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The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conqueri

The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought. It was a sick and broken society populated by fanatics, that was quickly (on a historical timescale) out-advanced by its neighbors. Imagine if a casino-less (Mormon Fort-era) Las Vegas, NV was full of militiamen and religious zealots and got involved in a war with the surrounding area and it managed conquer all of Clark County, the county that surrounds it, and control it for about 30 years by implementing a cruel system that enslaved most of its population. And then that short-lived city-state collapsed after the rest of the Nevada developed over the decades to the point that a coalition of other small counties quickly steamrolled the now-decrepit and hollow Clark County city-state. Like, super steamrolled. Like the rest of Nevada had developed tanks and artillery and the "Vegans" still fought with Mormon Fort-era weaponry. That's Sparta. I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around.

paleotrope 7y ago
Sparta is fetishized because they beat Athens in the Peloponnesian war and Plato idealized the spartans.
- hodgesrm 7y ago
  There was also that little skirmish at Thermopylae that helped grow the legend.
  - lolinder 7y ago
    I'd argue that the mythology surrounding Thermopylae is the result of the mythology surrounding Sparta, rather than the other way around. Objectively, Thermopylae was an abject defeat (even by Herodotus's account) that didn't do anything to save Greece from Persia conquering basically everything. The only reason it's more than a historical footnote is because of the Spartan legend.
    - cafard 7y ago
      It was a holding action that gave the Greeks time to consolidate further back, no? And really, quite number of holding actions and retreats have achieved considerable fame. Among the retreats I'd mention the Anabasis, Sir John Moore's retreat on Corunna, the Long March, Dunkirk, and Stillwell's retreat to Burma.
      - muro 7y ago
        Only if made by victors, no?
      - nidificate 7y ago
        > Spartan planning is both direct and unrealistic: find a choke-point, fortify it and hold it indefinately with a hoplite army. Attempted at Thermopylae this plan fails; the Battle of Thermopylae is often represented in popular culture as an intentional delaying action, but it was nothing of the sort – Herodotus is clear that this was supposed to be the decisive land engagement (Hdt. 7.175; Cf. Diodorus 11.4.1-5).
        dr_dshiv 7y ago
        He is wrong about that. Herodotus says that they were an advance front to buy time for the rest, who were at a religious festival and at the Olympics: “The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it was likely they might have done had they seen that Sparta was backward. They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian festival, which was what now kept them at home, to leave a garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full force to join the army. The rest of the allies also intended to act similarly; for it happened that the Olympic festival fell exactly at this same period. None of them looked to see the contest at Thermopylae decided so speedily; wherefore they were content to send forward a mere advanced guard.”
    - notfromhere 7y ago
      Pretty sure Persia lost that war pretty significantly.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Sparta was considered important way before they "beat Athens". And it has nothing to do with Plato either.
  - lolinder 7y ago
    Can you provide a source or an alternative point of origin for Sparta's importance? You've stated categorically that the parent is misinformed, but provided no information to back it up.
    - kieranmaine 7y ago
      I always thought the Spartans came to prominence in this war - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Why, are the claims controversial? They're backed by 2+ millenia of historiography. Just off of the easiest sources available on the web: Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BC), from which it emerged victorious. (...) Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. (...) In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice." Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta Sparta was one of the most important Greek city-states throughout the Archaic and Classical periods and was famous for its military prowess. The professional and well-trained Spartan hoplites with their distinctive red cloaks, long hair, and lambda-emblazoned shields were probably the best and most feared fighters in Greece, fighting with distinction at such key battles as Thermopylae and Plataea in the early 5th century BCE. https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/ https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/ During the 5th century BC Sparta was very powerful. This was due to her army, which was feared by other Greeks. Sparta focused on producing good soldiers and all Spartan male citizens were part of the army. The Spartan army played an important role in the Greek victory over the Persians, in 480-479 BC. http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html The Athenian view of Sparta oscillated between admiration and fear, according to whether their warlike neighbors were allies or enemies. Without Spartan participation in the war against Persia at the beginning of the fifth century B.C.— especially their heroic stand at the critical Battle of Thermopylae in 480—the Persians may well have conquered Greece. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-12/sparta-military-greek-civilization/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-...
- cafard 7y ago
  They also contributed greatly to beating the Persians at Plataea.
- mandevil 7y ago
  They beat Athens only with the help of tremendous quantities of Persian gold. That was what enabled Sparta to win the war, not Sparta's military capabilities.
- catalogia 7y ago
  I think it has a lot to do with Plutarch telling wacky fun stories about Lycurgus and Sparta. The sort of stories that are fun to share with others.
coldtea 7y ago
>The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought. Yeah, that's not even wrong. Sparta was an important city-state, and survived centuries without being pushed around like others, even larger had. They also bossed lesser city-states around, and of course defeated Athens itself, while also being important for the defense against Persian invasions. No city-state at the time (of which were dozens) would consider Sparta a "valueless minor city-state". The very opposite is true. The rest of the comment (or rather, all of it) is irrelevant drivel, more a rant about modern day gun-freaks and rednecks and US issues, than about historical Sparta.
- kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
  By what metric were they important? Economic output? Influence abroad? Cultural contributions? Trade hub? A cultural impact that lasts to today that makes them important in retrospect? A city-state conquering 21,000 square kilometers (roughly the same area of Clark County, NV, chosen purposefully for my example) of olive groves and poor towns on a peninsula that is almost completely surrounded by sea with no other major players doesn't make one important, in the big picture. I mean, I know philosophers liked to wax... philosophically... about them, like they were the lost city of Atlantis or something, centuries after the slow and creaky absorption of the hellish nightmare that was a declining Sparta into their neighbors, but so what? I don't know what your gun stuff was about. edit: I can imagine all of the rulers of the ACTUALLY relevant kingdoms and empires that surrounded Sparta looking at a map that was all colored in except for Sparta and saying to their generals: "You know what? We'll give it a try but even if we do conquer Sparta all we'll get is a bunch of olives, goats, and a whole bunch of whacked-out weirdos with no gold, no navy, and a lot of baggage. So commit but don't 'Commit' and if we lose we'll just wait them out and color in the entire map later when they inevitably collapse."
  - peterwwillis 7y ago
    Mainly they were economically and politically important. They were incredibly rich and had alliances with all neighboring city-states, using each alliance as leverage for more alliances. They didn't even need to send many of their own soldiers or slaves for any given war, their allies would send the bulk of the forces.
bilbo0s 7y ago
>I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized I'll just say that it's human nature to romanticize the past. Particularly when we feel we have an affinity for that past.
