Please see below the announcement of the following conference, to be held at the House of Lords and hosted by Lord Butler of Brockwell and the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, the University of Nottingham.
Full details are available here. Places are limited and available on request.
To register please email csps@nottingham.ac.uk and provide details of your institutional affiliation and a brief paragraph outlining the reasons for your interest in the event. Admission to the papers and the lunch is free of charge.
Lessons for Modern Politics and International Relations:
The Ancient Spartan Constitution
A Symposium hosted by Lord Butler of Brockwell and jointly organised by the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies at the University of Nottingham and the City of Sparta.
Committee Room G and the Attlee Room, The House of Lords, Wednesday 9th of March 2022
The year 2020 marked 2500 years since the battle of Thermopylae, the battle for which ancient Sparta is most well known. This event, a collaboration between the University of Nottingham and the City of Sparta, revisits the legacy of Sparta and asks what lessons can be drawn for the practice of politics and international relations today in contemporary Britain and Greece.
Ancient authors, including Plato, Xenophon and Plutarch, indicate that the Spartan Constitution was celebrated in antiquity as one of the most stable and most effective constitutions. Unlike most other ancient Greek states of the classical period, Sparta remained relatively untroubled by civil strife and revolution. In addition, until its defeat at Leuctra in 371, Spartan military organisation proved exceptionally successful.
This event will consider, first, the extent to which this reputation is deserved: whether Sparta’s political organisation, laws and customs (in Greek nomoi) were in fact responsible for Sparta’s success (and indeed eventual decline). Second, we wish to explore how our understanding of the Spartan constitution can impact on the practice of modern politics, particularly relations with non-democracies / authoritarian regimes. Democracy is often seen as the most important political legacy for the modern world. And yet Sparta was not a democracy. What does the example of Sparta tell us regarding the circumstances in which non-democratic polities can be successful? And to what extent was the Spartan Constitution responsible for a catastrophic breakdown of relations with the ancient world’s most famous democracy, Athens, in the Peloponnesian Wars? As the West contemplates withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ever emerging power of Communist China, we consider in Sparta the long history of non-democratic politics.
Morning Session: The Spartan Constitution; Committee Room G, The House of Lords
10.00 Coffee
10.20-10.30 Welcome Address by Dr Chrysanthi Gallou (director of the Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies, The University of Nottingham).
10.30-11.20 Professor Paul Cartledge (University of Cambridge) ‘The Spartan Constitution’.
11.20-11.40 Coffee
11.40-12.30 Dr Alberto Esu (University of Mannheim) ‘Lycurgus and the Intent of the Lawgiver in Spartan Constitutionalism’.
12.30-13.20 Professor Loren J. Samons (University of Boston and the American College of Greece) ‘Sparta’s Responsibility for Athenian Democracy’.
Afternoon Session: The Constitutions of Non-Democracies, Policy Recommendations; The Attlee Room, The House of Lords
13.20-14.30 Lunch
14.30-15.20 Dr Edmund Stewart (University of Nottingham and Centre for Spartan and Peloponnesian Studies) ‘The Thucydides Trap: Lessons on the Prospect of Conflict between Democracies and Authoritarian Regimes (Sparta and Athens, China and the UK)’.
15.20-17.00 Launch of CSPS Policy briefing ‘Authoritarian Regimes: New Policy Challenges’.
Plenary session led by Petros Doukas and Lord Butler of Brockwell.