Spartans weren’t super warriors. “Part of this, to be fair, is about time – tactical sophistication increases quite a bit from 500 to 50 B.C. But that’s the thing about judging the Spartans – the claim is often not “they… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part VI: Spartan Battle
Having an assembly does not mean you have democracy. “I want to note this up front because it is important to recognize that the existence of a popular assembly does not make a Greek polis a democracy, nor does the… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta, Part V: Spartan Government
Paradoxically, this has lead to their downfall. “First, we need to reiterate that a ‘poor’ spartiate was still quite well off compared to the average citizen in many Greek poleis – we talk about ‘poor’ spartiates the same way we… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part IV: Spartan Wealth
Poor people are often extremely clever. “peasants, male and female, are canny survivors, not idiots, and they plan for these things (seriously, far too many of my students seem to instinctively fall into the trap of assuming serfs, peasants, etc.… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part III: Spartan Women
Sparta was strange even for its times. “I want to open by stressing just how insane the previous statement is, that helots made up not only a simple majority of the human beings living under the Spartan state, but in… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part II: Spartan Equality
It was worse than in the movie. “This is perhaps the most glaring way that 300 sugar-coats the agoge. In the film, Leonidas graduates by slaying a wolf that was hunting him. But it is almost certain that the real… Read More »Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part I: Spartan School
Not how you think.
Do not drink raw milk.
Explains a lot behavior of older people in societies that were agrarian quite recently, like Slovakia. “eyes are always watching and these are societies which expect the individual to place the community first, with individuals valued to the degree that… Read More »Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part V: Life In Cycles
It’s like taxes. You work huge part of the year to feed someone else. “from the perspective of everyone who isn’t our peasants is that if the peasantry only does the amount of agricultural labor necessary to subsist themselves and… Read More »Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVc: Rent and Extraction