Spartan Society

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Spartan Society

• Social
  Structure

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Social Systems

• social organization the people in a society
  considered as a system organized by a
  characteristic pattern of relationships The
  Social System is the parent system of
  legal,economic , political and cultural systems
• Stratification is instrumental in the belief
  forming process. It not only places people above
  others but proves legitimacy for the claim
• Structural functional analysts suggest that
  social stratification is beneficial in helping to
  stabilize a society. Conflict theorists consider
  the inaccessibility of resources and lack of
  social mobility as a destabilizing factor.

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• The organization in the classical period of
  Spartan Society can be summarized under three
  headings First a political system in which power
  and decision making were divided among the Kings,
  ephors, Elders and Assembly
• Secondly, a military and economic system
  according to which full citizenship was extended
  to a body of several thousand men who became full
  time hoplites supported by produce delivered by
  the helots who worked their lands
• Thirdly a social and ritual system as part of
  which every citizen was compelled, especially
  during upbringing to accept a common public way
  of life Stephen Hodkinson
• The successful operation of these three systems
  was to produce uniformity and the achievement of
  Eunomia

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The Social System

• The way of life put into practice three
  principles which had only played a minor role in
  the aristocratic society of the 7th century.
• Uniformity. Thucydides comments that it was the
  Lakedaimonians who first began to dress simply
  and that in general the rich as far as possible
  adopted an equal style of life with the many
• Secondly, the priority of collective interests
  over private ones, enshrined in the compulsory
  nature of the common messes
• Conformity to regulations, specific types of
  action and standards of behaviour
• The compromise however with the influences of the
  past was the influence of wealth, birth, personal
  merit and seniority

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Equilibrium in society
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Social Hierarchy Sparta had a common way of
life based on a common education and training, a
shared way of life and an equal standard of
living D H KellyIn reality , however Spartan
society was anything but equal
Perioicoi
Perioicoi
Perioicoi
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Spartiates

• Spartiate Citizenship was based on four criteria
• Birth Proof of descent from original Dorian
  conquerors
• Training Submission to and completion of the
  Agoge
• Ownership of a plot of public land ( kleros )
• Membership of and continued payment of
  contributions to a syssition

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Spartiates

• The original Dorian descendents, who never
  numbered more than 10,000
• They were full time soldiers owing total
  obedience to the state
• The State supported them by giving them an
  allotment of public land ( kleros ) and helots to
  work it.
• They were forbidden to engage in farming, trade
  and industry
• All equal under the law, there is some historical
  controversy concerning an inner nobility based
  either on wealth, prestige or valour.

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Loss of Citizenship

• Loss of citizenship, for whatever reason resulted
  in social isolation. Special clothes were worn,
  exercise was taken alone and they were excluded
  from participation in religious festivals and the
  Assembly meetings
• Xenophon writes that Lycurgus excluded from the
  citizen body anyone who shrank from the rigorous
  customs of Spartan life

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InferiorsHypomeiones
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TresantesTremblers

• Loss of citizenship could result from crime or
  more commonly cowardice in battle.
• As well as the social exclusion, if they had
  daughters no one would marry them and if they
  wished to marry, themselves, no one would give
  their daughter to them
• A fear of the consequence of wholesale disgrace
  was seen after Leuctra when the offenders were
  too numerous, at a time when the State was in
  need of soldiers. Agesilaus subsequently took the
  unfortunates on an expedition when some plunder
  was taken and a small town defeated. Honour was
  thus redeemed and citizenship restored. There was
  evidently limit to the stern discipline of Sparta

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Plutarch on Spartan Cowardice

• When sides are being picked for a ball game
  that sort of man is left outand in dances he is
  banished to the insulting places. Moreover in the
  streets he is required to give way as well as to
  give up his seat even to younger men. The girls
  of his family he has to support at home and must
  explain to them why they cannot get husbands. He
  must endure having a household with no wife and
  at the same time he has to pay a fine for this.

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Tyrtaeus
It is beautiful when a brave man of the front
ranks falls and dies, battling for his homeland,
and ghastly when a man flees planted fields and
city and wanders begging with his mother, ageing
father, little children and true wife. He will be
scorned in every village, reduced to want and
loathsome poverty and shame will brand his
family line, his noble figure. Derision and
disaster will hound him. A turncoat gets no
respect or pity so let us battle for our country
and freely give our lives to save our darling
children. Young men, fight shield to shield and
never succumb to panic or miserable flight.
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Mothaces or Mothones

• Mothaces were young helots who had been playmates
  and training partners of Spartiate boys. They
  would therefore have undergone some of the
  training of the Agoge

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Neodamodeis

• These were helots who were given their freedom by
  the State for some meritorious action
• It seems they never attained the status of equal
  but in return for their freedom were liable for
  military service
• Thucydides tells us that Agesilaus took 2,000 of
  them to Asia
• In earlier times helots had been employed as
  batman, shield carriers or light armed
  skirmishers. Herodotus, prone to numerical
  exaggeration tells us that there 35,000 Helots at
  the Battle of Plataea. They thus had ample
  opportunity to achieve meritorious acts of
  valour.
• An exceptional group, 700 helots taken by
  Brasidas in Chalcidice were given their freedom
  for gallantry in the field. They were called
  Brasideioi. They were allowed to live wherever
  they pleased and were no longer tied to the
  cleroi of their masters. Thucydides tells us that
  they were settled on the borders of Laconia and
  Elis, and is likely that they were absorbed into
  the Perioicoi communities

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Parthenai

• Some time after the close of the First Messenian
  War there occurred an incident called the
  insurrection of the Parthenai and the
  subsequent colonization of them at Tarentum.
• The Spartans who had marched out to the war had
  taken 19 years to return home victorious. Spartan
  women were left alone and the birth rate fell
  dramatically. It was decreed that they should
  seek temporary unions and from these the numerous
  Parthenai were born. After the war the Parthenai
  sons were looked down upon and an uprising was
  planned and led by Phalanthus. The plot was
  revealed but the numbers so many that they were
  forced to emigrate
• The controversy in the story exists over exactly
  who were the fathers of these illegitimate
  children. Aristotle tells us that they were
  Spartans who for whatever reason had not gone to
  Messenia. Theopompus says they were helots who
  were subsequently given citizenship, although
  this seems highly doubtful.

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Helots

• Pre Dorian inhabitants conquered by Spartans, in
  Laconia and Messenia
• They had no rights and freedom could only be
  granted by the State
• They were state owned and lived with their
  families on the lands of Spartiates. They could
  not move without the states permission
• Their main duty was to supply a fixed amount of
  produce annually to Spartan masters. Once this
  was done they were free to make a profit.
• Often acted as servants and light armed
  skirmishers in times of war
• Tyrtaeus describes them as asses under great
  loads under painful necessity to bring their
  masters full half the fruits their ploughed land
  produced

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Perioicoidwellers around
1. The very term perioikoi those who dwell
around connotes a subordinate relationship 2.Auton
omous and self governing in their own
communities, they were people of mixed origin.
Shipley makes the comment that distance from
Sparta was a limiting factor in the degree of
active intervention and control 3.Were not
allowed to intermarry with Spartiates 4.Their
chief contribution to the Spartans was
economic-engaged in trade and industry
particularly weapons and armour 5.Were expected
to contribute militarily in times of war