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1:00

Here. Is courage mankind's find. His position here

1:02

is the Nobel prize at a young man

1:04

could endeavor to win and it is a

1:06

good thing his city and all the people

1:08

shared with him. When a

1:11

man plans his feet and stands

1:13

in the foremost spears relentlessly, all

1:15

thought of bow flight completely forgotten.

1:18

Tie. Readers. A. Seventh century

1:20

bc. He Spartan poet.

1:23

This is where we hold them.

1:26

This is where we fight. This.

1:30

Is where the guy. Gerard.

1:32

Butler twenty first century Australian actor playing

1:34

Spartan Qinglian Itis in the Box Office

1:36

Smash That got many of us thinking

1:38

about how bad our Spartans were. Three

1:40

hundred. Who. Are the

1:43

Spartans really? Where. They the Death

1:45

before dishonor bad as is portrayed in Three

1:47

Hundred. The. Technical definition would

1:49

be the Spartans were group a Greek

1:51

people from the ancient Greek city state

1:54

of Sparta who society was highly structured

1:56

and yes, very militaristic. the

1:58

spartans are often described as war life harsh and

2:00

having left no real culture behind outside

2:02

of a supreme dedication to battle, but

2:05

that isn't true. Well, that

2:07

isn't quite true. The Spartans

2:09

had a culture of dedication to battle for most

2:12

of their history. At their

2:14

peak, they were singularly focused, obsessively focused

2:16

to a degree that nowadays would be

2:18

considered psychotic to being the best warriors

2:21

on Earth. But also, there is still

2:23

a lot we don't know about them. There are

2:25

scholars today still dedicating their entire lives to

2:27

trying to understand Sparta over 2,000 years removed

2:29

from the peak of their existence. The

2:32

legend of the 300 Spartans at

2:34

Thermopylae, the Spartan Phalanxes that won

2:36

great battles, King's

2:38

Leonidas, and Agesa Laius,

2:40

and the great lawmaker, Lycurgus, real

2:42

or legend, they were all

2:45

military and cultural influences that contributed

2:47

to the legendary reputation of Sparta. Sparta

2:50

in reality was much more complex and

2:52

multifaceted than the simple legends still spread

2:54

today by clickbaity YouTube videos used to

2:56

inspire men and women to fight for

2:58

glory. However, again, there

3:01

also was a shit ton of fighting going on.

3:04

Sparta was a society that lasted well over

3:06

1,000 years, a society full of strong military

3:08

advancement so impressive that at one point the

3:10

rest of Greece thought their army

3:12

was invincible. At their height, they

3:15

were absolutely feared. Sparta

3:17

was a society that valued equality for those

3:20

deemed to be Spartans, at least, but

3:22

also enforced such rigid standards upon these

3:24

Spartans that anyone who deviated from the

3:26

norm was publicly shamed or even

3:29

banished. Sparta was a society

3:31

where women had equal rights, kind

3:33

of, more rights than many

3:35

other Greek city-states would afford women at least.

3:38

The Spartans were both progressive and conservative at the

3:40

same time, a society where mothers

3:42

had more rights than most other Greek mothers,

3:44

but also these same mothers would

3:46

truly rather see their sons die in battle

3:49

than come home having fled from battle. Sparta's

3:52

strict adherence to tradition is

3:55

often glorified in modern media and this depiction

3:57

is based on a surprising amount of truth

3:59

and it was what ultimately led to

4:01

their downfall. The times they

4:03

were a-changing though, and the Spartans didn't do enough

4:05

to change with them. Traditions can

4:07

be great, the glue that holds the society together, but

4:09

there's also a lot of truth in the thought of

4:12

evolve or die. This week we'll

4:14

learn who were the Spartans, what

4:16

were they like compared to the rest of ancient Greece, what

4:18

was life like to the Spartan, and those

4:20

living inside Spartan territory whom they deemed

4:22

to be other. Learn about

4:25

Spartan society, jump into a timeline from

4:27

the beginning to their downfall. Learning about

4:29

major political and military figures along the

4:31

way will cover most of their wars,

4:33

heroes, and battles on this historical badass

4:35

god these words are hard to pronounce,

4:37

hold my beer for the glory of

4:39

Sparta edition of

4:41

TimeSuck. This is Michael McDonald and you're

4:44

listening to TimeSuck. Happy

5:00

Monday and welcome or welcome back to

5:02

the Cult of the Curious. I'm Dan Cummins, the

5:04

master sucker, a guy who has

5:07

never taken over 500 hits of acid at one

5:09

time, a guy who felt the least

5:11

manly he has felt in months if not years by

5:13

the end of researching today's episode, but

5:16

also a guy really happy to have never left a

5:18

baby to die on a hillside, and

5:20

you are listening to TimeSuck and that

5:22

hillside reference will make sense later. Hail

5:25

Nimrod, hail the Saphina, praise be to good boy

5:27

Bojangles and glory be to triple M. Only

5:30

one very quick thing to say today before we

5:32

go to Sparta. While

5:34

I haven't felt due to so much

5:36

complicated history that I've had the mental

5:38

bandwidth to properly cover the history

5:41

of Israel and Palestine like I would like

5:43

to yet this year, I've honestly been having the

5:45

most fun I've had in a while this

5:47

year doing content that is more escapist. I

5:50

do want to say that what is currently happening in

5:52

the Gaza Strip is in a word, man,

5:55

evil. Wow. Just

5:57

in case you somehow haven't heard, maybe are looking

5:59

for a good caused a support in some way. Having

6:02

more than 1200 of your own citizens

6:04

killed by terrorists does not, in my mind,

6:06

justify killing over 13,000 innocent

6:09

Palestinian children and putting over a million

6:11

innocent Palestinians in mortal danger via starvation

6:13

in an ongoing famine and food crisis

6:16

that was not created by a drought

6:18

or a natural disaster, but largely by

6:20

air strikes. Real,

6:23

real scary shit going down in the Middle East right

6:25

now, a lot of people hurting who don't have a

6:27

dog in this fight. They're meat sacks, just like you

6:29

and me, who only want to raise their kids to

6:32

have better lives than they have, keep a roof over

6:34

their heads, put food on the table, and now all

6:36

of that is impossible. They're living in a hell many,

6:39

if not most, will probably never fully recover

6:41

from. What Hamas did to start

6:43

this current conflict was also evil. The

6:46

kidnappings, rapes, the murders, barbaric,

6:48

but goddamn, there has got

6:50

to be a better way to fight Hamas than

6:52

this. Not trying to be political, not

6:54

trying to pick a side. I'm on the side

6:56

of Team Meat Sack. I'm on the side

6:59

of most citizens of any nation who are

7:01

not political. They're just fucking people trying

7:03

to enjoy their lives while they have

7:05

them and not be bombed, not be starved. I

7:08

just have a heavy heart today, thinking about all the pain

7:10

and suffering that sure seems from across the world to be

7:12

so unnecessary, and I hope this conflict can begin to be

7:14

fought in a manner more humane, much

7:16

more humane than this, as

7:19

soon as humanly possible, man. And

7:22

now let's talk about wars that happened a long time ago.

7:24

Long, long before any of us were born, time

7:27

plus tragedy equals comedy, right? So

7:31

I think we can feel okay laughing about these

7:33

tragedies because they did take place a long

7:35

time ago. Let's go get

7:37

Greek. Let us venture

7:39

into the hearts and minds, very unusual

7:41

minds of Sparta. Sparta

7:50

was but one of many, many

7:52

different city-states in ancient Greece. Let's

7:55

check out the unique landscape they evolved out of.

7:58

By the eighth century BCE. Long

8:00

time ago, the political boundaries of

8:03

ancient Greece were composed of many different

8:05

independent city-states, and the system would

8:07

last more or less until the

8:09

Roman Republic crushed Greece in 146

8:12

BCE in the Battle of Corinth after

8:14

beginning to conquer Greece in 168 BCE

8:17

and finishing turning the whole Greek peninsula into a

8:19

Roman province by 27 BCE.

8:22

Before this, although the amount

8:24

of city-states that remained truly independent varied,

8:27

such as when Alexander the Great's father,

8:29

Philip II of Macedon, consolidated

8:31

many of the Greek city-states under his throne, and

8:34

then his son Alexander conquered even more Greek city-states.

8:36

There were always some independent Greek city-states.

8:39

A lot of history sites

8:41

will say that Alexander and his dad conquered all of

8:43

Greece. No, they did not. They

8:46

did not conquer every single city-state.

8:48

They didn't conquer Sparta, for example.

8:52

Conquered lands around Sparta, got close, but never took

8:54

the city itself. The Spartans

8:56

were past their prime at that

8:58

point, but still too fucking fierce. In

9:01

the 4th century BCE, Alexander might not have

9:03

survived taking Sparta. So

9:06

what was a city-state? City-states

9:08

are defined as a political system

9:10

consisting of an independent city having

9:13

sovereignty over contiguous territory and serving

9:15

as the center and leader of

9:17

a political, economic, and cultural life.

9:20

The term actually originated in England in the late

9:22

1800s, but has been applied to

9:24

the political structure of ancient Greece, Phoenicia,

9:27

and Italy, and

9:30

actually the early part of Rome.

9:33

City-states were the dominant settlement structures of ancient

9:35

Greece. Each city-state ruled

9:37

over for the most part not just

9:39

their city, but over a distinct region

9:41

around their city, and sometimes over other

9:43

cities and regions that

9:45

they colonized. And each had its

9:47

own culture. In the Greek language, they

9:50

were called polis. Except

9:52

for Sparta, each polis had an

9:55

outer wall for protection from rival city-states.

9:58

Sparta's more than considerable Warriors

10:00

were their wall. Seriously,

10:02

that is pretty badass. That was a

10:05

huge fucking antiquity flex. Wall?

10:08

And not be able to watch the death march

10:10

of anyone foolish and suicidal enough to try and

10:12

fuck with us? Real

10:14

men do not need walls.

10:17

Real men are walls! That

10:19

was very spartan. City

10:22

states typically had a public space with temples

10:24

and government buildings often built upon on the

10:26

crop list, a hill, to signify their importance.

10:29

A good example of this is the Parthenon, a

10:32

temple built upon a hill rising above Athens to

10:34

honor the goddess Athena. The

10:36

majority of the city state's population would live

10:38

within the city walls, especially the most esteemed

10:41

citizens. The city center would be

10:43

the hub of all trade, commerce, culture, and

10:45

politics. And at one point, and

10:47

I did not know this, I checked

10:49

it multiple times, I'm like, are

10:51

you sure? Yeah. At one point there

10:53

were over a thousand different city states in ancient Greece. No

10:56

idea there were that many. Many of them, not surprisingly,

10:59

you know, quite small, not very powerful.

11:02

The major city state players in most of

11:04

ancient Greece's wars and politics were Athens,

11:07

Sparta. Those generally were the

11:09

big two. But Corinth,

11:11

also very big in moments. Thebes

11:14

as well, Syracuse, Agena,

11:16

Rhodes, Argos, Eretria,

11:19

and Elis. Each city state

11:21

ruled itself functioned like an independent country. And

11:24

many of them are very different from the rest in

11:26

regards to their lifestyle and government. Sparta

11:29

was ruled for most of its history by two kings

11:31

and a council of 28 elders called the

11:34

Gerusia. The Spartan

11:36

government's primary focus was, as you could

11:38

probably guess, killing and or

11:41

instilling fear in motherfuckers, aka

11:43

its military. In

11:46

comparison, the Athenians, Sparta's primary rivals,

11:49

valued education and art and were governed

11:51

by democracy. And while Athens

11:53

did have a powerful army, though often not

11:55

as powerful as Sparta's, they had a

11:57

military advantage over Sparta when it came to their navy. Which

12:00

makes sense, Athens lies along the coast of

12:02

the Aegean Sea, whereas Sparta lies inland in

12:04

the Eberotus Valley, surrounded

12:06

largely by mountains. The

12:09

reason city-states came about instead of a large

12:11

centralized government was mostly because

12:13

of Greece's Mediterranean geography. Greece

12:16

is full of very rocky, mountainous

12:18

terrain, many, many islands,

12:21

roughly 6,000 islands, of

12:24

which hundreds are suitable for habitation, and

12:27

other physical barriers. These barriers resulted

12:29

in most of Greece's higher population centers being very

12:31

isolated from each other back when it was a

12:33

whole hell of a lot harder than it is

12:35

now to travel quickly and communicate

12:38

over vast distances. Also,

12:40

kings be wont to be kings, and

12:42

not be bending those king knees to other kings, kings be kingin'.

12:46

But for real, the various city-state rulers had

12:48

zero interest in being ruled by anyone else,

12:51

and for centuries it was just too big of a task

12:53

to amass an army strong enough to

12:55

both conquer other city-states and other kings. And

12:57

also, and this will be the real hard part, maintain

13:01

control over all of them after

13:03

you've vested them in battle. Interestingly,

13:05

prior to the city-state era, most

13:07

Greek historians agree that earlier tribal systems

13:10

that existed and did work together in

13:12

some capacity, or

13:14

they existed and did work together. But then

13:16

they broke up during a period of great

13:18

economic decline and established their independent territories between

13:20

1,000 and 800 BCE

13:23

in peninsular Greece, the

13:25

Aegean Islands, and Western Asia Minor. Then

13:28

over time, many of these tribes grew

13:30

greatly in size, commerce, culture, and military

13:32

strength. And some of the

13:34

stronger tribes sent out bands of warriors into other

13:36

territories, many of whom broke

13:39

away from their original rulers, and created

13:41

new, similar city-states on the coast of

13:43

the Mediterranean Sea, and the

13:45

Black Sea, between 750 and 550 BCE.

13:48

From this, over 1,000 city-states,

13:50

big, many very small, would

13:53

eventually spring up across Greece. The

13:55

governments of these city-states range from true

13:57

monarchies to true democracies, with different laws.

14:00

and constitutions in each. All

14:02

of this variety, the massive,

14:04

wondrous, beautiful exchange of ideas between many

14:06

of these city-states, allowed for a special

14:09

kind of intellectual growth that led to

14:11

the birth of our Western civilization. Hail

14:14

Nimrod and thanks ancient crazy Greek

14:16

people with your super fucking weird

14:18

gods and insane customs that we'll

14:20

get into later as we explore Sparta. If

14:24

you're not prepared for a fair amount of sodomy talk

14:26

today, this

14:28

might not be the right history lesson for you.

14:30

Might not want to play this for the classroom

14:32

until you really give it a thorough listen. However,

14:36

while the exchange of so many different

14:38

ideas was awesome for rapid cultural development,

14:41

all of these city-states being independent and

14:43

fighting one another a lot would

14:46

in time pave the way for Greece to be conquered. Because

14:49

the city-states could never properly form a

14:51

permanent union, most were eventually overtaken

14:53

by the Macedonians, the Persians would do a

14:55

lot of damage as well, and

14:57

the Romans would eventually come over and gobble up

14:59

everything. Rome itself actually

15:02

began as a city-state, but

15:04

many of its leaders aggressively pursued expansion and

15:06

their neighbors were eventually willing to centralize under

15:08

an emperor, which led to the end of

15:10

city-states and the beginning of what would become

15:13

the Roman Empire. The

15:15

primary debate within the city-states of ancient

15:17

Greece revolved around government. Who should

15:19

do what? Should authority primarily

15:21

be placed in written laws, a

15:24

constitution, officials, or individual citizens?

15:27

Each city-state thought that their way was best, that's

15:29

the way we meet, sex, operate, by

15:31

the way, the best way, and occasionally the

15:33

government would change drastically within just a few years.

15:36

Throughout the city-states there were all kinds

15:38

of different systems of government. From

15:41

what archaeological records exist, we know that the

15:43

four most common were democracy,

15:45

ruled by the people, but

15:47

by the people they meant to be. The monarchy,

15:49

ruled by an individual who had

15:52

inherited his role, certainly a dude. Oligarchy,

15:54

ruled by a select group of dudes.

15:57

And Tyranny, ruled by a dude who

15:59

had seen is powered by unconstitutional means.

16:01

A lot of tyrants in

16:04

ancient Greece. I didn't realize that from previous studies.

16:07

Not all of them bad rulers, actually. Just

16:09

dudes who didn't want to wait to be voted

16:11

into power or dudes who had to take over

16:14

to get the throne since they didn't have royal

16:16

blood. Athens is

16:18

the most well-documented Greek city state

16:21

in terms of government and culture, and

16:23

is often used as a case study for ancient

16:25

Greece in general. Athens had a

16:27

democracy, like I said earlier. And

16:29

while the concept and name of democracy and

16:31

having a constitution as a form of government

16:33

is said in a lot of sources to

16:35

have originated in ancient Athens around 508

16:38

BCE, democracy as

16:40

a form of government did exist before Athens in

16:43

numerous lesser-known city states. Greek

16:46

history is complex. It's

16:48

hard to simplify. It's just easier to say, yeah,

16:50

Athens is the birthplace of democracy rather

16:52

than saying, kind of. It's on a

16:55

continuum. It's on a spectrum, and then proceed

16:57

to talk about how recent discoveries have led

16:59

scholars to believe that many other more primitive

17:01

democracies may have existed in Phoenician city states,

17:03

Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. A few

17:06

other notable democracies were those in Argos, Syracuse,

17:10

Rhodes, Erathri, and

17:12

these democracies, like in Athens, any male citizen

17:15

aged 18 or older could speak and

17:17

vote in an assembly. Most people

17:19

voted by simply raising their hands. Most

17:22

democracies, the wealthy citizens, dominated the

17:24

political scene. They held

17:26

private meetings to influence others, fucking

17:28

lobbyists, buy votes, corruption,

17:30

intimidate people into voting for their

17:32

causes. A few democracies had money

17:34

or property requirements to become a full citizen.

17:38

Political corruption truly has

17:40

been around as long as political systems

17:42

have been around. Money

17:44

has always talked, and I imagine it always

17:46

will. In some city

17:49

states or in times of emergency, a council would

17:51

be elected to act as a governing body and

17:53

make decisions for the entire polis that

17:55

a limited term of office and their decrees

17:57

could be challenged in court. had

18:01

their Gerosia, a council of 28 elders

18:03

I mentioned earlier, which were all men

18:05

over 60, and

18:07

their two kings had designated powers. Monarchies

18:11

were rare in ancient Greece,

18:13

Macedonia and Epirus. Rulers

18:15

shared power with an assembly. Sparta's

18:18

kings were monarchs, but not absolute

18:20

monarchs. The dual kings of Sparta

18:22

had two main roles, military leader and

18:25

priest. They led the army

18:27

in battle, which included planning and strategy, also

18:29

served by leading various religious rights. Sparta

18:33

also had Ephorth. Five

18:35

Ephorths were selected by the Gerosia and

18:38

kept the kings in check during times

18:40

of peace. They would serve one-year terms,

18:42

they had an extensive range of judicial,

18:44

religious, legislative and military powers, and

18:46

could shape Sparta's home and foreign affairs. The

18:49

kings were given more authority during times of war. The

18:52

kings were members of the Gerosia

18:54

themselves, but admitted at a younger

18:56

age, breaking away from the tradition of having to be over

18:58

60 because it was a birthright.

19:02

They had to be born into a noble line to be selected

19:04

for kingship. The title was hereditary. Once

19:06

king, you would rule for life. Unless

19:09

of course you were exiled. Spartan

19:11

kings were unique for the fact that

19:13

they could go to trial and they could be

19:15

exiled and some were exiled. The

19:18

Gerosia advised the kings, voted on political and

19:20

legal issues in Sparta. Other

19:22

city-states were ruled by tyrants, as I mentioned. And

19:25

despite the negative connotations, again, tyrants

19:27

not always evil. Something

19:29

very funny to me about being a fun

19:31

tyrant. Ah, that's George! He's our tyrant.

19:34

Don't be scared though. No, he's one of the

19:36

good tyrants. I mean sure, he

19:38

could have you executed at any moment for literally

19:40

any reason, but also he does like

19:42

to be tickled. You could go grab him, throw him on

19:44

the ground and tickle him until he can't breathe right now.

19:47

I won't even kill you. Tyrants

19:49

again, simply people who just wanted to take power

19:51

for themselves and did that. Some

19:54

of the most notable tyrannies were in Syracuse,

19:56

Athens at various points, Phaidon,

20:00

Corinth, and Samos. One

20:03

interesting fact about Sparta, they never fell under

20:05

the rule of a tyrant. Oligarchies

20:08

were almost as common as democracies in

20:10

ancient Greece. In many

20:12

examples, the city-state's wealthiest citizens seized power

20:14

for themselves and made government and military

20:16

decisions. Sounds right. I'm

20:19

sure some of our wealthier citizens would love to take over

20:21

our nation right now and just run shit how they see

20:23

fit. Actually, I'm sure a lot of us, wealthy

20:25

or not, would want to do

20:27

that. Oligarchies could be large or small and varied in the

20:29

amount of power they had. Athens,

20:31

Thebes, other city-states had various oligarchies

20:33

throughout their histories. Oligarchies

20:36

most commonly occurred when democracies failed.

20:39

Overall, there is less information about oligarchies

20:41

in ancient Greece than other forms of

20:43

government. No matter the type of

20:45

government, being involved in politics was

20:47

a very important cultural value in ancient Greece.

20:49

It was seen as a way to express

20:51

involvement and interest in your community. Also

20:54

as a way to keep abuse of power in check. But

20:56

despite these noble ideals of equality and democracy,

20:59

the wealthiest citizens were involved in government the

21:01

most and had the most power,

21:03

right? Some things truly never change. They

21:05

had the money in the time, since they already had

21:07

the money, to be able to participate heavily in politics.

21:11

Athens and Sparta are often compared as

21:13

two contrasting city-states that showed the vast

21:15

differences in cultures of the time. Athens

21:18

was mostly democratic. The achlegia,

21:20

the assembly, met once a month. Women,

21:22

slaves, and foreigners could not attend the

21:24

assembly. Sparta had two

21:26

kings, as I mentioned, from different noble

21:28

lineages. Their version of

21:30

the achlegia was their

21:32

council of elders, that darosia. Instead

21:35

of allowing citizens to have input on

21:38

issues, only issues submitted by the elders

21:40

or the ephors could be discussed in

21:42

Spartan meetings. I like

21:44

it. I think that's good. I wish we had

21:46

something similar for YouTube comments. City

21:48

council meetings, parent-teacher

21:51

conferences, just a whole bunch more. Hey,

21:53

how come my comments won't show up online?

21:55

Simple. No one cares you think. Hey,

21:58

how come my daughter didn't get special recognition? Awards

22:00

banquet. She worked. Really a map. Maybe

22:02

you submit your input. To the a force

22:04

or the gear see if. He. Did and

22:06

did they approve it? Or

22:09

they did not. At. Right where did you

22:11

shut the fuck up and then she starts

22:13

to go full. Karen and to talk about

22:15

others is madness. Some some spartan wars just

22:18

fucking com that are no worse. Madness This

22:20

is spot us and his tips are gonna

22:22

fucking well. That. Nobody would notice with their

22:24

before. Side. Note: How

22:27

fun would be. To. Kick somebody's royal

22:29

lights down a well. Like.

22:31

A deep well like a solid tickler give

22:34

great flexibility, your hamstrings yet no lower back

22:36

problems. See a decent quad powers and you

22:38

just suck your knee up your test in

22:40

his pants. Just lonesome and like they don't.

22:43

We defend themselves that wealth in this fantasy.

22:45

His arms ten a flutter, the like to

22:47

live off the ground like and a quarter.

22:51

Of a this folder a deep well. And

22:53

it has to be one the don't even need

22:55

to use as a will soon after school to

22:57

be worried about with water content and you know

22:59

contempt. Oh my God. Contamination is is a fucking

23:01

pit really more than well used as it is

23:03

as easy to take him in a pit these

23:05

go down there. And. They go about your

23:08

life. There's no messy clean up, no law enforcement

23:10

as in quite a good as gone. They just

23:12

vanished into the pit of darkness. As

23:15

a fantasy my mind that feels very

23:17

satisfying. Okay back to

23:19

was one of his lights to live in sparta.

23:22

To. Per to live elsewhere in Greece. Or

23:24

other a lot of cultural differences from one city

23:26

to the next about what was important than a

23:29

citizen. Or to really be considered a

23:31

Spartan. For example, he had to be strong. Courageous.

23:34

Highly disciplined boys would leave home

23:36

at the age of seven. To.

23:39

Dedicate their lives to Sparta. By

23:41

the age twenty, they were nameless,

23:44

faceless, absolutely willing to die for

23:46

the glory of Sparta. A member

23:48

of a phalanx. Spirits rub

23:50

Greece as a Spartan warrior. To

23:53

been Athenian men receiving a well rounded education. Boys.

23:56

were educated on rhetoric public

23:58

speaking critical thinking They

24:00

were so soft. No,

24:03

they studied the works of Hesiod and Homer.

24:05

They received physical training and music training. Unlike

24:07

Sparta, their men started training at the age

24:10

18 to be part of the army or navy, as

24:13

opposed to starting training at

24:15

seven. That's so insane.

24:18

Athens emphasized the individual, whereas

24:21

Sparta emphasized community. The

24:23

needs of Sparta were far above the

24:25

needs of yourself or your family. Better

24:27

yet, your needs are the

24:29

needs of Sparta. You just aligned your needs

24:31

with Sparta's needs. Women

24:34

treated very differently in Athens and Sparta. Spartan

24:37

girls and women received education,

24:40

but were also thrown down a flight of

24:42

stairs literally every day, between

24:44

breakfast and lunch. Stairs had

24:46

to be at least a dozen steps. Why?

24:49

There is a reason. To be sure, they

24:51

were still tough enough to be worth keeping around, to

24:53

be tough enough to be a Spartan. If you broke

24:55

a hip, you're weak, you're killed. If

24:58

you kept crying about how much it hurts to have been thrown

25:00

down the stairs again, you're killed. If

25:03

you didn't make it back up the stairs in time to get lunch on

25:05

the table, you're killed. That's

25:07

not true. Spartans were rugged, but not that rugged.

25:10

Feel Spartan-like though. Spartan girls

25:12

and women received education allowed to compete in athletic

25:15

events, which was unusual in Ancient Greece. Women

25:18

in Sparta could own land, something forbidden in

25:20

other city states, but they

25:22

could not vote or be full citizens like men. In

25:25

Athens, girls were taught domestic skills. They

25:27

were also barred from citizenship, property ownership,

25:29

and even basic exercise. The

25:32

exercise part is super extra weird. With

25:34

the geography, diversity, political climate of Ancient

25:36

Greece established, now let's take a

25:39

look specifically at life in Sparta. What

25:41

was the life journey of a typical Spartan

25:44

from birth until death? What was

25:46

life like for those who weren't truly considered Spartan? Women,

25:49

skilled laborers, slaves? Sparta

25:52

was located in the southeastern Peloponnese region

25:54

of Ancient Greece. The Peloponnese

25:56

is a large Greek peninsula, full of mountains

25:58

and gorges. Many ancient

26:00

Greeks thought of it as an

26:02

island because of how only

26:05

the narrow isthmus of Corinth connects it with

26:07

the rest of the Greek mainland. The

26:10

city-state grew to be about the same

26:12

size as Athens and Thebes by conquering

26:14

their neighboring region of Messenia. They

26:16

absorbed the population but did not integrate the

26:19

Messenians into their society. Not at all. Oh

26:21

boy. They were in a word when

26:24

it came to how they treated the Messenians. Naughty.

26:28

So so naughty. Like

26:30

the naughtiest bad boys that ever were

26:32

naughty bad boys. More on that later. While

26:35

Sparta was a city-state, they also controlled a

26:38

large territory around their city for centuries. A

26:40

territory that did include other cities. Spartans

26:43

were, as I mentioned, a warrior society. Spartan

26:45

culture focused on loyalty to the state and

26:47

military service. Sparta we think of today was

26:50

the Sparta at the height of its powers after

26:52

defeating Athens in the Peloponnesian War in 404

26:54

BCE. Sparta was a stratified

26:58

society with three groups of people. The

27:01

Spartans. Full citizens. Males.

