Instituta Laconia

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

This was the object of the starvation diet. It was meagre both for the reasons given and purposely that the youth should never become accustomed to being sated, but to being able to go without food; for in this way, the Spartans thought, the youth would be more serviceable in war if they were able to carry on without food, and they would be more self-controlled and more frugal if they lived a very considerable time at small expense. And to put up with the plainest diet, so as to be able to consume anything that came to hand, they thought made the youths’ bodies more healthy owing to the scanty food, repressed in any impulse towards thickness and breadth, to grow tall, and also to make them handsome; for a spare and lean condition they felt served to produce suppleness, while an overfed condition, because of too much weight, was against it.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xvii. (51 a) and Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 2. 5-6. Unfortunately the text of both passages is none too good.)

They were no less seriously concerned over their music and their songs. These contained a stimulus to awaken a spirit of pride and to afford an inspiring and effective impulse. Their language was simple and plain, consisting merely of praise of those who had lived noble lives, and had died for Sparta, and are now counted among the blessed, and also censure of those who had played the coward, and now,

presumably, are living a tormenting and ill-fated existence; and therewith profession and boasting in regard to valour, such as was fitting for the different periods of life.

So there were three choirs,[*](Pollux, Lexicon, iv. 107, says that the three choirs were established by Tyrtacus.) corresponding to the three periods of life, which were made up at their festivals, and the choir of old men would begin with this song[*]( Cf. Moralia, 544 e; Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxi. (53 b). Other references may be found in Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 661, or Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, ii. p. 197, or Edmonds, Lyra Graeca (in the L.C.L.), iii. p. 530.):

Young valiant men long days ago were we.

Then the choir of men in the prime of life would sing in response,

And that are we; look, if you will, and see.

And the third choir, that of the boys, would sing,

And better far ’tis certain we shall be.