\'Gates of Fire\' By Steven Pressfield

[PMBardunias]

Why would they all speak in shakspearean prose?

Its not a question of them speaking in prose- that would be antithetical to a Spartan reguardless of the depth of his vocabulary. My problem is not simply with the cursing, but the feel of the interplay between Spartans. He obviously modelled them after the type "barracks" interactions so often portrayed in modern war movies.

Spartans inculcated a very specific speech pattern. We still call this laconic speech. They sought to use the fewest words to convey the most meaning. My favorite example of this is the story of the spartan answer to Phillip and alexander when they threatened invasion- stating that if they came to Sparta they would level the place and sell them as slaves..blah..blah..blah... The reply was simply "If". Of course they never went. There are many of these, and though most are surely apocraphal, they bely the truth of the spartan attitude.

I don't think anything like this exists in our modern world. They probably would not have cursed in the way we do. (being from NY originally I often use the "F" word as a conjunction or in the odd construct like: Un-f...ing-believable and For-f...ing-get about it!). It would be a waste of words. There would be no reason to say "we killed the f...ing Persian F...ers". They would have simply saidersians, dead. Ross was just telling me about a headstone in Sparta that simply read "Dead, in war."

I think the closest thing you will see to their affectation would be to watch the movie Zulu and see Michael Caine and that Sergent's attitude. There must be a term for such cold-blooded calm in the face of danger, but being a spartan I do not know it. :wink: