Notes to Pages 41–43 165
16.For an overview, see Paul Cloché, “Sur le rôle des rois de Sparte,” LEC 17 (1949): 113–38,
343–81; Carol G. Thomas, “On the Role of the Spartan Kings,” Historia 23:3 (3rd Quarter 1974):
257–70; Bernard Sergent, “La Répresentation spartiate de la royauté,” RHR 189 (1976): 3–52; and
Pierre Carlier, La Royauté en Grèce avant Alexandre (Strasbourg: Association pour l’étude de la
civilisation romane, 1984), 240–324, and “À Propos de la double royauté spartiate,” in CASPTP,
49–60. Note also Ellen Millender, “Herodotus and Spartan Despotism,” in SBM, 1–62, and “The
Spartan Dyarchy: A Comparative Perspective,” in SCA, 1–67, as well as Anton Powell, “Divination,
Royalty and Insecurity in Classical Sparta,” in S B P, 85–135.
17.Kings hold office for life: Polyb. 6.45.50. Escape the agōgē ́: Plut. Ages. 1.1–5. Cf. Stob. Flor.
3.40.8 (Hense). Take meals outside the barracks: Xen. Hell. 5.3.20. Belong to gerousía: Hdt. 6.57.5,
Thuc. 1.20.3, Arist. Pol. 1270b35–1271a6, Plut. Lyc. 5.10–14, 26. Herodotus appears to claim that
each king had two votes, but Thucydides denies that this was the case. While the king was a minor,
a regent [pródıkos]—usually the nearest agnatic male relative—exercised his prerogatives: see Xen.
Hell. 4.2.9, Paus. 3.4.9, Plut. Lyc. 3, Hesychius s.v. prodıkeîn. One should probably interpret Paus.
3.6.2–3 in this light. There is reason to suspect that Herodotus’ discussion (6.56–58) of the kings’
powers draws on a Spartan document listing their prerogatives: Carlier, La Royauté en Grèce avant
Alexandre, 250–52. Sacrifice on city’s behalf: Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.2. See also Hdt. 6.56. Command
Spartan army and forces of Peloponnesian League: Hdt. 5.74–75, 6.48–50, 9.10.2; Xen. Lac. Pol.
15.2. In an emergency, of course, another man could stand in for a king: Herodotus (7.137.2,
8.42.2) mentions two such occasions during the Persian Wars and alludes to their exceptional
character by drawing attention to the fact that the commanders were not members of either royal
house. Able to wage war as they wished, sacrilege to resist authority to do so: cf. Hdt. 5.70–75 and
6.49–51, 61–74 with 6.56. Hereditary generals with life tenure: Arist. Pol. 1271a18–26, 39–40,
1285a3–10, 14–15, 1285b26–35. See also Just. Epit. 3.3.2. Shared command: Rahe, PC, chapters 2
and 4.
18.Lacedaemonians and Heraclids from Sparta: Hdt. 8.114.2; cf. Thuc. 1.12.3. The two were
bound by a compact: Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.1 with Lipka, XSC, 234. Note also the connection with the
Dioscuri: Hdt. 5.75.2. Since the kings were not, strictly speaking, Lacedaemonians at all, it is a
mistake to draw general conclusions concerning the Spartiates as a whole from stories told about
the two basıleîs, as Hodkinson, PWCS, 209–368, is wont to do.
- For the Arcadians, see Hdt. 8.73.1 (which should be read with 2.171.2–3 and Thuc.
1.2.3), Hellanicus FGrH 4 F161, Xen. Hell. 7.1.23, Dem. 19.261, Paus. 5.1.1, Cic. Rep. 3.15.25,
Schol. D. Ael. Aristid. Panath. 103.16 (Dindorf ) with Maria Pretzler, “Arcadia: Ethnicity and Pol-
itics in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE,” in The Politics of Ethnicity and the Crisis of the Pelo
ponnesian League, ed. Peter Funke and Nino Luraghi (Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Stud-
ies, 2009), 86–109 (at 87–91). For the Athenians, see Hdt. 7.161.3 (with 8.55); Eur. Ion 29–30,
589–92 (with 20–21, 265–70, 999–1000), F360 (Nauck^2 ); Ar. Ve s p. 1075–80; Thuc. 1.2.5–6, 2.36.1;
Lys. 2.17; Pl. Menex. 237d, 239a, 245d–e, Ti. 23d–e, Criti. 109c–e; Isoc. 4.23–25, 12.124–25; Dem.
19.261, 60.4; Lycurg. 1.41 (with 21, 47–48, 85); Hyper. 6.7 (Jensen); Paus. 2.14.4; Cic. Rep. 3.15.25;
Ael. Aristid. Panath. 30 (Lenz/Behr); Schol. D. Ael. Aristid. Panath. 103.14 and 16 (Dindorf );
Harpocration s.v. autochthónes. - Laconia’s “old helots” Achaean in origin: with Chapter 3, note 32, below. Sparta and the
Heraclid claim: Hdt. 5.43. For further allusions to the import of descent from Heracles and Zeus,
see 1.7, 13–14, 91, 7.208, 8.137, 9.26–27, 33; Thuc. 5.16.2; Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.2. In this connection,
see Walter Burkert, “Demaratos, Astrabakos und Herakles: Königsmythos und Politik zur Zeit der
Perserkriege (Herodot 6, 67–60),” MH 22 (1965): 166–77, and Ulrich Huttner, Die politische Rolle
der Heraklesgestalt im griechischen Herrschertum (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997), 48–58.
For further discussion, see Chapter 3, below. - Basıleús sacrosanct: Plut. Agis 19.9. Majestic burial rites: Xen. Hell. 3.3.1. For the import
of these burial rites, see Hans Schaefer, “Das Eidolon des Leonidas,” in Charites: Studien zur Alter
tumswissenschaft, ed. Konrad Schauenburg (Bonn: Athenaeum, 1957), 223–33, and Cartledge,
Agesilaos, 331–43. Demigods: Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.9. According to Aristotle (F611.10 [Rose] = Tit.
143.1.2.10 [Gigon] ap. Heraclid. Lemb. 373.10 [Dilts]), nothing was sold for three days and the
market was strewn with chaff. See also Tyrtaeus F7 (West), Hdt. 6.58–59, Paus. 4.14.4–5. - New basıleús normally eldest surviving son of predecessor: Hdt. 5.39.1–42.2, Xen. Hell.