Was Sparta built on freedom or oppression?

Topic 3: Social structure of Sparta – Spartiates, perioikoi and helots

Enquiry question: Was Sparta built on freedom or oppression?

The Spartiates (homoioi, "equals" or "peers")

• Who they were: full citizens. A Spartiate needed to:
  • be born of Spartiate parents (with some exceptions, see mothakes);
  • complete the agoge;
  • be elected to a syssition (common mess) and keep paying mess contributions from his kleros (allotment of land worked by helots).
• Losing status: a Spartiate who failed to pay his mess dues lost full status and became one of the hypomeiones ("inferiors").
  • Cowards who survived defeat (tresantes, "tremblers") suffered disgrace. Example: Aristodemus, who missed Thermopylae, was shunned (Hdt. 7.231). The survivors of Sphacteria were temporarily deprived of rights (Thuc. 5.34).
• Way of life:
  • Spartiates did not farm or trade. They were full-time soldiers and citizens.
  • Plutarch (Lycurgus 8) claims Lycurgus divided the land into 9,000 equal lots for Spartiates.
    • Hodkinson (Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, 2000) argues that land was in fact privately owned and unequal, and that this caused manpower decline.
• Numbers:
  • Herodotus 7.234: in 480, Demaratus tells Xerxes there are about 8,000 Spartiates.
  • Aristotle, Politics 2.9: in his day there were "not even 1,000", although the land could support 1,500 cavalry and 30,000 hoplites. → oliganthropia.

Mothakes (sing. mothax)

• Who they were: boys of non-Spartiate or impoverished background brought up alongside Spartiate boys as their companions ("foster-brothers"), going through the agoge with them.
  • Phylarchus (in Athenaeus 6.102, LACTOR D30) describes them this way.
• Social mobility: some rose high. Aelian (Miscellaneous History 12.43, D31) says Lysander, Gylippus and Callicratidas were called mothakes.
• Significance: they show some flexibility in the system, and a way of topping up a shrinking citizen body.

Perioikoi ("dwellers around")

• Who they were: free inhabitants of the many towns of Laconia and Messenia, with local self-government but no Spartan citizenship or political rights.
• Role:
  • craftsmen, traders and metalworkers: Spartiates were barred from these trades;
  • hoplites in the Lacedaemonian army: Herodotus 9.11 reports 5,000 picked perioikic hoplites at Plataea;
  • possibly they also manned ships.
• Loyalty: mostly loyal. Thuc. 1.101 says only two perioikic towns (Thouria and Aithaia) joined the helot revolt of 464.

Helots

• Who they were: state-owned unfree labourers, tied to the land and allocated to Spartiate kleroi.
  • There were Laconian helots and the much larger number of Messenian helots, conquered in the 8th–7th centuries.
  • They kept families and part of the produce, so they were more like serfs than chattel slaves.
• Their burden:
  • Tyrtaeus (fr. 6, A6), in the commonly cited rendering: the Messenians were "like asses worn out by great burdens", bringing their masters half of all the produce of the land.
• Their treatment:
  • Myron of Priene (3rd century BC?, in Athenaeus, D41), paraphrased:
    • helots were made to wear dog-skin caps and skins;
    • they were beaten a fixed number of times each year, regardless of wrongdoing, to remind them they were slaves;
    • those who became too strong were killed, and their masters fined.
    • Reliability: late and hostile, so it is possibly exaggerated.
  • Kritias (D40), an Athenian oligarch, late 5th century: in Lacedaemon, "the free are most free and the slaves most enslaved".
  • Plutarch, Lycurgus 28: helots were forced to get drunk and perform shameful songs and dances to show the young what drunkenness looked like. Plutarch doubts Lycurgus was responsible for the harsh practices, which he dates to after the earthquake.
• The krypteia ("secret service"):
  • Plutarch (Lycurgus 28): selected young men were sent into the countryside with daggers and minimal supplies. They hid by day and killed helots they caught at night, especially the strongest.
  • Plato (Laws 633b–c, C74): presents the krypteia as an endurance exercise: going barefoot in winter, sleeping rough, without servants.
  • The ephors' annual declaration of war on the helots made such killings religiously "clean".
• Fear of revolt:
  • Thucydides 4.80: Spartan policy was mostly governed by the need for security against the helots. To get rid of the bravest, the Spartans invited helots who claimed to have served best in war to come forward to be freed. About 2,000 were selected, garlanded and taken round the temples, and then disappeared: no one knew how each was killed.
  • Thucydides is a careful contemporary, but he admits he doesn't know the details. The episode is often dated to around 424.
• Revolts:
  • The great earthquake (c. 465/4) and helot revolt:
    • The Messenian helots held out on Mount Ithome.
    • Sparta called on its allies, including Athens, which sent Cimon with hoplites.
    • Sparta then dismissed the Athenians alone, fearing their "adventurousness and revolutionary character" (Thuc. 1.101–103).
    • This led to the collapse of Athenian–Spartan friendship (see Topic 8).
  • Pylos (425): the Athenian and Messenian base encouraged helot desertions (Thuc. 4.41).
• Military use of helots:
  • Herodotus 9.28: at Plataea, each Spartiate was attended by seven light-armed helots (35,000 helots).
  • Brasidas took 700 helot hoplites to Thrace (Thuc. 4.80).
  • Freed helots:
    • The Brasideioi were Brasidas' veterans, freed and settled at Lepreum (Thuc. 5.34).
    • The neodamodeis were freed helots serving as hoplites.

