Sayings of Spartan women • Hacker News Board

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#41

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

herio wrote: post #7

On the topic of Spartan societey in general, a really good read is https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ by Dr. Bret Deveraux. Long read but well worth it for interested people.

It is a very interesting series. However, I think he understates classic Spartan military prowess.

If you look at Deveraux's list of military victories and defeats, you will see a lot of the defeats came after the Peloponnesian war. I believe even Greek sources talked about how Spartan society became softer after winning the Peloponnesian war.

Also, the Spartans were famous for their army not their navy.

If you take the list and remove naval battles and battles fought after the Peloponnesian War, you end up with something like 12 victories and 4 defeats with is a 75% win rate which is likely pretty impressive all things considered.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#42

Post by gadders » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

ianbicking wrote: post #20

herio wrote: post #7

On the topic of Spartan societey in general, a really good read is https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ by Dr. Bret Deveraux. Long read but well worth it for interested people.

Great series! I came out with the feeling that the Spartans were like the genteel Antebellum plantation owners of Greece: seemingly noble and stoic, but in reality terribly cruel, corrupted, and decadent.

I always thought the tactics of the Krypteia against the helots looked similar to the KKK.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#43

Post by lelandfe » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

herio wrote: post #7

On the topic of Spartan societey in general, a really good read is https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/ by Dr. Bret Deveraux. Long read but well worth it for interested people.

Been meaning to turn this one into a PDF to read on the train.

I wonder if he's ever considered publishing that or some of his other long reads. A low estimate has This Isn't Sparta at 130 pages. Images take that higher.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#44

Post by sto_hristo » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

The essential philosophy of Sparta: Survival of the fittest.

I guess they needed more fitness then.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#45

Post by mountainb » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #4

Hm, all most all of them are horrible. It's so impressive to me that we still proclaim Sparta as something worthwhile of praise when it was an awful inhumane culture and society that didn't even last that long.

Sparta's the model for Thomas More's Utopia.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#46

Post by at_a_remove » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

orange_joe wrote: post #16

It’s worth mentioning that Spartan women held huge amounts of wealth due to the violence within their society (men’s wealth would be inherited by their wives who would then remarry). According to Aristotle (who is very biased) the women lived lives of luxury. The point of this is that the women who extol the violence of men have a material self interest in the deaths of their men (minimally as a class, potentially in…

Their sayings do have a rather "disposable" view of their sons. I suppose it is the equivalent of that loathsome White Feather movement, which had a too-significant overlap with the Suffragettes of the time.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#47

Post by Taywee » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

intrepidhero wrote: post #6

An awful lot of those sayings are extolling "willingness to commit violence" as a virtue. That's not the sort of society I think we should emulate.

Who is suggesting we emulate it? Can't things just be interesting historically?

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#48

Post by sto_hristo » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

platz wrote: post #24

kleiba wrote: post #2

...and then there's Schopenhauer: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/483552-the-cheapest-sort-of...

> a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen seems like an overstep

Not quite that much according to my observations. All the nationalists where i'm from are bunch of literal morons that can't do much useful things beyond clenching fists and shouting $country greatest in the world, everyone other country run by little girl.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#49

Post by refurb » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

xgb84j wrote: post #33

emadabdulrahim wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it depends on the context? Defending an elderly from assault or protecting one's family from a reckless person is violence in the name of virtue.

While violence is sometimes justified, I think it's still better to build a society that tries to solve its problems without violence or prevents problems that can only be solved with violence. When you have reckless people attacking the elderly you need better psychological healthcare and a better social system to prevent that. I understand your point and in a narrow context it's definitely true, but in a larger con…

What about the people that are violent, not because of mental illness, but because well, they want to cause others pain?

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#50

Post by new_guy » Thu, Sep 09, 2021, 3:19 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #36

platz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a man is proud of his own nation, it argues that he has no qualities of his own of which he can be proud; otherwise he would not have recourse to those which he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen seems like an overstep

Schopenhauer is one of history's biggest assholes, it's like his whole thing. No one liked him even when he was alive.

You'd be an asshole too if no-one liked you.