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King Agesilaus II—who led the Spartan Army at the peak of its power in the fourth century B.C.—proclaimed that one of Sparta’s greatest strengths was its citizens’ “contempt of pleasure.”
Nonsense. Spartans were devoted to all kinds of pleasurable pursuits, particularly the arts: It is widely believed that there were more poets in Sparta during the seventh and sixth centuries BC than in any other Greek city-state.
Full citizens had ample time for entertainments because Spartan law forbade them to work, and there were two lower classes of people to look after their needs. The city-state’s helots, or serfs, took care of agriculture, while the higher-ranking but non-citizen perioikoi oversaw crafts, military procurement and commerce.
Granted, Spartan citizens also pursued rugged pastimes such as equestrianism, but their love of poetry and dance belies a contempt of pleasure. In histories written by Plutarch, Herodotus and others, we find a picture not of stern, militaristic ascetics but of bons vivant and patrons of the arts. Indeed, foreign poets would often go to Sparta to perform because they were assured of a warm reception.
In seventh-century BC Sparta, the poet Alcman helped pioneer lyric poetry, which diverged from the epic’s celebration of war and focused instead on desire, emotion and a fascination with nature (“the birds, long-winged, who bring their omens, are now in slumber....”). It was performed to the strumming of a lyre—hence the name. This revolutionary style would prove central to many poetic traditions, from ancient Rome to medieval France to Renaissance England and into the present.
Meanwhile, Spartans were surprisingly serious about music. Plutarch reports that a magistrate named Emprepes once winced to hear a harpist named Phrynis butchering a song by playing too many notes. In response, Emprepes used a hatchet to slice two of the nine strings off Phrynis’ harp, admonishing the minstrel: “Do not abuse music.” Lionized for declaring war on other city-states, Spartans also went into battle for art’s sake.
The legend of Sparta’s martial prowess owes much of its power to a storied feat of heroism accomplished by Leonidas, king of Sparta and hero of the celebrated Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.). In the battle, the Persian Army crushed more than 7,000 Greeks—including 300 Spartans, who are widely and falsely believed to have been the only Greeks fighting in that battle—and went on to capture and burn Athens. Outflanked and hopelessly outnumbered, Leonidas and his men fought to the death, epitomizing Herodotus’ pronouncement that all Spartan soldiers would “abide at their posts and there conquer or die.” This singular episode of self-sacrificing bravery has long obscured our understanding of the real Sparta.
Actually, Spartans could be as cowardly and corrupt, as likely to surrender or flee, as any other ancient Greeks. The super-warrior myth— bolstered in the special effects extravaganza 300, a movie in which Leonidas, 60 at the time of the battle, was portrayed as a hunky 36—blinds us to the real ancient Spartans. They were fallible men of flesh and bone whose biographies offer important lessons for modern people about heroism and military cunning as well as all-too-human blundering. These Spartans, not particularly better or worse than any other ancient warriors, are just a handful of many examples that paint the real, and utterly average, picture of Spartan arms.
But it is this human reality that makes the actual Spartan warrior relatable, even sympathetic, in a way Leonidas can never be. Take the mostly forgotten general, Brasidas, who, instead of embracing death on the battlefield, was careful to survive and learn from his mistakes. Homer may have hailed Odysseus as the cleverest of the Greeks, but Brasidas was a close second.
Almost no one has heard of Brasidas. He’s not a figure immortalized in Hollywood to prop up fantasies, but a human being whose mistakes form a much more instructive arc.
Smithsonian
