For anyone interested in this, I'd highly recommend /u/Iphikrates' three-part summary of the Spartan reputational mirage on /r/AskHistorians a couple of years ago.
- Young are indoctrinated in rigid militant ideology (agoge).
- Weak economy. Little to no valuable goods were produced. People not allowed to have valuable money, just worthless tokens.
- The main job of the spartan army was to suppress helots and protect the old rulers. People serve the military and the state, not the other way around.
- No creativity in warfare. Incompetents and arrogant leaders just attack with hoplites until they run out of food and have to retreat.
You cannot simply make a comparison of X democracy today (or dictatorship in this case) to a city-state of Ancient Greece. Back then it was do or die. Wars were in the daily menu. For a state that was isolated geographically (in comparison to other powerful/richer city-states like Athens or Messina, the only way to stay alive is brute force, be the ultimate killing machine. The landscape also didn't help much. Stuck between two mountains, path to the north lead nowhere, sea to the south was 30-40km away. Perfect place to make it difficult to be invaded but poor enough to not thrive.
Also.. creativity? I would need creativity to beat a MMA pro in a fight. On his side, he would just throw a punch. Creativity is for the weak! (like me)
I love it when classical history is discussed on HN! When we realize our civilization is thousands of years old, it is easier to imagine it lasting thousands more years.
I highly recommend that people make use of original source material when making an argument so that you can contribute constructively. The original sources are FUN to read -- we are lucky that the internet makes this so accessible.
I like an analysis that includes operations and logistics, which is how long or large campaigns are won or lost.
>It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized. You may have the best soldiers – and again, Sparta does not appear to have always had the best soldiers – but they are of no use if you cannot get them to the fight, with the equipment (e.g. siege tools, ships) they need to win the fight.
>> if you cannot get them to the fight, with the equipment (e.g. siege tools, ships) they need to win the fight.
That is one area where modern warfare is very different than ancient warfare. Siege weapons were not normally 'brought'. They were created when and as needed. An ancient engineer could turn a forest into a trebuchet, something akin to a modern engineer building a fighter jet out of rocks. So too with food. Ancient armies lived off the land. They pillaged and took what they needed. The concept of moving food to feed an army on a distant shore was just not an option as recently as WWI.
Would love to see the same for Athens. An amazing place but popular culture doesn’t reflect how profoundly alien their culture was: more of an honor-killing kind of place rather than some paradise of erudition.
Isn't the military might of Sparta an example of history written by the losers? I mean one important source for the Peloponnesian War was Thucydides, who was on the losing side of the war. And when writing his book, he might have wanted to cast himself in the best light possible, by depicting his victorious opponents as the best military in Greece?
There was a submission from the same blog on the front page yesterday, which I assume is what led OP to discover this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21382247 (about war elephants)
Indeed! I knew Sparta just by reputation, like most people I expect, so this was a rather surprising and fascinating series.
It was a second surprise to come to this thread and see so many people vehemently dismissing the article, the author’s knowledge or tone, to defend Sparta as they see it. Not sure what conclusion to draw from that other than, I suppose, some people really really admire Sparta as mythologized and dislike reading anything that contradicts that image.
After reading the first one, "on spartan schooling" I'm a little sad. I understand the point of casting a more clear light on the alien and brutal practices of ancient civilizations, but the distaste and condemnation that the author uses evokes British colonizers talking about their subjects, combined with a tinge of social justice history revisionism. One of the central concepts of anthropology (and I think, by extension, history) is that you don't judge other people disjoint from you in space and time with your cultural norms.
History has been awful and brutal every year since we began writing it down, and well before that, too. I think it's wrong that this means we shouldn't admire the more interesting parts of history.
> History has been awful and brutal every year since we began writing it down, and well before that, too. I think it's wrong that this means we shouldn't admire the more interesting parts of history.
But if you only admire the interesting parts, you get a horribly inaccurate picture. Indeed, because the study of history traditionally relied on the surviving written accounts, and there was little, if any, consideration of their potential bias, we have a rather jaundiced view of most of history that is passed into popular culture and knowledge. It is only quite recently--late 20th century--that the field itself has started to point out that, for example, given that all we know of Caligula is written by his enemies, maybe the accounts of his sex orgies is about as accurate as discussions of Clinton's pizza parlor sex ring (which is to say, a complete and utter fabrication).
