Ancient Greece
"The basis of the research essay is one of the "Source Analysis" exercises contained in the course's required text, Nancy Demand, A History of Ancient Greece in its Mediterranean Context, 3rd edition (Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY:Sloan Publishing, 2013). There are about thirty-nine such exercises in Demand's book, but the instructor has pre-selected eight of them as possibilities for research essay, since some of these exercises are better suited to the research essay than others, but also to ensure that a wide range of sources and time-periods is on offer to students." Pages 143-145: Plato, Aristotle, and Spartan women is the topic I want to choose. "In addition to answering the questions posed in the "Source Analysis" exercise you have chosen, the instructor sks that every research essay also contain a basic description of the source being used in the exercise and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the sources in your exercise for reconstructing history. Pay particular attention to the genre of the work (poetry, philosophy, comedy, tragedy, history, etc.) and the author's life and times. For example, if your "Source Analysis" uses Plutarch, say something about the man and works and their potential use as a historical source. This section of the essay is intended to provide you with the necessary context to answering the questions posed by Demand in the "Source Analysis" exercise you have selected and should be in range of two to four pages in length, with the rest of the essay's body devoted to answering Demand's questions." "You can use whatever primary and secondary sources to address this or any other aspect of your research essay; about six or so such sources are the right order of magnitude for an essay of this size and nature. Each "Source Analysis" exercise appears in a chapter of Demand's book, at the end of which are endnotes and a section called "Suggestions for Further Readings" that will serve as excellent starting-points for chasing up other primary and secondary sources."
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Source analysis
Stephen, Hodkinson.SPARTAN SOCIETY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY: CRISIS AND CONTINUITY. Web. 23 Nov 2013.
In the article, ‘Spartan Society in the Fourth Century: Crisis and Continuity’ Stephen Hodkinson relates to the power that the Spartans had amassed in the 4th century but then due to the internal crisis that it was experiencing, it came down crumbling. In the fifth century Sparta won the war against the neighbours, a war that was called the Peloponnesian. Consequently, in the eighth century they managed to take hold of the fertile kinds that the neighbouring Messenia had developed from the sixth century. According to the author some of the historians and scholars including his later supervisor Moses Finley who have assessed the facts about the rise and fall of Sparta, assert that the fall of the once great polis is due to the fourth century crisis only. These relate to the fact that the Spartans had started to develop affinity and desire for wealth and material procession. This lust for the wealth and the material possessions corrupted her well organised state, leading to the down fall. This version of the literature on Sparta is borrowed from Plutarch and Doidorus who also happen to have borrowed part of the notion from Ephorus and by limited extent from the works of the famous Theopompos. However these explanations are not as satisfactory considering that Spartans still had the coins which they would trade with overseas bids as well as hiring mercenaries. The author also disagrees with the fact that the law that was passed allowing people to own land and by extension the women could have led to the down fall of Sparta. Part of the problem that could have led to the fall of Sparta is the fact that the population of Sparta was also falling at an alarming rate.
This also resonates with views that were echoed by Aristotle as one of the core reasons that led to the hegemony loss of Spartans. It also pertains to the issue of land where most of the land was held by a few leading to inequalities. This therefore undermined the unity of the Spartans as the gap between the poor and the rich became even wider by the day.
Both Plato and Aristotle agree on the fact that the love for the material processions and the wealth was the root cause of the crisis experienced in Sparta in the fourth century. Plato believed that the love for the money and the wealth that came with it led to the decline of the morals that were held by the Spartans before the fourth century leading to the fall and crisis. The excessive continuity that Spartans practices in the fourth century was also to blame for the crisis.
Stephen, Hodkinson. SPARTA Comparative Approaches. 18 Nov. 2009.Web. 23 Nov 2013.
Stephen Hodkinson in his article titled the ‘Sparta Comparative Approaches’ discusses the various aspects of the Spartans comparatively. The author takes to discuss comparatively the o...
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