Spartan Oliganthropia

The population of the Spartiates declined from some 8,000 to fewer than 1,000 in the Classical and Hellenistic eras. The causes and consequences of this decline are important for an understanding not only of ancient Greek history, but also of the study of pre-industrial populations and population dynamics more generally. This work surveys a range of representative modern scholarship on this phenomenon and discusses topics such as family planning, elite under-reproduction, wealth polarization, and notions of eugenic exclusivity, and suggests avenues for further research.
An irreversible population decline led to the reduction in power of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta over the course of the Classical (478–323) and Hellenistic (323–30) eras. The drama of this decline remains impressive. It was the most remarkable population change of any ancient Greek city aside from wholesale execution or enslavement of populations in war, and it drew the attention of eyewitnesses to the process such as Aristotle as well as Xenophon, a wealthy Athenian writer, soldier, and admirer of Sparta (Arist. Pol. 2.1270; Xen. Lac. 1.1). The causes and consequences of the deterioration of so great a power are not only crucial for understanding the history of Classical and Hellenistic Greece, but also provide a remarkable case study for the examination of pre-industrial populations and of population dynamics more generally.