Spring always reminds me that it’s almost summer and summer reminds me that I should be getting into some sort of acceptable shape for the hiking, swimming, and suitcase hauling that lie ahead.

I was raised an athlete and ran sprints for as long as my crooked feet would carry me. I continued to work out in some form or another long after I stopped running sprints, but five years ago it all abruptly and completely stopped.

Was it all those years spent in the gym and on the track?  Was it boredom?  Probably both, but all I can say for certain is that apart from my weekly yoga classes,and a few laps in the pool every now and then, my workouts consist of the walking I’ve been doing since I gave up driving my car last May.

I’m loathe to return to the gym.  Endorphins-enshmorphins, I’d rather read a good book.  But even if I read Dickens until the cows came home, the most it would do is give my sore eyes a workout.  Exercise, I must.

To get my work-out mojo flowing, I’ve been channelling the Spartans to lead the way.  If you ever feel like you need guidance in discipline, I suggest a good read on the Spartans.  You’ll wonder what the hell you’ve been doing with your life.

So I thought I’d do some posts on the Spartans to remind myself that every path requires sacrifice in one form or another.

I had a hard time motivating myself to even write this post, because I knew that a work-out would be waiting for me at the end of it — that’s how bad it is.

To kick things off, I’ll begin with everyone’s favorite Spartan — Leonidas — and the 300 men who followed him in search of a beautiful death in history’s greatest last stand — the battle of Thermopylae.

The Road to Thermopylae

In August or September of 480 BC, Leonidas, leader of Sparta, set off with 300 Spartans to meet an invading Persian army at Thermopylae, translated as “Hot Gates” and named after the sulphurous hot springs that still percolate in the area.

The 300 men who accompanied Leonidas were hand picked by him to serve in an elite unit known as “Hippeis”–the king’s personal bodyguards.  The unit was comprised of the best Spartan warriors who were held in the highest esteem by their fellow citizens.  The Hippeis was usually made up of battle-hardened veterans in their 20’s and 30’s, but for the rendezvous with the Persians, Leonidas ordered that only men with living sons would accompany him  – thereby guaranteeing that their bloodline would not be extinguished with death on the battlefield.

The Oracle of Delphi had prophesied that Sparta would be conquered and left in ruins or one of her two hereditary kings, descendant of Hercules, would have to sacrifice his life to defend her.  Since Leonidas could not take enough men to ensure a victory, he was convinced they were marching into certain death.

At this time of year the Spartans, de facto military leaders of the Greek alliance, were celebrating the festival of Carneia. During the Carneia, military activity was forbidden by Spartan law; the Spartans had arrived too late at the Battle of Marathon because of this requirement. It was also the time of the Olympic Games, and therefore the Olympic truce, and thus it would have been doubly sacrilegious for the whole Spartan army to march to war. On this occasion, the ephors (Spartan officials) decided the urgency was sufficiently great to justify an advance expedition to block the pass at Thermopylae. This expedition was to try and gather as many other allied troops along the way as possible, and to await the arrival of the main Spartan army.

En route to Thermopylae, the Spartan force was reinforced by contingents from various cities and numbered more than 5,000 by the time it arrived at the pass. Leonidas chose to camp at, and defend, the narrowest part of the pass, the middle gate  where the Phocians had built a defensive wall against invaders from Thessaly some time before. Upon arrival, the Greek forces began reconstructing the wall, which was in a state of disrepair.

News also reached Leonidas, by locals from the nearby city of Trachis, that there was a mountain track which could be used to outflank the pass.  In response, Leonidas stationed 1,000 Phocians on the heights to prevent such a maneuver.

Perhaps the greatest controversy relative to the Battle of Thermopylae is the issue dealing with the number of warriors Herodotus claimed comprised the Persian army.  Herodotus put the number at 2.5 million, other historians have suggested numbers between 200,00 to 4 million.  The confusion stems partly from decimal points, but one thing is certain — the Greeks were vastly outnumbered.  The pass at Thermopylae was chosen as the battle site because, at only 50 ft. wide,  it would allow a small contingent of fighters to hold off a vastly greater army.

When the Persians entered the pass, they sent a mounted scout to reconnoiter. The Greeks allowed him to come up to the camp, observe them, and depart. When the scout reported to the Persian leader, Xerxes, the size of the Greek force and that the Spartans were indulging in calisthenics and combing their long hair, Xerxes found the reports laughable. Seeking the counsel of an exiled Spartan in his employ, Demaratus, Xerxes was told not to underestimate them — the Spartans were preparing for battle and that it was their custom to adorn their hair beforehand.

