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And then the Spartans fought Alexander's deputy, Antipater at Megalopolis and get absolutely wrecked in 331 in the infamous 'Clash of Mice.' C'mon Steven, tell the whole story!
And then they tried again in 222 at Sellasia against Antigonus III Doson and get utterly wrecked, *AGAIN*. The Spartan record of talking s*** to the Macedonians and then getting stood on their heads like damn fools is 3-for-3.
Ok, Episode 5 - I am not doing all of these tonight, eash. Aaaaand we're treating Lycurgus like a historical figure. We're treating his reforms like they actually happened and they actually happened in the 9th century. No. For more:https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-iii-spartan-women/ …
And now Lycurgus is outlawing all professions except that of 'warrior.' Sigh. Except for the vast majority of the society who were helots. Who I note have not yet been mentioned in these now FIVE videos about the Spartans.
And now we're getting the distribution of equal kleroi under Lycurgus. I discussed why we can be very sure that the 9,000 kleroi of Plutarch cannot have happened under Lycurgus because most of those were in Messenia, where the helots were here:https://acoup.blog/2019/08/29/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-iii-spartan-women/ …
"he outlawed any Spartan warrior, any man in the army, which was from 18 to 60 from eating at home" - yeah, gonna rate that as false. Helots and Perioikoi did fight in the army, and were not part of the common messes, so that statement is just wrong.
Say it with me, the spartiates were not all of the Spartan army. The spartiates were never even *most* of the Spartan army, at any period we can observe. The Spartiates were *******always****** a minority of Spartan soldiers.
Oh, FFS, I cannot make this up. So of course he 'highly recommends' reading Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus. He says this while holding up the Loeb for Plutarch, Moralia, vol 1. Which does not include the Life of Lycurgus. That's in Plutarch's Lives, Vol 1. Different Loeb.
Gonna say, he'd have been better served by Xenophon. "Plutarch was a Roman..." - Plutarch was a Greek with Roman citizenship who wrote in Greek and not Latin and is firmly in the Greek, not Latin source tradition. Sure, he was a 'Roman' in the legal sense (important)...
...but Plutarch self-positions as a Greek. He's a 'Romanized' Greek. Calling him a Roman without qualifier is misleading and honestly wrong.
Notes that the lives were paired, doesn't give the pair for Lycurgus. It's Numa Pompilius. Also not a historical figure. Refers to Plutarch's life as "the story of Lycurgus, the true Lycurgus." ...sure, the true story, based entirely on oral tradition, 900 years later. I bet.
Plutarch even admits, at the very beginning of his Life of Lycurgus, "Concerning Lycurgus the lawgiver, in general, nothing can be said which is not disputed" But sure thing, this is the straight scoop.pic.twitter.com/uV3rEljZJM
Alright, calling it there for tonight. I see above I have been corrected on one point, that apparently Pressfield served in the Marines. So noted. The quality of his ancient history is very weak; it's all Plutarch (not the best source!), read entirely uncritically.
His grasp on the actual Sparta could be improved by reading any number of books on the topic - Cartledge, Kennell, Hodkinson, Rahe, Bayliss, ANYTHING (note, I like some of those books rather better than others, but the bar here is so low, anything will do).
I find myself suddenly deeply concerned that his writing is being used as a proxy for actual historical narratives by the general public, but especially by military readers. Anyway, I'll pick this up when I next have an excess of sanity.
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