Inscribing the Limits of Authority: The Hegemony of Herodotus’s Spartans

Herodotus provides our first detailed picture of Spartan leadership, but his account, closely studied as it has been, is even more revealing because of its form, its silences, and its assumptions than because of its tantalizingly sketchy content. Herodotus’s model of Spartan authority is a thick text that inscribes within itself an idealized set of rules for leadership in the archaic Greek world. Even as he presents a flattering (and probably anachronistic) account of Sparta’s prestige in the mid-sixth century, he embeds in his account strict conditions that limit and contain Sparta’s position. He defines a Sparta for which too much power and autonomy would, paradoxically, endanger its preeminence. In praising Sparta, Herodotus establishes standards that constrain Spartan behavior. His introduction is thus both a panegyric and a cautionary tale.

Herodotus does not flesh out for us the harsh, philistine Sparta on which Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle dwell,^[2] but his Spartans throughout the Histories differ from their fellow Greeks. At the opening of the two major segments of the Histories, books 1 and 5, Herodotus draws a schematic overview of Athens and Sparta. In the first of these, Herodotus represents his material from a typically oblique perspective, offering us the account of Sparta as the Lydian Kroisos perceived it. The two sketches at 1.59–64 and 65–68 encapsulate the leading states of fifth-century Greece two generations before Xerxes’ invasion.

Herodotus’s language is often suggestive, but one particular term in this passage has attracted a great deal of scholarly attention and shaped perceptions of Herodotus’s first account of Sparta. At 1.68.6, Herodotus remarks that by the time Kroisos made his inquiries in the middle of the sixth century “the greater part of the Peloponnese had been subjected by them.” Herodotus’s choice of language (a form of the verb katastrephô, “to subjugate, conquer”) is harsh and has caused some embarrassment. Kroisos, for example, “subjected (katestrepsato) the Greeks to the payment of tribute” (Hdt. 1.6.2; cf. also 1.27.1), and the term reappears sixty-five times in Herodotus to describe one group subduing another. The commentators W. W. How and J. Wells remark that Herodotus is “exaggerating,” though they seem more concerned with the extent rather than the intensity of Spartan control. G. E. M. de Ste. Croix argues that the term would be “fully justified” if Sparta’s allies “were obliged to follow Sparta into war at her bidding.” ^[3] More recently, Kurt Raaflaub suggests that the term is a piece of Athenian anti-Spartan propaganda, which sought to portray the Peloponnesian League as analogous to the Athenian empire.^[4]

In fact, the verb katastrephô is indeed harsh. Herodotus is, in this passage, altering his historical voice, moving from a general view (which brings with it a certain vocabulary) to another, more jaundiced perspective that we may associate with the more cynical, all-knowing historian. The same shift from softened, euphemized language to blunter and harsher rhetoric happens earlier on in book 1. At 1.13, Herodotus quotes in indirect discourse an exchange between Gyges and the Delphic oracle. In this passage, he follows the terminology that the participants, we are to suppose, themselves used, and he uses derivatives of basileus, the word for a legitimate king, five times in a single paragraph. When he then goes on to speak of Gyges’ dynasty in more generalized language (Hdt. 1.14), he shifts from basileus to turannos, the term for one who exercises power by force rather than by legitimate right.

If the term katastrephô implies that Sparta had harshly subjected the greater portion of the Peloponnese to its will, then Herodotus’s “glib generalization” ^[5] renders ironic the main point of the previous chapters and clashes with the presentation of Spartan authority elsewhere in the Histories. Taken as a whole, Herodotus’s account of Sparta at 1.65–68 is as remarkable for its silences and for the limits it sets as it is for its contents and its celebration of Spartan power.

