The Influence of Sparta

The Influence of Sparta To understand Plato, and indeed many later thinkers, it is vital to know something of Sparta. Sparta had a twin impact on Greek thought: via the fact, and through the fiction. Each is significant. The truth allowed the Spartans to beat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato’s political philosophy, and that of numerous following writers. The tale, fully developed, is to be found in Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus; the values that it promotes have played a large influence in molding the ideologies of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism. * The myth is of far more importance, historically, than the fact; however, we shall begin with the latter. For the reality was the genesis of the fiction. Laconia, or Lacedaemon, of which Sparta was the city, occupied the southeast of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans, who were the governing race, had captured the area at the time of the Dorian invasion from the north, and had reduced the populace that they found there to the state of serfs. These serfs were called helots. In ancient times, all the land belonged to the Spartans, who, however, were forbidden by law and tradition to cultivate it themselves, both on the pretext that such work was demeaning, and in so that they might always be free for military service. The serfs were not purchased and sold, but remained linked to the land, which was split into lots, one or more for each adult male Spartan. These lots, like the helots, could not be purchased or sold, and passed, by law, from father to son. (They might, however, be bequeathed.) The landowner got from the helot who farmed the lot seventy medimni (approximately 105 bushels) of grain for himself, twelve for his wife, and a stipulated quantity of wine and fruit annually. * Anything exceeding this amount was the property of the helot. The helots were Greeks, like the Spartans, and deeply loathed their slave situation. When they could, they revolted. The Spartans established a corps of secret police to cope with this threat, but to augment this precaution they had another: once a year, they declared war on the helots, so that their young men might murder those who appeared insubordinate without incurring the legal guilt of homicide. Helots might be freed by the state, but not by their lords; they were emancipated, fairly seldom, for outstanding courage in combat. At some time during the eighth century B.C. the Spartans captured the nearby nation of Messenia, and subjugated most of its inhabitants to the position of helots. There had been a dearth of Lebensraum in Sparta, but the new land, for a while, alleviated this cause of unhappiness. Lots were for the common use of Spartans; the aristocracy had estates of their own, whilst the lots were parts of common property allocated by the state. The free people of other sections of Laconia, termed “perioeci,” had no share of political authority. The primary occupation of a Spartan citizen was battle, to which he was prepared from birth. Sickly children were exposed following inspection by the rulers of the tribe; only those considered robust were permitted to be nurtured. Up to the age of twenty, all the boys were trained in one enormous school; the objective of the training was to make them tough, indifferent to pain, and subject to punishment. There was no nonsense about artistic or scientific education; the main purpose was to develop good warriors, totally loyal to the state. At the age of twenty, true military service began. Marriage was authorized to any one above the age of twenty, but until the age of thirty a man had to live in the “men’s house,” and had to handle his marriage as if it were an unlawful and secret affair. After thirty, he was a full-fledged citizen. Every citizen belonged to a mess, and dined with the other members; he had to give a contribution in kind from the fruit of his lot. It was the notion of the state that no Spartan citizen should be impoverished, and none should be affluent. Each was supposed to subsist on the fruit of his lot, which he could not alienate unless by voluntary gift. None was permitted to hold gold or silver, and the money was manufactured of iron. Spartan simplicity became proverbial. The role of women in Sparta was exceptional. They were not sequestered, like respectable ladies elsewhere throughout Greece. Girls went through the same physical training that was provided to boys; what is more astonishing, boys and girls conducted their gymnastics together, all being naked. It was desired (I quote Plutarch’s Lycurgus in North’s translation): that the maidens should harden their bodies with exercise of running, wrestling, throw the bar, and casting the dart, to the end that the fruit wherewith they might be afterwards conceived, taking nourishment of a strong and lusty body, should shoot out and spread the better: and that they by gathering strength thus by exercises, should more easily away with the pains of child bearing…. And while the maidens did display themselves so nude openly, yet was there no dishonesty shown nor given, but all this sport was full of play and toys, without any juvenile part or wantonness. Men who did not marry were declared “infamous by law,” and required, even in the coldest weather, to walk up and down nude outside the spot where the young people were practicing their exercises and dances. Women were not permitted to display any emotion not advantageous to the State. They may demonstrate scorn for a coward, and would be commended if he were their son; yet they might not show sadness if their new-born kid was put to death as a weakling, or if their boys were killed in combat. They were considered, by other Greeks, extraordinarily chaste; at the same time, a childless married lady would make no protest if the state compelled her to find out whether some other guy would be more successful than her husband in begetting citizens. Children were encouraged by legislation. According to Aristotle, the father of three boys was excused