Theopompus

Theopompus belongs to Sparta’s Eurypontid line, the second of its twin dynasties, and governed during the long, grinding contests with Messenia and the consolidation of Lycurgus’s settlement. Ancient anecdotes paint him as the king who could afford to lose a little to save much. When told he would bequeath a lesser monarchy to his son, one story has him answer: “More lasting.” That aphorism encapsulates his constitutional reputation, for Theopompus is bound to the moment when Spartan kings accepted law as a bridle they shared with elders and citizens, not a yoke they imposed.

Within the logic of the Great Rhetra, Theopompus stands beside Polydorus as co-author of its crucial ‘rider.’ The Rhetra had required a 30-member gerousia, dual kingship as archagetai, and an assembly meeting between Babyca and Cnacion that ratified measures by acclamation. The rider added a brake: if the people “spoke crookedly,” the kings and elders could break up the meeting. This turned probouleusis from a pious wish into a working rule, protecting Sparta from the surges that often capsized Greek assemblies. Some ancient authorities also credit Theopompus with instituting the ephorate, an annually elected board that—by the classical period—could arraign kings, supervise education, and police public morals. Whether the ephors truly began in his day, the attribution reflects how Greeks remembered his reign: not as autocracy, but as calibrated restraint.

Theopompus governed amid pressures that would have tempted any king to grasp for extra power. War frayed resources; victory demanded unity; and the open-air assembly could turn passionate. His reported choices show a man schooled in Spartan hardness but wary of hubris. He led armies and sacrifices, yes, but he also accepted procedure. He let elders frame debate before the crowd’s shout, and he asked that the crowd accept interruption if heat overcame judgment. In this balance, his character appears: laconic, disciplined, and prepared to clip his own wings to keep the city aloft. His challenges were those of every Spartan: property tensions, glory-seeking rivals, and the ever-present possibility that today’s victory would feed tomorrow’s arrogance.

Theopompus’s legacy is constitutional: a kingship defined by law, girded with checks, and made more stable by restraint than by reach. Later writers took him as an emblem of the Spartan solution to disorder. Xenophon admired the machinery; Aristotle probed its flaws, pointing to the ephors’ corruption and the gerousia’s age. Yet both understood the achievement to which his name is attached. The rider, the elevation of elders, and the public drama of an assembly under the sky together made Sparta’s mixed constitution more than myth. Theopompus stands where kingship learned to live within that mix and last.