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.
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.