Xerxes remained incredulous. According to another account, he sent emissaries to the Greek forces. At first, he asked Leonidas to join him by offering the kingship of all Greece. Leonidas answered: “If you knew what was valuable in life, you wouldn’t covet what is not yours. For me it is better to die for Greece than to rule over my compatriots.”

Then Xerxes asked him more forcefully to surrender their arms. To this Leonidas gave his famous answer: “Come and get them.”

Despite their extremely disproportionate numbers, Greek morale was high. Herodotus writes that when Dienekes, a Spartan soldier, was informed that Persian arrows would be so numerous as “to blot out the sun”, he remarked with characteristically laconic prose, “So much the better, we shall fight in the shade.”

Day One

Xerxes waited four days for the Greek force to disperse. On the fifth day he ordered the Medes and the Cissians to take the Greeks prisoner and bring them before him.  According to Ctesias, the first wave numbered 10,000 soldiers.

The Medes soon found themselves in a frontal assault. The Greeks had camped on either side of the rebuilt Phocian wall. That the wall was guarded shows that the Greeks were using it to establish a reference line for the battle, but they fought in front of it.

The Greeks deployed in a phalanx, a wall of overlapping shields and layered spearpoints spanning the entire width of the pass. Herodotus says that the units from each state were kept together and that Leonidas rotated the fighters so that fresh troops would always be at the forefront.  The Persians, armed with arrows, wicker sheilds, and short spears, could not break through the long spears of the phalanx, nor were their lightly armoured men a match for the superior armour, weaponry, and discipline of the Spartans.

The Greeks also used a maneuver in which they pretended to retreat in disorder only to turn suddenly and attack the pursuing Medes. In this way they killed so many Medes that Xerxes is said to have started up off the seat from which he was watching the battle three times. According to Ctesias, the first wave was “cut to ribbons” with only two or three Spartans dead.

The king eventually withdrew the Medes. Having taken the measure of the enemy, he threw the best troops he had into a second assault: the Immortals, an elite corps of 10,000 men.  The Immortals were the Spartans heralded counterparts in the Persian army.  As the name implied, an aura of invincibility surrounded this unit.

But as frightening and disciplined as the Immortals were,  they found, as had the Medes and others before them, that in the confines of the pass their numbers were a hindrance rather than a help.  Strategically speaking, the width of the pass was of paramount importance since it negated the strength of the Persian army.  Once again their shorter spears could not penetrate the formidable bristling line of the Greeks, nor their arrows pierce the great bronze shields.

As countless wars have shown, courage is not enough.  Against superior weaponry even the bravest fall, and when those better weapons were wielded by men whose whole life had been nothing but a preparation for war, the outcome was inevitable.

Xerxes had to withdraw the Immortals and the first day of battle probably ended there.

Day Two

On the second day, the Persian assault failed again. Bodies lay everywhere and the battle took place over the dead and dying. The wall of bodies must have broken up the Persian line and detracted from their morale. Climbing over the bodies, they could see that they had stepped into a killing machine but were prevented from withdrawing by the officers in the rear. Xerxes at last stopped the assault and withdrew to his camp, totally perplexed. He now knew that a head-on confrontation against Spartan-led troops in a narrow pass was the wrong approach.

Late on the second day of battle, as the king was pondering what to do next, he received a windfall: a Malian Greek traitor named Ephialtes informed him of the mountain path around Thermopylae and offered to guide the Persian army through the pass.

Last Stand at Thermopylae

At daybreak on the third day, the Phocians guarding the path above Thermopylae became aware of the outflanking Persian column and retreated to a nearby hill to make their stand (assuming that the Persians had come to attack them). However, not wishing to be delayed, the Persians gave them a volley of arrows before passing by to continue with their encirclement of the main Allied force.

The Greek position at Thermopylae, despite being massively out-numbered, was near-impregnable. If the position had been held for even slightly longer, the Persians may have had to retreat for lack of food and water.

None of the Persians’ actions surprised Leonidas. From a variety of sources, he was kept appraised of their movements and received intelligence of the Persian outflanking movement before first light.  When he learned that the Phocians had not held, Leonidas called a council of war at dawn. Some of the Greeks argued for withdrawal, Leonidas and the Spartans had pledged themselves to fight to the death.

After the council, most of the Greek forces chose to withdraw (without orders), or were ordered to leave by Leonidas (Herodotus admits that there is some doubt about which actually happened). The contingent of 700 Thespians, led by their general, refused to leave with the other Greeks but committed themselves to the fight and cast their lot with the Spartans. Also present were the 400 Thebans, and probably the helots that had accompanied the Spartans.

At dawn Xerxes made libations. He paused to allow the Immortals sufficient time to descend the mountain and then ordered the advance.

