SOURCE: Hooker, J. T. “The Idea of Sparta.” In The Ancient Spartans, pp. 230-40. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1980.

[In the following essay, Hooker focuses on the contributions of such antique writers as Thucydides, Plato, and Plutarch to the legend of classical, Lycurgan Sparta.]

… [The] idea or legend of ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta clearly emerged in Xenophon's Constitution of the Spartans. In that work, Xenophon distinguished the Lycurgan ideal (which had no shortcoming whatever) from the contemporary reality, caused by the intrusion of wealth and the habits and morals of barbarians. The contrast between real and ideal runs like a continuous thread through many of the allusions to Sparta made by the ancient Greek authors. Although, no doubt, elements of the Spartan legend were in existence before the Persian Wars, we can trace its development only as far back as that epoch. And already we are confronted by the two prominent facets of the legend. The ideal is represented by Leonidas, the archetype of the Spartan warrior, who devotes his life to the state and who abhors two things above all: cowardice in battle and disobedience of his country's laws. Pausanias too is deeply versed in the Lycurgan way of life and remains blameless, even heroic, so long as he follows it. But when he turns aside from it, he too becomes an archetype: the simple soldier who once looked with contemptuous incredulity upon the luxury displayed in Mardonius' tent is in the end seduced by that very luxury; and the citizen, who previously merged himself with the state, goes off on a private errand and works against his countrymen. Herodotus heard at Sparta of these men, whose character and career had passed into legend: the noble king who fell at Thermopylae and the flawed regent who met a shameful death in his own city. It is as if a moral tale had been woven about the two figures, to serve as a warning example to future generations of Spartiates; and the tale was spiced with short, pithy sayings, illustrative of Spartan practical wisdom, of the type found in the ‘Spartan apophthegms’ later collected in Plutarch's Moralia.

Thus a suggestion can be made as to the approximate time at which the Spartan legend first became crystallized and as to the manner in which it was enshrined in Hellenic literature: the Spartiates fashioned the legend in the early decades of the fifth century, and Herodotus propagated it in his History. Now there arises a more difficult question: once the legend of the ideal Sparta had come into being, why did it not wither away at the end of the fifth century, when the Spartans manifestly no longer abode by the Lycurgan kosmos? Or, if the power of propaganda managed to keep the legend alive even then, how did it survive the disastrous Spartan defeats of 371 and 362, after which Sparta had little means of influencing the opinions of the other Greeks? In order to answer these questions, we have to bear in mind the predilections and prejudices of the writers who were chiefly responsible for the continuation of the Spartan legend in the fifth and fourth centuries. These authors were all Athenians, or at least men who came to live and work at Athens. What was it they saw in Sparta (the very antithesis of their own great city, as Thucydides convincingly demonstrates) that led them to throw their weight behind the legend? In one word, it was orderliness. The major prose-writers of classical Athens were far from being enamoured of extreme democracy; either (like Thucydides) they favoured a moderately democratic constitution, with restricted franchise, or (like Plato) they had no time at all for what they saw as the riotous excesses of the Athenian democrats.

