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Stoics, Cynics, and the Spartan Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

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In one of the supreme ironies of history, the austere Lycurgan system at Sparta failed in its primary aim – the fossilization of martial virtue – and succeeded in military victories, the heady profits of which undermined the precarious communism of the bivouac state. Conditioned to repress fear, the Spartan compensated by indulging greed – bribery, not cowardice, was his fatal weakness. After the collapse of the Spartan Empire at the Battle of Leuctra in 371, mercenary service became the principal Spartan occupation, even for Xenophon's model officer and gentleman, King Agesilaus. With landed estates encroaching on the traditional lots and great fortunes swollen by the gains of empire and mercenary adventure, the common Spartan found himself reduced to an equality of obligation only. The inflation and economic stress of the Hellenistic era intensified the imbalance between wealth and poverty in Lacedaemon. In a brief reign (244–241), the idealistic young King Agis IV tried to revive Sparta's military glory by restoring „Lycurgan ways” and did effect the abolition of debts but failed to redistribute land lots – his agent, Agesilaus, avoided the issue until a counter-revolutionary coup led by the deposed King Leonidas overthrew the reformers and lynched Agis. In 227, Leonidas' son, Cleomenes III, seized power and completed the aborted reforms of Agis-his subsequent success forced his rival for leadership of the Peloponnse, Aratus of Sicyon, into an alliance with Macedon, and Cleomenes was defeated at Sellasia in 222 to die shortly after in exile in Egypt.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1959

References

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page 461 note 2 Plutarch, Agis 14.3; Cleomenes 16.5; 17.3; 18.2; Aratus 38.5; 39.4–40.2. Polybius II 52.1; 55.8.

page 462 note 1 Plutarch, Cleomenes 20.3–4.

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page 462 note 4 ibid., 8.2.

page 462 note 5 ibid., 16.2.

page 462 note 6 Plutarch, , Cleomenes 8Google Scholar; 10.1; 11.1–2.

page 462 note 7 No. 81 in Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, Phylarchus is paraphrased in almost all of Plutarch's Agis and Cleomenes. He has recently been treated by Kroymann, J., Phylarchos, in: RE (1956) Suppl Bd. VIII: 471489Google Scholar, and Gabba, E., Studi su Filarco, in: Athenaeum (1957) 35: 355Google Scholar, 193–239.

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page 464 note 5 Ollier, op. cit, p. 570.

page 464 note 6 ibid., pp. 553–554. Jacoby, FrGrH Vol. III Bi, p. 624, rejects this fancy.

page 464 note 7 Ollier, op. cit., pp. 541–542. Ollier's ignorance of the fragments of Phylarchus is impressive. While rejecting his extreme position, Gabba (op. cit., pp. 52–53) gives more weight to Ollier's Stoic Phylarchus than the data necessarily warrant.

page 464 note 8 Diogenes Laertius VII 37.

page 464 note 9 Cleanthes was Zeno's pupil for nineteen years and died at the age of seventy-two as did Zeno, according to his disciple Persaeus – Diogenes Laertius VII 28; 176. For Zeno's death in 261, see Tarn, W. W., Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. VII, p. 220.Google Scholar

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page 464 note 11 Diogenes Laertius VII 178.

page 465 note 1 Diogenes VII 36 (Persaeus). Diogenes Laertius used Plutarch's Alexander (IX 60) and Lysander et Sylla (IV 4). He also read Phylarchus (IX 115).

page 465 note 2 Plutarch, , Cleomenes 12Google Scholar; 3 includes a romantic interlude (Agiatis), a prolonged tirade on luxury and corruption after Agis, and the episode of Cleomenes and Xenares; all show the hand of Phylarchus.

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page 465 note 5 Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus 8.4–5; I7–4; 20.3–4. Cicero de amie. 11.37.

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page 465 note 8 Diogenes Laertius VI 72; VII 33.

page 466 note 1 ibid., VI 54.

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page 466 note 4 ibid., VI 104.

page 466 note 5 ibid., VI 70- 71; cf. 38.

page 466 note 6 ibid., VI 54; 90; 92.

page 466 note 7 ibid., VI 104.

page 466 note 8 Pliny, Nat. Hist. X 208. Athenaeus III 73B-D; IV 150 D-F; X 438C; 442C; XII 521CD; 526A-C; XIII 606E-607A. (J 81 FF 2; 6; 7; 26; 28; 36; 45; 50; 65; 66).

page 467 note 1 Polybius II 48.4; 50.2; 65.3.

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page 467 note 9 Polybius V 93.8–9.

page 467 note 10 Dudley, op.cit., pp. 80 and 92–93.

page 468 note 1 See Knox, A. D., Herodes, Cercidas, and the Greek Choliambic Poets, Harvard (Loeb), 1929, p. 197 n. 2Google Scholar. Cf. Herodotus VI 45; VII 73; 185.

page 468 note 2 Knox, op. cit. pp. 231–239, presents but rejects as spurious “Cercidea” which lament that wealthy boors are preferred over impoverished aristocrats, a situation that likely encouraged Cercidas' Cynicism.

page 468 note 3 Dudley, op. cit, p. 82. However, few Greeks and no Cynic objected to homosexuals only to effeminacy.

page 468 note 4 Hunt, Arthur, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. VIII (1911) No. 1802, pp. 2059Google Scholar, gives the original and restored texts of the papyrus. Part of Fragment 4 (with Zeno reference) is reproduced in Plate II.

page 468 note 5 Hoistad, Ragnar, Hero, Cynic and King, Cynic, Uppsala, 1948, especially pp. 2249Google Scholar; 103–149. But see Sinclair, T. A., A History of Greek Political Thought, London (Routledge & Kegan Paul), 1951, pp. 140142 and 264.Google Scholar

page 468 note 6 Diogenes Laertius VI 2; 13.

page 468 note 7 Dio Chrysostom, On Kingship I 65. Xenophon Memorabilia II 1.21.

page 468 note 8 Plutarch, Cleomenes 13.2. Cf. Athenaeus IV 142 C-F (J 81 F 44). Gabba (op.cit., pp. 51–52) suggests that the emphasis on Heracles was to counter Antigonid claims of Heraclid descent, on which see Diodorus VII 15 and Edson, Charles F., The Antigonids, Heracles, and Beroea, in: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology (1934) 42: 213246Google Scholar. If such claims were seriously advanced, Phylarchus countered them through Therycion's caustic quip on the incongruity of the seed of Heracles surrendering to the spawn of Philip and Alexander, Plutarch Cleomenes 31.2.

page 469 note 1 Plutarch, Lycuirgus 1.3. Polybius IV 35.14 dryly observes that a later king of Sparta became a descendant of Heracles by presenting each ephor with one talent.

page 469 note 2 Quoted by Diogenes Laertius III 63 from a lost play.

page 469 note 3 Euripides, Heracles 1252.

page 469 note 4 Head, B.V., Historia Numorum, A Manual of Greek Numismatics, Oxford, 1911, p. 435.Google Scholar

page 469 note 5 Strabo XV 1.64 (J 134 F 17a), translation by Brown, T. S., Onesicritus, Berkeley Calif., 1949, p. 39Google Scholar. Kaerst, J., Geschichte des hellenistischen Zeitalters, Leipzig, 1909, Vol. II–1, p. 123Google Scholar, felt that this passage embodied the ideal Cynic king. Brown, op. cit., p. 50, is more cautious.

page 469 note 6 Plutarch, Cleomenes 1.3.

page 469 note 7 Polybius V 39.6. Polybius considered Cleomenes legally a tyrant after he had deposed the ephors.