On the march one company led the way and the others followed in order. When an enemy came in sight, each regiment was able by means of evolutions of companies to form itself for battle in the dense array of the phalanx; and further by varying the evolutions the phalanx was made to face in any direction that was desired, and it was ensured that the front rank was composed entirely of the very best of the warriors[83].
The Spartan soldiers seem to have had no defensive armour except a large brazen shield: their dress was of a bright red[84] colour, and probably consisted of a single large plaid which could be fastened with a brooch at the shoulder[85]: for offensive weapons they had a long spear and short sword[86]. A regiment arranged in phalanx had a front rank of about sixty-four men as in the great battle in 418 B.C.: each of the ranks behind contained the same number, and there were in some cases as many as eight ranks[87]. For a body thus arranged the long spear for thrusting was obviously the best weapon: but the short sword was also needed whenever there was a close combat between man and man.
III. We have already seen[88] that the Spartans in prehistoric times lived under a system of government which I have called dual heroic kingship: their political institutions were in most respects the same as those of the other Greeks in the heroic age, but they regularly had two kings reigning at the same time, each being head by descent of one of the two royal houses. After the establishment of the dual heroic kingship but still in the prehistoric age the Spartans introduced further modifications in their system of government: and since their descendants, whether rightly or wrongly, believed that the wise lawgiver Lycurgus had been the author of these changes, the modified system of government is known as the constitution of Lycurgus. This celebrated constitution is defined in a ῥήτρα or solemn compact said to have been dictated to Lycurgus by the Delphic priestess and accepted by the Spartans: Plutarch has preserved a document which professes to be the original text: and, though the pretensions of this document to extreme antiquity are probably unfounded, there is no doubt that it gives a truthful account of the government[89]. It orders Lycurgus "to found a temple of Zeus Syllanius and Athena Syllania, to divide the people into tribes (φυλαί) and obes (ὠβαί), to establish a senate of elders, thirty in number with the commanders (i.e. the kings), to hold assemblies at fixed times between Babyca and Knakion, and so to propose measures and take decisions on them: and that the commons (δᾶμος, δῆμος, the whole of the Spartiatæ) should have (? the decision?)[90] and authority." Thus the constitution of Lycurgus retained all the three component parts of the system to which I have given the name of dual kingship, the two kings, the council of elders, and the assembly of the people: but it prescribed that the meetings of the king and elders and people were to be held no longer according to the caprice of the kings but at fixed times and between two places which were both in the town of Sparta or close to it: the council of elders was to consist of exactly thirty members, the two kings being included in that number: and the assembly of the people was to possess authority (κράτος).
The powers that belonged severally to the kings to the elders and to the assembly are not defined. But the constitution was made in the age of the heroic monarchies and was derived from a dual heroic kingship by the introduction of slight alterations. We may accordingly assume that in the system of Lycurgus, as in the government that preceded it, the important right of initiating measures was intended to belong exclusively to the kings and elders, and that the "authority" reserved to the popular assembly was no more than a right of voting Aye or No on proposals which the kings and elders submitted to it. In making this assumption we shall moreover be in agreement with Plutarch[91], who, either from such merely probable reasoning as we can use or on the authority of some writer who preceded him, states that the kings and elders alone had the initiative. In course of time however the assembly attempted to amend what was put before it or to initiate proposals of its own, and a second enactment (ῥήτρα) was made to put a stop to its usurpations. From the stories of the wars with Messenia we learn that the command in war was one of the prerogatives of the kings.
The first historical Spartan is Theopompus, who was one of the two kings at some time between 750 B.C. and 650 B.C. In his reign three great events took place: (1) the Spartans waged war against their neighbours the Messenians, defeated them, and made either a partial or a complete conquest of their country, (2) the general assembly of Spartan people was explicitly declared subordinate to the council of elders, and (3) the office of the Ephors or Overseers was created.
(1) Somewhere about 650 B.C. the poet Tyrtæus was living at Sparta and wrote the lines:
Ἡμετέρῳ βασιλῆι, θεοῖσι φίλῳ Θεοπόμπῳ,
ὃν διὰ Μεσσήνην εἵλομεν εὐρύχορον.
i.e. "To our king Theopompus beloved of the gods, to whom we owed our conquest of the broad plains of Messenia[92]." The subjugation of Messenia must have been a very difficult task: the country like the other natural divisions of Greece is protected by mountains and it was defended by a brave and numerous race of Dorians. Tyrtæus tells us that one of the wars against Messenia was carried on continuously for nineteen years[93].
(2) We are informed by Plutarch[94] that, long after the establishment of the Lycurgean constitution, the assembly of the Spartiatæ took to a practice of distorting and perverting the resolutions laid before them by omitting or inserting clauses, and therefore the reigning kings Polydorus and Theopompus added to the constitution a new rule which enacted that "if the people chose crookedly, the elders and the kings should have the final decision[95]." Thus the general assembly was rendered incapable of insisting on measures of its own initiation: though it probably retained a right of veto on all measures which the council might propose and was consulted whenever the state had to decide whether it should undertake a great and important war[96].
(3) Plato (quoted by Plutarch) says that though Lycurgus had established a constitution of mixed elements, yet the Spartans after his time finding that their oligarchy (the kings and the elders) was nevertheless too strong and was swelled and puffed up with power and pride, set up the office of the Ephors to be a bit in its mouth: and Aristotle says of Theopompus that he reduced the extent of the kingly power by the creation of the magistracy of the Ephors and adds "They say that his wife asked him whether he was not ashamed to transmit to his sons less kingly power than he had inherited, and he replied: 'Not in the least: for the power will be the more lasting[97].'"