One of the two leading city-states of ancient Greece, the other being Athens. Initially, Sparta's political and cultural development was entirely normal, but this situation changed with the revolt (c.650 BC) of Messenia, a territory crucial to her viability as a state. The need to suppress the revolt and prevent a similar recurrence led to a series of military and social reforms, traditionally associated with Lycurgus, which effectively arrested her development. While Athens went on to develop a radical democracy, acquire an overseas empire, and become a cultural pace-setter, militaristic Sparta remained backward, inward-looking, and utterly philistine. Her defeat of Athens in 404 BC put her centre stage, but she played her role so badly that the other city-states combined against her. Thebes delivered the final blow at Leuctra in 371 BC.
Sparta (Doric: Σπάρτα, Attic: Σπάρτη) is a city in southern Greece. Sparta is now normally used for both.
Coordinates: 37°4′N 22°26′E
| Sparta (Σπάρτη) | |
|---|---|
| Spartan shield | |
| Coordinates | 37°4′ N 22°26′ E |
| Country | Greece |
| Periphery | Peloponnese |
| Prefecture | Laconia |
| Population | 18,184 source (2001) |
| Area | 84.5 km² |
| Population density | 215 /km² |
| Elevation | 210 m |
| Postal code | 231 00 |
| Area code | 27310 |
| Licence plate code | ΑΚ |
The city of Sparta lies at the southern end of the central Laconian plain, on the right bank of the river Eurotas.
History
Sparta had the best army in ancient Greece; and was the most powerful state before the rise of Athens, a naval power, after the Persian Wars (during these wars the Spartans would become legendary for their stand in the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC). Sparta and Athens were reluctant allies against the Persians, but became rivals thereafter. Athenian attempts to control Greece and take over the Spartan role of 'guardian of Hellenism' ended in failure. The first ever defeat of a Spartan hoplite army at full strength occurred at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. By the time of the rise of Alexander the Great in 336 BC, Sparta was a shadow of its former self, clinging to an isolated independence. During the Punic Wars Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic. Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually overpowered by its ancient rival Argos and forced into the Achaean League.
Spartans continued their way of life even after the Roman conquest of Greece. The city became a tourist exhibit for the Roman elite who came to observe the "unusual" Spartan customs. Supposedly, following the disaster that befell the Roman Imperial Army at the Battle of Adrianople (378 AD), a Spartan phalanx met and defeated a force of raiding Visigoths in battle.
Constitution
Little is known of the internal development on Sparta. Seeing how most of Spartan laws were passed down orally and committed to memory, little is known about Spartan society. Spartan society was considered primitive even by Greek standards. What we do know of Spartan society comes from historians of that time.
Sparta was a mixed Constitutional system, it was comprised of elements of both Monarchical, Oligarchial, and Democratic systems.
The Spartans had no historical, literature, or written laws, which were, according to tradition, expressly prohibited by an ordinance of Lycurgus. The Doric state of Sparta, copying the Doric Cretans, developed a mixed governmental state.
There are several legendary explanations for this unusual dual kingship, which differ only slightly; Other theories suggest that this was an arrangement that was met when a community of villages combined to form the city of Sparta. Either way, Kingship in Sparta was hereditary and thus every King Sparta had was a descendant of the Agiad or Eurypontids family.
The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial and militaristic functions. They were the chief priests of the state, and performed certain sacrifices and also maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, which always exercised great authority in Spartan politics. The dual kings' power was exercised in most aspects of Spartan life, military, religious, and judicial. Shortly before 500 B.C., as described by Herodotus, such an action fueled a confrontation between Sparta and Athens. For this reason, Demeratus was banished, eventually found himself at the side of Persian King Xerxes for his invasion of Greece twenty years later (480 B.C.), and the Spartans enacted a law demanding that one king remain behind in Sparta while the other commanded the troops in battle.
Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol.
State organization
After the ephors were introduced, they together with the two kings were the executive branch of the state. Ephors themselves had more power than anyone in Sparta, although the fact that they only stayed in power for a single year reduced their ability to conflict with already established powers in the state. The difference with today's states is that Sparta had a special policy maker. High state policy decisions were discussed by this council that proposed action alternatives to Spartan citizens (called Damos in Spartan dialect).
Not all inhabitants of the Spartan state were considered to be citizens (part of Damos). Due to the fact that descendants of non-Spartan citizens were not able to follow the agoge, and Spartans could lose their citizenship if they couldn't afford to pay the expenses of the agoge, the actual number of the Spartan citizens was constantly reduced, known as oliganthropia.
Foreign Policy
Sparta, by the 5th century BC, was the most powerful nation in all of Greece. Sparta was not an empire: no tribute was paid except in times of war. What Sparta essentially formed was a league, and they chose their allies strategically. For example, Sparta favoured Corinth because of its naval fleet. The allies would vow to have the same friends and enemies, follow Sparta wherever they led, and not go to war unless all the allies were in consensus. it met in Corinth and was led by Sparta.
Social customs
Sparta was, above all, a military state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. From the earliest days of the Spartan citizen, the claim on his life by the state was absolute and strictly enforced.
It was customary in Sparta that before the males would go off to war, their wives or another female of some significance would present them with their shield and say: "Etan I Epitas" (Ηταν Η Επιτας) which translates to "With this or upon this." The idea was that a Spartan could only return to Sparta in one of two ways, victorious or dead. If a Spartan hoplite were to return to Sparta alive and without his shield, it was assumed that he threw his shield at the enemy in an effort to flee; Burials in Sparta were also considered an act of honor, marked headstones would only be granted to Spartan soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign (or females who died in service of a divine office).
