The name of the king of Sparta. Kings of Sparta

The origin of the institution of dual royal power in Sparta, the reason for its amazing longevity, its role and significance in society and the state are the subject of lengthy debate. Researchers who believe that the Spartan kings played a large and important role in the life of their state recognize Sparta as a very unique polis, unlike all the others. Their opponents believe that the uniqueness of Sparta should not be exaggerated, since at the time when the polis system was formed in Sparta, the kings did not have real power, and the very preservation of the institution of royal power was just a tribute to tradition on the part of the conservative Spartiates. Thus, it still remains unclear whether this institution was purely decorative or was a real body of power and control. Did the Spartan kings, by virtue of their origin, position and powers, play an important role in Spartan society and state, or did they not have any significant power and influence?

In Russian historiography there is no special study devoted to this problem. General works usually indicate that the Spartan kings played a prominent role during the war in hiking conditions, and in peacetime in Sparta itself they were highly respected, but, as a rule, they did not have real political power. In recent years, there has been a move away from this concept. Some works note that the kings enjoyed significant power. In modern foreign historiography, this point of view is predominant. Some researchers argue that the Spartan kings, thanks to their powers and the authority of their rank, played an outstanding and sometimes even decisive role in political life.

The speaker's task is to try to solve this problem based on the data of Herodotus. To do this, he needs to consider not only the powers of the kings and other authorities in Sparta, but also the possible sources of influence that the kings could have due to their origin and social position. To answer the main question, it is necessary to find out whether the kings could use their special sacred status and the priestly functions associated with it to strengthen power and influence. Did they have special sources of income and could they use their wealth in political struggle? Did they have the opportunity in their political activities to rely on the support of rich, influential, and highly privileged relatives?

Approximate outline of the main part of the report:

1. Sacred foundations of royal power

a) ideas of the Spartans and other Greeks about the divine origin of kings and their connection with the gods

b) priestly functions of kings

c) the connection of the kings with the Delphic oracle

2. Property status of the kings

3. Royal relatives

a) the composition of the royal family (relatives by blood and relatives by marriage)

b) special privileges and property status of royal relatives

c) relationships between kings and their relatives 4) Participation of kings in state life

a) foreign policy and military functions of kings

b) judicial and administrative functions of kings

c) relationships between kings and other authorities

d) the relationship of kings with each other

The speaker usually prepares the first paragraph of the first section or the third section in advance with the help of the teacher. Since the topic of the report is extensive, for the convenience of the speakers it can be divided into two: 1) The sacred foundations of royal power according to Herodotus and 2) Spartan kings according to Herodotus. In this case, the first section of the plan turns into a rough outline of the main part of the report “Sacred Fundamentals...” As practice shows, you can write both a report and a term paper on each of these topics.

The most typical mistake is presenting the subject in a descriptive manner using only the data that lies on the surface, replacing the analysis of source evidence with their retelling. Thus, speaking about the participation of kings in state life, they often limit themselves to retelling a well-known fragment about the privileges of the Spartan kings, without trying to analyze it and compare it with other evidence, and sometimes they even simply describe campaigns and battles that were fought under the leadership of the kings. The speaker should keep in mind that the conclusion about the role of kings in the internal or foreign policy can only be concluded on the basis of all the data relating to the resolution of important political issues in Sparta, and that illustrative selective use of the source's data deprives his work of any value. To avoid the temptation of a descriptive approach, the speaker should pay attention to the following questions: is there a connection between the special sacred status of the kings and their performance as commander of the Spartan army? Who, according to the Spartans, was better suited for the post of commander: an experienced military leader or a man favored by the gods? What were the specifics of the Spartan succession to the throne and how can it be explained? What ideas are associated with the royal funeral rite? Is there evidence of kings using their priestly status for political purposes? Why did the Spartans often sentence guilty kings to exile, and never to death? Why did kings so often marry close relatives? What could all the judicial and administrative functions of kings have in common? Was Sparta, according to the Spartans and other Greeks, a republic or a monarchy? Who, according to Herodotus, had greater influence on the most important political issues - kings or the people's assembly?

Frequently encountered errors include deviations from the topic of the report (for example, an attempt doomed to failure in advance to resolve the issue of the origin of dual royal power) and mixing together the formal powers of kings and their informal influence (when, for example, the advice given by the king to the ephors, the speaker calls it an order ).

The topics “Sacral foundations of royal power according to Herodotus” and “Spartan kings according to Herodotus” are neither too complex nor too time-consuming due to the presence of a compact source. Even an ordinary student can handle them safely. At the same time, as practice shows, a strong student, working on one of these topics, has the opportunity to come to independent non-trivial conclusions and prepare an excellent course work.

Sources

Herodotus. History in nine books. Translation and notes by G.A. Stratanovsky. L., 1972 (or any later edition).

Required literature

Andreev Yu.V. Sparta as a type of polis / Ancient Greece. Problems of policy development. Ed. E.S. Golubtsova. T. 1. Formation and development of the policy. M., 1983.

Borukhovich V.G. The scientific and literary significance of the work of Herodotus / Herodotus. History in nine books. L., 1972.

Ancient Greece. Rep. ed. V.V. Struve and D.P. Kallistov. M., 1956.

Zaikov A.V. Jurisdiction of the Spartan kings (to the interpretation of Hdt.VI. 57, 4-5) / Ancient antiquity and the Middle Ages. Vol. 31. Ekaterinburg, 2000.

History, ancient Greece. Ed. IN AND. Kuzishchina. M., 1986 (or any later edition).

Kulishova O.V. The Delphic Oracle in the social life of the ancient Greeks. Author's abstract. Ph.D. diss. L., 1990.

Latyshev V.V. Essay on Greek Antiquities. Ch. P. Liturgical and scenic antiquities. Ed. 2. St. Petersburg, 1997.

Lurie S.Ya. History of Greece. Lecture course. St. Petersburg, 1993.

Mythological dictionary. M., 1990.

Pechatnova L.G. History of Sparta. The period of archaism and classics. St. Petersburg, 2001.

Strogetsky V.M. The origins of the conflict between the ephorate and royal power in Sparta / Ancient polis. Vol. 4. L., 1979.

Strogetsky V.M. Some features of the internal political struggle in Sparta in the late 6th - early 5th centuries. BC. Cleomenes and Demarat // VDI, 1982, No. 3.

Huxley D.L. Herodotus on myth and politics in early Sparta / Antiquity and the Middle Ages of Europe. Perm, 1994.

additional literature

Berger A. Social movements in ancient Sparta. M., 1936.

Whipper R.Yu. History of Greece in the classical era. M., 1916. Zelin K.K. Olympians and tyrants // VDI, 1962, No. 4.

Zubov A.B., Pavlova O.I. Religious aspects of the political culture of the ancient East: the image of the king / Religions of the Ancient East. M., 1995.

Kolobova K.M. Ancient Sparta. L., 1957. Lurie S.Ya. Herodotus. M.-L., 1947.

Parshikov A.E. Pausanias and the political struggle in Sparta // VDI, 1968, No. 1.

Smyshlyaev A.L. Spartan “community of equals” in modern historical and legal research / Current problems of jurisprudence abroad. Vol. 1. M., 1989.

The history of Sparta should begin with the Dorian migration. Of course, it is impossible to reconstruct in detail the process of migration of the Dorians to the Peloponnese. IN modern science Sometimes even the very possibility of such relocation is disputed, but more often the disputes are around its nature. Contrary to ancient tradition, for which the resettlement of the Dorians was undoubtedly a military campaign, a theory is put forward according to which the Dorians appeared in the Peloponnese a century after the death of the Mycenaean civilization and occupied lands that had long been empty. In this theory, the moment of conquest is completely absent. There was only a “slow infiltration” of individual Dorian tribes to new lands. This theory is based solely on archaeological data. The fact is that the Mycenaean palaces perished in the late 13th - early 12th centuries. BC, and the oldest early geometric ceramics of the Dorians date back to the 11th century. BC.
There is another, according to which the Dorians are either mercenaries in the service of the Mycenaean rulers, or the lower strata of Mycenaean society, who seized power as a result of a violent coup.
These examples illustrate the danger of denying the ancient literary tradition and absolutization of archaeological data. Of course, it is completely impossible to reconstruct the early history of Sparta in detail, with names and exact dates.
During the classical period, Greece had two leading cities - Athens and Sparta. Both of these states, each in their own way, made a huge contribution to the formation and development of ancient civilization. In our study we will focus on the institution of royal power in Sparta and the status of kings.

1. Prerequisites for the creation of Lacedaemon

In the Laconian region lived Leleg, who was its first king. Leleg had two sons, Miletus and the younger Polykaon. After the death of Miletus, his son Eurotas assumed power. Since he had no male offspring, he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygeta, from whose name the mountain took its name, and whose father was Zeus himself.
Lacedaemon was married to Sparta, daughter of Eurotas. As soon as he received power, then, first of all, he gave his name to the entire country and the entire population, and then built a city and named it after his wife; and to this day this city is called Sparta. Amycles, the son of Lacedaemon, wishing in turn to leave some kind of memory for himself, founded a small town in Laconica. Of his two sons, Hyakinthos, the youngest and very handsome, died before his father; the grave of Hyakinthos is in Amykla, under the statue of Apollo. After the death of Amycles, power passed to the eldest of his sons, Argal, and then, after the death of Argal, to Kinorta. Kinorta had a son, Ebal. Ebal took Gorgophon, the daughter of Perseus, from Argos as his wife and had a son by her, Tyndareus. Hippocoon entered into a dispute with him over the kingdom and demanded power for himself under the pretext of seniority. Having united with Icarius and those who rebelled with him, he turned out to be much stronger than Tyndareus and, as the Lacedaemonians say, forced Tyndareus to flee Pellanus in fear. The Messenians have a tradition regarding him that Tyndareus fled to Messenia and came to Aphareus, and Aphareus, the son of Periers, was the brother of Tyndareus on his mother - that, according to them, he settled in Messenia, in Thalamae, and that when he lived here all his children were born. Tyndareus later returned to Laconia with the assistance of Hercules and regained power. Tyndareus was succeeded by his sons; then Menelaus, son of Atreus, son-in-law of Tyndareus, reigned here, and after him Orestes, husband of Hermione, daughter of Menelaus. When the Heraclides returned to the reign of Tisamen, son of Orestes, the cities of Messene and Argos fell to the share of the first, Temen.
In Lacedaemon, twins were born to Aristodemus, and two royal families were formed. Aristodemus himself, in Delphi before the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese.
The sons of Aristodemus were called Proclus and Eurysthenes; being twins, they were nevertheless each other's worst enemies. But no matter how far their mutual hatred went, it did not prevent them from jointly helping Fer, the son of Autesion, their guardian and brother of their mother Argea, to establish and take possession of the colony. Fera sent the same colony to the island, which was then called Callista (the Most Beautiful), hoping that the descendants of Membliar would voluntarily cede royal power to him.

