Part 212

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1546-1724. The Araucanian War.

See CHILE: A. D. 1450-1724.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1580. Final founding of the city of Buenos Ayres.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1608-1767. The Jesuits in Paraguay.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1620. Formation of the government of Rio de La Plata.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1767. Expulsion of the Jesuits.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1776. Creation of the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777; and PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1816. Revolt, independence and confederation of the Argentine Provinces.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1806-1820.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1818. Chilean independence achieved.

See CHILE: A. D. 1810-1818.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1810-1821. The War of Independence in Venezuela and New Granada.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1811. Paraguayan independence accomplished.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1820-1826. The independence of Mexico. Brief Empire of Iturbide. The Federal Republic established.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1821. Independence acquired in the Central American States.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1824. Peruvian independence won at Ayacucho.

See PERU: A. D. 1820-1826.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1826. The Congress of Panama.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1826.

SPANISH AMERICA: A. D. 1828. The Banda Oriental becomes the Republic of Uruguay.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.

SPANISH AMERICA: End--------

SPANISH ARMADA, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.

SPANISH COINS.

"The early chroniclers make their reckonings of values under different names at different times. Thus during the discoveries of Columbus we hear of little else but 'maravedis'; then the 'peso de oro' takes the lead, together with the 'castellano'; all along 'marco' and 'ducado' being occasionally used. At the beginning of the 16th century, and before and after, Spanish values were reckoned from a mark of silver, which was the standard. A mark was half a pound either of gold or silver. The gold mark was divided into 50 castellanos; the silver mark into eight ounces. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the mark was divided by law into 65 'reales de vellon' of 34 maravedis each, making 2,210 maravedis in a mark. … In the reign of Alfonso Xl., 1312-1350, there were 125 maravedis to the mark, while in the reign of Ferdinand VII., 1808-1833, a mark was divided into 5,440 maravedis. {3018} In Spanish America a 'real' is one-eighth of a 'peso,' and equal to 2½ reales de vellon. The peso contains one ounce of silver; it was formerly called 'peso de ocho reales de plata,' whence came the term 'pieces of eight,' a vulgarism at one time in vogue among the merchants and buccaneers in the West Indies. … The castellano, the one fiftieth of the golden mark, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, was equivalent to 490 maravedis of that day. The 'peso de oro,' according to Oviedo, was exactly equivalent to the castellano, and either was one third greater than the ducado or ducat. The 'doblon' … was first struck by Ferdinand and Isabella as a gold coin of the weight of two castellanos. The modern doubloon is an ounce of coined gold, and is worth 16 pesos fuertes. Reduced to United States currency, the peso fuerte, as slightly alloyed bullion, is in weight nearly enough equivalent to one dollar. Therefore a mark of silver is equal to 8 dollars; a piece of eight, equal to one peso, which equals one dollar; a real de vellon, 5 cents; a Spanish-American real], 12½ cents; a maravedi, 100/276 of a cent; a castellano, or peso de oro $2.56; a doubloon $5.14; a ducat, $1.92; a mark of gold $128, assuming the United States alloy. The fact that a castellano was equivalent to only 490 maravedis shows the exceedingly high value of silver as compared with gold at the period in question."

_H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, pages 192-193, foot-note. _

SPANISH CONSPIRACY, The.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800.

SPANISH ERA, The.

See ERA, SPANISH.

SPANISH FURY, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

SPANISH INQUISITION, The.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

SPANISH MAIN, The.

"The Spanish main was simply the mainland, terra firma, of Spanish America, as opposed to the islands: but the term 'terra firma' was specially applied to the northern part of South America, extending 'all along the North Sea from the Pacific Ocean to the mouth of the river of Amazons upon the Atlantic' (Burke, European Settlements in America, Part III., chapter xvi.), and comprising the towns of Panama, Carthagena, and Porto Bello.

See TIERRA FIRME.

Longfellow blunders in the 'Wreck of the Hesperus' when he speaks of the old sailor who 'had sailed the Spanish main.'"

_C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, page 35, foot-note._

SPANISH MARCH, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 778.

SPANISH MARRIAGES, The question of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.

SPANISH SUCCESSION, The War of the.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700, and after; NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, and after; GERMANY: A. D. 1702, and after; ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713; NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

SPARTA: Start--------

SPARTA: The City. Its situation, origin and growth. Laconia. "Hollow Lacedæmon."

