THE ‘LYCURGAN’ REFORMS AND THE RISE OF SPARTA IN THE SEVENTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES

It is a difficult task for modern scholarship to construct an accurate account of archaic (and classical) Spartan politics and society for a number of reasons. First, the Spartans did not keep written records, apart from oracles and certain lists, e.g. of kings. Second, the Spartans were extremely secretive – as noted by Thucydides, when discussing their military structure (5.68.2) – and kept most non-Spartans out of Sparta, even employing the occasional expulsion of all foreigners (‘xenelasia’). Third, the Spartans deliberately created an idealized public image of Sparta, a myth (or ‘mirage’, as the French scholar, Ollier, termed it) of a powerful, unchanging, politically stable state, possessing ‘eunomia’ (good order). The myth was especially peddled in the late fifth century to conceal the deep social unrest and harsh economic pressures within the Spartan body politic, caused by a drastic reduction in the number of full Spartan citizens (about 8000 in 480 to about 2000 in the last decade of fifth century). Fourth, the eunomia of Sparta, in stark contrast to the civil war (‘stasis’) that erupted in numerous states (e.g. Coryra) in the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides 3.82-84), became a source of admiration in the late fifth and fourth centuries for all those – e.g. upper-class aristocrats with an oligarchic outlook, Spartan sympathisers, and philosophers – who disliked the radical democracy of Athens and preferred a state with a defined, secure political hierarchy and a compliant, regimented ‘demos’. Finally, and the biggest problem of all, every change to Spartan society, no matter how radical, from the late fifth century to Roman times was always represented as ‘Lycurgan’, i.e. a return to the original structure as laid down by the legendary founder of the Spartan system. The earliest literary sources are the poets Tyrtaeus (c.650) and Alcman

(c.600). Tyrtaeus is useful for providing an outline of Sparta’s initial conflicts with Messenia and Argos, the economic burden on the ‘Helots’, the troubles that the Spartans experienced in dealing with the subsequent

Messenian revolt (or the Second Messenian War – see below), and the early statement of Sparta’s collectivist system of military values. Alcman’s humorous, joyful, nature-loving poetry, especially when supplemented by recent archaeological finds in Sparta, puts paid to the belief that Sparta suddenly and dramatically became an austere, anti-intellectual military camp after the final conquest of Messenia. However, this marks the limits of their usefulness. Herodotus, on the other hand, for all his limitations (see Chapter 1), and despite the fact that he is not attempting to write a history of Sparta, gives valuable information about Sparta in the sixth and early fifth centuries, especially on the growth of Spartan power in the Peloponnese, and the authority, influence and policies (and the unorthodox familial relations) of the kings. Much of his knowledge was derived from discussions with politically important Spartans, although this again has to be treated carefully – his blatantly hostile treatment of King Cleomenes and his sympathetic treatment of his enemy, the deposed Demaratos who later joined the Persians against Greece as an advisor, strongly suggest that Demaratos’ descendants supplied much of this information. Herodotus, although he accepted the Spartan line about Lycurgus as the great reformer (1.65), was gathering information and writing his history before the Spartan myth or ‘mirage’ became fully established in the late fifth century. He is chronologically our closest source to the gradual changes that were taking place throughout the sixth century in Spartan politics and society, necessitated by the extra military demands of controlling so many Helots, opposing Argos, exercising hegemony over the Peloponnesian allies and exerting influence outside the Peloponnese. It is probably in the latter half of the sixth century that the traditional hallmarks of Spartan society come into being: the emphasis on military preparedness, the minimal needs for selfsufficiency, the disappearance of the liberal arts and material luxuries, the dressing in similar fashion, and the wealthy adopting a similar lifestyle to the ordinary Spartan (Thucydides 1.6.4). Thus Herodotus is one of our most important literary sources, as he is relatively untainted by the effective state-sponsored propaganda of the later years – it was Herodotus who from the beginning saw through the Spartans’ much vaunted reputation for financial honesty, revealing their readiness to accept bribes (3.148; 5.51; 6.72). Thucydides, writing in the later fifth century, was exiled from Athens in

