Spartan School (2019)
&gt;&gt; As we’ll see, the significance of this supposed achievement is also
undermined by the fact that the majority of people living under the Spartan
state did not take part in it. Heck, the majority of males living in the Spartan
state didn’t take part in it. Hell, even the majority of free, non-foreign men
weren’t eligible. That’s because the agoge was restricted to the Spartan citizen
class – the spartiates – who in turn comprised only a tiny minority of the
people actually living in Sparta.<p>Thus the article makes a distinction betwen &quot;Spartan citizen&quot; and everyone else
living in Sparta (historically, Lacedaemon). In the next article in the series
the author makes it even more explicit, saying (of the social hierarchy of
Sparta):<p>&gt;&gt; At the top were the Spartiates, the full-citizen male Spartans.<p>This distinction between &quot;Spartiates&quot; and (other) &quot;Spartans&quot; is a modern
invention. There is nowhere, in the entire body of Greek historiography any such
distinction to be found. Indeed, such a distinction would be lignuistically
impossible because there isn&#x27;t, in the Greek language, a different word for
&quot;Spartiates&quot; and &quot;Spartan&quot;. These two words are different <i>only in their English
rendition</i> (and perhaps in other European languages also).<p>In (ancient and modern) Greek, a male from Sparta is a &quot;Spartiates&quot; (Σπαρτιάτης,
with an eta, male singular). A female from Sparta is a &quot;Spartiatissa&quot;
(Σπαρτιάτισσα). Many people from Sparta are &quot;Spartiates&quot; (Σπαρτιάτες, with an
epsilon, male plural).<p>All of these grammatical forms represent the same concept: of a free, full
citizen of Sparta, i.e. what the author of the article calls a &quot;Spartiate&quot;.
Anyone else is never referred to, in the Greek ancient sources by any kind of
demonym derived from &quot;Sparta&quot;. The reason being that those other people
inhabiting the land of Sparta and serving the Spartans, were the Spartans&#x27;
slaves and it was not a done thing in the ancient world to refer to the slaves
of a people by the same demonym as the free people.<p>Compare for example &quot;Athenian&quot; (Αθηναίος), the demonym of the male, free
citizens of Athens, and never used to refer to the slaves (δούλοι), or the
foreigners (μέτοικοι, metics, basically immigrants) also living in Athens. The
same goes for Corinthians, Megarites, Argites, Thebans, etc etc.<p>The next article in the series takes this modern misconception, or perhaps
invention, and runs with it, somehow turning the fact that Spartans had slaves
that had no rights into an indictment of Spartmant society. Unfortunately, the
same can be said e.g. of Athens, where only indigenous males enjoyed the
privileges of the Athenian democracy (while it lasted) while women and slaves
had no rights and immigrants hadn&#x27;t even the right to own land in Athens.<p>In short, it seems to me that this series of articles is strongly motivated not
from any wish to set the record straight on the true history of Sparta and its
inhabitants, but by a desire to provoke outrage for a people who died 2000 years
ago. As if we didn&#x27;t have enough calls to be outraged for modern matters already.<p>Bottom line, please don&#x27;t take your knowledge of history from some guy with a
blog on the internets.