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Sparta Hoplites, Helots and Arete HTA Study Day 2017.Pptx 6/06/17 Overview • The Sparta Mirage Helots, Hoplites & Arete • An Anthropological Approach: Structural Thinking Historically with Sparta Funconalism • Context Keys for Understanding Sparta: Helots & Hoplites John Staats, Bowral High School • Cultural Key for Understanding Sparta: Homer NSWHTA Study Day & Areté (Excellence) June 2017 • Broadening our Apprecia5on of Spartan Areté The Spartan Mirage Structural- FuncRonalism the distorted image of what both Spartans and non- Spartans for various and oIen mutually inconsistent reasons • Structural-funcRonalism: social insRtuRons (structures) wanted Sparta to be, to stand for and to have accomplished. emerge because they serve funcRons necessary for the (Cartledge, 2002:60) stability, cohesion and survival of a society as a whole. • Sparta has leM no literary record of their own from the classical period to use to get ‘inside their heads’ • Spartan society, its parts (norms, customs, values, • Tyrtaeus & Alcman religious pracRces, economy and insRtuRons - each of • Spartan Secrecy & misinformaon the dot points in the syllabus, if you like) can be • Paucity of material culture (artefacts) understood from their role in maintain the funcRoning • Most of our literary sources for classical Sparta are non- of a stable cohesive system. Spartan; outsiders view; inflected with ethnocentric bias • Each aspect of Spartan society serves a purpose or • ‘THE SPARTAN ABNORMALITY’ – Cartledge funcRon – everything makes sense to the raonal if • Sparta an ENIGMA and/or ‘ABNORMAL’ even by ancient Greek you have the right keys to unlock its meaning Standards 1 6/06/17 Context Keys: Helots & Hoplites Helots & Hoplites Cont’d • Land hunger; conquest of Messenia; massive problem of subject • Crisis of Second Messenian War – Sparta’s radical populaon of helots, ready to ‘eat them raw’ reforms – becomes a ‘hoplite state’ Only the Spartans lived on top of a poten5ally human volcano. In Sparta, therefore, more than any other Greek state we can see a real and biPer class war, with full Spar5ates and Helots at its opposite …she underwent a reform of her old ins5tu5ons. The poles… (de Ste Croix, 2012). army was re-organised… The numbers and composi5on of the council were fixed, and the composi5on and powers …the militarized way of life of Spar5ate men was made both possible of the assembly… It may have been at this 5me the old and necessary by the mass of helots. (Powell, 1988: 248) ins5tu5ons of Dorian Sparta were furbished up and Spartan policy with regard to the helots had always been based almost directed consciously towards military training… they gave en5rely on the idea of security (Thucydides II.80) Sparta the first hoplite cons5tu5on of Greek history… (Andrewes, 1956: 75) Helot & Hoplite - The Syllabus & HSC The PosiRve Drivers of Spartan Life? Each, and every feature of Spartan society (every We should be aware of thinking the Spartan way of dot point in the Syllabus) addresses the helot and/ life so horrible that we are obliged to see the Spartans as irra5onal in maintaining it…happiness or hoplite imperaves of Spartan society. The of individuals oIen depends on whether they think ‘technology’ of hoplite warfare shaped and directed they are good at what they think really maPers… the culture and social life of Sparta. Spartan culture possessed, to a most unusual extent, a harmony between values and self-image. (Powell, 1998: 99) The hoplite/helot imperave can be used to EXPLAIN & ANALYSE every aspect of the syllabus Beyond survival, what did the Spartan system allow and applied to every HSC quesRon. the Spartans ‘to have’ or ‘to be’? 2 6/06/17 Homer & Areté : universal cultural key Areté • Cultural key to unlock insight into the driving • Areté : ‘personal excellence’ – ‘being the best you can be’ values of the ancient Greeks in general & the and ‘reaching your highest human potenRal.’ Spartans in parRcular = Homer • Arête wins honour (5mé) and fame (kleos). • Kleos makes you a good & worthy man (agathos). • Single most arRculated and reiterated cultural • and moral value that comes from Homer is For the Spartans in parRcular, arête was everything – a currency to measure your value, worth & status. the concept of areté • Greatest fear in Sparta was not to meet society’s expectaons: the anRthesis of arête was shame (adios) • In Sparta, adios = ‘social death’ that was feared more than a physical death. Spartan Areté : Tyrtaeus Spartan Areté is Just Military Prowess? Rise up, warriors, take your stand at one another’s sides, your feet set wide and rooted like oaks in the ground. • Areté in the form of military excellence was universally Then bide your 5me, bi5ng your lip, for you were born valued. • Sparta had areté in spades. from the blood of Heracles, unbeatable by mortal men, and the god of gods has never turned his back on you. …the Spartans could believe that they were the best …. in the world at the thing that they [and others] most