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