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I haven’t read the archeologist’s work. I did read the article. The archeologist claims that evidence across the Aegean and Athens particularly shows weak babie

I haven’t read the archeologist’s work. I did read the article. The archeologist claims that evidence across the Aegean and Athens particularly shows weak babies were cared for until death. That’s fine. However we’re not discussing Athenian nor general Aegean baby care. We’re discussing Spartan care. Nothing in the article (and I could have missed it) proved evidence, from digs, against the idea of infanticide by the Spartans.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Indeed, except for the comment about the spartan king with weak legs, none of that was Sparta specific evidence.
Talanes 5y ago
Even within Sparta, proper Spartans didn't make up the majority of the population, so you'd still have to distinguish between Spartan infants and helot infants.
- scndrycntct 5y ago
 Pretty pedantic. I think we can agree that since the title and parent comment mention "Spartans", they are talking about the Spartans and not other residents.
 - akkartik 5y ago
 Helots were 85% of the population[1]. GP is pointing out that random skeletons don't come with residency papers describing which kind of residents they belong to. [1] Source: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
 - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
 "Sparta" is commonly understood to mean the city of Sparta as a political entity and "Spartans" its free inhabitants. Only in the blog you quote is the term "Sparta" used to refer to the wider city-state of Sparta that encompassed subjugated settlements outside of Sparta. Historical sources, ancient as well as modern, do not consider the helots to be "Spartan" (or even "Spartiate", a term made up by the author of the blog as distinct from "Spartan", a distinction grammatically impossible in the Greek language).
 - bivargen 5y ago
 Σπᾰρτῐᾱ́της is a perfectly fine greek noun and was used in antiquity to denote the ”homoioi” of spartan society, it is not a made up word by Bret Devereaux. Historical sources do consider helots to be spartans, just not citizens or ”homoioi”. I would suggest reading the posted blog-post. The author do know what he is talking about and–in my opinion—quiet an engaging writer.
 YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
 In turn, I would suggest not assuming that I haven't read the blog post. "Σπαρτιάτης" is used in Greek (modern and ancient) to mean a (male) inhabitant of a place called "Sparta". What the blog author claims is that there are _two_ words, one of which means free citizens of Sparta and the other, helots. He says that one of those words is "Spartiate" and that the other is "Spartan". This is a distinction that is impossible to make with a single word in Greek. The words he uses, "Spartan" and "Spartiate" are two Latin transliterations of the single Greek word "Σπαρτιάτης", that has one single meaning, as I explain it above. Furthermore, the distinction between free and enslaved inhabitans of Sparta is, in all historical sources, made clear by using two words with different roots: "Spartan" for the free citizens of the city, "helot" for the enslaved people of the surrounding territories of the city-state. Nobody else than the author calls one "Spartan" and the other "Spartiate". That's entirely the blog author's made-up terminology. So what I'm saying the blog author has made up is the distinct meaning of "Spartan" and "Spartiate". I do not claim that he has made up the word "Spartiate", as you seem to assume in your comment. Please correct me if I misunderstood your comment, and not you mine.
 - Talanes 5y ago
 I'm only expanding on GPs point, so I'm not sure how my comment could be considered pedantic to them. And as for the title point: Spartans seem to only be mentioned in the article coverage of the research. They are not the topic of the research itself. Sparta doesn't even appear in the abstract of the paper. Demonstrating that infanticide of disabled babies wasn't a widespread practice in Ancient Greece does not necessarily mean that it wasn't practiced by a group that only consisted of the elite class of one state.
Ansil849 5y ago
> Nothing in the article (and I could have missed it) proved evidence, from digs, against the idea of infanticide by the Spartans. Isn't the onus on the ones claiming that Spartans practiced systemic infanticide to provide the evidence that they did so?
- CoastalCoder 5y ago
  I'm not sure the concept of "onus" really applies here. Each reader can decide for himself how much evidence he needs to be persuaded.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    The "concept of 'onus'" applies to the writer or whoever is making a claim, not to the reader.
    - everybodyknows 5y ago
      The preceding post did not claim otherwise.
- watwut 5y ago
  Either way, Sparta is not Athens. They were different political and cultural systems.
- xwolfi 5y ago
  Where did the claim come from originally ? Could google but...
- Brakenshire 5y ago
  We don’t really know anything about Sparta which wasn’t written by outside observers.
- gpm 5y ago
  The onus is on the people making claims in general. In this case someone (the journalist?) made a claim that "spartans didn't kill `weak' babies", so the onus is on them.
colordrops 5y ago
Is there a name for being arbitrarily biased against a counterclaim? The simple fact that this is posed as a counterclaim itself seems to invoke skepticism, even when the original belief itself isn't even presented or has a poor basis itself. A weak counterclaim does not imply the claim to be truth.
- hsod 5y ago
  I agree. Lately it seems that people who lay their ideas out and accept criticism are being destroyed by those who refuse to admit fault a priori
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - 0des 5y ago
    Just a head's up, it appears your account may be shadow banned, most of your comments cannot be seen unless someone vouches for them. To respond to your comment, I think sometimes that the skills of debate are fading from society. Often it is not the subject matter of what is being disputed, but the manner in which it is presented, or the person/ideology espousing it.
    - dang 5y ago
      Not shadowbanned—we told them we were banning them and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 - as we usually do, when an account has some history on HN. Please don't take threads off topic like that. If you think an account shouldn't be banned, you're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Edit: you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not cool. Please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043
      - hsod 5y ago
        Hey Dan Pretty surprising and sad that you would ban me for a comment like that. Reading it back three years later I’m not wildly proud about it but I don’t think it’s ban worthy. But I want to push back against the idea that this is not a shadow ban. I see now that you replied to my comment to let me know. But there’s no notification mechanism on HN for comment replies! So I didn’t see it until just now. A ban mechanism that eventuates in the banned user logging on and participating for 3 years before realizing no one can see their comments is a shadow ban! If you wanted it to be clear there should be some messaging besides a comment reply. Just my two cents
Lhiw 5y ago
Did you even read the article? Or even its title? Did anyone in this thread? This is about ancient Greeks [not] abandoning deformed babies. Spartans aside.
asimpletune 5y ago
Did you see the part about the lame guy who was king pf Sparta?

