Member-only story
The Spartan Mirage
Why does this ancient society capture the modern imagination?
If you’re American, you’ve probably seen it on the rear window of a car or perhaps on a too-tight T-shirt on a muscly guy: two Greek words, “ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.”
There seems to be a thriving business in ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ (molon labe, in the Latin alphabet) merch — if you visit your online retailer of choice, you can get the phrase on stickers, hats, shirts, flags, keychains, sew-on patches, tie pins, pop sockets, license plate frames, and ammunition boxes. The phrase often appears next to the American flag, the “don’t tread on me” snake, militia insignia, and, most of all, guns.
Molon labe means “come and take them.” It’s used by American gun enthusiasts and Second Amendment fundamentalists as a message: you can take my military-style assault rifles over my dead body.
The phrase comes from Plutarch’s Sayings of the Spartans, which is just what it sounds like: a collection of little snippets from important Spartan leaders. The quote supposedly comes from a moment when the Persian king Xerxes demanded the surrender of Spartan soldiers at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. The…
