Life in Sparta

The story

A city with one fixed idea

Of all the Greek poleis, Sparta was the strangest. It lay in the southern Peloponnese and had organised its whole life around one idea: having excellent, united soldiers. The Spartans said the system had been given to them by Lycurgus, a lawgiver. Historians are not sure he really existed, though: he may be a legendary figure to whom tradition attributed laws that arose at different times. That is why the date on our site is “about 700 BC”: the system hardened slowly, after the wars the Spartans fought to conquer the neighbouring lands.

Three groups of inhabitants

Spartan society was divided into three groups. At the top were the Spartiates, the citizens with full rights. They called themselves “homoioi”, that is “equals”: among them, at least in theory, nobody was supposed to be richer or more important than the others. To be a Spartiate you had to have Spartiate parents and pay your share to the common meals; anyone who could not lost their rank.

Then there were the perioikoi, the “dwellers around”. They lived in nearby towns, were free, worked as craftsmen and traders, paid taxes and fought in the army, but had no political rights. Finally there were the helots, the most numerous. They were farmers without freedom, they belonged to the Spartan community and worked the lands assigned to the Spartiates, handing over part of the harvest each year. According to the historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BC the helots were about seven times more numerous than the Spartans: perhaps an exaggerated estimate, but it gives the idea of a minority ruling over a majority. The helots' work allowed the Spartiates to devote themselves entirely to military training.

The education of children

The system of education was called the “agoge”, which means “guidance”. At the age of seven Spartan boys left their families and entered groups run by the state. They learned to withstand hardship, cold and hunger, to obey and to live together. At about twenty they became young soldiers and went on training, and military service lasted until the age of sixty. Only at thirty could a Spartiate vote in the assembly.

The boys ate together in the common messes, called syssitia. The most famous dish was the “black broth”, which gave Sparta a reputation for very harsh cooking. Every citizen had to bring his share of food, and anyone who could not was cut off from the rights of a citizen. It was a way of keeping the group united.

Girls and women

Sparta was also different in the way it treated women. In the rest of Greece girls were kept at home; in Sparta they did gymnastics, running races, singing and dancing. Spartan women had more freedom and owned property of their own, but they had no political rights: they did not vote and did not take part in the assembly.

How it was governed

The government of Sparta was made up of several bodies that checked one another. There were two kings, one from each of the two royal families (the Agiads and the Eurypontids). In the classical period the kings had mainly military and religious duties. Then there was the gerousia, a council of thirty members: the two kings and twenty-eight elders over the age of sixty, elected for life. Five ephors, elected every year, supervised the kings and the magistrates. Finally there was the apella, the assembly of the Spartiates, which met once a month. It voted by acclamation, that is by shouting, without counting the votes one by one, and could only approve or reject the proposals of the gerousia.

The fear of revolts

To understand Sparta you have to remember the fear that went with it. The Spartans had conquered neighbouring Messenia in two wars: the first lasted about twenty years and ended around 724 BC according to tradition, with the fall of Mount Ithome; the second lasted many years (the sources disagree on the dates) and led to the conquest of most of the region. Many Messenians became helots. The helots rebelled several times, and the revolt of 464 BC was the most serious. To keep them under control the Spartans used force: every year young soldiers took part in the “krypteia”, a kind of hunt for helots meant to terrify them. It is a very harsh part of Spartan history, and it reminds us that the freedom of a few rested on the lack of freedom of many.

The decline

In 371 BC, at Leuctra, the army of Thebes led by Epaminondas defeated Sparta, which until then had seemed invincible. The following year the Thebans invaded the Peloponnese and took Messenia away from Sparta, that is, the land that fed the Spartiates. The number of citizens was also falling: by the middle of the 3rd century BC only about 700 remained, most of them in debt to a few big landowners. The system created to produce perfect soldiers could not withstand changing times.