It was the Spartan Statesman
Chilon the Wise who coined the laconic phrase “nothing in excess.” Yet the
degree to which this philosophy dominated Spartan culture is often overlooked.
It will come as no surprise to
scholars of Sparta that Spartan culture proscribed, for example, economy in the
use of words, in drinking, in eating, in making love and in dress and
decoration. By the end of the fifth
century BC, the Spartans were infamous for the lack of decoration on their
clothes and homes. Meanwhile, their preference for pithy, precise expression
rather than verbose eloquence, had given rise to a contemporary cult of
“Laconic” expression. Likewise, the
Spartan disdain for excessive drinking was legendary to the point where
Spartans were willing to blame the madness of a king (Cleomenes I) on nothing
more than drinking his wine neat. When it comes to food, Xenophon claimed that
boys of the agoge received short rations, while grown men in the syssitia were
fed a restricted diet. According to Plutarch even sex was inhibited in Sparta,
with newlyweds forced to engage in various tricks and deceit in order to come
together.
Most ancient commentators praise
Sparta’s culture of “more is less.”
Xenophon claims that the short rations of the agoge helped boys to grow
tall, while the syssitia’s rigid regime kept men from growing fat. Plutarch suggests that Spartan marriage
customs increased affection between young couples by restricting their ability
to sate passion, apparently on the assumption that too much sex leads to
disinterest. Certainly, Spartan prudery
was viewed by philosophers as more admirable than the reverse. The benefits of teaching children silence
were, of course, widely eulogized and Laconic speech particularly praised by
Plato and the philosophers.
Modern commentators, in contrast,
are more likely to focus on the harshness of Spartan society. Sparta is
frequently compared to totalitarian societies in which freedom is sacrificed
for conformity and the state is ever-present.
The emphasis is on children torn away from their parents, on young men confined to barracks rather than living with their
wives, on adults with no choice of profession, and soldiers expected to die
rather than retreat even in hopeless situations.
Yet Chilon’s admonishment applied
to excessive cruelty, brutality, rigidity, hatred and violence as much as to
excessive luxury, food or sex! Nothing in excess means exactly that. Sparta was no Taliban state in which pleasure,
music and sport were forbidden. On the contrary, in Sparta music and dance were
valued nearly as much as valor on the battlefield.
Even war itself was not adored,
but rather seen as a dangerous passion that –just like appetite and lust – needed to be
controlled. This attitude was symbolized by a temple in which Ares was chained.
Spartans feared an unleashed God of War as much – if not more – than they
feared an uninhibited Aphrodite. The cult of Aphrodite, after all, first took
root in Lacedaemon, on Kythera, and according to some sources the Spartans
sacrificed to Eros on the eve of battle – not to Ares.
Yet arguably the greatest
evidence that Spartan society was not grim was the fact that Sparta had a
temple to laughter and so a cult of happiness. To my knowledge, no other
ancient city-state shared this open and explicit adulation of happiness. To be
sure, Sparta also had a temple to fear, and it would be wrong to argue that
Spartans “adored” fear. Rather, temples
were built to all supernatural forces which mortals needed to respect. The Spartans knew that fear was powerful and
could seize control of even the bravest heart, therefore it was a force to
reckoned with and respected, like death itself.
The significance of a temple to laughter is that it shows that Spartans,
far from scorning the light side of life, joy and humor, recognized the power
of laughter no less than that of fear.
Unlike any other ancient society that I know of, it placed enjoying life on a par with the
undeniably dark forces of death and fear. (See also: Loving Life inLacedaemon.)