2. Agid Dynasty

Eurysthenes is the legendary king of Laconia from the Heraclid family, who ruled in the 11th century. before the Nativity of Christ. He was the ancestor of the royal family of Agids. When the boys grew up, the Lacedaemonians proclaimed them both kings. The brothers divided Laconica into six parts and founded cities. The Heraclids made Sparta their capital; they sent kings to the remaining parts, allowing them, due to the sparse population of the country, to receive all foreigners who wanted them. Neighboring tribes were subordinate to the Spartans, but had equal rights, both in terms of citizenship rights and in the sense of holding government positions. They were called helots
Eurysthenes, the eldest son of Aristodemus, had a son Agis; from him the family of Eurysthenes is called Agids.
During the reign of Echestratus, son of Agis, in Sparta, the Lacedaemonians forced all the adults capable of bearing arms of the inhabitants of Cynurea to move out, accusing them of the fact that they, although related to the Argives, allowed the robbers from Cynuria to devastate Argolis, and they themselves openly raided this land.
A few years later, Labot, son of Echestratus, took power over Sparta. As a child, Labota had Lycurgus as his guardian, who made laws. During this war, nothing worth mentioning was done on either side; who then reigned from this house, Dorissa, son of Labot, and Agesilaus, son of Dorissa, both suffered death after a short reign.
Agesilaus I is the legendary king of Laconia (IX century BC) from the Agid family. Under Agesilaus, the laws of Lycurgus were adopted.
Agesilaus had a son, Archelaus. Archelaus - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who ruled in the 9th century. before the Nativity of Christ. Under Archelaus, the Lacedaemonians subdued by force of arms one of the neighboring cities, Aegina, and enslaved its inhabitants, suspecting that the Aegineans sympathized with the Arcadians.
The son of Archelaus was Telecles: under him the Lacedaemonians took three district cities, having won a victory over them in the war, namely Amycles, Faris and Geranfres, which then still belonged to the Achaeans.
After the death of Telecles, Alkamenes, son of Telecles, assumed power; under him, the Lacedaemonians sent one of the most noble people of Sparta, Charmides, son of Euthys, to Crete in order to stop civil strife among the Cretans and convince them to leave those small cities that were located relatively far from the sea or were weak in one way or another, and build instead common cities in places convenient for sea communications. Under him, they destroyed the seaside city of Gelos - it was owned by the Achaeans - and defeated the Argives in battle, who helped the inhabitants of Gelos (helots).
After Alkamen's death, Alkamen's son, Polydorus, assumed royal power. He reigned in the 8th century. before the Nativity of Christ. Under him, the Lacedaemonians sent to found two colonies: one in Italy, in Croton, the other in the region of the Locrians, those near Cape Zephyria.
It was under him that the First Messenian War began. At this time, the Lacedaemonians were commanded mainly by Theopompus, son of Nicander, a king from another royal family. When the war with Messenia was brought to an end, Polydorus was killed by Polemarchus. Polydorus was very popular in Sparta and was especially loved by the people, since he did not allow himself to act violently or rudely towards anyone, and when performing court, he observed justice and showed leniency towards people
During the reign of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, the Messenians patiently endured their situation, remaining subjects of the Lacedaemonians; and there were no new actions against them on the part of the Argive people.
But under Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, the Messenians rebelled against the Lacedaemonians. For some time they, waging war, held out against the Lacedaemonians, but then, being defeated, they, by agreement, withdrew from the Peloponnese; the same part of their population that remained in this land became slaves of the Lacedaemonians, except those who occupied their coastal cities.
Anaxander's son was Eurycrates, and Eurycrates - this was the second king with this name - had a son Leo. Leo ruled in the first half. VI century before the Nativity of Christ. During their reign, the Lacedaemonians suffered quite a few defeats in the war with the Tegeates. But under Anaxandrid, the son of Leo, they turned out to be victorious in the war over the Tegeates.
Anaxandrides, son of Leontes, alone of all the Lacedaemonians had two wives at the same time and lived in two houses at the same time. When Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, although Doria in reason and in military affairs, in their opinion, was superior to Cleomenes, nevertheless, against their will, removed him from the royal rank and gave power to Cleomenes on the basis of the laws of seniority. Then Doria - he did not want to obey Cleomenes while remaining in Lacedaemon - was sent to found a new colony.
Cleomenes I - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who reigned from 520 to 491. BC Cleomenes was somewhat weak-minded and prone to insanity.
As soon as Cleomenes ascended the throne, he immediately invaded Argolis, gathering an army of both Lacedaemonians and allies. When the Argives came out against him with weapons in their hands, Cleomenes defeated them in battle. Cleomenes also marched twice against Athens: the first time to free the Athenians from the tyranny of the children of Pisistratus, which gained him and the Lacedaemonians great glory among all the Hellenes, and the second time for the sake of the Athenian Isagoras, in order to help him seize tyranny over Athens. But he was mistaken in his hopes. The Athenians fought for a long time for their freedom and Cleomenes devastated their country, he also ravaged the region, the so-called Orgada, dedicated to the Eleusinian goddesses.
He arrived in Aegina and ordered the arrest of influential Aeginetans who sided with the Persians and convinced their fellow citizens to give Darius, son of Hystaspes, “land and water” (as a sign of submission). When Cleomenes was in Aegina, Demaratus, a king from another royal family, began to accuse him before an assembly of Lacedaemonians.
When Cleomenes returned from Aegina, he took measures to deprive Demaratus of his royal dignity, and for this he bribed the Delphic prophetess so that she would give the Lacedaemonians such an answer as he himself had suggested to her and prompted Leotychides, a man of the royal family and from the same at home with Demaratus, enter into a dispute with him over power. Leotichides referred to the words that his father Ariston had once, through imprudence, uttered in relation to the newly born Demaratus, saying that this was not his son. Then the Lacedaemonians, as they usually did, transferred the whole matter and the dispute about Demaratus to Delphi, asking for the prophetic word of God. And the prophetess gave them a saying in the form of an answer that corresponded to Cleomenes’ plans. Thus, Demaratus was removed from the kingdom due to Cleomenes’ hatred of him, and not due to justice.
Subsequently, Cleomenes, in a fit of madness, caused his own death: grabbing a sword, he began to inflict wounds on himself and died, having chopped up and mutilated his entire body. Since Cleomenes had no male descendants, power passed to Leonidas, the (third) son of Anaxandrides, the brother of Dorieus.
Leonidas I was a Spartan king from the Agid family who reigned from 491 to 480. BC During the first ten years of his reign, Leonidas did not do anything remarkable, but he immortalized himself forever with the last battle of his life at Thermopylae.
At this time, Xerxes led his hordes to Hellas, Leonidas, along with three hundred Lacedaemonians, met him at Thermopylae. There were many wars between the Greeks and the barbarians, but it is easy to list those to which the valor of one man gave the greatest glory; Thus, Achilles glorified the war at Ilion, and Miltiades glorified the Battle of Marathon. The feat of duty fulfilled by Leonid surpassed all the feats of this time. That same Xerxes, who of all the kings who were among the Medes, and subsequently among the Persians, set himself the most ambitious plans and accomplished brilliant deeds. Leonidas, with a handful of people whom he brought with him to Thermopylae, stood so firmly on the path that Xerxes would never have seen Hellas at all and would not have burned the cities of the Athenians, if the Trachinian had not led Hydarnas with army and would not have given him the opportunity to surround the Hellenes. Only after Leonidas died in this way were the barbarians able to penetrate Hellas.
Plistarchus was a Spartan king from the Agid family who reigned from 480 to 458. BC Son of Leonidas I. As a child, Plistarchus' guardian was his cousin Pausanias. After the death of Plistarchus, the son of Pausanias Plistoanact became king.
Pleistoanax had a son, Pausanias. Pausanias - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who reigned from 409 to 395. BC + 385 BC
Pausanias came to Attica as an enemy of Thrasybulus and the Athenians, in order to firmly strengthen the tyranny of those to whom Lysander had entrusted power. And in the battle he defeated the Athenians who occupied Piraeus, but after the battle he decided to immediately take the army home, not wanting to bring upon Sparta the most shameful of reproaches by supporting the tyranny of godless people.
When he returned from Athens after such a fruitless battle, his enemies summoned him to trial. At the trial of the Lacedaemonian king are the so-called Geronts, twenty-eight in number, the entire college of ephors, and with them the king from another royal family. The fourteen Geronts, as well as Agis, a king from another royal house, admitted that Pausanias was guilty; nevertheless, the other judges acquitted him.
A little time later, when the Lacedaemonians were gathering an army against Thebes, Lysander, arriving in Phocis, called upon the Phocians to form a national militia; without waiting for time, he immediately moved to Boeotia and attacked the fortified town of Haliart, whose population did not want to fall away from the Thebans. But earlier, some of the Thebans and Athenians had secretly entered this city, and when they came out and lined up under the walls of the city, then (in the battle that took place) Lysander fell among the other Lacedaemonians.
Pausanias was late to this battle, gathering an army among the Tegeates and other Arcadians; when he arrived in Boeotia and learned of the defeat of those who were with Lysander, and of the death of Lysander himself, he nevertheless led an army to Thebes and intended to begin the battle. Then the Thebans came out against him and it became known that Thrasybulus was nearby, who, leading the Athenians, expected the Lacedaemonians to begin the battle, and intended, when they had already begun, to strike them in the rear. Pausanias was afraid that he would have to fight on two fronts, caught between two enemy troops, so he concluded a truce with the Thebans and took with him the corpses of those who fell under the walls of Haliart. The Lacedaemonians did not like this. When this time the citizens accused him of being slow in coming to Boeotia, he did not expect to be summoned to trial, but the Tegeates received him as a petitioner for protection in their temple of Athens-Alea.
After the flight of Pausanias, his sons, Agesipolus and Cleombrotus, remained completely young and Aristodemus, who was their closest relative, took custody of them. And the victory of the Lacedaemonians at Corinth was won while he was in command of them.
When Agesipolus grew up and became king, the first of the Peloponnesians with whom he went to war were the Argives. When he led the army from the region of the Tegeates to Argolis, he met a herald whom the Argives sent to Agesipolis in order to renew the truce, according to them, established from ancient times between the various peoples of the Dorian tribe in relation to each other, but the king did not want to conclude a truce with herald and, moving forward with the army, devastated the country. Then God shook the earth, but even here Agesipolus still did not think of withdrawing his army back, despite the fact that the Lacedaemonians, more than all the Hellenes (as well as the Athenians), fear all sorts of divine signs. He had already begun to camp under the walls of Argos, but the god did not cease to shake the earth, and some of Agesipol's warriors were struck by lightning, while others were deafened by thunder. Only then, against his will, did he interrupt the campaign and retreat from Argolis.
But he immediately went on a campaign against the Olynthians. After he won the battle, took many other cities in Chalkidiki by storm and hoped to capture Olynthos itself, he suddenly fell ill and died from this disease.
After the death of Agesipolis, who died childless, power passed to Cleombrotus and under his command the Lacedaemonians fought the Boeotians at Leuctra. Cleombrotus, who was himself a brave warrior, fell at the very beginning of the battle. Usually, during great defeats, the will of fate is first of all expressed in the fact that it takes away the leader, just as from the Athenians, at the beginning of the battle of Delium, it took away their commander, Hippocrates, the son of Arifron, and subsequently in Thessaly (another Athenian military leader) Leosthenes. Cleombrotus's eldest son Agesipolus did not do anything glorious worthy of memory; after his death, power passed to his younger brother. He had two sons - Akrotat, and after him Kleonymus; death befell Acrotatus before (his father) Cleomenes himself.
When Cleomenes later died, Cleonymus, the son of Cleomenes, and Ares, the son of Akrotatus, came into dispute over royal power. Then the Geronts decided that, by virtue of hereditary rights, royal power should belong to Ares, the son of Akrotatus, and not to Cleonymus. Kleonymus, removed from royal power, was filled with great anger, and the ephors could not soften his soul and reconcile him with Sparta either with gifts or by placing him at the head of the army. In the end, he dared to commit many criminal and treacherous things towards his homeland and even invited Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides, to his native country.
When Ares, the son of Akrotatus, reigned in Sparta, Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, marched against Athens and foot army and the fleet. Patroclus arrived from Egypt with his army and fleet to help the Athenians, and the Lacedaemonians also acted as a national militia, entrusting the main command to King Ares. But Antigonus surrounded Athens with such a tight ring that there was no way for the forces allied with the Athenians to enter the city. Then Patroclus, sending envoys, began to encourage the Lacedaemonians and Ares to start a battle against Antigonus, saying that if they started, he would attack the Macedonians from the rear; before this attack occurs, it is somehow inconvenient for them, the Egyptians and sailors, to attack the infantry. And indeed, the Lacedaemonians sought, despite the danger, to help the Athenians, both because of their disposition towards them and out of a thirst for military glory, dreaming of some kind of feat that would be memorable for future times. But Ares withdrew his army under the pretext that he had run out of all his food. He believed that it was necessary to preserve the bravery of soldiers for his own interests, and not squander it so unwisely for strangers. With the Athenians, who had offered strong resistance for a very long time, Antigonus made peace on the condition that he would bring a garrison to them and place it on the (hill) Museia. Over time, Antigonus himself voluntarily withdrew this garrison (from Athens). Ares had a son, Akrotat, and he had a son, Ares, who died of illness while still an eight-year-old boy.
Since the only representative of the male generation from the house of Eurysthenes was Leonidas, the son of Cleonymus, already a very old man, the Lacedaemonians transferred power to him. Leonidas's strongest opponent turned out to be Lysander, a descendant of Lysander, the son of Aristocritus. He won over to his side Cleombrotus, who was married to the daughter of Leonidas; Having come to an agreement with him, he began to level against Leonidas, among many other accusations, that he, while still a child, swore an oath to his father Kleonymus to contribute to the death of Sparta. Thus, indeed, Leonidas was deprived of royal dignity and Cleombrotus received this honor instead. If Leonidas had succumbed to a feeling of anger and, like Demaratus, the son of Ariston, had retired to the Macedonian king or to Egypt, then even if the Spartans (repenting) had changed their decision, this would have been of no benefit to him. He, expelled from the country by the citizens after his conviction, went to Arcadia, and a few years later the Lacedaemonians called him back from there and again elected him king.
Cleomenes (c. 262-219 BC) was the eldest son of King Leonidas, who killed the noble Agis. After the execution of Agis, King Leonidas forcibly gave his widow Agiatis in marriage to Cleomenes in order to take possession of her property. Cleomenes received a good education. His mentor and friend was the famous scientist Spheres Boristhenes, who had a great influence on Spartan youth. Spherus taught that the king is only the first citizen, only a servant of the people and therefore must devote himself entirely to their good. With all the fervor of his youth, Cleomenes embraced these democratic ideas and watched with indignation everything that happened in Sparta after the death of Agis. Cleomenes understood that the reforms would be successful only if they managed to destroy the main support of the rich - the council of elders (gerusia) and the ephorate. And for this it was necessary to create an army not from mercenaries, but from citizens vitally interested in the redistribution of land and property of the rich. The revival of the military power of Sparta was also connected with this.
After the death of Cleomenes, the movement of the poor in Sparta continued. Other national leaders appeared, calling themselves tyrants, who continued the work of Cleomenes. The struggle went on with varying success until the government intervened in the affairs of Greece. new power- Rome. Having subjugated Sparta and other Greek states, the Roman conquerors established their dominance there for a long time.
From the family of Eurysthenes, from the so-called Agids, Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, was the last king in Sparta.

