The Making of Sparta - the Messenian War(s)

Arguably, nothing was more important to the evolution of Sparta into a city-state with a radically unique constitution than the Spartan conquest of Messenia. W.G. Forrest argues, for example, that the conquest of its agriculturally rich neighbor reduced the need for distant colonies and so the interest in the wider world, while the agricultural basis of Spartan wealth reduced Sparta’s interest in industry and trade. Others argue that the conquest of such a vast territory and the subjugation of an entire people resulted in permanent fear of revolt that in turn created the need for a militaristic state. Sparta as we know it – with its unique institutions from the agoge to citizens permanently under arms – is a function of its conflict with Messenia.

 

The pass between Lacadaemon and Messenia through the Taygetos Mountains.
 

Modern histories of Sparta tend to brush over the Messenian War(s) in considerable haste and without providing a great deal of detail. The reason is obvious. As Paul Cartledge stresses in Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300 to 362 BC (one of the few general histories of Sparta to focus seriously on the early history), the literary evidence is almost nil and the archeological evidence ambiguous. Indeed, he describes Tyrtaios, a poet whose works have been handed down to us only in fragments, as the “only” reliable literary source, while pointing out that the ancient sources Herodotus and Thucydides refer to only one war.

 

The facts of conquest which are undisputed are quickly summarized: Sparta controlled Messenia completely by the start of the 6th century BC. Sometime in the 7th Century, during the life of the poet Tyrtaios, Sparta was engaged in a bitter struggle with the Messenians, a struggle that Tyrtaios clearly describes as one involving pitched battles between hoplites (though not phalanxes). Tyrtaios furthermore refers in his poems to the great deeds of “our father’s fathers,” which is usually interpreted to mean that the initial conquest of Messenia occurred two generations earlier. Tyrtaios also speaks of a struggle that lasts 20 years. Both the references, however, may be purely poetical; the first may mean little more than “our forefathers,” and the latter be a literary device to stress that it was “a long struggle” by making the fight in Messenia exactly twice as long as the conquest of Troy. Archeologically, we can trace a gradual expansion of Laconian influence into Messenia starting in the late 8th Century.

We also know that in the first quarter of the 7th century BC, Sparta adopted a new constitution attributed to Lycurgus. (There has been scholarly debate about the exact dating of the Spartan constitution, but W.G. Forrest’s arguments dating the Spartan revolution to the period between 700 and 670 are cogent and convincing. See A History of Sparta, 950-192 BC, pp. 55-58.) Furthermore, we know that Sparta’s only colony was established at the turn or very end of the 8th Century BC, traditionally in 706 BC. Both the introduction of a radical, new constitution sanctioned explicitly by Delphi and the establishment of a colony are attributed by ancient sources to internal unrest in Sparta.

Conventionally, these facts are woven together as follows: Sparta invaded and conquered Messenia in the late 8th Century, subjugating the local Messenian population. This conquest was allegedly followed by a period of intense internal unrest that led, first, to the founding of Sparta’s only colony, and second to the Lycurgan reforms. The later, however, are usually dated to the lifetime of Tyrataios and therefore, implemented during a second period of conflict with Messenia, usually described as “the Second” Messenian war. If one presumes that Sparta won the initial conflict with Messenia, this can only be explained by a revolt of some kind. So the allegedly brutally oppressed Messenians were -- within just two generations -- capable of financing hoards of hoplites and fielding entire hoplite armies.

This taxes my imagination. Periods of intense domestic unrest rarely follow victorious wars – particularly not wars of conquest that have greatly increased the wealth of a state. Likewise, slave revolts do not involve pitched battles between hoplite armies and don’t take two decades to defeat.

The history of modern revolutions shows that revolutions most commonly occur during economic crises or after military defeats. Classical revolution theory says that revolutions occur when a period of rising living standards and expectations ends abruptly in a crisis that threatens recent gains. If we apply this to the Spartan revolution we get some interesting hypotheses – that square remarkably well with the (scanty) historical record.

What if, following a period of growing prosperity, productivity and population, Sparta’s kings/leadership decided to conquer neighboring Messenia, invaded – and then got bogged down in a terrible war that they failed to win? What if, to obtain/retain support, Sparta’s kings and aristocratic elite promised the poorer and lower classes land in Messenia? What if they then couldn’t deliver on that promise? What if, as the war dragged on, casualties mounted, and popular support for a lost war waned? What if, the Messenians became increasingly successful and aggressive, bringing the war to Laconia?

Such a situation would have produced all the features of mid-seventh century Sparta that we know existed: the domestic unrest, the calls for a redistribution of land, impetus for the founding of an external colony, and finally readiness to accept a new, revolutionary constitution and lifestyle – as well as the continuing conflict with organized, well-armed Messenian forces.

Furthermore, if Sparta lost the First Messenian War (at least in the sense that it did not obtain its objectives) and it took three generations to subdue the Messenians, then we have a better explanation of why Sparta became a militarized society. Only sustained conflict and perpetual threat could force a society to adapt a system of government that is so singularly focused on ensuring military preparedness at all times.