"Laconia is formed by two mountain-chains running immediately from Arcadia [from the center to the southeastern extremity of Peloponnesus], and enclosing the river Eurotas, whose source is separated from that of an Arcadian stream by a very trifling elevation. The Eurotas is, for some way below the city of Sparta, a rapid mountain-stream; then, after forming a cascade, it stagnates into a morass; but lower down it passes over a firm soil in a gentle and direct course. Near the town of Sparta rocks and hills approach the banks on both sides, and almost entirely shut in the river both above and below the town: this enclosed plain is without doubt the 'hollow Lacedæmon' of Homer."

_C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, book 1, chapter 4._

Upon the Dorian invasion and occupation of Peloponnesus (see DORIANS AND IONIANS) the city and neighborhood of Sparta in Laconia,—i. e. Sparta and 'hollow Lacedæmon,' —became the seat of the dominant state which they founded in the peninsula. The conquerors, themselves, and their descendants, were the only full citizens of this Spartan state and were called Spartiatæ or Spartans. The prior inhabitants of the country were reduced to political dependence, in a class called the Periœci, or else to actual serfdom in the more degraded class known as Helots. "Sparta was not, like other towns of the Greeks, composed of a solid body of houses, but, originally in a rural and open situation on the river and its canals, it gradually stretched out into the open country, and Dorians lived far beyond Sparta along the entire valley, without the inhabitants of remoter points being on that account in any less degree citizens of Sparta than those dwelling by the ford of the Eurotas. They were all Spartans, as by a stricter term they were called, as distinguished from the Lacedæmonians. … Strictly apart from this exclusive community of Spartiatæ there remained, with its ancient conditions of life intact, the older population of the land, which dwelt scattered on the mountains surrounding the land of the Spartiatæ on all sides (hence called the dwellers-around, or Periœci). More than trebling the Spartiatæ in number, they cultivated the incomparably less remunerative arable land of the mountains, the precipitous declivities of which they made available by means of terraced walls for cornfields and vineyards. … Free proprietors on their own holdings, they, according to primitive custom, offered their tribute to the kings. The country people, on the other hand, residing on the fields of the Spartiatæ, met with a harder fate. Part of them probably consisted of peasants on the domains; others had been conquered in the course of internal feuds. They were left on the fields which had been once their own, on the condition of handing over to the Spartiatæ quartered upon them an important portion of their produce. This oppression provoked several risings; and we must assume that the ancient sea-town of Helos was for a time the centre of one of these outbreaks. For this is the only admissible explanation of the opinion universally prevailing among the ancients, that from that town is derived the name of the Helots."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, volume 1, book. 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 1._

{3019}

SPARTA: The Constitution ascribed to Lycurgus.

