Sparta wasn't a utopia. Your Spartan Character would end up a monster

You're writing a story about Sparta. Isn't that amazing? Let me explain. You want it to be historically accurate, so you do your research. Let me explain to you why you've just written about a dystopia, like a pure, full-on dystopia.

You're probably saying, "No, I wrote about Sparta." Sparta wasn't a utopia. What are you talking about? No, it's not. The reason why everyone had to become a soldier was to oppress two races of people classified as helots. There were more helots than Spartans, as every Spartan had to have at least seven helots. This was problematic, as that meant there were more helots than Spartans. The minority had taken over this part of the population, and the helots were seen as less than Spartans.

In fact, if you had a child by a helot, it was considered lesser than a Spartan and higher than a helot because one of the parents was a helot. But if it was a baby girl, they would dispose of the baby girl and keep the boy and make him into a soldier.

And you probably think that Spartans were very progressive when it came to feminism. No, they were not. They were only progressive regarding Spartan women. Think of it as white supremacy, but only regarding the Spartans. You see, the feminism that you witnessed as a feminist was actually Spartan supremacy.

Most of the women there were helots, which were the slave class, and unfortunately, they were treated terribly and raped on a regular basis. Yeah, they only liked women if the women were of the Spartan class.

Also, technically speaking, these children were technically Spartans. There was a secret police force meant to literally harass and attack helots if they thought things had gotten out of hand or something.

There were constant rebellions—constant rebellions—because the helots were being treated horribly. If you're from Sicily, you're a descendant of a helot. Your ancestor most likely, especially if you have Greek features, was actually a part of the rebellion.

Now, these people did get free. One group got free due to one new king, and another group got free due to another new king. So the helots by that time were actually free after that.

Essentially speaking, you know, if you're Sicilian, you most likely are a descendant of a helot because, after one of the rebellions, they actually sent some of them to Sicily. Yeah, there was a rebellion. This is a real thing. This is actual history.

So here's the thing: your character, if he is a die-hard Spartan in your story, well, then he's a die-hard oppressor.

What happened was that if he had a baby girl by a helot, that could lead to the baby girl getting disposed of. If he has a son, though, he's going to raise his son and take good care of his son and even have his son become a soldier because everyone was required to be a soldier so as to oppress the helots.

The government got scared because there were more helots than Spartans. Not only that, but the reason why he would kill his own son if he was found to be disabled is because they wanted able-bodied people only to exist to basically oppress the helots.

Everything that you have learned about Sparta was centered around mostly oppressing another group of people just because that group of people was higher in population.

Most of the things your character does, most of the stuff your character was trained to do, and the entire goal is to get him to oppress another group of people.

Your character is Connor, and the scope is Connor from *Detroit: Become Human*. If he's one of those secret police officers, your character is goddamn—your character, yeah, your character is more along the lines of Connor, actually. He's going to end up as a Connor.

Let's see if he's going to go and continue the helot oppression. Legitimately, it took two new kings after the takeover of Sparta to essentially free the helots.

If you're Greek, and you're from the area of Sparta, you're probably a descendant of them. Let's put it this way: if your town is atop the area of Sparta, you're most likely a descendant of them and their children conceived by rape, such as Spartan men raping female helots.

There were two races of women that were helots. They would go to war, and the wars were mostly for expansion and to give their soldiers land.

Great expectant didn't like you drinking diluted or undiluted wine because that was seen as dangerous, and probably was. So what? They thought this was a cautionary tale for Greek—sorry, Spartan—children. You have one helot get drunk with undiluted wine and just act silly and stupid.

One person who visited Sparta hated the Spartans for their treatment of the helots. He was upset at them for humiliating the helots and having them do this.

Not only that, but there is one case that he found where some Spartans would literally lock their slaves in the basement and starve them to death, with the sole goal being, "If I can't afford to feed a slave, I'm just going to lock them in the basement and starve them to death instead of setting them free." I'm going to sit here and guess that this was to keep them from having more children and being a higher percentage of the population.

