Karl Otfried Müller

“ As every old man had the right of severely censuring the habits of any youth, so every citizen was a youth in comparison with these aged fathers of the state. Hence the awe and veneration with which they were commonly regarded at Sparta. That, however, to an Athenian orator of the democratic times, the gerusia should appear possessed of despotic authority, is not surprising; for it is so far true, that this institution, if transplanted to Athens, would necessarily have caused a tyrannical dominion. ”

“ Hence many persons have asked, what merit it was in a Spartan if he preferred death to flight, since a punishment far worse than death awaited the coward? It is indeed true, that the merit of each individual Spartan was less if he preferred dying at his post to saving himself by flight, than if public opinion had not affixed so severe a penalty to the offence of the cowardly soldier. ”

“ Before we speak of the form of government which prevailed in the Doric states, it will be necessary to set aside all modern ideas respecting the origin, essence, and object of a state; namely, that it is an institution for protecting the persons and property of the individuals contained in it. We shall approach nearer to the ancient notion, if we consider the essence of a state to be, that by a recognition of the same opinions and principles, and the direction of actions to the same ends, the whole body become, as it were, one moral agent. ”

“ In the time of Aristotle the power of the cosmi had acquired a despotic character. The number of the families from which they were chosen had become less numerous; individual families had acquired an immediate influence upon the government, and their disputes had created parties, in which the whole nation took a share. The constitution had been thus converted into a narrow oligarchy; the democratic element, the public assembly, being too feeble to put an end to these dissensions. To this was added, at a time when men had ceased to venerate ancient customs, a want of written laws. ”

“ After all, it must be confessed that the constitution of Sparta too much restrained the natural inclination of the citizens; and by making every thing too subservient to public ends, checked the free growth of the people, and, like a plant trimmed by an unsparing hand, destroyed its means both of actual strength and future increase. At the time of Aristotle they endeavoured to increase the population by exempting the father of three sons from serving in war, and the father of four sons from all taxes.907 But even Herodotus only reckons 8000 Spartans in the 9000 families ”

“ Dancing, when it did not merely accompany the time of the music, inclined either to gymnastic display or to mimicry; that is, it either represented bodily activity, or it was meant to express certain ideas and feelings. The gymnastic dancing was no where so much practised as at Sparta, where the ancient connexion between the musical school and the palæstra, and of both with the military exercises,1564 was more strictly maintained than in any other state. Indeed the march of the Spartans and Cretans had, on account of its musical accompaniment, some resemblance to a dance. ”

“ The independence and seclusion so desired by the Dorians were at Sparta most conspicuous, and thus the original spirit of the Doric race, and its ancient customs, were most rigidly, and sometimes even in trifles,1849 there preserved; though it was the mummy rather than the living body of the ancient institutions. This deterioration, however, did not manifest itself till later times; for (as we have more than once remarked) at an early period the mode of life at Sparta was diversified, cheerful, and by no means unattractive. At that time Sparta was the centre and metropolis of Greece. ”

“ Thousands of written laws always leave open a door for the entrance of arbitrary decision, if they have not by their mutual connexion a complete power of supplying what is deficient; this power is, however, alone possessed by the law, connate with the people, which, in the ancient simple times, when national habits are preserved in perfect purity, is better maintained by custom fixed under the inspection of the best men, than by any writing. ”

“ The severity and rudeness of this music (which appeared gloomy and harsh to the later ages, and would be still more so to our ears, accustomed to a softer style) was strikingly contrasted with the mild and pleasing character which had then long pervaded the Epic poetry. It teaches us undoubtedly to distinguish between the Asiatic Greeks, and those sprung from the mountains in the north of Greece, who, proud of their natural loftiness of character and vigour of mind, had acquired but little refinement from any contact with strangers. ”

“ For the Spartans considered marriage, not as a private relation, about which the state had little or no interest, but as a public institution, in order to rear up a strong and healthy progeny to the nation. ”

“ Without endangering the liberty of the state, a royal race was maintained, which, blending the pride of their own family with the national feelings, produced, for a long succession of years, princes of a noble and patriotic disposition. Thus it was in fact with the two Heraclide families, to which Theopompus, Leonidas, Archidamus II., Agesilaus, Cleomenes III., and Agis III. belonged; and the greater number of the later kings retained, up to the last period, a genuine Spartan disposition, which we find expressed in many nervous and pithy apophthegms. ”

“ The ancients, who were infinitely quicker in discovering the moral character of music than can be the case in modern times, attributed to it something solemn, firm, and manly, calculated to inspire fortitude in supporting misfortunes and hardships, and to strengthen the mind against the attacks of passion. They discovered in it a calm sublimity, and a simple grandeur which bordered upon severity, equally opposed to inconstancy and enthusiasm;1499 and this is precisely the character we find so strongly impressed on the religion, arts, and manners of the Dorians. ”

“ The greatest freedom of the Spartan, as well as of the Greeks in general, was only to be a living member of the body of the state; whereas that which in modern times commonly receives the name of liberty, consists in having the fewest possible claims from the community; or in other words, in dissolving the social union to the greatest degree possible, as far as the individual is concerned. What the Dorians endeavoured to obtain in a state was good order, or κόσμος, the regular combination of different elements. ”

