Historical Info for Historical Fiction Readers discussion

The Spartans had two kings. Not one king. Two.

Technically, Sparta wasn’t a monarchy, which implies a sole ruler. It was a dyarchy. I’d never even heard of this term until I started researching Sparta for my manuscript, but it is an actual word (found it in my Webster’s). Details about her dual kingship can be found in Book 6 of Herodotus’ Histories as well as the all-knowing Wikipedius. And Sparta’s wasn’t the only dyarchy in the world, though it’s one of the better-known ones. For more about dyarchies in general, again Wikipedius has a page on them.

“But wait!” you might protest. “I saw the movie 300, and there was only one king!” All I can say is that, although 300 was based on actual events, it did slather it on in terms of artistic license. And one of the less flashy changes they made was to omit Leonidas’ co-king (whose name by the way was Leotychidas).

So why edit him out? I’ll venture to guess it was to make for a tighter story. And I say that because I also wound up depicting Sparta as a monarchy in my YA manuscript. My first draft did include both Spartan Royal houses, but because most aren’t familiar with dyarchies, I needed several paragraphs to explain the concept. Even with the explanations, my beta readers kept getting confused with the dual kingship thing and recommended I drop the second king. I was reluctant to do so, but the manuscript does flow a lot better with that second king omitted.

Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Sparta’s kings came in twos, not ones, and that made for some interesting political dynamics.

So that might beg the question, why? We’ll probably never know for sure, but the Spartans did have an account of the origin of the two royal lines. Herodotus records it in Book 6 of his Histories, and the story goes something like this:

King Aristodemos, who established the Spartan state, had twin sons. After he died, the people were all set to follow custom and crown the older twin king. But they had a problem. The boys were identical, and they couldn’t tell them apart. So they asked the mother, but she said she couldn’t tell either. However, she actually could. According to Herodotus she told the lie because she wanted both twins to be kings if possible.

So what to do?

The Spartans did what all Greeks do when they’re stuck with a dilemma. They went to the Oracle at Delphi. And the Oracle’ answer was: regard both children as kings but give the senior brother greater honor.

o.O

So the gods weren’t providing any clarity, but fortunately, a clever man from Messenia offered some advice. He suggested they watch the mother carefully to observe the order in which she bathed and fed her children. His reasoning was that if she consistently attended one first that she could tell them apart. On the other hand, if she alternated randomly, she couldn’t tell them apart, and they’d have to try something else.

The Spartans followed his advice. Sure enough the mother (who didn’t know why she was being watched) was consistently bathing and feeding one son first – giving him higher honor, so to speak. So the Spartans finally had their older twin, and for some reason, even though the Oracle wasn’t all that helpful, they felt they should abide by its advice to make both boys kings.

The older boy got named Eurysthenes and established the senior Agiad Royal House (which oddly wasn’t named after him but his son Agis). The younger twin, Procles, established the junior Eurypontid Royal House (named after his descendant Eurypon). And Herodotus notes that even though they were brothers, they disagreed with each other throughout their entire lives, and their descendants pretty much followed in that pattern.

To prove this point, here’s the short version of Herodotus’ account of King Cleomenes and King Demaratus:

King Cleomenes goes out of town to take care of business. While he’s away, his co-king Demaratus badmouths him. King Cleomenes gets ticked off and gets King Demaratus ousted from the Eurypontid throne on the grounds of illegitimacy. Demaratus then skips town to hook up with the Persians. Years later, when Cleomenes’ successor Leonidas and his 300 head off to Thermopylae, Demaratus is at the Persian king’s side offering military advice.

Talk about not getting along…

So what were the kings supposed to be collaborating on anyway? On this topic, Herodotus writes:

These privileges the Spartans have given to their kings: two priesthoods, of Zeus called Lacedaemon and of Zeus of Heaven; they wage war against whatever land they wish, and no Spartan can hinder them in this on peril of being put under a curse; when the armies go forth the kings go out first and return last; one hundred chosen men guard them in their campaigns; they sacrifice as many sheep and goats as they wish at the start of their expeditions, and take the hides and backs of all sacrificed beasts.

Considering Sparta was essentially a warrior state, the waging war parts make total sense, but the priestly part might seem a little strange to modern folks. For the Greeks, though, religion was an integral part of warfare. In their world, everything, military conflict included, was subject to divine meddling, and Spartans weren’t the sort to make a move unless they felt they had a “go” from the gods. In fact, they sometimes halted border campaigns simply because the signs were against it.

One of the common ways of discerning the will of the gods was to sacrifice an animal and then “read” its entrails. Kind of a messy messaging system, but that was what they used. And considering the kings were essentially the generals of their military state, they were very much involved in the sacrificing and divining process. In addition to performing military sacrifices, the kings also consulted with the Oracle at Delphi and kept the official archives of past Delphic oracles that they could use as needed. And once everything fell in line for military action, the Spartan troops would assemble in sight of the enemy, and the king in charge would sacrifice a she-goat.

Another reason for the royal priesthood was that the kings themselves were considered sacred persons. In fact, other Spartans were not allowed to touch the king in public. Part of this goes back to the fact that the royals claimed descent from the mythic hero Heracles, better known by his Roman name Hercules. Heracles himself was a son of Zeus, meaning that the Spartan kings had a touch of the divine running in their veins. And who better to interface with the immortals than the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandsons of the king of the gods?

Given this illustrious background, the kings, despite Sparta’s reputation for austerity, had a number of perks that went with their title. They included:

-Being the first to sit and the first to get served at public sacrifices. Kings also got the hides of the sacrificial animals.

-Front seats at all contests.

-The right to appoint whichever Spartan citizen they wanted to be proxenoi (a kind of representative who looked out for the interests of a non-Spartan city).

-The right to appoint two sacred delegates to Delphi.

-Double portions when dining at the royal mess hall. The extra portion, by the way, was not so much for the kings to gorge themselves, but to be given to an invited guest or favored individual.

-Respect as a sacred person. This was shown in various ways. For instance, no one could touch a king in public. Also, people could not sit in a king’s presence.

-Exemption from the Agoge (Sparta’s notoriously harsh paramilitary school) for Crown Princes.

The last perk wasn’t so much for the king as it was for his heir apparent. It also might seem kind of strange considering the Agoge was the institution that taught boys how to fight, to survive, to be true Spartan warriors.

Yet it was probably because of its cutthroat curriculum that the Crown Princes got a free pass. Agoge training was no respecter of persons. Meaning a stronger, more skilled commoner’s son could definitely beat the snot out of a nobleman’s boy and get praised for it. And for someone destined to be at the top of the Spartan food chain, it would definitely look bad to get thrashed by your classmates, especially when you’re claiming descent from none other than Heracles (Hercules).

To be sure, there was the occasional king who did undergo Agoge training, and historians are usually quick to mention it if that was the case. One was King Agesilaus, who happens to be the older brother of my manuscript’s main character. Another was King Leonidas, who was half-brother to the preceding king, and considering the way he went down with his men at Thermopylae, his Agoge training really showed.

Originally posted at my Keeping in Canon blog.

Great, interesting information. Thank you! So we can't rely on the movies? I'll tweet this information out and add it on my FB page.

Debra wrote: "Great, interesting information. Thank you! So we can't rely on the movies? I'll tweet this information out and add it on my FB page."

I heard from a screenwriter friend that by the time a script gets past a film producer, director, and actors, the movie that comes out is nowhere near a match to the original script. i think the same applies for book adaptions. I'm sure I wasn't the only one watching the film Troy and going, "Wait...that's not how it was in the book..."