The article is devoted to the analysis of the structural changes in the civic community of Sparta at the end of the 5th–beginning of the 4th century ВС. The analysis of the sources shows that the civic community began to disintegrate and the new social group of Hypomeiones appeared just in this period. The author considers in detail questions connected with the reasons, time of appearance and status of this category of the Spartan citizenry. Particular attention is paid to the mechanism by which full citizens have lost some of their rights and have fallen down the social ladder, becoming Hypomeiones. The author examines all the sources related to this issue and shows as much as possible the extent to which this topic has been dealt with in Russian and Western historiography.
civil rights
Nabis and the helots
This paper explores the policy of the Spartan king Nabis towards the helots. Attention is drawn to the significant differences between the social politics of Nabis and the earlier reforms of the kings Agis IV and Сleomenes III. The author concludes that Nabis followed a completely new principle of Spartan citizenship formation. He liberated a number of helots and made them full citizens. However, Nabis was not able to overcome the helotry entirely, although he sought to abandon this type of slavery. Nabis, having accepted helots and foreigners as full members of the civil community, created a completely new type of citizens whose loyalty lay not so much with the state as with him personally. The radical social reforms of Nabis abolished the archaic principles of citizenship formation at the very moment when the Lycurgan Sparta finally disappeared. It became a monarchy of Hellenistic mould.