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Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#71

Post by derstander »

dylan604 wrote: post #40
Lazare wrote: post #39

Earlier 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.

> Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat

I think it’s important to distinguish between the widely held beliefs of a populace as a whole and the widely held beliefs of experts in a field. I’ll leave aside the point that fields have often gotten narrower as they have gotten deeper. But I will point out that Aristarchus of Samos posited a heliocentric model since some time between 300 and 200 BC and Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the circumference of the earth to within the order of 1% error at roughly similar times.

A tangent: is it important what the widely held beliefs of members of Aristarchus and Eratosthenes society believed? I’m not sure. Many members of their society didn’t have access to information or skills that would let them come to these more accurate conclusions. And if they did, there’s nothing particularly actionable for them; imagine a farmer: is knowing the earth isn’t the center of the solar system something that could help them more efficiently grow crops? In this sense, the truth doesn’t have any direct value for them whereas there are potential negative social implications for minority beliefs.

But bottom line: it’s not about consensus itself; it’s about consensus evolving as the most likely scenario given the data available. People in a field will generally have access to more information and the tools to integrate that information into hypotheses than the population as a whole. But certainly experts can still get things wrong. I would just tend to expect better from them than the populace as a whole.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#72

Post by dylan604 »

derstander wrote: post #71
dylan604 wrote: post #40

Earlier 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.

> Yes, but at one point, the widely held belief was that the earth was the center of the universe, the earth itself was flat I think it’s important to distinguish between the widely held beliefs of a populace as a whole and the widely held beliefs of experts in a field. I’ll leave aside the point that fields have often gotten narrower as they have gotten deeper. But I will point out that Aristarchus of Samos posited…

It seems that the fact that Capernicus, the expert of his field(s), and his facts were held in such low regard that he was imprisoned for going against the current group think of what was true.

It doesn't matter how expert one is when the "truth" directly contradicts the established "truth" of populace belief. If populace beliefs are greater than the "truth" (or those who speak them) being proposed, "truth" gets subjugated to the basement level prisons.

To an extent, we are seeing this play out today

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#73

Post by gremloni »

ldbooth wrote: post #15

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.

It’s a little hard to believe all the men were gay. Is being gay a choice?

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#74

Post by gremloni »

igorkraw wrote: post #14
anonporridge wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

A sister comment linked to this wonderful takedown of the brutal misery that was Sparta https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

If all men were gay then is being gay a choice? Serious question.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#75

Post by stefs »

gremloni wrote: post #74
igorkraw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sister comment linked to this wonderful takedown of the brutal misery that was Sparta https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

If all men were gay then is being gay a choice? Serious question.

where do you get the idea that all men were gay? and no, being gay is not and never was a choice. one can have sex with people (of the same sex) even when they're not attracted to them but that doesn't make them gay.

counterpoint: a lesbian is able to have sex with a man but that doesn't make her straight either.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#76

Post by faeriechangling »

gremloni wrote: post #74
igorkraw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sister comment linked to this wonderful takedown of the brutal misery that was Sparta https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

If all men were gay then is being gay a choice? Serious question.

If all men are gay, it is practically impossible for that to have happened as a result of voluntary choice.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#77

Post by Jensson »

ceejayoz wrote: post #13
anonporridge wrote: post #8

Earlier 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…

Sparta at its peak was 10-20 times smaller than Athens. With such a huge population difference you'd expect Sparta to not even put up a fight, but they did and often won and took over large parts of Greece. So to me it is strange to say that the spartan people didn't punch above its weight militarily. If they didn't nobody would have written about them since they were just another small town in Greece.

The problem with Sparta was their inability to incorporate other people into their culture. An example of a warrior tribe very similar to Sparta but did properly incorporate new cultures is Rome, and they conquered the entire Mediterranean that way. We would probably have called it "The great Spartan Empire" if Sparta was a bit different.

Edit: I think the "myth" part was that Spartan warriors were any better than others elite soldiers. They weren't. But they fielded a disproportionally large amount of elite warriors for their size. Rome did the same, and made their new territories also adopt that culture, which allowed them to just expand and expand.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#78

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

dendriti wrote: post #70
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you link is the worst kind of telling of history: overflowing with bias, preaching and pontificating and making moral judgments left and right about things that happenned more than 2000 years ago. It is an internet rant, designed to provoke clicks and outrage, and its only reason of existence is the existence of the film, 300, a fantasy, that presents a fantastical image of Sparta, that the author then pr…

None of those are "history" in the sense of academic historical text looking at primary sources. They were all written with agendas, none of which were "document the historical reality of the Spartans".

Really? Herodotus, "the father of history" is not history?

Anyway, I suppose I shouldn't be pessimistic and take your one comment as an indication that a random blog post on the internet is treated as a more authoritative source than the original texts from which it -ultimately, though evidently indirectly- draws its information.

Edit:

>> They were all written with agendas, none of which were "document the historical reality of the Spartans".

How do you think we know the "historical reality of Sparta"? And do you think you will find that "documented" in a blog post?

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#79

Post by distances »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #56
bennylope wrote: post #3

If you like this there's a meaty seven part blog series by historian Bret Devereaux about the mythology surrounding Sparta. It offers an account of what Sparta and the Spartan military was really like as well as how the Spartan mythos evolved. https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

The article you link is the worst kind of telling of history: overflowing with bias, preaching and pontificating and making moral judgments left and right about things that happenned more than 2000 years ago. It is an internet rant, designed to provoke clicks and outrage, and its only reason of existence is the existence of the film, 300, a fantasy, that presents a fantastical image of Sparta, that the author then pr…

> And so on. Read history; and make up your own mind.

I'm of the opinion that this "do your own research" is generally bad advice. One person can be expert in a very limited number of fields, and one of the main advantages of our modern society is that we can afford to have experts in very niche areas.

It's much better to recognize who are the actual experts in any given subject, and read their output / follow their advice. Even historians have very limited specialties; someone who's expert of the ancient Greece would restrain from commenting authoritatively on renaissance topics.

Everyone can read the source material on history/medicine/astronomy/whatever for their enjoyment. Absolutely nobody should think they understand the topic better than someone who has dedicated their professional career on it. Outside of your slimmest core competence you are just another hobbyist with very flawed understanding.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#80

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ceejayoz wrote: post #64
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article you link is the worst kind of telling of history: overflowing with bias, preaching and pontificating and making moral judgments left and right about things that happenned more than 2000 years ago. It is an internet rant, designed to provoke clicks and outrage, and its only reason of existence is the existence of the film, 300, a fantasy, that presents a fantastical image of Sparta, that the author then pr…

These authors and their works are all cited and discussed in the series. Some of the authors you cite even bash each other; Thucydides calls Herodotus a bit of a fabulist.

I don't care about that. Above, I suggest to read up on the original sources and make up your mind, rather than consuming someon else's opinions, then spreading them across the internets as if they're some kind of holy fact. Do you have any objection to that? Read the origional sources. Do you disagree with that suggestion?
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