Sparta sought to inculcate its citizens
with common values and attitudes by requiring the sons and daughters of
citizens to attend a public school for 14 years. In a society as small as
Sparta’s, this state school was not larger than in a small town in the U.S. and
the results were much the same: close identification with the institution and
widespread familiarity with the character strengths and weaknesses of
classmates. Furthermore, the headmaster of the school was an elected official, who
could be dismissed by the Assembly if he lost the confidence and respect of his
fellow citizens.
In the following excerpt from “A Heroic
King” a foreigner interested in enrolling his son in the Spartan agoge is given
a lesson about Spartan culture from a Deputy Headmaster.
Alkander
excused himself to [the visiting Corinthian] Lychos and went to stand in front
of the boys. While the eirene stood very straight and still, the miscreants
were eight-year-olds, and they had not yet absorbed the agoge discipline to the
same degree. They kept squirming and sneaking glances at Alkander. “Do you know
why you are here?” Alkander opened the interrogation.
“Alpheus
says it is just for throwing stones at some stupid helots,” one of the boys
announced in a defiant tone, with an angry look at his eirene.
“And
you do not think that is reason enough to have to face me?” Alkander answered
the boy’s tone rather than his words.
The
boys continued to look sullen, and one of them asked, “What’s wrong with
throwing rocks at helots?”
“Well,
tell me this: Can the Spartan army fight without food?” Alkander asked.
The
boys shook their heads vigorously.
“Do
you produce food for the Spartan army?”
They
shook their heads even more vigorously.
“Does
your father produce food for the army?”
“Of
course not! He’s Spartiate,” the bolder boy countered indignantly, and then
dropped his eyes before his eirene could cuff him.
“But
Spartiates have to eat,” Alkander told him reasonably. “If you don’t produce
food and your father doesn’t produce food, who does? Does your mother plow and
plant the grain?”
“Of
course not!” The talkative boy sounded very angry.
“Who
does?” Alkander insisted.
“Helots!”
he spat out.
“Exactly.
So you, your father, and the Spartan army all depend on helots to survive,
don’t you?”
Sullen
silence answered him. “Don’t you?” Alkander insisted.
“But
farming is slave work, helot work! It’s for stupid beasts!” the other boy insisted.
“Do
you know a beast that can plow and plant and harvest?”
Silence.
“The
character of your actions was fundamentally hostile to the Spartan state,
because no matter how small or minor your actions may seem, they were directed
against a pillar of our society: the freedom of Spartiates to focus on their
duties as citizens.” Alkander looked from one boy to the other. They were both
frowning, but he hoped it was now more from puzzlement than from resentment.
“Without helots to work our estates and grow our food, we would be like the
other Greeks, who have to earn a living first and are soldiers second.” Again
he paused to let this sink in before asking, “For sabotaging the Spartan state,
your punishment has been very mild, hasn’t it?”
The
boys started squirming in anticipation of the cane.
“Eirene.”
Alkander turned to Alpheus. “I think these boys should go without bread,
cheese, sausage, honey, or any other farm produce until they learn to
appreciate the importance of agricultural labor. They are to be allowed to eat
only those things they can gather, trap, or hunt from the wild.”
“Yes,
sir,” the eirene answered dutifully, looking uneasy. At eight, the boys could
not yet hunt, had barely learned the fundamentals of trapping, and had not yet
learned how to distinguish edible from poisonous plants.
“I
want to see these boys again in a week.”
“Yes,
sir,” the eirene swallowed nervously, recognizing that his obedience to these
orders would be assessed by the state of the boys in the next interview.
“Dismissed,”
Alkander ordered, and the eirene shooed the boys back out into the hall.
Alkander
turned to Lychos and opened his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “You see
the limits of our discipline.”
“I
see that you demand understanding as well as obedience.”
“That
is the objective, but those boys learned contempt for helots from their parents―evidence that my predecessors failed to impress upon earlier
generations our interdependence and respect for each man, free or unfree.”
Lychos
raised his eyebrows at that. “Would you teach the boys respect for slaves?”
Alkander
tilted his head. “Why not? A man’s status has little to do with his character.
After all, a slave can be set free, or a freeman can be captured. There is a
young man here, a Chian, who was born free but taken captive by the Persians
when he was still a boy. The Persians cut off his genitals so brutally that he
was lamed. Yet he freed himself by running away. Didn’t he show his greatest
courage when―as a slave―he ran away?”
Lychos
bowed his head in concession. Alkander continued, “I try to teach the boys that
a man’s character―not his status, his clothes, or his
looks―is what makes him valuable. I try to
point out that a helot who is hard-working and honest is better than even a
king who is deceitful, corrupt, or profligate.”
“Using,
I presume, Leotychidas and not Leonidas as your example of a profligate king,”
Lychos quipped.
Alkander
laughed briefly, but then grew serious. “The Spartan agoge teaches paradigms
for living rather than facts.”
“And
what is the most important paradigm of all?” Lychos asked.
“Consciousness
of our mortality.”
Lychos
started, but then nodded knowingly, “Yes, of course. You want to prepare the
boys to die for Sparta.”
“No,
not at all!” Alkander countered emphatically. “We make our sons confront death
when trapping, hunting, and sacrificing so that they learn to appreciate the
sheer beauty of life.” He paused and then tried to explain. “Look at it this
way: A Spartan youth does not need a fancy new himation to make him feel good;
just being warm will satisfy him. Nor does he need exotic fish rushed into the
city on ice and doused in spicy sauces in order to feel well fed; just filling
his belly will do that. Just as deprivation makes a man satisfied with very little,
consciousness of his mortality makes a man treasure each and every day. At its
best, consciousness of the shortness of life makes a man use each day the way a
miser spends gold. Does this make sense
to
you?” Alkander stopped himself to ask the Corinthian.
Lychos
nodded slowly. “I think for the first time I am beginning to understand
Leonidas.”
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