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Seeing Through the Spartan Mirage

103 points by crescit_eundo 2y ago

tiahura 2y ago
Hmm. I think US-USSR / Athens-Sparta is a poor analogy. They spoke the same language, and it’s a two day walk. I’m going to defer to Athenians on the character of Sparta over modernish debunkers.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ertian 2y ago
  I think that's trying to draw the metaphor too far. The point is just that people have a tendency to be fascinated with their enemies, and exaggerate the differences between them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) The best and most recent example of that, for a modern American, would be the USSR. You do come across similar processes with, say, Chinese or Arabs, but they're not explicit enemies, and there's more cultural integration and exchange in those cases.
rjurney 2y ago
Sparta buried her war dead on the field in mass graves. A hoplon shield isn't useful to carry a body in the first place. This is the first I've heard that attributed to Plutarch, however...
- icepat 2y ago
  Plutarch is well known for just making things up. He was the Greek version of the dude in the pub with wild tales about the time he went fishing and caught a shark during a wild storm. When in reality the story actually boiled down to "he caught a fish once".
- quuxplusone 2y ago
  It's from Plutarch's "Sayings of Spartan Women": > [A Spartan mother], as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him, saying, "Either this or upon this." The Loeb editor comments: "[Attributed] to Gorgo by Aristotle in his Aphorisms, as quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium VII.31, but it is often spoken of as a regular Spartan custom. Cf., for example, the scholium on Thucydides II.39. Ancient writers were not agreed whether the second half meant to fall upon the shield (dead or wounded) or to be brought home dead upon it. In support of the second (traditional) interpretation cf. Moralia 235A, and Valerius Maximus II.7 ext. 2." Valerius Maximus II.7 ext. 2 is "maternarum blanditiarum memores, quibus [...] monebantur ut aut vivi cum armis in conspectum earum venirent aut mortui in armis referrentur" — "remembering their mothers' admonition [...] that they should next be seen alive with their armor or reported dead in it." Plutarch's Moralia 235A, in the Sayings of Spartans, is a verse attributed to Dioscurides: "Lifeless to Pitane came, on his shield upborne, Thrasybulus..." Moralia 235B supplies my new favorite laconism: > When Philip of Macedon sent some orders to the Spartans by letter, they wrote thus in reply: "As to what you wrote about: No."
jvanderbot 2y ago
acoup.blog has a much more in-depth look at ancient sparta. 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... (Edit, the author is Bret C. Devereaux) And a long-running series on the "Fremen myth", which is similar to the retro-spective glorification of/mythology around Sparta. https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... At any rate, that blog is a must read for any history-myth-debunker, especially around military. Also highly recommended is their analysis of the LotR battles and campaigns, which fare well historicaly, and the GoT, which ... doesn't. He also does medieval game reviews!
- CobaltFire 2y ago
  I also want to give a highlight to the fact that if you subscribe to the blog the emails are the ENTIRE ARTICLE. You never HAVE to visit the site if you subscribe. I still DO, but that little fact is highly appreciated.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Same is true of the RSS feed! No summaries, just the whole thing. I do prefer to go to the blog because the blog handles footnotes better (hover works on desktop to show them in a popup, and tapping on them works correctly with the back button on mobile), and often the footnotes are really good.
  - TheGRS 2y ago
    That's a nice throwback. Totally different subject matter but Matt Levine of Money Stuff on Bloomberg also continues to do that.
- adeeshaek 2y ago
  Double thumbs up for acoup.blog - it's what I fall back to reading if HN doesn't have anything interesting. His work is also really well sourced, so it's a great jumping off point if you are looking for more work on the subject. His sparta series, and the fremen series are absolutely outstanding.
Archelaos 2y ago
For those interested in the topic of Sparta, I can highly recommend Bret C. Devereaux's series of blog posts on the subject at 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... (2019). It corrects many myths about the Spartans on the basis of the contemporary state of research.
connorpeters 2y ago
> we should remember that, in actual history, Sparta was an oppressive society that established itself as the enemy of the Greek city-states that valued democracy and the arts. We should also remember that many of the modern people who have been most enthusiastic about the Spartans as historical role models have also been really enthusiastic about oppressing and killing their fellow human beings. My interest in Sparta is that it exemplifies how elite a group of people can become when they focus on one thing. As mentioned in the article, Sparta beat Athens in the Second Peloponnesian War. Athens was the naval and intellectual powerhouse of the area at the time, yet the unsophisticated specialized warmongers won. It illustrates that in life hyperfocusing can yield results. I do not forget that Sparta was an oppressive and brutal society that I in no way would want to live in. I do not idealize their caste culture or slaveholding, but sometimes the bad guys win, and Sparta is a colorful example of that. > Leonidas’ 300 men made a brave stand in the mountains, and a superior Persian force wiped them out. You can see it like the Nazis did and the guys in the ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ T-shirts do, as a glorious battle in which an honorable band of brothers sacrificed their lives for their principles. Or you can see it as a tragedy in which the leaders of an oligarchical, slave-dependent society threw away their finest soldiers’ lives, and for what? To briefly delay the Persian Army while failing to achieve their goal of protecting Athens and the rest of northern Greece from the Persian attack? Interestingly, the Greeks did end up fending off the Persian invasion due to the victory at the Battle of Salamis where the Athenian navy crushed the Persian navy. The Spartan stand at Thermopylae was critical to delay the invasion though, let's not pretend like those deaths were futile.
- GolfPopper 2y ago
  >My interest in Sparta is that it exemplifies how elite a group of people can become when they focus on one thing. Except they weren't particularly elite. As (already mentioned) A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry author Bret Devereaux points out[1]: "Instead, what we might say is that the Spartans phalanx was, in most respects, just like every other Greek hoplite phalanx, with the addition that Spartan command and coordination was somewhat better, but hardly excellent by the broader standards of antiquity." And, as he also observes, any Spartan superiority didn't manifest on the battlefield: Spartan Victories: 18.5, Spartan Defeats: 18, Draws: 1.5, Spartan Batting Average (victories/battles): 0.486 1. https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/ https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
thrance 2y ago
The mythos around Sparta appeals to the fascist aesthetic, it always had, there's nothing new under the sun. The nazis were very found of their ahistorical perception of what Sparta supposedly was: the strong treading on the weak, a glorification of masculinity, etc.
- InDubioProRubio 2y ago
  One can see that in the nazi building and statues... they fit perfectly into the movie aesthetics.
- goatlover 2y ago
  Isn't the most popular myth about 300 Spartans facing off against the powerful Persian Empire bent on conquering Greek lands? Which is based on a historical event, but there were several thousand other Greeks helping the Spartan warriors in a narrow pass, because fighting in the open would have benefited the much larger Persian force.
  - hooverd 2y ago
    The Battle of Marathon is much cooler. The Athenians were winners too.
xhkkffbf 2y ago
Sparta is "capturing the modern imagination"? I thought we were supposed to think about Rome every day.
- schmichael 2y ago
  Don’t worry: we’re indirectly thinking about Rome by thinking about their perception of ancient Sparta. Rome is the Kevin Bacon of western historical thought: we’re never more than 6 hops away.
- gopher_space 2y ago
  Dick's "the Empire never died" model becomes more useful the older I get.
nickdothutton 2y ago
[flagged]
- kergonath 2y ago
  Sparta is a very poor example of a working city state, though. Also, it’s a very strange position because there is a good reason why there aren’t more city states: they get steamrolled when a better organised neighbour wants to take their stuff.
  - the_af 2y ago
    > Sparta is a very poor example of a working city state, though. Indeed. Bret Devereaux makes a good case that Sparta was actually bad at being a city state, and that their restrictive citizenship laws meant it was constantly shrinking.
  - nickdothutton 2y ago
    Is there a example of a modern city state being conquered? HK was returned to China at the end of a lease, Sevastopol wasn't a city state, Kuwait also not a city state. I can't think of one.
    - the_af 2y ago
      What would you consider a "modern city state" (in the same sense as Sparta of antiquity)? I don't think they actually exist anymore, in practice. Singapore maybe? I don't think they would survive on their own if a determined enemy launched an assault on them.
      - nickdothutton 2y ago
        Vatican, Monaco, Singapore, perhaps Dubai and San Marino depending on how tight a definition you wanted to make.
        the_af 2y ago
jerf 2y ago
This post is indulining in the etymological fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy Molon Labe, as it is used in popular culture today, is not being used as a stealth call to go back to the popular understanding of Spartan virtues, let alone secretly a call to go back to real Spartan organization. It just means don't take my guns, and a vague threat of violence if you try. Nothing more.
- Thomashuet 2y ago
  If it just means "don't take my guns", that's what they would write on their merch instead of some greek letters most people can't read. By using this Spartan phrase they're trying to evoke the mythical greatness of Sparta, and that is what this article is about.
  - jerf 2y ago
    Yeah, and everybody in Alabama always says "Go Team, Win Win Win" instead of "Roll Tide" because nobody can understand what "Roll Tide" means. Nobody is actually invoking anything beyond the absolutely most superficial "Spartanness" and going deep into "Well, actually, the Spartans were not nice people if you dig deeply into the truth" is not relevant when nobody else is digging that deeply. To a first approximation nobody knows anything about the Spartans beyond "vaguely Grecian" and "good warriors I guess". Despite all the sensitivity in the university system in the past 5-10 years, I've never even heard a whiff of a suggestion that Michigan State University needs to change its mascot... because nobody, not even the educated and politically sensitive, thinks anything about Spartans beyond "vaguely Grecian" and "good warriors I guess". If anyone had any sort of real knowledge about the situation it would have been considered extremely extremely insensitive... but nobody thinks about these things. Hard to get much more proof than that.
    - sixo 2y ago
      It sounds like this kind of essay isn't for you! > "nobody knows anything about the Spartans beyond.." "Sparta" is a "symbol" in our culture's "language of symbols" which stands roughly for "brutal and effective masculine warrior ethic, worthy of respect and fear". It is probably the single most unambiguous symbol available for this kind of thing, and is therefore used constantly—when somebody wants to make an argument like "might makes right", or "what if we didn't care about other people", or "men must be strong, austere, and violent to be worthy of respect", a reference to Sparta is never far away. Even when they don't make explicit reference to Sparta, it lends credibility to these sorts of ethics. It acquires its power from the fact that it actually existed in history and was seemingly successful, that it lives on with a generally admiring connotation, that it stands for the pinnacle of achievement in a certain sense. The point of an attack on the historical accuracy of the symbolic Sparta is to weaken the power of the symbol to be used for evil. It did not exist as remembered, nor for all that long, it was not particularly effective, the admiration of Sparta has been concocted after-the-fact by commentators trying to fit it into their agendas, it was not as brutal as it is imagined to be, nor was it particularly important in history. It was just a weird and particularly unpleasant culture that existed at one point. These are attacks on the structural integrity of a whole set of ideas which are regularly used to justify cruelty, abuse, and violence, and which mislead people—young men especially—as to the nature of virtue. That it is sometimes used harmlessly doesn't have much to do with this at all.
readthenotes1 2y ago
I suspect that the gun crowd is just trying to fanceify "come and take it" and is more thinking of the Texas revolution than thermopoly
marcusverus 2y ago
> This is not to say that Diodorus Siculus recorded a more accurate depiction of these events, but his phrasing does more closely mirror the flowery language with which ancient leaders probably addressed each other. Woof. The Spartans were famous for their disdain for flowery words. Herodotus discussed it explicitly, and Thucydides reflected it when writing Spartan dialogue. They preferred to speak plainly and get straight to the point. This common understanding of spartan speech is even enshrined in the English language, via the word 'laconic', meaning "using few words". Before sharing your insights with the world, do try to make sure you know what you're talking about. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase
ta4985732948 2y ago
Uuuuuff.... I am Spartan. I grew up in Sparta, Greece. I am in my "ancient Sparta" reading phase for some months now, I read everything from (modern) Greek, Foreign authors and researchers, as well as ancient texts with references to Sparta (even books/scrolls about "Helen of Troy" or as we call her in Greece/Greek "beautiful Helene" - Ωραία Ελένη. There is SO MUCH to know about (Ancient) Sparta. Two Kings? - Check City without Walls? (who would be crazy enough to attack?) - Check Simple legislation? (one written Law - Lycurgus) - Check (debatable - depends on the book/scroll) One prison cell - 4 walls, no ceiling, you stay in until some other criminal is convicted and replaced you (not much crime back in the day) - Check There was a big shift in the change of the dominant 'tribe' (Δωριείς vs Αχαιοί) post the financial ruin and loss of many men of the Trojan War. Anyway.. for anyone who hasn't read about Ancient Sparta, it is one of the 'things' that reading it will fulfill you. Fun fact for the movie 300. The producers sent photographers and photographed the valley, mountains, made an actual scenery of the landscape. I remember watching the movie and understanding where EXACTLY they had placed their cameras from the angle of the mountains, etc. I later asked around and they verified my suspicion. One issue though.. they they started "marching north" towards Thermopylae, in reality/in the real landscape they walked to the SOUTH, and I remember watching the movie in Athens, and apparently it was me and some other Spartan in the audience, so we both yelled at that point "hey malakes, you are going the wrong way" One last thing. Perhaps for the foreigners the most famous phrase is "μολων λαβε". For Greeks (I bet you!) is "ή ταν ή επί τας" which literally translates to "either THE or ON THE", which means "I will either walk back CARRYING my/THE shield, or I will be brought back dead CARRIED ON my/THE shield" (apologies for the caps)
fdschoeneman 2y ago
There's certainly a place for revisionist history and the Spartan legend seemed like a fair target even before Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, but it seems ironic to be skewering the Frank-Miller-300 caricature in service to his own caricature of the "second-amendment-sticker-on-my-pickup-truck" guys who are his real target. "I just bet those Spartans would be coal rolling me in their diesel Ford F-350's with their lifted tires and MAGA bumpter stickers today if they could!"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
greenleafone7 2y ago
[flagged]
yellowapple 2y ago
Ah yes, good ol' "moron rube" fellas, whose entire understanding of their role models is based on Hollywood depictions. I was primed to agree with the article's premises, until... > Leonidas’ 300 men made a brave stand in the mountains, and a superior Persian force wiped them out. You can see it like the Nazis did and the guys in the ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ T-shirts do, as a glorious battle in which an honorable band of brothers sacrificed their lives for their principles. Or you can see it as a tragedy in which the leaders of an oligarchical, slave-dependent society threw away their finest soldiers’ lives, and for what? To briefly delay the Persian Army while failing to achieve their goal of protecting Athens and the rest of northern Greece from the Persian attack? ...is this really the moral of the story here? That the Spartans should've just surrendered? That the proper response to a superior force (of another oligarchical, slave-dependent society) wanting to subjugate you into said oligarchical, slave-dependent society is to... simply roll over and let it happen? That's the real irony here about the Moron Rubes. They envision themselves as Spartans defending Greece from the Persian onslaught, but they have much more in common with Ephialtes.
Animats 2y ago
The group that came closest to achieving the Spartan ideal was the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in human history, and it was created by tough, hard-trained horse-riding nomads. It wasn't just about being tough. The Mongols had good operational doctrine. Here's a modern evaluation by a U.S. Army officer.[1] They used intelligence and mobility to dominate the battlefield with smaller forces than their opponents. They had a good system for selecting leaders with a track record of winning. They were surprisingly good at planning, and at coordinating large units. That's how you win wars. The Mongol Empire collapsed due to internal political problems. No external enemy could take them down. [1] https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Directors-Select-Articles/Genghis-Khan/ https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Dir...

