Bret Devereaux

Throwing Lycurgus here is an artifact of my original organization plan and I'm not happy with it. But I think it is important overall. Teaching Lycurgus as a real historical figure is not wrong per se (although we should admit that the historical figure is lost to us) ... 2/12

...But it has pernicious effects downstream. It presents the Spartan system as completely deracinated from the social and historical conditions that created it - the product of one smart guy, apropos of nothing. And it's impossible to build it back in, cause we don't know. 3/12

On top of that, it presents this false but very seductive narrative that few undergrads are going to be prepared to resist: the brilliant charismatic reformer effortlessly remaking society into a utopia. Figures that adopt that look in real societies are usually dangerous. 4/12

Finally, it encourages students to 'buy' the idealized 'before-fore time' version of Spartan equality and cohesion which - I must stress - we know to be false. But no undergrad - much less a high schooler - is prepared to marshal 8th century archaeology to make that point. 5/12

The section in this essay on the lives of helot women is actually a good example of how I like to think about history: "How can I use (demography/economic models/material culture) to talk about this group of 'invisible' (to our sources) people?" 6/12

I think it is important because it creates a *something* that we can begin to empathize with. When a people are reduced to an unknowing shrug, it is too easy to read them out of the story altogether. History becomes a story of the travails of rich, literate people. 7/12

By using, in this case, agricultural economic modeling, you can begin to stipulate a very probable picture of what daily life looks like for these folks - the farming, spinning, weaving, etc. It creates a person in the mind who can command empathy... 8/12