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Quote of the Day: The Laconic Phrase
“If.” — The Spartans to Philip II of Macedon
Where ancient Athens loved beauty, Sparta loved austerity. They punished their bodies to prepare for war. They reviled opulence, figuring the poorer their city-state, the less likely it would be attacked. Their staple dish was black broth, a revolting concoction made of blood and boiled pigs’ legs. They even refused to build city walls for protection; defensive postures should be left to the effete Athenians.
This austerity extended even to words. While Athens wrote plays and philosophized ad nauseam, Sparta valued action over talk. The less a warrior spoke, the better, and thus was created the laconic phrase. Named for their home province of Lacedaemonia, these quips were blunt, terse, and often mysterious. Best to keep your enemies guessing.
Many laconic phrases were highlighted in the film 300. As Xerxes faced the small army at Thermopylae, he ordered the Spartans to surrender their weapons. Their reply was “come and get them.” The Persian warned that their arrows were so numerous, they would blot out the sun. “Then we shall fight in the shade,” the Spartans said.
More than a century after that famous stand, Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s dad) prepared to conquer all the Greeks. Most city-states simply gave up, but Sparta ignored the growing threat. This annoyed Philip, so he sent a messenger to Lacedaemonia with a dire warning:
“You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army on your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.”
Sparta focused on just one word in that threat and made the following reply:
“If.”
Philip decided the headache wasn’t worth it. Both he and Alexander focused on conquering the whole known world but avoided the city without walls.
Published in General
This might also be a reference to the Spartan Shields, which were impenetrable to Persian arrows:
The front rank would kneel behind their shields, and the rear ranks would cover the heads with their shields, effectively blocking the sun.
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@vectorman, I liked Jon’s version, but yours was even better.
@johngabriel , I liked this version, but yours was even better.
A record for shortest Quote of the Day that is likely to stand… for a good long while.
O!
His profile says @jon, but that doesn’t usually work.
“Our arrows will block out the sun”. Leonidas’ general retorted, “Then we shall have our battle in the shade!”
“While Athens wrote plays and philosophized, Sparta valued action over talk.”
I suspect the Spartans treated talk like action; and put more emphasis on, and effort into, talking well than the Athenians did. It takes more time and effort to learn how to say a lot in a few words.
This is going too far, even with this Sparta-worship. They were uneducated, often stupid. Their rulers had sense, but also much to hide.
Athenians were like Americans are, lovers of clever speakers. Everything from Lincoln to snake-oil salesmen gets a crowd in America. Stick to it.
As for saying much in few words–read Heraclitus. Let me know how it goes.
I don’t know anything about Sparta. I just know that saying a lot in a few words isn’t something people now usually easily do. So I’m guessing it’s a skill the Spartans valued enough to develop for some reason.
If white America wanted to, we could have conquered or eliminated the Comanche Indians. But the Comanche Indians were so insanely competent and violent that it was easier to respect their treaty. The Comanche Indians to this day are one of the most successful Native American tribes financially.
Comanche were even more violent and cruel to other Native Americans than whites. The reasons Spartans were so amazing is that they conquered other people to grow their food so they could spend all there time being insanely and competently violent.
The Spartans were a deeply flawed people and we shouldn’t overlook that. But they also possessed immense virtue. Think of the founding Fathers; I hate that they had slaves and all good people hate slavery. But the founding fathers were good dudes even though they indulged in the evil of slavery. The Spartans were terrible in their own right but they had a weird virtue.
Dang. Something told me that I wasn’t getting that right. Anyway, thanks, but I see now that my complementary, complimentary Comments weren’t actually very clever to begin with, so I am not going to try to figure out Jon’s correct username.
There was a lot not to like about Sparta.
It was totalitarian, collectivist and suffered personal corruption without the arts, literature or real family life, and were reluctant to venture forth for fear of their slaves left behind, but Athenian youth admired them, sort of like our millinneals now and our marxist youth in the sixties who eventually took over the Democrat party.
According to Herodotus,
I love Herodotus’ descriptions of Thermopylae. When the Persians arrived, their scouts saw the Spartans exercising naked and combing their hair. They thought this was pretty weird, but their Greek informant let them know that it meant the Spartans were going to fight to the death and that they should not go up against them. Xerxes did not believe.
(My son The Boy was reading these descriptions over the past two weeks, this and Plataea and Salamis. So fun. The teeth of the general falling out! The warrior queen Artemisia! )
The Spartans were, relative to the rest of the ancients, quite enlightened in their view of women. Women in Sparta didn’t have a full set of rights (I don’t think they could vote), but comparatively speaking, they were educated, independent, they could own and inherit property, their role in society was respected, and they were influential. Aristotle wasn’t a fan, and blamed the eventual failure of the city-state on its becoming, essentially, “womanified,” and on the men of Sparta becoming thralls to their wives. (I suppose that’s possible, but it doesn’t account for a great many other state and national failures in the ancient world.)
Women’s prominent role likely had something to do with the fact that their menfolk were away so much fighting (same sort of thing has been seen in other cultures ever since). When the man of the house isn’t around much, someone has to keep things running smoothly, balance the books, make sure that the harvest is brought in and stored properly, and that everyone is kept relatively happy. So, in addition to their child-rearing role, the women of Sparta took on those responsibilities.
Legend has it that someone once asked Sparta’s most famous Queen, Gorgo, why Spartan women were the only ones who could overcome and rule Sparta’s men. Her response is said to have been “Because we are the ones who give birth to them.”
Hear, hear.
“Nuts!”
Only women dead in childbirth & men dead in battle got monuments-
Of course, once the baby was born, he could easily be murdered if he didn’t look the part of a super-soldier in the making…
women ran the home, the men lived in barracks not at home and were womanized in that male lovers were common.
Sort of. This relationship between young men and older men was an aspect of one’s development as a soldier. It was not intended to be permanent and took place before the Spartiate was allowed to marry. Certainly weird to us. Not so weird to most of the ancient societies.
NTTAWWT
Re: comment 16 and 17
Mama Toad, what book is your son reading ? Does it also tell about the queen that She mentions ?
I don’t know about early homosexuality among the Zulus, but they couldn’t marry until 30 or 40 and they’d been in an impi for a while.
Re: 23
What does NTTAWWT mean?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Usually used tongue in cheek.
Have you given a lot of presentations in the corporate world? Shorter is better. So is being precise in your wording, meaning what you say and saying what you mean, and nothing more than that.
The world has seen a lot of dead over-educated people. Perhaps there’s a lesson in that, too.
I’ve always liked…
Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.
—————
Since we are on the subject, I highly recommend Donald Kagan’s Ancient Greece podcast from Yale’s Open Yale Courses on ITunes.
Over 24 hours of history geek goodness. He goes into great detail about the political, civil and social features of both Sparta and Athens. Concluding with a survey of the Peloponnesian Wars.
Hey, people, just because art is long &life is short doesn’t mean that people who speak little really have anything to say. As for the corporate world, yeah, they are as mindless as Spartans, if bereft of any political virtues. If every thought, to be acceptable, has to be the executive summary of itself, then there will be no thinking about human things.
I understand that people are looking forward to that, since they don’t want to be confused by the complexity of human nature any more than Spartans did. But it’s still insane-