The paranoid excesses of late classical Sparta (e.g. the krypteia) followed the Helot Revolt of 465, but they probably took the disproportionate form the did because there was still popular memory of the first lost war. A first lost war that traumatized Sparta would explain why Sparta responded with unparalleled harshness toward the rebellious Messenians two hundred years later. We need only consider how memories of past wars still shape, for example, British-Irish, or Russian-Polish relations today. I believe it was more likely the trauma of a lost war than an unbroken series of victories by an invincible army that made Sparta what it was.

 

  Are They Singing in Sparta? (ebook: A Song for Sparta)  is a novel set during the Messenian War:

Buy Now!

 

Time to Reconsider Sparta?

Ancient Sparta is widely perceived today as a militaristic and insular society. Most people believe it lacked intellectual, cultural and artistic achievements. Images of brutal discipline, pederasty and illiterate, brutish citizens ruthlessly oppressing their subject peoples dominate modern depictions of Sparta. Yet modern scholarship does not support these popular images or interpretation of Sparta society.

 

Plutarch argued that "devotion to the intellect is more characteristic of Sparta than love of physical exercise," and the evidence is that literacy was higher in Sparta than any other Greek city - if only because all Spartan women as well as their brothers and husbands enjoyed public education that included literacy. Pausanisus recorded hundreds of monuments, temples and public buildings worth visiting in Lacedaemon. Spartan sculpture and Spartan bronze works were admired throughout the ancient world, and Spartan pottery was an export commodity throughout the 6th century BC. Spartan festivals attracted large numbers of tourists because of the high quality of the musical performances and the dancing provided by both men and women's choruses.

In the archaic period, Sparta was also anything but insular. It was the city to which other Greek cities and even foreign powers turned for assistance. Its diplomats travelled to the courts of Persia and Egypt. Its goods were sold throughout the ancient world.

Furthermore, in no other city-state did women enjoy so much freedom and status. Not only did girls get fed the same food as their brothers (in contrast to girls in other Greek cities who were denied the same diet), they were allowed to exercise and go to school, unlike the girls elsewhere. More significant still, they were not married as frightened children to strangers, but rather married after they were sexually mature to men only slightly older than themselves, and who they would have known all their lives. Most important of all, they had control of the family estate from which their husbands derived citizenship. Economic power has always conferred status, and while Athenian women could own no property and inherit no land, Spartan women could do both in addition to managing their husband's estates, thereby excercising effective control over Sparta's agriculture.

The Spartan economy was also unique because it was the only economy in ancient Greece not dependent on chattel slaves. Instead of human chattels, the Spartan economy was in the hands of freemen called "perioikoi" and serfs called "helots." The perioikoi had their own cities, laws, customs and, except for being subordinate to Spartan foreign and military policy, lived without interference or restrictions on their freedom. Indeed, because Spartan law forbade its citizens from pursuing any profession except that of arms, the perioikoi had a monoply on all the lucrative manufacturing and trading sectors of the Lacedaemonan economy from the tin mines and quarries to timber, dye production, construction, bronze-working, pottery etc. They could accumulate fortunes and display their wealth without restriction. The helots, while less free than the perioikoi and Spartan citizens (Spartiates), were by no means as badly off as chattel slaves. They retained half of the production of the estates on which they worked. This they could dispose of as they wished, which enabled many helots to accumulate substantial wealth. More important, they could not be bought or sold, and they could marry and have families of their own. Chattel slaves were the sexual property of their owners, could not marry and their children were the property of their masters.

In short, Spartan society was far more complex than modern literature or films suggest. My website "Sparta Reconsidered" (https://spartareconsidered.com) provides a series of essays on different aspects of Spartan society. There is also a list of sources and recommended reading.

This blog is intended to be a supplement to that website, providing an opportunity for interaction with others interested in ancient Sparta and particularly those willing to set aside conventional stereotypes and look deeper into what Sparta really was.

 

Spartan Fraternities and Spartan Families

Observers of ancient Sparta noted the peculiar Spartan custom of dinning clubs or syssitia at which adult Spartan citizens were required to share their evening meal.  These clubs were viewed as one of the key features of Spartan society that distinguished it from all other Greek cities. The Spartan dining clubs were considered peculiar in the ancient world because: 1) they had fixed membership (for life), and 2) they were a compulsory pre-condition for attaining citizenship and failure to make the designated fixed contributions to the mess could cost a man his citizenship.

Yet while the fact of these ancient fraternities is well established, the reason(s) the Spartans instituted and maintained this peculiar tradition is controversial. A large number of theories have been put forward over time including the desirability of men of different age cohorts dining together (so that young men would learn respect and benefit from the wisdom of older men) to the conscious desire of the Spartan state to weaken family ties.

