Really? Herodotus, "the father of history" is not history?
Anyway, I suppose I shouldn't be pessimistic and take your one comment as an indication that a random blog post on the internet is treated as a more authoritative source than the original texts from which it -ultimately, though evidently indirectly- draws its information.
Edit:
>> They were all written with agendas, none of which were "document the historical reality of the Spartans".
How do you think we know the "historical reality of Sparta"? And do you think you will find that "documented" in a blog post?
Herodotus made a hell of a lot up, relied on oral reports and explicitly states that none of what he writes is intended to be relied on - it is merely what people told him. I think you actually need to read the linked blog that you seem so dismissive of, and come up with some substantive rebuttals to the points he makes rather than just making this rather lame appeal to historical authority.
Yes, I've read the linked blog post, thank you very much for making an ass of u and me.
And btw, that Herodotus, while being "the father of history" was full of shit, is something that any Greek school kid will tell you readily, so bringing this up is just a shallow dismissal of my point: that all we know about ancient times is what ancient authors have written, like Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Plato, and Plutarch. You will not learn more about ancient times by a blog post that quotes them second- and third-hand, all the while expressing strong personal opinions about what they have written, than if you read the actual first-hand sources, biased as they may be.
Like, you're the second or third person who makes this point: Herodotus confabulated. Sure. And who else didn't? Who else are you going to get your knowledge of what happened 2000 years ago than from the people who wrote about it all around the time it was going on?
I mean, do you think there are some other, magickally objective and accurate sources about ancient Sparta, than the ancient Greek authors I suggest people read?
No sure, just you have strongly dismissive opinions of someone you mockingly refer to as a mere blog author, and I felt I had to weigh in. I confess I definitely don't know nearly as much as I'd like about the ancient world, especially not to the extent of having read the primary sources but I feel like you're missing the point of people's reactions.
I think the underlying point is that you actually can learn more about the ancient world despite not necessarily possesing any more primary source knowledge - things can be inferred, close analysis can change perspectives and so on.
I know it isn't the point you're trying to make but you sound like you're trying to dismiss the entire premise of historical research. Like, we don't have any new information (which is patently false by the way, maybe not so relevant to this particular topic but new information comes to light pretty much daily) so therefore we should simply not think about it anymore. I'm not trying to be dismissive of your argument and you clearly feel quite strongly about it.
Do you think all historical research is bunk or just this argument?
Where did you see all that? "[A]ll historical research is bunk"? I "mockingly refer to [The Pedant] as a mere blog author"? I'm "trying to dismiss the entire premise of historical research"? You found those things in my comments? Are you replying to someone else?
Are you sure you are in conversation with me, and what I wrote, rather than some other opinion that you have confused my comments with?
I mean, what the hell? I have said none of the things you say I said and I don't even believe them! Where the hell did I write "mere blog author" about anyone?
>all we know about ancient times is what ancient authors have written
Contemporary approaches to ancient history do not rely exclusively on literary sources, but build a much fuller picture from epigraphy (inscriptions and graffiti can tell us a lot), archaeology, and numismatics.
You're right, not all knowledge comes from ancient authors. But I don't agree that there is enough information in epigrams and so on, to figure anything out with the context provided by long-form prose by authors who were sometimes even contemporary with the events they describe. I guess that's opinion though.
> Which brings us back to Herodotus (remember, way back in the first of these, I said we'd talk about Herodotus?) because he isn't just observing the Spartan reputation, Herodotus is manufacturing the Spartan reputation. Herodotus is our main source for early Greek history (read: pre-480) and for the two Persian invasions of Greece. Herodotus' Histories cover a range of places and topics - Persia, Greece, Scythia, Egypt - and contain a mixture of history, ethnography, mythology and straight up falsehoods. But - as François Hartog famously pointed out in his The Mirror of Herodotus (originally in French as Le Miroir d'Hérodote), Herodotus is writing about Greece, even when he is writing about Persia - those other cultures and places exist to provide contrasts to the things that Herodotus thinks bind all of the fractious and fiercely independent Greek poleis. And he is perfectly willing to manufacture the past to make it fit that vision.
> ... for Herodotus, Sparta is the expression of an ideal form of `Greekness' and in Herodotus' logic, being well-governed (eunomia is the Greek term) results primarily in military excellence. For the story Herodotus is telling to work, Sparta - as one of the leading states resisting Persia - must be well governed and it must be military excellent. That's what will make a good story - and Herodotus never lets the facts get in the way of a good story. ..
> Herodotus ...does show up in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, where he is treated as a famous historian who knows many things. Which is a bit funny, given that the historian of that period, Thucydides, takes a dim view of him.
