Has there ever been such thing as an actual warrior society in history?

His main source seems to be Aristotle, a guy who wore jewellery and died from a stomach bug.

Early feudal Europe

Sweetiepost one more time and you'll regret it.

Sweetie, please.
Chapter 4 talks about athetic contest. Nothing about weapon training. In truth this is proving my point. Hunting was an activity of the leusire class. Xenophon may seen some martial applications but that's like saying playing basketball makes you a better soldier. On top of that in the Ancient Olympics Sparta is the one that won the most chariot races with 15 wins. How could a martial society have the time to spend raising horses and funding chariots teams? There was no martial application for chariot racing. Chariot racing is a pure sport of the wealthy leusire class.

In chapter 11 he's talking about the superior organization of the Spartans and how they practice formations while on campaign. Also talking about their battle dress. Nothing about weapon training.

Chaper 12 talks about gymnastics. Nothing about weapon training.

I'm not talking about Plato's Laws. I'm talking about Plato Laches in which Plato writes as two Athenian generals arguing about the merits of hoplomachia, or armed combat.

I'll post the thing next post.

I conceive that if there were anything in it, it would not have been overlooked by the Spartans, whose only concern in life is to seek out and practise whatever study or pursuit will give them an advantage over others in war. And if they have overlooked it, at any rate these teachers [of hoplomachia] cannot have overlooked the obvious fact that the Spartans are more intent on such matters than any of the Greeks, and that anybody who won honour among them for this art would amass great riches elsewhere, just as a tragic poet does who has won honour among us. And for this reason he who thinks himself a good writer of tragedy does not tour round with his show in a circuit of the outlying Attic towns, but makes a straight line for this place and exhibits to our people, as one might expect. But I notice that these fighters in armour regard Sparta as holy ground where none may tread, and do not step on it even with the tips of their toes, but circle round it and prefer to exhibit to any other people, especially to those who would themselves admit that they were inferior to many in the arts of war.
I have come across more than a few of these [hoplomachia instructors] in actual operations, and I can see their quality. Indeed, we can estimate it offhand: for, as though it were of set purpose, not one of these experts in arms has ever yet distinguished himself in war. And yet in all the other arts, the men who have made a name are to be found among those who have specially pursued one or other of them; while these persons, apparently, stand out from the rest in this particularly hapless fate of their profession. (...)

Hence, as I said at the beginning, whether [hoplomachia] be an accomplishment, and one of but little use, or not an accomplishment, but only supposed and pretended to be such, it is not worth the trouble of learning it. For indeed I hold that if a man who was a coward believed that he possessed it, his only gain would be in rashness, which would make his true nature the more conspicuous; while if he were brave, people would be on the look-out for even the slightest mistake on his part, and he would incur much grievous slander; for the pretension to such skill arouses jealousy, so that unless a man be prodigiously superior to the rest in valor he cannot by any means escape being made a laughing-stock through professing to be so skilled.
-- Plato, Laches 182e-184c

Not only is Plato telling us that the Spartans ignored the art of hoplomachia. He also tells us that hoplomachia instructors are frauds for not even teaching it at Sparta and they're selling a worthless art.

Because of the 300. Every damn time you hear about the Spartans it's always about Thermopylae.
This pretty much made the other Greeks see the Spartans as great warriors and the Spartans like to play on it too. Once the Thebans shattered the Spartan's myth people stopped fearing them. A lot of the more cruel and weirder things come from the Hellenic and later Roman era since the Spartans wanted to make a caricature of themselves.
Recent scholarship is actually painting Sparta in the Classical Era not as a exotic martial society but rather something that wasn't exotic and wasn't all that different from the other city-states. The difference is that their system of government was better than the other city-states. By restricting citizen rights only to the leisure class they managed to achieve a stable political system.

Germans tribes in general were kind of a warriors society, not because of training, but they raided A LOT.

To add on top of this, the Spartan record during the classical era wasn't as great as you think. They may have had a unbroken streak in pitched battles for over a century but you have to realize pitched battles were very rare and they seldom decide wars. Example, battle of Tanagra in 457 BC, the Spartans won there but it still took them more than a decade to win the First Peloponnesian War.

