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140 views2 pages

VBGJ

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thejyprakash
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TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW


"/lere '.I' a prelty
By the eighth century B.C., the city-states of Greece had grown
condirion jfJr a dOIi
ofmy prelenlions! How so large and prosperous that they had run out of land to
can 1 show my face support their expanding popu lations. So they tumed to the
amol1li my friends? sea, establishing colonies in Asia Minor, Sicily, the Italian
Oh! kinli of heasls, 01' peninsula, even Africa. The city-state of Sparta, however, was
ralher Iheir lyranI, who landlocked and surrounded by mountains. Lacking access to
wOlild dare 10 treal YOll the Mediterranean, the Spartans never became a seafaring
Ihll"?" Hi.\· complaints people; instead they tumed on the cities around them, and, in
were nol ul1follnded, j"r a series of brutal, violent conflicts lasting more than a
Ihat very morninli, his
hundred years, managed to conquer an im mense area that
master, despile Ihe
would provide enough land for their citizens. This solution to
piercinli shrieks ofOl1r
their problem, however, brought a new, more formidable one:
younli friend, haff
How could they maintain and police their conquered
territories? The subordi nate peoples they ruled now
420 LAW 48 outnumbered them ten to one. Surely this horde would take a
horrible revenge on them.
Sparta's solution was to create a society dedicated to the art
of war. Spartans would be tougher, stronger, and fiercer than
their neighbors. This was the only way they could ensure their
stability and survival.
When a Spartan boy reached the age of seven, he was taken
from his mother and placed in a military club where he was
trained to fight and un derwent the strictest discipline. The boys
slept on beds of reeds; they were allotted only one outer
garment to wear for an entire year. They studied none of the arts;
indeed, the Spartans banned music, and perrnitted only slaves to
practice the crafts that were necessary to sustain them. The only
skiIls the Spartans taught were those of warfare. Children seen
as weaklings were left to die in a cavem in the mountains. No
system of money or trad ing was allowed in Sparta; acquired
wealth, they believed, would sow self ishness and dissension,
weakening their warrlor discipline. The only way a Spartan
could eam a living was through agriculture, mostly on state-
owned lands, which slaves, called helots, would work for hirn.
The Spartans' single-mindedness allowed them to forge the
most pow erful infantry in the world. They marched in perfect
order and fought with incomparable bravery. Their tight-knit
phalanxes could vanquish an army ten times their size, as they
proved in defeating the Persians at Thermopy lae. A Spartan
column on the march would strike terror in the enemy; it
seemed to have no weaknesses. Yet although the Spartans
proved them selves mighty warriors, they had no interest in
creating an empire. They only wanted to keep what they had
already conquered and to defend it
against invaders. Decades would pass without a single change in
the system that had succeeded so weIl in preserving Sparta's
status quo.
At the same time that the Spartans were evolving their
warlike culture, another city-state was rising to equal
prominence: Athens. Unlike Sparta, Athens had taken to the
sea, not so much to create colonies as for purposes of trade.
The Athenians became great merchants; their currency, the
fa mous "owl coins," spread throughout the Mediterranean.
Unlike the rigid Spartans, the Athenians responded to every
problem with consummate creativity, adapting to the occasion
and creating new social forms and new
arts at an incredible pace. Their society was in constant flux. And as their power grew, they carne to
pose a threat to the defense-minded Spartans.
In 431 B.C., the war that had been brewing between Athens and Sparta
for so long finally erupted. It lasted twenty-seven years, but after many twists of fortune, the Spartan
war machine finally emerged victorious. The Spartans now commanded an empire, and this time they
could not stay in their shell. If they gave up what they had gained, the beaten Athenians would regroup
and rise against them, and the long war would have been fought for naught.
After the war, Athenian money poured into Sparta. The Spartans had been trained in warfare, not
politics or economics; because they were so unaccustomed to it, wealth and its accompanying ways of
life seduced and overwhelmed them. Spartan govemors were sent to rule what had been Athenian
lands; far from horne, they succumbed to the worst forms of cor ruption. Sparta had defeated Athens, but
the fluid Athenian way of life was slowly breaking down its discipline and loosening its rigid order.
And Athens, meanwhile, was adapting to losing its empire, managing to thrive as a cultural and
economic center.
Confused by a change in its status quo, Sparta grew weaker and weaker. Some thirty years after
defeating Athens, it lost an important batde with the city-state of Thebes. Almost ovemight, this once
mighty nation collapsed, never to recover.

Interpretation
In the evolution of species, protective armor has almost always spelled dis aster. Although there are a
few exceptions, the shell most often becomes a dead end for the animal encased in it; it slows the
creature down, making it hard for it to forage for food and making it a target for fast-moving preda tors.
Animals that take to the sea or sky, and that move swifdy and unpre dictably, are infinitely more
powerful and secure.
In facing a serious problem-controlling superior numbers-Sparta reacted like an animal that
develops a shell to protect itself from the envi ronment. But like a turde, the Spartans sacrificed mobility
for safety. They managed to preserve stability for three hundred years, but at what cost? They had no
culture beyond warfare, no arts to relieve the tension, a con stant anxiety about the status quo. While
their neighbors took to the sea, leaming to adapt to a world of constant motion, the Spartans entombed
themselves in their own system. Victory would mean new lands to govem, which they did not want;
defeat would mean the end of their military ma chine, which they did not want, either. Only stasis
allowed them to survive. But nothing in the world can remain stable forever, and the shell or system you
evolve for your protection will someday prove your undoing.
In the case of Sparta, it was not the armies of Athens that defeated it, but the Athenian money.
Money flows everywhere it has the opportunity to go; it cannot be controlled, or made to fit a
prescribed pattern. It is in herendy chaotic. And in the long run, money made Athens the conqueror,

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