MattGaiser 5y ago

Indeed, except for the comment about the spartan king with weak legs, none of that was Sparta specific evidence.

Talanes 5y ago

Even within Sparta, proper Spartans didn't make up the majority of the population, so you'd still have to distinguish between Spartan infants and helot infants.

scndrycntct 5y ago
Pretty pedantic. I think we can agree that since the title and parent comment mention "Spartans", they are talking about the Spartans and not other residents.
- akkartik 5y ago
 Helots were 85% of the population[1]. GP is pointing out that random skeletons don't come with residency papers describing which kind of residents they belong to. [1] Source: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
 - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
 "Sparta" is commonly understood to mean the city of Sparta as a political entity and "Spartans" its free inhabitants. Only in the blog you quote is the term "Sparta" used to refer to the wider city-state of Sparta that encompassed subjugated settlements outside of Sparta. Historical sources, ancient as well as modern, do not consider the helots to be "Spartan" (or even "Spartiate", a term made up by the author of the blog as distinct from "Spartan", a distinction grammatically impossible in the Greek language).
 - bivargen 5y ago
 Σπᾰρτῐᾱ́της is a perfectly fine greek noun and was used in antiquity to denote the ”homoioi” of spartan society, it is not a made up word by Bret Devereaux. Historical sources do consider helots to be spartans, just not citizens or ”homoioi”. I would suggest reading the posted blog-post. The author do know what he is talking about and–in my opinion—quiet an engaging writer.
 - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
 In turn, I would suggest not assuming that I haven't read the blog post. "Σπαρτιάτης" is used in Greek (modern and ancient) to mean a (male) inhabitant of a place called "Sparta". What the blog author claims is that there are _two_ words, one of which means free citizens of Sparta and the other, helots. He says that one of those words is "Spartiate" and that the other is "Spartan". This is a distinction that is impossible to make with a single word in Greek. The words he uses, "Spartan" and "Spartiate" are two Latin transliterations of the single Greek word "Σπαρτιάτης", that has one single meaning, as I explain it above. Furthermore, the distinction between free and enslaved inhabitans of Sparta is, in all historical sources, made clear by using two words with different roots: "Spartan" for the free citizens of the city, "helot" for the enslaved people of the surrounding territories of the city-state. Nobody else than the author calls one "Spartan" and the other "Spartiate". That's entirely the blog author's made-up terminology. So what I'm saying the blog author has made up is the distinct meaning of "Spartan" and "Spartiate". I do not claim that he has made up the word "Spartiate", as you seem to assume in your comment. Please correct me if I misunderstood your comment, and not you mine.
- Talanes 5y ago
 I'm only expanding on GPs point, so I'm not sure how my comment could be considered pedantic to them. And as for the title point: Spartans seem to only be mentioned in the article coverage of the research. They are not the topic of the research itself. Sparta doesn't even appear in the abstract of the paper. Demonstrating that infanticide of disabled babies wasn't a widespread practice in Ancient Greece does not necessarily mean that it wasn't practiced by a group that only consisted of the elite class of one state.