Another thing was that this might be why they killed the helot little girls. Not only that, when they were born to a helot and the father was a Spartan, the only reason they actually killed disabled children was because they wanted only able-bodied people so that they could oppress the helots.

So the only reason your main character dumped his child was so that they could oppress a different race of people.

You're not in some mythical, wonderful, eccentric utopia. Your characters are in a dystopia.

If you have your characters react realistically and for the same reasons that the Spartans did, you're going to have a 100% dystopia. That's going to happen when you write it.

If you try to write this realistically, you're going to be like, "Oh my God, so I have to make him kill his daughter? Why?"

Well, because you see, the helots were considered lesser. You see, a helot is considered—well, you see, these children, I forgot the name of the children because there was a specific name for children of helots and Spartans. You should look that up. But essentially, they're like, "Well, you see, back then, these children were considered lesser. If it's a girl, you have to throw that away."

That's his story. You have to have him basically abandon the child. That's historically accurate. But you can have the mother go and get her child.

Also, in a lot of cases, the helot women were rape victims, so you're going to have to have one of the Spartans in the story rape her if you want to be historically accurate, or someone else.

Also, they were slaves. You might have to have one of them starve if they can't afford to feed that slave, like if the family is poor.

If the baby is disabled, the baby is going to have to be protected because if you take them before the elders, they'll decide if the baby is too weak and that the baby should die and be abandoned.

And in ancient Greece, it was really the Christians who stopped the abandoned-baby thing. They had to fight really hard and even gathered up abandoned babies to raise them. They were tired of the cruelty. They would take baby girls and disabled babies, etc.

There were also a lot of even famous Greek philosophers advocating for the death of disabled babies.

You are not in a utopia. You're not in a normal society. You're in a dystopia, my son. You didn't even know it.

It's like, "No, utopia. You cooked." Like, as a man, you're like, "I want to be a Spartan soldier," and you're like—

And I'm like, "My son, you don't know what you asked for."

What you asked for is *The Handmaid's Tale*.

You have asked, primarily, to join this group only built so that they can oppress most of the population. You will witness this group rape the slave class of this population, and you will watch them abandon your daughter because the mother was a helot.

You will, in turn, also watch them say your son is lesser than you. Why? Because his mother was a helot and he was a Spartan. Thus, the child is classified as higher than the helots but lesser than the Spartans.

Also, if you have any disabled children, well, the government is going to require you to abandon your baby. You can't keep your baby in this case because they won't let you. They want you to produce able-bodied people who can oppress the two racial groups they've taken over—the two indigenous groups.

You're also might be required to be a part of the police force meant to oppress helots.

You're not lucky, son. You have just chosen to be the villain. You are not going to be the hero. You've chosen to be a soldier. It's a military state. You're cooked.

She's going to be a helot? That's not much better. You're cooked.

Also, in Greece, abandoned babies would sometimes be kidnapped and raised as slaves.

You also have to bring down rebellions of helots because that's your whole goal. The goal is to stop them from rebelling and, you know, saving themselves.

The problem is that the helots aren't doing this as villains. They're actually heroes. They're trying to save themselves from your oppression—the oppression that caused you to kill your innocent-ass Spartan baby because your Spartan baby was deemed weaker, as all babies are, and essentially required you to throw away the baby you had by your helot because your baby was a girl and deemed your son lesser than you.

But you have to stop them from fighting for themselves and rising up because they had a riot. They were tired of being oppressed and their women being raped by Spartans.

You must help the villains. You literally chose to help the villains inadvertently.

Now, if you do want the idealistic Spartan experience, you might have to make the story be set after all the helots were freed.

I think it took two kings: one king freed one group of helots, and another king freed another group of helots, and thus, as far as I know, that was the last group of helots that were freed.

As a result, if you actively want to write a story about Spartans accurately but also get out of the oppression phase, you might have to write it after, you know, the takeover by the other two kings.

Basically, they were very oppressive, and writing it at any time before those freedoms was quite literally writing and setting your story during a dystopia.

Think Black slavery, but really, really bad.