Editing Sparta (section)

==Structure of Classical Spartan society==
===Constitution===
{{main|Spartan Constitution}}
[[File:SpartaGreatRhetra.png|thumb|center |upright=2 |Structure of the Spartan Constitution]]{{clear}}
Sparta was an [[oligarchy]]. The state was ruled by two [[Diarchy|hereditary kings]] of the [[List of Kings of Sparta|Agiad and Eurypontid]] families,{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|p=89}} both supposedly descendants of [[Heracles]] and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague.<ref name=EB1911/>

The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BC, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses ([[epikleroi]]), adoptions and the public roads (the meaning of the last term is unclear in Herodotus' text and has been interpreted in a number of ways). [[Aristotle]] describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while [[Isocrates]] refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).<ref name=EB1911/>

Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the [[ephors]], as well as a council of [[Elder (administrative title)|elders]] known as the [[Gerousia]].  The Gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings.<ref>''The Greeks at War'' By Philip De Souza, Waldemar Heckel, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Victor Davis Hanson</ref> High state decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to the ''damos'', the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would [[Great Rhetra|select one of the alternatives by vote]].<ref>''The Politics By Aristotle'', Thomas Alan Sinclair, Trevor J. Saunders</ref><ref>''A companion to Greek studies''
 By Leonard Whibley</ref>

Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to [[declaration of war|declare war]] and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and Gerousia.<ref name=EB1911/>

An assembly of citizens called the [[Ecclesia (Sparta)|Ekklesia]] was responsible for electing men to the Gerousia for life.

===Citizenship===
{{main|Spartiate}}
The Spartan education process known as the ''[[agoge]]'' was essential for full citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the ''agoge'' were [[Spartiates]], those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city.

There were two exceptions. ''[[Trophimoi]]'' or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general [[Xenophon]], for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a ''syntrophos''<ref>{{harvnb|Liddell|Scott|1940}}. {{LSJ|su/ntrofos|σύντροφος}}.</ref> if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Greek World|first=Anton|last=Powell |date=1987|publisher=[[Routledge]]}}</ref> Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the ''agoge'' could lose their citizenship.

These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.

===Non citizens===
The other classes were the [[perioeci|perioikoi]], free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the [[helots]],<ref name="ReferenceA">''Ancient Greece'' By [[Sarah B. Pomeroy]], Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts</ref> state-owned [[serfs]]. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the ''agoge''.

====Helots====
{{main|Helots}}
The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population.  The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in [[Ancient Greek language|Classical Greek]] {{lang|grc|Εἵλωτες}} / ''Heílôtes'').<ref>Herodotus (IX, 28–29)</ref><ref>Xenophon, ''Hellenica'', III, 3, 5</ref>

The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of [[Messenia (ancient region)|Messenia]] and [[Lakonia]] whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sparta|url=https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/sparta|access-date=3 August 2021|website=HISTORY|language=en}}</ref>  In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}} The Spartan helots were not only agricultural workers, but were also household servants, both male and female would be assigned domestic duties, such as wool-working.<ref>Kennell, Nigel M. "Helots and Perioeci" ''Sparta: A New History.'' Wiley-Blackwell pp. 136. 2010</ref> However, the helots were not the private property of individual Spartan citizens, regardless of their household duties, and were instead owned by the state through the ''kleros'' system.<ref>Figueira, Thomas, "Helotage and the Spartan Economy," p. 566-574. In ''A Companion to Sparta,'' edited by Anton Powell, 565–589. Volume 1 of ''A Companion to Sparta.'' Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Balckwell, 2018.</ref>

Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet [[Tyrtaeus|Tyrtaios]] refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor.{{sfn|West|1999|p=24}} They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|p=141}}
Initially, helots couldn't be freed but during the middle [[Hellenistic period]], some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BC.

