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SPARTAN ARMY
Spartan mother give a shield to her son
Sparta was one of the greatest city-states of ancient Greece and for a long time the main rival of Athens. Unlike Athens which became a large power by way of trade and naval supremacy, Sparta rose through its military might and bravery. It was said that while Athens was centered around great buildings, Sparta was built by courageous men who “served their city in the place of walls of bricks.”
The Spartan army was small. It was the only professional force in Greece. In Sparta every grown male was a soldier granted a farm run by slaves. The Spartans army was trained to fight in a phalanx, using a tight gird of overlapping shields to form an impenetrable mobile unit. Herodotus wrote the Spartans fought "with swords, eyes, and with their hands and their teeth." Plato, Napoleon and Kurt Hahn, the founder of the Gordonstoun school, where Prince Charles studied, were inspired by the brutal discipline of the ancient Spartans.
The Spartans had a saying: “come back with the shield or on top of it”, meaning come back from battle victorious or dead. They were some of the toughest soldiers the world had ever known and are famous for their last stand at the battle of Thermopylae. They were masters of the shield and spear combination that was later copied by many other armies. [Source tstrubi, Listervse, April 20, 2010]
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Websites on Ancient Greece: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; ; Gutenberg.org gutenberg.org; British Museum ancientgreece.co.uk; Illustrated Greek History, Dr. Janice Siegel, Hampden–Sydney College hsc.edu/drjclassics ; The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization pbs.org/empires/thegreeks ; Cambridge Classics External Gateway to Humanities Resources web.archive.org/web; Ancient Greek Sites on the Web from Medea showgate.com/medea ; Greek History Course from Reed web.archive.org; Classics FAQ MIT classics.mit.edu;
Book: “The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece” by Paul Cartledge, a professor at Cambridge University
Spartan Views on Courage and Cowardice
Some say Spartans regarded a military expedition as a desirable opportunity of putting to the test their powers acquired in time of peace, and it was really a kind of festival to them. They set out for a campaign after sacrificing and taking auspices. In the enemy’s country they set up a camp, and this was not square as was the usual Greek custom, but round and unfortified; it was guarded by the outposts and the cavalry, who were sent out to patrol. The helots were encamped outside. Military drill was carried on very energetically within, but still, on the whole, the life and discipline in the field were less severe than at home; and on these occasions purple garments were worn, and the hair was carefully curled and decked with wreaths, a thing which was never done at home in time of peace. Before a battle they offered sacrifices in the early hours of the morning; then they set out against the enemy, with closed ranks and regular step, to the joyous sound of flutes and the marching song, in which the whole army joined. The heroic courage and self-denying endurance with which the Spartans fought, even without hope of victory, are everywhere renowned, and the noble friendships between older and younger men on these occasions stood out in the brightest light. [Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
Cristian Violatti wrote in Listverse: Xenophon (Constitution of Sparta: 9.4) provides a detailed list of the disastrous consequences that a Spartan soldier could face if he was perceived as a coward.According to this list, everyone would be ashamed to share a meal with a coward and to wrestle with him in the gymnasium. He would never be picked when choosing teammates for ball games, he had to make way for others in the street, he had to give his seat to younger men, he would not be able to find a woman to marry, and he could be beaten in case he behaved in a manner that would lead others to believe that he was not a coward.[Source by Cristian Violatti, Listverse, August 3, 2016]
During the famous last stand against the Persians in Thermopylae, a Spartan soldier named Aristodemus was suffering from a disease in the eyes and was too ill to fight. After returning to Sparta, he was known as “the coward Aristodemus.” One year later, Aristodemus fought and died bravely in the Battle of Plataea and regained his honor.Plutarch added another form of punishment for cowardice. He wrote that cowards had to “go around unkempt, wearing cloaks with patches of dyed cloth, and with one side of their beard shaved.” (“Life of Agesilaus”: 30).