This later thesis is put forward forcefully by Anton Powell, for example, in his contribution to Michael Whitby’s Sparta. Powell argues that totalitarian states, recognizing the influence of the family as inherently inimical to state control, have consistently tried to break down family ties. He cites examples from National Socialist Germany, although Soviet Russia and Communist China both provide much more compelling examples of anti-family policies designed to undermine family structures and influence.

The problem with the comparison between 20^th Century totalitarian states and Sparta is two-fold. First, whether Nazi Germany or Communist China, these anti-family societies were consciously revolutionary. The reason they sought to undermine the family was because they recognized families as inherently conservative. Yet Powel himself stressed the fundamentally conservative nature of Sparta! If Sparta was essentially conservative, than no institution was better designed to reinforce conservative values than the family. The experience of 5,000 years of history supports this fact. It is when family structures break down that societies become most vulnerable to change – not the other way around.

The other problem with Powell’s thesis is that men eating one meal together at a club is hardly a good way to undermine family structure! It may be a modern truism that “families that eat together stay together,” but also a fact that most men in the Western world today also eat at least one meal away from their families. The most common pattern in Western industrialized societies is for men (and often women) to eat the mid-day meal away from home among their work colleagues rather than their family. Why should it be more destructive of family life to eat the evening meal away from home than the morning or mid-day meal? In many, particularly agricultural societies (such as ancient Sparta) it is the mid-day, not the evening meal, that is most important. 

I do not think there is any evidence to suggest that full Spartan citizens (31 years and older) did not eat the morning and mid-day meal with their families.  On the contrary, given the intimacy of Spartan society, I think it is very likely Spartans ate both breakfast and dinner (mid-day) with their families, and went to the syssitia in the evening for what was essentially a light supper. 

Certainly, as all accounts agree, Spartan men returned from the syssitia to their homes (or barracks) sober before it grew too late. Furthermore, syssitia were not noted for the entertainment of flute-girls and courtesans, unlike the tradition of Athenian symposia.  At the latter, men allegedly caroused together until the dawn and then staggered home drunk after indulging themselves with prostitutes both male and female. From a wife’s point of view, the Spartan custom of syssitia was infinitely preferable to the Athenian symposia, and in consequence it is arguable that the syssitia did far more to strengthen family life than to disrupt it.

Sparta Lost and Found

Unlike Athens, that remained inhabited from the archaic period to the present day without interruption, Sparta was not only defeated and humiliated, it was destroyed by earthquakes, flooding and ultimately abandoned. When the Franks and the Ottomans came, there was not even a village to mark the site of Ancient Sparta.

Equally devastating was the lack of a Spartan literary tradition. A society that placed value on silence and brevity did not produce historians or play writes, and while Spartan philosophers were admired throughout the rest of the ancient world, they preferred an oral to a written tradition.

The combination of these factors, a lack of a written record, the dispersal of any inhabitants that might have kept an oral tradition alive and the physical destruction of the city, left subsequent generations with an image of Sparta that derives entirely from the accounts of outsiders. Many commentators on Sparta, even in ancient times, had never been there – or at most visited briefly. Some, like Xenophon, knew Sparta relatively well, but remained fundamentally Athenian. Trying to understand Sparta on the basis of the accounts of Athenians and Romans is like trying to understand Africa from the reports of Victorian explorers.  It won’t get you very far.

Our images of Sparta, the city, are dominated to this day by what we have been told about Sparta and Spartans by these visitors from a different culture. Even someone who has never studied Sparta or read a single book about it has images of Sparta that have been transmitted through our language alone.  “Spartan” is an adjective used to denote “severe,” “plain,” and “austere.” Laconic speech is “terse,” “concise” and “economical.” The most rudimentary and fleeting brush with Sparta in literature will not be without reference to rigid discipline, disdain for luxury, self-sacrifice and endurance of hardship.

The more a novice looks into Spartan society, the quicker he/she is confronted by references to a childhood of deprivation in which one had to steal to get enough to eat and was allowed only one garment per year. The boys, we learn, had to cut down the river reeds with their bare hands or the help of a tool which is dismissed as practically worthless, and then sleep upon these instead of real beds. Worse, they had to live practically in the wild, exposed to the elements without shelter or proper clothes.  Books like Gates of Fire describe horrendous beatings to which Spartan boys were apparently subjected for any tiny infraction of the rigid rules of acceptable behavior.

Nor are youths the only Spartans whom, we are led to believe, suffered deprivation. This was a society, according to most sources, where women were prohibited from wearing jewelry or even taking pride in their weaving. Indeed, all gold and silver was banned, and so could adorn nothing - not even the temples of the Gods.  The houses, we are told, were not painted (as else where in the Ancient world), and if one believes the oft quoted “sayings of Spartan kings” they did not even hew their house beams into regular square posts, but left them raw and untreated – one imagines crude timber as in a log cabin. Meanwhile, the young men lived in barracks (notoriously grim places in any society!) and for their entire lives ate their meals at men’s clubs where the cuisine, we soon learn, was infamous throughout the ancient world for its lack of sophistication and variety.

