Ashley Raymer
998460464
CLA305: Theories of Myth
Prof. Jonathan Tracy
4 April, 2013
Sparta as Living Myth
George Dumezil published Flamen-Brahman in 1929 which included the first articulation of his tri-functional hypothesis. His work postulates a threefold ideological division within Indo-European myths and societies which pairs the three functions of the sacral, martial and economic with the castes of priest/king, warrior and producer. As seen in Norse, Indian and Greek mythologies, a lasting social order and constitution is achieved when functional conflict is resolved and the third function which encompasses fertility and production is incorporated into the first two functions. The Greek instinct towards categorization and functionality can be seen in myths such as the Trojan War as well as in the philosophical thought of Ionian logographers. No Greek society demonstrates Dumezil’s functional division in such stark reality as did Sparta. The Spartan constitution was a conscious and successful attempt at producing a citizen body wholly concerned with second function martial activities. Spartan society and its slow demise up until and after its crushing defeat at the battle of Leuctra can help illuminate and corroborate Dumezil’s theory. This essay will examine Spartan society under a Dumezilian lense with particular attention paid to the effect of relying on a helot and perioikoi population as the third function component to their the social order.
Mythical Sparta passed through three phases of sovereignty. Before mankind held the kingship, the autochthonous Lelex ruled the territory of Laconia. His progeny ruled until the human Laecadamon married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas who had no son. The line of Laecadamon ruled until Tydareus. Between these descendants of Perseus and the future Heracleids, the line of Atreus ruled in the Peloponnese. The Heracleids, descendants of Zeus, were the Dorians who drove out the Atreids. The Dumezilian concept of sovereignty encompassing both king and priest into a single unit is literally represented in the dual kingship of the Dorians.[1]
According to Plutarch, the returning Heracleid king, Aristodemus, gave birth to the twins Procles and Eurysthenes who disliked each other and founded each line of Spartan kings, called the Agiad and Eurypontid dynasties. The kings ruled jointly along with a body of elders, the Gerousa, and five annually elected ephors. This blend of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy was a distinct feature of Spartan society which separated her citizens from those of any other Greek poleis. Compared to societies outside of Greece, as near as Rome and distant as India, Sparta’s constitution and diarchy appear more recognizably Indo-European. In Indo-European myth, the first function of society can appear in a range of manifestations. The two aspects of divine kingship might be represented in the person of one king, by a line of kings of alternating character or as in Sparta, or by two kings of equal personage but slightly differing function.
By virtue of their lineage, Spartan kings embodied an aspect of divinity. They had a double nature apparent in Herodotus’ writings which state that the kings received double portions at private and public dinners.[2]In fulfillment of their priestly function, they presided at sacrifices. The kings ritually received the skins and chines of animals from all sacrifices, even if they could not be present. Arguably, these kings not only conducted sacrifices, but partook of the sacrifices by receiving the chines and skins. In respect to their divine nature, the person of Spartan kings was sacrosanct. Leading the Spartans into battle, the king was protected by a bodyguard of one hundred of the highest calibre men. This points to a sympathetic relationship between the king and the state. The concept of sacred kingship belongs to James Frazer, but here it helps illuminate a third function aspect of the Spartan kings, namely a relationship to the fertility of the state. Theoretically, in accordance with this principle, Spartan kings could suffer no physical defect. Plutarch records an instance when a birth defect became political ammunition for malcontents under king Agesilaus.[3]
Another case for their third function characteristics can be made by looking at the funerary rites of Spartan kings. At such a death, a man and woman from each household, representing the reproductive capacity of Sparta, were required to dress in mourning clothes and strike themselves on the forehead.[4] No business was transacted for ten days following the king’s death, crippling the productivity of the state.
Even in their judicial function, Spartan kings were chiefly concerned with the inheritance of estates, the marriage of heiresses and adoptions, all of which fall into the broad third function of fertility and wealth. Spartan kings fulfilled a priestly and judicial function, led the army into battle and displayed third function characteristics. This gives them a unique place in Spartan society. This functional slippage may represent the distinction between sovereign dualism as a principle and its actualization.
Dumezil discusses kings who deal in all three functions in his Mitra Varuna. He uses the termsceleritas and gravitasto describe their triple functioning as magical, warrior kings as well as religious, peaceful kings. The Spartan diarchy, in contrast to monarchy, more literally embodiesthe mythic Indo-European idea of kingship. How the diarchy devloped in Sparta is answered by a series of mythical twins. Both the Agiad and Eurypontid lines descended from two sets of twins, Procles and Eurysthenes who married the twin sisters, Lathria and Anaxandra.[5]These ancestral twins are significant as they best represent the two halves of sovereignty comprising one unit.
According to Pausanias, a woman named Gorgophone, the daughter of Perseus, gave birth to two sets of twins. The first set was fathered by the Messenian King Perieres and their names were Aphareus and Leucippus. Gorgophone remarried theSpartan king Oebalus and bore Tyndareus and Icarius. Each set of twins ruled their territories jointly in sovereign twinships.In typical Greek agonistic fashion, the Spartan and Messenian twins struggled for supremacy by endeavoring to wed their half –sisters and cousins in order to become heirs and son-in-laws to the other line. In the next generation, the Messenian Idas and Lynceus began openly fighting with the Spartan Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces. In addition to providing a precedent for the Spartan diarchy, these myths explain the origin of Spartan-Messenian hostility, and much like the Scythian founding myth, the younger Perseid branch prevailed.[6] By the time of the Atreids and Dorian invasion, the sovereign twinship transformed from the mythical, literal embodiment of the Indo-European theory dual-kingship to a more devolved dual kingship in which the Agiad and Eurypontid lines were related but not brothers. The kingship still represented two halves comprising one unit but in a less explicit way. Out of all the Greek city-states, Sparta alone retained recognizable aspects of Indo-European myth.
As shown, Spartan kings encompassed all the functions to some degree but were primarily concerned with the first and second function s of society. This functional slippage was not tolerated in the rest of Spartan society. The Spartiates who formed a citizen army were kept separate from the Perioikoi and Helot populations who together were the producing class. These barriers began to break down as the numbers of Spartiates declined after 460, but at the height of Spartan influence, a rigid education system and series of laws kept the Spartiates a fully martial class, concerned solely with second function activities. Outside of myth, Sparta holds a lonely position, as no other society held their functions as separate as she.
Spartan laws and customs have their own founding myth in the semi-historical figure of Lycurgus, the renowned founder of the laws and agoge, the Spartan educational system. Accounts by Xenophon, Plutarch and Aristotle provide valuable details on the laws and customs which kept Spartiates a distinctly martial citizen body. Lycurgus was purported to have travelled both to Crete and Asia in search of the best laws.[7]He adopted a similar arrangement to the Cretans and instituted a system of training and common meals.[8] He was said to have consulted the oracle at Delphi and gained this divine stamp of approval.
The Cretans were also in charge of a serf population, and their constitution served the same goal as the Spartans, to ensure the safety of an immigrant population amongst conquered natives who have been reduced to serfdom. [9]
The fundamental change brought about in the Lycurgian reforms was the breakdown of the basic family unit. In most cultures, brides are made to appear as beautiful as possible on their wedding night in order to strengthen attraction and the marriage bond to facilitate a stable environment for their children. In Sparta, brides were dressed in men’s clothes and their heads shaved. Although the personal preferences of the groom must be taken into account, in general, this practice was to weaken the marriage bond and strengthen one’s connection to the community at the loss of family identity. Doran 95 Xenophon writes that Lycurgus encouraged older husbands to find younger men for their wives to sleep with in order to produce the most admirable offspring. Also, ‘in case a man did not want to cohabit with his wife and nevertheless desired children of whom he could be proud, he made it lawful for him to choose a woman who was the mother of a fine family and of high birth, and if he obtained her husband’s consent, to make her the mother of his children.’[10]The family unit was also disrupted in the first few years of marriage when the couple did not live together. There was social pressure in these years for a husband not to be seen entering or leaving his wife’s quarters.
In addition, the relationship between children and their parents was restricted at the age of 7, when both boys and girls embarked as paides on their rigorous Spartan education, called the agoge. This education systemhad the sole purpose of producing male citizen soldiers and capable, reproductive females. These girls were taught by older women and partook in the same athletic activities as their male age-mates.Ramsey, Gillian Prof. "Athletic Education." Lecture,University of Toronto, March 25th. Other than in respect totheir reproductive capabilities, Spartan women were removed from third function activities. Xenophon notes, ‘Lycurgus thought the labour of slave women sufficient to supply clothing...he insisted on physical training for the female no less than for the male sex: moreover, he instituted races and trials of strength for women competitors as for men, believing that if both parents are strong they produce more vigorous offspring.’[11] Elsewhere in Greece, the worth of a woman was reflected in her thir function ability to produce material goods, especially cloth.
