Ski ritai

The Skiritai (ancient Greek: Σκιρῖται) are the free inhabitants of a landscape in the mountainous north of the Spartan state, on the border with Arcadia . Due to the strategic importance for Sparta - the road to the north runs through the Skiritis - the Skiritai were subjected to the Spartans at an early stage and received the status of Periöken .

According to Stephan of Byzantium , the Skiritai were of Arcadian origin, and they play a prominent role in Xenophon's " State of the Lacedaemonians ": They are the only ones allowed to march into the field before the king and do the scouting and guard duty of the Spartan army . According to Thucydides , who describes the construction of the Spartan army and the battle of Mantineia in Book V (67 and 68), the Skiritai fight on the endangered left wing of the phalanx . In Book IV, Section 2 of "Kyropädie" (Education of Cyrus ) Xenophon compares them with the Hyrcanic cavalry, which the Assyrians were not spared in dangerous situations or in strenuous undertakings, similar to the way the Lacedaemonians used their ski rites.

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• Edmond Lévy Category: Histoire politique et sociale jusqu'à la conquête romaine, Seuil, coll. Points Histoire , Paris , 2003 ISBN 2-02-032453-9
• Welwei, Karl-Wilhelm : Sparta, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2004, p. 244. ISBN 3-608-94016-2
• Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, Artemis & Winkler, 2002, pp. 354–355 ISBN 3-7608-4103-1
• Xenophon: Kyropädie, Artemis & Winkler, 1992, p. 247 ISBN 3-7608-1670-3
• Andrey Zaykov. Skiritai and the question of citizenship Spartan , in: Issedon - ΙΣΣΕΔΩΝ: Almanac of Ancient History and Culture. Ekaterinburg: The Ural State University Press, 2007. Vol. 4. P. 26-58. (in Russian + English summary.)

Web links

• Information Gathering in Classical Greece by Frank Santini Russell (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999) PDF file, (1.40 MB)
• The Sparta Pages: Laconically Speaking - A Glossary of Terms , (English)