Spartan Mirage Flashcards
(22 cards)
How is Greek hypocrisy and spartan supremacy shown in xen lac pol 10?
“Everyone admires these arrangements but no state wants to imitate them”
Plut lys 29 on the staticity of the lac constitution?
Same rules for 500 years, even “creation of the ephorate [strengthened the constitution]… made the aristocracy more secure”
How does plut show gorgo?
Witty, laconic phrases, extremely intelligent:
When watching slave put in foreign kings shoes, she said “father, the foreigner has no hands” to laugh at his laziness and arrogance
How does plut morally show leonidas to be the most spartan spartan?
“Marry good men and produce good children” to wife and niece gorgo
Battle plan: “in reality to die for the Greeks”
Warned: “they are near us” replies “well then… we are near them”
“Eat breakfast as men who would have dinner in haydes”
Xerxes - “hand over your weapons”
Leo. - “come and get them”
What did Agis say according to plut about behaviour of Lakedaemonians when given instruction?
They “knew how to rule and how to be ruled” as well as when being informed they were to fight they “do not ask how many men the enemy has but where they are”
What does Agis note according to plut about Corinthian walls?
Their effeminacy - spartans saw walls as weak and cowardly saying their own walls were the spearheads of their young men
What is dubious about using Plut’s sayings of the Spartans?
It’s unlikely that they were all said by whom they’re attributed to if they’re not just fabrications
What did Brasidas’ mother when she was told of his death?
Asked if it was a good death and remarked “brasidas was a good man but sparta has may better than he”
(plut. moralia)
state more important than individual family, harshness of mothers to encourage best hoplites, unattainable standards of military prestige - mirage.
What attitude does plut give to spartan mothers about their sons return?
Mother hands son a shield and says “son, with it or on it”
When a boy deserted battle and returned to his mother, she hitched up her skirt and asked if he wanted to crawl back in - Bravery and courage enforced from all sources
What did sparta do after the earthquake in 462?
Plut kimon 16: sent Perikleides “deathly pale in ghs scarlet cloak begging for an army” to athens
Shows dwindling spartan power and mirage - insinuating the two are linked?
What happens when sparta sends for help after the earthquake?
Athenian Ephilates wants to punish sparta for past arrogance and sees them as a threat, votes against help. Kimon “doesn’t want athens to lose its partner” so sends reinforcements.
shows sparta is still feared/respected but athens sees themself as on par or more powerful due to their declining state
How much of the peoloponnese did sparta occupy and what was the civil structure?
Thuc. 1.10:
“spartans occupies 2/5 of the peloponnese… However the city is not regularly planned… a collection of villages in the ancient Hellenic way”
aligns with laconic, simplistic minimalism
Why did thuc compare sparta to mycenae?
Both unassuming to look at now but mycenae launched the trojan campaign and sparta was exceptionally powerful - both not suggested by architecture.
Athens contrasted by saying people who find her ruins will overstate her power and importance
Who were the 3 groups ruling laconia according to ephorus and strabo - what did they do to found it?
heraklids, eurysthenes and prokles divided the country into 6 and founded individual cities; reserving sparta as royal quarters
How do ephorus and strabo show the stripping of non-spartans rights over time?
“surrounding people (periokoi) were subject to the spartiates but nevertheless had equal rights… they were called helots” in pre lycurgan times. eventually;
“eurysthenes took away their equality and ordered them to pay tax”
Shift in equality values.
What did the delphic oracle say to lycurgus after he defeated tegea?
“I incline to believe, lycurgus, that you are a god” (hdt. 1.65)
an oracle later gives him the great rhetra to put into law for apollo
What does the oracle’s suggestion of lyk being a deity in Hdt. suggest/corroborate with?
It substances pluts claim in lyk 13 that he called his public speeches rhetri as if they were divine commands and aids the view that he probably wasn’t real - more of a loosely based character on multiple reformers.
How did lyk originally implement his changes?
He became guardian and regent of his nephew lebotas; when gaining this position, he immediately set to work (hdt. 1.65)
Personally, i wonder whether this arrangement was perfectly unorchestrated and legal
Why does plut not align with Hdt in 1.65 of the histories?
Hdt says ephors were created by lyk, plut maintains they were created in the reign of theopompus and polydorus
What do the spartans ask the oracle about arcadia?
What’s the result?
Ask to invade arcadia.
“I will not grant it… I will give you tegea to dance in with stamping feet”
(Hdt. 1.66)
They attempt to invade and get beaten, incarcerated in their own fetters (chains) intended for the tegeans
What did the oracle suggest would end Sparta’s losing streak in the 550s?
Hdt 1.67:
oracle “promised them victory if they brought home the bones of orestes, son of agamemnon”
Agamemnon launched the assault on troy and was a hero.
How did Hdt suggest the bones of orestes were returned?
Lichas spoke to a smithy who directed him to the grave site - once these relics were brought to sparta, they seemed to be successful in all pursuits
