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Thucydides Therefore Prefers The Spartans' Eunomia To The Isonomia Of The ...

Thucydides therefore prefers the Spartans' eunomia to the isonomia of the Athenians, arguing that this system was much more likely to provide a stable social and political environment. This opinion, as we have seen, is in direct contrast to the opinion of Aristotle, and so we shall now move on to look at an in-depth analysis of the politics of Sparta.
Spartans, governed as they were by different oligarchies throughout their history i.e., at some point, by a gerousia of twenty eight elders, with a dual Kingship (with both Kings from rival houses) and an annually elected college of Ephors, and then, later, only by a set of five Ephors (literally ‘over-seers'). Thus, the different types of governance that were active at different times in the history of the Spartans provided some dynamic stability to Spartan governance, with the Kings providing diverging political viewpoints, and the Ephors giving some opportunity for ordinary Spartans to indicate their feelings, in terms of choosing their preferred Ephors. Thus, the Spartan political system, whilst oligarchical, allowed for some interaction from the populace, and was thus not entirely autocratic. However, as we have seen, this system was open to bribes, and it is known that bribery was rife at this time, with decisions being made as the result of payments rather than, often, for the best interests of Sparta. This is highlighted in discrepancies in contemporary accounts of Spartan decisions, for example the decision as to how many ships to send to the Athenians, which is reported in Plutarch and Xenophon differently.
Hodkinson's (2000) book Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, and in particular Chapter 11 of this book The Use of Wealth in Personal and Political Relations shows how unequal a society Sparta was, with, as he shows, many contemporary authors showing this, for example, Xenophon referring to bans on gainful activity, Polybios mentioning unequal landholdings and Aristotle criticizing inherent flaws in the Spartan system. As Hodkinson argues in Chapter 11, Spartans patronized their servants, and also poorer Spartans; Hodkinson also shows, through an analysis of the relevant contemporary literature, that bribes were usual in Spartan society, and were particularly important for the furtherance of careers.


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