associated with him. If the sacrifice is favorable, the Fire-Carrier takes the fire from the
altar and walks at the head of all to the border. On arrival, the king sacrifices again to
Zeus and Athena. Only if these deities show themselves favorable does he cross the
border. The fire taken from these last sacrifices is henceforth carried before the army,
and it never goes out. It is followed by victims of all sorts. Every time he makes sacrifice,
the king begins before dawn, because he wants to be the first to win the deity’s favorable
regard.After enumerating the important individuals who participate in the sacrifice, Xeno-
phon adds, ‘‘So to see this you would think that others are nothing but amateurs in
military matters, and that the Spartans alone are technicians [technitai] in the art of
war’’ (13.5).
Clearly, in the eyes of Xenophon (an Athenian, of course, but one with an excellent
knowledge of Sparta, since he was a close friend of Agesilaus II) the techniques
the Spartans used to render the gods propitious in wartime were indicative of
their science of war: because their engagement with the divine was particularly
systematic, they could be seen as specialists in war who left nothing undone to secure
victory. Furthermore, as Pritchett notes, ‘‘Thediabate ̄ria, or sacrifice at the frontier
[i.e., that described by Xenophon], are attested only for Lakedaimonian armies’’
(1979:68).
In fact it seems that the Lacedaemonians were particularly anxious to win the favor
of the powers relevant to or local to the field of the coming battle (Richer 1999b). It
was probably with a view to this that they sacrificed systematically to Artemis Agrotera
before a battle (Xenophon,Constitution of the Lacedaemonians13.8, andHellenica
4.2.20). Such a sacrifice had, ordinarily, to be made at the start. One can explain it by
the fact that the frontier areas that were often the theaters of combat were rustic and
wild, and so devoted to Artemis Agrotera, protector of the hunting that took place
there. In the event of unfavorable omens (so determined by reading the shape of the
sacrificed victim’s liver), another sacrifice could be organized, to another deity. In this
event, the sacrifice might be addressed to a deity one believed to be particularly
devoted to the area in which one was about to fight: thus the regent Pausanias called
upon Cithaeronian Hera immediately prior to the battle of Plataea in 479 BC,
according to Plutarch (Aristides17–18). In such circumstances, loudly proclaimed
requests and the explicit invocation of the deity to whom appeal was made were
indispensable. At this point the leader of the army could demonstrate his intention to
act in accordance with justice, and so avoid provoking the anger of the gods. Thus in
429 BC King Archidamus called the gods of the Plataean country to witness the
justice of his actions (Thucydides 2.74.2–3), just as later, in 424 BC, Brasidas planned
to act in a comparable fashion with regard to the local (encho ̄rioi) gods and heroes in
Chalcidice (Thucydides 4.87.2).
Lacedaemonian conduct offers many instances of a clear wish to respect the will of
the gods. Note in particular that at the beginning of the battle of Plataea the
Lacedaemonians allowed the Persians to rain missiles down upon them so long as
they failed to make a favorable sacrifice (Herodotus 9.61–2; for other examples see
Pritchett 1971:113; 1979:68–70). Such a mental attitude can no doubt be explained
to a certain extent, when we consider the manner in which, when at home, the
citizens of Sparta lived their daily lives within a sacralized structure.
242 Nicolas Richer