Greek Depth Study - Topic 1 Education and Values in Sparta

Tyrtaeus fragments 10-12

Tyrtaeus fragments 10-12

"Andreia" - manly virtue. Standing, fighting and dying for your country

Everlasting glory of the man who fights heroically in battle - immortal

Stand and fight, if necessary, die.

Shows that in the second Messenian war, there are morale issues, fleeing in battle

The spartan states need people to take part in battle in this manner.

If we take this source, one of the only Spartan sources, we therefore assume that this was how it was throughout the nation as a whole. From reading this, it suggests that the Spartan state was highly militaristic.

Xenophon Lac Pol 1

Spartiate women did not make clothing . Physical fitness was key. Competed against each other .

Marriage customs in Sparta:

A man should not be seen entering or leaving his wife’s room. Men could not marry when they chose and could only do so when at the height of their physical powers.

elderly man can marry young wife was required to allow a younger man to have sex with his wife for the purpose of producing children. Women, in this situation, ran two households

Theme of competition is consistent.

Contradicts Herodotus 6.62 where he states that a man went into an adulterous relationship with Aegetus' wife behind his back. He would not have needed to marry her or have intercourse with her if Xenophon's description is correct.

3.25-3.26 --> anexandrades is forced to take a second wife. If there was no jealousy in Sparta and all women were held communally and you could bear children with someone who wasn't your wife.

Xenophon Lac Pol 2

Paidonomos - boy herd

Everything the Spartans did was to toughen them up --> setting the military tone from the get go.

Just talking about how they are going to be tougher and fitter. Not overfeeding the youth. Failure was punished. Always under authority apparently. Even when no adult present, the most quick witted eirens was in charge of each platoon

NO pederasty, differs from other sources. 'nothing to do with sexual attraction

Xenophon Lac Pol 3-4

Importance of keeping discipline tight even during late-teenage years. Treated even more harshly than usual. Strange depiction of teenagers in public. Supposedly they were so brought up in 'decency' that they acted like statues. Seems implausible to me. As to whether it is good is another question.

Importance of competition in young men (hebontes). How this was formulated. Three outstanding members of the year group select 100 others telling why he rejected one and selected the other making them enemies.

Mentions year groups - Cartledge suggests that these year groups were selected between festivals.

How can there both be communality and competitiveness? Leads to jealousy and competitiveness. Put in check by laws saying that if somebody said stop, then you had to stop.

Xenophon Lac Pol 9

Spartan Treatment of Cowards

‘noble death was seen as preferable by far to a disgraceful life.’

If you were a trembler people would be ashamed to share a meal with a coward, or wrestling at the gymnasium, left out in ball games, female relatives might not marry, not able to marry

Corroborates with Tyrtaeus

Thucydides 4:80

treatment of Helots - event which resulted in the killing of 2,000 helots. Fear of helots influencing Spartan policy

Aristophanes Lysistrata 78-84

Spartan values of women, beautiful and athletic

Aristophanes Lysistrata 1241-1321

Awareness of dancing and singing

Agrees with Alkman in terms of the part they women play within Spartan festivals

Herodotus Histories 7.104.4

Spartan Values, never retreat.

'that master is Law', 'Never to retreat in battle, however great the odds, but always to remain in formation, and to conquer or die'

Essentially just a summary of Tyrtaeus

Plato Protagoras

Just reinforces that both men and women in Sparta think highly of education

Corroboration to Xenophon and Plutarch in this sense

Plato Laws

Krypteia depicted as an endurance exercise.

Athenian aristocrat - Idealised Spartan System??? Nonetheless, refutes Plutarch and Aristotle

Alkman Fragment 1

Sung by 10 girls at festival

• Women and girls played a key role in the singing and dancing at Spartan festivals. Men and women along side each other at festivals. Clearly women had more of a role than just mothers --> the songs are made to accompany a religious festival so clearly they had a role in oral and cultural history.

• Hierachy and comparison of these girls. Competing in terms of beauty. Women being idolised for their physical appearance.

• Clearly not just wholly militaristic society

Alkman fragment 2-3

stresses the theme of the importance of female beauty in the phrase ‘she moves away on her long legs. Moist perfume, sitting on the maiden’s locks graces her lovely hair’

Kritias, Governance of the Spartans, fr.6

Highlights the values of restraint and the condemnation of gluttony within Sparta - ‘nor is there a day set aside to soak the body in unrestrained drinking’

Pausanias, description of Greece 3.14.9-10

Account of a violent team game. Practice hoplite warfare. Very violent kicking, eye gauging, biting, etc…

Plutarch Agesilaos 1

Agesilaos Went through the Agoge which was unique for a spartan king.

