>> We get 12 victories, 11.5 defeats and 0.5 draws Without the context of the relevant battles those numbers mean nothing. E.g. Thermopylae was one of the loss

>> We get 12 victories, 11.5 defeats and 0.5 draws Without the context of the relevant battles those numbers mean nothing. E.g. Thermopylae was one of the losses but it would be hard to interpret it as evidence of the Spartans' average military capabilities. War is not football, to keep score. Rome lost more battles to Hannibal than they won, but they erased Carthage from the face of the earth. As to Bret Deveraux, my opinion is that he's a fucking idiot. You say he "specializes in dismantling this kind of pop culture myths". What he really specialises in, with respect to Sparta, is trying to troll nenoazis and other idiots who are the Spartans' biggest fans, by pointing out what fucking losers they were (the Spartans; but also by extension the neonazis). That's an easy win. Nobody thinks Sparta was some great beacon of civilisation, except perhaps for people who take all their history from watching 300. It was Athens that was a beacon of civilisation, Athens who went down in history for its contributions to science and culture, Athens whose glorious ruins are visited today by millions every year, when Sparta is lost forever, not even its location known. And good riddance to those fascist assholes. Anyway Deveraux is writing a blog and you shouldn't mistake blogs for sources of historical truth.