The Gerousia was also influential in the conduct of foreign affairs through its position as the highest law court in Sparta, which alone had the right to impose the penalties of death, exile and loss of citizen rights; even the prosecution of a king would come before the Gerousia and the five Ephors. There is far more evidence of ‘political trials’ in Athens, especially in the fifth and fourth centuries (see Chapter 14), but from the 490s to 378 at least seven kings and several other important military men had to face prosecutions that were in reality politically motivated, for example the prosecution of King Pleistoanax in 446/5, officially for accepting bribes but really for his perceived leniency towards Athens (see Chapter 15). It would take a brave and confident king to pursue a policy that did not command the support of the majority of the Gerousia, knowing that, in the event of failure, he was likely to be prosecuted upon his return.
The Ecclesia (Assembly)
All male Spartiates or ‘Homoioi’ (the Peers/the Similars), as they called themselves, were eligible to attend the Assembly (Ecclesia), which the Great Rhetra in section (2) authorized to be held at regular intervals, i.e. at the time of the festivals in honour of Apollo called the ‘Apellai’. They had the right to elect the members of the Gerousia and the Ephors; and also had the sovereign power to ratify or reject the proposals put before the Assembly by the Gerousia. Section 3 of the Great Rhetra, which covers this constitutional power, is garbled, probably because of the difficulty of transcribing the passage written in an archaic Doric dialect, but Aristotle’s commentary preserved in Plutarch on this particular constitutional right is very precise:
When the people have gathered together, none of the others is allowed to put forward a motion, but the people had the sovereign power to decide upon the motion set before them by members of the Gerousia (‘gerontes’) and the kings.
(Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 6.3)
There has been much scholarly debate as to whether the Spartiates actually possessed this power of decision-making. Aristotle in the Politics, while discussing the democratic features of the constitutions of Carthage, Crete and Sparta, expresses the view that the Carthaginian constitution is more democratic:
And when these [Carthaginian] kings put forward their proposals, they not only allow the people to listen to the proposals that have been decided upon by their rulers, but the people have the sovereign power to decide (‘krinein’); and anyone who wants is allowed to speak against the introduced proposals, which is not possible in the other constitutions [i.e. those of Sparta and Crete].
(Aristotle, Politics 1273a 9–13)
Some historians believe that the last clause –‘which is not possible in the other constitutions’–refers to the two powers that the Carthaginian Assembly possessed, i.e. the power to decide and the power to debate. However, if the last clause is taken to refer solely to the last power (the power to debate), then Aristotle is stating that the Spartan Assembly had the sovereign power to ratify or reject all proposals (krinein), but was not allowed to debate them. By this interpretation of the last clause, the statements in the Great Rhetra and in Aristotle’s Politics can be accepted as being in agreement: the Spartan Assembly had the sovereign power of decision.
This raises a further area of scholarly debate: whether the ordinary Spartan had the right to debate. There are three viewpoints on this issue. The first (e.g. Andrewes) is that the Spartans in their Assembly possessed the right to debate the Gerousia’s proposals and uses Aristotle’s commentary on the Rider (section 4) of the Great Rhetra as supporting evidence:
Later, however, when the people were distorting and twisting the proposals by adding and deleting words, the kings Polydorus and Theopompos inserted this clause into the rhetra: ‘but if the damos [the people] speaks crookedly, the Gerousia and the kings are to be the removers’.
(Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 6.4)
The fact that the people were changing the proposals presupposes that there was debate, and that amendments or even counter-proposals from the floor were drastically changing the original decisions of the Gerousia; consequently Aristotle’s statement above in the Politics (1273a) is wrong.
The second viewpoint (e.g. Forrest) maintains that there were two stages in Spartan decision-making. In the first stage, the Gerousia introduced the issue to the Assembly which was allowed to debate; when the arguments had been heard, the Gerousia would retire and frame its final proposal to reflect the prevailing majority view. The second stage would consist of the Gerousia putting its proposal for ratification without any further debate being allowed, and it is this second stage that Aristotle may have been referring to in the above quotation from the Politics. The third viewpoint (e.g. de Ste. Croix) holds that Aristotle’s statement in the Politics is substantially correct, if it is accepted that no ordinary Spartan had an absolute constitutional right to speak in the Assembly, but was given the opportunity to speak if he was invited to do so by the presiding Ephor.
Aristotle, in the quotation above (Plutarch, Lycurgus 6.3) states clearly that no ordinary Spartan was allowed to put a motion, only to vote on the Gerousia’s proposals. The Rider (section 4) was added by Polydorus and Theopompos, who invoked the authority of the Delphic oracle, because, although there was no debate, the wording of the proposals to be voted upon was being altered in the Assembly. Whenever this happened, the Gerousia now had the right to reject this alteration to its original proposal and dismiss the Assembly.
The Ephors
The Ephors are not mentioned in the Great Rhetra (either the post did not exist at that time or, if it did, it was a very minor post), but it is appropriate to discuss this post here, as it was the fourth major institution in the Spartan constitution. Five Ephors were elected each year from the whole citizen body and, by the fifth century, they were constitutionally the most powerful public officials. They were in charge of the day-to-day business; and were also the main executive body of state, implementing the decisions of the Assembly, at which they presided (Thucydides 1.87). They also were also in charge of private lawsuits, which they judged sitting separately (Aristotle, Politics 1275b); and also combined with the Gerousia in the trial of a king (Pausanias 3.5.2). They supervised the other public officials, having the power to suspend, imprison and even bring capital charges against them (Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians 8.4). One of their most important responsibilities was the supervision of the agoge, the long and tough system of state education that was essential for the high standards of the Spartan army.
In the field of foreign affairs, they would receive foreign ambassadors to ascertain their business before presenting them to the Assembly. In time of war, it was their responsibility to organize the call-up of the army, deciding the precise size of the army that was needed for the coming campaign (Xenophon, Con. of the Lac. 11.2), and may even have possessed the power to give orders to commanders (but not the kings) in the field. When the king set out on an expedition with the army, he was always accompanied by two of the Ephors who acted as overseers. Aristotle saw the Ephors as the most powerful of the four key institutions of state, but also the most corrupt:
For this post has total control over the greatest of Spartan affairs, but the Ephors come from the whole people with the result that very poor men often gain office who because of their poverty are often bought.
(Aristotle, Politics 1270b)
However, he recognized that it was this post rather than power in the Assembly that kept the people content with their constitutional position in the state (1270b).
Finally, it should be made clear that two former commonly held views about the Ephors should be abandoned: that the boards of Ephors had a continuous, corporate policy; and that they were involved in a constant struggle for power with the kings. The Ephors were changed annually and (almost certainly) could not be re-elected for a second time. With regard to the first issue, there is every reason to believe that there were not only differences of opinion over policy between successive
boards of Ephors, but also between individual members of the same board. There was often serious disagreement, even personal animosity, between the kings, and it is likely that each king would have his supporters among the Ephors. With regard to the second issue, the perceived conflict between the Ephors and the kings seems to derive from two sources: the monthly exchange of oaths whereby the kings swore that they would rule in accordance with the law and, if they did so, the Ephors would uphold their rule (Xenophon, Con. of the Lac. 15.7); and the alleged hostility during the reign of Cleomenes I. In fact, the Ephors are mentioned only twice in Herodotus’ account of Cleomenes’ career, and neither occasion could be construed as an example of bitter conflict. It is vital to remember that the Ephors, for all their constitutional power, only held office for one year and then returned to political obscurity, whereas the prestige of the king was long-standing. Therefore it is dangerous to deduce from the Ephors’ constitutional power that they had undue influence; any Ephor who was too zealous in the exercise of his constitutional power at a king’s expense was well aware that he was vulnerable to retaliation at the hands of the same king in the following years.
The most significant and politically important feature of the Great Rhetra was its statement that sovereign power, i.e. to ‘give a decisive verdict’ (section 3), was vested in the Spartan Ecclesia (Assembly). This was almost certainly the first written hoplite constitution, and was deliberately written down, unlike other ‘rhetrai’ (decrees), because it enshrined their rights in constitutional law. As stated earlier, the problem for the historian is to find a date and a political context for such a remarkable document. Scholarly opinion has dated the Great Rhetra from as early as the first quarter of the seventh century (699–675) to as late as the second half of the same century (650–600). In the same way, the political context is given as either after the success of First Messenian War (c.730– c.710), when the hoplites felt confident to assert their rights; or during the Second Messenian War (possibly being waged at some time around 660 to 650), when military defeat and war-induced hardship led to political unrest; or after the end of the Second Messenian War (date unknown), when military success led to political agitation for reform.
The fact that Sparta avoided tyranny and that the Great Rhetra gave the Spartan hoplites the political power, which their counterparts in other states only won by supporting revolution and tyranny, makes the middle of the seventh century (c.650) the most attractive date and political context for its introduction. The Spartan aristocracy would have been deeply worried by the success of King Pheidon of Argos, quoted by Aristotle (Politics 1310b) as an example of a king becoming a tyrant, in utilizing the hoplites to overthrow the aristocracy in c.670; by the success of the tyrants of Sicyon and of Corinth in c.650s, Orthagoras and Cypselus, respectively; and by the recent memory of King Polydorus, who had supported the grievances of the ordinary Spartan, resulting in his assassination at the hands of an aristocrat. It was the Second Messenian War (or Messenian revolt), that occurred around the time of these tyrannies, and its all-powerful threat to Sparta’s very existence, that proved to be the constitutional turning point in Sparta’s history. The Great Rhetra, by giving sovereign power to the hoplites, was intended to resolve their political grievances, and to provide them with the incentive to save Sparta from destruction.
The social and economic reforms
The end of the Second Messenian War was very possibly the catalyst for the reform of the Spartan state. The Spartans had survived a difficult and exhausting war, and had gained or regained control of the whole of Messenia and its population. The problem now facing the Spartans was how to maintain their current military superiority over the Messenian Helots, who greatly outnumbered their conquerors. The ‘Lycurgan’ solution, apart from the political reform embodied in the Great Rhetra, was to be economic and social: the removal of the need for individual Spartiates to support themselves financially by their own agricultural labour, and the alteration of the social system to create a full-time, first-class army.
