Essay about Spartan and Persian Ideology

Spartans were very strict and set high expectations for their men in war. Taken from their families at the young age of 7 to train, the boys were whipped and starved. Spartans also enslaved people, called helots. The innocent helots were killed without warning. Spartans were so

Think about being forced to join the military and suffer intense training, only because you were a boy born in Sparta: no one would like that idea. However, this was true in the 5th century BCE, in Sparta. Sparta was famous for its army standing up against opposing armies of more than a hundred times greater. They were especially known for the phalanx, a battle formation consisting of a group of soldiers tightly packed, each holding a shield which interlaced with others’. You may have seen this kind of battle formations in many movies, such as The Lord of the Rings and Black Panther.

These warriors were acting in accordance to the Spartan belief that a soldier puts the welfare of the state before the welfare of the

College history students should read this novel because many of the concepts and ideals of the Spartan culture are presented and described. One of the author’s greatest strength in the novel is his ability to demonstrate the Spartan’s culture through the use of story. For example, readers can often gather from a traditional textbook that the Spartans were one of the greatest fighting forces of their time. This is brought out in the novel when Pressfield describes how “men passed beyond themselves… [and] feats of heart-stopping valor fell down from the sky like rain” (308). This is showing that the Spartans presented great courage, bravery and fearlessness in battle, which is often how they are

The ancient Greeks are known for many things, and one of them is their stories. Whether they are told through epic poetry or drama, these tales have lasted throughout the times. However, as the times change, so did the Greek ideals about heroism and society. In this essay I will be using Homer’s Iliad and Aeschylus’ Persians to illustrate the differences in society and how they affect the heroism in the literature of later periods. The Persian people are depicted in ways that makes them appear weaker than the Greeks, but time changed how this was achieved. Due to a change in the values of Greek society, the Persians were portrayed as weak with the same traits that made Achilles appear to be so strong.

appointed Sparta to the position of commanding polis due to its vast hoplite army. Greeks “who were loyal to the Greek cause… reconcile[d] enmities and put a stop to

The active involvement of Spartan

“Life at Sparta in several ways resembled that of a military camp,” (Powell 2001, 219). Many laws that Lycurgus proposed revolved around the benefit of the Spartan military. These implementations set by Lycurgus do not give any benefit to the democratic changes occurring in society at the time.

The great historian, Herodotus, who is also known as the “father of history,” wrote many books on the Greek culture. Herodotus describes the cultural values of the Greeks in his detailed work, The Histories. Because the book concentrates on the Greek and Persian wars, he also writes about the values of the Persians. In his account of the Greek and Persian wars, Herodotus describes the different values of the Greek culture and the Persian culture in this famous book. From reading this work of Herodotus, it becomes clear that the values which each of these two cultures held, differed greatly.

“THIS IS SPARTA”, a famous quote from the Hollywood movie 300 (2006), is this movie by Zack Snyder true to what really happen? Sparta was a city-state in south west of Ancient Greece with a strict set of eugenics. Sparta was one of the two biggest and strongest city-states and is considered to have the strongest Army of its time. Persia was the super power of its time, it had expanding borders due to conquering and Persia had it eyes on Greece. After first failing to conquer Greece ten years earlier, Persia had returned to finish the job. The Battle of Thermopylae is the story of Sparta and its allies defending against the much bigger

The Persian Wars were a series of destructive and malevolent battles which occurred in the time frame of 490B.C and 480 – 479B.C. The Greek victory over the Persians in the Persian Wars cannot be attributed to only one factor, more it was a commixture of factors. Such factors include unity, leadership, strategy, tactics and the pre-eminence of the Greek soldier. Each contributing factor was to play a distinctive and pivotal role in the various battles to come, which ultimately would lead to the subsequent demise of the Persians.

Lycurgus, a prince who was regarded as the founder of Spartan education, “introduced the custom of wearing one garment, throughout the year believing that they would thus be prepared to face changes of hot and cold,” (Doc. B). Lycurgus did not do this out of ruthlessness but rather to help the boys in the future by preparing them to easily come accustomed to their surroundings. Also with food, Lycurgus would give them a limited amount because “he believed that those who underwent this training would be better able to continue working on an empty stomach,” (Doc. B). This helped the boys survive when their was no food given to them. These rules taught the boys that their would always not be abundant resources in battle and also how to adapt to these

“To face the blood and the slaughter” Spartan Society and Values according to Tyrtaeus and Xenophon

The movie 300 is fairly accurate when it portrays the Spartan lifestyle. One thing that

As is already known, Homeric literature served as the model for educating Greek boys and young men, as well male Roman citizens later on in Antiquity. The passages of Homer and Hesiod instructed a decorum which defined proper behavior as unyielding bravery in the field of battle, and the continuous desire for besting an opponent through strident competition, or agon in the Greek. Achilles defined this part of heroic conduct, while Odysseus, through his renowned ability for persuasion, defined the other. Ideally therefore, both ways melded together provided a path to immortality and glory, which was the ultimate goal for every male aspirant in Classical Athens. As can be witnessed in Homeric literature – especially the Iliad – the real meaning of this immortality lay in the recognition of one’s achievements by his peers. And while immortality naturally meant being remembered for one’s actions, the potential for infamy also was part and parcel of this method. Therefore, this path to everlasting glory may been seen as highly individualistic, with no lasting contribution to the society left behind. Yet this masculine-nihilistic