27:05

The Periocae who were

27:07

skilled craftsmen. And the

27:09

Helits who were the slave class. Those

27:12

who Sparta conquered had

27:15

no rights or citizenship. The Helits, the slave

27:17

class from Messenia, were considered lower

27:20

than other conquered people, interestingly. They really

27:22

didn't like the Messenians. Helits

27:24

ran the agricultural industry in Sparta and did

27:26

other daily tasks. And because all the

27:28

Spartan men under the age of 60 were soldiers, the Helits

27:30

worked as farmers, servants,

27:33

nurses, and military attendants. And

27:36

again, the Spartans, man, they hated the Messenian

27:38

Helits for the most part and vice versa.

27:40

Sometimes they would work together. Later on, sometimes

27:42

they would get married, which I find strange

27:45

because, man, they were not treated well. Tensions

27:47

with the Messenians, as you'll see, is

27:50

the main reason Sparta evolved to become so

27:52

focused on being unstoppable warriors. The Messenians

27:55

kept society functioning while Spartans focused

27:57

on athletics, military training, and politics.

28:00

The helots were what made Spartans a unique

28:03

society because they performed all the hard, menial

28:05

labor in place of common people. Normally,

28:08

in most city-states, only wealthy Greeks could

28:10

hire servants, but not in Sparta. Every

28:12

full citizen and their family had at least

28:15

one assigned helot to run their household. The

28:18

helots were extremely oppressed by the Spartans.

28:20

Spartan leaders did this to prevent uprisings because they

28:23

were far outnumbered by the helots. Spartans

28:25

could murder helots for literally any

28:28

reason at all. Oftentimes, they

28:30

were just murdered for being too smart, too

28:32

athletic, showing any sign

28:34

of defiance. Spartans were

28:36

strong and deadly warriors, but they lived in

28:38

constant fear of a helot rebellion. And the

28:41

helots also lived in constant fear because they

28:43

were continually abused and often killed by the

28:45

Spartans. Fucking crazy relationship

28:47

between these two class of people. The

28:50

periessae were another interesting class

28:52

of people in Sparta. Their name translates

28:54

to dwellers around. The

28:56

periessae were free men and

28:59

women who lived in surrounding

29:01

Laconia rather

29:03

than concentrated in the polis of Sparta.

29:06

They also had Messinian helots, and while

29:08

they would not be Sparta's elite hoplite

29:10

fighters, they did assist Sparta in battles

29:13

when called upon. The

29:15

land of Laconia lies in the southern end

29:17

of the Peloponnese Peninsula, south of where the

29:19

Messinians would dwell. Today, both

29:22

Messinia and Laconia are administrative

29:24

regions of modern Greece. The

29:27

periessae were skilled craftsmen and

29:29

traders, not full citizens.

29:32

They were treated much, much better than the helots.

29:34

They were respected by the Spartans because they often

29:36

built their weapons. And speaking

29:38

of weapons, the Spartans would use three

29:41

primary weapons, same as

29:43

many of the other city-state warriors. Their

29:45

main weapon was a dori, aka

29:48

a dori spear. They used this

29:50

when fighting as part of the phalanx. From

29:52

Six to nine feet long, depending on what era it

29:54

was being used in, it would have a handle with

29:56

a diameter of roughly two inches, made of hardwood, often

29:59

ash. The flat leave shape

30:01

spearhead was composed the iron as was the

30:03

iron but spite on the back end of

30:05

doors beer to serve mainly as a counterbalance

30:07

but also his best to sit out assemblies

30:09

heading with that. Are

30:11

the also sometimes through a javelin is a long range

30:14

weapon. Or it's estimated. It is right about

30:16

one hundred and fifty feet. He. Did not

30:18

use that that the bow and arrow

30:20

are these javelin and in its instead

30:22

are they had as a secondary close

30:24

range weapon. or if they're failing. Still

30:26

apart a Zeiss us a short double

30:28

edged one handed iron sort. Or.

30:30

Eighteen to twenty four inches long in

30:32

the Spartans case, as little shorter for

30:35

the Spartans or than for of many

30:37

of the other city states. Instrument or

30:39

even sports teams use these weapons as

30:41

they would fight alongside them in. Sport.

30:44

Of kings were of course of the top of the social hierarchy.

30:47

Sport. Had as I as a Zero Two

30:49

Kings for military purposes. Everything was about war

30:51

with these dudes. Everything focused on been militaristic

30:53

and for most their history. Each team came

30:55

from one of two blood months. The.

30:58

Your opponent you're upon deadline. And.

31:00

The A Gee I'd like. To. Royal

31:02

family's each producing male heirs for

31:04

dual thrones. One. Team would

31:06

go out on a military campaign. the other king

31:08

typically would stay behind to be able to rule

31:10

the city so they could have some continuity with

31:13

leadership of one was killed. Pretty.

31:15

Smart, or the Spartan government's.

31:17

Snc the girl see a. Sponsored.

31:20

Boys Education. Training.

31:22

And. Socialization. Turning

31:24

Spartan boys into Spartan warriors was

31:27

one of the primary functions, if

31:29

not the primary function of Spartan

31:32

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34:36

Ah, get ready to hear how Spartans

34:38

turn boys in two men. At.

34:42

The age of seven. All Spartan voice

34:44

with the possible exception of future kings

34:46

who could opt out but often did

34:48

not opt out went to the a

34:50

Goatee. The. Infamous Spartan

34:52

Military School/system of training the turned young

34:55

boys in the type of Spartans we

34:57

now think of in movies like Zack

34:59

Snyder's Frank Miller adaptation Three Hundred. Spartans.

35:03

Ready old practice street hockey

35:05

for tonight we dine and

35:07

how. Those. Guys. Life

35:10

and he goes he was are harsh.

35:13

Real. Rocks. And highly disciplined boys

35:15

will turn into fierce and fearless killers who

35:17

accepted endured extreme pain as if there was

35:20

no other way to live. In.

35:22

Sparta. If you were born a healthy boy,

35:24

you were going to become a soldier unless

35:26

you were killed a berth or the at

35:28

the age of five says were found physically

35:30

mentally or emotionally defective. More in that little

35:33

bit. If you're not till by

35:35

the states have been less ideal. You. Thought.

35:37

You. Fought the overwhelming majority of your life.

35:40

The only option for a Spartan man was to be

35:42

a soldier. Training began at age

35:45

seven. Required military service would end.

35:48

At. Age sixty. Fifty.

35:50

Three years of brutal training and

35:52

brutal fighting. Fucking Nuts.

35:55

The government vetted lot of time and money

35:57

in turning their boys into the best soldiers

35:59

possible. Boy. Live communally for

36:01

Brad to prepare them for army life. They

36:03

train for years to become hop flights. Armed.

36:06

Footsoldiers, As he

36:08

goes, he boys participated in violent physical

36:10

competitions. They. Were starved are

36:13

trained to be some survivalists. Boys

36:15

were instructed in reading, writing rhetoric,

36:17

poti warfare, stealth hunting, and as

36:19

legs. But. Mostly just the up

36:21

warfare or hunting as legs are

36:23

there was organized into companies that

36:25

lived together. The. First century

36:28

Ce Greek priest and historian

36:30

Plutarch. Wrote. About this. The.

36:33

Boy you have seldom judgments and was

36:35

most courageous and was made captain of

36:37

the company. The rest altaf their eyes

36:39

on him, obey his orders and submitting

36:41

to his punishments so they're boys. Training

36:44

was a practice of obedience. The.

36:47

Academic education the boys receive was elementary.

36:49

Are the primary focus again? Athletics?

36:51

Survivalism. A murderer as I'm mostly.

36:54

Another murder of them is not a word, but. Yet.

36:57

They were trying to be above all, ruthless in formidable

37:00

killers. Boise. Go barefoot would

37:02

rarely base. ah, we're not even allowed

37:04

to use lotion. Their skin is be

37:06

able to withstand the elements. Without assistance,

37:08

they would receive one clothes per year,

37:11

no other clothing to make them more

37:13

resistant about heat and cold. And.

37:15

It does get cold and sparta the

37:17

average low temperature for January and February

37:19

thirty eight degrees Fahrenheit. Not.

37:21

Typical barefoot weather, but these kids were left

37:24

barefoot even in the snow. That

37:26

build their own beds from reads

37:28

pulled from river banks. As they

37:30

grew, their exercise requirements would increase.

37:33

The. We have present themselves their teachers.

37:35

the routine physique of physique inspections Macys

37:37

were didn't feel strong enough enough muscle

37:39

getting tougher, as fit as they could

37:42

possibly be and they didn't pass their

37:44

flogged. Even. As an

37:46

adult you could and would be punished in

37:48

sparta for been out of shape but done

37:50

to me. Extra pounds to literally do you

37:52

x out best. Gwen. Shambling

37:54

from a few weeks ago. I would love this about

37:56

sports. hours you'll have much

37:59

else But she would love how fit Spartans

38:01

were. At the age of

38:03

12, recruits would be stripped naked except for their

38:05

red cloak and forced to sleep outside for a

38:07

while, get even tougher. No

38:09

more cushy riverbank reeds, you bougie fuckstick.

38:12

They were encouraged to scavenge and steal food,

38:17

but if they got caught, they were flogged. They

38:19

were not flogged for stealing, they were flogged for

38:21

getting caught stealing. They were trained to

38:23

be stealthy. According to Xenophon,

38:25

a fourth and fifth century BCE, Athenian

38:27

military leader, philosopher, and historian, the primary

38:29

purpose of this scant diet was to

38:31

keep the boys exceptionally fit. Like

38:34

Kyrgyz, legendary ninth century BCE Spartan

38:36

lawmaker, thought this treatment would actually

38:38

make boys grow taller. It

38:41

didn't. They didn't know a whole lot

38:43

about genetics, nutrition, how it worked back then. Their

38:46

hunger was good motivation to make them better at

38:48

stealing and teach them cunningness, you know, good skill

38:50

on the battlefield. University

38:52

of Virginia professor J.E. Lendon says

38:54

about Diagogy, boys

38:57

were whipped to inculcate respect

38:59

and obedience. They were

39:01

ill-clad to make them tough, and they were

39:03

starved to make them resistant to hunger. Instructors

39:07

and older men frequently instigated arguments and physical fights

39:09

among the boys on top of all of this.

39:12

Boys who were afraid or timid were violently

39:14

bullied by their peers and instructors. Girls

39:17

even got in on the hazing. At

39:19

religious and state ceremonies, they would sing songs about the

39:21

young men in the Diagogy, usually calling

39:23

out specific boys by name to shame them

39:26

for being fucking weak in front

39:28

of state leaders. Bullying was

39:30

not looked down upon, there

39:35

we go, none of it sounds right now, in Sparta at

39:37

all. In fact, it was encouraged. Bullying

39:39

was seen as just another tool to harden

39:41

boys and turn them into hard fighting men.

39:44

Tough times for lowly Melvins back

39:46

in Sparta. Great times for giga

39:49

chats. No one loved a giga

39:51

chat more than the Spartans. Also

39:54

at the age of 12, boys were

39:56

expected to engage in ritualized pederasty. So

39:59

to be. the homosexually abused by men,

40:02

even young Giga Chats were routinely

40:04

butt-fucked by their mentors. So maybe

40:06

not the best times for Giga

40:08

Chats back in Sparta, actually. How

40:12

widespread all that was is still debated by

40:14

historians. Sparta did not have its own historians,

40:16

which is interesting. There

40:18

are no real historical accounts regarding

40:20

ancient Spartans, written by Spartans themselves, especially

40:22

at their peak. A couple

40:24

of poems from the early Spartan days, yeah,

40:27

nothing from peak Sparta. Spartan

40:29

tradition prohibited the creation of records about internal

40:31

affairs. The Spartans were taught

40:34

to read and write for governmental administration and to

40:36

maintain control over the helots only. In

40:38

general, though, there was a cultural emphasis on

40:40

oral tradition. They didn't want other city-states learning

40:42

their secrets. That

40:44

said, according to what has been written, every Spartan warrior, grown-ass

40:47

man warrior, was expected to receive

40:49

a young warrior as his lover. Technical

40:52

term was inspirer. Creepy. I

40:55

think inspirer might be creepier than lover. The

40:58

younger partner was called the hearer. I

41:00

don't know how much they were, you know, I guess they had to listen a

41:02

lot, but other things were happening. The relationships were not

41:06

likely always sexual, maybe

41:08

not even perhaps mostly sexual. Sex

41:11

wasn't supposed to be the goal of the relationship, at least

41:13

not the primary goal. The inspirer was

41:15

a mentor to the hearer. But

41:17

it's thought that a lot of young Spartans, in

41:20

addition to not wearing shoes, sleeping out in the

41:22

cold, being beaten all the time, sometimes to death,

41:25

not giving up food, were also, you

41:27

know, butt-fucked quite a bit. Why

41:31

is butt-fucked such a funny way

41:33

to refer to anal sex, by the way? Way funnier than the

41:35

side of me. Less harsh than

41:38

ass-fucked. Definitely less harsh than, you know,

41:40

like, anally-raped, which

41:42

is what was going on here. But let's not

41:44

think of it that way. It's too tragic. Tragedy

41:46

plus time, remember? It's very tragic,

41:48

but didn't happen a long time ago. Obviously

41:51

disturbing, various forms of pederasty existed

41:53

all over ancient Greece, very different

41:56

times. Thank God life has

41:58

changed quite a bit. what

42:00

a deal these kids are getting, my God. Hey

42:03

kid, I'm gonna train you

42:05

into becoming a fierce fucking Spartan

42:07

warrior that will dominate Greece's battlefields

42:09

and bring the most glory to

42:11

Sparta. Sound good?

42:13

Hell yeah! For the glory of

42:15

Sparta! You got it kid. Now

42:18

turn around and bend over. Are

42:20

you gonna show me how to defend myself from sneak

42:22

attacks for the glory of Sparta? No,

42:25

no I'm gonna. I'm gonna fuck your butt.

42:28

For the glory of Sparta, I'm

42:30

gonna train you to be an amazing warrior but

42:32

first, more gonna focus on the buffucking for

42:35

the glory of Sparta. This

42:37

mentor program, fills around

42:40

quite a bit of buffucking. In some instances, wasn't

42:42

always a kid being mentored by an adult. Sometimes

42:44

an adult warrior could be mentor

42:46

sodomized by someone more powerful than

42:48

himself. One famous

42:50

example of this kind of relationship was

42:53

5th century BCE Spartan military leader General

42:55

Lysander and Spartan king, Agisalaeus,

42:58

younger son of King Artinimus

43:00

II. Lysander was

43:03

in his mid-twenties when he became Agisalaeus' power

43:05

bottom. I mean, protege. Agisalaeus

43:07

was considered one of the most

43:09

eligible hero candidates. This

43:12

relationship boosted Lysander's status. Also

43:16

maybe made it hard for him to sit down. Sometimes

43:19

I'm guessing. Not so kind of sweet lubes they were working

43:21

with back then. Hopefully at least some olive oil.

43:23

But I don't know for sure. They didn't write that down. Now

43:26

let's take a little sodomy break. Talk

43:28

about how Sparta was unique and that

43:30

it valued collectivism but encouraged individual

43:33

greatness through athletics. A

43:35

Goji student competed in various contests of

43:37

endurance. Some of these

43:40

contests included foot races and wrestling, naked

43:42

wrestling. All the mentoring probably made

43:44

them real good at making sure they ended up on

43:46

top when it came to naked wrestling. One

43:49

contest involved two teams trying to kick each other off

43:51

an island. By any means

43:53

possible. Including kicking, biting, punching,

43:55

gouging till there's fucking eyes out if it

43:57

came to that. Again, some

44:00

nice, you know. people would die you know

44:02

in the ugh. a goatee through their training,

44:04

rituals and contests of was sort of fun

44:06

times. As for the glory, sparta. To

44:09

get all this was done in the of Crane Super

44:11

Soldiers of weeding out the week. The.

44:13

Spartans died producing the most fit and

44:16

athletic wars possible because he valued military

44:18

dominance again. Above all else, including their

44:20

dominance, was dominated the slaves, the greatly

44:22

outnumbered the Spartans in their own territory.

44:25

The ratio varied over the centuries, but assaulted the

44:27

hell. It's outnumbered Spartans by as much as twenty

44:29

one. The majority the population

44:31

of far between sixty five and eighty

44:33

five percent typically was enslaved. Hell, it's

44:36

and gonna hate sports. I

44:38

sue who? The Daily Beast? So.

44:40

The axles parts had were real heart seats

44:42

upper hand on. His

44:44

part is not nearly as noble as they seem

44:46

like. and three hundred. That. Emily hits

44:48

all different the hit a little difference. We think

44:51

about how all as bad as warriors had tons

44:53

of slaves they continually abuse sometimes a killed for

44:55

fund his wherever and about how good deal them

44:57

feel like they got bought bought by their mentors

44:59

as young boys and then proceeded to but fox

45:02

their own boy physics. So.

45:04

I did. They were going to get started to break. The

45:06

Policies. Extreme focus on

45:08

physical fitness existed in Sparta. Which.

45:11

Was nice when he came to all the. I

45:13

said I sell Duds edition soldiers. Boys.

45:16

And training and women and often with

45:18

new to show off their physiques and

45:20

same anyone who did not meet the

45:22

Spartan standard body saving was a big

45:24

thing. And. Us better. If

45:26

you have trouble with body begins body shaming you'd

45:28

fucking to die of sadness and probably day two

45:30

days tops if he got some expert. Or.

45:33

This physical culture was also viewed as a form

45:36

of preventative medicine. Degree. Correctly bleed

45:38

physical activity could help when recover from illness,

45:40

weakness and help you know it's know sick.

45:43

Hills your soldiers, he pulled better soldiers

45:45

you know, Bob more consistently effect. it's

45:47

healthier women believed to put a stronger

45:49

tells your babies and probably also have

45:51

a higher pain tolerance and be able

45:53

to withstand their own constant. But a

45:55

note. A Celebrate. the

45:58

a senior military general news story The historian

46:01

Thucydides wrote in the 5th century

46:03

B.C., The Spartans were

46:05

the first to strip naked and to

46:07

disrobe openly and anoint themselves in oil

46:09

after playing sports. So

46:11

he's throwing some shade of Spartans there. Well,

46:13

fucking Spartans. Ah, no, no, he's naked. Spartans,

46:16

when they did wear clothes, dressed modestly, all

46:18

of them, they weren't really wealthy Spartans

46:21

and poor Spartans. It wasn't

46:23

like a class divine. They all lived fairly communistic,

46:26

really. Like Hargis, Sparta's

46:28

legendary lawgiver, added to Sparta's constitution a provision

46:30

in the 8th century B.C., banning the circulation

46:32

and possession of gold, silver, or other precious

46:35

metals as a means of transacting business, replacing

46:38

them with an iron currency, variously reported as

46:40

being in the form of discs or bars.

46:43

And Plutarch wrote that the new currency was made

46:45

from iron that had been quenched in a vinegar

46:47

bath after being raised to red heat, thereby rendering

46:49

it too brittle for use in making tools or

46:52

weapons. And the new iron

46:54

money, besides being intrinsically useless, bulky

46:56

and hard to transport. This action was seen

46:58

by Plutarch as a way of isolating Sparta from

47:01

outside trade, stimulating the development of

47:03

its internal arts and crafts so

47:05

as to prevent foreign influences and the decadence

47:07

of markets. This encumbering currency

47:09

also rid Sparta of every crime in which the

47:11

theft of hard currency was the objective. This

47:14

would help keep Sparta isolated, which

47:17

was a good thing when it came to keeping the Spartan way of

47:19

life going. Towards the end of their culture, when

47:21

Sparta starts to interact more and more with the outside world,

47:24

more and more Spartans realize, hey, wait

47:26

a minute, you weren't also beaten

47:28

and starved and fucked when you were taken away from your

47:30

family at the age of 7? Wait a

47:32

minute, maybe our way is not the best way. And

47:36

again, their currency restrictions was

47:38

to avoid wealth building also. They

47:41

did not have like a wealthy class of aristocrats

47:43

and then the poor class. It was just all

47:45

same-as-he's for Spartan citizens, pretty much. Back

47:48

to peak athleticism. The

47:50

Spartans held a variety of competitions to celebrate physical

47:52

dominance. One annual

47:54

and very insane competition we

47:57

know about was the Dimastogosis. a

48:00

religious ritual to test the boy's bravery and

48:02

pain tolerance eventually became some weird

48:04

kind of blood sport. Some

48:06

boys would be instructed to steal cheese. Yep,

48:09

cheese. From the sanctuary of

48:11

Artemis, or Thea, Artemis,

48:13

the Greek goddess of the hunt, also the moon,

48:15

wild nature, and chastity. Boys

48:17

had to evade armed guards, who typically

48:19

were just fellow Agoji trainees. So

48:22

while one group of boys was instructed to take as

48:24

much cheese as possible, the other group

48:26

was instructed to not let those fuckers

48:28

steal any cheese under any circumstances. Cue

48:31

violent hand-to-hand kid combat and a

48:34

bunch of cheese. For some reason.

48:37

Cheese parts never really explained. If they were caught stealing,

48:39

boys were flogged in front of the altar at the

48:41

sanctuary of Artemis or Thea, and

48:43

that practice became so popular, these little

48:46

kids getting fucking whipped, that

48:48

by 300 BCE,

48:50

the Spartans made an amphitheater. So

48:53

tourists could travel to watch little boys get

48:55

beat. That's

48:58

nothing weird about that at all. Just head

49:00

out of the amphitheater, watch some little boys get whipped. Probably

49:02

enjoy some tasty ass cheese. We

49:05

didn't have to fight in one form. For the glory of Sparta. Oh

49:09

boy. According to several

49:11

sources, the boys liked to be watched

49:13

getting whipped. Whipping

49:15

was a test of courage and stoicism. Boys

49:17

looked forward to the public display of their fortitude. Thank

49:20

you sir, may I have another? Is

49:22

that all you got sir? Harder

49:24

sir. I have been roughly buff. I've

49:27

been roughly buffed up so many times I've lost most of the

49:29

feeling in my back sir. Probably

49:32

break is over I guess. Other

49:34

Greeks who learned about these practices were disgusted. Famous

49:37

Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Lindsay

49:40

thought it was hilarious that I had to look up

49:42

pronunciation. I do. I know how to say

49:44

Aristotle, but growing up, none

49:47

of you were going to be surprised. For a

49:49

long time I thought it was, now

49:51

I can't remember how I said it, Aristotle. That's

49:53

what I thought it was. I thought it was Aristotle. So

49:56

I have to check. It's like in the

49:58

back of my mind I'm like I think it's in. Aristotle. Anyway,

50:02

Aristotle said that Spartans turned boys into animals.

50:05

Not wrong. Other Greek philosophers and

50:07

historians described the Spartans as savage

50:09

beasts, mindless bees in a hive

50:11

with no individuality whose only function

50:13

was to sting. Yeah,

50:16

I think I agree. Spartans

50:18

sound absolutely barbaric. Teen

50:20

boys who demonstrated the most leadership skills

50:22

for Sparta were selected for the cryptaia,

50:25

a secret police force that terrorized the

50:27

helots even more than are already being

50:29

terrorized. They'd be encouraged to kill

50:31

many of them in this regard. Spartans

50:35

were savages. Plutarch

50:37

is the main source as far as claims that

50:39

the Spartans use boy death squads to

50:42

keep the Messinians in check. He wrote,

50:44

the magistrates from time to time sent out into the

50:46

country at large, the most discreet of the young warriors,

50:49

equipped only with daggers and such

50:51

supplies as were necessary. In the

50:53

daytime, they scattered into obscure and out of the way

50:55

places where they hid themselves and lay

50:57

quiet. But in the night, they

50:59

came down into the highways and killed every

51:01

helot whom they caught. The

51:04

horror movie, the hell thing that was fucked up version

51:06

of hide and sit. Life

51:08

sucked for the Messinian,

51:10

Messinian helots. I have to think

51:13

they often must have fled the lands of Sparta to try

51:15

and live just anywhere else. Historians

51:17

debate if this cryptaia was real or not, but even

51:19

if it wasn't just the rumor of a young boy

51:21

or young man in a death squad. Some

51:23

sources say members of these squads were between 21 and

51:25

30 years old, some say younger, probably

51:28

enough to further scare the poor helots

51:30

into submission. At the age

51:32

of 20, boys would

51:34

graduate from the Egoji and become soldiers.

51:37

Passing the Egoji was critical to get into

51:39

the messes and become full citizens

51:42

and soldiers. The messes were these

51:44

communal dining halls that were only

51:46

for Spartan citizens, right? These men. Men

51:48

were expected to contribute a certain amount of labor

51:50

to the mess, keep up their physical training. It's

51:52

very communal. The Spartan city

51:55

state feels a lot like a cult. Real

51:58

military training began at age 20. The

52:00

Egoji was meant to toughen men up,

52:02

make them compliant members of society. By

52:04

graduation, young men could run, fight, carry

52:06

heavy objects, endure all kinds of weather.

52:09

They knew how to function as part of a group

52:11

to be obedient of singular purpose. Now,

52:14

more advanced weapon and battle training began and

52:16

continued most often until the soldier

52:18

died in battle. Soldiers

52:20

were on active duty again until the age of 60.

52:24

After graduating the Egoji, the men

52:26

entered a sisisha, a

52:29

military-style mess, one of the messes

52:31

I've mentioned already, where citizens would gather for public meals.

52:34

Men had to spend most of their time in the messes when

52:36

they were not training for battle. Think

52:38

of big college dorms, where

52:40

the students never fucking studied but

52:42

always fought. Even

52:45

after graduation, entry was not guaranteed into

52:47

one of these messes. Egoji graduates had

52:49

to be voted in by existing members

52:51

of the mess. If you didn't get

52:53

in, you were publicly humiliated, excluded, and

52:55

effectively banished from Sparta. If

52:57

you did get voted in, you were given land and slaves

52:59

to support you and your family. You became a homeoiai,

53:03

an equal and elite warrior. One

53:06

interesting purpose of the messes was to prevent

53:08

civil conflict by mixing generations and enforcing equality

53:10

amongst everyone. Sparta

53:12

discouraged flaunting wealth even when it came to food.

53:15

Rations were always bland and,

53:17

quote, slightly sufficient, according

53:20

to a ancient author. This was, again,

53:22

because Spartans were devoted to fitness and a

53:24

proper diet. If anyone was overweight, you know,

53:26

publicly ridiculed, risk of banishment. A

53:29

common dish of these messes – you can find recipes

53:32

for this online now – was this

53:34

nasty-ass looking soup, like the nastiest.

53:37

It was made largely out of pig's blood and vinegar,

53:39

and it was just called black soup.

53:43

It looks just rancid. The

53:45

Spartans would drink wine with every meal, but not much.

53:48

Big no-no to get drunk, because they

53:50

did view drunkenness as very shameful. If

53:53

you get drunk, you cannot fight as effectively. Everything's

53:55

about fighting. Seventh century

53:58

BCE poem from the Spartan poet. Alkman

54:01

illustrates how Spartans emphasized equality among the

54:03

classes, and I will give

54:05

you a tripod bowl. It has not been

54:07

over a fire yet, but soon it will be full of

54:09

soup. The kind that Alkman, who

54:11

eats everything, loves hot after the solstice. He

54:14

doesn't eat any confections, but seeks common available

54:16

food, just like the people do. Did

54:19

I mention they didn't have a lot of good poets? Maybe

54:22

it's better in Greek. I doubt it. New

54:24

graduates began training to fight in

54:26

the Phalanx Formation. The

54:29

Phalanx Formation was the military formation of

54:31

ancient Greece. Consistent of

54:33

a tightly packed rectangular formation of heavily

54:35

armed infantry, hoplites, think the 300, if

54:38

you've seen it, or any other movies

54:40

about ancient Greece. Standing shoulder to

54:42

shoulder, several rows deep, moving in rhythm with

54:44

one another. Each man's roughly

54:47

30 pound large shield made of wood, leather and

54:49

bronze, protecting not only him, but the men to

54:51

his side. Think a living tank.

