Did the Spartan hoplites exist during the Roman conquest of Greece? Did they fight against Roman legions? How did they fare?
Did the Spartan hoplites exist during the Roman conquest of Greece? Did they fight against Roman legions...
Aaron Sanders
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Sebastian Hughes
they had more trouble with the homoerotic Corinthian's than they did the Spartans , the Spartans didn't have any numbers
Zachary Clark
Sparta got BTFO by Thebes and their Sacred Band (an elite unit of 600 gays), and became a second tier power overnight.
By the times the Romans conquered Greece, Sparta was a small city. However, the city was rejuvenated by Romans who were interested in the history and mythos of old Sparta, and the natives basically wewuzzed themselves into something resembling prosperity by catering to the Romans.
Andrew Reyes
no, the Spartan military system had already been destroyed by the time Rome took over Greece. It was only possible to have a class of full time warriors because they were supported by their helot slaves. But when Thebes defeated Sparta they forced them to free the helots which made their way of life no longer possible. Their numbers had also been so badly reduced that Sparta was little more than a village.
As the other user said when Rome took over they had a huge interest in Sparta because of its history so paid for it to be rebuilt as something of a tourist site with Spartans making a living as what we might now consider to be historical reenactors. Later on they were even fully subsidized by Rome to rebuild their ancient traditions of the Spartan military system in return for fighting in the roman army. Caracalla even raised a unit solely of soldiers from Sparta and armed them with the traditional weapons and armor of Spartan Hoplites and put them in his vanguard against the Parthians. That might be the only time in history when military reenactors actually fought in war.
Brayden Roberts
Really interesting, thanks! Why was Sparta's population reduced?
Eli Parker
pedophile culture mixed with a large chunk of their population being helots "slaves"
Jaxson Lewis
>Caracalla's war
Wasn't that an extremely short lived invasion of the Parthian Empire? And didn't most of the fighting involve Caracalla's legions just attacking Parthian towns and cities in Mesopotamia?
Alexander Ross
1. demographic challenges - couples didn't live together which made it harder for men to get their wives pregnant, any children that appeared to have physical imperfections were slaughtered, anyone who washed out of Spartan military training (and there were many) was basically cast out of society and not allowed to marry or have a family
2. constant warfare took a serious toll on their manpower which for the reasons above grew at a slower rate than their rivals
3. an earthquake in 464 BC had a devastating death toll, killing perhaps a third or more of the Spartan elite, it also triggered a major slave uprising
Carson Smith
he also used a group of soldiers from Macedon who were using a phalanx like the kind that were used by Alexander's armies
Josiah Hill
Were they wrecked? I can't imagine them doing too well against Parthian cataphracts and horse archers.
Jonathan Hughes
it's like he was trying to build a retarded min-maxed army in total war.
Isaac Rogers
en.wikipedia.org
Caracalla's basically cunt. He wanted a pretext for invading the Parthian Empire by demanding the desposed emperor's brother, the one who took the throne, daughter's hand in marriage. After months of constant refusal, the ruler agrees to it. When they go to the wedding site, Caracalla basically attacks unarmed ruler's family and supporters with a sneak attack, then the Parthians retreat to their mountain holdings in the Iranian plateau to prepare to counter-attack while Caracalla spends like two years just running around attacking cities and ransacking towns. He then claims he won the war without actually fighting the Parthians in a pitched battle and gets assassinated while pissing on a road back to Rome and Rome is forced to pay the Parthians a fuck ton of money which leads to the rise of the Persians again.
Logan Gutierrez
also i think spartans during early hellenistic times lead mercenary armies
Tainaron became a place were every macedonia king recruited
Nathan Cox
Post-classical Greece was a period of Athens-Sparta-Thebes teaming up on and backstabbing each other to keep everyone in check so there could be no regional superpower.
This obviously stunted their growth and allowed for burgeoning powers like Macedon and Rome to play them on easy mode.
Thomas Brown
>Later on they were even fully subsidized by Rome to rebuild their ancient traditions of the Spartan military system in return for fighting in the roman army.
did they do well?
Grayson Foster
Are there any decent illustrations/figurines/infographics of Hellenic hoplites throughout time?
Jaxon Ross
yea
Joseph Jones
Link to a PDF? I'd also be open to buy a book, I've been looking at a few osprey ones but I'm not sure which one is the best for Ancient Greek hoplites.
Wyatt Brown
Jason Ross
Not really no
Jacob Rivera
>But when Thebes defeated Sparta they forced them to free the helots which made their way of life no longer possible. Their numbers had also been so badly reduced that Sparta was little more than a village.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that happened before the conquest of Greece by Phillip, and Pyrrhus of Epirus was killed attacking Sparta as he wanted to benefit from the spartan king being away. If that's accurate and Pyrrhus campaigned both in Italy and Greece long after Phillip then how could the Spartans have been completely reduced by Thebes and then much later still been a threat Pyrrhus preferred to avoid in open battle?
David Murphy
>hoplites exist during the Roman conquest of Greece
Hellenic armies by then had adapted since classical antiquity and adopted the thureophoroi and later thorakitai soldiers as the mainstay of their armies. These were light spearmen that doubled as skirmishers and were capable of fighting in a phalanx formation with a large celtic inspired shield. The thorakitai were similar but better armored.
Dominic Hughes
We're the tunics really that short? Did they wear underwear under those?
How heavy were those shields?
Lucas Peterson
Yes, no and oh my yes.
Carter Cook
Sounds like something movie-worthy. The Last Spartans.
Gabriel White
does someone have the pic of a spartan shield thats been shoot to shit by slingers, i think the shield is from a battle where thay lost against a army almost composed only of slingers
Aiden Nelson
I've done some research on them and apparently these get a lot of stuff wrong so I'm not sure whether I should get them or not
Justin Parker
Greeks loved to show off their manly thighs.
Romans were always kind of ashamed to.
Josiah Brown
It would most likely be a comedy staring Rowan Atkinson though
Colton Bennett
Thanks anons.
Easton Jenkins
unfortunate
since they usually have great artist and illustration
would love to see silver shields and agema illustration