History Summarized: The Cities of Ancient Sparta
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- čas přidán 13. 04. 2023
- Is. This. Sparta???
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SOURCES & Further Reading:
“The Spartans” from “Ancient Greek Civilization" by Jeremy McInerney - “The Greek Polis - Sparta” from “The Foundations of Western Civilization” by Thomas F. X. Noble - “Dark Age and Archaic Greece” from “The Greek World: A Study of History and Culture” by Robert Garland, “Being a Greek Slave” from “The Other Side of History” by Robert Garland.
"The Greeks: A Global History" by Roderick Beaton, "The Greeks: An Illustrated History" by Diane Cline.
AskHistorians posts by u/Iphikrates “Is the Military Worship of the Spartans Really Justified?” ( / dl8ns8q ) and “"This. Isn’t. Sparta.” by historian Bret Devereaux argues that Sparta was a horrible place to live, had poorly educated citizens, was militarily mediocre, culturally stagnant, and was ruled by elites who were pretty crappy too. Anything inaccurate in that assessment?”( / this_isnt_sparta_by_hi... )
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I think one of the cruelest jokes history played on Sparta is that it didn't have an epic end of being destroyed in battle, it just slowly faded into insignificance.
That's what happens to every civilisation that chooses animalistic living over ethics and art. Compare the Chinese culture, rooted in family and honor and fixated on social connections, that has lasted for thousands of years regardless of dynasties or no emperor. Or India, with such a tight knit caste system and family connections, again for thousands of years to the point no one thinks of India for war, we see them as Ghandi pacifists. Then compare to ancient Rome, who expanded and lasted so long as they were focused on ideals and unified in expansion, personal honor through sacrifice, etc., but fell apart due to corruption of both politics and their family culture.
When you prioritize the next hit, be it money or drugs or sex, instead of actively being part of a society and family at home and planning ahead for future generations? That's living like a short sighted animal, that resorts to violence quickly because it's kill or be killed out there. But humans with logic and reason and when in a functioning society that supports and protects? That's when we can last forever.
@@Undomaranel You say that as if Roman/Greek society also didn't hyper focus on family and as if Indian/Chinese societies didn't also have hyper individualist screw the country for personal glory aspects.
Hell, Indian society didn't exist until the British Raj, the subcontinent was split between different cultural fiefdoms with some cultural links between them. Not a unified society.
@@Undomaranel Uhh, family is nice and all but that's not why China and India have lasted so long. China has an obsession with 'appearing' honorable while none of their ideas on honor or decency apply to themselves.
@@Undomaranel Rome and Greene are to this day huge contributors to western culture both christian and muslim but the roman empire simply had no natural borders the mediterranean is a powerful transport way if the state has the power to fully control it but also a huge obstacle for expansion. The roman empire also wasn’t centered along a single river or two. Eastern China and the Ganges valley are basically battle royal areas where after a few decades the strongest nation naturally consolidates.
@@Undomaranel
Proselytising on CZcams.
I'd like to think that unworthy spartan babies weren't wholly useless: they became a part of Sparta's air force
Ouch
to hijac this comment it's probable that refused spartan babies weren't killed, but rather left in the wild, often adopted by heilot or perioeci families
Too soon
Brutal, but hilarious.
Why is this funny?
Sparta was on the level-grind, and other players could see their hours played and base size.
BUT Sparta never completed any main story quests, never went outside their starting area, never got high-level items, and rarely teamed up.
Sparta needed to touch grass, instead they chewed bones.
The last line is weirdly poetic lol
There're certain Sparta fans who haven't touched grass for a long time...
Damn this comment goes hard
“I’m as tired as a Mycenaean Helot,” has always been a favorite phrase of my grandfather to express his need to rest after a long day, before he retired.
He likes to flex his obscure knowledge.
"Mycenaean Helot" is a bit of an anachronism, but that's still cool!
Helots were products of the Greek dark ages not the Mycenean era
@@TeutonicEmperor1198first helots were from a mycenaean city the dorian spartans conquered and enslaved
Your grandpa sounds great
Sparta is the civilization equivalent of dumping all your stats into just strength
They were the Cimmerians (the pretend Conan ones, not the ancient historical people of what is now northern Iran!) of Classical Greece. No renown architecture, literature but STR, CON and maybe a bit of INT to be able to take some of the Strategy Skills in the rulebook.
And an average point dump into both intrigue and (ironically) diplomacy needed to attain victory over its democratic rival. A few points into being business savvy when it comes to lend gold for military contracts.
I mean they did not even really do that.
One of my favorite lines from the movie Meet the Spartans, which is a parody/troll of the movie 300, is when King Leonidas refuses to work with Xerxes. Xerxes says to the Leonidas "You'll regret this. Sparta will be wiped from the history books!" Leonidas hilariously responds with "Well that doesn't bother me, because I can't read!"
honestly Meet the Spartans was leagues (pun intended) better than 300, even as a parody
@@Argacyanyeah, I remember watching it years ago and thinking it was hilarious, yet somehow it seems to be generally considered a rather bad movie. Not sure why.
Also, 300 gets leagues (if you’ll allow me to borrow your pun) better if you look at it as a stylized piece of Spartan propaganda… Which, if you consider who narrates the story, and to whom, makes a ton of sense
@@jordinagel1184 I disagree with the latter, there's a lot of things that just do not make sense seeing it as a propaganda "of" the Spartans rather than "about" the Spartans. Several things in the film the Spartans didn't believe, do, practise or think about themselves & the world - or could not have, cause some concept only arose in modern times. It's Zack Snyder's propaganda about Spartans. I think several history, film & breadtube channels all have made sometimes lengthy essays about that topic.
Sparta being so stereotyped now makes sense to me. If only outside or secondary sources on them survived it would of course mean that they wouldn't be seen in a nuanced light. It would be interesting to see how they actually lived, but that was sadly denied by themselves. Good video 👍
Xenophon is pretty much the only known recording of them from their perspective, but even he was actually an outsider. It is an interesting paradigm.
