Ancient Sparta

Sparta
>spartan training
>sick hoplite stats
>everyone else builds walls
>spartans cant do shit to breach them
>athenians get sick navy while the dumb spartans jack each other off like a bunch of faggots
>athens is now the greek capital

>Six Day War

>dedicate whole lives to being elite warriors
>still aren't appreciably more effective than weekend citizen soldiers from every other Greek city

Sparta sucks.

Nah senpai straight on hoplite to hoplite they were so much better, hence why athens didnt fight them straight out but would use other types like peltasts and archers. Youre a dumb cunt

>Supposedly being the best warriors in Greece with hard as fuck training.
>Got their shit wreck by an army of gay bros.

>hurr durr we lost but it doesn't count because you didn't do what we wanted

No I'm saying that they were the best at that time for being straight up hoplites. If they also did that training for peltasts and shit they would be cash.

Hey I think I heard the lunch bell ring, better get to class user

Not to mention Theban faggot soldiers completely destroyed them a few times over and over again.

Sparta's a fucking cuck citystate.

>if they were better they would be better

Really makes you think.

>they also learn philosophy
NOPE most Spartiates didn't even know how to read. Their famous wit was just a local tradition.

>win peloponnesian war
>dominate Greece for decades afterwards
>decline because Agesilaus couldn't leave the Thebans alone
>only lose because Agesilaus ignored Lycurgus' laws
>only resurgence occurs when they return to the laws of Lycurgus

Sparta was great as long as they played by the book.

Since when has philosophy required reading?

Sparta was fucking shit

Thebes were the real Lads

Sparta sports jock.
Athens rich art jock.

They were pretty great. But the Helots were their big flaw, and the thing that brought their downfall.

Found the idiot with a 300 tattoo

>found the idiot with a 300 tattoo
Excuse me, but that should be applied to Spartalovers and not Thebeslovers tyvm.

>Adult Men spend the majority of their time living in barracks away from their wives, not enough baby making
>lose boys to intense training
>lose men to frequent hoplite uprisings
>population dwindles, become irrelevant

*Helot uprising

SPARTANS ARE MEME WARRIORS THAT INSPIRE THE WORST KINDS OF FAGGOTRY

Every single contemporary account of the city of Sparta had this to say about it: if you ever went there and saw it yourself you would be thoroughly underwhelmed by the primitive thatched roof mudhuts and lack of any permanent structure. If you go to Athens you see the acropolis, one of the most iconic and permanent symbols of civilization in western history. Go to Sparta and the only thing that remains is a crappy, forgettable little amphitheater. They contributed nothing to human knowledge. They made no great works of art, composed no great song or play, left no lasting legacy that wasn't raw human suffering.

So much of what we know about Spartans comes from Athenian hyperbole. We know from the archaeological record that they didn't actually kill undesirable babies, that was a rumor designed to make the Spartans look bad. Everything that was written about the agoge was almost certainly blown way out of proportion. When it came to things like the Olympics, Spartans were not really that much better or worse than anyone else (although they did have a reputation for cheating and rules-whoring)

They were great at terrorizing their slaves but as battlefield warriors their performance was debatable They had no answer for light infantry and throughout their history they suffered from chronic population decline. Like the Spanish economy before and after the defeat of the armada, once Sparta's precious hoplites were taken from them by an army of Theban homosexuals (who literally outwitted the Spartans on the field) they vanish utterly from history, enjoying only the smallest of renaissances before getting their shit pushed back in by the Romans.

They didn't even participate in the two most important battles in Greek history: Marathon and Salamis. People get all hopped up on that "Molon labe" BS and forget that they were the savages on the border of actual civilization.

whoops, meant to quote OP

Triggered helot detected.

>who is Alexander the Great

My broader point was that Spartans did not receive a very thorough education in anything besides war and slave control.

As to your question, I really can't tell if you're joking.

