re: #7 Obdicut

This is true. But I look at Athens the much the same way I look at early America. Sure they owned slaves and did horrible things, but we are forever grateful for the democratic system they created. The Spartans left nothing behind, no philosophers, artists, poets, art, architecture, theater, or important political thought. The Spartans were a brutal society that held in contempt much of what made Athens an immortal culture.