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Thucydides, an Athenian who fought the Spartans and also spent some time with them, would beg to disagree. Spartan diplomacy, while not very eloquent, was never

by zeteo 3y ago

Thucydides, an Athenian who fought the Spartans and also spent some time with them, would beg to disagree. Spartan diplomacy, while not very eloquent, was nevertheless very effective during the Peloponnesian War, with Athenian allies frequently doing their utmost to desert to the enemy. Spartan troops, while few in number, prove extremely effective in combat, usually routing their direct opponents and only losing the occasional battle due to their allies' unsteadiness. Even the battle at Pylos, cited by Mr. Devereaux as a major defeat, comes very close to being a second Thermopylae, with a small group of Spartan warriors stranded on an island and holding off against all odds for months, until a freak accident burns out all the trees and reveals their lack of strength to the enemy. Finally forced to take to the seas, inexperienced Spartan admiral Lysander concocts a brilliant strategy and utterly destroys the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

kybernetikos 3y ago
The article was written by an historian who is well aware of Thucydides. He's written a lot about him on https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ including a discussion of why we shouldn't take his views on Sparta without a grain of salt. "To put it bluntly, these guys are all snobs. Thucydides and Xenophon were both aristocratic Athenians (they got to be generals, rather than common soldiers), frustrated that democracy – in their view – let the fickle, uneducated and poor ‘masses’ make decisions that ought to have been left to their ‘betters.’... For these authors, Sparta is a mirror to hold up to the politics of Athens – speaking well of Sparta is a way of criticizing what they dislike about Athens (which is the democracy)... These men conclude that Sparta is fantastic because Sparta seems fantastic for men like them – rich, educated, adult citizen men."
- zeteo 3y ago
  I am well aware of prof. Devereaux's blog and have even donated to it in the past. Also I hope you realize that just because someone is a historian it doesn't mean all other historians would agree with him. Pick ten random books on ancient Sparta, the odds are that most will take a position very different from "Spartans were losers".
  - kybernetikos 3y ago
    I'm not sure about the 'random books' method, since there are a lot of extremely random books on Sparta, but I'd be very interested to hear about debate within the military history profession on the effectiveness of Sparta. (This is not me expressing scepticism that it exists, merely that I am ignorant of it).
    - zeteo 3y ago
      A rather authoritative reference point here is Donald Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War", which has been generally well regarded over the past two decades. Paul Rahe's recent book also seems well documented. Here are a couple of reviews to get you started: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.03.44/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.03.44/ https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/1/the-spartan-way-of-war https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/1/the-spartan-way-of-wa... > One of the many Spartan enigmas—the reluctance to deploy an otherwise superior military—was not really an enigma at all. > Sparta’s original paramilitary force, with time and sustenance to train and drill constantly against internal enemies, eventually evolved, by the early fifth century, into a crack expeditionary army, one even deadlier against Greek rivals than against Sparta’s restive serfs. > Its unmatched hoplite army was often put to Panhellenic use, most famously by the three hundred at Thermopylae and as the “Dorian Spear” that crushed the Persians at Plataea. > In this regard, Rahe shows that purportedly blinkered Spartan foreign policies gradually proved more astute than those of sophisticated Athens.

by zeteo 3y ago

kybernetikos 3y ago

The article was written by an historian who is well aware of Thucydides. He's written a lot about him on https://acoup.blog/ https://acoup.blog/ including a discussion of why we shouldn't take his views on Sparta without a grain of salt. "To put it bluntly, these guys are all snobs. Thucydides and Xenophon were both aristocratic Athenians (they got to be generals, rather than common soldiers), frustrated that democracy – in their view – let the fickle, uneducated and poor ‘masses’ make decisions that ought to have been left to their ‘betters.’... For these authors, Sparta is a mirror to hold up to the politics of Athens – speaking well of Sparta is a way of criticizing what they dislike about Athens (which is the democracy)... These men conclude that Sparta is fantastic because Sparta seems fantastic for men like them – rich, educated, adult citizen men."

zeteo 3y ago
I am well aware of prof. Devereaux's blog and have even donated to it in the past. Also I hope you realize that just because someone is a historian it doesn't mean all other historians would agree with him. Pick ten random books on ancient Sparta, the odds are that most will take a position very different from "Spartans were losers".
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  I'm not sure about the 'random books' method, since there are a lot of extremely random books on Sparta, but I'd be very interested to hear about debate within the military history profession on the effectiveness of Sparta. (This is not me expressing scepticism that it exists, merely that I am ignorant of it).
  - zeteo 3y ago
    A rather authoritative reference point here is Donald Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War", which has been generally well regarded over the past two decades. Paul Rahe's recent book also seems well documented. Here are a couple of reviews to get you started: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.03.44/ https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2021/2021.03.44/ https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/1/the-spartan-way-of-war https://newcriterion.com/issues/2021/1/the-spartan-way-of-wa... > One of the many Spartan enigmas—the reluctance to deploy an otherwise superior military—was not really an enigma at all. > Sparta’s original paramilitary force, with time and sustenance to train and drill constantly against internal enemies, eventually evolved, by the early fifth century, into a crack expeditionary army, one even deadlier against Greek rivals than against Sparta’s restive serfs. > Its unmatched hoplite army was often put to Panhellenic use, most famously by the three hundred at Thermopylae and as the “Dorian Spear” that crushed the Persians at Plataea. > In this regard, Rahe shows that purportedly blinkered Spartan foreign policies gradually proved more astute than those of sophisticated Athens.