System.—Spartiates were debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which rested in the hands of the perioeci (q.v.), and were forbidden to possess either gold or silver, the currency consisting of bars of iron. Wealth was, in theory, derived entirely from landed property, and consisted in the annual return made by the helots, who cultivated the plots of ground allotted to the Spartiates. But this attempt to equalize property proved a fail ure; from early times there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became greater after the law of Epitadeus removed the legal prohibition of the gift or bequest of land. The number of full citizens, 8,000 at the beginning of the 5th century, had sunk by Aristotle's day to less than I,000, and had further decreased to 700 in 244 B.C.
The beginning of the 5th century B.C. saw Sparta at the height of her power; but after the Persian Wars the Spartan supremacy could no longer remain unchallenged. Sparta despatched an army in 490 B.C. to aid Athens in repelling the armament sent against it by Darius. But it arrived after the, conflict had been decided at the battle of Marathon. In the second campaign Sparta assumed the command of the combined Greek forces by sea and land. Yet, in spite of the heroic defence of Thermopylae by Leonidas (q.v.) the glory of the decisive victory at Salamis (q.v.) fell in great measure to the Athenians, and their patriotism and energy con trasted strongly with the hesitation of the Spartans and their selfish policy of defending the Peloponnese only. By the battle of Plataea (479 a.c.), won by a Spartan general, the state par tially recovered its prestige, but only so far as land operations were concerned ; the victory of Mycale, won in the same year, was achieved by the united Greek fleet, and the capture of Sestos, which followed, was due to the Athenians. The perils and the glories of the Persian War were left to Athens, who, though at the outset merely the leading state in a confederacy of free allies, soon began to make herself the mistress of an empire. Sparta for a time took no steps to prevent this. Moreover, Sparta's attention was occupied by troubles nearer home—the plots of Pausanias not only with the Persian king but with the Laconian helots ; the revolt of Tegea (c.
; the earth quake which in 464 devastated Sparta; and the rising of the Messenian helots, which immediately followed. The insulting dismissal of Athenian troops which had come to aid the Spartans in the siege of the Messenian stronghold of Ithome, the con summation of the Attic democracy under Ephialtes and Pericles (q.v.), and the conclusion of an alliance between Athens and Argos united with other causes to bring about a rupture between the Athenians and the Peloponnesian League. In the so-called first Peloponnesian War Sparta herself took but a small share beyond helping to defeat the Athenians at Tanagra in 457 B.C.
A fresh struggle, the great Pelopon nesian War (q.v.), broke out in 431 B.C. This may be to a cer
tain extent regarded as a contest between Ionian and Dorian, or between the democratic and oligarchic principles of government ; but at bottom its cause was neither racial nor constitutional, but economic. The maritime supremacy of Athens was used for com mercial purposes, and important members of the Peloponnesian confederacy, whose wealth depended largely on their commerce, notably Corinth and Megara, were being slowly but relentlessly crushed. Sparta remained unaffected, but she was forced to take action by the pressure of her allies. She did not prosecute the war with any vigour: her operations were almost confined to an annual inroad into Attica, and when in 425 B.C. a body of Spar tiates was captured by the Athenians at Pylos, she was anxious to terminate the war on any reasonable conditions. • That the terms of the Peace of Nicias (421), were rather in favour of Sparta than of Athens was due almost entirely to an individual Spartan, Brasidas (q.v.). The final success of Sparta and the cap ture of Athens in 405 were brought about partly by the treachery of Alcibiades. Funds were gained by subsidies from Persia, and Sparta found in Lysander (q.v.) an admiral of boundless vigour.
Spartan Empire.—The fall of Athens left Sparta once again supreme in the Greek world and demonstrated clearly her total unfitness for rule. Everywhere democracy was replaced by a philo-Laconian oligarchy, under a Spartan harmost or governor, and even in Laconia itself the narrow and selfish character of the Spartan rule led to a serious conspiracy. Under the energetic rule of Agesilaus, it seemed as if Sparta would pursue a Hellenic policy and carry on the war against Persia. But troubles soon broke out in Greece, Agesilaus was recalled from Asia Minor, and his schemes and successes were rendered fruitless. Further, the naval activity displayed by Sparta during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War abated when Persian subsidies were with drawn. In 394 B.C. the Spartan navy under Peisander was defeated off Cnidus by the Persian fleet under Conon and Pharnabazus, and Sparta ceased to be a maritime power. In Greece itself, mean while, the opposition to Sparta was growing increasingly power ful, and the Spartans felt it necessary to rid themselves of Persian hostility. They therefore concluded with Artaxerxes II. the humiliating Peace of Antalcidas (387 B.c.), by which they sur rendered to the Great King the Greek cities of the Asia Minor coast and of Cyprus. After a desultory war with Thebes over the independence of the Boeotian towns, the citadel of Thebes was treacherously seized by Phoebidas in 382 and held by the Spartans until 379 B.C. In 371 a fresh peace congress was summoned at Sparta. Again the Thebans refused to renounce their Boeotian hegemony, and the Spartan attempt at coercion ended in the defeat of the Spartan army at the battle of Leuctra and the trans fer of the Greek supremacy from Sparta to Thebes.