Why Are Historians Rewriting the History of Sparta? What's the New Evidence? ft. Bret Devereaux

The longstanding image of ancient Sparta as a warrior society has been overturned in the latest scholarship on ancient Greece. More specifically, some recent scholars are now debunking traditional narratives about hoplite warfare, how the phalanx operated, and how the Spartan citizens treated the Helots (the enslaved population of Laconia/Lacedaimon). What has caused this shift in the scholarship? Bret Devereux is a military historian at North Carolina State University and author of the recent viral article "Spartans Were Losers: The US Military's Admiration of a Proto-Fascist City-State is Based on Bad History." He joins us on this episode of the Ancient Greece Declassified podcast to explain why he thinks that the traditional image of Sparta as an egalitarian society of warrior badasses is a lie. You can find his blog, where he writes extensively on Sparta, here: https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ For our full list of programs on ancient history, visit our website: https://greecepodcast.com To support our programming visit https://patreon.com/greecepodcast