Aristotle (c. 384-322 BCE)
“It is the bad man who ought to feel shame, because he is the sort of man to do a shameful deed; but it is absurd to think that being so constituted as to feel shame at doing something shameful makes you a good man.”
In the 6th century BCE, Sparta started to become noticeably more militant and frugal than their neighboring Greek cities. These changes were attributed to a semi-mythical man named Lycurgus, who lived anywhere from as early as the 9th century BCE up to the 6th century BCE, when the changes in Sparta became visible. Whatever the cause, Sparta’s culture changed dramatically, with Spartan citizens strategically banned from doing manual labor so that they could devote more time to training their bodies and minds for war. King Agesilaus II of Sparta (r. 400-360 BCE) was said to have explained the Spartan culture for war in an interesting way to his allies. During a meeting of his coalition forces, Agesilaus gathered the allied troops together and told them all to stand up if their profession was announced. After shouting many jobs—potters, smiths, carpenters, builders, laborers, etc…—the Spartan soldiers were the only warriors still sitting down, as soldiering was their sole profession.
With this attitude and mindset, cowardice was not tolerated in Sparta. They had such pride in their military might that they did not build a defensive wall around their city, and they allegedly bragged that none of their women had ever seen the smoke from an enemy campfire. They also teased other Greek cities about how few foreign dead were found near Sparta, for few could, or would, attack the Spartan homeland, whereas heroic Spartan dead were scattered throughout Greece. From the 6th century BCE until the early 4th century BCE, Sparta’s arrogant mindset was backed by spectacular military victories, which increased Spartan pride and created an illusion that the Spartans were unbeatable on the battlefield.
With such pride and devotion to war, the Spartans had little pity for the man who did not meet the high standard that was demanded of a Spartan warrior. Evaluation began as soon as a Spartan was born. According to the Greek-Roman historian Plutarch (c. 50-120 CE), Spartan newborns were brought to a meeting called a lesche, where the elders would determine the fate of the child. If healthy, Plutarch wrote that the child would be approved for upbringing and granted a portion of land. If the elders disliked what they saw, the newborn was allegedly condemned to abandonment at Apothetae, “the place of rejection,” located near Mount Taygetus. If infants were not spared for weakness, neither would grown adults be spared for cowardice. Sparta’s fluid definition for cowardice did not just describe a person who failed to face their fears, but also applied to soldiers who fought bravely in a battle but survived when the Spartan leadership and citizenry thought they should have died in a final last stand.
As long as Sparta kept alive its reputation as an undisputed infantry power, most Spartans could accept such a view on cowardice. After all, the Spartans thought themselves to be unbeatable on a pitched battlefield, so they presumably believed dramatic final stands would be the rare exception, not the norm. With such confidence in their armed forces, the Spartans thought that the only honorable way to fight was to win the battle or to literally die trying. That meant that if a lone Spartan warrior survived while his comrades died in battle, the rest of the Spartan community would call that survivor a coward.
Plutarch wrote of at least six ways that the so-called cowards were ostracized by the Spartan community:
In the 4th century BCE, Epaminondas, a gifted military leader from Thebes, finally forced the Spartans to reevaluate their treatment of the so-called cowards. Epaminondas wrecked havoc in the Peloponnesus for several years, shattering Sparta’s carefully cultivated illusion of invincibility on land. The Thebans defeated a Spartan army at Tegyra (c. 375 BCE) and later won an even more significant battle against Spartan forces at Leuctra, in 371 BCE. Epaminondas followed that up by invading the Peloponnesus and besieging the city of Sparta, itself, not once, but at least twice in separate campaigns, the first in the winter of 370-369 BCE, and the second in 362 BCE. Facing so many defeats, countless Spartan warriors could have been classified under Sparta’s definition of cowardice. Therefore, to reassure his men and to avoid a mutiny, King Agesilaus II gave his defeated troops a pardon.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Statue of an Ancient Spartan, [Public Domain] via maxpixel.net).
Soiurces:
Xenophanes (c. 560-478 BCE)
“There is no man that has seen, nor any that will ever know, the exact truth concerning the gods and all the other subjects of which I speak.”
Shortly after Augustus’ death in the year 14, the Roman Senate declared him to have ascended to divinity and an order of priests and priestesses was formed to begin maintaining sacred rites in his honor. In addition to this, geographical locations that played important roles in Augustus’ life were not only deemed to be historical landmarks, but also were venerated as sacred land.
Among the list of regions viewed as sacred were some of the places where Augustus had spent his childhood. The Roman scholar, Suetonius (c. 70-130+), wrote that a shrine was built on the place where Augustus was born. Yet, one of the most peculiar of the baby Augustus’ sacred sites was a nursery with a fearsome reputation for supernatural power.