However, there is currently much scholarly debate about the nature of these changes, especially on the issues of land tenure and inheritance. The traditional school of thought believed that the Spartan authorities divided up Messenia into roughly equal plots of land (‘cleroi’), and bestowed one of these plots (a ‘cleros’) on each citizen. In addition, each plot was assigned a requisite number of state-owned Helots, whose role was to farm the land and to pay him a portion of the agricultural produce; thus they can be viewed as ‘state serfs’, i.e. tied to the land and duty bound to pay rent. This agricultural produce from the cleros was directly linked with Spartan citizenship: any failure by a Spartan to contribute the required quota of food to his dining club or syssition (see below), membership of which was the criterion for full citizenship, would result in a loss of citizen rights, thus becoming an ‘Inferior’ (Hypomeion). Although there are some differences of opinion among scholars of the traditional school, the basic tenets underpinning their view are: first, the ‘Lycurgan’ land reform was a redistribution of land into equal plots; second, a Spartan had no right to alienate, i.e. to transfer, his plot to another during his lifetime whether as a gift or by sale; third, at his death, his plot had to remain undivided and he had no right to bequeath it by his will, although in all probability it passed to his elder son. To summarize this view, these plots of land were equal in size, inalienable, state-controlled and inherited by men.
There are two main sources upon which this view is based: Plutarch, Lycurgus (8; 16) and Plutarch, Life of King Agis IV (5):
A second and very bold political act of Lycurgus was his redistribution of land. … he persuaded them [i.e. the citizens], having pooled together all of the land, to redistribute it anew, and all to live with one another in equality and to be equal in property for their living.
(Plutarch, Lycurgus 8.1–2)
Plutarch further states that Lycurgus allocated 9,000 lots to the Spartans, although, as Plutarch mentions, there was some disagreement among the sources about the original number (Lyc. 3). Later, upon the inspection of a newborn child by the elders, he says:
If it was well-built and sturdy, they ordered the father to raise him, assigning one of the 9000 plots of land to him [i.e. the child].
(Plutarch, Lycurgus 16.1)
Furthermore, the traditional school believes that this system of land tenure and inheritance lasted to the beginning of the fourth century until a Spartan Ephor, Epitadeus, changed the rules of inheritance:
Nevertheless [i.e. despite Sparta’s slide into corruption after 404 BC] the number of households that Lycurgus instituted was still preserved and every father still bequeathed his plot of land (cleros) to his son. But this changed when a man named Epitadeus became ephor … he proposed a law allowing a man to alienate his property and plot of land to anyone he liked, either by gift while living or in his will.
(Plutarch, Agis 5.2–3)
It was this seminal change, it is argued, that led to the crisis of Sparta in the early fourth century: the accumulation of wealth and land within a few hands and the consequent dire shortage of soldier citizens culminated in the shattering defeat of Sparta at Leuctra in 371, as outlined by Aristotle (Politics 1270a-b – see above). Even those scholars, who doubt the existence of Epitadeus and his law, still believe that the Spartan social crisis belongs to the post-404 imperial years after the defeat of Athens, caused mainly by the desire for wealth and the corruption arising from the influx of vast amounts of gold and silver.
The modern school of thought (e.g. Hodkinson) disagrees radically with the above view. First, the unreliability of Plutarch and his late sources is stressed, particularly as they are written after the third-century revolution and propaganda of Agis and Cleomenes (see above in ‘The sources’). Second, the two systems of land tenure, as described in the Plutarch quotations above, are both contradictory and impracticable. The system, as described in Lycurgus 16.1, is one of state ownership of land, w
here the plot of land (cleros) is assigned by the Spartan authorities; the other (as in Agis 5.2–3) is a form of private ownership, where the son inherits from his father. In addition, it is highly unlikely that Sparta possessed the complex bureaucracy required to administer such a state-organized scheme of thousands of plots (Lycurgus 16). Furthermore, the system described in Agis 5.2–3 makes no provision for the granting of a cleros to the younger sons of Spartiates. Third, the earlier, more reliable sources make no mention of an equal redistribution of cleroi by Lycurgus: Herodotus does not include it in his description of the Lycurgan reforms (1.65–66); nor Xenophon in his Constitution of the Lacedaimonians; and Aristotle not only omits it but actually states that Phaleas of Chalcedon was the first to propose the idea of equal landholdings (Politics 1266a 39–40). Finally, and most importantly, the traditional school cannot adequately explain why, under this system of equal, inalienable, state-controlled cleroi, a serious decline in the number of Spartan citizens took place from the mid-fifth century at the latest, especially as this decline was linked in some way with the increasing accumulation of land by a small number of Spartiates and the increasing disparity of wealth between rich and poor, resulting in the reduction of many citizens to non-Spartiate status, i.e. ‘Inferiors’ (Hypomeiones).
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 12
