Historian Answers Google’s Most Popular Questions About Ancient Sparta

were the Spartans better than Athens better and if they were both really sort of filled with pent up desire that they would have more vigorous sex and that therefore their children would be more energetic and stronger they were not the best warriors of anything but they were briefly a little bit better than other Greeks at least this is so hello everyone uh my name is R Kik I'm an ancient historian at Lincoln College Oxford um I specialize in Greek Warfare and ancient Sparta and I'm here to answer the most frequently Googled questions about the Spartans all right first question when did the Spartans live it's a trick question they still live now Sparta has been refounded it exists um but actually when we're talking about ancient Sparta it first emerged as a settlement around the 10th Century BC but when we're talking about historical Spartans it's roughly between the 6th and third Century that they are the most significant so between about 600 and 200 BC next next question were the Spartans Greek yes no two ways about it some people like to argue that they were something weird to the other Greeks that some Greeks talked about them as if they were almost foreigners or barbarians and the Spartans themselves were quite sort of um fearful of foreigners and tried to keep them out but at the same time I mean in every sense the Spartans are part of the Dorian Greek dialect group they have Greek Customs they worship Greek gods they are in every sense a part of the wider Greek World both in their cult culture and their language and everything else so yes the Spartans were Greek next question were the Spartans a professional Army no despite what you may have heard um it's often said that the Spartans were the only professional soldiers in Greece and that their army was the only professional Army that this makes them stand out from the rest of the Greek World um but no the Spartans were not a professional Army Spartans could not possibly be professional soldiers because they were forbidden by law from having any profession this was a very important part of Spartan life every single spartian citizen was a Leisure Class citizen who lived off the proceeds of the land that they owned without having to work for it they had a hell underclass they had enslaved people to do the work for them which allowed them to live the life of leisured gentlemen if they couldn't afford that life they were kicked out of the citizen body so these are people who Define themselves as people who don't have to work they are large estate owners and this puts them in a position where can dispose of their time as they see fit however they did have an obligation to their community and the state but that obligation was military service so if war broke out the Spartans called the ban as they called it they brought in the militia and then the Army marched out this is the same as the way it works in all the other Greek States so the Spartans didn't have an army they had a militia of Leisure Class citizens who only served in times of war and as soon as war was over the Army came home and was promptly disbanded there is no Spartan Army in peace PE time there is no professional Spartan Army were the Spartans the best warriors the best of what I mean sometimes this gets inflated into the idea that they are some of the best warriors in history because the way their society Works Etc um they were clearly not um they really struggled to ever achieve anything at all against a professional Army such as the macedonians or the Romans um the they are not able to really make a stand against anything that takes military organization more serious than seriously than they do on the other hand within the world of the Greek city states where a lot of people didn't really prepare for war and were really only serving when they were called up the Spartans had a few minor ways in which they organized and and prepared their army a little bit better um than other Greek states which came through their upbringing and their their exercises in peace time as well as the principles that they applied once Army had gathered for war so there are a couple of organizational principles an officer hierarchy a unit breakdown and a couple of features of Spartan discipline and obedience that made them a little bit better at fighting pitched battles and they used that to good effect um this made them on average you know more effective in battle than other Greeks when they were fighting together but individually there was nothing special about Spartans and no Greek ever thinks that as Spartan is a better Warrior you know man for man than other Greeks this is really just about the way the Spartan's organized their army in The Classical period after the Persian Wars um and it gave them a slight Edge that allowed them to win a number of pitch battles that is the entire Foundation of their reputation they were not the best warriors of anything but they were briefly a little bit better than other Greeks at least next question how did the Spartans train this is an interesting one because it's something that I think a lot of modern people are very exercised about like how do they how can we try and figure out this training can we replicate it what can we do with that um the fact is we do have a number of descriptions of the Spartan upbringing which survive from the ancient sources they don't always agree but at least we know a little bit about it but we don't know very much about their training we just know that from everything that we can tell it's purely athletic so Spartan training is just running jumping discus throwing Javelin throwing wrestling Boxing the kind of things that the Greek did to prepare for things like the Olympic Games you know the kind of contests that they did among each other the Spartans trained this way in order to exercise their bod in order to increase their Fitness in order to make themselves better prepared for the hardships of campaigning um but that is essentially the sum of their training they didn't do any weapons training they don't seem to have performed any formation drill until the armies were gathered so this is a few days before they March out to war perhaps if that and so the sum of their training is essentially Just Fitness and endurance so this gets really distorted in a lot of understanding of the Spartan training they think that this is very militarized people tend to portray this as being constant training for war constant training with weapons but it wasn't that precisely aimed the purpose of this training and the purpose of their education was to make sure that these people were ready to serve their Community when they were called upon so making sure they're fit so that they can serve in war but also making sure they are obedient so that they follow orders and making sure they respect the traditions and values of Sparta so that when they make political decisions as well as personal decisions they follow the norms and values of their society and this was the main thing of the Spartan upbringing is making them not into perfect but into perfect citizens making them good little spartiates who are going to perpetuate the Traditions that's basically what Spartan training is for and is much less involved or even not at all involved with learning how to be a good fighter next question did the Spartans throw babies off cliffs um we don't know but probably not um there's only one source that tells us that they did it's a very late Source it's a Roman historian called Plutarch or a historian who writes in the Roman period he is the only one to ever mention this about 600 years after the Spartans had their most most prominent period um and no other contemporary Source ever says this and we do hear about disabled Spartans actually getting to grow up and live uh live full lives so we hear about Spartans who are apparently not thrown off cliff so the implication is very likely it actually wasn't a practice at the time when Sparta was at its height it may have been brought in later to complement other eugenic practices um but it probably wasn't a feature of their everyday life they certainly didn't expect that this was going to happen to them um if they you know if they had a child that turned out to be deformed or or had some kind of disability um there was no understanding that this was a habitual thing that the Spartans did did the Spartans practice Eugenics yes so eugenics in a certain form so this idea of trying to breed a better kind of Spartan they'd certainly had various practices and laws that were intended to be eugenic but they were not eugenic in a more modern sense where people tried to figure out who has you know the best genes the best traits and then tried to breed them in this very dodgy sort of early 20th century experiments but rather in a way that reflects the scientific understanding of the age so for instance they believed that um if both man and woman were strong so physically trained and physically fit then their children would also be stronger so this is why they made women practice gymnastics as well where they made them go and run and do and do other kind of sports before they were married so that they would be fit around the time they were married um and this is also why supposedly they kept young Newly Weds apart so they made sure that it was difficult for the man to see the woman to visit the woman um for a man for a newly married man to visit his wife because they believe that if he had limited access to her and if they were both really sort of filled with pent up desire that they would have more vigorous sex and that therefore their children would be more energetic and stronger these are the kind of beliefs that the Spartans had and so they're technically eugenic in the sense that they were trying to find the best possible matches and then trying to create the ideal conditions in which these would result in strong children um but they actually weren't really so sure about how genetics obviously they had no concept of genetics they weren't necessarily sure about how you actually go about this there are some examples where they have more concrete um interference in the way that um that Spartans uh forign family so for instance one king who supposedly married a woman who is very short was reprimanded by the E Force by the by the officials um because they said that he would have small children he would have short children um so there was kind of an understanding that Spartans were supposed to marry in ways and seek um uh connections seek sexual relations in ways that would result in the strongest and biggest and and and fiercest and most noble children um but they went about this in different ways and they weren't necessarily entirely sure um how best to do this next question were the Spartans encouraged to steal food yes when they were young supposedly part of their upbringing that they didn't get enough food so they had to steal the rest although they could also hunt they did a lot of hunting um and they could also just you know go and ask their parents for some bonus food or whatever else I mean there are all sorts of ways in which they complimented their diet but one of the ways that they were encouraged to do was to try and steal food and get away with it because they could prove their cunning next question were the Spartans vegetarian what um no famous L not Spartans ate a lot more meat than other Greeks this is one of the ways in which the Spartans despite their image of austerity actually were living a life of quite considerable luxury they ate pork every day um the food that they eat was black broth which was essentially pork stew pork stewed in pork blood um so they ate meat and they had to slaughter pigs for their meals every day where most other Greeks would not eat meat at all because it was