5 ms·

Do you have a source that dives more into this? Specifically breaking down how they weren't actually more effective, contrary to what might be considered common

Do you have a source that dives more into this? Specifically breaking down how they weren't actually more effective, contrary to what might be considered common belief.

ceejayoz 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28711149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28711149 Specifically, part VI and VII of that series. > In short: Sparta’s overall military performance is profoundly average over the Classical period. They don’t even manage a winning record! > It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  I think Sparta was overrated militarily, but logically, a great army may still have a losing record, because the only people who would even dare fight them are ones who think they can actually win. Imagine all of the wars which were never even fought, because their enemies were scared of their army.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    The (long, but worthwhile) series goes through that concept.
  - Rd6n6 5y ago
    The greatest victory is that which is won without ever fighting
- labster 5y ago
  But they did have a winning record. Every year they declared war on the helots and every year they won!
- dylan604 5y ago
  Seems similar to the US military in conflicts after WWII. Better equiped? check Better trained? check Winning record? nope
  - labster 5y ago
    Besides the obvious modern political axe you’re grinding, the parallel doesn’t quite apply to ancient Sparta. While the Spartiates had more training and equipment, the same was not true of the lower caste armies they also fielded. The US army has great logistics; the Spartans could only afford boats when Persia paid for them to beat up their neighbors.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      I wasn't really grinding an axe at all. Just pointing out the fact that "super powers" with lots of toys and training does not always mean an automatic "W" on the scoreboard. It was true in the days of Sparta, and it is true today. What axe are you wanting to grind?
      - labster 5y ago
        You’re saying the US lost militarily in Afghanistan, which didn’t really happen. The war was won, and could be maintained indefinitely without wrecking the economy. But the only way to win the peace would have been a century of colonialism, for a place that hasn’t been worth it since wooden ships bypassed the Silk Road.
        dylan604 5y ago
        I never said anything about any specific conflict. You're putting words in my mouth, and I quite frankly find it rude. I get to decide what goes in, it's the only decision I have as I can't control what comes out.
  - chimen 5y ago
    I don't think US really wants to "win" these conflicts. The truth may be political but I think they favor more a prolonged conflict as opposed to a quick and swift execution. They seem to "need" these encounters all over the world in order to justify the enormous military budget/spending and you cannot do that without a "threat". My .20
- shashwat_udit 5y ago
  Yeah, but you only get the list of Spartan defeats, especially before Leuctra by counting battles that have Spartan commanders but not actually any Spartan troops. Mind you, that is a real deficiency of the Spartan system that they frequently have to fight battles with allied troops and not their own because they don't have logistical capacity, have too few hoplites, or are unwilling to have the helots unsupervised for too long, but that's slightly different from what people are saying when they mean the Spartan hoplites were generally pretty good at smashing other Greek Cities' hoplites.
- Jensson 5y ago
  Sparta at its peak was 10-20 times smaller than Athens. With such a huge population difference you'd expect Sparta to not even put up a fight, but they did and often won and took over large parts of Greece. So to me it is strange to say that the spartan people didn't punch above its weight militarily. If they didn't nobody would have written about them since they were just another small town in Greece. The problem with Sparta was their inability to incorporate other people into their culture. An example of a warrior tribe very similar to Sparta but did properly incorporate new cultures is Rome, and they conquered the entire Mediterranean that way. We would probably have called it "The great Spartan Empire" if Sparta was a bit different. Edit: I think the "myth" part was that Spartan warriors were any better than others elite soldiers. They weren't. But they fielded a disproportionally large amount of elite warriors for their size. Rome did the same, and made their new territories also adopt that culture, which allowed them to just expand and expand.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    > Sparta at its peak was 10-20 times smaller than Athens. No, it wasn't. It had a broadly similar population; it's just that most of that population were slaves. And they did have slave auxiliaries, so it wasn't necessarily a manpower issue.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      It is about 10 times if you count slaves, 20 if you don't. They had conquered other territories which they used as auxiliaries, yes, but those were just normal Greek troops and wasn't anything special or unique to Sparta. And the reason small Sparta could conquer them in the first place was the strong army they had. Not strong as in super human, but strong as in numerous well trained soldiers. Anyone who made their kids practice warfare got soldiers to that level.
igorkraw 5y ago
A sister comment linked to this wonderful takedown of the brutal misery that was Sparta https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...
- gremloni 5y ago
  If all men were gay then is being gay a choice? Serious question.
  - stefs 5y ago
    where do you get the idea that all men were gay? and no, being gay is not and never was a choice. one can have sex with people (of the same sex) even when they're not attracted to them but that doesn't make them gay. counterpoint: a lesbian is able to have sex with a man but that doesn't make her straight either.
    - gremloni 5y ago
      So then except in a small minority of cases (less than 5-7%) these “pedophilic” relationships were not really sexual at all as the author claims.
  - faeriechangling 5y ago
    If all men are gay, it is practically impossible for that to have happened as a result of voluntary choice.
  - weego 5y ago
    Willingness to have sex with another male is not being "gay". Attitudes towards gender and sex are not just a new thing, many cultures, historically, have had far more fluid concepts of these things.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      We know that prison rape is common in modern times. Could just as well be that in those cultures raping men was normalized and they just had to put up with it.
dingoegret12 5y ago
It's not popular belief, it's popular culture. The onus is on the myth makers to substantiate their claims. The idea of super soldiers is anthological comedy. It's fantasy.

