Tales of Two Cities: the “Abnormal States”
of Sparta and Athens
“Suppose, for example, that the city of Sparta were to become
deserted and that only the temples and foundations of buildings
remained, I think that future generations would, as time passed, find
it very difficult to believe that the place had really been as powerful
as it was represented to be….If…the same thing were to happen to
Athens, one would conjecture from what met the eye that the city
had been twice as powerful as in fact it is.”
~Thucydides, 1.10
Sparta’s Unique Development:
The Awesome, Militaristic, Communistic State
 Typology for Other Greek States
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colonization (stimulates economies of metropolis by
providing ready-made markets)
monetization and expanding economies
public works projects provide employment
 The Conquest of Messenia (ca. 735-715 BCE)
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tradition of two Messenian wars
confiscation of Messenian territory; Messenians as
helots (state-owned slaves)
the “nationalist” poet Tyrtaeus
Sparta
Spartan Expansion (8th-5th centuries)
Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution
 Lycurgan Eunomia (legendary law giver, ca. 885 BCE?)
 two kings (Agids and Eurypontids)
 gerousia = body of elders (28 aristocrats, age 60 or
older + 2 kings)
 ephors (5) - annually-elected; executive, judicial, and
disciplinary powers
 apella = assembly of Spartiates; see Plutarch,
Lycurgus 6 on the powers of the Spartan demos
Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution
 Spartiates as Homoioi
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syssitia, black broth, iron-bar currency, etc.
 Others: perioikoi, neodamodes, hypomeiones
 Krypteia and the Helots
Plutarch, Lycurgus 6
(on Spartan assembly)
“When the populace was assembled, Lycurgus permitted no one else
except the Elders and kings to make a proposal, although the authority
to decide upon what the latter put forward did belong to the people.
Later, however, when the people distorted the proposals and mauled
them by their deletions and additions, the kings Polydorus and
Theopompus supplemented the rhetra as follows:
If the people should make a crooked choice, the Elders and the
founder-leaders are to set it aside
that is, not to confirm it, but to withdraw it completely and to dismiss
the people because they are altering and reformulating the proposal
contrary to what was best.”
Athens’ Crisis and the Solonic Reform:
The Road to Democracy
 Athens as the Metropolis of the Ionian Greeks
(Thucydides, 1.2, 1.12, 2.16)
 Debt-Bondage (hektemoroi) and horoi
 Cylon, ca. 632 BCE; Draco, ca. 621 BCE
 Solon and the Seisachtheia
 Heliaia (assembly as court of appeal to archon’s decision)
= Council of 400
Solon’s Seisachtheia
(“lifting of burdens”)
 Response to socio-economic crisis (594 BCE)
 Cancellation of debts (lifting the horoi)
 Replacement of Rights by Birth with Rights by
Property
Solon’s Seisachtheia
(“lifting of burdens”)
 Pentecosiomedimnoi (“500-bushel men”): treasurer,
archon
 Hippeis (300 to 500-bushel men): lesser offices; maybe
the archonship
 Zeugitae (200-300 bushels): maybe eligible for lesser
offices
 Thetes (below 200 bushels): assembly and army
Pisistratid Tyranny at Athens
 Pisistratus (rules intermittently ca. 561-528 BCE): a
model Greek tyrant?
 “So Pisistratus took over the power in Athens; yet
he in no way deranged the existing magistracies or
the ordinances but governed the city well and truly
according to the laws that were established.”
(Herodotus, 1.59)
 The sons, Hippias and Hipparchus (ca. 528-510 BCE)
 The affair of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Athens--Construction Phases
Statue Group-Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Athens ca. 500 BCE
 Liberation of Athens from Pisistratid tyranny:
 “So Athens increased in greatness. It is not only in
respect of one thing but of everything that equality and
free speech are clearly a good; take the case of Athens,
which under the rule of tyrants proved no better in war
than any of its neighbors but, once rid of those tyrants,
was far the first of all. What this makes clear is that
when held in subjection they would not do their best,
for they were working for a taskmaster, but, when
freed, they sought to win, because each was trying to
achieve for his very self.” (Herodotus, 5.78)
Athens and Attica
Athenian Demes (Cleisthenes)
Cleisthenic Reforms (ca. 508/7 BCE)
 Tribes (10), demes (139?), and 30 groups of demes =
30 trittyes.
 Each Tribe = 1 trittys from each region: city, coast,
inland (trittys = 1/3 tribe)
 10 Strategoi (Generals)
 Council of 500 (50 from each tribe); prytany (50) =
one-month term (10 months)
 Ekklesia (Assembly)
 Dikasteria (Popular Courts, set up on tribal basis)
 Ostracism
Ostraka from Athens
Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 56.2
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“As soon as the Archon enters upon his office,
he proclaims through the public herald that
whatever a person possessed before he entered
upon his Archonship he will have and possess
until the end of his term.”
Discussion Question
“How do Spartan and Athenian political
evolutions stack up in relation to ancient Greek
notions of “arithmetical” and “geometrical”
political equality?”