Lladro | Spartan | SKU: 01009695

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Lladro | Spartan | SKU: 01009695:
$8860.50

THE SPARTAN AT THE GATES

“Go, tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”

In the narrow pass of Thermopylae, where mountain and sea left little room for an army to march, King Leonidas of Sparta and his chosen three hundred stood against the mighty host of Persia. They knew the odds. They knew the end. And still, they held the pass.

Thus was forged one of the most enduring legends of the ancient world.

This magnificent black porcelain sculpture pays homage to one of those warriors — a son of Lacedaemon clad for battle, bearing the weapons of his calling: shield, lance, armor, and the formidable Spartan helm crowned with its sweeping plume. The warrior’s mask may be placed or removed thanks to a clever magnetic system, revealing the face beneath as though the soldier were preparing himself for the next campaign.

And this is no ordinary soldier.

The sculpture is rich with extraordinary detail, from the precisely modelled anatomy to the elaborate armor and meticulously ornamented shield. Black porcelain forms the foundation, enhanced with metallic copper, blue and black enamels, while the shield bears a striking black-luster marble effect. The helmet is finished in aged silver luster, giving the warrior the appearance of an artifact that might have been carried from some forgotten battlefield and somehow survived the centuries.

The result is wonderfully severe: noble, imposing, and just a little terrifying — exactly what one might hope for in a Spartan.

A FEW SPARTAN SECRETS

The famous 300 were not the entire Spartan army.

The 300 were an elite group of Spartan citizens selected to accompany King Leonidas. They were joined at Thermopylae by thousands of other Greek warriors, including the Thespians, who chose to remain and fight alongside them when the final stand came.

The Spartans weren’t actually called “Spartans” all the time.

They commonly referred to themselves as Lacedaemonians, after the region of Laconia. “Spartan” simply became the name history remembered.

Their famous shields were more than protection.

The large round aspis was so important that losing one’s shield was considered far more shameful than losing one’s helmet or breastplate. A warrior could survive without a helmet. His shield, however, was meant to protect both himself and the man standing beside him.

Spartan women were unusually independent for the ancient Greek world.

They received physical training, could own and inherit property, and exercised considerably more economic independence than women in many other Greek city-states. Sparta was, in several respects, a very strange place indeed.

And the Spartans had a rather brutal education system.

Boys entered the agōgē, a state-controlled system of military education and discipline. They were trained from a young age to endure hunger, hardship, physical punishment, and combat. In other words, Spartan childhood was decidedly less “play nicely with the other children” and considerably more “prepare yourself for war.”

The greatest lesson of Thermopylae was not that the Spartans could defeat an army many times their size. They could not.

It was that a small force, properly positioned and utterly unwilling to yield, could make an empire bleed for every step forward.

And so this warrior stands eternal — spear in hand, shield at the ready, helmet gleaming beneath the dust of ages — a monument to discipline, defiance, and the peculiar Spartan talent for making certain that even their defeats became legends.

The Gates may have fallen.

The legend never did.

THE ART OF THE WARRIOR

Sculptor: Ernest Massuet

Launch Year: 2023

Material: Black Porcelain

Finish: Matte & Metallic Luster

Color: Black

Height: 71 cm

Width: 44 cm

Depth: 26 cm

Weight: 6.1 kg

A formidable piece of porcelain for a formidable collector. At 71 cm tall and weighing 6.1 kg, this is less “little decorative statue” and considerably more “the Spartan has arrived, and apparently he intends to stay.”