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sources(ancient) - Coggle Diagram
sources(ancient)
the Spartan army: training (agoge), composition
herodutus
“requiring them to stay and conquer or die.”
“the Lakedaimonians are as brave as anyone, but as a group they are the best of anyone.”
powell
“there was always the potential for internal war, between helot and master.”
richer
"young Spartans were encouraged to steal food...Xenophon justifies this stealing by stressing its educational value, and the fact that youngsters who stole inefficiently and were caught were subjected to punishment."
kenell
"the classical training system constituted such an important part of the mirage, debate has centred in recent years not only on the system’s modalities but also on the reliability of the ancient evidence itself."
cartledge
'hoplite equipment was the large round shield.Since the shield was relatively hard to manoeuvre, it afforded only partial coverage on the flank and could not be slung round to protect the back, it was better adapted to use in close formation...imperative in this style of fighting to know at a glance who stood on either side of you and to be able to tell friend from foe almost automatically(so was painted or bronxe blazon, its importance seen in a)Spartan mother to her son to return from battle with it – or on it."
hodikinson
"Finally, the army was organised...the king at the top, with the polemarchoi under him, then the lochagoi, the pentekonteres and, lastly, the enomotarchoi, who led the smallest army units, the enomotiai."
"rank-and-file Spartan soldiers were required to swear a special oath of obedience to their officers: ‘I shall not desert my taxiarchos or my enomotarches whether he is alive or dead, and I shall not leave unless the hegemones [commanders] lead us away.’"
pavlides
"That the perioikoi fought alongside the Spartans is widely attested [if the Spartans] were afraid...they sent them [the perioikoi] forth" to take the brunt of the danger"
Perhaps the most unexpected group to serve in the Lakedaimonian army were the helots,We do not always know what role helots played in the army, but they are recorded as having served as hoplites, attendants, and light-armed troops.
plutarch
"send out the most intelligent of the youths in different directions, with a dagger...at night they would come down to the roads and slit the throat of the helots they caught. Frequently, they would roam the fields and kill the strongest and most powerful of them."
social structure and occupations: Spartiates, periokoi, ‘inferiors’, helots
plutarch
"The offspring...was taken and carried by him(the farther) to a place called Lesche, where the elders of the tribes officially examined the infant. if it was ill-born and deformed, they sent it to the so-called Apothetae, a chasm-like place at the foot of Mount Taygetus."
hooker
(periokoi's)"took no part in its political life, having access to Sparta only for commercial purposes. The Spartans...employ outlanders extensively in their army and navy"
cavanaugh
"Perioikoi followed Spartan customs and attitudes."
whitby
(perioikoi)"were politically subject to Sparta, to the extent that they could be summarily executed on the Ephors’ orders"
"Their role in Spartans production and exchange is taken for granted, but the majority of perioikoi will have been farmers, of whom some will have been substantial landholders who lived off the labour of slaves or other dependents."
figeura
"The Hypomeiones were probably ranked lower than perioikoi as second-class citizens, since the latter preserved rights in their communities, but the Hypomeiones could serve militarily, perhaps for compensation."
Tyeretus
"worn out by their enormous burdens, bringing to their masters out of necessity half of everything that the land brings forth."
women
pomeray 2002
"could weave and took pride in their skills."
"Wives were, above all, mothers.”
milender 2018
"(competed) in athletic contests before young male spectators.
xenophon
“He insisted on physical training for them no less than the boys, and thus instituted contests in running and strength for the girls, just like the boys, against each other, believing that if both parents were strong, they would produce healthier children.”
“Lycurgus...believed the bearing of children to be the greatest role of free women.”
cartledge(1981)
“educated in a sense other than trained to perform sedentary, and in ancient Greece exclusively feminine, tasks like weaving and baking.
The running races mentioned in Xenophon and Plutarch and paralleled in other sources...had a ritual significance, as certainly did the choral dancing”
plutarch
“He freed them from soſtness, delicacy, effeminacy and all womanish things by accustoming the girls to wearing tunics only while in processions, and to dance and sing only at certain festivals when the young boys were present and watching.”
(inscribed)"tombstone was not permitted, unless it was a man who had died in war or a woman who had died in hieron [sacred office].”(contested)
Government: ephorate, gerousia, ekklesia
aristole
“This office does, truthfully, hold the state together – the people remain content because they have a role in the most powerful magistracy. ”
Pausanius
"have an agora worth a look."
“ The gerousia is the council that has the most power over the Lakedaimonian body of laws”
“There are five ephors...while the ephors manage the most serious affairs, and one gives his name to the year,”
milender
“ancient evidence makes it clear that the Gerousia could be factionalized and that individual Gerontes were perfectly capable of opposing either or both kings over state affairs.”
“Several kings found themselves on trial before the court of Gerousia.”
“The kings, on the other hand, could exercise influence over great spans of time and thereby gain the experience, support, and opportunities to shape, if not control, Spartan foreign and domestic policy.”
kennel
“the ephors’ mastery”
“They dispatched troops for the missions and empowered them to make arrests on their behalf.”
“the ephors did all this apparently without consulting either king.”
The economy
plutarch
“terrible inequality, many landless and helpless people were imposing on the city, and all of the wealth was concentrated with a few people.
(lurgcus) “convinced them to bring all of their land together as one and divide it up anew, and live with everyone else in uniformity and equality with regards to subsistence, pursuing the greatest excellence only.
“He distributed the rest of Lakonia to the perioikoi in 30 000 kleroi, and the land of the city in 9000 kleroi to Spartans.”
aristole
‘approximately two-fiſths of all land is owned by women, because many are given large bequests and large dowries … thus, the city did not suffer just one hit, but was destroyed by a lack of men.”
“you could criticise the Spartans for unequal distribution of possessions. For some have acquired far too much property while others very little, which means that the land has come to be owned by very few.”
hodikson
“throughout the classical period there were marked inequalities in Spartiate ownership of land.”
plato
“there is more gold and silver in private Lakedaimonian hands than there is in all of Greece. Because for many years it has been coming in from all of Greece, and from barbarians too, but never comes out of there “
the Great Rhetra: the issue of Lycurgus
Plutarch
“Polydeuctes was dead...then Lycurgus became king...he ruled until it came to be known that his brother’s wife was pregnant.”
“…the people who followed him on account of his virtue and were ready and willing to carry out his commands outnumbered those who obeyed him just because he was king and possessed royal power.”
david
(can't) "agree (with) the idea of Lykourgos the philosopher, the founder of an ideal state”
“was no more than a Spartan invention.”
"Xenophon’s Lykourgos is drawn with touches which may be the product of the author’s own imagination. "
“from Xenophon onwards the lawgiver acquires Athenian characteristics; like the author who portrays him, he becomes a person with a hybrid nature.”
Nafissi
"perhaps legitimate to consider the Rhetra a...summary of what was said of Lykourgos."
"not – as in Herodotus – the reformer who entirely changed its way of life, promoting its excellence in war and peace."
roles and privileges of the two kings
Herodotus
“The Lakedaimonians..decided to ...make the oldest of the children king…couldn’t tell which was which”(which was custom)
“so they sent to the oracle at Delphi to find out what was best to do in this matter. The priestess advised them to make both of them kings”-their names as Eurystheus and Procles
powell
“restless under the control of royalty.”
“In her propaganda, she claimed that her political constitution had been loyally respected for centuries, and that the dual kingship, the dyarchy, was the oldest of all surviving offices. “
“Most Spartan royal rulers of that period were either imprisoned, effectively put to death, threatened with exile, or actually exiled.”
“This violent impatience of Sparta with her kings was so recurrent (we might consider it was a) continuing part of the ‘Lykourgan’ revolution, which aimed for a state made up of ‘Similars’.”