Spartans

“ Our dishonour can hardly be wiped out even by victory; bravely as we may fight, successful as we may be, much of our renown is already lost; for Spartans have debated whether or not to flee. O that we may die! For myself, after this discussion, the only thing I fear is to return home. Old women's tales have shaken the arms out of our hands. Now, now, let us fight, among the thirty thousand our valour might have lain hid. The rest have fled. If you ask my opinion, which I utter for the honour of ourselves and Greece, I say they have not deserted us, they have chosen us as their champions. ”

“ Hardly, as it seems to us, if the most glorious actions which are set like jewels in the history of mankind are weighed one against the other in the balance, hardly will those three hundred Spartans, who in the summer morning sat combing their long hair for death in the passes of Thermopylae, have earned a more lofty estimate for themselves than this one crew of modern Englishmen. ”

“ Yet not the less they loved them. Spartans they, Who could not rear a weak, effeminate brood. Better the forest’s awful solitude, Better the desert spaces, where the day Wanders from dawn to dusk and finds no life! VII.
But over all the tireless years swept on, Till side by side the Centuries grew old, And the young Nation, great and strong and bold, Forgot its early struggles, in triumphs later won! ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Spartans, knowing that death awaited them, were desperate, and displayed the utmost possible valor. When their spears were broken, they assailed the Persians with their swords. And when the swords gave out, they fought with their daggers, and even with their hands and teeth, till not one living man remained among them. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ A chosen sample, clean as sifted corn,
With our own denizens as a kind of chaff. ⁠630
⁠First, I detest the Spartans most extremely;
And wish that Neptune, the Tænarian deity,
Would bury them in their houses with his earthquakes.
For I've had losses—losses, let me tell ye,
Like other people; vines cut down and injured.
But, among friends (for only friends are here) ,
Why should we blame the Spartans for all this?
For people of ours, some people of our own,
Some people from amongst us here, I mean;
But not the people (pray remember that) ”

“ The body is intended to be the instrument of the mind: the Spartans reversed this, and attended to the education of the mind only so far as its development enhanced the effectiveness of the body as a weapon in warfare.
Spartan history teaches how easy it is for a nation, like an individual, to misdirect its energies—to subordinate the higher to the lower. ”

“ Next day, after the names of the men slain in the battle had been learned, all who had lost any sons, brothers, or friends went about the streets looking gay and cheerful; and those who had lost no friends shut themselves in their houses as if in mourning. You see, the Spartans were proud to give their sons to the service of their fatherland, and thought it quite an honor for a man to be killed in the wars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were left at that time no more than seven hundred Spartans, and of these about one hundred possessed an inheritance in land, while the rest, without money, and excluded from all the privileges of citizenship, fought in a languid and spiritless fashion in the wars, and were ever on the watch for some opportunity to subvert the existing condition of affairs at home. ”

“ Its progress was mainly due, however, to that part of the legislation of Lycurgus which related to the military discipline and education of its citizens. The position of Sparta, an unfortified city surrounded by numerous enemies, compelled the Spartans to be a nation of soldiers. From his birth every Spartan belonged to the state; sickly and deformed children were destroyed, those only being thought worthy to live who promised to become useful members of society. ”

“ From reflecting on your situation, we Spartans, in conjunction with your other allies, undertake to maintain, as long as the war shall continue, not only your wives, but such other parts of your families as are incapable of military service. ”

“ The Spartan troops were mostly indigent young men, who elate with their freedom from the bonds of usury, and big with the hopes of a share in the lands at their return, followed Agis with the greatest vigour and alacrity, and behaved so well in their march, that they reminded the admiring Greeks of the excellent discipline and decorum for which the Spartans were formerly so famous under the most renowned of their ancient leaders. ”

“ But the argument that the Spartans will be our enemies now, if we make alliance with those Arcadians who desire our friendship, is an argument which no one has less right even to mention, than those who induced you to help the Spartans when they were in danger. ”

“ So satisfied were the Spartans of this, that, in order to make their officers endeavour to achieve every thing by stratagem, they ordered that every general who obtained an advantage by stratagem, was to be permitted to sacrifice an ox, but those who succeeded by open force, a cock only. ”

“ The Spartans, in order to guard their children against drunkenness, exposed to them slaves whom they had previously deprived of reason by intoxication, we may derive a Spartan lesson from Archæological explorations. ”

“ The Spartans said to one another, "Let us throw this fellow into the rocky chasm. Then we may be sure that he will never trouble us again."
So a party of soldiers led him up into the mountain and placed him on the edge of the yawning hole in the rocks. "See the place to which we send all our enemies," they said. And they threw him in.
No one knows how he escaped being dashed to pieces. Some of the Greeks said that an eagle caught him in her beak and carried him unharmed to the bottom. ”

