Swords, Weapons & Movie Prop Replicas from Replica Dungeon

Movie Collectibles - Movie Props - Movie Replicas

Monday, September 24

Spartan History

With all the hype surrounding the movie "300" with the Spartans versus the huge Persian empire, I wanted to get a better idea of the real history of the Spartans so I went to the books. The history books that is. I was quite amazed at how Sparta operated.

Sparta shunned trade, refused gold and silver coins, developed its own native system of iron ringsfor use in exchange and lived in economic isolation in Lakonia, the territorial valley in the eastern Peloponnesus. The Spartans began their polictical history by conquering the city-state immediately to their west: Messenia. They then transformed the local inhabitants into the Helots, as mentioned above. Helots were state owned slaves tied to the land, who did the work needed to feed the Spartan population and freed the Spartan men to prepare for war. But while the Helots functioned as an ecomonic caste in Spartan society, they also represented a constant threat because of their social, economic and political oppression. Hence, the Spartan citizen always had to be vigilant against possible Helot rebellion.

Between the perceived threats from within and without, Spartan society was entirely geared for warfare and in a continuous state of battle readiness. The Spartan male was separated from his family at age 6 and put into a system of training known as Agoge (which was mentioned in the movie 300), in which he learned to be a cog in the collective responsibility to defend Sparta. The system deliberately weakened family ties and emphasized the importance of the city as a whole, since young boys lived together and rarely went home. Young adult males supervised the military training of the younger boys, who were expected to learn all the military arts: marching, gymnastics, singing, weight lifting, foraging and reading. Once they reached the age of 12, the boys attended the men's mess to select a military mentor (a young man who would carry one of them off to finish his education). This man and boy would leave for some place in the countryside for several months where the youung boy formed a bond that linked the manly art of war to sexual activity.

Once these young boys were accepted into the Spartan male life, that is being able to attend the mess, they lived in groups of fifteen, eating and fighting together until the age of 30. At this age, they were finally permitted to marry and start a family and were considered full citizens. Even after all this, the men were permitted to eat with the mess until age 60.

So after all that, the movie 300, which depicted Spartan life, was not far from the real truth. Pretty cool stuff huh? Now that you know a little more about the mighty Spartans, its time to get some of our 300 movie collectibles from Replica Dungeon!