by Oswyn Murray
Firstly, since Aristotle was intelligent, the text of the rhetra and the commentary must hang together; this enables us to deduce the meaning, if not the exact wording, of the corrupt final sentence. The commentary paraphrases difficult words; since there is no paraphrase for this sentence, it cannot have contained any such words (which rules out the majority of suggestions by modern scholars); the corruption is probably caused by the use of Doric dialect forms in the original, which confused later copyists, who throughout the document are clearly trying to reproduce exactly a text they do not understand. The meaning of the sentence is given by the commentary: ‘the people was sovereign to decide on the motion put forward by the elders and kings’; this is enough to demonstrate the general character of the document.
Similarly when Plutarch claims that the plural subject of the Tyrtaios fragment is the kings Polydoros and Theopompos, he should be believed: their names were probably coupled earlier in the poem. It was perhaps from such poetic evidence that ancient tradition held the two men to have been contemporaries – rather surprisingly, since they are two generations apart in the Spartan king-lists. From these considerations may follow certain implications about the chronology of events. Theopompos, the earlier of the pair, won the first Messenian war about 710, and is also associated with this document (or at least some part of it) by Tyrtaios.
The dating of the rhetra involves its historical context. It is earlier than Tyrtaios, and probably within the lifetime of Theopompos. The ancient evidence supports a very early date (mostly ninth century) for Lykourgos – for instance Thucydides’ ‘a little more than four hundred years from the end of this war’: such calculations may be based on forty-year generations, or they may merely exhibit the general tendency to exaggerate the age of Spartan institutions; in any case they refer to Lykourgos, not the rhetra. That is a written document in prose (which makes its status as an oracle dubious, since they were in verse: perhaps it is an ‘oracle’ only because Tyrtaios said so, and because it was preserved by the Pythioi). Such a complex written law can hardly be envisaged before 700.
But the most important argument for dating the rhetra to the first half of the seventh century derives from its contents. As is to be expected in such an early document, much is obscure: the grammatical subject is unexpressed throughout, and may well vary. But such problems do not affect the way the document is weighted. The earlier clauses are participial, grammatically dependent: it is impossible to decide which of them initiate anything, and which merely express the context within which the new institutions will operate. The main clauses consist of two (perhaps three) infinitives; they do not institute an assembly, since that had always existed; but they provide for its function as the sovereign body of the state: firstly meetings shall be regular and in a fixed place; secondly it is to this body that proposals shall be brought and here that they will be decided on; and thirdly and most emphatically (in the corrupt clause) power is to rest with the people. More ingenious interpretations and attempts to combine the rhetra with later evidence ignore the obvious point that such a primitive document was bound to be manipulated and interpreted to suit the increasing conservatism of Spartan life. The original rhetra itself records the assertion by the assembly of Equals of their dominance in the state – it is the first hoplite constitution. Only this will explain why it was necessary to define the assembly’s powers in writing.
Undoubtedly there must have been tension connected with such a radical change; the signs are clear enough. There are the references to early unrest in Herodotus and Thucydides. Within the rhetra itself, there is the obvious contradiction between the main provisions and the ‘additional clause’, which either represents a concession to opposition at the time of the original document, or is a serious modification of the main point of the reform. Then there is the polemical interpretation of the rhetra by Tyrtaios, who deliberately changes its emphasis: it is the kings who are important, then the council, while the people are merely to answer correctly (Diodorus 7.12.6 preserves an oracle which uses four of Tyrtaios’ lines and adds six of its own: this goes some way to restoring the proper emphasis of the rhetra, but is an obvious forgery – an antiquarian attempt to reconstruct the oracle behind the rhetra with the help of Tyrtaios). It may also be significant that Tyrtaios is clearly a ‘kings’ man’ throughout his poetry, and never apparently mentioned the name of Lykourgos. Aristotle says that unrest occurred during the (second?) Messenian war ‘as is plain from the poem of Tyrtaios called Eunomia; for some people impoverished by the war were demanding that the land should be distributed’ (Politics 5.1307a). With such evidence we may believe that Aristotle’s picture of the division between rhetra and additional clause may well be right. At least the fact of political tension is clear; but any attempt to reconstruct a precise political history relies on the speculation and invention of later tradition: it is better to recognize the limits of our knowledge.
