I've heard that story so many times, I never thought to look up what actually happened after that boast. I got so suckered into the Sparta-worship that I assumed they won whatever fight came afterwards. Needless to say, it was something of a shock to learn the Spartans got their teeth kicked in immediately afterwards. Gee, I wonder why the Spartabros never mention that...
@@tbotalpha8133to my knowledge, they got their butt kicked by a completely different group. The group they insulted just didn't bother with them and didn't see it worth it.
Speaking of Alexander's conquests, I love that his main motivation to conquer the world was not simply military gain like other conquerors, but a pure desire to live amazing adventures and see those incredible lands that, for the Greeks, were only stories and legends for hundreds of years. That genuine desire that accompanied him since childhood was what made him become the greatest conqueror in history
Man, I see you in almost every comment section on videos about these ancient times, and I have just nothing but respect for the sheer amount of knowledge you have on ancient history. Thank you for increasing mine along the way as well
@@guccifer764 Basically, Saint Seiya fans beating up Dragon Ball fans which is not far off the location where their battles are always wage: Sanctuary, Athens, Greece.
Wait, is it confirmed that the newer two God of War games take place in a mythologized Denmark specifically, or is it more likely a mythologized “Scandinavia in general”?
I mean that’s pretty much just learning history from before the year 1000 That being said, not all specifically Roman historians were biased, all of them typically were trying to tell a story with some sort of theme but just like historical dramas today, some veered way off from actual history and some stuck very close to it.
It’s not surprising that the Spartans went down so easily given the nature of the agōgē. A lot of people, myself included until recently, understood the agōgē as a sort of boot-camp, but really it was more of an indoctrination center. The abduction, deprivation, and beatings endured and inflicted by Spartites served to bread loyalty in the system among those who survived. The abuse children of the agōgē endured would reinforce group membership and solidarity and condition loyalty for their leader. When people talk about this system positively you have to remember the sources for this system are the people who survived. They praise the system because it’s become a sunk cost for them. They need to believe that the agōgē is good because if it wasn’t than that means all of the abuse they endured and all of the abuse they inflicted was senseless. It’s why killing a Hellot is the final task for a Spartan who wants to be integrated into Spartitie society. The act doesn’t make them a better warrior it’s the final sunk cost. And in the end while this produced rigid inflexible conformists extremely invested in the status quo having rigid inflexible conformists extremely invested in the status quo isn’t great for maintaining your status as an elite military. Especially when you’re not really all that great you just have a slight edge against your neighbors. I guess we could say Sparta stagnated, because Sparta didn’t so much get weaker everyone else just got stronger while Sparta remained the same because it was dominated by a class of inflexible emotionally stunted volatile and extremely traumatized former child soldiers.
@@arnaktfen3937 And also the fact that the majority of Spartan-IIs had their minds and bodies irreversibly "broken" as teenagers, then almost every survivor ended up dying horribly, but military PR lies to maintain the facade of invincibility. Combine that with the IIIs being child soldiers emotionally manipulated into throwing themselves into a metaphorical meat grinder and I'd almost believe Halo's a critique of warrior culture.
I think your last sentence is giving the Spartans far too much credit. Their relationship to the hypomeiones, perioeci, and neodamodes, all of whom were above the helots, and at multiple times formed the bulk of the Spartan military play a significant hand in their stagnation and downfall as mentioned in the comments of mercAltiar. Despite this, these classes were alienated and did not have the option to rise to the role of a Spartiate. Instead, through the well known rights of women to hold land in spart over the generations certain families would gather greater and greater numbers of the plots of land that were distributed to the Spartiates to increase their own power. As there was less land available, there were less spartiates, forcing more able warriors into becoming hypomeiones. Eventually this system which favored only the wealthiest and most powerful Spartans led to its fall, as they simply ran out of manpower to compete, but by the time the wealthiest spartiates could be dealth with to allow new spartiates it was already centuries too late. However, don't let this fool you into thinking that there was some time before the wealthy corrupted Sparta, Spartan sources complain about this issue from some of our earliest to latest sources, and they all constantly hearken back to a time where "the constitution was uncorrupted" and yet that period doesn't really have any room in the timeline of Sparta to have existed.
@@nananamamana3591 Just like the Mandalorians. They seem like impressive and unstoppable warriors who cause carnage wherever they step but in reality... they tend to lose pretty quickly.
@@CollinMcLean Ehhh the problem with the mandos extends to like... a meta sense, since theyre fictional. The mandos, unlike the spartans, have historically demonstrated their ability to lay siege to the galaxy -- Knights of the Old Republic 1 takes place directly *after* a war with the Mandalorian Neo Crusaders, where they (the mandos) were able to fight, and win, against a military body that spanned the entire galaxy. They beat soldiers, jedi, you name it. It wasn't until Revan shows up, with both an unpredictable tactical methodology to the mandalorians *AND* an *army* of jedi to bolster the republic's ranks does the war effort turn against the mandalorians (who began the war based out of their singular sector of space). Kotor 2 puts Canderous on the task of rebuilding the mandalorian clans, at the urging of Revan, explicitly *because* of their abilities as warriors, which culminates in the few scattered Mandalorians he does have launching a successful assault on the ghost ship of a sith lord so powerful he consumes planets... Even before that, you've got the proto-mandos who joined Exar Kun in war, who radically bolstered his forces to the point where he too *almost* wins, you could even argue their loss *directly* leads to *his* loss. SWTOR (The Old Republic) casts the standing Mandalore of their time as one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy and he's credited with much of the success of the resurgent Sith Empire's military operations where he involved, and this is true of the player character as well if they play the Bounty Hunter class, which is a mandalorian. The mandos, historically speaking, are (within their universe) *really* good at war. Or, rather, they *were.* Disney's acquisition of the brand has led to a lot of inconsistencies in mandalorian performance in war. We can chalk that up to centuries of pacifism and/or shaming of their *GALATIC THREAT TIER* warrior culture if we'd like, I know a lot of people who do, but nowadays our mandos are far less militarily successful. The Death Watch, a cult of mandalorians that disavow the pacifism of the modern mandos (circa Clone Wars era) are competent fighters individually and in small teams but hardly match the fighting force of armies as previous mandalorian groups have shown success in similar situations. The mandos go on to lose several battles that oblinerate their people, planet, and culture and spend a *lot* of time fighting eachother over what it *truly* means to be a *true* mandalorian, *truly* -- which is maybe the *SINGLE* consistent thing about mandalorians; they spend a *LOT* of time fighting eachother over ideological semantics and it's what generally holds them back, which explains how and why the idea of a "Mandalore" comes about I guess, so at least they *recognize* their constant infighting and ideological segregation is the greatest barrier to their success outside of space wizard intervention... *WHICH IS MORE THAN CAN BE SAID FOR SPARTA*
I was under the impression that Sparta's reputation comes from prehistory. They started to decline once everyone else started that whole writing and invention thing.
The sentence, "Not a military victory, don't be ridiculous, this is Sparta we're talking about," is a sentence so bold it's practically a magic spell. I bet it could stop an American gun nut's heart from fifty paces.
When you realize that Sparta is the Vegeta of Greece… Very powerful, not all talk, but still managed to loose every major battle they were apart of… (Not every battle, I’m exaggerating, but I believe I made my point)
That's such a perfect analogy. Because remember that Vegeta DID win a few major fights too, especially when Super Vegeta was still new and shiny. Both of them even go out like absolute honourable kings, if you count Vegeta dying in Buu.
