Lakedaemons. #0598

--''Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.''
< Simonides:- Leonidas, Spartan king in 480BC at Thermopylae. >

--There have been many instructive things said in soldier camp of the Spartans. But those written by Steven Pressfield, in Gates of Fire, are the most impressive that I've found anywhere.
--First to catch my attention was his depiction of harmony and fear.

--''esoterike harmonia ~ state of self composure which the exercises of the - phobologia - are designed to produce. As a string of the - kithera - vibrates purely, emitting only that note of the musical scale which is its alone, so must the individual warrior shed all which is superfluous in his spirit, until he himself vibrates at that sole pitch which his individual daemon dictates. - achievement of this ideal, in Lakedaemon, carries beyond courage on the battlefield, it is considered the supreme embodiment of virtue, andreia, of a citizen and a man.''

--''Beyond esoterike harmonia lies exoterike harmonia, that state of union with one's fellows which parallels the musical harmony of the multi-stringed instrument or of the chorus of voices itself. In battle exoterike harmonia guides the phalanx to move and strike as one man, of a single mind and will. In passion it unites husband to wife, lover to lover, in wordless perfect union. In politics exoterike harmonia produces a city of concord and unity, in which each individual, securing his own noblest expression of character, donates this to each other, as obedient to the laws of the commonwealth as the strings of the kithera to the immutable mathematics of music. In piety exoterike harmonia produces that silent symphony which most delights the ears of the gods.''

--''The Spartans have a discipline they call phobologia, the science of fear. Phobologia discipline is comprised of twenty-eight exercises, each focusing upon a separate nexus of the nervous system. The five primaries are the knees and hams, lungs and heart, loins and bowels, the lower back, and the girdle of the shoulders, particularly the trapezium muscles, which yoke the shoulder to the neck. A secondary nexus, for which the Lakedaemonians have twelve more exercises, is the face, specifically the muscles of the jaw, the neck and the four ocular constrictors around the eye sockets. The nexuses are termed by the Spartans phobosynakteres, fear accumulators.''

--''Fear spawns in the body, phobologia science teaches, and must be combated there. For once the flesh is seized, a phobokyklos, or loop of fear, may commence, feeding upon itself, mounting into a 'runaway' of terror. Put the body into a state of a aphobia, fearlessness, the Spartans believe, and the mind will follow.
----exercises in constricting and relaxing the relevant muscles by tapping them with a cane (olive bough) very lightly. ''

~~My sergeant touched on this training without ever having read these pointers, as far as I know. Teaching me stillness and patience with a whip and a stick. 'Movement attracts the eye, so you will NOT move. Be still and control your breath.' At one and the same time, a concentrated focus and a still relaxed state, from which accuracy with a weapon derives. Around the food time in the evening we might spend an hour discussing these harmonies, although in my early training we didn't speak of these 'Steven Pressfield' translations, we did learn of the differences of self-composure, and that team spirit here called exoterike harmonia.
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''We Increase Our Wealth When We Lessen Our Desires.''