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Sparta
Hooker, Richard. “Sparta.” 1996. Web. August 1, 2004.
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/SPARTA.HTM
It's hard for textbooks to say anything nice about the Spartans. Take up any world history
textbook and read; you'll find that the Spartans were "an armed camp," "brutal," "culturally
stagnant," "economically stagnant," "politically stagnant," and other fun things. The reality, of
course, lies somewhere behind the value judgements. Greek history does, after all, come down to
us through the eyes of the other major city-state in Greece, Athens, a bitter enemy and rival of
Sparta. The two represent diametrically opposed concepts of the Greek polis [city-state] and its
relations with other city-states; they also represent diametrically opposed concepts of the
individual's relationship to the state. Despite all the rhetoric in Athens and in the European
historical tradition, we should keep in mind that the Spartans believed they lived in the best of all
Greek worlds, and many of their Greek neighbors agreed with them. The rivalry, then, between
Sparta and Athens, which would erupt into a disastrous war for Athens, was also an ideological
and cultural rivalry.
The single, overwhelming fact of Spartan history is the Messenean War. In the eighth century
BCE, Sparta, like all her neighbors, was a monarchy with a limited oligarchy [kingship and some
power in the hands of a small, elite assembly]. In 725, however, needing land to feed a
dramatically growing population, the Spartans marched over the Tagyetus mountains and
annexed all the territory of their neighbor, Messenia. The Messenians occupied a fertile plain and
the Spartans found themselves with more than enough land to support themselves and their newly
conquered people. However, like all conquered people, the Messenians did not appreciate the loss
of their independence. With the help of the city-state of Argos, the Messenians revolted in 640
BCE. This was no ordinary revolt, for not only did the Messenians almost win, they almost
destroyed Sparta itself.
Here's how the situation stood for Sparta at the end of the Messenian revolt. Almost defeated,
controlling the territory of a subject population that outnumbered their population ten to one, it
was only a matter of time before this subject population would overrun their conquerors. So the
Spartans invented a new political system as dramatically revolutionary as Athenian democracy in
the north: they turned their state into what amounts to a military state.
The Messenians were turned into agricultural slaves called helots. We describe their lives as the
life of a "serf," for they worked small plots of land on estates owned by Spartans; part of their
produce went to the master of the estate, and the remainder went to the helot farmer and his
family. There's no question that the life of the helots was a miserable life. Labor was long and
hard and the helots always lived right on the border of subsistence [survival].
But Spartan society itself changed. The military and the city-state became the center of Spartan
existence. The state determined whether children, both male and female, were strong when they
were born; weakling infants were left in the hills to die of exposure. Exposing weak or sickly
children was a common practice in the Greek world, but Sparta institutionalized it as a state
activity rather than a domestic activity. At the age of seven, every male Spartan was sent to
military and athletic school. These schools taught toughness, discipline, endurance of pain (often
severe pain), and survival skills. At twenty, after thirteen years of training, the Spartan became a
soldier. The Spartan soldier spent his life with his fellow soldiers; he lived in barracks and ate all
his meals with his fellow soldiers. He also married, but he didn't live with his wife; one Athenian
once joked that Spartans had children before they even saw the face of their wives. The marriage
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ceremony had an unusual ritual involved: at the end of the ceremony, the man carried his wife off
as if he were taking her by force (this did not mean, however, that the status of women was bad in
Sparta, as we shall see later). Only at the age of thirty, did the Spartan become an "equal," and
was allowed to live in his own house with his own family—although he continued to serve in the
military. Military service ended at the age of sixty. How did the soldier survive? How did Sparta
afford to feed young men who did nothing but soldier in their twenties? Each soldier was granted
a piece of land, which he probably never saw; this land was farmed, of course, by the helots.
The life of a Spartan male was a life of discipline, self-denial, and simplicity. The Spartans
viewed themselves as the true inheritors of the Greek tradition. They did not surround themselves
with luxuries, expensive foods, or opportunities for leisure. And this, I think, is the key to
understanding the Spartans. While the Athenians and many others thought the Spartans were
insane, the life of the Spartans seemed to hark back to a more basic way of life. Discipline,
simplicity, and self-denial always remained ideals in the Greek and Roman worlds; civilization
was often seen as bringing disorder, enervation [lack of vigor], weakness, and a decline in moral
values. The Spartan, however, could point to Spartan society and argue that their moral values
and human courage and strength was as great as it was before civilization. Spartan society, then,
exercised a profound pull on the surrounding city-states who admired the simplicity, discipline,
and order of Spartan life.
The ideology of Sparta was oriented around the state. The individual lived (and died) for the state.
Their lives were designed to serve the state from their beginning to the age of sixty. The
combination of this ideology, the education of Spartan males, and the disciplined maintenance of
a standing army gave the Spartans the stability that had been threatened so dramatically in the
Messenian revolt.
Paradoxically, this soldier-centered state was the most liberal state in regards to the status of
women. While women did not go through military training, they were required to be educated
along similar lines. The Spartans were the only Greeks not only to take seriously the education of
women, they instituted it as state policy. This was not, however, an academic education (just as
the education of males was not an academic education); it was a physical education which could
be grueling. Infant girls were also exposed to die if they were judged to be weak; they were later
subject to physical and gymnastics training. This education also involved teaching women that
their lives should be dedicated to the state. In most Greek states, women were required to stay
indoors at all times (though only the upper classes could afford to observe this custom); Spartan
women, however, were free to move about, and had an unusual amount of domestic freedom for
their husbands, after all, didn't live at home.
Spartan society was divided into three main classes. At the top was the Spartiate, or native
Spartan, who could trace his or her ancestry back to the original inhabitants of the city. The
Spartiate served in the army and was the only person who enjoyed the full political and legal
rights of the state. Below the Spartiates were the perioeci , or "dwellers around or about." These
were foreign people who served as a kind of buffer population between the Spartans and the
helots. Because of this vital function, they were accorded a great deal of freedom. Most of the
trade and commerce carried out in Sparta were performed by the perioeci. At the bottom, of
course, were the helots.
Spartan government was an odd affair, but its overwhelming characteristic was stability. The
Spartans, in fact, had the most stable government in the history of ancient Greece (some
historians call this stability "political stagnation"). At the top of government was the monarchy;
the monarchy, however, was a dual monarchy. Below the monarchy was a council which was
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composed of the two kings plus twenty-eight nobles, all of whom were over sixty, that is, retired
from the military. The council debated and set legislative and foreign policy, and was the
supreme criminal court. Below the council (or above it), was an assembly of all the Spartiate
males (a democracy, in other words) that selected the council and approved or vetoed council
proposals. Above them all, however, was a small group of five men known as the ephorate . For
all practical purposes, Spartan government was the ephorate, for these five men led the council,
ran the military, ran the educational system, ran the infant selection system, and had veto power
over everything coming out of the council or the assembly. They even had power to depose the
king; however, they needed powerful divine proof (in the form of omens or oracles) to exercise
this power. So what kind of government was Spartan government? It was a democratic timocratic
monarchical oligarchy.1 Chew on that a few times.
The anxiety-ridden situation with the helots led the Spartans to fear even their neighbors, who
were often sticking their spoons in that pot to brew up trouble. So in the sixth century BCE, the
Spartans began to set their military sights on neighboring states. However, when they conquered
their neighbor, Tegea, they set up a truce with them rather than annex their land and people. They
demanded instead an alliance. Tegea would follow Sparta in all its foreign relationships,
including wars, and would supply Sparta with a fixed amount of soldiers and equipment. In
exchange, the Tegeans could remain an independent state. This was a brilliant move on the part of
the Spartans. In a short time, Sparta had formed alliances with a huge number of states in the
southern part of Greece (called the Peloponnesus), and had become the major power in Greece
when the Persians invaded in 490 BCE. Their power eclipsed that of even their powerful neighbor
in the north, Athens.
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A democracy is a government where all citizens have a say in government (and thus power is shared0,
usually through voting; a timocracy is where power is determined by one’s wealth; a monarchy has power
in the hand of one; an oligarchy has power in the hands of an elite few. Sparta had elements of all of these.
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