134 Appendix 1
came to demographic matters. If they suffered great losses early in the Pelo-
ponnesian War as a consequence of the plague, they would almost certainly
have gone out of their way to conceal the fact.^27 It is, moreover, puzzling that,
in 420, when the ambassadors of Argos negotiated an abortive truce with the
authorities at Sparta, in which, at their insistence, the settlement of the cities’
long-standing dispute over Cynouria by a second battle of champions was de-
liberately left open as an option, the document included a clause specifying
that neither city could issue a challenge while the other was at war or suffering
from a plague (Thuc. 5.41.2). The reference to the plague in this clause was, to
say the least, unusual, and one must wonder what occasioned its inclusion at
this time. In the surviving evidence for the fifth century, the only plague of any
real importance mentioned is the one that beset Athens;^28 and one usually
does not provide for contingencies with which one is wholly unfamiliar.
The fact that Lacedaemon’s population did not dramatically bounce back
in the years following 418 but declined further instead suggests that we should
not be quick to dismiss Plutarch’s account of the activities of the ephor Epita-
deus, which would have paved the way for the process described by Aristotle.
It is also worth noting that, throughout history, subreplacement fertility has
been common among privileged groups intent on maintaining their high
standing. This is particularly true where patriarchy is not the norm and well-
to-do women exercise considerable leverage—which was the case at Lacedae-
mon in the time of Plato and Aristotle, as I point out in Chapter 1. Those, such
as Xenophon, who argued that, in her social dynamics, the Sparta of his day
was quite different from what Lacedaemon had been in earlier times, may have
been on the mark. The earthquakes left the Spartiates of both sexes—those,
that is, who survived that catastrophe and the helot revolt that followed it—in
possession of an abundance of land and helots to work it. In response to their
new situation, the women and men of Sparta may have gradually adopted a
reproductive strategy different from the one that had prevailed in the past,
and the law successfully promoted by Epitadeus may have been a reflection of
a change in ethos that had silently crept in. Such is certainly the impression
given by the ancient sources.^29
There is, to be sure, another possibility. Some scholars are inclined to dis-
miss the testimony found in Polybius, Plutarch, and the other ancient writers
who make similar claims. These reflect, they say, the propaganda generated in
support of the revolutionary program developed in third-century Sparta by
the Eurypontid king Agis and his younger admirer the Agiad king Cleomenes.