0xbadcafebee 7y ago
Sparta is fetishized because human societies worship glory, courage and sacrifice, and that's what their myth is all about. As it's mythological, we tend to obscure the details we don't like and embellish the ones we do.
gaogao 7y ago
Sounds like Fallout New Vegas
- Gabriel_Martin 7y ago
  Fallout: New Vegans (if you follow OP's naming convention)
smacktoward 7y ago
> I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. It's because they saw a movie that depicted the Spartans as super ripped badasses who kicked ass all the time. Seriously, there's not much more to it than that.
- mieseratte 7y ago
  I remember learning about and being fascinated by Sparta after learning about it in a history class, long before 300 was made. There's more to it than your snarky analysis would suggest.
  - nidificate 7y ago
    Xenophan and Plutarch probably hit a bit to do with it.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      Absolutely. Anybody who's read Plutarch's Parallel Lives would be hard pressed to not have some degree of fascination with Sparta.
- edgarvaldes 7y ago
  >Seriously, there's not much more to it than that. Do you really think that everything comes from that 2006 film? I learned about that civilization more than 30 years ago, when my primary school teachers taught me about classical Greece and its legacy. There is a long Hellenistic tradition that takes Sparta and Athens as the embodiment of two models worthy of historical study.
AcerbicZero 7y ago
At this point I'm pretty sure 300 has created both the most obnoxious and uninformed fan boys, as well as these terrific circlejerks on how lame Sparta aCtUaLly was. Somehow the circlejerk, with its rampant negativity, still seems to be the worse of the two.
dang 7y ago
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and particularly please edit out flamebait, such as your last sentence. If we can't discuss classical history without flamewar, we can't discuss anything without flamewar. Let's discuss things without flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- HeroOfAges 7y ago
  I don't see what was "flamewar style" about the grandparent post. Are you referring to the mention of "Vegans"? I took that to mean Vegans as in citizens of Las Vegas. People say Angelenos to refer to inhabitants of Los Angeles. I believe that was the spirit in which the reference to "Vegans" was intended. edited to correct the spelling of Las Vegas
  - dang 7y ago
    Looking at it again I think I was reacting primarily to the last sentence.
grouseway 7y ago
>I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. War College had a good interview with a historian on this subject. https://player.fm/series/war-college-1324080/this-is-not-sparta https://player.fm/series/war-college-1324080/this-is-not-spa...
friendlybus 7y ago
The same reason people fetishize pirates, astronauts and jedi. They represent a niche symbol that doesn't have a compare. The historical truth of Sparta is important to know, but the symbol is a separate thing. The spirit of the hold-out warrior who's heroic society succeeds and fails, is interesting in many different ways. I think it's good people know about and integrate the spartan story into their own world view, there's a lot of cautionary tales in there for those that believe you could ever succeed at having such a radical worldview as the Spartans maintained. The unpleasantness of the fan is directly proportional to how much they need to learn the lessons of the past and the folly of that mindset. There are also lessons about aspects of masculinity, femininity and most of life that stories like Sparta can be a useful reflection tool. Sparta is a small moment in a large pantheon of stories that make people better people. Even to the most cynical view, it's better these unpleasant people explore this mindset in art than to carry out the actions in their full in real life.
leftyted 7y ago
> I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. The "fetishization" of Sparta goes back to Thucydides and Xenophon, Athenians who admired the Spartans, and Plutarch, a Roman who admired Sparta.
- astine 7y ago
  Plutarch was a Greek.
teambayleaf 7y ago
Then why did Xerxes try to invade Laconia? To tramp on valueless minor city-states just for fun?