This point can be exemplified by two problems which the rhetra raises. Herodotus says that Lykourgos, after he had arranged the laws, ‘established the military system, the enōmotiai (‘sworn bands’), triēkades (‘bands of thirty’) and syssitia (‘dining clubs’), and in addition to these the ephors and the elders’ (1.65). Originally brigaded in the three Dorian tribes, the Spartan army was later reorganized on a territorial basis; for at the battle of Plataea in 479 one regiment is referred to as ‘the Pitanate lochos (division)’ (Herodotus 9.53), and Pitana was one of the Spartan obai. This transition ought clearly to be relevant to the interpretation of the puzzling phrase in the rhetra, ‘tribing the tribes and obing the obes’; and yet Tyrtaios later records fighting in the old tribal formation. It is clear that at a lower level the Spartan army organization preserved names related to the old-style aristocratic warrior-bands, but no one has yet made sense of all the complexities of their military system: indeed Thucydides was already attacking Herodotus for misunderstanding it: ‘there has never been any such thing as the Pitanate lochos’ (1.20).
The second problem is the absence of the ephorate from the rhetra. The office was later seen as the most important in the Spartan state (Aristotle Politics 2.1270b); five ephoroi (‘overseers’) were elected annually by the assembly, apparently without restriction of birth; one of the ephors gave his name to the year. Their powers were enormous; they could introduce business to both council and assembly. They were the chief legal officers: ‘they are empowered to punish whomsoever they wish; they have the right to impose penalties on the spot; they even have the right to depose magistrates during their term of office, imprison them and put them on trial for their life (Xenophon, Constitution of the Spartans 8.4). Their relation to the kings is expressed in the star-gazing ritual (p. 162), and in this description:
Everyone rises from his seat at a king’s approach, except the ephors when seated on their chairs of state. The ephors and kings exchange oaths each month, the ephors on behalf of the city, the king on behalf of himself. The king’s oath is to exercise his power in accordance with the existing laws of the city; the city swears that it will maintain the kingship unshaken, provided the king keeps his oath.
(Xenophon, Constitution of the Spartans 15.6–7)
It is not surprising that one of the central themes of Spartan history is the conflict between kings and ephors. But the origin of the ephorate is wholly obscure; a list later existed extending back to 754, and this may have persuaded most authors to dissociate the reform from Lykourgos, whom they regarded as earlier – but the list is probably largely invented. The number of ephors may reflect a period when there were five obai; but the office itself is a paradox, a puzzling combination of archaic ritual with popular functions which can hardly be earlier than the seventh century hoplite state.
The final catalyst in the creation of the Spartan system was the second Messenian war. It presumably broke out as a consequence of the Spartan defeat at Hysiai in 669; but the tradition of the war is hopelessly confused by the creation of a mythical military past for the Mess
enian state, established after the defeat of Sparta at Leuctra three hundred years later. Nothing is known of its course apart from what Tyrtaios says:
You were with those who fled and with the pursuers,
young men, you have had your fill of both.
(P. 133)
His urgent exhortations make it clear that it was a savage struggle, in which the Spartans even despaired of winning, and which certainly shook the new constitution, if it did not alter it profoundly. It was this war which created the ideal of patriotism and death in the service of the community which signals the emergence of the hoplite ethic (ch. 8). It is the irony of history that such an ideal of co-operation and equality was first formulated within a group dedicated to imposing slavery on their fellow-men, and preserving their vested interests against the claims of justice.
The final subjection of Messenia was to have long term effects; but the immediate consequence was a prosperity which is reflected in contemporary Spartan culture. All signs of tension are absent from Alkman’s songs, written about 600 for the choirs of young women who performed at the festivals:
For in place of steel comes the beauty of the lyre
(Fragment 41 = 100D)
Alkman seems to be describing himself at the start of one of his ‘Maiden-songs’:
No countryman was he, not
clumsy, not one of the uncultured,
no man from Thessaly,
no Erysichean, not a shepherd,
But one from lofty Sardis.
