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When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? Halo's Spartans make sense if you think about them as a traumatized and bru

by kiba 5y ago

When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? Halo's Spartans make sense if you think about them as a traumatized and brutalized society.

mannykannot 5y ago
> When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? I am pretty sure you are right. To the ancient writers, slaves were all but invisible, except perhaps as a measure of a slave-holder's wealth, or when, like Spartacus, they upturned the 'natural order' of society, and lesser nominally-free persons were not much more thought of. A slave's child was a return on a slave-holder's investment (Thomas Jefferson wrote about his own slaves in these terms), and if they weren't useful for anything better, they could be used as beasts of burden until they died. I don't know how the Spartans are portrayed in Halo, but Brett Devereaux make an interesting case (at least AFAIK, which is not much) that the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult [1] (and he seems to accept that infanticide was part of that cult, though he does not have much to say about it.) [1] 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...
- tartoran 5y ago
  I enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting
- jcranmer 5y ago
  > the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult "Cult" isn't the word I'd use for it. The main point of that particular post is comparing the written sources' description of Spartan agoge to modern child soldiers... and our sources' description of the Spartan agoge read rather like how someone would write about modern child soldiers if they thought it were a good thing.
  - mannykannot 5y ago
    Interesting - I have a strong recollection of someone making a comparison of the agoge to the methods of modern cults (I do not think it is something I would have come up with myself) and I thought it was somewhere in this series, but I see it is not. Maybe I heard it from Dan Carlin? Not that you have to agree with the comparison, of course!
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    By and large ancient sources seem to also have thought that the Spartans were nuts. There are virtually no sources where Spartans write about themselves though, since they were not exactly keen on intellectual pursuits.
wisty 5y ago
Yeah Spartans were the aristocracy, then there were peasants (free but not citizens, Perioikoi) and serfs (Helots) below them. IIRC the Spartan aristocracy were originally Doric invaders who most likely created the rigid rules because they wanted to stay seperate and in charge of the conquered Helots (in kind of a caste system).

by kiba 5y ago

When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? Halo's Spartans make sense if you think about them as a traumatized and brutalized society.

mannykannot 5y ago

> When we're talking about Spartans, we're talking about the Spartan aristocracy, no? I am pretty sure you are right. To the ancient writers, slaves were all but invisible, except perhaps as a measure of a slave-holder's wealth, or when, like Spartacus, they upturned the 'natural order' of society, and lesser nominally-free persons were not much more thought of. A slave's child was a return on a slave-holder's investment (Thomas Jefferson wrote about his own slaves in these terms), and if they weren't useful for anything better, they could be used as beasts of burden until they died. I don't know how the Spartans are portrayed in Halo, but Brett Devereaux make an interesting case (at least AFAIK, which is not much) that the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult [1] (and he seems to accept that infanticide was part of that cult, though he does not have much to say about it.) [1] 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...

tartoran 5y ago
I enjoyed reading this, thanks for posting
jcranmer 5y ago
> the Spartan aristocracy operated like a modern-day cult "Cult" isn't the word I'd use for it. The main point of that particular post is comparing the written sources' description of Spartan agoge to modern child soldiers... and our sources' description of the Spartan agoge read rather like how someone would write about modern child soldiers if they thought it were a good thing.
- mannykannot 5y ago
  Interesting - I have a strong recollection of someone making a comparison of the agoge to the methods of modern cults (I do not think it is something I would have come up with myself) and I thought it was somewhere in this series, but I see it is not. Maybe I heard it from Dan Carlin? Not that you have to agree with the comparison, of course!
- dustintrex 5y ago
  By and large ancient sources seem to also have thought that the Spartans were nuts. There are virtually no sources where Spartans write about themselves though, since they were not exactly keen on intellectual pursuits.

wisty 5y ago

Yeah Spartans were the aristocracy, then there were peasants (free but not citizens, Perioikoi) and serfs (Helots) below them. IIRC the Spartan aristocracy were originally Doric invaders who most likely created the rigid rules because they wanted to stay seperate and in charge of the conquered Helots (in kind of a caste system).