SPARTA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4560, 15 April 1942, Page 3

SPARTA

ITS RISE AND FALL FORERUNNER OF THE NAZIS EARLY EXAMPLE OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM

(By

f H.A.G.)

Perhaps no episode in the present war has so stimulated and inspired the world as the heroic resistance of the Greeks to the overwhelming might of Germany. There is an interesting sidelight on this simple historic fact. For five hundred years the chief bulwark of ancient Greece was the great military State of Sparta. By a remarkable coincidence the Spartan form of government and general way of living anticipated the principles of National Socialism by more than twenty-five centuries. But the Nazis, while displaying the same inhuman ruthlessness, have never revealed the sublimity of character and austerity of mind which lent a certain dignity to even the most brutal acts of their iron-hearted predecessors. Like the modern Germans, the ancient Spartans based the whole structure of their national policy upon the arrogant doctrine of racial superiority. They were the main branch of the mighty Dorians who swept down upon Greece like a whirlwind about the beginning of the last millenium before Christ. From the first they made no attempt to learn anything from the flourishing civilisation they overthrew, or to conciliate and pacify the people they subdued. Those who submitted at once were allowed to retain their freedom. They were subject to taxation, and also liable to military service, but they had no share in the government and no right of inter-marriage with the ruling caste. They became sailors, farmers, and traders, occupations that the Spartans despised thoroughly. Since they lived for the most part among the mountains or along the coast, they were known as the Perioeci or Dwellers-Around. FIRST SECRET POLICE But the more stalwart natives who had stubbornly resisted the invaders until they were crushed by superior force suffered a far more cruel fate. They were redudced to a state of serfdom similar to that imposed upon the conquered peoples in German-occupied Europe to-day. The main task of these Helots or slaves was to produce food for their masters, and they were not allowed to leave the domain to which they had been assigned. So intolerable was their position that they were constantly tempted to revolt. To keep them in subjection the Spartans organised a force of secret police, the infamous Crypteia, on the exact lines of the Nazi Gestapo. Its members roamed secretly over the countryside, spying upon the Helots, and eliminating those they thought most likely to cause trouble. So that the taint of murder might not attach to such “ purges,” a formal declaration of war was proclaimed against those wretched creatures by the State every year. The problem of keeping this large subject population under control was undoubtedly the dominant factor in Spartan history. Various estimates are given of the number of the citizen class. It is generally agreed that it never at any time exceeded 30,000 men, women, and children. Possibly 10,000 would be a more accurate figure. All authorities, however, agree that in proportion the Helots were eight or ten times more numerous than the Spartans. SPECTRE OF REVOLUTION The terrible spectre of revolution determined the essential character of the State. Up to the end of the seventh century the Spartans had advanced step by step with the other peoples of Greece in the arts of civilisation. Music'took a corporate form, and magnificent festivals of choral song and dance were held. Like the Nazi party rallies at Nuremberg, such occasions must have provided a very effective outlet and stimulus to patriotic sentiment. Sparta did not produce any great bards herself, but she was highly successful in attracting talent from abroad. Terpander of Lesbos, who increased the strings of the lyre from four to seven; Tyrtaeus from Attica, Thaletas from Crete, who developed that form of religious lyric called the Paean, and Aleman, from far-off Lydia, all found shelter and inspiration here. Then, about the close of the seventh century B.C-, the Spartans changed to a new and sterner way of life with startling and dramatic suddenness. The Messenian Wars practically doubled the number of Helots. The only way to repress such a vast population of bitterly discontented slaves was by making every citizen into a trained soldier ready to put down rebellion or wage war at a moment’s notice. To this end art and poetry, the pursuit of culture and comfort had to go, and thenceforward Sparta withdrew, in every sense but the poetical, from the history of civilisation. She had the

wolf by the throat, and she dared not relax her grasp. This early culture has survived only in a few broken fragments. Nearly all the architectural remains of historical Sparta that exist to-day belong to the Roman period. As Thucydides prophesied, she has bequeathed to posterity no indication of the greatness that was once hers. The only undying monument to her former power is the mighty range of Taygetus, which once formed a natural rampart .to the only unwalled city in ancient Greece. A THE STATE SUPREME Since the Spartans were thus reduced to the position of a garrison in hostile country, their whole way of living had to be geared to the business of War. This policy was followed with a total ruthlessness not surpassed in any modern dictatorship. Every detail of family life was subject to military regulations, and the interests of the individual were subordinated to the welfare of the nation in exact accordance with Nazi doctrine. Men were allowed to marry only when and whom the State saw fit. Even then they met their wives by stealth, since they were all soldiers living at the barracks and eating at the public tables. All children were subject at birth to a strict medical examination. Only those boys were allowed to live who were likely to make good soldiers, and only those girls who would become mothers of such men. The others were thrown over a precipice to die on the jagged rocks below. At the age of seven years boys and girls alike were taken from their families and brought up by the State just as the youthful Nazi is enlisted in the Hitler Jugend or the B.D.M. according to sex. Thenceforward the boys were subjected to the most rigorous physical training. To harden their bodies they were limited to a single garment a-piece; they were permitted to bathe only on special occasions, and they were forced to sleep on rushes cut from the river bank. The girls were subject to a similar discipline, but were allowed to take their meals at home. SPARTAN TRAINING “ Guns before butter ” was a maxim as rigidly observed in ancient Sparta as in modern Germany. To prepare the young Spartan for war he was deliberately kept on a low diet, and encouraged to satisfy his hunger by poaching and pilfering. According to an Athenian lampoon he lived on nothing but the celebrated black soup. This is certainly an exaggeration, but it at least gives point to the cynical remark that “ no wonder the Spartans were so eager to die for their country since anything would have been better than living in it.” . Such training'was obviously calculated to produce and develop all the war-like virtues—courage, loyalty, devotion to duty, and self-restraint- “ Return with your shield or on it ” was the farewell injunction bestowed by every Spartan mother on her soldier son, and this advice was invariably obeyed. So high was their military reputation that when a contingent of Spartans surrendered to the Athenians at Sphacteria the other Greeks refused to believe the news as preposterious and inconceivable. Even after the terrible defeats at Leuctra and Mantinea, where the might of Sparta had been irretrievably crushed, and the Thebans advanced upon the unwalled city to complete the work of destruction, they looked into the streets and saw these indomitable warriors standing to arms before Itheir temples and their homes. But they only looked—and remembered more pressing business elsewhere. On the other hand, this discipline encouraged that hide-bound conservatism and narrow exclusiveness which ruined Sparta, partly through declining to supplement the dwindling warrior caste by extending the privileges of citizenship to the conquered peoples, partly through refusing to learn anything new in the art of warfare. Thick skulls as well as stout hearts dwelt in the shadow of Taygetus, and even Spartan valour collapsed when Epaminondas and his Thebans confronted it with superior tactics. It was one of the great tragedies of history that this rude military power, posing as the liberator of Greece, was to trample underfoot the glory of Athens in the long Peloponnesian war.