424 after the loss of Amphipolis, and he used this opportunity to visit the opponents of Athens to gather information for his history of the war (5.26.5). As stated above, he found it difficult to acquire the information he wanted owing to Spartan secrecy – hardly surprising as he was an Athenian, still had influential friends back in Athens and was probably asking the kind of detailed questions that the Spartan authorities had no desire to answer in a time of war, if ever, e.g. the disappearance and fate of the 2,000 ‘most spirited’ Helots (4.80). However, there are two occasions when Thucydides

seems to have put aside his usual rigour and accepted Spartan propaganda: first, that the Spartans had maintained the same constitution for more than 400 years (1.18.1); second, the detailed and vivid story about the fall of Pausanias, caused by his arrogant behaviour as leader of the Greeks, his medism and his attempt to stir up a Helot revolt (1.128-35). Thucydides’ usual problem, when gathering information, stemmed from eyewitnesses giving different, conflicting accounts of the same event (1.22.3). It is possible that in the case of Pausanias, Thucydides was taken in by the unanimity of the account put forward by the Spartan authorities, who had a vested interest in proving beyond all doubt that the great victor and hero of the battle of Plataea in 479 deserved his punishment. Even so, on two occasions he uses the phrase ‘it is said’ (1.132.5; 1.134.1), implying some reservations about the veracity of his information. The victory of the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War in 404 encouraged

the ‘Laconisers’, i.e. the admirers and supporters of Sparta, to develop and enhance the myth of Sparta, especially Critias and Xenophon. Critias, an Athenian oligarch and the most ruthless of the ‘Thirty Tyrants’ – a narrow, repressive oligarchy that was established after the defeat of Athens by the Spartan Lysander and ruled briefly from 404-3 – played a leading role in spreading the myth of an idealized Sparta by means of distortion and invention, amply supplied by information from his Spartan supporters. Only a few fragments of his two works entitled Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, written in prose and verse, survive. Xenophon (see Chapter 1 for a fuller treatment), an upper-class Athenian, lived for a while in Sparta, was present with the victorious Spartan army at the battle of Coroneia in 394 (see Chapter 24), allowed his two sons to undergo the Spartan ‘agoge’ (education system) and enjoyed the patronage of King Agesilaos, whom he admired greatly as the living embodiment of the greatness of Sparta. His (probable) Constitution of the Lacedaemonians is full of uncritical praise (apart from Chapter 14) for Lycurgus whose social and economic reforms, in Xenophon’s opinion, had brought about the moral qualities and outstanding courage of the empire-winning Spartans of his own day. This work is not really a constitutional history of Sparta, more a flattering description of contemporary Spartan society, education and military arrangements (including religious observance), thus explaining why so small a state had become the most powerful in Greece. Yet he must have been aware of the increasingly bitter and divisive social tension within Sparta arising from the great disparity of wealth between rich and poor Spartans, many of whom were reduced to ‘Inferior’ non-Spartiate status (Hypomeiones) owing to their inability to provide their compulsory contribution to their ‘syssition’ (dining club), the basis of full citizenship. None of this is to be found in this work, but in his Hellenica he describes in depth the conspiracy of Cinadon (almost certainly an ‘Inferior’) who in 399 allegedly planned an uprising against the Spartiates, and whose supporters consisted of Helots (presumably

Laconian), liberated Helots (Neodamodeis), ‘Perioeci’ and ‘Inferiors’ (Hypomeiones), all of whom would have happily eaten the Spartans even raw, such was the depth of their hatred (Hell. 3.3.4-11). The catastrophic defeat of the Spartan army at the battle of Leuctra in 371, caused mainly by this lack of Spartiate manpower, was possibly the catalyst for his one critical chapter (14), but even then the fault, in Xenophon’s eyes, lies not with the admirable ‘Lycurgan’ system but the failure of the Spartans to adhere to it, choosing instead to be corrupted by the love of gold and the desire for foreign rule. Xenophon’s admiration of Sparta was shared by Plato, a relative of Critias

