What Did Spartans Do For Fun
The Spartans were known for their military prowess and discipline, but they also engaged in leisure activities for fun. Here are some of the things Spartans did for fun:
1. Athletics: The Spartans were known for their athletic abilities, and soldiers would spend their spare hours practicing athletics while they were on campaign. The full range of field sports was played, including running, discus, javelin, jumping, and wrestling.
2. Dancing: The Spartans would dance for fun to show their skills and to highlight the beauty of the body. They were not shy about showing off their hard-earned physiques.
3. Poetry and the Arts: Contrary to popular belief, the Spartans were not solely focused on warfare and discipline. In fact, there were more poets in Sparta during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. than in any other Greek city-state.
Full citizens had ample time for entertainment because Spartan law forbade them to work, and there were two lower classes of people to look after their needs. Spartans also enjoyed equestrianism and other rugged pastimes.
4. Public Humiliation: Single men were made fun of in Sparta. Once a year, they were stripped naked and forced to walk in a public procession while Spartan girls watched and shouted cruel things at them.
Those who were not tough enough were called Tremblers and were publicly humiliated. They were forced to wear silly clothes wherever they went, and some were even forced to grow a mustache or a beard on just one side of their face.
What do Spartan soldiers do for fun in war camps?
Spartan soldiers in war camps would engage in athletic events such as running and wrestling. They would also participate in choral dance performances. Soldiers would spend their spare hours practicing athletics while they were on campaign.
Additionally, the Spartans were known for their love of poetry and dance. Full citizens had ample time for entertainment because Spartan law forbade them to work, and there were two lower classes of people to look after their needs.
Therefore, Spartan soldiers in war camps would engage in athletic events and leisure activities such as poetry and dance for fun.
What Did Spartans Do In Their Daily Life?
Daily life in Sparta was strictly regimented with no luxuries. Spartan men were raised to be warriors their entire lives and to practice absolute obedience and service to the state. They lived in military barracks until the age of 30.
Spartans lived in relative equality, possessing no money or luxury goods. Their lifestyle was so simple that a life without luxury is comparable to the Spartan way of life. The emphasis remained on keeping physically fit and honing one’s fighting abilities.
Because the Spartans had the Messenians and other peoples placed under firm control and treated them effectively as a slave class who carried out agricultural work and other activities, Spartan males did not work in a traditional sense. Spartan women lived lives that were in many ways similar to the state’s men.
The emphasis from a young age was on physical activity, gymnastics, and training rather than on domestic duties.
Children were raised to be soldiers, loyal to the state, strong, and self-disciplined. When a Spartan baby was born, soldiers came to the house and examined it carefully to determine its strength.
They bathed the baby in wine rather than water to see its reaction. If a baby was weak, the Spartans would throw it off a cliff or take it away to become a slave. Spartans believed that strong mothers produced strong babies.
What Games Did Sparta Play?
The ancient Spartans participated in various athletic competitions, including some of the events at the ancient Olympic Games. According to the official Olympics website, the ancient Games included running, long jump, shot put, javelin, boxing, pankration (a martial art), and equestrian events.
All free (not enslaved), male Greek citizens were allowed to participate, regardless of their status in society. However, married women were forbidden from participating in and watching the Olympics, while unmarried women were allowed to attend.
In addition to the events at the ancient Olympics, the Spartans also participated in the pentathlon, which was a combination of discus, javelin, jumping, running, and wrestling.
The pentathlon was a five-event combination of discus, javelin, jumping, running, and wrestling. Women in Sparta also participated in running, wrestling, and perhaps javelin- and discus-throwing.
There are also modern games with the name “Sparta” in them, such as the video games Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, God of War: Origins Collection, Rock of Ages, Age of Empires Online, Warriors: Legends of Troy, and God of War: Ghost of Sparta
How Did Spartans Treat Their Wives?
Spartan women had more freedom than women in other Greek cities and were honored as equals to men in their own sphere of power and authority.
They were allowed to legally own and inherit property and were usually better educated than women in other Greek cities. Here are some key points about how Spartans treated their wives:
1. Marriage
The marriage ritual in Sparta began with a symbolic kidnapping, in which the female Spartan was forcefully taken by the man to their new home and left with female attendants who prepared her for the marriage night.
Her head was shaved, and she was given boy’s clothes and left in a darkened room. The wife was then expected to keep her hair closely cropped throughout the marriage.
Some scholars have suggested this ritual was enacted to make the wife appear more masculine and therefore more capable of bearing healthy children.
Spartan women seem to have married relatively late in comparison to their counterparts elsewhere in Greece, normally between the ages of eighteen and twenty to men close to them in age.
Spartan men under the age of thirty were not permitted to live with their wives, instead, they were expected to live communally with other members of their syssitia.
2. Property
Spartan women were allowed to own and manage their own properties, which gave them legal status and added to their independence.
3. Windows: There were a significant number of widows in Sparta who had lost husbands and sons in the wars but never had to worry about survival because they owned the land and knew how to make it profitable.
4. Lifestyle
Married couples typically lived apart, as men spent the majority of their lives in the agoge, barracks, and eventually at war. They would return to their house, which was run by their wife or surviving children if they were lucky enough to live long enough to retire at the age of 40.
Spartan women were the household rulers and were responsible for managing the family’s property and finances.
5. Dress
Spartan women were allowed to exercise and train, and as a result, their clothes were more daring than those of women in other Greek cities. The dresses were shorter than normal ones, showing more flesh. This was accepted by society since women and men were expected to be fit and healthy-looking.
What were Spartans not allowed to do?
The Spartans followed a strict lifestyle centered on military training and discipline. They owned neither gold nor silver, and their money consisted only of bars of iron.
Spartans were not allowed to participate in pankration at the Olympics because they were so well versed in it. They were also not allowed to read books or treatises, write or perform plays, or travel.
Coin issuance was forbidden, and the Spartans were obliged to use iron obols (ingots or spears) instead, encouraging self-sufficiency and discouraging avarice and hoarding of wealth.
Spartan soldiers were not allowed to behave recklessly. Suicidal recklessness, misconduct, and anger were forbidden as these behaviors endangered the phalanx.
The Spartans believed that a warrior should not fight with enraged anger, but should fight with discipline and control. Spartan citizens were not allowed to touch money as that was the job of the middle class.