According to Suetonius, Augustus was raised near the region of Velitrae in a country mansion owned by his grandfather. In the mansion was a small room that looked similar in size to a food pantry. Food, however, was not kept in that room—it was instead a nursery for Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
After Augustus’ death and deification, the small nursery was treated with great honor. According to Suetonius, people were urged not to enter the nursery wantonly or without a genuine, urgent cause. In addition, visitors were expected to undergo some rite of purification before entering the sacred nursery. Surprisingly, despite the honor shown to the room, the nursery (and the mansion encompassing it) reportedly remained privately owned, so there were no guards to ensure that respect was shown. Even so, the lack of security was not a problem because, according to legend, the nursery had its own otherworldly protectors.
In short, the nursery had a reputation for rampant supernatural hauntings. Many of the incidents in the room were fairly psychological—people would enter the room, only to flee from the nursery because a sudden sense of overwhelming terror flooded their thoughts after they had crossed the doorway. The supernatural protectors, however, did not only tinker with emotions. In other reported hauntings, the nursery guardians were much more physical.
Suetonius recorded an odd piece of folklore about the nursery, in which an unnamed owner of the Velitrae mansion decided to spend the night in the haunted room. Several motives were proposed, including that the owner wanted to test the rumors, or that he was ignorant of the room’s reputation and simply wanted to spend a night in a historic landmark. Whatever the case, the unseen protectors of the sacred site apparently became infuriated with this new owner, who had prepared himself a temporary bed in the venerated nursery of Augustus. As the story goes, the disrespectful mansion owner was grabbed by an invisible force in the middle of the night and ingloriously hurled out of the nursery with such force that he was found half dead the next morning, with all of his bedding strewn around him.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Brutus haunted by the ghost of Caesar, by Edward Scriven (1775–1841), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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Onund Tree-Foot
(Legendary Norwegian Viking and Icelandic settler said to have lived in the 9th century)
“The day we faced the music
of sword blades clanging on shields
destroyed my life’s joy:
hardships grip us too soon.”
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, better known simply as Suetonius, was born around the year 70 to a family of the equestrian order—a Roman equivalent of knighthood. The exact location of Suetonius’ birth is uncertain, but many point to the ancient city of Hippo Regius, in Algeria, where a memorial inscription in his honor was excavated in what had been once the city square. Although his family was not among the highest elite of Rome, they still had considerable influence. Suetonius claimed that his grandfather had contacts in the inner circle of Caligula (r. 37-41). His father, too, was a prominent figure, serving as a military tribune during the short reign of Emperor Otho (r. 69). Suetonius’ popularity and fame, however, would rise far higher than that of his forefathers, and he would accomplish that feat not with military victories or political maneuverings, but with education and writing.
Suetonius is one of the more misunderstood figures among the ancient scholars. His famous work, De Vita Caesarum (On the Life of the Caesars, aka, The Twelve Caesars) gave Suetonius an immortal name, yet it also garnered him an unfortunate reputation of being a lazy gossip. Such accusations become all the more poignant when Suetonius is compared against his equally famous contemporary, Plutarch. Both men were extremely learned biographers whose works are still cherished today. Plutarch, on the one hand, wrote biographies that were seamlessly fused with an overarching historical narrative—he painted the whole picture of the age, not just focusing on the character at the center of his biography. Suetonius, however, took a totally different approach for his own work.
In the case of The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius wrote with extreme tunnel vision, strictly ignoring everything that he felt did not pertain to the focus of his biography. His tunnel vision was further amplified by the decision to structure his text by topic (virtues, vices etc.), instead of chronology. In addition to this, he also had different thematic tastes than his peers. Whereas other writers were interested in war and politics, Suetonius contrastingly was drawn to social events and public opinion. So, while the more orthodox ancient historians would write about the military victories of Julius Caesar, Suetonius would forgo a description of the fighting in order to focus on the lavish celebrations that were thrown after a successful battle, as well as the public opinion of that said spectacle, and what Caesar was wearing at the time. In short, Suetonius cared much less about what a person did than who a person was. The controversy about Suetonius comes from the way he attempted to peer into the personalities of his subjects. In his hunt for information, Suetonius pulled from sources such as oral histories, folklore, lampoons and popular songs as a way to get a glimpse at his subjects’ personal lives. These sources, when separated from historical chronology and filed away into sections based on topic, might give a reader the impression that Suetonius’ work was something of an ancient tabloid.