Plus video technology wasn't around either
Plus they became a tourist trap whose economy was based on playing up their own stereotypes for visiting foreigners during the roman empire after Augustus visited.
I can't remember who the quote is attributed to, but someone had said that after collapse based on the ruins they left behind people would assume the Athens was fart greater than it actually was and Sparta would be confused for a small village.
@@TheWasteOfTime Thucydides.
Full quote:
For I suppose if Lacedaemon [Sparta] were to become desolate, and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice as great as it is. (The Peloponnesian War, 1.10.2)
I think one of the best epithets for Sparta is that they were never conquered...
...because they were rendered wholly impotent after pissing off basically entire ancient world. The last mention in actual history of the "noble and ancient Sparta" was as a tourist trap for Roman travelers and source of beefcake bodyguards for fashionable and rich Roman women.
I am Ozymandias...
Damn right!
Didn't Alexander's empire (not Alexander himself, since he was on his joyride through Persia with daddy's army at the time) conquer Sparta at some point? Or at least kick their teeth in after they got too uppity and actually tried to threaten Makedon's clients in the area?
@@kayeka4123 Nope, Alexander threatened to come down there and conquer Sparta. Alexander said "if I come down there and conquer you..." in a message.
The Spartans sent back "if" as a message. Alexander never tried.
Most probably because for all they liked it Sparta really wasn't worth anything, and would certainly have taken time and effort to conquer, pointless when all the riches of Persia were for the taking to Alexander. But part of me thinks that Alexander himself also believed a little bit in that myth of Spartan invincibility.
As even the Thebian Sacred Band (who did out maneuver and beat Sparta once in battle) would never actually try to take Sparta fully. Almost like they considered themselves lucky to have won and didn't want to push it further.
@@esmeecampbell7396 I was mostly thinking of Antipater, Alexander's viceroy who was left in charge of Macedonia and the Greek cities while Alexander was working his way through Asia. He defeated the Spartans and forced them to join the League of Corinth, effectively making them a vassal state to Macedonia. Alexander, when hearing of it, compared the battle to "fighting mice."
Also, I think it was Phillip who made the famous "neither if" exchange with Sparta.
Spartans had no fear of their enemies because they knew they had more to fear at the hands of their own people
you kind of missed the point they feared not being the best and were paranoid of the ways their dominion could fall,the one thing they trusted was themselves cooperation was encouraged in the agoge(or at least a wierd form of it considering they encouraged stealing too)
Helots aren't their "own people"...
@@sotirismitzolis5171I think OP meant to include helots as part of “their own people”
Absolutely insane to think that there may have been entire city-states like Sparta that we don't know anything about, simply due to the ravages of time.
Yoo! It's been a hot minute, how've ya been?
return of the king
Is that the InterButtz Lord, F.F.??
That's mighty *metal* of you to patronize the Arts, here!
I hope you have a great day, Sir! 💪
The odds are good that entire species of animals or plants existed that we will never know of, simply because they didn't live in conditions that lend themselves to fossilization.
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Madness? THIS IS… a highly educational video, please show yourself out
Ok, I have to say that actually made me laugh.
What's that daughter? All I needed to do was append 'LOL'? ...kids...
@@garychisholm2174 the youth of today, the ephors have their work cut out for them
😂😂😂😂😂
Please, this is Overly Sarcastic Productions. We're all mad here.
FOR TONIGHT, WE DINE ON…. a well researched and highly educated video
For anyone interested, I highly recommend Kieron Gillen's graphic novel Three which is the story of three Helots trying to escape Sparta in the aftermath of the Battle of Leuktra (one of Sparta's worst defeats) and focuses heavily on the highly self-defeating and self-destructive and cruel society of Sparta. It was inspired, according to the author, by his experience reading 300 by Frank Miller and getting increasingly angry at all the scenes of the Spartans going on about Freedom and how Free they were and how they were Fighting for Freedom and how everytime that happened he would yell at the pages "YOU HUNTED SLAVES!" It is an excellent and bittersweet tale and thoroughly researched.
Thanks for the recommendation! The graphic novel looks really cool. What's even cooler, Gillen was apparently consulting Prof. Stephen Hodkinson of the University of Nottingham, a leading expert on ancient Sparta, to make it more historically accurate. I'm definitely interested in reading _Three_ now.
The Spartans are always a funny one. When I first heard the legend of them when I was a kid I was like "holy macaroni! These guys are the coolest dudes ever!!!!" Then I got older, did some reading. Found out about how their society was only possible cuz they conquered and enslaved the entire population of a neighboring area to do their food growing and whatnot for them, etc etc. For every "Wow!" aspect of the Spartans there were quite a few accompanying "well.." bits. That said, whenever the Spartans come up in conversation the first place my brain goes to is "Fuck yeah, dude! They were awesome!" Then I remember all the rest of it.
Like I loved the movie 300 despite myself, but in the theater when Leonidas mocks the Athenians as "boy lovers" I was like "the Spartans had INSTITUTIONALIZED PEDERASTY!!!!" A couple years later I met a dude about my age on one of the occasions my Ma dragged me to her Crazy Church (an non-denominational jawn which seemed to take the most bizarre reading of anything they could) who IDOLIZED both Spartans and Samurai yet was also homophobic to a degree I'd rarely encountered. My Ma had told him I train in koryu bugei (old school Japanese martial arts) so he glomped on to me. He'd go off about Spartan bravery or Samurai cleanliness and then express disgust at "butt pirates" and "pillow biters" and I'd be like "well if ye like Spartans and Samurai I've got some very very bad news for ye..."
Yeah, samurai weren't as gay as the ancient Greeks but there were still a LOT of them who liked each other's swords more than the Christian west would be okay with.
@@wadespencer3623 Yeah, the way I generally phrase it was "samurai were frequently bi." I think it was partially a class thing, as the higher up ye were the more access & opportunity ye had for such "dalliances." Like ye don't hear too much about lower ranked bushi in same sex affairs, but the 3rd Tokugawa Shogue Iemitsu DEFINITELY liked the guys to the point that its up for debate if he spent time with women at all.
In the Heiho Kadensho written by Yagyu Munenori (the founder of the branch of Shinkage Ryu I belong to) he has a bit in it where he criticizes his contemporaries for dallying with young buys too much. Not "at all." "Too much." When I first read it I had to do a double take at that.
@@TheWasteOfTime Sometimes bi on a level that is quite surprising. The idea of it being okay for a young man to wear makeup and even dress like a woman and for society to be cool with it, while it makes perfect sense in modern times, seems a little odd when you are considering a society that existed 500+ years ago. And, indeed, one where a man being told "you look like a girl" could be taken as a compliment.
@@TheWasteOfTime I believe I also remember reading that Takeda Shingen, one of the most notable samurai of the Sengoku period, was well known for taking many male concubines in addition to his hard partying lifestyle.
There are also the Celts who, according to some roman historians, had a fondness for taking same sex lovers.
And of course the Romans themselves who's only issue was with whether or not you were on top.
@@TheWasteOfTime You don't know the half of it.
If you can get your hands on the book, "Male Colours," it goes into this in academic detail. Apparently [according to that book], if a duel broke out between samurai, the common folk just assumed it was, "Some male-male affair gone wrong." Because a samurai hitting on someone else's boyfriend could be taken as an insult worthy of a duel. Rejecting another samurai's advances too harshly or rudely, was grounds for a duel [due to the insult to the honor of the rejectee]. Not taking, "I'm flattered, but No thank you," as an answer and continuing to press a fellow samurai who'd rejected you was also a duel-worthy insult.
So yeah.
Basically, I liked to say that if you took your typical 1990s gay club, but everyone was trained in sowrdfighting, and everyone was armed, you'd have … well, a bloodbath, but also shogunate Samurai culture. 😆
“Biggest export is pithy quotes and VIOLENCE”
Classic Mandalore
Take my like you smart bastard 😂
This is the way.
Mandalorians are essentially based on Spartans, they are the Star Wars equivalent.
@esmeecampbell7396 Also like the Jews due to them losing their homeland, being dispersed throughout the galaxy, and trying to reclaim their birthright.
Esmeecambel add in a bit of Prussia (which itself drew a lot of influence from Sparta) and you have a Mandalorian, complete with self-defeating militarism and internet fanboys
Athenians: Those Spartans were a speedbump at Thermopylae and have been coasting on it ever since...
Persians/iran: COAST STUCK, COAST STICK ! PLEASE! I BEG YOU!
Plataea would like a word with you.
I will always remember the idea that you only got a tomb stone in Sparta if you died in battle for the men or if you died during childbirth for the women. Both acts for Sparta and highly valued. The shear x = y of Sparta is hilarious
That simplicity is both the appeal of Sparta and the reason why I now think of the Sparta as the loud “alpha males” of the ancient world. The world is too complicated, let’s kill or enslave it, thus putting it under our control while doing nothing to make us less afraid!
Not really. Women only job was to be a breeding stock.
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl which is why they consider birthing children equal to being a warrior. There's is even a story of Athens woman asking Sparta woman why they have so much freedom, and the responded with refusing sex. To them Spartan women extremely important because without them they wouldn't have people to manage Sparta when the men go to war or have children to inherit the city state
it’s like if a bunch of dudebro Podcasters ran a country
@@wren_. painfully accurate
.... and then centuries later the mighty Sparta became little more than a tourist trap for Roman travellers.
And it frankly deserved worse.
That's basically the best ending they could have gotten unlike the ending of Corinth
The more I learn about Sparta, the more I can't help but think literally the only thing I can truly respect about it is having some kickass one liners.
The more I listen to your and other videos on Greek history and mythology, the more I realize how hilariously misinformed I actually am about said history.
I’d love to see an episode on the history of Georgia! It’s an often overlooked country and it’s an interesting one at that
At least this comment section probably won't think you're talking about the state. ;)
drinking game: take a shot everytime someone raze Georgia.
Yeah, you're gonna want to cover your eyes for the Timurlane section
What's really interesting is that after the Peloponnesian War Sparta's hegemony over Greece only really lasted as long as the Persians were interested in keeping Sparta in charge. When Persia was at war with Sparta 9 years later, they bankrolled the anti-Spartan alliance that started the Corinthian War, the Peloponnesian War's less popular but arguably just as impactful Sequel. The only reason that Sparta won the Corinthian War was because the Persians swapped back to supporting the Spartans after destroying the Spartan navy and realizing that Athens was reclaiming some of the old islands and in a position to potentially rebuild the Delian League with many more allies than the first time around. The resulting "King's Peace" of 387, which was essentially Persia saying "Athens gets a few islands back, but there will be no more leagues or alliances, and Sparta is authorized to enforce this treaty through any means they see fit". After Sparta got wrecked at Leuctra in 371, they were unable to maintain the King's Peace due to the loss of men, material, prestige, and Persian funding because Persia was dealing with it's own issues.
Tbf, Persia always was a player interested in keeping Greek Status Quo and much as we like to claim the Greeks bested the Persians, the greek real victory was that one naval victory and one land victory after a large part of the Persian army already left since the point was to burn down Athen who supported a Rebellion back home.
In other word the Persian succeeded in their original goal and the Greeks bested their multicultural navy and the equivalent of their rear guard.
Really the only reason Greece was never invaded was only just cus the Persians didnt think them worth conquering when they had the most prosperous richer and larger by FAR Empire of the world back then.
