Having managed to view fragments amounting to one half of the final episode of the decidedly average The Spartans, I variously learned or was reminded that:
- Upon the Athenian defeat at Syracuse, about 7,000 Athenian invaders were imprisoned for a fair period of time in a quarry at Syracuse, exposed to the elements and fading fast. According to the transcript of the show,
The Athenian prisoners had only one chance to live: the Syracusans had a passion for the verses of the playwright Euripides, and prisoners who could recite them in a style that pleased their tormentors were allowed to leave the quarry to be sold as slaves.
To clarify: The Syracusans held the prisoners of war in an outdoor prison camp, subject to torture, and would not let them go until they said words which pleased them.
- Upon the Spartan-led defeat of Athens, the Spartan leader Lysander erected an expansive monument to himself and his allies. The show did not display a reconstructed image, and I wonder if someone has assembled such a thing. I had thin luck Googling for it at all.
- Following the Spartan defeat of Athens, Sparta was the dominant military power in the region, and “her commanders became known for corruption,” a fact which sourly comforts me.
Interestingly, I came across these class notes for a play by Euripides which appears to directly address these themes.