SPARTA
THE PEOPLE
=Laconia.=--When the Dorian mountaineers invaded the Peloponnesus, the
main body of them settled at Sparta in Laconia. Laconia is a narrow
valley traversed by a considerable stream (the Eurotas) flowing
between two massive mountain ranges with snowy summits. A poet
describes the country as follows: "A land rich in tillable soil, but
hard to cultivate, deep set among perpendicular mountains, rough in
aspect, inaccessible to invasion." In this enclosed country lived the
Dorians of Sparta in the midst of the ancient inhabitants who had
become, some their subjects, others their serfs. There were, then, in
Laconia three classes: Helots, Perioeci, Spartiates.
=The Helots.=--The Helots dwelt in the cottages scattered in the plain
and cultivated the soil. But the land did not belong to them--indeed,
they were not even free to leave it. They were, like the serfs of the
Middle Ages, peasants attached to the soil, from father to son. They
labored for a Spartiate proprietor who took from them the greater part
of the harvest. The Spartiates instructed them, feared them, and ill
treated them. They compelled them to wear rude garments, beat them
unreasonably to remind them of their servile condition, and sometimes
made them intoxicated to disgust their children with the sight of
drunkenness. A Spartiate poet compares the Helots to "loaded asses
stumbling under their burdens and the blows inflicted."
=The Perioeci.=--The Perioeci (those who live around) inhabited a
hundred villages in the mountains or on the coast. They were sailors,
they engaged in commerce, and manufactured the objects necessary to
life. They were free and administered the business of their village,
but they paid tribute to the magistrates of Sparta and obeyed them.
=Condition of the Spartiates.=--Helots and Perioeci despised the
Spartiates, their masters. "Whenever one speaks to them of the
Spartiates," says Xenophon,[62] "there isn't one of them who can
conceal the pleasure he would feel in eating them alive." Once an
earthquake nearly destroyed Sparta: the Helots at once rushed from all
sides of the plain to massacre those of the Spartiates who had escaped
the catastrophe. At the same time the Perioeci rose and refused
obedience. The Spartiates' bearing toward the Perioeci was certain to
exasperate them. At the end of a war in which many of the Helots had
fought in their army, they bade them choose those who had especially
distinguished themselves for bravery, with the promise of freeing
them. It was a ruse to discover the most energetic and those most
capable of revolting. Two thousand were chosen; they were conducted
about the temples with heads crowned as an evidence of their
manumission; then the Spartiates put them out of the way, but how it
was done no one ever knew.[63]
And yet the oppressed classes were ten times more, numerous than their
masters. While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000
Perioeci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families.
In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate
be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they
needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its
people was an army always in readiness.
EDUCATION
=The Children.=--They began to make soldiers of them at birth. The
newly-born infant was brought before a council; if it was found
deformed, it was exposed on the mountain to die; for an army has use
only for strong men. The children who were permitted to grow up were
taken from their parents at the age of seven years and were trained
together as members of a group. Both summer and winter they went
bare-foot and had but a single mantle. They lay on a heap of reeds and
bathed in the cold waters of the Eurotas. They ate little and that
quickly and had a rude diet. This was to teach them not to satiate the
stomach. They were grouped by hundreds, each under a chief. Often they
had to contend together with blows of feet and fists. At the feast of
Artemis they were beaten before the statue of the goddess till the
blood flowed; some died under this ordeal, but their honor required
them not to weep. They were taught to fight and suffer.
Often they were given nothing to eat; provision must be found by
foraging. If they were captured on these predatory expeditions, they
were roughly beaten. A Spartiate boy who had stolen a little fox and
had hidden it under his mantle, rather than betray himself let the
animal gnaw out his vitals. They were to learn how to escape from
perplexing situations when they were in the field.
They walked with lowered glance, silent, hands under the mantle,
without turning the head and "making no more noise than statues." They
were not to speak at table and were to obey all men that they
encountered. This was to accustom them to discipline.
=The Girls.=--The other Greeks kept their daughters secluded in the
house, spinning flax. The Spartiates would have robust women capable
of bearing vigorous children. The girls, therefore, were trained in
much the same manner as the boys. In their gymnasia they practised
running, leaping, throwing the disc and Javelin. A poet describes a
play in which Spartiate girls "like colts with flowing manes make the
dust fly about them." They were reputed the healthiest and bravest
women in Greece.
=The Discipline.=--The men, too, have their regular life and this a
soldier's life. The presence of many enemies requires that no one
shall weaken. At seventeen years the Spartiate becomes a soldier and
this he until he is sixty. The costume, hour of rising and retiring,
meals, exercise--everything is fixed by regulations as in barracks.
Since the Spartiate engages only in war, he is to prepare himself for
that; he exercises himself in running, leaping, and wielding his arms;
he disciplines all the members of the body--the neck, the arms, the
shoulders, the legs, and that too, every day. He has no right to
engage in trade, to pursue an industry, nor to cultivate the earth; he
is a soldier and is not to allow himself to be diverted to any other
occupation. He cannot live at his pleasure with his own family; the
men eat together in squads; they cannot leave the country without
permission. It is the discipline of a regiment in the enemy's
territory.
=Laconism.=--These warriors had a rude life, with clean-cut aims and
proud disposition. They spoke in short phrases--or as we say,
laconically--the word has still persisted. The Greeks cited many
examples of these expressions. To a garrison in danger of being
surprised the government sent this message, "Attention!" A Spartan
army was summoned by the king of Persia to lay down his arms; the
general replied, "Come and take them." When Lysander captured Athens,
he wrote simply, "Athens is fallen."
