Product Description

Paul Cartledge argues that the Spartans are our ancestors, every bit as much as the Athenians. But while Athens promoted democracy, individualism, culture and society, their great rivals Sparta embodied militarism, totalitarianism, segregation and brutal repression. As ruthless as they were self-sacrificing, their sucessful war rituals made the Spartans the ultimate fighting force. The battle of Thermopylae epitomises all that is Sparta. While slave masters to the Helots for over three centuries, Spartan women enjoyed an unparalleled freedom indulging in education, dance and sport. From this environment was born Helen of Troy. Interspersed with the personal biographies of leading figures, "The Spartans" tracks the people from 480 to 360BC charting Sparta's progression from the great power of the Aegean Greek world to its ultimate demise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15197 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Send the SAS to pick flowers and the Marines to knit mittens, because the Spartans could have 'em for breakfast. In The Spartans: An Epic History, the book of the Channel 4 series, Paul Cartledge paints a vivid picture of one of the most extreme civilisations ever known--one whose ethos married the highest levels of societal and philosophical advancement with the most repressive and warlike of regimes. These ancient Greeks lived, breathed and slept "hard". They also happened to influence much of subsequent Western civilisation.

The perfect warriors, they lived to fight, and when they weren't fighting, they were training to fight. Their male children were brutally raised, and weak or deformed infants were mercilessly cast from cliff tops. Yet they were unusually egalitarian in their treatment of women, and embraced an intensely partisan social ethic. They enslaved much of the rest of Greece, yet provided the spark for Athenian Democracy. It is this apparently contradictory duality that continues to fascinate and that has since engendered concepts as diverse as Hitler's system of negative eugenics and Thomas More's notion of Utopia.

The Spartans, though accessible, is an accomplished academic work--you'd hardly expect anything else, Cartledge having already written 20 books on the subject. But without the window dressing of the TV show's stunning Grecian locations and its thinking-man's eye-candy presenter Bettany Hughes, this can seem a little dry--anyone expecting the latest glossy picture-filled Time Team-style coffee-table book is likely to be disappointed. If you're partial to a bit of accessible erudition, however, then it would be foolish to look this gift horse in the mouth. --Paul Eisinger

From the Inside Flap
The Spartans are our ancestors, every bit as much as the Athenians are. As demonstrated most famously and enduringly at Thermopylae, they were a people of warrior-heroes, living exemplars of the core values of self-sacrifice, communal endeavour and achievement against all odds. The myth of Sparta extends from the world of antiquity to our own world in an unbroken chain of tradition.
Though theirs was a significantly masculine society, it was one that allowed women an unusually powerful and prominent role, too. The positive image of the Spartans' uplifting warrior ideal of collective self-sacrifice has to be measured against their brutally efficient enslavement of a whole Greek people for several centuries.
The main chronological period of THE SPARTANS is from 480 to 360 BC: from the time when Sparta led a coalition of loyalist Greeks in defence of their homeland against a massive Persian invasion, to the time of Sparta's crisis as a society and collapse as a great Greek power. Paul Cartledge follows the story of Sparta's developing difficulties with its allies, the major disaster of a huge earthquake followed by a prolonged and potentially deadly revolt of its slave class of Helots, its increasing differences and then major dispute with Athens, its takeover from Athens as the Great Power of the Aegean Greek world, and its conseuqent severe and ultimately terminal overstretch.
THE SPARTANS is based firmly on ancient sources, both written texts (many of which are quoted in new translations) and archaegological artefacts, and is interspersed with snapshot biographies of Spartan men and women. The history of this extraordinary people, whose ideals have attracted so many societies over the centuries, is vividly and personally brought to life in this epic account of Sparta and the Spartans.

About the Author
Paul Cartledge is widely acknowledged to be the world's leading expert on the subject of Sparta and the Spartans. He is Professor of Greek History and Chairman of the Classics Faculty at Cambridge University. He has written and edited many works, including Spartan Reflections, Sparta and Lakonia and Hellenistic and Roman Sparta, and acted as academic consultant on The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization for the BBC and, more recently. The Spartans for Channel 4.

Customer Reviews

Want to know more about the Spartans than just the '300'?
This is an entirely readable, not to say enjoyable account of Spartan history, it explains their origins, development and culture in a simple way without any `dumbing down', and thus is very accessible to the reader unfamiliar with the people of the period.
I would counter the previous reviewers comment on the book as a `thesis draft': Cartledge has taught a Cambridge since the 70's and has honorary Spartan Citizenship for his contribution for telling it's history. So although not going to great lengths to give a highly detailed day to day chronological account of the minutiae of Spartan life for 400 years, it has indeed avoided dates upon dates, and used other sources in it's narrative - it is a scholarly work clearly intended primarily for the general reader with an interest in this era.
Read also Cartledge's `Thermopylae' for THE story of Spartan battle, or the fantastic `Persian Fire' by the brilliant Tom Holland.

History of Sparta
An interesting book on the history of Sparta and its role in ancient Greek history. It's not too scholarly, and not too populist, but rather maintains a balance that allows the author to discuss the subject in some depth without baffling the casual reader.

Much of the book is made up of biographies of leading Spartans inserted into gaps in the main body of the text. Although it's good to have a couple of pages to summarise the lives and careers of the main figures in Spartan history, these asides tend to repeat the information in the main text, and in some cases can damage the sense of chronological flow. I think these would have been far better placed in an appendix.

Also, the author wanders off into a study of the parallels between ancient greek hunting and modern fox hunting at the end of the book, debunking the myths that link present day hunting with that of the ancient past. For those of us that aren't passionate about this issue (as the author clearly is), this is a rather anticlimactic ending to a good book. It doesn't teach us anything more about the Spartans than has already been covered, and is really a debate for another place.

However, these two points aside, this is a thoroughly engaging book for anyone with an interest in ancient history. It's well written, accessible and gives a real insight into the way that Spartan society functioned. Perhaps the social relationaships between the Spartans and the Helots could have been explored more than it was, but the main interest for most readers is undoubtedly the military contribution to history made by Sparta, which is very well covered.

A unique society creating a doomed utopia
This book goes into great depth about the origins, main characters, virtues and shortcomings of the Spartan society throughout it's 300 year history.

Their valiant nature in contrast with their hideous rejection and termination of babies when considered inadequate for their society creates a kind of ambivalent feel to any study of the Spartans.

This book covers the Spartan idea of utopia by breaking it down to the most intricate of details. The author does exceedingly well in covering some of the main characters in the Spartan history; from King Leonidas of Thermopalye fame to Lysander (Lysnadros) who's generalship concluded the Peloponnesian war with Athens in the Spartans' favour.

However, as with any fragile empire with shakey foundation, the Spartan hegemony was not destined to last. This book covers the years following the Peloponnesian War with Athens and the resulting hegemony of Sparta and explains why this culminated in the defeat of Sparta by Thebes.

This book would make the ideal companion with the DVD of 'The Spartans' introduced by the very attractive, Oxford educated Bettany Hughes (That DVD is only available on Region 1 at present).

Furthermore, the movie from 1962 'The 300 Spartans' is a very accurate hollywood production of the events at Thermopalye, but is also only available in Region 1.