The decline of Sparta

[Phalanx300]

Yep and not only Spartans employed this psychological warfare

"-Iphicrates never allowed his lines to be broken in the heat of the pursuit. He continually called out to his light-armed troops to beware of ambushes. He also had a general rule, never to press the enemy too hard when they had been routed, if there were any narrow passes or rivers behind them; for if they are hemmed in, they are often forced by desperation to rally and fight again.
-When Iphicrates had forced a fleeing enemy into a narrow pass, he always tried to open a way for them, and give them a chance to escape, without making it necessary for them to force their way out by fighting. He said that there was no reason to compel an enemy to be brave."
(Polyaenus: Stratagems/BOOK 3)

of course you have to remember that Spartan omoioi (=equals) were always very few compared to the manpower of other city-states such as Athens,Thebes and so on... having a demographicaly declining pool of hoplites with which to secure the Lacedaemonian homeland from the helot threat and implement Spartan hegemony throughout Greece ... forces you to drasticaly economise on your forces shall we say???

Yes its a good tactic.

When compared with other mayor cities it was low on citizens, yet I always look to their glorytime with 9000-8000 citizens.

And that drastic decline only happened when drastic citizen drop happened, it uneved it. With the earthquake many Spartans died and their land was taken by others which made it uneven. And with the Athenians raiding Spartan land resulting in citizen drop and finally the Thebans liberating Messenia and Skiritai which resulted in 3,5 Moras getting destroyed of the 8 and even more land loss.

[ARCHIPPOS]

Well the decline in the numbers of Spartan omoioi had its roots in socioeconomic rather than demographic factors... from the time of Lucurgus ( around 750 BC??? ) when Sparta reformed into a militaristic city-state to the beginning of the peloponesian war the number of omoioi has dropped from 9000 or so to aproximately 3500...

This decline occured mainly because (contrary to what many people believe) the fertile lands of the Helots were private owned-each kleros(=land share) belonging to individual Spartans NOT the state... subsequently the lands were inherited from father to his son/sons...

As can be easily deducted this had grave implications in the economic stability of the Spartan warrior class...not only were land shares steadily diminished from generation to generation (due to high birth rates) but also operating in the context of a private land-property system the farming estates were inevitably accumulated to less and less Spartans ( through land transactions)... so we have from one hand the fragmentation of small/medium land properties and from the other the formation of massive land properties in the hands of fewer and fewer Spartans...

NOW...we all know that Spartans went through a lifetime of rigorous military training starting at the age of 7 and ending at the age of 60... BUT -for a Spartan to participate into the agoge and then be admitted amongst the ranks of omoioi (=enjoying full citizenship) ... it would be absolutely necessary for his family to cover the cost of living throughout his life-long military service... this included daily rations of food (syssitia) and all other (admittedly modest) costs... weeeeell... each generation a number of Spartan descedants hardpressed by poverty and insufficient funding (remember the diminishing land-shares??? ) was pushed out of the agoge ... for example the famed Spartan general Lysander descended from a poor Spartan family and when he was young he needed sponsorship to be able to participate in the Spartan training to be a soldier ...

for the Spartan state to regain a satisfactory pool of omoioi an extensive land redistribution program would have to be implemented... sth of course that the majority of omoioi (being large land owners by now) drasticaly opposed... so much for politics ... :)

[Phalanx300]

Well the decline in the numbers of Spartan omoioi had its roots in socioeconomic rather than demographic factors... from the time of Lucurgus ( around 750 BC??? ) when Sparta reformed into a militaristic city-state to the beginning of the peloponesian war the number of omoioi has dropped from 9000 or so to aproximately 3500...

This decline occured mainly because (contrary to what many people believe) the fertile lands of the Helots were private owned-each kleros(=land share) belonging to individual Spartans NOT the state... subsequently the lands were inherited from father to his son/sons...

As can be easily deducted this had grave implications in the economic stability of the Spartan warrior class...not only were land shares steadily diminished from generation to generation (due to high birth rates) but also operating in the context of a private land-property system the farming estates were inevitably accumulated to less and less Spartans ( through land transactions)... so we have from one hand the fragmentation of small/medium land properties and from the other the formation of massive land properties in the hands of fewer and fewer Spartans...

