Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta

Today we will learn and reflect on the military culture
of Sparta, focusing on Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, the
Spartan lawgiver and prototypical Spartan. Like
Plutarch, we will also draw on how the ancient Greek
historians describe Sparta and her warrior ethos,
including Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

All ancient cultures are warrior cultures, as depicted
in Homer classic, the Iliad.

Although all Greek city-states were defended by citizen hoplite
forces, Sparta was unique in that her army was a permanent
army, where all male citizens lived in military barracks from the
age of seven until they were thirty years old, constantly honing
their military skills.
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources used for this
video. Please feel free to follow along our PowerPoint script
posted to SlideShare. Please, we welcome interesting questions
in the comments. Let us learn and reflect together!

YouTube Channel (please subscribe):
Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg
© Copyright 2021 Become a patron:
https://www.patreon.com/seekingvirtueandwisdom
https://amzn.to/3pIMbti
The Life of
Greece, by
Will Durant
Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus
History and Culture of Sparta
https://amzn.to/3FF1w3T
https://youtu.be/_hYwZsxmC3s
https://amzn.to/3w5sUFe
https://amzn.to/3wxzoMZ
https://amzn.to/3EQAHID

We have few paintings of Sparta, Sparta was quite,
well, Spartan.

Thucydides was quite right when he
observed, “Suppose the city of
Sparta were deserted, and nothing
left but the temples and the
ground-plan, distant ages would be
very unwilling to believe that the
power of the Lacedaemonians was
at all equal to their fame. Their city
is not built continuously and has no
splendid temples or other
buildings; it rather resembles a
group of villages,” “and would
therefore make a poor showing.”
The theater of ancient Sparta with Mt. Taygetus in background.

Sparta was the city-state that dominated the
Peloponnese, the region that is separated from
Athens and the rest of Greece by the narrow Isthmus
at Corinth, and without that isthmus it would be an
island to itself. Sparta was a traditional and
conservative agricultural society that was not
welcoming to foreigners, other than aristocratic
guest-friends.

The three levels of Laconian society, with
population guesstimates about fifty years
before the Peloponnesian Wars, are:
• Dorians, or the Spartan citizen class,
32,000, including men, women and
children, who lived apart from the
Helots and Perioeci in the villages in
the Eurotas valley.
• Perioeci, 120,000, or four times as
numerous, freemen living in many
villages surrounding Sparta.
• Helot slaves, 224,000, or seven times
as numerous, these were the
equivalent of medieval serfs who
worked for the Spartan citizens on
various land holdings. They lived
mainly in Messenia.

These guesstimates are from Will Durant’s book copyrighted in
1939. Professor Kenneth Harl of the Teaching Company, now
Wondrium, argues that the commonly accepted ratios may be
overdrawn, with current scholarship he suggests that the free and
slave populations are about equal, and he is lumping the Spartan
citizens in with the Perioeci free citizens. But these will never be
more than guesstimates.
Even today, the southern portion of the Peloponnese is mostly
countryside, this is a picture of the Eurotas River in Greece today,
which flowed past the five villages that comprised the Spartan
city-state.

Eurotas River
in modern
Greece.
Photographer:
Aeleftherios

Will Durant says this, “the Dorians
lived mostly in Sparta on the produce
of fields owned by them in the
country and tilled for them by Helots.”
The freemen, or Perioeci, “lived in a
hundred villages in the mountains or
on outskirts of Laconia, or engaged in
trade or industry in the towns: subject
to taxation and military service, but
having no share in the government,
and no right of intermarriage with the
ruling class. Lowest and most
numerous of all were the Helots,” the
conquered non-Dorian population or
slaves captured in war.

Roman mosaic depicting agricultural slaves.
Will Durant continues, “The Helot had
all the liberties of a medieval serf. He
could marry as he pleased,” “work the
land in his own way, and live in a village
with his neighbors, undisturbed by the
absentee owner of his plot, so long as
he remitted regularly to this owner the
rental fixed by the government. He was
bound to the soil, but neither he nor the
land could be sold. In some cases, he
was a domestic servant in the town. He
was expected to attend his master in
war, and, when called upon, to fight for
the state; if he fought well, he might
receive his freedom.”

