12 ms·

Spartan School (2019)

172 points by greesil 6y ago

pegasus 6y ago
Here's a contrasting view, for balance: https://www.spartareconsidered.com/home.html https://www.spartareconsidered.com/home.html Since most of what we know of Sparta comes from non-Spartans who were either very much pro or very much against them, there's little chance we'll ever have a provably objective view of them.
- yannis7 6y ago
  nit: there are some fragments, say the speech of Spartan King Archidamus, which are recorded in sources like Thucydedes -- these you _may_ consider them as sources that reveal Spartans' self-understanding to some extent
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
I've read this article before and it sounds like the author is motivated by some sort of weird culture war. For instance: Xenophon (Xen. Lac. 2.12-14) disagrees and argues that these relationships were not sexual. Xenophon has the benefit of proximity (writing 500 years before Plutarch), but at the same time openly admits that it was widely believed that these relationships were sexual, and Xenophon is expressly writing in defense of Spartan customs. Even if Xenophon is correct about the ideal nature of these relationships, we have to assume he wouldn’t tell us about occasions where that ideal was broken. Well, if Xenophon is wrting in defense of Sparta and Plutarch is writing after 500 years, we should at the very least consider the two sources equally unreliable, rather than pick a side. It's a great idea to dispell the myths, modern and ancient, that surround the Spartans, but I think this is going all the way to the other end and it ends up with an also distorted image of ancient Sparta (Lacaedemon).
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> As we’ll see, the significance of this supposed achievement is also undermined by the fact that the majority of people living under the Spartan state did not take part in it. Heck, the majority of males living in the Spartan state didn’t take part in it. Hell, even the majority of free, non-foreign men weren’t eligible. That’s because the agoge was restricted to the Spartan citizen class – the spartiates – who in turn comprised only a tiny minority of the people actually living in Sparta. Thus the article makes a distinction betwen "Spartan citizen" and everyone else living in Sparta (historically, Lacedaemon). In the next article in the series the author makes it even more explicit, saying (of the social hierarchy of Sparta): >> At the top were the Spartiates, the full-citizen male Spartans. This distinction between "Spartiates" and (other) "Spartans" is a modern invention. There is nowhere, in the entire body of Greek historiography any such distinction to be found. Indeed, such a distinction would be lignuistically impossible because there isn't, in the Greek language, a different word for "Spartiates" and "Spartan". These two words are different only in their English rendition (and perhaps in other European languages also). In (ancient and modern) Greek, a male from Sparta is a "Spartiates" (Σπαρτιάτης, with an eta, male singular). A female from Sparta is a "Spartiatissa" (Σπαρτιάτισσα). Many people from Sparta are "Spartiates" (Σπαρτιάτες, with an epsilon, male plural). All of these grammatical forms represent the same concept: of a free, full citizen of Sparta, i.e. what the author of the article calls a "Spartiate". Anyone else is never referred to, in the Greek ancient sources by any kind of demonym derived from "Sparta". The reason being that those other people inhabiting the land of Sparta and serving the Spartans, were the Spartans' slaves and it was not a done thing in the ancient world to refer to the slaves of a people by the same demonym as the free people. Compare for example "Athenian" (Αθηναίος), the demonym of the male, free citizens of Athens, and never used to refer to the slaves (δούλοι), or the foreigners (μέτοικοι, metics, basically immigrants) also living in Athens. The same goes for Corinthians, Megarites, Argites, Thebans, etc etc. The next article in the series takes this modern misconception, or perhaps invention, and runs with it, somehow turning the fact that Spartans had slaves that had no rights into an indictment of Spartmant society. Unfortunately, the same can be said e.g. of Athens, where only indigenous males enjoyed the privileges of the Athenian democracy (while it lasted) while women and slaves had no rights and immigrants hadn't even the right to own land in Athens. In short, it seems to me that this series of articles is strongly motivated not from any wish to set the record straight on the true history of Sparta and its inhabitants, but by a desire to provoke outrage for a people who died 2000 years ago. As if we didn't have enough calls to be outraged for modern matters already. Bottom line, please don't take your knowledge of history from some guy with a blog on the internets.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  > somehow turning the fact that Spartans had slaves that had no rights into an indictment of Spartmant society Note that important argument made by author is that even ancient authors - who were fine with slavery - still mentioned what was happening in Sparta as unusually cruel and extreme. And in other societies even slaves had some minimal legal or cultural protection. Spartan society celebrated murdering slaves. From second post in series: "The absence of any taboo – legal or religious – against the killing of helots marks the institution as uncommonly brutal not merely by Greek standards, but by world-historical standards." "Given how very little our sources care for the lives and experiences of any enslaved people, the unanimity of their testimony that life as a helot was awful is nothing short of astounding. This is an institution that shocks the conscience of ancient slaveholders." "Plutarch relates the saying that “in Sparta the free man is more free than anywhere else in the world, and the slave more a slave” (Plut. Lyc. 28.5). He can only be referring to the helots here. Indeed, Plutarch’s statement is telling – the helots were treated poorly by the standards of ancient chattel slavery, which is, I must stress, an incredibly low bar."
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    I'm primarily commenting on the misconception about "Spartan" and "Spartiates" being different words in Greek. On the other hand, this is an exaggeration: >> "The absence of any taboo – legal or religious – against the killing of helots marks the institution as uncommonly brutal not merely by Greek standards, but by world-historical standards." World-historical standards should include, for example, the Aztecs, who sacrificed their prisonners of war and then slaughtered them and sold their meat at the market for families to buy and eat [1]. The Spartans were possibly more cruel to their slaves than all other Greek city-states at the time as a society, in the sense that they had murder rituals that others certainly didn't have. But in most places in the entire ancient world, the life of a slave, or her dignity, was not protected in any meaningful way and some, hopefully few, masters would have murdered and raped their slaves with impunity (though perhaps polite society would tut-tut, but not much more than if the master had murdered or raped his dog). For instance, the Spartans murdered their helots outright but the Athenians sent theirs to work at the silver mines at Laurion where they lived a short, miserable life and died en masse [2]. I am Athenian (obviously modern so) and I grew up with the ancient historians and more recent works so I'm used to thinking of the Spartans as the "bad guys" mainly because of the Peloponnesian War. But the author's criticism of their society is exaggerated and is not sufficiently placed in context of the era. In any case, as the author admits, most of the sources on Sparta were, indeed, Athenian and cannot be trusted to have been entirely objective. But even taking them at face value, sufficient context is not given. _____________ [1] See: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. I have a French translation not at hand, so I can't quote directly- my apologies. [2] During the tyranny of Peisistratos systematic exploitation of the mineral resources of Athens began. Shafts were driven down into the ground and galleries opened where slaves, chained, naked, and branded, worked the seams illuminated only by guttering oil lamps. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_of_Laurion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_of_Laurion
smsm42 6y ago
A lot of great content in that blog, highly recommended (if you have days of free time for reading ;)
Clewza313 6y ago
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398893
knodi123 6y ago
Wow, I knew the stories of Spartans were grossly distorted in modern pop culture, but I never imagined it would be by this much. A Spartan coming-of-age story would be a horrific true-crime documentary in modern western civilization.
- greesil 6y ago
  The post was a real eye opener for me as well.
- drak0n1c 6y ago
  There's a historically accurate novel about a Spartan boy's coming-of-age. "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield - a very good read and widely celebrated classic.
  - jfoutz 6y ago
    Gates of fire is a great book, that I would recommend. But it’s a novel. The Spartans didn’t really write anything down. All the character interaction is great, but cut from whole cloth of the author s imagination. It’s a great story. The big fight might be accurate, but about as accurate as a third hand account. But yes, I really enjoyed it. Good book.
  - xapata 6y ago
    I think the author of the linked article might disagree with the claim of historical accuracy for that novel. He wrote at length about Pressfield's misconceptions. https://acoup.blog/2021/01/29/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-i-soldiers-warriors-and/ https://acoup.blog/2021/01/29/collections-the-universal-warr...
- railton 6y ago
  The comic "Three" does a good job of telling the story of Helots in Sparta. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638282-three https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638282-three
haltingproblem 6y ago
The incessant celebration of Sparta in the culture of the West is truly abhorrent. What of Sparta was worth celebrating? Their child soldiers, mass enslavement, hunting of other men, mindless wars, ...... They produced no literature, goods, art or bequeathed anything to posterity other than their notoriety as a brutal martial society even that is being questioned. The messy Romans were far better and interesting through their start as a monarchy, transitioning through republic and empire to end as a theological autocracy. The nearest thing to Spart might be Genghis Khan's Mongols. They Mongols were true nomads whose capital was a tent city. They left no trace of Empire but were secular and bequeathed many important technologies to the world - none of which were their invention. They neither created anything on their own nor built any civilizations but their fame for conquest and administration. What did the Spartans accomplish? Edit: Quite a few folks downthread are chiding me for being unaware of the Mongol's contribution to our present society. First, I am comparing them favorably to the Spartans. Second, I have actually been to Ulan Bataar and worked in their cultural institutions preserving Mongol "artefacts" . I have also studied with Mongol teachers and count Mongols