@@legateelizabeth Vegeta's biggest "win" was Cell's second form and then, true to form, he overestimated his own power, let his ego and pride take the wheel and let Cell go Perfect. Like an idiot. Not that Goku wouldn't, and hasn't, done the same so it's really unfair to pick on MC Widow's Peak but come on. at every point in the fight with Freeza, Vegeta would have been killed if Freeza wasn't a sadist and enjoyed playing with his food. honestly, the only time Vegeta was on the right track was vaporizing Buu. he just didn't know how far Buu's regeneration abilities went, even the smoke from the fried bits was a bit much to come back from. every other time, he dug his own grave and likely doomed everyone around him because of his stupidity and hubris
Of course this was less effective than the Thebans saying, with a smirk worthy of Alcibiades himself, "We're definitely going down, but not until after we're done fighting. *wink* "
Honestly having learned more about Sparta, they truly were the paper tiger of Hellenic Greece. From a lackluster win ratio, extremely limited logistics, requiring Helot murder as an intiation rite, a social structure consisting of a super majority of slaves and an diplomatic tact verging on the idiotic, Sparta was basically the ancient Greek equivalent of North Korea. For a Polis that lacked art, literature or any other significant creative outlets they have a remarkably oversized presence in public memory. *Edit* Added even more of my Laconian gripes below.
@MusikCassette I'd argue that ironically given their role during the Greco-Persian War, Sparta arguably later became a tool for Persia, beating down its fellow city states from the Peloponnesian War onwards with the Persians happy to pay the bill. One of my my biggest gripes with the Spartan system as it were was just how easy it was to permanently loose citizenship. Not prepared to shack up with an older man who was responsible for you syssiita assement in the Agoge? Congrats you're now a hypomeiones forever. Earthquake kills your helots which stops your household from meeting this year's argi-quota? Welcome to the Perma-hypomeiones club. Acted as a messenger and ended up not dying when the rest of your unit ate it? 2 for one hypomeiones and actual suicide deal. Basically win the war for Sparta against Athens as a non-Spariate ala Lysander and want to re/gain full citizenship? Fuck you and here's an execution or exile. Did you and 1999 other helots show exemplary courage in battle fighting on behalf of your enslavers? Come over here to this here grove where we can reward you with you guessed it: a mass execution. The Spartan state just seems to have been run to preserve and expand the means of an ever shrinking ruling class at the expense of everything else. Hence my beef with how fucking popular they are in pop culture 🙄
Dang, the North Korea comparison is on point. They even had a creepy-ass secret police of child soldiers called the Krypteia for that extra splash of Orwellian oppression
Spartan society was a distopia for the 90%. And here's a funny anecdote from Xenophon about the Battle of Lechaeum. It was a battle between Sparta and Argos. When Spartans riders saw their Sicyonian allies fleeing the battlefield they decided to join the fight. They decided to fight on foot so they took the abandoned shields of their fleeing allies. The Argives were more numerous but the Spartans thought their fame would be enough to scare them and make them flee. Unfortunately they were carrying Siconyan shields so their adversaries thought they were fighting the Siconyans and not the Spartans. And not only did the Argives stood their ground but they kicked the Spartans' asses.
0:46 The failed uprising was the Battle of Megalopolis where Sparta revolted. Antipater was left behind as regent in Macedonia and was busy quelling a revolt in the north, so he had to come all the way down to Sparta to deal with the mess. Sparta would end up losing to the troops that Alexander didn't think were good enough to bring on his campaign.
I’m currently working on a vampire webcomic where the protagonist is an ancient spartan and I wanted to thank you for making this video and listing your sources! It makes my writing process way easier and helps me to educate myself on all the goings and events in that time of history. Sarcastic Productions gang, you are truly an indispensable gem of our community! ❤
@@guccifer764 his dad was a Helot ( who dies some time after his conception) but his mom’s a spartan woman (who also dies after giving birth to him due to an infection). He does retain his freedom thanks to it being his mom’s last wish and cause she was allegedly a beloved and powerful sorceress and threatened the village’s elders if they so much as lay a finger on her boy.
@@eustraxia Interestingly, there's an entire class of Spartans which kind of fits what you're going for, called mothakes, who are the bastard children of spartan men and helot women. They actually outnumbered the spartiates at every point in Spartan history (and yes, the why of this was exactly as horrifying and monstrous as you might be thinking). They could be sponsored to the agoge by wealthy spartiates, but weren't full citizens. So they were "free" non-citizens. "Free" as in not directly owned by a spartiate, but definitely an underclass, whose highest societal status was probably participating as enforcement arm of the slaving police state in some capacity without directly reaping the benefits. Now we don't actually have any information about what the child of a helot father and spartiate mother would be. Frankly, I suspect aborted, killed by infanticide, enslaved, killed as a child, enslaved and then killed as a child, or some other terrible fate. And I suspect a spartiate woman who willingly kept a helot's child would be in a very bad position. But a widow in a position of sufficient social influence / direct power, or some lying about the father might be able to mitigate that. Without a spartiate father to claim the child, he could never be a citizen, but he could probably be a mothakes.
@@thomaskilmer Wow! Thank you so much for letting me know about mothakes. I genuinely appreciate it! Didn’t even know there was an entire class honestly. The thing about this character (his name is Aeolus btw. No, not from myths about Heracles. They just share a name lol) is that he does retain his freedom, however that doesn’t stop other people, especially his caretakers (who is one of the elders his badass priestess of Hecate momma threatened to send to the House of Hades if he kills her son or makes him a slave. He literally took the boy in so his mom wouldn’t punish him and haunt his ass) from abusing him both verbally and physically. This elder went so far as to even prevent the boy successfully finding a bride and have a chance at a family by convincing the girl’s parents that Aeolus would taint their family bloodline with his “impurity” and the fact he’s also chronically ill therefore a “weakling” doesn’t make it better. Even though he’s super strong and has stamina of a bull, just cause he often experiences limb and stomach pains makes him somehow lesser than other boys…. Huh… The only escape from his horrible day to day life he finds in a traveling vampire who basically becomes his mentor/boyfriend. They carry a sweet romance but obviously nothing lasts forever and his vampire boyfriend has to make a difficult choice and not turn him because of vampire war that’s about to start and he doesn’t want him to get iced. And don’t worry it’s only gonna get worse from here 🤡👌
So wait. With Sparta being often co opted by showings of hyper masculinity and sometimes even outright fascists, you’re telling me that for much of their history they were a JOKE? Hot damn
Yeah well having a (numerous ) portion of their population designed to be subject to constant state oppression probably wasn't great for their societal development.
Yes. Their battle record saw them win only slightly more than half the battles they fought. Respectable for any army, but not really matching their propaganda as legendary warriors. For more information, read the series "This. Isn't. Sparta." from the _A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry_ blog.
Red, I think it would be cool to see a video on Agamemnon. A dive into the real world culture that surrounded him, as well as an exploration of his myths, to unpack why he was the absolute worst, not just the ways in which he proved that fact.
@@Popepaladin...or it's insane stupidity fueled by machismo. Retreat isn't necessarily a sign of cowardice, often it's just good tactical sense. Besides, the Spartans present also had more non-citizen auxiliaries present there than actual Spartiates.
I have always felt that the Spartans saying "If" is always treated like this badass retort, but whenever I hear it I just think "Well you aren't disagreeing with him? Or refuting him?"
Okay so check it out, I'm pretty sure I got this from The Spartan Army by J. F. Lazenby, but I read that way back in college, so don't @ me. Anyway, I've read SOMEWHERE a theory that essentially the Spartan Army functioned on the same level as the modern national guard. Basically because the helots and non-spartan Lacedaemonians did all the work, the Spartan citizens were free to do whatever they wanted and their "military life" essentially just amounted to what we would recognize as drill weekends and maybe occasional week-long exercises with their only actual warfare practice consisting of occasionally killing helots or putting down poorly armed revolts. This would also explain why the messes were considered so important, since that's where Spartans spent most of their time: literally just chilling and hanging out. So, while the Spartans could essentially claim over other Greek city-states to be "entirely soldiers", in reality they were just an urban elite that consisted of a bunch of weekend warriors that ended up getting their asses handed to them every time they went into battle without other allies to support them. Edit: as I'm sure Blue has mentioned, the Spartans also rode every bit of their own propaganda in efforts to intimidate the rest of Greece, which is why we have such an inflated image of them, despite the fact that in reality, they probably weren't anywhere near all that.
On one hand yes, especially in their later years, on the other hand they were trained from a very young age till their late teens in combat, so its not really comparable to a national guard. More a professional army that switches out from said professional military to a militia sometime in their 20's.