Knowing that death was imminent, the Greeks gave up the phalanx and charged forth from the wall to meet the Persians in the wider part of the pass in an attempt to slaughter as many Persians as they could before dying. They fought with spears until every spear was shattered and then switched to xiphoi (short swords).  The Spartans and Greeks who were left without weapons continued to fight with their hands and teeth.

Leonidas died in the assault, and the two sides fought over his body, with the Spartans taking possession.

As the Immortals approached, the Allies withdrew and took a stand on Kolonos Hill, behind the wall. The Thebans deserted to the Persians and Xerxes later had them branded with the royal mark.

Tearing down part of the wall, Xerxes ordered the hill surrounded, and the Persians rained down arrows until every last Greek was dead.

Aftermath

When the body of Leonidas was recovered by the Persians, Xerxes, in a rage at the loss of so many of his soldiers, ordered that the head be cut off and the body crucified. The Persians had the habit of treating enemies that fought bravely against them with great honor, but Xerxes was given to fits of rage.

Two Spartans survived the battle of Thermopylae:

Pantites, who was sent away from the battle by Leonidas on a diplomatic mission to enlist the services of the other Greek city-states. He later hanged himself because of the shame and the dishonor bestowed upon him by his fellow Spartans who thought he had loitered long enough not to engage in battle; and Aristodemus, who suffered a severe eye inflammation that incapacitated him and was ordered back to Sparta with the retreating forces. He was labeled ‘The Trembler’ for not having fought and died with his fellow Spartans. Aristodemus’ redemption came when he stood in the front line of the phalanx at the Battle of Plataea, broke ranks and killed numerous Persians before dying.

With the pass opened, the Persians poured into Greece, burning and sacking cities on their way to the now-deserted Athens, which they burned to the ground.  When the battle moved to the sea, most of the Persian fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Salamis and Xerxes, fearful that his army would be trapped in Europe, retreated back to Asia leaving just a hand-picked force to complete conquest the following year.

Nine months later, the Persians and Greeks (outnumbered 3 to 1, including the entire Spartan army) met once again in battle on the open terrain of Plataea, where the Greeks trounced the Persians and finally ended the invasion of Greece.

The Spartans that died during the Battle of Thermopylae were buried on the hill where they fell, including Leonidas. A stone lion was erected to commemorate Leonidas, however, the custom was to return Spartan kings home for burial. Forty years after the battle, Leonidas’ body was returned to Sparta where he was buried again with full honors and funeral games were held every year in his memory.

What Victory Means

While the battle was technically won by the Persians, it was a great moral victory for the Greeks. It served to rally many Greek city states which, until that point, were wavering as to which side to support.  More importantly, Thermopylae served to demonstrate Spartan resolve and courage against overwhelming odds.

Throughout the centuries, Thermopylae has served as an inspiring example  of what a small group of disciplined, tenacious free men are capable of accomplishing when country and freedom are at stake.

Some argue that it may have changed the course of western civilization.

At the very least, it begs the question:  What are you willing to sacrifice?

“Go tell the Spartans,

stranger passing by,

that here, obedient to their laws, we lie”

-- epigram at Thermopylae

© 2010, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Photos and text are copyright protected.

Emboldened by their new prosperity, prestige, and power, Pericles and the Athenians began to pursue empire.  Despite their protestations to the contrary, they began to treat their allies as their subjects.  Ideologically committed to their own form of radical democracy, they saw it as their mission and their right to foster, or if necessary to force, this democracy on their sister states.

You either supported Athens, or you braced yourself to be her enemy.

Sparta rightfully saw Athens as a threat and came to realize that the two of them – Athens and Sparta – were on a collision course.  Their suspicions were confirmed when the Athenian Assembly declared war on Sparta and the Peloponnese after an impassioned speech by Pericles.

At the same time, the political enemies of Pericles sought to erode his power and topple him by attacking those closest to him.  His friend Phidias, ancient Athens’ greatest sculptor and the man for whom the golden mean was named, was thrown in jail for embezzlement and died not long after.  The philosopher Anaxagoras was indicted for teaching that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal, and not a god, and for treasonable correspondence with Persia.  Anaxagoras was condemned to death, but was saved through the intervention of Pericles.  Aspasia was also put on trial, then saved by Pericles.

Pericles’ meticulous plan to defeat Sparta took account of everything, except that which can never be taken into account.  One year after the start of the war, the plague entered Athens. It spread through the over-crowded city like wildfire, taking 20,000 lives in the first outbreak.

Pericles’ two legitimate sons from his first marriage died within a week of each other, and the Athenians saw their stoic leader cry in public.

Pericles himself died of the plague during the third year of the Peloponnesian war and the glory that was Athens died with him.