First, Herodotus, in this programmatic introduction of Sparta, is silent on two major subjects: the Messenian wars and the helots. This silence is not neutral but conveys a sharp message. The Spartan way of life depended upon the direct control of land within Lakonia and Messenia. Sparta reduced many of the original inhabitants in those districts to the level of “helots,” serfs whose labor supported the Spartans. The Lakonian helots had been serfs from time immemorial, but the Spartan conquest of Messene was recent enough that Tyrtaios could give it a permanent (if still somewhat sketchy) place in the poetic record of Greece. The Messenians never forgot that they had been free, and Herodotus several times mentions war with them as a recent event (Hdt. 9.35.2, 64.2) or an ongoing possibility (5.49.8). Likewise, Herodotus elsewhere takes helotage for granted and makes no attempt to minimize its role. We might have expected any description of Sparta’s rise to power to have included these two phenomena, the heroized struggle to conquer Messene and the somewhat peculiar institution of helotage.^[6]

At 1.65–68, however, where Herodotus sketches the rise of Spartan power, he includes neither the Messenian wars nor helotage in his initial overview of Spartan power and its origins—not a specific judgment, perhaps, but suggestive. He does, however, go on, as we will see, to situate Sparta’s final rise to prominence at the point when it ceased expanding and reducing its Greek neighbors to slavery. In Herodotus’s model, Sparta achieves its dominant position only when it no longer seeks to dominate others. He complements the silence on Spartan conquest and subjugation of free Greeks with pointed anecdotes from which we may draw our own conclusions.

Second, Herodotus provides us with only a brief description of Lykourgos and his reforms at Sparta. He recalls an earlier time when the Spartans had been the “most ill-governed (Hdt. 1.65.2: kakonomôtatoi) of nearly all the Hellenes.” This term for “ill-governed,” kako-nomos, is powerful, for it is the adjectival opposite of the noun eu-nomia, “good government,” the quality that in later times all—even the unenthusiastic Thucydides^[7] —conceded as distinguishing Sparta more than any other state. The term “government” is inadequate: “both eunomia and kakonomos characterize a whole way of life, not only (or perhaps not at all) a form of constitution.” ^[8]

According to Herodotus, however, this early disorder at Sparta had two dimensions. On the one hand, disorder reigned internally among the Spartans themselves (Hdt. 1.65.2: kata spheas autous), but from the outset, Herodotus refuses to define the Spartans in isolation or to focus his attention on strictly internal matters. When Herodotus paints the dismal situation at Sparta, he combines internal lack of eunomia with the fact that the Spartans were also “unsociable to strangers” (xeinoisi aprosmiktoi). The second feature is significant. Many of our other sources stress the secrecy and xenophobia of the Spartan state,^[9] but here at any rate Herodotus implies that the Spartans improved not simply because they adopted a new internal order but because they became better able to associate with members of other Greek states. No Greek polis exists in isolation. Even Sparta must establish itself, according to Herodotus, by its dealings with others.

According to Herodotus, Sparta develops in two separate stages, each of which receives from Delphi a legitimating oracle: the greatest sanctuary in the Greek world sanctions both Lykourgos’s reforms and the superiority that the Spartans later asserted over the Tegeans. The structure of Herodotus 1.65–69 is typically Herodotean, jumping chronologically backward and forward. The chronology is susceptible to various interpretations, but the narrative seems to proceed as follows. We first learn that in Kroisos’s time the Spartans “had escaped their great troubles and were already superior to the Tegeans in warfare” (1.65.1), and Lykourgos was the man who had brought them out of this disordered escape (the verb describing their escape, it might be noted, is in the perfect rather than the aorist and thus emphasizes that the escape took place in the past but remains in effect during the present).

