[ValenB4]

"Number one: Their ancestors WERE blood-thirsty savages. Some things are slow to change."

The Persians were most certainly not savages and their empire was the first truly international empire in history. Cryus the Great comissioned the world's first document on human rights.

http://www.farsinet.com/cyrus/

While it was a good thing for the West for the Spartans to have held off the Persians for as long as they did at Thermopylae, the Spartan culture would be considered more barbaric than that of the Persians. The state was supreme in Sparta. For example, families were not allowed to raise their children, and slaves greatly outnumbered the citizens. Sparta was considered a backward pariah state among ancient Greece whose only use was to keep Athens in check.

If only the Muslim government of Iran would follow the lead of its predecessors, then that country would be in much better shape today.

[Rummyfan]

Funny how we take so much from ancient Greece, almost all of it Athenian Greece, yet all the sports teams are Spartans....

[3AngelaD]

Please see my post at number 26. Like every other civilization at that time, the Persians, the Greeks and especially the Spartans, the Egyptians, the Jews and the Romans to come were blood thirsty savages -- by modern standards. Yes, I admit I am guilty of a Whig interpretation of history. And I am familiar with the story of the Spartan boy.

[Arthalion]

the Spartan culture would be considered more barbaric than that of the Persians

Indeed, and their barbarity is well documented. The Spartans, for example, would immerse newborn children in a highly potent wine for some period. Many children simply died from the exposure, but if they survived, they would be brought before the elders of their village for judgment. Children deemed "unfit", those with deformities, birth defects of any type, or even those who simply became too ill after their wine bath, would be taken up a nearby mountain and hurled off a cliff. Children permitted to live, who later were found to have any type of similar disability (or who were severely injured during their military training...which started at 7) met the same fate.

The Spartans also excelled in the art of the orgy, and bisexualism among their females was the norm. Spartan men who failed in battle rarely returned home, because Spartan society placed more value on victory than family...a husband coming home in disgrace would probably have his throat cut by his wife while he slept, so that she could erase her shame.

Not a nice people, at all.