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Are the battle outcomes fair comparisons? What if they had great warriors but poor decision makers? Could they have fought poorly matched battles for the sake o

Are the battle outcomes fair comparisons? What if they had great warriors but poor decision makers? Could they have fought poorly matched battles for the sake of conserving resources, etc? I don’t care about Sparta one way or another. But simply “looking at numbers” can be deceiving.

p_l 5y ago
The already linked few times blog post series goes into that topic as well. It is really thorough and I heartily recommend it.
Lazare 5y ago
I highly recommend the linked series; it's accessible and fascinating. The upshot though is: Think of battle at the time as being a little bit like some sort of bizarre college sport where everyone lines up, locked arms, and then smashes into each other. With, yes, weapons, but fatality rates were not enormous. Spartiates - the tiny warrior elite of Sparta - are a bunch of very rich asshole frat boy jocks who are far too cool to train or anything, but that was fine because training doesn't really matter for a glorified shoving match, and nobody else was bothering to train either. What matters a bit more is that they spend every day living together, eating lots of meat, getting drunk, raping and torturing slaves, and if they feel like it, going hunting, so they're all beefy, well fed, fit, and can afford the very best gear. Also they have excellent cohesion thanks to all that bonding while drinking and/or torturing slaves, so man for man, they're pretty effective. Of course, these battles/shoving matches are big enough that they have to drag along a bunch of non-citizens and slaves and allies from other Greek city states to pad out the numbers, so that undercuts their advantage. Although note that Spartiates are by far the most prestigious, and there's a strict rule that both teams line up with the most prestigious on the right side, facing the enemies left side (where the weakest, poorest, and least prestigious units are slotted in). So yes, individually, Spartiates were...well, not great warriors, but man for man they were the most effective fighters on the field, especially since they consistently faced the weakest opponents. But Spartan armies were not unusually effective, and Sparta as a polity failed to achieve its strategic objectives. History is full of glorious defeats where Spartiates lost impressively; so much so that in one famous instance where a bunch of Spartiates were captured by Athenians, they had to confirm that they were actually Spartans - not because they lost (that wasn't unexpected) but because they were expecting a doomed fight to the end. So yes, Sparta was let down by truly horrible logistics and diplomacy, but their military record wasn't much better. Quite good at beating up their slaves and/or the weakest unit on the opposing army though, so there's that?
- dingoegret12 5y ago
  Spartan martial prowess wasn't anymore effective, individually or as a group than any other group of their time. Eating beef and raping slaves is simply not good enough reason to persist this mythology. Carthaginian sacred band had better equipment, fitness, tactics and discipline, combined with a religious zeal that made their morale unbreakable. They also ate meat, whatever that's worth. Apart from a single dubious and assuredly propagandized solo account from well known liar in history, Sparta simply has no consistent feats to backup any of the mythology that has been popularized by comic books and movies.
  - danielvf 5y ago
    By off chance, did you mean the Thebian Sacred Band? Since they did beat the Spartans, whereas the Carthaginian Sacred Band was a different era, and while known for being "elite" by we know them best by two defeats they suffered.
- gumby 5y ago
  This description also works well for the bands of knights in the so-called age of chivalry. It’s easy to be on the winning side when you’re cruising around on a horse, protected from random arrows and blows from unarmored people on foot, and hacking away at same from above with a sword or axe.

p_l 5y ago

The already linked few times blog post series goes into that topic as well. It is really thorough and I heartily recommend it.

Lazare 5y ago

I highly recommend the linked series; it's accessible and fascinating. The upshot though is: Think of battle at the time as being a little bit like some sort of bizarre college sport where everyone lines up, locked arms, and then smashes into each other. With, yes, weapons, but fatality rates were not enormous. Spartiates - the tiny warrior elite of Sparta - are a bunch of very rich asshole frat boy jocks who are far too cool to train or anything, but that was fine because training doesn't really matter for a glorified shoving match, and nobody else was bothering to train either. What matters a bit more is that they spend every day living together, eating lots of meat, getting drunk, raping and torturing slaves, and if they feel like it, going hunting, so they're all beefy, well fed, fit, and can afford the very best gear. Also they have excellent cohesion thanks to all that bonding while drinking and/or torturing slaves, so man for man, they're pretty effective. Of course, these battles/shoving matches are big enough that they have to drag along a bunch of non-citizens and slaves and allies from other Greek city states to pad out the numbers, so that undercuts their advantage. Although note that Spartiates are by far the most prestigious, and there's a strict rule that both teams line up with the most prestigious on the right side, facing the enemies left side (where the weakest, poorest, and least prestigious units are slotted in). So yes, individually, Spartiates were...well, not great warriors, but man for man they were the most effective fighters on the field, especially since they consistently faced the weakest opponents. But Spartan armies were not unusually effective, and Sparta as a polity failed to achieve its strategic objectives. History is full of glorious defeats where Spartiates lost impressively; so much so that in one famous instance where a bunch of Spartiates were captured by Athenians, they had to confirm that they were actually Spartans - not because they lost (that wasn't unexpected) but because they were expecting a doomed fight to the end. So yes, Sparta was let down by truly horrible logistics and diplomacy, but their military record wasn't much better. Quite good at beating up their slaves and/or the weakest unit on the opposing army though, so there's that?

dingoegret12 5y ago
Spartan martial prowess wasn't anymore effective, individually or as a group than any other group of their time. Eating beef and raping slaves is simply not good enough reason to persist this mythology. Carthaginian sacred band had better equipment, fitness, tactics and discipline, combined with a religious zeal that made their morale unbreakable. They also ate meat, whatever that's worth. Apart from a single dubious and assuredly propagandized solo account from well known liar in history, Sparta simply has no consistent feats to backup any of the mythology that has been popularized by comic books and movies.
- danielvf 5y ago
  By off chance, did you mean the Thebian Sacred Band? Since they did beat the Spartans, whereas the Carthaginian Sacred Band was a different era, and while known for being "elite" by we know them best by two defeats they suffered.
gumby 5y ago
This description also works well for the bands of knights in the so-called age of chivalry. It’s easy to be on the winning side when you’re cruising around on a horse, protected from random arrows and blows from unarmored people on foot, and hacking away at same from above with a sword or axe.