Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8508470" data-attributes="member: 5948">Sparta around this time is kinda funny (in a darkly ironic way).  Their real power had been broken hundreds of years prior, the whole area was ruled by the Romans.  But Sparta was allowed to keep running itself in a small way, kept alive basically as a theme park for wealthy Romans who'd bought into all the same myths so many today do, about the stern asceticism of the Spartans, their courage, their discipline, and their peerless warrior ethic, etc etc blah blah blah.  The Romans brought their disappointing shiftless youth on pilgrimages to Sparta to try to instil some backbone, when said youths would much prefer to be lounging on divans being fed honeyed dormice and playing the lyre.So you COULD play a spartan in 25AD, even a conventionally-armed and clad one.  THey certainly still existed, even if they didn't actually fight any more.  You'd just be completely anachronistic, and you'd more likely be a bard play acting for the tourists than a serious warrior.As for slavery - everyone in this period is a slave society.  Romans, Parthians, Egyptian and Jews (both under the umbrella of their Roman conquerors), etc etc.  It'll be interesting to see how the book handles it.</blockquote>