Download greek writers on sparta

 c700-371BC
 Greek
society – but a separate city state
 All city states had their own ‘personality’
 Sparta – first ‘Communist’ society
 Athens more democratic and philosophical
 From
Greece – writing c 50-100AD
 Sparta had turned a lot of its old institutions
into tourist attractions.
 His histories concentrated on characters and
the influence they have on history.
 He wrote a lot about the impact of Lycurgus
 “Whosoever of the citizens would not submit
to the discipline to which the boys were
subjected had no participation in civic
rights”
 Exiled
from Athens in the 4th century BC
 He stayed in Sparta for a while and was one
of the last to see the dying traditions still
working eg agoge
 He spoke highly of Sparta because he had
been there and understood their ways
 “there is no state in the world in which
greater obedience is shown to the law than
Sparta”
 An
Athenian historian who wrote around the
4th century BC
 He’s critical of Spartan institutions and talks
about the unfairness of the kleros system
and the breakdown of Spartan society
 “The Lacedaemonian constitution is
defective”
 Wrote
around the 4th century BC
 He was Athenian but was exiled
 He was pro-Spartan but critical of their
‘impact’ on the world.
 He didn’t write of Spartan society, mainly on
their institutions.
 “If the city of the Lacedaemonians were
deserted, and the shrines and foundations of
buildings preserved, I think that after the
passage of considerable time there would
eventually be widespread doubt that their
power measured up to their reputation.”
 Wrote
around the 5th century BC
 Was pro-Greek
 Looked down on the Spartan way of life and
said it was so foreign to Greeks that they
would never understand it.
 Didn’t understand their religious convictions
eg: Battle of Marathon (Leonidus and the
300)
 Wrote
in the 4th century BC
 Athenian
 He praises the order of the Spartan system
 “All in all, the terms that best describe
Sparta are austerity, frugality, discipline.”