- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Oh ya, maybe I should actually explain who the Spartans were.
The Spartans were a group of people from the Greek city-state of Sparta. From a young age (6) all males began war training. Their whole society was based around war. Their schooling consisted of six hours of physical education and four hours of actual learning.
The elderly were encouraged to beat up anyone younger than them on the street to raise their resistance to being tortured. This means if you were 45, and you saw a 14 year old on the street, you had the legal right to beat him to a bloody pulp.
They incorporated anything and everything into war, even the Olympics. For example: javelin throwing. Instead of practicing for length of the throw, they practiced for accuracy. A line was drawn straight infront of the thrower and the closer they threw it to that line the better their score. They used this for spear-throwing practice so they could perfect their skills during battle.
The Spartans were basically like the perfect humans; they were smart and physically fit. To give you an example of how Spartans changed the tides of war... take the Peloponnesian War for example. Corinth and Sparta, 2, count em 2 city-states, fought against and won against Athens and its allies... over 140 other city-states. 2 > 140 ?
Here's a little visual image of a Spartan:
Take some 6'5" guy, make him the fittest man you've ever seen then multiply that by 50... and there you go.
Oh ya, and if any of you are wondering why I seem to know so much about them... we studied them last semester.
[Edited on 3/27/2005 6:18:03 PM]