The Lower Classes

Abstract Lower-class inhabitants of Laconia and Messenia far outnumbered their Spartan rulers, but we know very little about them aside from their relationship to the Spartans. For Greek history in general, far more is known about the upper class. Furthermore, even among the upper class, there is less evidence for women than for men. Like women elsewhere in Greece, and like upper-class Spartan women, their status and reputation probably depended largely both upon the property they possessed and upon the men with whom they were associated. For example, as we have seen in the upper class, the mothers of brave men were respected and the mothers and sisters of cowards were dishonored and shunned like the cowards themselves (see chap. 3). Unfortunately, neither ancient sources nor modern studies have made gender a defining category in discussions of the lower classes at Sparta. Hence this chapter is the shortest in the book.