Excerpts:
Warrior Can Be Both Fierce and Reverent
We’re apt to think of the Spartans as ferocious, cocksure warriors. But while no fighting force could be more easily excused for relying entirely on their own strength and abilities, the Spartans were in fact acutely cognizant of, and humbled by, the existence of forces greater than themselves.
The Spartans were an extremely reverent people. “From an early age,” Paul Rahe writes, they were “imbued with a fear of the gods so powerful that it distinguished them from their fellow Greeks.” Indeed, piety served as “the foundation of Spartan morale.”
Apollo chasing Daphne
Before embarking on a campaign, every morning while on it, and immediately preceding battle, oracles were consulted, sacrifices were made, and omens were examined. The sanction, or censure, of the gods was sought for every decision.
So too, religious obligation came even before martial duty. The Spartans delayed sending a deployment to the Battle of Marathon because the call came in the middle of a religious festival. For the same reason, Leonidas sent only a small advance guard to Thermopylae instead of Lacedaemon’s main force.
The reverence of the Spartans could be called superstition, but it could also be called humility — an awareness of, and respect for, the forces of fate that ultimately, no matter one’s skill and preparation, can influence the outcome of an endeavor and cannot be wholly controlled.
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Speak (and Think) Laconically
The Spartan philosopher Chilon — one of the Seven Sages of Greece — famously said that “less is more,” and this was a maxim that guided the whole ethos of Lacedaemon — from its buildings to its citizens’ clothing and diet. Indeed, “Spartan” today remains a descriptor synonymous with simplicity, austerity, and frugality — a comfort with discomfort and a disdain for luxury.
The “less is more” principle also governed the language of the Spartans, who took a minimalist approach to speech which today we still refer to as “Laconic.” The ideal was to speak only when one had something important to say, and then only in short, terse bursts, pithy sayings, and the sharp, clever replies that characterized Laconic wit. The Spartans honed their words until they were as sharp as their spears — and just as sure to find their mark.
For example, legend has it that when Philip II sent a message saying, “If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta,” the Spartans sent but a one-word reply: “If.”
And, of course, there is the famous story of the soldier at Thermopylae who lamented to Leonidas that the Persians shot so many arrows that they darkened the sun. The warrior king’s reply?
“Then we will fight in the shade.”
Socrates thought that the Spartans’ singular style of speech was a way of strategically getting others to underestimate them:
“they conceal their wisdom, and pretend to be blockheads, so that they may seem to be superior only because of their prowess in battle . . . This is how you may know that I am speaking the truth and that the Spartans are the best educated in philosophy and speaking: if you talk to any ordinary Spartan, he seems to be stupid, but eventually, like an expert marksman, he shoots in some brief remark that proves you to be only a child.”
It was also a field expedient way of speaking — you want to get straight to the point when yelling commands in the chaos of combat.
But the Laconic tactic of conserving speech may have also been a deliberate philosophical choice; as historian Karl Otfried Müller speculated, “A habit of mind which might fit its possessor for such a mode of speaking, would best be generated by long and unbroken silence.” That is, if one wishes to make what he says count, he is forced to be more reflective before opening his mouth.
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The summer soldier was not accustomed to the sights, sounds, and hardships of war; their hands had not been calloused around the shaft of a spear; their backs had not gotten used to the weight of their armor; their eyes had not become inured to the sight of an advancing foe. Courage in these unfamiliar circumstances was a matter of trying to gin up a feeling — an emotion rallied in the supportive, rah-rah safety of one’s own line, and then utterly vaporized by contact with the enemy’s.
For the Spartans, courage was not a vulnerable and transitory state of mind, but the product of preparation and practice. In fact, they did not respect the solider who fought in an impassioned rage, believing such loud and belligerent posturing was used to hide one’s fear and lack of self-composure. Instead, they sought to embody the ethos of “the quiet professional” who simply sets out to do his job, and lives the classic motto voiced by coaches like Vince Lombardi: “Act like you’ve been there before.”
The courage of the Spartans was not born of feeling, but discipline.
It was not an emotion, but a habit.
Or as Pressfield observes in Gates of Fire, “War is work, not mystery.”
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The Spartan heading into battle didn’t save anything for the way back; he faced the enemy head on without thought of retreat. He lived the ethos embodied in the charge given him by his mother and wife as he left for battle: “Come back with your shield or on it.”
This, ultimately, was the Spartan way.
With it [your shield] or on it.
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….the reincarnation, so to speak, of Sparta
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