Spartiate

A Spartiate (Greek: Σπαρτιάτης, Spartiátēs) or Homoios (pl. Homoioi, Greek: Ὅμοιος, "alike") was an elite full-citizen male of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. Spartiate-class males (including children) were a small minority of the population: estimates are that they made up between one-tenth and one-thirty-secondth of the population, with the proportion decreasing over time; the vast majority of the people of Sparta were helots (slaves).

Spartiates were barred from work by law and strong social norms, and were supported by the helots (Spartiate-class women also scorned to work, and depended on the land and helots they owned, but they did not hold citizenship). It was acceptable for Spartiates to work as armed forces. Spartiates spent a great deal of effort maintaining their power, facing repeated helot revolts.

Aside from suppressing revolts, Spartiates trained as hoplite forces. They fought along with helot forces; for instance, at the Battle of Plataea, Herodotus says that 7/9 of the Spartan forces were helots, 1/9 (5000) were Spartiates, and the rest others. This was probably the largest army Sparta ever fielded. Some Spartan armies, like that lead by Brasidas in Peloponnesian War, consisted entirely of non-Spartiates (excepting Brasidas). These armies maintained Sparta military rule of a large area of southern Greece, from the Second Messenian War (650 BC), until the end of the short-lived Spartan hegemony (404-371 BC).

A certain income was required to maintain Spartiate status. Rising inequality within the tiny Spartiate elite meant that many fell from citizen status. High rates of violent deaths and low birthrates also caused a decline in the number of Spartiates. Some Spartiates made efforts to reform the system and enlarge the Spartiate class, but these efforts failed, and the Spartiate class became to small to forcibly maintain the Spartan social structure. The helots gained their freedom in 370 BC, effectively eliminating the Spartiate way of life.

Structure of Spartan society

Structure of Spartan society

Classical Spartan society was rigidly divided into several castes, each with assigned duties and privileges. The smallest of them, with the most power and freedom, was the Spartiate elite. Spartiates were exempt from manual labour and controlled the government of the state. Spartiates men were expected to prepare constantly for military conflict.

Besides the Spartiates were the perioeci, literally "dwellers around", who were citizens of smaller city-states in Laconia, that were subordinate to Sparta (although it is disputed if this subordination implied domination) who carried out most of the trade and commerce of the region, since Spartiates were forbidden from engaging in commercial activity. There were also the hypomeiones, literally inferiors, men who were probably, although not certainly, Spartiates who had lost their social rank. The lowest caste in Spartan society were the helots, subjected populations tied to the land and over whom the Spartan state claimed ownership. In the late 5th century BC and later, a new class, the neodamodeis, literally new to the community, arose and seems to have been composed of liberated helots.

Origins

Lycurgus

According to classical accounts, the Spartan Constitution was the product of a great lawgiver, Lycurgus. He was said to have written the Spartan constitution early in the Archaic period, but dates in historical sources are wildly inconsistent.

It is impossible to determine whether Lycurgus was an actual historical figure. It is clear, however, that at some point in the late Archaic period, the model of Spartan society was changed from a monarchical system to an aristocracy of the elite warrior class. That change is likely to have been in some way related to the change from Dark Age warfare, in which nobles were the dominant force, to the hoplite warfare of the classical period. Around the time of that change, Sparta embarked on the conquest of the neighboring state of Messenia. The acquisition of such a comparatively large piece of territory and conquered population seems to have both provided the basis for the system of helotage and required the existence of a large military force to keep the potentially-rebellious Messenians under control. The Spartiates thus became a permanently-armed master class, living off the labour of the helots and preventing rebellion through constant struggle.

Spartiate lifestyle

During the 6th and 5th centuries BC, the Spartan system was at its height. In 555 BC, Sparta defeated Tegea and forced that state to become its ally. Around 544 BC, Sparta defeated Argos and established itself as the pre-eminent power in the Peloponnese. For over 150 years, Sparta became the dominant land power of Greece, with the Spartiates hoplites serving as the minority core of its army.

To maintain the social system of the city, it was necessary to have a force ready to oppose helot uprisings, which had occurred several times in the classical period. Spartiate males went through the brutal, and sometimes lethal, agoge and crypteia, from the age of seven to thirty, the age of full citizenship. From that age until they became too old to fight, they would live in their barracks, visiting their families (and, later, their wives) only when they could sneak out. Spartiate women, as well, were expected to remain athletic, since the Spartans believed that strong and healthy parents would produce strong and healthy children.

Spartiates were expected to adhere to an ideal of military valour, as exemplified by the poems of Tyrtaeus, who praised men who fell in battle and heaped scorn on those who fled. Such ideals were standard for hoplite forces across Greece, as they rely of each man defending his neighbour with his shield; if the formation breaks, it is defeated.

Each Spartiate male was assigned a plot of land, with the helots that worked it. That was the source of his income, since he performed no labour or commerce himself. The primary use of that income was to pay the dues of the communal mess halls, to which all Spartiates were required to belong. Any Spartiate who was unable to pay these dues was demoted from his class.

Politically, Spartiate males composed the army assembly, the body that elected the ephors, the most powerful magistrates of Sparta after the kings. The Spartiates were also the source of the krypteia, a sort of secret police, which, by measures such as assassination and kidnapping, sought to prevent rebellion among the helots.

Decline of Spartiates

In the late 5th and the early 4th centuries BC, the Spartiate class gradually shrank in number, along with Spartan military prowess, for several reasons. First was attrition through the increasingly-frequent wars that Sparta found itself embroiled in from the mid-5th century onward. Since Spartiates were required to marry late, birth rates were low, and it was difficult to replace losses from the class. Exacerbating that problem was the possibility of demotion from Spartiate status for a number of reasons, such as cowardice in battle and inability to pay for membership in the syssitia. Ancient sources over a loong time period mention rising inequality within the Spartiate class. Inability to pay became increasingly severe; as commercial activity began to develop in Sparta, some Spartiates would sell the land from which they were supposed to draw their earnings. Since the constitution included no known provisions for promotion to Spartiate status, the number of Spartiates gradually dwindled. Attempts at reform, notably by the Spartan kings Agis IV and Cleomenes III, failed.

By the mid-4th century BC, the number of Spartiates had been critically reduced, although Sparta continued to hold sway over much of Greece. Finally, at Leuctra in 371 BC, a Theban army decisively defeated a Spartan force, killing 400 Spartiates of a force of 700 and breaking the back of Spartan military power. In 370 BC, Messenia was liberated by a Theban army, liberating the helots and destroying the basis of the Spartan social system. The Spartan state never recovered its former power.

See also

• HMS Spartiate
• Stratocracy

Literature

• Xenophon. Constitution of the Spartans.