The New Republic published an article by Myke Cole on Aug. 1 titled “The Sparta Fetish Is a Cultural Cancer.” As you can tell from the title, Cole isn’t a big fan of the ancient Spartans or the modern world’s admiration of the Greek warrior state. At best, he sees respect for Sparta as a “benign ahistorical myth,” and at worst, as an evil “cultural cancer” that has been co-opted by neo-Nazis. Cole’s article is historically revisionist, paints a false picture of the Spartans, and tries to denigrate Spartan symbolism by tying it to white supremacist groups.
He’s less interested in telling real history and more interested in grinding political axes.
Cole insists that history’s view of the Spartans as legendary elite warriors is false. After all, he states the Spartans “lost battles frequently and decisively,” which is like saying the Golden State Warriors suck because they lost nine games in 2016 or that the ancient Romans were weaklings because they lost countless battles to Hannibal.
Cole also says the Spartans “barely managed to scrape a victory in the Peloponnesian Wars” but neglects to mention the historical context. The reason the Peloponnesian War dragged on for three decades is the Athenians’ terror at facing the Spartans in open combat. Even when the Spartans invaded Athenian lands every year for a whole decade, the Athenians refused to give battle and took refuge behind their city walls. The only full-scale pitched battle that Athens fought against Sparta, the Battle of Mantinea, was a crushing defeat for the Athenians.
The Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartan hoplites and their Greek allies fought over 100,000 Persians to defend mainland Greece, is arguably Sparta’s greatest claim to fame. After three days of battle and mounting Persian casualties, the Persians managed to outflank the Greeks. The 300 Spartans stayed behind knowing they would die and fought to the death to cover the retreat of most of their Greek allies. Yet to Cole, the battle doesn’t represent a story of “Greek glory,” but a “paltry three-day delay for Xerxes’s army.”
This statement completely misses the point of the battle. The significance of Thermopylae is not in its limited military value, but the inspirational example it sets of how a small, disciplined, patriotic force fighting to defend its homeland can valiantly battle overwhelming odds.
What really makes the Spartan myth toxic, in Cole’s eyes, is its modern appeal to white nationalists and neo-Nazis. He believes that the Battle of Thermopylae, as represented in 300, is portrayed with “clear racist and anti-immigrant glee.” One wonders what “anti-immigrant” glee has to do with the battle, considering that the Persians were hell-bent on plunder and conquest, not on “immigrating” to Greece, legally or otherwise.
This criticism is ahistorical and anachronistic, as is Cole’s attempt to tie the Spartan story to fascism. The Nazis, you see, admired the Spartans, and Hitler saw Sparta as “the first völkisch state.” Modern day white supremacists are fond of the phrase “Molon Labe” (come and take them), which the Spartans at Thermopylae said to the Persians when urged to lay down their arms.
Cole even cites Sen. Ted Cruz’s usage of the phrase when speaking about gun rights, as if to lump in the Texas senator together with neo-fascist groups. Very subtle.
So what if neo-Nazis adopt Spartan symbolism? Communists still use the red star as a symbol, but I’m not going to stop drinking Heineken, and nobody should feel guilty for shopping at Macy’s. It’s perfectly acceptable to admire the Spartans for their courage, discipline, and patriotism without being tarred as a fascist.
Cole’s attack is particularly rich considering that fascist symbolism is rightly reviled in our society. Any American walking around with a T-shirt emblazoned with Heinrich Himmler’s face will meet weird stares, to say the least. Yet go to any college campus, and you’re almost guaranteed to see at least one student walking around with a Che Guevara T-shirt, celebrating a psychotic mass murderer who wanted to nuke the U.S. and usher in Armageddon.
The Spartan reputation for courage and martial prowess is well-founded in history and has nothing to do with modern neo-Nazi movements. The only mythmaking taking place here is Cole’s historical revisionism.
Elad Vaida is a writer in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s program in Middle Eastern Studies.
