Speech like Spearpoints

In the ancient world, the Spartans were (in)famous for their culture of silence. They were also envied for their ability to express themselves concisely and pointedly.

But while the Spartan culture of reducing speech to its bare essentials and speaking only when necessary was described and admired by ancient observers, the reasons for Sparta’s culture of silence are less obvious.

Ancient “Laconophiles” collected alleged examples of Spartan speech all characterized by pithiness, and Xenophon stresses the – evidently unusual – ability of Spartan youth to hold their tongues except when directly addressed. Perhaps the most graphic example of the Spartan distaste for excessive verbiage, however, is the story of the Samian ambassadors, who sought Spartan aid in their fight against Polycrates.  According to Herodotus, the Samians gave a very long speech after which the Spartan’s complained about having forgotten the start of the speech by the end of it.  When the Samians then brought a bag and said the bag needed flour, the Spartans replied that the word ‘bag’ was superfluous – and then proceeded to give the aid requested. (Herodotus 3:46). Because Spartan eloquence was characterized by an absolute minimum of words, we describe minimalist speech as “Laconic” event to this day. 

W. Lindsay Wheeler in his excellent article “Doric Crete and Sparta, home of Greek Philosophy,” (Sparta: Journal of Ancient Spartan and Greek History, Vol. 3, # 2), claims that silence was a critical component of the Spartan educational system. He alleges that silence was purposely imposed on youth so that “their thoughts should gain force and intensity by compression” and so their speech would be “short, concise and to the point, like their spear points.”  He goes on expound on the depth to which philosophy lay at the roots of Spartan society and culture. Clearly, a society that valued philosophical thought based on observation of nature, scorned idle chatter, and it is fair to assume that in Sparta men were expected to speak only when they had something worth saying.

During a recent intensive training course in administering first aid to the victims of traumatic injuries, I was struck by an additional feature of the Spartan culture of silence – its utility on the battlefield. The training focused on providing first aid to trauma victims in an environment without medicine, medical technology or specialized first-aid kits. It was heavily informed by recent military experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the causes of battlefield injuries have changed dramatically since the age of Sparta, the result – severed limbs, massive hemorrhaging, life-threatening puncture wounds and crippling fractures – would have been familiar to any Spartan ranker. Astonishingly, despite all the advances in modern medicine, the first response probably has not changed much in two and a half millennia. 

This is where the Spartan culture of silence might have proved its utility – if it was not part of the very reason for evolving it in the first place.  In warfare, serious casualties are inherently traumatic, which means the victims inevitably suffer from shock and hypothermia. Both conditions worsen, if a patient is agitated and unable to keep still. If, on the other hand, a victim has been trained to remain still and silent in ordinary circumstances, then they have a better chance of also remaining calm (and so preserving rather than squandering their strength, blood and breath) in a crisis too. 

Furthermore, it appears (but I would welcome a medical opinion on this!) that the natural pain-killers the body produces in situations of extreme trauma are more effective if adrenaline levels are lower. Thus, developing behavior that reduces or shortens the period in which adrenaline is pumped into the body, may increase the speed with which natural painkillers are released into the bloodstream.  Thus, far from being super-macho heroes, who ignored pain (as portrayed in most cartoons, films and novels), Spartans may literally have experienced less acute pain when dealing with battle wounds. 

If we accept that this was a possibility, then it is even possible that Spartans, having observed how calm and stillness improved the survival rate among battlefield casualties, concluded that cultivating these behavior patterns in their children and youth would help them to respond accordingly on the battlefield. In short, the culture of silence and self-control may have helped Spartans to experience less pain and survive more readily on the battlefield, and the fact that self-control and silence was effective on the battlefield may have reinforced the culture of silence in the agoge and among adult, male citizens.    

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The Spartan Agoge: Scandalously Co-Educational

While the ancients generally admired the Spartan educational system, modern commentators tend to be critical or appalled by it. Ironically, the one aspect of the agoge that provoked contemporary outrage, is the single feature widely imitated today. Namely, Spartan girls were integrated into the public education no less than their brothers.

Today I look more closely at the co-educational aspect of the Spartan Upbringing.

 

Sparta differed from most other Greek city-states most dramatically with respect to the legal status, social standing, and economic importance of women. Sparta was not actually alone in this, evidence from Gortyn on Crete suggests that Doric cities generally granted women higher status and greater rights, but in comparison with the other cities of the Greek mainland, most especially Athens, the status of women was arguably the most dramatic point of differentiation. 

