Gerousia Explained

The Gerousia (Γερουσία), (also called the Spartan Senate)^[1] was the council of elders in the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta. It was a prestigious body, holding important judicial, legislative, and supervisory powers. During the Archaic and Classical periods, the Gerousia consisted of the two Spartan kings, plus twenty-eight adult male citizens (Spartiates) called gerontes (γέροντες). The gerontes were required to be at least sixty years old, were elected by acclamation, and held office for life. Following the Classical period, its membership, minimum age, and tenure were all reduced.^[2]

Powers and importance

The Gerousia performed important judicial, legislative, and supervisory functions.^[3]

Judicial

The Gerousia was the highest court of law in Sparta, serving as the court in charge of capital cases.^[4] Even the Spartan kings were subject to the criminal jurisdiction of the Gerousia (sometimes at least in conjunction with the ephors).^[5] Verdicts of the Gerousia could not be appealed, however, a defendant found not guilty could be tried again for the same charge.^[6] Such judicial authority could entail political power as well, as the threat of prosecution could exert considerable influence over the conduct of Spartan foreign policy.^[7]

Legislative and supervisory

Political decision-making at Sparta was divided between the Gerousia, the ephors, and the Spartan Assembly. The Gerousia and the ephors shaped state policy through their shared powers of probouleusis and nomophulakia.^[8] Probouleusis (preliminary deliberation) was a common feature of most Ancient Greek decision-making procedures, whereby a select council or group of officials drafted motions and submitted them to a popular assembly for ratification. At Sparta the probouleutic institutions were the Gerousia and ephors.^[9]

The Gerousia and ephors also held the power of nomophulakia (guardianship of the law) designed to protect Spartan nomos (practice, custom, and law),^[10] to insure both the legality of the enactments passed by the Assembly, as well as their conformity with traditional Spartan norms.^[11] An explicit example of this power of nomophulakia is found in the Great Rhetra, according to which, the Gerousia could not only submit proposals to the Assembly, but could also veto any action of the Assembly.^[12]

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.^[13]

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.^[14] There were no ballots: the Spartan Assembly elected the gerontes by acclamation, their usual voting method.^[15] The candidates passed one by one before the 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.^[16] Aristotle considered this system "childish", probably because influential people (such as the kings) could easily manipulate the elections.^[17]

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.^[18]

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.^[19]

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.^[20]

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.^[21]

Legacy

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

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.^{[22] [23]}
• 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.^[24] He died in Miletus c.396.^[25]
• 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.^[26]
• 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.^[27]
• Aineidas, a geronte from the middle of the 4th century, only known from an inscription.^[28]
• 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.^[29]

References

• Andrewes, A. (1967), "The Government of Classical Sparta", in Ancient Society and Institutions: Studies Presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th Birthday, Barnes & Noble, 1967. Internet Archive.
• Aristotle, Politics in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, vol. 21, translated by H. Rackham, London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1944. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• 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. .
• Cartledge, Paul (1987), Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. . . Internet Archive.
• Cartledge, Paul (2002), The Spartans: An Epic History, London, Channel Four Books, 2002. . Internet Archive.
• Cartledge, Paul and Antony Spawforth (1989), Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, A tale of two cities, London and New York, Routledge, 1992 (1989). . Internet Archive.
• Chrimes, K. T. M. (1949), Ancient Sparta, a Re-examination of the Evidence, Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1971 (1949). Internet Archive
• Davies, Philip (2018), "CHAPTER 18: Equality and Distinction within the Spartiate Community", in A Companion to Sparta, Anton Powell (editor), Hoboken, Wiley, 2018. .
• Ehrenberg, Victor (1968), From Solon to Socrates: Greek History and Civilization During the Sixth and Fifth Centuries B.C., London, Methuen, 1968. Internet Archive.
• Esu, Alberto (2024), Divided Power in Ancient Greece: Decision-Making and Institutions in the Classical and Hellenistic Polis, Oxford University Press, 2024. . .
• Forrest, W. G. (1968), A History of Sparta, 950-192 B.C, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1968. . 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. .
• Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones with the assistance of Roderick McKenzie, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1940. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
• Kennell, Nigel M. (2010), Spartans: A New History, Wiley Blackwell, 2010. .
• 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. .
• 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. . 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. . 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). .
• 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
  • Stewart, Daniel (2018), "From Leuktra to Nabis, 371–192", in A Companion to Sparta, Anton Powell (editor), Hoboken, Wiley, 2018. .
• Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de (1972), The Origins of the Peloponnesian War, Duckworth, London, 2001 (1972). .
• Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, in Xenophon: Scripta Minora, translated by E. C. Marchant, G. W. Bowersock, Loeb Classical Library No. 183, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1925. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Xenophon, Hellenica, Volume I: Books 1-4, translated by Carleton L. Brownson, Loeb Classical Library No. 88, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1918. . Online version at Harvard University Press.
• Xenophon, Hellenica, Volume II: Books 5-7, translated by Carleton L. Brownson, Loeb Classical Library No. 89, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1921. . Online version at Harvard University Press.

