Russians are employing this dastardly new technology called “mines” which no army on earth has encountered before, least of all those of the NATO members like France, Germany and the UK.
Russians are employing this dastardly new technology called “mines” which no army on earth has encountered before, least of all those of the NATO members like France, Germany and the UK.
The longevity of this propaganda is truly astonishing, and it’s not surprising that a group of people as fucked as the Spartans are well-known such a reference point of supposed heroism in the West’s increasingly fascistic culture.
There is no actual historical evidence that the Spartans were militarily superior to anyone else. They were militarily insignificant by the time and actual myth about them had emerged after the war against Persia through their propaganda. For instance their military capacities were laughable compared to the Macedonians, let alone the Romans. But the time of the Roman invasion of Greece they became little more than a tourist attraction.
Actually, Thermopylae was a disproof of the Spartan strategy that they should try oppose the Persians on land. But the Spartans then tried to insist that they should try that AGAIN, opposing them similarly along the Pelopponese. The Athenians knew that this was wrong, and that they could far better face them at sea and by retreating from the mainland. The Athenians actually had to trick the Spartans into following their plan, hence the battle at Salamis.
Honestly the Spartans contributed little if anything to human culture.
Also reminder that the the Spartan elite would annually declare war on their own helots every autumn, giving them the right to murder them at whim, and this was probably a right of passage for the young men.
except winning the pelopenesian war & dominating the greek states for decades. they were just a random city that accidentally won the largest war of classical greek history? you can say their reputation is inflated but they obviously were top of the class in military matters during their (brief) heyday
the sources for the spartans make clear the emphasis for their military program was not in producing people good at ‘swinging a sword’, but well-drilled and disciplined units. lots of myths are spun about thermopylae but you can’t say the spartans there lacked those characteristics.
nor was thermopylae ‘proof’ of a bad strategy, the greek alliance hadn’t set out to defeat the persian army in detail with that small force, it was a delaying action that very likely aided the preparations of the cities to the south and contributed to the final victory–which was not borne solely from Athenian naval victory: they also defeated the persians on land.
i’m with you for the (attested) picture of sparta being a horrific society, but you don’t need to create a parallel myth of spartan insignificance to prove that.