Polıteía 43
At the start of each generation, the conquest community experienced a
rebirth. While a basıleús lived, he was sacrosanct. And when he died, there
were elaborate burial rites—“more majestic,” Xenophon pointedly tells us,
“than properly accords with the human condition.” The market was closed;
assembly meetings and elections were temporarily suspended; and the en-
tire community—the Spartans, the períoıkoı, and even the helots—went into
mourning for a period of ten days. “In this fashion,” Xenophon observes, “the
laws of Lycurgus wish to show that they give the kings of the Lacedaemonians
preference in honor not as human beings, but as demigods.”^21
The renaissance came with the choice of a new basıleús—normally the
eldest surviving son of the deceased. When this man assumed the royal office,
there was a cancellation of all debts owed his predecessor or the public trea-
sury, and the citizens purportedly celebrated the man’s accession with the
same choral dances and sacrifices which they had employed in instituting
their founders [archagétaı] as kings of Lacedaemon at the time of the original
conquest. At Lacedaemon, history was an eternal return of the same. The king’s
death brought one cycle to an end; ritual alone could guarantee its repetition.
It is not fortuitous that the Spartans sometimes referred to their current kings
as archagétaı: the Heraclid basıleîs of each new generation refounded the pólıs
by renewing her claim to the land. If the magistrates exhibited an almost obses-
sive concern to insure a legitimate succession, they had good reason. The same
concerns dictated the law barring the Heraclids from having children by any
woman from abroad.^22
In a community in which military concerns predominate and in which
there is a popular element in the constitution, generals—even hereditary gen-
erals—are men of great power and influence. A soldier’s opportunity to distin-
guish himself on the field of battle and to gain the admiration and support of
his comrades depends more often than not on the goodwill of his commander.
This was particularly true among the Lacedaemonians. When on campaign, a
Spartan king or regent conducted the sacrifices, and he exercised an almost
absolute sway: he had the power to appoint his own officers, to issue orders
to all and sundry, to send troops wherever he wished, to raise fresh forces, to
execute cowards, and even to levy money. No matter what happened, until the
army returned home, his word was law.^23 One need only reflect on the polit-
ical consequences of replacing the consulship at Rome with a dyarchy to start
to grasp the importance that the Spartan kings must have had. And after