This was a very interesting and rather difficult read. Difficulty emerges from the fact that this is serious academic level work that assumes reader is familiar with the period and can grasp at least basics of Greek language (both written and spoken). I have some knowledge of former and almost nothing of the latter. But even with that handicap I managed to enjoy the book very much by using other books on the subject and translation tools whenever question marks started popping up.

That aside it is very informative and detailed book that gives us the picture of the Spartan society - their morals, way of life, education, virtues and political organization. For the outsiders Sparta was what North Korea (or any totalitarian/authoritarian society) is today - closed society, with very strict control of border and who may or may not enter or leave it, relatively small elite controlling vast area and enslaved population, every person raised to defend it and glorify his polis as a Heaven on Earth.

While I understand need for isolation from external influences for security reasons (Sparta was after all the only polis that could not be bribed by the outside forces) very idea of limiting ones movements and forcing the microcosm of the polis to become macrocosm of ones life is quite stifling. Also we have ominously sounding state control of the individual and breaking of the family, all in order to ensure state (polis) has primacy always and forever. What author does brilliantly is show how all these methods of oppression and control implode on personal level - while wealth was something that was looked down on in Sparta, Spartiates never allowed their family or house/clan in general to lose their wealth; while living in the communal/military spaces Spartiates still kept their families close and took care of them.

While their structure remained very rigid introduction of Ephors to control Kings and then Elders to control Ephors shows that Spartiates were very much aware of what happens when too much power is in hands of few, but they also knew that dilution of power can bring same level of risks and dangers. They tried (as rigid as they were) to modernize their political structures to ensure longevity of their polis.

We can see polis that tried to instill loyalty-to-the-death on its citizens, that tried to achieve the ideals of perfect citizen/commune and one that was more than aware that its survival solely depended on the readiness of its constituency to give their life for its survival (since they were literary surrounded by slaves and enemies that outnumbered them considerably). But for all means and purposes it was too specialized, too isolated society that could prevail when left to its own devices but the moment they started dominating the rest of Greece they were doomed to fail. I especially liked transformation from rather grim, militaristic society to anti-tyrannical force. I guess everyone needs a reason to live that will paint one in positive light.

Society needs to evolve and this was the main chink in Sparta's armor - they were stubborn to change and formed a very rigid social structure that just could not endure tests of time.

It remains as an eternal warning that ideals are something to strive for but living in ideal world as time goes by seems to be more of a hell than promised land because no-one's idea of the ideal world is the same and usually worst implementation comes to life (Michael Crichton's Sphere was an excellent book on the topic). It seems to me that Rome was a rare successful and workable amalgamation of the ancient Greece virtues and morals [reason why it survived so long] - just right measure of greed, imperialism, patriotism and loyalty to ones family and country.

Excellent book, lots of details from the contemporary Greek historians and writers. Highly recommended to all history and military buffs. First part might be little bit dry but then it becomes better with every new page. I am now looking for the other books by this author.

Highly recommended. ( )

Paul A. Rahe’s The Spartan Regime [Amazon link] is a slim volume on Sparta is absolutely packed with details. Rahe blends history, paleolinguistics, archeology, and even ancient DNA into his argument for why Sparta ended up with one of the most astonishing social and legal structures of the classical age.

Sparta was a politeia unlike any of the others, a source of both fascination and hatred for at least 2,500 years. The hold of Sparta on both educated and popular opinion is all the more remarkable since they left almost no written records. Athens and Rome left copious literatures behind them to help cement their place in history. There are some contemporary accounts of Sparta from Classical Greece, and a few more from later eras, but the historical evidence is thin.

Rahe augments his argument with the archaeological record, which he uses in part to help corroborate or downplay the written accounts we do have. Something that is new to me is that Rahe argues the 465 BC earthquake that destroyed Sparta not only contributed to the Peloponnesian War, but also destroyed the demographic base of Sparta. In theory, homoioi had a Spartan mother and father, but in the aftermath of the earthquake men of more varied parentage were elevated as peers. This is a plausible explanation for the sudden drop about this time in the strength of the Spartan phalanxes, since they were crippled by the loss of so many citizens. In general, I had suspected that their purity obsessions and harsh agoge kept their numbers lower than they otherwise might have been, but such an event could have pushed their population into a demographic downward spiral.

Rahe is frank about the inherent difficulty of interpreting the sparse information we have on Sparta. Everyone brings their own biases to the table, so the best we can do is acknowledge our own points of view and then make the best argument we can. This is made harder because we have to contend not only our own biases, but also those of the authors who did write something down about Sparta, at the distance of more than two millennia. While I am not a specialist here, I felt that Rahe explained his reasons for weighing the evidence reasonably well to a popular audience.

I am a fan of Rahe’s argument that Spartan society evolved out of the precarious strategic situation of Laconia after the Dorian invaders/bandits who were their ancestors managed to over-extend their domain, and were forced to subordinate absolutely everything to political unity and military preparedness. My favorite section of the book was where he delved into the evidence for what Sparta was like before the Classical Era, before the hoplite phalanx had even been invented. In part, Rahe does his work here by taking oral history seriously, which is quite different than uncritically.

But he is also aware that no one lives up to their own legends. Not even the Spartans. Rahe has more volumes on Sparta coming out, so perhaps I’ll check those out too. Highly recommended. ( )

The title is truth in advertising as what one has here is an examination of Spartan government, the circumstances that created a regime that may look superficially totalitarian to modern eyes (it wasn't) and what were the long-term strategic implications of the system; highly recommended. The only reason I don't give this book the full five stars is that it might be a little too technical for the general reader with no exposure to classical Greek history. ( )