103 points by crescit_eundo 2y ago

Hmm. I think US-USSR / Athens-Sparta is a poor analogy. They spoke the same language, and it’s a two day walk. I’m going to defer to Athenians on the character of Sparta over modernish debunkers.

deleted 2y ago
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ertian 2y ago
I think that's trying to draw the metaphor too far. The point is just that people have a tendency to be fascinated with their enemies, and exaggerate the differences between them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_(philosophy) The best and most recent example of that, for a modern American, would be the USSR. You do come across similar processes with, say, Chinese or Arabs, but they're not explicit enemies, and there's more cultural integration and exchange in those cases.

rjurney 2y ago

Sparta buried her war dead on the field in mass graves. A hoplon shield isn't useful to carry a body in the first place. This is the first I've heard that attributed to Plutarch, however...

icepat 2y ago
Plutarch is well known for just making things up. He was the Greek version of the dude in the pub with wild tales about the time he went fishing and caught a shark during a wild storm. When in reality the story actually boiled down to "he caught a fish once".
quuxplusone 2y ago
It's from Plutarch's "Sayings of Spartan Women": > [A Spartan mother], as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him, saying, "Either this or upon this." The Loeb editor comments: "[Attributed] to Gorgo by Aristotle in his Aphorisms, as quoted by Stobaeus, Florilegium VII.31, but it is often spoken of as a regular Spartan custom. Cf., for example, the scholium on Thucydides II.39. Ancient writers were not agreed whether the second half meant to fall upon the shield (dead or wounded) or to be brought home dead upon it. In support of the second (traditional) interpretation cf. Moralia 235A, and Valerius Maximus II.7 ext. 2." Valerius Maximus II.7 ext. 2 is "maternarum blanditiarum memores, quibus [...] monebantur ut aut vivi cum armis in conspectum earum venirent aut mortui in armis referrentur" — "remembering their mothers' admonition [...] that they should next be seen alive with their armor or reported dead in it." Plutarch's Moralia 235A, in the Sayings of Spartans, is a verse attributed to Dioscurides: "Lifeless to Pitane came, on his shield upborne, Thrasybulus..." Moralia 235B supplies my new favorite laconism: > When Philip of Macedon sent some orders to the Spartans by letter, they wrote thus in reply: "As to what you wrote about: No."

jvanderbot 2y ago

acoup.blog has a much more in-depth look at ancient sparta. 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... (Edit, the author is Bret C. Devereaux) And a long-running series on the "Fremen myth", which is similar to the retro-spective glorification of/mythology around Sparta. https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... At any rate, that blog is a must read for any history-myth-debunker, especially around military. Also highly recommended is their analysis of the LotR battles and campaigns, which fare well historicaly, and the GoT, which ... doesn't. He also does medieval game reviews!

CobaltFire 2y ago
I also want to give a highlight to the fact that if you subscribe to the blog the emails are the ENTIRE ARTICLE. You never HAVE to visit the site if you subscribe. I still DO, but that little fact is highly appreciated.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Same is true of the RSS feed! No summaries, just the whole thing. I do prefer to go to the blog because the blog handles footnotes better (hover works on desktop to show them in a popup, and tapping on them works correctly with the back button on mobile), and often the footnotes are really good.
- TheGRS 2y ago
  That's a nice throwback. Totally different subject matter but Matt Levine of Money Stuff on Bloomberg also continues to do that.
adeeshaek 2y ago
Double thumbs up for acoup.blog - it's what I fall back to reading if HN doesn't have anything interesting. His work is also really well sourced, so it's a great jumping off point if you are looking for more work on the subject. His sparta series, and the fremen series are absolutely outstanding.

