"Because only Spartan women give birth to real men."

Modern Conservative ^ | June 26, 2008 | Christopher Cook

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Yes, the Spartans were also famous for committing infanticide on any deemed unfit.

And now Americans murder millions and millions of unborn just for simple convenience.

Oh yes, we're so much more civilized than those barbarians.

[ZGuy]

I agree. 300 was a real let down. Don’t watch it unless you know your fast forward button works.

[ZGuy]

I agree. 300 was a real let down. Don’t watch it unless you know your fast forward button works.

[allmendream]

The point that I responded to was that the embrace of Spartan’s by modern American conservatives is not a ‘good fit’. I am not making a judgment as to the barbarity of either Americans or Spartans; just pointing out that these statist, homosexual, infanticide practitioners are not exactly marching in lockstep to modern conservatism.

[Polybius]

Exactly! I was wondering how the author of this piece swallowed that movie as fact. Spartans used to leave their weak and sickly newborns on hills... to die.

You mean as opposed to, say, aborting 40 million in 26 years and not allowing them to even be born to find out if they were "weak and sickly" or not?

There have been more than 40 million abortions in the twenty six years since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized unrestricted abortion on January 22, 1973.

[reagan_fanatic]

[yarddog]

I was a Classics Major in college. I particularly studied Sparta and Athens. I don't care who wrote some book, Sparta was not known for homosexuality.

Nothing you wrote has anything to do with homosexuality.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Modern Conservatives are so scattered and unfocused I’m fairly confident any cross section of them would be more than likely to cover the three points you touched upon.

Conservative is a watered down label these days, anyone who is willing to vote for an (R) is dragged under the tent flaps and hailed as a brother.

So, yes, I’m fairly certain modern (large C) Conservatives would have more in common with the Spartans than you think. (small c) conservatives are a dying breed, it’s being rejected by the right and demonized by the left and most people are more than willing to retreat rather than face rejection by society.

[allmendream]

Ummmm. Lets see. From 12 years old they are given to a 22 year old. When they are 22 years old they are given a 12 year old boy to play with. By the time they are 30 their new 18 year old bride had to cut her hair short dress like a boy and lay face down.

Yeah, NOTHING to do with homosexuality.

Gimme a break.

[CarrotAndStick]

Those Spartan babies were a significant proportion of their newborn. The ones that met abuse might have as well been all of their progeny.

That’s a “civilisation” that doesn’t exist anymore, and been dead for centuries, if not eons, remember?

They must have messed up somewhere along the way.

[allmendream]

In a well-known passage in his Life of Lykourgos, Plutarch recounts that when they reached the age of twelve, in other words at the time of their entry into the pedagogical system, the ephebes were associated with lovers chosen from the best of the young men. This custom is confirmed in an anecdote by the same author that tells how the king of Sparta, Agesilas, while an adolescent in an agele, also had a lover, and by Xenophon who ascribes to Lykourgos the rueles for love relationships between adolescents and adults. Even if the latter author sees these relations as purely platonic, Plutarch and Xenophon both speak of Spartan “pederasty” as an institution within the educational system of the agoge, with a specific pedagogical function, for the education, says Xenophon about what he calls “the erotic desires for the boys”.

[Eternal_Bear]

A society based on pederasty and slavery is not my idea of Western civilization. They later took tons of money from Persia to defeat Democratic Athens in the Peloponessian War. They were incredible fighters though but no society ever tried to emulate them. They were just too extreme.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks.

To all: the actual liberty-lovin’ volunteer force which made the difference fought at Salamis. They broke the Persian navy and made possible the land victory the following year. During the first invasion by the Persians, the Spartans did nothing, refusing to send a single soldier, and so Athens and others had to defend all of Greece, and won, at Marathon.

The real Spartans were nothing like the movie.

[Polybius]

Those Spartan babies were a significant proportion of their newborn.

Historical citation, please.