The status of women in most of the Greek world, and particularly in Athens, was similar to the status of women under the Taliban.  First, girl infants were more likely to be "exposed" -- that is murdered -- than males. The Greek comic poet Posidippus put it this way: “Everybody raises a son even if he is poor, but exposes a daughter even if he is rich.” 

Even if allowed to live, a female child would be given less food than her brothers, certainly denied all wine and meat. Girls were also denied exercise and kept in the dark, poorly aired "women's quarters" at the back of the house, because girls were not supposed to be seen in public, and Athenian girls were not educated. On the contrary, they were considered mentally deficient by nature. Aristotle, for example, compared them to children incapable of growing up. Any training they received was thus informal and domestic, designed solely to ensure they could preform household tasks.


On reaching puberty, they were "given away" in marriage. Note, women were not parties to a marriage, they were the objects of contracts between their guardian and a man interested in acquiring a wife. Wives were acquired strictly for the purpose of the production of legitimate heirs, and sexual pleasure was sought from boys, slaves, and prostitutes (who were also unfree).  Wives, meanwhile, were confined to the same cramped and dark "women's quarters" (now in their husband's rather than their father's house), and were excluded from the intellectual life of their husbands because they were not allowed to attend symposiums -- not even those hosted by their husband under their own roof.

Furthermore, women in Athens could not inherit or own property. At no time could a woman in Athens own anything whose value was greater than a bushel of wheat. If an unmarried Athenian girl's father owned property and died without male heirs, she was bequeathed to the next male relative, who had to marry her in order to obtain the inheritance. The heir then divorced the wife he already had (although she was utterly blameless) in order to obtain the inheritance with the female appendage he now had to marry. Meanwhile in the famed theaters of Athens women were called (to great applause) "a curse to mankind" and "a plague worse than fire or any viper" (Euripides). 


In light of the above, it is hardly surprising that, as Nigel Kennel put it, "...the most shocking aspect of Classical Sparta's educational system, to contemporaries at least, was that girls trained and competed in contests similar to those of their brothers and cousins."(1) Furthermore, based on a fragment of Plato, Ducat concludes that the girls had no choice about the matter but were compelled to attend the agoge.(2) In short, the universal and compulsory nature of the agoge applied to girls no less than boys.

As to what they learned, Kennel hypothesizes that girls training "mirrored" that of the boys, while Cartledge believes that Spartan girl's intellectual education "resembled the 'primary' education given to Athenian boys, but in other ways, especially the physical exertions, it was a carbon copy of the Spartan boys' curriculum, and that is presumably an important clue to its meaning and function."(3) Xenophon speaks only of girls competitions in "running and strength" although Euripides suggests that wrestling was taught as well and Plutarch (speaking of the Roman-era agoge) mentions wrestling, discus and javelin as well. Yet, significantly,  Plato points out in his Protagoras (342d), education in Sparta was not purely physical for the girls either.   On the contrary, in Sparta "not only men but also women pride themselves on their intellectual culture."  This suggests much more than mere literacy: it implies a systematic education in rhetoric and philosophical thought.

Why would Sparta break so radically with the rest of the Greek world with respect to female education?

The obvious answer is that this was part of the far wider issue of women's status in Sparta as a whole. Spartan women could inherit and own property. They ran their husband's kleros. They were active participants in their marriage. They are recorded voicing their opinions in public. They are known to have been disciples of Pythagoras. They drove chariots. They quite simply could not have done all that if they had not had a basic education and developed a degree of physical fitness as children. 

Thus, from being a purely eugenic exercise to produce strong warriors, as most commentators (including, in this case, Xenophon) imply, the education of Spartan girls was part of a holistic system of integrating women into the society and state. Like their brothers, the shared experiences of common messes, identical clothes, and participation in the same events, festivals and competition helped to build their identity as Spartiates and to develop solidarity among the girls themselves.

Yet it had another, almost completely overlooked, function as well: it encouraged heterosexuality. The very fact that the girls and maidens shared the race-tracks and changing rooms, the dancing floors and theaters with the boys and youths made them less alien and more accessible than their sisters in other cities. Modern psychology indicates that homosexuality and particularly pedophilia is more common in misogynous societies in which women are segregated and denigrated (as in Athens) -- not in societies where they are integrated and empowered.  Everything we know about Sparta in the Archaic and Classical period contradicts the widespread assumption that Sparta was dominated by homosexuality and lesbianism. The co-educational agoge is another piece of evidence that in Sparta homosexuality was less common and less accepted than in other city-states of the ancient Greek world.

