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Is there any ancient author account on how Spartans paid for the non negligible (I think I read once an estimation of the work value of a man for an entire year) cost of their hoplite armor ?

(In the rest of Classical Greece, the answer might have been the male ''friend'', but Sparta was in theory a demonetized society)
 
foreignpolicy.com

Spartans Were Losers

The U.S. military’s admiration of a proto-fascist city-state is based on bad history.
foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com

Interesting article disabusing the Spartan myth
 
The author of the Newsweek article posted above has a blog, where he regularly writes on various topics. His take on Sparta is way longer, better elaborated and way bettrer sourced there.

For the curious, here you go :) Part one of like ten.
 
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I'm used to the hard right having no problem at all with sky-high male homoeroticism (from Arno Breker to Trump fanart, not to mention the admiration for the alleged US president that courageously ended his term wearing a dress), but there is more seriously a blatant issue that should make Sparta reppellent for the hard right.

The economic system, explictly egalitarian and state enforced. What is that word the US hard right love to use so much ? S...o...c....i....
 
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BaronNoir said:
I'm used to the hard right having no problem at all with sky-high male homoeroticism (from Arno Breker to Trump fanart, not to mention the admiration for the alleged US president that courageously ended his term wearing a dress), but there is more seriously a blatant issue that should make Sparta reppellent for the hard right.

The economic system, explictly egalitarian and state enforced. What is that word the US hard right love to use so much ? S...o...c....i....
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Hey there :)
 
@BaronNoir - and the hard right also claims (but in practice repudiates) the president who supposedly snuck into the capital in a dress. (Apocryphal, by the way, whereas Jeff Davis really did sorta cross-dress).

Sparta, for me, is a cautionary tale about the pursuit of militarism without innovation or attention to economics/demographics. Essentially, they ran low on highly-trained soldiers and were too culturally rigid to adapt either their tactics or their recruitment policies. Athens, on the other hand, mis-treated their allies and mis-applied the extraordinary power of sea control. At least, that's my take.
 
Director said:
@BaronNoir - and the hard right also claims (but in practice repudiates) the president who supposedly snuck into the capital in a dress. (Apocryphal, by the way, whereas Jeff Davis really did sorta cross-dress).

Sparta, for me, is a cautionary tale about the pursuit of militarism without innovation or attention to economics/demographics. Essentially, they ran low on highly-trained soldiers and were too culturally rigid to adapt either their tactics or their recruitment policies. Athens, on the other hand, mis-treated their allies and mis-applied the extraordinary power of sea control. At least, that's my take.
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To make a pun, a lot of what we know about Sparta is a cautionary tale.

The most vivid details that are associated with Sparta (the children thrown in chams, most of the agoge or krypteia details, and of course the good old fox kit eating the innards...) are from the Life of Lycurgus, where the author itself admit candidly that no one can be certain about anything about Lycurgus.

Which does not prevent Plutarch to states that....

For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.

Is Plutarch actually writing about Lycurgus ? Or is he writing about Agis, Cleomenes or the Gracchus brothers ?(1) (With the caveat that the conveniently legendary Lycurgus succeeded and they did not) The question is not trivial, because this passage is the introduction of the three paragraphs that are about the land ownersh
up in Sparta, the iron brooches used as money, Spartan disdain of the arts, the communal messes....each sentence therein amounting to a ''fact'' about Sparta.

(1)Plutarch not being known for subtlety, a few lines later, a sentence explictly links a ''good'' measure of Lycurgus to a ''bad'' measure of Agesilaus.
 
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BaronNoir said:
To make a pun, a lot of what we know about Sparta is a cautionary tale.

The most vivid details that are associated with Sparta (the children thrown in chams, most of the agoge or krypteia details, and of course the good old fox kit eating the innards...) are from the Life of Lycurgus, where the author itself admit candidly that no one can be certain about anything about Lycurgus.

Which does not prevent Plutarch to states that....

For there was a dreadful inequality in this regard, the city was heavily burdened with indigent and helpless people, and wealth was wholly concentrated in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to banish insolence and envy and crime and luxury, and those yet more deep-seated and afflictive diseases of the state, poverty and wealth, he persuaded his fellow-citizens to make one parcel of all their territory and divide it up anew, and to live with one another on a basis of entire uniformity and equality in the means of subsistence, seeking preëminence through virtue alone, assured that there was no other difference or inequality between man and man than that which was established by blame for base actions and praise for good ones.

Is Plutarch actually writing about Lycurgus ? Or is he writing about Agis, Cleomenes or the Gracchus brothers ?(1) (With the caveat that the conveniently legendary Lycurgus succeeded and they did not) The question is not trivial, because this passage is the introduction of the three paragraphs that are about the land ownersh
up in Sparta, the iron brooches used as money, Spartan disdain of the arts, the communal messes....each sentence therein amounting to a ''fact'' about Sparta.

