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Literacy in the Spartan oligarchy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Paul Cartledge
Paul Cartledge
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
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Extract

Somewhere in the first half of the eighth century B.C. the ‘graphic counterpart of speech’ (Diringer's nice expression) and a fully phonetic alphabetic script were respectively reintroduced and invented in Greek lands. Thus the Greeks achieved the feat, unique among European peoples, of rediscovering (after an interval of more than four centuries) the literacy they had lost. The alphabet of course marked an enormous advance on the clumsy ‘Linear B’ syllabic script, in the sense that it made it possible ‘to write easily and read unambiguously about anything which the society can talk about’. However, as Harvey's exhaustive study demonstrated, even in Classical Athens, where popular literacy attained the highest level hitherto known in the Greek world, there were still significant areas of illiteracy or at best semi-literacy. Widespread literacy cannot simply be deduced (as it was by Goody and Watt) from the mere availability of a phonetic alphabetic script of the Greek type. Further factors must be taken into account. One of these, Harvey suggested, is the political system. For although ‘democracy and literacy do not necessarily go hand in hand’ (p. 590), the high level of literacy at Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries was perhaps ‘not entirely unconnected with the fact that she was a democracy’ (p. 623).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 98 , November 1978 , pp. 25 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1978

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References

1 The finest discussion of the possible occasion and probable date of the invention of the Greek alphabet is Jeffery, L. H., The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece (Oxford 1961) 1–42Google Scholar (hereafter Jeffery). See also below, n. 9.

2 Goody, J./Watt, I., ‘The Consequences of Literacy’ (1962/3), reprinted in Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge 1968) 39Google Scholar.

3 Harvey, F. D., ‘Literacy in the Athenian Democracy’ in REG lxxix (1966) 585–635CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter Harvey).

4 As it is by Goody/Watt, art. cit. (n. 2).

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7 On the Tarentine alphabet see Jeffery 279–82 (the only serious divergence from Lakonian is the absence of the multi-limbed sigma); equally close dependence on the metropolis is visible in religion and material culture.

8 Jeffery, , Archaic Greece. The City-States c. 700–500 B.C. (London 1976) 117Google Scholar raises the possibility of ‘the inscribing of a rhetra, perhaps on a bronze plaque like the sixthcentury examples of rhetrai found at Olympia’ (cf. 42, 169). But see below, n. 69.

9 Jeffery 8. On the connections of the Phoenicians with Kythera see now Coldstream, J. N./Huxley, G. L. (eds.), Kythera (London 1972) 36Google Scholar. On the transmission of ‘letters’ to the Greeks by the Phoenicians see Jeffery, , ‘Ἀρχαῖα γράμματα: some ancient Greek views’, Fest. E. Grumach (Berlin 1967) 152–4Google Scholar. See also below, n. 80.

10 Cf. Forrest, W. G., ‘The Date of the Lykourgan Reforms at Sparta’, Phoenix xvii (1963) 158 f., 166–8Google Scholar; West, M. L., Studies in Greek Elegy and lambus (Berlin/New York 1974) 184–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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14 Discus: Huxley, G. L., ‘Aristotle as Antiquary’, GRBS xiv (1973) 281 fGoogle Scholar. Transmission of alphabet to Olympia: Jeffery 185. For Lykurgos' alleged literacy see also below, n. 50.

15 Jeffery 202–6.

16 Grote, G., History of Greece 2 ii (12–vol. ed., London 1884) 390Google Scholar n. 2 argued that Isokrates should be taken literally, since the second passage cited contains ‘an expression dropt almost unconsciously which confirms it.“The most rational Spartans (he says) will appreciate this discourse, if they find any one to read it to them”’ (Grote's italics). I do not see why this expression should be exempted from the charge generally accepted as valid by Grote, that Isokrates preferred rhetoric to factual accuracy; cf. Welles, C. B., ‘Isocrates' view of history’ in Fest. H. Captan (Ithaca 1966) 3–25Google Scholar.

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18 On the transmission of Archaic Greek poetry in general see Davison, J. A., ‘Literature and Literacy in Ancient Greece’, From Archilochus to Pindar (London, etc. 1968) 86–128Google Scholar (my quotation, however, is from p. 184); the samizdat simile is borrowed from Finley, M. I., ‘Censorship in Classical Antiquity’, TLS 29 July 1977, 923Google Scholar. The quotation from West is from his op. cit. (n. 10) 57. Alexandrian commentaries on Alkman include Pack, R. A., The Greek and Latin Literary Texts from Greco-Roman Egypt 2 (Ann Arbor 1965)Google Scholar nos. 81, 1950. On the language of Tyrtaios see Snell, B., Tyrtaios u. die Sprache des Epos (Göttingen 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on that of Alkman see Risch, E., MH xi (1954) 20–37Google Scholar.