3. Eurypontid Dynasty

Proclus is the legendary king of Laconia. ruled in the 11th century. BC Son of Aristodemus. The ancestor of the royal family of Eurypontids. Proclus gave his son the name Soon. Eurypontus, the son of Soon, glorified himself so much that this clan received the name Eurypontids from him, and before him they were called Proclids.
The son of Eurypontus was Prytanides. Under Prytanidas, enmity began between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives, but even before this feud they waged war with the Cynurians. Over the next generations, during the reigns of Eunom, son of Prytanides, and Polydectes, son of Eunom, Sparta lived in peace.
But Charillus, the son of Polydectes, first devastated the land of Argos and then, a few years later, under his command, the Spartans invaded the region of Tegea, when the Lacedaemonians hoped to defeat Tegea and subjugate it to their power, separating the Tegean plain from the Argolis; in this they relied on ambiguous prophecy.
After the death of Kharill, the son of Kharill, Nikander, assumed power. During the reign of Nikander, the Messenians killed Telecles, a king from another royal family, in the temple of Artemis-Limnada (Virgin of the Waters). Nikander also invaded Argolis with a large army and caused much devastation in the country. The inhabitants of Asina, who took part in this campaign together with the Lacedaemonians, soon experienced retribution from the Argives, who subjected their homeland to complete devastation, and they themselves were expelled.
When Theopompus, the son of Nikiander, still reigned in Sparta, a dispute began between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives over the so-called Thyreatid plain. Theopompus himself did not take part in this matter due to old age, but even more due to grief, since fate kidnapped Archidamus, the son of Theopompus, while his father was still alive. But Archidamus did not die childless; he left behind his son Zeuxidamus. Then the son of Zeuxidamus, Anaxidam, took power.
Under him, the Messenians had to leave the Peloponnese, having been defeated for the second time in the war by the Spartans. The son of Anaxidam was Archidamus, and the son of Archidamus was Agasicles; they were both destined to spend their entire lives in peace, and they did not wage any wars.
Ariston, the son of Agasicles, took as his wife the one who was the ugliest of the girls of Lacedaemon, but by the grace of Helen she became the most beautiful of all women. Just seven months after Ariston married her, her son Demaratus was born. Ariston was sitting together with the ephors in the council when a slave came to him with the news that he had a son; Ariston said that by the count of months he could not be his son. Subsequently, he himself repented of these words, but when Demaratus was already reigning and had already glorified Sparta with his glorious exploits, by the way, having freed the Athenians from the Pisistratids together with Cleomenes, Ariston’s unreasonable phrase and Cleomenes’ hatred made him an ordinary citizen (depriving him of the throne). He retired to Persia to King Darius, and for a long time afterward, as they say, his descendants continued to live in Asia.
Having become king instead of Demaratus, Leotichides participated together with the Athenians and the Athenian leader Xanthippus, son of Arifron, in the battle of Mycale, and after that he went to Thessaly, against the Alevads. And although it was easy for him to conquer all of Thessaly, since he always remained the winner, he allowed himself to be bribed by the Alevads. Brought to trial in Lacedaemon, he voluntarily, without waiting for the trial, fled to Tegea and appeared there as a petitioner for protection in the temple of Athena Alea. Leotichides' son, Zeuxidas, died of illness during Leotichides's lifetime, when he was not yet an exile.
After Leotychides left for Tegea, Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, assumed power. This Archidamus caused especially much harm to the country of the Athenians, annually invading Attica with an army and with each invasion he passed through it all, devastating it with fire and sword. He also besieged and took the city of Plataea, which had always been on the side of the Athenians. But in any case, he was not the instigator of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians; on the contrary, he made every possible effort to ensure that a truce remained between them.
Sphenelaides, who generally enjoyed great influence in Lacedaemon and was at that time an ephor, turned out to be the main culprit of the war. This war shook Hellas, which had until then been strong and organized, to its very foundation, and subsequently Philip, the son of Amyntas, overthrew it, already shaken and completely in decline, and subjugated it to his power.
Dying, Archidamus left two sons. Agis was the eldest in age and therefore received power before Agesilaus. Archidamus also had a daughter named Kiniska, who devoted herself to Olympic competitions with the greatest passion and was the first of the women to keep horses for this purpose and the first of them to win the Olympic Games. After Kiniski, other women, especially from Lacedaemon, achieved victories at Olympia, but none of them deserved such fame for their victories as she did. It seems to me that there are no other people in the world who admire poetry less than the Spartans and pursue praise expressed in the form of poetic works. And in fact, apart from an epigram written by an unknown person in honor of Cyniscus, and another epigram by Simonides, who wrote it much earlier for Pausanias in order to place it on the tripod that Pausanias dedicated to Delphi, then nothing else was written by anyone a poet about the Lacedaemonian kings in memory of them.
Even during the reign of Agis, son of Archidamus, mutual quarrels began between the Lacedaemonians and the Eleans, but the Lacedaemonians were especially offended because the Eleans did not allow them to participate in the Olympic Games and to sacrifice in the Temple of Olympian Zeus. And so the Lacedaemonians sent a messenger to the Eleans demanding that autonomy be returned to the Lepreatae and those of the surrounding cities who were their subjects. The Eleans answered them that as soon as they saw the surrounding cities of Sparta free, they would not hesitate to grant freedom to their own as well; After such an answer, the Lacedaemonians, led by King Agis, invaded Elis. Their army had already reached Olympia and was already standing in front of the Alpheus River, but at that time God shook the earth, and the army had to go back. On next year Agis devastated the country and captured great booty. Xenius the Elean, a personal friend of Agis and representative (“proxenus”) of the Lacedaemonians among the Eleans, rebelled against the people’s power, becoming the head of wealthy citizens. But before Agis arrived with an army to support them, Thrasideus, who was then at the head of the Elean people, defeated Xenius and his supporters in battle and expelled them from the city. Then Agis had to lead the army back; however, he left the Spartan Lysistratus with part of the military forces, which, together with the fugitives from the Eleans and the Lepreates, were supposed to devastate the Elean region. In the third year of the war, the Lacedaemonians, together with Agis, were preparing to invade Elis again, but the Eleans and their leader Thrasidamus, driven to the extreme by devastation, agreed to renounce power over the surrounding cities, tear down the walls of their city and allow the Lacedaemonians to Olympia as to participate in the sacrifice to the Olympian- Zeus, and for holding the Olympic Games with them.
Agis also invaded Attica more than once at the head of an army; It was he who fortified Decelea, garrisoning it, creating a constant threat to the Athenians; When the Athenian fleet was defeated at Aegospotami, Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and Agis broke the oath in the name of the gods that the Lacedaemonians publicly swore to the Athenians, and on their own behalf, without the consent of the entire Spartan people, they made a proposal at a meeting of the allies to “cut off the Athenians and branches and roots." Such were the especially remarkable military exploits of Agis.
Ariston's rash statement regarding his son Demaratus was repeated by Agis in relation to Leotichides; and some evil spirit inspired him to say in the presence of the ephors that he considered Leotichides not his son. But subsequently Agis was also overcome by repentance and, when he, sick, was carried home from Arcadia and when he arrived in Herea, then in front of a large crowd of witnesses, he declared that he considered Leotichides his son and with tears begged them to convey these words of his to the Lacedaemonians.
After the death of Agis, Agesilaus began to remove Leotychides from the kingdom, bringing to memory to the Lacedaemonians the words that Agis had once spoken about Leotychides. Then the Arcadians also arrived from Herea and testified in favor of Leotychides everything that they had heard from the lips of the dying Agis.
Leotichides said that the prophecy referred to Agesilaus, since Agesilaus was lame in one leg, but Agesilaus directed it at Leotichides, as the illegitimate son of Agis. The Lacedaemonians could, of course, in this case turn to Delphi for a resolution of the dispute, but they did not do this, the reason for which was Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, who used all his efforts to ensure that Agesilaus was king.
Thus, Agesilaus, son of Archidamus, became king. Under him, the Lacedaemonians decided to cross to Asia to fight Artaxerxes, the son of Darius: the people in power, and especially Lysander, they were informed that during the war with the Athenians, it was not Artaxerxes who gave them money for the fleet, but Cyrus. Agesilaus, having received instructions to transport the army to Asia and become the head of the land army, sent messengers throughout the Peloponnese, except Argos, and to all the other Hellenes on the other side of the Isthmus, inviting them to become allies. Although the Corinthians really wanted to take part in this campaign in Asia, but since their temple of Zeus, called Olympian, suddenly burned down, they, considering this a bad omen, against their will, remained at home. The Athenians put forward the pretext that after the Peloponnesian War and the pestilence, their state had not yet restored its former prosperity, but mainly they remained calm because they learned through messengers that Conon, the son of Timothy, had gone to the court of the Persian king. Aristomenides, Agesilaus's maternal grandfather, was sent to Thebes as an ambassador; he enjoyed favor in Thebes and was one of those judges who voted that, after the capture of Plataea, the surviving Plataeans should be executed. But the Thebans also gave the same negative answer as the Athenians, saying that they would not come to the rescue.
When the Spartan and allied army had gathered and the fleet was ready to sail, Agesilaus went to Aulis to make a sacrifice to Artemis, because Agamemnon, having propitiated the goddess, set out from there on a campaign against Troy. Agesilaus believed that he was the king of a more prosperous and powerful state than King Agamemnon, and that, like Agamemnon, he was the leader of all Hellas; he flattered himself with the thought that defeating Artaxerxes and taking possession of all the riches of Persia would be a more glorious feat than destroying the rule of Priam. When he was already making a sacrifice, the Thebans came here with weapons in their hands; they threw the already burning thighs of the sacrificial animals from the altar, and he (they) drove him out of the temple. Agesilaus was very offended that he was not allowed to complete the sacrifices; Nevertheless, he crossed into Asia and marched on Sardis.
Lydia then constituted the most important part of lower (Minor) Asia and (its capital) Sardis was distinguished by its wealth and splendor among all cities; they were the residence of the satrap of the Maritime region, just as Susa was the residence of the Persian king himself. The battle with Tissaphernes, the satrap of the Ionian regions, took place on the plain of Hermus, and Agesilaus defeated both the Persian cavalry and infantry, which were then collected in greater numbers than ever, with the exception of the campaign of Xerxes and even earlier Darius, when the former led an army against the Scythians, and the other is to Athens. The Lacedaemonians, delighted with the energy and brilliance of Agesilaus’s way of acting, willingly made him commander of the fleet, but he put Peisander in charge of the trireme, and Agesilaus was married to Peisander’s sister, while he himself energetically continued the war on land.
When Artaxerxes learned of these battles, in which Agesilaus remained victorious, and that he continued to move forward, destroying everything in his path, he sentenced Tissaphernes to execution, although Tissaphernes had previously rendered him great services, and sent Tiphraustes, a very intelligent man, as satrap of the Maritime region and besides, he really did not like the Lacedaemonians. When he arrived at Sardis, he immediately came up with a means to force the Lacedaemonians to withdraw their army from Asia. He sent the Rhodian Timocrates to Hellas with a large sum of money, instructing him to initiate a war against the Lacedaemonians in Hellas. They bribed Cylon and Sodam from the Argives, and Androkleid, Ismenius and Amphithemis in Thebes; the Athenians, Cephalus and Epicrates, as well as those of the Corinthians who sympathized with the Argives, Polyanthus and Timolaus, took part in this. The Locrians from Amfissa opened hostilities. The Locrians had a disputed land on the border with the Phocians; When the harvest time came, the Locrians, at the instigation of the Thebans, supporters of Ismenia, reaped the grain and stole the spoils. Then the Phocians with their entire people rushed into Locris and devastated the country. In turn, the Locrians called upon their Theban allies and sacked Phocis.
The Phocians went to Lacedaemon with a complaint against the Thebans and pointed out what they had suffered from them. The Lacedaemonians decided to start a war against the Thebans, making other complaints against them, and mainly the insult that they inflicted on Agesilaus at Aulis during the sacrifice. Having learned in advance about this decision of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians sent an embassy to Sparta with a proposal not to take up arms against Thebes, but to resolve in court the charges that were brought forward here, but the Lacedaemonians angrily sent back this embassy
Beginning with the Lacedaemonians' campaign against Boeotia, this so-called Corinthian War began to expand more and more. Due to this need, Agesilaus had to withdraw his army from Asia. When he crossed from Abydos with a fleet to Sestus and, having passed through Thrace, arrived in Thessaly, here the Thessalians, trying to please the Thebans, wanted to delay Agesilaus in his further movement; in addition, for a long time they had some kind of friendly disposition towards the Athenian state.
Having defeated their cavalry, Agesilaus passed through all of Thessaly and again, passing through Boeotia, he defeated the Thebans and the entire army of their allies at the Crown. When the Boeotians fled, some of the soldiers fled to the temple of Athena, called Itonia. Although Agesilaus was wounded in this battle, despite this, he did not violate the rights of those asking for protection.
A little later, those who had been expelled from Corinth for their favor with the Spartans staged the Isthmian Games. Frightened by the presence of Agesilaus, the rest of the inhabitants of Corinth then remained calm. But before Agesilaus had time to leave Corinth with his army and head to Sparta, the Corinthians, together with the Argives, began to celebrate the Isthmian games. Agesilaus again returned to Corinth with an army; Since the holiday of Hyakinthia was approaching, he sent the Amikleians home to perform the established festivities in honor of Apollo and Hyakinthos. On the way, the Athenians under the command of Iphicrates attacked this part of the army and killed them.
Agesilaus also went to Aetolia to help the Aetolians, who were heavily pressed by the Acarnanians, and forced the Acarnanians to stop the war, although they were already ready to capture Calydon and other Aetolian cities.
Later he sailed to Egypt to help the Egyptians when they fell away from the Persian king. And in Egypt, Agesilaus performed many feats worthy of memory. He was already an old man and during this campaign he suffered the inevitable fate for everyone (death). When his corpse was brought to Sparta, the Lacedaemonians buried him, giving him greater honor than any other king.
During the reign of Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, the Phocians captured the sanctuary at Delphi. This caused them to go to war with the Thebans; To help the Phocians in this war, first of all, an army came, recruited by the Phocians themselves with the funds they received from the (captured) treasures; in addition, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians came to their aid openly, on behalf of their states; the latter remembered some ancient favor done to them by the Phocians; For their part, the Lacedaemonians presented the pretext of their friendship for the Phocians, but in fact they were rather motivated by hatred, as it seems to me, of the Thebans. Theopompus, the son of Damasistratus, says that Archidamus himself participated in the division of these treasures and that Archidamus’s wife, Deinich, receiving gifts from influential persons among the Phocians, thanks to them, persuaded Archidamus to such an alliance. I do not consider it commendable to accept gifts from sacred treasures and protect people who robbed the most famous of the temples of divine broadcasting, but this is what serves to the honor of Archidamus: when the Phocians decided to kill all the adult inhabitants of Delphi, sell their children and wives into slavery, and the city itself destroyed to the ground, then only the intervention of Archidamus owes the Delphians that they avoided the terrible fate that threatened them from the Phocians.
Subsequently, Archidamus crossed over to Italy to help the Tarentines in their war with the neighboring barbarians. There he was killed by barbarians, and that his body was not worthy of burial “in royal tomb“This was due to the anger of Apollo.
The eldest son of Archidamus, Agis, was destined to die in battle against the Macedonians and Antipater, while his youngest son, Eudamidas, reigned among the Lacedaemonians and under him they enjoyed peace.
Next reigned Agis IV, a king from the Eurypontid family, who ruled in Laconia in 244-241. BC Son of Eudamidas II. From childhood, he was raised in luxury by his mother Agesistrata and grandmother Archidamia, the wealthiest women in Lacedaemon. But before he even reached the age of 20, he declared war on pleasures, tore off his jewelry, resolutely rejected any extravagance, was proud of his shabby cloak, dreamed of Laconian dinners, bathing and, in general, the Spartan way of life and said that he did not belong what would there be of royal power if it were not for the hope of reviving with its help ancient laws and customs.
To this end, he began to test the mood of the Spartans. The youth, contrary to Agis’s expectations, quickly responded to his words and enthusiastically devoted themselves to valor, changing their entire lifestyle, like their clothes, for the sake of freedom. But the elderly, who were affected much more deeply by the corruption of wealth, scolded Agis. The dissatisfaction of rich people with the reign of Agis grew.
In intelligence and high spiritual qualities, Agis not only surpassed the second king Leonidas, but was one of the most outstanding people of his time. He soon became a favorite of the common people of Sparta.
The first attempt at reform ended unsuccessfully, firstly, because it was impossible to return the Spartan state, which was in a state of deep decline, to the Lycurgus order; secondly, because the noble ruler Agis was devoid of the traits of a fighter and leader. He did not have an indomitable will and fortitude that did not yield to the need to use force against the rich. A different type of ruler was needed. Such a person soon appeared in Sparta. It was King Cleomenes.

CONCLUSION

Sparta (Lakedaemon) is an ancient Greek polis in Laconia (Peloponnese), which became after the conquest in the 8th-6th centuries. BC e. the southern part of the Peloponnese into a large state. According to legend, the political system in Sparta was established by Lycurgus (IX-VIII centuries). The Spartiates owned equal sections of state land with helots attached to them, and they themselves were mainly engaged in military affairs. Crafts and trade were in the hands of the Perieks. Sparta is a classic example of a polis with an oligarchic government system; State affairs were decided by the gerousia, then by the college of ephors. Since ancient times, two royal dynasties ruled simultaneously in Sparta, which often competed and were at enmity with each other. The kings who traced their lineage back to Hercules himself enjoyed universal honor and respect. However, their power was severely limited by law. IN war time they served as military leaders in command of the Spartan army and, in peacetime, were involved in judicial and religious affairs. Both kings were members of the council of elders (together with them it numbered thirty people) and took part in its meetings, at which almost all the main issues of public administration were decided.
Rivalry between Athens and Sparta led to the Peloponnesian War of 431-404; Having won it, Sparta established its hegemony over Greece. After defeat in the war with Thebes in 371 at Leuctra and in 362 at Mantinea, Sparta became a minor state. In 146 Sparta was subjugated by Rome, in 27 BC. e. entered the Roman province of Achaia.
Modern Sparta is a city in Greece, in the south of the Peloponnese peninsula, administrative center Laconia nome in the valley of the river. Eurotas, founded in 1834. Nearby are the ruins of the ancient city of Sparta (remains of the acropolis with the temple of Athena, 6th century BC, sanctuaries, 7th-5th centuries BC, theater, 1st-2nd centuries. AD

Reign Period Ruler
Until 1103 BC kings of Laconia
Heracleidae
1103 - 1101 BC Aristodemus
Hagiads
1101 - 1059 BC Eurysthenes
1059 - 1058 BC Agis I
1058 - 1023 BC Ehestratus
1023 - 986 BC Labot
986 - 957 BC Doriss
957 - 913 BC Agesilaus I
913 - 853 BC Archelaus
853 - 813 BC Telekl
813 - 776 BC Alkamen
776 - late 8th century. BC. Polydor
late 8th century - 685 BC Eurycrates
c.685 - 668 BC Anaxander
668 - 590 BC Eurycratidae
590 - 560 BC Leontes
560 - 520 BC Anaxandrid
520 - 490 BC Cleomenes I
490 - 480 BC Leonidas I
480 - 470 BC Pausanias (regent)
480 - 459 BC Plistarchus
459 - 445 BC Plistoanakt I
445 - 426 BC Pausanias I
426 - 409 BC Plistoanakt I
409 - 395 BC Pausanias I
395 - 380 BC Agesipolid I
380 - 371 BC Cleombrotus I
371 - 370 BC Agesipolid II
370 - 309 BC Cleomenes II
309 - 265 BC Ares I
265 - 262 BC Acrotat
262 - 254 BC Ares II
254 - 243 BC Leonidas II
243 - 241 BC Cleombrotus II
241 - 235 BC Leonidas II
235 - 227 BC Cleomenes III
227 - 221 BC Euclid

219 - 215 BC Agesipolid III
Euriponidae
1101 - mid-11th century BC. Proclus
2nd half of the 11th century. BC. Soy
10th century BC. Eurypontus
10th century BC. Prytanide
10th century BC. Evnom
9th century BC. Polydecte
9th century BC. Lycurgus I
9th century BC. Harilai
late 9th century - 770 BC Nikandr
c.770 - 720 BC Theopompus
720 - early 7th century. BC. Zeuxidas
1st half of 7th century BC. Anaxidam
2nd half of 7th century BC. Archidamus I
late 7th century - 550 BC Agasikles
550 - 515 BC Ariston
515 - 491 BC Demarat
491 - 469 BC Leontychides I
469 - 427 BC Archidamus II
427 - 399 BC Agis II
399 BC Leontychides II
399 - 360 BC Agiselaus II
360 - 338 BC Archidamus III
338 - 331 BC Agis III
331 - 305 BC Eudamides I
305 - 275 BC Archidamus IV
275 - 244 BC Eudamides II
244 - 241 BC Agis IV
241 - 228 BC Eudamides III
228 - 227 BC Archidamus IV
In 221 - 219 BC republic
219 - 212 BC Lycurgus II
212 - 200 BC Pelop
211 - 207 BC Mahanid (tyrant)
207 - 192 BC Nabis (tyrant)
192 BC Lakonik
In 192 - 146 BC. republic
From 146 BC conquered by the Roman Republic

The history of Sparta should begin with the Dorian migration. Of course, it is impossible to reconstruct in detail the process of migration of the Dorians to the Peloponnese. In modern science, even the very possibility of such a resettlement is sometimes disputed, but more often the debate is around its nature.

