hello =)
iv got a speech due soon on spartan economy - technology and economic exchange. the resources section didnt contain mcuh information specific to this. theres alot on women, religion etc but not this =(
any help or feedback would be much appreciated.
please post up notes/work on technology or economic exchange if possible
btw.
technology from syllabus includes; weapons, armour and pottery
economic exchange; use of iron bars and trade
In terms of economy: Sparta has a mostly CLOSED economy (Little foreign trade)
Agrarian (farm) work done by helots; information below:
Helots: class of unfree peasants in Spartan society, who may be defined as state-owned serfs.
In Antiquity, all humans were unequal. Citizenship was a privilege; magistracies were usually reserved for men; not everyone was allowed to serve in the army; the right to marry was restricted; not everybody was permitted to own land; certain professions were considered to be vulgar; and nearly every society had at least one class of people who were not their own masters. They were unfree. The idea that all members of society are equal for the law, have identical rights and are free, simply did not exist.
Spartan society was no exception to this rule. Like other towns in ancient Greece, all people belonged to different groups, and there was a class of unfree laborers, the helots. Typically, they were peasants, but they are sometimes found in other sectors of Spartan society (as servants at home, guards, and grooms), and although they were believed to be ethnically different from the Spartan elite, they could be emancipated and enter the world of the free-born.
None of this is unique, and ancient and modern authors have found it very difficult to define helotism, because it was not considered to be an ordinary type of unfree labor. Unlike the slaves in Athens, helots had families and communities of their own, and they were no private property. Therefore, Pausanias calls them "slaves of the commonwealth". Strabo of Amasia says they were "some sort of public slaves", and other authors say they were a category between slaves and free people. Perhaps the best approach is to leave the niceties for what they are, and simply define helots as a class of unfree laborers.
Probably, helotism is a very ancient category; it may even be a survival from Mycenean times. It has been assumed that when the Dorians conquered Laconia (the southeast of the Peloponnese), they reduced the native population to the status of helots. An argument for this theory is that the word heilôtes may be related to a verb that means "capture". On the other hand, the Dorian invasion is poorly understood, and it is perhaps unwise to use a poorly understood phenomenon to explain another poorly understood phenomenon.
Whatever the origins of helotism and its relation to slavery, it is reasonably certain that when the Spartans conquered Messenia in the southwest of the Peloponnese (probably in the eighth or seventh century), the native population became helots. They were forced to work on the land and had to give the fruits to the Spartans. However, their communities were left intact and they were allowed to have their own religious ceremonies. They still had an identity as Messenians, must have defined themselves as a repressed class, and hoped to liberate themselves. Writing much later, Xenophon stated that helots would gladly eat their masters raw, and several revolts of Messenian helots have been recorded.
In fact, the creation of a great number of helots in Messenia caused great problems and led to the introduction of a strict military discipline among the Spartans, who became a specialized military class. They had to be permanently on their guard, and it is not surprising, therefore, that their magistrates (the ephors) declared war upon the Messenians every year. If a member of the Spartan elite happened to kill a helot, it was not considered to be murder but an act of war. Other acts of violence and terror are recorded, and it seems that Spartan society as a whole suffered from a permanent fear of a helot rebellion. Probably, the helots outnumbered their masters by some seven to one.
On the other hand, there was also a more kind policy towards the helots, as if to appease them. Helots always could dream of being emancipated, and we know that the Spartan government did indeed sometimes liberate groups of helots. They were known as neodamôdeis and had the right to serve in the Spartan army, which also meant that they shared in the spoils. Former helots are also recorded as rowers.
The system collapsed in the fourth century. In 371, the Theban commander Epaminondas defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, and later, he invaded the Peloponnese, where he liberated the helots of Messenia. The helots of Laconia appear to have been emancipated later by the reformer kings Cleomenes III (235-222) and Nabis (207-192).
http://www.livius.org/so-st/sparta/helots.html
Technology: Sparta homoioi shunned technoloygy, though they recognised the necessity of weapons;
the Perioeci were the merchants and blacksmiths of Spartan society. Note that it was illegal for spartan homoioi to own coins/currency
Below is an excellent essay on Spartan freedom, it has some relevent parts so read it over. *Excellent because I wrote it
*
James Ruse Ancient History Assessment Task: Sparta
“The Spartan citizen sacrificed much freedom.” With reference to source A and your own source material, discuss the truth of this statement in relation to other social groups in Sparta.”
From a modern interpretation of the word ‘freedom’ , the answer to the question is inevitably affirmative. However, contextually the answer becomes much more allusive because modern understandings of civil liberties and determinism were unknown to the Spartan society.
An ideal city was one ‘whose inhabitants will possess neither too much nor too little; and where justice will be strong and injustice weak’ .
This is a very useful excerpt from the 6th Century Spartan King Eurycratidas that demonstrate the dominant ideology of the Spartan ruling oligarchy. Admittedly, its lofty idealism is not dissimilar to Athenian ethos of equality and freedom ; but the Spartan society was different in that: ‘a self-imposed restraint on the part of the rich whereby their lifestyle in Sparta was rendered not conspicuously different from that of the majority; and secondly, state interventions in the property regime in order . . . that all Spartan citizens posses the minimum income . . . for the art of soldering.’
The key to the Spartan society was the preservation of status quo.
