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3 February, 2025
After the Dark Ages, a period of Greek history of which we have mostly no written accounts, the Greek society started to evolve (and by that, I mean the general conception of society changed): we know that, during the VII century b.C., the concept of "community" was introduced in the Greek culture and way of thinking and more representations of social events and similar gatherings started to appear at the end of the Dark Ages. It was in this period that the concept of polis was "born" (sorry again, lack of vocabulary). The polis wasn't just a city, but it was comparable to a micro-State, seen that each one was autosufficient, independent and had its own rules and rulers. The poleis were surrounded by a vast area dedicated to agricolture (one of the most important economical activities), the chora. The citizen of a polis is called polites (the suffix -tes is called "nomen agentis") and they had to own a territory to cultivate. Politai (plural of polites) had political rights as well, but, in Ancient Greek culture, rights are almost always associated with duties: in this particular case, the citizens had to protect the polis in case it was attacked. The only people considered politai were men (women, children and slaves couldn't -a classic-). In Greek society, the most influential people were the aristoi, the aristocrats and they were associated with two important concepts: agape, virtue, and time. You could only "obtain" time and agape if you had an actual blood bound (do you say it in English?) with an aristos, hence the aristoi are actually quite similar to the idea of aristocrats we have today. To be more specific, time is not a value that remains constant and it changes based on a person's behaviour (for instance, if you do some rlly stupid shit you lose time, while if you're a good person, you take care of the people around you, etc. you gain it): it'a kinda like social credits.
Nowadays, the main reasons to create a colony are to exploit its prime materials and because of strategical positions for commerce (oh, yes, inglis... -again, I can't write-). The Ancient Greek left their cities because why fuckin' not (jk, actually it was because a shitload of people were exiliated from their poleis, so they had to find a place to live and they just decided to create new cities 'cause they were rich af. And it was for economical and demographic purposes as well: most of the lands were of property of the aristoi and the other inhabitants of the poleis had to either suck it or emigrate). They either decided to found cities by themselves or tehy were sent by their polis. Most of the colonization stuff went on between XI and the VII centuries b.C. (there were mainly two periods of colonization). Unrelated but my mother is scrolling through Instagram at full volume and I can distinctly hear "Bamboleiro" from my room. With the door closed. But let's get to the point and not get distracted, ok? During the First Colonization (XI-X century B.C.), the most important colonies created were Ephesus and Miletus. During the Second Colonization, though, the Greeks founded a LOT (I shit you not, they're too many) of colonies (exactly 150): Plato (the buff history guy-sorry Plato, but it was necessary to point that out-), described the Greeks during this periods as :"frogs in a pond". Now, let's start listing ALL of the damn Greek colonies (I'm going to cry when I'll have to learn them all welp -I have a horrible memory-):
Anyways, after a colony was founded, it mantained only a cultural bond with the mainland and it was completely indepent. Imagine being indepent from your parents lmao, couldn't be me (/j). In fact, the word "colony" in Greek is apoikia, wich is composed by the preposition apo, that means "far from", and the word oikia, "house/home". Cool, uh? Definitely worth it to study hours and hours to learn A n c i e n t G r e e k (jk I love Ancient Greek :D *cough* 'cause I'm a masochist *cough*).
After the second half of the VII century b.C., a new combat tactic that mostly involved hoplites was introduced in Greece: this was the so-called "hoplite reform". The soldiers, equipped with an armor, a spear and a short sword, also possessed a shield, which was intended not only to protect themselves, but also their nearby companion. This type of formation was called hoplite phalanx. Even the introduction of the hoplite reform could be based on the Greek conception of society (after the Dark Ages), in which the group is considered more important than the individual: this type of combat is in fact very different from that used in Homeric battles (in Iliad, for example), where two heroes from different factions clash individually. The hoplites were equipped with a bronze armour, which was made up of various elements:
4 February, 2025
Sparta is located near the Taygetus mountain range and is crossed by the Europa river. The mountains (the most important was Mt. Taygetus -Very priginal name, huh?-) constituted a natural defense from enemy attacks. The legend says that Spartan newborns who showed health problems etc. were abandoned to die there (Aktion T4 took inspiration, I see...), even if no rests of children have been found in these areas, so probably only Spartan criminals were executed there.
Between 700 and 500 b.C., each polis created its own written laws, which formed their constitution. For Sparta it was no different: the legendary legislator Lycurgus the Child Abuser (an absolutely real title not given to him by myself -no but just look at his education model bro-), who lived in the VIII century, in fact created the constitution of Sparta. Then he exiled himself. Why? So damn random??? Yes, exactly, so damn random. Actually, he simply wanted to prevent anyone else from changing the laws after him: if they wanted the laws, they kept those made by him. P e r i o d. Anyways, the laws of Lycurgus also outlined the social structure of Sparta, which was in fact the longest-lasting attempt ever known in history to subject an individual to the State.
Between 750 b.C. and 650 b.C., Sparta fought two wars against the neighboring Messenian civilization: these two battles (ik a battle isn't a war, but understand my non-English speaking ass) were therefore called the Messenian Wars. Messenia was a fertile area rich of plains, which is why the Spartans, after subjugating the territory, enslaved its inhabitants, who were later called helots, forcing them to cultivate this land to enrich the polis (and, in particular, the Spartiats -again, don't know how to translate this lmao-, but we'll get to that later): this way, the small land empire of Sparta also obtained an agrarian base.
First of all, Sparta was a diarchy (from Ancient Greek duo, two, and arche, power), so there were 2 kings, that belonged to the most influential families among the Spartans: Agiads and Euripontides. The kings were in charge of the military powers and they were helped by other political organs: