Notes to Pages 44–47 167
35, that the royal prerogative in this sphere was merely meant to supplement the arrangements
made on their own behalf by other communities.
- Royal selection of Púthıoı: Hdt. 6.57, Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.5, Cic. Div. 1.43.95, Suda s.v.
Púthıoı. In this connection, see also Plut. Pel. 21.3. Royal manipulation of religion for political
purposes: note Polyb. 10.2.8–13 and August. De civ. D. 2.16, and see Hdt. 6.61–70, 73–76. 82;
Thuc. 5.16.2.
26.See Rahe, PC, chapter 4. - Road network and its maintenance: Hdt. 6.57.4 with Giannēs Y. A. Pikoulas, To Hodıko
Dıktyo tēs Lakōnıkēs (Athens: Ēoros, 2012). As I suggest in the text, it is by no means certain that
the two kings concerned themselves solely with the roads built within Laconia and Messenia.
Elsewhere Pikoulas quite plausibly suggests that the Lacedaemonians and their allies, working in
tandem, may have been responsible for the elaborate network of cart roads constructed through-
out the Peloponnesus in the archaic period: Chapter 4, note 62, below. - Oversight over adoptions and marriages of heiresses unbetrothed: Hdt. 6.57.4–5. Hero-
dotus’ use of the verb hıknéetaı in this passage suggests that, in choosing a husband for a Spartan
patroûchos, the kings were expected to abide by certain principles of law or policy, but everything
that we know about the position accorded the family within the Lacedaemonian polity militates
against the view, advanced by Evanghelos Karabélias, “L’Épiclérat à Sparte,” in Studi in onore di
Arnaldo Biscardi (Milan: Istituto editoriale Cisalpino, 1982), II 469–80, that they would ordinarily
follow the Athenian practice and award her to her nearest surviving male relation. It is worth
noticing that Herodotus’ characterization of the power exercised by the kings in this sphere pre-
cludes the possibility that their decisions were subject to review by a higher authority. I am in-
clined to suppose that—at least in the period prior to the passage of Epitadeus’ law—the kings
were expected to award a patroûchos to the younger son of a Spartan who was not in a position to
inherit his father’s public allotment.
29.Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Leigh Hunt,” in Macaulay, Critical, Historical, and Miscel
laneous Essays (New York: Hurd & Houghton, 1860), IV 362.
30.Athenian wag: Plut. Ages. 15.7. See Pl. Resp. 8.548a–b, Arist. Pol. 1270b33–35.
31.Spartan houses: cf. Plut. Lyc. 13.5–7, Mor. 189e, 227c, 285c, 997c–d, and F62 (Sandbach)
with Xen. Ages. 8.7, and see Pl. Resp. 8.548a–b. - Arist. Pol. 1270a26–29 with Pomeroy, S Wo, 84–85. I find Stephen Hodkinson’s attempt,
“Land Tenure and Inheritance in Classical Sparta,” CQ n.s. 36:2 (1986): 378–406 (at 394–98), to
reconcile this passage with Hdt. 6.57.4–5 as implausible as his earlier insistence (378–79, 384–85)
that Plut. Lyc. 8.3–6 and 16.1 cannot be reconciled with Agis 5.3–7. See Appendix 1. - Law of Epitadeus: Plut. Agis 5.3–7 with Appendix 1. For the results, see Arist. Pol.
1270a18–21. In this connection, note Pl. Leg. 11.922a–929e (esp. 922d–923b). Citizenship and
sussıtíon contribution: Arist. Pol. 1271a26–36. Greed of Spartan notables, dowries, concentration
of property in hands of heiresses: 1270a15–26, 1307a34–36. In this connection, note also
1269b–1270a14, 1271a18, 1271b17. Dowries were forbidden in earlier times: Plut. Mor. 227f–228a,
Just. Epit. 3.3.8. It is worth noting that Justin explicitly links the prohibition of dowries with the
husband’s capacity to keep his wife under control. Stephen Hodkinson’s suggestion (“Land Tenure
and Inheritance in Classical Sparta,” 394–95, 398–404) that the daughter of a Spartan had inheri-
tance rights comparable to those of her counterpart at Gortyn seems quite plausible (at least with
regard to the private property of her parents); and, as he points out, such a supposition makes
sense of the proportion of land that came to be concentrated in the hands of Sparta’s women in
Aristotle’s day (after, I would insist, the public allotment had come to be treated, in effect, as private
property). From the outset, the rules of inheritance will no doubt have affected the pattern of
marriage alliances and encouraged restrictions on the number of offspring within the small circle
of families which possessed an abundance of private property. After the public allotments were
in effect privatized, this behavior seems to have become universal. See Hodkinson, “Inheritance,
Marriage and Demography: Perspectives upon the Success and Decline of Classical Sparta,” in
CSTS, 79–121 (esp. 82–95, 109–14), and PWCS, 65–149, 399–445.
34.Royal land in towns of períoıkoı: Xen. Lac. Pol. 15.3. Proportion of booty, claim on hides
and chines of sacrificed animals, piglet from every litter: cf. Hdt. 9.81 with Phylarchus FGrH 81