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B.A.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND EGYPTOLOGY Essay
Question: Is it
possible to reconstruct how and why Sparta had become so important by the time
of the Persian Wars? Essay
written by David Rohl (1st Year Ancient History/Egyptology). Submitted
to Riet van Bremen on 15th March 1988.
The
development of Sparta as a major power in Archaic Greece has been a subject of
considerable interest to scholars, not only because of the unusual society that
evolved but also because so little can be gleaned from the available evidence
as to the origins of that famous 6th and 5th century Spartan culture. What is
therefore crucial to our understanding of the rise to power of the Spartan
state is the need to establish the nature of Spartan society and, perhaps more
specifically, to trace the origins of Spartan militarism and its connection, if
any, with the arrival of the Dorians into the Peloponnese at the beginning of
the Iron Age. It
would be logical, as a first step in this process – in the light of the
arguments of previous essays – to place the events of the early period in
relation to the low-chronology model already postulated, to observe its effect
on the available evidence. At the same time, this will show that the dynasties
of kings themselves, as given to us by the later writers, indicate a Dorian
invasion sometime during the middle of the 9th century. The
chronology of the Spartan kings In
order to determine what the average reign-length of the early kings of Sparta
really was we must first take the known regnal dates for the 'historical'
period between c. 490 and 230 BC. Only by basing calculations on this period
will it be possible to determine a reasonable average reign-length and
therefore a more accurate chronology for the earlier period than currently
exists. The
calculations for the two dynasties are as follows: The
later Agiad kings From
Cleomenes III (235 BC) to Leonidas (488 BC) there are 12 kings over a period of
253 years, making an average reign-length of 21.08 years. The
later Eurypontid kings From
Eudamidas III (241 BC) to Leotychidas II (491 BC) there are 10 kings over a
period of 250 years, making an average reign- length of 25 years. Combining
both dynasties we get a total of 22 kings spanning 503 years which gives us an
even more accurate average reign-length of 22.86 years. I
therefore propose to use a 23-year average reign-length for the early Spartan
kings, rather than the traditional 30-year generation currently in use in the
modern literature, in order to obtain an approximate date for the beginning of
the Spartan dynasties and consequently, as is constantly alluded to in the
traditions, the date of the Dorian invasion itself. The
chronology of the early kings of Sparta using a 22-year average reign length AGIADS EURYPONTIDS Eurysthenes 870 Procles 859 Agis I 847 Eurypon 836 Echestratus 824 Prytanis 813 Leobotas 801 Polydectes 790 Doryssus 778 Eunomus 767 Agesilaus I 755 Charilaus 744 Archelaus 732 Nicander 721 Teleclus 709 Theopompus 698 Alcamenes 686 Anaxandridas I 675 Polydorus 663 Archidamus I 652 Eurycrates 640 Anaxilaus 629 Anaxander 617 Leotichidas I 606 Eurycratidas 594 Hippocratidas 583 Leon 571 Agasicles 560 Anaxandridas II 548 Ariston 537 Cleomenes I 525 Demaratus 514 Leonidas 488 Leotychidas 491 Note:
The discrepancy of 11 years at the beginning of the two lines reflects the
longer average reign-lengths for the Eurypontids as demonstrated in the later
part of the dynasty. Thus an extra one year added to the Eurypontid average
reign-length would bring the two lines to within a year of each other in terms
of their starting dates (i.e. around 870 BC). It may also be that the longer
reigns of the junior Eurypontid Dynasty indicates a less active military role
for these kings and that the inclusion of names like 'Eunomus' in the earlier
part of the list may reflect artificial padding in order to bring the two
dynasties back into line as a result of this discrepancy in the average reign
duration of the two lines. A
new history of Sparta leading up to the Archaic Period Having
established what I believe to be a more reasonable time-span for the period
leading up to the Persian Wars we can now introduce the historical events,
handed down to us in the ancient literature, into this new chronological
framework, to see how they might have influenced Spartan military and economic
development during the period from c. 870 BC (the rough new date for the Dorian
Invasion) to c. 500 BC (the Persian Wars). In the
new condensed sequence of events it is unnecessary to avoid using the
information given by the ancient writers. The major argument for treating this
material with extreme caution is based almost entirely on the belief that it
contains fundamental contradictions within a Dark Age chronological framework.
