The teaching of the “classics” – primarily the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome – may be fading from universities, but interest remains high among publishers and readers.
This is largely because the themes of democracy, tyranny, empire and philosophy are still foundational to Western literature, law and political thought. One strand that attracts much attention is Sparta, admired for its traditions of military excellence, discipline and sacrifice.
Sporting teams from Czech football to Michigan gridiron have adopted the Spartan name, while Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 and films and video games based on it have created large new audiences.
In politics, the Nazis were keen on the Spartans’ less desirable traits such as euthanasia of imperfect newborns and strict collectivist social control. Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn movement, which emerged during the lengthy debt crisis of 2009-18, drew heavily on Spartan values and neo-Nazi symbolism before being branded an illegal criminal organisation.
On the other side of the coin, the Spartiates, as they are more correctly known, represented an “ideal blend of kingship, oligarchy and democracy”, as Aristotle put it. They also drew favourable comment from the Italian political philosopher Machiavelli and France’s 18th-century radicals Rousseau and Robespierre.
Historian Andrew Bayliss, an associate professor at the University of Birmingham, adds other reasons for Sparta’s modern relevance in this densely packed story of how it grew from a small collection of villages in the southern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula known as Laconia to having a brief period of hegemony over the whole Greek-speaking empire.
This was in the two decades before Sparta’s rapid decline and defeat at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE. Its rise began 140 years earlier after it conquered the neighbouring plains of Messenia.
Sparta’s “fight until death” soldiers, who used body armour, shields and spears, burnished their reputation in 480 BCE when King Leonidas led the legendary 300 Spartiates in their last-ditch stand at the Battle of Thermopylae.
Although they were wiped out, their actions were enough to prevent the massive arrow-wielding Persian army of Xerxes from conquering all of Greece in the first of many conflicts. The Persian Empire at the time spread across central Asia and comprised some 14 million people, about 12% of the world’s population.
In the west, Persia was pressing up against the Greek city-states, usually led by its largest, Athens. The battles for supremacy within these city-states and against external threats from the Persians make up the bulk of the next 100-odd years in Bayliss’s account.
During this time, Sparta switched allegiance twice to the Persians to get the upper hand against Athens, while also taking part in various ceasefires and peace treaties, most of which didn’t last.
Betrayal, deception and bribery were a large part of the constant state of warfare or preparation for it. These were hierarchical societies delineated by social rank and role.
Spartiates were a landowning elite who employed lower-class free citizens as farmers or in the trades. Below them were the majority, subjugated people known as helots. All sections contributed men for the military when required.
The elite had a highly regulated lifestyle that enforced tough discipline, compulsory exercise and communal dining. This permanent boot camp allowed Sparta to dominate the Olympic Games, competed for by naked men, and prescribed a diet that banished obesity.
The women enjoyed the rare status in ancient societies of owning property but faced similar restrictions. They were valued for physical beauty and producing healthy babies. They were allowed to do their sports in short tunics but could not wear them when entertaining.
Archaeological evidence lies in pottery designs while the written record depends largely on historians such as Herodotus, Xenophon and Plutarch. Their modern equivalents tread carefully before accepting these accounts as reliable.
Bayliss has firm opinions about why Sparta could not apply its military expertise to supplant Athens or replicate the scale of Persia or Rome.
“Spartan power turned out to be illusory,” he concludes. “[Their] stubborn refusal to share their wealth and conquests with other Greeks limited their potential to grow; at the height of their power, they were indeed a more virtual superpower than an actual one.”
In short, they lacked numbers and the Spartiate elite, far from making sacrifices on behalf of freedom for others, ended up treating them as they pleased. Bayliss calculates an 80% decline in military strength during nearly a century involving five major battles. The 5000 fighters at Plataea (479 BCE) was down to fewer than 1000 at Leuctra (371 BCE).
By comparison, Rome in the mid-sixth century BCE also had 5000 under arms but gradually built and consolidated its empire to some 70 million. This is a message for any elitist power that ignores the needs of those it rules.
