Talk:Great Rhetra

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Recomposition[edit]

I created the article and did most (but not all) of the edits before those by Botteville. SFAICT it's an improvement that doesn't require further comment. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 11:16, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Signing thread(s) per current last one. Lycurgus (talk) 14:51, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Over-condensation[edit]

Deleted? Well, that is interesting. Usually one archives and does not delete a discussion page. Whatever it is you did not wish us to see I am sure we can do without; in fact, we can probsbly do without half this "encyclopedia." On behalf of the other half let me get to the matter at hand. I have included this article into a series on the Spartan constitution. It is at the end of a chain of introductory sections in articles of a more general scope. It looks loke a valid topic to me and definitely has a place in the Sparta scheme. However, it still looks more like a stub than an article. Compression of material implies a few wrong ideas or leaves you with more questions than it answers. So, I am going to fill this out a little. I may have to change the intro a bit. The references also are quite a bit condensed. The JHS, you can't tell what is being referenced here. The references will need to be expanded also.Dave (talk) 10:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know nothing about this, except that there's something called "oversight" where admins can and rarely do do such a thing. I've never had nor desired to have such authority here, can't recall what if anything was here before the current content. Lycurgus (talk) 07:42, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

i.e what was on the talk page, I created the article. Do think there was something more, something may have been removed here, can't recall exactly. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 08:12, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Uncited opinion[edit]

"It was one of the two greatest bodies of classical Greek direct democracy, the other being the Athenian assembly. In both cases there was a limited franchise and the Spartan mechanism was further limited to yes or no approval of proposals put to it by the gerousia, ephors, and kings."

This opinion is presented without citation as a fact. It needs a citation and some development because as it stands I certainly do not agree with anything in it. All Greek tribes began with the same political structure: the chief was advised by his trusted seniors but when they made decisions they took them to the assembly of the people. This structure was repeated over and over in large states and small. The Athenians and Spartans had no monopoly on it. The Hellenes were classically democratic in almost every instance of government. The final authority always resided in the assembly of the people, which functioned pretty much as our town-hall assemblies to discuss and vote on propositions. If that was especially great, then we are all great! Moreover, this method descended from the Indo-European tribes. This sounds like philhellenism or as I would say Hellenic jingoism. You can put it in if you like but it needs to be presented as some theorist's political theory. Moreover, there is considerable variation in the theory of what the assembly could or could not do. At the end of the Peloponnesian War the magistrates to a man referred the Athenians to a higher authority at Sparta, the assembly. It heard all parties in debate and rejected the proposals of the government out of hand. Then it either made counter-proposals or stimulated the magistrates to make them and there was not even a sniff of rebellion, dissolution or rejection on the part of those magistrates. They sat in fear of their lives, that someone would bring charges against them for not doing as they were instructed. So, let us not get carried away by the hoopla of pro-Spartan theorists but report accurately the work of the current scholars, who at the moment are not mentioned at all.Dave (talk) 12:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Dave, the sentence, which I wrote, is meant as a neutral, Wikipedia style report of what could be supported, once an in depth article was composed, as presumably you have done, and I believe it did that. "Greatest" is not meant in the sense you've taken, but the one I just explained, i.e. as viewed from the current time in which Athens and Sparta are viewed as the principal polities of classical times from the perspective of general erudition and not that of the classical scholar. Lycurgus (talk) 10:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So unless you have another candidate for either of the top two polities, it's a statement of fact not opinion. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 12:44, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Diagram[edit]

I am the actual author of the diagram of the the Spartan gov't and society. Publius97 (talk) 16:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Current tagging.[edit]

I created the article, but its' current composition is by others who I believe are in fact classics scholars, so the tagging would appear to be unfounded/neurotic. Lycurgus (talk) 10:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]