How different were the Spartans?

[Erpingham]

Spartans have been a favourite of wargames since way back.  Heroic, elite, uniformed, drilled armies as opposed to those rather chaotic "other" Greeks.  But is that true?  We've discussed before aspects of their appearance :

http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=2345.0
http://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=2340.0

But what of their fighting techniques?  Were they very different to other hoplites?  Were they better drilled, more disciplined?  Were they organised differently?  Do they deserve their popular reputation?

[Justin Swanton]

This is sooooo tempting. But I must resist.....must resist.....

[Nick Harbud]

But what of their fighting techniques?  Were they very different to other hoplites?  Were they better drilled, more disciplined?  Were they organised differently?  Do they deserve their popular reputation?

Clearly, they were all Scottish, of Irish descent, and based their combat training on being able to blag their way into the University of Glasgow Law Society.

It's obvious.   

[RichT]

But what of their fighting techniques?  Were they very different to other hoplites?  Were they better drilled, more disciplined?  Were they organised differently? 

OK, first of all, please take as read a plug for my book...

Then - I would say (in my usual way) - it depends. Which Spartans? The Hippeis (or equivalent selected body of 300)? The Spartiates? The Perioikoi? The Neodamodeis (and/or helots, if they aren't the same thing)? The allies? The answer might be different for each of these bodies.

But assuming we are talking Spartiates (as a minimum) - I would say to "Were they better drilled, more disciplined?  Were they organised differently?" yes to all three (provided by 'more disciplined' we don't mean in the 18th or 19th C style, bludgeoned into unquestioning obedience to orders). They practised drill manoeuvres and (probably) fighting technique, which is more than most Greeks did. They had a formal hierarchy of officers on more than two levels, and ditto an army structure down to small units (20-40 men, possibly squads (files) of c. 8 men), while other Greek armies seem to have two high levels of structure and nothing below a lochos of 100-200.

Do they deserve their popular reputation?

Again - depends... Do they deserve their popular reputation among sane, normal people as better drilled, trained, disciplined and organised, and at least some of the time as having a selfless devotion to duty - yes, I think they do. Do they deserve the near worship they receive from some quarters - no, absolutely not. There is plenty to admire about the Spartans, but very little to like.

Spartans had a good contemporary reputation (militarily) which meant they could sometimes win battles without even having to fight, but if they did have to fight, victory was never a foregone conclusion, they certainly could be beaten. Effective yes, supermen no.

[RichT]

In the Spartans v. Vikings thread, David Kay said:

My Spartan queries mainly resolve around how big were their armies and who were their close allies? My findings (or vague recollections) from reading are that there were never really a lot of Spartans (of any of their castes) and to get to a reasonable level they had to use allies. But I'm not too sure who they were. My army currently has Tegean, Messene and a vaguely named "Lower Laconian" grouping for its allies. What I don't want is for people to tell me that is wrong (although I know they will).

OK, I won't tell you that is wrong (it is a bit).

Spartan allies - the usual arrangement (with usual caveats around what is usual) might have been that Sparta provided half of a field army, and the allies the other half, matching Spartan numbers (which would themselves usually be two thirds of the total available eg 4 out of 6 morai), for example Xen. Hell. 6.1.1 "The Lacedaemonians sent Cleombrotus, their king, across to Phocis by sea, and with him four morai of their own and the corresponding contingents of the allies".

Who the allies were depended on circumstances and would vary from case to case, eg Thuc. 2.10.1-2 "Lacedaemon sent round orders to the cities in the Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to prepare troops and the provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in order to invade Attica. The several states were ready at the time appointed and assembled at the Isthmus; the contingent of each city being two-thirds of its whole force."

So allies could be called on from whatever Peloponnesian cities were allied at the time. For the specific cities involved in any particular case the best bet is the accounts of the major battles, where they are generally listed.

As to how big Spartan armies were - again, it depends, plus there are big arguments over the size of the morai and whether perioikoi should be included in the totals or were additional, so there's no simple answer. Around 5000 men as an average seems plausible (more for an early maximum effort like Plataea, less for a late effort like Leuctra).