from military duty, and the father of four from all the obligations of the state. The constitution of Sparta was difficult. There were two kings, belonging to two distinct families, and succeeding by heredity. One or other of the kings controlled the army in case of war, but in time of peace their powers were restricted. At community feasts they had twice as much to eat as any one else, and there was public sadness when one of them died. They were members of the Council of Elders, a council consisting of thirty men (including the kings); the other twenty-eight must be above sixty, and were chosen for life by the full body of the citizens, but only from aristocratic families. The Council tried criminal cases, and prepared items which were to come before the Assembly. This body (the Assembly) comprised of all the citizens; it could not start anything, but may vote yes or no to any proposition presented before it. No legislation could be adopted without its agreement. But its assent, though required, was not sufficient; the elders and’magistrates must declare the decision before it became legitimate. In addition to the monarchs, the Council of Elders, and the Assembly, there existed a fourth branch of the government, distinctive to Sparta. This was the five ephors. These were selected out of the whole body of the citizenry, using a procedure which Aristotle thinks was “too childish,” and which Bury argues was essentially by lot. They were a “democratic” aspect in the constitution, * presumably designed to balance the monarchs. Every month the kings pledged to defend the constitution, and the ephors then swore to protect the kings so long as they stayed loyal to their oath. When either king embarked on a warlike journey, two ephors followed him to check over his actions. The ephors were the top civil court, but over the kings they possessed criminal authority. The Spartan constitution was considered, in later antiquity, to have been owed to a legislator called Lycurgus, who was reported to have issued his rules in 885 B.C. In truth, the Spartan system came up gradually, and Lycurgus was a legendary figure, initially a deity. His name meant “wolf-repeller,” and his origin was Arcadian. Sparta attracted among the other Greeks an admiration which seems to us rather astonishing. Originally, it had been considerably less distinct from other Greek cities than it became later; in early days it produced poets and painters as good as those elsewhere. But about the seventh century B.C., or perhaps even later, its constitution (falsely attributed to Lycurgus) crystallized into the form we have been considering; everything else was sacrificed to success in war, and Sparta ceased to have any part whatever in what Greece contributed to the civilization of the world. To us, the Spartan state seems like a model, in miniature, of the state that the Nazis will construct if triumphant. To the Greeks it appeared differently. As Bury says: A traveler from Athens or Miletus in the fifth century seeing the straggling villages which composed her unwalled unpretentious metropolis would have had an impression of being transported into an age long past, when men were braver, better and simpler, untainted by money, undisturbed by ideas. To a philosopher, like Plato, speculating in political science, the Spartan State looked the nearest approach to the ideal. The typical Greek looked upon it as a construction of stern and plain beauty, a Dorian city majestic as a Dorian temple, considerably nobler than his own dwelling but not so comfortable to reside in. * One reason for the admiration felt for Sparta by other Greeks was its stability. All other Greek towns had revolutions, but the Spartan constitution remained constant for generations, save for a steady growth in the powers of the ephors, which occurred via legal ways, without bloodshed. It cannot be denied that, for a long period, the Spartans were successful in their fundamental aim, the’creation of a race of indestructible warriors. The battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.), albeit officially a defeat, is possibly the outstanding illustration of their courage. Thermopylae was a narrow path through the mountains, where it was thought that the Persian army might be held. Three hundred Spartans, with auxiliaries, withstood all frontal attacks. But at last the Persians discovered a diversion via the hills, and succeeded in assaulting the Greeks on both sides at once. Every single Spartan was murdered at his station. Two men had been away on sick leave, suffering from a condition of the eyes amounting virtually to temporary blindness. One of them insisted on being taken by his helot to the combat, where he perished; the other, Aristodemus, determined that he was too sick to fight, and remained away. When he returned to Sparta, no one would talk to him; he was branded “the coward Aristodemus.” A year later, he wiped off his dishonor by dying valiantly in the battle of Plataea, where the Spartans were victors. After the conflict, the Spartans constructed a memorial on the battlefield of Thermopylae, stating only: “Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, in obedience to their orders.” For a long time, the Spartans showed themselves unbeatable on land. They continued their power until the year 371 B.C., when they were defeated by the Thebans at the battle of Leuctra. This was the end of their military prowess. Apart from battle, the reality of Sparta was never quite the same as the philosophy. Herodotus, who lived at its glorious time, adds, astonishingly, that no Spartan could resist a bribe. This occurred in spite of the fact that hatred for riches and love of the simple life was one of the key things inculcated in Spartan education. We am informed that the Spartan women were virgins, yet it happened multiple times that a supposed heir to the monarchy was cast aside on the pretext of not being the son of his mother’s spouse. We was taught that the Spartans were inflexibly patriotic, yet the king Pausanias, the victor of Plataea, ended as a traitor in the pay of Xerxes. Apart from such glaring concerns, the policy of Sparta was always small and parochial. When Athens emancipated the Greeks of Asia Minor and the nearby islands from the Persians, Sparta stayed aloof; so long as the Peloponnesus was judged safe, the fate of other Greeks was a matter of indifference. Every effort at a confederation of the Hellenic world was crushed by Spartan particularism. Aristotle, who lived after the destruction of Sparta, presents an extremely negative assessment of its constitution. * What he says is so different from what other people say that it is difficult to believe he is speaking of the same place, e.g. “The legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The upshot is that in such a state money is too highly prized, especially if the people come under the domination of their women, after the pattern of most warlike races…. Even in regard to bravery, which is of little value in daily life, and is needed only in combat, the effect of the Lacedaemonian ladies has been most mischievous…. This liberty of the Lacedaemonian women existed from the earliest ages, and was simply what would be anticipated. For … when Lycurgus, as history relates, sought to put the women under his rules, they refused, and he gave up the attempt.” He goes on to accuse Spartans of avarice, which he attributes to the unequal distribution of property. Although lots cannot be sold, he explains, they can be given or bequeathed. Two-fifths of all the land, he continues, belongs to women. The consequence is a huge loss in the number of citizens: it is reported that originally there were ten thousand, but at the time of the defeat by Thebes there were less than one thousand. Aristotle critiques every feature of the Spartan constitution. He claims that the ephors are generally quite poor, and hence simple to bribe; and their authority is so strong that even monarchs are driven to court them, so that the constitution has been changed into a democracy. The ephors, we are told, have too much license, and live in a way contradictory to the spirit of the constitution, while the strictness in respect to regular people is so unpleasant that they find shelter in the hidden unlawful indulgence of sensuous pleasures. Aristotle wrote while Sparta was decadent, yet on several issues he specifically indicates that the evil he is addressing has existed from early times. His tone is so dry and realistic that it is impossible to disbelieve him, and it is in keeping with all current experience of the repercussions of excessive harshness in the laws. But it was not Aristotle’s Sparta that survived in men’s minds; it was the mythological Sparta of Plutarch and the philosophic idealization of Sparta in Plato’s Republic. Century after century, young men read these books, and were motivated with the aspiration to become Lycurguses or philosopher-kings. The ensuing marriage of idealism and desire of power has led mankind wrong over and over again, and is still doing so in the current day. The myth of Sparta, for medieval and modern readers, was essentially set by Plutarch. When he wrote, Sparta belonged to the romantic past; its magnificent moment was as far distant from his day as Columbus is from ours. What he says must be taken with extreme caution by the historian of institutions, but by the historian of myth it is of the highest significance. Greece has affected the globe, historically, via its effect on men’s imaginations, ideas, and dreams, not immediately through political power. Rome constructed roads which generally still stand, and laws which are the foundation of many current legal systems, but it was the soldiers of Rome that made these things vital. The Greeks, though superb combatants, accomplished no conquests, since they wasted their military anger mostly on their other. It was left to the semi barbarian Alexander to expand Hellenism across the Near East, and to establish Greek the literary language in Egypt and Syria and the interior sections of Asia Minor. The Greeks could never have fulfilled this mission, not for want of military power, but because to their incompetence for political cohesiveness. The political carriers of Hellenism have always been non-Hellenic; yet it was the Greek genius that so inspired alien countries as to compel them to propagate the culture of those whom they had conquered. What is important to the historian of the world is not the petty wars between Greek cities, or the sordid squabbles for party ascendancy, but the memories retained by mankind when the brief episode was ended—like the recollection of a brilliant sunrise in the Alps, while the mountaineer struggles through an arduous day of wind and snow. These recollections, as they progressively faded, left in men’s minds the pictures of some peaks that had shined with special brightness in the early dawn, keeping alive the idea that beneath the clouds a splendour still persisted, and may at any time become evident. Of them, Plato was the most significant in early Christianity, Aristotle in the medieval Church; but when, during the Renaissance, men began to appreciate political freedom, it was above all to Plutarch that they went. He inspired deeply the English and French liberals of the eighteenth century, and the founders of the United States; he impacted the romantic movement in Germany, and has continued, mostly via indirect routes, to influence German thinking down to the present day. In some aspects his impact was positive, in some negative; as concerns Lycurgus and Sparta, it was bad. What he has to say about Lycurgus is significant, and I shall offer a brief account of it, even at the penalty of considerable repetition. Lycurgus—so Plutarch says—having determined to offer rules to Sparta, journeyed far in order to study diverse organizations. He liked the laws of Crete, which were “very straight and severe,” † but disliked those of Ionia, where there were “superfluities and vanities.” In Egypt he learned the advantage of separating the soldiers from the rest of the people, and afterwards, having returned from his