Spartan power as an ideal; essentially, after Sparta had begun to decline as a military power, it clung to a reputation of military prowess because that’s all it had left. Sparta’s institutions postdate its peak, and lived up to an imagined past glory rather than accurately reflecting its traditional society. Good lesson for ultraconservatives and obsessive traditionalists in here, I think.
At Thermopylai, Sparta made its name as a society of warriors. Afterwards, everyone fears them; we’re frequently told of the shaking knees and chattering teeth of those who know they’re going up against Spartans. However, from the sources of the Classical period, it becomes clear that Sparta is feared and respected in warfare only because of Thermopylai. No one can name any other example of Spartans fighting to the death against insurmountable odds. When the Spartans surrendered at the battle of Sphakteria (425 BC), comparisons were immediately drawn with the men of Leonidas, whose reputation the warriors at Sphakteria had failed to live up to. There was apparently no other go-to example of Spartan prowess.
It seems that at this point the Spartans decided to commit to the name they’d made for themselves. For the entire Classical period, there are no native Spartan writers that we know of; the products of Spartan leisure-class culture dry up. Instead, what we find in other sources, people talking about Sparta, is increasing awe at their well-ordered society, their political stability, and their military skill. This keeps building right the way through the Classical and Hellenistic periods, and the most incredible tales of Spartan ruthlessness and single-minded obsession with warfare were actually written in the days of the Roman Empire – centuries after Sparta was beaten in war by the city-state of Thebes and reduced to the status of second-rate power. It would seem that the Spartans doubled down on their reputation as a specifically military power, and gradually started building up the system of customs and institutions that would convince later observers that they must always have been a force to be reckoned with. This only seems to have happened in response to their reputation – but in hindsight, it must have been hard for Greek and Roman authors to separate cause and effect.
In other words, the Spartan reputation for military skill and their actual military record appear to be largely unrelated. During their rise to prominence, nobody thought they stood out. In the period of their slow but irrevocable decline, admiration for their methods steadily rose to a fever pitch. This is important; apparently the degree of respect they commanded in ancient times seems to have had little to do with the power they actually had. So it goes, too, in modern times.
Good post (and not all about deflating Sparta)
I dunno, I know it’s a bad idea for a layperson to contradict a historian, but this seems just a little bit too edgy for me.
The fact is, we know almost nothing about pre-Thermopylae Sparta.
There’s some fragments of lyric poetry, generally about glorious manly fighting. There’s some stuff from Herodotus, generally really mythical-sounding and involving the Oracle of Delphi. But the first good work of recorded history was written after the battle of Thermopylae. If your argument is “nobody talked about Sparta before Thermopylae, so it couldn’t have been that great”, I’m afraid the problem is nobody wrote anything down about anything at that time.
And almost as soon as history starts being written, it involves descriptions of the Sparta we know and love. Herodotus, the first Greek to really write history, raves about Leonidas’ glorious stand at Thermopylae and about the great lawgiver Lycurgus. Thucydides, the next Greek to write anything relevant, calls Sparta “the preeminent military power in Greece” and even specifically warns that future generations won’t believe how powerful they are. In the context of Sparta’s physical appearance, he writes:
“For I suppose if Lacedaemon [Sparta] were to become desolate, and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power.”
Xenophon, who writes less than a century after written history started to be recorded at all, has a book The Constitution Of The Spartans, saying:
“It occurred to me one day that Sparta, though among the most thinly populated of states, was evidently the most powerful and most celebrated city in Greece; and I fell to wondering how this could have happened. But when I considered the institutions of the Spartans, I wondered no longer. Lycurgus, who gave them the laws that they obey, and to which they owe their prosperity, I do regard with wonder; and I think that he reached the utmost limit of wisdom. For it was not by imitating other states, but by devising a system utterly different from that of most others, that he made his country pre-eminently prosperous. ”
Then he goes on to talk about various Spartan institutions, for example:
“Physical training for the female no less than for the male sex: moreover, he instituted races and trials of strength for women competitors as for men, believing that if both parents are strong they produce more vigorous offspring.”
And:
“On the other hand, lest they should feel too much the pinch of hunger, while not giving them the opportunity of taking what they wanted without trouble he allowed them to alleviate their hunger by stealing something. 7 It was not on account of a difficulty in providing for them that he encouraged them to get their food by their own cunning. No one, I suppose, can fail to see that. Obviously a man who intends to take to thieving must spend sleepless nights and play the deceiver and lie in ambush by day, and moreover, if he means to make a capture, he must have spies ready. There can be no doubt then, that all this education was planned by him in order to make the boys more resourceful in getting supplies, and better fighting men.”
And:
“Nor does this exhaust the list of the customs established by Lycurgus at Sparta that are contrary to those of the other Greeks. In other states, I suppose, all men make as much money as they can. One is a farmer, another a ship-owner, another a merchant, and others live by different handicrafts. But at Sparta Lycurgus forbade freeborn citizens to have anything to do with business affairs. He insisted on their regarding as their own concern only those activities that make for civic freedom. Indeed, how should wealth be a serious object there, when he insisted on equal contributions to the food supply and on the same standard of living for all, and thus cut off the attraction of money for indulgence’ sake? Why, there is not even any need of money to spend on cloaks: for their adornment is due not to the price of their clothes, but to the excellent condition of their bodies.”
And:
“The following achievement of Lycurgus, again, deserves admiration. He caused his people to choose an honourable death in preference to a disgraceful life. And, in fact, one would find on consideration that they actually lose a smaller proportion of their men than those who prefer to retire from the danger zone. 2 To tell the truth, escape from premature death more generally goes with valour than with cowardice: for valour is actually easier and pleasanter and more resourceful and mightier. And obviously glory adheres to the side of valour, for all men want to ally themselves somehow with the brave.”
And:
“The Lacedaemonians also carry out with perfect ease manoeuvres that instructors in tactics think very difficult…Let not the length to which I run occasion surprise, for it is almost impossible to find any detail in military matters requiring attention that is overlooked by the Lacedaemonians.”
This sort of stuff is being written about as early as anyone is writing anything at all. It’s not being written by Romans, or by people who never saw Sparta, it’s being written by a guy who served in the Spartan military and was personal friends with a Spartan king.
And if we agree that everyone from Thucydides on thought Sparta was the greatest military power in Greece, and that they lived communally with nobody seeking wealth, and that they were obsessed with honor and easily willing to die for it, I’m not sure what’s left to be a myth. I mean, I’m sure the Romans embellished something, but they definitely had a core of truth to embellish upon.
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