Essay --

Either with your shield, or on it. These were the words tell by Spartan women as their men left for war. The meaning is carry either return with your shield, alive and victorious, or return as a corpse. There are no other options. This mentality of Spartans neer retreat, Spartans never surrender, and a lifetime of physical training produced in ancient Sparta an elite group caste of warriors who dominated classical Greece for centuries. The Spartans were giganticly respected during their day, causing angiotensin converting enzyme exiled King to say the Lacedaemonians, when they fight singly, are as good as any in the world. Time has done nothing to soften the laudation felt for the Spartan warrior. Innumerable video games, films, and novels have represented Spartans as invincible warriors, the valiant Spartan phalanx standing strong against a horde of unending barbarians. Invariably, the Spartans have been represented as speaking of exemption and reason, versus the for ces of tyranny and barbarism. While most wars the Spartans fought were against other classics, as the fractious Greek city-states were wont to do, invariably the popular culture accounts of the 20th and 21st degree centigrade depict them as being pitted against the largest contemporary empire, the Persians, who, in an fabulously short period, were able to create the largest land empire the world had in so far seen. The Persians surpassed the Greeks in many ways, and yet there are no Hollywood blockbusters about Cyrus conquering Babylon, or video games of Persian military feats. unexampled popular culture has raised the Spartan to the highest pedestal of adoration, producing pulp of each kind to feed his flame. The Persians, meanwhile, have been brought low and demonized, even neglected. The questi... ...aging. This logic strike Cyrus so much that he acted on the advice of Croesus and reclaimed the booty. Here Cyrus is visualised as a rational, just ruler, who treats conquered subjects with restraint. This is in contrast to the loser in the struggle, Croesus, who, although Herodotus represents as wise and strong, is much too hasty. When he received the forecasting from the Oracle at Delphi of If you attack, you will destroy a great empire, in response to his question of whether he should bring the fight to the Achaemenids, he travel across the river to attack Cyruss position, eager to destroy a great empire. Of course, the ambiguity of the oracle was his undoing, as it was his own Lydian empire that he destroyed. In this episode, Herodotus is not afraid to admit the faults of his Ionian Greek brethren, or to judge positive attributes to the Greeks enemy.