by
Damien F.
Mackey
Biblical Gideon and his 300 were appropriated as
Spartan Leonidas and his 300:
[G]ID-EON = [L]EON-ID-AS.
Egyptian admiral Usanhuru was appropriated as
Spartan Lysander.
Elamite king Tammiratu was appropriated as Spartan
king Demaratus.
Etc.
“Hugo Jones writes that
the Spartans held in the highest regard a certain ancient law-giver, much like
Moses the law-giver of Israel. The Spartans celebrated
new moons (Rosh
Chodesh), and unlike their Greek counterparts, even
a seventh day of rest!
Of course, the Spartans themselves were very different from other Greeks,
particularly those in Athens, whom Sparta often battled”.
According to King Arius of Sparta, his people shared
a common ancestry with the Jews through Abraham. I Maccabees 12:19-23:
This is a copy of the letter that they sent to Onias: ‘King
Arius of the Spartans, to the high priest Onias, greetings. It has been
found in writing concerning the Spartans and the Jews that they are brothers
and are of the family of Abraham.
And now that we have learned this, please write us concerning
your welfare; we on our part write to you that your livestock and your
property belong to us, and ours belong to you. We therefore command that our
envoys report to you accordingly’.
Given that Abraham was, as according to the meaning
of his new name: “The Father of many nations” (Genesis 17:5): “Your name will no longer
be Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I will make you the father of many
nations”, then the task of identifying a more specific relationship between the
Jews and the Spartans is not an easy one.
Legend tends to favour that the Spartans
were descended from Abraham through his wife, Keturah.
A seemingly semi-mythological example
of this tradition is given at:
https://www.mayimachronim.com/when-jews-and-greeks-were-brothers-the-untold-story-of-chanukah/
Greek Sons of Abraham
Sometime
in the 2nd century
BCE lived a Greek historian and sage named Cleodemus, sometimes referred to as
Cleodemus the Prophet. He also went by the name Malchus which, because of its
Semitic origins, makes some scholars believe he could have been Jewish.
Cleodemus wrote an entire history of the Jewish people in Greek. While this
text appears to have been lost, it is cited by others, including Josephus (Antiquities, i. 15).
Cleodemus
commented on Abraham’s marriage to Keturah (typically identified with Hagar),
and their children. This is recorded in Genesis 25, which begins:
And
Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bore him Zimran,
and Yokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuach. And Yokshan begot
Sheva and Dedan. And the sons of Dedan were Ashurim, and Letushim, and Leumim.
And the sons of Midian were Ephah, and Epher, and Chanokh, and Avidah, and
Elda’ah.
All
these were the children of Keturah. And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac,
while to the sons of the concubines that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and
he sent them away from Isaac, while he was still alive, to the east country.
Abraham
had six children with Keturah, from which came at least seven grandchildren,
and three great-grandchildren which the Torah names explicitly. The Torah then
makes it clear that Abraham gave everything that he had to Isaac—including the
Covenant with God and the land of Israel—while the others received gifts and
were sent away from the Holy Land.
Cleodemus
suggests that Epher (or another child named Yaphran), the great-grandson of
Abraham, migrated to Africa—which is where the term “Africa” comes from! (This
is particularly interesting because Epher was the son of Midian, and Tziporah
the wife of Moses was a Midianite, and is described as a Cushite, or African/Ethiopian.) Cleodemus states
that Epher, Yaphran, and Ashurim assisted the Greek hero Hercules in one of his
battles. Following this, Hercules married one of their daughters—a great
granddaughter of Abraham—and had a son with her. This son was Diodorus, one of
the legendary founders of Sparta! ….
[End of quote]
Others, such as Steven M. Collins, narrow all of this
down considerably more by identifying the Spartans as actual Jews (descendants
of Abraham), even specifying that they were of the tribe of Simeon.
And so we read at:
https://stevenmcollins.com/the-spartan-israelites-who-halted-the-persian-empire/
THE SPARTAN ISRAELITES WHO
HALTED THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
Many readers have, no doubt, seen the
movie, 300, starring
Gerard Butler which was released a number of years ago. It tells the inspiring
story of King Leonidas of Sparta, who led 300 of his Spartan warriors to the
pass at Thermopylae circa 480 BC to block the path of the immense Persian army
under Xerxes that was descending upon Greece. Their noble sacrifice in the
battle of Thermopylae inspired all of Greece and bought time for the various
city-states to organize a resistance to the Persian invasion. The
aforementioned movie is drenched in graphic and bloody combat scenes and is
outlandish at times (especially in its portrayal of Xerxes), but the
self-sacrifice of the martial Spartan detachment inspires people still today.
That movie also is laughably inaccurate in its portrayal of the Spartan
warriors, who are presented as soldiers who went to war with appropriate
armaments but dressed only in capes and leather loincloths.