In regards to the 40 million Americans aborted in the past 26 years, even if not a single one reproduced, they would account for 13% of the entire current U.S. population.

That’s a “civilisation” that doesn’t exist anymore, and been dead for centuries, if not eons, remember? They must have messed up somewhere along the way.

Actually, that "civilization" is very much alive.

Civilizations that are "dead" are those civilizations whose deeds and examples have been forgotten or ignored and no longer inspire or affect the modern World in any way, shape or form.

The Nabataeans are now a "dead" civilization.

The example of Sparta, Athens and Rome, however, have inspired and culturally shaped our Western Civilization to this very day.

In regards to the city state of Sparta not surviving the Roman conquest, all that proves is that a cobra, no matter how agressive, will never defeat a determined elephant.

[BigCinBigD]

We’re in for one Hell of a ping!

[yarddog]

Actually the Spartans did send their army to help the Athenians at Marathon. Because of a religious celebration they were delayed.

Once they did go they marched to Marathon in a record breaking march. They arrived after the battle and congratulated the Athenians on their victory.

[SunkenCiv]

The Spartans refused to fight beyond the Pelopponnese at that time because of the phase of the moon. They humiliated themselves in front of the rest of Greece, making the PR victory at Thermopylae a necessity. I’ve wondered if — in line with their later behavior during the Pelopponnesian War — they had taken cash from the Persians to stay out of the fight, as their army arrived at Marathon far too quickly (considering the distance) after the battle.

http://www.livius.org/man-md/marathon/marathon.html

[snip] At the same time, they sent a messenger named Pheidippides to Sparta, who returned three days later (after covering some 450 kilometer!) with the message that the Spartans would send reinforcements as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a religious law forbade any military operation until full moon, which was still six days ahead. (This full moon allows us to date the battle to 10 September or 12 August 490.) [end]

[CarrotAndStick]

What aspect of Spartan culture, has found its way into modern Western Civilisation, exactly?

I’d have said that strong Roman rule, with its nature of imposing Roman culture in those areas it conquered; all over Europe, one time or the other; before and after the formation of the Church, was what shaped Western Culture, with the Romans themselves borrowing from the Greeks.

But the Greeks and Spartans were at odds, most of the time.

[Polybius]

What aspect of Spartan culture, has found its way into modern Western Civilization, exactly?

The theory of the checks and balances of mixed government, for one.

The self discipline of martial valor for the sake of the survival of Western Civilization, for another.

See Post 20.

***************

I would also point out that Sparta's devotion to the core value of "defending it’s right to exist" should not be taken for granted ......

..... especially in 21st Century America.

***************

Throughout the history of Western Civilization, when a "Britain's Finest Hour" moment was needed, when the bastions of Western Civilization needed defending, Western Civilization has looked back upon the Battle of Thermopylae ...... and the Spartans whose sacrifice gave the West the time it needed to save itself.

What would have happened if the Spartan had never fought at Thermopylae?

What if the Persians had conquered Greece, erased its heritage of democratic rule (which included Sparta although we may not condone its democratic choices) and if the Persians had established a beachhead in Western Europe to go on and crush the infant Roman Republic and then the Celtic barbarians of Western Europe.

Whether we like it or not, Western Civilization survives not because of the law-giver or the poet or the philosopher or the merchant or the engineer but, rather, because of the rough-around-the edges "Tommy", or the G.I., or the sailor at Lepanto or the Roman Legionnaire or the Spartan hoplite gaining precious time at Thermopylae at the cost of their lives.

If we even have a Western Civilization at all today may very well depend on the sacrifice that those Spartans made at Thermopylae.

ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
κείμεθα τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

"What aspect of Spartan culture, has found its way into modern Western Civilization, exactly?"

How about its very existence?

[yarddog]

The Spartans were Greeks. I doubt if they contributed much culturally, but if they had not been the leaders in the Persian defeat at Plataea and other places, we may well have never had Western Democracy.