Common Misconceptions About Ancient Greece
Vložit
- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- The Hellenistic Age Podcast, for your pleasure:
hellenisticagepodcast.wordpre...
00:00 Introduction
00:33 Ancient Greece was a country
02:52 Greek Statues
03:19 300 Spartans vs 400 Quadrillion Persians
04:52 The name of Sparta
06:15 The Athenian "Democracy"
08:06 Spartan Women
Hope you enjoy it. - Zábava
Well as a Greek, my guess about the name of sparta is that today the city is called sparti (Σπάρτη) and lakedemon was just the ancient name for the city that's the reason why you see that big Λ as a symbol of the spartans on their shields, which stands for Λακεδαίμων (lakedemon).
Umm actually Lakaedaemon was their Genearch while Sparti was their city in honor to Lakaedaemon's Wife who was daughter of Evrotas (you know the river)
Λακωνία = Λακεδαιμονείς
Σπάρτη (Spártē) is in Attic-Ionic (later Koine) Greek, Σπάρτα (Spárta) is in Doric Greek (the one Spartans spoke)
Edit: Standard Modern Greek is the merging of multiple demotic varieties that developed from the vulgar variety of medieval koine Greek - hence η endings are Attic-Ionic as opposed to using the characteristic Doric α.
@@SpartanModeYT Correct its abnormal version of Lake=Lakon, because its not smooth to say ''Lakenia'' its automatically transfered as ''Lakonia'', but the root ''Lak'' is the same.
Sparta was the name of the city, Lacedemonia was the name of the region where Sparta was and that sparta ruled in the south of the Peloponnese.
Sparta was the name of the city, Lakedemons was the term used to describe the whole civilization situated around the city.
After the Spartans lost influence following the Roman dominium they couldn't call themselves lakedemons anymore since they didn't control the whole region but only the city and therefore began to refer themselves as simply "spartans".
its called Sparta because that way we can have "THIS IS SPARTA" in the movie, easy.
THIS IS LACADAEMONIA
@@bruhmoment1208 I imagine the persian envoy bursting in laughs
Lol
In my opinion Persian attack greek with at least 300k if not close to 500k.
Your criticism of atheism Democracy is weird. Why would they give political power to people they will know would love to genocide them? Of course slaves, immigrants, foreigners ect.. would not be allowed to vote.
A real criticism should have been that anything that they agree on even if everyone knows it is a lie would pass on, without an intermediary judge.
Also, not all societies made women a second class citizens. Infact citizenship itself mostly didn't exise (Rome most famous for).
For example Japan and China where they had massive power. Or Turks where women very much equal.
Also, you completely ignored as if Islam didn't exist. Lol . Very much made woman equal.
Also democracy has tone of disadvantages that it outways advantages. This makes it weak and short like a flower. Plus every Republic become an empire later. You can't trust people just because they are citizens: greedy/selfish (the majority would out law the minorities opinions), it depends on hood education for all voters, you don't ask an engineer to do a surgery to a cat, also what if people go evil. Also because of democracy we got Adolf Hitler mate. Not all people think objectively and not all people opinions objectively matters or could be considereded as valid just because they are citizens, people the masses also can be deceived easily. Also the Republic party system is the worst think because you would have a chancellor of multiple dictatorships and oligarchs in one government. The west today is just 10-20% away from being just like Russia. Chooseing lest horrible is not good. Also, people can do tone of shit, thus their choices can't be trusted. We need some form of democracy of course not a dictatorship however not everybody should be allowed to vote just because they are 18+. We need to add more requirements and improve the education system and add more subjects to hlep with voting, politics, economy and logic and ideologies/philosophies. So people don't get propagandized. This will significantly lower racism, ignorance, aggression, arrogance, misunderstanding, misinformation, manipulation and miscommunication and misconceptions. Thus forces politicians to be more real a do work properly and be trustworthy not lies. Also we need lower the intelligence agencies power. Most importantly CIA. Don't people realise that most dictatorship didn't even come from military but intelligence scter primarily. CIA for example has the power if they will and come together to take full control of USA government in white house that if they are not already doing that if not since around John F Kennedy times.
@@eff_gee321 lol
@@ailediablo79 I agree with your well articulated hypothesis.
Had the "immense pleasure" of studying ancient greek back at school, and I do remember both Sparta and Lakedaimon being mentioned in classical sources, with the latter being predominant. If I recall correctly, they came to be somewhat interchangeable, but the main difference between the two was:
- Sparte = the actual settlement(s), and its full citizens, the spartiates (a.k.a. the spartans)
- Lakedaimon = the whole civilization, as in its controlled territories, its political influence, as well as its whole demographic, Perioikoi and Helotes included.
Don't know why Lakedaimon lost its relevance though. Maybe it was the Romans thinking Sparta was a cooler term, because I do not remember any Latin author ever mentioning the term Lakedaimon.
Also, fun fact: the reason why you always find this thing here Λ on any spartan shield is because that's just a greek L, standing for Lakedaimon (Λακεδαίμων).
If I am not mistaken, Cicero does talk of Lakedaimon in his "De Officiis" book, and does not mention "Sparta". Mayhap the name lost prevalence after Cicero ?
Enemies of Sparte be lik takin' : L
The Romans are actually the ones who called them “Lakedaimonion”, Lakedaimonia simply refers to the northern area of the Peloponnese that the Spartans controlled
@@goblinsharky Romans were not the first ones to call them Lacedaemonians(Λακεδαιμόνιους) there are texts before Romans conquered ancient Greece that called them that,like the books that Thucydides(Θουκυδίδης)wrote
If I were to take a guess, I think the Romans would want to de-emphasize a name that referred to a city like Sparta controlling surrounding territory, since Sparta was to submit fully to the Roman Empire, so they went with the far smaller, localized term. Cicero being an exception makes sense since, if I am not mistaken, most of his work was published during the time of the Republic, which would not share this same interest as the Empire did later on.
Sparta's actual name makes the Lambda symbol associated with them make a whole lot more sense.
I thought it was an Alpha and it annoyed me from the very moment I saw it, because I couldn't make a connection to Sparta.
I know the 300 Spartans thing was a myth, but learning that isn't even what the Spartans called themselves was a fascinating new lesson.
I also heartily approve of the love being shown to Horrible Histories.
Apparently the English adjective Laconic, meaning marked by the use of few words, comes from the Lacodaemonians propensity for using short, blunt and witty language e.g. "then we shall fight in the shade", "come and get them"
or “if”
I love how the youtube history circle become its own academia of sort, referenceing each others work.
You want to know what different roman magistrates did? Go, watch Historia civilis.
You want to know the background behind the mythos of some diety? Go, watch OSP.
I really appreciate your channel and I love how much i learn from you all ✌️ thanks so much!!
It would be interesting if you made more videos about ancient Greece.
The BIGGEST misconception about either is that they invented sandals. We all know that I invented them in 10000 BC while experimenting with leather.
Not the biggest misconception. I have not yet heard anyone claim this to be true, Either that or i did and forgot.
Another great video! Thanks
One thing to add about the Athenian democracy was that you would serve the state for free, no allowances were expected. This means only the rich could invest themselves full-time in politics since they did not work. The Greeks invented a term for that : an oligarchy.
That is idiotic since there was a fine on not investing in politics to combat what you just said. Plus at most cases when the average citizenship would get money from attending sertain events. Until the peloponisian war that is. After that the Athenian Democratic system started it's slow collapse.
@@ChristosGoulios Well just look at all the leaders, most are of two familes, that of Clisthenes/Pericles/Alcibiades and that of Miltiades/Aristides ... it was in many ways still oligarchic you just had also men of the lower upper class/ upper middle class participating as well to a lesser extent.
@@azarshadakumuktir4551 That is mainly due to the costs that involve runing for goverment. In any system that is larger then a simple villige election for a villige head, the natural costs for running are way bigger then anyone can handle. expecting people from lower classes to do so is unrealistic in most systems even up to today.(but i won't delve to today's systems becouse that will miss my point). point being that thinking the athinian democratic system as olycharcic is rather small minded becouse it looks things with the lence that the nature of a democrasy is somehow not it's nature. (which is to say that it usualy makes it so that power is held threw political popularity instead of birth right or wealth.). In essence, in the athinian democrasy with a citizenship but of lower wealth where actualy forced to take part in politics. The people that actualy hold power also hold it threw other means , as i said above.Thus having the thought that it was an olicharchy shows lack of understanding in the nature of democracies and their actual difrence from an olicharhy.
in short. the fact that few families with wealth and people with charisma have the main power is only natural.but the inportant part is that for those that hold power ,their charisma is more inportant then their wealth (for their career ) now to talk wether or not it is effective or better then other systems is quite intersting topic,but saddly one that i lack enough expirience in, so i can't help you there.
@@ChristosGoulios Well that is an interesting take, I have some objections on politicians having to be the richest families, but you are right in it being very often like that. But what you describe I think is redistribution of power, not really what we today call democracy. The authoritarian USSR had redistribution of power to people of the communist party, who were the political elite and there poor people could actually go to high positions of power, but it is rarely called democratic. My point about Athens was that a tiny politically powerful elite wielded power in name of a larger politically active minority who ruled over an apolotical majority (slaves, women, strangers). The aeropagos and boule existed true, but most power was held by elected judges and the ten strategos.
@@azarshadakumuktir4551 well getting involved modern day politics like the ussr ecs in here is just going to get the convo out of control so am going to not mention that point for the sake of that.About the lack of voting at the minority who voted.It is a grave error to look at the past with glasses of modern norms. Demanding a political party of a city state of greece to allow slaves to vote or woman would be a taboo.You look at the Gross acounts without turning them in to net acounts . grave , grave error. reletive to the time and the customs and the economical realities (since slavery or serfdom was needed in order to feed a non tribal population with out the existence of industry ). And regarding the forign poll and also keeping in mind the existence of a continent of city states . locking the citizenship like that can be argued that it was done mearly to avoid forign influence. since at it's peak Athens had less citizens then metics , politics would be easy to get influenced from forign powers. (mind you this is not like modern countries where the citizens of a country number at the milions. ) Thus calling oligarchic the athinian democrasy due to exclusions that where made due to economical and coltural reasons is simply wrong. For an actual oligarchy would be the exclusion of the citizenship of a city from politics,which was not the case here. (i wanted to say that it would be like calling modern democrasies oligarchies due to them not making us vote for every matter of state and voting representetives, dispite that being an inposibility due to the extream amount of money and stall that such a aspect would creat for the legislative part of state(countires got way more complex then how they use to be) but i won't since like i said before mentioning the present day would only detiriorate the convo . so just read this as food for thought and nothing more)
here's a question how prevalent/accepted was homosexuality in ancient greece. there are alot of meme's about ancient greeks being gay and i would love to know how true this is.
It was just those Athenian - philosophers and boy lovers.
Jk but I'm sure most people were inclined to the good old 'rod A goes slot B' just like today.
This video should answer your question czcams.com/video/lBXTOut2MKo/video.html
Homosexuality was grounds for banishment and even execution in Athens; viz. Timarchus' trial. Homosexuality was not acceptable in Rome either, and those who engaged in homosexual acts were typically infamous heteroclites like Nero and Elegabalus whom everyone else, including Roman nobility, despised for desecrating religious & social norms. This view that the pre-Christian west was more tolerant of homosexuality is a perversion of peculiar aspects of Greco-Roman culture which were shunned by Christianity, such as the esteem for nudity and the erastes-eromenos dynamic; although the latter resurfaces in the middle ages as the relationship between knight & squire, neither having sexual undertones.
@@alternateperson6600 Its became a popular belief that most, if not all Pre-Christian cultures were tolerant and accepting of homosexuality. The Norse are another big example where peoole think that homosexuality was widely tolerated accepted, but in reality it was frowned upon
@@alternateperson6600 those are very small cases. in herodotus's histories he reported that during his time pederasty or what he calls "commerce with boys" were so common, that even foreign countries copied it. in roman society, many significant figures kept male lovers and teenage boys are often prositutes for the rich. there are many art pieces from these times that depicted homosexual sex, and even military units such as the sacred band of thebes specifically practiced pederasty as a part of their martial culture. it is not widespread like today but it was definitely more practiced in the greco roman world than anywhere else till the 20th century.
Egyptian misconceptions next?
Bump
Nice work!
The biggest misconception is that ancient Greece was used for ancient burgers but burgers weren't invented yet.
Love ur videos
Great video Spectrum love ur videos. I have to say tho ur “we live in a republic not a democracy” comment stuck a cord. The definition of a republic is: a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. If your representatives are elected u live in a democracy.
I really hate that "gotcha!" too. A republic is a representative democracy.
Terrific video
Misconception 7 : the Greek architectural style was not copy-pasted by the Minoans and the Phoenicians. Don't trust Age of Empires too much !
More like the Minoan architectural style was copy-pasted by the Greeks.
Source: My ass, but IIRC a lot of Hellenic culture was inspired by the Cretan civilization
@@kevlar3994 I guess the Cretans had a tourism bonus.
Total War however seems to have mostly solid source material (the early ones at least).
@@JonatasAdoM when it comes to architecture I'd say it's roughly on par with AOE, 5 or 6 architectural styles for the entire map. RTW cities can actually look quite ridiculous, I counted 3x Titus' ark and half a dozen of Trajan's column in a random roman city.
It may be more blatant in AOE1 since AOE1 covers a wider time scale, RTW being only in the iron age.
Yeah, the history sections provide introductions that was great to me as a kid. Then growing up, reading more books, you' ll relied that most of the history section including the recent dlcs was amateurish pop history.
Great video, though I'd like to make a minor correction if I may. The inhabitants of Athens and the surrounding lands spoke Attic Greek (hence Attica). After Alexander's conquests the Koine dialect evolved when the Attic dialect mingled with elements of Ionic.
EDIT: spelling
Attic greek was part of the wider Ionian dialect. The major dialects were 4 but all of them had sub-categories. For example Spartans spoke doric Greek but so did Macedonians, their dialects were similar but not the same
Ironic considering the requirements to vote .
Good video man
I READ THE ROTTEN ROMANS AS A KID
Wow what a throwback. Great vid!
A democratic republic is a type of democracy. So is a constitutional monarchy.
Great job
Your Microphone quality is getting better and better it seems
The Spartans were warriors, the Homoioi were the high class Lakonians and the warriors of the Homoioi class had to go to the Agoge at a young age and was raised to be a Spartan Hoplite this is why we call them Sparta
No the Spartans weren't professional soldiers.
@@theveryproudmoroccan2834 professional no, warrior yes
I understand the limitations of Athenian democracy, however it was still pretty amazing to have democracy at such an early age of history. Not fair to criticize historical periods based on criteria developed 3000 years later.
He didn't criticize it, he only pointed out that Athens wasn't a democracy in the sense we see democracy today. Same way as nations aren't democracies either.
@@JonatasAdoM Well immigrants still don't vote in most countries, and especially in America racial issues always come up when elections are held.
@@JonatasAdoM I would say that by the same logic USA in ~1800, merely 200 years ago and a country that still exists now without any interruption or an abrupt change of government style since then, wasn't a "democracy in the sense today". Because as he said, Athenian democracy is estimated to had given voting rights to about 10-20% of the population... USA's democracy in ~1800 is estimated to had given voting rights to about 5-10% of the population. Really puts things into perspective when there is additional context provided.
@@JonatasAdoM You could argue that Athens was more democratic than today's democracies, since that 10-20% of the population directly participated in politics, as opposed to today's system where the people only have a say in the legislative and executive branches and even then, that say is very limited.
We don't have democracies today, we have elective oligarchies
the hellenistic age podcast is great
I just had the epiphany that ancient Greece was the closest thing we will ever get to the government system in starship troopers since only those who have completed miliraty service are eligible to vote
That's the inspiration behind the book and also why the film mocks it...
I think it'd be really cool to see a video about the food of the ancient Mediterranean, I know Roman's made some kind of fermented fish sauce that they seemed to love, but other than that I don't know much. What were some of the cooking methods and common animals/plants eaten? Were there any weird taboos about specific foods, like pork or beef?
There were different dialects yes and they weren’t united, but they still shared a sense of nationalism, meaning they all knew they were all one and part of Hellas even though Hellas was never united, or rarely ever was.
Sort of. They at least understood they were more similar to each other than they were to the outsiders they'd sometimes team up on, especially Persia. Alexander "name all the cities after me" the Great took advantage of that to rally them behind him for his early conquests.
@@jimothyworldbuilding3664 well the national identity of Hellas was around even before the Trojan war as in a passage homer says, and it’s affect was felt all throughout Hellas, I’m paraphrasing but still, there was a national identity and yes when the Greeks united under Alexander they conquered everyone they fought
they all knew they belonged to the same racial group. they had racial consciousness
@@mpampislarsons exactly, which how they knew who to label as barbarians and who to include in the Olympic Games
@@billychops1280not only, eugenics and racialism was popular in the most important city states
Lacedaemon is the name of the kingdom. Sparta is the name of the capital settlement In the valley of Laconia. Since most other city states use their capital city name as the name of the state, we often mistakenly do the same with the lacedaemonians. A lot of contemporaries called the lacedaemonians as Spartans though, because the homoioi (citizen class) all lived in and around the city of Sparta, so they would all be Spartans. Same way we might call someone a Parisian, but they’re also French.
Ancient Greece amazes me so much. The best civilization and also my favourite imo
From what i remember, no, we don't have democratic Republics but representative Republics
very cool
Why do modern "historians" massively discount ancient army sizes in certain situations? I understand perspectives differ and exaggerations happen but the ancient sources were not incapable of counting heads especially when organizing in neat formations with columns and rows. The Persians by the time of Thermopole were well aware that the Greeks were very solid heavy infantry citizen soldiers with effective armor and arms and would likely prepare a much larger force to counter this "tough nut to crack" as well as hire as many hoplite mercenaries as would sign up for an invasion of the homeland. Persians traditionally fighting in open country with flat prepared fields for chariots and cavalry would tend to favor more mobile less armored units and rely more on archers and other missile units designed around penetration of the same lightly armored and mobile opponents. This steppe army operating in the hills and valleys of Greece was handicapped heavily and needed overwhelming numbers to make the point they intended to make. Obviously the logistics of an army size in the millions seems ridiculous but I suspect the administrative ability of the Persians is underestimated and hundreds of thousands of soldiers combined with the logisticical personnel could very well be much higher than we imagine. There is a good reason Alexander left the infrastructure in tact when he conquered Persia. I have noticed the army number revision seems most prevalent in situations where a substantially numerically superior army is either defeated or seriously challenged by a smaller force and there is some concern about the "inappropriate optics" or "problematic inferences". There are so many different explanations for why a lopsided battle happens, from technological advances, to inspiring creative leadership, and the old saying "different horses for different courses", it's not a reflection on the ethnicity of the combatants. Nearly every group of people have been on both sides of an embarrassing ass-kicking at one point or another.
Adam Ruins Everything has the Persians outnumber the Greeks roughly 7-1 at the start of Thermopylae
Of the 300 Spartan rearguard 2 survive
I agree with a lot of your points, but I believe that two million is a ridiculous number. I believed I have read that Herodotus basically counted the maximum force that the Persians could muster and not the actual invasion army. But a claim of 80.000 is ridiculously small. If the biggest city states in Greece combined their armies, let's say Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Tegea and some others, then that army could very well match the Persian numbers, and I believe that the Persians would definitely like to have numerical superiority. I believe it's more likely that the Persians had 200.000, a number big enough to vastly outnumber any combined Greek army, but not as logistically ridiculous as the 2 million claimed by Herodotus. And 7.000 against 200.000 is still a great big ass kicking.
@@christiandauz3742 "Adam ruins everything" is a very appropriate title for that particular ideologically driven smug opinion based nonsense. His "facts" are rarely facts and his numbers appear to spring forth from his backside. I have several bones to pick with that particular feminine hygiene product container. I wouldn't bother paying attention to anything that faux it all has to say.
@@nickklavdianos5136 my only point is we have no idea really. I think people like to think of themselves as the highest evolution of humanity and history as a linear progression from chaos and darkness through to their current Era of order reason and peak civilization. This makes it difficult to imagine large well organized civilizations in extreme antiquity organizing huge armies or labor forces towards massive undertakings. Part of the problem is that nearly 2000 years later the armies which conquered England and devestated France were easily under 10,000 fighting men and technologically not much different from those of the ancient world. The idea of regression like that is uncomfortable to the their world view and therefore must be revised.
@@herbertgearing1702 that is a very good point that you raise there. I would have to agree that there was a regression between antiquity and the medieval times. Again I absolutely believe that the Persians were more than capable of raising a force vaster than anything medieval Europe ever saw, but the 2 million claimed by Herodotus is a number not even Napoleon could ever hope to muster. And the Persians could have 2 million soldiers available, but I don't think Xerxes would take his entire army to campaign. He needed to leave border and city garrisons behind, and also Greece is apart from Macedonia and Thessalia a pretty barren land, ( I know personally, I am Greek), and so it would be next to impossible to supply an army of the size of 2 million, by looting crops and anything else. Supply trains would be hard to be used because of the great distance and the great number of supplies needed. Therefore I believe that while the Persians could muster 2 million men, they probably didn't use that number to invade Greece. Again, 200 thousand to 500 thousand is still a vast but much more manageable army in terms of logistical support.
I never understood why people believed that the greeks and romans just left everything white. Do you know how boring and depressing that would be? People are always and have always been, shall always be just that...People. If you don't want to live in the kind of monochrome world of single colors, no person in the past probably would have wanted to either. We like color, we like light, we like novelty and variety just as we always have.
Probably because of how bland a lot of modern architecture is, and how rare painted stone is in our buildings
Maybe it's because that's the way the stuff currently looks and the that people liked that monochromatic look.
I like it uncolored.
There were two ways to receive a funeral with honors in Sparta- first to die in battle for Sparta and second to die in childbirth of a Spartan. These were considered to be sacrificing your life in service of the state. My belief is the geography of Greece with its many mountains and valleys and unusual coast contributed to divided nature of the area, whereas the area around Rome has lots of farm land and rolling fields that make transportation of men and material easy, you may have a very steep hike to the next Greek city state. Defensive positions and choke points favor the defender and make conquest difficult to achieve and harder to keep.