Sparta was built on the importance of the State over the individual, and this was readily accepted without concern of loss of freedom by the Spartiates. If we were to count which social group in Sparta sacrificed the most freedom '; it is clearly the Spartiates. Weak babies were killed , and the survivors were exposed to a ‘callous military regime’ that had ‘the worst features of the traditional English public school’ The Spartiate was drafted into the army at the age of seven, undergoing strenuous training for the rest of their lives. Spartiates were forced to live and eat with ‘strangers’. Marriage was considered vital to the State, and any bachelors harshly criticized .
Compared to the other social groups in Sparta, the Spartiates had the most social expectations. It would be remarkably easy to sympathize with the Spartiates had they been a sub-class; forced into a brutal life of conscription and frugality; but the fact is: they chose this lifestyle. If they did not like it; they could have changed it. Historian Bell argues that the very existence of helots (brought about after the Second Messenian War) ‘prohibited the change of Spartan lifestyle and forced them to adopt their high degree of military readiness . This may be true to a certain extent; but there is no archeological and historical evidence to suggest there were serious discontent among the Spartiates about their own system.
It is clear that the Spartans did not have the same view of modern freedoms as the modern historians do. And therefore, what we may consider a 'sacrifice of freedom', to a Spartiates probably meant a 'greater purpose in life' .
The coldhearted culling of the babies, and later the harsh treatment of the adolescents seems to be a great loss of freedom. But this is simply not true when considering the very nature of the Spartan society. Sparta’s ‘pursuit of perfection led to a strange society’ (Hughes). Sparta prized the physically strong and able because all Spartiates were bred to be soldiers . This explains the harsh discipline of the Spartiate training , and also the division from family into barracks life. In Source A , Xenophon describes Lycurgus who had instructed the Spartiates to dine at public messes. This is not really a loss of freedom , but rather, a loss of privacy.
It is also claimed that Lycurgus instructed each citizen should have equal power over his neighbor’s children as his own in order for social equality. This is extended into each others tools, animals and even wives. At this point, I start to doubt the obedience of Spartiates to this exact system. It is probable that a Spartiates would have equal power over his neighbor’s children because there was little Spartan ‘family adherence’. But the latter is highly suspicious because it seems to be going against human nature. I find Xenophon’s account here unreliable. Xenophon was a great admirer of Lycurgus and may have omitted the failure of the policy in practice.
Another possible loss of freedom is the total ‘lack of intellectual development’ of the Spartiates; but Leotychidas answers this resolutely that boys should learn ‘things that should be advantageous to them when they should become men’ .
A modern reader is often shocked by the Spartiates total adherence to military life; and their complete lack of social mobility. But to a Spartiate being brought up in that context he would completely accept it as a norm. The ‘culture of Sparta was geared for war’ , and thus all Spartiates came to see war as something glorious .
To perceive the Spartiates as a race of soldiers is a common myth. The three main writers on Sparta’s military were Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon . All three were more interested in Sparta’s foreign policy then its domestic life . This will have a lasting effect as future writers, drawing from their accounts; maybe be swayed to their visions of Sparta. From archeological evidence we now know that the Spartiates had a full leisure life of hunting, banquets, and later horseracing. This suggests that the Spartiates were more than just ‘devoted soldiers’ .
The Helots were a crucial link in the Spartan system and provided most of the agricultural produce for the Spartiates. This makes their ‘indiscriminate slaughter’ hardly logical when considering the consequences . Pausanias calls them ‘slaves of the commonwealth’ and Strabo says they were ‘some sort of public slaves’ . Tyrtaeus description of the enslaved Messenians as ‘donkeys suffering under heavy loads, by painful force …’ is useful but hardly reliable description of the treatment helots. Tyrtaeus, as a contemporary, is immeasurably useful in reflecting the moods and events of his time. However, as a poet, no doubt he flaunted the indignations of the Messenians as proof of Spartan superiority.
It is more than likely that the helots did live unpleasant lives; but to suggest that the majority were disgraced and living under constant terror would be an exaggeration. Accounts such as Myron’s suggest almost human-husbandry, and although it’s useful in offering contemporary ‘evidence’ (Myron was a 3rd century BC author) it can hardly be called reliable evidence.
Critias famous quote is probably an inaccurate reflection of the Spartan society . It is useful because it reflects contemporary attitudes towards Spartan class structure but it is hardly reliable coming from an author that had little experience with the realities of Sparta.
Helots living in Sparta were ‘allowed to live in their own family groups; and had a certain control over property rights. ’ The helots were left at peace by the Spartiates for the majority of the times, but during times of real or perceived Spartiate weakness they were contained with force to maintain the stability of the system. I believe this is to be a logical portrayal of a Helot’s life. If this is true, then the Helots did not sacrifice much freedom at all. They had an ‘acceptable level of living’ , a safe environment and the rights to maintain their family unity.
The Perioeci were the ‘surrounding householders’, and were thought of as ‘second class citizens in the pyramid of Spartan class structure.’ Like the Helots, they were a vital component of the Sparta . The Perioeci were economically relatively well off because they were provided with some farmland surrounding the Spartiates’ own. This served as a buffer zone for escaping Helots. The Perioeci were content because the powerful Spartan states protected them from foreign invasion. The only loss of freedom was their insignificant political influence and their conscription in the times of war. But these two losses of freedom are hardly significant when considering them in their context, where ‘citizens were not accustomed to democratic rule but were used to being mobilized for war.’
By examining the Spartan social structure in context, one can see each of their respective losses of freedom all contributed to the well-being of the state. This is hugely crucial in answering that: although it is true that the Spartan citizens (including the Perioeci and Helots) sacrificed a degree of freedom in the modern sense; these losses would have been seen as negligible to the Spartans who were brought up believing the needs of the State was more than those of the individual.
Endnotes
