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Sparta was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the
city-state was known as Lacedaemon, while the name Sparta referred to its main
settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern
Peloponnese. Around 650, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in
ancient Greece. Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the
leading force of the unified Greek military during the
Greco-Persian
Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the
principal enemy of Athens during the
Peloponnesian
Wars.
Classical Sparta:
In the Second
Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the
Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's
reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled. At its peak around 500,
Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and
perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger
Greek city-states; however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens
in 431 was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger. In 480 a small force
led by King Leonidas
(about 300 full Spartiates, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, although these
numbers were lessened by earlier casualties) made a legendary last stand at the
Battle of Thermopylae
against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the
Persian forces before finally being overwhelmed.[36] The superior weaponry,
strategy, and bronze armour of the Greek hoplites and their phalanx fighting
formation again proved their worth one year later when Sparta assembled its
full strength and led a Greek alliance against the Persians at the battle of
Plataea.
Ancient Sparta:
The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the Greco-Persian War along
with Persian ambitions to expand into Europe. Even though this war was won by a
pan-Greek army, credit was given to Sparta, who besides providing the leading
forces at Thermopylae and Plataea, had been the de facto leader of the entire
Greek expedition. In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens, Thebes,
and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern
Mediterranean. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a traditional
land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant
flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire. At the peak of its power in the
early 4th century, Sparta had subdued many of the main Greek states and even
invaded the Persian provinces in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a period known
as the Spartan Hegemony.
During the Corinthian
War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens,
Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, which feared
further Spartan expansion into Asia. Sparta achieved a series of land
victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a
Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event
severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of
invading further into Persia, until Conon the Athenian ravaged the Spartan
coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt. After a few more
years of fighting, in 387 the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to
which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's
Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat. The effects of the war were
to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to
affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system.
Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to
Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra. This was the first time that a
full strength Spartan army lost a land battle. As Spartan citizenship was
inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly
outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was
commented on by Aristotle.
War (between 431 and 404), from which it emerged victorious. The decisive
Battle of Leuctra in 371 ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state
maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in
146.
After the division of the Roman Empire, Sparta underwent a long period of
decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to
Mystras.
Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution,
which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus. His
laws configured the Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all
costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical
development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (Spartan
citizens with full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans),
perioikoi (free residents engaged in commerce), and helots (state-owned serfs,
enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartan men underwent the rigorous agoge training
and education regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to
be among the best in battle. Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more
rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.
The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek,
written in Linear B syllabic script, the equivalent of the later Greek
Lakedaimonios The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the
Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily
to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River. The
second word, "Lacedaemon", was often used as an adjective and is the
name referenced in the works of Homer and the historians Herodotus and
Thucydides. The third term, "Laconice", referred to the immediate
area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, and
sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.
Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for the Mycenaean Greek citadel
at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. This term could be used
synonymously with Sparta, but typically it denoted the terrain in which the
city was located. In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the
countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of
ravines), suggesting the Eurotas Valley. "Sparta" on the other hand
is described as "the country of lovely women", an epithet for people.
The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized
the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius. The ancients sometimes used a
back-formation, referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country.
As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the
feminine: Lacedaemonia. Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone.
"Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and
before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during
the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica of
place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria's Lexicon (5th century CE)
defines Agiadae as a "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis. The
actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (7th
century CE), an etymological dictionary. Isidore relied heavily on Orosius'
Historiarum Adversum Paganos (5th century CE) and Eusebius of Caesarea's
Chronicon (early 5th century CE), as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to
be Lacedaemonia Civitas, but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by
Lacedaemon, son of Semele, which is consistent with Eusebius' explanation.
There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of "Lacedaemonia", in
Diodorus Siculus' The Library of History, but probably with
(‘’chora’’, "country") suppressed.
Hellenistic and Roman Sparta
Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BCE and the
subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, it was able to continue as a regional
power for over two centuries. Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great
attempted to conquer Sparta itself. Even during its decline, Sparta never
forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic
wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying
"If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta", the Spartans responded with
the single, terse reply: a??a, "if". When Philip created the League
of Corinth on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose
not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition
unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at
the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of
Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip,
and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the
foreigners who live in Asia". During Alexander's campaigns in the east,
the Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BCE with the aim of
securing the island for Sparta. Agis next took command of allied Greek forces
against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in
331. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and
defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle.] More than 5,300 of the
Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's
troops. Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him
behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to
retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before
being finally killed by a javelin. Alexander was merciful, and he only forced
the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused.
During the Punic Wars, Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic. Spartan
political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the
Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of
other Greek city-states and Rome and the resultant overthrow of its final king
Nabis. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BCE when the
Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. Subsequently,
Sparta became a free city under Roman rule, some of the institutions of
Lycurgus were restored,[49] and the city became a tourist attraction for the
Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs. In 214 CE Roman emperor
Caracalla, in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia, recruited a
500-man Spartan cohort (lokhos). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx,
implying it fought like the old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian
phalanx. Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius
Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The
unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated.
Structure of Classical Spartan society
Constitution
Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the
Agiad and Eurypontid families, both supposedly descendants of Heracles and
equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political
enactments of his colleague. The duties of the kings were primarily religious,
judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained
communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great
authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450, their judicial
functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and
the public roads. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of
unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates
refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship
on campaign" (iii. 24). Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group
of officials known as the ephors, as well as a council of elders known as the
gerousia. The gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for
life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings. High state
decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to
the damos, the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of
the alternatives by vote. Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the
period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was
accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in
the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads
except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the
ephors and gerousia. An assembly of citizens called the apella was responsible
for electing men to the gerousia for life.
Citizenship:
The Spartan education process known as the agoge was essential for full
citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the agoge were
Spartiates, those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of
the city. There were two exceptions. Trophimoi or "foster sons" were
foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example,
sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be
enrolled as a syntrophos if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way;
if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a
Spartiate. Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could
lose their citizenship. These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace
citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as
citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously
by helots. Non citizens The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants
who were non-citizens, and the helots, state-owned serfs. Descendants of
non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge.
Helots:
The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population. The largest class of
inhabitants were the helots. The helots were originally free Greeks from the
areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and
subsequently enslaved. In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek
cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not
exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead,
the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to
serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece. Helots did
not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots
being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor. They
also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to
Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property. Initially Helots
couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots
accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BCE. In
other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at
war, carried on other trades. Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they
were not available to carry out manual labour. The helots were used as
unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land. Helot women were often used as wet
nurses. Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs. At
the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just
the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian
and Theban troops and a number of helots. Relations between the helots and
their Spartan masters were sometimes strained. There was at least one helot
revolt (c. 465–460), and Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is
always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the
helots." On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in
479 to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not
have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave
revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 20,000 Athenian
slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica. What made Sparta's
relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely
because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their
identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship
groups that could be used to organize rebellion. As the Spartiate population
declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power
caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene of the middle 3rd
century: They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For
they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap and wrap himself in
skins diphthéra and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year
regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves.
Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made
death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if
they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat Plutarch also states that
Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled
them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – wine usually
being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their
public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they
made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during
syssitia (obligatory banquets). Each year when the Ephors took office, they
ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without
risk of ritual pollution. This fight seems to have been carried out by kryptai,
graduates of the agoge who took part in the mysterious institution known as the
Krypteia. Thucydides states: The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick
out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves
against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object
being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom
would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two
thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the
temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards
did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.
Perioikoi:
The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a
significantly different position in Spartan society. Although they did not
enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same
restrictions as the helots. The exact nature of their subjection to the
Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of
military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign
trade.[80] Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army,
explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled
functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,[81] they
were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the
Spartiate population declined.
Economy:
Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which
consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi. This lucrative monopoly, in
a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.
Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan
sculptors, and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and
governors as well as soldiers. Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from
possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency
consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding. It was not until the 260s or
250s that Sparta began to mint its own coins. Though the conspicuous display of
wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production
of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as
exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology. Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan
Reforms in the mid-8th century BCE, a massive land reform had divided property
into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which
was expected to provide his living. The land was worked by helots who retained
half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess
(syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, we know nothing
of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or
whether daughters received dowries. However, from early on there were marked
differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the
law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal
prohibition on the gift or bequest of land. By the mid-5th century, land had
become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all
Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day
(384–322) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then
further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244. Attempts were made
to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors, but this could not
reverse the trend.