Archelaos 2y ago

For those interested in the topic of Sparta, I can highly recommend Bret C. Devereaux's series of blog posts on the subject at 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... (2019). It corrects many myths about the Spartans on the basis of the contemporary state of research.

connorpeters 2y ago

> we should remember that, in actual history, Sparta was an oppressive society that established itself as the enemy of the Greek city-states that valued democracy and the arts. We should also remember that many of the modern people who have been most enthusiastic about the Spartans as historical role models have also been really enthusiastic about oppressing and killing their fellow human beings. My interest in Sparta is that it exemplifies how elite a group of people can become when they focus on one thing. As mentioned in the article, Sparta beat Athens in the Second Peloponnesian War. Athens was the naval and intellectual powerhouse of the area at the time, yet the unsophisticated specialized warmongers won. It illustrates that in life hyperfocusing can yield results. I do not forget that Sparta was an oppressive and brutal society that I in no way would want to live in. I do not idealize their caste culture or slaveholding, but sometimes the bad guys win, and Sparta is a colorful example of that. > Leonidas’ 300 men made a brave stand in the mountains, and a superior Persian force wiped them out. You can see it like the Nazis did and the guys in the ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ T-shirts do, as a glorious battle in which an honorable band of brothers sacrificed their lives for their principles. Or you can see it as a tragedy in which the leaders of an oligarchical, slave-dependent society threw away their finest soldiers’ lives, and for what? To briefly delay the Persian Army while failing to achieve their goal of protecting Athens and the rest of northern Greece from the Persian attack? Interestingly, the Greeks did end up fending off the Persian invasion due to the victory at the Battle of Salamis where the Athenian navy crushed the Persian navy. The Spartan stand at Thermopylae was critical to delay the invasion though, let's not pretend like those deaths were futile.

GolfPopper 2y ago
>My interest in Sparta is that it exemplifies how elite a group of people can become when they focus on one thing. Except they weren't particularly elite. As (already mentioned) A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry author Bret Devereaux points out[1]: "Instead, what we might say is that the Spartans phalanx was, in most respects, just like every other Greek hoplite phalanx, with the addition that Spartan command and coordination was somewhat better, but hardly excellent by the broader standards of antiquity." And, as he also observes, any Spartan superiority didn't manifest on the battlefield: Spartan Victories: 18.5, Spartan Defeats: 18, Draws: 1.5, Spartan Batting Average (victories/battles): 0.486 1. https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/ https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

thrance 2y ago

The mythos around Sparta appeals to the fascist aesthetic, it always had, there's nothing new under the sun. The nazis were very found of their ahistorical perception of what Sparta supposedly was: the strong treading on the weak, a glorification of masculinity, etc.

InDubioProRubio 2y ago
One can see that in the nazi building and statues... they fit perfectly into the movie aesthetics.
goatlover 2y ago
Isn't the most popular myth about 300 Spartans facing off against the powerful Persian Empire bent on conquering Greek lands? Which is based on a historical event, but there were several thousand other Greeks helping the Spartan warriors in a narrow pass, because fighting in the open would have benefited the much larger Persian force.
- hooverd 2y ago
  The Battle of Marathon is much cooler. The Athenians were winners too.

xhkkffbf 2y ago

Sparta is "capturing the modern imagination"? I thought we were supposed to think about Rome every day.

schmichael 2y ago
Don’t worry: we’re indirectly thinking about Rome by thinking about their perception of ancient Sparta. Rome is the Kevin Bacon of western historical thought: we’re never more than 6 hops away.
gopher_space 2y ago
Dick's "the Empire never died" model becomes more useful the older I get.

nickdothutton 2y ago

[flagged]

kergonath 2y ago
Sparta is a very poor example of a working city state, though. Also, it’s a very strange position because there is a good reason why there aren’t more city states: they get steamrolled when a better organised neighbour wants to take their stuff.
- the_af 2y ago
  > Sparta is a very poor example of a working city state, though. Indeed. Bret Devereaux makes a good case that Sparta was actually bad at being a city state, and that their restrictive citizenship laws meant it was constantly shrinking.
- nickdothutton 2y ago
  Is there a example of a modern city state being conquered? HK was returned to China at the end of a lease, Sevastopol wasn't a city state, Kuwait also not a city state. I can't think of one.
  - the_af 2y ago
    What would you consider a "modern city state" (in the same sense as Sparta of antiquity)? I don't think they actually exist anymore, in practice. Singapore maybe? I don't think they would survive on their own if a determined enemy launched an assault on them.
    - nickdothutton 2y ago
      Vatican, Monaco, Singapore, perhaps Dubai and San Marino depending on how tight a definition you wanted to make.
      - the_af 2y ago

jerf 2y ago

This post is indulining in the etymological fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy Molon Labe, as it is used in popular culture today, is not being used as a stealth call to go back to the popular understanding of Spartan virtues, let alone secretly a call to go back to real Spartan organization. It just means don't take my guns, and a vague threat of violence if you try. Nothing more.

Thomashuet 2y ago
If it just means "don't take my guns", that's what they would write on their merch instead of some greek letters most people can't read. By using this Spartan phrase they're trying to evoke the mythical greatness of Sparta, and that is what this article is about.
- jerf 2y ago
  Yeah, and everybody in Alabama always says "Go Team, Win Win Win" instead of "Roll Tide" because nobody can understand what "Roll Tide" means. Nobody is actually invoking anything beyond the absolutely most superficial "Spartanness" and going deep into "Well, actually, the Spartans were not nice people if you dig deeply into the truth" is not relevant when nobody else is digging that deeply. To a first approximation nobody knows anything about the Spartans beyond "vaguely Grecian" and "good warriors I guess". Despite all the sensitivity in the university system in the past 5-10 years, I've never even heard a whiff of a suggestion that Michigan State University needs to change its mascot... because nobody, not even the educated and politically sensitive, thinks anything about Spartans beyond "vaguely Grecian" and "good warriors I guess". If anyone had any sort of real knowledge about the situation it would have been considered extremely extremely insensitive... but nobody thinks about these things. Hard to get much more proof than that.
  - sixo 2y ago
    It sounds like this kind of essay isn't for you! > "nobody knows anything about the Spartans beyond.." "Sparta" is a "symbol" in our culture's "language of symbols" which stands roughly for "brutal and effective masculine warrior ethic, worthy of respect and fear". It is probably the single most unambiguous symbol available for this kind of thing, and is therefore used constantly—when somebody wants to make an argument like "might makes right", or "what if we didn't care about other people", or "men must be strong, austere, and violent to be worthy of respect", a reference to Sparta is never far away. Even when they don't make explicit reference to Sparta, it lends credibility to these sorts of ethics. It acquires its power from the fact that it actually existed in history and was seemingly successful, that it lives on with a generally admiring connotation, that it stands for the pinnacle of achievement in a certain sense. The point of an attack on the historical accuracy of the symbolic Sparta is to weaken the power of the symbol to be used for evil. It did not exist as remembered, nor for all that long, it was not particularly effective, the admiration of Sparta has been concocted after-the-fact by commentators trying to fit it into their agendas, it was not as brutal as it is imagined to be, nor was it particularly important in history. It was just a weird and particularly unpleasant culture that existed at one point. These are attacks on the structural integrity of a whole set of ideas which are regularly used to justify cruelty, abuse, and violence, and which mislead people—young men especially—as to the nature of virtue. That it is sometimes used harmlessly doesn't have much to do with this at all.

readthenotes1 2y ago

I suspect that the gun crowd is just trying to fanceify "come and take it" and is more thinking of the Texas revolution than thermopoly

marcusverus 2y ago

> This is not to say that Diodorus Siculus recorded a more accurate depiction of these events, but his phrasing does more closely mirror the flowery language with which ancient leaders probably addressed each other. Woof. The Spartans were famous for their disdain for flowery words. Herodotus discussed it explicitly, and Thucydides reflected it when writing Spartan dialogue. They preferred to speak plainly and get straight to the point. This common understanding of spartan speech is even enshrined in the English language, via the word 'laconic', meaning "using few words". Before sharing your insights with the world, do try to make sure you know what you're talking about. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase

ta4985732948 2y ago

Uuuuuff.... I am Spartan. I grew up in Sparta, Greece. I am in my "ancient Sparta" reading phase for some months now, I read everything from (modern) Greek, Foreign authors and researchers, as well as ancient texts with references to Sparta (even books/scrolls about "Helen of Troy" or as we call her in Greece/Greek "beautiful Helene" - Ωραία Ελένη. There is SO MUCH to know about (Ancient) Sparta. Two Kings? - Check City without Walls? (who would be crazy enough to attack?) - Check Simple legislation? (one written Law - Lycurgus) - Check (debatable - depends on the book/scroll) One prison cell - 4 walls, no ceiling, you stay in until some other criminal is convicted and replaced you (not much crime back in the day) - Check There was a big shift in the change of the dominant 'tribe' (Δωριείς vs Αχαιοί) post the financial ruin and loss of many men of the Trojan War. Anyway.. for anyone who hasn't read about Ancient Sparta, it is one of the 'things' that reading it will fulfill you. Fun fact for the movie 300. The producers sent photographers and photographed the valley, mountains, made an actual scenery of the landscape. I remember watching the movie and understanding where EXACTLY they had placed their cameras from the angle of the mountains, etc. I later asked around and they verified my suspicion. One issue though.. they they started "marching north" towards Thermopylae, in reality/in the real landscape they walked to the SOUTH, and I remember watching the movie in Athens, and apparently it was me and some other Spartan in the audience, so we both yelled at that point "hey malakes, you are going the wrong way" One last thing. Perhaps for the foreigners the most famous phrase is "μολων λαβε". For Greeks (I bet you!) is "ή ταν ή επί τας" which literally translates to "either THE or ON THE", which means "I will either walk back CARRYING my/THE shield, or I will be brought back dead CARRIED ON my/THE shield" (apologies for the caps)

fdschoeneman 2y ago

There's certainly a place for revisionist history and the Spartan legend seemed like a fair target even before Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, but it seems ironic to be skewering the Frank-Miller-300 caricature in service to his own caricature of the "second-amendment-sticker-on-my-pickup-truck" guys who are his real target. "I just bet those Spartans would be coal rolling me in their diesel Ford F-350's with their lifted tires and MAGA bumpter stickers today if they could!"

deleted 2y ago

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greenleafone7 2y ago

[flagged]

yellowapple 2y ago

Ah yes, good ol' "moron rube" fellas, whose entire understanding of their role models is based on Hollywood depictions. I was primed to agree with the article's premises, until... > Leonidas’ 300 men made a brave stand in the mountains, and a superior Persian force wiped them out. You can see it like the Nazis did and the guys in the ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ T-shirts do, as a glorious battle in which an honorable band of brothers sacrificed their lives for their principles. Or you can see it as a tragedy in which the leaders of an oligarchical, slave-dependent society threw away their finest soldiers’ lives, and for what? To briefly delay the Persian Army while failing to achieve their goal of protecting Athens and the rest of northern Greece from the Persian attack? ...is this really the moral of the story here? That the Spartans should've just surrendered? That the proper response to a superior force (of another oligarchical, slave-dependent society) wanting to subjugate you into said oligarchical, slave-dependent society is to... simply roll over and let it happen? That's the real irony here about the Moron Rubes. They envision themselves as Spartans defending Greece from the Persian onslaught, but they have much more in common with Ephialtes.

Animats 2y ago

The group that came closest to achieving the Spartan ideal was the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire was the largest empire in human history, and it was created by tough, hard-trained horse-riding nomads. It wasn't just about being tough. The Mongols had good operational doctrine. Here's a modern evaluation by a U.S. Army officer.[1] They used intelligence and mobility to dominate the battlefield with smaller forces than their opponents. They had a good system for selecting leaders with a track record of winning. They were surprisingly good at planning, and at coordinating large units. That's how you win wars. The Mongol Empire collapsed due to internal political problems. No external enemy could take them down. [1] https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Directors-Select-Articles/Genghis-Khan/ https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/Dir...