They were beaten many times in smaller battles, skirmishes, ambushes, naval battles, siege engagements and the like which are much more common than pitched battles.

Nazi Germany

Oh sweetie, sit down for a moment and try reading the source material. Let's go step by step through your mistakes, hun:

You claimed Spartans were "never taught how to fight". I showed this to be contradicted by the source material in a number of ways. Besides Xenophon and Plato both have them learning how to fight as hoplites, Xenophon explicitly has them being required to regularly spar against each other in pankration. Spartans were also famed in Olympic events; see Isocrates' Archidamos for confirmation of their good Olympic record, as one example.

Who looks at people that regularly spar, undergo extensive and broad gymnastic training, train extensively under arms, come from a city famed for its Olympic achievements in these fields, and still claim "hurrr they were never taught how to fight"? An idiot, that's who.

You claimed that Spartans were never taught "how to use their weapons". This was contradicted by both Plato and Xenophon. Xenophon and Plato both have them undergoing regular, extensive gymnastics programs, and in his Laws Plato notes that gymnastics encompasses exercises in heavy arms (as anyone would know who understands that ancient gymnastics is a broader field than modern). Xenophon further gives details about how they are trained in being a hoplite to an impressive degree, and we see them engaged in this in Agesilaos and elsewhere like Herodotus.

For your part, in relation to these specific claims... you cite Laches. Oh no baby, what is you doing? That dialogue says that foreign, private teachers didn't bother bringing their expensive expertise to Sparta. Not that Spartans were never taught to fight or how to use their weapons, a claim that is utterly false in light of their lifestyle of regular pankration sparring, regular exercises under arms, and extensive military training.

How would Plato know, he never even went to Sparta.

Sweetie all you posted was physical exercises, formation drill, their organization but you have not showed me they were taught how to fight with their weapons. Again cite me your sources that they state they train with weapons.

Again you are conviently ignoring this part
>I conceive that if there were anything in it, it would not have been overlooked by the Spartans, whose only concern in life is to seek out and practise whatever study or pursuit will give them an advantage over others in war.

Now in the context of this passage, what are the Spartans overlooking? It's pretty simple, sweetie, they're overlooking the art of armed combat. That's why Plato tells us that the hoplomachia instructors are frauds. They teach an art that the Spartans themselves do not do and the instructors ignore Sparta despite their reputation and they go around teach g it to those of inferior worth.

It's actually quiet telling on Greek amaeturism. The fact that a man practicing armed combat is considered the laughing stock.

Oh sweetie, look in the mirror, all you have given is a statement from Plato that Spartans sought out every advantage, and that new foreign teachers didnt ply their trade in Sparta.

You therefore totally failed to support your claim: you said that spartans weren't taught how to (a) fight and (b) use their weapons.

I then was kind enough to provide sources showing Spartans being required to regularly spar, exercise, and train as heavy infantry.

You are blinded by one section in one dialogue, and cannot see that your own source, Plato, actually acknowledges that Spartans trained under arms. All you have shown is that they possibly rejected (at least from foreigners) certain new training regimens. Not that they didnt learn how to fight, or that they didn't learn how to use their weapons.

If you refuse to accept this, then first provide a source for what you're saying (Laches actually doesn't say they didn't learn how to fight or use their weapon). Then, say how my citations don't support my response (which they clearly do, they show Spartans engaging in mandatory sparring and training under arms).

This might be a pointless request, though, because you are probably a Theban sympathiser. Which explains everything; you're butthurt over Spartan glory and success, and upset that Thebes is only famous for the stupidity of its people and their reputation as child molesters.

Define a warrior society. Then define warrior. Then define society.

>There was no martial application for chariot racing

Yeah, what possible military application could possibly be found for experienced horse handlers?

Mongols

>sweetie
Is this a new meme?

It's pretty new, around reddification era of t. and activates almonds, pre-abom feels era (present).