Roman mosaic depicting agricultural slaves.
“His economic condition was not
normally worse than that of the
village peasantry in the rest of
Greece.” “He had the
consolation of his own dwelling,
varied work, and the quiet
friendliness of trees and fields.
But he was continually subject to
martial law, and to secret
supervision by a secret police, by
whom he might at any moment
be killed without cause or trial.”

Professor Kenneth Harl states that the Spartan system of a
Helot class may not be unique to Sparta, many Greek city-
states had a hinterland where a subject population of
slaves who helped grow the crops to feed the populace. He
also points out there was some fluidity between these
three classes, Perioeci could be promoted to citizenship for
extraordinary service, or demoted to Helot status if they
were troublesome.

Ruins of Sparta
from the right
bank of the
Eurotas.
Sparta is in the
background
and Mount
Taygetus
behind that.

Another teaching company professor, Jeremy McInerney, discusses how
changes wrought by the Messenian Wars fought in the centuries prior to
the Peloponnesian Wars changed Sparta from an open society, thriving
with learning and poets, into a closed militaristic society only focused on
warfare, ignoring learning and philosophy. The ancestors of the Helots in
Messenia were the legendary Mycenean Kings, including Agamemnon,
many who so nobly fought in the Trojan Wars. These Messenian Wars,
where the Spartans subjected the Helot population to a slavery of
serfdom, were bitter wars fought over several decades. Our major source
for the history of these wars is Pausanius, who was a second century
Roman who wrote a travelogue of the Greek sites, this is much shorter
account than our other histories, we have the link for his travelogue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Messenian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Messenian_War
https://www.theoi.com/Text/Pausanias4A.html
https://amzn.to/3R1A2KK

The countryside in Messenia was so remote that in
the first phase of the Peloponnesian Wars, the
Athenian general Demosthenes was able to land at
on the peninsula at Pylos undetected, and spent
several weeks building fortifications undetected,
though this was only about fifty miles from Sparta.

The continuing deadlock of the war, and the fact
that the warmongering leaders on both sides were
slain in battle, led to the Peace of Nicias. Another
factor was the Spartan desire to bring home the
Spartan prisoners of war captured during the
unsuccessful Spartan siege of Pylos.

During the late twentieth century, many historians tried to interpret the
Peloponnesian Wars through the lens of the Cold War, equating Sparta with Russia,
and Athens with America, which meant that the wrong side lost the war. This analogy
was strained by the fact that Sparta fought the war with the slogan, Free the Greeks,
or free the Athenian Allies from the tyranny of the Athenian Empire.
Like the British Empire, there some exploitation of the allies by Athens, though many
allied states benefitted from the increased trade. There were real differences
between the two city-states, Athens encouraged her allies to establish radical
democracies, whereas Sparta encouraged her allies to establish oligarchies. But there
more similarities than differences, all Greek cultures were warrior cultures, all Greek
city-states had Assemblies where citizens voted on state policy, all Greeks shared the
same gods and the same Greek culture, and they even called truces for all states to
compete in Pan-Hellenic games.

Ancient historians had a different perspective: they
admired the Spartan constitution and traditions, the
ancients valued an orderly society and governance by good
law, expressed as eunomia in Greek. They saw the wild and
erratic Athenian democracy as dangerous. After all, didn’t
the Athenians lose the Peloponnesian War after ousting
their most successful general, and executing many generals
after they won a major battle? Didn’t the Athenian
Assembly shortly after the war hastily condemn their
beloved Socrates to death?

