Spartan Army

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Contents 1 Introduction 2 Training 3 Tactics 4 Famous battles 5 Decline

[edit] Introduction

The Spartans were for centuries the foremost military power in Greece. They created one of the toughest and most disciplined armies in world history. Their soldiers were trained from infancy to be tough, obedient, and above all to Know No Fear. They enjoyed a period of supremacy after the Peloponnesian War with Athens, but were defeated by the Thebans in the imaginitively named Theban War. The elite troops were the Spartiates and these were also the top social class.

[edit] Training

The training gave boys the three most vital traits of a Spartan:

They were tough. If a baby was weak it would be left on a mountain to die or donated to another city. The survivors were taken from their mothers at a young age and taken into groups of other boys, and would be subjected to a very hard life. They only wore a tunic and to stay warm they would rub themselves with thistles. A testament to the toughness of the reigime is the tale of the boy and the fox cub, in which a boy steals a fox cub, but is caught by the owner. The owner interrogates the boy, but the boy suddenly drops dead. The owner finds that the fox has eaten the boy's insides without one grunt of pain. If the boy was caught, he would have been beaten not for stealing, but for not getting away! After 22 they would join the army, where they would have gruelling 10km runs in sandals. And that was just before breakfast!

They were obedient. The whole city was ran by the elders, and very subject of the curriculum was some kind of war training, even music and dance were only to teach them to obey orders and march in good order. With a life centered around men who were tougher and more frugal than they were, how could they disobey? However their loyalty was to the State above all else. When the Spartans were told by Leonidas to retreat at Thermopylae they refused, and fought to the death.

They knew no fear. They were ordered to, before Thermopylae, give gifts to the Persian king of "Earth and Water". They threw the messenger down a well, saying that now he could have as much Earth and Water as he liked! Later, when the Spartans were told that the Persian arrows would blot out the sun, one officer said: "That is good. We will have a bit of shade to fight the battle!

[edit] Tactics

The Spartans were a hardcore Phalanx army, a tactic which boils down to troop quality and numbers. Using one is like putting weights on a pulley to lift a weight: If you have one very heavy weight, it offsets two small weights. Quality was the big weight, and so in Spartan philosiphy, Who Needs Numbers? This idea enabled them to do something unprecedented: Fight to the death. They would simply march at the enemy or hold their ground, either way they simply let the sarissae spears do the talking.

They were determined traditionalists who refused to use cavalry or Peltests in battle. The lack of these meant that the Thebans and Macedonians could easily (well, not quite...) defeat the almost immobile Phalanx.

[edit] Famous battles

Thermopylae, 480 BC. Persia 1-Greece 0
Calcis, 429 BC. Sparta 1, Athens 0
Aegospotami, 404 BC. Sparta 2: Athens 0

[edit] Decline

The rigid structure of the army was the cause of both victory and defeat. It lost them the Thaban War, however they were allowed self-government. Macednia's versitile army of Phalanx and horse decimated them. By the time the Romans arrived, they were in no position to defend themselves. Sparta had been tamed.