III. Literacy of the Spartans

The Spartans were literate. And they were studying reading and writing not only for everyday life's need...

It would be daring to say that Spartan men were speaking in words of high style fluently and understanding the subtleties of writing and philosophy, but numerous documents testify to the existence of "Lacedaemonian Records"... To be more precise - "Lycurgus Lacedaemonian" dating back to IX-VIII B.C.



This text recommended to each citizen of Sparta "before wishing of democracy throughout the country try to set it in your own house"... Herodotus was using "Lycurgus" when he was making the complete list of the Spartan Kings. It is through this document historian could claim later that he knows by name every soldier who died in the Battle of Thermopylae... Without exception, all the ancient authors who wrote about Sparta also point to Spartans' treating the oracles with reverent... All of oracles' sacred texts was kept in the royal archives, and the contents kept secret. Duration of documents' keeping had no time limit. Each testimony ought to be kept with care, and when it became decrepit, or, by some reason, worthlessness, it ought to be restored...

IV. Music, singing, theater, circuse...

According to the "Ancient Spartan Customs" it was considered that singing and music were ment to elevate the spirit and thought of a man and help him to win the fight. Lycurgus' reforms entailed familiarizing of army to the music... Since that moment the music was intended not only for marches, but and for military training, calling for unity, courage and to scorn for death...

The march was accompanying by flutists, playing and during the battle, encouraging the warriors.



Plutarch mentions that the first sacrifice made by the King before the battle should be done in order to ask the Muses to accomplish the soldiers with courage for the feat of arms. Right during the march men was singing the paeans to glory of fallen warriors and mere people who lived their lives with honor, these songs were telling about how beautiful are the valours, accompanying every human age, and how shamefully it is - to escape the battlefield and consign the honor and fellowship to oblivion...

The Art of Making Music was a sacred ritual for the Spartans... Those who tried to digress from the cannon waited severe punishment.

Customs and the way of Spartan life were amazingly simple and the habit of it made them uncompromising to all sorts of excesses and fiction. They do not take a theater, believed that it distorts the essence of the sacred rituals, making them either as a joke (comedy) or fantasy (tragedy). It seemed to them the vulgarization of simplicity and purity of thought and sincerity of expression of their feelings.

However, there was the "circuses" in Sparta... But it was a pageants or force and hardiness contests.



In "pre-war" conditions, the competitions changed with military training. In the hard times Spartans were losing the interest in Olympic victories and were looking for "non-Olympic" types of contests.