On Sparta
by Plutarch · first published 2005
9mentions
3recommended by
7HN commenters
2020–2024first – last mentioned
43% recommend29% neutral29% critical
Plutarch here provides a fascinating account of the everyday lives and customs of the Spartan people, the famous warriors who gave their name to a way of life. A life of constant and rigorous training, self denial and hardship.
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…of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7142 History, by Herodotus https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2707 (Volume 1) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2456 (Volume 2) On Sparta, by Plutarch https://www.amazon.com/Sparta-Penguin-Classics-Plutarch/dp/0... And so on. Read history; and make up your own mind.
on “Sparta was more than an army of super warriors” ↗On Sparta by Plutarch is an amazing book about the Spartan civilization
on “Sparta was more than an army of super warriors” ↗The series on Sparta here is worth reading.
on “The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part V: Ladders Are Chaos” ↗Of course. So let me make a further suggestion: read modern historians (or read them too). I don't know who are the authorities on Sparta and ancient Greeece. But don't get your opinions about those subjects from an internet rant aimed at shocking people who only know Sparta from its depiction in 300 and who can legitimately not tell apart…
on “Sparta was more than an army of super warriors” ↗The author is an academic historian. And it’s not… saying anything very controversial. It’s pretty much the mainstream view on Sparta. I mean, obviously reading more is better. But this is a perfectly fine resource and links to lots of further reading. This blog is a far better thing for a normal person to read than the stuff you linked;…
on “Sparta was more than an army of super warriors” ↗…better source for historical knowledge than ancient authors? Unless you're willing to single-handledly reproduce a century or so of analysis, then, yes, reading this blog post (or a modern history text on Sparta) will give you more context on Sparta than reading the ancient sources. A _huge_ amount of work has been put into understanding ancient history, and ignoring it and just going for the ancient sources…
on “Sparta was more than an army of super warriors” ↗…and places like Reddit (RIP?) and Quora (RIP). I come from a really small town and made it further than anyone I know in that town in tech. (Not in terms of money, though) Just Google: "best books on Sparta reddit". You will find 10 threads, and on those threads if you look at top-k, you will see some entries recurring. And two-three lines of explanation. Read a non-trivial amount of sections to know whether…
…without a pretty solid knowledge of Ancient Greek history and historiography and the skills to be able to track the changes in the research literature is going to have a damn hard time finding the best book on Sparta.
I tried reading Devereux's blog posts on Sparta but bounced off of them. Watching this I remember why. He's punching so hard against a popular image of Sparta as invincible warriors that he sometimes starts painting his own opposite-world parody of…
on “The Reign of Alexander III of Macedon” ↗