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| Spartans |
Here we’ll take an expansive, inspiring, and
thoroughly fascinating tour of the essential mindset and tactics that allowed
these warriors to battle fiercely and come out the victor and that are applicable
to every aspect of your life.
There Is Power in Appearance
Spartan men
not only had the skills and training to back up their reputation as formidable
warriors, they enhanced that reputation — and their efficacy on the battlefield
— by cultivating an external appearance that matched their internal prowess.
The
Spartans terrorized their enemy before they even got within spears’ length of
them. As they awaited the command to advance, they stood straight and
steady in formation, and everything from their clothes to their equipment
bespoke strength, discipline, and ferocity.
The clothing and equipment of the Spartan warrior worked to
his advantage in two ways: 1) it made the soldier himself feel more ferocious,
more invincible, more confident, and 2) it intimidated the living daylights out
of his foe.
The power of the Spartans’ appearance softened up the enemy
line before they even hit it, and added to a reputation for strength that
sometimes deterred enemies from even going to battle against them at all.
Always Perform a Pre-Battle Ritual
Before battle, Spartan warriors kept their nerves at bay by
staying busy with various tasks and physical rituals. In their youth, they had
memorized verses of the poet Tyrtaeus, which they recited to themselves and
sang and chanted as they marched on campaign. In the days prior to battle, they
exercised before breakfast, had further military instruction and training after
eating, and engaged in exercise and athletic competitions in the afternoon.
During moments of repose, the men dressed and groomed their hair, and polished
the brass exteriors of their shields.
When the time came to march on the enemy, the playing of a
flute allowed the Spartans to perfectly keep time, and as a result of this music,
as well as their other tension-reducing, courage-buoying rituals, they advanced
upon the enemy in a slow, steady procession, which only added to the
intimidation factor just described above.
A 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 Rahewrites, 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Endurance Is the Foundation of Strength
In phalanx
warfare, agility, cleverness, and speed were not as important as grit,
fortitude, and stamina — sheer endurance. The virtues most needed by a
Spartan warrior then were commitment, discipline, and the fortitude required to
stand one’s ground and grind it out. Courage was certainly needed, but not the
courage of intrepid boldness, but that which modern general George S. Patton
called “fear holding on a minute longer.”
The end sought
of Spartan training was an adaptability, a tolerance for pain and for changing,
challenging conditions — a mental toughness that bolstered physical
toughness, and vice versa. The aim was to inculcate the kind of strength
most needed by a Spartan warrior: that of being able to hold the line under
pressure. As Patton put it: “A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.”
Speak (and Think) Laconically
Achieve Mastery in Your Domain
The Spartans were more multi-dimensional than often
imagined: the polis was almost universally literate, excelled in music and
dance, produced sculptors, philosophers, and poets, and of course engaged in an
array of sports and athletics.
Nonetheless, they did undoubtedly give intense, relentless
focus to one area above all others: the development of martial skill and
virtue. This was the highest form of excellence — the domain in which every warrior
strove to achieve absolute mastery.
The Spartans did not dabble in warfare; it was the pursuit
around which all culture — education, relationships, politics — was structured
and disciplined.
Fight From Habit, Not Feeling
As a result of this extraordinary focus on mastering a
single domain — thirteen years of dedicated training, ten years of practice and
real-life execution as a full-time soldier, and decades more of martial
maintenance in the reserves — the ways of war become ingrained in the sinews of
a Spartan soldier. Pressfield
compares the preparation of this force with that of the militiamen mustered by
other city-states: “This process of arming for battle, which the
citizen-soldiers of other poleis had practiced no more than a dozen times a
year in the spring and summer training, the Spartans had rehearsed and
re-rehearsed, two hundred, four hundred, six hundred times each campaigning
season. Men in their fifties had done this ten thousand times. It was as
second-nature to them.”
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.
Conquer or Die
According
to Herodotus, the exiled Spartan king Demaratus gave an answer to Xerxes on the
eve of the battle, when the Persian “King of Kings” inquired as to how much
resistance to expect from the Greeks: “As for the Spartans, fighting each
alone, they are as good as any, but fighting as a unit, they are the best of
all men. They are free, but not completely free—for the law is placed over them
as a master, and they fear that law far more than your subjects fear you. And
they do whatever it orders—and it orders the same thing always: never to flee
in battle, however many the enemy may be, but to remain in the ranks and to
conquer or die.”
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.