Organization of the Spartan Army
Every “Spartiate,” that is, every man descended from an ancient Spartan family, was bound to military service in his country from his twentieth to his sixtieth year. Of course, they did not call upon all capable of bearing arms in time of war, but in each case the Ephors (the Spartan government) decided which classes were to be levied. Each of the five communities of Sparta supplied one division; these were again subdivided in companies, who messed in common. In later times, towards the end of the fifth century, the divisions were changed.[Source “The Home Life of the Ancient Greeks” by Hugo Blümner, translated by Alice Zimmern, 1895]
The whole Spartan army was then divided into six divisions, each of these into two companies; the size of these divisions varied according to requirement. The non-citizens too were called to military service; the “Perioiki” (traders, foreigners) formed separate divisions, who as a rule did not fight in the same ranks with the Spartiates, but still served like these, as heavy-armed infantry (ὁπλ ται), while the “Helots,” who were actual slaves, followed their masters to battle as attendants, chiefly as shield-bearers, and were sometimes used in battle as light-armed troops. The command in time of war fell to one of the two kings, and it was the citizens who decided which of the two should take the chief command on a particular occasion.
Each separate division of troops had its own leader, who was probably entrusted in time of peace also with the military training and exercise of his men. In military matters the Spartans far excelled most of the other Greeks, because their whole training and education rested on a military basis, and no glory was regarded as greater than that achieved in war. Moreover no Spartiate might work at any profession or trade, but was obliged to dedicate all his powers to the State, and therefore the Spartans were professional soldiers in the true sense of the word. It is true they were only strong in infantry; the cavalry was insignificant both in quality and quantity. Each division had some cavalry, but for this purpose they took the weaker men, who were incapable of serving as heavy-armed infantry, and, in consequence, the cavalry played a very unimportant part in the Spartan army, and they were often obliged to engage foreign mercenaries for the purpose.
Xenophon: The Spartan War Machine
Xenophon wrote in “The Spartan War Machine, c. 375 B.C.: “In the first instance, the ephors announce in proclamation the limit of age to which the service applies for cavalry and heavy infantry; and, in the next place, for the various artisans. So that, even on campaign, the Spartans are well-supplied with all the conveniences enjoyed by people living as citizens at Sparta. All the implements and instruments whatsoever which an army may need in common are ordered to be in readiness, some on wagons and others on baggage animals. In this way anything omitted can hardly escape detection. [Source: Xenophon, “The Spartan War Machine, c. 375 B.C. Fred Fling, ed., “A Source Book of Greek History,” Heath, 1907, pp. 73-75]
“For the actual encounter under arms, the following inventions are attributed to Lycurgos: the soldier has a crimson-colored uniform and a heavy shield of bronze; his theory being that such equipment has no sort of feminine association, and is altogether most warrior-like. It is most quickly burnished; it is least readily soiled. He further permitted those who were about the age of early manhood to wear their hair long. For so, he conceived, they would appear of larger stature, more free and indomitable, and of a more terrible aspect. So furnished and accoutered, he divided his hoplites into six morai [regiments] of cavalry and heavy infantry. Each of these hoplite morai has one polemarchos [colonel], four lochagoi [captains], eight penteconters [lieutenants], and sixteen enomotarchs [sergeants]. At a word of command any such morai can be formed readily into either enomoties [single-file], or into threes [three files of men abreast] or sixes [six files of men abreast].
“As to the idea, commonly entertained, that the tactical arrangement of the Spartan heavy infantry is highly complicated, no conception could be more opposed to facts. For in the Spartan order the front-rank-men are all leaders, so that each file has everything necessary to play its part efficiently. In fact, this disposition is so easy to understand that no one who can distinguish one human being from another can fail to follow it. One set have the privilege of leaders, the other the duty of followers. The evolutional orders by which greater depth or shallowness is given to the battle line are given by word of mouth, by the enomotarch, and they cannot be mistaken. None of these maneuvers presents any difficulty whatsoever to the understanding.
