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分享一个知识点： Reader question: Please explain “Spartan life” in the following passage: Bernard Madoff, the disgraced US financier who carried out one of Wall Street’s biggest-ever frauds, has swapped a life of luxury and drug-fuelled excess for a spartan life in prison where his main companions are a mafia boss and a convicted spy, according to legal papers. My comments: Madoff, who ran a Ponzi scheme to cheat billions out of investors, is living a spartan life, that is, a life of simplicity instead of luxury, which was his lifestyle before he was taken into prison. “Spartan life” refers to the life led by a Spartan, a lifestyle characterized by vigorous military training, severity and deprivation. The Spartans, if you learned your world history lessons, were from an ancient state in Greece who ran a great rivalry with the state of Athens for many centuries before Jesus Christ. Unlike the Athenians, who advocated individual rights and civil liberty, the Spartans were devoted to warfare. From the Web, I’ve culled these tidbits to give you an idea about what a real Spartan life was like - comparing to which, by the way, Madoff’s time in the cell will look like sunshine all year round: 1. Every male of Spartan (and Dorian, if one goes back far enough) blood was a warrior, and nothing else. The Spartan soldier spent his life with his comrades. He lived in barracks and ate all his meals with his fellow soldiers. He also married, but he was forbidden from living with his wife. It was an Athenian joke that Spartans had children before they even saw the face of their wives. The marriage ceremony involved an unusual ritual: at the end of the ceremony, the man carried his wife off as if he were taking her by force (do not mull too much on this point - women had great status in Sparta, as we shall see). Only at the age of 30 did the Spartan become an ‘equal’, and was allowed to live in his own house with his own family, although it was still compulsory to serve in the military. Military service ended at the age of 60. | 