=Music. The Dance.=--The arts of Sparta were those that pertained to
an army. The Dorian conquerors brought with them a peculiar sort of
music--the Dorian style, serious, strong, even harsh. It was military
music; the Spartiates went into battle to the sound of the flute so
that the step might be regular.
Their dance was a military movement. In the "Pyrrhic" the dancers were
armed and imitated all the movements of a battle; they made the
gestures of striking, of parrying, of retreating, and of throwing the
javelin.
=Heroism of the Women.=--The women stimulated the men to combat; their
exhibitions of courage were celebrated in Greece, so much so that
collections of stories of them were made.[64] A Spartan mother, seeing
her son fleeing from battle, killed him with her own hand, saying;
"The Eurotas does not flow for deer." Another, learning that her five
sons had perished, said, "This is not what I wish to know; does
victory belong to Sparta?" "Yes." "Then let us render thanks to the
gods."
THE INSTITUTIONS OF SPARTA
=The Kings and the Council.=--The Spartiates had at first, like the
other Greeks, an assembly of the people. All these institutions were
preserved, but only in form. The kings, descendants of the god
Herakles, were loaded with honors; they were given the first place at
the feasts and were served with a double portion; when they died all
the inhabitants made lamentation for them. But no power was left to
them and they were closely watched.
The Senate was composed of twenty-eight old men taken from the rich
and ancient families, appointed for life; but it did not govern.
=The Ephors.=--The real masters of Sparta were the Ephors (the name
signifies overseers), five magistrates who were renewed every year.
They decided peace and war, and had judicial functions; when the king
commanded the army, they accompanied him, directed the operations, and
sometimes made him return. Usually they consulted the senators and
took action in harmony with them. Then they assembled the Spartiates
in one place, announced to them what had been decided and asked their
approbation. The people without discussing the matter approved the
action by acclamation. No one knew whether he had the right to refuse
assent; accustomed to obey, the Spartiate never refused. It was,
therefore, an aristocracy of governing families. Sparta was not a
country of equality. There were some men who were called Equals, but
only because they were equal among themselves. The others were termed
Inferiors and had no part in the government.
=The Army.=--Thanks to this regime, the Spartiates preserved the rude
customs of mountaineers; they had no sculptors, no architects, no
orators, no philosophers. They had sacrificed everything to war; they
became "adepts in the military art,"[65] and instructors of the other
Greeks. They introduced two innovations especially: a better method of
combat, a better method of athletic exercise.
=The Hoplites.=--Before them the Greeks marched into battle in
disorder; the chiefs, on horseback or in a light chair, rushed ahead,
the men following on foot, armed each in his own fashion,
helter-skelter, incapable of acting together or of resisting. A
battle reduced itself to a series of duels and to a massacre. At
Sparta all the soldiers had the same arms; for defence, the
breastplate covering the chest, the casque which protected the head,
the greaves over the legs, the buckler held before the body. For
offence the soldier had a short sword and a long lance. The man thus
armed was called a hoplite. The Spartan hoplites were drawn up in
regiments, battalions, companies, squads, almost like our armies. An
officer commanded each of these groups and transmitted to his men the
orders of his superior officer, so that the general in chief might
have the same movement executed throughout the whole army. This
organization which appears so simple to us was to the Greeks an
astonishing novelty.
=The Phalanx.=--Come into the presence of the enemy, the soldiers
arrange themselves in line, ordinarily eight ranks deep, each man
close to his neighbor, forming a compact mass which we call a Phalanx.
The king, who directs the army, sacrifices a goat to the gods; if the
entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the
army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured
step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before
the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their
mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to
avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is
protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which
the enemy could secure no hold. These were rude tactics, but
sufficient to overcome a disorderly troop. Isolated men could not
resist such a body. The other Greeks understood this, and all, as far
as they were able, imitated the Spartans; everywhere men were armed
as hoplites and fought in phalanx.
=Gymnastics.=--To rush in orderly array on the enemy and stand the
shock of battle there was need of agile and robust men; every man had
to be an athlete. The Spartans therefore organized athletic exercises,
and in this the other Greeks imitated them; gymnastics became for all
a national art, the highest esteemed of all the arts, the crowning
feature of the great festivals.
In the most remote countries, in the midst of the barbarians of Gaul
or of the Black Sea, a Greek city was recognized by its gymnasium.
There was a great square surrounded by porticoes or walks, usually
near a spring, with baths and halls for exercise. The citizens came
hither to walk and chat: it was a place of association. All the young
men entered the gymnasium; for two years or less they came here every
day; they learned to leap, to run, to throw the disc and the javelin,
to wrestle by seizing about the waist. To harden the muscles and
strengthen the skin they plunged into cold water, dispensed with oil
for the body, and rubbed the flesh with a scraper (the strigil).
=Athletes.=--Many continued these exercises all their lives as a point
of honor and became Athletes. Some became marvels of skill. Milo of
Croton in Italy, it was said, would carry a bull on his shoulders; he
stopped a chariot in its course by seizing it from behind. These
athletes served sometimes in combats as soldiers, or as generals.
Gymnastics were the school of war.
=Role of the Spartiates.=--The Spartans taught the other Greeks to
exercise and to fight. They always remained the most vigorous
wrestlers and the best soldiers, and were recognized as such by the
rest of Greece. Everywhere they were respected. When the rest of the
Greeks had to fight together against the Persians, they unhesitatingly
took the Spartans as chiefs--and with justice, said an Athenian
orator.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] "Hellenica," iii., 3, 6.
[63] See Thucydides, iv., 80.
[64] A collection by Plutarch is still preserved.
[65] A phrase of Xenophon.