[lit-ideas] Re: Spartans thus far
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:22:29 EST
Helm:
"Cartledge considers the Sparta that matters to have occurred between 480 to
360 bc."
--- Perhaps he is afraid, as perhaps he should, that if he undusts
the earlier past he'll find connections with incest, paidophilia,
and the Indo-European pretty 'illegal' three-caste stystem.
This has been explored by Dumezil, and other French authors (eg. Sergent)
According to this model, there is the caste
of the _milites_ which is based on the
homosexual bond. This homosexuality is rendered
'temporary' and a rite of passage only, where
the passive partner is the pre-adult who becomes
an adult. It is 'illegal' in that it represents some sort
of sexual activity taking place with what we today
would have as by definition, someone who is not
'a consenting adult'.
-----
"Here he is describing them in 500 when they haven't quite gotten
their act together"
-- and recall that Turtaios is 700 B. C., so at this point Cartlage may fail
to interest the antiquarian!
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Dum%C3%A9zil_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Dumézil)
In 1929 Dumézil published Flamen-Brahman, the first full statement of
his trifunctional hypothesis; the idea was repeated in Mitra-Varuna, perhaps
his most accessible work.
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifunctional_hypothesis_
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifunctional_hypothesis)
The hypothesis states that Indo-European [Western] [culture] has societies
divided into three similar roles: warriors, priests, and farmers.
I must say I seem to have found Dumezil's 'function theory' pretty
unrealistic and unrefutable
in the best of Popper's uses of the word, and I was never weeded to it,
indeed, I
never _proposed_ it (or even propositioned it). It's the kind of theory that
an Argentine -- of the type I have met at the Faculte des Beaux Arts,
and Belles Lettres -- would love and will love.
One problem with Sergent, who quotes Dumezil quite a bit is that
the translation leaves a lot to be desired by 'Anglo-Saxon' lovers of
scholarship, but I'll see if I can quote some relevant passages from
Sergent as they relate to Sparta.
The book has subsections with titles like:
- 'Pederasty and Initiation: Ethnographic Paralels'
- Pelops and Laius [with Pelops as founder of Peloponnese]
It may be useful to criss-cross (if that's the word) with Dover's book on
Greek Sexualities.
The man is pretty jejune (teaches at 'The House', Christ Church, Oxford) and
dedicates his book, to "Athenian Sexuality" which is a bore. But again, the
book has sections with titles like
-- 'The Dorians'
"The most widely accepted generalisation about [this type of Greek
sexuality] is that it originated in the MILITARY ORGANISATION of Dorian states
(so
that its diffusion throughout the Greek world was a product of Dorian
influence"
(p. 185). "And that [this type of sexuality] was more acceptable in certain
Dorian regions (notably Sparta) than elsewhere." (p. 185).
"The first part of this generalisation is not refutable and may be true".
"The second part of the generalisation might possibly be true."
"The generalisation is largely founded on Plato, Laws -- where one of the
speakers is a Spartan".
"In 636ab, responding to the Spartan's claim that the military organisation
of communal messes and physical training contribute to sophrosune"
"The Spartan is embarrassed by the attack by the Athenian and turns the
conversation onto the restraints imposed upon drunkeness at Sparta."
"In due course the Athenian comes back to sexual legislation in detail" (cf.
p. 165).
"Even if Plato intended to imply that [this sort of sexuality] began in
Sparta and spread thence over the Greek world, we are not obliged to respect
his
authority." *p. 186).
"Neither he nor any other Greek of the classical period [580-323] was in a
strong position to discover how a 'social usage' was diffused two or three
centuries earlier."
"In implying that at the time of writing _Laws_ [Nomoi] Sparta was
exceptional in the degree of approval which they extended to [this type of
sexuality],
Plato deserves a hearing."
"Among interesting entries in lexica we find Kesykhios, 'lakonize, use
paidika' cf. Suda l 62), 'in the Lakonian way', penetrate'. "the Lakonians
guard
their woemn less than any other people'. Aristarkhos says that Kleinias was
called 'kusolakon' because he 'laconized' with the 'kusos'. And they called
using 'paidika' 'lakonizing' -- kusos, buttocks or vulva."
"The Athenians applied 'laconize' to imitation of Spartan dress and routine
and adoption of pro-Spartan policies and to participation in [sexual anal]
copulation."
In Plato Georgias, 515e, Kallikles refers to the Laconizers as 'the men with
cauliflower ears." "The Socratic circle contained some, notably Kritias, who
admired Sparta and were prepared to BETRAY ATHENS. But we do not seem to
encounter in Plato PEOPLE WHO IMITATED
SPARTAN AUSTERITY AND DIRT
--- Aristophanes Birds 128f refers to a 'craze for Sparta', but does not
associate it with any particular class of the population. [If so, it would be
low class rather than upper class, as I wrongly believed when I talked about
Etonians. JLS]
"Photios used 'kusolakon' to mean penetrate anally, "for that is how Theseus
used Helen, according to Aristotle" -- Whether this is Aristotle the
philosopher or his contemporary [?] the historian, we cannot be sure"
"Athenaios 60sd, Deipnosophists, says that "before marriage, it is customary
for the Spartans to associate with virgin girls as with paidika".
"Aristotle siad that Theseos 'invented' anal intercourse -- with Helen".
In Lysistrata, Aristophanes has a Spartian say,
"I like to manure"
-- which is taken to mean anal penetration. This in response to an Athenian
who says he prefers to 'plow the land'.
"The peculiarty of Spartan society was the SEGREGATION of the MALE CITIZEN
opulation into messes and barracks --" (but cfr. Helm's recent post that girls
would wrestle with boys).
"In Sparta there's a deliberate withdrawal of authority from fathers."
"Spartan society was was a hole permanently organised like AN ARMY IN
TRAINING."
"The young Spartan was not invovled, as he grew up, in a simple opposition
between sexual love for women and sexual loyalty to the males of his own unity.
A Spartan could in fact enter into FOUR RELATIONSHIPS: first, loyalty to
the males of his age-group, with whom he competed for recognition of his male
virtues and with whom he may (for all we know) have had frequent and casual
homosexual relationships; secondly, the much more intense ERASTES-EROMENOS
relationship as elsewhere in the Greek world; third, marriage, and fourthly, if
there is antyhing in the evidence of Hagnon, an erastes-EROMENE relationship
with an unmarried girl, consummated anally."
"We come back to the Dorians solely on the strength of the link between
MILITARY ORGANISATION [and this type of sexuality]."
"It might be more helpful to consider the archaic period" (pre 480 BC).
"The graffiti of Thera, a Spartan colony, may go back well into the seventh
century, B. C.,"
"There are no homosexual elements discernible in the elegiac poetry of
Turtaios."
"Turtaios's reference -- fr. 10.27-30) to the beauty of a young man is
modelled on Homerus, Il. xxii 71-3 and makes the point that
it is shameful to see an old man dying of wounds on the battlefield
but appropriate that the yound should suffer wounds and death."
"It was possible in classical regards to regard [this type of sexulaity] as
characteristically Spartan."
"Plato criticises its exceptionally entrenched position in the society of
Sparta."
"Sparta alone went to the length of constructing a society in which familial
and individual relationships were both formally and effectively subordinated
to military organisation."
"The Spartans went a stage further in professing to have as much more regard
regard for qualities of charcter than for bodily beauty. Ephoros F149, cf.
PLU Agis 2.1, on the achievement of Agis, as a lame boy, in becoming the
eromenos of Lysander. At Sparta (Plu Lyc 22.8) the educational responsibility
of
the erastes was so interpreted that the BORE THE BLAME for a deficiency in
COURAGE [andreia, virtus] manifested by his eromenos."
"Spartan terminology ('breathe into ...', 'inspire' AELIAN Varia Historia
iii 12, Hesykhios e 2476 = fall in love with, and EISPNELOS or EISPNELAS
(Kallimakhos fr. 68, Pfeiffer, Theokritos 12.13] = 'breather-into' = 'erastes')
points to a notion that the erastes was able to transfer qualities from himself
into his eromenos."