Contrary to ancient tradition, for which the resettlement of the Dorians was undoubtedly a military campaign, a theory is put forward according to which the Dorians appeared in the Peloponnese a century after the death of the Mycenaean civilization and occupied lands that had long been empty. In this theory, the moment of conquest is completely absent. There was only a “slow infiltration” of individual Dorian tribes to new lands. This theory is based solely on archaeological data. The fact is that the Mycenaean palaces perished in the late 13th - early 12th centuries. BC, and the oldest early geometric ceramics of the Dorians date back to the 11th century. BC.

There is another version, according to which the Dorians are either mercenaries in the service of the Mycenaean rulers, or the lower strata of Mycenaean society, who seized power as a result of a violent coup.

These examples illustrate the danger of denying the ancient literary tradition and absolutization of archaeological data. Of course, it is completely impossible to reconstruct the early history of Sparta in detail, with names and exact dates.

During the classical period, Greece had two leading cities - Athens and Sparta. Both of these states, each in their own way, made a huge contribution to the formation and development of ancient civilization. In our study we will focus on the institution of royal power in Sparta and the status of kings.

1. Prerequisites for the creation of Lacedaemon

Lived in Lakonian region Leleg, who was its first king. Leleg had two sons, Miletus and the younger Polykaon. After the death of Miletus, his son Eurotas assumed power. Since he had no male offspring, he left the kingdom to Lacedaemon, whose mother was Taygeta, from whose name the mountain took its name, and whose father was Zeus himself.

Lacedaemon was married to Sparta, daughter of Eurotas. As soon as he received power, then, first of all, he gave his name to the entire country and the entire population, and then built a city and named it after his wife; and to this day this city is called Sparta.

Amikl, the son of Lacedaemon, wanting in turn to leave some kind of memory behind him, founded a small town in Laconica. Of his two sons, Hyakinthos, the youngest and very handsome, died before his father; the grave of Hyakinthos is in Amykla, under the statue of Apollo. After the death of Amycles, power passed to the eldest of his sons, Argal, and then, after the death of Argal, to Kinorta. Kinorta had a son, Ebal.

Ebal took Gorgophon, the daughter of Perseus, from Argos as his wife and had a son by her, Tyndareus. Hippocoon entered into a dispute with him over the kingdom and demanded power for himself under the pretext of seniority. Having united with Icarius and those who rebelled with him, he turned out to be much stronger than Tyndareus and, as the Lacedaemonians say, forced Tyndareus to flee Pellanus in fear.

The Messenians have a tradition regarding him that Tyndareus fled to Messenia and came to Aphareus, and Aphareus, the son of Perier, was the brother of Tyndareus on his mother - that, according to them, he settled in Messenia, in Falamae, and that when he lived here all his children were born. Tyndareus later returned to Laconia with the assistance of Hercules and regained power. Tyndareus was succeeded by his sons; then Menelaus, son of Atreus, son-in-law of Tyndareus, reigned here, and after him Orestes, husband of Hermione, daughter of Menelaus. When the Heraclides returned to the reign of Tisamen, son of Orestes, the cities of Messene and Argos fell to the share of the first, Temen.

In Lacedaemon, twins were born to Aristodemus, and two royal families were formed. Aristodemus himself, in Delphi before the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese.

The sons of Aristodemus were called Proclus and Eurysthenes; being twins, they were nevertheless each other's worst enemies. But no matter how far their mutual hatred went, it did not prevent them from jointly helping Fer, the son of Autesion, their guardian and brother of their mother Argea, to establish and take possession of the colony. Fera sent the same colony to the island, which was then called Callista (the Most Beautiful), hoping that the descendants of Membliar would voluntarily cede royal power to him.

2. Agid Dynasty

Eurysthenes is the legendary king of Laconia from the Heraclidean family, who ruled in the 11th century. before the Nativity of Christ. He was the ancestor of the royal family of Agids. When the boys grew up, the Lacedaemonians proclaimed them both kings. The brothers divided Laconica into six parts and founded cities. The Heraclids made Sparta their capital; they sent kings to the remaining parts, allowing them, due to the sparse population of the country, to receive all foreigners who wanted them.

Neighboring tribes were subordinate to the Spartans, but had equal rights, both in terms of citizenship rights and in the sense of holding government positions. They were called helots
Eurysthenes, the eldest son of Aristodemus, had a son Agis; from him the family of Eurysthenes is called Agids.

During the reign of Echestratus, son of Agis, in Sparta, the Lacedaemonians forced all the adults capable of bearing arms of the inhabitants of Cynurea to move out, accusing them of the fact that they, although related to the Argives, allowed the robbers from Cynuria to devastate Argolis, and they themselves openly raided this land.

A few years later, Labot, son of Echestratus, took power over Sparta. As a child, Labota had Lycurgus as his guardian, who made laws. During this war, nothing worth mentioning was done on either side; who then reigned from this house, Dorissa, son of Labot, and Agesilaus, son of Dorissa, both suffered death after a short reign.

Agesilaus I is the legendary king of Laconia (IX century BC) from the Agid family. Under Agesilaus, the laws of Lycurgus were adopted.

Agesilaus had a son, Archelaus. Archelaus - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who ruled in the 9th century. before the Nativity of Christ. Under Archelaus, the Lacedaemonians subdued by force of arms one of the neighboring cities, Aegina, and enslaved its inhabitants, suspecting that the Aegineans sympathized with the Arcadians.

The son of Archelaus was Telecles: under him the Lacedaemonians took three district cities, having won a victory over them in the war, namely Amycles, Faris and Geranfres, which then still belonged to the Achaeans.

After the death of Telecles, Alkamenes, son of Telecles, assumed power; under him, the Lacedaemonians sent one of the most noble people of Sparta, Charmides, son of Euthys, to Crete in order to stop civil strife among the Cretans and convince them to leave those small cities that were located relatively far from the sea or were weak in one way or another, and instead, build common cities in places convenient for sea communications. Under him, they destroyed the seaside city of Gelos - it was owned by the Achaeans - and defeated the Argives in battle, who helped the inhabitants of Gelos (helots).

After Alkamen's death, Alkamen's son, Polydorus, assumed royal power. He reigned in the 8th century. before the Nativity of Christ. Under him, the Lacedaemonians sent to found two colonies: one in Italy, in Croton, the other in the region of the Locrians, those near Cape Zephyria.

It was under him that the First Messenian War began. At this time, the Lacedaemonians were commanded mainly by Theopompus, son of Nicander, a king from another royal family. When the war with Messenia was brought to an end, Polydorus was killed by Polemarchus. Polydorus was very popular in Sparta and was especially loved by the people, since he did not allow himself to act violently or rudely towards anyone, and when performing court, he observed justice and showed leniency towards people.

During the reign of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, the Messenians patiently endured their situation, remaining subjects of the Lacedaemonians; and there were no new actions against them on the part of the Argive people.

But under Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, the Messenians rebelled against the Lacedaemonians. For some time they, waging war, held out against the Lacedaemonians, but then, being defeated, they, by agreement, withdrew from the Peloponnese; the same part of their population that remained in this land became slaves of the Lacedaemonians, except those who occupied their coastal cities.

Anaxander's son was Eurycrates, and Eurycrates - this was the second king with this name - had a son Leo. Leo ruled in the first half. VI century before the Nativity of Christ. During their reign, the Lacedaemonians suffered quite a few defeats in the war with the Tegeates. But under Anaxandrid, the son of Leo, they turned out to be victorious in the war over the Tegeates.

Anaxandrides, son of Leontes, alone of all the Lacedaemonians had two wives at the same time and lived in two houses at the same time. When Anaxandrides died, the Lacedaemonians, although Doria in reason and in military affairs, in their opinion, was superior to Cleomenes, nevertheless, against their will, removed him from the royal rank and gave power to Cleomenes on the basis of the laws of seniority. Then Doria - he did not want to obey Cleomenes while remaining in Lacedaemon - was sent to found a new colony.

Cleomenes I - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who reigned from 520-491. BC Cleomenes was somewhat weak-minded and prone to insanity.

As soon as Cleomenes ascended the throne, he immediately invaded Argolis, gathering an army of both Lacedaemonians and allies. When the Argives came out against him with weapons in their hands, Cleomenes defeated them in battle. Cleomenes also went on a campaign against Athens twice: the first time to free the Athenians from the tyranny of the children of Pisistratus, which gained him and the Lacedaemonians great glory among all the Hellenes, and the second time for the sake of the Athenian Isagoras, in order to help him seize tyranny over Athens. But he was mistaken in his hopes.

The Athenians fought for a long time for their freedom and Cleomenes devastated their country, he also ravaged the region, the so-called Orgada, dedicated to the Eleusinian goddesses.

He arrived in Aegina and ordered the arrest of influential Aeginetans who sided with the Persians and convinced their fellow citizens to give Darius, son of Hystaspes, “land and water” (as a sign of submission). When Cleomenes was in Aegina, Demaratus, a king from another royal family, began to accuse him before an assembly of Lacedaemonians.

When Cleomenes returned from Aegina, he took measures to deprive Demaratus of his royal dignity, and for this he bribed the Delphic prophetess so that she would give the Lacedaemonians such an answer as he himself had suggested to her and prompted Leotychides, a man of the royal family and from the same at home with Demaratus, enter into a dispute with him over power.

Leotichides referred to the words that his father Ariston had once, through imprudence, uttered in relation to the newly born Demaratus, saying that this was not his son. Then the Lacedaemonians, as they usually did, transferred the whole matter and the dispute about Demaratus to Delphi, asking for the prophetic word of God. And the prophetess gave them a saying in the form of an answer that corresponded to Cleomenes’ plans. Thus, Demaratus was removed from the kingdom due to Cleomenes’ hatred of him, and not due to justice.

Subsequently, Cleomenes, in a fit of madness, caused his own death: grabbing a sword, he began to inflict wounds on himself and died, having chopped up and mutilated his entire body. Since Cleomenes had no male descendants, power passed to Leonidas, the (third) son of Anaxandrides, the brother of Dorieus.

Leonidas I- Spartan king from the Agid family, who ruled in 491-480. BC During the first ten years of his reign, Leonidas did not do anything remarkable, but he immortalized himself forever with the last battle of his life at Thermopylae.

At this time, Xerxes led his hordes to Hellas, Leonidas, along with three hundred Lacedaemonians, met him at Thermopylae. There were many wars between the Greeks and the barbarians, but it is easy to list those to which the valor of one man gave the greatest glory; Thus, Achilles glorified the war at Ilion, and Miltiades glorified the Battle of Marathon. The feat of duty fulfilled by Leonid surpassed all the feats of this time. That same Xerxes, who of all the kings who were among the Medes, and subsequently among the Persians, set himself the most ambitious plans and accomplished brilliant deeds.

Leonidas, with a handful of people whom he brought with him to Thermopylae, stood so firmly on the path that Xerxes would never have seen Hellas at all and would not have burned the cities of the Athenians, if the Trachinian had not led Hydarnas with army and would not have given him the opportunity to surround the Hellenes. Only after Leonidas died in this way were the barbarians able to penetrate Hellas.

Plistarchus- Spartan king from the Agid family, who ruled in 480-458. BC Son of Leonidas I. As a child, Plistarchus' guardian was his cousin Pausanias. After the death of Plistarchus, the son of Pausanias Plistoanax became king.

Pleistoanax had a son Pausanias. Pausanias - king of the Lacedaemonians from the Agid family, who reigned in 409-395. BC + 385 BC

Pausanias came to Attica as an enemy of Thrasybulus and the Athenians, in order to firmly strengthen the tyranny of those to whom Lysander had entrusted power. And in the battle he defeated the Athenians who occupied Piraeus, but after the battle he decided to immediately take the army home, not wanting to bring upon Sparta the most shameful of reproaches by supporting the tyranny of godless people.

When he returned from Athens after such a fruitless battle, his enemies summoned him to trial. At the trial of the Lacedaemonian king are the so-called Geronts, twenty-eight in number, the entire college of ephors, and with them the king from another royal family. The fourteen Geronts, as well as Agis, a king from another royal house, admitted that Pausanias was guilty; nevertheless, the other judges acquitted him.

A little time later, when the Lacedaemonians were gathering an army against Thebes, Lysander, arriving in Phokis, called on the Phocians to a national militia; without waiting for time, he immediately moved to Boeotia and attacked the fortified town of Haliart, whose population did not want to fall away from the Thebans. But earlier, some of the Thebans and Athenians had secretly entered this city, and when they came out and lined up under the walls of the city, then (in the battle that took place) Lysander fell among the other Lacedaemonians.

Pausanias was late to this battle, gathering an army among the Tegeates and other Arcadians; when he arrived in Boeotia and learned of the defeat of those who were with Lysander, and of the death of Lysander himself, he nevertheless led an army to Thebes and intended to begin the battle. Then the Thebans came out against him and it became known that Thrasybulus was nearby, who, leading the Athenians, expected the Lacedaemonians to begin the battle, and intended, when they had already begun, to strike them in the rear.

Pausanias was afraid that he would have to fight on two fronts, caught between two enemy troops, so he concluded a truce with the Thebans and took with him the corpses of those who fell under the walls of Haliart. The Lacedaemonians did not like this. When this time the citizens accused him of being slow in coming to Boeotia, he did not expect to be summoned to trial, but the Tegeates received him as a petitioner for protection in their temple of Athens-Alea.

After the flight of Pausanias, his sons, Agesipolus and Cleombrotus, remained completely young and Aristodemus, who was their closest relative, took custody of them. And the victory of the Lacedaemonians at Corinth was won while he was in command of them.

When Agesipol grew up and became king, the first of the Peloponnesians with whom he went to war were the Argives. When he led the army from the region of the Tegeates to Argolis, he met a herald whom the Argives sent to Agesipolis in order to renew the truce, according to them, established from ancient times between the various peoples of the Dorian tribe in relation to each other, but the king did not want to conclude a truce with herald and, moving forward with the army, devastated the country.

