Land Tenure in Archaic Sparta 133
colonization within Laconia, in which marginal land on the edge of the cen-
tral plain was brought into cultivation. At this time, the number of young men
at Spartan evidently exceeded the number of available allotments.
In the late fifth century, decades after the earthquakes and helot revolt, the
Spartans were extremely careful to conserve manpower (Thuc. 4.15, 108, 117,
5.15). In the late archaic period, however, they were profligate with this re-
source. In the 540s, for example, they were perfectly willing to sacrifice three
hundred men in the Battle of Champions (Hdt. 1.82), and the same was true
at the time of Thermopylae (7.205). Moreover, ca. 514, when they allowed
Dorieus to mount a colonial expedition, there was apparently no shortage of
citizens willing to join in, and no measures were taken to prevent their depar-
ture (5.42). That 465 marked a dramatic turning point is evident from the fact
that, in the wake of that date, the Spartans suddenly ceased to cultivate the
marginal land on the edge of the central plain.^25 What we know of the scale
and scope and what we can surmise regarding the character of the Spartan
losses in the 470s and the 460s is more than adequate to explain the dearth
of Spartan manpower in 418. Indeed, it is perfectly possible that, well before
418, the Spartan population had begun to recover. If we take the higher of the
two estimates for the size of the Spartiate force at Mantineia, the Spartan con-
tingent within the army fielded by Lacedaemon in 418 was considerably larger
than it would have been had the battle taken place forty years before. Even
if we were to opt for the lower estimate—the one that accords best with the
available evidence—there would be no need to suppose that Sparta experi-
enced a further drop in her population in the interval between the early 450s
and 418.
Of course, it is perfectly conceivable that Lacedaemon suffered another
great demographic shock at the end of the 430s and the beginning of the 420s
when the plague devastated Athens, eliminating a quarter of her cavalrymen,
a third of the city’s hoplites, and an untold proportion of Athenian rowers,
women, and children (Thuc. 2.47.3–54.5, 3.87.1–3). Thucydides (2.54.5) be-
lieved that no community within the Peloponnesus was affected by the plague
in any significant way, and this was no doubt true of Corinth, which he knew
exceptionally well.^26 But we are told by the geographer Pausanias (2.32.6,
8.41.7–9, 10.11.5) that the plague struck Troezen and Cleonae and that it also
threatened Phigaleia deep in Arcadia. Moreover, it is clear from Thucydides’
testimony concerning the size of the Lacedaemonian forces at Mantineia
(5.68.2) that the Spartans were secretive in the extreme, especially when it