I think that view is an overcorrection to their inflated reputation. They, like every other Classical Greek state, had their comparative times of strength and weakness.
They as a polity had times of strength and weakness, but their reputation as peerless warriors doesn’t really hold up under battlefield conditions, and their rigid caste system made all except the Spartiates perform relatively poorly on the battlefield. They traded on reputation (and terror) and an economic ability to wage war at any time (as Spartan citizen-nobility had no other significant functions other than repressing helots), not actual battlefield performance.
Sure, but if the Spartans were shit at war they wouldn’t have had the century and a half of being undefeated in decisive battle that would form the Peloponnesian League from their conquered subjects in the first place.
The League that then led the war against Xerxes, and eventually conquered Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, a hegemony that would only be broken by the man whose tactics would teach Phillip II and his son what’s-his-name how to conquer most of the ancient world.
That simply is not being shit at war, even if a critical analysis shows the Spartans did not perform notably better 1:1 than anyone else without trading on their reputation.
I think that view is an overcorrection to their inflated reputation. They, like every other Classical Greek state, had their comparative times of strength and weakness.
They as a polity had times of strength and weakness, but their reputation as peerless warriors doesn’t really hold up under battlefield conditions, and their rigid caste system made all except the Spartiates perform relatively poorly on the battlefield. They traded on reputation (and terror) and an economic ability to wage war at any time (as Spartan citizen-nobility had no other significant functions other than repressing helots), not actual battlefield performance.
Sure, but if the Spartans were shit at war they wouldn’t have had the century and a half of being undefeated in decisive battle that would form the Peloponnesian League from their conquered subjects in the first place.
The League that then led the war against Xerxes, and eventually conquered Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, a hegemony that would only be broken by the man whose tactics would teach Phillip II and his son what’s-his-name how to conquer most of the ancient world.
That simply is not being shit at war, even if a critical analysis shows the Spartans did not perform notably better 1:1 than anyone else without trading on their reputation.
I don’t think we disagree on the details, only the descriptor.
I think we can certainly both agree that smashing ass was apparently key to conquering Greece, be it Spartans, Thebans, or Macedonians.
Another successful Lemmy discourse!