Question Hi its me again that curious year12. we have covered some of this in class now but im rather wondering what the underlying reasons for this extreme militaristic way of life. I thought it might be because of their fear of a helot uprising, but my teacher and the texts we have been given hint otherwise.
Not shure what to think and hoping for a quick reply,
Georgia Evans
Answer Hi,
It’s obvious that the militaristic way of life of the Spartans dates back to local community’s resistance when they, of Dorian origin, conquered as invaders the region named Laconia, in the southeast Peloponnesus, where they founded Sparta in the 9th century BC.
Therefore such warrior tribes of Dorians needed a strong military government and constitution which defended them from the revolts of the Messenians e.g. who in fact were engaged in a series of revolts against expanding Sparta.
The author of this constitution is thought to have been Lycurgus about whom little is known for certain, except that in the 7th century B.C. he led a reform in the government to establish a machine of war that would preclude further trouble from the helots, the Messenians and other subjects.
As for the Dorians, a Greek-speaking people originating in the northwestern mountainous region of Epirus and Macedonia, they migrated through central Greece and into the Peloponnesus probably between 1100 and 950 B.C., defeating and displacing the Achaeans, the Messenians and other local peoples: hence their militaristic way of life which was very different from the other Greek-speaking tribes like the Ionians that inhabited Attica and founded Athens, and the Aeolians, the last of the three ancient Greek tribes.
To conclude the militaristic way of life of the Dorian Spartans was caused by their combative character as well as by their status of conquerors in a foreign territory among subject peoples who remained hostile, differently from what happened to the Ionians and the Aeolians whose settlement in Greece was less difficult.
