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  1. #21
    The Lightbringer bladeXcrasher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    What I said wrong ? That Sparta was a much more complex city than shown in 300 (it's a given) and likely more complex than shown in Xenophon ?
    That you seriously think that anyone with half a brain thought that the 300 movies were even remotely accurate?

  2. #22
    Elemental Lord Lady Dragonheart's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bladeXcrasher View Post
    Wow...I don't even...
    Don't get me wrong, showing oiled pecs and screaming "This is Sparta!" is an interesting topic... It just needs direction.
    I am both the Lady of Dusk, Vheliana Nightwing & Dark Priestess of Lust, Loreleî Legace!
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  3. #23
    Then again, even the krypteia itself is odd to say the least. Not random violence against Helots, of course, but the krypteai itself, which was the opposite of the life of a Spartan male.

    Fight with knives as opposed as with the lance (Spartans were notorious for fielding only heavy infantry)
    Live all alone in the wilderness instead of taking meals with your peers.
    About everything else, the whole idea of dissimulation, which while commendably useful for any military, was not something the Spartans were keen for with their army (the only mention of using the Kryptes for scouting is about the late battle of Sellasia, and...

    For Antigonus gave orders, that the Illyrians and Acarnanians should march round by a secret way, and encompass the other wing, which Euclidas, Cleomenes's brother, commanded; and then drew out the rest of his forces to the battle. And Cleomenes, from a convenient rising, viewing his order, and not seeing any of the Illyrians and Acarnanians, began to suspect that Antigonus had sent them upon some such design, and calling for Damoteles, who was at the head of those specially appointed to such ambush duty (that is, the kryptea), he bade him carefully to look after and discover the enemy's designs upon his rear. But Damoteles, for some say Antigonus had bribed him, telling him that he should not be solicitous about that matter, for all was well enough, but mind and fight those that met him in the front, he was satisfied, and advanced against Antigonus


    IE, in the only example of which the krypteia is used for ambushes and ''special forces'' style type operation, it either fails catastrophically or is bribed....

  4. #24
    The Unstoppable Force May90's Avatar
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    One of the problems is that Sparta was overly dramatized by the chroniclers at the time. There were many extreme practices in Sparta aimed at raising the "perfect citizen" (you could say they were the first to employ a primitive version of eugenics), and they made it hard for those describing Sparta to stay objective, especially at the time, when the culture of historical writing was very fresh. I'm pretty sure that in reality the system wasn't nearly as brutal as many, especially popular, sources claim, and in reality those practices were only applied to a very small fraction of the population, and not to their full extent - otherwise I don't see how such a society could survive for long without collapsing under its own weight.
    Quote Originally Posted by King Candy View Post
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  5. #25
    For instance, it's certainly not told in modern depictions of Spartan (or even modern era ones-Spartans were very popular post 1700) that Spartan boys during the agoge certainly did all the stuff about walking in the mountains barefooted...but with slaves.

  6. #26
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    For instance, it's certainly not told in modern depictions of Spartan (or even modern era ones-Spartans were very popular post 1700) that Spartan boys during the agoge certainly did all the stuff about walking in the mountains barefooted...but with slaves.
    In what modern historical works is Sparta misportrayed?

  7. #27
    The Unstoppable Force May90's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    For instance, it's certainly not told in modern depictions of Spartan (or even modern era ones-Spartans were very popular post 1700) that Spartan boys during the agoge certainly did all the stuff about walking in the mountains barefooted...but with slaves.
    Topic of slaves it usually omitted altogether, when talking about Sparta, for the reason of it strongly diminishing the heroic image of the society, I presume. In reality, as I understand, slaves were treated even worse in Sparta than they were treated elsewhere at the time; they had zero rights, they could be killed at any moment with no repercussions for the killer. Also, not only Helots were slaves, although Helots are probably the most notorious example.
    Quote Originally Posted by King Candy View Post
    I can't explain it because I'm an idiot, and I have to live with that post for the rest of my life. Better to just smile and back away slowly. Ignore it so that it can go away.
    Thanks for the avatar goes to Carbot Animations and Sy.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalis View Post
    In what modern historical works is Sparta misportrayed?
    The French Revolution reactivated the Spartan model.