Such a society is most readily imagined in an austere, plain, indeed barren, landscape.  After all, a society characterized by deprivation of food, clothes, decoration and fine cuisine sounds like a desperately poor society, a society barely surviving in a hostile environment, a society which has made a virtue out of necessity. It is logical to assume that the underlying – if unspoken – root cause of Sparta’s obsession with self-discipline and self-denial for the good of the community, the City, was a fundamental lack of resources that required such a rigid regime.

This assumption is reflected in modern literature about Sparta. In his best-selling novel Gates of Fire Stephen Pressfield calls Sparta “a village” adding: “The whole stinking place would fit, with room to spare, within His Majesty’s [Xerxes of Persia’s] strolling garden at Persepolis. It is … a pile of stones. It contains no temples or treasures of note, no gold; it is a barnyard of leeks and onions, with soil so thin a man may kick through it with one strike of the foot.”[i]

But there is a problem here.

If you drive down the modern road from Tripoli (or Tegea as I prefer to think of it) toward Sparti (Sparta) there is a moment when coming around a bend you catch the first glimpse of Taygetos. I will never forget the first time I encountered that view: it took my breath away.  I could hardly concentrate on the winding road for straining to get another glimpse of those spectacular, snow-capped mountains. And when the valley of the Eurotas was spread out before me it was like revelation. My image of Sparta – Ancient Sparta and all that Sparta implied – was transformed in a single instant.

The valley of the Eurotas is anything but barren! It is quite the reverse. It is green and fertile and stunningly beautiful - like riches cupped in the hands of the gods. From the blooming oleander to the wild iris, the valley is a garden. The orange orchards stretch as far as the eye can see, brazenly advertising not only the abundance of soil and sun but water as well. Most spectacular of all, the Eurotas valley is one of those few places on earth that offers the sensually stimulating sight of palm trees waving against a back-drop of snow-capped mountains.

Has Laconia perhaps changed dramatically in the last 2,500 years? Was it poor when the harsh, economical, self-disciplined Spartan society took root in its – then – sparse and almost barren soil?  Does it bloom now artificially because of modern fertilizers and irrigation?

If we are to believe the ancient historians, no. Herodotus speaks of Sparta’s “good soil”[ii] or Thucydides describes the entire Peloponnese (with the exception of Arcadia) as the “richest part of Hellas.”[iii] It is when speaking of Athens, that Thucydides draws attention to “the poverty of her soil.”[iv]

So the fertility and abundance of the valley has not changed since Ancient times any more than the shape of Taygetos beyond. But if this rich valley was the seat of Sparta, then Spartan austerity and deprivation did not come from necessity! Sparta’s land was rich, fertile and productive enough to enable the highest standard of living available in the ancient world – at least to the always modest number of elite Spartiates. In short, if Sparta was as austere a society as it is depicted in modern times, then that austerity was self-imposed.

But is it reasonable to imagine that a people raised in the midst of wealth and beauty had no appreciation for either? Or is the very austerity of Spartan society as mythical as the thin soil of Pressfield’s Sparta?

Maybe our images of a rigid, harsh and brutally disciplined society is also a distortion? A fractured image? A misunderstanding based on ignorant, or prejudiced foreign reporting? Imagine what American society looks like through the eyes of the Taliban!

It's because I firmly believe that modern images of Sparta a largely based on inadequate, hostile and sometimes purely fanciful source material that I have dedicated this blog and my website “Sparta Reconsidered” to questioning common assumptions and misconceptions about Sparta.

---

[i] Pressfield, p. 188

[ii] Herodotus, Book I.66, p.26.

[iii] Thucydides, Book I.2, p.36.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Nicastro, p. 67

[vi] Pausanias, III.10. p. 37.

Suffering at Symposiums - Or a major difference between Sparta and Athens

In modern usage, the word symposium has come to mean “a conference organized for the discussion of some particular subject,” “a collection of opinions, especially a published group of essays,” or “any meeting or social gathering at which ideas are freely exchanged.”  The ancient Greek roots of the word have misled many into imagining that ancient symposiums resembled modern symposiums and were also primarily intellectual events.

 

Little could be farther from the truth. Ancient symposiums resembled drunken stag parties more than a modern symposium.  As a rule, large quantities of wine were consumed, maybe a few poems were recited (more likely dirty little ditties making fun of one’s elders, opponents or rivals), politics might be discussed (not necessarily at a niveau above that of a modern pub) and then there was a lot of drunken singing, or the participants competed in such “elevated” activities as seeing who could throw their wine farthest, while being entertained and/or serviced by prostitutes and the ancient equivalent of strip-tease dancers, before staggering home too drunk to see straight and requiring (sober) slaves to ensure a safe arrival. 

It was not uncommon for drunken bands of youth from rival symposiums to end up brawling in the streets, and the even a leading statesman such as Alcibiades could be accused of committing large-scale sacrilege with his friends after a symposium.  In short, ideas and politics might have been discussed occasionally at some of symposiums, but a symposium was primarily about male indulgence in excessive drink and sex -- not intellectual exchange.