(1)Plutarch not being known for subtlety, a few lines later, a sentence explictly links a ''good'' measure of Lycurgus to a ''bad'' measure of Agesilaus.
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In addition, we're not even sure Lycurgus existed. We have only fragmentary sources outside of Plutarchus. His name means wolf-man which is so fitting for a Spartan lawgiver that few modern authors trust it. It could be an epithet of a god (perhaps Apollo) or it could be just made up. Dates for his reign or reforms vary wildly between the 10th and 6th century BC. So basically, Plutarchus is all we've got to go on and he clearly has an agenda. As you said, he's much more interested in his counterparts than in old Lycurgus. Who may be a foil for his actual targets, even if Plutarchus didn't make him up he could be a convenient legend to project on.
 
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The issue is also that, outside the narrative, Agis and Cleomenes pushed foward what is quite obviously a revolutionary domestic policy. They could hardly present it this way, so (conciously or not) they coined it as a return to the customs of Lycurgus (I have the nagging and sarcastic suspicion that ''but Lycurgus said'' must have been heard as often as ''but Papa Smurf said...'' or ''the founding fathers wanted...'' )
 
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BaronNoir said:
The economic system, explictly egalitarian and state enforced. What is that word the US hard right love to use so much ? S...o...c....i....
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Socialism indicates the state intends to keep them relatively wealthy and to improve their well-being.

That was not true for Spartans - they had their own farms and slaves so they didn't have to work on by themselves, and consequently unable to work on due to their citizen duty. But if their farm fails, their citizenship is forfeit. The system cares not for losers.

What's the benefit of their citizenship aside from the private-owned wealth which they already had? Nothing but empty feeling of honor and sweat wasted on maintaining useless martial training. This probably makes a lot of sense to the hard right.
 
The kleros system was obviously not socialism (1) (but nothing called by the hard right ''socialism'' is)

That said, ancient Hellens had a very different value system than we do , in which accumulation of wealth was quite frowned upon, at least in the upper classes. By the laconophiles own accounts, one of the Equals was...equal....in status to landed gentry, if not aristocracy, platitudes about being against frivolous displays of wealth or not. After all, they were all hoplites. TLDR : while the Spartans might seems ascetic by 2023 standards, by classical Greece standard, their standards of life were as high as possible while being socially acceptable (not working manually, frivolous ways of spending money conveniently forbidden in the narratives)

(1)However, all ancient Greek entities, had a system of wealth redistribution that would make most Americans conservatives flinch. (For instance, the implied but always present concept that the meat of sacrifices was either consumed in a communal banquet or sold at bottom prices-including in Sparta, where even in Plutarch account, it's specifically pointed out that people could be excused from the communal messes if they had been hunting or doing sacrifices) (A) The word liturgy meant originally a voluntary contribution to the city civics endeavours, a voluntary contribution for which volunteers could be designated....





Besides this, when any of them made sacrifice to the gods, they always sent a dole to the common hall; and, likewise, when any of them had been a hunting, he sent thither a part of the venison he had killed; for these two occasions were the only excuses allowed for supping at hom
 
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BaronNoir said:
(1)However, all ancient Greek entities, had a system of wealth redistribution that would make most Americans conservatives flinch. (For instance, the implied but always present concept that the meat of sacrifices was either consumed in a communal banquet or sold at bottom prices-including in Sparta, where even in Plutarch account, it's specifically pointed out that people could be excused from the communal messes if they had been hunting or doing sacrifices) (A) The word liturgy meant originally a voluntary contribution to the city civics endeavours, a voluntary contribution for which volunteers could be designated....
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Specially during war times, the wealthiest Athenians actually paid for warships and other ruinous military stuff. Funnily, I can't picture Mulk, Gates Koch bros, Buffett or Soros actually paying for the construction of a carrier or a battleship and the wages of the crew.
 
GaiusC said:
Specially during war times, the wealthiest Athenians actually paid for warships and other ruinous military stuff. Funnily, I can't picture Mulk, Gates Koch bros, Buffett or Soros actually paying for the construction of a carrier or a battleship and the wages of the crew.
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Well reality be praised. Otherwise we'd have the USS X floating around soon!
 
I have always been extremely dubious about the so-called protestant ethos, but there is one important issue about it : most cultures, including many European ones well until the modern era, dit not (with considerable hypocrisy) considered making money (or accumulating land) a goal in itself, the association money=unworthy pursuits being widespread in cultures as different as the French Ancient Régime, the greek-roman world especially at Sparta, Imperial China, pre-columbian America....
 
GaiusC said:
Specially during war times, the wealthiest Athenians actually paid for warships and other ruinous military stuff. Funnily, I can't picture Mulk, Gates Koch bros, Buffett or Soros actually paying for the construction of a carrier or a battleship and the wages of the crew.
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My boss would throw his children in front of a steamroller if it would save the oil industry from a royalty rate increase.
 
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