Then God shook the earth, but even here Agesipolus still did not think of withdrawing his army back, despite the fact that the Lacedaemonians, more than all the Hellenes (as well as the Athenians), fear all sorts of divine signs. He had already begun to camp under the walls of Argos, but the god did not cease to shake the earth, and some of Agesipol's warriors were struck by lightning, while others were deafened by thunder. Only then, against his will, did he interrupt the campaign and retreat from Argolis.

But he immediately went on a campaign against the Olynthians. After he won the battle, took many other cities in Chalkidiki by storm and hoped to capture Olynthos itself, he suddenly fell ill and died from this disease.

After the death of Agesipolis, who died childless, power passed to Cleombrotus and under his command the Lacedaemonians fought the Boeotians at Leuctra. Cleombrotus, who was himself a brave warrior, fell at the very beginning of the battle. Usually, during great defeats, the will of fate is first of all expressed in the fact that it takes away the leader, just as from the Athenians, at the beginning of the battle of Delium, it took away their commander, Hippocrates, the son of Arifron, and subsequently in Thessaly (another Athenian military leader) Leosthenes.

Cleombrotus's eldest son Agesipolus did not do anything glorious worthy of memory; after his death, power passed to his younger brother. He had two sons - Akrotat, and after him Kleonymus; death befell Acrotatus before (his father) Cleomenes himself.

When Cleomenes later died, Cleonymus, the son of Cleomenes, and Ares, the son of Akrotatus, came into dispute over royal power. Then the Geronts decided that, by virtue of hereditary rights, royal power should belong to Ares, the son of Akrotatus, and not to Cleonymus. Kleonymus, removed from royal power, was filled with great anger, and the ephors could not soften his soul and reconcile him with Sparta either with gifts or by placing him at the head of the army. In the end, he dared to commit many criminal and treacherous things towards his homeland and even invited Pyrrhus, the son of Aeacides, to his native country.

When he reigned in Sparta Arey, son of Akrotatus, Antigonus, son of Demetrius, marched against Athens with foot troops and a fleet. Patroclus arrived from Egypt with his army and fleet to help the Athenians, and the Lacedaemonians also acted as a national militia, entrusting the main command to King Ares. But Antigonus surrounded Athens with such a tight ring that there was no way for the forces allied with the Athenians to enter the city.

Then Patroclus, sending envoys, began to encourage the Lacedaemonians and Ares to start a battle against Antigonus, saying that if they started, he would attack the Macedonians from the rear; before this attack occurs, it is somehow inconvenient for them, the Egyptians and sailors, to attack the infantry. And indeed, the Lacedaemonians sought, despite the danger, to help the Athenians, both because of their disposition towards them and out of a thirst for military glory, dreaming of some kind of feat that would be memorable for future times. But Ares withdrew his army under the pretext that he had run out of all his food. He believed that it was necessary to preserve the bravery of soldiers for his own interests, and not squander it so unwisely for strangers.

With the Athenians, who had offered strong resistance for a very long time, Antigonus made peace on the condition that he would bring a garrison to them and place it on the (hill) Museia. Over time, Antigonus himself voluntarily withdrew this garrison (from Athens). Ares had a son, Akrotat, and he had a son, Ares, who died of illness while still an eight-year-old boy.

Since the only representative of the male generation from the house of Eurysthenes was Leonidas, the son of Cleonymus, already a very old man, the Lacedaemonians transferred power to him. Leonidas's strongest opponent turned out to be Lysander, a descendant of Lysander, the son of Aristocritus. He won over to his side Cleombrotus, who was married to the daughter of Leonidas; Having come to an agreement with him, he began to level against Leonidas, among many other accusations, that he, while still a child, swore an oath to his father Kleonymus to contribute to the death of Sparta.

Thus, indeed, Leonidas was deprived of royal dignity and Cleombrotus received this honor instead. If Leonidas had succumbed to a feeling of anger and, like Demaratus, the son of Ariston, had retired to the Macedonian king or to Egypt, then even if the Spartans (repenting) had changed their decision, this would have been of no benefit to him. He, expelled from the country by the citizens after his conviction, went to Arcadia, and a few years later the Lacedaemonians called him back from there and again elected him king.

Cleomenes(about 262-219 BC) was the eldest son of King Leonidas, who killed the noble Agis. After the execution of Agis, King Leonidas forcibly gave his widow Agiatis in marriage to Cleomenes in order to take possession of her property. Cleomenes received a good education. His mentor and friend was the famous scientist Spheres Boristhenes, who had a great influence on Spartan youth. Spherus taught that the king is only the first citizen, only a servant of the people and therefore must devote himself entirely to their good.

With all the fervor of his youth, Cleomenes embraced these democratic ideas and watched with indignation everything that happened in Sparta after the death of Agis. Cleomenes understood that the reforms would be successful only if they managed to destroy the main support of the rich - the council of elders (gerusia) and the ephorate. And for this it was necessary to create an army not from mercenaries, but from citizens vitally interested in the redistribution of land and property of the rich. The revival of the military power of Sparta was also connected with this.

After the death of Cleomenes, the movement of the poor in Sparta continued. Other national leaders appeared, calling themselves tyrants, who continued the work of Cleomenes. The struggle continued with varying success until a new power, Rome, intervened in the affairs of Greece. Having subjugated Sparta and other Greek states, the Roman conquerors established their dominance there for a long time.

From the family of Eurysthenes, from the so-called Agids, Cleomenes, son of Leonidas, was the last king in Sparta.

3. Eurypontid Dynasty

Proclus- the legendary king of Laconia, who ruled in the 11th century. BC Son of Aristodemus. The ancestor of the royal family of Eurypontids. Proclus gave his son the name Soon. Eurypontus, the son of Soon, glorified himself so much that this clan received the name Eurypontids from him, and before him they were called Proclids.

He was the son of Eurypontus Prytanide. Under Prytanidas, enmity began between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives, but even before this feud they waged war with the Cynurians. Over the next generations, during the reigns of Eunom, son of Prytanides, and Polydectes, son of Eunom, Sparta lived in peace.

But Charillus, the son of Polydectes, first devastated the land of Argos and then, a few years later, under his command, the Spartans invaded the region of Tegea, when the Lacedaemonians hoped to defeat Tegea and subjugate it to their power, separating the Tegean plain from the Argolis; in this they relied on ambiguous prophecy.

After the death of Kharill, the son of Kharill took power, Nikandr. During the reign of Nikander, the Messenians killed Telecles, a king from another royal family, in the temple of Artemis-Limnada (Virgin of the Waters). Nikander also invaded Argolis with a large army and caused much devastation in the country. The inhabitants of Asina, who took part in this campaign together with the Lacedaemonians, soon experienced retribution from the Argives, who subjected their homeland to complete devastation, and they themselves were expelled.

When Theopompus, the son of Nikiander still reigned in Sparta, a dispute began between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives over the so-called Thyreatid plain. Theopompus himself did not take part in this matter due to old age, but even more due to grief, since fate kidnapped Archidamus, the son of Theopompus, while his father was still alive. But Archidamus did not die childless; he left behind his son Zeuxidamus. Then the son of Zeuxidamus, Anaxidam, took power.

Under him, the Messenians had to leave the Peloponnese, having been defeated for the second time in the war by the Spartans. The son of Anaxidam was Archidamus, and the son of Archidamus was Agasicles; they were both destined to spend their entire lives in peace, and they did not wage any wars.

Ariston, the son of Agasicles, took as his wife the one who was the ugliest of the girls of Lacedaemon, but by the grace of Helen she became the most beautiful of all women. Just seven months after Ariston married her, her son Demaratus was born. Ariston was sitting together with the ephors in the council when a slave came to him with the news that he had a son. Ariston said that by the count of months he could not be his son. Subsequently, he himself repented of these words, but when Demaratus was already reigning and had already glorified Sparta with his glorious exploits, by the way, having freed the Athenians from the Pisistratids together with Cleomenes, Ariston’s unreasonable phrase and Cleomenes’ hatred made him an ordinary citizen (depriving him of the throne). He retired to Persia to King Darius, and for a long time afterward, as they say, his descendants continued to live in Asia.

Having become king instead of Demaratus, Leotychides participated together with the Athenians and the Athenian leader Xanthippus, son of Arifron, in the battle of Mycale, and after that he went to Thessaly, against the Alevads. And although it was easy for him to conquer all of Thessaly, since he always remained the winner, he allowed himself to be bribed by the Alevads. Brought to trial in Lacedaemon, he voluntarily, without waiting for the trial, fled to Tegea and appeared there as a petitioner for protection in the temple of Athena Alea. Leotichides' son, Zeuxidas, died of illness during Leotichides's lifetime, when he was not yet an exile.

Accepted power after Leotychides left for Tegea Archidamus, son of Zeuxidamus. This Archidamus caused especially much harm to the country of the Athenians, annually invading Attica with an army and with each invasion he passed through it all, devastating it with fire and sword. He also besieged and took the city of Plataea, which had always been on the side of the Athenians. But in any case, he was not the instigator of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians; on the contrary, he made every possible effort to ensure that a truce remained between them.

Sphenelaide, who generally enjoyed great influence in Lacedaemon and was at that time an ephor, turned out to be the main culprit of the war. This war shook Hellas, which had until then been strong and organized, to its very foundation, and subsequently Philip, the son of Amyntas, overthrew it, already shaken and completely in decline, and subjugated it to his power.

Dying, Archidamus left two sons. Agis was the eldest in age and therefore received power before Agesilaus. Archidamus also had a daughter named Kiniska, who devoted herself to Olympic competitions with the greatest passion and was the first of the women to keep horses for this purpose and the first of them to win the Olympic Games. After Kiniski, other women, especially from Lacedaemon, achieved victories at Olympia, but none of them deserved such fame for their victories as she did.

It seems to me that there are no other people in the world who admire poetry less than the Spartans and pursue praise expressed in the form of poetic works. And in fact, apart from an epigram written by an unknown person in honor of Cyniscus, and another epigram by Simonides, who wrote it much earlier for Pausanias in order to place it on the tripod that Pausanias dedicated to Delphi, then nothing else was written by anyone a poet about the Lacedaemonian kings in memory of them.

Even during the reign of Agis, son of Archidamus, mutual quarrels began between the Lacedaemonians and the Eleans, but the Lacedaemonians were especially offended because the Eleans did not allow them to participate in the Olympic Games and to sacrifice in the Temple of Olympian Zeus. And so the Lacedaemonians sent a messenger to the Eleans demanding that autonomy be returned to the Lepreatae and those of the surrounding cities who were their subjects.

The Eleans answered them that as soon as they saw the surrounding cities of Sparta free, they would not hesitate to grant freedom to their own as well; After such an answer, the Lacedaemonians, led by King Agis, invaded Elis. Their army had already reached Olympia and was already standing in front of the Alpheus River, but at that time God shook the earth, and the army had to go back. The next year Agis devastated the country and captured great booty.

Xenius the Elean, a personal friend of Agis and representative (“proxenus”) of the Lacedaemonians among the Eleans, rebelled against the people’s power, becoming the head of wealthy citizens. But before Agis arrived with an army to support them, Thrasideus, who was then at the head of the Elean people, defeated Xenius and his supporters in battle and expelled them from the city.

Then Agis had to lead the army back; however, he left the Spartan Lysistratus with part of the military forces, which, together with the fugitives from the Eleans and the Lepreates, were supposed to devastate the Elean region. In the third year of the war, the Lacedaemonians, together with Agis, were preparing to invade Elis again, but the Eleans and their leader Thrasidamus, driven to the extreme by devastation, agreed to renounce power over the surrounding cities, tear down the walls of their city and allow the Lacedaemonians to Olympia as to participate in the sacrifice to the Olympian- Zeus, and for holding the Olympic Games with them.

Agis also invaded Attica more than once at the head of an army; It was he who fortified Decelea, garrisoning it, creating a constant threat to the Athenians; When the Athenian fleet was defeated at Aegospotami, Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, and Agis broke the oath in the name of the gods that the Lacedaemonians publicly swore to the Athenians, and on their own behalf, without the consent of the entire Spartan people, they made a proposal at a meeting of the allies to “cut off the Athenians and branches and roots.” Such were the especially remarkable military exploits of Agis.

Ariston's rash statement regarding his son Demaratus was repeated by Agis in relation to Leotichides; and some evil spirit inspired him to say in the presence of the ephors that he considered Leotichides not his son. But subsequently Agis was also overcome by repentance and, when he, sick, was carried home from Arcadia and when he arrived in Herea, then in front of a large crowd of witnesses, he declared that he considered Leotichides his son and with tears begged them to convey these words of his to the Lacedaemonians.

After the death of Agis, Agesilaus began to remove Leotychides from the kingdom, bringing to memory to the Lacedaemonians the words that Agis had once spoken about Leotychides. Then the Arcadians also arrived from Herea and testified in favor of Leotychides everything that they had heard from the lips of the dying Agis.

Leotichides said that the prophecy referred to Agesilaus, since Agesilaus was lame in one leg, but Agesilaus directed it at Leotichides, as the illegitimate son of Agis. The Lacedaemonians could, of course, in this case turn to Delphi for a resolution of the dispute, but they did not do this, the reason for which was Lysander, the son of Aristocritus, who used all his efforts to ensure that Agesilaus was king.

Thus, Agesilaus, son of Archidamus, became king. Under him, the Lacedaemonians decided to cross to Asia to fight Artaxerxes, the son of Darius: the people in power, and especially Lysander, they were informed that during the war with the Athenians, it was not Artaxerxes who gave them money for the fleet, but Cyrus.

Agesilaus, having received instructions to transport the army to Asia and become the head of the land army, sent messengers throughout the Peloponnese, except Argos, and to all the other Hellenes on the other side of the Isthmus, inviting them to become allies. Although the Corinthians really wanted to take part in this campaign in Asia, but since their temple of Zeus, called Olympian, suddenly burned down, they, considering this a bad omen, against their will, remained at home. The Athenians put forward the pretext that after the Peloponnesian War and the pestilence, their state had not yet restored its former prosperity, but mainly they remained calm because they learned through messengers that Conon, the son of Timothy, had gone to the court of the Persian king.

Aristomenides, Agesilaus's maternal grandfather, was sent to Thebes as an ambassador; he enjoyed favor in Thebes and was one of those judges who voted that, after the capture of Plataea, the surviving Plataeans should be executed. But the Thebans also gave the same negative answer as the Athenians, saying that they would not come to the rescue.

When the Spartan and allied army had gathered and the fleet was ready to sail, Agesilaus went to Aulis to make a sacrifice to Artemis, because Agamemnon, having propitiated the goddess, set out from there on a campaign against Troy. Agesilaus believed that he was the king of a more prosperous and powerful state than King Agamemnon, and that, like Agamemnon, he was the leader of all Hellas; he flattered himself with the thought that defeating Artaxerxes and taking possession of all the riches of Persia would be a more glorious feat than destroying the rule of Priam. When he was already making a sacrifice, the Thebans came here with weapons in their hands; they threw the already burning thighs of the sacrificial animals from the altar, and he (they) drove him out of the temple.

Agesilaus was very offended that he was not allowed to complete the sacrifices; Nevertheless, he crossed into Asia and marched on Sardis.