In fairness that's what all Hoplite's were. (Rich) Citizen soldiers. Spartans just had more time to practice compared to the average Greek (due to the Helots doing all the work).
@@wouterkessel4852 Notably, the Spartans *did not train*. No joke. They did not, at all. They exercised a lot, but they performed no military drills or combat drills outside of (arguably) wrestling. The Greek polities at the time were apparently quite divided on whether training actually mattered at all in phalanx warfare, and to be fair to the spartiates (this once, and no other time) they might have been right about this. Evidence for a positive association between victory in warfare and time spent drilling is very weak. Phalanx warfare seems to have been an incredibly low-skill affair. That said, this also means that it *really* doesn't matter whatever they did in the agoge.
When I was in the US Marines, the number of people who obsessed over the Spartans battle capability and would get extremely upset when they learned how pathetic they actually became kinda funny, but hearing this story of honor and nobility at the end of what I viewed as more or less a long self imposed extinction does make the later Spartans seem better than I gave them credit for
It's weirdly cool watching Blue presenting Ancient Greek history we studied in middle school and high-school , this time while analysing Kavafis in Literature. At the time I was only thinking about when the class is over so I can play on my phone, but now I'm paying attention going "Oh yeah, that happened, based part of my history". I was wondering if you would mention another of his poems about Sparta "At 200 B.C", but sure, people here can search on their own
Sparta shares similar story with Prussia. You have a nation that has a reputation for military excellence and dedication to warfare, but when you actually read their history you realize that said reputation is grossly exaggerated. Both Sparta and Prussia have some amazing military moments that came to define the later generation's perception of them even though every other day they were just regular countries. But for some reason people love to fanboy over the idea of "army with a state".
Prussia worked much better. Like yeah after their great luck under Old Fritz (also skill and discipline but mostly luck, Old Fritz called it the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg for a reason) they got absolutely destroyed by Napoleon. But they did reforms and perform pretty well towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars (Blücher and all that) they then maintained pretty good performance through wars with Denmark, Austria and France. Of course Germany did lose WW1 but they essentially defeated Russia and performed pretty well in the Western Front as well (and also German Empire was more than just bigger Prussia. Wilhelm II's naval obsession was pretty far from Prussian standard operating procedures). Like was Prussia overhyped? Sure. But it was able to back the talk much more than Sparta. (Mostly because Prussia was a regular country of course. Rather than the whatever weird thing Sparta had gotten going)
well, Prussia at least had diplomacy with Bismarck historically, and they're a industrial and scientific powerhouse during their time. Sparta was even further behind than that
@@1224chrisng Prussia/Germany sucked at diplomacy for the entirety of its 250 year existence except for the single generation with Bismark. In pretty much every war they were alone or with just one ally against pretty much every other great power.
I'm guessing Sparta didn't have anything left to it once Thebes beat it and freed its slaves. Sparta had always been wholly dependent on its brutally-controlled slave population so the Spartan population could do stuff like be full-time soldiers, and not worry about lesser acts like... earning a living. After that arrangement ended, they kinda didn't know what to do with themselves. They'd never developed a complex society/economy -- the equivalent of the 40-year-old who never moved out of his parent's basement, never held a stable job, and now he's kicked out and has nothing to his name but strong opinions. I'm not sure how well this hot take matches actual history, but it's probably about as accurate as anything Plutarch tells us. :D
If I'm not mistaken, Ancient Greek historian, Roel Konijnendijk, mentioned in Invicta's video that Spartan's training become brutal AFTER its glory days to attract tourist.
I’m well aware that most of the “positives” about Sparta are usually just heavily filtered propaganda, but dammit does that propaganda make me like the little Greek city state. Thanks for reminding me just how much of a mess Sparta was Blue.
To be honest you are really underselling the power of Thebans at the time. They pioneered having actually professional force as part of their army that could be used to break the opposing phalanx formation. They were quite the power house at the time, probably even considered stronger than athenians and that came with just as much pride. That pride came down to bite them in the ass, when they rebelled against macedonia, hoping their longterm ally Athene would come to their Aid and eventually got defeated by alexander. After the defeat they were destroyed to the point to never rise again (which is why modern pop history tend to forget about them, since athene was much more important in long term politics of the time)
It was all the fighting with the Spartans that made them better. Every time they engaged Thebes learned and adapted culminating in the battle of Leuctra that shattered Spartan domination.
True! But at the time Thebes was a hell of a dark horse, and their fame and reputation of military might came after wiping the floor with the Spartans. Before then they were considered quite weak and they idea *they* of all polities could beat Sparta was a shock to the rest of the Greek world. (Which had bought Sparta's hype, however much their actual win record didn't reflect that.)
@@kagekaiser9270 To be fair, Athens’ plan was to blockade Sparta from trade and slowly starve them out. It would have been a good plan too, except that a plague struck the archipelago and Sparta, being blockaded from trade, never got infected. It was literally blind luck
So what Im hearing is that Sparta has been overhyped for millenia and never actually had anything someone could accurately describe as a great victory aside from beating Athens. Once.
@Gokbay Too bad there were about 6,700 other Greek soldiers who would have been just as pivotal in that last stand battle... sure hope Spartan propaganda doesn't try and wipe them out of the records.
I recently watched a video about how the "Proud Warrior Race' like the Klingons and Mandalorians are doomed to fail because they lack the flexibility to adapt and survive beyond just the rudimentary aspects of war. A lot of Sparta's downfall contains similar issues; Thebes defeats them because Sparta was so stagnant that their playbook was basically known for centuries, no one is the prevailing years since the Persian Wars had any inovations for formations or training. Contrast with Rome who had multiple times with the various reforms as time went on to continue to stay on top. Sparta won a victory against its major foreign invasion and rather than innovate and find new ways to become a military power, they stayed stagnant in the Greek Polis warfare reference pool and thus Thebes basically knew how to counter them because the same shit since the Poli became a thing. No wonder Phillip trounced Greece like it was a Sunday stroll through the park.
I do find Sparta to be really interesting, and in some ways admirable (though mostly messed up), but one thing I find a little funny is that Sparta’s reputation for having the best army and the time period of spartan hegemony arguably started after they started declining. Honestly I think the most impressive time in spartan history is when they first emerged from the Greek dark ages and immediately started conquering everything within reach. They seem to have emerged from the Greek dark ages earlier than the rest of Greece and we hardly know anything about it because they didn’t keep records and the rest of Greece still hadn’t woken up. Although I may be wrong about some of this history.
I’ve never understood how the famous “If” retort was supposed to sound intimidating. Sparta was essentially AGREEING that, yes, “If” you fight us we will lose. And then they proved it! They’re like the guy who got the winning touchdown in highschool and is still bragging about it 30 years later.
@@derimperator3847 It implies that the threat maker isn't very confident. Can you imagine getting in a bar fight with a guy talking about what he's going to do to you *if* he's a better brawler than you. *WHEN* I kick your ass. Not if
I'm genuinely surprised Blue hasn't done a Historymakers on Plutarch yet. There's a lot of fun stuff to talk about with him, both in the Parallel Lives and in the Moralia, and he's honestly probably the most influential in shaping modern Anglophone views of the Greek and especially Roman worlds, because he was Shakespeare's source for Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Plus, he was probably one of the most well-read men of all of classical antiquity, and he brings that to the fore in his writings. And Blue does not lie about his love of the drama. Plutarch loves nothing more than a good, juicy story. He's so much fun to read, even if you can't always trust him. I'm sure it'll happen someday, and I'm definitely looking forward to it!~
My favorite story is when Alexander the Alright (in the word of Red) sent his spoils from Battle of Granicus back home, he did not waste the chance to take jab at Sparta for sitting out of the greatest campaign at the time: "Offering from all of the Greeks, except for the Lakedaimonians".
