Hippeis, not Hippies

[PMBardunias]

Another slight inaccuracy comes from those who think of 'Hypomeiones'/inferiors as simply being disenfranchised 'Homio'/peers/equals, who had been through the agoge, but lost their 'kleroi'/land allotment for some reason....It seems to me clear that Xenophon here is setting out all the classes of Lakedaemonian society, in rising order, and that 'hypomeiones' encompasses all Spartan free men who are not 'Homioi'.

This is why I labeled a man who went through the Agoge and later lost his franchise a "first generation Hypomeiones." But we best not throw out the baby with the bath water. There were many hypomeiones who either once had Spartiate status, or whose fathers and grandfathers did recently enough for the memory to sting. Spartans married late and died in battle which surely cut the population, but the oliganthropy in the 4th and 3rd c was more a function of the inability of many to meet the fiscal obligations of citizenship. This was hastened by the loss of Messenia. Thus the drop in Spartiates is mirrored by an increase in Hypomeiones. Plutarch refers to them as an "indigent and disenfranchised mob." Compared with the number of Spartiates, the number of recently disenfranchised might be substantial even if a small percentage of the total number of people living in Sparta. The informer on Cinadon describes 70 some Spartiates to more than 4,000 others in the spartan market-place, but we have no idea what percentage of these are hypomeiones. What of the non-recently disenfranchised, who made up this body? Presumably those decendants of Spartiates who had long ago lost their rights and indigenes who missed out on the original Kleroi allotment.

The larger problem is that we don't know how inclusive the concept of Hypomeiones was. Presumably those who could not afford pheiditia dues, but also "tresantes", cowards, and men who for one reason or another did not get picked up by a pheiditia were given this status. Would Xenoi living in Sparta be a subset or a seperate group? What about those exiled? Often they did not go all that far away, up into Arcadia for example. What would the status of a man like Dracontus have been to a Spartiate when they met.

Then there is the whole problem of how and if you get your spartiate staus back once you come into some money, and what happens to you socially at that point. Exiles come and go with the wind of politics, so presumably there was some way of getting them back into their old phiditia or new ones.

As to them being labeled in ascending order, I have seen this written many times, but I suggest that perhaps this is not so. He may have written them in the order shown because he started with Helots, perhaps because they are the lowest, but maybe be cause they are the most in number, so it is logical to next mention enfranchised helots. Then he mentions Hypomeiones and Periocoi. This could be a simple, near/far, distinction. If asked who lives in north America most canadians will say "Canadians and Americans and Mexicans". Periocoi need not have been higher status in Xenophon's mind or in fact. Afterall, how many Periocoi bore a Scytale and ordered Hippeis.