Tales of Two Cities: the “Abnormal States” of Sparta and Athens

“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….If…the same thing were to happen to Athens, one would conjecture from what met the eye that

the city had been twice as powerful as in fact it is.”

~Thucydides, 1.10

Sparta’s Unique Development:The Awesome, Militaristic, Communistic State

Typology for Other Greek States colonization (stimulates economies of metropolis by

providing ready-made markets) monetization and expanding economies public works projects provide employment

The Conquest of Messenia (ca. 735-715 BCE) tradition of two Messenian wars confiscation of Messenian territory; Messenians as

helots (state-owned slaves) the “nationalist” poet Tyrtaeus

Sparta

Spartan Expansion (8th-5th centuries)

Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution

Lycurgan Eunomia (legendary law giver, ca. 885 BCE?) two kings (Agids and Eurypontids) gerousia = body of elders (28 aristocrats, age 60 or

older + 2 kings) ephors (5) - annually-elected; executive, judicial, and

disciplinary powers apella = assembly of Spartiates; see Plutarch,

Lycurgus 6 on the powers of the Spartan demos

Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution

Spartiates as Homoioi syssitia, black broth, iron-bar currency, etc.

Others: perioikoi, neodamodes, hypomeiones Krypteia and the Helots

Plutarch, Lycurgus 6 (on Spartan assembly)

“When the populace was assembled, Lycurgus permitted no one else except the Elders and kings to make a proposal, although the authority

to decide upon what the latter put forward did belong to the people. Later, however, when the people distorted the proposals and mauled

them by their deletions and additions, the kings Polydorus and Theopompus supplemented the rhetra as follows:

If the people should make a crooked choice, the Elders and the founder-leaders are to set it aside

that is, not to confirm it, but to withdraw it completely and to dismiss the people because they are altering and reformulating the proposal

contrary to what was best.”

Athens’ Crisis and the Solonic Reform:The Road to Democracy

Athens as the Metropolis of the Ionian Greeks (Thucydides, 1.2, 1.12, 2.16)

Debt-Bondage (hektemoroi) and horoi Cylon, ca. 632 BCE; Draco, ca. 621 BCE

Solon and the Seisachtheia Heliaia (assembly as court of appeal to archon’s decision)

= Council of 400

Solon’s Seisachtheia (“lifting of burdens”)

Response to socio-economic crisis (594 BCE) Cancellation of debts (lifting the horoi) Replacement of Rights by Birth with Rights by

Property

Solon’s Seisachtheia (“lifting of burdens”)

Pentecosiomedimnoi (“500-bushel men”): treasurer, archon

Hippeis (300 to 500-bushel men): lesser offices; maybe the archonship

Zeugitae (200-300 bushels): maybe eligible for lesser offices

Thetes (below 200 bushels): assembly and army

Pisistratid Tyranny at Athens

Pisistratus (rules intermittently ca. 561-528 BCE): a model Greek tyrant? “So Pisistratus took over the power in Athens; yet

he in no way deranged the existing magistracies or the ordinances but governed the city well and truly according to the laws that were established.” (Herodotus, 1.59)

The sons, Hippias and Hipparchus (ca. 528-510 BCE) The affair of Harmodius and Aristogeiton

Athens--Construction Phases

Statue Group-Harmodius and Aristogeiton

Athens ca. 500 BCE

Liberation of Athens from Pisistratid tyranny: “So Athens increased in greatness. It is not only in

respect of one thing but of everything that equality and free speech are clearly a good; take the case of Athens, which under the rule of tyrants proved no better in war than any of its neighbors but, once rid of those tyrants, was far the first of all. What this makes clear is that when held in subjection they would not do their best, for they were working for a taskmaster, but, when freed, they sought to win, because each was trying to achieve for his very self.” (Herodotus, 5.78)

Athens and Attica

Athenian Demes (Cleisthenes)

Cleisthenic Reforms (ca. 508/7 BCE)

Tribes (10), demes (139?), and 30 groups of demes = 30 trittyes.

Each Tribe = 1 trittys from each region: city, coast, inland (trittys = 1/3 tribe)

10 Strategoi (Generals) Council of 500 (50 from each tribe); prytany (50) =

one-month term (10 months) Ekklesia (Assembly) Dikasteria (Popular Courts, set up on tribal basis) Ostracism

Ostraka from Athens

Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 56.2

“As soon as the Archon enters upon his office, he proclaims through the public herald that whatever a person possessed before he entered upon his Archonship he will have and possess until the end of his term.”

Discussion Question

“How do Spartan and Athenian political evolutions stack up in relation to ancient Greek

notions of “arithmetical” and “geometrical” political equality?”