CHAPTER 2 VALOUR, DUTY, SACRIFICE: SPARTA ‘In Sparta are to be found those who are most enslaved and those who are the most free.’ CRITIAS OF ATHENS sample pages Spartan infantry in a formation called a phalanx. 38 39 CHAPTER 2 VALOUR, DUTY, SACRIFICE: SPARTA KEY POINTS KEY CONCEPTS OVERVIEW • At the end of the Dark Age, the Spartan polis emerged DEMOCRACY OLIGARCHY TYRANNY MONARCHY from the union of a few small villages in the Eurotas valley. Power vested in the hands Power vested in the hands A system under the control A system under the control • Owing to a shortage of land for its citizens, Sparta waged of all citizens of the polis of a few individuals of a non-hereditary ruler of a king war on its neighbour Messenia to expand its territory. unrestricted by any laws • The suppression of the Messenians led to a volatile slave or constitution population that threatened Sparta’s way of life, making the DEFINITION need for reform urgent. KEY EVENTS • A new constitution was put in place to ensure Sparta could protect itself from this new threat, as well as from tyranny. Citizens of the polis all A small, powerful and One individual exercises Hereditary rule passing 800 BCE • Sweeping reforms were made that transformed Sparta share equal rights in the wealthy aristocratic class complete authority over from father to son political sphere all aspects of everyday life Sparta emerges from the into a powerful military state that soon came to dominate Most citizens barred from Family dynasties claim without constraint Greek Dark Age the Peloponnese. Economic or social inclusion in government power through association disadvantage is limited as While sometimes with a key mythological 743–724 BCE a factor in disqualifying perceived as exhibiting figure political rights violent behaviour, Spartan conquest of All citizens are equal tyrants in ancient Greece Messenia in the First were not always cruel. CHARACTERISTICS before the law (people can’t Messenian War LYCURGUS escape prosecution or They also marked an important departure from 706 BCE punishment based on birth) hereditary kingship Legendary reformer of Most magistrates are Taras in southern Italy ancient Sparta. According selected by lot founded as a Spartan colony to the legend, Lycurgus • Cleisthenes of Athens • ‘Oligarchy of 400’ • Dionysius I of Syracuse • Philip II of Macedonia went to receive 685–668 BCE • Pericles of Athens of Athens • Peisistratus of Athens • Alexander of Macedonia guidance from the pages • Leontiades of Thebes Second Messenian War Oracle at Delphi, and then instituted the • Pheidon of Argos • Leonidas of Sparta Great Rhetra (Spartan constitution) that 669 BCE turned Sparta into a militaristic society Sparta defeated by Argos at built around the hoplite class of citizen. INDIVIDUALS FAMOUS the battle of Hysiai Lycurgus was believed to have remodelled nearly every aspect of Spartan society— c. 650 BCE politics, social dynamics, the economy Reforms of Spartan society and trade—in an effort to create the begin perfect state. 550 BCE Sparta defeats Argos KING LEONIDAS I Peloponnesian League ORACLE AT DELPHI TYRTAEUS Arguably the most famous created King of Sparta. Leonidas A prophet of the ancient A Greek lyric poet 510 BCE commanded Spartan forces at world. The oracle was a whosample lived most of the Battle of Thermopylae in Sparta becomes a force for priestess known as the his life in Sparta, 480 BCE, leading a mission to expelling tyranny in Greece Pythia, who was based in and wrote in the delay the Persian assault. He mid 600s BCE. Hippias’ tyranny ended by Delphi, on Mt Parnassus. came to symbolise Spartan He wrote poems Spartan intervention The oracle provided divine ideals of valour, duty and promoting Spartan messages from Apollo sacrifice. Leonidas at Thermopylae by Jacques Louis David, 464 BCE to travellers seeking values, especially 1814. guidance. military discipline Earthquake in Sparta and dedication to devastates the city the state. 40 SECTION A: LIVING IN ANCIENT GREECE (800–454 BCE) ANCIENT GREECE 41 Rome LATIUM THRACE Byzantium CHAPTER 2 VALOUR, DUTY, SACRIFICE: SPARTA Cumae Epidamnus Amphipoliss Neapolis 422 Kerkyra appeals to Thasos FIRST MESSENIAN WAR (734–724 BCE) Tarentum INTRODUCTIONStagira Cyzicus Athens for help in 410 TYRTAEUS: ‘To conquer her they fought full nineteen years steadfastly ever, with 429 Aegospotami 405 dispute with Corinth, EXILED SPARTANSpartalo KINGs DEMARATUS TO XERXES I OF PERSIA: ‘So is it with the endurance in their hearts, those spearman of our fathers’ fathers’ time, and in the Potidaea Abydos in 432 BCE Lacedaemonians, fightingLemnos singly they are as brave as any man living, and together twentieth the foe took flight, and left their fertile farms among Ithome’s heights.’ 