What it was
The Gerousia consisted of twenty-eight men over the age of sixty, elected for life, together with the two kings — thirty members in all. It was the deliberative core of the Spartan constitution.
Its members were drawn in practice from a narrow group of leading families, which is one of the reasons Aristotle treats the Spartan constitution as oligarchic in substance whatever its form.
How it worked
Election was by acclamation: candidates passed before the assembly and judges shut in a nearby building, unable to see, recorded which candidate drew the loudest shout. Aristotle calls the method childish.
The council prepared business for the assembly and, on the evidence of the Great Rhetra, could set aside a decision it judged crooked. Whichever way that provision is read, the assembly did not have the last word in the way the Athenian one did.
It also served as a court for capital cases.
Powers and limits
Life tenure without accountability is the structural feature. Members could not be removed and answered to no one, which Aristotle identifies as a defect, noting that minds age as bodies do.
Its powers were checked in practice by the ephors, who were annual and elected, and by the kings, whose position was hereditary. The Spartan constitution's balance is between bodies of quite different character.
How it changed
The Gerousia is presented in the tradition as part of the Lycurgan settlement, which is to say its origin is not historically recoverable.
Its powers relative to the ephors appear to have declined over the classical period, though the evidence is thin.
What the evidence supports
Members served for life from the age of sixty.
Attested consistently, and Aristotle treats the absence of accountability as a structural criticism.
Election was by measured acclamation.
Described by Plutarch and criticised by Aristotle. The procedure is unusual enough that both found it worth reporting.
The Great Rhetra's rider is disputed.
The clause allowing the elders and kings to set aside a crooked decision of the people is transmitted through Plutarch quoting earlier material. Whether it is an original provision or a later addition, and what it authorised, are argued.
Primary sources
Aristotle, Politics 1270b-1271a
A critical analysis of the Gerousia, including the objection to life tenure and to the election method.
Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 5-6, 26
The Great Rhetra, the composition of the council and the election by shouting.
How to read the evidence labels
- Evidence level: Documented
- Supported by a named primary text or by excavated material evidence.
- Evidence level: Probable
- Supported by strong inference that most specialists accept.
- Evidence level: Disputed
- Substantial specialist disagreement exists; competing readings are stated.
- Evidence level: Literary
- Belongs to poetic or mythological construction rather than to history.
- Evidence level: Mythological
- Belongs to shared religious or mythic tradition rather than to any single text.
- Evidence level: Unknown
- The available evidence is insufficient to decide.
These labels describe the status of the evidence, not our confidence in a conclusion. A claim marked Literary is not a claim we doubt; it is a claim about what kind of thing a poem is.