الفلم الوثائقي The Spartans (2003) [Complete Series] باللغة الانكليزية

[ندعوك للتسجيل في المنتدى أو التعريف بنفسك لمعاينة هذه الصورة]

In part due to the release of the film Troy, PBS Home Video and
Paramount have issued a fine three-part documentary look at The
Spartans (2003), hosted by the very well spoken historian Bettany
Hughes. On location, riding all over Greece, miss Hughes tells us the
story in chronological order with little overlap between the three
shows.

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.