Sparta had a reputation even during the classical period. The Greek history Xenophon once wrote about his “astonishment” when he studied Sparta’s “unique position among the states of Hellas” due to its small population and “the extraordinary powers and prestige of the community.”[1]While other Greek city states had expanded due to trade and colonization, Sparta had grown powerful because it had a strong military and their conquering other lands. The male population were groomed for war and was an isolationist society. However, while Sparta was known for its military might, internally, Sparta’s strength was its women. Women were responsible for the daily legal, economic, and cultural life of the city state. With the male population focused on war, Spartan women ran the household, controlled property, and were responsible for raising children. In this context, women were the backbone of the Spartan state, and the physical and mental strengths of Spartan women were renowned, especially Helen of Troy. In this context, Spartan women had a crucial role in reinforcing Sparta’s war machine and reputation among the Greeks.

Sparta held a unique position among the Greek city-states. Instead of colonizing lands, Sparta spread by conquest. As historian Anton Powell notes, Sparta’s conquest and its slave-based system made the Spartans anxious. The Spartans regarded the slaves as outsiders and “as enemies her own excluded and poor Greek population,” who became a consistent threat to its oligarchy.[2]This threat was magnified by Sparta’s small number. Aristotle notes that Sparta had at one time less than one thousand citizens at home.[3]Since the slaves outnumbered the Spartans, the Spartans devoted their entire society into military training and preparation against slave revolts. Killing a slave in Athens was illegal, but Spartans routinely killed and torture helots to discourage slave revolts was common in Sparta.[4] On the surface, Sparta’s harsh system reinforced a patriarchal system where men were in charge. However, under this surface, women were crucial to maintaining Spartan culture and an ideology based in military training.

In Sparta, women were partners of the men not just in marriage, but also as members of the state. The Roman historian Plutarch notes that Lycurgus, Sparta’s law giver, established that women’s main responsibility was to bear children.[5] However, the children were trained to be defenders of the state and to put down slave rebellions. Thus, the more children that a woman had, the greater manpower Sparta possessed. Thus, Lycurgus ordered that women “take exercise physical exercise just as much as males” to toughen them for child birth and child rearing.[6] While this purpose was mainly feminine in nature, Spartan women were educated in the form of physical training. Their toughened bodies were symbolic of the supposedly tough children they bore. Plutarch notes that “when both children are strong their children too are born studier.”[7] Women thus had physical training contests, such as running and weight training. Women who excelled in this training could attain prestige and were considered more valuable by the state and by Spartan men who wanted them as wives. Women in Sparta could use their status as child bearers as a form of political gain.

Through childbearing, Spartan women could turn their political gain into personal gain. Manpower was always in short supply in Sparta and the threat of slave rebellions made it prudent for Spartans to have as many male children as possible. Thus, Spartan marriages were complex in that a woman could have children from multiple male partners other than her husband, who may have been at war or training. Plutarch notes that “for the women want to have two households” in that they could become connected to multiple families outside of their husband because they could build alliances through their children.[8] As mothers, they had legitimate roles in many families other than their husbands’. Over time, these roles enabled women to control property and land.

Women in Sparta were thus drivers of their city-state’s economy. Historians Susan Pomeroy notes that while women in Athens and other Greek states did not own property, Spartan women did.[9] Spartan women owned property due to practical reasons. Lycurgus had established that men owned and controlled property, but with more men being called to military training and combat, especially during the Peloponnesian War or during a slave revolt, men often passed property to their wives so that their families would continue to own the land.[10] Some non-Spartan critics, such as Aristotle, criticized the Spartans for giving their women too much freedom and power. According to Aristotle, women owning property made them want luxury and become shrewd in their grasp for power and wealth.[11]However, despite Aristotle’s annoyance, this system worked for Sparta, enabling the city-state to defeat Athens and rule most of Greece in the fourth century. Pomeroy notes that by Aristotle’s time in the fourth century, women owned eighty percent of the land in Sparta.[12]However, Sparta did not just allocate property to women. Women were also the custodians of Spartan culture, which reinforced the military lifestyle.

Aside from the wealth and economic power, women in Sparta were also the preservers of Spartan culture. Lycurgus had required that all Spartan men train for military duty, and women took over the production of arts and culture. It is true that very little Spartan artwork survives because most of their resources went into the war machine. However, historians have noted that Spartan poets, like Megalostrata, Cleitagoia, and Gorgo, were literate women and who had admirers and were associated with festivals.[13] While these women’s works do not survive, their fame was known to historians were outside of Sparta, who thought them worthy of recording.

One form of literature that did survive was directly related to Sparta’s warrior culture. As writers, poets, and other creators of culture, Spartan women had acquired a reputation for their wit and clever remarks, which later historians recorded. Often, they encouraged their sons to be strong, courageous, and to sacrifice themselves for the city-state. As mothers, their roles were moralizers and they often commented on their sons’ actions. In the Roman period, Plutarch assembled many quotes from Spartan women who publicly shamed their sons when they acted cowardly and praised them for their sacrifice. In one example, a Spartan woman, Damatria, who heard her son was a coward in battle. When her son came back from war, she killed him herself.[14] Plutarch does not comment on Damatria’s actions, but it is clear that Damatria was noteworthy in the eyes of non-Spartans for her hyper patriotism. She would rather have a dead hero than a living coward for a son. Whether or not Damatria was a real woman who did this deed was besides the point. Such a story reinforced the myth about the Spartans as a ferocious military might, which was due in part to the women. A mother remained loyal to the ideals of Sparta, even if their sons were scared. Another example tells about an unnamed Spartan woman who rejected her cowardly son, saying, “Useless pup, worthless portion, away to Hell,” and refused to acknowledge that he was part of her family.[15] These stories reinforced the public image of Sparta throughout the ancient world. Sparta not only boasted a strong army, the ideology that ran Sparta was demonstrated through women who shamed and supported their sons to live and die for the state. Men in Sparta were tough because of their women, and these women’s sayings,  whether true or not, became part of Sparta’s legend.

Perhaps the most famous Spartan woman was Helen of Troy. Helen of Sparta summarized many of the qualities of Spartan women. Helen was supposedly the most beautiful woman of the world, and this quality can be attributed to the Spartans’ emphasis on physical training and exercise. As a young girl, Helen would have had to compete with other girls in outdoor racing and endurance in order to bear many strong children. They would have eaten the sparse, but nutritional, foods that would have maximized their health. Helen’s physical beauty is the result of this early conditioning. Indeed, other women in Sparta, like Megalostrata, was said to have the same long golden hair that Helen had.[16] Indeed, in Sparta and in other Greek city-states, cults of Helen emerged in which girls paid tribute to the ideal beauty that Helen represented. Homer even called Spaerta “Spartekallignakia,” which translates to “land of beautiful women.[17] This beauty also came with power, as women were able to attract husbands and lovers, much as Helen did when her kidnapping launched a thousand ships to rescue her from Troy. In the case of Sparta, women’s beauty enabled them to build alliances.

Women in Sparta were strong and empowered. Aristotle blamed them for Sparta’ ultimate downfall, but plenty of other stories attest to their embodiment of Sparta’s core beliefs. In Sparta, women had respect for the political power and property. Some women, like Agesistrata, was notable for being “active in many public affairs,” which her property and connections allowed.[18] Plutarch also described Ageistrata’s mother, Archidamia, as “already an extremely old woman who had lived her life with the highest repute among female citizens.”[19] Some critics like Aristotle thought that Spartan women overextended their power and their sexual lusts, but by the Roman period, Plutarch argued that Aristotle was wrong. “There was nothing disreputable about the girls’ nudity,” Plutarch insisted. In his eyes,girls were a corrective and a check on Spartan boys, as they could “make fun of each of the young men, helpfully criticizing their mistakes.”[20] As adults and as mothers, they continued their role as the moral and military backbone for their male fighters.

Women in Sparta thus had a fierce reputation that lived up to the ideals of its city-state. The ancient Greeks envisioned Sparta as a warrior society, in which a strong military was needed to check the threats of their slaves. Women played a central role in this system as supporters for the men by giving them children, running their property, and encouraging them on the home front. But this type of support became a form of power for women, as they ended up controlling property and forming social networks and elaborate family connections by bearing children. Women in Sparta were also educated and literate; their “sayings” demonstrated the independent spirit of being able to chastise men, while also contributing to the nation building that gave Sparta its reputation. Two kings may have ruled Sparta, but women ruled them.

Bibliography

Aristotle. “On the Lacedaemonian Constitution, c.340 BCE.” Ancient History Sourcebook, 1900, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/aristotle-sparta.aspAccessed 22 Jan. 2019.

Kennell, Nigel M. Spartans: A New History, John Wiley and Sons, 2010.

Plutarch. Plutarch on Sparta, edited and translated by Richard J.A. Talbert, Penguin Books, 1998.

Pomeroy, Sarah B. Spartan Women, Oxford University Press, 2002.

Powell, Anton. Athens and Sparta: Construction Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC, third edition, Routledge, 2016.

Xenophon, “The Polity of the Spartans, c. 375 BCE,” Ancient History Sourcebook, 1998, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/xeno-sparta1.asp. Accessed 22 Jan. 2019.

[1] Xenophon, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/xeno-sparta1.asp

[2] Powell, 269.

[3] Aristotle, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/aristotle-sparta.asp

[4] Powell, 251 and 322.

[5] Plutarch 167

[6] Plutarch 167.

[7] Plutarch 167

[8] Plutarch, 167.

[9] Pomeroy, 78.

[10] Pomeroy, 79.

[11] Aristotle, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/aristotle-sparta.asp

[12] Pomeroy, 82

[13] Pomeroy, 10.

[14] Plutarch, 159.

[15] Plutarch, 159.

[16] Pomeroy, 10.

[17] Pomeroy, 132.

[18]Kennell, 167.

[19]Kennell, 167.

[20] Plutarch, 24.

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