“I will now speak of the mode of encampment, sanctioned by the regulation of Lycurgos. To avoid the waste incidental to the angles of the square, the encampment, according to him, should be circular, except where there was the security of a hill or fortification, or where they had a river in the rear. He had sentinels posted during the day along the place of arms and facing inwards; since they are appointed not so much for the sake of the enemy as to keep an eye on friends. The enemy is sufficiently watched by mounted troopers perched on various points commanding the widest prospects. To guard against hostile approach by night, sentinel duty according to the ordinance was performed by the sciritai outside the main body. At the present time the rule is so far modified that the duty is entrusted to foreigners, if there be a foreign contingent present, with a leaven of Spartans to keep them company. The custom of always taking their spears with them when they go their rounds must certainly be attributed to the same cause which makes them exclude their slaves from a place of arms....The need of precaution is the whole explanation. The frequency with which they change their encampment is another point. It is done quite as much for the sake of benefitting their friends as annoying their enemies.
“Further, the law enjoins upon all Spartans, during the whole period of the campaign, the constant practice of gymnastic exercises, whereby their pride in themselves is increased, and they appear freer and of a more liberal aspect than the rest of the world. The walk and the running grounds must not exceed in length the space covered by a morai, so that one may not find himself far from his own stand of arms. After the gymnastic exercises, the senior polemarchos gives the order by herald to be seated. This serves all the purposes of inspection. After this the order is given "To get breakfast," and for "The outpost to be relieved." After this, again, come pastimes and relaxations before the evening exercises, after which the herald=s cry is heard "To take the evening meal." When they have sung a hymn to the gods to whom the offerings of happy omen have been performed, the final order "Retire to rest at the place of arms," is given.”
Herodotus on Spartan Bravery and Determination
Spartan boy practicing archery
In the following Herodotos presents a dialogue between Demaratos (a Greek) and Xerxes, Emperor of Persia, on the eve of the Battle of Thermopylae, where a small band of Spartans and Greeks defeated a massive Persian army. Herodotus wrote in Book 7 of “Histories”: Demaratos said: “All Greeks are brave, but what I am about to say does not concern all, but only the Spartans.First then, no matter what, the Spartans will never accept your terms. This would reduce Greece to slavery. They are sure to join battle with you even if all the rest of the Greeks surrendered to you. As for Spartan numbers, do not ask how many or few they are, hoping for them to surrender. For if a thousand of them should take the field, they will meet you in battle, and so will any other number, whether it is less than this, or more." [Source: Herodotus, “Histories” Book 7, translated by G. Rawlinson; revised, M. Markowski]
“When Xerxes heard this answer of Demaratus, he laughed and answered: "What wild words, Demaratus! A thousand men join battle with such an army as mine! Come then, will you — who were once, as you say, their king — fight alone right now against ten men? I think not. And yet, if your fellow-citizens really are as you say, then according to your laws as their king, you should be twice as tough and take on twenty all by yourself!" But, if you Greeks, who think so hightly of yourselves, are simply the size and kind of men as those I have seen at my court, or as yourself, Demaratus, then your bragging is weak. Use common sense: how could a thousand men, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand — particularly if they are all free, and not under one lord — how could such a force stand against a united army like mine? Even if the Greeks have larger numbers than our highest estimate, we still would outnumber them 100 to 1."
“If they had a single master as our troops have, their obedience to him might make them courageous beyond their own desire, or they might be pushed onward by the whip against an enemy which far outnumbered them. But left to their own free choice, they will surely act differently. For my part, I believe that if the Greeks had to contend with the Persians only, and the numbers were equal on both sides, the Greeks would still find it hard to stand their ground. We too have men among us as tough as those you described — not many perhaps, but enough. For instance, some of my bodyguard would willing engage singly with three Greeks. But this you did not know; and so you talked foolishly."
“Demaratus answered him- "I knew, O king, that if I told you the truth, I would displease you. But since you wanted the truth, I am telling you what the Spartans will do. I am not speaking out of any love that I have for Sparta — you know better than anyone how I feel about those who robbed me of my rank, of my ancestral honours, and made me a homeless exile.... Look, I am no match for ten men or even two, and given the choice, I would rather not fight at all. But if necessary, I would rather go against those who boast that they are a match for any three Greeks."