paleotrope 7y ago

Sparta is fetishized because they beat Athens in the Peloponnesian war and Plato idealized the spartans.

hodgesrm 7y ago
There was also that little skirmish at Thermopylae that helped grow the legend.
- lolinder 7y ago
  I'd argue that the mythology surrounding Thermopylae is the result of the mythology surrounding Sparta, rather than the other way around. Objectively, Thermopylae was an abject defeat (even by Herodotus's account) that didn't do anything to save Greece from Persia conquering basically everything. The only reason it's more than a historical footnote is because of the Spartan legend.
  - cafard 7y ago
    It was a holding action that gave the Greeks time to consolidate further back, no? And really, quite number of holding actions and retreats have achieved considerable fame. Among the retreats I'd mention the Anabasis, Sir John Moore's retreat on Corunna, the Long March, Dunkirk, and Stillwell's retreat to Burma.
    - muro 7y ago
      Only if made by victors, no?
    - nidificate 7y ago
      > Spartan planning is both direct and unrealistic: find a choke-point, fortify it and hold it indefinately with a hoplite army. Attempted at Thermopylae this plan fails; the Battle of Thermopylae is often represented in popular culture as an intentional delaying action, but it was nothing of the sort – Herodotus is clear that this was supposed to be the decisive land engagement (Hdt. 7.175; Cf. Diodorus 11.4.1-5).
      - dr_dshiv 7y ago
        He is wrong about that. Herodotus says that they were an advance front to buy time for the rest, who were at a religious festival and at the Olympics: “The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it was likely they might have done had they seen that Sparta was backward. They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian festival, which was what now kept them at home, to leave a garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full force to join the army. The rest of the allies also intended to act similarly; for it happened that the Olympic festival fell exactly at this same period. None of them looked to see the contest at Thermopylae decided so speedily; wherefore they were content to send forward a mere advanced guard.”
  - notfromhere 7y ago
    Pretty sure Persia lost that war pretty significantly.
coldtea 7y ago
Sparta was considered important way before they "beat Athens". And it has nothing to do with Plato either.
- lolinder 7y ago
  Can you provide a source or an alternative point of origin for Sparta's importance? You've stated categorically that the parent is misinformed, but provided no information to back it up.
  - kieranmaine 7y ago
    I always thought the Spartans came to prominence in this war - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Persian_Wars
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Why, are the claims controversial? They're backed by 2+ millenia of historiography. Just off of the easiest sources available on the web: Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BC), from which it emerged victorious. (...) Sparta was the subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. (...) In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice." Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta Sparta was one of the most important Greek city-states throughout the Archaic and Classical periods and was famous for its military prowess. The professional and well-trained Spartan hoplites with their distinctive red cloaks, long hair, and lambda-emblazoned shields were probably the best and most feared fighters in Greece, fighting with distinction at such key battles as Thermopylae and Plataea in the early 5th century BCE. https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/ https://www.ancient.eu/sparta/ During the 5th century BC Sparta was very powerful. This was due to her army, which was feared by other Greeks. Sparta focused on producing good soldiers and all Spartan male citizens were part of the army. The Spartan army played an important role in the Greek victory over the Persians, in 480-479 BC. http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/sparta/home_set.html The Athenian view of Sparta oscillated between admiration and fear, according to whether their warlike neighbors were allies or enemies. Without Spartan participation in the war against Persia at the beginning of the fifth century B.C.— especially their heroic stand at the critical Battle of Thermopylae in 480—the Persians may well have conquered Greece. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-12/sparta-military-greek-civilization/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/11-...
cafard 7y ago
They also contributed greatly to beating the Persians at Plataea.
mandevil 7y ago
They beat Athens only with the help of tremendous quantities of Persian gold. That was what enabled Sparta to win the war, not Sparta's military capabilities.
catalogia 7y ago
I think it has a lot to do with Plutarch telling wacky fun stories about Lycurgus and Sparta. The sort of stories that are fun to share with others.

coldtea 7y ago

>The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought. Yeah, that's not even wrong. Sparta was an important city-state, and survived centuries without being pushed around like others, even larger had. They also bossed lesser city-states around, and of course defeated Athens itself, while also being important for the defense against Persian invasions. No city-state at the time (of which were dozens) would consider Sparta a "valueless minor city-state". The very opposite is true. The rest of the comment (or rather, all of it) is irrelevant drivel, more a rant about modern day gun-freaks and rednecks and US issues, than about historical Sparta.

kilo_bravo_3 7y ago
By what metric were they important? Economic output? Influence abroad? Cultural contributions? Trade hub? A cultural impact that lasts to today that makes them important in retrospect? A city-state conquering 21,000 square kilometers (roughly the same area of Clark County, NV, chosen purposefully for my example) of olive groves and poor towns on a peninsula that is almost completely surrounded by sea with no other major players doesn't make one important, in the big picture. I mean, I know philosophers liked to wax... philosophically... about them, like they were the lost city of Atlantis or something, centuries after the slow and creaky absorption of the hellish nightmare that was a declining Sparta into their neighbors, but so what? I don't know what your gun stuff was about. edit: I can imagine all of the rulers of the ACTUALLY relevant kingdoms and empires that surrounded Sparta looking at a map that was all colored in except for Sparta and saying to their generals: "You know what? We'll give it a try but even if we do conquer Sparta all we'll get is a bunch of olives, goats, and a whole bunch of whacked-out weirdos with no gold, no navy, and a lot of baggage. So commit but don't 'Commit' and if we lose we'll just wait them out and color in the entire map later when they inevitably collapse."
- peterwwillis 7y ago
  Mainly they were economically and politically important. They were incredibly rich and had alliances with all neighboring city-states, using each alliance as leverage for more alliances. They didn't even need to send many of their own soldiers or slaves for any given war, their allies would send the bulk of the forces.

bilbo0s 7y ago

>I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized I'll just say that it's human nature to romanticize the past. Particularly when we feel we have an affinity for that past.