Ansil849 5y ago

> Nothing in the article (and I could have missed it) proved evidence, from digs, against the idea of infanticide by the Spartans. Isn't the onus on the ones claiming that Spartans practiced systemic infanticide to provide the evidence that they did so?

CoastalCoder 5y ago
I'm not sure the concept of "onus" really applies here. Each reader can decide for himself how much evidence he needs to be persuaded.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  The "concept of 'onus'" applies to the writer or whoever is making a claim, not to the reader.
  - everybodyknows 5y ago
    The preceding post did not claim otherwise.
watwut 5y ago
Either way, Sparta is not Athens. They were different political and cultural systems.
xwolfi 5y ago
Where did the claim come from originally ? Could google but...
Brakenshire 5y ago
We don’t really know anything about Sparta which wasn’t written by outside observers.
gpm 5y ago
The onus is on the people making claims in general. In this case someone (the journalist?) made a claim that "spartans didn't kill `weak' babies", so the onus is on them.

colordrops 5y ago

Is there a name for being arbitrarily biased against a counterclaim? The simple fact that this is posed as a counterclaim itself seems to invoke skepticism, even when the original belief itself isn't even presented or has a poor basis itself. A weak counterclaim does not imply the claim to be truth.

hsod 5y ago
I agree. Lately it seems that people who lay their ideas out and accept criticism are being destroyed by those who refuse to admit fault a priori
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 0des 5y ago
  Just a head's up, it appears your account may be shadow banned, most of your comments cannot be seen unless someone vouches for them. To respond to your comment, I think sometimes that the skills of debate are fading from society. Often it is not the subject matter of what is being disputed, but the manner in which it is presented, or the person/ideology espousing it.
  - dang 5y ago
    Not shadowbanned—we told them we were banning them and why: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16118062 - as we usually do, when an account has some history on HN. Please don't take threads off topic like that. If you think an account shouldn't be banned, you're welcome to let us know at hn@ycombinator.com. Edit: you've been doing this repeatedly. That's not cool. Please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29528043
    - hsod 5y ago
      Hey Dan Pretty surprising and sad that you would ban me for a comment like that. Reading it back three years later I’m not wildly proud about it but I don’t think it’s ban worthy. But I want to push back against the idea that this is not a shadow ban. I see now that you replied to my comment to let me know. But there’s no notification mechanism on HN for comment replies! So I didn’t see it until just now. A ban mechanism that eventuates in the banned user logging on and participating for 3 years before realizing no one can see their comments is a shadow ban! If you wanted it to be clear there should be some messaging besides a comment reply. Just my two cents

Lhiw 5y ago

Did you even read the article? Or even its title? Did anyone in this thread? This is about ancient Greeks [not] abandoning deformed babies. Spartans aside.

asimpletune 5y ago

Did you see the part about the lame guy who was king pf Sparta?