Do you have a source that dives more into this? Specifically breaking down how they weren't actually more effective, contrary to what might be considered common belief.

ceejayoz 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28711149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28711149 Specifically, part VI and VII of that series. > In short: Sparta’s overall military performance is profoundly average over the Classical period. They don’t even manage a winning record! > It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while Spartan tactics may have been modestly better than most other Greek states, Spartan operations were dismal, placing severe limits on how effectively the Spartan army could be utilized.

oh_sigh 5y ago
I think Sparta was overrated militarily, but logically, a great army may still have a losing record, because the only people who would even dare fight them are ones who think they can actually win. Imagine all of the wars which were never even fought, because their enemies were scared of their army.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  The (long, but worthwhile) series goes through that concept.
- Rd6n6 5y ago
  The greatest victory is that which is won without ever fighting
labster 5y ago
But they did have a winning record. Every year they declared war on the helots and every year they won!
dylan604 5y ago
Seems similar to the US military in conflicts after WWII. Better equiped? check Better trained? check Winning record? nope
- labster 5y ago
  Besides the obvious modern political axe you’re grinding, the parallel doesn’t quite apply to ancient Sparta. While the Spartiates had more training and equipment, the same was not true of the lower caste armies they also fielded. The US army has great logistics; the Spartans could only afford boats when Persia paid for them to beat up their neighbors.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    I wasn't really grinding an axe at all. Just pointing out the fact that "super powers" with lots of toys and training does not always mean an automatic "W" on the scoreboard. It was true in the days of Sparta, and it is true today. What axe are you wanting to grind?
    - labster 5y ago
      You’re saying the US lost militarily in Afghanistan, which didn’t really happen. The war was won, and could be maintained indefinitely without wrecking the economy. But the only way to win the peace would have been a century of colonialism, for a place that hasn’t been worth it since wooden ships bypassed the Silk Road.
      - dylan604 5y ago
        I never said anything about any specific conflict. You're putting words in my mouth, and I quite frankly find it rude. I get to decide what goes in, it's the only decision I have as I can't control what comes out.
- chimen 5y ago
  I don't think US really wants to "win" these conflicts. The truth may be political but I think they favor more a prolonged conflict as opposed to a quick and swift execution. They seem to "need" these encounters all over the world in order to justify the enormous military budget/spending and you cannot do that without a "threat". My .20
shashwat_udit 5y ago
Yeah, but you only get the list of Spartan defeats, especially before Leuctra by counting battles that have Spartan commanders but not actually any Spartan troops. Mind you, that is a real deficiency of the Spartan system that they frequently have to fight battles with allied troops and not their own because they don't have logistical capacity, have too few hoplites, or are unwilling to have the helots unsupervised for too long, but that's slightly different from what people are saying when they mean the Spartan hoplites were generally pretty good at smashing other Greek Cities' hoplites.
Jensson 5y ago
Sparta at its peak was 10-20 times smaller than Athens. With such a huge population difference you'd expect Sparta to not even put up a fight, but they did and often won and took over large parts of Greece. So to me it is strange to say that the spartan people didn't punch above its weight militarily. If they didn't nobody would have written about them since they were just another small town in Greece. The problem with Sparta was their inability to incorporate other people into their culture. An example of a warrior tribe very similar to Sparta but did properly incorporate new cultures is Rome, and they conquered the entire Mediterranean that way. We would probably have called it "The great Spartan Empire" if Sparta was a bit different. Edit: I think the "myth" part was that Spartan warriors were any better than others elite soldiers. They weren't. But they fielded a disproportionally large amount of elite warriors for their size. Rome did the same, and made their new territories also adopt that culture, which allowed them to just expand and expand.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > Sparta at its peak was 10-20 times smaller than Athens. No, it wasn't. It had a broadly similar population; it's just that most of that population were slaves. And they did have slave auxiliaries, so it wasn't necessarily a manpower issue.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    It is about 10 times if you count slaves, 20 if you don't. They had conquered other territories which they used as auxiliaries, yes, but those were just normal Greek troops and wasn't anything special or unique to Sparta. And the reason small Sparta could conquer them in the first place was the strong army they had. Not strong as in super human, but strong as in numerous well trained soldiers. Anyone who made their kids practice warfare got soldiers to that level.

igorkraw 5y ago

A sister comment linked to this wonderful takedown of the brutal misery that was Sparta https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/ https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

gremloni 5y ago
If all men were gay then is being gay a choice? Serious question.
- stefs 5y ago
  where do you get the idea that all men were gay? and no, being gay is not and never was a choice. one can have sex with people (of the same sex) even when they're not attracted to them but that doesn't make them gay. counterpoint: a lesbian is able to have sex with a man but that doesn't make her straight either.
  - gremloni 5y ago
    So then except in a small minority of cases (less than 5-7%) these “pedophilic” relationships were not really sexual at all as the author claims.
- faeriechangling 5y ago
  If all men are gay, it is practically impossible for that to have happened as a result of voluntary choice.
- weego 5y ago
  Willingness to have sex with another male is not being "gay". Attitudes towards gender and sex are not just a new thing, many cultures, historically, have had far more fluid concepts of these things.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    We know that prison rape is common in modern times. Could just as well be that in those cultures raping men was normalized and they just had to put up with it.

dingoegret12 5y ago

It's not popular belief, it's popular culture. The onus is on the myth makers to substantiate their claims. The idea of super soldiers is anthological comedy. It's fantasy.