Crooked speech: the genesis of the Spartan rhetra

This paper argues for a new interpretation of the rider to the Spartan rhetra. The rider's obscure terms should not be pressed for specific institutional correlates, for its language draws upon the imagery of the exposure of deformed children. The primitive nature of the thought behind the rider suggests that it may actually be an older document than the main text of the rhetra, and such a hypothesis helps to resolve some difficulties concerning the rhetra itself and early Spartan history.

[1]  J. Fontenrose.  The Delphic Oracle , 2023 .

[2]  J. Bremmer,et al.  Interpretations of Greek Mythology , 2013 .

[3]  Nick Fisher.  Private Morality in Greece and Rome , 1981, The Classical Review.

[4]  Pierre Chantraine,et al.  Dictionnaire ?tymologique de la langue grecque , 1970 .

[5]  H. W. Parke,et al.  The Delphic oracle , 1959 .

[6]  H. Frisk.  Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch , 1956 .

[7]  G. M. Bolling,et al.  Greek Particles , 1935, The Classical Review.

[8]  J. Vernant,et al.  Myth And Thought Among The Greeks , 1983 .

[9]  J. Vernant,et al.  Myth and Tragedy in Ancient Greece , 1980 .

[10]  W. Boer.  Private morality in Greece and Rome , 1979 .

[11]  M. Détienne,et al.  Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society , 1977 .

[12]  G. D. S. Croix,et al.  The origins of the Peloponnesian War , 1972 .

[13]  Pavel Oliva,et al.  Sparta and her social problems , 1971 .

[14]  R. Beekes.  The development of the proto-Indo-European laryngeals in Greek , 1969 .

[15]  B. Perry,et al.  Babrius and Phaedrus , 1965 .

[16]  G. Roux.  ΚΥΨΕΛΗ. Où avait-on caché le petit Kypsélos ? (Hérodote V, 92, E). , 1963 .

[17]  S. A. Handford,et al.  Aesop in Delphi , 1961 .

[18]  H. T. Wade-Gery,et al.  Essays in Greek History , 1958 .

[19]  E. B. Harrison,et al.  Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection , 1956 .

[20]  P. Chantraine,et al.  Morphologie historique du grec , 1947 .

[21]  P. Roussel.  L'exposition des enfants à Sparte , 1943 .