Instituta Laconia

Plutarch wrote an article about the Spartans, as he tells us in his Life of Lysander, chap. xvii. (443 a). The only question, therefore, that can be raised is whether The Ancient Customs of the Spartans is that article. It is true that adverse judgement has been pronounced upon it, mainly because of some infelicities of language, and the character of the last chapter; yet, whether written by Plutarch or by another, it is in the main the work of Plutarch, and much of it comes from the same source as Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus. The body of facts and traditions here set down is, in great part, to be found scattered here and there in other writers, especially in the extant histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, to say nothing of other historians whose works are now lost. Much had been brought together, long before Plutarch’s time, in the Constitution of Sparta, which is printed among the works of Xenophon.

A hint that various sources were used in making this compilation may be found in the fact that some of the verbs are in the present tense and others in the past.

To each one of those who comes in to the public meals the eldest man says, as he points to the doors, Through these no word goes out.[*]( Cf. Moralia, 697 e; Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xii. (46 d); and the scholium on Plato’s Laws, 633 a.)

A thing that met with especial approval among them was their so-called black broth, so much so that the older men did not require a bit of meat, but gave up all of it to the young men. It is said that Dionysius, the despot of Sicily,[*](Plutarch, in his Life of Lycurgus, says one of the kings of Pontus. ) for the sake of this bought a slave who had been a Spartan cook, and ordered him to prepare the broth for him, sparing no expense; but when the king tasted it he spat it out in disgust; whereupon the cook said, Your Majesty, it is necessary to have exercised in the Spartan manner, and to have bathed in the Eurotas, in order to relish this broth.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xii. (46 e), when a slightly different version is given, as also in Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 34 (98), and Stobaeus, Florilegium, xxix. 100.)

The Spartans, after drinking in moderation at their public meals, go away without a torch. In fact, they are not permitted to walk with a light either on this route or on any other, so that they may become

They learned to read and write for purely practical reasons; but all other forms of education they banned from the country, books and treatises being included in this quite as much as men. All their education was directed toward prompt obedience to authority, stout endurance of hardship, and victory or death in battle.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xvi. (50 b); Isocrates, Panathenaicus, 209.)

They always went without a shirt, receiving one garment for the entire year, and with unwashed bodies, refraining almost completely from bathing and rubbing down.[*](Life of Lycurgus, 50 c; Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 2. 4; Justinus, Historiae Philippicae, iii. 3. 5.)

The young men slept together, according to division and company, upon pallets which they themselves brought together by breaking off by hand, without any implement, the tops of the reeds which grew on the banks of the Eurotas. In the winter they put beneath their pallets, and intermingled with them, the plant called lycophon, since the material is reputed to possess some warming qualities.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xvi. (50 c).)

Affectionate regard for boys of good character was permissible, but embracing them was held to be disgraceful, on the ground that the affection was for the body and not for the mind. Any man against whom complaint was made of any disgraceful embracing was deprived of all civic rights for life.[*](Ibid. chap. xviii. (51 d); Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 2. 12-14; Aelian, Varia Historia, iii. 10 and 12.)

It was the custom that the younger men should be questioned by the elder as to where they were going and for what, and also that the elder should

If anyone was detected in wrongdoing he had to go round and round a certain altar in the city, chanting lines composed as a reprehension of himself, and this was nothing else than his own self rebuking himself.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xv. (48 c), where this form of punishment is visited upon the bachelors.)

Moreover, the young men were required not only to respect their own fathers and to be obedient to them, but to have regard for all the older men, to make room for them on the streets, to give up their seats to them, and to keep quiet in their presence. As the result of this custom each man had authority, not as in other states over his own children, slaves, and property, but also over his neighbour’s in like manner as over his own, to the end that the people should, as much as possible, have all things in common, and should take thought for them as for their own.[*](Cf. the note on Moralia, 232 b (3), supra.)

When a boy was punished by anybody, if he told his father, it was a disgrace for his father, upon hearing this, not to give him another beating; for they had confidence one in another, as the result of their ancestral discipline, that no one had ordered their children to do anything disgraceful.[*](Cf. Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 6. 2.)

The boys steal whatever they can of their food, learning to make their raids adroitly upon people who are asleep or are careless in watching. The penalty for getting caught is a beating and no food.

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,

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.

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

And better far ’tis certain we shall be.

Moreover the rhythmic movement of their marching songs was such as to excite courage and boldness, and contempt for death; and these they used both in dancing, and also to the accompaniment of the flute when advancing upon the enemy. In fact, Lycurgus coupled fondness for music with military drill, so that the over-assertive warlike spirit, by being combined with melody, might have concord and harmony. It was for this reason that in time of battle the king offered sacrifice to the Muses before the conflict, so that those who fought should make their deeds worthy to be told and to be remembered with honour.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxi. (53 b-d); Thucydides, v. 70; Dio Chrysostom, Or. ii. 31 M., 92 R.; Athenaeus, 632 f; Valerius Maximus, ii. 6. 2; Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. p. 404.)

If anyone presumed to transgress in any way the rules of the good old music, they would not permit this; but even Terpander, one of the oldest and the best harp-player of his time as well as a devoted admirer of the deeds of heroes, the Ephors none the less fined, and carried away his instrument and nailed it to a wall because he put in just one extra string for the sake of the variety in the notes; for they approved only the simpler melodies. Moreover, when Timotheus was competing at the Carneian Festival, one of the Ephors took a knife, and asked him on which side he should cut out the superfluous strings beyond the usual seven.[*](For variant versions of the story see the note on Moralia, 220 c, supra.)

Lycurgus did away with all superstitious fear connected with burials, granting the right to bury the dead within the city, and to have the tombs near the shrines. He also abolished the pollutions associated with death and burial. He permitted the people to bury nothing with their dead, but only to enfold the body in a red robe and olive leaves, and all to treat their dead alike. He also did away with the inscriptions on tombs, except of those who had met their end in war, and also did away with mourning and lamentation.[*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxvii. (56 a), and Heracleides Ponticus, Frag. 2.8, in Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 211.)

It was not allowed them to go abroad, so that they should have nothing to do with foreign ways and undisciplined modes of living.[*](There are many references to the studied isolation of the early Spartans. The most important are Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus, chap. xxvii. (56 c), and the Life of Agis, chap. x. (799 d); Xenophon, Constitution of Sparta, 14. 4; Aristophanes, Birds, 1012; Aristotle, Frag. 543 (ed. Rose). Cf. also the note on Moralia, 237 a, supra, and the references given in the Teubner ed. of Plutarch’s Lives (1926), iii. 2, p. 45 (Lycurgus, chap. xxvii.).)