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Sayings of Spartan women

penelope.uchicago.edu

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Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#101

Post by brazzy »

marcosdumay wrote: post #54
dustintrex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the 5% of Spartan women who were full citizens, perhaps. However, Sparta was an extremely unequal society, with some 85% either slaves or helots (also slaves, but owned by the state, not individuals).

Well, that goes for every commentary on ancient societies. Unless it's explicitly about slaves and outcasts, it's about the at most 10% of the society that wasn't. At some point the Romans got more people to participate on their society, but that's centuries after any of that.

> Unless it's explicitly about slaves and outcasts, it's about the at most 10% of the society that wasn't.

This is absolutely not true. Pretty much no other society in history actually held more than 80% of the population enslaved like Sparta did. Rome certainly never did, nor did the other Greek states of the era.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#102

Post by DFHippie »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #89
jacknews wrote: post #30

The Spartan culture perished.

How many cultures from that era still remain? I'm thinking Jewish culture (though it's not monolithic), that's about the only one I can think of whose customs, traditions, etc. still remain today.

The Zoroastrians and Buddhists as well. Perhaps the Yazidis should be counted in that number as well. And certain elements of aboriginal cultures -- I'm thinking of the Rainbow Serpent -- go back tens of thousands of years.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#103

Post by rsynnott »

ianbicking wrote: post #85
kybernetikos wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had been thinking about fantasy stories and what the maximumly evil evil empire you could write in a story and still have it somewhat believable. After reading that, I think Sparta is probably it, if not a little beyond it.

Honestly a lot of colonial rule feels pretty awful too, and with a similar flavor. Yet something about Sparta seemed worse. Maybe because they maintained a kind of stability of oppression for so long, or maybe it's my own biases and the fact that oppressed and oppressor were both white and more-or-less of the same culture. Or is it inevitable that this kind of oppression also must be supported by ideologically denigr…

> Yet something about Sparta seemed worse.

Very few other slave societies _had kids ritualistically kill the slaves as part of their education_ (there's maybe some wiggle room on whether this actually happened or was mythical, but it's _definitely_ part of the popular view), so there's that.

Sparta was also an oddity just in the sheer size of the slave class; under 5% of the population was fully free. Few if any other slave societies had that sort of ratio.

> That is, did the Spartan ruling class look down on the helots as not just inferior but alien?

Yes; they were 'foreigners' (they were originally, at least mythically, inhabitants of a neighboring city state). They also had a separate discriminated class for Spartans who'd been stripped of civil rights; these weren't viewed as the same.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#104

Post by inglor_cz »

fouc wrote: post #10

> Being asked by a woman from Attica, "Why is it that you Spartan women are the only women that lord it over your men," she said, "Because we are the only women that are mothers of men."

> When a foreigner made advances in a mild and leisurely way, she pushed him aside, saying, "Get away from here, you who cannot play a woman's part either!"

This, on the other hand, would offend a lot of contemporary sensibilities.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#105

Post by hutzlibu »

fishtoaster wrote: post #84
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very biased article that is playing up all the aspects of Spartan society that modern audiences would find repulsive for internet likes. At the end of the day it is not unlike the film it criticises (300) except it's going all the way to the other end and painting a portrait of a grim, evil empire. It is good to keep in mind that pretty much all ancient societies had norms and customs that we find repulsive…

Iirc that series addresses this critique in some depth, pointing out that sparta was particularly awful even by the standards of other greek states. Another interesting bit was how it's historically rare for slave-owning societies to have more than 50% of their population enslaved. Since sparta was closer to 80% enslaved people, they relied on particularly brutal methods to keep down the regular slave revolts, making…

The implications of 80% enslaved people are indeed very harsh.

Which makes this

"painting a portrait of a grim, evil empire."

quite accurate.

I cannot find much noble ideals in the "glorious" spartans.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#106

Post by estaseuropano »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #66
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.

That is a very biased article that is playing up all the aspects of Spartan society that modern audiences would find repulsive for internet likes. At the end of the day it is not unlike the film it criticises (300) except it's going all the way to the other end and painting a portrait of a grim, evil empire. It is good to keep in mind that pretty much all ancient societies had norms and customs that we find repulsive…

I read the entire series and can't agree with your assessment at all. Yes he was very critical of Spartan society, but I feel he very clearly demonstrates through various sources why he has these views, e.g. highlighting that most of what we hear, see and might admire about Sparta is true only for 3% of the population (spartiates), while the vast majority are lower classes and in particular slaves (helots). And even those 'good things' might not be true.

I'd be interested where you disagree on substance.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#107

Post by hutzlibu »

inglor_cz wrote: post #78
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He recently appeared in the EconTalk podcast and its worth hearing too (will find the link). But they touched on Sparta and the thing that struck me was just how unequal - something like 5% or less of the population of Sparta (and it was a big state by Greek standards), only 5% were "free" - everyone else was a Slave. The level of violence to stop that becoming an uncontrolled uprising must have been huge.

Modern Gulf emirates have a similar ratio of citizens to guest workers. Western profesionnals are treated with respect, but manual workers from India or Philippines are basically slaves in everything but name. How the history repeats itself, this time among hi-tech skyscrapers.

When the gangsters keep the papers of the workers, the lines do indeed get blurry.

But it is still quite a difference between exploiting someone weaker and actually owning a person and be legally able to do anything with him or her.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#108

Post by rsynnott »

marcosdumay wrote: post #54
dustintrex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the 5% of Spartan women who were full citizens, perhaps. However, Sparta was an extremely unequal society, with some 85% either slaves or helots (also slaves, but owned by the state, not individuals).

Well, that goes for every commentary on ancient societies. Unless it's explicitly about slaves and outcasts, it's about the at most 10% of the society that wasn't. At some point the Romans got more people to participate on their society, but that's centuries after any of that.

Sparta's demographic makeup was deeply weird even for the time. There's a decent summary here: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/23/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p... (tl;dr: >95% of people in Sparta were some sort of underclass, almost all slaves. By contrast, about 60% of people in Athens were an underclass, of which 70% slaves)

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#109

Post by inglor_cz »

hutzlibu wrote: post #107
inglor_cz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern Gulf emirates have a similar ratio of citizens to guest workers. Western profesionnals are treated with respect, but manual workers from India or Philippines are basically slaves in everything but name. How the history repeats itself, this time among hi-tech skyscrapers.

When the gangsters keep the papers of the workers, the lines do indeed get blurry. But it is still quite a difference between exploiting someone weaker and actually owning a person and be legally able to do anything with him or her.

I would say that one is de facto slave if their superiors can rape or kill them without legal repercussions.

Re: Sayings of Spartan women

#110

Post by motohagiography »

Given the alternative to prevailing militarily was typically slavery or dispersement and homogenization into the conquering society, I can see why these ideas were treated as important. As a proxy for meaning now? Spartan myths and ideals are a fun mythology and aesthetic for some and a straw man for others, so any discussion in the present is going to play out on party lines.
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