I was surprised to learn spartan society had pedophilia built in similar to a mentor system. Will Durant wrote about it, but I never hear anything in pop culture except the warrior bit.
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Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
41–50 of 135 posts
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a source that dives more into this? Specifically breaking down how they weren't actually more effective, contrary to what might be considered common belief.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28711149 Specifically, part VI and VII of that series. > In short: Sparta’s overall military performance is profoundly average over the Classical period. They don’t even manage a winning record! > It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how eff…
Seems similar to the US military in conflicts after WWII.
Better equiped? check
Better trained? check
Winning record? nope
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but... ...the analysis of one historian is just that. But the analysis of many historians is more likely to be true, and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Certainly more likely to be true than a popular conception primarily driven by comic books, Hollywood films, and popularizations written by non-historians. It's also worth looking at the historian's analysis, and questio…
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
That doesn't make anti consensus opinion right by definition. In case I am not part of the experts in any given field, I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. And looking back at history, the scientific consensus is changing all the time. Quite often with the obsolete one staying on as a pop cultural trope.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but... ...the analysis of one historian is just that. But the analysis of many historians is more likely to be true, and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Certainly more likely to be true than a popular conception primarily driven by comic books, Hollywood films, and popularizations written by non-historians. It's also worth looking at the historian's analysis, and questio…
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
I think I'll consider consensus among historians as having more credibility than mythology developed for movies and comic books.
And even if the consensus opinion is wrong, that doesn't make the non-consensus opinion correct, it just makes it another unverified, poorly-sourced possibility.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Helots of Sparta were ritually slaughtered every year by the Spartanite upper-class. That was how one graduated from the Crypteia "school" of Sparta and became a man. And needless to say: when the Helots weren't part of a ritual slaughter by the upper class, they were looked down upon, distrusted, and scapegoated as the ills of Spartan society. Beatings of the Helots were ritual in nature: Helots didn't need to d…
> Hard to have time for poetry if you didn't have time in your youth to even learn how to read / write. The Illiad and Oddyssey were composed and passed down by illiterate bards. Epic poetry has always been a fundamentally oral thing. For examples of this see Serbian epic poetry > Many of the epics are about the era of the Ottoman occupation of Serbia and the struggle for the liberation. With the efforts of ethnograp…
>Epic poetry has always been a fundamentally oral thing.
Which makes it ripe for editorial changes whether intentional or not. Even if it was eventually canonized in print, it's still based on the recollections of generational hearsay.
Most of history must be read with large grains of salt
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but... ...the analysis of one historian is just that. But the analysis of many historians is more likely to be true, and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Certainly more likely to be true than a popular conception primarily driven by comic books, Hollywood films, and popularizations written by non-historians. It's also worth looking at the historian's analysis, and questio…
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, statistical analysis of their victories and defeats. It's an excellent book. I'd recommend it.
Are the battle outcomes fair comparisons? What if they had great warriors but poor decision makers? Could they have fought poorly matched battles for the sake of conserving resources, etc? I don’t care about Sparta one way or another. But simply “looking at numbers” can be deceiving.
Does it matter, though? A loss is a loss. It doesn't matter if they lost because their warriors were weak, or if their leaders were poor strategists. They still lost, and a big part of the mythos around Sparta (at least to me) is that they were a city of strong warriors who won most of their battles.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
That doesn't make anti consensus opinion right by definition. In case I am not part of the experts in any given field, I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. And looking back at history, the scientific consensus is changing all the time. Quite often with the obsolete one staying on as a pop cultural trope.
>I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus.
Good thing Copernicus didn't follow this line of thinking. Anytime someone comes up against group think, there is always the resistance against it. It's only natural. Being willing to listen to the unpopular opinion to at least evaluate it before dismissing it out of hand is what separates science. It is the responsibility of the "dissident" to persuade and show evidence. People should not switch beliefs willy-nilly.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
I think I'll consider consensus among historians as having more credibility than mythology developed for movies and comic books. And even if the consensus opinion is wrong, that doesn't make the non-consensus opinion correct, it just makes it another unverified, poorly-sourced possibility.
>more credibility than mythology developed for movies
Mythology was around way before movies and comics. It was the standard/accepted set of beliefs.
Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but... ...the analysis of one historian is just that. But the analysis of many historians is more likely to be true, and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Certainly more likely to be true than a popular conception primarily driven by comic books, Hollywood films, and popularizations written by non-historians. It's also worth looking at the historian's analysis, and questio…
>and the consensus of the entire field, held for decades, is even more likely. Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat, and the sun was a god being pulled through the heavens in a chariot of fire. So, sometimes consensus isn't right either. Just a bunch of people agreeeing because it is the path of least resistance.
I mean, you're quite right.
It's true that historians have been talking about the myth of spartan excellence for over a century, with one of the key works being Le Mirage Spartiate, published 1933.
It's true that there is extensive scholarship analysing what is (and is not) known about Sparta and the Spartiates, and it's not positive for the Spartans.
It's true than Sparta has very few defenders among professional historians, in large part because the historical record to support such a defence is so limited.
And it's certainly true that despite all that, the consensus could be wrong! As you note, other consensus views have been shown to be wrong and have been overturned. But what is also true is that doing so took evidence.
Such evidence was readily available for showing that, eg, the earth is not the center of the universe, the sun does not revolve around the earth, and the earth is not flat. Such evidence is not going to be readily available about Sparta. We're talking about things that occurred ~2500 years ago; and in truth we likely have the bulk of all the evidence we'll ever have about Sparta. All that's left is to interpret it, and such interpretations seem fairly clear cut.
I wouldn't hold my breath for a major re-assessment.