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CHAPTER XII The Influence of Sparta
TO understand Plato, and indeed many later philosophers, it is necessary to know something of Sparta. Sparta had a double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth. Each is important. The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato’s political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers. The myth, fully developed, is to be found in Plutarch Life of Lycurgus; the ideals that it favours have had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism. * The myth is of even more importance, historically, than the reality; nevertheless, we will begin with the latter. For the reality was the source of the myth.
Laconia, or Lacedaemon, of which Sparta was the capital, occupied the south-east of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans, who were the ruling race, had conquered the country at the time of the Dorian invasion from the north, and had reduced the population that they found there to the condition of serfs. These serfs were called helots. In historical times, all the land belonged to the Spartans, who, however, were forbidden by law and custom to cultivate it themselves, both on the ground that such labour was degrading, and in order that they might always be free for military service. The serfs were not bought and sold, but remained attached to the land, which was divided into lots, one or more for each adult male Spartan. These lots, like the helots, could not be bought or sold, and passed, by law, from father to son. (They could, however, be bequeathed.) The landowner received from the helot who cultivated the lot seventy medimni (about 105 bushels) of grain for himself, twelve for his wife, and a stated
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* Not to mention Dr. Thomas Arnold and the English public schools.
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portion of wine and fruit annually. * Anything beyond this amount was the property of the helot. The helots were Greeks, like the Spartans, and bitterly resented their servile condition. When they could, they rebelled. The Spartans had a body of secret police to deal with this danger, but to supplement this precaution they had another: once a year, they declared war on the helots, so that their young men could kill any who seemed insubordinate without incurring the legal guilt of homicide. Helots could be emancipated by the state, but not by their masters; they were emancipated, rather rarely, for exceptional bravery in battle.
At some time during the eighth century B.C. the Spartans conquered the neighbouring country of Messenia, and reduced most of its inhabitants to the condition of helots. There had been a lack of Lebensraum in Sparta, but the new territory, for a time, removed this source of discontent.
Lots were for the common run of Spartans; the aristocracy had estates of their own, whereas the lots were portions of common land assigned by the state.
The free inhabitants of other parts of Laconia, called «perioeci,» had no share of political power.
The sole business of a Spartan citizen was war, to which he was trained from birth. Sickly children were exposed after inspection by the heads of the tribe; only those judged vigorous were allowed to be reared. Up to the age of twenty, all the boys were trained in one big school; the purpose of the training was to make them hardy, indifferent to pain, and submissive to discipline. There was no nonsense about cultural or scientific education; the sole aim was to produce good soldiers, wholly devoted to the state.
At the age of twenty, actual military service began. Marriage was permitted to any one over the age of twenty, but until the age of thirty a man had to live in the «men’s house,» and had to manage his marriage as if it were an illicit and secret affair. After thirty, he was a full-fledged citizen. Every citizen belonged to a mess, and dined with the other members; he had to make a contribution in kind from the produce of his lot. It was the theory of the state that no Spartan citizen should be destitute, and none should be rich. Each was ex-
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* Bury, History of Greece, I, p. 138. It seems that Spartan men ate nearly six times as much as their wives.
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pected to live on the produce of his lot, which he could not alienate except by free gift. None was allowed to own gold or silver, and the money was made of iron. Spartan simplicity became proverbial.
The position of women in Sparta was peculiar. They were not secluded, like respectable women elsewhere in Greece. Girls went through the same physical training as was given to boys; what is more remarkable, boys and girls did their gymnastics together, all being naked. It was desired (I quote Plutarch Lycurgus in North’s translation):
that the maidens should harden their bodies with exercise of running, wrestling, throw the bar, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit wherewith they might be afterwards conceived, taking nourishment of a strong and lusty body, should shoot out and spread the better: and that they by gathering strength thus by exercises, should more easily away with the pains of child bearing. . . . And though the maidens did show themselves thus naked openly, yet was there no dishonesty seen nor offered, but all this sport was full of play and toys, without any youthful part or wantonness.
Men who would not marry were made «infamous by law,» and compelled, even in the coldest weather, to walk up and down naked outside the place where the young people were doing their exercises and dances.
Women were not allowed to exhibit any emotion not profitable to the State. They might display contempt for a coward, and would be praised if he were their son; but they might not show grief if their new-born child was condemned to death as a weakling, or if their sons were killed in battle. They were considered, by other Greeks, exceptionally chaste; at the same time, a childless married woman would raise no objection if the state ordered her to find out whether some other man would be more successful than her husband in begetting citizens. Children were encouraged by legislation. According to Aristotle, the father of three sons was exempt from military service, and the father of four from all the burdens of the state.
The constitution of Sparta was complicated. There were two kings, belonging to two different families, and succeeding by heredity. One or other of the kings commanded army in time of war, but in time of peace their powers were limited. At communal feasts they
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got twice as much to eat as any one else, and there was general mourning when one of them died. They were members of the Council of Elders, a body consisting of thirty men (including the kings); the other twenty-eight must be over sixty, and were chosen for life by the whole body of the citizens, but only from aristocratic families. The Council tried criminal cases, and prepared matters which were to come before the Assembly. This body (the Assembly) consisted of all the citizens; it could not initiate anything, but could vote yes or no to any proposal brought before it. No law could be enacted without its consent. But its consent, though necessary, was not sufficient; the elders and magistrates must proclaim the decision before it became valid.
In addition to the kings, the Council of Elders, and the Assembly, there was a fourth branch of the government, peculiar to Sparta. This was the five ephors. These were chosen out of the whole body of the citizens, by a method which Aristotle says was «too childish,» and which Bury says was virtually by lot. They were a «democratic» element in the constitution, * apparently intended to balance the kings. Every month the kings swore to uphold the constitution, and the ephors then swore to uphold the kings so long as they remained true to their oath. When either king went on a warlike expedition, two ephors accompanied him to watch over his behaviour. The ephors were the supreme civil court, but over the kings they had criminal jurisdiction.
The Spartan constitution was supposed, in later antiquity, to have been due to a legislator named Lycurgus, who was said to have promulgated his laws in 885 B.C. In fact, the Spartan system grew up gradually, and Lycurgus was a mythical person, originally a god. His name meant «wolf-repeller,» and his origin was Arcadian.
Sparta aroused among the other Greeks an admiration which is to us somewhat surprising. Originally, it had been much less different from other Greek cities than it became later; in early days it produced poets and artists as good as those elsewhere. But about the seventh century B.C., or perhaps even later, its constitution (falsely attributed to Lycurgus) crystallized into the form we have been considering;
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* In speaking of «democratic» elements in the Spartan constitution, one must of course remember that the
