Question about the Spartans.

[travric]

Re: 'What you are talking about is Thebian culture, along with the wishes of moderns peophiles who write books'

I have to say it is indubitably Spartan 'culture'. I'd just like to point out that in my post I used 'love' and 'war commingled with each other. And that is actually how Spartan culture worked when it came to protecting the 'polis' and all Spartans. Indeed the Spartans were very different from other Greeks as well as from us. Maybe our 'views' are inhibiting understanding the line of discussion which has great pejorative connotations in our society today?

Each soldier in a Spartan unit had to have a patron ( an 'eispnelas' or 'eromenos' ') ) who would be his protector and friend and sexual partner. That was the setup which in Spartan eyes was to separate the soldiers from their families and parents and to only devote themselves to the process of preparing for war and battle.

As for 'What the...?' I agree. But these are facts that existed in Sparta. They certainly lived life differently than we in 21st century now do.

[cachibatches]

Originally Posted by travric

Re: 'What you are talking about is Thebian culture, along with the wishes of moderns peophiles who write books'

I have to say it is indubitably Spartan 'culture'. I'd just like to point out that in my post I used 'love' and 'war commingled with each other. And that is actually how Spartan culture worked when it came to protecting the 'polis' and all Spartans. Indeed the Spartans were very different from other Greeks as well as from us. Maybe our 'views' are inhibiting understanding the line of discussion which has great pejorative connotations in our society today?

Each soldier in a Spartan unit had to have a patron ( an 'eispnelas' or 'eromenos' ') ) who would be his protector and friend and sexual partner. That was the setup which in Spartan eyes was to separate the soldiers from their families and parents and to only devote themselves to the process of preparing for war and battle.

As for 'What the...?' I agree. But these are facts that existed in Sparta. They certainly lived life differently than we in 21st century now do.

Uh, no. I have posted the unanimous eyewitnes accounts of the anciens twice. You are talking about modern homosexual fantasies.

The phrases "lover" and "beleoved" in fact DO NOT entail a sexual relationship. That is where you are going wrong.

Homosexuality was FORBIDDEN. Let's go over this again, and let us remaind you AGAIN, Xenophon fought with the Spartans. No modern homosexual fantasy comes before his eyewitness account.

Affectionate regard for boys of good character was permissible, but embracing them was held to be disgraceful, on the ground that the affection was for the body and not for the mind. Any man against whom complaint was made of any disgraceful embracing was deprived of all civic rights for life.
Plutarch, Customs of the Spartans, 7


I think I ought to say something also about intimacy with boys, since this matter also has a bearing on education. In other Greek states, for instance among the Boeotians, man and boy live together, like married people; elsewhere, among the Eleians, for example, consent is won by means of favours. Some, on the other hand, entirely forbid suitors to talk with boys.
The customs instituted by Lycurgus were opposed to all of these. If someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he approved, and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connexion as an abomination; and thus he caused lovers to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers and sisters with each other.
Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, chapter 2


And this is what has actually happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the case of the men, but he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizen fall under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races, except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves. The old mythologer would seem to have been right in uniting Ares and Aphrodite, for all warlike races are prone to the love either of men or of women. This was exemplified among the Spartans in the days of their greatness; many things were managed by their women.
Aristotle, Policts, book 2 chapter 9


Spartan love knows nothing shameful: whether a young man should dare to suffer outrage or a lover to give it, it would benefit neither to dishonor Sparta by doing so. For they would either have to leave their fatherland or better yet life itself.
Aelian, Varied History 3.12


'Any male Spartan that admires a Lakonian youth, admires him only as we would a very beautiful statue. For bodily pleasures of this type are brought upon them by Hubris and are forbidden..'
Maximus of Tyre "Declamations' 20.e

[travric]

^^^^
cacibatches...With all respect to our discussion I think we just will have to agree to disagree on this aspect of Spartan culture.

And to kind of put into context what it meant to be a Spartan here's some writing from the poet Tyrtaeus:

'It is a noble thing for a man to die
Falling in the front ranks doing battle for the fatherland
But for a man to forsake his city and rich fields
And to go begging is of all things most grievous
As he wanders with his dear mother and his aged father
With his small children and his lawful wedded wife.
For he is hated by those among whom he goes as a suppliant
Yielding to need and loathsome penury
He disgraces his lineage; he refutes his splendid appearance
And every dishonor and evil follows in his train.
Now if no heed is paid a wandering man
And neither reverence nor regard nor pity is his
Let us then fight with spirit for our land and children
And let us die not sparing our lives'

Leonidas, the great Spartan king who died at Thermopylae, said the poet's words were good for stirring up the young to meet death head on without fear. And this they did not only to their enemies in the field but to their 'Helots' where they killed them with disdain. They actually hunted them like dogs to keep them in a continued state of subjugation and terror. The Spartan polis and people: always in pursuit of 'noble' qualities but some of their rules and behavior is in direct contrast to our own mores and codes today which would consider it a highly militaristic and controlling political entity where the individual was completely servient to the state....the antithesis of democracy.