Thucydides makes his partiality plain on a number of occasions. For him, the worst features of the democracy were personified in Cleon. Having once bent the citizens to his will by brutal speeches and violent actions, Cleon used his power to pursue private vendettas. In Thucydides' eyes such a man was no better than a despot. Thucydides finds that the perfect balance is achieved in an assembly containing a select number of citizens. Thus he comes out in support of the assembly of Five Thousand, established after the loss of Euboea in 411: ‘during its first phase the Athenians obviously had their best constitution, at least in my life-time; there was a moderate mixture of the few and the many’ (8.97.2). But the Athenian assembly of Five Thousand was a short-lived institution: it was at Sparta that the desirable compromise formed a permanent feature of the political system. This opinion Thucydides expresses in speaking of the people of Chios: ‘the Chians alone, next to the Spartans among the people I know of, have maintained their self-control after acquiring prosperity; and the more powerful their city became, the stronger they made their government’ (8.24.4). In the following passage Thucydides speaks even more directly of the stability of the Spartan polity: ‘the Spartan state received good laws at an earlier period than did any other, and it has never come under the rule of a despot; for four hundred years or a little more the Spartans have had the same constitution’ (1.18.1). Thucydides places the ‘Lycurgan’ political settlement at much too early a date; but the important point is that he traces back the stable institutions of Sparta to a remote phase of recorded history. What impresses him most is the immutability of the organs of Spartan government. But his admiration involves him in a paradox, of which he seems scarcely to be aware. Time and time again in his own History Thucydides relates episodes which testify to the strength of the forces tending to undermine the harmonious Spartan state. The most powerful force seems to have been fear of the helots; also operative were tensions between different interests in the state, which alone can explain the frequent incoherence of Spartan policy. The Spartan state was politically stable, in the limited sense that the organs of government did retain their outward form unchanged for a very long period; but the ossification which set in was at last fatal to the well-being of the state, since there existed no constitutional channel whereby much-needed reforms could be introduced. Besides, the political stability of Sparta was not always matched by what we might call psychological stability: even apart from their hysterical fear of a helot rising (which their own conduct did so much to precipitate), the Spartiates sometimes failed to display the resignation in the face of adversity which is found at Athens: the loss of a few hundred hoplites caused greater consternation at Sparta than was induced in the Athenians by the collapse of the entire Sicilian expedition. But despite everything Thucydides looks at the ‘Lycurgan’ state and finds it praiseworthy: its laws, precisely regulating at all points the life of its citizens, have given Sparta a balanced order which leaves no room for despotism on the one hand or for mob-rule on the other. Thucydides allows the theoretical virtues of the Spartan constitution to outweigh the many practical defects; and in so doing he not merely perpetuates the Spartan legend but shows that he has himself fallen under its spell.

A gap of twenty or thirty years separates the work of Thucydides from the composition of the great dialogue of Plato's maturity, the Republic. Like Thucydides, Plato both inherited the concept of an ideal Spartan state and became aware of the moral degeneration of Spartan society after the victory over Athens. Socrates in the Republic adumbrates an imaginary city which, being founded on virtuous principles, will promote virtue in the individual citizens. The citizens will be grouped in three divisions. The highest class will comprise the ‘guardians’, who are the effective rulers of the city. Then will come the warriors, who are charged with the city's defence and with the suppression of malefactors. Finally there will be all the rest: producers, traders, financiers, and so forth. Socrates attaches the greatest possible importance to the genetic selection, education, and training of the guardian-class; and we shall see that his proposals resemble in many details the institutions of ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta. But, even before coming to the details, we apprehend how similar is Socrates' procedure in general to that ascribed to Lycurgus: Socrates undertakes to fashion an entire society according to fixed, undeviating principles, just as Lycurgus is said to have done; and, however admirable and exactly formulated the principles may be, both the real city of Lycurgus and the imaginary one of Socrates contain within them the seeds of their own decline.

As we watch the gradual unfolding of Socrates' ideal city in the third, fourth, and fifth books of the Republic, we keep catching hints of Sparta—even though the name ‘Sparta’ is hardly ever mentioned. An important part of the guardians' training consists of a flexible kind of gymnastics, which prepares them for war and the endurance of pain and hardship; furthermore their diet must be frugal, and their lives free from sexual irregularities (Republic 3.404a-e). The same goes for the Spartiates, of course; and a further resemblance to Sparta is seen in the injunction to the guardians to expose children who are born with defects—whether these are physical, mental, or moral (3.410a). Like the Spartiates, the guardians are to eat in communal messes and live together like soldiers on campaign; in addition, they are to have no truck with gold or silver (the very presence of these metals would contaminate them) (3.417a-b). The guardians may not journey abroad on their own occasions, any more than the citizens of Sparta are allowed to do (4.420a). Just as the citizenship of unworthy Spartiates could be rescinded, so a guardian might be removed into one of the other classes; the guardians should possess wives and property in common; the unity and harmony of the state are paramount, and each individual contributes to its welfare in the manner dictated by his own nature; the state, once established, is to be a highly conservative one, with the guardians taking care to prevent innovations in gymnastics or in music (4.423c-424b). The young must be silent and respectful in the presence of their elders, rising when they enter or leave (4.425b). The women among the guardians (just like the daughters of Spartiates) are to follow the men's example and engage in gymnastic exercises lightly clothed (5.452b). Absolutely typical of the Spartan system is Socrates' provision that the soldier who leaves the ranks or throws away his weapons or commits similar cowardly acts should be demoted from the class of guardians to that of workmen or farmers (5.468a).