> And so, Herodotus - the myth-maker - talks up the Spartiates at Thermopylae (you know, the brave 300) and quietly leaves out the other Laconians (who, if you scrutinize his numbers, he knows must be there, to the tune of c. 900 men), downplaying the other Greeks. Spartan leadership is lionized, even when it makes stupid mistakes (Thermopylae, to be clear, was a military disaster and Spartan intransigence nearly loses the battle of Plataea, but Herodotus represents this as boldness in the face of the enemy; even more fantastically inept was the initial Spartan plan to hold on the Isthmus of Corinth as if no one had ever seen a boat before).
> The spin worked. Herodotus' work was well known, even in antiquity, and he set the tone for all subsequent retellings of the Persian wars (despite the frequent complaints by later ancient authors that Herodotus' reliability was - let's say, complicated. I don't want to give the wrong impression: Herodotus is a valuable source, just one that - like all sources - has his own agenda at play).
The blog post series does link to its references, like The Mirror of Herodotus, as well in-line citations like "Hdt. 9.35.2" (one of several explicit Herodotus references), as well as "Thuc. 4.40.2", "Xen. Lac. 4.5, 5.9", "Plat. Lach. 182d-183a.", and many more.
>> There are many types of history. Herodotus was not writing from any sense of a modern 'academic historical text'.
Sure. So read modern academic historical texts, if you prefer- but don't take your knowledge of history from a blog rant on the internets.
The passages you quote make it clear that the author of the blog posts is commenting on sources commenting on Herodotus. He cites Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, etc, but there's nothing easier than copying citations one hasn't read.
And how can I know that he hasn't read the citations he cites? I can't, but I can know that he's untrustworthy because he makes things up as he sees fit.
For example, there's the case of the Spartiate/Spartan divide. From memory (because that's a long rant and I don't have the patience to read it again) the author is making a distinction between free "Spartiates" and enslaved "Spartans", as if there were two different words with these two different meanings. That is a complete fabrication: the Greek language, both ancient and modern, has one word for "inhabitant of Sparta", "σπαρτιάτης" (female: "σπαρτιάτισσα"). "Spartiate" and "Spartan" are simply different latinisations of the same Greek word, rather than sub-categories of the concept of "inhabitant of Sparta" with slightly different meanings.
At the very least, the author of the blog posts should have made it clear that the distinction between free "Spartiates" and enslaved "Spartans" is his own, but he fails to do so. A reader who doesn't know the Greek language, or the subject of the blog posts, will come away thinking that this is some kind of standard terminology, not something the author made up for his blog posts.
Again, this should give pause. The author straight up made stuff up to put in his blog rant. What else has he made up? Can you say? Can anyone, who takes their knowledge of Sparta and ancient Greece from sources like that blog post, only?
To this particular point, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartiate would seem to suggest (admittedly poorly cited) that there was in fact a distinction made within Spartan society between free and enslaved Spartans.
The only reference it sources is confusingly Xenophon, who you have admonished others for not reading - I confess I haven't myself, so will do some digging!
A distinction was certainly made between free citizens of Sparta and their slaves! Just to be perfectly clear, I don't disagree with that.
What I point out is that this distinction was not made by using different words that both meant "inhabitant of Sparta", in particular not "Spartiate" and "Spartan". As far as I can tell, the slaves of Sparta were only known as "helots".
The general point is that the ancients didn't think of the slaves living in a city as "citi-z-ens" of that city, probably because they were not actually citizens, in the legal sense, according to the laws of the era. For example, you will find no ancient source, and I believe no modern source either, calling the slaves living in Athens, "Athenians". They were the Athenians' slaves, they lived and worked in Athens, but they were not "Athenians".
This is not completely unlike modern times. For example, I live and work in the UK, but I'm by no means "British" and nobody would refer to me and others like me as "British", simply because we live and work in Britain. Rather, "British" is reserved for, well, citizens of the United Kingdom. The rest of us that have the malfortune to be domiciled on the British Isles are "immigrants" (or "bloody foreigners"), in any case there are different words, with different roots, to describe us.
I'm happy to clarify this further if there is still confusion. I blame the author of the blog posts for the confusion, btw.
Anyway, I suppose I shouldn't be pessimistic and take your one comment as an indication that a random blog post on the internet is treated as a more authoritative source than the original texts from which it -ultimately, though evidently indirectly- draws its information.
Edit:
>> They were all written with agendas, none of which were "document the historical reality of the Spartans".
How do you think we know the "historical reality of Sparta"? And do you think you will find that "documented" in a blog post?