Except for the fact that Xenophon tells us that Spartan cavalry was trash. (Hellenika 6.4.10-11). My point here is that chariots weren't used in combat at this time. Chariot racing was the sport of the wealthy, of the leisure class. I think it's pretty telling that a society with a reputation of poor cavalry could win so many chariot races.

Alright, sweetie pie.

Lets go over this one more time. Lets go over with what you said about Constitution of the Lacedaimonians.

Chapter four:
perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0210:text=Const. Lac.:chapter=4

Can you point out to me where it mentions anything about weapon training? It clearly states those are athletic exercises.

Chapter 11:
perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0210:text=Const. Lac.:chapter=11

And could you mayhaps point it out? Here they talk of army organization, of their battle dress, Here Xenophon writes about the Spartan's formation training.
>The prevalent opinion that the Laconian infantry formation is very complicated is the very reverse of the truth.
Funnily enough we don't have any source of any Greek city state commiting to formation drill for most of the Classical Era.

Moving on, he's talking about how their officers would pass down command. Nothing about weapon training

Chapter 12:
perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0210:text=Const. Lac.:chapter=12

Nothing about weapon training, those are gymnastcis he's talking about sweetie. Can you point to me where in Laws does plato talk about heavy arms during gymnastics? Unless you're talking about that run in armor which invovled no weapons.

>Plato, actually acknowledges that Spartans trained under arms.
He never says this, stop being dishonest. Hoplomochia is what the Ancient Greeks knew as hoplite training, the training with hoplite equipment. He clearly says it's something they did not do.

Oh Sweetie, you forgot to post the source for your claims that spartans did not learn how to fight our use their weapons. All of you have is the quote about foreign teachers not bothering to go to Sparta because they weren't interested in new lessons or regimens. Please try to keep up.

Now let's look at your incompetent handling of the sources I provided:

Chapter 4 shows them being assigned sparring partners and undergoing a competitive athletic regimen. I'm showing why you were an idiot to claim Spartans didn't learn how to fight.

Chapter 11 has them being assigned heavy arms and being taught how to use them. They are trained in formation fighting to such an extent that Xenophon is impressed. This blows your claim out the water: Spartans clearly learnt how to use their weapons.

Ch12 is more of the same, shows they are required to continue their exercises and training while away at war. Goes towards that section in Agesilaos where they are seen training in Asia with their king.

Nice job backpedaling about Plato, though. So now you admit gymnastics involves heavy arms, it's just you want to distinguish exercises such as the armoured run from the lessons from expensive, private, foreign 4th c. teachers. Lmao pathetic, you are an utter boeotian.

America

Come on, sweetie, is this what you call a retort?

I implore you to read the whole dialogue in which Plato writes as two Athenian generals. One makes the case for training in the use of weapons since it would be beneficial if the phalanx breaks while the other, the one I posted, makes the case for the reasons listed. That hoplomachia is a pretentious skill, it's something not practiced by the Spartans and the men who train said skill are frauds.

See:
Plato, Laches 181c-184c

Again, I already posted my source. Plato is very clear in telling us the Spartans did not practice armed combat.

>Chapter 4 shows them being assigned sparring partners and undergoing a competitive athletic regimen. I'm showing why you were an idiot to claim Spartans didn't learn how to fight.
They're just athetic exercises, sweetie. Otoh that spar moment is wrestling. There's no mention of any weapons there, sweetie. They're not being taught how to be fighters, sweetie.

>Chapter 11 has them being assigned heavy arms and being taught how to use them. They are trained in formation fighting to such an extent that Xenophon is impressed. This blows your claim out the water: Spartans clearly learnt how to use their weapons.
*Where* exactly is that said, sweetie? All I see is that they, in the words of Xenophon, a "formation is so easy to understand". Nowhere in that text is it implied that they learned to fight with their weapons. Highlight me the text. Xenophon also talks about how they maneuvers, again nothing about weapons.

>Ch12 is more of the same, shows they are required to continue their exercises and training while away at war. Goes towards that section in Agesilaos where they are seen training in Asia with their king.
Chapter 12 is talking about how the set up encampments. It's also talking that they practise gymnastics during campaign. And in the end he talks about how the get breakfast. Again, no mention of weapon training.