travels, “brought the practice of it into Sparta: where setting the merchants, artificers, and labourers every one a part by themselves, he did establish a noble Commonwealth.” He made an equal division of lands among all the citizens of Sparta, in order to “banish out of the city all insolvency, envy, covetousness, and deliciousness, and also all riches and poverty.” He forbade gold and silver money, allowing only iron coinage, of so little value that “to lay up thereof the value of ten minas, it would have occupied a whole cellar in a house.” By this means he banished “all superfluous and unprofitable sciences,” since there was not enough money to pay their practitioners; and by the same law he made all external commerce impossible. Rhetoricians, panders, and jewellers, not like the iron money, avoided Sparta. He then decreed that all the citizens should eat together, and all should have the same meal. Lycurgus, like previous reformers, believed the teaching of children “the chiefest and greatest matter, that a reformer of laws should establish”; and like those who aim principally at military might, he was concerned to keep up the birth rate. The “plays, sports, and dances the maids did naked before young men, were provocations to draw and allure the young men to marry: not as persuaded by geometrical reasons, as saith Plato, but brought to it by liking, and of very love.” The habit of treating a marriage, for the first few years, as if it were a clandestine affair, “continued in both parties a still burning love, and a new desire of the one to the other”—such, at least, is the opinion of Plutarch. He goes on to explain that a man was not thought badly of if, being elderly and having a young wife, he permitted a younger guy to have children by her. “It was lawful also for an honest man that loved another man’s wife … to intreat her husband to suffer him to lie with her, and that he might also plough in that lusty ground, and cast abroad the seed of well-favoured children.” There was to be no foolish jealousy, for “Lycurgus did not like that children should be private to any men, but that they should be common to the common weal: by which reason he would also, that such as should become citizens should not be begotten of every man, but of the most honest men only.” He goes on to explain that this is the principle that farmers apply to their live-stock. When a kid was born, the father took him before the elders of his family to be examined: if the was healthy, he was handed back to the father to be nurtured; if not, he was thrown into a deep pit of water. Children, from the outset, were subjected to a strong hardening process, in some aspects good—for example, they were not wrapped in swaddling garments. At the age of seven, boys were taken away from home and put in a boarding school, where they were divided into companies, each under the control of one of their number, chosen for wisdom and daring. “Touching learning, they had as much as served their turn: for the rest of their time they spent in learning how to obey, to away with pain, to endure labour, to overcome still in fight.” They played naked together most of the time; after twelve years old, they wore no coats; they were always “nasty and sluttish,” and they never bathed except on certain days in the year. They slept on beds of straw, which in winter they mixed with thistle. They were trained to steal, and were punished if caught—not for stealing, but for incompetence. Homosexual love, both male and female, was a recognized habit in Sparta, and played an acknowledged function in the education of teenage boys. A boy’s lover suffered credit or shame by the youngster’s behavior; Plutarch relates that once, when a boy cried out because he was harmed while combat, his lover was penalized for the kid’s cowardice. There was little liberty at any period in the life of a Spartan. Their discipline and order of life remained yet, when they were full grown men. For it was not permissible for any man to live as he listed, but they were inside their city, as if they had been in a camp, where every man knoweth what allowance he has to live withal, and what job he hath otherwise to accomplish in his vocation. To be short, they were all of this thought, that they were not born to serve themselves, but to serve their country…. One of the best and happiest things which Lycurgus ever brought into his city, was the great rest and leisure which he made his citizens to have, only forbidding them that they should not profess any vile or base occupation: and they needed not also to be careful to get great riches, in a place where goods were nothing profitable nor esteemed. For the Helots, which were bound men formed by the wars, did till their grounds, and yielded them a set revenue every year. Plutarch goes on to tell a story of an Athenian condemned for idleness, upon hearing of which a Spartan exclaimed: “Show me the man condemned for living nobly and like a gentleman.” Lycurgus (Plutarch continues) “did accustom his citizens so, that they neither would nor could live alone, but were in manner as men incorporated one with another, and were always in company together, as the bees be about their master bee.” Spartans were not allowed to travel, nor were foreigners admitted to Sparta, except on business; for it was feared that alien customs would corrupt Lacedaemonian virtue. Plutarch narrates the legislation that empowered Spartans to slaughter helots whenever they felt so minded, but refuses to accept that something so awful may have been attributed to Lycurgus. “For I cannot be persuaded, that ever Lycurgus invented, or instituted, so wicked and mischievous an act, as that kind of ordinance was: because I imagine his nature was gentle and merciful, by the clemency and justice we see he used in all his other doings.” Except in this matter, Plutarch has nothing but praise for the constitution of Sparta. The impact of Sparta on Plato, with whom, for the present, we shall be primarily concerned, will be obvious from the narrative of his Utopia, which will occupy the following chapter.