# Spartans and their shields **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 20, 2003, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863 "2003-09-20T23:22:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/1 "2003-09-20T23:22:51Z")
Permit me to be the first to thank and congratulate **Una Persson** (the former **Anthracite** ) for a wonderful guest contribution staff report on [Whether Spartan mothers really told their sons, “With your shield or on it?”](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mspartanmoms.html) … which will appear officially this coming Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/2 "2003-09-20T23:35:15Z")
You know, I was wondering who this **Una Persson** person was… Excellent report, **Una**! Watch out! If **Dex** likes your work, he’ll find a way to get more outta you. You’ve been warned. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/3 "2003-09-21T13:38:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Q.E.D. \* > \*\*You know, I was wondering who this **Una Persson** person was… Excellent report, **Una**! > Watch out! If **Dex** likes your work, he’ll find a way to get more outta you. You’ve been warned. \*\* Thank you very much, and it’s too late - Ed should already have another one of mine in the queue to inflict upon people, and I have two more I’m working on right now. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/4 "2003-09-21T16:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > You know, I was wondering who this Una Persson person was… Catherine Cornelius’ lover, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/5 "2003-09-22T18:36:04Z")
> [@](#): > > **Una Persson** (the former **Anthracite** ) But you’re still the Coal Goddess, right? And congratulations! I’ve been wondering when they were going to lasso you in to writing Staff Reports. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/6 "2003-09-22T22:45:48Z")
**Una** is a light that shines on my little corner of the universe. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/7 "2003-09-23T14:23:12Z")
The perpetual “death before dishonor” attitude of the Spartans was set into sharp, satirical relief in the poetry of Archilochus (700 BC), who wrote: _Today my shield belongs to some proud Seian, for, despite my good intentions, I dropped it by a convenient bush as I fled the battlefield. Why should I care for an old shield? I can get another just as good When again I take the field_ Hope I got it right. I’m quoting this from memory. An excellent column, by the way. Just can’t get enough of those wacky Spartans! ---
**Author:** ![aus55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@aus55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aus55)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/8 "2003-09-23T14:47:14Z")
Hello all, Is it plausable that perhaps women weren’t quite this brutal? I mean, could it merely be that men wrote history and therfor they gave it a bit of a twist? Or that the author is basing the account of women on one or two? Like judging all women in England today by how the Queen acts and what she says? ---
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/9 "2003-09-23T15:00:22Z")
Not just an attitude, **Kizarvexius** , but a reality. It was not so much a queston of "death before dishonor: as “death _and_dishonor”. Archilochus was writing perhaps before the invention, certainly before the spread, of hoplite tactics in Greece. As Una noted in her article: > [@](#): > > \*\*In the Greek battle formation known as the phalanx, the shield protected not only the warrior holding it (while leaving his right arm free to wield a spear), but also the warrior on his left. A phalanx that stayed in tight formation was well protected by the interlocking shields. \*\* Archilochus could get away with his flight (and his attitude) because he was fighting in the individual arisstocratic style memorialized so effectively (if probably anachronisticly) by Homer. If he had tried that a century later, he would have left a gap in the phalanx – _and_ left the hoplite on his left suddenly undefended – that would have earned him a shunning, if no worse, when he got home. We ought to remember that Sparta was one end of a spectrum, not an freak occurence, in classical Greek society. The citizens of other _poleis_ weren’t as gung-ho for the “beautiful death” in battle that the Spartans were (or claimed that they were), but they had a healthy respect for military discipline, brought about by sheer need. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2003, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/10 "2003-09-23T16:44:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by aus55 \* > \*\*Hello all, > Is it plausable that perhaps women weren’t quite this brutal? I mean, could it merely be that men wrote history and therfor they gave it a bit of a twist? Or that the author is basing the account of women on one or two? Like judging all women in England today by how the Queen acts and what she says? \*\* It is always possible that, since men wrote most of the history, that there would be a certain flavour to it. This is always a danger, especially so in the case of accounts of Spartan attitudes written several years (or centuries) _ex post facto_. Several other reports of actions and attitudes of both Spartan women and the culture in general bear up a “tough” characterization. One item was the frequent exposure of weak, sick, or deformed children to be killed - one would think that any maternal instincts a woman might have would cause her to most strongly protest the death of her child. Now, other Greek and related cultures have done the same, but not to the level that was seen in Sparta. Another was the training of Spartan girls in athletics and light warfare, something not generally seen in that part of the world at the time. Spartan girls went to their “training school” at a very young age - perhaps as young as 5 to 7 years. They lived together separate from the boys and men, and the girls reputedly lived a very rough life of hard work, training, privation, tests of endurance (including dancing endurance), gymnastics, etc. However, this was not done so Spartan women could eventually fight alongside the men, but seems to have been mainly done as a sort of a primative eugenics program - strong women being believed to produce mostly strong boys, who would grow to fill the hoplite ranks. This separatist, competitive, and athletic culture may have had other side effects - a recent programme I saw on BBC even went so far as to say that it was some of the rough and tumble athletics and games, coupled with segregation of the sexes in their youth, that led to a report of “opportunistic lesbianism” being “commonly practiced” among Spartan teenage girls. ---
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/11 "2003-09-24T12:58:54Z")
Speaking strictly, _strictly_ out of scholarly interest…what programme might that be? Excellent article btw. Quite fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![aus55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@aus55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aus55)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/12 "2003-09-24T16:13:29Z")
Thank you for the answer Una. I love history. I have the same vested scholarly interest as Wierd al. On a different note, isnt “opportunistic lesbianism” what we now call “experimentation at college”??? 🙂 I’m sorry I had too. ---
**Author:** ![aus55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb8c5e/32.png) [@aus55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aus55)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/13 "2003-09-24T16:15:14Z")
“Only zool” HA, I just saw that. Great line from a great movie. ---
**Author:** ![ronbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ba9def/32.png) [@ronbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ronbo)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/14 "2003-09-26T00:31:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally asked by HCPIII > \* > **"With it or on it."…on it = fallen hero; without it = coward.** Excuse me, but I believe the concept is "Come back with it = **VICTORIOUS** or on it = **DEAD** ’. Even now, many Muslim women are telling their children to be a martyr in the jihad against the infadels. There should be no debate that some if not many Spartan women would tell their sons to conquer or die. ---
**Author:** ![quodlibet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f17d59/32.png) [@quodlibet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quodlibet)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/15 "2003-09-26T14:09:22Z")
Loved your report. One quibble - you write: > [@](#): > > some have questioned whether Spartan women had the education and ability to write letters to their sons Surely an illiterate mother could dictate a letter and have someone read her son’s replies to her. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/spartans-and-their-shields/202863/16 "2003-09-26T15:16:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by quodlibet \* > \*\*Surely an illiterate mother could dictate a letter and have someone read her son’s replies to her. \*\* I agree - there were likely many avenues for them to communicate via writing. Literate slaves were not unknown, and there were of course other literate Spartan men and women who could assist. IIRC, there were professional scribes who would write letters and documents for the general (paying) populace.