Despite Suetonius’ modern reputation as a gossip, he was actually quite the successful and esteemed intellectual back in his own day. He moved to Rome sometime during the 90s, where he gained the admiration and support of Pliny the Younger. Pliny encouraged Suetonius to publish his writings and also introduced the young intellectual to the elites of Rome, including Emperor Trajan (r. 98-117). With Pliny’s help, Suetonius began rising in the political circles. During the reign of Trajan, or his predecessor, Hadrian (r. 117-138), Suetonius became the so-called imperial secretary of studies and libraries. Later, he was promoted to secretary of imperial correspondence. It is during this time of easy access to the imperial archives and libraries that Suetonius is believed to have written his first biographical collection, On Illustrious Men, and at least the first few sections of The Twelve Caesars. Sometime during Hadrian’s reign, possibly around the year 122, Suetonius was suddenly removed from his post by the emperor because of some sort of impropriety or misconduct. After his removal from office, Suetonius virtually disappeared from the historical record, but he is presumed to have lived into the next decade.
During his life, Suetonius was a fairly prolific writer. Unfortunately, only The Twelve Caesars, which is missing its prologue, and fragmented sections of On Illustrious Men, remain of Suetonius’ once abundant selection of writings. Even though these two remaining works are collections of biographies, Suetonius was not exclusively a biographer. In fact, the vast majority of his known publications were not biographical in the least. The names of these lost works have been preserved through commentaries and summaries written by other ancient and medieval authors. In particular, a 10th-century text, called the Suda, labeled Suetonius not as a biographer, but as an expert on language and word meaning. The Suda went on to record a long list of works attributed to Suetonius. Here are the known publications, not including The Twelve Caesars and On Illustrius Men, which Suetonius was said to have written. Do note that many of these lost texts sound far from being gossipy in nature:
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Image of Romans from “The International library of famous literature / selections from the world’s great writers, ancient, medieval, and modern,” page 552, (1898), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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In the year 872, Sa’id, the Arab ruler of Crete at the time, sent a naval commander named Photios to ravage the lands controlled by Constantinople, the imperial seat of power that ruled the remnants of the Roman Empire in the east. With a reported fleet of well over thirty heavy and light ships, Photios pushed deep into the Aegean Sea, raiding as far as the Hellespont, now known as the Dardanelles. The demographic composition of his crewmen is largely unknown, but medieval sources often described his armada simply as being a Cretan fleet. Similarly, the vessels he used were of Greek design, such as the koumparia (a warship/merchant freighter hybrid), myoparon (heavy, rounded ship) and galleys. Using this fleet, Photios ravaged the coast, capturing wealth and enslaving people as he went.
While the rampaging fleet was still in the northern Aegean, the imperial navy made its response. A fleet led by Niketas Ooryphas intercepted Photios near the Gallipoli Peninsula, at a place called Kardia. There, the imperial navy employed its famed super-weapon, Greek Fire, to deal a catastrophic blow to Photios and his raiders. The Greek Fire, a virtually inextinguishable liquid flame that could burn even on water, reportedly destroyed twenty of the Cretan ships. Photios, however, was not one of the dead—he and other survivors of the battle escaped from the imperial navy and headed toward the Peloponnesus.
Despite his defeat, Photios still had fight left in him. By 873, he had rebuilt a makeshift fleet, supposedly by recruiting pirates or commandeering their ships. With this revived force, Photius began raiding the western coast of the Peloponnesus. When news of the raids reached Constantinople, Niketas Ooryphas was sent once again to hunt down the Cretans. Ooryphas supposedly hauled his ships onto land and carried them across the Isthmus of Corinth in order to surprise Photios by approaching from the north instead of the south. Some historians doubt if Ooryphas actually crossed the Isthmus of Corinth, but, whatever the case, he did catch the Cretans by surprise.
The second battle between Photios and Ooryphas was even more devastating for the Cretans than the first. This time, the destruction of Photios’ fleet was total—his ships were burned or sunk, with Cretan survivors swimming to shore in hopes of escaping the clutches of the imperial navy. Nevertheless, Niketas Ooryphas captured the bulk of the scattered Cretan crewmen, including Photios, himself.
The captives would face a much worse fate than those who had perished in the earlier battles. Niketas Ooryphas apparently had the captured Cretans executed using several hellish methods. Some he supposedly flayed or ripped to death. Others he reportedly lowered into boiling pitch.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (12th-century Image from an illuminated manuscript, the Madrid Skylitzes, showing the Byzantine navy use Greek fire against the fleet of Thomas the Slav, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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The Buddha (this saying recorded c. 3rd century BCE)
“Better than a thousand statements
composed of meaningless words
is a single meaningful word which,
having been heard, brings peace.”