>Nice job backpedaling about Plato, though. So now you admit gymnastics involves heavy arms, it's just you want to distinguish exercises such as the armoured run from the lessons from expensive, private, foreign 4th c. teachers. Lmao pathetic, you are an utter Boeotian
Nothing in the text you mention say anything about running in armor. There's zero mentions of hoplitodromos. And that did not involve weapons. It was nothing more than a run in armor.

As a matter of fact Sparta has exactly 0 wins in hoplitodromos contest in the olympics.

Which highlights another one of my points. Between 500BC and 380BC, during the height of Sparta's powers, there's no record of Sparta taking a single win in the combat events (boxing/wrestling, boy's boxing/wrestling), zero wins in hoplitodromos. But during that period 11 of the 27 victors in chariot racing were Spartans. This proves that there was nothing physically superior about the Spartans in these games but it does prove that they had money and they engaged in the privilege of raising and funding chariot teams. As I stress, that's the sport of the leisure class.

Yes sweetie, that's a retort, and we're still waiting for your citations or quotes that actually support your claims. Laches doesnt say Spartans didn't learn how to fight or use their weapons. So please, speak to these two specific claims so we may move on to other ways you are wrong.

>Your handling of ch 4
Lmao, now you admit it. They were trained to fight, so now you're pretending you never denied that they studied 1 on 1 unarmed combat. Read your claim that they never learnt how to fight, and weep.

>handling of ch 11

Lmao, you admit they learnt how to fight as hoplites, but simultaneously claim they didn't learn "how to use their weapons"? You imbecile, you absolute boeotian! Back to Thebes with you!

>handling of Ch12

No weapons training, despite gymnastics being done under arms, continued hoplite training, and you still ignore the cite to Agesilaos.

The absolute state of your shitty anti-Lakonian meme!

North Korea

I'm not the guy you've been sweetieposting at, and I don't really have a dog in this fight - this isn't anywhere near my area of expertise - but having followed the whole discussion, and having looked up y'all's sources, you are not coming across too well here, dude. The quote from Laches DOESN'T tell us that the Spartans never trained with arms - that's a possible implication of the quote, but all we can tell from it for sure (assuming it's accurate) is that they disdained foreign instructors, as he's saying. I do understand that the general consensus on Sparta has shifted from "brutal slavemasters who did military drills 24/7" to "noblemen who valued their leisure time and were good at inflating their own reputations" in the past few decades but if it this is all the evidence there is that they never trained with weapons then it is really not very impressive or convincing.

I'm just awestruck that you don't think the quote is saying that. It's not even subtle, it straight up tells us this. I already told you the context of the quote, Plato writes as two Athenian generals and in this section of Laches they're discussing why one should or should not train at skill at arms.

I'll ask you what I asked the other guy,

>I conceive that if there were anything in it, it would not have been overlooked by the Spartans, whose only concern in life is to seek out and practise whatever study or pursuit will give them an advantage over others in war.

Now in the context of this passage, what are the Spartans overlooking?

Plato brings up instructors to show that they sell a worthless art, that skill at arms is pretentious and gets in the way of valor. That's why in the end of his argument we get this:

>Hence, as I said at the beginning, whether [hoplomachia] be an accomplishment, and one of but little use, or not an accomplishment, but only supposed and pretended to be such, it is not worth the trouble of learning it. For indeed I hold that if a man who was a coward believed that he possessed it, his only gain would be in rashness, which would make his true nature the more conspicuous; while if he were brave, people would be on the look-out for even the slightest mistake on his part, and he would incur much grievous slander; for the pretension to such skill arouses jealousy, so that unless a man be prodigiously superior to the rest in valor he cannot by any means escape being made a laughing-stock through professing to be so skilled.

He's not only talking about weapon instructors, he's talking about the art as a whole. And in the very beggining Plato tells us it's been overlooked by the Spartans.

The other guy can't even find me a quote, instead he makes assumptions that they trained despite the sources he cite telling us they're nothing more than gymnastic and atheltic excercises with a basic formation drill, as Xenophon puts it.

