Messenian Wars

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Messenian Wars
date 1. Messenian War:
735–715 BC . Chr
second Messenian war:
669-ca. 600 (?) BC Chr.
3. Messenian war or Helotenaufstand:
464-462 / 52 v. Chr.
place Peloponnese , area: Messenia
Casus Belli 1. Messenian War: Sparta's expansion in the Peloponnese, especially in the fertile Messinia to the southwest.
2. Messenian War: Suppression of the uprising of the oppressed Messenian population.
3. Messenian War or Helot Uprising: After a severe earthquake, numerous Helots and Periöks of Messenia rise up against Sparta.
output Victory of Sparta over the Messenians
Territorial changes 1. Messenian War: Sparta makes Messenia tributary.
2. Messenian War: The population of Messenia is completely helotized and the land is divided among the Spartians by landless people.
3. Messenian War or Helot Uprising: The rebels can build a fortress on Mount Ithome, where they stayed until approx. 452 BC. Can hold. They receive free travel and are settled in Naupaktos through Athens.
Parties to the conflict

Hoplite helmet.svg Sparta

Messinia

The Messenian Wars are two, with the Helot Rebellion of 464 BC. Three wars, which the Greek Polis Sparta waged against Messenia to the west. Sparta subjugated Messenia and eventually helotized the Messenian people. The Messenian Wars had an important impact on the military and social development of the Polis of Sparta.

Source discussion

Plutarch

The Greek Plutarch lived in the 1st and 2nd centuries after the birth of Christ. He was born in Chaironeia, Greece, as a member of the local upper class. He gained fame through his single and double biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, but also through numerous dialogues and his philosophical writings.

His biographies are particularly relevant as an ancient historical source. Here, however, one must consider that Plutarch, according to his own statement, differentiates the biographical work from the work of the historian. It is more important to him to portray the character of people, moralizing views and personal developments than to offer a complete history of events. This can be seen in his sometimes very short descriptions of battles and campaigns as well as in the deliberately literary elaborated speeches that he puts in the mouths of his Roman and Greek heroes.

The value of the Plutarchic tradition can only be fully assessed by comparing it with the sources of other authors and, if possible, with archaeological findings. In addition, the text should always be read critically for distortions caused by the sometimes moralizing intention of the author.

Tyrtaios

In Tyrtaios it is probably a poet chants and fight songs, who lived around the middle of the 7th century in Sparta. His place of birth is given differently by ancient sources, some relocate him to Ionia, others name Athens as the poet's hometown.

Tyrtaios, a contemporary and probably also a participant in the 2nd Messenian War, created battle songs and chants about the course and events of the 1st Messenian War for the fighting Spartians. The tradition of Tyrtan poetry, however, is very fragmentary and thus requires, reinforced by the medium of poetry, a particularly intensive source-critical analysis by the historian.

In particular, the information about the number and timing of the First and Second Messenian Wars is questioned, and even their historical reality is questioned. The chronology of the wars was drawn up with the help of the Spartan King List, which Tyrtaius cannot refer to because it dates from the late 5th century BC. BC. Furthermore, the importance of the Spartan victory in the First Messenian War is relativized: The only conquered city of Messene seems to have been far less significant than is stated in the tradition, so that the report can be interpreted more as an attempt to deny Messene to Sparta. Finally, the role of the helots as a feature of the alleged special position of Sparta is questioned.

prehistory

Sparta was founded around 900 BC. Chr. By two of the immigrants into Greece today tribes of the Dorians in the fertile Eurotas founded -Tal by four villages of the indigenous population, namely Limnai and Cynosura and Mesoa and Pitane conquered, and were combined into a city. The local laconic population was pressed into the helot's booth by the immigrants and used in agriculture, while the new Spartians formed a ruling caste.

The surrounding towns and communities of Achaean and other Doric tribes were subjugated as a result of the Sparta encroachment on the Peloponnese, but not made serfs of the Spartians, as had happened with the indigenous people of Laconia, but rather Periöks , which, like the free Spartians, became were counted among the Lacedaemonians . In contrast to the Spartian full citizens, however, the Periöks were not in possession of civil rights. The population of the Spartan territory consisted of a large proportion of unfree serfs, a somewhat smaller proportion of free periocs and a small number of free, politically active full citizens.

After the founding of Sparta and reaching out to the surrounding area, the Spartans now pushed south , but were only able to take the old Mycenaean fortress Amyklai , which blocked the advance, in the 8th century under King Teleklos . The incorporation of Argos, besieged since the 8th century, into the association of 22 Periökenstädte was not successful; Sparta and Argos were to remain rivals in the Peloponnese for centuries to come . Even in the mountainous north of the peninsula, in Arcadia, where the indigenous population had withdrawn, the Spartans could not record any territorial gains. After these setbacks, the Spartians turned to the south-west of the Peloponnese, the fertile Messinia on the other side of the Taygetus .