For writers targeting a popular audience, there is generally a greater tendency to balance the horrible inaccuracies that circulate in popular thought (partially driven, sadly, by school curricula which are very slow to accept that "traditional" history is often completely and totally wrong) by focusing on the aspects that most directly contradict what the audience assumes. And that's what the author here is doing.
"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."
"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."
These are all from the second post in the series. You should try reading more than just the first one.
> social justice history revisionism
Couldn't find a good way to work "virtue signaling" in there as well?
When you admire the more interesting parts of history, without taking into account the ugly, nasty side of them, you get shitty political movements (It is incredibly popular among xenophobic nationalist assholes to admire the Roman Empire, the Crusaders, the Spartans, the Vikings, as some kind of cultural ideals that we should aspire to...)
For some reason, though, they always envision themselves as being warrior-kings, or some equivalent thereof in such societies, instead of members of a slave caste...
Although the author is knowledgeable, I too find it incredibly frustrating to read his writing. An opposing viewpoint is fine but the sheer amount of bias, outrageism (note the number of times he mentiones how "sickened" he was during his research), and condemnation made it impossible for me to read any further than the first post.
On these and maybe other measures you might prefer Prof. Donald Kagan's lectures on Sparta. (Granted, the following account's purpose and context are different from the parent article's.)
When did historians finally strip Sparta of its great image? When Roman Stoics praised Spartans, did they treat them as perfect role models or as a cruel people who had certain qualities to emulate?
The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought.
It was a sick and broken society populated by fanatics, that was quickly (on a historical timescale) out-advanced by its neighbors.
Imagine if a casino-less (Mormon Fort-era) Las Vegas, NV was full of militiamen and religious zealots and got involved in a war with the surrounding area and it managed conquer all of Clark County, the county that surrounds it, and control it for about 30 years by implementing a cruel system that enslaved most of its population.
And then that short-lived city-state collapsed after the rest of the Nevada developed over the decades to the point that a coalition of other small counties quickly steamrolled the now-decrepit and hollow Clark County city-state.
Like, super steamrolled. Like the rest of Nevada had developed tanks and artillery and the "Vegans" still fought with Mormon Fort-era weaponry.
That's Sparta.
I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around.
>The only reason Sparta lasted as long as it did was because it was a valueless minor city-state not worth the effort of conquering until the point that conquering and absorbing it was so effortless that it was done almost as an afterthought.
Yeah, that's not even wrong.
Sparta was an important city-state, and survived centuries without being pushed around like others, even larger had. They also bossed lesser city-states around, and of course defeated Athens itself, while also being important for the defense against Persian invasions.
No city-state at the time (of which were dozens) would consider Sparta a "valueless minor city-state". The very opposite is true.
The rest of the comment (or rather, all of it) is irrelevant drivel, more a rant about modern day gun-freaks and rednecks and US issues, than about historical Sparta.
The same reason people fetishize pirates, astronauts and jedi. They represent a niche symbol that doesn't have a compare. The historical truth of Sparta is important to know, but the symbol is a separate thing. The spirit of the hold-out warrior who's heroic society succeeds and fails, is interesting in many different ways.
I think it's good people know about and integrate the spartan story into their own world view, there's a lot of cautionary tales in there for those that believe you could ever succeed at having such a radical worldview as the Spartans maintained. The unpleasantness of the fan is directly proportional to how much they need to learn the lessons of the past and the folly of that mindset. There are also lessons about aspects of masculinity, femininity and most of life that stories like Sparta can be a useful reflection tool.
Sparta is a small moment in a large pantheon of stories that make people better people. Even to the most cynical view, it's better these unpleasant people explore this mindset in art than to carry out the actions in their full in real life.
Sparta is fetishized because human societies worship glory, courage and sacrifice, and that's what their myth is all about. As it's mythological, we tend to obscure the details we don't like and embellish the ones we do.
