Sparta: Encyclopedia II - Sparta - Military service and training

Sparta - Military service and training

The origins of the powers exercised by the assembly of the citizens, or apella, are virtually unknown, due to the paucity of historical documentation. The ordinary Spartan was essentially a soldier, trained to obey and endure; he became a politician only if chosen as ephor for a single year. He could be elected a life member of the council after his sixtieth year, in which he would be free from military service.

Sparta was, above all, a military state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a child was brought before the elders of the tribe, who decided whether it was to be reared or not. If found defective or weakly, the baby was dropped off a cliff called the Apothetae, or Place of Rejection. In this way attempts were made to secure the maintenance of high physical standards in Sparta. From the earliest days of the Spartan, the claim on his life by the state was absolute and strictly enforced.

Until the age of seven, boys were educated at home and were taught to fight their fears as well as general superstition by their nurses, who were prized in Greece. Their training was then undertaken by the state in the agoge system and supervised by the paidonomos, an official appointed for that purpose. This training consisted for the most part in physical exercises, such as dancing, gymnastics, and ball-games, with music and literature occupying a subordinate position. This tireless emphasis on physical training gave Spartans the reputation for being "laconic," short in words, a word derived from the name of their homeland of Laconia. Education was also extended to girls. Both sexes exercised naked. Women, however, could not compete according to the Olympic rules. There were also contests to see who could take the most severe flogging, an ordeal known as diamastigosis.

At the age of thirteen, young men were sent off into the countryside with nothing, and were expected to survive on wits and cunning. This was very probably, in origin, an old initiation rite, a preparation for their later career as elite soldiers.

At the age of twenty, the Spartan began his military service and his membership in one of the dining messes or clubs (in Greek 'syssition' or 'phyidition'), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member and where all meals were taken. The Spartan exercised the full rights and duties of a citizen at the age of thirty. Only native Spartans were considered a full citizen, and needed to undergo the training as prescribed by law, and participation in and contribution to one of the dining-clubs. Those who fulfilled these conditions were considered peers, (homoioi) citizens in the fullest sense of the word, while those who failed were called lesser men, and retained only the civil rights of citizenship.

Spartiates were absolutely debarred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the periokoi, and were forbidden (in theory) to possess either gold or silver. Spartan currency consisted of bars of iron, thus making thievery and foreign commerce very difficult and discouraging the accumulation of riches. Wealth was, in theory at least, derived entirely from landed property, and consisted in the annual return made by the Helots, who cultivated the plots of ground allotted to the Spartans. But this attempt to equalize property proved a failure: from the earliest times, there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became even more serious after the law of Epitadeus, passed at some time after the Peloponnesian War, removed the legal prohibition of the gift or bequest of land. Helots were ruthlessly controlled, primarily through the secret police or Krypteia.

Women were more independent than in other Greek societies, and were able to negotiate with their husbands to bring their lovers into their homes. According to Plutarch in his work Life of Lycurgus, men both allowed and encouraged their wives to bear the children of other men, due to the general communal ethos which made it more important to bear many progeny for the good of the city, than to be jealously concerned with one's own family unit. For this reason, Plutarch claims that the concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below, as to find an adulterer in Sparta.

Pederasty, a social practice common throughout Greece, was equally so in Sparta. The Spartans believed that encouraging the older, accomplished men of the city to have relations with the youths was conducive to their education. Consequently, the title of the older lover was eispnelas, "inspirerer," and for the younger beloved, aitas, "hearer." Cicero asserts that, "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage [hybris, "rape"] in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers.' (De Rep., iv. 4)

Another anecdote in Plutarch's biography of Lycurgus relates the story of a Spartan magistrate who was fined by the city because his young male lover had cried out while he was fighting, which was considered to be a sign that the young man was overly effeminate and had therefore not been properly educated by his distinguished lover. Male-to-male relationships served as a way to reinforce the masculine education of the Spartan boys.

Full citizens, released from any economic activity, were given a piece of land (klaros), which was cultivated and run by the Helots. As time went on, greater portions of land were concentrated in the hands of large landholders, but the number of full citizens decreased over time. Citizens had numbered 8,000 at the beginning of the 5th century BC, but had decreased by Aristotle's day to less than 1,000, and had further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BC. Attempts were made to remedy this situation by creating new laws. Certain penalties were imposed upon those who remained unmarried or who married too late in life. These laws, however, came too late and were ineffective in affecting the general trend.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Military service and training", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki