• CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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      6 months ago

      Honestly, they don’t really deserve the idolization they get even beyond the movies. Sparta was a rather brutal slaver society after all, the reason for their famous military training was mostly to deal with rebellion by their slave population which greatly outnumbered them. If they still existed as they did then, they’d probably be viewed with the same kind of contempt we view places like North Korea.

      • DPRK_Official@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        People view North Korea with contempt? Who would do such a thing?

        No, seriously, we’d love to know so we can send them to a reeducation camp change their mind.

    • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Zizek’s take on 300 is so good, here’s an excerpt:

      it is the story a small and poor country (Greece) invaded by the army of a much larges state (Persia), at that point much more developed, and with a much more developed military technology - are the Persian elephants, giants and large fire arrows not the ancient version of high-tech arms? When the last surviving group of the Spartans and their king Leonidas are killed by the thousands of arrows, are they not in a way bombed to death by techno-soldiers operating sophisticated weapons from a safe distance, like today’s US soldiers who push the rocket buttons from the warships safely away in the Persian Gulf? Furthermore, Xerxes’s words when he attempts to convince Leonidas to accept the Persian domination, definitely do not sound as the words of a fanatic Muslim fundamentalist: he tries to seduce Leonidas into subjection by promising him peace and sensual pleasures if he rejoins the Persian global empire. All he asks from him is a formal gesture of kneeling down, of recognizing the Persian supremacy - if the Spartans do this, they will be given supreme authority over the entire Greece. Is this not the same as what President Reagan demanded from Nicaraguan Sandinista government? They should just say “Hey uncle!” to the US…

  • Aielman15@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    When I read of historical conquerors and dictators, I always wonder where the heck do they get their drive to do all that.

    Like, I struggle to wake up on mondays, spend wednesdays hoping that the weekend comes soon, and on saturday I lay on the sofa and do nothing for 24 hours straight.

    This guy invaded a foreign land he didn’t need just because he felt barely offended by the words of its inhabitants. He should’ve appreciated the humour and moved on imo, but maybe that’s just me.

    • bstix@feddit.dk
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      6 months ago

      To be fair, he didn’t. It was his army that did it and I’m pretty sure they too had trouble getting motivated on Monday mornings.

    • falcunculus@jlai.lu
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      6 months ago

      It was the other way around, Philip was trying to conquer Greece and he figured sending a threatening letter to Sparta might be enough, since at that point they were about powerless.

      So the invasion was always planned and the courtesy of the answer didn’t matter.

  • key@lemmy.keychat.org
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    6 months ago

    How were messages communicated back then? Wonder if the messenger forgot the rest of the message and was like “if… Um… Just if ya, those laconic Laconians you know how they are” and that’s what got written down in history

  • blackstampede@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    My favorite part of 300 is the bit they didn’t include - how Sparta eventually became a second-rate tourist destination where middle class families could go watch Spartans do local ceremonies and parade in their armor.