History Student Reacts to the Constitution of the Spartans | Historia Civilis Reaction

Today, we're going to learn about Sparta and its political institutions.

[Souledex]

So while life expectancy was low what that actually means in practice is like half of all people died before the age of 5. Once you get past 5 folks actually could live a very long time, they were often generally healthier (with the obvious constraint of like no medical care, but people who needed it often died young). Beyond war, which naturally constrained it but even worst case it was incredibly rare to lose more than like 1/4th of the army, the general incidence of death was higher - but for landed arisocrats noted for being well.. Spartan in their lifestyle and Spartan in taking care of their physical health there's way less to kill them. This is also before the truely huge plagues which really required postclassical era cities to get going, and have reservoirs, especially given they were like North Korea with the border checks. Also worth noting as an feature of health, babies born sick or with a birth defect were literally thrown off a cliff - that does something to your genes after a while. 60 wasn't super uncommon for the rich throughout the Roman era, it was only in the medieval that shit got worse, but even then it was in spurts.

As an example of how age worked. Rome had a event that was supposed to take place once a generation, the Secular games originally were supposed to take place once every 120 years because everyone alive at the time of the last one would be dead by the next. Which implies that folks understood people could live to 120, it just was incredibly rare. Life Expectancy has really just fucked everyone's perception of the past in a major way.

[nicoiannacone]

Found your channel through the historia civillis reactions, and love the commentary! Keep it up, HC reactions are surprisingly uncommon on YouTube!

[Wisefoolofdeath]

Love that you're reacting to historia civilis

[Emperor_Of_Mankind]

They say "democracy dies in darkness". They never mention how "the darkness" is merely the shadow of the mountains of paperwork of bureaucracy.

[makinapacal]

A couple of things:

1), What we know about Spartan policy and doings almost always talks about the doings and policies of her Kings not the various checks on the Spartan Kings that existed through the Spartan constitution. In fact the chief check on the Spartan Kings seems to have been the other King and it seems to bethe case that each Royal Family had its own faction that competed for power in Sparta.

I am surprised this video didn't mention the communities of second tier people in Sparta the Perioeci, Who although free, were not Spartan citizens and lived in their own self governing communities.

The Ephors seemed to have been very poor checks on the King's power, given that they could only serve once for 1 year, and given the way they were chosen. Also they were frequently poor men and the Ephors were notorious for taking bribes. The Kings also it appears manipulated the Upper Chamber to serve their interests.

It appears that the limits on the King's power were more apparent than real and the real check was the other King and his faction.

As for the reason for the decline of the numbr of Spartans. Aristotle mentions in his Politics that Spartan citizens who could not pay their fees to the common messes, (As they were required by law to do.), were removed from the citizenship rolls and became part of the class of permanent less than full citizens. This process was well underway by the year 430 B.C.E., with the Spartan citizen population declining steadily. It appears that wealthy Saprtan's gradually over the years took over the land allotments given to each Spartan citizen. (It is highly debatable whether at any time it was in fact customary to return them fully into the hands of the state.) So likely they became encumbered with debt to wealthy Spartans and thus effectively lost.

If a Spartan had a debt to a wealthy Spartan and his only substantial asset was his allotment once the income from the allotment was used to pay the debts and there wasn't enough income to pay the Mess fees. The citizenship was lost and the wealthy person would almost certainly make an effort to make sure the person never got control of the land back.Also it appears that some time in the early 4th century B.C.E., regardless of if the allotments became encumbered with debt, it was made possible that the allotments could in fact be sold outright! The result was a steady increase in the amount of land controled or outright owned by the wealthy in Sparta and a decline of the citizen population.

Further it is highly unlikely that that the allotments too begin with were divided equally among the Spartans. Some were no doubt more equal than others.

The figure of 20, 000 given seems to refer to Saprtan citizens. That is far too high it is likely that the number of Spartan citizens was never more than c. 8, 000 - 10, 000 men.

Also Sparta's road to power was paved with conquest. Sometime in the 8th century B.C.E. the Spartan's conquered the state of Messinia and reduced the population to serfdom / slavery and divided the farmland into allotments for the Spartans. A little over a generation later the Messinian Helots rose in revolt and were crushed in a 20 year war. From then on there was a recurring revolts in Messinia and sometimes in the region just around Sparta itself. The Messinian Helots were most of the Helots and the land allotments in their conquered territory most of the allotments.

In the mid 5th century B.C.E. the Helots of Messinia, joined by the Helots of Sparta proper rose in revolt. They were crushed in a c. 8 year war.

After Sparta was defeated at Leuctra in 371 B.C.E., by the Thebans. Sparta began to fall apart. Sometime afterwards the Helots again rose in revolt in Messinia. (When, we don't know. But it appears to have been before the Theban invasion of the central Spartan domain.) In late 370 B.C.E., the Thebans invaded devastating the area around Sparta. They then went into Messinia where they helped to set up the restored Messinian state including helping to build the city of Messene with massive fortifications. The Messinians needless to say were emphatic enemies of Sparta. At one blow Sparta lost most of it's Helots and most of it's allotments. A serious financial blow to Spartan citizens and even wealthy Spartans. Thus the decline of Sparta was helped along.