N611o<; LlEcr1tot11<;: SPARTAN OBEDIENCE AND ATHENIAN LAWFULNESS IN FIFTH-CENTURY THOUGHT
ELLEN GREENSTEIN MILLENDER Reed College
In his account of the events leading up to the battle of Thermopylae, Herodotus describes a dialogue between the Persian king Xerxes and the exiled Spartan dyarch, Demaratus (7.101-5; cf. 7.209.2). Xerxes pauses after his crossing of the Hellespont to question Demaratus about the nature of his Greek opponents and receives in reply a glowing account of the Lacedaemonians and their absolute refusal to accept any terms that would involve the enslavement of Bellas (7 .1 02.2). Xerxes responds to this eulogy of Spartan courage with incredulity and wonders under what compulsion the Lacedaemonians fight so determinedly. Demaratus then explains that law (v6f.w<;) functions as a master (oecmo'tl)<;) over them, a master that they fear and that com mands steadfastness in battle (7 .1 04.4-5):
So it is with the Lacedaemonians: fighting singly, they are no worse than any other men, but fighting together, they are the best soldiers among all men. For although free they are not free in every respect. Nomos ('law') is master over them, and they fear it far more than your subjects fear you. Whatever this master commands, they do; and its command is always the same: never to retreat in battle, however great the odds, but always to remain at their posts and either conquer or die. 1 Modem scholars have generally viewed Demaratus' response to Xerxes as a panegyric of Spartan valor and lawfulness that constructs a polarity between Greek obedience to law and tradition, on the one hand, and the blind obedience of the Persian subjects to their human master, on the other. 2 Many have gone further and argued that
I Hdt. 7 .I 04.4-5: me; 8£ Kat AaKE8atfl0VtOt Katu flEV eva flaXOflEVOt oUOaflOOV den KaK{OVE<; uv8prov' aAEE<; 8£ &ptotot uv8prov &.mivtrov. EAEU9Epot yap EOV'tE<; ou mivta e'A.Eil9Epoi den· enmtt yap oqn 8Eon6tf\c; v6f,loc;, tov tl!to8Etfla{voum noA.A.cp ett f,lii'A.A.ov T1 oi aoi of.. notEuot yrov tix iiv EKEtvoc; uvol"m · uvc.Oyn 8£ tc.imto aiEi, ouK erov Demaratus' speech is designed primarily to portray legality as a fea ture of Spartan society in particular rather than a characteristic of Hellas as a whole.3 In this essay I argue that Demaratus' description of his compatriots, on the contrary, is not a simple eulogy of Spartan lawfulness. A close analysis of the speech's language, its role in the larger context of the Histories, and its parallels with contemporane ous representations of Spartans reveals that it is rather an example of the negative representation of Spartan legality that runs through works written by writers either based in Athens or influenced by the currents of thought that circulated in Athenian society during the second half of the fifth century BCE. Many works of this period, responding to contemporary criticism of Athens' democratic consti tution and admiration for the Spartan politeia ('constitution'), defended democracy by pointing toward the instinctive, internalized lawfulness which it engendered in citizens.4 The lawfulness of Spartiates, on the other hand, came to be viewed as an artificial and fragile obedience reliant on an external discipline imposed by a repressive oligarchy. Demaratus and Spartan Legality in Herodotus' Histories Several aspects of Herodotus' account of the exchange between Demaratus and Xerxes suggest that Demaratus' eulogy of Spartan obedience to the law is, at the very least, ambivalent. First, one must wonder why Herodotus would put a speech supposedly intended to 3 Vlastos (1953) 351; Tigerstedt (1965-78) 1.93-6; Fornara (1971) 49-51, esp. 50-1 n. 25; Cragg (1976) 103, 201; Lateiner (1984) 272; (1989) 30; Ostwald (1991) 142. Other scholars have looked at this passage from a wholly different perspec tive, focusing on the sophists' influence on Herodotus. See Dihle (1962); Thomas (2000) 19, 109-14, 122-5. 4 On the strong influence that Athenian democratic ideology exerted on Herodotus' treatment of Spartan society and institutions as well as his construction of Spartan power relations, see Millender ( 1996) 94- 184; (2002). See also Forsdyke (200 I), who argues that Athenian democratic ideology and specifically the ideological associa tion between democracy and civic strength influenced Herodotus' account of this dialogue between Xerxes and Demaratus. Forsdyke, however, is primarily interested in demonstrating the Athenian influence on Herodotus' formulation of this passage and its many correspondences with Aeschylus' Persians. While she does not consider in detail the negative aspects of this Athenian-based portrait of Spartan legality and courage, she agrees that Demaratus' comparison of Spartan law to a despot may indicate criticism of the 'authoritarian rigor' of Sparta's military system. On the close structural and thematic correspondences between Demaratus' conversation with Xerxes and Aeschylus' Persians, see Levy ( 1999) 131 n. 40.