HAHAHA no, I am your glorious Roman overlord. I sent my sons to the academy in Athens because it remained relevant when we civilized these lands for good. But seeing your backwater little mudpit for myself was a nice reminder of how much more glorious my people are than yours ever will

Literally almost every other major Greek city-state as well as the Persians put heavy emphasis on martial training and combat skills for their youth. Why do people always try to make the Spartans out as special uber snowflakes?

They got their asses literally handed to them by the fag couples of Thebes.

but sparta is gretest country in history they fought barbarian muslim tree hundred vs seven billion as shown in gerard butler movie, also I have sparta in facebook profile pic

Didn't the Persians and Athenians rape the Spartans fleets so badly they never attempted to challenge either at seapower again after the Corinthian War?

>cringe

>So much of what we know about Spartans comes from Athenian hyperbole.

And yet your entire posts rely on Athenian exaggeration you chucklefuck.

They didn't win the Peloponnesian War by being awesome, they won because Athenians had ADHD and decided to invade Sicily for no reason.

And then got hit by the plague

Its more of the fact that a Spartan general became best buttbuddies with a Persian prince that would provide him with an endless supply of trimere's to decimate the previously undefeated Athenian navy, removing their naval power completely and any hold they had over their "empire".

sparta was full of chads and athens was full of beta nu males who molested children. essential texas vs the northeastern us nowadays

>spartans
>not molesting children

>Marathon
>More important than Platea

Sure thing bro.

>Didn't do exceptional at the olympics

Maybe it's because good soldiering has more to do with discipline than athletics?

>>More important than Platea
>Sure thing bro.
The battle of Plataea was a mop duty after the decisive Athenian naval victory at Salamis. If the Persians had been victorious at Salamis Plataea would have been a crushing Greek loss.

Meanwhile Marathon was the first time the Persian empire had ever invaded Greece, and the Greeks were outnumbered 3 to 1 and a loss would have resulted in the total subjugation of the Greek peoples.

>Maybe it's because good soldiering has more to do with discipline than athletics?
Which the Spartans didn't have, which is why they got thoroughly outmaneuvered by the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra. Like this user said, their victory in the Peloponnesian war had more to do with Athenian governmental schizophrenia due to the lack of a strong centralized authority than to the quality of the Spartan phalanx and once they fought a power whose government didn't have its head up its ass, Spartans got BTFO.

And bringing up their athletic glories (or lack thereof, and it wasn't for a lack of trying) was more to counter the meme of Spartans being gods of the liftbros. Sparta's biggest claim to Olympic fame was the fact that the first female winner of an Olympic event was a Spartan princess in the chariot races. In fact Aristotle was not being kind when he called Sparta a gynotopia -- a place dominated by women and intrigue.

>And yet your entire posts rely on Athenian exaggeration you chucklefuck.
No, it relies on archaeology you fucklechuck.

Show me a Spartan ruin that comes even close to the glory of the acropolis. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Oh yeah, and that chasm where they supposedly threw unwanted babies? filled with the skeletons of adults, probably condemned criminals.

The problem is that the Spartans were backwards savages who didn't bother to leave anything to posterity, including written records, so literally the only information we have about them comes from Athenian sources, which says a lot about them, actually.

>Which the Spartans didn't have, which is why they got thoroughly outmaneuvered by the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra

WOW, this is so wrong, im not the guy you are replying to but this is wrong. Thebes is by far my favorite city state but you are just....wrong. The reason they lost at Leuctra was because Epaminondas was a based god who crushed their strongest flank with a much much deeper flank of his, it had nothing to do with their lack of discipline, the Thebans had much more men at the point of contact. And please, for the love of god source your claim that they had no discipline i would love to see it.

Pederasty was far more prevalent, common, and culturally instituted in Sparta then any other part of Greece.

THIS, they spent most of their adult lives with other men far away from women, requesting sauce on the Spartan wedding ceremony of dressing the woman in male cloths and cutting her hair short so she could arouse her gay Spartan husband.

>Epaminondas was a based god who crushed their strongest flank with a much much deeper flank of his
It's called an echelon formation, where you focus most of your soldiers on a single point in order to break the enemy formation without engaging most of their soldiers. It was an innovative strategy, and innovation is one of those things that the Spartans never engaged in until history bit them in the ass for it.

> it had nothing to do with their lack of discipline
Receiving and dishing out punishment =/= discipline. True discipline is knowing how to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances, when to follow the rules and when to break them, which the Spartans never did. They were a one trick pony and were the popular kids at school until that one trick no longer carried the day in battle.

>be Athens
>die of plague

King of Macedon, among other things.

Is this pasta?

>It was an innovative strategy

So it wasn't JUST the Spartans that didn't use it, up until that point most city states used the same tactics right?

>Receiving and dishing out punishment =/= discipline. True discipline is knowing how to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances, when to follow the rules and when to break them, which the Spartans never did. They were a one trick pony and were the popular kids at school until that one trick no longer carried the day in battle.

You are talking straight out of your ass, you obviously were bullied in school by apparently jocks who remind you of the Spartans. Seek help.

As the guy who wrote it I'm going to say no, but it should be

>So it wasn't JUST the Spartans that didn't use it, up until that point most city states used the same tactics right?
Plenty of other city states were innovating in their own way, and Athens knew the true value of a strong navy (which is still true even to this day). Sparta's doom was inevitable, owing to their cultural sclerosis.

Epaminondas was born in Thebes, not Sparta

>You are talking straight out of your ass, you obviously were bullied in school by apparently jocks who remind you of the Spartans. Seek help.
And you were probably that obnoxious fat kid following the jocks around and being a dick to people in order to amuse them. Go read a book and stop fellating a people and culture who don't deserve your lip service.

>be Sparta
>get ass-fucked by Persian fleet and beg for the King's Peace before, during, and after the Corinthian War

You have problems, your insecurities are oozing from your post.

No it fucking wasn't

Do you have any sources to back that up? The majority of sources state that the Spartans did not practice sexual pederasty at all. They were the least homosex of the Greeks, which is understandable, as they needed to keep their population up against the helots

Meant for lad saying they did the most homosex

You're the one making it personal, not me. When you point a finger at someone your other 4 point back at you.

Now let's get back to the subject at hand. I think this user here makes a really compelling point: that it was Spartan scheming with a foreign power which neutralized Athen's greatest martial assets. And then this user here makes a really good point, too: that Athens had just been devastated by a plague.

Not him but just looking at the arguments.

A lot of people don't realise how long a conflict the Peloponessian War was, Sparta and Athens both had times when they were extremely close to "winning" and both had many moments of complete fuck ups.

What I will say though is that Alcibiades did nothing wrong and Nicias was the reason the Sicillian Expedition was a failure.

>The battle of Plataea was a mop duty after the decisive Athenian naval victory at Salamis. If the Persians had been victorious at Salamis Plataea would have been a crushing Greek loss.

The two aren't equivalent. Yes, you couldn't have Platea without Salamis, but the Persians still had a fairly large army in Greece, and the loyalty of the Boetians. A victory for Persia is still very possible at that point. You have very prominent historians like Bury calling it the decisive battle of the campaign.

>Meanwhile Marathon was the first time the Persian empire had ever invaded Greece, and the Greeks were outnumbered 3 to 1 and a loss would have resulted in the total subjugation of the Greek peoples.

You're joking, right? If the 80,000ish they had at Platea is a "mopping up operation" then how the fuck are the 30,000 they've got at Marathon going to do shit?

>Which the Spartans didn't have, which is why they got thoroughly outmaneuvered by the Thebans at the Battle of Leuctra

I don't think you know what "discipline" means. What the Spartans could do, and what other 5th century Greeks couldn't, were things like charge in formation, hell, march in formation over long distances. That has nothing to do with them outmaneuvered, which they frequently were.

