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Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

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Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#51

Post by p_l »

dylan604 wrote: post #48
hef19898 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make anti consensus opinion right by definition. In case I am not part of the experts in any given field, I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. And looking back at history, the scientific consensus is changing all the time. Quite often with the obsolete one staying on as a pop cultural trope.

>I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. Good thing Copernicus didn't follow this line of thinking. Anytime someone comes up against group think, there is always the resistance against it. It's only natural. Being willing to listen to the unpopular opinion to at least evaluate it before dismissing it out of hand is what separates science. It is the responsibility of the "dissident" to persuade and…

Except Copernicus was an expert in the field and thus his repudiation of established model had a basis to stand on including thorough work to support his claim.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#52

Post by p_l »

myfartsarefoul wrote: post #23
ncmncm wrote: post #5

Or, much less than an army of super warriors. They did not win more battles than their rivals. I think of them as Greece's FARC, distinguished mainly by their abuse of their own children and everyone they depended on for their own survival.

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.

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

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#53

Post by Lazare »

myfartsarefoul wrote: post #23
ncmncm wrote: post #5

Or, much less than an army of super warriors. They did not win more battles than their rivals. I think of them as Greece's FARC, distinguished mainly by their abuse of their own children and everyone they depended on for their own survival.

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.

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?

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#54

Post by afthonos »

dylan604 wrote: post #48
hef19898 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make anti consensus opinion right by definition. In case I am not part of the experts in any given field, I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. And looking back at history, the scientific consensus is changing all the time. Quite often with the obsolete one staying on as a pop cultural trope.

>I have not ground to stand on to challenge that consensus. Good thing Copernicus didn't follow this line of thinking. Anytime someone comes up against group think, there is always the resistance against it. It's only natural. Being willing to listen to the unpopular opinion to at least evaluate it before dismissing it out of hand is what separates science. It is the responsibility of the "dissident" to persuade and…

Copernicus was an expert. Those who have spent years laboring to understand a subject do occasionally ignore the bright upstart who has mastered the field and then proves them wrong. But that doesn’t oblige them to credit ignorance as serious argument in the name of “being willing to listen to unpopular opinion”.

And this isn’t about credentialism either. You can tell the lion by his claw; a knowledgeable non-credentialed expert will not be dismissed as easily.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#55

Post by moonglade »

ldbooth wrote: post #15

I was surprised to learn spartan society had pedophilia built in similar to a mentor system. Will Durant wrote about it, but I never hear anything in pop culture except the warrior bit.

I loved Durant. Mary Renault, The Last of the Wine. You won't regret it.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#56

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

bennylope wrote: post #3

If you like this there's a meaty seven part blog series by historian Bret Devereaux about the mythology surrounding Sparta. It offers an account of what Sparta and the Spartan military was really like as well as how the Spartan mythos evolved. https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-p...

The article you link is the worst kind of telling of history: overflowing with bias, preaching and pontificating and making moral judgments left and right about things that happenned more than 2000 years ago. It is an internet rant, designed to provoke clicks and outrage, and its only reason of existence is the existence of the film, 300, a fantasy, that presents a fantastical image of Sparta, that the author then proceeds to deconstruct as if it were reality, or as if anyone claimed was reality. It is one gigantic straw man.

Instead of consuming one person's opinion, second-hand, why not read the original historical sources?

For example:

The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, by Xenophon

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1178

The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7142

History, by Herodotus

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2707 (Volume 1) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2456 (Volume 2)

On Sparta, by Plutarch

https://www.amazon.com/Sparta-Penguin-Classics-Plutarch/dp/0...

And so on. Read history; and make up your own mind.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#57

Post by shashwat_udit »

ceejayoz wrote: post #13
anonporridge wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 eff…

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.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#58

Post by Iv »

Fixed title: Sparta was NOT an army of super warrior.

From what I understand, it was a fantasy model heralded by conservative Greeks as an example for all but is as much based in reality than the golden past of the people calling to "make America great again". It is projecting into the past an ideal that never was.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#59

Post by dingoegret12 »

Lazare wrote: post #53
myfartsarefoul wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Re: Sparta was more than an army of super warriors

#60

Post by danielvf »

dingoegret12 wrote: post #59
Lazare wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

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.
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