Ironically similarly to how Sparta was just so irrelevant the Macedonians didnt really care about them since their land didnt really offer anything worthwhile, the Persians saw the other side of the Egean sea saw for the most part dry and poor land with some fertile places in the north on the edges of the Greek world (Macedonia and Thessalia), who are good traders and great sailors for their best redeeming quality and didnt think it worthwhile compared to stuff like Egypt whose riches surpasses all of Greece by alot.
Can we really fault Sparta for relying on Persian support to succeed when pretty much anyone with Persian supports has enough support to win against any city state?
"They don't care about dying, just losing!" - Juliette Lewis, "The Way of the Gun"
The medieval urge to not eat without entertainment
Aye
Ah, dinner time. Time to call up the digital sages and jesters.
"enslave a whole entire population of helots to farm, we have more time to exercise now" is one of my favourite qoutes from blue now
except the spartans didn't value exercise as they looked down upon athletics and didn't think athletic training was worthy for a soldier. spartan soldiers weren't buff in any way but they were strong because they "trained" in very different ways, like not eating, and surviving with their bare hands. athletic training is for peak performance in a certain time frame while a soldier needs to be ready always. to train for athletics and to be "buff" you need lots of food and rest, spartan soldiers didn't get that, they fed on a sort of gruul and did not get much rest, they did not train but survived and practised tenacity more than any other thing.
Here's a joke for you:
Sisyphus, while doing his punishment in Hades sees Oedipus
Oedipus: What's up Rolling Stones!
Sisyphus: What's up motherf*%er!
Fun Fact: sparta is kinda famous for it army right but it was also a great place for music back in the day as well, it is said that semi-legendary musician terpander held the first first musical contests in sparta and tyrtaeus made elegies for the spartans (both military and political) in war against there enemies
Sparta was a major center of Greek culture before it became stratocratic. I remember Alcman, off the top of my head, as a famous Spartan poet, and Chilon of Sparta was considered to be one of the Seven Sages of archaic Greece.
The worst thing for Sparta? Alexander the Great told them they weren't worth conquering. Ouch
I'm surprised you didn't mention that Blue.
In one of his victory inscriptions, he wrote "Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks, Spartans excluded..."
When Alexander heard of the battle between the Spartans and his viceroy back in Macedon, he said that it was like battling mice.
He had the opportunity to conquer Sparta if he wanted to. Alexander said "if I come down there and conquer you."
The Spartans sent back "if"
Now most likely it was because Sparta had nothing compared to the riches of Persia, but part of me thinks even Alexander believed in that myth of Spartan invincibility a little bit. To rout them in the field when you can outmaneuver them is one thing, to conquer their town where they will all fight to the death rather than surrender is another. Phyrrus' battle hardened veterans and mercenaries couldn't beat Spartan women and teenagers (when all the adult men were out attacking Crete)
@@esmeecampbell7396 That was an exchange of letters with Philip, not Alexander. King Philip first wrote to the Spartans asking them if he should go there as friend or foe, to which they replied "neither". After that he threatened them with destruction if he should go there, to which they replied "if".
Sparta really wasn't worth the trouble back then. Its capacity to lead powerful coalitions had been broken by the Thebans, who also liberated the Messenians, so they weren't much of a threat, and there wasn't much to gain by conquering them either. Sparta only got its act together much later, when it rebranded itself as a revolutionary force for social justice in Greece, under Agis and especially (though more cynically) Cleomenes.
@@Hypernefelos Philip yes, as I said it wasn't worth the risk and losses of trying to take.
Spartans really took Abusive Husbandry to a 10 in their leadership style, huh.
"Abusive" is a good way to describe everything about how Sparta operated, yes. In _every_ sense of the word.
@@Bluecho4 If you're referring to Pederastry then this likely WASN'T pracitced in Sparta. It was a formal Athenian practice for how every tradesman passed on their knowledge. They would teach the young boys how to make pottery or build a house and in return the boy would live with them and provide sexual favours.
However Sparta we don't know, all written history comes from the Athenians, so is heavily biased against Sparta, it makes no mention of it but then it wouldn't because they assumed the practice was normal and acceptable (because to them it was) so the fact Sparta didn't do it probably them think Sparta were the freaks.
The Laws of Lycurgus is really the only Spartan written evidence of any of their laws and it states that "Homosexuality is tantamount to incest or beastility and should be punished with banishment or execution" and Sparta's whole thing was being anti-change UBER Conservative of their own laws and way of life, so change seems unlikely even over the hundreds of years.
Obviously we know from human biology now that it must have occurred to some extent, but we have no idea if it was accepted or not. Perhaps it was permitted to rape Helot boys if you wanted? After all they were "only Helots" (not like they were real people) so maybe it didn't count? But then again maybe the Helots were SO looked down on that having any sexual relations with them was "beastiality" in the eyes of the law because "they weren't real people" (only Helots) we just don't know...
I've heard Sparta compared to an ancient Greek North Korea. This video kinda backs that up.
Adam Conover said that on his show about ruining everything!
Not really. Sparta wasn't a hermit state and before Athenian democracy came along it was actually considered a champion of freedom (Messenia excluded), by helping several Greek cities (Athens included) shake off their tyrannical regimes. Sparta had a lot more soft power than people nowadays generally imagine, and although nominally a (dual) monarchy it was quite democratic within its citizenship restrictions. Athens superseded it in political ideology and so it ended up being seen as a conservative stronghold in the classical Greek order, but I can think of no modern equivalent for it. Maybe if the CSA had won its independence and then much later helped the Allies defeat the Nazis, only to then form a rival alliance to NATO, going to war with it while both sides courted Soviet backing; maybe that would be similar.
Historia Civilis has an interesting video on Sparta in which they evaluate the Spartan mindset, that being of invaders in a hostile land. Really colors a lot of decisions Sparta as a culture made, such as their militarism and general callousness.
Yes, they were sort of a "conquering class" that were not native to the place. It does go a long way toward explaining their behavior.
