Any new spartan unit in the making?

[Kampfduck]

hi.
some months ago there was a topic about sparta in this
specific period, and if it should have an own unit, and how this
unit should look. After that it became very quit around the new
spartans. Any change that the team has worked on a new spartan
soldier/unit?

greetz

[Teleklos Archelaou]

Definitely. We are still debating the one shown to us so far - equipment, armor, etc. It's very tricky to try to get one to accurately represent what we think they would have been like in 272 BC. Some folks will have 479 BC Spartans in their head and will be upset if they aren't depicted that way. Some people will want the famous Spartan "Spartan-ness" to be present in the unit, regardless of the situation of the Spartans in 272 (e.g., the standard service as mercenaries they participated in, the statements that the king in 272 (Areus) introduced 'luxury' into Sparta, etc.). Some folks will want really bland ones, some will want really flashy ones. It's complicated. We are trying to come to some agreement, but don't expect us to show the unit till it's ready.

[jerby]

sounds like that Pie/cake speech from some time ago.

EB is making Pie. but soem of us would have liked Cake better. some will say Pie sucks and cake rules. everybdoy wants somethign else. some get what they want, pie. but whatever the case, EB is making Pie, a good pie. so people will say:" hmm, I like Cake better than Pie. but damn this sure is a good pie" or perhaps even "this is the best Pie ever"

[Kull]

sounds like that Pie/cake speech from some time ago.

EB is making Pie. but soem of us would have liked Cake better. some will say Pie sucks and cake rules. everybdoy wants somethign else. some get what they want, pie. but whatever the case, EB is making Pie, a good pie. so people will say:" hmm, I like Cake better than Pie. but damn this sure is a good pie" or perhaps even "this is the best Pie ever"

In this case, it will definitely be "the best Pie ever".

[khelvan]

We might as well solicit the various explanations for going either way with the look of the Spartiates now, so as to avoid a little bit of the sh*tstorm that will happen when we reveal them, no matter what we choose.

Our current working version, which has generated a LOT of heated debate, looks rather extravagant. Worked bronze cuirass, with elaborate bronze trimmings and the like. It is, in fact, the best looking unit we've done yet (in my opinion). However, the debate over how rich they should look is, as I said, rather heated. So, we might as well get the ball rolling here and get all the sources laid out for going either way. People may even have sources we haven't read, which will help the decision making process.

[paullus]

Just to clarify, the Spartan unit is meant to be a sort of agema equivalent, right? That is, not at all a common unit, or even the main unit to be recruited at Sparte.

[Moros]

sounds like that Pie/cake speech from some time ago.

EB is making Pie. but soem of us would have liked Cake better. some will say Pie sucks and cake rules. everybdoy wants somethign else. some get what they want, pie. but whatever the case, EB is making Pie, a good pie. so people will say:" hmm, I like Cake better than Pie. but damn this sure is a good pie" or perhaps even "this is the best Pie ever"

Hmm...Pie... :drools like Homer:
Pff who would want cake anyway. tsss cake.

[Mithradates]

I was wondering when did the spartans loose the cloaks and long hair was it after the helots system was removed or even earlier?

[jerby]

Hmm...Pie... :drools like Homer:
Pff who would want cake anyway. tsss cake.

imagine the poor bastards who like pudding

[EdwardL]

A while back I posted some historical info concerning the spartans that gave some insight to the history of their Military and way of life from 338 BC up to 1834 AD. Hope this helps..


The quality of training and valour of the Spartans did not deteriorate through time, in withering decay as some here might believe.. It went through reforms and attempts of reform that merited the Spartan soldiers with renewed excellence..



