THE SPARTANS

THE WORLD OF THE WARRIOR-HEROES OF ANCIENT GREECE By: Paul Cartledge

Josh Clark History 1100

The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge was a very interesting look into how the Spartans lived and how they thought. Cartledge begins by saying the time period that will be covered is 480 to 360 BC. In the introduction he just goes through a brief overview of what happens in the book. The book is divided into three parts. Part one is Go, Tell the Spartans! Part two is The Spartan Myth, and Part three is A Crippled Kingship. In part one Cartledge begins by saying that Helen of Troy was in fact a Spartan because she did carry many ideals that a Spartan would carry. In the first part he also talks about the myth of Lycurgus. Plutarch, who spent his life writing histories of Greeks and would also compare Greeks to Romans, had a hard time writing a history of Lycurgus only because there wasnt much to find. Most believe Lycurgus to be a mythical character where when a history was eventually written every person he got information from would contradict another. Most believed Lycurgus was a god, or a manifestation of Apollo. Part one continues as Cartledge talks about how the Spartans were organized within the frontiers of Sparta. First you would have the Spartans, who were the upper class in Spartan society. Second you would have the Perioeci who occupied the less fertile hill-land and coastal areas of Laconia and Messenia. Historians would say that there were about one hundred communities of this kind and they would mainly serve on the front line on the battlefield but were mainly free subjects at the disposal of the Spartans. The lowest class in Spartan society would be the Helots, who were essentially equivalent to war captives. Cartledge continues by writing about the Peloponnesian league and some of the rulers of Sparta. The main leader he brings up is King Leonidas and the course of the Persian Wars (490 479 BC) with the Greeks against the Persians. Cartledge speaks of Leonidas as a real war hero when it comes to the Persian wars but especially the Battle of Thermopylae. The author goes into

great detail about the Battle saying that the Spartans along with other Greek troops stopped for a night to wait for the Persians in the narrow pass of Thermopylae and a traitor went to Xerxes, the leader of the Persian troops, and gave away the location of the Spartans. The Persians then surrounded them and the 300 Spartans were killed. Another interesting thing Cartledge brings up is the role of Gorgo, Leonidas wife, in the Persian wars, but more generally the role of women in Spartan society. Most would think that the women in Spartan society would be second to their men, but Gorgo believed that she was essentially what made her men strong. Gorgo was the niece of Leonidas, and was a very strong woman in Spartan society. She believed that the only reason the Spartan women had real control over their men is that Spartan women were the only ones to give birth to real men. Gorgo was one of the only women in any society in ancient Greece to have a mind and thoughts of her own. Another point of view that was brought up was that of Dieneces. Dieneces was believed to be the most brave of the 300 men among most historians. The only thing Historians could say for certain is when they were being attacked by the Persians he attacked and showed great courage. Part two begins with a chapter called The Fifty Year Period. In this chapter Cartledge talks about the growing stress between the Peloponnesian league and the Athenians that would eventually lead to the Peloponnesian war, which is referred to here as the Athenian war. Cartledge says here that the main cause for the war was the fact that Athens was gaining power but the main reason was, in fact, the Spartans since they started the war. The next chapter is titled Women and Religion. In this chapter Cartledge talks about the role of women in spartan society and the rituals they would play in when it comes to marrying Spartan men, it is said that the marriage rituals would start with a rape to show the power of the man over the woman. After which the women would have their head shaved and

would most likely be made to wear a veil in public. It also talks about how husbands in Spartan society might lend out their wives for sex to other men in Spartan society. This was interesting because there were absolutely no adultery laws in Sparta at this time. This was to procreate real offspring for the other mans lineage. Aristotle said at the time of the Spartans domination many things were accomplished by the woman. (pg. 170). Essentially what Aristotle inferred in his writings was that Spartan men essentially feared their wives and Spartan women and general. Chapter six is entitled The Athenian War. Cartledge says in this chapter that Spartans had to drastically change their strategy in this war from just going to invade the home territory of the Athenians in Attica. When the Spartans tried this strategy it didnt work very well which let the Athenians fight back very quickly and very hard. At the end of the war the Spartans got full control over the Athenians. Part three is called A Crippled Kingship and it goes from the rule of Sparta until the eventual downfall. Chapter seven is entitled The Spartan Empire, and it chronicles the rule of the Spartans until Phillip I, father of Alexander the Great, which was essentially the fall of the Spartans. Cartledge talks throughout this whole history about the fact that the Spartans followed Lycurgan Regime and they believed in what Lycurgus believed and started in Sparta, and by the end of Spartan rule this regime would start to crumble. Chapter eight is entitled Fall and Decline. This chapter chronicles the conquering of all of Greece by Phillip I. The next chapter chronicles the reinvention of Sparta after Athens conquered all of Greece. Finally, the last chapter is entitled The Legacy: Leonidas Lives! and it talks about how Leonidas wasnt much of a hero when he ruled in Sparta but in current times he is seen as a hero. It also says that at Thermopylae there was a statue of a lion built in honor of

King Leonidas and the sacrifice of the 300. Cartledge then says that Leonidas is the legacy of Sparta and as long as his story lives on, so will Sparta. I thought the book was very well written. Ive always been very interested in the Spartans as a group of people and reading a more in depth history of them as people was very interesting. The main thing that struck me while reading this book was the role of women in Spartan society. Cartledge had a very different point of view on their role than any other, and that was that Spartan women did, in fact, control their men and they had a lot of power in Spartan society. Another interesting thing I found in the book was how the Battle of Thermopylae was chronicled throughout and how Leonidas was hailed as a hero by Cartledge. His view on Leonidas was probably the most interesting in the whole book just because he seemed to really believe that Leonidas was the most heroic of everyone in Spartan society. Every theme in this book can relate to what weve learned in class. The main thing that relates back to what we learned in class is the story of the Spartans itself. The main difference between what we learned in class and the book is that the book was more in depth and more from the Spartan point of view than the Athenian point of view of how we learned most things in class. The main theme of the Spartans can be brought back to essentially any society in history and that is because when a society rises they will eventually fall. Its the same in Athens, Rome, and Egypt and many other societies in history. The regimes in this society were very different from others and how the people in the society were brought up was also very different. The people in Sparta were brought up as warriors and they would always learn how to fight no matter who you were, and this brought them all the way to the top of Greek society.

Another way the book relates to class is how roles are depicted in any society. Of course the men are the strongest in most societies because they fight in the military but a main thing that comes up in the book is the role of women in society. In the book they are depicted as controlling the men and essentially putting a lot into Spartan society. Women having a lot of power doesnt relate much to other societies in history like they are so prominent here. But the themes of the king and of the military are very similar to almost every other society in the ancient world. The only difference, like we already knew, is the Spartans are trained from birth where other societies werent. The men were the primary caregivers where the women controlled the house like most other societies. The roles of the kings and rulers of Sparta were also very similar to other societies in history. Their roles were essentially to guide the military and lead and hopefully win numerous battles but also to create regimes and laws in society. How the military works is always very similar, there is just usually a difference in whether they go on foot or on horse, the order they use, and also the different weapons. Guided by the kings and rulers, the military was a very welloiled machine in most societies, but especially with the Spartans. A really big theme with the military was a theme of courage. This theme can be found throughout the book and also throughout history no matter where you look. The men in military care about their country and also about the men beside them. This book by Paul Cartledge was definitely very well written and very well explained throughout. The whole topic of the Spartans has always been very intriguing to me and its always great to see from a different point of view. The interesting thing about how Cartledge writes is he doesnt just take information from one historian but from multiple historians, which made this book a very interesting read.