In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades.  Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|p=140}} The helots were used as unskilled [[serf]]s, tilling Spartan land.  Helot women were often used as [[wet nurse]]s.  Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs.  At the last stand of the [[Battle of Thermopylae]], the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred [[Thespiae|Thespian]] and [[Thebes, Greece|Theban]] troops and a number of helots.{{sfn|Ehrenberg|2002|p=159}}

There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BC) that led to prolonged conflict. By the tenth year of this war the Spartans and Messenians had reached an agreement in which Messenian rebels were allowed to leave the Peloponnese.<ref>{{Citation|last1=Thucydides|title=Third year of the war, 429–28 [II 71–103]|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139050371.014|work=Thucydides|pages=135–161|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-05037-1|access-date=24 February 2021|last2=Mynott|first2=Jeremy|year=2013|doi=10.1017/cbo9781139050371.014}}</ref> They were given safe passage under the terms that they would be re-enslaved if they tried to return. This agreement ended the most serious incursion into Spartan territory since their expansion in the seventh and eighth centuries BC.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kennell|first=Nigel M.|title=Spartans: A New History|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|year=2010|pages=122}}</ref> Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."<ref>Thucydides (IV, 80); the Greek is ambiguous</ref>{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|p=211}} On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BC to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BC 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.<ref>Thucydides (VII, 27)</ref> What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.{{citation needed|date=October 2020}}

As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to [[Myron of Priene]]<ref>Talbert, p. 26.</ref> of the middle 3rd century BC:

{{blockquote|They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap ({{lang|grc|κυνῆ}} / ''kunễ'') and wrap himself in skins ({{lang|grc|διφθέρα}} / ''diphthéra'') and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat.<ref>Apud Athenaeus, 14, 647d = ''FGH'' 106 F 2. Trans. by Cartledge, p. 305.</ref>}}

Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – [[Diet of Ancient Greece#Wine|wine]] usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during ''[[syssitia]]'' (obligatory banquets).<ref>Plutarch, ''Life of Lycurgus'' 28, 8–10. See also, ''Life of Demetrios'', 1, 5; ''Constitution of the Lacedemonians'' 30; ''De Cohibenda Ira'' 6; ''De Commmunibus Notitiis'' 19.</ref>

Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution.<ref>Plutarch, ''Life of Lycurgus'' 28, 7.</ref> This fight seems to have been carried out by ''kryptai'' (sing. κρύπτης ''kryptēs''), graduates of the ''agoge'' who took part in the mysterious institution known as the ''[[Crypteia|Krypteia]]''.{{sfn|Powell|2001|p=254}} Thucydides states:

<blockquote>The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.<ref>Thucydides (Book IV 80.4).</ref><ref>Classical historian Anton Powell has recorded a similar story from 1980s [[El Salvador]]. Cf. Powell, 2001, p. 256</ref></blockquote>

====Perioikoi====
{{main|Perioeci}}
The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society.  Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots.  The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade.{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|pp=153–155}} Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the [[Battle of Plataea]], and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,{{sfn|Cartledge|2002|pp=158, 178}} they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.<ref>"Population Patterns in Late Archaic and Classical Sparta" by Thomas Figueira, ''Transactions of the American Philological Association'' 116 (1986), pp. 165–213</ref>

===Economy===
[[File:Rider BM B1.jpg|thumb|left|[[Name vase]] of the Spartan artist known as the [[Rider Painter]] (Laconian [[black-figure]]d [[kylix (cup)|kylix]], c. 550–530 BC)]]
Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi.<ref name=EB1911/> This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.<ref>Paul Cartledge, ''Sparta and Lakonia'', Routledge, London, 1979, pp. 154–59</ref> Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors,<ref>Conrad Stibbe, ''Das Andere Sparta'', Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1996, pp. 111–27</ref> and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.

Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding.<ref>Excel HSC ''Ancient History'' By Peter Roberts, {{ISBN|1-74125-178-8|978-1-74125-178-4}}</ref> Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.<ref>Conrad Stibbe, ''Das Andere Sparta'', Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz, 1996</ref>

Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BC, a massive [[Land reform in Sparta|land reform]] had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a ''kleros'', which was expected to provide his living.<ref>A.H.M. Jones, ''Sparta'', Basel Blackwell and Mott Ltd.,1967, pp. 40–43</ref> The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (''syssitia'') fees, and the ''agoge'' fees for his children. However, nothing is known of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries.<ref>Stephen Hodkinson, ''Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta'', The Classical Press of Wales, Swansea, 2000. See also Paul Cartledge's discussion of property in Sparta in ''Sparta and Lakonia'', pp. 142–44.</ref> However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of [[Epitadeus]] some time after the [[Peloponnesian War]], which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land.<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>''Social Conflict in Ancient Greece'' By Alexander Fuks, {{ISBN|965-223-466-4|978-965-223-466-7}}</ref> By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BC) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of [[Agis IV]] in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors,<ref name="EB1911" /> but this could not reverse the trend.