Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 · Plutarch
THAT VIRTUE MAY BE TAUGHT.
19, 20. It was not allowed any of them to travel into foreign countries, lest their conversation should be tinctured with the customs of those places, and they at their return introduce amongst them new modes and incorrect ways of living, to the corruption of good manners and the prejudice of their own laws and usage; for which reason they expelled all strangers from Sparta, lest they should insinuate their vices and their folly into the affections of the people, and leave in the minds of their citizens the bad principles of softness and luxury, ease and covetousness. 21. Nothing could sooner forfeit the right and privilege of a citizen, than refusing their children that public education which their laws and country demanded of them. For as none of them were on any account exempt from obedience to their laws, so, if any one out of an extraordinary tenderness and indulgence would not suffer his sons to be brought up according to their strict discipline and institutions, he was straightways disfranchised. For they could not think that person could ever prove serviceable to their government, who had not been educated with the same care and severity with his fellow-subjects. And it was no less a shame and reproach to the parents themselves, who could be of such mean and abject spirits as to prefer the love of their children to the love of their country, and the satisfaction of a fond and imprudent passion to the honor and security of their state.
23. Nay further, as there was a community of children, so there was of their goods and estates, it being free for them in case of necessity to make use of their neighbor’s servants, as if they were their own; and not only so, but of their horses and dogs too, unless the owners stood in need of them themselves, whenever they designed the diversion of hunting, an exercise peculiar to this nation, and to which they were accustomed from their youth. And if upon any extraordinary occasion any one was pressed with the want of what his neighbors were possessed of, he went freely to them and borrowed, as though he had been the right proprietary of their storehouses; and being supplied answerably to his necessities, he carefully sealed them up again and left them secure. 24. In all their warlike expeditions they generally clothed themselves with a garment of a purple color, as best becoming the profession of soldiers, and carrying in them a signification of that blood they were resolved to shed in the service of their country. It was of use likewise, not only to cast a greater terror into their adversaries and to secure from their discovery the wounds they should receive, but likewise for distinction’s sake, that in the heat and fury of the battle they might discriminate each other from the enemy. They always fought with consideration and cunning, craft being many times of more advantage to them than downright blows; for it is not the multitude of men, nor the strongest arm and the sharpest sword, that make men masters of the field.
25. Whenever a victory was gained through a well-contrived stratagem, and thereby with little loss of men and blood, they always sacrificed an ox to Mars; but when the success was purely owing to their valor and prowess, they only offered up a cock to him; it being in their estimation more honorable for their generals and commanders to overcome their enemies by policy and subtlety than by mere strength and courage. 26, 27. One great part of their religion lay in their solemn prayers and devotion, which they daily offered up to their Gods, heartily requesting of them to enable them to bear all kinds of injuries with a generous and unshaken mind, and to reward them with honor and prosperity, according to their performances of piety and virtue. 28. Besides, it was a great part of that honor they paid their Gods, of whatever sex they were, to adorn them with military weapons and armor, partly out of superstition and an extraordinary reverence they had for the virtue of fortitude, which they preferred to all others, and which they looked upon as an immediate gift of the Gods, as being the greatest lovers and patrons of those who were endued with it; and partly to encourage every one to address his devotions to them for it; insomuch as Venus herself, who in other nations was generally represented naked, had her armor too, as well as her particular altars and worshippers.
29. Whenever they take any business of moment in hand, they generally pray to Fortune in a set form of words for their success in it;[49] it being no better in their esteem than profaneness and irreverence to their Gods to invoke them upon slight and trivial emergencies. 30. No discovery of what is bad and vicious comes with greater evidence to the spirits and apprehensions of children, who are unable to bear the force of reason, than that which is offered to them by way of example. Therefore the Spartan discipline did endeavor to preserve their youth (on whom philosophical discourses would have made but small impression) from all kinds of intemperance and excess of wine, by presenting before them all the indecencies of their drunken Helots, persons indeed who were their slaves, and employed not only in all kinds of servile offices, but especially in tilling of their fields and manuring of their ground, which was let out to them at reasonable rates, they paying in every year their returns of rent, according to what was anciently established and ordained amongst them at the first general division of their lands. And if any did exact greater payments from them, it was esteemed an execrable thing amongst them; they being desirous that the Helots might reap gain and profit from their labors, and thereupon be obliged faithfully to serve their masters as well as their own interest with greater cheerfulness and industry. And therefore their lords never required more of them than what bare custom and contracts exacted of them.