Because of the interpolation of this Dark Age the current basic historical
scenario for the 9th to 7th centuries is usually on the following lines, as
summarised by Fitzhardinge: When
in the ninth century the Dorians, part of the last wave of Greek-speaking
migrants to enter the peninsula, reached Laconia they found only a sparse and
scattered population with no organized centres. ... The process of settlement,
which occupied something like a century, was peaceful, except perhaps for some
skirmishes around shrines like Amyclae; there were no successive conquests such
as those imagined by Hellenistic scholars to flesh out the bare lists of kings,
and no marked racial or cultural differences. “So
much we can infer from the archaeological remains. The historical record proper
begins with the conquest of the upper Messenian plain in the third quarter of
the eighth century, when the settlement of Laconia was complete, ... The war,
which lasted twenty years, had been one of the heroic type, and the chief
beneficiaries were the nobles of the plain, ...” [1] However,
the proposed historical scenario for early Sparta that would result from a
non-Dark Age chronology could be envisaged along somewhat different lines: After
the Trojan War (c. 950 BC) there was an eighty-year period in which Thucydides
tells us that the Achaean settlements and cities fought amongst each other
whilst gradually slipping into decline [2]. There is evidence to suggest that
the migrations known to have taken place in the eastern Mediterranean at this
time may have been initiated by land hunger brought about by a dramatic
climatological change. This may also have been the reason for the arrival of
the Dorians (c. 870), firstly into the Argolid where they destroyed the
Mycenaean citadels, then southward into the rich valley of the Eurotas river
where they occupied the northern part, around the Mycenaean palace at Therapne,
and enslaved the indigenous population. Here they established the four (later
five) settlements which were to become the principal population centres of the
Spartan state. Eight kilometres to the south, at Amyclae, the remnant Achaean
nobility held out and prevented further Dorian/Spartan expansion to the south
and into the plain of Helos for a further period of roughly a century. Then,
at the beginning of the seventh century, according to Pausanias, the Spartan
warrior king Teleclus of the Agiad Dynasty overcame Amyclae and was able to
penetrate into the lower reaches of the Eurotas where the Spartans once more
enslaved the local population. This group were later to give their name to the
slave population of the whole of Spartan Laconia in the guise of the Helots. The
next generation saw a new warrior king from the Eurypontid line taking Spartan
expansion even further with the invasion of Messenia via the Langadha Pass and
the capture of the fortress of Ithome. This first Messenian war lasted 20 years
but eventually the rich valley to the west was taken and came under the sphere
of Spartan influence by around 685 BC. At this stage warfare was still
basically in the Heroic/Bronze Age tradition, but lessons were being learnt by
the Spartans during this long protracted war and a new tactical system began to
be employed thereafter. When
the Second Messenian War got underway, two generations later, the Spartan
Hoplite army was beginning to take on the familiar appearance of later battles.
