14 Paıdeía
Spartan boy who died when a fox stolen by his comrades from the stores of
the men’s mess, which he was resolutely concealing beneath his tunic, gnawed
at his vitals. The tale may well be apocryphal, as most scholars assume. It is
certainly dramatic. But, in context, the anecdote was nonetheless apt, for, as
stories go, it was far less implausible than we might be inclined to suppose. In
antiquity, fresh fox meat was considered a great delicacy, especially in the au-
tumn when eating grapes had made these animals plump.^30
Music was central to Spartan life. This much is clear from Pindar’s brief
celebration of Lacedaemon: for the Theban poet praises Sparta not only for
the prudence of her leaders and the achievements of her warriors, but also for
her prowess in the arts.
There the Counsels of the Elders
And the Spears of the Young Men are the Best
And the Choirs and the Muse and the Splendor.Pindar was not peculiar in linking these notions. By his day, this depiction of
Sparta had come to have a familiar ring. Two centuries earlier, when the festi-
val of the Carneia was reorganized, the poet Terpander of Lesbos had written
of Lacedaemon that “there the spears of young men blossom, and music with
a clear tone, and justice in the broad streets—ally of noble deeds.” Later in
the seventh century, Alcman had sounded much the same theme, describing
Sparta as a place where “playing the cithara well rivals the wielding of iron
swords.” By the end of the archaic period, the Lacedaemonian zest for music
had become proverbial. “The cicada,” wrote Pratinus of Phlius, “is a Laconian:
ever ready for a chorus.”^31
This phenomenon deserves respectful attention, for it would be a mistake
to underestimate the integrating force of the choral performances, the danc-
ing, and the other public rituals that marked the Hyacinthia, the Gymnopaid-
iai, the Carneia, and the other great festivals of Sparta. Terpander is himself
credited with having brought an end to civil strife in the city, and Plutarch
suggests that music in general played a vital role in the prevention of stásıs.
Moreover, when Pindar attributed to the poet indebted to Apollo and inspired
by the Muse an ability to “infuse into hearts and minds that good order and
lawfulness [eunomía] which frees men from [intestine] war,” Sparta was the
city that he had foremost in mind. Though the Lacedaemonians neglected the
technical study of this art, Aristotle tells us, they claimed an expertise in dis-
tinguishing songs that were serviceable from those that were not. The standard