Herodotus tells a story about a Spartan delegation who visited Cyrus at Sardis. They warned Cyrus, “to abstain from any hostile act against Greek cities, since the Spartans would not tolerate it.” After a short silence, Cyrus turned to his attendants and asked, “Who are the Spartans?”¹Burn 1962 Cyrus would receive his answer soon enough. The war between Sparta and the Persians would become the stuff of legends. But before visiting the scene of battle, let us first ask the question: “Who are the Spartans?”

The origins of the Spartan city-state can be traced back to the Mycenaean period.  Remains of a Mycenaean palace can still be seen on a hilltop overlooking the fertile valley formed by the Eurotas River, the heartland of Sparta.  According to Homer’s Illiad, the Trojan war began when Helen, the daughter of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, was abducted by Paris, a Trojan prince.²Or, as another account has it, she willingly eloped with the Trojan prince. Her outraged husband, Menelaus, convinced the Greek city states to go war with Troy and bring Helen back to Sparta. A monument to Menelaus and Helen was erected on the ruins of the Mycenaean palace that once towered over the valley. It dates, perhaps, to the 8th century BC.

Lawgiver of Sparta

According to Plutarch, a Spartan prince named Lycurgus was forced to leave his native land.  He traveled abroad, observing the customs and traditions of the Cretans, Ionians, and Egyptians, before returning to his native land. Recognizing his great wisdom, the people of Sparta asked him to create new laws to govern them.  Lycurgus did not give an immediate answer but went to the famous oracle at Delphi and received from there an oracle, known as the Rhetra, which means ‘law’ or ‘constitution’. 

Having received validation from the oracle of Delphi, Lycurgus returned home and enacted laws which completely revolutionized Spartan society. Lycurgus did not entrust power to a single king, but divided power between two king, an assembly of thirty elders, and a commons comprised of all the citizens of Spartans.

This division of rule was an innovation, and Plutarch thought it was a good one, for it gave stability to the state, enabling Sparta to grow more powerful than her neighbors, who shared the same geographical advantages as the Spartans but were ruled by kings.

Spartan Society

Classical Greek and Roman authors often praised Spartans for their well ordered and stable government. They were renown for their simple way of life and strict military discipline. The word ‘spartan’ has even found its way into our English dictionary as an adjective for something created purely for the sake of utility without decoration. 

The Spartans prized courage and military prowess above all other virtues.   Wealth and luxury were spurned.  Their only coinage was iron.  Since foreign traders did not accept iron coinage, very few foreign goods were imported into Sparta.  And since they had no gold or silver, Spartans were not tempted to accrue wealth.  This is, at least, Plutarch’s idealistic portrait of Sparta.

Spartan society was divided into three major classes: kings, warriors and slaves.

1. The Spartans had two kings who were perceived as semi-divine.
2. The warriors were an elite group who were trained for battle from a tender age. These are the formidable Spartan hoplites who would remain virtually undefeated on land for several centuries.
3. The slaves or ‘helots’ were given plots of land upon which to grow food. They did not come under the protection of the law.

Young Spartan warriors—known as ‘ephebes’—did not live in family units.  Nor did husbands and wives live together, except for brief conjugal visits.  Human procreation was treated like animal husbandry.  Men and women were selected on the basis of their good breeding.  Plutarch recounts that, “It was their custom, during certain festivals, for young men and women to dance together naked and thereby to form a natural attraction for each other, not unlike uniting a herd of stallions with the mares.”³Plutarch’s Lives, Lycurgus  Lycurgus saw to it that women should wrestle, run, throw the spear, just as the men did, and that “to take away their over-great tenderness and fear of exposure to the air, and all acquired womanishness, he ordered that the young women should go naked in the processions, as well as the young men.”⁴Plutarch’s Lives, Lycurgus

Lycurgus ordained that a husband should share his wife with other worthy men.  “The laws of other nations seemed to him very absurd and inconsistent, where people would be so solicitous for their dogs and horses as to exert interest and to pay money to procure fine breeding, and yet kept their wives shut up…”

When a child was born, it was bathed in wine, and thus hardened like steel tempered in oil.  “It was not up to the fathers to dispose of a child as he saw fit,” says Plutarch.  Instead, as soon as the child was born, the father was to bring it before the elders whose job it was to “carefully view the infant, and, if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing… but, if they found it puny and ill-shaped, ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetate, a sort of chasm under Taygetus; as thinking it neither for the good of the child itself, for for the public interest, that it should be brought up…” (Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus)

When the youth was seven years old, he joined a company of other youths who were taught to exercise and play games.  “Reading and writing they gave them, just enough to serve their turn; their chief care was to make them good subjects, and to teach them to endure pain and conquer in battle.”  The youths were battle hardened, going without baths or oil, forced to sleep on beds of reeds and take cold baths, all under the watchful eye of older men. The youths were taught to steal food for their group, for this was thought to inculcate useful skills. Youths who were caught were whipped.  This led to one of the most peculiar Spartan customs, the whipping of Spartan boys on the altar of Artemis Orthia. The boys were not allowed to utter a cry despite the fierce whipping that sometime resulted in their deaths. This practice continued in Sparta into the Roman era when a Roman theater was erected for spectators of the blood sport. Thus Plutarch (2nd century AD) writes, “I myself have seen several of the youths endure whipping to death at the foot of the altar of Diana surnamed Orthia.”

Model Society?

Athenian philosophers were not usually democrats.  Thus when Plato sought a model for his great society, he looked to the Spartans for inspiration. In Plato’s Republic, the few exercise totalitarian control over the regimented masses. For the Athenian playwright, Aristophanes, these ideas spelled the death of Athenian culture.

Aristophanes was justifiably suspicious of philosophers who sought to impose an alien order on society through sheer force of rationality. But he was wrong to suppose that their words were idle.  As Bertrand Russell observed, one can trace a line from ancient Sparta through Plato’s Republic to “the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism.”⁵Russell, The History of Western Philosophy, Chapter XII