Why is/was Sparta so admired?

[Japhy]

Interesting. I think you'll soon tell me why the Thermopylae werea great Greek victory.

While the force that remained on the field was obliterated the fact that a Spartan King had died, along with the rear guard of men including all of his own guard cemented the Alliance. Most Greek States had already offered allegiance or were attempting Neutrality in the face of the Persian Invasion. Those states that were fighting, besides Sparta Athens and Plataea, were putting out feelers and having internal debates about giving up. Unlike Stalingrad the defeat at Thermopylae actually wound up strengthening the Greek will to fight and showed the member states of the Alliance that everything wasn't lost. It showed that the Spartans were serious about sticking it out, which was critical after they'd missed Marathon a decade before and because earlier attempts to form a united army to block the Persians further north had fallen apart. It was a gambit that paid off and lay the work for the fight to continue even after the fall of Athens.

 

[Skallagrim]

While the force that remained on the field was obliterated the fact that a Spartan King had died, along with the rear guard of men including all of his own guard cemented the Alliance. Most Greek States had already offered allegiance or were attempting Neutrality in the face of the Persian Invasion. Those states that were fighting, besides Sparta Athens and Plataea, were putting out feelers and having internal debates about giving up. Unlike Stalingrad the defeat at Thermopylae actually wound up strengthening the Greek will to fight and showed the member states of the Alliance that everything wasn't lost. It showed that the Spartans were serious about sticking it out, which was critical after they'd missed Marathon a decade before and because earlier attempts to form a united army to block the Persians further north had fallen apart. It was a gambit that paid off and lay the work for the fight to continue even after the fall of Athens.

This is complete revisionism that has next to nothing to do with what actually happened. The idea was that Greek forces should hold at both Thermopylae and Artemisium. The strategy failed when the Persians found a way to outflank Leonidas and his forces, which caused the Greek fleet to withdraw at Artemisium. It was not seen as a victory, but as a defeat and a failure of the envisioned strategy. There is no evidence that this defeat - which was only turned into a heroic myth later - motivated anyone to start getting all patriotic. Quite the opposite; there was widespread fear that this was the end for Greece. The defeat had allowed the Persians to conquer Boeotia and Attica.

It was only the supreme mastery and cool-headed determination of Themistokles that allowed the Greeks to rally, and lure the Persian fleet into the Straits of Salamis-- where they destroyed the enemy and turned the tide. This and only this allowed Greece to regroup and ultimately re-engage (and defeat) the Persians on land. If we were to honour the true achievements of those days, we'd certainly call Leonidas brave beyond compare. But to say that his actions saved Greece and rallied the Greeks? Nonsense. That was Themistokles, who deserves the greater share of honour.

 

[Don Quijote]

The 400 Thebans at Thermopylae all died, yes. So did the 700 Thespians.

The Thespians and Spartans were all killed together. The Thebans made a separate stand a short distance away, and although most were killed, a number did surrender and were enslaved by the Persians.

 

[edvardas]

South Africa recently had a culture very similar to Sparta. Plus they were more intellectual and did not look down so much on trade. So why did didn't people admire South Africa like the philosophers admired Sparta?

 

[Tripledot]

South Africa recently had a culture very similar to Sparta. Plus they were more intellectual and did not look down so much on trade. So why did didn't people admire South Africa like the philosophers admired Sparta?

Probably because it existed in the 1980s, not 400 B.C.

I would have first thought of the American South when thinking of cultures that admired and tried to emulate Sparta, anyway. The antebellum South did have its fair share of Northern admirers, and the myth of the noble Southern gentry was perpetuated until way after the South was trounced in the Civil War.

 

[edvardas]

Short story: Sparta was and continues to be romanticised. This is inevitable: we always romanticise (parts of) the past to some degree. But consider that even the ancient aristocrats and oligarchs who admired Sparta mostly admired the idea of Sparta. They looked back at the story of Leonidas and the Three Hundred, they looked at the legend of undefeated Sparta-- at its dedication, its courage-- and they romaticised that. Even a total Sparta fanboy like Kimon never actually wanted to turn Athens into a second Sparta, where all children are basically raised by the state to become soldiers etc.

