LogFAQs > #934661643

solosnake posted...

sounds like an unbiased source

We take what we can get, especially since the Spartans of the Classical era didn't leave us any surviving written work. Even so Xenophon had his biases, and so did all the writers of the classical era when it came to Sparta's government, because all of our surviving writers were rich men who admired the Spartan system of government because it was one that benefited them. Still he is our best source on Sparta since he actually lived among them and a lot of other contemporary works had a lot of propaganda in them and even more dire is later sources are infested by centuries of Spartan propaganda. Some supposed traditions would be the land distribution attributed to Lykorgos of Sparta by Plutarch but such thing is not mentioned by Xenophon, Thukydides or Herodotos. It's very likely it was an invented tradition by King Cleomones II in order to legitimize his own land reforms. Other things like a ritual described by Xenophon with kids encouraged to steal cheeses and getting whipped if caught becomes a sadistic ritual where children are whipped until they're exhausted at the temple of artemis by the Roman era.

Scholars like Stephen Hodkinson, the leading expert on Sparta, leans heavily on Xenophon simply because he's our best source on classical sparta and later sources are tainted by centuries of heavy spartan propaganda.

Here's a cool blog post going briefly on Sparta if you're interested in learning more:
https://acoup.blog/category/collections/this-isnt-sparta/

Also edu profile for Stephen Hodkinson including free papers:
https://nottingham.academia.edu/StephenHodkinson

Brief overview on contemporary spartan studies:
http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/32475/2/Hodkinson.%20Transforming%20Sparta%20Ancient%20History%20Resources%20for%20Teachers%2041-44%202011-2014.pdf

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