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At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans considered themselves the traditional leaders of Greece. They credited their success to their constitution and their ordered way of life, which they attributed to the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus. Two kings, hereditary commanders and priests, a council (gerousia), and a board of five ephors (official overseers) governed together by consensus, subject to the approval of the assembly of Spartan citizens. Spartans, trained as citizen hoplites devoted to their polis, lived a frugal, modest life. In many ways, Sparta resembled early republican Rome. The Spartans ruled over dependent populations of free perioikoi (noncitizens required to give military service) and servile helots in Laconia and Messenia, areas which constituted nearly half the Peloponnesus. Modern scholars have often viewed Sparta as an authoritarian or regimented and soulless society, but modern assessments are based on writings by those who were neither native nor favorable to Sparta. Greeks, however, admired Sparta’s eunomia (good order), its constitution, and the virtues (arete) of individual Spartan citizens.
