Assess the role of religion and festivals in Spartan society
"Based on a study of both ancient and modern sources, assess the role of religion and festivals in Spartan society"In Spartan society, religion and festivals played a pivotal part of everyday life for both men and women. The very system by which they lived, decreed in the Great Rhetra, was "Delphic-oracle-given", delivered by the celebrated Lycurgus. The Spartans, famed for their military-based lifestyle, were in fact dependant on military divination to advise them whether or not to go into war - if the signs were not right then even an essential military engagement may be delayed or abandoned totally. Similarly, they sometimes missed or did not fully participate in certain battles if there was a religious festival on at the same time. Another significant element of Spartan life - unions between young Spartan boys still in training and adult Spartan warriors - has been attributed to the relationship between the mythological Apollo and the adolescent boy Hyacinthus. Religion and festivals were also noteworthy aspects when it came to the lives of women; they relied upon the gods for fertility, beauty and health. Thus, we can deduce that religion and festivals played a very important role in Spartan society, affecting their socie
The political system in Sparta gradually changed from "swinging" Sparta, to "barrack" Sparta - a military state run by the elite warrior class. Women's cults focused on "female beauty, health, and, most of all, fertility"³; according to Sarah Pomeroy in her book Spartan Women. Religion and festivals were certainly not only for the men to participate in, especially in Sparta, where the women "rule men"². Paul Cartledge thought that the "Spartans took their piety and religious devotion to exceptional heights and lengths"¹. It is thought that this transition occurred because the Spartans realised what it was that they had - a powerful and effectively run state - and went to all costs to protect their way of life, which meant stricter rules, harsher penalties and more rigid requirements to become, or indeed, to stay a citizen. He is saying that religion and politics in ancient Sparta are so tightly linked that it is impossible to consider one aspect without addressing the other at the same time. They carried out animal sacrifices to the gods "before crossing a river-frontier or even on the battlefield"¹. Cartledge also asserts that Herodotus was motivated to say that the "Spartans honour the things of the gods more highly than the things of men" because they were supposedly celebrating the Carneia festival at the same time as they neglected to send a full force to Thermopylae (480BC). The people of Sparta were ruled by religion and festivals - they were both held in higher esteem than the Spartans famed military achievements, and were inevitably playing the most prominent role in the lives of the Spartan people. Paul Cartledge has linked this practice to the worship of Apollo, associated with the worship of Hyacinthus, "a beautiful adolescent boy, whom Apollo loved (including sexually), whom he . ty politically, militarily and even shaping their values, attitudes and outlooks on life. The ancient Spartans life was governed by the oracle brought from Delphi, by Lycurgus.
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