>their victory in the Peloponnesian war had more to do with Athenian governmental schizophrenia due to the lack of a strong centralized authority than to the quality of the Spartan phalanx

Which in turn had to do with the inability of any phalanx to storm fortified positions. When did the Athenians cross down into Laconia? Oh right, never. The Spartans, on the other hand, attacked into Attica at will, only stopping for logistical reasons, not because the Athenians could keep them out.

>The two aren't equivalent....
And yet a far greater consensus of professional historians consider the Battle of Salamis to be one of the most important battles in the history of western civilization.

Controlling the sea was as important in the Athenian-Persian wars as it was in World War 2 as it is today, which is to say, overwhelmingly important.

>You're joking, right?
Without the support of the Persian navy their army was stranded. Armies marches on its stomach.

Oh, and straight from the Wikipedia article about the battle of Plataea
> Although Plataea was in every sense a resounding victory, it does not seem to have been attributed the same significance (even at the time) as, for example, the Athenian victory at the Battle of Marathon or the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae.

>I don't think you know what "discipline" means. What the Spartans could do, and what other 5th century Greeks couldn't, were things like charge in formation, hell, march in formation over long distances. That has nothing to do with them outmaneuvered, which they frequently were.
I defined it here >True discipline is knowing how to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances,
That's what separates a successful officer from an inept one. Any asshole can bark orders and force march, but a true leader knows how to react to the situation around him.
And I'm not saying that the Spartans weren't individually great hoplites. That's what they trained all day to be. But they basically did one thing and that's it, so they were already starting to show their vulnerability to things like peltasts arrived, and by the time dynamic field tactics arrived on the scene, the Spartans were doomed.

> Oh right, never.
I won't argue that direct democracies fucking suck at waging war. Turns out demagogues don't make great generals.

>And yet a far greater consensus of professional historians consider the Battle of Salamis to be one of the most important battles in the history of western civilization.

And I never said that Salamis was unimportant. You're the one asserting that Platea is unimportant, and one that I don't see too many professional historians siding with.

>Oh, and straight from the Wikipedia article about the battle of Plataea

First off

>wiki

Secondly, does it really surprise you that the Athenian written histories emphasize Athenian victories as opposed to battles they played a secondary part in?

>I defined it here

Yes, and a stupid-ass definition it is, too. Have a dictionary link

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discipline?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld

>That's what separates a successful officer from an inept one. Any asshole can bark orders and force march, but a true leader knows how to react to the situation around him.

What the fuck does that have to do with the assertion that on average, Spartan soldiers were more disciplined than the soldiers of other Greek states? Do you know what words mean?

Discipline speaks to a soldier's or an army's ability to move cohesively. It is hardly the sum total of martial performance, and has nothing to do with tactical flexibility. You can assert that the latter is more important than the former, but that doesn't change the initial claim that professional Spartiates held a level of discipline that you didn't see elsewhere.

>And I'm not saying that the Spartans weren't individually great hoplites.

They weren't, actually. The very notion of an "individual" hoplite being good or bad is stupid since they're so dependent on formation fighting.

>I won't argue that direct democracies fucking suck at waging war. Turns out demagogues don't make great generals.

You do realize that the Classical Greeks considered Sparta a democracy about half the time, right, what with the Ephors?

>And I never said that Salamis was unimportant. You're the one asserting that Platea is unimportant, and one that I don't see too many professional historians siding with.
No, you're the one blowing Plataea way out of proportion. Was it important? Sure. Was it civilization-deciding, though? Probably not.
>wiki
I figured you might have a problem with it, despite the fact that the article is better cited than the conversation that we are having right now.
>Yes, and a stupid-ass definition it is, too.
I can tell you've never served.

>Discipline speaks to a soldier's or an army's ability to move cohesively. It is hardly the sum total of martial performance, and has nothing to do with tactical flexibility. You can assert that the latter is more important than the former, but that doesn't change the initial claim that professional Spartiates held a level of discipline that you didn't see elsewhere.

Which in the long term amounted to jack-shit. Spartans simply couldn't keep pace with the times, their army was too inflexible and their economy too weak and choked by a powerful governing class which invested no resources in infrastructure outside of its simple agrarian economy kept in check by tyrannical violence.