Anyone familiar with Spartan society will understand why the Spartans disdained such activities and why Spartan authorities instituted laws (like not being allowed to light a torch at night) to prevent their young men from being seduced into such activities. But there is another feature of Athenian symposiums which was equally un-Spartan: the exploitation of women.

As James Davidson makes clear in his seminal work on Athenian society Courtesans and Fishcakes, a good Athenian host boasted about the “beautiful girls” and “babes” he would offer his guests. Since no respectable woman (wife, mother or daughter) was allowed to show her face or set foot in a symposium, all the women present were sexual objects, and almost all were slaves. Yes, there were the occasional so-called “hetaere” that like Japanese geishas were trained to cater to a more sophisticated clientele by having a smattering of education and skills such as playing instruments or singing, but very few of these women were free.  They too had to surrender all or some of their earnings to their owner (pimp). And hetaere were the “privileged” prostitutes, the “admired” prostitutes – what we might call “call girls” today or “courtesans” in the 17^th and 18^th century. But it only went downhill from here – to flute girl, household slave and “sex-worker” in a brothel.

 

As Anton Powell notes in Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC (London: 1988), prostitution was widespread, taxed, and consorting with prostitutes was considered perfectly normal and in no way reprehensible, even for youth of the upper-classes -- in Athens.  The only social restriction on male intercourse with prostitutes was that it was considered bad taste for a married man to bring a prostitute into the house where his wife lived, or to spend the money he received from his wife’s dowry on expensive prostitutes.  Powell also notes, however, that it was common for men to maintain concubines under the same roof as their legal wives, and that sex with slave girls did not even count as infidelity in the Athenian courts. Clearly, Athens was a paradise for the sexually active male.

The “pleasures” of Athenian society, and especially of symposiums, were restricted – as was democracy, intellectual achievement, and artistic creativity – to that half of Athens’ population that was male. Respectable women were excluded from the symposium, just as they were excluded from drinking wine, eating fish or meat, exercise, education and political rights.  As for the women allowed to participate in symposium, with very few exceptions, they were slaves with no choice in where they went, who they serviced, or what they were asked to do.  They did not even receive compensation for their services, since the high prices paid by the customers went to their male owners, enriching him, not them. For the women of ancient Athens, symposiums were torture chambers. 

 

It is to Sparta's credit that no such abuse -- much less the glorification of the abuse of women and children as these symposiums represented -- was sanctioned or recorded in Spartan society.

Leonidas Trilogy: Five New Reviews

S. Walters reviewed Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King
*****Excellent read August 16, 2013

I love reading about Sparta. This is a fiction book supported by historical fact. The author is extremely knowledgeable, and I plan to get the other two books in the trilogy.

F. Lombardo reviewed Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King

****An excellent dramatization July 24, 2013

I found this entire series, of which is the final installment to be both entertaining and educational. Though a fictional dramatization of an non-fictional character, the story makes an excellent case for understanding the possibility of how things actually happened. Worth the read for the entire series for those who have an interest in Leonidas and Sparta.

 

R. Duenow "gciking" reviewed Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge
*****Putting a Human Face on Sparta June 8, 2013

One of best histories I've read on ancient Greece, rivaling Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Most other histories tell only the story of Sparta and its heroes, but Helena Schrader's trilogy permits us to see more than just the people and politics of the time; it also permits us to see the human side of its leaders. She weaves a beautiful story based upon her extensive knowledge and exhaustive research which allows us to...Read More One of best histories I've read on ancient Greece, rivaling Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Most other histories tell only the story of Sparta and its heroes, but Helena Schrader's trilogy permits us to see more than just the people and politics of the time; it also permits us to see the human side of its leaders. She weaves a beautiful story based upon her extensive knowledge and exhaustive research which allows us to understand and appreciate the Sparta Culture and leaders of the age.

The trilogy follows the life of Leonidas from boyhood, through adulthood and finally, his unlikely rise to become one of Sparta's two Kings. Her stories describe Sparta at the height of its power and their relationship to other Greek city states and the other dwellers in Lacedaemonia, the Perioikoi and the Helots, which I never fully understood before.

She also elaborates and provides the details of the Spartiate citizens and women who were far more liberated than any other women of the ancient world, including Athens.

All in all, Schrader's trilogy was thoroughly enjoyable and a must read for history lovers of the ancient world.

 

natasha reviewed Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge
*****Great book May 18, 2013

This book gives you a detail look into the young Leonidas. It explains the many ways he was made into such a great king.

 

Pulser "Books with heart & mind" reviewed Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge
*****Sparta brought back to life! April 25, 2013

I really enjoyed this book in more ways than one. The story was compelling and interesting, the characters were multidimensional and believable,the pace was exciting, and the history lessons and finally the truth about the real Sparta abundant!
The author does a wonderful job creating the character of young Leonidas and following him as he develops into a young man is very entertaining. I highly recommend this to those...Read More I really enjoyed this book in more ways than one. The story was compelling and interesting, the characters were multidimensional and believable, the pace was exciting, and the history lessons and finally the truth about the real Sparta abundant!

