Bret Devereaux

"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.