NOW...we all know that Spartans went through a lifetime of rigorous military training starting at the age of 7 and ending at the age of 60... BUT -for a Spartan to participate into the agoge and then be admitted amongst the ranks of omoioi (=enjoying full citizenship) ... it would be absolutely necessary for his family to cover the cost of living throughout his life-long military service... this included daily rations of food (syssitia) and all other (admittedly modest) costs... weeeeell... each generation a number of Spartan descedants hardpressed by poverty and insufficient funding (remember the diminishing land-shares??? ) was pushed out of the agoge ... for example the famed Spartan general Lysander descended from a poor Spartan family and when he was young he needed sponsorship to be able to participate in the Spartan training to be a soldier ...

for the Spartan state to regain a satisfactory pool of omoioi an extensive land redistribution program would have to be implemented... sth of course that the majority of omoioi (being large land owners by now) drasticaly opposed... so much for politics ... :)

I don't think that many people believe that the land was owned by the state, the Helots were owned by the state.

And yes, if one wouldn't get a son then eventually his land slot would be added to that of someone else so thats one less citizen. Some sort of redistribution program should have been implemented to ensure maximum number of citizens, I agree with that.

[moonburn]

wich was what nabis made when he reformed the system and became a dictator of sparta

so it was never a thing of not having enough men but a thing of those men they had didn´t got what they deserved cause something was screwing their meritocracy, as i remember reading towards the ends of sparta their lands where divided by a few families and only 700 sparts could afford the agoge

another thing that must be pointed out is that the lands of the original 5 villages that formed what would become sparta (thus the 5 epheiros or whatever they where called) could feed dress and equip 9000 strong spartans and when they conquered the lands and cities around them they seemed to have decreased their hability to feed equip and dress spartan soldiers, furthermore the spartan unatraction for trade hindered their hability to aqcuire more wealth that could otherwise be used as a new type of land to be granted to those who earned their rights in the agoge wich nabis again tryed to change but only ended up atracting the kretan pirates that by continous attacks on roman allies got the spartans screwed

ofc this always happens and it was one of such situations that the grachus brothers tryed to change in rome that got them assassinated
altough the roman system was better made and the grachus brothers where actually fighting for lands that belonged to the people but where being used by senators to turn a profit wich was then used to enlarge the pockets of such senators instead of benefiting rome

but this is a good example on why democracy sucks cause the dumb will vote for the fish not for the fishing net/poll (whatever) thus allowing the few smart one´s to get richer while the dumb one´s get to eat a meal and starve the next day

[Phalanx300]

wich was what nabis made when he reformed the system and became a dictator of sparta

so it was never a thing of not having enough men but a thing of those men they had didn´t got what they deserved cause something was screwing their meritocracy, as i remember reading towards the ends of sparta their lands where divided by a few families and only 700 sparts could afford the agoge

another thing that must be pointed out is that the lands of the original 5 villages that formed what would become sparta (thus the 5 epheiros or whatever they where called) could feed dress and equip 9000 strong spartans and when they conquered the lands and cities around them they seemed to have decreased their hability to feed equip and dress spartan soldiers, furthermore the spartan unatraction for trade hindered their hability to aqcuire more wealth that could otherwise be used as a new type of land to be granted to those who earned their rights in the agoge wich nabis again tryed to change but only ended up atracting the kretan pirates that by continous attacks on roman allies got the spartans screwed

ofc this always happens and it was one of such situations that the grachus brothers tryed to change in rome that got them assassinated
altough the roman system was better made and the grachus brothers where actually fighting for lands that belonged to the people but where being used by senators to turn a profit wich was then used to enlarge the pockets of such senators instead of benefiting rome

but this is a good example on why democracy sucks cause the dumb will vote for the fish not for the fishing net/poll (whatever) thus allowing the few smart one´s to get richer while the dumb one´s get to eat a meal and starve the next day

Nabis reformed because there was nothing left of the old Sparta. It just went through a reform and lost their manpower and ways again.

Spartans getting rich wouldn't be good, it goes against their original ways which made them a power and Spartans not fully following their laws was what also caused in their eventual downfall.

Spartans fought in the Phalanx right? =P

[moonburn]

the state getting rich and use that wealth to suport the best man even if his family couldn´t afford his place at the mess wasn´t wrong either

if it was given to the council of elders (those dudes with 60++ years) altough even if abused that corruption would never escalate cause 60+ aged men don´t live that much longer

as for wealth and sparta one should remember they only got their power into hellas once the persians paid for the spartan fleet wich enabled them to fight athens on all grounds

wealth made from trade and taxes is just as vallid to pay for a promissing child agoge and then the mess as the wealth from the fields

we clearly don´t know enough about spartan society but i remember reading that spartans equiped a few "non spartans" to provide suport for them in batle. before this thread i had always assumed they meant helots (wich are still a vallid possibility since a loyal helot makes for a decent cannon fodder instead of sacrificing the extremly valuable units)