411 Cynossema they are the best warriors on earth. They are free, yet not wholly free: the law is their By the mid-eighth century Sparta required more land to satisfy the needs of its SOURCE 2.01 master,Potidaea whom rev theyolts fear againts much more than your men fear you. They doPERSIAN whatever it bids; and Athensits bidding in 432 is always BCE the same, that they must never flee from theEMPIRE battle before growing population. With the exception of Taras in southern Italy, settled in Kerkyra LOCATION OF any multitude of men, but must abide at their post and there conquer or die.’1 706 BCE, Sparta did not seek overseas colonial expansion for its population. SPARTA AEGEAN SEA Rather, it turned its attention westward over Mt Taygetus, to Messenia and its According to the ancient myths, Sparta was founded LOCATION OF SPARTA thriving open countryside. in pre-history by Lacedaemon, the son of Zeus and In 743 BCE the Spartans waged war against the Messenian people. The conflict Lipara Taygete. Lacedaemon named the region Lacedaemonia Delphi Sardis dragged on until the Messenian fortress at Ithome was captured by the Spartan Locri after himself—although we know it as Laconia, and its army nearly two decades later. The Messenians were reduced to helots under Thebes people as Laconians. Historically,IONIA the polis of Sparta was Spartan dominion. They lost all their rights, as well as their freedom of movement, Athens founded in 950 BCE during the Greek Dark Age, after Messana Rhegium Corinth and were forced to pledge half their annual harvest to the Spartan state. Sparta Segesta Himena PELOPONNESE ATTICA the migration of the Dorians into southern Greece. Catania had won what it needed most—farmland for its people. SICILY Argos The Sparta that emerged in 800 BCE would have been Selinus IONIAN very different from the military camp the city became in Gela SEA 413 Syracuse MESSENIA Sparta the sixth and fifth centuries. Surrounded by mountains, SECOND MESSENIAN WAR (685–668 BCE) N LACONIA the Spartan polis was formed from five villages in the HELENA SCHRADER: ‘Arguably, nothing was more important to the evolution of Sparta Syracuse Camarina Eurotas Valley in central Laconia. Sparta’s population into a city-state with a highly unusual and unique constitution than the Spartan was restricted by its limited farmland—it never had conquest of Messenia.’ more than 9000 full citizens in the eighth and seventh The peace between Sparta and its helot population did not last. Forty years later, KEY centuries BCE, and was down to barely 1000 citizens by km 0 50 100 the fourth century BCE. in 685 BCE, the helots of Sparta rose up in rebellion, aided by the people of Argos Athens and members of Athenian campaigns in the north-eastern Peloponnese, who were long-time enemies of the Spartans. In The Eurotas Valley suppliedSEA OF the CRETE Spartans with all the farmland they needed to pages The Delian League an attempt to overthrow their masters, the helot population invaded Laconia and Spartan campaigns develop and thrive. Open farmland produced wheat, barley, olives and grapes— Allies of Athens MEDITERRANEAN managed to hold back the Spartans for over thirteen years. But in 668 BCE the Major battles however, the foundation of Spartan society rested on the backs of its slave Spartan confederacy SEA CRETE Messenians were once again defeated and forced into servitude. Apart from some 425 population. At every point in its history, Sparta possessed a population of slaves coastal communities and a few interior regions, all of Messenia was under Spartan Allies of Sparta (in Sicily) Athenian victory (dates in BCE) (or helots) that outnumbered the Spartans. As the Spartan population shrank in dominion for the next three hundred years. Neutral states 429 Spartan victory (dates in BCE) the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, this ratio would increase. HISTORIAN HODKINSON ON FINDING EVIDENCE sample SOURCE 2.03 An artist’s impression of Aristomenes of Messenia fighting Spartan SOURCE 2.02 warriors in the Second Ruins of Ancient Sparta. Messenian War. 42 SECTION A: LIVING IN ANCIENT GREECE (800–454 BCE) ANCIENT GREECE 43 CHAPTER 2 VALOUR, DUTY, SACRIFICE: SPARTA THE GREAT RHETRA AND SPARTAN GOVERNMENT THE LEGEND OF LYCURGUS THE ORACLE AT DELPHI: ‘Beloved of the Gods, and rather God than man.’6 TYRTAEUS: ‘Having listened to Phoebus they brought home from Delphi, prophecies of 2 the god and words that will come true’ Modern historians generally believe that reforms that transformed Spartan society into a military state were introduced over a number of centuries. Around 650 BCE a fundamental reorganisation of Spartan life took place in the However, the ancient Greeks attributed the changes to the legendary figure of form of the Great Rhetra. The rhetra, meaning ‘oracle’ or ‘proclamation’ was Lycurgus. Many stories were associated with Lycurgus in antiquity. Plutarch the first and greatest in a series of laws designed to ‘create order by means of noted that: reform’ and transform Sparta into a new kind of political community.3 This new THE SPARTAN constitution completely reorganised the state to become something completely ‘nothing can be said [about him] which is not disputed, CONSTITUTION new in the ancient world.4 It combined all the elements of governance existing in since indeed there are different accounts of his Greece at the time and sought to produce the perfect political system free from birth, his travels, his death, and, above all, of his tyranny.