I always saw Cleomones' self-coup and repudiation of Lycourgos/Lycurgus' suffocating citizenship restrictions as a Spartan extinction burst. Perhaps if it had happened during the "If" it would have made a difference, but the power balance between city states and the monarchies/republics which could rule beyond the next valley had shifted decisively towards the latter, with only alliances (the Achean league) and favour from great powers (Syracuse's friendship with Rome before the Second Punic War) staving off the inevitable. The time a City State could dictate terms had passed with Thebes. Ultimately, Sparta was suffocated by its own conservative culture until the very end.
Just like the silent "P" in Ptolemy, Kleomenes was clearly "P"-ed off when he had to sacrifice his epic hat wearing mother just to ultimately lose an unwinnable war.
Is it tho. I mean, glorifying warfare like that is really only “baller” or “badass” if you’re not the one who has to die lmao. To quote the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett from his book Monstrous Regiment: “It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!“
Tbf at that point it was what a few hundred citizens left since they never had more than 8000 thousand in their prime and even at Thermopilae and stuff it was already halves BEFORE the losses in battle crippled it further.
Sparta's military might was in decline from the moment they made it. With the requirement of every citizen provide their own gear, you needed a decent base line of wealth for the average citizen in order to raise an army. This became a real problem when the generals started keeping all of the loot for themselves and left the average guy unable to fund his son's war gear. the slowly dying pool of potential soldiers really came to light as they kept losing battles, relying more and more on the slave Helots who had good reason to see Sparta fail. so yeah, they deserve to be roasted a little.
Aahh ancient Sparta. The big game talkers who can only back it up when they have someone else (whether it be league allies or a foreign power) propping them up.
Blue, could you possibly do a video on the history of Bohemia? There's a massive amount of events that you could talk about and the history is long and interesting. Just suggesting cause i've not seen many videos discussing it
Konstantinos Cavafis is truly one of the greatest poeta of modern greek history. Here in Greece he is held in very high esteem and we are taught many of his poems in school.
Leave it to Blue to simultaneously compliment and roast Sparta in one sentence.
...faint praise ~ Favorinus
Sparta: "If."
Philip II: "Oops, sorry. I didn't proofread that properly, I meant 'when.'"
I've heard that story so many times, I never thought to look up what actually happened after that boast. I got so suckered into the Sparta-worship that I assumed they won whatever fight came afterwards.
Needless to say, it was something of a shock to learn the Spartans got their teeth kicked in immediately afterwards. Gee, I wonder why the Spartabros never mention that...
@@tbotalpha8133to my knowledge, they got their butt kicked by a completely different group. The group they insulted just didn't bother with them and didn't see it worth it.
Sparta: "when? :D"
see the mistake spartan's made here is that "if" does not miss timing
Chest-thumping in the field and limpness in the shield is a new phrase I didn't know I needed in my vocabulary
Me as well, though I don't know where I could fit it into a conversation 😂
I agree- & want desperately to like this comment, but it's half the Beast number, so take a cookie instead! 🍪😂
@@OcarinaSapphr- 3 is a holy symbol in Christian theology though. God is 3 in 1, rises on the 3rd day, and associated with 3 generally.
Read your comment right as Blue was saying it! 😂😂
Speaking of Alexander's conquests, I love that his main motivation to conquer the world was not simply military gain like other conquerors, but a pure desire to live amazing adventures and see those incredible lands that, for the Greeks, were only stories and legends for hundreds of years. That genuine desire that accompanied him since childhood was what made him become the greatest conqueror in history
That's actually adorable omg
Man, I see you in almost every comment section on videos about these ancient times, and I have just nothing but respect for the sheer amount of knowledge you have on ancient history. Thank you for increasing mine along the way as well
Seriously? How romantic of him
Yeah, reeeal innocent conquering nations and going to war just for shits and giggles
Yah know, most people would just go backpacking. Not take daddy's army for a joyride.
Blue woke up and chose violence today and I am so here for it lmao
Sparta: If
Macedon: Did
@@merrittanimation7721 you made it better.
YOU MADE IT BETTER.
Unlike Sparta, however, Blue chose violence AND actually succeeded in delivering scathing damage.
Violence against the Spartans, so it was actually suprisingly easy.
Somehow, I think the Spartans would respect his choice, even if it came at their expense. XD
Sparta is the ultimate example of how good propaganda can shape history itself
And it was all for the worse.
"Perception IS reality" - Vince McMahon, head honcho of the WWE
yes this video clearly has an agenda
@@lorefox201 Yessir
Sparta reminds me a lot of the US South, a lot of propaganda and rewrite of history.
I think Sparta can be well summarized by this exchange from DBZ Abridged:
"Do you honestly believe your own hype?"
*"I AM THE HYPE!"*
Leonidas: “that was just a taste of my power! Now prepare for my SUPER SPARTAN WRA-“
*gets outflanked*
@@guccifer764
Basically, Saint Seiya fans beating up Dragon Ball fans which is not far off the location where their battles are always wage: Sanctuary, Athens, Greece.
@@whathell6thow dare you be more funny than the original post Hahahha😂
Sparta is pretty analogous to Vegeta tbh
Once Kratos moved to that retirement home in Denmark, Sparta just kinda lost their mojo.
Wait, is it confirmed that the newer two God of War games take place in a mythologized Denmark specifically, or is it more likely a mythologized “Scandinavia in general”?
@@joshuahunt3032 pretty sure its the latter. I just picked the first country that came to mind.
hehe as much as I, A proud Dane would love for it to be mythological Denmark, all them mountains ruin all chances of that being so :P
@@joshuahunt3032Well, a character named Skjöldr appears, and is implied to be the same Skjöldr that was a legendary Danish king, but that’s about it.
It’s one of those things that makes being a historian hard. Sometimes the best sources we have are bias as hell and from a different era entirely.
It gives us a perspective so old and new at the same time: the zeitgeist of every place and era plays a big role in shaping history.
I read this as "It's one of those things that makes a historian hard"
I mean that’s pretty much just learning history from before the year 1000
That being said, not all specifically Roman historians were biased, all of them typically were trying to tell a story with some sort of theme but just like historical dramas today, some veered way off from actual history and some stuck very close to it.
Sparta: boy, it'll be really hard for you guys to fight us.
Thebes: actually, it's gonna be super easy. Barely an inconvenience.
Sparta: *feigns innocence* Oh no!
Thebes: What?
Sparta: *continuing to feign innocence* the Athenians, they couldn't conquer us
Thebes: Oh no! Anyway...*proceeds to defeat Sparta*
*beat*
Sparta: Wait, wut?
Sparta: Oh, really?
Sparta: Is repeatedly humiliated
Sparta: Wow, wow, wow, wow, the finger
I mean sparta was in decline by then. So yes it wasn't that hard. But it's not like thebes faced them at the height of their empire.
@@ConnanTheCivilized sounds about right for Thebes, the sacred band is about to get 149 pairs and 1 triple
I love Ryan George too but I think this meme could quickly become unbearable if it breaches containment
I love that the "Alexander the ____" (fill the blank with anything other than the usual) meme continues. 🤣
Yeah, Alexander the Pretty Good and other such memes is one of my favourite Blue running jokes.
Alexander the Running Gag. :)
Actually "Alexander the Usual" would be pretty good too.
i personally love The Alexander the Hamilton, king of the on/off broadway.
Alexander the Third could work for the next time just to confuse everyone.
It’s not surprising that the Spartans went down so easily given the nature of the agōgē.
A lot of people, myself included until recently, understood the agōgē as a sort of boot-camp, but really it was more of an indoctrination center. The abduction, deprivation, and beatings endured and inflicted by Spartites served to bread loyalty in the system among those who survived. The abuse children of the agōgē endured would reinforce group membership and solidarity and condition loyalty for their leader.
When people talk about this system positively you have to remember the sources for this system are the people who survived. They praise the system because it’s become a sunk cost for them. They need to believe that the agōgē is good because if it wasn’t than that means all of the abuse they endured and all of the abuse they inflicted was senseless.
It’s why killing a Hellot is the final task for a Spartan who wants to be integrated into Spartitie society. The act doesn’t make them a better warrior it’s the final sunk cost.
And in the end while this produced rigid inflexible conformists extremely invested in the status quo having rigid inflexible conformists extremely invested in the status quo isn’t great for maintaining your status as an elite military.
Especially when you’re not really all that great you just have a slight edge against your neighbors.
I guess we could say Sparta stagnated, because Sparta didn’t so much get weaker everyone else just got stronger while Sparta remained the same because it was dominated by a class of inflexible emotionally stunted volatile and extremely traumatized former child soldiers.
"agōgē as a sort of boot-camp, but really it was more of an indoctrination center"
So a boot camp?
@@CollinMcLean In a boot camp you might learn skills useful to fighting a war the agōgē didn’t really offer such training.
You know, when you put it that way, I see why the writers for Halo chose the name 'Spartans'...
@@arnaktfen3937 And also the fact that the majority of Spartan-IIs had their minds and bodies irreversibly "broken" as teenagers, then almost every survivor ended up dying horribly, but military PR lies to maintain the facade of invincibility. Combine that with the IIIs being child soldiers emotionally manipulated into throwing themselves into a metaphorical meat grinder and I'd almost believe Halo's a critique of warrior culture.
I think your last sentence is giving the Spartans far too much credit. Their relationship to the hypomeiones, perioeci, and neodamodes, all of whom were above the helots, and at multiple times formed the bulk of the Spartan military play a significant hand in their stagnation and downfall as mentioned in the comments of mercAltiar. Despite this, these classes were alienated and did not have the option to rise to the role of a Spartiate. Instead, through the well known rights of women to hold land in spart over the generations certain families would gather greater and greater numbers of the plots of land that were distributed to the Spartiates to increase their own power. As there was less land available, there were less spartiates, forcing more able warriors into becoming hypomeiones. Eventually this system which favored only the wealthiest and most powerful Spartans led to its fall, as they simply ran out of manpower to compete, but by the time the wealthiest spartiates could be dealth with to allow new spartiates it was already centuries too late. However, don't let this fool you into thinking that there was some time before the wealthy corrupted Sparta, Spartan sources complain about this issue from some of our earliest to latest sources, and they all constantly hearken back to a time where "the constitution was uncorrupted" and yet that period doesn't really have any room in the timeline of Sparta to have existed.
The most impressive thing about Sparta is that they managed to convince history that they were impressive.
In fairness, that's largely in part to one *really* cool story.
@@nananamamana3591 Just like the Mandalorians.
They seem like impressive and unstoppable warriors who cause carnage wherever they step but in reality... they tend to lose pretty quickly.
@@CollinMcLean
Ehhh the problem with the mandos extends to like... a meta sense, since theyre fictional. The mandos, unlike the spartans, have historically demonstrated their ability to lay siege to the galaxy -- Knights of the Old Republic 1 takes place directly *after* a war with the Mandalorian Neo Crusaders, where they (the mandos) were able to fight, and win, against a military body that spanned the entire galaxy. They beat soldiers, jedi, you name it. It wasn't until Revan shows up, with both an unpredictable tactical methodology to the mandalorians *AND* an *army* of jedi to bolster the republic's ranks does the war effort turn against the mandalorians (who began the war based out of their singular sector of space). Kotor 2 puts Canderous on the task of rebuilding the mandalorian clans, at the urging of Revan, explicitly *because* of their abilities as warriors, which culminates in the few scattered Mandalorians he does have launching a successful assault on the ghost ship of a sith lord so powerful he consumes planets...
Even before that, you've got the proto-mandos who joined Exar Kun in war, who radically bolstered his forces to the point where he too *almost* wins, you could even argue their loss *directly* leads to *his* loss.
SWTOR (The Old Republic) casts the standing Mandalore of their time as one of the greatest military leaders in the galaxy and he's credited with much of the success of the resurgent Sith Empire's military operations where he involved, and this is true of the player character as well if they play the Bounty Hunter class, which is a mandalorian.
The mandos, historically speaking, are (within their universe) *really* good at war. Or, rather, they *were.* Disney's acquisition of the brand has led to a lot of inconsistencies in mandalorian performance in war. We can chalk that up to centuries of pacifism and/or shaming of their *GALATIC THREAT TIER* warrior culture if we'd like, I know a lot of people who do, but nowadays our mandos are far less militarily successful. The Death Watch, a cult of mandalorians that disavow the pacifism of the modern mandos (circa Clone Wars era) are competent fighters individually and in small teams but hardly match the fighting force of armies as previous mandalorian groups have shown success in similar situations. The mandos go on to lose several battles that oblinerate their people, planet, and culture and spend a *lot* of time fighting eachother over what it *truly* means to be a *true* mandalorian, *truly* -- which is maybe the *SINGLE* consistent thing about mandalorians; they spend a *LOT* of time fighting eachother over ideological semantics and it's what generally holds them back, which explains how and why the idea of a "Mandalore" comes about I guess, so at least they *recognize* their constant infighting and ideological segregation is the greatest barrier to their success outside of space wizard intervention...
*WHICH IS MORE THAN CAN BE SAID FOR SPARTA*
I was under the impression that Sparta's reputation comes from prehistory. They started to decline once everyone else started that whole writing and invention thing.
@@nananamamana3591 One movie with lots of abs
The sentence, "Not a military victory, don't be ridiculous, this is Sparta we're talking about," is a sentence so bold it's practically a magic spell. I bet it could stop an American gun nut's heart from fifty paces.
Spartans: "This IS Sparta!"
Phillip: "This WAS Sparta."
When you realize that Sparta is the Vegeta of Greece…
Very powerful, not all talk, but still managed to loose every major battle they were apart of…
(Not every battle, I’m exaggerating, but I believe I made my point)
"I, Leonidas! PRINCE OF ALL SAIYANS!"
Yeah, it fits.
Except Vegeta is more redeemable.
That's such a perfect analogy. Because remember that Vegeta DID win a few major fights too, especially when Super Vegeta was still new and shiny.
Both of them even go out like absolute honourable kings, if you count Vegeta dying in Buu.
@@legateelizabeth Vegeta's biggest "win" was Cell's second form and then, true to form, he overestimated his own power, let his ego and pride take the wheel and let Cell go Perfect. Like an idiot. Not that Goku wouldn't, and hasn't, done the same so it's really unfair to pick on MC Widow's Peak but come on. at every point in the fight with Freeza, Vegeta would have been killed if Freeza wasn't a sadist and enjoyed playing with his food. honestly, the only time Vegeta was on the right track was vaporizing Buu. he just didn't know how far Buu's regeneration abilities went, even the smoke from the fried bits was a bit much to come back from. every other time, he dug his own grave and likely doomed everyone around him because of his stupidity and hubris
Mad that I can only like your comment once.
Sparta straight up said, "if we're going down, we're going down fighting."
And in their own word: "IF."
"I will go down swinging, but I will go down" - The Mountain Goats
Of course this was less effective than the Thebans saying, with a smirk worthy of Alcibiades himself, "We're definitely going down, but not until after we're done fighting. *wink* "
And then their king ran away to live in Egypt, instead of dying with his troops.
Philip: When.
Me before the video: "Ok, there is no way Blue is going to have an even more scathing critique of Sparta in this video"
Blue: *drops the intro*
I _would_ upvote your comment, but the likes are sitting at such a neat number...
@@ArkadiBolschek totally understandable
1:52
"Too insignificant to actually kill and too annoying to occupy."
Oh my gosh it really is just like a multiplayer game of civ!
Honestly having learned more about Sparta, they truly were the paper tiger of Hellenic Greece. From a lackluster win ratio, extremely limited logistics, requiring Helot murder as an intiation rite, a social structure consisting of a super majority of slaves and an diplomatic tact verging on the idiotic, Sparta was basically the ancient Greek equivalent of North Korea. For a Polis that lacked art, literature or any other significant creative outlets they have a remarkably oversized presence in public memory. *Edit* Added even more of my Laconian gripes below.
and when push comes to show to defend Greece there is conviniently a holy day, so that they can not send their army.