In promulgating (through the mouth of Socrates) a society which has so many points of contact with Sparta, Plato did a great deal to perpetuate the Spartan legend. What appealed to him most about Sparta was that the individual had no right to a life of his own: his interests were identified completely with the interests of the state. It was the denial of this healthy principle (in Plato's eyes) that led to extreme democracy, which Plato regarded as tantamount to anarchy. But Plato apprehended with great clarity the process of decline in the Spartan state, which he feared would be reflected in his ideal city. He traces the decline in a passage of great vividness and power. A passionate temper comes to the fore in the city. Strife arises between two factions: one bent on evil new ways, the acquisition of property, of gold, and of silver; the other trying to return to the ancient constitution. This strife is resolved by a compromise, which leads to the retention of some of the healthy features but the acquisition of some less desirable ones. The two sides agree to relinquish their original practice of holding goods in common; they now divide the land into lots for private ownership; they enslave the free population whose protectors they previously were, and make them outlanders or slaves; finally they keep a close watch on their slaves, as they busy themselves with war (Republic 8.547b-c). This description of the city's decline is not to be understood as a fragment of the actual history of Sparta: it shows, rather, what is liable to happen when a certain stage is reached in political development. Still, the blameworthy results of the compromise resemble very closely some notorious aspects of Sparta: that is to say ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta, even before degeneration had set in at the end of the fifth century.

Socrates proceeds with his merciless analysis, as he paints the portrait of a state adhering to the ancient simplicity, partly following a new course of selfishness, avarice, and deceit. The warriors still respect the magistrates; they still abstain from farming, artisanship, and all forms of business; they still eat in their communal messes, and practise athletics and martial exercises. On the other hand, the intellectual vigour of the state is stultified. Clever men are no longer admitted to high office; and the state comes under the sway of simple-minded and passionate leaders, who better understand the waging of war than the promotion of peaceful arts. With such persons in control, there arises a fierce lust for gold; but, since the laws forbid its possession, it and the pleasures it buys have to be enjoyed in secret. And what has brought the once-great city to such a pass? The fact that the citizens have been constrained, not persuaded, to obey the laws; but all along the laws themselves, good though they were so far as they went, wholly neglected a vital element of the human personality. Devotion to war has driven out the higher arts of civilization; gymnastic training usurps the place of philosophy and music (Republic 8.545d-548c).

When he took up these questions again in the Laws, Plato showed much greater liking for the ‘mixed’ constitution of Sparta, but held to his belief that the Spartans had taken a wrong turn in directing the entire activity of their state towards the achievement of military victories. At the same time, the new city whose foundation is discussed in the Laws bears an unmistakable resemblance to Sparta; and we may say that of all the actual cities which existed in Greece it was Sparta which held for Plato more promising features than any other—even if these had been imperfectly realized. The discussion in the Laws concerns the formulation of a set of laws and principles for the government of an imaginary colony. The participants are an Athenian (who speaks for Plato himself), a Spartan, and a Cretan. Plato now holds that there were in origin two kinds of constitution, monarchy and democracy, but the best consists of a mixture of these two (Laws 3.693d-e). The Spartan constitution, in fact, seems to offer an excellent balance. The ephorate is a despotic element; and yet, considered from another point of view, the Spartan state is highly democratic. Again, it is an aristocracy; but a monarchy too, and a very ancient one (4.712d-e).

