Гръко-персийските войни

[Sir Gray]

Е, хайде сега, купон да става
А след това ще дойде ред и на въпроса дали сянката от персийските стрели се е отразила благотворно на физическото състояние на спартанците...

[gollum]

Е, не бива да забравяме и въпросът за психологическата страна на съотношението на силите. Няма начин бойният дух и умения на спартанците (а съответно тези на персите да са претърпели драстична деградация) да не са се двигнали многократно, когато са разбрали за това. Всеки знае и тогава и сега, че когато много малко се сражават срещу много повече, то натупаните са, естествено, вторите. Непоклатим закон в един определен тип произведения на човешкото въобръжение . Та това е толкоз епично, правилно и несъмнено, че когато неколцине се изправят срещу огромна орда от неприятели, то ордата може да спечели само нечестно и то с огромни загуби. Как да не се почувстваш ужасно, когато го знаеш и си част от нея .

[Гост]

Сериозно. Защо не поговорим по този въпрос? Имаше и предаване по Дискавъри, което популяризира въпросите за хомосексуализма и неговото повдигащо морала действие във войската не само на спартанците но и на атиняните. Платон е писал за "платонична" любов между мъже. Ако мога да се пошегувам по въпроса, войниците които са чувствали че имат подкрепа отзад, са били по - смели в щурма си

[Last roman]

Не мешай Тиванския свещен корпус със спартанците.

[IMPERATOR CÆSAR AVGVSTVS]

В Елада, вкл. и в Спарта хомосексуализмът е бил широко разпространен. А връзката между мъже се е смятала за по-възвишена от тази, между мъже и жени. А пък спартиатските хоплити като по 20 години не са виждали жени, дали са имали голям избор? А и любовните връзки са сплотявали редовете. Затова дори са насърчавани. Времената са били такива...

P. S. Не знам това дали има голяма връзка с гръко-персийските войни, ама като гледам, че си чешите езиците, реших да се включа.

[ahileas]

Грей, все пак е хубаво когато използваш ирония да предупреждаваш по някакъв начин за намерението си, .

Аха, светнах. :shocking:
Иначе горгоната си е плашеща, макар че и персите имат тъщи...

[Imperial]

различни цитати по въпроса

It is a frequent misconception that Spartan society was also blatantly homosexual. Curiously, no contemporary source and no archaeological evidence supports this widespread assumption. The best ancient source on Sparta, Xenophon, explicitly denies the already common rumors about widespread pederasty. Aristotle noted that the power of women in Sparta was typical of all militaristic and warlike societies without a strong emphasis on male homosexuality—arguing that in Sparta this "positive" moderating factor on the role of women in society was absent. There is no Spartan/Laconian pottery with explicitly homosexual motifs—as there is from Athens and Corinth and other cities. The first recorded heterosexual love poem was written by a Spartan poet for Spartan maidens. The very fact that Spartan men tended to marry young by ancient Greek standards (in their early to mid-twenties) suggests they had less time for the homosexual love affairs that characterized early manhood in the rest of Greece. Certainly the state considered bachelorhood a disgrace, and a citizen who did not marry and produce future citizens enjoyed less status than a man who had fathered children. In no other ancient Greek city were women so well integrated into society. All this speaks against a society in which homosexuality was exceptionally common.

Though Plato in his Laws implies otherwise, blaming the Spartans for their custom of males taking sexual pleasure with other males παρὰ φύσιν "beyond nature", many ancient writers held that Spartan pederasty was chaste, though still erotic. Lycurgus decreed that if someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he approved, and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connection as an abomination; and thus he mandated that "boy lovers should keep their hands off boys just as parents do not lay hands on their own children." This system, implies Xenophon, produces the most modest, trustworthy and self-controlled men in all of Greece.

Plutarch also describes the relationships as chaste, and states that it was as unthinkable for a lover to sexually consummate a relationship with his beloved as for a father to do so with his own son. In the same vein, Cicero asserted that, "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage (stuprum, = Greek hubris, referring here to anal intercourse) in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers.' Aelian goes even farther, stating that if any couple succumbed to temptation and indulged in carnal relations, they would have to redeem the affront to the honor of Sparta by either going into exile or taking their own lives.

