Reply With QuoteAnd then he was kicked into a hole, obviously.
The fate of cowards in ancient Sparta
Spartans considered a coward the person who 1) retreated without a command about a tactical maneuver in combat, 2)the deserter and 3) the one who was captured alive by the enemy.
Due to the Spartan fighting tactics where every soldier who responsible to cover his fellow soldier ,one act of cowardliness or deserting could lead to severe complications in actual combat. Thus the penalties were quite severe:
The coward lost all his civil rights.
He was not accepted in the Syskoinia , the joint military camp comprised by the various tends.
Ηe was not accepted in gymnasiums and related activities.
He was not accepted to the Apella , the assembly of Spartan citizens.
His wife was forced by law not to live with him or have any intercourse with him.
He could be lawfully beaten in every moment by any citizen who wanted to abase him without the right to seek justice in court.
The other citizens never spoke to him..
Every time he was meeting another citizen in the street he was obliged to move aside letting this citizen pass.
He was obliged to give his seat anywhere if another citizen asked for it , even if this citizen was younger than him.
He was not allowed to take care of his appearance and take care of his hair. Ιt's known that the Spartans were meticulously took care their long hair especially before any battle so they would be presentable in Hades in case of death.
And then he was kicked into a hole, obviously.
I'd run from those giant trolls too.
So go tell the Spartans better not to be cowards.
Btw, the Spartans ended up as a tourist attraction for elderly romans.
Did they make him put on a dress and suck his thumb?
Spartans also canceled his bus pass and people frequently flatulated in his general direction.
Could you tell more about this one?Originally Posted by JCR
That is really bad...His wife was forced by law not to live with him or have any intercourse with him.
Diamastigosis, once a ritual became a spectacle. An amphitheatre had to be built in the 3rd century to accommodate the tourists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpartaDuring the Roman conquest, Spartans continued their way of life, and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs.
As Tercio said.
Sparta, like Athens, never really "ended" until the advent of christianity.
They de jure remained free city states, but de facto part of the Roman Empire.
However they basically lived off their own past as Athens attracted young men to "study" (usually meaning parties, hookers and gay ***, not unlike today) and Sparta was known for its ancient rituals and great music, especially choirs, as Spartans allowed women to sing, in contrary to the rest of Greece.
So the traditions went on long after they had lost any practical meaning and were only banned when christian emperors banned all pagan rituals in Greece.
And as there was a lot of tourism by romans to Greece, a stop for any self-resp
So they were metrosexual.
Cowards also weren't allowed to work on their abs or wear Axe body spray...
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I don't know much about Greece specifically, but in many cases when Christian emperors got around to banning stuff it was already long since out of fashion.
Such as Egypt, where Christian emperors ordered the temples to the Egyptian gods closed down...but by that point there were only a handful of temples and priests in Egypt in that venerated the old gods.
As Greece became Christianized, great cultural shifts took place that were not brought about by force, as Greece began to see itself and be seen as Eastern rather than Western.
Overall though the continuance of Greek rituals in peaceful, bucolic Roman Greece is really interesting. Read Pausanias for example, who made a tourist guide of Greece and describes a land with a massive tourist industry built around ancient monuments, historic sites, ruins, art, the Olympics, artifacts and historic objects that allegedly belonged to Trojan War heroes, etc. Basically like a large section of the Greek economy today.
You mean Axinē ?
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