Life in Classical Sparta:
Birth and death:
Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began
virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine
to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought
before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it
was to be reared or not. It is commonly stated that if they considered it
"puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount
Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae This was, in effect, a
primitive form of eugenics. Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this
regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that "Infanticide
has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural
complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an
exception, then, it has been the rule."There is controversy about the
matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains,
likely belonging to criminals. When Spartans died, marked headstones would only
be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women
who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.
Education:
When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the
agoge system. The agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical
toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in
communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the agoge, the
boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish
through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to
have enough." In addition they were trained to survive in times of
privation, even if it meant stealing. Besides physical and weapons training,
boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were
imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently 'laconically' (i.e.
briefly and wittily). There is some evidence that in late-Classical and
Hellenistic Sparta boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an
unmarried young man. However, there is no evidence of this in archaic Sparta.
According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of
substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe
it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of
Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear). It is notable, however, that the only
contemporary source with direct experience of the agoge, Xenophon, explicitly
denies the sexual nature of the relationship. Post 465, some Spartan youth
apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the Krypteia. The
immediate objective of this unit was to seek out and kill vulnerable helot
Laconians as part of the larger program of terrorising and intimidating the
helot population. Less information is available about the education of Spartan
girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational
cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military
training. In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no
other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.
Military life:
At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia
(dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which
every citizen was required to be a member. Here each group learned how to bond
and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public
office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens
and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as
participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia. Sparta is
thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars
claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty. According to these
sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished
aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen.
The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on
pederastic relationships required of each citizen, with the lover responsible
for the boy's training. However, other scholars question this interpretation.
Xenophon explicitly denies it, but not Plutarch. Spartan men remained in the
active reserve until age 60. Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could
not live with their families until they left their active military service at
age 30. They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their
common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no
soldier be superior to his comrades. Insofar as hoplite warfare could be
perfected, the Spartans did so. Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went
to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily
present him with his hoplon (shield) and say: "With this, or upon
this", meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either
victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).
Unfortunately, poignant as this image may be, it is almost certainly
propaganda. Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field;
corpses were not brought back on their hoplons. Nevertheless, it is fair to say
that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or
greaves than his hoplon, since the former were designed to protect one man,
whereas the hoplon also protected the man on his left. Thus the shield was
symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral
part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms
– messmates and friends, often close blood relations. According to
Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and
ineffective. He observed: It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts
that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of
real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the
other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to
one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that. One
of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the
notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and
helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands. The myth
can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17
"sayings" of "Spartan women," all of which paraphrase or
elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if
they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile
their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings
purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian
origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of
pity.
Agriculture, food, and diet:
Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs.
These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizen's kleros and were tended
to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what
they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to
the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food
was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia. The
helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.
Marriage:
Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding
night: The custom was to capture women for marriage(...) The so-called
'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl. She first shaved her head to the
scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone
on a mattress in the dark. The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not
impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then
would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed. The husband
continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage. These
customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways. One of
them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to
help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to
women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction"
may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair
was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new
life.
Role of women:
Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect
that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of
females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were
fed the same food as their brothers. Nor were they confined to their father's
house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but
exercised and even competed in sports. Most important, rather than being
married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl
until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage
were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare
Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy
among adolescents. Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from
exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in
other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10
years below that of men. Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing
clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses
(peplos) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the
city, either walking or driving chariots. Girls as well as boys exercised,
possibly in the nude, and young women as well as young men may have
participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths"). Another
practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of
“wife-sharing”. In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding
should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed
younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives. Other unmarried or childless
men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had
previously been a strong child bearer. For this reason many considered Spartan
women polygamous or polyandrous. This practice was encouraged in order that
women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could. The Spartan population
was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle
and the intense physical inspection of newborns. Spartan women were also
literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result
of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with
their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even
in public. Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's
curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts).
Plato goes on to praise Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical
discussion. Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they
controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated
that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious
decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in
Sparta. The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women.
Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father
because she had no living brothers to inherit (an epikleros), the woman was not
required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal
relative.
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