“Are your principles not engraved in all hearts, and in order to learn your laws is it not enough to go back into oneself and listen to the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions? Let us learn to be satisfied with that, and without envying the glory of those famous men who are immortalized in the republic of letters, let us try to set between them and us that glorious distinction which people made long ago between two great peoples: one knew how to speak well; the other how to act well.”
― Jean-Jacques
An appropriately laconic account of Sparta. 😉
I'm going to drop a Thucydides quote I used for your last ancient Greek history video also. I will just add that not having a bunch of epic stone temples no doubt altered how we perceive Sparta but perhaps the most lasting monument to Athens is not the Parthenon and other stone ruins, but it's literature as touched on in the video.
For I suppose if Lacedaemon [Sparta] were to become desolate, and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies without. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice as great as it is. (The Peloponnesian War, 1.10.2)
Got any thoughts on the comic book series Three by Kieron Gillen? Here's some general info from Wikipedia:
Three has been described as an "equal and opposite response" to the view of Sparta presented by Frank Miller's 300. Gillen was inspired to create the comic when he read 300 and was enraged by its glorification of Sparta as a "free" society despite having a huge slave underclass. He initially intended to portray the Spartans as pure antagonists, as the Persians were in 300. However, while researching for the book he came to the conclusion that the Spartans also suffered under their harsh society and the requirements it placed on them, and became more interested in presenting an objective and historically accurate image of ancient Sparta. Professor Stephen Hodkinson of the University of Nottingham, a leading expert on Sparta, consulted on the book.
“SPARTANS What is your profession?”
“SLAVE HOLDERS!”
IIRC, it was actually illegal for a Spartan citizen to have a profession, and they once disrespected a king for gardening as a hobby because it was too close to real work.
@@jy3n2 “SPARTANS! What is your occasional passtime?!”
“Definitely something that we do for fun, and is definitely not be a job.”
THIS _WAS_ SPARTA
I hope we come to understand Sparta more, because WAY too many people seem keen on replicating the "idealized" version of it.
I partially blame 300 for this.
Don’t forget about how due to the Sparta’s program of training warriors from the age of seven was basically killing the city slowly. Due to how deadly it was Sparta never had a population growth when they started it, it just got smaller and smaller. 😂
Yeah after they’re devastating defeat to Thebes I think they barely had a thousand spartan Citizens, as in the ones trained from 7 to be soldiers. Eventually they just faded back to farmers with no more distinction between them and helots
Would have liked a mention of the «Spartan Heiresses», which is an often overlooked part of the pop-cultural «Macho-Man» image of Sparta: That due inheritance laws favouring widows and daughters (Helot-lands was Public land divided among Spartan Citizens, but Spartan lands was private owned, another common misconception), a small group of Spartan Women owned as much as 30-40% of Spartan land (according to Aristotle), and bought off any land reformers in Sparta, hence giving another explanation to the Spartan Conservative Nature/Stagnation. As such Sparta was known more for their (powerful) women than as individual great warriors: Their martial greatness came from military drills of working together as a unit, enabling their small army to outperform larger but less disciplined armies, not speak of their huge population of Helot Slaves. This in turn explain why the Spartan seldom went on expansionistic wars after the 7th Century (viewing the wars with Persia and Athens as existential wars of defense by approaching enemies), as they were far too concerned by acting as a Ancient KGB against their Slave Helot Population and enjoying their spare time: Since they had their slave to all the manual work, every Spartan Citizen was essentially a Nobleman, who could focus on physical training, hunting and partying, whereas most Hoplites of other cities were more like Militiamen who had to tend their own farms back home.
Thanks for pointing out the brutality of Spartan society. Funny how movies and games praise and idolize them, and carefully fail to mention their brutal enslavement and abuse of the Helots. Other Greek cities had slaves, but the Spartans were in a league of cruelty and terror all their own. IMO Sparta kinda just needed to collapse; their entire existence and way of life was built around that brutality and even obsessed with it. Thankfully the Helots were _eventually_ freed by Thebes, and I can't imagine the joy of that day, finally escaping generations of terror and abuse. Beyond that, I get the impression the Spartans just degraded to the point of irrelevance and were swept up by later militaries as a formality.
I wonder if Sparta's fading into obscurity inspired the line, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
I do feel Blue skipped over what is probably the biggest reason Sparta eventually just faded into a shadow of their former glory, and also a third reason why they were so dependant on their allies. Because as it turns out, tossing your slightly weaker children out of your society has a VERY important effect on the most important metric for ancient success: population growth. Even at the height of their power, the Spartans could muster 10,000 hoplites at best (for example the disastrous Battle of Leuctra), and because of the strict policy of discarding lacking children, every soldier that was lost for Sparta was far more devastating than for other Greek city states, who often had smaller armies and lacked training, but had a bigger pool of population to rebuild that army if it was beaten on the field. And once the Spartans were defeated properly once, they simply could not provide enough fresh blood to refill those ranks, even with their women strong enough to bear more children than the average Greek housewife. In that regard, it is no surprise that almost exactly a century after their dethronement as hegemon of the Greek world by Thebes, the Spartans had to resort to their women taking part in the fight to fend off an invader army from Epirus, and not even a century after that completely losing their independence to the Romans, by then not even playing a major role in the coalitions made by Greek city states anymore.
I thought at their height Sparta could call upon 20k citizens to fight.
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 Depends on what we call ´height´ I guess. As far as I´m aware, the battle of Leuctra featured 10.000 Spartans at the most, and that was right at the tail end of their hegemony period. During the Peloponnesian War, most Spartan armies featured anything between 300 and 3000 men, although often those armies contained allies and helots for a large part. For contrast, the Athenian expedition to Syracuse numbered 5000 hoplites, and later got reinforced with another 5000.
