10 ms·

Spartans Were Losers

51 points by pella 3y ago

jprd 3y ago
https://archive.li/LayID https://archive.li/LayID
SonicScrub 3y ago
If this interests you, I'd recommend the ACOUP blog articles by Bret Devereaux on this subject. https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ Audio format https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIwe3bxds8ZvX9wL0Vf2hzApOJZC6mQS https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIwe3bxds8ZvX9wL0Vf2hz...
- gerikson 3y ago
  Bret Devereaux is the author of the submitted article.
  - SonicScrub 3y ago
    I missed that somehow. I guess that explains why reading it reminded me so much of the blog post!
- helios_invictus 3y ago
  I was just about to say this reads like a Bret Devereaux article...and it is.
29athrowaway 3y ago
One day we will be able to test political ideas in a realistic simulator. Then we will have the ability inform citizens of the effects of what they are being told. When that happens, they will realize that the low merit ideas of authors such as this guy are useless. The decline of Sparta was due to the greed of the elite, who became self-serving at the expense of the rest. Not because of the merit of Spartan soldiers.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Then some day after that, we'll realize that our simulations aren't as realistic as we imagined, and we'll be faced with entrenched ideas which enjoy the imprimatur of having "passed the simulator test" despite the questionable value that provides. All models are wrong, some are useful; humanity will be dead long before that changes.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    Even successful people have a success rate below 100%, and the more things you try the more failures you will accrue. For any successful person that has ever lived you can cherrypick all their failures and write an article like this. The only person that doesn't fail is the person that never tries anything. Being successful is not about never failing. This article completely ignores the Battle of Thermopylae which is probably one of the things Spartans are the most known for. In that sense, the author himself failed to portray Spartans fairly, making him a failed historian. In 100 years this historian will be completely forgotten.
    - santoshalper 3y ago
      Imagine being so sensitive to criticism of people who you never met, existed thousands of years ago, and you only really know about through an absurd pop-culture portrayal. Somebody has taken way too much of his identity from 300.
      - 29athrowaway 3y ago
        It's very clear that the aim of the article is not talking about Sparta. It's talking about how modern society should fit the expectations of this historian more. And his aspirations would be to have a society less like Sparta. Meaning less fit, respected people that get mobilized to protect their territory and more of the opposite perhaps? The semantic opposite is flaccid, laughable people that get invaded all the time. Perhaps that would be more aligned with the author's preferences.
- deleted 3y ago
thegaulofthem 3y ago
I was always under the impression that the glorification of Sparta started and ended at the battle of Thermopylae, the willingness to fight and die alongside your brothers in arms is venerated just as we Remember the Alamo. All in all, this FP just reeks of a leftist hit-piece, Sparta is so associated with right-wing toxic masculinity and so must be pilloried. After all, they’ve already torn down beautiful statues venerating heroes, now own to the intangible idols.
- brazzy 3y ago
  > All in all, this FP just reeks of a leftist hit-piece, Sparta is so associated with right-wing toxic masculinity and so must be pilloried. Can you point out any factual errors in it? >After all, they’ve already torn down beautiful statues venerating heroes, now own to the intangible idols. Which statues specifically are you talking about?
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    I suspect they are talking about the statues glorifying the confederate slave owning society.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  I think a lot of it comes down to the usual ignorance of what the Spartans actually did and how they lived. A lot of focus is placed on their extreme lifestyles while a lot less is placed on their massive community of slaves (helots) and their secret police to manage them. It's funny, since the existence of a slave population which greatly outnumbered them shaped their society and led directly to their downfall. They've also always been a very useful shibboleth for people trying to make the "Effete Athenians vs Manly Spartans" comparison.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  Traitors who fought their country for slavery weren't heroes. The Founding Fathers were
  - 3y ago
OfSanguineFire 3y ago
Adulation of the Spartans is less about historical exactitude and more about creating a model that everyone can look to in order to build esprit de corps. Human societies have very often done this, and not just in the USA. Americans often did this before by making heroic-warrior myths out of American Indian tribes that were on the losing side of historical conflicts just like the Spartans. Just think of all the American Indian imagery in the Boy Scouts from its early years, high-school sports teams named after such tribes, etc. Of course now, use of Native American motifs is seen as cultural appropriation, but the Spartans are far removed enough in time – and viewed as the same race as modern privileged classes – that use of Spartan motifs is safe from such accusations.
- oneTbrain23 3y ago
  Basically pentagon is setting American military power to be defeated into 2nd class power from which nevet to recover. You can already see Russians obliterate anything sent over Ukraine battlefields by NATO, especially US. We will see in our lifetime our American Leutra where just half a century ago Americans defeated Nazi. It is such a bad idea to use Sparta as though Americans never read history...ops the recent Jada Black Cleopatra confirmed that.
- qsort 3y ago
  > Adulation of the Spartans is less about historical exactitude and more about creating a model that everyone can look to in order to build esprit de corps. Very good, but why does it have to be a brutal -- for the standards of the time -- slave state that wasn't even particularly good at war? The current situation in Ukraine should be proof enough that the myth of manly men doing manly things does not produce armies that are actually effective. Almost everything Sparta fanfiction does is actively counterproductive.
  - johngalt_ 3y ago
    Could you expand more on your view about the current situation in Ukraine?
    - 3y ago
edgyquant 3y ago
Hard to take seriously anyone who calls the victors of the Peloponnesian War and the only Greek city-state not subjugated by Phillip of Macedon “losers.” This is just people taking the opposite stance of Spartans being good warriors because they know right wingers fetishize Spartans. Both are people who care little about historical truths and more about “owning” their culture war enemies.
- santoshalper 3y ago
  Did you at least read the article before taking a side? The author is a historian who happens to have spent quite a bit of time researching this and makes a very compelling argument.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    The author can’t refute the two instances I gave so not sure it matters.
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    always disappointing when people switch topic to titles when they can't bring counter-argument.
  - woooooo 3y ago
    Does anyone bother to write that the gauls were losers? Vercingetorix got owned! The Spartans get way too much hype but they also had a fairly respectable run for a while. They beat Persia and then Athens. Were the athenians even bigger losers?
    - kybernetikos 3y ago
      > They beat Persia and then Athens I hope you're not counting Thermopylae as them 'beating Persia'. Thermopylae was a disastrous defeat. Marathon and Salamis seem to be more important than Thermopylae (and are victories), and those were led by Athens as far as I can make out. You may be referring to Plataea, which was led by Sparta, but included forces from the whole Greek alliance, including nearly as many troops from Athens as Sparta. As to them beating Athens, that was only after taking an enormous amount of Persian money to do so, and would most likely have been impossible otherwise.
FormerBandmate 3y ago
Sparta was a incredibly brutal army masquerading as a state. Like all great powers they were successful until they weren't. It's weird how we forget Athenian brutality in the whole Athens/Sparta dichotomy. There Melian dialogue is literally them shaking down their neighbors and then brutally murdering them drug cartel style, and Sparta won the Peloponnesian war by being more diplomatic. We uncritically buy into both of their propaganda about themselves
- wdr1 3y ago
  > There Melian dialogue is literally them shaking down their neighbors and then brutally murdering them "The strong do as they will. The weak submit."
- B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
  "Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state", as a wit later put it. But yeah, reading Thucydides (also an out-of-sorts Athenian) leaves you with a lingering doubt about the inherent goodness of political regimes - "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
snickerbockers 3y ago
>Sparta has also become a political rallying cry, including by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Why does this always get brought up in articles where it's not relevant? Is my takeaway supposed to be that anybody who names anything after the Spartans is associated with a bunch of idiotic boomers who were way too butthurt over losing that election? Also TFA's cited proof for this is a link to a Twitter thread about something questionable Joe Biden said regarding gun control? I cannot even speculate why OP would tell such an really verifiable lie, did he think nobody would click on his links?
- eesmith 3y ago
