PBS - The Spartans 2003 [Complete Series]

PBS - The Spartans (2003) [Complete Series]
DVDRip | English | 180 mins | XViD | 768 x 432 | PAL 25fps | MP3 - 128 Kbps | 3x700 MB
Gener: Documentary | Historical

We learn of how Sparta created innovations in Western Civilization that were remarkable and too often deadly. Their infanticide inspired Adolf Hitler, Totalitarianism and introduced a nightmarish militaristic homosexual society where 14-year-old boys (if they made it though insane military training from birth; the weakest babies were tossed to their death at birth), took male lovers. They would keep them until they were weaned off of them, if and when they got married to women. For a long time, they did create some of the deadliest fighters the world ever knew, but the series is smart enough to point out that these boys were on the level of animals far before their pairing with older male lovers. Everyone else was relegated to being “put in their place” as it were, though some of the women were in oddly liberated positions.

This series shows the decades of war with Athens, then the onslaught of Persian forces. There are other oddities, art (which inspired later Fascist art) and the remnants of these ancient civilizations and we are told (to the best of anyone’s knowledge so far) what happened. Many questions remain seriously unanswered, but many are and this is the kind of quality TV that more than keeps PBS’ reputation of quality TV in tact. Good show.

Part 1
THE SPARTANS opens at Thermopylae and with the epitaph of the Three Hundred — and very stirring it is to hear this spoken in the original Greek — before introducing some of the topics that will be addressed in the program. (Hmm. The claim that “male homosexuality was compulsory” is extremely dubious; the first boldfaced assertion as fact of a subject hotly debated among ancient and modern experts.) After the introduction, we journey to the Dark Ages of Greece, the end of the Achaean Age and the coming of the Dorian Greeks to the Peloponnesus and Laconia. An effective look at the development of hoplite warfare is presented. Next comes the Messenian conquest, then the establishment of the Spartan constitution. The upbringing of Spartan youths, warts and all, is then addressed at length. A good point is made that the sublimation of the individual as practiced by the Spartans can be very liberating – “the possibility of transcending your limitations as an individual and becoming part of something bigger and better.” Spartan institutions are credited for initiating a system of political rights and responsibilities among its citizens centuries before other Greek states conceived of such things.

The finding of the so-called statue of Leonidas in 1925 is used to introduce the Persian Wars, which are then examined in detail. There is much footage of Thermopylae, including the eponymous hot springs, and the commentary casts the Spartans’ self-sacrifice in terms that hearken to the Japanese samurai’s bushido code.

Part 2
This segment begins by exploring at how Sparta and Athens fell out after the Persian Wars, with a look at Athenian politics and society and how these contrasted to Sparta’s. This is a refreshingly non-partisan treatment, not hesitating to be equally critical of Athens. Women’s life in Sparta is given much attention. Sparta comes off as considerably more enlightened, by modern Western standards, than Athens. (Interesting sidebar – in her remarks during a November 24, 2003, online chat with Channel 4 (UK) viewers, narrator Bettany Hughes, when asked where she’d have rather lived, Sparta or Athens, replied “Sparta. No doubt.”) Hughes wryly notes how Spartan women were “objects of fear and fascination” to non-Spartan men. The legacy of these “radical” Spartan customs on later societies is discussed. Amusingly, whether by design or not, Hughes wears a scarlet dress for much of this sequence – fit garb for a Spartanette – and conducts her narration while striding purposefully about the Laconian countryside or riding on horseback in full exhibition of energetic Spartan vitality.

Lastly, the Laconian earthquake of 465 or 464 BC and subsequent helot revolt is noted and seen as the event that lit the sparks of conflict between Greece’s two leading cities. The opening clashes of the Peloponnesian War and the Spartan disaster at Sphacteria ends Part 2.

Part 3
The last section of the film opens at Delphi and takes a look at Greek religion and Spartan attitudes toward the gods and oracles before resuming the history of the Peloponnesian War. Alcibiades, the Syracuse expedition, and Lysander are all examined, taking up half of Part 3. Then the period of the Spartan Hegemony is briefly described, shaped by the “crippled kingship” of Agesilaus and marked by power struggles among Sparta’s ruling factions. Hughes notes the critical decline of Spartan citizen manpower and the rise of Thebes as a rival. She takes us to the battlefield of Leuctra, where Spartan military superiority was broken in 371 BC. The remaining sequences very quickly sketch how classical Sparta became a second-class power and finally a tourist attraction for wealthy Romans. The show concludes with a summation of Sparta’s influence on Western philosophy.

THE SPARTANS is a standout documentary, wonderfully photographed and directed, and is highly recommended as a visual overview of Spartan history.