“ The Spartans were the most warlike of all the Grecian states. Their government was conducted in such a way as to make all the males in the country fighters.
Their idea of fighting was as different as possible from that of the Persians. They had few horse-soldiers. They were drawn up for battle in a close deep formation, I suppose like what we should call "a solid {118} square," and it was this solid square that was called the phalanx. The troops were heavily armed, with shield, sword, and, most important of all for receiving the charge of cavalry, with long spears. ”

“ They were admitted equally with the Spartans to the honourable occupation of war, and indeed sometimes served as heavy-armed soldiers, or as troops of the line.66 There were at Platæa 5000 Dorian hoplitæ, [pg 023] and the same number of Periœci; at Sphacteria 292 prisoners were taken, of whom only 120 were Spartans.67 How, if the Periœci had been an oppressed people, could Sparta have ventured to collect so large a number into her armies ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were so many of them that no man could count them. How could a handful of men hope to stand against so great a host?
And yet Le-on-i-das and his Spartans held their ground. They had made up their minds to die at their post. Some one brought them word that there were so many Persians that their arrows dark-ened the sun.
"So much the better," said the Spartans; "we shall fight in the shade." [112]
Bravely they stood in the narrow pass. Bravely they faced their foes. To Spartans there was no such thing as fear. The Persians came forward, only to meet death at the points of their spears. ”

“ Everywhere they flew to arms, and, being joined by some of the Periœci, furiously attacked their masters. The Spartans, after maintaining the bitter struggle for several years, finding themselves unable to reduce their former slaves to submission, were forced to ask aid of the other Grecian states. ”

“ Fought B.C. 394 between 14,000 Spartans, and 26,000 Athenians, Corinthians, Thebans and Argives. The allies were defeated, losing twice as many men as their opponents, but the Spartans, in spite of their victory, were obliged to retire, leaving the Isthmus in their possession. ”

“ While fighting a thousand fierce foemen alone.
Custer's the right wing, the left and the center,
Himself is his only reserve and supply.
This is a battle for Spartans to enter,
Where One makes an army to conquer or die. ”

“ At Sparta youths fight with their fists, feet, nails, even with their teeth, and prefer being killed to being conquered. A Spartan boy is even said to have hidden a fox in the bosom of his garment, and to have been killed by the teeth of the beast, without uttering (lit. neither to have uttered) a murmur: for to steal anything without being caught (lit secretly) was held to be glorious among the Spartans ”

“ Sometimes the Spartans would give the slaves strong drink till they were drunken, and then lead them out before the young men so as to show how wretched and unmanly a drunkard appeared. Yet the Spartans would have fared ill without the help of their slaves, for the Helots were cooks, ploughmen, carriers, and general servants. ”

“ They constituted a military aristocracy, and a military aristocracy [Pg 206] is always more proud and overbearing than any other.
The Spartans adorn themselves for the battle.
It must be understood, therefore, that these Spartan soldiers were entirely above the performance of any useful labors; and while they prized, in character, the savage ferocity of the tiger, they had a taste, in person, for something like his savage beauty too. They were never, moreover, more particular and careful in respect to their personal appearance than when they were going into battle. ”

“ Comic writers might show up the boorishness of the unlearned Spartans, and irritable tragic poets might vent their spleen on their country’s enemy, but in the end Spartan institutions had to be respected and admired. ”

“ Arrangement of the enomoty and military evolutions. § 4. Arrangement of the Mora. § 5. Organization of the Spartan army. Its officers. § 6. Cavalry in the other Doric states. The Sciritæ in the Lacedæmonian army. Light-armed soldiers. § 7. Arms of the heavy infantry of Sparta. § 8. Spartan tactics. § 9. Steady courage of the Spartans. § 10. War considered as an art by the Spartans. Life of the Spartans in camp. 1. The military system of the Dorians, which we are now about to consider, was evidently brought to the greatest perfection in Sparta. ”

“ The Spartans, whose severe military discipline rendered them far the best soldiers in Greece, were totally unfit to manage the empire, at the head of which they found themselves after the humiliation of Athens. ”

“ The whole republic was continually gathered together in bodies, and their studies, their occupations, and their amusements, were the same. One taste was universal; and the young and the old being constantly together, the first under the immediate inspection and authority of the latter, the same sentiments were transmitted from 257generation to generation. The Spartans were so pleased, and so satisfied with their situation, that they despised the manners of every other nation. ”

“ It has already been observed, that the Spartans appear to have possessed numbers of slaves properly so called, besides their oppressed and miserable bondsmen, with whom they seem often to have been confounded. ”

“ The ancient Spartans owed a good deal of their famous bravery, their bodily strength and beauty, as well as their mental energy and capacity, to the old custom of doing away with new-born children who were born weakly or crippled. ”

“ Cleomenes, encouraged by this success, began to speak boldly among the citizens, and reminding them of a sentence of one of their ancient kings, said, it was in vain now that the Spartans asked, not how many their enemies were, but where they were. ”