[cachibatches]

Originally Posted by travric

^^^^
cacibatches...With all respect to our discussion I think we just will have to agree to disagree on this aspect of Spartan culture.

And to kind of put into context what it meant to be a Spartan here's some writing from the poet Tyrtaeus:

'It is a noble thing for a man to die
Falling in the front ranks doing battle for the fatherland
But for a man to forsake his city and rich fields
And to go begging is of all things most grievous
As he wanders with his dear mother and his aged father
With his small children and his lawful wedded wife.
For he is hated by those among whom he goes as a suppliant
Yielding to need and loathsome penury
He disgraces his lineage; he refutes his splendid appearance
And every dishonor and evil follows in his train.
Now if no heed is paid a wandering man
And neither reverence nor regard nor pity is his
Let us then fight with spirit for our land and children
And let us die not sparing our lives'

Leonidas, the great Spartan king who died at Thermopylae, said the poet's words were good for stirring up the young to meet death head on without fear. And this they did not only to their enemies in the field but to their 'Helots' where they killed them with disdain. They actually hunted them like dogs to keep them in a continued state of subjugation and terror. The Spartan polis and people: always in pursuit of 'noble' qualities but some of their rules and behavior is in direct contrast to our own mores and codes today which would consider it a highly militaristic and controlling political entity where the individual was completely servient to the state....the antithesis of democracy.

What exactly in those words makes you think they practices institutional homosexuality?

Look, I am not going to agree to disagree, because the evidence is 100% on my side. The ancient authors, as I have shown three times now, were unanimous that Spartans looked at homosexuality with contempt. That includes Xenophon, WHO LIVED IN SPARTA, FOUGHT ON THEIR SIDE, AND SPONSORED HIS SONS THROUGH SPARTANS MILITARY TRAINING.

You are simply incorrect. You have been reading the works of modern pederasts who project their own fantasties.

Let's put it this way: do you think that anyone reading through this thread has any doubt of what the EVIDENCE says?

[max340]

NAMBLA didn't exist in Sparta, to the chagrin of post-modernist revisionists.

[travric]

Re: 'evidence is 100% on my side'

You know I would say when evaluating history and trying to reconstruct the past it is unassailably true that it is impossible to get to pure '100%' truth from any piece of ancient evidence. The past we see in our century is always always at best a 'reconstruction' subject to many variables when studying what went on before. And an event can be subjected to many interpretations based on the facts when analyzed and subject to scrutiny. Here with Sparta we seem to be running into the situation as with the fall of Rome. So many facts yet so many interpretations on the what and why and the how. With revisionism, it is always alive in history. It will always be with us as long as we study 'history'.

[cachibatches]

Originally Posted by travric

Re: 'evidence is 100% on my side'

You know I would say when evaluating history and trying to reconstruct the past it is unassailably true that it is impossible to get to pure '100%' truth from any piece of ancient evidence. The past we see in our century is always always at best a 'reconstruction' subject to many variables when studying what went on before. And an event can be subjected to many interpretations based on the facts when analyzed and subject to scrutiny. Here with Sparta we seem to be running into the situation as with the fall of Rome. So many facts yet so many interpretations on the what and why and the how. With revisionism, it is always alive in history. It will always be with us as long as we study 'history'.

This is gibbreish and I am not letting this go. You are making a complete fool of yourself.

Every anceint source, including Xenophon,WHO FOUGHT WITH THE SPARTANS AND SPONSORED HIS SON THROUGH THEIR TRAININS, says that they abhored homosexuality.

You jibber jabber about "reconstruction" does not change that. I could claim the Spartans were made of marshmellows...without a source, it is jibbersih like you are talking.

What primary source are you citing? I have posted mine three times and they are a matter of record. Please don't referance some modern homosexual fanstasy. I need an ancient source.

[Thatsright19]

What do the Spartans have in common with marijuana? They're both green and they get smoked in bowls.

[travric]

^^^^
Very good! On humor, I wonder who laughed more the Athenians or Spartans or Argives or the Corinthians....;-)...I mean the Spartans seem to come off real droll when reading about them. They were a pretty serious and tough bunch. I don't think they had time for 'comedy'.