Spartan Martial Arts

Spartan martial arts came from the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta (or Lacedaemon). The area of Sparta was located to the south of Arcadie and surrounded the Eurotas river. The Spartan warriors led the Greek forces in the Greco-Persian wars, during which the famous Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) was fought in which approximately 300 Spartan warriors (and support troops) led by King Leonidas used their superior weaponry, armor, phalanx tactics and martial skills to hold off a massive Persian force and inflict huge losses before finally being encircled and slain to a man. One year later the Spartans led a city-state coalition force to rout the Persians at the battle of Plataea.

Enmity with Athens followed and Sparta suffered defeat by Thebes in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. The city-state retained its political independence until 146 BC when Rome conquered Greece.

Sparta was famous among the Greeks - and indeed it remains famous today - for being a militaristic state. The city-state was so pre-occupied with forging first class warriors that it practiced an early form of eugenics through which only the strongest were allowed to survive and continue to breed. The result was impeccably skilled warriors, trained for years in Spartan martial arts and able to fight as a group in the phalanx.

Eugenics

Shortly after birth a male Spartan child was bathed in wine by its mother to see if it could survive. Later the child's father would bring it before elders who would decide whether the child should live or be cast into a chasm on Mount Taygetos.

Spartan Martial Arts Military Training

Military training for a boy began at the age of seven when he would enter the Agoge system to learn Spartan martial arts. Although the primary focus of this was to prepare the boy to serve in the Spartan phalanx, it was extensive enough to cover other aspects of child rearing such as reading, writing, music and dancing. Training was divided into three segments: from 7-17, 18-19 and 20-29. The Spartan warrior became a 'reserve' soldier at the age of 18 and a full member of the army at age 20 before he retired at 30 after which he would remain on the 'active reserve' list until 60.

Twelve was also an important age for the Spartan youth. First he would be given a red cloak, which would serve as a badge of honor. It was also at this age that he would be given over to an older, unmarried Spartan mentor who would pass on his knowledge and give advice on training. It continues to be debated as to whether or not this relationship was also homosexual.

Training continued until the age of 18 when a ritual coming-of-age task was performed. If the warrior survived he would join the reserves then, at 20, he would join his squad of around fifteen others. This squad would bond and learn to rely on one another, a factor vital to the success of the phalanx.

The sanctity of the phalanx is testified by the parting words of a warrior's wife (or some other significant female figure) when her man marched to war. She would present his shield to him and say 'With this, or upon this', indicating that he should return from battle either with his shield or carried slain upon it. The shield carried such significance because in the press of the phalanx it protected both the wearer and the man to his left. Without the shield a comrade was in danger and with him the protection of the phalanx. Losing one's shield was punishable by death though the same law did not apply to personal pieces of armor. A principal teaching therefore of Spartan martial arts - and a factor that influenced weaponry and tactics - was the subjugation of the self for the protection of the phalanx. The martial skills of the Spartan warrior then were different to what we would perceive today as a martial art. Most of us would first of all think of a martial art as being intended for individual, most likely one-on-one combat, but not so for the Spartans. They anticipated fighting in a group in massive battles and training in Spartan martial arts reflected this.

In the videos below you can take a closer look at Spartan martial arts, tactics and the training methods of the Agoge.

The Spartan shield was large and heavy and not intended for defensive purposes only. Used correctly from a stable, strong stance, the shield was also used to attack an opponent and drive him to the ground.

Spartan martial arts included weapons practice and pankration which, as you can see from the video, had much in common with modern MMA fighting except that for the Spartan warrior on the battlefield there were no rules whatsoever. Finishing techniques included eye gouges and neck cranks.

Pankration

Pankration originated in Greece and is widely held to be the forerunner of all martial arts. It is certainly the oldest art yet discovered with a corpus of recorded techniques, at least in the West. The Indian art of Kalaripayattu may well be older though an alternative theory is that Alexander brought the art to India from where it spread into China, Japan and Korea.

Pankration in the Olympics

Like other events that made up the roster of games in the ancient Olympics, Pankration was a warrior skill first, used by the Greeks on the battlefields of yesteryear if, like their Asian cousins, a soldier should ever find himself without a weapon. In the Olympics (introduced as an event in 648 B.C.) it became a competitive, if brutal, sport in which highly trained competitors sought to better their peers. Apart from biting and gouging, the art was effectively a no-holds barred fighting style, though we can surmise that certainly gouging would have been part of the arsenal of techniques used against an enemy in life-or-death combat.