The author does a wonderful job creating the character of young Leonidas and following him as he develops into a young man is very entertaining. I highly recommend this to those who enjoy historical fiction with real historical information of the highest quality. I will be ordering the rest of the series shortly.

The only improvement that I felt was needed, was in the description of the topography. It is obvious that the author knows the area very well and can describe it in minute details. However, for someone who has never been there a map would have been very helpful. With so many names of areas and rivers and mountains, my mind couldn't envision it all-but of course that could be my own personal shortcoming.

New Reviews of the Leonidas Trilogy

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written!, March 20, 2013

By

Leonidas "Sokrat" (Kiev, Ukraine) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King (Kindle Edition)

Beautifully written with an attention to historical detail and accuracy. A unique insight into Spartan society. The final battle scene is also gripping. I couldn't put the book down.

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, but just a trifle constrained by the rich ancient sources, January 6, 2013

By

Timothy Baker Shutt "TBS" (Gambier, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King (Kindle Edition)

In writing the third volume of her Leonidas trilogy, Helena Schrader finds herself, paradoxically, to some degree constrained by the wealth of ancient sources at her disposal---Herodotus, Thucydides, and Plutarch above all (the last, particularly, in his sayings of the Spartans and Spartan women). Schrader more or less has to get all of this evidence in somehow---it wouldn't do to leave out a real live attested utterance of Leonidas or Gorgo---so she finds herself with the task of devising situations to account for these apothegms, to some degree to the detriment of her narrative flow. Sometimes, as we all know, less is more and more is less, even when historical (or quasi- or putatively historical) sources are concerned. That said, though, she does her usual good job. As a confessed Spartanophile---I just finished teaching a course on Athens and Sparta---I find her vision of Sparta, by and large, and, indeed, more than by and large, persuasive. I think she gets the tone of things pretty much right. The glittering reputation of Sparta was not based on nothing, and it has long been to me very striking that, so far as we can tell, for virtually all of the late 500s and for most of the 400s as well the other poleis of Greece very clearly and very strongly favored and respected Sparta more than they did Athens. From a contemporary vantage point that seems almost inconceivable, but Schrader does a fine job of suggesting why it may have been---and justly been---so.

 

 

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Great Read, March 4, 2013

By

Ray Allen - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer (Kindle Edition)

This series is very well put together and enjoyable to read. The book works well as part of the series or it can stand alone . The character development and history capture a vivid picture of Spartan life. I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Book! Wonderful Series!!!, December 18, 2012

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srh2767 "Steven" (Trenton Illinois) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer (Paperback)

This book is the second in the series. Dr Schrader does a wonderful job telling the story of Sparta, Leonidas, and Gorgo. Even if you are not into history and ancient Greece, these books are still a wonderful read. I’ve read several book on Sparta and ancient Greece and Dr Schrader took the time and energy to research all the facts.

 

5.0 out of 5 stars Leonidas of Sparta a peerless peer, September 6, 2012

By

Jeremy - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer (Kindle Edition)

Great boo,. One of my favorites. I could not put this book down and ended up reading both this book and the second book in 3 days. Can't wait for the last book of this series to come out. Thanks for the good read, I'm a fan.

Leonidas Twice

Leonidas! The Hero of Thermopylae. In 480 BC he would defy an army half a million strong. 

But who was he?

The Leonidas Trilogy tells his story in three novels. From his boyhood in the infamous Spartan agoge to the final stand of the 300 at Thermopylae, I have sought to bring Leonidas and his wife Gorgo to life. To explain them. To understand them. To give them substance and spirit.

This is Sparta! As you've never seen it before. The Leonidas Trilogy - A Video Teaser.

Leonidas and the Kings of Sparta: Mightiest Warriors, Fairest Kingdom by Alfred S. Bradford is in contrast about the history of Sparta from its founding to its ignominious end. Here's my commentary:

Leonidas and the Kings of Sparta by Alfred S. Bradford – A Review

It is human nature that reactions are often governed by expectations, so my disappointment with Alfred S. Bradford’s history of Sparta, Leonidas and the Kings of Sparta: Mightiest Warriors, Fairest Kingdom, was largely my own fault.  The title and jacket description, not to mention Bradford’s qualifications as a professor of ancient history at the University of Oklahoma, led me to expect too much. I had hoped for a work that provided insight on the role of Sparta’s kings in Sparta’s long history, perhaps an analysis of evolving constitutional conflict between the kings, the Gerousia, Assembly, and Ephors.  Certainly, I hoped for some new, unfamiliar descriptions and details about the personalities of Sparta’s most famous kings.

Instead, Bradford has done little more than collect the familiar stories told about Sparta from a wide range of sources and line them up in chronological order.  Even this is a tall order, and Bradford is to be commended for having covered nearly a thousand years of history in just 226 pages without for a moment dropping the pace or losing direction. Also to be applauded is Bradford’s care to mention Sparta’s literary and artistic achievements, and his even-handed treatment of the Peloponnesian War.  Altogether, his commentary improved in quality with the quality of his (later) sources.

