The Obligations of Spartans
All Spartan citizens were expected to put service to their city-state before personal
concerns because Sparta's survival was continually threatened by its own economic
foundation, the great mass of
helots1. Since Sparta's well-being depended on the systematic exploitation of these
enslaved Greeks, its entire political and social system by necessity had as its aim a
staunch militarism and a conservatism in values. Change meant danger at Sparta. As part
of its population policy, however, Spartan conservatism encompassed
sexual
behavior2 seen as overly permissive by other Greeks. The Spartans simultaneously
institutionalized a form of equality as the basis for their male social unit, the
common mess3, while denying true social and political equality to ordinary male citizens by
making their government an oligarchy. Whatever other Greeks may have thought of the
particulars of the Spartan system, they admired the Spartans'
unswerving respect
for their laws 4 as a guide to life in hostile surroundings, albeit of their own making.
