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This Paper Discusses Whether The Spartan Decision-making Process Was A Public ...

This paper discusses whether the Spartan decision-making process was a public affair, with a fair degree of popular participation or whether it was a process dominated by a controlling oligarchy? The paper uses a variety of sources, contemporary and modern, to gain information about Spartan governance, in order to assess whether the Spartan decision making process was a public affair, with a fair degree of popular participation or whether it was a process dominated by a controlling oligarchy. The contemporary sources used include Aristotle's Politics, Plutarch's Lykourgos VI, Diodorus Siculus, the writings of Thucydides, in particular the I.79-87, and Xenophon's Hellenika. The modern sources include the work of noted Spartan academics, including Whitby, Cartledge and Hodkinson.
Whitby's book Sparta is a collection of essays, which is intended to introduce readers to Spartan society, in terms of its politics, social structure and culture, and historical development. Andrewe's chapter, The Government of Classical Sparta (pp.49-68) looks at the political structure of Sparta. Essentially, as in other works of Andrewes, Andrewes argues that in Sparta, we have the earliest known manifestations of the function of a council, preparing for business by reference to a sovereign assembly. As Andrewes makes clear in his summary of Rhetra, the Council is to introduce measures, and the people to have the power of decision. Andrewes, throughout his work, equates the sovereign assembly with the hoplite army of Sparta, and traces the development of the assembly from a probouleutic council to an assembly in which the powers are actually something less than government by assembly, with the Ephors created as a counterbalancing force.
The Ephors, however, have not been viewed by all academics as a positive force, for as Aristotle, in his Politics, states, another defect in the Lacedaemonian constitution is seen in connection with the office of Ephor. The Ephorate independently controls much important business. Its five members are chosen from among all the people, with the result that very often men who are not at all well-off find themselves holding this office, and their lack of means makes them open to briberyAnd just because the power of the Ephors is excessive and dictatorial, even the Spartan kings have been forced to curry favor with them. And this has caused further damage to the constitution; what was supposed to be an aristocracy has become more like a democracy. In itself the Ephorate is not a bad thing; it certainly keeps the constitution together; the people like it because it gives them a share in an office of power. So whether this is due to the lawgiver Lycurgus or to good fortune, it suits the circumstances very well. . . . But while it was necessary to select Ephors from among all the citizens, the present method of selection strikes me as childish.


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