"Live Long and Prosper" - Meaning

[BK613]

That's a bit inaccurate. We value Athenian culture but the Athenians despised the Spartans. The Spartans had no culture to speak of. They were to the Ancient Greek what the Nazis were to the Germans. A people essentially oriented toward war and death. They would check the stamina of babies and the ones that didn't measure up were thrown off a cliff. I am not even sure the Nazis had something like that.

https://www.spartareconsidered.com/constitution.html

 

[Swedish Borg]

https://www.spartareconsidered.com/constitution.html

The killing of the weak, women treated as incubators, twenty slaves (the worst kind of slaves in antiquity (called helots), compared to them the Athenian slaves were in paradise) on average per "citizen"... Yeah, almost an ideal society...

 

[JesterFace]

Live Long And Prosper meaning....
Could it be as simple as
Live long is quite obvious
Prosper, succeed well in the things you do. It doesn't have to mean any certain thing?

 

[fireproof78]

Prosper, succeed well in the things you do. It doesn't have to mean any certain thing?

Pretty much this.

 

[BK613]

The killing of the weak, women treated as incubators, twenty slaves (the worst kind of slaves in antiquity (called helots), compared to them the Athenian slaves were in paradise) on average per "citizen"... Yeah, almost an ideal society...

sure sounds like they had culture to me....

 

[Henoch]

Maybe we can make out some of the meaning by looking at the spoken words of Spock. Spock sort of gives us an example of "not" succeeding in "Live long and prosper":

T'PAU: Live long and prosper, Spock.
SPOCK: I shall do neither. I have killed my captain and my friend.

 

[Swedish Borg]

sure sounds like they had culture to me....

There's no accounting for taste.

 

[BK613]

There's no accounting for taste.

Not about taste or approval, just a matter of what about Sparta is verifiable historic fact and what is myth/fiction, written after the city-state's heyday.
For example,
"According to historical records, Keadas was the site of execution where Spartans would thrust the enemies of Sparta, traitors and those convicted of serious crimes. In addition, an unlikely, unconfirmed fiction – wide spread nevertheless in contemporary times as well – holds that disabled or cachectic infants were thrown by Lacaidemonians at Keadas. Anthropological research in the Tripi cavern has failed to establish the presence of infant or child bones. The interior of the cavern yielded ample numbers of skeletal findings belonging mainly to men aged 18–35 years"
Source: Link

 

[Swedish Borg]

Not about taste or approval, just a matter of what about Sparta is verifiable historic fact and what is myth/fiction, written after the city-state's heyday.
For example,
"According to historical records, Keadas was the site of execution where Spartans would thrust the enemies of Sparta, traitors and those convicted of serious crimes. In addition, an unlikely, unconfirmed fiction – wide spread nevertheless in contemporary times as well – holds that disabled or cachectic infants were thrown by Lacaidemonians at Keadas. Anthropological research in the Tripi cavern has failed to establish the presence of infant or child bones. The interior of the cavern yielded ample numbers of skeletal findings belonging mainly to men aged 18–35 years"
Source: Link

That doesn't prove that they didn't kill them some other way. Some also say that the children were just left to slowly die of attrition, which is even worse than a quick death. Can you also confirm that this is a legend and not the truth?

Besides what did the so-called Spartan culture left us aside of tales of impossible battles. If it's a culture then it's a monomaniacal one and not in a good way (assuming there is a good way to be monomaniacal).

 

[BK613]

@Swedish Borg I'm providing sources for the information I am sharing; what are yours?

 

[Christopher]

Okay, let's go to the Online Etymology Dictionary:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/prosper#etymonline_v_2718

mid-14c., prosperen, "be successful, thrive, advance in any good thing," from Old French prosperer (14c.) and directly from Latin prosperare "cause to succeed, render happy," from prosperus "favorable, fortunate, prosperous" (source also of Spanish and Italian prospero).

So "prosper" doesn't mean "succeed materially," it means "succeed in one's desired goals." Depending on what theory of its etymology you go by, it could mean "live according to one's hopes" (pro spere).

"Live long and thrive" is redundant.

Oh, not at all. Thriving doesn't mean living long, it means living well, flourishing. A thriving business is one that has a lot of customers and activity. A thriving cornfield is one where the corn is high and abundant. A person who lives 80 years on a subsistence income, failing in love and career and settling for a lonely life and menial job, lives long but never thrives. A person who lives 40 years with lots of friends and a happy marriage and a fulfilling career does not live long, but they definitely thrive while they're around.

And if they mean "Live long and succeed." Why not say "Live long and succeed?"

Because that doesn't convey quite the same sense. "Succeed" could refer to a single specific undertaking or goal -- succeed at getting a small business loan, succeed at solving today's sudoku puzzle -- while "prosper" means to flourish more generally in life on a continuing basis.

Also it just doesn't sound as good.