(1) Kennel, Nigel. The Gymnasium of Virtue: Education and Culture in Ancient Sparta. Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1995, p. 45.

(2) Ducat, Jean. "Perspectives on Spartan Education in the Classical Period." Hodkinson, Stephen and Anton Powell (eds). Sparta: New Perspectives. Duckworth, 1999, p.58.

(3) Cartledge, Paul.  Spartan Reflections. Duckworth, 2001, p. 83-24.

This ends my series on the Spartan agoge.

The Spartan Agoge: The Delicate Balance between Democracy and Discipline

Readers who believe Sparta and its educational system were particularly brutal will be shocked to learn that many ancient Greek commentators considered the Spartan eduational system, the agoge, as one of Sparta's most "democratic features."[1]

But then, ancient observers knew -- as many modern readers do not -- that Sparta was not just the home to a disciplined army but also the first state to introduce democracy (150 years before Athens adopted that form of government). In short, Sparta was both democratic and disciplined, and the Spartan educational system, the "Agoge," reflected that perpetual balancing act between democracy and discipline. 

 

The reason ancient observers viewed the Agoge as "democratic" was two-fold. First, because it was compulsory for all except the heirs to the two thrones, and second, it opened up the ranks of citizens to those not born of citizen parents.

Before focusing on the first point, it is important to consider the revolutionary nature of the second. Whereas birth to citizen parents was the sole basis to obtain citizenship in the rest of the Greek world, Sparta had created (as we saw earlier) an additional requirement of successfully completing the educational system. Yet while this ensured that all citizens attained a least a minimal level of education, it also opened the doors to citizenship for the sons of non-citizens. Suddenly, there was a way to become a Spartan without having been born to the privilege. (2)

The way in which this was applied is vague (to say the least) and it would appear to have been applied most commonly to the sons of former citizens, boys whose parents had been citizens, but through poverty had slipped from the ranks. Yet another very likely possibility in later years was that sons of freed helots, particularly those that fought with Brasidas or other Spartan commanders, were given the chance to send their sons to the Agoge. Possibly even the sons of run-away Athenian slaves were allowed this opportunity. 

The point is extremely significant and has been too often overlooked. It shows that the Spartan state found the common experience of the agoge more important than bloodlines. Or, put another way, the Spartan state trusted the agoge to "create Spartans" in the sense of men with the right values and ethos. This is unquestionably a democratic idea, as it removes the hereditary feature of privilege altogether. 

The more obvious democratic feature of the agoge was that it treated all boys exactly the same. All participants went barefoot, all wore identical himations all year long, all ate the institutional food in common messes, all had to undergo the same training, learn the same skills, and partake in the same ceremonies and festivals. Whether the (younger) son of a king or a "mothake" (non-citizen's child) "adopted" by a more wealthy citizen,  the treatment and routine were the same. They were all under the authority of the Head Master and his assistants, and all subject to the criticism and oversight of all adult citizens.  No boy could claim he was "better" than his colleagues or withdraw from the collective games, sport, training or learning without risking his future as a citizen. 

There may also be a third democratic element in the Agoge. In the Roman agoge, the boys elected their group leaders.  That is to say, in addition to being under the oversight of the Head Master and his assistants at all times everywhere, and in addition to being constantly watched over by an Eirene, each age cohort was divided up into units or teams or groups called "herds" in the Roman-era nomenclature. These herds elected from their own number a "herd leader." It was these groups within each age cohort that competed with one another at sport, play and music. 

Since Xenophon makes no mention of the herds or their leaders, this may be yet another Roman invention, yet I wanted to mention it because it is not totally at odds with a city-state that invented democracy. Encouraging school children to annually elect their leaders is an excellent way to prepare them for living in a democracy by learning the consequences of elections and so how to select good leaders. 

Yet, to the horror of the ancient no less than the modern world, the boys in the Spartan agoge were also subject to draconian discipline. Namely, they could be flogged. It is important to keep in mind that in the rest of the Greek world flogging was a punishment reserved for slaves. So the notion that a citizen's son might be flogged was particularly debasing and offensive; it put the free man's son on the same level as a slave. Were it not for the fact that Xenophon explicitly mentions it, it would be easy to believe that flogging itself -- like the whipping contest -- was a mere Roman-era invention.

