Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Spartans Did Not Throw Deformed Babies Away: Researchers
Yahoo News ^ | 12-10-2007

Posted on 12/12/2007 11:10:15 AM PST by blam

Spartans did not throw deformed babies away: researchers

Mon Dec 10, 1:22 PM ET

AFP/File Photo: The statue of King Leonidas of ancient Sparta stands over the battlefield of Thermopylae, some...

ATHENS (AFP) - The Greek myth that ancient Spartans threw their stunted and sickly newborns off a cliff was not corroborated by archaeological digs in the area, researchers said Monday.

After more than five years of analysis of human remains culled from the pit, also called an apothetes, researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults between the ages of 18 and 35, Athens Faculty of Medicine Anthropologist Theodoros Pitsios said.

"There were still bones in the area, but none from newborns, according to the samples we took from the bottom of the pit" of the foothills of Mount Taygete near present-day Sparta.

"It is probably a myth, the ancient sources of this so-called practice were rare, late and imprecise," he added.

Meant to attest to the militaristic character of the ancient Spartan people, moralistic historian Plutarch in particular spread the legend during first century AD.

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.

The discoveries shine light on an episode during the second war between Sparta and Messene, a fortified city state independent of Sparta, when Spartans defeated the Messenian hero Aristomenes and his 50 warriors, who were all thrown into the pit, he added.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; ancientgreece; archaeology; babies; deformed; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; researchers; spartans
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-74 next last
To: blam

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

PLEASE!!!


21 posted on 12/12/2007 12:13:55 PM PST by marine86297 (I'll never forgive Clinton for Somalia, my blood is on his hands)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: deathrace2000

I think people have been aborting and preventing pregnancies since they figured out where babies came from.


22 posted on 12/12/2007 12:15:36 PM PST by stuartcr (Everything happens as God wants it to.....otherwise, things would be different.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: stripes1776
I have read a fair amount of military history of the ancient Greeks. I would say that was not a consideration for going to war in 5th and 4th century BC Greece.

That's not what I was talking about. Think more in terms of stuff about the "Huns" & "Nips" in WWII.

If you haven't seen the movie "300", I would recommend renting it.

The reason I went to the movie had to do with knowing the story.

23 posted on 12/12/2007 12:24:39 PM PST by GoLightly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: blam
I hate to say it, but some babies should be tossed.
24 posted on 12/12/2007 12:34:32 PM PST by Bon mots
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: stripes1776
Definitely not a consideration, for a long time daughters didn't even get their own name. Their names were pretty much a female version of their fathers, and all the daughters would have the same name.

This practice lasted for some time.

25 posted on 12/12/2007 12:42:57 PM PST by GeronL (Its not his Faith its his Faithfulness to conservativsm that bothers me)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Vom Willemstad K-9

ping


26 posted on 12/12/2007 12:43:49 PM PST by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GoLightly
That's not what I was talking about. Think more in terms of stuff about the "Huns" & "Nips" in WWII.

Well, you are jumping ahead quite a number of years. I am not convinced that we can project 20th century ideas back into history and claim to understand people who lived 2000 years ago. Understanding doesn't necessarily mean approving, but I have seen too much debunking of history to be fan of that approach.

But I'm still not clear about your meaning. Are you saying that Plutarch was trying to demonize the Spartans for some reason? And if so, for what purpose? There was no war against Sparta at this time.

The reason I went to the movie had to do with knowing the story.

I hope you enjoyed the movie. Of course it was a movie, not a documentary. But I think it probably introduced a lot of people to the importance of the battle of Thermopylae.

27 posted on 12/12/2007 12:53:07 PM PST by stripes1776 (u)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Just about all ancient peoples practiced infanticide.

Yep. The early Romans believed that babies didn't receive a soul until they were nearly a year old (a child attempting to speak was a sign that his soul had entered his body). A body without a soul was no different than an animal, and killing them was widely considered no more evil than slaughtering a cow.

Interestingly, even the ancient Romans considered animal torture to be sick. People who tortured cats and dogs for fun back then were widely regarded to be as odd and depraved as we regard them today. The need to kill animals was understood, but mindlessly making them suffer was disapproved of (except for public displays and formal entertainment, which were an odd exception to that morality). They generally extended this same perspective to newborn babies. While it was acceptable to put them to death, parents were expected to do it mercifully and painlessly. Exposure was one method common to the poorer people. If you had money, it was more common to give the child an overdose of opium and allow them to expire quietly in their home.

I've said it before...there is a good reason why the Romans chose to abandon their pagan ways and accept Christianity. The old Roman religion gave little value to the individual, while Christianity taught that we all have value...even newborns.
28 posted on 12/12/2007 1:09:14 PM PST by Arthalion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: stripes1776
Well, you are jumping ahead quite a number of years. I am not convinced that we can project 20th century ideas back into history and claim to understand people who lived 2000 years ago. Understanding doesn't necessarily mean approving, but I have seen too much debunking of history to be fan of that approach.

Leaders didn't start to dehumanize opponents in the modern era. You'll find plenty of examples of it throughout history. I picked a more recent example, but I can give you older examples. Some of the "barbarians" that sacked Rome were Arians, a "heretical" spin off from Christianity. If the practice of sacking a city, the whole raping & pillaging deal made a member of an armed force into a barbarian, why weren't Romans ever called barbarians?

