Warum war das Leben eines spartanischen Kriegers eigentlich beschissen?
Uh, mal sehen, ob ich das noch aus dem Kopf zusammenbekomme.
Du bist acht Jahre alt und wirst deinen Eltern weggenommen und außerhalb der Stadt jahrelang gedrillt.
Kleidung ist für Weicheier.
Hungern und frieren, während du aufwächst, ist die Norm.
Die Wahl haben? Guter Witz. Du bist Spartaner, also bist du Krieger. Keine Ausnahme. Für den ganzen Rest sorgen die Heloten.
Du hast dich bis zum 20. Lebensjahr durchgebissen. Glückwünsch. Du bist volljährig. Das feiern wir damit, dass wir dich losschicken Heloten zu töten. Also die Leute, von denen du die letzten 12 Jahre Essen geklaut hast, um überhaupt mal einen vollen Magen du haben. Unter den Heloten sorgt das für genug Terror, um sie von lästigen Gedanken wie "Freiheit" oder "Aufstand" Abstand nehmen zu lassen. Bloß nicht von Mitgefühl behindern lassen!
Okay, du hast dich bis ins Erwachsensein gehungert, gefroren und dann auch getötet. Aber bist du nun ein Bürger? Hahaha. Natürlich nicht. Warte mal noch zehn Jahre. Mitreden darfst du erst, wenn du dreißig bist.
Immerhin, du darfst heiraten. Oft sehen wirst du deine Frau zwar nicht, aber es geht ja in erster Linie darum, Kinder zu bekommen. Und großzuziehen. Darum kümmert sich deine Frau. Also … für acht Jahre.
Die Frau wählen? Joa, schon. Aber, sagen wir, man wird die einen nachdrücklichen Vorschlag machen. Immerhin sollt ihr euch ja auch nicht unterhalten oder so, sondern Kinder bekommen.
Dein Leben besteht aus:
Training
Krieg
Heloten terrorisieren
Kinder zeugen
Dein Militärdienst endet mit deinem Tod oder dem 60. Lebensjahr.
Ausführlicher beschrieben wird das Leben in Sparta in diesen zwei Vorlesungen der Universität Yale:
CLCV 205 - Lecture 8 - Sparta
Introduction to Ancient Greek History CLCV 205 - Lecture 8 - Sparta Chapter 1. Theorizing Why the Hoplite Phalanx Was Not Adopted by Others [00:00:00] Professor Donald Kagan: Before I start on today’s topic, which is Greek tyranny, I have been asked to say a word on the subject — well, to answer the question really best I can, if the hoplite phalanx was so stunningly successful in the period of the sixth, fifth, fourth centuries B.C., why was it that other peoples, other than the Greeks, the ones who came in contact with them and saw it and were victimized by it, why didn’t they adopt it? Well, let me make it perfectly clear like all the other interesting questions in this course, I cannot give you a firm answer. I can only give you opinions. But that whole subject now is so wonderfully more controversial than it was probably ever before in history, because everything now in history that bears on the western world and its relations with some other world is part of a great political assault by those people who are eager to pull down anything that seems to be admirable or special, or positive about the West. And needless to say, they say that it really was bad or to say wasn’t so terrific, or it didn’t exist. So, that’s the context in which, not the students’ question, but the larger question is getting kicked around these days. Well, I think part of the reason for unhappiness about it is that I think the answer lies in the character precisely of the polis . The fact that it had an ethos, a set of values, which placed so powerfully at the center of the minds of the citizens, the notion that the combination of courage in a military setting which was the inheritance of Homer and the new ideology of devotion to the polis as the most important kind of commitment that a citizen could have. This produced an attitude which was that it was the job of a man who was a citizen of a polis , beyond anything else, to fight bravely in the ranks of his army. As it happened, they developed — I think this latter part of the story, is simply accidental — they happened to develop this technique which employed the weapons and defensive armor that they had and then because they had those things, and because this ethos was present, it was possible to put together this fighting unit which was the phalanx which depended so enormously heavily upon the commitment to the commonality, to the common cause that was characteristic of the polis . Now, every state of every kind, every people, and every tribe has some degree of this kind of commitment to one another or else they wouldn’t exist as a unit. But there are really very sharp differences of degree in terms of how powerfully this commitment really affects people. You would find in the same people, at different times in their history, the power of this idea and this commitment and it’s beyond an idea somehow. It’s sort of really bred and trained into the bones of every Greek man in the polis beginning sometime, I would say,
https://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-8
CLCV 205 - Lecture 9 - Sparta (cont.)
Introduction to Ancient Greek History CLCV 205 - Lecture 9 - Sparta (cont.) Chapter 1. An Introduction to Sparta and Its Roots [00:00:00] Professor Donald Kagan: Well, as we continue with our investigation of the emergence and development of the polis , we come to the polis — just to use its proper name in Greek, Lacedaemon, and that is the proper Greek name for it, but the capital city of it was Sparta and its people were called Spartans. So, it’s okay to keep talking about Sparta and Spartans. Now, when you come to Sparta you are coming to a polis that you almost want to spell it in capital letters with stars between them. It’s like the polis lifted to a new level in the sense of all the sort of theoretical elements and psychological elements that go into creating a polis is intensified in Sparta to such a degree that it seems to be almost a different thing. And it’s important to remember that the other Greeks felt that way too. Sparta had a special place in their minds, in their imaginations. They admired the Spartans very, very much, because the Spartans carried to this extreme degree the feeling that the polis was the center of a Greek man’s life, and that it had the virtues that were associated with the polis to an extraordinary degree. Now, they admired it very, very much but they didn’t admire it so much they were ready to live like the Spartans, because the price was very high indeed. One other thing to remember as we take a look at the way the Spartans lived was that they became a sort of a model for the philosophers who came along in the late fifth and into the fourth century. I mean especially Plato and Aristotle, who certainly had some criticisms of the real Sparta that existed, but who modeled their notions of ideal poleis on Sparta with the variations that they wished to introduce. So, it’s worthwhile, and of course — it’s added to these ideas and feelings about the Spartans, there is the fact that Sparta would emerge in the sixth century as the most powerful of the poleis and the first leader of a lasting alliance of states with the Spartans as the leading power among them, the first international organization you might say if you were speaking loosely, so that there is a practical aspect to it. The Spartans became the most powerful and most important state in Greece, right down to and including, the Persian Wars. Well, first I guess, we ought to take a look at how Sparta got to be what it ultimately became and once again I have to say that all we can do is to reason from very limited evidence, better than what we’ve had up to now, but still mostly from written evidence that comes from a time after the facts we are talking about, practically no contemporary evidence, although we do have a bit and the archaeological remains that we do have and then reason from that. Well, of course, that kind of reasoning leads to controversy and there are different opinions about all these things. Again, what I will be attempting to pass on to you
https://oyc.yale.edu/classics/clcv-205/lecture-9