But Xenophon does mention flogging -- three times in three short paragraphs. First, he mentions that the Head Master was authorized "to punish [his charges] severely whenever they misbehaved while in his charge." And also that Lycurgus gave the Head Master "a squad of young adults equipped with whips to administer punishment when necessary."(3) Second, he notes, "Someone might ask then, why on earth did he inflict many lashes on the boy who was caught [stealing]?" in order to answer: "After making it a matter of honor for them to snatch just as many cheeses as possible from Orthia, he commanded others to whip them...." (4)

What this tells us is that whipping was used both as punishment as part of the ritual at Artemis Orthia, the same ritual that later became the whipping contest of the Roman-era agoge. It is easier to answer the question of why the whipping at Artemis Orthia -- as practiced during the Archaic and Classical era -- than why flogging was a general means of discipline.

The festival of Artemis Orthia initially replicated an incident in which the Dorians were attacked by barbarians while celebrating a festival to Artemis. The Dorians beat off the barbarians armed with just canes from the river. The Archaic and Classic ritual entailed one class of boys from the agoge trying to steal cheese from the altar of Artemis Orthia (see above: "...an honor for them to snatch as many cheeses....") while another age cohort defended the altar armed with canes. 

But why would the Spartans alone of all Greeks institute flogging as a means of punishing their own youth? Xenophon is silent, and we have no Spartan voice that explains it. Was it just a means of making their youth particularly tough? Was it a means of impressing upon the youth that they were like slaves until they attained citizenship? After all, if citizenship was not a privilege of birth, then in effect the children of the agoge were not necessarily going to be citizens; by being treated like slaves they were reminded of the value of completing the agoge successfully.

Or were Spartan youth so unruly and so impudent that only the threat of a whipping could get them to behave? We know that Xenophon praised the "respect and obedience" and appearance of modesty among Spartan youth, yet he praised these qualities in all Spartans. It was the Spartan obedience to their laws that impressed him most, along with their self-discipline and self-restraint. In short, the draconian nature of the ultimate discipline may have been a means to induce self-discipline because there would be few things worth risking the humiliation of a flogging. Unfortunately, we will probably never know.


(1) Cartledge, Paul. Spartan Reflections. Duckworth, 2001, p. 85.
(2) Ducat, Jean. "Perspectives on Spartan Education." Hodkinson, Stephen and Anton Powell (eds). Sparta: New Perspectives. Duckworth, 1999, p. 53. 
(3) Xenophon, 2.1.
(4) Xenophon, 2.3. 

Next month I will look at the co-educational nature of the Spartan agoge. Meanwhile,

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The Spartan Agoge: A Public Institution, a Collective Responsibility

Thanks to films like "300," the Spartan Agoge is commonly viewed today as a brutal -- not to say savage -- training in which boys and youths were taught nothing but survival skills by sadistic instructors. In my last entries, I pointed out that this image is an illusion created in part by the artificial agoge of the Roman era and in part by poor historiography on the part of scholars copying from each other carelessly. 

Yet even after removing the grotesque mask created by later generations, the Spartan educational system was characterized by unique elements which attracted the praise of many ancient observers -- including Plato.

Today I look more closely at the "public" aspect of the Spartan Upbringing.

 

In an age when private schools and colleges enjoy a reputation for quality that generally exceeds that of public institutions, it is hard to understand why the public nature of Sparta's education attracted the admiration and praise of some of ancient Greece's most famed philosophers -- including Aristotle, otherwise a critic of Sparta. To understand the attraction of Sparta's public school it is essential to understand that the alternative was often no education at all.

True, in cities like Athens that attracted great philosophers and scientists from around the world, the opportunities were seemingly limitless.  An Athenian could theoretically indulge his own intellectual curiosity by attending talks by the greatest minds of his age at the famous gymnasiums and lyceums or by meeting and discussing with these men in a more intimate setting at the various symposiums hosted by leading citizens. An Athenian could even engage such men, or their more humble disciples, to act as teachers for his sons.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Athens citizens had neither the time nor the means to indulge in this kind of intellectual pursuit because the vast majority of Athens' citizens had to earn a living. That meant they could not stay up all night drinking at symposiums, nor spend the afternoons listening to lectures at the gymnasiums either because most Athenians were too busy earning a living. As for their children, as soon as they had grown out of infancy they had chores to do and errands to run. Soon they began to assist their father in his business and craft, and at the earliest opportunity learned a trade. Time for education was limited and competed with being useful to their family or learning skills necessary for gainful employment.  Furthermore, education was expensive, because teachers had to make a living too and so charged for their services. 

What this meant was that while the rich could hire private tutors and personal trainers for their sons, for the poor education was simply an expensive luxury that their children didn't have. Everybody in between sent their sons to one or another of the plethora of schools run by anyone who wanted to set one up, and the boys went whenever they could squeeze it between their chores and their skills-training for as long as their father could (or would) afford it. The result was that there was no overall standard of education in most Greek cities, and large numbers of citizens were both illiterate and innumerate.

