The Pan-Laconian Federation of the USA & Canada held its annual convention this past May in Montreal, Canada. One of the proposed projects that was approved was the statue of an Ancient Spartan mother giving a shield to her son. The site that is being considered for the statue is the city square or center in Sparta, Greece. While no sculptor has been commissioned as of yet for this great project, it is the hope that it will be ready and completed by August 2007, which is also when the Pan-Laconian Federation will be having its 2007 annual convention in Sparta. The Federation is working closely with officials from the Prefecture of Laconia in the planning of the statue.
The President of the Federation, Takis Nikolopoulos originally came up with the idea of the statue and took the initiative for this project to be approved. Currently, there is a “campaign” effort by the Federation in order to raise the necessary funds for the project. The Federation also formed a committee for this task, which will include the President, Vice Presidents for Canada & USA, as well as all of the Supreme Regional Vice Presidents.
As mentioned above, the statue will pertain to an Ancient Spartan mother handing a shield to her son, with the words written on the base “H Epi Tan H Epi Tas,” which basically means either to come back victorious with this shield or dead on it! This was a common practice in Ancient Sparta as the men were trained from childhood for military warfare and it was expected of them to fight until the end and never retreat or surrender.
