There is no one in the world who does not know the story of Leonidas and his 300 warriors,
a legend that was forged in defeat and that would be engraved in the memory of
mankind as an example of strength, courage, determination and bravery,
undoubtedly the best soldiers who lived in ancient Greece.
Their fame not only lies in their way of fighting and waging war,
the Spartans gave the Greek citizens much to talk about because of their strange customs,
strict rules, beliefs and traditions that coincided in a single warlike purpose. For them,
to die on the battlefield was their greatest glory.
Today we will receive the same training that every Spartan had to go through and we will become
a worthy warrior capable of fighting against the gigantic army of the Persian King Xerxes,
Welcome to Copernicus’s Galaxy.
"Agoge" The extreme training to create the most lethal infantry of the era.
What more could one expect from people who were barely born and
had to come face to face with death than to become fierce warriors...? The Spartans
led a challenging life from the moment they inhaled their first breath of air.
This warrior tribe were obsessed with raising ever stronger and more resistant soldiers,
fragility was intolerable at any age, so, newborn babies had to pass the inspection
by the council of elders, who determined if it was a healthy, strong and even beautiful child,
otherwise its extremely short life would end up abandoned at the top of Mount Taigeto or thrown
into the ravine, as they considered it would be useless in the future, just another mouth to feed.
Those babies who had passed the test were returned to their parents to begin their
strict upbringing at home during their first 7 years. It was customary not to put diapers
on them to avoid limiting their growth and weakening their resistance to cold and heat.
They were not allowed to have any tantrums or to be spoiled, they were harshly corrected at
the slightest sign of rebellion and they were taught not to be afraid of the dark or loneliness.
After this time, the government assumed the responsibility of educating the future soldiers.
This is where the so-called "Agogé" really began, since the hard hand they had received
from their parents would be nothing compared to the training that awaited them. They were
divided into different groups of children led by an older boy, they were shaved and stripped of all
their clothes, giving them just a cloak to cover themselves from the cold in the frigid nights.
Most of the time they were always naked and filthy because they were rarely allowed to bathe.
They learned to read and write the basics, and some songs that they could sing during
the marches, but nothing more, because the most important thing was to harden them physically.
Fighting and athletic exercises were heavy, they were trained in the handling of weapons and to
blindly obey their superiors, the rhetoric instead was oriented to make them concise and direct,
but without losing their grace, honoring the "Laconismo" typical of the region.
Normally the children went hungry because as part of their training they were fed only
enough to survive, inciting them to steal to get a little more food. This was part of their training,
as they were expected to manage to get their food without being seen,
otherwise they were severely punished for having been discovered rather than for stealing.
The punishments they received for showing clumsiness and weakness were brutal. Whippings
were already common for simply even breathing. On the other hand, the most serious mistakes were
often corrected with ritual beatings in the middle of the forest, where the sanctioned children and
young people had to hold on to a wooden stick with all their strength to receive the lashes with
bamboo sticks by their own companions. Their skin was often torn by the blows that went on for a
long time. In case the boy collapsed to the ground in pain, 2 of his comrades had to lift him up and
hold him so that the punishment continued... Not even counting that any older person could
reprimand him physically if he thought it was necessary in order to strengthen his character.
With the same objective, young people were forced to witness slaves getting drunk to
exemplify what they should not do, watched how they were executed or even forced to
murder them themselves... With all this, those who managed to complete the "Agogé" ended up
being cold and completely dehumanized soldiers. When they reached their 20s they were assigned to
different military groups and were allowed to wear their hair long and well-groomed,
finally becoming Spartan citizens with the joy of all that came with it.
This training made them the most feared soldiers in Greece and probably the best
fighters of antiquity, their success was based on teamwork, because as Plutarch said,
they were accustomed to not knowing how to live alone, always united for the public good.
Why were women allowed to cheat on their husbands?
For Spartan men and women marriage was nothing more than a means for the production of future
soldiers. Love had little place in their lives and from the beginning these unions
were conceived as a business where the father or older brother determined if the man she was
courting was suitable for the woman and agreed on the terms of the relationship.
Until the time came to marry any man, the women of Sparta were educated at home, however,
the training they received did not differ much from the males. They were not taught to weave
and clean like the rest of the Greek women, their activities were more oriented toward maintaining
a healthy and strong body so that they could beget even better men. These sports included wrestling,
short and long distance races, horseback riding, discus and javelin throwing among other sports.
In spite of this, future mothers were also taught singing, the use of musical instruments,
dance and poetry with the intention of not losing their femininity. They dedicated
themselves to this education until they were at least 18
years old and until then they really thought about looking for a husband.
The women of Sparta had the reputation of being the only ones who dominated their men,
for they had rights and responsibilities unheard of for their time, starting with the fact that
their male counterparts not only listened to their opinion, but respected it. They
focused on finances, agriculture and efficient running of the household. They were the head
of the household and had the final say in any decision since most of the time the husband was
away fighting a battle, they participated in religious rituals dedicated to their gods to
bring military victories and abundant harvests, in addition to their main function, fertility.
For this last point, the wives had total freedom to spend the night with any man as long as he had
better attributes than her husband in order to procreate the best soldiers. All Spartans took
pride in raising a strong son whoever he was, even going so far as to lend each other their wives.