Says that it was a painful way of life that taught young men to be obedient → dubbed ‘man breaking’ by Simonides

Plutarch Lycurgus 14

Girls education pre puberty:

Physical education for eugenical reasons. Women taking part in naked processions and singing and dancing at festivals. Girl’s role in upholding Spartan values by praising and critiquing the boys.

Women’s place in society still a product of motherhood as highlighted by Gorgo’s supposed statement ‘We are the only women who give birth to real men’

Plutarch Lycurgus 16

Boys - Up to Secondary education

Infants:

• Reference to the weak being sent off to Apothetai as the weak would not be good for the state or the child apparently was the belief

• Supposedly 9,000 allotments of land (population of Sparta) to which the infant was sent. Not likely to be true as there are bound to be child mortalities. Doesn't fit the population.

• Xenophon makes no mention of the Apothetai which is mentioned here. Plausible if you buy into the society was highly militaristic. Spartan king, Agesilaos

• No swaddling bands for babies. Apparently they were tantrum free? Hyperbole? Almost certainly.

• Xenophon makes no note of Lakonian wet nurses.

From 7 years:

• Loads of similarities to Xenophon, probably taken from Xenophon.

• Taken under the wing of the state.

• Equality in the upbringing of children

• Obedience

• Reading and writing unimportant 'restricted to the minimum necessary'

Plutarch Lycurgus 17-18

Secondary Education of Spartans:

• Sexual freedom.

• Reference to mentors, 'thought of themselves in a way as both parents, teachers, and rulers of all those boys'. No reference to the one on one aspect, however.

• Stealing much like Xenophon. Hyperbole in terms of the altar of Artemis Orthia.

• Rations deliberately inadequate to encourage resource gathering.

Relationship with Eiren:

• Group messes they were apparently often asked by Eirens to sing or answer a question and make sound judgements on political issues. Punishment for an inadequate answer

• Unmarried girls could have lovers among the best and noblest of women

• Unclear as to whether this is a mentor relationship or a physical one

Contradicts Xenophon who depicts them as ‘statues’ in discipline

Plutarch Lycurgus 21

Songs supposedly all focussed on applauding the good fortune of those who had died for Sparta; condemnation of cowards whose lives were filled with grief and misery.

Connection of bravery and music

Used it for timing their march

Battle of Mantinea - Thucydides

All of Sparta's important festivals are to Apollo. This is because they are Dorians. Carnea, Hyascynthia, gomnopaedia (festival of naked youths, Cartledge suggests that this is a mistranslation and should be the festival of unarmed dancing) Alcman's lyric poetry was sang every year at Gomnopaedia.

Plutarch Lycurgus 22

Restrictions on grooming relaxed during war time - looked after their hair while on campaign

See Herodotus book 7

On marching into war Spartan religiosity in sacrificing the she-goat. Marching into battle to sound of music - see Mantinea

If you won the Olympics you got to protect the king - value of honour

Plutarch Lycurgus 25

Valued community not private life - bee metaphor.

Apparently when Pedaritus was not selected as one one of the 300 he was glad, knowing that there were 300 better Spartans then he was.

Contrary to what Xenophon says about competition

Furthermore, when Brasidas died, his mother said ‘Noble and brave Brasidas was, but Sparta has many better men than he’ - community again

Plutarch Lycurgus 27

Funerary practices:

Only allowed an inscription on those who died on campaign or a woman who died in labour (highlights the importance of childbirth as a duty for women, like military duty for men)

Fear of corruption and acquiring foreign habits. Expelled immigrants, not for fear of changing political government (refutes Thucydides), but feared that they might develop into teachers of evil practices.

Plutarch Lycurgus 28

Plutarch at his best here. Puts forward Aristotle and Plato’s arguments as to whether the Krypteia existed and, if it did, what it was.

References Thucydides 4:80 to support the Aristotelian argument that they killed helots as part of the Krypteia

Plutarch also references Aristotle speaking of an annual war on helots declared by the ephors

He comes to the conclusion that such treatment of the Helots only began after the earthquake of c. 464 BCE and their revolt and does not attribute this to Lycurgus.

Plutarch Sayings of Gorgo

“in that case, father, more wine will be drunk and the drinkers will become less manly and less good” - moderation in Sparta