Spartan History

The political institutions of Sparta, notorious for their lack of conventional humanity, are said by ancient Greek historians to have been introduced by Lycurgus. But he is probably a figure of legend. Sparta seems to have developed gradually as a practical response to unusual circumstances.

The valley of the Eurotas river, unusually fertile for Greece, is a rich prize conquered in the 12th century BC by Dorians - few but fierce invaders compared to the settled people they overwhelm. A military society is one way of stabilizing such a situation, with an elite group of soldiers keeping the villagers hard at work. When Sparta emerges in history, in the 8th century, a system of this kind is firmly established.

The peasants of Sparta, known as helots, are serfs owned by the state. They do all the manual work of the community, enabling the citizens - an exclusively military caste - to concentrate on warfare and politics.

At the age of seven the sons of all Spartan citizens leave home to enter a state education system in which the emphasis is on courage and discipline. Corporal punishment is used not only to punish but also as a test of endurance. This schooling continues to the age of twenty, but there is no evidence that learning to read is part of the curriculum. Girls in Sparta are educated in the same austere virtues, training them to be good wives and mothers. Unlike the boys, they are allowed to live at home.

On graduating from this regime, at the age of twenty, a Spartan becomes a member of a group of men, something like an officer's mess, with whom he will spend most of the rest of his life - leaving them only from time to time, after marriage, for the requirements of conjugal life.

Gainful employment plays no part in this manly existence. Spartan citizens are forbidden by law to engage in any money-making activity. Instead each is provided by the state with a lifetime interest in a plot of land. This is farmed for him by the state's slaves. The warrior lives off the produce.

Sparta is able to provide for its citizens in this way thanks to the conquest of Messenia, a rich plain to the west beyond Mount Taygetos. Messenia is annexed in the 8th century. In the 7th, after an uprising against Spartan rule, the Messenians are reduced to the status of helots - more than doubling the amount of land available to support the Spartan army.

Sparta is both strengthened and weakened by this form of exploitation. The weakness derives from the permanent danger that the helots will rise in revolt against their military masters. On several occasions they do so. The constant threat prevents this rigid society from relaxing or developing.

One of the stranger Spartan traditions, which survives through the centuries, is shared rule by two kings. Each crown is hereditary within a family, dating back perhaps to the time when neighbouring villages coalesced to form the original city- state of Sparta. Spartan armies are nearly always led into battle by one of the kings.

The Spartan kings, even when in agreement, do not wield absolute power. The state is governed by a well-balanced combination of two kings, five ephors, a council of elders and an assembly of all the citizens. An accepted part of the system is that the kings can be tried by due judicial process, and in practice they quite often are.

Leaders of the Greek world: 6th -5th century BC

By the middle of the 6th century Sparta is the strongest city-state in Greece. She now assumes a leadership role, involving her neighbours in a defensive alliance which becomes known as the Peloponnesian League. The terms accepted by members of the league are that they will fight under Spartan leadership in any joint campaign and that they will send troops to Sparta in the event of an uprising by the helots.

In return they acquire the protection of the most formidable army in Greece.

Politically the leadership of Sparta is attractive to the aristocratic families who still control most Greek city-states. The chief threat to their interests is from tyrants seizing power on behalf of a newly enriched class.

Sparta, ruled by an aristocracy within a constitutional framework, is unusually secure against any such upheaval. There is no risk of a new commercial class developing, for there is no commerce (even coins are banned). So Sparta becomes associated with a policy of opposing tyrants - even deposing them. Her first major clash with Athens comes in 510, when one of the Spartan kings, Kleomenes, marches north to drive out the tyrant Hippias. In 480 the threat from Persia brings Sparta and Athens together, with most of the other city-states of mainland Greece, in a rare show of unity. During the Greco- Persian Wars the leading position of Sparta is acknowledged by all.

By the time the Persians withdraw at the end of 480, soundly defeated, Sparta's military reputation has been enhanced at Thermopylae and Plataea. The Athenians, by contrast, have lost their city, laid waste by the Persians. Yet on balance it is the Athenians who emerge stronger. The navy which routs the enemy at Salamis is largely theirs. And it is becoming evident that control of the Aegean Sea is the best defence against Persia.

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