Social Structure of Sparta

Question 1

What are the requirements to be a Spartiate?

Answer 1

• Both parents have to be a Spartan.
• Had to have completed the agoge
• Had to have been accepted into a syssition by existing members.

Question 2

What does Plutarch say about the work the Spartiates weren’t allowed to do?

Answer 2

Plutarch, Agesilaus: “they were not allowed to work in or learn a manual trade”.

Question 3

What does Plutarch say about the work the Spartiates did? [In reference to Lycurgus]

Answer 3

Plutarch, Lycurgus 24: Lycurgus didn’t allow the Spartans to engage in any manual trade at all.

Question 4

What number does Thucydides give for the total number of Spartiates?

Answer 4

2 560 Spartiates (excluding Brasidians and Neodamodeis)

Question 5

Who are the Perioikoi?

Answer 5

Mostly inhabitants of the towns and villages of Lakonia and Messenia

Question 6

What did the Perioikoi do for Sparta?

Answer 6

• They were assumed to have manufactured goods used by Spartiates.
• Required to fight

Question 7

What does Herodotus say about the Perioikoi?

Answer 7

Herodotus says that as many perioikoi fought at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC than Spartiates

Question 8

What does Thucydides say about the Perioikoi?

Answer 8

Thucydides 4.8: “the perioikoi who lived closest went immediately to help at Pylos”

Question 9

What does the drawing of the tombstone of Eukalkes from 418 BC show?

Answer 9

It shows evidence of perioikoi fighting alongside the Spartans at the Battle of Mantinea.

Question 10

What does Xenophon say about the Perioikoi and what does it show?

Answer 10

Xenophon says that some perioikoi were wealthy, showing that the Perioikoi were not considered helots but also not considered Spartans.

Question 11

Who are the Helots?

Answer 11

The enslaved people living in the Peloponnese

Question 12

What did the Helots contribute to Spartan society?

Answer 12

They contributed materials and resources to Sparta, such as clothes and food.

Some worked as household slaves and attended young Spartiates as they went through the agoge.

They acted as servants for Spartiates when they went to war.

Question 13

What does Plutarch say about the helots?

Answer 13

Plutarch, Lycurgus 24.3: “The helots farmed the land for them”.

Question 14

What does Xenophon say about female helots?

Answer 14

Xenophon: female helots made clothes.

Question 15

What does Strabo say about the helots?

Answer 15

Strabo, Geography: “For the Lacedaemonians held them as state-slaves in a particular way, assigning certain settlements for them and particular duties”.

Question 16

What does Herodotus say about the helots?

Answer 16

Herodotus, Histories 9.28: “5 000 were Spartiates who were guarded by 35 000 light armed helots - seven serving each man”.

Question 17

What does Thucydides say about the helots?

Answer 17

Thucydides, 5.64: “and they mustered all their forces, Lacedaemonians and helot alike, to go to their aid with the largest army they had ever raised” at the Battle of Mantinea.

Question 18

What are Brasidians? [According to Thucydides]

Answer 18

Thucydides 5.34: “Brasidians were helots armed as hoplites whom the general Brasidas had taken with him to Thrace in 424 BC”.

Question 19

What did the ephors do in relation to the Helots?

Answer 19

Each year the ephors upon entering office would declare war on the helots so that they could be murdered at any time without violating religious scruples.

Question 20

What was one method of preventing a helot revolt?

Answer 20

They could prevent a helot revolt by sending helots away to fight to decrease the population.

This has been seen with Plataea and Mantinea, as well as with Brasidas.

Question 21

What does Thucydides say about preventing helot revolts?

Answer 21

Thucydides 4.80: They sent some of their helot population out of the country in case the capture of Pylos might encourage them to plot revolution.

Question 22

According to Thucydides, why did Sparta send the Athenian hoplites away in 464 BC?

Answer 22

Thucydides 1.102: “the Spartans grew afraid of the enterprise and unorthodoxy of the Athenians”.

Question 23

What was the clause in the Peace of Nicias relating to the helot revolt? (Thucydides)

Answer 23

Thucydides 5.23: if the helots revolt “the Athenians must come to help the Spartans will all their strength as far as they can”.

Question 24

What is the Krypteia?

Answer 24

A secret service where young Spartan men were tasked with killing potentially troublesome helots at the dead of night (Plutarch)

Question 25

What does Plato say about the Krypteia?

Answer 25

Plato: He describes them as being unsupervised and as depending on themselves alone for survival.

Question 26

What does Plutarch say about the Krypteia?

Answer 26

Plutarch, Lycurgus: describes the brutal killings of helots on behalf of the Krypteia.

Plato, Laws doesn’t mention these killings.

Question 27

What was the most important role for a Spartan woman?

Answer 27

The most important role for a Spartan woman was to produce children.

Question 28

What does Xenophon say about the role of women?

Answer 28

Xenophon: “the most important task for freeborn women was producing children”.

Question 29

What kind of ‘powers’ did Spartan women have in relation to their husbands?

Answer 29

• An elderly husband of a young wife could allow a younger man to have sex with his wife to produce children
• An unmarried man could ask permission for someone else’s wife to have his kids. The woman could take control of BOTH men’s houses.