Located in the fertile Eurotas valley of Laconia was Sparta, one of the most unique civilization’s the world has ever seen. This military driven society had many unorthodox conventions. Unlike other Greeks, they used iron bars for currency, their women were allowed to enjoy many of the same freedoms as their men, and their elderly were shown more respect than in other city-states. They employed two kings to help keep each other in check. One was appointed commander-in-chief on the military while the other served as a local ruler to take care of domestic matters. Under the rule of Lycurgus, Sparta became the strongest military power in all of Greece. The fierce warriors of this city-state transformed what it meant to be a Spartan. W.G Forrest …show more content…
Just like the boy, young girls had to go through tough training at a young age. Girls in Sparta used their hairstyles to distinguish what chapter of their life they are in. While she was a maiden, she showed that she had reached puberty by having long hair. While she was a bride she cut her hair short but when she got married she covered her hair. Spartan females had schooling regulated by the state just as boys did except they stayed home their whole lives. Although they stayed home with their families, staying indoors was looked down upon. Girls who stayed indoors were fed less and were deprived of wine, while but girls who exercised outdoors were fed well and had wine almost everyday. Greek women from other city-states were almost forced to stay indoors and learn how to weave and do domestic work whereas Spartan women were not allowed to do any domestic work. Instead, women enjoyed the freedom that other women could not. They had slaves to do their domestic work and take care of their land, which they had a lot of. Spartan women owned two-fifths of all the land and their daughters received one-half of her parents’ land. Although they owned the majority of the land, women still had no say in the government but their land ownership still gave them more control than women in any other …show more content…
Helots were the slaves at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Unlike like the helots in Athens, here helots had their own families and communities and were not considered to be chattle. They often outnumbered their masters seven to one which put the Spartans in constant fear of a helot uprising. Next on the social pyramid were the free but noncitizen perioeci. This group of people lived in their own towns called poleis and were the only people in all of Sparta who were allowed to travel to other city-states without having to get permission. Just like regular Spartan families, they too had to supply men to send to the army. But unlike a regular Spartan family, they were responsible for making weapons and conducting trade. Close to the top of the social pyramid was the Spartiatai, “ a non-producing warrier caste that lived on the surplus produced by the helots in the countryside” (22 Nielsen). This class is made up of the young boys that were trained and conditioned to be the fiercest warriors in all of Greece and the controllers of the government. Spartan warriors were known for being the best because they rather die than dishonor their families or their state. Before battle, mothers would tell their sons, “Come back with your shield, or on it”. They said this because warriors who died in battle would be carried back home on their shields while cowards who drop their shields and run away in
The social structure of Sparta consisted of the Helots, Perioikoi and Spartiates. Enslaved in the wars of Messenia were the Helots, considered as the property of the state, and released on rare occasion as Neodamodeis ’new citizens’. Tyrtaeus’ compares the enslaved Helots to ’donkeys worn down by heavy loads’, a downtrodden minority group with no great power. However, Thucydides accounts for their de-facto influence in Spartan administration, with ’most of their decisions with a view to precautions against the Helots. Finley supports this assessment, identifying certain advantages Helots held over other slave groups in this era. The basic rights of the Helots included the right to their own possessions; the ability to retain a percentage of their crop; and ’in general, all the normal human institutions except their freedom’. Rights afforded may have been in response to fears of a Helot uprising, as their obedience was paramount to a functional Spartan society, and vastly outnumbered the Spartan
“No man ever proves himself a good man in war unless he can endure to face the blood and the slaughter, go against the enemy and fight with his hands.” The preceding was quoted from “The Spartan creed” by the poet Tyrtaeus. There are two authors in this primary resource reading which include Tyrtaeus as well as Xenophon, whom authored “The laws and customs of the Spartans”. These two works give great detail to the Spartan society. As history has presented it, Sparta was a smaller polis and yet was one of the most, if not most, influential societies in history. What we know of this culture comes to us from excavation of its heritage as well as literary works such as these. But are these “eyes” into history factual and creditable enough to base our own interpretations of such a masterful race? These writings are great resources for Spartan’s war enhanced values and societal customs, but lack in evidence of governmental affairs and religion. This lacking may have been due to both writer’s motives for their work.
Spartan Women prove the old saying, behind every great man is a great women, to be true. Everyone has heard of the Spartan warrior men and their courageous battles. What about the women that stood behind those men, the ones who birthed those men, married those men? Spartan women helped to shape, protect, and form the society that they lived in.
Hellenic culture in the Spartan community was that of a humble elite. True Spartan culture is well captured in Xenophon’s work, Spartan Society, as he wrote of how this elitist society viewed not only themselves, but the other countries around them. This work shines light into the three-part worldview of the ancient, Hellenic Spartans of: humanism, idealism, and rationalism. As Xenophon begins to write over the whole of the Spartan society it can be seen how the Spartans lived out the worldview of this Hellenistic society. This living out of the worldview recorded in Xenophon’s, Spartan Society, illustrates their worldview through the noting of Lycurgus’ accomplishments and the contrast of the “other.”
Religious and Funerary Practices were thought of as extremely important by the citizens of the city-state of Sparta, in fact, their beliefs reached such an extreme that the other city-states mocked the Spartans. The three principal sub-elements that affected religious and funerary practices in Sparta are, the Gods/Goddesses worshipped, the festivals celebrated and solemnized, and the myths and legends passed through the generations.
Spartan culture is a great example of how a society’s infrastructure will directly affect both, its social structure and superstructure. It also serves as a warning that any society that becomes too rigid in its structure and too static in its values will not last long when confronted with more agile and adaptable cultures. This paper will explore why Sparta became the Hellenic army par excellence, how this worked to create a very specific social structure founded on martial values, and, finally, how that social structure would ultimately be the undoing of the culture.