And for the Thermopylae misconception, it’s wrong to say the Spartans never fought them by themselves because they did, towards the last days when the Spartans and some allies who chose to stay behind and act as a rear guard, they had about 1400 men as a rear guard at most 300 of which were Spartans and 700 of which were placed to guard the goat pass, but they retreated and thus the Persians made it through the pass and seeing this the other 400 odd men with the 300 lost their morale facing certain death and so they ran as well, leaving the Spartans to defend it alone on the last hours of the final day, it is also those soldiers who ran that informed the 2 Spartan messengers sent out earlier that in the war to send word of the Persian movements to the other cities, one of which quickly made his way there to fight with them while the other waited for his wound to heal so that he could fight again another day, his name was Aristodemus I believe and in the movie 300 (as inaccurate as it may be) he is the one that’s telling their story at the campfire before the battle of plateau.
This isn’t really true, the 700 Thespians stayed and fought with the Spartans, this we know. The men guarding the pass were Phocians, who did leave with the rest of the army. The 400 Thebans who stayed as well are recorded as fleeing, however, given the animosity many Greeks held towards Thebes, I’m personally of the mind that that part may very well be a fabrication meant to discredit the city.
@@DarthNicky Athens was a great ally many a time to Thebes so I doubt that it was due to discrediting, plus in times such as these were Greeks stand united all the jabs are hurled at the enemy, and the 700 Phocians did run because obviously the Persians made it through the pass and they didn’t have the same honour code as the Spartans which was basically “fight cuz if you run you a pussy” lol and it is said during analyses of the battle that the phocians sort of stood aside/retreated when faced with the impossible odds, and of course after the news that the pass was taken and in the morning there was only death, the Thebens also retreated, which isn’t actually the dumbest move since thebes is on the way to Athens which is where Xerxes was trying to go
@@billychops1280 You’re forgetting about the 700 Thespians. They stayed behind and fought alongside the Spartans. They were not the ones guarding the pass
Also, in terms of history-writing, most Greeks did not view Thebes favourably as the city sided with Persia during their invasion (the 400 Thebans at Thermopylae were exiles). Given that I believe the report of the Thebans surrendering comes from Herodotus, who was a very unambiguous Spartan fanboy, this is doubly so. Furthermore most, Athenian alliances with Thebes were largely done out of political convenience; they readily turned their backs on Thebes when it was no longer convenient for them to be “friends”
@@DarthNicky well that could be said of the Athenians and everyone honestly and those numbers no longer make sense as it makes the rear guard over 2000 strong which wasn’t the case if the minimum of the total soldiers was a little over 5000 since that means that the rear guard would have been half the army (after losses during the earlier fights) and that’s just bad planning since the point was to regroup a larger army for a pitched battle, it was 300 Spartans 400 Thebens and 700 phocians for a grand total of 1400 and that’s the accurate number of defenders, perhaps the additional 700 troops you speak of were there for the earlier battles but they did not stay for the rear guard defence since their presence contradicts the numbers and yes ik that theses numbers aren’t always correct but for at least the Greek side the numbers are sound or at least appear to be, also when mentioning the rear Guard most sources abs reviews of the actual battle only mention the 1400 troops I stated, no additional 700, plus an additional 700 men makes little sense military wise and also contradicts numbers plus idk about you but if I was part of a rear guard I’d be pretty scared since I’m basically part of a last stand that will end in death, but my moral would drop out of this earth if I learnt that half the army abandoned us right before the last stand, and so you can see how that train of thought would have been shared by those supposed 700 troops in the final hours.
@@billychops1280 here are the relevant quotes from Herodotus:
"The allies then who were dismissed departed and went away, obeying the word of Leonidas, and only the Thespians and the Thebans remained behind with the Lacedemonians. Of these the Thebans stayed against their will and not because they desired it, for Leonidas kept them, counting them as hostages; but the Thespians very willingly, for they said that they would not depart and leave Leonidas and those with him, but they stayed behind and died with them. The commander of these was Demophilos the son of Diadromes."
"On this spot while defending themselves with daggers, that is those who still had them left, and also with hands and with teeth, they were overwhelmed by the missiles of the Barbarians, some of these having followed directly after them and destroyed the fence of the wall, while others had come round and stood about them on all sides.
Such were the proofs of valour given by the Lacedemonians and Thespians"
The Thespians fought to the death. They were not the ones holding the pass that the Persians used to flank the army, they volunteered to stay with the Spartans and were there when they all died.
Misconceptions about ancient Egypt next?
Someone correct me if im wrong but i remember hearing that young lacademon recruits had a simillar name to sparta which is where the name sparta comes from.
Hey, my public school education (20 years ago) paid off, I knew most of these already. =D
I knew all of them, I feel great.
6:10 honestly I think the reason for why is because people thought saying Lacedaemon was too difficult so they just said Sparta
Can you do a polish king ranking
Really good video, just have one comment about the name of Sparta. As mentioned in the video, "Sparta" was not just one city, but a collection of smaller cities. The capital of these cities, was called Sparta, and hence where the common Sparta comes from, however when mentioning the whole entity, that of Homoioi (Spartans) Peroikoi (Middle class, living is surrounding towns) and Helots(servant class) was called Lakedemon. So it is not entirely incorrect to say "Spartan, or Spartans", if referring to the Homoioi, or those who live in the actually town of Sparta. So when talking about the "300 Spartans", it is not incorrect to call them Spartans, as they were Homoioi. Just thought I'd throw that out!