 

[Swedish Borg]

@Swedish Borg I'm providing sources for the information I am sharing; what are yours?

It's things I was told when I studied ancient Greek in what you would call high school. I don't think anybody has ever denied that the Spartans were cruel to their children, disdainful of women, and extremely cruel to their slaves (called helots),. They were pitied by the other slaves.

 

[Swedish Borg]

Btw, "Prosper" is a first name in France.

There's even a song by Maurice Chevalier called "Prosper".

That makes the expression a little funny to the ear of a Frenchman...

 

[BK613]

It's things I was told when I studied ancient Greek in what you would call high school. I don't think anybody has ever denied that the Spartans were cruel to their children, disdainful of women, and extremely cruel to their slaves (called helots),. They were pitied by the other slaves.

I was taught a lot of BS when I was in high school, especially about the American Civil War. I've tried to unlearn that BS over the years. Here's another interesting read for you:
Gorgo and Spartan Women

 

[Swedish Borg]

I was taught a lot of BS when I was in high school, especially about the American Civil War. I've tried to unlearn that BS over the years. Here's another interesting read for you:
Gorgo and Spartan Women

"Either with this or on this" does sound like a loving mother, doesn't it?

To think that that's the least outrageous Spartan saying about mothers...

 

[BK613]

Well, they certainly weren't smothering, were they?

 

[Swedish Borg]

Well, they certainly weren't smothering, were they?

Demanding though definitely.

 

[MAGolding]

Not about taste or approval, just a matter of what about Sparta is verifiable historic fact and what is myth/fiction, written after the city-state's heyday.
For example,
"According to historical records, Keadas was the site of execution where Spartans would thrust the enemies of Sparta, traitors and those convicted of serious crimes. In addition, an unlikely, unconfirmed fiction – wide spread nevertheless in contemporary times as well – holds that disabled or cachectic infants were thrown by Lacaidemonians at Keadas. Anthropological research in the Tripi cavern has failed to establish the presence of infant or child bones. The interior of the cavern yielded ample numbers of skeletal findings belonging mainly to men aged 18–35 years"
Source: Link

That doesn't prove that they didn't kill them some other way. Some also say that the children were just left to slowly die of attrition, which is even worse than a quick death. Can you also confirm that this is a legend and not the truth?

Besides what did the so-called Spartan culture left us aside of tales of impossible battles. If it's a culture then it's a monomaniacal one and not in a good way (assuming there is a good way to be monomaniacal).

Perhaps I should quote from Wikipedia:

Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants. Now universally illegal, infanticide was a widespread practice throughout human history that was mainly used to dispose of unwanted children.[1]:61 Its main purposes were controlling population growth[citation needed] and saving resources from being spent on weak or disabled offspring. Unwanted infants were normally abandoned to die of exposure, but in some societies they were manually killed.

Most Stone Age human societies routinely practiced infanticide, and estimates of children killed by infanticide in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras vary from 15 to 50 percent. Infanticide continued to be common in most societies after the historical era began, including ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the Phoenicians, ancient China, ancient Japan, Aboriginal Australia, Native Americans, and Native Alaskans.

Infanticide became forbidden in Europe and the Near East during the 1st millennium. Christianity forbade infanticide from its earliest times, which led Constantine the Great and Valentinian I to ban it across the Roman Empire in the 4th century. The practice ceased in Arabia in the 7th century after the founding of Islam, since the Quran prohibits infanticide. Infanticide of male babies had become uncommon in China by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), though female infanticide remained common until the 19th century. During the period of Company rule in India, the East India Company attempted to eliminate infanticide but were only partially successful, and female infanticide in some parts of India still continues. Infanticide is now very rare in Western and other developed countries, but may persist in some less developed countries.

Parental infanticide researchers have found that mothers are far more likely than fathers to be the perpetrators of neonaticide[2] and slightly more likely to commit infanticide in general.[3]

So infanticide was very common and widespread during most of prehistory and history.

So there are three possiilities:

1) the Spartans were just as evil as other Greeks and disposed of unwantedi nfants at Keadas, but their tiny bones decayed and were eaten by scavengers much faster than the bones of adults and so none were found.

2) The Spartans were just as evil as other Greeks and disposed of unwanted infants somewhere else and/or by other methods than they used to execute adults.

3) For some reason the Spartans compensated for being worse than other Greeks in many respects by not being evil enough to kill infants.

 

[BK613]

@MAGolding We've moved on already but when the archaeological record backs up the stories then they are facts, not before.

 

[Swedish Borg]

I am still not convinced that there was such a thing as a Spartan culture, aside from being suicidal maniacal warriors, like the Incas I think who once a year played a game of something that looked a bit like American football and the losers were executed. There were also altars for human sacrifices that according to European witnesses were covered with several inches of dried blood!!!! Some cultures!!!