The article deals with cases of corruption in Sparta. The author shows that in the 5th century BC right up until the last decade of the Peloponnesian War it was mainly the Spartan kings and their closest relatives who were accused of corruption. But already at the turn of 5th–4th centuries BC almost all civil and military leaders of the country were involved in corruption scandals. At the end of the Peloponnesian War, the number of wealthy citizens who made their fortunes during military campaigns abroad sharply increased. The traditional moral values of equality and fraternity which the Spartans used to be brought up to believe quickly gave way to an unbridled thirst for profit. The author cites examples of corruption scandals in which both individual admirals and the entire Spartan government were embroiled. According to the author, moral corruption of the upper class led to the degradation of the whole society, dramatically increasing the social gap between the rich and the poor.
Sparta
Die Hypomeiones in Sparta
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.
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.
Democratic elements in the Spartan political structure
The article deals with the dynamics of the Spartan statehood. We argue that this development was going in a different direction than, for example, in Athens. In Sparta, where the initial elements of democracy were quite strong, gradually went a process of strengthening of oligarchic principles. Even the Ephorate, which initially functioned as an organ of the Spartan democracy, had lost all of its democratic features by the end of the classical period. We believe that at this time the board of ephors had already become an integral part of the ruling oligarchs. Sources’ analysis shows that in the classic period the state system of Sparta gradually evolved from the traditional “hoplite politeia” to the clannish oligarchy. As a result, the ruling elite became less dependent and accountable to the common people than it was before. If the late Sparta can be called democratic polis, it is only in comparison with the oriental despotism.