too expensive you'd save those animals for the production of milk and cheese um or various other things you might get off them like sheep for for for wool um and would only eat when such animals were sacrificed at religious festivals so the Spartans ate an unusual amount of meat and this was obviously also one of the ways in which you can bulk up which is something the Greeks associated with an athletic lifestyle next question were the Spartans better than Athens better uh well this is only one of the big questions that the Greeks were asking themselves I mean obviously it depends on what you once have of your Society better for whom better in what way um the way that the Spartans portrayed or the way that the Athenians portrayed it the Spartans were better at organizing their society so that it was stable what they appreciated about Sparta was that it had very little political turmoil the system was very constant and that it allowed them to essentially form their citizen children into the kind of people they like to see this kind of moral conditioning this upbringing that turned them into perfect little spartiat that is something that the Athenians admire about the Spartans but on the other hand the Athenians were the ones who produced most of the art and the rhetoric and the science that we know from ancient Greece um and in a lot of ways are this prototype of the ancient Greeks that modern people still admire and the reason why we know so much about the ancient Greeks is because it's Athenian materials for the most part predominantly Athenian texts and Athenian architecture and Athenian ideas that survive to the present day um if you were a woman in one of these cities you might think that Sparta is better if you're a citizen woman because you have slightly more freedom to run your own household and you have slightly more of a legal personhood um whereas in Athens you're very much subject to the men in your life um but it depends if you are an enslaved woman in Athens or Sparta it might not make much difference so there are all sorts of different ways you can approach this question um and I don't necessarily think that we want to pronounce on one being better than the others in any categorical sense all right next question did Sparta have a Navy yes quite a small Navy but they always did have one they had dockyards like south of the city um at salamis they had 17 ships and later on they briefly had a naval Empire although most of the ships were not Spartan they were provided by their subject allies and largely funded by the Persians but they did have an ay next question why didn't Sparta have walls Sparta famously was one of the last Greek states to build walls um walls had become common by the late archaic or early Classical period most of these states were were trying to fortify the Spartans refused to do this they themselves said that it was because they're too manly for any of that nonsense um they will fight their men will go out and fight and that's all the walls they need but in practice I mean firstly Sparta consists of a conglomeration of villages which are very quite far apart like there is quite a bit of distance around that area so building a wall would have been very expensive it would have been a very long building work it would been a very substantial Endeavor so maybe they didn't have the funds to do it um and secondly Sparta was already around the time that City walls spreading around the Greek World um was essentially a hedge over quite a large area of subject allies so to a large extent they didn't need a wall because their enemies weren't close to their borders so they could get away with not having one because they essentially had huge amount of buffer zone before any enemy would ever get near them um so unlike other Greek States they persisted without a wall next question did the Spartans hunt their slaves um so the Spartans had the hel population which is a huge enslaved underclass which I've already mentioned um they had this organization called the crya the hidden which was essentially a couple of Youth who were coming to the age of of adolescence who were occasionally sent into the wild initially apparently just to survive but in later periods apparently to terrorize the Helens and one of their jobs was essentially to hunt them to kill any of the ones that they wanted that they saw ideally they were supposed to be the strongest and most sort of dangerous hels that they sort of took care of by keeping sort of keeping their heads down um but in practice they probably would have just parade on any any hels they found out and about um so they did apparently do this although the crya very poorly understood different sources give different reasons for for why it existed and what it did so we don't really know very much about this it was a very small number of sparts in any case who got involved in this business um but yes it was one of the ways in which the Spartans practiced State Terror essentially terrorizing their population to keep them down next question did the Spartans get their slaves drunk very weird story that occurs in a number of different sources actually it says that yes they they got hel to come into their symposia into their into their their their mess uh uh drinking parties um got them to drink too much and then ordered them to dance around make fools of themselves in order to show young spartiates who were there um how much of a fool it makes you you know the Perils of over drinking I think a lot of modern historians don't take this very seriously because it's a little bit too neat it's like one of those stories where you just sort of torture your slaves in order to make a point make a moral Point um which you might might just as likely just show by pointing to other spartiates who are drinking too much but of course the spartiates in a lot of these stories are an example of moderation you know they are the ones who control themselves and who control their impulses and who who practice moderation and so they can't themselves demonstrate what it looks like when you drink too much so they will have their slaves do it for you um that kind of Story the Spartans like to tell about themselves maybe others like to tell about the Spartans because it kind of fit their ideal um but that is why several sources report the story that they would get their hel drunk and there are some really nice early modern paintings of it and things like that did the Spartans have a king uh they have two kings because you know why have just one when you can have two it's an ancient institution of which we don't know the origins and there's a lot of debate about why there are two kings um it's quite possible that it's meant to prevent too much power coming into one into one man's hands or that it's a compromise when these different Villages that formed Sparta came together that they were trying to make sure that there was some power sharing at the top um but we're not exactly sure about the origins there are different theories as to why they had two kings which is quite strange and unique occurrence but the important thing about Spartan Kings they weren't absolute monarchs they weren't the ones who called the shots the Kings had certain very specific functions they LED armies and they were Priests of Zeus um so they had a couple of specific functions within Society within policy when they were broad Leading Armies they had great fre to do as they wish to decide on policy to make war Etc but when they were at home they largely were treated as ordinary citizens they were subject to the will of the eforce and the El Council of Elders and they had to follow orders they could be taken to court they could be exiled they could even be executed by the other institutions of state so Spartan kings are a little bit weird a little bit different in a lot of ways um but the Spartans did have Kings which also made them quite unique in the Greek world who broadly didn't have those anymore next question what was Sparta a democracy um weirdly a question that comes back a lot because no it wasn't it definitely wasn't what are you talking about but the idea of Sparta is to a lot of Greek philosophers to political thinkers it was an example of what they call a mixed Constitution it had the monarchy element for with the two kings it had the oligarchy element with the gusa a few rich men in charge and then it had a democratic element with an assembly of all citizens so they said it has a mix of these things and of course when there's an assembly of all citizens making decisions then arguably it's a form of democracy and some ancient sources double down on this and say look it actually works quite democratically they all get together and make decisions that's what what we call democracy isn't it um but the thing is the fact we always have to remember about Spar is in order to be a Spartan citizen you had to meet a property requirement I've already mentioned this right you have to meet a certain level of wealth in order to be a citizen in order to be part of these assemblies and so there was already a property requirement for citizenship which means that that Democratic element is still ol Archy this is how the Greeks defined an oligarchy is that there is a property requirement for full citizenship you need to have a certain amount of wealth in order to count as a citizen and Sparta absolutely worked that way which means Sparta was not democracy next question why did the Spartans fight at thopi because they had agreed to do so as part of the Council of allies that were fighting against the Persians um it was a council decision the Athenians sent the fleet to arton nearby to fight the Persian Fleet and the Spartans led the Allied Army to thermopol that was the agreement because thermop is a bottleneck that's why you fight the Persian army um it was it was a common decision and they followed that order and they sent their troops North along with those of their allies next question why did the Spartans only send 300 men to thermop um presumably I don't know it's implied they sent 300 men in a couple of other occasions but we'll go with that um they didn't first of all they sent a thousand men um 300 of them may have been full Spartan citizens they also sent a bunch of their allies along so the the the Greeks themselves told the 4,000 men from the pelan and then local populations obviously joined in this fight because they knew it was their last defense against the against the Persian advance so fans and loans and bians were also there um which meant the total force was maybe six or 7,000 now why did the Spartans send so few that is actually unknown they themselves um said that it was because the rest of the army was prevented uh because there was a religious Festival but we know that this Army left long before the religious Festival kicked off so later on when the the Thousand arrived at thopa and Leia said actually I might need some more men he called for reinforcements but the Spartan said no we have this religious Festival so it prevented them from sending reinforcements but it didn't prevent them from sending the initial Army um the other excuse they offered was that they had received an oracle that said these men just had to die as a sacrifice in order to save the rest of Sparta uh but a lot of people now think of this as as a story that's a little bit too neat um they don't really believe that it's something that sounds like it's made up after the fact in practice it seems very likely that the Spartans were only willing to commit about a thousand men to have fight so far away from home when they prefer to defend more closely their own interests at home um it's only the next year that they finally decide to send their whole Army to fight at the Battle of platia where they had decisive role in defeating the Persians were the Spartans Betrayed at thopa yes um firstly they were betrayed in the sense that either Xerxes Greek allies or a local Shepherd told them about told the Persians about the goat path by which they could come around the pass um so they were betrayed essentially by by fellow Greeks um and secondly and this is a more hazy story but Leon does knew about the goat path so he'd stationed some fans there to guard it so they were supposed to keep the Persians from marching that way um but the fans didn't act we're told by Herodotus that they just stood aside and let the Persians pass this is hard to explain because they were on a goat path on a mountain it would have been very defensible so they could have easily fought the Immortals they could have stop them possibly but they chose not to do it um Herodotus says they were just cowed they were just they were just afraid they couldn't bear to fight these Persians um but the other option which has been recently suggested is actually that the fans were in cahoots with the Persians they had made an agreement to preserve their own part of focus to keep it safe from being ravaged by the Persians when they Advanced and that in return they would let the Persians pass so possibly the Spartans were twice Betrayed at thermop but we don't know the details did the Spartans beat the Persians uh it depends on the time scale um at thopi they were defeated of course they they lost then the next year at pla they won so the the big battle the decisive battle at pla in 479 they defeated this vast Persian army um and threw the Persians out of the Mainland of Greece so that was their great Victory which is what was what is celebrated later as as the great sort of outcome of the Persian Wars but of course Persia doesn't go away that Empire survives for another 15 years and all that time the Persians are both trying to reassert control over Greek communities and also playing out one Greek against another to keep them weak and in that process you know there there's victories on either side the Spartans don't always fight the Persians sometimes they're allied with the Persians sometimes they seek Persian help um other times they are defeated by the Persians other times they defeat the Persians it's a long complex story um ultimately of course Sparta outlasts the Persian Empire so I guess if you look in the long enough run um the Spartans win out but not by their own contributions because as anybody who knows the histories of Alexander the Great knows very well they were the only Greeks who did not join in the Expedition against Persia so they did not beat the Persians they had Alexander do it for them next question were the Spartans muscular possibly this is kind of an open question but the Spartans did as a Leisure Class population take pride in their exercises and this is true elsewhere in the Greek world as well all Greeks admired you know a well-honed physique they all admired athletes and sports and so a lot of people if they could afford it if they had the time um might spend and especially if they were young they might spend some time in the gymnasium so in these Sports grounds where they exercise running and jumping and wrestling and all these things um the Spartans made a habit of that because they were Leisure Class citizens they felt they had to earn that status in some way that to prove to others that they were collectively Superior to those who did not have their status and so one of the things they did is they mandated exercise now late sources said they exercised every day at least once a day but sources from The Classical period like xenophon who was an eyewitness he actually suggests that Spartans who were adult like once you reached adulthood once you're past 20 you're under no a to exercise so they may not have done it anymore unless they were on campaign if they were on campaign and they were in Camp they exercise twice a day in peace time they don't seem to have exercised so were they muscular I mean possibly because their upbringing conditioned them to physical hardship possibly on campaign they did a fair bit of training and exercise but we don't necessarily have to assume that all Spartans were muscular in fact because they ate well and drank well and lived luxurious lives some of them may have been fat some of them may have been thin because they let their training lapse after they finished their upbringing we don't really know but the Spartans were certainly reputed to be taller than other Greeks and possibly more muscular um if they were in good training just like Leisure Class Greeks elsewhere next question did the stardens have long hair yes they took pride in it they thought it made them look fearsome they also used that as an example of their Leisure Class lifestyle it was very common among the Greeks that having long hair showed that you didn't have to work it didn't get in the way of you having to do manual labor cuz you're a rich you grew your hair long to show off your wealth so the Spartans took pride because they're all Leisure Class citizens they took pride in their long hair and they took carefully take took care of it they combed it before battle they oiled it they made it look shiny and and and beautiful um in order to impose on their enemies that they were indeed Leisure Class citizens who were free to devote themselves to you know serving their community in war so they took pride in that they to cide in their appearance and especially their long hair next question did the SP have same-sex relationships yes very much so it's even been theorized that it was an essential part of Spartan citizen life um Spartans when they grew up to adulthood had to become part of one of the mess groups one of the tent groups these are exclusive groups and the only way to get in was to be elected a new member by all the existing members they had to be unanimous if you couldn't get into a mess group you lost your citizenship status so this was existential for them they lost all of their status and privileges if they couldn't get in uh so the easy way to do that was essentially to as a boy as an adolescent to build a relationship with one of the adults Spates who was already in one of these groups and to use that connection to be invited in to basically be invited as the lover of one of the existing members to be acceptable to the rest of the group and say yeah that person is clearly okay that person is something we know intimately uh to put it lightly um and so the Spartans had uh samex relationship they made it a part of the way they organize their society and there are many remarks to this effect we know of several historical characters who were either completely Boden with particular boys that they met on campaign in Asia Minor or wherever else or who were in relationships with each other and use that for leverage for instance there was somebody who tried to petition a Spartan King because his son was the lover of the King's son so these kind of anecdotes that show how much these relationships were absolutely a part of Spartan society um and often it should be noted these are not necessarily pederastic in the sense that they are between an adult man of advanced age and a young boy often the age Gap between them was not that great there might be between a boy of about 17 18 and a man in his early 20s so there was only a gap of a few years between them because that was the time at which you know these men were considered to be most attractive but also when they were supposed to find a sponsor to get them ahead in life um whereas these young men who are not yet married were seeking some kind of sexual partnership so there is a reason why there's a place for this in Spartan society that makes it very integral to the way Spartan society works were the Spartan women equal now I've already talked about this briefly I mean there is an understanding that Spartan women had more rights in Spartan society um citizen women at least than they did elsewhere in the Greek world this is clearly legally true Spartan women could own property um which we know because Athenians thought this was a big problem and this is one of the things that the Spartans really did wrong in their society supposedly um so Spartan women were able to amass wealth of their own and thereby to establish themselves in society as you know people of power people of means um and some of them even did really stereotypical rich guy things like sponsoring Chariot teams the first Olympic Victor who was a woman was a Spartan woman a Spartan princess who funded a chariot team um it for the Olympic Games so you have these prominent women who are throwing their weight around throwing their wealth around and using it for Social Power using it to get glory for the city and to influence politicians influence sparten citizens who are actually making the making the political decisions um also when they're younger of course they have the freedom to do things like sports stuff like that on the other hand we mustn't necessarily believe that this makes them the equals of men I mean when you say equal this is really um the answer must be no because Spartan women still had no political rights they weren't allowed to vote in the assembly they weren't allowed to become members of the council they weren't allowed to become eforce they had no political voice their only Power was informal soft power influencing men who could then influence politics so there's no way in which spart and women were equal to men and similarly all of the kind of licenses that were given to Spartan women um there are there is a dark side to that which is often snowed under when people say oh in their upbringing they were so free they could criticize men they could go out and do Sports and all that kind of thing um firstly it made them objectified in the eyes of nons Spartans who are very lecherously interested in all these Spartan women he doing sports outside he wearing these revealing clothing and all these kind of things so there is a lot of lecherous sort of attention paid to this kind of thing which we should be suspicious of but the other thing is that when it's described in our sources as something that Spartan women did it's explicitly noted that they did this in part not just to prepare for marriage and be fit as I've mentioned but also to essentially put themselves on show for the men like they were going out to display their bodies and display their abilities so that the men watching as plutar puts it would start thinking about marriage now that's a really nice euphemism when you put it that way but obviously what that means is these women it's it's a meat show right this is a cattle show these women women are brought out in order to display themselves and put themselves at the mercy of these men because their purpose within Spartan society is a to transfer wealth through marriage and B to produce Spartan sons and those things are very similar to the role of women in other Greek societies and they mean that a lot of these freedoms they really have a dark side and they also aren't nearly as comprehensive as they're sometimes described next question oh well that's the end of it I think that's the last question so thank you all for watching I hope you enjoyed that very much and if there are if you if you enjoyed this content please like And subscribe to history hit for more

Channel: History Hit

Views: 144,560

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, ancient history, ancient greece, sparta, ancient sparta, spartan warrior, 300, leonidas II, leonidas, historian reacts, historian, ancient historian, Roel Konijnendijk, Battle of Thermopylae, ancient battle, google questions, history, historian answers, what was ancient sparta, was ancient sparta, ancient greek history, spartan women, spartan training

Id: RQk2JE82c7I

Length: 31min 32sec (1892 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2024