
How the Spartans would fight Covid-19 - hazeii
https://stevenpressfield.com/2020/04/how-the-spartans-would-fight-covid-19/
======
eesmith
> Would we accuse the ancient Spartans of “government overreach” if they
> mandated that each warrior, facing the enemy, hold his shield before him and
> not abandon it and run away?

The Spartan state was already so brutal that this extra requirement - to hold
a shield and not run away - wouldn't be the straw the broke that camel's back
and finally classifies the government as overreaching.

Remember, in Sparta the helots were owned _by the state_ [1], and spartiate
children were raised in the government agoge child-soldier training system,
where a common rite of passage, the krypteia, was to go out into the
countryside and kill any helots who were too, to use the modern derogatory
term, "uppity."[2]

[1] [https://acoup.blog/2019/08/23/collections-this-isnt-
sparta-p...](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/23/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-
ii-spartan-equality/)

[2] [https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-
sparta-p...](https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-
i-spartan-school/)

