ABSTRACT
Athens and Sparta are generally seen as the two main city states of ancient Greece. Their social and political organization, however, differed markedly. Sparta’s political system consisted of two kings (there were two branches of the royal family, the Agiad and the Eurypontid, with a king from each branch; the Agiad was the senior branch), a council of elders known as the gerousia, which consisted of twenty-eight members and the two kings, a board of five ephors, and the Spartiates, full Spartan citizens, the assembly of which was known as the ekklesia. Sparta lies in the south-east Peloponnese, on the Eurotas river, with the Taygetos mountain range to the west separating it from Messenia. There were four villages making up Sparta, or Lakedaimon: Pitana, Mesoa, Limnai and Kynosoura; Amyklai, to the south, was incorporated at an early stage into Spartan territory (cf. doc. 10.1). The immediate territory was known as Lakonia. The Spartiates, Spartan citizens, were known as homoioi ‘equals’, but within Lakonia were two other main groups, the perioikoi and the helots who greatly outnumbered the Spartiates.
