Sparta

(Lacedaemon) originally an ancient Greek city-state (polis) in the Eurotas River Valley, in the area known as Laco-nia, and later, from the sixth to the first century B.C., a state occupying the southern Peloponnesus.

According to the Iliad, Sparta was one of the 12 Achaean communities of Laconia, ruled by the mythical king Menelaus. Around the 12th century, during the Dorian invasion of the Peloponnesus, almost all the Achaean settlements, apparently Sparta as well, were destroyed. Judging from archaeological data, a new, Dorian settlement, also called Sparta, arose on the bank of the Eurotas River in the tenth and ninth centuries, evidently as a result of the merger (synoecism) of two communities, one Dorian and the other Achaean. One of the two royal dynasties that ruled in Sparta (the Agidai) descended from Achaean kings of the pre-Dorian period. Between the eighth and the sixth centuries, Sparta, in the course of a lengthy struggle, conquered such neighboring regions as fertile Messenia to the west in the second half of the eighth century and Cynuria to the east in the sixth century.

All of Sparta’s land, both in Laconia and in conquered areas, was considered the property of the state and was, according to legend, divided into 9,000 or 10,000 equal cleruchies, which were given to full citizens of Sparta, called Spartiates, for hereditary use without the right of sale or subdivision. (For this reason a community of Spartiates was usually called a “community of equals.”) The cleruchial allotments were worked by Helots, who were bound to the land without rights and who responded to the brutal treatment they received with constant disturbances and rebellions, the largest of which occurred from 464 to 458 or 455 B.C. In addition to the Helots, there was another group of dependent inhabitants, the Perioeci, who were personally free but deprived of political rights. Descendants of the indigenous population of Sparta, the Perioeci were Sparta’s artisans and traders. The Spartiates themselves did not engage in economic activity, which according to legend, had been forbidden to them by Lycurgus in the ninth and eighth centuries. Lycurgus is credited with having established the Spartan way of life. Under the laws of Lycurgus, Spartiates were to devote themselves entirely to military pursuits from the age of seven virtually until old age. In the Spartan community all aspects of life were imbued with a stern military spirit.

Sparta’s political system was distinguished by archaic traits dating from remote antiquity. The highest body was the Apella, a popular assembly without legislative power. The state was headed by two kings, one from the Eurypontidai and the other from the Agidai dynasty. The kings headed the militia and performed various religious functions. Their authority was limited by the Gerousia, a council of elders selected from among the most distinguished Spartiates, which dealt with the most important matters of domestic and foreign policy. Elected by the popular assembly, the Ephorate was the highest supervisory body. It apparently originated as early as the mid-eighth century and subsequently became increasingly powerful.

With respect to its economy, Sparta was among the agrarian communities of Greece, backward in comparison with Athens and Corinth. Its handicrafts and trade were poorly developed, and it long preserved vestiges of primitive communal relations. In the late sixth century Sparta headed the Peloponnesian League, which united the military forces of the Peloponnesus. Supported by its allies, Sparta sought to extend its influence beyond the Peloponnesus. After the outbreak of the Greco-Persian Wars (500–449 B.C.), Sparta nominally headed the defensive alliance of the Greek states. However, when military operations shifted to the sea, Sparta, strong on land, was obliged to yield the leading role to Athens. In 478–477, Sparta and its allies withdrew from the Greek alliance.

A struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece, during which Sparta sought the support of the most reactionary oligarchic strata, led to the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.). After winning the war, Sparta was firmly established for a time as the leader of Greece. However, Sparta’s flagrant interference in the internal affairs of the Greek city-states, where it forcibly set up oligarchic regimes, and its permissiveness with respect to Persia (which sought to subjugate Greece by taking advantage of its weakened condition) provoked a general dissatisfaction with Sparta and led to the formation of a hostile coalition of Greek cities and to the outbreak of the Corinthian War (395–387 B.C.). At the cost of acknowledging Persian hegemony over the cities of Asia Minor and concluding the Peace of Antalcidas (or King’s Peace), humiliating for all Greeks, Sparta succeeded in maintaining her hegemony for a short time.

Sparta’s participation in Greek affairs put an end to its former isolation. The enormous booty that had fallen into the hands of the Spartan military leaders and Sparta’s inclusion in interpolis trade contributed to the breakdown of the “communities of equals.” A law issued by the ephor Epitadeus around 400 permitted the transfer of property, including land, as a gift or by a will, thereby establishing the principle of private ownership of land. By about the middle of the fourth century all the land in Sparta was held by 100 families, and the number of full Spartiates had decreased to 700. The political struggle within Sparta intensified. Internal strife weakened Sparta militarily, and during a war with Thebes and its ally Athens, Sparta sustained major defeats at Leuctra in 371 and Mantinea in 362. The defeats resulted in the collapse of the Peloponnesian League and the loss of Messenia. Sparta was reduced to a secondary state.

During the Hellenistic period (third and second centuries B.C.) the social conflicts in Sparta were exacerbated by the struggle of the poorer citizens to obtain land. The attempts of the reform-minded kings Agis IV and later Cleomenes III to introduce radical reforms with the support of the poorer strata of the free population were unsuccessful owing to the resistance of the large landowners and the military intervention of the Achaean League and Macedonia in Sparta’s affairs. In 207 the tyrant Nabis seized power in Sparta and implemented a number of radical reforms to restore the state’s military capability. He confiscated some of the land held by large landowners and allocated parcels to landless Spartiates and many Helots, whom he included among the citizens. However, after the intervention of the Achaean League and Rome, the oligarchic system was restored in Sparta. In 146, sharing the fate of all of Greece, Sparta fell under Roman rule and retained only limited freedom. It became part of the Roman province of Achaea in 27 B.C.

a city in Greece, in the southern Peloponnesus, along the middle course of the Eurotas River. Administrative center of the nome of Laconia; population, 11,000 (1971). There are smallscale enterprises of the food, textile, tobacco, and chemical industries. Near the modern city of Sparta are the ruins of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta.