It is hard to imagine what Sparta would have
looked like in Leonidas' lifetime. The city was destroyed by
earthquakes more than once, flooded and the site completely abandoned
for more than a thousand years. Today few ruins remain date
predominantly from the Hellenistic or Roman periods, and an
unattractive modern town has been dumped upon the ancient site.
So naturally our images of the ancient city-state have been shaped by
what we have been told about Spartan society. Spartan society was
characterized by rigid discipline, a disdain for luxury, and endurance
of hardship. We are told that the boys suffered a childhood of
deprivation in which they had to steal to get enough to eat and were
allowed only one garment per year, while the women were prohibited from
wearing jewelry or taking pride in their weaving. Indeed, gold and
silver was banned entirely, and so could not adorn even the temples of
the Gods. The houses, we are told, were not painted (as else
where in the Ancient world), and the cuisine was infamous for its lack
of sophistication and variety.
You would think that such a society must have developed in an austere,
plain, indeed barren, landscape. After all, a society
deprived of food and clothes, and lacking all forms of decoration and
fine cuisine sounds like a desperately poor society. It is easy to
assume that Spartan society evolved to make a virtue out of necessity.
But
the valley of the Eurotas River, the heart of ancient Lacedaemon, is
anything but barren! It is green and fertile and stunningly beautiful -
like riches cupped in the hands of the gods. From the blooming oleander
to the wild iris, the valley is a garden. Orange orchards stretch as
far as the eye can see, brazenly advertising the abundance of soil and
sun and water. Most spectacular of all, the Eurotas valley is one of
those few places on earth that offers the sensually stimulating sight
of palm trees waving against a back-drop of snow-capped mountains.
Nor is this richness a product of modern fertilizers and irrigation.
The ancient historians also speak of Sparta's agricultural
wealth. Sparta's hinterland in fact produced in
abundance every staple of ancient Greek agriculture from grain to
grapes, and from citrus fruits to olives. Furthermore, ancient
Laceademon was famous for its forests and pastureland. The former
provided exportable timber and abundant game to enrich the Spartan
diet, while the latter nourished sheep, cattle, goats and fine horses.
Finally, Lacedaemon had exploitable mineral resources such as lead,
tin, copper and marble.
Sparta took full advantage of these natural blessings. The fact that
the ruling class, Sparta's full citizens or Spartiates, were
prohibited from engaging in any profession other than arms, has led
many modern observers to imagine Lacedaemon was devoid of industry,
trade and commerce. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Sparta's tiny elite of professional soldiers had the luxury
to devote themselves to perfecting their skill at arms precisely
because Lacedaemon had a large population of helots and perioikoi.
Both helots and perioikoi are believed to be the descendents of the
peoples who inhabited Lacedaemon before the Doric invasion.
While the helots had a status similar to medieval serfs and enjoyed
only limited freedom, the perioikoi were fully free men. The
perioikoi had abdicated control of foreign policy to Sparta, but they
otherwise governed their own affairs by their own customs and laws.
They were not bound by the Spartan Constitution attributed to Lycurgus
regarding dress, diet, profession or the possession of gold and silver.
Among the perioikoi there were artisans and architects, merchants and
bankers, tradesmen and shipbuilders – just as in any other
Greek city. The perioikoi produced everything from mundane
domestic articles to exportable quality works of art in bronze, ivory
and stone, and they traded from a variety of ports with direct access
to the Aegean and Ionian Seas.
In short, Leonidas' Sparta was not poor, but the center of
the powerful city-state of Lacedaemon. It was the administrative hub of
large territory with an abundance of natural resources and agricultural
produce, good lines of communication, and an active commercial and
trading community. It was also the leading nation of the Peloponnesian
League, a powerful defensive alliance of independent city-states
– the NATO of its age. Last but not least, it was the site of
annual vocal and dance festivals that attracted mass tourism from
around the ancient world. It was most decidedly not a provincial
back-water lost in a barren and inaccessible landscape.
Modern writers, however, have often been misled by the disparaging
remarks made by Athenian observers about their hated rival. Nicolas
Nicastro in his The Isle of Stone (p.67), for example, describes the
capital of the dominant superpower of Greece as no more than "an agglomeration of
sleepy villages." Jon Edward Martin,
an author whose research is on the whole very sound, writes in The Headlong God of War
(p. 83) that "large
buildings were few" and depicts the city as
having only "a
small collection of civic buildings clustered to the southeast of the
acropolis." Steven Pressfield in his
best-selling novel Gates
of Fire"…
a pile of stones," and go on to claim: "It contains no
temples or treasures of note, no gold…."
Yet Pausanias, whose travel guide to Greece was written in the 2nd
Century AD – long after Sparta's decline from
prominence under Leonidas – needed 26 sections and
more than 60 pages to describe only the noteworthy architectural sites
of the ancient city! Far from being a backwater, Sparta was a
large, prosperous and important city in the lifetime of Leonidas. But,
as the Athenian commentary suggests, it was also very different from
other Greek cities.
Visitors to Leonidas' Sparta would have come expecting the
capital of this rich and powerful state to be like other power-centers
of the civilized world. Whether tourists, coming for the
dancing and singing at the annual festivals, or diplomats, coming to
plead for Spartan troops to support some distant conflict, foreign
visitors would have compared Sparta to Susa, Sardis and Alexandria no
less than Athens or Corinth. These foreigners came expecting
a city enclosed by walls whose strength matched Sparta's
military reputation. They expected to pass through imposing
gates into a city crammed with brightly painted, colorfully tiled and
elaborately decorated public buildings. They expected to find
temples laden with gold crushed between pompous civic
buildings. They expected to find a confusing maze of
residential streets crammed with humanity humming incessantly with
activity. They expected – as in other crowded
cities – these back streets to be clothed in the perpetual
shadows cast by the tall walls which shielded the private spheres
– and women - of inhabitants from all this frenetic, public
commotion. They expected a commercial capital as well as an
administrative one. It is hardly surprising that they were disappointed
with what they found at Sparta.
Sparta was different from other Greek cities, but it was not
necessarily without its unique charms. For example, we know
that in ancient Greece most statues and temples were painted vivid
colors and the statues of the gods were dressed in robes, ivory, gold
and jewels. Spartan temples were not. But isn't it
precisely that simplicity of white stone structures of flawless
proportions and life-like naked marble statues that we find striking in
ancient Greek architecture and sculpture today? Would we
admire the Parthenon in Athens as much if it was dressed – as
it was in the age of Leonidas - in vivid paint? Would we
prefer to see Venus de Milo painted in flesh tones with red lips and
blond hair?
Sparta's ethos and aesthetics were different from other Greek
cities, but that doesn't mean it lacked beauty or
refinement. Yes, Leonidas' Sparta had no walls, but
this meant it could spread out graciously upon its valley as all major
European cities did after their confining walls were torn down.
No one today would call Paris, Vienna or Rome "a
collection of villages." Yet all did in fact begin
as collections of villages, which later grew into a single metropolis
after the need for fortifications disappeared and economic growth
fueled urbanization. Why should we assume that just because Sparta was
made up of five distinct villages in pre-Archaic times that it was not
– by the age of Leonidas when it was at the height of his
glory – a cohesive, dynamic city?
Spartan homes may indeed have lacked elaborate interior paintings, but
then maybe such decoration was not necessary because, unlike their
Athenian counterparts, they were not compressed into the back allies of
an over-crowded city and surrounded by high, protective walls. Spartans
could afford to build their houses on generous plans. They
could incorporate interior courtyards planted with fruit trees and
herbs. They could surround themselves with gardens and orchards.
Spartans could have decorated their homes - as they did
themselves – with things of nature: cut flowers, bowls of
fruits, running water. Even without gold or silver, their
homes could still sparkle with sunlight glinting off the water of
courtyard fountains.
Ironically, Leonidas' uniquely Spartan city might well have
been more pleasing to modern taste than Athens or Alexandria of the 5th
Century BC.
Picture a city spread across the broad floor of the Eurotas valley
before the backdrop of snow-capped Taygetos. Picture a city
of wide, tree-lined avenues along which the white-washed civic
buildings, marble monuments and graceful temples stretched like pearls
upon a green thread. Imagine a city of sun-soaked theaters
and imposing but airy stoas. Imagine a city where the
barracks and civic buildings with their long porches and batteries of
Doric columns face green, open spaces set aside for running and
horse-racing. Imagine a city decorated with fountains and
flowering trees which gradually spreads out into the suburbs where
large villas set in blooming gardens sprawl out toward the mountains on
either side of the Eurotas. That image will bring you closer
to the Sparta of Leonidas.
Award-winning
novelist Helena P. Schrader is writing a biographical novel of Leonidas
and Gorgo. She has published three novels that will draw you
into a colorful and intriguing Sparta unlike the conventional
clichés. Helena Schrader holds a PhD in History
and works as a Foreign Service Officer.
Note: This article was
modified from one published by the author in "Sparta: Journal of Ancient
Spartan and Greek History", Vol 5, II, January 2010.
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