“ Indeed we know that in the embellishment of their sacred edifices the Dorians employed a style of building which they themselves invented, from the strict principles of which they never deviated, and which at the same time they took the utmost care to bring to perfection. That they were in strictness the original inventors of this style of architecture has been first satisfactorily proved by the remarkable discoveries of modern times, which have laid open to us the monuments of the unknown ages of Greece in all their strange peculiarities. ”

“ Far otherwise the political speculators of antiquity, such as the Pythagoreans and Plato, who considered the Spartan and Cretan form of government, i.e., the ancient Dorian, as a general model of all governments; and, in fact, the ideal constitution which was realized in Sparta approaches most nearly to that which Pythagoras attempted to establish in Lower Italy, and which Plato brought forward as capable of being put in practice, viz., a close communion, nearly similar to that of a family, having for its object mutual instruction. ”

“ But the history of nations is a history of the progress of individual liberty; among the Greeks of later times the laws necessarily lost this binding force, and obtained a negative character, by which they only so far restrained the actions of each individual, as was necessary for the co-existence of other members of the state. In Sparta, however, law and custom retained nearly equal power; it will therefore be impossible to treat of them separately, and we must be satisfied with some observations upon the judicial system in Sparta and other Doric states. ”

“ And hence, on conversing with the meanest Lacedæmonian, at first indeed he would appear awkward in his language, but when he perceived the drift of the conversation, he would throw in, like a dexterous lancer, some short and nervous remark, so as to make the other look no better than a child. Nor in these cities is such a manner of speaking confined to the men, but it extends also to women. ”

“ If the essence of art consists in investing an idea of the mind with a sensible and bodily form, and this in a corresponding and satisfactory manner, we must certainly ascribe great skill in art to the Dorians, for (as we have before remarked) they delighted more in imitation than in creation or action. This remark applies to the Greeks in general, and particularly to the Dorians, as distinguished from later times ”

“ Every popular assembly is necessarily an unskilful body, and little able to act both with energy and moderation; least of all was the Spartan assembly capable of transacting and executing any complicated business. For this reason it intrusted to the ephors, who were chosen upon democratic principles from among the people, a power similar to that which the public leaders or demagogues of Athens exercised in so pernicious a manner. Plato and Aristotle compare their authority with a tyranny:545 and it is to be remembered that in Greece tyrants continually rose from demagogues. ”

“ For the looser the bond of social union, and the more anarchical the condition of any state, the greater is the individual merit of any citizen who nevertheless observes the rules of morality and justice, and the praise of virtue is more considered as his particular due. ”

“ The dwellings of the Dorians were plain and simple. By a law of Lycurgus the doors of every house were to be fashioned only with the saw, and the ceiling with the axe;1226 not that the legislator intended [pg 266] to abolish altogether the science of architecture, but merely to restrain it to its proper objects, viz., temples and public buildings, and to prevent it from purveying to private luxury. The kings of Greece in Homer's time lived not only in spacious, but also richly ornamented houses, the walls of which glittered with brass, silver, gold, amber, and ivory ”

“ Every one knows of the tearless battle between the Spartans and Arcadians, in which the state had no dead to mourn.1204 Nothing therefore can be less laid to the charge of Sparta than a violent passion for war, a foolhardy and reckless desire of conquest. The latter was also guarded against by the maxim of Lycurgus,1205 “not to go often against the same enemy,” the non-observance of which was a charge brought against Agesilaus. ”

“ The hypothesis that the ancient dialects were determined more by internal than external influence, more by the nature of the men than the influence of place, is confirmed by a remarkable passage of Jamblichus,1928 who had probably derived this sentiment from the schools of the early Pythagoreans: he pronounces the Doric dialect to be the most ancient and best, comparing it, on account of the sounding vowels with which it abounded, to the enharmonic style of music, as he does the Ionic and Æolic dialects to the chromatic style. ”

“ The Grecian states then either contained a class of bondsmen, which can be traced in nearly all the Doric states, or they had slaves, who had been brought either by plunder or commerce from barbarous countries; or a class of slaves was altogether wanting. The last was the case among the Phoceans, Locrians, and other Greeks.134 But these nations, through the scantiness of their resources, never attained to such power as Sparta and Athens. Slavery was the basis of the prosperity of all commercial states, and was intimately connected with foreign trade ”

“ Some noble families, as the Oligæthidæ,668 had a priority, probably the gerusia was composed of them; and the public assembly was restricted in a manner similar to that of Sparta. But at the same time Pindar celebrates Corinth as “the city in which Eunomia (or good government) dwells, and her sisters, the firm supports of cities, Justice and Peace, the bestowers of riches, who know how to keep off Violence, the bold mother of Arrogance.” ”

“ But the Athenian and Ionic democracy he altogether despises, because that appeared on his principles to be an annihilation of government rather than a [pg 194] government, in which every person, striving to act as much as possible for himself, destroyed that unison and harmony in which each individual exists only as a part of the whole. ”