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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CandyLaser" data-source="post: 9442940" data-attributes="member: 7029413">This is pretty well-attested to in the historical record. I recommend Bret Deveraux's excellent series of articles about it, found <a href="https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/" target="_blank">here.</a> That link goes to the first in a seven part series, so it's not a short read, but it is informative. The first few parts focus on Spartan society and its brutality; their supposed military might gets discussed in depth in sections <a href="https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/" target="_blank">six</a> and <a href="https://acoup.blog/2019/09/27/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vii-spartan-ends/" target="_blank">seven</a>, which can largely be read without reading the earlier bits if you're so inclined. The articles go into detail as to what advantages the Spartans did and did not have on the battlefield, and what that translated to in terms of battlefield success. The short summary is that the Spartan heavy infantry (their hoplites) probably had some advantages in terms of command structure and organization, and they might have been slightly more individually capable than their peers in comparable societies (other Greek city-states, Persia, Macedon, etc). These advantages didn't really translate to much when it came to success on the battlefield, where their reputation for military might didn't really have much to back it up, as they lost about as many battles as they won, which is about normal for large Greek city-states. They were basically a regional hegemon with control over the Peloponnese for ~175 years, which was largely due to the fact that they were about 3x bigger than any of the other city-states in the area. There's a stretch of ~10 years where they manage to extend their hegemony across Greece at large, which they mainly do by allying with Persia against Athens, which ends with Sparta being turned into basically a client state of Persia, ironically. Deveraux's conclusion is this:Emphasis in the original.</blockquote>

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