Spartan Way, The: Eat Better. Train Better. Think Better. Be Better.

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Spartans trained in pankration, a famous martial art in Ancient Greece that consisted of boxing and grappling. Spartans were so adept in pankration that they were mostly forbidden to compete when it was inducted in the Olympic Games. [ citation needed] Hellenistic period [ edit ] The Spartans’ constant military drilling and discipline made them skilled at the ancient Greek style of fighting in a phalanx formation. In the phalanx, the army worked as a unit in a close, deep formation, and made coordinated mass maneuvers. Spartan Women There's also ample evidence to suggest that much of their training wasn't even meant for warfare, but for keeping their slaves in line and putting down potential revolts. Sparta, is of course the Trope Namer and the Trope Maker. The training for their male citizen-caste (starting from age 7, when they got separated from their family) consisted of not getting enough food, getting beaten for stealing food and getting caught, possibly getting beaten for disobedience to their older peers, and once a year getting ritually beaten for no reason whatsoever... and it topped off with murdering a defenseless slave at night. Real military training wasn't part of the deal.

Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica (Sayings of Spartans), 217a. This work may or may not be by Plutarch himself, but is included among the Moralia, a collection of works attributed to him but outside the collection of his most famous works, the Parallel Lives.

With this phrase, that means that a soldier should return either with his shield or on it -or in other words, they’re better off dead than a deserter- the Spartan mother said goodbye to her son. The principal source on the Spartan Army's organization is Xenophon, an admirer of the Spartans himself. His Constitution of Sparta offers a detailed overview of the Spartan state and society at the beginning of the 4th century BC. Other authors, notably Thucydides, also provide information, but they are not always as reliable as Xenophon's first-hand accounts. [14] The main difference between ordinary soldiers and the so-called elites, the Marines and Rangers in this case, is a one-time training course that is mostly psychological in hardship, and only varies in more intense and frequent exercise and the use of special skills. Deaths in training are usually preventable and the result of ignorance or carelessness by the chain of command either to prevent a marine's/soldier's risk or to help a marine/soldier at risk; this includes deaths by suicide. The Marine Corps and Ranger school also have more restrictions on who may enter, and it is mainly for this reason that they are viewed as elite, even though any military unit may have equally hard conditions and training in its regular activity. Repetitive chanting of phrases can inspire and focus - but at a certain point after keying into it - I couldn’t get past the sales pitch quality and became disengaged and just had some guy gruffly speaking at me with what is basically a sales pitch for adapting the Spartan way of life (now with Spartan branded shoes). Example, possibly apocryphal: during military training, adherence to NBC drill is tested in a room filled with CS gas, a non-lethal incapacitant (i.e. tear gas). Rumour had it that Spetznaz NBC training is "live" — i.e. uses real, lethal nerve gas.

The kings and the hippeis [ edit ] Areus I, a Spartan king during the Chremonidean War, on a coin (310–266 BC) You’ve seen the muscly guys that have been raised to be ready for battle at all times and put the interest of their land before their own. The teenage boys who demonstrated the most leadership potential were selected for participation in the Crypteia, which acted as a secret police force whose primary goal was to terrorize the general Helot population and murder those who were troublemakers. At age 20, Spartan males became full-time soldiers, and remained on active duty until age 60. Spartan Armor, Shield and HelmetThe French Foreign Legion — in case none of the above is tough enough for you. With its methods based on sheer cruelty, and its diverse training grounds, ranging from the snow-laden slopes of the French Pyrenees through the rainforests of Guyane (aka "The Green Hell") to the dunes of the Sahara, it stands a pretty good chance of killing you. Motto: "March or die!" Women are not allowed to join. (Hear it from Bear Grylls himself: "I hadn't expected it to be so tough, having spent several years in the SAS." ) The British SAS are generally considered extremely tough also. The final stage of their 4-week Selection training is known as "Endurance", a forty mile march across the Brecon Beacons , completed in less than twenty hours carrying more than fifty-five pounds of weight, plus water, food and rifle. They then get to proceed to the six weeks in the Malaysian jungle. Then the survival training, then the interrogation training...and after all that, they are effectively on probation for a year, with many being returned to their parent unit in that time as unsuitable.

Thucydides describes the real Sparta (as opposed to Plato's idealized Sparta) as a thoroughly corrupt military dictatorship in his History of the Peloponnesian War, so perhaps The Spartan Way is more or less a zig-zag of this trope. Throughout their history, the Spartans were a land-based force par excellence. During the Persian Wars, they contributed a small navy of 20 triremes and provided the overall fleet commander. Nevertheless, they largely relied on their allies, primarily the Corinthians, for naval power. This fact meant that, when the Peloponnesian War broke out, the Spartans were supreme on land, but the Athenians excelled at sea. The Spartans repeatedly ravaged Attica, but the Athenians who were kept supplied by sea, were able to stage raids of their own around the Peloponnese with their navy. Eventually, it was the creation of a navy that enabled Sparta to overcome Athens. With Persian gold, Lysander, appointed navarch in 407 BC, was able to master a strong navy and successfully challenged and destroyed Athenian predominance in the Aegean Sea. [8] However, the Spartan engagement with the sea would be short-lived, and did not survive the turmoils of the Corinthian War. In the Battle of Cnidus of 394 BC, the Spartan navy was decisively defeated by a joint Athenian-Persian fleet, marking the end of Sparta's brief naval supremacy. The final blow would be given 20 years later, at the Battle of Naxos in 376 BC. The Spartans periodically maintained a small fleet after that, but its effectiveness was limited. The last revival of the Spartan naval power was under Nabis, who created a fleet to control the Laconian coastline with aid from his Cretan allies. From age seven, a Spartan boy was sent to the military academy known as the agoge, where he would be put under If these “Laconophiles” overly idealized the Spartan city-state, it’s still worth considering what it was that drew their praise. If the details of the Spartan way of life are sometimes in dispute, or embellished, they still point to underlying principles — values and lessons we can’t and wouldn’t want to exactly replicate today, but which nonetheless impart insights on how to better live our lives. As Rahe observes: The British army has a nasty reputation for killing more people off via "disciplinary" measures ("beasting", where you're made to do the exercises again.. and again.. and again, this time in NBC gear) than in the actual functional part of the training, though. One recruit died this way over dropping a chocolate wrapper; another for shouting in the officers' mess. Apparently they have yet to get rid of the Drill Sergeant Nasty.Sekunda, Nicholas (1998). The Spartan Army (Elite Series #60). Osprey Publications. ISBN 1-85532-659-0. NORFORCE, the force responsible for defending the north of Australia includes in their training, dumping potential recruits into the rainforests in small groups equipped with knives and not much else to survive of what they can find. After a little while of this, and without giving them food or rest, they have whatever they've scavenged taken away, are lectured on important things they need to know, put into new groups, and they are dumped somewhere else. This happens two or three times. Apparently, the course is so popular, there's a several year waiting list. A laconic phrase may be used for efficiency (as during military training and operations), for emphasis, for philosophical reasons (especially among thinkers who believe in minimalism, such as Stoics), or to deflate a pompous interlocutor. Spartan women enjoyed mor e rights and freedoms compared to their counterparts in other Greek city-states. Sparta had a kingdom. But its kingdom was not monarchical. There is no reliable information about the beginnings of the institution, but Herodotus tells a nice story about how the paradoxical regime of the double kingdom came about.