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In Ancient Greece, the Partheniae or Parthenians (in Greek /'' hoi Partheníai '', literally “sons of virgins”, i.e. unmarried young girls) are a lower ranking Spartiate population which, according to tradition, left Laconia to go to Magna Graecia and founded Taras, modern Taranto, in the current region of Apulia, in southern Italy. == Origins of the Parthenians == At least three distinct traditions carry the origins of the Parthenians. The oldest is that of Antiochus of Syracuse (a contemporary of Thucydides quoted by Strabo, VI, 3, 2), according to which the Spartiates, during the first Messenian war (end of the 8th century BC), had rejected like cowards those who had not fought, along with their descendants:
The Parthenians were therefore the first '' tresantes '' ("trembling"), a category which gathers the cowards and thus excludes themselves from the community of the ''Homoioi'', the Peers. Thereafter, Parthenians plotted against the Peers and, discovered, would have been driven out of Sparta, from which they departed for Italy and founded Taras, whose date is traditionally fixed in 706 BC - which archaeology does not deny. Strabo ('' ibid '', VI, 3, 3) himself opposes the testimony of Antiochus to that of Ephorus (4th century BC), also quoted by Polybius (XII, 6b, 5), Justin (III, 4, 3) and also Dionysius of Halicarnassus (XIX, 2-4). According to the latter, the Spartiates swore during the Messenian War, not to return home as long as they had not attained victory. The war prolonged and Sparta's demography being threatened, the Spartiates let the young Spartans who had not sworn the oath return home. These were ordered to copulate with all the girls available. The children who were born from these unions were named Parthenians. Their mothers, since they were compelled by the state to procreate, were legally considered unmolested and fit to marry once the war was over. Lastly, a third tradition, mentioned by Servius and Heraclides, made the Parthenians bastards who had resulted from the unions of Spartan women and their slaves, always during the Messenian war. The same tradition is told to explain the origins of Locri, also in Magna Graecia. There are variants to these three traditions: for example, Servius, when speaking of the second tradition, made the Parthenians' fathers slaves. Aristotle (''Politica '', 1306 B 28) seems to follow the first tradition: when the Parthenians' plot was discovered, they were sent to found Taras. He specifies that the Parthenians "are the offspring of the Peers" () but the meaning of the expression is unclear. It seems however that for Aristotle, the Parthenians were politically inferior, without explaining exactly why. The reason for the plot itself remains unclear. P. Cartledge suggests that the Messenian lands could have been unfairly divided, which would have been the cause of the Parthenians' dissatisfaction. Lastly, Justin and Diodorus of Sicily (VIII, 21) indicate that the events took place during the Second Messenian War of Messenia (second half of the 8th century BC), and not the first. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Partheniae」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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