This article is laughably bad. I don't think the author put any effort into understanding the culture. No attempt is made to understand why the Spartans made certain decisions. The perspective seems to be, 'they didn't make decisions like us modern smart people would, so they were dumb and mean.' Lines like "because Sparta produced so little of value" do well to reveal this. So little of value to who?
"...essentially amounts to a strategic objective to be able to continue mistreating the helots and the periokoi. In practice – given Sparta’s desperate shortness of manpower (and economic resources!) and continued unwillingness to revisit the nature of its oppressive class system..."
[+] [-] mrec|6 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6rvusy/is_th...
[+] [-] nabla9|6 years ago|reply
- Isolationist country.
- Young are indoctrinated in rigid militant ideology (agoge).
- Weak economy. Little to no valuable goods were produced. People not allowed to have valuable money, just worthless tokens.
- The main job of the spartan army was to suppress helots and protect the old rulers. People serve the military and the state, not the other way around.
- No creativity in warfare. Incompetents and arrogant leaders just attack with hoplites until they run out of food and have to retreat.
[+] [-] HenryBemis|6 years ago|reply
You cannot simply make a comparison of X democracy today (or dictatorship in this case) to a city-state of Ancient Greece. Back then it was do or die. Wars were in the daily menu. For a state that was isolated geographically (in comparison to other powerful/richer city-states like Athens or Messina, the only way to stay alive is brute force, be the ultimate killing machine. The landscape also didn't help much. Stuck between two mountains, path to the north lead nowhere, sea to the south was 30-40km away. Perfect place to make it difficult to be invaded but poor enough to not thrive.
Also.. creativity? I would need creativity to beat a MMA pro in a fight. On his side, he would just throw a punch. Creativity is for the weak! (like me)
[+] [-] scott_s|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friendlybus|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] calvinmorrison|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|6 years ago|reply
I highly recommend that people make use of original source material when making an argument so that you can contribute constructively. The original sources are FUN to read -- we are lucky that the internet makes this so accessible.
I like the Perseus project, because it has almost everything. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/
[+] [-] Isamu|6 years ago|reply
>It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized. You may have the best soldiers – and again, Sparta does not appear to have always had the best soldiers – but they are of no use if you cannot get them to the fight, with the equipment (e.g. siege tools, ships) they need to win the fight.
[+] [-] sandworm101|6 years ago|reply
That is one area where modern warfare is very different than ancient warfare. Siege weapons were not normally 'brought'. They were created when and as needed. An ancient engineer could turn a forest into a trebuchet, something akin to a modern engineer building a fighter jet out of rocks. So too with food. Ancient armies lived off the land. They pillaged and took what they needed. The concept of moving food to feed an army on a distant shore was just not an option as recently as WWI.
[+] [-] gumby|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baud147258|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mips_avatar|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yorwba|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aeontech|6 years ago|reply
It was a second surprise to come to this thread and see so many people vehemently dismissing the article, the author’s knowledge or tone, to defend Sparta as they see it. Not sure what conclusion to draw from that other than, I suppose, some people really really admire Sparta as mythologized and dislike reading anything that contradicts that image.
[+] [-] cafard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gorgonical|6 years ago|reply
History has been awful and brutal every year since we began writing it down, and well before that, too. I think it's wrong that this means we shouldn't admire the more interesting parts of history.
[+] [-] jcranmer|6 years ago|reply
But if you only admire the interesting parts, you get a horribly inaccurate picture. Indeed, because the study of history traditionally relied on the surviving written accounts, and there was little, if any, consideration of their potential bias, we have a rather jaundiced view of most of history that is passed into popular culture and knowledge. It is only quite recently--late 20th century--that the field itself has started to point out that, for example, given that all we know of Caligula is written by his enemies, maybe the accounts of his sex orgies is about as accurate as discussions of Clinton's pizza parlor sex ring (which is to say, a complete and utter fabrication).
For writers targeting a popular audience, there is generally a greater tendency to balance the horrible inaccuracies that circulate in popular thought (partially driven, sadly, by school curricula which are very slow to accept that "traditional" history is often completely and totally wrong) by focusing on the aspects that most directly contradict what the audience assumes. And that's what the author here is doing.
