Molon labe (ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, come and take them) was Leonidas' reply to Xerxes before the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. at his insistence that the Spartans surrender their weapons. The phrase would be pronounced by many other generals already in modern times, and adopted as a motto by the Greek army. In recent decades, its English translation has been associated with organizations, mainly from the United States, that defend the right to own weapons.
But going back to antiquity, the expression was not an attempt by Leonidas to be funny with Xerxes. Since childhood, like all Spartans, he had been educated to speak little, concisely and bluntly. Talkativeness was considered frivolous and inappropriate, as well as a waste of time.
Socrates says in the Protagoras of Plato about this spartan quality of speaking the right thing:
It is evident that the Spartans were not the first to use this form of expression, but they were possibly the first to promote it as an identifying feature of the spirit and of what it meant to be a Spartan. That is why today it is known as laconism (from the inhabitants of Laconia, that is, the Spartans).
Other examples of this laconism Spartan Plutarch also collects them:
The Macedonian, irritated, then threatened to invade their land and expel them:
Consequently neither he nor his son Alexander ever attempted to conquer the city. Plutarch continues with more examples of this, telling how Queen Gorgo asked her husband Leonidas, before leaving for Thermopylae, what she should do. He replied:marry a good husband and have good children .
Sometimes the laconism spartan could have challenging or humorous touches:
Or Dieneces' reply at Thermopylae to the Thracian who complained that there were so many Persian archers that with their arrows they would block the sun: well, we will fight in the shade . It is told by Herodotus, for whom the phrase was a funny joke :
As we said at the beginning, Spartan education encouraged laconicism, in fact it can be said that it was obligatory . Paul Cartledge says in his book Spartan Reflections that between the ages of seven and twelve a Spartan child studied practically the same subjects as an Athenian:reading and writing, music, dance and physical exercise. With one difference, in Sparta study was compulsory, and getting through that phase of the agoge it was an essential condition to be able to access citizenship at the age of 20. However, an Athenian child was guaranteed citizenship by birth.
What's more, Cartledge continues, the conditions in which a Spartan child studied were much harsher, since they included all kinds of imaginative punishments. , such as the teacher biting their finger if they did not give a laconic enough answer.
That the Spartans considered themselves better than any others is evident. But his women were not exactly modest either, although just as laconic, as Plutarch tells us again:
Finally, remember the phrase, equally laconic, with which the Spartans who went to war were supposedly said goodbye:come back with your shield or on it . Which meant that they came back alive or dead, but never abandoned their shield to flee. The explanation for this was given by the Spartan king Demaratus when asked why it was not honorable to return without the shield but without the helmet: