The Early History of Sparta
The Greeks believed the ancestors of the Spartans were
Dorians1
who had invaded the Peloponnese from central Greece and defeated the original
inhabitants of Laconia around 950 B.C., but no archaeological evidence supports the
notion that a “Dorian invasion” actually took place. From wherever
the original Spartans came, they conquered the inhabitants of Laconia and settled in at
least four small villages, two of which apparently dominated the others. These early
settlements later cooperated to form the core of what would in the
Archaic
Age2 become the polis of the Spartans. The Greeks gave the name
“synoecism”3 (“union of households”) to this process of political
unification, in which most people continued to live in their original villages even
after one village began to serve as the center of the new city-state. One apparent
result of the compromises required to forge Spartan unity was that the Spartans retained
not one but two hereditary military leaders of high prestige, whom they called kings.
These kings4, perhaps originally
the leaders of the two dominant villages, served as the religious heads of Sparta and
commanders of its army. The kings did not enjoy unfettered power to make decisions or
set policy, however, because they operated not as pure monarchs but as leaders of the
oligarchic institutions that governed the Spartan city-state. Rivalry between the two
royal families periodically led to fierce disputes, and the initial custom of having two
supreme military commanders also paralyzed the Spartan army when the kings disagreed on
strategy in the middle of a military campaign. The Spartans therefore eventually decided
that the army on campaign would be commanded by only one king at a time.
