Introduction to Greek and Roman History

Introduction to Greek and Roman HistoryLecture 3

Meet the Spartans…

5th Century marble statue of a Hoplite (Archaeological museum at Sparta)

5th Century marble statue of a Hoplite (Archaeological museum at Sparta)

Sparta, the hoplite state

Sparta, the hoplite stateThe Dorians in Peloponnese (second half, X cent. B.C.)

Thuc. I.12.3

Sixty years after the capture of Ilium the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis; though there was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later the Dorians and the Heraclids became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done.

Spartan splendour:The Menelaion



Mycenean Palace:Was this the house that launched a thousand ships?

Mycenean Palace:Was this the house that launched a thousand ships?

Spartan splendour:The temple of Artemis Orthia




Spartan splendour:Bronzes of daily life: dancing & drinking

Homeric Myths of Love &War: Achilles &PenthiseliaBlack Figure vase from Athens ca. 540 BC at the BM

•Homeric Myth• Hand to Hand combat• How is battle depicted? • Focus on a single event• How is writing depictedand what is it’s function?

The Chigi vase, protocorinthian art, mid-VII cent.

The tower shield

Golden ring from a tomb of Mycenae

Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς

‘With this or on this’

Why a Spartan should not return without his shield…

Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς

‘With this or on this’

Why a Spartan should not return without his shield…


A new kind of Greek man:The hoplite

• Growing supply of metal and improved production capability, it is possible to arm larger armies.•Larger sections of the population can afford to bear arms.•Hoplite: soldier wearing the hopla, a full heavy armoury.• Standard equipment: bronze greaves and corslet, bronze helmet, heavy convex circular shield, held placing the forearm through a hoop, long spear and short sword for close combat.• Poor visibility and mobility, close co-ordination, tight formation and discipline were essential.

It is proper that the government should be drawn only from those who possess heavy armor.Aristotle, Politics IV.1397b


The seizure of Amyklai (early VIII cent.) and the earliest communities of perioikoi (around-dwellers)

Communities possessing local autonomy, but without separate military organisation or foreign policy.They fought in the Spartan army in separate regiments.

Colonial Sparta: the conquest of Messenia (735-715)

Paus. IV.6.5

It was this Theopompus who put an end to the war, and my evidence is the lines of Tyrtaeus, which say:—“To our king beloved of the gods, Theopompus, through whom we took Messene with wide dancing-grounds.” Aristomenes then in my view belongs to the time of the second war, and I will relate his history when I come to this.

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The enslaved populations of Messenia

Helots

• The land of Messenia is divided up into kleroi (allotments) and distributed to the Spartiates.

• The indigenous inhabitants of Messenia were retained in the land as peasants, working the land for and paying half their produce to their Spartiate masters.

Poll. Omon. III.83

Helots stand between the freemen and the slaves.

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Chattel slavery, helot slaveryChattel slaves: Slaves that can be bought and sold, i.e. pieces of alienable property: Athenian slavery.

Helot slaves: State-owned slaves tied to the land they work. Spartan slavery.

Lycourgos and the Spartan constitution (rhetra)

1. The citizens belong to the state and are all equal (homoioi).

2. The elders of the tribes decide whether a newly born child should be reared or thrown into a mountain ravine.

3. At seven, a child begins the agoge (upbringing).

4. At twelve, the child is initiated to common living.

5. At twenty, the agoge ends, the young men are admitted into the sissitia, or andreia.

The Spartan constitution (rhetra)

Laconophiles: Borrowing Spartan imagery

Documents

Introduction to Greek and Roman History