Travel back in time with brothers Arthur and Finn to change the life of one Spartan soldier and make sure he saves his family before his final battle. Fascinating historical facts combine with action-packed fiction to create a dramatic and gripping adventure. This fast-paced and exciting narrative will leave the reader on the edge of their seat. Will the boys succeed in completing their mission, avoid the wrath of the Persian Army and make it back to the present in once piece?
This cultural history of Ancient Sparta chronicles the rise of its legendary military power and offers revealing insight into the people behind the myths. The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless, and impervious to pain. And indeed, they often lived up to this image. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts. We might admire their physical toughness, but Spartans also systematically abused their children. They gave rights to female citizens that were unmatched in Europe until the modern era, meanwhile subjecting their conquered subject peoples to a murderous reign of terror. Though idealized by the Athenian contemporaries of Socrates, Sparta was almost devoid of intellectual achievement. In this revealing history of Spartan society, Philip Matyszak chronicles the rise of the city from a Peloponnesian village to the military superpower of Greece. Above all, Matyszak investigates the role of the Spartan hoplite, the archetypal Greek warrior who was feared throughout Greece in his own day and has since become a legend. The reader is shown the man behind the myth; who he was, who he thought he was, and the environment which produced him.
“Remarkable . . . [The author’s] crystalline prose, his vivacious storytelling and his lucid historical insights combine here to provide a first-rate history.” —Publishers Weekly Sparta has often been described as the original Utopia—a remarkably evolved society whose warrior heroes were forbidden any other trade, profession, or business. As a people, the Spartans were the living exemplars of such core values as duty, discipline, the nobility of arms in a cause worth dying for, sacrificing the individual for the greater good of the community (illustrated by their role in the battle of Thermopylae), and the triumph over seemingly insuperable obstacles—qualities often believed today to signify the ultimate heroism. In this book, distinguished scholar and historian Paul Cartledge, long considered the leading international authority on ancient Sparta, 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 the lives of such illustrious and myth-making figures as Lycurgus, King Leonidas, Helen of Troy (and Sparta), and Lysander, and explains how the Spartans, while placing a high value on masculine ideals, nevertheless allowed women an unusually dominant and powerful role—unlike Athenian culture, with which the Spartans are so often compared. In resurrecting this culture and society, Cartledge delves into ancient texts and archeological sources and includes illustrations depicting original Spartan artifacts and drawings, as well as examples of representational paintings from the Renaissance onward—including J.L. David’s famously brooding Leonidas. “A pleasure for anyone interested in the ancient world.” —Kirkus Reviews “[An] engaging narrative . . . In his panorama of the real Sparta, Cartledge cloaks his erudition with an ease and enthusiasm that will excite readers from page one.” —Booklist “Our greatest living expert on Sparta.” —Tom Holland, prize-winning author of Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
Traces the history of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, describes its distinctive military society and the unusual freedom of Spartan women, and discusses the influence which its culture has had on later civilizations.
Discover the Fascinating Way of Life of History's Most Elite Soldiers, The Spartans. The Spartans. The famous warrior society of ancient Greece. Renowned for their ferocity in battle, rigid self-discipline, and their legendary wit and terseness. These rugged, crimson clad soldiers knew a lifestyle that few of us today could imagine or endure. Both Spartan men and woman, from the day they were born, to their often early deaths, constantly trained their bodies and minds to be as hard and immovable as stone.
This is the first book-length examination of Spartan women, covering over a thousand years in the history of women from both the elite and lower classes. Classicist Sarah B. Pomeroy comprehensively analyzes ancient texts and archaeological evidence to construct the world of these elusive though much noticed females. Sparta has always posed a challenge to ancient historians because information about the society is relatively scarce. Most existing scholarship on Sparta concerns the military history of the city and its heavily male-dominated social structure--almost as if there were no women in Sparta. Yet perhaps the most famous of mythic Greek women, Menelaus' wife Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, was herself a Spartan. Written by one of the leading authorities on women in antiquity, Spartan Women reconstructs the lives and the world of Sparta's women, including how their status changed over time and how they held on to their surprising autonomy. Proceeding through the archaic, classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, Spartan Women includes discussions of education, family life, reproduction, religion, and athletics.
