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Sparta

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  Posted by Rule_Britannia (U2429840) on Tuesday, 17th October 2006

  What happened to this military state, i can't find much and they don't give a clar reason for why it collapsed when it was so powerful at it's height? (but i also find the state system in greece at the time confusing, which might be the reason for me not understanding the collapse)
  Thx.

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  Posted by jonsparta (U3871420) on Tuesday, 17th October 2006

  When it comes to Greek history, Sparta always gets my vote. Athens, and her democracy! rubbish, women were keep locked away and used like land. to be bought and sold by the highest bidder! Sparta, allowed her women to own land, take part in physical activity with the men! anyway....
  
  There are many different reasons for Sparta's collaspe. the declining birth rate, meant that in Sparta's continous war with Athens, numbers of spartan warriors coming out of the argo was getting smaller and smaller. im at work so i dont have my books around me but a earthquake sparked off a huge revolt of Sparta's helots.
  
  the helots controlled by sparta greatly out numbered them. the war took more than 3 years to bring them under control. you must also understand that Sparta, on the whole, was a very inword looking people. Empire building was not really their thing, that is why when the finally crushed Athens, she was ill suited to manage Athens empire. the rout soon set in.
  
  A spartan king who warred endlessly with Thebas ignored a well know spartan maxim. That if you fight continulessly with one city state you will teach them how to fight. And so the did, a day i really hate 371 Sparta was crushed by Thebans! the loss of face to Sparta meant she never really recovered. but i always remember that the Spartan army of that defeat, was a long way off the armies of the Wars against Persia and Athens. it was a mix of freed helots and local hopiltes from other allied states...i come rant all day about Sparta, she is a enigma in ever way...

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 17th October 2006

  Who had said "there seems to be a never ending group of supporters of Sparta throughout the centuries" I do not remember but it is quite fitting.
  
  Sparta was the odd kid out of the Greek states but personally I would not give it a second thought, they were just mediocre. It is a myth that they were strictly militaristic (they had a nice city, they had arts etc. but nothing was saved, afterall the last ruins were turned into stones by late 18th century but some mad psycho French guy). They had things to show but then at the end of the day I am more with Aristotle's view on Sparta: "there is nothing much to take from their example". There were 10 other states in the Greek world that did better than them and far from the likes of Athens (a bright example for the world, but then only a brief part of the overall Greek history). In fact, Syracuse was powerfull enough to crush both Sparta, Athens perhaps Theba included if it wanted (but then it had to look up its back since Carthagenians sent casually ... armies of 300,000 soldiers... not 5,000 that Spartans had).
  
  Talking about military? What do they had to show? That is what Pericles was wondering: "what bright achievement do they have to show when we do only 2 years national service and fight the same if not better than them?" (...implying the Persian wars that it was thanx to Athenians that Greek states were saved and not to the lazy Spartans). In fact searching their history their only major achievement in military was taking the Perian gold and raising a navy (taken mainly from Rhodians if I remember well) suitable to beat the Athenians. In Persian wars, they refused to help in Marathon, they helped in Thermopyles but only by standing, then they did not help in Salamis (where the war was won), and they did not help much in Plateae (where Athenians again bore the burden of facing the Thebans, the most dangerous part of the Persian army).
  
  Apart from that, they lost big-time to Thebans who along with Athenians lost big-time to Macedonians so I can only imagine that Macedonians (rough mountainous Greeks easily comparable to Spartans - thus their tricks would not pass) would eat Spartans for breakfast even if facing at equal numbers.
  
  Now, why did Sparta fall so quickly when they had won the war against the Athenians? Their few numbers and the problems with the Helots were not enough to explain. As Aristotle mentions accurately it was all a problem of leadership: "who rules Sparta? Who takes really the decisions? Is it the 5 Ephors? The 2 kings? The Generals? The army-council? Nobody really knows and one month is the one and the other the other". True! The governship in Sparta was not democratic, not oligarchic and not tyrannic (ancient meaning) but ach month it could be a mix of all that. The recipe was working when Sparta was facing weak enemies near their mountainous homeland, it seemed to work when the city had to send independent armies here and there raise allies against the Athenians but then when all that war settled down, this system did not work at all... there was none to take the lead and make the necessary social changes in Sparta in order to adopt it to its new role of being the leader of a large number of Greek states. By the end of the 5th century Sparta was left without any worthmentioning leader as Lyssander was also forced to political retirement. Another point was that the Spartan financial system built around the idea of equality had collapsed due to the influx of the Persian gold as well as the money got by conquered cities and allies... money which were not spread "with equality" but which enterred certain people's pockets creating visible inequalities in the Spartan society... well... if you were a Spartan citizen of the end of the 5th century serving in the army and watching others sitting and earning gold like that and gaining importance, your belief in the city's organisational and political system and your will to fight for it would have been shattered in one day. It does not take a lot. It has happened elsewhere.
  