There was an earlier movie, The 300 Spartans, released in 1961
starring Richard Egan, which told the same story but it showed the Spartans
dressed and armored in a much more realistic manner. However, it dated to a
time when Hollywood presented war movies in a very sanitized way where the
battle scenes were acted out with very little blood being shown.
In both my books (available at
the homepage of this
website) and an article, I make the case that the Spartan warriors were
Israelites from the Israelite tribe of Simeon, which, like the Spartans, was
known for being warlike and ruthless.
According to the book of First Maccabees, a
Spartan king acknowledged in a letter to a Jewish High Priest that the Jews and
Spartans were “kinsmen” and fellow descendants of Abraham. If so, where is the
historic connection between the two groups of people?
The Bible actually does offer us a solid
historical context where the Spartans could have originated from a group of
Israelites that branched off from the rest of the Israelite tribes. In the book
of Numbers, there are two separate censuses taken of the Israelite tribes when
they left Egypt. The first is in Numbers 1 and the second is in Numbers
26. The second census indicates that a majority of the tribe of Simeon left the
Israelite encampment right after a chief Simeonite prince was executed by a
Levite, Phineas, in Numbers 25. The context argues that Moses saw that so many
people had left the Israelite encampment at that time that he decided to call
for a second census to see how many had departed from the various tribes.
If they had struck out on their own, one
would expect the Simeonites to found a martial city or nation of their own…in
other words, a city-state just like Sparta. History records that the Spartans
had a different origin than the rest of the Greeks. The fact that the Spartan
letter cited in I Maccabees records that the Spartans regarded themselves as
kinsmen of the Jews and jointly descended from the patriarch, Abraham, is
strong evidence that the Spartans had to be from a fellow Israelite tribe, but
where had they originated?
Since Numbers 25-26 confirms that most
of the tribe of Simeon left the Israelite wilderness encampment circa 1410 BC,
it makes sense that this warlike band of Simeonites would resurface later in
history in a location other than the Promised Land. The origin of the
city-state of Sparta is unknown, but it began to be noticed as an independent
entity by at least the 11th or 10th century BC.
Years ago, I wrote an article about the
Spartan connection to the Israelite tribe of Simeon and I am including a
link to that article.
I urge all readers with an interest in history to read that article as it will
enable you to see ancient Greek and Mediterranean history in an entirely new
light.
As a side-bar, I’d like to note that there
was an earlier “Brave Three Hundred” warrior group which was mentioned in
the Bible. It is the group of 300 warriors that accompanied the hero, Gideon,
when he, like Leonidas and his 300, fought against an immense army of invaders
who came from the east (circa 1150 BC). The story of Gideon and his brave 300
warriors is told in Judges 6-7. Unlike Leonidas and his 300, Gideon and his 300
emerged victorious over the eastern host albeit with God’s intervention to grant
the victory. Gideon and his 300 warriors were also Israelites. Leonidas and his
300 did not emerge victorious although their noble sacrifice has been honored
throughout time. I cannot help but wonder how the story of Leonidas and his 300
holding the narrow pass at Thermopylae would have ended if they had not been
sabotaged by a traitor who revealed a secret pass around the Spartan position
to the Persians. Perhaps they might actually have won if it had not been for
that betrayal. At the very least, they would have delayed the Persian host for
a much longer period of time.
[End of quote]
I may be able to add another element that could bridge
the long chronological gap for the Spartans, as descendants of Abraham, to a
connection with Moses. The Spartans looked back to a great Lawgiver called
Lycurgus (Lykourgos), generally considered to be semi-mythical. Lycurgus is
commonly compared with the Lawgiver supreme, Moses.
Why?
Because, as I think, Lycurgus was actually based on
Moses.
See e.g. my article:
Moses and Lycurgus
(11) Moses and
Lycurgus | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Readers might pick up Moses likenesses also in the
following by Ellen Lloyd (2023):
As
we trace the ancient history of Sparta and Lycurgus, we learn he emerged during
a deep crisis. According to Spartanophilic Xenophon, a disciple of Socrates and
soldier who fought for Sparta against Athens, Lycurgus lived during the time of
Heraclidae, around 1,000 B.C.
Herodotus
informs that Lycurgus “had brought the Spartans out of an era of extreme
political disorder (kakonomotatoi) and into one of good order (eunomie), which
in turn led to the city’s increased power.
With
the support of the Delphic oracle, Lycurgus changed “all the laws,” and created
the gerousia, the ephorate, and the Spartan military organization (there is
mention of the syssitia among the military institutions).” ….
Lycurgus
“was able to persuade his fellow Spartans to introduce the comprehensive and
compulsory educational cycle called the Agoge (agôgê, literally a ‘raising’, as
of cattle).