and an early fourth-century philosopher, who greatly admired the Spartan eunomia (good order), based upon austerity and a highly regulated society. Athens, his own city, had endured stasis (civil war) in 411-10 and in 404-3, and the restored radical democracy had put to death in 399 his great hero, Socrates. His disaffection with Athens encouraged him to look to Sparta as an inspiration for his ideal state and consequently the Republic shows many similarities to the political and social institutions of Sparta. However, Plato is prepared to criticize Sparta and this criticism is valuable in such a mainly pro-Spartan source. In his five stages of degeneration from Aristocracy (used in its literal sense, i.e. ‘rule of the best’) to Tyranny, Sparta is equated with the first state of degeneration, i.e. Timocracy or Timarchia. This state is characterized by the overwhelming love of status and honour, and the ambition to achieve these leads to rivalry and splits among the ruling class. The ensuing desire for wealth and the possession of land and houses further results in wealth being concentrated within a small number of citizens (Republic 545a-551c). In the Laws, Plato is especially critical of Spartan laws on the grounds that their sole purpose is success in war, rather than peace and harmony (Laws 1.625-26). This last criticism is echoed by Plato’s most distinguished pupil, Aristotle,

writing in the second half of the fourth century after the collapse of Sparta as an imperial power. The Politics, his main surviving work, is very useful as a critical counter-weight to the idealization of Sparta. It regrettable that his Constitution of the Spartans (similar in style to the Constitution of the Athenians, i.e. the Ath. Pol. – see Chapter 1) survives only in fragments. Its value as a source can be assessed by the usefulness of some of these fragments, e.g. the quotation from the Great Rhetra to be found in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus 6 (see below). He agrees with Plato in criticizing the founder of the Spartan constitution for making the primary aim of his legislation conquest and war (Politics 1333b), but goes much further. He criticizes at length the Helot system, the excessive property power of Spartan women, the great disparity in the possession of land and wealth, the corruptibility of the ‘Ephorate’ and its control over most of the important areas of state policy, the defects of the Gerousia, the inherent weakness of the need to contribute individually to the dining club (syssition) as the basis of citizenship, and the

inability of the financial system to fund large-scale wars (Politics 1269a1271b). We also learn through him of the factional strife in early fourthcentury Sparta, i.e. Lysander’s attempt to abolish the kingship and King Pausanias’ to abolish the Ephorate (Politics 1301b). Thus Aristotle’s analysis, although excessively critical, is very useful, especially as he is the only source to explain, rather than merely moralize about, the cause of the defeat at Leuctra, i.e. the lack of citizen manpower (‘oliganthropia’), caused by the Spartan system of land ownership and inheritance. The evidence for archaic and classical Sparta is further complicated by

the intervention of certain kings, who had a vested interest in putting forward their proposals for constitutional reform. Early in the fourth century the exiled King Pausanias wrote a pamphlet (‘logos’) on the constitution of Sparta and Lycurgus in his bid to regain political power, which seems to have played a major part in the idealization of ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta. It would seem, although this is a matter of scholarly dispute, that Pausanias favoured the abolition of the Ephorate and almost certainly quoted the Great Rhetra – later used by Aristotle and then Plutarch (see above) – where the ‘Ephors’ are conspicuous by their absence. It may also have been the case that Pausanias’ pamphlet greatly influenced the kings of the third century, Agis IV (244-1) and Cleomenes III (235-222). These two kings were responsible for the so-called ‘third-century revolution’, and it was their reforms and their political propaganda used to justify them that have done so much to distort profoundly the history of archaic and classical Sparta for later writers and historians. By the mid-third century the distinctive ‘Lycurgan’ social and economic institutions, i.e. the dinner clubs (syssitia) and the state education (agoge), had broken down, and most of the Spartans were by now ‘Inferiors’ (Hypomeiones). These two kings in their attempts to restore Spartan power introduced many radical so-called ‘Lycurgan’ reforms into Spartan society, and it is these reforms, recounted fully in Plutarch’s Lives of Agis and Cleomenes, that permeate the Life of Lycurgus and are foisted upon him. Plutarch, whose Spartan Lives, especially of Lycurgus, have done so