Notes and References

1. Cartledge 2002, p. 44, from the Latin senatus ('council of elders') and senex ('old man').
2. For general references, see: Hodkinson 2015, s.v. gerousia; Welwei 2006, s.v. Gerousia.
3. Davies 2018, p. 491; Hodkinson 2015, s.v. gerousia.
4. Davies 2018, p. 491; Cartledge 1987, p. 109; Ehrenberg 1968, p. 45; Andrewes 1967, p. 16; Aristotle, Politics 2.1275b.9 - 10 (Rackham's translation: "at Sparta suits for breach of contract are tried by different ephors [ἐφόρων] in different cases, while cases of homicide are tried by the ephors [γέροντες]", has mistakingly repeated "ephors" when "gerontes" was meant); Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 10.1 - 2.
5. Cartledge 2002, p. 45; Cartledge 1987, p. 123; Ste. Croix 1972, p. 125.
6. Cartledge 1987, p. 123.
7. Cartledge 1987, p. 123; Ste. Croix 1972, p. 125. See, for example, Xenophon, Hellenica 6.4.5, where king Cleombrotus's prosecution of the war against Thebes in 371 BC, was the subject of such considerations.
8. Esu 2024, pp. 125, 127; Cartledge 1987, p. 123.
9. Esu 2024, pp. 4 - 6; Davies 2018, p. 491; Hodkinson 2015, s.v. gerousia; Andrewes 1967, pp. 1 - 2.
10. LSJ, s.v. νόμος.
11. Esu 2024, pp. 125, 127; Cartledge 1987, p. 123.
12. ESU 2024, p. 137; Davies 2018, p. 491; Welwei 2006, s.v. Gerousia; Plutarch, Lycurgus 6.1.
13. Cartledge 1987, pp. 121, 123 ("Sparta was a society imbued with a pronounced, almost exaggerated respect for and deference to old age.").
14. Cartledge 1987, p. 122; Plutarch, Lycurgus, 26
15. Kennell 2010, p. 109; Cartledge 1987, p. 122; Thucydides, 1.87.1 - 3.
16. Cartledge 1987, p. 122.
17. Cartledge 1987, p. 122.
18. 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").
19. Millender 2018, p. 467.
20. Cartledge 1987, pp. 109, 122.
21. Cartledge and Spawforth 1989, pp. 51 - 52; Stewart 2018, p. 393.
22. Poralla & Bradford, Prosopographie, p. 54.
23. Ste. Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War, pp. 143, 170.
24. Cartledge 1987, p. 188.
25. Pouilloux & Salviat, Lichas, Lacédémonien, p. 390.
26. Cartledge 1987, p. 136.
27. Cartledge 1987, pp. 307 - 308.
28. Poralla & Bradford, Prosopographie, p. 192.
29. Bradford, Prosopography, p. 10.