Bret Devereaux

But Rome was no Sparta. There was no agoge, it never had nearly that ratio of slavery, it never shared the spartan contempt for learning. Most important: they expanded the roman citizenship all the time, becoming stronger as they expanted, instead of weaker and overstretched.

We have a lot of distorted myths about the past, and everytime I hear history used as an example\counterpoint to modern politics I want to gouge my eyes out. But there's something especially toxic about the spartan myth.

Take the 300 movie: it shows how incredibly badas these warriors are. Conveniently though, Leonidas slays a wolf and not a slave for his agoge graduation. We never see who works the fields, we don't see the majority of the spartan troops being of lightly armed non-citizens.

The spartan myth - from its very beginning, in ancient times - is based on IGNORING history, skimming over the fact thermopilae was a huge *defeat*. All that to pretend that by being brutal enough, harsh enough, a society can achieve "great things" (usually killing some invader)

And so who cares about the 95% of spartans who were slaves, about the children who die or are traumatized for life during the agoge - they are "the price" for safety, for greatness of some kind, and the story isn't about them anyway.

But the real Sparta was a small city which couldn't even sustain its exploitation system, as its warrior aristocracy kept becoming smaller and wealthier. Being harsh and brutal and anti-intellectual didn't help them one bit against Alexander, even if he liked his philosophy.

When romans half-heartedly intervened in Greece, the spartan surrendered without even giving battle. It was so easy, the roman commander didn't even get a triumph. In roman times, Sparta was mostly famous as a tourist trap. The end.