as friends. I counsel those counselling me based on books they have read or secondary/tertiary source material on the internet to reconsider their assumptions. Your advice might be well intentioned but off the mark. The Mongols were tremendous administrators. They were also ruthless nomads who loathed cities, civilization and all its trappings. There is no sign of Genghis' Khan's empire anywhere on this planet. Why? His court was a tent just like his city was a tent city. He also sacked Baghdad and almost every city they came upon including killing the men and raping millions of women and burning their libraries. Yes, they imported postal systems, bureaucracy, paper and whatever else to the world but they also killed 50-100MM people and burned down cities across the middle east for no reason because they did not like them. The descendants of Genghis Khan like Taimur Lame single handedly destroyed vast swaths of Persia, Georgia, Iraq and laid waste to Northern India raising mountains of skulls along the way. You can keep your postal systems and secular courts, I would like to get some of the cities they sacked and their libraries back.
- ldbooth 6y ago
  Generally what we read in Durant was ... Not a lot on balance. Their 3 branches of government and the position and treatment of women in spartan society was notable at the time.
TheCapeGreek 6y ago
Nitpick: unless ancient Greek changed the sounds of vowels between my high school class and today, ἀγωγή is ah-go-ghee, not ah-go-GAY.
- ThomasWinwood 6y ago
  The pronunciation used in schools for didactic purposes has only a modest relationship to authentic historical pronunciation. Pronouncing eta as [i] is an influence from modern Greek - in ancient times it was [ɛː], as described by the author (and as used in my secondary school Ancient Greek class - when we switched teacher to one who pronounced it [i], he conformed to our standard rather than vice versa). The bLogicarian has an article [1] which goes into more detail with some recordings, or you can pick up a copy of Vox Graeca by W. Sidney Allen. [1]: https://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/ancient-greek-food-for-classics.html https://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/ancient-greek-food-...
- divbzero 6y ago
  I wonder how close it is to how the ancient Greek pronounced it. Would our Greek scholars sound like non-native speakers to the ancient Greek? Or maybe barely even intelligible?
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    There's some idea of ancient greek pronunciation based on phonetic misspellings found scattered about. I studied /some/ ancient greek in undergrad, and when I visited Greece it did, indeed, seen like a while different language, with large shifts in both pronunciation and meaning of words. My favorite was agathos, which is noble and good in ancient greek, but means native or simple minded in modern greek. Also worth keeping in mind that broadcast and recordings do a lot of work to reduce language drift today, over time but especially over geography. A mountainous, watery place like Greece almost certainly would have a lot of drift in accent and informal language. [On edit: That feeling when you swipe out a long comment, hit submit, and see a fresh neighboring long comment making the same points better.]
    - 6y ago
irrational 6y ago
As I was reading about the Spartan systems for indoctrinating and conditioning children, I couldn’t help but wonder how far future historians will regard our modern school systems. I went through the public school system and consider it barbaric, traumatizing, indoctrinating, etc. and yet... I still sent my own kids to public school. Why? Because... that’s just what we do. I suspect that is one of the reasons the Spartans sent their own kids. I also suspect future people will be as horrified by our current school system as we are by the Spartan system.
- irrational 6y ago
  I'm not saying that Spartan system = Current system. I'm saying that our view of the Spartan system = how future people will view our current system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- xwdv 6y ago
  Some people live in the future and already send their kids to private schools or do homeschool. They are horrified by the public school system.
  - Niksko 6y ago
    In Australia, public schools consistently outperform private schools, despite having less money. If you want to spend thousands to send your child to a private school, so that they get a mediocre, spoon fed education, with superfluous 'perks' that don't help their development, and surrounded by rich kids who's privilege will rub off on them, that's fine by me. But the only goof justification is if you don't have a good public school as an alternative. Otherwise you're wasting your money.
    - bmn__ 6y ago
      You're missing the point. This is not about performance, but trauma.
kmonsen 6y ago
By coincidence I watched a similar YouTube video today: https://youtu.be/hMQmU0epVr4 https://youtu.be/hMQmU0epVr4
beloch 6y ago
I think it was Will Durant who described Sparta best. I can't find the quote, but to paraphrase, Durant stated that Sparta ceased to be a civilization in that it produced no art, literature, or culture of any kind. The Spartan citizen class shrank until every hour of every citizen's life was occupied just trying to control their own populace and territory with murder and fear. We remember and honour their tenacity, but forget that it was made necessary by the extreme dysfunction of their society.
- pegasus 6y ago
  It produced a warrior culture which made a lasting impression on the Western psyche, witness the interest it's still raising two and a half thousand years later.
  - azernik 6y ago
    It produced external myths about a warrior culture. Thank Athenian and Roman authors, not Sparta itself, whose reality was only tangentially related to those myths.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  My thought is without the other Greeks and their art, literature, and architecture we would know nothing and care nothing about the Spartans. Eventually some empire would have rolled over them, found the Spartan ruling class annoying and sent them to oblivion.
  - genghizkhan 6y ago
    I think this is what the Macedonians and the Romans did end up doing. By the time of the Romans, Sparta was a glorified "theme park", for lack of a better word.
- mcosta 6y ago
  From 650 to 550 BCE, Spartan arts were at their height, producing some of the most intricate and beautiful works of bronze, stone, wood, and ivory in the known world. The sculptors of Sparta were particularly well known for their works in bronze, capturing the essence of the form they chose to represent. They not only sculpted in Sparta, but branched out to Delphi and Olympia, bringing with them their skilled craftsmanship. In fact, Spartan bronzes were so highly regarded that they were given to other national leaders as gifts, thereby spreading over the known world. Cultures have ups and downs .
j7ake 6y ago
I wonder what is the proper way to view an ancient civilization in our modern perspective, because directly comparing ancient societies with even the worst modern society may actually, on net, favor the bad modern society. Humanity seems to have progressively improved in the treatment of the underclass (e.g., slavery, poverty) such that direct comparison of any ancient society using our modern standards will conclude that ancient societies have nothing from which we can apply to our culture. I feel there is some wisdom to be gleaned from ancient societies, but at the same time these societies practiced customs that would be abhorrent to most societies today.
- veddox 6y ago
  > Humanity seems to have progressively improved in the treatment of the underclass (e.g., slavery, poverty) Yeah, I don't buy that. At least not in this simplified form of the "moral progress narrative". While it is true that many modern societies at least nominally try to treat the underclass well, this is by no means a global undertaking, nor is it always successful. Slavery and poverty are alive and well. Human nature hasn't changed - we still have a phenomenal capacity for ignoring the suffering of others, especially when that suffering is conveniently far away. We have an equally great capacity for actively tolerating, or even directly causing this suffering, when it benefits us. "A society is measured by how it treats its weakest members", but this measure is (if at all) only weakly related with "civilisational progress". Many of the great civilisations of the past were absolutely barbaric, many of the advanced nations of the modern world continue to be - or at times, fall back into such a pattern. In the West, the combination of Christian ethics and Enlightenment ideals seem, on the whole, to have brought localised improvements for the underclass. But there are sufficient areas in which Western countries continue to ignore suffering, and multiple examples of "social moral progress" rapidly degrading into stark, ruthless, violence against the weak.
- rayiner 6y ago
  The proper way is the way we have been doing: dispassionately and scientifically. Study them the same way we study nature. Maybe marvel at the things that make societies especially effective on their own terms. Avoid moral judgments, in the same way we don’t judge a praying mantis for eating her mates.
yawaworht1978 6y ago
At that time, the stability and fitness regimes were admired. Of course this could not last forever, there is always someone stronger. I have seen criticism about child soldiers. This is relative and not comparable to todays child soldiers. In some regions you did not even have to be aged 10 to get married. What the western and rest of world is doing today with soldiers is no less despicable. Either they are forced to serve via mandate or often out of economical desperation, only to be deployed as cannon fodder because the politicians failed to come up with a diplomatic solution. Many if them aged 18-20, those are kids, not professional mercenaries. Hell, at least in some places the kings rewarded soldiers with some land parcels. Yes Sparta was an oligarchy with fascist taint. One could argue at least they did not follow the Janissary procedure(read that and tell me how that compares to spartan recruitment). It is easy to condemn past violence and lifestyle from the peaceful environment in the 21st century. I have seen the argument that Turkish immigrants are not easy to immigrate in Germany. Do you know how their parents from the first wave were welcomed and treated? These will not integrate in this lifetime. But their kids do and will, most of them. Try talking to them. Successful immigration is a 2 way road.
- cedilla 6y ago
  The article goes into excrutiating detail and compares the Spartan abuse with both contemporary and modern abuse. No, what "western society" does is not comparable to what Sparta did to and with its soldiers. Also to note: the promises of land for soldiers were as frequently made as they were broken. Politicians have always been reluctant to reward soldiers and keep all their promises, once the fighting is done.
ybbond 6y ago
good read. I read this in my 15 minutes slacking off and it refresh my mind to continue working afterwards.
- gnulinux 6y ago
  You surely must have an insanely fast reading speed if your read this in 15 mins?
  - ybbond 6y ago
    the combination of portrait monitor and few skimmings may help. note that the 15 minutes only for the 1st part. I read the 2nd and 3rd part just now.