Sparta, in contrast, education was deemed too important to be left to the whims and preferences of fathers. Instead, the state assumed responsibility for the education of all citizens' children. As Xenophon worded it, "Lycurgus, in place of the private assignment of slave tutors to each boy, stipulated that a man from the group, out of which came the highest office-holders are appointed, should take charge of [the children]."(1) 

Xenophon goes on to stress that this Head Master was given absolute authority over the boys and youths of the city at all times and in all places. Furthermore, the city provided him with an (unnamed) number of assistants to help him enforce his regime.  "The result," Xenophon claims, "has been that respect and obedience in combination are found to a high degree at Sparta."(2)

To the modern ear it is striking that a man, himself a student of Socrates, was more interested in "respect and obedience" than in intellectual development. This is particularly bewildering when one remembers that Xenophon sent his own sons to the agoge. Would a philosopher and intellectual, a man who developed his own theories on education for a prince, really have sent his children to a school where their minds were not trained, sharpened and broadened? The most likely answer is 'no."  The solution to the apparent contradiction is that Xenophon's focus in his short essay was on what made Sparta different. Xenophon expects schools to deliver intellectual content, and because Sparta's education does, it is not worthy of mention. On the other, it also taught youth respect and obedience. In short, "respect and obedience" were not achieved at the expense of intellectual development but rather in addition to it. 

Unmentioned but obvious is the fact that a single public school ensured a common curriculum and common standards. All attendees of the Spartan agoge learned the same things for the same amount of time and had to pass the same tests. Thus, the Spartan public school ensured at a minimum that all citizens were literate and numerate. 

The latter was assured not only by the school officials but by the fact that the entire community, notably all adult citizens, were held responsible for the education of the youth. Xenophon puts it like this: "...in other cities each man is master of his children, slaves and property. But Lycurgus...caused each man to be master of other people's children just as much as his own."(3) 

Jean Ducat notes that this collective responsibility for all youth is frequently encountered in tribal institutions, and draws attention to the fact that the boys and youth of the agoge were required to perform publicly at the many and varied religious festivals throughout the year. Ducat posits that this was another means of collective control over their education. (4) Throughout the year, as the various festivals came and went with their many youth events, the entire city could watch and see how well the boys were doing; They could judge if individuals boys were excelling or falling short of the mark by how well they behaved in the public fora.

Notably, however, the collective responsibility for the behavior and progress did not exclude or replace the role of parents. Ducat argues "it was indeed the father who was considered to have principle responsibility for the education of his son," noting that a boy's father "followed the boy's performance in the agoge with a passionate interest...." (5)

Furthermore, the costs of education also remained a private responsibility. The father of each child in the agoge was required to make a fixed contribution to the agoge to cover the costs of his child's upkeep. Thus while all the boys attending the agoge received the same clothes and rations, these were financed from the collective contributions of their fathers.

In short, the public nature of the Spartan agoge did not constitute an abrogation of responsibility on the part of Spartan parents, nor did it result in a complete loss of influence. Rather, like sending children to public schools today, parents retained primary responsibility for the overall performance of their children, but availed themselves of an institution that was organized by the city and run by a highly-respected (and most probably elected) public official from the city's elite. They shared the responsibility for the education of their children with their neighbors, and took an active interest in the education of their neighbor's children as well. 

The reasons the Spartan state (characterized or represented by the legendary Lycurgus) would have chosen this radical innovation of introducing public education can only be speculated upon. We have no written record explaining the rationale. Several advantages of the system, however, are immediately apparent. For a start, the public schooling ensured that all men entering the ranks of the army had at least the same minimal standard of education. Every officer knew that his men could read, write, add, etc. He knew they had also received physical educational training, and music training (important for an army that sang as it marched). 

Yet despite the obsession of foreigners with the military aspects of Spartan education, the Spartans themselves probably valued the fact that the agoge, with its uniform clothes and food, curricula and routine, reinforced the Spartan notion of equality. 

Equally important to the Spartans, was probably the fact that the agoge was a common bond between citizens. The shared experience of common schooling reinforced identity and strengthened fraternity among the citizens long, long after they had left school.

(1) Xenophon, 2.1.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ducat, Jean. "Perspectives on Spartan Education in the Classical Period." Hodkinson, Stephen and Anton Powell (eds). Sparta: New Perspectives. Duckworth, 1990, p. 51.

(5) Ibid, p. 46.

    

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