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43 results

Page 1 of 3

  • Chapter 3 - Few against Many

  • Matthew A. Sears, University of New Brunswick
  • Book:
    Sparta and the Commemoration of War
    Published online:
    08 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023, pp 64-99

  • Summary

    A look at the commemoration of the Persian Wars, especially the Battle of Thermopylae, through commemorative epigrams. A comparison of Spartan commemoration with that of other Greeks, concluding that initially the Spartans did not frame Thermopylae or the Persian Wars as a struggle for Greece or freedom, but as an arena for demonstrating excellence and winning glory.

  • Epilogue

  • Matthew A. Sears, University of New Brunswick
  • Book:
    Sparta and the Commemoration of War
    Published online:
    08 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023, pp 236-249

  • Summary

    A meditation on how militaristic commemoration continues to influence attitudes towards war and increase the liklihood of more wars being fought in the future. Since the Spartans did not initially commemorate their wars as acts of liberation or altrusim, leading in the beginning to fewer rather than more wars, we should reconsider framing our wars as virtuous and selfless campaigns to help others, at least if we want wars to stop occurring.

  • Chapter 2 - Warrior Poets

  • Matthew A. Sears, University of New Brunswick
  • Book:
    Sparta and the Commemoration of War
    Published online:
    08 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023, pp 33-63

  • Summary

    A study of Archaic Spartan commemoration, starting with Homeric ideas and the poetry of Tyrtaeus. A look at some key commemorative events in Archaic Sparta, including Sparta’s relationship with Samos and the Messenian Wars. A consideration of the role of commemoration in Spartan religion and cult.

  • Chapter 7 - From Thermopylae to 300

  • Matthew A. Sears, University of New Brunswick
  • Book:
    Sparta and the Commemoration of War
    Published online:
    08 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023, pp 197-235

  • Summary

    The reception of Sparta, especially the Three Hundred, through 18th-century France, 19th- 20th-century Germany, 19th-century America, the Second World War, the Cold War, and today. A considering of how Sparta’s own distortion of Thermopylae in antiquity has been amplified throughout the centuries to leave us with the legacy of Thermopylae as a war for freedom when at the time it was not framed in any such way.

Sparta and the Commemoration of War
  • Matthew A. Sears
  • Published online:
    08 December 2023
    Print publication:
    21 December 2023
  • The tough Spartan soldier is one of the most enduring images from antiquity. Yet Spartans too fell in battle – so how did ancient Sparta memorialise its wars and war dead? From the poet Tyrtaeus inspiring soldiers with rousing verse in the seventh century BCE to inscriptions celebrating the 300's last stand at Thermopylae, and from Spartan imperialists posing as liberators during the Peloponnesian War to the modern reception of the Spartan as a brave warrior defending the “West”, Sparta has had an outsized role in how warfare is framed and remembered. This image has also been distorted by the Spartans themselves and their later interpreters. While debates continue to rage about the appropriateness of monuments to supposed war heroes in our civic squares, this authoritative and engaging book suggests that how the Spartans commemorated their military past, and how this shaped their military future, has perhaps never been more pertinent.

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