From the “present” of his narrative (in this case, the time of Kroisos, roughly a century before Herodotus was writing), Herodotus moves back into distant times and discusses the reforms of Lykourgos. The emphasis of this description is remarkable and has caused many scholars, anxious for early information about Sparta, to grind their teeth in frustration. On the one hand, at 1.65.4 Herodotus summarily alludes to some of the basic institutions attributed in his day to the Lykourgan reforms: the military organization, the ephorate, and the gerousia, a council of elders. He does not, however, explain what any of these institutions are, and he dismisses them within a single sentence. On the other hand, Herodotus devotes more than two sections (1.65.2–4) to Lykourgos’s visit to Delphi and to the unexpected oracle, which Herodotus quotes, that attributed to Lykourgos a more than mortal status. Herodotus then includes alternate traditions: that the Pythia herself gave Lykourgos the new way of life or that Lykourgos introduced it from Crete. After his death, we learn (1.66.1), the Spartans established a sacred precinct (hieron) for Lykourgos where they revere him greatly (sebontai megalôs: a strong expression, since the verb sebô implies worship rather than simple honor).^[10] The precise source of his reforms and their details are, however, less prominent in the narrative than the initial confrontation of Lykourgos and the oracle. The allusion to Lykourgos’s ongoing cult concludes this part of the Spartan logos.

Herodotus’s emphasis on the trip to Delphi and the cult of Lykourgos is tendentious and imposes on Spartan prestige limits and conditions foreign to the later account in Xenophon’s Constitution of the Spartans. Xenophon puts far less relative emphasis on this: he praises the sanction of Delphi only in a brief section, and Delphi ratifies, rather than inspires, the reforms (Lak. Pol. 8.5). Herodotus’s narrative, by contrast, gives cursory attention to the substance, and reinforces instead the legitimacy, of Lykourgos’s reforms. Herodotus expresses little interest in Lykourgos’s reforms as a set of laws and practices pursued within the Spartan state. He takes much greater care to establish the personal authority of Lykourgos and the official sanction that he and his reforms received from the Panhellenic oracle of Delphi. Thus Lykourgos was not successful in reforming Sparta simply because his institutions were better, but because he had received the advice and support of Delphi, a Panhellenic institution far beyond Spartan control. The Lykourgan reforms are not an autonomous system whereby self-contained Spartans produce power in their isolated city-state. They received their initial origin and legitimacy from a wider Greek society.

Third, once Lykourgos’s reforms are in place, Herodotus moves on to a further and distinct stage of his story. Lykourgos’s reforms do not by themselves produce Spartan preeminence in warfare. Important as Lykourgos may have been and however much he was revered, he alone did not make Sparta the leading state in Greece. Herodotus has already referred to an intermediate stage in Spartan development, when the Spartans were successful in the rest of their wars, meeting disaster against the Tegeans alone (Hdt. 1.65.1). Once again, Herodotus chooses a remarkable starting point. Blessed with good land and large numbers, the Spartans “were not content to keep quiet but disdainfully concluded that they were stronger than the Arkadians” (1.66.1). Although, as we noted above, Herodotus does not, in this passage, even mention the bitter warfare in which the Spartans ultimately enslaved the Messenians, a Greek people who never forgot and ultimately regained their independence, Herodotus does show himself acutely sensitive to the prospect of Sparta enslaving Arkadian Greeks. There is nothing to be done for the Messenian helots, as far as Herodotus is concerned, but the historian refuses to praise Sparta for the conquest of free Greeks (he does not even acknowledge this loss of freedom at 1.6.3). But Herodotus need not rely upon silence alone to make his point. By fixing the historical gaze upon Tegea, the narrative illustrates what it will and will not praise. The story of Sparta and Tegea firmly establishes the fact that Spartan conquests of Greek states were a thing of the past. Spartan preeminence is, in fact, contingent on the shift from expansionism. Herodotus describes Spartan preeminence in warfare by defining the limitations of this preeminence.

The story of Sparta and Tegea, like that of Lykourgos, begins outside of the Peloponnese, at the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. The Spartans consult the god about their prospects of conquering all of Arkadia (Hdt. 1.66.1). (We might note that aggression against landlocked, mountainous Arkadia was never a good idea. The closest classical Greek to that disclosed in the Bronze Age Mycenaean Linear B tablets are the dialects of Arkadia, the mountainous center of the Peloponnese, and of Kypros, the most distant margin of the Greek world. Arkadia seems to have survived as a backward but defiant fortress of the Mycenaean people, who once dominated the Peloponnese.^[11] The prospects for subjugating Arkadia were therefore from the outset not encouraging.) The answering oracle limits Sparta’s immediate ambitions but seems to endorse warfare against Tegea.You ask me for Arkadia? You ask too much; I grant it not.
There are many men in Arkadia, eaters of acorns,
Who will hinder you. But I grudge you not.
I will give you Tegea to beat with your feet in dancing,
And its fair plain to measure with a rope.

“Measuring the land of Tegea with a rope” sent a strong message. Greek colonists from any polis would initially divide up the new land among themselves, and the oracle seemingly promised Sparta that it would be able to appropriate the territory of the Tegeans and divide it among its citizens. The Spartans naturally assumed that the god had given them his sanction to treat the Tegeans in the same way as they had treated the Messenians. The Spartans happily focused their attentions on Tegea and marched off to war carrying with them the chains with which they planned to enslave the Tegeans.

The oracle, however, proved to be kibdêlos (Hdt. 1.66.3), what we might now term “fool’s gold,” for its true interpretation was hardly favorable to Sparta. The Tegeans defeated the Spartans and made them wear the chains that they had brought with them (66.4). The would-be conquerors measured out the fields of the Tegeans by working on them as prisoners. The chains themselves were preserved and hung in the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, where, Herodotus tells us, they could still be seen in his own day.

Warfare between Sparta and Tegea continued off and on for some time (Hdt. 1.67.1; note that Herodotus specifies at 1.68.1 that there happened to be free association between Spartans and Tegeans at this period). This warfare seems, however, to have fallen squarely into the inconclusive, limited conflicts that Thucydides at 1.17 and Aristagoras at Herodotus 5.49.8 both treat so dismissively. Nevertheless, during this period, the Tegeans always defeated the Spartans in war (Hdt. 1.67.2). Ultimately, the Spartans asked Delphi which god they should honor in order to achieve military supremacy over the Tegeans. The oracle (which Herodotus quotes at 67.4) tells them that if they physically bring the bones of Orestes, Agamemnon’s son, to their own country, they will get the upper hand in their dealings with Tegea.

But if Apollo’s oracle predicts that Sparta will, if the bones of Orestes are located, prevail in its struggle with Tegea, the god does not promise conquest or even domination. Sparta is to become epitarrhothos of Tegea, and the term sets precise limits on Sparta’s success. Epitarrhothos appears seven times in Homer, always to describe a god championing a hero. The divine patron can be anonymous (e.g., Il. 11.366, 20.453; Od. 24.182) or known (Athena as patron of Diomedes at Il. 5.808, 828; Zeus as patron of the Trojans at Il. 17.339; Poseidon and Athena as patrons of Achilles at Il. 21.289). The epitarrhothos is thus clearly superior to the hero and serves as his patron, but the relationship does not degrade the subordinate member nor detract from the valor of his acts. Rather, when Athena becomes Diomedes’ epitarrhothos, she boasts that he will even be able to confront the god Ares (Il. 5.826–833). The epitarrhothos provides support that allows the hero to earn glory. The epitarrhothos is the senior partner in a reciprocal relationship that enhances the prestige of both members.

As the epitarrhothos of Tegea, Sparta was therefore not to be the conqueror but the senior partner in a relationship that both sides valued. The two states clearly had their quarrels—even in the fifth century, Sparta had to fight both Tegea and Argos, its two most powerful rivals in the Peloponnese (Hdt. 9.35.2)—but Tegea enjoyed a special relationship with its neighbor to the south. According to Herodotus, the Spartans always made a point of giving the Tegeans the opposite wing, the most honorable place in the line of battle after their own (9.26.1). The Athenians manage to supplant the Tegeans at Plataia (9.28.1), but their successful argument deserves comment. Both the Tegeans and the Athenians base their claims on deeds from both ancient and modern times (9.26.1: kaina kai palaia parapherontes erga; 9.27.1: palaia kai kaina), but the Athenians end their speech with a gracious acknowledgment of Spartan preeminence:

Yet seeing that this is no time to engage in stasis about our place in the battle, we are ready to obey you, men of Lakedaimon, and take whatever place and face whatever enemy you think fitting. Wherever you set us, we will strive to be valiant men (chrêstos). Command us then, knowing that we will obey.