19 The standard modern treatment is Marrou, H.-I., Histoire de l'éducation dans l'antiquité 7 (Paris 1971) 45–60Google Scholar; but see also Bolgar, R. R., ‘The training of élites in Greek education’ in Wilkinson, R. (ed.), Governing Elites. Studies in Training and Selection (New York 1969) 23–49Google Scholar, esp. 30–5. Cf. my remarks in ‘Toward the Spartan revolution’, Arethusa viii (1975) 75.

20 See in general Gilbert, G., Greek Constitutional Antiquities i2 (London 1895) 42–7Google Scholar (hereafter Gilbert).

21 Idaios is not otherwise mentioned, and his name may indicate that he was an Asiatic Greek or even a Hellenized oriental.

22 For the kind of tablet Damaratos would have used see Bin, T., Das Antike Buchwesen (Munich 1913) 259–63Google Scholar.

23 It is not stated whether Gorgo herself was literate, but if I am right about Spartan women in general (see below) she was.

24 The evidence for the σκυτάλη is collected in Jeffery 57 f. According to the New Encyclopaedia Britannica (Macropaedia v 332), it represents both ‘the first recorded use of cryptography for correspondence’ and ‘the first transposition system’!

25 The old view (that ‘Assyrian letters’ meant Persian cuneiform) was refuted by C. Nylander, Op. Ath. viii (1968) 119–36, esp. 123 f. (I owe this reference to Robin Lane-Fox).

26 See generally Gilbert 52–9. The Chief Ephor is explicitly credited with the ability to read in the second of the anecdotes involving Agesilaos quoted above; the same goes for the Ephors as a whole in Plut., Lys. 20Google Scholar. Cf. Thuc. i 128 ff. (letter of Pausanias the Regent to the Great King) and Xenophon, , Hell, iii 3.4–11Google Scholar (further discussed below), which strongly suggest but do not state that the Ephors were literate.

27 It was presumably in this connection that the Politeia of Dikaiarchos (fr. I Wehrli) was allegedly read out annually to the youngest warriors in the Ephors' ἀρχεἀον.

28 Gilbert 47–9. Aristotle (Pol. ii 1271a9 f.) found the method of their election ‘childish’ too; presumably the marks scratched on γραμματεἀα. by the election ‘jury’ did not call for any greater degree of literacy than those made by Athenian jurors in δίκαι τιμητοί.

29 See my review in TLS 24 November 1975, 1348, of Adcock, F. E./Mosley, D. J., Diplomacy in Ancient Greece (London 1975)Google Scholar. For the Hellenistic and Roman periods see Kienast, D., RE Supp. xiii (1973)Google Scholar s.v. ‘Presbeia’.

30 See in general Adcock, , ‘The development of Ancient Greek Diplomacy’ in AC xvii (1948) 1–12Google Scholar, esp. p. 5; cf. id., ‘Some Aspects of Ancient Greek Diplomacy’ in PCA xxi (1924) 92–116, esp. p. 113. Of the 232 treaties collected in Bengtson, H. (ed.), Die Staatsverträge des Alter tums ii 2 (Munich 1975)Google Scholar nearly one fifth involve Sparta or Spartans. In fifth-century Sparta heralds constituted one of the three hereditary professions (Hdt. vi 60).

31 See below p. 35.

32 Jeffery 190 suggests that the ‘-das, son of Dexippos’ who dedicated a bronze lebes at Delphi in the first half of the sixth century (Jeffery 199, no. 11) may have been a Pythios.

33 Plutarch, (Ages 19.6Google Scholar) refers to the ἀναγραφαί in which he discovered the names of Agesilaos' wife and two daughters. The list of victors at the Karneia was ‘published’ by Hellanikos, (FCrH 4 F 85–6Google Scholar; cf. Jeffery 59 f., 195). Private inscriptions commemorating Spartan Olympic victors are IG v 1.649, 708; note also the victorlists on stone cited below, n. 79.

