farmed for the Spartans. In the seventh century, Sparta overran her neighbour
Messenia and reduced her inhabitants to the status of serfs, increasing the existence
of the existing helot population. The conquered Messenian land was distributed in
an allotment, or kleros, to each Spartiate to be worked by the helots who were
required to surrender half their produce to the Spartiates, thus giving the citizens
economic independence.
Sparta was unique in retaining kingship, in fact a dual kingship, possibly a result
of a coalition of two distinct tribal communities, each with its own king, claiming
descent from Heracles. They were the supreme commanders of the army, but in other
respects their powers were circumscribed by three other institutions, the ephorate, the
gerousiaand the assembly. The ephors, five in number, were elected annually and were
supposedly representatives of the people who had the power to bring the kings to
account. Other judicial functions were divided between them and the gerousia, a
council of twenty-eight aristocrats over 60 years of age in addition to the two kings.
The council prepared matters to be brought before the assembly of all citizens over
30, the Spartiates, who did not have the power of discussion but whose assent by
acclamation was necessary for the validity of any decree. However, the magistrate
who presided over the proceedings of the assembly had the power of dissolving and
annulling its decrees if they did not meet with approval. This very mixed constitution
of checks and balances, ascribed to the lawgiver Lycurgus, was thought to have
developed as early as the seventh century and it remained virtually unchanged
throughout Sparta’s history.
At Sparta, the state took an interest in the young from the moment of birth with
the exposure of deformed or weak babies. At the age of 7 Spartiate boys were taken
from home and educated in groups in the agoge, state education under the supervision
of a paidonomos (boy-herdsman). At 12, the young boys were paired with young
adults. In Plato’s dialogue theLaws, which offers an Athenian understanding of
Spartan customs, the Spartan representative lists a number of activities clearly
designed to toughen up the youth of the city and to prepare them for soldiering:
the endurance of bodily pain, which finds so much scope among us Spartans in
our boxing matches, and our system of foraging raids which regularly involve heavy
whippings. Besides which we have what we call a krypteia [secret commission]
which is a wonderfully hard discipline in endurance, as well as the practice of going
without shoes or bedding in the winter, and wandering all over the country night
and day without attendants performing one’s menial offices for oneself. Further
again, our gymnopaediae [exercises for boys] involve rigid endurance, as the
matches are fought in the heat of the summer, and we have a host of other similar
tests, in fact almost too many for particular enumeration.
(633b–c)HISTORY 53