(Fragment 16 = 13D)
Sardis was capital of the Lydian kingdom in Asia Minor; Alkman’s poetry certainly reflects a society of high culture open to eastern influences and fascinated by the exotic; he was interested in cosmogony and in stories from the distant Black Sea, and delights in foreign names and objects. Despite their role in public performance, his poems are intimate and full of personal references – to his own skill, his relations with the dancers and theirs with each other; his touch is lighter and more playful even than Sappho’s. His dancers have aristocratic names, Agido (‘leader’), Astumeloisa (‘favourite of the city’). Hagesichora (‘leader of the dance’); some of them are known to have been related to the royal houses. Their attributes are those of an aristocracy; they recall an earlier age, when Sparta was famous only for her women; they move like racehorses, they are compared with precious metals, their hair is long and flowing:
Do you not see? The Venetian racehorse –
the hair of my kinswoman Hagesichora
blooms like untarnished gold;
her silver face –
but why should I talk with you openly?
(Fragment 1.50–6)
The rite is probably concerned with the passage from girlhood to woman’s status, and the occasion is the presentation of a new robe to Artemis Orthia.
The excavations at the shrine of Artemis Orthia have shown that eastern and other objects such as ivories, scarabs and amber beads were being imported from about 700. Laconian art was probably created by the perioikoi, but it was patronized by Spartans. The Laconian style of pottery was at its height from about 590 to 550, when the Arkesilas painter was active (p. 122; plate 6a); it exhibits the full range of contemporary artistic motifs, revolving around the festival, dancing and the practices of conviviality. Its distribution shows that it was always a luxury fashion rather than a widely appreciated ware: it is found in areas closely linked to Sparta by foundation (Tarentum), geography (Cyrene) or the presence of a Laconizing aristocracy (Samos). The Spartans also produced fine wood statuary and bronzework; the great Laconian bronze mixing-bowls were prized as gifts or items suitable for trade with princes. Croesus king of Lydia was sent one as a diplomatic present by the state; it never arrived, and later turned up dedicated at the sanctuary of Hera on Samos (Herodotus 1 .70). The bowls have been discovered especially in the tombs of barbarian chiefs, as in the Scythian royal tombs of south Russia or the burial of a princess at Vix in central France (p. 109); they were a potent influence on Celtic art. They continued to be made throughout the sixth century, probably as a by-product of the armaments industry.
Otherwise around the middle of the century Spartan culture begins to decline. After Alkman no poets are known; from about 570 foreign imports diminish; Laconian pottery had disappeared by 525. More significant, given the Spartan interest in sport and their earlier successes at Olympia, in the two hundred years after 576 only a handful of Olympic victors are recorded from Sparta. The reasons for this decline are social. The life style of the aristocracy was eroded by the claims of equality ; the military ethos and the Spartan educational system produced a society which no longer needed the artist. It was symptom not cause when Sparta retained the old iron-spit currency as other cities began to mint silver coin (p. 237) – but that was the final blow: as Plutarch says (Lykourgos 9), merchants, poets and artists need to be paid. The ‘constitution of Lykourgos’ had reached its final stage.
The word ‘constitution’ is an inadequate translation of the Greek politela, which refers to the complete political, social and educational organization of the state; it is the totality of Spartan institutions which created the image of Sparta.
Our two main sources for the character of these institutions are deeply infected in different ways by idealizing tendencies. Xenophon served as a Spartan mercenary captain, and spent almost thirty years in exile at Sparta in the fourth century; his pamphlet The Spartan Constitution is an uncritical eulogy, lacking details and useless for the study of historical development, even omitting (except for one oblique reference: 12.3) the most central feature of the Spartan system, its economic basis and political purpose in the control and exploitation of a dangerous and numerically far superior serf population. Almost five hundred years later, Plutarch’s Life of Lykourgos gives a detailed account of the ‘Lykourgan system’, much of whose basis is the narrative of Xenophon: into this framework has been fitted a plethora of antiquarian facts, some perhaps genuine, but many attesting to the continuing process of the rediscovery of ancestral forms, a process which was still active in Plutarch’s day when the antique rituals of Sparta were one of the main tourist attractions of Greece, and the natives enthusiastically paraded their glorious past in a self-created tribal reserve.