The end of Sparta

After the battle of Chaeronea (338 BC) Phillip of Macedon marched through the Peloponnese, welcomed by all the cities but when he reached Sparta they refused him to enter. Phillip did not try to take by force the city and left. Sparta was the only Greek city that did not take part in the League of Corinth, which was formed in 337 BC, under Macedonian control.
In 331 BC, king Agis, the grandson of Agesilaos, raised a revolt against Macedonia, but he was defeated and killed.
In the end of the 4th century BC, Sparta build a wall for the first time in her history, which was enclosing its four central villages and Acropolis.
When in 280 BC, the Celts invaded from the north overrunning Macedon, king Areus of Sparta, who had tried to unite the cities of Peloponnese, led an army into central Greece. During his reign the first coins of Sparta was issued, three hundred years later from the rest of Greece.
In 272 BC, king Pyrros of Epeiros could easily have taken the city after defeating the Spartans. Sparta became a dependency of Macedon, regained independence under the tyrants Machanidas (207 BC) and Nabis (195 - 192 BC).
In 265 BC again, having formed an alliance with Athens, Achaea and Elis and some Arcadian cities, gave battle against Macedon but lost it and in his retreat was killed (Chremonidean war).
The son of Areus, Akrotatos, in 260 BC leading the Spartan army against Megalopolitans, he was defeated and himself killed.
In 244 BC, Agis IV came to the throne and starting a series of changes. He proposed all debts to be cancelled, and to redistribute all land, in parts of 4500 citizens and 15000 Perioikoi. He also insisted on strict Lykurgian training in the citizens for the remained 700 equals (omioi) and 2000 hypomeiones and selected perioikoi. He found in his proposals strong resistance and Agis was put in trial and executed in 241 BC.
The next king of Sparta Kleomenes III, began to reign in 236 BC. He married the widow of king Agis and also tried to impose his ideas. In 227 BC, in a revolt he killed four ephors and exiled eighty of his opponents. That it was the first time the ephorate was abolished in Sparta. He then redistributed the land into 4000 lots and perioikoi as well as hypomeiones occupied them. He also started to enforce the Lykurgos training and habits, under the guidance of his friend philosopher Sphairos. All these changes brought results and Kleomenes had many military successes. Argos and most of Argolid and eastern Arcadia was conquered.
The Achaean league under Aratos of Sikyon, with the promise of giving him back Corinth, allied with king Antigonos of Macedon and recovered Argos and several Arcadian cities. In his turn Kleomenes captured and destroyed Megalopolis (223 BC).
In 222 BC, at Sellacia, between Sparta and Tegea, a battle took place. The Spartan army was numbering 10,000 and that of Antigonos and his allies 30,000. At this long and horrid battle, Spartans fought bravely. The whole Spartan army fell, except 200 men. King Kleomenes fled to Egypt.
The following years, a series of revolts started at Sparta, king's ephors were killed or exiled.
In 206 BC, the tyrant Nabis, a descendant of Demaratos, who had fled in Persia in 490 BC, took the throne. An able but ruthless man, he confiscated the properties of the wealthy and gave them to the poor. By setting free slaves, he managed to acquire an army of 10,000 men and he also extended his social reforms to Argos. It was Nabis who foreseeing the incoming dangers fortified Sparta for the first time in her history.
When the Roman commander Flamininus invaded Laconia and laid siege to Sparta, after a few days of fighting a non honorable truce was accepted by Sparta, in which was loosing all the Perioikic cities on the coasts and her fleet.
Later with the pretence of helping Sparta, the Aitolians sent a thousand soldiers to kill Nabis and secure Sparta. They managed to kill him but they all were massacred from the Spartans. After Nabis assassination, Sparta was forced by Philopoemen to become a member of the Achaean league. Her walls were razed and the laws of Lykurgos repealed.
Under the Romans in the 2nd century AD, Laconia as a province of Achaea was allowed to revert to a Lykurgian regime.
In 396 AD, the city was destroyed by Alaric.
In the 9th century AD, the Slavs invaded and the population was forced to migrate to Mani.
The Byzantines refound a town and named her Lacedaemonia but her importance had been lost by 1248 AD and disappeared from history totally, by 1834 AD.
Today the city of modern Sparta occupies the very same territory of the ancient city.


One would think that in EB should be followed a reform for the Spartans such as that of Marian reforms for Romans.

[Moros]

imagine the poor bastards who like pudding

well aren't there pies who have a layer of pudding? hmmm.
pudding pie...