They weren't, actually. The very notion of an "individual" hoplite being good or bad is stupid since they're so dependent on formation fighting.
Tell that to the Spartans, whose training system was a giant hazing ritual.

Oh wait, you can't. They died and barely left so much as a trash heap in remains.

>You do realize that the Classical Greeks considered Sparta a democracy about half the time, right, what with the Ephors?
Yes, and theirs had the benefit of two kings who could act as chief executives in times where drastic action was required. They played the games of civilization, but did little else towards its contribution.

Attention retard: The persian navy still existed and was in fucking greece during the battle of platea. A simultaneous battle took place in which the allied marines stormed the camp the Persian fleet was sitting in and proceeded to fucking murder the crews wholesale in hand to hand hand combat.

Also, you don't get to fucking define discipline. It has a set meaning. The words you are looking for are flexibility and adaptability, and they literally have nothing to do with discipline. Buy a dictionary, and some bengay for your clearly ravaged asshole. I can see the red on your ass from here.

Is that why they eventually stopped breeding and their culture died in a whimper?

looks like somebody's asking for a bottling cunt

>Was ancient Sparta just one big city full of jocks?

Ancient Greece was a civilization full of jocks desu, the fucking philosophers were jacked as fuck and also fought in wars, if you weren't ripped or strong you were a weirdo freak, geriatric, a baby or a woman

>straight on hoplite to hoplite

1V1 me αδερφέ!

Sparta was renowned for their pederasty, in a time and in a place where everyone did that shit, the other states were like "holy fuck they have sex with a lot of boys"

kek

THIS

>fucking philosophers were jacked as fuck
Proof?

16th century paintings

This. Why do you think gymnasium and gym are what they are?

>Jocks

Why is it that Americans can only understand other times and places by drawing parallels between their shit-stain of a culture and the subject civilisation?

Your average high school meathead lacks the self-discipline to suffer as willingly as a Spartiate; or to do or be half as much; they are too concerned with seeming, and not concerned enough with being.

Modern men are pale wretched things to compare the heroes of the past against.

>Attention retard: The persian navy still existed and was in fucking greece during the battle of platea. A simultaneous battle took place in which the allied marines stormed the camp the Persian fleet was sitting in and proceeded to fucking murder the crews wholesale in hand to hand hand combat.
Attention jockstrap sniffer: Salamis was the defining battle of western civilization. You're trying to shoehorn Plataea into that definition because you're romanticizing mud-hut savages.

>Also, you don't get to fucking define discipline. It has a set meaning. The words you are looking for are flexibility and adaptability, and they literally have nothing to do with discipline.

Any asshole can regurgitate a definition without true understanding and any two bit militia officer can be a dick to his men and call it discipline, but that doesn't make him an effective leader, or mean that his men will be more effective in the field. Do keep in mind that the Spartans were defeated by a military force composed of men whose doctrine was to encourage homosexual relationships with one another.

And the term you're looking for is "situational awareness", and it's the thing that separates the men from the boys. The Spartans were well drilled, I'll give them that. But that's only one aspect of military discipline, and what they lacked were soldiers and officers capable of thinking on their feet. Their sclerotic military doctrine made Leuctra inevitable, as well as the later conquest of Greece by the Romans, who were the undisputed masters of this type of "smart" fighting.

>clearly ravaged asshole. I can see the red on your ass from here.
and while I'm at the store I'll pick up some chapstick to help your dry, cracked lips from all those dicks you've been sucking.

>1000 BC
Yer a bit out of date there lad.

This is the kind of thinking that leads to people saying the US won the Vietnam War.

Or, you know, a member of the normal population.
This one screencap he saw on Veeky Forums.

>jocks
>everyone is a manlet
that doesn't even make sense

This, Socrates didn't even write things down

The whole concept of manlets comes from jocks.