The Athenians’ generosity and willingness to accept Spartan authority wins resounding Spartan approval, and the Athenians supplant the Tegeans in the place of highest honor among the allies. Nevertheless, the Spartans do not dismiss the Tegeans out of hand (9.28.3) but set the Tegeans next to themselves in line of battle (timês heneka kai aretês), on account of their “excellence” (aretê) and to show them “honor” (timê).

Nor was this respect one-sided: the Tegeans seem not to have nursed bitter hostility or spent their time looking for an opportunity to pay Sparta back for haughty behavior. Sixty years later, when Spartan prestige was at a low ebb and key Greek states were seeking to found a new alliance, representatives of Corinth and Argos asked Tegea to abandon its ties to Sparta. They attached great importance to Tegea’s actions, for if Tegea deserted Sparta, then the entire alliance, it seemed at the time, would crumble (Thuc. 5.32.3). Offered the chance to deal a savage blow to Sparta, the Tegeans refused to take any action against Spartan interests (5.32.4). Tegean constancy was a powerful gesture and weakened Corinth’s resolve. When, subsequently, word reached Sparta from its friends at Tegea that the city might defect to the Argive alliance, the Spartans, often scorned for their caution and slowness,^[12] launched a rapid and unprecedented expedition with all their available forces to secure their support at Tegea (5.64). Ultimately, the Tegeans stood side by side with their Spartan allies and helped them restore their prestige at the battle of Mantinea (5.71.2).

The relationship between Sparta and Tegea seems to have been the cornerstone and grand paradigm for Sparta’s relationship with its other allies. Tegea largely accepted Sparta’s superiority, and each state publicly dramatized its respect for the other with gestures before third parties such as the Greeks demonstrated at Plataia and the delegations from Argos and Corinth showed. So long as the relationship between Tegea and Sparta retained a strong element of reciprocity, the rest of Hellas could look to at least one case in which Spartan superiority did not mean domination or degradation to the junior partner. Athens, by contrast, could, at the start of the Peloponnesian War, still point to Chios and Lesbos as similar examples, but these islands were the exception in that they were allies, not tribute-paying subjects, of Athens.^[13] Herodotus, on the other hand, focuses on Tegea because Tegea, though unusual in the degree of honor that it received from Sparta, was a more general prototype for which Spartan allies could strive.

Herodotus thus circumscribes Spartan power, demarcating its magnitude and limits alike. In the end, Sparta achieved military superiority over Tegea (Hdt. 1.68.6), the only state that it previously could not defeat (1.65.1). But military superiority over the other Greek states (at least taken individually) did not lead to further Spartan conquest. Spartan expansion was limited to disputed border regions such as Thyrea, which lay between Argos and Sparta. Aristagoras was at least partially correct when he derided Spartan warfare as futile (5.49.8), but such limited goals opened up a space within which other states could safely concede to Sparta its leading position. Since the number of Spartans was finite and since they did not rely upon developed financial mechanisms to support a partially mercenary force analogous to the Athenian navy, the Spartans were, for their part, unable to assert domination much beyond their existing borders. The limits with which Herodotus defined Sparta were, in fact, essential to the existence of Spartan power. Herodotus proved remarkably clear-sighted, for the Spartans proved clumsy imperialists and, used to the subtle devices of hegemony, were, after succeeding the Athenians, unable to master the very different mechanisms of domination.