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View Full Version : where have all the spartans gone?



master of the puppets
01-13-2005, 22:59
now, i pride myself in my extensive knoledge of many ancient empires but the one part of anciet times that i hate beyond rational thought is how the spartans seem to fade to black. they were living legends, gods of war beyond parallel. the rest of greece fell before the heavy hand of the romans the spartans dissapear. no great battle no stunning war. no battle for the ages of men where the last of the spartans meet a group of romes elite. the spartans out numbered, worse generals, worse stratigic standpoint the romans fought defeating the spartans in the end but suffering more losses in a single battle as there ever was in history.

but noOoOo there was some diplomatic thing and sparta was simply brought into the empire no blood spilt

bah :annoyed: completely un-spartan like and un-roman for that matter

i don't know exactly what happened to them if one was to be kind enough to enlighten me?

Zorn
01-13-2005, 23:27
I have read that spartans have waged war just roo often for too long. Their population was decreasing, and they had more and more troubles keeping the helotes, their slaves in check. Once they even had to ask Athens for help to suppress a rebellion.
So I guess they have become just to weak after all those years of glory.

Spino
01-13-2005, 23:40
If you do a search on Sparta both here and in the Monastery you will find a fair number of threads filled with discourse on the reasons for its decline and eventual collapse.

If I could encapsulate Sparta in a few poorly written parapraphs I would say that it was a society doomed to failure from the moment it adopted the Lycurgian constitution. The social revolution that created some of the world's best soldiers also imposed unyielding, ultra-conservative traditions and attitudes, a rigid caste system (enslaving fellow Greeks), infanticide based largely on superstitious beliefs, widespread and practically institutionalized homosexuality, low birth rates (see infanticide & institutionalized homosexuality) and last but not least, lack of inventiveness in virtually all fields of endeavor with the exception of the art of grand strategy and the practise of hoplite warfare.

Sparta didn't go out with a boom but a whimper. Sparta simply faded away. Sparta did attempt a comeback during the era represented in RTW. Kleomenes III restored the Lycurgian constitution but it was more of a half-hearted rehash than an full blown rebirth. Under Kleomenes III Sparta and its hoplites were tough but shadows of their former selves and quickly defeated.

It is rather ironic that Sparta was both instrumental in saving western civilization from Persian hegemony and dooming democratic Greek civilization by defeating Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Athens never recovered from its defeat at Sparta's hands and Sparta, thanks to its obsession with warmaking and little else, proved to be inept at running an empire (something Athens, the great mercantile sea power of its day, was seemingly tailor made to do).

Kraxis
01-14-2005, 01:16
Sparta was on the sideline for a long time before the Romans came to Greece. When they did the Spartans more or less allied themselves with them believing they would perhaps enjoy some benefits. They did enjoy some benefits but not the way they had hoped and thus the decline continued until they had become a touristattraction where people could observe 'true Spartan' courage and abiltity to endure pain.
But I believe they did continue to rather dominate the Olympic games.

Sparta was never conquered, but was rather relieved of one overlord in favour of another.

Uesugi Kenshin
01-14-2005, 03:50
Could also be that they lacked leaders with the true Spartan spirit like Leonidas who died for his people at Thermopylae. If they had had more determined and brave individuals such as him and saw that lasting military greatness requires change they could have been much greater, but in the end they didn't change with the times and were swept away by the hand of time...

Red Harvest
01-14-2005, 06:24
Everything I've read suggests Sparta had a severe population issue. You could lose your status as a Similar quite easily, effectively disenfranchising you and yours forever. They also had a low birthrate for reasons mentioned above. So the spartans themselves were a declining population. A few battles going against them was no help. And they had a large subjugated population to try to control. Sparta really could not afford to go to far afield, because they barely had the manpower to control their own territories from threats. Population issues like this work slowly over generations to sap a group or nation's authority. Also, when you have to fear stepping out of the crowd of Similars, innovation gets squashed in a hurry (reminds me of Big Business in the U.S. from personal experience--guardian cultures represent decay, fighting the forces of the world/nature to preserve the past rather than prepare for the future.)

Kraxis
01-14-2005, 14:26
Everything I've read suggests Sparta had a severe population issue. You could lose your status as a Similar quite easily, effectively disenfranchising you and yours forever. They also had a low birthrate for reasons mentioned above. So the spartans themselves were a declining population. A few battles going against them was no help. And they had a large subjugated population to try to control. Sparta really could not afford to go to far afield, because they barely had the manpower to control their own territories from threats. Population issues like this work slowly over generations to sap a group or nation's authority. Also, when you have to fear stepping out of the crowd of Similars, innovation gets squashed in a hurry (reminds me of Big Business in the U.S. from personal experience--guardian cultures represent decay, fighting the forces of the world/nature to preserve the past rather than prepare for the future.)
I have acutally read a very good book on the Spartan Army (no not the Osprey one), and of course I can't remember the name of the author (Lazenby perhaps?), but it does touch on the subject of Spartan population.
The author is of the oppinion that the Spartan population itself didn't decline, not even after Leuctra, but the number of true Spartiates did for a number of reasons (such as the women always inheriting the land after her husband, which of course could lead to very wealthy ladies after two or three husbands). Those that lost their proper Spartiate status were demoted to the status of Hypomeiones, effectively meaning 'Spartiate without political power'. These people would still serve in the Spartan armies and would still be considered Spartiates but they would not have any say in anything. Those were by Leuctra the bulk of the Spartan forces. Then there was the Neodamodeis, who were freed helots, those too would serve in the army, but would not have the same backbreaking training as the Hypomeiones. So Sparta didn't suffer from a lack of people directly, but they did suffer from a political system that hampered almost everything. As well as they never tried to export their ideas, not even to their closes allies the Tegeans.