Not long ago, I had occasion to reread Xenophon’s Hellenika and in this rereading I was struck by just how little we really know about Spartan social organization. For all that Xenophon expands our knowledge of Sparta tenfold over the other Classical authors, most often he gives us only tantalizing hints or throws out a term expecting his readers to understand. As George Cawkwell writes in his introduction to the Penguin edition of the Rex Warner translation, Xenophon writes for those who know.

Most often, of course, he mentions what Warner translates as “Spartans of the officer class”. I presume this is what we usually refer to as “full Spartiates” or the homoioi. When discussing the conspiracy of Kinadon, who apparently plotted a revolution of many of Sparta’s lower classes during Agesilaos’ first year as king (397 BC). Those listed as potential allies of the rebels are “helots, freedmen, lower-grade Spartans, and Perioikoi.” (III.3.6) It is the third group that stands out, the lower-grade Spartans or hypomeiones. This word occurs nowhere else in Classical literature and we don’t know what Xenophon meant. Are they equivalent to the so-called Tremblers who lost their full citizenship rights due to “conduct unbecoming a Spartan”? Do they represent, perhaps, those who were downgraded for failing to contribute to their syssitia or for some other reason? Is this a catchall term for all of these groups? Alas, all we can do is speculate.

Later in the same section (III.3.8), Xenophon mentions the Little Assembly. It’s meaning is also unknown. He tells us that the ephors acted to arrest Kinadon only with the approval of a small number of selected Elders, not even bothering to call together the Little Assembly. Was this some body that lay between the gerousia and the full assembly of Spartans or might it be another term for the gerousia?

Perhaps the most intriguing passage of all is V.3.9. The year is 381 and Teleutias has been killed at Olynthos. Agesilaos has been chosen to lead an army north to deal with the problem. He is granted a staff of 30 full Spartiates and has to put the rest of his forces together himself. “Many of the better class Perioikoi, too, went with him as volunteers; also aliens belonging to the so-called ‘Spartan-trained’ (trophimoi); also bastard sons of Spartan officers, a very fine-looking body of men and one well acquainted with the ideals of the city.”

It’s a tantalizing list that hints at so much. The trophimoi are most likely the sons of aliens who were allowed to live in Sparta and allowed to participate in the agoge, as Xenophon’s own sons were. Clearly, Spartan training was also allowed to outsiders. The bastard sons were undoubtedly those born to women who were not full citizens, though I rather doubt there were any helots among them; most likely freedwomen or Perioikoi women. And we learn that there were rankings of Perioikoi as well, even if we know nothing of what those rankings were.

We can also add to this list the mothakes. There seems to be some dispute in the much later sources as to just what they were, but there is some agreement that they were “foster-brothers” of the sons of full Spartiates. Phylarkhos says that they were free but not Lakedaimonians. Aelian, on the other hand, says that they were slaves of the rich sent to accompany their sons in training; those who withstood everything were made citizens according to a law of Lykourgos. This is rather unlikely. Both Phylarkhos and Aelian state that Lysander was a mothax who was granted citizenship for valor, and Aelian also says that Gylippos was too. However, we know that Lysander was a Heraklid and Gylippos’ father was Kleandridas, who was exiled in 445 BC. Both men were very poor in their youth. From this A.H.M. Jones conclude that the mothakes were the sons of the hypomeines. I think this presumes too much on our understanding of a term used only once in all of Classical literature, but it probably fair to say that they were the sons of men who had been downgraded for whatever reason. Apparently they could be chosen as foster-brother of the son of a full Spartiate and allowed to gain full citizenship by undergoing the agoge and meeting the other requirements. The only upward route we know of in Sparta.