172 points by greesil 6y ago

Here's a contrasting view, for balance: https://www.spartareconsidered.com/home.html https://www.spartareconsidered.com/home.html Since most of what we know of Sparta comes from non-Spartans who were either very much pro or very much against them, there's little chance we'll ever have a provably objective view of them.

yannis7 6y ago
nit: there are some fragments, say the speech of Spartan King Archidamus, which are recorded in sources like Thucydedes -- these you _may_ consider them as sources that reveal Spartans' self-understanding to some extent

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

I've read this article before and it sounds like the author is motivated by some sort of weird culture war. For instance: Xenophon (Xen. Lac. 2.12-14) disagrees and argues that these relationships were not sexual. Xenophon has the benefit of proximity (writing 500 years before Plutarch), but at the same time openly admits that it was widely believed that these relationships were sexual, and Xenophon is expressly writing in defense of Spartan customs. Even if Xenophon is correct about the ideal nature of these relationships, we have to assume he wouldn’t tell us about occasions where that ideal was broken. Well, if Xenophon is wrting in defense of Sparta and Plutarch is writing after 500 years, we should at the very least consider the two sources equally unreliable, rather than pick a side. It's a great idea to dispell the myths, modern and ancient, that surround the Spartans, but I think this is going all the way to the other end and it ends up with an also distorted image of ancient Sparta (Lacaedemon).

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> As we’ll see, the significance of this supposed achievement is also undermined by the fact that the majority of people living under the Spartan state did not take part in it. Heck, the majority of males living in the Spartan state didn’t take part in it. Hell, even the majority of free, non-foreign men weren’t eligible. That’s because the agoge was restricted to the Spartan citizen class – the spartiates – who in turn comprised only a tiny minority of the people actually living in Sparta. Thus the article makes a distinction betwen "Spartan citizen" and everyone else living in Sparta (historically, Lacedaemon). In the next article in the series the author makes it even more explicit, saying (of the social hierarchy of Sparta): >> At the top were the Spartiates, the full-citizen male Spartans. This distinction between "Spartiates" and (other) "Spartans" is a modern invention. There is nowhere, in the entire body of Greek historiography any such distinction to be found. Indeed, such a distinction would be lignuistically impossible because there isn't, in the Greek language, a different word for "Spartiates" and "Spartan". These two words are different only in their English rendition (and perhaps in other European languages also). In (ancient and modern) Greek, a male from Sparta is a "Spartiates" (Σπαρτιάτης, with an eta, male singular). A female from Sparta is a "Spartiatissa" (Σπαρτιάτισσα). Many people from Sparta are "Spartiates" (Σπαρτιάτες, with an epsilon, male plural). All of these grammatical forms represent the same concept: of a free, full citizen of Sparta, i.e. what the author of the article calls a "Spartiate". Anyone else is never referred to, in the Greek ancient sources by any kind of demonym derived from "Sparta". The reason being that those other people inhabiting the land of Sparta and serving the Spartans, were the Spartans' slaves and it was not a done thing in the ancient world to refer to the slaves of a people by the same demonym as the free people. Compare for example "Athenian" (Αθηναίος), the demonym of the male, free citizens of Athens, and never used to refer to the slaves (δούλοι), or the foreigners (μέτοικοι, metics, basically immigrants) also living in Athens. The same goes for Corinthians, Megarites, Argites, Thebans, etc etc. The next article in the series takes this modern misconception, or perhaps invention, and runs with it, somehow turning the fact that Spartans had slaves that had no rights into an indictment of Spartmant society. Unfortunately, the same can be said e.g. of Athens, where only indigenous males enjoyed the privileges of the Athenian democracy (while it lasted) while women and slaves had no rights and immigrants hadn't even the right to own land in Athens. In short, it seems to me that this series of articles is strongly motivated not from any wish to set the record straight on the true history of Sparta and its inhabitants, but by a desire to provoke outrage for a people who died 2000 years ago. As if we didn't have enough calls to be outraged for modern matters already. Bottom line, please don't take your knowledge of history from some guy with a blog on the internets.

