Month: June 2012
'Spartan Supremacy: A "Possession for Ever"? Early fourth-century expectations of enduring ascendancy'in Hindsight in Greek and Roman History, ed. Anton Powell, Swansea (Classical Press of Wales) 2013, pp. 91-112.
This article explores and analyses the ways in which historians, both modern and ancient, have applied hindsight to the Spartan empire of 404-371 B.C., and to its downfall. Many modern treatments of the period are even labelled as studies in Spartan failure, and thus betray a tendency to over-emphasise error and lack of foresight on the part of Sparta.Read more...
'"Go, tell the Prussians…": The Spartan paradigm in Prussian military thought during the long nineteenth century'in New Voices in Classical Reception Studies ejournal, Issue 7 (2012), pp. 25-39.
This article examines the ways in which Ancient Spartan history and mores, and in particular the Spartan art of war, were often portrayed as providing useful precedents for the Prussian military. Commentators frequently saw the Officer-Corps as embodying a type of ‘new Sparta’ in Prussia, recreating a similarly militaristic and socially exclusive society in contemporary terms.Read more...