ABSTRACT
Sparta, a small city on the River Eurotas (see Map 1), at this time directly controlled a larger continuous stretch of land than any other single Greek city: in fact, most of the southern Peloponnese. Lakonia proper, the territory of the city of ‘Lakedaimon’ (as Sparta was often called), ran down to Sparta’s harbour town of Gytheion and the peninsulas ending in Capes Tainaron (the modern Mani region) and Malea, and included at its heart the large and fertile district between the Parnon mountain range to the east and that of Taygetos to the west (Fig. 11.1). Indirect Spartan control extended well beyond Lakonia: the Spartans headed a loose but mighty grouping known to ancient writers as ‘the Spartans and their allies’, which modern scholars call for convenience ‘the Peloponnesian League’, but whose origin cannot (unlike its classical counterpart and rival the Athens-headed ‘Delian League’) be dated to a particular moment in history; most likely the Peloponnesian League crystallized by a gradual process in the second half of the sixth century.2 at process has been described in an earlier volume in this series.3 Yet another sort of Spartan control was exercised over those communities of Lakonia who were known as perioikoi or ‘dwellers round about’. ese people were self-governing, but had no foreign policy separate from that of Sparta, and served as ‘Lakedaimonioi’ in the army.4 Since the eighth century the Spartans had also ruled Messenia, the western half of the southern Peloponnese, beyond Taygetos, an even larger and more fertile district. e subjugated population of Messenia tilled the land as serfs, helots, though there were some perioikic communities in Messenia and, conversely, Messenian helots were not the only kind of helots because there were Lakonian helots too, who had been subjugated even earlier. But it was the Messenian helots who made the big dierence to Spartan history. e helots were directly responsible for Spartan military supremacy in Greece: a great helot revolt (the Second Messenian War) in the seventh century caused the Spartans to introduce for
their citizens a strict military discipline, the agoge.5 Success in this long and demanding training period was one of the criteria for full citizenship, the other being ability to pay the (non-monetary) contributions to your syssition or mess; ‘inferiors’ or hypomeiones were those déclassé individuals who had lost economic and therefore political and social status. Spartan females (who probably had a better time than their counterparts in most Greek states, certainly than those in Athens) went through some form of the agoge, but the syssitia were a men’s thing. Members of the resulting military elite were called the homoioi, the ‘equals’ or ‘peers’; ‘Spartiates’ strictly described the group made up by ‘peers’ and ‘inferiors’ together, but is often used by the ancient writers as in eect a synonym for the ‘peers’.6