  I don't see any lies. The link supports the claim is that 'Molṑn Labé' is used as a "political rallying cry", in this case by Rep. Jeff Duncan making a political rally cry in support of access to guns. That is indeed a Spartan saying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe . It was also used "by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021." For example, from 'SPARTANS ON THE CAPITOL: Recent Far-Right Appropriations of Spartan Militarism in the USA and their Historical Roots' (found via Google Scholar, but the URL doesn't seem to work stand-alone from HN): ] The display of ‘Spartan’ symbols during the insurrection of 6 January 2021 represented the culmination of an increasing recent trend whereby the U.S. Far-Right has appropriated martial images of the Spartans (linked especially to the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC) to support their causes. Three strands of appropriation have been prominent: Three strands of appropriation have been prominent: first, exploitation of the phrase MOLON LABE, supposedly uttered at Thermopylae by Sparta’s king Leonidas, by the firearms industry and gun-rights activists as a selling-point and a rallying cry against restrictions on gun ownership; secondly, use of imagery from Zack Snyder’s film 300 (2006) by supporters of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign; thirdly, invocations of ‘Spartan’ military symbols and Sparta’s martial reputation to mobilise violence against the leftist movement labelled ‘Antifa’. > Is my takeaway supposed to be that anybody who names anything after the Spartans is associated with a bunch of idiotic boomers who were way too butthurt over losing that election? ... No? I think it's supposed to be that perhaps your understanding is incomplete and there is context you aren't aware of? Perhaps a newer context than one used to, for example, choose the name "Spartans" for the Michigan State University mascot back in 1925?
ramesh31 3y ago
>Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states. This shows a misunderstanding of how military power and war works, particularly in the ancient world. It's not a football game, where the best team will dominate everyone else. It's about fear and intimidation as much as fighting. If you have a force that is capable of creating 50/50 odds against any given opponent, that is a very formidable enemy.
Thoeu388 3y ago
Look into Sparta inheritance laws. Most land was owned by rich widows. Those also dominated political life. Kings had to borrow money from them! Sparta was basically matriarchal society with very low fertility. At time of Alexander the Great, they could only field 1000 soldiers. He did not even bothered to conquer them. Compare it to US. How many soldiers could they put on field? UK can realistically deploy only 10k soldiers.
zeteo 3y ago
Thucydides, an Athenian who fought the Spartans and also spent some time with them, would beg to disagree. Spartan diplomacy, while not very eloquent, was nevertheless very effective during the Peloponnesian War, with Athenian allies frequently doing their utmost to desert to the enemy. Spartan troops, while few in number, prove extremely effective in combat, usually routing their direct opponents and only losing the occasional battle due to their allies' unsteadiness. Even the battle at Pylos, cited by Mr. Devereaux as a major defeat, comes very close to being a second Thermopylae, with a small group of Spartan warriors stranded on an island and holding off against all odds for months, until a freak accident burns out all the trees and reveals their lack of strength to the enemy. Finally forced to take to the seas, inexperienced Spartan admiral Lysander concocts a brilliant strategy and utterly destroys the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  The article was written by an historian who is well aware of Thucydides. He's written a lot about him on https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ including a discussion of why we shouldn't take his views on Sparta without a grain of salt. "To put it bluntly, these guys are all snobs. Thucydides and Xenophon were both aristocratic Athenians (they got to be generals, rather than common soldiers), frustrated that democracy – in their view – let the fickle, uneducated and poor ‘masses’ make decisions that ought to have been left to their ‘betters.’... For these authors, Sparta is a mirror to hold up to the politics of Athens – speaking well of Sparta is a way of criticizing what they dislike about Athens (which is the democracy)... These men conclude that Sparta is fantastic because Sparta seems fantastic for men like them – rich, educated, adult citizen men."
  - zeteo 3y ago
    I am well aware of prof. Devereaux's blog and have even donated to it in the past. Also I hope you realize that just because someone is a historian it doesn't mean all other historians would agree with him. Pick ten random books on ancient Sparta, the odds are that most will take a position very different from "Spartans were losers".
IceHegel 3y ago
They did win the war with Athens…