much to promote the Spartan myth for future generations, was writing in the early second century AD, many centuries after the events he describes and the sources that he employs (see Chapter 1). The numerous similarities between the reforms of Lycurgus and of the third-century BC kings are notable, e.g. Lycurgus’ redistribution of all the land into equal allotments (Lyc. 8, 16) is similar to that of Agis (Agis 8) and Cleomenes (Cleom. 11). Plutarch’s main source for the lives of these two kings was the Athenian Phylarchus, an admirer and possibly a friend of Cleomenes, who wrote a history of his age in 28 books from the death of Pyrrhus to the death of Cleomenes (272-220/19 BC). The history is dramatic and sensational in style, and treats both kings as tragic heroes in their attempts to restore Sparta’s greatness, but there is enough in Plutarch’s condensed version to establish

the essence of their reforms and their justificatory arguments. As regards the similarities of the reforms in these Lives and the Life of Lycurgus, Plutarch either made use of Phylarchus again or made use of Sphaerus, a thirdcentury Stoic philosopher and possibly teacher of Cleomenes. He wrote On the Laconian Constitution in three books but, more importantly, he acted as an advisor to Cleomenes and played a key role in the re-establishment of the agoge and the dining clubs (Plutarch, Cleomenes 11). Although it would be wrong to think that Plutarch relied upon only one major source for his Life of Lycurgus, there is still a further problem that many of his other sources are Hellenistic and thus are heavily influenced by the ‘third-century revolution’. Plutarch is at his most useful when he uses sources of the fifth and fourth centuries, although he takes issue with them when critical of his inspirational, perfect lawgiver, Lycurgus, e.g. Aristotle and the failure to control the power of women (Lyc. 14). Although he consulted Herodotus and Thucydides, it is likely that he made extensive use of the Spartan Constitutions of Critias and Xenophon, but most of his research was centred on Aristotle and Plato, both of whom are mentioned as sources on numerous occasions. He also used Ephorus (see Chapter 1 under Diodorus Siculus), who emphasized the moral decline of the Spartans after 404 owing to the accumulation of wealth and the resultant corruption. It is likely that Ephorus in turn was influenced by the work of King Pausanias. Plutarch also collected and made extensive use of ‘Laconian Sayings’

(Apophthegmata Laconica) – short, witty replies that are designed to reflect on the excellence of the Spartan character – and the Spartan Institutions (Instituta Laconica) – a description of ancient Spartan institutions and customs, probably influenced by earlier versions of Sparta’s Constitution, especially those of Xenophon and Aristotle. The ‘Laconian Sayings’ grew in number over the centuries and can be found in the sources as early as Herodotus (e.g. 3.46 and the Samians’ request for help). Unfortunately, not much historical value can be placed on their reliability and authenticity, although they are invaluable for the history of the Spartan myth. Their pointed, anecdotal, moralizing style appealed to Plutarch, who was writing biography not history (see Chapter 1) and thus used them extensively in describing Lycurgus’ thinking behind his reforms, e.g. the equal division of property (Lyc. 8), the establishment of the dining clubs (Lyc. 10) and the introduction of iron spits in place of gold and silver coins as Spartan currency (Lyc. 9). In fact, the ‘Laconic Sayings’ make up the bulk of chapters 19 and 20. Finally, mention should be made of Pausanias, a religious antiquarian,

travelling around mainland Greece (and the Near East) and writing c.160 AD. His most famous work is the Description of Greece (Periegesis tes Hellados), a guide to the most important sites and historic places of Ancient Greece. Although born in Lydia (modern-day Turkey), he was very proud of his Greek heritage and regretted Greece’s decline after the Roman conquest.

As he visits each site and describes the monuments to be seen, he also includes a discussion of the local geography, daily life, legends, etc. – in essence, a cultural history. Laconia is the subject of Book 3 and, as with the other books, he includes a synopsis of Spartan history. Although its quality is variable, there is often interesting information of genuine worth, e.g. his identification of the court that tried King Pausanias in 403 and the breakdown of the voting that led to his acquittal (3.5.2). For the reasons given above, Plutarch and the other literary sources,

although numerous, are often unreliable, especially as the dates of these sources stretch over many centuries and most are not contemporary. Consequently great care must be exercised in their use when attempting to establish concrete facts about early Spartan politics and society.