This
system of education, training and socialisation turned boys into fighting men
whose reputation for discipline, courage and skill was unsurpassed.” ….
Some
scholars suggest the political reforms in Sparta introduced by Lycurgus were
the earliest system of Greek citizen self-government.
Many
aspects Lycurgus system were strange to foreigners, and the Spartan rules and
customs were radically different from the rest of the Hellenes. Perhaps this
was also the goal because the Lycurgus altered decisively the psychological
make-up of the citizens. The Spartans’ “own belief in their ideology was
absolute. Throughout Spartan history there were very few defectors – or
whingers.” ….
How
Lycurgus came up with the laws is a mystery. Herodotus provides two entirely
different versions of the Spartan lawgiver. One story tells Lycurgus received
the laws directly from God Apollo. In another text, Herodotus ascribes the
origins of Lycurgus’s laws to the Cretan constitution.
Modern
historians have long downplayed the role of Lycurgus in the history of Sparta.
Still, in recent years scholars have argued the ancient lawgiver may have been
of greater importance to the state than previously assumed. ….
[Ends of quote]
There is enough here to suggest, too, that the
Spartans were foreigners in Greece.
The first step, then, is to re-set Sparta in an Israelite direction by re-identifying the
Lawgiver Lycurgus (c. 820 BC) as Moses (c. 1450 BC).
The second
step is to carry
this re-orientation down into the Judges period, by seeing Leonidas and his 300
as a Greek appropriation of Gideon and his 300 (Judges 7).
We read that Steven M. Collins had not missed this
similarity (without making my connection):
….
As a side-bar, I’d like to note that there was an
earlier “Brave Three Hundred” warrior group which was mentioned in the
Bible. It is the group of 300 warriors that accompanied the hero, Gideon, when
he, like Leonidas and his 300, fought against an immense army of invaders who
came from the east (circa 1150 BC). The story of Gideon and his brave 300
warriors is told in Judges 6-7. Unlike Leonidas and his 300, Gideon and his 300
emerged victorious over the eastern host albeit with God’s intervention to
grant the victory. ….
In e.g. my article:
Not so ‘Hot Gates’ of Thermopylae
(3) Not so ‘Hot
Gates’ of Thermopylae | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
I suggested biblical antecedents for the so-called
Battle of Thermopylae and the 300 Spartans.
If Leonidas and his 300 are not taken from Gideon
and his 300, wherein the name Gideon has become Grecised as Leonidas:
[G]ID-EON = [L]EON-ID-AS
then I’ll eat my hat.
The third
step is to
recognise that:
Admiral Lysander was probably an Egyptian
(3) Admiral
Lysander was probably an Egyptian | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Even The Iliad epic associated with the more
obviously fictitious Sparta-ruling Menelaus has a biblical base:
‘Homeric’ borrowings from life of King
Saul
(4) 'Homeric'
borrowings from life of King Saul | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
King Ahab and Agamemnon
(4) King Ahab and
Agamemnon | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Judith the Jewess and “Helen” the Hellene
(4) Judith the
Jewess and " Helen " the Hellene | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Certain likenesses have been detected by
scholars between:
Achior and
Demaratus
Achior being an important figure in the
biblical Book of Judith, and also being Ahikar, the nephew of Tobit.
Demaratus was a supposed King of Sparta:
“Demaratus (Greek: Δημάρατος, Demaratos; Doric: Δαμάρατος, Damaratos)
was a king of Sparta from around 515 BC
to 491 BC”.
Achior’s name is also given in a gloss in
Judith 1:6 as “Arioch the king of the Elymeans”, the editorial scribe obviously
failing to connect him with Achior, who, as we know from Tobit 2:10, did go to
Elam: “Ahikar supported me [the blinded Tobit] for two years before he went to
the land of Elam”.
Now, in e.g. my article:
Ahikar, Uriakku
(Arioch) of Adana (Ecbatana), extended as Deioces (Daiukku) of Ecbatana?
(9) Ahikar,
Uriakku (Arioch) of Adana (Ecbatana), extended as Deioces (Daiukku) of
Ecbatana?
I have identified Achior (Arioch) as
Urtak[u]/Uriakku of Ecbatana in Elam/Media.
Most interestingly, the presumed son of
this king Urtak was one Tammaritu:
Tammaritu (son of Urtak)
(-700–-700) — Biography & Historical Data - HistoryData
“Tammaritu (son of Urtak)”.
The name Tammaritu is an almost perfect
transliteration of Demaratus:
Tam[m]aritu
= Demaratu[s]
with whom we had likened Achior (article above).
Thus, it appears, the supposed Spartan king,
Demaratus, was, in fact, a non-historical fictitious composite based on Achior,
an Israelite, and Tammaritu, both of whom had ruled the land of Elam.
Nothing to see here, regarding Sparta!
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