33. They adjudged it necessary for the preservation of that gravity and seriousness of manners which was required of their youth for the attainments of wisdom and virtue, never to admit of any light and wanton, any ludicrous or effeminate poetry; which made them allow of no poets among them but such only who for their grave and virtuous compositions were approved by the public magistrate; that being hereby under some restraint, they might neither act nor write any thing to the prejudice of good manners, or to the dishonor of their laws and government. 34. And therefore it was, that when they heard of Archilochus’s arrival at Sparta (though a Lacedaemonian, and of an excellent wit), yet they presently commanded him to depart the city, having understood how that in a poem of his he had affirmed it was greater wisdom for a man to throw his arms away and secure himself by flight, than to stand to his own defence with the hazard of his life, or therein to die valiantly in the field. His words were after this manner:— Let who will boast their courage in the field, I find but little safety from my shield. Nature’s not Honor’s laws we must obey; This made me cast my useless shield away, And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life, which valor could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?[50]
35. It was a received opinion amongst many nations, that some of their Gods were propitious only to their men, and others only to their women, which made them sometimes prohibit the one and sometimes the other from being present at their sacred rites and solemnities. But the Lacedaemonians took away this piece of superstition by not excluding either sex from their temples and religious services; but, as they were always bred up to the same civil exercises, so they were to the same common performances of their holy mysteries, so that by an early knowledge of each other there might be a real love and friendship established betwixt them, which ever stood most firm upon the basis of religion. 36. Their virtuous man, as he was to do no wrong, so likewise was not to suffer any without a due sense and modest resentment of it; and therefore the Ephori laid a mulct upon Sciraphidas, because he could so tamely receive the many injuries and affronts that were offered him,—concluding that he who was so insensible of his own interest as not to stand up in a bold and honest vindication of himself from the wrongs and injustice that may be done to his good name and honor, would without all doubt be as dull and listless, when an opportunity should invite him to it, in appearing for the defence of the fame and reputation of his country.
39. Action and not speaking was the study and commendation of a Spartan, and therefore polite discourses and long harangues were not with them the character of a wise or learned man, their speech being always grave and sententious, without any ornament or tedious argumentation. They accustomed themselves to brevity, and upon every subject to express themselves in the finest words, with as much satire and smartness as possible; insomuch as they had a law among them for the instruction of their youth, by which they were enjoined to practise a close and compendious style in all their orations; which made them banish one Cephisophon, a talkative rhetorician, for boasting publicly that he could upon any subject whatsoever entertain his auditory for a whole day together; alleging this as a sufficient reason for their justification, that it was the part of a good orator to adjust his discourse according to the weight and dignity of the matter he was to treat of.
40. There was indeed a strange and unnatural custom amongst them, annually observed at the celebration of the bloody rites of Diana Orthia, where there was a certain number of children, not only of the vulgar sort but of the gentry and nobility, who were whipped almost to death with rods before the altar of the goddess; their parents and relations standing by, and all the while exhorting them to patience and constancy in suffering. Although this ceremony lasted for the space of a whole day, yet they underwent this barbarous rite with such a prodigious cheerfulness and resolution of mind as never could be expected from the softness and tenderness of their age. They did not so much as express one little sigh or groan during the whole solemnity, but out of a certain emulation and desire of glory there was a great contention among them, who should excel his companions in the constancy of enduring the length and sharpness of their pains; and he who held out the longest was ever the most esteemed and valued person amongst them, and the glory and reputation wherewith they rewarded his sufferings rendered his after life much more eminent and illustrious.
That the love of money should be the ruin of Sparta,— yet notwithstanding the severe penalty annexed to the heaping up much wealth, and the example of those who had suffered for it, Lysander was highly honored and rewarded for bringing in a great quantity of gold and silver to Lacedaemon, after the victory he had gained over the Athenians, and the taking of the city of Athens itself, wherein an inestimable treasure was found. So that what had been a capital crime in others was a meritorious act in him. It is true indeed that as long as the Spartans did adhere closely to the observation of the laws and rules of Lycurgus, and keep their oath religiously to be true to their own government, they outstripped all the other cities of Greece for prudence and valor, and for the space of five hundred years became famous everywhere for the excellency of their laws and the wisdom of their policy. But when the honor of these laws began to lessen and their citizens grew luxurious and exorbitant, when covetousness and too much liberty had softened their minds and almost destroyed the wholesome constitution of their state, their former greatness and power began by little and little to decay and dwindle in the estimation of men.
And as by reason of these vices and ill customs they proved unserviceable to themselves, so likewise they became less formidable to others; insomuch as their several allies and confederates, who had with them jointly carried on their common good and interest, were wholly alienated from them. But although their affairs were in such a languishing posture, when Philip of Macedon, after his great victory at Chaeronea, was by the Grecians declared their general both by land and sea, as likewise his son Alexander after the conquest of the Thebans; yet the Lacedaemonians, though their cities had no other walls for their security, but only their own courage, though by reason of their frequent wars they were reduced to low measures and small numbers of men, and thereby become so weak as to be an easy prey to any powerful enemy, yet retaining amongst them some reverence for those few remains of Lycurgus’s institution and government, they could not be brought to assist these two, or any other of their Macedonian kings in their wars and expeditions; neither could they be prevailed with to assist at their common assemblies and consults with them, nor pay any tribute or contributions to them. But when all those laws and customs (which are the main pillars that support a state) enacted by Lycurgus, and so highly approved of by the government, were now universally despised and unobserved, they immediately became a prey to the ambition and usurpation, to the cruelty and tyranny of their fellow-citizens; and having no regard at all to their ancient virtues and constitution, they utterly lost their ancient glory and reputation, and by degrees, as well as weaker nations, did in a very little time everywhere degenerate into poverty, contempt, and servitude; being at present subject to the Romans, like all the other cities of Greece.
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