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I taped this and watched it over the weekend. Elizabeth mentioned it in another thread, so I thought I'd start a new one here to see whether people saw this 3-hour special and what they thought of it.
The main things I liked were the interesting facts about Greek culture of the period. I knew almost nothing about Sparta so it was a great way to learn some bizarre facts about their way of life and their society.
The main things I disliked were all the scenes of the narrator driving, walking, riding, etc. That and the scenes of modern-day Greece with no real connection to the story. It got really artsy in parts, water dripping off the anchor chain of a bright red cargo ship, for example.
The reason they did all that is that the show was on TV and they needed visuals. But, as I understanding, Sparta's contribution to archeology amounts to a bunch of pedestals that used to hold up statues, a few small bronze figurines, a bunch of identical weapons & armor, a few decorated shields, and a cave filled with bones.
Yikes!
Anyway, they needed to fill 3 hours of TV with visuals and there suprisingly isn't 3 hours worth of visual stuff to show about Sparta.
The saddest part was towards the end where she was talking about how Sparta became a tourist spot for Romans to visit. They'd admired the culture (what they knew of it), so they wanted to visit the actual place -- now long past its glory. The locals would dance, make the local blood & vinegar brew, and then beat children to death for the amusement of spectators.
Ugh.
That and the way they got rid of unwanted (i.e., weak) male babies was just tragic.
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Man I hate the way this smiley bounces around looking disgusted. Its like some Alcoholic in DTs. Posts: 622 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I would like to see that, but I choose not to have a t.v. so there goes that idea.
Pressfield's The Gates of Fire always comes to my mind when the topic of Sparta comes up, which it does not do very frequently.
I thought Pressfield's Spartans were a pretty tough group. He portrayed the Spartan soldiers like they were super Marines. I do know I would not have made a very good Spartan citizen soldier.
Did the PBS documentary deal with this aspect of Sparta?
Posts: 201 | Registered: Oct 2001
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That was an interesting series. It's weird how peopel can think they are living in a utopia when they are NOT. But, it was cool how the women were just a bit, but not quite freer than the women of Athens. It seemed like an extremely interesting culture. But infanticide... Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Spartan culture was, in my mind, a hidious monstrosity. It's been years since I studied it, but I remember thinking "holy crap, I'm glad that that society died".
Unfortunately, I didn't see the doucmentary; if I'd known that it were on I wouldn't have missed it. Oh well--the good thing about PBS is that they'll air it again sometime soon.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Did the PBS documentary deal with this aspect of Sparta?
I think it did a great job of looking at the "citizen soldier" and the life of those who were not part of the military. It was a highly stratified society, with only those born into it and "in good standing" given the full rights of citizens. Towards the end, this amounted to fewer than 1000 male citizens in a society of tens of thousands of people (including slaves and disenfranchised artisans).
The males who were born Spartans but who could not or would not fight mostly were killed either soon after birth or at some point during the training. If they managed to survive the training but failed to become soldiers, they were basically 2nd class citizens with no power.
Spartan women had a better time of it than most of their contemporaries in the rest of Greece. The women of Athens rarely got to go out in public, for example. Whereas Spartan women pretty much ran their own lives in the absence of the men who were either off fighting or hanging out in their various social clubs.
But it was a cruel society from our viewpoint. If you gave birth to a son, you were doomed to lose that child to the military at a very early age.
The ideal of motherhood was sacrifice for the state. Women had babies out of obligation, not love, or so it was portrayed.
Also, Sparta, though revolutionary in the beginning (it was they who actually invented democracy) was doomed to never change or adapt. Their first ruler (viewed as more of a god, apparently) had said that the rules of their society should never change, so they never did. And that was their eventual downfall, of course. They couldn't adapt to dwindling population of the the elite, for example. Rome used their model to some extent, but not quite so insane. And Rome was smart in allowing just about anyone to become a citizen (if still not quite a "Roman" at least you could have a say) by fighting for them.
If Sparta had done likewise, they probably would've evolved and remained a power for a much longer time.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I saw most of the second half of the program. It was mostly fascinating, but it always bugs me when programs use recognizeable artifacts that don't have anything to do with the topic at hand. I mean, it's great that we see the statue of Marcus Aurelius and all, but it's really not necessary to see it when talking about the Peloponnesian War.
I eventually lost interest in the program due to the narrator, but my mother and I discovered the PBS website for the program and had a lot of fun exploring the site and being Athenian whores. Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I wonder what the Spartans would've done to the Jews instead of the Romans going in and conquering them.
Actually, there's a good thought for how this all could've started too. There was an Athenian who became a Spartan for awhile. He could've brought them some revolutionary change. Or there was that guy who helped the gimpy king get elected. If the king hadn't had him killed, but rather sat back and fallen victim to the planned coup, maybe things would've been very revolutionary in Sparta for awhile.
