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It’s not often that you find a book which records practices that genuinely shock or disgust the reader and provoke an anachronistic judgement. The blockbuster films ��300�� and ��300: Rise of an Empire�� popularised Spartan culture and shifted the focus of modern viewers of classical Hellenic society from Athens to Sparta, an extreme contrast akin to black and white shades. This modern version gives us an account of Sparta, her kings, constitution and way of life as recorded by Plutarch and in a much shorter prose work attributed to Xenophon (but strongly contested) followed by the “Spartan Sayings��.

Plutarch’s text is broken down into the lives of four of Sparta’s most prominent rulers, Lycurges the Lawgiver and kings Agesilaus, Agis and Cleomenes, and uses them to exemplify the city’s culture and ideology through the various wars and battles that took place throughout the 5th to 3rd century BC. Plutarch demonstrates how Lycurges managed to achieve a bloodless constitutional revolution with the approval of the gods. Austerity, equality among citizens and military training were they basis of the reformed constitution, one which not be put to paper but promoted as a lifestyle in order for it to be ingrained into all members of society. In order to achieve the highest efficiency in the military, the evils of greed and poverty were dispersed by the collection of all land and dividing it up into 9,000 plots for allotment to citizens. Property and all derived wealth could no longer be confined to the wealthy few nor could the desire to amass gold and silver thrive, the precious metals were banned and possessors were fined while a heavily-inflated form of iron currency was institutionalised. This proto-communist state perpetuated itself by ensuring materialistic desires were confined to the other Greek cities and allowed the military to become Sparta’s walls and towers, hence the Spartan saying “Sparta’s young men are her walls and the points of their spears her frontiers��.

This ideology was not confined to the public sphere but manifested itself beyond into the populace. Believing the citizens to belong to the city and not as individual units, Lycurges�� and the rest of the citizenry’s ideology was reflected in the social norms. Firstly, newborn infants would be brought before their tribal elders for examination. If the child passed it would be returned to the father for raising and assigned one of the 9,000 plots of land as allotted by the aforementioned reforms. However, if the child was deemed to be “deformed�� it would be taken to a cliffside spot known as “Apothetae�� (the place of rejection) on Mount Taygetus, a practise popularised in the film ��300��. The logic behind this was that it would be better for Sparta and the child to terminate its life, leaving only a population of super soldiers. The desire to produce ideal children also manifested itself in consensual adultery. Were a man to find a younger male attractive and muscular, he’d approach him and offer him to his wife to be impregnated and for him to adopt the offspring. Inversely, a man could approach another and showcase his skills and physique in the hope of gaining approval to breed with his wife. Lycurges likened this act to the art of breeding the finest canines and stallions. While it may shock the modern reader, almost all marriages throughout history were based on building political alliances, raising capital, producing troops for the workforce and army, to name a few. It was only in the late 18th and early 19th century following the French and American Revolutions that proponents of the Enlightenment Era promoted the “right to personal happiness�� and love in a marriage. With that being said, Spartan women who were married appeared in public with a veil, as practised in other Near Eastern cultures around the time, while single women roamed uncovered.

Attitudes towards warfare were similar in respect to the life of the individual where a death on the battlefield in service to Sparta was thought to be the most glorious outcome while cowardice and escape from battle was worthy of disgrace, disavowal and murder. Certainly, women are recorded to have killed their own sons who returned home alive due to their cowardice while their comrades had succeeded in bringing honour to their name. Fear, the fear of shame and disgrace, coupled with their discipline to obey drove the Spartans to victories regardless of the strength and numbers of their adversaries. The young and inexperienced Cleomenes led a force of less than 5,000 Spartans against an Achaen force of 20,000 infantryman and 1,000 cavalry under the command of Aristomachus. The Spartan spirit granted them victory since Cleomenes did not fear the numerical superiority of the enemy and mustered his men for battle, men who were willing to follow him to Hades. Aristomachus was frightened by the tenacity of the Spartans and was routed without a single arrow being fired. When the day was won the losers would be spared for it was considered neither noble nor Hellenic to slaughter those who had surrendered. Such a reputation proved advantageous as their adversaries knew that fleeing would save their skin rather than standing their ground and risk being cut down.

The Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis unified the Greeks and halted the Persian advance into mainland Greece but the status quo was not to last. The Greeks resumed their civil wars and the Persians supported both sides in the hope of weakening them. The Peloponnesian War ended Athens�� golden age and established Spartan supremacy. Agesilaus was born in the final year of that war and dedicated his reign to freeing the Greeks of Asia Minor from Persian rule before being recalled to fend off a war against the Corinthian coalition where he is quoted saying, “the Great King has driven me out of Asia with 30,000 archers�� in reference to the golden Persian coins that were paid to his Greek foes. Having exhausted their population, resources and political stability, the Spartans and Athenians fell prey to the Macedonian onslaught under Phillip and Antigonus in particular and were eventually absorbed into the Roman republic.