SPARTA 



SPARTACUS 



611 



its brood it often commits great havoc among 

 young game-birds and poultry. The adult male 

 measures 12 inches, and has the upper parts of 

 the body bluish gray, the under parts Imff-colonred, 

 with bright rufous bars. The female is paler in 

 colouring and measures about 15 inches. The 

 sparrow-hawk was used in falconry, but its feebler 



Common Sparrow-hawk (Accipitcr nitus). 



powers of flight made it of less value than the 

 true falcons. It is bold and active, however, and 

 18 still often trained to take partridges and small 

 birds ; and it is recorded that a single trained 

 sparrow-hawk took 327 birds in less than two 

 months. The American Sparrow-hawk (Falco 

 tparverius) is similar in size to the European, but 

 is more nearly allied to the kestrel. 



Sparta, anciently LACKD.KMON, the capital of 

 Laconia, and the most famous city of the Pelopon- 

 nesus, situated on the right bank of the Eurotas, 

 about 20 miles from the sea, in a plain shut in 

 by mountains, of which that on the west side, 

 Mount Taygetus, rises to a height of 8000 feet. 

 The natural defences of the valley of Lacednemon 

 were to great that it continued unfortified down to 

 the Macedonian period, and indeed was not regu- 

 larly fortified till the time of the tyrant Nabis ( 195 

 B.C.). Previous to the Dorian conquest the primi- 

 tive Achteans of Sparta seem to have dwelt in four 

 or five scattered hamlets. These in course of time 

 were grouped into one city by the conquerors, and 

 became known as town-districts. Sparta had no 

 striking public buildings its Acropolis was merely 

 a steep hill in the northern part of the city, crowned 

 with the temple of Athena Polinchos or Chalciasciis. 

 Here, as in all Dorian states, were found the three 

 classes Helots, or slaves ; Perioikoi, a subject class 

 of freemen without political rights ; anil the Snarti- 

 atai, or the governing class of pure Dorian blood. 

 The foundation of Spartan greatness was attributed 

 to the legislation of Lycur^us ( q. v. ), and it is at any 

 rate true that there survived a very ancient legal 

 code, consisting of jrrjrfxu ( ' compacts '), supposed to 

 have the special sanction of the Delphic oracle. At 

 the head of the government stood two kings, one of 

 the family of the Agidae, the other of the family of 

 the Eurypontidie, their royalty hereditary in the 

 main line, but limited to sons horn while the father 

 was actually king. Their powers were equal, and 

 they were originally priests as well as judges and 

 generals. After 506 B.C. only one king at once 

 might take the field, and his powers came to be 



much curtailed by the growing power of the Ephors. 

 These were five in number, elected annually by the 

 people the first giving his name to th'e year. 

 Two accompanied the king on campaign, advis- 

 ing the three at home by the ovci/TdXoi, or secret 

 despatches. They received foreign ambassadors, 

 imposed taxes, and judged in all matters except 

 those which specially belonged to the kings as 

 priests. The standing council of kings and ephors 

 was the Geronsia, consisting of twenty-eight 

 Spartans above sixty, and elected from the chief 

 families by the people. Once a month was held 

 the apella, or assembly of all Spartans above 

 thirty, who might vote but could not speak, which 

 only the king, ephors, and members of the gerousia 

 had the right to do. The Spartans never ceased 

 to look upon theniselves as merely a military garri- 

 son, and all their discipline pointed to war. No 

 deformed child was allowed to be brought up ; boys 

 began to be drilled at seven, entered the ranks at 

 twenty, and thereafter had to dine every day in 

 one of the military messes (AvSpfia or t/>idirta) in 

 tents pitched in the public street. From twenty 

 till sixty all Spartans were obliged to serve as 

 Hoplites. In the 5th century the army was 

 divided into twelve lochoi, commanded by lockagoi. 

 Each lochos consisted of 500 men. After the Pelo- 

 ponnesian war the army was rearranged in six 

 morai, each under a polemarchos. They never 

 were strong at sea, although at Salamis they 

 had ten ships, and under Lysander defeated the 

 Athenian fleet and so ended the Peloponnesian 

 war. 



The earliest struggles of Sparta were with Mes- 

 senia and Argos. The Messenian war terminated 

 (668 B.C.) in the complete overthrow of the Dorians 

 of Messenia, who were reduced by the victorious 

 Spartans to the condition of Periceci. Similar 

 struggles occurred both with the older Achaean 

 inhabitants in the centre of Peloponnesus and with 

 the Dorians of Argos, &c., in which the Spartans 

 were generally successful. Under their stern dis- 

 cipline the Spartans became a race of resolute, 

 rude, and narrow-minded warriors, capable of a 

 momentary self-sacrificing patriotism, as in the 

 story of the 300 heroes who fell at Thermopylae, 

 but utterly destitute of the capacity for adopting 

 or appreciating a permanently noble and wise 

 policy. The outbreak of the Peloponnesian war 

 (431 B.C.) brought the rivalry between Sparta and 

 Athens to a head, and in the mighty struggle that 

 ensued victory declared on the side of the com- 

 batant least capable of maintaining the greatness 

 of Greece. Sparta now attained the hegemony of 

 Greece ; but tier insolent tyranny in the hour of 

 her triumph excited the indignation of those whom 

 she held in virtual subjugation, and the glorious 

 retaliations of the Thebans under Epaminondas 

 stripped her of all her splendid acquisitions, and 

 reduced the Laconian state to its primitive bound- 

 aries. Later the rise of the Macedonian power 

 limited still more the Spartan territory, nor did it 

 ever after attain its earlier dimensions. After a 

 series of vicissitudes Sparta passed into the hands 

 of the Romans, became a portion of the Roman 

 province of Achaia, and finally shared the fortunes 

 of the rest of Greece ( q. v. ). The growth of the town 

 of Misthra, 2 miles SW. of Sparta, in the 14th and 

 15th centuries, led to the total desertion of the 

 more ancient city ; but the modern town of Sparti 

 (pop. 5000), which was founded by the Greek 

 government in 1836, occupies part of the site of 

 old Sparta, and is again capital of the province of 

 Laconia. 



Spnrt ju'lis. leader of the Roman slaves in the 

 Ureat revolt which broke out about 73 B.C., was a 

 Thracian by birth, and from a shepherd had 

 become a leader of a band of robbers when he was 