But I'm still not clear about your meaning. Are you saying that Plutarch was trying to demonize the Spartans for some reason?

No, history writers aren't the creators of the myths about opponents. There's no good way to know how much of "common knowledge" is true years after its become common knowledge.

I hope you enjoyed the movie. Of course it was a movie, not a documentary.

Yes, I did.

But I think it probably introduced a lot of people to the importance of the battle of Thermopylae.

I think it did too. I couldn't believe my son, a history major had never heard about that battle before I asked him to go to that movie with me.

29 posted on 12/12/2007 1:32:31 PM PST by GoLightly
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: GeronL
for a long time daughters didn't even get their own name. Their names were pretty much a female version of their fathers, and all the daughters would have the same name.

Actually, in ancient Rome the daughters were all called by the feminine variant of the nomen, the clan or gens name. This is the origin of the modern names Julia (Julius clan) and Claudia (Claudius gens).

Individual daughters were often given nicknames based on birth order: Prima, Secundia, Tertia, Major, Minor, etc.

This is the equivalent of me naming my two daughters Big Logan and Little Logan. I don't think that would fly very high with them!

30 posted on 12/12/2007 1:33:59 PM PST by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Arthalion

In traditional Roman law the paterfamilias had power of life and death not only over the newborns up to a year old, but of older children, the slaves, his wife and even grown sons and their wives and children.

You could have a 60 year old man who himself had great-grandsons, and his 80 year old Dad still had complete control of his life. (In theory, anyway.)


31 posted on 12/12/2007 1:38:06 PM PST by Sherman Logan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: marine86297

actually the military used to discharge dishonorable discharge and sexual misconduct at sanfrancisco. That is why many of the homosexuals settlement there. That is where they were dumped and they had noplaces else to go.


32 posted on 12/12/2007 1:47:45 PM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: GoLightly; stripes1776

Victor David Hansen was the history consultant for that movie.


33 posted on 12/12/2007 1:49:32 PM PST by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: blam

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..


34 posted on 12/12/2007 1:52:47 PM PST by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: longtermmemmory

They had a history consultant? An enjoyable enough movie but its accuracy was less than stellar. And fair enough. It was trying to be true to the comic it was based on not the histories.


35 posted on 12/12/2007 2:13:47 PM PST by Androcles (All your typos are belong to us)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Sherman Logan
Pater familias is a confusing concept to discuss, since the actual powers granted by it varied greatly through the centuries. For part of Roman history, the fathers right to execution was constrained to casting out or exposure. This only made it an effective form of execution for very young children. Elsewhere in Roman history, that right was absolute, but was constrained by pietas. Unless a father could show that an older child absolutely deserved to be put to death (i.e., a teenage rapist or murderer), any father killing his child beyond infancy would have been considered monstrous. Pietas created a relationship of mutual aid, respect, and affection between fathers and sons (and to a lesser extent, daughters) which Roman societiety expected a pater familias to support and enforce within his household. During periods of unlimited "pater power", a pater familias who killed his children without cause would have been seen as violating one of the three Roman virtues, and would have become a social outcast as a result.

The unquestioned killing of children was only acceptable if the child did not yet have a soul, which largely restricted it to the first year of life. Admittedly, the killing of somwhat older children was also largely overlooked if the child turned out to have some sort of developmental defect.
36 posted on 12/12/2007 2:15:56 PM PST by Arthalion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: blam

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


37 posted on 12/12/2007 2:25:26 PM PST by Raycpa
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: blam

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!

38 posted on 12/12/2007 2:31:07 PM PST by eleni121 (+ En Touto Nika! By this sign conquer! + Constantine the Great)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GoLightly
If the practice of sacking a city, the whole raping & pillaging deal made a member of an armed force into a barbarian, why weren't Romans ever called barbarians?

In the case of the Greeks (which is where the word barbarian comes from), any one who didn't speek Greek was a barbarian because when a non-Greek spoke, it sounded like "bar-bar", simply nonsense. The Greeks did their share of pillaging and raping under the conquests of Alexander the Great. But that doesn't make them barbarians by this definition.

As for the Romans, I haven't studied their word for barbarian. I assume it would have to do with the political organization of the opponent. Those invading Germanic (even if Arian Christian) tribes were not a well-organized empire. But the Roman legions did their share of raping and pillaging. Look what they did to Jerusalem in the late first century AD--they leveled it to the ground. There are many other examples of Rome doing this sort of thing. In this context I don't think barbarian refers to the destructive power of an army.

I think it did too. I couldn't believe my son, a history major had never heard about that battle before I asked him to go to that movie with me.

I am not surprised. The teaching of history is much worse in the high schools. I read recently that school children in London were confused about a statue in that city to Lord Nelson. They thought it had something to do with Nelson Mandella. Those children aren't being taught much about their own history.

39 posted on 12/12/2007 2:54:55 PM PST by stripes1776 (u)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: longtermmemmory; GoLightly
Victor David Hansen was the history consultant for that movie.

I didn't know that. But I have read several of his books. He has done some very original research in the methods of Greek warfare. The producers of that movie picked a very capable historian for the job.

40 posted on 12/12/2007 3:01:34 PM PST by stripes1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-74 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson