Spartan
Page 35
Male citizens who enjoyed full rights – the so-called ‘equals’ or ‘Spartiates’ – belonged to a closed number of families. They met in a general assembly called the ‘Apella’, which had a purely advisory function. They spent all their time on a single pastime: combat training. Raised from boyhood outside the family home in groups of ‘dining companions’ in their syssitiai, they were also expected to undergo survival training in the wood, without any type of support or aid. These bands of adolescents behaved like packs of predators; they were allowed to steal, and even to kill or terrorize the Helots, who were considered an inferior class. Their raids were called krypteiai, and they may have been guided or inspired by the political authorities, with the aim of maintaining constant pressure on the Helots, who periodically tried to regain their freedom through insurrections which were almost always drowned in blood.
Although Spartan society was completely militarized, their politics were generally pacifist, because war had become a luxury they could ill afford. If a family of equals was extinguished, it could not be replaced. In addition, since each family was assigned a limited (and equal) lot of land, births were strictly controlled so estates would remain intact. In the long run, this suicidal demographic policy led to the extinction of the ‘Spartiates’, their ranks continually reduced as well by combat losses and the growing number of marriages between close relations. When in 198 AD Roman emperor Septimius Severus asked the Spartiates to follow him in the war against the Parthians (obviously for propagandist purposes), he found a few haggard weaklings before him. The Spartan obsession with preserving their numbers is already well documented in the myth of the Partheniae – when the Messenian Wars (seventh century BC) kept the warriors away from home for years, the ephors realized that this would eventually mean a long period of time in the future without new conscripts. A group of warriors was promptly sent back to Sparta with the mission of coupling with all virgins of child-bearing age.
And yet Sparta, which is often considered the dark side of Greek civilization, had certain fascinating and surprising aspects: for example, women had a dignity and freedom unimaginable in democratic Athens. They could possess and bequeath property, and girls competed bare-legged in the gymnasiums like the boys of the same age. The Athenians considered this a scandal, and called them ‘thigh-barers’. What is more, Plutarch has handed down a series of ‘maxims of Spartan women’, which suggests a storehouse of traditional female wisdom, practically unheard of in any other ancient Mediterranean civilization. When the legation of Aristagoras of Miletus arrived at the home of King Cleomenes I, they found him on all fours giving his little daughter Gorgò a ‘pony ride’. Noting his visitors’ surprise, he told them, ‘This isn’t the best way to receive foreign guests, but if you are fathers, you’ll understand.’ This anecdote clearly illustrates the fact that the Spartans must have loved their daughters at least as much as their sons.
Actual slavery didn’t exist (although the Helots had no political rights, they could not be bought or sold), nor did luxury; all excess was frowned upon. The Spartans saw themselves as a proud, austere race, and it is probable that the life of an ‘equal’ was no less harsh or difficult than that of a Helot servant. In battle, their only alternative to winning was to die, and losing one’s shield was considered an intolerable disgrace. They were so confident of their strength that they did not wall in their city (the term ‘city gates’ in the novel is purely symbolic), declaring that the chests of their soldiers provided the best defence.
I’ve attempted to set my story in this archaic and in many ways primitive society, which is nonetheless admirable for its spirit of sacrifice, its ideals and its honesty. I’ve respected the original sources as closely as possible, seeking even in the language to reproduce the mentality and manner of living. I was inspired by the story of two survivors of the terrible battle of the ‘three hundred’ Spartans at the Thermopylae: Pantites and Aristodemus, (Herodotus, VII, 230–2), whom I have called Aghias and Brithos in this novel, maintaining a certain liberty in telling their story, while the figure of the protagonist, Talos/Kleidemos, is wholly imaginary. Everything that surrounds him is based on fact, however: the Persian Wars (based on accounts by Herodotus, but also Diodorus, Thucydides and other minor authors), the habits and customs, the political institutions, the religion and rituals, the folklore and the popular traditions of a world so distant in time and yet so close, in this age when world conflicts are being re-proposed in such dramatic terms.
PARTICULAR NOTES
The term ‘slave’ is used in the novel, when referring to the Helots, in the generic sense of ‘servant’. As we’ve mentioned, slavery per se was not practised by the Spartans.
The term ‘regent,’ with reference to Pausanias, is often substituted by the term ‘king,’ since his function was the same and was perceived as such by the people. The chronology of King Leotichidas’ succession is deliberately vague, since it has never been definitively established.
The chronological span of this story extends more or less from 505-504 BC to shortly after 464 BC, the year of the earthquake and the revolt of the Helots in Sparta.
The two episodes of suicide in the novel are based on several dramatic pages by Herodotus. The shameful epitaph given to the survivors of the Thermopylae, ò trésas (‘he who trembled’) is authentic as well (Herodotus, VII, 231), as is the macabre suicide ritual of King Cleomenes I (Herodotus, VI, 75), which reflects a mysterious rite whose meaning escapes us, reminiscent in a way of Japanese hara-kiri (although obviously not connected in any way). It may not be going too far to speculate that suicide was perhaps the only option left to a Spartiate who had lost his honour.
The custom of ‘exposing’ disabled children on Mount Taygetus is documented by historical sources, although it is not clear for how long this went on. Parents forced to comply with this practice must surely have suffered. In any case, inbreeding may have led to an increase in the number of children born with physical defects over the years.
Pausanias’ project of giving freedom and full rights as citizens to the Helots is documented in the sources (Thucydides I, 132,4), and it might have been a possible solution to the fundamental problem which led to Sparta’s ruin, that is, the rigid division between its castes and the impossibility of injecting new blood.
In the final analysis, the distortions of Spartan society originate from taking a basic principle – aberrant from a modern point of view – to an extreme: that is, that the state is more important than any of its citizens, although its original interpretation may simply have been the sacrifice of the individual for the greater good of the survival of the community. Behaviour that still today is termed ‘heroism’.
V.M.M.
VALERIO MASSIMO MANFREDI is the professor of classical archaeology at the Luigi Bocconi University in Milan. He has carried out a number of expeditions to and excavations in many sites throughout the Mediterranean, and has taught in Italian and international universities. He has published numerous articles and academic books, mainly on military and trade routes, and exploration in the ancient world.
He has published ten works of fiction, including the Alexander trilogy, which has been translated into twenty-four languages in thirty-eight countries, and The Last Legion, recently released as a major motion picture. He has written and hosted documentaries on the ancient world, which have been transmitted by the main television networks, and has written fiction for cinema and television as well.
He lives with his family in the countryside near Bologna.
Also by Valerio Massimo Manfredi
ALEXANDER: CHILD OF A DREAM
ALEXANDER: THE SANDS OF AMMON
ALEXANDER: THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
THE LAST LEGION
HEROES
(formerly The Talisman of Troy)
TYRANT
THE ORACLE
EMPIRE OF DRAGONS
THE TOWER
First published 2002 by Macmillan
First published in
paperback 2003 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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ISBN 978-1-447-21133-4 EPUB
Copyright © Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A. 1988
Translation copyright © Macmillan 2002
Originally published 1988 in Italy as Lo Scudos di Talos by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milano
The right of Valerio Massimo Manfredi to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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