Spartans Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

grievouss - Essay ExampleIn his career he has published everyplace 65 articles, with 12 forthcoming articles and chapters such as Sparta in The Classical Tradition (Harvard University Press). In 2004, professor Cartledge was appointed an Honorary Citizen of Sparta.The Spartans is a convincing narrative that explores the culture and civilization of the most famous warrior state the Spartans of ancient Greece, by the human beingss leading specialist in the field. Sparta has often been described as the original Utopia--a unusually evolved society whose warrior heroes were forbidden any other trade, profession, or business. As a people, the Spartans were the living exemplars of such plaza values as duty, discipline, the nobility of arms in a cause worth dying for, sacrificing the somebody for the greater good of the community (illustrated by their role in the battle of Thermopylae), and the triumph of will all over seemingly insuperable obstacles--qualities that today are frequen tly believed to signify the ultimate heroism. Paul Cartledge is the distinguished educatee and historian who have long been seen as the leading international authority on ancient Sparta. He traces the evolution of Spartan society--the culture and the people, as well as the tremendous influence they had on their world and even ours. He details by dint ofout the narrative the lives of such illustrious and myth-making figures as Lycurgus, King Leonidas, Helen of troy weight (and Sparta), and Lysander, and explains how the Spartans, although they placed a high value on masculine ideals, nevertheless allowed women an unusually dominant and right on role--unlike Athenian culture with which the Spartans are so often compared. In resurrecting the ancient culture and society of the Spartans, Cartledge delves cabalistic into ancient texts and archeological sources and complements his text with illustrations that depict original Spartan artifacts and drawings, as well as examples of natu ralistic paintings from the Renaissance onwards.The Spartans built a warrior culture in ancient Greece unsurpassed for its courage and military prowess. towering historian Cartledge (Spartan Reflections) provides a remarkable chronicle of Spartas rise and fall, from its likely origins around 1100 B.C. to the height of its fame and glory in the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. and its fall in the fourth century B.C. The Spartans built their society through conquest and subjugation, ruling over their subject peoples with an iron hand and putting down revolts with devastating might. between 490 and 479, Sparta joined Athens in fighting the Persians in three key wars-Thermopylae, Plataea and Mycale-that contributed to the demise of Persian power and the rise of Hellenistic power on the Mediterranean. Cartledge punctuates his absorbing tale with brief, engaging biographies of the city-states kings from Lycurgus, the earliest Spartan leader, who brought constitutional law to the city, to Leonidas, who led the Spartans at Thermopylae. According to