Sparta in the Seventh and Sixth Centuries BC

Dorian origins

The Spartan Dorians conquered Laconia some time around 1000 BC as part of the general Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese. They settled in the valley of the Eurotas River originally in four villages, though a fifth was added later. These subsequently were united into Sparta. They conquered other neighbouring communities subduing the inhabitants to one of two lower classes — the perioeci (“those who live around”) and the helots (probably a term derived from “captured in war” but possibly meaning “inhabitant of Helos” a village in Laconia). The perioeci had citizen rights within their own communities but their foreign policy was controlled by Sparta and they were required to supply troops in the event of war. At some stage the Spartans passed a law making it illegal for Spartans to participate in trade, and thereafter the perioeci became economically important. The conditions of the original helots is not known, especially as later writers never distinguish between them and the Messenian helots who were Messenians reduced to serfdom following Sparta's conquest of Messenia. By c. 750 BC Sparta was unusual within Greece in that it retained the monarchy — and in fact had two kings. However, it was broadly similar in that the government was essentially an oligarchy of the leading aristocratic families, and there was political unrest created by over-population and land-hunger. The Spartans resolved this problem by conquest of their neighbour, Messenia, rather than by colonization.

The First Messenian War

On the basis of the writings of Tyrtaeus, a mid C7th BC Spartan poet, in combination with the list of victors at the Olympic Games the First Messenian War is believed to have taken place between 730 and 710 BC. Dorians had also conquered Messenia after the Dorian migration but the precise nature of Messenian society at this time is unclear — presumably there were Dorian overlords and non-Dorian subjects. Tyrtaeus specifically states that the war lasted nineteen years and in the twentieth the Messenians withdrew. It is not known whether as a result of the war Sparta annexed the whole of Messenia or only a part of it. Whilst some Messenians may have emigrated others withdrew to Arcardia which subsequently supported them in the attempted war of liberation. Other Messenians were forced into serfdom, which from the poetry of Tyrtaeus, bound them to hand over half their produce to their masters.

The increase in wealth of the Spartans did not cure their internal political disturbances, and one group became disgruntled, presumably because they were discriminated against economically and politically. They became known as the Partheniai. This group was sent to found the colony of Taras (Tarentum) in southern Italy, c. 706 BC. Whilst this removed one source of political trouble, it is likely that other groups within Sparta continued to have grievances and that there was considerable political unrest there. This is confirmed by the work of Herodotus, who specifically states that until the reform of the constitution the Spartans “were the worst governed of virtually all the Greeks” (Herodotus 1.65). Thucydides also states that the Spartans suffered from civil strife during this period.

After the First Messenian War the Spartans attempted to take control of the disputed border land of Thyreatis between their territory and that of Argos. However, they were defeated by the Argives at the battle of Hysiae in 669 BC. It is likely that the defeat resulted in increased tension within Sparta. One of their kings, Polydorus (reigning c.700-665 BC) was assassinated after taking on the leadership of the people's party. The defeat of the Spartans at Hysiae also acted as a stimulus for the Messenians to rise up in revolt.

The Second Messinian War and constitutional reform

It is not possible to date the second Messenian war accurately. We know that Tyrtaeus fought in the war, which places the date c. 650 BC. The account by Strabo indicates that the Messenians were supported by Argos, Elis, Pisa and probably Arcadia. Tyrtaeus's account makes it clear that for the Spartans it was a life-and-death struggle. It is possible that this war endured for up to 50 years and that only by 600 BC did the Spartans succeed in establishing their control over Messenia. Prior to this Sparta underwent a series of internal reforms that changed its constitution. By tradition these were ascribed to a mythical leader called Lycurgus, and Plutarch even wrote a life of Lycurgus, but it is not known for certain that he is a real historical figure. Nonetheless, it is usual to call the reforms the “Lycurgan” reforms.

As a result of these reforms a form of written constitution was created, with a document called the “Great Rhetra”, meaning enactment or decree, laying down the provisions of the new constitution. According to this document, which survived in some form down to the time of Aristotle and which was the basis of Plutarch's work, firstly a cult of Syllanian Zeus and Athena was established; secondly a council, called the Gerousia, with thirty elders was created; thirdly, the ultimate power in the state was given to the assembly of the people; and fourthly, which is probably a later amendment, the Gerousia was granted the authority to annul a decree of the Assembly if the proposal presented to it had been altered in some way during the debate. Scholars do not agree on the interpretation or dating of this document. The dating of the Great Rhetra is not agreed upon. Proposed dates range over the whole of the C7th BC, and the context is placed from after the success of the First Messenian War down to the turmoil following the struggles in the Second Messenian War. On the whole it a date after c. 650 BC is favoured; that is, in the context of the Second Messenian War.

Under the Great Rhetra the power of the two hereditary kings was officially diminished. The two kings were drawn from two families, the Agiads and the Eurypontids; both were equal in authority, though the Agiads were senior in status. Under the new constitution they had no special preeminence in the Gerousia; however, they retained the hereditary duty (and right) of leading the army in war, and in practical terms they remained the most powerful people in Sparta, owing to the prestige of their position and their preeminence in times of war. The life of Cleomenes I, as described by Herodotus, illustrates this point; he is clearly the dominant force in Sparta at that time and responsible for shaping its foreign policy. Herodotus also ascribed to the Spartan kings the constitutional right to declare war. However, it is disputed whether this was in fact true; or possibly, there were changes to this power following the conflict between Cleomenes and Damaratus c. 506 when a quarrel between them forced Cleomenes to abandon his attempt to restore Hippias to the Athenian tyranny. After that it was not permitted for two kings to campaign together.

The council of the Gerousia was comprised of the two kings and twenty-eight elders, who had to be over sixty years of age. They were elected for life to the Council by acclamation in the Spartan Assembly. The Gerousia had a probouleutic function, namely, they prepared legislation to be brought before the Assembly. This made it the most powerful organ of the Spartan state. In addition, the Gerousia was the highest court of the state and alone had the right to impose the death penalty, banishment or loss of rights. Kings also could be prosecuted in this court and in fact between the 490s and 378 seven or more kings were prosecuted. Such prosecutions undoubtedly were politically motivated.

The Great Rhetra does not refer to the Ephors. Possibly, at the time of the decree the Ephors did not exist or were not important. However, by a later stage the five elected Ephors became very powerful as they controlled the executive, and were responsible for implementing the decisions of the Assembly. An Ephor seems to have been a representative of the Spartan people (those who could attend the Assembly) so he is possibly equivalent to a Roman tribune. Ephors also presided as judges in civil cases, and would combine with the Gerousia when a king was under trial. They were responsible for the administration of the state system of education, called the agoge. They also received foreign ambassadors and were responsible for the management of army affairs, including the draft. Two Ephors would accompany the king when he conducted a campaign. Ephors were elected, held tenure for one year, and could not be reelected. As a council they did not hold a single policy and did not as a body oppose the king or Council. As their tenure of office was strictly limited, an Ephor who exceeded his authority could be liable to retaliation. Thus, the political power of an individual Ephor was not lasting; the power was vested in the institution rather than in the individuals who represented it. However, according to tradition one Ephor, Chilon, was accounted one of the seven wise men of ancient Greece. Some say it was Chilon (c.556 BC) who counseled a policy whereby the Spartans would not lay claim to ethnic superiority, and as a result Sparta was able to form alliances with virtually all the cities of the Peloponnese except their traditional enemy, Argos.

The Ecclesia (“Assembly”) comprised all male Spartans, called Homoioi, meaning “peers” or “equals”. The Assembly was made sovereign by the Lycurgan reforms. This transferred sovereign power to the men who formed the hoplite infantry of the army. However, the precise nature of their powers of debate is a subject of controversy. The terms in which Plutarch describes them (“the people had the sovereign power to decide upon the motion set before them by members of the Gerousia and the kings”, Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus, 6.3) suggests that they could only debate proposals that the Gerousia initially proposed, and the remarks of Aristotle in his Politics (1273a 9-13), when he compares the Carthaginian constitution to those of other Greek states, also implies this. Nonetheless, according to Andrewes, the Spartan Assembly did have the right to debate proposals of the Gerousia, citing evidence from Plutarch (drawn from Aristotle's lost work) that the Assembly did debate and that the amendment to the Great Rhetra, granting the Gerousia the right to annul an amendment of the Assembly, proves this. According to Forrest there was a two-stage process of debate in the Assembly, and at the first stage open debate was allowed, and at the second only voting and no further debate was permitted. Finally, de Ste.Croix maintains that members of the Assembly could only speak if invited to do so by the presiding Ephor.

The term homoioi (“the Peers” or “the Equals”) enshrines a notion of basic constitutional equality and equality before the law; it did not mean that differences of wealth were leveled. Spartans did also have private wealth, and there were distinctions based on birth — hereditary nobility — nonetheless, the Assembly established a concept of basic equality and a notion of citizen rights. So this constitution was the product of a revolution of sorts — the aristocracy yielded the notion of “equality”, and this was enshrined in the constitution attributed to Lycurgus. All homoioi were able to attend the Assembly, and all had the right to a plot of State land, known as a kleros.

