In these years a precipitous decline in the number of Spartiates first becomes apparent. It forced the Lacedaemonians to become creative in how they put armies together, and allied troops and even mercenaries played an ever-increasing role in Lacedaemonian armies as Spartiates became too precious to use except when truly necessary. Thus besides 6,000 other troops the Lacedaemonians sent only 30 Spartiates to campaign in Asia Minor in 396. Additionally, in a major development within Lacedaemonian society the class of the Neodamodeis (Helots freed against future military service) grew dramatically as the scarcity of Spartiates opened up a pathway to freedom for many Helots. Even more importantly, this decline set the stage for the end of Sparta as a military power in Greece, so it merits some attention in its early stages. The immediate cause for the drop in numbers was high and sustained casualties during the Peloponnesian War (431-404), but for the systemic causes which prevented a recovery, see Box 16.2.
At the Battle of Plataea in 479 bc, some 5,000 Spartiates had fought alongside of an equal number of Perioeci (Hdt. IX 27-28). Herodotus reckons with seven Helots to a Spartiate, so the following overall ratio emerges:
1 Spartiate : 1 Perioecus : 7 Helots
Given the situation in 479 bc, this was a maximum levy. Even if the figures must be taken with some salt - the numbers of Spartiates and Perioeci are round and the ratio of Helots to Spartiates seems just a plausible guess -, they ought to be approximately accurate.
The next probable maximum levy recorded is that from the Battle of Nemea in 394 bc during the Corinthian War. Here a total of 6,000 Spartiates and Perioeci took the field (Xen. Hell. IV 2,16). The number of Lacedaemonians, then, according to the available figures, had dropped by approximately 40% in just over eight decades.
If Spartiates and Perieoci still stood at a ratio of 1:1 in 394, then there were 3,000 Spartiates at the battle of Nemea. However, another piece of evidence suggests that there were even fewer Spartiates than that. In 399 bc, shortly after Agesilaus' accession, the ephors got wind of a conspiracy to overthrow the government in Sparta. A man called Cinadon had taken a potential confederate into the marketplace at Sparta and had asked him to count the number of Spartiates - it came to somewhat over 40. Then he estimated the non-Spartiates at 4,000 (Xen. Hell. III 3,5). The figures may be exaggerated for effect, but they seemed plausible to someone who knew Sparta as well as Xenophon. If so, then the ratio of Spartiates to everyone else in Sparta in 399 approached 1:100 (as opposed to 1:8 in 479). The number of Spartiates was almost surely lower than 3,000 in 394.
World History