There are no prisons in the ancient world, only jails, and often jails are filled
simply by those who irritate the authorities. If you break a law in the ancient
world, you are either fined, exiled, or executed, there are no long prison
sentences. The state does not have the resources to run a prison, so when
you are thrown in jail awaiting a hearing the government expects you to
visit and bring food with you to feed the prisoner, and maybe the jailers
too. We see in our video on the death and execution of Socrates how his
friends were able to come and stay with Socrates for his entire last day on
earth.
How should we interpret his advice in his epistles to the various churches?
Let us ponder the opinions of two leading scholars, one Anglican, one
Orthodox.
https://youtu.be/Mip1vgRKH1E

There are no unbiased accounts of Spartan society from Spartan writers,
their culture did not promote philosophy and learning. When examining
Spartan politics and culture, the primary source is Plutarch’s Life of
Lycurgus. Although he lived 450 years later, Plutarch consults Herodotus,
Thucydides and Xenophon, he also draws on many other sources that
have been lost to modern historians.
Was there an actual Lycurgus, who was the original lawgiver of Sparta,
bringing order to a society that was torn apart by violence? Plutarch
repeats the legend that his very own father, King of Sparta, was struck
down by a meat-cleaver when he tried to break up a fight. Whereas the
lawgivers of Athens: first Draco of draconian fame, then Solon, likely were
actual persons, we are less sure of Lycurgus, who may be the mythic
depiction of the ideal Spartan.

Lycurgus as
legislator, by
MA Barth,
1832

One origin myth of Lycurgus demonstrated his innate
virtue after he ascended to the throne of Sparta when
both his father and his older brother passed away.
When the widow of his elder brother discovered she
was pregnant, she let Lycurgus know that she was
willing to kill the infant and marry him to provide an
heir. Maybe she thought her life was in danger since
she had a potential usurper to the throne in her
womb.

Lycurgus of Sparta, by Abel de Pujol, 1811
Lycurgus pretended
to go along, but after
the infant was born,
he held him up in the
air and announced,
“Spartiates, a king
has been born to
you!” Plutarch
recounts, “All the
people were
delighted,” “and
were impressed by
his high-mindedness
and justice."

Legend suggests that Lycurgus had reigned
as king for eight months, and to allay
suspicions he decided to travel to various
lands, like Solon did. Plutarch recounts that
he discovered the poems of Homer while
travelling in Ionia, that he brought back to
further the education of the Greeks.

We read in Plutarch that Draco and Solon, the
lawgivers of Athens, we selected by consensus by the
Athenians to draft the law codes of Athens. How was
Lycurgus selected? Plutarch says he formed a group of
conspirators, and “thirty leaders advanced at dawn
under arms into the city square, to terrify and
intimidate his opponents,” which sounds like an
unlikely beginning of a rule that support
constitutional reforms.

Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours, The Selection of Children in Sparta, 1785.

Lycurgus of Sparta, BY Merry Joseph Blondel, 1828
Plutarch states that “among
Lycurgus’ many reforms, the first
and most important was the
institution of the elders, who were,
as Plato says, a source of security
and restraint since they tempered
the ‘feverish’ rule of the kings.”
“The political system had previously
been unstable,” sometimes
dominated by the kings as a
tyranny, other times dominated by
democracy of the masses.

-
This council of thirty elders, which
included the two kings as elders,
“restored the ship of state to an
even keel,” sometimes “siding with
the kings to resist democracy,” other
times “supporting the people to
resist tyranny.” Will Durant says that
“the powers of the kings were
limited: they performed the
sacrifices of the state religion,
headed the judiciary, and
commanded the army in war.

The Spartans were known for being laconic,
saying little. They were known for their pithy
communications.

Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, painted 1814 When they planned to
block the Persian army
at the Pass of
Thermopylae, in the
Greco-Persian wars,
the Spartans were
warned the Persian
army was so numerous
that their arrows
would block out the
sun. The Spartan
Dieneces responded,
“If the Persian arrows
hide the sun, we shall
have our battle in the
shade.”

https://youtu.be/b7QLp1HrOMs
In the Peloponnesian Wars, after a Spartan fleet was badly defeated by Alcibiades, an
intercepted letter to the Spartan Assembly simply stated, “Ships lost. Mindarus dead. Men
starving. Don’t know what to do.” The Spartans quickly sent supplies and reinforcements.

Likewise, the Spartan Assembly was
not like the raucous Athenian
Assembly, where heated speeches
filled up the proceedings. In the
Spartan Assembly, Plutarch tells us
that in Lycurgus’ system, which was
a “mixed constitution,” part
democracy, part aristocracy, part
monarchy, “no one was allowed to
express an opinion except the
elders and the kings, but the people
did have the authority to decide
about the measures proposed by
the elders and the kings.”
Lycurgus statue, Law Courts of Brussells

All male Spartan citizens were admitted to the Assembly
when they turned thirty.
The day-to-day government decisions were overseen by
five ephors elected from the citizen body that also
supervised the training of the young and public moral and
religious life.
Sparta suffered from the same social pressures as did
Athens and many Greek city-states, the widening chasm
between the rich and poor, which led to civil in many Greek
city-states.

Education in
Sparta, by Luigi
Mussini, 1850

-
Plutarch states that the “most revolutionary of
Lycurgus’ constitutional reforms was the
redistribution of the land. There was terrible
inequality, crowds of paupers without property and
without any means of support were accumulating in
the city, and wealth was entirely concentrated in the
hands of a few people. In order to banish arrogance,
envy, crime, luxury, and those most chronic and
serious political afflictions, wealth and poverty,
Lycurgus persuaded them to pool all the land and
then redistribute it all over again, so that everyone
would live on equal terms and with the same
amount of property to provide an income” in barley
and fruit. Later in his life, Lycurgus commented that
the “whole of Laconia looked like an estate which
had recently been divided between a large number
of brothers.” Lycurgus, US House of Representatives, by
Paul Jennewein, 1950.

Lycurgus tried to pool and divide up
their furniture, but that was too
drastic for the Spartans, so he
“attacked greed by political means.
Lycurgus revoked all gold and silver
coinage and made iron the only legal
tender;” and then he assigned to the
“iron such a low value that ten minas’
worth needed a large storeroom in
one’s house and a team of cattle to
transport the wealth. Once this
decree was in force, many types of
crime disappeared in Lacedaemon.”
Lycurgus, Lawgiver, by Bonifazio de' Pitati, late 1500's

The money was too heavy and bulky to steal and
carry! Was this really true? Well, perhaps that is the
legend that Plutarch repeats. Will Durant said this was
done to prevent the landowning aristocracy to be
displaced by the mercantile classes, as was happening
in the rest of Greece.

-
But Will Durant observes, “Human greed remained,
however, and found an outlet in official corruption.
Senators, ephors, envoys, generals, and kings were
alike purchasable, at prices befitting their dignity.”
Plutarch tells us, “Lycurgus then set about ridding
the state of useless, superfluous professions,”
forbidding citizens to engage in industry or trade.
“Once luxury was deprived of the things that
enliven it and nourish it, wealth gradually wasted
away of its own accord, and there was no
advantage in owning a great deal of property
because wealth had no means of displaying itself in
public but had to stay shut up in idleness at home.”
Lycurgus, from Plutarch's Lives,
printed for Jacob Tonson, 1711

This sounds like Plutarch was describing a utopia. Was this utopia
a reality in Sparta? Who knows?
What was true was that without a thriving economy, foreigners
did not seek to live in Sparta, preferring Athens. Athens was far
more welcoming to workers from other city-states. As a result of
this low immigration and her low birthrate, Sparta’s population
never matched its influence in the Peloponnesian Wars. Sparta
never recovered demographically from the earthquake early in
the wars that wiped out an entire class of young Spartan soldiers.
Perhaps the earthquake collapsed their barracks. NOTE: The
earthquake collapsed their gymnasium.

Acropolis at Athens, by Leo von Klenze, painted 1846

Detail of Xerxes, by Ernest Normand, 1888
During the Greco-Persian Wars, Demartus, who
was an ex-Spartan king who fled to be an
advisor to King Xerxes, said that “poverty is
Greece’s inheritance from of old, but valor she
won for herself by wisdom and the strength of
the law. By her valor Greece now keeps both
poverty and despotism at bay.”
After Peloponnesian Wars, some Spartans did
indeed have silver and gold coins. The Spartan
general Gylippus was caught skimming out of
the sacks of coins of war tribute. In response,
the Spartans “declared that all the silver and
gold should be sent away as mere ‘alien
mischiefs.’”