  Now even if Sparta had lasted more, they would certainly not had survived the Macedonian attack. Macedonians proved to be more progressive and faster evolving in the mid-4th century only due to their excellent leadership, something that Spartans lacked for a long time.

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  Posted by ElistanOnVacation (U3933150) on Wednesday, 18th October 2006

  Nik,
  
  i think you are being unfair to the Spartans in your aspersions upon their systems. The Spartan model was designed to create a dominant overclass whose role was the subjection of the indigenuous population, and in this it worked for a number of centuries. Considering that the Dorian migration occured around 1100BCE and Spartan power didn't really wane until after the peloponnesian war in the early fourth century BCE it is hardly fair to cast it aside as an irrelevance of history.
  
  True, the Lacedaemons were not at the forefront of the fight against the Persian, but nor were they threaten directly geographically. They may have been selfish by our standards, but you yourself have pointed out on these boards that there was no 'Greek' state or confederation fro them to owe allegiance too, merely a linguistic and cultural commonality. In the case of the Dorians in particular, they were seen as interlopers by many in the rest of Greece. The Spartans were of the same tribal origins as both the macedons and the epirotes, both of whom were routinely refered to as barbarians by ancient sources of the attican tradition. Why should a Dorian state founded on the principle of overlordship of the indigents come to the aid of their helots' kin?
  
  Furthermore, the Spartan system worked within the strict paradigm of absolute dominance of all they came in contact with, and as such lacked all subtly in the diplomatic field that would be required to lead an empire based on a 'first among equals' strategm. It is naive to assume that Sparta could step into Athens shoes and form some sort of Delian league of the land-based city-states. It was not structured to achieve such a goal. In essence, Sparta had empire thrust upon it, unlooked for and against its better judgement. Most of its decisions, as we can see in Thucydides, seem to revolve around trying to get everyone to stop bugging them and sort their own houses out. It was only after all their allies bitched at them incessantly that they were prodded into action in the first place. The 'solution' of Lysander's decarchies only serves to underscore their inability to lead without dominating, as each were backed up by a military garrison.
  
  And this is the nub of the issue. The Spartans did not seek nor want overlordship of Greece. They had enough to do maintaining themselves in the comfort they had grown accustomed to on the back of the helots of the peloponnesse. What happened behind the isthmus of corinth largely did not concern the lacedaemonians, and at no point do they seem overly concerned with pooling their resources with those that inhabitant the territory behind this natural boundary. Inside it was their world, beyond was someone else's problem, right or wrong. Once the Thebans came into their ascendenacy after 371BCE the Spartans quite happily retreated back within their geographical safe zone, and were conspicous by their absence at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC).
  
  The 'downfall' of the Spartans ultimately lay in their tight procreation systems that frocefully limited their population growth, whilst their helots continued to grow in numbers (despite the occassional massacre). By the time of Alexander they had difficulty maintaining their hold over their messenean and arcadian helots, let alone sparing the manpower for united struggles agianst the formidable macedonians. A single defeat would have completely collapsed their system of government, reliant as it was upon a consistent military presence to run their homeland. Despite its non-participation the Battle of Chaerona marked the end of Sparta as an independent power of note.
  
  However, throughout the third century and into the second century BCE Sparta often led oppositional rebellions and struggles against the Macedonians and the Achaens until they were ultimately absorbed by Rome, form they had been attacking on behalf in these struggles.
  
  In short, the Spartan system was designed for the domination of the peloponnesse, and it proved very effective at that, but it was not an expansionist system, and its military was not designed or intended for long campaigns away from home. Its political institutions worked, as long as everyone was at home and the helots knew their place, but they were systemically incapable of leading alliances, resorting to oligrachy and occupation. Latterly, it became a puppet of Rome and served to keep Greece disunited in face of that power. but at the end of the day, they were Dorians, and so not really part of the 'club' anyway.
  
