Sparta's immortal image—a brutal and uncultured military state bent on producing the world's toughest soldiers—does not tell the full story of the Greek city-state that briefly ruled the ancient world in the 5th century BC
In fact, historian and writer Nigel Kennell says it's almost impossible for modern readers to learn about the "real" Spartans. Everything (and much more) about Sparta was written by outsiders and enemies, especially the Athenians. Incredibly, during spartan heyday (550 bc to 350 BC), not a single text written by Spartan writers circulated for centuries.
"There are a lot of people who tell us what the Spartans thought, but we don't know what the Spartans themselves believed," said Kennear, author of "The Spartans: A New History." "So, our perception is distorted. People outside of Sparta like to use Sparta to solve their own intellectual, philosophical, and political biases."
This distorted outsider's view of Sparta created what historians call a "Spartan Mirage" and led to two opposing myths that have been handed down throughout history: Sparta was either a utopian society based on collective harmony and obedience, or a dystopian totalitarian regime. Kennell said neither conclusion is likely to be true, or at least we don't have a reliable source to support both conclusions.
The only way to really talk about Sparta is to compare it to Athens, the enemy of the Peloponnesian War and the only greek city-state to write its own complete history.
Greece has hundreds of cities, but we have found nothing. "The only city in which we can relate and give a detailed account of the internal affairs of Athens is Athens. When you compare Athens and Sparta, they are very different. But it's hard to say how different Sparta is from athens from other non-democratic Greek cities. ”
In Sparta, citizenship was a privilege, not a right
As Kennell said, the biggest difference between Athens and Sparta is that Athens is a democracy where every citizen (well...) Free adult males) have the right to vote and to serve in the political office. Sparta was ruled by kings—strangely enough, there were two kings at the same time, known as the "two monarchies"—and citizenship was reserved for spartans, a small group of free-born adult men.
"In Sparta, citizenship is not so much a right as a privilege, and you may lose it," Kennell said.
The first condition for obtaining citizenship is through a mandatory training system known as Agoge. Those who quit were labeled "inferior" and deprived of the right to vote or to serve in various governing bodies. The second way of losing citizenship is to not be able to keep up with the monthly donations that provide food and wine to public restaurants, where Spartan men eat until adulthood.
Was Sparta a military city-state?
Like many Greeks, spartans had a militaristic worldview, but Kennell thought it would be unfair to say that Spartan society was single-minded in training soldiers.
"Its purpose is to train citizens, in the words of the Greeks, to be a warrior is an important part of citizenship," Kennell said. "Every able-bodied man fights for his own city, and evading military service is a serious crime, even in Athens."
Although some form of military training was common in the Greek city-states, including Athens, Sparta professionalized the role of the soldier. During their training, all Spartan freedmen were educated to become lifelong soldiers and loyal citizens. The boys lived with a leader who deliberately left them hungry to encourage them to steal food and were beaten for disobedience or for being caught stealing.
Kennell insisted that this was not the case and that the young Spartan boy was taken from his family and forced to spend the rest of his life in the barracks.
"The Spartans are very family-oriented and there is no reliable evidence that spartan boys were taken from their families at the age of 7 and grew up alone in the barracks and never had any contact with their families. The training appears to have been conducted on a part-time basis. ”
Wrestling, stealing and dancing
Kennell said that in that era, the "education" of Spartan boys and young men was limited. Comprehensive education in Athens included philosophy, natural sciences, and mathematics, while Sparta's focus was on "sports and paramilitary."
The Greeks believed that competitive sports and war were closely related, and spartan youth would train and compete in all standard Greek sports: running, wrestling, boxing, javelin throwing, and possibly archery.
Later Greek writers also spoke of strange contests and high-stakes games played by Spartan youth in preparation for battle. The Greek historian Xenophon once described a game in which, in the temple of Artemis, people placed cheese on altars, and two teams of boys ran over the threat of whips in an attempt to steal the cheese.
Kennell said, "The person who steals the most cheese is the winner." "It's a very strange ritual."