0xbadcafebee 7y ago

Sparta is fetishized because human societies worship glory, courage and sacrifice, and that's what their myth is all about. As it's mythological, we tend to obscure the details we don't like and embellish the ones we do.

gaogao 7y ago

Sounds like Fallout New Vegas

Gabriel_Martin 7y ago
Fallout: New Vegans (if you follow OP's naming convention)

smacktoward 7y ago

> I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. It's because they saw a movie that depicted the Spartans as super ripped badasses who kicked ass all the time. Seriously, there's not much more to it than that.

mieseratte 7y ago
I remember learning about and being fascinated by Sparta after learning about it in a history class, long before 300 was made. There's more to it than your snarky analysis would suggest.
- nidificate 7y ago
  Xenophan and Plutarch probably hit a bit to do with it.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    Absolutely. Anybody who's read Plutarch's Parallel Lives would be hard pressed to not have some degree of fascination with Sparta.
edgarvaldes 7y ago
>Seriously, there's not much more to it than that. Do you really think that everything comes from that 2006 film? I learned about that civilization more than 30 years ago, when my primary school teachers taught me about classical Greece and its legacy. There is a long Hellenistic tradition that takes Sparta and Athens as the embodiment of two models worthy of historical study.

AcerbicZero 7y ago

At this point I'm pretty sure 300 has created both the most obnoxious and uninformed fan boys, as well as these terrific circlejerks on how lame Sparta aCtUaLly was. Somehow the circlejerk, with its rampant negativity, still seems to be the worse of the two.

dang 7y ago

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and particularly please edit out flamebait, such as your last sentence. If we can't discuss classical history without flamewar, we can't discuss anything without flamewar. Let's discuss things without flamewar. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HeroOfAges 7y ago
I don't see what was "flamewar style" about the grandparent post. Are you referring to the mention of "Vegans"? I took that to mean Vegans as in citizens of Las Vegas. People say Angelenos to refer to inhabitants of Los Angeles. I believe that was the spirit in which the reference to "Vegans" was intended. edited to correct the spelling of Las Vegas
- dang 7y ago
  Looking at it again I think I was reacting primarily to the last sentence.

grouseway 7y ago

>I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. War College had a good interview with a historian on this subject. https://player.fm/series/war-college-1324080/this-is-not-sparta https://player.fm/series/war-college-1324080/this-is-not-spa...

friendlybus 7y ago

The same reason people fetishize pirates, astronauts and jedi. They represent a niche symbol that doesn't have a compare. The historical truth of Sparta is important to know, but the symbol is a separate thing. The spirit of the hold-out warrior who's heroic society succeeds and fails, is interesting in many different ways. I think it's good people know about and integrate the spartan story into their own world view, there's a lot of cautionary tales in there for those that believe you could ever succeed at having such a radical worldview as the Spartans maintained. The unpleasantness of the fan is directly proportional to how much they need to learn the lessons of the past and the folly of that mindset. There are also lessons about aspects of masculinity, femininity and most of life that stories like Sparta can be a useful reflection tool. Sparta is a small moment in a large pantheon of stories that make people better people. Even to the most cynical view, it's better these unpleasant people explore this mindset in art than to carry out the actions in their full in real life.

leftyted 7y ago

> I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around. The "fetishization" of Sparta goes back to Thucydides and Xenophon, Athenians who admired the Spartans, and Plutarch, a Roman who admired Sparta.

astine 7y ago
Plutarch was a Greek.

teambayleaf 7y ago

Then why did Xerxes try to invade Laconia? To tramp on valueless minor city-states just for fun?