Sparta Flash Card #24: technology: pottery
Historian
Evidence
Relationship
to other
Syllabus dot
points
Spartan Art
ART
Despite the persistent writers who state that Sparta was
spartan, there is evidence that Sparta had a flourishing
artistic culture. It not only flourished, but Sparta saw a
variety of activities: pottery, reliefs, and even masks.
However, the most famous of Spartan art (the Vix krater and
the pottery of the Arkesilaos Painter) are still unavailable.
Perhaps one day I will attempt to scan them.
To see the larger image, simply click on the piece.
Ancient Worlds
Spartan Pots
Author: * Demetrios Xanthippos - 2 Posts on this thread
out of 950 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jun 12, 2003 - 08:41
Perhaps Sparta’s greatest artistic contribution was her pottery and
ceramics. The Hunt Painter, the Naukratis painter, and the Rider
Painter are all believed to be Spartan or Lakonian. But above all
the rest is the Arkesilaos painter. He is known to have been
widely travelled and recognized; his name comes from his
depiction of Arkesilaos, the king of Kyrene.
For much of the Archaic Era, Spartan pottery ran a generation or
two behind the rest of Greece, but once they found their “voice”
their pottery became a thing of real beauty. Lakonian ware spread
throughout the Greek world and beyond (the most distant example
being the Vix Krater—metal rather than ceramic—found in the
grave of a Gaulish princess). Numerous examples have been
found in fifth and sixth century BC contexts.
The popularity of Lakonian ware probably stems from two
sources: their somewhat unique subject matter and their use of
purple dyes. Subjects were varied but they were expressed in
unique ways, derived from the Archaic forms (particularly
Corinthian forms) but developed along a different line than the
rest of Greece. The Spartans are also credited (by Fitzhardinge, at
least) with introducing a griffon-like beast, half bird and half
panther. I find this intriguing since I always thought the griffon
was a Scythian motif.
Certainly the uniqueness of much of their subject matter was a
factor in the spread of Lakonian ware, but I suspect that the
greater factor was the use of the local purple dye in their painted
pottery. The purple was used to highlight the manes of lions and
the tails of water-birds. This is the same dye which was later used
to dye the Spartans scarlet cloaks (the ancient purple is closer to a
very deep red). It seems that the source of this dye was murex
shellfish found in the Laconian gulf. It is generally believed that it
was the Cretans who first developed murex dyes and passed them
on to the Spartans and the Phoenicians.
BOS 1
Pottery

Before 600 BC Spartan pottery flourished and was
produced in a fine fashion. After 5th century decay of
Laconian art is apparent with it becoming
stereotyped/mediocre with no advancement.

Essentially technological advancement regarding Spartan
pottery went in the reverse – with continually less progress
over time. Plutarch attributes this to Lycurgus.
From Barbarism
to Civilisation
Sparta
The modern town of Sparta, as seen from the site
of the Mycenaean citadel, looking across to
Mount Taygetus. The medieval town of Mistra
can be seen on the first hilltop to the right. This
shows well the situation of Sparta, in a fertile
valley but surrounded by mountains. Taygetus
was the most formidable mountain range in
southern Greece, but beyond it was the other
fertile plain, that of Messenia, which the Spartans
conquered.
Sparta was the antithesis of Athens. Whereas the Athenians are
famous for their art, the Spartans were famous as warriors. They
had no democracy, no art and they were the prototype
totalitarians, and like totalitarians ever since, they have been
almost as much praised as they have been reviled. How did this
come about? The answer has fascinated their contemporaries as
much as it does modern scholars.
The answer to my eyes is simple. They did not use money; indeed
I shall argue that this was by deliberate choice and exacerbated
traits already present. Other scholars have failed to see the
importance of this. Indeed, they mention that money was not used
as an oddity – Plutarch indeed emphasises this in his Life of
Lycurgus and claims it as a great benefit – but no-one hitherto has
seen the importance of this in explaining the development of
Sparta. Let us therefore go back to the beginning and consider the
history of Sparta.
The history of Sparta, it must be said, gives rather a different story
to the archaeology. Sparta played a leading role in the Trojan
War: Helen, the cause of the war, was a Spartan, the wife of King
Menelaus. However the history begins in the 8th century BC
when the Spartans conquered their neighbours in Messinia who
occupied the only other really fertile valley in the Peloponnese. In
the 7th century the Messinians revolted and had to be conquered
again when the Spartans adopted the new model army system of
Ancient Greece, the hoplites. But the conquest of Messinia set the
scene for all future Spartan development. The Messinians had to
be kept in subservience and the Spartans had to develop as
warriors in order to keep the Messinians down. The Messinians
were called helots who were not exactly slaves but were the next
to bottom rung in a system that the anthropologist will recognise
as a typical hierarchical caste system. The Spartans under their
legendary king Lycurgus adopted a new system which
concentrated on keeping the Messenians down: it was a training
system known as the agoge whereby from the age of seven they
were trained to be soldiers and secret policemen – and little else.
Archaeol
ogy,
however,
tells a
rather
different
story. In
the early
years of
the 20th
century,
the
British
began
excavatin
g in
Sparta,
notably at
the
temple of
Artemis
Orthia.
Here they
discovere
d
numerous
bronzes
Above. The Vix crater (top) and a detail from the frieze.
of an
early
Though this was discovered at Vix in France, it was almost
date,
certainly an export from Sparta, and demonstrates both the
suggestin superb skill of the Spartan metalworkers in the sixth
g that in century, and the extent of the Spartan exchange network.
the 6th
and 7th centuries Sparta was a fairly normal Greek state
specialising in bronze work. Indeed, the superb bronze mixing
bowl found at Vix in France is almost certainly an export from
Sparta. In the 6th century there was also a flourishing painted
pottery industry, which is particularly important to archaeologists
as pottery can be dated accurately and it is possible to trace the
pottery industry down to the end of the 6th century BC. But then
it stops. Indeed at the end of the 6th century all flourishing
Spartan export industry in small bronzes seems to come to an end.
The story is the same in poetry. In the 7th century Sparta
participated in the story of the early Greek lyric poets with the
work of Tyrtaeus and Alkman. In the 6th century all this ceased.
What had happened?
I believe that this is linked to the deliberate non-use of money by
the Spartans. In the late 6th century, some time between say 525
and 500 BC, Athens adopted money – and so too did most other
state on the Greek mainland. But Sparta did not. Was this
deliberate? Plutarch, writing his Life of Lycurgus in the 1st
century AD, said that the mythical law-maker Lycurgus banned
money – indeed any ownership of Gold and silver: he noted, as a
benefit of this, that imports of luxuries ceased and that all useless
occupations were banned. Among these he mentioned jewellery
and other trades of luxury, as well as prostitution and fortunetelling.
This banning could
not have taken
place in the 8th
century BC, when
Lycurgus is dated,
because money
had not been
invented at this
time. It must be
dated to the end of
the 6th century
BC, when the
adoption of money
must have been on
the agenda of the
The 'Rider' cup. This splendid black-figure cup,
rulers of every
dated to the middle of the 6th century BC,
Greek state. In
demonstrates well the high quality of Spartan
Sparta, the
workmanship at the time, before the moneydecision must have
banning began.
been taken
deliberately and
formally – it must
have been proposed by the two kings – a great feature of the
Spartan constitution, and accepted by the Gerousia, the assembly
of all adult males to which the kings referred all decisions for
approval. Of course the decision was based on the underlying
structure of Spartan society: Whereas Athens adopted money
early and easily because their society was already a very open
one, Sparta rejected money because its society was already a
closed one; but as at Athens once the decision was taken, the
underlying logic of money economics soon exaggerated the
differences in both society and in economy. The Athenian
economy boomed and the arts flourished, while at Sparta the
economy stagnated and their society became every more
repressive and inward looking.