@MusikCassette I'd argue that ironically given their role during the Greco-Persian War, Sparta arguably later became a tool for Persia, beating down its fellow city states from the Peloponnesian War onwards with the Persians happy to pay the bill. One of my my biggest gripes with the Spartan system as it were was just how easy it was to permanently loose citizenship. Not prepared to shack up with an older man who was responsible for you syssiita assement in the Agoge? Congrats you're now a hypomeiones forever. Earthquake kills your helots which stops your household from meeting this year's argi-quota? Welcome to the Perma-hypomeiones club. Acted as a messenger and ended up not dying when the rest of your unit ate it? 2 for one hypomeiones and actual suicide deal. Basically win the war for Sparta against Athens as a non-Spariate ala Lysander and want to re/gain full citizenship? Fuck you and here's an execution or exile. Did you and 1999 other helots show exemplary courage in battle fighting on behalf of your enslavers? Come over here to this here grove where we can reward you with you guessed it: a mass execution. The Spartan state just seems to have been run to preserve and expand the means of an ever shrinking ruling class at the expense of everything else. Hence my beef with how fucking popular they are in pop culture 🙄
@@mercAltiar but spear man stab Persian
Dang, the North Korea comparison is on point. They even had a creepy-ass secret police of child soldiers called the Krypteia for that extra splash of Orwellian oppression
Who woulda thought basing your entire society on fighting was not a sustainable long-term strategy...😝
Spartan society was a distopia for the 90%.
And here's a funny anecdote from Xenophon about the Battle of Lechaeum. It was a battle between Sparta and Argos. When Spartans riders saw their Sicyonian allies fleeing the battlefield they decided to join the fight. They decided to fight on foot so they took the abandoned shields of their fleeing allies. The Argives were more numerous but the Spartans thought their fame would be enough to scare them and make them flee. Unfortunately they were carrying Siconyan shields so their adversaries thought they were fighting the Siconyans and not the Spartans. And not only did the Argives stood their ground but they kicked the Spartans' asses.
"Now don't be weird about this, but I need you to mail me your mom" Oh Blue. You are so quotable
0:46 The failed uprising was the Battle of Megalopolis where Sparta revolted. Antipater was left behind as regent in Macedonia and was busy quelling a revolt in the north, so he had to come all the way down to Sparta to deal with the mess. Sparta would end up losing to the troops that Alexander didn't think were good enough to bring on his campaign.
Due your guys voices are just soothing as hell
due
Yup! There's a reason why I've used a bunch of Blue's videos as a sleeping aid for the past couple years.
Iz a good voice! :D
I’m currently working on a vampire webcomic where the protagonist is an ancient spartan and I wanted to thank you for making this video and listing your sources! It makes my writing process way easier and helps me to educate myself on all the goings and events in that time of history. Sarcastic Productions gang, you are truly an indispensable gem of our community! ❤
Would they be a Spartan citizen or a Helot?
@@guccifer764 his dad was a Helot ( who dies some time after his conception) but his mom’s a spartan woman (who also dies after giving birth to him due to an infection). He does retain his freedom thanks to it being his mom’s last wish and cause she was allegedly a beloved and powerful sorceress and threatened the village’s elders if they so much as lay a finger on her boy.
@@eustraxia Interestingly, there's an entire class of Spartans which kind of fits what you're going for, called mothakes, who are the bastard children of spartan men and helot women. They actually outnumbered the spartiates at every point in Spartan history (and yes, the why of this was exactly as horrifying and monstrous as you might be thinking). They could be sponsored to the agoge by wealthy spartiates, but weren't full citizens. So they were "free" non-citizens. "Free" as in not directly owned by a spartiate, but definitely an underclass, whose highest societal status was probably participating as enforcement arm of the slaving police state in some capacity without directly reaping the benefits.
Now we don't actually have any information about what the child of a helot father and spartiate mother would be. Frankly, I suspect aborted, killed by infanticide, enslaved, killed as a child, enslaved and then killed as a child, or some other terrible fate. And I suspect a spartiate woman who willingly kept a helot's child would be in a very bad position. But a widow in a position of sufficient social influence / direct power, or some lying about the father might be able to mitigate that. Without a spartiate father to claim the child, he could never be a citizen, but he could probably be a mothakes.
@@thomaskilmer Wow! Thank you so much for letting me know about mothakes. I genuinely appreciate it! Didn’t even know there was an entire class honestly.
The thing about this character (his name is Aeolus btw. No, not from myths about Heracles. They just share a name lol) is that he does retain his freedom, however that doesn’t stop other people, especially his caretakers (who is one of the elders his badass priestess of Hecate momma threatened to send to the House of Hades if he kills her son or makes him a slave. He literally took the boy in so his mom wouldn’t punish him and haunt his ass) from abusing him both verbally and physically. This elder went so far as to even prevent the boy successfully finding a bride and have a chance at a family by convincing the girl’s parents that Aeolus would taint their family bloodline with his “impurity” and the fact he’s also chronically ill therefore a “weakling” doesn’t make it better. Even though he’s super strong and has stamina of a bull, just cause he often experiences limb and stomach pains makes him somehow lesser than other boys…. Huh…
The only escape from his horrible day to day life he finds in a traveling vampire who basically becomes his mentor/boyfriend. They carry a sweet romance but obviously nothing lasts forever and his vampire boyfriend has to make a difficult choice and not turn him because of vampire war that’s about to start and he doesn’t want him to get iced. And don’t worry it’s only gonna get worse from here 🤡👌
Have you already started the webcomic? Or do you post on insta? I’d love to see your work!
I really had no knowledge of Sparta's history after the Persian wars, so many thanks for this!
Thucydides's account of the Peloponnesian War is a great read if you interested in the topic.
So wait. With Sparta being often co opted by showings of hyper masculinity and sometimes even outright fascists, you’re telling me that for much of their history they were a JOKE? Hot damn
Which in turn makes for a perfect parallel, in a sort of roundabout and unflattering way lol
Yeah well having a (numerous ) portion of their population designed to be subject to constant state oppression probably wasn't great for their societal development.
Yes. Their battle record saw them win only slightly more than half the battles they fought. Respectable for any army, but not really matching their propaganda as legendary warriors.
For more information, read the series "This. Isn't. Sparta." from the _A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry_ blog.
It’s almost like fascists and toxic masculinity-dudes don’t know anything about what they’re talking about…
fitting, just as the hypermasculine are jokes. they still think that 'alphas' are a thing
"Chest thumping in the field and limpness in the sheild"
Don't mind me, just leaving a comment so I can find this gem should I need it in the future.
Red, I think it would be cool to see a video on Agamemnon. A dive into the real world culture that surrounded him, as well as an exploration of his myths, to unpack why he was the absolute worst, not just the ways in which he proved that fact.
I love that you have been saying what everybody has been thinking. Sparta is cool but it's literally a chiuvava. All bark and no bite
You know, it really is telling that Sparta's most notable and praised accomplishment (Thermopylae) was a DEFEAT. Really sums them up perfectly 😅
Well, fighting a losing battle to the death requires more courage than winning with overwhelming odds.
@@Popepaladin...or it's insane stupidity fueled by machismo. Retreat isn't necessarily a sign of cowardice, often it's just good tactical sense. Besides, the Spartans present also had more non-citizen auxiliaries present there than actual Spartiates.
I have always felt that the Spartans saying "If" is always treated like this badass retort, but whenever I hear it I just think "Well you aren't disagreeing with him? Or refuting him?"
Spartans:"If"
Phillip: "Sorry, I meant 'when'."
Okay so check it out, I'm pretty sure I got this from The Spartan Army by J. F. Lazenby, but I read that way back in college, so don't @ me. Anyway, I've read SOMEWHERE a theory that essentially the Spartan Army functioned on the same level as the modern national guard. Basically because the helots and non-spartan Lacedaemonians did all the work, the Spartan citizens were free to do whatever they wanted and their "military life" essentially just amounted to what we would recognize as drill weekends and maybe occasional week-long exercises with their only actual warfare practice consisting of occasionally killing helots or putting down poorly armed revolts. This would also explain why the messes were considered so important, since that's where Spartans spent most of their time: literally just chilling and hanging out. So, while the Spartans could essentially claim over other Greek city-states to be "entirely soldiers", in reality they were just an urban elite that consisted of a bunch of weekend warriors that ended up getting their asses handed to them every time they went into battle without other allies to support them.