After another prolonged campaign the Messenians were once more defeated and
their land re-allocated to the expanding Spartan population. From then onwards
Spartan power continued to grow in the years leading up to the Persian Wars of
the 5th century. The
case for not accepting the traditions at face value The
rather simplistic history outlined above agrees well with the ancient writers
perceptions of events and does not contradict them in anyway. Bury, however, is
quite convinced that, in terms of the traditional literature, 'The story is too
tidy to fit the archaeological evidence.' [3] Why? Because the standard chronology
of the ancient world requires that the transition between the Bronze and Iron
Age eras must have lasted well over 300 years. So the above 'neat' and 'tidy'
scenario appears to fly in the face of archaeo-chronology, according to which
this sequence of events is greatly drawn out. Indeed, at a number of points, as
a consequence of this stretching, the agents of the events apparently must have
been unconnected to each other. Thus the destruction of the Achaean/Mycenaean
settlements is attributed to unknown assailants: “In
the present state of our knowledge we cannot reliably say how the Dorian tribes
arrived in the Peloponnese. ... The palace of Therapne, standing on a hill not
far from the left bank of the middle reaches of this river, fell to unknown
assailants who were probably the men who overthrew Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos
about this time. It was not until the end of the eighth century BC that
attention was again drawn to the region, for it was then that the Dorian
Spartans took up the ancient traditions of Laconia.” [4] Everything
about this period is extended, painfully slow and uneventful – a very
uncharacteristic interlude in the historical development of Greece and, in
particular, of the Eurotas valley: “...
for a century and a half or two centuries the evidence suggests that the area
was virtually without people and certainly without any organized community.
When the valley was settled again, the newcomers used a completely different
type of pottery and generally, as at Sparta, chose new sites for their
settlements, ... Whether the newcomers brought the style with them or developed
it after arriving we do not know, nor when it began, but it ended about the
middle of the eighth century, and may perhaps have lasted for as much as two
centuries. Throughout this time the style shows little change and no outside
influence, suggesting an isolated people wholly absorbed in the arduous task of
pioneering the resettlement of the long-desolate countryside.” [5] Early
Geometric pottery development is here given an inordinate duration of two
centuries, so much so that the development was more of a stagnation – all this
based on the fact that the material remains discovered were so limited for such
an extensive time period. We also learn that the Spartans could not have been
the agent of destruction of the Mycenaean civilisation because the archaeology
implies an abandonment of the region by the Achaean population at the end of
the Bronze Age. The so-called 'evidence' for depopulation of the valley is
again the apparent lack of archaeological remains and stratigraphy. Both these
phenomena disappear with the removal of what I contend to be a phantom Dark
Age: “In
the survey of the early Dark Ages it was unfortunately necessary to admit that
there was no material of any sort, from settlement, tomb, or sanctuary, or even
from surface investigation, from anywhere within its district. ... In Laconia
itself, in fact, there is the site of Amyklai where we know from the literary
sources that the earlier god Hyakinthos continued to be worshipped into
historical times; and yet there is no archaeological evidence between L.H.IIIC
material of the twelfth century and the later artefacts which, as we shall see,
can hardly precede 1000 B.C. As there was continuity of worship, what has
happened to the offerings of the early Dark Ages?” [6] Precisely
because of this extended chronology Finley is forced to abandon all hope of
establishing a clear picture of the history of Sparta in this period and, at
the same time, is prepared to throw out the traditions which recur so
persistently in the later Classical and Hellenistic Periods: “Our
ignorance of Dark Age Sparta extends still further, to the whole of its early
institutional development. Archaeology has been even less helpful than usual
here. The only prudent course, therefore, is to turn immediately to the Archaic
period, from the early seventh century, putting aside all the efforts to
reconstruct something coherent out of the blatant fictions permeating later
traditions, including those which eventually become attached to the legendary
lawgiver Lycurgus.” [7] The
consequences of this attitude are fundamental to the modern view of early Greek
history and effect not only Sparta but also the Colonisation Movement and our
basic faith in the veracity of the major literary sources of the period. A
sorrier state of affairs could not be envisaged in the study of the Ancient
World. How entirely different our history of Greece would be if it were not for
the all pervading darkness that was supposed to have engulfed the eastern
Mediterranean between 1200 and 800 BC: “The
Greek antiquarians who put the story into writing more than 500 years
afterwards had no notion of the great breakdown of about 1200 B.C., no idea of
a Bronze Age, and therefore no sense of the very considerable time-span of the
Dark Age. They did not, and could not, know that there had been a gap of
perhaps 150 years between the destruction of Pylos (which was not the work of
the "Dorians") and the earliest movements across the Aegean, far too
long for a crowd of Pylian refugees to wait in Athens, an inherently improbable
situation anyway. ... It is fruitless to pursue in detail the later Greek
traditions about the Dark Age in Asia Minor.” [8] The
effect of the low chronology on our understanding of the origins of the Spartan
state and its rise to power The
fundamental point that obtains from a reduced chronology is that we need not
envisage a gradual influx of semi-primitive Dorian tribes from the north,
without military organisaton, noble hierarchy and the trappings of full
Homeric/Bronze Age monarchy. Also, the Peloponnese itself would not have been
sparsely populated by impoverished Dark Age Greeks but by full-blown Achaeans. “Instead
it is possible to envisage the invasion of a united and organised group under
the leadership of an aristocratic hierarchy headed by a charismatic king
(Aristomenes) in the Agamemnon mould. With them they would have brought a
political structure not dissimilar to that described for the Bronze Age Greek
culture of the Trojan War era, just 80 years earlier. Somehow the Trojan
experience, which must have permeated throughout the Greek-speaking world,
might have subtly refined kingship into the political position of the
hereditary 'greatest amongst equals', with the decision-making process being
the province of an 'hereditary group of professional warriors' [9] or
aristocratic comrades (the Homoioi or 'Equals') with the king as a sort of
'chairperson'. When reviewing early Spartan politics Thucydides himself notes
that 'The old form of government was hereditary monarchy with established
rights and limitations'.” [10] As if
to emphasise the close proximity to the Heroic Age, we find Tyrtaeus, the
Spartan poet, writing in a decidedly Homeric style and describing a society not
far removed from that of the epic poetry itself. Fitzhardinge stresses the fact
that Tyrtaeus's vocabulary 'is almost entirely Homeric; hardly more than a
score of words in more than 150 lines are not found in Homer, and stock epithets
and metrical cliches abound'. [11] It is interesting to compare Fitzhardinge's
description of Tyrtaeus's Sparta with Oliva's analysis of Mycenaean
aristocratic society on the Homeric model: “Just
as he used Homeric language to cover the new message of the martial poems, so
here his account is basically conservative, differing only in emphasis from the
customary assembly of kings, counsellors and commons found in Homer.” [12] “The
society Homer depicts was decidedly aristocratic. Each tribal group, settled in
a definite area, was headed by the basileus; he held in his hands the
administrative, military and priestly power, and had the final word in the
council (boule), whose members seem to have been the elders of smaller groups
with kinship ties. The people's assembly (agora) had no powers, and in
peacetime as in wartime the common people played a passive role.” [13] How
does this Homeric world radically differ from what we know of early Spartan
society, and would this sort of society not provide the most logical framework
from out of which the famous Great Rhetra of Lykurgus might evolve? Indeed, is
not the Theopompus amendment/rider to the Rhetra, empowering the kings
(archagetai) and their council (gerousia) to overturn the limited decisions of
the citizen body, tantamount to rule by aristocracy on Homeric lines in which
'the common people played a passive role'? The 'peoples assembly' of Oliva's
Mycenaean model is in effect little different to the assembly of the Spartans
which was to have only 'a yea-or-nay competence' and even then this could be
overruled by the council of elders and the kings [14]. It is
my contention that we are dealing here with a warrior class at the head of a
well disciplined group of tribes who, having occupied the best land in southern
Greece at the beginning of the migration period (which was to last for
centuries in the guise of the Colonisation Movement), then go on to establish
an elaborate system of apportioning land to its warrior citizenry; land which
is tendered by the newly enslaved indigenous Achaean population whilst the
aristocratic Dorian Spartiate group concentrate their energies on the
development of warfare. This was all later enshrined in a new constitution
which, according to popular belief, appears to have been drawn up by a Cretan
Dorian named Lykurgus who was tutor to one of the early Agiad kings: “From
the time when the Dorians first settled in Sparta there had been a particularly
long period of political disunity; yet the Spartan constitution goes back to a
very early date, and the country has never been ruled by tyrants. For rather
more than 400 years, dating from the end of the late war, they have had the
same system of government.” [15] Slavery
in the Spartan state The idea of a warrior aristocracy dominating a sub-strata of the indigenous population was not new to ancient societies, as is shown by both the Mitannian example from earlier times and the more contemporary instance of the occupation of the coastal plain of southern Palestine by the Philistines. The Sea Peoples group too was a migration movement with an organised military structure at its heart and which might serve as a good comparative model for the Dorian confederation. Again, at this same time, we have another migration of a militaristic group – the Phrygians – who, within the low-chronology model, took over western Anatolia and overthrew the crumbling Hittite Empire. In the
context of the new chronology for Sparta, the argument against the traditional
view that the Helots were native Peloponnesian Achaeans, oppressed by a
superior invading force, falls down. Clearly, the comment of Fitzhardinge,
below, is under some strain for lack of a reasonable alternative hypothesis: “The
origin of the helots is uncertain. The theory commonly held in later antiquity
and in modern times, that they represent the pre-Dorian population enslaved by
conquest, cannot be reconciled with the archaeological evidence ...” [16] The
Spartiate population appears to always have been low, which lends further
support to the argument for a small warrior nobility dominating Spartan
society. Finley observes that 'The largest military contingent they ever
mustered from their own ranks was at the battle against the Persians at Plataea
in 479 B.C. – 5000 hoplites.' [17] That the arrival of the Spartans into the
Peloponnese was a military adventure and not a gradual incursion is well argued
by Oliva: “The
ephors, the highest officials in Sparta, declared war on the helots every year
at the beginning of their year of office, in order to legalize the killing of
helots. This measure is in itself proof that the Spartans were aware of having
conquered the helots by military invasion.” [18] Differences
between Spartan Greeks and Athenian Greeks Much of what is argued about the
dissimilarity between the usual Greek polis and the Spartan system of
population groups, without a true political centre, can be partly explained
within the context of an invading group initially retaining the ethnos social
structure based on the Bronze Age aristocratic family household or oikos with
the lesser citizen body (i.e. the common foot soldiery and their families,
perhaps constitutionally embodied in the periokoi) congregating around these
aristocratic holdings. In this sort of society there would be little incentive
to provide a major political centre for the ordinary citizenship. Hence the
unusual layout of the Spartan polis as described by Thucydides: “Suppose,
for example, that the city of Sparta were to become deserted and that only the
temples and foundations of buildings remained, I think that future generations
would, as time passed, find it very difficult to believe that the place had
really been as powerful as it was represented to be. Yet the Spartans occupy
two-fifths of the Peloponnese and stand at the head not only of the whole
Peloponnese itself but also of numerous allies beyond its frontiers.” [19] The
reasons for the initial dominance of Sparta in the Archaic Greek World and its
later decline We
have seen how the initial development of the Spartan state and its military
organisation might be considered in a different light to the commonly accepted
view within the hypothesis of low chronology. In
summary, the Dorians were the Spartans and they took the Peloponnese by force
from the resident Mycenaean population who were then turned into state slaves.
This latter action enabled the Spartan warrior class to devote its energies to
the task of land conquest whilst the Helots tended to the maintenance of
existing Spartan land. The Messenian Wars provided the impetus to develop new
methods of warfare which, coupled with the ability to campaign or train all
year round, gave the Spartan army an initial superiority over the rest of the
Peloponnese. The
problem was that this whole system, in conjunction with the geography of
Laconia, was to become a major handicap in later centuries when the methods of
warfare were to take a further leap forward in the shape of the battle by sea. Although
the valley of the Eurotas provided natural protection from attack as a result
of its isolated position and, at the same time, as one of the richest
agricultural regions in Greece, enabled Sparta to prosper in the early years,
it had the great disadvantage of being a considerable distance from the sea.
