From: G. Fried (address.removed@nowhere.tld)
Date: Mon 25 Oct 1993 - 19:27:09 EET
G. Fried here.
Sam:
Do pass on the ISBN numbers. And thanks.
---
Sandy:
You write,
"Is it just me, or have the RQ bulletins gotten significantly smaller over
the last week?"
So, you're an addict after just a few weeks? Pass the methadone!
---
Nick:
In your brutal rendition of Gaumata's Vision, you refer to the Sun Domers as
the Spartans of the Desert (or something to that effect).
Now, I have just been teaching Plutarch's 'Life of Lycurgus,' the Spartan Lawgiver, in my ancient political philosophy class. This is a magnificent source (there's a good edition of Plutarch from Modern Library, available in any good used bookstore!) for RQ!
There are indeed many interesting parallels with the Sun Domers. The SDs have those cumbersome Wheels. Lycurgus ordained that Spartan money be minted in iron treated with vinegar -- about as useful as bolgs. The 'Life of Lycurgus' offers many insights into what the regimen of a SD soldier might look like, and why they are so damn ornery, and, well, laconic (and occasionally pederastic!). An important difference. The leisure the Spartans required for their intensive militiary training required the services of a huge slave class, the Helots, who were owned as property of the city (not the individual Spartans to whom the slaves were allocated). I take it, however, that Sun Domer economy is dependant on yeoman farming, and that SD pikemen are an expert militia. I think then that a Spartan phalanx will beat a SD double file (baring rune magic!), as even more of their time is devoted to the craft of war. (And I wonder what role slaves do fulfill in SD society -- isn't large scale slavery as much of a threat to the Sun Domer farmer as Southern slavery was to the Northern free farmer in the pre- Civlil War US? Is Yelm an abolishonist?)
But what is striking about the Spartan founding is the almost total absence of the gods. There is no priestly caste with extraordinary political perogatives. The CITY, not the gods, is the truly the greatest object of worship to the Spartans. This seems to be the great difference between classical Earth and putatively Bronze Age RQ: in RQ, the gods (for some fairly obvious reasons) have a much more profound impact on the political dispensation.
This makes me wonder: why aren't there more cities in Glorantha with the same meaningful status as, say, a Sparta or an Athens? Pavis comes to mind, but it is an anomaly, and pretty much decadent at this point. In Glorantha, nations and tribes adopt gods as their 'founders' and protectors, but not cities, at least as autonomous political units. Where are the parallels to the classical model of the city as THE most important thing in life, with temples devoted to the gods of the city (the Parthenon!), and the duties of citizenship including military service, voting in the Assembly, serving in the Council of Elders or Magistracy or Juries? Or do I need to read the Glorantha book more carefully? In any case, despite the illustations in RQ2 and RuneMasters and other Chaosium/AH products, Prax is NOTHING like ancient Greece. (Though I will always have an abiding affection for those Luise Perrene illos!)
Pedantic rant over! GF.
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