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Quote:There's an interesting aspect to that if you think about it Mark. The old apocryphal story, oft-repeated by TV historians, about the Spartan mother giving her son his shield and saying to him "return with it, or upon it" (taken from the Spartan sayings); we clearly know to be erroneous because Spartan warriors were buried where they fell (and not brought home) as a general rule. Therefore, the saying must be misapplied or just mistaken. But perhaps it meant return carrying your shield personally, or simply as a written memory scratched upon your shield for your family to honourably receive?
Interesting! I didn't see it from that perspective.
"With it, or (name written) on it" :?:
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Mark Hayes
"The men who once dwelled beneath the crags of Mt Helicon, the broad land of Thespiae now boasts of their courage"
Philiades
"So now I meet my doom. Let me at least sell my life dearly and have a not inglorius end, after some feat of arms that shall come to the ears of generations still unborn"
Hektor, the Iliad
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Quote:The old apocryphal story, oft-repeated by TV historians, about the Spartan mother giving her son his shield and saying to him "return with it, or upon it" (taken from the Spartan sayings); we clearly know to be erroneous because Spartan warriors were buried where they fell (and not brought home) as a general rule.
I've heard this a number times recently. I think Nigel Kennel wrote this in his new book, which I have yet to read. The problem I see with the arguement is that, while Spartans who died on a battlefield were buried there, Spartans who took an inconvieniently long time to die were not. Given that the majority of wounds delt and recieved by hoplites were most likely caused by penetration and not laceration, infection must have led to many a lingering death. These moribund individuals could have been carried back on convieniently serving platter shaped aspides- which oddly seem ot have hand-grips on both side of the shield that would also serve nicely. Even a tradition of such a thing happening in the long past could have accounted for the statement. Besides she never says he'll be dead on the shield.
Perhaps he was then buried in that cemetary that only men who die in battle and women in child birth are allowed in.
Paul M. Bardunias
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A Spartan, being asked a question, answered "No." And when the questioner said, "You lie," the Spartan said, "You see, then, that it is stupid of you to ask questions to which you already know the answer!"
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If your own hypothesis is true Paul, which it may well be, the meaning would shift from the mother expecting either a fit and healthy son returning OR a dead one - to expecting a fatally (or dreadfully) injured one as the alternative. That is not immediately quite so drastic/final a choice as the old saying is usually taken to mean. But who knows? And how many of these terminally wounded soldiers would have made it back to Sparta alive, on the long march (assuming it was not a local encounter)?
BTW - I have read the Kennell book, which I enjoyed, although there is not a lot that is new in it. Always worth reading another author's views though.
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Yes, quite possibly Robert.
The saying (translated) actually runs "Son, either with this or on this". Sarah B. Pomeroy speculates that the speaker may have been exhorting martyrdom (Spartan Women - Oxford University Press), but I think that is too big a jump. It was certainly one possibly feared or expected outcome, if perhaps hopefully not a desired one.
Plutarch's Sayings of Spartan Women has plenty of other quotes dealing with similar matters. Many were ascribed to famous Lakedaimonian ladies but we have no proof as to the original speaker in each case. What is remarkable is that (assuming they were from female lips in the first place) they were collected and collated at all. We have so little from ancient Greece when it comes to female thought and opinion. Spartan women were of course notoriously different from other Greek women, in so many ways.
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[size=75:2kpklzm3]Xerxes - "
What did the guy in the pass say?" ... Scout - "
Μολὼν λαβέ my Lord - and he meant it!!!"[/size]
8). Thanks for drawing my attention to it. There must be many people here who do not have an original copy of this fine work. I have only a photocopies of parts of it somewhere. I will be reserving my copy pronto and would advise anybody else with an interest in the Spartan Army to do likewise. That's the best news I have heard all week! :wink:
