Cretan/Spartan connection

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The Cretan/Spartan connection by W. Lindsay Wheeler

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Doric Crete and Doric Sparta shared a common ethinicity, language, customs, institutions, philosophy and heritage. They shared a unity of national character, inspiration and kinship in times of danger. Furthermore, Doric Crete is the progenitor of much of the institutions found in Doric Sparta. In many ancient texts, these two places are often said together demonstrating their close familial qualities and traits. Plutarch regarded them as the "two most warlike nations of all Greece, the Cretans on the one hand, and the Lacedæmonians on the other." ³

J. B. Bury author of The History of Greece, writes, "In Crete and Laconia we meet, …some peculiar institutions, which seem to have been characteristically Dorian, but are not found in Argos or Corinth (other Doric city-states)." ¹² These two societies had in common, worship of Apollo, un-walled cities, a seperation of the warrior class from the agricultural and merchant class, men's messes (andrea), an extensive training of the young boys into manhood and virtue, the institution of παιδεραστια, considerable military training, strict regulation of public life (cosmos), mixed government, and xenelasia. Furthermore, the great German classicist Prof.Werner Jaeger writes that "In Greece, only Crete and Sparta had a fixed poetical tradition." ¹³ Moreover, this style of life was all based on the same philosophical principle undergirding their two societies; "Life is War". ⁷

Contents 1 The precedence of Crete 2 Doric perfection found in Sparta 3 Further historical bonds 4 Other viewpoints 5 Excerpts from classical texts 5.1 References of "Crete and Sparta" said in conjunction 6 Miscellania 7 References 8 Bibliography

The precedence of Crete

Pausanias noted that the Greeks believed that Cretan institutions passed down into Sparta. ²⁴

In his book, The Laws, Plato, an Ionian Greek, begins to discuss "the spirit" of the laws; an important principle for Plato and the attainment of the good. "To illustrate it, Plato chooses one particular kind of political life which had long interested him: the Dorian state. Accordingly, he introduces as interlocutors two representatives of that particular Greek stock, a Spartan and a Cretan." "In Plato's day, political theorists mostly held that Sparta and Crete had the best constitutions in Greece." ¹⁶ In the explanation of Doric ideals and philosophy, it is not the Spartan who is the lead but the Cretan. The Cretan character, Clinias, has pride of place in explaining their philosophy thus showing that Crete is the foundation of Doric culture.

In his treastise on politics, Aristotle in a similar way shows the pre-eminence of Crete that in the discussion of the different Greek constitutions (politiea), Crete is the first one discussed thus showing her antiquity to all other Greek and foreign city-states. Again, Aristotle writes on many similarities between Crete and Sparta amongst their institutions and intimates that the influence was from Crete to Lacedæmonia. He observes that Lycurgus spent much of his time in Crete "because of the relationship between the Cretans and the Spartans"; that "the Cretan institutions are on the same line as those of Sparta"; and that "in Sparta and Crete both the system of education and the mass of laws are framed in the main with a view to war". ²⁶

Another German classicist, Prof. Karl Otfried Müller wrote that the legislation of Lycurgus was, according to ancient traditions, aided by the support of Crete and Delphi. The form of government which was prevalent throughout the whole of Crete, originated, according to the concurrent testimony of the ancients, in the time of Minos; and it has been already shown that the Dorians at that time extended their dominion to this island, which thus received their language and customs. In Crete therefore, the constitution founded on the principles of the Doric Race, was first moulded into a firm and consistent shape, but even in a more simple and antiquated manner than in Sparta at a subsequent period. Thus Lyucurgus was enabled, without forcing any foreign usages upon Sparta, to take for a model the Cretan institutions which had been more fully developed at an earlier period; so that the constitutions of Crete and Sparta had from that time, as it were, a family resemblance. ¹⁷

Prof. Müller also points out that "...the Dorians in Crete—and this is a fact of great importance—never seem to stand, with regard to the Dorians of Peloponnesus, in the relation of a colony to its mother country. In Greece, the parent state—so great was the pride of higher antiquity—never condescended to take the institutions of a colony as models for its own, as was the case with Sparta and Crete; nor did the mother country ever procure priests from its colony, as was the case when the Pythian Apollo sent Cretan priests to Sparta. In short, everything seems to prove that the Doric institutions were of great antiquity in Crete,..." ¹⁸

