FOR centuries Sparta was the first military power in Greece. This position it owed partly to the Dorian vigour of its inhabitants, and partly to the strict discipline introduced by Lycurgus at a time when the other Greek states had not yet awakened to the importance of that military drill which was to contribute so largely to their influence. Of these two sources of Spartan greatness we seem to have a recognition in the fact mentioned by Pausanias that at the two bridges, on either side of the place where the youths were in the habit of engaging in their athletic contests, there was an image of Heracles and a statue of Lycurgus, the one being the emblem of bodily strength, the other of authority and rule.

Besides Sparta there were two other states whose ruling families could claim to be descended from Heracles, namely Argos and Messenia. For a long time Argos would admit no superiority on the part of any other Greek state, and at no time was it reduced to subjection to any; but within two hundred years after the Lycurgean rÉgime had been established at Sparta, Messenia had been virtually annexed to LacedÆmonian territory, and the bulk of its inhabitants reduced to a state of serfdom scarcely distinguishable from that of the helots who had been subjugated at the time of the Dorian invasion. From the first the Dorian conquerors of Messenia seem to have been on more friendly terms with their subjects than was the case with their kindred who settled in Argos and Laconia. Their racial characteristics were thus impaired, while their moral fibre was relaxed by the wealth of the country which fell to their lot; but it was not till after a number of severe struggles that Sparta obtained the mastery.

The condition of the Messenians after the first war (743-724) is thus described by TyrtÆus the poet, who took part in the second war (645-628):—

The reference in the last two lines is to the fact that when Spartan kings or nobles died, men and women had to come from Messenia to attend their funeral, dressed in black. Their greatest warrior was Aristomenes, who is said to have twice offered to Zeus Ithomates the sacrifice called hekatomphonia, which could only be offered by any one after slaying a hundred of his enemies in battle. Rather than submit to the loss of their liberty many of the Messenians abandoned

their native land and settled at Naupactus, Cephallenia, and elsewhere, with the sympathy and help of the Athenians. But even from these places of refuge they were driven by the Spartans long afterwards, when the latter had recovered their ascendency, and were forced to seek new homes in Sicily and Italy (where they founded Messene and Rhegium) and in North Africa. In 464 B.C. a general rising of the subject population took place not only in Messenia but in the greater part of Laconia, partly occasioned by a destructive earthquake, which was regarded as a judgment of heaven on the Spartans for their sacrilegious cruelty to some slaves who had taken refuge in a temple of Poseidon on the coast. In this struggle, as at the close of the first war, the chief stronghold and rallying-point of the oppressed nationality was Mount Ithome, which rises to a height of 2600 feet, and was described at a later time as one of the horns of the Peloponnesus, Acro-Corinthus being the other. Nearly a hundred years afterwards the Messenians found a deliverer in Epaminondas. The great Theban not only invited the exiles to return, but also restored their enslaved countrymen at home to the enjoyment of their political rights and liberties. In order to secure their unity and independence he resolved to build a great city in the immediate vicinity of Ithome, with the summit for an acropolis. After elaborate sacrifices and solemn prayers, invoking the presence and protection of their ancient heroes, especially the valiant Aristomenes, the city was laid out and built with the help of some of the best architects and masons of the day, the labourers being cheered in their work by the rival strains of the Boeotian and Argive flutes. Fortifications were erected, so strong, and planned on such scientific principles, that the remains of them, in the form of walls and towers and gates, are still the admiration and astonishment of military men. The territory which Epaminondas annexed to the city was by far the most fertile part of Greece, including the plain of Stenyclerus on the north and the still richer and more extensive plain watered by the river Pamisus on the south, to which the name of Macaria (“Blessed”) was given.

Notwithstanding these advantages, and although the returned exiles had preserved unimpaired their Dorian speech and sentiment, the new city was not destined to play any great part in the annals of Greece. The fear of its old enemy made it too ready to submit to the subtle encroachments of Philip, in spite of the warnings which Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, on one occasion addressed in person to its assembly. A few years later the city fell into the hands of Alexander the Great and his subordinates, who robbed it of its liberties and paved the way for the dominion of Rome. The site is now almost uninhabited, and overgrown with vineyards and corn-fields. Excavations have brought to light the foundations of a theatre, a stadium, a market-place, and a fountain; but, apart from the fortifications, there are few remains of any great interest. The view from the top of the mountain is one of the finest in the Peloponnesus, commanding the Taygetus range of mountains on the east and the sea on the south

and west. Standing on the summit one has a sense of elevation and aloofness; and one can understand how it should have been chosen as a retreat by a wealthy citizen of Athens, who devoted himself to a life of prayer and meditation, only descending once a fortnight for a supply of necessary food—an illustration, in a new form, as Prof. Mahaffy remarks, of the tendency to human sacrifice which was early associated with the altar of Zeus Ithomates. There is a ruined chapel on the top, also traces of very ancient foundations, some of them probably connected with the defence of the fortress, others with the worship of Zeus. Nearly half-way up the mountain the traveller passes a Greek convent (Vourkano)—a quadrangle with an interesting little church in the centre, where he will meet with a kind reception if he pay a visit to the monks and partake of their simple hospitality.

The ascent of Mount Ithome is in some places rather difficult, and requires careful riding. Before he start, perhaps the traveller may witness a controversy between his dragoman and the natives who have been engaged to bring horses or mules for the journey. An excited crowd will gather, which will not be complete without the presence and peace-making counsels of the parish priest—usually a very sociable person, in close touch with the interests of his parishioners, and conspicuous for his long black beard, his tall rimless hat, and his long loose coat, lined with fur. Perhaps the traveller may have a servant told off to guide his beast, who rejoices in the illustrious name of Leonidas, and is entrusted with a big leather bottle containing the copious supply of resinated wine intended not only for himself but for his fellow-servants. To refresh himself in his long climb under the rays of the sun pouring down upon him from a cloudless sky, Leonidas may help himself so liberally as to get excited and break out into song and story, imperilling the rider’s life, perhaps, by going off the main track and having to turn where the horse has difficulty in keeping its hind feet from slipping down the side of a precipice; or, perhaps, in descending the mountain he may pull the rope attached to the animal’s head with such force as to compel it to take a leap downwards, which might easily project the rider down the hill if he were not on the watch and determined to keep his seat under all circumstances. But Leonidas is an exceptional man, and the animals are so sure-footed that accidents very seldom occur.

About fifteen miles south-east of Messene, at the head of the gulf, is the thriving little town of Kalamata, with some silk manufactories and a large trade in currants and figs and other fruits. To the south-west, on the coast, about twenty-five miles from Messene, lies the traditional capital of Nestor’s kingdom, still retaining its old Homeric name of (sandy) Pylos. Kalamata is supposed to be the ancient PherÆ at which Telemachus and Nestor’s son, Peisistratus, halted for the night on their way to Sparta to visit Menelaus. The distances suit well enough for a two-days’ ride, but it has been pointed out by V. BÉrard that there is no road

across the Taygetus mountains by which travellers could have driven in a chariot to Sparta, as Homer represents the two young men to have done; and he concludes (as Strabo did) that the Pylos referred to must have been the place of the same name much farther north, from which a journey on wheels could be made all the way to Sparta. Even apart from the interest attaching to it as the supposed city of Nestor, Pylos, with the adjacent island of Sphacteria, has had an important place in Greek history, both in ancient and in modern times. In the seventh year of the Pelopennesian war it was the scene of one of the most memorable defeats ever sustained by the Spartans at the hands of the Athenians. Twenty-two centuries afterwards (1770 A.D.) its garrison of Greek insurgents was massacred by the Turks, who, in turn, suffered a similar calamity in 1821 at the outbreak of the War of Liberation, as the Greeks again did at the hands of the Egyptians in 1825; while in 1827 the naval battle of Navarino took place in its bay, resulting in the destruction of the Turkish fleet, with a loss of 6000 lives, in less than two hours, by the combined British, French, and Russian forces.

Sparta was the only Greek state that retained the regal form of government all through the period of Hellenic glory. Its government was not, strictly speaking, a monarchy, however, as there were two royal dynasties, descended from the twin sons of the Heracleid Aristodemus, which had continued unbroken in the male line for 500 years, forming a direct connection with the heroic age. The two kings served as a check on one another’s ambition, preventing the growth of such tyranny as had been found intolerable in other states, and had there led to the adoption of an oligarchic or democratic form of government. The rights of the community were further conserved by the modification of two public bodies, dating from the heroic age, of which we often hear in Homer, namely, the BoulÉ or Senate and the Ecclesia or General Assembly. In Sparta the former received the name of Gerousia, and consisted of twenty-eight members above sixty years of age, presided over by the two kings; the latter was called Apella, and was periodically convened to consider any proposals submitted to it, and had the right to fill up vacancies in the Gerousia. But the most effectual safeguard against tyranny was found in the annual election, by the Apella, of five officials, named ephors, who came into existence about 750 B.C. and gradually acquired such control of public affairs both at home and abroad that the royal prerogative was virtually reduced to the command of the army in the field, the offering of public sacrifices, the charge of communications with the Delphian oracle, and some other matters of a ceremonial kind. Even in their capacity as commanders-in-chief the kings became subject to the decision of the Assembly as to the making of peace or war, and ultimately had even to take their directions from the ephors in the conduct of a campaign. Every month the kings and the ephors took an oath of fidelity, the former promising to rule in accordance with the constitution, the latter to be loyal in their obedience, on the condition just mentioned. As in our own country, there was a continual tendency to make royalty a position of honour rather than of power, which was the more remarkable in Sparta, as the office was universally regarded as held by divine right, and as lying at the foundation of the nation’s tide to its territorial inheritance derived from Heracles.

The social system introduced by Lycurgus about the beginning of the eighth century B.C., under the direction, as was believed, of the Delphian oracle, was founded upon a species of communism to which only those were admitted who were full citizens of Sparta, and had sufficient property to contribute their appointed quota to the expenses of the common mess. All the citizens without exception had to conform with the utmost regularity to a rigorous code of discipline, which was fitted to produce habits of courage, strength, endurance, self-denial, and simplicity of life. The training of the boys for military service, to which citizens were liable from their twentieth to their sixtieth year, began when they were seven years old. They were not only trained to athletic exercises and feats of strength, but they had also to content themselves with the plainest food and the scantiest clothing. As they approached manhood it was considered to be in the interests of religion, and pleasing to the goddess Artemis Orthia in particular, that they should be severely scourged, and it was no uncommon thing for young lads to die under the operation without betraying any sign of suffering. To be able to bear pain without flinching, and to become inured to the severest hardships and privations, was looked on as the chief end of a manly education.

The young women were also trained in gymnastic exercises, and enjoyed more freedom than in any other part of Greece. They boxed and wrestled, and ran races, sometimes even with the young men. The object of their education was to train them to be mothers of brave men, and their martial spirit comes out in some of the sayings addressed by Spartan mothers to their sons—“Return with your shield or upon it,” “If your sword is too short add a pace to it.” As a rule the women held a position of honour in the community and were frequently possessed of property, so much so that in the fourth century B.C. more than half the land in Laconia belonged to them. They were trained to suppress all emotions of tenderness and compassion, and to reserve their admiration and affection for the brave and strong. Nothing could have been more humiliating than the reception given to defeated soldiers who survived their comrades and returned home. No one would speak to them or associate with them in any way, and if they did not bear themselves with the greatest humility they were liable to be struck and insulted by any one who met them. Cowardice was the one sin for which there was no forgiveness. It is told of one of the men serving under Leonidas, who had allowed some complaint in his eyes to prevent him from joining his comrades at ThermopylÆ, that when he went home to Sparta he was treated with the utmost scorn; no

one would give him even a light for his fire. A year afterwards the same man was foremost in the fight at the battle of PlatÆa, which completed the discomfiture of Persia. He thought by his heroic defiance of danger to wipe out the reproach which rested on him, and he perished nobly on the field. But for all that he was not considered worthy of the funeral honours that were bestowed upon his fallen comrades, who had been less reckless in the fight but had always done their duty.