[+] [-] triceratops|6 years ago|reply
"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."
These are all from the second post in the series. You should try reading more than just the first one.
> social justice history revisionism
Couldn't find a good way to work "virtue signaling" in there as well?
[+] [-] amadeuspagel|6 years ago|reply
If you actually read the series, you'll learn that Sparta was horrifying even by the standards of its own time.
[+] [-] vkou|6 years ago|reply
For some reason, though, they always envision themselves as being warrior-kings, or some equivalent thereof in such societies, instead of members of a slave caste...
[+] [-] parliament32|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glennpratt|6 years ago|reply
> comparing the popular legacy of Sparta (embodied in films like 300) with the historical ancient state
[+] [-] pattisapu|6 years ago|reply
[Video Part 1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuJ7lGZVUl4
[Video Part 2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP1POpsqin4
His whole Greek history course at Yale is on YouTube and is quite good.
[+] [-] aitchnyu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilo_bravo_3|6 years ago|reply
It was a sick and broken society populated by fanatics, that was quickly (on a historical timescale) out-advanced by its neighbors.
Imagine if a casino-less (Mormon Fort-era) Las Vegas, NV was full of militiamen and religious zealots and got involved in a war with the surrounding area and it managed conquer all of Clark County, the county that surrounds it, and control it for about 30 years by implementing a cruel system that enslaved most of its population.
And then that short-lived city-state collapsed after the rest of the Nevada developed over the decades to the point that a coalition of other small counties quickly steamrolled the now-decrepit and hollow Clark County city-state.
Like, super steamrolled. Like the rest of Nevada had developed tanks and artillery and the "Vegans" still fought with Mormon Fort-era weaponry.
That's Sparta.
I don't get why Sparta seems to be so fetishized, particularly by people who are not pleasant to be around.
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
If we can't discuss classical history without flamewar, we can't discuss anything without flamewar. Let's discuss things without flamewar.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] coldtea|6 years ago|reply
Yeah, that's not even wrong.
Sparta was an important city-state, and survived centuries without being pushed around like others, even larger had. They also bossed lesser city-states around, and of course defeated Athens itself, while also being important for the defense against Persian invasions.
No city-state at the time (of which were dozens) would consider Sparta a "valueless minor city-state". The very opposite is true.
The rest of the comment (or rather, all of it) is irrelevant drivel, more a rant about modern day gun-freaks and rednecks and US issues, than about historical Sparta.
[+] [-] paleotrope|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] friendlybus|6 years ago|reply
I think it's good people know about and integrate the spartan story into their own world view, there's a lot of cautionary tales in there for those that believe you could ever succeed at having such a radical worldview as the Spartans maintained. The unpleasantness of the fan is directly proportional to how much they need to learn the lessons of the past and the folly of that mindset. There are also lessons about aspects of masculinity, femininity and most of life that stories like Sparta can be a useful reflection tool.
Sparta is a small moment in a large pantheon of stories that make people better people. Even to the most cynical view, it's better these unpleasant people explore this mindset in art than to carry out the actions in their full in real life.
[+] [-] leftyted|6 years ago|reply
The "fetishization" of Sparta goes back to Thucydides and Xenophon, Athenians who admired the Spartans, and Plutarch, a Roman who admired Sparta.
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bilbo0s|6 years ago|reply
I'll just say that it's human nature to romanticize the past. Particularly when we feel we have an affinity for that past.
[+] [-] gaogao|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grouseway|6 years ago|reply
War College had a good interview with a historian on this subject.
https://player.fm/series/war-college-1324080/this-is-not-spa...
[+] [-] smacktoward|6 years ago|reply
It's because they saw a movie that depicted the Spartans as super ripped badasses who kicked ass all the time.
Seriously, there's not much more to it than that.
[+] [-] teambayleaf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AcerbicZero|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Tsugumo|6 years ago|reply
"...essentially amounts to a strategic objective to be able to continue mistreating the helots and the periokoi. In practice – given Sparta’s desperate shortness of manpower (and economic resources!) and continued unwillingness to revisit the nature of its oppressive class system..."
So much for Hegel.