Militarization of Spartan Society

The most fundamental reform credited to Lycurgus was the
militarization of the Spartan state. The Spartan state resembles
the story of a remote airbase and army outpost in the boondocks
during the Vietnamese War. The airbase was there to protect the
army outpost, and the army outpost was there to protect the
airbase. In the case of Sparta, once she conquered and captured a
Helot population far larger than her own, she chose to institute a
military state where all male citizens were full-time soldiers, in
part to prevent the Helots from rebelling!

The Magnanimity of
Lycurgus, by Jean-
Jacques-François Le
Barbier, 1791

Were there other reasons for this military training? We had an
in-depth discussion of the hoplite infantry warfare in our video
on Herodotus and the Greco-Persian Wars. The Greek hoplites
fought in strict formation, with overlapping shields, and the line
could not break, for if the line broke, the enemy would pursue
and slaughter you. I have not seen any mentions of this in the
sources, but since hoplite warfare requires an orderly formation,
the Athenians must have had some sort of refresher reservist
training like the monthly drills our National Guardsmen
participate in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoplite

Although the Spartan reputation for excellent hoplite
infantry soldiers was legendary, the Athenian hoplites
were their equals in battle. In the first battles of the
Greco-Persian Wars, the Battle of Marathon, the
Athenian and Platean hoplites alone defeated the
mighty Persian army under King Darius.
Why? The Spartans were busy with a religious
festival, they could not arrive in time.

Battle of
Marathon,
Georges
Rochegrosse
1859

The Spartans were embarrassed that they reached the
battlefield after the battle was won by the Athenians, so
when the son of Darius, King Xerxes, returned many years
later with a much larger Persian army for revenge, it was
the few thousand Spartan hoplites that held off the much
larger hundred thousand Persian army at the Pass of
Thermopylae. They held the Persians for many days, until
they were defeated when the Persians were shown a
mountain trail that bypassed the bottleneck pass.

This remarkable battle was melodramatically retold in the
movie, 300:

-
During the Greco-Persian Wars, the
Spartan advisor Demartus says this to
King Xerxes, “The Spartans, fighting
singly, are as good as any, but fighting
together they are the best soldiers in
the world. They are free, yes, but not
entirely free; for they have a master,
and that master is Law, which they fear
much more than your subjects fear you.
Whatever this master commands, they
do; and his command never varies: it is
never to retreat in battle, however great
the odds, but always to remain in
formation, and to conquer or die.”
Spartans throw Persian envoys
into a well, 'Vorzeit und
Gegenwart", Augsburg, 1832

The Persian spies saw the Spartans at
the Pass of Thermopylae relaxing,
stripped for exercise, and combing their
hair, and when they told this to King
Xerxes, he was bewildered. Herodotus
tells us that Xerxes called his Spartan
advisor Demartus for an explanation.
“These Spartans have come to fight us
for possession of the pass, and for that
struggle they are preparing. It is the
custom of the Spartans to pay careful
attention to their hair when they are
about to risk their lives.”

-
Plutarch says that when men came of
age at twenty, “they let their hair
grow long, and used to look after it
especially in times of danger, making
sure that they kept it sleek and well
combed, because they remembered
something Lycurgus had said, that
long hair increases the attractiveness
of handsome men and the
fearsomeness of ugly men.”
Battle of the Thermopylae, by John
Steeple Davis, around 1900

Military Training of Spartan Boys

Spartan boys started their military training
at age seven, they no longer lived at home,
they lived in barracks in various herds, as
Plutarch tells us, “so they become used to
playing and learning together under the
same rules and regimen. The boy who
showed the greatest intelligence and
fighting spirit was put in charge of his herd,
and the rest kept their eyes on him,
listened to his orders, and endured his
punishments, so that their education was a
training in obedience.”
Three Spartan Boys Practising Archery,
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, circa 1812

