My approach to learning about something new is to get as many books as I can – in no particular order – read them all, and try to average things out. Thus Paul Catledge’s The Spartans is my second book on Sparta, after W.C. Forrest’s A History of Sparta, so I now have some standard of comparison.

Forrest’s book, published 1967, is a straightforward history; information is presented in chronological order. Cartledge’s (published 2002) is more of a cultural history and is only chronologic in the grand scheme. Instead, Cartledge (apparently intentionally, based on frequent references) emulates Plutarch and presents Spartan history as a series of biographies of noted Spartan figures, with enough background to enable the reader to grasp what’s going on. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t; it helps that Cartledge is a more fluid writer than Forrest.

Presumably because of changes in modern cultural sensibilities, Cartledge is much more open about the role of women and homosexuality in Spartan culture than Forrest (it’s just possible that he’s too open – that he’s reading more into the scanty textual record than it justifies; don’t have enough data to say for sure). At any rate, Cartledge contends that organized and State-enforced pederasty was a significant part of Spartan military training. When a Spartan boy was removed from his mother’s care at age 6 or 7 he went through the ἀγωγή (agoge), which is related to the ancient Greek word for cattle raising; the official in overall charge of the process was called the “Boy Herd”. Each boy was matched with an older lover, who was supposed to be his mentor and instructor in Spartan military virtues. Forrest goes so far as to say the younger boys “were under the control” of older ones but doesn’t imply a sexual relationship. Forrest and Cartledge also disagree on part of the training regimen – according to Forrest the younger boys could only eat what they could forage or steal; Cartledge contends that this was only true for a selected group – the crypteia (κρυπτεία) – who were boys marked out for future leadership roles. The crypteia boys were sent out into the countryside armed only with a dagger – and killed helots. The whole nature of the crypteia is unclear; was it only for certain boys or did some members carry on in adulthood? Were the helots killed at random or did some higher authority pick out ones that seemed particularly troublesome? Cartledge goes so far as to call the crypteia the “Special Operations Executive”, which is drawing an analogy that the historical record doesn’t seem to justify.

Forrest says nothing I remember about the role of Spartan women, while they get considerable coverage from Cartledge (including two of the capsule biographies – of Gorgo, queen to King Leonidas I, and Cynisca, the only woman of any Greek state ever to win a prize at the Olympics (she did it twice just to prove it wasn’t a fluke)). Perhaps their names say something about the supposed lack of a sense of humor among Spartan; “Gorgo” is a diminutive for “Gorgon”, whose glace turned men to stone, and “Cynisca” means “female puppy” – or “little bitch”. At any rate, Spartan women were vastly freer than women in any other Greek state; for example, they could own property in their own name (something American and English women couldn’t do until the 19th century). Spartan girls went through a training regime like Spartan boys – training was lighter, and they could live at home, but they were still expected to wrestle, throw the javelin and discus, and race – naked or in short skirts, leading to other Greeks to call them “thigh flashers”. Cartledge states there’s evidence that they were assigned lesbian relationships with older girls, just like the boys – but doesn’t say what that evidence is. Education for girls included literacy, unique in the Greek world – it’s possible that more Spartan women than men were literate.

It was a religious duty for Spartan men to marry and procreate, and any who remained bachelors too long were subjected to ritualized ridicule by the girls. Spartan marriage customs included simulated rape – the prospect of having to rape, even symbolically, a girl who had been training in wrestling and basic melee weapons might have left some Spartan men willing to face the ridicule ceremony instead.

Finally, again unlike all other Greek states, there was no penalty for adultery in Sparta; in fact Cartledge claims (and here has explicit evidence from ancient authors) that it was encouraged as a way to form alliances between families. It was apparently a point of pride for a Spartan woman to be shared between two husbands – she got to manage two households. Since all the housework that other Greek women did – spinning, weaving, cleaning, cooking, nursing – was done by helots in Sparta there wasn’t that much difficulty involved.

Cartledge attributes the downfall of Sparta to the same reasons as Forrest; the State overextended itself in terms of manpower. It’s actually surprising that Sparta lasted as long as it did as a military power, its reputation overawing potential enemies – by the time of the final conflict with Thebes there were less around 1000 adult male Spartans of military age and the army had to be filled out with armed helots and troops from client states. Cartledge notes the same phenomenon as Forrest regarding Spartan kings; their power and influence increased in inverse proportion to Sparta’s military strength. Neither proposes a strong reason for this, although Cartledge speculates that the kings may have acquired considerable wealth from campaigning. Notably, after the victory over Mardonius at Plataea in 479 BC, Spartan king Pausanius reportedly distributed the spoils – not to his own troops, but to allies and helots. Later king Agesilaus II kept 1000 talents worth spoils from an Asian campaign (394/5 BC) for himself; one Attic talent was 26 kilograms of silver and worth about $225000 in ancient purchasing power, or around $25000 in modern bullion value – and Cartledge notes that the campaign wasn’t even particularly successful.

Cartledge’s last chapter is an account of the influence of Sparta on European history. John Stuart Mill notably claimed that the battle of Marathon in 490 BC was more important to English history that the battle of Hastings in 1066. I find that problematical; the suggestion is that somehow the idea of democracy wouldn’t have taken root without the Greek example. That’s not clear; I think a greater loss would have been Greek poetry and literature – and maybe not even that, as the Persians were not particularly concerned about their subjects’ customs and presumably would have allowed Greek religious festivals (the source of Greek drama) and Greek writing to continue. Thermopylae and Leonidas were – and are – subjects for European literature; The Spartans was written before the graphic novel and movie 300; the book Cartledge has in mind for continuing the legend is Gates of Fire, which was considered for a movie with Brad Pitt or Bruce Willis as Leonidas. An appendix on Spartan hunting is tacked on almost as an afterthought; it’s based on a lecture by Cartledge on fox hunting and is strangely irrelevant to the rest of the book.

Good maps of the Peloponnese; an assortment of relevant photographs; a long bibliography but no footnotes; I would have appreciated sources for some of Cartledge’s claims. If you’re looking for a military history, this isn’t it; Cartledge mentions all the battles but there’s no discussion of the tactics involved or maps of the locations. Overall, I think this a better book than Forrest but you need to have more background in ancient Greece to read it with profit. ( )

There was a lot to learn about Sparta but the delivery was rather dry in this book. ( )

I enjoyed reading this engagingly written short history of Sparta from the beginning to the loss of importance in the Roman empire and the afterlife of the ideas about Sparta, Leonidas in particular. ( )

This was ok, definitely some points of interest, but I probably would have gotten more out of the actual book than I did the audio. As others have noted, there is not much "flow" but rather a bit of hopping around. That added to the rather large number of names, of both people and place, that I had a hard time visualizing, left me a bit confused at times and replaying quite a few chapters. It seems well-researched, and the author well-informed, I'd just probably go the printed route if I had it to do over... ( )

The book is disappointing. It has a conversational tone, but is not well organized or deep; frankly, it reads like a lightly edited transcription of lecture notes. So, while this material is engaging and informative as far as it goes, I suspect the author had a better book in him. ( )