Although Sherman held the high rank of colonel at the start of the United States Civil War, he was still fairly untested in battle. Like many other famous U. S. Civil War military leaders, he had served in the army during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), but unlike other future generals, Sherman spent almost all of that war away from the frontlines, doing such tasks as recruiting or hunting down deserters. So, when Sherman first began commanding troops in battle at the start of the Civil War, very few Union generals knew just how good or bad a leader Sherman would be in the field. Unfortunately, Sherman, himself, was one of the doubters of his own ability.
The first year of the Civil War, 1861, did nothing to improve Sherman’s self-confidence. That year, he commanded a brigade in the embarrassing First Battle of Bull Run. In that battle, Union troops advanced against a strongly-positioned rebel force. The general lack of discipline in the Union and Confederate armies at the beginning of the war gave a clear advantage to the Confederacy in the battle of Bull Run. When Sherman and other leaders pressed their men to attack the rebel lines, the Union forces were thrown into disarray by an onslaught of Confederate gunfire. After the Confederate forces had stopped the Union advance, they launched a counter-attack, which threw the Union soldiers into panic and defeat. Watching the Union army flee from the battlefield did little to encourage Sherman’s self-confidence.
In the aftermath of the battle, President Abraham Lincoln rushed over to the demoralized troops, making appearances and delivering speeches to raise the spirits of the defeated soldiers. Interestingly, in a conversation with Abraham Lincoln, Sherman bluntly asked to be kept in a subordinate military position, as he did not trust himself with a superior command.
After the First Battle of Bull Run, Sherman was transferred to work under General Robert Anderson, who was leading the defense of the area around Louisville, Kentucky. Not long after he arrived, however, Sherman was placed in the position that he feared—General Anderson resigned his command because of mental stress and Sherman (now a Brigadier General) took over the defense of Kentucky.
While in this position, Sherman had an unfortunate meeting with the Secretary of War, Simon Cameron. The secretary had brought along a party of various people to accompany him on the tour of Louisville, and several of them were non-military personnel. When Sherman wanted to discuss private war matters, Secretary Cameron bluntly refused to dismiss any of the men who had accompanied him to Louisville. Therefore, Sherman locked the door and told Cameron about the situation in Kentucky while the other men were still present.
In particular, Sherman wanted the Secretary of War to have reinforcements diverted to Kentucky. Sherman argued that he had only about 18,000 soldiers to defend over 300 miles, while other Union generals, such as McClellan and Fremont, had much more manpower to defend smaller amounts of land. He concluded that he needed at least 60,000 men (about the same amount as Fremont) to mount a feasible defense against a possible Confederate attack. While Sherman’s staff and comrades in the room agreed with him up to this point, his next comment would catch them, and the Secretary of War, all off guard. For whatever reason—possibly due to his lack of self-confidence or an overestimation of Confederate strength—Sherman threw out a huge estimate of soldiers that he thought he would need during the climax and final stages of the war. He told the crowd in the locked room that he would need 200,000 men to carry the war from the defensive stage to that of the offensive. In Sherman’s defense, he was one of the first generals on either side of the Civil War to realize how bloody and destructive the conflict would become. Even so, Sherman would later complete his famously devastating “march to the sea” with an army of only around 62,000 soldiers.
Unfortunately for Sherman, one of Secretary Cameron’s companions in the confidential meeting was a reporter for the New York Tribune, so, naturally, newspapers quickly published out-of-context reports about Sherman requesting 200,000 soldiers for the defense of Kentucky. Several news outlets began releasing regular articles that consistently labeled Sherman with all sorts of unflattering names, such as crazy, mad and insane. Not long after the news stories began, Sherman was relieved from his command in Kentucky and transferred to work under Major-General Halleck in the Department of the Missouri. It was what Sherman wanted—to be back in a subordinate role—but his sudden removal from Kentucky optically reinforced the claims of the newsmen.
The newspaper harassment continued to plague Sherman even after he arrived in St. Louis, Missouri. Sherman was so stressed by all of the negative attention that it prompted him to eventually request twenty days of leave to spend with his family. Major-General Halleck justified his support for this time off in an unfortunate letter to the then Union commander-in-chief, General McClellan. Halleck wrote, “I am satisfied that General Sherman’s physical and mental system is so completely broken by labor and care as to render him, for the present, unfit for duty; perhaps a few weeks’ rest may restore him.” Yet, other than that one line of unflattering wording, General Halleck was a great help to Sherman, both personally and professionally. Most importantly, General Halleck put Sherman in a position to work with Ulysses S. Grant. Together, Grant and Sherman were able to help each other overcome their individual problems and imperfections, resulting in both leaders becoming military legends.
Written by C. Keith Hansley.
Picture Attribution: (Photograph of General William Tecumseh Sherman, taken between 1865 and 1880, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).
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