What these admirers want, what they like so much, is that Sparta was perceived as somehow being "pure". They excluded non-Spartans from civic fuctions at all costs; they remained dedicated completely to their ideal of what sparta should be. In theory, this can be admired by anyone who tends to a certain conservatism. Especially since many people are often worried about the decline of their own country/polis/society. A man like Kimon looks at Athens, sees the threat of "mob rule" in the democratic reforms, and holds up Sparta as an example of true virtue. But the picture he paints isn't the real thing.

The truth, as others have noted, is the exact desire for "purity", and the rigid unwillingness to change or compromise, is what caused the ultimate end of Sparta. Anyone who looks critically at it will soon see that Sparta carried the seeds of its own decline. The only people who still uncritically admire Sparta either hold up the romanticised caricature painted by earlier admirers... or they're the kind of people who actually think the true Spartan model (with is highly exclusive citizenship on an ethnic basis, its rigid class distinctions, its eugenics, its forced military education, its vast serf underclass etc.) is a good idea.

Short story: Sparta was and continues to be romanticised. This is inevitable: we always romanticise (parts of) the past to some degree. But consider that even the ancient aristocrats and oligarchs who admired Sparta mostly admired the idea of Sparta. They looked back at the story of Leonidas and the Three Hundred, they looked at the legend of undefeated Sparta-- at its dedication, its courage-- and they romaticised that. Even a total Sparta fanboy like Kimon never actually wanted to turn Athens into a second Sparta, where all children are basically raised by the state to become soldiers etc.

What these admirers want, what they like so much, is that Sparta was perceived as somehow being "pure". They excluded non-Spartans from civic fuctions at all costs; they remained dedicated completely to their ideal of what sparta should be. In theory, this can be admired by anyone who tends to a certain conservatism. Especially since many people are often worried about the decline of their own country/polis/society. A man like Kimon looks at Athens, sees the threat of "mob rule" in the democratic reforms, and holds up Sparta as an example of true virtue. But the picture he paints isn't the real thing.

The truth, as others have noted, is the exact desire for "purity", and the rigid unwillingness to change or compromise, is what caused the ultimate end of Sparta. Anyone who looks critically at it will soon see that Sparta carried the seeds of its own decline. The only people who still uncritically admire Sparta either hold up the romanticised caricature painted by earlier admirers... or they're the kind of people who actually think the true Spartan model (with is highly exclusive citizenship on an ethnic basis, its rigid class distinctions, its eugenics, its forced military education, its vast serf underclass etc.) is a good idea.

It sounds like a many people who voted in the last election. They wanted to exclude people of different religion and a different language. They wanted to drain the swamp of financial corruption. Other voters wanted to preserve a augment a vast serf underclass.
Jist as the Spartans were Medizing, the new administeration seems to be muscovizing

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[Skallagrim]

snip

I think the quoting's gone a bit wrong there. Also, not to be rude or anything, but I don't think bringing current politics into any thread outside the Chat forum is wise. It never ends well, trust me.

 

[Russian]

There were posts in this threads which pointed out the flaws of the Spartan "constitution", political system.
And that was why Sparta was unable to make a huge Empire like Rome did, or Carthage, for example.
But the point is the so called "Spartan system" was not designed for creating an Empire.
As a matter of fact it was not designed even for hegemony of Greece. Actually the moment Sparta started to try to dominate Greece and fight wars somewhere in Anatolia it started self-destruction of it's own foundations.

What was the idea of the "Classical" Sparta?
To create the entity to control their core territories and a lot of helots. No expansion is intended.
What for? The Spartans already had what they needed.

And another idea was that Sparta provided little opportunities for plunder and loot and so was not that attractive for a foreign invasion like any other Greek entity. (Classical) Sparta really did not have luxury products but it did have the toughest fighters around - that's not what the potential invaders are looking for.

Having a lot of exploited helots forced the Spartans to always keep a good fighting shape, even when they did not have any wars for some time.

