Like Athens were considered a birthplace of democracy while having probably more slaves as a percentage of population than any Eastern despoties.
yes exactly
or how people think Sparta was all professional warriors
when 99% of sparta was slaves or underclass
and only the 1% were "spartans"
the reason why these 1% were so giga militaristic in first place was
because they had to be afraid of slave revolt constantly
they were anxious pussies ruling over a giant mass of slaves
a good point to illustrate how few actual spartans there were,
i read that at one point, athens captured like 50 spartans and sparta immediately surrendered.
Why?
Because there were so few spartan men, that loosing 50 would have destroyed their ability to reproduce
they would have fallen below population replacement level
which in a society dependent on suppressing 90% of the population with military threat would have destroyed them
i also love how people worship the greeks and romans as some weird idea of virtue and discipline
while also admitting that these people were fucking pedophiles and had no issues with gay shit among other things
people always mistake the virtue signalling of a culture with the actual culture
the reason why a small minority of greeks and romans talked about virtue is precisely because the rest of their society was a fucking degenerate shithole. Thats why it mattered to them
If everyone in their culture was virtuous and nice, why would they even give a fuck?
Like, does anyone in our culture talk about the virtues of eating pizza? No, there is no problem with it, nobody cares.