Gerousia

"Gerusia" redirects here. For the village in Iran, see Gerusia, Iran. For the moth genus, see Gerusia (moth).
The Spartan Constitution

The Gerousia (γερουσία) was the council of elders in ancient Sparta. Sometimes called the Spartan senate, it was made up of the two Spartan kings, plus 28 Spartiates over the age of sixty, known as gerontes. The Gerousia was a prestigious body, holding extensive judicial and legislative powers, which helped shape Spartan policy.

Ancient Greeks considered that the Gerousia was created by the mythical Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus in his Great Rhetra, the constitution of Sparta.

The gerontes were elected through peculiar shouting elections, which were open to manipulation, especially from the kings.

Membership

The Gerousia consisted of thirty members in total. Twenty-eight elected members (called gerontes) and the two kings, who were members by right, entering the chamber upon their accession. Unlike the kings, the 28 gerontes had to be at least 60 years old—the age when Spartan citizens were no longer required to serve in the army. Membership of the Gerousia was for life, which made the gerontes' position very prestigious within a Spartan society that accorded great respect to old age.[1]

The electoral procedure is known thanks to the biographer Plutarch, who wrote c. 100 AD, but whose source was probably the lost Aristotelian Spartan Constitution.[2] There were no ballots: the gerontes were elected by shouting. The candidates passed one by one before the Spartan Assembly, who then shouted according to their preference. The loudness of the shouts was assessed by a jury confined into a windowless building, who then declared the winner to be the candidate receiving what they judged to be the loudest shouts.[3] Aristotle considered this system "childish", probably because influential people (such as the kings) could easily manipulate the elections.[4]

The gerontes were likely drawn from a limited aristocracy composed of only a few families, sometimes called the kaloi kagathoi. Since the 19th century, scholars have debated whether these families had a legal privilege on Gerousia membership, as opposed to a de facto monopoly. Of the latter opinion, G. E. M. de Ste. Croix compared the situation in Sparta with that of the Roman Republic, where a few gentes monopolised senior magistracies, notably thanks to their patronage network—a practice likely prevalent in Spartan politics.[5]

As the kings were by right members of the Gerousia, they usually entered the chamber well before the age of sixty and served much longer terms than the ordinary gerontes, which they could use to build their influence there. Several shrewd kings, such as Cleomenes I or Agesilaus II, developed over the years such a network of supporters among the gerontes that they de facto controlled the Gerousia, therefore Sparta's external and internal policies. This patronage of the gerontes by a king is illustrated by the story reported by Plutarch of Agesilaus II offering an ox and cloak to every new member of the Gerousia.[6]

Paul Cartledge notes that when a king was absent, his nearest relative could cast a vote for him in the Gerousia, which means that at least two gerontes besides the kings were of royal stock (one for each dynasty) and further shows the influence that the kings had on the electoral procedure, as they could engineer the elections of their relatives.[7]

The Gerousia was probably reformed by the king Cleomenes III (r.235–222), who made the gerontes elected annually. No longer elected for life, the source of the gerontes' prestige was removed and the Gerousia became a more pliable chamber as a result.[8]

Functions

Supreme court

The Gerousia served as the court in charge of capital cases. A king could even be prosecuted before a special court of 34 members, made of the Gerousia and the five ephors (the defendant king could not sit in the Gerousia during the trial).[9] A famous case was the trial of king Pausanias in 403; accused of betrayal for having restored democracy in Athens, he was nonetheless acquitted by a 19-15 decision, in which the other king Agis II had cast his vote against him.[10] Thanks to this judicial power, the gerontes were able to significantly influence foreign policy, although they had no constitutional power in that field, because the fear of prosecution before the Gerousia compelled Spartan officials to follow the gerontes' opinion.[11] For example, in 371 the king Cleombrotus was advised by his friends to energetically wage war against Thebes to avoid a later trial.[9]

Probouleusis

The Gerousia debated motions which were to be put before the citizen assembly, with the power to prevent any motion from being passed on.[12] The Great Rhetra suggests that it had the power to overturn decisions made by the Spartan assembly.[13]

Legacy

The name Gerousia continued to be known in Laconia in the Deep or Mesa Mani known as the "Gerontikoi" until recent times.[14]

In the Parliament of modern Greece, the name of the upper house was Gerousia between 1844–1864 and 1927–1935.

Possible gerontes of pre-Roman Sparta

Very few names of gerontes have been preserved before the Roman conquest.

  • Hetoimaridas, an Heraclid and influential geronte who convinced the Spartans not to go to war against Athens in 475.[15][16]
  • Lichas was perhaps a geronte at the end of the 5th century. He was an Olympic victor and played a significant role in shaping Spartan diplomacy.[17] He died in Miletus c.396.[18]
  • Etymokles, a friend of king Agesilaus II; while a geronte, he was also a member of an embassy to Athens when Sphodrias attempted to capture Piraeus in 378.[19]
  • Prothöos, perhaps a geronte in 371, he argued for the recall of king Cleombrotus, who was leading an army against Thebes. His call was dismissed, and Sparta was defeated at the subsequent battle of Leuctra.[20]
  • Aineidas, a geronte from the middle of the 4th century, only known from an inscription.[21]
  • Agasisthenes, a geronte c.150, who made a motion in the Gerousia to send into exile 24 citizens to avoid war with the Achaean League.[22]

Notes

  1. ^ Cartledge 1987, pp. 121, 123 ("Sparta was a society imbued with a pronounced, almost exaggerated respect for and deference to old age.").
  2. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 122; Plutarch, Lycurgus, 26
  3. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 122.
  4. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 122.
  5. ^ Ste. Croix 1972, pp. 353–354. For examples of the former view see: Forrest 1968, pp. 46, 63, 113; Chrimes 1949, pp. 400, 425; for the latter see: Hicks 1906, pp. 23–27; Cartledge 1987, pp. 18, 122 ("so it is probably safest to assert only that in practice, de facto rather than de iure, the gerontes were drawn from a restricted social group").
  6. ^ Millender 2018, p. 467.
  7. ^ Cartledge 1987, pp. 109, 122.
  8. ^ Cartledge and Spawforth 1989, pp. 51–52; Stewart 2018, p. 393.
  9. ^ a b Cartledge 1987, p. 123.
  10. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 351.
  11. ^ Ste. Croix 1972, pp. 124–126.
  12. ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 61.
  13. ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 62.
  14. ^ Cartledge 2002, p. 60.
  15. ^ Poralla & Bradford, Prosopographie, p. 54.
  16. ^ Ste. Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War, pp. 143, 170.
  17. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 188.
  18. ^ Pouilloux & Salviat, Lichas, Lacédémonien, p. 390.
  19. ^ Cartledge 1987, p. 136.
  20. ^ Cartledge 1987, pp. 307–308.
  21. ^ Poralla & Bradford, Prosopographie, p. 192.
  22. ^ Bradford, Prosopography, p. 10.

References

  • Bradford, Alfred S. (1977), A Prosopography of Lacedaemonians from the Death of Alexander the Great, 323 B. C., to the Sack of Sparta by Alaric, A. D. 396, Munich, Beck, 1977. ISBN 3-406-04797-1.
  • Cartledge, Paul (1987), Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8018-3505-4. ISBN 978-0-8018-3505-6. Internet Archive.
  • Cartledge, Paul (2002), The Spartans: An Epic History, London, Pan Books, 2002. ISBN 978-1-4472-3720-4.
  • Cartledge, Paul and Antony Spawforth (1989), Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, A tale of two cities, London and New York, Routledge, 1992 (1989). ISBN 0-415-07144-5. Internet Archive.Internet Archive.
  • Chrimes, K. T. M. (1949), Ancient Sparta, a Re-examination of the Evidence, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1971 (1949). Internet Archive)
  • Forrest, W. G. (1968), A History of Sparta, 950-192 B.C, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1968. ISBN 978-0-3930-0481-6. Internet Archive.
  • Hicks, R. D. (1906), "A Supposed Qualification for Election to the Spartan Senate", The Classical Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Feb., 1906), pp. 23-27. JSTOR 694869.
  • Millender, Ellen G. (2018), "Kingship: The History, Power, and Prerogatives of the Spartans' 'Divine' Dyarchy", in A Companion to Sparta, Anton Powell (editor), Hoboken, Wiley, 2018. ISBN 978-1-4051-8869-2.
  • Plutarch, Agesilaus, in Plutarch: Lives, Volume V: Agesilaus and Pompey. Pelopidas and Marcellus, translated by Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Classical Library No. 87. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1917. ISBN 978-0-674-99097-5. Online version at Harvard University Press.
  • Plutarch, Lycurgus, in Plutarch: Lives, Volume I: Theseus and Romulus, Lycurgus and Numa, Solon and Publicola, translated by Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Classical Library No. 46, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1914. ISBN 978-0-674-99052-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
  • Poralla, Paul and Alfred S. Bradford, Prosopographie der Lakedaimonier, bis auf die Zeit Alexanders des Grossen, Chicago, 1985 (originally published in 1913). OCLC 1151065049.
  • Pouilloux, J. and F. Salviat, "Lichas, Lacédémonien, archonte à Thasos, et le livre viii de Thucydide", Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 127-2, 1983, pp. 376–403
  • Schulz, Fabian (2011), Die homerischen Räte und die spartanische Gerusie, Düsseldorf: Wellem Verlag
  • Stewart, Daniel (2018), "From Leuktra to Nabis, 371–192", in A Companion to Sparta, Anton Powell (editor), Hoboken, Wiley, 2018. ISBN 978-1-4051-8869-2.
  • Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, Duckworth, London, 2001 (1972). ISBN 0-7156-1728-1.
  • Tod, Marcus Niebuhr (1911). "Gerousia" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 903.
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