34 ύπομίίονες: Gilbert 39 f.; ἳππεις (an élite corps of 300 drawn from the younger adult warriors): Gilbert 60 f.

35 See now Oliva, P., Sparta and its Social Problems (Amsterdam 1971) 192 f.Google Scholar; Austin, M./Vidal-Naquet, P., Economies et sociétés en Grèce ancienne 2 (Paris 1972) 106 f.Google Scholar, 279–82, no. 59.

36 IG v 1.457, discussed by Bourguet, E., Le dialecte laconien (Paris 1927) 35 fGoogle Scholar.

37 P. Beri. 5883 + 5853: see now G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ‘Ancient Greek and Roman Maritime Loans’ in Edey, H./Yamey, B. S. (eds.), Debits, Credits, Finance and Profits. Studies in Honour of W. T. Baxter (London 1974) 53 fGoogle Scholar.

38 None of the more recent discussions of Spartan women raises the question of their literacy, but see briefly Harvey 625.

39 Victory-dedications: Jeffery 199–201, nos. 22, 23(?), 28, 31, 41, 42, 48, 50, 51, 52 (stele of Damonon). Grave stones and funerary reliefs: IG v 1.699, 713. 824(?); Jeffery 200 f., nos. 26, 29, 57, 59. Cf. below, n. 71.

40 Leather: Birt, op. cit. (n. 22) 254–6. Papyrus: Lewis, N., Papyrus in Classical Antiquity (Oxford 1974) esp. 84–8Google Scholar. Wax: Birt, loc. cit. (n. 22).

41 Lang, M., Graffiti in the Athenian Agora (Agora Picture Book, Princeton 1974) no. 18Google Scholar. For Athenian writing in private life see Harvey 615–17.

42 ‘Did Spartan citizens ever practise a manual tekhne?, Liverpool Class. Monthly i (1976) 115–19. The useful remarks of Jeffery, op. cit. (n. 8) 31 f. apply chiefly to international star craftsmen rather than the anonymous members of the supporting cast.

43 Cf. Finley, M. I., ‘Sparta’ (1968), reprinted with some changes in his Use and Abuse of History (London 1975) ch. 10, p. 162Google Scholar.

44 Jeffery 187.

45 Limestone doodles: Jeffery 188, 198, no. 6. Vix abecedarium: Jeffery 183, 191 f., 202, no. 66, 375; but see Rolley, , ‘Hydries de bronze dans le Péloponèse du Nord’, BCH lxxxvii (1963) 483Google Scholar n. 1. Masons' graffiti: Jeffery 194, 200, no. 32 (one at least may not have been a Lakonian: Jeffery 183).

46 Spartan akropolis: Woodward, A. M., BSA xxx (1928/9) 241–52Google Scholar. Orthia sanctuary: id. in Dawkins, R. M. (ed.), Artemis Orthia (JHS Supp. v, London 1929) 371–4Google Scholar. Eleusinion south of Sparta: Nicholls, R. V., BSA xlv (1950) 297Google Scholar, nos. 53–4. Note also the inscribed bone flutes at the Orthia sanctuary, appropriate offerings for contemporaries of Alkman: Jeffery 188, 198, no. 3.

47 Spartan epigraphic orthography moved Bourguet (n. 36) 8 to exclaim, ‘je crois que nulle part n'est attesté un usage aussi peu tyrannique’; cf. ibid. 19 f., 27, 140 (’la fantaisie de l'écriture’).

48 It is probably true that in all societies more people have been able to read than write. As is noted by Turner, E. G., Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (Oxford 1971) 7Google Scholar, representations of people reading were far commoner in Greek art than those of people writing.

49 Woodward, , BSA xxx (1928/9) 247Google Scholar, no. 5, fig. 4 (‘presumably a votive inscription by an illiterate person’). Dr Jeffery, however, has suggested to me that this may be a trial piece.

50 For the sake of completeness I note that ‘Lykurgos’, besides having had the Homeric poems copied (Plut., Lyk. 4.4Google Scholar), was reported to have transcribed personally a final Delphic oracle sanctioning the ‘Great Rhetra’ (Lyk. 29.4).

51 The process of instruction need not have taken long: see Plato, Laws 809e–810Google Scholara for the distinction between functional literacy and fluent calligraphy. For the further distinction between ‘slow’ and ‘retarded’ hands at the level of functional literacy in Ptolemaic Egypt see Youtie, H. C., ‘βραΒέως γράφων: between literacy and illiteracy’, CRBS xii (1971) 239–61Google Scholar, esp. 252 f., 256 n. 78 (reprinted in his Scriptiunculae II [Amsterdam 1973] 611–27).