Though Sparta has been recognized as being the first time in recorded Greek political life and in Western culture where that a body of councillors took initiative and responsibility for presenting proposals and resolutions to an assembly, ²³ she received this matrix of self government from Crete and therefore it can be inferred that Crete preceded Sparta in this honor. ²⁹

Doric perfection found in Sparta

Originators seldom come to a perfection of their ideas; it is left to one's that follow that ideas reach their perfection. In this regard, the Dorians of Laconia can be said to have perfected the Doric ideal. In the sixth century B.C., the Cretans finally disbanded their royal office in their mixed government. Sparta kept their royal office and maintained the tri-partite mixed government longer. In their land policy, Sparta instituted equal portions of property (not subject to buying and selling as in Crete) among its citizen soldiers in order to promote likemindedness (homoousia) and prevent faction (stasis). Polybius marks that Crete was marked by constant civil wars due their different land policy. This situation led to Crete to finally loosen her Doric identity before her cousin Sparta. ¹⁹

Further historical bonds

Sometime in the sixth century B.C., Sparta sent colonists to an inland area in the east of Crete, not far from Knossus to set up another city-state called Lyctus and were called Lyctians. ²⁰ While in the same century, Thaletus of Crete went to Sparta to teach choral music. ²⁵ Another Cretan, the seer Epimenides prophesied in Sparta about military affairs and future events.

The close kinship between Crete and Sparta was exhibited when Pyrrhus invaded Laconia in 272 BC at the head of a huge army with elephants; the outlook was not too favorable for the Spartans. In this time of extreme threat of extermination, the Spartans considered shipping all their women to Crete, their fellow brothers, for safe-keeping. (This offer was refused by their women.) A very fierce and bloody battle ensued and the Spartans were close to being overwhelmed and beaten when a contingent of mercenaries arrived from Corinth and their King Areus, who was aiding the Gortynians in Crete at that time, returned with 2000 Cretan warriors. Their presence turned the tide in the battle for the city and were responsible for the death of Pyrrhus's son. ²¹

These two societies had a great many admirers. A word coined for admirers of Sparta is "laconophile" but with the recognition that this admiration was directed at both Doric Crete and Sparta and to their general Doric customs and philosophy, Philodorian is a better word that captures the spirit of this form of admiration.

Other viewpoints

Prof. A.H.J. Greenidge, M.A. disputes this saying that the "germ of Cretan institutions was derived from the Pelopennisian Dorians" because the ancient Greek argument was from analogy. "Wherever the Greeks found parallelism they predicted borrowing." ²⁷ He recognizes the perfection of the institutions in Sparta but thinks that this perfection is the sign of origin.

Will Durant says "It is difficult to say whether Crete taught Sparta, or Sparta Crete; perhaps both states were the parallel results of similar conditions—the precarious life of an alien military aristocracy amid a native and hostile population of serfs." ²⁸

Excerpts from classical texts

Herodotus

• "...Lycurgus...imported their current constitution from Crete". ¹

Plato

• "...when first the Cretans and then the Lacedæmonians introduced the custom" (of men exercising naked).⁵

Aristotle

• "The Cretan constitution approximates to that of Sparta, but though in a few points it is not worse framed, for the larger part it has a less perfect finish. For the Spartan constitution appears and indeed is actually stated to have been copied in most of its provisions from the Cretans." ²

• "For it is said that when Lycurgus relinquished his post as guardian of King Charilaus and went abroad, he subsequently passed most of his time in Crete because of the relationship between the Cretans and the Spartans."²

• "The Cretan institutions are on the same lines as those of Sparta: in Sparta the land is tilled by the Helots and in Crete by the serfs; and also both have public-mess tables, and in old days the Spartans called them not "phiditia" but "men-messes" as the Cretans do, which is proof that they came from Crete." ⁴

• "And so also is the system of government; for the Ephors have the same power as the magistrates called Cosmi in Crete, except that the Ephors are five in number and the Cosmi ten; and the Elders at Sparta are equal in number to the Elders whom the Cretans call a Council."⁴

Plutarch

• "...(Lycurgus)first arrived at Crete, where, having considered their several forms of government, and got an acquaintance with the principle men among them, some of their laws he very much approved of, and resolved to make them in his own country; a good part he rejected as useless."¹¹

References of "Crete and Sparta" said in conjunction

Plato

• "...Sparta or Crete—your favorite models of good government..."⁶
• "The most ancient and fertile homes of philosophy among the Greeks are Crete and Sparta..." ⁹
• "...whereas yours of Laconia and Crete have succeeded better." ¹⁰

Aristotle

• "...as the legislator introduced community of property in Sparta and Crete by the institution of public messes." ¹⁴
• "On the subject of the constitution of Sparta and that of Crete,..." ¹⁵

Plutarch

• "...and to introduce and establish a mixed polity, on the Spartan and Cretan model,..."⁸

Miscellania

• Cicero, in the Fifth Philipic, says of the Cretans; "Cretans are a tough lot" and the American classicist Michael Grant adds in a footnote to this that "their culture was proverbially 'Spartan'". ²²

References

Note: The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race by Karl Otfried Müller is in the public domain and is freely quoted above.

