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The Deposing of Spartan Kings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Parke
H. W. Parke
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin.
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Extract

Plutarch in his Life of Agis (chapter 11) describes the plots by which Lysandrus the ephor contrived to depose King Leonidas II. He meant to use against him one of the Spartan laws which forbade a member of the royal houses from begetting children by a foreign woman, and another by which he who went out of Sparta with a view to settling abroad was liable to the death penalty. But though apparently a case could be made out against Leonidas under these charges, Lysandrus did not simply proceed with the prosecution. After instructing confederates who would bring the case, he with his fellow ephors ‘waited for the sign’. What this meant Plutarch explains in these words: ἔστι δ⋯ τοι⋯νδε· δι' ⋯τ⋯ν1 ⋯νν⋯α1 λαβ⋯ντες οἱ ἔϕοροι ν⋯κτα καθαρ⋯ν κα⋯ ⋯σ⋯ληνον, σιωπῇ καθ⋯ζονται πρ⋯ς τ⋯ν οὐραν⋯ν ⋯ποβλ⋯ποντες. ⋯⋯ν οὖν ⋯κ μ⋯ρους τιν⋯ς εἰς ἔτερον μ⋯ρος ⋯στ⋯ρ δι⋯ξῃ, κρ⋯νουσι τοὺς βασιλεῖς, ὠς περ⋯ τ⋯ θεῖον ⋯ξαμαρτ⋯νοντας, κα⋯ καταπα⋯ουσι τ⋯ς ⋯ρχ⋯ς, μ⋯χρις ἂν ⋯κ Δελϕ⋯ν ἢ Ὀλυμπας χρησμ⋯ς ἔλθῃ τοῖς ⋯λωκ⋯σι τ⋯ν βασιλ⋯ων βοηθ⋯ν.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 3-4 , July 1945 , pp. 106 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1945

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References

page 106 note 1 The idiomatic use as = ‘at eight-yearly intervals’, not ‘at nine-yearly intervals’, can be further seen in Plutarch's discussion of the octennial festivals at Delphi (Mor. 293E).

page 106 note 2 It is generally supposed that Plutarch used a contemporary writer as his source for this life —Phylarchus; see Jacoby, , F. Hist. Gr. No. 81 (commentary, pp. 133 ff.)Google Scholar. He possibly had a personal acquaintance with Sparta in the time of Cleomenes; so, though he had a taste for the marvellous, his statements about Spartan customs are likely to be founded on fact.

page 106 note 3 For a discussion of this particular custom see Frazer, , Golden Bough, ‘The Dying God’, pp. 158 ff.Google Scholar; but he does not raise the special queries suggested here. Also Professor George Thomson has lately discussed the antiquity of all such eight-yearly periods, J.H.S. lxiii (1943)Google Scholar, ‘The Greek Calendar’. For the general notion of a king's sin leading to the god's displeasure against the State we may compare Oedipus, whose deposition and expulsion werealso obliquely ordained by the Delphic oracle. The early association of the ephors with this function of watching for the shooting star may explain the derivation of the name of the ephor, Ἀστερωπ⋯ς, who, according to a possibly mythical tradition, was the first to develop the office's great powers (Plut, . Cleom. 10Google Scholar).

page 108 note 1 The date of Leonidas' accession is not fixed Beloch, , Griechische Geschichte, IV. ii. 161Google Scholar, it about 247 B.C. It would fit the present argument for it not to have been before 251/0, i.e. there would have been no previous occasion for the divine sign to have been given in his reign.

page 108 note 2 A History of the Greek World from 323 to 146 B.C., p. 154. The dating turns on reckoning back from the fixed point of Agis' campaign with Aratus against the Aetolians in the summer of 241. He returns to find his supporter Agesilaus still ephor (Plut, . Agis, 16Google Scholar). But the actual college for 242/1 had been in favour of Leonidas (id. 12) and had been already removed before Agis left. Leonidas' trial had taken place under the previous ephorate, i.e. that of 243/2. Beloch, , Griechische Geschichte, IV. ii. 161Google Scholar, telescopes these events and puts the deposition in the autumn of 242. Tarn, (C.A.H. vii. 743)Google Scholar gives the same run of events as Cary, but no dates. The Spartan ephor-year began in the autumn (Thuc. 5. 36. 1).

page 108 note 3 See Busolt, , Griechische Geschichte, ii, p. 573Google Scholar; Beloch, , Griechische Geschichte, i. 2, pp. 184 ff.Google Scholar; Glotz-Cohen, , Histoire grecque, ii, p. 28Google Scholar; How and Wells, , A Commentary on Herodotus, ii, p. 90Google Scholar. Apart from a chronological reconstruction on the basis of Herodotus' narrative, the evidence is Leotychidas' reign of 22 years (D.S. 11. 48. 2). This period is to be reckoned backward from 469/8. Cf. infra.

page 109 note 1 If the above reconstruction is accepted it may be pointed out, at the risk of seeming to argue in a circle, that the fact that 491/0 is a year of the cycle is a confirmation that this is the correctly supposed date of Demaratus' deposition.

page 109 note 2 e.g. Beloch, , Griechische Geschichte, i. 185Google Scholar.

page 110 note 1 Griechische Geschichte, iii. 80 ff.Google Scholar, and for a more recent restatement of the position see Johnston, J., Hermathena, xlvi, pp. 106 ffGoogle Scholar. Leotychidas, according to Herodotus, had been caught in the act ‘with his glove full of gold’ (6. 72). Hence the absurdity of supposing an interval of seven years before conviction.

page 110 note 2 See Parke, , J.H.S. I (1930), p. 53Google Scholar.

page 111 note 1 Wade-Gery, (J.H.S. lii (1932), p. 224, note 86Google Scholar, suggested that ‘the seven years between this deposition (476) and the accession of Archidamus (469) are probably due to Archidamus' minority’. This might be possible on Archidamus' probable age. But since Pleistoanax (458–408) certainly counted the years of his minority (Thuc. 1. 107. 2, in 457) I prefer an explanation that fits both instances.

page 111 note 2 Bourguet, , B.C.H. xxxv (1911), 164Google Scholar, and quoted by Beloch, , Gr. Ges. 111. i. 106, note 1Google Scholar.

page 112 note 1 The chief passages are: Pindar, , Ol. 8Google Scholar. 2 and 6. 65 ff. with the Scholia; Soph, . O.T. 901Google Scholar; Hdt. 8. 134, and cf. 1. 59. 1; Xen, . Hell. 4. 7Google Scholar; Strabo, 8. c. 353.

page 112 note 2 For this view developed even farther, cf. Wilamowitz, , Glaube der Hellenen, ii, p. 36Google Scholar.

page 112 note 3 See Flacelière, , Les Étoliens à Delphes, pp. 83 ffGoogle Scholar. There had been a Spartan hieromnemon at the Amphictyony in 244 B.C. (ibid., p. 244). But Agis helped Aratus to fight the Aetolians in 241 (ibid., P. 241).

page 112 note 4 e.g. the oracle of Apollo Pythaeus at Argos, Parke, , History of the Delphic Oracle, p. 376Google Scholar.