Spartan woman
Donned in clothing that symbolized traditional Greek attire and with their fluttering Spartan banner proudly proclaiming the fighting slogan that they themselves had written, the small group of boys and girls marched confidently into the field for the start of their Olympic Games. Except for the fact that they were actually in a farm in Bulacan, it was a scene straight out of 776 BC when the Oracle of Delphi was supposed to have advised King Iphitos to hold the games in order to save his people from war. As a culmination of their studies about the life of the ancient Greeks, my daughter’s fifth grade class recently re-enacted the early Olympic Games. Prior to the competition, they trained for several weeks in the original pentathlon events: javelin, discus, wrestling, aesthetic running, and long jump. They took it all quite seriously and their competitive fire was evident. They divided themselves into teams representing the Greek city-states and my daughter was chosen to be a member of Team Sparta.
I smiled at the thought of my little girl as a tough yet feminine Spartan woman and recalled a segment in the 2006 movie 300 which retold the story of the famous Battle of Thermopylae in the summer of 480 BC. In that battle, a tiny Greek force, led by 300 Spartan warriors, heroically held off for several days a Persian army that was said to have numbered in the millions. In one sequence of the movie, Emperor Xerxes the Great of Persia tries to convince King Leonidas of Sparta to surrender and threatens, “Consider the fate of your women!” Leonidas, however, smiles and knowingly retorts, “Clearly you don’t know our women!” He then goes on to suggest that he would have kicked the asses of the Persian army just the same with 300 Spartan women. I’m not sure if the dialogue between Xerxes and Leonidas has any historical basis. But while Spartan women and girls were not really trained for combat, they definitely knew how to defend themselves. They basically underwent the same rigorous training that the men did and were expected to be just as strong. In fact, while women from other Greek states were rarely allowed outside the home, Spartan women participated with the men in many athletic events such as the javelin, discus, foot races, and even staged battles. They even trained in the nude with their male counterparts in the gym (whose Greek origin, in any event, means “a place to be naked and exercise”)! Thousands of centuries before the modern-day women’s liberation movement, Spartan women enjoyed a level of social equality with men that was unheard of during the time. The rights that Spartan women enjoyed were also not just limited to the physical realm. Unlike women in the rest of the classical world, they were allowed to own and inherit property. They were educated from a young age, to which some of their fellow Greeks commented, “Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison.” To the distaste of others, Spartan women were so opinionated and outspoken that foreigners questioned the Spartan men why they let their women “rule” them. Some critics point out, however, that the primary role of women in Sparta was still baby-making and that all their so-called freedoms were simply designed to enable them to give birth to strong and healthy boys who would grow up to be fearsome warriors. Be that as it may, I think that the respect that Spartan men had towards their women was genuine. It is significant to note that the inscription of names on graves, which was considered a great honor in Sparta, was allowed only for soldiers who died in war and for women who died in childbirth.
I don’t know if my daughter is already conscious of how society continues to treat men and women unequally. However, it really struck me when, a few days after their games, she told me that she couldn’t fathom the decision-making process of the Trojan prince, Paris. She said that in one of the stories on Greek mythology that they studied, the Lord Zeus, ruler of Mount Olympus, appointed Paris to decide for him who was the fairest among the goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Each of the three divine beings promptly tried to bribe Paris so that he would pick them. Athena offered wisdom and skill (for battle), Hera dangled riches, while Aphrodite propositioned the most beautiful woman on earth, Helen, Queen of Sparta. Paris chose Aphrodite who then helped him seduce the very much married Helen, angering the Greeks and triggering the Trojan War. My daughter looked at me perplexedly and exclaimed, “Why did he do that? He exchanged wisdom and skill for beauty!?” Her question took me off guard since I believe that 99 percent of Filipino males would probably have chosen as Paris did (especially, I might add, after Aphrodite flashed her naked body to him as further convincing argument). But one of the blessings of having a daughter is that it makes me confront my male chauvinism and challenges me to answer these kinds of questions in an honest manner. And although I’m not so crazy about the idea of her exercising in the nude with other boys in the gym at anytime in the future, I do hope that she one day marries a man of Spartan character — a man who would treat her as an equal and who would not be threatened by her mind, strength, and will. Paraphrasing a famous Spartan quote, at least I’ll then be sure that she married a real man. Oh and before I forget, my daughter won the discus throw. HA-OOH!
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