Ancient Sparta

Sparta - spärˈtə, city of ancient Greece, capital of Laconia, on the Eurotas (Evrótas) River in the Peloponnesus.

Spartan Society

Sparta's government was headed by two hereditary kings furnished by two families; they were titular leaders in battle and in religion. Some of these kings were able (e.g., Cleomenes I, Leonidas, and Agis II), but all were held in check. There was a council of elders and a general assembly of citizens; but the real rulers were the board of five ephors, elected annually. The business of the state was conducted with secrecy (unlike the open forum methods of Athens), and every effort was made to keep the institutions unchanged.

The ruling class, the Spartiates, gave themselves wholly to war. At birth a boy was inspected by the elders, and if he appeared too weakly for future military service, he was taken into the mountains and abandoned. If he was fit, he was taken from his mother at the age of seven to begin rigorous military training. He became a soldier at 20, a citizen at 30, and continued as a soldier until 60. Thus his entire life was spent under rigorous discipline. Spartiate women, under less severe discipline, were part of the soldierly society and were not secluded. The Spartiates were the only citizens and the only sharers in the allotment of lands and of the helots (serfs who were bound to the land). The helots farmed the land and paid part of the produce to their masters, the Spartiates. They could not be sold, but they had no legal or civil rights and were constantly watched by a sort of Spartiate secret police for fear of insurrection. In somewhat less stringent subjection were the perioeci, freemen who were permitted to carry on commerce and handicrafts, by which some of them prospered. Nevertheless, the perioeci were entirely subordinate to the Spartiates.

History

Early History

Located in a fertile, mountain-walled valley, the city-state of Sparta was created by invading Dorian Greeks, who later conquered the countryside of Laconia and Messenia (c.735–715 b.c.). For a long time the Spartans had no city walls, trusting to the strength of their army for defense against invaders and against their own Laconian and Messenian subjects. In the 7th cent. b.c. Sparta enjoyed a period of wealth and culture, the time of the poets Tyrtaeus and Alcman. After 600 b.c., however, Sparta cultivated only the military arts, and the city became an armed camp, established (according to the official legend) by Lycurgus, in reaction to a Messenian revolt (see Messenia).

The Persian and Peloponnesian Wars

By the 6th cent. b.c., Sparta was the strongest Greek city. In the Persian Wars, Sparta fought beside Athens, first at Thermopylae (480), under Leonidas; later that year at Salamis; and in 479 at Plataea (won by Pausanias). Before 500 b.c., Sparta had formed a confederacy of allies (the Peloponnesian League), which it dominated. Through the league and by direct methods Sparta was master of most of the Peloponnesus.

After the Persian Wars rivalry with Athens sharpened, and Athens grew stronger. An earthquake at Sparta (464 b.c.), followed by a stubborn Messenian revolt, greatly weakened Sparta. In the end a contest with Athens came indirectly, provoked by Corinthian fears of Athenian imperialism. This was the great Peloponnesian War (431–404 b.c.), which wrecked the Athenian empire.

Soon after their victory over Athens the dominant Spartans, led by Agesilaus II, were involved in a war with Persia; then the Spartan envoy Antalcidas concluded (386 b.c.) a treaty with Artaxerxes II by which Sparta surrendered the Greek cities of Asia Minor in return for withdrawal of Persian support from the Athenians, who were again at war with Sparta, and from the Athenians' allies, the Thebans. Thebes fought on and by the victory at Leuctra (371 b.c.) gained ascendancy in Greece. Sparta fell an easy prey to Macedonia and declined. In the 3d cent. b.c. there were determined but futile attempts by kings Agis IV (see under Agis) and Cleomenes III and by Nabis (d. 192 b.c.) to restore glory to Sparta by vigorous reforms. Under the Romans, Sparta prospered. It was devastated by the Goths in a.d. 395. The ruins of old Sparta, including sanctuaries and a theater, remain near the modern city of Sparta.

Bibliography

See A. H. M. Jones, Sparta (1967); J. Lazenby, The Spartan Army (1985); P. Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (1987).

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