"Sparta was the city from which the Dorians slowly extended their dominion over a considerable portion of Peloponnesus. Of the progress of her power we have only the most meagre information. … The internal condition of Sparta at this early period is uniformly described as one of strife and bad government, a condition of affairs which was certainly unfavourable to external development and conquest. Herodotus attributes these dissensions, at least in part, to the mutual animosity of the two royal families; the twin sons of Aristodemus quarrelled all their lives, and their descendants after them did the same. Plutarch, on the other hand, speaks of quarrels between the kings and the people. … Whatever the cause, it is more certain than any other fact in early Spartan history that the condition of the country was for a long time one of internal strife and dissension. It was the great merit of Lycurgus to have put an end to this disastrous state of affairs. Lycurgus is the foremost name in Spartan history. Tradition is nearly unanimous in describing this lawgiver as the author of the prosperity of Sparta, and the founder of her peculiar institutions, but about the date and the events of his life the greatest uncertainty prevailed. … Thucydides, though he does not mention Lycurgus, asserts that the form of the government had continued the same in Sparta for more than four hundred years before the end of the Peloponnesian war. In his opinion, therefore, the reforms of Lycurgus were introduced shortly before 804 B. C. This date is considerably later than that usually given to Lycurgus, on the authority of the ancient chronologers. … Herodotus tells us that Lycurgus, when visiting the Delphic shrine, was hailed by the priestess as a being more than human, and some authorities asserted that the Spartan institutions were revealed to him there. The Lacedaemonians, however, regarded Crete as the source of their peculiar arrangements [see CRETE]. They were thus enabled to connect them with the great name of Minos, and derive their authority from Zeus himself. … Plutarch has fortunately transcribed the text of the Rhetrae, or ordinances, which were given to Lycurgus at Delphi. There does not seem to be any reason to doubt that these were the oldest ordinances known at Sparta, or that they formed the basis of their 'good government.' They were therefore the oldest political ordinances known in Hellas, and, indeed, in the world. 'Found a temple to Zeus Hellanius, and Athena Hellania, arrange the tribes, and the Obes, thirty in number, establish the Gerousia with the Archagetae. Summon the people for meeting from time to time between Babyca and the Cnacion, there bring forward and decide (reject). The people are to have the supreme power.' Thus the first duty of the lawgiver was to found a public sanctuary which should be as it were the centre of the community. Then the people were to be arranged in tribes and Obes. The division into tribes was not a new one; from the first the Dorians at Sparta, as elsewhere, when free from the admixture of external elements, were divided into three tribes, Hylleis, Dymanes, Pamphyli, but it is possible that some changes were now introduced, regulating the internal arrangement of the tribe. In each tribe were ten Obes, of which we know nothing beyond the name. They appear to have been local divisions. As the Gerousia [see GERUSIA], including the kings, contained thirty members, we may conjecture that each Obe was represented in the Senate, and therefore that the two kings were the representatives of two distinct Obes. The Archagetae are the kings, or leaders of the people. From time to time the community were to be summoned to a meeting. … Before the assembled people measures were to be introduced that they might decide upon them, for no measure was valid which had not received the sanction of the whole people. The elements with which these ordinances deal—the Kings, the Council and the Assembly—appear in the Homeric poems, and grew naturally out of the patriarchal government of the tribe. The work of Lycurgus did not consist in creating new elements, but in consolidating those which already existed into a harmonious whole. … Three other ordinances which are ascribed to Lycurgus forbade (1) the use of written laws; (2) the use of any tools but the axe and saw in building a house; (3) frequent wars upon the same enemies. He is also said to have forbidden the use of coined money in Sparta. Neither gold nor silver was to be used for purposes of exchange, but bars of iron, which by their small value and great bulk rendered money dealings on any large scale impossible. The iron of these bars was also made unusually brittle in order that it might be useless for ordinary purposes. Such precepts were doubtless observed at Sparta, though they may not have been derived from Lycurgus. The training which every Spartan underwent was intended to diminish the sphere of positive law as much as possible, and to encourage the utmost simplicity and even rudeness of life. … About a century after Lycurgus, in the reign of Theopompus, two changes of great importance were made in the Spartan constitution. The veto which the earlier rhetra had allowed to the assembled people was cancelled, and a new law was introduced, which gave the ultimate control to the Gerontes and Kings. 'If the people decide crookedly, the elders and chiefs shall put it back,' i. e. shall reverse the popular decision. Under what circumstances this ordinance, which is said to have been obtained from Delphi, was passed, we do not know, nor is it quite clear how it consists with what we find recorded of the constitutional history of Sparta in later times. … The second innovation was even more important. Though Herodotus ascribes the institution of the Ephoralty [see EPHORS] to Lycurgus, it seems more correct to follow Aristotle and others in ascribing it to Theopompus. The Ephors, who were five in number, appear in the first instance to have been of no great importance. But as they were intimately connected with the commons, elected from and by them as their representatives, we must assume that the ephoralty was a concession to the people, and it may have been a compensation for the loss of the right of voting in the assembly. In time the ephors grew to be the most important officers in the state, both in war and in peace. They were associated with the council, they presided in the assembly, and even the kings were not exempt from their power. To this result the growing dread of 'a tyrannis,' like that at Corinth or Sicyon, and the increasing importance of the Spartan training, which the ephors superintended, in a great measure contributed. … The kings were the leaders of the army. For a time they always took the field together, but owing to the dissensions of Cleomenes and Demaratus, a law was passed that one king only should go out with the army, and it was henceforth the custom for one king only to be absent from Sparta, at a time. {3020} The kings had the right of making war on whom they would, and no one could prevent them, on pain of being under a curse, but as they were liable to be brought to trial on their return for failure in an expedition, they usually obtained the consent of the ephors or the assembly before going. … The origin of the dual monarchy, which from the first was so distinctive a feature of the Spartan government, is very obscure, and many attempts have been made to explain it. It may have arisen by a fusion of the native and immigrant races, each of which was allowed to retain its own prince in the new community. … It is perhaps more reasonable to assume that the two kings represent two leading families, each of which had a claim to give a chief to the community. That two families holding equal rights should be regarded as descended from the twin sons of the Dorian founder of Sparta is merely one of the fictions which of necessity arose in the period when all political unions and arrangements were expressed in the terms of genealogical connection. … The Apella was an assembly of all the Spartan citizens who had reached the age of thirty years. … In historical times it was presided over by the ephors. No speaking was allowed except by officers of State and persons duly invited, and perhaps the Senators. The votes were given by acclamation. The assembly decided on war and peace, treaties. and foreign politics generally; it elected the ephors and gerontes. … More important for the development of Sparta than her political constitution was the education and training which her citizens received. … The Spartan did not exist for himself but for his city; for her service he was trained from birth, and the most intimate relations of his life were brought under her control. In the secluded valley of the Eurotas, where till the time of Epaminondas no invader ever set foot, amid profound peace, he nevertheless led the life of a warrior in the field. His strength and endurance were tested to the utmost; he was not permitted to surrender himself to the charm of family life and domestic affections. Even when allowed to marry, he spent but little time at home; his children, if thought worthy of life, were taken from him at an early age to go through the same training in which he himself had been brought up. Only when he reached the age of sixty years, at which he could no longer serve his country in the field, was he permitted to enjoy the feeling of personal freedom."

