Conclusion
The Spartan religious system thus seems to have consisted of quite a coherent
complex, open to innovations (insofar as deities foreign to the city could be invoked
on the battlefield, and the dead could be promoted as supernatural protectors). The
importance of religious preoccupations in Spartan life can be seen not only in the
performance of rituals, but also in the geography of monuments and cult objects,
which shows the extent to which the Spartans were anxious to receive the beneficent
protection of supernatural beings. The great awe the Spartans displayed towards their
gods seems to have been a motor of their history.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READINGWe have rich and reliable literary sources for Sparta, less so, admittedly, than for Athens, but
more so than for countless other cities. These are, in the first instance, the works of Herodotus
and Thucydides, and some of the works of Xenophon. Among these last, theConstitution of the
Lacedaemoniansis very detailed, and one should turn to Rebenich 1998 and Lipka 2002 to
appreciate its richness. The third book of Pausanias’Periegesis, on Laconia, is an essential text;
three editions of it with commentary are most useful: Frazer 1913, Papachatzis 1976 (copi-
ously illustrated), and Musti and Torelli 1991; to these should be added the illustrated itinerary
of Xanthakis and Papapostolou 2002.
The Spartan pantheon was extremely rich, and we have been able to make mention only of a
small part of it, but very full testimonia can be found in the catalog of evidence assembled in
Wide 1893, a fundamental work of reference. Wide’s testimonia can be supplemented by
consulting the index of Kolbe 1913, and this can be brought up to date with the help of the
successive installments ofSupplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. In the epigraphic field,
Hupfloher 2000 is devoted specifically to the priesthoods of the Roman period. To access
the iconographic evidence, which sheds valuable light on Spartan religion, one may turn to Tod
and Wace 1906, Steinhauer ca. 1972, Fitzhardinge 1980, Pipili 1987, and the numerous works
of Stibbe: 1969, 1972, 1978, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1996, 2004.
On the territory of Sparta in general, see Cartledge 1998. For matters of the archaeology and
topography of Sparta one should turn to specific studies: Dawkins 1929 on the sanctuary of
Orthia, Faustoferri 1996 on that of Amyclaean Apollo, with Catling and Cavanagh 1976 and
Catling 1992 on the Menelaion. Kourinou 2000 offers a valuable synthesis (with an English
summary at 275–86). Records of the investigations of the FifthEphoreiaof Prehistoric and
Classical Antiquities (which undertakes many rescue digs in the modern town of Sparta) appear
in`æ÷ÆØïºïªØŒüí ̃åºôßïí(under the authorship of S. Raftopoulou, A. Themos and E. Zavvou
in the 1994–8 volumes of the journal). For plans of Sparta on which the principal sanctuaries
can be located, see Wace 1906–7: plate i, reproduced at Papachatzis 1976:341, Stibbe 1989:67
(the plan is reproduced without identification of the monuments at Stibbe 1996:21), Musti
and Torelli 1991:l–li, Cartledge 1998:41, and Richer 2002:174–5.
On religion in particular some specialist studies may be profitably consulted: Pettersson 1992
on the gods, and Salapata 1993 on heroes (Agamemnon and Cassandra in particular). Parker
1989 offers a synthesis.
252 Nicolas Richer