Etc.
Cartledge, op. cit., p 83:
"On one notorious occasion, we learn from Herodotus, the Spartans marched
out bearing measuring rods to parcel out the land they thought they would
soon be acquiring, and chains to fetter their new Arcadian Helots who would
work the land for them, but they suffered a defeat and ended up as prisoners
of war wearing their own chains. The battle became known therefore as the
Battle of the Fetters, and a century later, Herodotus was shown what were
claimed to be the very fetters in the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea; 600
years later, such was the strength of the tradition, the religiously
inspired Greek traveler Pausanias was shown allegedly the same chains. . .
."
----- This Pausanias has been everywhere. I have his first two Loeb volumes,
but find him jejune!
"Curtius described Xerxes disgust at the Greeks who were always fighting
amongst themselves. That was perhaps a justified criticism in one sense,
but in another, by fighting amongst themselves, they became especially good
at it."
This is Cartlage --. Yes, there must be something to it. Remember that one
of the pentathlon was indeed the _wrestle_
and I have to research more about it.
And that by combat Greeks ALWAYS meant one-to-one or single combat (Geary
--- Instit. Annals Milit. Graeco-Rom., iii ad 678b) calls it 'double combat'
(phallaggas duiein, duplex excercisio) in that it's strictly 'two people'
rather than a single one.
"Perhaps such losses as the one Cartledge describes here encouraged
the Spartans to . . . well, become more Spartan. Someone, Lycurgus perhaps,
saw what it would take for Sparta to defeat the non-Spartans round about
that they knew about, and they went about reforming themselves and became
able to do that."
I don't think you can become more Spartan than the Spartans.
The Etonians -- at one very short time -- wanted to be "more Spartan than
the Spartans" -- but that's a different animal!
Possibly here we should also remember your three ancestors, and Geary's
one-armed Mr. Sweet, who fought Spartaically against the North.
"I was watching something on WWII awhile back and they said that Eisenhower
wanted to invade France and go after the Germans at once, but Churchill and
others dissuaded him. They thought it more prudent to go to North Africa
and then up the Italian peninsula, much to the disgust of the American
generals, but later Eisenhower realized that the American forces were not as
ready to take on the Germans as he thought they were. They needed the
practice of North Africa and Italy to get ready."
Yes, it was a good thing they didn't bomb the Colisseum, though, as it's
their wont. (bombing things --
McCreery may testify). In the case of the Colisseum, as opposed to Hiroshima,
the argument was made by some (so-called) "dagos" (newly immigrated Italians
in the
American troops) who thought it would be a 'pity to destroy the monuments --
if not the people'. For some reason, their opinion prevailed.
Sophia Loren recalls that in her Autobiography.
"The Spartans had plenty of practice, but they needed to get better. They
needed an edge, and their eugenic approach to procreation, their competitive
practices and their dedicated training gave them that edge."
Yes, the _ascesis_ -- which is possibly what the Romans translated
as 'exercitus' (I will have to check that), which seems like
an interesting semantic connection -- if proved to derive from
'exercise'.
In the Loeb notes from FRONTINUS I've been posting to the list
I noted that he uses 'exercitum' and it's translated as 'troops'
or 'army'. Indeed, the current Spanish form is
"ejército" ----- army
which should be cognate with
"ejercicio" ---- exercise.
So that 'army exercise', in Spanish becomes a sort of jocular redundancy --
as is, alas, thus seen -- which may
explain our Salamis at the F*cklands.
Cheers,
JL
Nothing has changed and nations still want a military edge. There will be
occasions when they have to fight; so they strive to equip themselves with
the proper weapons and give their military forces proper training. And
then when the crisis occurs they will learn whether their preparations were
adequate. Israel in their recent encounter with Hezbollah in Lebanon, for
example, has had to rethink their training procedures. Hezbollah is
probably rethinking theirs.
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