Plutarch's
Life of Lycurgus, a work written more than 500 years after the time of Lycurgus, isn't a terribly reliable source, but it at least reflects what many of the Greeks thought about the earliest days of Sparta and the great Spartan law giver. The
abridged version here is well worth the 10 or fifteen minutes it will take you to read, as is this
version for children.. However, to get a better picture of Sparta, you should also read this
Sparta Reconsidered article.
Comment on either of these two sources here, noting what the source suggests is unusual in Spartan society and why that unusual feature may have well suited Spartan needs. If you comment on both linked selections, please put your responses in separate comments: you'll get extra credit for both.
from what i know about sparta's system of government and foreign policies already, this article seems legitimate. i know that sparta created it's rigid system of making all male citizens into full time soldiers because of the fear of a helot revolt. the helots are slaves that are captured in war, but unlike most, they are terrorrized by Spartan soldiers to keep them in check. in the classical era, helots outnumbered full spartan citizens by at least 50 to 1. Sparta also had not one, but two kings. this system was different because while one king governed the city itself, the other could lead expeditionary forces or diplomatic missions to other city-states. they were selected from the strongest and most experienced warriors rather than only by birthright. because of these two factors, Sparta had the best and the most feared heavy infantry in all of Greece by the time of the battle of Marathon. The fear of a helot revolt also kept a majority of their army closer to home rather than fighting abroad. Helots also belonged to the state more than individual Citizens and the soldiers had to go through a series of trials known as agoge to see if they were fit or if they would die, starting at age 8. if a newborn had a deformity or looked weak, they were left on a mountainside to die or be adopted by others. that last sentence cannot be proven or disproven because little evidence points to infanticice, but the spartan elders did decide if an infant lives as a citizen or dies by exposure and neglect. Spartans were trained from Day 1 to be soldiers if they were male.
ReplyDeleteThe abridged version of Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgus" shows how Lycurgus was significantly different from other people and Spartan leadership in particular during his life. It tells the story of how Lycurgus was set to inherit the throne, but his brother's wife was pregnant when his brother died. She offers to get an abortion under the condition that Lycurgus marries her. He refuses and allows his nephew to become King. This decision would have been particularly strange in Spartan society, where it would have been more common for Lycurgus to do whatever he needed to in order to gain power. This ultimately plays out in not only Lycurgus' favor, but also in the favor of the people in Sparta. He gained such a positive reputation that he was asked to return to Sparta to be King. When he did, he made many changes to Spartan law as well as Spartan culture, growing the power of the Spartan senate in particular.
ReplyDeleteThe abridged version of Lycurgus' life pointed out a few major changes to society that seemed strange. Lycurgus wanted to balance out the wealth and to equalize the ownership of property in the city. He would ban gold and silver and to change the currency to iron dipped in vinegar to make it even more brittle and have less intrinsic value. Theft and larceny declined because of no luxury imports. Also to balance out the wealth, Lycurgus made it mandatory to eat all meals together in public mess-halls. This ensured that everyone ate the same food and there were no fancy things to show off. Everyone had a quota of drink and food to bring monthly to supply the city. He also created one of the first building codes in that ceilings need to be made with ax and the doors/gates made with saw. This would leave large rough wood cuts in theses places that would make fancy furniture look anomalous, forcing people to match the rustic look with their other household articles. He had such a bizarre way of making things evolve into a better version through indirect means.
ReplyDeleteThe reconsidered article is pretty enlightening in that it talks about how Sparta's democracy predates Athens. This combined with the attempts to provide equality to women and even provide wealth equality. However, of course one of the points the article brings up is why this feels strange and surprising. That Sparta had preferred to put its legacy "in flesh". While it certainly didn't do that completely, as the article suggests, it somehow ended up with less recognition than Athens. As the article says, we kept teaching from Athenian records, or the detractors. Because all it seems most common knowledge comes from Athenian perceptions of Sparta, and not actual Spartan records. This feels weirder than most of the facts highlighted in the site.
ReplyDeleteI'm coming in here a little green concerning Sparta. Form the things Iv'e watched over the years, Sparta is depicted as a warring, very physical society--almost as intelligent barbarians. As I read the Sparta Reconsidered overview, there were a couple of things that I had never thought of or considered concerning Sparta. First, that Sparta had been the first recorded democracy in history. I don't remember learning about that while in school when I was younger. Secondly, Sparta was the only Greek city-state in which women enjoyed elementary rights such as the right to education, inheritance, and property. Both of these stood out to me as pretty innovative, especially for the that time period.
ReplyDelete-Jonathon Fargher
I think that we have inherited a very pro-Athenian bias from our sources on Greek history - Thucydides History of the Pelopennesian War is at least moderately biased towards Athens. Not that it omits much, but it frames it in a more positive light than other sources (I'm sure the Mytileans and Melosians would have a different perspective.) Likewise the Spartans were not as outwardly violent as Athens or others were - they certainly were not imperial like Athens was becoming in the 5th century BC. Like Jon says, we hear a lot about Athenian democracy, but not it's predecessor of nearly a hundred years - not only earlier but longer lasting and more stable than Athens'. I like the perspective that the Sparta Revisited page gives us - one I think is a lot more true to the point than their enemies would have written. We have the benefit of hindsight and history, and we shouldn't take things for granted or try to simplify them to the point of falseness or assumption - everything should be as simple as it is, but never simpler (I read a Spartan quote along those lines some time ago but can't seem to find it.) Also consider that it was not until after Athen's imperial ambitions were crushed that they had their most memorable philosophers came to be - Socrates lived during and died shortly after Athens lost the war, and obviously his school from Xenophon and Plato, to their students like Aristotle, came mostly in the 4th century BC.
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