YMMV / Parallel Lives

• Harsher in Hindsight: In the biography of Lycurgus, when discussing the custom of Crypteia (state-sanctioned genocide campaigns against the helots), Plutarch says that despite all his sources claiming Lycurgus created it, he dismisses them and refuses to believe someone so great could have sanctioned something so vile, and it must be a later addition to the laws. Can be jarring to read today, when a good number of people use the same logic with Adolf Hitler and The Holocaust. While modern historians do tend to agree most of the Spartan customs and laws are newer than tradition maintained, there is no indication the Crypteia is particularly new compared to the rest of them.