Lydia then constituted the most important part of lower (Minor) Asia and (its capital) Sardis was distinguished by its wealth and splendor among all cities; they were the residence of the satrap of the Maritime region, just as Susa was the residence of the Persian king himself. The battle with Tissaphernes, the satrap of the Ionian regions, took place on the plain of Hermus, and Agesilaus defeated both the Persian cavalry and infantry, which were then collected in greater numbers than ever, with the exception of the campaign of Xerxes and even earlier Darius, when the former led an army against the Scythians, and the other is to Athens.

The Lacedaemonians, delighted with the energy and brilliance of Agesilaus’s way of acting, willingly made him commander of the fleet, but he put Peisander in charge of the trireme, and Agesilaus was married to Peisander’s sister, while he himself energetically continued the war on land.

When Artaxerxes learned of these battles, in which Agesilaus remained victorious, and that he continued to move forward, destroying everything in his path, he sentenced Tissaphernes to execution, although Tissaphernes had previously rendered him great services, and sent Tiphraustes, a very intelligent man, as satrap of the Maritime region and besides, he really did not like the Lacedaemonians.

When he arrived at Sardis, he immediately came up with a means to force the Lacedaemonians to withdraw their army from Asia. He sent the Rhodian Timocrates to Hellas with a large sum of money, instructing him to initiate a war against the Lacedaemonians in Hellas. They bribed Cylon and Sodam from the Argives, and Androkleid, Ismenius and Amphithemis in Thebes; the Athenians, Cephalus and Epicrates, as well as those of the Corinthians who sympathized with the Argives, Poliantus and Timolaus, took part in this. The Locrians from Amfissa opened hostilities. The Locrians had a disputed land on the border with the Phocians; When the harvest time came, the Locrians, at the instigation of the Thebans, supporters of Ismenia, reaped the grain and stole the spoils. Then the Phocians with their entire people rushed into Locris and devastated the country. In turn, the Locrians called upon their Theban allies and sacked Phocis.

The Phocians went to Lacedaemon with a complaint against the Thebans and pointed out what they had suffered from them. The Lacedaemonians decided to start a war against the Thebans, making other complaints against them, and mainly the insult that they inflicted on Agesilaus at Aulis during the sacrifice. Having learned in advance about this decision of the Lacedaemonians, the Athenians sent an embassy to Sparta with a proposal not to take up arms against Thebes, but to resolve in court the charges that were brought forward here, but the Lacedaemonians angrily sent back this embassy.

Beginning with the Lacedaemonians' campaign against Boeotia, this so-called Corinthian War began to expand more and more. Due to this need, Agesilaus had to withdraw his army from Asia. When he crossed from Abydos with a fleet to Sestus and, having passed through Thrace, arrived in Thessaly, here the Thessalians, trying to please the Thebans, wanted to delay Agesilaus in his further movement; in addition, for a long time they had some kind of friendly disposition towards the Athenian state.

Having defeated their cavalry, Agesilaus passed through all of Thessaly and again, passing through Boeotia, he defeated the Thebans and the entire army of their allies at the Crown. When the Boeotians fled, some of the soldiers fled to the temple of Athena, called Itonia. Although Agesilaus was wounded in this battle, despite this, he did not violate the rights of those asking for protection.

A little later, those who had been expelled from Corinth for their favor with the Spartans staged the Isthmian Games. Frightened by the presence of Agesilaus, the rest of the inhabitants of Corinth then remained calm. But before Agesilaus had time to leave Corinth with his army and head to Sparta, the Corinthians, together with the Argives, began to celebrate the Isthmian games. Agesilaus again returned to Corinth with an army; Since the holiday of Hyakinthia was approaching, he sent the Amikleians home to perform the established festivities in honor of Apollo and Hyakinthos. On the way, the Athenians under the command of Iphicrates attacked this part of the army and killed them.

Agesilaus also went to Aetolia to help the Aetolians, who were heavily pressed by the Acarnanians, and forced the Acarnanians to stop the war, although they were already ready to capture Calydon and other Aetolian cities.
Later he sailed to Egypt to help the Egyptians when they fell away from the Persian king. And in Egypt, Agesilaus performed many feats worthy of memory. He was already an old man and during this campaign he suffered the inevitable fate for everyone (death). When his corpse was brought to Sparta, the Lacedaemonians buried him, giving him greater honor than any other king.

During the reign of Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, the Phocians captured the sanctuary at Delphi. This caused them to go to war with the Thebans; To help the Phocians in this war, first of all, an army came, recruited by the Phocians themselves with the funds they received from the (captured) treasures; in addition, the Lacedaemonians and Athenians came to their aid openly, on behalf of their states; the latter remembered some ancient favor done to them by the Phocians; For their part, the Lacedaemonians presented the pretext of their friendship for the Phocians, but in fact they were rather motivated by hatred, as it seems to me, of the Thebans.

Theopompus, the son of Damasistratus, says that Archidamus himself participated in the division of these treasures and that Archidamus’s wife, Deinich, receiving gifts from influential persons among the Phocians, thanks to them, persuaded Archidamus to such an alliance. I do not consider it commendable to accept gifts from sacred treasures and protect people who robbed the most famous of the temples of divine broadcasting, but this is what serves to the honor of Archidamus: when the Phocians decided to kill all the adult inhabitants of Delphi, sell their children and wives into slavery, and the city itself destroyed to the ground, then only the intervention of Archidamus owes the Delphians that they avoided the terrible fate that threatened them from the Phocians.

Subsequently, Archidamus crossed over to Italy to help the Tarentines in their war with the neighboring barbarians. There he was killed by barbarians, and the fact that his body was not worthy of burial “in the royal tomb” was due to the anger of Apollo.

The eldest son of Archidamus, Agis, was destined to die in battle against the Macedonians and Antipater, while his youngest son, Eudamidas, reigned among the Lacedaemonians and under him they enjoyed peace.

Next reigned Agis IV, a king from the Eurypontid family, who ruled in Laconia in 244-241. BC Son of Eudamidas II. From childhood, he was raised in luxury by his mother Agesistrata and grandmother Archidamia, the wealthiest women in Lacedaemon. But before he even reached the age of 20, he declared war on pleasures, tore off his jewelry, resolutely rejected any extravagance, was proud of his shabby cloak, dreamed of Laconian dinners, bathing and, in general, the Spartan way of life and said that he did not belong what would there be of royal power if it were not for the hope of reviving with its help ancient laws and customs.

To this end, he began to test the mood of the Spartans. The youth, contrary to Agis’s expectations, quickly responded to his words and enthusiastically devoted themselves to valor, changing their entire lifestyle, like their clothes, for the sake of freedom. But the elderly, who were affected much more deeply by the corruption of wealth, scolded Agis. The dissatisfaction of rich people with the reign of Agis grew.

In intelligence and high spiritual qualities, Agis not only surpassed the second king Leonidas, but was one of the most outstanding people of his time. He soon became a favorite of the common people of Sparta.

The first attempt at reform ended unsuccessfully, firstly, because it was impossible to return the Spartan state, which was in a state of deep decline, to the Lycurgus order; secondly, because the noble ruler Agis was devoid of the traits of a fighter and leader. He did not have an indomitable will and fortitude that did not yield to the need to use force against the rich. A different type of ruler was needed. Such a person soon appeared in Sparta. It was King Cleomenes.

CONCLUSION

Sparta (Lakedaemon) is an ancient Greek polis in Laconia (Peloponnese), which became after the conquest in the 8th-6th centuries. BC e. the southern part of the Peloponnese into a large state. According to legend, the political system in Sparta was established by Lycurgus (IX-VIII centuries). The Spartiates owned equal sections of state land with helots attached to them, and they themselves were mainly engaged in military affairs. Crafts and trade were in the hands of the Perieks.

Sparta is a classic example of a polis with an oligarchic government system; State affairs were decided by the gerousia, then by the college of ephors. Since ancient times, two royal dynasties ruled simultaneously in Sparta, which often competed and were at enmity with each other.

The kings who traced their lineage back to Hercules himself enjoyed universal honor and respect. However, their power was severely limited by law. In wartime, they served as military leaders commanding the Spartan army, and in peacetime they were involved in judicial and religious affairs. Both kings were members of the council of elders (together with them it numbered thirty people) and took part in its meetings, at which almost all the main issues of public administration were decided.

Rivalry between Athens and Sparta led to the Peloponnesian War of 431-404; Having won it, Sparta established its hegemony over Greece. After defeat in the war with Thebes in 371 at Leuctra and in 362 at Mantinea, Sparta became a minor state. In 146 Sparta was subjugated by Rome, in 27 BC. e. entered the Roman province of Achaia.

Modern Sparta is a city in Greece, in the south of the Peloponnese peninsula., administrative center of the Laconia region in the valley of the river. Eurotas, founded in 1834. Nearby are the ruins of the ancient city of Sparta (remains of the acropolis with the temple of Athena, 6th century BC, sanctuaries, 7th-5th centuries BC, theater, 1st-2nd centuries. AD

Kings of Sparta, chronology

Until 1103 BC kings of Laconia

Heracleidae

1103 - 1101 BC Aristodemus

Hagiads

1101 - 1059 BC Eurysthenes
1059 - 1058 BC Agis I
1058 - 1023 BC Ehestratus
1023 - 986 BC Labot
986 - 957 BC Doriss
957 - 913 BC Agesilaus I
913 - 853 BC Archelaus
853 - 813 BC Telekl
813 - 776 BC Alkamen
776 - end of 8th century. BC. Polydor
late 8th century - 685 BC Eurycrates
c.685 - 668 BC Anaxander
668 - 590 BC Eurycratidae
590 - 560 BC Leontes
560 - 520 BC Anaxandrid
520 - 490 BC Cleomenes I
490 - 480 BC Leonidas I
480 - 470 BC Pausanias (regent)
480 - 459 BC Plistarchus
459 - 445 BC Plistoanakt I
445 - 426 BC Pausanias I
426 - 409 BC Plistoanakt I
409 - 395 BC Pausanias I
395 - 380 BC Agesipolid I
380 - 371 BC Cleombrotus I
371 - 370 BC Agesipolid II
370 - 309 BC Cleomenes II
309 - 265 BC Ares I
265 - 262 BC Acrotat
262 - 254 BC Ares II
254 - 243 BC Leonidas II
243 - 241 BC Cleombrotus II
241 - 235 BC Leonidas II
235 - 227 BC Cleomenes III
227 - 221 BC Euclid

219 - 215 BC Agesipolid III

Euriponidae

1101 - mid-11th century. BC. Proclus
2nd half of the 11th century. BC. Soy
10th century BC. Eurypontus
10th century BC. Prytanide
10th century BC. Evnom
9th century BC. Polydecte
9th century BC. Lycurgus I
9th century BC. Harilai
late 9th century - 770 BC Nikandr
c.770 - 720 BC Theopompus
720 - early 7th century. BC. Zeuxidas
1st half of 7th century BC. Anaxidam
2nd half of 7th century BC. Archidamus I
late 7th century - 550 BC Agasikles
550 - 515 BC Ariston
515 - 491 BC Demarat
491 - 469 BC Leontychides I
469 - 427 BC Archidamus II
427 - 399 BC Agis II
399 BC Leontychides II
399 - 360 BC Agiselaus II
360 - 338 BC Archidamus III
338 - 331 BC Agis III
331 - 305 BC Eudamides I
305 - 275 BC Archidamus IV
275 - 244 BC Eudamides II
244 - 241 BC Agis IV
241 - 228 BC Eudamides III
228 - 227 BC Archidamus IV
In 221 - 219 BC. republic
219 - 212 BC Lycurgus II
212 - 200 BC Pelop
211 - 207 BC Mahanid (tyrant)
207 - 192 BC Nabis (tyrant)
192 BC Lakonik
In 192 - 146 BC. republic

From 146 BC Sparta is conquered by the Roman Republic

http://www.historicus.ru/sparta/

1.2 Royal power in Ancient Sparta

As is known, in the system of city-states of the classical period of the history of ancient Hellas, the leading position was occupied by two policies - Athens and Sparta. Both of these states, each in their own way, made a huge contribution to the formation and development of ancient civilization. For a long time, however, Athens attracted much more attention from scientists than Sparta: until a certain point, the Greek polis was studied mainly on Athenian material, which was dictated both by the presence of a rich ancient tradition and by the political situation - in Athens, Western democracies saw the prototype of an open society .

In turn, the pressure of political and ideological attitudes of modern times greatly influenced the image of Sparta in the works of Western antiquists. At the same time, the topic of the Spartan polis turned out to be unusually relevant and topical for several generations of researchers.

You can figure out how the Spartan state form developed if you take into account the legends about the time preceding the period under study, which have been preserved by researchers. We learn, therefore, “that upon the arrival of the Dorians, the whole country was divided into six urban districts, the capitals of which were Sparta, Amykly, Faris, three inland areas near Eurotas, then Egintus near the Arcadian border, Lasu of the Hythean Sea; the sixth was probably the sea harbor of Bey. As in Messenia, the Dorians scattered to various areas ruled by kings”; they mixed with the former inhabitants; new settlers, such as the Minii, moved from villages to cities.

Due to the fact that already in ancient times historical Sparta and its mythologized model were intertwined in a complex and intricate combination, identifying the historical grain in the legend about the initial reform seems to us a rather difficult task. To solve it, it is necessary, first of all, to evaluate the ancient tradition that has come down to us about the initial reform. Most ancient authors associate the ancient legislation of Sparta with the name of Lycurgus. But the very name of Lycurgus as a Spartan legislator was first mentioned only by Herodotus, that is, relatively late - no earlier than the middle of the 5th century. According to Herodotus, the laws of Lycurgus were mainly political in nature.

The gerusia, or council of elders, headed by kings, is named as the main government body, but subordinate to the appella. Plutarch characterizes gerousia as the first and most important of all the many innovations of Lycurgus. Judging by the great attention Plutarch paid to discussing the number of geronts, he himself had no doubt that the number 30 for geronts was established by Lycurgus. All attempts by modern scientists to give a suitable explanation for the number of Lycurgus geronts, based on the generic or territorial principle, are purely hypothetical. Thus, G. Busolt thinks that the numerical composition of the Spartan gerousia was modeled on the model of the council at Delphi, consisting of 30 members. It is not known what gerousia was like before Lycurgus. But with the introduction of Lycurgus gerusia, Sparta turned into a polis with an aristocratic form of government. Plutarch describes in detail the procedure for election to the geront. The goals of the reform of the political system were the following: to limit the two kings (according to Spartan legends, the two kingdoms were founded by the twins Eurystheus and Proclus), change the composition of the council (gerusia) and give some rights to the people's assembly.

The two kings retained supreme command during the war and a role in the administration of religious worship, but as regards current politics they were mere members of the council. In the past, the council probably consisted of the heads of 27 phratries. Now their number has increased to 30, including kings. Councilors were elected with the approval of the people's assembly, and only “equals” aged 60 years or older had the right to be elected, and they held this position for life. “The council had the exclusive right to make proposals to the people's assembly and to dissolve it. All “equals” participated in the national assembly; it was henceforth to meet at a set time in a set place.” Its electoral powers were clearly defined, and decisions on proposals made by the council were final.

In the national assembly, all Spartans were equal before the state, regardless of their nobility and wealth, and according to the new state structure, “their voice was decisive in cardinal matters in the election of officials and the ratification of bills,” no matter how great the power of Gerusia. Citizens could only say “yes” or “no” when voting. It can be assumed that the popular assembly had the right to expel kings and return them back to the throne.

