ABSTRACT
For the conference which gave rise to this volume I was asked to discuss ‘the development of Sparta’s distinctive institutions to the end of the sixth century’.1 The organisers’ suitably laconic formulation forms a good starting-point for discussion, since it prompts some fundamental questions which might threaten to subvert any discussion of Archaic Sparta. First of all, do we have reliable information about the substance of Archaic Spartan institutions, let alone their development, in the period before c. 500? Secondly, were Sparta’s society and institutions really distinctive compared with those of other poleis, or is that just part of the Spartan myth? And, thirdly, even if there was some significant divergence, did it take place in the Archaic period, or only later in response to the very different challenges of the fifth century?