matkoniecz 6y ago
> somehow turning the fact that Spartans had slaves that had no rights into an indictment of Spartmant society Note that important argument made by author is that even ancient authors - who were fine with slavery - still mentioned what was happening in Sparta as unusually cruel and extreme. And in other societies even slaves had some minimal legal or cultural protection. Spartan society celebrated murdering slaves. From second post in series: "The absence of any taboo – legal or religious – against the killing of helots marks the institution as uncommonly brutal not merely by Greek standards, but by world-historical standards." "Given how very little our sources care for the lives and experiences of any enslaved people, the unanimity of their testimony that life as a helot was awful is nothing short of astounding. This is an institution that shocks the conscience of ancient slaveholders." "Plutarch relates the saying that “in Sparta the free man is more free than anywhere else in the world, and the slave more a slave” (Plut. Lyc. 28.5). He can only be referring to the helots here. Indeed, Plutarch’s statement is telling – the helots were treated poorly by the standards of ancient chattel slavery, which is, I must stress, an incredibly low bar."
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  I'm primarily commenting on the misconception about "Spartan" and "Spartiates" being different words in Greek. On the other hand, this is an exaggeration: >> "The absence of any taboo – legal or religious – against the killing of helots marks the institution as uncommonly brutal not merely by Greek standards, but by world-historical standards." World-historical standards should include, for example, the Aztecs, who sacrificed their prisonners of war and then slaughtered them and sold their meat at the market for families to buy and eat [1]. The Spartans were possibly more cruel to their slaves than all other Greek city-states at the time as a society, in the sense that they had murder rituals that others certainly didn't have. But in most places in the entire ancient world, the life of a slave, or her dignity, was not protected in any meaningful way and some, hopefully few, masters would have murdered and raped their slaves with impunity (though perhaps polite society would tut-tut, but not much more than if the master had murdered or raped his dog). For instance, the Spartans murdered their helots outright but the Athenians sent theirs to work at the silver mines at Laurion where they lived a short, miserable life and died en masse [2]. I am Athenian (obviously modern so) and I grew up with the ancient historians and more recent works so I'm used to thinking of the Spartans as the "bad guys" mainly because of the Peloponnesian War. But the author's criticism of their society is exaggerated and is not sufficiently placed in context of the era. In any case, as the author admits, most of the sources on Sparta were, indeed, Athenian and cannot be trusted to have been entirely objective. But even taking them at face value, sufficient context is not given. _____________ [1] See: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. I have a French translation not at hand, so I can't quote directly- my apologies. [2] During the tyranny of Peisistratos systematic exploitation of the mineral resources of Athens began. Shafts were driven down into the ground and galleries opened where slaves, chained, naked, and branded, worked the seams illuminated only by guttering oil lamps. An unrecorded number were children. It was a miserable, dangerous, and brief life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_of_Laurion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_of_Laurion

smsm42 6y ago

A lot of great content in that blog, highly recommended (if you have days of free time for reading ;)

Clewza313 6y ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398893 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21398893

knodi123 6y ago

Wow, I knew the stories of Spartans were grossly distorted in modern pop culture, but I never imagined it would be by this much. A Spartan coming-of-age story would be a horrific true-crime documentary in modern western civilization.

greesil 6y ago
The post was a real eye opener for me as well.
drak0n1c 6y ago
There's a historically accurate novel about a Spartan boy's coming-of-age. "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield - a very good read and widely celebrated classic.
- jfoutz 6y ago
  Gates of fire is a great book, that I would recommend. But it’s a novel. The Spartans didn’t really write anything down. All the character interaction is great, but cut from whole cloth of the author s imagination. It’s a great story. The big fight might be accurate, but about as accurate as a third hand account. But yes, I really enjoyed it. Good book.
- xapata 6y ago
  I think the author of the linked article might disagree with the claim of historical accuracy for that novel. He wrote at length about Pressfield's misconceptions. https://acoup.blog/2021/01/29/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-i-soldiers-warriors-and/ https://acoup.blog/2021/01/29/collections-the-universal-warr...
railton 6y ago
The comic "Three" does a good job of telling the story of Helots in Sparta. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638282-three https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20638282-three

haltingproblem 6y ago

The incessant celebration of Sparta in the culture of the West is truly abhorrent. What of Sparta was worth celebrating? Their child soldiers, mass enslavement, hunting of other men, mindless wars, ...... They produced no literature, goods, art or bequeathed anything to posterity other than their notoriety as a brutal martial society even that is being questioned. The messy Romans were far better and interesting through their start as a monarchy, transitioning through republic and empire to end as a theological autocracy. The nearest thing to Spart might be Genghis Khan's Mongols. They Mongols were true nomads whose capital was a tent city. They left no trace of Empire but were secular and bequeathed many important technologies to the world - none of which were their invention. They neither created anything on their own nor built any civilizations but their fame for conquest and administration. What did the Spartans accomplish? Edit: Quite a few folks downthread are chiding me for being unaware of the Mongol's contribution to our present society. First, I am comparing them favorably to the Spartans. Second, I have actually been to Ulan Bataar and worked in their cultural institutions preserving Mongol "artefacts" . I have also studied with Mongol teachers and count Mongols as friends. I counsel those counselling me based on books they have read or secondary/tertiary source material on the internet to reconsider their assumptions. Your advice might be well intentioned but off the mark. The Mongols were tremendous administrators. They were also ruthless nomads who loathed cities, civilization and all its trappings. There is no sign of Genghis' Khan's empire anywhere on this planet. Why? His court was a tent just like his city was a tent city. He also sacked Baghdad and almost every city they came upon including killing the men and raping millions of women and burning their libraries. Yes, they imported postal systems, bureaucracy, paper and whatever else to the world but they also killed 50-100MM people and burned down cities across the middle east for no reason because they did not like them. The descendants of Genghis Khan like Taimur Lame single handedly destroyed vast swaths of Persia, Georgia, Iraq and laid waste to Northern India raising mountains of skulls along the way. You can keep your postal systems and secular courts, I would like to get some of the cities they sacked and their libraries back.