There's something ironic about discussing misconceptions about ancient Greece while using erasmian pronunciation :P
Good video nonetheless
Was there that much of a distinction between the greek states that lived in modern day Greece and the greek states which existed outside of modern day Greece? If you lived in Athens wouldn't you define this greek civilization as stretching from Sicily to Crimea? And if they did differentiate between theme is it just a coincidence that we place greater importance over the states that existed in modern day Greece?
I'm no specialist, so take it with a grain of salt. Today's Greece was the core of Greek/Mycenaean culture, the other regions were settled later. Still, some like the area in today's western coast of Turkey were so integrated into Ancient Greek politics that I imagine there wasn't much of a distinction drawn there in practice.
Also there are lists of olympian victors from back in the day, and they include bunch of athletes from Magna Graecia, Sicily, and even Cyrene in modern-day Lybia, so it's safe to say they were perceived as Greek enough to be in the Greek olympics at least.
Can you rank us presidents?
Was hoping that Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful states or relevant states for a misconception.
It varied over time but that was clearly the case leading to the Pelopponesean War, each being the leader of their respective league.
i would say sparta only. the athenians were a significant regional power and participated many times in toppling foreign governments. it was definitely less powerful than the empires of old but it was the definitive leader of hellenic civilization.
I think Thebes was a dominant city state for a couple decades too
Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful city states for a time between the greco-persian war and the Peloponnese war
I'm a Pergamon fanboy
I think Lakedaimon kept on being used by scholars until relatively recently. I think the name Sparta has only come to be completely dominant in the Anglosphere during the course of the 20th century. Lots of people who had classical educations during most of European history used the term Lakedaimon or Lacedaemon, especially if they wanted to look more erudite. It’s possible I suppose that because the concept of a classical education fell out of favour during the 20th century that the custom of using the word Sparta instead rose in popularity.
the part about athens was in our history textbook
Sparta was a collection of three villages that formed the city of Sparta. lakaidemon was a much larger area that was under control of the Spartans. Clearly Sparta and lakaidemon were deferent things. The one was the city and the other a big region in the Peloponnese
If I am not mistaken. The name Sparta only stuck because it was the name the Romans called it in latter years and I think Athenians liked to refer to the place as Sparta in much of their sources and ancient writings too.
Was......was that a fucking Bill Wurtz reference? I'm impressed see this is why I subbed.
“This is Lakedemon!” Just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I think "This is Lacedemon" would have sounded way cooler in Gerard Butler's Scottish accent.
Democracy means the demos are the primary holders of power in your political system. It doesn't mean that the demos can vote. It doesn't mean you need a form of universal franchise or that you should expand franchise to foreigners. Voting and democracy are two separate things.
Yay, blue horse hair to represent the other side of the Adriatic!
Not the first time I've changed the color, though. In the video on the Byzantine Emperors, as an example, I changed the color to purple.
@@spectrum1140 I have yet to see the Byzantine one (didn't even know you had done it)
Relatively new to the channel and only seen some of the Roman videos and the Tsar ranking.
8:00 are you sure? I always thought that republic is kind of state like a kingdom and democracy is type of system like a monarchy.
a republic by definition is any other form of government other then a monarchy, more strict definitions put it as any form of government that claims authority from the people (i.e also ruling out theocracies alongside monarchies)
Hello there
You need to look up what republic means, many of the most democratic countries today are not republics-they still have monarchs.
Technically yes, but they essentially function as republics. I don't remember where I heard the term "crowned republic," but it fits.
@@daviddechamplain5718 the commonly accepted term is "constitutional monarchy". Republics don't have to be democracies (communist countries are a good example).
What you are really looking for the is the word democracy, since it includes both democratic republics and democratic monarchies while excluding the non-democratic versions of both.
@@daviddechamplain5718 crowned republic might fit for Sparta (and Venice), if you elect a leader but give them an aristocratic title then I think that would be a good definition and would make sense while not replacing the existing term of constitutional monarch.
@@korakys I know they're called "constitutional monarchies," but to me that implies a monarch having real powers that are limited by a constitution. I just think "crowned republic" is a more descriptive term.
I can't really tell but is that the same music LazyMasquerade uses? Weird.
Sparta was weird but Sparta was also vibin
The Sparta topic remind me of something else about the Homeric Epics. In Oddysey, the "greeks" always were referred to as Achaeans, and that makes me wonder: did Ancient Greece referred themselves as Greeks? They don't referred themselves as that on the Epics, and if they did on later years, when did they started to do it and why?
If they didn't referred themselves as Greeks, where did it came from? I'm really curious about this.
It's a pejorative term attributed by the Romans, graecus... I can't remember what it means, but yeah
@@ndrskarpi a tribe in the west coast of greece, basically it was the first "greek" to contact rome, greeks called themselves hellenes* so yeah
In my opinion as to the number of Persians at the Battle Of Thermopylae, if there was a state at the time that that could field over 300,000 men, it was the Persian Empire, being the largest Empire at the time in the known world. So I’m fully willing to accept that there were over 200 to 300,000 Persians at the battle.
Greeks actually didn't withdrew from Termopile. It is just that they learn that Persians send portion of they army through the other way and they needed encounter them there, where majority of actual battle take place. Spartans and Thebens hold the chock point long enough, that they dealt with the problem before coming back. Though defenders were already crushed at this point.
As for the Sparta's name I know romans idolised them and the region was somewhat of a tourist attraction. Given the wast influence romans had I think there is a possibility it stemmed from them. Not really even a guess, just a possibility.
Sparta was the central city, Lakedaemonia was the wider area of the kingdom/city.
I love horrible history's it's what got me into history in the first place
Eh, it has some stinkers like "British things" being propacandistic trash
I heard an anecdote about a famous Athenian politician, who was asked by an illiterate fisheman (or cobbler, I do not remember 100%) to write a name on a piece of shell - as there was a vote about who was to be exiled from a city. When a politician asked whose name to write down, the fisherman said his name. Out of honor, the politician had no choice but to write down his own name for a vote, that could make him an exile.
This just shows how Athenian democracy wasn't really that great as some people claim - I mean You would think citizens taking part in a vote would at least have some basic education beforehand.
Only true landed citizens would take part in the democracy.
Based Athenian democracy
Lacedaemon or lakonia was the name of the region with sparta being the strongest city there something similar could be said about the aetolians and the Thessalians
Republic and Democracy mean the same thing. Our modern day Republics are representative Republics versus the Athenian Democracy which was a direct Republic. Modern day Republics rely on representatives voted by the citizens to represent them in parliament, while in the Athenian republic the people who were eligible were directly involved in the parliament. In some ways the Athenian Democracy was both more Democratic and less Democratic than modern day governments. I hope this clears it up.
Don’t forget the helots who fought with the men who stayed
2,000,000 likely counts at a bare minimum the entire logistics forces of the Persians and likely occupation troops too and maybe other armies
1:49 good censoring dude
P.S: I’m almost finished with the script of my first video
Sparta is the name of the city, while Lacedaemon is the name of the state. The people in the city is called spartans, and so it's often referred as such.
In Greek mithology Sparta was the name of the wife of the founder of laecedemon (that was called laekedemon)
Helots were probably natives of the area who was later colonized by the doric invaders who founded Sparta.
Perioikoi literally means "those who stand around (peri) the settlement (oikoi)" basically people living in the countryside.
Spartans were the élite and actual citizens stashioned in the city itself.
Spectrum: **mentions Horrible Histories**
Me: remember Crazy Caligula :troll:
*_8:23_**_ Achaemenid women: Am I a joke to you?_*
Yes
Athenian democracy is better to be referred as an oligarchy since as you said only a selected few could actually vote, the word "demos" is nowadays translated as "people" but back in the day it was used to indicate the before mentioned specific categories of people, "latros" instead, from which we have the term "liturgy", was the word used to indicate people as whole coesive group.
Long story short Athens was never a "latrocracy" (what we would call democracy in our times) instead it was basically an oligarchy similar to the Roman senate.
5:26 you actually almost got the pronunciation correct there. Just make the d a z and annunciate the last syllable rather than the third.
If only he could say δ the right way... Sigh..
6:34 you know Horrible Histories got a show?
I wonder if you'd consider ranking the Popes.
Another misconception: Ancient Greece was in Greece. Through their colonies, the Greek civilization was spread in the entire Mediteraneean, plus the Black Sea and, after Alexander the Great conquests, a huge region (from India to Egypt and Italy) experienced helenism.
The greatest misconception is that Homosexuality was celebrated and encouraged.There are numerous sources that show that this claim wasn't the case like in Aeschines' "against Timarchus" Timarchus was a passive homosexual who's testimony was dropped on trial because of his homosexuality and he was forced to kill himself.
There were various penalties against Homosexuals they were banned from Gymnasiums(death penalty)and they couldn't vote in Ancient Athens like women.
Homosexuals existed in Ancient Greece just like today but the Greek City States didn't tolerate them like today especially passive homosexuals it's a modern gay fantasy a Myth that Ancient Greeks were mostly Homosexuals
And yet male lovers amongst our historically recorded famous people are extremely common, as are records of pederasty. They seemed to be like the Romans in this aspect: it was commonly accepted as long as a) you were on top and b) you otherwise had a socially expected life, eg as an aristocrat have a wife and children for inheritance besides any mistresses or male lovers
At start I forgot to add at "the time that is."
@@Rynewulf "pederasty" had none of the connotations it has in modernity. The sort of relationship you are describing is more analogous to knight-squire dynamic of the middle ages than homosexuality. "Pederasty" only acquired it's modern undertones due to insidious scholarship, little else.
@@alternateperson6600 He said there were records of pederasty in ancient greece, it doesn't matter how the greeks viewed it. Also knights did not, as a rule, engage in inappropriate sexual contact with their squires. so I don't understand why you would consider that analogous.
@@ajrk95 he said there were historical records of "male lovers" in Ancient Greece, but that by itself is pretty inconclusive, don't you think? Greeks had more than one word for "love", all of them with their peculiar nuance.
"Also knights did not, as a rule, engage in inappropriate sexual contact with their squires"
Neither did the Greek pederast; or will you just ignore what I said about homosexuality being grounds for criminal charges in Athens? As for how the two relationships are analogous; read the Symposium.
I believe you on everything except the Spartans. You aren't taking that away from me.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Sparta primarily famous for for the most of the Ancient Greece for the beauty of its women, and not its military capabilities (at least in Homer's age).
While it is true that Athenian democracy is nothing like modern day republics, Athenian democracy was far more democratic than any modern society in the strictest sense that democracy means government of the people, by the people for the people. And in Athens any and all citizens could and did participate in the politics of their state as it was a direct democracy. We might not like the "restrictive" nature of who qualified as a citizen, but it does not change the fact that if one was in fact a citizen, one was very likely to directly participate in the business of government, either in the courts, the council, the overseers or the assembly. And actually the population estimates have always been drastically underestimated in my opinion. When one reads the speech of Pericles in Thucydides I seem to recall that ultimately some 40000 or so citizens were available for military service, either as cavalry, hoplites or rowers. And since the reforms of the mid 5th Century, even the poorest citizens could be alloted public office.