-
Plutarch continues, “The boys learnt
to read and write as much as they
would need to get by, while all the
rest of their education encouraged
ready obedience, the capacity to
endure hard work, and the ability to
win in battle. That is why, as they
grew older, their training was
stepped up: their hair was cut short,
and they became accustomed to go
about barefoot and play naked.”
The Hit, by Frederic Leighton, 1800’s

Education in Sparta, by Luigi Mussini, 1850
Plutarch continues, “At
the age of twelve they
stopped wearing tunics
and were given one
cloak a year,” which they
wore both winter and
summer. “They slept
along with others from
their unit or herd on
straw mattresses they
packed themselves.”
They are under the
command of an eiren, a
twenty-year old recently
graduated from this
boyhood military
regimen.

Plutarch says this young commander “tells the
sturdy boys to fetch wood and the smaller ones
vegetables, and they go and get them by
stealing. Some go to people’s gardens, while
others with cunning and caution sneak into the
men’s messes. Any boy who is caught is given a
thorough thrashing for being a careless and
incompetent thief. They also steal any food they
can, and so learn the art of getting past sleeping
people and careless guards. A boy goes hungry,
as well as being beaten, if he is caught, because
their meals are never generous, so that they
learn to rely on themselves to ward off hunger
by their own bravery and cunning.”

Pseudo-Xenophon elaborates,
“Clearly a prospective thief
must keep awake at night,
and by day practice deception
and lie in wait, as well as have
spies ready if he is going to
seize anything. Clearly it was
Lycurgus’ wish that by
training the boys in all these
ways he would make them
more resourceful at feeding
themselves and better
fighters.”
A spartan woman giving a shield to her son, by Jean-Jacques-
François Le Barbier, painted 1826

The Spartan Military Way of Life

Once the boys graduated from their military training
at twenty, they continued to dine in the common
messes until they were thirty, another institution that
was credited to Lycurgus. Men commonly married
during this time, they would sneak out in the middle
of the night for a tryst with their wives.

Young
Spartans
Exercising, by
Edgar Degas,
around 1900

Pseudo-Xenophon tells us that is
“was a matter of disgrace that a
man should be seen either when
going into his wife’s room, or when
leaving it.” Intimacy under such
strained circumstances meant that
“their desire for one another was
bound to be increased, and any
children born would be much
sturdier than if they had exhausted
each other.” Likely, this odd
arrangement hurt the birthrate of
the Spartans, as many men likely
chose to stay in the barracks to
catch some sleep before the next
day’s rigorous military training
exercises.
Ulysses (Odysseus) and Penelope, by Francesco Primaticcio, 1545

-
The common meals were typically
spartan, their famous black soup was
boiled pork and blood, flavored only
with salt and vinegar. Plutarch says
that when Alcibiades fled to exile in
Sparta, he lived the life of a Spartan
citizen, he “exercised, lived frugally,
and wore a frown on his face.” He
wore “his hair in need of a close cut,
bathing in cold water, eating course
bread, and supping broth.”
Alcibiades, by François-André Vincent, 1776

Lycurgus, by Caesar van Everdingen, 1662 Plutarch admiringly
stated that these
common messes
“stopped them from
spending time at home
reclining at table on
expensive couches,
fattening themselves up
like insatiable animals,”
“ruining themselves
morally as well as
physically by indulging
every whim and gorging
themselves until they
needed long sleeps, hot
baths, a great deal of
quiet, and daily nursing.”

Lycurgus, by Caesar van Everdingen, 1662 These messes were a
great equalizer, “for
when rich and poor ate
at the same meal, the
rich could not even use
or enjoy, let alone gaze
upon or display, all
their paraphernalia”
that their wealth
acquired. “Thus, Sparta
was the only city in the
world where Wealth
could be seen as truly
blind.”

Although Spartan men were permitted to live with
their wives and families after they turned thirty,
although by this time their boys too old to be at
home, they were probably in training themselves.
Often the married men continued to take their meals
as the common mess hall. They never left the military
way of life. The Spartan men were soldiers all their
lives.