"The same goes for the Spartans. One-against-one, they are as good as anyone in the world. But when they fight in a body, they are the best of all. For though they are free men, they are not entirely free. They accept Law as their master. And they respect this master more than your subjects respect you. Whatever he commands, they do. And his command never changes: It forbids them to flee in battle, whatever the number of their foes. He requires them to stand firm — to conquer or die. O king, if I seem to speak foolishly, I am content from this time forward to remain silent. I only spoke now because you commanded me to. I do hope that everything turns out according to your wishes." This was the answer of Demaratus, and Xerxes was not angry with him at all, but only laughed, and sent him away with words of kindness.”
Spartan Soldier Citizens
The Spartan army was one of the toughest ever known. Every Spartan man was required to fight. Sparta did not have any city walls, it was said, because its men were strong enough so that such walls were unnecessary. Alexander the Great left a past-it-prime Sparta unconquered and chose not to march his men there. [Source: Mark Oliver, Listverse, September 6, 2016]
According to Encyclopædia Britannica: “ In the powers exercised by the assembly of the citizens or apella (q.v.) we cannot trace any development, owing to the scantiness of our sources. The Spartan was essentially a soldier, trained to obedience and endurance: he became a politician only if chosen as ephor for a single year or elected a life member of the council after his sixtieth year,had brought freedom from military service. [Source: Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition, 1911 Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece, Fordham University]
Battle of Thermopylae
“From the earliest days of the Spartan the absolute claim of the state to his life and service was indicated and enforced. Till their seventh year boys were educated at home: from that time their training was undertaken by the state and supervised by the paidonomos, an official appointed for that purpose.
“From the twentieth year began the Spartan's liability to military serviee and his membership of one of the dining messes or clubs, composed of about fifteen members each, to one of which every citizen must belong. At thirty began the full citizen rights and duties. For the exercise of these three conditions were requisite: Spartan birth, the training prescribed by law, and participation in and contribution to one of the dining clubs. Those who fulfilled these conditions were the peers, citizens in the fullest sense of the word, while those who failed were called lesser men, and retained only the civil rights of citizenship.”
Spartan Training
Cristian Violatti wrote in Listverse: Spartan citizens were expected to become professional soldiers, a process that began by removing young kids from their homes at age seven. From age seven, Spartans had to endure severe athletic and military training. Plutarch (“Spartan Customs”: 239d) said that Spartans boys were flogged with whips for an entire day on the altar of Artemis and they had to tolerate it, competing with each other to see who was capable of resisting the highest number of strokes.Their training became even more intense at age 20. By this time, they joined common mess halls. Their skills in the battlefield allowed them to be capable of outmaneuvering any other Greek army. It was no coincidence that Sparta had no need for fortifications during most of its history. [Source by Cristian Violatti, Listverse, August 3, 2016]
Spartan training began in the womb. A pregnant woman was required to do exercises to make sure her child was strong, The Spartans checked newborn infants for physical deformities and mental problems; if an abnormality was discovered the child was tossed off a cliff.
Spartan boys were taken from the mothers at the age of seven and moved into barracks and taught to be men until they were aged 20. The new recruits were bullied by older boys, forced to play brutal games and walk barefoot in the winter, and were ritually flogged in a temple devoted to the goddess of the hunt. Those that did well were made leaders. Young boys were paired with older boys in a relationship that had homosexual overtones. Plutarch wrote: “They were favored with the society of young lovers among the reputable young men...The boy lovers also shared with them in their honor and disgrace.”
The training was mostly in the form of physical drills and the martial arts. There was not so much instruction in philosophy, music or literature as was the case a the famous academies in Athens. Sometimes boys were purposely left hungry so they would steal food and develop shrewdness and resourcefulness.
When a boy reached 18, they were trained in combat. At twenty they moved into a permanent barrack-style living and eating arrangement with other men. They married at any time, but lived with men. At 30 they were elected to citizenship.
Spartan children by Edgar Degas
Training for Spartan Boys
Spartan men were so tough in part because of the rigorous Navy-SEAL-like training they endured as boys A child raised in Sparta wasn’t raised by his mother. He was raised by the state for the purpose of fighting. Their training consisted for the most part in physical exercises, such as dancing, gymnastics, ball games, and combat exercises, with music and literature occupying a subordinate position.
