Despite the Spartans’ Last Stand at Thermopylae, They Are Still the Most Overrated Warriors of the Ancient World

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2023

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The last stand at Thermopylae made the Spartans legends in their own time, famous for their toughness, stoicism and martial prowess. They were feared for never surrendering and never running from a fight, always preferring death to dishonor. But was this reputation earned? How much of it was true versus an exaggeration that compounded over the centuries?

That’s the question that today’s guest, Myke Cole, asked himself when he set out to investigate their military history, which became his book “The Bronze Lie: Shattering the Myth of Spartan Warrior Supremacy,

Spartan history had its moments of glory, but it was also punctuated by frequent and heavy losses. It was a society dedicated to militarism not in service to Greek unity or to the Spartan state itself, but as a desperate measure intended to keep its massive population of helots (a near-slave underclass) in line. What successes there were, such as in the Peloponnesian Wars, gave Sparta only a brief period of hegemony over Greece. Today, there is no greater testament to this than the relative position of modern Sparta and its famous rival Athens.

Nevertheless, there is still plenty to appreciate about the Spartans when we look at them as real people, not as mythological figures.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History and Plug podcast.
0:08.0	When the 300 Spartans fought the Persians, the Battle of Thermopoly, and nearly pushed
0:11.7	them back despite every man dying, it cemented their reputation as the ancient world's
0:15.7	most fearsome warriors, and the number of myths grew out of this.
0:18.9	The Spartans never surrendered and never ran from a fight, and always preferred death to
0:22.3	dishonor.
0:23.3	They were also, well, Spartan, and hated wealth and luxury refused to use money.
0:27.4	They also held the good of the city's state above the individual, and fought to keep
0:30.9	Greece from foreign influence.
0:33.0	You can find examples of all these myths, but many of them are just that.
0:37.6	These guests might call, decided to look deeper into the Spartan myth, and he wrote a book
0:41.2	called the Bronze Lye, shattering the myth of Spartan warrior supremacy.
0:44.1	What he found is that Sparta was dedicated to militarism, but it wasn't for the purpose
0:48.5	of rigunity, or the Spartan state itself, but in order to keep its massive population
0:53.2	of a near-slaved underclass in life.
0:55.4	And yes, Sparta did have successes, but they lost just as much, and were quickly eclipsed
0:59.8	by other Greek city-states, especially Athens.
1:02.8	And by the time Rome said its sights on the conquest of Greece, Sparta wasn't even a military
1:06.7	power.
1:07.7	While the Romans would visit Sparta as tourists, and play act being Spartan warriors,
1:12.4	re-enacting battle scenes that they read out of Plutarch.
1:15.1	This is a good episode of the delves into what we think we know about ancient history,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Unplugged, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Unplugged and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.