Ancient Spartan Masculinity

The Ancient Spartans deliberately cultivated an image of uniform, hyper-masculine, aggressive, militarized toughness. This picture helped maintain their power over their enslaved helots, upon whom the Spartans depended for their labor, wealth, and food. The statue here, known as “Leonidas,” comes from 480-470 BCE at the acme of Spartan dominance. The plumed helm, nude and muscular torso, and lack of mustache characterized all the male Spartan citizens. Not shown but also common were thin, red-dyed cloaks, which managed to look shabby but flashy at the same time. Indeed, “shabby but flashy” might describe the entire Spartan vibe.

All Spartan men were required to serve in the military as their central occupation. Primary sources from the time discuss the ease with which they performed complicated physical maneuvers on the battlefield. They dined together in groups on food that was notoriously bad-tasting, consisting of barley, meat, “blood-soup,” and watered-down wine. Sources from the time suggest they took pride in their alimentary constraint, boasting that no one outside Sparta would eat it, giving their fancier food to their slaves, and, on one occasion, fining one Spartan man because he had gotten fat.

Unlike many Ancient Greek towns, the polis of Sparta was without walls (until it had declined in power). There were sayings that walled cities were only for women, and that the frontiers of Sparta were in fact the tips of their spears. Unlike many Ancient Mediterranean cultures, the male Spartans relished being buried away from home, because it demonstrated their likelihood of having been killed in battle. And they broke from Ancient tradition by having cemeteries within the city boundaries, with the idea that death should be tolerated in ways that other Greeks shunned.

In fact, Spartan citizens were a very small percent of the territory’s population, maybe numbering about 10,000: the helots and inferior peasant groups far out numbered them. The uniformity of Spartan culture likely arose from a desire to unite richer and less wealthy citizens as a show of force.