52 The earliest source is either Ion of Chios (fr. 107 von Blumenthal) or Herodotus (iii 48, dramatic date c 525). For a curious (and painful) method of inculcating laconic brief (fr. com. adesp. 417–19 Kock). The quintessentially 1954) 274–81. Spartan letters were said to be comparably brief (fr. com. adesp. 417–19 Kock). The quintessentially Spartan apophthegms are of course of highly dubious authenticity: see now Tigerstedt, E. N., The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity ii (Stockholm 1974) 16–30Google Scholar.

53 Finley, M. I., The Ancient Greeks (rev. ed. Harmondsworth 1975) 83Google Scholar. For the view expressed in the text see Sakellariou, M. B. in History of the Hellenic World ii. The Archaic Period (Athens and London 1975) 275Google Scholar.

54 As suggested by Norden, E., Agnostos Theos. Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig 1913) 372 f.Google Scholar, the word ἀρχαιολογία could be a Sophistic invention.

55 On the role of conversation in education cf. Sosikrates, , FCrH 461Google Scholar F 1 (Crete).

56 Ehrenberg, V., From Solon to Socrates 2 (London 1973) 389Google Scholar.

57 The earlier literature is assembled in Busolt, G., Griechische Geschichte i 2 (Gotha 1893) 510–79Google Scholar; add Gilbert. More recent studies are amassed in the footnotes to Oliva, op. cit. (n. 35) 71–102.

58 Ollier, F., Le mirage spartiate (Paris 1933, 1943)Google Scholar; for its continuation to the present century see Rawson, E., The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford 1969)Google Scholar.

59 Cf. Arist. Pol. ii 1274a29 for some others (though Solon of course is substantially a historical figure).

60 On the historicity of Lykurgos (as opposed to ‘his’ laws) see Toynbee, A. J., Some Problems of Greek History (Oxford 1969) 274–83Google Scholar; Oliva, op. cit. 63–70.

61 Aalders, G. J. D., Die Theorie der gemischten Verfassung im Altertum (Amsterdam 1968)Google Scholar; Rawson, op. cit. (n. 58) Index, s.v. ‘Mixed Constitution’.

62 de Romilly, J., ‘Le classement des constitutions d'Hérodote à Aristote’ in REG lxxii (1959) 81–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lasserre, F., ‘Hérodote et Protagoras: le débat sur les constitutions’ in MH xxxiii (1976) 65–84Google Scholar.

63 For example, Greenidge, A. H. J., Handbook of Greek Constitutional History (London 1896) 74–107Google Scholar; but even he ends by adopting a position not dissimilar to that of Andrewes (below).

64 A Historical Commentary on Thucydides i (Oxford 1945) 129 (ad Thuc. i 18.1).

65 ‘The Government of Classical Sparta’ in Badian, E. (ed.), Ancient Society and Institutions. Fest. V. Ehrenberg (Oxford 1966) 1–20Google Scholar (my quotations are from p. 1; the comparison with the Athenian democracy is broached on p. 16).

66 de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London 1972) 125 ffGoogle Scholar.

67 No isegoria: Finley, M. I., ‘The Freedom of the Citizen in the Greek World’, Talanta vii (1976) 9Google Scholar. Voting and elections: de Ste. Croix, op. cit. 348 f. (on Thuc. i 87); Staveley, E. S., Greek and Roman Voting and Elections (London 1972) 73–6Google Scholar. No popular judiciary: de Ste. Croix, op. cit. 133, 349 f.; cf. ᾽enerally Bonner, R. J./Smith, G., CPh xxxvii (1942) 113–29Google Scholar.

68 Müller, K. O., The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race 2 ii (London 1839) 91Google Scholar; cf. his correct description of ‘the aristocratical spirit of the constitution, which feared nothing so much as the passionate and turbulent haste of the populace in decreeing and deciding’ (p. 87).

69 For the range of meanings of rhetra see Quass, F., Nomos und Psephisma (Munich 1971) 7–11Google Scholar. If it meant ‘law’ in the case of the ‘Great Rhetra’, then ex hypothesi this document was never inscribed.

70 IG v 1.722 = Sokolowski, F., Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Suppl.) (Paris 1962) no. 28Google Scholar. This may, however, have been inscribed for the benefit of Perioikoi, whose literacy need carry no implications for Spartan literacy, given the profoundly different social organization of the two groups.

71 According to the MSS. of Plutarch, loc. cit., there were two classes of Spartans exempted from the prohibition on named gravestones: men who died in war and priestesses who died in office. For the former see Jeffery 197, 201, nos. 57, 59; for the latter perhaps IG v 1.824 (all three cited above, n. 39). R. Flacelière in REG lxi (1948) 403–5, has argued from IG v 1.713 that the text for the latter exemption should be emended to read ‘women in childbed’.

72 Thuc. v 77, 79; 18.10 = Bengtson, op. cit. (n. 30) nos. 194, 188. For some illuminating remarks on their transcription and dialect see Bourguet, op. cit. (n. 36) 148–50. Note also Thuc. v 41.3 = Bengtson no. 192 (unratified treaty of 420 between Argos and Sparta, which the Spartans ξυνεγράφαντο).

73 Peek, W., ‘Ein neuer Spartanischer Staatsvertrag’, Abh.Sächs.Akad. Wiss. Leipzig, phil.-hist.KI. lxv 3 (1974) 3–15Google Scholar; cf., however, my article in Liverpool Class. Monthly i (1976) 87–92.

74 Bengtson no. 112. However, we should probably distinguish between the stele set up ‘on the (banks of the) Alpheios’ (Aristode fr. 592 Rose) and the treaty of alliance. Such a stele, with its injunction to the Tegeans not to make Messenians citizens, does not of course prove that Messenian Helots were typically literate in the midsixth century.

75 Meiggs, R./Lewis, D. M., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford 1969) no. 67Google Scholar; Fornara, C. W. (ed.), Archaic Times to the End of the Peloponnesian War (1977) no. 132Google Scholar.

76 Lebes: Jeffery 190, 199, no. 10 (c. 600–550?). Seats: (1) Jeffery loc. cit., no. 15 (c. 600–550?—perhaps too high); (2) Mallwitz, A., Arch. Delt. 27Google Scholar, Chron. (1972, publ. 1976) 275, pl. 212a (c. 500). Offering: Jeffery 195 f., 201, no. 49 (republished by Meiggs/Lewis, op. cit. no. 22, cf. Fornara, op. cit. no. 38).

77 Tod, M. N., ‘A Spartan Grave on Attic Soil’, G&R ii (1933) 108–11Google Scholar; Jeffery 198, 202, no. 61.

78 Jeffery loc. cit., no. 62.

79 Victor-lists: Jeffery 195, 201, nos. 44, 47 (the precise nature of no. 44 is unclear, and the last of the four pairs of names is written in a different hand from that of the others). Manumission-stelai: the sanctuary of Pohoidan (Poseidon) is known to have been an asylum for fugitive Helots (Thuc. i 131.1), but, despite the use of Ephor-dates, it is uncertain whether the manumittees are Helots or private slaves (whether of Spartans or Perioikoi). The Thermopylai list is discussed in connection with the rele vant poem(s) of Simonides by Podlecki, A. J., ‘Simonides: 480’, Hist, xvii (1968) 257–75Google Scholar, esp. 257–62, 274 f. Pausanias' epigram: Meiggs/Lewis, op. cit. no. 27, p. 60. The stelai marking his official reburial presumably fell outside the scope of the prohibition discussed in n. 71.

80 Stroud, R. S., Drakon's Law on Homicide (Berkeley 1968)Google Scholar. Cretan precedent: Meiggs/Lewis, op. cit. no. 2; cf. Boardman, J., The Greeks Overseas 2 (Harmondsworth 1973) 60Google Scholar; Jeffery, op. cit. (n. 8) 43, 194.

81 Boegehold, A. L. in AJA lxxvi (1972) 23–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Welles, art. cit. (n. 16) 6 n. 16. But see below, n. 84.

82 Using Jeffery's catalogues as rough samples, we find that in the Corinthian alphabet there are 7 public inscriptions out of the 40, in the Lakonian (counting only those from Sparta and Amyklai) 1 out of the 32, or (counting them all wherever found) 6 out of the 67.

83 Art. cit. (n. 18)924.

84 Harvey 600 f. This implies that the absence of a central archive need not have prevented persons from perusing any document in which they were particularly interested.

85 Op. cit. (n. 19) 45.