Pleasure was relegated to other types of relationships. It was normal for both men
and women to have relationships with people of the same gender since concepts such as
homosexuality did not exist, much less was it frowned upon, given the large amounts of time
that men spent living with the same gender, these types of encounters occurred on a regular basis.
Their autonomous status allowed them to raise their children with
the same independence and strength that characterized them and they were proud
of this. Proud when they showed bravery and ashamed when they showed cowardice,
being common for them to be told to return with or on their shield.
It is related that Leonidas' wife Gorgo was once
asked how it was that Spartan women were the only ones to rule their men,
to which she replied "because we are the only ones who give birth to real men".
Gender equality in Sparta made this city-state stronger and better governed, although some,
like Aristotle, argue that this female influence and independence was the cause of its decline.
Debunking the Spartan myth: they were not 300 warriors nor did they save ancient Greece
Its legend and fame have survived until now, for more than 2 thousand years the story of how
King Leonidas I and his 300 Spartan warriors faced an army of 2.8 million Persian soldiers
for 3 dayd led by the fifth great king of the Achaemenid Empire, Xerxes I, to save Greece
from his tyranny... or at least that is how some classical historians like Herodotus relate it.
The story sounds fantastic this way, however, that is precisely the problem. It is unreal
that only a few hundred soldiers could resist so much against millions of enemies no matter
how strong and well trained they were. It is true that the Persian army outnumbered
them by a large number but this was not so stratospheric, while the Spartan defense
consisted of between 6000 and 7000 soldiers, including Ilotas, Tegeatas, Corinthians,
Mycenaeans and other Greek citizens, the Persian forces did not exceed 250 thousand elements.
Even so, the gap between the two armies was immense,
so no one can take away the merit for enduring so long. The reason
for this great feat is an accumulation of circumstances that favored the Spartans,
to begin with, the passage of Thermopylae was quite narrow, at most exceeding 15 meters wide,
so it was impossible for Xerxes to comfortably deploy his troops and his fearsome cavalry.
Despite having many men, there were few who were professional soldiers,
except for the 300 Spartan warriors who led the fight, most of the army were peasants and
artisans who possessed a hoplitic armament called panoply, however, this proved sufficient against
the poor protection provided by their armor to the Persians, who were still being undermined by
the firm fighting unit of Leonidas who closed the bottom of the gorge with his phalanx formation.
The Spartans had been chosen as the ones who should lead the defensive
forces as they were the fiercest warriors that Greece had, they had armor, helmets,
long spears and their characteristic round shield called hoplon, within their formation,
each soldier protected his companion with his shield while advancing towards the enemy.
Xerxes did not believe that such a small army in comparison wanted to face them,
but as the minutes, hours and days progressed, his troops were depleted at a much faster rate than
the enemy, until the shadow of treachery loomed over the battlefield... The Greek Ephialtes spoke
to Xerxes about a secret path that surrounded the pass and with which they could ambush Leonidas
and his warriors. The Persian king and a group of his best warriors marched all night and eliminated
the small unit that protected this shortcut, the news reached the Spartan leader who ordered the
majority to retreat to protect their homes while he and some volunteers would hold them with their
own lives... in the end the tally of lives lost was 2 thousand for the Greeks, against 20 thousand
Persians, however, this did little to help as Xerxes' army advanced and attacked several cities.
“Helot" slaves, the silent heroes of Ancient Greece
As in many civilizations of the ancient world, slavery was accepted and promoted
throughout Greece. None of these great empires would have achieved
so much without the people they subjugated. They served their masters with heavy labor,
as servants and even as cannon fodder in their battles, in Platea alone 35
thousand slaves served as light arms forces and earned them victory over the Persians in 479 BC.
The general concept of slave is known to all, but in Sparta,
things were slightly different, there they were called "Ilotas",
a word of uncertain origin that is possibly related to "capture", these were peasants,
mostly subjected to the Spartan conquest raids. Their importance was immense because they were
responsible for harvesting all the agricultural products that the Spartan people needed.
Unlike the rest of the slaves in Greece, they did not have to work in their master's house,
but kept their own land and worked it. At the end of the harvest,
they had to give a part of the load to the Spartans, which usually amounted to 50%,
while they were allowed to keep the rest for themselves. This might be more similar
to the well-known medieval concept of paying tribute to a king or lord of some land, but the
difference here was that there were no political rights, which allowed the Spartans to beat them,
torture them, overdo it with women or even murder them without any reason or repercussion.
They were allowed to marry and have children, which together with the
fact that the Spartans reproduced little and not all of those born were allowed to live,
meant that for every Spartan citizen there were 7 Ilotas.
So many slaves that it was obvious that at some point they would try to rebel. That is why the
Spartans used to terrorize them for fear that they would take up arms. They created a group
made up of young warriors between 18 and 20 years old called Krupteia whose only job
was to commit random acts of punishment against the slaves to keep them at bay.
Even so, there were several revolts among the Ilotas, but to their misfortune, most did not last
long before being put down by the trained Spartan soldiers, with the exception of the one organized
after the earthquake of 464 BC, when a group of slaves managed to free themselves and held
out for years until they were allowed to leave the area and settle as free men in Naupactus.
The Spartan civilization is impressive, beyond the legends about its great military might,
it was an enigmatic society worthy of study at all levels. There may never again be soldiers
as skilled as them, especially in an era where only a button is needed to eliminate us all,
whatever happens we will be here to tell you about it, at Copernicus's Galaxy.