The precise details of the economic reforms that accompanied the change in constitution are not known, and so are a subject of debate. It is likely that the Great Rhetra was accompanied by a redistribution of land, particularly in the aftermath of the Second Messenian War, which made more land available. As the number of Messenian helots was substantially greater than those of the Spartans, the Spartans had to find a means of maintaining their power over them. Their solution was to free all male Spartans from economic burdens. They divided Messenia into approximately equal plots of land (kleros) and these were each assigned to a Spartan master, who farmed the land and was obliged to pay a tax in the form of agricultural produce to the State. The helots belonged to the State (they were State serfs) but were administered by the Spartan masters. A Spartan who failed to pay his tax in kind was deprived of his citizen status.

The Spartan system of education was adapted for the primary purpose of training every Spartan male for military duties. At the age of six a Spartan male (with the exception of the heir apparent) was taken from his family and educated in all-male barracks, enduring a harsh regime of physical and military training. At the age of twenty those who successfully graduated from this programme were enrolled into a syssition (“dining club”), which was a group of fifteen men of different ages required to sleep in the same barracks and dine together every night, even if married. At some age, probably thirty, the Spartan male would become a full citizen, with the right to attend the Assembly and to live with his wife.

The Rise of Sparta in the Sixth Century

By 500 BC Sparta had established herself as the hegemon (“leader”) of what later writers called the Peloponnesian League. They did this by a mixture of force and diplomacy. They apparently fought some successful campaigns in Arcadia, but found it very difficult to reduce Tegea. It is likely that they supported the Eleans when they defeated the Pisatans c. 572 BC and regained control of the Olympic Games. It is thought that Sparta was involved in the overthrow of the tyrannies at Corinth (c. 583 BC) and Sicyon (c. 556 BC).

Tegea and Argos were their strongest and most determined enemies. The Spartans concentrated their early efforts against Tegea, as Tegea stood more or less on the route to Argos. It seems that the Tegeans, with the support of forces from Argos, under the King Meltas (grandson of Pheidon), initially defeated Sparta and annexed some territory. Then the Spartans were defeated at the so-called “Battle of the Fetters” because the defeated Spartans were forced to wear the fetters that they themselves had brought.

Eventually, the Spartans restored the bones of Orestes which were buried at Tegea to Sparta, thus presenting themselves as champions of Achaea rather than as Dorians. They won a victory c. 550 over the Tegeans. However, the Spartans thereafter opted for a diplomatic solution to their relations with Tegea and made a military alliance with it in which Sparta became hegemon. The alliance bound both sides to aid the other in defence, and the Tegeans to assist the Spartans in their wars, and not to support the helots.

Conflict between Sparta and Argos then resumed over the issue of control of land of Thyreatis. According to tradition at one point they tried to settle the conflict by a “battle of champions” — 300 from each side. The legend says that only three survived, and dispute as to which side won lead to a full-scale war, in which there was victory for Sparta. As well as Thyreatis, the Argives were forced to cede to Sparta their holdings all along the east coast of the Peloponnese. It is likely that the Spartan victory was the reason why other independent city-states in the Argolid, Epidaurus, Troezen and Hermione, all allied with Sparta. This also brought the cities of Corinth, Sicyon and Megara within their sphere of influence. By c. 525 the Corinthians were certainly allied to Sparta as they participated at that time in the Spartan campaign to overthrow Polycrates the tyrant of Samos.

Cleomenes ruled in Sparta from c. 520 — 490 BC. Under his reign Sparta established her supremacy in the Peloponnese. Cleomenes also attempted to exert Spartan influence outside the Peloponnese. He supported the Alcmaeonids of Athens in their bid to overthrow the tyranny of Hippias. However, this did not work out to the liking of Cleomenese, for the leader of the Alcmaeonids, Cleisthenes, adopted a policy of democratic reform, prompting Cleomenes to intervene in Athens again in 508 BC when he lead a small Spartan force to capture the Acropolis, and subsequently installed an oligarchy led by Isagoras and expelled the Alcmaeonid family. However, the Athenian people revolted against this and Cleomenes was forced to withdraw. In response he levied an army from the entire Peloponnese and proceeded to invade Attica. However, not all his allies, the Corinthians in particular, supported his policy, and there followed a dispute with his co-king Damaratus, and the campaign was called off having only reached Eleusis. Two years later the Spartans attempted to call another action of the Peloponnesian League against Athens in order to restore Hippias, but this was opposed by Corinth and had to be withdrawn.

From 546 BC onwards Persia became a force to be reckoned with Greece, when she subdued Lydia. The Persian expansion involved the capture of Egypt and expeditions in north Africa, Scythia and Thrace. All Greek cities were divided in their response, with one faction in favour of joining Persia and another against. The leadership of Sparta at the time of the Persian invasion was based on the fact that they were the only city in Greece with a professional army, of about 5,000 hoplites, supported by those of her allies and lighter-armed helots.