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If Messenia and Cynuria are included in Laconia there are said to have been about a hundred Lacedaemonian cities; cf. Strabo 362 ἔξω γὰρ τῆς Σπάρτης αἱ λοιπαὶ πολίχναι τινές εἰσι περὶ τριάκοντα τὸν ἀριθμόν: τὸ δὲ παλαιὸν ἑκατόμπολίν φασιν αὐτὴν καλεῖσθαι. The names of some sixty are known.

Λακεδαίμονι: i. e. Laconia; cf. vi. 58. 2.

ὀκτακισχιλίων. This estimate (defended by Macan (ad loc.); cf. Grundy, Thuc. 213 f.) agrees with the tradition that Lycurgus assigned 9,000 lots to Spartiates (Plut. Lyc. 8); cf. Ar. Pol. ii. 9, 1270 a 36καί φασιν εἶναί ποτε τοῖς Σπαρτιάταις καὶ μυρίους” (ὁπλίτας). It also accords with H.'s statement (ix. 10. 1, 28. 2) that 5,000 Spartiates fought at Plataea. But in 371 B. C. there seem not to have been more than 1,500 (Xen. Hell. vi. 1. 1, 4, 15, 17; Ages. ii. 24), and in Aristotle's time (cf. l. c.) not 1,000. Hence most modern writers, following Beloch (Bevölkerung, p. 131 f.; cf. Klio vi. 58-73), regard H.'s numbers as exaggerated. In the Peloponnesian war at Mantinea, 418 B. C. (Thuc. v. 68), and at the battle of Corinth, 394 B. C. (Xen. Hell. iv. 2. 16), Spartiates and Perioeci together amounted to some 6,000. Isocrates puts the number of Spartiates in early times at only 2,000, and contrasts Sparta with μυρίανδροι πόλεις (Panath. 255 f.).

ἄλλοι: i. e. Perioeci, who contributed at least half the hoplite force of Sparta, e. g. 5,000 at Plataea (ix. 11. 3, 28. 2).

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