Men as well as women were forbidden from trades.[12] Herodotus confirms Plutarch with this, ‘Men who learn trades and their descendants are held in less regard than other citizens, while any who need not work with their hands are considered noble, especially if they devote themselves to war. At any rate, all the Greeks have learned this: the Lakedaimonians scorn manual work most; the Corinthians do so the least.[13]Plutarch believed that Lycurgus visited the Egyptians who ‘ardently admired their separation of the military from the other classes of society that he transferred it to Sparta.’[14]A focus on martial activity was the mark of nobility throughout Greece as only the very wealthy could afford arms and the time spent in training. A contempt of trades and inclination towards warfare was a sentiment larger than Sparta, but the Spartiates as a genos were able to become an elite military class by subjugating surrounding Greeks into serfs and distancing themselves from all third function activities. Once the Spartiates were in this position, they were forced to maintain themselves at the risk of losing the Helots or becoming victims of a revolt. It was this attitude that likely preceeded Lycurgus’ reforms, but the authority lent by his legendary figure ensured the Spartan constitution outlasted all of her neighbors’.
The Spartans had another legendary figure to emulate, their ancestor Herakles. One of the few Spartan sources we have, the poet Tyrtareus composed a poem exhorting the Spartan hoplites, saying, ‘Ye are of the lineage of the invincible Heracles’[15] and in another fragment, ‘For Cronus' Son Himself, Zeus the husband of fair-crowned Hera, hath given this city to the children of Heracles, with whom we came into the wide isle of Pelops from windy Erineus.’[16] The Spartans saw their land as a gift from Zeus, theirs by right as well as conquest. As conquerors they lack the connection to the land typical of heavily third function societies in Indo-European myth.
Herakles is very much a second function hero with a connection to war and violence from infancy. He was conceived by Zeus’ deception of Alkmene in a manner devoid of third function love. ‘Zeus did not effect this union from the desire of love, but rather only for the sake of procreation.’ Alkmene ‘fearful of Hera’s jealousy, exposed it at a place which to this time is called after him the Field of Herakles. Athena convinced Hera to suckle the boy, but he bit her and she threw him from her.’[17]Zeus had intended Herakles to be king, but it was through the meddling of Hera that his less apt cousin took the kingship. Like the Spartiates, he was capable of taking over the kingship through his physical superiority but he never attempted to do so. Herakles ‘never, either during or after the long term of the labours, does he raise a hand against the king, nor attempt to replace him; and throughout the journeys where he redresses so many wrongs and punishes so many evil men, does he propose to become king himself.’[18]Herakles’ warrior prowess coupled with submission to a sovereign was the model behaviours for future Spartiates. Plutarch describes the agogeas effecting these same characteristics in the Spartiates. The agoge he writes, ‘austere in its mode of life and full of hardships, educated the youth to obedience.For this reason it was, we are told, that Simonides gave Sparta the epithet of "man-subduing," since more than in any other state her customs made her citizens obedient to the laws and tractable, like horses that are broken in while yet they are colts.’[19]
Dumezil’s tripartite theory includes a general theme found in the founding myths of Indo-European cultures. Not only does the first and second function find itself at war with the third function,but there is also tension between the second and first functions. In Sparta this tension against the first function was dispersed against a varied group of government bodies, including a council of 28 elders, gerontes who were elected by popular acclamation. The elders decided cases of homicide and prepared legislation for the Apella, an Assembly comprising all Spartiate men. There were also five annually elected ephorswho exercised enormous control. Xenophon writes that the ephors could ‘interfere with the private life of the kings as to order them to repudiate a wife who bore no children. Every month the king swore before them to rule according to the constitution, and the ephors undertook on their part to maintain the kings in office.’[20] The ephors and the gerontes were elected out of the general body of citizens and these branches of government represent a less violent outlet for the political dissidence of the second function to express itself against the first function.
The Spartiates were repressed through rigorous training designed to produce nothing other than obedient soldiers willing to place their lives at the state’s disposal. Through the state’s ownership of Helots, laws restricting coinage and business pursuits and the syssita, Spartiates were discouraged from the unrest and ambition that disrupted mythic societal arrangements, as with the Greek camp at Troy where the Greeks chafed against Agamemnon.[21]Sparta’s warrior society had other Indo-European mythic models in the Mariannu chariot fighters and the Marut of Vedic mythology which Dumezil discusses in The Destiny of the Warrior.[22] For the Spartans, likely unaware of Indian deities, Herakles served as the best model for second function behaviour.
Spartiates were preserved as a second function genos by an ancient law forbidding the descendants of Herakles from having children with foreign women. This law also stipulated that any Spartiate who did so and wished to settle outside of Sparta should be executed.FTNT Plutarch,Agis 11.2 These laws produced a citizen body not only distinct culturally from surrounding populations, but genetically also. This system stayed in place until the late fourth century, and its resulting citizens would conquer a large swathe of the Peloponnese and dominate the military leadership of Greece from the end of the archaic period to the greater half of the classical period.FTNT 94 Doran