Sparta

“ It is in vain that modern writers have attempted to deny this fact—the proof is before us. By her valour Sparta was long the most eminent state of the most intellectual of all countries; and when we ask what she has bequeathed to mankind—what she has left us in rivalry to that Athens, whose poetry yet animates, whose philosophy yet guides, whose arts yet inspire the world—we find only the names of two or three minor poets, whose works have perished, and some half a dozen pages of pithy aphorisms and pointed repartees! ”

“ Sparta was against her,—Sparta, the lord of Greece. Could a single city, however liberty-loving and devoted its people, maintain itself against that engine of war which had humbled mighty Athens and now lorded it over the world of Greece? This is the question we have to answer; how in a brief space the dominion of Sparta was lost, and Thebes, so long insignificant and almost despised, rose to take the foremost place in Greece. ”

“ Save me, your suppliant, O king of Sparta! from captive slavery; for you have done me good service till this hour, by making an end of yonder men, that regard not aught that is divine in heaven or earth. ”

“ When we came to the history of Sparta, we became so enthusiastic for the Lacedæmonian girls that we tried to imitate their hardened style of life, washing ourselves with cold water, promenading with bare feet, doing gymnastics, drinking no tea, and ceasing to cry. ”

“ XV. Such are the general outlines of the state and constitution of Sparta—the firmest aristocracy that perhaps ever existed, for it was an aristocracy on the widest base. If some Spartans were noble, every Spartan boasted himself gentle. His birth forbade him to work, and his only profession was the sword. The difference between the meanest Spartan and his king was not so great as that between a Spartan and a Perioecus. Not only the servitude of the Helots, but the subjection of the Perioeci, perpetually nourished the pride of the superior race ”

“ Triarius.—Are not Spartans ashamed to be conquered, not by blows but by rumours? 'Tis a great thing to be born a scion of valour and a Spartan. For certain victory all would wait; for certain death none but Spartans. Sparta is girt with no walls, her walls are where her men are. Better to call back the army than to follow them. What if the Persian bores through mountains, makes the sea invisible? Such proud felicity never yet stood sure; the loftiest exaltation is struck to earth through its forgetfulness of the instability of all things human. ”

“ If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle! ”

“ His expectations were not ill-founded—the customs of Sparta allowed no slight to a Spartan, and they adjudged therefore the prize of valour to their own Eurybiades, while they awarded that of wisdom or science to Themistocles. Each was equally honoured with a crown of olive. Forgetful of all their prejudices, their envy, and their inhospitable treatment of strangers, that nation of warriors were dazzled by the hero whose courage assimilated to their own. ”

“ And what then will be the fate of us soldiers, when we shall have as united enemies, Sparta with all her old allies and Athens besides,—Tissaphernes and the barbaric forces on the coast,—and most of all, the Great King whom we marched up to dethrone and slay, if we were able? Is any man fool enough to think that we have a chance of making head against so many combined enemies? ”

“ And who has not learned, in a later school, the wisdom of the Spartan commissioners? Do not their utterances sound familiar to us? "Increase of dominion is waste of life and treasure. Sparta is content to hold her own. What care we, who leads the Greeks into blows? The fewer blows the better. Brave men fight if they must: wise men never fight if they can help it." ”

“ The most vaunted Spartan vigor has not left the least sign of a monument, chiseled, written, carved, or stained, to record Sparta’s very existence. Sparta’s vigor was the vigor of the bull or the elephant. ”

“ Sparta was an armed camp where people were soldiers for the sake of being soldiers. The people of Athens loved to sit in the sun and discuss poetry or listen to the wise words of a philosopher. The Spartans, on the other hand, never wrote a single line that was considered literature, but they knew how to fight, they liked to fight, and they sacrificed all human emotions to their ideal of military preparedness. ”

“ What extended Rome, the heart of banditti, into universal empire? What animated Sparta with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered Nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a proverb of national independence? What but those wise public institutions which strengthened their minds with early application, informed their infancy with the principles of actions, and sent them into the world too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds? ”

“ The future lawgiver then set out on his travels, visiting the other States of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and other countries, and returned to Sparta about the period of the first Olympiad, B.C. 776, with a rich store of wisdom and knowledge. The State was full of disorders, but he instituted great reforms, aided by the authority of the Delphic oracle, and a strong party of influential men. His great object was to convert the citizens of Sparta into warriors united by the strongest bonds, and trained to the severest discipline, governed by an oligarchy under the form of the ancient monarchy. ”

“ ESTIMATE OF THE SPARTAN INSTITUTIONS.—That the laws and regulations of the Spartan constitution were admirably adapted to the end in view,—the rearing of a nation of skilful and resolute warriors,—the long military supremacy of Sparta among the states of Greece abundantly attests. But when we consider the aim and object of the Spartan institutions, we must pronounce them low and unworthy. The true order of things was just reversed among the Lacedæmonians. Government exists for the individual: at Sparta the individual lived for the state. ”

“ The well-known methods of ancient Sparta, which consisted in destroying all weak children and submitting all boys of seven years old and upward to the most rigorous training under state educators, resulted in producing a race of warriors. Fighting men were what Sparta wanted, and fighting men she produced. The possible heir to a throne in modern times must have no drop of common blood in his veins. ”

“ Yes, Sparta is a wheat field; a Bavarian prince holds court at the foot of [Pg 12] the Acropolis; the traveling virtuoso digs for marbles in the Roman Forum and beneath the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus; but Lycurgus and Leonidas, and Miltiades and Demosthenes, and Cato and Tully "still live;" and Webster still lives, and all the great and good shall live in the heart of ages, while marble and bronze shall endure; and when marble and bronze have perished, they shall "still live" in memory so long as men shall reverence Law, and honor Patriotism, and love Liberty! ”