The Messenian Wars

1. Messenian War

1st Messenian War
(735–715 BC)
Map of the Peloponnese

According to tradition, the First Messenian War lasted about 20 years and was partly led by King Teleklos. During the war, which was concentrated around Mount Ithome , on which the Messenians had holed up, the fertile Messenia was gradually annexed by Sparta and the population made tribute. The Messenians had to give half of their agricultural income to the Spartan conquerors. Sparta did not practice overseas colonization like other Poleis, but limited itself largely to inland colonization in the Peloponnese in order to satisfy the population's hunger for land and to broaden the economic base. The only Spartan colony overseas was Taranto , located in Magna Graecia .

The conquest of this prosperous landscape led to an increase in Spartan wealth. In this way, more land could be spent on full citizens, who could now devote more time to other things such as physical exercise. The prosperity of Sparta is clearly evident in the increasing number of Spartan Olympians and in the construction of new temples and the expansion of older architecture.

2. Messenian War

2nd Messenian War
(669 - approx. 600 (?) BC)
Map of the Spartan Territory in Classical Times

After the Spartans in 669 BC B.C. had suffered a defeat against the Argeier, the population subjected to the First Messenian War felt encouraged to revolt against the new masters. After the bloody suppression of the Messenian uprising, five Messenian cities were declared Periökenstädten, which were allowed to keep a largely constant territory; the rest of the population was helotized and with the land they worked, with the help of landless people ( old Gr . Klároi Κλάροι) divided among the free citizens, the Spartians.

Since with the final subjugation and helotization of Messenia, the agricultural base of the Spartan state had now completely shifted from the Lacedaemonian Spartians to the Messenian and Laconic Helots, renewed uprisings or even a desertion of the enslaved areas had to be prevented. This prevention led to the well-known and literally Spartan militaristic orientation of the Spartan state and its full citizens. The male Spartians did not take part in agricultural use. The farms assigned to them were administered by the Spartiat women and run by state slaves, the helots, who were tied to the land. This gave the male citizens enough time for physical exercise and military drill. In this way, renewed uprisings were prevented, the suppression of them simplified and the effects kept to a minimum.

The militarization of Sparta as well as the orientation of the state and art towards the hoplite class led to an increased leveling off of the prosperity of art, culture and international exchange and engagement that began after the Second Messenian War by the beginning of the 5th century. Strangers were seen less and less in Sparta, and the subtle excesses of art and culture withered and aligned themselves with what was militarily desired, such as battle songs.

3. Messenian War or Helot Revolt

3. Messenian War or
Helot Rising (464–462 / 54 BC)
Spartan hoplite

In 464 BC BC Lacedaimonia was hit by a severe earthquake and the Polis of Sparta was badly damaged. The subsequent confusion and weakening of the Lacedaemonian state took advantage of the oppressed Helots of Messenia in 464 BC. To a rebellion to shake off the Spartan yoke.

The Spartan forces had great difficulty controlling the insurrection. A capture of Sparta could be prevented, but the insurgents succeeded, similar to the 1st Messenian War, to entrench themselves on Mount Ithome and thus to withstand the Spartians. Because of the difficulties in containing the uprising, the Spartans sent 463/2 BC. A delegation to Athens to request military support there; in Athens during this time of Sparta, friendly Kimon directed the politics of the city-state.

Kimon then moved in 462 BC. BC with a contingent of hoplites to Sparta to provide military aid. In Lacedaimonia, however, the military situation had changed in favor of the Spartans during the period 463/2 and the Spartan elite feared the increase in democratic beliefs in Lacedaimonia due to the presence of the Athenian associations. So Kimon and his hoplites were sent back to Athens as quickly as possible. This was seen as an affront by Athens and strained the relations between the two Poleis and the developing power blocs of the Peloponnesian League and the Delisch-Attian Sea League , which soon afterwards collided in the Peloponnesian War.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Massimo Nafissi: Sparta. In: Kurt A. Raaflaub, Hans van Wees (Ed.): Archaic Greece. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester 2013, pp. 120 f. See also the preface to this volume by Raaflaub and van Wees, p. Xx.
  2. ↑ Not considered here were Spartans of lower rank, the "sons of girls" ( Partheniai ), who then left the country and founded the only Spartan colony of Taranto. See Oswyn Murray, Das early Greece, 1982, p. 208.

swell

  • Aristotle Politics , trans. v. O. Gigon, Düsseldorf 2006.
  • Plutarch Great Greeks and Romans (Vol. 1–6), trans. v. W. Wuhrmann [u. a.], Munich [u. a.] 1954-65.
  • Thucydides : History of the Peloponnesian War , Greek-German, trans. v. GP Landmann, Darmstadt 1993.
  • Tyrtaios . In: D. Ebener: Greek poetry . 2nd Edition. Berlin [u. a.] 1980.

literature

See also