They might've invented new ways to fight and thus not been wiped out in that last terrible battle.
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"Pressfield's The Gates of Fire always comes to my mind when the topic of Sparta comes up, which it does not do very frequently."
Oh, my, Bob, you MUST read this novel. As a matter of fact, I have it right here and will send it to you if you give me your address. I often cry when i read books, but I actually had to leave the house, hide in the yard away from the family, and finish the book by myself as I sobbed and sobbed. It is an amazingly well crafted novel about the Battle at Thermolpylae. He writes it in a way that, even though you know the ending, and he gives little snippets of everyone's deaths as he writes, you are still absolutely blown away by the sacrifice, comaraderie, and love between these men, and also between the men and their wives.
Sparta was completely isolationist. They did not trade, they did not do a whole lot of art or writing, and much of their story is lost because it was all based on action.
If you think about the Spartans from a 21st Century perspective, they were monsters. If you think of their culture comapred to others of their time, they were pretty amazing.
My dad is a Latin teacher and Classics major, so I grew up on stories of the Greeks and Romans. The Spartans were brutal, and the "sponsorship" of the boys was terrible, but if you read "Gates of Fire," you understand why it was like that, and why they accepted it.
I always wondered, though, if Helen of Troy was a Sparta, why she didn't just kick Menelaus's behind and swim home.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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I agree with you. I am not usually a fan of historical fiction, but The Gates of Fire appears to have been well researched. It not only portrays the battles accurately, but it gives an honest account of what Spartan life was like.
I enjoyed it from the historical, not character, point of view.
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Elizabeth. Don't mail me any books! It's like the black hole of books here. They just get sucked in and never get returned. Or, if they are returned, they are all beat up and limping.
I'll just have to purchase my own copy of that book. It sounds great!
As for Helen, when I read Homer's account, I kind of got the sense that she kind of liked her life in Priam's household. Maybe the luxuries were enough to keep her interested even if her new lover didn't measure up to her Spartan programming of what a man should be.
On the other hand, maybe being married to a Spartan warrior didn't involve much romance and she craved that too.
But I also got the sense that she found her new guy to be rather effete and so wouldn't mind getting a real man again, if he could win her.
But I pretty much hated Helen's personality. She sounded vain and spiteful and I guess that might be a by product of Spartan female independence as seen through Homer's eyes. Interesting thought...
Hmm....
Maybe Helen of Sparta was just making a booty call in Troy.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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"But I pretty much hated Helen's personality. She sounded vain and spiteful and I guess that might be a by product of Spartan female independence as seen through Homer's eyes. Interesting thought..."
First of all, Bob, you could keep the book, if you wanted to, or just pass it along to someone else.
Second, women were not portrayed in wonderful ways in the ancient world. Think of all the witches, she-demons, etc. It was probably the uppity women who ended up with these legends and myths attached to them.
"Hmm....
Maybe Helen of Sparta was just making a booty call in Troy."
For sure, and I think you should write a novel from her perspective as a woman who wanted a metrosexual Trojan man for a while, but then tired of his polite and respectful ways and wanted to return home, to resume her role as Dominatrix of Sparta.(sorry to mix threads)
Actually, my never-to-be-finished-because-I-am-a-procrastinating-fool novel is about Harim, the Harlot in the Gilgamesh myth, from her perspective.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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So you're saying she prefered petrosexual to metrosexual.
Oh well. I've seen that before!
Heck, I'll e-mail you my address if you really are willing to part permanently with a beloved book. I think you must be insane or live in a very small space. But what the heck. I have never turned down free reading material.
(which, by the way, is why my house is overflowing with religious tracts.)
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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That's the one, plus, I like to pass books around, and my dad passed that one to me. I'll sign his name, my name, and my other friend's name, and you can sign yours and pass it on to another reader.
By the way, alternate reality sci fi ancient myth buffs, Dan Simmons' new novel, "Ilium," is about the story of Troy-on Mars(or some other planet, anyway)
Bob, I was just clearing out my email. it is full. Thanks for telling me!
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Darn, Elizabeth, you beat me to the suggestion. A friend loaned me that book, but actually took it back. If you don't like the excess visuals on TV, read the book.
Another interesting Greek/Ancient World book to read if Gore Vidal's Creation. It is the most cynical book I've ever read. Has a nice section on Ancient Greece and Sparta, from the Persian point of view.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The Dan Simmons novel "Ilium," is the first of a two-book series, so beware! The second book will be called "Olympos."
I almost baought it today, and put it back because i didn't want to have to wit for the second book. Sean Russell burned me big time this summer.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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