Answer by Roger Brock
Herodotus regards the Spartan politeia (the Greek word covers social as well as political institutions) as a coherent system, which he is the earliest source to credit to Lycurgus (1.65.2-5), following the Spartan tradition that Xenophon and Plutarch were to elaborate: he’s said to have introduced both the gerousia (council of elders) and ephorate (board of five magistrates), along with military organisation and the common messes, the syssitia. The four main elements of the constitution all feature in Herodotus’ work – kings, gerousia (5.40.1, 6.57.5), ephors (e.g. 3.148.2, 6.63.2, 65.4) and assembly (e.g. 7.134) – but he displays little concern with their inter-relation, in contrast to fourth-century theorists (e.g. Plato Laws 691e-2a, Aristotle Politics 1265b31-66a1) who saw in the combination of elements from the three constitutional options, monarchy, oligarchy and democracy, a ‘mixed constitution’ made stable by checks and balances. He does nevertheless credit Sparta with achieving eunomiê (‘good order’) after a long period of disorder (1.65.2; compare Thucydides 1.18.1), perhaps a reflection of the increasingly destructive incidence of stasis (‘civil strife’) in his own time.
There are hints in the narrative of shifts in the balance of power at Sparta: neither ephors nor gerousia appear to have any power to compel king Anaxandridas to change his marital arrangements in 5.39-41, but 5.75.2 reports a ban on both kings campaigning at once, and it is the ephors who handle negotiations with the Athenians and the eventual mobilisation for Plataea (9.7-11). Herodotus, however, makes no explicit comment to this effect. He is more interested in the differences between broad constitutional types (chiefly in 3.80-2: even the labels ‘democracy’ and ‘oligarchy’ are rare elsewhere) than the niceties of particular regimes (1.65.5 is very sketchy, as 5.66.2 and 69.2 are for Athens). Above all, he is interested in powerful individuals and their behaviour. For the most part, this means Near Eastern monarchs and tyrants, but Sparta’s peculiar arrangements offered the opportunity to examine kings operating within the Greek polis system, as he also does on a more modest scale for Cyrene (Macedon is different).
Herodotus may not put a label on the Spartan constitution, but he brings out much of its idiosyncratic character throughout his narrative. Spartan kings are not all-powerful, but subject to constitutional restraint: Cleomenes is tried, and acquitted, by ‘the Spartiates’ (6.82.2, perhaps meaning the assembly), Leotychidas condemned by a court (6.72.2), Demaratus deposed (6.65-6). The unique dyarchy (government by two kings) makes for unusual interpersonal dynamics, which tend to play out as conflict rather than co-operation (n.b. 6.52 on its origins), especially in the reign of Cleomenes: it’s symptomatic that the royal genealogies appear separately (7.204, 8.131). Nevertheless, Spartan kings have a major impact on the narrative of events, hence the fact that their dysfunctional domestic relations bulk so large in the episodes of Spartan history in books 5 and 6: Cleomenes in particular is a strong king who exploits his position to the limit and consistently takes the initiative in foreign affairs. Likewise when listing the privileges of Spartan kings (6.56-9), Herodotus draws comparisons with Persia as well as implicit parallels, for example, with Scythian royal funerals, but their prerogatives are plainly set out in relation to the rest of the polis.
For more on the intricacies of Spartan political life, try:
P. Cartledge Agesilaos and the crisis of Sparta (London 1987), 99-132;
On Spartan kings:
E. Millender, ‘The Spartan dyarchy: new perspectives’, in S. Hodkinson (ed.) Sparta: new approaches (London 2009), 1-67.
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