Spartan Government

Question 1

What are the four branches of the Spartan government?

Answer 1

• Dual Kingship
• The Gerousia
• The Ephorate
• The Assembly

Question 2

What was the overall contemporary view of the Spartan government? What did people disagree on? How was Sparta unlike any other Greek state?

Answer 2

• Philosophers and observers praised the Spartan form of government
• People disagreed on whether it was oligarchic or democratic
• Sparta retained the hereditary kingship

Question 3

Define the term oligarchy

Answer 3

• A form of government where political power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society, distinguished by royalty, wealth, family. military power or occult spiritual hegemony

Question 4

Define the term democracy

Answer 4

• A form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system

Question 5

Define the term Tyranny

Answer 5

• When one has taken power by their own means as opposed to hereditary or constitutional power

Question 6

How did Aristotle classify the Spartan government?

Answer 6

• Could not decide if it was a democracy or tyranny

Question 7

How did Plato classify the Spartan government?

Answer 7

• Described it as a happy mixture of democracy and oligarchy

Question 8

How did Cicero classify the Spartan government?

Answer 8

• Called it a “mixed constitution”

Question 9

What form of government did Sparta prefer? How do we know this?

Answer 9

• Oligarchy
• The number of enfranchised Spartans was very small and this privileged body of Spartan peers ruled a huge population of Perioikoi and Helots

Question 10

What were the two democratic branches of the Spartan government?

Answer 10

• The Assembly

- The Ephorate

Question 11

Who was the Spartan system democratic for? For whom was it not?

Answer 11

• Democratic for full Spartiates

- Non-full citizens had practically nil democratic rights

Question 12

Was the Spartan constitution well-balanced? What advantage did it have over Athens?

Answer 12

• Fairly well-balanced

- It avoided some of the weaknesses of the radical form of democracy in Athens

Question 13

What does Thucydides tell us of the Spartan Constitution and the effect it had on other states? (quote)

Answer 13

• “for four-hundred years and more, until the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Lakedaemonians have had the same constitution, through which they have been able to bring about change in other states”