At first however, all went well for Sparta. As so often, when a
totalitarian state is first established, everything seems rosy, as
most people welcome the crack of firm direction, and the absence
of wearying distractions. The results at first were very positive.
Sparta became warriors par excellence to which all other cities
looked up for leadership. Almost immediately, the Persians
invaded Greece, - the big crisis of Greek history. In the initial
skirmish in 490 BC, Sparta stood aloof – the omens they said
were not right –and it was the Athenians alone who won the
Battle of Marathon. However, when the Persians returned 10
years later in full force it was the Spartans who led the resistance.
The great heroic stand was at the narrow pass of Thermopolae in
northern Greece, where 300 Spartans were sent to resist the
Persian advance. At first they were successful 300 men holding up
holding up the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Persian
troops. But then a traitor led the Persians round through a back
route, and the Spartans were surrounded: they fought every last
man to his death, losing the battle but winning immortal glory, - at
least in the eyes of those who admire this sort of glory.
True, it was the Athenians who then won the next battle, the naval
battle at Salamis – the Spartans had no navy – but at the crucial
battle of Platea a Spartan commanded the Greek army and it was
Spartans who played a crucial role in the victory that persuaded
the Persians that the conquest of Greece was going to be just too
difficult. Throughout the fifth century, Sparta maintained its dual
role with Athens as being the two leading states in Greece, but
from 432 t0 404 BC, Athens and Sparta were at war – a war
which eventually the Spartans won with help from the Persians
and numerous mistakes by the Athenians. Not that their victory
meant much: Athens almost immediately revived and went on
commercially and artistically as before, whereas in 371 Sparta
was defeated by the Thebans at the battle of Leuctra and never
again regained their prominence. It was not until some time after
240 that Sparta eventually began issuing silver coins, at a timer of
crisis and reform when many of the old traditions had to be
abandoned or reformed. Sparta eventually achieved some sort of
importance in the Roman period when they reinvented themselves
as a tourist attraction, putting on displays of the Spartan games for
the benefit of wealthy Roman tourists.
The Spartan system is a fascinating example of one of the worlds
most comprehensive – and nastiest – totalitarian systems. The
system receives its fullest surviving treatment in the pages of
Plutarch, the Greek biographer (AD 47 – 127) whose Lives
included those of three notable Spartans, in the course of which he
gave us the fullest description of the Spartan system.
How did this special Spartan system come about? We should
begin perhaps with a little history. There were three main groups
– we could call them classes or castes but these words have too
strong overtones – the pure Spartans, the Perioikoi or neighbours,
and the Helots. The perioikoi were the inhabitants of the
neighbouring villages, many of them on the coast. As individuals
they owed no allegiance to Sparta, but to their own community.
But the community, or city, owed allegiance to Sparta, and was
obliged to supply troops whenever Sparta demanded it. And while
the term Sparta refers strictly to the city itself, the Spartans and
their neighbours were called Lakedaimonioi, which is the usual
Greek term for the Spartans, and the Lakedaimonian army would
have had more allies than Spartans.
But the real underclass where the Helots. These consisted mainly,
though not wholly, of the Messenians who were conquered in the
7th and again in the 6th centuries when the ownership of their
land was taken from them and shared out by lot among the
Spartan elite. The helots became tied cultivators. They cultivated
the land, and gave up half the produce to the Spartan over lord
and only kept the other half for themselves. Technically they
came under the discipline of the Spartan state as a whole, not that
of the individual masters, though there are references to helots
accompanying their master to war and sometimes fighting
alongside him. There were occasional helot or rather Messenian
revolts but none were successful; though had the Athenians
backed the Helot revolt in the 460s, they could probably have
broken the power of Sparta for good. But as in any totalitarian
state, the worst aspect was the secret police, known as the
Krypteia, meaning ‘hidden’. It appears that true Spartans, and in
particular the Spartan youth were encouraged to go round and
beat up, and if necessary kill, any Helot who appeared to be
getting bolshie. Indeed one authority says that the Spartans
declared war on the Helots formally every year so that they could
be murdered with impunity.
