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The Spartan army was the principle ground force of ... Full citizens, ... the hairstyle's peculiar association with the Spartans had come to signify pro-Spartan ...
The perioeci were obliged to follow Spartan foreign policy, and supplied men to fight in the Spartan army. [8] Like the hómoioi (ὅμοιοι, full Spartan citizens), the perioeci fought in the army as hoplites, probably in the same units. [9] The perioeci had the right to own land, which would have been necessary to support those in the army ...
This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle. As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle.
To increase the declining Spartan citizen body, he made some of the perioikoi into citizens. [3] There is a controversy about the motives of both Agis' and Cleomenes' reforms. Some historians, such as Plutarch, claim that they were moral patriots who cared for the poor. Modern historians claim that their only goal was to strengthen their army. [4]
Cleomenes increased the number of full citizens again and made the Spartan army operate with an increased reliance on more lightly armored phalangites of the Macedonian style. [15] However, many of these restored citizens were killed in the Battle of Sellasia and Nabis's politics drove the remainder of them into exile. In consequence, the heavy ...
Those 4,000 citizens enhanced the body of Spartiates (Spartan full citizens), which had dwindled drastically (known as oliganthropia). [17] For the first time the amount of produce the Helots had to surrender to each klaros-holder [clarification needed] was specified in absolute quantities rather than as a proportion of the annual yield.
Classical Spartan society was rigidly divided into several castes, each with assigned duties and privileges. The smallest of them, with the most power and freedom, was the Spartiate class. Spartiates (Spartiate-class males over 30) held some extremely limited power in the government and would own kleroi (plots of land with associated Helots).
For example, in 403 BCE, Pausanias convinced three of the ephors to send an army to Attica, a complete reversal of the policy of Lysander. [18] According to Aristotle, the ephors frequently came from poverty because any Spartan citizen could hold the position, and it was not exclusive to the upper-class.