Both the location and some of the practices of the new colony remind one irresistibly of Sparta—although, remarkably enough, the constitution is framed rather on the Athenian model than on the Spartan. Coined money will be completely absent; the debilitating effects of oversea trade will be offset by establishing the colony at some distance from the sea; self-sufficiency will remove the need for imports. The available land is to be divided into 5,040 estates and, so far as possible, the citizens will own equal amounts of property: at all events, both a minimum and a maximum are to be set for their holdings. The citizens are to eat in communal messes; respect for elders and for those in authority will be enforced; both boys and girls will have to undergo training according to a system prescribed and supervised by the state (Laws 5.743d-745c, 6.762c-766b). In the Laws, as in the Republic, Plato admires the thoroughgoing way in which individual interests at Sparta have been subsumed in the interests of the state; so that, despite the democratic element which is undeniably present in the Spartan constitution, the anarchic tendencies of a pure democracy have been restrained. But Plato's objections to the Spartan system as a whole remain the same: the system is that of a military camp, not that of people living together in towns; the entire aim of the state-controlled education is the training of warriors, and instruction in politics and the arts is left out of account (Laws 2.666e-667a).

The views of Sparta held by Aristotle, Plato's greatest successor, have been discussed [elsewhere]. … Aristotle was no less critical of Sparta than Plato had been; nevertheless he lent his authority to one important aspect of the Spartan legend, namely the stability and permanence of Spartan institutions. The development of the legend may be traced further by examining two other Athenian writers of the fourth century, Isocrates and Lycurgus. Their intellectual powers were negligible, compared with those of Plato or Aristotle; yet, for that very reason, they may have something to tell us about the influence of the Spartan legend upon Athenians who were involved in fourth century politics. Three works taken from the very long career of Isocrates display the same ambiguity of response to the Spartan legend that has already been noted in Thucydides and Plato. Isocrates differs from Plato in having a deep commitment to the Athenian way of life: a commitment most eloquently expressed in the Panegyricus, delivered in 380 or thereabouts. Isocrates deplores Sparta's negotiations which led to the King's Peace and her exploitation of the Peace itself; it is in Athens that the glory of Hellas resides, and Athens must retrieve the self-respect of the Greeks by leading a joint expedition against the Persian empire. The co-leader ought to be Sparta; but a Sparta who has purged herself of her evil propensities and returned to the ancient virtue she showed in the Persian Wars.

In the Panegyricus Isocrates spoke with anger and scorn of the selfish policies then being pursued by Sparta: so unlike the glorious stand she had once taken for pan-Hellenic freedom. By 366, to which year Isocrates' Archidamus belongs, the Spartan supremacy was over, and Thebes was felt to be the common enemy of Sparta and of Athens. The Archidamus is a speech supposed to be made by the Spartan prince of that name, the son of Agesilaus, at an allied congress. His theme concerns Epaminondas' grant of freedom to the Messenians and his foundation of Messene: the two actions of Thebes which harmed Sparta more than any other. Archidamus argues that Sparta has a claim on Messenia which goes back to a time when the Messenians killed their king Cresphontes, and the king's sons made over their country to Sparta as a reward for her avenging Cresphontes. And as for the Thebans, what are they? A people who have only lately come to prominence: longstanding friends of the barbarian, and themselves recently guilty of aggressive acts against Greek cities. In such terms Isocrates' Archidamus justifies both the past history of Sparta and her present grievances. Does the speech, then, represent a complete denial of the position taken up by Isocrates in the Panegyricus? It is rather that events in Greece have hurried on since then: in 380 Sparta was seen by many Athenians (perhaps by most) as a crude and unenlightened bully, who had acquired her pre-eminent place by conspiring with Persia; but fourteen years later, by an unpredictable reverse, Thebes had become the enemy, and it was easy for Isocrates to take a longer view and bring to mind the contributions once made by Sparta to the welfare and security of the Greeks.

