Changes

Sparta was much admired in Greece. The Greeks admired the harmony and order produced by the Spartan Constitution. Indeed many Greeks wanted their polis to adopt a similar form of government The city-state system also influenced philosophers such as Plato and its influence can be seen in his great work the Republic. The Spartan system was based on the idea that the collective came before the individual. The state demanded total obedience from the citizen whose service to the state came before, their family and personal wishes. The Spartan warrior and indeed other citizens saw themselves as members of the collective and this is best seen in the agoge system. The Spartan was expected to renounce personal wealth and gain and to use all their personal resources for the good of the state and the citizen-body.<ref> Pausanias. Description of Greece. with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones (Boston, Cambridge University Press, 1918), p. 345</ref>  The citizen body was a band of equal all committed to the defines and glory of Sparta. However, over time these values were eroded and Sparta came to resemble its turbulent and very individualistic neighbors. This was a long-term process and there were many reasons for the decline in the traditional Spartan values, that underpinned its political system. However, the Peloponnesian War accelerated this trend.<ref>Thucydides. 6. 7</ref> The booty from the war led to a growing divide between the Spartan citizens. A wealthy class of citizen emerged rich from booty and payments from Sparta’s allies. This meant that many citizens could no longer be members of the agoge system but that they were under the control of a wealthy elite.<ref>Cartledge, 2002, p. 176</ref>  It is also believed that the growing inequality in wealth also resulted in a falling birth-rate. Then Sparta was increasingly bedeviled by internal dissent and political in-fighting. This was because many Spartans had experience of leadership outside the city-state and they were no longer willing, to obey the old elite. Spartan generals such as Lysander began to seek personal power and this led to growing instability, in a political entity that seemed so fixed and stable, through the centuries. Before the fateful battle of Leuctra, Sparta was no longer as unified as it once was and this was a factor in its decline.