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Some early oracular statements from Delphi may have been delivered to Lycurgus, the semi-legendary Spartan lawgiver (fl. 8th century BC).. According to the report by Herodotus (Histories A.65, 2–4), Lycurgus visited and consulted the oracle before he applied his new laws to Sparta,
The Spartan Constitution (or Spartan politeia) are the government and laws of the classical Greek city-state of Sparta.All classical Greek city-states had a politeia; the politeia of Sparta however, was noted by many classical authors for its unique features, which supported a rigidly layered social system and a strong hoplite army.
The Lacedaemonion Politeia (Ancient Greek: Λακεδαιμονίων Πολιτεία), known in English as the Polity, Constitution, or Republic of the Lacedaemonians, or the Spartan Constitution, [1] [2] [3] is a treatise attributed to the ancient Greek historian Xenophon, describing the institutions, customs, and practices of the ancient Spartans.
There was probably an age requirement of at least 30 years old to be elected ephor, the age from which a Spartan citizen was no longer considered eromenos. [24] The Spartan constitution is principally known through the work of Aristotle, who describes in detail the elections of the gerontes (the members of the Gerousia), but not the ephors.
Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently "laconically" (i.e. briefly and wittily). [125] Spartan boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man.
Though the common wisdom is that a serf owned "only his belly" – even his clothes were the property, in law, of his lord – a serf might still accumulate personal property and wealth, and some serfs became wealthier than their free neighbours, although this happened rarely. [28] A well-to-do serf might even be able to buy his freedom. [29] [30]
The third and most numerous class was the Helots, state-owned serfs enslaved to farm the Spartiate klēros. By the 5th century BC, the helots, too, were used as light troops in skirmishes. [1] The Spartiates were the Spartan army's core: they participated in the Assembly and provided the hoplites in the
Eurotas River. According to myth, the first king of the region later to be called Laconia, but then called Lelegia was the eponymous King Lelex.He was followed, according to tradition, by a series of kings allegorizing several traits of later-to-be Sparta and Laconia, such as the Kings Myles, Eurotas, Lacedaemon and Amyclas of Sparta.