Sparta government
 They had 2 king s to keep each others in check
 Ephors: Five magistrates; elected every year
Functions: to control the conduct of the kings, negotiate foreign
treaties, and do much everyday state business aka kings advisors
 Council – 28 elders over the age of 60 that made decisions in the city
state
 Assembly – all male Spartans
 Soldiers: Every free man who was physically able
Classes of people:
 Spartans: the ruling class, who ruled by force
 Free men: the perioeci (artisans and farmers), having no political
rights
 Helots (serfs or slaves): were not allowed out at night for fear of an
uprising, and were killed at once if found outside
The Fall of Sparta
The period following the Peloponnesian War was a disaster for Sparta.
With victory came the responsibility to govern, so Sparta, as an
oligarchy, sought to impose oligarchic governments on those it defeated.
But the Spartans did not know how to govern others and many of their
appointed governors became tyrants. A “group of thirty” ruled Athens for
only a year before it was overthrown and a democracy restored.
Elsewhere puppet governments were despised and resisted. Former allies
conspired against the Sparta, fearing its intentions, and it wasn’t long
before all the defeated Greeks were independent again.
There was also trouble at home. In 398, a plot was discovered which had
helots and two Perioeci towns plotting to overthrow the Spartan
government. At the same time, the issue of wealth began to bring out the
more base instincts of Spartan men; instincts the Lycurgian laws had
blocked for so long. As the spoils of the Peloponnesian War reached
Sparta, its people began to forget their simple life. Some became wealthy
and others coveted that wealth.
As the Oracle had predicted 300 years before, “Greed will be Sparta’s
ruin.” Aristotle put it another way, “The Spartans always prevailed in war
but were destroyed by empire simply because they did not know how to
use the leisure they had won, because they had practiced no more
fundamental skill than skill in war”.
Overseeing this Spartan decline was the king Agesilaus, who ruled from
399-360. Agesilaus was an enigma. He was never supposed to rule being
the younger brother of the heir, and excelled in the Agoge despite being
lame. Rival of Lysander and admired by Xenophon, Agesilaus did his
best to protect Spartan honor despite the handicap of an un-Spartan-like
mercenary army. Against Boetia in 398, he was severely injured and had
to be carried from the battlefield. Later, his many battles against the
rising power of Thebes came to nothing and the defeat at Leuctra in 371
proved the Spartan army was finished. The next year, Thebes and her
allies invaded the Peloponnese and attacked Sparta itself. Beaten off, they
settled for the liberating the Messenians, which ended three hundred
years of the helot system.
MORE ABOUT SPARTA
Modern Sparta stands at the same site of ancient Sparta. Situated on the River Eurotas,
225 km from Athens, in the southern part of the Peloponnese, Sparta was the
contemporary of other Classical Greek city-states such as Athens, Corinth and Thebes. It
was generally referred by the ancient Greeks as Lakedaimon or Lakedaimonia. As per
Greek mythology, Lakedaimon was a son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete. He was king of
the country which he named after himself, naming the capital after his wife Sparta, the
daughter of Eurotas. However historic and archaeological evidence suggests that Sparta
was founded during and after the Mycenaean War, in which the Dorian Spartans crossed
the Taygetus Mountains and took the territory of Messenia.
Outnumbered by the native population of Messenia the Spartans instituted a military
oligarchy under which, the native population of Messenia was relegated to the status of
agricultural slavery, or Helots. Above the Helots were the Perioikoi, the traders &
merchants of Spartan society. Atop both were the Spartiate who could trace their lineage
to the cities original Dorian occupants. They were required to compulsorily serve in the
army, could vote and hence were allowed full political rights of the state. Dictated by the
same political needs it had a military oligarchy and managed to keep its lineage of kings
throughout its existence.
The hierarchy had the two kings (dual monarchy), a counsel of 28 nobles, and the
assembly of the Spartiate (composed of Spartan males). The assembly was run
democratically and could veto or approve the rulings of the counsel above it. However,
beyond the counsel and the assembly, was the Ephorate, a group of five men who
practically guided all aspects of Spartan life. Regardless of how odd such a political
system may seem, Spartan culture flourished.
Spartans also differed from its classical counterparts from the importance women had in
society. Spartan women were taught reading, writing and were expected to be able to
protect themselves. A girl's education was equally as brutal as the men's. Many athletic
events such as javelin, discus, foot races, and staged battles were held for both sexes.
Though Spartan women were expected and driven to produce strong and healthy children
their roles were not limited to marriage and procreation. Spartan women had many rights
that other Greek women did not have. They could own and control their own property
and could also take another husband if their first had been away at war for too long. A
woman was expected in times of war to overtake her husband's property, and to guard it
against invaders and revolts until her husband returned.
King Leonidas, 300 Spartans & The Battle Of Thermopylae:
Known almost exclusively for its military strength, Sparta rose to military prominence
and was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the GrecoPersian Wars. The story of Leonidas, the fifth century Spartan military king whose stand
against the invading Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae in central Greece is one of
the enduring tales of Greek heroism, invoked throughout Western history as the epitome
of bravery exhibited against overwhelming odds. After the Persian army of Xerxes
invaded Greece, the Spartan army prepared to join the armies of the other Greek states
and march to face the Persians. When a religious festival delayed the departure of the
army, Leonidas bravely led a small force of Greeks, mostly his Spartan royal guard of
300 soldiers, but also Thespian and Thebans, against the much larger Persian army at the
pass of Thermopylae (Pillars of Fire) in 480 B.C. There, Leonidas and his men held the
pass for three days (their tight phalanx wall and discipline were no match for the
Persians) and was defeated only after a Greek traitor revealed to the Persians the
existence of a mountain trail that allowed them to outflank and attack the Greeks from the
rear. All the Spartans and Thespians died, including Leonidas. However, those three days
gave valuable time to the Greek armies to prepare for battle and later to defeat the
Persians. However, by 362 BC Sparta's role as the dominant military power in Greece
was over and today only ruins remain to sing the glory of the fierce valiant warriors who
once dominated the region.
But Sparta still continues to fascinate us.
The main attractions from the excavations include:
The Acropolis: In contrast to other ancient Greek cities, Sparta was not a compact
fortified city-state centre with monumental civic and religious buildings. It was a loose
collection of smaller villages spaced over a large rural area and 6 low hills. The highest
of these served as the site for the Acropolis.
Temple of Athena Chalkioikos: The Sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos on top of the
Acropolis lies north of the theatre. Ulysses is supposed to have installed the statue and
called it Athena of the Road when he beat Penelope's lovers in the race. The Temple
constructed on the plans of the architect Vathykles from Magnesia, had its interior
decorated with bronze sheets and was one of the most important cult sites of the classical
town.
In the Hellenistic period the Theatre, Stoa and Agora were built near the Acropolis, but
the Temple of Athena and the earlier remains at the Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia on the
West bank of the Eurotas river are almost the only archaeological remains from Archaic
and Classical Sparta.
However no visit to Sparta is complete without a visit to the Archaeological Museum of
Sparta and the unique Museum of the Olive and the Greek Olive Oil.
Other nearby sites includes the Archaeological Site of Pellana. Some views suggest that
the Archaeological Site of Pellana is the Homeric Lakedaimon where Menelaus and
Helen had their palace.