1. The Histories, Herodotus, trans. by Robin Waterfield, Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 1998. Bk I, §68; pg 28
2. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, pg 149
3. Lives, Plutarch, Modern Library. pg 466.
4. Politics, pg 151
5. The Republic, Plato, trans B. Jowett, M. A. Vintage Books, New York. Bk V, §452; pg 171
6. Crito, Plato, Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton, Bollingen Series LXXII, §52e; pg 38.
7. Laws, Plato, Collected Dialogues of Plato, §625e-626b, §626d; pgs 1227-1228.
   1. Prof. Jaeger encapsulated the Doric philosophy in the Laconic style: "Life is War". He writes: "It is simple enough, the Dorian ideal of arete taught by Tyrtaeus' poems and by the Spartan and Cretan institutions. It is this: Life is War." Paideia, The Ideals of Greek Culture, Werner Jaeger, Trans. by Gilbert Highet, Oxford University Press, NY, 1944. Vol. III, pg 221.
8. Plutarch: The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, trans. by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough, The Modern Library (div of Random House, Inc). Bio on Dion; pg 1183
9. Protagoras, Plato, Collected Dialogues of Plato, §342a; pg 335.
10. Laws, Plato, Collected Dialogues of Plato, §693e; pg 1288.
11. The Lives, Bio on Lycurgus; pg 51.
12. The History of Greece, J. B. Bury, The Modern Library, NY, l913 edition. pg 56
13. Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture, Werner Jaeger, trans: Gilbert Highet, Oxford University Press NY, l944, vol. III, pg 229.
14. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, pg 93.
15. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, pg 133.
16. Paideia: the Ideals of Greek Culture, Werner Jaeger, trans: Gilbert Highet, Oxford University Press NY, l944, vol. III, pg 218
17. The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race Karl Otfried Müller, 2nd rev. ed. Vol II, pg 13.
18. The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race Karl Otfried Müller, 2nd rev. ed. Vol I, pg 494.
19. The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus Thucydides, Xenophon, and Polybius, M. I. Finley, edited and selected by, The Viking Press, NY l959. bk VI 45-47; pg 490-492.
20. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Bk II vii 1; 1271b 20; pg 149.
21. The Lives, Bio on Pyrrhus, pgs 488, 490-491.
22. Cicero, On Government, trans. by Michael Grant, Penguin Books, NY, l993. pg 351
23. "Freedom of Speech in Antiquity", Arnaldo Momigliano, as published in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. by Philip P. Wiener, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, l973. Vol II, pg 257.
24. Pausanias iii, 2. as quoted in The Life of Greece, Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1939. pg 63.
25. The Life of Greece, Will Durant, Simon and Schuster, NY, 1939. pg 23.
26. Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, 1st quote: Bk II vii 1; 1271b 20; pg 149. 2nd quote: Bk II vii 3; 1271b 40-1272a 5; pg 151. 3rd quote; Bk VII ii 5; 1324b 5-10; pg 543.
27. A Handbook of Greek Constitutional History, A.H.J. Greenidge, M.A., Macmillan Co, Limited, London, 1911 (1st published 1896) reprinted by William S. Hein & Co. Inc, Buffalo, NY, 2001. pg 115.
28. The Life of Greece, Will Durant, pg 23.
29. "For Crete as the locus for the first Greek politiea, see Arist. F611.14 (Rose) and Heraclid. Pont. Pol. 3.1-2 (Müller FHG II 211)." as quoted in Republics Ancient and Modern, Paul A. Rahe, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1994. Vol. I pg 289, (n.123).

Bibliography

• The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Karl Otfried Müller, trans. fr. the German by Henry Tufnell, ESQ. & Georg Cornewall Lewis, ESQ., A.M., publisher: John Murray, London, 2nd ed. rev. 1839.