“ In Sparta the true Spartans were steadily dwindling, the land was passing into the hands of a few families, the institutions which had created a nation of soldiers were falling into neglect, and the government was becoming more and more oligarchical. ”

“ Spartans are counting their numbers, not their manhood. Let us see how long the list is, that Sparta may have, if not brave soldiers, at least true messengers. Can it be that we are vanquished, not by war, but by reports? that man, i' faith, has a right to despise everything at whose very name Spartans are afraid. If we may not conquer Xerxes, let us at least be allowed to see him; I would know what it is I flee from. As yet I am in no way like an Athenian, either in seeking culture, or in dwelling behind a wall; the last Athenian quality that I shall imitate will be cowardice. ”

“ There was Sparta also, called sometimes Lacedæmon. The inhabitants of this city were famed for their courage, hardihood, and physical strength, and for the energy with which they devoted themselves to the work of war. They were nearly all soldiers, and all the arrangements of the state and of society, and all the plans of education, were designed to promote military ambition and pride among the officers and fierce and indomitable courage and endurance in the men. ”

“ Soldiering, as in the case of the Ten Thousand, is passing over from amateur patriots to mercenary professionals. It is clear that if new ideas are to revolutionise the art of war, the supremacy of Sparta is doomed. Strong arms and thick skulls flourished in the vale of Eurotas. Sparta had a rude shock when an Athenian condottiere named Iphicrates cut up a Spartan company of hoplites with a newfangled battalion of his own training, a body of drilled light infantry. And now in the fullness of time Bœotia was to produce its man of genius—Epaminondas the Theban. ”

“ Now Sparta, situated in the midst of a numerous conquered population of Messenians and Helots, was partly a great gymnasium and partly a perpetual camp. Her citizens were always in training. The entire social constitution of Sparta was shaped with a view to the breeding and bringing up of a strong and beautiful race. Feeble or ill-formed infants were put to death. The age at which citizens might marry was prescribed by law; and the State paired off men and women as the modern breeder pairs off horses, with a sole view to the excellence of the off-spring. ”

“ Sparta lies hard by the mountain Taÿgetos, and to this day they show you a ravine on the mountain-side where it is claimed the deformed and weakly Spartan children were cast, to remove them from among a race which prized bodily vigor above every other consideration. It is a pity that Sparta, which played so vast a part in early history, should have left so little to recall her material existence. ”

“ Lo Sparta is wide, and wide is Elis, a land of chariots and horses, and Arcadia rich in sheep, and there are the citadels of the Achaeans, and Messenia, and Argos, and all the sea-coast of Sisyphus. There be maidens by their parents nurtured, maidens countless, that lack not aught in wisdom or in comeliness. ”

“ In the modern sense of liberty, there was very little in Sparta, except that which was possessed by the aristocratic citizens—the conquerors of the country—men, whose very occupation was war and government, and whose very amusement were those which fostered warlike habits. The Roman citizens did not disdain husbandry, nor the Puritan settlers of New England, but the Spartan citizens despised both this and all trade and manufacture. Never was a haughtier class of men than these Spartan soldiers. ”

“ Sparta.-Athens. By force of this difference, the Spartans formed their state upon the grim lines of a military camp, and took leadership among the Greeks in practical affairs; the Athenians adorned a free city with great and beautiful works, made it hospitable to all genius and all the knowledge of the time, and created a capital for the civilization of the ancient world. ”

“ With the real power of Sparta thus greatly augmented on land, in addition to her vast empire at sea, bringing its ample influx of tribute,—and among cities who had not merely long recognized her as leader, but had never recognized any one else,—it required an unusual stimulus to raise any formidable hostile combination against her, notwithstanding a large spread of disaffection and antipathy. The stimulus came from Persia, from whose treasures the means had been before furnished to Sparta herself for subduing Athens. ”

“ We see that the runners in a race be not discontented at all if they wear not the garlands and coronets of wrestlers, but rest pleased with their own rewards, and therein delight and rejoice. It is an old said saw, and a common proverb: Sparta is thy lot and province, look well to it, and adorn the same. ”

“ And be the Spartan's epitaph on me— 'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.' Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; ”

“ TO THE DEATH OF PERICLES.—Wonderful as was the growth of Athens under Pericles, it is obvious that she stood exposed to two principal sources of danger. Her allies and dependants, the stay of that naval power in which her strength lay, were discontented with her spirit of domination and of extortion. The Peloponnesian Alliance, which was led by Sparta, the bulwark of the aristocratic interest, comprised, with the Dorian, most of the Aeolian states,—as Boeotia, Phocis, Locris, etc. Its military strength lay mainly in its heavy-armed infantry. Thus Sparta had the advantage of strong allies. ”

“ Breakfast with me, old chap; some of the best black soup that Sparta can afford shall be put on the table: and I'll shew you the walls."
They met: and Agesilaus had drawn out his Spartan army before him, and, with exulting cheer and dignified mien, said to his friend from Epirus, "Look! these are the Walls of Sparta, Sir; and every particular man you see is a Brick." How classical becomes the phrase! ”

“ The severe simplicity of Spartan life, the rigor of political and social institutions, the aristocratic form of government, and above all the military spirit and ambition, gave permanence to all conquests, so that in the Persian wars Sparta took the load of the land forces. The great rival power of Sparta was Athens, but this was founded on maritime skill and enterprise. It was to the navy of Athens, next after the hoplites of Sparta, that the successful resistance to the empire of Persia may be attributed. ”