The main summary of the book is “Plutarch's vivid and engaging portraits of the Spartans and their customs are a major source of our knowledge about the rise and fall of this remarkable Greek city-state between the sixth and third centuries BC.” “Through his Lives of Sparta's leaders and his recording of memorable Spartan Sayings he depicts a people who lived frugally and mastered their emotions in all aspects of life, who also disposed of unhealthy babies in a deep chasm, introduced a gruelling regime of military training for boys, and treated their serfs brutally. Rich in anecdote and detail, Plutarch's writing brings to life the personalities and achievements of Sparta with unparalleled flair and humanity.” This is only a small summary of
Young girls were taken to live with other young girls to learn physical training (Blundell). Spartan women were trained heavily in exercise such as wrestling, and gymnastics (Hodkinson). The objective of the training for Spartan women was slightly different than Spartan men. Women in Sparta were trained vigorously, because they believed the more physical the women were, the more likely they would bear stronger children that would become incredible warriors (Blundell). Just like the young men, girls were encouraged to be naked in physical competitions (Hodkinson). The idea of the men and women being able to be naked together, gave each of them the idea that they were equal, and needed each other to achieve
In the home, Athenian women were treated like slaves with no rights. Married women were not people under the law of the Athenians any more than a slave, as they were shifted from one male’s authority to another throughout their lives, powerless to affect anything except through the intercession of another male (To Have Power or to Not Have Power: Athenian vs. Spartan Women). Also, when other males occupied their home; women we told to evacuate the male quarters. Women lived secluded in their own quarters, kept out of the lives of their husbands, working endlessly at the loom or some other repetitive chore. They competed for their husband’s affection against prostitutes, hetairai, and slaves of both genders, including those within their own household. By contrast, Spartan girls exercised publicly alongside boys(and often in the nude) (Fleck).Thus, Spartan women were rarely confined to the home. This is because of the abundance of a workforce and male children serving in the army from seven to
Unlike other Greek city states, women played an integral role in Spartan society as they were the backbone of the Spartan economic system of inheritance and marriage dowry and they were relied upon to fulfill their main responsibility of producing Spartan warrior sons. These principle economic systems affected wealth distribution among Spartan citizens especially among the Spartan elite class. Spartan women led a completely different life than women in most other ancient Greek city states, as they were depended upon to maintain Spartan social systems. In a society where the state is more involved in home life women had freedom of movement and they were permitted to communicate with men who were not their husbands. Women had domestic responsibilities including the maintenance of homes and farms when the men were on campaign, while the typical Greek female responsibilities such as weaving were delegated to slaves. Girls were raised much like Spartan boys as they were made to go through physical training insuring their success in fulfilling their most important role in society, child-bearing. The few primary sources on Sparta and Spartiate women, namely Aristotle, Plutarch, Herodotus and Xenophon were historians who lived after the prominence of ancient Sparta; therefore, the facts regarding the women’s influence in social, economic and political issues must be carefully interpreted and analysed with help from secondary sources.
Sparta was a strict military city-state. The people were Dorians who conquered Laconia. This region lies in the Peloponnesus, which lied in southern Greece. The invaders turned the conquered people into state owned slaves, called helots. Since the helots greatly outnumbered their rulers, Spartans established a strict and brutal system of control. The Spartan government had two kings and a council of elders who advised the monarchs. An assembly made up of all citizens approved all major decisions. From child-hood, a Spartan prepared to be part of the military. All newborn were examined and the healthy lived and the sickly were left to die. Spartans wanted future soldiers or mothers of soldiers to be healthy. At the age of seven, boys trained for a lifetime in the Spartan military. They moved to the barracks and endured brutal and extensive training.
Athens and Sparta were both city-states in Classical Greece. While Athens embraced democracy, Sparta was a dictatorial fierce warrior state. Sparta was a militaristic community, Athens was a freethinking, and commerce minded city-state. Modern societies have modeled their government organizational structure and military discipline practices from lessons learned of these ancient city-states. There is much is to be praised regarding Classical Greece for their courage, their progressive thinking and the birth of democracy. However, I think it is important to remember that in both cases, Athens and Sparta were able to sustain their lifestyle on the backs of countless slaves, non-citizens and women and that there is a darker and less romantic side to the past.
Helots were the original residents of the Laconian plain, the term Helots often means ‘prisoner of war’ and that is a good representation of what the Helots were, prisoners or slaves. Owned as property of the state they were assigned land that was owned by individual Spartans, they worked, lived on and made profit from the agricultural products derived from the land though a half of any harvest was directly given to the landowner. The helots produced all the food for the population of Sparta and worked incessantly to maintain the spartiate’s lifestyles, Tyrtaeus compared the helots to ‘Asses exhausted under great loads: Under painful necessity to bring their masters full half the fruit their ploughed land produced’. The tasks of the helots were generally agricultural though, when the Spartans w...
Farris, Dale. "Shutt, Timothy B.: A History of Ancient Sparta." Library Journal 15 May 2009: 45.
Because of the tranquil times, the civilization’s society had more time to focus on writing, math, astronomy, and artistic fields, as well as trade and metallurgy. Out of all the city-states of Greece, two excelled over all the rest, Sparta and Athens. Even though they were the most advanced and strong civilizations, they were bitter enemies. While Athens focused mainly on the people’s democracy and citizen rights, Sparta were ferocious and enslaved its original inhabitants, making them unable to leave and kept under a close eye to prevent insurgence (History of Greece:The Golden Age of Greece). Additionally, Sparta had strict and trained soldiers that underwent intense physical exercising and instruction.