The problem I see is that you think fighting as a hoplite entails weapon training. The Greek world was a world of amateurs, I already posted plenty on that before.
Instead of finding any semblance of professionalism you find a bunch of stubborn amateurs in war. With the exception of the Spartans, who had some military training rather than none, the rest of the Greek City-States were pure amateurs in war.
The hoplite was more concerned about being Veeky Forums and having valor than learning weapon profiency and drill as shown here:

>After this, when spring was just coming on, he1 gathered his whole army at Ephesus; and desiring to train the army, he offered prizes both to the heavy-armed divisions, for the division which should be in the best physical condition, and to the cavalry divisions, for the one which should show the best horsemanship; and he also offered prizes to peltasts and bowmen, for all who should prove themselves best in their respective duties. Thereupon one might have seen all the gymnasia full of men exercising, the hippodrome full of riders, and the javelin-men and bowmen practising. Xen. Hell. 3.4.16

The world of the Ancient Greeks is one of primitive military thinking.

Xenophon writes in Cyropedia about a fictional battle of Cyrus the Great. In this piece we get an idea of the mentality of the hoplites, despite the work pretending not to be about Greeks.

>And when the Persians, charging on, set foot upon the missiles that had been discharged, Cyrus shouted, “Bravest of men, now let each press on and distinguish himself and pass the word to the others to come on faster.” And they passed it on; and under the impulse of their enthusiasm, courage, and eagerness to close with the enemy some broke into a run, and the whole phalanx also followed at a run.
>And even Cyrus himself, forgetting to proceed at a walk, led them on at a run and shouted as he ran: “Who will follow? Who is brave? Who will be the first to lay low his man?”
And those who heard him shouted with the same words, and the cry passed through all the ranks as he had started it: “Who will follow? Who is brave?”
>In such spirit the Persians rushed to the1 encounter, and the enemy could not longer stand their ground but turned and fled back into their entrenchments.
They flee into their entrenchments
>And the Persians on their part, following them up to the gates, mowed many of them down as they were pushing and shoving one another; and upon some who fell into the ditches they leaped down and slew them, both men and horses; for some of the chariots were forced in their flight to plunge into the ditches. Xen. Cyrop. 3.3.61-64

No, it's an old /sp/ one.

There are military castes in our society. Its been that way since ancient times. But if you're suggesting if everyone was a warrior in the society, then probably not. A society needs merchants, workers, and military.

>I already told you the context of the quote, Plato writes as two Athenian generals and in this section of Laches they're discussing why one should or should not train at skill at arms.
To be clear, while I'm not claiming any special expertise in this area, I'm familiar with Laches. I'm reliant on English translations of the texts, and haven't extensively studied under anyone who can read the originals, which means I can't speak to any subtle nuances the words might have or errors that might have crept in in translation. That's what I mean when I say this isn't my area of expertise, not that it's wholly new to me.
>I'm just awestruck that you don't think the quote is saying that. It's not even subtle, it straight up tells us this.
Be awestruck all you like, I contend that the quote doesn't clearly and inarguably say that. It's certainly one possible interpretation of the quote, and if you cherrypick one or two sentences of it you can make that interpretation look ironclad, but looked at in context, as one piece of the larger dialogue, it's possible that they're referring specifically to "the art" of hoplomachia specifically AS TAUGHT BY THE TRAVELING HOPLOMACHOI.

Even if they were referring to hoplomachia in general, it's not at all clear that "hoplomachia" encompasses any and all training with weapons - I don't believe there's majority consensus among scholars that it does. In fact, it's not at all hard to find scholars who claim they've found oblique evidence of other kinds of weapons training. I'm sure they'd be the first to admit that it's all very speculative, due to a lack of evidence, but as far as I can tell, the ideas are taken seriously, and not considered discredited.