  Elistan

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  Posted by anteos (U4228723) on Wednesday, 18th October 2006

  I do think people look back at sparta with rose tinted spectacles. True women had more rights than anywhere else in greece, they could own property, exercise in public. But people tend to forget that the society was based upon slavery. And if you were born into that strata, you had no rights and could easily be killed.
  
  the spartan military machine was a 'one-trick-pony', and worked well in conventional warfare of the time. But time and time again, when confronted with tactical challanges they failed to adapt. The slanted deep formations of the thebans, springs to mind. Infact the Thebans even used that system twice (leuctra and mantinaea) iirc. The battle of Sphacteria is another one.
  
  did the spartans flirt with communism at some point? I seem to remember one of the kings trying to divide the land equally among the spartiates? Agis 4th?

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 18th October 2006

  I am actually positioned on what Elistan wrote above (a very precise thread). Personally in my previous message I was not commenting that much on "why Spartans did not aid the greek alliances and acted "selfishly"... it is known that Greek states were fully independent states and there was no obligation of whatever kind to aid each other apart some sentimental feelings (in greeks against barbarians cases) and Sparta had to be the most independent minded city of all. But that was not so much because they were Dorians (Dorians were considered as being more close to the archetypal Greek tribes by many back in those times even by Athenians) but because of their system (nicely presented by Elistan above). My personal point was that Spartans after all that system did not present any great military achievements ... perhaps because their fame pushed away any potential invaders... but then down in Peloponese you did not meet as many raiders as poor Macedonians and Epirots had to face throughout the centuries and it is always easy to play the "macho guy" when you are hidden behind your mountain Taygetos.
  
  I was referring to the fact that even in the 5th century B.C. (heyday of Sparta and Athens), Sparta was not the most powerful Greek city, nor it was Athens. It was Syracuse situated in South Italy that anyway hosted the majority of Greeks in the Mediterranean (mostly Dorians). Cities like Miletus (though conquered by Persians) were presenting more population and more financial power and down to basics if say Rodhians ever wanted to invade Sparta they would have conquered it eventually. The fact that Athenians did not conquer Sparta was due to their inherent fear of Sparta on the land - had they hit directly to the point they would have won the war, instead they let Spartans siege them, then they did tourism to Sicily i.e. one mistake after the other. Sparta survived only because its main opponent in Peloponese had been Argos that was since archaic years an average city. Corinth on the other hand was never interested in conquering Sparta since it was not based on their agricultural model but in international commerce, hence no point for them. Did not see though Sparta trying to conquer them (it would be quite difficult, hence Spartans preferred to have them as allies).
  
  I am not unfair to Spartans. I am just saying that we reproduce the hype that Sparta and its system had even since those times when even some Athenian politicians admired them. I find it irrational. Their main achievement was beating the Messinians then the Athenians (that was their highest point just before downfall). But then what if they had survived since 1000 B.C.? Who would displace them? The Helians? Or the Argeians? These were small players even for the standards of the times. Even Spartan colonies (that never shared their political system) were often more large and more powerful than Sparta. It is just that Sparta had created early on a hype in Peloponese, got intermingled in the Olympics (thus increasing their cultural influence) and sat down and 'ate' out of that without producing much more.

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  Posted by adwCymru (U6568136) on Sunday, 19th November 2006

  Thucydides famously indicated that Spartan building in no way reflected the power it (once) wielded.
  
  There is no question that Athens was materially a far more culturally advanced state. However, one must consider the possibility of Spartan achievements that lost to the archaeological record - orally transmitted poetry perhaps.
  
  Athens was at its height a fairly militaristic and militarised society. Sparta took this to extremes - declaring war on the helots every year...
  
  An interesting case to consider is the currency - designed to be so cumbersome (large iron rods) as to discourage trade and thus distasteful merchants.
  
  Their decline was of course due to their lack of soldiers. Perhaps there is a case to be made for the very exclusivity (and closed nature) of Spartan society precipitating its downfall.
  
  All Greek poleis were exlusive in one sense or another. It has been argued that the success of Rome was its inclusiveness, or that the manner in which it absorbed peoples by the granting of citizenship was the key to its success. There is an element of truth in this, in spite of the obvious fact that Rome was obliged to become more inclusive due to the Social War
  
  

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