The democracy was left prey to hostile factions and reckless leaders who pursued their own advantage.  Traditional warfare in Greece was brutal but brief.  A battle might last only hours or even minutes.  When one side yielded the field, the other side declared victory, erected a trophy, and collected its dead.  The practical aim of war was to bring the enemy to submission, whereas in the Peloponnesian war – through the leadership of inferior men – the aim became to annihilate the enemy.  Any line between warriors and innocents, between young and old, was ignored.  War became indistinguishable from atrocity.

The Peloponnesian War lasted nearly 30 years, and in the end Athens lost everything.  Her prosperity and democracy, her people and her principles had all been fed to the consuming ache for empire.  The Golden Age of Athens was over, and the Greek world from Sicily to Asia Minor was devastated.

The Spartans sacked Athens, tore down its city walls, destroyed the fortifications of its port, Piraeus, and all but 12 warships were surrendered.  Athens was henceforth to be a Spartan ally and to follow the same foreign policy. Persia was finally allowed to establish an influence in Greece, something it had not succeeded in doing during all the military battles of the last century.

The future of Greece lay to the north.  The torch of empire, which eventually consumes every hand that grasps it, was passed to a young boy named Alexander, tutored by Aristotle, who is said to have slept with the Iliad under his pillow.

 (parts excerpted from Ancient Greece: an Explorer's Guide)

© 2009, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Photos and text are copyright protected.

That's Sparta to you, baby.

I’ve been here before.

About eight years ago, I was on my way from Delphi to Ancient Olympia and had to change buses in Sparta.  I’d read that New Sparta wasn’t much to look at and this is quite true–its a dirty, concrete block,  grid-city with insufferable traffic and too many stores selling cheap goods.

Modern Spartans bear no relation or lineage to the iron-willed invincibles who came before them and who earned the right to be called a Spartan by shedding blood.  Ancient Spartans were barred by law from  trade or manufacture and led lives of discipline, self-denial, simplicity, and let’s not forget– brutality.  Their way of life discouraged the accumulation of riches and the discipline of the phalanx demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades.

Modern Sparta is sluggish, indulgent, spendthrift and focused on commerce…Leonidas is turning over in his grave.

Leonidas

His tomb.

After centuries of dirt and earth accumulating over the paths once trod by warriors in red cloaks, King Otto of Greece decided to rebuild the abandoned city in 1834.  Ancient Sparta lies buried beneath a lackluster town that whispers nothing of its former glory.  Yet, maybe this is as it should be.  Unlike Athens, Sparta wasn’t a top tourist destination in the ancient world anymore than it is today.

Ancient Sparta saw no need for towers or grand structures to impress visitors.  Its distance from the sea, along with the natural barriers formed by mountains in the east and west made a sudden attack unlikely.  For centuries it was madness for any rival to willingly meet a Spartan warrior in battle.  The citizens of Sparta were the city’s wall and its glory; their city could not have been more impregnable if it were encased in stone.

As long as you keep all this in mind when you visit Sparta, and take a walk 200 meters from the center, you won’t be disappointed.

The ruins of Ancient Sparta lie just outside the modern city center.  If you have a keen imagination and can pick up the essence of what once was, you won’t be disappointed.

Even if you just love olive trees, you won’t be disappointed.  When I visited the site I was the only person walking among the ruins; just me, the crickets, groves of olive trees, a few crumbling ruins, and a vivid imagining of what came before me.

Acropolis and theatre of Ancient Sparta, with olive grove, New Sparta and Taygetos Mtns in background.

If you don’t fit any of the above, you’ll be disappointed.

Brutal Diana and her Whipping Boys:

I’d always thought of the goddess Artemis (or Diana to the Romans) as a Goddess On The Go.  She’s the huntress and was always sculpted as if she were about to take flight, flimsy tunic fluttering behind her.  She’s also the goddess of fruitfulness and childbirth and I think it is so appropriate that my sister was named after her, seeing as how she had a bunch of children and all. (4)

Sanctuary to Artemis Orthia

Apparently the ancients sought to honor another aspect of Artemis–Artemis Orthia–through some horrifyingly brutal practices.  The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia was where Sparta’s infamous whipping contests were held in honor of the goddess.  In these barbaric “games”, adolescent boys, uncomplainingly and urged on by their families, leaned against the altar and underwent diamastigosis or public flogging.  There are accounts of boys perishing on the altar but this is a point of debate among modern scholars as many believe Sparta had too few soldiers to spare. The boys were expected to keep a Spartan silence throughout the entire ritual, and most of them would have chosen death rather than fail this test in front of their parents.  Those who remained standing in the end were rewarded as altar victors.

It boggles the mind and goes against every natural and protective instinct a parent would normally possess, but this was Sparta.

© 2009, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved. Photos and text are copyright protected.