  9. #29
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    The French Revolution reactivated the Spartan model.
    The French Revolution is not a modern historical work.

    Your sentence doesn't make much sense, but it seems you are claiming that an agenda driven theme misportrayed the Spartans to suit their agenda. That is like saying propaganda is not necessarily an accurate depiction and expecting people to be surprised.

    Can you name some modern historical works that have misportrayed Sparta? Actual historical works, not propaganda pieces.

  10. #30
    The French Revolution is in the modern era.

    Indirect link, because the amount of male genitals therein (boy, they sure loved to show Spartan hot bodies) is bannable, me thinks.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A...uis_David).PNG

  11. #31
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    The French Revolution ins in the modern era.
    It is not a modern historical work though, it is an event.

    Indirect link, because the amount of male genitals therein (boy, they sure loved to show Spartan hot bodies) is bannable, me thinks.

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A...uis_David).PNG
    So a painting that is known to be historically innaccurate is inaccurate? Historical accuracy is mostly a late 20th century thing, those 19th Century painters added in details that came from the Roman and Medieval periods.

  12. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by Kalis View Post
    It is not a modern historical work though, it is an event.



    So a painting that is known to be historically innaccurate is inaccurate? Historical accuracy is mostly a late 20th century thing, those 19th Century painters added in details that came from the Roman and Medieval periods.
    Yes, that the point, even before 300 made out of it a joke, Sparta was widely distorted in historiography. (And I'm not using the Goodwin point)

  13. #33
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    Yes, that the point, even before 300 made out of it a joke, Sparta was widely distorted in historiography. (And I'm not using the Goodwin point)
    That is because archaeology was not particularly good in that era, so they took their cues from bits and pieces of armour, statuary, writing, etc., which inevitibly made them historically inaccurate when it came to representing them.

    Plus people almost always wrote/painted/drew with an agenda in mind and took artistic licence.

    These aren't historians for the most part, they are politicians pushing an agenda and artists with limited archaeological resources. Does anyone actually think they would be getting critical and unbiased historical accuracy from those sorts of people?

  14. #34
    Sparta is exceptional for having very few people native from it writing about it.

  15. #35
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    Sparta is exceptional for having very few people native from it writing about it.
    Not really. Are there any known Scythian authors, for example? I can't think of any off the top of my head, most of what we know comes from the likes of Herodotus.

  16. #36
    Corrected, let's rephrase.

    ''Sparta is relatively well known as a Greek city'' (only equal to Athens) yet everything that was written about it was by foreigners''

  17. #37
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    Corrected, let's rephrase.

    ''Sparta is relatively well known as a Greek city'' (only equal to Athens) yet everything that was written about it was by foreigners''
    And what Corinthian history has come down to us from Corinthian writers? Argos? Chalkis? They were important cities in Ancient Greece, their press has been so poor that they are barely known outside of historian circles.

    Most of what we know of them comes from the same sources we have for Sparta. It is pretty much only Athens that gets a decent native account of it.

    Sparta is not the odd one out, Athens is.

  18. #38
    I would say however that Sparta was more important than Corinth, this said.

  19. #39
    Immortal Zelk's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kalis View Post
    And what Corinthian history has come down to us from Corinthian writers? Argos? Chalkis? They were important cities in Ancient Greece, their press has been so poor that they are barely known outside of historian circles.

    Most of what we know of them comes from the same sources we have for Sparta. It is pretty much only Athens that gets a decent native account of it.

    Sparta is not the odd one out, Athens is.
    Corinthians isn't a city mate, it's a poem read out at weddings.

  20. #40
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sarahtasher View Post
    I would say however that Sparta was more important than Corinth, this said.
    Corinth was one of the most influential Greek city states in terms of trade and colonisation, Sparta was a military power mostly confined to the Peloponnese.

    It is mostly due to Spartan rivalry with Athens, and that Athenian writers were so prolific and differed from the Lacedaemonians in outlook, so took an interest in comparing Sparta to Athens, that Sparta gained the reputation in history that it has.

    Corinth was relatively similar to Athens, so wouldn't have made for a very interesting subject matter for Athenians.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelk View Post
    Corinthians isn't a city mate, it's a poem read out at weddings.
    Stop being soft, they are a football team in Kingston. The Brazilian club was named after them.

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