The classic Greek polis of Sparta isn’t something that you’d expect me to bring up in regards to the jews, but there is some interest. In so far as in the third century BC; the Agiad king of Sparta Areus I received a letter from the High Priest of Jerusalem appealing to the alleged ‘shared ancestry’ between the jews and the Spartans in order to procure Spartan military assistance for the jews in their war against the Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter. (1)
This claimed kinship was however a diplomatic formality often used by the Greeks and their Hellenistic imitations of which the jews were – at this time – part. (2)
However this didn’t stop Jason – a former High Priest of Jerusalem – fleeing to Sparta and using the fictional ancestral links between Sparta and the jews to try and gain sanctuary in 168 BC, (3) while the Hasmonean ruler Jonathan tried to use the same idea as leverage in a diplomatic embassy in 144 BC. (4)
Indeed the Spartans appear to have viewed the whole thing as a joke since according to Josephus – who is very hostile to the Spartans – a certain Spartan named Eurycles visited the Judea of Herod and managed to convince him to execute his own son for treason and then promptly skedaddled back to Greece with a small fortune in gold. (5)
As Cartledge and Spawforth have stressed – although I know of at least one modern jewish attempt to claim that Greeks were really taught by the jews – (6) this is not to be taken literally, because it was a common Greek diplomatic nicety. (7)
References
(1) Paul Cartledge, 2003, ‘The Spartans: An Epic History’, 2nd Edition, Overlook: New York, pp. 225-226
(2) Paul Cartledge, Anthony Spawforth, 2002, ‘Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities’, 2nd Edition, Routledge: New York, p. 37
(3) Ibid., pp. 85; 114
(4) Nigel Kennell, 2010, ‘Spartans: A New History’, Wiley-Blackwell: Chichester, p. 185
(5) Ibid.; Cartledge, Spawforth, Op. Cit., p. 100
(6) Cf. Larry Milner, 2008, ‘Was Achilles a Jew: Hebraic Contributions to Greek Civilization’, 1st Edition, Self-Published: United States
(7) Cartledge, Spawforth, Op. Cit., p. 114