The Imperfect Spartan

The Imperfect Spartan PDF Author: D. E. Loxwood
Publisher: Google Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In Ancient Sparta, where imperfect babies were thrown to their deaths from Mount Taygetus, and naked Spartan youths cut the throats of Helot slaves as they slept, a Spartan man about to graduate from history’s most brutal military academy is caught in a triangle of lust, love and jealousy from which death or rebellion can be the only escape. This is book one of the series, "Sunset on Sparta".

The Imperfect Spartan

The Imperfect Spartan PDF Author: D. E. Loxwood
Publisher: Google Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In Ancient Sparta, where imperfect babies were thrown to their deaths from Mount Taygetus, and naked Spartan youths cut the throats of Helot slaves as they slept, a Spartan man about to graduate from history’s most brutal military academy is caught in a triangle of lust, love and jealousy from which death or rebellion can be the only escape. This is book one of the series, "Sunset on Sparta".

Imperfect Spartan

Imperfect Spartan PDF Author: Loxwood D. E. (author)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780463543818
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Spartans

The Spartans PDF Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1590208374
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
“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

The Spartans

The Spartans PDF Author: Andrew J. Bayliss
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198853084
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
The image of Sparta, and the Spartans, is one dyed indelibly into the public consciousness: musclebound soldiers with long hair and red cloaks, bearing shiny bronze shields emblazoned with the Greek letter lambda. 'This is Sparta!', bellows Leonidas on the silver screen, as he decides to lead his 300 warriors to their deaths at Thermopylae. But what was Sparta? The myths surrounding Sparta are as old as the city itself. Even in antiquity, Sparta was a unique society, considered an enigma. The Spartans who fought for freedom against the Persians called themselves 'equals' or peers, but their equality was reliant on the ruthless exploitation of the indigenous population known as helots. The Spartans' often bizarre rules and practices have the capacity to horrify as much they do to fascinate us today. Athenian writers were intrigued and appalled in equal measure by a society where weak or disabled babies were said to have been examined carefully by state officials before being dumped off the edge of a cliff. Even today their lurid stories have shaped our image of Sparta; a society in which cowards were forced to shave off half their beards, to dress differently from their peers, and who were ultimately shunned to the extent that suicide seemed preferable. Equally appalling to us today is the brutal krypteia, a Spartan rite of passage where teenagers were sent into the countryside armed with a knife and ordered to eliminate the biggest and most dangerous helots. But the truth behind these stories of the exotic other can be hard to discover, lost amongst the legend of Sparta which was even perpetuated by later Spartans, who ran a thriving tourist industry that exaggerated the famed brutality of their ancestors. As Andrew Bayliss explores in this book, there was also much to admire in ancient Sparta, such as the Spartans' state-run education system which catered even to girls, or the fact that Sparta was almost unparalleled in the pre-modern world in allowing women a clear voice, with no fewer than forty sayings by Spartan women preserved in our sources. This book reveals the best and the worst of the Spartans, separating myth from reality.

Spartan

Spartan PDF Author: Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416561609
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Full of passion, courage and magic, Spartan is an enthralling novel of the ancient world.

Leonidas of Sparta

Leonidas of Sparta PDF Author: Helena P. Schrader
Publisher: Wheatmark, Inc.
ISBN: 1604944749
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The smaller of twins, born long after two elder brothers, Leonidas was considered an afterthought from birth -- even by his mother. Lucky not to be killed for being undersized, he was not raised as a prince like his eldest brother, Cleomenes, who was heir to the throne, but instead had to endure the harsh upbringing of ordinary Spartan youth. Barefoot, always a little hungry, and subject to harsh discipline, Leonidas had to prove himself worthy of Spartan citizenship. Struggling to survive without disgrace, he never expected that one day he would be king or chosen to command the combined Greek forces fighting a Persian invasion. But these were formative years that would one day make him the most famous Spartan of them all: the hero of Thermopylae. This is the first book in a trilogy of biographical novels about Leonidas of Sparta. This first book describes his childhood in the infamous Spartan agoge. The second will focus on his years as an ordinary citizen, and the third will describe his reign and death. About the Author Helena P. Schrader holds a PhD in history from the University of Hamburg, which she earned with her groundbreaking biography of General Friedrich Olbricht, the mastermind behind the Valkyrie plot against Hitler. She has published four nonfiction works on modern history and has been published in academic journals including Sparta: Journal of Ancient Spartan and Greek History. Helena has done extensive research on ancient and archaic Sparta. She has combined her research with common sense and a deep understanding of human nature to create a refreshingly unorthodox portrayal of Spartan society in this biographical trilogy of Leonidas, as well as in her three previously published novels, The Olympic Charioteer, Are They Singing in Sparta? and Spartan Slave, Spartan Queen. Visit her website at www.helena-schrader.com or learn more about Sparta from her website Sparta Reconsidered at www.elysiumgates.com/ helena.

Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta

Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta PDF Author: Stephen Hodkinson
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
ISBN: 1910589349
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
The standard image of Sparta is of an egalitarian, military society which disdained material possessions. Yet property and wealth played a critical role in her history. Classical Sparta's success rested upon a compromise between rich and poor citizens. Economic differences were masked by a uniform lifestyle and a communal sharing of resources. Over time, however, increasing inequalities led to a plutocratic society and to the decline of Spartan power. Using an innovative combination of historical, archaeological and sociological methods, Stephen Hodkinson challenges traditional views of Sparta's isolation from general Greek culture. This volume is the first major monograph-length discussion of a subject on which the author is recognised as the leading international authority.

A History of the Greek and Roman World (Routledge Revivals)

A History of the Greek and Roman World (Routledge Revivals) PDF Author: George B. Grundy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317704355
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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Book Description
A History of the Greek and Roman World, first published in 1926, presents the story of Graeco-Roman antiquity from its earliest recorded origins to the height of the Roman imperium. It aims to bring into prominence the internal dynamism - political, cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic – which animated the ancient peoples at different periods of their history, and to draw attention to the physical, socio-economic and religious conditions under which they lived. Written in a style which will likely be unfamiliar to modern readers, Grundy’s historical portrait is painted with broad brush-strokes, offering not only compelling narrative but also incisive commentary on the individuals and societies which occupy the foreground. A History of the Greek and Roman World will be of interest for the general enthusiast as well as students, who may value such a radically different approach to the interpretation of antiquity compared to the conventions which prevail amongst contemporary scholars.

Pausanius the Spartan

Pausanius the Spartan PDF Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton Baron Lytton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean

Myth and Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean PDF Author: Irad Malkin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009466054
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Greek attitudes to settlement and territory were often articulated through myths and cults. This book emphasizes less the poetic, timeless qualities of the myths than their historical function in the archaic and Classical periods, covering the spectrum from explicit charter myths legitimating conquest, displacement, and settlement to the 'precedent-setting' and even aetiological myths, rendering new landscapes 'Greek'. This spectrum is broadest in the world of Spartan colonization – the Spartan Mediterranean – where the greater challenges to territorial possession and Sparta's acute self-awareness of its relative national youthfulness elicited explicit responses in the form of charter myths. The concept of a Spartan Mediterranean, in contrast to the image of a land-locked Sparta, is a major contribution of this book. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments on Sparta since the original publication.