In harmony with this contempt for cowardice was the deportment of soldiers’ relatives when news of battle reached them. The friends of those who had fallen, instead of being cast down with grief, went about with a proud and glad mien, as if they knew they were entitled to honour and respect, while the relatives of those who had allowed themselves to be taken prisoners or had made their escape were depressed and sad, as if they had reason to be ashamed in the presence of their neighbours. When tidings of the terrible disaster at Leuctra arrived at Sparta the whole community were engaged in the celebration of the festival of gymnopÆdia, and the chorus of grown men was at the moment performing in the theatre. But no suspension or interruption of the proceedings took place. The only thing done was to send information of their bereavement to those whose friends were reported as killed, and to enjoin the women to make no noise. Historians have contrasted this self-control of the Spartans with the weeping and wailing of the Athenians on the night on which the news arrived of the destruction of their fleet at Ægospotami, which put an end for ever to their naval empire. But they also relate an incident which shows that Athenian women could be as fierce in their indignation as their Spartan sisters. In an expedition against Ægina the whole of the Athenian citizens engaged in it, except one, lost their lives. On his return the survivor was beset by the widows of his slain comrades, each demanding to know what had become of her husband; and before he could make his escape from the infuriate crowd he was pricked to death with their brooch-pins.

In contrast to the wonderful calmness shown by the Spartans in time of calamity was the demonstration of feeling which took place on one occasion when they received unexpected news of a great victory over the combined Arcadian and Argive forces, without the loss of a single LacedÆmonian. For some time they had been so accustomed to defeat that all who heard the news burst into tears, Agesilaus and the Ephors setting the example—so much more difficult is it to repress violent feelings of joy than of sorrow.

It was another peculiarity of Spartan training that to take advantage of people in the matter of property was regarded as a merit, if the dishonesty was not detected, and if it was not a breach of some special law or custom. In Xenophon’s Anabasis (iv. 6) there is a curious allusion to this trait of the Spartan character. The Greek army had come to a pass occupied by a hostile force. Instead of trying to carry it by direct assault Xenophon suggested that soldiers should be sent up the shoulder of the hill to turn the position. “But,” he said, addressing his Spartan colleague Cheirisophus, “stealing a march upon the enemy is more in your line than mine. For I understand that you, the full citizens and peers of Sparta, practise stealing from your boyhood upwards, and that it is held no way base, but even honourable, to steal such things as the law does not distinctly forbid. And in order that you may steal with the greatest effect and take pains to do it in secret, the custom is to flog you if you are found out. Here, then, you have an excellent opportunity of displaying your skill. Take good care that we be not found out in stealing possession of the mountain now before us, for if we are found out we shall be well beaten.” To this pleasantry Cheirisophus rejoined: “Why, as for that, you Athenians also, as I learn, are capital hands at stealing the public money, and that, too, in spite of prodigious peril to the thief. Nay, your most powerful men steal most of all—at least if it be the most powerful men among you that are raised to official command. So that this is a time for you to exhibit your training as well as for me to exhibit mine.”

There was no place where the love of money was more prevalent than in Sparta, and that in spite of the fact that till a comparatively late period the possession of gold and silver by private individuals was forbidden. For a long time the only metal in circulation was iron, in such heavy pieces that it was impossible for any one to carry much money with him, or even to store it in his house. When Lysander brought home what was left of the large amount of gold and silver he had received from Cyrus for the prosecution of his schemes, strong objection was taken to its admission by some of the Ephors, as being at variance with the principles laid down by Lycurgus. It was only on the understanding that the treasure was to be the property of the state, and not of any private individual, that their objections were overruled, though their scruples about accepting the money did not prevent them from withholding from their allies any share of the spoil. The Lycurgean system was doomed, owing to the change which had come over the views of the leading men, as the result of foreign travel, and the bribery to which they had become habituated, especially in their relations with Persia. The wealth and magnificence of their famous general, Lysander, who was the first Greek to receive divine honours in historic times, and who is the most typical representative of imperial Sparta, present a striking contrast to the severe simplicity of his forefathers. Even a greater evil than the personal self-seeking which began to prevail was the collective selfishness by which the Spartans had long been distinguished. As a rule, they were comparatively indifferent to the general interests of the Hellenic race, and on more than one occasion they showed that they were ready to sacrifice these interests for their own immediate advantage, currying favour with the Persians at the cost of the liberties of the Asiatic Greeks, and envying and grieving at the naval empire of Athens, while they failed to take advantage of their own opportunities

for building up an empire on land, in which they could have retained their supremacy without trampling on the rights and liberties of other Greek states. If Sparta had possessed a few more men of the type of Brasidas—men of a generous and catholic spirit as well as of consummate ability in war—its own life and the life of ancient Greece might have been indefinitely prolonged.

It was one of the penalties of the narrow discipline of Sparta that it produced so few really great men. The body was cultivated at the expense of the mind, and little or no importance was attached to intellectual pursuits. Music was almost the only form of art generally cultivated, and that chiefly because of its connection with military drill. The victory of Agis at Mantinea in 418 B.C., when he was taken by surprise, was largely due to the inspiring and regulative influence of the fifes and war-songs (which were as cheering and not so exciting as the speeches delivered on the other side), as well as to the superior mode of transmitting orders from the general, through the various gradations of rank (down to the enomotarch in charge of some twenty-five men), as compared with the public proclamation by a herald, which was customary elsewhere. Even for their music they are said to have been indebted to foreign teachers—to TyrtÆus, whose stirring strains raised their spirits at a most trying crisis in their history; to Terpander, who added three strings to the lyre, completing the octave; and to Alcman, the last to train a popular and voluntary chorus. Not only in their military drill, but also in their public processions and choral dances, music played a great part in their civilisation. People of all ranks and classes (not excepting even the kings) and of all ages, were expected to undergo training at the hands of the chorus-master and take their allotted place in the public celebrations. To this day you may sometimes see on festive occasions well-dressed men and women joining with the children in a choral dance on the public road.

One great defect in the Spartan discipline was the want of a natural home-life for the growth of family affection and social culture. Their city was more like an armed camp in the midst of a hostile population than the capital of a civilised state. The military distinction to which they sacrificed everything else fostered a spirit of imperious pride, which became their ruling passion, as it was indeed their chief reward for their unsparing self-denial. For a long time they were regarded as practically invincible, so much so that when nearly 300 of them surrendered at Sphacteria to an immensely superior force of Athenians, it created quite a sensation throughout Greece. The description of them given by Demaratus to Xerxes, that Spartans must either conquer or die, expressed the character which they not only claimed for themselves but which was popularly attributed to them by the whole Hellenic race, and it procured for them an honourable reception wherever they appeared in time of peace. In war they had the support of the perioeci, as they were called, the inhabitants of the country towns and more mountainous parts of Laconia, to whom they conceded

freedom but no political rights. In general, their relations with these people were friendly enough. It was owing to the need of providing an outlet for the surplus rural population and meeting their aspirations that the colony of Tarentum was founded in 707 B.C. The colonising of Thera (Santorin—which became in turn the mother of the Greek colony of Cyrene in North Africa), and the Dorian settlements in the south-west of Asia Minor, took place much earlier.

The number of fully qualified Spartan citizens was never very great, some 8000 or 9000, with a tendency to decrease owing to the subdivision of family property rendering them unable to contribute their quota to the public mess, debarred as they were from engaging in agriculture or other industry. They had constantly to guard against a revolt on the part of the helots or slave population, who were bound to the soil and cultivated the lands of their Spartan masters. They availed themselves of their services as light-armed troops, but so suspicious were they of them that they never hung up their shields without detaching their holding-rings from them, for fear they might be snatched up and used against them. Their treatment of the helots was frequently cruel and oppressive. They had a system of secret police, under which three hundred of their strongest young men were charged with the duty of detecting any signs of disloyalty among the serfs, and putting the suspected to death without a trial. At the time of the Peloponnesian war they were believed to have been guilty of an atrocity of this kind of a peculiarly revolting character, when they were in great dread of a native insurrection. They announced that liberty was to be conferred on those who had distinguished themselves in the recent war, and invited all such to apply for their reward. A great many did so, and about two thousand of them were formally emancipated, and led in procession to the temples with wreaths upon their heads. But immediately afterwards they all disappeared, put to death in some mysterious way, which was never made public. This we have from Thucydides, a contemporary historian.

