Sparta

Rise of a Warrior Nation

De: Philip Matyszak

Narrado por: Mike Cooper

This cultural history of Ancient Sparta chronicles the rise of its legendary military power and offers revealing insight into the people behind the myths.

The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless, and impervious to pain. And indeed, they often lived up to this image. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts.

We might admire their physical toughness, but Spartans also systematically abused their children. They gave rights to female citizens that were unmatched in Europe until the modern era, meanwhile subjecting their conquered subject peoples to a murderous reign of terror. Though idealized by the Athenian contemporaries of Socrates, Sparta was almost devoid of intellectual achievement.

In this revealing history of Spartan society, Philip Matyszak chronicles the rise of the city from a Peloponnesian village to the military superpower of Greece. Above all, Matyszak investigates the role of the Spartan hoplite, the archetypal Greek warrior who was feared throughout Greece in his own day and has since become a legend. The listener is shown the man behind the myth; who he was, who he thought he was, and the environment which produced him.

©2017 Philip Matyszak (P)2021 Tantor

The content and the narrator’s voice.

Very repeatable book. I had to get use to the narrator’s voice but now I love the whole book and everything about it.

very informative about sparta

It gives out a very informative history of Sparta from its beginning to even the very end overall great experience.

informational and interesting

id recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the basic (to medium in-depth-ness) history of the rise of sparta leading into the aftermath of the war at thermopylae, informing on the cultural, international, militaristic and political goings ons of the greek state in its time

Great overview of the Spartans

These guys were the og Badasses. Saw the movie 300 years ago and it’s cool to see how close to real life that was. A few strong men stood against the invading Persians. Narrator mispronounced some names tho…

Information dense

This author is very adept at providing enough detail to be informative without getting bogged down in detail of minimal interest to the general reader.

Sparta history top-tier

Learning the origins of this warrior state was a eye-opener. I can’t wait to learn more.

An Interesting People

The Spartans are one of the most fascinating of ancient peoples. Their transformation of their society into a “perfect” military state was so extreme that it intrigues people even today. And yet this relatively small state created a military machine which held off the Persian Empire at Thermopylae and dominated much of Greece in its struggle with Athens during the decades-long Peloponnesian War. This book looks at Sparta through the crisis that motivated its militaristic transformation through Thermopylae. It is definitely interesting, but I think it would have been better if it continued the history another few hundred years, but I guess that’s what the next volume is for.