In the case of Sparta we have in the poems of Tyrtaeus evidence for the means by which internal class conflict in the polis was “solved” by directing hostility outward into conquest and the systematic exploitation of those outside the community to extract the wealth necessary to “homogenize” a seriously divided polis. Aristotle, in a section of the Politics where he is discussing how “in aristocracies revolutions are stirred up when a few only share in the honors of the state,” elaborates his point with specific examples. It is striking that all the examples he gives are from Spartan history, ranging from the “so-called Partheniai” who were expelled and founded the colony of Tarentum late in the eighth century, to the rebellion of Cinadon in 398. Apart from inequitable sharing of honors, to which he had given pride of place as a cause of revolutions in aristocracies, he also cites economic causes: “when some are very poor and others very rich, a state of society which is most often the result of war, as at Lacedaemon in the days of the Messenian War; this is proved from the poem of Tyrtaeus, entitled ‘Good Order’; for he speaks of certain citizens who were ruined by the war and wanted to have a redistribution of the land.”18 It is very frustrating that Aristotle does not quote directly from Tyrtaeus: he does not spell out how citizens were ruined by the war or why he believes war is the most common cause of such economic disparities, but the demand for redistribution of the land suggests that long-standing disparities in the division of land were exacerbated by the war. Despite the emphasis in Tyrtaeus on the apparent motive of land hunger in attacking Messenia, a land “of broad dancing places. . . good for plowing, good for sowing,” fr. 5.2-3 West) it is hard to believe there was any absolute shortage of land in Laconia. Rather, as has been effectively argued a propos of Attica during the Solonian crisis,19 it was the dramatic inequality of the division of existing land that triggered the decision to seek new land and use external war as a vehicle for imposing internal unity. Though the relationship of the two Messenian Wars remains murky, it appears that the eighth-century conquest was sufficiently arduous and lengthy to produce a whole generation of sons of dubious legitimacy, who were a sufficient threat to the status quo to be shipped off to found Tarentum, traditionally in 706. The second war, probably in the mid-seventh century, which Tyrtaeus describes as requiring twenty years (fr. 5.4-8 West), seems to have been intimately connected with the internal crisis that led to the measures collectively described as the “Spartan system” or the “eunomia” (“good-order”), a term Hesiod uses to characterize the utopian world order after the triumphant succession of Zeus to the kingship of heaven (Th. 902). Since the chronology of the implementation of specific components of this system is irretrievable, the best way of formulating the process is to stress the consistent underlying logic of the system (Hodkinson 1997: 86). Given Tyrtaeus’ explicit - gloating? - description of the burdens imposed on the Messenians, “bringing to their masters, under the pressure of grim necessity, half of all the crop the field yields” (fr. 6 W), it seems a reasonable inference that the economic foundations of the system were laid first. A leisured class of “peers” was created by allotting enough helot-worked land to ensure - at least by seventh-century criteria - sufficient income to free all members of this class from the necessity of agricultural labor. The consequences of enslaving a substantial population to work the land of their ancestors for the benefit of foreigners presumably were clear by the time of the second Messenian War if not sooner. Thus more or less simultaneous with the economic arrangements must have been various measures aimed at the full militarization of this new class of peers. The thoroughness of the efforts to implement a “middling” ideology - to erase all signs of class differences within this group - is breath-taking: homogenized clothing, diet, living quarters, education, sexual rules. Central to the socialization process was the celebration of communal over individual interests. This is clear from Tyrtaeus’ relentless efforts to “sell” death as a brave hoplite as the greatest imaginable male achievement (fr. 10; 11; 12 W) and his sweeping dismissal of athletic prowess so dear to the elite (fr. 12 W). Yet a central lever of that socialization process was the valorization of that quintessential aristocratic value, competition with one’s peers. Over the long run the continued substantial inequalities in landholdings, allowing some the enormous luxury of competing in horse-racing, the most extravagant of ancient sports, and a marriage system20 that encouraged the consolidation of family wealth led to fewer and fewer “peers” being able to sustain their required contribution to the Spartan fraternity system, so that in the relatively short period between 480 to 371 the true Spartiates declined from 8,000 to some 1,500.21
The ascendancy of Sparta during the archaic period was intimately connected with the “Spartan mirage” (Ollier 1933; 1943), an illusion of Spartan inherent uniqueness and - usually - superiority that consolidated various elements in the aristocratic ideal on the ideological level despite the absence of any apparent discursive contributions by Spartans themselves, who seemed to have remained at the minimal level of literacy. Supremacy in warfare, total independence from all other sorts of physical labor, the complete antisepsis from the corruption of trade or money, systematic homosexuality (Cartledge 1981) combined with a celebration and public display of female beauty (Pomeroy 2002: 132-3) - all seemed to fulfill the aspirations of aristocrats from the rest of Greece to represent a true meritocracy while enjoying what they considered the most important of pleasures. Moreover, Sparta’s ingenuity in forming the first inter-polis extensive alliance devoted to fostering oligarchy and combating first tyranny then democracy had the effect of transforming class struggle within individual Greek poleis into a panhellenic struggle.
World History
