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According to Deveraux (article series linked in another comment) they weren't even good at that!
by jacobmischka 5y ago
According to Deveraux (article series linked in another comment) they weren't even good at that!
- forgetfulness 5y agoThey had a professional officer corps and drills. In fact, that's mostly what the Spartiate class was really. Since other city states had armies comprised of the gentry donning a suit of armor when needed, it made a lot of a difference in that context. Well it turns out that you can have a worthwhile society while also having a professional officer corps and drills, it's just that the Spartans didn't.
- cabalamat 5y agoIndeed. They were good are producing high-quality individual infantrymen. But (1) there weren't very many of them, and (2) there's a lot more to winning wars than how tough your infantry are. I'm reminded of Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo who both thought that Americans were only interested in money and sex, decadent, undisciplined and unmilitaristic (all true, to some extent), and that therefore they'd be easy to beat in a war. It didn't quite work out for them!