-
Plutarch tells us that the system set
up by Lycurgus “did not allow them
to become involved in manual work
at all, and there was not the slightest
need for them to engage in
business” and accumulate wealth
“because wealth was no longer
something to be admired and
respected. The Helots worked the
land for them and paid them in
tribute,” they did not have to work.

This constant military training also made the Spartan officer
corps skilled at military training, during the Peloponnesian War
the Spartans excelled at improving the military standards of
motivated allies. For example, in the doomed Sicilian Expedition,
which led to the eventual downfall of Athens, the Athenians
transported thousands of hoplites to Sicily. Sparta sent only a
small contingent of hoplites, but the Spartan general Gylippus
drilled the Syracusan forces to the high Spartan standard, and
together the combined Spartan and Syracusan hoplites defeated
the Athenian forces.

Plutarch says that the reform of the common messes
angered the rich of Sparta. He recounts a story
demonstrating the moral character of Lycurgus, and
how Lycurgus reacted when the young man Alcander
attacked him with a stick, bloodying his face, and
even poking out his eye. Lycurgus reacted like a pure
stoic.

As punishment, Alcander was handed over to
Lycurgus, who “dismissed his usual servants and
attendants and told Alcander to attend to him
instead. Because Alcander was a man of honor, he
carried out his orders in silence. As he lived with
Lycurgus and shared his life, he came to observe his
self-possession and high-mindedness, his ascetic
lifestyle, and his inexhaustible capacity for hard
work, and he became extremely attached to him.
He used to tell his friends and acquaintances that
Lycurgus was not dour or surly but was uniquely
gentle and even-tempered with others. So, this was
Alcander’s punishment, and the penalty he had to
undergo was to change from being an
insubordinate, badly behaved young man to a very
well-mannered and responsible adult.”

As can be imagined, the Spartan lifestyle encouraged
homosexual relationships, usually between older men and
teens and pre-teens, these were both prevalent and
condoned, although there is the admonition by the
moralizing Plutarch that the older men sought to improve
the character of their younger partners.
Pseudo-Xenophon expresses his reservations about this
common Greek practice of pederasty, or men-boy love, as
did Xenophon in his Symposium dialogue.

-
Pseudo-Xenophon says, “If out of admiration for
a boy’s personality a man of the right character
himself should seek to befriend him in all
innocence and keep his company, Lycurgus
would approve that and consider it the finest
training. On the other hand, if someone was
obviously chasing after a boy for his body, he
regarded that as an absolute disgrace and laid it
down that at Sparta lovers should refrain from
molesting boys just as much as parents avoid
physical intimacy between their children or
brothers and sisters. It does not surprise me,
however, that some people do not believe this,
since in many cities the laws do not oppose
lusting after boys.”

The Puzzle of the Spartan Secret Police

One of the most bizarre of the Spartan practices
was their krypteia, or secret police. Plutarch tells
us that the young commanders would send the
most intelligent of their teen soldiers into the
countryside “with nothing more than a dagger
each and a bare minimum of supplies. By day, the
young men spread out and found remote spots
where they could hide and rest, but at night they
came down to the roads and murdered any
helots they caught. They often used to walk
through the fields and kill the helots who were in
the best shape and condition.”
Spartan cosplay during the
DragonCon Parade in Atlanta in 2007

Does this make sense? We read in Herodotus how part of
the Spartan forces fighting the Persians included many
Helots who were promised their freedom, and they fought
valiantly, supposedly they were not cowed by their
continual brutal treatment. Plutarch speculates that
perhaps this was not an institution established by the
virtuous Lycurgus, that perhaps it developed after the
Helot uprisings after the severe earthquake that killed so
many Spartan warriors in the early years of the
Peloponnesian Wars.