_E. Abbott, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 6._

_G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 5._

_C. O. Müller, History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, book 3 (volume 2)._

SPARTA: B. C. 743-510. The First and Second Messenian Wars. Military supremacy in Peloponnesus established.

"The effect of the Lycurgean institutions was to weld the people of Sparta into what Grote well denominates a 'military brotherhood'—the most potent military machine which at that time, and for long after, existed in Greece or in the world. Had their political ambition and ability been proportionate, it is difficult to doubt that the Lacedæmonians might have anticipated the career of the Romans; but their inability to produce really great statesmen, and the iron rigidity of their political system, placed in their path effectual barriers to the attainment of such grandeur. … The first object of their attacks was the neighbouring Dorian kingdom of Messenia. The kinship between the two peoples and their rulers had previously kept them on friendly terms. It was symbolized and expressed by joint sacrifices, annually celebrated at a temple in honour of Artemis which stood on the borders between the two countries, near the source of the river Neda. It was a quarrel that broke out at these annual rites which led to the outbreak of the first Messenian war, about 743 B. C. The circumstances of the quarrel were differently related by the two parties; but it resulted in the death of' Teleclus, one of the Spartan kings. His subjects invaded Messenia to obtain redress. At first the struggle was of an indecisive character, but ultimately the Messenians were obliged to take refuge on the fortified mountain of Ithome, and all the rest of their country was overrun and conquered by their persistent enemies. After the war had lasted twenty years, the Messenian garrison was compelled to abandon Ithome, the fortifications of which were razed by the Spartans, and Messenia became part of the Lacedæmonian territory, —all its inhabitants who refused to submit being driven into exile. Pausanius and other ancient writers give long details of the events of this twenty years' struggle, the great hero of which was the Messenian king Aristomenes; but these details are as legendary as the exploits of the Homeric heroes, and all that is certainly known about the war is that it ended in the subjugation of Messenia. The severity and oppression with which the conquered people were ruled led them, about forty years later, to rise up in revolt, and another struggle of seventeen years' duration followed. In this, again, Aristomenes is represented as the Messenian leader, although he had put an end to his own life at the unsuccessful close of the former contest; and the later Hellenic writers tried to get over this impossibility by declaring that the Aristomenes of the second war must have been a descendant of the earlier hero bearing the same name. In the course of the war the Spartans suffered severely, as the Messenians had the support of other Peloponnesian communities—especially the Arcadians—who had begun to dread the strength and arrogance of the Lacedæmonians. Ultimately, however, the revolt was crushed, and from that time till the days of Epaminondas, Messenia remained a part of the Laconian territory.

See MESSENIAN WARS, FIRST AND SECOND.