About fifteen miles south-east of Messene, at the head of the gulf, is the thriving little town of Kalamata, with some silk manufactories and a large trade in currants and figs and other fruits. To the south-west, on the coast, about twenty-five miles from Messene, lies the traditional capital of Nestor’s kingdom, still retaining its old Homeric name of (sandy) Pylos. Kalamata is supposed to be the ancient Pheræ at which Telemachus and Nestor’s son, Peisistratus, halted for the night on their way to Sparta to visit Menelaus. The distances suit well enough for a two-days’ ride, but it has been pointed out by V. Bérard that there is no road
across the Taygetus mountains by which travellers could have driven in a chariot to Sparta, as Homer represents the two young men to have done; and he concludes (as Strabo did) that the Pylos referred to must have been the place of the same name much farther north, from which a journey on wheels could be made all the way to Sparta. Even apart from the interest attaching to it as the supposed city of Nestor, Pylos, with the adjacent island of Sphacteria, has had an important place in Greek history, both in ancient and in modern times. In the seventh year of the Pelopennesian war it was the scene of one of the most memorable defeats ever sustained by the Spartans at the hands of the Athenians. Twenty-two centuries afterwards (1770 A.D.) its garrison of Greek insurgents was massacred by the Turks, who, in turn, suffered a similar calamity in 1821 at the outbreak of the War of Liberation, as the Greeks again did at the hands of the Egyptians in 1825; while in 1827 the naval battle of Navarino took place in its bay, resulting in the destruction of the Turkish fleet, with a loss of 6000 lives, in less than two hours, by the combined British, French, and Russian forces.
Sparta was the only Greek state that retained the regal form of government all through the period of Hellenic glory. Its government was not, strictly speaking, a monarchy, however, as there were two royal dynasties, descended from the twin sons of the Heracleid Aristodemus, which had continued unbroken in the male line for 500 years, forming a direct connection with the heroic age. The two kings served as a check on one another’s ambition, preventing the growth of such tyranny as had been found intolerable in other states, and had there led to the adoption of an oligarchic or democratic form of government. The rights of the community were further conserved by the modification of two public bodies, dating from the heroic age, of which we often hear in Homer, namely, the Boulé or Senate and the Ecclesia or General Assembly. In Sparta the former received the name of Gerousia, and consisted of twenty-eight members above sixty years of age, presided over by the two kings; the latter was called Apella, and was periodically convened to consider any proposals submitted to it, and had the right to fill up vacancies in the Gerousia. But the most effectual safeguard against tyranny was found in the annual election, by the Apella, of five officials, named ephors, who came into existence about 750 B.C. and gradually acquired such control of public affairs both at home and abroad that the royal prerogative was virtually reduced to the command of the army in the field, the offering of public sacrifices, the charge of communications with the Delphian oracle, and some other matters of a ceremonial kind. Even in their capacity as commanders-in-chief the kings became subject to the decision of the Assembly as to the making of peace or war, and ultimately had even to take their directions from the ephors in the conduct of a campaign. Every month the kings and the ephors took an oath of fidelity, the former promising to rule in accordance with the constitution, the latter to be loyal in their obedience, on the condition just mentioned. As in our own country, there was a continual tendency to make royalty a position of honour rather than of power, which was the more remarkable in Sparta, as the office was universally regarded as held by divine right, and as lying at the foundation of the nation’s tide to its territorial inheritance derived from Heracles.
The social system introduced by Lycurgus about the beginning of the eighth century B.C., under the direction, as was believed, of the Delphian oracle, was founded upon a species of communism to which only those were admitted who were full citizens of Sparta, and had sufficient property to contribute their appointed quota to the expenses of the common mess. All the citizens without exception had to conform with the utmost regularity to a rigorous code of discipline, which was fitted to produce habits of courage, strength, endurance, self-denial, and simplicity of life. The training of the boys for military service, to which citizens were liable from their twentieth to their sixtieth year, began when they were seven years old. They were not only trained to athletic exercises and feats of strength, but they had also to content themselves with the plainest food and the scantiest clothing. As they approached manhood it was considered to be in the interests of religion, and pleasing to the goddess Artemis Orthia in particular, that they should be severely scourged, and it was no uncommon thing for young lads to die under the operation without betraying any sign of suffering. To be able to bear pain without flinching, and to become inured to the severest hardships and privations, was looked on as the chief end of a manly education.
The young women were also trained in gymnastic exercises, and enjoyed more freedom than in any other part of Greece. They boxed and wrestled, and ran races, sometimes even with the young men. The object of their education was to train them to be mothers of brave men, and their martial spirit comes out in some of the sayings addressed by Spartan mothers to their sons—“Return with your shield or upon it,” “If your sword is too short add a pace to it.” As a rule the women held a position of honour in the community and were frequently possessed of property, so much so that in the fourth century B.C. more than half the land in Laconia belonged to them. They were trained to suppress all emotions of tenderness and compassion, and to reserve their admiration and affection for the brave and strong. Nothing could have been more humiliating than the reception given to defeated soldiers who survived their comrades and returned home. No one would speak to them or associate with them in any way, and if they did not bear themselves with the greatest humility they were liable to be struck and insulted by any one who met them. Cowardice was the one sin for which there was no forgiveness. It is told of one of the men serving under Leonidas, who had allowed some complaint in his eyes to prevent him from joining his comrades at Thermopylæ, that when he went home to Sparta he was treated with the utmost scorn; no