Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/243

 SPAKTA 231 alaudarius, Briss.) has been described under KESTREL. The accipiter nisus (Pall.) of Eu- rope is also called sparrow hawk ; the male is dark bluish gray above, reddish white be- low with yellowish red transverse bars ; the female is grayish brown above, and grayish white below barred with dark gray. The size and habits are about the same in both. SPARTA, or Laeedwnion, in antiquity, the capi- tal of Laconia and the chief city of the Pelo- ponnesus. It was on the right bank of the Eu- rotas, between the tributaries (Enus and Tiasa, about 20 m. from the sea, in a valley of re- markable beauty and fertility, bounded "W. and E. by the ranges of Taygetus and Parnon. It was about 6 m. in circumference, and consisted of distinct quarters which were originally sepa- rate villages. During its most flourishing pe- riod it was unfortified, being protected by the natural ramparts of the valley. Its quarters were Pitane in the north, the favorite place of residence, Cynosura in the southwest, Limnae in the east along the Eurotas, and Mesoa in the southeast. ^Egidse, in the northwest, ad- joining Pitane, is also mentioned by some wri- ters, but it was probably the name of a tribe or family and not of a quarter. One of its steepest hills (the northern hill, according to Leake ; the hill of the theatre, according to Cur- tius) was called the acropolis, on which were the temples of Athena Chalcicecus, the tute- lary goddess of the city, of Athena Ergane, the Muses, Zeus Oosmetas, and Aphrodite Areia, and many statues in honor of divinities and leroes. In the agora, near the acropolis, and adorned with temples and statues, were the council house of the senate and the offices of the public magistrates, the Persian stoa built of spoils taken in the Persian war, and the place called Chorus where Spartan youths danced in honor of Apollo. Two principal streets, named Apheta'is and Skias, extended nearly parallel to each other from the agora, the former to the S., the latter to the S. E. extremity of the city. Upon the largest of the Spartan heights was the theatre, a magnificent building of white marble, the two wings of which still remain, 430 ft. apart, built of massive quadrangular blocks, and forming the most important relics of the ancient city. The private houses of Sparta, and even the palace of the kings, were always simple and unadorned, but it was equalled by few other Greek cities in the mag- nificence of its f emples and statues. The mod- ern town of Sparta, built since the war of in- dependence, occupies one of the hills in the S. part of the ancient site. Its streets are laid out on a large scale, and it has a population of about 8,000. The nomarch and other officials of La- conia reside here. The villages of Hagula and Psychiko are near it, and 3 m. "W. of it is Mis- tra, which was the chief place of the district in mediaeval and Turkish times. According to tradition, the Leleges were the most ancient inhabitants, and Lelex the first king, in the vale of the middle Eurotas. Lacedaemon, son of Jupiter and Taygete, married Sparta, third in descent from Lelex, and gave the name of his wife to the city which he founded, and his own name to the people and country. During the mythical era of the Achaean monarchies, Menelaus reigned at Sparta, as Agamemnon at Mycenaa and Diomedes at Argos. After the Dorian invasion and conquest of the Pelopon- nesus, under the Heraclidse, Sparta fell to Eurysthenes and Procles, the twin sons of the Heraclid Aristodemus; and from that epoch date the long succession of two joint kings, and the distinction between the conquerors, who were called Spartans, and the native Achoaans (Periceci), who became tributary. At first inferior to Argos, Sparta became the chief of the Dorian powers only after the in- stitutions of Lycurgus had made it a nation of professional soldiers. The introduction of the Lycurgan discipline (not later, according to Grote, than 825 B. C.), the earliest de- terminable event in its internal history, was followed by aggressions which gradually ex- tended its sway over the greater part of the Peloponnesus. There is no certain personal history of Lycurgus, and his very existence has been doubted by critics. (See A. Trieber, Forschungen zur spartaniscJien Verfassungs- gescMchte, Berlin, 1871.) The Lycurgan le- gislation has been called the codification of the usages of the Doric race. It recognized three classes of persons: 1, the Spartans, of Dorian stock, resident in the city, alone eligi- ble to public offices, all warriors, supported from the lands around the city which belonged to them, and being disfranchised when they failed to pay their quota to the public mess ; 2, the Perioeci or Laconians, freemen of the neighboring townships, with no political power, devoted to agriculture and industry, paying rent for their land, and forming bodies of heavy-armed soldiers in war ; and 3, the helots, or serfs, bound to the soil, which they tilled for the Spartan proprietors, and sometimes employed both in domestic and military ser- vice. The equal division of land into 9,000 lots for Spartans and 30,000 lots for Periceci is doubted by Grote ; and the number of Spartan citizens diminished from the era of the Persian war, when Herodotus estimated them at 8,000, to the time of Agis IV., when they had dwindled to 700, of whom 100 alone possessed most of the'landed property of the state. At the head of the government were two hereditary kings, whose power was gradually restricted till their position was one of nominal honor rather than real authority. The legislative power was ex- ercised by two assemblies, that of the elders and that of the citizens ; the former was com- posed of the two kings and 28 members aged at least 60 years, who were judges in capital cases, and initiated and discussed all measures submitted to the popular assembly ; and the latter, composed of all Spartan citizens of 30 years of age and of unblemished character, met once a month, and had the right to ap-