the senior (Herodotus 6.51), they were constitutionally equal in authority and thus acted as a check upon each other’s power. By the terms of the Great Rhetra, their constitutional power was diminished by being included with no special privileges among the thirty-strong aristocratic Gerousia. This is further confirmed by Herodotus who lists, apart from their social privileges, their priesthoods and their limited judicial authority (i.e. over unmarried heiresses, adoption and public roads) as their sole areas of authority in home affairs (6.57). Aristotle limited their constitutional importance to the leadership of the army on campaign:
when he goes on a foreign expedition, he is the leader in all matters that concern the war …; therefore this kingship is a kind of generalship which possesses full powers and is for life.
(Aristotle, Politics 1285a 5–10)
Aristotle was undoubtedly correct in his emphasis on the supreme authority of the kings on campaign, but he did not fully appreciate their dominant influence as political leaders, especially when the kings were men of high calibre. Although their constitutional powers at home were strictly limited, the outstanding prestige that was gained from leading the Spartan army (and, later, the Peloponnesian allies) would greatly enhance the political standing and influence of the kings among the Spartan hoplites. In a society so devoted to and so respectful of military prowess, a Spartan king with a good record of success in war would win great glory and would be the focal point of the hoplites’ admiration. Their influence was especially prevalent in foreign initiatives, especially if there was the possibility of a military expedition, since the king himself would be the commander-in-chief. The dynamic career of Cleomenes I (c.520–490) is amply documented by Herodotus, who assigns to him the leading, even at times the exclusive, role in the conduct of all but one of Sparta’s foreign affairs. There is only one instance, to the end of the fourth century, when the Spartans adopted a policy in foreign affairs that was opposed by a powerful king: the rejection of King Archidamus’ advice in 432 to postpone the declaration of war against Athens (see Chapter 17).
According to Herodotus, the Spartan kings even possessed the constitutional right to declare war:
The Spartans have given to the
kings these rights: [certain priesthoods] and to wage war against any land that they wished, and any Spartan who opposes this is liable to be put under a curse.
(Herodotus 6.56)
Doubt has been cast on this statement as the evidence of the fifth and fourth centuries reveals that this power was vested in the Spartan Ecclesia (Assembly). However, it is possible that the kings did originally possess this right in theory, when they acted in concert and went on campaign together. The constitutional position may well have changed after c.506 when the clash between Cleomenes and Damaratus led to the abandonment of the invasion of Athens (see below); from then on, it was no longer allowed for two kings to campaign together, and thus it would become virtually impossible for them to exercise this shared right. Eventually the right became obsolete through lack of use.
The Gerousia
The Gerousia was the council of the two kings and twenty-eight elders (‘gerontes’), the latter of whom had to be over sixty years of age, were elected by acclamation in the Spartan Assembly and – like the kings – held office for life. It is clear from the Great Rhetra (section 2) that the Gerousia exercised a probouleutic function, i.e. after a preliminary discussion, it prepared the agenda consisting of proposals that were to be decided and voted upon by the Assembly. This control of the issues to be discussed gave the Gerousia the greatest power and influence in policy-making. This power was further increased by section 4 of the Great Rhetra (often referred to as the Rider), in which the council could refuse to ratify the Assembly’s decision on the grounds that the Assembly had altered the original motion, i.e. ‘if the damos speaks crookedly’. According to Aristotle’s commentary in Plutarch, when the Assembly began to distort the original motions by adding and removing clauses, the kings Polydorus and Theopompos added this Rider at a later date. However, it seems unlikely that the Gerousia could have exercised this power in decisions about war and peace: an assembly of warriors and retired warriors could hardly have accepted such a veto.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 11
