[blam]

GGG Ping.

[GoLightly]

Interesting.

[SoldierMedic]

I was taught that the babies were left on a hillside. Still, it’s all interesting.

[Melas]

I thought this was already known? We were taught in college that the Spartans gave the weakly and the deformed to the Helots to raise.

[Red Badger]

...bones studied to date came from the fifth and sixth centuries BC and come from 46 men.....Aristomenes and his 50 warriors, who were all thrown into the pit... Maybe it's them!.............

[CarrotAndStick]

Aren’t baby bones mostly cartillage? IIRC, the Spartans would decide on its fate immediately after the birth of the baby.

[deathrace2000]

Rumor likely started by early Pro-Abortion democrats.

[jagusafr]

Thanks - I’d really been fretting about this...

[rednesss]

Come on, how can any self-respecting Sparta themed post not have a picture from "300" in it yet???

[marine86297]

Can we throw worthless, er, uh, I mean all DUmmies into a pit off the coast of San Francisco?

PLEASE!!!

[Bon mots]

I hate to say it, but some babies should be tossed.

[Cacique]

ping

[river rat]

My own mother, an arranged marriage immigrant bride from Sparta (Sparti)-— mentioned frequently the practice..

She never described the technique - but maintained that under certain circumstances it was still practiced into the 20th century...

Even in her old age — she would VERY carefully examine all the newborns to the family in an almost ghoulish manner..

We would all breath a sigh of relief when she would smile and pass the newborn back to its mother...

I this case — I’ll go with my mother’s account..

[Raycpa]

Would smaller boned babies be eaten or otherwise have a reason for not being preserved like full grown bodies?

[eleni121]

Μολὼν λαβέ

Most Spartans and more generally Greeks today know that this particular aspect of Spartan life - nonsense promoted by British and German archaeologists based on the agendized Plutarch - was never true. Bravo Dr. Pitsios!

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. While I'm not really a fan of Plutarch, this cliff was known as "the place of rejection"; there's never been a second of doubt about it before; infant bones exposed to the elements would be long gone; fresh infant remains would have been hauled off whole or in pieces by scavengers, so there'd be nothing left anyway. My guess is this is some kind of attempt to defend a NAMBLA-type society from the ancient world, and is being done for current political reasons. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[jalisco555]

Most of what we think we know about Spartan culture and practices was written by their enemies, or at least by people unsympathetic to Sparta. They left very little written records themselves.

[Tribune7]

According to Pitsios, the bones studied to date came from the fifth and sixth centuries BC and come from 46 men, confirming the assertion from ancient sources that the Spartans threw prisoners, traitors or criminals into the pit.

Now, THAT is Spara!