History Lessons

History is a Love:

So, for a while I have been having issues with thinking of good articles to write for my Wednesday posts. As such I have been throwing up some of my essays and academic papers. Just little things I wrote in pursuit of my Bachelor’s. All of my other posts have been on World or Character building. Now, its time to bring both together to showcase how a broad education all feeds into creativity.

I am a Speculative Fiction writer, course if you’re reading this you have probably read several of my posts already, so I don’t want to bore you with too much repetition. In my earlier posts on character, I talked about how a writer can convey all of their world building through their characters. By understanding the history and culture of the peoples in your works you can have a better grasp of why a character just said/acted “that way.”

If you read a lot of author’s blogs, when talking about their WIPs they often say things like: “My character surprised me?” “This character demanded my attention and I had to follow them.” This is partially due to unconsciously connecting to the character, discovering their history and story suddenly. This happens more with “pantser” style writers, but we all have times where we “discover” characters.

Now, personally, I like to think of and explore as much of a character’s history BEFORE I start writing the story.

And what does this have to do with History?

I primarily write Fantasy novels, second world fantasy to be precise, and that means all of the history and culture has to be pulled form my mind, from my pen. Now the easiest way to create massive worlds peopled with many cultures and a deep history is to be well-versed in real-world history and cultures. To that end I spend a lot of time reading history books, watching documentaries, and learning about other cultures.

The trick then is to borrow heavily from these cultures and stories, and then make a new amalgamated “fantasy” version. Basically, I use all reading and all education as a means to expand and improve my writing. Not only do I study literature to see how themes, plots, and characters are crafted. I also study warfare through the ages and the various tribal migrations that formed the nations of this Earth. Even my YouTube time is spent watching bushcraft and blacksmithing videos. All of it adds in to a better understanding of how things work.

Bringing it all together:

Now, every genre of writer does research. It just comes with the job. The old saying is: “Write what you know.” Many people interpret that to mean they can only write about things that have happened in their lives. But everything can be researched and everything we learn adds to our collective whole. The important thing to remember is the emotions and thoughts of the character, the TRUTH of the character. As long as you can get those things right and convey real emotion, then you can write about just about anything. As long as you can get enough research to imply mastery of the subject.

So, the rest of today’s post is another history essay. In this one I pick apart Sparta and compare it to Athens. Now, this was an assignment, as such it had parameters. Specifically, I had to come up with an analysis of both cultures through two sources. Fragments of Xenophon’s On Sparta and Thucydides’s Pericles Funeral Orations.

IF you want me to save you a little time in the reading, I do not like Sparta much at all and this paper does condemn them quite a bit.

Analysis of Sparta and Athens

Sparta and Athens are two of the greatest city-states of Ancient Greece. Sparta invoking thoughts of military might and Athens giving us the birth of democracy. Thousands of years later and we still study these cultures, mostly through the writings left to us from Xenophon, Thucydides, and other great writers. Despite the brevity of Xenophon’s On the Spartans, when compared to Pericles Funeral Oration, we can see some differences in the cultures.

Thucydides’ Pericles Funeral Oration gives a rather in-depth look at the foundation of Athenian culture and democracy. Starting off with the fact that there are laws that state the manner in which the war-fallen are to be honored. A state funded funeral service that is open to public participation and requires a speech/ eulogy. Pericles begins his eulogy by honoring the ancestors of the city, and thanking them for the basis of their culture, and then he spends the next few paragraphs deeply touching on the things which make Athenian culture superior. He moves on to mention the Athenian Constitution, which is wholly theirs and not copied from other cultures, though itself is imitated in other cities. Athenians believe in equal justice for all, where social/ class standing does not elevate one above others under the law. “Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy.”[1] Pericles moves on to talk about the freedoms of the people and the breadth of their pursuits, believing that relief is needed from business, they have games and festivals throughout the year.

In his seventh paragraph Pericles arrives at military matters, though he mentions first that Athens is open to immigrants, and that foreigners are allowed to learn, have business, and join society. All things Spartans denied to non-Spartans. Speaking of their open society, Pericles does mention; “enem[ies] may profit from out liberality.” With spies and such, but this is countered by their trusting of their citizens and refusing to be slaves to policy/ systems.[2] Sparta is further slandered, first in mentioning education; “where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.” And then specifically in military terms, when he says that Sparta only invades Athens with many allies at their back and yet Athens makes war alone, and still easily defeats its enemies.[3] Now of course this speech is being delivered to soldiers at the funeral for other fallen soldiers, so there is a double use to slighting your enemy and bolstering the troops before you. He performs both admirably well. His final mention on Athenian culture before he moves on to actually eulogize the fallen, is to speak to Art and Education, and then Wealth. With the arts he again throws a slight toward Sparta talking about cultivating education without “effeminancy”[4], in other words without weakening their culture. Wealth is “more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.”[5] Looking at it all together we can see the basis of democracy that helped found America.

Moving to Xenophon we are given a much briefer reading that does not clearly depict the culture as a whole. A mere nine bullet points that don’t effectively answer to the slights raised by Pericles. While the Spartans did believe in equality for all Spartans and did in fact have more rights and freedoms for women than any other Greek Culture—than any classical culture actually—these rights were for Spartans only. Most of the city was made up of Helots, slaves taken in various wars, and a population of tolerated freemen who had limited rights. Looking through Xenophon’s bullet points about Lycurgus we see laws about women’s fitness, rules for conception of children, and various rules for raising kids in a manner that is less than tasteful. From allowing older children to bully, literally “whip bearers”, to teaching them to steal food in order to survive. There is also mention of using boys as “objects of affection”, a ritualized form of pedophilia, though this is not unique to the Spartans. Due to massive amounts of slaves, and as such the massive wealth of individual Spartans, they were barred from business, giving themselves over to obedience of the laws and making war.[6] The Spartan state was a testament to a purely conservative state that adhered strictly to their rules and laws. It was what ultimately killed their society; lack of immigration, fear of their slaves, zero reform of their laws, and a general stagnation of culture.[7]

Viewed together one can’t help but lean toward Athens and their teachings. But to be fair to Sparta the sources are of differing length and content. The Spartans are still one of the few societies who treated women with respect and allowed them actual power in society, you’d have to go back thousands of years to Matriarchal Egypt or China to see similar equality, or rush forward to the mid-1600s and the American colonies to see women inheriting wealth and running their husband’s companies again. Still I would rather have been born in Athens if I lived in the era. Reading the basis for modern democracy makes my heart swell with pride, and also with anger as I see how our democracy has suffered over the last few years.

Bibiliography

Thucydides (c.460/455-c.399 BCE): Peloponnesian War, Book 2.34-46. Pericles’ Funeral Oration. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/pericles-funeralspeech.asp

Xenophon. On the Spartans. http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/sparta-a.html

Historia Civilis. The Constitution of the Spartans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGCbh8ggUs

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[1] Thucydides paragraph 5

[2] Thucydides paragraph 7

[3] ibid

[4] Ibid, paragraph 8

[5] Ibid.

[6] Xenophon. On the Spartans.

[7] Historia Civilis, The Constitution of the Spartans.