ldbooth 6y ago
Generally what we read in Durant was ... Not a lot on balance. Their 3 branches of government and the position and treatment of women in spartan society was notable at the time.

TheCapeGreek 6y ago

Nitpick: unless ancient Greek changed the sounds of vowels between my high school class and today, ἀγωγή is ah-go-ghee, not ah-go-GAY.

ThomasWinwood 6y ago
The pronunciation used in schools for didactic purposes has only a modest relationship to authentic historical pronunciation. Pronouncing eta as [i] is an influence from modern Greek - in ancient times it was [ɛː], as described by the author (and as used in my secondary school Ancient Greek class - when we switched teacher to one who pronounced it [i], he conformed to our standard rather than vice versa). The bLogicarian has an article [1] which goes into more detail with some recordings, or you can pick up a copy of Vox Graeca by W. Sidney Allen. [1]: https://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/ancient-greek-food-for-classics.html https://blogicarian.blogspot.com/2012/10/ancient-greek-food-...
divbzero 6y ago
I wonder how close it is to how the ancient Greek pronounced it. Would our Greek scholars sound like non-native speakers to the ancient Greek? Or maybe barely even intelligible?
- sdenton4 6y ago
  There's some idea of ancient greek pronunciation based on phonetic misspellings found scattered about. I studied /some/ ancient greek in undergrad, and when I visited Greece it did, indeed, seen like a while different language, with large shifts in both pronunciation and meaning of words. My favorite was agathos, which is noble and good in ancient greek, but means native or simple minded in modern greek. Also worth keeping in mind that broadcast and recordings do a lot of work to reduce language drift today, over time but especially over geography. A mountainous, watery place like Greece almost certainly would have a lot of drift in accent and informal language. [On edit: That feeling when you swipe out a long comment, hit submit, and see a fresh neighboring long comment making the same points better.]
  - 6y ago

irrational 6y ago

As I was reading about the Spartan systems for indoctrinating and conditioning children, I couldn’t help but wonder how far future historians will regard our modern school systems. I went through the public school system and consider it barbaric, traumatizing, indoctrinating, etc. and yet... I still sent my own kids to public school. Why? Because... that’s just what we do. I suspect that is one of the reasons the Spartans sent their own kids. I also suspect future people will be as horrified by our current school system as we are by the Spartan system.

irrational 6y ago
I'm not saying that Spartan system = Current system. I'm saying that our view of the Spartan system = how future people will view our current system.
deleted 6y ago
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xwdv 6y ago
Some people live in the future and already send their kids to private schools or do homeschool. They are horrified by the public school system.
- Niksko 6y ago
  In Australia, public schools consistently outperform private schools, despite having less money. If you want to spend thousands to send your child to a private school, so that they get a mediocre, spoon fed education, with superfluous 'perks' that don't help their development, and surrounded by rich kids who's privilege will rub off on them, that's fine by me. But the only goof justification is if you don't have a good public school as an alternative. Otherwise you're wasting your money.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    You're missing the point. This is not about performance, but trauma.

kmonsen 6y ago

By coincidence I watched a similar YouTube video today: https://youtu.be/hMQmU0epVr4 https://youtu.be/hMQmU0epVr4

beloch 6y ago

I think it was Will Durant who described Sparta best. I can't find the quote, but to paraphrase, Durant stated that Sparta ceased to be a civilization in that it produced no art, literature, or culture of any kind. The Spartan citizen class shrank until every hour of every citizen's life was occupied just trying to control their own populace and territory with murder and fear. We remember and honour their tenacity, but forget that it was made necessary by the extreme dysfunction of their society.