Many of the techniques practiced in the art are similar to those found in Asian fighting methods (again, note the theory that the art may have been adopted in India from where it spread to China). Whether this is because of a direct influence or the finite number of ways punches, kicks and locks can be applied, thus leading to repetition, has yet to be established. Other similarities do exist, such as the striking of weak points of the body, the importance of balance and the use of a shout to both energize the practitioner and scare the opponent. Experts were even known to publicly smash rocks to demonstrate their skill, a practice replicated in many Asian arts.

The style is a complete martial art in that it does not specialize in one aspect of unarmed defense but teaches techniques at all ranges, from kicking to groundwork, thus betraying its roots in classical Greek boxing and wrestling. Utilizing low kicks, vicious punches, jarring elbow strikes and sweeps, the pankratiast would hammer an opponent to the floor, attack the other in a prone position, then grapple to force a submission. On the battlefield any such strangle holds or joint locks would have been fully executed, resulting in death, paralysis or very serious injury. These skills were, and still are, developed by shadow boxing combined with heavy body conditioning and a lot of sparring. Sparring can take two forms: concentrating on striking or focusing on grappling. Training today is far, far less bloody and makes use of contemporary scientific knowledge to enhance training methods. That said, Pankration remains a highly effective art. The modern day version of this art is the result of academic inquiry into its origins and does not exist as the end result of being passed down from successive teacher to student relations.

There are hopes that one-day soon a sanitized form of the art will once more grace the list of events in the Olympic games.

Greco-Roman Wrestling

The movements seen in Greco-Roman wrestling used throughout the Roman Empire had much in common with Greek pankration. I will concentrate here on this form of combat as it was found in Roman times, to distinguish it from the practice of the ancient Greeks.

The culture and peoples of the Greeks had an enormous influence on the civilization of Rome, and this included the fighting arts. An important difference in approach lay in the popular ends to which the arts, technically similar, were put. For the Greeks pankration, though vicious, was, away from the battlefield, a competition. In theory it was a method of training the body and mind, of developing character and testing oneself against similarly trained opponents in the great Olympic event. Under Roman rule, the style became, if possible, even more geared to combat as it moved to the gladiatorial arena where victory often meant life and defeat meant death. Techniques were purposely evolved to excite the bloodthirsty crowd and bring honor to the champion. The form of wrestling witnessed in the Colosseum was literally no-holds barred and included gouging and biting. Starting from a standing position a fight would continue until one of the contestants gave up, was knocked out, or was killed. Given that techniques were designed to cause death, we can suppose that few ever had a chance to surrender victory and in any case, defeat would lead to dishonor and to many was not an option.

Blood letting was further enhanced by the wearing of caestus gloves. These gloves were made of small stones wrapped in leather and bound around the wrists and forearms, with the fingers free to grab and hold. A blow from such a weapon itself could prove deadly and a clean hit would at the least knock someone senseless, weakening the opponent and collapsing him to the floor so that a finishing technique, most probably a strangle or neck break, could be administered.

Wrestling was practiced by men throughout the lands, from the emperor himself down to shepherds and slaves. In fact a primary motivation for wishing to participate in such games was the lure of rewards such as citizenship and title. Training was extremely hard and hardening, combining wrestling and boxing techniques and always geared to a life-or-death confrontation. Contestants were highly conditioned, agile and displayed well-developed muscular physiques.

In unarmed combat the Greco-Roman wrestler of the Roman Empire was unequalled. He was trained and conditioned to enter combat and secure a bloody victory with no regard for rules or the welfare of his opponent. Comfortable at all ranges, such a wrestler was well rounded. In addition, many of the top wrestlers were also trained with weapons to fight gladiatorial matches and possessed a tremendous amount of skill in this area also. Essentially the art of the circus was the art of the battlefield; there was nothing to distinguish the two.

That said, the modern version of Greco-Roman wresling has not evolved from the battlefield version as seen in, for example, Japanese martial arts. The modern style originated in the mid-nineteenth century and the name was added later in order to simply create an image of mystique and validity.

Modern Greco-Roman wrestling has become, once again, an Olympic sport. It is characterized by the dis-allowance of grips below the waist which prevents the use of trips and instead emphasizes the clinch and throws. A match lasts for 3 x 2 minute rounds and is primarily decided on a fall or pin which means that both an opponent's shoulders are pinned down simultaneously and observed by the referee.

Greco-Roman wrestling has in recent years transferred well into the MMA arena with such notable fighters as Randy Couture and Dan Henderson representing the sport.

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