Philomathia: Spartans!

I was listening to a podcast about the story of the Battle of Marathon which got me thinking about Sparta (and Gerard Butler in the days before he starred in wanker romantic "comedies" about vibrating panties. So read the title of this post in a testosterone-laden Scottish accent.)

But first, the Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC between the Greeks, specifically the Athenians, and Persians of course. John Stuart Mill said it was a more important battle to British history than the Battle of Hastings (the Brits do love their classical Greek history and Latin grammar.) The runner story (his name was Pheidippides) is probably apocryphal but at least he got his name on an Atlanta running store for it.

But what I didn't know is that the whole Battle took place because the Athenians had gone to Darius I in 507 and asked him to become their ally against Sparta. Darius accepted but apparently considered himself the ruler over Athens instead which was kind of a drag so by 499 the Athenians in Asia Minor has burned Darius' capital there, Sardis. It just took the Persians a few years to get around to attacking Greece because of problems in Egypt and by that time leadership had passed from Darius I to Xerxes. Kind of fitting I suppose that the Spartans ended up not helping in the Marathon battle.

(and yes, I reference 300 in the title of this post which is actually the Battle of Thermopylae which was 10 years and force mulipliers later.)

Also, Marathon means "fennel" in Greek. It was a field of fennel so at least the battle smelled good. And fennel "seeds" are apparently actually fruit. And, someone who loves Spartan culture can be called a laconophile.

Actually, the point of all this is I was wondering what became of Sparta? Apparently, it still exists but it is called Sparti. Unlike Athens, it seems to have faded into relative obscurity. Only about 14,000 live in the town itself. They have a museum if there is a laconophile (or Frank Miller fan) in your life. It boasts this claim to fame:

The Museum of Ancient Sparta is the only museum built in Greece between 1874 and 1876 by architect G. Katsaros.

Well, that's....specific. 


And one more note on the philomathia versus epistemophilia. What's the difference? I hadn't really seen the word philomath before so, there's that. Until that is, I read the Dark Horse anthology of Archie comics firsts (I just wish Katy Keene, Sabrina and Josie weren't in separate volumes.) Archie at one point is being hazed by a group called the Philomathians, which is also one of the first appearances of Reggie. Cmon, I can point to being inspired by an Archie comic? No contest.