Great Rhetra: Lycurgus Flashcards
Catalyst: Messenian War
- 8th century: Early spartans (dorians) invaded Messenia and enslaved population
- Messenians became known as helots and worked as government owned serfs in Spartan society
- considered catalyst for shift toward military society as control mechanism to stop serf revolts
Sources:
Rawson: “A militaristic and totalitarian society, holding down an enslaved population, the helots, by terror and violence”
Thucydides: “The Sppartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most loborious training in courage”
Early Sparta
- Following Messenian wars, Sparta undertook a drastic reorganisation of their social/political systems
- adopted militaristic way of life
Sources:
Plutarch: says states emerged due to lawgiver Lycurgus, who sought help at Delphic oracle
Fitzhardinge: “The immediate sequel to the Messenian War was not austerity but a new wave of luxury and artistic achievement, seen in the poems of Alcman and in the exuberance of Laconian artefacts and in ivory and bronze”
Lycurgus
- Credited with political revolution of Spartan constitution
- Dates for life span from 9th-7th century
- Most scholars reject idea of reform by single lawgiver
- May have been ancestral reformer whose name was later linked to constitution to validate
Evidence:
- Plutarch (2nd century) talks about lack of precise evidence for Lycurgus
- Herodotus and Aristotle wrote of him as a historical figure who handed down laws of Sparta
Great Rhetra
- Rhetra is an oral pronouncement of the Spartans and their laws
- changes and reforms introduced by Lycurgus in 7th century BC
- Preserved orally as writing not practiced
- Ideal of Eunomia (good order/good gvnm) underpinned all Lycurgan reforms
Evidence:
- Plutarch used Aristotles ‘constitution of the Spartans’ (burnt in library of Alexandria) to provide info on Great Rhetra
“Lycurgus was so eager for this rule that he obtained an oracle from Delphi about it, which they called a Rhetra”