And I have to ask: do you have any noteworthy scholars on your side who agree that your interpretation of Laches is the only possible one? Normally I wouldn't post this, because I don't like the whole "go back to plebbit" meme, but I spent a few minutes googling, and I couldn't help but notice you paraphrased Laches with the same wording that that one guy on r/AskHistorians used.
>I conceive that if there were anything in it, it would not have been overlooked by the Spartans
- that quote actually returns just 2 results on Google (because you wrote Spartans instead of Lacedaemonians): one from Veeky Forums from a few days ago, which assuming was your post, and one from r/AskHistorians. And people have linked his comments on other topics several times here in the past few days. So I'm asking: are you Iphikrates from reddit, or are you just a fan of his? And either way, can you cite one or two historians (or even archaeologists, whatever) who are not from reddit, and who are generally considered experts on this, who will back you up that there is a majority consensus (or even a developing consensus) that the Spartans did not train with weapons?

Near as I can tell, a fair summary of the consensus would be, "None of the textual or archaeological sources we have constitute strong enough evidence for us to make definite pronouncements either way."

If you are a fan of that guy from reddit, I have to say that while he plainly has a lot of knowledge, in his various posts that have been linked to on here I've seen him make a lot of claims that (while not baseless) are serious overreaches, while overstating the evidence for them. I may not be an expert in this area but I do know what it looks like when an educated person reaches just a little too far in an attempt to make their mark in their field.

Not the first time he post that bullshit

You're right, I'm a big fan of him on Reddit. He's not just a redditor, he's a historian with a phD on Greek history who teaches at the university of Warwick. The beautiful thing about Reddit is that it's a great platform for experts to actually come together and discuss topics, especially on r/askhistorians with its very strict moderation team.
He's written a book about his findings too:
brill.com/products/book/classical-greek-tactics
But he freely answers question on the subject and cites his sources over there at reddit. He frames the Ancient Greeks, not as carefully drilled citizen army militias, but as normal, stubbornly amatuer people with arms with no sembalnce of professionalism.
And yes, I did cite it as he posted it, but you can look it up online and it's the same thing:
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0176%3Atext%3DLach.%3Asection%3D182e

It's constantly being refered as fighting in armor. In laches 182a-b
www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0176%3Atext%3DLach.%3Asection%3D182a

Nikias points out the application of weapon training in certain situations such as durin a rout when you may have to fight one on one. And than you have the other general saying what I've been saying since the beginning.

That's why I asked the other user to cite me a source that states they pracitced weapons training and he's failed to do so. And I bet he buys into the Spartan mirage greatly. There's nothing suggesting Spartans were physicaly superior to others as I pointed out here:
In fact it shows what I've been saying. The Spartans pursued a lot of leisure class activities, hunting, raising horses, funding chariot teams. Chariots were always a show of wealth.

>Agesilaos
I think you meant Agesilaus? How does that prove they trained. You're contradicting yourself here, sweetie. I missed this point but you're shooting yourself in the foot here.

Why? Because I already posted a source in which Agesilaus trains his army and it explictly says NOTHING about weapon training for hoplites. It states it for bowmen and javelinmen but not hoplites. Instead Hoplites train in physical exercises.

>After this, when spring was just coming on, he gathered his whole army at Ephesus; and desiring to train the army, he offered prizes both to the heavy-armed divisions, for the division which should be in the best physical condition, and to the cavalry divisions, for the one which should show the best horsemanship; and he also offered prizes to peltasts and bowmen, for all who should prove themselves best in their respective duties. Thereupon one might have seen all the gymnasia full of men exercising, the hippodrome full of riders, and the javelin-men and bowmen practising. Xen. Hell. 3.4.16

Here Xenophon describes the training Agesilaus gave to his army at Ephesus. Notice how there's nothing about weapons here except for bowmen and javelinmen. The only thing hoplites trained at was physical exercises.

Sweetie, ancient Greek history is athenocentric as fuck, so it's safe to say that you should take what people of the time said with a pinch of salt.
Especially Aristotle who was a supporter of the endeavour of Philip of Macedon to unite the Greek city states, an endeavour which the Spartans refused to join.
Spartans were a warrior society alright, but not to the point where they would throw babies unfit to be soldiers off cliffs.

