People Divided into Phylai and Obai

Sparta’s constitution did not just summon the people; it sorted them first. The Rhetra’s second move after naming temples was to divide citizens into phylai and obai—tribes and local groups that structured who stood where and who spoke when [5]. In a city stretched along the Eurotas, from the hill of the acropolis to Amyclae, these divisions turned a population into an instrument. The mechanics mattered. Phylai gathered men across kin lines, obai anchored them to localities. Together they fed the assembly and the army. When a herald’s cry cut the air between Babyca and Cnacion, elders knew which group would answer first and where to listen for the stronger roar [5][7]. Bronze‑edged order out of human noise. Tyrtaeus, the mid‑7th‑century poet, sang of kings and elders beginning counsel and the people answering “with straight decrees” [8]. That answer required a structure. The phylai and obai assembled men by known lists. Aristotle would later scoff at shout‑based elections, calling them “childish,” but he understood that prior grouping channeled the shout into a decision [6]. Numbers anchored it. Thirty members in the council; two kings among them; five ephors would later watch the seams. But the spine of popular participation ran through these divisions, ensuring that when the Eurotas flashed in the sun and voices rose in a single, rolling sound, the elders could tell consent from confusion [5][6][21]. Sparta had no marble Pnyx. It had a plain, a river, and these rosters. The phylai and obai reached into messes and military units, linking daily life at Therapne or Pitane to public judgment. Discipline began on the muster list. So when the crowd’s noise bent a motion, the system could be shut down by kings and gerousia—an adjournment rooted in the same architecture that made the assembly possible. Control rode the same rails as consent [5].