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Spartan Austerity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

A. J. Holladay
A. J. Holladay
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Oxford
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Extract

Excavations at Sparta early in this century seemed at the time to have provided a fairly clear-cut and decisive answer to questions about the character of Spartan life in the archaic and classical periods. In the seventh century B.C. and the beginning of the sixth century, it was thought, life was comfortable and even luxurious but thereafter comforts and luxuries disappeared from among the offerings at the temple of Artemis Orthia and so, it was held, from Spartan life.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , May 1977 , pp. 111 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1977

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References

1 JHS 32 (1912), 1–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Review of Oilier, , Le Mirage spartiate, in CR 49 (1935), 184 f.Google Scholar

3 Boardman, J. in BSA 58 (1963), 1–4, dcmndates the end of Laconian II to 580 B.C., and hints at downdating of other objects from c. 700 to c. 650 B.C.Google Scholar

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8 This view was touched on by Chrimes, K.M.T., Ancient Sparta (1949), p. 307,Google Scholar though she also entertained the Blakeway hypothesis to some extent. A more elaborate treatment followed from Stubbs, H.W., CQ 44 (1950), 32 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar His view seems to have been adopted by Huxley, G.L., Early Sparta (1962), pp. 73 f.Google Scholar and something similar is to be found in Wolski, J., Rev. Ét. Anc. 69 (1967), 31–49.Google Scholar

9 Hdt. 1.153.1–3.

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11 Ploug, G., Sukas, ii (1973).Google Scholar

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26 No kantbarot have been found at Orthia and it was suggested (Artemis Orthia, p. 112) that, as vases of this shape appear regularly in Spartan tomb-reliefs, a religious taboo might be the reason.Google Scholar

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28 M.I. Finley points out that the prohibition on silver and gold may only have applied to coinage and not to bullion. The chariots, or at least the metal components (if wood and craftsmen come from a Spartan's estate) had to be bought either with natural produce, iron spits, or bullion. See Problemes de la guerre en Grèce ancienne, ed. Vernant, J.-P. (1968), pp. 150–1.Google Scholar

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30 Plut, . Alcib. 11–12.Google Scholar

31 Cf. Croix, de Ste, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972), pp. 137–8 and Appendix 28.Google Scholar

32 Xen. Ages 9.6; cf. Plut, . Apophth Lac. 212 b. Ironically, those contests which did require manly qualities did not produce many Spartan victors after c. 560. There is no reason to think they were not competing, given their resentment when the Hleans tried to exclude them (Thuc. 5.49).Google Scholar

33 Pausanias describes statues of the horses and charioteer and of Cynisca herself by Apelles (6.1.6). A poem celebrating the victory was the only poem celebrating an achievement by a member of the royal houses of Sparta except that of Simonides on Pausanias' victory at Plataea (3.8.1–2).

34 Xen. Mem. 1.3.61; cf. Plut, . Cimon; 10.5.Google Scholar

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36 This was an ancient family connection as Thuc. 8.6.3 reveals. Aicibiades was a family name of Endius and borrowed by the Athenian family; cf. also 5.43.2. Kndius was active in peace and other negotiations with Athens on many occasions (Thuc. 5.44.3; FGrHist 324 F 44; Diod. 13.52.2).

37 Plato, , Laws 642 b.Google Scholar

38 Plut, . Ages. 29Google Scholar says that Sparta was celebrating a festival and full of foreigners when the news of Leuctra arrived. Plato, , Laws 953, thought it desirable to restrict the number of tourists for festivals in his ideal state.Google Scholar

39 As was the image of Artemis Orthia; Lippold, C., Die Gr. Plastik in Handb. der Archanlogie 5 (1950), p. 30.Google Scholar

40 Cf. Pausanias 8.45–7 for Athena Alea.

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42 There are, of course, plenty of nonmilitary themes in the bronze, lead, and terracotta objects–particularly, as one would expect, statuettes of Artemis. But there remains a strong military element, especially after c. 580.

43 It has generally been assumed that all the craftsmanship was in perioecic hands in Laconia because of the rule that no Spartiate could engage in such activities. Mr. J. Boardman, however, has drawn my attention to a group of rich sixth-century graves found in the city alongside a potter's kiln. (Intramural burials were accepted in Sparta.)A. Delt. 19 (1964) A 123, 283–5.Google Scholar If this is taken to be a rich Spartiate potter then the backsliding in Sparta must have gone very far indeed. The graves are dated by sherds and a funerary amphora to c. 610–590 Plutarch, B.C., Lycurgus 27.2,Google Scholar says that Lycurgus forbade the burying of objects with the dead. If this was an early ban, and part of the ancient system, these graves provide evidence of a double infringement–the engaging in manufacture by what is presumably a Spartiate family, and the burial of objects in its graves. All the funeral amphorae of this type that have been found in Sparta date from 625 to 5 50 B.C., and it is suggested in the publication report that the ban was enforced again from the middle of the sixth century. The tightening up of the system would also put a stop to Spartiate manufactures and these would revert to perioeci.

The view that it was the perioeci who were normally the craftsmen and traders is nowhere directly attested, as was pointed out by Hampl, F. (Hermes 72 (1937), 31–2)Google Scholar and more recently by Ridley, R.T. (Mnemosyne 27 (1974), 281 ff.).CrossRefGoogle Scholar But Hampl's suggestion that all perioeci were landowners is not very compelling. Much of the land in perioecic territory was not very fertile and there are indications that some Spartan manufactures were associated with areas in perioecic territory. No doubt there were grades of wealth and distinction amongst the perioeci and there is no need to seek craftsmen and traders among disfranchised or bastard Spartans. If the cooks (Hdt. 6.60) and engineers (Xen, . Lac. Pol. 11.2) were indeed Spartiates they still need not be regarded as commercial operators.Google Scholar

44 Frühgr. Bildhauer-Schulen (1927). p. 92.Google Scholar

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47 Lane, (op. cit., pp. 157–61) comments that the orgiastic vases (with prostitutes) seem to be borrowed from Corinth and do not allude to Spartan life. There are plenty of hunting scenes on Laconian pots but curiously few battle scenes, aithough these were popular in Corinthian vase-painting.Google Scholar

48 Dedications at Orthia would presumably have been made by Spartiates not perioeci as the latter had their own temples in perioecic territory. So the material found in the Orthia deposit will have been purchased by Spartiates. Of course it is true that most of the best specimens of Laconian pottery have been found in foreign sites, but the same is true of Corinthian and Attic.

49 This need occasion no surprise. Mr. Boardman points out to me that a very high proportion of the pot painters at Athens were non-citizens but their work is pure ‘Attic’.

50 Arch. Reports 1963/1964, pp. 25–6, 1965/1966, p. 21.Google Scholar

51 Thuc. 4.53.3

52 Thuc. 4.54.3 shows that some of the inhabitants of Cythera were in contact with Nicias before the attack in 424, and some of them went with the Athenian expedition to Sicily nine years later (7.57.6). They were not, therefore, wholly loyal to Sparta.

53 Thuc. 5.67.1.

54 Jones, A.H.M.Sparta (1967), Chap. XIV.Google Scholar

55 Xen. Hell. 6.5.25 mentions the poss- ibility, but the promise misfired.

56 This point was noted by Pavel Oliva, , Sparta and her Social Problems (1971), p. 62.Google Scholar

57 8.22.1.

58 Hell. 5.3.9.

59 Xen, . Lac. Pol. 14 and Plato and Aristotle passim, especially Arist. Pol. 1270b.Google Scholar

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61 Arist. Pol. 1338b also severely criticizes the principles of this system.

61 Hdt. 1.65. Herodotus puts the defeat in the reigns of King Leon and Agasicles. Their dates are usually given as c. 590–560 and 573–550. By 556 Anaxandridas is king, if we can trust the Rylands papyrus to that extent. It was in Anaxandridas' and Ariston's reigns that Tegea was finally dealt with, but Herodotus implies that there had been some years in which Sparta has struggled unsuccessfully with Tegea. It seems probable that the settlement with Tegea preceded the intervention in Sicyon in 556 so the original defeat may date before c. 570. If a Spartan campaign with Elis against the Pisatan control of Olympia is credited and put between 01.50 and 01.51 (580–575) then the defeat by Tegea probably comes after this. (Wade-Gery, , CAH 3.545).Google Scholar

63 Jacoby, F., CQ 38 (1944), 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

64 Cf. Thuc. 2.39.1, 4.80.4, 5.68.2. Even Sparta's foreign friends would not be able to observe in intermittent visits the subtle tightening of an existing set of rules, and if they asked about them, they would be told, as Thucydides was, that the Eunomia was 400 years old (1.18.1).

65 I am grateful to Professor A. Andrewes and Mr. J. Boardman for helpful suggestions and criticisms though neither of them should, of course.be thought to endorse everything in this paper.