LISTENING FOR LEADERSHIP                          

How did Spartan society reinforce and teach their value system?
 

1. Read the following passages and consider how Spartan society taught and reinforced their laws and customs.

2. Discuss the following: ​in what ways are the laws and customs of the state leaders? How have these writers represented the relationship between the Spartans and their laws? 

3. ​Both Xenophon and Plutarch were writing long after Thermopylae and although Xenophon lived on an estate given to him by his friend, a Spartan king, Xenophon was himself an Athenian. Plutarch, meanwhile, lived and wrote his works in the first decades of the second century CE under the Roman Empire, nearly 600 years after the battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE). Can you detect any bias in these writers either in favor of the Spartan system or, against it? 

Reading 3: Plutarch, Moralia (selections) Translated by Frank Cole Babbit. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press (1931)

Sayings of Spartan Women: 

1. Some Amphipolitans came to Sparta and visited Archileonis, the mother of Brasidas, after her son's death. She asked if her son had died nobly, in a manner worthy of Sparta. As they heaped praised on him and declared that in his exploits he was the best of all the Spartans, she said: “Strangers, my son was indeed noble and brave, but Sparta has many better men than he.”

2. Once when her grandson Acrotatus was brought home from some boy’s combat badly battered and seemingly dead, and both friends and family were sobbing, she said “Won’t you keep quiet? He’s shown what kind of blood he has in him,” and added that brave men should not be howled over but should be under medical care.”

3. After hearing that her son was a coward and unworthy of her, she killed him:
“Damatrius who broke the laws was killed by his mother,
She a Spartan Lady, he a Spartan Youth.”

4. When some woman heard that her son had been saved and had escaped from the enemy, she wrote him a letter: “You’ve been tainted by a bad reputation. Either wipe this out now or cease to exist.”

5. When another woman heard that her son had died fighting bravely in battle, she said “Yes, you were mine.” But when she learned that her other son was still alive as a result of his cowardice, she said: “no, you were not mine.”

6. Another woman, in reply to her son who declared that the sword he had was a small one, said: “then extend it by a stride.”

7. Another woman, as she was handing her son his shield said, “Son, either with this or on this.”

Reading 4: Poems by Tyrtaios, Spartan poet

from, Elegy and Iambus. with an English Translation by. J. M. Edmonds. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. (London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1931).

1) For 'tis a fair thing for a good man to fall and die fighting in the van for his native land, whereas to leave his city and his rich fields and go a-begging is of all things the most miserable, wandering with mother dear and aged father, with little children and wedded wife. For hateful shall such an one be among all those to whom he shall come in bondage to Want and loathsome Penury, and doth shame his lineage and belie his noble beauty, followed by all evil and dishonour. Now if so little thought be taken of a wanderer, and so little honour, respect, or pity, let us fight with a will for this land, and die for our children and never spare our lives.
 
Abide then, O young men, shoulder to shoulder and fight; begin not foul flight nor yet be afraid, but make the heart in your breasts both great and stout, and never shrink when you fight the foe. And the elder sort, whose knees are no longer nimble, fly not ye to leave them fallen to earth. For 'tis a foul thing, in sooth, for an elder to fall in the van and lie before the younger, his head white and his beard hoary, breathing forth his stout soul in the dust, with his privities all bloody in his hands, a sight so foul to see and fraught with such ill to the seer, and his flesh also all naked; yet to a young man all is seemly enough, so long as he have the noble bloom of lovely youth, aye a marvel he for men to behold, and desirable unto women, so long as ever he be alive, and fair in like manner when he be fallen in the vanguard. So let each man bite his lip with his teeth and abide firm-set astride upon the ground.


2) I would neither call a man to mind nor put him in my tale for prowess in the race or the wrestling, not even had he the stature and strength of a Cyclops and surpassed in swiftness the Thracian Northwind, nor were he a comelier man than Tithonus and a richer than Midas or Cinyras, nor though he were a greater king than Pelops son of Tantalus, and had Adrastus' suasiveness of tongue, nor yet though all fame were his save of warlike strength; for a man is not good in war if he have not endured the sight of bloody slaughter and stood nigh and reached forth to strike the foe. This is prowess, this is the noblest prize and the fairest for a lad to win in the world; a common good this both for the city and all her people, when a man standeth firm in the forefront without ceasing, and making heart and soul to abide, forgetteth foul flight altogether and hearteneth by his words him that he standeth by. 

Such a man is good in war; he quickly turneth the savage hosts of the enemy, and stemmeth the wave of battle with a will; moreover he that falleth in the van and loseth dear life to the glory of his city and his countrymen and his father, with many a frontwise wound through breast and breastplate and through bossy shield, he is bewailed alike by young and old, and lamented with sore regret by all the city. His grave and his children are conspicuous among men, and his children's and his line after them; nor ever doth his name and good fame perish, but though he be underground he liveth evermore, seeing that he was doing nobly and abiding in the fight for country's and children's sake when fierce Ares brought him low.

But and if he escape the doom of outstretched Death and by victory make good the splendid boast of battle, he hath honour of all, alike young as old, and cometh to his death after much happiness; as he groweth old he standeth out among his people, and there's none that will do him hurt either in honour or in right; all yield him place on the benches, alike the young and his peers and his elders. This is the prowess each man should this day aspire to,never relaxing from war.