1.5 SkillBuilder activity 1. Ancient writers and many later historians have regarded Spartan women as being as tough as Spartan men. SOURCES3 and 4 are relevant to this issue. Use the following questions to analyse SOURCES3 and 4 . a. What is it? b. Who created it and when was it created? c. Who or what was it created for?
d. For what aspect of ancient Greek history does it provide useful evidence? e. Is the evidence it provides accurate and reliable and how can we tell this? f. What conclusions can we draw from the source about ancient Greek society?
SOURCE3 From Plutarch, Moralia, III, Sayings of Spartan Women , 241. Plutarch lived c. 46–120 CE. He was born in Athens but was an admirer of Sparta and was writing many centuries after the events he described.
Another Spartan woman killed her son, who had deserted his post because he was unworthy of Sparta. She declared: ‘He was not my offspring . . . for I did not bear one unworthy of Sparta’. Another, hearing that her son had fallen at his post, said: ‘Let the cowards be mourned, I, however, bury you without a tear, my son and Sparta’s’. As a woman was burying her son, a shabby old woman came up to her and said, ‘You poor woman, what a misfortune!’ ‘No, by the two goddesses, what a good fortune,’ she replied, ‘because I bore him so that he might die for Sparta and that is what happened for me’. Another woman handed her son his shield, and exhorted him: ‘Son, either with this or on this’. * * In order to run from battle a soldier would have to throw away his heavy shield. A soldier who was killed in battle would be carried home on his shield.
2. Apply your skills to answer the following questions. a. Explain how you would differentiate between ancient Greek primary sources and secondary sources about Ancient Greece. b. Why should SOURCE3 , the extract from Plutarch, be classiýed as secondary source? c. In this SkillBuilder, you have worked with a Spartan cup and a bronze ýgure ( artefacts ) and written accounts by two ancient Greek historians. Identify three other types of primary sources that a historian could use for a study of Ancient Greece. d. Explain why it is sometimes difýcult to judge the reliability of ancient Greek primary sources.
SOURCE4 A bronze ýgure of a running girl, 520–500 BCE, believed to have been made in or near Sparta
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 7 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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