Mark Oliver wrote in Listverse: “As soon as a boy turned seven, he was considered ready for education, known as the agoge, and he left his parents for the care of a teacher called a “warden.”Life in the agoge wasn’t easy. The children would be actively encouraged to haze and provoke each other and even to challenge each other to fights. This wasn’t a school where teacher maintained the peace; if two kids were bickering, the warden would goad them into resolving it with their fists. The warden also carried a whip at all times, and if a boy misbehaved, he would use it to beat him. The beating would be hard, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. If the child’s father found out he was beaten, then he was obliged to beat his child a second time. Anything less was considered spoiling the child. [Source: Mark Oliver, Listverse, September 6, 2016 +++]
“During the agoge, boys only received the barest necessities. Shoes were considered a luxury, so the boys trained barefoot. Clothing made one weak against the elements, so the boys wore a single, thin cloak. And food made people fat, so the boys were only given the bare minimum they needed to survive. That didn’t mean that they couldn’t get more. The trainees were encouraged to steal food if they were hungry. The catch was that they weren’t allowed to get caught. If a boy was spotted stealing food, he would be beaten and deprived of rations, but if he was stealthy enough to get away with it, the wardens figured he had earned a second course. +++
“Spartans were taught to fight, to be tough, and—only as a necessity—to read. Everything else was strictly forbidden from the education system. Extracurricular education was considered a dangerous luxury. Spartan students weren’t allowed to spend their spare moments learning how to add and subtract or contemplating life’s philosophical mysteries. Soldiers had to obey any order without delay, so traditional education was viewed as something that would make them weaker. If a Spartan soldier was considering a career as a lawyer or the complexities of free will, he wasn’t focusing on fighting and listening to his commander—so he was kept from learning anything else.” +++
Spartan monument
Awful Food, Tough Questions and Fights for Cheese for the Spartan Trainees
Spartan food was far from great. Mark Oliver wrote in Listverse: “A man from Italy who sat down with a Spartan army and joined in one their meals famously said, “Now I know why the Spartans do not fear death.” He was talking about “black broth,” a dish made by cooking meat in a mixture of blood, salt, and vinegar. Spartans ate together, with everyone sharing the same food under the same tent, and the black broth was considered the highlight of the meal. It was the only meat they served, and everyone only got a small portion. The only way to get more meat was to hunt. If a hunter took down a deer, he had to share it, but he was allowed to take a little bit of the venison home for a second course. This was the only time a Spartan could eat at home; anything else was strictly forbidden. [Source: Mark Oliver, Listverse, September 6, 2016 +++]
“When supper was over, an under-master would sit down with the trainees and ask them questions. These questions were sort of like modern essay prompts: They’d be asked questions like, “Who is the best man in the city?” and would be expected to support their answers with reasons. Their answer had to be clever, well thought-out, and prompt. If it wasn’t, they were punished—in an extremely weird way. According to Plutarch, anyone who gave a weak answer was bit on the thumb. Life wasn’t much better for the under-master. When the question session was over, the under-master was taken out back and reviewed. If his masters felt he’d been too strict or too kind, he was beaten. +++
“The Spartans had a annual festival they called the “Diamastigosis,” and it was brutal. In this one, the boys were taken in front of a crowd and beaten with a whip until they couldn’t stand it anymore. It sounds like torture, but for the Spartans, it was a great honor. They would eagerly volunteer to be whipped in front of a crowd, wanting to prove to their city that they could withstand the abuse for longer than any other person. This was such a novelty to other cultures that, when the Romans found out about it, they started vacationing in Sparta just so they could watch it. By AD 300, the Spartans had even set up a theater and sold tickets, buying into a little commercialism to profit from the Roman Empire. [Source: Mark Oliver, Listverse, September 6, 2016]
In another event at the festival in, a cheese was “placed upon an altar to the god Artemis. Starving trainees would then be set loose, fighting each other in a desperate battle to grab as much cheese as they possibly could. While they fought each other, older men would also be beating them with whips—sometimes even to death. It was the duty of the boys to keep strong faces throughout and to grin as they were beaten and clawed at while they fought for cheese. To the audience, this was hilarious. Great rows of people would gather to watch the show and would laugh while they watched boys brutally maim each other. The one who left with the most cheese would also be honored with the title of “Bomonike.”
