Primary Document Assignment On Greece

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Jerod Walls
Dr. Saheed Aderinto
History 107
17 July 2015

Primary Document assignment on Greece During 490-479 BC the Empire of Persia had series of conflicts with Greek-City States. One of the pivotal moments in the Persian war was the battle of Thermopylae. The battle of Thermopylae took place in Greece, it started when Darius the king of Persia sent emissaries to Greece asking for land and water as an acceptance to his submission.The Spartans didn’t accept the offer and threw them down a well as a form of execution. This meant that they were effectively at war with Persia. Bernard Knox explains the actions that caused the battle, and the battle itself in an excerpt from a book called The Novel Book of Classical Literature . In this…show more content…
The Spartans lead the military efforts because of their extensive military expertise. Their military fortitude comes from their spartan culture. In Spartan culture, military was the focal point of there society. It was this military regimented mentality that allowed Sparta to become rulers of ancient Greece and a dominant fighting force of their time. However, to maintain this strong presence in Greece you had to prepare the future generation to continue current success. This is exactly what Sparta did. At the age of 7 boys were taken from their families and entered agoge. This program sculpts the boys into warriors. They are beaten and battered by each other, taught not to show pain. This toughness and fearlessness is seen throughout Bernard Knox excerpt. In the document Xerxes sends a man to spy on the Spartans. When he arrives to the camp he is astonished, not by the number of Spartan soldiers but by the lack of uneasiness in the men. Many men were combing there hair as if the culmination of war right around the corner was nothing more than another training exercise. After they had completed agoge around the age of 20 they were given the opportunity to fully become a Spartan solider. They had to be voted in unanimously by their peers. If they were not voted in by age 30 they would not be granted Spartan citizenship. This meant that they could not marry, hold office, or father children. However, the Spartans
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