The Great Retra states that the gerusia also included archagetes. In his commentary to the text of Retra, Plutarch explains that by archagets they mean kings. It is possible that this was the original title of the Spartan kings, which reflected the idea of ​​kings as leaders at the head of the army. "L. Jeffrey, and after her J. Huxley, suggested that in this context the word archaget is not an alternative synonym for the word “kings”. The word "archaget" has a wider range. He can be understood as a “founder,” be it the founder of a new state or a new cult.” We can assume the following: the Spartan kings were called archagetians as members and chairmen of the gerousia. This title clearly articulated their position in the gerusia under Lycurgus - first among equals and nothing more. “It is possible that a new quality of the Spartan kings was consolidated, who, having become members of the gerousia under Lycurgus, were thereby placed under the control of the community.”

The presence of two or more kings is not uncommon in early Greece. Thus, Homer often mentions similar situations: in the kingdom of the Phaeacians, for example, besides Alcinous there were twelve more kings, and in Ithaca Odysseus was not the only king, but one of many. Consequently, autocracy in the Homeric period could well coexist with a multi-power regime. There is undoubtedly a deep family connection between the Homeric and Spartan kings. Both of them are not autocratic monarchs like the Hellenistic kings. These are, rather, representatives of the leading aristocratic clans, exercising collegial leadership of the community. In this context, it becomes more understandable how there were two royal families, and their place within the Spartan polis. Anyway, the main features government system in Sparta remain clear. Two kings ruled there at the same time, belonging to the families of the Agiads and Eurypontids. Both dynasties considered themselves descendants of Hercules; “And in fact, even if this takes us into the realm of myths and legends, the origins of this monarchy were very ancient - even if it took its historical form known to us no earlier than 650-600. BC e." The powers of both hereditary kings were primarily of a military nature; In addition, they looked out for each other (this brought a certain balance) and, as a rule - although not always - made concessions to other political forces of Sparta. The special role of the kings in the division of powers is traced, “including in the field of application of oral law, their undoubted influence on the foreign policy of Sparta, the comparison of the two kings with the “divine twins” Tyndarides (guardians of the city) and the religious aura that surrounded the kings as high priests Zeus”, the non-extension of agoge to representatives of the royal families, the presence of “royal privileges”, the tributary duties of the periekoi to the kings, the allocation of a tenth of any military booty suggests that they were perceived by ancient society not just as “first among the secondary”. The Spartan kings also had an exceptional position in the ideological sphere. Their power through kinship with Hercules and the Olympian gods had a divine basis. “In addition, by communicating directly with the Delphic oracle through the Pythians, they were the guardians of divine truth.” Personal interests and the establishment of connections abroad could be carried out by the kings through proxens they personally appointed. Most likely, such royal commissioners were sometimes completely dependent on the tsar himself and were, “if I may say so, among his “clients.”

E. Curtius draws attention to how prim and alien these two “twin kings” behaved in relation to each other from the very beginning, how this sharp contrast was passed on continuously through all generations, “how each of these houses remained on its own, not connected with the other either by marriage or by common inheritance, as each had his own own story, chronicles, dwellings and tombs. In his opinion, these were two completely different generations, mutually recognizing each other’s rights and establishing, by agreement, the joint use of royal supreme power.” If one of the representatives of the royal family who was to rule was a child, then a guardian was appointed for him. In Pausanias we find references to this tradition: “Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, was not a king; being the guardian of Pleistarchus, the son of Leonidas, who remained still a child (after the death of his father), Pausanias led the Lacedaemonians at Plataea and then the fleet during the campaign against the Hellespont.” What these clans had in common was that their power did not arise from among the Dorians, but was rooted in the Mycenaean era. In addition, “the dual kingdom also served as a guarantee that, due to the competition of the two lines, the tyrannical excess of royal prerogatives became impossible.” There is no doubt that the kings independently administered justice. This can be confirmed by the words of Pausanias about King Polydorus: “while administering justice, he maintained justice, not without a sense of condescension towards people.” The death of a king was a special event in Ancient Sparta. Mourning was declared throughout Laconia. “Representatives of all groups of society (Spartiates, Perieci and Helots), several people from each family, arrive at the funeral procession. After the funeral, the courts and the market, which are the main public places in Sparta, are closed for 10 days.” After the death of the king, the heir who ascended the throne forgave all debts to the royal house or community.

All the institutions listed in the Retra are not the invention of Lycurgus. They existed, no doubt, before him.

The Spartan constitution apparently underwent the first serious modification after Lycurgus in the years 30-20. VIII century According to Plutarch, the authors of the amendment to the Great Retra were the Spartan kings Theopompus and Polydorus. “The meaning of such an amendment was that the geronts and kings should not have ratified the “crooked” decision of the people, but closed the meeting and dissolved the people.”

The innovation consisted in depriving the people of the right to a free and unrestricted discussion of the proposals made by the Gerusia. Now only the gerousia had the right to decide whether to continue the discussion in the appeal or to stop it and dissolve the meeting. The essence of this amendment, therefore, is that the gerusia, together with the kings who headed it, was again placed above the national assembly, for it now had the right to veto any decision of the appeal that was displeasing to it. It is this view of the meaning of this amendment that is generally accepted and rarely disputed.

Of particular importance were the relations of politicians with the largest sanctuary of Hellas - the oracle of Apollo in Delphi, the center of traditional wisdom, which played the role of the spiritual leader of Hellas in the archaic and classic time. The kings turned to Delphi for divine sanction. So here, as in the case of Lycurgus, there is an appeal to Apollo. Of particular interest is the relationship between Delphi and Spartan political leaders, “both because of the specifics of the political life of Lacedaemon, and because it was Sparta, of all the Greek city-states, that was most closely associated with Delphi in the ancient tradition.” We see a whole series of Spartan rulers who often very cynically tried to put the authority of the sanctuary at the service of their interests in political intrigues, not even disdaining direct bribery. This problem O.V. Kulishova devotes her monograph, where she gives examples of the influence of Delphi on the legislation of the largest policies in Greece. "The first and perhaps one of the most noteworthy among the rulers associated with this trend was King Cleomenes I." In this regard, we point out the special connections between the Pythian sanctuary of Apollo and the Spartan basileia, the most important aspect of which was its sacred character. The role of the Spartan kings in the worship was extremely significant in the context of their other most important function - military command. War, being an integral part of the political and interstate relations of the Greek polis world, was associated with a traditional complex of religious ideas and sacred actions, among which perhaps the primary role belonged to the so-called military mantle, which was primarily under the jurisdiction of Apollo and Delphi. “The very origin of the double royal power, according to legend, originated from Delphi.” Let us also note the position of special envoys to Delphi - the Pythians (each of the kings had to elect two Pythias), who together with the kings had a meal and also together with them performed the duties of preserving the oracles. The important role of the oracle is also manifested in a curious custom that persisted in Sparta at least until the 3rd century. BC, when the ephors watched one night every eight years to see if a sign would appear indicating that one of the Spartan kings had angered the gods. The kings, in the face of local gods, were representatives of the entire state; “Thanks to them alone, it became possible to connect the new order of things with the past time without disturbing sacred traditions" The army was always accompanied by a whole herd of sacred animals, intended for fortune-telling sacrifices and ready to be used to determine the will of the gods at any time: on the border of the state, before battle.

There is also no consensus among scientists about the time of the appearance of the ephorate in Sparta. In science, three possible options for the emergence of the ephorate were discussed: before Lycurgus, under Lycurgus or after Lycurgus. Thus, the opinion has been expressed more than once that the ephorate is an ancient Dorian institution, just like the apella, kings and council of elders, and Lycurgus did not create the ephorate, but transformed it, establishing the number of ephors according to the number of obs, i.e., guided by the new territorial principle. N. Hammond believes that Lycurgus nevertheless created an ephorate: “Lycurgus also founded an ephorate, consisting of five ephors, who were elected annually with the approval of the popular assembly from among their “equals.” Initially, the ephors did not have a leading position in the state. They simply supervised the work of the social system: they inspected the physical condition of the boys, administered justice in cases of disobedience, and led processions at the Gymnopedia (national sports and music festival).

The tradition about the post-Lycurgus origin of the ephorate seems to us the most reliable because it is described in sufficient detail by Aristotle. Aristotle considered the reform of Theopompus a very important stage in the development of the Spartan polis. King Theopompus, in his words, deliberately went to diminish his power, ceding some of his functions to ordinary citizens in the name of preserving royal power as such: “By weakening the significance of royal power, he thereby contributed to the extension of its existence, so in a certain respect he did not diminish but, on the contrary, exalted her.” The compromise concluded between the kings and society contributed to the preservation of civil peace in Sparta and the stability of its political system. Both the royal power and the council of elders were relegated to the background by the ephors. They arrogated to themselves the right to negotiate with the community, and became the successors of the legislative work, as far as this could be discussed in Sparta; they decided all public affairs. “In a word, the ancient titles and positions, dating back to heroic times, became more and more pale, while the euphoria reached more and more unlimited power.”

Initially, a college of five ephors was supposed to perform the judicial functions of the Spartan kings in their absence. “In classical times, this position was elective. It is difficult to say when such a qualitative shift towards the creation of a regular elected magistracy occurred.” To a large extent, this could be facilitated by the full employment of the kings in the military sphere during protracted military conflicts.

In the middle of the 6th century. marks the last, third stage of the reform of Spartan society, as a result of which the so-called. classic model of the Spartan polis.

A possible initiator of the changes that took place at that time was the ephor Chilon. Despite the fact that our information about him is extremely scarce, he is nevertheless the only character with whom the Spartan reforms of the end of the archaic period can be associated. We do not know what exactly the reform of the ephorate was, which tradition associates with the name of the ephor Chilon. “Chilo was probably the initiator of the law that transferred the presidency of the popular assembly and of the gerousia from the kings to the ephors.” This was the last step in the reform of the ephorate, which completely freed this magistracy from all others power structures. In any case, by the beginning of the classical period, the ephorate already had full executive and controlling power in the state, having become, in essence, the government of Sparta, a formal agreement was concluded, in which the condition for maintaining royal power was the unconditional subordination of the kings to the community represented by its main representatives - the ephors . Actually, these powers gave the ephors the power to oversee everyday life Spartan citizens, and “at the same time limit the influence of the Council of Elders - Gerusia”

As has already been stated more than once in scientific literature the opinion that the establishment of the ephorate marked the establishment of a new state order and at the same time signified the victory of the community over the sovereign royal power. The transformed ephorate thus becomes the guarantor of the equality of all citizens before the law.

The ephors, as already mentioned, had the function of controlling the kings. It must be said that they even had the right to judge kings. An example of this is the repeated trial of King Pausanias. Pausanias, the author of the Description of Hellas, tells the following about the trial of the Spartan king: “When he [Pausanias] returned from Athens after such a fruitless battle, his enemies called him to trial. At the trial of the Lacedaemonian king are the so-called geronts, twenty-eight people, the entire college of ephors, and with them the king from another royal house. The fourteen Geronts, as well as Agis, a king from another royal house, admitted that Pausanias was guilty; nevertheless, the other judges acquitted him.” Pausanias was acquitted by a margin of 4 votes, which belonged to the ephors. At the trial, the entire college of ephors unanimously voted for Pausanias and thereby decided the case in his favor. The ephors had the unconditional right to interfere in the personal life of the king. An example is the case of King Anaxandrides, whose wife could not give birth to an heir. In this case, the ephors insisted that the king marry another: “when the ephors began to insist that he send her back (to her parents).” The ephors monitored hereditary rights in the state and also had the right to remove rulers from power if they believed that he should not hold this position: “they removed him from the royal rank and gave power to Cleomenes on the basis of the laws of seniority.”

Under the ephor Chilon, a whole series of laws will be issued, with the help of which the ephors will finally cope with the arbitrariness of the kings and bring their activities as commanders-in-chief under their control. The prohibition to constantly wage war with the same enemy could mean the following: “the ephors received the right to cancel repeated military expeditions of the kings, which, in their opinion, could bring harm to Sparta.” Perhaps this limitation on the military power of the kings was introduced after several unsuccessful trips Spartan army against Argos. But, most likely, the reason for such an innovation was more global in nature and was associated with the emergence of a new direction in Spartan foreign policy: Sparta by the middle of the 6th century. abandoned unbridled military expansion and forced enslavement of neighboring peoples and switched to a more flexible and promising policy - the organization of intercity associations. “In such a situation, the military department, headed by the kings, required the closest attention from the civil authorities in order to prevent unwanted military conflicts in time.”

It is necessary to say something about the institution of navarkhs, which had quite a lot of powers. The commander of the allied fleet led by Sparta was called a navarch. “Of the four Spartan admirals known to us, who commanded the allied fleet between 480 and 477, that is, during the Greco-Persian Wars, one was a king (Leotichides in 479), the other was a close relative of the king (Pausanias in 478) and two were ordinary Spartiates who did not belong to the royal family.” the powers of the fleet commanders were approximately the same as the powers of the kings who stood at the head of the Spartan army. Navarchs were directly subordinate to the ephors, not the kings. Between the navarchy and the tsarist power, apparently, there was no fundamental subordination at all. The powers of the navarchs in the navy were approximately the same as the powers of the kings in the army. To a certain extent, the navarkhs enjoyed even greater freedom than the kings, whose activities were under the constant supervision of society in the person of the ephors. The custom of sending ephors to the active army dates back to the era of the Greco-Persian wars. The number of ephors was not specified, but most often the king was accompanied by only one ephor. By the end of the Peloponnesian War, “as can be seen from the reports of Xenophon, each Spartan king, in addition to advisers, was accompanied by two ephors instead of one.” The decision to increase the presence of ephors in the army from one to two looks like another preventive measure, aimed at preventing corruption in the army.

The Spartan kings represented the origin and beginning of the new state of the Lacedaemonians, which united the Spartiates, the Perieci, the Laconian helots, and later the Messenians.” At the ceremonial burial of the Spartan kings, men and women representing all segments of the population of Lacedaemon - Spartiates, Perieci and Helots - were required to attend, and an official ten-day mourning was observed throughout the country. The kings, on behalf of the Lacedaemonian state, declared war, commanded an army that included Spartiates, Perieci and helots, and made sacrifices on the borders of Laconia before leading the army abroad. They were the high priests of Zeus Lacedaemonian and Zeus Uranius, performed all sacrifices on behalf of the community and appointed envoys of the state to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. Their names were the first to appear on the documents of the Lacedaemonian state, they presided over all state celebrations and ceremonies, and were accompanied by a mounted detachment of bodyguards. Thus, the functions of the Spartan kings were similar to those of the British crown.

Leonidas is one of the most famous Spartan, and indeed ancient Greek kings. His fame is well deserved. Thanks to the feat accomplished at the Battle of Thermopylae, the name of this commander and statesman has survived centuries and is still a symbol of the highest patriotism, courage and sacrifice.

early years

Leonidas' father was Anaxandrides II, a Spartan king from the Agiad family who reigned from 560–520 BC. According to the historian Herodotus, King Anaxandrides was married to his brother’s daughter, who remained childless for a long time. So that the royal line would not be interrupted, the ephors advised the king to let go of his wife and take another. Anaxandrides, who loved his wife, replied that he could not offend his wife, who had not done anything wrong to him. Then the ephors allowed the king to keep his first wife, but at the same time take a second one, who could bear him children. So the king began to live in two families at the same time.

A year later, his second wife brought him a son, Cleomenes. Soon after this, Anaxandrides's first wife, previously considered barren, also became pregnant and gave birth to three sons one after another: Dorieus, and then the twins Leonidas and Cleombrotus. The king's second wife did not give birth again.