Thermopylae cosplay
Crypteia (Forced Spartan Thuggery)
The Spartans kept serfs known as called “helots,” and from what can be determined they were not treated very well. In a practice called “crypteia” (forced thuggery), Spartan boys were given daggers and minimal rations of food and sent out to the countryside to ambush and murder as many helots. There is some debate among scholars as to whether this was a form of training for the boys and a kind of terrorism to keep the herlots in line.
On crypteia, Plutarch wrote in “Life of Lycurgus of Sparta”: “"Now in all this there is no trace of injustice or arrogance, which some attribute to the laws of Lycurgus, declaring them efficacious in producing valor (andreia), but defective in producing righteousness (dikaiosyne). The so-called K rypteia at [Sparta], if it really was one of Lycurgus' institutions, as Aristotle says it was, may have given Plato (Laws 630.d) also this opinion of the man and his constitution.” [Source: Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus of Sparta 28, CSUN]
“This is as follows: The magistrates from time to time sent out into the countryside at large the most discreet of the young men, equipped only with daggers and necessary supplies. During the day they scattered into obscure and out of the way places, where they hid themselves and lay quiet. But in the night, they came down to the roads and killed every Helot (Spartan serf) whom they caught. Often, too, they actually made their way across fields where the Helots were working and killed the sturdiest and best of them.
“So, too, Thucydides, in his History of the Peloponnesian War [IV.80], states that the Helots who had been judged by the Spartans to be superior in bravery, set wreathes upon their heads in token of their emancipation, and visited the temples of the gods in procession, but in a little while afterwards all disappeared, more than two thousand of them, in such a way that no man was able to say, either then or afterwards, how they came to their deaths. And Aristotle in particular says also that the Ephors, as soon as they came into office, made formal declaration of war upon the Helots, so that there might be no impiety in slaying them."”
Spartans Incendiary Weapons
Spartans used sulphur and pitch in warfare and created poison gas and a flame throwing machine to attack fortified positions in the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides described the Spartan use of incendiary weapons as the "most devastating manmade conflagration ever seen" in their attempt to destroy the city of Platania in 430 B.C. They used a flaming mixture of pitch and sulfur against the Athenians at Delium in 424 B.C.
Adrienne Mayor wrote in National Geographic History: Fire also led to one of the earliest historical instances of using poison gas against an enemy. In 429 B.C., during the Peloponnesian War, Spartan forces attacked the fortified city of Plataea. The historian Thucydides tells how the Spartans heaped a massive pile of firewood next to the city wall, then poured pine tree resin (pitch, the source of turpentine) on the logs. [Source: Adrienne Mayor, National Geographic History, May 25, 2023]
In a bold innovation, the Spartans then added lumps of sulfur, found in acrid-smelling mineral deposits in volcanic areas and hot springs. The combination of pitch and sulfur accelerants “produced a conflagration that had never been seen before, greater than any fire produced by human agency,” declared Thucydides.
Indeed, the blue sulfur flames and foul stench must have been sensational. The fumes were deadly; burning sulfur creates toxic sulfur dioxide gas, lethal if inhaled in large quantities. The Plataeans abandoned their burning palisades, but then the wind reversed and a severe thunderstorm put out the fire. Plataea was saved.
In the 4th century B.C. Aeneas the Tactician’s book on surviving sieges devoted a whole section to fending off chemically-enhanced fires. One of his chief recommendations was to fight the fire with fire by pouring pitch on enemy soldiers or their siege machines, followed by bunches of hemp and lumps of sulfur, and then using flaming bundles of kindling to ignite them.
The Film 300
The film “300" went a long way in introducing the Spartans and their ethos to the modern general public. Although the New York Times called the film excessively violent and stupid it gave viewers some insight into the harsh training the Spartans endured to make them as tough and fierce as they were and showed how that paid off the Greeks in the Spartans’ heroic defense at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
“300" was shot almost exclusively in a Montreal warehouse, using blue screen graphics and imagery. Earning more than $500 million at the box office globally, it was based on a Frank Miller graphic novel which in turn was inspired by the 1962 film “300 Spartans”.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2024