A strong emphasis was placed on honor and carrying out acts because it was the 'right thing to do.' Xenophon wrote about the Spartans as he observed them during an Olympic game:
"An elderly man was trying to find a place to sit and observe the Olympic Games, as he went to each section. Upon entering the Spartan section all the Spartans stood and offered the elderly man their seats.
Education
Until the age of seven, boys were educated at home and were taught to fight their fears as well as general superstition by their nurses, who were prized in Greece. According to Plato this practice was introduced from Crete to Sparta, and then to the rest of Greece.
Training in music and literature occupied a subordinate position. Thus modern day historians, with the corroboration of ancient writers, tend to conclude that Spartan women were among the most educated in the ancient Greek world.
At the age of thirteen, young men were arranged into groups, and were sent off into the countryside with nothing, and were expected to survive on wits and cunning.
Other sources claim that the Crypteia (or Krypteia) was an "adolescent death squad" made up of the most promising young Spartans.
Military life
The ordinary Spartan was a warrior, trained to obey and endure;
At the age of twenty, the Spartan began his military service and 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. The Spartan exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of thirty.
Spartans were absolutely debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the perioeci, and were forbidden (in theory) to possess either gold or silver. But this attempt to equalize property proved a failure: from the earliest times, there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became even more serious after the law of Epitadeus, passed at some time after the Peloponnesian War, removed the legal prohibition of the gift or bequest of land.
Full citizens, released from any economic activity, were given a piece of land (kleros), which was cultivated and run by the Helots.
Perhaps the most widely known event on the efficiency of the Spartan war-machine is related to the Persian Wars. The Spartan stand at the Battle of Thermopylae has been repeatedly cited in a military Grand Strategy context as a role model on the advantages of training, strategy and bravery against extremely overwhelming odds.
Social life
Despite modern conceptions, homosexuality in Greece was only contained to a few select city-states. In Sparta, because of the boys military training beginning at a young age, it is suggested that Spartans were also homosexual. In fact, in Sparta homosexual relations between a man and a child, or a man and a man were considered shameful, strongly discouraged, and highly disciplined. Bisexual relations were common place among Spartan women, and it was often considered acceptable for married Spartan women to have affairs with unmarried women in their prime. This, by modern standards, would be considered adultery, but the Spartans did not consider it as such, and therefore Sparta was also one of the most monogomous city states in the known Greek world. There is one exception to the normal rule regarding marriages in Sparta. For this reason, Plutarch claims that the concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below, as to find an adulterer in Sparta.
Archaeology
There is a well-known passage in Thucydides which runs thus:
"Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.The first feeling of most travellers who visit modern Sparta is one of disappointment with the ancient remains. Until the early twentieth century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre, of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls;
The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 (and enlarged in 1907). Excavations were carried on near Sparta, on the site of the Amyclaeum in 1890 by (?)Tsounas, and in 1904 by Furtwängler, and at the shrine of Menelaus in Therapne by Ross in 1833 and 1841, and by Kastriotis in 1889 and 1900. Organized digs were attempted in the area of Sparta proper;
In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia as several medieval fortresses were being surveyed. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself, yielding many finds, which have been published in the British School Annual, vol.
A small circus described by Leake proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after AD 200 around the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BC, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead found in great profusion within the precinct range, dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BC., supply invaluable evidence for early Spartan art; they prove that Sparta reached her artistic zenith in the 7th century and that her decline had already begun in the 6th.
In 1907, the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Chalkioikos) was located on the acropolis immediately above the theatre, and though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription of Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and a considerable number of votive offerings. Excavations showed that the town of the Mycenean Period was situated on the left bank of the Eurotas, a little to the south-east of Sparta. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left save ruined foundations and broken potsherds.
The Spartan World
Around the middle of the 6th century BC, the southern Peloponnese was Spartan territory. Unlike other Greek cities, Sparta controlled much arable land. Earliest archeological evidence testifying settlement in Sparta dates from around 950 BC.
Classical sources tell us that Sparta was founded in the 10th century BC.
Around 750 BC, Sparta began expanding slowly but steadily. The Helots kept their farmland but were required to deliver half of their output to the Spartan state, while the Perioeci were inhabitants of cities that remained autonomous, save in matters of foreign affairs and military actions. From 650 to 620 BC, Sparta brought Messenia under its control. Sparta was defeated by the city of Argos and later by Tegea. It was against the backdrop of the Messenian war and the following defeats that the unique Spartan way of life developed, which made Sparta famous in Ancient Greece.
From 550 BC onwards, the goals of the Spartan cosmos – toughness of body and mind as well as military efficiency – seem to have been achieved. Sparta did not suffer under the rule of any tyrant or dictator, and its phalanxes were considered undefeatable. However, Sparta was a nation closed off from the influence of other nations, with few foreign imports and ideas, creating a barren cultural world, devoid of great works of music and literature.
Modern Sparta
Prior to modern times, the site of Sparta was occupied by a relatively small village that lay in the shadow of Mystras, a more important medieval Greek settlement nearby. At present, Sparta is the administrative capital of the prefecture of Laconia. A Laconian Doric (Spartan) language known as Tsakonian survives in the Laconian region of Peloponnese until the modern era, although today its number of native speakers has significantly decreased.
Sparta is the center of an agricultural plain whose focus is the Eurotas valley.
| Year | Communal population | Municipal population |
|---|---|---|
| 1961 | 10,412 | - |
| 1981 | 12,975 | - |
| 1991 | 13,011 | 16,322 |
| 2001 | 19,567 | - |
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