Blog 2

Personally I enjoyed this weeks reading the most. Im not much of a reader but I definately got into it once a started reading these last few sections for this week. My favorite was the section on the Persian Wars, maybe it is because one of my favorite movies is '300', but it was interesting to read the actual accounts from history not just the hollywood remake of it. The story is a true underdog story. Persa wanted all of the countries around to follow their ways and conform to how their culture and society was lived. The Persians and there armys vastly outnumbered the Greeks, but troops from Greek stood strong and fought with glory and honor and all their might to save their Greek name. Troops from Athens, Sparta and Thebes all united as one to fight of the Persians. One of course, which was the nost memorable, was the army of 300 men of Sparta led by King Leonidas. The battle of Marathon was definatly one of the more memoradble ones in which Athens held a glorious victory, hence the fact that one of their own, named Miltiades was sent to take word back to Athens about the win, he ran the entire way then shouted out his last words, which were 'victory!!!" The accounts of these wars show how heroic Greece was and restored honor to their name.

Blog 1

History has always interested me. I always thought of myself as someone who knew quite a bit about many historical events. When reading about the different orgins of democracy I was amaxed about how very little I was aware of on this topic.
I find it quite interesting on how the "polis" came about. How every member of the polis were in some way related and knew of each others personal backgrounds. How they all learned, fought, grew older and lived together.
I was very interested in reading about Spartans and how young men had to leave their homes and fight only to return home and become "Spartan Soldiers." I was also interested in the fact that Sparta had a constitution mad of of three different catagories, including democracy, monarchy and oligarchy
In Sparta the community focused very much so on the heros (or soldiers.) Although it was not uncommon to have slaves for many many years in history, I was a little suprised that Spartan men would have people tend to their needs before they would go off to war and be their own slaves. This may be because just had the image of the movies '300' in my mind where the men seemed so tough and honorable and seemed to have the mentality of doing things on their own, however I do understand the reasoning behind why they had so much help and had servants to feed and shelter them. The military in Sparta was very important to keep up to par, Sparta's military had to keep up with the Athenian's who vastly out numbered Sparta, and many other countries.

In a way not much has changed from then to now. Granted we definatly do things differently now a days in America, and our constitution is extremly different from that of one writen so long ago in history, however having spending a lot of time with my boyfriend, who is in the military and seeing him and his unit bond reminds of the similarities of that of Spartans. No he is not blood related and has not grown up with his fellow comrads, however hearing stories and reading letters you can see that Americas army today is tight knit and definatly stands up for America's freedom and honor, much like the men in the Spartan military.