Prologue 3
Were the testimony of history less positive and circumstantial, such a govern-
ment would appear a mere philosophical whim or fiction, and impossible ever
to be reduced to practice.”^8 There is so much in Spartan life that is repugnant
to the tastes fostered by the modern regime of liberal democracy that it is, in
truth, far harder for us to achieve clarity on this subject than it was for the
ancients themselves.
In any case, the establishment of a Spartan empire after the Peloponnesian
War made it impossible effectively to maintain the regimen of secrecy. During
and after the last years of that epic struggle, outsiders such as Socrates’ Athe-
nian students Critias and Xenophon became intimately familiar with Lacedae-
monian mores, manners, and laws. The latter is even said to have had his own
sons reared and educated in the Spartan agōgē ́.^9 Both of these men went to
some lengths in describing the Spartan form of government and way of life.
There is no reason to believe that either resorted to fabrication.^10
In this period, genuine insiders began breaking silence as well. The quar-
rels occasioned by the dramatic changes attendant on the radical shift that had
taken place in the foreign policy of Lacedaemon at the end of the war were
severe; and bitterness induced a Spartan king—who was decidedly unfriendly
to grand imperial ventures of the sort that his compatriots had embraced at
this time, who came to be hostile to the ephorate, and who had been driven
into exile in Tegea early in the fourth century—to compose a treatise concern-
ing “the laws of Lycurgus.” In it, there is excellent reason to suspect, he ad-
dressed the amendment of those laws in later times and the process by which,
in crucial regards, they had been altered or abandoned in or long before his
own day.^11 We hear a similar tale concerning an experienced Spartan harmost
or garrison commander named Thibron, who appears to have belonged to the
opposing political camp. This Thibron was temporarily exiled at about the
same time, and he is said to have penned a treatise describing and praising
with regard to its suitability for war and dominion the polıteía said to have
been established at the outset by Lycurgus at Sparta.^12
As this evidence suggests, the Spartans were not, as is sometimes sup-
posed, illiterate or very nearly so. In fact, the operations of the Lacedaemonian
constitution presupposed something like universal literacy on a relatively high
level. Nor were the Lacedaemonians without resources for the study of their
own past. There is compelling evidence that, early on, the city established ar-
chives in which to preserve for future consultation oracles, treaties, lists of
magistrates, laws, and other records of public import.^13
Later writers from distant parts profited from the surfeit of information