Cartledge's Opinion Essay

In Sparta deeds were more important than words, which is the explanation that Cartledge gives. This gives us the reasoning of why the history or evidence for Spartan’s history is difficult to come across or find. Until the early fourth century BC all Greeks made “heroic warriors”, but the Spartans were the one who actually trained for war. The organized their life from childhood around the means of being battle ready. One of the reason Cartledge give for their drive for military might was because they enslaved an entire population of Greeks and wanted to make sure it stayed that way productively to maintain their economic infrastructure (Cartledge 71). In the second half of the eighth century the Spartans made a fateful decision to expand, which got them more than double their home territory and occupying neighbors. This expansion gave then a huge body of serfs called Helots that help produce corps. Cartledge said the most reasonable explanation to this expansion was because of the land shortage. (Cartledge 75) With Sparta’s high view of duty, they …show more content…
After the rebellion the Spartans made a ‘Lycurgan’ reform that affected the economics, politico-military, and social aspects. Economically this reform cause a land distribution where the New Messesians gain more land and the Spartans were given access to minimum amount of land. This minimum controlled the amount of communities and helots they could own (Cartledge 76). Politico-militarily, all Spartans became voting members of a primary warrior-assembly, this voting took place by shouting not by balloting. It still remained aristocratic by having a senate of thirty elders and two Spartan kings that were ex officio members (Cartledge 77). The social reform made it where the Spartan boys from age 7 where to be educated communally, centrally, and under state controlled supervision. They learned compressively and compulsory along with drilling (Cartledge