Sweetie those are the only sources we have so it's all we have to go on.
However there's cracks in their supposed "warrior society". Because even in the supposed text that were suppose to prove the Spartans did practice weapon training you find instances that Spartans liked to engage in hunting, which was an activity of the leisure class. From here:
The Spartans win no combat contest in the olympics, except for one that I missed. They win 0 times in the run with armor. Instead you find they win 11 times in chariot racing in their heyday. There's other sources that tell us they like to drink, dance, enjoy life.

Plutarch in Moralia tells us the Spartans banned wrestling with the belief that courage was sufficient.

For all their hype about their military training it all really amounted to basic formation drill and exercising. As I said we have zero proof of Spartan weapon training and so far all the efforts of the brainlet over here have not yielded results.
In fact he contradicted himself here:
> In his text on Agesilaos, you actually see the Spartans and others actively undergoing military training, and weapon use is explicitly mentioned.
He's right that weapon use is mentioned but not for hoplites. It's mentioned men armed with ranged weapons. I had ignore this tidbit because he didn't cite his source, instead I did for him as seen here:

World wide media. Globalization. The leaders of Earth can now manipulate the masses with greater ease.

Sweetie, the Spartans were never supposed to be unstoppable one-dimentional war machines or excellent at whatever has to do with physical performance. The fact that makes Spartans a "warrior society" is that they were based on enslaving their neighbouring peoples through military conquest and continuously keeping them under check through military superiority and oppression.
But the fact that in your OP you speak of an "actual" warrior society makes me think that you just want to have your personal view of a warrior society validated and I'm not going to do that obviously.

He's not OP

Oh sweetie, you didn't speak to your first point at all. You claimed that Spartans did not learn how to fight; that was word for word what you said, and in the last few posts you 100% back peddled and have confined your statements to armed combat.

So to your second claim, that they did not learn to use their weapons, you're right that the root of the problem is one of definition. As pointed out by myself and another user, you are only talking about lessons from foreign, travelling teachers in the 4th c.

Those teachers and their particular lessons don't constitute the only way to learn how to use weapons. Learning how to be a hoplite through exercises under arms and further drill instruction (as I have cited and you acknowledge) constitutes learning how to use your weapons. You are so obsessed with these teachers and their private instruction; you literally think that men who do a variety of gymnastic exercises and competitions while armed, and also learn how to move in formation under arms and charge and clash with the enemy, are somehow not learning how to use their weapons. It's semantic lunacy of the highest order, your point is pretty meaningless and your claim is therefore dishonest.

This user basically puts the last nail in your coffin, not that your argument had any honest life in it anyway:

>The Spartans were a professional leisure class, sweetie.
>Their martial skills are nothing special since there wasn't anything. Spartans were never taught how to fight nor how to use their weapons.

Prussia has been described as an 'Army with a state' i stead of state with an army; so prussia is pretty close

Chechnya.
With ~1 million inhabitants, medieval clan structures and approximately 80000 loyal footsoldiers.

Not really though. Tribal and pastoral societies have always been more warlike and placed a higher value on violence, but they are not a warrior society, unless you count the scottish highlanders, old celtic ireland, the afghan Pashtun, the Maori, the papua savage tribes, homeric greece,... as warrior societies.

They are brutal fighters though, someone like sjamil basayev is just a born killer. And they are awesome at non-meme martial arts

Cossacks?

>Oh sweetie, you didn't speak to your first point at all. You claimed that Spartans did not learn how to fight; that was word for word what you said, and in the last few posts you 100% back peddled and have confined your statements to armed combat.

I abide by that.Plutarch mentions on Moralia 233e that the Spartans banned wrestling in order to inspire not skill but courage. According to Plutarch during the Spartan occupation of Thebes in the 4th century BC they banned wrestling since young Thebans were encouraged to take them on the ring. Their olympic track record on wrestling isn't impressive, only scoring ONE win during their height.

Mayhaps I was rash but I still say they're weren't particularly indivual strong fighers.

>
Those teachers and their particular lessons don't constitute the only way to learn how to use weapons. Learning how to be a hoplite through exercises under arms and further drill instruction (as I have cited and you acknowledge) constitutes learning how to use your weapons.

I never acknowledge that, sweetie. As a matter of fact you're Agesilaus section on Xenophon's Hellenica ended up proving my point. Xenophon does not describe weapon proficiency training as you said, it described physical excersises. Again none of your sources mention any mock combat or any weapon training. You're the one making assumptions.

As for the other user, he too is making too many assumptions. Xenophon described to us the Spartan army training and in no way does he ever describe usage of weapons. He does, however, describe physical exercises.

If there were ever any true warrior societies, I would have to imagine that they come from the Polynesian or Austronesian people groups.

Cultures like the Maori, or Samoans, or Tuvaluans, or even the Hawaiians, or any of the who knows how many different tribal societies of Papua.

Also, sweetie, I will add one more source.

>The camp is frequently shifted with the double object of annoying their enemies and of helping their friends.
Moreover the law requires all Lacedaemonians to practise gymnastics regularly throughout the campaign; and the result is that they take more pride in themselves and have a more dignified appearance than other men. Neither walk nor race-course may exceed in length the space covered by the regiment, so that no one may get far away from his own arms.
After the exercises the senior colonel gives the order by herald to sit down -- this is their method of inspection -- and next to take breakfast and to relieve the outposts quickly. After this there are amusements and recreations until the evening Xen. Mem. 3.5.15-6

Notice that when Xenophon is describing the Spartan's training regime while on campaign he makes no mention of spears or swords. Instead it's all about their dignity and stamina.

>As for the other user, he too is making too many assumptions.
There are no assumptions in the post I made above. Read it again. I'm not claiming to have proof (or even evidence) that the Spartans trained with weapons; I am claiming that there is no broad consensus that they didn't.

On one hand, Laches constitutes reasonably compelling evidence that they didn't, but on the other hand, it's a single source, and for all the reasons that I stated, it's merely "reasonably compelling" and not "overwhelming." Also on the other hand you have a number of scholars who believe one can infer - by reading between the lines of this or that textual source, by carefully studying the archaeological record, and by extrapolating from the other things we know about their habits - that weapons training or drilling in one form or another was part of their gymnastic activities, or (especially) their war dances. There's more of a dearth of evidence that they trained with weapons than strong evidence to the contrary.

I could dig through the sources I've looked up in the past few days and summarize some of those arguments, with the caveat that I'm not endorsing them, simply pointing out that generally-respected scholars have made them, but that would be a fair amount of work and I'm not going to bother unless I know I'm not going to be wasting my time (as I would be, for example, if you're going to flatly refuse to take anything seriously that wasn't written by a certain Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick).

>You're right, I'm a big fan of him on Reddit. He's not just a redditor, he's a historian with a phD on Greek history who teaches at the university of Warwick. The beautiful thing about Reddit is that it's a great platform for experts to actually come together and discuss topics, especially on r/askhistorians with its very strict moderation team.
And that's great. I'm not trying to insult him. The fact that he posts on reddit doesn't discredit him, I'm sure he's very smart and he certainly knows more about this subject than I do. But he's just one scholar, and his book is just one book. Even experts in a subject can have blind spots when it comes to their particular hobbyhorses. I'm not talking shit about his PhD or teaching position, but having a PhD doesn't keep people from falling prey to that tendency, I could name tenured professors who are guilty of it. That's why I keep using the word "consensus." If you're going to present what you're saying as "the truth", that's what you need to have - the majority of the experts in the field need to be on your side. And that's not something I believe he has.

enough

Yes and the field of academia on Sparta has shifted in these past few decades. Studies championed by the likes of Van Wees and Stephen Hodkinson have shifted what academics think of Sparta. Even people like Paul Cartrildge admit their old work is outdated.
The notion of Sparta being an exceptional warrior society is pretty much something that scholars are beginning to disagree on.

Also context matters. In all of the sources I posted where Xenophon talks about army training he never brings up the usage of spears and swords
Even when the Spartan Agesilaus is training his army the usage of weapons among the Spartans is never attested. Only for javelinmen and bowmen.
Again all the army training the Spartans did involved formation drill and physical exercises. There's no mention of any mock hoplite combat nor any usage of weapons