pegasus 6y ago
It produced a warrior culture which made a lasting impression on the Western psyche, witness the interest it's still raising two and a half thousand years later.
- azernik 6y ago
  It produced external myths about a warrior culture. Thank Athenian and Roman authors, not Sparta itself, whose reality was only tangentially related to those myths.
Gibbon1 6y ago
My thought is without the other Greeks and their art, literature, and architecture we would know nothing and care nothing about the Spartans. Eventually some empire would have rolled over them, found the Spartan ruling class annoying and sent them to oblivion.
- genghizkhan 6y ago
  I think this is what the Macedonians and the Romans did end up doing. By the time of the Romans, Sparta was a glorified "theme park", for lack of a better word.
mcosta 6y ago
From 650 to 550 BCE, Spartan arts were at their height, producing some of the most intricate and beautiful works of bronze, stone, wood, and ivory in the known world. The sculptors of Sparta were particularly well known for their works in bronze, capturing the essence of the form they chose to represent. They not only sculpted in Sparta, but branched out to Delphi and Olympia, bringing with them their skilled craftsmanship. In fact, Spartan bronzes were so highly regarded that they were given to other national leaders as gifts, thereby spreading over the known world. Cultures have ups and downs .

j7ake 6y ago

I wonder what is the proper way to view an ancient civilization in our modern perspective, because directly comparing ancient societies with even the worst modern society may actually, on net, favor the bad modern society. Humanity seems to have progressively improved in the treatment of the underclass (e.g., slavery, poverty) such that direct comparison of any ancient society using our modern standards will conclude that ancient societies have nothing from which we can apply to our culture. I feel there is some wisdom to be gleaned from ancient societies, but at the same time these societies practiced customs that would be abhorrent to most societies today.

veddox 6y ago
> Humanity seems to have progressively improved in the treatment of the underclass (e.g., slavery, poverty) Yeah, I don't buy that. At least not in this simplified form of the "moral progress narrative". While it is true that many modern societies at least nominally try to treat the underclass well, this is by no means a global undertaking, nor is it always successful. Slavery and poverty are alive and well. Human nature hasn't changed - we still have a phenomenal capacity for ignoring the suffering of others, especially when that suffering is conveniently far away. We have an equally great capacity for actively tolerating, or even directly causing this suffering, when it benefits us. "A society is measured by how it treats its weakest members", but this measure is (if at all) only weakly related with "civilisational progress". Many of the great civilisations of the past were absolutely barbaric, many of the advanced nations of the modern world continue to be - or at times, fall back into such a pattern. In the West, the combination of Christian ethics and Enlightenment ideals seem, on the whole, to have brought localised improvements for the underclass. But there are sufficient areas in which Western countries continue to ignore suffering, and multiple examples of "social moral progress" rapidly degrading into stark, ruthless, violence against the weak.
rayiner 6y ago
The proper way is the way we have been doing: dispassionately and scientifically. Study them the same way we study nature. Maybe marvel at the things that make societies especially effective on their own terms. Avoid moral judgments, in the same way we don’t judge a praying mantis for eating her mates.

yawaworht1978 6y ago

At that time, the stability and fitness regimes were admired. Of course this could not last forever, there is always someone stronger. I have seen criticism about child soldiers. This is relative and not comparable to todays child soldiers. In some regions you did not even have to be aged 10 to get married. What the western and rest of world is doing today with soldiers is no less despicable. Either they are forced to serve via mandate or often out of economical desperation, only to be deployed as cannon fodder because the politicians failed to come up with a diplomatic solution. Many if them aged 18-20, those are kids, not professional mercenaries. Hell, at least in some places the kings rewarded soldiers with some land parcels. Yes Sparta was an oligarchy with fascist taint. One could argue at least they did not follow the Janissary procedure(read that and tell me how that compares to spartan recruitment). It is easy to condemn past violence and lifestyle from the peaceful environment in the 21st century. I have seen the argument that Turkish immigrants are not easy to immigrate in Germany. Do you know how their parents from the first wave were welcomed and treated? These will not integrate in this lifetime. But their kids do and will, most of them. Try talking to them. Successful immigration is a 2 way road.

cedilla 6y ago
The article goes into excrutiating detail and compares the Spartan abuse with both contemporary and modern abuse. No, what "western society" does is not comparable to what Sparta did to and with its soldiers. Also to note: the promises of land for soldiers were as frequently made as they were broken. Politicians have always been reluctant to reward soldiers and keep all their promises, once the fighting is done.

ybbond 6y ago

good read. I read this in my 15 minutes slacking off and it refresh my mind to continue working afterwards.

gnulinux 6y ago
You surely must have an insanely fast reading speed if your read this in 15 mins?
- ybbond 6y ago
  the combination of portrait monitor and few skimmings may help. note that the 15 minutes only for the 1st part. I read the 2nd and 3rd part just now.