Sparta had low fertility/birth rate? Hm, that was exactly a point of the system. The Greek entity overcrowded with distressed poor unsatisfied citizens obviously was not the Sparta's paradigm.
Having strong egalitarian measures probably made Spartans the most satisfied and happy citizens in the Greek world. Meaning social stability.

So it was a pattern, may be a little bit utopian; but it certainly was admired by some.

Of course it was doomed. And it was doomed from the very beginning.
But this polity survived surprisingly long, much longer than some empires did.
So I wouldn't go so far as to call this political/social experiment an outright fiasco.

 

[Lucius Verus]

IRRC, only Xenophon ever visited Sparta and all other original sources were from inference and hearsay. Even then Xenophon only resided within the Spartan Empire and never set foot within Sparta. As far as I'm concerned a giant myth that's every admirer's paradise, after all who is going to verify the claims?

 

[hwyl]

Personally, I've always held the opinion that the Persians are really due their turn to be uncritically adulated as the inventors of all the good bits of civilization.

Nope, I'll remain an oldfashioned pro-Athenian - the Persian autocracy and central bureacracy led to a rather static state and society with none of the breathtaking burst of all-around brilliance of the classical Greece (as rather "barbarian" and cruel as it all seems now to us universalist modern Westerners). Homines maxime homines...

 

[dandan_noodles]

Nope, I'll remain an oldfashioned pro-Athenian - the Persian autocracy and central bureacracy led to a rather static state and society with none of the breathtaking burst of all-around brilliance of the classical Greece (as rather "barbarian" and cruel as it all seems now to us universalist modern Westerners). Homines maxime homines...

You wouldn't know if they did, because the empire was wealthy enough to use papyrus, which rots away, compared to the clay tablets of earlier civilizations. The fact that so much Athenian written culture survives is a bizarre fluke of history, not a reflection of any kind of cultural superiority.

'Central bureaucracy and autocracy' is a funny way of describing 'letting the Ionian democracies that overthrew Persian-installed tyrants continue to govern their cities after the revolt was crushed'.

 

[Skallagrim]

"Central bureaucracy" is indeed a rather odd objection to raise against the Achaemenid empire, which might best be characterised as a very decentralised and feudal affair. Of course, the exact relations between the central authority and the local rulers varied from time to time, but this was not some kind of centralised monolithic empire at all. You can't really treat satrapies as some kind of standard provinces. These were often kingdoms etc. which had long been independent, which were tied to the central authority by feudal obligation, but which in many ways just kept "doing their own thing". It wasn't rare for them to be governed by local aristocrats, and even if they were governed by a satrap apppointed from elsewhere, such a 'governor' didn't and couldn't just ignore the local aristocrats. Those who did invariably faced revolt.

The whole idea of "oriental despotism" needs to go in the trash. Really. Part of the problem is that the Greek poleis happened to have engaged in a defining conflict with Persia, leading them to portray Persia as a hostile monolithic "evil empire" ever after (ar least to an extent). This went all the way to Aristotle telling Alexander to be "a hegemon to the Greeks, and a despot to to barbarians". Well, Alexander went east, found out Persia was in no way barbaric, and tried his damned best to become accepted by the Persians, and to culturally integrate his empire. So even as a total Philhellene, I can say: Persia was also awesome, Persia also had a rich and varied culture, and the history of Persia has vast treasures of intellect to offer us all.

If anyone still believes that Greek culture is somehow a uniquely awesome paragon of civilisation that must be favourably contrasted with an (implied-to-be-)"barbaric" east, I'd suggest reading Walter Burkert The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age to find out just how much Greece actually owes (culturally and intellectually) to the east. And for a tantalising insight into the Achaemenid Empire: Pierre Briant's From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire and Amélie Kuhrt's The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period should really help out.

Anyway, end of pro-Persian rant. Back to Sparta.

 

[hwyl]

You wouldn't know if they did, because the empire was wealthy enough to use papyrus, which rots away, compared to the clay tablets of earlier civilizations. The fact that so much Athenian written culture survives is a bizarre fluke of history, not a reflection of any kind of cultural superiority.

'Central bureaucracy and autocracy' is a funny way of describing 'letting the Ionian democracies that overthrew Persian-installed tyrants continue to govern their cities after the revolt was crushed'.

