In general, even when they had not died as gloriously as Leonidas did, the kings of
Sparta were treated not as men but as heroes, according to Xenophon (Constitution of
the Lacedaemonians15.9). Furthermore, Sparta was protected on the borders of its
conurbation by the tombs of the two royal dynasties, those of the Eurypontids,
probably to the south, and those of the Agiads, probably to the northwest (Pausanias
3.12.8 and 14.2).
As to other tombs, Plutarch mentions the fact that ‘‘Lycurgus did not forbid the
burial of the dead in the city,’’ and that this relieved the young men of ‘‘the fear and
horror of death’’ (Lycurgus27.1). This notion should be understood, as it has been
by the archaeologist Kourinou (2000:215–19 and 284), as an interpretation of the
situation produced by Sparta’s urban development. Tombs that were initially situated
on the periphery of the four villages were enveloped in urban sprawl as the villages
coalesced into a single town. Kourinou notes that tombs were not deliberately built
outside the urban area thus developed until the first century BC (and, she observes,
many tombs must have disappeared in the Roman period).
Most importantly, it seems that distinctions may have been made between the dead
themselves.
A hierarchy of the dead
According to Plutarch the dead were hierarchized, not in accordance with their
wealth in life, but in accordance with their merit and their devotion to the city: ‘‘It
was forbidden to inscribe the names of the dead on tombs, except those of men who
had fallen in war and women in thehieraicategory’’ (Lycurgus27.3; for the debates
on this text, see Brule ́and Piolot 2002, 2004; Hodkinson 2000:237–70; Richer
1994). We should note the discovery of several funerary stelae referring to men who
had died in war. It is probable that thehieraiwere women dedicated to religious
functions (on women in religion at Sparta see Richer forthcoming (a)).
A general hierarchy of the dead obtained (Richer 1994): funerary honors were
linked to the situation that the dead man had occupied in Lacedaemonian society and
also to the bravery he had been able to demonstrate in combat. Above all, the varied
styles of the funerals were doubtless a function of the strength of protection subse-
quent generations of Spartans anticipated from the dead. The dead were accordingly
ranked, seemingly in the following order of increasing importance: (1) the anonym-
ous; (2) (?)helots killed in battle; (3) (?)perioecikilled in battle; (4) women in the
hieraicategory; (5) Spartans killed in battle; (6)hirees, people endowed with a certain
charisma, a status to which thearistoi, the best of the Spartans killed in combat, were
admitted, their quality being proven; (7) particularly deserving Spartan leaders, such
as Brasidas, who died at Amphipolis in 422 BC (see Richer 1998a:277 n. 44); (8)
kings; (9) exceptional people such as the regent Pausanias, guardian of the king, who
fought victoriously against the Persians at Plataea in 479 BC only to fall victim to
actions of his compatriots that Delphi judged to be impious, with the result that he
was accorded, by way of compensation, honors comparable to those given to Leoni-
das; (10) a king, Leonidas, who combined in ideal fashion his own charisma, due to
the exercise of his royal functions, with the merit of a warrior killed in battle (in
observance of an oracle, according to Herodotus 7.220, although the oracle was
perhapspost eventum).
250 Nicolas Richer