The Local Voice of Enmity: Kleomenes III, Sparta, and Argos

With this chapter the geographic scope of the volume shifts from cenatral Greece to the Peloponnese. It has long been noted that Sparta, although merely a regional wrangler for most of the Hellenistic period, continued to foster images of exceptional civic value – and to bolster corresponding claims for leadership. Elena Franchi takes readers to the reign of Kleomenes III (r. 235–222 BCE, cf. also chapter 10), his campaigns in the Argolid, and in particular those led against Argos, Sparta’s long-time arch-rival in the Peloponnese. The Kleomenic War typically has a regional or panhellenic ring to it, depending on whether its narration is couched in ongoing quarrels with the Achaian League or in Sparta’s unwillingness to yield to the rule of Macedon. Franchi’s take, however, is that of the local perspective. She explores how events on the battlefield were inspired by and, in turn, translated back into a distinct local discourse environment in Sparta. Examining historical traditions as well as a diverse body of evidence, including coinage, epigraphy, and popular Spartan sayings (apophthegmata), Franchi identifies three major themes that impacted exchanges and agencies on the ground: enmity with Argos, the Spartan education and its believed supreme value, and the myth of Herakles. Kleomenes’ actions in war, which culminated in the temporary but nonetheless unprecedented feat to take into possession a wide range of members of the Achaian League, were supplemented by a local discourse that paid due attention to these themes. Their prioritization in local conversations and voicing in various public media explains the longevity of Spartan worldviews in the Hellenistic Age. Moreover, this chapter offers an exemplary case study on the local paradigm and its capacity to further our understanding of localist self-fashioning in times of shifting power configurations in the world writ large.