The Socratics’ Sparta and Rousseau’s

In: Journal of Classics Teaching 27, Spring 2013, 16-25

The text available for download here includes the Table of Contents and the Introduction. For my paper on 'Sparta and the Soviet Union in U.S. Cold War foreign policy and intelligence analysis', see under 'Journal Articles and Chapters in Edited Books'., 2012

Images of ancient Sparta are irrepressible in Western thought. A powerful model of excellence in the middle ages and Renaissance, in the Enlightenment and French Revolution Sparta was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of an ideal republic. Since the 19th century Sparta has been viewed as the opposite of liberal and industrial democracies: shunned – or hailed – as the model for 20th century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich. Intelligence analysts in the United States used Sparta as an analogy to predict the performance of the Cold War Soviet Union. But positive views of the Spartans flourish in contemporary democratic culture and digital media, most strikingly in popular fiction, graphic novels and film. This book is the first to focus exclusively on Sparta’s impact in modern times. Eleven international experts take readers across ten centuries from the 12th century Renaissance to 21st century digital culture. Exploiting hitherto untapped sources, from medieval political tracts to declassified CIA documents and YouTube video clips, they reveal many previously unknown aspects of Sparta’s impact on modern politics and culture.

2012

Images of ancient Sparta have had a major impact on Western thought. From the Renaissance to the French Revolution she was invoked by radical thinkers as a model for the creation of a republican political and social order. Since the 19th century she has typically been viewed as the opposite of advanced liberal and industrial democracies: a forerunner of 20th-century totalitarian and militaristic regimes such as the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Yet positive images of Sparta remain embedded in contemporary popular media and culture. This is the first book in over 40 years to examine this important subject. Eleven ancient historians and experts in the history of ideas discuss Sparta's changing role in Western thought from medieval Europe to the 21st century, with a special focus on Enlightenment France, Nazi Germany and the USA.

Consortium on the Revolutionary Era: Selected Papers, 2010, edited by Alexander Mikaberidze et al., pp. 72-83., 2012

In this paper I offer a tentative reappraisal of the claim that the Terror is best explained as the result of a fatal infatuation with ancient Sparta. It argues that the Terror was suffused with the ethos of Sparta, but that this ethos manifested not in specific personalities or policies, but in the institutions of the Terror itself and the laws which established them. Sparta’s shadow looms over the Law of Suspects, which resurrected the surveillance apparatus of the ancient republic. It looms over the levée en masse, by which the French people were enlisted to wage war on their enemies and themselves. Most of all it looms over the revolutionary government Robespierre demanded to preserve France and the Revolution. Revolutionary government would wield terror to rescue virtue, destroy its enemies, and complete the regeneration of humanity. Terror was innate in revolutionary government because virtue was; in Robespierre’s imagination they became inconceivable apart. And if these were innate, so too was Sparta. For terror is virtue applied with what Saint-Just hailed as Lycurgus’ “merciless inflexibility.” Terror is the principle of a society imperiled by an existential threat which has neither beginning nor end, and will persist as long as it does. Such was Sparta, such was the Republic during the Terror. Thus it was the specter of Sparta that Sieyès saw menacing civilization when he denounced the Jacobins for resurrecting in France, for the first time since antiquity, his dreaded ré-totale. Both Sparta and the Terror were attempts to create totalized societies. This, I argue, is where the affinity between them is to be found. It was embedded at the most abstract, most fundamental level. They shared the same spirit. Ancient Sparta was a society eternally at war with itself for the sake of its self-preservation. And so, during l’An II, the fatal second year of the Republic, was France.

NAM, Anno 5 - n. 18, 2024

The Historical Review of Sparta, 2022

The 5th cent. BC was marked by dramatic events for the Greek city-states. In this long period, Sparta rose as the hegemonic power in Greece and, after the victory in the Peloponnesian War against Athens, exhibited its ambitions to build an empire. However, in only a few years, Sparta’s invincible forces were crashed in the battle􏰧eld by Thebes and its superior position was lost􏰇 This research proposes that the source of decay was hidden within the very growth of its power. Using the analytical tools of Neoclassical Realism, the research explains how the intervening variables of state-society relations and the corruption of institutions – as a result of sudden wealth and power increase affected social cohesion, while consecutive wars distorted the structural baseline of demographics, leading to the irreversible decline of Sparta.