[Duncan Head]

Spartan allies - the usual arrangement (with usual caveats around what is usual) might have been that Sparta provided half of a field army, and the allies the other half, matching Spartan numbers ...

Well... depends exactly who you mean by "allies" and "Spartans". The Lacedaemonian contingent would itself be mixed, Spartans and subordinate but nominally independent perioikoi - at Plataea, according to Herodotus, there were 5,000 Spartiates and 5,000 perioikoi (just talking about hoplites here), so the Spartans provided half of the Lacedaemonian army, and there were more distant "allies" on top of that. Of course Plataea is unusual both in the size of the army and the wide area from which the alliance was drawn; and in other periods it is not always so clear where the perioikoi fit in to the units.

As for the "more distant allies", you will read in some secondary sources of the "Peloponnesian League": Sparta tried to force alliances on just about every state in the Peloponnese, with varying degrees of success. Argos was usually hostile, and the Arcadian cities divided - Tegea tended to be the most pro-Spartan.

At the risk of huge over-simplification, if you think of one Spartan to one perioikos to two Peloponnesian allies, you might not be too far off for a general picture.

(I've just come across a thesis on the prioikoi - http://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3001055/1/200685435_Aug2015.pdf - haven't yet read it, but it might be useful.)

[RichT]

Yes Sparta is complicated by the confusion (ancient and modern) over what is meant by 'Spartan'.

So a simplified ideal 'Spartan' army (that is, an army put together by Sparta, not an army of Spartans):

- n Spartans (Spartan citizens, though possibly including other Spartan classes too)
- n Perioikoi (Lacedaemonians, but not Spartan citizens)
- nx2 Allies (Peloponnesians from various sources)

Where n is any number you like less than or equal to 5000.

[Cantabrigian]

Spartans have been a favourite of wargames since way back.  Heroic, elite, uniformed, drilled armies as opposed to those rather chaotic "other" Greeks.  But is that true?

Somewhere on the web you can find a historian who collected statistics about every battle the Spartans fought in, and discovered they were as likely to lose as win.  Being a historian and not a statistician he then made a howler of a conclusion that the Spartans were no more effective than other nations.

What he was forgetting was that ancient battles required an element of agreement to happen, and so his statistics are more likely to show that the Spartans were about as good as they were believed to be at the time.

[RichT]

Somewhere on the web you can find a historian who collected statistics about every battle the Spartans fought in, and discovered they were as likely to lose as win.

Here, perhaps. We talked about this a year or two ago IIRC.

There is also, now, Myke Cole's The Bronze Lie - which is near the top of my 'to read' list.

[dwkay57]

Thanks guys, that's interesting and useful.

Generally it seems that my men in red (yes, I know they didn't all wear red (probably) but it helps to identify them from other Greeks at 6mm) army isn't too badly off what might have possibly or sometimes taken the field.

The Spartans themselves provide 50% of the army (about 6,000 men) being a mix of generally good hoplites and poor quality lighter foot (mostly).
They have one specific keen ally and one specific reluctant ally, each providing about 1,500 men, and then a more general purpose but larger ally. Allied troops have some good hoplites but most are not up to Spartan specifications for training nor equipment.

[PMBardunias]

Somewhere on the web you can find a historian who collected statistics about every battle the Spartans fought in, and discovered they were as likely to lose as win.  Being a historian and not a statistician he then made a howler of a conclusion that the Spartans were no more effective than other nations.

Myke is a friend of mine, but the win/loss record is meaningless if we do not have a means of weighting the importance of the victory. I will take 10 Lechaeums for one Coronea.

[RobertGargan]

Thank you, Duncan, for the link to "The Perioikoi...", written by Carlos Rene Villafane Silva.  I had not realised the Perioiki were so significant in the state of Lakedaimon.  The thesis seems to explain why Perioikic rebellion was rare and that the Perioiki must have dressed and been armed the same as "Spartans" in the battle line.  I presume they also had shining bronzed faced aspides.
Robert Gargan