Well, I guess there might be countless immortal works of literature just rotted away for ever, but surely at least sculpture and architecture remain to some degree. Anyway, it just so happens that classical Greece was the pivotal ancient culture for the Western civilization and although it was rather obviously influenced by the surrounding areas (often by much older and more developed civilizations) that peculiar burst of energy in so many areas of human endevour still seems unique enough. Never such brilliance before or after...

 

[hwyl]

Anyway, end of pro-Persian rant. Back to Sparta.

I freely confess that I have always been rather supremely uncaring of the great empire of Persia and almost as supremely uninformed... - I'm sure there were many good and excellent things there but I rather doubt that even further enlightenment could tore me away from that brief flash of human brilliance that was classical Greece. (And I do quite detest Rome, so it's not purely a pro-Western bias.)

 

[dandan_noodles]

What's your measure of brilliance? Sure, Plato and Aristotle were great, but what about Moses and David and the Prophets? Did not the Achaemenids lay the foundations of imperial statecraft, and the Romans and Germanic barbarians the twin pillars of modern law?

 

[DominusNovus]

I freely confess that I have always been rather supremely uncaring of the great empire of Persia and almost as supremely uninformed... - I'm sure there were many good and excellent things there but I rather doubt that even further enlightenment could tore me away from that brief flash of human brilliance that was classical Greece. (And I do quite detest Rome, so it's not purely a pro-Western bias.)

Bah. Throw Rome under the bus, why don'tcha.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

Anyway, end of pro-Persian rant. Back to Sparta.

Platon said in the Nomoi that Sparta had the best constitution, because it had both democratic and monarchic elements und thus was a really aristocracy. He rejected the Persian government, being too autocratic, and the Athenian one, being too popular.

I however like both Athens for its democracy and Persia for its tolerance; I consider Sparta as mixing the worst of both systems.

 

[Skallagrim]

Platon said in the Nomoi that Sparta had the best constitution, because it had both democratic and monarchic elements und thus was a really aristocracy. He rejected the Persian government, being too autocratic, and the Athenian one, being too popular.

I however like both Athens for its democracy and Persia for its tolerance; I consider Sparta as mixing the worst of both systems.

Exactly right. Of course, whenever Plato has something to say about political systems, I usually find he's dead wrong. The thing about ancient philosophers is that their most abstract thinking is often timeless (not automatically correct, but at least always relevant for any debate on the matter), but as soon as they get more practical (laws, politics, science), the limitations of their day and age start showing. And Plato is the worst of the lot, in my opinion. His political ideal for the perfect polis is downright terrifying.

So, yeah. He got it wrong when it came to political systems. But that goes right back to the whole idea of Sparta being idealised as a largely fictional foil to the (perceived) faults of Athenian democracy. Plato gets a lot of credit nowadays, and people tend to forget that he was essentially a horrible anti-egalitarian who was firmly opposed to democracy. Even 'fair for his day' doesn't apply, since there were others before him and contemporay to him who had far less of a tendency to reject democracy and revere the (ideal of) aristocracy. To some extent, this attitude can be explained (the democratic order was, to his mind, responsible for the death of Sokrates), but his proposals were ludicrous even by the standards of Sparta-romanticising reactionaries.

If Plato had gotten his way, Athens would have been a second Sparta, with none of the redeeming qualities (such as more rights for female citizens), and even more of the horrid extremes. From the top of my head, Plato advocated complete segregation of the sexes, forced segregation of the people by trade (and compulsive assignment of these trades: if you are born in the craftsman district, you are to be a craftsman and nothing else), state ownership of all children, the rearing of these children in public nurseries (to assure that no parents would be able to identify their own children, and no child would know its own parents), and (proto-)eugenics in the form of a state-steered breeding programme.

Needless to say, I'm never taking political advice from this guy!

 

[Nivek]

Because the proto-edgelords like it.

 

[hwyl]

Bah. Throw Rome under the bus, why don'tcha.

Touché! But that's the fate of the poor Greeks: unwieldy empires this way and that. Anyway, about Sparta I don't have much to say, a nasty little statelet, a ferret, a rat of a state...