There are plenty of stories about the Spartans being brutal precursors to the Nazis and other dreadful authoritarian regimes with some Nazis and Hitler himself using the civilization as proof of why totalitarianism and eugenics can work. But, new evidence shows that if they ever travelled back in time to the actual version of ancient Sparta that existed in the past, they would be very disappointed in what they would find and we at Mint Message even made a video about this if you want to watch it below:
If you would rather read, then you should know that back in 2010, an archaeological dig was done with various universities to see how many infant remains could be found at the bottom of cliffs because according to legend, Spartans practiced a form of eugenics where they would throw weak children off of cliffs. However, the dig literally found zero remains from children and the only remains were from adult criminals. While throwing criminals off of cliffs is brutal, this might prove that the whole 'eugenics' thing may have been a myth from Sparta's enemies or an exaggeration of their practice of disposing of criminals.
On top of that, Sparta also had a form of democracy called range voting. As we have stated before, range voting is a form of voting back in early Sparta that started in 700 BC where male citizens could vote for or against laws proposed by the two-king system in Sparta and even vote to elect local leaders. Later, even women were allowed to come to these assemblies and vote. So while Sparta is not perfect and still was brutally militaristic, it might have been far from being the proto-Nazi dictatorship we depict it as in pop culture. People could vote unlike in dictatorships like Nazi Germany and the USSR & disabled people in Sparta may have been kept around as non-slave weapon designers, war philosophers, and people allowed to help defend the homefront instead of being killed as infants.
Sources:
-“Ancient Sparta – Description of Governmental System.” Rangevoting.org - Ancient Sparta - Description of Governmental System, 2002, http://rangevoting.org/SpartaBury.html .
-Boring, Terrence A. Literacy in Ancient Sparta. E.J. Brill, 1979.
-Laslier Jean-François, and M. Remzi Sanver. Handbook on Approval Voting. Springer, 2010.
-Pitsios, Theodoros K. "Ancient Sparta – Research Program of Keadas Cavern", 2010, pp. 13–22. Bulletin Der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft Für Anthropologie. .
-“Sparta.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2022, https://www.britannica.com/place/Sparta
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