Whatever the true number might be, Sparta heavily relied on their allies and slaves to fill the ranks enough to be equal in number to the Athenians, and once the core of their army was bloodied enough there was no chance to maintain their dominance in the long run.
@@the_tactician9858
Yes, all city-states relied upon their allies. I don’t know if all 10,000 of the Hoplites were strictly Athenians, but it was the norm for the Hegemon to have substantial assistance from their vassal City-states and wasn’t an exclusively Spartan system. To say Sparta couldn’t have remained a great power without their Greek allies is completely true, in the exact same way Rome would have never become a great power without their Italian allies or even Athens without their Aegean allies.
Also, their women had to fight against Epirus because all the men were away on campaign. Sparta had a little bit of a comeback following the collapse of Alexander’s empire but weren’t ever able to rise enough to challenge Macedon.
@@robbomegavlkafenryka6158 Sparta only had 5000 thousand citizens at most
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl that’s just incorrect.
You didn't mention the other big part of Sparta's society the Perioikoi, which were a large number of free non-citizens, that were basically the inhabitants of all the cities in the territory of Sparta that were not Sparta or Amyclae. They weren't citizens, so no voting rights, no veto right in the Peloponese League, but on the other hand they had to obey Spartans leadership and to participate in the army ^^
At least they were free contrary to the Helotes XD
This part of Spartan society grew over time, too. Not because Sparta became more economically prosperous, thus creating a middle class. Oh no. Rather because while it's possible for a voting citizen of Sparta to drop out of being a citizen, for various reasons, there was no legal mechanism for someone to join (or rejoin) the citizen class. Power gradually consolidated into the hands of a shrinking population of citizen-soldiers, as their numbers dwindled and could not be replaced. Sparta's military had to increasingly rely on its non-citizen conscripts to prosecute its wars.
Afaik, it wasn't just Sparta, many people living in Greece were free non-citizens given most/many of the city states had extremely strict/narrow rules about who could be born as a citizen. It's funny how people think of Athens as a democracy when the voting population was a very small percentage of the people who had lived there for generations.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731 Not at all, at first the thetes (athenians owning less than 200 medimnes or 10 400 liters of grain) had a limited political power in the texts of Solon, the creator of athenian democracy, but in 508 BCE, Clisthene another athenian politician made a big reform that abolished all the restrictions of wealth on the highest functions.
The Athenian democracy still only consisted of 15% of the population, because when you exclude the women, and the slaves, there's not much left and they also excluded the strangers, like pretty much any democracy in history ^^
@@krankarvolund7771 Athens limited citizenship to only the children of 2 citizens and who were born in Athens, which therefore led to a large population of people who had lived in Athens for many generations but were still treated as "foreigners". This is unlike Rome which only required 1 citizen parent and it didn't matter where one was born and provided free persons more paths to obtaining citizenship and even slaves could become freed and citizens if they became favored by their masters.
My favorite history channel! The blend of historical accuracy, nuanced takes, and hilarious observations is unmatched!
"Have you ever lost your shield in battle?"
"...I have."
"Then you are a Spartan no more."
"But I threw it at a guy and snapped his neck with it!"
"... Metal. But the rules are the rules."
"It's a SHIELD! The entire point of it is that it takes blows instead of you! Was I supposed to keep carrying it once it had been bashed to splinters?"
"Yes."
You forgot one of the most important cities in Sparta's history: Megalopolis, the city founded as a check on Spartan ambitions that aided in keeping the old Spartan state confined to it's hospice bed.
I was about to give Blue credit for his restraint over NOT making a 300 reference, but then I read the description.
I've never felt more sure that the assassin's Creed franchise is actually a conspiracy led by history teachers to get children to learn about history than I do right at this moment realizing that I know most of this information already because of Odyssey; because it got me interested in the culture and I did additional research on my own. Which seems to be a common thing among assassin's Creed players.
My favourite sparta fact is that the elites were BANNED from even TOUCHING money
Don't forget the Spartans' biggest weakness - they are chronically late. To everything. They were supposed to be at Marathon, they were supposed to have more troops at Thermopylae, but their army can't ever get anywhere on time because they won't march on any of their many, MANY holy days.
That's actually another aspect of Sparta and its reputation - they were considered by many Greeks to be the most religious of the city-states, with the most devotion to the rules and rituals. An interesting mix with their often brutal pragmatism elsewhere.
The most religious of the states... and they still took a huge steamer on the ideas of hospitality and diplomatic immunity with the well-kicking thing.
@@jy3n2 Oh, it is amazing precisely how much 300 attempts to insult anyone who knows actual Greek history. It feels like it had to be deliberate, but I'm still not sure.
Excellent video. Here’s some more fun Sparta stuff:
The period of Sparta’s military dominance lasted about 100 years, which seems a lot. But really isn’t when compared to other ancient cultures. During that time they were impressive their win/loss record was better than the Romans but it was only during that time. Go outside that 100 year period and there’s a distinct decline in effectiveness.
Looking at the works of Xenophon a Greek philosopher who actually lived with and fought beside Spartans there’s evidence that one of the real reasons for their success was less they were the toughest around. And more they’re just the ones who trained in an organized fashion. Their military structure actually had a full array of tanks and chain of command. No one else in Greece had this. This allowed the Spartans to actually maneuver on the battlefield. Most other phalanx battles basically were basically set up at the start and then there was remarkably little control over how the soldiers behaved after. And other city-states learning this and adjusting their militaries is part of the reason for the aforementioned military decline. The Thebans were the first to really implement it and would you look at that, the first major defeat of the entire Spartan army in 100 years at Leuctra. Philip of Macedon would also basically steal the infantry command structure of the Spartans, and added his own improvements to the cavalry that was further tweaked by Alexander.
Another fun thing that famous Spartan outfit of the lambda shield and Corinthian helmet was not even the primary outfit of the Spartans during their period of military hegemony. The lambda shield was only implemented at the tail end of it (after Thermopylae) and not long after that the Corinthian helmet was abandoned for the Phrygian helmet which admittedly looks weirder but allowed easier communication which was good for the Spartans because they’re the army that actually communicated to each other in the battle.