480 B. C. Proud Xerxes, Emperor of Persia and King of Kings, invades Greece with a million soldiers. He commands thousands of ships and is supported by dozens of allies, among them the charming Queen Artemisia. At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history. One that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. Read how The Spartans became the strongest warriors in history. Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary forgotten chapter of history
If you want to discover the captivating history of Sparta, then keep reading... Sparta is one of the first names that comes to mind when we think about the ancient world. And this is for good reason. After its founding sometime in the 10th century BCE, Sparta soon rose to be one of the most powerful city-states in not only the Greek but the entire ancient world. Its unique government, which featured two kings and an elected senate, helped it achieve relative political stability early on in its history, and Spartan leaders were able to use this to expand their power and influence in the region surrounding Sparta as well as the rest of the Peloponnesian Peninsula. Perhaps the most significant achievement in all of Spartan history, though, was their defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. This conflict, which lasted roughly 30 years, put the two greatest Greek city-states of the time, Athens and Sparta, up against one another, and the result, a Spartan victory, helped to reshape the entire ancient world. It ushered in a period of Spartan hegemony which was radically different than when the Athenians sat atop the Greek world. Unfortunately for the Spartans, though, their time spent as the leaders of the Greek world would be short-lived. Alliances were made between recent and past enemies, and these coalitions were able to overwhelm the Spartans and force them to surrender. After this, Sparta would fall in prominence, but it would continue to be important when the Romans took control of most of the Mediterranean and western Asia. Nevertheless, we should not take the fact that Sparta eventually fell from prominence as a sign that their time was not a great one. A unique appetite for collaboration helped to produce a truly unique form of government, and a keen understanding of what makes an army great helped Sparta grow from a collection of five small villages at the beginning of the last millennium BCE into a thriving Greek polis that would come to sit atop the entire Greek world. In Spartans: A Captivating Guide to the Fierce Warriors of Ancient Greece, Including Spartan Military Tactics, the Battle of Thermopylae, How Sparta Was Ruled, and More, you will discover topics such as Who Were the Spartans The Growth of Spartan Power: The Messenian Wars A Growing Rivalry with Athens: The Greco-Persian Wars Victory over Athens: The Birth of the Spartan Empire Spartan Hegemony, the Corinthian War, and Sparta's Decline Spartan Government, Military, and Society And much, much more! So if you want to learn more about the Spartans, scroll up and click the "add to cart" button!
With the recent release of spectacular blockbuster films from Gladiator to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the epic has once again become a major form in contemporary cinema. This new volume in the AFI Film Readers series explores the rebirth of the epic film genre in the contemporary period, a period marked by heightened and conflicting appeals to national, ethnic, and religious belonging.The orginal essays in this volume explore the tension between the evolving global context of film production and reception and the particular provenance of the epic as an expression of national mythology and aspirations, challenging our understanding of epics produced in the present as well as our perception of epic films from the past. The contributors will explore new critical approaches to contemporary as well as older epic films, drawing on ideas from cultural studies, historiography, classics, and film studies.
"My name is Axios Leontius of Sparta, and I was born to kill. At age seven, I was torn from my mothers arms and left home to train with a group of other boys. We were taught obedience, solidarity, military strategy, and how to withstand pain. My harsh upbringing stripped me of my weaknesses and forced me to become strong, ruthless. But I craved something greater-a life I could never have. Against all odds, and the toughest training a warrior could endure, I found an unexpected love in the arms of a fellow spartan. He was the very air I breathed and the water that sustained me. Fighting side by side with him we were invincible. However, there's no place for love in Sparta, especially between two men. In times of war all men are put to the test. But the greast challenge for us was not one of swords and spears, but of all the heart.
