Spartan Rules For Life - The Philosophy of Sparta

[Music] spartax what is your profession as philip ii of macedon was conquering greek city-states left and right sparta was left alone philip had achieved a crushing victory and sparta was relatively weak and without walls philip sent a message to the spartans saying if i invade laconia you will be destroyed never to rise again the spartans replied with one word if when someone asked why they visited disgrace upon those among them who lost their shields but did not do the same thing to those who lost their helmets or their breastplates the spartan king demaritus is said

to have replied because the latter they put on for their own protection but the shield for the common good of the whole line feel no fear before the multitude of men do not run in panic but let each man bear his shield straight towards the four fighters regarding his own life as hateful and holding the dark spirits of death as dear as the radiance of the sun [Music] xerxes wrote to him it is possible for you not by fighting against god but by ranging yourself to my side to be the sole ruler of greece but

he wrote in reply if you had any knowledge of the noble things in life you would refrain from coveting others possessions but for me to die for greece is better than to be the sole ruler over the people of my race when xerxes wrote again hand over your arms he wrote in reply come and take them herodotus reports that just before the battle of thermopylae a spartan warrior named dienekies was told that the persian archers could blank out the sun with their arrows he replied good then we shall have our battle in the shade [Music]

it was natural for spartan women to think and speak as gorgo the wife of leonidas is said to have done when some foreign lady as it would seem told her that the woman of lacademon were the only women of the world who could rule men with good reason she said for we are the only women who bring forth men an old man wandering around the olympic games looking for a seat was jeered at by the crowd until he reached the seat of the spartans whereupon every spartan younger than him and some that were older stood

up and offered him their seat the crowd applauded and the old man turned to them with a sigh saying all greeks know what is right but only the spartans do it let a man learn how to fight by first daring to perform mighty deeds not where the missiles won't reach if he is armed with a shield but getting in close where the fighting is hand to hand inflicting a wound with his long spear or sword taking the enemy's life with his foot planted alongside a foot and his shield pressed against shield and his crest up

against crest in his helm against helm and his breast against breast embroiled in the action let him fight man to man holding secure in his grasp half of his sword or spear [Music] rise up warriors take your stand at one another's sides our feet set wide and rooted like oaks in the ground learn to love death sinky black shadow as much as you love the light of dawn here is courage mankind's finest possession here is the noblest prize that a young man can endeavor to win [Music] the spartans are the equal of any men when

they fight as individuals fighting together as a collective they surpass all other men [Music] bias caught in an ambush by afiquities the athenian general and asked by his soldiers what was to be done said what else except for you to save your lives and for me to die fighting the walls of sparta were its young men and its borders the points of their spears [Music] in answer to the man who sought to know why the spartans used short daggers in war antarctis said because we fight close to the enemy [Music] for the spartans it wasn't

wolves or magnificent public buildings that made a city it was their own ideas in essence sparta was a city of the head and the heart and it existed in its purest form in the disciplined march of the hoplite phalanx on their way to war [Music] in sparta mothers were said to say to their sons as a warrior of sparta come back with your shield or on it [Music] asked what was the greatest benefit lycargis conferred on his countrymen king agasilos replied contempt of pleasure in answer to some of the citizens who desired to know how

can we keep off invasion by armies he said if you remain poor and no one of you desires to be more important than the other [Music] alexander the son of ubiquities when someone inquired why the spartans did not amass money in the public treasury so that those made guardians of it may not become corrupt [Music] as he permitted citizens to only engage in that kind of athletic contest in which the arm is not held up someone inquired what was the reason he replied so that no one of the citizens shall get the habit of crying

quits in the midst of hard struggle in answer to a man who raised the question how anyone could possibly rule in safety without the protection of a bodyguard agassicles said if one rules his subjects as fathers rule their sons [Music] when his brother said to teleklas that the citizens did not comport themselves towards himself as they did towards the king although they were of the same family but with much less consideration he said the reason is you do not know how to submit to injustice and i do when one of the elderly men said to

aegis in his old age inasmuch as he saw the good old customs falling into the sewer tube and other mischievous practices creeping in that for this reason everything was getting to be topsy turvy and sparta aegis said humorously things are then but following a logical course if that is what is happening for when i was a boy i used to hear from my father that everything was topsy-turvy among them and my father said that when he was a boy his father had said this to him so nobody ought to be surprised if conditions later are

worse than those earlier but rather wonder if they grow better or remain approximately the same uh [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] you