but now i can imagine that it where those spartans that , for some reason, couldn´t afford the agoge

another issue is the law of sucession if it was like the medieval europe where the oldest gets all i can´t see a reason for downfall except if the man didn´t bare children wich meant that those lands could be split amongst other families. if it was a law of partition of lands then idd there´s another good reason since smaller amounts of land yeld less profit making man with insomnia´s because what they had didn´t sufficed for the mess forcing them to abandon it and thus reducing the amount of soldiers while at the same time men who didn´t had a son could makke marriages beteween a few of the best soldiers thus merging lands and thus reducing the amount avaulable to the rest

[ARCHIPPOS]

the geopolitical position of Sparta has been seriously hindered by its declining demographics...

At the pinacle of its military might (around 700 BC) Sparta pursued relatively modest strategic goals : securing Spartan dominance in the fertile valey of Messenia... as time progressed so the geographical limits of this Spartan Hegemony expanded from Laconia to Peloponese to southern Greece to the Aegean area and even Asia Minor ... but the seer Spartan manpower reduced respectively... this antinomy between Spartan exaggerated goals and diminishing means is very defining of Lacedaemonian politics...

for example let us refer to the incident of Pylos... in 425 BC the Atheneans managed to trap around 400 Lacedaemonians in the small island of Sphakteria (situated at the very south-western edge of the Peloponesian peninsula)... a large portion of those trapped men did in fact belong to the omoioi class...
the prospect of the demise of even those few precious omoioi was enough to alter Sparta's war commitment. Members of the Lacedaemonian government were dispatched to the scene, and negotiated an armistice on the spot-the entire Spartan fleet was surrendered to the Athenians as a guarantee for Spartan good conduct, and ambassadors were sent to Athens to seek a permanent peace... it is wonder that a state with such feeble resources retained this potentiality of power ...

[Phalanx300]

Well this Historian told me that Sparta was most true to its own laws and really greatest from about 700BC till 450 BC. After that date it just went downhill with big citizen lost and the laws not being as heavilly followed as that time.

[Centurio Nixalsverdrus]

Well this Historian told me that Sparta was most true to its own laws and really greatest from about 700BC till 450 BC. After that date it just went downhill with big citizen lost and the laws not being as heavilly followed as that time

They went down not because the didn't follow their laws so strictly any more, but because they had started to abandon their ridiculous laws to late. I always felt a strong dislike for them. You cannot survive with such a ridiculously strict society, where you throw "minor" people away in such a quantity whereas you are forced into all kind of fuss for anyone of the "betters".

People admire Athenai today for their foresight, and not Sparte for their archaio-fascism. Around 335BC, when Megas Alexandros ventured his famous conquest, he simply left the Spartans behind - he was seemingly not overly afraid of them putting up a threat on a more or less undefended flank. He was not even afraid they could evoke the thirst for liberty in the other southrons. Sparte, that's just a bunch of old guys who were constantly afraid of their own slaves. In a way, the Spartans are the epitome of hillbillies - brutal, unschooled, provincial and certainly without any clue of the "whole big picture". *shivers*

[tls5669]

One of their biggest problems was they alienated everyone they conquered, even their allies, everyone hated them. When they fell there was no one there to help them, but I guess they got what they deserved, just like Rome.

[moonburn]

One of their biggest problems was they alienated everyone they conquered, even their allies, everyone hated them. When they fell there was no one there to help them, but I guess they got what they deserved, just like Rome.

wierd then that corinth could drag sparta into a war wich was unwanted

wierd that the spartan armies always had an ephor (magistrate) when going to war to avoid "stupid" mistakes and to remember the soldiers of their duty´s and their merits

the way i see it sparta had a shortage of man for their lands (all of their lands) and since an helot revolt was always present their "assembly" and thus their politics where always mined by the fears they had

they had no true political aim except to protect themselfs and be respected (my personal opinions ofc) and any shift in politics was always hindered by their rethoricians in their assembly since fear is a far better weapon to get votes then reasoning

even their dual kingship made them "weak" politically cause it always made them internally divided

spartan goverment was good to rulle a big village (or small city depending on the concept you prefer to adopt) but not a kingdom or even an empire and when they started expanding and overstreatching they eventually got screwed if not for epaminondas breaking spartan hegemony the spartans would have faded away eventually since every man they lost would be hardly replaced (in terms of military power a dead spartan would have as much effect as for instance 10 soldiers/men of athens)