In his Panathenaicus, written in extreme old age and published in 339, Isocrates reverts to the theme of the Panegyricus. Again his praise of Athens leads him to denigrate Sparta: a city, as he mentions in a telling phrase, ‘which most people praise in a modest way, although some speak of Sparta as if a race of heroes carried on the government there’ (Panathenaicus 41). The vehemence of the succeeding attack on Sparta surpasses that of the Panegyricus. Then, by an astonishing literary device, which remains incomprehensible to this day, Isocrates introduces a pupil of his to present the Spartan view-point! The device may indeed be inept, but Isocrates would not have resorted to it at all unless he were to some extent in the grip of the Spartan legend. It was quite natural for a man like Isocrates, born into a prosperous Athenian family, to dilate upon the greatness of his native city; but hardly less natural to admire, however grudgingly, the achievements of Sparta. And those achievements are delineated by the ‘pupil’ in terms which by now have become thoroughly familiar to us. They comprise first of all the establishment of a society so harmonious that political strife and revolution are completely unknown (by implicit contrast to the instability at Athens), secondly the cultivation of valour beyond that attained by any other Greek state (Panathenaicus 255-259). The latter aspect aroused the enthusiastic endorsement of Lycurgus in his speech Against Leocrates, delivered in 330. He was concerned not with contemporary Sparta but with the self-confident strength possessed by the Spartans in former days: their uncompromising attitude towards traitors and cowards gave good evidence of this (129-130).

The dominant traits of the Spartan legend had been expressed in such a definitive manner during Isocrates' life-time that they were not afterwards lost sight of. In the second half of the third century, the legend of ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta was invoked to help redress abuses which had arisen at Sparta itself; and, although in the end the movement towards reform was unsuccessful, the legend was left unimpaired and even more potent than before. Two Spartan kings, the Eurypontid Agis IV (reigned 244-241) and the Agiad Cleomenes III (236-222), initiated the reforms. Their story was told by Phylarchus, an Athenian writer with strong pro-Spartan leanings; he depicted the kings as heroic figures who sought to bring back Sparta to the ways of Lycurgus but who were crushed by selfish enemies. Phylarchus' account forms the basis of the Lives of Agis and Cleomenes by Plutarch; and these deeply prejudiced documents form practically our only source of information for the reforming movement. Agis set himself to arrest the decline in population by allotting 4,500 estates to Spartiates and fifteen thousand to outlanders (the number of Spartiates to be made up by enfranchising suitable outlanders and foreigners); at the same time, all debts were to be rescinded. It is interesting to see that (if we believe Phylarchus) Lycurgus' prescriptions remain the standard: Agis appeals to the laws of Lycurgus to justify his reforms, and so does the Agiad king Leonidas II in opposition to them. In the event Leonidas and his party prevailed before Agis' reforms could be fully realized, and Agis himself was done to death.

When Cleomenes III succeeded Leonidas, he saw that only a far-reaching political change would enable the social wrongs to be corrected. The reform he first proposed was nothing else than the abolition of the ephorate. This he accomplished, but by violent means (which he claimed to deprecate). Once again Phylarchus says that the action was justified by reference to Lycurgus. Cleomenes stated that the ephorate was of later growth than the kings and the Council, which together had constituted the government in Lycurgus' time; ephors (continued Cleomenes) were first appointed by the kings when the latter were absent on campaign, so as to attend to the daily business of the city; but in time the ephors became intolerably powerful, forming an obstacle to all reforms, however urgently these were needed (Plutarch Life of Cleomenes 10.1-3). With the ephors gone, Cleomenes brought about the changes promised by Agis. The institutions of ‘Lycurgan’ Sparta were revived, so far as was practicable; the number of citizens was made up to the number of four thousand by the co-optation of outlanders; the agoge was restored in its full rigour; and athletic exercises and communal messes resumed their old place in the life of the citizens. The new ‘Lycurgan’ regime lasted only for five years. Cleomenes' vigorous leadership made the Achaean League fear the resurgence of Spartan military power in the Peloponnese. The Macedonian king Antigonus was called in; he brought an army to Laconia, defeated Cleomenes in battle, and forced him into exile. Antigonus then made his way to Sparta and undid all the reforms carried through by Cleomenes.

It is unnecessary to emphasize the hold which the romantic and idealized version of the Lycurgan legend exercised over the mind of Agis and of Cleomenes. What may be of greater interest is the observation that the actions and words of the reformers, as recorded by Phylarchus, have in their turn influenced the development of the legend. We read in Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus that the lawgiver promulgated his reforms in the same violent manner which Cleomenes found it necessary to adopt; there are, in addition, similarities of phrasing between the Life of Lycurgus and the Life of Agis which suggest that the account of Lycurgus' career has been reshaped so as to conform to that of the young king.