51 points by pella 3y ago

jprd 3y ago

https://archive.li/LayID https://archive.li/LayID

If this interests you, I'd recommend the ACOUP blog articles by Bret Devereaux on this subject. https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ Audio format https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIwe3bxds8ZvX9wL0Vf2hzApOJZC6mQS https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcIwe3bxds8ZvX9wL0Vf2hz...

gerikson 3y ago
Bret Devereaux is the author of the submitted article.
- SonicScrub 3y ago
  I missed that somehow. I guess that explains why reading it reminded me so much of the blog post!
helios_invictus 3y ago
I was just about to say this reads like a Bret Devereaux article...and it is.

29athrowaway 3y ago

One day we will be able to test political ideas in a realistic simulator. Then we will have the ability inform citizens of the effects of what they are being told. When that happens, they will realize that the low merit ideas of authors such as this guy are useless. The decline of Sparta was due to the greed of the elite, who became self-serving at the expense of the rest. Not because of the merit of Spartan soldiers.

EA-3167 3y ago
Then some day after that, we'll realize that our simulations aren't as realistic as we imagined, and we'll be faced with entrenched ideas which enjoy the imprimatur of having "passed the simulator test" despite the questionable value that provides. All models are wrong, some are useful; humanity will be dead long before that changes.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Even successful people have a success rate below 100%, and the more things you try the more failures you will accrue. For any successful person that has ever lived you can cherrypick all their failures and write an article like this. The only person that doesn't fail is the person that never tries anything. Being successful is not about never failing. This article completely ignores the Battle of Thermopylae which is probably one of the things Spartans are the most known for. In that sense, the author himself failed to portray Spartans fairly, making him a failed historian. In 100 years this historian will be completely forgotten.
  - santoshalper 3y ago
    Imagine being so sensitive to criticism of people who you never met, existed thousands of years ago, and you only really know about through an absurd pop-culture portrayal. Somebody has taken way too much of his identity from 300.
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      It's very clear that the aim of the article is not talking about Sparta. It's talking about how modern society should fit the expectations of this historian more. And his aspirations would be to have a society less like Sparta. Meaning less fit, respected people that get mobilized to protect their territory and more of the opposite perhaps? The semantic opposite is flaccid, laughable people that get invaded all the time. Perhaps that would be more aligned with the author's preferences.
deleted 3y ago

thegaulofthem 3y ago

I was always under the impression that the glorification of Sparta started and ended at the battle of Thermopylae, the willingness to fight and die alongside your brothers in arms is venerated just as we Remember the Alamo. All in all, this FP just reeks of a leftist hit-piece, Sparta is so associated with right-wing toxic masculinity and so must be pilloried. After all, they’ve already torn down beautiful statues venerating heroes, now own to the intangible idols.

brazzy 3y ago
> All in all, this FP just reeks of a leftist hit-piece, Sparta is so associated with right-wing toxic masculinity and so must be pilloried. Can you point out any factual errors in it? >After all, they’ve already torn down beautiful statues venerating heroes, now own to the intangible idols. Which statues specifically are you talking about?
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  I suspect they are talking about the statues glorifying the confederate slave owning society.
EA-3167 3y ago
I think a lot of it comes down to the usual ignorance of what the Spartans actually did and how they lived. A lot of focus is placed on their extreme lifestyles while a lot less is placed on their massive community of slaves (helots) and their secret police to manage them. It's funny, since the existence of a slave population which greatly outnumbered them shaped their society and led directly to their downfall. They've also always been a very useful shibboleth for people trying to make the "Effete Athenians vs Manly Spartans" comparison.
FormerBandmate 3y ago
Traitors who fought their country for slavery weren't heroes. The Founding Fathers were
- 3y ago

OfSanguineFire 3y ago

Adulation of the Spartans is less about historical exactitude and more about creating a model that everyone can look to in order to build esprit de corps. Human societies have very often done this, and not just in the USA. Americans often did this before by making heroic-warrior myths out of American Indian tribes that were on the losing side of historical conflicts just like the Spartans. Just think of all the American Indian imagery in the Boy Scouts from its early years, high-school sports teams named after such tribes, etc. Of course now, use of Native American motifs is seen as cultural appropriation, but the Spartans are far removed enough in time – and viewed as the same race as modern privileged classes – that use of Spartan motifs is safe from such accusations.

oneTbrain23 3y ago
Basically pentagon is setting American military power to be defeated into 2nd class power from which nevet to recover. You can already see Russians obliterate anything sent over Ukraine battlefields by NATO, especially US. We will see in our lifetime our American Leutra where just half a century ago Americans defeated Nazi. It is such a bad idea to use Sparta as though Americans never read history...ops the recent Jada Black Cleopatra confirmed that.
qsort 3y ago
> Adulation of the Spartans is less about historical exactitude and more about creating a model that everyone can look to in order to build esprit de corps. Very good, but why does it have to be a brutal -- for the standards of the time -- slave state that wasn't even particularly good at war? The current situation in Ukraine should be proof enough that the myth of manly men doing manly things does not produce armies that are actually effective. Almost everything Sparta fanfiction does is actively counterproductive.
- johngalt_ 3y ago
  Could you expand more on your view about the current situation in Ukraine?
  - 3y ago

edgyquant 3y ago

Hard to take seriously anyone who calls the victors of the Peloponnesian War and the only Greek city-state not subjugated by Phillip of Macedon “losers.” This is just people taking the opposite stance of Spartans being good warriors because they know right wingers fetishize Spartans. Both are people who care little about historical truths and more about “owning” their culture war enemies.

santoshalper 3y ago
Did you at least read the article before taking a side? The author is a historian who happens to have spent quite a bit of time researching this and makes a very compelling argument.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  The author can’t refute the two instances I gave so not sure it matters.
- riku_iki 3y ago
  always disappointing when people switch topic to titles when they can't bring counter-argument.
- woooooo 3y ago
  Does anyone bother to write that the gauls were losers? Vercingetorix got owned! The Spartans get way too much hype but they also had a fairly respectable run for a while. They beat Persia and then Athens. Were the athenians even bigger losers?
  - kybernetikos 3y ago
    > They beat Persia and then Athens I hope you're not counting Thermopylae as them 'beating Persia'. Thermopylae was a disastrous defeat. Marathon and Salamis seem to be more important than Thermopylae (and are victories), and those were led by Athens as far as I can make out. You may be referring to Plataea, which was led by Sparta, but included forces from the whole Greek alliance, including nearly as many troops from Athens as Sparta. As to them beating Athens, that was only after taking an enormous amount of Persian money to do so, and would most likely have been impossible otherwise.

FormerBandmate 3y ago

Sparta was a incredibly brutal army masquerading as a state. Like all great powers they were successful until they weren't. It's weird how we forget Athenian brutality in the whole Athens/Sparta dichotomy. There Melian dialogue is literally them shaking down their neighbors and then brutally murdering them drug cartel style, and Sparta won the Peloponnesian war by being more diplomatic. We uncritically buy into both of their propaganda about themselves

wdr1 3y ago
> There Melian dialogue is literally them shaking down their neighbors and then brutally murdering them "The strong do as they will. The weak submit."
B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
"Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state", as a wit later put it. But yeah, reading Thucydides (also an out-of-sorts Athenian) leaves you with a lingering doubt about the inherent goodness of political regimes - "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

snickerbockers 3y ago

>Sparta has also become a political rallying cry, including by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Why does this always get brought up in articles where it's not relevant? Is my takeaway supposed to be that anybody who names anything after the Spartans is associated with a bunch of idiotic boomers who were way too butthurt over losing that election? Also TFA's cited proof for this is a link to a Twitter thread about something questionable Joe Biden said regarding gun control? I cannot even speculate why OP would tell such an really verifiable lie, did he think nobody would click on his links?

eesmith 3y ago
I don't see any lies. The link supports the claim is that 'Molṑn Labé' is used as a "political rallying cry", in this case by Rep. Jeff Duncan making a political rally cry in support of access to guns. That is indeed a Spartan saying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molon_labe . It was also used "by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021." For example, from 'SPARTANS ON THE CAPITOL: Recent Far-Right Appropriations of Spartan Militarism in the USA and their Historical Roots' (found via Google Scholar, but the URL doesn't seem to work stand-alone from HN): ] The display of ‘Spartan’ symbols during the insurrection of 6 January 2021 represented the culmination of an increasing recent trend whereby the U.S. Far-Right has appropriated martial images of the Spartans (linked especially to the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC) to support their causes. Three strands of appropriation have been prominent: Three strands of appropriation have been prominent: first, exploitation of the phrase MOLON LABE, supposedly uttered at Thermopylae by Sparta’s king Leonidas, by the firearms industry and gun-rights activists as a selling-point and a rallying cry against restrictions on gun ownership; secondly, use of imagery from Zack Snyder’s film 300 (2006) by supporters of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign; thirdly, invocations of ‘Spartan’ military symbols and Sparta’s martial reputation to mobilise violence against the leftist movement labelled ‘Antifa’. > Is my takeaway supposed to be that anybody who names anything after the Spartans is associated with a bunch of idiotic boomers who were way too butthurt over losing that election? ... No? I think it's supposed to be that perhaps your understanding is incomplete and there is context you aren't aware of? Perhaps a newer context than one used to, for example, choose the name "Spartans" for the Michigan State University mascot back in 1925?

ramesh31 3y ago

>Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states. This shows a misunderstanding of how military power and war works, particularly in the ancient world. It's not a football game, where the best team will dominate everyone else. It's about fear and intimidation as much as fighting. If you have a force that is capable of creating 50/50 odds against any given opponent, that is a very formidable enemy.

Thoeu388 3y ago

Look into Sparta inheritance laws. Most land was owned by rich widows. Those also dominated political life. Kings had to borrow money from them! Sparta was basically matriarchal society with very low fertility. At time of Alexander the Great, they could only field 1000 soldiers. He did not even bothered to conquer them. Compare it to US. How many soldiers could they put on field? UK can realistically deploy only 10k soldiers.

zeteo 3y ago

Thucydides, an Athenian who fought the Spartans and also spent some time with them, would beg to disagree. Spartan diplomacy, while not very eloquent, was nevertheless very effective during the Peloponnesian War, with Athenian allies frequently doing their utmost to desert to the enemy. Spartan troops, while few in number, prove extremely effective in combat, usually routing their direct opponents and only losing the occasional battle due to their allies' unsteadiness. Even the battle at Pylos, cited by Mr. Devereaux as a major defeat, comes very close to being a second Thermopylae, with a small group of Spartan warriors stranded on an island and holding off against all odds for months, until a freak accident burns out all the trees and reveals their lack of strength to the enemy. Finally forced to take to the seas, inexperienced Spartan admiral Lysander concocts a brilliant strategy and utterly destroys the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

kybernetikos 3y ago
The article was written by an historian who is well aware of Thucydides. He's written a lot about him on https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ including a discussion of why we shouldn't take his views on Sparta without a grain of salt. "To put it bluntly, these guys are all snobs. Thucydides and Xenophon were both aristocratic Athenians (they got to be generals, rather than common soldiers), frustrated that democracy – in their view – let the fickle, uneducated and poor ‘masses’ make decisions that ought to have been left to their ‘betters.’... For these authors, Sparta is a mirror to hold up to the politics of Athens – speaking well of Sparta is a way of criticizing what they dislike about Athens (which is the democracy)... These men conclude that Sparta is fantastic because Sparta seems fantastic for men like them – rich, educated, adult citizen men."
- zeteo 3y ago
  I am well aware of prof. Devereaux's blog and have even donated to it in the past. Also I hope you realize that just because someone is a historian it doesn't mean all other historians would agree with him. Pick ten random books on ancient Sparta, the odds are that most will take a position very different from "Spartans were losers".

IceHegel 3y ago

They did win the war with Athens…