The Spartan System

The Spartan System
By Mark Sutton

The extreme devotion held by the Spartan citizens to a collective military state is what defines the city-state as being unique in the ancient world. Source 1, from Plutarch’s, ‘Saying of the Spartans’ clearly shows this. Firstly, it shows the enormous importance placed by Spartan citizens on military glory, so much so that the mother in the source is happy that her son could have been killed for Sparta, far happier than she would have been had her son survived the battle. Secondly, it shows that in Sparta, in order to achieve this militant mindset in its citizens, they dehumanised the members of the society. As Plutarch says, ‘to be like bees, always attached to the community, swarming together around their leader, and almost ecstatic with fervent ambition to devote themselves entirely to their country.’ It shows that the death of one man in Sparta is not at all a tragedy if it contributed to the greater wellbeing of the state. In Spart...