Lacedaemonians and Messenians

• Lacedaemonians: the collective name for Spartiates and perioikoi, i.e. the Lacedaemonian state and army.
• Messenians: the people of Messenia, west of Taygetus, mostly helots.
  • Messenian identity persisted.
  • After 464 the Athenians settled the Ithome rebels at Naupactus (Thuc. 1.103).
  • Messenians from Naupactus fought with Athens at Pylos.

Debate: Was Sparta built on freedom or oppression?

• Freedom:
  • Herodotus 7.104 (Demaratus to Xerxes): the Spartans are free, "but not entirely free; for law is their master, whom they fear far more than your men fear you".
  • Spartiates were "equals" with leisure to train, a free citizen body and eunomia.
• Oppression:
  • Spartiate freedom rested on helot labour and terror: the krypteia, the annual declaration of war, the 2,000 helots who disappeared.
  • Spartiates' own lives were tightly regimented, so their freedom was constrained.
• Modern views:
  • Cartledge stresses the "helot problem" as the key to understanding Sparta. Sparta was, in his view, a society organised for war against its own subjects.
  • Ducat and Hodkinson suggest that helot treatment varied, and that some sources (e.g. Myron) are late and exaggerate.
  • Hans van Wees has explored how Tyrtaeus reflects early helotage.
• Judgement: Spartiate "freedom" was real in a political and status sense, but it depended on the systematic oppression of a much larger unfree population. Helots probably outnumbered Spartiates many times over: Hdt. 9.28 gives a 7:1 ratio for one army.

Glossary

Term	Definition
Spartiates / homoioi	Full Spartan citizens ("equals").
Hypomeiones	"Inferiors": Spartiates who had lost full status (e.g. through failing to pay mess dues).
Kleros	A land allotment worked by helots and supporting a Spartiate.
Perioikoi	Free non-citizen inhabitants of Laconia and Messenia; craftsmen and hoplites.
Helots	State-owned unfree labourers, mainly Messenian.
Mothax (pl. mothakes)	A boy of lower status raised with Spartiate boys through the agoge; could become a citizen.
Neodamodeis	Freed helots serving as soldiers.
Krypteia	A "secret service" of young Spartiates who killed helots / an endurance exercise.
Messenians	The inhabitants of Messenia, subjugated as helots.
Lacedaemonians	The Spartan state: Spartiates plus perioikoi.
Oliganthropia	Shortage of (citizen) manpower.

Self-test

Q1: According to Tyrtaeus, how much of their produce did the Messenian helots hand over? A: Half of all the produce of the land.

Q2: Summarise Thucydides 4.80 on the helots. A: Thucydides says Spartan policy was largely shaped by security against the helots. He describes how around 2,000 helots who claimed to have served bravely were selected, supposedly for freedom, and then secretly made to disappear.

Q3: Name three famous mothakes, and give the source. A: Lysander, Gylippus and Callicratidas (Aelian, Miscellaneous History 12.43).

Q4: What two different pictures of the krypteia do Plutarch and Plato give? A: Plutarch describes young men killing helots at night. Plato describes it as an endurance exercise of living rough without servants.

