The Myth of Equality in Sparta

Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth,  he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking pre-eminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.

-Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 8.1

Plutarch’s account of Sparta conjures up the image of a military-communist utopia in which money and property no longer serve a purpose. In which the citizens are driven exclusively by their wish to further the hegemony of their state by proving themselves in combat.  In which there is no difference in social class and where the only avenue to distinction is through a summation of virtues and good deeds. Already at the outset of this essay the cynic innate in all readers is vying to burst out of his cage of accepting complacency in order to impose quellenforschung upon the writing of Plutarch.  Regardless of the sources the egalitarian utopia of Sparta seems a questionable ideal which begs the question: why were scholars so willing to accept this organisation of the state. The answer may lie in the political tensions at the time of their analysis time and the manner in which the egalitarian Sparta could be used as historical precedence, in fact, much of the early analysis was done during the French revolution.^[1] This essay seeks to dissect the main components of the ‘egalitarian’ Spartan state and demonstrate that equality was not a distinctive aspect of Spartan society.

In order to answer this essay question it is of utmost importance to define two variables contained within: the first being who falls under the category of ‘Spartan citizen’, and secondly what the term ‘egalitarian’ entails.  For the definition of a Spartan citizen I will adopt the description that Cartledge uses to describe all Greek citizens: “by definition male not female, free not slave, native insider not stranger or outsider, adult and not child.”^[2]  As for what constitutes ‘egalitarianism’, it will be defined as equal opportunity for all citizens. I will focus on three main tenets of equality: economic, legal and social.  While there was a baseline of citizenship and equality dictated by one’s belonging to a phiditia^[3]; within this social group of citizens there was very little economic, legal or social equality, the former dictating the incidence of the latter two.  I will first demonstrate that there was not economic equality in Sparta and demonstrate how the economic inequality permeated into the other ‘egalitarian’ practices of the Spartans.