2 Prologue
tion of liberty. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, with the spread of
liberal democracy, this view seemed discredited; and since the 1930s, scholars
have tended to see in Sparta a forerunner of the modern totalitarian state.^3
This recent trend has not entirely stifled debate. But the range of respectable
opinion remains narrow and is perhaps best illustrated by remarks made in
the mid-1960s by the Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at Oxford and
by his counterpart at Cambridge. The former introduced a study of Spartan
government with the observation that “Sparta had in some ways a more open
constitution than most oligarchies.” The latter asked himself whether the
Spartans, when assembled for debate on a public policy, were likely to be able
to drop the habit of unquestioning obedience he thought instilled in them by
their military training. He concluded with the guess that “the Spartan assem-
bly was much closer to the Homeric than to the Athenian in function and
psychology.” It would not be hyperbole to appropriate for Sparta Winston
Churchill’s famous description of Russia: Lacedaemon was in antiquity and
remains today a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.^4
The quandary in which we find ourselves is partly a function of “the se-
cretiveness” distinguishing the Spartan “regime,” which so frustrated Thucy-
dides. Even in the late fifth century, it was difficult to obtain precise informa-
tion. In consequence, as one scholar recently put it, “many of the problems,
and not only those of the remote archaic period, are in a sense insoluble: that
is, the evidence is limited and often enigmatic, the range of possible solutions
is wide, and there is no criterion but general plausibility to help one judge
between them.”^5
Our difficulties are also partly a consequence of the idealization of Sparta
already evident in the writings of Critias in the late fifth century. In recent
times, scholars have done a great deal of work in attempting to separate out
what is trustworthy in the ancient sources from that which is a product of what
they have come to call “the Spartan mirage.”^6 But even this yeoman service has
not sufficed to remove the obstacles entirely. Indeed, the extreme skepticism
evident in the recent literature on the subject may even have compounded our
difficulties—for it has licensed scholars to reject the ancient evidence where
it conflicts with their own conceptions and scholarly predilections.^7 David
Hume identified the source of the incredulity that besets us when he remarked,
“Ancient policy was violent, and contrary to the more natural and usual course
of things. It is well known with what peculiar laws sparta was governed, and
what a prodigy that republic is justly esteemed by every one, who has consid-
ered human nature as it has displayed itself in other nations, and other ages.