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Topic 4: The role of women in Sparta

Key ideas and sources

• Education and physical training:
  • Xenophon, Lak. Pol. 1.3–4: Lycurgus believed that producing children was a free woman's most important role. So he ordained physical training for women as for men, including races and trials of strength, believing that strong parents produce strong children.
  • Plutarch, Lycurgus 14: girls exercised in running, wrestling, discus and javelin. They took part in processions and festivals lightly clad, or naked. This encouraged good behaviour and gave them pride.
  • Alcman's Partheneia (maiden-songs, 7th century, A14–A16): choral songs performed by girls' choruses. They show girls' musical and religious education.
  • The bronze figurine of a running girl (British Museum 1876,0510.1, D64), c. 520–500 BC: a girl in a short tunic, running. It is archaeological evidence for athletic girls. However, its Spartan origin and its purpose (a vessel attachment? a votive?) are debated.
• Marriage and family:
  • Plutarch, Lycurgus 15: brides had their hair cut short and wore men's clothes. Husbands visited them secretly at first.
  • Xenophon, Lak. Pol. 1.7–9: older husbands could introduce a younger man to father children, and a man could beget children by another man's wife with consent. The aim was eugenic: producing strong citizens.
  • Herodotus 6.61–63: Demaratus' birth story.
• Property and economic power:
  • Aristotle, Politics 2.9: women owned almost two-fifths of the land, through dowries and heiresses. He criticises the Spartan lawgiver for failing to control women, who live "licentiously and luxuriously".
  • He claims the Spartans were "ruled by women" (gynaikokratia, "gynocracy"), and that women caused great harm during the Theban invasion (369 BC).
  • Reliability: a 4th-century philosopher with conventional Greek assumptions, writing after Sparta's defeat, so he may be seeking scapegoats.
• Women as guardians of Spartan values:
  • Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women (Moralia 241F, F35): a mother hands her son his shield, telling him to come back "with this or on this", i.e. victorious or dead.
  • Gorgo (daughter of Cleomenes, wife of Leonidas):
    • Herodotus 5.51: as a child of eight or nine, she warned her father against the bribes of Aristagoras: "Father, the stranger will corrupt you".
    • Herodotus 7.239: she deciphered Demaratus' secret warning hidden under the wax of a writing tablet.
    • Plutarch: asked why only Spartan women rule their men, she is said to have replied that only they give birth to men.
• Athenian views:
  • Aristophanes, Lysistrata 79–84: the Spartan woman Lampito is admired for her fitness: she could "throttle a bull". This is comic exaggeration, but it shows the Athenian stereotype.
  • Euripides, Andromache 595–600 (not prescribed): Peleus mocks Spartan girls who exercise with young men with bare thighs.

Debate: How free and powerful were Spartan women?

• Freer than elsewhere:
  • education and physical training;
  • property ownership;
  • outspokenness;
  • running households while men were in the mess or on campaign.
  • Sarah Pomeroy (Spartan Women, 2002) emphasises their unusual status.
• But constrained:
  • Their role was primarily reproductive, serving the state's need for warriors.
  • They had no formal political rights.
  • Ellen Millender argues that much of the evidence is an Athenian construct: Spartan women were portrayed as "other" in order to define Athenian norms. So "gynocracy" is partly mirage.

Glossary

Term	Definition
Gynocracy (gynaikokratia)	"Rule by women"; Aristotle's accusation against Sparta.
Partheneion	A maiden-song: a choral song for girls (Alcman).
Eugenics	Selective breeding to improve the population: an aim attributed to Lycurgan marriage customs.

Exam technique (36-mark essay on the political structure; the assessed Autumn essay)

Question: "'The Spartan constitution was essentially oligarchic.' How far do you agree?"

• Paragraph 1 (oligarchic): the gerousia. Lifelong, elderly and wealthy members; probouleusis; capital trials. Use Plutarch, Lyc. 6 and 26, and Aristotle, Pol. 2.9, and evaluate both.
• Paragraph 2 (oligarchic): the ephors and the elite. A small group with near-tyrannical power (Aristotle). They dominated foreign affairs (Thuc. 1.87).
• Paragraph 3 (democratic): the assembly voted on war (Thuc. 1.87) and elected the ephors and gerontes. Ephors could be chosen from all Spartiates (Aristotle).
• Paragraph 4 (monarchic): the kings (Hdt. 6.56–60), but limited (Hdt. 5.75; Thuc. 5.63).
• Paragraph 5: the wider picture. Only about 8,000 citizens at most, ruling over many perioikoi and helots. The whole Spartiate body was an oligarchy within Laconia.
• Conclusion: a "mixed constitution" in form (Aristotle), oligarchic in practice. Argue your view consistently.

Self-test

Q1: What fraction of the land did Aristotle say Spartan women owned? A: Almost two-fifths.

Q2: Why did Xenophon say Spartan girls exercised? A: So that strong mothers would produce strong children (a eugenic aim).

Q3: Give one reason to be cautious about Aristotle's view of Spartan women. A: He wrote in the 4th century, after Sparta's decline, with conventional Greek views that women should be controlled. He may have scapegoated women for Sparta's failure.

Assessment checkpoint: 36-mark essay on the political structure of Sparta (planned at home, completed in class).

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