When Anaxandrides died in 520 BC. e., the Spartans faced the question of succession to the throne. Cleomenes was the eldest son of the king, but Doria, on the advice of one of his friends, declared that he was born from a first, as it were, more legitimate marriage, and therefore had more rights to power. The Spartans were divided into two camps, but ultimately Cleomenes' supporters won. In anger, Dorias left Sparta and sailed west. In 515 BC. e. he attempted to found a colony, first on the northern coast of Africa, and then in the west of Sicily, but the Carthaginians who ruled here expelled him each time. In a battle with them in 510 BC. e. Doria died.

Meanwhile, Cleomenes enlisted the help of his younger brothers. He married his daughter Gorgo to Leonid, which speaks, if not of friendship, then at least of some kind of trust between them. Cleomenes was one of the most warlike and ambitious Spartan kings. He defeated Sparta's longtime rival Argos, subjugated Arcadian Tegea, and then united the city-states dependent on Sparta into the Peloponnesian League under its hegemony.

Panorama of modern Sparta. Mount Taygetos, which separated Laconia from neighboring Messenia, is visible in the background. In the foreground are the ruins of a Roman theater. The photo was taken from the hill on which the acropolis of Sparta was located

Moreover, unlike most Spartans, Cleomenes was extremely unprincipled in achieving his goals. So, in 491 BC. e. he managed to remove the second king Demaratus from power, accusing him of allegedly being illegitimate. Demaratus fled to the Persians, but this incident caused a big scandal in Sparta, during which some details of Cleomenes’ intrigues were revealed. Fearing the trial of the ephors that threatened him, Cleomenes left the city and settled in Arcadia. Here he began to incite the Spartan allies to revolt. In fear of him, the ephors agreed to forget about what had happened. In 487 BC. e. Cleomenes returned to Sparta, where he suddenly fell into madness and committed suicide.

Since Cleomenes had no sons of his own, he was succeeded by Leonidas. Among modern historians, this gave rise to speculation about Leonid’s involvement in the dark details of the death of his predecessor. However, it should be recognized that we do not have direct evidence of malicious intent. And the high reputation that Leonid enjoyed both during his life and especially after his death does not allow unfounded accusations to be brought against him.

Persian threat

Leonidas was king for 7 years, but he remained famous primarily for his role in the battle of Thermopylae. To move on to presenting the history of Xerxes’ campaign against Greece, a few words should be said about its background. The Greeks had a long-standing relationship with the Persian Achaemenid power. The Ionian city-states of the western coast of Asia Minor were subjects of King Darius and paid him tribute. In 499 BC. e. they raised an uprising, in which Athens and Eretria came to the aid of the Ionians. The Spartan king Cleomenes, who was also visited by Ionian ambassadors, showed caution in this matter.

Having suppressed the uprising, the Persians decided to punish the Greeks who helped the rebels. In 492 BC. e. the royal relative Mardonius with a large Persian army crossed to Thrace. A number of Greek communities: Thebes, Argos, Aegina - agreed to give the king “land and water” as a sign of recognition of his power over them. The Spartans not only refused to do this, but also killed the royal ambassadors, throwing them into the abyss and offering to find earth and water at the bottom.

Greek ambassador to the Persian king Darius. Painting of an antique vase, 5th century BC. e.

In 490 BC. e. A large Persian fleet arrived on the shores of Greece. The Persians destroyed Eretria on Euboea, sold its inhabitants into slavery, and then headed towards Attica. The Athenians turned to Sparta for help, and while they hesitated to set out on a campaign, they managed to defeat the uninvited guests themselves in the Battle of Marathon. The remnants of the Persian army boarded ships and sailed back to Asia. The Spartans, who were late for the battle, could only inspect the bodies of the barbarians and pay their respects to the Athenians. The Persian king was very saddened by what happened, but his plans for revenge were prevented by the uprising that broke out in Egypt, and in 486 BC. e. Darius died. His successor Xerxes was forced to pacify the rebel Egyptians and Babylonians throughout the years 486–483. Thus, the Greeks received a 10-year respite.

In 483 BC. e. Xerxes finally dealt with the rebels and finally began to prepare a great campaign against Greece. The army he assembled was huge and, according to Herodotus, numbered 1.7 million people. At sea she was accompanied by a huge fleet of 1,200 ships. According to modern researchers, figures from 80,000 to 200,000 warriors and from 400 to 600 ships look more realistic.

For two years these forces gathered in Sardis. Finally, with the onset of spring 480 BC. e., the Persian army set out on a campaign. By order of Xerxes, two pontoon bridges, each 1300 m long, were built across the Dardanelles. Using them, the Persian army continuously crossed to the European shore of the strait for 7 days.

At the news of the approach of Xerxes' army, the Greek city-states were gripped by horror. The Thessalians, Thebans and Boeotians hastened to express their submission to the king. Even the most authoritative oracle of Apollo at Delphi predicted defeat for his troops.

Greek plans for the defense of the country

Athens and Sparta led the resistance to the Persians. Back in the fall of 481 BC. e. A pan-Greek congress met in Corinth, the participants of which united into the Hellenic Union to jointly fight the Persians and those Greeks who voluntarily came out on their side. Sparta was elected hegemon of the union by a majority of votes, as the most powerful state militarily.

When discussing defensive strategy among the allies, serious disagreements emerged. Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesians proposed to strengthen the narrow Isthmus of Corinth with a wall and defend against the Persians here. This decision was hotly opposed by the Athenians and other allies, whose lands would inevitably be destroyed. After heated debates, the Greeks decided to take up defense in the Tempeian Gorge and in the spring of 480 BC. e. They sent there 10,000 soldiers under the command of the Spartan Evenet and the Athenian Themistocles.

Here disputes between the allies flared up again. The Spartans did not want to fight, having the Thessalians in their rear, among whom pro-Persian sentiments were strong. In addition, they pointed out, the Persians could penetrate into Thessaly by another, albeit difficult, road through Olympus, or even land from the sea south of the pass. After standing for some time in Tempe, the army returned before the Persians had time to arrive there.

Thermopylae, modern look from the altitude of an airplane. Sperheus sediments have greatly altered the coastline since antiquity; then the sea approached the very rocks, approximately to the line of the modern highway, leaving a passage, in the narrowest part no more than several meters wide

The second line of defense was the Thermopylae Gorge on the border between northern and central Greece. In this place high mountains came very close to the sea, leaving only a narrow seven-kilometer passage stretching between the mountain spur of Callidros and the southern marshy coast of the Gulf of Mali. At the same time, the Greek navy was supposed to station itself near Thermopylae, in the strait between the northern coast of Euboea and Cape Sepia, and thus cover the army from the sea. At the beginning of July, 200 Athenian ships commanded by Themistocles and 155 Peloponnesian ships under the command of Eurybiades arrived here.

But the forces sent by the Spartans to Thermopylae turned out to be much smaller than those expected here. The Spartans themselves sent only 300 warriors, another 1000 were from among the Perieci, the Arcadians sent slightly more than 2120 warriors, the Corinthians 400, the Phliuntians 200, the Mycenaeans 80. In total, the detachment numbered about 4000 hoplites. To give the matter more importance in the eyes of the Greeks, the Spartans placed King Leonidas at the head of their small detachment. The 300 Spartans accompanying him most likely belonged to the selected detachment of “horses” who made up the king’s retinue on the campaign.

When Leonidas and his army passed through Boeotia, 700 Thespian warriors voluntarily joined him; The Thebans, whose Persian way of thinking was well known, were forced to give him 400 of their warriors, practically as hostages of their loyalty. The Locrians and Phocians sent about 1,000 men. In total, Leonidas’s army, when he set up his camp at Thermopylae, consisted of 7,200 soldiers.

Head of a marble statue found in 1925 on the Acropolis of Sparta. The warrior is depicted in heroic nudity; for greater expressiveness, the eyes of the statue were made of glass. Not without reason, the statue is considered to be an image of Leonidas, in whose honor the Spartans erected a monumental complex on the acropolis

Initially, it was assumed that Leonid's advance detachment was only a vanguard, which would soon be followed by the main forces. The Greeks occupied the passage and restored the wall that once blocked it. However, the promised help never materialized. The Spartan authorities, in response to Leonid's requests to send reinforcements, stated that this was being hampered by the upcoming festival of Carnei (celebrated in September for 9 days) and promised that after its end they would immediately come to the rescue with all their forces. Until that moment, Leonid had to defend the passage alone.

Modern historians are divided on the sincerity of these promises. The Spartans in ancient times were known for their exceptional conservatism and respect for religious rituals. Any unfavorable omens could cause a delay, and similar cases occurred many times later. On the other hand, among the Spartans themselves and their allies, as stated earlier, there was no unanimity regarding where and how they should defend themselves from the enemy. Therefore, to the Athenians, the position of the Spartan authorities seemed only an attempt to stall for time and an attempt to preserve their main forces for the defense of the Peloponnese.

Defense of Thermopylae

Meanwhile, Leonidas encamped at Alpina and awaited the arrival of Xerxes. One local resident, telling the Hellenes about the large number of barbarians, added that “if the barbarians shoot their arrows, then the cloud of arrows will cause an eclipse of the sun.” In response, the Spartan Dienek joked lightheartedly:

“Our friend from Trachin brought great news: if the Medes darken the sun, then it will be possible to fight in the shadows.”

When the Persians arrived, seeing their numbers, the Greeks lost heart. Some called for a retreat, but the Phocians opposed this, and Leonidas himself and his Spartans remained firmly committed to holding their post to the end.

Xerxes, while still in Thessaly, heard that the Thermopylae Pass was occupied by a small detachment of Greeks, but he did not think that they would remain there when he approached. Having set up camp at Trakhin, he sent a spy to see how many Greeks there were and what they were doing. Returning, the spy told the king that he had seen an advanced post, where some warriors were amusing themselves by running races with each other, while others were combing their long hair. Xerxes found such an activity ridiculous for men, but Demaratus, the exiled king of the Spartans, who accompanied him on this campaign, said the following:

“These people have come here to fight us for this pass, and they are preparing for battle. This is their custom: every time they go to mortal combat, they decorate their heads. Know, king, if you defeat these people and those who remained in Sparta, then not a single people in the world will dare to raise a hand against you.”

Thermopylae, modern view. In ancient times, the coastline ran where the highway runs today. The opening view was taken from Kolonos Hill, where the final scenes of the battle took place

Before giving the order to march, Xerxes waited 4 days, and then sent the most combat-ready detachments of the Medes, Kissians and Sacas after the Persians themselves into the pass with the order to take the Greeks alive and bring them to him. At the beginning of the battle, the Greeks were asked to lay down their arms, to which Leonidas, according to Plutarch, gave the legendary answer: “Come and take it” (ancient Greek Μολὼν λαβέ). The battle in the pass lasted the whole day, but the Medes failed to advance a single step forward.

The next day, by order of Xerxes, detachments consisting of the Persians themselves were sent to attack. These were the so-called “immortals” - the flower of the Persian army, led by their commander Hydarn. Leonidas pitted the Spartans against them, who had not taken part in the battle until that time. The battle was repeated with the same result. The Spartans, standing in tightly closed ranks, repelled one attack after another. From time to time they pretended to take flight and retreated back, where the passage was wider. As soon as the Persians rushed after them, the Spartans turned back at once, knocked over the densely crowded enemy or drove him into a swamp by the sea. They repeated this maneuver several times, and by the end of the day the Persians had lost more than 6,000 people, not one step closer to victory.

Battle of Thermopylae, reconstruction by P. Connolly

For Xerxes, this development of events came as a complete surprise. He didn’t know what to do next, but then a traitor came to his aid. The Malian Ephialtes, who, hoping for great reward, showed the Persians a path leading through the mountain bypassing Thermopylae. Subsequently, Ephialtes, in fear of the Spartans, fled to Thessaly, and there he was killed by his old enemy for personal reasons. The Spartans still paid the latter the reward promised for the head of the traitor.

Ephialtes promised to lead 20,000 of the best Persian warriors, led by Hydarnes, to the rear of the Greeks. The Persians walked all night and at dawn, finding themselves on the top of the mountain, they suddenly saw a small detachment of Greeks in front of them. These were the Phocians, sent by Leonidas specifically to guard the path. The Phocians carried out their service carelessly and noticed the Persians only when the first arrows flew at them. Having barely had time to grab their weapons, they left their post and rushed to the top of the mountain. Hydarn did not pursue them and hastily began to descend.

Last Stand

Even the evening before, the soothsayer Megistius, based on the sacrifice, predicted to the Greeks that death would await them that day. At night, scouts appeared and informed Leonid that the Persians were going around the mountains. The forces he had were not enough to successfully repel an attack from two sides simultaneously. In order not to sacrifice people in vain, Leonidas gave the order to retreat to all other units except the Spartans. He himself did not dare to retreat, because he considered it dishonorable to leave the post he was assigned to protect.

Thus, King Leonidas made the only decision possible for a Spartan: to fight and die, following the law of his country and fulfilling his military duty. In addition to the Spartans, the Thespians with their leader Dimophilus voluntarily remained with him, as well as the Thebans, whom Leonidas kept with him by force. In total, about 1,200 Greeks remained at Thermopylae that day.

Reconstruction of Thermopylae. The location of the battlefield between the Greeks and the Persians and the Oenopean Trail, along which Hydarnus’s detachment went behind the defenders of the pass, are indicated

Not counting on victory, but only on a glorious death, the Greeks went forward beyond the wall and fought their last battle at a distance from their previous positions:

“The Hellenes, led by Leonidas, going into mortal combat, now moved much further to the place where the passage widens. For in days past, some of the Spartans defended the wall, while others fought the enemy in the gorge itself, to which they always retreated. Now the Hellenes rushed hand-to-hand, and in this battle the barbarians died by the thousands. Behind the ranks of the Persians stood the commanders of the detachments with whips in their hands and blows of the whips urged the soldiers forward and forward. Many enemies fell into the sea and died there, but many more were crushed by their own. No one paid attention to the dying. The Hellenes knew about the certain death that threatened them at the hands of the enemy who had bypassed the mountain. That is why they showed the greatest military valor and fought the barbarians desperately and with insane courage.”

In this battle Leonidas fell, and a desperate struggle broke out over his body. After a heated battle, the Greeks finally managed to snatch the king’s body from the hands of their enemies. At the same time, they put their opponents to flight four times. The Persians also had huge losses, among the dead were Abrokos and Hyperanthes, the brothers of King Xerxes. Noticing the approach of Hydarn's forces from the rear, the Spartans, who no longer had any chance of salvation, retreated back into the passage and turned against the new enemy. The last surviving defenders of Thermopylae took up a position on the hill. Most of the spears had already broken by that time; they continued to defend themselves with swords, and then with their hands and teeth, until the barbarians bombarded them with a hail of arrows. Thus ended the battle of Thermopylae.

In 1939, Spyridon Marinatos undertook archaeological excavations at Thermopylae. Spearheads and arrowheads, Greek and Persian, discovered on Konos Hill are on display today at the National Museum of Archeology in Athens

King Xerxes personally inspected the battlefield. Having found the body of Leonidas, he ordered his head to be cut off and his body to be crucified. Herodotus condemns this decision and writes that previously it was not the custom of the Persians to subject the bodies of enemies to this kind of outrage. The fallen Greeks were subsequently buried on the same hill where they fought their last battle. At the grave, the Spartans installed a sculpture of a lion with the epitaph of Simonides of Keos:

“Traveler, go and tell our citizens in Lacedaemon,

That, keeping their covenants, we died here with our bones.”

Literature:

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