Equally important, Bradford appears to pride himself on his accessibility, and this book is written in an easy modern style that will certainly make it just that to readers looking for an easy introduction to Spartan history. In fact, I suspect that Bradford’s intended audience was not fellow scholars, but rather young people coming to the topic of Sparta for the first time.  If this is correct, then his book is a valuable contribution to Spartan history as a transition from comic books and fantasy to serious scholarly works on Sparta.

In this context, I found Bradford’s occasional personal comments perfectly appropriate and engaging. Throughout the book, I sensed his genuine interest in his topic and respect for his subjects. That in itself is very refreshing, and I came away feeling like I’d like to meet Bradford one day and spend an afternoon talking in an outdoor café on the main street of modern Sparti – exchanging views, arguing, laughing – and toasting the memory of the dead.

If am correct and Bradford was writing for an audience without previous knowledge and only superficial interest in Sparta, I image he did not want to “bore” his reader with conflicting theories. Nevertheless, I must admit I was put off by Bradford’s blithe disregard for differing opinions and his failure to admit any uncertainty about interpretation of evidence.  Although much of the information Bradford presents is highly controversial, Bradford rarely even mentions alternative theories, much less conflicting opinions.  

Equally disturbing, Bradford boldly states his opinions as if they are indisputable fact.  For example, he states on page 70 that “Ariston was extremely popular….” Interesting.  I’d like to know how he knows that as I’ve never read this in any other source. It might be true, of course, I don’t claim to have seen every source on Sparta, and, if true, it would be very significant. Unfortunately, Bradford tells me neither his ancient source for this information, nor does he explain his assessment by describing things Ariston did to win the love of his subjects. In fact, what he does tell us about Ariston is that he tricked his best friend into giving up his wife. That doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would endear Ariston to his subjects. (Herodotus, who is the source for this tale, by the way, makes it clear that it was against the will of both the husband – and erstwhile friend of Ariston – and his wife.) In short, Bradford makes statements that are not supported either sources or by his own argumentation.  

I was also disappointed by the near absence of analysis, at least in the early parts of the book. Again, let me take a couple of examples.  On page 46, when describing the krypteia, he claims members “killed any helots they found.” Now, finding helots was not very difficult since by all accounts they vastly outnumbered the Spartiates, and they provided all menial labor to the Spartan state.  All the krypteia had to do to “find” helots was sit down in the middle of any square or on the side of any country road and wait for the helots to come by. Since, according to Bradford’s account, they killed all the helots they “found,” the kypteia must have slaughtered endlessly, year in and year out, generation for generation.  So how did any helots survive to be the servants and agricultural workers that Sparta needed? And who was left to work the estates of the Spartiates dependent on their labor in order to be professional soldiers? Or, turning to another example, on page 47 Bradford writes: “The Spartans were magnificent specimens, men and women both, the most handsome people in Greece, with the best-behaved children.” Really?  All of them? That’s hard to believe, but I suppose it is theoretically possible.  But then Bradford continues: “They knew right from wrong and they practiced honor without compromise.” That is little short of amazing, but OK -- except that nine pages later Bradford writes that “Chilon’s world was a world of injustice.” Hm.  So suddenly, within a hundred years or so, by Bradford’s own account, the Spartans have gone from being men who without exception practiced honor without compromise and all knew right from wrong, to a society full of injustice. How did that happen? Why? Again, I’m not saying this is impossible, but I expect a historian who makes assertions such as these to marshal his arguments and set them out coherently so the reader can follow his logic and come to the same conclusion.

Finally, I found it disconcerting that sources were not readily or consistently identified, even when direct quotes were made. With all due understanding for the desire to avoid cluttering a popular history with a lot of footnotes, I find the use of quotation marks or italics to indicate direct speech without providing a reference on the source improper.  Just to give one random example, in Chapter 16, Bradford uses quotation marks to indicate verbatim citation of a speaker in no less than eight places, but provides sources for only two quotes in his “Notes.” What about the others? Where did they come from and why didn’t they rate a proper citation? 


For all my complaints, I confess I liked the book, particularly the conclusion, and for young adults it may be a good introduction to Sparta. However, I would recommend W. G. Forrest's classic work "A History of Sparta: 950 - 192 BC" or Nigel Kennel's "Spartans: A New History" before Bradford to anyone with a serious interest in Spartan history.

Leonidas' Legacy

No Spartan has left a larger footprint in history and art than Leonidas. Not the commander of the Spartan army that actually defeated the Persians, Pausanias, nor the Spartan that eventually defeated Athens after the gruesome thirty-years war, Lysander, are half so well remembered.  Lycurgus and Chilon are familiar names only to classical scholars. Leonidas, in contrast, is a cult and comic-book hero, not to mention there is a chocolate company named for him.

Leonidas was, of course, a legend in his own time. The Spartans built him a monument at Thermopylae, notably separate from the monument to the rest of the 300, and a second monument was built to him at home in Sparta as well. His body was brought home after the Persians had been driven out of Greece.  But, unless it is an accident of archaeology, larger monuments were built to the victors Pausanias and Lysander than to Leonidas. In short, Leonidas’ appeal appears to have been greater in the modern world than the ancient. This might have many explanations – starting with the political agenda of his successors (or those who controlled his immature son) or discomfort with commemorating a devastating defeat.  The modern world, perhaps influenced by the Christian tradition of honoring sacrifice, is impressed by Leonidas’ defiance and devotion to duty more than his defeat.

There is also a modern tendency to assume that Leonidas’ behavior was “typical,” that he was indeed only doing what Spartan society expected of him, or acting “in accordance with the law.” This assumes that Spartans were “never” allowed to retreat and always chose death over either retreat or surrender.  The Spartans, of course, knew better. 

Sparta had suffered many severe defeats before Thermopylae, and in no other did an entire fighting force die to the last man for a lost cause. For example, there is good reason to believe (see “Sparta’s Forgotten Defeat”) that Sparta lost the First Messenian War, and it was ensuing economic and social dislocation that led to unrest and revolution.  Certainly, Sparta was given a resounding thrashing by the Argives at Hysiai in 669 BC, but even so the Spartans retreated rather than die to the last man.  Roughly one hundred years later, Sparta again over-reached herself in an attempt to conquer Tegea, and again there were survivors; they were enslaved in Tegea and forced to do agricultural labor for Tegean masters. In ca. 525 BC, a Spartan expedition against Samos likewise ended in humiliating defeat, but not the extermination of the expeditionary force.  Finally, in the reign of Leonidas’ half-brother Cleomenes, a Spartan force under Anchimolius was attacked by Thessalian cavalry 1000 strong at Phalerum, and, according to Herodotus, “many Lacedaemonians were killed…and the survivors driven back to their ships.”  Note, again, the survivors were driven back to their ships, which they presumably boarded and used to return to Lacedaemon. There is not a word about dying to the last man.

Nor did “death rather than surrender” become the standard for future Spartan commanders after Thermopylae. The history of the Peloponnesian war is littered with Spartan defeats; none were massacres.  Even in the infamous case of 120 Spartiates trapped on the island of Sphakteria, the record shows that they surrendered and were taken off into (brutal) Athenian captivity.  Nor were they written off by an indignant population as cowards, tremblers or otherwise disgraced and worthless.  Had they been so viewed, Sparta would not have sued for peace and made serious concessions to Athens to have them returned. Even their collective degradation from full-citizen on their return is not necessarily indicative of disapproval of surrender.  On the contrary, it more likely reflects fear that men who had been in Athens for almost four years might have become subverted (brainwashed, is the Cold War term) by Athenian democracy.  After an unknown period, they were collectively reinstated, and even some ran for public office. That would not have been possible, if the majority of Spartans had felt they should have committed suicide rather than surrender.

Leonidas’ legacy was not one of blind, mindless self-sacrifice. His example was one of devotion to duty, even unto death, for a good cause.  Leonidas did not die for the sake of dying – much less take his comrades with him to a senseless death.  He had clear military objectives that he hoped to achieve by his last stand: 1) giving the other Greek contingents time to withdraw and live to fight another day, and 2) increasing Persian respect for/fear of Spartans.  Once the pass at Thermopylae was turned, Leonidas knew the Persian army would advance unopposed into Central Greece. He could not know where it would next be confronted by land-forces, but he must have feared that it might sweep through Central Greece to the Isthmus of Corinth. He must have feared that Sparta might find herself virtually alone facing the onslaught.  Anything he could do to make Xerxes hesitate to take on a Spartan army must have seemed worthwhile.  That is a legacy worth remembering.

Last but not least, as a devout Spartan, Leonidas undoubtedly believed he had to fulfill the Delphic Oracle. He knew he had to die, if Sparta was to be saved. In that sense, he was from the start a sacrificial lamb, but not until the position at Thermopylae was betrayed, did his sacrifice inherently encompass defeat as well.  When he set out for Thermoplyle,  he probably hoped that he could die in a victorious battle – or at least an indecisive one. He certainly hoped and expected that, alive or dead, his advance force over 6,000 strong could hold the Hot Gates until Sparta’s full army reinforced them. 

When it became clear he would die in a hopeless situation, Leonidas tried to minimize the losses by ordering the withdrawal of the allied contingents (and almost certainly all the Perioikoi troops that would have been with him).  He even tried to save some of the Spartiates by giving them dispatches to deliver. They saw through him and refused. They refused out of loyalty, out of friendship, out of personal affection for Leonidas, both the man and the king. They did not act for military reasons but for personal ones. Yet their legacy too is worth honoring. 

“Nothing in Excess” or Ares Chained

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 “less is more.”  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.)