Edit: as I'm sure Blue has mentioned, the Spartans also rode every bit of their own propaganda in efforts to intimidate the rest of Greece, which is why we have such an inflated image of them, despite the fact that in reality, they probably weren't anywhere near all that.
On one hand yes, especially in their later years, on the other hand they were trained from a very young age till their late teens in combat, so its not really comparable to a national guard. More a professional army that switches out from said professional military to a militia sometime in their 20's.
In fairness that's what all Hoplite's were. (Rich) Citizen soldiers. Spartans just had more time to practice compared to the average Greek (due to the Helots doing all the work).
@@wouterkessel4852 Notably, the Spartans *did not train*. No joke. They did not, at all. They exercised a lot, but they performed no military drills or combat drills outside of (arguably) wrestling.
The Greek polities at the time were apparently quite divided on whether training actually mattered at all in phalanx warfare, and to be fair to the spartiates (this once, and no other time) they might have been right about this. Evidence for a positive association between victory in warfare and time spent drilling is very weak. Phalanx warfare seems to have been an incredibly low-skill affair.
That said, this also means that it *really* doesn't matter whatever they did in the agoge.
That one "if" doesn't even need the sarcastic edge this channel applies to everything it touches, it's amusing enough by itself.
When I was in the US Marines, the number of people who obsessed over the Spartans battle capability and would get extremely upset when they learned how pathetic they actually became kinda funny, but hearing this story of honor and nobility at the end of what I viewed as more or less a long self imposed extinction does make the later Spartans seem better than I gave them credit for
Lol! That line "Chest thumping in the field and limpness in the shield" had me laughing far far too much.
Sparta: If.
Philip II: Will.
Sparta: Crap.
Philip II: Indeed.
Telling the "If" story but missing the first question "Should I come to Sparta as a friend or foe?" Sparta: Neither.
This is just awesome & I love how Blue just kicked Sparta’s front door 🚪 in
It's weirdly cool watching Blue presenting Ancient Greek history we studied in middle school and high-school , this time while analysing Kavafis in Literature. At the time I was only thinking about when the class is over so I can play on my phone, but now I'm paying attention going "Oh yeah, that happened, based part of my history". I was wondering if you would mention another of his poems about Sparta "At 200 B.C", but sure, people here can search on their own
Sparta shares similar story with Prussia. You have a nation that has a reputation for military excellence and dedication to warfare, but when you actually read their history you realize that said reputation is grossly exaggerated. Both Sparta and Prussia have some amazing military moments that came to define the later generation's perception of them even though every other day they were just regular countries.
But for some reason people love to fanboy over the idea of "army with a state".
Prussia worked much better.
Like yeah after their great luck under Old Fritz (also skill and discipline but mostly luck, Old Fritz called it the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg for a reason) they got absolutely destroyed by Napoleon.
But they did reforms and perform pretty well towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars (Blücher and all that) they then maintained pretty good performance through wars with Denmark, Austria and France.
Of course Germany did lose WW1 but they essentially defeated Russia and performed pretty well in the Western Front as well (and also German Empire was more than just bigger Prussia. Wilhelm II's naval obsession was pretty far from Prussian standard operating procedures).
Like was Prussia overhyped? Sure. But it was able to back the talk much more than Sparta. (Mostly because Prussia was a regular country of course. Rather than the whatever weird thing Sparta had gotten going)
Remember kids, the House of Brandenburg needed 2 miracles to survive
well, Prussia at least had diplomacy with Bismarck historically, and they're a industrial and scientific powerhouse during their time. Sparta was even further behind than that
@@1224chrisng Prussia/Germany sucked at diplomacy for the entirety of its 250 year existence except for the single generation with Bismark. In pretty much every war they were alone or with just one ally against pretty much every other great power.
Prussia was not a good comparison. Think more along the lines of the current Russian Army.
I'm guessing Sparta didn't have anything left to it once Thebes beat it and freed its slaves. Sparta had always been wholly dependent on its brutally-controlled slave population so the Spartan population could do stuff like be full-time soldiers, and not worry about lesser acts like... earning a living. After that arrangement ended, they kinda didn't know what to do with themselves. They'd never developed a complex society/economy -- the equivalent of the 40-year-old who never moved out of his parent's basement, never held a stable job, and now he's kicked out and has nothing to his name but strong opinions. I'm not sure how well this hot take matches actual history, but it's probably about as accurate as anything Plutarch tells us. :D
They were a tourist trap for the Romans for a while.
Sell the visiting Latins on genuine Spartiates and genuine Helots and all that.
They said the Romans would vacation in Sparta just to observe their quaint ways.
If I'm not mistaken, Ancient Greek historian, Roel Konijnendijk, mentioned in Invicta's video that Spartan's training become brutal AFTER its glory days to attract tourist.
Another video to act as a source for my Greek and Roman history class later this year.
I’m well aware that most of the “positives” about Sparta are usually just heavily filtered propaganda, but dammit does that propaganda make me like the little Greek city state. Thanks for reminding me just how much of a mess Sparta was Blue.
Finally, some sweet ancient history! I never grow tired of learning about Mediterranean states
To be honest you are really underselling the power of Thebans at the time. They pioneered having actually professional force as part of their army that could be used to break the opposing phalanx formation. They were quite the power house at the time, probably even considered stronger than athenians and that came with just as much pride. That pride came down to bite them in the ass, when they rebelled against macedonia, hoping their longterm ally Athene would come to their Aid and eventually got defeated by alexander. After the defeat they were destroyed to the point to never rise again (which is why modern pop history tend to forget about them, since athene was much more important in long term politics of the time)
It was all the fighting with the Spartans that made them better. Every time they engaged Thebes learned and adapted culminating in the battle of Leuctra that shattered Spartan domination.
True! But at the time Thebes was a hell of a dark horse, and their fame and reputation of military might came after wiping the floor with the Spartans. Before then they were considered quite weak and they idea *they* of all polities could beat Sparta was a shock to the rest of the Greek world. (Which had bought Sparta's hype, however much their actual win record didn't reflect that.)
"The Thebans, who's major military innovation was being gay on main" - this is probably the best line ive ever heard in a history video ever
Wow. Just… wow. My respect for Sparta has been replaced with pity.
They frankly don’t deserve it.
@@InquisitorThomas but it would make them mad And that's hilarious!!
That kind of makes Athens looks worse for losing to them.
@@kagekaiser9270
To be fair, Athens’ plan was to blockade Sparta from trade and slowly starve them out.
It would have been a good plan too, except that a plague struck the archipelago and Sparta, being blockaded from trade, never got infected.
It was literally blind luck
@@guccifer764 Also, I don't think trade was a big thing for Sparta if I'm not mistaken. They were rather insular compared to the other city states.
My favorite reoccurring gag is Blue refusing to give Alexander the title of “Great” and just starts throwing other names.
Yaaassss, a new osp video always brings a smile to my face
Blue’s new job at this point is just historical myth busting.
Honestly that suits him all the more power to ya Blue
5:08 “But deals are deals and an army’s an army,
So Kleomenes came to his mother, distraught”
has a very catchy rhythm to it
So what Im hearing is that Sparta has been overhyped for millenia and never actually had anything someone could accurately describe as a great victory aside from beating Athens. Once.
And even that they did with Persia's help, if I remember correctly 😂
And now, Sparta produces citrus and olives.
They were defeated by the Persians with a pretty cool last stand.
Once.
but the last stand was so cool it made up for all the failures.
@Gokbay Too bad there were about 6,700 other Greek soldiers who would have been just as pivotal in that last stand battle... sure hope Spartan propaganda doesn't try and wipe them out of the records.