In the time of the Roman Republic, Sparta had an implacable enemy in Polybius. Several times in his History, Polybius seized the opportunity of condemning Spartan actions, especially those perpetrated during the supremacy of the fourth century. For Polybius, as for Xenophon, such actions are blameworthy because they represent a falling-away from the institutions of Lycurgus, and especially from the political system he had founded at Sparta. The Spartan constitution interests Polybius not so much for its own sake but because it shares with the Roman a ‘mixed’ character, incorporating the best features of other systems and avoiding the worst.

The Empire witnesses a development at Sparta which we might find astonishing if we were not already aware of the romantic legend and the extent to which it captivated later generations. Imperial Sparta was, of course, no more free and independent than any other city in Greece; but, out of deference to its distinguished past, it was allowed to use certain titles and to indulge in a way of life that was supposed to recall the city of Lycurgus. The numerous inscriptions at the Orthia sanctuary dating from the Roman period show that at some time the agoge was revived, at least to the extent of employing the old names for the age-classes. The chief contests in which the boys took part were those of hunting and singing: the victors dedicated inscribed stones in the sanctuary of the goddess. In the third century a.d. a theatre was built to accommodate the spectators who witnessed the contests and also the flagellation of the boys. So it was that the people of Sparta, utterly bereft of political power and having long since lost kings and ephors, cherished for hundreds of years a small part of their Lycurgan inheritance. Learned antiquarianism was, no doubt, responsible to some extent; but so was the desire to present a popular attraction to tourists by the banks of the Eurotas. An interesting literary reference to the condition of Sparta under the Empire is found in Philostratus' Life of the neo-Pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana. In the course of his travels he comes to Sparta:

Crossing the Taygetus, he saw Sparta bustling with activity and the ancestral practices of Lycurgus being zealously followed. He thought it would be agreeable to converse with the Spartan authorities on matters they wished to ask him about. So on his arrival they asked him in what manner gods should be revered. ‘Like masters,’ was his reply. ‘And in what manner heroes?’ ‘Like fathers.’ Their third question was: ‘and in what manner should men be revered?’ ‘Your question,’ he said, ‘is not suitable for Spartans’.

(Life of Apollonius 4.21)

The pregnant, and truly ‘Laconic’, remarks attributed to Apollonius remind us of the great store of apophthegms preserved by Plutarch. These, together with Plutarch's ‘Spartan institutions’ and above all his Life of Lycurgus, rounded out and enriched the Spartan legend. Since Plutarch was so widely read at the time of the renaissance, he was to a large extent responsible for the transmission of the legend to the modern world.

Bibliography

The idea of Sparta in antiquity: F. Ollier, Le mirage spartiate I-II (Paris, 1933-1943); G. Mathieu, RP [Revue de Philologie] 72 (1946), 144-52; P. H. Epps in Studies in honor of Ullman (St. Louis 1960), 35-47; E. N. Tigerstedt, The legend of Sparta in classical antiquity I-III (Stockholm, 1965-1978). Herodotus and Sparta: B. Niese, Hermes 42 (1907), 419-68. Plato and Sparta: G. R. Morrow, Plato's Cretan city (Princeton, 1960). Plato's Laws and the Spartan messes: E. David, AJP [American Journal of Philology] 99 (1978), 486-95. Aristotle and Sparta: P. Cloché, LEC [Les Etudes Classiques] 11 (1942), 289-313. Isocrates and Sparta: P. Cloché, REA [Revue de Etudes Anciennes] 35 (1933), 129-45. Phylarchus and Sparta: T. W. Africa, Phylarchus and the Spartan revolution (Berkeley/Los Angeles 1961). Polybius and Sparta: F. W. Walbank, ASI [Archivio Storico Italiano] 303-12.

The idea of Sparta in modern Europe: E. Rawson, The Spartan tradition in European thought (Oxford, 1969).