Even their marriages took place in secret. The bride and her family had a simple private ceremony, then her hair was cut off and she was dressed in male clothes. After dinner, the bridegroom stealthily came and lay with her, then hurried back to sleep with his companions, in great fear that anyone might find out. The husband and wife had to scheme to find opportunities to meet without being discovered. Sometimes the men of Sparta even had children by their wives before ever seeing them in daylight. When the young man reached the age of thirty, the couple was allowed to live together openly and to set up a household. With seeing each other so difficult and rare, they always came together with a healthy appetite for love. And when they parted, it was always early enough that there was no disgust from being together too long. There was always some desire left unsatisfied. (absence makes the heart grow fonder).

Also when you look at it for what it is, it isn't the females head being shaven, and being dressed as a man to make the male more ready to accept her in some homosexual frenzy, but more of a training event. Since the marriages were very small affairs, shaving her head would let everyone know she was a newlywed, and thus make it more difficult for the two to meet -- making the young couple naturally more thoughtful and cunning in the way they arranged their meetings.
Everything the male did was all about the law, and military performance. Death itself was the highest honor, and they would go happily into battle singing songs with musicians playing instruments behind them. (much the same as soldiers of today, rocking out while in transit).

с една дума

А пък спартиатските хоплити като по 20 години не са виждали жени

не е вярно

[IMPERATOR CÆSAR AVGVSTVS]

Spartan boys left home for military boarding school at the age of 7 and were required to serve in the army until age thirty.

The very fact that Spartan men tended to marry young by ancient Greek standards (in their early to mid-twenties) suggests they had less time for the homosexual love affairs that characterized early manhood in the rest of Greece.

Наистина, не е вярно, че през всичките тези 20 години са били хоплити. Също така, не са били и мъже през цялото това време. Но двайсетте години са си 20. Тези уточнения бяха необходими, наистина. Ама и вие го приехте прекалено буквално... Ама приказка да става...

[bsb]

Вчера случайно попаднах на текста по-долу на страницата http://shl.stanford.edu:3455/TenThin...tml?pageid=624 (напълно е възможно след някой и друг ден връзката да не сочи към този текст, като гледам този пореден номер 624). Не се бях замислял по този въпрос, обяснението ми изглежда смислено, но пък нямам познания за периода, тъй че каквото и да ми кажат, стига да не е нелогично, бих се съгласил А, да, не разбрах кой е писал този текст.
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Why did the Greeks not use the bow?

Prof. Shanks raised an interesting question in one lecture on perfume jar: why the Greeks stood side by side in phalanx instead of just shooting the enemy from distance? Not that the Greeks were bad archers or archery was unknown. I flipped through Robert Fagles’ translation of The Iliad to see if there was any record of archery in the Trojan War. I actually found two archers in action: Pandarus and Teucer.

Pandarus was one of the Trojan warriors. Here’s Pandarus in action:

“(Pandarus) strung his bow…
…he flipped the lid of his quiver, plucked an arrow
Fletched and never shot, a shaft of black pain…
…squeezing the nock and string together, drawing
The gut back to his nipple, iron head to the handgrip
Till he flexed the great weapon back in a half-circle curve-
The bow sprang! The string sang out, arrow shot away…”

Pandarus actually hit and wound his target, Menelaus, but did not kill him. However, the shot was enough to break the truce and both side fought again.

Another archer, Teucer was Ajax’s half-brother.

“…and Teucer came up ninth, tensing his reflex bow
And lurking under the wall of giant Ajax’ shield.
As Ajax raised the rim, the archer would mark a target,
Shoot through the lines-the man he hit dropped dead
On the spot-and quick as a youngster ducking under
His mother’s skirts he’d duck under Ajax’ shield
And the gleaming shield would hide him head to toe.”

Teucer shot down ten men before Hector threw a boulder at him and knocked him out. Teucer even shot two of the men he killed right in their chests. This means his arrow is powerful enough to pierce through hoplite’s breastplate.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus claimed that his skill in archery was second only to Philoctetes. When he returned to Ithaca, he strung his bow and killed many of his wife’s suitors by arrows before engaging in close combat.

From all of these, not only the Greeks used the bows in battle, they also used them well. Then, why did they not commonly use the bows against each other? Why did they prefer to stand side by side, shields against shields? They might as well shoot arrows at the charging phalanx. Even better, had a phalanx to hold off the enemy while archers in the back kept shooting over their comrades’ heads to the enemy.

