Sparta
The release of "300" has got me thinking about the Spartans again. Basically, to be an adult Spartan male was to be a stupendous man-killer. That's what they did, and they were very, very good at it.
How does a society get away with having all of its men be soldiers? Well, on the plus side, woman's liberation! Spartan women were important in their economic and civil society to a degree probably not seen again until the very recent past. On the minus side, slavery. Most of the inhabitants of Lacadaemonia were not "Spartans" at all; they were helots held in slavery to their Spartan masters, and the Spartans went to great lengths to ensure that they (the helots) stayed slaves.
All in all, it was a jaw-droppingly pathological society; give me the duplicitous, conniving, mercantile, semi-democratic Athenians (the spiritual ancestors of modern America--we're not martial enough to be Romans, much less Spartans) any day.
But Thermopylae is still one of the bravest and most moving stories found in history, and nobody but the Spartans could or would have done it.
I don't know what that adds up to, but it does make think.
How does a society get away with having all of its men be soldiers? Well, on the plus side, woman's liberation! Spartan women were important in their economic and civil society to a degree probably not seen again until the very recent past. On the minus side, slavery. Most of the inhabitants of Lacadaemonia were not "Spartans" at all; they were helots held in slavery to their Spartan masters, and the Spartans went to great lengths to ensure that they (the helots) stayed slaves.
All in all, it was a jaw-droppingly pathological society; give me the duplicitous, conniving, mercantile, semi-democratic Athenians (the spiritual ancestors of modern America--we're not martial enough to be Romans, much less Spartans) any day.
But Thermopylae is still one of the bravest and most moving stories found in history, and nobody but the Spartans could or would have done it.
I don't know what that adds up to, but it does make think.
Posted by sealionii on
Monday March 12, 2007 at 2:07pm
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/PERICLES.HTM
I find myself liking the Spartans in spite of the near diametric nature of our attitudes. My, don't I sound ground, posing myself as an entity to be compared with an entire society.
The battle of Thermopylae is one that rings through the ages as an event in which the might and courage of the Spartans will forever be remembered.
No matter what Pericles says.