Manlet really means someone who is ripped, and tries to be a dominant alpha male, but is also ridiculously short.

ok so they're not jocks if they're manlets

Here's the layout of Lacedaemonia High:
>Kings
Football /major sport coaches
>Ephors
principles/admins
>Gerousia
PTA
>Spartiates
Football Team/Jocks in general
>Peers
Range from nerds to kids juuust shy of being popular. Hang out with jocks and do their homework so they can focus on being awesome at sports. This also includes the kids who have all the sweet drug connections and invite the Spartiates to parties and to play Xbox with them
>Helotai
Same as above but with no chance of becoming accepted themselves. Outsiders and megadorks who get shaken down for lunch money and forced to do homework that the peers won't do.

Every year Spartiate freshmen have to kick the shit out of a Helot as part of a hazing ritual called 'krypteia'.
Ephors concerned that Helot students might end up being school shooters.

The only thing they all agree on is how much they hate those fuckers at Athens High. Though there's rumors that those fags over at Thebes high are going to have a hell of a season with their teams this year...

>Spartiates
Jocks
>Periokoi
Nerds
>Helots
Janitorial staff

Finally a thread with good discussion and well made arguments on both sides.

This thread is what the whole board should be like but "& humanities" ruined it all

I read somehwere that when Alexander was preparing to attack Persia he asked the spartans to join. They refused because they didn't want to follow any non-spartans. And so when Alexander defeated the Persian empire, he sent the armor of the persian emperor to Sparta to mock them.

Specifically it was a monument to the victory of the Macedonians and the 'Corinthian League' (an effective puppet coalition of poleis). To paraphrase, it went something like this:

>May this monument forever honor the victories of Alexander in Persia, waged against the traitorous foes of mighty Greece
>Greeks of every land fought and died and triumphed as one
>Except the Spartans
>Gods bless always the sons of Macedon and all of Greece
>Except for the Spartans

B A R B A R I C
A
R
B
A
R
I
C

Well didn't they already leave Sparta out of the League of Corinth because Sparta just wasn't worth the effort?

Yep. Phillip tried to threaten them into joining the league but that didn't work so well. According to one account:

>Phillip II
"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
>The Ephoroi
"If."

And Phillip just shrugged and decided he wasn't willing to go to war just to include a washed up gang of unreliable Pelopponesian rednecks in his Hellenistic NATO. So he said fuck it and left.

Then, Spartaboo that he was, Alexander gave them a second opportunity to join the war with Darius. Not as vassals like the League, mind you, but as allies. Predictable Sparta told them to fuck off anyway. And Alexander probably cried into his Lykourgos Waifu pillow for weeks after.

Funny enough the Romans never really integrated/subjugated Sparta either. They reportedly at one point used it as
a sort of zoo for the people of the empire to come and laugh at the dreadlocked weirdoes and their backwards ways

That's not proof of anything except artistic license and hyperbole.

The Spartans actually fought the Macedonians in favour of the Persians at the Battle of Megalopolis after king Agis went and met with the Persian commanders to make out a plan.

Hell, the Athenians, Thebans and Corinthians were plotting with the Persians to attack from behind while Alexander was busy in Thrace.
But the entire thing got called off after the greek/persian admiral who was the key figure behind the entire thing died of illness, so only Sparta answered the call while Thebes was burnt to the ground.

I mean, the greeks must have really hated the macedonians if they were willing to side with the fucking persians over them.

Based King Agis always stirring up shit
>I mean, the greeks must have really hated the macedonians if they were willing to side with the fucking persians over them.
Understatement of the year, hetairos. There's a reason there's so many plausible suspects in Phillip's murder. The Macedonians were...not well liked. Even by each other much of the time.

>Based King Agis
He truly was based

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Megalopolis
>King Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy his men time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin

Plato was a buff guy

I remember reading that there was an ancient Spartan tradition of young boys attempting to take things from an altar of Artemis while the older boys hounded them with whips. The young ones were encouraged to show no pain or fear. It was considered a vital part of their training.

In the later Roman period however this once proud tradition became bloodsport, with the boys often dying and Roman crowds gathering around to gawk and jeer.