. . . and then, when a woman engaged him in talk, kept quiet and stoic while the fox under his shirt was chewing his guts out.
Very impressive. But why would anybody steal a fox? Why would anybody have a fox to steal? They’re very rarely kept as pets today, I doubt they ever were kept as pets in ancient Greece, and they’re not good for anything else. A dead fox is worth something for it pelt and tail, but that’s all; and the one in the story wasn’t dead.
Maybe for hunting? either to hunt the fox for fun, or to employ the fox as a substitute hound.
Just a WAG, of course.
Spartan history is full or legends. As a nation, they did not write much, but encouraged others to think they were very fearsome. Sort of an early attempt at psychological intimidation.
That being said, part of the training of Spartan boys was to steal. They thought it encouraged initiative. Punishment (lashings) were meted out not for stealing, but for the crime of getting caught.
Was any of this ever true? How much? The part about the fox? Hard to say.
Do you have a link to that story because I’ve never heared it?
This seems to be the story though perhaps a shortened version:
Hunting with foxes is forbidden in Spain.
Kind of makes me assume people must’a done it at some point. (I know people who use other animals whose use is also forbidden… several relatives of the mink)
This is a relatively common story, it showed up in my university textbooks, for one thing (as an example of the spartan mindset, not as a true story).
The way I heard it, the boy (as were all spartan boys) lived in a military training school, and like all boys was kept hungry, to encourage craftiness and toughness. He had stolen a fox (to eat. Presumably it was kept alive so the flesh wouldn’t go bad.)
But befor he could secure his prize, there was an inspection, meaning that he had to stand in line, absolutely still. Rather than facing the shame of flinching during inspection, and of being caught read-handed stealing, he kept still, and the fox, stuffed under his tunic, killed him. He was remembered as a rolemodel for all boys to follow. The Spartans idealized the ability to withstand pain or hardship without showing the “weakness” of flinching or making a sound.
And as Paul in Saudi pointed out, the boys were never punished for stealing, if anything it was encouraged. But the punishment for being caught was severe. The purpose for this might have been to encourage boys to develop observational and tactical skills (where is the food? when is it guarded?), as well as the ability to live off whatever you can find. So the boy will have had plenty of reason for doing what he did, or rather, the story has a very usefull moral for a society like the spartan one.
A similar story, one that is slightly more likely to be true, is that of the grown man who had been convicted of something, and was to be flogged. The man who flogged him, or the judge, wanted to force him to shame himself, and so ordered the flogging to continue until he cried out in pain. However, no matter how much they flogged him, he did not make a sound, and died before the beating stopped.
:eek: Eat it?! Eat a fox?!
(That’s a straight line, guys. It’s just lying there ever so plump and juicy . . .)
The version I heard was slightly different. In that one, the fox was a sacred animal which was housed in a temple in a enemy village. The boy was detected, but rather than allow himself to be caught in the act (which would lead to repercussions on his village) he stood there stoicly while the fox tore up his guts.
(Though one would think that the person talking to him might have noticed the moving lump beneath his tunic or the blood seeping through it.)
This passage from Wikipedia chimes with what I recall from college.
"At the age of thirteen, young men were arranged into groups, and were sent off into the countryside with nothing, and were expected to survive on wits and cunning. It was assumed that they would steal their food, yet anyone caught stealing was severely punished. Many speculate that this was to teach the young Spartans stealth and quickness. If you were caught it was concluded that you were not quick enough or silent enough. This was called the Crypteia, secret (ritual). This was very probably, in origin, an old initiation rite, a preparation for their later career as elite soldiers.
Other sources claim that the Crypteia (or Krypteia) was an “adolescent death squad” made up of the most promising young Spartans. Their job was to roam the countryside killing Helots at night in order to instill fear in the slave population and prevent rebellion."
The story of the boy and the fox is told in the Laconian Apophthegmata - “Spartan stories”, written by Plutarch in the 1st century as part of a larger collection of various essays, etc. known as the Moralia:
I’m not very familiar with this work, so I can’t check the original text, but I believe this is the primary written source for the story.
The detail of a fox in particular is interesting; it has led many scholars to question the origin of this anecdote, since foxes were not generally eaten in the ancient world (much less in conservative Sparta). However, foxes do figure in other stories of Spartan education (the animal’s cunning was considered a role model; the Greek word used for some Spartan training is reported as phouaddei - “play the fox”; and Aristophanes uses the term in two separate plays when referring to a Spartan). In short, according to Kennel, “the appearance of a fox cub in this situation is too unusual to have come from a non-Spartan source, but is completely consistent with the symbolic representation of Spartan youths.” This of course speaks only to the origin of the anecdote, not whether or not the events actually happened.
And yet he was still found out… (or the story is fictionalized).
What did foxes symbolically represent in Sparta?
The story may not have the obvious meaning.
If foxes symbolized, say, an illicit sexual relationship, the story may take on a whole new meaning.
Sure he was found out, but only when he was dead, and by then it was too late to catch him in the act. Stealing wasn’t the crime here, remember?
The fox had much the same symbolism it does today (trickster, bold, crafty) I think. Could be more than that, of course.
Good thing the legend isn’t sent in Thebes or he’d have to eat a puss.
What sort of sexual relationship would the Spartans consider illicit?