*_Wasn't there a city in Ionia (Modern day turkey) called Separda (Sparta)?_*
No
@@wankawanka3053 tf you mean no. There's a city in turkey called Isparta.
Pls rank every german ruler!
You really want a ranking Video to be 5 Terrabytes in size?
Ah, so Aphrodite actually wore big black botches of ink for clothes. That's one misconception cleared up right away.
Wait wait, did they even have things like buildings or roads or clothing back then? I thought it was just all olive oil back then.
Spartans, men and women were truly chads in their own right
I mean Lacedemoians
Great video as allways! Other" misconception " I find intresting is if the Macedonians really was Greek? I have heard people saying no since their dialect and culture differed much from the rest but never found that argument strong, I can barely understand some of the dialect from my countrymen.
If you ask ancient Greek if Macedonians were geek they would say no. But Macedonians were basically cousins of the Greeks, both from a linguistic and cultural point.
@@floflo1645 depends who you ask but since Macedon did participate to the Olympics the awnser is obvious. Plus you got to look past anti macedonian sentiment that people had due to macedonian occupation.
The Macedonians were greek, and if we used the dialect logic then half the people we consider Greek wouldn’t be Greek because almost every region had a different dialect and even today there are different dialects in Greece, the only reason ancient Greeks didn’t consider the Macedonians Greek was because they were salty about Phillip taking over Greece, I swear to god it’s the truth, only Thebes and Athens really protested and made up propaganda against the Macedonians and that was only because Macedon too power away from them, and also Athens enjoyed a very good lumber deal from Macedon which was cut short by Phillip because he knew Athenians sponsored rebellions in Macedon every time a kind died and there was more than one son alive with a claim
@@floflo1645 The Macedonian dialect is proven to be a Greek dialect of the doric branch of hellenic dialects. A lot of evidence supports this with the most adamant being the "Pella curse tablet", i encourage you to look it up. Culturally they were Greeks with distinctions much like every other city state and kingdom. Both the scripts and the archeological evidence support this so please refer to them if you are interested albeit i understand it might be hard to get a professional translation. Modern politics should not influence historical realities. @Spectrum is very likely aware of the issue but probably didn't want to touch on it with regards to it "being sensitive" because of modern politics. He did however place Macedon in Greece on the map which is nice to see.
7:50.
Yes I do agree it should not be compared. Since in general it was a political system designed for the management of a city state and not a state. Although it was a good political system. (Also the part where you said that both parents have to be Athenian is a bit fluid since that law concerning citizenship was repealed at times and then put back in effect.) Also I do believe that the argument on representation is a bit null since most people obviously don't take in to effect modern representation and take in to effect the average expected representation at the time and do the comparison. Last thing. I thing you misunderstand how bad the situation of Helotes was. A slave could be freed and at most cases slaves taken in battle where a form of ransom at most cases. For citizenship that is. While active slaves could get their freedom and work their way up. While a helot could never do so and on top of that the spartans had power of life and death over them so regular harassment was often applied to keep them from rebelling so the comparison with medieval serfs, of whose the life was guaranteed and harm could not be done to them threw violence by their Lord or bishop, that comparison is absolutely dreadful.
Lastly I feel the video is a bit lackluster. Pointing out some misconceptions that are easy for people with general knowledge to make but not anything too intriguing.pointing that out with out me giving an example is unfair so..
here: (the definition of lover, lower case letters not being a thing till Alexander, abandonment of the Corinthian helmet in the battlefield earlier then it's abandonment in illustration. )
Cheers
In my opinion Persian attack greek with at least 300k if not close to 500k.
Your criticism of atheism Democracy is weird. Why would they give political power to people they will know would love to genocide them? Of course slaves, immigrants, foreigners ect.. would not be allowed to vote.
A real criticism should have been that anything that they agree on even if everyone knows it is a lie would pass on, without an intermediary judge.
Also, not all societies made women a second class citizens. Infact citizenship itself mostly didn't exise (Rome most famous for).
For example Japan and China where they had massive power. Or Turks where women very much equal.
Also, you completely ignored as if Islam didn't exist. Lol . Very much made woman equal.
Also democracy has tone of disadvantages that it outways advantages. This makes it weak and short like a flower. Plus every Republic become an empire later. You can't trust people just because they are citizens: greedy/selfish (the majority would out law the minorities opinions), it depends on hood education for all voters, you don't ask an engineer to do a surgery to a cat, also what if people go evil. Also because of democracy we got Adolf Hitler mate. Not all people think objectively and not all people opinions objectively matters or could be considereded as valid just because they are citizens, people the masses also can be deceived easily. Also the Republic party system is the worst think because you would have a chancellor of multiple dictatorships and oligarchs in one government. The west today is just 10-20% away from being just like Russia. Chooseing lest horrible is not good. Also, people can do tone of shit, thus their choices can't be trusted. We need some form of democracy of course not a dictatorship however not everybody should be allowed to vote just because they are 18+. We need to add more requirements and improve the education system and add more subjects to hlep with voting, politics, economy and logic and ideologies/philosophies. So people don't get propagandized. This will significantly lower racism, ignorance, aggression, arrogance, misunderstanding, misinformation, manipulation and miscommunication and misconceptions. Thus forces politicians to be more real a do work properly and be trustworthy not lies. Also we need lower the intelligence agencies power. Most importantly CIA. Don't people realise that most dictatorship didn't even come from military but intelligence scter primarily. CIA for example has the power if they will and come together to take full control of USA government in white house that if they are not already doing that if not since around John F Kennedy times.
@@ailediablo79 wait you wrote the same thing here? who are you responding to?