Even from such sources the character of the developed Spartan system is clear: the citizen was wholly at the service of the state. At birth it was the ‘elders of the tribe’, not as elsewhere the father, who decided on grounds of health whether a child should be reared or thrown into a specially designated mountain ravine. From the age of seven all except the royal heirs-apparent began a state-organized ‘upbringing’ (the Spartan agogē). Male children were enrolled in ‘packs’ under a pack-leader, supervised by a magistrate and older boys, and progressed through a complex series of age grades marked by obscure and archaic-sounding names; at twelve they began their initiation into communal living, providing their own bedding from reeds, prohibited luxuries, wearing no shoes and one cloak throughout the year, and living on a diet which was deliberately inadequate: stealing food was a matter of honour, and those caught were beaten to improve their skill. Formal education was musical, military and gymnastic; and the older youths (eirenes, 20 + ) had almost absolute control over their juniors. As an educational system it possessed all the normal qualities of such paramilitary youth organizations. It promoted discipline, self-reliance, social cohesion, loyalty, obedience and uniformity. It generated its own apparently ancient but essentially meaningless ritual complexity, and its own private language. Conformity was a prerequisite of survival; and the usual forms of physical and mental torture were practised by the older boys on the younger to toughen them: both this and its converse, the inevitable homosexuality, were officially encouraged.
At twenty those who has passed through the agogē became eligible for election to the syssitia or andreia, the dining clubs or messes of the adult Spartan community; belonging to these syssitia was the criterion of full citizenship, and they formed the basis
for the military training (Herodotus 1.65). Here every male Spartan lived until thirty, and even thereafter was expected to eat daily a standard meal of barley bread, boiled sausage, wine and a few figs or cheese; he was required to provide a monthly contribution.
Full citizens were held all to be equal, subject only to distinctions of age and honour due to achievement. Their equality included a notional equality of birth and of property, through the original klēros belonging to each citizen; it is clear however that an aristocracy of some sort continued, and that inequalities of wealth existed at all periods, since land was privately owned, and subject to normal rules of inheritance. A few individual Spartans were even able to train horses and win chariot races at Olympia – the traditional mark of exceptional wealth. The chief agent of Spartan equality was not so much economic as the existence of the agogē and the syssitia as the centres of Spartan life, in which birth and wealth counted little; the Spartan term for full citizens, the homoioi, catches this aspect of equality exactly: for it means not so much ‘the equal ones’ as ‘the uniform’, ‘those alike’. The system achieved equality through conformity. Inevitably there were men of citizen descent who had to be excluded from such a definition of citizenship – those who failed to complete the agogē, those who were unable to provide their contribution to the syssitia, those who were defeated and survived in war, and those whose heredity was suspect; at various times there were groups of Spartans who had lost or failed to acquire full rights; some names are obscure, others obvious enough – ‘the maiden-born’ (above p. 164), ‘the lesser ones’, ‘the tremblers’: but it is quite unclear how permanent or formal such groups were.
The devaluation of the family inherent in a segregated education organized by age groups and an adult male life centred on the dining-mess, affected the position of women deeply. Essentially it freed them to ‘constitute a society which copied that of the men, imitated their system of education and initiation rites, and which had a place beside male institutions in cult ceremonies and in social life’ (H. Jeanmaire). They underwent an upbringing similar to the boys, centred on dancing and athletics; they mixed freely with the boys, and like them exercised naked in public; such disregard of the normal Greek sexual inhibitions shocked outside observers. In adult life, their rights at law and their social status were correspondingly greater than elsewhere; the contrast between male discipline and female freedom was noted with disapproval by Aristotle (Politics 2.1269b). But the marriage customs demonstrate most clearly the origins of this freedom in the devaluation of the family and the subjection of women to the male ethos. It is typical of such segregated peer-group societies that group rights of sex emerge: in Sparta wives could be lent to a third party on the proposal of either man involved (showing the dominance of the relationship between the two men); brothers could possess a wife in common (Polybius 12.6.8), and adultery seems not to have been an offence (Plutarch Lykourgos 15). The actual marriage ceremony expressed the subordination of the women to male society: it took the form of a ritual seizure of the woman, who then had her head shaved, and was dressed as a man to await the bridegroom in a darkened room (a similar transvestism was part of the marriage ceremony at Argos, where brides wore beards on their wedding nights). Marriage was expected to be a clandestine affair, until at thirty the man was allowed to set up his own household.