The video is excellent and very well done! And I also have to appreciate the memery and roasting of Sparta for the first two whole minutes
I recently watched a video about how the "Proud Warrior Race' like the Klingons and Mandalorians are doomed to fail because they lack the flexibility to adapt and survive beyond just the rudimentary aspects of war. A lot of Sparta's downfall contains similar issues; Thebes defeats them because Sparta was so stagnant that their playbook was basically known for centuries, no one is the prevailing years since the Persian Wars had any inovations for formations or training. Contrast with Rome who had multiple times with the various reforms as time went on to continue to stay on top. Sparta won a victory against its major foreign invasion and rather than innovate and find new ways to become a military power, they stayed stagnant in the Greek Polis warfare reference pool and thus Thebes basically knew how to counter them because the same shit since the Poli became a thing. No wonder Phillip trounced Greece like it was a Sunday stroll through the park.
Okay, I cannot be the only one crying here.
Also, *please* give us an episode on Cavafy!!!
Reminds me I’ve seen videos on ancient battles and there was few with Sparta and Thebes. Was a fun watch.
In this video, Blue dunks on Plutarch. As he should
And then they got their teeth kicked in because they were pure machismo and nothing else to show for it.
I do find Sparta to be really interesting, and in some ways admirable (though mostly messed up), but one thing I find a little funny is that Sparta’s reputation for having the best army and the time period of spartan hegemony arguably started after they started declining. Honestly I think the most impressive time in spartan history is when they first emerged from the Greek dark ages and immediately started conquering everything within reach. They seem to have emerged from the Greek dark ages earlier than the rest of Greece and we hardly know anything about it because they didn’t keep records and the rest of Greece still hadn’t woken up. Although I may be wrong about some of this history.
This video was a great watch while I was scanning through my small army of Amiibo in Tears of the Kingdom
I’ve never understood how the famous “If” retort was supposed to sound intimidating. Sparta was essentially AGREEING that, yes, “If” you fight us we will lose. And then they proved it!
They’re like the guy who got the winning touchdown in highschool and is still bragging about it 30 years later.
The implication I think is that he wouldn't be able to get that far, because the Spartans would stop him.
well the "if" was referring to entering their land. The boast was that they wouldn't even be able to do that.
'If' you beat us.
*IF*
i think it can be read like a dare, essentially saying "you know you're too scared to actually do that"
@@derimperator3847 It implies that the threat maker isn't very confident.
Can you imagine getting in a bar fight with a guy talking about what he's going to do to you *if* he's a better brawler than you.
*WHEN* I kick your ass. Not if
Omg I could've never imagined that you would know Cavafy. It'd actually be so interesting to see a video on him, as you said. I'm gonna wait for it.
I'm genuinely surprised Blue hasn't done a Historymakers on Plutarch yet. There's a lot of fun stuff to talk about with him, both in the Parallel Lives and in the Moralia, and he's honestly probably the most influential in shaping modern Anglophone views of the Greek and especially Roman worlds, because he was Shakespeare's source for Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Plus, he was probably one of the most well-read men of all of classical antiquity, and he brings that to the fore in his writings. And Blue does not lie about his love of the drama. Plutarch loves nothing more than a good, juicy story. He's so much fun to read, even if you can't always trust him.
I'm sure it'll happen someday, and I'm definitely looking forward to it!~
I’m glad to see that the one off joke managed to get made into a full fledged video.
Lets be honest - if anyone is to blame for Spartan popularity in pop-culture, its Frank Miller and those damn 300 movies
My favorite story is when Alexander the Alright (in the word of Red) sent his spoils from Battle of Granicus back home, he did not waste the chance to take jab at Sparta for sitting out of the greatest campaign at the time: "Offering from all of the Greeks, except for the Lakedaimonians".
I always saw Cleomones' self-coup and repudiation of Lycourgos/Lycurgus' suffocating citizenship restrictions as a Spartan extinction burst. Perhaps if it had happened during the "If" it would have made a difference, but the power balance between city states and the monarchies/republics which could rule beyond the next valley had shifted decisively towards the latter, with only alliances (the Achean league) and favour from great powers (Syracuse's friendship with Rome before the Second Punic War) staving off the inevitable. The time a City State could dictate terms had passed with Thebes. Ultimately, Sparta was suffocated by its own conservative culture until the very end.
Spartans are a hoot!! I made a short video on the top 5 craziest things about the Spartans. My students always love learning about them
Phillips II: If I come into your lands, I will defeat you and drive you out, Never to rise again.
Sparta: *IF*
Phillips II: *MAN SHUT YOUR* 🐶🍑 *UP*
I love that you used photos from Assassins Creed, i really appreciate the accuracy and attention to detail they put into their city designs
I love the nod the the oblique order when you talk about Thebes. That is such a minor but awesome touch
Sparta: If
Philip II, after wrecking Sparta: Say if again
Thebes, preparing to fight Sparta: it can't be that easy
Thebes, decimating them: it's that easy
Yay! Weekly history lesson with graphics!!
love the Cavafy nod(s). great work boyo
Alexander the Better-things-to-do 😂
Omg this episode is brutal I love it
Just like the silent "P" in Ptolemy, Kleomenes was clearly "P"-ed off when he had to sacrifice his epic hat wearing mother just to ultimately lose an unwinnable war.
I might be missing the joke here, but the "P" is not silent. Greek has no silent letters.
“Come home with this shield or upon it.” Is one of the most baller Spartan phrases.
Is it tho. I mean, glorifying warfare like that is really only “baller” or “badass” if you’re not the one who has to die lmao.
To quote the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett from his book Monstrous Regiment: “It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!“
So from what I can gather from these videos, ancient Greek warrior states can be summed like this:
Sparta: Daniel
Macedonia: The Cooler Daniel.
I spent the last 30 minutes trying to translate that "if" moment, until I realized I don't even have someone to share it with
Love how blue manages to sound so uncertain about that “bold strategy”
I am going to steal, while giving credit, "clean their clocks with the socks they knocked off." Brilliant!
Your closing statement reminds me of an old saying: "The same hammer that shatters the glass, forges the steel."
The entire Spartan citizenry died defending the city? This is giving me Paraguayan flashbacks.
Tbf at that point it was what a few hundred citizens left since they never had more than 8000 thousand in their prime and even at Thermopilae and stuff it was already halves BEFORE the losses in battle crippled it further.
Sparta's military might was in decline from the moment they made it. With the requirement of every citizen provide their own gear, you needed a decent base line of wealth for the average citizen in order to raise an army. This became a real problem when the generals started keeping all of the loot for themselves and left the average guy unable to fund his son's war gear. the slowly dying pool of potential soldiers really came to light as they kept losing battles, relying more and more on the slave Helots who had good reason to see Sparta fail.
so yeah, they deserve to be roasted a little.
"He's soooo cool, but he's soooo dumb!" - Vegeta, Prince of All Spartans
So much nerdgasm
Now I see why you didn't mention Alexander in the last video, you saved it for this one. Clever.
Aahh ancient Sparta. The big game talkers who can only back it up when they have someone else (whether it be league allies or a foreign power) propping them up.
So I guess we have Plutarch to thank for all the Spartan memes!
Technically, Philip II didn't come to the city of Sparta. He did go ahead and devastated all the other land Sparta owned though
If you really want to be a pedant then you probably should call Sparta a city because it wasn't
I am very curious about that whole "respond with the word IF" business actually played out when they were speaking ancient greek.
Thanks for this.
Thank you for the video.
Sparta. The epitome of running face first into a brick wall until it breaks or they break...and sometimes the wall broke!
Red, 8 minutes of your 'happy to history' voice is not enough.
Blue, could you possibly do a video on the history of Bohemia? There's a massive amount of events that you could talk about and the history is long and interesting. Just suggesting cause i've not seen many videos discussing it
It must feel amazing to link your on thesis as a resource.
using omegas to spell "womp womp" is just a classic r/grssk moment
Konstantinos Cavafis is truly one of the greatest poeta of modern greek history. Here in Greece he is held in very high esteem and we are taught many of his poems in school.