A bit of time in the video was used to discuss how Sparta received aid from Persia during the Peloponnesian War. I think it’s worth noting everyone was trying to get money from Persia in that instance. The Spartans were just more successful than the Athenians, of course they were the Persians hated the Athenians.
But I will point out. The Persians gave the Spartans money for their navy. Because the Persians understood that the Spartans mucking about against the Athenian navy would only weaken the navy but it was unlikely that the very army focused military would ever really expand to become a real naval power.
But the navy was only one problem the Spartans had. Arguably more direct was that the Spartans didn’t have siege equipment to topple the Athenian walls. You know who did? Persia. But the Persians never once gave any aid to Sparta in that department.
I find it fascinating that societies with a level of paranoia with not enough pragmatism to shore up that paranoia become problematic. Sparta so scared of its own image being eroded it made itself less reasonable to its neighbors and allies.
Blue, I have to say, over the past few months you've made me have a new appreciation for ancient history. Keep up the good work!
I took Ancient Greece and Rome in college. I really wish I could’ve gotten more out of it but our teacher’s French accent was so thick, it was hard to understand him. Plus we almost thought he died multiple times throughout the semester lol. The only thing I got out of that class was that Spartan food was terrible and they drank very strong wine lol
Great Video, thanks for your hard work. It’s always a highlight 😊
For those looking for more info on how Sparta's reality differed from the thousands of years of propaganda and myth-making about them, I recommend reading A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry's blog series, "This. Isn't. Sparta.". A thorough examination of how Sparta operated (in a manner that doesn't sugarcoat how utterly awful their society was) and how its reputation developed. All through the lens of contrasting Sparta's popular depictions (most prominently in the film _300_ ) and even many ancient sources, with evidence not ideologically motivated.
i love the maps this episode!! the detail on those coastlines... my hand is cramping up imagining drawing them lol
I just finished Gates of Fire the other day and it occurred to me that I'd never seen an OSP video on Sparta. Then this drops! Woooo!
An excellent book
Always magnificent videos
I did notice the keeping to topic, well done!
i could listen to blue talking greek history for hours, looove his pronounciations of cities especially!
Any other Michigan State alumni/students feeling a skosh uncomfortable after this video? 😅 Though It *did* just dawn on me how massively ironic it is that our best reputation is as an *agricultural* school--the helots get theirs back!
This was really cool, I love your videos.
Great job 👏🏽 as always
The brighter the flame, the quicker it burns out.
If ancient Athens reflected itself on Athena than does everything on Sparta reflects on Ares?
They literally had a statue of Ares chained to the ground in their city as a devotional plea for the spirit of Ares to never leave their city.
Possibly although some of Ares characteristics may have also been a reflection of Greek attitudes towards the Thracians. In greek mythology Ares was born in Thrace and the Thracian tribes are descended from his children with one of his epithets even being "Thrax".
For an idea... the greeks considered the Thracians barbaric, violent, and worst of all... foreign...
Although considering Greece's own penchant for warfare and xenophobia glass houses and all that...
I would love to see you guys do a video on Ares. Just like sparta, he isn't exactly as simple as the stereotypes make him out to be.
Thank you for the video.
Sparta is so interesting! Thanks for the video!
Sparta can be summed up as "Buff because Paranoia"
I love the concise videos, but I can't be the only one who would like to hear Blue just go down the rabbit hole :D
One thing you misrepresented here is that Sparta does not appear to have been normal before the conquest of Messenia, rather the state was already built on the back of Helots, and the Messenians simply let the Spartans collect far more wealth and provided them with far more Helots than they had previously had.
You say four tiny villages, as the map shows five. I am confused. I must know the exact number of villages!!!
From what I can recall, the fifth was added later. At its establishment it was 4.
-B
THIS IS SPARTA!!!!
No THIS IS PATRICK
Wasn't likely, but I still hoped I'd be the first.
Ooh, I know: THIS. IS. OVERLY SPARTAN PRODUCTIONS!
Say the line, Bart!
👏
For everyone interested in Sparta I highly recomment the podcast "Let's talk about Myths, Baby" and her series on Sparta with a ton of expert interviews.
Sparta took Paranoia and said "I like this, let build everything around this"
Needs more Cleomenes and Delphic prophecies.
In conclusion, Laconia is a land of contrasts.
Every CZcamsr talking about Sparta: There were Spartans and there were Helots slave...
The Perioikoi and Mothax: Are we a joke to you?
Pretty massive oversight to not mention the Laconian helots. Also, they never threw babies off cliffs. Leonidas himself had a gammy leg.
Every civilization back at that time did baby abandonment {not necessarily killing} . It wasn't unique to Sparties really
THIS IS AN AWESOME BIRTHDAY GIFT
A video about ancient Greece that ain't a half hour long? Madness, I tell you.
More stuff like this please
new OSP? Im here for it
So I watched the 2+ hour Rome one. Awesome. First recommended is the Minoans. Great! Then each recommended after covers the various stages of ancient to classical Greece including Alexander the Short-Lived! (love your nicknames) This has been a most excellent snow day. Are you going to do a longer Greece Re-Summarized? From the Minoans to the Roman conquest of Greece maybe?
(You know who probably deserves the title "Great" even less than Alexander? Aelfred lol. Whoopdie do you fought of the Great Heathen Army and saved Christendom. Anything sounds cool when you say it like that 😁)
Always love a good Sparta Vibe Check.
0:22 actually I would say they lost the Thermopyles due to a tactical blunder, despite having been put in a superior position by Themistokles. And they didn't really rise to the occasion either. About 10.000 people fought on the Greek side in that battle only about 300 of them from Sparta. Somehow they always seem to have a holy day when the Persiens come knocking.
Still Leonidas got the command of the land troops and he fucked it up while Themistokles was kicking ass at see.
Imagine training your entire life to be the greatest warriors in existence,
only to live in constant fear of, of all things, the slaves that grow your food.
Like those photos you sometimes see of a guy carrying an assault rifle in fully military cosplay while standing in line at a Starbucks.
An image designed to show a fiercesome warrior, but all there stands is a person living in constant fear.
@@Nyst2 True, under what circumstances would they need that much firepower when they are doing something as mundane as buying coffee? That image carries only one message for me: they either live in a bad neighborhood to need it or they believe they live in a "bad" neighborhood they believe they "need" it...
Hi, it's me, /u/Iphikrates! It's great to see my posts become part of the research for such a fun and informative video. Keep up the good work!
If anyone is looking for further reading, there should be an absolutely state-of-the-art new introduction to Sparta out soon(ish) by Stephen Hodkinson, one of the world's most prominent scholars on Spartan history. In the meantime I recommend Nigel Kennell's "Spartans: A New History" (2010).
Famous psychological point of view it does make a whole lot of sense.
I think you’ll like this, Blue (And probably Red, too):
Last night at ADHDnD (we all have ADHD at the very least, by sheer coincidence)
Be me: a Goliath Bear Totem Barbarian with 20 STR at level 3
Be not me: two tiefling rogues (one of which has wings), a warlock with questionable morality, a Sorc, a necromancer that only the Sorc knows is an Aasimar, a homebrew alchemically gene-spliced dragon, and a healbot halfling cleric
Campaign is lost mines of phandelver
We’re going after the orcs of Wyvern Torr after being hired by both Phandalin and Hamun Kost
True to form, a quarter of the party wandered away while we were discussing what to do with the two guard orcs out front of the cave
Another quarter went to go babysit the aforementioned quarter
Paradoxically, the rogue that went to go babysit the dragon ended up shooting one of the orcs anyway
The warlock went and looked into the upper cave entrance without even trying to hide, thus announcing our presence to the boss Orc and the ogre while we were trying to take out the guards quietly
Me, hearing the alarm horn and knowing they were about to have a whole cave-full of orcs descend upon the party, as a player recall the overall strategy used by the Spartans at Thermopylae and instructed the party to find a way to block the cave entrance so they can only come out one-by-one. The entrance couldn’t be collapsed quickly, but there were some dead logs, so the Sorc suggested lighting them on fire, and the necromancer did so
I proceeded to rip two large trees out of the ground with my bear *cough* I mean, bare hands and add them to the fire, temporarily blocking the cave entrance…
With a Hot Gate.
Blue please do a 2 hour video explaining why Lycurgus was the smartest coolest person to ever live
Do Lisbon next
Luckily the few people I've met who sing Sparta's praises, know little about the city past what's in the movie 300.
Still mildly concerning though.
Could have mentioned that Sparta's strength came from simply being larger than the neighbors: their performatively-manly slave society could only compete because of economy of scale.
The best testament to the strength of the Spartan system came after centuries of maintaining it had left them not even in the top 10 of Mediterranean powers.
The final punchline came when a reformist king tried to restore Sparta to greatness. Their enemies, having defeated them, could think of way better to declaw Sparta than to forcibly restore the traditional Spartan constitution.
haha, having just played Odyssey, 2:50 jumped out at me, lol Such a beautiful game. I want to get the DLC and play through Atlantis.
Thanks for information of spartan
I've picked up a few other fascinating tidbits about the Spartans.
The problem with the Helots was that they were Greek. Greeks weren't supposed to enslave other Greeks; Greeks were meant to be free. The Spartans never forgot that, and they were afraid the Helots hadn't either.
Spartan "cities" didn't have walls because nobody builds walls to protect mud huts.
A third weakness the Spartans had in battle was no ranged weapons. Bows and javelins were women's weapons, not fit to be used by men. Men fought hand to hand. Eventually, the other Greeks figured out how to use this to their advantage.
Spartan girls received the same training as the boys. They didn't hire out as mercenaries, though, because they were needed at home to keep the Helots from rebelling.
Women in Sparta were treated differently than women in other Greek cities because they had proved they were willing to die for Sparta. According to legend, the Spartans were losing a war, and were backed up to their wall-less city. In the morning, the enemy would conquer the city. The men told the women to flee, because they were afraid of what the enemy would do to the women after the men were killed. Instead, the women showed up with shovels and axes and hoes. Screw fleeing, they told the men, this is our city too, and we're not giving it up. Together with the men, they built defensive earthworks. 4 hours before dawn, they told the men to go, sleep so you are prepared for battle, and we will finish. In the morning, the enemy attacked and found the Spartans better prepared than they should have been. The Spartans won. Unlike what usually happens, the Spartan men remembered this.
Spartan women were beautiful, and fit. They exercised, and competed against each other in sports. They were called "thigh flashers", because they wore either dresses slit up the sides to the thigh, or they wore short tunics more typically worn by boys and young men. There was a good reason they were proud of their legs. A favorite competition among women was to see who could last the longest jumping up and touching their heels to their buttocks.
Sparta was considered the embodiment of Greek ideals, even if the other Greeks didn't aspire to adhere to them. One story demonstrating this took place during the Olympic games. Each city had its own section in the stands. (You weren't required to sit with your city, it was just to make it easy to find other people from your city.) An old man was trying to find a place to sit, but was having trouble finding a seat. The proper thing to do would be to make room for him, but everyone he approached jeered him and pushed him away. As he went from section to section, it seemed to get worse. Until he got to the Spartan section. Together, the Spartans stood and offered him a seat anywhere he wanted. The other Greeks applauded.
Is there a place where I can look at more of the art you used? I have no idea how to google ancient greek paintings...
This good.👍
I already kinda forgot about the n't meme, so the Shipn't threw me for a loop lol