Such things were little fitted to make Sparta a “Liberator of the Greeks,” as she professed to be when seeking to crush the imperial power of Athens; and, as soon as her military power began to decline, she gradually lost her influence. Yet it should not be forgotten that after the battle of Ægospotami (404 B.C.), when the Athenian empire was shattered and its capital lay at the mercy of the Peloponnesian allies, the Spartans refused to assent to the proposal of Corinth and Thebes that Athens should be destroyed and its inhabitants sold into slavery—declaring that they could never be a party to such treatment of a city which had laid all Greece under obligations by its conduct at the time of the Persian invasion. It is also to the credit of Sparta that as late as 338 B.C. she, alone of all the Greek states, refused to submit to Philip, who ravaged her territory, but failed to take the city, as Epaminondas had also failed to do, when he occupied the country a generation before. A hundred years later an earnest attempt was made by two Spartan kings, Agis IV. and Cleomenes III., to revive the ancient discipline and government; and some measure of immediate success was attained. But it was only the last flicker of the expiring flame. The battle of Sellasia in 221 B.C. put an end for ever to the Heracleid kingdom, and in the next generation Philopoemen abolished what was still left of the Lycurgean constitution. Thenceforth the greatness of Sparta was a thing of the past.

“These are the walls of LacedÆmon,” said Agesilaus on one occasion, as he pointed to the citizens in arms. The truth of his words was proved more than once, as we have just seen. But he might also have pointed to the mountain barriers by which the country was hemmed in on every side except towards the sea, where invaders were confronted by a dangerous and inhospitable coast. The city described by Thucydides lay on the western side of the river Eurotas, in a plain four or five miles in breadth and about eighteen miles in length. It presented the appearance of a number of adjoining villages, built on low hills; and in this respect it has been compared to ancient Rome. The situation is beautiful, especially as one looks west upon the grand range of Taÿgetus, its lower slopes and valleys clothed with the richest vegetation, while its serried peaks, extending for miles towards Cape Matapan on the south, rise into the region of perpetual snow. The site of the ancient city is for the most part covered over with olive-groves and corn-fields and other vegetation. Traces of a large theatre have been found, and there is a massive stone structure which goes by the name of Leonidas’ tomb. There are a few other remains, but none of any great interest.

A short distance to the south-east of Sparta, where the river Magoula joins the Eurotas, on the top of steep cliffs, reaching in some places a height of more than 700 feet, and approaching close to the east bank of the Eurotas, lies the site of the ancient Therapne, which is now generally identified with the Homeric Sparta. If the supposition be correct, these heights were once the scene of palatial state and splendour, with which the historic Sparta even in its best days had nothing to compare. The foundations of a temple sacred to Menelaus and Helen have been traced, and a great many little figures of lead have been discovered, which served no doubt as votive offerings, while fragments of unglazed MycenÆan pottery have also been found in the immediate neighbourhood. According to tradition, there was here also a temple to the Dioscuri—Castor and Pollux, half-brother and brother of Helen; and here they were said to lie buried every alternate day, Pollux having declined the offer of immortality from his father Zeus, unless it were shared by his brother.

Two or three miles south of Sparta, on the west side of the river, in the midst of a country abounding in fine fruit trees and rich cereal crops, lay the ancient city of AmyclÆ, which remained in the hands of the AchÆans for centuries after the Dorian invasion. On the top of an adjoining hill the foundations of the

The eastern portico of the Pantanassa Church, with view over the valley of the Eurotas.