Archive for February 23rd, 2007
I have finally gotten with the program and have updated my feed links to go through FeedBurner. Old links will still work, but if you prefer FeedBurner you can use that now.
Unfortunately the Admin ignored the sign and clicked the big, red button. Fortunately the only thing that was lost was user comments and the statistics the last 10 or so days. I have read all the comments from the last 10 days, and probably replied to them, but if you would like you can post them again.
I apologize for the RSS feed fun that is going to happen. I’ll try to avoid big, red buttons in the future.
Sparta through the eyes of an Athenian.
Note to Reader:Specifically Xenophon write about the Lacedaemonians who lived in the principle region of Sparta, and credited Lycurgus (their legendary lawgiver) with their achievements. For simplicity, I will be referring to the people and state as Sparta or Spartans, and rather than referencing Lycurgus by name, I will just say the Spartans in general.
Xenophon was an Athenian born around 831 BC and was eventually exiled from Athens because of his support of the Spartans and their way of life. He wrote a rather kind review of the Spartan’s way of life, and contrasted it with life in other Greek polies’. He begins by by saying, It occurred to me…that Sparta, though…thinly populated…was evidently the most powerful and most celebrated city in Greece[.] [I wondered how this could be until] I considered the institutions of the Spartans.” He continues to say that, “by devising a system utterly different from [other city-states the Spartans] made [their] country pre-eminently prosperous.” While Xenophon gives many individual ways that Sparta differs from other Greek poleis, the overreaching theme of these is that Sparta puts far more emphasis on the good of the poleis over the good of the individual, and they do this in all circumstances–not even the king is above the group mentality.