In: S. Hodkinson & A. Powell (eds.), Sparta and War, Swansea (The Classical Press of Wales), 2006

Overall, the military elements in Spartan society were clearly significant, but not dominant over other aspects of polis life in the way that has often been claimed. It is true that Sparta society was capable of producing warlike leaders. The classic example is Klearchos, whom Xenophon’s Anabasis (2.5.1) characterizes as ‘a man who was both fitted for war and fond of war to the last degree’. But Xenophon himself did not think that all Spartiates were like Klearchos; and the fact that to indulge his pursuit of warfare he had to spend his final years in exile illustrates the dissonance between his attitudes and those of other citizens. For most citizens, their role as warriors was only part, albeit an important part, of a wider range of citizen activities. To characterize the Spartans as ‘a community of professional soldiers’ is consequently too narrow. Notwithstanding the professionalism of the Spartan army, a Spartiate was, in the words of Jean Ducat, not so much ‘un guerrier professionnel’ as ‘un citoyen professionnel’. Classical Sparta was far more than simply a ‘military society’.

Electrum, 2017

Ancient Sparta and its society is undoubtedly a very important field of research in ancient Greek history. Sparta fascinates us as a certain symbol of lifestyle, courage, discipline, and sacrifice. The secrecy around its affairs is crucial here. As Thucydides (V. 68. 2.) remarked, the Spartans tried to keep information about the functioning of their polis from getting outside of its borders. Owing to this tendency, combined with their limited literary activity, modern scholars are almost completely deprived of the Lacedaemonian voice in historical sources. The vast majority of our knowledge about this state over the Eurotas River comes from external authors, often from much later than the times of Spartan greatness. Inevitably, modern discussion must focus on the reception of Sparta's image, to a degree comparable with its real outlook. The book Das antike Sparta, edited by V. Pothou and A. Powell, is dedicated to these issues. It is a collection of texts written on the basis of lectures presented at the University of Regensburg in 2009, during the cyclical International Sparta Seminar. The book, consisting of an introduction, 12 articles, indices, and a table of authors, is mostly in German, with a few articles in English or French. The variety of topics analysed or interpreted by the individual authors is very large. A section of the texts concerns the shape and history of Sparta in antiquity, while another is dedicated to the more modern reception in the 19 th and 20 th century AD. G. Rechenauer's article (Körper und Macht: Zur Konzeption der Körperlichkeit im antiken Sparta, pp. 19-36) deals with the shaping of a view on the condition of the human body. The author initially develops the issue of identification of health and male physical prowess as fundamentals of the polis's political power, before moving on to consideration of the perception of the female body in Sparta. The preserved fragments of Tyrtaeus and Alcman are the source of most of his reflections. A. Powell (Die Könige Spartas im Licht einer Krise und einer außergewöhnlichen Quelle, pp. 37-56) deals with the functioning of the royal authority in Sparta in the light of Thucydides' testimony about the political crisis at the end of the 420s BC. Spartan domination on Peloponnesus was endangered at this time, mainly due to the actions of Argos and Athens. The author focuses on King Agis II and his military command during the campaign of the Battle of Mantineia (418) and on Spartan attitudes towards their ruler. He emphasises Thucydides' good knowledge of the course of events, which he must have owed to Lacedaemonian informants. However, the scholar also draws attention to the risk of Thucydides being subjected to suggestive propaganda. S. Hodkinson (Die Episode von Sphodrias als Quelle für die Sozialgeschichte von Sparta, pp. 57-86) analyses the relationship of sources, especially Xenophon and the socalled raid of Sphodrias; this quite well-known incident took place in 378, when the