One of the answers might be in the Greek bow itself. Homer elaborated on Pandarus’ bow in The Iliad:

“…his polished bow,
The horn of a wild goat he’d shot in the chest
…the horns on its head ran sixteen hands in length
And a bowyer good with goat-horn worked them up,
Fitted, clasped them tight, sanded them smooth
And set the golden notch-rings at the tips.
Superb equipment…”

Pandarus’ bow was made from goat horn. Animal horn could be the main material for bows at that time. It could be very common that there was “a bowyer good with goat-horn”-bow maker who specialized in making bows from horns. The material that made the bow might be problematic. Bone and horn are very rigid compare to wood, a popular material for bow. Since bow works on elasticity, rigid horn is not a good choice for making one. Archer would need great strength to use the horn bow. This might explain how Teucer was able to shoot through the armor. Also, due to stiff nature of the horn, if the archer draws back too far, he would break his bow. The Greek bow had to be handled with great care. In addition, the shock from releasing arrow would make the bow vibrates, reducing accuracy. The stiffer the bow, the more the vibration. This would eventually lead to less accuracy. Greek archers would need great strength and skill to use their bows well which require a lot of practice. However, the Greek had no standing army. with exception of Sparta, hoplites were citizens who were called into service. Thus, there was no proper military drill or trainings. This would make archery, which requires practice, unpopular. The material that made user-unfriendly bow and the mastery needed for archery were the reasons why bows were not the Greek’s weapon of choice.

Another reason could lie in the Greek’s attitude towards archery. In Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300, King Leonidas refers to Persian archers as “cowards”. To the Greeks who preferred close combat, the Persians who fought by shooting arrows from distance were cowards. Fighting shield against shield was a way to show manly bravado and prove one’s masculinity. Also, the Greeks had a tradition of stripping dead hoplites’ armory as trophy and holding dead bodies for ransom. To kill someone from distance means the risk of losing a battle trophy and a ransom to someone in the front who claims the body first. A Greek archer would return home empty handed while a hoplite would claim all the glory from the battle. In addition, military service was mandatory for all citizens who comprised a phalanx. All hoplites were equally likely to die in a phalanx while archers would have much less chance to die. This would give archers an unequal privilege comparing to other citizen. Instead of fighting as free men, they would become slave masters like the Persians. The Greeks attitude and custom render archery a rare practice in warfare.
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Забравих, че се бяхме уговорили да слагаме резюме. Неизвестният автор си задава въпроса защо гърците не са ползвали стрелци, въпреки че са имали технологията, уменията и традицията. Един от факторите е, че традиционният лък изисквал сериозни умения от стрелеца. Но по-важното е, че стрелците и хоплитите биха били неравнопоставени. От една страна, стрелците са по-защитени, тъй като стрелят зад бойната линия. От друга страна, заради това си място са в неизгодно положение, когато стане дума за събирането на плячката от бойното поле, където било прието да се събира броня и тела за откуп. И тъй, за да бъдат всички свободни граждани равни, се биели заедно, рамо до рамо.

[Lulchev]

Ето една интересна статия и от мен:

http://war-ellada.narod.ru/texts/fermopili1.htm

Авторът смята,че гърците са разполагали при Термопилите със 7900-8100 хоплита,прилага и интересна таблица..Който има интерес, да следва линка, статията е на руски.

[gollum]

Само да допълня към материала, постнат от Bsb:

translation of The Iliad to see if there was any record of archery in the Trojan War. I actually found two archers in action: Pandarus and Teucer.

- със сигурност има поне още един стрелец в "Илиада" - Парис. Който при това прострелва Ахил със стрела в петата смъртоносно, ако не ме лъже паметта.

[Guy de Mont Ferrand]

Само да допълня към материала, постнат от Bsb:

- със сигурност има поне още един стрелец в "Илиада" - Парис. Който при това прострелва Ахил със стрела в петата смъртоносно, ако не ме лъже паметта.

Ама не го прострелва в "Илиада" :p . Той си е жив докрая ако не си спомняш :nod: . А иначе Парис наистина е споменат като стрелец :nod: .

[gollum]

А, хъм, мисля че баш в "Илиада" си загиваше Ахилчо. Признавам, че съм я чел толкова отдавна, че имам много смътен спомен, а и не ми е под ръка (но пък довечера ще проверя в друг източник ).

[Guy de Mont Ferrand]

А, хъм, мисля че баш в "Илиада" си загиваше Ахилчо. Признавам, че съм я чел толкова отдавна, че имам много смътен спомен, а и не ми е под ръка (но пък довечера ще проверя в друг източник ).

Не се сърди, но не е Тая книга e едно от най-любимите ми литературни произведения и знам почти всички факти от нея :nod:

[gollum]

Хич не се сърдя. Къде бе описано загиването на тоз херой?