Sparta, therefore, was over 45 kilometres from her nearest port at Gytheum.
This, coupled with the potentially explosive social structure of an incoming
group ruling harshly over the indigenous slave population which greatly
outnumbered the newcomers, inevitably led to an inward looking attitude on the
part of the Spartan government. They were slow to adapt to the new developments
in the sea-born trade of the 6th century and did not pursue colonisation with
anything like the enthusiasm of the other Greek states. The result was that
they lagged well behind in the development of a navy: “The
ones who acquired strength were not least those who applied themselves to naval
power, both by the inflow of money and the domination of others. For they
sailed out and subjugated the islands – especially if they did not have
sufficient land at home.” [20] It
seems, therefore, that the very things which gave the Dorian/Spartans the
initial upper hand were the principal causes of its gradual decline as a major
power in Greece over later centuries. Summary I hope
that I have been able to show that it is possible to 'reconstruct something
coherent' from the later traditional literature for the origins of Spartan
culture and its development in the period leading up to the Persian Wars. The
reason why 9th- to 6th-century Spartan history is virtually a blank in the
works of Herodotus and others is precisely because the time between the Dorian
Invasion and the appearance of the Spartan state was no more than a few
generations at most. I have
tried to show that the political structure of Sparta differed only slightly
from the earlier Bronze Age model as transmitted by Homer. However, the
characteristics of the Spartan socio/geographic structure tend towards the
ethnos type of organisation with Spartan society paying only a sort of 'lip- In all
the regions where the Dorian peoples settled we have native slave populations
on the Helot model: the Penestai of Thessaly; the Klarotai of Crete; the Gymnetai
of Argos; and the Woikiatai of Locris. This strongly suggests that the Dorians
and hence the Spartans were indeed a warrior class who did not slowly evolve
out of an empty Dark Age Laconia but came into the region with a rush. There
is no mystery in the Spartan rise to power – they came as invaders and
subjugated the region, expanding their hold on the Peloponnese in a single
continuous process over a fairly short period of time. The trouble was that,
with such a small warrior group at the centre of its army, there was little
chance that Sparta would then be able to sustain its initial military success
for an indefinite period. The inevitable consequence of the long series of
5th-century conflicts, first against the Persians and then against Sparta's old
Attican enemy, was the depletion of the Spartiate population and a resultant
loss of power and influence in the Greek world, from which the Spartan state
was never to recover. Notes
and References 1. L.
F. Fitzhardinge: The Spartans, (London, 1980), p. 155. 2.
Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, 12. 3. J.
B. Bury & R. Meiggs: A History of Greece: To the Death of Alexander the
Great, (London, 1975), p. 89. 4. P.
Oliva: The Birth of Greek Civilization, (London, 1981), p. 63. 5. L.
F. Fitzhardinge: The Spartans, pp. 24-25. 6. V.
R. d'A. Desborough: The Greek Dark Ages, (London, 1972), p. 240. 7. M.
I. Finley: Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic Ages, (London, 1981), p. 108. 8. M.
I. Finley: Early Greece:, p. 78. 9. M.
M. Austin & P. Vidal-Naquet: Economic and Social History of Ancient Greece:
an Introduction, (London, 1977), p. 82. 10.
Thucydides: Book I, 13. 11. L.
F. Fitzhardinge: The Spartans, p. 125. 12. L.
F. Fitzhardinge: The Spartans, p. 129. 13. P.
Oliva: The Birth of Greek Civilization, p. 61. 14. R.
Sealey: A History of the Greek City States: 700-338 B.C., (London, 1976), p.
75. 15.
Thucydides: Book I, 18. 16. L.
F. Fitzhardinge: The Spartans, p. 156. 17. M.
I. Finley: Early Greece:, p. 106. 18. P.
Oliva: The Birth of Greek Civilization, p. 69. 19.
Thucydides: Book I, 10. 20.
Thucydides: Book I, 15. |
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