54:54

Right. The soldiers would advance slowly towards the opposing

54:56

army in a tight formation, fending off missile blows

54:58

with their shields. Once close enough

55:01

to strike their dory, stabbing out from behind

55:03

the shields and retreating back behind them rhythmically

55:05

over and over. The Spartan

55:07

hoplites worked as a close knit unit, the best

55:09

in ancient Greece, and they

55:11

coordinated mass maneuvers perfectly. No

55:14

soldier was superior to another. Spartans all

55:16

wore the classic Greek uniform, a bronze

55:18

helmet, breast plates, ankle guards, in addition

55:20

to their round, bronze shields, spears, swords,

55:22

and occasionally some javelins. Spartan

55:25

men kept their hair long, wore bright red cloaks

55:27

just to fill in the picture. In

55:29

addition to peak physical fitness and indifference to pain and

55:32

suffering, superior organization

55:34

was a hallmark of Spartan soldiers. The

55:36

phalanxes spent hours a day perfecting training

55:39

deals, which gave them an edge over other

55:41

armies. Hoplites practiced to music

55:43

in what they called rhythmic drills or war

55:45

music. This helped them with their coordination as

55:47

a group. In most ancient Greece,

55:50

hoplites were not professional soldiers. They were farmers,

55:52

random citizens who volunteered or

55:55

were conscripted, conscripted a force to fight in

55:57

wars as needed. Sparta's Hoplites.

56:00

New, nothing but been soldiers and

56:02

were therefore highly skilled and trained

56:04

specialists. Hub lights are almost always

56:06

thought. The Phalanx Seven to eight,

56:08

Seven to eight men deep. And.

56:10

Up to fifty men across all soldiers had

56:12

to trust each other completely because of your

56:15

neighbor, left you behind her ran you'd be

56:17

exposed, the enemy and the whole for me

56:19

would now be in danger. Dropping.

56:21

Your shields was considered the ultimate

56:24

disgrace. Because. Half of your she'll

56:26

was meant for your neighbors' protection. Supposedly.

56:29

Com insane for spartan mother's. Said.

56:31

Of their sons when they would leave for battle was.

56:34

Come back with your shield. Or.

56:36

On it. I was not just

56:38

a random a Hollywood line for three

56:40

hundred. Basically only drop your shield if

56:42

you are fucking debt. When.

56:45

Or die trying. Don't.

56:47

Know that, but fucking habit of vein my

56:49

sweet. We bought. Five woman

56:51

cel died in battle with seat is a complete in

56:53

a duty and honor. Only. Two

56:55

types of people could get their name on

56:57

a tombstone and Sparta women who died in

56:59

childbirth. Why? Don't you know? given allies

57:02

to spot or men who fell in battle given

57:04

their lives to spot. When

57:06

opposing phalanx has met on battle War became are

57:08

are in battle War became a bloody stabbing

57:10

and pushing contest. The rear of the failings of

57:12

push as hard as they could to move

57:14

the unit forward. The first three rows would do

57:17

the attacking. Spartan. Soldiers love and

57:19

put Gorgons of a scary figures on their

57:21

shields to intimidate enemies on the front lines.

57:25

Number. One rule been a Spartan

57:27

soldier. never surrendered. Spartans.

57:29

Are trained to fight without fear or

57:31

they've been through through so much since

57:33

the age of seven to so much

57:35

you know, punishments, physical abuse, ah that

57:38

they were just immune to pain. Basically

57:40

surrender was cowardice. Soldiers who did you

57:42

know ourselves at the If he showed

57:44

encounters was shamed. It's a fairly often

57:46

committed suicide for raw to test the

57:48

fifth century Greek historian from a Calico

57:51

Nasa's. Wrote. A warning tale of

57:53

two soldiers who missed out on the great

57:55

Spartan battle. Of them are Billie. They.

57:57

Were disgrace One hanged himself,

58:00

The other redeemed himself by fighting to the death

58:02

in a later battle. If you

58:04

fought all the way until the age of 60, you're

58:06

probably a serious badass to live that long because they fought

58:08

a lot, then you

58:11

qualified for the Garosillo. Now

58:13

let's talk about Spartan women a bit again. That Garosillo

58:15

again is that council of the 28. Women

58:19

in Sparta lived unique lives much different than any other part

58:21

of Greece and the rest of the world. Women

58:24

had more equality and rights as I mentioned earlier, but not

58:26

equal to men. Women were encouraged

58:28

to be independent minded and deep thinkers. They

58:31

were educated in their homes and

58:33

apparently were not frequently beaten

58:35

and buttfucked which probably allowed greater focus

58:37

on their studies. I would imagine. I

58:40

just think if you're trying to study for a test, getting

58:42

buttfucked while you're studying is a dead giveaway

58:44

that you're not gonna ace it. I'm

58:57

just really missed hitting that button. Girls, unlike

58:59

boys, grew up with their parents and went through a

59:01

rigorous educational program from a young age. Something

59:04

seen as scandalous in many of the other city-states

59:06

was that Spartan women were allowed to participate in

59:08

athletic competitions as I mentioned. They

59:10

did so for personal enjoyment, but also to impress

59:13

the men and just be physically stronger. Spartan

59:15

men valued a woman who was strong and athletic. Women

59:18

competed in javelin throwing, discus throwing,

59:20

wrestling, gymnastics, singing

59:22

and dancing competitions as well. Women

59:25

learned horse riding, carriage driving, chariot

59:27

racing. Spartan women even competed in

59:29

chariot racing in the Olympic Games. In

59:32

the fifth century BC, Spartan princess Senisca

59:34

was the first woman to win a wreath

59:37

at the Olympics. Be a bunch of dudes! Spartan

59:41

general Pausanias reported she

59:43

was exceedingly ambitious to succeed at the

59:45

Olympic Games and was the first

59:48

woman to breed horses and the first to win an

59:50

Olympic victory. Again, the

59:52

primary purpose of women competing to

59:54

get strong enough to bear a lot

59:56

of children, strong children

59:59

and not die well. while doing so. Pump

1:00:01

out as many badass Spartan sociopathic warriors

1:00:03

as possible for the glory of Sparta.

1:00:07

Spartan women could also own property, not the norm

1:00:10

for women in Greek city state. Because of the

1:00:12

poor lowly helots, they also didn't have to maintain

1:00:14

the daily tasks of a household, which

1:00:16

meant no cooking, no cleaning, no sewing. Marriage

1:00:19

was very important in Spartan culture because the state

1:00:21

pressured families to produce as many male children as

1:00:23

possible. We got to get those soldiers. They

1:00:26

wanted to have a good stock of soldiers because men died

1:00:28

often in battle. Men who delayed

1:00:30

marriage were publicly shamed while men who

1:00:32

fathered many children were rewarded. Men

1:00:35

generally did not marry until past the age of 30 before

1:00:38

then it was all fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. They

1:00:41

couldn't move out of the barracks until the age of 30. If

1:00:44

they got married before that, they were not allowed to live

1:00:46

with their family until they were 30. Most

1:00:49

marriages were arranged by a woman's parents and women

1:00:51

were occasionally, if not often, forced into marriages. While

1:00:54

men were encouraged to marry at 30, women were encouraged

1:00:56

to marry at 20. Marriage

1:00:58

was viewed as a means to conceive a boy that

1:01:00

would become a new soldier. As I mentioned, citizens were

1:01:02

told to assess the health and fitness of their potential

1:01:04

partner before getting married. If a

1:01:06

Spartan man could not give a woman a

1:01:08

child, excuse me, she was expected to seek out another

1:01:10

man to impregnate her. Sometimes

1:01:13

the husbands themselves would seek out

1:01:15

another man to impregnate their wife.

1:01:19

Man, that really sucked to

1:01:22

be like a Spartan with erectile dysfunction. Then

1:01:25

to do your duty, get your wife pregnant, you start

1:01:27

thinking about, God, who do I know? Who

1:01:30

do I know who could impregnate her? The

1:01:33

one dick you

1:01:35

know for sure works in Sparta is

1:01:37

your mentors because of all

1:01:39

the butt-fucking you guys did. Now

1:01:42

that butt-fucker is smoking your wife. Especially

1:01:44

tough times for Spartan cucks. Older

1:01:48

bachelors abstaining from sex were seen as neglecting their

1:01:50

duty in a republic shamed of gatherings and festivals.

1:01:52

Why'd you fucking get out there? What do you

1:01:54

mean? Just hanging out at home. Also

1:01:57

very tough times for gay Spartans. Almost

1:01:59

impossible to- to avoid getting into some vagina

1:02:02

that they found repulsive. Women

1:02:04

were allowed to have multiple sexual partners with

1:02:06

the consent of their husband. This was mainly

1:02:08

because of Sparta's lowest citizen population for most

1:02:10

of their history. Women encouraged to do

1:02:12

anything it took to kick out healthy

1:02:14

Spartan boys. Get to fucking

1:02:17

Hellas Fina. An emphasis

1:02:19

on healthy son. Why

1:02:21

was Sparta citizen population so low? Well, for one,

1:02:23

you know, all the male citizens are

1:02:26

soldiers, which really ratchets up

1:02:28

your mortality rates. Also,

1:02:30

though, they killed a shitload of their babies.

1:02:34

Infanticide was a common occurrence in Sparta, and

1:02:36

it was organized, ordered and carried out by

1:02:38

the state. All new babies

1:02:41

had to be brought before a few members

1:02:43

of the Garosia to be examined for physical

1:02:45

or mental defects. Those who

1:02:47

did not pass the test were killed. According

1:02:50

to ancient historian Plutarch, well-built and

1:02:53

sturdy children lived, but the ill-born babies

1:02:55

were tossed into a chasm at

1:02:58

the foot of Mount

1:03:01

Tyigutos. He

1:03:03

wrote, the father does not have the right to raise

1:03:05

the offspring, but he must take it

1:03:07

to the place called Leshay, where the elders

1:03:09

of the same tribe, sitting as judges, closely

1:03:12

examine the child. If he is

1:03:14

strong and of sound body, they command that he be raised,

1:03:16

and they assign him an allotment of land from the 9,000

1:03:18

plots. If he is

1:03:21

ill-born and misshapen, they throw

1:03:23

him into the pit at

1:03:25

the place called Apothete below

1:03:28

Mount Tyigutos, as

1:03:30

it is better neither for him nor for the city

1:03:32

to remain alive, as from the beginning

1:03:34

he does not have a good start towards becoming

1:03:37

healthy and strong. Good

1:03:39

God, just yeetin' babies

1:03:41

into a pit. They didn't really get

1:03:43

into that in 300. Let's never forget that

1:03:45

part of the movie where they're just fucking tossing babies in a hole. That

1:03:49

account is generally considered a myth, but

1:03:51

not by much. What

1:03:53

is considered the truth is not better at all. Most

1:03:56

historians believe that while babies were not thrown into

1:03:58

a pit, they were left on a hillside where

1:04:01

they would die of exposure, be eaten by wild

1:04:03

animals, maybe be found and raised by

1:04:05

strange. I think it'd be better to be thrown in a pit.

1:04:07

Maybe you die on impact at the bottom of the pit as

1:04:09

opposed to just left out on a hill. Spartan

1:04:12

babies, according to legends, who were not left

1:04:14

out to die were often bathed in wine

1:04:16

instead of water to test their constitutions. They

1:04:20

were also ignored, whatever they

1:04:22

cried, and commanded never to fear darkness

1:04:24

or solitude. Stop fearing darkness, baby! These

1:04:28

guys were savages. Then, according to at least a

1:04:30

few sources, I found Spartan kids would be tested

1:04:32

again at the age of five. This is

1:04:34

even more fucked up and just straight

1:04:36

up murdered if deemed to be defective

1:04:38

at that point. Hopefully, at that point, they

1:04:40

would throw them in a pit as opposed to just, say there

1:04:42

on the hill until you're dead! The

1:04:45

word Spartan itself has come to mean self-restrained,

1:04:48

simple, frugal, and austere. The

1:04:50

original name for Spartans, Laconic,

1:04:52

a native of Laconia, means

1:04:55

using few words, concise. These

1:04:57

words were derived from the Spartans because they

1:04:59

valued brevity when speaking, unlike politicians

1:05:02

and citizens in many other Greek

1:05:04

city-states. Enough chitchat! Time to

1:05:06

fight! Maybe fuck some butts,

1:05:08

kill a few babies! Then we

1:05:10

got the glorious Sparta to focus on.

1:05:14

Plutarch wrote, No man was allowed to live

1:05:16

as he pleased, but in their city, as

1:05:18

in a military encampment, they always had a

1:05:20

prescribed regiment. Spartans would

1:05:22

sometimes humiliate poor helots. Man,

1:05:25

fucking with the helots is the favorite pastime of the

1:05:28

Spartans. They would do this as a

1:05:30

demonstration of the virtue of self-control sometimes. A common

1:05:32

practice, I guess, was to force a helot to

1:05:34

get drunk in public so that

1:05:36

they would start to act foolish. That would

1:05:38

be used as a demonstration to young boys for how

1:05:40

an adult should not behave in public. Then

1:05:44

after being forced to be drunk in public, oftentimes they'd

1:05:46

be beaten for being drunk in public. Insanity.

1:05:49

Spartans valued self-control above all else,

1:05:52

others would mean really good at fighting, of course. But

1:05:54

having great self-control did help with

1:05:56

fighting. Loyalty to the state came above

1:05:58

even loyalty to one's family. Sparta, right?

1:06:00

You must live for Sparta. The

1:06:02

singular focus, this rigid way of

1:06:04

living, this obsessive emphasis on turning

1:06:07

boys, all Spartan boys into brutal

1:06:09

killers led to Sparta becoming the

1:06:11

most feared and militarily dominant city

1:06:13

state in all of Greece. However,

1:06:16

it would later lead to Sparta's demise.

1:06:19

Spartans were not flexible, not

1:06:21

in any way very rigid. They

1:06:23

fought the same way for centuries and they became really,

1:06:26

really good at it because they honed in and perfected

1:06:28

it. They were the best, but they did not create

1:06:30

a plan B. And eventually, as

1:06:32

the world started to change more around them, they

1:06:34

couldn't keep up. Spartans found themselves ill-equipped to deal

1:06:36

with problems like social issues of inequality and a

1:06:38

desire by more and more members of their declining

1:06:41

population to maybe, I don't know, write

1:06:43

a play or read a book instead

1:06:45

of beat the fuck out of some other kid for cheese and

1:06:48

see how well you can handle being publicly whipped. The

1:06:51

Spartans refused to adapt, even militarily. They did

1:06:53

not innovate or create new technologies for war

1:06:55

towards the end of their society. And

1:06:58

eventually those around them evolved past them

1:07:01

and the glory of Sparta was

1:07:03

no more. Now let's

1:07:05

learn about these crazy buttfuckers. Some more, take

1:07:07

a look at the timeline of Sparta from

1:07:09

its beginning to its end. After

1:07:13

the second of two, MidShow's sponsor breaks.

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McDonald's must opt into rewards. I'm

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back and now it's time for

1:08:34

a timeline. Shrap

1:08:38

on those boots, soldier. We're

1:08:40

marching down a time stock

1:08:42

timeline. In

1:08:50

1400 BCE, almost

1:08:53

3,500 years ago, Sparta

1:08:55

was already some sort of an important site in

1:08:57

the ancient world. In

1:08:59

2015, archaeologists dug up a 10 room palace

1:09:02

containing ancient records written in a script called

1:09:04

Linear B. The palace was

1:09:06

found 7.5 miles from the

1:09:08

city center of ancient Sparta. The archeologist

1:09:10

found murals, a cup with

1:09:12

a bull's head, bronze swords. According

1:09:15

to their estimates, the palace burned down in the

1:09:17

14th century BCE. They could not

1:09:19

find the ruins of the city that surrounded

1:09:21

this ancient palace, making the palace quite a

1:09:23

mystery. Historians have no idea

1:09:25

how or if people continued living in the area after

1:09:27

the palace that would have been the center of their

1:09:30

government burned down. Research suggests

1:09:32

likely would have been the center. Our

1:09:34

research suggests a three century drought affected

1:09:36

Greece at the time. May have helped

1:09:38

in bringing about this fire. During

1:09:41

this ancient drought, most civilization on the

1:09:43

Peloponnese disappeared and much of Greece

1:09:45

was overtaken by a sort of dark age. Eventually

1:09:48

new people from Northern Greece moved to the

1:09:50

south over the centuries to live on the

1:09:52

Peloponnese marking a new beginning for Sparta. Sometime

1:09:56

around 1000 BCE, the early Iron Age. Four

1:10:00

villages with really fucked up names that I'm not going

1:10:02

to try and say because there's no pronunciation guys came

1:10:05

together to form the beginnings of Sparta. These

1:10:07

four villages joined near what would become

1:10:09

Sparta's Acropolis, and the city

1:10:11

was located in the fertile Eurotus Valley. The

1:10:14

villagers had plenty of food and water access. The

1:10:16

name Sparta comes from a verb meaning to sow,

1:10:19

suggesting farming origins for the later uber

1:10:22

militaristic people. They built

1:10:24

a Menelian temple to honor the original king

1:10:26

of the area, and new

1:10:28

neighboring cities started popping up during this period

1:10:30

of renewal. In 900

1:10:32

B.C., the origins of Sparta as we know it

1:10:35

began. Sparta lies on the banks

1:10:37

of the Eurotus River. The area was

1:10:39

very safe, naturally fortified by mountains and hills. That,

1:10:41

along with the fertile river valley, was the perfect

1:10:44

location for the formation of a Greek city-state. Easy

1:10:47

irrigation. You've got fish right there. You've

1:10:50

got pretty good weather, good soil. Sparta

1:10:53

first began with a rigid oligarchic

1:10:55

or oligarchic constitution. Two kings were

1:10:57

established as lifetime rulers. Sparta

1:10:59

claimed their two kings were descendants

1:11:01

of Heracles, son of Zeus, a

1:11:03

demigod with superhuman strength. Heracles

1:11:06

became the ultimate symbol of masculine power

1:11:09

and bravery, very fitting for Sparta. Heracles,

1:11:12

better known here in the U.S. as Hercules.

1:11:15

The first kings, according to legend, were a set

1:11:18

of twins, and they seized control from the descendants

1:11:20

of Agamemnon, the fabled king who led the Greeks

1:11:22

in the Trojan War, and was murdered by

1:11:24

his wife upon his return from Troy. This

1:11:26

was the start of Spartas. Spartas, I don't

1:11:29

know why I like to say it that way, the

1:11:31

two king system, the early Spartans, eventually seized control of

1:11:33

the Eurotus Valley and conquered and colonized their neighbors. In

1:11:37

the 10th century B.C., famed Spartan

1:11:39

lawmaker, possibly more legend than man,

1:11:42

Lycurgus, created the retro, the

1:11:44

original set of Spartan laws. It's like their

1:11:46

constitution. Plutarch

1:11:48

claimed to preserve the early Spartan

1:11:50

constitution. Historians, however, debate the existence

1:11:52

of Lycurgus. Many believe

1:11:54

he was a fictional inspirational character for the

1:11:56

Spartans. The Greeks, they loved to make up

1:11:58

historical figures. and that some early

1:12:01

kings or council actually wrote the retro. If

1:12:03

Lycurgus is real, he claimed

1:12:05

he received instructions on the retro from a

1:12:08

Delphic Oracle. The retro defined

1:12:10

the powers of the different Spartan classes. And

1:12:12

the Delphic Oracle, that basically just saying

1:12:15

like, nah, this, these laws come from

1:12:17

God. This, this retro mentioned tribes and

1:12:19

various localities, as well as units of governmental

1:12:21

organization. The retro demanded a council with two

1:12:23

kings, assembly meetings, declared that people should have

1:12:26

the power. A later writer

1:12:28

added to the retro by King

1:12:30

Theopompus and Polydorus, kings

1:12:33

there, reigning in the

1:12:35

seventh and eighth centuries BCE, stated that if the

1:12:37

people chose crookedly, then the elders

1:12:39

should dissolve the issue. There is much

1:12:41

debate on the truth and actual age

1:12:43

of the retro, but regardless, the Spartans

1:12:45

followed as their constitution. The

1:12:48

retro is thought to have made Sparta the

1:12:50

first city state to politically define the rights

1:12:52

and duties of its citizens. The

1:12:54

early Spartans did place an emphasis on the arts,

1:12:57

surprisingly, as shown by remains

1:12:59

of pottery and poetry. These

1:13:01

remains were found in modern day Libya,

1:13:03

the island of Samos, Samos

1:13:05

near Turkey, up until 600 BC,

1:13:07

the Spartans may have had an ivory workshop. Their

1:13:10

surviving iris depicts birds, men and women,

1:13:13

sacred tree, more. Historians

1:13:15

have noted that Sparta produced more poetry than any

1:13:17

other Greek city states in the seventh century BC,

1:13:20

and their poetry would reflect a transition into

1:13:22

military values. One early

1:13:25

Spartan poet, we met him before,

1:13:27

named Alkman. You're familiar with

1:13:29

his great work. He wrote a

1:13:31

poem for a festival about a choir girl

1:13:33

named Agito. Alkman's dates are

1:13:35

uncertain, but he's probably active in the late seventh

1:13:38

century BC, and here he is

1:13:40

not writing about war. There

1:13:42

is such a thing as retribution from the gods. Happy

1:13:45

as he, who sound of mind weaves through

1:13:47

the day unwet. I sing

1:13:49

the light of Agito. I see

1:13:51

it likes the sun, whom Agito summons to appear and

1:13:53

witness for us. But the

1:13:56

glorious chorus mistress forbids me to either

1:13:58

praise or blame her. For

1:14:00

she appears to be outstanding, as if one

1:14:02

placed among a grazing herd of a perfect

1:14:05

horse, a prize winner with resounding hooves, one

1:14:09

of the dreams that dwell below the rock." Yeah,

1:14:13

that sounds kind of cool. I bet it

1:14:15

sounds cooler in Greek. Contrast this poem to

1:14:17

a poem from Tiritus, a mid-7th century poet,

1:14:20

Spartan poet, whose work shows Sparta's transition to

1:14:22

a military society that same

1:14:25

century. Here is courage, mankind's finest

1:14:27

possession. Here is the noblest prize that a young

1:14:29

man can endeavor to win. And it is a

1:14:31

good thing his city and all the people share

1:14:33

with him when a man plants his feet and

1:14:35

stands in the foremost spears relentlessly, all

1:14:38

thought of foul flight completely forgotten and

1:14:40

has well trained his heart to be

1:14:42

steadfast and to endure, and with words

1:14:44

encourages the man to a station beside

1:14:46

him. Here is a man who

1:14:48

proves himself to be valiant in war. And

1:14:51

it does sound smurge because I read a portion of that to start off

1:14:53

this episode. Tiritus,

1:14:56

Alchman, Lycurgus, they're the three main

1:14:58

Spartan figures that provide some historic

1:15:00

documentation on Sparta, but there's

1:15:02

a good chance that Lycurgus is not a real

1:15:04

person. It's more like two people. Most

1:15:07

of Sparta's records, as I mentioned, you know, come

1:15:09

from non-Spartans and most of them come from later,

1:15:12

after these events, well after these events happened. Between

1:15:15

the 8th and 5th centuries BC, Spartas

1:15:17

subdued the neighboring territory of Messenia and

1:15:19

enslaved its poor people. Before

1:15:22

this, the Spartans had already taken slash founded three

1:15:24

other colonies, Taurus and

1:15:26

the Aegean islands of Thera, now Santorini,

1:15:29

and Milos. After conquering these small

1:15:31

areas, they felt ready to subdue a larger city-state

1:15:33

and conquer its people. Did not

1:15:36

know that Santorini, very popular, kind of a

1:15:38

bougie tourist destination now, was once Spotten. The

1:15:41

Messenian war was a key event in Sparta's

1:15:43

transition into a militaristic society. Messenia

1:15:45

was a territory just west of Sparta. Fairly

1:15:48

powerful city-state. Archaeological evidence from the city

1:15:50

of Messen shows their last signs of

1:15:52

habitation were during the 8th century BCE,

1:15:54

verifying the war started in that 8th

1:15:56

century. Afterwards, it was deserted

1:15:58

for the next several centuries. From

1:16:01

743 to 724 B.C.,

1:16:03

Sparta and Messenia battled in the

1:16:05

first Messenian revolt. Sparta

1:16:08

marched through the mountains for several days

1:16:10

and attacked Messenia. This was the

1:16:12

first time that Greeks enslaved each other on such a massive

1:16:14

scale. It took two 20-plus

1:16:16

year wars to fully enslave the Messenians. One

1:16:19

eyewitness to the wars was Tiritus, that Spartan

1:16:21

poet and soldier. Incorporating the

1:16:23

Messenians into society was important because it gave

1:16:25

Sparta the means to maintain the nearest thing

1:16:28

to a standing army in Greece. By

1:16:30

freeing all its adult male citizens from the

1:16:33

need for manual labor. The

1:16:35

Messenians would now do that for

1:16:37

centuries. Spuckers paid a serious

1:16:39

price for losing that war with the Spartans.

1:16:43

From 735 to 715 B.C., Sparta

1:16:45

finalized their takeover of Messenia.

1:16:48

Sparta now owned a large tract of fertile

1:16:50

land. They turned the Messenians into the Helitz,

1:16:53

forcing them to become farmers and servants and

1:16:56

their slaves. They forced the Helitz

1:16:58

to give them half of any produce they grew. Helitz

1:17:01

hated the Spartans reasonably. They were constant tensions

1:17:03

between the two classes. The

1:17:05

first Messenian revolt is often cited as

1:17:07

the reason for the founding of the

1:17:09

Egoji to teach Spartan men to combat

1:17:11

and suppress future slave revolts more

1:17:14

effectively. In

1:17:16

706 B.C., Sparta founded the colony

1:17:18

of Tarentum in present day Italy. Today

1:17:21

it's the city of Toronto. In

1:17:24

700 B.C., Sparta, Argos and

1:17:26

Peros held the first documented musical

1:17:29

competitions in ancient Greece. So

1:17:31

still not only into fighting. They

1:17:33

play a little music. Playing some liars

1:17:35

or whatever they're called. Probably

1:17:37

should have looked up. Playing some Greek

1:17:39

guitars. Peros,

1:17:41

another beautiful Greek island by the way. Greece is

1:17:43

an incredibly beautiful country. It was

1:17:45

fun to look up pronunciation videos just because I

1:17:48

got to see these beaches. From

1:17:50

685 to 668 B.C.,

1:17:53

the Messenians revolted against Sparta

1:17:55

again. Took almost two decades to

1:17:57

put down the rebellion. Sparta eventually did. And

1:18:00

it became even more militaristic to make sure, you know, again,

1:18:02

that that doesn't happen anymore. Following

1:18:04

their defeat, Spartan poet, Tyridis, described

1:18:06

the messenians like asses worn out

1:18:09

with heavy burdens. Clearly,

1:18:11

they were not in the best of spirits ever getting

1:18:13

beaten twice. The sad lot

1:18:16

in life has only just begun. Also,

1:18:18

maybe, Tyridis is

1:18:20

inferring that the messenians were also

1:18:23

getting buttfucked a lot by the Spartans. I mean, maybe

1:18:25

that's the heavy burden. That was, you know,

1:18:27

wearing out their asses. I don't know. You know,

1:18:29

you're not going to hear that in any history

1:18:32

class, but maybe for the glory of Sparta. In

1:18:34

the seventh century BC, Sparta's

1:18:36

military culture was fully established by state

1:18:38

leaders from this century until their demise.

1:18:40

Spartans dedicated themselves now to war and

1:18:42

diplomacy, but multi-war. They

1:18:44

began to reject almost all arts, philosophy,

1:18:47

literature, too woke. They

1:18:49

needed to create the most powerful army in ancient Greece.

1:18:52

Before the messenian revolt, Spartans were somewhat

1:18:54

similar to other city-states. They had

1:18:56

artists and poets, men and women

1:18:58

performing labor. After the

1:19:00

revolt, Sparta transitioned into a fully militaristic

1:19:02

society. They became stricter on their soldiers,

1:19:04

punishing cowardice in battle with the loss

1:19:06

of citizenship. They greatly increased the amount

1:19:08

of boy, soldier, buttfucking to ensure stricter

1:19:11

obedience. Actually, I'm not sure about

1:19:13

the last one, but it seems possible. They

1:19:15

encouraged pair bonding among the hoplites to

1:19:17

promote loyalty. Loyalty?

1:19:19

Prosthetist Bill, largely around. But, you

1:19:22

know, I'll stop. Time for another sodomy break,

1:19:24

probably. The messenian's labor created

1:19:26

an economic surplus for the Spartans, used to

1:19:28

finance the communal mess halls and barracks that

1:19:30

will help characterize life as a male Spartan

1:19:32

citizen. I had the

1:19:34

male that was the only citizen, but it just sounds weird. I

1:19:37

don't want to be confusing and say Spartan citizen and things like

1:19:39

men and women. Spartan society becomes

1:19:41

more and more focused on strict order and discipline now.

1:19:44

Spartans feared another messenian revolt, wanted

1:19:46

to be ready for combat at all times. Enslaving

1:19:49

the messenians changed the entire structure of Spartan

1:19:51

life and allowed them to become a military

1:19:53

superpower. After the revolts, all the land and

1:19:55

artifacts from the Senia were given to Spartans

1:19:57

to combat the natural response of human greed.

1:20:00

agreed to avoid their own civil war, Spartan

1:20:02

leaders decided to transfer the values of a

1:20:04

phalanx to their society. Uniformity,

1:20:07

equality, discipline. No

1:20:09

one gets to have too much shit. They're

1:20:11

inspired by, like Kyrgyz, to create their

1:20:13

own utopia of a perfectly disciplined society. A

1:20:16

cultural revolution takes place. Sparta sets out

1:20:18

to train the best hoplite warriors in the world, and

1:20:21

they turn their Acropolis into a military training camp.

1:20:24

By around 600 B.C., Sparta controls most of

1:20:27

the Peloponnese. They started to extend

1:20:29

their control into Arcadia, in the central

1:20:31

and eastern part of the Peloponnese Peninsula.

1:20:34

Instead of only using brute force, Sparta also tried their

1:20:36

hand at diplomacy around 600 B.C. They

1:20:40

claimed they had the

1:20:42

bones of Arestes, son

1:20:44

of Agamemnon. They also claimed

1:20:46

that the Spartans were successors to the line

1:20:49

of Atreus, father of Agamemnon and

1:20:51

Achaean king. This

1:20:54

helped Sparta form an alliance with the

1:20:56

ancient Akkadian city of Tajiya, an important

1:20:59

religious center mentioned by Homer in the

1:21:01

Iliad, which led to them getting

1:21:03

a whole network of alliances that they would use to

1:21:05

form the Peloponnesian League. In

1:21:07

an alliance now, Sparta expected full military

1:21:09

reciprocity from their allies, and in exchange

1:21:11

for this, they went to various city-states

1:21:13

and deposed a number of tyrants with

1:21:16

their military might. Starting

1:21:18

from 550 to 336 B.C.E., the Peloponnesian

1:21:21

League was an alliance between Sparta, Corinth,

1:21:24

Elis, and Tajiya. This

1:21:27

established Spartan dominance over the

1:21:29

Peloponnese. Also in

1:21:31

550, King Cyrus II, aka Cyrus the

1:21:33

Great, founds the first Persian

1:21:35

Empire, the Persians, one of

1:21:38

Greece's and Sparta's greatest enemies,

1:21:41

but they would also ally with him sometimes. Within

1:21:43

this large time frame, several key events took place that

1:21:45

would shape the history of ancient Greece. In

1:21:48

545 B.C.E., Sparta took control of

1:21:50

Cyrea and its fertile farmland, best

1:21:52

in the peninsula, from Argos. In

1:21:55

525 B.C.E., Sparta and

1:21:57

Corinth made an unsuccessful attack on Poli-

1:22:02

oh boy. Policratis. Poli-

1:22:04

oh boy. Policratis. Policrates.

1:22:07

There we go. Poliqurates. Boom!

1:22:10

Fucking Poliqurates. If I have said it once, I've

1:22:12

said it a million times. Poliqurates.

1:22:15

Say it every day of Samos. Poliqurates

1:22:17

was a powerful tyrant who defended this

1:22:19

island home with a powerful navy. You know all

1:22:22

about poliqurates. I'm sure most of

1:22:24

you talk about poliqurates on the daily. In

1:22:28

506 BC, Sparta and the Peloponnesian

1:22:30

League allies invaded Attica, the

1:22:32

countryside around the powerful city-state of Athens, but

1:22:34

don't go into Athens. From

1:22:37

494 to 493 BC,

1:22:39

Spartan forces under King Cleomenes

1:22:41

I attacked the city of Argos

1:22:43

after a 50-year peace treaty between the two powers

1:22:46

ended. A Spartan oracle

1:22:48

had proclaimed that the Spartans would

1:22:50

capture Argos. One

1:22:52

of the most important Spartan kings, Cleomenes, was

1:22:54

instrumental in organizing the Greek resistance against the

1:22:57

Persian Empire. That's going around the time. However,

1:22:59

despite slaughtering 6,000 archived hoplites

1:23:01

in a battle outside the city,

1:23:04

Argos, Cleomenes, does not take Argos.

1:23:07

And when he gets home, he's actually put on trial by

1:23:09

the Gerosia. A truce of

1:23:11

bribery, right? That's why he didn't conquer the city. He was

1:23:13

bribed. But he was acquitted. Cleomenes

1:23:16

said that since he did capture

1:23:18

a sacred grove of trees outside

1:23:20

of Argos that is also called

1:23:22

Argos, the oracle's prophecy

1:23:24

had been fulfilled because the grove

1:23:26

in the city had the same name. I love

1:23:29

it. I love that a battle was

1:23:31

fought because of some ancient con artist, Oracle,

1:23:33

had a fucking prophecy and loved

1:23:35

that this guy found a loophole to fulfill it. Guys,

1:23:38

I totally did it. 100%. Did

1:23:40

I capture Argos? Yeah. I thought you were

1:23:42

talking about the trees. Hold on.

1:23:44

I wish you would have said city. I wish you would have been more

1:23:47

specific, but you weren't. From

1:23:49

492 to 449 BC, Sparta and

1:23:51

most of Greece fight in the Greco-Persian Wars.

1:23:54

Sparta initially did not want to be involved in this massive

1:23:56

war, but when the Persians threatened their

1:23:58

allies in Ionia, they fell off. they had to get

1:24:00

involved. The Greeks there had sent

1:24:02

an emissary to Sparta to beg for help.

1:24:04

The initially refused, but did send

1:24:06

a warning to Persian King Cyrus to leave Greece

1:24:09

alone or else. Persians,

1:24:11

of course, did not listen. King Darius

1:24:13

I invades parts to Greece, 492 BC, the

1:24:16

Athenian forces pushing back at the Battle of Marathon,

1:24:18

490 BC. Greek

1:24:21

force of roughly 10,000 Athenian

1:24:23

hoplites smashingly defeats roughly 25,000

1:24:25

Persians without Spartan support. They're

1:24:27

pretty formidable too. And

1:24:30

they didn't even have to fucking take kids from the age

1:24:32

of seven and, you know, torch them

1:24:34

until they're an adult to win that battle. Darius

1:24:37

died in a later battle in 486 BC and

1:24:39

his son Xerxes, the first, continued the war. Allegedly,

1:24:42

the Spartans consulted an oracle to

1:24:44

decide if they now should join the war or

1:24:47

not. The oracle was a woman

1:24:49

possessed by the priest at Delphi. The

1:24:51

oracle dressed in virgin's clothes, very

1:24:53

likely took hallucinogens, and relayed

1:24:56

her predictions to whoever requested the message.

1:24:58

The messages were almost always ambiguous because

1:25:00

this is fucking insane. It's

1:25:03

probably generous. But the oracle of Delphi foretold

1:25:06

that either Sparta would be destroyed

1:25:08

by the Persians or

1:25:11

one of its kings must die.

1:25:14

Excepting his fate, Sparta officially joins the war.

1:25:17

Both kings probably kind of nervous now. Uh,

1:25:20

490 BC, Leonidas becomes one of the

1:25:22

Sparta's two kings after Cleomini the first

1:25:24

dies. And yes, that

1:25:27

Leonidas, played by Gerard

1:25:29

Butler in 300, this is where

1:25:31

we hold them. This is

1:25:33

where we fight. This is

1:25:35

where they die. He makes

1:25:37

history become a legendary Spartan hero. 480

1:25:41

BC, big year in Spartans history. Uh,

1:25:44

the Greco-Persian war is ongoing. Xerxes invades Greece

1:25:46

again in 480 BC this

1:25:49

year. The Persians crossed Helispont and

1:25:51

narrow straight between the Aegean and Black Seas and

1:25:54

move south. The Spartan army

1:25:56

led by King Leonidas forms an anti-Persian

1:25:58

coalition between Sparta and Athens. working

1:26:00

with their enemy. This coalition would

1:26:02

fight the Thermopylae, a key battle in the

1:26:04

Greco-Persian War immortalized and history revisited in 300.

1:26:06

The Battle of Thermopylae,

1:26:10

I say Thermopylae, earlier Thermopylae, was

1:26:13

led by King Leonidas and other Greek

1:26:15

allies, greatly outnumbered. They held back

1:26:17

the Persians, led by Xerxes, for three days. And

1:26:20

a small force of Spartan soldiers really did stay

1:26:23

behind to fight to the death against the

1:26:25

Persian army, the much, much, much larger Persian

1:26:27

army. And that made Sparta

1:26:29

legendary for their prowess, tenacity, gave

1:26:31

them the status of having the best army in all of Greece. Thermopylae

1:26:35

contained a narrow passage, and

1:26:37

Leonidas and his men blocked that passage to stop

1:26:39

Xerxes' advance. Leonidas started

1:26:42

the battle with just a few thousand soldiers, roughly

1:26:44

900 helots, 400

1:26:46

Thebans, 700 Cespians and other

1:26:48

Greeks, and just 300 Spartans.

1:26:51

Persian army, again much, much bigger. Xerxes

1:26:54

waited to see if the Greeks would surrender, but

1:26:56

they would not, so he planned his attack. Herodotus,

1:26:59

Greek historian of the time, wrote, the

1:27:01

Persians rushed forward and charged the Greeks,

1:27:04

but fell in vast numbers. Others, however,

1:27:06

took the places of the slain and would not

1:27:08

be beaten off, though they suffered terrible

1:27:10

losses. In this way it became

1:27:12

clear to all, and especially to the king, that though

1:27:15

he had plenty of combatants, he had

1:27:17

but very few warriors. The struggle,

1:27:19

however, continued during the whole day. Xerxes,

1:27:22

after losing a lot of people, initially

1:27:24

withdrew his forces, he next

1:27:26

sent in a unit he really did call, just like 300,

1:27:28

the Immortals. Ten

1:27:31

thousand elite infantrymen sent

1:27:33

them after the Greeks. Right

1:27:36

from the movie, that's that scene, they

1:27:38

are the hunters of men's souls. They

1:27:40

cannot be killed or defeated, not these

1:27:42

Immortals. That's when Leonidas

1:27:45

said, Immortals will put

1:27:47

their name to the test. And

1:27:49

the Greeks, led by Leonidas and his men, the 300, fucking

1:27:51

butchered them. If Herodotus is

1:27:53

to be believed, the Spartans and a couple thousand

1:27:55

Greeks fighting with them, but really just 300 at

1:27:58

the end, would kill approximately 20... 60,000

1:28:00

Persians. Herodotus

1:28:02

wrote the Lacedaemonians,

1:28:06

which is another way of saying the Spartans,

1:28:08

much harder way, fought in a way

1:28:11

worthy of note, and showed themselves far more

1:28:13

skillful in fight than their adversaries, often turning

1:28:15

their backs and making as though they were

1:28:17

all flying away, on which the

1:28:19

barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting, when

1:28:22

the Spartans at their approach would wheel round

1:28:24

and face their pursuers, in this way destroying

1:28:27

vast numbers of the enemy. So

1:28:30

disciplined, so fearless. What

1:28:32

ended the battle was when a Greek

1:28:35

traitor showed Xerxes a different path through

1:28:37

Thermopylae. That really sucks. That

1:28:39

if some fucking traitor wouldn't have shown him a different way,

1:28:41

those 300 might have actually held off the entire Persian force.

1:28:45

Later that day, the Persians outmaneuvered the Greeks, attacked them

1:28:47

from both sides. They didn't have the numbers to handle

1:28:49

that. The Greeks outnumbered at least 40 to 1. Herodotus

1:28:51

claimed the Persian army was 1.5 million men. He

1:28:55

greatly exaggerated numbers a lot. Historians

1:28:57

estimate closer to 300. Many

1:29:00

of Leonidas' troops withdrew, and so

1:29:02

did many of the Greeks that had been fighting with

1:29:04

him, but 300 Spartans did stay behind to fight, knowing

1:29:06

it was likely to the death. Leonidas,

1:29:09

one of those 300, the king

1:29:12

and his men made a final stand,

1:29:14

and it was written, fell

1:29:16

fighting bravely, together with many other

1:29:18

famous Spartans. The Persians

1:29:20

killed all the Spartans and the Hellas they brought

1:29:22

along, then they moved south and sacked Athens, almost

1:29:25

breaking into the Peloponnese. Why

1:29:27

did Leonidas stay and fight, almost certainly knowing he

1:29:29

would die? For one thing, that was the

1:29:31

Spartan way. Death before surrender.

1:29:34

Come back with your shield or on

1:29:36

it. Also, the Oracle

1:29:38

of Delphi said Sparta would be destroyed

1:29:40

by the Persians, or one of

1:29:42

its kings must die. Perhaps

1:29:45

he believed that by sacrificing himself, he

1:29:47

was saving his people. For the

1:29:49

glory of Sparta. That

1:29:52

is incredibly badass, and I would say that that battle

1:29:54

is what most people think of when they think of

1:29:56

Spartans. This was a devastating

1:29:58

defeat, but the basic of a

1:30:00

legendary tale of bravery that inspires

1:30:02

militaries, books, movies, many individuals to

1:30:04

this day. Also

1:30:07

when emissaries were sent by Xerxes to Sparta to

1:30:09

ask them to submit, right before this all happened,

1:30:11

they really did toss those fuckers into a well.

1:30:13

So it was pretty similar to the scene of

1:30:15

the guy getting kicked into the well. The

1:30:18

Greeks then fought in the battle of Salamis. Athenians

1:30:21

and more Spartans working together to defeat the Persians.

1:30:24

Salamis was important because it did stop the Persian

1:30:26

advance. The Persians lost 200 to 300 ships in

1:30:28

this battle and an

1:30:30

unknown amount of men compared to the Greeks losing 40 ships.

1:30:34

Xerxes went home but left his

1:30:36

army behind. 479 BCE

1:30:39

Xerxes forces are defeated by the Greeks

1:30:41

at the battle of Plataeanau. This

1:30:43

ended Persian imperial ambitions in Greece.

1:30:46

This was a big Greek and Spartan victory. Sparta

1:30:49

heavily involved in the fighting. If

1:30:51

again Herodotus is to be believed, probably not but it sounds

1:30:53

cool, Greeks slaughtered 257 000

1:30:57

Persian forces and

1:30:59

lost, if you can believe him, 159 men. I'm guessing

1:31:04

his math was a wee bit off but

1:31:07

the Greeks did win decisively, it is believed.

1:31:10

And no city state sent more hoplites into

1:31:12

this battle than Sparta. They sent in 10

1:31:14

000 elite warriors. 478

1:31:18

BCE Sparta withdrew from the Greek alliance

1:31:20

against Persia. No more fighting alongside Athens

1:31:22

for now you fuckers. Probably gonna fight

1:31:26

you soon. 464 massive earthquake brings destruction

1:31:28

and chaos to Sparta and

1:31:30

the Messenians use that as an opportunity to

1:31:32

start another revolt and will be punished mightily.

1:31:35

This revolt was suppressed savagely. Untold

1:31:37

number of Messenians are butchered. From

1:31:41

460 to 446 BC Athens,

1:31:43

Sparta, their allies fight each other

1:31:46

in the first Peloponnesian war. Although

1:31:48

they were allied to fight the Persians, you know not that long

1:31:50

ago, now they're back to fighting each other. Peloponnesian

1:31:52

war made Sparta powerful also signaled the

1:31:54

end of the golden age of Greece

1:31:56

when Athens was the most powerful city

1:31:58

state. The war was caused by

1:32:01

the formation of the Athenian League. In

1:32:03

478, the Athenian League united the city-states under

1:32:05

Athens to guard against the Persians, and

1:32:07

now also to guard against the Greek-Peloponnesian League.

1:32:10

The two forces opposed each other and fought for

1:32:12

territory and power. In

1:32:15

457 BC, Sparta won the Battle of

1:32:17

Tanagra against Athens. 445

1:32:20

BC, the first Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens ends

1:32:22

with a 30-year treaty. Two

1:32:24

sides agreed to stop fighting for 30 years,

1:32:26

but the peace won't last that long. The

1:32:29

battle will last until 437. Then

1:32:32

in 444 BC, future Spartan king, Jesalaeus

1:32:35

II is born. He'll reign

1:32:37

over Sparta from 399 to 369

1:32:39

and command Sparta through their period

1:32:41

of Spartan supremacy from

1:32:44

404 to 371 BCE. 437

1:32:49

BC, tensions rise again between the

1:32:51

Athenian and Peloponnesian leagues. The

1:32:54

war in the city-state of Epidamos

1:32:56

led to

1:32:58

Corinth becoming involved. Sparta

1:33:00

as their ally was brought into the fight. Corinth's

1:33:03

enemy, Corcyra, today the Greek

1:33:05

island of Corfu, targeted

1:33:07

Epidamos and seized it in a sea

1:33:09

battle. 433

1:33:12

BC, tensions rise higher. Corcyra

1:33:15

asked for Athens' support and said that a

1:33:17

conflict with Sparta was inevitable. Corinth

1:33:20

fought Athens at the Battle of Cyvota. Sparta

1:33:22

didn't want to enter the war, but Corinth convinced them. Sparta

1:33:25

sent over three delegations to negotiate a new

1:33:27

treaty, but Athens rejected. Quite

1:33:30

the balls to reject these fuckers. 432

1:33:33

BC, Sparta declared that Athens broke the 30-year

1:33:35

peace treaty and began preparing for more war.

1:33:37

So many wars. One

1:33:40

source I came across said that the Spartans loved

1:33:42

to be fighting war. Like they loved it more than when

1:33:44

they were at peace, partially because

1:33:46

their grueling training regiments were relaxed

1:33:49

during times of battle. And

1:33:51

it was actually less brutal to

1:33:54

fight in a war than it was for them

1:33:56

to train for fighting in a war. Which

1:33:59

is insane. From 431

1:34:01

to 404 BC Athens Sparta, their allies, fight

1:34:03

in the Second Peloponnesian War. This

1:34:05

war was between the Athenian League and the Peloponnesian

1:34:07

League. Almost every city-state in Greece

1:34:10

was involved. Thebes, the key players, sided

1:34:12

with Sparta against Athens. First

1:34:14

ten years of the war are

1:34:17

sometimes called the Architomian War. Named

1:34:20

after the Spartan king, Architomus I,

1:34:23

Sparta spread a propaganda slogan on this

1:34:25

time, freedom for the Greeks. They

1:34:28

claimed they wanted to liberate all of Greece from

1:34:30

Athens, but they really wanted to seize power

1:34:32

for themselves. 430

1:34:35

BC Sparta seized Athens city walls.

1:34:37

At the same time, a plague killed many

1:34:40

Athenians inside the walls, including their leader Pericles.

1:34:43

Exact identity of the disease, uncertain typhoid

1:34:46

fever, seemed to be the lead suspects. 429

1:34:50

BC Peloponnesian forces led by Sparta began

1:34:53

the siege of Plataea. After

1:34:55

the attacks from Sparta, Athens fortified their port

1:34:57

of Piraeus to reduce the width of harbor

1:35:00

entrances. 427,

1:35:03

Plataea falls to Sparta after a two-year siege.

1:35:06

Spartan king, a Gis, the second,

1:35:08

ascends to the throne. 425,

1:35:11

Sparta suffers a devastating loss against

1:35:13

Athens at the Battle of Spectaria.

1:35:17

It's a fun word.

1:35:20

This battle was important because 120 Spartans surrendered

1:35:22

after being stranded on the island of Spectaria,

1:35:26

something unheard of in Spartan history. Thucydides

1:35:29

wrote, nothing that happened in the war

1:35:31

surprised the Hellenese so much as this.

1:35:34

It was the opinion that no force or

1:35:36

famine could make the Lacedimone, which

1:35:38

is the Spartans, give

1:35:45

up their arms, but that they would fight

1:35:47

on as they could and die with them in their hands.

1:35:50

So this is a huge morale boost for the

1:35:52

Athenians. For the next

1:35:54

18 years, a lot of little battles are fought back

1:35:56

and forth between the Athenians, the Spartans, then in 407,

1:35:58

B-C-I-V-E. another big

1:36:00

dick spartan, recently promoted, will break the

1:36:03

backs of the Athenians and re-establish spartan

1:36:05

dominance. 407

1:36:07

BC, Lysander defeats the Athenian fleet

1:36:09

at Natium. This

1:36:11

victory won the war for Sparta, which was surprising to all because

1:36:14

it was a sea battle. Sparta

1:36:16

had never been a Greek naval powerhouse like

1:36:18

Athens long was. The Athenians had

1:36:20

the naval advantage, but Lysander was recently promoted to

1:36:22

commander of Sparta's navy, and he convinced the Persian

1:36:24

Prince Cyrus to give him money to build up

1:36:26

his fleet. Weird fact

1:36:28

about Lysander is he was actually

1:36:30

half helot, but he

1:36:32

qualified for the Egoge and proved

1:36:35

himself to be one of the most cunning trainees. Lysander

1:36:38

befriended Persian King Cyrus and convinced him to give

1:36:40

money to Sparta. Spartan's fleet salary increased

1:36:43

25% by 25% overnight. All

1:36:46

the mercenaries and freelance oarsmen working in Athens

1:36:48

got word of the higher pay that the

1:36:50

Spartans were now dishing out and switched sides.

1:36:54

Pretty smart little move there. Lysander

1:36:56

started building up the navy, fought

1:36:58

with the Athenian navy in a

1:37:00

sea battle at Egoes Potomai. He

1:37:02

refused to engage directly and surprise

1:37:04

them and cut off their grain

1:37:06

supply from the Crimea, from Port

1:37:08

Piraeus in Athens. Sparta

1:37:11

now had the power and Athens had to concede to

1:37:13

their terms. 404

1:37:15

BC, the Second Peloponnesian War, finally

1:37:17

comes to an end. Sparta was,

1:37:19

once again, the most powerful city-state

1:37:21

in all of Greece, for the

1:37:23

glory of Sparta! Commence celebratory butt-fucking!

1:37:27

Lysander's terms of defeat for Athens were tear

1:37:29

down the city walls, confine their

1:37:32

activities to Attica, the land around

1:37:34

Athens, and submit to the rule of

1:37:36

the Thirty Tyrants, and that ended

1:37:38

democracy in Athens for some time. The

1:37:41

4th century BC, Athens, born military leader

1:37:43

and historian Xenophon, wrote, The

1:37:46

Peloponnesians with great enthusiasm began to tear down

1:37:48

the walls to the music of flute girls,

1:37:51

thinking that today was the beginning of freedom from Greece. I

1:37:55

like flute girls, by the way, it's hyphenated, that means translation, but

1:37:57

I like just to think that there's a class of people just

1:37:59

known in Greece. Flute Girls. Well,

1:38:01

who is that? That's a Flute Girl. Oh, so

1:38:03

that's a girl. It's yeah, technically, it's a girl, but

1:38:05

really, it's a Flute Girl. All she does is Flute.

1:38:08

Just Flute and Girl, they're just the same

1:38:10

package. You can't remove one without really destroying

1:38:13

the other. Sparta's

1:38:15

collaborators took over the city and settled some

1:38:17

scores with old enemies. So a lot

1:38:20

of Athenian nobles died. Lysander

1:38:22

was so proud of himself, he created a monument of

1:38:24

himself, being crowned by

1:38:26

Poseidon. And that flashy

1:38:28

display not looked upon as

1:38:30

a good thing back in Sparta marked

1:38:33

a decline in Lysander's public reputation. It's

1:38:35

like, easy, buddy. We're

1:38:37

fucking fierce, but we're humble in

1:38:40

showy ways. Many historians consider the

1:38:43

Peloponnesian War as the most significant event in ancient

1:38:45

Greek history. They

1:38:47

involved almost all of Greece, shifted the balance

1:38:49

of power from the Athenian League to the

1:38:51

Peloponnesian League, most of it recorded

1:38:53

by Thucydides. His historical accounts considered one of

1:38:55

the finest works of ancient history. 400 BC

1:38:59

now Sparta, on top of its game, experiences

1:39:02

some political turmoil. More Oracle

1:39:05

bullshit. And Oracle now

1:39:07

predicts a greater power struggle and references a

1:39:09

crippled kingship. King of GIs

1:39:11

was dead, and there were two candidates competing

1:39:13

for the throne, half brothers, Leo

1:39:16

Tychidus and Agisoleus.

1:39:19

We met Leo Tychidus

1:39:21

was a GIs son and meant to take

1:39:23

the throne by birthright. Agisoleus was born, quote,

1:39:25

lame, but was not murdered as a baby

1:39:27

because he was of royal blood. At

1:39:30

the age of seven, Agisoleus qualified for

1:39:32

the Egoji, despite his disability thrived

1:39:34

in school. When GIs died, Agisoleus

1:39:36

now wants the throne, but no other Spartan supports

1:39:38

them because that Oracle is referenced to a crippled

1:39:41

kingship. Maybe not being a good thing. They thought

1:39:43

the Oracle was referring to him. But

1:39:45

Lysander sweeps in, reminds the Spartans that

1:39:47

Elsa Biodes,

1:39:50

an Athenian politician in general, had

1:39:52

an affair with King Agisoleus' wife.

1:39:55

Leo Tychidus therefore was not a

1:39:57

legitimate king. Support now

1:39:59

shift from Leo Tychidus. Leo Takedis to

1:40:01

Aigestelaius, and he's crowned king,

1:40:03

and he is King Aigestelaius II. The

1:40:07

next 30 years will be known as the Years

1:40:09

of Aigestelaius. Glad I get

1:40:11

to say that word so many times. From 396 to 387

1:40:14

BC, all of Greece was involved in

1:40:16

yet another war, the Corinthian War. This

1:40:19

war restored democracy in Athens and renewed hostile

1:40:21

feelings towards Sparta. Much of it

1:40:24

took place in Corinthian territory, hence the name. War

1:40:27

was fought by Sparta versus the Coalition of

1:40:29

Athens assisted by Persia. Sparta

1:40:31

was angry in the Greek city-states because they were now

1:40:33

trying to expand their territory. To this end,

1:40:35

they were trying to take Syracuse, a colony of Corinth.

1:40:39

Thieves was particularly at risk of being overtaken by Sparta, so

1:40:41

they were extra ready to join a movement to kick the

1:40:43

shit out of them. By

1:40:45

396 BC, everyone was looking for a fight, and

1:40:48

Sparta was not quite as ready for it as they

1:40:50

had been in years past. All

1:40:53

the years of journeys into other city-states showed

1:40:55

Spartan soldiers how other soldiers lived, often

1:40:57

a life of riches, pleasure,

1:41:00