The political organisation of Sparta, including the dual kingship, the gerousia, the ephorate, and the apella, and their relationships in practice

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to describe the four main political institutions of Sparta (dual kingship, gerousia, ephorate, apella), their constitutional powers, their relationships in practice, and the ancient and modern interpretations of the Spartan constitution as a "mixed" form combining monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy.

The answer

The dual kingship

Sparta had two simultaneous kings, one from the Agiad royal house (descended from Agis, son of Heracles via one line) and one from the Eurypontid house (descended from Eurypon, son of Procles, the other line). Hereditary through the eldest legitimate son.

The two-king system functioned as an internal check. Disputes between the kings (Cleomenes I and Demaratus, in the 490s BC) led to a 6th-century reform whereby only one king at a time accompanied the army on campaign.

The kings held five core powers:

Military command. The king led the army, commanded the right wing in battle, and had broad operational authority on campaign.

Religious authority. As chief priests of Zeus Lacedaemonius and Zeus Uranios, the kings consulted Delphi and supervised the major state festivals (Hyacinthia, Gymnopaedia, Karneia).

Judicial role. The kings judged certain civil cases (succession of heiresses, public roads, adoption).

Membership of the gerousia. Each king sat as an ex officio member of the council of elders.

Personal privileges. Double rations at the syssitia, a personal guard of 300 hippeis (an elite unit of citizen warriors), and elaborate royal funerals (Herodotus 6.58 describes the practices).

The gerousia

The gerousia was the council of elders. It comprised 28 men aged at least 60 (the age of release from active military service), plus the two kings, for a total of 30 members. The 28 were elected for life by the apella, voting by acclamation. Election was a high honour and restricted to a small number of prominent families.

The gerousia held three main functions:

Probouleutic. Prepared the agenda for the apella. Decisions had to be debated in the gerousia before going to the assembly.

Veto. Plutarch (Lycurgus 6) records a "rider" to the Great Rhetra giving the gerousia and the kings power to dissolve the apella if it tried to amend a proposal. This effectively gave the gerousia legislative control.

Judicial. Acted as the court for capital cases, including charges against the kings.

The ephorate

Five ephors were elected annually by the apella from the entire Spartiate citizen body. Office was for one year only with no immediate re-election. The chief ephor gave his name to the year (the eponymous ephor).

The ephorate developed substantial executive power, particularly from the 6th century BC. By the 5th century BC the ephors held the practical leadership of the state.

Their powers included:

Presiding over the gerousia and apella. The ephors set the agenda and called the votes.

Conducting foreign policy. They received foreign ambassadors and could declare war (subject to apella ratification).

Annual declaration of war on the Helots. Plutarch, Lycurgus 28.

Oversight of the agoge. They supervised the state education system.

Oversight of the kings. Two ephors accompanied the king on campaign and reported back. They could prosecute the kings for misconduct.

Judicial role. The ephors heard civil cases not reserved to the gerousia.

The ephor Chilon (mid 6th century BC) was reckoned one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Famous ephoral acts include the trial of King Pausanias (around 470 BC) and the prosecution of King Agis II.

The apella

The apella was the citizen assembly. All Spartiate males aged 30 and over could attend. The assembly met monthly at the full moon at the Sciastion in the outdoor space near the Eurotas.

The apella voted on proposals submitted by the gerousia. Voting was by acclamation: the ephors judged which proposal had received the louder shout. Where unclear, a physical division was used (citizens moving to one side or the other).

The apella could not amend or originate; it could only accept or reject. The gerousia could veto an apella decision under the "rider" to the Great Rhetra.

The apella elected the ephors and gerontes (elders), making it the constitutional source of executive personnel even if it did not directly govern.

The mixed constitution

Aristotle (Politics 1265b, 1294b) described the Spartan constitution as a mixed form combining elements of monarchy (the kings), oligarchy (the gerousia), democracy (the apella), and tyranny (the ephorate's extensive power). The mixed form was praised by classical political philosophers as stable.

Plato (Laws 691e) gave a similar reading. Polybius (Histories 6.10) treated Sparta alongside the Roman Republic as the great example of mixed government.

Modern historians (Cartledge, Hodkinson) endorse the mixed-constitution view but emphasise the historical shift in the balance: the kings dominated in the early period, the ephors from the 6th century BC onwards.

Spartan political organs at a glance

Historiography

Paul Cartledge (Sparta and Lakonia, 1979; Agesilaos, 1987) treats the constitution as gradually shifting authority from the kings to the ephorate. The ephoral dominance is the central institutional fact of the classical period.

Stephen Hodkinson (Property and Wealth, 2000) examines how wealth among the Spartiates affected access to gerousia office and the practical workings of the apella.

Anton Powell (Athens and Sparta, 2001) compares the Spartan system with the Athenian democracy and notes the contrasting balance of stability and reform.

How to read a source on this topic

Section II sources on Spartan politics typically include Aristotle's Politics, Plutarch's Lycurgus, Xenophon's Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Herodotus 6.51-60 (on the kingship), and Thucydides on Spartan diplomacy. Three reading habits.

First, distinguish ideology from practice. Xenophon's Constitution is an idealised account by a pro-Spartan exile. Aristotle is more critical. Use both, but identify their stance.

Second, fix the time period. The constitution evolved. The 7th-century BC arrangements (under Lycurgan reforms) are different from the 4th-century BC realities (the late Spartiate decline). Sources from different periods reflect different stages.

Third, integrate the ephoral perspective. The dominance of the ephorate in the 5th and 4th centuries BC is essential context for any 4th-century episode (Agesilaus, the Battle of Leuctra).

Common exam traps

Treating the kingship as a single office. There were always two kings simultaneously.

Confusing gerousia and apella. Gerousia: 30 elders, probouleutic. Apella: full citizen assembly, ratification.

Overstating ephoral power before the 6th century BC. The ephorate was institutionally weaker in the early period.

Forgetting Chilon. The mid 6th-century ephor was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. He often appears in source-based questions.

In one sentence

The Spartan political system combined two hereditary kings (Agiad and Eurypontid) holding military and religious power, a 28-member gerousia of elders elected for life as the probouleutic council, five annually elected ephors who dominated executive and foreign policy from the 6th century BC onward, and an apella of citizen Spartiates that ratified proposals, a mixed constitution that Aristotle (Politics 1265b) and Plato praised and Cartledge interprets as a system whose practical balance shifted progressively toward ephoral control across the classical period.