Are Spartans Gods?

[Slug For A Butt]

As I have posted elsewhere, just want opinions. Why are Spartans so overrated?
The Spartans (Lacedaemonian), are revered in history mainly (in my opinion) because of the battle of Thermopylae
,
If you look at the Spartan history, they won about as many as they lost, and that was against comparable Phalanx based civs.
Look at Argos, the battle of six hundred. Where 300 Spartans went against 300 Argives to decide the fate of Kynouria in an ORGANISED battle. The Spartans lost that one.
Look at the battles with Tegea that the Spartans were losing disastrously until they used spywork to steal the bones of Orestes which demoralised the enemy. No feat of warcraft there.
The list could go on, but I'm just wondering why they are revered the way they are now. They were a very hardship oriented society. Obviously Lykurgos had a major impact on the Spartans but they were not gods as they are portrayed in the game.

Heres a decent look at the Spartans' history.
http://www.sikyon.com/sparta/history_eg.html
Althoug if you trawl the web, there's plenty more.

[Craterus]

Has this been to the Monastery? It would probably receive a more in-depth discussion there.

[Slug For A Butt]

I was just wondering in the "game" sense why they are an elite unit.
I'd like to have peoples opinions rather than a history class. They are portrayed as Hellenic gods in the game, but they were no more special than Lesbian/Corinthian/Argive/Tegean hoplites. But RTW portrays them as Phalanx gods.
I think RTR did a fine job by giving us Corinthian, Spartan, Athenian hoplites as elites with slight differences. More realistic as there was not much between them in real life.

[Craterus]

Ok, I see where you're going. CA is based on common myths. And Spartans are commonly thought of as the best trained soldiers of the ancient world. I think that's why they're elite.

[Avicenna]

The Spartans were easily the most organised and disciplined force for a period of around 364 years, at around the 735 BC to 371 BC when they were defeated at Leuktra and their helot slaves freed, destroying their Eutopia. The Argive example you showed was fought out by normal Spartiates. The elite, best Spartiates didn't fight on foot: they were the 300 Hippeis (cavalry) who guarded the king. Orestes' bones worked both ways: it boosted the Tegeans' morale, so the Spartans took that away from them. I've read down to past halfway, I'm yet to see another Spartan defeat.. apart from Thermopylae.

[Ludens]

A lot of what we know from this periods comes from Greek writers, and those either greatly admired the Spartans (and their strict ethos) or greatly feared them. I am not quite certain that they were the most trained and disciplined forces of the ancient world, though. Sure, they were the best of the Greeks, but then Greek city states initially relied almost exclusively on part-time soldiers. You'll notice that as other Greek armies also become more professional the Spartans suddenly start looking a lot less invulnerable. Though, as Tiberius says, economical factors were also to blame for their downfall.

[Nelson]

Spartans are commonly thought of as the best trained soldiers of the ancient world. I think that's why they're elite.

Bingo. Many buyers expect the Spartans to be special and CA didn’t want to disappoint them. This is the same reason the Egyptians don’t look Greek. It’s all about meeting customer expectations.

Regardless of how the Spartans in their heyday stacked up against other armies, they had certainly shot their bolt before the Rome: Total War timeframe.

[Joshwa]

Okay, Greek history isn't my specialty, I do Roman history on my degree course, but from what i've read, Spartan training was exceptional, as was their discipline, but, as others have shown, they weren't that good. What set them apart was their mindset. The Spartans, like the Vikings, were just hard. End of story.

[ZombieFriedNuts]

Personally I’d say yes, weren’t they trained from birth to be solders and nothing else, so if they weren’t, they were the next best thing.

[Avicenna]

The stranger: they wouldn't have had hoplite reforms if they didn't have hoplites would they? There have been depictions of Greeks in phalanx long before the Macedonians under Philip II conquered Greece, and even then that wouldn't affect the Spartans: Lacedaimon wasn't considered valuable enough for the effort required to subdue it, so it was left alone and didn't fight for or against the Macedonians.

[Slug For A Butt]

The initial poster was arguing against the common misconception of the historical Spartans as supersoldiers. Yes, perhaps this should have been in the monastery, but I think that most of the history buffs are already aware of this.

I was arguing that Spartans were not that much superior to other phalanx based units as the game insinuates. Hence why the superstats compared to other phalanx units? I'm not arguing that they are or are not the best soldiers in the game, just that they are far and away the best phalanx units in the game unless facing missiles.

wasnt sparta probally the cradle of democracy or even the first one. ??

and yes i speak in regards to there own citizens and descion making.

Nope, not a democracy at all really. I'd personally say fascist oligarchy.

[Ludens]

I was arguing that Spartans were not that much superior to other phalanx based units as the game insinuates. Hence why the superstats compared to other phalanx units? I'm not arguing that they are or are not the best soldiers in the game, just that they are far and away the best phalanx units in the game unless facing missiles.

My mistake. I assumed that this was not a game-related discussion since you only talked about historical events.

Incidentally, the Spartans had a democracy. Sort of. Any adult male citizen (which did not include the Helots, despite them forming the majority of most Spartan armies) could vote at the assembly. Voting was done by shouting loudly: the side that made the most noise won the vote. The Spartans aren't generally credited with being the first, though. Athens gets that honour. Personally, I think societies in which every person's vote counts are as old as humanity, so calling Athens the cradle of democracy is wrong. Athens should be credited with developing the first formal democracy.

[Avicenna]

The Spartan system was a mix of Oligarchy, Dual-Monarchy (2 kings), Democracy and Aristocracy. All citizens could vote, but the only citizens were the aristocracy, Spartiates, and all citizens were male. There were kings, but gradually evolved to be nothing more than figureheads. The oligarch part is the Ephors, the small group of five that held true power and could even arrest a king. Anything the assembly voted for could be rejected by the Gerousia, council of elders. In turn, what they approved of could be rejected by the Ephors. So, the ephors ran Sparta and it wasn't a true democracy. Athens was. Sparta did introduce the concept of citizenship though.