But the second and most spectacular part of the Spartan system
was the so called Agoge or educational system (the Greek verb
ago has a similar though broader meaning to the Latin duco,
meaning to lead) so that Agoge really is the same as education).
This began at birth when every baby was brought to the elders for
inspection and if it were not up to scratch it was exposed on the
hillside. The education system began at the age of 7 when the
children were all assembled together in a herd under a cowherd:
their full military training began when they were 13, and lasted till
they were 20. Life was tough. They were only allowed to have
one cloak, summer and winter, so that they should learn to despise
the cold; their food was always inadequate and they were
encouraged to go out and steal any extra, but if they were caught
stealing food they were severely whipped, not for the crime of
stealing, but for the crime of getting caught.
Girls underwent
similar training so
they would bear
hardy children:
indeed the
Spartans score
good marks
among present
day feminists for
treating the sexes
more or less alike.
The girls also had
Two of the lead plaques found at the temple of
Artemis Orthia, which first demonstrated the
to perform naked
quality of early Spartan metalworking.
dances in front of
the boys just to
Left is a musician(?), right a gorgon.
make sure they
were not tempted to become fat. Naked dancing appears to have
been a feature of Spartan life, for naked youths were also
encouraged to put on displays of dancing known as the
Gymnopaideia which were extremely popular among the later
Roman tourists.
Another major feature of the system was the sussition, or
communal eating arrangements. On reaching manhood, every
Spartan was elected to one of these ‘messes’ to which he was
required to bring his share of food and wine, the produce of his
helot. It appears from some accounts that the young men even
slept in these communal houses, at least until the age of 30. Even
on their wedding day they were expected, having pleasured their
wife, to return to the communal residence. It is difficult to see
how the system worked or even the size of the messes, for reports
vary from tables of just 15 to an average of 300. As far as I know,
none of these communal houses has ever been excavated and
Pausanias, the Greek guide book writer of the 2nd century AD, in
his description of Sparta makes no mention of them. Perhaps they
had died out by then. Nor, as an archaeologist, would I even know
where to look for them: would they be in the centre of Sparta
itself, or in one of the five villages from which Sparta was
formed? But their existence has always been one of the more
obviously ‘communistic’ aspects of the Spartan system, with
analogies in primitive tribal societies.
When did this Spartan system come into being? In Classical
times, it was fashionable to attribute everything to Lycurgus the
mythical law-giver of presumably the 7th or 8th century BC.
Plutarch gives him the full treatment as one of his parallel lives of
Greeks and Romans. It is based on widespread reading of
literature, much of which does not survive: some of this sources
were good, some of them less so. He preserves what is known as
the Great Rhetra – Rhetra meaning oracle – it is cognate with
orator – written in a very archaic dialect which is either very early
or a very good later forgery.
I would argue however that the system was not formalised till the
late 6th century BC, for several of the major aspects only make
sense at this date. The crucial aspect was the banning of gold and
silver coins, which is surely a reflection of the great debates
which took place when Sparta formally outlawed the use of
money; and this could not have taken place till money was
invented, somewhere around 525 and 500 BC. There is also a very
interesting passage where Lycurgus took a stand against the use of
written law for making contracts. This is fascinating passage for
those of us who emphasise the difference between contract law
and ritual law (or social justice) for he says that he preferred to let
disputes be decided by wise judgment rather than by specious
reasoning based on interpretations of writings. This again could
not have come into existence until commercial law was beginning
to be established and written down, presumably not before the late
6th or indeed 5th century.
It seems clear therefore that this Lycurgan constitution is an
outstanding example of a primitive kin based society, not using
money, despising individualism and practising a primitive
communism. Sparta is almost always misunderstood when it is
assume to be ‘Greek’ . Sparta was not Greek at all, but a relic of
an older society surviving in a changed world.