The Spartan elite - Spartiates, full citizens - can be seen as being fundamentally the same as the Athenian or Theban. Far from simply existing as the austere super-soldiers of the popular historical mind, they were members of the large slave-owning class who made up the ruling class in all of Greece; they were the owners of the productive property in Greek slave society: land and slaves. Naturally, there were plenty of differences between the Spartan and Athenian slave owning classes - otherwise they would not have appeared as representatives of completely different societies - but, these differences are ultimately superficial.
One difference noted in the last part was that the Spartans were actually quite a bit more wealthy than many large landowners in other Greek states. They owned very large holdings with very rich soil, allowing them to harvest twice a year. A proof of this land-wealth is to be found in, interestingly enough, plow oxen. Given that 80% of mainland Greece is covered by hills and mountains, large livestock were not widely bred; most arable land was used in farming, not for grazing. Oxen for plowing constituted a significant expense for most Greek farming households, given that they needed to be bought from those with enough land to raise them. Likewise, for the large landowner, the sale of oxen was quite lucrative. There is evidence that oxen were bred both for use and sale in Sparta, meaning that the individual Spartiates owned some very large plots.
While we are on the topic of geography, an examination of Sparta's physical position in Greece is useful in understanding some of the peculiarities in its social development. To Start with, it was not located on the coast; tucked away in the Southeast of the Peloponnese, it was naturally drawn towards the rich inland soil, a true rarity in rocky Greece. This set it in sharp contrast to Athens, who faced the sea and the constellations of Aegean isles on one side and mountain ranges and hills inland; she was naturally drawn to the sea and to expand toward the rich trade routes to Asia and North Africa. Sparta's wealth was in the land, and this can begin to explain some of the tendencies in its development.
With a ruling class invested completely in the land and the defense of that land, the city completely missed out on the period of overseas colonization and establishment of trade that cities like Athens, Corinth, and Megara went through. Hence, it never developed a navy to protect its settlers and traders, nor did it develop the large class of merchants and artisans attracted to trading towns. This had many effects, but one of the more peculiar of them, and one often noted in text books, is that they did not develop coined money until very late - the 5th century! Trade necessitated the development of money. For a long period in the archaic period - the Greek dark ages - trade was mostly limited to that between nearby towns, and the goods were traded for their use-values, and so a mixture of bartering methods dominated. However, the age in which the great poleis established broad networks of overseas trade, use value was superseded by the domination of commodity value. Commodity value is not the value of an item as such, but in terms of how many other items could be exchanged for it - a abstracted "universal value" determined by the labor that went into it. Now, a merchant with a ship full of wine mixing bowls could have theoretically determined how many bushels of grain were equivalent in trade for one bowl, but in practice it was impossible, and so a universal "commodity of commodities" - money - was born to act as the medium of exchange and value.
The Army
However, this stunted growth did not seem to keep them from becoming a power in the mainland, and then later, for a fleeting moment, throughout the Mediterranean. They had their lauded army to make their will felt in the Peloponnese and beyond. Xenophon recorded that many Greek forces facing the right wing of the Spartan phalanx would break and run before ever coming within spear-range, so frightful was their reputation. It was the honor of all citizens of Greece to serve in the phalanx, but only the Spartans attained something close to the rank of professional soldiers, why? |
| Spartan Hoplites, late 5th century |
Throughout the classical period, there is a dearth of slave revolts in the Greek world. There is an exception in Sparta, though. A common trait among Greek slave populations was that they represented a great mix of populations, speaking many mother tongues - although de ste Croix tells us that Thracians made up a sizable proportion. The helots of Sparta, though, were very different in this regard. They had served for generations on the very land that their ancestors once ruled; they shared a common culture, and were mostly left to live as they please as long as they continued their labor. Furthermore, they vastly outnumbered their Spartan masters. Rich states such as Athens and Corinth had slave populations that were larger than the number of citizens, yes, but it was not nearly to the same degree. A ratio of around 10-to-1 is accepted for most of the 5th century, although that may be conservative. Early in their history, the Spartans completely freed themselves from labor by their acquisition of Messena and their enslavement of its inhabitants. However, this act which allowed for their freedom, also enslaved them to forever watch over a mass of explosive social material.
It was this that compelled them to create an efficient, well-trained military force. It was not merely, as is often suggested, for the sake of keeping the helots in line, but primarily for keeping enemies out. Sparta was neighbor to powerful states such as Argos and Corinth, and a successful invasion was likely to incite the helots to revolt, sealing the doom of the ruling class. And Sparta's territory - Lakonia - was eyed greedily for its rich soils and fair climate. So, the culture that arose was something akin to that of a besieged city. Greek culture was generally martial, but that which developed in Sparta was first among others. Citizens in other states generally did not receive any real military training , with the exception of the sons of the large landowners, until well into the 4th century. The Spartans could train their soldiers because of the helots, and the needed to train their soldiers because of the helots.
The image of the Spartan army that has stuck with us for so long is that of the Spartan force at Platea in 479, fielding 10,000 full Spartiate warriors in a bristling phalanx against the rearguard of the retreating Persian invasion force. Yet, this was a very different force than the Spartan army that would defeat the Athenians in 405 and gain hegemony over the Greek world. Never again would there be so many Spartans on the field of battle. The simple matter was that there just weren't enough of them to field. The concentration of property by the ruling Spartiate class, mirroring a similar process in the rest of Greece, meant that the body of Spartiates was shrinking.
A great military reorganization took place somewhere between Platea and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431 in which perioeki, or non-citizen residents of the city (artisans, resident aliens, traders, etc), as well as residents of neighboring Lakedaemonian towns, found their way into the phalanx alongside full Spartiates. The citizen Spartan made up a smaller and smaller fraction of the battle line, and by at least the battle of Sphakteria in 425, the Spartans and non-Spartans were indistinguishable in the line (according to the record of Thucydides). By the Corinthian and Theban Wars in the 4th century, mercenaries, and even enfranchised helots fought in the phalanx. It was ultimately the cannibalistic impetuous of the large landowning class that undermined Spartan martial dominance.
Conclusions
We can make better sense of the role played by Sparta in the trajectory of Greek civilization now. The uneven development of the state and its ruling class led to deformities and peculiarities, but ultimately, the same material and class forces compelled it and its actions as the other Hellenic powers. In the wake of the Persian Wars, the Greek world was not the same; a vacuum of power was left in the Aegean and the poleis scrambled to fill it. The avenues to securing the rich trade routes to Asia, Africa, and beyond were open to the Greek ruling class, and they strove towards it. Athens went on the offensive in the Aegean and grew powerful as it gained an empire. The large landowning class of Sparta, the heroes of the Persian invasion, were also compelled to strive towards expanding toward that material base of power - especially since they were left somewhat behind in maritime development. Ultimately, this brought the states into the massive collision of the Peloponnesian War. In its wake, the Spartans invaded Persia, but were forced to retreat because of the beginning of a series of conflicts that would ultimately destroy the state. No Greek state proved strong enough to consolidate power over the Aegean and the Greek peninsula until Philip and Alexander.
The Spartans were not a unique development, just a state that developed along slightly different lines than the other "typical" slave states. Just as there are different state structures among the capitalist powers, due to the forces of combined and uneven historical development, the same laws were at work in the Classical World. What told, in the end, was the same class forces at the base of Spartan as well as Athenian society.
No comments:
Post a Comment