Some Truths and a Lot of Lies

Macabee Callard

    This is a paper on Sparta. The sad thing is, the truths are all the bad things we learned about it, and the lies are all the good things. Let’s start out with the idea of spartan “freedom” and “equality.” If someone who had researched Sparta called it a place of liberty I would think they were crazy. To start off, more than 90% of its population were slaves. And not just any slaves, helots. Remember that word. There’s a big difference. These slaves were treated worse than garbage, because garbage can’t be legally murdered. That’s right. Legally. You were allowed to murder any slave, as long as they were your “property.” So think how this is gonna work out: More than 90% of the population aloud to be legally murdered, and maybe the murderer even gets a present for it. If you’ve ever watched “The First Purge”…

 In fact, you had to kill one if you wanted to become a soldier. And that brings me onto the Spartan military. Even if this idea of “Spartan equality” is gone, they are still supposed to be famous for their fighting skills. The only reason they are recorded as having a lot of military prowess. The fact is that for centuries they were the only city-state with a professional army! And even with that, they were defeated by both Macedon and Thebes! The only reason they beat the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war was because of the plague in Athens that had come from Egypt. They are popularised with the intricate and artful Corinthian helmet, which looked like this:

But they really wore a cheap, mass-produced bucket called the polis. Here is a picture:

    They were all about their reputation. There was a battle where they put down their shields and took up different ones with the emblem of a different city state, and they were crushed in head-on combat because the enemies didn’t think they were Spartans!  The Spartans were an unruly society of tyrants and murderers, and the media has given people the information that’s not true. Now, you may ask: Why did the ancients record the Spartans as such heros instead of slavers? 

    It’s because none of them thought of them as people. They never spoke to them or wrote about them. They hardly even acknowledge their existence, and that’s why most people regard them as heros. They never mentioned them. They only talked to the wealthy, aristocratic “Spartiates.” It was a fractured, misled society. Have you ever noticed how there were no great philosophers or artists from Sparta? No One ever did any work around there! They didn’t invent anything or create anything recreational. Earlier I mentioned they were the only city with an army-because they had to keep the slaves from revolting! They always had to leave some guards in the city itself because they were in fear of a revolt. Sparta should be given all dis-honors and treated as a terrible society of immoral slavers.