The idea that "Sparta" was close to "80% enslaved people" is confused and I hold
the author of the linked article responsible for not clarifying the confusion.
"Sparta" is the name of the principal city of the city-state of Lacedaemon,
which comprised the regions of Laconia and Messinia in the Peloponnese. The
inhabitants of the city of Sparta are in ancient sources referred to as
Lacedaemones ("Λακεδαίμονες") and are the people we, in the modern day, know as as
Spartans or Spartiates ("Σπαρτιάται").
The people inhabiting the greater area of the Lacedeamonian city-state, the
inhabitants of the settlements in Laconia and Messinia, were never referred to
in any ancient text as "Spartans" or "Lacedaemones" and they were only referred
to, to the extent they were ever mentioned, as "helots" ("είλωται") or, simply,
as the Spartans' slaves. Any reference to those people as "Spartans", let alone
"Lacedaemones" is a modern invention and only serves to deepen the confusion I
highlight here. In fact, I am only aware of a single modern "source" that
commits this confusing error: the blog post linked above. If we were to give
those people a modern name devoid of political connotations, that would be
"Lacones" ("Λάκωναι") or "Messinians" ("Μεσσηνοί"), the inhabitants of the
regions of Laconia and Messinia.
So it makes no sense to say that "Sparta" was "80% enslaved people" or the other
errors committed in the linked article. It might make sense to say that "Laconia
and Messinia (resp. Lacedaemon) was 80% enslaved people", although that would
greatly weaken the intended invective against Spartans. It would certainly
make sense to point out that Spartans, i.e. the inhabitants of the city of
Sparta, had a huge number of slaves in proportion both to their own numbers and
in comparison to the number of slaves of other Greek city-states of the same
historical period(s), but again that would not be a proper attack on the myth of
Sparta, which is what is intended. Of course it makes every sense to point out
the cruelty of Spartans, but in that case, if we call the helots "Spartans",
also, the confusion only deepens.
All such nuance is left out of the article linked above which makes it very,
very misleading and confuses people who are used to getting their knowledge of
history from second- third- and further- hand accounts, like the one in the
linked article, or the movie 300, etc. Unfortunately once something is elevated
to mythical status there is nothing more profitable than to tear it down, even
if this tearing down is based on the same poor knowledge of history that allowed
it to be elevated in the first place.
>The idea that "Sparta" was close to "80% enslaved people" is confused and I hold the author of the linked article responsible for not clarifying the confusion.
...
>The people inhabiting the greater area of the Lacedeamonian city-state, the inhabitants of the settlements in Laconia and Messinia, were never referred to in any ancient text as "Spartans" or "Lacedaemones" and they were only referred to, to the extent they were ever mentioned, as "helots" ("είλωται") or, simply, as the Spartans' slaves.
He's referring to the entire Spartan state, which at that time included Messinia. It's accurate to say it was composed of ~80% enslaved people. That's clear if you read the article. The fact that most helots were from other ethnic groups doesn't change the fact that they were living under the rule of the Spartan state.
There is no such thing as "The entire Spartan state". There is (well, was) the city-state of Lacedaemon and the city of Sparta. The two are confused because Lacedaemon is often synechdochically called "Sparta" and the people of the city of Sparta are usually called "Lacedaemones" in ancient sources. But the people in Laconia and Messinia (not just Messinia) were "helots", not "Spartans", not "Lacedeaemones" and not anything else.
So if you want to say that the people who lived in Laconia and Messinia were the slaves of the Spartans, which we call the helots, and that there many more times more helots than there were Spartans, then you're welcome, because that is accurate. But to say that "Sparta was closer to 80% enslaved people" as the OP says, is false.
Yes, synecdochically and when it's clear from the context which one is meant. But when you say something like "Sparta was 80% slaves" it's not clear from the context and you have to clarify which one you mean, the city or the city-state. Otherwise you are only spreading confusion, just like the series of blog posts above.
And it is still the case that the helots were the slaves of the Spartans, that nobody called the helots "Spartans", and that nobody thought that "helots" were Spartans, not in any ancient source and not in any modern source I'm aware of outside the linked series of blog posts.
If you (or, you know, others) think this is wrong, you're welcome to show me where, in modern or ancient texts it says that "helots were spartans" and "sparta was mostly populated by slaves", or something similar -except of course for the scandalously revisionist blog posts we're discussing.
It's still the case that 80% of the population of the Spartan state was slaves. That's what's relevant to this conversation; the rest is just sophistry.
No, it's not sophistry and I don't appreciate you insulting me by saying I engage in sophistry. I am sick and tired of random people on the internet accusing me of intellectual dishonesty because they have no idea what I'm talking about because they haven't any knowledge relevant to the subject at hand, other than having read a blog post or two.
As to the "the case" that "80% of the population of the Spartan state were slaves", that is an acceptable turn of phrase, but it is not what the blog author says. He says that the majority of the people of "Sparta" were slaves. This is calculated to come across as a tear down of the myth of "noble" Sparta because it makes no distinction between the free citizens of Sparta who are the ones elevated to mythical status by ignorance of history, and their slaves, who are never and under no circimstances considered to be part of the "noble warriors of Sparta" or what have you.
In short, the author is making a very clear attempt to exploit the confusion caused by the synecdochical use of "Sparta" to mean both the city and the city-state, to make a point that ultimately only serves his vanity, and is not really informative. To say that "most people of the city state of Sparta were slaves" is only revelatory to those who have no idea of ancient history.
To give you an analogy, it's like someone making a huge todo about how "Black holes are not really black". This can only be news to people who don't know what black holes are and what is meant by "black" in their name. Then instead of trying to clarify the meaning of the word "black" in "black hole" the author launches into a tirade about how black holes have been glorified as being the blackest bodies in the universe when in reality they are not even black and most of their mass is invisible because it's hidden behind the event horizon and Oh Gods! All you 've ever been told about physics, it's all wrong! You've been worshipping a black body that is not even black and is not even all there!
It's a lot of noise for nothing but internet likes and an utter appeal to ignorance that does not improve the reader's knowledge one bit. And it is many peoples' first point of entry into the subject of not only Sparta, but ancient history in general. If that first point of entry is not 300 instead, which to be sure is even worse but without which the author's blog post would not even exist, because it has nothing to say other than "300 sucks, man".
300 has Persians throwing incendiary grenades. Their king is a giant. He's carried to battle on a golden throne, like a Warhammer figure. But the author saw fit to attack 300's realism by picking apart its mythologising of "noble" Spartan warriors, which nobody has ever believed other than people who learn their history from comics and movies. This is how much the author of the blog post is interested in historic truth.
I appreciate your post and i thought it was informative.
That being said i do think you could have made your point more succinctly.
For a while, it seemed like you were arguing semantics vs actually informing the reader.
Your point is valid. I'm not sure how to present it better, but I'd posit:
"Sparta, the city, was not 80% slaves. That stat only true about the state. This distinction only matters because the author is critizing sparta society on the basis that Sparta's seat of power was slave-cornucopia. But this is false. Sparta the city is mostly spartan citizens, making the author's criticism-by-sleight-of-hand dishonest"
>"Sparta, the city, was not 80% slaves. That stat only true about the state. This distinction only matters because the author is critizing sparta society on the basis that Sparta's seat of power was slave-cornucopia. But this is false. Sparta the city is mostly spartan citizens, making the author's criticism-by-sleight-of-hand dishonest"
Except, as the author points out, the Spartan system that he's criticizing requires the Spartiates to have a plantation of helots to support them so they can spend all their time training for battle. A man in ancient Sparta could only be a Spartiate if they had a plantation of helots (if they lose their plantation they lose their status as a citizen), so the helots were just as much a part of Spartan society as they were.
Thanks and you're right that I could have made my point more concisely. The series of comments I made in this conversation were not my most well-written ever.
The author is addressing the perception of Sparta as it exists in popular culture today. Which is to say - the perception that is fueled by movies like 300, and the military culture that adopted that perception to glorify itself by proxy. Because of that, the vast majority of people are not aware that Spartans were a tiny minority of the residents of Sparta (the state), or that most residents were slaves. If you do, great - but your assertion that the article "does not improve the reader's knowledge" is not grounded in reality.
"Spartans can't be 80% slaves because the Spartans didn't consider their slaves to be Spartans" is perhaps a linguistic truth, but it requires an absurd literalism to keep banging that drum instead of understanding that he's talking about the society the Spartans built, which includes the helots. The Spartans owned the helots!
>> "Spartans can't be 80% slaves because the Spartans didn't consider their slaves to be Spartans"
That is not what I said. Why do you misquote me? This is what I said:
>> The people inhabiting the greater area of the Lacedeamonian city-state, the inhabitants of the settlements in Laconia and Messinia, were never referred to in any ancient text as "Spartans" or "Lacedaemones" and they were only referred to, to the extent they were ever mentioned, as "helots" ("είλωται") or, simply, as the Spartans' slaves.
Nobody in ancient times considered the helots to be "Spartans". This is in the same way that nobody in ancient times considered the slaves of the Athenians to be "Athenians" or the slaves of the Romans to be "Romans". And no historian in modern times does so, either. When speaking of the Gauls, subjugated by the Romans [1], no author, ancient or modern, cals them "Romans". For any ancient or modern culture that had slaves, the distinction is always there: the People of X on the one hand, and their slaves on the other.
Yet the author is deliberately muddying the waters playing on the confusion between "Sparta" the city-state and "Sparta" its capital city, and even invents new terms to refer to them: he calls "Spartiates" the free citizens of the capital city, and "Spartans" everyone else, a distinction impossible in the Greek language and unused by anyone except the author as far as I can tell.
All these deliberate confusions are the result of a perverse reading of history, clearly aimed at making an impression to people who are not familiar with the history of Sparta outside its depiction in popular media and it is clearly calculated to draw internet attention to the author's blog by riding on the coattails of the success of such popular media, and not to inform about history.
The only antitode I know against fudging and misdirection like this is to make language precise and clear.
I thought so at first. I think poster got so caught up in explaining the Greek that he forgot to make his point.
For a while, it seemed like poster was arguing semantics vs actually informing the reader on why author could be wrong.
I'm not sure how to present it better, but I'd posit:
"Sparta, the city, was not 80% slaves. That stat only true about the state. This distinction only matters because the author is critizing sparta society on the basis that Sparta's seat of power was slave-cornucopia. But this is false. Sparta the city is mostly spartan citizens, making the author's criticism-by-sleight-of-hand dishonest"
"Sparta" is the name of the principal city of the city-state of Lacedaemon, which comprised the regions of Laconia and Messinia in the Peloponnese. The inhabitants of the city of Sparta are in ancient sources referred to as Lacedaemones ("Λακεδαίμονες") and are the people we, in the modern day, know as as Spartans or Spartiates ("Σπαρτιάται").
The people inhabiting the greater area of the Lacedeamonian city-state, the inhabitants of the settlements in Laconia and Messinia, were never referred to in any ancient text as "Spartans" or "Lacedaemones" and they were only referred to, to the extent they were ever mentioned, as "helots" ("είλωται") or, simply, as the Spartans' slaves. Any reference to those people as "Spartans", let alone "Lacedaemones" is a modern invention and only serves to deepen the confusion I highlight here. In fact, I am only aware of a single modern "source" that commits this confusing error: the blog post linked above. If we were to give those people a modern name devoid of political connotations, that would be "Lacones" ("Λάκωναι") or "Messinians" ("Μεσσηνοί"), the inhabitants of the regions of Laconia and Messinia.
So it makes no sense to say that "Sparta" was "80% enslaved people" or the other errors committed in the linked article. It might make sense to say that "Laconia and Messinia (resp. Lacedaemon) was 80% enslaved people", although that would greatly weaken the intended invective against Spartans. It would certainly make sense to point out that Spartans, i.e. the inhabitants of the city of Sparta, had a huge number of slaves in proportion both to their own numbers and in comparison to the number of slaves of other Greek city-states of the same historical period(s), but again that would not be a proper attack on the myth of Sparta, which is what is intended. Of course it makes every sense to point out the cruelty of Spartans, but in that case, if we call the helots "Spartans", also, the confusion only deepens.
All such nuance is left out of the article linked above which makes it very, very misleading and confuses people who are used to getting their knowledge of history from second- third- and further- hand accounts, like the one in the linked article, or the movie 300, etc. Unfortunately once something is elevated to mythical status there is nothing more profitable than to tear it down, even if this tearing down is based on the same poor knowledge of history that allowed it to be elevated in the first place.