- The Spartans were often harshly cruel to
the Helots, mistreating, intimidating, and
shaming them. Plutarch tells us that the
Spartans used to force the Helots “to
drink large quantities of undiluted wine
and then bring them in the common
messes, to show the young men what it
was like to be drunk. They also got the
Helots to make fools of themselves by
performing degrading songs and dances,
while denying them the right to perform
any which were suited to free men.”
Clearchus of Sparta, by Adrien Guignet

But Thucydides tells us of an incident in the
Peloponnesians Wars when the Spartans were unsure if
the helots would revolt when the Athenians had held the
fortress at Pylos.

The Spartan general Brasidas
proclaimed that the helots should
choose those among them who
had fought the best on the
battlefield for Sparta, “implying
they would be given their freedom.
This was a test to find the helots
who showed the most spirit, those
who came forward first to claim
their freedom would be the ones
most likely to turn against Sparta.
Two thousand were selected, who
put garlands on their heads and
went round the temples under the
impression they would be made
free men.” Those were the helots
the Spartans slaughtered.
Detail of the Chigi Vase depicting hoplites in action

Modern historians are held hostage to their ancient
sources. We cannot tell what life was actually like in
ancient times, and practices vary from decade to
decade in any society. We can only say what the
sources tell us, and argue over the reliability of the
ancient accounts, and how they are confirmed by
inscriptions, coins, archeology, and other sources.

Conclusion: Spartan Military Culture

Plutarch tells us, “as a result
of Lycurgus’ reforms, his
fellow citizens lost both the
will and the ability to live as
individuals, Instead, they
became accustomed, bee-
like, to always being organic
parts of the life of the
community, to swarm around
their leader in a state of near
ecstasy induced by their
eager desire for recognition,
and to commit themselves
wholly to their country.” A spartan woman giving a shield to her son, by Jean-Jacques-
François Le Barbier, painted 1826

Will Durant states that “health was
one of the cardinal virtues in Sparta,
and sickness was a crime.” “Fat men
were a rarity in Lacedaemon; there
was no law regulating the size of the
stomach, but if a man’s belly swelled
indecently, he might be publicly
reproved by the government, or
banished from Laconia.” “There was
little of the drinking and revelry that
flourished in Athens.”
Three Spartan Boys Practising Archery,
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, circa 1812

-
Sparta had many admirers,
including Plato, Plutarch, and
Xenophon, but as Will Durant
quips, “They could afford to praise
Sparta, since they did not have to
live there. They did not feel at close
range the selfishness, coldness, and
cruelty of the Spartan character;
they could not see from the select
gentlemen whom they met, or the
heroes whom they commemorated
from afar, that the Spartan code
produced good soldiers and
nothing more; that it made vigor of
body a graceless brutality because
it killed nearly all capacity for
things of the mind.”
Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David, painted 1814

We will also have a related video on Spartan Women
and Family Life, and the Sayings of Spartan Women,
later in 2022.

Since all our videos on the Peloponnesian Wars use
many of the same sources, we have a video on Book
Reviews of ancient Greek history.

Our primary ancient sources are the history of the Greco-Persian War by
Herodotus, and the histories by of the Peloponnesian Wars by Thucydides
and Xenophon, and also the Lives of Noble Greeks by Plutarch.
In addition, we picked up this Penguin collection of writings, Plutarch on
Sparta. It includes several lives of Spartan generals that we found only in
the Dryden translation, which we do not like at all, the translation is
poorly phrased and difficult to read, so maybe with this translation we
will do another video on Plutarch’s Noble Lives of the Spartan generals.
It also includes an amusing collection of Spartan sayings, and Spartan
women’s sayings, and a short essay on Sparta by an author I am calling
pseudo-Xenophon, because most scholars do not believe he is the true
Xenophon, though he appears to be copying his style. After reading it,
this makes sense to me, though I did not read the original Greek.

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
YouTube Description has links for:
• Script PDF file
• Blog
• Amazon Bookstore
© Copyright 2022
Blog and YouTube Description
include links for Amazon books
and lectures mentioned, please
support our channel with these
affiliate commissions.
Link to blog: https://wp.me/pachSU-Im

https://www.meetup.com/Reflections/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/

Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta

Similar to Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta (17)

More from Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

More from Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Unique Spartan Warrior Culture and History, Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, Lawgiver of Sparta