• Author / Uploaded
• api-273505539

• Categories
• Esparta
• Disturbios
• Conflicto armado

Citation preview

Schoolcraft College

A Day in the Life of a Spartan Warrior

Anne Buford Ancient World History Professor Dyer 26 September 2014

Buford 1

The expectation of how successful of a Spartan warrior I would be started before conception. In Sparta it is common to be married based on the quality of the future warrior you bread.1 My parents were very athletic so they knew I was going to be a prominent Spartan warrior. To be honest, I‟m just glad I didn‟t make it to Mount Taygetos. You know what happens on-or should I say off- Mount Taygetos right? “The Spartan elders would inspect new born infants and any found to be imperfect, judged to be puny or deformed, were thrown from a cliff. The cliff was a chasm on Mount Taygetos”( The Spartan Military). Talk about being picky. I started training to become a warrior when I was still a boy. When I was seven I was sent to Agoge, a military boarding school, where I trained with other boys. At this school I was educated in physical, mental, and spiritual toughness.2 We “were taught to endure hardship and pitted against each other in fights by [our] instructors. [I recall how we] used to terrorize the Helots, and in a particularly nasty tradition called a Krypteia. [We] were sent out at night with the goal of killing any helot perceived to be a threat or unlucky enough to be discovered out alone. Each fall [we] would declare war on the Helot making it legal to kill any Helot”(The Spartan Military). Personally I think tradition of Krypteia is gruesome but many others my age believe it is a justifiable thing to do and this is why it is socially exactable; more people believe it is acceptable to take the lives of the Helots then there are of people who despise the tradition. At the age of twenty I became I full time soldier and I was required to live in the barracks. At twenty five I married my wife Josephine. The time a soldier‟s career in the military was complete ranged from age forty to age sixty. I was one of the lucky ones who got to end my military service at age forty. In desperate times I saw men as old as sixty-five be called upon to protect supplies.3I remember how my military friends and I used to joke by saying „Our men are

Buford 2

our walls‟. Sparta was infamous for being the only city-state in Greece for not having any walls for protection. I‟ll still hear people now and again recite that saying and it makes me laugh. Back when I was in the military my friends would call me Devon. I‟m not too sure where they got this nickname seeing how my actual name is Phineas. I remember a lot from my days in the military but the thing that I remember the most is the weaponry. The primary weapon we used in my day was called a Doru. “The Doru had a leaf shaped spearhead on the business end and a spike on the other [and it ranged from seven to nine feet in length]”(The Spartan Military). Another weapon I recall was “called a “lizard killer” [and] it was used to finish off fallen enemies that the formation was moving over. Additionally, if the spearhead broke off the spear could be spun around and the spike used in its place”(The Spartan Military). The view society had on all of us Spartan warriors was very difficult to keep up. We were supposed to be tough as nails, and be extremely brave. Many of the times I felt as though I wasn‟t a strong enough or a brave enough warrior but reflecting now-as a sixty year old man- I can say I was extremely brave.

Buford 3

Work Cited "The Spartan Military." Spartan Military. AncientMiliy.com, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 26 Sept. 2014. .

Buford 4

Notes 1. http://www.ancientmilitary.com/spartan-military.htm 2. http://www.ancientmilitary.com/spartan-military.htm