respected. (Powell, 1988: 99) Horsehair crest to polished mail, and --- helmet to helmet, CompeRRon and rivalry extended beyond individuals and eye to eye --- mangle their gear, hack off limbs, lay open encompassed inter-polis rivalry (phthonos) and hatred the organs that warm their chests, then beat them down (echthos) and desire for dominance (hegemony) over others. un5l the plain runs red with enemy blood and you s5ll stand, breathlessly gripping your wet sword’s hilt. 3 6/06/17 Spartan Single-focussed Areté? Spartan Pracce of Areté Broader? • Spartans may have intenRonally projected a single- • A mistake to defined Spartan areté as focused areté centred on their military prowess for the purposes of achieving the psychological edge over narrowly, and purely, militarisRc in nature. their rivals: • A key to unlocking dimensions of Spartan areté is in the gods and cults the Spartan Spartan enemies might be demoralized by the thought honoured. that her military ascendancy as due to the sheer discipline and hardness of her men, since in those respects few non- Spartans could expect their ci5es to make the sacrifice of comfort or of peaceful economic acvity to match Sparta (Powell, 1998: 97). Areté as Pedigree Areté - Dance & Music – Cult of Apollo • Sparta played culRvated carefully and purposefully her • Special place in Spartan life – link to village of Homeric connecRons. Amyclae • Pedigree: linking Spartan ancestry to Homer’s epics. • Spartan Kings were Achaeans • Three summer fesRvals – Hyacinthia, the • Descendants of Hercales Gymnopaedia and the Carneia - iniRaon • The cults of Helen (step daughter of the Spartan King fesRvals connected with youth? Tyndareus) and wife to King Menelaus of Sparta, • Music, dance without peer– marRal link – • The Menelaion example of areté • The Dioscuri (twin brothers to Helen, one a son of Zeus). • 6th century BC the Spartans recover the Bones of Orestes (one Rme King of Sparta and nephew of Menelaus) 4 6/06/17 Areté – as physcial perfecRon – The Areté – Piety as Excellence Cult of Helen • Deformed children disposed of at birth • Arête of piety • Syssia & peer comment used to regular diet & • Sparta genuinely pious and aenRve to the gods • Strict observance of the gods saw them miss the Bale physique (you could be fined for being obese) of Marathon but very much a public display of their • Spartan hair – makes them look “taller… nobler virtue. more fearsome • Kings’ access to Delphi (pythanoi) • Spartan women renown for beauty (Lampito & • Religiosity had military applicaons: rump jumps) It might en5ce opponents into failing to guard against the decep5on which Sparta had in store for • King Demaratus’ mother at the Menelaion) them … there were many opportuni5es to deceive • Nudity – embodied displays of excellence without oath-braking or uPering a direct lie (Powell, 1988: 216) Areté – Excellence of mind – Fox-like Areté Athena Poliachos • Athena’s aspect as a divine warrior, represenRng the • The Spartans masters of decepRon and ruse. They are fox-like. In disciple and strategic side of warfare. the words of Lysander, the Spartan general who decided, at the Bale of Agespotamai, the fate of the 27 year long Peloponnesian • parRcular kind of marRal areté; the cool, calculang, War in one aernoon: disciplined military prowess For where the lion skin will not reach, we will patch it with the • Athena’s dimension of her excellence in mind. Athena fox’s was goddess of strategy and cleverness; the ideal of (Plutarch, Life of Lysander). the ‘canny mind’. In the Odyssey, Athena is likened to Odysseus whom she appears before and says: • Aristophanes - Spartans are alluded to: …us two past masters of these tricks of trade – you the As liPle foxes…with treacheous souls and treacherous minds cunningest mortal to weedle or blandish, and me, (Aristophanes, The Peace l.1067) • Story of the Spartan boy who had stolen a fox cub and hid it famed above other Gods for knavish wiles’ beneath his cloak on the approach of Spartan Elders. (The Odyssey Bk 13) 5 6/06/17 Areté of Decepon Spartan areté in deceit • Trickery is a military weapon and history of Sparta is Examples peppered with the examples of Spartan commanders • falsified the past when it suited, seeking to deceive their enemies. • rouRnely deceived the helots (one recalls the trick of • the Krypteia – to culRvate excellence of intelligence and announcing freedom for the bravest helots, the selecRng decepRon in their youth: from those who came forth 2,000 who were then killed) Periodically the overseers of young men would dispatch • In visual propaganda as decepRon. into the countryside in different direcons the ones who • appeared to be par5cularly intelligent; they were equipped In internal poliRcs to dethrone kings (Cleomenes I’s with daggers and basic ra5ons, but nothing else. By day removal of Demaratus, and his own decepRon in being they would disperse to obscure spots in order to hide and lured back to Sparta aer his exile) rest.
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