Kennell added that spartan boys were also famous dancers. They train and rehearse elaborate choral dances, which are "must sees" for visiting writers and dignitaries. However, as Spartans, the dance was not purely for artistic expression, but rather to help Spartan soldiers keep pace as they marched and coordinate advanced tactics on the battlefield.
Spartan caste system
The Spartans, who were full citizens, were essentially lifelong soldiers, and their loyalty to the state was exchanged for freedom from other labor. So, who does all this work?
The social organization of the Spartans was like a pyramid, with a small group of free-born Spartans at the top. Below them is Periai, meaning "a man who lives nearby." The Kingdom of Sparta was spread across dozens of smaller towns and villages, where the Periai lived, and they were skilled craftsmen who made armor, textiles, bronzes, and any goods used for export.
In the 7th and early 6th centuries BC, under the leadership of Perikoy craftsmen, Sparta saw a period of cultural flourishing.
"People have always thought that the best ivory products in Greece in the seventh century came from [Sparta]," Kennell said, "and the [Spartan] bronzes are really amazing." ”
For historians like him, a big unanswered question is why this explosion of creativity ended in the late sixth century, when the Spartans seemed to deliberately create a reputation for harshness, uneducation, and uneducation.
The lowest strata of Spartan society was reserved for the Hilo, a slave class, engaged in all kinds of manual labor, from agriculture to construction. The name Hilo means "captive", and Kennell believes that many of the Hilo were former peoples of neighboring Messenia, who were invaded and defeated by Sparta in the 7th century BC.
In classical Sparta, Kennell said, serfs lived more like medieval serfs than ancient slaves. They were "unfree" and unpaid, but they were not shackled either. But like any hierarchical society, people in the upper class feel the need to establish their dominance through humiliating behavior. In other words, being a serf was very bad.
Spartan women stand out
Women in Sparta had more rights and freedoms than in Athens. In Athens, women's ideals were neither seen nor heard. The Athenian statesman Pericles famously said, "The greatest honor of a woman is not to be talked about, whether they are praising you or criticizing you."
When Athenian women were repressed, Kennell said "oppressed," Spartan women were fully entitled to own their own land, known throughout ancient Greece for their outspokenness and cleverness, as well as impressive physical features.
Sparta's most famous woman was Gogo, a queen who eventually became the wife of King Leonidas, who died heroically at the Battle of Semopil, and his Spartan warriors numbered more than 300, which was notorious. As a young girl, Gorgol saved her father's kingdom by instructing him to refuse a huge bribe from a foreign official for a rising amount.
According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Gorgol once said, "Father, if you don't get up and leave, your guests will make you fall."
Historian Helena Schrader writes: "Except in Sparta, women of any age in other Greek cities are not allowed to attend meetings between heads of state, let alone listen and pay attention." "Gorgol's advice was good, so it's more noteworthy... So someone quipped that it was much easier to deceive thirty thousand Athenian men than to deceive a Spartan girl. ”
Spartan girls and young women also competed in sports, and to the shock of other Greeks, they sometimes danced naked in public.
"Spartan girls are known for being sexy," Kennell said. "They're athletes, running around in short blouses with their thighs cut open." Many frustrated Athenian men dreamed of Spartan women. ”
Sparta soon fell
Kennell believed that winning the Peloponnesian War in some respects was the worst thing for Sparta. Rashander, Sparta's naval hero, became the most powerful man in the Greek world, forcing the conquered nations to swear allegiance to him, not Sparta.
Sparta tried unsuccessfully to conquer Persia, and under Sparta's rule, the Greek city-states were increasingly frustrated. In a short lifetime, Sparta's golden age collapsed.
"[Sparta] didn't develop any mechanisms to manage this vast empire. They don't have the mentality to deal with this problem. This is not at all like the Romans, who were very successful in wooing the local elite by dangling them around. The Spartans just wanted to obey, and people didn't like to be treated that way. ”
In 371 BC, Sparta lost to Thebes at the decisive Battle of Lecterra, whose army later invaded Spartan lands and liberated the occupied Kingdom of Messenia. Without this important agricultural base, Sparta could no longer recover.